Tag Archive for ‘wellness’

What Causes Cold Sores – Activating The Cold Sore Virus

What causes colds sores and fever blisters (oral herpes)? In this interesting article, you will learn what causes cold sores - the actual triggers you should avoid.

The herpes simplex virus is basically what causes cold sores in everyone.

35% of those infected never get a cold sore. For the other 65% of us, repeated outbreaks are common.

If the herpes virus decides to replicate, it will move to the surface and enter your cells there. This destructive virus then forces the cells to create new virus particles.

Swelling of the area occurs as the cells bulge with the new virus. Once full, the cells are destroyed - releasing the virus hoards and creating your cold sore crater.

The herpes simplex virus is the root cause of all cold sores. But, to stop cold sores, you need to know what actually activates this virus.

Below you will discover the top three triggers responsible for herpes virus activation and replication.

1. YOUR IMMUNITY IS INADEQUATE TO FEND OFF THE HERPES VIRUS.

The effectiveness of your antibodies determines your immunity to all diseases. Your body needs specific building blocks for creating mighty antibodies.

The most important elements for building strong antibodies are the micro-nutrients in your food and supplements.

If you suffer frequent outbreaks, it is a sign of immune weakness. Eat more fresh, uncooked vegetables and fruits. These provide the best quality nutrients.

You also would be wise to start taking vitamin supplements every day. This may be all you need to do to heal and prevent cold sore misery. But avoid worthless bargain vitamins.

If you do not buy a high quality vitamin supplement, you will not get good results. You want high vitamin B and C content. These vitamins help reduce stress.

2. TOO MUCH ARGININE, TOO LITTLE LYSINE.

Arginine and lysine are two amino acids essential to your health. They also are very much involved in cold sore outbreaks.

Arginine offers many cardiac benefits. But it also is the primary protein used to create new herpes simplex virus. Without sufficient arginine, a cold sore will not happen.

Herpes virus cannot be created with lysine. Your cells store both lysine and arginine but the more you have of one, the less room for the other.

Taking in high amounts of lysine crowds out arginine and helps stop cold sore formation. Eating fish and dairy works well. Most people, however, use lysine capsules for convenience - a powerful cold sore treatment.

3. YOUR pH BALANCE IS TOO ACID.

You are at peak health when your pH level is alkaline. The pH scale measures 1 through 14 with 7 being neutral. Above 7 is alkaline and below 7 is acid.

Your body works hard to maintain pH levels around 7.4. When you drop below 6.5, you are inviting illness - and creating the right conditions for another cold sore.

Oxygen levels are lower the more acid your body becomes. The herpes simplex virus loves an acid environment. Acid causing carbonated drinks and sugar contribute to this condition.

Cold sore outbreaks are most frequent during winter because of the many acid-causing factors. These include cold temperatures, spending more time indoors and drinks like coffee and cocoa.

Avoid acid creating food and stress situations. Eat more green vegetables - asparagus is excellent for this. Also, vitamin stores often carry kits for raising your pH to healthy levels.

What causes cold sores has many answers because it may be different for you than another person. There is much more I wish I had time and room to share with you.

Hopefully, however, this short article will help you in finding an answer to the question of what causes cold sores for your particular situation and give you the knowledge to defeat the cold sore in your life.

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Medicinal Mushroom Used in Korea as Cancer Therapy Adjunct

There's a new star on the medicinal mushroom sky. It goes by Phellinus linteus in Latin. The little known English common name is Black Hoof Fungus. It's far more common, even in America, to hear it referred to by its Japanese name as Mesima.

Common to southern United States and Southeast Asia, Phellinus linteus is a polypore on hardwood trees such as poplar, oak and mulberry. [1]

Unlike most medicinal mushroom species, which were originally used in China or Japan, Phellinus linteus first became popular in Korea as a complement to traditional cancer therapies such as radiation and chemotherapy.

From Korea, its reputation has spread like wildfire around the world. Doctors across the globe are now beginning to use it as an immune booster [2-11], and especially for preventing cancer metastasis. [5,10,12-17] Apart from Korea, Phellinus linteus is particularly popular in Japan, the U.S., and the Middle East from Israel to Turkey.

It may have all began when a 1996 Korean study reported that Phellinus linteus extract exhibited a broader range of immune enhancing and anti-cancer properties than the extracts from other species of medicinal mushrooms. [4]

Years later, American world-renown mycologist Paul Stamets helped deepen our understanding of Phellinus linteus when he published a comparative analysis with the most common medicinal mushroom species: Agaricus blazei, Lion's Mane, Chaga, Reishi, Maitake and Cordyceps. [18]

Phellinus linteus had a stronger effect than any of them on the part of the immune system known as macrophages. The activity of this type of white blood cell increased by 5,700% when Phellinus linteus extract was administered in an amount equivalent to 3,750 mg for an average size adult (165 lbs). [18]

It should be noted that macrophages may promote cancer growth as well as fight cancer. The research that has been published about Phellinus linteus extract indicates that it enhances the anti-cancer properties of macrophages. [8,14,19,20]

Additional reports have been published on cases of "spontaneously" regressed cancers, where the patients reported having used Phellinus linteus by their own choice:

1. A 2004 paper out of Japan reported "a hormone refractory prostate cancer patient with rapidly progressive bone metastasis who showed dramatic response to intake of an extract from the mushroom, Phellinus linteus." [15]

2. Next out was a Korean article published in 2005, which reported on a patient who "ingested mushroom called Phellinus linteus for one and a half years" before exhibiting "spontaneous regression" of liver cancer and skull metastasis. [17]

3. And then one year later, in 2006, another Japanese article was published on "a case of spontaneous regression of hepatocellular carcinoma with multiple lung metastases." The 79-year-old patient had been taking an extract of Phellinus linteus Mycelium for a month. When examined by his doctor 6 months later, his tumors had disappeared. [16]

Note: This article is not intended to treat, cure or diagnose any disease. It is intended for informational purposes only. Phellinus linteus is not approved by the FDA. Never use any herb or mushroom for medicinal purposes without first consulting a licensed medical professional.

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How To Create Your Own Bipolar Support Groups

Support groups allow those who share a common diagnosis or interest to come together. This is besides the everyday medication that must be taken by a bipolar disorder victim, to offer emotional support. These people come together to share ideas and offer ideas on how to cope. While most support groups are usually led by someone who has experience in these kinds of meeting, it is not an important factor. What is important here is to just SHARE IDEAS, because mothers, parents or patients can form a bipolar support group and help those that are interested.

A Suitable Place

Every group must have a place to meet and it can be in your garage, a hall or even inside your house. One important factor here is that it must be comfortable and available when you as a group need it. And your ideal sitting set up would be to sit in a circle rather than a church style setup.

Rules to be followed

You as a group can make your own rules as a group, but here are some that you can begin with:

Confidentiality: everything shared must stay inside the meeting.

No other sources: There should be no quoting from the bible or famous people, everything shared must be from personal experience.

No preaching: not be tolerated are words such as don't do this or don't do that.

Offer suggestions: Use non threatening suggestion. All suggestions must be from personal experience like; my child had that same thing and I did this or I went through the same experience and I did this.

No gossip: dragging somebody's name down in these meetings must not be allowed.

JUST LISTEN: Most would come to a meeting not to have their problem solved but to have an opportunity to put out of their system all the frustrations of being involved with this mental illness. This cannot be emphasized enough.

Primary Goal

While providing important emotional support, the primary goal of most bipolar support groups is to ensure that no one living with bipolar disease or this mental condition feel alone again. Support groups are more than just a safety net for patients or caregivers for they can also improve the physical health and well being of those taking part.

Other Functions

Support groups, are also called special interest groups (SIG), and forms an integral part for many health organizations and a critical foundation for those trying to cope with the disorder or trauma. These groups help fill the emptiness between medicine and the daily everyday headaches. It helps patients to serve as educators, cope and also inform about the new advancements in bipolar treatment or any available treatment.

.Support Groups by Online

With modern technologies at our doorsteps, many have found online support a great help. This type of support network is ideal for those living in rural areas or those who are scared of leaving the security of their homes. Many use online support as a backup to their existing bipolar support groups in their community.

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Relaxation Audio That Is Guaranteed To Work

The wide selection of relaxation audio CDs and mp3s are mostly just soothing tones or music to help with your own meditation. If you are experienced, these might help, but for a lot of people, they won't.

Binaural meditation solutions have been around since the nineteen seventies. By a process called entrainment, it can reliably put you into a calming meditative state without effort on your part.

Your brain generates electrical signals of various frequencies. In order, these are beta, alpha, theta and delta. This ranges from being fully conscious and active to deep, dreamless sleep.

These frequencies are produced by both sides of your brain, all of the time. The strength of the frequencies depends on what you are doing. Meditation is intended to take you to the lower, relaxing frequencies.

It is possible with traditional meditation to reach alpha or occasionally theta, but long practice is needed. It is hard to maintain these levels consistently, or even to know that you have reached them.

Using binaural beat technology, a different tone is played into each ear. The brain resolves these two tones to a single frequency which it generates as a matching electrical signal.

This reliably puts you into this deep meditative state. As long as you are wearing the headphones, it is working. You know you are reaping the benefits of meditation, regardless of how you are feeling or what you think about.

You can't subjectively tell when you are meditating, but with relaxation audios that use binaural beat technology, the doubt is removed. This proven technology means that anyone can meditate like a zen master.

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