‘Ayurveda effective medicine system’

Ayurveda can effectively treat physical and mental disorders

Ayurveda physicians must have a basic understanding of the whole anatomy and inner functions, as ayurveda believes in a holistic approach, concentrating on the whole body, even when prescribing treatment for a specific part.

Ayurveda believes that disease could result anywhere because of a basic derangement in the total function of the body. Treatment targets both.

The doshas:

Ayurveda says disease is a result of imbalance in the body’s doshas of

• vata (air),
• pitta (fire), and
• kapha (earth).

Ayurvedacharyas diagnose the cause of illness by conversing with the patient and ascertaining the role of environment, food, family history, character and genetics; sometimes, when we cannot diagnose the symptoms, astrological charts are also drawn up for more insights on influence of planets, stars and other factors on the individual in the environment since he lives in this cosmos.

Treatment is also prescribed on an energy level, rather than just on the gross (the physical body) as the person’s energy body is equally important, even though invisible. Ayurveda cures are designed to enhance a person’s energy fields as well as his physical and mental faculties.

Cures for anxiety and depression:

Apart from treating physical ailments, ayurveda is useful in treating cases of anxiety and depression or mansik rog. In some cases, disease might have a genetic factor, but ayurveda can help. Unlike usual antidepressants, ayurveda medicines target nerves making them stronger rather than suppressing them. The thrust of ayurveda is in following external therapy and medicine from herbs and minerals to balance doshas on a physical and mental plane.

After lifestyle and diet changes, as a person approaches his natural prakriti (the best balance of doshas he was born with), the disease slowly disappears. Much depends on the patient – whether he is willing to incorporate lifestyle changes and eat what the ayurvedacharya recommends.

Medicines should be prepared following traditional guidelines in the scriptures, so follow treatment prescribed only by reputed and qualified ayurvedacharyas. Simple exposure to the sun is also important, as is doing yoga and meditation – once you start, you can find a difference to your health in just 10 days! To cite a point, surya namaskar done early mornings, benefits even leprosy patients, proving that sun and belief are the best healers.

Diet Mistakes! What Parents do Wrong

In the last 30 years, childhood obesity rates have tripled. Almost one in five kids between 6 and 19 are overweight! Choosing the right foods for your kids is key to making sure they don’t become a part of that statistic. We’ll show you the top six mealtime mistakes all you parents might be making.

“Just looking at the label, you may be thinking you’re eating a healthy food, but you’re eating 2 or 3 servings, and the calories really add up!!”

When choosing bread, picking whole wheat isn’t enough.

“When you’re reading the label, you want to look at the fiber. You want it to have 3 grams of fiber, and you want to have whole wheat as your first ingredient!!”

Kids need two servings of fruit a day.

“You want to look for fruits canned in natural juice or water!!”

Do the math: heavy syrup has 20 to 25 grams of sugar compared to 10 in fruits canned in their natural juice.

What about Fruit Loops versus Special K cereals. Which do you think is better? Fruit Loops has less calories and less sugar and the same amount of fiber. A better breakfast choice is Cheerios. It has fewer calories, less sugar and more fiber. Another health food mistake is the yogurt you choose for your family.

“If we’re comparing two vanilla yogurts, even though they’re both low fat, one of them has 220 calories, and 35 grams of sugar, where the other one has 110 calories and 15 grams of sugar!!”

If your family likes to snack before dinner, try veggies.

“One trick you can do is put out cut up veggies on the table for the kids to snack on. If they overeat on vegetables, who really cares!!”

And soon your family will be ignoring the bad foods and fighting over the healthy ones.

Portion size is important. Think about this…the typical burger, fries and soda that was served in the ‘70’s, now has 214 more calories. That’s enough to add at least three pounds of weight a year to your child’s body, even if they eat fast-food just once a week.

Routine Periodic Fasting Is Good for Your Health, and Your Heart, Study Suggests

Fasting has long been associated with religious rituals, diets, and political protests. Now new evidence from cardiac researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute demonstrates that routine periodic fasting is also good for your health, and your heart.

Research cardiologists at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute are reporting that fasting not only lowers one's risk of coronary artery disease and diabetes, but also causes significant changes in a person's blood cholesterol levels. Both diabetes and elevated cholesterol are known risk factors for coronary heart disease.

The discovery expands upon a 2007 Intermountain Healthcare study that revealed an association between fasting and reduced risk of coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death among men and women in America. In the new research, fasting was also found to reduce other cardiac risk factors, such as triglycerides, weight, and blood sugar levels.

The findings were presented on April 3, at the annual scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology in New Orleans.
"These new findings demonstrate that our original discovery was not a chance event," says Dr. Benjamin D. Horne, PhD, MPH, director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute, and the study's principal investigator. "The confirmation among a new set of patients that fasting is associated with lower risk of these common diseases raises new questions about how fasting itself reduces risk or if it simply indicates a healthy lifestyle."

Unlike the earlier research by the team, this new research recorded reactions in the body's biological mechanisms during the fasting period. The participants' low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C, the "bad" cholesterol) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C, the "good" cholesterol) both increased (by 14 percent and 6 percent, respectively) raising their total cholesterol -- and catching the researchers by surprise.

"Fasting causes hunger or stress. In response, the body releases more cholesterol, allowing it to utilize fat as a source of fuel, instead of glucose. This decreases the number of fat cells in the body," says Dr. Horne. "This is important because the fewer fat cells a body has, the less likely it will experience insulin resistance, or diabetes."

This recent study also confirmed earlier findings about the effects of fasting on human growth hormone (HGH), a metabolic protein. HGH works to protect lean muscle and metabolic balance, a response triggered and accelerated by fasting. During the 24-hour fasting periods, HGH increased an average of 1,300 percent in women, and nearly 2,000 percent in men.

Research on foods that help heal broken bones

Summarized by Rosemary Fisher


Nutrition's Role In Increasing The Speed Of Bone Healing
The most important influences on fracture healing are nutrition and overall health, including bone health, before the injury, says orthopedist Martin Yahiro, M.D., a consultant to FDA. "That's why it's so important all your life to do weight-bearing exercise such as walking and get enough calcium and vitamin D, so you lay down as much bone as possible during growth and keep as much as you can later on."
The healing time for broken bones is influenced by a number of variables that nutrition can impact including blood supply. For example, the ends of long bones are vascular so they heal faster than the center.  Certain types of food and exercise foster increased blood supply and hence time it takes to heal.    Mobilization, i.e. weight bearing exercises and isometric exercises stimulates healing. 


High Calcium Foods For Bone Healing


There are number foods that are high in calcium to consider. The following chart should serve as a guideline.


Calcium content of different foods

Type of food	Amount	Milligrams of Calcium
Non fat yogurt	1 cup	415
Sardines (Atlantic with bones)	3 oz	372
Collard Greens	1 cup	355
Pink Salmon (canned with bones)	6oz	334
Skim Milk	1 cup	302
Calcium Fortified Orange Juice	1 cup	302
Bok Choy	1 cup	250
Almonds	3 oz	198
Turnip Greens	1 cup	200
Soy Beans	1 cup	180
Broccoli	1 cup	180
Mustard Greens	1 cup	150
Black Molasses	1 tbsp.	140
Great Northern Beans	1 cup	140
Non fat Baked Beans	1 cup	130
Tofu	1 cup	130
Navy beans	1 cup	130
Corn Tortilla	1 tortilla	120
Kidney Beans	1 cup	115
Okra	1 cup	90
Acorn Squash	1 cup	90
Spinach (Cooked)	1 cup	74
Orange	1 med.	60
Raisins	1/4	22
Peanut butter	2 tbsp.	18

The key to better usage of your calcium intake is not just increasing the calcium but also increasing your ability to absorb the calcium. The recipes in all my books are very high in calcium rich foods and are specifically designed to increase your ability to absorb calcium. For additional information, see my research section on ways to increase absorption of calcium in my latest book Recipes and Research on Dementia, Heart Disease, Osteoporosis and Cancer 


Lysine To Increase Calcium Absorption
Lysine is an amino acid that helps in the absorption of calcium. Lysine a protein building block, can increase the amount of calcium absorbed into the matrix according to Peter Furst, M.D.,PhD. in the Jan./Feb. 1993, Nutrition (9: 70-2).    It is an essential amino acid necessary for the regeneration of tissues, and the building and healing of broken bones. Research studies show that lysine can increase the amount of calcium absorbed into the bone matrix. The amount in one particular study was 800 mg. As lysine promotes the formation of muscle protein, it may be important in healing after operations and injuries. There are a number of foods that can add lysine to your diet, such as low fat milk, fish, yeast, and soy products. I find that defatted soy flour is the best source of Lysine because there are 3300mg of lysine in 3 1/2 ounces of defatted soy flour. This is an important reason to use defatted soy flour in the foods you eat. In my latest book I have many recipes using defatted soy flour. 
Vitamin C As A Bone Healer
Vitamin C is essential nutritionally to make the collagen that helps the body form healthy bones. It also promotes wound healing. You also can get numerous additional benefits from Vitamin C. For example, researchers at New Mexico Medical School found that adults with high blood levels of vitamin C scored higher on mental tasks than those with low levels of vitamin C. Many of my recipes are high in vitamin C. 


Aspirin And Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Can Retard Bone Healing
When you break a bone or tear a muscle and are on pain medication, you may want to try to stop taking the pain medication as soon as possible so you do not delay healing.  A study in May 1995 issue of The Journal of Orthopedic Trauma shows damaged cells in a fracture release large amount of chemicals called prostaglandins.  These chemicals cause the pain and are blocked by the pain medication.  However prostaglandins are also very important in the first stage of tissue repair.  So decreasing the use as soon as possible is helpful to the healing process. 
Furthermore a study in the October 1995 issue of the Journal of Rheumatology found that continued use of anti-inflammatory drugs over several months can increase the rate of cartilaginous breakdown in joints of people who have osteoarthritis.   The drugs mentioned in the studies include Aspirin, Anaprox, Lodine, Meclomin, Motrin, Naprosin, Pensile, Relafen, Toreador, Tolectin, Indocin and Ibuprofen.


Vitamin K To Promote Bone Healing
Vitamin K, also called Menadione, is a very important fat-soluble vitamin that plays a key role in the regulation of normal blood clotting functions. We get vitamin K from several sources in our diet including dark leafy vegetables. Vitamin K also assists in converting glucose into glycogen for storage in the liver. Numerous studies indicate that it plays a role in forming bone formation and preventing osteoporosis. If you want to help bones heal faster, consider increasing your intake of Vitamin K rich foods. I have numerous recipes for these in my books. 
Smoking Slows The Healing Of Broken Bones
Many studies have shown that broken bones tend to take longer to heal if the injured person has been smoking. Cigarettes can also increase the risk of blood clotting, which may further reduce blood flow. Breakdown products of cigarette smoke include carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, nitrosamines and benzenes which can damage the cells that form the bone itself and can interrupt the healing process after a fracture or bone injury. [Hadley MN et al. Smoking and the Human Vertebral Column: A Review of the Impact of Cigarette Use on Vertebral Bone Metabolism and Spinal Fusion. Neurosurgery (1997); vol. 41, pp. 116-122]. 
Boron's Role In Bone Healing
Boron is important in bone healing because studies how show it reduces urinary excretion of calcium and magnesium and significantly increases blood levels of both estrogen and testosterone. The are many food high in boron. Apples are the highest. You will find many recipes in my books that use apples and other high boron foods. 
Avoid bone robbers
To maximize the rate of healing it is helpful to avoid bone robbers such as sugar, salt, alcohol, caffeine, red meats etc.  See detail descriptions in the osteoporosis sections of my books 
Role of silica and zinc
Both silica and zinc are important for the repair of tissues.  Silica is also important also in helping the calcium to be absorbed.    Ensuring that these are in you diet is a another way to potentially decrease the time it takes to heal from a fracture
Simple comfort tips
If you are in a wheel chair or bed, be sure to get the convoluted mattress pad for your bed and wheel chair.  If you have a leg cast or brace, consider using side zippered ski pants for easy on and off of your pants. 
If you have bruised a muscle in your break, and need some pain relief,  be sure to explore the use of the T.E.N.S unit.  You can try it out at most physical therapy sessions. If it works for you, you can get your doctor to give you a prescription for it and in many cases your health insurance will pay for the cost rental or purchase.  You can also just purchase it yourself for as low as $99-$150 U.S on the web. 
I have personally used the T.E.N.S in my last fall, and it was a life saver.  It gave me the pain relief I needed to be able to do the exercises to heal my bruised muscle.  Be sure when you use it, not to overuse it. Just use it so you can get the relief you need to be able to to the physical therapy you need for a permanent solution. 

A Calcium rich diet in the early years can prevent bone- related problems

A few cups of milk or curd a day in childhood and teen years is more valuable than all the calcium supplements consumed in adulthood. The reason is simple. During the first 20 years of life the body builds up a bank balance of calcium in the bones and adulthood is essentially a raid on this balance. Those who lay up a hefty balance in the first two decades enjoy an old age relatively free of skeletal problems.

The rest end up with weak bones that fracture easily in old age.

Osteoporosis is really a pediatric disease with geriatric consequences. Hip fractures are distressingly common in elderly especially in old women and the solution to them is a calcium rich diet in childhood and teen years, not calcium and vitamin D supplements in adulthood must for kids.
Current nutrition guidelines recommend that children consume two servings of milk group foods daily. This provides at least 800 mg of calcium a day. Teens and young adults below 18 years need more calcium- at least 1300 mg of calcium every day, or three servings of milk group foods daily. One 240 ml glass of milk has about 300 mg of calcium. Calcium rich foods include milk and curds, dark green leafy vegetables, beans, soyabeans, raisins, fortified orange juice, fortified bread and meat with chewable bones in it. The guts ability to absorb calcium depends on the overall level of calcium in the food and the type of food. Foods vary in their ability to enhance or inhibit calcium absorption. Low fat or fat-free milk, or curd from such milk, are the best sources of calcium because they have high calcium content which can be easily absorbed by the body.

However, the calcium in oxalic acid -rich foods (spinach, sweet potatoes and beans) or phytic acid -rich foods (unleavened bread, raw beans, seeds and nuts) has low absorptive potential. The body absorbs about a tenth as much calcium from spinach as it does from milk. Therefore, we require additional servings of many calcium- rich foods to balance their low calcium absorption

Lactose, the milk sugar, can cause abdominal discomfort in Indians because, late childhood onwards our bodies lose the enzymes to digest it. However, many people who are lactose intolerant can drink two to three 240 ml glasses of milk every day without getting the symptoms. Substituting curd for milk solves the problem completely.