Deptression More Common in Women than Men

Women suffer more often from depression than men, and abnormal levels of their hormones are often the cause. There is data to show that low levels of the thyroid hormone, called T3, can cause depression. Any woman who receives thyroid hormone for having low thyroid function and is depressed should be given two thyroid hormones, not one. She should be started on both T3 and T4. There is good data to show that women with low as well as high blood levels of the male hormone, testosterone, also are at increased risk for depression. One recent study shows that women who have blood levels of free testosterone below 0.4 ng/ml are at high risk for depression, as well as osteoporosis, lack of interest in making love, and an increase in total body fat....

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Fatty Liver Can Be Treated with Diet Change

When doctors can't find a cause for abnormal liver tests, they often diagnose fatty liver, which if not treated, can cause permanent liver damage, but it usually can be cured with dietary changes and weight loss. If your liver tests are abnormal, your doctor will ask you if you drank alcohol recently or take drugs. If your liver test do not return to normal after you avoid alcohol and drugs, you need blood tests for infections of the liver and a sonogram to rule out gall bladder disease or a tumor. If the sonogram shows a fatty liver, the odds are overwhelming that your body makes too much insulin and that you can be cured with a diabetes drug called metformin (Glucophage) and a diet that restricts refined carbohydrates and high-fat foods....

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HBA1C: A Better Test for Diagnosing and Managing Diabetes

Doctors used to use your fasting morning blood sugar level as a guide to managing diabetes. Now they depend far more on a test called Hemoglobin A1C, or HBA1C. Eating raises blood sugar levels. If your blood sugar rises too high, sugar sticks to the surface of cells where it cannot be removed. The sugar is converted to a poison called sorbitol that damages the cell to cause heart attacks, kidney damage, blindness and other nerve damage. Your fasting morning blood sugar level doesn't tell you if you are getting cell damage, but the Hemoglobin A1C test actually measures how much sugar sticks to cells. Once you start treatment, your doctor should check you once a month to measure your HBA1C. If it is high, you should change your diet and or your...

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Heart Attack Risk in Women Tripled by Trans Fats

A study from Harvard Medical School on almost 33,000 women in the Nurses' Health Study shows that eating a diet high in partially hydrogenated fats triples a woman's chances of suffering heart disease (Circulation, April 10, 2007). Researchers can tell how much partially hydrogenated fat a person eats by measuring its content in red blood cells. In this study, the women with high levels of partially hydrogenated fats in their red blood cells were far more likely to have high blood levels of the bad LDL cholesterol and low blood levels of the good HDL cholesterol.Many manufacturers are eliminating trans fats from their products, but they are still found in many processed foods such as cookies, doughnuts, cakes, chips and fried foods. New York...

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Stretching does not prevent muscle soreness

An article in the British Medical Journal shows that stretching before and after exercising does not prevent next-day muscle soreness or injuries. Researchers in Australia reviewed five studies, involving 77 subjects, on the effect of stretching on muscle soreness. Data from two studies on army recruits in training show that muscle stretching prevents one injury every 23 years. Yet most coaches think that stretching prevents injuries because most coaching instructions are developed by observation, not controlled studies. Muscles and tendons tear because the force on them is greater than their inherent strength, so the prevention of injuries should be aimed at strengthening muscles, rather than stretching them. Stretching can make you a better...

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Cure Stage Fright with a Common Blood Pressure Pill

Many people sweat profusely because they are nervous about appearing before an audience. An Inderal pill taken one half hour before public speaking or any other high-pressure event can prevent the sweating, shaking and other effects of stage fright. Inderal is a beta blocker commonly used to control blood pressure; it is a safe and very effective way to get rid of even the worst stage fright. Check with your doctor.Excessive sweating can be a sign of infection, stress or a decline in sex hormones, or it can be normal for you. When your body temperature rises, hot blood flows to your brain, which sends signals to increase the flow of blood to your skin and start you sweating. Your body temperature rises naturally when you exercise or have an...

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Systolic Blood Pressure More Important than Diastolic

You have two blood pressures: the systolic that measures blood pressure when your heart contracts, and the much lower diastolic reading that measures the pressure when your heart relaxes. When your heart contracts, it pushes a huge amount of blood forward to your arteries. Your arteries are supposed to act like balloons and expand to accept the blood and prevent your blood pressure from rising too high. Having plaques in your arteries stiffens them and prevents them from expanding when your heart contracts, causing your blood pressure to rise higher than normal. The stiffer your arteries, the higher your blood pressure rises. Intense pressure on artery walls can cause damage that provides places for even more plaque to accumulate. It's a vicious...

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Diabetes Prevention and Treatment: Eat Whole Grains

An article from the Framingham Study published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that eating whole grains in place of bakery products and pasta lowers high cholesterol, lowers high blood pressure, and reduces body weight. Most important, this study shows that eating whole grains in place of bakery products and pasta lower blood insulin levels. High insulin levels constrict arteries to cause heart attacks. High insulin levels stimulate the hypothalamus in the brain to make you hungry. High levels of insulin stimulate your liver to manufacture fat and high levels of insulin make you fat. Anything that lowers insulin levels helps you lose weight, lower high blood pressure, lower cholesterol, and prevent heart attacks, strokes, and...

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Endurance: What Athletes Can Learn from Sled Dogs

How can sled dogs run more than 100 miles a day for weeks on end, while humans couldn’t possibly recover from such abuse of their muscles? A study from Ohio State University shows why. How long you can exercise a muscle depends on how long you can keep stored sugar, called glycogen, inside that muscle. Muscles burn carbohydrates, fats and protein for energy during exercise. They get these sources from both the bloodstream and from the muscles themselves. However, when a muscle runs out of its stored sugar, it hurts, becomes more difficult to coordinate and requires far more oxygen than usual. So a limiting factor in how long you can exercise a muscle is how much sugar you can store in a muscle, how quickly you use it up, and how quickly you...

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Leaky Heart Valves are Common, Usually Harmless

One in ten Americans suffers from mitral valve prolapse and the vast majority have no symptoms and will never know that they have it. Valves are located in your heart to keep blood from backing up.With aging, some of these valves can stretch and to close completely, so they allow a small amount of blood to leak backwards. This is usually harmless, but can be associated with an irregular heart beat or chest pain caused by a stretching of the muscles that hold the valves in place. Patients with mitral valve prolapse usually do not seek out medical help unless a doctor hears a murmur or click in the heart (85 percent), the patient suffers from chest pain (31 percent) or palpitations (40 percent), suddenly passes out (40 percent), feels excessively...

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Arthritis: Reduce Pain, Stabilize Joints with Exercise

There is a direct relationship between the amount of physical activity and arthritis symptoms, according to a study published in Arthritis Research & Therapy (March 2007). In this study, 4,780 middle-aged women (48-55) and 3970 older women (72-79) were followed for three years. Those who were most active had the lowest incidence of joint pains. This does not mean that exercise prevents arthritis, but it does show a relationship between an active healthy lifestyle and absence of joint pain. Regular exercise strengthens muscles to stabilize and protect joints.If you suffer from arthritis, check with your doctor. If he agrees, you should be in a regular exercise program. Activities that use smooth motions protect joints, while sports that...

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Food During Exercise? Guidelines for Avoiding Fatigue

Fatigue during a workout or sporting event is usually caused by lack of water, salt or sugar. Most athletes in sports that last more than a couple of hours know that they should drink and take in some salt, but they also need a source of sugar.When you exercise, you get your energy from sugar and fat stored in your muscles and sugar and fat in your bloodstream, and, to a lesser extent, from protein. At first you get more than 80 percent of your energy from fat and sugar stored in muscles. Usually at the start of exercise, almost 45 percent of the energy comes from stored muscle sugar. As you continue to exercise, you use up fat and sugar stored in muscles and get far less from these stores. After two hours of exercise, you have used up most...

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Antioxidant Supplements Harmful? How to Interpret the News

In 1956, Denham Harman at the University of Nebraska proposed that antioxidants would prolong life. He explained that the human body converts food to energy by stripping off electrons and protons from food in a series of chemical reactions that leaves extra electrons to attach to oxygen. Most of the charged oxygen combines with hydrogen to form water, but some sticks to the DNA in cells to damage them and shorten life. He proposed that antioxidants would prevent this and thus prolong life. A recent review of the world's scientific literature shows that he may be wrong. Researchers from Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark analyzed 68 studies involving 230,000 participants taking antioxidant supplements and found that beta carotene and...

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Most People Cannot Raise Their Metabolism with Exercise

Many people believe that exercise controls weight by increasing your metabolism so you burn extra calories all day long. A review of the world's literature from the University of South Australia in Adelaide shows that you have to be in very good shape to exercise vigorously enough to increase your metabolism. This means that most exercisers are not able to exercise hard enough to burn extra calories for a significant time after they finish exercising, so increased post-exercise metabolism does not cause most exercisers to lose weight.Researchers monitor changes in metabolism by measuring how much oxygen your body uses over a period of time. The maximum amount of oxygen that you can use during exercise in a given time is called VO2max. To increase...

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Diabetes can be caused by excess fat in muscles

A fascinating review from Tufts University in Boston shows how excess fat stored in muscles causes diabetes (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, March 2007). Before insulin can do its job of driving sugar into cells, it must first attach on special hooks on the surface of cell membranes called insulin receptors. When excess fat is stored in muscles, the insulin receptors internalize so that insulin cannot attach on the hooks. This markedly increases the amount of insulin that is necessary to drive sugar into cells, and eventually huge amounts of sugar accumulate in the bloodstream to cause diabetes and damage every cell in the body.Excess deposition of fat into muscles is caused by eating to many calories, not getting enough exercise and...

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Shingles: Treat Immediately to Avoid Lifelong Pain

If you suddenly develop severe pain in a limited area on one side of your body, you may have shingles and need treatment immediately to prevent that pain from lasting for the rest of your life. It's called postherpetic neuralgia. If you have severe pain that is not caused by an injury and your doctor cannot find a cause, you should get a blood test for herpes zoster and start taking Famvir or Valtrex immediately to prevent the pain from becoming permanent. The first time you get chicken pox, blisters form over most of your body. After a week, your immunity drives the chicken pox virus from your bloodstream, but it remains in your nerve roots for the rest of your life. One of every in six people who get chicken pox will have the virus escape...

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Maximum Heart Rate Formula May Not Apply to You

Many of the standard tests used to measure heart function and fitness are based on a MAXIMUM HEART RATE formula, that predicts the fastest your heart can beat and still pump blood through your body. Although this formula is the golden standard used today, it is not based on science. In 1970, a good friend, Sam Fox, was the director of the United States Public Health Service Program to Prevent heart disease. He is one of the most respected heart specialists in the world. He and a young researcher named William Haskell were flying to a meeting. They put together several studies comparing maximum heart rate and age. Sam Fox took out a pencil and plotted a graph of age verses maximum heart rate and said it looks like maximum heart rate is equal...

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Avoiding Cholesterol in Foods Won't Lower Your Cholesterol

Avoiding foods that contain cholesterol will not return a high cholesterol to normal. Your blood cholesterol level is influenced far more by how many calories and how much saturated and partially hydrogenated fat you eat, than by how much cholesterol is in your food. Cholesterol is found only in foods from animals, such as meat, fish, chicken, dairy products and eggs. It is not found in plants. More than 80 percent of the cholesterol in your body is made by your liver. Less than 20 percent comes from the food that you eat. When you eat more cholesterol, your liver makes less.Your liver makes cholesterol from saturated fats, which are found in most foods but are concentrated in meat, poultry and whole-milk dairy products. The saturated fat is...

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Chronic Stuffy Nose: Fungus May Be the Culprit

Chronic sinus infections associated with nasal polyps are incurable because doctors didn't have the foggiest idea what causes them. Nasal polyps are small finger-like, fluid-filled blisters, often associated with asthma and serious reactions to aspirin. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic found fungi in 96 percent of people with chronic sinusitis.Allergy shots and antihistamines have never been shown to control the combination of chronic stuffy noses, nasal polyps, and sinus infections that do not vary throughout the season. Doctors treat this condition with cortisones that suppress the nasal discharge, headaches, and stuffy nose a little bit, but never cure the patient and may even set the patient up for a worsening of symptoms as the years pass.The...

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Heart Attack Risk: What The Tests Tell You

If you want to learn your chances of suffering a heart attack, ask your doctor to draw blood for C-Reactive Protein (CRP), the good HDL and the bad LDL cholesterol, small low-density lipoprotein, Lp(a), homocysteine. He will also check your blood pressure. We used to think that heart attacks were caused primarily by plaques accumulating in arteries because of high cholesterol levels. Now we know that the inner lining of an artery must first be roughed up before plaques form, and infections are the most common cause of damaged inner linings of arteries. C-Reactive Protein is a blood test that measures inflammation or the swelling that occurs in arteries before plaques form. So C-reactive protein is one of the best indicators that a person is...

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Fat Belly, Large Bones, Irregular Periods: Check for PCOS

One of 20 North American women suffers from polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) that often causes obesity, large bones and muscles, hair to grow on faces and bodies, male-pattern baldness, acne, irregular periods. It is a common cause of infertility and it increases their chances of developing diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and uterine cancer. A study from Italy shows that polycystic ovary syndrome can be cured with the diabetic medication, metformin (Glucophage), and a low-refined-carbohydrate diet. We have known about this condition for more than 200 years, but only in the last few years have we have found a cause and cure. Exciting research shows that drugs and diets to treat diabetes and drugs to block male hormones can protect these women...

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Protect Knees: Weak Quad Muscles Risk Cartilage Damage

Doctors have known for many years that having weak quad muscles (in the front of your upper legs) increases risk for damage to the cartilage in your knees. A study from Purdue University shows that strengthening these muscles slows down knee cartilage damage and may even improve knee function (Arthritis & Rheumatism, October 2006). The researchers placed 221 adults in their sixties and seventies either on a program of strengthening their muscles in their upper legs or just moving their knees in a series of range-of-motion exercises. The subjects exercised three times per week (twice at a fitness facility and once at home) for 12 weeks. This program was followed by a transition to home-based exercise for 12 months. Older people weaken...

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Pre-Diabetes: Belly Fat Dangerous Even If You Are Thin

In Victorian times a large belly was a sign of prosperity and manliness, but now we know that having a lot of fat in your belly increases your risk for diabetes and heart attacks. People who store fat primarily underneath the skin in their bellies also store a lot of fat around their intestines and in their liver, It is dangerous to your heart to store a lot of fat in your liver.When you eat, your blood sugar level rises. The higher it rises, the more insulin your pancreas releases to keep your blood sugar level from rising even higher. As soon as insulin does its job of lowering high blood sugar levels, it is grabbed by your liver and removed from the bloodstream. However, fat in the liver prevents liver cells from removing insulin from the...

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Fructose is Not Better than Ordinary Sugar

Fructose is processed differently in the body than the far more common sugar, glucose. Glucose causes the pancreas to release insulin which drives sugar from the bloodstream into cells. Glucose causes fat cells to release leptin that makes you feel full so you eat less; it also prevents the stomach from releasing ghrelin that makes you hungry. On the other hand, fructose does not cause fat cells to release leptin and does not suppress ghrelin. This means that fructose increases hunger to make you eat more. Furthermore, the liver converts fructose far more readily to a fat called triglyceride, than it does with glucose. High triglyceride levels raise blood levels of the bad LDL cholesterol and lower blood levels of the good HDL cholesterol,...

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Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs Can Cause Muscle Pain

Some patients with high cholesterol levels are afraid to take statins because off fear of developing side effects such as muscle pain. A study from Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego reviews the latest data on side effects of statins. This review found that statin- induced muscle damage is more common in Asians, people who exercise, have had recent surgery, have kidney, liver or thyroid disease, or have high triglycerides. The incidence of muscle pain and damage from statins is extremely low in non-exercisers, three to ten percent in those who exercise, and very high in competitive athletes. Most athletes refuse to take statin drugs because they train by taking a hard workout that damages their muscles. Then they must take easy workouts until...

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