Total Health Magazine

Dear Pharmacist,

My older sister had a mastectomy earlier this year. I understand that breast cancer runs in families, so now I’m scared to death so I’m getting tests done myself. Can you offer advice from your natural perspective?

Dear Pharmacist,

My sister has breast cancer and is taking tamoxifen. She would like to take flax seed supplements (or eat the ground up seeds/oil) but she doesn’t know if it will help or interfere with her treatment. Her doctor said it was fine, but wanted her to double check with you, since they both read you in the local paper in Florida. Thanks for your help.

A 2007 survey involving 2,282 adults across the United States, including 1,111 men, found that more than half of the men had not seen their primary-care physician for a physical exam in the last year, and more than a quarter reported waiting “as long as possible” before seeking medical help for sickness, pain or health concerns. Of those men surveyed, 42 percent were diagnosed with at least one of the following chronic conditions: high blood pressure (28%), heart disease (8%), arthritis (13%), cancer (8%) or diabetes (10%).

The prerequisites for developing benign prostate hypertrophy (BPH) are the presence of testes and age. It is one of the most frequently occurring diseases in men over 60 years of age. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), BPH affects more than 50 percent of men over the age of 60 and as many as 90 percent of men over the age of 70. This translates to a staggering 4.5 million visits to a physician for BPH in the United States in 2000.¹

Most people realize the major risk factors of cancer.

These include smoking, alcohol use and others. The surprising fact is how your oral health has a connection to breast cancer. You may be 11 times more likely to develop breast cancer if you have poor oral health or gum disease. Journal of Breast Cancer Research and Treatment conducted a survey of 3,273 people and found that individuals with chronic periodontal disease (gum disease) had a higher occurrence of breast cancer.

On Wednesday, November 30, 2010, the Institute of Medicine's Food and Nutrition Board issued a report saying in essence that supplemental vitamin D over 800 IUs was unnecessary and could even be harmful (more on this in a minute).

Should you ignore this report? Yes. And I'll tell you why.

Solving the Mystery of the Multivitamin Part III

This article is the third in the series begun with “Solving the Mystery of the Multivitamin” and continued with “The Special Nutritional Needs of Women.” Here it is observed again you do not need to believe “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” in order to accept that men and women have different nutritional needs. Men lead in eight of the top ten causes of death in the United States. As it is often remarked, because men are more reluctant than women to seek medical care, when they do so, their illnesses typically have advanced to a more serious degree. It would seem that men, even more than women, would do well to adopt defensive measures to preserve their health. However, men should not depend on the supplements used by their wives or women friends. Some preventative measures are strictly gender-specific. The following suggestions are designed to help men take charge of their health while the ball is still in their court.

You don’t need to believe that “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” in order to accept that men and women have different nutritional needs. Men lead in eight of the top ten causes of death in the United States. As is often observed, because men are more reluctant than women to seek medical care, when they do so, their illnesses typically have advanced to a more serious degree. It would seem that men, even more than women, would do well to adopt defensive measures to preserve their health. Women are not only the fairer sex, but when it comes to health, they are in general, also savvier. However, men should not depend on the supplements used by their wives or women friends. Some preventative measures are strictly gender-specific. For example, whereas calcium and iron are good for women, these minerals may not be good supplement choices for men.

Antioxidants, Our Natural Protectants: Metabolic Regulators, Antitoxins and Anti-inflammatories

Antioxidants protect us. They are the sub-stances that naturally regulate the fires within our bodies.

The fires are sparked by metabolic errors in our cells—errors that are unavoidable as our cells make and use energy for the business of life. The fires can be managed when we are young and very healthy but become harder to control as we get older. Aging is not so much bad genes as it is a slow, inexorable, cumulative consequence of tissue damage from internal fires, sparked by these unavoidable errors of metabolism.