Archives for December 2016
Brain Fog Cure: Get the Answers Today!
Detoxification Difficulties Due to Lymphatic Congestion
What Labs to Run if you have a Methylation Problem
PRP Injections For Wound Healing
PRP Injections For Wound Healing
Platelet-Rich Plasma
Platelet-rich plasma, or PRP, is a small amount of plasma extracted from the patient’s blood and enriched with a concentrated source of platelets. Gathered by separating plasma from red and white blood cells, PRP is rich in growth factors and other specialized cells known as “cytokines” that have demonstrated tremendous potential to improve healing of soft tissue other wounds.
How Does PRP Improve Wound Healing?
Used to promote healing of musculoskeletal injuries and increase recovery time, PRP provides extremely concentrated platelet levels to increase the healing process. Platelets are the part of blood that helps the clotting process after injury. Every platelets are also very concentrated biochemical storehouses that contains
- Regulatory molecules,
- Signaling molecules, and
- Growth-factor molecules
All of these molecules are instrumental in the recovery and healing of cells and tissue.
PRP: Extreme Platelet Concentration
To better understand the platelets concentrated in PRP, consider the following: normal blood in consists of plasma that contains the following components:
Red Blood Cells 93%
White Blood Cells 1%
Platelets 6%
On the other hand, Plasma-Rich Platelets contains the following:
Red Blood Cells 5%
White Bloods Cells 1%
Platelets 94%
Where normal blood contains roughly 150,000-200,000 platelets/ml of plasma, PRP contains dense volume of 1,000,000/ml of plasma.
What Does Platelet Rich Plasma Help Heal?
Touted for its ability to improve recovery time and healing of ligaments, joints, muscles, and tissue, platelet-rich plasma has recently demonstrated evidence that it can also assist in the healing and recovery of several skin issues, including:
- Leg Ulcers (arterial and venous)
- Foot Ulcers (associated with diabetes)
- Bedsores
- Skin grafts
- First and second degree burns
- Cuts and abrasions, including chronic wounds found on the heal
- Healing from surgical incisions
- Treatment of facial wrinkles and rejuvenation of sun damage
- Cosmetic treatment and healing of scars
How Does Platelet-Rich Plasma Improve Wound Healing?
PRP releases growth factors into soft tissue; this process provides increased concentration of platelets that aid in tissue healing and recovery.
Specific growth-factor molecules found in PRP include:
- Epidermal growth factor (EGF)
- Fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2)
- Insulin-like growth factor (IGF)
- Platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)
- Transforming growth-factor-beta TGF-b)
- Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)
Each of these specific growth factors aid the healing process by:
- Attracting undifferentiated stem cells and starting the cell division process.
- Preventing inflammation by suppressing the release of specific cell proteins improving healing of tissue by attracting white blood cells (sometimes called macrophages) TO assist regeneration of cells and improve tissue healing.
- Promoting formation of new blood cells and speeding up the healing of tissue (epithelialisation).
How Will Dr. Smith Gather My Platelet-Rich Plasma?
Plasma-rich plasma is a 100% analogous process, which means the it is created entirely from the patient’s own blood. Here is the process Dr. Smith uses:
- Blood is safely drawn from the patient’s arm..
- The blood is placed in a centrifuge.
- Centrifuging allows Dr. Smith to separate red and white blood cells from the plasma and platelets.
- Blood plasma rich with platelets is separated from the blood.
- An activating agent (e.g. calcium chloride) is added to activate the platelets and release their content prior to use.
- The super-concentrated PRP is then injected to the wound site, where the healing process starts immediately.
Is PRP Safe?
Yes. Platelets are the primary agents of the blood clotting system. The body activates platelets to assist with healing by forming blood clots to prevent blood loss and repair the injury.
Since PRP is an autologous preparation, it requires no special considerations regarding antibody formation, effectively preventing the risk of graft vs. host disease and leading to better acceptance by patients. in addition, autologously prepared PRP is free from concerns over transmittable diseases, including:
- HIV
- Hepatitis B
- Hepatitis C
Platelet-rich plasma is immunologically neutral and poses no threat of allergy, hypersensitivity or foreign-body reactions.
Smothering Cancer STEM Cells with Metformin, a Common Anti-Diabetic Drug
Smothering Cancer STEM Cells with Metformin, a Common Anti-Diabetic Drug
Traditional cancer research has demonstrated that cancer cells create energy through glycolysis. Glycolysis is a process that creates energy without oxygen.
New findings show that certain cancer cells use an oxygen-based method of creating energy. These cancer cells use mitochondria to create energy.
Scientists believe they can now use metaformin to kill cancer STEM cells. Metaformin smothers these cells by preventing the mitochondria from using oxygen to create energy.
What Do These Findings Mean?
Some cancer cells, like pancreatic cancer cells, use glycolysis and oxygen to create energy. These types of cancers are often difficult to cure.
Using these findings, scientists forced pancreatic cancer cells to use only oxygen for energy. After that, they used metaformin to suffocate the cancer cells – preventing cancer from returning.
Clinical trials further testing metaformin will occur later this year. Researchers believe these findings will reduce relapses and provide better ways to treat cancer.
Can Sugar Raise BP?
Can Sugar Raise BP?
It’s a common misconception that people must cut down on salt intake to reduce the risk of stroke, which causes about 3 million deaths annually all over the world. However, in new studies, researchers found that, in fact, sugar is more to blame for raised blood pressure than salt.
The belief that blood pressure rises due to a high salt intake and leads to heart troubles is not as scientifically backed as we would believe, according to James J. DiNicolantonio, PharmD, of Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, Kansas City and Sean C. Lucan, MD, MPH, of Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York. They published their findings in the BMJ Open Heart. What their research showed was that lowering salt intake to keep blood pressure low was more a myth and not based on evidence.
Sugar and High Blood Pressure
Various studies have shown that cutting back on sugar plays a key role in reducing high blood pressure, and making changes to your diet can help you avoid high sugar intake and, in turn, heart disease risks. These studies have proven that as much as salt has played a small part in heart-stopping conditions, sugar can increase the risk for developing heart diseases even more easily. While many people know how dangerous high cholesterol or blood pressure can be, very few people know how harmful sugar is in the rising blood pressure game.
An 18-month research program conducted at Louisiana State University followed 810 people who either were without high blood pressure or were in early stages of high blood pressure. The goal of this study was to check how regular exercise, weight management, and diet affected blood pressure. The results reported that cutting down on sugar reduced blood pressure. The study also found that overweight people, with high blood pressure, who drank one less serving of sugary soda every day showed a remarkable decline in their blood pressure. This is good news because high blood pressure is the main cause of heart diseases as well as strokes, and a slight decline in blood pressure can lower this risk significantly.
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) collected data from 2003 to 2006 and reported that an average American consumed 83.1 grams of sugar a day. This data also cited a recently conducted analysis of trials that showed a higher sugar intake led to higher systolic (6.9 mm Hg, P<0.0001) and diastolic blood pressure (5.6 mm Hg, P=0.0005) versus lower sugar intake in trials of eight weeks or more.
Many trials reported that fructose was bad for the cardiovascular system. A crossover study that included young healthy adults ranging from 21 to 33 years old showed that intake of a fructose solution increased systolic blood pressure. This is a clear indication of how sugar affects the cardiovascular health as well as the overall well-being of youngsters and adults.
The American researchers believe high sugar levels directly affect the hypothalamus, the key area of the brain that quickens the heartbeat and raises the blood pressure. High sugar intake also leads to an increase in insulin production, which speeds up the heart rate, and if not stopped, eventually increases the risk of heart diseases.
Many studies show absolutely no connection between salt consumption and high blood pressure. However, the best thing to prove this is for people who suffer from hypertension to check it out for themselves. Begin with a reduction in salt intake for two weeks without doing anything else and then observe whether it makes any difference on their blood pressure or not. If nothing happens, the next thing to do is to stop eating sugar, including refined sugar as well as refined carbohydrates for two weeks. It’s important to check on the good carbs as well as the bad carbs, and the different effects they have on the body’s blood sugar levels to get the right results.
Dr. DiNicolantonio, a heart disease research scientist, believes along with many other researchers, that salt isn’t a factor in high BP. Instead of salt, it’s sugar that increases the risk of diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases. He says that the reasons for these claims are complicated, but it is fact that low salt levels increase the amount of certain fats in the blood, and some fats are harmful.
In addition, a historical look at the evolution of the American diet in the 20th century shows the clear influence of refined carbohydrates on people who suffer from high blood pressure. This trend continues to increase, as does the rise of chronic diseases in various countries.
Sources:
Arsenic-based Animal Drugs and Poultry
Arsenic-based Animal Drugs and Poultry
Arsenic is a substance occurring naturally and is commonly found in its organic form throughout the environment, specifically in water, soil, air, and food.
New scientific research demonstrates that organic arsenic, typically a less harmful or toxic form of arsenic, and the same type of arsenic contained in 3-Nitro® (roxarsone) – a drug approved for use in animals – could change into the more toxic form of inorganic arsenic.
As a result of these recent findings, top scientists from the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine and the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition have created a way to detect extremely low levels of inorganic arsenic found in tissue intended for consumption.
For example, utilizing the FDA’s new detection method, scientists were able to identify increased levels of inorganic arsenic in chickens treated with 3-Nitro®, especially when compared to levels found in untreated chickens used as the control group.
What Do These Findings Mean?
These findings are both encouraging and troubling. The findings are encouraging, as you will read below, as we are now able to detect previously undetectable levels of inorganic arsenic in the foods we eat, specifically meats and poultry. These new detection methods are forcing large scale animal production facilities and animal pharmaceutical providers to provide safer products free of both inorganic arsenic and drugs containing organic arsenic with the potential to convert into inorganic arsenic.
These finding are troubling as we now can confirm that unless you have been eating exclusively organic meats and poultries, you have probably consumed beef or chicken with larger amounts of harmful inorganic arsenic levels than first reported or known.
Adding to the concern surrounding these new findings is the fact that arsenic, and specifically inorganic arsenic, has been linked to increased risk of several types of cancer. In fact, World Health Agency’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) considers arsenic and the inorganic compounds of arsenic as “human carcinogens”, and reports that it causes bladder, skin, and lung cancer in humans.
I’ve Been Eating Chicken My Whole Life, What Do I Do Now?
Reading this information, you probably asking, “Should I get my arsenic levels tested?” and “How do I remove arsenic from my body?”
If you have been a regular consumer of chicken, it is pretty safe to assume that over time, you have accumulated increased levels of arsenic and possibly other heavy metals and toxins in your body.
Medical professionals can accurately asses levels of heavy metals in the body, including arsenic, using a urine toxic metal test (with a pre and post test).
What Are The Symptoms of Increased Arsenic Levels
You do not need to be exposed to large doses of arsenic to experience adverse health effects; especially if you are genetically predisposed to accumulating heavy metals in your system.
Slowly accumulating arsenic levels can cause cancer while not ever demonstrating any of the acute symptoms typically associated with severe exposure to the metal, including:
- Fatigue,
- Headaches,
- Stomach issues (Including severe diarrhea), and
- Mental confusion
Treating Increased Arsenic Levels
High levels of arsenic are often treated with chelation therapy, but moderate to low levels can be treated with an oral agent that removes heavy metals from your system.
Since exposure to harmful heavy metals, including arsenic, is on the rise, a periodic detox to remove heavy metals from your system is highly recommended. This form of detox does not require invasive, costly medical procedures and can be achieved by using a natural oral agent before bed to slowly draw arsenic, mercury, lead, and other heavy metals from your system while you sleep.
=>Click Here To Learn More About An All-Natural, Less Invasive Way To Lower Arsenic Levels In Your Body<=
Mediterranean Diet Reduces Pain and Joint Swelling Associated with Arthritis
Mediterranean Diet Reduces Pain and Joint Swelling Associated with Arthritis
Opting for a Mediterranean diet has demonstrated to help with a number of serious health conditions, including breast cancer, stomach cancer, and heart disease. Research has demonstrated that cancers and heart disease are often contributed to by the presence of inflammation in the body. Since arthritis, and especially rheumatoid arthritis, is directly affected by the presence of inflammation, switching to the Mediterranean diet has also demonstrated to reduce inflammation and reduce pain and stiffness associated with arthritis.
How’d They Do That?
Studying active adults living with rheumatoid arthritis for at least 2 years, researchers were interested to see the effects of the Mediterranean diet over the course of three months of study. Using a control group who followed their regular diets, researchers provided sample meals, recipes, and educational nutrition programs to the group following the Mediterranean diet. In addition, the participants in the Mediterranean diet group were also provided foods, such as olive oils and frozen vegetables, which would make it easier to follow the prescribed Mediterranean diet plan.
Measuring the effects on rheumatoid arthritis, such as pain scores, number of swollen joints, and amount of time for stiffness to subside, researchers assessed progress at three weeks, six weeks and at the end of the study. To add validity to the study, researchers also kept detailed records on each patient; specifically recording the amount of NSAIDs taken, physical strength, and blood tests to assess inflammation levels.
What Does This Mean For Me?
At the conclusion of the study, researchers found those following the Mediterranean diet experienced and reported lower levels of pain and also reported that morning stiffness subsided much quicker than before starting the diet. Patients in the control group reported a slight increase in arthritic pain levels over the course of this study.
Researchers were able to demonstrate that switching to a plant-based Mediterranean diet, rich in olive oil, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and polyphenols, significantly reduces the pain and damaging effects of diseases associated with inflammation, including arthritis.
Melatonin Effective In Treating Fibromyalgia Pain
Melatonin Effective In Treating Fibromyalgia Pain
New findings published in the BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology journal indicate that melatonin significantly reduced pain symptoms in patients with fibromyalgia. This research also found that melatonin appeared to effectively reduce pain associated with fibromyalgia when used alone or when combined with the antidepressant amitriptyline (Elavil).
How’d They Do That?
Until now, little research demonstrating the effectiveness of melatonin when treating fibroma has been conducted. When conducting this study, researchers divided confirmed fibromyalgia patients into three groups; a group receiving amitriptyline, a group receiving 10 mg of melatonin before going to sleep, and a third group that received both the amitriptyline and melatonin.
After six weeks, and when asked to rate pain on a scale of 0 to 10, patients reported that melatonin group and the melatonin/amitriptyline group reported less pain symptoms than the group receiving just amitriptyline. Of particular interest is the finding that the melatonin/amitriptyline group appears to have had the highest amount of decreased pain symptoms.
What Does This Mean For Me?
These findings offer great possibility for the nearly 3 million patients suffering from patients suffering from fibromyalgia each year. With no current known cure, fibromyalgia can last months, years, or even a lifetime. The condition causes muscle tenderness, muscle stiffness, fatigue, anxiety, depression, and mental fatigue and affects roughly 8-10 times more women than men.
Considering that sleep disturbances are one of the most common reported symptoms of fibromyalgia, researchers studying the role of the hormone melatonin are testing to see how effective it is in returning the body’s circadian rhythm to normal function. Melatonin has also been associated with improvement in various types of chronic, long-term pain like inflammation. Researchers are hoping to further demonstrate that melatonin increases the effectiveness and function of the body’s natural pain modulating systems.
Although further research is needed, researchers are hopeful that melatonin might be a better, more effective treatment option than what currently exists.