Showing posts with label Salud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salud. Show all posts

Monday, August 10, 2009

Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin

By John Cloud

TIME MAGAZINE - Sunday, Aug. 09, 2009

As I write this, tomorrow is Tuesday, which is a cardio day. I'll spend five minutes warming up on the VersaClimber, a towering machine that requires you to move your arms and legs simultaneously. Then I'll do 30 minutes on a stair mill. On Wednesday a personal trainer will work me like a farm animal for an hour, sometimes to the point that I am dizzy — an abuse for which I pay as much as I spend on groceries in a week. Thursday is "body wedge" class, which involves another exercise contraption, this one a large foam wedge from which I will push myself up in various hateful ways for an hour. Friday will bring a 5.5-mile run, the extra half-mile my grueling expiation of any gastronomical indulgences during the week.

I have exercised like this — obsessively, a bit grimly — for years, but recently I began to wonder: Why am I doing this? Except for a two-year period at the end of an unhappy relationship — a period when I self-medicated with lots of Italian desserts — I have never been overweight. One of the most widely accepted, commonly repeated assumptions in our culture is that if you exercise, you will lose weight. But I exercise all the time, and since I ended that relationship and cut most of those desserts, my weight has returned to the same 163 lb. it has been most of my adult life. I still have gut fat that hangs over my belt when I sit. Why isn't all the exercise wiping it out? (Read "The Year in Medicine 2008: From A to Z.")

It's a question many of us could ask. More than 45 million Americans now belong to a health club, up from 23 million in 1993. We spend some $19 billion a year on gym memberships. Of course, some people join and never go. Still, as one major study — the Minnesota Heart Survey — found, more of us at least say we exercise regularly. The survey ran from 1980, when only 47% of respondents said they engaged in regular exercise, to 2000, when the figure had grown to 57%.

And yet obesity figures have risen dramatically in the same period: a third of Americans are obese, and another third count as overweight by the Federal Government's definition. Yes, it's entirely possible that those of us who regularly go to the gym would weigh even more if we exercised less. But like many other people, I get hungry after I exercise, so I often eat more on the days I work out than on the days I don't. Could exercise actually be keeping me from losing weight? (Watch TIME's video "How to Lose Hundreds of Pounds.")

The conventional wisdom that exercise is essential for shedding pounds is actually fairly new. As recently as the 1960s, doctors routinely advised against rigorous exercise, particularly for older adults who could injure themselves. Today doctors encourage even their oldest patients to exercise, which is sound advice for many reasons: People who regularly exercise are at significantly lower risk for all manner of diseases — those of the heart in particular. They less often develop cancer, diabetes and many other illnesses. But the past few years of obesity research show that the role of exercise in weight loss has been wildly overstated. (Read "Losing Weight: Can Exercise Trump Genes?")

"In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless," says Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University and a prominent exercise researcher. Many recent studies have found that exercise isn't as important in helping people lose weight as you hear so regularly in gym advertisements or on shows like The Biggest Loser — or, for that matter, from magazines like this one.

The basic problem is that while it's true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight-loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words, isn't necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.

The Compensation Problem
Earlier this year, the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE — PLoS is the nonprofit Public Library of Science — published a remarkable study supervised by a colleague of Ravussin's, Dr. Timothy Church, who holds the rather grand title of chair in health wisdom at LSU. Church's team randomly assigned into four groups 464 overweight women who didn't regularly exercise. Women in three of the groups were asked to work out with a personal trainer for 72 min., 136 min., and 194 min. per week, respectively, for six months. Women in the fourth cluster, the control group, were told to maintain their usual physical-activity routines. All the women were asked not to change their dietary habits and to fill out monthly medical-symptom questionnaires.

See the most common hospital mishaps.

See how to prevent illness at any age.

The findings were surprising. On average, the women in all the groups, even the control group, lost weight, but the women who exercised — sweating it out with a trainer several days a week for six months — did not lose significantly more weight than the control subjects did. (The control-group women may have lost weight because they were filling out those regular health forms, which may have prompted them to consume fewer doughnuts.) Some of the women in each of the four groups actually gained weight, some more than 10 lb. each.

What's going on here? Church calls it compensation, but you and I might know it as the lip-licking anticipation of perfectly salted, golden-brown French fries after a hard trip to the gym. Whether because exercise made them hungry or because they wanted to reward themselves (or both), most of the women who exercised ate more than they did before they started the experiment. Or they compensated in another way, by moving around a lot less than usual after they got home. (Read "Run For Your Lives.")

The findings are important because the government and various medical organizations routinely prescribe more and more exercise for those who want to lose weight. In 2007 the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association issued new guidelines stating that "to lose weight ... 60 to 90 minutes of physical activity may be necessary." That's 60 to 90 minutes on most days of the week, a level that not only is unrealistic for those of us trying to keep or find a job but also could easily produce, on the basis of Church's data, ravenous compensatory eating.

It's true that after six months of working out, most of the exercisers in Church's study were able to trim their waistlines slightly — by about an inch. Even so, they lost no more overall body fat than the control group did. Why not?

Church, who is 41 and has lived in Baton Rouge for nearly three years, has a theory. "I see this anecdotally amongst, like, my wife's friends," he says. "They're like, 'Ah, I'm running an hour a day, and I'm not losing any weight.'" He asks them, "What are you doing after you run?" It turns out one group of friends was stopping at Starbucks for muffins afterward. Says Church: "I don't think most people would appreciate that, wow, you only burned 200 or 300 calories, which you're going to neutralize with just half that muffin." (Read "Too Fat? Read Your E-mail.")

You might think half a muffin over an entire day wouldn't matter much, particularly if you exercise regularly. After all, doesn't exercise turn fat to muscle, and doesn't muscle process excess calories more efficiently than fat does?

Yes, although the muscle-fat relationship is often misunderstood. According to calculations published in the journal Obesity Research by a Columbia University team in 2001, a pound of muscle burns approximately six calories a day in a resting body, compared with the two calories that a pound of fat burns. Which means that after you work out hard enough to convert, say, 10 lb. of fat to muscle — a major achievement — you would be able to eat only an extra 40 calories per day, about the amount in a teaspoon of butter, before beginning to gain weight. Good luck with that.

Fundamentally, humans are not a species that evolved to dispose of many extra calories beyond what we need to live. Rats, among other species, have a far greater capacity to cope with excess calories than we do because they have more of a dark-colored tissue called brown fat. Brown fat helps produce a protein that switches off little cellular units called mitochondria, which are the cells' power plants: they help turn nutrients into energy. When they're switched off, animals don't get an energy boost. Instead, the animals literally get warmer. And as their temperature rises, calories burn effortlessly. (See TIME's health and medicine covers.)

Because rodents have a lot of brown fat, it's very difficult to make them obese, even when you force-feed them in labs. But humans — we're pathetic. We have so little brown fat that researchers didn't even report its existence in adults until earlier this year. That's one reason humans can gain weight with just an extra half-muffin a day: we almost instantly store most of the calories we don't need in our regular ("white") fat cells.

All this helps explain why our herculean exercise over the past 30 years — all the personal trainers, StairMasters and VersaClimbers; all the Pilates classes and yoga retreats and fat camps — hasn't made us thinner. After we exercise, we often crave sugary calories like those in muffins or in "sports" drinks like Gatorade. A standard 20-oz. bottle of Gatorade contains 130 calories. If you're hot and thirsty after a 20-minute run in summer heat, it's easy to guzzle that bottle in 20 seconds, in which case the caloric expenditure and the caloric intake are probably a wash. From a weight-loss perspective, you would have been better off sitting on the sofa knitting.

See pictures of what makes you eat more food.

Watch a video about fitness gadgets.

Self-Control Is like a Muscle
Many people assume that weight is mostly a matter of willpower — that we can learn both to exercise and to avoid muffins and Gatorade. A few of us can, but evolution did not build us to do this for very long. In 2000 the journal Psychological Bulletin published a paper by psychologists Mark Muraven and Roy Baumeister in which they observed that self-control is like a muscle: it weakens each day after you use it. If you force yourself to jog for an hour, your self-regulatory capacity is proportionately enfeebled. Rather than lunching on a salad, you'll be more likely to opt for pizza.

Some of us can will ourselves to overcome our basic psychology, but most of us won't be very successful. "The most powerful determinant of your dietary intake is your energy expenditure," says Steven Gortmaker, who heads Harvard's Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity. "If you're more physically active, you're going to get hungry and eat more." Gortmaker, who has studied childhood obesity, is even suspicious of the playgrounds at fast-food restaurants. "Why would they build those?" he asks. "I know it sounds kind of like conspiracy theory, but you have to think, if a kid plays five minutes and burns 50 calories, he might then go inside and consume 500 calories or even 1,000." (Read "Why Kids' Exercise Matters Less Than We Think.")

Last year the International Journal of Obesity published a paper by Gortmaker and Kendrin Sonneville of Children's Hospital Boston noting that "there is a widespread assumption that increasing activity will result in a net reduction in any energy gap" — energy gap being the term scientists use for the difference between the number of calories you use and the number you consume. But Gortmaker and Sonneville found in their 18-month study of 538 students that when kids start to exercise, they end up eating more — not just a little more, but an average of 100 calories more than they had just burned.

If evolution didn't program us to lose weight through exercise, what did it program us to do? Doesn't exercise do anything?

Sure. It does plenty. In addition to enhancing heart health and helping prevent disease, exercise improves your mental health and cognitive ability. A study published in June in the journal Neurology found that older people who exercise at least once a week are 30% more likely to maintain cognitive function than those who exercise less. Another study, released by the University of Alberta a few weeks ago, found that people with chronic back pain who exercise four days a week have 36% less disability than those who exercise only two or three days a week.

But there's some confusion about whether it is exercise — sweaty, exhausting, hunger-producing bursts of activity done exclusively to benefit our health — that leads to all these benefits or something far simpler: regularly moving during our waking hours. We all need to move more — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says our leisure-time physical activity (including things like golfing, gardening and walking) has decreased since the late 1980s, right around the time the gym boom really exploded. But do we need to stress our bodies at the gym?

Look at kids. In May a team of researchers at Peninsula Medical School in the U.K. traveled to Amsterdam to present some surprising findings to the European Congress on Obesity. The Peninsula scientists had studied 206 kids, ages 7 to 11, at three schools in and around Plymouth, a city of 250,000 on the southern coast of England. Kids at the first school, an expensive private academy, got an average of 9.2 hours per week of scheduled, usually rigorous physical education. Kids at the two other schools — one in a village near Plymouth and the other an urban school — got just 2.4 hours and 1.7 hours of PE per week, respectively.

To understand just how much physical activity the kids were getting, the Peninsula team had them wear ActiGraphs, light but sophisticated devices that measure not only the amount of physical movement the body engages in but also its intensity. During four one-week periods over consecutive school terms, the kids wore the ActiGraphs nearly every waking moment.

And no matter how much PE they got during school hours, when you look at the whole day, the kids from the three schools moved the same amount, at about the same intensity. The kids at the fancy private school underwent significantly more physical activity before 3 p.m., but overall they didn't move more. "Once they get home, if they are very active in school, they are probably staying still a bit more because they've already expended so much energy," says Alissa Frémeaux, a biostatistician who helped conduct the study. "The others are more likely to grab a bike and run around after school."

Another British study, this one from the University of Exeter, found that kids who regularly move in short bursts — running to catch a ball, racing up and down stairs to collect toys — are just as healthy as kids who participate in sports that require vigorous, sustained exercise.

See nine kid foods to avoid.

Read "Our Super-Sized Kids."

Could pushing people to exercise more actually be contributing to our obesity problem? In some respects, yes. Because exercise depletes not just the body's muscles but the brain's self-control "muscle" as well, many of us will feel greater entitlement to eat a bag of chips during that lazy time after we get back from the gym. This explains why exercise could make you heavier — or at least why even my wretched four hours of exercise a week aren't eliminating all my fat. It's likely that I am more sedentary during my nonexercise hours than I would be if I didn't exercise with such Puritan fury. If I exercised less, I might feel like walking more instead of hopping into a cab; I might have enough energy to shop for food, cook and then clean instead of ordering a satisfyingly greasy burrito.

Closing the Energy Gap
The problem ultimately is about not exercise itself but the way we've come to define it. Many obesity researchers now believe that very frequent, low-level physical activity — the kind humans did for tens of thousands of years before the leaf blower was invented — may actually work better for us than the occasional bouts of exercise you get as a gym rat. "You cannot sit still all day long and then have 30 minutes of exercise without producing stress on the muscles," says Hans-Rudolf Berthoud, a neurobiologist at LSU's Pennington Biomedical Research Center who has studied nutrition for 20 years. "The muscles will ache, and you may not want to move after. But to burn calories, the muscle movements don't have to be extreme. It would be better to distribute the movements throughout the day."

For his part, Berthoud rises at 5 a.m. to walk around his neighborhood several times. He also takes the stairs when possible. "Even if people can get out of their offices, out from in front of their computers, they go someplace like the mall and then take the elevator," he says. "This is the real problem, not that we don't go to the gym enough." (Read "Is There a Laziness Gene?")

I was skeptical when Berthoud said this. Don't you need to raise your heart rate and sweat in order to strengthen your cardiovascular system? Don't you need to push your muscles to the max in order to build them?

Actually, it's not clear that vigorous exercise like running carries more benefits than a moderately strenuous activity like walking while carrying groceries. You regularly hear about the benefits of exercise in news stories, but if you read the academic papers on which these stories are based, you frequently see that the research subjects who were studied didn't clobber themselves on the elliptical machine. A routine example: in June the Association for Psychological Science issued a news release saying that "physical exercise ... may indeed preserve or enhance various aspects of cognitive functioning." But in fact, those who had better cognitive function merely walked more and climbed more stairs. They didn't even walk faster; walking speed wasn't correlated with cognitive ability.

There's also growing evidence that when it comes to preventing certain diseases, losing weight may be more important than improving cardiovascular health. In June, Northwestern University researchers released the results of the longest observational study ever to investigate the relationship between aerobic fitness and the development of diabetes. The results? Being aerobically fit was far less important than having a normal body mass index in preventing the disease. And as we have seen, exercise often does little to help heavy people reach a normal weight. (Read "Physical Fitness — How Not to Get Sick.")

So why does the belief persist that exercise leads to weight loss, given all the scientific evidence to the contrary? Interestingly, until the 1970s, few obesity researchers promoted exercise as critical for weight reduction. As recently as 1992, when a stout Bill Clinton became famous for his jogging and McDonald's habits, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published an article that began, "Recently, the interest in the potential of adding exercise to the treatment of obesity has increased." The article went on to note that incorporating exercise training into obesity treatment had led to "inconsistent" results. "The increased energy expenditure obtained by training may be compensated by a decrease in non-training physical activities," the authors wrote.

Then how did the exercise-to-lose-weight mantra become so ingrained? Public-health officials have been reluctant to downplay exercise because those who are more physically active are, overall, healthier. Plus, it's hard even for experts to renounce the notion that exercise is essential for weight loss. For years, psychologist Kelly Brownell ran a lab at Yale that treated obese patients with the standard, drilled-into-your-head combination of more exercise and less food. "What we found was that the treatment of obesity was very frustrating," he says. Only about 5% of participants could keep the weight off, and although those 5% were more likely to exercise than those who got fat again, Brownell says if he were running the program today, "I would probably reorient toward food and away from exercise." In 2005, Brownell co-founded Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, which focuses on food marketing and public policy — not on encouraging more exercise.

Some research has found that the obese already "exercise" more than most of the rest of us. In May, Dr. Arn Eliasson of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center reported the results of a small study that found that overweight people actually expend significantly more calories every day than people of normal weight — 3,064 vs. 2,080. He isn't the first researcher to reach this conclusion. As science writer Gary Taubes noted in his 2007 book Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health, "The obese tend to expend more energy than lean people of comparable height, sex, and bone structure, which means their metabolism is typically burning off more calories rather than less."

In short, it's what you eat, not how hard you try to work it off, that matters more in losing weight. You should exercise to improve your health, but be warned: fiery spurts of vigorous exercise could lead to weight gain. I love how exercise makes me feel, but tomorrow I might skip the VersaClimber — and skip the blueberry bar that is my usual postexercise reward.

See the top 10 food trends of 2008.

Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857,00.html

Sunday, August 9, 2009

El Aire Acondicionado de su Vehiculo

Por favor, no encienda el A/C de inmediato al entrar al vehículo.

Primeramente se debe abrir las ventanas y después de un par de minutos encender el aire acondicionado.

He aquí por qué: según una investigación, el salpicadero del vehiculo, sillas, ambiente emiten benceno. Esta es una toxina que causa el cáncer (observe el olor de plástico cuando se calienta en el coche).

Además de causar cáncer, el benceno proporciona venenos a sus huesos, causa anemia y reduce los glóbulos blancos. La exposición prolongada es la causa de Leucemia, aumentando el riesgo de cáncer. También puede causar aborto involuntario.

El benceno es una toxina que también afecta el riñón y el hígado.

Aceptable nivel de benceno en interiores es de 50 mg por pie cúbico, un automóvil estacionado en interiores con las ventanas cerradas contendrá 400-800 mg de benceno. Si está estacionado al aire libre bajo el sol a una temperatura superior a 60 grados F, el nivel de benceno llega hasta los 2000-4000 mg, 40 veces más del nivel aceptable ... Personas que se encuentren en el coche al mantener las ventanas cerradas, inevitablemente, inhalan, en rápida sucesión cantidades excesivas de la toxina.

¿Qué es lo peor? Es sumamente difícil para su cuerpo expulsar este material tóxico.
Así que amigos, por favor, abra las ventanas y la puerta de su vehiculo antes de entrar para dar tiempo al aire en el interior y asi disipar las cosas mortales.

Pensamiento: "Cuando alguien comparte algo de valor con usted y usted se beneficia de ello, usted tiene la obligación moral de compartirlo con otros."
- Proverbio chino.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

CURACIÓN DEL CÁNCER

Remedio Natural contra el Cáncer

Queridos Amigos y Amigas:
Lo que van a leer a continuación salió publicado en el periódico Listín Diario, de Santo Domingo. En verdad les digo que al leerlo no creía mucho en lo que decía el artículo.
Este remedio se le debe a un Fraile Franciscano de origen brasileño, a quien llaman Fray Romano. Actualmente es maestro del seminario de Belén. Su fama se va extendiendo y como él mismo lo expresa: "Yo curo el cáncer y cualquier persona puede hacerlo, sin hacer milagros, simplemente aplicando los productos que produce la madre naturaleza".
Antes que todo, quiero contarles mi experiencia personal sobre la Bendita Receta.
Tengo conocimiento de la curación de varias personas después de beber el brebaje, a quienes, por el padecimiento de diferentes tipos de cáncer, daban menos de un mes de vida.
Luego de enterarme de las virtudes de este medicamento, totalmente natural, me he propuesto hacerlo circular, por esta vía, para que cualquier persona que tenga amigos o parientes que sufran de la enfermedad, prepare la receta y la dé a tomar. Ya verán el resultado a la semana de estar tomándolo, se los aseguro, es algo que trabaja rápidamente.
La Receta es:
* 1/2 kilo o litro de miel pura de abejas.
* Dos (2) hojas grandes, o tres (3) pequeñas, de la planta llamada Sábila (en otros países se conoce como áloe).
* Tres (3) cucharadas de licor fuerte como coñac, whisky, tequila o aguardiente (se usa como vaso-dilatador).
Despúes de lavar y quitar el polvo y las espinas a la hoja de Sábila, se cortan éstas en pequeños trozos, los cuales luego se introducen en la licuadora. Se bate hasta que se forme una pasta viscosa.
Ya está lista para tomar.
Se puede dejar por fuera de la nevera o guardarse en el refrigerador, al gusto de cada cual.
No debe quitarle la cáscara a la Sábila (aloe), ni colar el remedio.
Debe tomarse una cucharada grande, tres (3) veces por día, 15 minutos antes de cada comida .
Esto debe hacerse por 10 días seguidos.
Se aconseja agitar el frasco antes de cada toma.
El fraile advierte que si después de haber tomado la bebida salen abscesos en la piel, esto es buen síntoma.
Continúa diciendo que si después de la primera toma no se han obtenido los resultados deseados, y después de haberse hecho los exámenes pertinentes y el tumor no ha cedido, se debe beber el remedio 4 veces más, o hasta la curación total.
Desde hace seis (6) años el fraile está usando esta receta, gratuitamente, con óptimos resultados. Ha curado a varias decenas de personas en Belén y sus alrededores.
El dice que no sólo cura, sino que, también previene el cáncer.
Cura el cánceres de la piel, del cerebro, del pulmón, de la próstata, leucemia, etc., etc. ...
También cuenta que últimamente ha curado a una religiosa italiana de 29 años, enferma de esclerosis. No sólo curar el cáncer, es también un restaurador de las células y refuerza el sistema inmunológico.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

El Problema con la Fructosa

La fructosa es diferente a la glucosa. El azúcar (la glucosa) va directamente al torrente sanguíneo para que los tejidos y órganos la puedan utilizar como energía, y de ella sólo un 30 a 40 porciento pasa por el hígado."

Mientras más fructosa contenga la dieta, más alto es el subsiguiente nivel de triglicéridos en la sangre" escribe Tauber. Mientras nuestras autoridades de la salud se han enfocado principalmente en los riesgos de los niveles altos de colesterol LDL (de baja densidad), Taubes demuestra que son nuestros niveles de trigliceridos - grasas - en términos del riesgo de ataque cardiaco.

Y específicamente problemático para la gente con diabetes es el hecho que las dietas altas en fructosa nos llevan a producir más insulina, lo que a su vez nos conduce a más resistencia a la misma (insulina). Esto es porque la fructosa parece bloquear tanto el metabolismo de la glucosa en el hígado, como la síntesis de la glucosa a glicógeno, que es la forma como el hígado almacena la glucosa.

Y es aún peor, dice Taubes. La fructosa es quizás 10 veces peor que la glucosa por la manera en que nuestros cuerpos forman las AGEs, o Advanced Glycation end Products. Mientras leía a Taubes, mi Educador Certificado sobre Diabetes preferido me señaló la existencia de una provocativa entrevista con el Dr Lustig. Esta entrevista publicada originalmente en el ABC Ratio National de Australia, confirma los delineamientos del concepto de Taubes contra la fructosa."

El único órgano de su cuerpo que puede utilizar la fructosa es el hígado," la primera cosa que causa la fructosa es aumentar los niveles de ácido úrico. La fructosa inhibe el óxido nítrico, el cual de otra forma reduciría nuestra presión sanguínea. De manera que la fructosa es ahora famosa por causar hipertensión."

Lo segundo es que la fructosa inicia lo que se conoce como 'de novo lipogénesis', exceso de producción de grasas... Y entonces lo último que hace la fructosa en el hígado es que inicia la producción de una enzima... Lo que pasa es que los receptores de insulina de su hígado cesan de trabajar... Eso significa que los niveles de insulina tienen que elevarse en todo el organismo."

Cuando le pregunté al Dr Lustig el nombre de la enzima que la fructosa inicia en el hígado, me contestó que ellos la llaman "c-jun N-terminal kinase-1"o sólo JNK-1 o Junk-1 (basura-1). "Ella fosforila en el suero una proteina llamada IRS-1 (Insulin Receptor Substrate-1), la cual desactiva la proteina. Tal cosa induce la resistencia hepática a la insulina."

El artículo del Dr Lustig puede encontrarse aquí.

Esta maldita cosa!!!. De hecho "nos estamos envenenando mortalmente", concluye el Dr Lustig.

Lo que disparó el problema reciente con la fructosa empezó en 1978, con el sirope de maíz de alto contenido de fructosa. La forma más común, el HFCS-55 es 55 porciento fructosa y 45 porciento glucosa.El HFCS es ahora el endulzante más común en los EE UU. Ha reemplazado la glucosa (azúcar de mesa) especialmente en las bebidas gaseosas, pero también se encuentra en muchos otros alimentos.

Para los que leen en Inglés:

http://www.healthyeatingclub.org/info/articles/body-shape/fructose.htm

http://www.globalpinoy.com/pinoyhealth/ph_nutrition/NU033108.php

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/mar/19/yehey/life/20080319lif1.html

http://editor.nourishedmagazine.com.au/articles/fructose-the-anti-nourisher

http://livinlavidalowcarb.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/sugar-fix-author-blames-fructose-alone-for-obesity-but-taubes-counters/

http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/16479/trouble-fructose

http://www.healthyweightkids.org/Biochemistry%20of%20Obesity%20Made%20Easy.ppt

http://nature.berkeley.edu/cwh/PDFs/CCOC_07_PDFs/CCOC_07_Jan26_Robert_Lustig_2.pdf

Thursday, February 5, 2009

12 Tips for Better Heart Health

Diet, sleep, fitness, and more -- how to strengthen and protect your heart right now

By Denise Mann
WebMD the Magazine - Feature
Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD
How do you get a healthier heart, right now? The answer sounds too good to be true: “By simply leading a healthier life,” according to Nieca -Goldberg, MD, medical director of New York University’s Women’s Heart Program and author of Dr. Nieca Goldberg’s Complete Guide to Women’s Health.
That’s because even small, steady changes in your life mean a stronger, more efficient heart. “More than half of heart disease is preventable, and studies have shown that 90% of heart attacks in women can be prevented,” she adds. Further, the latest study in Archives of Internal Medicine shows that women who eat loads of veggies, fruit, whole grains, fish, and legumes; drink moderate amounts of alcohol; exercise; maintain a healthy weight; and don’t smoke have a whopping 92% decreased risk of having a heart attack compared with women with less healthy diets and habits.
An added bonus? “So many things we do to help our heart, like quitting smoking, eating more fiber, and moving more, also help other parts of our body, including our bones, colon, lungs, and skin,” Goldberg says. And February is Heart Disease Awareness Month, making this the perfect time to start improving your ticker -- and the rest of you.

1. Know your heart health numbers.
Establish a baseline to help plan every preventive step for the rest of the year. “You need to know if you are at risk before you can take action to lower your risk,” says Lori Mosca, MD, PhD, director of preventive cardiology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and author of Heart to Heart: A Personal Plan for Creating a Heart-Healthy Family. Know your HDL or “good” cholesterol, LDL or “bad” cholesterol, total cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, weight, and body mass index (BMI) numbers. And make an appointment now for a check-in next February to see if your new healthy habits are making the grade.

2. Target your triglycerides.
Shoot for a level of 150 or lower, says Peter H. Jones, MD, an associate professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
“Doctors usually talk about good and bad cholesterol and most folks will have that down, but triglycerides are a better marker for high risk of diabetes and heart disease,” says Jones.
Triglycerides are also much more responsive to lifestyle changes than other types of blood fats. “Your triglycerides can drop 30% to 50% just by reducing saturated fats and reducing your weight,” Jones says.

3. Be a nut about heart health.
Your heart will love you if you eat six walnuts before lunch and dinner, according to Michael Roizen, MD, the chief wellness officer for Cleveland Clinic and chairman of the clinic’s Wellness Institute. Why? Because “walnuts are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which help to decrease inflammation in the arteries surrounding your heart, so they keep your heart functioning longer and better,” promises Roizen, co-author of the best-selling You: Staying Young: The Owner’s Manual for Extending Your Warranty. “Walnuts will also make you feel fuller faster so you are less likely to overeat at meals.”
You may want to give pistachios a try as well. A recent study shows that a serving or two of pistachios each day may help reduce levels of LDL cholesterol, as long as you are mindful of calories. One cup of pistachio nuts has about 700 calories!

4. De-stress your heart.
Unplug yourself from the news cycle and your email. It’s good for you and your ticker. And that begins with your PDA. “Start turning it off for 15 minutes at a time and work up to an hour a day to reduce stress,” Goldberg says. “Stress raises blood pressure, heart rate, and levels of the stress hormone cortisol,” she says. “These days, people are less and less capable of leaving stress at the office because everyone is connected 24/7.”
Consider swapping your BlackBerry for another handheld gadget -- your iPod. “Put some relaxing music on your iPod, close your office door for 10 minutes, and listen and breathe.”

5. Get heart healthy social support.
You know exercise improves heart health by keeping weight down and raising levels of HDL cholesterol, but doing it with a friend adds benefits.
“Finding an exercise buddy is really important because social support lowers your risk of heart disease and helps you stay motivated,” Mosca says. Build up to 60 minutes of exercise a day, but even 20 minutes is better than nothing.
In fact, being married and having a strong social network may help protect against heart disease, according to a study of nearly 15,000 men and women. It turns out that people who have a spouse, go to church, join social clubs, and have a lot of friends and relatives have significantly lower blood pressure and other heart disease risk factors than loners.

6. Volunteer to fight heart disease.
People who volunteer tend to live longer than people who don’t. It’s that simple, Mosca says. “We think this is because volunteering reduces isolation and increases social connectivity.” Find a charity that means something to you and donate your time now.

7. Take a heart-felt approach to quitting smoking.
Smoking is a major risk factor for heart disease, but kicking this nasty habit can be much easier said than done. “If you smoke, talk to your doctor about some of the new therapies that are available,” Goldberg says.
Need an added incentive? Take this advice to heart: “You start to improve your heart health within minutes of quitting,” she says. And the heart health dividends keep growing. “After one year, your heart disease risk is cut in half -- and after 10 years of not smoking, your heart disease risk is the same as for someone who has never smoked.”
Secondhand smoke counts too. A recent study found that women who are exposed to other people’s smoke increased their risk of heart attacks by 69%, strokes by 56%, and peripheral artery disease (PAD) by 67%, when compared with women who did not hang out around smokers. Clogged arteries in the legs, abdomen, pelvis, arms, and neck are linked with PAD. “Tell your friends to quit, too, or make new friends,” Goldberg says.

8. Drink a little alcohol a day to keep heart disease away.
“For women, up to one glass of alcohol a day and, for men, up to two glasses a day can help reduce risk of heart disease,” says Goldberg. “Alcohol may help the heart by increasing levels of HDL cholesterol,” she explains. But keep in mind: More is not merrier. “Alcohol also has calories, and too much can cause high blood pressure, worsen heart failure, and cause heart rhythm abnormalities.”

9. Strengthen your heart with weight training.
“Strength training reduces your percentage of body fat, keeps your weight down, and increases your muscle mass and endurance for aerobic exercise,” says Goldberg. “Do some weight training with free weights twice a week, making sure to focus on both your upper and lower body,” she says. “As your aerobic capacity improves through strength training, your good HDL cholesterol levels will increase.”

10. Measure your waist size to gauge your heart health.
“Take a tape measure and measure your middle,” Goldberg says. “If your waist size is more than 35 inches in women or more than 40 inches in men, this tells you that you are at increased risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes.”
The best way to make a dent in that spare tire? “Get serious about being more active and get rid of simple sugar and white-floured foods in your diet,” Goldberg says, adding that these foods tend to take up residence right around the middle.

11. Reduce your blood pressure by reducing your salt.
High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, and reducing salt intake can help lower blood pressure. Cook with herbs in place of salt, and make sure you read food labels to see just how much salt is in prepared foods. “Aim for less than 2.3 grams [about a teaspoon] of salt per day,” Goldberg says. And keep up the good work when you are dining out, she adds. “Ask for the sauce and salad dressings on the side because restaurant food tends to be heavily salted.”

12. Sleep to your heart’s content.
People who sleep fewer than seven hours a night have higher blood pressure and higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, making the arteries more vulnerable to plaque buildup, says Goldberg. In fact, the latest research shows that people who do not get enough sleep are more than twice as likely as others to die of heart disease. Try to avoid caffeine after noon, and develop a stress-free wind-down ritual before bed. Hint? Take a bath, and don’t pay your bills right before bed.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Diez claves para limpiar de toxinas el organismo

Conviene adoptar, así sea por un tiempo, dietas y hábitos más naturales, que pongan a raya las toxinas.

Desde 1940 hasta la fecha, la industria ha producido alrededor de 87.000 nuevos productos sintéticos; 3.000 de ellos han sido incorporados a alimentos en forma de conservantes y emulsionantes.

Cada año las personas ingieren cientos de miles de kilos de comida que los contienen, eso sin contar con que, a lo largo de la vida, la gente se expone a toda clase de contaminantes: se estima que las personas consumen hoy en día cerca de 100 contaminantes más que hace 50 años.

La mayor parte de los alimentos, valga decirlo, están genéticamente modificados, aun cuando sus etiquetas no lo señalen. Solo en Estados Unidos se cultivan 70 millones de acres con semillas modificadas y 500 mil vacas lecheras son inyectadas con hormonas recombinadas.

Si a todo eso se suman los excesos a los que la gente somete al cuerpo durante las fiestas de fin de año, con el exceso de trago y comida, el consumo de cigarrillo y largas jornadas sin dormir, es natural que el cuerpo se resienta.

Por eso algunas corrientes hablan de la necesidad de darle una pausa al cuerpo y poner en práctica, en forma periódica, algunas medidas para desintoxicarlo.

Es importante saber, en primer lugar, que las toxinas son sustancias que tienen efectos perjudiciales en la función o en la estructura de las células; los daños que causan pueden ser mínimos o fatales, también pueden acumularse a través del tiempo.

El cuerpo tiene un sistema que le permite, por lo general, eliminar esas toxinas. Estas son destruidas, principalmente, en los riñones, en el hígado y en el intestino grueso. Pero si este sistema se sobrecarga, estas partículas tóxicas se acumulan y pueden llegar a afectar a todo el organismo.

Cuando estos órganos dejan de funcionar la medicina occidental recurre a medicamentos para mejorar su desempeño; otras disciplinas combinan ayunos, dietas, meditación y estímulo de la sudoración. Sin entrar a definir cuál método es mejor, es claro que hay algunas pautas sencillas que pueden llevarse a cabo para 'limpiar el cuerpo'.

1. Limite el consumo de alimentos conservados, tratados y enlatados, así como algunos lácteos procesados. Elimine por un tiempo definido (no menor a 30 días) toda alimentación que caiga en la denominación de comida chatarra, pues no tiene valor nutritivo y carece de fibra.

2. Aumente, por tiempos definidos, el consumo de frutas y verduras frescas, en lo posible cocinadas en la casa y sin ningún proceso industrial; consúmalas sin salsas o aderezos que contengan edulcorantes artificiales o glutamatos. Mejor dicho, prepárelas en la casa.

3. Beba agua pura. Cerciórese de que el agua que está consumiendo es lo más limpia posible. Hiérvala y recuerde que la mayoría de la que proviene del grifo puede contener contaminantes, como bacterias y residuos metálicos de tuberías viejas.

4. Incremente el consumo de líquidos: tome jugos recién hechos, pues ayudan a eliminar toxinas; de ser posible consuma caldo y purés de verdura, todo un día al mes; se dice que esto reduce la carga del sistema digestivo.

5. Pruebe el té, los de hierbas y el natural aumentan la micción y mejoran el tránsito intestinal. Con eso pueden eliminarse algunos residuos y bacterias atrapados en el intestino.

6. Si sufre de estreñimiento, trátelo. Incluya en su dieta fibra natural (frutas, verduras, legumbres, salvado, avena y linaza) y si necesita laxantes prefiera uno natural, como el psyllium; eduque el cuerpo para evacuar siempre a la misma hora.

7. El vapor siempre ayuda. Si le es posible, y durante un mes, vaya una vez por semana a saunas o a baños de vapor; estos ayudan a incrementar la frecuencia cardíaca, la sudoración y el metabolismo, con lo que se promueve, de paso, la eliminación de toxinas.

8. Descanse lo necesario. Ajuste sus horarios y haga un esfuerzo por adoptar la sana costumbre de dormir entre siete y ocho horas cada noche. El estrés libera toxinas en el cuerpo, por lo tanto la relajación equilibra el sistema nervioso y disminuye estos efectos.

9. No se exponga. Aunque a veces no es posible protegerse de la contaminación del ambiente, por su cuenta evite el uso, al menos durante un mes, de ambientadores, aerosoles y toda clase de productos para el cuerpo que tengan químicos en exceso.

10. No se automedique. Los fármacos no son inocuos. No los utilice a menos que sea imprescindible, es decir cuando un médico se los recete. Si ese es el caso consúmalos de acuerdo con las dosis y los tiempos recomendados.

FUENTE: ASOCIACIÓN COLOMBIANA DE SOCIEDADES CIENTÍFICAS.
CARLOS F. FERNÁNDEZSONIA PERILLAREDACCIÓN SALUD

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

CÓMO EVITAR UN VIENTRE INFLAMADO

Regina Reyna

Al despertar por la mañana el estómago tiene un tamaño normal, al desayunar aumenta ligeramente y después de comer se inflama tanto que parece un balón de futbol; con ello viene una incomodidad que imposibilita realizar muchas actividades. El problema de vientre inflamado es muy común en las mujeres de las grandes ciudades.
Inflamación y tensión (dureza) abdominal, en ocasiones acompañadas de eructos y dolor, suelen aparecen tras las comidas, y se deben a particular sensibilidad en el colon (zona final del intestino grueso que se conecta con el recto), que reacciona en forma anormal frente a la fermentación natural de los alimentos que se produce durante la digestión.
El problema se conoce como colon irritable o colitis, y puede tener su origen en la ingestión de algunas verduras crudas, como col, coliflor, legumbres (frijoles o lentejas), leche o derivados y bebidas gaseosas, entre otros. Asimismo, debemos tomar en cuenta que muchos de los alimentos que consumimos son pobres en fibra, lo que disminuye la velocidad del tránsito intestinal y hace que el bolo alimenticio se estanque más tiempo en el colon, donde se produce la fermentación de los alimentos.
Por otra parte, hay que decir que el colon está cubierto en su interior por una mucosa que lo protege, la cual puede inflamarse si frecuentemente se viven situaciones de estrés y nerviosismo, debido a que dichos trastornos emocionales producen contracciones en los músculos del intestino grueso, aumentando con ello su sensibilidad ante la presencia de gas y movimientos del sistema digestivo; otros factores que favorecen este problema es el consumo de condimentos, grasas e irritantes (alcohol, picantes y tabaco, principalmente), además de beber poca agua.
Un factor más que aumenta los problemas de hinchazón abdominal es el sedentarismo, es decir, el escaso o nulo ejercicio físico -muy común en la vida moderna-, pues con ello la musculatura abdominal tiene menos fortaleza y el aparato digestivo sufre mala oxigenación.
De manera natural, en cada deglución permitimos el paso de aire que llega al estómago, fenómeno conocido como aerofagia; sin embargo, cuando se come en exceso y apresuradamente, sobre todo alimentos ricos en hidratos de carbono de difícil digestión o muy condimentados, el ingreso de aire puede llegar a ser exagerado y provocar distensión abdominal, eructos frecuentes, gases, así como dolores estomacales y sensación leve de ahogo o de tener un cuerpo extraño en la garganta.
El riesgo de sufrir aerofagia es mayor si se ingieren alimentos espumosos, como suflés, merengues y bebidas carbonatadas y con burbujas (refresco, cerveza y champagne, entre otras), al tomar muchos líquidos en las comidas e, incluso, al padecer estados de nerviosismo y ansiedad.
Solución: cambiar ciertos hábitosPara conseguir que nuestro colon se mantenga sano y que la digestión no enfrente problemas es recomendable llevar una alimentación equilibrada y rica en fibra (a base de cereales y sus derivados, como productos integrales, entre ellos pastas y harinas) que facilite la digestión, además de hacer varias veces a la semana ejercicios para tonificar la zona abdominal.
Sin embargo, es importante seguir ciertas medidas, como las siguientes:
Evite los alimentos que favorecen la hinchazón, como los antes mencionados.
Procure comer tranquilo y sentado, y no de pie y a toda prisa.
Mastique bien, despacio, y triturando los alimentos, proceso que resulta fundamental para una buena digestión.
Limite el consumo de platillos condimentados y exageradamente grasosos; las comidas demasiado fuertes retrasan la digestión y favorecen la fermentación de los alimentos.
Coma fibra (al menos 30 gramos diarios), por ejemplo, en cereales, productos a base de harinas integrales, verduras y vegetales crudos (espinaca, lechuga, calabaza, zanahoria, col y brócoli, por ejemplo) y fruta (manzana, piña, naranja, fresa, guayaba, mango, higo y ciruela).
No abuse de la cantidad de comida y elija ingerir alimentos de gran calidad de manera moderada. Comer demasiado inevitablemente genera sensación de distensión abdominal que obliga a aflojarse el cinturón.
No abuse de condimentos, especias o picantes. Utilice los necesarios y recuerde que algunas hierbas aromáticas, como la albahaca, tienen efectos benéficos sobre la digestión.
Evite beber líquidos durante la comida, pues ello colabora a que se forme una especie de pozo en el estómago en el que se diluyen los jugos gástricos, que tendrán así menos poder para atacar a los alimentos; deberá tomarlos después de comer y durante todo el día para activar el tránsito intestinal.
No acompañe la comida con bebidas gaseosas, como refrescos, ya que acaban mezclándose en el estómago con los alimentos sólidos, dificultando su digestión.
Modere el consumo de bebidas alcohólicas mientras come, sobre todo si las combina con carbonatadas, ya que esto provoca distensión en el estómago y que los efectos tóxicos del alcohol se incrementen, además de generar sensación de plenitud.
No exceda el consumo de dulces, pues retrasan el vaciamiento gástrico.
Evite masticar chicle por lapsos prolongados pues, al igual que las bebidas gaseosas, favorece la aerofagia.
Si unas horas después de la comida persisten las molestias, una infusión de manzanilla, menta o anís resulta benéfica.
Procure seguir siempre estos consejos y su aparato digestivo, y su ropa, se lo agradecerán.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Los Siete Principios para estimular su cerebro

de André Vermeulen


1.. Estimúlese físicamente.

Muévase. Baile, haga ejercicio aeróbico, nade, juegue tenis, fútbol. Haga ejercicios de lateralidad, por ejemplo, con la mano izquierda

toque su oreja derecha y con la mano derecha toque su nariz. Ahora al revés y repítalo varias veces hasta dominarlo.


2.. Tome ocho vasos de agua.

De acuerdo con los expertos, esto no es opcional, es obligatorio si queremos que nuestro cerebro funcione de una manera óptima. Y si estamos estresados, debemos aumentar a 16 vasos de agua al día.

El 90 por ciento del volumen de nuestro cerebro está compuesto por agua y es el principal vehículo de las transmisiones electroquímicas.


3.. Oxigénese.

Haga ejercicio, salga al campo. Antes de una junta importante o de un trabajo que necesite concentración respire hondo.

Respire en 4 tiempos, sostenga el aire en 16 y exhale en 8.

El doctor Otto Warburg, Premio Nobel de Fisiología, hizo un experimento en el cual logró convertir células sanas en malignas, a través del sencillo procedimiento de reducirles el oxígeno.

Rodéese de plantas. ¿Sabía que una sola planta puede remover partículas contaminantes del aire en un espacio de 9 metros cuadrados?

Las plantas aumentan la ionización negativa del aire y lo cargan de oxígeno, aumentando nuestra productividad en un 10%. Algunas plantas como las dársenas han probado ser de las mejores para esto.


4.. Consuma alimentos para el cerebro.

Al cerebro le conviene que comamos cinco porciones de fruta y verduras al día, semillas, nueces, ajo, granos completos, champiñones, aceites prensados en frío y proteínas.

El pescado literalmente genera la construcción de nuevas neurocélulas.


5.. Piense positivamente.

Los pensamientos negativos generan químicos que bloquean la conexión entre los neurotransmisores.

Como decía Henry Ford:

"Si piensas que puedes o que no puedes, siempre estarás en lo correcto".


6.. Escuche música barroca.

La música es la puerta hacia terrenos interiores; toca lugares fuera de nuestro alcance.

Ayuda a la creatividad, a la expresión personal. Facilita el aprendizaje.

Un granjero comprobó que al ponerle música barroca a sus vacas, en ellas había un aumento en la producción de leche y en sus glóbulos blancos.


7.. Rete a su cerebro.

Si no lo usamos, lo perdemos. Juegue ajedrez, resuelva crucigramas, aprenda a tocar un instrumento, haga matemáticas, viaje a lugares nuevos, vaya a exposiciones de arte, lea, estudie algo.

Escriba y dibuje con su mano no dominante. Abra su mente a nuevas experiencias y formas de pensar.

Todo esto genera que el cerebro funcione mejor.

Podemos concluir que en este llamado "Milenio de la Mente", la única manera de ser competitivos y mantener un balance en nuestras vidas es no trabajar más, sino trabajar mejor….!

Friday, October 24, 2008

Comer despacio

eltiempo.com / opinión / columnistas
Manuel Guzman Hennessey

Quiere el gordo Fernández someterse a un "bypass gástrico". Podría comer más despacio y obtener lo que desea. Quizás de una manera menos drástica, más lentamente, pero también más felizmente.
Lo dijo Borges en su poema Instantes: demorarse más. Y lo dicen los investigadores de la Universidad de Osaka, que publicaron, por estos días, en British Medical Journal, una investigación basada en el análisis de los hábitos alimentarios de 3.000 personas. "Si uno come rápidamente está llenando el estómago antes de que la información gástrica tenga una oportunidad de generarse", dijo el profesor Ian McDonald, de la Universidad de Nottingham.

Otro estudio, de la Universidad de Rhode Island, publicado en Journal of the American Dietetic Association, llega a la misma conclusión: si se baja la velocidad de la ingestión, se puede bajar de peso.Las doctoras Elizabeth Denney-Wilson y Karen Campbell van más allá. El editorial que presenta los resultados del estudio dice que el mecanismo que nos hace gordos hoy, podría haber sido, hasta hace relativamente poco, una ventaja evolutiva, que nos ayudaba a consumir más alimento cuando este era escaso. Algunos comen siempre de prisa (o depredan, como un amigo mío); quizás creen que alguien les puede arrebatar el alimento.

La información sobre este peligro probablemente está en la genética de individuos mamíferos, que necesitaron sobrevivir cuando escaseaban los alimentos. Y quizás debido a ello, una de las nuevas áreas desde la cual hoy se estudia la obesidad se aparta de lo puramente fisiológico y aborda el problema desde los comportamientos del acto de comer. Es lo que hace el laboratorio Kissileff, de la Universidad de Liverpool. Uno de sus investigadores, el doctor Jason Halford, encontró que el medicamento contra la obesidad llamado sibutramine actúa desacelerando el ritmo al que los gorditos comen.

Ahora bien, comer despacio reporta más placer que comer rápido; lo promueve la tendencia comida lenta (slow food) y lo disfrutan muchos otros (y otras) a quienes no puedo mencionar aquí, y no porque coman muy rápido, sino porque hacen parte de los felices cumplidores de la sentencia de Alejandro Casona: todo hombre bien comido será siempre un hombre bueno, y todo hombre bien bebido, será siempre un hombre sabio. Ojalá ninguno insista en cirugías, pues otro estudio, de la Universidad de Wake Forest (Estados Unidos), identificó 32 casos de encefalopatía de Wernicke entre quienes se sometieron a cirugía para reducción de peso.

guzmanhennessey@yahoo.com.ar

Manuel Guzman Hennessey es Director del Centro de Aplicaciones de la Teoría del Caos

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Curándonos desde el Interior

por Louise Hay

Con el fin de eliminar para siempre un trastorno, hemos de trabajar primero en disolver la causa mental. He aprendido que para cada trastorno en nuestra vida hay una «necesidad»; de otra manera no lo tendríamos.

El síntoma es sólo un efecto externo. Debemos entrar en nuestro interior para disolver la causa mental. A esto se debe que la Voluntad y la Disciplina no funcionen, porque se limitan a luchar contra el efecto externo. Es como cortar la mala hierba en lugar de arrancarla de raíz.

Así pues, antes de comenzar las afirmaciones de nuevas pautas de pensamiento, es necesario trabajar en la buena disposición a dejar marchar la necesidad de cigarrillos, exceso de peso o de lo que sea. Cuando la necesidad haya desaparecido, el efecto externo también desaparecerá. Ninguna planta puede vivir cuando se la arranca de raíz. Las pautas mentales causantes de la mayoría de los malestares del cuerpo son la crítica, la rabia, el resentimiento y la culpa. Si uno se entrega a la crítica durante un tiempo suficiente, suele conducir a enfermedades como la artritis. La rabia se transforma en cosas que hacen hervir, queman e infectan el cuerpo.
El resentimiento que se alberga durante mucho tiempo se encona y corroe el yo conduciendo finalmente a la formación de tumores y cáncer. La culpa siempre busca castigo y conduce al dolor.

Es mucho más fácil dejar marchar estas pautas de pensamiento negativas cuando estamos sanos que tratar de erradicarlas bajo la influencia del pánico y ante la amenaza del bisturí.Hace unos años me diagnosticaron un cáncer de vagina. No era en absoluto extraño que tuviera cáncer en la región vaginal habiendo sido violada a los cinco años de edad, y habiendo sido una niña maltratada.

Cuando se manifestó la enfermedad ya llevaba varios años como profesora de sanación, por lo cual fui muy consciente de que en ese momento se me daba la oportunidad de practicar y demostrar en mí misma lo que enseñaba a otros.

Como cualquier persona a la que se le dice que tiene cáncer, me invadió el terror. Y sin embargo, yo sabía que la curación mental era efectiva. Consciente de que el cáncer proviene de una actitud de resentimiento muy hondo que se mantiene durante mucho tiempo hasta que literalmente corroe el cuerpo, sabía que tenía que hacer muchísimo trabajo mental.

Comprendí que si me operaban para quitarme el cáncer y no quitaba la pauta mental que lo había creado, los médicos irían cortando trozos de mí hasta que no hubiera más de mí que cortar. Si me hacían la operación y al mismo tiempo yo quitaba esa pauta mental que lo causaba, entonces no reaparecería el cáncer.

Cuando el cáncer o cualquier otra enfermedad reaparecen no creo que se deba a que el médico «no quitó todo», sino más bien a que el paciente no ha hecho ningún cambio mental y por consiguiente vuelve a crear la misma enfermedad. También sabía que si conseguía eliminar la pauta mental que había creado el trastorno llamado cáncer, no tendrían necesidad del médico.

Me puse a trabajar con mi maestro para eliminar ese viejo resentimiento. Hasta ese momento yo no tenía el menor conocimiento de que albergaba ese profundo rencor. Muchas veces estamos ciegos a nuestras propias pautas. Era necesario que trabajara mucho en el perdón así como desintoxicar completamente mi cuerpo y en seis meses conseguí que los médicos estuvieran de acuerdo con lo que yo ya sabía: que ya no tenía ninguna forma de cáncer.Sé que por muy horrible que parezca la situación, si se está dispuesto a realizar el trabajo de liberar y perdonar, se puede curar prácticamente cualquier cosa.

La palabra «incurable» que tanto atemoriza a muchas personas, en realidad sólo significa que ese trastorno en particular no se puede curar por métodos «externos» y que para efectuar la curación debemos «entrar adentro». El trastorno se originó de la nada y volverá a la nada.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Tratamiento de Urgencia de una Quemadura

LOS BOMBEROS nos enseñaron que cuando se produce una quemadura, sea esta de la extensión que fuera, el primer auxilio es colocar la parte afectada debajo de agua fría corriente hasta que el calor disminuya y pare de quemar las capas de piel y después, pasar clara de huevo, levemente batida (sólo para que sea más fácil de aplicar).

Una persona se quemo a mano con agua hirviendo. Colocó entonces la mano debajo de la llave de agua fría, bastante tiempo para evitar el calor inicial, aunque el dolor era tremendo. Luego, rompió 2 huevos y separó las claras batiéndolas un poco, y puso en la mano esa cosa floja, que era la clara.

Su mano estaba tan quemada que, en cuanto ella colocaba la clara encima de la piel esta se secaba y quedaba una película que después se enteró, era colágeno natural. Estuvo por lo menos una hora colocando capa tras capa de claras en la mano.

Por la tarde, no sintió más dolor y al día siguiente apenas había una marca rojiza-morada donde se había quemado. Después de 10 días estaba sin ninguna cicatriz de lo acontecido, no tenía nada!!!

Ni el color de la piel cambió; esa parte quemada, se recuperó totalmente por el colágeno existente en la clara de los huevos que en realidad, es una placenta y está llena de vitaminas.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Salud - Tres veces al día se debe consumir fruta

Las frutas aportan a nuestro organismo una gran cantidad de nutrientes
Fecha de última actualización : 2008-07-25 15:17:10

Bogotá, Colombia (RCN) - Una buena dieta debe tener frutas, son básicas para prevenir y superar enfermedades. Expertas en este tema recomiendan comerlas tres veces, entre ellas, toronja, mango y patilla.
Dentro de la gran cadena alimenticia las frutas son importantes por su aporte en vitaminas, hierro, fibra y minerales que favorecen el desarrollo del organismo. La toronja es de gran importancia por su alto contenido en vitamina C, contribuye a la buena salud de los huesos, su consumo ayuda a fortalecer el sistema inmunológico evitando algunos virus como la gripa.
“Es una fruta que hidrata, que tiene fuentes de vitamina C, es una fruta que se puede comer después del desayuno, después del almuerzo. Se recomienda comer pelada, se recomienda que se le quite la cáscara y el hollejito y que la persona se coma solamente la fibra”, señaló la nutricionista, Martha Rocío López. Por su gran aporte nutricional en fibra el mango se ubica en el segundo lugar de las frutas con mayor valor nutricional.
“Lo recomiendo mucho a mis pacientes que tiene problemas de estreñimiento y que tienen problemas de azúcar porque el mango vale el aporte de fibra, pero no da aporte de azúcar. Las personas lo pueden comer con sal y con limón”, aseguró López.
La patilla es uno de los frutos rojos ricos en agua, que facilita la rehidratación del organismo.“Es una fruta que no hace daño para los problemas de azúcar, es una fruta que hidrata, que a todas las personas les gusta, que no cae mal al estómago, que no da acidez, que ayuda a la diuresis”, afirmó la especialista.
Es de gran importancia incluir en nuestra dieta diaria al menos una porción de fruta.“Puede utilizar una media porción por ejemplo de papaya y vamos a mezclarla con una media porción de melón o le vamos a colocar unas fresas, entonces ya esto es como manejar un poquito los costos alimentarios también de las personas”, comentó la presidenta de la Asociación Colombiana de Nutricionistas y Dietistas, Lucía Correa de Ruiz. Los expertos concluyen que las frutas aportan a nuestro organismo una gran cantidad de nutrientes que son de gran importancia para la prevención de distintas enfermedades.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Eat your way to a better brain



Cognition nutrition
Food for thought
Jul 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition


CHILDREN have a lot to contend with these days, not least a tendency for their pushy parents to force-feed them omega-3 oils at every opportunity. These are supposed to make children brainier, so they are being added to everything from bread, milk and pasta to baby formula and vitamin tablets. But omega-3 is just the tip of the nutritional iceberg; many nutrients have proven cognitive effects, and do so throughout a person’s life, not merely when he is a child.
Fernando Gómez-Pinilla, a fish-loving professor of neurosurgery and physiological science at the University of California, Los Angeles, believes that appropriate changes to a person’s diet can enhance his cognitive abilities, protect his brain from damage and counteract the effects of ageing. Dr Gómez-Pinilla has been studying the effects of food on the brain for years, and has now completed a review, just published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, that has analysed more than 160 studies of food’s effect on the brain. Some foods, he concludes, are like pharmaceutical compounds; their effects are so profound that the mental health of entire countries may be linked to them.
Last year, for example, the Lancet published research showing that folic-acid supplements—sometimes taken by pregnant women—can help those between 50 and 70 years old ward off the cognitive decline that accompanies ageing. In a study lasting three years, Jane Durga, of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and her colleagues found that people taking such supplements did better on measures of memory, information-processing speed and verbal fluency. That, plus evidence that folate deficiency is associated with clinical depression, suggests eating spinach, orange juice and Marmite, which are all rich in folic acid.
Another suggestion from Dr Gómez-Pinilla’s review is that people should eat more antioxidants. That idea is not new. Antioxidants are reckoned by many to protect against the general effects of ageing. Vitamin E, for example, which is found in vegetable oils, nuts and green leafy vegetables, has been linked (in mice) with the retention of memory into old age, and also with longer life.
Dr Gómez-Pinilla, however, gives the antioxidant story a particular twist. The brain, he observes, is peculiarly susceptible to oxidative damage. It consumes a lot of energy, and the reactions that release this energy also generate oxidising chemicals. Moreover, brain tissue contains a great deal of oxidisable material, particularly in the fatty membranes surrounding nerve cells.
That suggests, among other things, the value of a diet rich in berries. These have been shown to have strong antioxidant effects, though only a small number of their constituents have been evaluated in detail. One group that has been evaluated, the polyphenols, has been shown in rodents to reduce oxidative damage and to boost the ability to learn and retain memories. In particular, these chemicals affect changes in response to different types of stimulation in the hippocampus (a part of the brain that is crucial to the formation of long-term memories, and which is the region most affected by Alzheimer’s disease). Another polyphenol, curcumin, has also been shown to have protective effects. It reduces memory deficits in animals with brain damage. It may be no coincidence that in India, where a lot of curcumin is consumed (it is the substance that makes turmeric yellow), Alzheimer’s disease is rarer than elsewhere.
Peas of mind
Though the way antioxidants work in the brain is not well known, Dr Gómez-Pinilla says it is likely they protect the synaptic membranes. Synapses are the junctions between nerve cells, and their action is central to learning and memory. But they are also, he says, the most fragile parts of the brain. And many of the nutrients associated with brain function are known to affect transmission at the synapses.
An omega-3 fatty acid called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), for example, provides membranes at synaptic regions with “fluidity”—the capacity to transport signals. It also provides “plasticity”—a synapse’s capacity to change. Such changes are the basis of memory. Since 30% of the fatty constituents of nerve-cell membranes are DHA molecules, keeping your DHA levels topped up is part of having a healthy brain. Indeed, according to the studies reviewed by Dr Gómez-Pinilla, the benefits of omega-3s include improved learning and memory, and resistance to depression and bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dementia, attention-deficit disorder and dyslexia.
Omega-3s are found in oily fish such as salmon, as well as in walnuts and kiwi fruit, and there is a strong negative correlation between the extent to which a country consumes fish and its levels of clinical depression. On the Japanese island of Okinawa, for example, people have a strikingly low rate of mental disorder—and Okinawans are notable fish eaters, even by the standards of a piscivorous country like Japan. In contrast, many studies suggest that diets which are rich in trans- and saturated fatty acids, such as those containing a lot of deep-fried foods and butter, have bad effects on cognition. Rodents put on such diets show declines in cognitive performance within weeks.
In the past few years, several studies have looked at the effect of adding omega-3s to people’s diets—particularly those of children. One such, carried out in the British city of Durham, was controversial in that it was funded by a maker of children’s omega-3 supplements and did not include a control group being given a placebo. Despite the publicity this study has received, Ben Goldacre, author of a book called “Bad Science” that includes an investigation of it, says the results will not be released.
Work by other researchers, however, has suggested such supplements do improve the performance and behaviour of school-age children with specific diagnoses such as dyslexia, attention-deficit disorder and developmental co-ordination disorder. Moreover, although more work is needed to elucidate the effects of omega-3s on healthy school-age children, Dr Gómez-Pinilla says that younger children whose mothers took fish-oil supplements (which contain omega-3s) when they were pregnant and while they were breast-feeding do show better cognitive performance than their unsupplemented contemporaries.
Eating well, then, is one key to a healthy brain. But a word of warning—do not overeat. This puts oxidative stress on the brain and risks undoing all the good work those antioxidants have been up to. For those who would like a little practical guidance, The Economist has some suggestions for dinner (see menu). So why not put the Nintendo brain trainer away tonight, and eat your way to intelligence instead?







Qué hacer si me machuco, me corto, me quemo...

LO IDEAL ES mantener la calma y acto seguido atender o atenderse. En la mayoría de los casos lo principal para hacerlo está en la casa.
por Mario Alberto Duque Cardozo

EL COLOMBIANO - Medellín

17 de julio de 2008

La puerta que se cierra sobre los dedos, el cuchillo que se sale de su cauce y termina hiriendo la mano, el sucio que se mete directo en el ojo...
Se trata de accidentes comunes, que pueden ocurrir en la casa o en el trabajo y que todos conocemos, al menos, un caso cercano.
¿Qué hacer cuando se presentan? Brindar un primer auxilio es más sencillo de lo que la gente cree.
Eso sí, cuando el asunto se presente muy grave lo mejor es acudir de inmediato al médico para un tratamiento adecuado del problema.Agua, bendita solución
El médico de la Cruz Roja Colombiana, Seccional Antioquia, Leonardo Cerquera Jovel, señala que lo importante es actuar con calma y mirar cada asunto para darle solución.
Para la mayoría de accidentes caseros, sin embargo, el agua resulta ser un precioso elemento para atender a los afectados, pues sirve tanto para calmar el dolor como para ponerle fin a algunos accidentes.
Un sucio en el ojo
"Lo primero es echarse agua, pero en abundancia", recomienda el médico.
Puede ser, agrega, que sea un sucio más complicado de eliminar. "A los conductores de motocicleta les pasa mucho, que les entra casi que a presión".
La atención, sin embargo, sigue siendo la misma: el agua. Solo que por más tiempo: "Unos quince minutos. Meterse en la ducha y casi que poner el ojo ahí, no expuesto a la presión del agua, claro".
Eso mismo debemos aplicar en caso de que le salpique algo al ojo.
Si la molestia continúa lo mejor es asistir al oftalmólogo, para que determine si el sucio sí salió o si hay alguna lesión en la córnea, en tal caso habrá que tapar el ojo durante unas 24 horas, para evitar una lesión mayor.
El traidor cuchillo
Las acciones a tomar luego de presentarse una cortada dependen, claro, de la magnitud de la misma.
Si el corte es con el cuchillo de la cocina, por ejemplo, lo primero es lavarse con abundante agua y jabón "que haga espuma", agrega Cerquera Jovel. "Si no la hace, no está cumpliendo su labor desinfectante".
Si tiene isodine, puede aplicarlo, pero eso solo es para el primer momento, luego no se requiere.
Si el sangrado continúa lo más recomendable es, con la ayuda de un trapo limpio o gasa, ejercer presión.
Por nada del mundo se aconseja, así las abuelas lo recomienden, usar telarañas o café para "cerrar" la herida.
Si el corte es con algo de la calle (una lata, un alambre de púas) es bueno ir al médico para aplicarse la vacuna antitetánica, para no correr riesgos.
Ojo con los dedosUn machucón no es el más peligroso de los accidentes, pero sí de los más dolorosos.
Su mayor riesgo puede estar en una fractura. "Si el dedo se pone negro y se hincha, puede haberse quebrado el hueso".
Si el problema es, en cambio, una astilla (problema frecuente que se presenta cuando se arman camas o bibliotecas), se puede intentar retirarle con una aguja esterilizada "no con fuego, sino con alcohol", advierte el médico.
También puede usarse una aguja hipodérmica, es decir, la de las jeringas.
En algunos casos, cuando la astilla es imposible de retirar por uno mismo, es necesaria una incisión, que la debe hacer un médico.
Fuego en la piel
"Agua". La respuesta es inmediata. Ante una quemadura lo ideal es aplicar agua fría sobre la zona afectada."
La idea es evitar que el calor atraviese las capas de la piel y llegue a ser una quemadura de tercer grado.
Debe ser una "ducha" de al menos 15 minutos, aconseja Cerquera Jovel.
Por nada del mundo se debe usar crema de dientes sobre la herida, pues esta también quema."
Luego vendrán otras aplicaciones y cremas".
Tampoco es recomendable estallar las ampollas que resultan de la quemadura, sino dejar que se revienten solas.
¿Qué se mueve en el oído?
Por lo general los cuerpos extraños en los oídos suelen ser pequeños insectos."No debe usarse aplicadores (copitos) ni nada similar para intentar retirarlo, a no ser que se vea a simple vista, entonces se podría sacar con una pinza".
De no ser así, hay que ir al otorrino quien definirá qué hacer.

Friday, July 4, 2008

The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating

June 30, 2008, 8:50 am

From the New York Times

Maybe you should be eating more beets, left, or chopped cabbage. (Credit: Evan Sung for The New York Times)
Nutritionist and author Jonny Bowden has created several lists of healthful foods people should be eating but aren’t.
But some of his favorites, like purslane, guava and goji berries, aren’t always available at regular grocery stores.
I asked Dr. Bowden, author of “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth,” to update his list with some favorite foods that are easy to find but don’t always find their way into our shopping carts. Here’s his advice.

Beets: Think of beets as red spinach, Dr. Bowden said, because they are a rich source of folate as well as natural red pigments that may be cancer fighters.How to eat: Fresh, raw and grated to make a salad. Heating decreases the antioxidant power.

Cabbage: Loaded with nutrients like sulforaphane, a chemical said to boost cancer-fighting enzymes.How to eat: Asian-style slaw or as a crunchy topping on burgers and sandwiches.

Swiss chard: A leafy green vegetable packed with carotenoids that protect aging eyes.How to eat it: Chop and saute in olive oil.

Cinnamon: May help control blood sugar and cholesterol.How to eat it: Sprinkle on coffee or oatmeal.

Pomegranate juice: Appears to lower blood pressure and loaded with antioxidants.How to eat: Just drink it.

Dried plums: Okay, so they are really prunes, but they are packed with antioxidants.How to eat: Wrapped in prosciutto and baked.

Pumpkin seeds: The most nutritious part of the pumpkin and packed with magnesium; high levels of the mineral are associated with lower risk for early death.How to eat: Roasted as a snack, or sprinkled on salad.

Sardines: Dr. Bowden calls them “health food in a can.'’ They are high in omega-3’s, contain virtually no mercury and are loaded with calcium. They also contain iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese as well as a full complement of B vitamins.How to eat: Choose sardines packed in olive or sardine oil. Eat plain, mixed with salad, on toast, or mashed with dijon mustard and onions as a spread.

Turmeric: The “superstar of spices,'’ it may have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.How to eat: Mix with scrambled eggs or in any vegetable dish.

Frozen blueberries: Even though freezing can degrade some of the nutrients in fruits and vegetables, frozen blueberries are available year-round and don’t spoil; associated with better memory in animal studies.How to eat: Blended with yogurt or chocolate soy milk and sprinkled with crushed almonds.

Canned pumpkin: A low-calorie vegetable that is high in fiber and immune-stimulating vitamin A; fills you up on very few calories.How to eat: Mix with a little butter, cinnamon and nutmeg.


You can find more details and recipes on the Men’s Health Web site, which published the original version of the list last year.


In my own house, I only have two of these items — pumpkin seeds, which I often roast and put on salads, and frozen blueberries, which I mix with milk, yogurt and other fruits for morning smoothies. How about you? Have any of these foods found their way into your shopping cart?

Thursday, May 22, 2008

QUEMADURAS

Mensaje de Hernán Arango

Una quemadura que podría haber sido terrible, seguimos los pasos descritos abajo y el resultado fue increíble, no ampolla, ni dolor, ni mancha.

Conclusión: Es efectivo.

En un curso de aspirantes a bomberos enseñaron que cuando se produce una quemadura, sea esta de la extensión que fuera, el primer auxilio es colocar la parte afectada debajo de agua fría corriente hasta que el calor disminuya y pare de quemar las capas de piel y después, pasar clara de huevo, levemente batida (sólo para que sea más fácil de aplicar).

La semana pasada, al calentar agua, una amiga la dejó pasar de punto; ya estaba en ebullición y cuando agarró la olla para tirar el agua, se quemó una gran parte de su mano porque el agua hirviente saltó hacia afuera cuando ella trataba de mover el recipiente. Colocó entonces la mano debajo de la llave de agua fría, bastante tiempo para evitar el calor inicial, aunque el dolor era tremendo. Luego, rompió 2 huevos y separó las claras batiéndolas un poco, y puso en la mano esa cosa floja, que era la clara. Su mano estaba tan quemada que, en cuanto ella colocaba la clara encima de la piel esta se secaba y quedaba una película que después se enteró, era colágeno natural.

Estuvo por lo menos una hora colocando capa tras capa de claras en la mano. Por la tarde, no sintió más dolor y al día siguiente apenas había una marca rojiza-morada donde se había quemado. Ella pensó que quedaría con una cicatriz horrible, pero para su sorpresa, después de 10 días estaba sin ninguna marca de lo acontecido, no tenia nada!

Ni el color de la piel cambió; esa parte quemada, se recuperó totalmente por el colágeno existente en la clara de los huevos que en realidad, es una placenta y está llena de vitaminas.

Siempre puede existir alguien que necesite este mensaje Compártelo

Sunday, April 27, 2008

LA VERDAD SOBRE LA BEBIDA 'RED BULL"

Con pena y no sin dolor, Daniel de 20 años de edad, falleció el pasado 20 de Octubre; tuvo un infarto masivo........

Esta bebida está de venta en todos los supermercados de nuestro país.Nuestros hijos, seres queridos y amigos la pueden consumir para probarla...puede ser mortal.

Red Bull fue creado para estimular el cerebro en personas sometidas a un gran esfuerzo físico y nunca para ser consumido como una bebida inocente o refrescante.

RED BULL es la bebida que se comercializa a nivel mundial con su eslogan:
'Aumenta la resistencia física, agiliza la capacidad de concentración y la velocidad de reacción, brinda más energía y mejora el estado de ánimo.

Todo eso se puede encontrar en una latita de RED BULL, la bebida energizante del milenio. (según sus codiciosos propietarios).

RED BULL ha logrado llegar a casi 100 países de todo el mundo. La marca del Toro Rojo, tiene como principales consumidores a jóvenes y deportistas, dos segmentos atractivos que han sido cautivados por el estímulo que produce la bebida.

HISTORIA:
Esta bebida fue creada por Dietrich Mateschitz, un empresario de origen austriaco quien la descubrió por casualidad en un viaje de negocios a HONG KONG, cuando trabajaba para una empresa fabricante de cepillos de dientes.

El liquido basado en una fórmula que contiene cafeína y taurina, causaba furor en ese país; entonces pensó en el rotundo éxito que esta bebida tendría en Europa, donde todavía no existía este producto, además de ver una oportunidad de convertirse en empresario.

¡PERO LA VERDAD DE ESTA BEBIDA ES OTRA! En Francia y Dinamarca la acaban de prohibir por ser un cóctel de la muerte, debido a sus componentes de vitaminas mezcladas con GLUCURONOLACTONE, químico altamente peligroso, desarrollado por el Departamento de Defensa de los Estados Unidos, durantelos años 60 para estimular la moral de las tropas acantonadas en VIETNAM, el cual actuaba como una droga alucinógena que calmaba el estrés de la guerra. Pero sus efectos en el organismo fueron tan devastadores, y fue descontinuado ante el alto índice de casos de migrañas, tumores cerebrales y enfermedades del hígado que mostraron los soldados que lo consumieron.

Y a pesar de ello, en la lata de RED BULL tiene entre otros componentes:

GLUCURONALACTONE, catalogado médicamente como un estimulante.

Pero lo que NO DICE la lata de RED BULL, son las consecuencias de su consumo, que obligan a colocar una serie de

ADVERTENCIAS:

1. Es peligroso tomarlo si después no hace ejercicio físico, ya que su función energizante acelera el ritmo cardiaco y te puede ocasionar un INFARTO FULMINANTE.
2. Corres el peligro de sufrir una HEMORRAGIA CEREBRAL, debido a que el RED BULL contiene componentes que diluyen la sangre para que al corazón le cueste menos bombearla, y así poder hacer un esfuerzo físico con menos agotamiento.
3. Está prohibido mezclar el RED BULL con alcohol, porque la mezcla convierte la bebida en una 'bomba mortal' que ataca directamente el hígado, provocando que la zona afectada no se regenere nunca más.
4. Uno de los componentes principales del RED BULL es la vitamina B12, utilizada en medicina para recuperar a pacientes que se encuentran en coma etílico (coma producido por consumo de alcohol); es por ello que se produce la hipertensión y el estado de excitabilidad en el que te encuentras después de tomarlo, como si estuvieras en estado de embriaguez, es decir borracho, sin haber tomado ninguna bebida alcohólica.
5. El Consumo regular de RED BULL desencadena en la aparición de una serie de enfermedades nerviosas y neuronales irreversibles (no hay recuperación).

CONCLUSIÓN:

Es una bebida que debería prohibirse en el mundo entero.

Venezuela, República Dominicana, Puerto Rico y otros países del Caribe, ya están alertando a otras naciones, ya que la mezcla de esta bebida con alcohol crea una bomba de tiempo para el cuerpo humano, principalmente entre los adolescentes y adultos ignorantes por su poca experiencia.

Esta bebida se vende en supermercados y tiendas del país y nuestros hijos, la pueden consumir para probarla... puede ser mortal!!

Monday, April 7, 2008

Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD), one form of dementia, is a progressive, degenerative brain disease. It affects memory, thinking, and behavior.

Alternative Names
Senile dementia/Alzheimer's type (SDAT)

Memory impairment is a necessary feature for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's or any type of dementia. Change in one of the following areas must also be present: language, decision-making ability, judgment, attention, and other areas of mental function and personality.
The rate of progression is different for each person. If AD develops rapidly, it is likely to continue to progress rapidly. If it has been slow to progress, it will likely continue on a slow course.
More than 4 million Americans currently have AD. The older you get, the greater your risk of developing AD, although it is not a part of normal aging. Family history is another common risk factor.
In addition to age and family history, risk factors for AD may include:
Longstanding high blood pressure
History of head trauma
High levels of homocysteine (a body chemical that contributes to chronic illnesses such as heart disease, depression, and possibly AD)
Female gender -- because women usually live longer than men, they are more likely to develop AD
There are two types of AD -- early onset and late onset. In early onset AD, symptoms first appear before age 60. Early onset AD is much less common, accounting for only 5-10% of cases. However, it tends to progress rapidly.
The cause of AD is not entirely known but is thought to include both genetic and environmental factors. A diagnosis of AD is made based on characteristic symptoms and by excluding other causes of dementia.
Prior theories regarding the accumulation of aluminum, lead, mercury, and other substances in the brain leading to AD have been disproved. The only way to know for certain that someone had AD is by microscopic examination of a sample of brain tissue after death.
The brain tissue shows "neurofibrillary tangles" (twisted fragments of protein within nerve cells that clog up the cell), "neuritic plaques" (abnormal clusters of dead and dying nerve cells, other brain cells, and protein), and "senile plaques" (areas where products of dying nerve cells have accumulated around protein). Although these changes occur to some extent in all brains with age, there are many more of them in the brains of people with AD.
The destruction of nerve cells (neurons) leads to a decrease in neurotransmitters (substances secreted by a neuron to send a message to another neuron). The correct balance of neurotransmitters is critical to the brain.
By causing both structural and chemical problems in the brain, AD appears to disconnect areas of the brain that normally work together.
About 10 percent of all people over 70 have significant memory problems and about half of those are due to AD. The number of people with AD doubles each decade past age 70. Having a close blood relative who developed AD increases your risk.
Early onset disease can run in families and involves autosomal dominant, inherited mutations that may be the cause of the disease. So far, three early onset genes have been identified.
Late onset AD, the most common form of the disease, develops in people 60 and older and is thought to be less likely to occur in families. Late onset AD may run in some families, but the role of genes is less direct and definitive. These genes may not cause the problem itself, but simply increase the likelihood of formation of plaques and tangles or other AD-related pathologies in the brain.

In the early stages, the symptoms of AD may be subtle and resemble signs that people mistakenly attribute to "natural aging." Symptoms often include:
Repeating statements
Misplacing items
Having trouble finding names for familiar objects
Getting lost on familiar routes
Personality changes
Losing interest in things previously enjoyed
Difficulty performing tasks that take some thought, but used to come easily, like balancing a checkbook, playing complex games (such as bridge), and learning new information or routines
In a more advanced stage, symptoms are more obvious:
Forgetting details about current events
Forgetting events in your own life history, losing awareness of who you are
Problems choosing proper clothing
Hallucinations, arguments, striking out, and violent behavior
Delusions, depression, agitation
Difficulty performing basic tasks like preparing meals and driving
At end stages of AD, a person can no longer survive without assistance. Most people in this stage no longer:
Understand language
Recognize family members
Perform basic activities of daily living such as eating, dressing, and bathing

The first step in diagnosing Alzheimer's disease is to establish that dementia is present. Then, the type of dementia should be clarified. A health care provider will take a history, do a physical exam (including a neurological exam), and perform a mental status examination.
Tests may be ordered to help determine if there is a treatable condition that could be causing dementia or contributing to the confusion of AD. These conditions include thyroid disease, vitamin deficiency, brain tumor, drug and medication intoxication, chronic infection, anemia, and severe depression.
AD usually has a characteristic pattern of symptoms and can be diagnosed by history and physical exam by an experienced clinician. Tests that are often done to evaluate or exclude other causes of dementia include computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and blood tests.
In the early stages of dementia, brain image scans may be normal. In later stages, an MRI may show a decrease in the size of the cortex of the brain or of the area of the brain responsible for memory (the hippocampus). While the scans do not confirm the diagnosis of AD, they do exclude other causes of dementia (such as stroke and tumor).

Treatment
Unfortunately, there is no cure for AD. The goals in treating AD are to:
Slow the progression of the disease.
Manage behavior problems, confusion, and agitation.
Modify the home environment.
Support family members and other caregivers.
The most promising treatments include lifestyle changes, medications, and antioxidant supplements like vitamin E and ginkgo biloba.
LIFESTYLE CHANGES
The following steps can help people with AD:
Walk regularly with a caregiver or other reliable companion. This can improve communication skills and prevent wandering.
Use bright light therapy to reduce insomnia and wandering.
Listen to calming music. This may reduce wandering and restlessness, boost brain chemicals, ease anxiety, enhance sleep, and improve behavior.
Get a pet dog.
Practice relaxation techniques.
Receive regular massages. This is relaxing and provides social interactions.
DRUG TREATMENT
Several drugs are available to try to slow the progression of AD and possibly improve the person's mental capabilities. Memantine (Namenda) is currently the only drug approved for the treatment of moderate-to-severe Alzheimer’s disease.
Other medicines include donepezil (Aricept), rivastigmine (Exelon), galantamine (Razadyne, formerly called Reminyl), and tacrine (Cognex). These drugs affect the level of a neurotransmitter in the brain called acetylcholine. They may cause nausea and vomiting. Tacrine also causes an elevation in liver enzymes and must be taken four times a day. It is now rarely used.
Aricept is taken once a day and may stabilize or even improve the person's mental capabilities. It is generally well tolerated. Exelon seems to work in a similar way. It is taken twice a day.
Other medicines may be needed to control aggressive, agitated, or dangerous behaviors. These are usually given in very low doses.
It may be necessary to stop any medications that make confusion worse. Such medicines may include pain killers, cimetidine, central nervous system depressants, antihistamines, sleeping pills, and others. Never change or stop taking any medicines without first talking to your doctor.
SUPPLEMENTS
Folate (vitamin B9) is critical to the health of the nervous system. Together with some other B vitamins, folate is also responsible for clearing homocysteine (a body chemical that contributes to chronic illnesses) from the blood. High levels of homocysteine and low levels of both folate and vitamin B12 have been found in people with AD. Although the benefits of taking these B vitamins for AD is not entirely clear, it may be worth considering them, particularly if your homocysteine levels are high.
Antioxidant supplements, like ginkgo biloba and vitamin E, scavenge free radicals. These products of metabolism are highly reactive and can damage cells throughout the body.
Vitamin E dissolves in fat, readily enters the brain, and may slow down cell damage. In at least one well-designed study of people with AD who were followed for 2 years, those who took vitamin E supplements had improved symptoms compared to those who took a placebo pill. Patients who take blood-thinning medications like warfarin (Coumadin) may should talk to their doctor before taking vitamin E.
Ginkgo biloba is an herb widely used in Europe for treating dementia. It improves blood flow in the brain and contains flavonoids (plant substances) that act as antioxidants. Although many of the studies to date have been somewhat flawed, the idea that ginkgo may improve thinking, learning, and memory in those with AD has been promising. DO NOT use ginkgo if you take blood-thinning medications like warfarin (Coumadin) or a class of antidepressants called monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs).
If you are considering any drugs or supplements, you MUST talk to your doctor first. Remember that herbs and supplements available over the counter are NOT regulated by the FDA.
SUPPORT AT HOME
Someone with AD will need support in the home as the disease worsens. Family members or other caregivers can help by trying to understand how the person with AD perceives his or her world. Simplify the patient's surroundings. Give frequent reminders, notes, lists of routine tasks, or directions for daily activities. Give the person with AD a chance to talk about their challenges and participate in their own care.
OTHER PRACTICAL STEPS
The person with AD should have their eyes and ears checked. If problems are found, hearing aids, glasses, or cataract surgery may be needed.
Those with AD may have particular dietary requirements such as:
Extra calories due to increased physical activity from restlessness and wandering.
Supervised meals and help with feeding. People with AD often forget to eat and drink, and can become dehydrated as a result.
The Safe Return Program, implemented by the Alzheimer's Association, requires that a person with AD wear in identification bracelet. If he or she wanders, the caregiver can contact the police and the national Safe Return office, where information about the person is stored and shared nationwide.
Eventually, 24-hour monitoring and assistance may be necessary to provide a safe environment, control aggressive or agitated behavior, and meet physiologic needs. This may include in-home care, nursing homes, or adult day care.
Support Groups
For additional information and resources for people with Alzheimer's disease and their caregivers, see Alzheimer's disease support groups.
Expectations (prognosis)
The probable outcome is poor. The disorder is usually progresses steadily. Total disability is common. Death normally occurs within 15 years, usually from an infection or a failure of other body systems.
Complications
Loss of ability to function or care for self
Bedsores, muscle contractures (loss of ability to move joints because of loss of muscle function), infection (particularly urinary tract infections and pneumonia), and other complications related to immobility during end-stages of AD
Falls and broken bones
Loss of ability to interact
Malnutrition and dehydration
Failure of body systems
Reduced life span
Harmful or violent behavior toward self or others
Abuse by an over-stressed caregiver
Side effects of medications
Calling Your Health Care Provider
Call your health care provider if someone close to you experiences symptoms of senile dementia/Alzheimer's type.
Call your health care provider if a person with this disorder experiences a sudden change in mental status. (A rapid change may indicate other illness.)
Discuss the situation with your health care provider if you are caring for a person with this disorder and the condition deteriorates to the point where you can no longer care for the person in your home.

Although there is no proven way to prevent AD, there are some practices that may be worth incorporating into your daily routine, particularly if you have a family history of dementia. Talk to your doctor about any of these approaches, especially those that involve taking a medication or supplement.
Consume a low-fat diet.
Eat cold-water fish (like tuna, salmon, and mackerel) rich in omega-3 fatty acids, at least 2 to 3 times per week.
Reduce your intake of linoleic acid found in margarine, butter, and dairy products.
Increase antioxidants like carotenoids, vitamin E, and vitamin C by eating plenty of darkly colored fruits and vegetables.
Maintain a normal blood pressure.
Stay mentally and socially active throughout your life.
Consider taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), sulindac (Clinoril), or indomethacin (Indocin). Statin drugs, a class of medications normally used for high cholesterol, may help lower your risk of AD. Talk to your doctor about the pros and cons of using these medications for prevention.
In addition, early testing of a vaccine against AD is underway.

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Moore DP, Jefferson JW. Handbook of Medical Psychiatry. 2nd ed. St. Louis, Mo: Mosby; 2004.
Goetz CG, Pappert EJ. Textbook of Clinical Neurology. 2nd ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders; 2003.