The Health Blog

First, place yourself on each axis in the direction that you feel best represents your feelings about your marriage. Next, place your partner on that same axis. Your marriage will then have four scores to discuss on the Sexual-System Exam, your score for self and partner and your partner’s two scores. Remember, as with super marital sex, it’s the doing, not the scoring, that counts!

It will sometimes seem that a certain score must be a better score, but systems theory, the theory behind the super sex marriage, teaches that too much of even an apparently good thing is not necessarily the healthiest status for a growing adapting system. An athlete can be very fit—scoring high on all measures of muscle, speed, and endurance—yet not be very healthy—adaptable, happy, loving, and learning. Try to break free of your assumptions of good or bad and think in terms of balance, in terms of positioning your marriage for change, growth, and responsiveness to the needs and maturation of the marital partners.

*27\97\8*

Pruritus ani is the term we use to describe the condition of an itch or discomfort around the anus.

This is a common problem, which is often made worse by the treatment the sufferer uses himself or what is prescribed for him.

The cause is due to a combination of factors. Nervous tension is not only a cause but also a result.

A wet, unclean skin in this area may be the main factor.

Excessive sweating, frequent loose bowel actions, leakage of mucus and, particularly, inadequate cleaning all predispose to the problem.

It is difficult to clean the area by the use of conventional dry toilet paper.

Cleaning around the anus is more effective with a soft wet cloth. The European habit of the use of a bidet to wash the area is also effective.

Rubbing with dry toilet paper may irritate the skin and eventually make it itch, which we can make worse by scratching.

Most of the local preparations may further sensitise and irritate the area, so the problem continues.

Many cases can be cured simply by stopping the patient using the cream or ointment he has been using for months or years.

Topical applications of cortisone to relieve the inflammation, or anti-fungal drugs to clear thrush infection should only be used for a limited time.

The clean healthy skin of a baby’s bottom soon becomes red and angry if left in contact with a dirty nappy. So too may the adult bottom, which is no longer smooth but wrinkled around the anus and thus provides pockets where small amounts of faeces may remain to irritate the skin.

More good can be done to cure this unpleasant and common problem if we paid better attention to simple cleaning measures than using elaborate and potent drugs.

*535/71/1*

Cortisone is a hormone normally produced in the body by the adrenal glands which lie above the kidneys.

It is essential for life and has many functions, one of which is to suppress inflammation.

Inflammation is the normal process where the body defends itself against either injury or infection, but sometimes this inflammation gets out of control, or is provoked in the body by antibodies produced, as it were, by the body developing an allergy to its own tissues.

Cortisone can suppress this inflammation and control, if not cure, the disease.

Cortisone derivatives are widely used as creams and ointments in treating skin diseases.

Most skin diseases provoke inflammation in the skin and cortisone applied topically reduces this and often clears the rash.

Because cortisone can suppress the inflammation needed to control infection it may be used when there is infection on the skin, or for that matter when taken by mouth it may suppress the body’s ability to deal with the infection.

Prolonged local use may damage the skin, leading it to lose its elastic tissue and become thin as in old age and with prominent blood vessels.

*279/71/1*

While the diagnosis may be suspected from the symptoms, it can be confirmed by taking a biopsy from the bowel. This involves removing a small piece of the bowel wall and examining it under the microscope. Once the gluten has been eliminated from the diet, a repeat biopsy should show the appearance of the bowel has returned to normal.

Elimination of gluten from the diet will usually produce improvement within a few days but it may take up to a year for the child to fully regain normal health.

Parents of children or adults with this disorder need the advice of a dietitian to plan proper meals which are fully nourishing. There is a Coeliac Society which can give advice in planning meals and playing a supportive role to sufferers and their families.

It needs to be stressed that parents whose children have similar symptoms to those I have listed as occurring in coeliac disease should not assume that this may be the cause and place their children on a gluten-free diet without proper diagnosis being made.

If this is done without proper advice, the diet chosen may be inadequate in all the necessary factors and result in further malnutrition.

*28/71/1*

I’ll explain here what the lymph system is, because it is important in understanding cancer. When you get a sore throat you may get swollen, painful lumps in your neck. These are lymph nodes (also called lymph glands). Normally they are smaller than a pea and quite soft. There is a network of these nodes throughout your body, and they are all connected to each other by very fine channels (or vessels). Eventually, all these channels join into one which empties its contents into the bloodstream at a point just behind the inner end of your left collarbone.

The job of the lymph system is to drain all excess fluid from your tissues and to filter out any unwanted material. So, with your sore throat, the germs go through the lymph channels to the nearest lymph nodes in your neck. There they are filtered out and white blood cells get to work on them and destroy them. In the process the node gets bigger, harder and painful.

In the same way, lymph nodes will filter out and trap cancer cells which come to them through the lymph channels. The nodes actually form part of your immune system and so have cells in them which ‘recognise’ the cancer cells as dangerous. If only a few cells come through, they can be completely destroyed. If there are too many for the node to handle, they survive, and grow to form a hard, but usually painless, lump. This is a type of secondary growth and it, in turn, can release cancer cells to travel either through more lymph channels or the blood to other parts of the body.

*36/40/1*

As a simple definition, osteoporosis is a condition in which bone becomes so fragile and brittle that it breaks comparatively easily. Bone is a living, changing thing, containing two main types of cells called, confusingly, ‘osteoclasts’ and ‘osteoblasts’. All through our lives, the osteoclasts wear away microscopic craters in the bone, and then the osteoblasts fill these craters with newly formed bone, exactly matching the space dissolved away by the osteoclasts. That way, bone is constantly renewed — a sort of repair-and-maintenance system. Oestrogen is thought to reduce the rate at which osteoclasts dissolve bone, and to increase the rate at which osteoblasts build it up. Once oestrogen levels fall, the osteoclasts dissolve the tiny craters at a faster rate than before, while the osteoblasts don’t replace the bone so efficiently. Eventually, the bone becomes less dense and strong, and more liable to fracture.

Bone is built up during childhood and teenage years, and reaches a peak content (called ‘peak bone mass’) in the early twenties. For the next 15 years or so, the bones thicken and strengthen, but then from about the age of 35 onwards, bone mass starts to fall gradually. In a man it continues in -this gradual fall for the rest of his life, and a man of 90 can expect to have lost about 25 per cent of his total quantity of bone. In women, however, bone density drops dramatically in the years immediately after the menopause — about 3-5 per cent every year in the vertebrae of women who have had a natural menopause, and as high as 7-9 per cent in the vertebrae of women who have had an early oophorectomy. (The hip joint loses bone density at a slightly lower rate.) To lose bone at about 3 per cent a year may not seem much, but if you get a calculator, start with 100 (to represent the amount of bone you have at the menopause), then subtract 3 per cent from that figure, then 3 per cent again from the next figure, you will find that after doing this seven times you get a figure of 80. In other words, after losing 3 per cent of your bone every year for seven years, you are left with just 80 per cent of what you had at the start of the menopause – and you are probably still only in your fifties. Many women lose bone mass at a faster rate than 3 per cent, and sometimes for as long as 15 or 20 years; it is not unusual for them to end up having lost one-third or even half of their bone mass by about the age of 70. No wonder fractures occur!

Bones are not solid things, like an iron bar, as this would make them very heavy. Each bone contains an outer shell of ‘cortical’ bone, which is strong, compact and dense, and an inner area of ‘trabecular’ bone, which is brittle and fragile. The bones that are most vulnerable to fracture in osteoporosis are those that have a higher proportion of trabecular bone, such as the hip joints and the vertebrae of the spine.

Trabecular bone is made up of tiny vertical pillars, joined together with horizontal cross-ties, giving it strength with the minimum of weight. In osteoporosis, as the osteoclasts wear away bone faster than the osteoblasts can build it up again, these pillars and cross-ties lose their connections with each other, and the bone therefore loses its strength. Eventually, it becomes so fragile that it can fracture while you are doing such everyday things as lifting a casserole out of the oven, opening a stuck window, putting shopping bags into the boot of the car, doing up the back zip of a dress, or even coughing, laughing or sneezing.

The main component of bone is calcium, which is held in a soft substance called collagen; as collagen levels fall, so do die levels of the calcium held within it. Oestrogen helps the body to absorb calcium effectively, making it available to the osteoblasts, and as oestrogen levels fall after the menopause, so calcium is stored less effectively. Much of it is just excreted in the urine instead of being used to build bone.

As oestrogen is needed to get the ‘bone building’ balance right, and as it also helps the body to absorb calcium and preserve collagen, you can see why oestrogen therapy is so effective in preventing osteoporosis. It can’t rebuild damaged bone, but it can help prevent further bone loss. It has been said of HRT that it ‘stops osteoporosis in its tracks’, because oestrogen therapy at any stage after the menopause halts bone loss.

*46\42\4*

The health care costs of abdominal, vaginal and laparoscopically assisted hysterectomies are comparable. However the reduced recovery time of the latter approach promises considerable benefits to women, their families and employers.

An economic evaluation that compared the costs of abdominal hysterectomy and endometrial resection in England for the four months up to and including surgery, found total costs for the former were nearly twice that of the latter. The authors suggested, however, this was not the end of the story:

Given the fact that a subgroup of women requires re-treatment due to resection failure and that this study considers a relatively short period of follow-up, the long-term costs and benefits of endometrial resection need to be evaluated before widespread diffusion is justified.

The all-up cost of an abdominal hysterectomy in Australia in 1993 was about $5000, and for a vaginal hysterectomy it was considerably less at $3550. The cost of a laparoscopically assisted hysterectomy was about $5700, of which almost $1200 was for disposable instruments. Women who do not have private health insurance and whose hysterectomy is carried out in a public hospital ca*n expect to pay nothing. Women with private health insurance can expect to pay $500 or more, regardless of whether they attend a public or private hospital. Their payment will depend on their level of insurance and the fees charged by their surgeon and anaesthetist. Uninsured patients having a hysterectomy in a private hospital face payments of $2500 to $3000.

*60\198\4*

It is now believed that benzodiazepine exerts an inhibitory effect on the transmission of signals between nerves, so that there is a slowing down in the relay of signals between nerve cells and hence the person becomes less excitable and more relaxed. Benzodiazepine competes with a naturally occurring chemical in the nerve endings known as GABA (gamma amino butyric acid).

It appears to displace GABA off these nerve endings, which increases the amount of freely available GABA. GABA is known to inhibit transmission of impulses between nerve cells.

There are two main kinds of benzodiazepine, the long acting and the short acting. By long action, we mean that once the drug is absorbed into the body it stays active for a long time and can be detected in the body after many days. The drug is eliminated from the body by two mechanisms, either destroyed by metabolism in the liver or excreted by the kidneys in the urine. The faster the metabolism, the shorter the half-life of the drug, which is the time taken for half of the drug in the body to be eliminated. This elimination phase can be much longer in older people than in younger people because their kidneys are not normally so efficient. The long acting hypnotic drugs have a long half-life and can sustain sleep longer, but they may give a hangover feeling the next morning;

people who take these drugs often complain that they feel like a zombie the following morning. If this drug is taken nightly and regularly, it tends to accumulate in the body. One of the longer

acting drugs is Flurazepam, commonly known as Dalmane, and its half-life is nearly 80 hours. This is rarely prescribed in Australia now.

The short acting benzodiazepine has a short half-life and is eliminated from the body much more quickly, usually within a few hours. It can initiate sleep more easily, but may not be as effective in sustaining sleep. There is very little hangover feeling in the morning and accumulation of the drug in the body is less likely even if taken regularly. A common short acting drug is Temazepam, which is marketed in Australia as Euhypnos or Normison; its half-life is 5.8 hours.

Health authorities all over the world have now recognized the abuse of benzodiazepines. They have found that they are addictive. As the number of deaths from barbiturates fell, it became apparent that quite a large number of people suffer from the distressing effects of dependence on benzodiazepines. In Australia alone there are about 6.5 million prescriptions for benzodiazepines written each year, and there are only 15 million people here.

*59\174\4*

Some degree of sleeplessness is a fairly constance feature of anxiety conditions. The main problem is that insomnia is such a disturbing symptom that we turn to sleeping tablets far too quickly. Most people can learn to use this relaxing technique to put themselves to sleep I have recently been treating a doctor with chronic anxiety who had been taking sleeping capsules every night for twenty-five years. He learned the relaxing method of putting himself to sleep in three or four sessions, and since then has taken no sedative at night at all. But it does not come quite as easily as this to everyone. Give yourself a little time to get into the swing of it, and be patient when it does not all come at once.

When you have mastered the relaxing mental exercises, it is quite a simple matter to put yourself to sleep. You will have been practising the exercises in relatively uncomfortable positions. Now do them when you go to bed, and with the added warmth and comfort they will seem very easy indeed. Just lie flat on your back and proceed with the exercises in the ordinary way:

Relaxed.

Legs are relaxed.

Utterly relaxed.

All I feel of them is their weight on the bed.

Heavy relaxation.

Heavy drowsy relaxation.

It comes all through me.

Heavy, drowsy, sleepy.

My body is heavy with it.

It is in my face.

Eyelids are heavy with it.

So drowsy, so sleepy.

It is all through me.

When you really feel the heaviness, and the sleepiness, and weight in your eyelids, you just turn over on to your side into a sleeping position and you are asleep.

If you wake during the night, you just repeat the same procedure. It is important to do it systematically and in a relaxed fashion. Do not allow yourself to get restless or irritable with yourself. Do it systematically and you will soon be off to sleep again.

A feature of this approach is that it is effective not only with insomnia which is caused by anxiety, but with insomnia resulting from almost any cause. Those who are kept awake by pain find it very effective. Elderly persons can use the method with success provided their mind does not wander too much during the exercises.

Improvement in sleep is the general rule for anxious persons once they start to practise the exercises.

A rather outstanding example was a professional man who had been taking sleeping capsules every night for more than twenty years, since he was a student. He came seeking help for general anxiety, and his difficulty in sleeping was hardly mentioned, as he had assumed he would be taking sleeping capsules for the rest of his life. It was only afterward that he told me he had been so impressed with his calmer state of mind that he had experimented, and had gone to bed without his usual capsule, and was surprised to find that he could sleep quite well. He said that he felt that his sleep was lighter but at the same time more refreshing.

I can give a further example from my personal experience. The incident occurred just recently, after my first submission of this manuscript to the publishers. I developed an abscess on a tooth. My face was swollen right up to the eyes. In spite of the pain I found I could put myself to sleep in two or three minutes by the relaxing exercises. However, in about half an hour, when I was deeply asleep and off guard, the pain woke me. But I was able to put myself asleep again quite quickly only to be awakened by the pain again in half an hour or so. This sequence was repeated several times during the night, so that I actually had a reasonable amount of sleep. Next morning I had the tooth extracted without anaesthetic and without discomfort.

*84\57\2*

Of all the various therapeutic measures employed by biological medicine in treatment of arthritis fasting is, perhaps, singularly the most important one.

Fasting has been used in treating arthritis for centuries, mostly in Europe, but also on this continent. The big difference is that in the United States the majority of doctors who employ fasting in their practice usually advocate a complete or water fast, while European, biologically oriented doctors employ mostly juice fasts.

Although fasting is without a doubt one of the safest therapeutic agents known to medicine,1 in the minds of the uninitiated and uninformed it is often associated with fear of the possibility of doing harm to the body. This is quite understandable, considering that the average man has the impression that complete abstinence from food just for a couple of weeks would result in death. The truth is that man can live without food for months. In fact, man can kill himself by overeating in a shorter time than by fasting.2 There are recorded cases of fasting up to 90 days on water and up to 249 days on juices and liquids. In recent tests at Stobhill General Hospital, in Glasgow, Scotland, a 54-year-old woman was put on a liquid fast and lost 74 of her 262 pounds along with a painful arthritic knee condition, during a fast of 249 daysl2 Although therapeutic fasting usually is of no longer duration than 40 days, the great majority of fasts in European clinics are ten to 20 days long.

Although liquid fasting is not a dangerous measure and could be safely undertaken without supervision at home, I would advise that the average patient, who does not have a thorough understanding and insight into all the details and various phases of fasting, should not undertake it on his own, but only under expert supervision. This will assure him of peace of mind which is imperative for the successful outcome of any therapeutic measure.

In Sweden, fasting is a national sport. Thousands of healthy young and old, men and women members of the national health organization, Halsoframjandet (Health-promotion, Inc.), fast for a week or two every year. Regular short fasts are considered an effective way to cleanse the body of wastes, build up resistance and physical stamina, and prevent diseases. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t get weakened or depleted by fasting. On the contrary, fasting will strengthen the body in many ways. The stomach and digestive tract will receive a rest and will be strengthened by fasting. Actually, the total regeneration and rejuvenation of all functions of the body is the objective which induces thousands of Swedes to fast. These fasts are done on

their own. in their own homes, without supervision of doctors. But then again, these Swedes are experts in fasting; they are well informed and acquainted with the mechanics and philosophy of fasting.

Just to show you how safe fasting actually is, I like to refer to two famous fast-hikes, which were performed in Sweden in recent years under the direction of Dr. Lennart Edr6n, world famous authority on fasting. First, 11 Swedish health enthusiasts walked from Gothenburg to Stockholm (over 300 miles) in ten days. During that time they fasted—did not consume any foods at all, only plain water. A couple of years later about 20 persons repeated the hike under tight scientific control. During the whole hike, and for an extended period after it, various medical tests of their condition were made: blood count, blood sugar tests, heart tests, pulse, physical endurance tests, etc. All tests showed that in spite of the unusual stress of the combined fasting and strenuous hike, all participants were in perfect health and did not suffer any damage of any kind. However, quite the contrary was later found to be true because of the discovery that some of the participants were freed from various ailments they suffered before the fast-hike began.

At the time of my last visit to Sweden in July of 1966, Dr. Edr6n himself had already fasted a total of 45 days so far that year. At 50 he is a picture of youthful vitality and health, and he is regularly fasting to keep his superior health condition at an optimum level.

*41\176\2*