Daily Archives: 22 November 2016

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Lack Of Sleep Associated With Serious Disease – Are You At Risk?

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The science of sleep is fascinating – our body undergoes tremendous regeneration and healing as well as helping us to mentally and emotionally process our experiences. One only has to become a little sleep deprived to gain insight into the importance of sleep. The link between lack of sleep and disease is very strong and I really want to encourage you to find ways to both improve your sleep as well as to enhance it, thereby maximising your own health potential and helping to prevent the onset of serious illness and disease.

In my clinic about 20% of my clients have issues with their sleep and I usually see the best results with herbal, nutritional or homoeopathic medicine. Of course there are often other health-related issues going on as well and so when treating insomnia, recurrent nightmares, unrestful sleep etc. a holistic approach is essential if you really want to address underlying health problems. Finding effective ways to reduce stress and tension are often (but certainly not always) an important part of the formula for improving sleep.

If you are not sleeping well you may be at risk of the following diseases:

1. Alzheimer’s Disease

In the JAMA Neurology, 2013, Spira AP, Gamaldo AA, An Y, et al. (1) found that deficient sleep is associated with Alzheimer’s as well as influence the progression of the disease. It had been known that sleep enabled the central nervous system (which includes the brain) to ‘cleanse’ itself neurological ‘waste’ that contributes to dementia. The marker for Alzheimer’s is beta-amyloid and this molecule was found in higher concentrations in people that were sleep deprived.
2. Blood Sugar Irregularities, Diabetes & Obesity
Obesity and diabetes are closely linked and lack of sleep is also associated with obesity. One of the issues here is the amount of fatty acids in the blood and it was found that in men who had four hours of sleep over 3 days, had highly elevated levels of fats in their blood, 15-30% more than men who had 8 ½ hrs of sleep a night. Now I realise it is an extreme situation to have such little sleep, but the point is that under this stress, the blood fats were adversely affected and the question is whether less degrees of sleep deprivation will adversely affect lipid levels. It was also found that insulin resistance increased with higher fatty acid levels and this is a driver of diabetes.
3. Cardiovascular Disease
A Russian study involving 657 men showed a strong correlation between heart attacks and sleeping disorders – almost 2/3 of the men in the study had both heart attacks and a sleeping problem. The men were 2.6 times more likely to have a heart attack and 1.5 times more likely of having a stroke.

4. Suicide
A study from Stanford University of Medicine involving 420 people over a 10-year period looked at the incidence of suicide and sleep problems. It was determined that those suffering regular sleeping problems were 1.4 times more likely to commit suicide. In this study, the more vulnerable people were white men over the age of 85 with other health issues as well as increased stress levels.

5. Ulcerative Colitis

Both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are associated with sleep deprivation and indeed over-sleeping and addressing these sleep issues is often part of the treatment plan for my clients with these potentially devastating illnesses of the digestive system. The ‘right’ amount of sleep is needed to help control the inflammatory processes that play become over active in these digestive disorders.
One study of women (2) has shown that 6 or less hours of sleep increases the risk of the diseases while more than 9 hours per night of sleep also had a similar effect.

6. Prostate Cancer
A study involving 2,425 men from Iceland (3), it was found that the risk of developing prostate cancer rose 60% if they had difficulty getting off to sleep. The risk doubled for those having trouble staying asleep. This observation was attributed to levels of melatonin, a hormone known to suppress tumour growth.

Having Problems Sleeping?
Come on in for Naturopathic Treatment

 

References
(1) Spira AP, Gamaldo AA, An Y, et al. Self-reported Sleep and β-Amyloid Deposition in Community-Dwelling Older Adults. JAMA Neurology. 2013.
(2) Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) I since 1976 and NHS II since 1989
(3) 2013, Journal Cancer Epidemology, Biomarkers and Prevention.
http://theheartysoul.com/5-diseases-your-lack-of-sleep-could-be-causing/?t=DrM
More references available on request

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Fibromyalgia – A Serious Side To Muscle Aches & Pains

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Part of having excellent musculoskeletal health is being educated about the common diseases that you are vulnerable to and looking at different ways to treating them if and when they occur. These conditions include fibromyalgia, polymyalgia rheumatica, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. In today’s Body Talk I want to draw your attention to fibromyalgia and the way Remedial Massage can help, but remember that some of these ideas and concepts will equally apply to other similar musculoskeletal problems. 

Fibromyalgia is a very painful condition often found mostly in women (75-90%) as well as men and it affects 3-6% of the world’s population (1). With distressing symptoms, this condition can have a massive negative impact on day-to-day living.

Unclear Medical Cause

The exact medical causes of Fibromyalgia are often a source of contention with numerous etiologies proposed such as hormonal influences as well as genetic predispositions. Combinations of physical and emotional stimuli has also been proposed as contributing factors to the disease. This highlights one of the advantages of systems of medicine like Naturopathic, Homoeopathic or Ayurvedic medicine that are not necessarily contingent on have clear cause of particular diseases – I have often written on this topic – treating illnesses that have no known cause using Naturopathic approaches.

This Disease Can Impair The Quality Of Your Life

One of the most obvious symptoms of Fibromyalgia is chronic fatigue, anxiety and pain. Some patients have also experienced long cycles of insomnia after the onset of this condition. Fibromyalgia patients are often found to have depression, however, it is not clear whether depression causes fibromyalgia or if it is the other way round. The actual diagnosis of fibromyalgia is not straight forward, as I mentioned and the criteria has changed over the years. If you would like more information on this go to: http://chronicfatigue.about.com/od/diagnosingfmscfs/a/diagnosingfibro.htm

 

Remedial Massage Brings Relief

There aren’t many proven treatment methods that offer considerable reduction in fibromyalgic pain. But, many patients have reported that regular remedial massage sessions have brought down the pain intensity. It is not exactly clear as to which type of massage is most effective in alleviating pain, but most patients have experienced relief after undergoing Swedish massage, Deep tissue massage, neuromuscular massage and Ayurvedic massage.
In ‘Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice’, (2014) Field reports: “Moderate pressure massage has contributed to many positive effects including…. reduced pain in different syndromes including fibromyalgia…” (2)
The underlying principle in many massage techniques is the same – apply adequate pressure to various body parts to enhance the blood circulation as well as to regulate the production of various body hormones, releasing of toxic biochemical products from the muscles and of course inducing relaxation of the nervous system.
Of these, the most important is the regulation of the stress hormone, Cortisol. Even a small reduction in the level of this hormone can bring relief for fibromyalgia patients.
A review in 2014 states: “Massage therapy with duration = 5 weeks had beneficial immediate effects on improving pain, anxiety, and depression in patients with FM. Massage therapy should be one of the viable complementary and alternative treatments for FM.” (3)
Massage is also known to provide relief from severe pain and even prevent recurring insomnia.

 

Holistic Relief From This Distressing Condition

In my clinic I use a combination of Naturopathic approaches as well as specific Remedial massage techniques to help maximise the health of the musculoskeletal system. In terms of Naturopathic medicines, herbal medicines for example can be an excellent way to help the muscle tissue to function in a healthy way, but like all holistic approaches, we need to be looking at life style issues, nutrition, emotional and mental health as well, as all these factors have a bearing on the level of health you enjoy. But having said that, Remedial massage alone can certainly provide relief to people with fibromyalgia.

 

Note on Magnesium: Every second person, just about, is taking a magnesium supplement thanks to effective marketing campaigns. Just remember that is it not going to treat or heal a condition like fibromyalgia, or any other problem for that matter except a magnesium deficiency. It is a symptomatic approach that may help with symptoms but it can leave the underlying cause of the problem, unaddressed.
References

(1) http://www.fmcpaware.org/fibromyalgia/prevalence.html
(2) Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2014 Nov;20(4):224-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ctcp.2014.07.002. E pub 2014 Aug 1. Massage therapy research review. Field T1.
(3) Massage therapy for fibromyalgia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Li YH, Wang FY, Feng CQ, Yang XF, Sun YH. PLoS One. 2014 Feb 20;9(2):e89304. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0089304. eCollection 2014. PMID: 24586677