New This Issue

Welcome to another issue of The Health Plus Letter. And happy 4^th of July! This week, I’m excerpting another part of 1Healthyworld.com’s eBook on arthritis that explores how you can use the techniques of mind/body medicine to heal arthritis. In addition, you’ll also find an interesting article on the possible link between ear lobe creases and heart disease, along with self-care tips for dealing with anxiety.

As always, please continue to send me your comments and suggestions. And please spread the word about The Health Plus Letter by passing it along to your friends and inviting them to subscribe.


Quote Of The Day

“A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.”  
-- Kahlil Gibran

Fast Fact

An estimated 225,000 deaths are caused by U.S. health-care system annually.

Source: Dr. Barbara Starfield, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Unabashed Plug

Protect Yourself From Energy Pollution With the BioElectric Shield^TM. Energy pollution is all around us in the fo/rm of harmful electromagnetic frequencies and radiation (EMFs and EMR) emitted by power lines, cells phones, computers, and many other so-called modern conveniences. By wearing the BioElectric Shield pendant, you can protect yourself from the harmful effects of EMFs and EMR. To obtain a BioElectricShield, visit http://www.mcssl.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=408491. To learn more about how and why the BioElectric Shield works, see my article about it at http://www.1healthyworld.com/ezine/vol4no9.cfm.


Mind/Body Approaches for Healing Arthritis (Part 2)

[The following article is an excerpt from the eBook Burton Goldberg’s Definitive Guide to Arthritis. It is available at http://www.1healthyworld.com/ebooks/Arthritis-Book-Info.cfm]
 
Being "Stressed Out" Is A Pervasive Problem

Although the concept of stress—being "stressed out" or "under constant stress"—may be commonly discussed today, its role as a contributing factor in many diseases is underappreciated. Estimates suggest that as much as 70% to 80% of all visits to physicians’ offices are for stress-related problems. Chronic stress directly affects the immune system, and if not effectively dealt with, can seriously compromise health.

Stress is a pervasive problem among Americans, according to a 1996 poll of corporate executives. For example, 44% of employees polled said their work load is excessive compared to 37% in 1988; 43% are bothered by excessive job pressure; and 55% worry considerably about their company’s future; 25% of both men and women feel stressed out at work every day, another 12% feel it almost every day, and another 38% feel it once to several days a week.

Stress can be defined as a reaction (to any stimulus or interference) that upsets normal functioning and disturbs mental or physical health. It can be brought on by internal conditions such as illness, pain, emotional conflict, or psychological problems, or by external circumstances, such as bereavement, financial problems, loss of job or spouse, relocation, food allergies, and electromagnetic fields. Stress, when it becomes chronic, is often unrecognized by the person whose body is experiencing it; one begins to accept it as a fact of life, without being aware of how it is actually compromising all bodily function and preparing the foundation for illness.

More specifically, research confirms that high levels of emotional stress increase one’s susceptibility to illness. Unrelieved, chronic stress begins taxing and eventually weakening or even suppressing the immune system. Stress can also lead to hormonal imbalances which, in turn, interfere with immune function. Of all the body’s systems, stress damages immune function the most. It does so by overly activating the sympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system, the part that controls the "fight-or-flight" response and initiates adrenaline and cortisol release.

Research in psychoneuroimmunology, or PNI, has shown that the immune and nervous systems are linked by extensive networks of nerve endings in the spleen, bone marrow, lymph nodes, and thymus gland (a primary source of T cells). At the same time, receptors for a variety of chemical messengers—catecholamines, prostaglandins, thyroid hormone, growth hormone, sex hormones, serotonin, and endorphins—have been found on the surfaces of white blood cells. Such connections serve to integrate the activities of the immune, hormonal, and nervous systems, enabling the mind and emotional states to influence the body’s resistance to disease.

Common Causes of Stress

Pain
Emotional Conflict
Financial Problems
Death in the Family
Job/Career Pressures
Allergies
Poor Diet
Substance Abuse
Fatigue
Environmental Pollution

The "Fight-or-Flight" Response

Pioneering stress researcher Hans Selye, M.D., a Canadian physiologist, noted a consistent pattern of response to stress and termed these the general adaptation syndrome (GAS), commonly referred to as the "fight-or-flight" response. The GAS occurs in three stages: the alarm reaction, the stage of resistance, and the stage of exhaustion. Initially, the body’s biochemistry tends to react to stress in an orderly fashion. Stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system (part of the autonomic nervous system) activates the secretion of hormones from the endocrine glands and constricts both the blood vessels and the involuntary muscles of the body. When the endocrine glands (pancreas, thyroid, pituitary, sex glands, and particularly the adrenals) are stimulated, heart rate, glucose metabolism, and oxygen consumption increase. The parasympathetic nervous system is also stimulated, which begins a process of relaxation. The pituitary gland responds by releasing a variety of hormones throughout the body, which influence the defensive and adaptive mechanisms. Endorphins, the body’s own natural painkillers, are also released.

Dr. Selye points out, however, that eventually chronic stress depletes the body’s resources and its ability to adapt. If stress continues and remains unattended for a long period, coping functions will be compromised and illness will result.

Stress, the Adrenal Glands, and Arthritis

The adrenal glands, part of the body’s endocrine system, are located atop the kidneys. The glands are composed of two types of tissue: the adrenal medulla and the adrenal cortex. The adrenal medulla, comprising 10%-20% of the gland, is located in the interior portion and is responsible for the production of the hormones epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline). These hormones are released in direct response to the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the fight-or-flight response to stress or physical threats. The adrenal cortex, the outer layer, surrounds the medulla and accounts for 80%-90% of the gland. It is responsible for the production of corticosteroids (also called adrenal steroids). Over 30 different steroids have been isolated from the adrenal cortex, including cortisol and cortisone.

Cortisol secretion (as well as the adrenal gland’s other steroids, DHEA, adrenaline, and aldosterone) occurs in daily cycles, peaking in the morning and having the lowest values at night. Cortisol promotes protein building, regulates insulin and glycogen synthesis, and helps produce prostaglandins (hormone-like fatty acids involved in inflammatory processes). Under conditions of stress, high amounts of cortisol are released. Imbalances in cortisol secretion are linked with low energy, inflammation, muscle dysfunction, impaired bone repair, thyroid dysfunction, immune system depression, sleep disorders, and poor skin regeneration.

In a prolonged stressful state, chronic pain sets in as supplies of cortisol and other adrenal hormones plummet and eventually run out as the adrenals become exhausted. One function of cortisol is to act as a potent anti-inflammatory hormone. If you have arthritis, the pain and inflammation in your joints will worsen as your adrenal glands stop producing cortisol. This results in fatigue, muscle weakness, depression, and a magnification of arthritic symptoms.

Based on our clinical experience with hundreds of patients, we find that arthritis sufferers, both osteoarhtritis and rhematoid arthritis, are typically in a moderate to advanced state of adrenal exhaustion. Researchers are also beginning to find evidence of a connection between stress and arthritis. A recent study found that in 86% of cases, the onset of rheumatoid arthritis was preceded by stressful events in the patients’ lives. In addition, there was a correlation between arthritis flare-ups and stressful events in 60% of patients. When patients with psoriatic arthritis are questioned, the practitioner will often find a correlation between a stressful life event (divorce, loss of job, etc.) and the initial onset of the condition.

For a patient in this situation, conventional medicine typically prescribes pharmaceutical drugs similar to cortisol (corticosteroids) for the pain and inflammation; prednisone, for example, is 30 times as potent as endogenous cortisol. Many practitioners of natural medicine feel that, while the judicious use of corticosteroids is helpful for a short period of time to stabilize the patient, the long-term use and reliance on these powerful drugs is devastating. These drugs can suppress immunity, interfere with sleep cycles, and increase bone and collagen breakdown as well as suppress the proper function and production of the adrenal hormones and further diminish the functioning of the adrenal glands.

The Arthritis Personality

The most critical aspect of stress is not the event itself, but your response or interpretation of the situation. Do you respond with hope or despair? With helplessness or commitment to resolve the situation? With pent-up anger or tranquility? How you respond, to some degree, reflects your personality type.

Behavioral patterns are commonly broken down into two basic types: Type As and Type Bs. Type A personalities are described as aggressive and competitive, easily angered, always in a hurry, and hostile. Type Bs do not exhibit these characteristics, but are more deliberate, thinking through a situation and formulating a plan of action. Beginning in the 1960s, studies began to show that personality type can have a profound influence on your health. One study followed 3,000 middle-aged men over an eight-and-a-half year period and found that Type As were twice as likely to develop heart disease as Type Bs. A recent study of air tr/affic controllers found that Type As had three-and-a-half times more job-related injuries and 38% more illnesses overall than Type Bs.

We have repeatedly seen certain common personality characteristics exhibited by those with arthritis. One of our observations matches that of Louise Hay, author of Heal Your Life, who notes that arthritis is a disease seen frequently in men and women who develop a constant pattern of criticism of themselves and others. We’ve also noted that the critical tendency does not always have to be overt: it might be completely internal, a type of inner voice that keeps telling the person that things are not ‘OK’, that they could be better.

However, it is generally not in the nature of the arthritis personality to express their feelings or to attempt to creatively change the situation that disturbs them. This is the second trait of the arthritis personality: they are more likely to appear to accept it, but have an internal resistance to change. Researchers at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, conducted a study to evaluate the personality traits of rheumatoid disease sufferers. Their findings indicate that "patients with rheumatoid diseases are likely to be excessively conscientious, fearful of criticism yet critical of themselves and others, frequently depressed, and have a poor self-image." The study group exhibited characteristics that led them to try to be overly nice to other people at the expense of their own well-being, to be stoic, and to conceal their emotions (especially anger). "Many rheumatic disease sufferers have a situation of long-standing tension or anger in their lives, yet would assert when questioned that everything was ‘OK’, even though it was furthest from the truth. They were remarkably conforming to these traits, which seemed to precede their disease, not be caused as a result of it."

In these individuals, unfulfilled expectations lead to a sense of increased frustration and even anger that they keep to themselves, perhaps eventually turning the immune system against itself. From this perspective, arthritis can be seen as a type of frozen impulse. The arthritis personality, due to their critical nature, wants things to be different, but the impulse to change is constantly suppressed by an unwillingness or inability to change. Biochemically, this may manifest itself by the accumulation of stress hormones in the body, particularly in the joints, the area of the body representing the greatest flexibility and mobility. Stiffness and rigidity are the dominant states of mind and they are also the dominant conditions of an arthritic joint.

Those traits seem related to a third one we have noted in our work with arthritis sufferers: a pronounced tendency to cling to the status quo. They tend to be very rigid and structured in their dietary routines, sedentary or overly active lifestyle, and even dependence on medications. We have found it extremely difficult to persuade arthritis patients to adopt the lifestyle changes needed for recovery, sometimes even though they are experiencing severe pain.

Are You Stressed Out?

If you answer "yes" to more than five of the quest/ions below, it indicates that you have too much stress in your life. In parentheses after each question are some potential underlying causes for the problem.

Do you often grind your teeth? (digestive dysfunction, parasites)
Is your breath shallow and irregular? (low metabolic energy, food allergies)
Are your hands and feet cold? (hormonal imbalance, adrenal/thyroid weakness)
Do you have trouble sleeping or tend to wake up tired? (liver dysfunction, food allergies)
Do you often have an upset stomach? (food allergies)
Do you get mad or irritated easily? (liver dysfunction)
Do you feel worthless? (low metabolic energy, chronic fatigue)
Do you constantly worry? (hormonal imbalance)
Do you have problems concentrating and articulating your thoughts? (low metabolic energy, digestive or hormonal imbalance)
Do you frequently fidget, chew your fingers, or bite your nails? (food allergies, digestive disturbances)
Do you have high blood pressure? (food allergies, digestive disturbances)
Do you eat, drink, or smoke excessively? (low metabolic energy, poor diet)
Do you sometimes turn to recreational drugs just to get away? (low metabolic energy, poor diet)

Other Symptoms Associated With Stress

Anxiety
Indigestion
Weight Loss or Gain
Depression
Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)
Bad Breath or Body Odors
Muscle Spasms

[Continued next issue.]

Unabashed Plug

Discover and Gain Control of Your Human Energy Field. Read Dr. Valerie Hunt’s Mind Mastery Meditations: A Workbook for the “Infinite Mind,” the empowering guide created by one of the world's foremost researchers into the human energy field, energy medicine, and the relationship between consciousness and health. Each of the meditations this eBook contains is designed to give you mastery of your mind and to empower you to discover the answers to why you are the way you are, your soul's needs, your unique talents and capacities, and your self-designed destiny. By practicing and mastering these meditations, you will become able to live your life with greater ease and success, speed your self-healing, and dramatically increase your ability to manifest your deepest goals. To order this life-changing guide, visit
http://www.1healthyworld.com/ebooks/Mind-Mastery-Book-Info.cfm.


Self-Care Tips for Preventing and Reversing Anxiety

Anxiety is a sense of fear and, in some cases, a feeling of impending doom. The term anxiety disorder refers to a category of disturbances that includes generalized anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. A panic attack is an acute anxiety episode that may be accompanied by sweating, shortness of breath, hot or cold flashes, heart palpitations, and other forms of discomfort. Anxiety disorders occur in people of all ages, but appear to be more common among women. The exact cause is complex, involving constitutional factors, emotional stress, biochemical imbalances, and environmental triggers.

Symptoms: The occurrence of a panic attack is often unpredictable, but it may be associated with certain situations such as driving a car. Anxiety is an emotion that may feature excessive worry, sleep disturbances, shakiness, ritualistic behavior, fear of being alone or in public places, impatience, easy distraction, and great apprehension concerning the welfare of loved ones. Associated physical symptoms include racing pulse, heart palpitations, shortness or rapidity of breath, sweating, dry mouth, numbness and tingling of the hands and feet or cold/clammy hands, lightheadedness or dizziness, fatigue, trembling, indigestion, and diarrhea.

Self-Care

Diet: Assess diet for excessive consumption of stressor foods such as: refined sugars, honey, maple syrup, or dairy products. Consume vegetable soups, broths, and a wide variety of green and yellow vegetables. Add more complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, beans, seeds, and nuts.

Nutritional Therapy: The following nutrients have been shown to help address the biochemical conditions associated with anxiety: calcium, magnesium, vitamin B complex, pantothenic acid, adrenal glandulars, kidney glandulars, 5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan).

Stabilium, a product containing Garum Armoricum (a fish, salt, and herb preparation dating to the Roman Empire and traditionally used for its high nutritive value), is an adaptogen which can also help balance mood, improve sleep, and increase energy and stamina. GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), an amino acid, can also affect mood by increasing levels of the brain neurotransmitter serotonin (a mood regulator).

Flower Essences: Flower essences may prove helpful. Aspen is for apprehension, foreboding, and fear of unknown origin while mimulus is for fear of known things, shyness, and timidity. Red chestnut is used for excessive anxiety and over caring for others. Rescue Remedy® (combination formula) for general stress from anxiety; Rock Rose for terror and panic from known fear.

Herbs: Panax ginseng has a nutritive or tonic effect on the adrenal glands, improving blood flow to the brain and reducing the stress associated with mental/emotional issues. Valerian root, an herbal tranquilizer and muscle relaxant, is another good agent for calming the nervous system. It helps balance mood swings and is not habit forming. Valerian-hops combination formulas are good daytime sedatives because they don’t interfere with reflex actions. Passionflower is another mild sedative that helps reduce anxiety, high blood pressure, nervous tension, and muscle tension, and encourages deep, restful sleep. Extract of the kava-kava plant, an herbal tranquilizer native to Polynesia, can lower anxiety levels and alleviate panic disorder and general tension in as quickly as a week. St. John’s wort, a highly popular remedy for depression, has proven effective for anxiety and mood swings as well.

Homeopathy: Aconite, Actaea rac., Drosera, Calc carb., Sulfur.

Hydrotherapy: Constitutional hydrotherapy, immersion bath, or wet sheet pack: apply two to five times weekly, neutral application as needed for sedation.

Hypnotherapy: Self-hypnosis to impart to the mind imagery designed to bring about deep leels of relaxation.

Meditation: Develops the mind’s ability to stop anxiety at its source.

Note: The information above was adapted from Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide, 2^nd Edition, co-authored and edited by Larry Trivieri, Jr. (Celestial Arts, 2002).
 

Unabashed Plug

Learn the Truth about Heart Disease, Stroke and Hypertension. Most of what conventional medicine has to offer for treating these conditions is based on faulty and potentially dangerous assumptions. Discover the real causes behind these diseases and learn what you can do today to prevent and reverse them using safe and natural alternatives that have been scientifically proven to be effective. Read the critically-acclaimed eBook Burton Goldberg’s Definitive Guide to Heart Disease, featuring the contributions of Dr. Garry Gordon, Dr. Stephen Sinatra, and many other leading heart specialists. To order or to find out more about this potentially lifesaving guide, visit http://www.1healthyworld.com/ebooks/Heart-Book-Info.cfm.

Is There A Link Between Your Earlobes and Heart Disease?

Can your earlobes help you determine if you are risk for a heart attack or stroke? According to more than 30 scientific studies, the answer may be yes. The findings from the studies indicate that people with earlobes that have diagonal creases (creases that appear at a 45 degree downward angle toward the shoulder) have a significantly higher risk of developing heart attack, even when other risk factors, such as high cholesterol, smoking, and a sedentary lifestyle, are not present.

Health experts first began to speculate that there might be a link between diagonal earlobe creases and heart disease as early as 1958, due to observations by physicians that many of their patients who suffered from heart disease also had creases in one or both of their earlobes. As a result of these anecdotal reports, a physician at the University of Chicago named William Elliott decided to investigate the matter. In order to do so, he studied 27 groups of people over a period of eight years. Each group consisted of two pairs of people matched for age, sex, and race. The first pair in each group also had a known history of heart disease, while the second pair consisted of apparently healthy people. One person in each pair also had diagonal creases in their earlobes.

Dr. Elliott followed all of the participants in his study for eight years. At the end of that period, a significantly greater number of people with earlobe creases had died, compared to those in the study without earlobe creases, regardless of whether they were known to have heart disease at the time the study began.

In a subsequent study conducted by Dr. Elliott, he examined 1,000 people who had been admitted to a hospital. 373 of these people had diagonal earlobe creases and 627 people did not. Among those with earlobe creases, 74 percent suffered from some type of heart disease, compared to only 16 percent among patients without earlobe creases.

Since Dr. Elliott first began his research, other studies have shown similar results. In another of the studies, 264 heart disease patients were followed for a period of ten years. At the end of that time, the researchers who conducted the study found that, after they adjusted the study’s results to take other risk factors into consideration, the presence of a diagonal crease in one earlobe increased the risk of heart attack by 33 percent. When creases were present in both earlobes, the risk of heart rose to 77 percent.

Based on such studies, many health experts now consider diagonal earlobe creases to be a better and more accurate indicator of a risk for heart attack, stroke, and other heart diseases than other known risk factors, such as age, diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, sedentary lifestyle, a family history of heart disease, and smoking, especially for people under the age of 80. However, the predictive value of earlobe creases among Asians, Native Americans, and people born with a genetic defect known as Beckwith’s disease is virtually nil compared to blacks and whites.

What is the reason why earlobe creases may indicate a greater risk for heart disease? The primary reason has to do with the fact that the earlobe contains an abundance of small blood vessels known as capillaries. When hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis) occurs, blood flow through the capillaries is diminished. Left unchecked, this will result in a collapse of what is known as the “vascular bed” of the earlobe, eventually causing creases to form. Atherosclerosis, of course, is a primary risk factor for heart attacks and stroke, explaining why earlobe creases may serve as a physical warning sign that a person is at risk for such conditions.

Why there is no definitive proof that earlobe creases are signs of impending heart attacks or other types of heart disease, the circumstantial evidence in the studies that suggest such a link is difficult to ignore. Therefore, if you are under the age of 80 and white or black, and you notice creases developing on one or both of your earlobes, if might be a good idea to be tested by your doctor. After all, as the saying goes, it’s better to be safe than sorry.


Recommendations

Books
Health on the Edge: Visionary Views of Healing In The New Millennium by Larry Trivieri, Jr. Of all the books I’ve written, this remains one of my favorites. Unfortunately, it’s now out of print, but you can find remaindered copies for less than five bucks at amazon.com. I highly recommend it.

Sacred Healing by C. Norman Shealy. Dr. Shealy, whom I profiled in Health on the Edge, was one of the first mainstream physicians to recognize the need to create a more inclusive and comprehensive model of medicine, which he did by founding the American Holistic Medical Association. These days, Norm is very active in reconnecting medicine and healing to spirituality and in this book he does an excellent job of explaining why that is so important and how we can reconnect with the sacred on our own.

 
Medical Freedom

Please contact and support the following organizations dedicated to protecting our health freedoms.
 
Citizens for Health - http://www.citizens.org

Alliance for Natural Health – http://www.alliance-natural-health.org (The leading organization fighting to preserve health f/r/e/edom in England and the EU.)

Institute for Health Freedom – http://www.ForHealthF/r/e/edom.org

International Advocates for Health Freedom (IAHF) – http://www.iahf.com

And to learn how corrupt and extensive Big Pharma’s monopoly is, visit http://www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr/online/research/index.html the website for the Campaign Against Fraudulent Medical Research. In particular, read their in-depth report The Pharmaceutical Drug Racket that you will find there.

That’s all for this week.

Health and Blessings!

Larry Trivieri, Jr.

Contact Information: Due to the inordinate amount of spam my email account receives, I no longer use it to receive emails. To contact me, please visit www.1healthyworld.com/contactus

Disclaimer: The Health Plus Letter is a weekly eZine published by Larry Trivieri, Jr. and Library of Health, LLC (dba www.1healthyworld.com) 3 Greenwood Court, Utica, NY 13501. It is made available without charge for information purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical care. If you are experiencing a health problem, seek prompt medical attention.

The Health Plus Letter is fully compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

Legal Notice: The information in this eZine may be freely and widely disseminated so long as full attribution is made as follows: The Health Plus Letter, July 3, 2008, Vol. 6, No. 13. Copyright © 2008 by Larry Trivieri, Jr. All rights reserved.

To Subscribe Or Unsubscribe to The Health Plus Letter, please visit http://www.1healthyworld.com/lists