Regular physical activity is not only good for your body but it actually increases the number of cells in the hippocampus, an area in the brain related to learning and memory. (Lordn/Shutterstock)
For decades, abnormal proteins called amyloid and tau were widely accepted as the cause of Alzheimer’s disease. These theories dominated the field of science and led people to believe that removal of the abnormal plaque formed by the proteins, could cure Alzheimer’s disease.
Clinical trials on Aducanumab as a beta-amyloid antibody did reduce beba-amyloid load in the brain. However, patients’ clinical cognitive impairment did not reduce correspondingly. It leads to the conclusion that Alzheimer’s disease is not merely the results of brain pathological changes, preventive actions seem to be the most advisable strategies for the management.
Pathologies Are Not Determinants of Cognitive Decline
According to the publication on two clinical-pathologic studies on a total of 856 deceased participants, the common pathologic changes only accounted for less than a third of the cognitive decline. Much remains unexplained.
There were also many examples demonstrating the mismatch between the severity of pathologic burden and the degree of cognitive impairment.
For instance, a research on 28 elderly subjects indicated that 9 of them, about 32 percent, were not demented when evaluated just prior to their death, but the postmortem neuropathology tests demonstrated extensive cortical plaques, including senile plaque and neurofibrillary tangles.
A postmortem examination on 137 residents whose average age was 85.5 years old, the results showed that only 55 percent of them demonstrated Alzheimer’s disease pathological characteristics. Nonetheless, 79 percent of the residents were demented during their late life.
In a Nun study on 130 women of 76-102 years old, only 42 percent of the participants demonstrated cognitive impairment among those with Alzheimer’s disease lesions in their brain.
In another study on 296 deceased subjects without cognitive impairment, post-mortem evaluation found that nearly every brain had neurofibrillary pathology and over 70 percent had amyloid accumulation.
These findings stimulated a demand to understand the basis of this pathology—cognition gap and the broader picture of Alzheimer’s disease.
As human beings are a holistic body with physical, mental, and spiritual components, there is an emerging trend in studying the mental and spirituality aspects in the disease course and prevention of AD.
Purpose of Life and Alleviating Alzheimer’s
A surprising mental factor—purpose of life, is found to be related to Alzheimer’s disease.
Purpose of life is a psychological tendency to derive meaning from Life’s experiences, it is about cultivating an understanding of what is important in life and developing principles to guide one’s actions especially when life gets tough.
A longitudinal study on 246 subjects from the Rush Memory and Aging Project showed that the purpose of life can modify the global Alzheimer’s disease pathologic changes and cognition. That means, the higher levels of purpose in life tend to exhibit better cognitive function, despite the pathologic changes of Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, the purpose of life could alleviate the pathologic changes and cognitive decline of Alzheimer’s disease, and the protective effect persisted after controlling potentially influential variables.
Another research performed on more than 900 community-dwelling older persons found that a person with a high score on the purpose of life was approximately 2.4 times more likely to remain free of Alzheimer’s disease than a person with a low score (Figure 1), and exhibit a lower cognitive decline (Figure 2). The results concluded that greater purpose in life is associated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
The ability to attain a high purpose of life requires self-reflection, goals and priority establishment, and focus.
The Health and Retirement Study on a sample of 8,788 middle-aged and older adults in the US found that those with higher adherence to moral standards and ethical behaviors reported a higher sense of purpose in life after the 4-year follow-up period. This association trend remained the same after the adjustment of demographics, socioeconomic status, health conditions, and psychological predispositions such as dispositional optimism and life satisfaction.
Data analysis from two observational studies collected in 1,209 U.S. and 495 Mexican workers found that orientation to promote good, i.e. having thoughts and taking actions that contribute to the good of oneself and others, was positively associated with subsequently higher levels of purpose in life.
In particular, moral standards and ethical behaviors are associated with lower risks of incidence of cognitive impairment, depression, unfavorable health-related behaviors, immobility and difficulty in activities of daily living, which will eventually reduce the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.
Maintaining a Sense of Purpose in Life Is Important
Having a purpose also helps to bring lifelong benefits, including increased optimism, resilience, and hope, greater physical health, and a lower risk of death. It helps us to stay emotionally even-keeled in both positive and negative situations, and can be accessed by everyone, regardless of age.
Particularly in old age, maintaining a purpose in life is essential when losses, such as widowhood, retirement, and other age-related deficits and losses, become more common. It is vital for older individuals to prepare in middle adulthood for living longer and prevent Alzheimer’s disease, as this will help to ensure their physical and mental well being in later life.
Promote good consistently with a mindset beneficial to oneself and others help to build up morally valued personality traits, which is fundamental to one’s identity can lead to positive outcomes for oneself and/or others, and also contribute to the greater good.
For some people, this notion might contrast to the rule of “survival of the fittest”, which is a self-oriented, self-preservation concept, and has been flourishing in our individualistic culture. The main difference is that the behavior of living beings is not just self-oriented; rather it is a balance of self-interest and altruism. By promoting kindness using an automatic or mimicry approach, other than scolding or moral persuasion, people can intuitively reconnect with innate desires to help others and shift that balance.
Promoting cooperation and mutual aid, can also better ensure the survival of the species.
Even though promotion of kindness alone will not directly solve problems, it does enable people to feel less stressed and more connected to one another. The opportunities to find compromises and solutions may flow from the supportive society change other than lonely struggling individuals.
In summary, purpose in life is associated with cognitive outcomes and Alzheimer’s disease. It is modifiable, and offers a new treatment focus to reduce the increasing burden of Alzheimer’s disease in old age.
Perfectionism is different from simply trying to do a good job or even seeking excellence. Rather, perfectionism refers to rigidly requiring nothing short of absolute perfection and being highly self-critical.
Our recent study, published in the journal Child Development, examined how perfectionism is affecting teens’ mental health and stress levels in the age of COVID-19.
Exacting Standards
While research shows some forms of perfectionism are related to small achievement gains, it also reveals perfectionism is commonly associated with experiencing more health problems along with relationship difficulties.
Perfectionists don’t fare any better with respect to their mental health: Research indicates perfectionistic individuals report higher levels of depressive symptoms, stress, disordered eating, and anxiety compared to their less-perfectionistic peers.
Perfectionistic people are particularly susceptible to experiencing these adverse consequences when they’re stressed or faced with difficult and uncertain situations, because they tend to be unable to or at least reluctant to adapt to changing situations.
When measuring perfectionism as a personality trait, psychology researchers identify different “flavors” of perfectionism.
Self-oriented perfectionism refers to requiring perfection from oneself. People high in self-oriented perfectionism demand perfection from themselves and are incredibly hard on themselves when they don’t meet those demands.
Socially prescribed perfectionism refers to the belief or perception that others require perfection. Individuals who are high in socially prescribed perfectionism think others demand perfection from them, are critical of them, and believe that they’ll never measure up to others’ expectations.
It’s important to focus on how young people are doing during these difficult times. Unlike adults who have already gained their sense of independence, the pandemic and its accompanying restrictions have held teens back in a state of suspended reality.
For example, many teens have completely missed out on significant developmental milestones such as graduations and proms, leaving them feeling lost due to a lack of closure on important chapters of their lives.
Government-mandated lockdowns that were put in place to slow the spread of COVID-19 forced young people into isolation where they were often separated from friends and family for extended periods of time. School closures also led to substantial interruptions to young people’s schooling, which is associated with gaps in educational achievement.
It isn’t hard to imagine how difficult gaps would be for young perfectionists who often define themselves by their ability to achieve.
Effects of Lockdowns
Our study shows the significant effects lockdowns have had on the self-reported mental health of teens.
We assessed 187 adolescents’ levels of perfectionism, anxiety symptoms, stress, and depressive symptoms before the pandemic began and then again during the first and second government-mandated lockdowns that took place in Ontario, Canada.
Results showed an interesting pattern of change with respect to depressive symptoms and stress levels. Depressive symptoms and stress decreased slightly from before the pandemic began to the first lockdown and then increased dramatically from the first to second lockdown.
Although we cannot be sure, one possible explanation for these findings is that teens were able to take a much-needed break from their busy and possibly overscheduled lives during the first lockdown, which resulted in some relief of depressive symptoms and stress.
However, by the time the second lockdown occurred, teens may have been feeling demoralized and hopeless as the pandemic continued to take its toll on everyone, resulting in higher levels of stress and depressive symptoms.
How Perfectionists Fared
A key finding is that teen perfectionists are not faring as well during the pandemic compared to their non-perfectionistic peers. Teens who demanded perfection from themselves (self-oriented perfectionists) were more depressed, anxious, and stressed than those who didn’t tend to demand perfection from themselves over the course of the pandemic.
Results also showed that when teens experienced higher than their typical levels of self-oriented perfectionism, they were also more anxious but not more depressed or stressed.
Teenagers who believed that others demanded perfection from them were more depressed and stressed than those who didn’t have such beliefs during the pandemic.
We also found that when teens experienced more of these beliefs than usual, they were more depressed but not more anxious or stressed.
Struggles Behind the Mask
Taken together, these findings support the idea that perfectionistic teens are more vulnerable to mental health problems and greater stress compared to their non-perfectionistic peers during the pandemic.
Instead, they’re young people who are often in distress and struggling behind their mask of perfection and in need of support during these difficult times.
Society’s best defence against childhood diseases is waning. What needs to be done to help it recover
Vaccines offer a potent armour against infectious diseases that once carried a heavy toll of mortality and morbidity, particularly among children. Gaps were already forming in that armour in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic. But amid stagnating vaccination rates, the pandemic acted like a shotgun, punching many more holes in humanity’s defences against preventable diseases such as measles.Part of Nature Outlook: Children‘s health
The risks of allowing these infections to flourish are clear. Zimbabwe is currently working to contain a huge measles outbreak that claimed the lives of more than 750 children between April and October. And poliovirus has recently re-emerged in the United States after decades of successful elimination, prompting a state of emergency in New York.
The drop in vaccination rates is partly a direct consequence of the pandemic itself, which caused severe interruptions in public-health services and diverted resources. But it isn’t simply a crisis of access to vaccines. The failures and inequities in the global public-health response, coupled with politicization of the pandemic, have also undermined confidence in the institutions and people that coordinate and conduct immunization efforts.
As a result, global vaccination rates have hit their lowest point since 2008 — and getting back on track could be difficult. “We’re talking about tens of millions of lives that are at stake,” says Kate O’Brien, who heads the immunization programme at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Rebuilding the trust lost during the pandemic will be a crucial step in pushing back against the global spread of otherwise preventable diseases.
Momentum derailed
For much of the twenty-first century, vaccination efforts were moving in the right direction, continuing a trend that began in the 1970s. In 1974, the WHO initiated its Expanded Programme on Immunization, with the mission of ensuring worldwide access to vaccines against six deadly infectious diseases, including measles. By 2014, global vaccine coverage overall had reached 85% for many vaccine-preventable diseases, and some regions of the world had achieved remarkable successes. The Americas, says O’Brien, had eliminated polio, measles and rubella by 2015, even though those diseases continued to circulate elsewhere.
But vaccination is a continuous process, not a one-time victory, and further progress proved a challenge (see ‘Lost progress’). Jonathan Mosser, an epidemiologist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, says that in the years leading up to the pandemic, “we really saw a stagnation of coverage for many of these long-established vaccines”. Furthermore, regional- or national-level statistics can mask considerable inequality at the local level. Duduzile Ndwandwe, a vaccinologist at the South African Medical Research Council in Cape Town points out that although the pre-pandemic coverage for routine childhood vaccines in South Africa was on the order of 85%, there were wide disparities within the country. “The poorest provinces like Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Mpumalanga were not doing that well,” Ndwandwe says. “They would be bordering on 60–70%.” This is well short of the 90% or more that is generally considered necessary for robust control of vaccine-preventable diseases.
Source: The World Bank
By 2019, measles outbreaks were popping up with alarming frequency and posing a real global threat. “The scale of those outbreaks in 2019 was colossal, and we saw large increases in the number of deaths,” says David Durrheim, who studies public health at the University of Newcastle in Australia. “We saw countries being overwhelmed.” That year saw more than 200,000 measles deaths worldwide, a 50% increase over the 2016 total. There were a number of reasons for this backslide, including inadequate resources for vaccination programmes and the low priority given to immunization efforts in some countries. But rising vaccine hesitancy throughout the world was also an important factor, and the WHO named this trend one of the ten greatest threats to global health in 2019.
This perilous situation motivated the WHO to develop its Immunization Agenda 2030, which was announced in April 2020 with the goal of achieving 90% global coverage for the standard battery of childhood vaccines while also accelerating the introduction of new immunizations to low-income countries.
Delayed doses
But this announcement came mere weeks after the organization formally declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic. “It shut things down,” says O’Brien. “Compared with how many doses were given in the same month of the previous year, you just see this absolute plummeting in April, May and June of 2020.”
Routine paediatric vaccinations took a serious hit throughout the first year of the pandemic. Mosser and his colleagues combed through data from sources such as the WHO, and estimated that in 2020, COVID-19 led to 8 million to 9 million missed doses of routine childhood vaccines for diseases such as measles, rubella and diphtheria1. Some parts of Africa and Asia saw by far the sharpest drop in rates, but high-income countries in other regions also experienced dips at the start of the pandemic.
Much of this early impact was directly attributable to the strong measures taken to contain the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with many jurisdictions limiting travel, closing schools and restricting access to non-urgent medical care. But health-care providers were also struggling with limited capacity. “Resources and expertise were diverted from many sectors of health care, including immunization systems, to COVID response,” says Mosser. Even when there were no formal impediments to scheduling a visit to a health-care provider, social and psychological factors came into play that further undermined timely vaccination. “COVID kind of created the fear of even being in contact with the health-care services,” says Ndwandwe.
The pandemic also brought many targeted vaccination campaigns for children in resource-limited settings to a grinding halt. An analysis by the WHO found that by May 2020, nearly 60% of the 183 vaccination campaigns scheduled were either cancelled or delayed2.
As the immediate shock of COVID-19 passed, routine childhood vaccination efforts began to pick up steam again — particularly in higher-income countries. But even in wealthy regions, the pandemic amplified structural inequalities in the health-care system, and has left many underserved communities less protected against vaccine-preventable diseases. For example, Durrheim says that “in New Zealand, the second-dose coverage for measles has dropped to just above 80%, and that has fallen disproportionately in Māori, First Nations people and Pacific Islanders”.
In lower-income countries, the rebound has been more uneven. By the end of 2021, 16% of the vaccination campaigns scheduled by the WHO pre-pandemic had been cancelled or were still suspended, resulting in 382 million missed doses worldwide. O’Brien also notes that — somewhat paradoxically — the intense focus of the health-care community on delivering immunizations against COVID-19 sometimes meant the standard array of childhood vaccines were put on the back burner in favour of achieving pandemic control. “That’s why in 2021, we didn’t see the recovery that we thought was going to happen,” she says. Nevertheless, several countries, including Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand and Pakistan, have been able to hold steady and maintain high coverage over the past three years by continuing to prioritize routine childhood immunization despite limited resources.
Confidence lost
But efforts to regain lost ground in vaccine coverage are also being jeopardized by other legacies of the pandemic, including the erosion of trust in governments and public-health institutions — a trend that the advent of COVID-19 vaccines has exacerbated rather than dampened.
Long before COVID-19 vaccines were even available for children, they had become a flash point for controversy — most notably, but not exclusively, in the United States. Daniel Salmon, a vaccinologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, thinks some of the problems people have with the vaccine go back to its origins in Operation Warp Speed. This multi-billion-dollar US public–private partnership aimed to develop pandemic vaccines within an unprecedented, time frame. In particular, he is critical of the programme’s emphasis on speed without parallel planning around building public acceptance. “You’ve got to get people to want the vaccine,” says Salmon. “That wasn’t their goal.”
A worker with the Expanded Programme on Immunization prepares a measles vaccine at a health clinic in Nowshera, Pakistan.Credit: WHO/Asad Zaidi
Against the already politicized backdrop of the US COVID-19 response, the failure to generate public trust and enthusiasm around COVID-19 vaccines — particularly those developed with the relatively new messenger-RNA-based technologies — has created problems that will be difficult to solve. “Many people initially thought that by going on CNN and furrowing our brows, we would convince people to get vaccinated,” says Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health in New Haven, Connecticut, referring to the US news channel. “That’s not how vaccine persuasion works.” And when adults lack confidence in the vaccine, the likelihood of them immunizing their children plummets. As of October 2022, only 37% of eligible children in the United States had received even a single dose.
Although before the pandemic most US parents took their children to be vaccinated against multiple diseases to comply with school mandates, Salmon estimates that between one-third and one-quarter had serious concerns about the safety and necessity of these routine childhood vaccinations. “It’s the fence-sitters, the people who could be pushed over the edge, that worry me,” he says. This issue has become more salient in the context of COVID-19. For example, several reports have described cases of inflammation of the heart tissue — a condition called myocarditis — among adolescent boys receiving multiple shots of the mRNA vaccines3.
Although these cases are rare, mild and tend to resolve on their own, such safety concerns might shift the likelihood of vaccinating among parents who were already wavering. Framing these side effects relative to the much greater threat posed by COVID-19 itself is a challenge for governments and public-health organizations. “Public-health people need to be transparent,” says Katie Attwell, who studies vaccination policy at the University of Western Australia in Perth. “They do need to talk about the risks, and they need to contextualize the risks.”
The extent to which concerns about COVID-19 shots are fuelling hesitancy around other vaccines remains unclear. But some who study vaccine uptake are already concerned. “It’s going to take time to get data, but I would not be surprised if we see substantial drops in routine vaccines — especially in populations that have really been refusing COVID vaccines,” says Salmon. Omer’s research is already picking up some early indications of reduced uptake for the tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis vaccine among people in the United States who are pregnant. And even though these are still preliminary findings, he says “my concern is that this is sort of an iceberg where we’re just beginning to see the tip”.
There is also a clear political component to vaccine perception in the Western world. A 2021 survey4 of 1,745 US parents found that those who vote Republican are more than twice as likely to forego vaccinating their children against COVID-19 than parents affiliated with the Democratic party. For some people, at least, vaccine acceptance is deeply intertwined with political identity. An analysis5 of vaccine confidence in Europe found that vaccine hesitancy and refusal are closely tied with right-wing, populist politics.
And the possibility remains that this mistrust will spread globally. Heidi Larson, an anthropologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says “there is clearly a globally coordinated, very deep, negative network out there” exploiting pandemic-era mistrust to propagate and promote a broader anti-vaccine agenda through social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. In South Africa, Ndwandwe sees such vaccine hesitancy propagating mainly in more affluent communities that have the time and resources to find information — and misinformation — on the Internet. “TikTok is one of the more dangerous platforms that I have seen,” she says. “That’s where a lot of these things are happening.” In poorer communities without easy Internet access, the conversation is just as readily driven by radio broadcasts, religious leaders or poster campaigns, Omer says.
Overcoming hesitation
It would be a mistake, however, to simply attribute vaccine hesitancy to fear or misunderstanding of the science. As director of the Vaccine Confidence Project, a non-profit initiative based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine focused on tracking global public sentiment around immunizations, Larson has been able to tease out some of the motives underlying the decision to vaccinate or not. According to her preliminary assessment of recent unpublished data from Africa and the European Union, many people are hesitant simply because they don’t see the importance of being vaccinated for diseases that they do not see as a real concern.
This is in keeping with Ndwandwe’s experience in South Africa. She says that mothers who already routinely engage with medical systems often trust their physician’s or nurse’s guidance that an immunization is important, even at the height of a pandemic. But the story is different in poorer communities, where people often need to make considerable trade-offs when seeking even routine care. “You’re talking about competing priorities here,” she says. “Do I want to travel 10 kilometres to go and sit in a clinic for the whole day, instead of going to a job that will pay me money and actually feed my kids?”More from Nature Outlooks
The erosion of confidence in once-trusted authorities also plays an important part. But this can arise for a range of reasons — from bad-faith political arguments in Western nations to the long delay in providing COVID-19 vaccines to the world’s poorest countries. “If there’s one region that global health has really lost a lot of trust from, it’s Africa,” says Larson. “We’ve failed them big time, and that’s not going to be forgotten.”
Vaccine hesitancy or refusal is often the result of a complex mix of political, religious, social and cultural factors, as well as personal considerations that are highly specific to the individual. This calls for personalized solutions. “It’s mind-boggling that policymakers have such limited vocabulary to even have intelligent conversations about this,” says Omer. O’Brien emphasizes the importance of being “in constant listening mode” to understand the factors that are undermining coverage in a particular country, city or district. In many cases, this means targeted collaborations with local leaders who can effectively address their communities’ concerns.
This hyper-local process can also be scaled up, and a number of researchers are working on evidence-based tools that can guide families to informed vaccination decisions. Salmon and his colleagues have developed an online tool called Let’s Talk COVID Vaccines, which delivers tailored information based on each user’s concerns. A platform for encouraging immunization more generally, called Let’s Talk Shots, is expected to launch within weeks. Omer’s team has also devised a training strategy to help health-care workers to bolster COVID-19 vaccine uptake based on similar principles of targeted messaging, and he says that the United Nations children’s charity UNICEF is now adapting the team’s approach for international use. “It’s not just intuition — these are specific techniques derived from motivational interviews, and derived from experiments on how to correct misinformation,” he says.
Better data will also be crucial to helping the health-care community to quickly identify places where intervention is needed to prevent immunization levels from dipping too low. O’Brien says that the WHO has been working with member nations to adopt the agency’s district health information system, called DHIS2, which makes it easier to share granular within-country information about vaccine administration and coverage. But she also notes that the real challenge will be catching the ‘zero-dose’ children, most of whom live below the poverty line in settlements with inadequate housing and basic services, rural villages and conflict zones. “They’re born outside of a facility, they’ve never gotten a single vaccination, they’re sort of uncounted and unseen,” she says. “It’s really hard to plan to go out and vaccinate children who you don’t even know exist.” One of the goals of the Immunization Agenda 2030 is to reduce the number of zero-dose children by half, which the WHO estimates could save as many as 50 million lives over the next 10 years.
Now could be a unique opportunity to act. The public-health community’s response to COVID-19, including restrictions on travel and public gatherings, greatly limited the spread of many infectious diseases that would otherwise have run rampant. And despite crises such as the Zimbabwe measles outbreak, Durrheim says “we’ve reached in many countries the lowest measles case numbers that we’ve ever seen”. But as more and more countries are deciding — wisely or not — to put the pandemic behind them, the urgency of this mission only intensifies. “We either have to really invest now and close those immunity gaps,” says Durrheim, “or what will come will be devastating.”
Consumers need to be aware that each recommended vaccine has a different safety, efficacy, and necessity profile. (Prostock-studio/Shutterstock)
In a recent article in Nature, freelance writer Michael Einstein reports that vaccination rates are falling—and not just because people are refusing the COVID-19 vaccines.
Indeed, global vaccine rates are at their lowest since 2008. The World Health Organization calls this the “largest sustained decline in childhood vaccinations in approximately 30 years.”
The draconian lockdowns imposed by state public health authorities in the United States and federal agencies in other countries made parents afraid, unwilling, or unable to bring their children to the doctor.
The experts Einstein interviewed believe that vaccine hesitancy and vaccine refusal is a bad thing. They’re concerned that families refusing vaccines will lead to millions of avoidable deaths worldwide.
“We’re talking about tens of millions of lives that are at stake,” Kate O’Brien, Executive Director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, told Nature.
But we see the fact that parents seem less willing than ever to blindly believe everything health authorities try to force upon them as a good thing—a step forward towards more individualized medicine and away from profit-driven overmedication.
Antibiotic Overuse
In 1928, Alexander Fleming, the son of a Scottish farmer, discovered the first true antibiotic: penicillin. It happened mostly by accident. Fleming was a Professor of Bacteriology at St. Mary’s Hospital in London. Returning from a holiday in September of that year, Fleming began to sort through Petri dishes where he had been growing bacteria.
He was tossing them into a cleaning solution. But one dish gave him pause. It was dotted with colonies of Staphylococcus, bacteria that cause boils, sore throats, and abscesses. Except in one area—where a blob of mold was growing—there was no staph growing. The zone immediately around the mold was clear, as if the mold had secreted something that inhibited bacterial growth. Fleming figured out that this “mold juice,” as he called it, was capable of killing a wide range of harmful bacteria, such as streptococcus, meningococcus, and diphtheria bacillus.
Fleming’s discovery and the subsequent use of antibiotics in medicine saved countless lives. With the advent of antibiotics, as well as better hygiene and municipal waste disposal, fulminating bacterial infections became mostly a thing of the past.
Some credit the drastic rise in life expectancy, from 47 years old at the beginning of the 20th century to over 75 years old in America today, to the “treasure called antibiotics.”
But as time went on, doctors became so enthusiastic about antibiotics that suddenly they were prescribing them for everything, even viral infections against which antibiotics are useless.
This has been a deadly mistake in medicine. The indiscriminate use of antibiotics causes myriad harm. Using antibiotics for viral infections like the flu makes viruses more lethal, according to a 2019 study published in the journal Cell Reports. And the over-prescription of antibiotics has also led to antibiotic resistance, which the World Health Organization describes as “one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today.” The rise of superbugs, like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), that no antibiotic can kill has become a big concern.
In fact, according to the CDC, each year in the United States more than 2.8 million antibiotic-resistance occurs. At least 35,000 people die every year as a direct result of these infections.
The global numbers are even more striking: antimicrobial resistance is associated with five million deaths worldwide.
Childhood Vaccines to Protect Against Deadly Diseases
Just like antibiotics, childhood vaccines have been credited with saving millions of lives. When you get a traditional vaccine that creates an appropriate immune response, it helps your body recognize and fight off infectious agents. The idea for vaccines came from Edward Jenner, a British doctor who noticed at the end of the 18th century that milkmaids exposed to cowpox were protected from its more lethal sister infection smallpox.
Smallpox was often lethal, killing nearly a third of the people who contracted it and scarring others for life. The fever and oozing itching sores of the disease—caused by a variola virus—could make you miserable.
But when Jenner exposed the son of his gardener to pus from a cowpox sore that was on the hand of a milkmaid and later exposed the child to the variola virus, the eight-year-old, James Phipps, did not get sick with smallpox.
This first vaccination technology was crude. Jenner actually scratched the cowpox-infected fluid into the arm in what some have described as a messy and painful process. Since then, vaccine technology has evolved and improved dramatically.
Saving Siblings
Joe Wang was the youngest child in a family of eleven. Two of his brothers died from infectious diseases just a few days after they were born. Joe did not want the tragedy of what happened to his brothers to ever happen to another child. So he earned a doctorate in molecular genetics so that he could devote himself to vaccine development in order to reduce infant mortality.
Many believe that it is largely thanks to the development of well-tested, effective, and safe vaccinations that far fewer infants die in industrialized countries than they did a hundred years ago.
The issue here is not that vaccines are all good or all bad but that, like with antibiotics, modern medicine has started using vaccines inappropriately. In 1986, the federal government passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, a law shielding vaccine manufacturers from being sued for injuries caused by their products.
Instead, families of people who died from vaccines and patients who became permanently injured would be compensated via a “no-fault” system, paid for via a consumer tax on every vaccine vial sold.
Since that federal law was passed, the number of vaccinations on the childhood schedule has nearly quadrupled.
The vaccines added to the CDC’s recommended schedule include a birth and infant series of a vaccine to protect against a sexually transmitted disease, two vaccines against normal and mild childhood infections (rotavirus and chickenpox), and a vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV) that has been shown to have devastating side effects.
Individualized Medicine Better Than Blind Trust
Someone who is promiscuous or using intravenous drugs is more likely to get infected with hepatitis B. As is a healthcare worker or police officer working in close proximity to drug addicts. For that subpopulation, the vaccination against hepatitis B makes good sense.
But universal vaccination for the average American infant who has no chance of exposure to hepatitis B is a scientifically unsound recommendation.
Every person is different—our chance of exposure to any given disease varies, as does our body’s ability to fight that disease when exposed.
New parents are apt to research everything: from the safest car seat to the softest onesies. Researching vaccines involves knowing the ingredients in each vaccine, the potential risks and benefits of contracting any given illness naturally, whether the illness is treatable, as well as the risk of having a vaccine reaction and the alternatives to vaccinating. Knowledge is power. And being knowledgeable about vaccines is the best way to make the best individualized medical decisions.
Making Smart Choices
We humans are smart enough to understand that two things can be true at the same time. Antibiotics can be a powerful tool in the medical toolbox but the over-use and over-prescription of antibiotics can be deadly. Vaccines can be lifesaving. They can confer unexpected benefits but also lead to unintended harm.
Vaccine hesitancy isn’t so much a problem as a smart choice. The realization that lifestyle choices—including healthy eating, regular exercise, stress reduction, and avoiding toxins—are as important to longevity and lifelong good health as medical care is important.
The fact is not all vaccines are created equal. Consumers need to be aware that each recommended vaccine has a different safety, efficacy, and necessity profile.
Our public health authorities must work overtime to re-establish public trust. In the meantime, however, we believe that making judicious changes to America’s overly aggressive childhood and adult vaccination schedules is not “dangerous” or “deadly.” It will not result in unnecessary deaths. Instead, we believe that it will result in better health.
Recent concerns about immune health have prompted many people to want to know how to boost their immune systems in the best ways possible. One of those ways is with good bacteria, or probiotics—but not just any probiotics. The big questions are: How effective are probiotics for immune health, and how can you be sure to get the most bang for your buck when taking beneficial bacteria supplements?
Probiotics can boost immune function if you find quality sources and don’t let them spoil.
What Are Probiotics?
Probiotics are also commonly referred to as good or beneficial bacteria, but the term also includes some beneficial yeasts as well. These substances are called “good” and “beneficial” because they play a vital role in keeping your gut and entire body healthy. That’s because you’re a vessel of both good and not-so-good bacteria that are associated with disease and other health hazards. Taking probiotic supplements and eating foods rich in beneficial bacteria can help you keep the balance of bacteria in the healthy zone.
Probiotics fall into two general categories:
Lactobacillus, which is found in some yogurts, kefir, and other fermented foods. Dozens of strains of this bacteria can assist with digestion, diarrhea, and immune health.
Bifidobacterium, which is common in dairy products such as milk, yogurt, and cheese. This genus of bacteria can help with irritable bowel syndrome and other conditions, as well as help with immune system function.
In the yeast category, we have Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. boulardii, which may help with diarrhea and other issues associated with digestion.
What Are Probiotics Good For?
Probiotics have a number of health advantages. For example, you might try probiotics for problems affecting your digestive tract, such as irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhea, urinary tract infection, and inflammatory bowel disease.
Numerous studies have also found that probiotics can be helpful in supporting immune health functions and issues.
Probiotics and Immune System Function
Dozens of studies have demonstrated that various probiotics have the ability to boost immune functions or reduce symptoms associated with immune-related conditions. Here are a few highlighted examples.
In a 2017 study, investigators reported that “there is high-quality evidence the probiotics are effective for acute infectious diarrhea, antibiotic-associated diarrhea, Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, functional gastrointestinal disorders.”
Which Probiotics Are the Most Effective?
If you want to get the most from your probiotic supplement, then you need to choose ones that meet certain criteria. Taking the wrong probiotic is like flour through a sieve: It’s going to pass on through and leave little to nothing behind.
Your probiotic should be refrigerated. All probiotic strains are susceptible to heat, especially those in the genus Bifidobacterium. According to Consumer Labs, and independent test lab, “Many probiotic bacteria are naturally sensitive to heat and moisture. Heat can kill organisms and moisture can activate them within pills, only to die due to lack of nutrients and a proper environment.” Therefore, be sure to put your probiotic supplement in your fridge.
An enemy of all probiotics is stomach acid (aka, gastric acid). The job of this acid is to break down food, but it also destroys bacteria, both good and bad. To protect against the destruction of your supplement, be sure to buy those that have an enteric coating. The probiotic supplement should have been tested to guarantee the beneficial bacteria capsules will survive and make their way to your intestinal tract, where they can release their contents and aid the healing process.
Bottom Line
Probiotics can be a potent management and treatment tool when you want to support and enhance your immune system function. Be sure to choose a probiotic supplement that will provide the most benefit for the buck.
A drug manufacturer announced this week it is recalling lots of blood pressure medication Quinapril after a cancer-causing impurity was discovered, according to an announcement carried by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc. said that it is voluntarily recalling four lots of Quinapril tablets due to the presence of nitrosamine, which was observed in recent testing that found levels above the acceptable daily intake level set by regulators. The company noted that it stopped marketing Quinapril tablets in September 2022.
Bottle of pills sit on shelves at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah on May 20, 2020. (Photo by GEORGE FREY / AFP) (Photo by GEORGE FREY/AFP via Getty Images)
According to the announcement, the firm has not received any reports of illnesses connected to the impurity issue. The impurity was found in 20 mg and 40 mg tablets of the drug shipped across the United States. Affected lot numbers are G102929, G100533, G100534, and G203071, and they have expiration dates of April 2023, December 2022, and March 2024.
“Nitrosamines are common in water and foods, including cured and grilled meats, dairy products, and vegetables. Everyone is exposed to some level of nitrosamines. These impurities may increase the risk of cancer if people are exposed to them above acceptable levels over long periods of time,” the recall announcement said.
The drug is an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor that is used to treat hypertension and lower blood pressure. Lupin’s announcement said that patients taking the drug are advised to keep taking the drug and speak with their healthcare provider about an alternative treatment.
“Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc. is notifying its wholesalers, distributors, drug chains, mail order pharmacies and supermarkets by phone and through recall notification and is arranging for the return of all the recalled product lots,” the recall notice stated, adding: “Wholesalers, distributors and retailers that have Quinapril Tablets USP, 20mg, and 40mg that are being recalled should discontinue distribution of the recalled product lots immediately.”
Several weeks ago, another drug company, Aurobindo Pharma USA, announced it would voluntarily recall two lots of blood pressure medication due to the same impurity.
The New Jersey-based firm initiated the recall of quinapril and hydrochlorothiazide in 20 milligram and 12.5 milligram tablets due to the presence of the chemical, which is associated with a higher risk of cancer. Like Lupin, Aurobindo said it did not receive any reports of adverse incidents associated with the medication.
Parents, experts voice concerns about aluminum and other toxins, especially in vaccines
In the 1970s, autism affected fewer than 1 in 10,000 children in America. Today, that number has reached 1 in 54 children. (Photographee.eu/Shutterstock)
Nicole Johnson, a mom of two and a lawyer, started noticing that her son was having some developmental delays when he was about 12 months old. Johnson, who lives near Athens, Georgia, had had a healthy pregnancy and an uneventful delivery. So at first, she wasn’t too worried. But when she realized that James stared at his hands for unusually long periods of time and stopped saying the words he once knew, she grew increasingly concerned. By the time James was 3 years old, he was diagnosed with autism and a developmental pediatrician told Johnson that James would benefit from both speech and occupational therapy.
Johnson was baffled. No one on either side of the family had ever been diagnosed with autism. So she and her husband, a medical professional, began to research the potential environmental factors that might have contributed to their son’s condition. She spoke to friends and colleagues, read peer-reviewed scientific articles, and poured over books written for both medical experts and laypeople.
“We’re still researching to this day, all the time,” Johnson said. “We just want to understand what happened and why.”
After thousands of hours of research, a potential culprit emerged: aluminum, an adjuvant in many vaccines.
Adjuvants are added to vaccines to help trigger the body’s immune system. The critical part of the vaccine is often a protein of the germ or virus the vaccine is meant to protect against. The adjuvant helps stir an immune response that the body fixates on this protein.
Could exposure to aluminum, which is used as an adjuvant in several childhood vaccines as well as in a host of other medical products, have caused or contributed to James’s autism?
In the 1970s, autism affected fewer than 1 in 10,000 children in America. Today at least 1 in 54 children are diagnosed with autism, a condition that is four times more common in boys than in girls, according to the CDC. In New Jersey, one of the states with the highest rates of autism, an estimated 1 in 32 childrenhas autism.
There has been much debate about the rise in autism: Are these autism rates “real” or have changes in diagnostic criteria and more recognition of the disease artificially inflated current numbers?
In his book, “How to End the Autism Epidemic,” author J.B. Handley points out that autism traits, including early onset of symptoms, deficits in language development, an inability to relate to others, and an inability to make eye contact, haven’t changed.
“Despite what you may have read, the definition of autism has remained remarkably consistent over time,” Handley insists. Handley, an investment capitalist and graduate of Stanford University, analyzes the criteria used to determine rates of autism from the 1970s and ’80s and concludes that it is unlikely, if not impossible, that changing criteria, or even the inclusion of Asperger’s—a less severe form of autism—under the umbrella of autism spectrum disorders—can account for the steep increase in rates.
A 2014 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health scientifically examines the dramatic rise in autism as well as its potential causes. The author, Dr. Cynthia Nevison, a research scientist at the University of Colorado–Boulder who specializes in earth and environmental science, found that 75 to 80 percent of the rise in autism is real.
“Diagnosed autism prevalence has risen dramatically in the U.S. over the last several decades and continued to trend upward as of birth year 2005,” Nevison explained in the conclusion of the study. “The increase in autism is mainly real, with only about 20-25 percent attributable to increased autism awareness/diagnoses.”
At the same time, Nevison found that during the time that autism rates have been increasing, children’s exposure to most of the top 10 most prevalent toxic compounds, including highway emissions and lead, has remained flat or even decreased.
However, three toxins in the environment that have been increasing alongside the rise in cases of autism are aluminum, glyphosate, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (flame retardants found in consumer goods like furniture and textiles). According to Nevison, it is these toxicants that may be contributing most to the increasing rates of brain challenges among America’s children.
Overexposure to Aluminum
How are children like James being exposed to aluminum? Aluminum is one of several different adjuvants used in vaccines. Adjuvants are added to vaccines to provoke a stronger immune response. If aluminum is excreted successfully, it is not thought to be harmful. But aluminum that stays in the body can be toxic to the brain.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, premature babies that received more than 4 to 5 micrograms of aluminum per kilogram of weight per day (in the form of intravenous nutrition) suffered from aluminum-induced central nervous system and bone toxicity.
Exposure to aluminum compounds—found in hepatitis A, hepatitis B, DTaP, Tdap, Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b), HPV, and pneumococcus vaccines (but not in the MMR vaccine)—has increased along with the number of childhood vaccines administered since the late 1980s. In fact, according to Dr. Robert Sears, a pediatrician based in Southern California, some vaccines on the childhood schedule contain as much as 650 micrograms of aluminum.
Aluminum expert Dr. Christopher Exley, who worked at Keele University in Staffordshire, England, for 29 years, has found evidence that aluminum can infiltrate brain tissue by crossing the blood-brain barrier and meninges. Post-mortem research shows that the brain tissue of people with autism contains higher than normal levels of aluminum. Exley believes that aluminum overexposure may play a causative role in autism.
Other research conducted by Exley and a team of scientists and published in April found that the amount of aluminum varies widely from one vaccine dose to another, and the amount of actual injected aluminum may be much more or somewhat less than what the manufacturer states. So, we are not certain exactly how much aluminum any given child is exposed to.
“Science shows that autism is caused by an immune activation event,” insists J.B. Handley in “How to End the Autism Epidemic.” “The adjuvant in vaccines–aluminum adjuvant–can activate the brain’s immune system and is more neurotoxic than previously realized.”
Handley, himself the father of a non-verbal young man with autism, underscores the urgent need for more research. “Aluminum’s newly discovered role in triggering immune activation events in the brain changes everything about the science of vaccines and autism, because it establishes a clear biological basis for how a vaccine can cause autism.”
Is Glyphosate Hurting Kids’ Brains?
Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been studying the possible causes of autism for more than a decade. As Seneff explains in her 2021 book, “Toxic Legacy,” her extensive research has led her to conclude that human exposure to glyphosate is another undeniable factor in the rise of neurological disorders among children.
Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, is a popular weed killer that is used both in large-scale agriculture and in people’s backyards. Glyphosate has been found as a contaminant in many of our foods, including several breakfast cereals and even in organic honey. The World Health Organization has deemed glyphosate a probable carcinogen.
In addition to contaminating both human and animal foods, glyphosate has also been found in measurable amounts in some childhood vaccines. Indeed, when a nonprofit organization focused on children’s health, Moms Across America, sent five childhood vaccines to an independent lab to be screened for glyphosate, they found that all five tested positive for glyphosate.
One vaccine in particular, the MMR, a live-virus vaccine given to protect children against measles, mumps, and rubella, had levels of glyphosate that were 25 times higher than the other vaccines.
Seneff argues that glyphosate amplifies the toxicity of other chemicals. In addition to destroying beneficial gut bacteria needed by the body to process food, absorb nutrients, and have a healthy immune system, glyphosate also makes other chemicals such as aluminum substantially more toxic. She believes the synergistic exposure to glyphosate and other chemicals may be doing far more damage than any single exposure.
More Toxic Amplification?
A 2019 study from JAMA Psychiatry uncovered a link between moms’ use of acetaminophen (the main ingredient in Tylenol) during pregnancy and an increased risk for ADHD and autism in their children.
Susie Olson-Corgan, a health coach and activist based in Washington state, believes that Tylenol contributed to her son’s regressive autism. As Olson-Corgan described to me (and later published in an article on my website), her son seemed to be developing typically until his 1-year checkup. But after that doctor’s appointment, Liam developed a high fever and was inconsolable. Following her doctor’s advice, Olson-Corgan alternated between giving him Motrin and Tylenol to bring down the fever and make him more comfortable.
After that episode, Olson-Corgan says, Liam was never the same. He had an even more severe reaction following his next round of vaccines and Olson-Corgan says she rushed him to the emergency room where he was given oxygen, steroids, antibiotics, Benadryl, and Motrin. After that ER visit, Liam stopped making eye contact and interacting with others altogether. A teenager now, Liam toe walks, gets agitated easily, and cannot speak. Olson-Corgan believes the combination of acetaminophen and vaccines caused her son’s severe autism.
As their concerns about the safety of the childhood vaccine schedule grew, the Johnsons paused their son’s routine vaccinations. But then, when James was 9 years old, Johnson says their pediatrician shamed her, warning her about the dangers of infectious diseases, and scolding her about her responsibility to protect others. The doctor insisted it was time to get James caught up on his shots.
Against her better judgment, Johnson relented. On a Friday afternoon, James was administered one vaccine to protect him against three diseases: diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough).
“His arm swelled like crazy,” Johnson said. “It was like there was a brick on the side of his arm. He was miserable for days. He ran a low fever over the weekend. I took back to the pediatrician on Monday. After that he began to have more behavioral problems at school. It set us all back.”
While millions of children will have little or no reaction to their vaccines, which many will point to as testimony to their safety and efficacy, there are also thousands of people with stories like the Johnson’s, parents who watched a rapid change in their children’s behavior soon after vaccination. These reports are frequently denied or dismissed, making it difficult for researchers to identify patterns in those who have bad reactions to see if there is a way to ensure those who can gain the benefits of vaccination do so while those who may be at risk can make a more careful decision.
Osteoporosis, characterized by porous, brittle bones, and low bone mass currently affects 54 million Americans – with potentially debilitating consequences. Because this age-related condition often shows no symptoms, many people do not realize they have it until a sudden bone fracture occurs.
According to the Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation, a shocking one out of every two women aged 50 and older (and one in four men in that age group) will suffer an osteoporosis-related fracture at some point in their lives. In fact, people with osteoporosis can experience broken bones from such seemingly innocuous activities as walking, standing, or sneezing. To reduce your odds of a devastating fracture, experts advise consuming a diet rich in calcium and vitamin D. In addition, four nutrients, in particular, are believed to help strengthen bones. To discover these important nutrients – and what each “brings to the table” – read on.
Curcumin From Turmeric for Bone Health and Protect Against Fracture
For over 4,000 years, turmeric has been prized by natural healers for its ability to reduce inflammation and fight infections. Botanically known as Curcuma longa, turmeric owes much of its antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties to its active constituent, curcumin. In addition to its other health benefits, curcumin is believed to help improve low bone density.
While clinical studies are lacking, promising early research conducted by investigators at the University of Arizona found that a turmeric extract helped to prevent the development of osteoclasts – specialized cells that facilitate the breakdown of bone – while protecting trabecular bone, the type of spine, and hip bone most susceptible to fracture in postmenopausal women.
Turmeric is available in powdered, tincture, liquid, and capsule forms. Look for a turmeric formulation standardized to contain at least 94 percent curcuminoids, which was found to be more effective than lower concentrations. Before supplementing with turmeric, however, consult your integrative doctor.
Thyme Helps to Manage Calcium Levels, Supporting Bone Health
While many know this piquant herb only as a seasoning, thyme has been used by natural healers for centuries to treat a variety of ills. Botanically known as Thymus vulgaris, thyme contains micronutrients that promote bone health – including calcium, vitamin K, magnesium, zinc, and manganese.
In addition, thyme’s active constituent, thymol, is believed to inhibit the formation of osteoclasts. One compelling study published in the International Journal of PharmTech Research suggested that 1,000 mg of thyme a day for six months improved bone mineral density in postmenopausal women more effectively than a calcium/vitamin D supplement. The researchers noted that thyme helped to regulate calcium homeostasis, allowing it to have a protective effect on bone.
By the way, studies have shown that thyme is even more effective in supporting bone mineral density when it is used with its close “cousins” sage and rosemary. In other words, the classic folk ballad “Scarborough Fair,” with its reference to “parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,” contains a recipe for better bone health … who knew?!
Thyme can be used fresh or dried – and is also available in liquid extract and capsule form. While amounts found in food are generally recognized as safe, check with your integrative doctor before supplementing.
Don’t Despise the Dandelion! Greens Provide a Jackpot of Bone-Strengthening Nutrition
While homeowners and landscapers dread it for its ability to invade lawns, the humble dandelion – botanically known as Taraxacum officinale – is an overlooked and underrated source of both nutrition and health benefits. Nutritionists at the famed Cleveland Clinic praise dandelion leaves as “probably the most nutritionally dense green you can eat, superior to even spinach and kale.” (And that’s saying a lot!)
While dandelion greens are rich in bone-building vitamin K, calcium, and potassium, their real “superpower” is their high content of silicon, which has been found to improve bone matrix quality and facilitate bone mineralization.
You can use tangy-tasting dandelion greens in mixed salads and sandwiches. For a milder taste, soak them in cold, salted water for ten minutes, then boil until tender (about five minutes) and season with olive oil, garlic, and Parmesan cheese. Dandelion supplements are also available, but get the “go-ahead” from your doctor before taking them.
Over Half of All Americans Fail to Get Enough Magnesium, Which Supports Bone Health
Multiple studies suggest that this essential mineral contributes to increased bone density and helps prevent the development of osteoporosis. But unfortunately, most Americans don’t get enough of it in their diets. According to the Office of Dietary Supplements, only 48 percent of Americans ingest enough magnesium from food to meet the estimated average requirement.
You can increase your dietary intake of magnesium with green leafy vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. Pumpkin seeds are the “high-ringers” in the seed world, with one ounce of roasted seeds contributing 156 mg. And chia seeds, beans, potatoes, and fresh (raw) yogurt are also good sources. The recommended daily dietary amount for magnesium for adults is 420 mg for men and 320 mg for women. Magnesium supplements are also available – but check first with your integrative doctor.
Other common-sense techniques for supporting bone health include: stopping smoking, getting a bone mineral density scan to assess osteoporosis risk, and performing weight-bearing exercises such as walking, stair climbing, calisthenics, or weight training. Ask your integrative physician or health coach for help in designing an exercise routine that is right for you.
Remember: Osteoporosis strikes one out of every five women (and one out of every 20 men) over age 50. Appropriate amounts of “bone-friendly” nutrients and herbs may help you improve your odds and “stand strong” as you age.
When you have constipation, food moves slowly through the digestive tract.
Hemorrhoids are an uncomfortable and common malady experienced by many people. One of the main causes of the condition is constipation. Dr. Ruixin Lai, director of Ming Tang Clinic in Taiwan, spoke to The Epoch Times about how to prevent constipation—and thus reduce the risk of hemorrhoids—by looking at diet, daily habits, massage, exercises, and more.
According to the Mayo Clinic, hemorrhoids, also called piles, are swollen veins in the anus and lower rectum, similar to varicose veins. According to Lai, when there is high pressure in the abdomen and poor circulation in the lower limbs or pelvis, the risk of forming hemorrhoids will be increased.
6 Situations That Can Trigger Hemorrhoids
1. Prolonged sitting. 2. Prolonged standing. 3. High pressure in the abdomen, such as when pregnant or obese. 4. Constipation: Straining to move the bowels puts excessive pressure on the anus. 5. Rushing and stress: Can lead to avoidance of bowel movements and cause irregularity. 6. Lack of exercise.
Women Are More Likely to Get Hemorrhoids
According to Lai, there are three clinical reasons that women are more likely to get hemorrhoids than men:
Low water intake: Moisture is essential for healthy bowel movements.
Low food intake: Bowel movements are proportional to the amount of food consumed.
Overeating raw and cold food: When women are on a diet, they often have salad or fruit to replace a meal. Cold food leads to insufficient energy in the stomach and intestines, functional decline, and then abnormal peristalsis.
Prevent Constipation to Reduce the Chance of Hemorrhoids
Lai explained that reducing the occurrence of constipation can prevent hemorrhoids, and people can start by changing their diet to ensure the sufficient intake of the following types of food:
Fiber: By absorbing the water in the intestines, fiber swells and pushes the feces through the intestines until it is expelled from the body. If fiber intake is insufficient, the feces becomes impacted and difficult to move through the system.
Rice: Specifically white rice for its ability to strengthen peristalsis.
Water: Plain water can promote peristalsis—unlike tea or coffee—which are diuretic and facilitate the removal of water from the body which can lead to constipation.
Changing 4 Habits Reduces Constipation
Lai suggested that by changing these four habits, incidents of constipation and hemorrhoids can be reduced:
Rearrange food intake structure: Eat at regular intervals, increase fiber intake, eat white rice, and avoid cold or raw food.
Relax when eating breakfast: Go to bed early and wake up early. Reserve enough time to eat a leisurely breakfast
Exercise regularly: Exercise can promote peristalsis and aid bowel movements.
Drink sufficient water and drink it slowly: Drink at least 8 cups of water a day, and increase the intake of water according to body shape and amount of sweating. “If people drink a lot of water in one go, it is easy for the water to be discharged in urine. Therefore, people should get used to drinking slowly and drink whenever they want, to let water enter the intestines and promote peristalsis,” she said.
Exercises for Preventing Hemorrhoids
Self-massage: Massage around your belly button clockwise with both hands to make your stomach feel warm, preferably before meals, to activate peristalsis. (This stimulates the acupressure points known as the Sea of Qi point (CV 6) and Heaven’s Pivot point (ST 25))
Practice kegel exercises frequently: Kegel—or pelvic floor muscle exercises—strengthen and relax rectal muscles and sphincters to stimulate peristaltic action—focus on the area of the anus in particular.
Sea of Qi point (CV 6) and Heaven’s Pivot point (ST 25) around the belly can help peristalsis.
Best and Worst Posture for Sitting on the Toilet
Lai said the best posture for assisting healthy bowel movement is to keep the upper body at an angle of about 35 degrees to the thighs. She explained that there is a muscle around the rectum. “When people sit upright, the muscle hooks the rectum; however, when the body leans forward or something is placed underneath the feet, the upper body is kept at 35 degrees, and this muscle relaxes, making it easy to defecate.”
Dr. Lai said that the best position for defecating is to keep the upper body at about 35 degrees to the thighs.
Lai added that many people have the habit of reading and checking their phones while on the toilet, instead of focusing on having a bowel movement. As a result, they might lose the urge to defecate, prolonging the time spent on the toilet and causing excessive pressure on the anus, which can lead to hemorrhoids.
In addition, Dr. Lai said, sitting on the toilet for prolonged periods of time will also cause pressure on the anus—triggering hemorrhoids. “It is best to go again when you have the urge. One should not sit on the toilet for more than 10 minutes.”
A Brief Q&A About Intestinal Health
Can consuming probiotics and yogurt promote peristalsis? Yes and no. Not all of them can. Probiotics and yogurt mainly improve gut flora. If the constipation is not due to the number of gut flora or types of gut flora, they are not helpful.
Can a coffee enema help reduce or clear constipation? Dr. Lai said that the natural treatment of coffee enema has the function of removing impacted feces, but it may destroy the nerves indirectly around the anus and is not recommended.
In response to young people using a glycerin enema to stimulate bowel movement, Lai warned that “If people rely on this method when they are young, the intestines will not have power when they are old, which makes the defecation more difficult.”
The news of a hot chili sauce shortages earlier this year – due to high temperatures and drought in agricultural regions – prompted warnings to stock up on supplies or forego adding this flavor to your food. But what prompts people to want to do this in the first place?
We are usually born with an aversion to the sensations like the taste of chilli on our tongue. This isn’t surprising because the key ingredient in chilli is a compound called capsaicin, which causes a painful and even burning sensation when it comes into contact with sensitive areas of our skin, eyes and mouth. Little wonder that it is also a key ingredient in pepper spray.
But in smaller, tolerable amounts, we can adapt to the sensations evoked by chilli and find them desirable.
Chilli can even act as a natural opiate, making our bodies release endorphins in a similar way to a “runner’s high”.
A Taste Sensation
We react to capsaicin because we have a family of receptors in sensory nerves lining the epithelial (outer) layers of our skin, naso-oral and gastrointestinal tract. These bind to the capsaicin and relay signals to our brain.
These receptors are temperature sensitive and respond to heat in addition to being activated by capsaicin.
In the case of biting into a chilli pepper, the release of capsaicin onto our tongue generates a sensation that ranges from mild tingling to burning heat, depending on the degree to which we have adapted to it.
What distinguishes the sensation compared to other flavours – for example, salty, sweet and bitter – is that it continues long after we have swallowed the mouthful of food containing the chilli. This is because capsaicin is soluble in fat so it is not easily washed off from its receptors on our tongue and mouth by drinking water. In this way, the sensation can intensify with further mouthfuls of chilli-containing food.
We experience capsaicin as a burning sensation that is amplified when the temperature of the food is hot. Our brain interprets this as both pain and excessive warmth, which is why our facial skin flushes and we start to sweat.
Sounds Horrible, so Why Do Some People Love It?
Well, firstly, all that burning increases saliva production, a response that dilutes the heat as well as enhancing the ability to chew the food. This also dissolves and spreads other flavours in food around the tongue, which enhances the perception of these flavours.
Some volatile organic compounds with flavour can also rise up from the back of the mouth to the nasal sensors when the food is swallowed. Think of the pungent hit of wasabi that comes with sushi or the complex mix of aromas in a Thai red curry. Relatively bland food like rice has its flavor increased by the addition of chilli.
Another factor is that endorphins are released in response to the painful stimulus, which provide their own pain-numbing and mood-enhancing effects. This is a similar situation to people who get addicted to running – the effect of endorphins released by prolonged or intense exercise is to reduce feelings of pain and make us feel good.
People may increase their consumption of chilli as their response to capsaicin receptors adapts and they develop more tolerance and preference for the taste and its effects.
However, it is possible to have too much chilli, shown in the link between high daily consumption of chilli (more than 50 grams – or three or four tablespoons – per day) and declines in memory.
Endorphins in a bottle or torture test?
COVID and Taste
One thing people have noticed as a frequent side-effect of COVID infection and some antiviral treatment is that their sense of taste and smell is temporarily reduced or lost.
While this eventually recovers in most people, it can go on long after the initial illness. This loss of the ability to smell and taste flavours in food (anosmia and ageusia) leads to reduced enjoyment and quality of life.
Researchers have focused on the mechanisms through which the different COVID variants affect olfactory neurons (the parts of the brain that process and respond to smell) and supporting cells in order to find treatments.
These include smell training using essential oils, which may assist people whose smell remains impaired longer than a month post-COVID. Chilli might also assist, as a taste enhancer.
One study by a meals company of 2,000 diners with COVID found 43% of them were increasing the amount of chilli and other spices they were adding to food to amplify the flavour of meals. Danish experts say eating foods like chilli might be useful to provide sensory stimulation to diners when their sense of smell isn’t quite up to scratch.
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