Sunday, May 25, 2014

Don't drink Coca Cola, it's bad for you


Coca Cola is a soft drink sold in entire world. It is produced by a very powerful and rich corporation which has one of the best marketing experts on the planet. This is the only way to explain how not-to-tasty drink with numerous  detrimental effects is still being produced and consumed around the world.

Dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup and BVO are well documented and widely discussed, so I’ll skip them here. I’ll focus on something that’s relatively unknown.

Coca Cola softens the bones and it can cause Esophageal cancer.

Calcium gives strength to our bones, without it, our bones would be bendy and unable to hold their structure. Calcium is also vital for muscle and brain functions. Coca cola leeches calcium out of our bodies in two different ways. First, phosphoric acid directly binds calcium. Second: there is a three stage process - 1) Carbonation causes irritation of stomach, 2) Stomach uses calcium as an antacid to combat the irritation and 3) because stomach has used calcium from blood and the levels of calcium have dropped, our body must get calcium from somewhere in order to function properly and the only available source at this time is in our bones.

If esophagus is exposed to acid reflux for long periods of time, the damage inflicted to the cells of esophageal wall can be so great that they turn cancerous.  Esophageal cancer is particularly dangerous form of cancer, five year survival rates are only about 13%.

Coca Cola and other carbonated drinks increase the risk of developing esophageal cancer by causing regurgitation which forces acidic stomach content up and into esophagus. In this way the lower esophagus is constantly bathed in stomach acid and since esophageal lining is not resistant to acid the cells get damaged.

Think about this when you grab a bottle of Coca Cola next time.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Diet to lower cholesterol


When people refer to the cholesterol they are usually talking about LDL – low density lipoprotein, or the bad cholesterol. It is bad because high levels of it lead to atheroscleroris (thickening of arterial walls, which reduces the blood flow) which is one of the primary causes of cardiovascular disease. Therefore, it is important that LDL is kept under control.

Fortunately LDL can be lowered by 10-20% just by making some diet changes. National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP for short) sets guidelines for what is called TLC diet, TLC stands for Total Lifestyle Change. The key to this diet is to reduce or eliminate consumption of “bad” fats, saturated and trans-fats. This diet is quite simple to follow.

Red meat should be eaten as little as possible, no more than 35 ounces per week. Instead of red meat you should eat more fish. Vegetables and fruit should make up significant part of your diet. Use low fat dairy products.

When cooking, don’t use butter, margarine, lard or any other shortenings reach in saturated or trans-fats. Use liquid cooking oils instead, such as canola, olive, peanut, soybean or sunflower oils. Avoid mayonnaise, creams and other fatty seasonings, use herbs and spices instead.

Eat whole grain breads. Don’t eat too much sweets, try to avoid processed (factory made) sweets at all cost. Choose fruit or vegetables for your snack.

To get better effects, this diet should be combined with exercise. Diet change alone won’t do you much good if all you do is sit on the couch.


Monday, May 5, 2014

Garlic is good for you


Garlic (Allium sativum) is a bulbous plant native to central Asia. It has been used by humans for 7000 years. Over the ages garlic has been attributed with many healing properties. According to various folk tales garlic can cure everything from common cold to plague. Although many of these claims are far from truth, garlic still has many health benefits.

Author: Rebecca Siegel; File source: Flickr
Published under Creative Commons


The two primary ingredients with medicinal properties are allicin and diallyl sulphides. These latter sulfurous compounds are what gives the garlic its smell. Those cultivars of garlic with very little smell have very little of these healthy compounds. In other words, stinky garlic is a lot better.

Studies have shown that consumption of garlic reduces accumulation of cholesterol on vascular walls of animals and in humans. Also, garlic reduces aortic plaques. Another benefit of eating garlic is reduced platelet aggregation and garlic helps with hyperlipidemia.

Garlic may not be able to cure common cold or flu, but it is a powerful natural antibiotic. What’s more important, the bacteria don’t seem to develop resistance to the garlic, so, unlike antibiotics garlic is not a temporary solution that breeds superbugs.

Garlic, especially the aged one has powerful antioxidative effects. Antioxidants are important because they help our body protect itself against free radicals. Allegedly, garlic can help with the regulation of blood sugar, but people who take insulin should not consume large amounts of garlic without consulting their doctors.

With all these health benefits in mind it is obvious that we should eat more garlic, if only our culture wasn’t so obsessed with garlic breath. Personally, I don’t mind if person I’m talking to has just eaten a pound of garlic, I just don’t find this smell displeasing. In fact, I would say that garlic breath is a lot nicer than some perfumes. I hope that there are more people like me.

Friday, May 2, 2014

Homeopathy - what does water remember?


Homeopathy is nothing but quackery. It is a practice designed to relieve you from you money without actually doing any good to you (if we discount the placebo effect). So far there hasn’t been any solid scientific proof that homeopathy works, despite the prize of million dollars offered by James Randi to anyone who could prove otherwise. The main problem here is that solid science can’t do much to change people’s minds when it comes to homeopathy. For that reason, it might be better to examine the origins of homeopathy instead.

It all begun with Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), a physician from Germany who was appalled by medical practices from his day, such as leeching and bloodletting. Quite understandably he began to seek alternative therapies.  The word “homeopathy” is derived from two Greek words, homoisos (meaning similar) and pathos (disease). Hahnemann’s basic idea was that the symptoms of a disease can be cured by very small amounts of substances which cause similar effect in healthy people when taken in large amounts. He claimed that diseases are disturbances in body’s self healing abilities and chronic diseases are manifestations of a suppressed itch, which is a kind of miasma or evil spirit. In the beginning Hahnemann used small doses of medications, but later he started diluting them enormously and he claimed that the lower the dose the more powerful the effect. Today we call this the “law of infinitesimals”.

We know now that 18 century medicine didn’t have very good understanding of physiology and these kinds of claims look ridiculous. We also know that the dose response is completely opposite of what Hahnemann claimed. Another crucial information that he lacked was that all matter is composed out of atoms and molecules. Years later, when the structure of matter was discovered it was possible to calculate the number of molecules in a given amount of substance and the calculations proved that those “highly potent” homeopathic meds that are diluted beyond any reason don’t actually contain a single molecule of the active substance. By that time homeopathy was already well established business and in order to keep it running, the protagonists of homeopathy came up with “memory effect”.

According to this ridiculous notion, that wasn’t even mentioned before the existence of molecules was known, water “remembers” what has been put into it and it miraculously keeps those “healing powers”.

Now, consider this – “highly potent” homeopathic dilutions are more diluted than the solution you would get by placing a drop of some substance in the World Ocean. In other words all the water on this planet is not enough to give you the level of dilution found in homeopathic drugs (that is why they dilute in steps, up to 30 steps for those “potent” drugs). If the water really “remembers” that active substance then it should also “remember” many other things. So, do you believe that the water you just drank “remembered” the content of your toilet from several years ago? If you believe in homeopathy and the memory of water, you must believe this too.

Bacteria and fungi in gyms


Exercise is essential for your well being and if you care for your health you go to gym regularly, unless you have some other form of exercise. Gyms are great places for keeping your body in good shape; however there are some dangers there as well.

Gyms often attract a lot of people and that could mean bacteria and other pathogens. People are often in contact with various surfaces such as benches, floors, showers, etc. All of these surfaces can contain bacteria. This is especially true for porous surfaces, such as floor mats or bench padding.

Sweat that drips from everyone’s bodies can contain bacteria and fungi and the moist environment that it creates is ideal for further development of fungi. Fungi that cause athlete’s foot are very common in gyms.

Luckily it is quite easy to protect ourselves from these things – just make sure that you avoid having physical contact between your skin and various surfaces. Wear socks and gloves and cover benches with a clean towel.

On the other hand, mold could be more dangerous. Many gyms have molds in the ceiling. These molds can easily form from moisture from saunas, people’s breaths and sweat and after they have established themselves in the ceiling they generate millions of tiny spores that can infect our lungs. There is no easy way to protect yourself from this threat; you can’t really wear a gas mask in a gym. So, if your gym has mold in the ceiling, complain to the manager, or change the gym.

How to remove ticks


Ticks are small parasitic insects commonly found in grassy areas during spring and summer. Ticks live by attaching themselves to a host (humans or animals) and sucking blood. Ticks are stealthy animals, most of the time you can’t feel one walking over you, or even biting your skin. I had many ticks in my life and I felt one biting me only once, probably because it was a monster of a tick. They also have very powerful jaws which makes them hard to remove. It may be interesting to note that ticks don’t have an anus. They don’t produce feces. My biology teacher used to say that this is because blood is the perfect food.

Ticks could be very dangerous because they transmit Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. There is no way to tell whether the tick that attached itself to your skin is carrying any of these diseases or not, so it is important to treat every tick as a dangerous one. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the tick is removed properly. Improper removal or usage of various fold remedies makes the tick regurgitate the contents of its bowels back into our bloodstream.

First line of defense is prevention. Ticks rarely attach immediately after climbing onto our bodies. Most of the time they walk around, up to 24 hours, searching for a good place to bite down. This gives you plenty of time to search your body and you clothes for ticks after you return home from a walk in the park or some other grassy area. Just make sure to search thoroughly, turn your clothes upside down and look in every nook and cranny. It is best to do this while standing in a bathtub.

Let’s see now what you should never do if a tick actually attaches itself on your skin. Virtually all the folk remedies that make the tick fall off, such as kerosene, diesel, gas, dish soap, etc. will make the tick regurgitate into your blood stream before it dies. If it has any pathogens they will go straight into you. The same is true for using fire, sticky tape, wax and other things.

The only right way to remove a tick is to pull it out with tweezers, but this must be done in a way that the tick’s abdomen is not squeezed. You must use tweezers designed for tick removal (can be bought in drug stores). Only they are narrow enough to enable you to grab the tick just by its thorax. This is the part of the tick that is closest to your skin and that has legs attached to it. Abdomen is the big round or shriveled thing at the back of the tick, behind its legs. If you squeeze the abdomen it will just squirt its contents into your bloodstream.

If all this sounds too complicated seek medical help.

Sunburns, remedies that work and those that don't


With the winter behind us and the days becoming longer and warmer we are going to see more and more sunburns. How can this condition be treated, what remedies work and what don’t and most importantly, how can this be prevented?

Sunburn is not much different from any other thermal injury, like a burn on a hot stove. It causes pain, makes the skin red and may even produce blisters. Redness is what medical professionals call first degree burn. If there are blisters then it is a second degree burn. These conditions can be serious if they involve large areas of the body, but sunburns are usually localized.

First of all I must point out that sunburns are 100% preventable. More importantly they should always be prevented. Pain and discomfort will only last a while, but each sunburn damages the skin permanently. Each sunburn will cause your skin to age prematurely and each sunburn increases the risk of developing skin cancer. So, wear a large brimmed hat, long sleeved shirts, long pants/skirts, use sun screen and most importantly avoid being exposed to the sun when it is high in the sky. Don’t go out in the middle of the day.

Now, what to do if you get sunburn? First of all, cool down the burnt area. Use compresses soaked in cold water. Pain can be alleviated with some ibuprofen or Tylenol. Hydrocortisone cream can help, especially if it was cooled down in a fridge. If you have blisters LEAVE THEM ALONE. Piercing or popping blisters will only make matters worse.

There are countless folk remedies for sunburn that simply don’t work, or even worsen the condition. Mentioning them all in one article is impossible, so I’ll just name a few.

Food products: tomato juice, potato slices, mayonnaise, mustard, milk, honey, vinegar, eggs, butter, cooking oil, etc
Medications: hydrogen peroxide, vitamins, alcohol, milk of magnesia, shaving cream, toothpaste, etc
Others: bleach (oh, my God), whiskey, vodka, laundry detergent

Treating insect bites at home


Although insect bites can cause severe allergic reactions or transmit diseases (such as Lyme disease or malaria), most of them are quite harmless, but even then they can be very inconvenient.  Some insect bites cause pain and others cause itchiness. These ‘minor’ symptoms do not require medical attention and they can be alleviated with some readily available home remedies.

Bee stings are usually painful, wasp stings even more so. When a bee stings a person it leaves its sting in our skin and the sting continues to pump the venom from its attached venom sack. The first thing that one should do is to remove the sting. This step is simple, grab it with your fingers and pull it out. At this point it could be useful to pinch the part of the stung part of the skin, this may help squeeze out some of the venom. The stung area should be then treated with a paste made of baking soda and water. Some people claim that vinegar also helps. If these remedies are not available some cold water or even mud can help. Be aware that bee stings (no pun intended) can cause allergic reactions in certain people which range from mild to life threatening. Mild reaction could include itchiness on the spot of the sting or over wider areas of the body and severe reactions include narrowing of the throat which can cause suffocation. People with such strong allergic reactions should carry an EpiPen.

Insects such as mosquitoes, fleas and others usually cause itchiness on the point of bite. When these insects bite down they release blood thinning chemicals that stop blood from coagulating while they are sucking it. These chemicals along with dirt, bacteria and other contaminants make our bodies release histamine at the point of bite and this is what causes itchiness. Common remedies for this include cold water and ice, but there is another approach that I find more effective and that is hot water. Hot water causes increase release of histamine, but after a while the level of histamine will drop sharply. When I have an itchy bite I pour hot water over it. I use water that is almost scalding. For a few seconds the offended area itches like hell, but then it suddenly stops itching. This effect lasts at least 2 or 3 hours.

Most of the insect bites can easily be treated, but prevention is even better, so try not to get bitten.