The Dangers of Acetaminophen Abuse

Acetaminophen (or Paracetamol), the drug commonly known as Tylenol, is used for fever reduction and pain relief. It is very inexpensive and widely available, but is it actually safe?

Did you know that acetaminophen is the leading cause of liver failure in the United States or that poison control centers receive more calls about acetaminophen than about any other pharmaceutical medication?

So why is this happening and how can you protect yourself?

Food Sensitivities and Allergies

We take eating for granted. We know that we must eat in order to stay alive, but most of us don’t really think too much about what we eat as long as it tastes good. But what if what tastes good makes you sick? Not food poisoning sick, but rather vague symptoms that don’t seem to be related to the food you ate at all? Could you still be getting sick from your food? The answer is a resounding YES!

Many foods that taste great and that are even recognized to be “healthy foods” may make you sick if that particular food doesn’t happen to agree with your body (specifically your immune system). While most of us know about serious food allergies that can send people to the emergency room with swollen lips, hives, or difficulty breathing, many people are not aware of food “allergies” that may show up in a less dramatic manner. These more subtle food “allergies” or “sensitivities” may be the cause of significant symptoms or even chronic illness (e.g. gluten sensitivity leading to Celiac Disease). Minor food sensitivities are often missed as a cause of illness because the symptoms rarely show themselves immediately, which often makes it difficult to realize that a food sensitivity may be the problem.

So why do some people become sensitive to certain foods, what are the most likely culprits, and what can you do to find out if you are suffering from this problem?

Sodium Study's Surprising Suggestions

Salt is the stuff of life and has been an essential and prized nutrient since the dawn of civilization. Salt used to be hard to obtain and civilizations often thrived or perished based on their access to it, as Mark Kurlinsky describes in his book titled simply “Salt” (well worth a read if you have the opportunity).

New research suggests that salt is indeed critical to our health and that eating too little can be just as unhealthy as eating too much. Table salt is actually made from two elements, sodium and chloride. In this post we are going to specifically examine the sodium portion of salt because that is what the researchers looked at in their study.

So let’s look at sodium, how it creeps into our diet, and how we can decide whether we are getting enough or too much.

Deep Vein Thrombosis - A Look At Prevention

Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) is a medical condition that is both dangerous and often preventable. We are all at risk for DVT when we sit too long in one position, as when we get sandwiched into a window seat on a long airplane flight or sit in a chair all day at work.

New recommendations on the prevention of DVT have been recently released. Many of us are at risk of DVT because our lifestyles and jobs often require prolonged sitting of one kind or another. Since a DVT can lead to dangerous and life threatening complications I feel it is well worth your while to understand what you can do to protect yourself.  

So what is a DVT, why is it dangerous, and what are the new guidelines for prevention?

Exercise, Lysosomes, and Cellular Garbage Recycling

A new research article in the journal Nature sheds some light on why regular exercise is so valuable for health.  What is really interesting about this research is that it explains not only why exercise is great at preventing illness but it also helps explain how exercise can actually reverse chronic diseases like diabetes.

As you probably know, exercise is one of the essential keys to a healthy life. It is critically important for virtually every facet of health. Almost any disease or disorder you can name has at least a dozen studies that show the health benefits of regular exercise. It’s not always exactly clear why or by what mechanism exercising helps, but the resulting benefits are pretty clear. This research definitely helped me to understand what happens in my body during exercise and I hope it will help you too.

I am going to spend a little time giving you an in depth look into this new research because I think it might help motivate you to exercise. I found that once I was able to visualize what this research study demonstrated, I felt motivated to move and exercise more.

This research suggests that exercise is key to the proper and healthy functioning of lysosomes in your body. So what are lysosomes, why do they matter, and what does this new research tell us about how to get healthy?

NASA's Biocapsule Breakthrough

NASA has developed a new technology called a “biocapsule”, designed to prevent the damage from the radiation exposure that occurs when astronauts spend extended periods of time in space. The biocapsule is designed so that it continually assesses certain conditions (like an elevated radiation level) and then treats the condition. What is exciting, for those of us who stick to living on terra firma, is that these biocapsules hold a lot of promise for treating chronic illnesses.

So how does it work and what other kinds of illnesses might we eventually treat with biocapsules?

The Cholesterol Conundrum (part 3) - Statins

In our first two posts on cholesterol, we discussed the flawed research that created the myth that cholesterol and dietary fat cause heart disease. We also discussed the role that cholesterol actually plays in the body. With these pieces in place, we can discuss what, if any, benefit can be gained by taking cholesterol lowering drugs called “statins”.

Statin drugs are among the most widely used and studied pharmaceutical drugs of all time. They are primarily prescribed to lower cholesterol levels in people who are considered at risk of developing cardiovascular disease. But, due to the confusion around cholesterol, many people who only have slightly elevated cholesterol and no other risk factors are being prescribed statin drugs. Statins are the number one prescribed class of drugs in the developed world and yet this “miracle drug”, has not improved the amount of heart disease, in fact, heart disease continues to go up despite the massive number of statins being prescribed. Why is this so? The real question is, do statins actually help prevent heart disease or any other health problems? If they don’t, then what are risks of taking statins and are they actually as safe as the manufacturers would have us believe?