Holistic Medicine is defined by the Canadian Holistic Medical Association as follows.

Holistic medicine is a system of health care which fosters a cooperative relationship among all those involved, leading towards optimal attainment of the physical, mental emotional, social and spiritual aspects of health.

It emphasizes the need to look at the whole person, including analysis of physical, nutritional, environmental, emotional, social, and spiritual and lifestyle values. It encompasses all stated modalities of diagnosis and treatment including drugs and surgery if no safe alternative exists. Holistic medicine focuses on education and responsibility for personal efforts to achieve balance and well being.

Suzan Walter, President of the American Holistic Health Association (AHHA), put together an excellent summary of the principals of Holistic Health. The summary can be found on the AHHA Web page. For those unfamiliar with Holistic Medicine, I strongly encourage reading this short summary.

Other Terms Associated with Holistic Medicine

• Alternative Medicine is often used by the general public and some healthcare practitioners to refer to medical techniques which are not known or accepted by the majority “conventional” or “allopathic” medical practitioners (usually M.D.’s). Such techniques could include non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical techniques such as Medical Herbalism, Acupunture, Homeopathy, Reiki, and many others. However, the term Alternative Medicine can also refer to any experimental drug or non-drug technique that is not currently accepted by “conventional” medical practitioners. As non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical techniques become popular and accepted by large number of “conventional” practitioners, these techniques will no longer be considered Alternative Medicine.

Alternative Medicine refers to techniques that are not currently accepted by “conventional” practitioners, but what is currently accepted is quickly changing. Even the definition of “conventional practitioners” is quickly changing. Therefore, techniques that are now considered part of Alternative Medicine will soon be considered part of “conventional” medicine. The terms Holistic Healing and Holistic Medicine are slightly more stable than Alternative Medicine and are therefore preferable.

• Complementary Medicine is often used by “conventional” medical practitioners to refer to non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical techniques used as a complement to “conventional” medical treatments such as drugs and surgery. The term implies that “conventional” medicine is used as a primary tool and the non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical techniques are used as a supplement when needed.

In many cases, properly chosen non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical healing techniques plus properly chosen lifestyle changes can completely and safely heal both acute and chronic illnesses. In other cases, “conventional” medicine is only needed in emergencies or when the safer non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical methods fail. In some cases “conventional” medicine will be a major part of a Holistic Healing Plan, but in some cases it is not needed at all.

• Natural Healing usually refers to the use of non-invasive and non-pharmaceuticals techniques to help heal the patient. When most people use the term Natural Healing, they are usually referring to physical healing techniques only.

When lot of people realizes that their weight has become a problem and they need to lose weight turn to diets. Low-fat, Low sugar healthy alternative! One of the most used sayings and labels used of food stuffs these days. But is it really? I mean yeah it has low sugar, but what about the high amount of fat? And the fat may be low but what about the salt and carbohydrates? People don’t think of these things when they go shopping. They pick the item which has the words low fat on it and pay double the price because they think it is worth it when sometimes it really isn’t.

Obesity and diet go hand in hand with each other Diet and nutrition is essential in life. People must be informed that a diet is not just sticking to plain, normal foods that don’t taste very nice. There are a wide range of diets available which means there is sure to be one to suit everyone. You don’t even need to join a specific diet either. You just need to eat properly, eat small amounts frequently and make sure our food is balanced. Nutrients are essential in life also. The help the body function and determines how healthy our skin and body is. If you get wise to the available nutrients there are you have a better chance of staying healthy as you know what your body needs.

Obesity is without doubt the world’s biggest health problem at the moment and needs to be sorted. If people stuck to healthy eating and enjoyed an active lifestyle controversial diets would not need to be put under the spotlight. Weight loss programs such as weight watchers and the likes are more sensible forms of weight loss. The weight is lost over a longer period of time and is therefore easier to keep off and a better option of your body.

There is lots of information on the internet about obesity and diets or in books on how you can eat healthily but still eat all the foods that you enjoy. There are slimming clubs, and online weight loss programs all of which help you to have a healthy diet and a varied balance of foods. Exercise regimes are also available widely and there is lots of information available on what type of exercise will suit you! Try a healthy diet what can you lose? Apart from weight!

Late effects are side effects of cancer treatment that become apparent after your treatment has ended. Cancer survivors might experience late effects of cancer treatment a few months after treatment is completed or years later.

It isn’t clear why these late effects are delayed. Some doctors believe that late effects simply weren’t noticed during and immediately after your treatment, though the damage may have been there all along. It could be that your body was compensating for the damage caused by cancer treatment and is no longer able to do that, revealing these late effects.

In contrast with late effects, side effects that start during your cancer treatment and linger for months or years after are called long-term side effects. Long-term side effects usually are different from late side effects. For example, nerve damage (peripheral neuropathy) is common during some types of chemotherapy and may begin during treatment and linger for months or even years after cancer treatment are completed. Most long-term effects lessen or completely resolve with time.

Some cancer survivors wonder why they weren’t told about the possibility of long-term or late side effects before they began treatment. Sometimes cancer survivors were told, but with so much to remember and go through when you’re first diagnosed and beginning treatment, it’s easy to forget or not absorb all the information. Sometimes your doctor doesn’t discuss late side effects because it’s impossible to predict every single side effect, early or late, that some treatments have. It’s also possible that the late effects of your treatment weren’t known at the time you began treatment.

Basic chemistry and how diet and slimming pills work

To learn how diet and slimming pills work, we need to begin with basic chemistry. There are two major categories: inhibitors, or suppressers of appetite, and non-inhibitors.

Diet pills work by biasing the basic body chemistry. First of all, like any other drug, they need to pass into the bloodstream to do their job. They get to the bloodstream either through the intestine or the lymph, lungs, veins or dermis. Diet pills should follow two basic conditions:

• The molecules in the pill must be very small to move into the stomach and intestinal lining.
• The molecules in the drug should stay untouched by stomach acid. If broken down, the medication does not work.

All diet pills contain different active ingredients. Diet pill information reveals that each of them works basically by chemistry. That means the human body is liable to certain internal reactions which are hard to control and regulate from outside, even by physicians. Diet pills have significant side effects. Thus medical approval is recommended. Basically, there are two types of diet pills available now:

Inhibitors

Pills influencing appetite by either suppressing or decreasing it. In this case, everything has to do not with obesity, but the brain, which coordinates what happens within the human body. These pills stimulate the central nervous system, increasing the heart rate and blood pressure. In this case, the eating drive usually ordered by the brain is modified.

Non-Inhibitors

Pills that reduce the amount of fat absorbed by the human body. They have a lot to do with digestion. Their mission is to inhibit pancreatic lipase, an enzyme. Enzymes speed up reactions by a factor of one thousand. Without enzymes, chemical reactions are slower. When they are absent, it is presumed that fat is eliminated through the intestine. Bowel movements occur too frequently and may become uncontrollable. Inhibitors take the edge off the appetite by tricking the brain into thinking that there is no hunger, whereas non-inhibitors do not allow for the absorption of fats.

• When diet pills are chosen for whatever reason, an eating regimen and a regular exercise plan are essential. A magic diet pill which works overnight have not yet been invented.
• Medical supervision is also required. Non-prescription diet pills are extremely dangerous.

Any natural ingredient that has a 4,000 year history of treating a wide variety of ailments is worth knowing more about. Green tea falls right into that category. In fact, Chinese people have been touting the benefits of green tea since the first Dynasty and earlier.

Although green tea has been a “folklore medicine” for all of that time, recent scientific research into the curing properties of green tea indicates that there is something there after all.

As early as 1994 an article published by the Journal of the National cancer Institute showed that a regular diet that included green tea could reduce the risks of esophageal cancer by as much as 60%. The study found that certain compounds found in green tea tended to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. As a side benefit, green tea was also shown to reduce total cholesterol levels and increase the ratio of HDL (good) cholesterol to LDL (bad) cholesterol.

The Chinese already knew that and they also believe that green tea is an effective remedy for rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, and certain immune deficiencies.

So, what’s in green tea that’s so good?

Apparently it’s the fact that green tea is high in an anti-oxidant known as “epigallocatechin gallate” , or EGCG for short.

Clinical tests show that EGCG not only inhibits the growth of new cancer cells, but it kills some existing cancer cells without harming normal cells. EGCG also reportedly inhibits the unnatural formation of blood clots which have been known to cause thrombosis, one of the leading causes of heart attacks and stroke.

Green tea and black tea both come from the Camellia sinensis plant yet only green tea has been found to have these medicinal properties. Researchers believe this is because green tea is manufactured using a process where the tea-producing plant’s leaves are steamed instead of being fermented like the other varieties. This steaming process leaves the EGCG compounds undamaged. The fermenting process, on the other hand, converts the EGCG into an inert substance which loses its medicinal properties.

The dark side of drinking green tea.

Well, the good news is that there isn’t any bad news other than the fact that green tea contains caffeine which may or may not be something that you want in your body. The caffeine count is substantially lower than coffee and other teas, however, and the benefits of drinking green tea seem to greatly outweigh the side effects of caffeine; at least for most people.

How much green tea is right for you?

That depends upon who you listen to. Some Chinese homeopathic health practitioners call for 10 cups a day, while some health researchers say that 2 to 3 cups will do the trick. When you look at all of the varying research, and take the average, 4 to 5 eight ounce cups of green tea per day should be good enough for most people.

If you don’t like drinking green tea, or find the process of brewing green tea to be more that you are willing to go through 4 to 5 times per day, there are companies who produce “Green Tea Capsules” which contain doses of EGCG.

It’s been said that anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Since no one has found any instances of “death by green tea”, it certainly can’t do you any harm (and it just might do you some good), to introduce green tea into your life.