Bens Herbs Place: Drugs

Showing posts with label Drugs. Show all posts

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Saffron vs. Prozac For Depression

From Care2.com

Millions of Americans suffer from depression every year, a disabling disease that can end up fatal due to suicide. See the NutritionFacts.org video for the head-to-head test of the simple spice versus the drug Prozac for the treatment of clinical depression.

Studies have found less depression among vegetarians, but maybe people who are happier go on to eat healthier rather than the other way around. One can’t prove cause and effect unless you put that to the test too, which was done this year. Researchers found that by removing all meat, fish, poultry, and eggs from people’s diets they could significantly improve mood scores after just two weeks! It can take drugs like Prozac a month or more to take effect.

.... there’s serotonin, melatonin, dopamine, and all sorts of human neurotransmitters in plants. So much so that there’s been a call to start treating depression with “high-content sources of serotonin” such as pineapples, bananas, kiwis, plums, and tomatoes. And what are the side effects–maybe you’ll get a seed stuck in your teeth or something. Read the entire article.

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Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Medications That Can Cause Chronic Fatigue

From AARP

Do you feel weak or tired — sometimes to the point of exhaustion — much of the time? If so, you're not alone. Chronic fatigue accounts for more than 10 million visits to family doctors every year.

Chronic fatigue has many causes, including illnesses such as anemia and multiple sclerosis as well as depression and other psychiatric disorders. But it's also often a side effect of drugs previously prescribed for other conditions. (I'm not talking here of the complicated disorder known as chronic fatigue syndrome, whose cause is unknown. This condition is characterized by extreme fatigue that can't be explained by any underlying medical condition.)

Could one or more of the medications you're taking be making you feel listless or lethargic? Read the entire article to learn about the major classes of drugs that can cause chronic fatigue.

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Saturday, December 14, 2013

Niacin (Vitamin B3) Beats Prescription Zetia for Cholesterol

From GreenMedinfo.com

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that niacin, also known as vitamin B3, is better for reducing cholesterol and preventing heart disease than Merck & Co., Inc.'s prescription medication Zetia.

Researchers found that over a 14 month period niacin was significantly more effective at reducing artery plaque than ezetimibe, the active ingredient in Zetia. In addition, niacin was found more effective than Zetia at decreasing the number of heart attacks.

Zetia is a medication used in conjunction with statins to try to further lower levels of the so-called bad LDL cholesterol in the blood. It claims to work by blocking the absorption of cholesterol in the digestive track. Read the entire article.

Get Niacin Here

Friday, November 1, 2013

Painkillers Kill - Consider Natural Alternatives

From AARP Magazine

From 1999 through 2007, the number of unintentional overdose deaths from prescription opioid painkillers — such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, methadone, and the fentanyl patch — more than tripled, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In fact, these painkillers have now surpassed heroin and cocaine as the leading cause of fatal overdoses.

That's not to say every prescription painkiller is bad; quite the opposite. "When prescribed appropriately and taken as directed, these drugs ease great suffering in patients with otherwise severe chronic and postoperative pain," says Robert J. Friedman, M.D., a neurologist and pain specialist at the Palm Beach–based Headache & Pain Center.

But take too many painkillers, or combine them with potent sedatives — as actor Heath Ledger did in 2008 — and they can be fatal. Read the entire article.

Natural Alternatives

APS II (headaches, muscle relaxant, aspirin-substitute)
Feverfew (migraines, muscular tension, inflammation)
IF Relief (muscle pain and inflammation relief)
Tei Fu Lotion (deep muscle pain)

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Can Ginger Beat Acid Blockers?

From GreenMedInfo.com

Quality Ginger Capsules

Did you know that the multi-billion drug category known as "acid blockers," despite being used by millions around the world daily, may not work as well as the humble ginger plant in relieving symptoms of indigestion and heartburn?

Ginger is a spice, a food, and has been used as a medicine safely for millennia by a wide range of world cultures. Research on the health benefits of ginger is simply staggering in its depth and breadth.

In fact, the health benefits of ginger have been studied extensively for over 100 health conditions or symptoms, making it one of the world's most versatile, evidence-based remedies. Read the entire article.

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Thursday, September 12, 2013

Coffee Increases or Decreases Risk of Heart Attack?

The Journal of the American Medical Association found that drinking coffee with caffeine (not decaf) may raise the risk of heart attacks.

The Journal of the American Medical Association found that drinking coffee with caffeine (not decaf) may lower the risk of heart attacks.

Make up your mind?

Actually both findings are correct.

Whether coffee is heart-healthy or heart-harmful seems to depend on whether you have a "slow" or a "fast" version of the gene that tells the liver how to use an enzyme known as CYP1A2. This enzyme breaks down the caffeine in coffee.

If your liver can break down caffeine quickly, then the body benefits from all the antioxidants coffee provides. If your liver breaks down caffeine slowly, then the benefits of coffee's antioxidants is more than offset by the stress on the heart caused by caffeine.

But that's not the entire story.

Even if you have a "fast" CYP1A2 gene, the liver also uses the enzyme it codes to break other potential toxins besides caffeine. The reason some people with asthma breathe easier when they drink caffeinated beverages, for instance, has to do with the fact that the enzyme is busy breaking down caffeine so it doesn't break down the active chemicals in asthma drugs.

The same principle explains why some coffee drinkers experience increased blood pressure when they take calcium channel blockers or angiotensin II antagonists to lower blood pressure. The CYP1A2 is occupied clearing out the medication, so it can't clear out the caffeine.

So how do you know whether caffeine increases or decreases your risk of heart attack?

It seems logical that if drinking coffee after dinner keeps you up at night, you might have a "slow" version of the enzyme, but it's also possible your brain is just very sensitive to caffeine.

Right now, the only way to know for sure is through genetic testing to determine how your body makes CYP1A2. (More info on testing.)

Source:
Cornelis MC, El-Sohemy A, Kabagambe EK, Campos H. Coffee, CYP1A2 genotype, and risk of myocardial infarction. JAMA. 2006 Mar 8;295(10):1135-41.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Anti-aging Drug Breakthrough

Drugs that combat ageing may be available within five years, following landmark work led by an Australian researcher. The work, published in the March 8 issue of Science, finally proves that a single anti-ageing enzyme in the body can be targeted, with the potential to prevent age-related diseases and extend lifespans.

The paper shows all of the 117 drugs tested work on the single enzyme through a common mechanism. This means that a whole new class of anti-ageing drugs is now viable, which could ultimately prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and type 2 diabetes.

“Ultimately, these drugs would treat one disease, but unlike drugs of today, they would prevent 20 others,” says the lead author of the paper, Professor David Sinclair, from UNSW Medicine, who is based at Harvard University. “In effect, they would slow ageing.”

The target enzyme, SIRT1, is switched on naturally by calorie restriction and exercise, but it can also be enhanced through activators. The most common naturally-occurring activator is resveratrol, which is found in small quantities in red wine, but synthetic activators with much stronger activity are already being developed.

Although research surrounding resveratrol has been going for a decade, until now the basic science had been contested. Despite this, there have already been promising results in some trials with implications for cancer, cardiovascular disease and cardiac failure, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, fatty liver disease, cataracts, osteoporosis, muscle wasting, sleep disorders and inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis, arthritis and colitis (inflammatory bowel disease). Read the entire article.

Editor's Note:
Resveratrol possesses antioxidant properties. This substance has been on the market for quite some time and can certainly be used without the wait of the drugs that will be coming out.

My Favorite Source of Resveratrol:
Thai-Go

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Medications That Can Cause Depression

From AARP

Researchers have long known that many drugs can make us feel down or even depressed and that, as we age, our changing body chemistries put us at a greater risk for this side effect.

Few doctors think to review the medications list when their patients have the telltale symptoms of depression: lack of energy, listlessness, feeling rundown, excessive fatigue, changes in appetite and sleeping patterns, sadness, despair.

As a result, they often layer on top of the drugs causing those symptoms a new drug, such as an antidepressant, for treating them, which may in turn trigger additional side effects.

Are you feeling depressed? One of the drugs you're on could be the cause. Read the entire article for the major classes of drugs that can cause depression.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Meat On Drugs - 80% of Antibiotics Used on Animals

The declining effectiveness of antibiotics has become a major national public health crisis. according to the national Centers for Disease Control and prevention, 99,000 people died of hospital-acquired infections in 2002, the most recent year for which data are available.

According to the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the vast majority of those infections were caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Such “superbugs”—bacteria resistant to one or more antibiotics—are also showing up in food and causing illness and even death.

The major user of antibiotics in the United States today is not the medical profession, however, but the meat and poultry business. Some 80% of all antibiotics sold in the United States are used not on people but on animals, to make them grow faster or to prevent disease in crowded and unsanitary conditions. Read the Consumer Reports Special Bulletin.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Microchip-Laden Drugs Given FDA Approval

Rumors regarding the development of a 'digital pill' with a microchip inside have been circulating for some time, but today, the FDA actually green lighted the product.

The company, Proteus Digital Health, gained FDA approval for its 1 square millimeter device (the size of a grain of sand), which it believes will "shift the care paradigm" into an era of digital medicine.

According to Proteus Digital Health's website: Digital Medicines are the same pharmaceuticals you take today, with one small change: each pill also contains a tiny sensor that can communicate, via our digital health feedback system, vital information about your medication-taking behaviors and how your body is responding.

The company added "As a result, you can be sure you're taking your medicines as prescribed, while at the same time receiving unprecedented feedback on your physical response to treatment." Read the entire article.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

New Disease for Statin Toxicity: Polymyalgia Rheumatica

Few drugs are as toxic to the organ they are prescribed to "treat" as statins. There are already hundreds of studies indicating that statin drugs are muscle-damaging (myotoxic) and nerve-damaging (neurotoxic), and yet they are somehow still legally allowed to be sold to millions of patients worldwide, ostensibly to protect the human heart -- which is, mind you, a muscle with an exceptionally high density of nerves.

After research published back in 2009 in the journal Cardiology found that statin drug use was associated with impaired heart muscle function, there is little doubt remaining that they do far more harm than good. In fact, no less than 300 adverse health effects have been linked to this chemical class of drugs. Read the entire article.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Sleeping Pills Called Risky as Cigarettes

From WebMd.com

A provocative new study finds that people who take prescription sleeping pills -- even once in a while -- have a higher death risk than non-users.

The top third of sleeping-pill users had a 5.3-fold higher death risk. They also had a 35% higher risk of cancer, the study found.

"We are not certain. But it looks like sleeping pills could be as risky as smoking cigarettes. It looks much more dangerous to take these pills than to treat insomnia another way," study leader Daniel F. Kripke, MD, tells WebMD.

The sleeping pills in question are known as hypnotics. They include newer drugs such as zolpidem (the best known brand name is Ambien) as well as older drugs such as temazepam (the best known brand name is Restoril).

Hypnotic sleeping pills actually cause a person to fall asleep. This sets them apart from other sleeping aids, such as the supplement melatonin, which promote sleep through relaxation.

Other sleep drugs described as hypnotics by Kripke and colleagues include eszopiclone (Lunesta), zaleplon (Sonata), triazolam (Halcion), flurazepam (Dalmane), barbiturates, and older antihistamines such as diphenhydramine. Read the entire article.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Consumer Reports: Bugs and Drugs in Pork

Consumer Reports recently released a study in which they analyzed U.S. retail pork.

They found trace levels of an adrenaline-like drug called ractopamine in about 20% of the pork samples. The food borne bacteria, Yersina, was found in 66% of pork samples.

The National Pork Producers Council tried to address concerns about ractopamine by noting that the levels in meat of this muscle growth promoter, which is fed to pigs in the form of Paylean™ and turkeys in the form of Topmax™, were below the limit set by the UN Codex Commission this summer.

What they didn’t mention was that due to outstanding safety concerns, the Commission’s drug residue limit only passed by a single vote out of 143 ballots cast.

The Codex Commission based this drug residue limit in meat on the only human data available, a study of just six people that wasn’t designed to establish safety. At higher doses, the study subjects reported their hearts racing and pounding—so much so that one subject had to be withdrawn from the study. At a lower dose, though, no cardiac changes were noted. So that’s the dose the Codex Commission used to calculate the maximum allowable meat residue and acceptable human daily intake levels.

The discovery of Yersinia in pork is no surprise. Pigs are considered to be to be the main reservoir for Yersinia enterocolitica and pork products the main source of human infection. While most foodborne pathogens come from a variety of sources, 100 percent of the attributable Yersinia outbreaks reported in the United States from 1999 through 2008 were caused by pork. What was a surprise is the level of contamination of the U.S. pork supply—69 percent of samples tested positive—and the level of antibiotic resistance. Ninety percent of the Yersinia bacteria found contaminating the pork was resistant to one or more antibiotics.

In most cases, Yersinia food poisoning causes an acute “stomach flu” characterized by fever, abdominal pain, and often bloody diarrhea. Severe cases are frequently confused with appendicitis, leading to unnecessary emergency surgery.

Long-term complications of infection include chronic inflammation of the eyes, kidneys, heart, and joints. Within a year of a bout of Yersinia food poisoning, victims appear to have a 47-fold higher risk of coming down with autoimmune arthritis.

The bacteria may also play a role in triggering an autoimmune thyroid condition known as Graves’ disease. View View the video and read the entire article.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Natural Pain Relievers

by Steven Horne, RH(AHG)

Pain is feared, hated and despised, but it also serves a vital purpose in our lives. Pain accompanies our physical and emotional afflictions because without it we wouldn’t seek help when we are ill, and we wouldn’t be motivated to avoid doing things that damage our bodies.

No matter how much we dislike it, pain is not our enemy. Pain is a form of communication that we should listen to. It is the body’s way of telling us that it’s having a problem. Think of pain as the 911 system our cells use to call for help. Pain is the also the teacher that motivates us, if we let it, to take better care of our bodies.

There are times, of course, when pain needs to be relieved as much as possible. When a person is undergoing surgery or a dental procedure, or suffering from a serious accident or illness, modern pain-relieving drugs can be indispensable.

Unfortunately, pain-relieving medications also allow people to disconnect from the responsibility of maintaining their health. For example, instead of asking “why” they are getting headaches, upset stomachs, muscle aches or other pain, they simply pop a pain killer.

Thus, they fail to make the connection between their pain and their diet, lifestyle and stress. Unaware of that connection, they don’t make the changes necessary to get healthy. What is Your Pain Telling You?

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

7 Amazing Medicinal Properties of the Banana

From GreenMedInfo.com

... many do not realize that the banana is more than just an exceptionally starch-rich fruit, but has a complex biochemistry, with pharmacologically active properties.

Bananas actually contain the catecholamines dopamine and norepinephrine, the very same adrenal hormones released in the human body when it undergoes the typical "fight-or-flight" response. It is believed that the banana plant uses the biosynthetic pathway for catecholamines when under the stress of attack to fight off infectious pathogens such as in crown rot disease.

Some varieties excrete a form of serotonin in their sap, and there is even mention in the biomedical literature of the discovery of the NSAID drug naproxen (trade name Aleve) within the banana cultivar Musa acuminate.

... the banana has a secret second life. It has been observed slyly practicing medicine without a license, and indeed, seems readily equipped with the following nutritional "super powers".... Read the entire article.

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