Aquitaine Publishing

Feeling Depressed?

Originally introduced into the market as sertraline, this SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) is a popular anti-depressant. The drug hit a bit of a row in recent history largely because new research suggests that SSRIs have little to no effect on clinical depression, despite the high rates of use among those with health insurance

The side effects alone should help you get over your depression!

55 in 100 Can - Can You?

I'm one of the 55.  Are You?

fI yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Prostate Cancer Testing

Imagine you're flying in a commercial jet and the pilot tells you he'll be putting the aircraft on autopilot. That probably wouldn't be a concern. But imagine you're at your doctor's office and he tells you that he's just put his judgment on autopilot.

Two questions: Where's the parachute, and where is the exit?

Unfortunately, doctors often simply go with basic procedures they've always used. But things change, and when doctors don't stay on top of changes, patients sometimes suffer.

One perfect example of an autopilot medical mindset concerns the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test used to determine prostate cancer risk.  I've shared this warning several times before, but the mainstream still hasn't picked up on it so it can't be repeated enough: Men, if your doctor suggests a biopsy based on a high PSA level, he may be flying on autopilot.

Beat Headaches Without Paracetamol

It's three thirty in the morning.

First Wife is happily asleep (making the most of a night free of my snoring).

Meanwhile I'm in my dressing gown, tapping away at the computer, unable to sleep. My usual trick of reading and sipping hot milk isn't working, so I thought I'd put the hours to good use and write about two problems that can cause serious misery in any household...

As you probably know by now, I'm loath to fill my body full of man-made drugs to get rid of pain. This only deadens the symptoms without doing a thing to tackle the root of the problem.

But now there's a new remedy that could change the way we tackle headaches - especially aggressive sinus headaches - for good.

Next to migraines, sinus headaches really are the baddest of the bunch. They start when the network of passages that link your forehead, cheeks, nose, and eyes become inflamed. This blocks the circulation of mucus air, causing infection.

But as ever, a little digging around can reveal a whole host of natural remedies.Try Barberry (berberis vulgaris), echinacea or eucalyptus, all of which work wonders when it comes pain relief - plus they can enhance your immune system, prevent colds, and reduce sinus inflammation...

And in the four hours I've spent digging through the internet tonight, thefollowing natural remedies crop up time and time again as powerful headache treatments:

How to electrocute pain away

If you ever need an excuse to get out of D.I.Y. chores, print this out and leave it lying on the kitchen table...

One day, my friend Steve Cooper was drilling a hole in his living room so he could finally hang a picture that he'd bought about six months previously.

He made a note of the positions of all the sockets and light fittings, picked a spot away from all the wires, and got drilling.

Next thing he knew, there was an explosion of bright blue light, and he was thrown clear across the room. It turns out the electrics in his appartment were a right mess, with wires running all over the place.

Luckily, it propelled him away from the current, and his only injuries were minor burns to his hands.

But he swears something else happened to him that, at the time, seemed most unlikely...

Steve is one of my old school buddies. In fact, we used to play rugby together until he banged up his knee and had to give up. And ever since then, he'd been plagued by that injury. Nothing serious... just a stiffness and dull ache that never really went away.

But his near-death experience changed all that.

Dead Fish... Are They Healthy?

It's horrifying to read the papers these days.

All sorts of terrible illnesses and conditions seem to be on the increase, despite the best efforts of medical technology.

It makes you wonder about the diets and lifestyle of modern man. We've got old evils like polio and tuberculosis under control in this country... but new ailments are on the rampage.

Especially diabetes.

According to the organisation ‘Diabetes UK', there are 1.8 million people with it. But there's a million more who have it... but don't even know it! What's more, it gets more common as you get older. The average age of diagnosis for people with no family history of the illness is 52.

Round The Mulberry Bush

What's the health secret in the mulberry?

Here's how Roman poet Horace described it more than 2,000 years ago:

"A man will pass his summers in health, who will finish his luncheon with black mulberries."

Interesting, although a little low on specifics.

Let's fast-forward a couple of millennia to June 2007 when this statement appeared in the most recent issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry: "Mulberry 1-deoxynojirimycin (DNJ), a potent glucosidase inhibitor, has been hypothesized to be beneficial for the suppression of abnormally high blood glucose levels and thereby prevention of diabetes mellitus"

Now we're getting somewhere! In a nutshell, animal studies have shown that a specific extract of mulberry (DNJ) helps control blood sugar spikes after high-glycemic meals. Could humans enjoy the same benefit? New research from Japan takes an important step in answering that question.

A long history

How Do You Feel About Needles?

Chronic lower back pain – if you've got it, it's probably uncomfortable just to read those words. But new research reveals an effective way to treat this specific type of pain without medication.

How do you feel about needles? If you're like me, needles are fine as long as they stay in the sewing kit. But stick them in my skin, all over my body? Yeah…no thanks. Or that was my attitude toward acupuncture before I decided to screw up my courage and give it a try to address some nagging neck and back pain.

Acupuncture doesn't work for everyone, but I was one of the lucky ones – it significantly reduced my pain. And the needling procedure was a breeze, producing only a very mild sensation that was completely pain-free.

But I'm just one case study. So let's look at the remarkable results of a trial that tested acupuncture on hundreds of patients with chronic lower back pain.

STUDY PROFILE:

• Researchers at several German medical facilities recruited more than 1,160 patients who had suffered from chronic lower back pain for at least eight years
• 387 subjects received acupuncture
• 387 subjects received sham acupuncture (needling points on the skin not associated with known acupuncture points)
• 388 subjects received conventional treatment, which combined exercise, physical therapy, and medication
• Successful response was determined by a 33 percent improvement based on a chronic pain grade scale, or a 12 percent improvement based on a back-specific functional ability scale
• After six months of treatment, 47 percent in the acupuncture group achieved successful response, compared to 44 percent in the sham acupuncture group and 27 percent in the conventional therapy group

All together now…

This is the first back pain study to test acupuncture against sham acupuncture and conventional therapy in the same study, so the fact that sham acupuncture performed so well was a surprise because many previous studies have shown a clear difference between true and sham acupuncture.

For instance, in a 2005 study reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine conducted a meta-analysis of more than 30 randomized, controlled trials that compared the effectiveness of acupuncture with sham acupuncture, or no additional treatments, or conventional therapies that treat lower back pain.

Researchers found acupuncture to be "significantly more effective than sham treatment or no additional treatment." And acupuncture was found to be just as effective as conventional therapies in relieving chronic lower back pain.

If you've got a pain in the back and would like to try acupuncture for yourself, it's important to locate an experienced and board-certified acupuncture practitioner. You can find a listing of certified acupuncturists on the web site for the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (nccaom.org). Using your Postal Code, you can easily search for practitioners in your area who have national board certification.

... and another thing

Prevention in a Cup

In Asia, where consumption of coffee is low, health officials report the highest incidence of liver cancer in the world.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., where you can't throw an iPhone without hitting a Starbucks, there are only about 18,500 cases of liver cancer reported each year.

So…could your daily cup-o-Joe actually be protecting you from liver cancer? More and more evidence says it just might.

Let's start in 2005.

In a post I made August 22, 2005, I told you about research from Tohoku University in Japan that combined data from two large studies that assessed coffee consumption in more than 60,000 subjects. Results showed that occasional coffee drinkers had 30 percent lower risk of liver cancer compared to subjects who didn't drink coffee.

Risk was even lower for those who drank coffee daily, which confirms the results of another Japanese study that found regular coffee consumption to be linked with a significantly reduced risk of developing a type of liver cancer known as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

As reported in the International Journal of Cancer, when the Tohoku team singled out subjects who had a history of liver disease, they found a clear link between coffee intake and a lowered risk of liver cancer. The researchers called for further studies to examine the role that coffee might play in the prevention of liver cancer among high-risk patients.

Now back to the present, 2007.

In the August issue of the journal Hepatology, researchers from the Institute of Pharmacology Research in Milan note that previous research reveals that caffeine and other coffee components have been shown to have beneficial effects on liver enzymes and may play a role in carcinogenic detoxification.

The Milan team conducted a meta-analysis of ten coffee studies that included six case-controlled studies from Japan and southern Europe, and four cohort studies from Japan. More than 2,200 patients with HCC were included in their analysis.

The combined data produced these results:

In case-controlled studies, risk of HCC was reduced by more than 45 percent on average

Subjects who drank the most coffee reduced HCC risk by 55 percent

Moderate coffee drinkers lowered HCC risk by 30 percent

Just one cup of coffee per day added to normal consumption reduced HCC risk by more than 20 percent

The Milan team also notes the importance of the similar results from a region where little coffee is consumed (Japan), and a region where the population consumes large amounts of coffee daily (southern Europe).

In these and other coffee studies, I find it frustrating that the way coffee is prepared is rarely taken into account. For instance, could a dark roast coffee provide different benefits than a lightly roasted coffee? Even more useful would be a comparison of black coffee to coffee taken with cream and sugar, which must certainly have some effect on the components in black coffee.

Obviously we have a ways to go yet in resolving questions about coffee's health benefits. Meanwhile, if you have liver problems, talk to your doctor about these studies before increasing coffee intake.

Fire The Grid

If you have not yet read this, I highly commend that you do so now.

Fire The Grid