Archive for September, 2009

Fibromyalgia – How Does Diet Contribute?

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Fibromyalgia, a disease whose symptoms include chronic fatigue (regardless of the amount of sleep attained), muscle and joint pain, has no known cause. It affects up to 5% of the population, mostly women.

With so many people afflicted with this disorder, I am amazed at the number of my clients who have told me that they had to see several doctors before one would actually acknowledge that fibromyalgia is even a health condition.

Not only did they often times not have the support of friends and family, they were then subjected to “experts” who, at best, summed the condition up to depression. They were then prescribed various antidepressants, all with serious side effects.

There’s nothing worse than knowing something is wrong with you and being told that it’s “all in your head.”

The correspondence I have received has been heart breaking, with the exception of the gratitude expressed by my clients over the fact that my Fibromyalgia program has helped them significantly.

Many have asked if there is something in their diet or environment that could be causing this condition. Emerging evidence indicates that diet can, in fact play a very large role.

While diet is not thought to cause or even trigger fibromyalgia like say, migraine headaches, the growing belief is that fibromyalgia symptoms are exacerbated by other conditions which can be caused or triggered by certain foods. Once these conditions subside, the result is that fibromyalgia symptoms dissipate.

The thing to keep in mind is that fibromyalgia loves diversity. Just as not everyone is affected to the same extremes, there is no all-inclusive list of foods to avoid. The key is to take note of certain known foods that affect many with fibromyalgia and test to see if your condition is eased over time as you test removing these foods from your diet.

Some foods experts now say to avoid are Aspartame and MSG. They are known to excite certain pain receptors which for fibromyalgia sufferers are already heightened.

Removing caffeine from one’s diet has also proven to be effective. While many are tempted to drink caffeine drinks for the “pep,” it can actually make fatigue worse.

Dairy foods also make the list, although this is controversial. Some believe strengthened bones can actually ease joint pain.

Also included are yeast, mold, gluten and vinegar. This is thought to be because TMJ (temporomandibular joint disorder), IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and migraines, all known to affect fibromyalgia symptoms, are triggered by these foods.

A macrobiotic diet (whole foods) has shown promise for some fibromyalgia patients, as well as Omega 3 fatty acids (found in fish, flax see, certain nuts and also added to certain foods such as cereal).

I also encourage you to try my Fibromyalgia program. Its results have been amazing!

EL331002

Posted in Fibromyalgia | No Comments »

Erectile Dysfunction – Your Sleep Apnea and/or Snoring Could be the Culprit

Friday, September 25th, 2009

I recently read a snippet which stated that over one third of men who snore experience no sex life.

One might assume that with a person who snores, this simply means that their sleeping partner is in another room, leaving little to no chance for a sexual relationship.

This, however, is not the only or even the biggest reason. Would it surprise anyone to learn that between sixty and eighty percent of those who suffer from sleep apnea experience erectile dysfunction (ED) – the inability to achieve or maintain an erection.

The percentage increases, the worse one’s sleep apnea is. Why is this? A couple of theories abound.

The soundest theory is that when one suffers from sleep apnea, an obstruction that occurs when soft tissue in the back of the throat collapses and in turn blocks the airway during sleep, vital oxygen necessary to health is not properly delivered by the blood.

This in turn can lead to all sorts of health problems including stroke, kidney disease and hypertension (which can eventually lead to heart disease).

For the purposes of ED causes, hypertension would be the culprit. In fact, the most common cause of ED is hypertension (high blood pressure).

Another theory is that if one suffers from even mild sleep apnea, he stops breathing several times per night which, in turn, interrupts REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. It is thought that REM state erections are actually necessary to produce healthy conscious erections.

Snoring can also be an issue. While one doesn’t necessarily stop breathing when one snores (if you can be heard in the next room, you likely have sleep apnea), breathing is still restricted and this in turn leads to less oxygen delivery to the body.

Risk factors for suffering ED due to sleep apnea include: being overweight, over age forty and alcohol or other drug abuse which can depress respiration.

Regardless of your reason for ED, I highly recommend my Erectile Dysfunction program. It’s all natural and most importantly, it works! If you know snoring or mild sleep apnea are a problem for you, I also encourage you to try my Stop Snoring program.

EL331002

Posted in Erectile Dysfunction, Snoring / Sleep Apnea | No Comments »

Irritable Bowel Syndrome – A Stressful Subject

Monday, September 21st, 2009

I rely heavily on client feedback to know how well my programs help. I’ve also been fortunate enough to have many of you email me and tell me that other health conditions have improved as a result of using my program for a completely different health concern.

The most common feedback supporting this relates to my High Blood Pressure program. So many of you have written to me telling me that you used my program to treat your high blood pressure, which it did, but surprise – your Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) symptoms subsided as well!

How could this be? Let’s start with the cause. Well, there’s our catch. IBS is defined as a chronic gastrointestinal disorder with no known cause (such as cancer, etc.). Its symptoms include: abdominal pain/cramping, diarrhea, bloating, gassiness and sometimes constipation.

While it is not considered a life-threatening condition, there’s a reason it achieved the nickname, Spastic Colon. Twenty percent of the population suffers from this condition. Women tend to report symptoms more than men with symptoms being worse during menstrual cycles.

For most, it is an annoyance but for some, it can be debilitating, affecting one’s ability to maintain relationships or even a job.

While no known cause is attributed to IBS, your doctor can diagnose it with a detailed health history and by ruling out other infections or diseases.

Triggers for IBS include eating large meals, overly spicy meals, caffeine, and alcohol. The most commonly reported trigger, however, is stress.

This is where the link to my High Blood Pressure program comes in. Just like our heart and lungs, the colon is partly controlled by our autonomic nervous system. The colon has many nerves that connect up through the brain.

These nerves are responsible for normal contractions of the colon but when we are emotionally charged, overwhelmed or angry, these nerves become extra sensitive and normal contractions are exaggerated.

While there are medications available to treat IBS, I want to stress that these medications have very serious side effects including extreme constipation and blood flow restriction to the colon. The colon is an organ like any other and it cannot function without blood which delivers vital oxygen.

Other treatments for IBS include maintaining a healthy diet, getting enough sleep and consistent exercise and most importantly, reducing your stress level.

If stress seems to be the trigger of your IBS, I highly recommend my High Blood Pressure program. The natural breathing and relaxation exercises are designed to of course stabilize blood pressure but it they also help both the mind and body relax and enable you to get back to stress-free living!

EL331002

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Food Toxins and Weight Gain

Friday, September 18th, 2009

“I eat like a bird, yet I continue to gain weight!” That’s a comment a friend of mine would always make. I can attest to the fact that she tended to eat very little when we would go out for a meal but I’ll admit that I assumed she went home and ate the entire contents of her refrigerator later.

Of course later when she was diagnosed with a pituitary disorder, I no longer assumed she wasn’t being honest.

When my friend asked her doctor what could have caused this, she was told that in cases like hers, it is thought that a build up of toxins did the damage over time and this in turn, led to her weight gain.

Of course, one does not have to be afflicted with a pituitary disorder to suffer weight gain due to food toxins. Does it seem like a paradox to you that we are living in an age of “low fat,” “no fat,” and “low carb” yet over a third of our population is overweight?

It is a known fact that chickens are fed a chemical hormone in order to cause them to gain weight without eating nearly as much as they would naturally. What do we think happens to this chemical when the chicken is packaged and sold as meat?

Chemicals used as food preservatives while, intended to save the consumer money, also lead to a build up in the body.

The liver, which filters the toxins out of the body before they can do damage to other organs, becomes overloaded. Fat then accumulates in order to protect the body from damage by these toxins.

It’s not just toxin laden food that causes toxins to build up in our bodies. Pesticides, make up and other “beauty” products are also oftentimes riddled with toxins.

Add to that what we do to ourselves – smoking and drinking alcohol to excess promote even further toxic buildup in our bodies.

For my friend, just knowing that there was a reason for her weight gain helped her. She started looking for organic foods when she shopped.

While it’s true that her meats and vegetables didn’t stay fresh as long as the processed foods she was used to but it was a small sacrifice for a bigger reward.

She also tried my Weight Loss Breeze program and loved the results! She, like so many of my clients, found the all natural program to be easy to start and even easier to maintain. If weight loss is your goal, I encourage you to try it as well!

EL331002

Posted in Weight Loss | No Comments »

Dementia – Lack of Oxygen Can Take its Toll!

Monday, September 14th, 2009

I recently had a client tell me that her mother had been diagnosed with high blood pressure. She encouraged her to try my High Blood Pressure program. Other treatment methods were difficult as they involved daily medication or other complicated steps and her mother suffered from dementia.

While her blood pressure did go down, that wasn’t the major point of her communication to me. It turns out that her mother’s dementia symptoms greatly subsided once she started my program!

Dementia literally means, “deprived of mind.” It is a progressive decline in cognitive function which affects memory, attention, orientation, judgment language, motor and problem solving skills. Like vertigo is basically dizziness due to a myriad of causes, dementia is not a disease in and of itself but rather caused by damage or disease.

Once thought of as part of the aging process, dementia is now thought to be a deterioration due to damage (stroke or other vascular damage, head trauma, alcoholism – due to lack of thiamine and certain other vitamin deficiencies), or disease (Alzheimer’s – the most common type of dementia,

Syphilis, Lewy bodies, brain tumors, Pick’s disease, HIV and/or AIDs, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Huntington’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis).

Common symptoms include moodiness, memory loss, and communication difficulties (including the ability to read and write). Due to the progressive nature of most forms of dementia, the sufferer eventually finds it difficult to perform everyday tasks and can eventually become unable to care for his/herself.

While no longer considered a normal part of aging, studies do reflect that dementia affects 1% of the population over the age of 60, that number doubling every five years after. Interestingly enough, those who are bi or multi-lingual have tend to experience symptoms an average of 4 years later. “Use it or lose it,” definitely figures in.

Blood tests, CT, PET and MRI scans can rule out dementia due to certain diseases or injuries (stroke), however, for many, mental and cognitive tests are required.

A doctor must, however, take into account one’s socio-economic, cultural and educational background when administering the test. Just as many claim IQ tests are biased, it can sometimes be difficult to know what “normal” is for a patient.

Risk factors include smoking and drinking (alcohol), due to the fact that it puts one at an increased risk for vascular diseases, which in turn puts one at risk for dementia. Additionally, high cholesterol and diabetes can contribute.

Regardless of how the dementia occurs, whether it is through brain trauma such as stroke or Alzheimer’s disease, the reason for the dementia is LACK of OXYGEN to vital parts of the brain. Some types of dementia can be reversed while others can’t.

Do not, however, consider your or your loved one’s dementia a death sentence, even if your doctor claims otherwise. New research is emerging on the effects of oxygen on already damaged tissues in the brain. Worst case, you don’t want the dementia to progress. The key is delivering the oxygen to the necessary areas of the brain.

I highly recommend my programs due to the fact that they are completely natural, relaxation and breathing exercises specifically designed to get blood/oxygen to your major organs, including the brain. I highly recommend my Alzheimer’s program (coming soon!).

El331002

Posted in Alzheimer's | No Comments »

Oxygen – Its Importance for Good Health

Friday, September 11th, 2009

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” That’s a great quote when wanting to lend support to someone after a negative experience. It is however, especially in my line of work, mis-leading. I believe it would be more accurate to say, “That which does not kill us right away, can still kill us in little ways, every day.”

Yes for those how know my personality, that’s a bit dark. The point I’m stressing today is that just because one hasn’t suffered a major trauma such as head injury, near drowning, stroke or heart attack, it doesn’t mean one’s body is immune to oxygen deprivation.

It’s generally accepted for each minute the brain goes without oxygen, there is a 10% increase damage caused. After 3-5 minutes however, one’s chances of survival are greatly diminished.

It also depends on the type of injury. Someone who’s drowning is still getting some blood to the brain as compared to someone in a choke hold that is getting no blood and therefore, NO oxygen to the brain. In a situation like that, death could occur within seconds.

What isn’t generally accepted is that other factors occur, many of them environmental, which cause the body to deliver reduced and/or polluted oxygen to the brain and body. When this happens, the effect may not be immediate or even noticed at first, if at all.

An excellent example of this would be heart disease. Known as the “silent killer,” damage to the heart can occur for years before it is made known, via chest pains, heart attack, etc. Keep in mind that the organs work together and when one of the major organs fails to operate at a proper level, all of the organs can suffer.

If high blood pressure has caused the heart to enlarge, this has in turn, affected the muscle and it is more than likely that the heart isn’t pumping blood properly to the other organs, including the brain.

Another example could be sleep apnea. While moderate to severe apnea can definitely cause high blood pressure and other negative health issues, even mild sleep apnea or snoring can cause extreme tiredness and overeating – due to the fact that the body will try to get it’s “energy” from somewhere.

Over time, this weight increase on its own can lead to heart disease, diabetes, and other health issues, not to mention the psychological issues associated.

Pollution is another example but a little scarier to me because barring any congenital or genetic health disorders, this is the one arena I feel I have the least control. While we may disagree to what extent our earth is being polluted, I don’t think anyone will disagree that pollution is occurring.

To my point above, the sun doesn’t have to be blocked and the earth’s population dwelling underground such as in certain sci-fi movies for there to be a very real adverse affect to our health caused by pollution.

Studies now abound that more cancers, viral infections and other diseases are occurring and not just due to population increase. This pollution affects the oxygen molecules being delivered to our brain and other vital organs.

Before you decide that we are fated to ill health, I want you to consider my programs. They are all natural, safe and most importantly, these breathing and relaxation exercises work! I have had great success with the following programs which are aimed at delivering vital oxygen to the brain and body: High Blood Pressure, Alzheimers (coming soon!),Weight Loss Breeze, Migraine and Headache Relief, Vertigo and Dizziness and Stop Snoring.

EL331002

Posted in Genera Natural Health, High Blood Pressure, Migraine / Headaches, Sleep Disorders, Snoring / Sleep Apnea, Vertigo / Dizziness, Weight Loss | No Comments »

Toxic Headache vs. Migraine Headache – Which one do I have?

Monday, September 7th, 2009

I have written extensively about Migraine headaches and one topic that is hard to ignore is the effect of diet on food. I’ve also written about certain foods to avoid but recent research into food toxins and their affect on health in general really produced some interesting results.

While certain research will tell you that the foods to avoid (Aged cheese, citrus fruits, chocolate, nuts, cured meats, fatty foods, fried foods, ice cream, yogurt, sour cream, pork, seafood, seafood, alcohol -especially red wine, food additives such as MSG, asparatame, and caffeine) are to be avoided as triggers, still other research indicates that these items are toxic to the system for certain people.

This can be confusing since there is such thing as toxic headache. While considered a type of vascular headache (headaches which involve an abnormality of the arteries in the brain in which they constrict and dilate rapidly and pain is the result) like migraine headache, its cause can be conclusively traced to some type of food poisoning whether a bacterial infection or an environmental toxin (e.g., pesticide, breathing car fumes).

This type of headache is not by definition a migraine (it usually involves a fever), many of the symptoms are the same including nausea, vomiting and headache. With migraine, however, the headache is unilateral (one side) and throbbing.

Additional symptoms typically unique to food poisoning and not migraine include abdominal cramping, diarrhea and muscle pain. Symptoms can appear between a few hours of ingesting the toxin but may take up to three days.

It may seem like it would be easy to distinguish between food poisoning and migraine headache would be easy, this is not always the case. Yes, one could say that the odds are against eating the same food over and over and developing food poisoning; however, what if your food preparation habits need examining (e.g., consistently undercooking certain fish or poultry, or you work in an environment where you are consistently breathing in the same toxic fumes?

Additionally concerning is the fact that food poisoning causing toxins can be especially harmful to one’s health if that person already has a medical condition affecting one of the major organs, an already weakened immune system or if that person travels frequently to areas where contamination to food is more likely to occur.

In order to avoid certain food toxins (especially if you are susceptible to food poisoning) make sure you are thoroughly rinsing your fruits and vegetables (even bagged lettuce). This will help eliminate fertilizers or pesticides which likely haven’t been cleaned before packaging. Additionally, keep in mind that eating out, even in “nice” restaurants has its risks. Even though I love to go out to eat either with my wife or with friends, I know that I cannot completely trust the hygiene or health of the person preparing my food.

If, migraine or tension headache is the cause of your distress, I highly encourage you to try my Migraine and Headache program. The results are amazing and it will help no matter what’s the cause of your headache.

EL331002

Posted in Migraine / Headaches | No Comments »

Mind over Matter – Is This Why Buddha Wasn’t Sick?

Friday, September 4th, 2009

A couple of months ago, I had the honor of sitting in on a lecture by his holyness, the Dalai Lama. His amazing joyfulness made my mind wonder about the origin of his path.

Regardless of one’s particular religion (or lack, thereof), one cannot help but be impressed with the life of Buddha. An actual prince who, after seeing the sickness and dying of his people, couldn’t help but take notice and feel it his duty to try to help.

According to various historical documents, he decided that the only way to do this was to achieve enlightenment and pass on his enlightenment to others. He also determined that in order to do this, he would first have to give up all his worldly possessions and live “without.”

Perhaps it wasn’t that difficult to defy his parents, leave his palace and live in a state of fasting and doing without. I can’t say – I’ve never walked in his shoes; however, I can’t say this would be my first choice.

Come on, give up the good life? There’s a reason the lottery is so successful. We are (most of us) looking to better our lives and most think that involves money.

Not to mention the fact that early in 500 BC, health care was likely, at best, little more than guesswork.

So this man chose to deny himself the comforts of palace living. All research points to the fact that he wasn’t concerned about his own health rather that he wanted to ease the suffering of those around him.

Now, anyone who has rubbed the belly on a statue of Buddha knows that he did eventually reach enlightenment and through that enlightenment knows he did eventually pick up a fork (although given his home was in modern day Nepal, he likely picked up chopsticks) and eat something.

Although we of course can’t really say for sure if the Buddha belly was a factual picture or just represents a spiritual abundance, modern day nutritionists would likely look at his statue and recognize that he was just a tad on the overweight side and would not recommend this as a healthy weight. But they can’t deny the smile on his face.

Even when surrounded by the “common man,” no evidence supports his being a sickly sort. Of course, one might argue that this was the reward of enlightenment, but I think the power of positive thinking is the real source.

Buddha lived without anger, without hate, and didn’t seem the type to hold grudges. How many of us can say the same? It doesn’t have to be a big life tragedy to get one down. Sometimes it’s dwelling on the small stuff so much that we are consumed with negativity.

There are too many studies which have shown that a positive outlook can greatly improve or maintain one’s health. Likewise, negativity, depression and the like can just as easily destroy one’s health.

I agree but I also believe that one sometimes needs a starting point in order to focus. If weight loss and/or high blood pressure are your ailments, I recommend my Weight Loss Breeze program or my High Blood Pressure program. If it’s stress that’s led to headaches you should try my Migraine and Headache program. They are all natural and guaranteed to show amazing results!

EL331002

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Fibromyalgia, Genera Natural Health, High Blood Pressure, Migraine / Headaches | No Comments »

Natural Health Alternative Blog Weight Loss Program Erectile Dysfunction High Blood Pressure Weight Loss cure vertigo and dizziness /insomnia Neck Pain - Whiplash Lower Cholesterol Stop Snoring

All rights reserved The Rising Leo inc - DBA: Blue Heron Health News