What Is The Single Most Effective Acne Medicine?
The debate over the best acne medicine continues unabated, and meanwhile all you want to know is: who really does have the best medicine for me? This is a good question to ask, though (as with most really good questions) also a difficult one to answer. Each individual has a different situation, different hormone balance, different stress factors. Still, there are a lot of good options out there for someone willing to look.
Most common acne medicines have the drug Benzyl Peroxide. This is an active ingredient that appears in everything from Oxy pads to highly touted (i.e. more expensive) “acne fighting systems” that often indicated proactive acne medicine. For the majority of people, any medicine with Benzyl Peroxide will be enough. For those who have more serious acne, there are many other solutions to chose from, though be wary of any claim made by a dealer or website who is selling “the best acne medicine.” After all, have you ever seen an acne medicine that did not advertise itself as being the be all end all solution?
Many individuals who have experienced little, or no, success with normal acne medicines have looked for herbal, natural, or alternative solutions. This also applies to people who simply want to live a more natural life style, but still fight the scourge of acne. UV light treatment is an interesting recent discovery, as it seems that exposure to that type of light greatly reduces acne in most people. Now obviously you can’t stay outside tanning heavily each day because of the danger of skin cancer, but lights are being designed to give the same beneficial effect of sunlight without the fear of cancer.
Chinese herbal medicine follows a variety of herbal remedies, each tailored around an individual after the doctor sees the patient. Some of these treatments have been very successful for individuals who seemed completely immune to prescription acne medicine. There is also the much lesser used (and known) Chinese acupuncture, which has generally been found to help most patients, though it is best used in conjunction with other treatments.
There are nearly as many potential herbal supplements as actual medicines. These include everything from vitamin supplements (usually A, E, and zinc) to medicines and creams using everything from sage, rosemary, and aloe vera to Chamomile, Tea tree oil, and various other roots only found in Asia. The arguments over herbal remedies and their effectiveness continues, though there is no argument that there are certain individuals who have had great success taking this route.
Along with any types of medicine are various tips for prevention, including avoiding stress and having a diet heavy in fruits and veggies. These will not cure or completely prevent acne, but used in conjunction with vitamins and other treatments, the combination can work wonders for your complexion.
What is the best acne medicine? In the end the best acne medicine is the one that works for your condition. For mild acne, you should be able to find a basic acne medicine with Benzyl Peroxide that works well enough, or a combination of herbal and vitamin supplements that help out in the same way. For severe cases of acne there are stronger prescription medications. Acne is never untreatable, and if one particular treatment doesn’t work for you, try another. Eventually you will find one that works, and that will be the best acne medicine for you.
Rosa Dawson is an author on preventingacne.info preventingacne.info – find your own personal, natural cure for acne in this in-depth info-packed site.
Enhancing Health with a Multivitamin
An apple a day keeps the doctor away. But then, you also need a banana, an orange, a pear, a handful of carrots, some avocado, a head of lettuce, some tomatoes… well, the list goes on. Did you make sure to get your 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables today? How about yesterday, and the day before that? Chances are, even if you are the most diligent of nutritional fiends, you still don’t get your daily requirement of vitamins and minerals.
Nowadays, it’s near impossible to find the necessary level of nutrients in our food alone. The mineral content in our soils has diminished over the years due to the increase in pollution and pesticides and the hormones in our meat and poultry supply lower the food’s overall nutritional value. Just a century ago our food contained all of the nutrients that our bodies required to perform at optimal level. But today, that is no longer a fact. Today it has become necessary to supplement your diet with a multivitamin.
The Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) for vitamins was first established during the first World War when food supplies were limited and concerns about vitamin deficiency- related diseases ran high. RDI’s were established to ensure that Americans received the minimum vitamins necessary to ward off diseases such as scurvy. Today, such diseases are relatively unheard of and medical researchers have begun to focus their attention on the role that vitamins play in preventing degenerative diseases.
Cardiovascular Disease, Cancer and Diabetes are serious diseases that thrive on our nation’s poor eating habits and sedentary lifestyle. A lack of the necessary vitamins and minerals triggers a cascade of events within the body that ultimately leads to these degenerative diseases. But with a multivitamin, your body is armed with the necessary weapons needed to fend off life threatening illness.
Lower Your Risk of Cardiovascular Disease
Testing your blood for homocysteine and C-Reactive Protein levels can indicate your current health status. Elevated levels of either one is a red flag that something is not right within your body. Too much homocysteine in the blood stream can alter DNA, which can fuel the progression of heart disease, accelerate aging and increase your risk of developing cancer. But two studies recently reported in the New England Journal of Medicine found that taking a daily multivitamin with folic acid and B vitamins can lower homocysteine levels.
C-Reactive protein (CRP) is produced in the liver and helps the body to heal wounds and fight off infection. The presence of CRP in the blood is an indication of an underlying infection or inflammation. Chronic inflammation is associated with a variety of diseases, including cardiovascular disease and stroke.
CRP levels may be elevated many years prior to a coronary event and can be a significant predictor of new coronary events in apparently healthy men and women. Studies indicate that the higher the CRP level, the higher the risk of developing a heart attack. Elevated CRP levels present in the blood after a stroke or heart attack can be indicative of a repeated coronary event with a lower survival rate.
A study printed in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2003 found that multivitamins can significantly lower CRP levels, with an observed average drop of 14%.
As a matter of fact, authors of a similar study reported in the JAMA stated that the simple act of taking a daily multivitamin, “could prevent tens of thousands of cases of cardiovascular disease each year at very low cost and with few (if any) adverse effects.”
Lower Your Risk of Cancer
A study published in 2003 in the Journal of Epidemiology found that people who took a multivitamin regularly for 10 years had a 30% lower risk of developing colon and rectal cancer. Multivitamins contain vitamin D, which has been found to keep cancer cells from multiplying and dividing in laboratory studies. Likewise, the vitamins D, E and folic acid have been linked to a lower risk of both colon and breast cancer.
Multivitamins also contain several antioxidants, including vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene, which serve to fight off potentially dangerous molecules in the body called free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules that search the body for healthy molecules to complete them. When a free radical encounters a healthy molecule, it takes what it needs from the healthy molecule to stabilize itself, rendering the formerly healthy molecule damaged. Free radicals leave behind them a wake of destruction, altering DNA and oxidizing the body from the inside out. Left unchecked, free radicals can cause cancer as well as heart disease and other degenerative diseases. Antioxidants seek out free radicals in order to neutralize them, stopping them before their damage leads to a deadly outcome.
Lower Your Risk of Diabetes
Insulin resistance is a precursor to Type 2 Diabetes. Normally, ordinary levels of insulin will escort glucose into your cells. With insulin resistance, your cell receptors do not recognize the insulin hormone and deny it access to deposit the glucose. With nowhere for the glucose to go, sugar begins to build up in your bloodstream. Your pancreas, unaware of the insulin resistance, steps up insulin production in an effort to pump out enough of the hormone to remedy the situation. The overproduction of insulin inundates your bloodstream. The chromium found in multivitamins can assist the body in maintaining normal blood sugar levels and can be an important measure towards preventing Type 2 Diabetes from taking hold.
Multivitamins level the playing field of good health. A food-based multivitamin will contain all of the vitamins and minerals that should be a part of your regular diet and fill in the gaps where your diet falls short. Multivitamins do not replace healthy eating, but rather they supplement an already healthy diet. As a matter of fact, the healthier your diet, the better your multivitamin will work for you!
LEIGH ERIN CONNEALY, M.D., M.P.H. received a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Texas and her M.D. from the University of Chicago. She did her postgraduate training in family practice at Harbor/UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.
Dr. Connealy began practicing medicine in 1986. More and more of her patients started asking about alternative treatments and this prompted her to learn everything she could about nontoxic protocols. In 1992, she founded the South Coast Medical Center for New Medicine in Tustin, California, where she serves as Medical Director. Her practice is firmly based in the belief that strictly treating health problems with medications does not find the root cause of the illness. Her goal is to empower and educate individuals and their families through her treatment plans, lectures, newsletters and articles.
Visit perfectlyhealthy.net perfectlyhealthy.net for more information.
Is Pork Really Bad For You?
How many times have you heard that pork is bad for you? Or that pork is dangerous? Avoiding pork for religious reasons is one thing but avoiding pork simply because some “expert” decided to present a one-sided view is something else. Let’s bring a little science to the discussion, shall we?
Is Pork Really Bad For You?
Today’s pork products are leaner and healthier than ever. A 3-ounce serving of pork tenderloin has less than half the fat of a 3-ounce serving of skinless chicken thigh.
And pork is a good source of B-vitamins and many minerals, too. That 3-ounce serving of pork contains over half of your recommended daily allowance of thiamin and more than a third of your RDA of vitamin B6 and Niacin. Pork is also a source of iron, magnesium, phosphorous, zinc and vitamin B12.
Pork & Parasites
Like all other meat products, pork carries a very real risk of parasitic infection–especially if the meat is undercooked. Tapeworm and trichinosis are just two of the parasitic infections often mentioned in anti-pork literature.
How common are tapeworm and trichinosis? In an article titled Deaths from Cysticercosis, United States, researchers put the number of pork tapeworm cases in the years 1990-2002 at 221. The vast majority of these cases were of immigrants who likely brought the infection with them. Only 33 of these cases involved U.S.-born citizens.
As for trichinosis, the numbers look even better. More rigorous enforcement of the Swine Health Protection Act has brought the incidence of trichinosis-positive pigs down to 0.1%. In fact, according to the CDC, most recent trichinosis cases in the U.S. have been linked to the consumption of improperly cooked wild game meat like bear–not commercially packaged pork.
The truth is, the organisms that pose a danger to pork eaters are easier to destroy through proper cooking than salmonella, a bacterial infection most commonly associated with eggs and poultry.
Scientific Studies in Favor of Pork
You don’t often hear about the “pros” of eating pork but more than a few studies have found pork both safe and nutritious. One of the most intriguing studies on pork was a 2007 study out of Spain. In this study, conducted by the Galician Public Foundation for Heath Emergencies, researchers found that frequent consumption of fresh meat actually reduced the risk of lung cancer while consumption of fish increased it. The reasons for these results are unknown but results of this study are sure to spur on discussions for some time to come.
“But Pigs Don’t Have Sweat Glands”
One of the most common arguments made about pork is that pigs are “dirty” because they lack the ability to perspire. It’s true. Pigs don’t have sweat glands. But neither do chickens.
lisabarger.com Lisa Barger is a traditional naturopath specializing in natural health education. To learn more about Ms. Barger’s belief in lisabarger.com “Empowerment through Education” or to take a free online natural health class see her website, LisaBarger.com LisaBarger.com
Steps To Prevent Obesity
It’s always a matter of amazement, how people can become obese. The impact it has on your life aside, how lazy must you be to allow yourself to get into a state like that. There are so many excuses, “I’m big boned”, “it’s glandular” and a hundred others, but those are rarely true. The truth is, if you’re obese, you eat too much and are not willing to change at all to get into better shape. It amazes me that even though there are loads of pharmaceuticals out there to help you thin down, there are still a growing number of people become categorically obese. These act in different ways, but they can help a person to at least slightly cut back on the amount of weight that they carry around.
Most people who are willing to take steps find that a combination of different methods works most effectively for them. The proportion of your program that each aspect takes up will be dependent on your personal preferences. The first step is realising that you have a weight problem and deciding what you intend to do about it. The majority of obese people that you see every day have fallen down at the first hurdle. Once you have made up your mind that you are going to challenge the onset of obesity in your own body you are far more likely to put into action the steps that you need to take.
There are three main areas that can be looked at when attempting to prevent the onset of obesity or to reduce the signs of obesity and its effects on the body. The first, and most obvious one, is altering the food and drink you consume. The second is doing exercise; whether you need to increase the amount you do or start doing it. The last aspect is drugs that can be taken which work in many different ways to reduce your weight. The first two each test your strength of will since they require a lot of discipline to maintain effectively. This is why a lot of people make use of diet drugs to lose weight and to keep weight off.
Some diet drugs help you to lose weight by reducing your appetite. This then prevents you from having the urge to snack and nibble, since those are the time when you eat the least healthy food. Other diet drugs work by helping to increase your metabolism which reduces the chance of fat accumulating in areas of the body. Other diet drugs help you by working so that fat passes straight through the digestive system without getting absorbed. Each of these are suitable for different people and when making a choice about what steps to take it is wise to ensure you have all the information on all the options that are available to you.
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theonlineclinic.co.uk/weightloss/solutions.asp Obesity and theonlineclinic.co.uk/weightloss/solutions.asp Weight Loss Treatments please go to the following website: theonlineclinic.co.uk/ The Online Clinic