Potassium and Sodium Balance
Seasoning with salt is so common that without it we usually feel the food does not taste good. Unfortunately, the use of salt creates a potassium/sodium imbalance, a very important health element. One eminent physician, Max Gerson, M.D., felt that cancer was created by a sodium/potassium imbalance.
Potassium deficiency may not become evident immediately because the deterioration is subtle and symptoms are often associated with the general aging process. These symptoms may include unrelenting fatigue, loss of muscle tone, a rise in blood pressure, weakness, mental confusion, abnormal heart rhythm and sagging dry skin. In young people acne is aggravated by potassium deficiency.
Nature wisely provided us with an abundance of delicious potassium-rich foods. These include: fruits like pineapple, banana, strawberries, grapes, apples, pears, mango and vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, sweet corn, mushrooms, parsley, potatoes, radishes, spinach, green peppers. Of course, all these are also high in fiber, minerals and other essential nutrients
So you might want to think twice next time you pick up that salt shaker. How about a banana instead!
Why You Don’t Need 8 Glasses a Day
Stop hitting that bottle: It’s a myth that you need to drink eight glasses of water a day to keep your skin supple. The moisture in skin comes from the blood supply, and you’d have to be severely dehydrated for your skin to be affected. “Basically, you need to drink enough water to replace what you lose in urine and sweat and if you’re healthy, your thirst mechanism tells you how much that is,” says Benjamin Caballero, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Human Nutrition. People on high-protein diets generally need more water, while people with lots of body fat need less. (You can tell you need to drink more if you easily go six or eight hours without urinating. You also need more fluids when you’re sick, since even a low fever makes you sweat.) And contrary to what some skin care experts say, you don’t need to swill water to help your body rid itself of toxins. “Many liquids help the kidneys eliminate toxins, including the liquid in the foods you eat,” says Caballero.
– From Redbook
New Hope
A unique computer-guided surgery device and technique developed in Pasadena is saving the lives of patients with what were once considered inoperable brain tumors.
One recent operation using the new technique is credited with allowing an 18-year-old Illinois student, Jim Smolenski, to graduate from high school. Previously his parents had been told the tumor in his brain was inoperable and that the boy could not be saved.
That was before the youth went to the Mayo clinic in Minnesota, where one of three of the newly developed devices can be found.
The new device and technique, developed at the Huntington Medical Research Institutes in Pasadena, allows a computer scan to guide a surgical instrument deep inside the brain to areas that had never been reachable for surgery before.
The surgical device, designed by Drs. C. Hunter Shelden and Skip Jacques, uses a computer program designed by the institute in conjunction with Cal Tech and Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
It takes the computer a couple of hours to gather the data it needs from X-ray scans of the brain. A unique microsurgical instrument is then guided to the target in the brain. While six of the devices have now been built, only three are in use: one in Pasadena, one at the Mayo Clinic, the third at UCLA in Los Angeles.
– From Knight-Ridder Newspapers
FDA Warning
The FDA warns persons with sleeping problems not to take the dietary supplement Sleeping Buddha. The product, promoted in health food stores for insomnia, contains the prescription-strength drug ingredient Estazolam and should be regulated like a drug, the agency contends. Estazolam is a sedative that carries a number of risks.
The Johns Hopkins Medical Letter
