Health and Wellness Archives - Page 11 of 17

Dr. Art Hister – Think Positive to Live Better

Although most cultures have long acknowledged that how “sick” we are is often a function of how we feel about the rest of our lives, i.e. that the mind and body are intimately connected, western medicine has been pretty sceptical about that link, mostly because it’s very hard to measure that kind of connection, and what scientists can’t measure, they generally ignore or even worse, disparage.

But the truth is that there is an intimate connection between “the head” and “the body”, and that connection is at the root of lots of what works and doesn’t work in medicine.

Take this very interesting study published recently in the American Heart Journal.

In this study researchers took 30 people who were suffering with chest pain and who were undergoing angiography (a procedure to check the state of the heart arteries), none of whom actually had significant heart disease, although they all thought that that in fact was the reason for their pain, and gave them all the same medication.

However, the researchers told half the patients that they were getting a drug that would not only relieve their pain, but that the drug would also improve their arterial function.

The truth, however, is that the patients were just being given a saline solution.

Not surprisingly, those people who were told they were getting an active drug not only reported a dip in the amount of pain they were suffering, but their arteries actually changed as a result of the suggestion that they were getting an active drug.

The control group had exactly the opposite reaction: they reported an increase in pain and their arteries changed in the opposite direction to the “suggestion” group.

In other words, expect a drug to work and it is very much more likely to work than if you go into the therapy expecting no results.

Simple tips to keep families healthy

Limit your risk to cold, flu and infections during Back to School.

Children will be sharing more than just laughter and snacks with each other as they return to school. With cold and flu season around the corner, London Drugs is committed to helping parents and children learn simple precautions they can take to prevent the spread of viruses and bacteria.

Illnesses and infections such as a cold, the flu, pinkeye, and strep throat are common contagious conditions kids are likely to catch at school. Schools can provide an ideal breeding environment for viruses and bacteria and prevention is the key to help keep kids healthy.

Practicing the following ill-fighting habits will help to reduce the chances of getting sick:

Frequent hand washing. Regular handwashing using soap and warm water for at least 15 seconds. If water and soap are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer and ensure you rub your hands until the product is dry.
Cough or sneeze into a tissue or into your sleeve. Dispose of the tissue right away and wash your hands afterwards using the tips above.
Avoid rubbing your nose and eyes. Keep your hands away from your eyes, nose and mouth to keep germs from entering your body.
Don’t share. Avoid sharing food, utensils, water bottles and other things that could pass bacteria and viruses.
Taking a regular daily dose of vitamin C. Vitamin C intake can help decrease the duration and severity of a cold if you get one.
Rest well. If your child is sick, keep them home from school and avoid contact with others.

Aside from a good rest, medications are also available to relieve symptoms associated with commonly seen illnesses. London Drugs pharmacists are available for in-store consultation to provide with customers the most up-to-date treatments and care.

Dr Art Hister – Food and Noise

The ultimate reason that airline food is so tasteless

One of the major changes in the way airlines work over the last few years is that they hardly ever feed you on a flight any longer, although given the way airline food generally tastes, that’s probably a very good thing for most of us.

In fact, for me, it’s been a real bonus because I’ve now learned to arrange a home-made tasty package to take with me onto a plane every time I fly, and believe me, when I take out my take-away sushi package, I often end up being the envy of my seatmates.

But here’s the thing: why does airplane food taste so, well, “bland” is the nice term I’ll use, since this is a nice column for nice people, after all.

Well, this will probably surprise most of you but the reason airline food tastes so “bland”, according to a recent study is not that airlines use the lowest common denominator ingredients for those mass-produced meals or that they pre-cook the meals several weeks in advance (pre-wash them may be more like it) or that they use the blandest recipes to try not to aggravate too many passengers.

Nope, turns out, according to this study in the little-read journal, Food Quality and Preference, that it’s flying itself that makes food taste so tasteless.

Apparently, when study subjects were blind-folded and asked to taste some dishes, the foods they ate tasted less salty and less sweet to them – more bland in other words – than when they were not wearing blindfolds, although the food also tasted “crunchier” with blindfolds on.

Bottom line: if you want to enjoy your mama’s cooking to the max, don’t eat her meals while parked beside a highway playing the boom box machine but rather try to eat them when locked in a sound-proof room.

Dr Art Hister – Food Handling and Germs

I don’t believe in very many rules, but I must say that the one rule that’s never let me down, at least not in the medical realm, is the Rule (or Law) of Unintended Consequences, which goes something like this: no matter how much good we think we’re doing for no matter how many people, somewhere along the line someone is going to suffer a negative consequence from all our intended do-gooding, and those people will suffer consequences that we never dreamed of, Horatio.

So, I was not at all surprised that according to a study in the Journal of Food Protection, food handlers who wear gloves – which those of us of a suspicious nature are always ensuring that our sandwich makers are wearing– may actually pass on infections more easily to the people who eat that food than people who handle food with only their bare hands but who wash their hands frequently and thoroughly, which is what you hope all food handlers are always doing, even your mom or spouse.

Apparently, you see, the heat and moisture that accumulate under gloves are a terrific breeding ground for germs, and since gloves are never much more than imperfect barriers to germs, those bacteria can then be more easily transmitted to the food those gloves hands are handling.

One of the more obvious solutions to this problem is to make sure that anyone who touches your food also changes their gloves quite often, although that’s clearly a very hard thing to establish.

So better yet, perhaps: make your own lunch.

Dr Art Hister – Smoking and Pregnancy

For any woman who is pregnant right now (or even one thinking of getting pregnant one day) and who is still smoking, here’s a very encouraging piece of news.

A study that looked at 50,000 pregnancies concluded that if a woman gave up smoking soon after she conceived, she had the same chance of a giving birth to a normal-weight baby as a woman who has never smoked.

And the reason that matters is that low birth-weight is a major marker for lots of other health problems. Not to mention that smoking is also related to other key problems during the pregnancy and during labour, as well as in the post-partum period. And, that smoking by a parent, either the mom or the dad, and worst of all by both, is linked to some pretty negative health measures in children forced to live in a smoky environment.

Anyway, the bottom line from this study is pretty simple and should hit home hard to any woman still smoking after conception: quit smoking early in your pregnancy, and there is no harm to the baby.

Dr Art Hister – A Prescription for Everyone

Here’s a very cute study from Scandinavia that should apply to nearly everyone reading this.

Apparently, doctors in Sweden have been able to “prescribe” physical activity to their patients for a few years now.

I’m not quite sure how they do it although they probably just write an (illegible) prescription that says something like: for Sven Peterson, 35 minutes of cardio every day, 15 minutes of weight-training three times a week, and no more than 2 hours of TV a night. Repeat 3 times a year as necessary.

But however it’s done, it’s apparently working to get more Swedes to be more active, because in this study, the researchers say that they followed 98 individuals in 4 different areas of the country, all of whom had been prescribed “physical activity” by their doctors. They found that the majority “follow their prescription and reduce their sedentary leisure time”.

Now, there may just be something about Swedes, that makes them more likely than people elsewhere to stick to a prescription like this (one that they could easily just ignore, just like so many people ignore medication prescriptions from doctors). But I doubt it and I think that many Canadians would also follow a prescription such as this if only someone prescribed it to them.

So, in my ongoing attempts to make every Canadian be as healthy as they can be, here’s a prescription for anyone reading this from your local media doctor (and hey, it’s also in a format that you are able to read properly): do some cardio exercise (but first make sure to check with your own doctor that your heart can take it) 3-4 times a week for 30 (or more) minutes, some weight-training (and make sure you know how to do this properly by getting someone who’s an expert in it to show you proper technique) for 15-30 minutes, 2-3 times a week, and work on your balance and flexibility as often as you can think of it.

And make an appointment to see me again in 6 months. Next, please.

Dr Art Hister – Prescription Drug Use

If you’re a typical senior, chances are you’re on at least 2 prescription drugs, and many of you are likely on several.

That’s according to a survey just carried out in the US where 88.4 % of people over the age of 60 were found to be on at least one prescription drug (I figure the other 11.6 % were probably not seeing a doctor), and 31 % of all Americans (not just seniors) were taking 2 or more prescription drugs, while a staggering 11% were taking 5 or more prescription drugs.

And note that those are drugs by prescription; most of those people, I am sure, were also taking at least one, and probably several over-the-counter preparations.

Now there would be nothing wrong with those numbers, if all those drugs were 1) prescribed for very good reasons, in other words, they were being taken either to prolong life or promote health, 2) they were all safe, 3) they were all effective at doing what they are supposed to do, and 4) there were very few drug interactions to worry about.

The sad truth, however, is that many prescription drugs are iffy in their effectiveness, their safety is always at issue (even after many years), and drug interactions are a huge concern, so that the more drugs you take, the greater the potential problems.

And unfortunately, the way our health care system works, it’s not always possible to go through all those variables in the typical visit with the family doctor.

Not only that but indications are always changing, that is, what the doctor told you about why you need a certain drug when you first got that prescription may no longer be valid, yet many people continue on prescriptions for years and years without asking if it’s still necessary to do so.

That’s why one of the most important friends you can make is your pharmacist. Your pharmacist is often the best person to ask about what a medication is supposed to be doing, what side effects you should expect, what potential complications to look for, what drug interactions you should be aware of, etc, etc.

Go ahead, the next time you get a prescription filled, talk to your pharmacist about that drug – you’re going to be pleasantly surprised at what you learn.

Dr. Art Hister – Think Positive to Live Better

Simple tips to keep families healthy

Dr Art Hister – Food and Noise

Dr Art Hister – Food Handling and Germs

Dr Art Hister – Smoking and Pregnancy

Dr Art Hister – A Prescription for Everyone

Dr Art Hister – Prescription Drug Use

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Dr. Art Hister – Think Positive to Live Better

Simple tips to keep families healthy

Dr Art Hister – Food and Noise

Dr Art Hister – Food Handling and Germs

Dr Art Hister – Smoking and Pregnancy

Dr Art Hister – A Prescription for Everyone

Dr Art Hister – Prescription Drug Use

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