Anxiety
Anxiety can be a normal state of mind that allows you to react appropriately to uncomfortable or dangerous situations. However, several million Americans find themselves burdened by excessive apprehension, fear, and stress. When this...
Category: Diseases and Conditions
Prebiotics
These have been defined as “non-digestible food ingredients that beneficially affect the host by selectively stimulating the growth and/or activity of one or a limited number of bacteria in the colon that can improve...
Sleep Disorders: How and Why to Find Help
“Mom, I’m tired. I think I have African Sleeping Sickness.” Last summer this became my 15-year-old’s mantra. We all laughed. She stayed up late, slept late, napped during the day — what did she...
Leg Cramps
A leg cramp is a painful, involuntary contraction of a single muscle or group of muscles in the leg. Most commonly, leg cramps occur in the calf muscles, but the thing muscles can also...
Leaky Gut Syndrome
A common but poorly recognized problem, leaky gut syndrome occurs when paces develop between the cells of the gut (the intestines), allowing bacteria, toxins, medications, and partially digested particles of food to leak into...
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, is a “functional” disorder of the lower intestinal tract. This means that although no structural abnormalities can be found, the body’s function in terms of the movement of the...
Essential moves to relieve lower back pain
Most of us will have low back pain at some point. Yet low back pain is one of the least understood conditions. It’s so misunderstood that surgeons, chiropractors, pain doctors and osteopaths often disagree...
The GI Tract: Understanding The Basic Plumbing
The gastrointestinal tract (GI) is responsible for processing food for absorption and expelling excess waste. Digestion first starts in the mouth where food is mechanically broken down and mixed with saliva, which begins the...
The Large Intestine (aka the Colon)
The large intestine is the last organ through which food passes, and its job is to absorb water and nutrients that were not absorbed in the small intestine and to form feces from the...
Why is the Gut so Important?
The gastrointestinal tract is technically outside the body. Similar to the way the skin protects the body from the external environment, so too does the lining of the intestinal tract, providing a barrier to...
CHRONIC HEALTH CONDITIONS Leaky Gut
Leaky gut is the root cause of many chronic health conditions—including food allergies and autoimmune disease—as it allows unwanted organisms and larger antigenic moieties into the bloodstream. This causes the immune system to “react”...
Chew Your Food
The purpose of chewing is to masticate (liquefy) food, the first step in breaking foodstuffs down to the molecular level. Most people put food in their mouths, chew a few times and swallow. But...
Do you have insomnia?
Insomnia is when you go to bed at a reasonable hour but just can’t nod off because your mind is racing. If you do fall asleep, you wake up after a while and spend...
Relief for Chronic Back Pain
Chronic back pain brings more people to the doctor’s office than anything else except the common cold. Several kinds of treatments are available: traction, massage and even acupuncture. Now there’s a new procedure that...
Potential Relief for Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Researchers from California, Japan and Israel may have discovered a potential form of relief for patients with inflammatory bowel disease. More than 1 million Americans are estimated to have ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease...
Breath Test for Digestive Problems
Researchers from the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City are urging physicians to add fructose breath testing to their diagnostic strategy for patients with unexplained abdominal pain, gas, diarrhea, and intestinal rumbling...
Common Drugs Linked to Stroke
Patients taking drugs such as antidepressants or migraine pills to enhance serotonin production may be at increased risk for stroke, say researchers. In the issue of Neurology, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital report on...
Migraines and Stroke Risk in Men
A new study shows chronic headache is a predictor of stroke in men. Interestingly, the study did not find a connection between headaches and stroke risk in women. There have been many studies linking...
Headache Management
This is a class of chronic headache sufferers. They are learning how to prevent migraines. Sherry Gaunt, migraine sufferer: “They are so bad that you hurt and you say ‘Make it stop.’” Sherry hopes...
Sleep Apnea in Women
An estimated 12 million people in the United States suffer from sleep apnea. Furthermore, it’s estimated that 80 percent of the cases go undiagnosed, especially among women. The condition affects many more people than...
Common sleep disorders
What are the most common sleep disorders and does it differ with age groups? It’s different with age groups with the disorder somewhat in the mind of the beholder. For example, a teenager’s mother...
Option to open clogged arteries safely
A study found a less-invasive stenting procedure is as effective as carotid endarterectomy surgery. Stents are mesh tubes that are used to keep clogged arteries open. Newer stents are coated with materials that prevent...
Stroke Risk Causing Factors
A blood test could reveal which stroke patients are at risk for bleeding in the brain. The new research reveals a cell-regulating protein is higher in patients at a greater risk for this bleeding....
Research on A Risk Factor for Stroke
British researchers attempted to shed some light on an amino acid in the blood long suspected as a risk factor for stroke. The study results suggest people who carry a gene that produces a...
Long-term Relief for Back Pain
Researchers say heat may provide long-term relief for one of the nation’s biggest complaints, lower back pain. The application of heat to a sore back has been known to provide temporary relief, but now...
Chronic Pain And The Mind/Body Connection
Pain, depression, anxiety, and insomnia are intimately connected. Patients have found that making behavioral changes to support a healthier lifestyle can dramatically reduce their pain and improve their mood. Changes in diet that result...
Treatment of Chronic Pain
PAIN RELIEF WITH ANESTHESIA NERVE BLOCKS can relieve pain by stopping the impulses that travel along nerves in the body. The physician injects a local anesthetic along the course of the nerve or nerves...
Drug Treatment For Chronic Pain
Medication is the most common choice of treatment for chronic pain in the United States. Drugs treat the symptoms rather than the cause of pain, and therefore offer a short-term solution. Side effects, drug...
What is Chronic Pain and how to treat chronic pain?
More than 75 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. Although pain acts as a warning sign of disease or injury, chronic pain is not protective and can be debilitating. In the United States alone,...
Easing Back Pain
Botox, a drug based on the bacteria that causes food poisoning, may be useful in easing low back pain, say researchers. Researchers from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., studied 31...