In recent years the term “circadian rhythm” (those rhythms that govern our circadian clock) has been applied to a growing number of metabolic and other patterns found in virtually all creatures. These discoveries led to the creation of the new science of chronobiology.
The first experiments to discover and assess the circadian rhythms in humans were conducted in Europe in the early 1960s. German researchers used the basement of a Munich hospital to isolate volunteers from all external time clues (called Zeitgeber, a German neologism that means “time giver”). There were no windows, nor were the subjects permitted to see newspapers or hear radio or television broadcasts. The participants in the experiment were allowed to establish and follow their own schedules, eating when they were hungry, sleeping when they felt tired. In similar fashion French scientists a few years later used caves in the Alps to isolate their subjects. Among other things, these experiments showed that, left to their own devices, the volunteers tended to go to sleep at twenty-five-hour intervals.
This and subsequent discoveries have established that human circadian rhythms, when allowed to run free with no clues to establish the time of day, tend to operate on a cycle of approximately twenty-five hours. One ramification of this finding is that if our circadian pacemakers were not reset on a daily basis by external factors, the timing of our built-in rhythms would be off by an hour more each day compared with time as measured by the clock.
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When Pamela came to see me, she began by saying, “I’m a picker.” Pamela considered her skin picking the most troubling part of her BDD. “I can’t stop destroying my looks,” she said. “I have this compulsion of picking at my face at any tiny blemish. I try to remove any ugly things on my face…. I feel addicted to this compulsion.”
Pamela was a 25-year-old music student with no obvious skin lesions. She’d picked at her skin for the past eight years, trying to remove small blemishes and imperfections that to her were “hideously ugly.” To decrease her chance of getting pimples, she also picked to remove any dirt that she feared might be under the surface of her skin. Pamela usually picked for several hours a day but sometimes for up to 12 hours at a time. Occasionally, she stayed up all night picking.
I asked Pamela to describe her picking. “The way it usually goes is that first I check a mirror,” she said. “I check in school with a pocket mirror, I check in store mirrors, or I check in my bathroom mirror at home. I hope to find a miracle when I check, but I never do—there’s always something wrong with my skin. I see a tiny blemish, and I start obsessing that my skin looks ugly and that other people will notice it. I think, ‘I see a bump there! People are going to notice it! I have to get rid of it!’ I get very self-conscious and I start. The worst time for me is the morning, when I’m getting ready for the day, and at night before I go to bed. Sometimes I get totally caught up in it, and I don’t even think of anything else.
“When I can’t pick, I get shaky and anxious—I have to do it! I’m drawn by the mirror—I have to look and see how I look, and then I have to start picking when I see anything wrong, even though I know no one else will probably see it. I can’t resist. Then, afterward, I check to see how I look. Usually, I look so terrible that I isolate myself…. I pick hoping to make my skin look better, but I usually make it worse.”
Pamela’s picking caused notable lesions that required dermatologic treatment. “The treatment helped my skin heal, but it didn’t help me stop the picking,” she said. “One dermatologist told me to just stop doing it. If only it was that simple! I’ve tried to stop a hundred times, but I can’t. I’ve tried cutting my fingernails, and then I wore artificial fingernails and bandaids to avoid doing more damage to my face. It really didn’t work.”
Pamela’s boyfriend had recently broken up with her because of her picking. “I could no longer hide my need for privacy to pick—I was much too embarrassed to tell him about what I was doing. And the picking took a lot of time—I ran out of excuses about where I was and why I couldn’t do things with him.”
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Asthma is a three fold allergic reaction inside the air passages of asthma prone individuals. Given appropriate treatment all three of these reactions are completely reversible and theoretically preventable. Factors that trigger an asthma attack come from within and without the body. They include allergies, infection, exercise, emotion, chemicals and changes in the surrounding temperature.
The medical treatment of asthma involves the use of various therapeutic chemicals to decrease and prevent any of the events provoked by asthma trigger factors. As a rule very little medical effort identifies or teaches the asthmatic how to avoid and resist the effect of asthma trigger factors. The medical response activates the use of multiple drug therapy.
Home Remedies
From the point of view of prevention, removal of domestic allergic stimuli such as house dust mite, mite faeces and mould spores are all eminently justifiable goals. The use of carpets in most Australian homes is unnecessary and a legacy of British ancestors who saw fit to insulate their floors against the cold of northern Europe. Carpets that are breeding grounds of the house dust mite should go.
Mattresses and pillows are also hot beds of house dust mite activity and contribute to the high incidence of night time asthma. Where possible replace mattresses with a water bed or get plastic mattress and pillow liners from a surgical supplier.
The almost universal prejudice against air-conditioning does the sufferers of asthma and other allergic conditions a grave disservice. When properly maintained and utilized, air-conditioners provide filtered and dehumidified air. It filters the load of spores and house dust mite and reduces the moist environment that encourages the growth of yeasts and moulds.
People allergic to dog or cat fur who keep these pets, are their own worst enemies. Better to be alive than have a pet roaming the house with a dead owner.
Naturopaths and nutritional consultants keenly discuss the avoidance of asthma trigger factors. Furthermore they spend more time on the topic than the average medical practitioner. A visit to either of these alternative health practitioners is never a waste of time.
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Extensive studies show that there are two basic causes of asthma: the typical allergic reaction to one or more allergens; two, psychic factors. Doctors agree that many young asthmatics (according to studies, 25%) have in common a “deep-seated emotional insecurity and an intense need for parental love and protection”. When emotional causes are suspected, these must be dealt with before biological and nutritional treatments can be effective.
Dietary considerations
There is a clear relationship between asthma and low blood sugar. Asthmatics have a consistently low blood sugar. (Note: diabetics, who have high blood sugar, hardly ever have asthma!) It is advisable, therefore, that asthma patients follow a special dietary program described in a section on Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).
A vegetarian diet is best for asthma. Avoid all meat and fish. Avoid cow’s milk. Goat’s milk is well tolerated, mostly in soured form as yogurt or kefir. Lots of garlic, green vegetables and all available fruits; natural unfiltered honey; raw seeds and nuts; sprouted seeds and grains.
Diet should include manganese-rich foods, such as peas, beans, blueberries, nuts, buckwheat. Chronic manganese deficiency may be one of the contributing causes of asthma. Avoid sugar, ice-cream, and all refined and processed foods.
Biological treatments
1. Cleansing juice fast, one to two weeks, under doctor’s supervision.
2. Alternating hot and cold showers each morning and evening.
3. Dry brush massage twice a day.
4. Chest pack according to Father Kneipp: wet pack over upper chest. (Place a wet towel over the chest and cover with a dry towel, then with a blanket. Leave on for 1/2 hour.
5. Plenty of exercise in fresh (non-smoggy) air. Deep breathing exercises several times a day.
6. Herbal vapor bath, for acute asthmatic attacks.
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Из нескольких миллионов, страдающих аллергией, половина – астматики. Если человек подозревает, что астму вызывает аллергия, необходимо в срочном порядке выявить антиген-раздражитель. Сделать это можно легко – наблюдайте за своим состоянием и записывайте в ежедневник всё, что делаете и какие симптомы при этом возникают, следите за своим питанием, а также отмечайте изменения самочувствия в зависимости от погоды.
Таким образом, можно понемногу узнавать, что для вас лично является раздражителем и ведёт к проявлению болезни. Если почувствуете, что нужна медицинская помощь, не тяните с визитом к врачу, сразу же отправляйтесь к аллергологу. В больнице нужно пройти аллерготест: прокалывание кожи либо PACT (радиоаллергосорбент) – или предложат комплексное обследование, после чего выпишут лекарства. Не исключено, что вам поможет иммунотерапия – очень эффективный метод лечения, называемый ещё «уменьшением восприимчивости» или просто «аллергическими уколами».
Как проходит аллерготест?
Тестирование прокалыванием кожи, или, как его называют в быту, «насечка», заключается в том, что пациенту под кожу вводится слабый раствор экстракта одного или нескольких антигенов. Делается это так: на кожу капают раствор экстракта одного или нескольких антигенов, например травяной пыльцы и пыли, затем в этом месте делается маленький надрез, и антиген попадает внутрь кожи. Иногда тестирование проводят с использованием шприцев, тогда под кожу вводят небольшое количество аллергена, который надувается в виде маленького пузырька. Если пациент аллергичен к данному аллергену, то через двадцать-тридцать минут место введения начинает чесаться, появляются покраснение и небольшая опухоль. Это говорит о том, что именно этот антиген вызывает у пациента аллергию.
PACT – недавнее изобретение и неплохая альтернатива «насечке» и уколам. У пациента берётся кровь, которая анализируется на наличие в ней особого вида антител ИгЕ. Положительная сторона этой процедуры состоит в том, что она очень проста и происходит совершенно безболезненно. Появление данного аллерготеста – хорошая новость для тех, кто страдает сильными видами аллергии и вынужден постоянно принимать антигистамины – медикаменты, которые затрудняют получение точных данных при прокалывании кожи. Правда, PACT – метод дорогостоящий и длительный.
Комплексная проверка – самая сложная процедура. На руку пациента кладётся небольшое устройство с микроскопическими иглами, через которые в тело вводятся различные аллергены. Процедура эта не такая устрашающая, как кажется, – иглы колют совсем не больно.
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Sleep problems are among the commonest concerns that parents have with their children. About one in four of all children are said to have sleep problems at some stage. Some have difficulty in getting to sleep, others in staying asleep, while others have their sleep interrupted by nightmares or night terrors. All children, like adults, need adequate sleep to replenish energy. Insufficient or interrupted sleep has a deleterious effect on children at any age. Children’s sleep problems also have an impact on the rest of the family and they create an enormous amount of stress for parents, whose own sleep is often interrupted.
There is a great deal of individual variation in sleep patterns and requirements at all ages. What seems sufficient for one child is too little for another. All babies, children and adults go through specific sleep cycles. They move systematically from deep sleep to light sleep to REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. This cycle repeats itself about five times in 8 hours of sleep. Dreaming takes place in REM sleep, which seems to last about 10-20 minutes at a time.
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