Hormones are vital to your health. Hormones are a catalyst, causing reactions to happen in the body. They regulate a number of actions in your body. The pituitary gland sends messages (hormones) to your thyroid, pancreas, liver, breast, ovaries, etc. All these glands need hormones to call them into action.
Energy is created with the help of hormones. Cancer and Alzheimers are prevented when hormones are balanced properly.
Estrogen is the hormone that keeps people young. It helps the brain to function properly, helps the eyes to avoid degeneration, controls your blood pressure, protects heart health, and prevents bladder problems and cancer. Men have estrogen and their health can be compromised by the lack of estrogen. But it will be tough to convince men that they need estrogen.
Progesterone balances estrogen and is a feel-good hormone. Progesterone and testosterone increase your physical desire. Testosterone helps build muscle and decrease fat, while improving motivation and energy. Estrogen and testosterone convert the bad cholesterol (LDL) to good cholesterol (HDL).
There is also good and bad estrogen. Type E2 is a good estrogen and protects against cancer of many kinds including colon and breast cancer. Not enough good estrogen will grow fibroids in the uterus. The good estrogen also acts like an antidepressant.
The wrong/bad estrogen, as in synthetic, will cause problems such as cancer, blood clots, etc. This includes birth control pills, which give you synthetic hormones to make your body think that it is pregnant for 3 weeks, then not pregnant for a week, which is when you get your period, though it's a false one that is really like the bleeding that takes place after child birth.
The newer birth control pill that goes in 3 month cycles just holds the pregnant phase longer and gives your body less often to flush out the uterus and vagina.
E4 and E16 are two types of bad estrogen and will cause cancer. This is the type of estrogen given in synthetic medications for hormone replacement. These should be avoided. If you are currently taking these, talk with your doctor about alternatives, or find another doctor.
The brain loses cells when estrogen is low. This can be reversed. The brain can heal and regenerate, if given the right nutrition and hormones. An example is a woman who had Alzheimers at age 70 and is now driving at age 90. This is a documented case, by Dr. Nasr, where nutrition and hormones were used to regain health.
Calcium without estrogen will not work to prevent osteoporosis. Sometimes only 10% of the calcium consumed is absorbed into the bones. Estrogen helps get the calcium into the bones. If no egg is released in the middle of a woman's menstrual cycle, no progesterone will be produced. This gives an overabundance of estrogen, which can cause problems. This is very common in women with PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome) involving bloating, night sweats, being easily irritated, and mood swings.
Men make their own progesterone, so they rarely have a deficiency. That's why men don't have PMS and mood swings. Women use lots of progesterone and are often deficient, which is why PMS is increasingly common in women.
Men and women both get low on the hormone testosterone. A woman's level of testosterone is much less than a man's level, but still vital to overall health. Symptoms of low testosterone in women are lack of motivation, extreme fatigue after exercise (tired for 2 days), and overall fatigue, loss of body hair and lack of interest in sex.
When a man has low testosterone, he may go into what society calls a mid-life crisis. In reality, age 14-20 is when males have their highest levels of testosterone. The inability to hold an erection can also be related to heart disease, so men need to talk to their doctor. Please don't look for the quick fix of erection drugs. Your body is telling you something. Fix the source of the problem.
Interferon is another substance important to health. It is produced when you are happy, exercising, laughing, during a good night's sleep and through good nutrition. This fights disease. Interferon levels go down when a person is depressed, opening them up for disease. This is the substance that was working when the now famous man cured himself through laughter while watching The Three Stooges.
So, hormones (the good ones) are vital to excellent health. And hormones (the bad ones) can set you up for some serious health problems.
How do you get the Good without the Bad and stay Vital? Balance between all of the many factors that affect your health like diet, exercise, attitude, passion, fun, family and friends for starters.
Good Bad And The Weird
It is a disease that causes cartilage in weight-bearing areas such as the neck, low back, hips, knees, and the base of the thumbs to deteriorate and wear away.
Since it is so common, many treatments have been advocated. Some treatments work and others don't. However, the sheer number of claims of efficacy can be overwhelming to both physicians as well as patients.
Guidelines are often created by various organizations in medicine to help both the patient as well as the physician arrive at decisions. These guidelines are formulated to let the physician and patient know what types of diagnostic criteria or treatment methods have enough evidence behind them to be recommended for use.
A new set of treatment recommendations for knee and hip osteoarthritis have been released by a scientific organization, the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI).
These are evidence-based recommendations ? meaning they have the power of scientific data backing them up. A subcommittee of OARSI was given the task of coming up with specific guidelines to help clear the confusion and clutter surrounding what really works and what doesn't for osteoarthritis of the hip and knee.
The goals of the committee were (1) to review all of the published national and international treatment guidelines together with the more recent evidence from clinical trials and (2) to produce a single set of up-to-date, evidence-based recommendations for the worldwide treatment of knee and hip osteoarthritis.
The guidelines were accompanied by ?grades?, ie. percentages, to indicate how much evidence was behind each criterion.
The first of OARSI's 25 evidence-based recommendations was that that best treatment requires both non-drug and drug modalities. The remaining 24 recommendations fall into three categories ? non-drug, drug, and surgical.
The following are the recommendations:
Non-drug ? These 11 recommendations include education and self-management (97%); regular telephone contact (66%); referral to a physical therapist (89%); aerobic, muscle strengthening and water-based exercises (96%); weight reduction (96%); walking aids (90%); knee braces (76%); footware and insoles (77%); thermal modalities [heat or cold] (64%); transcutaneous electrical stimulation (58%); and acupuncture (59%).
Drug ? These eight recommendations include acetaminophen (92%); non-selective and selective oral nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)(93%); topical NSAIDs and capsaicin (85%); intraarticular injections of corticosteroids [joint injections of ?cortisone?](78%); intraarticular injections of hyaluronans [joint injections of various lubricants](64%); glucosamine and/or chondroitin sulphate for symptom relief (63%); glucosamine sulphate, chondroitin sulphate and/or diacerein for possible structure-modifying effects (41%); and the use of weak opioids and narcotic analgesics for the treatment of refractory pain (82%).
Surgical ? These five recommendations include total joint replacement (96%); unicompartmental knee replacement (76%); osteotomy and joint preserving surgical procedures (75%); joint lavage and arthroscopic debridement in knee OA (60%); and joint fusion as a salvage procedure when joint replacement had failed (69%).
According to Dr. Francis Berenbaum, president elect of OARSI and a faculty member in the Department of Rheumatology at Pierre & Marie Curie University, APHP Saint-Antoine Hospital in Paris, ?Our goal was to make these guidelines as simple as possible so that healthcare providers could determine which therapies would be most useful for an individual patient.?
In recent years, there has been a drop in the use of NSAIDs by physicians because of concerns related to the potential for causing gastrointestinal side effects and the possible cardiovascular risks associated with these drugs.
However, OARSI committee members found that NSAIDs are often effective for relieving pain and their short-term use should be considered on a case-by-case basis and not as a long-term option.
The guideline committee was made up of experts from six countries, including 11 rheumatologists, two primary care physicians, one orthopedic surgeon, and two experts on evidence-based medicine.
While these guidelines are helpful in regards to current therapies, there are weaknesses.
For example, research into osteoarthritis is constantly advancing and newer types of therapies exist for which there is still insufficient evidence to say whether they are effective or not.
An illustration might be cold laser where insufficient numbers of well-controlled clinical trials exist to say for sure whether it works and how well.
Second, one therapy, arthroscopic debridement for the knee has much evidence supporting its use, yet payers such as CMS (Medicare) will not pay for it citing the very few studies that don't show benefit as their evidence.
Also... the guidelines are just that. They don't say whether a given treatment will work for a specific individual.
Finally, there are cutting edge therapies such as stem cells and the use of platelet rich growth factors which show a lot of promise but for which it is much too early to know how effective they will be.
Both Anita Murray & Nathan Wei are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Anita Murray has sinced written about articles on various topics from Children, Health and Fitness. Anita Murray is a Professional Health Coach, Nutritional Consultant, and Founding Editor/Owner of FibromyalgiaHope.com.To learn more about natural ways to support yo. Anita Murray's top article generates over 14800 views. Bookmark Anita Murray to your Favourites.
Nathan Wei has sinced written about articles on various topics from Arthritis Pain, Health and Arthritis Signs. Nathan Wei, MD FACP FACR is a rheumatologist and Director of the Arthritis and Osteoporosis Center of Maryland. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. For more info:. Nathan Wei's top article generates over 550000 views. Bookmark Nathan Wei to your Favourites.
