Pharmahealthblog. Health and medical information

Toothache in children is almost always caused by dental caries. Often hot or cold foods will irritate a dental cavity. Have your child see a dentist as soon as possible. Temporary pain relief may be obtained by giving paracetamol according to directions, and occasionally by a warm compress applied to the jaw.

Teeth grinding

This is relatively common in children, often occurring at night during a child’s sleep. Sometimes it is due to stress or anxiety. In many cases grinding of teeth is the result of a temporary problem of alignment (malocclusion) between upper and lower teeth, during the period when the child is losing his milk teeth and acquiring his permanent teeth. The poor fit between the teeth may cause discomfort of the jaw which is relieved by grinding the teeth. In severe cases, the teeth may be damaged, with the enamel being worn down. If grinding of the teeth is severe or persistent, you should obtain advice from your dentist.

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I’ll just comment on one thing that may surprise you. You will see from the table that just two tablets of either aspirin or paracetamol, both easily available non-prescription painkillers, is about as strong as 20 milligrams of morphine taken by mouth. Surprising but true and very useful. You don’t need to rely on your doctors for supplies of painkillers as long as one of these drugs works for you and suits you. However, it is very important to know that you must not take aspirin if you are having a chemotherapy drug called methotrexate. Asprin is also not a safe painkiller if you have a stomach ulcer or if you bleed and bruise easily for any reason, but especially if you have a low platelet count. A problem with both aspirin and paracetamol is that it is neither safe nor pleasant to take more than about 4,000 milligrams per day of either one (that is twelve aspirin tablets of 300 milligrams each or eight paracetamol tablets of 500 milligrams each). Higher doses are likely to cause heavy sweating, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, confusion, and in the case of aspirin, ringing in the ears. Too much paracetamol can cause serious liver damage and too much aspirin can seriously disturb the balance of acids and minerals in the blood. This means that, on their own, aspirin and paracetamol are only useful as long as less than 4,000 milligrams per day is enough to control your pain. But don’t worry, there is no such limit for the other painkillers listed.

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Vitamin Ê also is a fat-soluble vitamin, and it is used in the liver in the manufacture of prothrombin, an essential factor in the clotting of blood.

Vitamin Ê occurs in green vegetables, and also some of the bacteria which normally live in the bowel manufacture this vitamin which we absorb and use.

An excess of Vitamin Ê has not been shown to cause any serious side-effects.

Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, has occupied a lot of interest recently, not only for its effect in preventing the common cold but because of its actions generally in human nutrition.

Vitamin Ñ is widely distributed through many foodstuffs. The green vegetables, citrus fruits and potatoes contain considerable quantities.

This vitamin is necessary for the proper development of connective tissue in the body, especially the coverings of blood vessels.

Lack of ascorbic acid produces scurvy, with bleeding in the gums and other soft tissues, failure of wound-healing, and poor resistance to infection.

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However, blood flow back to the heart is by means of the veins, and there is no pump to assist in the venous return … in the case of the lower limbs the flow is all uphill, against gravity.

The veins contain valves which allow oneway flow only, towards the heart and also break the blood up into smaller columns.

Flow of blood in the veins is mainly due to the action of the muscles, compressing the blood and forcing it onwards, towards the heart.

Negative pressure in the chest, on breathing, does tend to “suck up” the blood and aid its return.

The veins and arteries have nerves supplying the muscle in their walls, which maintain contraction of these vessels, so that there is a certain natural tone.

Sometimes an emotional cause, such as a fright, or bad news or the sight of blood, acting through the nervous system, causes the blood vessels to lose tone. They dilate, and the blood then tends to stagnate or pool in the abdomen and lower limbs.

The venous return to the heart is impaired, the blood pressure falls, an inadequate volume is pumped to the brain, the person feels giddy, nauseated, the vision goes grey and then black, the person is pale and sweaty and then consciousness is lost.

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If the cancer is not detected on screening, symptoms may indicate it has been present for a longer time and may have spread beyond the cervix. At operation it is usual to remove the uterus, the tubes and the ovaries.

In some cases, a more extensive operation, removing all the lymph glands in the pelvis as well, is done. Irradiation of the area is often combined with operation and cytotoxic drugs may be used.

Cancer of the body of the uterus is less common and occurs at an older age than cervical cancer. Most women who develop it are postmenopausal.

This is usually accompanied by bleeding or a discharge. Any bleeding from the vagina after the change of life must be investigated. It isn’t always due to cancer but that diagnosis must be excluded before any other is considered.

Promiscuity and multiple pregnancies are not risk factors for this cancer. But the use of oestrogen, the female hormone, is a definite part of its cause. The symptoms of the menopause, the hot flushes, the dry vagina, the lethargy and depression are believed to be due to a reduction in the amount of circulating oestrogen.

Giving oestrogen tablets or injections can relieve these symptoms. This drug, if taken regularly, can prevent osteoporosis or the thinning of the bone which occurs in older women.

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Many cancer patients, with or without their knowledge and informed consent, are involved in research into cancer treatment. It is important for you to understand something about this. Basically, there are three different stages of testing for new treatments.

In Phase I studies, researchers test drugs or other treatments that have never before been tried on humans. They have been tested only in the laboratory and on various animals. Phase I studies are designed to find out how the treatment can be used in humans, not whether it is effective against human cancer. It is not expected that there will be any benefit to the individual patients involved in this type of research. The aim is to find out things such as whether it can be taken by mouth or injection, whether it is broken down by the liver or passed out through the kidneys, what doses are safe, how often they should be given and what side effects there are. Because these things are not known, patients who are the human ‘guinea pigs’ in these tests may experience unexpected severe and unpleasant side effects or even die as a result of the treatment. Therefore, only patients for whom there is no known effective anti-cancer treatment available are asked to take part in these studies. You might be happy to participate, knowing that by doing so you could help future patients. However, if you go into it because you hope it will help you personally, it is extremely likely that you will be disappointed.

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Everybody can benefit from adopting the G.I. factor approach to eating. It is the way nature intended us to eat. She packaged all the nutrients we needed in a slow-release form. Since the Industrial Revolution, however, we have taken nature’s carbohydrates and manufactured them into fast-release or instant food as part of our quest for a more palatable, eye-catching and less perishable food supply. Unfortunately, the effect of all those instant foods is catching up on us in the form of diseases of affluence such as obesity and diabetes.

There is, however, no need to turn our backs on progress. We have sufficient knowledge of food and nutrition to let the pendulum swing back just enough to suit our needs. But we need the facts. We need answers. In this section we set out the facts about some of the most frequently asked questions about carbohydrates, diet and the G.I. factor to dispel any lingering doubts.

The sugar/fat seesaw. Did you know that fat and sugar tend to show a reciprocal or seesaw relationship in the diet? Studies over the past decade have found that diets high in sugar are lower in fat, especially saturated fat. Restricting sugar is frequently followed by higher fat consumption, and many fats are poor sources of nutrients. Thus a low sugar diet is not necessarily more nutritious. In some cases, high sugar diets have been found to have higher micronutrient contents, especially of calcium and riboflavin. This is because sugar is often used to sweeten some very nutritious foods, such as yoghurts, breakfast cereals and milk. A low sugar (and high fat) diet has more proven disadvantages than a high sugar (and low-fat) diet.

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Cycling. As with swimming, cycling is a weight-supported, or non-weight-bearing activity, and therefore of less absolute benefit in fat loss than the non-weight-supportive physical activities. However, again it can have value in the early stages of a program to enable someone to reduce enough fat to carry out other weight-bearing exercise.

Jogging. Jogging is one of the most effective fat loss physical activities available, but ironically, it is not suited for big or overfat people. It can be quite painful and de-motivating for anyone to carry a large body mass over a distance at speed. It can also be relatively dangerous, not just for the extra pressure put on the cardiovascular system, but because of the possibility of weak joints in the hips, knees and ankles.

Many men, who lose significant body fat, are then often motivated to jog and this should obviously not be discouraged. It is important to make clear, however, that jogging is not necessary for fat loss, as many people think. The ‘no pain, no gain’ philosophy may be true for the elite athlete, but it has no relevance for very unfit fat individuals.

Walking. For most people, walking represents the single most natural, easiest and convenient form of fat loss physical activity. Because it can be carried out at low-moderate intensity over long durations and with low impact, it presents few injury problems or health risks, walking does not have to be brisk, but most importantly, it should be carried out over a set distance, preferably equating to 3-4 km per day. It can also be increased as part of ‘madental’ activity, such as walking up stairs, not using transport, etc. Hence, in the vast majority of cases where injury is not a limiting factor, walking is perhaps the best form of ‘planned’ physical activity for fat loss.

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While fatness has never been highly regarded in modern societies, and while there has been a weight control industry around for some time to cater for people with cosmetic concerns, the real interest in fatness—as a health issue—is relatively new. It began in the 1950s with the discovery that a high body weight and abdominal fat were related to a number of diseases. Our understanding of these factors has increased in recent years with a growing awareness of the extent of the problem. Table 1.5 shows some of the changes in thinking that have occurred in that time.

The most significant changes have occurred in our understanding of measures of body fatness, what causes fatness and appropriate treatment and prevention strategies.

Ideas about measuring fat have shifted with changes in technology, and we have a better understanding of the types and distribution of fat related to disease. In general there has been a shift away from a single fat measure towards a combination, including body mass index, sagittal diameter and waist circumference, that can be used in a practical situation.

The main changes in thinking about the causes of overfatness centre around the type, rather than quantity of food eaten (e.g. the influence of energy from fat on total energy), and the impact of individual factors (particularly genetics) in influencing body fatness. There are, for example, big genetic differences in fat gain and in the extent of fat loss in response to a particular exercise or diet stimulus, and these have not been sufficiently recognised in the past. The interaction of biology with the environment and behaviour also needs to be considered. Understanding the causes of fatness is, of course, vital to the development of correct techniques of coping with it. The implications of all these changes for those interested in fat loss or maintenance of body fat are quite new.

Other changes in orientation have included a re-analysis of the role of fatness in ill-health. Epidemiological studies carried out in the 1960s and 1970s found little correlation between weight and major diseases like heart disease, because the measure of fatness used was generally a measure of body mass (i.e. weight or body mass index (BMI)), which ciiscriminates against healthy, lean, muscular individuals. Epidemiological studies also looked for independent effects of obesity, whereas its effects are largely mediated via other risk factors such as high blood pressure. A re-analysis of these data has now shown that fat distribution is a key factor in ill-health and this explains much of the earlier epidemiological evidence. It’s not only someone is fat that is important in health terms, but also where they are fat.

There has also been an increasing emphasis on gender, race and age and other individual factors on fat gain and loss, to the extent that it’s becoming apparent that any program must be individualised, as stressed throughout this book. However, recognition of the importance of the environment also makes a public health approach imperative.

There has also been a change away from the concentration on ‘diet’ as a form of treatment towards a change in lifestyle which, unlike short term diets, can be maintained over a lifetime. This includes a move away from exercise designed for cardiovascular fitness, towards an increase in the level of total activity—both planned and ‘incidental’—that is carried out within our changing, modem technological lifestyles. To this extent, professionals who deal only in prescribing diets or exercise are unlikely to maintain a primary role in fat loss through lifestyle management in the future.

Finally, a major shift in direction, begun in the 1990s, has been a change in thinking about the psychological aspects of obesity and body fat maintenance. In the 1970s, the use of behaviour modification techniques in weight control began and this has now become standard in most modem programs. More recently it’s been recognised that much more complex, emotional and cognitive (thinking) functions are involved in obesity. This is particularly so in the case of many women, who have suffered much more social and psychological pressure than men to attain an unrealistic body shape, and as a result have often developed counter-productive cognitive cycles of guilt, depression and anger associated with food and food restriction. Modem approaches need to pay more attention to dealing with these issues. Counselling also needs to become more reflective and less directive to empower people to resolve these issues themselves rather than simply replace one dependency (food) with another (a counsellor).

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Swedish women, internationally known for their luscious complexions and youthful beauty, use certain natural foods to stay beautiful.

Swedish beauty secret number one—rose hips—is also Swedish rejuvenation secret number one: Rose hips tea is the Swedish fountain of youth!

Here’s how rose hips can keep you young. Russian scientists have discovered that vitamin C has a profound stimulating effect on the adrenal glands. Adrenal glands secrete over 20 steroid hormones which are directly involved in keeping your vital bodily processes in a condition of high efficiency. It is generally agreed that a decrease in the output of these hormones, which usually begins in late middle life, is responsible for the symptoms of aging. Russian researchers have demonstrated that substantial daily doses of vitamin C have a rejuvenating, stimulating effect on the glandular activity, and the vital hormones are once more produced at higher levels, similar to the level of younger people.

Vitamin C is also known to play an essential part in the oxidation-reduction system of tissue respiration, as shown by Dr. W. J. McCormick, M.D. In addition, vitamin C is a known chemotherapeutic agent; in fact it is the most potent natural “drug” known in the therapy of practically all bacterial and viral infections. Vitamin C is also a highly potent anti-toxic agent and protects the body from all kinds of poisonous substances, both those originating within the system, as a result of sluggish digestion and elimination, as well as those introduced into the system by food, water and air. Since growing old is often associated with sluggish metabolism and autointoxication, it is easy to see how large doses of vitamin C can have a rejuvenating effect on old people.

There is also growing evidence that the aging process is largely a matter Of the diminished oxygenation of the cells. Vitamin C has a great effect on improved cell breathing and thus prevents premature aging.

Perhaps the most vital function of vitamin C is in keeping collagen, the cellular cement, healthy. The visible symptoms of aging are mainly in the condition of the skin. It loses its youthful tight appearance and fresh color and becomes gray, dull, loose and flabby. Finally wrinkles appear all over, particularly on the face, neck and hands. These aging symptoms are largely due to the unhealthy state of collagen. Collagen is an elastic substance that holds all the tissues together—tissues of the muscles, organs, tendons, and last but not least, the tissues of the skin. When these connective tissues are healthy, they are strong and elastic and the skin is tight and has the look of youth. When collagen loses its tensile strength, muscles sag, the subcutaneous tissues (the layer just beneath the skin) become weak and lose their tension, and the skin becomes covered with wrinkles. What causes these degenerative changes in collagen? The answer is simple—the deficiency of vitamin C.

Now you can see why Russian scientists believe that they have found the Fountain of Youth in vitamin C.

Hardening of the arteries, atherosclerosis, and heart attacks are true diseases of premature aging. Many doctors believe that you are as old as your arteries. Recently, Boris Sokoloff, M.D., Director of the Southern Bio-Research Institute, Florida, reported that their conclusions, based on research and widespread evidence from medical literature, is that ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is the key factor in averting atherosclerosis, and that atherosclerosis (heart disease leading to heart attack) may, in fact, well be a vitamin C deficiency disease.1

The healthy function of sex glands is directly related to general health and to the prolonged feeling and appearance of youth. A Japanese doctor, M. Higuchi, has demonstrated that there is a relationship between vitamin C levels and the hormone production of the sex glands. In addition to vitamin C, vitamin E (which is sold in automatic dispensers in Sweden labeled as the sex-vitamin) plays an important part in the efficient activity of the sex glands. Prostatic fluid, which nourishes the sperm and keeps them alive, is extremely rich in vitamin C. A deficiency of vitamin C and vitamin E can slow down the hormone production of sex glands and consequently lead to premature aging.

Vitamin C—the miracle producer

If there ever has been a real miracle drug, vitamin C is it. It has so many universal applications that it is virtually impossible to find a condition of ill health, disease or diminished well-being which vitamin C would not affect favorably, very often with a miraculous healing effect. Since old age is often associated with various conditions of diminished health, it stands to reason that vitamin C should be a rejuvenating tonic number one for everyone over 40 years of age.

Do you get sufficient amounts of vitamin C in your diet? A recent Department of Agriculture report tells us that almost half of the American people eat diets deficient in vitamins C and A. Vitamin E is practically totally eliminated from American diet due to the refining of grains and oils; and available vitamin C in the American diet has been steadily declining for the last 20 years.

Swedish people have been using large amounts of vitamin C for centuries. Rose hips, the richest natural vitamin C source known to man (with the exception of acerola cherries), is a staple food in Sweden. They use it daily in the form of rose hip tea,1 rose hip soup, rose hip puree, etc.

Swedish people have another secret of staying young—whey. In Sweden whey is a staple food in the form of whey cheese and whey butter. In the United States you can obtain whey in a powder or tablet form from health food stores. Make a habit of eating some whey each day. It may surprise you by solving all your irregularity problems and make you feel—and look—ten years younger practically overnight!

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