Natural Health Care

As a child, I was fascinated with the world of ninjas. Naturally, I spent lots of time practicing various martial arts and tumbling maneuvers in and around our home. One night, I ended a particularly aggressive tumbling maneuver with a sweeping roundhouse kick that ended with my right foot accidentally shattering a glass of water.

You can get burned by a number of different sources, the most common of which are hot liquids, hot objects, chemicals, steam, electricity, the sun, and fire.

For diagnostic and treatment purposes, burns are generally categorized into the following three classifications:

First-degree burns

The single most painful condition that I have ever addressed as a health care provider is the acute pain associated with passing a sizeable kidney stone. More than a few women who I have treated over the years have said that passing a large kidney stone is much more painful than giving birth.

What's particularly scary about passing a kidney stone is that in most cases, there are no warning signs. One minute you are going about your normal business, and then all of a sudden, you begin to have waves of unimaginable pain on one side of your lower back.

Researchers in Canada have found that speaking two languages over the course of one's life can help to delay the onset of dementia by approximately four years.

Dementia is defined as a progressive decline in brain function due to damage in the brain beyond what might be expected with normal aging. The most common symptoms of dementia are:

I recently received a letter from a reader that asked for my opinion on a stretching technique called Active Isolated Stretching (AIS).

According to Dr. James Vaupel of the Laboratory of Survival and Longevity in Rostock, Germany, a person's life span has very little to do with genetics.

Dr. Vaupel explains that while certain physical traits like height are determined in large part by one's genetics, "only 3 percent of how long you will live compared to the average person can be explained by how long your parents lived."

One of the best gifts that we received for Christmas was a small kit of emergency items that we now have tucked away in the trunk of our car in case we ever find ourselves stuck on the road this winter.

If you do not have such a kit in your car, I encourage you to use the following list to prepare one as soon as possible.

Back StretchWhen you have to sit for long periods of time, do you naturally tend to slide your bum forward so that your lower back is slightly reclined? If so, you might consider purchasing a chair that has a built-in reclining feature.

Contrary to popular belief, sitting in a reclined position is healthier for the lower back than sitting upright is. This contention was bolstered by information presented at a recent meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago.

In reading through dozens of airplane safety tips posted on government and airline web sites, it's apparent to me that the two most important plane safety tips are:

1. Whenever possible, choose to fly in the largest plane available. Planes that seat 30 or more passengers are subject to the strictest safety regulations. They also have more "meat" to absorb energy upon impact, thereby increasing the chances of passengers surviving.

vaginitis treatmentVaginitis is a condition that often goes unaddressed by women and their health care providers due to many people often feeling embarrassed about it. Vaginitis is also frequently misdiagnosed as a urinary tract infection, which can leave a woman unaware of lifestyle factors that are chronic, recurrent causes of vaginitis.