Some Medicines You Take that will Most likely Send You to Hospital

Just because you take a medication regularly doesn't mean it is safe. Routinely prescribed and even over-the-counter drugs that many people take daily can send them to the hospital with potentially dire consequences, if any mistakes are made with dosage or timing. Interestingly, it seems that just a few drugs are responsible for the vast majority of emergency hospitalizations for adverse reactions.

Every year, close to 100,000 drug-induced hospital-stays take place across the United States among those 65 or older. Recent research that took place at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta found that there were four main types of drugs that had caused two-thirds of those medication-related hospitalizations.

Unfortunately, the researchers found that the top culprits are among the most commonly taken medications. They include warfarin, which is a blood thinner, insulin, aspirin and other anti-platelet drugs, and oral diabetes medications. The drugs one might guess would be the worst offenders, such as highly addictive narcotics, were only responsible for approximately one percent of the hospitalizations analyzed. Maybe the more standard types of medications lead to problems because they are taken so often that their users feel comfortable with them and stop being careful after a while. But clearly they can all be extremely dangerous.

The study was based on records compiled from 58 hospitals around the U.S. between 2007 and 2009. The scientists examined the frequency of hospitalizations for senior citizens that took place after emergency room visits due to drug reactions. They concluded that nearly 266,000 medication-related emergency room visits occurred each year for this population. More than one-third of these -- close to 100,000 instances -- ended in hospitalization. And nearly two-thirds of these hospitalizations took place because there was an accidental overdose of a medication.

Warfarin, typically prescribed for those with heart disease to prevent blood clots, was hands down the biggest cause of hospitalization, accounting for 33 percent (33,171 hospitalizations) of those analyzed by the researchers. Rounding out the rest of the top four were insulin at 14 percent (13,854 hospitalizations), oral anti-platelet drugs at 13 percent (13,263 hospitalizations), and oral diabetes drugs at 11 percent (10,656 hospitalizations).

The problem was also determined to be greater with the oldest subjects. Approximately half of the emergency room visits that required hospitalization were for those patients at least 80 years old. This begs the question of whether it is truly safe to have the elderly taking dangerous medication on a daily basis. Many are careful and coherent and can easily follow the directions for correct dosing. But what about those who aren't? In even the early stages of dementia, it would be easy for a patient to forget having taken their drugs that morning and upon seeing them on the counter, feel it necessary to take a dose. Then again, even those with caregivers are at risk, as shifts change for hired health care workers and things don't always get written down. Adult children caregivers are not infallible either, as they usually have many other responsibilities and may not even be home at dosing times. When a medication is truly a necessity, as for instance insulin can be, the risk may be worth the benefit. But if there are other options available that would preclude the need to take one of these drugs daily, they clearly should be considered as a better alternative.

After all, pharmaceutical drugs, taken as a whole, cause an overwhelming number of deaths and emergencies every year among people of all ages…even when administered correctly. Almost seven percent of all hospitalized patients in the U.S. -- or 770,000 patients -- have serious adverse drug reactions within hospitals each year. Over a hundred thousand hospitalized patients die annually from drug reactions, and an additional 1.5 million need hospitalization after suffering an adverse drug reaction outside the hospital. Adverse drug reactions comprise the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S...conservatively.

The point is that pharmaceutical medications are not the safest road to health, at any age. And at best, they rarely work to resolve underlying problems. More often than not, they are prescribed purely for symptom management. The medical establishment spends too much focus treating the symptoms of the diseases we inflict upon ourselves through bad diet and unhealthy lifestyle choices. If we address the root causes of disease, we can often rid ourselves of diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments, making the drugs that "control our symptoms” totally unnecessary.

How Stroke Victims Can get Help with Yoga

The effects of a stroke can be devastating, both to mental and physical capabilities. Those who experience a stroke may lose their ability to speak clearly or at all, certain analytical functions, depth and distance perception, and their use of one or more limbs. And strokes are now occurring in younger people more frequently than ever before, due to risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity being on the rise. However, there is some good news for stroke victims in the form of yoga therapy that appears to help a stroke victim regain some lost abilities.

According to a recent study that took place at Roudebush Veterans Administration Medical Center and Indiana University in Indianapolis, yoga exercise can improve balance, an essential ability that may be diminished by stroke as well as with age. The researchers worked with a pool of 47 stroke victims -- 75 percent of whom were male veterans. Ten of these volunteers were used as a control group and were provided typical medical care with no yoga. The remaining 37 were placed in one of two yoga groups. The first group participated in yoga exercise twice a week, and the second group had yoga exercise twice a week along with listening to relaxation recordings three times each week.

During the eight-week course of the research, the subjects were taught a variety of increasingly more complicated poses in floor-based, sitting, and eventually standing positions. Those in both yoga therapy groups had measurable improvements to their balance compared to the control group. Although many of these older men were initially skeptical of any potential benefits of yoga, they began to take more of an interest in this form of therapy as its effects became noticeable. The difference was quantifiable too: the volunteers doing yoga were tested for balance in standing, standing with their eyes closed, and standing with legs together while turning in a 360 degree circle and they performed significantly better than their peers in the control group. Then again, this would hardly be a surprise to any of you who read Jon Barron's 2007 report on exercise in which he said, "Many yoga poses are specifically designed as balance poses, utilizing arms, legs, hips -- the entire body, in fact."

As an important note, all of the study participants had their strokes more than six months prior to the start of the experiment. That was a key element in this research, since it was a long-held medical belief that any progress that would be made toward recovery after a stroke must take place within the first three to six months after the event. This study confirms other findings that have shown the possibility of making improvements even more than a year after a stroke has occurred. It also stands to reason that it will keep patients in better spirits and more positive toward treatment if they feel that there is a potential to continue getting better if they see results from their therapy.

And balance is an important area in which to improve. Falling is a serious problem among those with stroke-related disabilities. In fact, the researchers state that close to 75 percent of stroke survivors are prone to falling. This can cause severe injuries or even death in some cases. Plus, fear of falling may limit a person in his or her activities, which in turn can lead to isolation and depression. All of which are already problems for many senior citizens, but are easily and quickly compounded after a life-altering health scare such as a stroke.

Yoga can better your sense of balance by enhancing your self-perception and mindfulness of your own body. You become more aware of all muscle movements as they are necessary to achieve and maintain each pose. In addition, it also increases your flexibility and the range of motion of your muscles. Yoga is a terrific addition to a daily exercise routine for people of any age. Beginning yoga is a non-competitive, great place to start if you have not been working out for some time. However, don't forget that it is just one aspect of exercise that needs to be incorporated into a well-rounded plan. Cardiovascular workouts, interval training, strength training, and stretching will all work together with yoga to help you achieve not only better balance, but better overall health for the long term.

Beneficial Bacteria In a Probiotics Supplement

There can be no true health or recovery from disease unless you have colonies of over 100 trillion beneficial microorganisms flourishing throughout your intestinal tract, aiding in digestion and absorption, producing significant amounts of vitamins and enzymes, and working to crowd out all harmful bacteria. A good probiotic formula containing supplemental friendly bacteria is mandatory to raise your baseline of health. It is absolutely essential for long-term intestinal health and long-term parasite control. When choosing a probiotic supplement, look for the following characteristics:

• Not all strains of beneficial bacteria are created equal. For each type of bacteria, there are recognized super strains. Choose a formula that uses only recognized super strains of beneficial bacteria. They will be identified as such on the label or in the company literature.
   
• There are many beneficial bacteria that may be contained in a good probiotic, but two are preeminent. Lactobacillus acidophilus resides primarily in the small intestine and produces a number of powerful antimicrobial compounds in the gut (including acidolin, acidolphilin, lactocidin, and bacteriocin). These compounds can inhibit the growth and toxin-producing capabilities of some twenty-three pathogens (including Campylobacter, listeria, and staphylococci), as well as reduce tumor growth and effectively neutralize or inhibit carcinogenic substances. There are three recognized super strains of acidophilus: DDS, NAS, and BT1386. (It's also important to note that L. acidophilus is the primary beneficial bacteria in the vaginal tract. When the presence of the acidophilus is compromised, this allows the bad guys such as Gardnerella vaginalis, E. coli, or Chlamydia to take over. This is particularly important to women to help prevent a whole range of vaginal infections.)
  
  Many researchers believe that declining levels of Bifidobacteria in the large intestine actually mark the eventual onset of chronic degenerative disease. Bifidobacteria benefit the body in a number of ways. They consume old fecal matter. They also have the ability to remove cancer-forming elements, or the enzymes which lead to their formation. This can help protect against the formation of liver, colon, and mammary gland tumors. And in addition to all of that, Bifidobacteria are substantial producers of a range of important B vitamins.
   
• More is not always better. Too many beneficial bacteria in one formula may find the bacteria competing with each other before they can establish themselves in separate areas of the intestinal tract. On the other hand, there are several other bacteria that are extremely beneficial in any probiotics formula. L. salivarius helps digest foods in the intestinal tract and makes vital nutrients more assimilable. It also works to eat away encrusted fecal matter throughout the entire colon, helps repair the intestinal tract by providing needed enzymes and essential nutrients, and adheres to the intestinal wall, thereby forming a living matrix that helps protect the mucosal lining.
   
• L. rhamnosus is a powerful immune stimulator. It can increase the natural killing activity of spleen cells, which may help to prevent tumor formation. It boosts the ability of the body to destroy foreign invaders and other harmful matter by three times normal activity and has been shown to increase circulating antibody levels by six to eight times. L. plantarum has the ability to eliminate thousands of species of pathogenic bacteria. It also has extremely high adherence potential for epithelial tissue and seems to favor colonizing the same areas of the intestinal tract that E. coli prefers—in effect, serving to crowd E. coli out of the body. At one time, L. plantarum was a major part of our diets (found in sourdough bread, sauerkraut, etc.), but it is now virtually nowhere to be found. Other important friendly bacteria you might find in a good formula include Streptococcus thermophilus, L. bulgaricus, B. longum, and L. casei.
   
• Much has been written about the properties of the soil-based bacteria such as Bacillus subtilis, L. sporogenes, and B. laterosporus. For many people, they can produce a powerful boost to the immune system, but in certain circumstances they may become toxic. It's hard to argue with the great results that many people have had using formulations that contain these cultures. On the other hand, it's possible to get all of the same results using only the cultures that I've mentioned above.

Having Babies at older Age can increase Your Life-Span -Study

It's commonly accepted that getting pregnant past age 40 incurs plenty of risk. Older women have a more difficult time conceiving and carrying a baby to term compared to younger women, plus they stand a greater chance of developing pregnancy-related complications of all sorts. The risk of having a Downs Syndrome baby, for instance, runs about one in 2000 when the mother is in her 20s, but that risk jumps dramatically to one in 30 when the mother is in her mid 40s; other birth defects also become far more likely with maternal age. Plus, older women run a much greater chance of developing pregnancy-related health problems themselves.

But anyone who looks askance at a pregnant middle-aged woman had better think twice, based on data from a new study of late-in-life pregnancies. The study, out of the University of Utah, found that women who give birth late in life live longer, and so do their brothers. (You read that correctly.) The wives of those brothers, though, live to a normal age, which scientists interpret to mean that genetics play a role in the phenomenon.

"If you have a female relative who had children after age 45, then there may be some genetic benefit in your family that will enhance your longevity," said study director Ken Smith.

The data for the study comes from a huge sample population of almost two million Mormon and Catholic individuals born between 1670 and1869. (Churches keep great records.) Because of the religious views of these groups, the researchers assumed that the subjects kept having children as long as fertility allowed, without using contraception. And what they found was significant: women who gave birth between ages 41 and 44 had a six- to seven-percent reduced chance of dying each year after age 50 compared to women who stopped having children earlier. Even more dramatically, those who had babies after age 45 showed a 14- to 17-percent reduced annual mortality risk. The men who had three sisters, one of whom gave birth late in life, had a 20- to 22-percent lower mortality rate.

The longevity benefit, researchers suspect, derives from the possibility that the same genes that control longevity also control fertility. This would mean that women who continue to be fertile into their late 40s and 50s have a genetic predisposition to live longer, which their brothers share. And yet the researchers assert that genetics probably play only a 25 percent role in the longevity factor. The key element, according to Dr. Smith, "could be something that is not inherited. It could be good nutrition or really good living, suggesting that if you are a healthier mom, you live longer."

While it makes sense, based on the data, that genetics do play a key role in longevity, it also makes sense that those who share a lifestyle will share the health consequences and benefits derived from that lifestyle. (For example, as I've said many times before, lifestyle, not genetics, plays the dominant role in breast cancer.) Again, the husbands and wives in the study didn't necessarily show similar longevity patterns while siblings did, which may suggest that the siblings shared healthy diet and living during their formative years, and perhaps that counted most. Maybe certain subjects had a genetic advantage at birth, which combined with good nutrition and healthy conditions growing up helped them to remain fertile into middle age and live longer, while their siblings also reaped those same benefits.

This isn't the first study finding a link between longevity and late-life pregnancy. A 2002 study out of the University of California in Davis and the National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan found that women who have children at age 50 have a 38 percent reduction in mortality. A Chinese study found a positive correlation between late childbearing and survival past 100. Other studies have noted a link between late-onset menopause and longevity.

You can't tweak your genes, and research indicates that artificially extending fertility so you can have late-life babies won't help you to live longer, but you certainly can initiate routines that prolong your life. The necessity of good diet combined with exercise provides the baseline. Beyond that, since fertility and long life may be intertwined, there's good reason to initiate a natural hormone-balancing regimen. Other key factors include cleansing and detoxing regularly; supplementing with antioxidants, probiotics, enzymes, herbs, and food formed vitamins; cutting the amount of food you consume; and staying positive mentally and emotionally.

How Dog Therapy Works

People with mental disease and health problems typically seek relief by hiring a shrink or snagging a prescription. The adventurous few might sign on for a trek in the Himalayas or a five-month silent retreat, but if you prefer a cuddlier solution, various studies show that you might do just as well with dog therapy.

We've written before about the benefits of dog ownership -- about how pets can help you reduce blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides. We've mentioned that they can help you to feel less lonely and like yourself more, that they can even identify cancer and increase the likelihood that you'll remember to exercise. If that's not enough reason to send you to the pound with adoption papers in hand, here are a few more reasons to put up with doggie breath and barking at 3:00 am. Dogs, it seems, can help heal PTSD, alleviate depression, and act as home-health-care aides. And now, new studies show that dog therapy can help children with autism.

"Therapy dogs" differ from run-of-the-mill family pets in that they've gone through rigorous training and passed tests that prove they can provide valuable mental health service to owners. To train a dog costs a bundle -- as much as $35,000, although $600 or so usually buys the basic "service dog" program. The high expense comes when the dog receives advanced, specialized training. And yes, believe it or not, just like in the human medical field, the helper dogs do specialize. Fido can be a therapy dog, an emotional support dog, or a mental health service dog. Here's the difference: therapy dogs provide affection to people in stressful situations, disaster zones, nursing homes, hospitals and so on. They typically work with an entire group of disenfranchised people, moving from person to person. Emotional support dogs, on the other hand, have a bit more training, focusing more exclusively on their owners and keeping them on task. The elite pups are the mental health service dogs. These dogs get special, individualized training tailored to help them work with one person in particular who suffers from a disabling mental disorder.

Dogs for autistic kids differ yet again from other service dogs in that they not only support their charge (the autistic child), but they also interact widely with the public. Most other service dogs receive training to focus solely on their owner or the person they are helping, without reacting to attention from strangers. In the case of autism-support dogs, though, the opposite is true. It's important that people pet the dog and expose the autistic child to a wide range of interactions.

Apparently, the strategy works, at least according to a new study of 260 French children just published in the journal PlosOne. The study found that those autistic kids who got a dog after their fifth birthday showed substantial improvement in their ability to offer comfort to others and to share with others. If the child had the dog from birth or at an age earlier than five, it didn't seem to make any difference. The study authors hypothesize that the reason is that after age five, the child has the ability to recognize the importance of the new addition to the household. Interestingly, by the way, the study found no difference in improvement between those autistic children who received specially trained autism-support dogs versus those who received any old hound from the pound.

One of the main ways service and therapy dogs have been used with success is to support people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. In fact, the US Department of Defense has conducted studies to assess the impact of therapy dogs on war veterans. According to Dr. Melissa Kaime, who oversees the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP), "A recent survey showed that 82 percent of patients with PTSD who were assigned a dog had a decrease in symptoms, and 40 percent had a decrease in the medications they had to take."

The PTSD therapy dogs receive training to observe when their "person" starts to experience symptoms. "If a dog observes when a person with PTSD is escalating," says Gibbon Esnayra, president and founder of the Psychiatric Dog Service Association, the dog will be able to signal that they are escalating and, given it's so early in process, the person can manage and even prevent the escalation." For instance, if the owner has a nightmare, a PTSD assistance dog would lick the owners face and tap a paw on his chest until he wakes up.

As Viet Nam war veteran and PTSD sufferer Raymond Galmiche explains, "I can talk with just about any social worker, counselor, my closest friend, a psychologist, and as much as they can get it ... the dog looks in my eyes and seems to understand what my real basic need is. It's that self-worth that makes me feel a private pride, something that I thought I'd lost a long time ago."

It's either a sad statement on the effectiveness of most therapists or else a tribute to the extraordinary capabilities of canine helpers that at least some dogs do, in fact, seem to "get it" better than their human counterparts. In fairness, though, at least some of that dog therapy benefit may be biochemical. Research shows that simply petting a dog increases the level of oxytocin in the brain, a chemical that reduces fear and increases feelings of well-being. It seems fair to point out, given that so many people attempt to alter their disturbed brain biochemistry by taking antidepressants, that dogs deliver a biochemical boost without side effects typical of the pills -- no nausea, headache, loss of libido, blurred vision, possible suicide and the like. The worst side effects dogs deliver tend toward excess fur on the clothing and puppy saliva on the face.

But while the dogs may help humans heal their mental distress, what happens to the dogs? Some experts worry that exposing Rover constantly to depressed, agitated people can give the dog the blues. They say that canines deserve a home where they live with emotionally balanced individuals and that it's exploitive to send dogs into homes to be used as medicine. In fact, veterinarians now routinely prescribe antidepressants for dogs suffering from depression, separation anxiety, and other psychological symptoms, and certainly therapy dogs might be candidates. Perhaps future research will take a look at this conundrum.

In the meantime, it appears that there might be a career niche on the horizon for professionals who can simultaneously treat the agitated or depressed patient and his agitated, depressed dog.

How Vegetables are affected by Pollutions

Many people are taking trips to Alaska to see the glaciers before they all melt from global warming. If viewing that kind of natural beauty before time runs out is on your bucket list, you may want to pay a visit to the Rocky Mountain National Park in northern Colorado, as well. No glacier melting here, but recent research has found that man-made air pollution may be killing off the indigenous vegetation that has always grown there.

The study, by a team of scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder, found that nitrogen gases reach even the relatively remote regions of the park and have begun to set in motion changes that will eventually lead to the disappearance of the alpine plants unless some drastic measures are taken. This air pollution is created by the emissions of nearby vehicular traffic, power plants, and even agricultural machinery.

Over a three-year period, the researchers tested the soil and alpine plants in a meadow of Rocky Mountain National Park in the Mummy Range area. They measured the present levels of nitrogen decomposition and assessed their effects, then "created" areas with increasing levels of nitrogen to simulate the modifications in the atmosphere that will occur in coming years unless something changes. First, it should be noted that at the present levels of nitrogen pollution, the soil analyzed showed no changes, but then that level has already done its damage; the quantity of certain plant species is already measurably different than it was just a few years ago.

As beautiful as it still may be, the no-longer pristine area definitely has been negatively affected by a higher concentration of nitrogen pollution. There is now major growth of sedge plants, which are a common form of grass. That's a negative, because these species have been demonstrated in other pollution studies in several locations to thrive in higher levels of nitrogen -- to flourish, keep expanding, and eventually crowd out more delicate forms of wild vegetation.

And in the foreseeable future, there is no reason to expect any changes for the better to pollution levels. In fact, the Denver area is expected to have continued population growth that will keep spilling into the Front Range region close to the park. This is likely to be accompanied by more agricultural development, which brings atmospheric changes of its own, along with more automobiles, and a rise in production of the local power supply in coming decades.

While it may be easy for some to say that we've got many more urgent problems to deal with than a few changes in plant species, it's important to keep the larger picture in mind. Once this goes beyond a certain point in altering the vegetation, there is no turning back. The changes that take place will also affect more than just the "look" of Rocky Mountain National Park. The new plants that begin to grow there may have a higher tolerance for nitrogen, but eventually even these plants and soil will reach their capacity for absorbing these compounds. At that point, acidification takes place and causes aluminum to seep from the soil. Where does the aluminum end up? In all of the local water! Aluminum is a toxic substance for which the body has no use. Not only will it poison the water and most of the marine life in all of the nearby streams and lakes, but it will begin to directly affect humans. As it accumulates in the body, it can harm the bones, gastrointestinal tract, brain, skin, liver, and much more.

It is essential to avoid heavy metals such as aluminum as much as possible. However, since they enter our food and water supply to some degree wherever we are -- and are likely to be increasing -- we need to remove them from our bodies -- and especially if things keep heading in the direction they're going. Herbal colon detoxifiers and heavy metal cleanses used routinely can clear these dangerous substances out of your system and improve your health.

How to Improve the Efficiency of Intestinal Bacteria

A properly functioning intestinal tract is one of your body’s first lines of defense against invaders. In a healthy colon, there are, on average, well over 100 billion beneficial bacteria per milliliter of fecal matter that consume harmful bacteria and other invaders. In the typical digestive tract, because of poor diet and neglect of the colon, the beneficial bacteria count may be as low as four or five per milliliter (not 4 or 5 billion, just plain old four or five). Many researchers now believe that declining levels of friendly bacteria in the intestinal tract may actually mark the onset of chronic degenerative disease.

A healthy intestinal tract balanced with friendly bacteria can:

• Lower cholesterol
• Assist in the digestion of carbohydrates
• Help prevent constipation
• Inhibit cancer
• Protect against food poisoning
• Protect against stomach ulcers
• Protect against lactose intolerance and casein intolerance
• Protect against many harmful bacteria, viruses, and fungi
• Protect against Candida overgrowth and vaginal yeast infections
• Prevent and correct constipation and diarrhea, ileitis and colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and a whole range of other digestive tract dysfunctions
• Improve the health and appearance of the skin
• Enhance nutrition by improving absorption and internally generating B vitamins and vitamin K
• Enhance immunity by killing off invading pathogens and producing immune-boosting biochemicals such as transfer factor and lactoferrin—beneficial bacteria are actually responsible for 60 to 70 percent of your immune system’s activity