In most cases, optimal levels of Minerals exist and the essential Minerals must be present in the body in their correct balance. Excessive consumption or accumulation of Minerals is generally as undesirable (i.e. toxic) as a deficiency.
Macrominerals (Essential)
% Average Human Body
Content(70 kg person)
Oxygen 65.4 43 kg
Carbon 18.2 12 kg
Hydrogen 9.5 6.3 kg
Nitrogen 3 2 kg
Calcium 1.67 1.1 kg
Phosphorus 1.14 750 grams
Potassium 0.342 225 grams
Sulfur 0.228 150 grams
Chloride 0.152 100 grams
Sodium 0.137 90 grams
Magnesium 0.053 35 grams
Silicon 0.046 30 grams
Microminerals
Microminerals
Microminerals % Average Human Body
Content(70 kg person) Essentiality
Iron 0.00638 4,200 mg Essentiality
Fluoride 0.00395 2,600 mg Essential
Zinc 0.00365 2,400 mg Possibly Essential
Rubidium 0.000532 350 mg Essential
Strontium 0.000486 320 mg Probably Essential
Lead 0.000243 160 mg Possibly Essential
Copper 0.000137 90 mg Essential
Aluminium 0.0000988 65 mg Toxic
Cadmium 0.0000608 40 mg Toxic
Barium 0.0000344 22 mg Possibly Essential
Cobalt 0.0000304 20 mg Essential
Vanadium 0.0000304 20 mg Probably Essential
Iodine 0.0000228 15 mg Essential
Tin 0.0000228 15 mg Possibly Essential
Selenium 0.0000228 15 mg Essential
Arsenic 0.0000228 15 mg Possibly Essential
Manganese 0.0000198 13 mg Essential
Mercury 0.0000190 12.5 mg Toxic
Nickel 0.0000167 11 mg Possibly Essential
Molybdenum 0.0000122 8 mg Essential
Chromium 0.0000091 6 mg Essential
Bismuth 0.0000045 3 mg Probably Toxic
Lithium 0.0000038 2.5 mg Probably Essential
Uranium 90 mcg Toxic
Boron Probably Essential
Germanium Probably Essential
Bromine Possibly Essential
Gold Probably Non Essential
Silver Probably Non Essential
Beryllium Probably Toxic
Antimony Slightly Toxic
Thallium Toxic
These Substances Facilitate the General Absorption of Minerals
Amino Acids
Cystathionine facilitates the absorption of essential Minerals.
Glutathione facilitates the absorption of essential Minerals.
Enzymes
Glutathione Synthase metabolizes Minerals in the Skin and the Muscles.
Proteins
Orotic Acid facilitates the transport of Minerals into the blood from the digestive tract.
Water
Water is an essential transport mechanism within the body for Minerals.
Forms of Minerals (Generally)
Mineral Form Mineral Bonded With Comments
Inorganic Salts: Phosphates,
Sulfates,
Chlorides Important for Electrolyte balance.
Organic Acid Salts: Ascorbates,
Acetates ,
Citrates Natural and more effectively absorbed by the Digestive System than Inorganic Salts.
Amino Acid Chelates: Amino Acids The best form of absorption of Minerals. Specific Minerals chelate best with specific Amino Acids.
Toxic Minerals
Toxic Minerals are a group of Microminerals that are not essential to human health and which are generally toxic to the body. These Substances Enhance the Elimination of many Toxic Minerals from the Body
Amino Acids
Cysteine (and Cystine) may chelate (bind) with many Toxic Minerals and may facilitate their elimination. The synthetic Amino Acid - Ethylene-Diamine-Tetra-Acetate (EDTA) - is used in Chelation Therapy to bind to and chelate (remove) many Toxic Heavy Metals from the body via the Kidneys.
Methionine may chelate (binds) with many Toxic Minerals and may facilitate their excretion.
Carbohydrates
Alginates may chelate (bind) with most Toxic Minerals in the Intestinal Tract and may prevent their absorption. references
Galacturonic Acid chelates (binds) with many Toxic Minerals and may facilitate their excretion.
Enzymes
Glutathione Peroxidase facilitates the removal of several Toxic Minerals from the body.
Lipids
Alkylglycerols bind (chelate) with many types of Toxic Minerals (especially Mercury) and may facilitate their excretion from the body - Alkylglycerols are unique in that they are one of the few oil-based chelating agents.
Minerals
Selenium binds (chelates) with many toxic Minerals and may facilitate their excretion from the body.
Organic Acids
Fulvic Acid reputedly facilitates the chelation (removal and excretion) of Toxic Minerals from the body’s Cells.
Peptides
Glutathione (usually after incorporation into the Glutathione Peroxidase enzyme) may detoxify several Toxic Minerals.
Smart Drugs
Dimethyl Glycine (DMG) may be a useful chelation and elimination agent.
Vinpocetine may facilitate the removal of some types of Toxic Minerals from the body.
Vitamins
Vitamin E may enhance the detoxification of most toxic heavy metals.
These Foods may Enhance the Elimination of Many Toxic Minerals from the Body
Algae
Kelp may facilitate the excretion of some Toxic Minerals (due to the Algin content of Kelp binding to Toxic Minerals in the Digestive Tract and may thereby facilitating their excretion).
Animal-Derived Supplements
Shark Liver Oil may facilitate the elimination of various Toxic Minerals (especially the toxic Methylmercury form of Mercury) from the body (due to the Alkylglycerols content of Shark Liver Oil).
Mineral Foods
Shilajit reputedly facilitates the chelation (removal and excretion) of Toxic Minerals from the body’s Cells (this capability of Shilajit is claimed to be due to its Fulvic Acid content).
Vegetables
Garlic may facilitate the excretion of some Toxic Minerals.
Mineral Acids
Mineral Acids are inorganic Acid compounds that use Minerals as their base. Mineral Acids are much stronger acids than Organic Acids.
Types of Mineral Acids
Carbonic Acid
Carbonic Acid is a type of Mineral Acid formed from Water and Carbon Dioxide
Derivatives of Carbonic Acid - Bicarbonate Bicarbonate is the ion remaining after the first disassociation of Carbonic Acid. It functions as a central buffering agent against Acids in the Blood.
Therapeutic Uses of Bicarbonate
Metabolism
Bicarbonate (consumed prior to Exercise) may delay the onset of Fatigue and Muscle Weakness in people who undertake strenous Exercise (e.g. Endurance Exercise) and may accelerate the recovery of Muscles following strenuous Exercise (this occurs from Bicarbonate causing Lactic Acid to be secreted out of Muscle Fibers and neutralized).
Musculoskeletal System
Bicarbonate may help to prevent and treat Osteoporosis.
Bicarbonate may Inhibit these Potentially Toxic Substances
Organic Acids
Bicarbonate may help to prevent the Muscle Weakness and Fatigue caused by the excessive accumulation of Lactic Acid in the Muscles during prolonged Exercise (Bicarbonate causes Lactic Acid to be secreted out of Muscle Fibers and neutralized).
Forms of Bicarbonate
Magnesium Bicarbonate consists of Magnesium bound to Bicarbonate. It is only present in Water and is never present in a solidified form. It is responsible for the “hardness” of Water. Potassium Bicarbonate (KHCO3) consists of Potassium bound to Bicarbonate. Sodium Bicarbonate (also known as Baking Soda, Sodium Acid Carbonate, Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate) consists of 32.5% Sodium bound to 67.5% Bicarbonate.
Dosage Recommendations
The usual dosage of Bicarbonate used by people seeking to prevent Muscle Weakness during prolonged Exercise and to accelerate Muscle recovery after prolonged Exercise is 300 - 400 mg per kg of body weight (this would equate to an average dosage of 25 grams).
Hydrochloric Acid
Hydrochloric Acid is a strong Mineral Acid produced by the Parietal Cells of the Stomach. It comprises 0.2% - 0.5% of Gastric Juice.
Biological Functions and Therapeutic Uses of Hydrochloric Acid
Digestive System
Hydrochloric Acid regulates the acidity of the Stomach to optimize Digestion. This occurs primarily through Hydrochloric Acid stimulating the conversion of Pepsinogen to Pepsin (a Proteolytic (Protein- digesting) Enzyme).
Immune System
Hydrochloric Acid may destroy some Detrimental Microorganisms that gain entrance into the body via the Mouth: references
- Hydrochloric Acid may kill some forms of Detrimental Bacteria in the Stomach and Small Intestine:
- Hydrochloric Acid is likely to be important in suppressing Campylobacter jejuni.
- Hydrochloric Acid may suppress or kill Helicobacter pylori (Hypochlorhydria (lack of Hydrochloric Acid) patients have increased levels of Helicobacter pylori).
Oral Health
Hydrochloric Acid deficiency may cause Periodontal Disease (by decreasing the absorption of Calcium in the Alveolar Bone).
Skin
Supplemental Hydrochloric Acid may be useful for the treatment of Hives (as many cases of Hives are believed to occur as a result of Food Allergies resulting from insufficient endogenous production of Hydrochloric Acid).
Vitiligo patients are often found to have sub-optimal levels of Hydrochloric Acid in their Stomachs and replenishment of Hydrochloric Acid (15 cc with each meal) has resulted in many cures of Vitiligo.
Nitric Acid
Phosphoric Acid
Sulfurous Acid
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
In Obesity Epidemic, What’s One Cookie?
March 1, 2010, 5:08 pm
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Stuart Bradford
The basic formula for gaining and losing weight is well known: a pound of fat equals 3,500 calories.
That simple equation has fueled the widely accepted notion that weight loss does not require daunting lifestyle changes but “small changes that add up,” as the first lady, Michelle Obama, put it last month in announcing a national plan to counter childhood obesity.
In this view, cutting out or burning just 100 extra calories a day — by replacing soda with water, say, or walking to school — can lead to significant weight loss over time: a pound every 35 days, or more than 10 pounds a year.
While it’s certainly a hopeful message, it’s also misleading. Numerous scientific studies show that small caloric changes have almost no long-term effect on weight. When we skip a cookie or exercise a little more, the body’s biological and behavioral adaptations kick in, significantly reducing the caloric benefits of our effort.
But can small changes in diet and exercise at least keep children from gaining weight? While some obesity experts think so, mathematical models suggest otherwise.
Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The first lady, Michelle Obama, spoke last month at the White House about her “Let’s Move” initiative, which aims to change the way children eat and play.
As a recent commentary in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted, the “small changes” theory fails to take the body’s adaptive mechanisms into account. The rise in children’s obesity over the past few decades can’t be explained by an extra 100-calorie soda each day, or fewer physical education classes. Skipping a cookie or walking to school would barely make a dent in a calorie imbalance that goes “far beyond the ability of most individuals to address on a personal level,” the authors wrote — on the order of walking 5 to 10 miles a day for 10 years.
This doesn’t mean small improvements are futile — far from it. But people need to take a realistic view of what they can accomplish.
“As clinicians, we celebrate small changes because they often lead to big changes,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital Boston and a co-author of the JAMA commentary. “An obese adolescent who cuts back TV viewing from six to five hours each day may then go on to decrease viewing much more. However, it would be entirely unrealistic to think that these changes alone would produce substantial weight loss.”
Why wouldn’t they? The answer lies in biology. A person’s weight remains stable as long as the number of calories consumed doesn’t exceed the amount of calories the body spends, both on exercise and to maintain basic body functions. As the balance between calories going in and calories going out changes, we gain or lose weight.
But bodies don’t gain or lose weight indefinitely. Eventually, a cascade of biological changes kicks in to help the body maintain a new weight. As the JAMA article explains, a person who eats an extra cookie a day will gain some weight, but over time, an increasing proportion of the cookie’s calories also goes to taking care of the extra body weight. Eventually, the body adjusts and stops gaining weight, even if the person continues to eat the cookie.
Similar factors come into play when we skip the extra cookie. We may lose a little weight at first, but soon the body adjusts to the new weight and requires fewer calories.
Regrettably, however, the body is more resistant to weight loss than weight gain. Hormones and brain chemicals that regulate your unconscious drive to eat and how your body responds to exercise can make it even more difficult to lose the weight. You may skip the cookie but unknowingly compensate by eating a bagel later on or an extra serving of pasta at dinner.
“There is a much bigger picture than parsing out the cookie a day or the Coke a day,” said Dr. Jeffrey M. Friedman, head of Rockefeller University’s molecular genetics lab, which first identified leptin, a hormonal signal made by the body’s fat cells that regulates food intake and energy expenditure. “If you ask anyone on the street, ‘Why is someone obese?,’ they’ll say, ‘They eat too much.’ ”
“That is undoubtedly true,” he continued, “but the deeper question is why do they eat too much? It’s clear now that there are many important drivers to eat and that it is not purely a conscious or higher cognitive decision.”
This is not to say that the push for small daily changes in eating and exercise is misguided. James O. Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Denver, says that while weight loss requires significant lifestyle changes, taking away extra calories through small steps can help slow and prevent weight gain.
In a study of 200 families, half were asked to replace 100 calories of sugar with a noncaloric sweetener and walk an extra 2,000 steps a day. The other families were asked to use pedometers to record their exercise but were not asked to make diet changes.
During the six-month study, both groups of children showed small but statistically significant drops in body mass index; the group that also cut 100 calories had more children who maintained or reduced body mass and fewer children who gained excess weight.
The study, published in 2007 in Pediatrics, didn’t look at long-term benefits. But Dr. Hill says it suggests that small changes can keep overweight kids from gaining even more excess weight.
“Once you’re trying for weight loss, you’re out of the small-change realm,” he said. “But the small-steps approach can stop weight gain.”
While small steps are unlikely to solve the nation’s obesity crisis, doctors say losing a little weight, eating more heart-healthy foods and increasing exercise can make a meaningful difference in overall health and risks for heart disease and diabetes.
“I’m not saying throw up your hands and forget about it,” Dr. Friedman said. “Instead of focusing on weight or appearance, focus on people’s health. There are things people can do to improve their health significantly that don’t require normalizing your weight.”
Dr. Ludwig still encourages individuals to make small changes, like watching less television or eating a few extra vegetables, because those shifts can be a prelude to even bigger lifestyle changes that may ultimately lead to weight loss. But he and others say that reversing obesity will require larger shifts — like regulating food advertising to children and eliminating government subsidies that make junk food cheap and profitable.
Privacy Policy
NYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Stuart Bradford
The basic formula for gaining and losing weight is well known: a pound of fat equals 3,500 calories.
That simple equation has fueled the widely accepted notion that weight loss does not require daunting lifestyle changes but “small changes that add up,” as the first lady, Michelle Obama, put it last month in announcing a national plan to counter childhood obesity.
In this view, cutting out or burning just 100 extra calories a day — by replacing soda with water, say, or walking to school — can lead to significant weight loss over time: a pound every 35 days, or more than 10 pounds a year.
While it’s certainly a hopeful message, it’s also misleading. Numerous scientific studies show that small caloric changes have almost no long-term effect on weight. When we skip a cookie or exercise a little more, the body’s biological and behavioral adaptations kick in, significantly reducing the caloric benefits of our effort.
But can small changes in diet and exercise at least keep children from gaining weight? While some obesity experts think so, mathematical models suggest otherwise.
Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The first lady, Michelle Obama, spoke last month at the White House about her “Let’s Move” initiative, which aims to change the way children eat and play.
As a recent commentary in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted, the “small changes” theory fails to take the body’s adaptive mechanisms into account. The rise in children’s obesity over the past few decades can’t be explained by an extra 100-calorie soda each day, or fewer physical education classes. Skipping a cookie or walking to school would barely make a dent in a calorie imbalance that goes “far beyond the ability of most individuals to address on a personal level,” the authors wrote — on the order of walking 5 to 10 miles a day for 10 years.
This doesn’t mean small improvements are futile — far from it. But people need to take a realistic view of what they can accomplish.
“As clinicians, we celebrate small changes because they often lead to big changes,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital Boston and a co-author of the JAMA commentary. “An obese adolescent who cuts back TV viewing from six to five hours each day may then go on to decrease viewing much more. However, it would be entirely unrealistic to think that these changes alone would produce substantial weight loss.”
Why wouldn’t they? The answer lies in biology. A person’s weight remains stable as long as the number of calories consumed doesn’t exceed the amount of calories the body spends, both on exercise and to maintain basic body functions. As the balance between calories going in and calories going out changes, we gain or lose weight.
But bodies don’t gain or lose weight indefinitely. Eventually, a cascade of biological changes kicks in to help the body maintain a new weight. As the JAMA article explains, a person who eats an extra cookie a day will gain some weight, but over time, an increasing proportion of the cookie’s calories also goes to taking care of the extra body weight. Eventually, the body adjusts and stops gaining weight, even if the person continues to eat the cookie.
Similar factors come into play when we skip the extra cookie. We may lose a little weight at first, but soon the body adjusts to the new weight and requires fewer calories.
Regrettably, however, the body is more resistant to weight loss than weight gain. Hormones and brain chemicals that regulate your unconscious drive to eat and how your body responds to exercise can make it even more difficult to lose the weight. You may skip the cookie but unknowingly compensate by eating a bagel later on or an extra serving of pasta at dinner.
“There is a much bigger picture than parsing out the cookie a day or the Coke a day,” said Dr. Jeffrey M. Friedman, head of Rockefeller University’s molecular genetics lab, which first identified leptin, a hormonal signal made by the body’s fat cells that regulates food intake and energy expenditure. “If you ask anyone on the street, ‘Why is someone obese?,’ they’ll say, ‘They eat too much.’ ”
“That is undoubtedly true,” he continued, “but the deeper question is why do they eat too much? It’s clear now that there are many important drivers to eat and that it is not purely a conscious or higher cognitive decision.”
This is not to say that the push for small daily changes in eating and exercise is misguided. James O. Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Denver, says that while weight loss requires significant lifestyle changes, taking away extra calories through small steps can help slow and prevent weight gain.
In a study of 200 families, half were asked to replace 100 calories of sugar with a noncaloric sweetener and walk an extra 2,000 steps a day. The other families were asked to use pedometers to record their exercise but were not asked to make diet changes.
During the six-month study, both groups of children showed small but statistically significant drops in body mass index; the group that also cut 100 calories had more children who maintained or reduced body mass and fewer children who gained excess weight.
The study, published in 2007 in Pediatrics, didn’t look at long-term benefits. But Dr. Hill says it suggests that small changes can keep overweight kids from gaining even more excess weight.
“Once you’re trying for weight loss, you’re out of the small-change realm,” he said. “But the small-steps approach can stop weight gain.”
While small steps are unlikely to solve the nation’s obesity crisis, doctors say losing a little weight, eating more heart-healthy foods and increasing exercise can make a meaningful difference in overall health and risks for heart disease and diabetes.
“I’m not saying throw up your hands and forget about it,” Dr. Friedman said. “Instead of focusing on weight or appearance, focus on people’s health. There are things people can do to improve their health significantly that don’t require normalizing your weight.”
Dr. Ludwig still encourages individuals to make small changes, like watching less television or eating a few extra vegetables, because those shifts can be a prelude to even bigger lifestyle changes that may ultimately lead to weight loss. But he and others say that reversing obesity will require larger shifts — like regulating food advertising to children and eliminating government subsidies that make junk food cheap and profitable.
“We need to know what we’re up against in terms of the basic biological challenges, and then design a campaign that will truly address the problem in its full magnitude,” Dr. Ludwig said. “If we just expect that inner-city child to exercise self-control and walk a little bit more, then I think we’re in for a big disappointment.”
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NYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018
Rising Threat of Infections Unfazed by Antibiotics
February 27, 2010
A minor-league pitcher in his younger days, Richard Armbruster kept playing baseball recreationally into his 70s, until his right hip started bothering him. Last February he went to a St. Louis hospital for what was to be a routine hip replacement.
By late March, Mr. Armbruster, then 78, was dead. After a series of postsurgical complications, the final blow was a bloodstream infection that sent him into shock and resisted treatment with antibiotics.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think my dad would walk in for a hip replacement and be dead two months later,” said Amy Fix, one of his daughters.
Not until the day Mr. Armbruster died did a laboratory culture identify the organism that had infected him: Acinetobacter baumannii.
The germ is one of a category of bacteria that by some estimates are already killing tens of thousands of hospital patients each year. While the organisms do not receive as much attention as the one known as MRSA — for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — some infectious-disease specialists say they could emerge as a bigger threat.
That is because there are several drugs, including some approved in the last few years, that can treat MRSA. But for a combination of business reasons and scientific challenges, the pharmaceuticals industry is pursuing very few drugs for Acinetobacter and other organisms of its type, known as Gram-negative bacteria. Meanwhile, the germs are evolving and becoming ever more immune to existing antibiotics.
“In many respects it’s far worse than MRSA,” said Dr. Louis B. Rice, an infectious-disease specialist at the Louis Stokes Cleveland V.A. Medical Center and at Case Western Reserve University. “There are strains out there, and they are becoming more and more common, that are resistant to virtually every antibiotic we have.”
The bacteria, classified as Gram-negative because of their reaction to the so-called Gram stain test, can cause severe pneumonia and infections of the urinary tract, bloodstream and other parts of the body. Their cell structure makes them more difficult to attack with antibiotics than Gram-positive organisms like MRSA.
Acinetobacter, which killed Mr. Armbruster, came to wide attention a few years ago in infections of soldiers wounded in Iraq.
Meanwhile, New York City hospitals, perhaps because of the large numbers of patients they treat, have become the global breeding ground for another drug-resistant Gram-negative germ, Klebsiella pneumoniae.
According to researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, more than 20 percent of the Klebsiella infections in Brooklyn hospitals are now resistant to virtually all modern antibiotics. And those supergerms are now spreading worldwide.
Health authorities do not have good figures on how many infections and deaths in the United States are caused by Gram-negative bacteria. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that roughly 1.7 million hospital-associated infections, from all types of bacteria combined, cause or contribute to 99,000 deaths each year.
But in Europe, where hospital surveys have been conducted, Gram-negative infections are estimated to account for two-thirds of the 25,000 deaths each year caused by some of the most troublesome hospital-acquired infections, according to a report released in September by health authorities there.
To be sure, MRSA remains the single most common source of hospital infections. And it is especially feared because it can also infect people outside the hospital. There have been serious, even deadly, infections of otherwise healthy athletes and school children.
By comparison, the drug-resistant Gram-negative germs for the most part threaten only hospitalized patients whose immune systems are weak. The germs can survive for a long time on surfaces in the hospital and enter the body through wounds, catheters and ventilators.
What is most worrisome about the Gram-negatives is not their frequency but their drug resistance.
“For Gram-positives we need better drugs; for Gram-negatives we need any drugs,” said Dr. Brad Spellberg, an infectious-disease specialist at Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center in Torrance, Calif., and the author of “Rising Plague,” a book about drug-resistant pathogens. Dr. Spellberg is a consultant to some antibiotics companies and has co-founded two companies working on other anti-infective approaches. Dr. Rice of Cleveland has also been a consultant to some pharmaceutical companies.
Doctors treating resistant strains of Gram-negative bacteria are often forced to rely on two similar antibiotics developed in the 1940s — colistin and polymyxin B. These drugs were largely abandoned decades ago because they can cause kidney and nerve damage, but because they have not been used much, bacteria have not had much chance to evolve resistance to them yet.
“You don’t really have much choice,” said Dr. Azza Elemam, an infectious-disease specialist in Louisville, Ky. “If a person has a life-threatening infection, you have to take a risk of causing damage to the kidney.”
Such a tradeoff confronted Kimberly Dozier, a CBS News correspondent who developed an Acinetobacter infection after being injured by a car bomb in 2006 while on assignment in Iraq. After two weeks on colistin, Ms. Dozier’s kidneys began to fail, she recounted in her book, “Breathing the Fire.”
Rejecting one doctor’s advice to go on dialysis and seek a kidney transplant, Ms. Dozier stopped taking the antibiotic to save her kidneys. She eventually recovered from the infection.
Even that dire tradeoff might not be available to some patients. Last year doctors at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan published a paper describing two cases of “pan-resistant” Klebsiella, untreatable by even the kidney-damaging older antibiotics. One of the patients died and the other eventually recovered on her own, after the antibiotics were stopped.
“It is a rarity for a physician in the developed world to have a patient die of an overwhelming infection for which there are no therapeutic options,” the authors wrote in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
In some cases, antibiotic resistance is spreading to Gram-negative bacteria that can infect people outside the hospital.
Sabiha Khan, 66, went to the emergency room of a Chicago hospital on New Year’s Day suffering from a urinary tract and kidney infection caused by E. coli resistant to the usual oral antibiotics. Instead of being sent home to take pills, Ms. Khan had to stay in the hospital 11 days to receive powerful intravenous antibiotics.
This month, the infection returned, sending her back to the hospital for an additional two weeks.
Some patient advocacy groups say hospitals need to take better steps to prevent such infections, like making sure that health care workers frequently wash their hands and that surfaces and instruments are disinfected. And antibiotics should not be overused, they say, because that contributes to the evolution of resistance.
To encourage prevention, an Atlanta couple, Armando and Victoria Nahum, started the Safe Care Campaign after their 27-year-old son, Joshua, died from a hospital-acquired infection in October 2006.
Joshua, a skydiving instructor in Colorado, had fractured his skull and thigh bone on a hard landing. During his treatment, he twice acquired MRSA and then was infected by Enterobacter aerogenes, a Gram-negative bacterium.
By ANDREW POLLACK
A minor-league pitcher in his younger days, Richard Armbruster kept playing baseball recreationally into his 70s, until his right hip started bothering him. Last February he went to a St. Louis hospital for what was to be a routine hip replacement.
By late March, Mr. Armbruster, then 78, was dead. After a series of postsurgical complications, the final blow was a bloodstream infection that sent him into shock and resisted treatment with antibiotics.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think my dad would walk in for a hip replacement and be dead two months later,” said Amy Fix, one of his daughters.
Not until the day Mr. Armbruster died did a laboratory culture identify the organism that had infected him: Acinetobacter baumannii.
The germ is one of a category of bacteria that by some estimates are already killing tens of thousands of hospital patients each year. While the organisms do not receive as much attention as the one known as MRSA — for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — some infectious-disease specialists say they could emerge as a bigger threat.
That is because there are several drugs, including some approved in the last few years, that can treat MRSA. But for a combination of business reasons and scientific challenges, the pharmaceuticals industry is pursuing very few drugs for Acinetobacter and other organisms of its type, known as Gram-negative bacteria. Meanwhile, the germs are evolving and becoming ever more immune to existing antibiotics.
“In many respects it’s far worse than MRSA,” said Dr. Louis B. Rice, an infectious-disease specialist at the Louis Stokes Cleveland V.A. Medical Center and at Case Western Reserve University. “There are strains out there, and they are becoming more and more common, that are resistant to virtually every antibiotic we have.”
The bacteria, classified as Gram-negative because of their reaction to the so-called Gram stain test, can cause severe pneumonia and infections of the urinary tract, bloodstream and other parts of the body. Their cell structure makes them more difficult to attack with antibiotics than Gram-positive organisms like MRSA.
Acinetobacter, which killed Mr. Armbruster, came to wide attention a few years ago in infections of soldiers wounded in Iraq.
Meanwhile, New York City hospitals, perhaps because of the large numbers of patients they treat, have become the global breeding ground for another drug-resistant Gram-negative germ, Klebsiella pneumoniae.
According to researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, more than 20 percent of the Klebsiella infections in Brooklyn hospitals are now resistant to virtually all modern antibiotics. And those supergerms are now spreading worldwide.
Health authorities do not have good figures on how many infections and deaths in the United States are caused by Gram-negative bacteria. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that roughly 1.7 million hospital-associated infections, from all types of bacteria combined, cause or contribute to 99,000 deaths each year.
But in Europe, where hospital surveys have been conducted, Gram-negative infections are estimated to account for two-thirds of the 25,000 deaths each year caused by some of the most troublesome hospital-acquired infections, according to a report released in September by health authorities there.
To be sure, MRSA remains the single most common source of hospital infections. And it is especially feared because it can also infect people outside the hospital. There have been serious, even deadly, infections of otherwise healthy athletes and school children.
By comparison, the drug-resistant Gram-negative germs for the most part threaten only hospitalized patients whose immune systems are weak. The germs can survive for a long time on surfaces in the hospital and enter the body through wounds, catheters and ventilators.
What is most worrisome about the Gram-negatives is not their frequency but their drug resistance.
“For Gram-positives we need better drugs; for Gram-negatives we need any drugs,” said Dr. Brad Spellberg, an infectious-disease specialist at Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center in Torrance, Calif., and the author of “Rising Plague,” a book about drug-resistant pathogens. Dr. Spellberg is a consultant to some antibiotics companies and has co-founded two companies working on other anti-infective approaches. Dr. Rice of Cleveland has also been a consultant to some pharmaceutical companies.
Doctors treating resistant strains of Gram-negative bacteria are often forced to rely on two similar antibiotics developed in the 1940s — colistin and polymyxin B. These drugs were largely abandoned decades ago because they can cause kidney and nerve damage, but because they have not been used much, bacteria have not had much chance to evolve resistance to them yet.
“You don’t really have much choice,” said Dr. Azza Elemam, an infectious-disease specialist in Louisville, Ky. “If a person has a life-threatening infection, you have to take a risk of causing damage to the kidney.”
Such a tradeoff confronted Kimberly Dozier, a CBS News correspondent who developed an Acinetobacter infection after being injured by a car bomb in 2006 while on assignment in Iraq. After two weeks on colistin, Ms. Dozier’s kidneys began to fail, she recounted in her book, “Breathing the Fire.”
Rejecting one doctor’s advice to go on dialysis and seek a kidney transplant, Ms. Dozier stopped taking the antibiotic to save her kidneys. She eventually recovered from the infection.
Even that dire tradeoff might not be available to some patients. Last year doctors at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan published a paper describing two cases of “pan-resistant” Klebsiella, untreatable by even the kidney-damaging older antibiotics. One of the patients died and the other eventually recovered on her own, after the antibiotics were stopped.
“It is a rarity for a physician in the developed world to have a patient die of an overwhelming infection for which there are no therapeutic options,” the authors wrote in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
In some cases, antibiotic resistance is spreading to Gram-negative bacteria that can infect people outside the hospital.
Sabiha Khan, 66, went to the emergency room of a Chicago hospital on New Year’s Day suffering from a urinary tract and kidney infection caused by E. coli resistant to the usual oral antibiotics. Instead of being sent home to take pills, Ms. Khan had to stay in the hospital 11 days to receive powerful intravenous antibiotics.
This month, the infection returned, sending her back to the hospital for an additional two weeks.
Some patient advocacy groups say hospitals need to take better steps to prevent such infections, like making sure that health care workers frequently wash their hands and that surfaces and instruments are disinfected. And antibiotics should not be overused, they say, because that contributes to the evolution of resistance.
To encourage prevention, an Atlanta couple, Armando and Victoria Nahum, started the Safe Care Campaign after their 27-year-old son, Joshua, died from a hospital-acquired infection in October 2006.
Joshua, a skydiving instructor in Colorado, had fractured his skull and thigh bone on a hard landing. During his treatment, he twice acquired MRSA and then was infected by Enterobacter aerogenes, a Gram-negative bacterium.
“The MRSA they got rid of with antibiotics,” Mr. Nahum said. “But this one they just couldn’t do anything about.”
New York Times
Thursday, February 18, 2010
It's not what you eat, but when you eat
Submitted by Armen Hareyan on Dec 22nd, 2009
If you have struggled with your weight for a long time, you probably blame your diet failures on a lack of willpower. Let me tell you, willpower has nothing to do with it. I’d wager that the problem isn’t what you eat, it’s when you eat it. Our circadian rhythms regulate our eating patterns. In simple terms, our eating patterns are screwed up. Think of jet lag, only with food.
Most overweight people become out of sync because they either skip breakfast or they eat too little in the morning. They go against their body’s actual needs (fuel in the morning) and make up for it by over-fueling later.
When your body awakens from its eight-hour slumber, it is primed to seek food. Your metabolism is revved up, and levels of certain hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) are at their highest. Your brain needs energy (glucose) immediately.
If you don’t break your eight-hour fast or you eat too little, your brain needs to find another source of fuel. So it activates an emergency system that pulls energy from muscle and destroys muscle tissue in the process. Then when you eat later, the body and brain are still in high-alert mode, so the body saves energy from the food as fat.
Compounding the problem, serotonin levels are highest in the morning. This means that you’re least likely to crave sweets and starches when you first wake up, and you may not feel much like eating. But as the day wears on, serotonin levels dip and the cravings kick in. If you eat these foods, brain serotonin rises, and you begin to associate good feelings with them. This connection between carbs and calm creates an addictive cycle.
People who skip breakfast or engage in other out-of-sync eating behaviors (see box above) set themselves up for metabolic disaster. Their metabolism sputters. They’re plagued by midafternoon fatigue and/or moodiness, so they rev up or unwind with candy bars and sugary coffee drinks. Their bodies burn less of what they eat as fuel and store more of it as body fat. Their bodies lose muscle and gain fat - lots of it.
The Big Breakfast Diet: Eat Big Before 9 A.M. and Lose Big for Life
Written by Daniela Jakubowicz MD
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company (December 15, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0761154930
If you have struggled with your weight for a long time, you probably blame your diet failures on a lack of willpower. Let me tell you, willpower has nothing to do with it. I’d wager that the problem isn’t what you eat, it’s when you eat it. Our circadian rhythms regulate our eating patterns. In simple terms, our eating patterns are screwed up. Think of jet lag, only with food.
Most overweight people become out of sync because they either skip breakfast or they eat too little in the morning. They go against their body’s actual needs (fuel in the morning) and make up for it by over-fueling later.
When your body awakens from its eight-hour slumber, it is primed to seek food. Your metabolism is revved up, and levels of certain hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) are at their highest. Your brain needs energy (glucose) immediately.
If you don’t break your eight-hour fast or you eat too little, your brain needs to find another source of fuel. So it activates an emergency system that pulls energy from muscle and destroys muscle tissue in the process. Then when you eat later, the body and brain are still in high-alert mode, so the body saves energy from the food as fat.
Compounding the problem, serotonin levels are highest in the morning. This means that you’re least likely to crave sweets and starches when you first wake up, and you may not feel much like eating. But as the day wears on, serotonin levels dip and the cravings kick in. If you eat these foods, brain serotonin rises, and you begin to associate good feelings with them. This connection between carbs and calm creates an addictive cycle.
People who skip breakfast or engage in other out-of-sync eating behaviors (see box above) set themselves up for metabolic disaster. Their metabolism sputters. They’re plagued by midafternoon fatigue and/or moodiness, so they rev up or unwind with candy bars and sugary coffee drinks. Their bodies burn less of what they eat as fuel and store more of it as body fat. Their bodies lose muscle and gain fat - lots of it.
The Big Breakfast Diet: Eat Big Before 9 A.M. and Lose Big for Life
Written by Daniela Jakubowicz MD
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company (December 15, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0761154930
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
FISH OIL CAN FIGHT DENTAL DISEASE
Published Date: 09 February 2010
The discovery of a new natural weapon against dental disease has been welcomed by the UK's leading oral health information charity.
Following a five-year study involving elderly participants in Japan, fish oil has been found to help combat mouth infection and boost oral health in the process.
Dental examinations revealed that a lack of the essential omega-3 fatty acids found
in fish oil in people's diets had strong links with the progression of periodontal (gum) disease.
The new findings, recently published in the Nutrition journal, also revealed that omega-3 fatty acids were strongly effective against a range of oral bacteria.
This news comes in light of similar findings from a US National Institute for Health-sponsored study. Lead author Dr C.B. Huang, from the Oral Health Research Centre at the University of Kentucky's College of Dentistry, commented on the dental health benefits of fish oil.
"The anti-bacterial part of the omega-3 fatty acids could be very important. Certainly, it could be a potential new use of omega-3 fatty acids in the future."
Following these recent journal* findings, Dr. Huang confirmed that ongoing research into anti-bacterial activity would include investigating products such as chewing gum.
In light of the news of these beneficial oral health effects, the British Dental Health Foundation Chief Executive, Dr. Nigel Carter BDS LDS (RCS), commented: "These findings illustrate how the consequences of our diet can be linked to gum disease, the most common dental hygiene issue.There are hundreds of bacteria in our mouths at any one time that contribute to gum disease, which not only threatens tooth loss but, significantly, overall health.
"A healthy mouth can lead to a healthy body so a good oral healthcare routine, including brushing teeth twice a day with a fluoride toothpaste and making regular visits to the dentist are just as important as a healthy, balanced diet."
With evidence of a poor diet linked to a third of all cancer cases, Dr. Carter also stressed: "Eating fish can help lower the risk of cancer, as can an increase in eggs, fruit and vegetables."
The Foundation encourages members of the public with any concerns about the effects of their diet on their teeth to contact the National Dental Helpline on 0845 063 1188.
Self–examination is another simple way of looking after yourself. The Foundation, who run a Mouth Cancer Action Month campaign each November, encourage all members of the public to check their mouths regularly for ulcers which do not heal within three weeks, red and white patches in the mouth and unusual lumps and swellings in the mouth and neck.
*Source: Molecular Oral Microbiology, Volume 25 Issue 1, pages 75-80 "A novel bioactivity of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and their ester derivatives" Authors: C.B. Huang, J.L Ebersole
ENDS
The discovery of a new natural weapon against dental disease has been welcomed by the UK's leading oral health information charity.
Following a five-year study involving elderly participants in Japan, fish oil has been found to help combat mouth infection and boost oral health in the process.
Dental examinations revealed that a lack of the essential omega-3 fatty acids found
in fish oil in people's diets had strong links with the progression of periodontal (gum) disease.
The new findings, recently published in the Nutrition journal, also revealed that omega-3 fatty acids were strongly effective against a range of oral bacteria.
This news comes in light of similar findings from a US National Institute for Health-sponsored study. Lead author Dr C.B. Huang, from the Oral Health Research Centre at the University of Kentucky's College of Dentistry, commented on the dental health benefits of fish oil.
"The anti-bacterial part of the omega-3 fatty acids could be very important. Certainly, it could be a potential new use of omega-3 fatty acids in the future."
Following these recent journal* findings, Dr. Huang confirmed that ongoing research into anti-bacterial activity would include investigating products such as chewing gum.
In light of the news of these beneficial oral health effects, the British Dental Health Foundation Chief Executive, Dr. Nigel Carter BDS LDS (RCS), commented: "These findings illustrate how the consequences of our diet can be linked to gum disease, the most common dental hygiene issue.There are hundreds of bacteria in our mouths at any one time that contribute to gum disease, which not only threatens tooth loss but, significantly, overall health.
"A healthy mouth can lead to a healthy body so a good oral healthcare routine, including brushing teeth twice a day with a fluoride toothpaste and making regular visits to the dentist are just as important as a healthy, balanced diet."
With evidence of a poor diet linked to a third of all cancer cases, Dr. Carter also stressed: "Eating fish can help lower the risk of cancer, as can an increase in eggs, fruit and vegetables."
The Foundation encourages members of the public with any concerns about the effects of their diet on their teeth to contact the National Dental Helpline on 0845 063 1188.
Self–examination is another simple way of looking after yourself. The Foundation, who run a Mouth Cancer Action Month campaign each November, encourage all members of the public to check their mouths regularly for ulcers which do not heal within three weeks, red and white patches in the mouth and unusual lumps and swellings in the mouth and neck.
*Source: Molecular Oral Microbiology, Volume 25 Issue 1, pages 75-80 "A novel bioactivity of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and their ester derivatives" Authors: C.B. Huang, J.L Ebersole
ENDS
Monday, February 8, 2010
Study: Soda drinkers at increased risk of pancreatic cancer
A study published today in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention finds that people who drink two caloric soft drinks a week have nearly double the risk of developing pancreatic cancer when compared to those who drink less.
The research tracked 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years and found that the soft-drinkers increased their risk of contracting the deadly cancer by 87 percent. The relationship held up even when smoking and a handful of other habits were taken into account. The study did not look at consumption of diet soda; soft drinks were defined as "sugar-sweetened carbonated beverages."
The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute, notes that lifestyles in Singapore have much in common with those in the U.S. and that the findings should apply to Caucasians as well as to the Asians who were tracked.
Lead author Mark Pereira, an associate professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, suggests that the high level of sugar in sodas may boost insulin levels in the body, which in turn might spur the development of pancreatic cancer cells.
But no such connection was found between drinking fruit juices, whose sugar content often matches that of soft drinks.
The findings, while provocative and frightening, could use some perspective. First, the total number of pancreatic cancer cases found over the 14 years of the study was just 140. Of those, 18 occurred among people who'd reported consuming two or more sodas per week, and 12 among those who drank less than two; 110 occurred in people who'd reported drinking no soda.
The study acknowledges that those small numbers might make the association a little more tenuous, "limiting the power" of the data and "giving potential to a chance association." It also cites four earlier studies that examined the soda-pancreatic cancer link that came to varying conclusions, including finding no link at all to finding an association for women but not for men.
Speaking on behalf of the American Beverage Association, consultant Richard H. Adamson said, "The study is, in my opinion, a weak study." Adamson, former vice president for science and technical affairs for the beverage association and, before that, a researcher at the National Cancer Institute, says that the study was "very small with regard to number of cases" of pancreatic cancer for major conclusions to be drawn from its data.
Further, Adamson says, the researchers didn't correct for other known pancreatic-cancer risk factors such as chronic pancreatitis, high-fat diet, workplace exposure to chemicals or gender (males are much more likely to get this cancer than females). The fact that the association didn't hold for juice raises questions, he said, as the sucrose in Singapore soft drinks "breaks down into the same thing that's in juice."
In the end, Adamson said, "The study doesn't scare me. I continue to drink soft drinks."
I'm not a soda drinker, and this study doesn't inspire me to start sipping. But while many public-health advocates believe we'd all be better off without soda in our lives, I'm not sure that if I did enjoy soda I'd stop drinking on the basis of this study alone. Because pancreatic cancer is relatively rare, even doubling your risk leaves your individual risk pretty low.
On the other hand, given the grim prospects for surviving pancreatic cancer (fewer than 5 percent of those diagnosed are alive after five years), and that fact that there's no screening test and very few treatment options, anything we can do to reduce our risk might be worth considering.
How about you? Are you a soda drinker? Does this study make you inclined to cut back?
For more health news, please follow me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/jhuget.
The research tracked 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years and found that the soft-drinkers increased their risk of contracting the deadly cancer by 87 percent. The relationship held up even when smoking and a handful of other habits were taken into account. The study did not look at consumption of diet soda; soft drinks were defined as "sugar-sweetened carbonated beverages."
The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute, notes that lifestyles in Singapore have much in common with those in the U.S. and that the findings should apply to Caucasians as well as to the Asians who were tracked.
Lead author Mark Pereira, an associate professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, suggests that the high level of sugar in sodas may boost insulin levels in the body, which in turn might spur the development of pancreatic cancer cells.
But no such connection was found between drinking fruit juices, whose sugar content often matches that of soft drinks.
The findings, while provocative and frightening, could use some perspective. First, the total number of pancreatic cancer cases found over the 14 years of the study was just 140. Of those, 18 occurred among people who'd reported consuming two or more sodas per week, and 12 among those who drank less than two; 110 occurred in people who'd reported drinking no soda.
The study acknowledges that those small numbers might make the association a little more tenuous, "limiting the power" of the data and "giving potential to a chance association." It also cites four earlier studies that examined the soda-pancreatic cancer link that came to varying conclusions, including finding no link at all to finding an association for women but not for men.
Speaking on behalf of the American Beverage Association, consultant Richard H. Adamson said, "The study is, in my opinion, a weak study." Adamson, former vice president for science and technical affairs for the beverage association and, before that, a researcher at the National Cancer Institute, says that the study was "very small with regard to number of cases" of pancreatic cancer for major conclusions to be drawn from its data.
Further, Adamson says, the researchers didn't correct for other known pancreatic-cancer risk factors such as chronic pancreatitis, high-fat diet, workplace exposure to chemicals or gender (males are much more likely to get this cancer than females). The fact that the association didn't hold for juice raises questions, he said, as the sucrose in Singapore soft drinks "breaks down into the same thing that's in juice."
In the end, Adamson said, "The study doesn't scare me. I continue to drink soft drinks."
I'm not a soda drinker, and this study doesn't inspire me to start sipping. But while many public-health advocates believe we'd all be better off without soda in our lives, I'm not sure that if I did enjoy soda I'd stop drinking on the basis of this study alone. Because pancreatic cancer is relatively rare, even doubling your risk leaves your individual risk pretty low.
On the other hand, given the grim prospects for surviving pancreatic cancer (fewer than 5 percent of those diagnosed are alive after five years), and that fact that there's no screening test and very few treatment options, anything we can do to reduce our risk might be worth considering.
How about you? Are you a soda drinker? Does this study make you inclined to cut back?
For more health news, please follow me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/jhuget.
washingtonpost.com
By Jennifer LaRue Huget | February 8, 2010; 12:05 AM ET
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Mastering The Mystery Of Sleep
Read More: Arianna Huffington , Cindi Leive , Exhaustion , Fatigue , Health , How To Sleep Better , Sleep , Sleep Advice , Sleep Challenge 2010 , Sleep Tips , Living News
Sleep is one of the great mysteries of life. Like gravity or the quantum field, sleep is so fundamental that scientists still don't know exactly what it is. We are learning more about sleep every day, but we still don't understand exactly why we sleep at all. (1)
This report will not solve the mystery of sleep, but will seek to show you how you can get into harmony with the natural cycles of your own brain and body. There is no better example of optimal wellness than to be in harmony with your deepest function: sleep.
The first step is to value sleep as one of your most precious resources for health and happiness. If you do that, you could figure out all the other things that would help you to sleep really well. So the bulk of this report will be all about that first step...but you will also get some of my favorite tips.
Sleep Is an Active Process
We used to think the brain simply shut down for a rest once a day. But the brain doesn't shut down at all during sleep...not like it does under general anesthesia or in a coma. (2) Sleep is an active process, which might better be described as a deeper form of consciousness than as a lack of it.
In fact, there are respected spiritual traditions that describe deep sleep as a vast field of consciousness without content. (3) And advanced meditators have done their thing wired to an EEG machine. Guess what? They go right into slow high amplitude brain waves all over the cortex. (4) They are sitting there on a cushion with the EEG of dreaming or even of deep sleep...and then proceed to describe their experience. (5)
Sleep Away Stress
Did you know that good sleepers and poor sleepers experience about the same number of daily minor stressful events? But good sleepers are less disturbed by these events. (6) Poor sleepers experience both their minor and major life events as being more negative than do good sleepers.
Scientists call this mindset "negative affective reactivity." They can actually predict whether or not a person will rate an upcoming event as being emotionally negative just by looking at the person's brain waves ahead of time. (7) High frequency brain waves on EEG, particularly in the right prefrontal cortex, are a sign of negative emotional arousal. The problem with high neurological arousal is that it can turn into a bad habit. An overly aroused right prefrontal cortex calls for the release of cortisol and other stress steroids that initially help the body in stress.
But continuous high levels of these powerful hormones ultimately cause some of our most serious health concerns...including heart attack and stroke.
Does Stress Cause Poor Sleep, or Does Poor Sleep Cause Stress? Answer: YES
We've known for quite some time, that activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis increases arousal and causes sleeplessness.
Stress causes poor sleep. And research shows that insomniacs do have elevated cortisol in the middle of the night, when cortisol should be at its lowest. (8) Conversely, poor sleep causes stress. But more recently, researchers have discovered that good quality sleep the night before a stressful event can protect you from negative health consequences. Even though you will still encounter stressful events in your life, good quality sleep gives you better brain chemistry to deal with those events.
Would that be of value to you?
Would Enhancing Your Immune System be of Value?
What is true for brain chemistry is also true for the immune system. Ordinarily, a stressful event will trigger the release of natural killer cells, but in one study, women whose sleep was interrupted for just one night prior to a stressful event had significantly weaker immune responses. (9) The poor sleepers failed to recover from the stress as well as those who slept well.
And researchers have found that less time spent dreaming (REM sleep) was associated with higher evening cortisol levels for healthy men of all ages. (10)
Sleeping Well Can Protect You from Stress Induced Depression ... and a Variety of other Mood Disorders
Serotonin is an important brain neurotransmitter. Altered serotonin activity has been associated with a host of problems such as aggressive and angry behaviors, clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, tinnitus, fibromyalgia, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorders. (11)
In a study reported in Journal of Sleep Research, stress plus restricted sleep caused serotonin receptors in the brain to become less sensitive, while stress following sleep had no such negative effect. (12) It is not known how sleep provided this beneficial influence on brain chemistry.
Sleep Improves Performance and Memory
Whenever you are trying to learn something new, such as important information or a new skill--and especially if you are going to be tested on it--please get good quality sleep after the training period and before the test.
In a very interesting study, there were two groups of individuals who trained for a new keyboard skill and were tested on it 12 hours later. One group trained at 10 AM and was tested at 10 PM. The other group trained at 10 PM and was tested the next morning at 10 AM ... after sleep.
Guess what? Sleep increased motor speed by 20 percent without loss of accuracy. (13) Remember, group one was not impaired in any way. You might have thought they would do better having trained when they were fresh in the morning. But sleep proved to be the valuable variable.
Would a 20 percent Increase in Performance be Useful to You?
Sleep is absolutely essential for long-term memory formation and more. You may have heard that everything you have ever seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or touched is recorded in your unconscious mind. Actually, that is false. The vast majority of sensory input is deleted and lost forever. Only the information your brain recognizes as important to your life ever makes it into your memory. Even then, the important stuff is held in temporary memory only until you sleep on it. (14)
Valuable new information and valuable new skills are added to your long-term memory -- only during sleep . But sleep takes it one step further ... While you are sleeping, your brain integrates the day's new information along with existing memories and in light of your values, your goals, and your purpose. That is why I have strongly suggested, in my paper on goal setting, that you do a visualization exercise on your goals just before going to bed each night.
How to Get Your Brain to Solve Problems While You Sleep!
Do you remember how the phrase, "think outside the box" got started? It came from the nine dots puzzle, where you had to connect three rows of three dots forming a square. You had to connect all the dots without lifting the pencil off the paper. (15) The solution requires an insight: you have to extend your lines beyond the box formed by the dots. You have to "think outside the box" to solve the puzzle.
In research involving a similar task, progress could be made in two ways. Slow and laborious-- or with sudden insight. Subjects who slept for eight hours after being presented with the puzzle were twice as likely to gain the key insight. (16) Valuable information, isn't it? Now you know why visualization before sleep works so well. While you are sleeping, your brain searches for new ways to view the information you gained during the day. And it does so according to the vision you provide during the visualization.
Are you starting to get the idea?
Sleep is a precious resource, and you are learning how to get into harmony with it...to neutralize stress, improve your mood, boost your performance and memory, and gain valuable insight into whole new possibilities for your life!
What else could you possibly ask for?
How About Sleeping Away Those Extra Pounds? If you're like most people in modern society, you have to keep an eye on your weight. Americans alone spend $35 billion (each year) on weight-loss products. (17) And what do we have to show for it? 119 million Americans are overweight or obese. And 64 percent are losing the body fat battle.(18) Why? America's trend toward obesity just happens to match its trend toward voluntary sleep restriction. And 70 to 75 percent of Americans report having one or more persistent symptoms of dis-harmonious sleep. (19, 20)
Any connection between obesity and sleep loss?
It turns out sleep-loss is a double whammy for anyone looking to shed pounds because of two hormones that regulate hunger and appetite. Cells in the lining of your stomach secrete the hormone ghrelin. Ghrelin travels to your brain and gives you the urge to eat. Leptin does just the opposite. Fat cells produce it when you've had enough to eat. Leptin in you bloodstream gives you the feeling of satiety. It's a good thing if you're trying to lose weight.
Just two days of restricted sleep caused an 18 percent decrease in plasma leptin levels and a 28 percent increase in ghrelin levels in young healthy men. (21) The result was increased hunger and an appetite for carbs. Definitely not good if you're trying to lose weight.
So in addition to regular exercise and eating according to your metabolic type, getting enough good quality sleep is extremely valuable for maintaining your ideal weight .
Good Sleep Helps Prevent Diabetes Mellitus and Metabolic Syndrome
In one clinical experiment, healthy young men were restricted to just four hours of sleep for six nights and then allowed to recover for six nights. During the sleep-debt period thyroid function went down, while cortisol levels and sympathetic activity went up. (22) But the most important finding in the study was that glucose tolerance tanked during the temporary sleep debt. So chronic sleep-loss could be expected to contribute to the onset of diabetes. (23) And indeed, when a group of men were followed from roughly 1988 through 2004, those who got only five and six hours of sleep per night were twice as likely to develop diabetes. (24)
Poor sleep was associated with a 44 percent increase in the odds of having pre-diabetes among 210 volunteers averaging 46 years of age. (25) Metabolic syndrome is not only the precursor to diabetes, but also to high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and other life-threatening diseases. Sleep is a valuable means to combat these problems as well.
Sleeping Well Could Save Your Life
Sleeping too little or too much increases your chances of dying from all causes by up to 15 percent. (26) People who have normal sleep patterns get less cancer. (27) For every hour a woman sleeps more than the recommended seven to eight hours per night, the chances of her getting breast cancer go up by six percent. (28)
Tumors grew two to three time faster in laboratory animals with severe circadian rhythm dysfunction. (29) And working the night shift robbed nurses of a normal dose of melatonin, a powerful anti-oxidant known to protect DNA. The research suggests a correlation between decreased melatonin, elevated estrogen, and the observed higher incidence of breast cancer among night shift nurses. (30)
Your chances of having a heart attack go up by 45 percent if you sleep five hours a night or less, and by 38 percent if you sleep more than nine hours a night. (31)
Getting either too much sleep or too little sleep are both out of harmony with a natural circadian rhythm. Likewise, shift workers run a much higher risk of heart attack as compared to people whose waking and sleeping hours are more normal. (32) Having to change shifts frequently and having to sleep during daylight hours are quite damaging -- possibly even deadly. Here is another interesting study: healthy subjects restricted to 4 hours sleep had 8 hours of high blood pressure the next day. Good quality sleep resulted in normal blood pressure the next day in the control group. (33)
Sleep is valuable here again because the hormone melatonin signals the entire body to shift from daytime running-around mode into night-time healing mode. Melatonin, which is secreted only in total darkness, also stimulates the nighttime release of another equally valuable hormone -- growth hormone. (34)
Sleep and Grow Younger?
Another great benefit of sleep is the nightly release of growth hormone. Growth hormone is vital for normal development of children, but it has wonderfully beneficial effects in adults as well:
• Makes your bones stronger
• Increases your muscle mass through the creation of new muscle cells
• Promotes lipolysis, which helps you lose body fat
• Increases protein synthesis and stimulates optimal maintenance
of all internal organ
• Supports your pancreas' ability to make insulin
• Stimulates your immune system.
All together, growth hormone makes you look and feel younger. Which is why you hear so much about supplements containing growth hormone precursors, and why professional body builders and athletes sometimes risk injecting synthetic growth hormone in artificially high amounts. But you already have a natural way to get your very own growth hormone delivered in just the right concentration at just the right time, every night...if you sleep well.
Growth hormone is released from your pituitary gland just as you enter the deep sleep part of your normal sleep cycle. (35)
A normal sleep cycle goes from light sleep into deep sleep and then back out to the lighter dreaming REM sleep. Most people have about four of these cycles during an optimal seven to eight hour night's sleep. But if you stay up to watch Letterman and still have to get up at 6 AM...you just performed your own voluntary sleep deprivation experiment on yourself. And you just cut your normal dose of growth hormone in half. And you wonder why you feel old on some mornings? It could be because you're hung over with yesterday's half-repaired cellular damage.
Sleep is for re-growing all the tissues of your body so you can feel and be ready to go in the morning. But you need to value sleep enough to go to bed. Now You Know Why I Believe Sleep Belongs at the Very Top of Your List -- Every Day
If you want to maximize your health and effectiveness, live long and be fulfilled in your purpose, try as many of these 33 strategies as possible:
• Review all the benefits you get from sleep--and put it at the top of your list. Value sleep highly as the magical resource it is for you. Whether you consider sleep to be a purely physiological function or a more spiritual encounter with your deeper consciousness...value it highly.
• Go to bed around the same time each night, ideally around 10 PM. But take time before that to prepare. Some researchers even feel that every hour of sleep before midnight is equal to two hours of sleep after midnight.
• Create your own pre-sleep ritual that goes beyond your normal teeth brushing and other practical activities. Make this a special time to set the tone for your journey into deep consciousness. Light candles, read inspirational or spiritual literature, and let your mind consider the big picture.
• Take some time to visualize how you would like tomorrow to be for you. See, hear, and feel what it will be like when you reach your goals. Connect with your overall mission and purpose. Remember, this will tell your brain which of the data stored in temporary memory should be flagged for transfer into longterm memory. New insights may be waiting for you in the morning.
• Create a morning ritual designed to capture these insights, perhaps a special journal on your bedside table. Taking time to record any impressions upon awakening sends a powerful message to your deep consciousness. It says you do in fact value the entire sleep process. It also says you expect results.
• Design your bedroom primarily to support good sleep. Keep it clean and uncluttered...no overflow storage in there, please. Get high quality linens and pillows. Sleep is far more important than half the things you spend money on now. Have complete control of the lighting in your bedroom. Be able to make the room totally dark.
• Avoid turning on the light if you have to go to the bathroom. Any bright light will shut off melatonin production.
• Listen to white noise or relaxation CDs. Some people find the sound of white noise or nature sounds, such as the ocean or forest, to be soothing for sleep.
• If possible try to awaken naturally without the use of an alarm. Your brain will know when it has had enough sleep. Ideally you should wake up with the sunrise. If you must get up before dawn, use a dawn simulator alarm clock which either comes with a light or causes one of your lights to gradually increase in intensity to mimic the rising sun. Many people find these very effective and certainly less disturbing than a loud alarm that can disrupt your adrenal glands and cortisol levels.
• If you must sleep during the day, make the extra effort to completely block all
daylight from your bedroom.
• Dim the lights in your house around 8 PM. Light stimulates the release of
cortisol and shuts down the release of melatonin.
• Stop watching TV or using your computer by 8 PM
• Avoid snacking just before bedtime, particularly grains and sugars. These can raise your blood sugar and inhibit sleep. Then later, when your blood sugar drops, you might wake up and not be able to fall back asleep.
• Keep the temperature in your bedroom no higher than 70 degrees F.
• Wear socks to bed. Due to the fact that they have the poorest circulation, the
feet often feel cold before the rest of the body.
• Eat a high-protein snack several hours before bed. This can provide L-tryptophan, a precursor to melatonin and serotonin.
• Talk to your doctor about reducing or avoiding as many drugs as possible. Many medications, both prescription and over-the-counter, may have effects on sleep.
• Avoid caffeine as much as possible.
• Keep electrical devices as far away from the bed as possible so their electromagnetic fields do not interfere with your nervous system.
• Avoid alcohol. Too much alcohol interferes with deep sleep and will prevent you from getting its healing benefits.
• Avoid foods that you are sensitive to.
• Don't drink any fluids within two hours of going to bed so you won't have to get
up to go the bathroom.
• Take a hot bath, shower or sauna before bed if you have trouble falling asleep.
• Journaling may be helpful if you often lay in bed with your mind racing. Writing you thoughts down may allow you to let go of your concerns before bed.
• Lose weight. Being overweight can increase the risk of sleep apnea, which will
prevent a restful night's sleep.
• Remove your clock from view. It will only add to your worry when constantly
staring at it...2 AM...3 AM...4:30 AM...
• Keep your bed for sleeping. If you are used to watching TV or doing work in bed, you may find it harder to relax and to think of the bed as a place to sleep.
• Have your adrenals checked by a good natural medicine clinician. Scientists have found that adrenal stress can interfere with sleep.
• If you are menopausal or peri-menopausal, get checked out by a good natural medicine physician. Hormonal changes at this time may cause problems if not properly addressed.
• Don't change your bedtime. You should go to bed, and wake up, at the same times each day, even on the weekends. This will help your body to get into a sleep rhythm and make it easier to fall asleep and get up in the morning.
• Make sure you are exercising regularly. Try to make it part of your morning ritual. Exercising in the evening--within a few hours of sleep--may actually serve to stimulate your nervous system and make it more difficult to easily fall asleep.
• Get help if you need it. If after trying everything we have discussed, you still cannot get good quality sleep, by all means do discuss your problem with your physician.
After experimenting with these strategies, feel free to cross out those that do not make sense
to you. Use the rest as seeds to develop your own style of sleeping. I hope you will continue learning about sleep and how you can improve this important part
of your life.
Pleasant dreams...
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