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August 2, 2011  In This Issue... - The Hushed-Up Truth About DMSO
- Muffin Cure for Milk Allergies? It Might Work
- Exciting New Club Just for Diabetics!
- Worst Practices: Doctors Tell the Truth About What They Shouldn’t Do
- Mancation
The Hushed-Up Truth About DMSO And the new pain breakthrough that’s 12 ways more powerful. Twenty years ago, 60 Minutes showcased this "pain miracle" to 70 million viewers, and The New York Times hailed it in a lead editorial. Then it virtually disappeared from the halls of healthcare. WHY? See inside for the shocking truth, and the new breakthrough that...
Muffin Cure for Milk Allergies? It Might Work Consider this -- eating cookies, muffins or other baked goods may help children who are allergic to milk gain some tolerance for it. New research suggests this might be so -- a study has demonstrated that some children with milk allergies can be helped to "outgrow" the problem by eating baked goods that contain milk. How simple and helpful that would be! Here’s the story: Researchers at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City had noticed that some milk-allergic children were able to consume cooked milk, such as in baked goods, without any noticeable physical reaction, though others could not tolerate anything at all containing milk protein. This was intriguing, since the standard food allergy approach is strict avoidance of the offending food. More Milk, Please The researchers wondered if baked foods might open a door to a gradual introduction of milk. It was theoretically possible, because cooking alters milk proteins in a way that makes them less likely to set off an allergic reaction in the body. It’s also known that when milk proteins bind with other ingredients in baked products, they’re less available to provoke allergic reactions in the digestive tract. Researchers theorized that eating baked milk on a regular basis might modulate how the immune system reacts to milk proteins in a way that, over time, leads to tolerance. The study: The team designed a six-year study of children, all between the ages of two and 17, with known milk allergies. At the beginning of the study, each child was given a food test (oral challenge) with baked foods containing milk, such as a muffin and a waffle. If a child reacted to either, he or she continued strict avoidance of milk. If a child tolerated both a muffin and a waffle without any symptoms or sign of an allergic reaction, he was subsequently fed unheated milk -- those who had no symptoms after ingesting unheated milk were considered no longer milk-allergic and were discharged from the study. Children who tolerated the muffin and the waffle but reacted to regular milk were advised to add baked products made with milk to their diets at home while continuing strict avoidance of uncooked milk. Then, at intervals ranging from six to 54 months, the children proceeded through a sequence of milk challenges by consuming milk that was increasingly less heated... to pizza with cheese... and finally to drinking a glass of regular cold milk. At the end of the study, 60% of this group was able to drink regular milk with no visible short-term reaction. Researchers observed that this was a higher rate of children outgrowing milk allergiew than seemed to be the case anecdotally among other children with similar levels of milk allergy. Children who had baked milk were growing well and had no worsening of any allergy-related diseases such as asthma or eczema. Don’t Try It at Home Study coauthor Anna Nowak-Węgrzyn, MD, associate professor of pediatrics, allergy and immunology at Mount Sinai Medical Center, told me that the research team was excited about the fact that these results demonstrate that milk allergy management can be individualized. "Many children who must avoid regular milk may enjoy baked products containing milk with some frequency and speed up their milk-allergy suppression using this method," she said. She noted, however, that this approach requires medical management -- if you know a child who might benefit, she suggested discussing this study with his or her allergist, because this strategy may not be appropriate for everyone. Source(s):
Anna Nowak-Węgrzyn, MD, associate professor of pediatrics, division of allergy and immunology, clinician and clinical researcher, Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, The Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York City.
Exciting New Club Just for Diabetics! Join America's Diabetic Savings Club to receive outstanding money-saving opportunities and free gifts like a diabetic bracelet! - Free giveaways and special promotions for members only
- A glucose meter upgrade to the latest FDA approved meter technology
- Prescription delivery service for all your medications; comes with free shipping and a free pair of diabetic socks.
- Free Hearing Test -- diabetics are about twice as likely to have hearing loss, so we have arranged for a free annual hearing test for all of our members
- Dentist Referral -- about one-third of diabetics have severe gum disease which can result in tooth loss, so we have a dentist referral program to help you find a qualified dentist in your area
- Upgrade to a paid membership and get 24 hour access to nurses and physicians for only $1.00 for the first month
- And more great stuff!
Click here to read more www.diabeticsavingsclub.com
Worst Practices: Doctors Tell the Truth About What They Shouldn’t Do Want to know what doctors really think about the way other doctors practice medicine? I sure do! insider information is always valuable, so I was intrigued to learn what physicians have to say about medical tests and procedures prescribed by their peers that are seen as unnecessary... not particularly meaningful... or even "bad medicine," as they say in doctor parlance. The National Physicians Alliance (NPA), an organization that seeks to improve US health care, recently asked its 20,000-plus members, all doctors, to identify cost-saving, efficiency-improving practices in family, internal and pediatric medicine. The results -- published in the May 23, 2011 online edition of Archives of Internal Medicine -- may surprise you because they include many tests and procedures that are routinely prescribed. It turns out that all too often, doctors keep doing things the way they’ve always been done even when new research or guidelines establish that there is a better way to treat a particular problem. Why? According to Stephen Smith, MD, professor emeritus at Brown University, who headed the NPA study, it can be hard to get doctors to change their habits even when new information casts doubt on their effectiveness. For some, it’s hard to break old habits... for others, it’s the belief -- often mistaken -- that it’s what the patients want... for still others, it may be a lack of awareness or knowledge... and, for a few, it may be that there is a financial incentive, not to mention the fear of liability if they should miss something. And as patients, we aren’t blameless, either -- we sometimes pressure our physicians to give us tests or drugs that we think (but don’t really know) make sense. Dr. Smith and I went over the practices that irk physicians the most and that came up most often... Early imaging for low-back pain. Back pain ranks fifth among reasons why people visit the doctor -- and all too many of those folks end up getting an MRI scan despite evidence showing that it’s not usually helpful. It’s not that MRIs are dangerous -- unlike X-rays and CT scans (which use radiation), they’re not potentially harmful, but, ouch, they’re pricey. An MRI typically costs about $3,000, Dr. Smith said. Most lower back pain improves on its own within about six weeks. If it lasts longer or if nerve damage is suspected -- for instance, if there is numbness in the groin or problems controlling urinary or bowel function -- that’s when a doctor should consider an MRI. Unnecessary antibiotics. According to Dr. Smith, even doctors admit that too many among their ranks still prescribe antibiotics to patients with colds -- a practice they all know doesn’t help. Colds are viral, and antibiotics work only against bacteria. They should be prescribed only when a person is sick for a week or longer (as a general rule) or if there are certain specific reasons to suspect a virulent bacterial infection, such as Group A streptococcus, which can lead to strep throat. Annual cardiac screening for patients with low risk and no symptoms. Too many doctors prescribe yearly electrocardiograms for adult patients with no signs, symptoms or particular risk factors for heart disease. Dr. Smith said it might make sense to order a onetime ECG at around age 40 to serve as a baseline if needed for future comparison... or more often if the patient has a job that stresses the heart particularly (pro athlete, firefighter) or where public safety is an issue (airline pilots, train conductors, bus drivers). "But there’s no need to keep repeating it year after year," Dr. Smith said, noting that even subtle changes in ECGs typically take years to turn into dangerous heart problems. Pap smears on women younger than 21 or who have had a hysterectomy for any reason other than cancer. Dr. Smith said that it is common for young women to exhibit abnormalities of cell appearance that then tend to disappear within a few years on their own... and it is very rare for a woman so young to develop precancerous changes rather than transient inflammatory changes. Also, research has demonstrated that Pap smears are simply unnecessary for women who have undergone hysterectomies for benign disease. Of course, women who have a family history of cancer should discuss with their doctors whether they should continue Pap smears. Bone-density tests on women under age 65 and men under age 70. There’s no evidence that bone-density tests prior to these ages provide meaningful information unless there are other signs of trouble -- such as a personal or family history of fracture, small build, low body weight, prolonged use of corticosteroids or calcium deficiency, smoking, alcoholism or other factors, Dr. Smith said. And what information is gained from bone density tests frequently is interpreted too negatively -- with the result that doctors often put patients on a lifelong path of bone medication that can have serious adverse side effects. Exceptions to the NPA’s age guidelines: Men under 70 who have particular bone risk factors, such as loss of height, change in posture, sudden unexplained back pain or a nontraumatic fracture. Blood and urine tests for healthy adults without symptoms of a problem. Often prescribed as part of the routine physical exam, these tests are not particularly helpful or important except for patients with worrisome symptoms such as fatigue or high blood pressure. Why? The likelihood of picking up kidney or liver disease is quite slim, but the odds of false-positive results that would lead to yet more unnecessary testing is fairly high. The exception: People with total cholesterol higher than 200 mg/dL and HDL of at least 40 mg/dL should be tested every one to two years or according to their doctors’ advice, while others should be tested every five years said Dr. Smith, adding, "When called for, a patient can then be treated with diet and lifestyle changes and, if necessary, medication." Brand-name statins to reduce cholesterol. "For the large majority of patients who really need statin drugs, generic varieties such as simvastatin, lovastatin and pravastatin are perfectly adequate. And they cost only a few dollars a month," Dr. Smith said. In contrast, brand-name statins (such as Lipitor, Mevacor, Pravachol) can cost more than $150 a month. Since each statin drug works slightly differently, some people may need to use a brand-name version because the generic versions are not effective for them, while others have such dangerously high levels of cholesterol that they need the "big guns." But, says Dr. Smith, this doesn’t happen very often. If your doctor engages in one of these "worst practice" behaviors, voice your concern. There are exceptions to every rule (and we’ve noted a few important ones above), but if a doctor has no particularly good reason for why he or she is advising you to do something on this list, it may be a good reason to start looking for another doctor. Source(s):
Stephen Smith, MD, MPH, project director of the National Physicians Alliance’s "Good Stewardship Working Group." Dr. Smith is a former associate dean and a current professor emeritus of family medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University, Providence.
Mancation I know a number of married men who go on solo vacations. I call these "mancations" because they are typically activities that no women I know ever go on. Let's see... Kurt secluded himself in a little cabin in the woods, not only physically away from other people, but also inaccessible by cell phone. Al spends two weeks each summer touring on his motorcycle, and blogs about it for friends and family. Click here to read more...
Be well, 
Carole Jackson
Bottom Line’s Daily Health News
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