Car, plane and sea sickness result from the overstimulation of the canals of the inner ear which regulate the body’s system of balance. Waves of nausea are the principal symptom, usually resulting in vomiting. These are sometimes accompanied by cold sweats and giddiness. People vary in their susceptibility and, with regular travel, can learn to overcome the problem in most cases. Children, for example, are more prone to car sickness than adults. Motion sickness is much more likely to occur in an enclosed space with insufficient ventilation, such as in a cabin of a ship. At sea, get up on deck when possible; in a car or bus, open the windows; and when travelling by plane, keep the ventilator on full.
Avoid alcohol, rich, aromatic food and excessive tobacco and do not attempt to read until your body has adapted to the motion. Do not try to focus your eyes on objects moving around you.
To prevent and treat motion sickness, administer strong ginger tea before travelling and carry a supply for the journey. This simple anti-nausea medicine is highly effective and can safely be given to young children.
Some motion sickness has emotional causes such as fear of flying. In this case, counselling may help.
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General health
In a phobia anxiety is manifested in a different way. The patient remains reasonably at ease until confronted with the phobic situation. He then experiences discomfort which may vary from mild apprehension to uncontrollable panic. The patient develops a fear of the particular situation which causes him his distress, and for this reason the condition is known as a phobia. Common phobias are heights, being away from home, being in crowds, or being in enclosed spaces such as lifts, toilets, or railway coaches. Knives, swords, and firearms often become the objects of phobias. In a similar way people may develop an irrational fear of certain animals such as mice, cats, moths, or snakes. The sufferer is always aware that his phobia is irrational. He knows quite well that there is nothing to be afraid of in going across the street, but this does nothing at all to relieve his sense of panic as he goes out the door. More and more he tends to stay indoors so that he soon becomes housebound, not venturing forth from one month to the next.
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Anti Depressants-Sleeping Aid
To tense your feet, you can either turn your toes downwards, as though you are trying to point them into the bed, or stretch them upwards and backwards as though you are trying to point them at your head. I prefer the second method, pointing upwards, because the first tends to give people cramp in the calves of their legs. But once again, find which suits you best. When your toes are pointed, you will feel a stretching sensation along the soles of your feet and you will ache round your heels and up the back of your legs, along your calves almost to your knees. Deep breath, blow out your three candles and let your feet drop back into an easy position.
Now tense your knees by pushing the back of your kneecap down towards the bed, or the bolster. Breathe in, blow and release the tension. If you are doing well your feet will already be feeling heavy and you will not want to move them. And by now your hands and arms will be so heavy they’ll hardly seem to belong to you.
Inner thighs next. It helps to imagine that somebody has placed a penny between your legs, above your knees, and has told you to keep it in position by pressing your thighs together. You’ll feel tightness and tension at the tops of your legs and in the lower part of your abdomen as you do this. Once again breathe in, blow out your breath and let the penny fall. Don’t be a bit surprised if your legs fall open of their own accord as you relax, so that your toes point east and west. If your legs and thighs are really relaxed that’s exactly what should happen, which is why it’s sensible to wear jeans or trousers if you’re learning relaxation in a group. You need privacy and time if you’re to get this bit right, because whether you’re aware of it or not, you’ve probably been taught from a very early age not to lie or sit in that particular position, which in many cultures, including our own, is taboo.
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Pain Relief-Muscle Relaxers
Nora Barnes came to me as a patient in 1947. Mrs. Barnes had been repeatedly diagnosed as a hypochondriac. No physician had been able to find the cause of her multiple symptoms and complaints.
In childhood she had been the victim of widespread allergies and had frequent problems with runny nose, cold sores, and outbreaks of hives. These went away as she grew to adulthood but were soon replaced by fierce headaches— blinding pain which sent her running to her bed. She suffered from persistent fatigue, irritability, nervousness, and tension. She also had a cough, which eventually turned into bronchial asthma.
At one time she had been employed as a cosmetics saleswoman. She noticed after a while that when she applied nail polish, her eyes would itch furiously. She soon had bags under her eyes, and the skin around them became red and inflamed. She applied make-up to hide this problem.
By the time she came to see me, she was in a wretched condition. She had had to drive through the industrial belt of northern Indiana to reach my office, and as she approached the city limits of Chicago, she felt sicker than ever. In the city, she practically caused an accident when she swung out of traffic to escape from the exhaust fumes of a bus.
Arriving at a hotel in Chicago’s downtown Loop district, she was practically incoherent when she called me on the telephone. By chance, the desk clerk gave her a room on the twenty-third floor. Soon she felt somewhat better and attempted to go downstairs and do some shopping. But she found that when she went into the lobby or onto any floor below the twentieth, her nausea, dizziness, and feelings of suffocation returned.
She had had three experiences in which she had collapsed in a “drunken” stupor while driving her car. Only the fact that someone was in the passenger seat beside her prevented a serious accident. She often became ill while riding in the back seats of cars, but rarely in the front. Some cars, especially those with noisy mufflers, seemed worse than others.
All of this was confusing, but the single most intriguing fact in her case was that her symptoms became progressively worse after July Fourth and did not get any better until after Christmas. Between New Year’s and Independence Day, she remained tolerably well, only to get miserably sick and “neurotic” again after the Fourth of July.
One possible explanation of this could be hay fever, but there were no pollens in her state which were troublesome during that particular period. In the course of our conversation, however, Nora mentioned that she always went to a cabin in the woods for the summer—on July Fourth. Something in that cabin, I felt, might be responsible for these various symptoms. By testing samples from her home, it turned out the main culprit was the pine paneling of the cabin. Pine was also burned in the fireplace, and various pine scented materials were used in the house, including disinfectants. When all pine products were removed from the cabin her symptoms improved.
Some time later, however, she and her husband went to a hunting lodge which had been heated by a fuel-oil stove. She began to cough and wheeze within a few minutes after entering the building, and became unconscious.
She reported that the odor of her gas kitchen range made her feel sick, as did those of her gas-burning home utilities, sponge rubber padding, plastic upholstered furniture, rubber mattress and pillow, and beds whose mattresses were encased in plastic coverings. She was able to effect real improvement by simply removing all these items from her home and replacing them with less offensive substitutes. Her Christmas-time malaise was traced to the pine Christmas tree.
The overall picture of Nora Barnes’ illness did not strike home until one blustery day, when a fierce storm threatened the Chicago area. All other patients had cancelled their appointments, but Mrs. Barnes came in, and together we reviewed over fifty typewritten pages of her record. Finally, a pattern emerged. Almost all her problems could be traced back to petrochemicals, combustion products, or man-made chemicals manufactured from petroleum. Nora Barnes was allergic or susceptible to a wide range of supposedly safe environmental agents. Her susceptibility to pine and pine products fit into this picture, too, since our current supply of hydrocarbon fuels is believed to be derived, ultimately, from a huge prehistoric pine forest, crushed beneath the earth.
This theory led to new revelations in Mrs. Barnes’ case. By eliminating all plastics and chemicals from her life, she discovered that she could dramatically improve her health. Food stored in glass, for instance, could be eaten, but the same food stored in plastic containers made her sick.
A drink of creme de menthe invariably made her sick—in fact, she passed out on several occasions when trying to drink it. She now found out why: she was incredibly sensitive to all artificial food colorings and so she avoided not only this green liqueur, but also maraschino cherries, mint sauce, frankfurters, and similar products (see list, Chapter 4).
She noticed that canned tomatoes made her sick, but that she was able to eat tomatoes from her own garden. The problem was traced to the lining of the tin cans in which the commercial food was packed. Also, foods sprayed with insecticide would bring on headaches, whereas unsprayed food would not. She found that she could eat beef raised on a neighbor’s farm but not commercially raised beef, which had been fed pesticide-treated feeds and sprayed for fly control.
The case of Nora Barnes provided a new perspective on medical practice. It soon became apparent that she was not alone, that many of the patients seen by physicians with similarly peculiar and multiple symptoms were actually suffering from allergies to synthetic chemicals. These people were not born this way. They acquired a high susceptibility because of constant, day-in and day-out exposure to chemicals, especially in the period since World War Two.
Almost inevitably, their susceptibility to chemicals intermingled with food allergies, to form an overall picture of environmental illness. These patients were reacting to foreign substances which are known to be toxic (poisonous). But it had always been assumed that reactions of toxicity occurred at much higher levels of exposure. These “chemical patients” reacted to minute amounts of contamination, which doctors until then had not considered problematic.
The full clinical implications of the chemical susceptibility problem developed over a number of years. As this environmentally oriented medical problem emerged, each new patient revealed some aspect or feature of this condition not previously appreciated. Full realization of the two most important sources of chemical pollution of the environment, namely, the contribution of gas utilities to indoor air pollution and the crucial roles of pesticide exposures in both indoor and outdoor (ambient) air pollution, did not become clear until Ellen Sanders came to me as a patient in early 1953.
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Allergies
A cold is an infection of the upper respiratory tract that is caused by a virus. The infection causes discomfort of the throat, nose, and sinuses. A cold sometimes also affects the eyes (connected to the nose by the tear ducts); the ears (connected to the nose by the Eustachian tubes); and the lymph nodes of the neck (connected to the nose by lymph channels). A cold is transmitted from person to person through the air or by droplets on the hands or on objects (toys, drinking glasses, handkerchiefs). Symptoms may develop within two to seven days after being exposed to a cold virus. People of all ages are subject to catching colds, but younger children and infants are particularly at risk from colds.
Many fruitless years were spent trying to develop a vaccine against the cold germ. Then it was discovered that there is not just one cold germ. Colds are actually caused by many different viruses, and all respiratory viruses can cause common colds. An attack by any of the more than 185 viruses makes a person immune to only that virus and none of the others. Often this immunity lasts only for a short time.
Many cold viruses can cause complications such as croup, laryngitis, bronchitis, viral pneumonia, and encephalitis. All cold viruses can make a child more susceptible to additional bacterial infections – ear infections, sinus infections, lymph infections, or bacterial pneumonia. No child’s cold should be taken lightly.
Signs and symptoms
The symptoms of a cold are nasal congestion, sneezing, clear nasal discharge, scratchy sore throat, and fever up to 39.4°C. In general, the younger the child, the higher the fever. Symptoms may also include reddened, watery eyes; dry cough; mild swelling and tenderness of the lymph nodes in the neck; and mild pain in the ears.
It is often difficult to tell a cold from other illnesses that have similar symptoms. Usually it is assumed to be a cold if the familiar cold symptoms occur but symptoms of other illnesses do not. Another clue is that a cold lasts only three to ten days.
Home care
Increase room humidity with a vaporizer or humidifier. Have your child drink a lot of liquids. Isolate the child from others, particularly from infants and the elderly. Bed rest is not required, but the child should avoid strenuous physical activities while fever is present. Give aspirin or paracetamol for fever or pain. Use nose drops or oral decongestants and a nasal aspirator to relieve nasal stuffiness and discharge. Use cough medicines for easing a severe cough. Remember, however, that overuse of any of these medications can cause more harm than good. Chest rubs and vitamin Ñ treatments have not proven to be helpful. Your child should eat only what he or she is able to eat.
Precautions
• The following symptoms do not usually occur with a common cold and may be signs of another illness: fever lasting more than two to three days; pus-like discharge from the eyes, nose, or ears; large, red, tender neck glands; breathing difficulties; chest pain; severe headache; stiff neck; vomiting; shaking chills; prostration (collapse). If any of these symptoms occur, call your doctor.
• Some viruses that cause common colds stay in the body for one to two weeks, so the child remains contagious for the entire time of the cold.
• Infants should not be exposed to anyone with a cold, even a mild cold. Infants are not protected against the common cold by the mother’s antibodies; young infants can become seriously ill from these viruses.
Medical treatment
Your doctor will perform a physical examination to check for signs of other illnesses and for signs of complications. The doctor sometimes will order a blood count and throat culture. Otherwise, the doctor’s treatment is the same as home care.
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General health
• Magnesium deficiency has been studied in France in this connection-as long ago as 1930 a French specialist found that it was a valuable food supplement in men with prostatic problems. In one study twelve men with prostatic problems were given magnesium tablets. Ten of them were cured. Another French doctor found that magnesium reduced the swelling of benign enlarged prostates. Often, the reduction in size was small but the improvement in the man great. The specialist concluded that magnesium contributed to the battle against senility. Food sources of magnesium are Dolomite tablets, wheat-germ, honey, nuts, brown rice, seeds of various kinds and kohlrabi.
• Zinc is now the most researched of all the trace elements, with more than a thousand learned papers a year appearing on the subject in the western world alone. Zinc is especially plentiful in the prostate gland for reasons that are as yet unknown. There is a well-established link between a lack of zinc and prostate problems. A prostate gland that is abnormal due to infection contains less zinc than a healthy one. In benign enlargement zinc levels are the same as normal but in cancer of the gland zinc levels are low. Semen too is very rich in zinc but it is still not known why all this zinc is necessary in the male reproductive tract. Zinc appears to be related to spermatic physiology so perhaps prostatic fluid (which contributes substantially to the amount of fluid a man ejaculates) is rich in zinc to sustain sperms and to help them mature.
In a Canadian study, a 35 per cent fall in prostatic zinc levels resulted in mild enlargement of the gland. When the drop in zinc approached 40 per cent the men suffered from chronic infection of the gland. When it dropped by 66 per cent the men developed cancer. Foods rich in zinc are seafood, brewer’s yeast, onions, bran, eggs, nuts, rabbit, peas, beans, lentils, wheat-germ, gelatin and beef liver.
• Coffee and sugar have provable effects on the prostate gland. Every year thousands of men in the UK and US die from prostatic cancer or from the more severe effects of benign enlargement. In Japan cancer of the prostate is almost unknown and even benign enlargement is uncommon. Japanese researchers examined the differences between the diet of men with prostatic troubles in Japan and in the West. There were, of course, many differences but the most compelling was that the Japanese male drinks almost no coffee. The Japanese researchers then went to World Health Organization statistics and found that in Sweden, where the death rate for prostatic cancer is the highest in the world, coffee consumption is also the highest in the world (8 kg per person per year). They then went through a list of twenty countries and found that for nearly all of them the correlation applied.
They next checked for research into cancer-causing agents in coffee. A US study had indeed found that benzo-pyrene and other cancer-producing hydrocarbons are present in lightly roasted coffees such as are drunk in the US and Europe. Very long roasting does not produce a coffee rich in these substances-such coffee is drunk in Italy where cancer of the prostate is half that of Sweden. So could it be that over thirty years of coffee drinking these tiny amounts of carcinogens can produce prostatic cancer? Sugar consumption is also statistically linked to prostatic cancer and whilst no correlation can be found between coffee consumption and other types of cancer in the body, this is not so with sugar. There is a higher incidence of cancer of the breast, ovary, intestine and rectum the more sugar a person consumes. This raises the question as to whether it could be the sugar in the coffee that could be causing the prostatic cancer and not the coffee itself. More research is needed.
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Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction
We take about 20,000 breaths each day. For a healthy man that should translate into 12 to 14 breaths per minute, says breath researcher and psychologist Dr. Gay Hendricks. Catch yourself breathing normally and calculate your per-minute rate. If it is higher than that, your health is in jeopardy and you should make deep, comfortable, slower breathing a priority, Dr. Hendricks says.
Much of the “breathwork” taught by experts today is drawn from ancient Oriental spiritual teachings. Many of the health claims for ancient Taoist, Hindu, and Yogic breathing exercises have been substantiated in the laboratory. One such exercise, alternate nostril breathing, is a proven tension-tamer and mental energizer, Dr. Hendricks says. Here’s how he teaches it.
Close off one nostril with the index finger of your dominant hand and breathe out and then in through the open nostril, slowly, gently, fully. Then close off the other nostril, still using your dominant index finger, and breathe out and then in through the open nostril. Keep your belly muscles relaxed and breathe comfortably, slowly in and out of your abdomen. Put your attention on the sensations of the breath leaving your nose and the breath returning. Alternate like this for two minutes, and then switch to the index finger of your non-dominant hand and continue for two minutes. Switch back to your dominant hand for one more minute, and then rest for a minute with your hands in your lap. Just don’t try it while you have a runny nose.
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General health
How breast cancer spreads
Cells from the primary tumour can spread to other parts of the body to produce secondary tumours. This spread is known as metastasis and can occur via the blood or lymph vessels. The secondary tumours are called metastases. Spread may also be local, to areas around the breast, or even across the abdominal or pleural cavities.
Breast cancer most commonly metastasises to bone, lung, liver, ovaries and brain. Lymph node metastases are the first to occur and are the most commonly seen. The malignant cells become lodged in these areas and multiply to form further tumours.
Although both breasts can be affected simultaneously, it is more usual for the second breast to become involved after a period of years, if at all. Rarely, spread to the second breast occurs via the lymph vessels.
Differentiation of tumours
Tumours can be well differentiated, containing easily identifiable cells which clearly resemble the tissue from which they were derived; poorly differentiated, with a mixture of cells which it is difficult to identify; or moderately differentiated, an intermediate form. The prognosis for a well-differentiated tumour is always better than for a poorly differentiated one.
Staging
There are various methods of classifying the development of breast cancer, known as staging. The TMN method, used until quite recently, is now generally considered unhelpful as it relies on subjective observation and has a high inter-observer variation.
Staging of cancers of the breast is now based on factors such as the following.
* Has the tumour infiltrated into a large area (i.e. what size is it) or is there evidence of lymphatic or blood vessel invasion?
* Is it well differentiated, i.e. does it look like normal breast tissue that has gone out of control?
* Are the auxiliary lymph nodes involved?
* Is the tumour confined to the ducts of the breast (intraductal cancer)?
This last factor is important because tumours which are completely contained within a duct can usually be cured by surgical removal of tissue containing the duct and the growth within it. Intraductal tumours, once removed, do not tend to recur.
A commonly used system stages cancers on a scale of I to IV, tumours at stage I (confined to the breast) having the best prognosis; stage IV denotes metastatic cancer at distant sites within the body.
*21/39/5*
Posted in
Cancer
Evidence over many years shows that whatever financial and other resources are put at the disposal of western medicine will be swallowed up. In fact one researcher has calculated that by doubling the current expenditure longevity would not be altered significantly. Half of the increased expenditure since the 1950s has gone in higher prices. The other half has gone largely on more hospital beds, more technology, more hospital admissions, more health employees and more in-patient days in hospital. But in spite of all of this the major killers-heart disease, strokes and cancer-have declined little. The exception to this is the decline in heart disease deaths in the US that has occurred over the last fifteen years. This has almost certainly come about as the result of lifestyle changes and not increased expenditure on curative medicine. Although it is difficult to make
accurate estimates it is generally agreed that about 2 per cent of healthcare expenditure goes on preventive medicine in most western countries, yet we are told from the cradle that prevention pays and that a stitch in time saves nine. Just how true are these claims?
Trying to assess the value of a preventive programme is a complex task. It is not too difficult to work out the cost-effectiveness of a simple curative procedure because the end-point is often fairly clear and you know what the starting point (an ill person) is. But when it comes to spending money on prevention there are many problems, some of which arise because the person involved is healthy and the benefit conferred on him or her, or on society, may not be easily quantifiable in terms of money and may occur many years after the original expenditure on the preventive measure.
When trying to work out how financially worth while a preventive health programme is we have to consider four main points: (1) The positive and negative effects of the programme; (2) how many of these effects can be clearly related to a preventive programme; (3) what value can be put on the results and (4) the balance of the advantages and disadvantages of the programme.
As an example let’s look at screening for breast cancer. The effects of the programme will include: the cost of convincing women they should be screened; the cost of their time off work or other duties to go to be screened; the cost of actually getting there; the cost of the screening itself (both in people and equipment); the cost of following up the abnormal findings; the cost of treating those who have abnormalities but who would have otherwise gone untreated; the cost of any doctor-induced problems (i.e. other problems which the screening programme itself brings into being) and their follow-up treatment; and the savings resulting from the reduced use of medical and other facilities by the women who have a cancer detected early and so do not need more expensive treatment.
The next step involves putting values on the programme. There are several questions that need to be answered. Obviously the cost of convincing women to be screened has to be related to the numbers who actually come forward. If it costs 100 pounds per woman simply to persuade her to be screened this alters the whole balance of worth of such a screening to the community. What about the increase in doctor-induced diseases? Is it possible that by having too many false negatives we give women false confidence, causing them to ignore lumps in the future? Or that by giving too many false positives we worry people so that they end up having unnecessary and worrying operations?
The last thing we really have to be sure about is what good the screening actually does and which part of it is most worth while. Obviously doing a total physical examination and an X-ray every six months would be a way of detecting breast cancer early but the side-effects of the X-rays, and the costs, would be enormous.
Lastly, a price has to be put on the whole thing and this can be difficult. The actual cost of delivering the medical side of such a programme is, of course, easily worked out but the benefits (peace of mind, improvement in life expectancy and so on) are much more difficult to evaluate financially.
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General health
If you’re having a hard time pinpointing the hidden calories in your diet, take a tip from Jim Gorman. The 33-year-old public relations supervisor from Hoboken, New Jersey, will tell you to look in the bottom of your empty glass. He knows from experience.
In 1995, Jim gave up all sugary beverages and alcohol for Lent, resolving to drink only water and club soda. By the time Easter rolled around, he was 20 pounds lighter. “I wasn’t really looking to lose weight,” he says. “But I have to admit that I was a bit bulkier than I wanted to be.”
Since then, Jim has kept his weight between 158 and 163 pounds, appropriate for his 5-foot-11-inch frame. He attributes his trim physique to his continued ban on sugary beverages. “Staying away from soda, lemonade, sweetened iced tea, and other flavored drinks has made all the difference on the scale,” he says.
While Jim sticks with water and club soda at home, he may order a beer or two when he’s socializing with friends. “I don’t
WINNING ACTION
Be wary of liquid calories. Alcohol and sugary beverages can contribute to weight gain—and they don’t do a thing to fill you up. A 12-ounce glass of beer supplies 146 calories; 12 ounces of soda, 150 calories; and 8 ounces of fruit juice, about 100 calories. If you’re having a tough time losing weight, take account of your liquid calories. Substitute water for your sugary beverages. You’ll be a lot happier eating a 300-calorie meal than quaffing a few colas. As for alcohol, save it for special occasions (like losing 10 more pounds), and stick to light beer or wine.
And remember to sip, not gulp.
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Posted in
Weight Loss
