Laterlife Healthwise - 29            Aug 2002

Visit our Product section too: Health and Beauty in laterlife where we have selected a small range of Health stores where you can buy products online. Between them they cover the spectrum of traditional and alternative health products and therapies that you might be interested in.

Seaweed instead of salt

Seagreens Table Condiment (salt substitute to you and me) contains lowest-ever sodium content, say the makers. It is described as ‘dried pieces of specially prepared wild wrack’ which apparently has a subtle, nutty vegetable flavour. Could be useful for those prescribed a very low salt diet.

You can buy Seagreens Table Condiment, and it’s close cousin Seagreens Culinary Ingredient (seaweed granules for cooking), from health food stores and delicatessens.  See their website: www.seagreens.com  or contact their email:  post@seagreens.com 

Do doctors take pain seriously?

Not when their patients suffer from arthritis, says the UK charity Arthritis Care. 

A survey of GPs revealed that that only 17% believed most of their patients when they said their condition reduced ability to do day to day activities like gardening, shopping, cleaning the house.

Only 1 in 3 GPs were prescribing the new Cox-2 selective inhibitors to people over 65. This age group is considered to be at risk of developing serious stomach problems through use of other, current medications.

Meanwhile, Europe-wide survey showed that 76% of GPs did not provide patients with leaflets and 82% gave no information on treatment options.

NB If you want to consider an alternative, non-drug pain relief, see previous article on the PainGone pen by clicking here.

Chocolate makes you happy. Official..

A survey from Cadbury Dairy Milk found, surely to no one’s surprise, that when people eat the stuff, 70% (only 70%?)  feel satisfied, comforted and contented.  The psychologist in charge of this survey, Dr Dylan Evans of University of Bath, was investigating whether the pleasure from eating chocolate derives from sensory qualities like taste, texture and smell, or some kind of psychoactive effect of the ingredients of chocolate on the brain.

Brain scans showed that the sensory qualities do the trick. Chocolate-eaters activated their ‘pleasure centres’ in the brain, showing a definite mood-enhancing effect based on sensory perceptions.

SPECIAL REPORT  By Helen Franks, on 3 big health issues:      

1. HRT - should you or shouldn’t you?

The recent news that a trial of women taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in the form of pills was cancelled because of increased risk of breast cancer and stroke, comes as little surprise to the medical profession.

It has been known for many years that there is a very small increased risk of breast cancer after taking the treatment for 5 years, and a slightly more serious risk after 10 years.  Similarly, the risk of stroke and heart disease has long been recognised.

Large-scale, long-term surveys of HRT have been difficult to fulfil over the years, because many women stop the treatment after experiencing side effects. (About one-third of users give up, many within a year of starting the treatment.)

The new trial, involving over 16,000 healthy American women, revealed that 8 in 10,000 had increased risk of breast cancer after 4 years use of HRT, and 8 strokes, blood clots and 7 heart disease events within a year.

Risk to individual women is very small, but that’s not such great reassurance when you know that anyone can be the victim of a statistic. However, the general advice has been to stay calm, consult your doctor and keep on taking the tablets or discuss with your doctor an alternative method of taking HRT - perhaps a gel, cream.

HRT is a lifesaver for some women, especially those suffering severe hot flushes, vaginal dryness, fatigue and headaches. For bone strength, there are other, more effective drugs. But it is not, repeat not, an elixir for staying young, and in the past, the strong promotion of HRT has overstated its powers.

If you want to explore natural alternatives to HRT, see Women’s Nutritional Advisory Health under the item ‘Where to get supplements…on the Internet’   opposite.

Eat yourself slim

Based on the recipes and menus that will feature in Rosemary Conley's television series, of the same name, this book has suggestions for those who want to enjoy fine food and control their weight, or lose some weight at the same time.

The natural beauty & bath book

This book gives you 70 recipes for beauty and bath products that you can make yourself, using ingredients you will find at your local grocery and health food shops. Pamper yourself from head to toe with these natural formulas:

6 weeks to super health

Whether you are looking to lose weight, get healthy or get out of a rut, this eminently readable, well-designed, informative and authoritative guide is guaranteed to have a permanent effect on your lifestyle.

Tai Chi

This book explains: what Tai Chi is; how to use Tai Chi for health and healing; the best way to train in Tai Chi. This book is an ideal guide for anyone who wants to understand the fundamental ideas and practices of this ancient martial art.

  Stop smoking

   
This new edition of the bestseller aims to help the reader use the "Easy way" method to eliminate the psychological reasons for smoking, handle withdrawal symptoms, avoid temptation situations, and stay a non-smoker! 

2.  Diet - is low-fat bad after all?

What goes around comes around. Way back in the 1960s, I was working for Women magazine on the low-carb, high-fat and high protein diets devised by the late John Yudkin, well-known nutritionist. His ideas were very similar to those voiced by Robert Atkins in the 70s.

The theory was that if you eat starchy, sugary carbohydrates (flour, bread, cakes, sweets, potatoes, pasta, pizza, rice) your system gets an insulin high, turning the sugar into energy, so you burn up the calories from these foods quickly, and store those derived from fat and protein foods as fat cells.

Burning up the carbs quickly leaves you dissatisfied, so you soon want more.  That mid-morning croissant (he cited the sugary bun in those days) to boost energy isn’t needed if you start the day on - wait for it - bacon and eggs. The high protein diet was in the 60s a favourite with models, who, when asked how they kept slim, said they dined on steak and salad and had a proper cooked breakfast. A sandwich lunch was considered fattening, and only paved the way for a mid-afternoon slice of cake or biscuit.

But then came the revelations about animal fats and heart disease. Bacon and steak were off the menu. Weight for weight, carbohydrates contain fewer calories than fatty foods or proteins. It seemed to make sense to go for bulk to fill you up. Somehow the Yudkin/Atkins argument got forgotten, and has had to wait till new research confirmed their theories.

So what do we do now if we want to lose weight or not get any fatter? Fish, lean meat, olive oil, lots of fresh fruit and veg are still priorities. A lot less pizza, pasta, even bread. No sugary drinks for a quick energy fix - a piece of cheese would be better (Yudkin used to suggest ‘a matchbox sized portion’ in those cholesterol-innocent days. Remember the softer the cheese usually the lower the cholesterol content).  

Maybe the cooked breakfast will come back into fashion, in the form of a boiled or poached or fried egg to avoid mid-morning hunger. And steak and salad could soon be the food of the supermodels once more.

3. Vitamin supplements in danger    

A new EU directive is threatening to make it illegal to buy vitamins and other supplements in high doses. Vitamin C, for instance, which can be bought at strengths of 1000 mg, the dosage found to be most effective in curtailing colds, may be limited to twice the Recommended Daily Allowance, about 80 mg. You’d have to buy and ingest a lot of vit C tablets to get the high dose.

The directive is not, as you might think, primarily due to fears of safety of high doses. It’s  based on the aim to standardise amounts, so that suppliers can sell  the same package to member states. 

Herbal remedies are also under threat.  The current list includes more than 300 products, and more may be added.   Such celebrities as Sirs Paul McCartney, Elton John, Cliff Richard and many more are lending their names to protest  against the directive. You can add your views by writing to: Dept of Health, 79 Whitehall, London SW1 2NS.

Where to get supplements and special foods on the internet

Health products

Revital Health Shops offer a wide range of vitamins, minerals and health products. Email:  enquire@revital.com  website: www.revital.com  

Visit our Product section too: Health and Beauty in laterlife where we have selected a small range of Health stores where you can buy products online. Between them they cover the spectrum of traditional and alternative health products and therapies that you might be interested in.

For more information on Health and Health related matters visit our Health section

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