In This Issue:

This Week on PeoplesPharmacy.com
Featured Q&A
Featured Home Remedy
Chocolate Keeps Proving Its Worth
Aspirin Underused to Prevent Heart Attacks
Don't Mix Aspirin and Ibuprophin
Ancient Treatment for UTI Has New Effectiveness
Tai Chi May Improve Immune Response
FDA Cracks Down on Medications

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Best Choices from The People's Pharmacy

We are pleased to announce our new book, Best Choices from The People's Pharmacy. Best Choices From the People's Pharmacy is a how-to for consumers trying to work out which treatments, including diet, home remedies, dietary supplements and drugs, are best for what ails them. Click the link below to purchase a copy at a discount of $21.95 plus $5 shipping and handling!

Note: We are shipping single book orders Media Mail with an expected transit time of 3-9 days from shipment, and orders for two or more books by FedEx Ground. Shipping and handling is $5 per book. We also include a FREE copy of Chocolate without Guilt, regularly $14.95, autographed by Terry, with orders for three of more copies of Best Choices shipped to the same address.

http://secure.peoplespharmacy.com/PPcart.asp?pg=products&specific=joppfog0

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This Week on PeoplesPharmacy.com:

Dr. Aaron Beck made a revolutionary change in psychology when he developed cognitive therapy. His daughter and colleague, Dr. Judith Beck, has found a way to apply these principles to weight control. Learn how the Beck Solution can train the brain to think like a thin person.
Read a short excerpt of the program or order it on CD by clicking the link below:

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/archives/radio_shows/629_cognitive_therapy_for_weight_control.asp

Our newspaper columns this week discuss reader responses to our previous letter about the "oversexed" husband, a novel treatment for wrinkles, and the ethical implications of doctors receiving payments from drug companies:

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/archives/editorial/should_doctors_take_money_from_drug_companies.asp

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/archives/pharmacy_qa/oversexed_hubby_needs_more_housework.asp

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/archives/herb_home_remedy_qa/can_preparation_h_reverse_wrinkles.asp

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Featured Q & A

Q. I have read in your column that niacin lowers cholesterol. Does it lower the good cholesterol along with the bad?

A. No. Niacin has the advantage of lowering total cholesterol, triglycerides and bad low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol while raising the good HDL cholesterol by as much as 20 percent.

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Featured Home Remedy

I had been having constipation for about a year. One doctor recommended a stool softener, but neither that nor powdered psyllium, nor occasional warm water enemas helped much. I have been on blood pressure medicine for 15 years or so but there had not been any changes when this problem started.

When I saw a different doctor for another problem, we talked about a number of issues and I happened to mention that drinking a lot of water caused me to have to visit a restroom too often. I told him that I was having constipation problems.

He said his mother's remedy was to drink a glass of tap water the first thing in the morning. (That's it; that simple.) It sounded too easy, but I tried it. It worked perfectly. Almost every morning, I have the desired result in about two hours. Some mornings I have two or three bowel movements, but it settles down after about an hour or so. About one morning in five, I don't have a bowel movement, but the next day I do. Before I started this remedy, I was drinking coffee every morning and drinking cold water with my regimen of blood pressure medicine, but the room temperature tap water before any food seemed to make the difference.

Since I began this almost a year ago, I have not needed any other constipation medicine or treatments. The advantages are obvious. It is virtually free, simple, and works well. No medicine or equipment is required. It's available almost anywhere. The only requirement is to remember to do it. I don't know if it will work as well for anyone else, but it works for me.

You can read more home remedies on our website:
http://www.peoplespharmacy.org/archives/home_remedies/index.asp

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Health Headlines:

Chocolate Keeps Proving Its Worth
Chocolate keeps proving its worth. A new meta-analysis of older studies confirms that dark chocolate rich in cocoa flavonoids can help lower blood pressure in many people. The scientists, based in Cologne, Germany, considered 5 studies of cocoa with a total of 170 subjects. After at least a week of consuming cocoa or dark chocolate, blood pressure had dropped by an average of nearly 5 points upper and 3 points lower, compared to people not getting dark chocolate. In comparison, 5 studies of black tea including nearly 400 subjects found no blood pressure-reducing benefit.
[Archives of Internal Medicine, April 9, 2007]
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/167/7/626

Aspirin Underused to Prevent Heart Attacks
There's no shortage of evidence that aspirin can prevent heart attacks. Nonetheless, when scientists polled a representative sample of Americans over 40 years old, they found only 40 percent were taking aspirin to keep their hearts healthy. Even among people who already had heart disease, fewer than 70 percent were on daily aspirin. This means that at least 30 percent of the folks who could benefit most are missing out on this inexpensive, effective treatment. Because aspirin is available without a prescription, doctors may not emphasize its value, and patients may assume that a readily available over-the-counter product is not powerful enough to take daily. The investigators stress that both patients and physicians should be taking aspirin more seriously. No one should ever undertake long-term aspirin treatment without medical supervision. Although aspirin saves lives, it can interact with many other medicines and can also cause life-threatening bleeding ulcers.
[American Journal of Preventive Medicine, May 2007]

Don't Mix Aspirin and Ibuprophin
People who do take low-dose aspirin for its cardiovascular protection might want to hold off on ibuprofen. A new study suggests that ibuprofen might undermine the effectiveness of aspirin against heart disease. Researchers checked records on more than 18,000 people 50 or older. All of them had osteoarthritis, and they were given either a new COX-2 inhibitor called Prexige, or the older NSAIDs ibuprofen or naproxen. People at high risk of a heart attack or stroke who were taking aspirin were nine times more likely to suffer one when they were also given ibuprofen. Prexige is in the same category of drugs as Vioxx, which was taken off the market because it boosted the risk of heart attacks. Prexige did not seem to increase the risk of cardiovascular problems.
[Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, April, 2007]

Ancient Treatment for UTI Has New Effectiveness
Researchers at Duke University have discovered that an ancient treatment for urinary tract infections may have some biological plausibility. Forskolin is an extract from Indian Coleus plants. It has been used for centuries to treat a variety of conditions. Now mouse research demonstrates that this compound can dislodge E. coli bacteria from pouches inside the bladder. When combined with antibiotics, forskolin might help break the re-infection cycle that frequently makes treatment of bladder infections so challenging.
[Nature Medicine, April 8, 2007 online edition]
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nm1572.html

Tai Chi May Improve Immune Response
Tai Chi is an ancient martial art from China. It involves slow movements and is has been shown to help older people improve balance. Now researchers at UCLA have demonstrated that it can also improve the immune response. Over 100 senior citizens were recruited into the study. Half were taught tai chi three times a week for 16 weeks. The other half were given classes in healthy eating and stress management. Both groups were vaccinated against the virus that causes shingles. Those who had been practicing tai chi had twice as strong a response to the vaccine. The investigators conclude that this traditional Chinese exercise enhances immunity.
[Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, April, 2007]
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1532-5415.2007.01109.x

FDA Cracks Down on Medications
The FDA has cracked down on a couple of medications recently. The agency has asked the maker of Zelnorm to take this drug off the market. It was approved in 2002 for people with irritable bowel syndrome, also known as IBS. The drug has been advertised frequently on television. Because of reports about serious and life-threatening cardiovascular side effects including heart attacks and strokes, the FDA determined that the risks outweigh the benefits and Zelnorm will no longer be sold in U.S. pharmacies.
The agency has also requested that the manufacturers of the Parkinson's drug pergolide take it off the market too. The brand name is Permax. In this case, heart valve damage was the precipitating factor that prompted the ban. Patients are being warned not to stop their pergolide abruptly because this could be dangerous. A doctor should supervise gradual withdrawal and substite another medicine to treat Parkinson's disease.

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And that's the health news from the People's Pharmacy® this week. Thank you for reading! --Joe and Terry Graedon