Health related information and news from around the world.

Congratulations on your wonderful recovery from a heart attack. You are now up and about after the convalescent period. It takes about six months for nature’s repair processes to take full effect. Your doctor would have assessed the amount of damage suffered by your heart muscle, its repair and progress, the present status of the heart and its exercise tolerance. There is now no reason for despondency. People have lived for 25 years or more after a heart attack and have lived well. Only a bit of care and some precautions are necessary to ensure longevity and a trouble-free life in the future.Q. Can my heart function as long as it would have done had there been no heart attack ?A. Certainly; it is not only possible, but you can make it happen. Let me tell you a true story first.Thirty years ago I purchased a shaving mirror, a small beautiful round piece, and I loved it very much. Unfortunately my small son cracked a corner soon after purchase. I felt unhappy, repaired it with araldite and started reusing it. Since I loved the piece, I became doubly cautious in handling it. I still have the mirror and it is useful today  as it was 30 years ago. I am sure, if it had not been damaged, I would not have given it the extra care that I did and it would have long ago disappeared.Similarly, your heart has survived an injury. Nature has healed it. With due care and by observing some precautions you can make it last for a long period probably longer than if nothing had happened to it. These precautions, mentioned here and in the following chapters, are simple and easy to follow.*86\328\8*

Classical acupunctureAccording to ancient Chinese medicine, health is created and preserved by the flow of yin and yang, which are conflicting energies distributed to all parts of the body in defined channels, the meridians, which peak at points. The flow of energy can, it is claimed, be adjusted by inserting needles into the channels at these points. Chinese acupuncture investigators were unable to find the channels and now state that the effect is caused by the stimulation of special sensory nerve fibres. Most people think that acupuncture arrived in the West in recent times once China was opened up after the Nixon agreements. In fact, acupuncture was well known in the West in Elizabethan times, beginning with a text book by Ten Rhijne in 1683. The European enthusiasm for acupuncture faded until it was reintroduced in the eighteenth century by the French from Indochina. It again faded until mid nineteenth century, when Admiral Perry returned from Japan with a Japanese government delegation. Acupuncture arrived and faded four times in four centuries. Its use is fading again both here and in China. A therapy whose popularity fluctuates depends on social belief. Double-blind testing of which point to needle has shown no specificity.However, there is a variation of acupuncture that ignores the classical points and needles only painful spots of the type described in fibromyalgia. Janet Travell, who was White House physician to President Kennedy and treated his painful back, had been following the established practice of injecting local anaesthetics into these painful spots. She discovered that it was not necessary to inject the local anaesthetic as the penetrating needle was enough by itself. The needling produces a stab of pain followed by relaxation of the taut muscle band, followed in turn by some general soreness and then by relief, which may last for days. We see here again, as was suspected in some of the reactions to surgery, that generalized damage in a painful area may be followed by relief.YogaYoga was overtly intended to change the subjects’ attitude to themselves and to the world, and yet puts muscles, tendons and joints in highly unusual positions. The Alexander technique has similar aims and effects.*58\219\2*

Diabetes treatment programs are aimed at keeping the level of sugar in the blood normal. This will help prevent problems that result from uncontrolled blood sugar levels. In children, the treatment program must also provide for normal growth and development.Control requires balancing food intake, the amount of exercise, and insulin levels. Generally, food makes glucose levels rise; exercise and insulin make glucose levels fall. When the body is not producing enough effective insulin, it may have to be supplied by injections, or its production may be stimulated by oral hypoglycemic drugs.Just how tight a control is needed? Until 1993, that question was open to debate. Some diabetes specialists believed it wasn’t realistic to expect the average person with diabetes to be able to keep to the kind of strict routine necessary to keep the blood sugar level normal at all times. They thought that fluctuations were not too significant—as long as they didn’t reach the range that might result in ketoacidosis or a hypoglycemic reaction—and all the extra tests and injections that might be necessary to maintain tight control would not be worth the effort. But the report on the ten-year Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) changed the diabetes picture dramatically.*28\268\2*