SkullRing.org Medical Weblog

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE AND NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTSOne of the most important things you can do for your overall health is to take nutritional supplements. A study published in the Western Journal of Medicine in 1997 examined the potential benefits of just three nutritional supplements: vitamin E, folic acid, and zinc. The researchers calculated that if every American in targeted groups took these supplements, there would be a net reduction in health care costs of almost 20 billion dollars per year. According to this study, if everyone over 50 years of age took vitamin E, hospital costs associated with heart disease would be reduced by 38 percent. If women of childbearing age took folic acid, the hospital costs of caring for children born with neural tube birth defects would be lowered by 40 percent, and if these same women took zinc, the costs of caring for low-birth-weight babies would drop by 60 percent. Imagine, a savings of 20 billion dollars simply by taking three supplements! And just think about the human suffering that would be avoided.Don’t underestimate the power of targeted nutritional supplements. If the systems in your body involved in regulating blood pressure, beginning at the cellular level, do not receive the raw materials they need to function and regenerate, the entire works go awry. Hypertension is caused in part by deficiencies and imbalances of certain nutrients. One of the very first steps you should take toward lowering your blood pressure is to implement the suggestions for supplementation. It is a cornerstone of this program for reversing hypertension.*73/313/5*

HIV: ON LIVING-TAKING CONTROL: GIVE YOUR FEELINGS THEIR DUEWhen you feel bad, go ahead and feel that way. Tell yourself, as Dean does, “I’m just tired of this. I don’t see how I can do it any more.” Cry, stare into space, refuse to talk, stay in bed, write your terrible feelings in a private journal—go off by yourself and do whatever expresses the bad feelings. “I don’t believe in this crap of, ‘You’ve got to be happy all the time,’ ” says Steven. “I’m not taped together as well as I thought I was, or more likely, the tape was old. Anyway, sometimes I fall apart and just feel awful.”     In short, give your feelings their due. This is not giving in. It is acknowledging the reality and size of the problems you face. Somehow, such acknowledgment is easier than trying to control how you feel, or going from crisis to crisis and never feeling anything. These feelings, once acknowledged, don’t last as long as you might think. They seem to wear themselves out and disappear. “After I’ve been feeling hopeless for a while,” says Dean, “the feeling lightens up, and I feel that I’ve really got a long road ahead of me. I’ve seen too many people give up. I feel like I’d just like to keep going.”     The feelings will certainly come back again—Steven says he now knows when he is likely to feel bad and sets aside time for the feelings: “I plan for falling apart,” he says. But when the feelings do come back, you will have them in better perspective. That is, you will know that the feelings are both real and temporary. For good reasons, you feel bad; and after a while, for reasons just as good, you will feel better.*239\191\2*