Natural Health Care

A Canadian-led study on the usefulness of arthroscopic surgery for the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knees revealed that many people benefit as much from physical therapy and mild pain relievers as they do from arthroscopic surgery.

The study, whose results were published in the September 11, 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, was conducted over a period of two years, involving 178 men with osteoarthritis. The average age of those in the study was 60.

The next time that you experience a cold or the flu, remember this: giving your body plenty of rest while allowing the cold or flu to run its course is good for your health.

Conventional medicine and the pharmaceutical industry would have you believe that there is no "cure" for the common cold, that you should protect yourself against the flu with a vaccine that is laden with toxic chemicals, and that during the midst of a cold or flu, it is favorable to ease your discomfort with a variety of medications that can suppress your symptoms.

Unfortunately, all three of these positions represent a lack of understanding of what colds and flus really are, and what they mean to your body.

Colds and flus are caused by viruses. So to understand what colds and flus do at a cellular level, you have to understand what viruses do at a cellular level.

What do toe pain, mid-foot pain, heel pain, ankle pain, knee pain, hip pain, lower back pain, mid-back pain, upper back pain, and headaches all have in common?

You guessed it - they can all be caused by wearing high heels on a regular basis.

Female night shift workers have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than the rest of the female population. An interesting study in the December 1, 2005 issue of Cancer Research provides new information that might partly explain why this is.

Researchers found that sleeping for several hours in nighttime darkness promotes a healthy blood level of a hormone called melatonin, which can significantly suppress the growth and proliferation of breast tumours.

Is it true that each food that you eat can cause your blood to become more alkaline or acidic?

The answer is: not really. The pH of your blood is tightly regulated by a complex system of buffers that are continuously at work to maintain a range of 7.35 to 7.45, which is slightly more alkaline than pure water.

Although it's been close to 15 years since I dissected my first cadaver in anatomy class, I still remember being surprised when I got my first glance at a pair of kidneys - they were much smaller than I had expected. Up until that point, I had imagined the kidneys to be quite large, given the amount of work that they are responsible for.

Each of your kidneys is about 4 to 5 inches long and about 1 inch thick, weighing in at about 4.5 to 5 ounces. To put it into easy-to-visualize terms, each of your kidneys is a bit larger than a deck of cards.

I recently worked with a client whose chief complaint was muscle weakness. More specifically, he was concerned with his increasing tendency to drop light objects at work and home. He wasn't a clumsy person by nature, so he found it puzzling that he frequently experienced momentary flashes of grip weakness.

A thorough neurological evaluation was mostly unremarkable. The only noteworthy findings were as follows:

For many years now, I have explained to questioning family members and friends why I cannot support conventional cancer-fighting fundraising campaigns.

I am not completely against conventional medical treatment options for different types of cancer. For example, for a good number of people that I have worked with over the past several years, I have fully supported and encouraged surgical excision of malignant tumours. My wariness of the mainstream cancer-fighting industry pertains to what I believe is excessive and often times inappropriate use of chemotherapy and radiation, as well as the lack of attention that is given to relevant environmental and personal lifestyle factors.

As the adage goes, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Translated into reality, however, a lifestyle of all work and no play has more serious consequences than simply making Jack dull. Maintaining a workaholic lifestyle will, over time, inevitably lead to a decline in the quality of one's relationships and health.

Last week's article on How to Protect Your Health In The Computer Era described the essentials of taking care of your physical health with specific exercises and by being mindful of your how you use your body throughout the day.

This article takes a close look at how you can best support all of the regions of your body with your diet as you go about your activities of daily living in the computer era.