Archive for August, 2009
Multiple Sclerosis
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
DESCRIPTION
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a syndrome of chronic nerve disturbances due to a process called demyelination, a gradual loss of the myelin sheath surrounding each nerve cell. The myelin sheath plays an essential role in transmission of the nerve impulse. Without the myelin sheath, nerve transmission cannot occur, so nerve function is lost. Symptoms correspond to this loss of function in the affected nerves.
Incidence of MS follows a geographic distribution with areas of highest frequency all located in the higher latitudes, in both the northern and southern hemispheres (50–100 cases per 100,000 in higher latitudes versus 5–10 cases per 100,000 in the tropics). High-risk areas include the northern US, Canada, Great Britain, Scandinavia, northern Europe, New Zealand, and Tasmania. (more…)
Vaginitis and Vulvovaginitis
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
DESCRIPTION
Vaginitis is an infection of the vaginal tract that causes inflammation of the vaginal lining. In ulvovaginitis, the inflammation extends to the vulva, the external genital area, which includes the pubic mound, labia, clitoris, and opening of the urethra, as well as the vaginal tract. Although vaginitis can be caused by a sexually transmitted infectious micro-organism, it is more typically due to a disturbance in the delicate ecology of the vagina that allows organisms normally found in a healthy vagina to overgrow and produce an infection. Symptoms vary somewhat depending upon the causative infectious agent, but all involve increased volume of vaginal secretions; abnormal colour, consistency, or odour of vaginal secretions; vaginal and vulval itching, burning or irritation; and painful urination or pain with intercourse. (more…)
Tumours
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
DESCRIPTION
Modern medicine has only its single-minded one-size-fits-all treatment for all types of tumours – with very little evidence of success. However, alternative medicine provides a number of other possibilities if you wish to avoid the slash-poison-or-burn approach.
Homoeopathy has been in the vanguard of natural treatments for tumours, although much of the research has been performed with animals. Although the specific remedies may or may not necessarily apply to humans, the evidence that homoeopathy itself is an effective treatment is highly compelling. (more…)
Parkinson’s Disease
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
DESCRIPTION
Parkinson was an English physician in the 18th century. He described a clinical state that has taken on his name. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a degenerative disease affecting the nervous system. The underlying cause is unknown, but symptoms appear when there is a lack of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that carries messages from one nerve cell to another. In healthy persons, it exists in balance with another neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. In people with what is called primary Parkinson’s disease, the substantia nigra – the area of the brain containing cells that manufacture dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin – are damaged or dying, and the brain loses the ability to manufacture these chemicals. (more…)
Pesticides
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
Be weary of what you eat !
In the US each year over 1.2 billion pounds of pesticides and herbicides are sprayed or added to food crops. That is roughly 10 pounds of pesticides for each man, woman, and child. Although the pesticides are designed to act against insects and other organisms, experts estimate that only 2% of the pesticide actually serves its purpose, while over 98% of the pesticide is absorbed into the air, water, soil, or food supply. Most pesticides in use are synthetic chemicals of questionable safety. The majority long-term health risks include increased risk of cancer, birth defects and many chronic diseases, while the majority health risks of acute intoxication include vomiting, diarrhoea, blurred vision, tremors, convulsions, and nerve damage.
Peptic Ulcer
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
DESCRIPTION
Peptic ulcers (an ulcer is an erosion in the mucous membranes that produces a crater-like lesion) can occur anywhere in the digestive tract, but are most common in the lower half of the stomach (gastric ulcer) or in the upper part of the duodenum, the first 30 cm (12”) of the small intestine directly below the stomach (duodenal ulcer). Duodenal ulcers are four to five times more common than gastric ulcers, and are four times more common in men than in women. While duodenal ulcers are almost always benign, gastric ulcers may become malignant. Ulcers can affect all ages, and about 1 in 10 Americans develops a peptic ulcer at some period in his or her lifetime. (more…)
Mouth Ulcers
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
DESCRIPTION
Recurrent oral canker sores (aphthous stomatitis) are a common condition affecting about 20% of the US population. Outbreaks vary from a single lesion, two or three times a year, to an uninterrupted succession of multiple lesions. While neither cancerous nor herpes infections (with which they are often confused), these small, shallow mouth ulcers are painful and quite bothersome. They appear either singly or in clusters on the lips, gums, inner cheeks, tongue, palate and/or throat. Ulcerations typically heal without scarring within 7–21 days.
Male Infertility
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
DESCRIPTION
In the US, approximately 15% of all couples have difficulty conceiving a child. In about one-third of these cases, the man is infertile; in another one-third, both the man and woman are infertile; and in the remaining one-third, the woman is infertile. Current estimates suggest that 6% of men between the ages of 15 and 50 are infertile.
Male infertility is considered likely if, in the absence of female causes, a child is not conceived after 6 months of unprotected sex. In 90% of cases, male infertility is due to low sperm count. In an average ejaculate, a man will eject nearly two hundred million sperm, but because of the natural barriers in the female reproductive (more…)
Migraine
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
DESCRIPTION
Migraine is a neurological and often hereditary disease in which the most prominent symptom is an intense, pounding headache. The headache, itself called a migraine, is usually felt on one side of the head and is accompanied by other symptoms including nausea, vomiting, and visual disturbances. During a migraine attack, blood vessels in the head become hyperreactive and enter into a repetitive cycle of extreme constriction followed by rapid dilation. While a full understanding of the process that produces a migraine headache has not yet been reached, most scientists believe in the following basic scenario: a variety of triggers, which differ from individual to individual, imbalance brain chemistry causing nerve pathway changes, specifically in a major nerve pathway in the brain called the trigeminal system. (more…)
Intestinal Dysbiosis
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
DESCRIPTION
Intestinal dysbiosis, the growth of unfriendly organisms or overgrowth of normally harmless organisms in the gastrointestinal tract, is a widespread but frequently unrecognized cause of chronic disorders throughout the body. Normally, more than 500 different species of friendly or neutral microflora live in the digestive tract; in fact, there are nine times as many bacteria in the digestive tract as there are cells in the human body! We couldn’t live without the help of our friendly microflora, which are called probiotics (pro-life). Probiotics perform numerous functions essential for our health including metabolizing nutrients, vitamins, drugs, hormones, and carcinogens; synthesizing food for intestinal cells; preventing unfriendly organisms from attaching to and colonizing the mucosal lining of the digestive tract; and stimulating normal immune responses.