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By admin, July 28, 2010 2:30 pm

Many women with breast cancer want to do anything and everything to fight the disease as aggressively as possible. In fact, more and more are choosing preventive mastectomies even when their cancer is the noninvasive kind that hasn’t spread. But sometimes less treatment may be the healthiest decision. For instance, new research pinpoints a group of women who will do just fine and, in fact, far better without adding radiation to their breast cancer treatment program.

Who Needs Radiation Therapy?

The latest research, from The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, shows that most early-stage breast cancer patients do not need radiation after their mastectomies because there is such a low risk for recurrence. But because what one woman sees as “low risk” can seem “too risky” to another, I contacted Henry Kuerer, MD, PhD, professor and training program director in M.D. Anderson’s department of surgical oncology and senior author of the study, to get some perspective.

Researchers reviewed the records of more than 1,000 women (average age 54) whose stage I or II breast cancer had spread to three or fewer lymph nodes. Each woman had had a mastectomy, 77% had also received postoperative chemotherapy and/or hormone therapy, and none had received postoperative radiation. After an average follow-up time of seven-and-a-half years, this group’s rate of recurrence was quite low, just 2.3%.

“Radiation therapy has so many risks, we have to decide if it’s really a benefit when we consider that the risk for recurrence is so low,” Dr. Kuerer told me. The risks of radiation therapy include injury to the cardiopulmonary vessels, the neurological system, the skin and the musculoskeletal system, plus a higher risk for lung cancer, esophageal cancer and leukemia. Meanwhile, he said, surgery and chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer are better and more effective than they used to be, so there’s less need to add radiation to the mix.

Making a Decision

Of course, some women really do need radiation treatment for their breast cancer. According to Dr. Kuerer, radiation is advised and very effective in decreasing the risk for recurrence. For many breast cancer patients with advanced disease (stage III and IV), because their risk is far higher, between 10% and 15%. Radiation should also be strongly considered for women with tumors of more than 5 centimeters, more than four positive lymph nodes, positive margins (indicating that cancer cells have spread to the edge of the biopsied tissue) and/or extra-capsular extension (a tumor growing from the lymph node into the underarm). Also, it should be considered for breast cancer patients under age 40 (who typically have an aggressive form of the disease), for patients with metastatic breast cancer and for those whose cancers are at borderline stages, such as between stage II and stage III.

Dr. Kuerer advises asking your doctor to assess your risk of recurrence, adding that it’s important to make sure he/she is usingcurrent data. Also, he suggests seeking another doctor’s opinion if you feel uncertain. “You need to feel comfortable with your team of doctors and confident that they understand the true risks and benefits of radiation therapy for you.” In the end, there’s no single “right” answer, just what’s right for you.

Source(s):

Henry M. Kuerer, MD, PhD, professor and director breast surgical oncology training program, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston.

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By admin, July 26, 2010 9:25 am

This month alone I have learned of four colleagues that have had heart issues due to work stress. There was an episode of Seinfeld that showed George’s father shouting “Serenity now!” instead of getting angry. While we laughed at that episode, new research has found a link between suppressing workplace anger and increased risk for heart attack. In other words, holding anger inside at the office could literally kill you.

Though this research began more than a decade ago, it has become particularly relevant in our difficult economic times. Workers may feel uneasy about the consequences of disagreement or having a misunderstanding with a boss or colleague. People may experience more job-related pressures but also feel less appreciated. We’ve heard many disturbing accounts of disgruntled workers reacting violently when things aren’t going the way they want them to, yet as this study makes clear, it’s not healthy to hold in your feelings all the time either.

Mad Men at Work

Working with a group of 2,832 Swedish men, the researchers designed a questionnaire to quantify each participant’s typical style for handling angry feelings toward superiors or colleagues at work. A series of questions measured the likelihood that each participant would react “covertly” by suppressing his anger (walking away and taking some time to calm himself, but not taking up the issue again), holding feelings inside and later developing physical symptoms such as a headache or stomachache, or venting his anger elsewhere. What they found is what makes gulping down your angry thoughts and words at work look very unwise. The more covert a participant’s style of handling workplace anger, the more likely he was to have had a heart attack in the period between 1992 (when the study began) and 2003 (when it ended).

What does this mean for heart health? The researchers found that those who tended to handle conflict with a superior or coworker by suppressing their anger without saying anything (just “letting it pass”) had double the risk for heart attack or cardiac death compared with those who never or seldom behaved this way, and for those who held their anger inside and suffered physical distress later, the risk was triple.

Note: Though this study examined only men, study coauthor Tores Theorell, MD, PhD, professor emeritus and scientific advisor at the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University, said that covert coping is actually even more common among women. The study was reported in the November 2009 issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Fine, You’re Mad, What Can You Do?

The findings suggest that it’s unhealthy to suppress your emotions when you’re treated unfairly, say the researchers. But other research has shown that simply venting, expressing strong anger directly, actually can trigger a heart attack (although rarely), so this is not a healthy option either. I called a workplace-management consultant to ask about the healthiest ways to handle anger at work, both for your well-being and for your career.

“Blowing up or holding in anger can both lead to problems, and people who suppress their anger eventually blow up anyway,” I heard from Emil F. Coccaro, MD, professor of psychiatry and director of the clinical neuroscience and psychopharmacology research unit in the department of psychiatry at The University of Chicago. Dr. Coccaro said that the goal is not just to get through a situation but “to be calm inside and out and to not feel as if the world is out to get you.”

Take a Time-Out

The best and simplest strategy for handling anger at work is one any modern parent will recognize, a “time-out.” “Excuse yourself and go for a walk. After you’ve calmed down, you’re more likely to have a discussion that’s rational and produces a good resolution,” Dr. Coccaro said. “If you try to discuss the situation when you’re angry, you’ll say things you’ll regret and also you won’t get what you want.”

Another cool-down strategy: Do some deep-breathing exercises, or try counting slowly to 10. Then, he suggests, you should mentally review the situation when you’ve calmed down. Consider whether your anger is justified, was what the person said or did really so bad? Could it be that you were just feeling irritable that day? Or perhaps you need to take some responsibility, did your own actions trigger something you hadn’t foreseen? It’s important to try to understand the situation more completely.

Everyone gets angry from time to time and sometimes with good reason. If you’re blowing up a few times a week, you may need to be evaluated for anger-management problems, Dr. Coccaro said. Treatment may involve talking with a therapist and sometimes even medication for a short while to help you learn to reframe your thinking about your interactions with others. Sometimes at least some of the problem lies within.

Source(s):

Tores Theorell, MD, PhD, professor emeritus, Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Sweden.

Emil F. Coccaro, MD, E.C. Manning Professor and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral neuroscience, Biological Sciences Division, The University of Chicago

Stress can make any day hard. There are many ways you can avoid having a heart attack and minimizing stress is one of them. Check out our weight loss tips to find out more ways to minimize the risk of having a heart attack.

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By admin, July 23, 2010 10:19 am

We humans aren’t the only ones who relish lush, juicy summertime produce. Mold, too, thrives happily on the sugar and moisture so readily available in ripe fruits and vegetables. It even can grow deep into these foods where you can’t see it! According to Leigh Broadhurst, PhD, research geochemist in the USDA’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Services, even invisible mold in your food can make you sick. She told me that just sniffing mold in food can make you ill with symptoms that can range from slightly nauseous to a life-threatening toxic shock reaction. Here is her advice…

Citrus fruits. When you get home from the market, do an immediate and thorough check of citrus fruits in bags and boxes — if you find one or two with even a bit of visible mold, there are likely to be more. Return them all to the store or toss them all into the trash. Mold spreads easily and fast with these fruits, and eating citrus with mold can make you quite ill. And, since it’s sometimes hard to see, if a fruit tastes moldy when you bite into it, spit it out.

Soft fruits and vegetables. This category includes peaches, nectarines, plums, grapes, melons, cucumbers, zucchini and the like, all of which are prone to announce mold by developing soft spots. For these, it’s okay to cut small moldy spots away (meaning those that are less than a quarter of the total piece), taking one-half inch around the spot. To avoid cross-contamination, don’t let the knife touch the mold. Larger soft areas, though, mean mold has invaded the whole fruit or vegetable even though you don’t see it, throw the food away.

Firm vegetables. Hard vegetables, like cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, peppers and others, have little moisture, making them less vulnerable to mold. It is fine to cut off any small patches of mold you see, in this case at least one inch around the mold.

Tomatoes. Brown spots on the outside and dark seeds inside mean you should throw the entire tomato away.

Berries. The ones with hollow centers (like raspberries) may grow mold from the inside out, so cut these in half and look before eating.

Block That Mold!

The safest produce, of course, is that which hasn’t had a chance to grow mold. Dr. Broadhurst has a few tips for that as well…

• Shop at local farmer’s markets, where produce is more likely to be just-picked.
• Wash produce only when you are ready to eat, cook or freeze it. Fruits and vegetables naturally have protective microorganisms on their surfaces that are harmless, washing strips these off and opens the way for mold to settle in.
• Use “freshness preserving” containers and/or bags. These are designed to release the ethylene gas produced as fruits and vegetables mature, which if allowed to accumulate increases the speed of ripening and thus spoilage.
• Use the freezer, in particular for fresh berries you want to save. Place the entire package (washed first) into a sealed plastic bag and put it in the freezer, then use the fruit as you need it. (It won’t have the same consistency as fresh fruit, but it’s delicious… nutritious too.) Also a good choice: Frozen berries from the supermarket — they do not mold and are good year-round.

Source(s):

Leigh Broadhurst, PhD, a research geochemist in the USDA’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Services, Beltsville, Maryland.

It is amazing all the things you can find within your foods. Avoid dealing with such situations and keep your knowledge strong with our health and weight loss tips now.

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By admin, July 22, 2010 9:15 am

In the 1970s, the then-famous actor George Sanders shocked the world when he killed himself and left a suicide note that explained, “… I am bored.” Killing yourself is a pretty extreme response to being bored, of course, but several studies of late have found a startling connection between chronic boredom and early death… perhaps a literal demonstration of “bored to death.” In one study, researchers conducted initial interviews in the mid-1980s with 7,500 civil servants in the UK. When they returned to update information about 25 years later, they found that people who had said that they were bored in the original screening were nearly 40% more likely to have died than those who found their lives more interesting. The same study revealed that people living with high levels of tedium were 2.5 times more likely to die of heart disease than those who did not. This is certainly an interesting demonstration of the powerful connection between mind and body.

Many people live with assorted states of boredom, and yes, some parts of life (paying bills, loading the dishwasher) are quite dull. But giving in to living a life that feels tedious can ultimately be very destructive, says life coach Lauren Zander. Boredom is a state of mind, she says, in her view, this truth is very, very powerful.

The destructive part? People who are bored at work start showing up late, making mistakes and otherwise begin to act in ways that may eventually lead to the exit door (or at the very least, keep them stuck doing the same job without much prospect of advancement). Boredom can also destroy relationships, no longer excited about the other person, people quit paying attention to conversations or doing nice things for him/her, and some even use their boredom to justify having an affair. Boredom doesn’t strike only in romantic relationships, by the way, it can also cause you to take friends, siblings, even your children for granted.

Interestingly, boredom can even arise in areas where you have achieved success, precisely because you’ve succeeded. Say you have a wonderful job and you are on top of the career ladder, but you find yourself getting restless and, yes, bored. The reason is simply that you have attained mastery (and kudos to you!) and now it just feels like the same-old, same-old.

Boredom feeds on itself, breeding laziness and yet more dissatisfaction. When you’re bored, you do nothing, which leads to, being bored. If you are sitting on the couch being bored, you are not reading books that suggest new adventures or challenge your old ways of thinking. You aren’t out enjoying events and activities and interactions with others. You aren’t engaging in activities that are creative, fun, stimulating or enriching. Of course you’re bored!

But flat as it may make you feel, Lauren doesn’t see boredom as one-dimensional at all, in fact, it has many layers, she says. If you find yourself saying “it is what it is” about your boring life, it’s partly out of laziness, partly indifference, and also likely has elements of fear and depression too. All this is wrapped up tightly in the belief that you cannot do anything to make life better. People blame outside forces for their boredom, their same old job, spouse, house, everything but themselves.

Boredom is a Choice

Boredom may be an inevitable part of life, but it’s not a life sentence, it’s a signal that you need to find something interesting to do! That seemingly enlightened mantra “it is what it is” is, in fact, a clue that you are feeling stuck in your life or behavior, take it as a nudge to start looking to learn something from your boredom. It may mean that you have achieved your goals in one part of your life, so it is time to create change for yourself, perhaps search out new challenges that you could add to your job description or maybe even look for a whole new position. Or if your weekends are empty and dull because they’re no longer filled with your children’s sports and parties, it’s time to schedule new activities of your own.

Here’s the powerful part: Becoming aware of your boredom shows you the parts of life where you are letting things just exist rather than taking action to shape them to your liking. So now you can do something about it. Take an inventory of your current life, look for areas where you have become lazy, slightly depressed, indifferent and feel resigned about facing another day. These are all indicators of boredom and as such they are your signals to step in to start making change.

Note: Lauren cautions that it is important to be careful not to confuse boredom with contentment. Contentment is when you truly are at peace with the way things are, whereas boredom leaves you unhappy with the status quo.

Finding ways to bring some zing into your life isn’t hard. When people consider making changes in their lives, they tend to think globally, as if they have to change everything, start a new career or ditch a spouse right now. Not so, says Lauren. In fact the best way to get going is with very small changes, which may be as simple as adding air to the tires of your bike and going for a ride, getting in the car and heading out for a “field trip” to a town you’ve never visited, or even going food shopping in a very different sort of place, like a farmer’s market or a gourmet supermarket. If your sex life with your partner puts you to sleep, you can change that by taking small steps as well, says Lauren. “Make out in the car, ask for a kiss in the morning, do something new together each week. Slowly inch your way back to where you would like this to be,” she suggests. Try something new or different to engage your imagination and emotions. Start by breaking the boredom of the moment, and then go on to making plans to break the cycle in more important areas where you feel stuck, such as work or your marriage overall.

Boredom is actually a valuable signal that can energize you and put you back in power. Pay attention to your “boredom radar” so that you spot it quickly, before it harms the quality of your life. Take responsibility, urges Lauren. “You’re the driver in your life — and if you have driven yourself into a ditch, admit you put yourself there and accept that you can get yourself out.” That’s a powerful thought indeed!

Source(s):

Lauren Zander, cofounder and chairman, The Handel Group, www.thehandelgroup.com.

Get a little extra amusement in your life easily! Come back tomorrow and read about the Hidden Horror in Your Food, the next instalment into our fast weight loss tips.

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By admin, July 1, 2010 10:45 am

Can picking up a broom get a man more va-va-voom? That was the research premise for a recent study by Constance Gager, PhD, a sociologist in the department of family and child studies at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

Dr. Gager started with the well-documented fact that housework is typically shared unevenly between husbands and wives even when both have jobs outside the home. “Given that 77% of women with kids age six and older are in the labor force, we wondered why men aren’t contributing more to housework,” Dr. Gager told me. “So we asked, ’What would encourage them to do so?’ And we came up with the obvious hypothesis — more sex.”

On average, the wives in Gager’s study spent nearly twice as much time on household tasks as did their husbands: About 42 hours a week for the women versus 23 hours for the men.  While the husbands logged more paid working hours, about 34 hours/week versus 20 hours for the women, when the total hours worked (jobs plus housework) were combined, women worked more than the men by about three hours a week.  (Three hours may not sound like much-unless you are suffering from a chronic lack of sex…) Also, the data did not capture all the time women spend organizing, planning and forecasting for the household, tasks with which Dr. Gager’s research shows they want more help.

Dr. Gager then looked more deeply into the study participants’ home lives, and here’s where it gets really interesting:  For both sexes, it appears that the harder you work, the harder you play.  In other words,  more hours spent on household labor, on average, meant more hours of sexual activity.  This surprise finding held true for both husbands and wives in all types of work.

Energy for Everything?

I asked Dr. Gager what explanation she had for her findings, and she told me that the study was not designed to explore the reasons behind the results. But, she said, the research team is willing to speculate. “We don’t think it’s causative, but we do know that the more time is spent on housework, the more time gets spent on sex, so it might be reflective of an underlying trait: Being a go-getter with high energy.” In other words, Dr. Gager said, the hardest workers may be people who attack life with gusto, and it seems they get a lot out of it, if you know what I mean…of course you do.

This intriguing finding bodes well for people who have the energy to take on both work and family chores. “As life gets busier and time gets tighter, there are people who can successfully balance their multiple time commitments,” said Dr. Gager. “They devote their time to paid work and housework while maintaining an active sex life. Rather than compromise their romantic life because of work demands, this group of go-getters makes sex a priority.”

So does that mean that if you start doing more vacuuming you’re more likely to get lucky, regardless of your sex? Maybe.  In the doctor’s words, “It couldn’t hurt!”  Hey, a lot can happen in three extra hours a week.

Source(s):

Constance Gager, PhD, lead researcher, sociologist and assistant professor, department of family and child studies, Montclair State University, New Jersey.

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By admin, June 30, 2010 9:25 am

You’ll probably lose weight if you follow a popular type of diet that’s low in carbs and high in protein; but are high protein diets a healthy way to lose the weight? The controversy surrounding this type of eating plan is loud and seemingly endless. And a new study is further stirring that pot with a startling new finding  about cardiovascular health.

The study started out as a straightforward effort to determine whether a low-carb/high-protein diet is healthy, says its senior author Anthony Rosenzweig, MD, director of cardiovascular research at the Cardiovascular Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Mice bred to have atherosclerosis were fed one of three diets for 12 weeks:  One group ate a standard mouse chow with 65% carbohydrates, 15% fat and 20% protein; another group ate an approximation of the typical Western human diet with 43% carbs, 42% fat and 15% protein; and a third group ate an approximation of a typical human low-carb/high-protein weight loss diet with 12% carbs, 43% fat and 45% protein.

What’s the Surprise?

Not all the findings were surprising. As expected, the mice in the low-carb/high-protein group put on less weight as they matured than those on the Western diet. In addition,  their markers for vascular disease (including cholesterol and triglyceride levels), oxidative stress, insulin and glucose levels, as well as some inflammatory cytokine levels were either no different or slightly better.   But the researchers got a big surprise when they examined the blood vessels themselves: The low-carb/high-protein eating mice had far more atherosclerosis as measured by plaque accumulation than the mice in the Western diet group.  Huh.  Turns out maybe you can’t eat a strict diet of bacon and eggs and cheese and butter without some negative health consequences…

Seriously though-this could be big news for human dieters.  The researchers had to try to find an explanation for this unexpected and worrisome finding. Since none of the standard vascular health markers (the things your doctor checks at your annual physical) indicated anything was amiss, the researchers theorized that something might have interfered with the mice’s natural ability to repair injuries to vessels and return them to normal function. The team focused on a special bone marrow cell thought to play a role in blood vessel regrowth and injury repair called EPC (endothelial progenitor cells.)  They found that in the low-carb/high-protein group, levels had indeed dropped 40% after only two weeks on the diet.

What does this mean for us non-mice? The study shows a correlation between reduction of the cells and an increase in arterial plaque which Dr. Rosenzweig believes  may be of great importance. Other studies have demonstrated that people with heart and cardiovascular disease tend to have fewer of these cells and that people who exercise regularly have more of them.  So now we must wonder, can a low-carb diet reduce EPC levels and possibly lead to or contribute to serious heart disease? More research is required, as we still don’t know whether this would happen in people… but it certainly convinced Dr. Rosenzweig to go off the low-carb diet he was on.

Related Diet News

You may also be interested in Dr. Rosenzweig’s research from Mount Sinai Medical School in New York City (“The Brain-Shrinking Diet”). This earlier, and unrelated, study found brain shrinkage in mice fed a low-carb/high-protein diet — another finding that raises concerns about the potential for harm in such a diet. While it’s too early to draw conclusions, the two studies do ring some cautionary bells about diets loaded with protein and light on carbs. As Dr. Rosenzweig says, the best message for now is to stick with “all the things we know are good for us, including a balanced, nutritious diet with lots of fruits and vegetables.” Those are the kinds of carbs we all need to eat anyway.

Source(s):

Anthony Rosenzweig, MD, director of cardiovascular research, CardioVascular Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston.

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By admin, June 29, 2010 12:08 pm

If you want to keep your bones healthy as you age, it’s important to be sure that you are getting vitamin D and calcium in adequate amounts. Make sure you read that as both, not one or the other.

Each has important health benefits on its own;  but together these two are like “team health.”  The US Department of Agriculture has just published new research highlighting how important it is to get sufficient calcium and vitamin D.

Calcium + D = Strong Bones

More than 25 million adults (men and women) in the US either already have or are at risk for osteoporosis. It’s common to equate osteoporosis with inadequate calcium, but according to Dr. Rubman, inadequate vitamin D is a far more pervasive threat. Here’s why: When calcium levels fall, the body activates vitamin D consumption. It gets sent to the gut to encourage better calcium absorption and to the kidneys to limit calcium loss in urine. Without enough of it, bones grow thin and brittle.

What You Can Do

This is why getting calcium alone isn’t the answer to bone health. You must also get enough vitamin D. You can get it from a variety of foods: Salmon, tuna, mackerel, fish liver oils, D-fortified foods such as milk, orange juice and breakfast cereals.  And your body can also synthesize it from 10 to 15 minutes of daily sun exposure. But the body’s ability to manufacture vitamin D diminishes with age, and most Americans are short on it.  So Dr. Rubman prescribes up to 2,000 IU daily of vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) to many patients.

Note: The current government-recommended intake is only 400 IU daily for adults age 51 to 70, but experts agree that this is too low, and there are plans to raise it. In the meantime, Dr. Rubman suggests asking your doctor to test your D3 level to see if you are deficient, especially important for seniors, he notes, as well as all people who may not be spending much time in the sun.

To get enough calcium: The official recommended calcium intake for American adults age 50 and older is 1,200 mg daily.  This is generally sufficient if your body is absorbing it properly. However, insufficient stomach acid due to aging or stress or, worse, the persistent use of acid-blocking medications, can impede this process. A supplement is one option, but perhaps not necessary; most people can get sufficient calcium from dietary sources. Cow’s milk, even though it contains 300 mg of calcium per cup, is not necessarily the best choice since it is tough for many people to digest fully.

Here are some good dietary sources:

-One cup of goat’s milk contains 325 mg of calcium

-1 cup of collard greens 350 mg

-3 ounces of canned salmon 180 mg

-1 cup of boiled black-eyed peas 210 mg.

That’s practically a day’s worth of calcium right there.

Getting sufficient amounts of these vital nutrients isn’t hard, and it is vitally important. When it comes to bone health, calcium and vitamin D need each other to deliver the benefit.  So aim for adequate amounts of both or you will get the benefit of neither.

Source(s):

Andrew L. Rubman, ND, founder and director, Southbury Clinic for Traditional Medicines, Southbury, Connecticut. www.southburyclinic.com.

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By admin, June 28, 2010 5:05 pm

Life happens, and, as we all know, it often leaves scars. We can see them on our knees, elbows and elsewhere. But did you know that you can get scars inside your body too? These sometimes occur after surgery or an injury such as a broken bone, but other times in response to less obvious insults, including simple inflammation.  Things such as heart attack and stroke often  leave internal scars;  inflammatory conditions, including Asthma, Sinusitis, Alzheimer’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Arthritis and others also leave destructive scar tissue in their wake. I recently learned more about these internal scars and some of the surprising ways that they can affect our health — and about a therapy that can speed healing while smoothing scars on both the inside and outside of the body.

The Purpose of Scars

Scars are the body’s visible response to injury, which is to generate healing fibers (called fibrin) where damage has been wrought. These eventually weave together to heal the damage done, but the repair is obviously not seamless. Fortunately, your body’s cells are continually regenerating, and over time such scars usually fade until there’s little, if any, evidence left.

Our bodies accomplish this by producing enzymes (called fibrinolases) that dissolve scar tissue and replace it with healthy tissue. Sometimes, though, our natural healing powers aren’t up to par. This is where an intriguing therapy comes into play: Our body’s natural ability can be bolstered by using an enzyme called serrapeptase which is isolated from the silkworm.  It is the substance that allows the worm to dissolve its carapace so that it can become a butterfly. Since it comes from the same class of enzymes as those produced to heal the human body, supplements have been formulated from it. While the transformative powers of serrapeptase aren’t quite so lyrical for humans, it can enhance our natural ability to heal.

Clean Up Crew

Dr. Rubman suggests picturing serrapeptase as an internal carpet-cleaning formula. With repeated applications and some scrubbing, a stain or, in this case a scar, scar tissue will begin to dissolve and dissipate.

In the wake of all that activity, however, serrapeptase is apt to leave behind its own mess. This detritus has a tendency to accumulate and can end up thickening your blood. That’s why Dr. Rubman routinely prescribes a second enzyme to be taken along with serrapeptase: Nattokinase. Nattokinase is made from the traditional Japanese fermented soy product, natto. It’s like a vacuum cleaner, he says. Along with plasmin, the body’s own natural anticoagulant or blood thinner, nattokinase serves as a clean-up crew to dissolve errant fibrin and other tissue particles. This completes serrapeptase’s job and encourages good blood flow throughout the body.

Who Needs Enzymes?

At certain times, typically with illness, stress, when you’re eating poorly or just with age, your body’s natural production of enzymes such as serrapeptase and nattokinase may decline, but taking supplements can help pick up the slack. Dr. Rubman and I discussed how these enzymes can be used to improve various health problems:

Respiratory disease: Serrapeptase thins the dense mucus often present in people with chronic asthma, bronchitis, sinusitis and other pulmonary diseases. Studies show that it helps repair damage to the structure and function of delicate mucous linings.

Pain and inflammation: Together, serrapeptase and nattokinase have antiinflammatory properties that serve as natural analgesics. They ease pain by relieving swelling, fluid accumulation and pressure. Serrapeptase also speeds tissue repair and blocks the release of pain-inducing chemicals called amines from inflamed tissue.

Cardiovascular health: Dr. Rubman prescribes a combination of serrapeptase and nattokinase to reduce arterial plaque and break up small blood clots that clog arteries in the cardiovascular system. Together these enzymes thin the blood, promote circulation and bring down levels of LDL cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol) and C-reactive protein (CRP, a marker of inflammation and heart disease). (Note: When prescribing these two enzymes together for his patients, Dr. Rubman likes a product called Neprinol, available from the manufacturer at www.ArthurAndrew.com and at The Vitamin Shoppe stores.)

Women’s wellness: Some women experience an imbalance between estrogen and progesterone that triggers inflammatory responses such as the development of scar tissue. This abnormal tissue may accumulate in the breasts or uterus, where it can lead to fibrous breasts or uterine fibroids. To control these conditions along with the pain and pressure that many women experience with menstruation, Dr. Rubman prescribes FibroVera (also from www.ArthurAndrew.com and The Vitamin Shoppe), a product he helped create, that combines serrapeptase, nattokinase and the enzymes bromelain (extracted from pineapple) and papain (from papaya).

Use Under Medical Supervision

While serrapeptase and nattokinase are safe and effective supplements for most people, Dr. Rubman says that they should be avoided by those with a bleeding disorder or who are taking blood-thinning drugs such as warfarin(Coumadin). Other interactions are sometimes (though rarely) problematic, including those with aspirin, fish oil and vitamin E.

According to Dr. Rubman, the most effective enzymes are “enteric-coated,” which means that the active ingredients are covered with a protective layer that lets them survive exposure to stomach acid and pass into the intestine intact. Enzymes should be taken 30 minutes before or 90 minutes or so after eating. Supplementation with enzymes can be complicated, Dr. Rubman said, so they should be taken only under the supervision of a trained professional.  That said, these powerful enzymes have the potential to improve your health in a way that you may, indeed, find transformative.

Source(s):

Andrew L. Rubman, ND, founder and director, Southbury Clinic for Traditional Medicines, Southbury, Connecticut. www.southburyclinic.com.

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Comments (3)

By admin, June 26, 2010 3:20 pm

You may have already heard about the controversy surrounding the new signature attraction at Universal Studios’ “Wizarding World of Harry Potter” theme park in Orlando. Apparently, height is no longer the only bodily measurement under theme park scrutiny; weight, shockingly enough, also affects whether or not a passenger can safely ride:  ”Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey,” employs individual restraints to keep each guest safely in to his or her seat. The problem?  The restraints aren’t large enough to accommodate heavier riders.

And some fans of the Harry Potter series who traveled a great distance to experience what one theme park goer described as “the ride of my life” were turned away because they could not fit into the safety restraints–safety being the operative word here.

Universal seems to have anticipated this issue as they both stationed staff “wizards” and placed test-seats along the line and at the entrance to Forbidden Journey. But was this really enough? I mean, they have those “size-wise” testers for carry-on luggage at the airport; but I’ve never seen someone actually check their back with it.  And you always see some traveler with a carry-on bag twice the size and they still get on the airplane.

One Harry Potter fan, Jeff Guillaume of Lansing, Michigan, who measures 5′8″ and weighs 265 pounds expressed his disappointment when he was not able to ride because the restraint would not fit over his torso.  About the same time, it was reported that NBA star Dwight Howard was a rider and fit just fine in the restraint.  Now,  Howard is 6′11″ and also weighs 265 pounds. This spurred many Harry Potter fans to point the finger at Universal Studios … as how could Guillaume be denied when he weighed the same as Howard? “This must be discrimination!!!” they all cried in unison.

Are you serious?

Please. Let’s have a short lesson, shall we?  Muscle weighs more than fat, right? We’ve heard that for years, but what gets lost in the shuffle is the size difference between 5 pounds of fat and 5 pounds of muscle. See the picture to the right?  That is the difference. And if you’re like Guillaume, you are carrying at least 100 pounds more fat than you should.   That would be roughly 20 of those blobs, which is  precisely why he can’t ride Harry Potter- not because Universal Studios is discriminating against him.

Guillaume did the right thing in admitting he was overweight rather than reacting like a typical American and filing a discrimination lawsuit. Instead, he is going to use the experience as a motivator to lose weight. Good for him.  Most of us could stand to replace a few 5 lb fat blobs with smaller 5 lb muscle ones.

Universal Studios doesn’t enforce specific weight limits; they do have the test seats and a requirement that riders be at least 48 inches tall. Universal Studios states that their body dimension restrictions are not to discriminate but “to ensure the safety of our guests. It’s #1.” As it should be.

We do have a rising problem in this country in that the average American man weighs 191 pounds; in 1960 it was 166 pounds.  Universal isn’t the first theme-park operator to deal with issues raised by the growing rate of obesity in the United States. In 2007, Disney had to modify the “It’s a Small World” ride after weighted-down boats began regularly getting stuck in the plume.

Idea: Rather than blame the theme parks for being unable to safely accommodate obese riders, obese riders–Unite!!  And be no longer obese.  Medifast has been proven to be a safe and effective form of weight loss, backed by more than 30, 000 doctors and guaranteed to help you in your quest to replace enough fat blobs with muscle blobs so that you too can safely ride Harry Potter’s Forbidden Journey at Universal Studios.

Comments (0)

By admin, June 24, 2010 11:09 am

Many people who are chronically ill, for instance, with diabetes or cancer or who have suffered a traumatic injury, ultimately end up with a condition called neuropathy.  Sufferers experience their nervous systems turning against them, randomly sending out pain signals that can range from merely uncomfortable tingling, to debilitatingly painful, stabbing sensations . Opioids and antidepressants can help, but these drugs have side effects which render them less-than-great choices. Acupuncture can be helpful, too, but generally speaking, chronic pain sufferers have few effective treatment options.

A recent study of a relatively new treatment addresses this concern and has proved promising for a few. The new therapy is called transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) and is recommended for people who have neuropathy resulting from a spinal cord injury. This form of treatment involves placing electrodes (attached to a battery pack) on the skin along both sides of the spine at the level of and just above the spinal cord injury to deliver electrical current. The same technique has been used to treat other forms of chronic pain and muscle spasms.

Shocking But Effective

Twenty-four patients were given TENS units and taught to self-administer the treatment three times a day for 30 to 40 minutes at a time. They did this for two weeks at high frequency and then for another two weeks at low frequency.

Results: About one-third of the patients reported that their pain was reduced at least somewhat. 29% were helped by high-frequency stimulation and 38% by low-frequency stimulation. But six patients asked if they could keep their TENS units so they could continue the treatments themselves at home-clearly indicating that they experienced some benefit.

TENS may sound more like torture than treatment; you’d think that stimulating nerves that have already gone haywire would simply cause more pain.  But Cecilia Norrbrink, RPT, PhD, in the department of clinical sciences at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, where the study was done, had this to say:  ”TENS is not painful and it does work well for some people.” She also said that scientists believe it works by using the body’s own pain-inhibiting systems. She gave a very simplified explanation: High-frequency TENS activates large nerve fibers, which are the ones carrying nonpainful signals such as touch. Stimulating these nerve fibers releases transmitter signals in the spinal cord that can inhibit the pain signals coming from small nerve fibers. Low-frequency TENS, on the other hand, seems to activate neurons in the brain stem (where inhibitory pathways start) by releasing pain-blocking endorphins.

Another option: There’s a form of Japanese acupuncture that incorporates electrical stimulation through needles, according to contributing medical editor Andrew L. Rubman, ND. It is called electro-acupuncture, and it might be a good option to explore with your acupuncturist or naturopathic doctor.

Can You Do This At Home?

Side effects from the treatment are minimal.   Some patients experience muscle spasms and others find the electrodes irritating to their skin. But those are minor complaints compared with the pain relief the treatments sometimes deliver. If you’re interested in exploring TENS treatment for neuropathic pain, discuss it with your doctor as there’s a long list of medical cautions that are considered contraindications for its use. If you are among the lucky ones, this might provide welcome relief from chronic pain.

Source(s):

Cecilia Norrbrink, RPT, PhD, department of clinical sciences, Danderyd Hospital, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.

Get involved with a Medifast Diet Program and make drastic changes to your health. Make sure that you include a Medifast Coupon Code with your order and save on your diet. Stop paying full price when you can get a discounted coupon from Medifast instead.