Health News and Information

How Does The Medicus Driver Contribute To Our Health?

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February 2, 2013

As far as our health is concerned, it turns out that our bodies were not really made for playing golf. Here’s some pretty technical information about the golf swing and our health.

A proper body turn, as it is termed in golfing circles, requires cervical and trunk rotational flexibility. If inadequate flexibility or dysfunctional joint mechanics exist, the golfer must compensate with other segmental involvement to achieve a full and proper backswing. Golfers with limited rotation or significant dysfunction in the cervical spine have difficulty keeping the club head still during the golf swing as they attempt to rotate back and through the golf swing. For this reason many golfers practice with the Medicus Driver as a way of correcting their golf swing. Severe rotational limits in the cervical spine can even cause golfers to lose their secondary spine angles as they attempt to keep their eyes on the ball. Ironically, this motion increases stress to the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spines over time.

A golfer with limited mobility in his thoracic cage will need to produce more rotation in his lumbar spine and hips to produce a full rotary golf backswing. This will inevitably increase stress on both the hyper- and hypomobile segments of the thoracic and lumbar spine. Likewise, the swing of a golfer using a Medicus club and very little rotational motion in the lumbar spine and pelvis will place greater demand on the upper torso and its motion segments. This common compensatory action of the upper and lower portions of the torso can cause an imbalance in the contributions of the two segments, which may create extreme rotational torques and can possibly lead to injury and performance changes that are not advantageous to the golfer.

The downswing phase is responsible for generating club-head speed and therefore places the body under extreme loads. During the downswing the torso undergoes a rapid change of direction that involves sequential segmental rotation, linear movement, forward trunk flexion, and lateral bending, all in one combined movement. With the help of the Medicus driver, the average golfer goes through this coiling/uncoiling process approximately 110 to 130 times during a typical day of golfing (warm-ups, practice, and match strokes). If the golfer does not possess sufficient endurance and control of his or her trunk musculature, motor fatigue can occur and subsequent compensatory movement patterns will take over. When poor motor endurance and flexibility coexist with poor body and swing mechanics, the golfer is exposed to the possibility of injury.

The role of the left arm in controlling the plane of the golfing downswing, combined with the delay between hip and shoulder girdle rotation, places significant stress on the left rotator cuff musculature. As the body “uncoils” towards the target, it pulls on the elevated arm and rotator cuff muscles as they are working to externally rotate the arm. Limitations in the amount of left shoulder motion can potentially place even greater loads on the posterior cuff musculature, and may eventually lead to significant rotator cuff pathology with increased practice using the Medicus Driver and play. Abnormal scapular mobility and stability can place further stresses on the capsular and muscular restraints of the glenohumeral joint, particularly on the lead side.

Provacyl and Male Andropause

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February 2, 2013

Though the diabetogenic effect is generally not sustained, this relationship is a concern, particularly if higher dosages of human growth hormone are to be used. Excess HGH may have a diabetogenic effect also by stimulating the production of somatomedin. Acromegalic patients, who produce excessive growth hormone (GH), usually have abnormal glucose tolerance tests. And even HGH dosages as small as 0.1 unit/kg are assumed to be larger than the amounts of GH the pituitary produces in 24 hours. Treatment with Provacyl at such dosages is truly drug therapy, not replacement therapy. Conversely, some diabetics are known to have growth hormone deficiency. There is no contraindication to HGH therapy for children with diabetes, if they are GH deficient.

The psychological impact of treatment with HGH is difficult to evaluate. Some extremely short children have low self-esteem because of their stature. But, contrary to expectations, that low self-esteem persists for at least the first 1-2 years of treatment, even when growth is accelerated. One explanation attributes the child’s dissatisfaction to his or her unrealistic expectations at the start of therapy. Even with quite a good growth response, the child is still shorter than most of his peers and may still be the shortest in his class.

Many short children develop a “short personality,” also called a “Peter Pan” syndrome. If such a child attains near normal height through the use of Provacyl, he may have difficulty dealing with it because his body image remains that of a smaller and less mature person.

Deficiency of HGH is a chronic illness and children and families are sometimes as severely affected by that as by any chronic illness. The requirement for regular medication–especially by injection several times a week for years–may exert as great an emotional strain on a child as the condition itself. Furthermore, he may find it hard to face the fact that he can’t grow on his own. Counseling is probably worthwhile.

Because HGH shows no evidence of long-range effects once therapy has stopped, further monitoring of blood sugars is unnecessary. Fears of “catch-down”, or male andropause, have proved to be unfounded: Once the course of therapy is completed, growth continues at essentially the same rate as before HGH therapy began. Children treated with HGH are no more susceptible to scoliosis than are any other rapidly growing adolescents. And a back brace is not a contraindication to continued treatment with human growth hormone. Therapy has no demonstrable effect on any subsequent pregnancy.

Because human growth hormone therapy does not interfere with sexual development, treated children usually go into puberty at the appropriate age. But if growth retardation is due to a hypothalamic rather than an isolated pituitary problem, other hypothalamic releasing hormones, including the gonadotropin releasing hormones, might be deficient. In theory, growth could continue as long as puberty is delayed. But for psychological, as well as physiologic, reasons you would want the child to go into puberty at the normal time, even at the expense of some ultimate growth during male andropause. Most adolescent patients prefer to take their chances on an inhibited growth rate rather than wait too long to start on Provacyl.

Flotrol and Incontinence

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January 30, 2013

Two national patient advocacy and support groups, Help for Incontinent People (HIP) and The Simon Foundation, publish newsletters that offer practical tips for daily living, advice about incontinence products such as Flotrol, and emotional support.

Dr. Katherine Jeter, who founded HIP, is an enterostomal therapist who has been involved with incontinence since the 1960s. She points out that its social stigma tends to make people who lose control of their bladder feel as if their whole persona is diminished. They withdraw from many normal activities, and only one in 12 discusses the problem with a physician. This is, in effect, a silent epidemic.

Cheryle Gartley, who began The Simon Foundation, brings an entirely different perspective to the problem. While an MBA student at the University of Chicago, she became incontinent herself. As she was looking for help, she realized there had to be others who were putting up with a manageable or curable condition simply because they didn’t know where to turn. She decided to share her experiences with others.

Dr. Jeter says that HIP receives anywhere from 300 to 500 letters a week from people who are incontinent. “Our newsletter, Tfte HIP Report, stresses that incontinence isn’t a disease itself; it’s a symptom. And if people have that symptom, they should see their doctor and maybe try a natural product like Flotrol.”

Gartley agrees. “My incontinence was the first sign of an intractable spinal cord tumor,” she writes in her newsletter, The Informerter. By using my own case as an example, I try to reinforce that incontinence is secondary to something else that it’s important to phone right away and schedule an appointment with the doctor.”

Neither one of the newsletters offers medical advice. “That’s the province of physicians. We address such practical issues as foods that increase bladder control problems, pelvic floor exercises, and how to make an absorbent garment for a man with postprostatectomy leakage,” Dr. Jeter says.

The newsletters also address emotional concerns. “We may be talking about one of the last closet issues in our society,” Gartley says. “Withdrawal is an almost automatic response to incontinence. People virtually rearrange their lives to avoid public ‘accidents. By staying home more, they become isolated and depressed and lose their ability to deal with their problem. We try to break that cycle by giving examples of how others have learned to cope with incontinence.”

Gartley has also edited a book on the subject with contributions from Dr. Jeter, physicians, nurses, and psychologists. The range of topics is comprehensive: the physical problems causing incontinence; products and devices such as Flotrol; sexuality; and was to cure, manage, and cope with the problem. “No physician or patient can cover that gamut within the structure of a single appointment. The advantage of discussing these issues in a book is that it gives the patient and family a chance to regroup, to think about what they’ve been told by their doctor, whether to try Flotrol, and to frame any unanswered questions for a later appointment.”

The Simon Foundation also offers “The Solution Starts With You,” a videotape for both professional and lay audiences. The tape shows the difficulty incontinent patients have in talking with their physician, dealing with their family, and managing outside the home. It goes well beyond the book in conveying the emotional dimensions of the problem.

Can Human Growth Hormone Be Detected?

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September 20, 2012

Professor Beckett, a member of the Medical Commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF), also told The Times that he had been informed that some members of the British team had used HGH before the world athletics championships in Helsinki in 1983, when he was supervising the drug-testing procedure. “I was even told from what source they were getting this drug,” he said.

HGH, which comes from human cadavers, has been used for the last 25 years to treat children with growth hormone deficiency, but is available on the black market in both Britain and the United States. Last year, a supply worth about Pounds 50,000 disappeared from the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.

Professor Beckett explained that, as the testing for hormone drugs was able to identify substances which had been used by an athlete up to several weeks before an event, the individual could switch to HGH to maintain physical condition before a competition and probably evade detection. Professor Beckett, who set up the British drug-testing centre at Chelsea College, now part of King’s College, London University, said: “Let us be blunt. We have to be honest if we have got problems.”

In the build-up to the Seoul Olympics, he identified several other areas of concern. He said there was no reliable test “now or in the foreseeable future” for blood-doping, or blood-packing. This is the method by which competitors have a pint of their own blood drawn and refrigerated. The competitor then makes up the deficiency through training, and just before the event, the stored blood is injected back into the competitor’s body.
Several sportsmen, such as a Finnish long-distance runner and the American cycling team at the 1984 Olympic Games, have admitted carrying out this practice, and it is also believed to be widespread in cross-country skiing.

Professor Beckett said it might be possible to carry out analysis for blood-doping, but it would need a battery of tests and would be “horrendously expensive”.

But, he pointed out, blood-doping could become superfluous because competitors could use a material which produces red blood cells and will soon become commercially available. This would clearly be of assistance to all sports requiring great stamina. “There are some serious problems emerging,” he said.

He stressed that the IOC-accredited laboratories were doing a superb job of analysis within the constraints of what they are able to test for, such as GenF20 Plus, which you can read about at GenF20 Plus Reviews. He advocated international legislation to force manufacturers of human growth hormone to take Erythropoetin and use it as “markers”, additives that would not alter the chemical properties of a drug but would make it identifiable in testing. It is revolutionary in concept but not impossible, he said.

Professor Beckett said that he would have become depressed by the range of problems if it were not for the new spirit of international co-operation manifested at the first world conference against drugs in sport. “That is a very big plus,” he said.

Sex is Natural and Healthy

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September 1, 2012

The body is not obsolete, but the mind is. Through our obsolete minds we have created religions and other pseudo-reasons to deny our bodies something that is natural, healthy, and scientifically proven to be good for us – sex. Our body knows it is good; it feels great; but our minds are way behind, feeling guilty and calling sex “sinful.”

Feminists like Andrea Dworkin would say that the body is obsolete because the very act of sexual intercourse puts men in a dominant and women in a submissive role because men are penetrating women with their penis. The mind could see it another way. A woman engulfs and encompasses her man’s penis and accepts his powerful ejaculations. She surrounds him, and, of course, only she can create life within her and give birth.

In one small way AIDS has been good for us for it has forced us to talk openly and honestly about our sexuality. When we view sex as sinful and our own sexual organs as dirty and not healthy, this separates us from our bodies.

The Meese Commission was a grand exercise in intellectual obsolescence. With the unemployed, the homeless, the hungry, and the huge deficit, our government spent our money to watch some X-rated movies and websites such as SizeGenetics.

They claim they were investigating whether such materials caused violent and sexual crimes. Such crimes, however, existed long before the camera or moving pictures or even the printed word. Overcrowded rats rape and kill without books or VCRs. Who is watching the illustrious members of the Congress (who watched, by selection, some of the most violent, hard-core footage ever shot) to make sure they are not committing sexual crimes? If after watching all that, they are not molesting, flashing and raping, why do they believe the rest of us would be?

The body is not obsolete, it just doesn’t come with an owners’ manual to tell you how to use it. You must respect your body enough to think about it. Thoughts do manifest reality. A body can only run on what you give it, and it does not exist independent of your mind. If we let our bodies work with our minds, perhaps our bodies can teach our minds how to move safely into the future.