Diabetes is not just the disorder of the pancreas, it can cause serious complications in almost all systems in your body. It is important that a diabetic patient pays close attention to the symptoms and discuss them with the doctor.

1. Vision.

Diabetes can cause blood vessels to leak into the retina, leading to blurry vision or blindness. It can also cause cataracts and glaucoma to develop. Get eye exams regularly.

2. Mouth.

Tooth and gum problems are more likely to happen in diabetic patients. See your dentist twice a year.

3. Skin.

Skin often feels dry, itchy and easy to crack in diabetic patients. Cracked skin are easily infected too. Use moisturizer.

4. Feet.

Nerve damage and circulation problems in diabetes often lead to serious foot problems, such as infection and amputation. Check your feet daily for injuries and see your doctor if it doesn’t heal after one day.

5. Heart.

Diabetic patients have a higher risk of heart attack and stroke. Monitor your blood pressure and cholesterol levels and get treatments if they are abnormal.

6. Kidney.

Damage to blood vessels in diabetes may damage kidneys. Have your urine checked out for protein once a year to monitor kidney function.

Source: webmd.com

Winter is here again, so is flu season. Here are some tips to hinder the spread of flu.

1. Do not sneeze or cough into your hands. Instead, sneeze or cough into your elbow or a tissue.

2. If you are sick, stay home until your temperature is normal for 24 hours so that you do not spread the viruses everywhere.

3. Vaccination is an effective way to prevent from getting flu.

4. Eat healthy, get enough sleep, exercise regularly and manage your stress well. All these will keep your immune system strong.

5. Some herbs may have antiviral effect, such as ginger, licorice, garlic, ginseng and eleuthero.

6. Antiviral drug Tamiflu, which is derived from Chinese star anise, may alleviate flu symptoms.

7. Take adequate amount of daily vitamin D may lower your risk of getting upper respiratory infections.

If you have severe symptoms like difficulty breathing, chest or abdominal pain, severe vomiting etc, you should seek medical attention.

Source: www.MotherEarthNews.com

A few dedicated experts tell the story of how they began to realize all the toxic exposures in daily life that could be causing the epidemic – toxics in their home and even their own personal care products.

A few dedicated breast cancer activists relate how they tried to improve regulations to prevent breast cancer, and how they have changed their own lives to make it safer.

See full post and videos HERE!

If you have no time to exercise, this excuse will not really work anymore because the researchers have initiate that short-term high-intensity interval training is a time proficient way of exercising. Read more »

There are three main types of headaches: tension headaches, migraines and cluster headaches.

Whatever type of headaches you might have, many therapies can alleviate the pain and even prevent it.

First, you should identify triggers of your headache. Keep a diary to help you find out if the weather, certain smell, specific foods, lack of sleep set you off.

Often, several factors may work together to cause the pain. But once you figure out the triggers of your headaches, you’ll be able to take actions to prevent it.

Stress Management

Stress and anxiety often trigger tension headache and migraine. Good stress management helps to relieve headaches.

Yoga, meditation and aerobic exercises all help relax your body and mind. A good massage will do the same.

Improve Sleep

Insufficient sleep, jet lag, or even too much sleep can cause headaches.

Nondrug strategies that improve your sleep will reduce the frequency of headaches, such as taking a warm bath before going to bed, avoiding taking caffeine and alcohol too late at night, practicing deep breathing, using  a lavendder pillow, etc.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is widely used to treat headaches and is beneficial in reducing and preventing headaches.

Read more, click here. Also see Natural Ways to manage headaches (2).

While having a healthy diet is crucial to maintaining a normal blood cholesterol level, other healthy lifestyle changes will make a difference too.

1. Exercise

Exercising keeps your weight down, strengthens your heart, improves circulation and releases stress. Regular workout lowers blood pressure, reduces triglycerides and raises HDL levels.

2. Keep weight down

Excess weight contributes to high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, all risk factors for heart disease. Obesity increases heart attack risk significantly. Losing weight can lower the risk.

3. Quit smoking

Cigarette smoke injures artery lining, elevates LDL, lowers HDL and facilitate clog formation. Risk of heart disease lowers soon after quitting.

4. Relax

Anxiety and hostility put stress on the cardiovascular system. Relaxation can mend it. Meditation has been shown to reduce stress, blood pressure, cholesterol and atherosclerosis.

Lifestyle changes are critical to your heart health. To read the original article, click here.

Also see Control Your Cholesterol (1) — Basics, (2) — Diet, and (4) — Other measures.

Once you’ve developed atherosclerosis, some conditions can make it worse.

1. Diabetes

Atherosclerosis often develops earlier and more extensively in patients with diabetes. These patients tend to have atherosclerosis not only in big arteries, but small blood vessels as well.

2. High blood pressure

High blood pressure increases damage to the lining of arteries and is associated with inflammation reaction.

3. Obesity

Abdominal obesity raises the risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol, which can cause damage to the arteries. Obesity itself also increases the risk of having atherosclerosis in the arteries supplying blood to the heart.

4. Smoking

Smoking injures the inner lining of the arteries, raises LDL (bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL (good cholesterol). It has been linked to the progression of atherosclerosis.

To prevent or slow down the development of atherosclerosis, keep blood pressure, cholesterol, weight and diabetes under good control.

Source: webmd.com

Also see: Atherosclerosis (1) — How does it develop?

Besides lifestyle change, nasal flushing and immunotherapy, there are some natural plants or plant extracts that work well to treat or prevent allergy symptoms.

Quercetin

Quercetin is a natural compound derived from plant. It is a natural antioxidant that can be found in citrus fruits, onions, apples, parsley, tea, tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce and wine.

Quercetin supplements can prevent allergy attacks. It is best to start using it six weeks before allergy season.

Allergy Fighting Foods

Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids help alleviate allergy symptoms. Omega-3s can be found in cold-water fish, walnuts, flaxseed oil, grass-fed meat and eggs.

Also, add spices such as horseradish, chili peppers or hot mustard to your food. They act as natural decongestants.

Stinging Nettle

Stinging nettle (see image) acts like many of the drugs sold to treat allergies. But it has the advantage of not causing the side effects like dry mouth and drowsiness.

You can make your own tinctures or teas with stinging nettle. Or you can use stinging nettle extract capsules.

Butterbur

Butterbur is another plant used to treat allergies. It is as effective as the drug cetirizine,  the active ingredient in Zyrtec. However, butterbur doesn’t cause drowsiness.

Also see Natural Remedies for Allergy (1). Read more, go here.

According to an investigator in Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, an urine test that can concurrently measure the extent of a potential carcinogenic process and a marker of garlic consumption in humans has been studied, the test suggested that the more garlic people consumed, the lower the levels of the potential carcinogenic process were. Read more »

A recent study examined the effects of foot-wear choices early in life on foot pain. It seems that the kind of shoes one wears most of the time has a significant effect on how much foot pain will develop later in life.

The study classified shoes into three groups: Good (athletic or casual sneakers), average (hard- or rubber-soled shoes, work boots), and poor (high heels, sandals, slippers).

The results showed that about 30% of women in the study had generalized foot pain on most days. However, women who wore good shoes were 67% less likely to develop foot pain than those who wore average shoes.

Men are not as susceptible to foot pain as women due to obvious reason: Only 2% of them wore poor shoes.

So next time you are temped to try on a pair of high heels, knowing that pretty shoes may cost you more than you have realized.

Source: webmd.com