Posts Tagged ‘wellness’

Acid reflux sufferers are searching for relief. There are safe and effective solutions, but first you have to understand the problem.  This has become a chronic and persistent problem causing millions of Americans great discomfort.

The wide assortments of drugs, which line drug store shelves, are useless. They are usually offering no more than temporary relief. The costs of pharmaceutical solutions are enormous.

Acid Reflux

Reflux comes from an older Latin word refluxus, and that comes from the word refluere, which is to flow back or recede. It is thought that if you suffer from acid reflux the acids from your stomach flow back to your esophagus to cause pain and discomfort. This is commonly known as heartburn. This is the sensation you get when the acid goes into the esophagus from the stomach. Acid reflux is the action, while heartburn is the sensation. The pain is heartburn, while the movement of acid into the esophagus from the stomach is acid reflux.

Symptoms

The symptoms for acid reflux may vary slightly from person to person. However, there are some basics that make this easier to diagnose.  

Heartburn is a burning feeling in the lower chest nearer to the neck, and can include chest pain. These symptoms have been mistaken at times for cardiac problems.

The other known symptoms consists of dysphagia, difficulty swallowing with a sensation of food caught in the throat, dental erosion, asthma like symptoms, hoarseness and regurgitation bring food back into the mouth or a sour or bitter tasting acid backing up into your throat or mouth. The lesser known problems consist of bloating, burping, continuous hiccups, nausea, wheezing, chronic sore throat and a dry cough.

Causes

There are many named causes of acid reflux which include pregnancy especially the third trimester when the baby presses on the stomach. Antacids aren’t any good for this. Smaller meals help a majority of the moms-to-be. Hiatal hernias or hiatus hernia, is a condition where the upper portion of the stomach goes into the chest area through a small opening in the diaphragm.

One of the known risk is eating a large meal and lying down afterwards. Being overweight or obese, eating certain foods such as citrus, tomato, chocolate, mint, garlic, onions, and beverages  such as: alcoholic drinks, carbonated sodas, coffee or tea.  Smoking, aspirin, ibuprofen, muscle relaxes, and blood pressure medications can cause this problem. There are many foods or drinks that can cause heartburn. Each person may have their own list.

Pharmaceuticals

The solution isn’t going to be found with acid blocking medications like Pepsin, Prilosec, and Nexium. They may be a short term band-aid, but they aren’t for long term use. These are powerful drugs, which were originally developed for short term use. They were meant for peptic ulcers with a recommended six week regiment. Today, people just about live on these.

The danger of these drugs is the fact that you need stomach acid to digest food and absorb nutrients. Long term use leads to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. These drugs are robbing the body of magnesium, calcium and vitamin B12 while increasing the risk of osteoporosis, insomnia, depression, anemia, fatigue, nerve damage and dementia. Long team use also leads to the overgrowth of bacteria in the stomach and small intestines.

Real Cause

Any long term solution must address the cause. Acid reflux is typically caused by too little stomach acid. The esophagus is separated from the stomach by a ring of muscles known as the Lower Esophageal Sphincter (LES). The sphincter is what keeps the contents of the stomach and stomach acid from going back up to the esophagus. What determines if the LES stays closed to prevent acid reflux into the esophagus is adequate levels of stomach acid. With sufficient acid production in the stomach there is feedback to LES, This causes increased tone and prevents any food from rising into the esophagus. If stomach acid is low the tone of the LES is compromised and now has a loose hold on the content of the stomach.

Solution

Low stomach acid comes in a large part from our lifestyles. High stress, gulped down meals without a chance to properly digest and faux foods which are incredibly destructive.  The nervous system has two main states which you constantly oscillate between, a sympathetic nervous state responsible for the fight-or-flight mode of operation and the parasympathetic nervous system which is the rest and digest one. One of the underlying causes of acid reflux is eating when sympathetic dominant. This will cause a low production of stomach acid leading to a weakness in the LES response of regurgitation of the stomach contents into the esophagus.

The solution isn’t going to come out of a bottle, jar, or carton. In fact those solution are perhaps a major part of the problem. What is appropriate is a whole food diet, and proper stress control. Eating slowly and chewing well is a good start. Alkaline vegetables and fruit are recommended as they will help with an acidic conditions. Acid reflux is a modern affliction brought on by lifestyle.

Calorie counting is destructive. The initial goal should be to get strong and fit. Counting calories can make many dieters weak. Being hungry all the time is counter productive.

Calorie control equals weight management to most people, and even the medical experts think this is true. What calories really do is different from the hype. When the weight loss industry capitalizes on the proven benefits of cutting calories, what they are doing is promoting a way to utilize diet in an unhealthy way.

Caveman Diet

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (USCF) say their research has shown people on a high protein diet combined with plenty of vegetables show dramatic health improvements. These include weight loss, and lower blood pressure. What they are talking about is a diet that is considered similar to the “Hunters Gathers” or caveman diet.

Dr. Tim White a paleobiologist from the University of California Berkley said: “Our Biology is still basically the same biology that we had as hunters and gathers 100,000 years ago in Africa.” Dr. White said the constant physical activity that the cavemen had to undertake to hunt and find food kept them fit, lean, muscular and active. Their diet consisted of large amounts of lean meat, and vegetables.

Robert Lustig, MD. an endocrinologist at UCSF, said that people on the diet have experienced a regression of their diabetes as a result, to the point they are effectively cured.

Dr. Kim Mulvihill, a reporter from CBS tried the diet herself and doctors recommended she should stay on the diet permanently. Her cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels dropped dramatically over a few weeks. After seven weeks she was no longer pre-diabetic, and by combining the so called paleo diet with a weight loss program she lost thirty pounds.

Fish

Another article talked about people who eat fish as their primary source of animal protein. They reported lower glucose concentrations with a reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Researchers at the University of Valencia reported in the journal Nutricion Hospitalaria that there are benefits from a Mediterranean diet high in fish consumption. This study showed the benefits of the omega 3’s in fish. Omega 3 from fish and grass fed meat controls inflammation. Micronutrients from both vegetables and fruits also, turn off inflammation.

Inflammation

There are a good number of studies that show weight gain may be linked to chronic inflammation. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition researches looked at nine years of data tracking 1,222 adults and found that weight gain was associated with an increase in chronic inflammation. This may be why weight gain is associated with heart disease and cancer. Both these conditions are associated with chronic inflammation.

Counting calories is counter productive, especially when you buy 100 calorie packs of pure carbohydrates in the form of crackers of cookies. The only weapon against obesity is whole foods diet with all the omega 3 fatty acids and nutrients your body need.

A diet based on vegetables, and fruit with some high quality protein is better than a calorie restricted diet for weight management. A nation that has embraced calorie counting as a way to control weight is deluding itself into thinking that saving calories can repair the damage done by faux foods. By changing your goal from weight, to having more energy by becoming healthier your will achieve a consistent weight.

Cancer proof yourself is way of saying you have a choice. There is great promise in a healthy lifestyle. If you take a step back in time you will be able to view a much healthier lifestyle.

We have conquered many acute illnesses, which people in the past had to deal with. The modern twist to that is we have produced many chronic illnesses from our analytical, clinical, microbiology, and pharmaceutical interventions.

The first thing that will come to mind for most people: there isn’t a guarantee you will not get a cancer diagnoses. If you are a betting person I would say the deck is stacked to your advantage if you increment a healthy lifestyle. In today’s world the challenges are great, but this is a way to throw yourself a lifeline. The seemingly formidable obstacles will crumble once you add healthy choices in an incremental way.

The focus of a healthy lifestyle isn’t to look at the perceivable problem, but keep your eye on the ball. That means moving out of a disease mentality to one of health and wellbeing. The modern pharmaceutical world has produced food, personal care items, fragrance, and drugs with long and ugly names, with ingredients that don’t seem to trip off the tongue. The food industry thought a cruel irony makes things that are considered edible, and imply safety. However, the truth is radically different.

There is false and misleading information on the ingredients is food, personal care items, and drugs. The world of personal care items sport ingredient labels with words like pharabens, phthalates, methyl, trimethylcyclododeca, ketone, undecylamidopropyltrimonium methodulfate, and of course plenty of other multitasking ingredients. We have endocrine disruptors, solvents, and other chemicals that are used in air fresheners, pesticides, cosmetics and fragrance.

The international fragrance association (IFRA) has made public a list of 3,163 fragrance ingredients for global use. They have provided the EPA with a list of over 600 materials used in air fresheners and more than 1,500 materials used in EPA- registered pesticide products.

Lets be perfectly clear they can proclaim how safety if the first issue of the day, but what you put on the skin is absorbed. What the nose smells may be enticing, but biologically speaking it permeates the body. It enters through the nose and makes it way to the lungs and the liver which now has to get rid of another toxic element.

The toxic opportunity is right in front of your nose, fragrance is everywhere from personal care items to scent masking products, which can  be found everywhere from restrooms, restaurants, to casinos.  you are in a fragrances environment. While improving your sensual experience, you are inhaling and being immersed in unimaginable toxins.

Toxic torts are lawsuits filed by people claiming chemical exposure in occupation or household environments claiming some type of illness from being exposed to these products. The only ones we know about are ones involving asbestos, silica  or benzene. That is because there hasn’t been enough information for the public to realize that the cancer, which the doctor’s say has no particular cause comes most times from diet and environmental exposure.

The newest development is that formaldehyde used in hair products, cosmetics , compressed board and cleaning agents has the potential to cause a rare nasal cancer to a more common form of leukemia. (acute myelogenous leukemia or AML). This as of now is one of the most difficult type of leukemia to treat.  The EPA determined formaldehyde is to be considered a cause of AML. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancers also recognize the connection between formaldehyde and AMIL.

Formaldehyde is in preservatives found in shampoos, liquid body soaps, nail polishes, hair gels and other personal care products. The America Chemistry Council (ACC) considers formaldehyde to be essential to an estimated $145 billion of the U.S. gross national product, and dozens of industries besides the beauty industry.

To cancer proof yourself means to take prudent steps to protect yourself from all controversial ingredients. That may mean looking at all labels from edibles, personal care, pesticides, and cleaning products. The official line from the manufactures to the medical establishment is it is the amount and duration of exposure, and the individual’s susceptibility. The truth is it is the individuals resolve to stay on the path of a natural way of life.