Headaches

Headache

HeadacheAre you part of the 45 million Americans who experience frequent headaches? Or the 18 million who have frequent migraines? Tired of your aspirin? Or worse it’s not helping anymore? We all get headaches from time to time. For men it’s generally when the mother-in-law comes by and for women its either the boss or the kids. But a nagging headache can drive you up the wall literally.

So what causes headaches? There are many reasons but let’s take a look at the common headache. There are so many cause of headaches that it would be next to impossible to list them all but I am assure we are aware that stress and sinus pressure are some of the leading causes. But what about the other causes we are not familiar with? Things like lack of water, dairy, pollution and yes nutritional deficiencies? Yes all these are major causes of headaches especially in the metropolitan areas.

Let’s take a look at water. 75% of our body consists of water (might be good to think about that next time before downing that Mountain Dew®). When the body does not have enough water to replace that which was lost either by sweating, crying, urination and other daily tasks the specific organs suffer, and those to suffer the most are the heart, liver, kidney and brain. The brain alone requires 25% of the oxygen breathed into the body. It also requires a large amount of water for different purposes including its personal “hot tub”. When there is not enough water surrounding the brain it can easily touch the skull causing slight pains that can get severe if not dealt with.

Another cause is pollution. In fact pollution is responsible for a lot more than just respiratory problems. It has been linked to things such as diabetes and cancer. When the air is much polluted and it is breathed in by the lungs, needless to say that pollution is collected by a lot of organs who were not supposed to deal with it, one of these being the brain. In some cases the sole cause of headaches is a polluted environment.

Dairy products are another big factor. In fact the main causes of migraines are dairy products. Dr. Mylek D among other physicians have recorded that among the top three causes for patients migraines dairy were dairy products.
Those who miss their morning coffee may want to check out if that might be a factor. Headaches (which should not be surprising) can be withdrawal symptoms from every day drugs like coffee and tobacco to more deadly ones like alcohol and narcotics.

The best solution is to find the main cause of the headache. Generally if that headache is coupled with constipation this means the person is not drinking enough water. This means put down the Sprite® and start drinking some water. Try and get your daily amount and if you do manual labor a couple more glasses won’t do you any harm.

Kiss stress dairy goodbye. You can live without your cream cheese and I’m sure there are enough substitutes out there that your body will rather. Pollution is also a big factor. For some this might mean getting more fresh air than they currently are. And since stress is probably the single biggest factor in headaches you already know what to do. Remember “stress is our reaction to stressors” as one doctor put it.

This along with a helpful diet should do the trick. It’s not as easy as popping a Tylenol or Aspirin but it’s a lot better in the long run and it won’t put a damp on your pocket.

Got Milk?

Got Milk?

Got Milk?You’ve heard that saying over and over again and the likes of it also. What you have not heard is the truth behind the saying “Milk has something for everyone”.
Now we all know that the dairy industry is big in America, in fact one out of every seven food dollars is spent on dairy products, five cents is spent on milk advertising per 100 pounds of dairy products sold and the shocker; and one out of every seven congressmen receives election support from the dairy industry. That should be no surprise considering how milk is ‘preached’ in our school system.
So with that being said you might ask what the truth is. I can assure you the statistics are not pretty. We are told that milk builds strong bones yet here in America we suffer from the highest rate of osteoporosis. No doubt about it milk carries lots of calcium, but you see for calcium to be absorbed by the body Magnesium and Vitamin D has to be present which Milk lacks so in fact 75% of the calcium in milk is in absorbable by the body, couple that with the hundreds of pounds of sugar which we consume each year (which leaches calcium from the bones) it should be no wonder why we American’s suffer from the highest osteoporosis rate.
Asthma which so many of us suffer from is mainly due to dairy products, milk forms mucus which affects asthma greatly and therefore is one of the main causes of asthma. Here are ten other health problems that milk has been linked to.

coronary artery disease
cancer
neurological diseases
juvenile diabetes (milk causes leaky gut syndrome which leads to juvenile diabetes)
digestive problems
infectious disease
acne
rheumatoid arthritis
dental decay
hyperactivity

And the list is still counting. Another thing that I have not mentioned is milk even after pasteurization is allowed contain up to 20,000 bacteria per milliliter by FDA standards plus along with the milk comes viruses, prions, antibiotics, hormones and organic pesticides and yet we hardly hear this over the evening news.
Now back to the school issue, the US government recommends that the diet contain less the 30% fat yet the Federal law requires schools to provide fatty whole milk and school lunches are over 40% fat. Butter and cheese amount to ⅓ of the money the government spends on lunches for school and the mind boggling one; only 1% of fruits and vegetables provided for our schools are fresh and 90% are canned.

So you may ask yourself what should I do and are there any alternatives? Well there are, for one instead of using dairy milk use a good wholesome soymilk and please read your labels to make sure that it contains no refined sugar, in fact most soymilk’s on the market contain more calcium then whole milk. Kale, turnips and sesame seeds are better sources of calcium then milk, in fact sesame seeds contain ten times the amount of calcium that milk contains per serving and it comes with all those little goodies to help your body digest the milk. At this point I must stress that you should try to get 20 to 30 minutes of sunlight a day preferably in the early morning or late afternoon to avoid the midday and mid afternoon ultraviolet rays, this will give your body the Vitamin D it needs to absorb the calcium. And last but not least try to use the vitamins in their natural state, supplements are fine but nothing beats a fresh cup of carrot juice over a pill of vitamin A.

In closing, milk has its “good things” but would you want to risk that tiny amount of good for a whole host of other problems? Here is a thought to ponder; did you know that we humans are the only mammals who consume milk after weaning? Makes you wonder what they have been teaching us all these years.

P.S If you would like to get the source for these statistics or any others that I have mentioned email me I will be more then happy to supply them.