I was suffering from some bad head aches a few weeks ago and I was told to buy Excedrin. The first thing that came to my mind was “why am I recommended to by a label/brand and not an ingredient?”
The answer I gave myself was: Marketing – a powerful tool when used right.
I went to the store and I found a bunch of different kinds of Excedrin – Extra Strength, Back & Body, PM, Migraine, and Tension Headache…. Now all I needed to do was to label my own head ache. Was it going to increase to a Migraine, was it a tension thing, or just regular female monthly pain, that can occur wherever on the body?!
After standing in the isle for a few minutes trying to figure out what to pick I started to compare the active ingredients and this is what I found:
Are you seeing what I saw right away?!
The Migraine and Extra Strength is exactly the same!
Why? More sales?
So why are some of them a mix of Acetaminophen and Aspirin and some of them just Acetaminophen? Well I would guess that it is because Aspirin has more and worse side effects – they need something for everyone, right?!
Acetaminophen is a pain reliever and a fever reducer. Aspirin is a pain reliever and an anti-inflammatory but is not to be used for fever as it can cause dramatic side effects, especially in children and younger adults. But why add Aspirin in a drug that is to relieve head aches? I can understand the Back & Body since some of that pain can be due to inflammation, but that is rarely the case for a head aches or migraines.
What about the caffeine?
It is said to boost the effect of the two pain relievers. If we feel a difference between taking with or without caffeine is, I think, to each and everyone to decide for them selves.
What about the other active ingredients?
Back & Body’s extra boost with unspecified amounts of Calcium Carbonate… Why Calcium Carbonate as it is used as a part of a regimen for preventing and treating osteoporosis in individuals with low levels of calcium in their diets (MedicineNet.com)? Who said anything about osteoporosis??? I don’t have osteoporosis, why should I take something I don’t need?
And then we have the Diphenhydramine Citrate in the PM version of Excedrin. Diphenhydramine Citrate is used to treat sneezing, runny nose, itching, watery eyes, hives, rashes, and other symptoms of allergies and the common cold as well as suppress coughs, to treat motion sickness, to induce sleep, and to treat mild forms of Parkinson's disease. (TalkMedical.com) All that for me to be able to sleep; it sounds like I would dry out my eyes, mouth and nose too!
So as a summary I feel that most of the Excedrin listed above would reduce your pain, no matter what kind of pain it is. Just pick what box looks most appealing to you. They are all Excedrin and they all say “what pain?” in their ads (just be careful if you are sensitive to Aspirin).
Lots of water, some vitamins, food, a break from whatever you are doing, and a large cup of coffee might also do the trick…
Good Luck and please read and learn about what you are taking so you only take what you really need!
After spending a weekend with some of our friends in Ohio that have a two year old daughter and a baby boy on the way I wanted to know more about what kinds of food the little ones get during the day at a day care. Our friends had a weekly menu posted on the refrigerator from a day care that they felt was healthy and a good guide to follow on the weekends. As I looked through it I noticed that there was almost no protein at all on the menu and got curious on how other menus looks.
I punched in the search words: kindergarten and meals and the first page that came up was a place saying that they buy all their food fresh and that the meals are prepared by a nutrition chef. Great! I thought, this must be good…
My disappointment came fast… here is an example:
Breakfast 9.00 am Raisins, Crackers, Cornflakes, Rice Crispies Water and Juice
Lunch 11.45 am Fish fingers with mixed veggies and Mashed Potatoes Crumble and Ice Cream Water
Snack 3.30 pm Vegetable Broth with Bread and Butter Banana Cake and Apple Water and Juice
Snack 5.00 pm Cookie Water
Lets start with the breakfast – High Fructose raisins, high carb crackers (all crackers are basically high carb), Cornflakes with ton of sugar, rice crispies air puffed carbs and they get to drink a sugary drink as juice… The kids are going to be all high on sugar for about 2 hours and then they are going to get tired and hungry, this breakfast is horrifying.
Lunch – not so bad. At least they are getting some protein in the fish; unfortunately it is probably deep fried with some trans fats. Potatoes are ok, hopefully the mashing is done with real butter and heavy cream, but it doesn’t say. Ice cream… maybe once a week would be ok.
Snack – a veggie broth; I really hope they made it them selves, but the possibilities are that it is a finished broth filled with unnatural ingredients. And they serve another dessert, what?!?
Snack number two consists of a sugary cookie… do I need to say more?
These kids are going to grow up learning to feed off of carbs and sugars and slowly decrease their metabolism and start to store fat from all the extra sugar they get every day. We need to start teaching our kids early that limited amounts of carbs is the way to go or they will grow up just like you and I – thinking that whole wheat bread and pasta is completely ok to eat and that fruit and raisins is “healthy candy”.
This is my menu I would feed the kids if I ever had a day care:
Breakfast Hard boiled egg, carrot, rolled up ham and cheese, milk
Snack Greek Yogurt with flax seeds and crushed blueberries, water
Lunch Grilled chicken with avocado and sweet potatoes pure, raw sweet peas, milk or water
Snack Tuna salad and veggies with cheese dip, water
What day care would you want to pick your kid up from?
A carefully-conducted study by a collaborative research group at University of California-Berkeley has finally closed the lid on the fuss over fructose vs. glucose and its purported adverse effects.
The study is published in its entirety here.
Compared to glucose, fructose induced:
1) Four-fold greater intra-abdominal fat accumulation--3% increased intra-abdominal fat with glucose; 14.4% with fructose. (Intraabdominal fat is the variety that blocks insulin responses and causes diabetes and inflammation.)
2) 13.9% increase in LDL cholesterol but doubled Apoprotein B (an index of the number of LDL particles, similar to NMR LDL particle number).
3) 44.9% increase in small LDL, compared to 13.3% with glucose.
4) While glucose (curiously) reduced the net postprandial (after-eating) triglyceride response (area under the curve, AUC), fructose increased postprandial triglycerides 99.2%.
The authors propose that fructose specifically increases liver VLDL production, the lipoprotein particle that yields abnormal after-eating particles, increased LDL, and provides building blocks to manufacture small LDL particles. The authors also persuasively propose that fructose metabolism, unlike glucose, is not inhibited (via feedback loop) by energy intake, i.e., it's as if you are always starving.
Add to this the data that show that fructose increases uric acid (that causes gout and may act as a coronary risk factor), induces leptin resistance, causes metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes), and increases appetite, and it is clear that fructose is yet another common food additive that, along with wheat, is likely a big part of the reason Americans are fat and diabetic.
Fructose is concentrated, of course, in high-fructose corn syrup, comprising anywhere from 42-90% of total weight. Fructose also composes 50% of sucrose (table sugar). Fructose also figures prominently in many fruits; among the worst culprits are raisins (30% fructose) and honey (41% fructose).
Also, beware of low-fat or non-fat salad dressings (rich with high-fructose corn syrup), ketchup, beer, fruit drinks, fruit juices, all of which are rich sources of this exceptionally fattening, metabolism-bypassing, LDL cholesterol/small LDL/ApoB increasing compound. Ironically, this means that many low-fat foods meant to reduce cholesterol actually increase it when they contain fructose in any form.
When you hear or say "fructose," run the other way, regardless of what the Corn Refiners Association says.
Article published in Ladies Home Journal, April 2009
4 weeks to a stronger heart – it is true. A few simple lifestyle strategies can make a huge difference to your health.
…Give your heart a healthy makeover! With just a few painless changes you can significantly lower your cholesterol and blood pressure, prevent your arteries from narrowing and strengthen your blood vessels…Absolutely! It is never too late, well as long as you are still breathing and your heart is still beating that is. I fully agree with the statement that you can change a lot in just 4 weeks, even though it is a stretch for many. The hard part is to stay in the change, make it become you and don’t fall back into old habits and comfort levels.
The reason to why I am even commenting this article is because it is in a magazine that people read, that people read and sometimes act upon. I feel that it is important that we provide the general public with the true and latest research available to us, not something that was published 20 years ago, no matter what media form it is in.
[printed in magazine] [my own comments]
Change the way you eat
The long-touted low-fat diet is yesterday’s news. The latest nutrition research suggests that maintaining your arterial superhighway is not just about avoiding as much saturated fat and processed food as possible but also about fueling your tank with what many experts call “functional foods,” those foods rich in nutrients with powerful heart-protecting (and anticancer) properties. “Focusing on low fat is overly simplistic,” says Christopher Gardner, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at the Prevention Research Center at the Stanford University School of Medicine. “When you combine natural high-fiber foods with plant sterols and unsaturated fats, you start to see cholesterol-lowering benefits.”
They are absolutely right. The 80’s low fat, high carb diet is out the door and replaced with a high natural fat and high protein intake. Unfortunately this article goes on by giving examples of what to eat, such as; wheat, cereals, bread, juice, and margarine! This to me is insane. The only way to lower your cholesterol and triglycerides is to quit eating any type of wheat and grains, lower other sugar intake such as juices and fruits, eat real natural fats such as butter, olive oil, canola oil, nuts, and avocado – NOT MARGARINE – margarine is only one molecule away from being plastic (but that is another story). Who can even make such a recommendation in a heart health article?! I would never recommend margarine to anyone, under any circumstances. Butter is real, margarine is not – it doesn’t get easier than that.
As far as the wheat and grain elimination – it might seem very strange to some, because the majority of us have grown up believing that whole wheat and grains are supposed to be healthy for us. Well the truth is that most grains contain way too much sugar for it to be beneficial. Why don’t you look for yourself? Go and get your bread package and read how many grams of carbohydrates you have in there, and then find out how much of it is sugar and how much of it is fiber… the rest is usually other gluten kinds that also is a harm to your heart health. What did you find? That the sugar outnumbers the fiber? You will find the same illustration on most bread you pick up.
Fill up on fiber
Only one type of fiber helps your heart – the viscous, or soluble, kind found in foods such as beans, oats, oat bran, barley, citrus fruits, eggplant, and okra…
You know what, most humans don’t even get half as much fiber as we should in our daily diet and my suggestion is to supplement it, at least four times a year as a fiber cleanse. But healthy fibers are found in green vegetables as well and are a much better choice than the oats and oat bran.
Cut the salt
If you’ve got pre- or full-blown hypertension, consider trying the low-sodium diet recommended by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. It’s rich in fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products and includes poultry, fish, nuts and whole grains but only small amounts of red meat, sweets and sugary drinks.
Please change this header to – Change your salt. It is not the amounts of salt; it is what kind of salt! Many say to cut the salt… but let’s think for just a moment. When you are being hospitalized what is the first thing they will give you? Something called NaCl, right in your arm into your blood stream… What is NaCl? NaCl stands for Sodium (Natrium) Chloride and is simply the chemical name for SALT!!! Plain SALT!!! We need salt to survive, plain and simple. The hard part is to get the right kind. Unprocessed salt is the way to go - most likely found in health food and holistic food stores. Once you have the right kind of salt – please salt away! Another mistake that is made in the “cut the salt” process; people cut the intake of Iodine as well. Iodine is not salt, but some salt labels can be bought with iodine and without iodine. Iodine must be supplemented if it is not taken in another way, as it is another life supporting mineral. Don’t cut the salt – change it!
But with this diet you are sure to keep your hypertension and gain some pounds, increase you cholesterol, and increase your blood pressure. The only thing I am happy to read is that they want you to avoid sugary drinks – and that includes all juices out there, light or not. As far as the low-fat dairy products: yes it is low fat, but the lower the fat the higher the carbohydrates. The carbohydrates in dairy products are lactose – lactose is another name for sugar, milk sugar. So to say that you should limit your sugary drinks and then to say that you should drink lots of milk doesn’t really add up, to me.
When Medication Makes Sense
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, diet and exercise don’t get you where you need to be. Talk to your doctor about whether one of these meds is right for you.
Well, if you keep getting the wrong guidelines, how on earth are you supposed to reach your goals? These guidelines are set so that the medical companies can reach their goals – not yours.
Drugs that lower your cholesterol
Statins – the best – known type – do a remarkable job of lowering LDL cholesterol, healing the lining of the arteries and slowing the build up of plaque. If you already have heart disease, these drugs can reduce your risk of dying from heart attack by 29 percent.
I don’t think I have to go there, but Statins are still drugs with many side effects. They are known to lower your bad LDL cholesterol, but they will also lower your good HDL cholesterol. Stay with the high natural fat and protein diet limited from wheat, grain, fruit, dairy, sugar, and juices and you should be on good way to reaching your goal. To speed up the process you need to supplement with natural Omega 3, Vitamin C, EDTA, Vitamin D3, L-Arginine, OPCs, and Magnesium.
Statins, however have little effect on HDL cholesterol and triglycerides, another blood fat. For those you may need to take prescription niacin, fibrate drugs or FDA-approved fish oil supplements, which can increase HDL by up to 30 percent and lower triglycerides by as much as 45 percent depending on the drug.
This is correct about Niacin, which is simply Vitamin B3. What is wrong is that you do NOT need to get a prescription to get it; Niacin can be found on the nutrition shelf at your supermarket. There are many kinds of Niacin, and I would avoid “no blush Niacin” as it will not do you any good, just as the slow acting Niacin. To reach preferred levels of triglycerides someone might have to supplement niacin a lot – something that should be supervised by a doctor, he/she should at least be aware that you are doing it. Start at 250 mg per day for one week and increase it with 250 mg each week until you have reached a level of 1000 mg. If your triglycerides and LDL are very high you might have to supplement with up to 5000 mg per day say William Davis M.D. in his article “Using Niacin to improve cardiovascular health”. The supplementation does not have to be FDA approved either. FDA often approves synthetic drugs before they approve natural made supplements. Why? Well that is another discussion, but let’s just say that FDA work closely with the drug companies, not the natural supplementation companies. As long as your Omega 3 is natural you are good to go. And you should take 3000-4000 mg per day to see any progress.
Pills can help your heart grow stronger
Yes – as long as you take the right ones.
Numbers you need to know… “A strong heart needs healthy blood vessels that have smooth, Teflon-like lining,” explains John P. Cooke, M.D., Ph.D., associate director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. “This lets blood move easily, not clot.”
True! And John P. Cooke is a personal favorite of mine – what this section forgets to mention is how you can make your vessels become like Teflon. What John P. Cook is talking about is L-Arginine, one of our most powerful natural occurring amino acid. L-arginine converts into nitric oxide when in your body and makes all that come true. He also suggests that we need to supplement with 5 grams of Arginine every day to get the nitric oxide effect.
This article was a very good attempt to make the public more aware, but it was a shame that L-arginine wasn’t mentioned even once. L-arginine alone could fill up page after page with great research and progress. The public need to know more about l-arginine, the public need to know that the people who discovered the nitric oxide effect derived from l-arginine won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1998, the public need to know that l-arginine can change lives!
I would also suggest that in the future facts should be taken from Nutritionists and Holistic doctors as well as medical doctors interested in health care. It is also a shame that the readers have to look at a Crestor (medication for high cholesterol) add in the middle of the article. It kind of makes it look like AstraZeneca made the report…
Thank you for listening.
Looking forward for more heart health reading
