Kate was diagnosed with Graves’ disease, a common cause of hyperthyroidism, a decade ago, but often didn’t take the medication prescribed to control it because she generally felt fine. When she made an appointment to see my good friend and colleague Martin Barandes, an endocrinologist specializing in thyroid disease, he sent her for a bone density scan, even though she was only in her mid-30s, as part of the workup. The results showed she had osteopenia, and Kate was alarmed at the fact that her bones were 15 percent lower in density than expected for her age—at a time when her bones should have been at their peak!The most important thing for Kate, besides eating well and getting exercise, was to have her thyroid medication adjusted properly—and then take it regularly. Having been caught off guard by the proven bone loss, she was motivated to stick with the pills now, and to maintain the lifestyle changes she made in the interest of her bones. Her bone loss soon slowed to a stop.*22\228\2*

The outside of the left temporal lobe is involved in aspects of speech. Someone with a problem in one of these areas may have difficulties in finding the correct word to use; the person may know the correct word and yet be unable to say it, or be able to say words (or repeat words) but not be able to say them clearly, or may be able to talk clearly and fluently but not make sense. These are all called “expressive” problems, problems in expressing thoughts. The type of expressive problem depends on exactly which part of the speech area is involved (see Fig. 6.4). Abnormalities in other, slightly different areas of the temporal lobe may cause receptive problems, an inability to understand words or phrases, or difficulties in comprehension.Stimulation of the left temporal cortex with small amounts of electricity can locate precisely which part of the brain is involved in each function and can simulate these difficulties. Problems in finding or saying words also occur during or following focal seizures and thus can often aid the physician in identifying where the seizure begins (or remains). There is no comparable localization on the outside of the right temporal lobe except in some left-handed individuals.*64\208\8*

Benzodiazepines are a class of anticonvulsants with a number of drugs. Diazepam (Valium) and lorazepam (Ativan) are commonly used to treat status epilepticus; clonazepam (Klonopin) and clorazepate
(Tranxene), diazepam (Valium), and lorazepam (Ativan) are also frequently used for long-term therapy. All of these drugs may be useful in absence seizures also, but they are most effective in myoclonic seizures, sometimes in drop attacks (atonic seizures), and also in complex partial seizures. Since these drugs generally cause sleepiness, both irritability and hyperactivity in young children, as well as personality changes in all ages, they tend to be used as “add-on drugs,” that is, when other medications have not succeeded in controlling the seizures. Also, the brain often becomes tolerant of these drugs, so doses must continually be raised to maintain a beneficial effect.
Allergic and cosmetic side effects of the benzodiazepines are uncommon, but the other side effects greatly limit their usefulness.
*128\208\8*

Food and eating cautions
1.     Beware of fad diets and quick weight-loss diets. Fad diets and special foods and nutrients, such as specific vitamins, can do you more harm than good. There’s no such thing as an easy, quick weight-loss diet that will give you permanent results. The kilos you lose when you follow such a diet will quickly come back when you stop the diet. And the next time you try to lose weight, the harder it will be to take those kilos off.
2.     Don’t set unrealistic weight loss goals. You’re at your present state of overweight as the result of decades of overeating and under-exercising. You cannot and should not expect to become a “gorgeous and gaunt” hard body in a couple of months. Instead, aim to lose one quarter to one half a kilogram a week by reducing your kilojoules intake and increasing your physical activity (which burns kilojoules).

Kilojoules DO count
The kilojoules you get from food do count. Your body needs a certain number of kilojoules to maintain its normal functions, such as providing energy so your heart can pump blood. When your body gets too many kilojoules (as when you eat too much of a high-kilojoules food) the kilojoules it doesn’t need are stored as fat. When your body doesn’t get enough kilojoules to maintain normal function, it goes into these fat stores to get the necessary kilojoules.
How many kilojoules your own body needs depends on your individual needs and lifestyle. A chart used by health professionals provides only general guidelines based on sex, weight, age, body structure and physical activity.
When you have a meal plan designed for you, it will take into account these factors and then will set some kilojoules goals. When you are on a weight loss diet, the kilojoules quota will be below what your body normally needs so you can burn fat stores. When you’re on a weight maintenance diet, the kilojoules quota will attempt to keep the intake and use of kilojoules in balance.
Once you find out how many or how few kilojoules you should get from the food you eat, your next challenge is to determine where these kilojoules should come from.
It’s not news that different foods have different amounts of kilojoules. There are high-kilojoules foods, and there are low-kilojoules’ foods. Magazines, newspapers, radio and television have transmitted this information to you in large bundles during recent years.
*14/210/5*

High blood pressure is not a disease, but a body’s defensive and corrective measure, initiated to cope with pathological conditions in various functions of the body, such as general toxemia, impaired kidney function, glandular disturbances, defective calcium metabolism, degenerative changes in arteries (arteriosclerosis), overweight, emotionally caused dysfunction in vaso-motor mechanism, etc. Thus, the objective of the biologically oriented doctor is not to lower the pressure with drugs or even with specific vitamins or foods, but to eliminate the reasons for blood elevation, i.e. to remove the causes of the condition. When these are removed, the blood pressure will go down to normal by itself. Nutritional or other programs suggested below are aimed at removing the causes of high blood pressure.
The Airola Diet with emphasis on low sodium, high potassium foods: vegetables, fruits, seeds. Millet, buckwheat, oats and rice are best cereals. Raw goat’s milk in small amounts.
Avoid all animal proteins (except goat’s milk). Avoid coffee, alcohol, salt, and all strong spices, especially mustard, black and white pepper, ginger, nutmeg, etc. Such spices can be contributory causes of high blood pressure and heart disease.
Eat plenty of raw green leafy vegetables and raw fruits. Watermelons are beneficial. Garlic is specific for high blood pressure, eat a lot of it. Russian research showed that two foods are specific in reducing high blood pressure: garlic and buckwheat (rich in rutin).
Eat small meals – do not overeat. Remember, obesity is one of the main causes of high blood pressure.

*5/103/5*

Some people who participate in research studies of HIV infection or clinical trials of treatments for HIV will be required to take the test as part of the study or trial, unless the test has already been done elsewhere.
To Summarize: People Who Should Get Tested
Those engaging in high-risk behaviors
•    Injecting illegal drugs
•    Having sex with gay or bisexual men
•    Having hemophilia with clotting factors administered before 1986
•   Being the regular sex partner of drug users, of gay or bisexual men, of hemophiliacs, or of people who have HIV infection
Those who engage in lower-risk behaviors
•    Receiving blood transfusions between 1978 and 1985
•    Having multiple sex partners
Those who have conditions associated with HIV infection
•    Tuberculosis
•    Sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia
Those who have conditions suggesting HIV infection
•   Opportunistic infections that may accompany a diagnosis of AIDS, including Pneumocystis pneumonia, Kaposi’s sarcoma, cryptococcal meningitis, toxoplasmic encephalitis
•   Conditions that sometimes indicate HIV infection and are otherwise unexplained, such as weight loss, diarrhea for at least a month, or fever for at least a month
•    Low blood counts for which HIV infection is one of the many potential causes
People who may pose a risk to others
•   Women contemplating pregnancy, but primarily those with a higher risk of being infected, and those in cities or hospitals with a high incidence of HIV infection
•    Pregnant women, especially those with a higher risk of being infected, and those in cities or hospitals with a high incidence of HIV infection
•     People who have been the source of blood exposure to others
•     Donors of blood, sperm, or organs
Those who have been exposed to another person’s blood
Participants in research studies
Any person who desires the test
*260\191\2*

Amazing fears often hit addicts in their first few days of not using. Sometimes they are utterly terrified that they are going to use drugs again.
And they are just as terrified of not using. Occasionally the fears are just indefinable. They seem to come and go from nowhere.
The fear of using drugs or drinking again is not all bad. Rightly handled, it can help you stay off them. Addicts and alcoholics ought to fear the power and lure of drugs and drink. A healthy fear will help them stay away.
But sometimes this fear is so intense that it seems almost to attack the inner defences against using. If you feel this kind of fear, this is the moment to use the phone and ring an NA or an AA.
‘I remember feeling absolutely terrible in the early hours of the morning,’ recalled one recovering addict. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I could have rung an NA friend, but I was frightened to do so. I didn’t realise that they wouldn’t have minded. Instead I rang the NA number. Just hearing the recorded announcement did something to soothe my fears.’
Picking up NA and AA literature and reading it can also help in moments of panic. Keep a pamphlet in your pocket or in your handbag for these moments. The A A serenity prayer can help too – even if you don’t believe in God. Many new members have found considerable comfort in that prayer, even if they are convinced atheists.
For the simple repetition of familiar words can help in moments of fear. It is as if they deflect the mind from its panic. A prayer, a poem, a slogan – almost anything will do. Repeat it over and over again, either out loud or in your mind like a mantra. The repetition will act as a way of calming you. Then get to a meeting just as soon as possible.

*87\116\2*

DSM III is a major step in the delineation of mental disorder. It also creates the impetus to unify the language and concepts of psychiatry in perhaps the most significant way since its beginning. Nevertheless, the lack of agreement over the identity of psychiatry relative to the rest of medicine, the relatively high frequency and seriousness of the iatrogenic diseases associated with neuroleptica, and the inefficiency of these drugs at the present time give room for reconsidering the foundations of work with extreme and^, psychotic states.
Furthermore, one of the basic assumptions of psychiatry, that disease entities are ’caused’ by specific chemical imbalances, has not, until present, been verifiable. For’ example, schizophrenia strikes 1 percent of the population today, a percentage which has not decreased throughout history, in part because the supposed cause for schizophrenia is still unknown. Some authors such as Karon and Vandenbos (1981) claim that Freudian treatment of working through early trauma manages such cases well, though Greist et al. (1982) reflect the general psychiatric opinion that all psychotherapies today fail with psychosis.
Moreover, the causes of the other psychiatric syndromes, namely the manic affective disorders, the psychopathic or antisocial disorders, certain epilepsies and many organic brain deteriorations also remain unknown.
Not only do the supposed causes of the diseases remain unknown, but their treatments are often vague and inconclusive, even though DSM III has reduced these ‘shotgun’ diagnoses and treatments within the last ten years. Still, the schools of psychiatry do not yet agree on the definition of the diseases. An Englishman, for example, who is diagnosed schizophrenic in London may be termed ‘over excited’ or ‘manic’ in Los Angeles and vice versa.
*15\227\8*

In a national survey conducted among the mothers of 8,145 three-year-old children, more than half said they had given their preschoolers an over-the-counter medicine during the previous 30 days and, of those, two-thirds had dosed their child with a cough and cold remedy. However, there is no evidence that treating children with over-the-counter cold remedies does any good. It neither reduces symptoms nor shortens the cold.
For example, a study among ninety-six children aged six months to five years, conducted by Dr. Nancy Hutton and her colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, Maryland, revealed that those given an antihistamine-decongestant combination medicine recovered no sooner than those who received a look-alike placebo and those who got no treatment at all. More than half the children were better two days after their first visit to the doctor, no matter how their colds were treated. Another study at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto found that none of several decongestants tested had a beneficial effect on the colds of preschoolers.
*30\296\2*

If you go to the doctor he or she will examine your nose and throat. It is quite possible that during this examination your sinusitis will be identified, as your doctor may spot pus seeping from one or more of the openings of your sinuses into the nasal passageways.
A sinus X-ray may be needed. If you have sinusitis, this usually shows either swelling in the lining of your sinuses or pooling of pus in one or more sinuses.
Occasionally, a very sophisticated type of study called a CAT-scan will be needed. This is a much more detailed X-ray of your sinuses and better defines the extent of your sinusitis. CAT-scans are not done on everyone with sinusitis because they are not usually necessary to diagnose and treat the problem, and because they are expensive. However, occasionally the physical examination and regular sinus X-ray results leave either the diagnosis or the full extent of the problem in doubt. Under these circumstances a CAT-scan can be most helpful.
*60/322/5*