Posts Tagged ‘health views’

What makes kidney disease a growing menace is fact that there is no cure according to allopathic medicine. Meanwhile, the population of people undergoing dialysis is also exploding, and is projected to pass the 2 million mark worldwide by 2010, according to some studies.  

Kidney Disease

The leading cause of Kidney disease is diabetes. It accounts of 44% of new cases in 2005. The numbers are only on their way up. Nephropathy, kidney failure is a frequent complication of diabetes.

Obesity plays a role by raising blood pressure, and increasing insulin resistance. Both can stress your Kidney’s.

Stress is another factor since it raises blood pressure.

High cholesterol produces a fatty substance that can clog up your kidneys.

Urinary track infections can cause kidney problems.

Drug-Induced kidney Damage

There are prescription, and over-over-the-counter products that can cause kidney damage. This is a list of some of the medications that can cause problems.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NAIDs)

• Ibuprofen (example, Advil)
• Aspirin (example, Excedrin)
• Naproxen sodium (example, Aleve)
• Celecoxib (Celebrex)
• Acetaminophen (Tylenol, dose related)

High blood pressure medicines

• Hydralazine
• ACE inhibitors

Some Diuretics

Antibiotics

• Penicillin
• Sulfa drugs
• Cyclosporine

Preventing

Chronic Kidney disease (CKD) is the loss of kidney function. The number of people with kidney failure has doubled from 1990 to 2000. The annual cost of treating kidney failure is over $20 billion. A loss of kidney function ups the risk of heart attacks or strokes.

Prevention is not what the medical field calls for. They want regular checkups to see if you have signs of impaired kidney function. It is obvious that the kidneys are part of an overall picture of health. If the leading cause of this condition is either diabetes or high blood pressure, than you are dealing with something that is lifestyle related.

On the other hand if you are on some medications that can cause kidney failure it is an indicator that you have a host of health related problems. You prevent kidney failure the same way you prevent any chronic condition. By recognizing that changing what you do, will change what is happening within.

Naturally

Naturally it is hard to sell patients the idea of taking charge of their own health. There is dissent in the medical community that creates a climate of distrust. Combating a dangerous health problem with little else then diet, exercise, faith, and determination seems counterintuitive.

It takes tenacity to go against the prevailing logic. Modern medicine offers unpalatable choices. Promising that drugs are and will be the answer leaves us adrift at sea. We wait for a rescue ship to reach us in the nick of time.   

The promised cures are in the pipelines, years away. Research has shown that weight loss helps ward off decline in kidney function. A new study has found that exercise extends the lives of people with kidney disease.

Another interesting fact is that people with kidney disease have conditions not directly related to kidney problems. They in fact usually have compromised health due to other factors.

The dangers is modern medicine doesn’t recognize its limits. They have been wrong for so long that that they have trouble shifting focus. Getting hooked to a machine is not the same as empowering yourself and taking charge of your own health.

Lifestyle is the answer to stress. Lifestyle is more than just the food you eat, though that is a big part of the picture. Most alternative physicians are aware that body, mind, and spirit are a package deal when it comes to overall health status.

Keys To Health

Optimal performance is the sum total of nutrition, activity, optimism, and mood. Everything listed for health effects one’s mood. From emotional eating to isolation are indicators of overall survival abilities. All these actions demonstrate immune-modulating capabilities.

 Lethal Dangers

Human studies validate the benefits of social contact. Studies have shown that socially isolated female rats develop a larger number of more aggressive tumors than rats living in a social group. This is according to researchers at Yale University and the University of Chicago.

The dramatic increase in mammary tumors among isolated Norway rats – which, like humans, are a highly social species-illustrates how loneliness can be deadly, the authors report in findings to be published the week of December 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“There is a growing interest in relationships between the environment, emotion and disease. This study offers insight into how the social world gets under the skin,” said Gretchen Hermes, first author of the paper and a resident in the Neurosciences Research Training Program in the Yale Department of Psychiatry.

 Stress

Isolation seems to bring with it a stress reaction. Stress is linked to the activation of cancer-promoting genes. Social isolation triggers fear and anxiety. What the study doesn’t do is tie stress to diet. A good diet with optimal nutrition mitigates dangerous stimulus that disrupt the body’s normal biological and psychological equilibrium.

The way the body handles stress is key to the effect it will have. Stress is a fact of life in these times. Not only is the pace of life frantic, but social isolation is more prevalent. The pressures are exacerbated when other factors such as poor health are part of the equation.

A Better Way

Stress can also cause heart rate and blood pressure to increase. There are a number of things that send people to the doctor’s office, which are stress related. You need good cellular energy to deal with something as energy draining as stress. Stress causes a deficit in mitochondrial energy.

Exercise is a stress modifier, but much less publicized is the fact that certain vitamins, minerals are stress busters and mood enhancers. Nutritional strategies are key, and also are other strategies. Overlooked and just as important is something called the biology of belief.

Health, by definition, is the sine qua non (condition) of everything else. It’s all in your head has meaning. Reality is from the Inside out, it’s all in your mind is the truth. It boils down to your interpretation of the world, and that becomes your view. How you experience something is the sum total of what you were taught, past experiences, and your health status.

Meditation, prayer, social interaction will all define your lifestyle, as well as nutrition and exercise. When using rats for models, these are the variables that can’t be part of the equation. However, it shows that isolated rats developed 84 times the amount of tumors as those living in groups. These were also faster spreading than the tumors of the social animals, and were of a larger size.

Environment, Emotion and Disease

To disregard the lifestyle components that affect every aspect of our lives is a formula for disaster. Our environment is more problematic. Emotional health is the ability to cope with the stresses of life. This is where the environment plays a key role. The internal environment must be healthy enough to protect one from the effects of stress from the outside.

Lifestyle is the sum total of nutritional status, activity level, belief system, and outlook. Rats are gregarious and social, and so are humans. So when it comes to health it is the whole package, which is the whole as in holistic. Turning to modern medicine will not get you the answer you need. We are not parts, and systems, we are a whole entity, that needs all parts operational.

Living longer enjoying it less sums up the high price of medical advances. The problem is with our reliance on pharmaceuticals, and procedures, instead of a healthy lifestyle.

Old Age

Old age isn’t the problem; it is the way we age. We are told thanks to the marvels of modern science we are living longer than ever. Adults over 80 are the fastest growing segment of the population. Also, this group will spend their years needing help from others, and suffer from loss of independence. This is called the new old age, because the generations before did not have this opportunity to reach their eighties.

The Truth

These are fabrications of the truth. In the past generations there were strong and independent robust elderly citizens. What really has happened is we cut down on infections and disease by increased sanitation. We can operate and save lives, and have antibiotics for acute infections.

However, these procedures and drugs do not make robust health. Life extension is the product of some of the technological advances we have made. The formula for a healthy old age is really unchanged. A good lifestyle, faith, social contacts, and a optimistic view. What is different, those with a poor lifestyle and lots of blocked arteries are offered procedures that weren’t available until now. 

Taking advantage of these procedures doesn’t mean we obtained better health. Better health through technology really means that what you are missing diet wise is made up thought medical intervention.

Breakthroughs

With all the breakthroughs in diagnostic tools, we seem to just find more wrong. Rates for all so called diseases have escalated. Yet, we are not any nearer to solving the problems. Handing out drugs, chemo, dialysis, stents, stomach stapling, laxatives, sleep aids, and tranquilizers are not health aids, they are band aids.

Our breakthroughs are shockingly short termed and are missing the point. What’s inside us is not so insufficient that at every turn it needs to be resuscitated. It comes with an implicit warranty, which states under normal use everything should perform well.

Aging

Aging brings with it a sub-total of everything we put in and exposed our bodies to including nutrition, thoughts, stress, and medications. Genetics are reflected in the lifestyle choices we made. Aging is like a bank account, what you put in is what you can withdraw. These are not randomized experiences. It is well known if you are obese than you will have a higher rate of disability as you age.

Chronic conditions of aging are tied to lifestyle, and the sooner that fact is realized the less medical intervention will be needed. Most symptoms that are blamed on aging are lifestyle issues. It is not uncommon for someone in their 40’s to be told what they are experiencing is normal aging.

With this amount of misinformation it is no surprise that people expect a decline in health with age. It is ignorant to think of the 40’s, 50’s and beyond as anything but prime time.

Conclusion

Living longer enjoying it less seems to be an outcome of our medical mentality. The national pastime among seniors seems to be running to doctors. From one specialist to another, it is a never ending cycle. The one thing to get straight is in a few instances it is necessary,  For most a lifestyle change, more nutrition, activity, less prescriptions, more outdoors, and weight management will go a long way in producing favorable gene expression.

Research shows that lifestyle has a synergistic effect on biological activity and the functioning of human cells. To optimize energy output as you age it is necessary to have access to optimal nutrition, sunlight, and activities that are health promoting. Health care providers do not prevent diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular problems; they can only try to inhibit the process from causing havoc. Examining the results of intervention only shows it’s weakness in producing real long term benefits, without numerous side effects.