Nothing to date can dissolve kidney stones, in spite of various marketed herbal substances or “natural and home” remedy potion or pills that claim to be able to do so. Don’t be fooled by false advertisements which are only after your hard earned money.
If you are prone to develop kidney stones, drink lemonade. It cannot dissolve kidney stone crystals, but it can slow down the development of stones. It is a delicious way to control your stone formation.
“When treating patients in our kidney stone center, we put everyone on lemonade therapy,” says Steven Y. Nakada, chair and professor of urology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.at a previous annual meeting of the American Urological Association in Atlanta.
Potassium citrate is usually prescribed for patients with kidney stones. Citrate is a kidney stone preventing substance, and lemonade (lemon juice) is full of citrate. The pill is more potent but the citrate in lemonade has been found to also slow down kidney stone formation. An alternative to “another pill” to take.
Liquid biopsy?
The term biopsy conventionally means cutting a piece of solid tissue for microscopic analysis to make a diagnosis. Liquid “biopsy” is a new promising procedure for detecting early-stage cancers by blood test, which replaces cutting a “solid tumor,” hence termed “liquid biopsy.” The article about this future much less invasive way of finding cancer at its early stage, edited by William E. Chavey, MD, MS, was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Science Translational Medicine.
The report says, “the technique allows assessment of sequence changes in circulating cell-free DNA.” Researchers used the method to look for alterations in nearly 60 cancer-related genes in blood samples from 44 healthy individuals and 200 patients with colorectal, breast, lung, or ovarian cancer. None of the healthy patients showed genetic changes related to solid cancers, while the test detected genetic alterations in 60–70 percent of those with stage I or II cancer. The researchers say the approach could “in principle” be implemented for cancer screening, pending validation studies. Early detection and intervention are likely to be the most effective means for reducing morbidity and mortality of human cancer. When it is validated and accepted as a standard diagnostic procedure, “Liquid Biopsy” could save hundreds of millions around the globe.
Your mouth and diabetes
Most people do not know or realize that poor dental/oral health increases our risk for diabetes T2 and, in turn, this metabolic disease adversely affects our teeth. It is a vicious cycle of cause and effect highlighted by the American Dental Association.
The ADA clarification: “Blood sugars fueling the acidity that leads to tooth and root decay and gum disease, and dental disease that leads to infection and boosts blood glucose when the body’s immune system responds. The 2017 publication recognizes the close association of dental disease and diabetes, even though ADA acknowledges that causes and effects aren’t yet universally understood.”
Also, dental/oral infection, and infection (inflammation) in any other parts of the body increase our risks for cardiovascular diseases and cancer too.
This is why dental hygiene and regular visit to the dentist is paramount.
Sleep and diabetes
Impairment in sleep raises our risk for metabolic disease, like diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular illnesses, like heart attack, stroke, and even cancer. Yes, lack of restful sleep leads to increased proneness to all these major ailments, including deadly cancers. Indeed, sleep is that important to our health and well being.
More and more, physicians today are far more vigilant about Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) as a most common cause of impairment of sleep and its association and role to the development of (and as a worsening factor) for the major illnesses listed above
About 3-7 percent (roughly about 10 to 16 million) of the U.S. population have sleep apnea, more among men. There are countless undiagnosed OSA cases. Almost 25 percent of individuals with diabetes T2 also have OSA,
In OSA, there is frequent (could be hundred times a night) breath holding, severely reduced oxygen level, and the person wakes up gasping for breath. Some do not even wake up at all, suffering anoxia and heart attack or fatal heart-rhythm problem. The constant reduction in oxygen due to OSA every night also leads to fatigue, sleepiness during the daytime, lack of concentration, poorer decision-making, and inferior performance. Depriving the body oxygen and rest also increase the risk for those major diseases mentioned above, including cancer.
Among diabetics, Sleep-Disordered Breathing (SDB), OSA, and all other stresses, impair the metabolism of our body in general and, among those with diabetes, the body’s ability to allow the medications to work fully.
Metformin, the most popular drug for diabetes T2, which acts to reduce the glucose production in the liver and reduce the cell insulin resistance, acts less than 100 percent when the patient has an untreated sleep disorder. This makes the treatment less optimal. And the same thing is true among those patients with high blood pressure or other major ailments on treatment. A good restful sleep every day is essential for all of us.
After a sleep study has confirmed the diagnosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnea, the best treatment is the use of CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) whenever going to sleep. CPAP has saved and improved countless lives.
Undermining global health
The pernicious and criminal modus operandi of tobacco companies, particularly Philip Morris International (PMI) and British American Tobacco (BAT), of running secret campaigns to block or undermine the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and governmental negotiations at the FCTC Conference of Parties (COP), according to the investigative reports by Reuters and The Guardian in Bangkok July 14, 2017.
These companies are undermining, not only health governance but the health of the people around the world, all in the name of income and profits as they act as the purveyors of diseases, family disruption, misery, and deaths.
The report says “the investigations reveal multiple tobacco industry offensives across at least 14 countries in Africa, America, and Asia, including Vietnam, and how they subvert the treaty on multiple levels.
Tobacco kills more than half a million annually in the ASEAN region, creates poverty among the users, and burdens the national economy with more than ten billion U.S. dollars in healthcare costs each year because of tobacco-related diseases and premature deaths.
These unconscionable criminal companies and their principals ought to be prosecuted and held accountable for their crime against humanity.
***
Philip S. Chua, MD, FACS, FPCS, Cardiac Surgeon Emeritus in Northwest Indiana and chairman of cardiac surgery from 1997 to 2010 at Cebu Doctors University Hospital, where he holds the title of Physician Emeritus in Surgery, is based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the Philippine College of Surgeons, and the Denton A. Cooley Cardiovascular Surgical Society. He is the chairman of the Filipino United Network – USA, a 501(c)(3) humanitarian foundation in the United States. Email: [email protected]
