angiEmedia

With the increasing worldwide news coverage of widespread vitamin D deficiency and the high rates of associated diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression, and autism, you may wonder just how much vitamin D is too much? Many doctors are clueless about vitamin D toxicity and believe that 2000 IU per day of vitamin D3 on a daily basis could be deadly, and 100,000 IU in one dose would surely kill you. Surprising to some, these common beliefs of doctors are grossly mistaken. New research argues for 10,000 IU per day of vitamin D3 on a daily basis for long periods being the upper recommended limit for adult dietary intake and that single doses of 100,000 IU are helpful for rapidly building up levels of vitamin D in the body.
Read more…

Vince Guiliano is a prolific writer nearing 80 years old who has assembled a fascinating collection of information on human aging and how to slow it by using dietary supplements. Among his efforts to date are the Anti-Aging Firewalls blog and extensive overviews of the anti-aging properties of many dietary supplements.
Read more…

Here’s a new scientific finding to motivate your kids to brush their teeth and floss. Researchers have found that people who have poor dental hygiene are more likely to have impaired memory and mental functions. Now you can tell your babies that the reason grandpa can’t remember where he put his glasses is because he forgot to brush his teeth. When they question how that can be, you can explain it may be because nasty bacteria in his mouth are making his brain work worse.
Read more…

Autism is a set of child developmental delays and disabilities. It includes impaired social interaction and communications, delayed and impaired verbal and language skills, and focus on repetitive activities. Autism is just one of several related disorders in the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) classification. Asperger’s Syndrome is the second most common ASD illness after autism and generally differs from autism because language development is not affected as severely.

The incidence of autism has been rapidly increasing in many places. Although there appears to be no single cause for this, nutritional modifications both for pregnant women and children have been found to exert significant improvements on outcomes both in terms of lowering rates of autism and helping children overcome some of the developmental and behavioral problems it causes.
Read more…

If you’re trying to save money in these sorry economic times, one way to do it may be to consult with your doctor on switching to common generic medications available at low prices via Walmart Pharmacy. Often newer medications don’t work much better than older ones, yet they usually carry higher prices and sometimes unknown long-term side effects. Click on the Walmart $4 Prescription Program for more information.

Print out a copy of the $4 generic prescription medicines list and take it to your doctor visits for your doctor to consult if you need refills or new prescriptions. Doctors are often not particularly conscious of how much medications cost, so this could help you save a lot of money if a low-cost generic can be used rather than a newer name-brand drug. Also ask your doctor about writing prescriptions for 90 days rather than 30 days. This may help you save a little additional money as many prescriptions are available for $10 for 90 days, thus saving you about another $8 per year.

Some of the most widely used generic medications available on this program include Glyburide and Metformin used widely by people with pre-diabetes and diabetes, Lovastatin and Pravastatin which are used for lowering LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, and Amitriptyline and Citalopram and Trazodone which are commonly used as antidepressants.

Further Reading

Cost-Effective Medications and Supplements

More Data + Less Care = Lower Cost + Better Health

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The products mentioned on this post are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

In these days of rising medical costs and sagging economics, many of us are looking to find ways to cut costs without sacrificing our health. Medicines are one of the most expensive daily use items for many people, especially if you do not have insurance. Consumer Reports hosts a website to help consumers identify the most effective and inexpensive medicines for their health conditions. Click on over to Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs to view reports on the best choices for medicines for particular health conditions. They also list information, opinions, and comparisons for particular medicines. We’re really pleased to see this kind of information becoming available to consumers. By consulting this site and other like it and working with your doctors, you are much more likely to be able to hold down your medical costs substantially.

Are you stressed out and depressed? Having trouble falling asleep each night? Feeling like you could use some help? A lot of us going through high-conflict divorces, child custody battles, divorce-induced bankruptcy, mental illnesses (depression, panic attacks, etc.), job troubles, and other life problems have such symptoms. The ongoing economic crisis may be compounding such troubles, or enough to stress you out on its own. Rather than resorting to the typical psychiatric medicines like anti-depressants and anxiolytics, consider drinking tea or taking L-theanine, a natural substance extracted from tea that may help reduce anxiety and depression.
Read more…

Illumina Corporation, a San Diego biotech firm, on June 16, 2009, announced the advent of relatively low-cost personal full DNA sequencing. For the low price of $48,000, you can have your entire DNA sequenced for use in detecting genetic diseases. Someday, that data may be useful for creating gene therapies and custom drugs to improve your health. $48,000 might sound like a lot of money, but it is really a bargain. Until this month, Illumina charged $96,000 for the same service.

Just several years ago, it cost billions of dollars and many years of work to get the same information. Consider the Human Genome Project to see how it took 13+ years and $3+ billion to sequence 92% of the human genome for the first time. Celera Genomics, founded by Craig Venter, developed shotgun DNA sequencing technology that brought down full DNA genome sequencing to $300 million and a few years, and companies like Illumina have improved and cost-reduced the technologies even further.
Read more…

How many times have you gone to the doctor and had tests ordered, gotten the results back, and still aren’t sure what they mean? Sadly, this is commonplace. Most people lack medical knowledge to understand their own care well, and time-pressured doctors often don’t have the time to educate their patients about their own health. Even when you have a helpful doctor and are reasonably well-informed about your health, you might forget what your doctor said or lose your notes or get two tests confused with each other.

Trying to understand some of my own medical test results recently, I ran across a couple of websites that are really helpful for explaining hundreds of the most common medical tests, both by test name and by medical conditions related to the tests. I also found many helpful articles on understanding “optimal ranges” for certain tests that are vastly different from the “reference ranges” used by labs and doctors.
Read more…

(Click here for more coverage of preventing canker sores.)

Probiotics lozenges for the mouth can help suppress harmful bacteria by growing many more “friendly” bacteria that release substances that block the growth of disease-causing bacteria. This can accelerate the healing of canker sores and other mouth injuries. It also helps reduce both cavities and oral inflammation such as gum diseases that lead to worsened arthritis, atherosclerosis, and other inflammatory diseases throughout the human body.
Read more…