Health related information and news from around the world.

Stretch marks, which are the telltale sign of pregnancy, usually appear on the abdomen, breasts and thighs. There are apparently more myths about stretch marks than any other affliction of pregnancy. The exact cause of stretch marks is unknown, although they are probably due to a combination of hormonal effects, genetic tendency and rapid skin expansion. Stretch marks often appear between the fifth and seventh months of pregnancy before the major growth spurt, so are not caused exclusively by foetal growth.There is no proven method of preventing stretch marks, but avoiding excessive weight gain is helpful. Weight gain in early pregnancy is often due to food cravings, rather than foetal growth. Many women feel hungrier during pregnancy and may eat for two, even though this is unnecessary and often detrimental. During pregnancy, one only needs to consume an extra 150 to 200 calories a day for optimal foetal growth.Pregnant women often apply baby oil and vitamin creams over their stomachs to try to avoid stretch marks. This is a fruitless exercise which does not affect the stretching skin.Unfortunately, there is no satisfactory treatment for stretch marks. In time, stretch marks become less obvious, eventually becoming faint, white bands. Recent studies suggest that topical Retin-A used immediately after pregnancy may help to fade stretch marks but this requires further investigation. Retin-A can be used safely during pregnancy as it is not sufficiently absorbed. Plastic surgery and lasers cannot remove stretch marks.
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Medical, dental and veterinary schools were set up to purvey the principles of their profession. The cause of disease and fundamental cures were the main target. Symptoms such as pain were mere signposts on the road to the main aim. Symptom control was historically not worthy of the attention of serious men so this task was assigned to denizens of the depths of the hierarchy, such as nurses and physiotherapists. Even dying was not a worthy subject because, by general medical agreement, there was nothing more to be done.In the past twenty-five years, pain has regained a status worth consideration in these professions. However, there are new powerful, justified claims on the strictly limited time available for medical education. The hugely tempting developments of molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics have considerable new claims on the time of the students and on the interests of the faculty. To make time, traditional subjects such as gross anatomy have been condensed to a wizened nugget of the former two-year absorption of medical students in the dissecting room. Despite the obvious fact that pain is the most common complaint and the reason why patients visit their doctors, the subject as such has made little progress in capturing jealously guarded class time. In the preclinical years, pain can be ‘explained’ in fifteen minutes by mouthing the hundred-year-old myths that there are pain fibres in the peripheral nerves and a pain tract in the spinal cord with a pain centre in the thalamus. A few hours of lecture have been inserted to cover the whole of psychology. The pharmacologist may give a one-hour lecture on analgesics. In the clinical years there may be just a single session on pain. This means that the fully qualified doctor usually emerges with only three to four hours of tuition on pain.Deans and professors ritualistically regret the lack of time devoted to pain, but there has been little progress. It is true that elective courses on pain appear and are attended with enthusiasm by psychologists and pharmacologists as well as medical students. If the table is so bare in the medical school, it is not surprising that nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and psychologists fare little better in their need to understand the subject which will take up so much of their working life.*82\219\2*

Functions:   Growth; healing; detoxification; dealing with free radicals; immune system; wound healingSources:   Most fruit and vegetablesCauses of   Poor diet, smoking, stress, injury, pollution, Deficiency:   contraceptive pillDeficiency Signs   Lack of energy, aches and pains, swollen gums, and Symptoms:   spontaneous bruising, slow healing of wounds, repeated infections, poor colour, anaemia. Severe deficiency: Scurvy – swollen bleeding gums, internal bleeding, weak bones.Note: can be used in quite large doses for specific effects, such as detoxifying, boosting the immune system, helping constipation, as a stimulant, and to neutralize food intolerance reactions. It is also a good hangover cure. If it is taken regularly in large doses, a good multimineral supplement should be taken as well, as vitamin C washes minerals out.Free Radicals: these are delinquent oxygen molecules found in blood and tissue which are strongly suspected of causing degeneration and cancer. Some are released as part of the immune defence of the body, and some come from sources outside the body, such as tobacco smoke, organic solvents, food additives, pesticides, heavy metals, radiation.When fats combine with oxygen they become rancid and cannot be fully digested, and this releases more free radicals. When the body fights bacteria it makes its own free radicals and it also makes a substance, derived from what we eat, to neutralize them. This is why it is so important to eat the substances that provide the raw material for this job. They include: vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene (the vegetable form of vitamin A), the minerals selenium and zinc, and the amino acids L-cysteine and L-methionine. It is also important to keep intake of animal fats low.*141\326\8*