Sep
19
2021

World Suicide Prevention Day is on September 10

By | alcohol, Anxiety, depression, Pain, Prevention, stress, Substance abuse, suicide

A CNN article points out that world suicide prevention day is on September 10.

Some statistics regarding suicides

According to the WHO more than 700,000 People die from suicide every year.

In the US suicide rates have risen between 1999 and 2018. President Joe Biden stated: “In 2019, suicide was the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, and the second leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 10 and 34.”

This was further underlined by a study from the CDC. It pointed out the emergency room visits started to climb in May 2020 for attempted suicide in youth. The CDC stated: “The mean weekly number of these visits was 26.2% higher during summer 2020 and 50.6% higher during winter 2021 compared with the corresponding periods in 2019”.

Triggering factors that make people commit suicide

Suicidal thoughts start when a vulnerable person encounters stressful events. The life situation can become so painful that in their way of thinking suicide is the only way to stop the pain. There are huge differences of opinions: what may be meaningless to one person, may feel devastating to another.

Common triggering factors are as follows.

  • Illness and physical discomfort
  • Conflicts with family or friends
  • Illness of family members
  • Death of family member or friend
  • Loneliness

In a study 50% expressed two of these 5 triggers, 37.5% expressed one of the 5 triggers. 12.5% expressed three of the 5 triggers.

With the Covid-19 epidemic there are new pressures on people. They cannot freely move around or travel. He/she may have lost a friend or relative to Covid. And people may be anxious about their own survival. I described this here before.

Biochemical changes in the brain with depression

In the past low serotonin levels in the brain were thought to be the main cause of depression. But researchers realized later those medications that increased serotonin levels did not always help depression. They found that dopamine and norepinephrine are also important brain transmitters that play a role in depression. When dopamine levels are low, depression occurs. Similarly, when norepinephrine is low, the patient can develop depression. On the other hand, in bipolar disorder the brain produces too much norepinephrine, which causes manic episodes. https://www.verywellmind.com/the-chemistry-of-depression-1065137 The physician needs to take a thorough history and note from that which brain transmitter system would be mainly affected. This helps the physician later to decide which antidepressant to choose from to rebalance the brain transmitters.

How to detect stress signals

There are a number of risk factors, which the CDC has outlined, for which the health professional or a family member wants to look in order to assess the suicide risk.

Does the patient have a history?

People with a mood or anxiety disorder, or with an alcohol or substance abuse disorder are at a higher risk of developing depression and suicide.

Did the person experience a loss?

A loss can be a death in the family, a loss of a job or the loss of an important person in a relationship. This is particularly bad when there is social isolation and a lack of support. With Covid-19 millions of people have suffered the loss of a job, social isolation and having to quarantine.

Is it easy for the distressed person to get a gun?

Firearms are a common means for people to kill themselves. When there is easy access to a gun, there is a high probability that the person uses it in times of distress.

History of previous suicide attempt

When a person attempted to commit suicide, but failed, there is a higher risk for them to repeat a suicide attempt and succeed. Also, there is a copycat phenomenon when the news comes out that a famous personality committed suicide. For instance, when the comedian Robin Williams committed suicide in 2014 there was a 10% rise in suicides in the following months all over the US.

Belief system that honours personal sacrifice

Some religious or cultural groups consider suicide a noble solution to a personal dilemma.

A person from this background is at a much higher risk to commit suicide.

Warning signs of pending suicide attempt

There are a number warning signs that point to a higher risk of possibly planning suicide.

  • A person may talk about wanting to die or kill themselves.
  • Searching online for ways to kill oneself or buying a gun.
  • Feeling trapped or feeling unbearable pain.
  • Talking about feeling hopeless and having no reason to live.
  • Stating that they feel they are a burden to others.
  • Drinking more alcohol and using more drugs.
  • Acting agitated or anxious. Reckless behavior.
  • A person withdrawing or isolating themselves.
  • A person sleeping too much or too little.
  • Extreme mood swings.
  • Talking about seeking revenge or showing rage.

These are all red flags that should alarm you to ask for help. Not all of these alarm signs are present all the time with people who are considering to attempt suicide. When you have suicidal thoughts in the US, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. For Spanish crisis support call: 888-628-9454.

World Suicide Prevention Day is on September 10

World Suicide Prevention Day is on September 10

Conclusion

World suicide prevention day is on September 10. This reminds us every year that suicide is a colossal problem of society. Stress, loss of health, losing a loved one, a broken marriage and financial loss can all contribute to depression. If patients with mental distress do not receive timely intervention and treatment, the life situation can become so painful that in the patient’s way of thinking suicide is the only way to stop the pain. The key is for the loved ones in the circle of friends to pay attention to the warning signs and bring the suicidal person to the attention of the psychiatric health professionals. Sometimes an in-patient admission to a psychiatric facility may be required to interrupt the negative thinking pattern. Ignoring the warning signs can have devastating consequences. Prevention is the only way to avoid suicide.

Aug
03
2019

The Best Ways To Prevent Cancer

By | alcohol, andropause, breast cancer, Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, coffee, Diabetes, diet, exercise, fiber, food, green tea, heart attack, Hormones, lifestyle, lung cancer, Menopause, Nutrition, Obesity, omega-3 fatty acids, Prevention, Processed food, prostate cancer, sleep, Smoking, Stroke, sugar, testosterone, Vitamins and supplements

Cancer is the second leading cause of death, that’s why it is important to learn about the best ways to prevent cancer. Generally speaking you want to remove cancer-producing substances (carcinogens) from your diet. But diet is only part of your lifestyle that can contribute to cancer. I shall list some of the more important dietary factors below and briefly touch on important other factors.

Avoid burning your meat

When you use the BBQ, you should avoid burning your meat. Even though the marks of “charring” are considered desirable on meat from the grill, this is really burnt! As a matter of fact it is a lot better to use a slow cooker at low heat and simply cook your food longer. This way you don’t create carcinogens. Avoiding to burn your meat is particularly important for the red meats.

Sugar and an overabundance of starchy foods can cause cancer

You never thought that sugar and an overabundance of starchy foods could cause cancer, but they do. The reason is that the metabolism of cancer cells is using 10- to 12-times more sugar than the metabolism of normal cells. The worst thing a cancer patient can do is to over-consume sugar. Replace sugar by stevia, which is a harmless, plant-based sweetener and does not lead to an insulin reaction. Avoid all other sugar substitutes, as there are other heath problems with most of them.

Avoid phthalates

Those who have a craving for macaroni and cheese are out of luck. This food contains phthalates that are part of the ingredients of almost every sample of cheese powder used to manufacture macaroni and cheese. Phthalates can cause infertility and breast cancer. So you must definitely avoid macaroni and cheese, at least the stuff from the box. Prepare your own!

A high fat diet

What does a high fat diet do? It increases the risk for breast cancer. But it can also increase colorectal cancer risk. Limit your fat intake to about 10% of saturated fat. That is the recommendation of the FDA. Increase your consumption of fish and seafood. Only one proviso: predator fish like shark, marlin, tilefish, swordfish and grouper are high in mercury. But wild salmon, sardines and oysters are low in mercury. You can also enjoy shrimps and prawns.

Take high dose vitamin D3 supplements

High dose vitamin D3 supplements help you to avoid cancer. There are strong statistics showing that vitamin D3 is a powerful tool to lower your risk of developing cancer. Your family doctor should take a blood test called 25-hydroxy vitamin D level to make sure that you absorb enough vitamin D3. There are slow and fast absorbers and the only thing to know how well your gut absorbs vitamin D3 is in doing this blood test.

Also, curcumin (turmeric) 500 mg once per day is good for cancer prevention.

Take enough fiber

Make sure you take enough fiber, which does not only reduce colorectal cancer, but also many other cancers. When you eat plant-based food, you automatically get fiber in it. North Americans are not consuming enough fiber in their diet.

Avoid processed meat and too much red meat consumption

Processed meat and red meat cause cancer.

Beef, lamb and pork seem to contribute to causing cancer according to the WHO. Use common sense and eat fish, chicken and turkey. Reduce your beef consumption. My grandmother served beef as a Sunday dish.The rest of the week simple, plant-based foods appeared on the table. Ask your grandmother, what she used to cook. Or ask your mother what she ate as a child.

Eat moderate amounts of fruit and vegetables

The claim that fruit and vegetables would protect you from cancer is not as solid as researchers thought of in the past. Newer research has shown that a basic intake of fruit and vegetables is needed for nutrients, but consuming more than that will NOT protect you from cancer.

This link explains that eating more vegetables or fruit beyond a certain point will not do harm, but will not protect you further from cancer.

Drink green tea or black tea

If you like tea, drink green tea or black tea. Sweeten it with stevia, but not with sugar. Tea has been shown to have cancer prevention properties.

Avoid alcohol consumption to prevent cancer.

Coffee is a healthy drink and it has mild anti-cancer effects as well. It does not matter whether you drink it caffeinated or decaffeinated.

Other lifestyle issues

Quit smoking

If you are still smoking, quit smoking! Smoking is by and large the biggest risk for developing lung cancer, throat cancer, esophageal cancer and pancreatic cancer.

Watch your calorie intake

Eat smaller meals more often. This way the production of your digestive juices will consume some calories. In addition your taste buds are satisfied, so your hunger for food is more controlled. The end result is that you will not gain weight.

Prevent obesity and type 2 diabetes

This will help prevent obesity and type 2 diabetes, both of which are established risk factors to develop cancer. Here is a review that shows you, which cancer types are caused by obesity. With regard to diabetes, there is a strong association to developing liver cancer, pancreatic cancer and endometrial cancer (=uterine cancer). There is a lesser risk (only 1.2 to 1.5-fold) to develop cancer of the colon and rectum, breast cancer and bladder cancer.

Pollution

Poor air quality with pollution can also be a factor in causing cancer. Pollution does not stay local, but travels through the stratosphere around the globe. The result is that now 10 to 15% of lung cancer in the US occurs in patients who never smoked. This translates into 16,000 to 24,000 deaths annually of never-smokers in the US. In certain cities such as Beijing lung cancer rates have doubled in 9 years between 2002 and 2011. Lung cancer in non-smokers can be caused from exposure to radon, to second-hand tobacco smoke, and other indoor air pollutants.

Bioidentical hormone replacement

When males do not replace missing testosterone in andropause they are much more prone to develop prostate cancer. Similarly, when women are menopausal and do not get progesterone supplementation, they develop a higher amount of breast cancer due to estrogen dominance. It follows from this that bioidentical hormone replacement in menopause and andropause will help to prevent prostate cancer and breast cancer.

The Best Ways To Prevent Cancer

The Best Ways To Prevent Cancer

Conclusion

There is strong evidence that certain foods can cause cancer. Other foods including supplements like curcumin and vitamin D3 can help prevent cancer. Basically, you want to avoid all that is known to cause cancer and eat more of the healthy foods that do not cause cancer. This will help to decline your cancer risk. I suggest that in addition you should quit smoking, avoid pollution as much as possible, reduce excessive alcohol intake and watch your calorie intake. By doing this you prevent obesity and type 2 diabetes, and you will move into the low-risk cancer group. We all need to work on this on an ongoing basis.

Practical hints regarding the best ways to prevent cancer

The best ways to prevent cancer is to avoid processed red meat and all other processed foods. Eat more vegetables, fruit, wild salmon and other seafood. Don’t eat red meat more often than once a week and make it red meat from grass fed animals. In addition exercise regularly, get enough sleep and practice some form of relaxation (yoga, Tai Chi, self-hypnosis etc.). This lifestyle will not only prevent heart attacks and strokes, but also the majority of cancers.

Previously published here.

Oct
27
2018

Four Diseases Cause Most Of The Deaths

By | Angina, Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes, Fitness, heart attack, Heart Disease, lifestyle, Lung Disease, Mortality, Nutrition, sugar

Four diseases cause most of the deaths around the world: cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. This story is the news right now. 50% of the 193 UN member states that signed a treaty in 2015 are falling short of their promise. They wanted to reduce premature deaths from these diseases by 2030. But this is not happening as this story shows.

I like to review these 4 key diseases and what we can do ourselves about eliminating them. We cannot afford to wait for things to happen on a national level. Rather we need to go to the grass roots of every country and change the risk factors that cause these 4 diseases.

Cancer

First, cancer is a disease of older people, unless strong genetic factors are present. In this case even children can get leukemia, brain tumors and osteogenic sarcoma. In older people DNA mutations and DNA breaks happen more often as we age. On the other hand, if we diagnose cancer in stage 1 or 2 (in the early stages), it is quite often curable.

Oncoblot test, a cancer screening test

Probably one of the less known new criteria is the fact that there is a very sensitive cancer blood test, called the Oncoblot test (released about 4 years ago by the FDA). The latest screening test that came out of the human genome project is called the Oncoblot test. It screens for 25 of the most common cancers. And it is screening for ENOX2 proteins from cancer cells. It is a 1000 USD test in the US that health plans will not cover, but it will screen for more than 25 different common cancers 6 to 8 years before they would otherwise become clinically manifest.

If you discover cancer with this early blood test and you treat it right away, you have a good chance to live a few years longer. You may come down with another cancer down the road, but treat it early again, and you will still have a better life expectancy. Remember: four diseases cause most of the deaths, cancer is one of them!

Cardiovascular disease

Furthermore, people develop cardiovascular disease from poor eating habits and a lack of regular exercise. There are a few percentage points of people with familiar high cholesterol. These people need to see their family doctor for a prescription to lower cholesterol. But the majority of people will do well by changing their diet into a Mediterranean diet; lose weight until their body mass index reaches a value of 21 to 24. With this diet it is important to cut out all refined sugar and starchy foods. Regular exercise in a gym will also prevent hardening of the arteries. Chelation therapy has been shown in this study to help reduce hardening of arteries.

Diabetes patients have accelerated hardening of the arteries

We know from diabetic patients who have accelerated hardening of the arteries how devastating cardiovascular disease can be. Heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, amputations of the lower leg and blindness are just some examples. Even patients who do not have diabetes can get these complications at an older age. The key is to think preventatively, change the diet, exercise regularly and you will lower all those risks. Remember: four diseases cause most of the deaths; cardiovascular diseases belong to that group and are a major player.

Chronic respiratory diseases

There are different reasons why a person may develop chronic respiratory disease. A common disease is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). COPD often has a link to smoking heavily as a younger person. This is where the damage to the lung tissue has started. Exposure to cigarette smoke leads to loss of elastic tissue in the bronchial tubes. The lungs have a difficult time to exhale to get rid of the CO2. The end result is that your breaths are shallow and you can’t get enough oxygen, because the lung is already filled with air.

Asthma and COPD

Another disease is asthma. Nowadays physicians can treat this condition well with a corticosteroid inhaler and salbutamol. Salbutamol dilates the airways by relaxing the muscles of the bronchial tubes. The corticosteroid keeps the lining of the bronchial tubes thin, so that the air can move in and out of the lung.

If asthma is not treated properly there can be permanent damage to the airways and the clinical picture would look similar to COPD.

With end-stage COPD patients the only therapy the physician can offer is continuous oxygen flow treatment. With power failures these machines that supply oxygen will stop working. People need to make provisions to have a back-up generator. Again, we need to remember: four diseases cause most of the deaths. Chronic respiratory diseases belong to them.

Diabetes

Patients with type-2 diabetes (Type 2 DM) are usually older than 30 years of age.

That’s why they are called “mature onset diabetes” or “adult onset diabetes”. For several decades a patient may “incubate” diabetes and have one or more of the diabetes risk factors, such as high blood pressure, obesity, high cholesterol or high triglycerides, but have normal blood sugars.

Physicians have followed patients like this for several decades in the well known Framingham Heart Study and found that a high percentage of them do come down with type-2 diabetes later in life. In the past this time of incubation was termed “pre-diabetes”. Now we call it “syndrome of insulin resistance” or “metabolic syndrome”. Diabetes belongs to the group of diseases that are associated with chronic inflammation in the body.

Causes of type-2 diabetes

Type-2 diabetes often associates with other endocrinological diseases such as Cushing’s syndrome (an adrenal gland hyperactivity) or acromegaly (increased growth hormone production). In these diseases other hormones are tilting the hormone balance by counteracting insulin thus leading to a relative shortfall of insulin, which is another cause for type-2 diabetes. There is confusion among scientists regarding possible genetic reasons for type-2 diabetes. The environment or weight gain may trigger various genetic loci that exist. The syndrome of insulin resistance has shown some connections between hypertension, obesity and type-2 diabetes.

Death in diabetics usually comes from a heart attack, a massive stroke, but it may also come from systemic infections, called sepsis. Dr. Taylor from Newcastle University showed on 30 volunteers that 43% of diabetics could be cured by a diet of 600-700 calories for 8 weeks. The medical literature also knows that regular exercise is beneficial for diabetics. It cannot be overstressed that four diseases cause most of the deaths; diabetes belongs to them and is a major player.

Four Diseases Cause Most Of The Deaths

Four Diseases Cause Most Of The Deaths

Conclusion

Four diseases cause most of the deaths. They were the cause of death for several years. They are cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. The secret is to minimize the impact of each of these diseases. You can prevent chronic respiratory diseases by stopping to smoke and treating asthma properly. To treat cancer successfully one needs to diagnose it early and remove it surgically. With cardiovascular disease chelation therapy has shown a difference. Otherwise a regular exercise program and a Mediterranean diet, which has anti-inflammatory qualities, will help. Dr. Taylor from Newcastle University demonstrated that he can treat diabetes with a low calorie diet. Each one of us has a responsibility to do something about our diagnosed condition. We cannot wait for magic cures. We need to do what has known benefits. Hopefully with these short hints will help you to improve your health.