It’s December, a month associated with holidays, excitement, and good cheer. So today we’re going to consider some things that should make us feel better and give us a little hope. We’ll save the guilt of over-eating and lack of exercise for January, the month for new resolutions.
First of all, it’s been a great year or two for vitamin D. Who would have thunk it? This easily accessible, inexpensive supplement is proving itself to be a real giant in our preventive medicine arsenal. And now there’s even more good news. In a large study (over 11,000 people), Australian researchers looked at the association between dietary vitamin D levels and the incidence of diabetes. What they found was very encouraging: for every 25 unit increase in dietary vitamin D (they weren’t measuring blood levels) they found a 24% reduction in the risk of developing diabetes. Now remember, any change over 20% is substantial in the field of medicine, so this is important. The authors’ conclusions were to increase your dietary consumption of the foods that contain this vitamin, know your blood level, and make sure you get it into a normal range. This may require taking vitamin D3 (found at your grocery store or pharmacy), with a reasonable daily dose being between 1000 and 3000 units.
Next, and I know we weren’t going to talk about exercise until January, but this piece of information is too good to pass up. As you can imagine, when we counsel our patients about increasing their physical activity, we get a lot of different responses. Most of these fall in the category of “OK doc, what else you got for me?” Regular exercise requires discipline, and discipline is…Well, discipline is a rare thing. So when asked about the minimal time of moderately intensive physical activity needed to achieve positive health benefits, an answer of 30-60 minutes can be pretty intimidating. We know that, so it is cause for cheer when an article in the British journal “Lancet” reported on a huge study (over 400,000 people) that tried to determine the minimum amount of exercise needed to reduce early death and to extend life. What the researchers found was that as little as 15 minutes of brisk walking a day would accomplish these goals. Fifteen minutes! That doesn’t sound like very much, and the positive benefits extended not only to cardiovascular disease but also to cancer and diabetes. They do note that for those of us able to exercise more than this 15 minutes, the benefits increase. But this is a place to start, and something that most of us should be able to do.
Now, how about saving some money? That’s something all of us can identify with, right? Well here’s an opportunity for those of us who are believers in herbal remedies. First let me say that I try to keep up with research in this area, and am always on the look-out for solid studies that support the use of dietary supplements or Chinese herbals or any unusual treatments. I’m also interested in those studies that disprove the multiple and extravagant claims that constantly assault us. Today, let’s consider the magical benefits of Echinacea, one of the largest selling herbals available to us.
Those of us in the healthcare profession understand that the common cold will run its course in 7 days, and with treatment, it lasts a week. Believers in Echinacea would tell us that this medicinal will lessen the symptoms of this malady and reduce its duration. But what do we really know about that? An article in a recent addition of the “Annals of Family Practice” presents some interesting information. They enrolled people with the new onset of cold symptoms and “blinded” them to receive either a placebo or a standard dose of Echinacea. Their findings? There was no difference between the two groups. Then they looked at those people in the study who were convinced of the effectiveness of Echinacea and guess what? It didn’t matter whether these folks received a placebo or the real thing – they all got better quicker. Now that says a lot about the interaction of our beliefs and our ability to heal, and that’s something that is currently being closely looked at. But it also tells us a lot about Echinacea, or it should. I’ll leave it up to you to figure that one out. But there’s a chance here to save some money. Placebos don’t cost very much.
Well that’s it for this December. And as you can see, it doesn’t take too much to get me excited. Now, since Christmas is just a few weeks away, and if you really want something to be cheerful about, take a look at Revelation 21:4-5.
Have a great holiday season!
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