Archive for December, 2009



Having a child with autism is often an emotional struggle. But more than the fact it is indeed emotionally challenging to raise a child with autism, what is even more straining is the reality that parents still have to deal with treatments used to treat or manage autism. According to various surveys and reports, a significant number of parents of autistic children are willing to try anything to treat their child’s condition, as long as it is guaranteed not to adversely affect their children (autistic children do have a lot to deal with, after all). So while an ineffective alternative treatment for autism may not adversely affect the child, it will definitely affect the parent-due to disappointment. Parents can’t help but expect the treatment they are using to work, or at least yield some positive effects. When it doesn’t, they will feel down and disappointment, due to many reasons, obviously.

So with this in mind, how should parents approach nutritional treatments for their autistic children?

First, they should learn the basis of nutritional treatments as a cure for autism symptoms. As any parent of an autistic child should know, medical experts have not fully determined the source of autism. Although the cause is generally acknowledged to be genetic, a number of experts believe autism is caused by biomedical factors, including gastrointestinal bacteria, weak immune system, vaccine and mercury, and chemicals produced by certain food substances inside the body. In any case, nutritional treatments serve as a cushion to soften the blow of the effects of autism, so to speak. According to the experts who say autism is caused by a biomedical disorder, autistic children do not get the proper nutrition they should be getting due to the factors listed above. Needless to say, the lack of such nutrients makes it hard for their body to fully develop.

Among the natural treatments being used today, nutritional treatments are perhaps the most accepted. Everyone needs proper nutrition, especially children with autism with their underdeveloped bodies. Parents should see nutritional nutrients as a necessity. After all, autistic children have weaker immune systems; it is only natural that parents give them supplements in order to remedy this potential problem.

Often times, nutritional treatments are used to supplement other existing treatments, naturally or otherwise. Since it is only imperative for parents to give their children nutritional supplements, it should be not considered as the be all and end all of autism treatments. Many use such treatment as an additional measure to help make other alternative methods more effective. For instance, people using the gluten-free, casein-free diet often supplement the diet with nutritional treatments.

The substances used for this treatment may vary, although there are certain nutrients that they suggest children with autism take. For instance, Vitamin D is often considered as one of the more important nutrients for autistic children. Besides this, other substances used for nutritional treatments include probiotics, colostrum, and melatonin. They act on different areas of the body that affect an autistic child most severely (probiotics works on the digestive track, while colostrums is for the body’s immune system).

It should be noted, however, that the effects of autism treatments vary from case to case. It may work well for some, while it may not work for others. Parents would do no wrong with nutritional treatments, but they should not expect too much from it.



Many patients with hypertension are sodium sensitive, meaning their blood pressure increases after they consume excessive amounts of sodium and decreases after they reduce their sodium intake. Such patients may be prescribed a sodiumrestricted diet, which usually limits sodium consumption to 2 grams a day.

If your patient must comply with such a diet, help him make the change. Along with his dietitian, provide nutritional counseling soon after his hypertension is diagnosed. Include the family or caregiver in your teaching, especially if she prepares the patient’s food at home.

Sources of Sodium

Your patient must understand which foods and drugs contain sodium. Explain that the most common sources of sodium are table salt, processed foods, drugs, and softened water.

Table Salt

Advise your patient to avoid using table salt during food preparation and tell him not to add salt to his food. Common table salt consists of 40% sodium and 60% chloride, so if he takes in 6 grams of salt, he’s actually consuming 2.4 grams of sodium.

Foods

Explain that some foods, such as beef and dairy products, naturally contain sodium. Other foods are processed with sodium to enhance the flavor or prolong the shelf life. Preserved or processed foods include pickles, canned vegetables, soups, and gravy. Tell him to be alert for products that list sodium ingredients such as sodium benzoate and sodium citrate.

Also, teach your hypertensive patient how to read food labels for sodium content. To reduce confusion and regulate what manufacturers put on food labels, the Food and Drug Administration has defined the terms used in sodium labeling:

* Sodium-Free : less than 5 mg of sodium per serving.

* Very Low Sodium: 35 mg or less per serving.

* Low Sodium: 140 mg or less per serving.

* Reduced Sodium: sodium content reduced by at least 25% of usual level.

* Light Sodium: sodium content reduced by at least 50% of usual level.

* Without Added Salt, Unsalted, or no Added Salt: foods once processed with salt and now processed without it. (These foods must list the amount of sodium per serving.)

Caution your patient about foods that claim to be low in sodium. If the sodium content is less than 5 mg per serving, he can eat the food without concern. If it’s higher than 5 mg, he’ll need to include the amount in his calculation of sodium intake for the day.

Drugs

Show your patient how to check labels for the sodium content of over-the-counter drugs such as antacids, cough syrups, and laxatives. For other drugs, advise him to check with his pharmacist. If necessary, he should ask his physician or pharmacist to recommend alternative drugs with little or no sodium.

Water

Natural and softened water can be high in sodium. A patient following a severely sodium-restricted diet should investigate the sodium content of his drinking water by contacting his water company or local public health department. Then he should discuss this information with his physician. Depending on how much sodium is in the water, he may be advised to drink and cook with distilled water.

Dec
28

Anti Aging Medicine

Posted by ewwink


Many professionals with medical training are now involved in researching possible approaches to anti aging medicine. Through the wonders of modern innovation and medical technology, anti aging medicine may be able to increase the body’s immune system and encourage cell growth and regeneration. Anti aging medicine can be found in different substances and formulas and are beneficial to a degree. It’s a safe bet there will be many more to choose from in the near future, as anti aging medicine gets more and more advanced.

Anti Aging

Aging is defined as the collection of degenerative diseases that is large influenced by lifestyle. In order to give full meaning to the right to “life” we need a “war on aging”. We are therefore at an unprecedented turning point in the study of aging, in which the curiosity-driven, exploratory research that has justifiably monopolized the field until now can at last be legitimately accompanied by goal-directed, biotechnological efforts, rationally designed on the basis of solid scientific knowledge. Anti-aging medicine has emerged in recent times promising increased longevity with improved quality of life. Anti-aging physicians believe that most illnesses associated with aging can be prevented, or at least slowed, through optimal cellular health.

Medicine for Anti Aging

Anti-Aging Medicine is the new medical discipline which aspires to halt the degeneration and disability normally associated with aging. That style of anti-aging medicine can, indeed, work miracles. Alternative medicine and holistic approaches have often been an incubator for approaches initially shunned by traditional medicine. Though the effort has seemed futile in the past, findings from the cutting edge of medicine indicate we can, at the dawn of the 21st century, do much to optimize how we age. You might not know that there are natural medicines that can treat your thyroid disease just as effectively as pharmaceutical drugs without the side effects.

Health and Vitality

If mankind doesn’t destroy itself first, it is just a matter of time until we extend healthy human lifespan to lengths that are almost unimaginable today. Once healthy life-extension is demonstrated in mice, the attitude that “aging is inevitable” will no longer be possible and will give way to an all-out “war on aging”. Living a healthy lifestyle is the best insurance you can have, not only to avoid nursing home care, but also illness and frailty, however long you live. Restoring hormones in the body to more youthful levels can elicit improved health and vitality. Learn about natural ways to stay young and healthy and combat premature aging.

We’re discovering that some foods have potent healthful properties that we never imagined were there. A healthy human individual is automatically on an anti-aging program, which is why they live longer. Perhaps in another 100 years, compounds will be identified, studied and proven to be extremely helpful to human health, but in the meantime, they remain mystery compounds that are outside the understanding of modern medical researchers. The real question here concerns “health enhancement,” because enhancing your health will reduce your apparent age and make you look, feel and act younger. Anti-aging medicine can do very little for someone unless the whole patient is making a shift towards a healthier, non-toxic lifestyle.