Why you need lemon in your Gin & Tonic

I have always been a great advocate of aromatherapy – when in the hands of a trained aromatherapist it can have profound health and psychological benefits. It stimulates the immune system, strengthens resistance to disease and helps to combat infections. Aromatherapy can lower blood pressure, reduces stress, combat insomnia and other helps to deal with emotions such as anxiety, mild depression, and grief.

And what has this to do with my G&T I can hear you ask? Well some splendid Japanese researchers at Tokyo University have given aromatherapy a much-needed seal of approval by proving that your favourite drink can calm your nerves after a stressful day – but only if you include a decent slice of lemon in it.

When we get nervous, stressed and anxious our genes go into overdrive and can cause high blood pressure, sleeplessness and depression. These genes are affected by Linalool, a chemical compound found in lemons, lavender and mangos. That also explains why lavender oil is so popular to help people relax and go to sleep more easily.

It is the citrus aroma in that G&T that our bodies that respond to and the researchers have proved that Linalool can reverse the effects of stress simply by us inhaling that aroma. So you don’t even need to drink it, just give it a good sniff!

Leukaemia and lymphoma link to Nutrasweet

My regular readers will know I am not a fan of artificial sweeteners, mostly because of the side effects linked to them and the fact that because the body does not recognise them as sugar, it is more inclined to seek it out in other forms – in other words it won’t help you lose weight and keep it off.

Since 2005 we have known that there is a link between lymphoma, leukaemia and aspartame and it has had FDA approval since 1981. You will find it in literally thousands of products from food and soft drinks through less likely items like vitamins. You will find it on the supermarket shelves under several different brand names including NutraSweet, Equal Measure, and Spoonful. Since it was first approved there have been a string of complaints from consumers over symptoms such as migraines, dizziness, insomnia, joint pain, memory loss, hives, rash, abdominal cramping, hallucinations, and seizures. There were also some deaths reported related to aspartame

Earlier this year the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reported that aspartame showed no carcinogenic potential at the allowable daily intake (ADI) of 40/mg/kg but personally I think the wisest course is to avoid it altogether. To date there are over 900 studies done, with the most recent in May 2009 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, which investigated the link between formaldehyde and lymph cancer. You may only associate its use in embalming bodies, but a 2007 study showed that it linked to aspartame intake.

Aspartame turns into formaldehyde in the body, but it was previously thought that this was then quickly eliminated until a 1998 study showed that dietary aspartame binds to tissues in protein. It was found in liver, kidney, and blood and the report suggested that the build up of aspartame was cumulative and it is this that causes more damage over time.

Since 1987 formaldehyde has been listed by the US Environmental Protection Agency as a probable human carcinogen and is also linked to birth defects, and environmental allergies. In fact if you are thinking of starting a family you might want to pay attention to James Bowen, MD who wrote a provocative article entitled ‘Aspartame Murders Infants’ and who has said that it is destructive of the fertility process as it both inhibits female sexual response and induces male sexual dysfunction.

Natural alternatives for sweetness such as Perfect Sweet mentioned above, honey and Stevia, which is sold as a supplement, are worth seeking out.

Dry mouth, dentists and sugar that helps

If you are taking a number of different medicines then that can be a cause of what the UK’s leading dental health charity has identified as a cause for the growing problem of dry mouth syndrome.

Dry mouth increases exposure to the main causes of tooth loss, decay, erosion and gum disease because it affects our saliva levels and saliva is a natural protection against decay. Dry mouth is also associated with medical conditions such as diabetes and lupus, or natural factors such as aging and menopausal changes. It is particularly a problem for the elderly as they tend to be the group most likely to be taking multiple medications.

What can you do to prevent it? The old basics of brushing teeth after every meal and if you have a tendency to dry mouth use a gel, spray or sugar free sweets or chewing gum during the day that will promote saliva levels. The foods that cause decay need to be cut down too such as sugary foods and citrus acids that cause decay and erosion. If you are already a sufferer, then alcohol, caffeine and salty foods are on the banned list as well, and make sure you drink plenty of water.

A couple of useful resources on the tooth front for you are the British Dental Health Foundation website is available at www.dentalhealth.org.uk and you can also contact the Dental Helpline for free and impartial expert advice on 0845 063 1188 Monday to Friday.

Sugar to keep you out of the dentist’s chair?

You don’t normally hear a dentist extolling sugar, but new research published this month shows that adding just a small amount of a natural sugar alternative to your diet could prevent the majority of dental problems. Whilst it has been known for some time that xylitol, a natural sugar alternative found in plants and fruits, can help prevent tooth decay and plaque; the recent study, reported in July’s issue of Archives of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, shows that xylitol could help prevent a massive 70% of tooth decay, just by consuming 8 grams of the sugar alternative a day.

What was especially interesting in this study was that it used xylitol in a syrup form, where most other studies to date have tended to use chewing gum containing xylitol. This means that just a small amount of xylitol can be added to cereals, hot drinks and baking is likely to be very effective at reducing tooth decay.

Another benefit is that is has nearly half as few calories as sugar, 75% less available carbohydrates, and a GI value of just 7 (about ten times lower than sugar), making it ideal for those looking for a healthy diet. Don’t go looking for the name xlylitol on the supermarket shelves though, it is marketed under the brand name Perfect Sweet and is in Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, and health stores.

60 percent increased prostate cancer risk from overcooked meat

In this weather it’s tempting to bring out the barbecue, though personally I have never had a decent steak off one yet, and there is always the problem of overcooking. Blackened steak might taste ok whether on the barbecue or the grill, but it does pose a health hazard – particularly for men.

Overcooking causes problems for vegetables too as they lose their nutritional value, but there are possible carcinogenic effects in meat, and eggs, that are definitely hazardous to health. When they are cooked at very high temperatures they produce a chemical compound called PhIP, which many believe can cause DNA changes, or can metabolize harmless bodily enzymes into carcinogens.

There is already a well documented link with PhlP and breast cancer and now the University of Minnesota has undertaken research that they say shows that that regularly eating well-done, or burned, meat could boost the risk of pancreatic cancer by a staggering 60 percent. It’s because overcooking creates heterocyclic amines (H.A.s), which contribute to increased risk of pancreatic cancer and it’s in the burned portions of the meat that the greatest concentration of H.A.’s are found.

So turn down the heat and turn up your chances of avoiding cancer.

Beware vigorous exercise!

To be honest I have never had to be warned about vigorous exercise as it doesn’t suit me at all. As a follower of the D’Adamo blood group diet my ‘type’ works best with yoga and tai chi and whenver I have tried a gym or aerobics class I haven’t had the ‘high’ but only the desire to curl up in a ball and sleep it off. Now it seems that research from New York University Medical Center suggests that the more you engage in vigorous exercise, the more you’re at risk for atrial fibrillation (AF). This is a an irregular rapid heart rate and can result in mild symptoms like fainting to the potentially lethal ones of heart failure or stroke.

If you have serious, unrecognized, heart disease then exercise may cause you to experience sudden death from a heart attack. In fact, the leading cause of exercise-related deaths, even in well-trained athletes, is coronary heart disease. The research showed that men in their study who exercised enough to break a sweat from five to seven days each week upped the chances of developing AF by a massive 20 percent. The control group who did no vigorous exercise didn’t have any increase in their propensity for AF.

This research was not based on older, unhealthy men but rather on healthy men under 50 who ran regularly. In this group AF increased by 53 percent in men who jog, and as much as 74 percent for young men who routinely exercise hard enough to sweat. Anyone for a nice walk?

Pesticides last longer in kids

Summer brings bounty in the fields and the gardens and that applies to the insects that feed off it – which leads the farmers and gardeners to reach for the means to control them. Pesticide exposure poses a health risk to us all, but particularly to children. Obviously children’s systems are more vulnerable to the toxic effects, but new research by the University of California at Berkeley has revealed that their susceptibility lasts much longer than expected.

A new born baby has only one-third of paraoxonase 1 (PON1), an enzyme critical to the detoxification of organophosphate pesticides, than the baby’s mother has. It was previously thought that PON1 enzyme activity in children approached adult levels by age 2, but the horrific figure this research has thrown up is that the enzyme level remained low in some children right up to the age of seven.

This has led the researchers to recommended that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) re-evaluate the current standards for acceptable levels of pesticide exposure. For parents, it means being extra vigilant when using pesticides in the garden and making sure that children are in the house and the windows are closed until several hours after spraying. Organophosphate pesticides in products sold for use in homes, are severely restricted, mainly because of risks to children but are still available for agricultural use. If driving through, or living near, farmland where crop spraying takes place again keep windows closed to minimize exposure.

Cupping and carpal tunnel

If you are a fan of the red carpet you may have noticed Gwyneth Paltrow exhibiting strange red marks on her body. This new celebrity treatment is endorsed by people as diverse as Britney Spears and Patsy Kensit and is an updated take on an established therapy in use in China, India, Arabia, Central Europe and parts of Africa. Used mainly for improving circulation, digestive and respiratory problems it now appears to be helpful for pain relief – particularly for those suffering from Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) – and I believe for RSI for those operating computer keyboards all day.

A new German study at the Immanuel Hospital in Berlin took 52 sufferers and randomly assigned them to a cupping programme or a placebo treatment. Their study, published on 25 June in a peer journal, confirms that this external suction technique is effective for providing temporary relief of pain from carpal tunnel syndrome.

How it works:

The treatment group had the wet cupping glasses applied in an area over the trapezius muscle. Cupping is applied to defined zones of the shoulder triangle which are connective tissue zones at the shoulder-neck region. The cupping creates a partial vacuum as the wet cup adheres to the skin – and also a rather obvious red mark which can take a while to go down. Unlike Gwyneth, you might want to avoid backless dresses until the mark disappears.

Results were impressive and showed that the patients experienced a highly significant decrease in CPS pain and other symptoms. Just one single treatment improved the ability to use the hand and wrist, and improved the quality of life as pain was decreased.

Oh really? Cocaine and heroin can harm the placenta

Prepare, as ever, to be astounded. Apparently cocaine and heroin can harm the placenta as they increase its permeability and so allow it to be passed through to the foetus. Well really, as it’s already well known that babies are born ‘addicted’ from their mothers who have a drug habit I wonder why anyone thought this needed proving? It seems that Antoine Malek from Zurich University Hospital’s Department of Obstetrics, felt the need to prove the obvious – and guess what, he managed it. Let’s be clear here, all drugs potentially could pass into the placenta which is why doctors are careful about what they prescribe to pregnant women and anyone who is a habitual drug user is usually aware of the risks, even if they ignore them or aren’t able to come off the drugs during the pregnancy. Often the solution is to go on methadone as a substitute, but users need to be aware that too much of it can also harm the foetus, and particularly if it is combined with any other drugs.

Botox benefits overactive bladders

You see, there is a benefit in everything if you just know where to look for it. Botox has never struck me as a particularly healthy way of improving your looks, rather that it preserves a fixity of expression that my mother used to warn me would happen if the wind changed and caught me – however. It now seems that if you have an overactive bladder, which is both a social nuisance and embarrassment for many women as they get older, then apparently Botox injections can help.

Previous research has shown that as many as one in six people over the age of 40 suffer from an overactive bladder so it is an important health issue that is not often talked about. UK urologists from Guy’s Hospital and King’s College London carried out a randomised, double-blind placebo trial on 34 patients with an average age of 50 and all of them had failed to tolerate or respond to the anticholinergic drugs that are usually prescribed for this condition. They then found that the subjects reported significant improvements in their lives, as well as their symptoms, for at least 24 weeks. This is a very small study; of the 34 half were given a placebo injection so we are only talking 16 people, of whom nine were women.

I am not going to detail exactly where and how the injections were given, I find it too difficult to sit still and write about, but they say it is minimally invasive and involved 20 injections of 200ml of Botox. If you want to tell your own urologist about this, it was five in the midline posterior bladder wall, five in the left lateral wall, five in the right lateral wall and five across the dome of the bladder.

Back pain benefits from exercise

Lower back pain can be so debilitating and also difficult to treat, and if affects nearly 80 percent of the population. You may feel like lying flat on your back and doing nothing, but new research shows you are better off exercising more, not less. This news comes from the University of Alberta in Canada and they found that both men and women with chronic lower-back pain definitely benefited from regular exercise. If they managed to work at a gym with weights for four days a week they improved their quality of life, had nearly 30 percent less pain and an impressive 36 per cent less disability. Those with similar lower back problems who only exercised two or three days a week did not show the same level of change or gain the same benefit.

Working with weights seems to be what did the trick in this study, but please only under supervision and with someone who can give you proper, qualified, professional advice. In the UK the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which is the government’s own health watchdog, has recommended for the first time ever that complementary therapies be prescribed for lower back pain. They suggest a course of acupuncture, exercise classes like Pilates, or massage if the symptoms persist for six weeks or more – I would be there within a week myself!

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