Health Care

By: John McNett

The question I would like to bring to your attention today is can vitamins help to fight Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). I decided to do some studying on the subject and what I found was some interesting facts that helped me support this idea. Let me start out by telling you a little more about RA. More than a million people in the United States have RA. RA typically develops between the ages of 25 and 50. RA is a chronic inflammatory disease of the joints that affects an estimated 1.3 million Americans.

The disease occurs when the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the thin membrane that lines the joints. The results can be joint damage, ongoing pain, inflammation, loss function and disability. The joints most commonly affected by RA are those of the hands, feet, wrists, knees, elbows, and ankles. In RA, the primary site of the attack is in the thin layer of tissue that is around the joints.

Studies have shown that those Americans with RA have vitamins deficiencies. The most common vitamin deficiencies in RA is folic acid, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Vitamin E, Calcium, Magnesium, Zinc, and Selenium. Food of course is the preferred source for getting the vitamins and minerals. Vitamin Supplements will work in getting the vitamins and minerals that you don’t receive from food. I would like to discuss with you two particular vitamins that studies have shown to help fight RA.

Research has made a case that Vitamin D helps protect older women against RA. Recent Studies has also linked deficiencies of Vitamin D to other disorders such as certain cancers, heart disease, and diabetes. General population studies indicate that about one in three people are Vitamin D deficient especially during the winter months. The easiest way to make sure you are getting the proper amount of Vitamin D is through Vitamin Supplements.

Another Study used data from the Iowa’s Women Health Study, which followed almost 30,000 women, aged 55 to 69, for 11 years. Over the course of those 11 years, the women involved were questioned about their eating habits, their use of nutritional supplements and other health related issues.

During the test, 152 of the women developed RA. The investigators found that women whose diets were highest in Vitamin D had the lowest incidence of RA. Women who got less than 200 International Units (IU) of Vitamin D in their diets each day were 33% more likely to develop RA than women who got more. So how much is enough Vitamin D. The Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine says that older women should consume 400 to 600 IU per day in order to have an adequate Vitamin D intake.

Vitamin C can also be linked to lowering RA risks. In another study, researchers looked at the link between fruit and vegetable and dietary antioxidant intake and the development of inflammatory arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis in a group of 23,000 men and women who entered a large cancer study in the U.K. between 1993 and 1997. As a part of that study, the participants kept track of what they ate in a weekly food diary.

Between 1993 and 2001, 73 people developed inflammatory arthritis affecting two or more painfully swollen joints for at least a month, and 40% of them met the criteria for having RA. Compared with those who did not develop the disease, researchers found that those with arthritis ate fewer fruits and vegetables. Specifically, people who ate the least amount of fruits and vegetables had double the risk of developing inflammatory arthritis.

The study also showed that people who got less than 40 mg of Vitamin C from fruits and vegetables had four times the risk of developing inflammatory arthritis. In the United States, the recommended dietary allowance for men is 90mg of Vitamin C a day and for women is 75mg. Now by taking a look at just those two certain vitamins, I find that vitamins do have added benefits in fighting RA. The vitamins do this by fighting the free radicals (unstable molecules that cause damage to cells) associated with the development of the disease.

Now to get the benefits of all vitamins, it would your best option to take a multi-vitamin. I would also like to say that the best multi-vitamin is a liquid vitamin instead of the standard capsule/pill. Not only will you get the full benefits of the vitamins but the liquid vitamin will work faster because it will absorb into your body quicker.
I know a 74 yr old lady that has been taking a liquid vitamin for the past 6 months and says that it has definitely helped to fight her RA. She takes 2 oz of this vitamin a day. This liquid vitamin has 410mg of Vitamin C per ounce, 1107 IU of Vitamin D3 per ounce and many more essential vitamins and minerals.

If you would like more information (testimonies/articles) then visit me at www.healthnutty.com. You can also contact me at www.john@nitemarketing.com

About the Author
My name is John McNett and I am 34 yrs old. I have been involved in the health and wellness industry for the past year. My website is http://www.healthnutty.com

By Robert Rister

Osteoporosis is a loss of bone due to a failure to make bone or excessive destruction of bone through natural processes. Bone is constantly remodeled through life to compensate for microscopic trauma. The bones repair themselves after microscopic or visible trauma by a process of bone destruction known as resorption. The process of resorption is always followed by new bone formation. When resorption and formation get out of balance, osteoporosis, or weak bone results.

The bones are not only the body's largest depot of calcium, they are also the body's largest depot of sodium. Every cell in the body maintains a negative electrical charge, but the electrical charge across the membrane of a bone is cell is very low, only -2 to -4 mV, compared to -90 mV in a cell in the heart. This very small negative charge keeps it from being overwhelmed with toxic levels of sodium. That is, a bone cell is not overwhelmed with sodium until it is injured or becomes "tired."

Cells of bone are programmed to destroy themselves with they are injured. A fracture quickly causes affected bone cells to absorb sodium and acquire a positive charge of +20 to +40 mV. The positive charge on an injured bone cell is ten to twenty times the magnitude of the negative charge on a healthy bone cell. The positive charge fractured bone alters electrical balance throughout the body. In fact, broken bones can be detected not just on X-ray but also by EKG. Abnormalities in sodium metabolism in bone ripple through the entire body.

If sodium levels in the bloodstream are high, the rest of the body cannot absorb small amounts of sodium to offset the huge amounts of sodium going to injured bone. Bone cells are stuck with a positive charge. The injured, positively charge bone cell cannot attract amino acids or respond to hormones. It has to rely on inefficient anaerobic (oxygen-free) respiration to make energy. Anaerobic respiration fills the cell with lactic acid. The only way it can lower its charge is by releasing calcium.

Calcium, of course, is key to the strength of bone. As injured cells attempt to heal themselves by lowering their electrical charge, the bone becomes weaker. If the cells are completely unsuccessful at repairing their metabolic machinery by release of calcium, they die. The "hole" in the bone must be cleaned up by specialized cells called osteoclasts. These are giant cells with multiple nuclei and redundant mitochondrial "energy factories" that make them resistant to metabolic stress. The "hole" is filled by restoration cells called osteoblasts. These are smaller cells with a single nucleus and a single set of mitochondria that are very sensitive to metabolic stress.

The cells that destroy bone are much more efficient and resilient than the cells that make new bone. Under conditions of metabolic stress, such as high sodium and low potassium, bone-destroying osteoclasts predominate over bone-making osteoblasts. But if the bone is partially successful at restoring their metabolic machinery by release of calcium, it remains alive, partially decalcified and vulnerable to fracture, not to be replaced for months or years as it progressively weakens.

Critics of this observation note that the kidneys conserve calcium even if it is released by bone. Over 95 percent of calcium released by bone is recycled back into the bloodstream by the kidneys. Over 99 percent of sodium, however, is also recycled back into the bloodstream by the kidneys, so bone cell disorganization progresses unless dietary intake of sodium is restricted. Most of the research regarding the relationship between sodium and osteoporosis has focused on prevention.

At least one study suggests that an average intake of 16,000 mg or sodium per day increases the risk of osteoporosis by 300 to 400 percent. The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition of the UK estimates that preventing osteoporosis requires restricting sodium to 6,000 mg per day. Exact recommendations of sodium intake for preventing osteoporosis are not possible because salt sensitivity varies from person to person and from day to day in individuals. Correcting osteoporosis, however, requires much lower consumption of sodium, certainly less than 1,500 mg per day and optimally about 360 mg per day.

When researchers put volunteers on a "low" salt diet containing 2000 mg of sodium a day, calcium excretion (measured by the concentration of calcium in 24-hour samples of their urine) was essentially the same as when they consumed a "normal" diet containing 3300 mg of sodium a day. Giving supplemental potassium, however, significantly increased retention of calcium. I believe this is because potassium allows bone cells to "recharge" so that they do not need to expel calcium to reduce their concentrations of sodium.

Opponents of sodium restriction point out that the effects of salt consumption on calcium retention are short term, lasting only about 12 hours. They are right. However, if you consume salty foods every 12 hours, you constantly tire the cells of your bones.

What you can do about osteoporosis? If you consume at least 6,000 mg of potassium per day from food, you will observe improvement in osteoporosis if you restrict consumption of sodium to about 600 mg per day, regardless of your calcium or magnesium consumption. Even less sodium, however, is more effective.

Read about Diet & Healthy Bones and the Norwegian Arthritis Diet. Robert Rister is the author or co-author of nine books on natural health. Robert Rister is the author or co-author of nine books on natural health including.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robert_Rister

By: Rob Parker

Sytropin is a supplement made of natural ingredients which are combined to raise the amount of HGH (Human Growth Hormone) that is produced by the pituitary gland in the brain. As a person grows older, it is evident that the levels of HGH are lower and this can be attributed to many ongoing health issues that are often sited with coinciding with age. While using an HGH releaser like Sytropin, people can now experience growing older without having to go through a lot of the problems that have long been associated with old age.

A lot of the issues seen as natural accumulating problems with age are unrestful sleep, lack of sexual libido, gain in weight, wrinkles on various skin parts like face and neck, hair loss, low energy levels and memory lapses. These are all preventable characteristics of getting older with the use of Sytropin, a natural HGH releaser. The meaning of a releaser is a product that promotes production of HGH in your own body. The alternative would be a replacement for HGH, but the releaser is more effective because it actually makes you create more and acts as a more natural solution.

The initial first synthetic human growth hormone was produced in the 1980’s and there are studies that go back to the early 1990’s of control groups showing the differences between two groups of men, one of which took an injectable HGH and both of which had the same diet and exercise routines. The group that took the HGH injections did display significant increases from the other group when it came to lean muscle mass, lowering body fat and large improvements in the areas of sleep, energy levels and skin tone and elasticity. Even then, the benefits of elevating this hormone level were obvious. The popularity did not skyrocket immediately simply because it was very expensive for the consumer to take the injections and at the time, oral supplements were also very expensive to create.

Currently, taking injections remains a very highly priced option mainly taken advantage of by wealthy consumers and the likes of competitive athletes. The more affordable options available that do not require a prescription come in two different oral forms which are releasers or secretagogues. These secretagogues are an avenue of homeopathic medicine and contain fragment doses of human growth hormone which is what stimulates the pituitary gland to create more HGH as opposed to the releasers which actually do not have HGH but have the composition of HGH such as L-group amino acids like L-valine and L-arginine.

The best way to evaluate if Sytropin is a sensible option for you to take is to consume it regularly and try it out for at least 3 months. It is through this time period that it will be apparent that you will feel more energy, sleep more restfully and look more youthful from the inside out. Compare this to using skin lotions and energy drinks which often only work for a few hours at best. Continue to read further and research the benefits of this HGH releaser and the reviews other people have given it from trying it out themselves for several months. This will certainly be a more cost effective measure to try before any type of surgery or other type of expensive or potentially dangerous solutions.

Causes and Risk Factors of Constipation

The common causes of constipation are: Not enough fiber in the diet, Not enough liquid, Lack of exercise, Medications, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Laxative abuse, and Disease. Constipation means that a person has three bowel movements or fewer in a week. The stool is hard and dry. Sometimes it is painful to pass. You may feel "draggy" and full.

Some people think they should have a bowel movement every day. That is not really true. There is no "right" number of bowel movements. Each person's body finds its own normal number of bowel movements. It depends on the food you eat, how much you exercise, and other things.

At one time or another, almost everyone gets constipated. In most cases, it lasts for a short time and is not serious. When you understand what causes constipation, you can take steps to prevent it. Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) - IBS is a common condition marked by chronic or occasional diarrhea, alternating with constipation and accompanied by straining and abdominal cramps.

What You Can Do About Constipation

Changing what you eat and drink and how much you exercise will help relieve and prevent constipation. Here are some steps you can take.

1. Eat more fiber. The American Dietetic Association recommends 20 to 35 grams of fiber each day, but the average American eats about 5 to 20 grams a day. Fiber helps form soft, bulky stool. It is found in many vegetables, fruits, and grains.

Be sure to add fiber a little at a time, so your body gets used to it slowly. Limit foods that have little or no fiber such as ice cream, cheese, meat, snacks like chips and pizza, and processed foods such as instant mashed potatoes or already-prepared frozen dinners. Below lists some high-fiber foods.

FRUITS: Apples, Peaches, Raspberries, Tangerines VEGETABLES: Acorn squash, raw Broccoli, raw Brussels sprouts, raw Cabbage, raw Carrots, raw Cauliflower, raw Spinach, cooked Zucchini Breads, Cereals, and Beans: Black-eyed peas, cooked Kidney beans, cooked Lima beans, cooked Whole-grain cereal, cold (All-Bran, Total, Bran Flakes), Whole-grain cereal, hot (oatmeal, Wheatena), Whole-wheat or 7-grain bread

2. Drink plenty of water and other liquids such as fruit and vegetable juices and clear soups.

Liquids like water and juice add fluid to the colon and bulk to stools, making movements softer and easier to pass. Recommended daily consumption of liquid is eight, eight-ounce glasses (totaling 64 ounces) per day. Try not to drink liquids that contain caffeine or alcohol. Caffeine and alcohol tend to dry out your digestive system.

3. Get enough exercise.

Regular exercise helps your digestive system stay active and healthy. You don't need to become a great athlete. A 20- to 30-minute walk every day may help.

4. Allow yourself enough time to have a bowel movement.

Sometimes we feel so hurried that we don't pay attention to our body's needs. Make sure you don't ignore the urge to have a bowel movement.

5. Use laxatives only if a doctor says you should.

A laxative is a food or chemical substance that acts to loosen the bowels by softening and increasing the bulk of bowel contents, increasing the amount of water in the colon and lubricating the intestinal walls. Over time, laxatives can damage nerve cells in the colon and interfere with the colon's natural ability to contract. The truly acceptable method for relieving long-standing constipation problems is a Natural Herbal Colon Cleanse.

Laxatives are medicines that will make you pass a stool. Most people who are mildly constipated do not need laxatives. However, if you are doing all the right things and you are still constipated, your doctor may recommend laxatives for a limited time.

Your doctor will tell you if you need a laxative and what type is best for you. Laxatives come in many forms: liquid, chewing gum, pills, and powder that you mix with water, for example. But most practitioners are now recommending a Natural Herbal Colon Cleanse.

6. Check with your doctor about any medicines you take.

Some medicines can cause constipation. They include calcium pills, pain pills with codeine in them, some antacids, iron pills, diuretics (water pills), and medicines for depression. If you take medicine for another problem, be sure to ask your doctor whether it could cause constipation. Some medications that can cause constipation are:

analgesics (Codeine, Demerol, Perocdan), antacids (Maalox, Mylanta), anticholingerics (Donnatal), anticonvulsants (Dilantin), anti-depressants (Tricyclics), Beta-blockers (Inderal, Tenormin) iron and calcium supplements, pain medications, antispasmodics and diuretics.

Points to Remember

• Constipation affects almost everyone at one time or another. • Many people think they're constipated when really they aren't. • In most cases, following these simple tips will help prevent constipation: o Eat a variety of foods, especially beans, bran, whole grains, and fresh fruits and vegetables. o Drink plenty of liquids. o Exercise regularly. o Don't ignore the urge to have a bowel movement. o Understand that normal bowel habits are different for everyone. o If your bowel habits change, check with your doctor. • Most people with mild constipation do not need laxatives.

However, doctors may recommend laxatives for a limited time for people with chronic constipation.

• Medicines that you take for another problem might cause constipation.

A major remedy for constipation, which should be used in conjunction with a lifestyle change and benefits of the above modifications, is a Natural Herbal Colon Cleanse.

An all Natural Herbal Colon Cleanse treatment has changed hundreds of thousands of people's lives through a gentle and effective whole body safe and effective internal cleansing, and proven to be the best solution to constipation.

About the Author

George L. Johnson, I have a background in health care and research of natural medicines. I researched colon health and remedies for poor health. I used these products to successfully cleanse my colon and restore my health.

For more information visit: Natural Herbal Colon Cleanse