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Chamomile Benefits: Growing Your Own Medicine.

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Chamomile marks many people’s first venture into herbalism, and it’s usually because they have problems sleeping. The value of the plant as a mild relaxant has made it a popular choice in prepared teas found in nearly every grocery store. But chamomile benefits don’t stop there—this flowering jewel is able to provide an array of health perks. What’s more, growing chamomile at home is quite an easy task.

There are several varieties of chamomile, all members of the Asteraceae family. Most popular in herb gardens and commercially prepared teas, however, is German chamomile (Matricaria recutita), also sometimes called Hungarian chamomile, wild chamomile, or scented mayweed.

This plant is an annual (dies off in the cold season) and grows in small bushes to be about 20 to 30 inches high. It has smooth stems with long, narrow leaves, and little white flowers that used in herbal preparations. These small flowers resemble small daisies, with yellow centers and a strong, pleasant scent.


Brief History of Chamomile

The first recorded use of chamomile occurred in Ancient Egypt. The plant was held in high reverence for its ability to cure ‘Ague’, what is very much like an acute fever. Because an acute fever can be relatively common, extremely uncomfortable, and usually just goes away with time, a cure for the illness probably made chamomile quite popular.

The word chamomile comes from the Greek Chamomaela, which translates to “ground apple”. In Spain, it is still called the “Little Apple”. These titles likely come from its scent.

Over the years, the herb has been used for flavorings, incense, beverages, and for treating a variety of health ailments.

Chamomile Benefits: Healing Uses of Chamomile

Perhaps the most widely known use of chamomile is in its benefits as a mild relaxant or sedative. It has been used in this manner for centuries and can be found in grocery store aisles under names like “Sleepy Time Tea” for precisely this reason. Taken 30 to 45 minutes before bed, chamomile can help you relax and prepare for a restful slumber.

But despite its popularity as a soothing relaxant, chamomile benefits don’t end there.

Much of Chamomile’s ability to heal is due to phenolics within the plant. Phenolics represent a large family of compounds including flavonoids, quinones, phenolic acids, and other antioxidant compounds; they provide a range of health benefits, including protection against stress and healing cells. But what else is Chamomile good for?

Researchers with the American Chemical Society found that chamomile’s phenolics have antibacterial activity, suggesting it could be useful in boosting the immune system and fighting illnesses like the common cold. In addition, study subjects who drank the tea on a regular basis had elevated levels of glycine, a protein known for relieving muscle spasms, which could explain it’s relaxing qualities.

Chamomile has also been shown to have antimicrobial, antioxidant, antiplatelet, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic and antimutagenic properties, according to researchers with the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center.

While science is slowly unlocking all of Chamomile’s benefits in the lab, there is no question that individuals throughout history have experienced the benefits even without the science to back it up.

Through tradition and folk healing over the years, chamomile has also been used to treat:

·         Anxiety

·         Insomnia

·         Digestive problems like nausea and bloating

·         Menstrual cramps

·         Migraines

·         Burns and scrapes

·         Rashes like eczema

·         Mouth sores and gum disease

Even better news? You can easily grow your own chamomile to experience chamomile benefits.

Growing and Harvesting Your Own Chamomile

Like growing oregano or growing parsley, growing chamomile is fairly easy with some basic tips. Because there are several varieties of the herb we know as chamomile, these tips are specifically geared towards growing the variety known as German chamomile.

The plant is best grown from seed, rather than potted as an already partially grown plant. Seeds can be started indoors and moved outside after fear of the last frost has passed. Otherwise you can direct sow in the soil in late spring.

Chamomile seeds need sunlight to germinate. This means you don’t want to completely bury them in the dirt or plant them in a heavily shaded area. Instead, scatter the seeds and lightly mix with the top soil. As for water, the plant doesn’t need to be overwatered, but it shouldn’t be completely dry between soakings either.

When the flowers on your chamomile plant begin opening up, harvest them. The more you harvest, the more that will grow. You should be harvesting every few days. Cut the stem just above a lead node, or where a leaf joins the stem, then remove the flower and place in a basket or on a drying rack.

Move the flowers around from time to time to ensure they are drying completely. Once they are thoroughly dried, you can store the flowers in a glass jar in your cabinet. They will keep for several months as long as they are kept dry and out of the sun.

Using Medicinal Chamomile

There are many applications for dried chamomile including tinctures and essential oils though the easiest and most often used is an infusion or tea. For stomach ailments, muscle spasms, and help in falling asleep, use about one tablespoon of dried herb per cup of water. Pour boiling water over the herbs and allow to steep for about 5 minutes. Strain and enjoy.

If you want to use chamomile topically– on rashes, cuts and other skin ailments, for instance—you can create a compress by simply making a more concentrated “tea”. Once the tea has cooled, dip a cloth in it, wring it out and apply to the affected area. You can similarly use this tea as a facial or hair rinse.

From your skin to your stomach or even a stressed mind, chamomile is a master-soother, and one you can easily add to your healing herb garden. Experience chamomile benefits today, and share your thoughts with others!

Source: http://naturalsociety.com

Association of Elevated Blood Pressure With Low Distress and Good Quality of Life: Results From the Nationwide Representative German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents.

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Abstract

Objective Quality of life is often impaired in patients with known hypertension, but it is less or not at all reduced in people unaware of their elevated blood pressure. Some studies have even shown less self-rated distress in adults with elevated blood pressure. In this substudy of the nationwide German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KIGGS), we addressed the question whether, also in adolescents, hypertensive blood pressure is linked to levels of distress and quality of life.

Methods Study participants aged 11 to 17 years (N = 7688) received standardized measurements of blood pressure, quality of life (using the Children’s Quality of Life Questionnaire), and distress (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire).

Results Elevated blood pressure was twice as frequent as expected, with 10.7% (n = 825) above published age-, sex- and height-adjusted 95th percentiles. Hypertensive participants were more likely to be obese and to report on adverse health behaviors, but they showed better academic success than did normotensive participants. Elevated blood pressure was significantly and positively associated with higher self- and parent-rated quality of life (for both, p ≤ .006), less hyperactivity (for both, p < .005), and lower parent-rated emotional (p < .001), conduct (p = .021), and overall problems (p = .001). Multiple regression analyses confirmed these findings.

Conclusions Our observation linking elevated blood pressure to better well-being and low distress can partly be explained by the absence of confounding physical comorbidity and the unawareness of being hypertensive. It also corresponds to earlier research suggesting a bidirectional relationship with repressed emotions leading to elevated blood pressure and, furthermore, elevated blood pressure serving as a potential stress buffer.

DISCUSSION

In this substudy of the KiGGS survey, we have examined the association of elevated blood pressure with psychological distress and health-related quality of life in a large, nationally representative sample of German adolescents aged 11 to 17 years. In 825 of 7688 study participants (10.7%), elevated blood pressure levels above published age-, sex-, and height-adjusted 95th percentiles were documented by means of standardized oscillometric measurement, demonstrating twice the rate expected from earlier normative samples (28). Hypertensive blood pressure was independent of socioeconomic status and most frequently found in postpubertal boys.

The central finding of this investigation was that adolescents with elevated blood pressure levels reported significantly better quality of life and lower levels of distress on multiple domains of two well-validated instruments. Moreover, concordant results were observed for both self- and parent-rated versions of the two instruments and for both systolic and diastolic blood pressure as predictors. All associations remained stable when adjusted for a variety of possible confounders in multivariate analyses. These observations in adolescents seem to contradict several reports from adult patients who are aware of having arterial hypertension. The adult patients may already feel concerned about possible long-term health complications, the necessity of regular visits to a physician, and costs and adverse effects of antihypertensive medication. Together with hypertensive end-organ damage present sometimes, this may impair quality of life (1,12,20).

In contrast, our results confirm earlier studies in adult populations showing an inverse association between hypertension and subjectively measured distress (19,20). For example, Winkleby et al. (19) found that hypertension as defined by elevated office blood pressure and/or current use of antihypertensive medications was negatively related to an index of self-rated job stressors in 1428 San Francisco bus drivers, and the same effect was observed also for continuous blood pressure values. Remarkably, this inverse association was equally found in nonmedicated (and possibly unaware) and medicated (and probably aware) participants.

Most of the hypertensive adolescents identified in the KiGGS study were not aware of their elevated blood pressure, which was only detected by routine screening performed as part of this survey. It is well known that individuals unaware of having high blood pressure usually report less bodily pain and show higher scores in physical functioning and general health than those with known hypertension (1,20,35,36). However, this putative unawareness does not explain why elevated blood pressure was actually associated with better quality of life and lower distress. Several possible explanations might account for this inverse association observed in our sample. a) Some adolescents may be more achievement oriented and, thereby, more successful in their school careers than others. This may occur at the expense of chronic (objective) stress and elevated blood pressure but lead to better self-esteem and quality of life. b) Repression of emotions may lead to better self-ratings of distress and quality of life, and repressed emotions might at the same time lead to elevations in blood pressure, as suggested by a line of research recently summarized by Mann (37). c) Elevations in blood pressure themselves might dampen negative emotions, possibly via vagal afferents. These three possible explanations are not mutually exclusive, and each one merits further discussion. However, the cross-sectional nature of our data does not allow us to draw firm causal conclusions.

In our sample, hypertensive participants performed better at school than did normotensive participants. Better school performance was associated with both better quality of life (data not shown) and elevated blood pressure. However, good quality of life was not mainly driven by better school success because elevated blood pressure and quality of life remained positively associated even after controlling for irregular school career. School success may, on the other hand, have been achieved at the expense of an increased stressor burden contributing to both high blood pressure and adverse health behaviors.

Our data are also consistent with the emotion repression theory of hypertension. Following that theory, repressed emotions, which could manifest themselves in low self-rated distress, might drive blood pressure up, probably via autonomic arousal (38). Interestingly, however, also parents of hypertensive adolescents rated their children as less distressed, less hyperactive, and more satisfied with their lives than did parents of normotensive adolescents. This indicates that not only hypertensive adolescents themselves but also their close family members perceived them as less distressed. Whether this means that repression of emotion in adolescents leads to distorted perception in their parents via changes in adolescents’ expressive behavior or whether these parents are repressors themselves, unable to recognize negative emotional clues in their children, cannot be concluded from our data.

Finally, our data could reflect a repeatedly described stress-dampening effect of hypertension (37,39–41). Arterial mechanoreceptors in the aortic arch and carotid sinus, which are sensitive to changes in systemic blood pressure, function as key elements in the transmission of hemodynamic information to the brain via vagal afferents. From some experimental studies performed almost 20 years ago, it is well documented that elevated blood pressure can thereby have pain- and stress-lowering effects (38–43). Previous reports have suggested the presence of an inhibitory feedback loop for adaption to chronic stressors, in which activation of baroafferent pathways by mechanical stretch caused by elevated blood pressure reduces somatic muscle tone, increases cortical synchronization, and blunts the level of pain and anxiety, all of which may have a beneficial impact on emotional well-being but may also lead to the transition of stress-induced hypertensive reactions to sustained chronic hypertension (38,44). Provided that a rise in blood pressure is involved in the reduction of perceived stress, the endogenous baroreceptor-brain circuitry constitutes a reinforcing mechanism, which rewards phasic elevations of blood pressure in stressful conditions, a reaction that could be learned over time (39). More recently, it has been shown that exogenic stimulation of the vagus nerve may have anticonvulsive and antidepressant properties (45). Interrupting the baroreceptor-brain circuitry by antihypertensive drug therapy, on the other hand, commonly reduces health-related quality of life and, possibly, also may impede adherence to pharmacological treatment (46).

There are some limitations to this study, mainly based on its cross-sectional and post-hoc design, which does not allow a causal interpretation for the observed link between high blood pressure and quality of life. Because the survey was originally not planned to specifically examine associations between blood pressure and well-being, no ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is available. However, the blood pressure readings in KiGGS were obtained under highly standardized conditions by trained physicians and with devices well validated for this age group. They have been published and accepted as new reference values for German children and adolescents (25). Nevertheless, the assignment to the hypertensive group was not based on a medical diagnosis, but on blood pressure levels above previously reported age-, sex-, and height-adjusted 95th percentiles, determined during one complex and potentially demanding diagnostic assessment. They are likely to be biased in the same way as typical office blood pressure recordings are. The unexpectedly high prevalence of elevated blood pressure found in this study cohort should therefore be interpreted with caution. Finally, the effect sizes of systolic and diastolic blood pressure on quality of life were small. However, they were still within the range of other known determinants for health-related quality of life, such as sex, body weight, and alcohol consumption. The small effect sizes may be caused by the relatively small range of blood pressure values and to sample heterogeneity; however, the highly consistent findings across self-rating and parent rating on several dimensions of distress and quality of life suggest a real and epidemiologically relevant association.

Our investigation also has several strengths. Data were available for a large, representative and well-characterized sample, giving sufficient statistical power and generalizability to our observations. Another strength is the well-standardized assessment of blood pressure, quality of life, and distress as well as the use of individual norm-based blood pressure cutoffs rather than one simple threshold. Our analysis was based on the widely accepted reference from the National High Blood Pressure Education Program Working Group on Children and Adolescents (28) because this reference also included overweight individuals, and, moreover, used relatively high cutoff levels (26). The results found for categorized blood pressure data were fully confirmed with continuous readings for both systolic and diastolic blood pressure as predictors in multivariate models, which were adjusted for a variety of possible confounders. Furthermore, we obtained psychometric evaluations by both adolescents and their parents, using instruments that had been well validated beforehand and applied independently of the authors of this substudy, who we were not involved in data collection.

In summary, in this representative sample of German adolescents, we demonstrate a significant and epidemiologically relevant association of hypertensive blood pressure with lower psychological distress and better health-related quality of life. To our knowledge, this is the first report linking elevated blood pressure to quality of life and psychosocial adaptation in a large epidemiological study of adolescents. Besides the absence of confounding from physical comorbidity and a formal diagnosis of hypertension, our cross-sectional assessment may capture a stress-dampening effect of high blood pressure or effects of repressed emotions on blood pressure already at an early stage, not yet fixed by vascular remodeling.

Source: http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org

 

In Germany, a sleeping pill with lasting effects.

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robert-s-donovan-flickrIt was late 1957 when Contergan, the first sleeping pill with virtually no risk of fatal overdosing, went on the German market.

“As harmless as sugar cookies,” an original advertisement said. ”Contergan gives peace and sleep. This harmless medicine won’t burden the liver metabolism, affects neither blood pressure nor circulation, and is well tolerated even by sensitive patients.”

Within a year, the new “wonder drug” under various names had made its way into prescription and over-the-counter markets in the UK, Australia, Canada, Japan and dozens of other countries, where it was frequently used to treat morning sickness.

But by late 1961, an increase in severe limb malformation in infants finally led German pediatrician Dr. Widukind Linz and Australian gynecologist Dr. William McBride to link the cases to thalidomide, the active ingredient in Contergan. Twelve days later, the drug’s German manufacturer Grunenthal removed it from the market.

The damage had been done, however, with some 10,000 cases of infant deformities due to thalidomide recorded worldwide. Of the 5,000 instances that occurred in West Germany – which was hit hardest by the over-the-counter availability of the drug – roughly 2,800 survivors remain today.

The victims’ lifelong struggle for formal recognition and monetary compensation from Grunenthal is thought to be part of the catalyst for the pharmaceutical company’s first-ever public apology to the victims of the thalidomide scandal on August 31 – some 50 years after the drug was discontinued.

“We also apologize for the fact that we have not found the way to you from person to person for almost 50 years,” Grunenthal CEO Dr. Harald F. Stock said during the inauguration of a thalidomide memorial commissioned by the company.

“Instead, we have been silent and we are very sorry for that. We ask that you regard our long silence as a sign of the silent shock that your fate has caused us.”

But questions turn to the responsibilities of business in the manufacture of consumer products, as thalidomide victims worldwide continue to age – and original compensation set out for those affected proves to have been an underestimate of the overall cost.

Following several years of case research and a trial, in which Grunenthal was never found guilty of negligence (there were no drug testing laws in place in West Germany between 1957 and 1961), the pharma company settled with families and paid 110 million Deutsche Mark (55 million USD) to a foundation for victims, while the German government contributed 100 million DM (50 million USD), according to the country’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

But Grunenthal’s portion of the fund was used up by 1997, at which point the government covered the cost of inflation, as well as the doubling of victims’ annual pension allowance in light of increasing living costs as ailments became worse with age.

“The original agreement was established at a time when everyone thought we hardly had a life expectancy,” Udo Herterich of the Contergan Association of North Rhine Westphalia told the paper.

“Our bodies are giving out,” Margit Hudelmaier, head of the National Association of Contergan Victims, told the paper, explaining that many survivors had to quit working early, were in need of massages, wheelchairs and above all – helping hands just to get through their daily lives.

“To help us live as comfortably and independently as possible costs money,” journalist, advocate and thalidomide victim Geoff Adams-Spink explains on CNN.com.

“Adaptations, medical costs and personal assistants are not cheap. Thalidomide has deprived us of the lives we should have had and many more of any life at all. I believe that both morally and legally, Grunenthal has a responsibility to help us and will continue to fight until that happens.”

Following talks with families in recent years, Grunenthal voluntarily paid another 50 million Euros to Germany’s Contergan Foundation in 2009. It also supports what it calls a hardship fund, which takes specific requests for compensation from severely disabled victims, Grunenthal spokesperson Frank Schönrock told SmartPlanet. But many survivors say the fight for compensation will not end until Grunenthal can guarantee survivors the full financial security they are unable to provide themselves with for the rest of their lives.

“The Wirtz family has grown fat on the backs of thousands of families whose lives have been torn apart by a medicine originally marketed as ‘totally without harm,’” says Adams-Spink. “If they really want to make amends, they should put their entire wealth at the disposal of the world’s thalidomide survivors before it’s too late.”

According to Grunenthal, it made thalidomide available for humanitarian reasons only after the tragedy and completely discontinued it in 2003. The company also says that thalidomide was not commercially marketed after 1961, and that it derived no profit from the drug.

Source: Smart Planet.