Refreshing information about Dehydration and Sports Drinks

With the recent hot summer weather, it is very important that we stay hydrated because without doing so, an extremely hot day could turn into a medical emergency.  We should all be aware of the dangerous progression of symptoms listed below that occur from extreme heat and the fact that young children and the elderly are most susceptible to having problems.

Mild:  1% dehydration level:  increase in thirst

Moderate:  2% dehydration level: dizziness, dry skin, headaches, intense thirst, physical fatigue, dry mouth, swollen tongue, constipation

Severe:  5% dehydration level: fever, racing pulse, lack of sweat, sunken eyes, low blood pressure, dark colored urine, or no urine. 

Extreme: At a 7% dehydration level, intravenous fluids become necessary. 

At a 9% dehydration level or higher, delirium, loss of consciousness, or death could result. 

The British Medical Journal determined that one of the fifteen greatest medical advancements in the past century was the fact that sodium and glucose coupled together with water in the small intestine accelerates the absorption of the solution to orally hydrate and treat dehydration from severe diarrhea; the leading cause of death in children in the developing world.  The right ratio of sugar and salt added to water saved millions of lives from diseases like cholera, costing relatively little for people who didn’t have access to IV therapy. 

Summer will be here in a week and that means sun exposure and taking precautions to avoid burning our skin.  Without much thought other than what the SPF number is (sun protection factor) on the sunscreen lotion we use when we apply this to our skin, we think little of what chemicals we are applying.

It’s a confusing system, but SPF 15 blocks 93% of UVB, a SPF 30 blocks 97%, a SPF 50 blocks 98%, a SPF 100 blocks 99%, and if you get red in 20 minutes when your skin is unexposed then a SPF 15 will delay redness by 15x or for about 5 hours.  So, a SPF 100 only gives 1% greater protection than SPF 50 to UVB rays with the mistaken idea that you can stay in the sun 50x longer. What most don’t realize is that sunscreens do not block UVA which makes up 95% of ultraviolet radiation, penetrates more deeply into the skin, and causes greater damage.  But, I digress.  The real problem is what is doing the blocking, and whether it is chemical or mineral.   

New advances in cardiac risk assessments

Most people who get their annual physical nervously await the result of their cholesterol levels.  We have been conditioned by the mass media that high cholesterol is the gold standard for predicting risk for cardiovascular events such as a heart attack or a stroke.  However, most people would be surprised that50% of people who have a heart attack have normal cholesterol levels.  Conversely, there are many who have high cholesterol who live out their lives without any cardiac episode. 

Many cardiologists also use EKG’s, stress tests and angiograms to assess overall risk. These are useful, and we shouldn’t ignore the cholesterol markers either, but a coronary artery must narrow by 60% to show as a problem on a stress test and angiograms are invasive and very expensive (4,000.00).  Here are some newer techniques and tests that someone should consider if they or someone they love is concerned with their heart health or if a doctor has recommended taking a statin drug. 
Keep Reading

Which came first?

It is thought that wild fowl were domesticated a few thousand years ago according to Egyptian and Chinese records leading to what is now, about 200 breeds and varieties of chickens worldwide.  Not surprisingly in the past century, just like a lot of other industries, the business of egg production has turned from a mostly small farm system to a highly industrialized system that has increased production of the hens and decreased their mortality rate substantially.  There are roughly 300 million laying birds in the U.S. that produces about 75 billion eggs a year, about 10% of the world supply. 

There has been evidence that the highly industrialized process of producing eggs isn’t a healthy environment for the chicken, due to the lack exercise, exposure to fresh air, and a diet higher in a broader range of nutrients from grazing.  The result being a chicken producing an egg that might not have all the nutrients we would get from a chicken with a diet that was more “wild” and spending time outside.  In response to this information, smaller scale industrial farms are attempting to produce higher quality eggs.

When shopping you will often see multitudes of choices with catch phrases emblazoned on the packaging such as

Silver’s History

Silver has been used medicinally for more than 2000 years.  Hippocrates, the “father of medicine” wrote in his medical texts that silver had beneficial healing and anti-disease properties.  He praised silver for its tissue repair and wound healing abilities.  It is reported that Cyrus the Great, king of Persia stayed healthy by drinking only boiled water stored in silver vessels.  According to Herodotus, mule-drawn carts laden with silver urns followed King Cyrus wherever he went....
 

... The benefits of silver are immense and when using a high-quality silver such as Argentyn 23 it can be tremendously effective at preventing and even treating infections. This is important information especially during flu season.

Banana Republic

The definition of a banana republic is often depicted as a politically unstable nation usually in Central America, with an economy dependent on one crop.  There is a reason why we use the word banana to describe this reality.  Even though the banana is perhaps the world’s oldest cultivated plant, originating and being bred in Southeast Asia about 7000-10000 years ago, it wasn’t until some Spanish missionaries introduced bananas to the Americas in the early 1500’s that it began to move into fourth place of the world’s staple foods behind rice, wheat and corn.  The rapid rise in interest of bananas began in the latter part of the 19^th century when two companies United Fruit Company (later to be Chiquita) and Standard Fruit Company (later to be called Dole), began importing bananas to the United States.  As the popularity of bananas grew these companies were able to pay countries like Guatemala and Honduras money for huge tracts of land to grow bananas.  These companies generated dollar revenues that exceeded these countries gross national product and gave these small countries an economic foundation, and the companies involved political influence that neither had before.

Understanding Priobotics

Probiotics have become an accepted protocol in the treatment of many health problems.  In an age when antibiotic overexposure has become commonplace, we often turn to probiotics to replace the good bacteria that most certainly has been lost for this reason and to help with a variety of gastrointestinal, skin or other problems.  Usually we rely upon yogurt or lactobacillus supplements towards that goal.  However, not all lactobacillus is the same.  Since the discovery of the first lactobacillus in early part of the 20^th century, there have been dozens of species discovered within the genus of lactobacillus and over 180 different strains identified within those species.  Here is a timeline on the discovery of the different species of Lactobacillus.

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The Top Seven Gluten Impersonators

In the past few decades it has become commonplace to hear that you or someone you know has a gluten allergy.  Celiac disease is the most severe form of gluten allergy but there is also a more commonly found subset of people who don’t have Celiac disease but are still “gluten sensitive”.  These people are also called non-celiac gluten sensitive.  This subset has been linked to a variety of chronic degenerative diseases including some autoimmune diseases, most of which have nothing to do with the gastrointestinal area symptomatically.  Many of these people faithfully adhere to a gluten free diet (GFD) but still exhibit symptoms and feel frustrated in their lack of recovery to the health challenges that they face.   

Dr. Aristo Vojdani Ph.D is the chief scientific advisor for Cyrex Laboratory.  He has published over 120 articles in peer reviewed scientific journals and is a multiple US patent holder for laboratory assays.  In 2013 he wrote a research article in Food and Nutritional Sciences Journal about the cross reaction between Gliadin (gluten) and different food and tissue antigens.  What he discovered was that there are foods that have proteins other than gluten that are so similar structurally to gluten that the immune system reacts to those proteins in the same way it does gluten. 

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

It may surprise you that there is a mostly symptomless condition that 20-33% of all Americans have of their liver that ultimately could result in them needing a liver transplant.  I am referring to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease or NAFLD.  NAFLD is predicted to replace hepatitis C and alcohol abuse as the most frequent indication for liver transplantation in the next 10-15 years!  NAFLD is defined as deposition of fat in the liver cells with minimal or no alcohol intake.  It is linked to a group of progressive conditions closely associated with being overweight and obesity, insulin resistance, certain medications, and metabolic syndrome*.  NAFLD can eventually lead to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis or NASH and about 20% of those patients will go on to liver cirrhosis (irreversible result of fibrous scarring) with its accompanying risk of liver failure or liver cancer.  Overall, people with NAFLD stand a 12% risk of liver related death over ten years.  In short it is a silent epidemic that few people talk about.

Symptoms, Causes and Diagnosis of NAFLD

Symptomatically a patient may have fatigue and pain in the upper right abdomen....