Herbal News Magazine
All About Herbal Medicine, Alternative Health News and Natural Supplements
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Feb 17
If we don’t realize that we have a serious problem with prescription drugs here in the US, then I don’t know what it takes to make people aware. Whitney Houston recently was found dead in a hotel bathtub and several pill bottles were found laying around.
This isn’t the first celebrity death and ungluing that has been reported thanks to not only abusing street drugs and alcohol, but also for abusing, or being over prescribed prescription medications that have similar effects (see our past story on “prescription heroine”).
Let’s make a list of just a few celebrities who’s deaths have been suspected to be partly due to prescription drug interactions or overdoses (and surprisingly, somewhat swept under the rug or at the very least easily forgotten):
Anna Nicole Smith
Heath Ledger
Michael Jackson
Nick and Aaron Carter’s sister
The list goes on and on, because there are many other celebrities as well, but also normal folks just like you and I who have either combined the wrong drugs or taken too many because they want them to make them feel better and their bodies have simply become to accustomed to them, needing more and more until they take lethal doses.
Some of the most commonly abused and over used medications can have life threatening side effects when they are over their normal dose or when they are combined with one another.
These medications include :
Sleeping medications
Anti-anxiety medications
Pain relief medications
We’ve done stories in the past on how addictive and dangerous narcotic pain meds can be. They behave much like street drugs in that they can produce “highs” when crushed or when taken in larger quantities – or heck even when taken in regular quantities.
They can actually cause the heart to slow to a dangerous pace if they are overdosed, which is why people can sometimes mistakenly overdose on pain pills, especially when they are combining them with other drugs.
Even anti anxiety medications like Xanax are abused because sometimes they are used recreationally. In short, if a medication makes someone feel a little too good, it’s addictive and potentially hazardous because as it starts to build a tolerance, people often seek that former “high” feeling and OD on it.
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Tagged as: addictive, alcohol, anti anxiety, bottles, celebrity, cocktails, death, medication, medications, pain, pills, prescription, sleeping, whitney houston -
Jan 22
Everyone knows that smoking cigarettes, cigars and other things you inhale hot smoke into your lungs with are dangerous to your health. That has definitely been more than established by the medical community. As if to drive the point home even further, the Center for Disease Control has released their top death causes list.
And guess what? The top three causes are related in some way to smoking. That’s not to say there are not other factors involved such as genetics, other lifestyle choices and environmental factors. However, each of them can have a direct relation to the act of smoking. Which makes quitting smoking all that much more important.
3 Smoking-Related Causes of Death
1.) Emphysema and other lung function disease such as COPD. This one is one of the most undeniably smoking-related health issues that can lead to death pretty easily. Aside from lung cancer, it is a definite link to smoking – although, as with everything else, it can also happen on its own without smoking, but that is pretty rare and the link is a well known one.
2.) Cancer. There are several types of cancer that are related to smoking. Cigarettes are a carcinogen. Not only does the smoke produce toxic by-products, but the cigarettes themselves contain harmful chemicals that permeate not only the lungs and other organs in the body, but also the surfaces of furniture, the walls in homes, the surfaces in cars, and everywhere else the harmful habit is done, making it carcinogenic not only to the smoker, but also to “second hand smokers”. Basically, cigarette smoke is a cancer causing agent, and for that reason, it has been linked to everything from breast cancer to prostate cancer.
3.) Heart disease. Heart disease can be partially genetic, true. It can also be greatly attributed to your diet and lack of exercise. However, smoking is also another acknowledged risk factor in determining likelihood of heart disease. Your ticker is affected by smoking because smoking raises heart rate and also increases blood pressure and stress levels, all of which are not heart friendly and cause damage over the years.
Smoking generally makes the smoker feel relaxed in the very moments they are smoking (and gives them a feel-good buzz too, hence the addictiveness). However, this is misleading because in the end smoking really jacks our nervous system up and increases dangerous anxiety and stress hormone levels, none of which is good for the heart.
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Dec 20
Neti pots, the nasal and sinus irrigation tools that have gained popularity in alternative health circles as a way to naturally clear the sinuses, have gotten national attention over the past two days. Why? Well, of course it’s not anything good, or else they would not have made the national headlines!
Neti pots are tiny little “teapot” like vessels that can be used to help steam and cleanse the sinuses of debris and congestion. The user puts the spout up their nose and they then should experience a feeling of cleansing and flushing of the sinuses and the nose.
One of the things that the user absolutely needs to abide by when using these devices is to use only clean, distilled water. If they do not, they risk infection from unclean water with bacteria and a deadly but rare amoeba that can cause an infection in the brain called primary amebic meningoencephalitis.
This “brain eating” amoeba has stricken fear into parents because it first gained attention when a string of children died from the parasite after swimming in lakes. The thing is, the amoeba is harmless when it is ingested via the mouth and goes through the digestive tract.
It is only dangerous when it goes up your nose. Through the nose, it can enter the brain, and this is where it does its damage. This is what happened to two Louisiana residents lately that made national news. They used neti pots, but they used regular warm tap water, which happened to be infected with this amoeba.
Because the neti pot gets the water right up in the nose, the amoeba seemingly easily traveled to the brain and ended up killing the victims. Truly tragic. For this reason, neti pot users are once again warned to absolutely not use normal water that has not been distilled.
The amoeba typically results in death of the victim because it causes such severe brain damage in such a short amount of time. The symptoms are similar to bacterial meningitis, which includes nausea, vomiting, mental fog and confusion and flu like symptoms.
The amoeba typically inhabits warm freshwater, and therefore many times is found in warmer southern states in freshwater lakes, so use caution when swimming in these bodies of water.
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Vitamins Harmful? Reports Are All Baseless….
Filed under Alternative & Herbal Health News, Vitamins & MineralsOct 17I just read a great article which exposed the recent reports that have been attacking vitamins and supplements as harmful and useless. It basically exposes these media reports, which have been found in numerous papers and digital media, causing a stir and worry in people who have been taking supplements and vitamins for years and enjoying their great health benefits.
The media reports are completely baseless. They were actually based on a survey study that sent 3 measly surveys to the participants over an 18 year period, and that’s how they received their “data” that taking multivitamins can result in earlier death in women.
This is truly disgusting, and an attempt by pharmaceutically backed media outlets trying the further the cause of their backers, the medical establishment which stands to benefit if the population is sicker and needs their drugs more.
Please read more about this truly appalling miscarriage of journalism, and you will be convinced that these reports are baseless, as I have been.
http://www.naturalnews.com/033883_vitamins_mortality_risk.html
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Sep 30
Every time I read a story about people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning, it really saddens me. These people went to sleep at night fully trusting that they would wake in the morning to a brand new day, a brand new chance to live the lives they love. I think carbon monoxide poisoning so scares us because it is so insidious.
It is invisible to the human eye, and sometimes can even be undetectable to the nose, although the fumes that cause it may have a smell to them in certain cases, such as from a car engine running and producing the toxic fumes.
I just read a sad story about how carbon monoxide poisoning took the life of five bikers who were attending a charity event in Tennessee. They were camping out in an RV. The RV was overcome with toxic fumes from a generator because it had a storage hatch on it that would not close properly, and the toxic fumes were able to seep into the RV while they were sleeping, unkowingly poisoning them.
It is wise to have a carbon monoxide detector both in your home and in your RV if you own one. I think RV’s are important too because they represent such a confined space. Keeping a window cracked is always prudent as well, so that just in case it happens, you can have a safety net in letting some of it escape.
Most experts recommend that you keep the CO2 detector on hand at all times though, and make sure the batteries are always charged. You can tell on most models by looking at the light on the device. Usually, it has some sort of indicator when the battery is going dead and needs to be replaced, especially if it is one that works by electric and battery.
Carbon monoxide poisoning actually robs the brain of oxygen, and this is how it takes life. Severe exposure can lead to death since the brain may be robbed of oxygen for too long, cutting it off from its very lifesource – air with oxygen in it, for too long a time for a person to recover brain activity.
Less severe exposure can lead to dizziness, nausea and confusion. If you feel any of these, get out of where you are and into fresh air immediately.
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