The study included 257 men and women with cardiovascular disease admitted to Juntendo University Hospital's coronary care unit (CCU)

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a disorder of the central nervous system that affects between one and one-and-a-half million Americans. Clinically, the disease is characterized by a decrease in spontaneous movements, gait difficulty, postural instability, rigidity and tremor. PD may appear at any age, but it is uncommon in people younger than 30, and the risk of developing it increases with age.

One of the most common complications of diabetes is diabetic neuropathy. The high blood sugar levels in diabetics can cause damage to the arteries that supply the nerves with blood and often damage to the sheath protecting the nerves. This results in numbness, pins and needles, burning sensation and pain.

Alpha-Lipoic Acid has been used successfully for the maintenance of liver health and as a treatment for several toxin-related illnesses. Alpha-Lipoic acid has been used extensively in Europe for years as a non-toxic nutrient to treat various chemical overdoses such as mushroom poisoning, radiation poisoning and alcoholic hepatitis.

Benefits for Heart Disease - Alpha Lipoic Acid - LifeSource Vitamins

A stroke occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is suddenly interrupted due to the presence of a blood clot (ischemic stroke) or when a blood vessel in the brain bursts (hemorrhagic stroke). Brain cells die when they no longer receive oxygen and nutrients from the blood or when they are damaged by sudden bleeding into or around the brain.

Except immediately following your workout, the carbs you eat cause an insulin spike. Using ALA, you can channel more of the glucose to the muscle cells instead of the fat cells gaining more lean muscle mass without a concurrent gain in body fat.

Cataracts: Cataracts are clumps of protein that collect on the lens of an eye and interfere with vision. Normally, light passes through the lens (the clear tissue behind the pupil) and focuses on the retina. The retina is the light-sensitive layer of the eye that sends visual signals to the brain. A cataract occurs when the normally clear lens becomes cloudy. Most cataracts develop slowly over time and are a natural result of aging.

Alzheimer's disease is a progressive neurological disorder that destroys cells in the brain. It is the leading cause of dementia, a condition that involves gradual memory loss, decline in the ability to perform routine tasks, disorientation, difficulty in learning, loss of language skills, impairment of judgment, and personality changes. The rate of progression of Alzheimer's varies from person to person.

Diabetes Mellitus is a group of chronic diseases associated with abnormally high levels of sugar in the blood. Glucose (sugar) builds up in the bloodstream as a result of the body's inability to produce insulin (which regulates blood/sugar levels) or the inability of insulin in the body to control sugar levels.

Healthnotes Newswire (April 14, 2005)The nutritional supplement acetyl-L-carnitine (ALC) appears to decrease pain and improve nerve function in people with a nervous-system disorder associated with diabetes (diabetic neuropathy), according to Diabetes Care (2005;28:8994).

Many men, as they get older, lose their sex drive; this may be associated with increased fatigue and sometimes depression. If their testosterone level is low, they are often treated with this hormone, in one form or another. But there are some risks (real or apparent) to the use of testosterone, so an alternative effective treatment would be very welcome.

Acetyl-L-carnitine may offer unprecedented hope for people suffering from Alzheimer's disease or the aftereffects of a stroke. The human brain is uniquely powerful and complex, but it is sometimes difficult for it to fully recover from damage. People who have been affected by stroke, traumatic brain damage or age-associated dementia know this all too well. Fortunately, research studies suggest that ...

In a double-blind, placebo study, acetyl-L-carnitine was administered to 7 probable Alzheimer's disease patients who were then compared by clinical and 31P magnetic resonance spectroscopic measures to 5 placebo-treated probable AD patients and 21 age-matched healthy controls over the course of 1 year. Compared to AD patients on placebo, acetyl-L-carnitine-treated patients showed significantly ...

Consumer confusion over vitamin D and calcium seems likely to grow, following claims from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) trial about their effect on bone health that oppose other studies. The combination of vitamin D and calcium has long been recommended to reduce the risk of bone fracture for older people, particularly those at risk of or suffering from osteoporosis, which is estimated ...

Colon polyps are growths that form inside the colon. Most have the potential to become cancer, with large polyps or those that show a high degree of cancerous change the most likely to progress. Colon cancer is the second most common cancer in Western societies. People with family members who have had colon cancer, and people with inflammatory bowel disease, such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative ...

Osteoporosis is a major contributor to health problems in older people. The severely low bone density that characterizes osteoporosis increases the risk of fractures, which can lead to immobility and complicated recovery that can even result in death. Osteoporosis prevention has a two-pronged approach: maximizing the bone density at the time in life when it reaches its peak (about 25 years old) and ... Read more...

Participants were randomly assigned to receive 700 IU per day of vitamin D3 plus 500 mg per day of calcium (as calcium citrate malate) or placebo for three years. Of the 445 volunteers who began the study, 389 attended the three-year follow-up visit, and 318 were still taking the supplements. Originally designed to examine the effect of the vitamin-mineral combination on bone mineral density, the study ...

Calcium is a mineral nutrient that is used by the body primarily to produce and repair bone. As is the case with other minerals, such as zinc, magnesium, and selenium, many children and adolescents do not get the recommended amount of calcium from their diets. Childhood and adolescence may be critical times for getting calcium; about 40% of lifetime bone mass is produced during a growth spurt that ...

CoQ10 is an ideal nutrient for all of us. It affects our energy and longevity, heart health, blood pressure, brain, gums, stomach, immune system, and much more. It is an enzyme found in almost all cells in the body, where it helps with the production of energy within the mitochondria. There is evidence that it can increase the volume of oxygen in the blood by as much as 15%.

Supplementing with coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) can improve kidney function and reduce the need for dialysis in people with severe, chronic kidney (renal) failure, according to a study in the Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine (2003;13:13-22). If this study is confirmed, CoQ10 therapy will represent a major breakthrough in the treatment of a disorder that is both debilitating and a significant drain on our ...

Combining coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) supplementation with hypothermia therapy increases survival and might prevent neurological damage in people who have received CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) after a heart attack, according to Circulation (2004;110:3011-6). CPR is a technique used to restore the heartbeat and breathing immediately after events such as a heart attack or a major trauma.

Gallstones occur when one of the compounds in bile, particularly cholesterol, becomes so saturated that it forms a solid. If a gallstone lodges in the bile duct, it can cause severe pain, inflammation, infection, and sometimes even jaundice due to the backup of bile. However, there are some herbal remedies to prevent and treat gallstones. Avoiding gallstone trouble is advised, and often can be achieved by healthy eating.

Insomnia is a chronic inability to obtain or sustain sleep. While everyone occasionally experiences sleeplessness, chronic insomnia is an ongoing, often debilitating condition. After a night of inadequate sleep, those with insomnia report impaired mental and physical abilities, diminished memory, reduced alertness, and impaired reaction time. Chronic lack of sleep threatens the well being, productivity, and ...

Good quality sleep is a lost art in America. Sleep seems to be one problem that plagues many Americans. In my medical practice, although few patients complain about sleep deprivation as a primary complaint, it seems to be an almost universal secondary medical problem. The average American get about 6.5 hours of sleep a night. I suspect that it is not a straight 6.5 hours but is broken up throughout ...

The ruling of the FDA on red yeast rice that, a natural substance found in red-yeast-rice (Cholestin) could not be marketed as a cholesterol owering agent is not correct, since Cholestin is a natural substance. It turns out that this food source supplement contains a naturally occuring component (monacolin K) that the FDA has already allowed to go on the market as a patented drug called Mevacor (lovastatin).

It's not just about your weight. While previous research has found evidence that obesity in middle age raises the chances of developing dementia later, the new work found a separate risk from storing a lot of fat in the abdomen. Even people who weren't overweight were susceptible.

Lots of press has been given recently to the health benefits of moderate red wine or grape juice consumption. Some of the components of red wine and grape juice, specifically resveratrol, quercetin and catechin, are powerful antioxidants. Resveratrol, in particular, protects the nervous system 1 and reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. (2,3) Alzheimer's disease is characterized by ...

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is the most common benign disorder of the digestive system. IBS is a functional disorder, meaning nothing is visibly wrong with the colon or any other underlying illnesses causing the symptoms. In people with IBS, the gut signals going back and forth to the brain are not acting properly, but there is no visible disease or illness other than this functional problem...

The Latest Major Clinical Trial Results Are In! Glucosamine and Chondroitin Are Better Than Pain Killers! With the ever increasing interest on how to overcome the limitations of living with osteoarthritis, particularly with two major prescription drugs (Vioxx and Bextra) removed from the market, and concerns about long term NSAID usage, ...

In past articles, I have mentioned the many health benefits of fish oil and specifically omega-3 fats. This in not "breaking" news since the potential health benefits of omega-3 fats have been discussed for several decades. Originally, the benefits of omega-3 fats were discovered by accident. It was found that people who had a diet rich in omega-3 fats, primarily as north Atlantic fish, had a much lower incidence ...

Aging is inevitable - and it often brings certain common health problems. One of these is arthritis. There are several kinds of arthritis, but the most common form is osteoarthritis. It occurs when the joint fails because of destruction of the cartilage. Risk factors for arthritis include obesity, repetitive motion, injury to the joint and increased age. The pain and disability from arthritis is considerable: More than ...

Prayer and other practices of spirituality for health and the treatment of disease have been used for thousands of years. Many cultures, dating back to the beginning of recorded history, have used some form of spirituality as a healing therapy. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health defines prayer as "an active process of appealing to a higher spiritual ...

Now we may be able to add air pollution to the list of factors of modern life that increase heart disease risk. For some time, we have known that air pollution can make asthma and other lung diseases, like emphysema, worse. The annual medical cost of air pollution's impact on these diseases is measured in the tens of millions of dollars.

The health benefits of fruits and vegetables are well-known, especially with respect to cardiovascular disease and certain kinds of cancer. Fruits and vegetables may also have important effects on other body systems and diseases. We wanted to find out if fruits and vegetables could change how age affects brain function. We were particularly interested in the effects on motor function (coordination ...

Women who smoke cigarettes have a greatly increased risk of suffering from a stroke if their spouse also smokes, reports the journal Stroke (2005;36:74-6). Secondhand smoke, also known as environmental or passive tobacco smoke, is a mixture of the smoke from a lit cigarette and the exhaled smoke from the smoker. Environmental tobacco smoke is a human carcinogen, ...

People who have suffered a stroke are at high risk of sustaining a hip fracture in the years after their stroke; however, supplementing with folic acid and vitamin B12 can greatly reduce the chances that stroke victims will break a hip, reports the Journal of the American Medical Association (2005;293:1082-8). Stroke victims have a high frequency of hip fractures for a number of reasons. Because they are often weak or paralyzed ...

People can lower their heart disease risk by eating barley, and the evidence is strong enough that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that this health claim can be printed on the packaging of barley and foods containing barley. Heart disease remains one of the leading causes of disability and death in the Western world. A healthy lifestyle-including eating a high-fiber low-saturated-fat diet ...

A new study finds that St. John's wort (SJW) is a helpful treatment for somatoform disorders (SDs), according to Psychosomatic Medicine (2004;66:538-47). SDs are a group of conditions characterized by several ongoing physical symptoms that cannot be explained by any identifiable illness. People with SDs may experience symptoms such as nausea, sexual dysfunction, widespread pain, and neurological ...

When people with type 2 diabetes supplement with chromium, an electrocardiogram (ECG) measurement believed to indicate a reduced risk of heart disease improves, according to the American Heart Journal (2005;149:632-6). Type 2 diabetes (sometimes called adult-onset diabetes) is a chronic disease marked by inability to control blood sugar (glucose) levels.

Chromium supplements can relieve symptoms in some patients suffering from one type of depression (atypical depression), reports the Journal of Psychiatric Practice (2005;11:302-14). Atypical depression, one of the most common forms of depression, is characterized by mood reactivity (increased sensitivity to being rejected by another person and improved mood when something good happens), increased ...

Taking 10 grams of psyllium each day may help improve blood sugar control and improve blood lipid levels in people with type 2 diabetes, reports the Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2005;102:202-7).

Diabetes is a disorder of blood sugar regulation that affects almost 7% of the US population. People with type 2 diabetes are unable to respond appropriately to insulin-the hormone secreted by the pancreas ...

People being treated with medications for multiple sclerosis (MS) can benefit from eating a very-low-fat diet and supplementing with Omega 3 (fish oil), according to a study published in Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes, and Essential Fatty Acids (2005; 73:397-404). MS is a chronic and progressive disease of the nervous system. Although the cause is not completely understood, it is clear that an ...

Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability in Western societies. The most common type is caused by a blockage of one of the arteries that supplies oxygen to the brain, usually as a result of hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis). Risk factors for stroke are similar to those for other types of cardiovascular disease: high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, cigarette smoking, ...

In people known to have colon polyps, an aged garlic extract can prevent new polyps and reduce the number and size of existing polyps, according to the Journal of Nutrition (2006;136:821S-6S). Colon polyps, abnormal growths that occur inside the large intestine, have the potential to become cancer. Colon cancer is the second most common cancer in Western societies.

Adults suffering from osteoarthritis (OA) of the knees may experience less pain and swelling and increased mobility in the knees by taking an extract of ginger, according to a study recently published in OsteoArthritis and Cartilage (2003;11:783-9). OA (also known as degenerative joint disease or DJD) occurs primarily in adults of middle age or older and is caused when the protective cartilage layer in the ...

Ginger root (Zingiber officinale) may help improve abnormal digestive function induced by elevated blood sugar, reports The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (2003;307:1098-103). The potential implication of this finding is that people with adult-onset diabetes (type 2 or non-insulin-dependent diabetes) may experience fewer of the gastrointestinal complications that often occur with that disease.

A substance found in dark green leafy vegetables and egg yolks may improve vision in people with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and other degenerative eye conditions, according to a study published by a Johns Hopkins researcher, whose subjects were recruited from the Internet and tested via e-mail. Twelve of the 16 study participants with retinal degenerative conditions reported that taking daily supplements of the substance, called lutein,

Women who experience unexplained fatigue, but who are not anaemic may benefit from iron supplementation. However, the effect of any iron supplementation may be restricted to women with low or borderline serum ferritin concentrations, reports Dr Bernard Favrat and colleagues at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. They think their study is the first randomised clinical trial in women of ...

Children suffering from migraine headaches may experience fewer and less severe headaches by taking oral magnesium, according to a new study in Headache (2003;43:601-10). This is the first study in children to suggest oral magnesium can effectively treat this often debilitating condition. Migraine headaches affect 3 to 13% of all children in the United States and are one of the most common ...

People addicted to opiate drugs, such as heroin and morphine, may be able to reduce their use by taking oral magnesium, according to a new study in Journal of Addictive Diseases (2003;22:49-61). Magnesium may also help cocaine addicts experience fewer cravings for the drug, although it is not clear that it reduces cocaine use. Opiates and opioids are substances derived from opium or that have ...

Children suffering from migraine headaches may experience fewer and less severe headaches by taking oral magnesium, according to a new study in Headache (2003;43:601-10). This is the first study in children to suggest oral magnesium can effectively treat this often debilitating condition. Migraine headaches affect 3 to 13% of all children in the United States and are one of the most common ...

Increasing the amount of magnesium one consumes in the diet may reduce the risk of developing coronary heart disease, according to a new study in The American Journal of Cardiology (2003;92:665-9). Eating foods high in magnesium may lower the likelihood of having a heart attack or stroke. Heart disease is the number one killer of Americans and affects more than 58 million adults in the ...

Increasing magnesium intake may help prevent the bone loss that leads to osteoporosis, reports a study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (2005;53:1875-80). More than 10 million Americans have osteoporosis (thinning of the bones) and tens of millions more have a milder form of bone loss (osteopenia). At least 1.2 million fractures occur each year as a direct result of osteoporosis, ...

Men and women who take a daily multivitamin have fewer heart attacks than those who do not, according to a new study published in the Journal of Nutrition (2003;133:2650-4). It has long been known that healthful habits are essential to cardiac health. Regular exercise, not smoking, and eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and fiber have all been shown in numerous studies to be effective means for ...

A diet with liberal servings of fish, nuts and seeds rich in nutrients called omega-3 fatty acids can help lower a person's blood pressure , according to a study released on Monday. "A large percentage of people between ages 20 and 60 have a rise in blood pressure, and by middle age many have high blood pressure," said Dr. Jeremiah Stamler, professor emeritus of preventive medicine at ...

Cancer is less common in communities that eat large amounts of fish, and the reason is thought to be the presence in fish of the long chain omega-3 polyunsaturates. Japanese women, for example, eat a lot of fish, and have a very low rate of breast, (and other) cancer. Men who eat fish frequently have a lower risk of prostate cancer. Stomach and intestinal cancers also appear to be less common in fish eaters.

A fatty acid found in Omega 3 (fish oil) (docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA), may slow the rate of vision loss in people with an eye disease known as retinitis pigmentosa (RP), reports the American Journal of Ophthalmology (2004;137:704-18). Healthnotes Newswire (May 13, 2004) RP is a group of diseases that affect the back of the inner part of the eye, called the retina.

Supplementation with omega-3 fatty acids and specific antioxidants may relieve symptoms associated with schizophrenia and improve quality of life, according to a new study in Schizophrenia Research (2003;62:195-204). This is exciting news for the millions of people worldwide who suffer from this debilitating condition. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that affects more than 1% of the ...

Women with moderately severe borderline personality disorder (BPD) may become less aggressive and less depressed by taking supplemental eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), according to a study in the American Journal of Psychiatry (2003;160:167-9). While EPA has been shown to be an effective adjunctive treatment for other mood disorders, this is the first study to suggest it may also be useful ...