Top Symptoms of Athlete’s Foot
If you have one or several of the symptoms below, you could have athlete’s foot:
- Itching, stinging or burning between your toes or on the soles of your feet
- Itchy blisters
Athlete’s Foot: How to Get Rid of This Common and Incredibly Itchy Fungal Infection
Air Pollution Puts 2 Million Americans at Risk of Cancer, EPA Says
While the EPA said all Americans have an increased cancer risk of greater than 10 in a million due to air pollution, those in the most polluted areas face cancer risks of greater than 100 in a million — a level the EPA generally regards as unacceptable.
For comparison, the average cancer risk in the United States is 36 in 1 million, according to the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment.
“If we are in between 10 in 1 million and 100 in 1 million we want to look more deeply at that. If the risk is greater than 100 in 1 million, we don’t like that at all … we want to investigate that risk and do something about it,” Kelly Rimer, an environmental scientist with the EPA, told The Associated Press.
Four Ways Sittosis “Tin Man Syndrome” is Overcome Naturally
Well, like the Tin Man, your body, too, can “rust” and get stiff if you don’t use it. This can manifest not only in your joints and muscles, but also in your internal organs. After several decades of misuse or neglect, your body may begin to manifest signs of illness or even start to shut down.
Vitamin D Deficiency Increases Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease By Up To 122% !
As my readers and patients know, I am very passionate about normalizing the vitamin D levels of the population of the world. It is now estimated that over 1 billion people worldwide are deficient in vitamin D.
More and more studies are coming out showing the benefit of vitamin D for a plethora of medical conditions.
Now I am very excited to announce to you that a new study in the prestigious journal Neurology, the official journal of the American Academy of Neurology, has just published a landmark article showing a strong association between vitamin D deficiency and Alzheimer’s disease.
This study was carried out by lead author David Llewellyn, PhD, and is thought by the authors of the article to be the first large and prospective study looking at the relationship between Alzheimer’s disease and vitamin D in patients.
The findings showed that for the elderly Americans who took part in the study, those who were severely deficient in vitamin D were 122% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Those who were just deficient had a 69% percent increase in the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
These are astonishing numbers!
The study looked at over 1600 adults who were 65 years or older who were deemed to be free of other disease. After meauring their baseline vitamin D levels, the people in the study were followed for six years to see who went on to develop Alzheimer’s disease or some other form of dementia.
The lead author of the study, Dr.Llywelyn said “We expected to find an association between low vitamin D levels and the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, but the results were surprising – we actually found that the association was twice as strong as we anticipated.”
He went on to say that “We need to be cautious at this early stage and our latest results do not demonstrate that low vitamin D levels cause dementia. That said, our findings are very encouraging and even if a small number of people could benefit, this would have enormous public health implications given the devastating and costly nature of dementia.”
He recommended clinical trials to establish whether increasing in advance people’s vitamin D levels would delay orprevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia.
This study puts a lot of wind in the sails of physicians who study vitamin D, including myself. However, I want to point out to my readers what levels the researchers used to define deficiency!
They defined deficiency as a vitamin D level less than 20 ng/mL. They defined a severe deficiency as a vitamin D level less than 10 ng/mL.
In the eyes of progressive vitamin D researchers these are extraordinarily low vitamin D levels. But these are the levels where research is done.
In spite of the strong evidence that many extraskeletal benefits are derived from levels of vitamin D between 40 and 70 ng/mL, the very conservative Institute of Medicine of the United States, recommends a level of 20 ng/mL, and the Endocrine Society recommends a level of 30 ng/mL for good health. Even these two organizations cannot agree on a healthy vitamin D level.
I clearly do not agree with these recommendations for vitamin D blood levels , nor do my vitamin D research colleagues. My recommendation for a healthy person is to keep their vitamin D blood level between 40 and 70 ng/mL. The medical literature again for extra skeletal benefit strongly supports these numbers.
The Authors of the article, of course, call for additional prospective research. This will take many more years to accomplish.
My position on this is that there is no harm in normalizing our own levels of vitamin D until the research comes out. But articles like this one showed the handwriting on the wall that proper vitamin D levels can be protective against many health conditions.
Where do you stand on this issue of what level of vitamin D should we have? I look forward to your comments on twitter or Facebook.
Dr. Soram
Link between vitamin D, dementia risk confirmed
Vitamin D and cognition in older adults’: updated international recommendations
Vitamin D and the risk of dementia and Alzheimer disease
Metaanalysis of All Cause Mortality According to Serum 25Hydroxyvitamin D
Vitamin D Video by Dr Oz
Nice Video by Dr Oz. I don’t agree with his sun recommendations or his cod liver oil recommendations. I also don’t agree with his recommendation of only 1000 IU per day. I recommend 2000 a day for an otherwise healthy adult, but otherwise, this interview has some good education about Vitamin D including his talk about the Vitamin D winter for those in the northern 2/3 of the US. Don’t forget your kids too!
Remember to follow me on Twitter and Like me Facebook where you can leave me questions and comments.
Have You Ever Gotten Dizzy and Felt Off Balance? You Could Have Vertigo BPPV … An All-Natural, Simple and Fast Treatment is Available! When Done by a Doctor Your Insurance Likely Covers
However, in about 20-50 percent of cases dizziness is actually caused by a disorder that’s incredibly easy, and fast, to treat — once it’s diagnosed. If you currently struggle with dizziness, you owe it to yourself to explore this condition, as it’s actually one of the most common causes of vertigo there is.
Fish Consumption Associated with Brain Shrinkage in Newborns
Physicians have known for many years that mercury in the human body is associated with neurological damage. Fish consumption is the main source of mercury in the human body.
Now a new video from my colleague Michael Greger, M.D.(see below) brings together several journal articles which specifically show how methylmercury in fish is damaging the human brain.
We have known for some time that there is a dose‚ a response relationship of prenatal mercury exposure and IQ. Dr. Greger’s video pointed out to me an article that appeared in the medical literature several years ago on the relation of mercury and newborn’s brains. This article specifically shows that there is a direct relationship between prenatal exposure to a low level of mercury in the mother, and the size of a newborn’s cerebellum.
Specifically in this article it was shown that “prenatal exposure to, what we consider to be, low levels of methylmercury does influence fetal brain development detected as decreased size of the newborn cerebellum.” The decreased size of the newborn cerebellum was up to 14% smaller in length.
What is the cerebellum and what does it do? First of all the cerebellum which is known as the “little brain” is the second largest part of the brain and is located near the base of the brain. Although the cerebellum accounts for only about 10% of the brain’s volume, it contains over 50% of the total number of neurons in the brain.
What is so important about this ? Traditionally the cerebellum has been considered a purely motor control device. However this is now appearing to not be true. Specifically as recently reported in Brain:The Journal of Neurology, researchers have found connections between the cerebellum and the hypothalamus in the brain. These pathways connect with neural circuits that govern intellect, emotion and autonomic function as well as sensorimotor control.
There is a condition called Cerebellar Cognitive and Affective Syndrome (CCAS). This condition occurs in adults and children with stroke or tumor involving the cerebellum. It is also seen in children born very preterm who have a small cerebellum.
The neurobehavioral deficits that occur in this condition can occur in the absence of a motor condition. They are characterized by “impairments in executive function, which includes planning, set shifting, verbal fluency, abstract reasoning, and working memory.” In addition, “impairment in spatial cognition and linguistic processing as well as a dysregulation of their affect” is seen in patients with this condition.
These latter symptoms sound very much like the symptoms that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD)have. We now have an epidemic in our country of neurodevelopmental disorders with an estimated one in five children growing up to have such a disorder. Could mercury be part of the cause?
Watch the video now!
So, given this new information on mercury and the fetus, my first question is how much fish, which is loaded with mercury, is good for a woman while she’s pregnant? The second question is how much mercury has been accumulated by the woman before she conceives which then comes out during pregnancy and affects the fetus and its brain?
The other interesting aspect of this research was the amount of mercury the researchers considered “high” in the mother. The so-called “high levels”, were approximately 1/3 of the level of mercury a woman would get if she ate one can of tuna per week. I find young women in my practice eating tuna sushi several times per week.
In the studies I quoted above, researchers used hair mercury, which is one indication of the body load of mercury. However we now know that not all women excrete mercury into their hair even if they have it in their body.
We realize that the best test for body burden of mercury, is a challenged urine, where a woman takes a medication that is known to be able to pull mercury out of her tissues and put it in the urine where it can be measured.
This is the exact protocol that environmental doctors have been using for so many years. And this in part is why I encourage women in my Preconception Pregnancy Planning Program to get as much mercury as possible out of their body before they conceive.
I encourage you to share this information with your friends and family who are of childbearing age. Encourage them to get off fish before and during pregnancy, and encourage them to find a doctor who can measure their body load of mercury and help clean it out, before they conceive. Nobody wants a child with a small cerebellum, now that we are realizing the importance of this major part of our brain.
Please post your comments below!
Remember to follow me on Twitter and Like me Facebook where you can leave me questions and comments.
What is the Biggest Fear of Americans?
Getting diagnosed with a chronic illness like diabetes trumped other common fears of Americans such as the uncertain state of the economy, debt, job loss and leaving a loved one, according to a recent survey.
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The puzzling part is that despite the survey results, a very small number of people have made any changes to their diet or lifestyle to reduce their risk of diabetes and other chronic illnesses — even though most people know lifestyle to be the cause of many illnesses.
Today this has become the direct equivalent to such time bombs as continuing to smoke while knowing it causes lung cancer and dramatically reduces life expectancy.
Diabetes afflicts one out of every four Americans and most of those with the disease don’t even realize they have it. Additionally, there are 57 million Americans with pre-diabetes. This is where the blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be officially diagnosed as diabetes.
“We know Americans view activities like bungee jumping as especially risky and so they avoid them, “ said Richard M. Bergenstal, MD, President-Elect, Medicine & Science, American Diabetes Association. “However these same people are gambling daily by ignoring risk factors for a life-altering disease like diabetes and doing nothing about it.”
Vitamin D Day!
This past Saturday was “Vitamin D Day”! This was a day to recognize vitamin D deficiency as a world problem.
Researchers agree that at least one third of the world’s population is deficient in vitamin D, and many researchers found is a much higher percentage including me.
In my office, I still see 90% of my new patients with a vitamin D deficiency. Some of them severe.
We now know for sure that vitamin D deficiency can make some diseases more severe including autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and lupus as well as respiratory diseases and many others.
My colleague Michael Holick, M.D., is quoted as saying ““Vitamin D deficiency is a global pandemic that has serious health consequences for children and adults. Improvement in the world’s vitamin D status could significantly reduce risk of many chronic illnesses including cardiovascular diseases, type II diabetes and many deadly cancers as well as infectious diseases including upper respiratory tract infections, influenza and tuberculosis.”
I urge you to talk to your friends and family about vitamin D especially as winter is approaching, a time when all of us need to take vitamin D.
You can learn much more about Vitamin D Day at this link.
Cavities: A Controversial Debate: Tooth Disease or Nutritional Problem?
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What Are Cavities?
Cavities, called dental caries by dental health professionals, are areas on the tooth where the enamel has been eaten away by acid. Cavities can occur anywhere on the surface of a tooth, but can continue to deepen beyond the surface and eat into the entire tooth structure. When they are small or surface cavities, treatment is managed with fillings. If cavities reach the root structure of the tooth, a root canal and crown will typically be required. Therefore, cavities are not just bad for your teeth; they can be expensive and cause multiple, inconvenient trips to the dentist to treat them. Further, the bacteria from your mouth can travel into your bloodstream and impact other areas of your body, an occurrence that is linked to heart disease, diabetes and more.
What Causes Cavities?
Though some debate exists as to what makes people more likely to develop cavities, there is no question as to the mechanism that creates cavities.
Want to Improve Your Immune System? Then Here’s What You Need to Know about Flavonoids
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How did the researchers come to this realization? By watching birds.
Researchers from the University of Freiburg and the Max Plank Institute for Ornithology in Germany offered blackcaps a choice of two foods; they were identical except one contained more flavonoids. Sure enough, the birds chose to eat the foods that contained the extra antioxidants.
Next, they looked into what impact the flavonoids had on the birds’ health. Compared with birds not fed flavonoids, those that ate modest amounts of the healthy antioxidants for four weeks had stronger immune systems.
