That Health Rules

One of the most commonly used and prescribed medications over the counter are the pain relievers.  And one of the most marketed pain relievers is Advil. We take them when we have headache, toothache, joint pains or back aches.  People from all ages and all walks of life cant live without the pain relievers to help us alleviate the symptoms and make us be more active.  But recent controversies came up with the pulling out from the market of the most prescribed OTC med- a brand of Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Agent or NSAIDs jolted the medical community as well as the consumers.  We still continue to have safe OTC pain relievers but before buying or using one I thought of sharing with you some of the common considerations you have to do before using one: 

• Do not use them for more than 10 days.
• Know the side effects which include gastric ulcers and allergic reactions.  Recently cardiovascular complications were noted especially if taken daily for a long time.
• Most NSAIDs are present in other OTC products like colds and the flu medicines.
• Be careful if you have either a kidney or liver disease.   If you need to take one then use the alternatives to NSAIDs like Tylenol (acetaminophen.)
• Other non medical alternatives include physical therapy, biofeedback, yoga, meditation, and acupuncture can also reduce their pain. 
• Most importantly… if you have joint pains and overweight… weight loss is the key!
• Do not mix these meds with alcohol since once risk for stomach bleeding is increased with just 1 drink per week.
• All NSAIDs have the potential to raise high blood pressure.  So talk to your doctor if you have high blood pressure.

My advise is simple:OTC pain relievers are safe as long as we take them short term like 2-3 days or occasionally because of headache or toothache.  If you have to take them daily for any reason then take it for 2-3 days then stop for few days before taking them again.

Better Be Safe… Know The Facts! 

Driving well in the Philippines takes courage, expertise and coolness.  One can’t miss a day without somebody cutting you off in traffic without regard to safety.  We hear stories about fights due to parking and even to the point of murder due to the lack of “COOLNESS…” We have workers in our workplace or household helpers that can be triggers of our anger.

But the next time somebody or something bad triggers a reaction of ANGER… think and pause for a moment and contemplate on what scientific studies have shown. 

A recent review done by Harvard researchers concluded that literally… “Anger Can Brake Ones Heart.” It is estimated that being angry is synonymous to putting ones heart at 3x the risk of developing heart attack and 14 fold increase in risk of stroke. 

An interesting study by researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine on anger showed that after tracking 1,055 medical students for 36 years, ” the hotheads were six times more likely to suffer heart attacks by age 55 and three times more likely to develop any form of heart or blood vessel disease than the cooler heads.”

I am sure you know of friends or relatives that being angryis already part of their daily lives.  It may be their natural reaction to something that irritates them.  These are the people that may require some help.  The Harvard researchers recently found as published in Harvard Mens Health Watch, September issue, that a single low-dose (81 mg) pill can reduce anger-caused heart attacks by 40 percent. In other words, a daily aspirin may cut the risk of breaking an angry heart by almost half.  Do you need Aspirin?  Your own family doctor can advise you better.

So the next time something stresses you out or somebody irritates you…think twice before you act…

Protect Your Heart… Be COOL!

It’s the “colds” season again. The rainy season factor in the increasing trend of people catching colds. The problem with colds is that it is highly contagious and the virus is airborne and stays in the air for quite sometime to infect other people.  We are always told to cover out noses when we sneeze and definitely to wash hands when handling objects not ours or just by touching door knobs.  It can be also transmitted by a simple handshake.  So my practice has always been to have a hand sanitizer on my side and use it to clean my hands after every patient that I see and touch.

A new study published in November issue of the American Journal of Medicine showed that moderate daily exercise can actually help fend off the common cold. We know being physically healthy can really boost one immune system but this is the first time that exercise per se is looked at in relation to preventing colds.

In that study “older women who walked for a half-hour daily for a year reported half the number of colds as women of similar age who didn’t exercise.” The Fifty-three of the women were assigned to the exercise group spent 30 minutes daily, five days a week, doing moderate-intensity activity like brisk walking. These are activities we can always do at home.

This adds to the long list of benefits we get from exercise….

Preventing Colds Thru Exercise!

Read My Other Related Posts:

• Be Careful…Flu Spreads with Air Travel 
• Water or Soap? Or Hand Sanitizer
• Prevent The Flu: Get The Vaccine
• The Benefits of Playing Badminton

That’s True: Stress can increase ones blood sugar through the effect of the so called stress hormones.  You may have friends or parents who when gets stressed have higher sugar values.  But Can Stress cause one to become a diabetic?

One study says YES!….In this study published in October issue of Psychosomatic Medicine showed that individuals with high stress and high hostility levels have a higher likelihood of developing insulin resistance.

Insulin Resistance is the main defect present among diabetic patients.  This is a state where our body’s insulin production is affected because our body does not interact with the insulin being produced.  If this state remains unabated… it will tire out the pancreas which is the organ responsible for producing insulin leading to its failure to produce the product.  Once this happens, your blood sugar then shoots up because there is no more enough insulin that can bring sugar inside the muscle.  Our thrust in the treatment therefore of diabetes in 2006 is to combat this insulin resistance state through increase physical activity or drugs.

 This study found that there is a statistical interaction between hostility and stress level in predicting insulin resistance. Likewise other components associated with hostility like cynicism was found to strongly increase insulin resistance.  And one preventive strategy therefore for those of us at risk of diabetes  aside from increase physical activity should now include stress management.

At Risk for Diabetes?…embrace this saying… This has been and will always be my motto in life:

LIFE IS TOO SHORT… Enjoy! 

Don’t Let Stress Take that away from you! Know what stresses You Out…Then

 … Know How to Handle The Stress…

Read My Other Related Posts:

• Are You Under Stress?
• Stress Can Shrink Your Brain
• PreDiabetes: Are You At Risk?
• Diabetes: A Sedentary Disease

This post is for the guys…and their partners too! A Hope for Premature Ejaculation!

Do you know that premature ejaculation is the most common sexual problem among men?  Even more common that erectile dysfunction or impotence? It affects approximately 35% of male population…whew that large! Seldom however is this topic ever discussed because most men don’t think this as a problem but the partners actually do….But there’s hope …

A new antidepressant drug called dapoxetine designed specifically to treat premature ejaculation has proven to be safe and effective in a study involving 2000 men published in September issue of Lancet.

This drug works specifically to delay ejaculation. But, continued use of this drug has been shown to produce some side effects like nausea, headache among others.  “It worked both in lengthening ejaculation time and in patients’ feeling control over ejaculation and both subjects’ and partners’ feelings of satisfaction with intercourse” 

The results showed that after 12 weeks, men taking dapoxetine increased their time to ejaculation from less than 1 minute to 2.78 minutes on the 30-milligram dose ,  to 3.32 minutes on the 60-milligram dose.  That a great improvement and for sure makes the men less insecure in bed.

This drug is available in Europe but not yet approved in the US.  So for now…the use of depoxitine for premature ejaculation is considered an ” off label” use.

There you go guys…

Better Sex means Better Satisfaction

for a Better Relationship!

Infertility is pretty common nowadays…being blamed includes stress, pollution or just having no luck!  Almost always in general, it is blamed on the woman for not having the right” ground” for conceiving.  However only recently is a study done by a reputable institution, The National Institutes of Health, that looked at the men as being the reason for the infertility.  The study published in the September 2006 issue of Epidemiology,  showed men with increased body mass index (BMI) were significantly more likely to be infertile than normal-weight men.  BMI which is computed based on a person’s weight and height, provides a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people.

It has been known that women who are obese have a difficult time getting pregnant however no data on infertility are known among obese men. 

This new study showed that:

• A 20-pound increase in men’s weight can increase the chance of infertility by about 10 percent.
• Men’s BMI was an independent risk factor for infertility. This after adjusting for other known risk factors like cigarette smoking, alcohol intake, and solvent and pesticide exposure.
• There was a general increase in infertility with increased BMI: reaching a nearly 2-fold increase among obese men.

The most likely explanations for infertility among obese men included:

• Overweight men usually have less sexual intercourse than their normal weight counterparts and this could influence fertility.
• Recent studies showed lower semen quality for overweight and obese men, as well as hormonal differences.

This study further illustrates another impact of obesity on ones health… this time on infertility which can be frustrating to the couples trying to have a baby.  Whether achieving a normal BMI among those participants in the study can result in normal fertility remains to be seen… although medically, once a person who is obese loses weight… the medical problems associated with it returns to baseline average population risk.

So Guys… Careful with Your Weight Or Else…

Read My Other Related Posts:

• Check The Numbers…Are You Obese?
• The Risk Of Being Obese
• Knowing The Numbers Mean Wellness

Protecting oneself from developing cancer is not a difficult task to do..but actually consist of simple measures that require precaution! Guidelines are provided by the American Cancer Society which are well thought of and very simple… but in general it’s really up to us to know them well and to follow the rules. 

Here are some Tips that I recommend to every patient of mine based on years of accumulated evidence proven to reduce ones risk to develop cancer:

1.Smoking is the single most preventable cause of death! Even with this data, you can still see smokers in our midst. Common sense tells us: Quit Smoking!

2. About 500,000 deaths from cancer is due to poor nutrition, inactivity and obesity! Excess calories have been shown to cause mutations of genes that lead to cancer of the colon and prostate. Common sense tells us: Be Fit and Move!

3. Screening for these cancers are routinely done if asked for. The earlier majority of the cancers are caught the more likely they are treatable! Common sense tells us: Have a routine examination yearly.

4. Routine examination of ones body for growing moles or lumps in the breast should prompt one to seek medical attention. Melanoma for example can be diagnosed early by routine body check. Common sense tells us: 15 minutes of sun exposure is needed to increase vitamin D level in the blood but expose yourself to the sun during the safest hours…before 10 AM or after 4 PM!

5. Eat healthy with plenty of fruits and vegetables: One study in Scotland showed a 40% reduction in risk of developing cancer. Simple guideline is 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

6. Get enough sleep and rest! A Stanford University study showed a good sleep pattern can reduce the risk to develop cancer. 

They are not difficult tasks to do but again people are just refusing to follow the simple rules of preventive medicine.  We may not be able to prevent cancer but we can really reduce our risk from getting them by doing the right thing with the right attitude!

Prevention Is Still Better Than Cure!

Related Posts:

• Tips To Quit Smoking
• If You’re Obese, Check Your Prostate
• The Risk of Being Obese