Talk about health

I spend most of my working hours reading or writing about general health matters. Not just one specific illness or disease. For me the basics are to regain and maintain the very best of health that you can. And this means looking after all of you and addressing the whole range of problems that might befall. Prevention and treatment are at the heart of my work.

I've mentioned this because there are a lot of health sites that major on just one condition. And I wish them well in their quest for the best treatment for the sufferers of that particular condition.

I would rather take a more general overview of health by trying to help the section of the population that are sometimes called "the worried well" in addition to those people that are suffering from certain problems. That is to say that intelligent people with full and possibly stressed lives who may be concerned that ageing can produce a raft of health issues that might be avoidable with some judicious changes to their current lifestyle.

Or those sufferers of common conditions who wonder if their therapy could be made more effective if they employed an alternative therapy or even combined bits of several therapies to suit their particular circumstances.

The universal truth is that each of us is an individual and no single treatment option is going to suit everyone. Whatever your first choice of therapy, wherever you begin your search, the chances are it won't suit you.

Conventional treatment with drugs and surgery tends to be the first choice in the Western world. I can attest to the benefits of antibiotics and surgery. They have kept me alive and relatively healthy, especially through my younger years. However, as time has passed, I have come to understand the flaws and holes in the conventional system. More recent years have seen the glaring problems of hospitalisation - superbugs, queues, staff fatigue, drug side effects and so on. Hence the rise of the alternatives.

So what? Many of the alternative therapies have been widely used in other parts of the world for centuries. They, too, have faults and create problems. What's the answer?

My thoughts, for what they are worth, is that you should have an idea of just what these alternatives have to offer. Then you can make some kind of judgement of what is the best option for you - that unique individual, with your specific set of circumstances and concerns.

I believe that the best person to decide on your prevention regime or therapy is you, just as long as you have a reasonable idea of the choices available to you.

Where does that leave you?

First, you need to have an idea of what being healthy really means. Then how does that compare with you. The basics include diet, exercise, sleep, and stress. How might these be made to adjust and fit into your lifestyle? How could you add them to an already busy schedule? Is the busy schedule really necessary? What could I do to help you?

No one, least of all me, can tell you how to lead your life, and I have no intention of doing so. What I think will help is to provide you with some general information in a way that you can understand and in a form that you can access as and when you need it. Hence my posting articles here and sending you my newsletter.

And providing a series of useful booklets on subject such as STRESS, STOMACH ACID, ACUPUNCTURE, CHOLESTEROL, PAIN CONTROL and so on. They are designed to provide a clear and concise view of the condition, its cause and its possible treatment and cure using conventional and alternative therapies.

You may be surprised at just what the alternative therapies can do, given the chance. I know I was when I first started researching them.

The options are yours. Prevention, treatment and cure are out there if you know where to look and what to do. Why not take a look at my site at http://www.healthexplored.com and sign up for my newsletter? There is no obligation to buy anything. The newsletter give you a chance to check out my style and objectives at no cost to you.

It's then up to you to take it further if you wish. Ask me health questions, make suggestions for future articles, criticise my views, ... go on. Give it a try. Here's that link again http://www.healthexplored.com .

Thanks for reading this and all the very best of health to you.

Where does the time go? After resolving to write here regularly I've managed to let the days slip away again!

Anyway, I've received several queries about an article that made most of the daily papers here in the UK. It was based on a published research papaer that noted how drinking 500ml beetroot juice a day could lower blood pressure significantly. The points I would make on this would probably go for many of the newspaper health reports printed these days.

The first is that these articles tend to be short on detail and long on possible benefits. What I mean is that having read quite a few of the beetroot juice articles not one mentioned the juice itself. How was it made? Juicing a few beetroot perhaps? Or boiling them up and concentrating the water? Was it beetroot alone? If so at what concentration? Could anyone make a suitable alternative? Or does it need some chemical assessment procedure first?

No such luck ... no clues in the aritcles anyway. So, I did a little surfing and found at least one warning on drinking juiced beetroot alone. Apparently it can cause a series of side effects unless it is mixed with other vegetables such as carrots, ginger and so on. So let's have a bit more detail on the so-called magic juice.

Then, how often would you need to take it to have the desired effect? The research used normal people - not suffering from high blood pressure, and only over a few days. How do the results stack up for sufferers from high blood pressure if they were to take it for months or even years?

And, how palatable is it to drink 500ml of beetroot juice every day? It is a lot of liquid to consume daily, and if it has a distinctive taste and colour ( as I think it does) would it put people off? Does it turn your urine a nice pink-purple colour and stain everything it touches? All of these considerations influence its acceptance as a form of medication.

Nothing in the articles so far as I could see. Certainly the researchers gave their explanation of how beetroot juice could have the desired effect. And for that I'm grateful.

Then I came across a site that suggested that beetroot could actually raise blood pressure if it was below normal levels.

The newspaper reports clearly have not included a search of current literature. I know they have to fill papers with something, but to suggest a new and revolutionary treatment for one of the more troubling conditions of this century without qualification is poor.

This type of blindly reporting single research findings on health has the effect of raising people's hopes that a cure is at hand when it clearly is not. Research such as this could well be the start of a new and useful path to treating high blood pressure. Beetroot may be the source of some wonderful chemical to treat this condition. Or it might point to the fact that vegetables such as beetroot as part of a good diet has a blood pressure moderating action in everyone. The point is that this report is only the beginning of a process, not the end.

We're back to the good dietary advice again! Carrot juice and orange juice is said to have similar effects to beetroot juice. But, who is researching this?

Finally, I wonder who said, "I know. Let's do some research on the actions of beetroot juice."