Currently viewing the category: "prevention"

Don’t Look Your Gift Horse in the Mouth

By On · Add Comment · In angioplasty, coronary disease, health consciousness, heart attack, modern medicine, prevention, stents, The Six Keys to Optimal Health

Sigh…I know it’s hard to think about your health when so many other things need attention. I get it, not everybody eats, breathes and thinks health consciousness. But here’s the deal: Your physical body is your vessel. It carries your mind and your spirit, and as such, you really can’t do or experience much on the material plane without it. So it really does make sense to take care of it.

Here’s why I bring it up: I know that many people don’t think about their health much until there is a problem. Some people get as far as having a serious problem, one that is life threatening–like a heart attack–before they realize how important their body is. But when you get to that point, it much more difficult to bounce back–not impossible, mind you; just harder.

Take a recent study that showed that one in ten people that have angioplasty–a surgical technique to open clogged arteries–will land back into the hospital within 30 days.  The procedure, which includes the placement of a stent, or an artificial tube, into the blood vessel to create a new opening, and hopefully prevent further flow constriction. Worse yet, these individuals were more likely to die within a year when compared to their counterparts who were not readmitted to the hospital after their procedure.

A second study showed that the risk of rehospitalization remained after three years following the procedure. The rehospitalizations were for new procedures to open arteries, heart failure, heart attack or serious bleeds. According to study author Dr. Gianluca Campo, a cardiologist at the Azienda Ospedaliera-Universitaria di Ferrara in Ferrara, Italy:

“Coronary artery disease is a chronic condition that needs chronic care. Just because a stent is placed or bypass surgery is done does not mean that you don’t need continued care in terms of preventing other episodes. You have the disease and have been treated for this episode. Now we need to treat the rest of you to decrease the chance that you will have another episode in the course of this chronic and progressive disease.”

Exactly. In other words, you still need to take care of your health. Listen, modern medicine is amazing at giving people a second chance, but that doesn’t mean you should just go back to business-as-usual. You need to observe all six keys to optimal health–diet, exercise, bodywork, mental health, rest & recuperation, and toxin avoidance (smoking cessation, for example)–and it has to become a top priority.

But even more importantly, why not just start observing these practices now? Many illnesses are lifestyle related. You do have a choice; and you ultimately have a hand in your illness and health. Once you get to the point of an angioplasty, you have suffered severe damage. My philosophy: Prevent it starting NOW. And if you’ve already had the experience of heart disease, and modern medicine has given you a second chance, don’t look that gift horse in the mouth. Live as if your body is your life vessel, and do the right things to preserve it. You’ll have more life to live that way.

Prostate Cancer Prevention Cap, Hold the Foam

By On · Add Comment · In beer, breast cancer, coffee, death rate, ejaculation frequency, estrogen, exercise, omega-3 fatty acids, prevention, prostate cancer, testosterone
Good news for men who drink coffee: Java might prevent prostate cancer. Yes! And my other favorite pastime–exercise–might prevent it as well. But wait fellas, it gets even better: BEER might prevent prostate cancer, too! Damn, life can be good.

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in America–more common than breast cancer, more common than colon cancer. More than 192,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year, and more than 27,000 men will die from the disease. Dang!

Prostate cancer is uncontrolled cell growth in the prostate gland–the walnut shaped gland that sits beneath the bladder and produces an alkaline solution that protects sperm in the acid environment of the vagina. Prostate cancer starts as primary tumors in the gland itself but can travel–or metastasize–to other parts of the body, particularly the bones or lymph nodes.

Prostate cancer is generally slow-growing–good news as it can be caught early in many cases with good treatment outcomes. Prostate cancer is also preventable through ejaculation frequency (that’s right master baiters, clearing out the ducts can be beneficial, but beware hairy palms), taking omega 3 fatty acids, vitamin B6, vitamin D, and now drinking coffee, beer and exercising.

In Harvard’s Health Professionals Follow-Up Study on coffee and prostate cancer, there was a clear relationship between the amount of coffee consumed and prostate cancer risk: The more coffee men drank, the more positive the effect observed. Caffeine was not the protective substance, however, as decaffeinated coffee also showed positive results. Researchers believe it has something to do with insulin and glucose metabolism. As one of the scientists put it, “A number of studies have found that coffee is associated with a reduced risk of diabetes.” The researchers cautioned that the link is not yet fully conclusive…but it certainly looks good.

The second study showed that the death rate from prostate cancer for men who exercised vigorously was 12 percent lower than for those who didn’t. Although researchers do not know exactly why exercise protects against prostate cancer, it might have something to do with immune function and reduced inflammation.

Finally, recent reports tell of the protective properties of a substance found in beer, xanthohumol, which in tests blocked a biological pathway that allows prostate cancer to be fueled by the male hormone testosterone. Yay! Don’t fret ladies, they also found that xanthohumol blocks estrogen receptors, which may lead to prevention of breast cancer. Double yay!

So drink up, gents (and ladies have a pint, too). If beer is not your thing, then have a cup of Joe, and do thirty minutes on the treadmill. You’ll be doing the right thing for your prostate that way.

An Aspirin a Day???

By On · Add Comment · In aspirin, Aspirin for Asymptomatic Atherosclerosis (AAA), bleeding, medical, prevention

The advice of an aspirin a day has always irked me. I’ve always seen it as the medical machine’s pathetic attempt to jump on the “prevention” bandwagon. “See, we’re progressive; we understand prevention.” Yeah, right…aspirin…prevention…tsk, tsk.

Well, current research shows that for healthy people, an aspirin a day may actually do more harm than good. British scientists with the Aspirin for Asymptomatic Atherosclerosis (AAA) project have uncovered that the risk of bleeding is great enough that its routine use in healthy people “cannot be supported”. Healthy people were those with no underlying cardiac or vascular problems.

Aspirin has been recommended as a blood clotting preventative by medical doctors for about 50 years. In the mid-1980s, despite there being very little conclusive evidence, the FDA was convinced to push aspirin as a preventive drug for heart attacks. Even mega super-star physician, Mehmet Oz in his book, You: The Owners Manual, pushes aspirin as a wonder drug. His Twitter post from two months ago proclaims,

BABY ASPIRIN, taken once daily, is proven to reduce stroke, heart attack, and many cancers. Kudos to those who got it right.

I hate to be the one to tell Dr. Oz, but: It’s not right!!!

I evaluate health from one simple philosophy: The human body, in it’s infinite intelligence, knows exactly what to do and when to do it. Do neglected bodies have internal disruptions such that they are unable to self-regulate efficiently? Absolutely. Are drugs under these circumstances useful? Absolutely. Do healthy people, with their complete capacity to self-heal and self-regulate need a foreign substance, a drug, to keep them functioning properly? Did they 200 years ago? 1000 years ago? We have evolved without drugs, haven’t we?

I’m no proponent of going back to an earlier age for a blue print on how we should live; but to me the answer is obvious. The notion that we need a daily drug to maintain our health and well being is a myth pushed on us by a cultural authority. But thanks to the objective eye of science, we now know–it’s wrong! It looks to me that the real health care crisis in this country is being exposed, and a political and cultural giant is being pounded to its knees.

Proof in the Pudding

By On · Add Comment · In chronic disease, health insurance, healthy lifestyle habits, prevention

Well, looks like I’ve been right all along. The best health insurance policy is the one you provide for yourself. I’ve known it, and now you do too. Here’s the proof:

According to a large study conducted at the German Institute of Human Nutrition, living a healthy lifestyle can significantly reduce the incidence of chronic disease. Adopting four habits–not smoking, exercising regularly, eating a healthy diet, and maintaining a healthy weight–reduced the probability of developing cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. While practicing all four behaviors provided the greatest benefit, adopting them one by one had significant protective effects too.

The study followed more than 23,000 middle-aged Germans for eight years. The participants were aged 35-65 years old. They found that the people who practiced all four habits had a 1/2% per year per person risk of developing chronic disease. Think about it–4% chance of developing chronic disease during the eight years of the study; extrapolate that to 20 years and the risk is only ten percent! For those people that did none of the habits, however, the risk went to 3% per person per year. That’s a full 24% during the study period and a whopping 60% in twenty years. Does anybody else see the enormity of this?

Here are some more facts:

  • A BMI lower than 30 was a particularly strong protective factor against development of diabetes
  • Physical activity protected more strongly against diabetes and heart attack than against cancer
  • Following good dietary principles provided a similar degree of protection against diabetes, stroke, and cancer
  • The largest reduction in risk was associated with having a BMI lower than 30, followed by never smoking, at least 3.5 hours of physical activity and then adhering to good dietary principles

None of this is a surprise to me or my regular readers. It’s the major premise of my book, The Six Keys to Optimal Health, and it’s what I focus on most here in this blog. Despite the focus on health insurance as a means toward better health, the reality is that nothing in the current health care model is going to improve health as a whole. This recent study provides the proof. Now the difficult part will be to convince lawmakers, and more importantly, people that focusing on personal health habits is the only true path to health reform.

Cool Wellness

By On · Add Comment · In Health and Human Services Department, health care crisis, prevention, Tom Daschle, wellness
“Cool” wellness and “hot” prevention is it. So says incoming Health and Human Services Department Secretary, Tom Daschle. President-elect Obama’s new health secretary says that the real answer to the current health care crisis is, well…wellness.

That’s right. About time somebody in government gets it. Duh! What’s costing the country big bucks right now is the high price of “sick care.” And what do illness and disease come from, primarily? C’mon, what do you think? Random chance? Roll of the dice? Tough luck? George W. Bush? C’mon, what?

That’s right, the most common cause of illness and disease is not taking care of one’s health. Very good. Give yourself a gold star.

And give a gold star to Daschle, too. According to the former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, getting people to focus on wellness will be all about marketing. “Wellness has to be cool,” he said, “And prevention has to be a hot thing. And we’ve got to make prevention hot and wellness cool.”

Yup, T.D., that’s what I’ve been saying for a long time–hot wellness and cool prevention. Or was that cool wellness and hot prevention? Either way, here’s what I propose:

  • Jennifer Aniston, nude yoga, televised
  • Nationwide Guitar Hero geek battles in gym class every week
  • Barack Obama 3 on 3 White House Basketball Tourney every summer
  • Jonas Brothers aerobics (oh sorry; we were talking about cool, weren’t we?–my bad)
  • Matthew McConaughey swingin’ sac boot camp (instructional video not to be missed–definitely not for the squeamish)

Cancer Tough to Cure…But There May Be Hope

By On · Add Comment · In apoptosis, cancer, gene, genetic, mind-body, mutation, networks, pathways, prevention, tumors

Cancer may be tougher to cure than once thought. Because it is the product of many gene mutations and not just one, cancer is especially hard to located and treat. That’s the latest, anyway, out of Johns Hopkins University.

According to researchers, genes in tumors work in networks, not as single genes as once believed. The scientist studied every gene in two of the hardest to treat cancers, pancreatic and glioblastoma multiforme, a type of brain cancer. They found that pancreatic cancer has an average of 63 mutated genes that code for uncontrolled cell growth, while glioblastoma multiforme averages 60 mutations. And to make matters worse they vary among people. According to one of the researchers, Dr. Bert Vogelstein, “If you have 100 patients, you have 100 different diseases.”

Sounds daunting, I know; but the good news is that they found just 12 pathways on average that caused uncontrolled growth and spread. The researchers point out that treatments should be aimed at interacting in the pathway itself, and not against a singular gene, like the current cancer drug Gleevec does.

These findings are not surprising to me and it illustrates the complexity of genetic interactions. The one gene, one illness notion is simplistic and unlikely. It happens to work that way for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)–which Gleevec was designed for–but that’s probably more the exception than the rule. The researchers point out that single gene target drugs will most likely be ineffective against most solid tumors.

I also think that finding one gene for other characteristics is unlikely too. Don’t get me wrong, geneticists think they are finding genes that act in a solitary fashion in coding for traits or processes, but I’m certain that the work done in this study is a taste of how it works as a whole–the pathways or networks are what is important.

I think that finding drugs to disrupt these pathways and cure cancer will a be very difficult task, indeed. We may not see it in our lifetime. And it really makes me think of the bigger picture. We are all developing genetic mutations and damage at all times. Our body has a way of fixing these problems. And when the damage cannot be fixed, cells have a built-in protective process called apoptosis, or programmed cell death. This evolutionary insurance plan is designed specifically to halt uncontrolled cellular growth, which is non-conducive to life. If we all have the propensity toward genetic mutation, and we all have repair mechanisms, then why does this process go haywire in some people and not others? Remember these are pathways, not single genes, so we aren’t just born one way or the other–we all have the capacity to develop cancer, every one of us.

I don’t really have an answer that would suffice here, but I do think that the future with regard to cancer will be about prevention; and much of this will come from mind-body discoveries. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me. There is a mental/emotional component that we are missing in all of this, and we’re missing it because we are so attached to materialistic explanations for everything. I think there is more, and I think it will come out sooner or later. Let’s leave it at that for now.

Not Quite Right Yet

By On · Add Comment · In alternative, chiropractic, gratitude, medical science, paradigm, prevention, stretch, water, wellness

Welp, they almost got it right. Medical science is working very hard to jump onto the wellness bandwagon. There was a time when the term prevention was considered an “alternative” concept – that is, medical science placed very little stock in the idea of practicing preventative measures. But not anymore. Oh no. Not only is it very hip (medically speaking) to promote prevention, but now mainstream medicine is trying to form the term to fit within its own paradigm.

Imagine my excitement when I caught the headline, Preventive steps could save 100,000 U.S. lives: study. What? Do my eyes deceive me? Is the mainstream medical information machine really going to push the same agenda as I do with The Six Keys To Optimal Health? Wow, cool man. Let me check it out.

Hmmm. Not quite. But I guess it’s a start. The premise of the article is that if people were to take preventative measures, such as taking an aspirin every day, quitting smoking, getting more colorectal exams, getting more mamograms, and getting annual flu shots, then many life threatening diseases could be averted. OK, that’s true. But is that the gist of prevention? What about health, I mean, that surely can’t be all there is to it, can it?

Heck no. And the problem lies within the philosophy of our current health paradigm, which is: you are fine until you have symptoms, and when you do, you’re sick, and then you’ve got to be treated for your particular illness. All right, we know that one. It’s been in place for at least a century, so we’ve all been there, done that. And we ain’t gettin’ any healthier, now, are we? No, but we do have an overloaded medical system, which creates quite a problem.

I’m not going to go into all the details of why our current system doesn’t work and how we can change it into something more useful. Let’s save that for my upcoming book, The Six Keys to Optimal Health. You’ll find that I do a very thorough job of dissecting the current health paradigm and how we can now take our understanding of health to the next level. And based on the studies coming from our current health authorities, I can assure you the change isn’t going to come from that camp any time soon.

Instead, if I were to rewrite this study, it might read something like this:

Increased use of just five preventive services would save more than 100,000 lives every year in the United States, and they are:

These tips are just a small taste of what you’ll find in my upcoming book, and I’ll provide the information to prove them. You better believe that. When you’re done, you won’t even think about prevention, because if you do things right, there will be nothing to prevent.

Copyright © 2013 Dr. Nick Campos - All Rights Reserved.