Archive for August, 2006
Here’s some good news for those who are contemplating trimming some of that excess weight by taking up an exercise programme.
It appears that not only does exercise help you slim, it helps your abdominal fat cells trim down as well!
This comes from research in the United States that compared the sizes of abdominal fat cells in women who dieted and exercised with women who just dieted without undertaking an exercise programme. The fat cells in the exercising women reduced in size, whilst those in the other group maintained their pre diet size.
“Its obvious”, you might say - exercise was reducing the overall fat content of the women. However, apparently this is not the case as fat cells in the ladies hips, in both groups, remained the same. Exercising was preferentially reducing the sizes of the abdominal cells.
Whilst it might seem trivial, actually this may have implications for our health as it is generally known that those with abdominal fat (the so called “apple shaped” profile) have a greater risk of developing diabetes and heart disease than those who deposit fat on their hips (the “pear shaped” physique).
So we have yet another reason to become, and remain, active, though I must admit that I’ve never given the size of my fat cells much thought, which is probably just as well!
August 16th, 2006
Written By: chris
Cow holds a special place both in ayurveda and Indian culture. When it comes to ayurveda, the traditional system of Indian medications and treatments primarily uses gobar or cow dung and gomutra or cow urine for their special properties.
According to ayurveda both cow dung and urine are anti-septic. They have anti-bacterial and fungicidal action. Thus a filtrate of the suspension made by thoroughly mixing cow dung and water forms one of the main ingredients of skin ointments, which are useful in serious skin conditions like psoriasis, eczema and gangrene.
Even cow urine is quite effective in treating various skin and gastrointestinal problems. Problems concerning stomach and intestines are gastrointestinal in nature.
A number of cases of the skin conditions that I came across in the various yoga camps in the country were successfully treated with formulations based on cow dung and urine combined with yoga.
“I have been doing yoga and applying ayurvedic formulations for the last six months; the chronic psoriasis patches on most of the places on my body have disappeared,” told a young patient to the participants of one of the biggest yoga camps held outside India, in Leicester, UK. The patient, a doctor herself, had lived with her skin condition for more than two decades.
Both cow dung and urine are also used for their cleansing properties. Cow urine is particularly used to treat severe constipation. A dose of 10-40 ml of cow urine, which is filtered and refined, is given as medication to patients with serious constipation. Cow urine is given to children suffering from worms in their intestines. Hence it has wormicidal properties as well.
Cow dung is used in traditional Indian homes to paint earthen floors for its anti-insect and anti-bacterial qualities. Holy fire lit up during the worship of Indian deities is made from dehydrated cow dung, refined butter made from cow milk and camphor. The fire produced thus is believed to act as an air cleanser. It can drive away the house flies and other common household insects.
More than 70% of India population lives in rural areas. A survey points out that more than 80% of this population uses dehydrated cow dung, with or without wood, to fire their basic cooking burners.
In the tribal district of central India where I have my integrated agricultural project, the local tribals mix fresh cow dung with the ashes from the previous day fire. The mixture is turned into round semisolid portions that are dried up in the sun. This serves as an exclusive source of fuel for cooking in a majority of households in the tribal and poor rural India.
Thus cows in India sustain not only the oldest medical system in the world, they maintain a culture and a religion as well.
August 15th, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
Just before I took an active interest in the discipline of yoga, I remember a book, written in Hindi, a non-descript publisher of yoga and ayurveda books sent me to write a review for my newspaper. It lay on my desk for weeks together gathering dust.My lethargy owed much to my ingrained disbelief that yoga could accomplish all that it claimed. I became quite irritated as the publisher phoned me almost daily asking me if I could get time to go through the book.
And on one bad morning I did tell the publisher in very clear terms that I neither had time nor interest in reading his book let alone writing a review on it. It was a bad morning because I would normally get up to a persisting flatulence and constipation, and spend close to an hour in the toilet reading the morning newspapers.
It was only once in a week and sometimes in 10 days that I used to feel good in the morning and respond nicely to the ‘good morning’ greetings of my colleagues and others.
Needless to say that morning I had disappointed the publisher with my negativity, however I was peeved at my own behaviour and knew very well that it was all because of my sick gastrointestinal constitution.
I decided that I had to do something about it. But I had no clue, what. The day went away like any other day of my profession as a journalist – eating a breakfast without appetite, rushing to my newspaper office to check up the story of the day, making dozen s of telephone calls to get facts, undertaking interviews to back up the story, hammering on my computer keyboard before having a late lunch at four in the afternoon, going back to the PC to finish the story for the late night submission, meetings and yapping away with my colleagues and returning home to a late dinner past midnight.
I followed that unhealthy routine religiously for a number of years.
That night I returned home to find that my mother was too sick to prepare food. She made me a sandwich instead, which was all I ate that evening, and as the TV wasn’t working, I picked up the yoga book that I was being asked to review and started reading.
Reading page after page, I went through the book which was about common digestive problems. There was one message that was repeated throughout - skip a meal and more often skip dinner to get your bowels in order.
The next morning I got up to a splendid bowel movement, which had been so rare previously. I spent just seven minutes with my ablutions and had time for a hearty breakfast.
Back at the office, I started writing the book review. Then I phoned up the publisher, apologized for my behaviour earlier, and informed him that the review was on its way.
I had had a memorably good morning.
August 11th, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
You may have heard this saying:
“Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dine like a pauper”
It’s always made sense to me as it generally follows the changes in your daily metabolic rates. It delivers energy when you need it during the day and reduces the calories as your metabolism slows in the evening and whilst you are asleep.
I have followed this pretty well, apart from one thing - I thought I was a king at either end of the day and had a big breakfast as well as a big dinner!
Well that was until about a week ago. It wasn’t a sudden desire to lose weight or become more healthy, it was that I changed my trip to the gym from the afternoon to first thing in the morning - basically to free up the rest of the day for work.
Before you imagine me as some huge rotund beast feasting on plates of bacon, eggs and sausages for breakfast every day, actually my “king sized” breakfast had consisted of a large bowl of cereal or muesli, a glass of orange juice and a cup of tea.
One day last week, I had this breakfast and went to the gym to do my usual stint on the treadmill. Disaster!
I could hardly run and felt pretty ill. All that cereal wasn’t doing me any good at all as I tried to jog along.
The next day all I had was a cup of tea for breakfast and then I went to the gym again. What a difference! I felt really fit and light on my feet.
When I got back home I started work and at around 11am suddenly remembered that I hadn’t had breakfast at all that day so I had a banana and a pot of yoghurt. I wasn’t really hungary.
Ever since, my breakfasts have only consisted of a banana, a pot of yoghurt and a cup of tea and I’ve been feeling great. I’ve not missed all that cereal for breakfast and I’ve not been keeling over with hunger. I feel fitter and more alert, probably because my body hasn’t got to digest all that cereal or meusli.
So breakfasting like a pauper seems better - but I still dine like a king!
August 9th, 2006
Written By: chris
You are in the middle of a massive traffic jam. It is sweltering hot, and nothing is moving. Not even the leaves on the plants by the roadside. Senseless blaring of horns. Senseless because there is nowhere you can go, no matter how much the guy behind blares away.
Judas Priest pounding away on the car CD. Someone is screaming; someone else is screaming back. You look out and you go, ‘Arrgh! &*#@$**!%#’ (unprintable, because this is a health blog). That is all you need now. Two guys quarrelling over some trivial issue:
Commuter 1: Why the hell are you honking away? You think I can fly out of this mess to make space for you?
Commuter 2: Who asked you to shove your way into this little space, you moron?
Commuter 1: Nitwit!
Commuter 2: Dumbass!
Commuter 1: You $*&@*^!
Commuter 2: Screw you, *&%$#*
And the traffic policeman standing helplessly in the middle of this chaos, whistling away. And the two are going on and on. No action, just trading insults. And suddenly one turns to you, ‘What’s your problem, lady?’ You realize you have let loose an obscenity at them and one of them has heard it. And seeing it coming from a lady, finds it a better way to channel his rage; with a lady probably he could win the argument.
You can simultaneously feel a few things happen. One, your ears go red and redder. Two, you can actually hear the heart thumping away – hit him, hit him; hit him, hit him. Three, you can’t see it, but you can feel it – your blood pressure is soaring like the happy albatross. Scary Uncle Rob thundering ‘Breaking the law, Breaking the law’ and Uncles Downing and Tripton launching into a ferocious riff…
You get out of the car, and walk to the scene of the altercation, slowly. The two guys are eyeing you now, one belligerent, the other slightly uncertain (what’s this stupid woman coming here for?). You are almost there. And then, for a moment you close your eyes. And focus. Focus on something pleasant, something that makes you happy, not these two morons that make you mad, but your dog Attila furiously running to your house from the direction of the neighbors, stolen chicken leg dangling precariously from his mouth…
The thumping of the heart has subsided to a regular ‘lub, dub; lub dub’. The scary uncles from Priest are silent now. The blood is flowing regularly, no stress at all. You open your eyes and tell them, ‘Why don’t you punch the daylights out of each other instead of yelling your heads off like two scared punks? Beat each other up; at least we’ll all have something to look at. Or, shut up and wait for the jam to clear.’ You smile at the two bewildered blokes, and walk back to your car…
That is the power of meditation. It calms you down, regulates your vital signs, and generally helps you to destress. You can count on it to save your day, especially when it needs the most saving!
August 8th, 2006
Written By: daisy
Yoga and ayurveda, despite being the oldest and most time-tested regimes known for maintaining good health and treating illness, do not command as much respect and trust as they deserve.
I can recall an international conference on cardiology that I reported on for my newspaper as a journalist a few years back. The five-day conference had a host of subjects to do with cardiology which were incisively discussed and lapped up by both local and national press.
A short session with probably the least participation from the experts and even the press, was devoted to yoga and ayurveda. However, there was almost no press coverage on what was deliberated in the session on the traditional science of health and well being. Even I was an unwilling participant reporting on the session for my newspaper - I myself was a diehard sceptic at the time about the ancient science of health and treating diseases.
A small piece I wrote in the evening and sent to the editor did not find space in the morning edition of my newspaper the following day. It was a total waste spending all that time at the session, when there was so much focus on the most sophisticated advances in the surgical equipments used in cardiac care. The traditional science did not have place even in the discussions of the well-healed and those who were in awe of the hi-tech wizardry.
Apollo Hospitals, a chain of the state-of-the-art multi-specialty health facilities and one of the eminent institutions in cardiac care in India, is grasping the efficacy of yoga. Sometime back I happened to see the prescription of a heart patient who had gone for cardiac investigation at the one of these hospitals - he was investigated for blocked arteries of his heart; the blockades reported ranged from 40-70%. The Apollo’s prescription read in no uncertain terms – Daily pranayama for an hour in the morning.
Pranayama is a set of breathing exercises under the regime of yoga for treating various health disorders.
Unfortunately, the general mindset on traditional science or even new discoveries from the third world reiterates that anything that is not endorsed by an American or a European authority on the subject is a sham or at least lacks credibility.
The mindset is too firm to change overnight. It may be a while before yoga and ayurveda get their pride of place and win the hearts of millions (particularly patients). Those who have experienced them and got relief in their various health problems have already placed their trust in the traditional systems.
The respect of many more may follow soon.
August 7th, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
Yet more bad news for those who are over-weight or on the obese side of the scales, I’m afraid.
Scientists have found that obesity can be a major risk factor in contracting Alzheimer’s disease in later life. Apparently there is about a twenty year lag between being obese and the onset of Alzheimer’s.
The reasons for this are quite complex, however they centre around the increased tolerance to insulin that obese people can have. As their bodies become more resistant to insulin, they require more insulin for their cells to absorb sugars from the blood.
High levels of insulin are damaging to many cells in the body, including those in the brain, apparently, leading to Alzheimer’s disease.
If these findings are correct, then we have yet another important reason to ensure that we keep our weight under control.
However this gets me thinking and feeling more than a little concerned.
If there is only a twenty year gap between obesity and Alzheimer’s disease, then what is the prognosis for the increasing numbers of children who are obese?
Not only are they likely to contract diabetes, we now know that there is more chance that they will also suffer from Alzheimer’s disease - probably in their forties.
August 4th, 2006
Written By: chris
Children cannot easily understand the virtues of yoga or anything that relates to health. The generation brought up on fast food is too mesmerized by the burger and chips marketing gimmicks to pay heed to good advice about “boring yoga”.
Unfortunately even my own daughter, Diya, calls yoga “boring”.
I was appalled to see that 30% of the children at my daughter’s school were overweight, and some even obese, so I arranged a meeting with the headmistress to see how we could discourage the kids from eating so much fast food.
She issued a circular to the children to discourage fast foods and asked me to address the issue directly to the parents at the next parents-teacher meeting. She wanted me to prepare a module on yoga and how it can help the young and wanted me to tell the parents about it.
This is what I proposed:
First thing in the morning the parents are asked to wake their children up to flute music as a call to the yoga session. The parents themselves must get in the habit of rising early and are asked to give kids more than two hours of time before they leave for school.
The day must begin with the intake of water – in the beginning even a few sips will do and kids are asked to go to the toilet to inculcate a habit of evacuation as soon as they get up. Parents must also do as they preach else their instructions will invariably fall on deaf ears.
Next the children should brush their teeth and fill their mouths with water. Holding the water in their mouths while splashing some water into their open eyes 3-4 times will improve eye-sight and helps improve the health of the eye. This is very important as computers increasingly become widely used tools of education.
With the flute music playing, do the following:
1. Sit down cross-legged on a thin woollen or silken mattress in a quite place of your house.
2. Eyes closed, start with deep breathing – deep inhalations and exhalations slowly without exerting, just for one minute.
3. Keep sitting in the same position and start blowing your nose rhythmically – one blow a second, again without exerting too hard; one should be able to hear the quick exhalations as you blow air out of your lungs, without minding the inhalations which will happen involuntarily. As you blow your nose it will be accompanied by an inward pull of your stomach. Hence, a nose blow and an inward pull of the stomach have to be done for 2-3 minutes without break. You can take some rest as initially you may find it exhausting.
4. The above exercise has to be done 2-3 times with some rest every 2-3 minutes.
5. Thereafter, lie down on your back. Lift your head and feet at about 30 degrees with arms stretched straight along your body. Hold it here as long as possible. Repeat this 4-5 times.
6. Sit straight with your legs stretched as much apart as possible. Hold your arms stretched too and parallel to the legs. Place your right hand on your left foot and left hand to the right foot in slow successions. Do it for 10-20 times, about 2-3 minutes.
7. We stop here. Just lie down on your back, eyes closed, arms placed along your body, back of the hands touching the mattress, legs straight and open, and feet comfortably spaced. Just try to go into momentary sleep for 2-3 minutes.
8. Take your weight if you have the machine handy or do it when you go out. Chances are you will have lost between 250-500 grams. You can lose inches over a period though. But for today even before you check your weight again you feel light. That’s the promise of yoga.
9. Reduce the amount of fast, fried and spicy, and high-starch foods, long hours watching TV and staying back home when you have time to play out.
August 3rd, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
I called into the local supermarket on the way home, to pick up some milk. Whilst I was there I remembered a few other items that we needed so I wandered around picking up this and that from nearby shelves.
It was only when I had to pick up my heavy shopping basket that I realised what I’d been buying.
I almost laughed aloud, for without thinking too much about what I was doing, I had placed these items into my basket:
- 12 pots of fruit flavoured yoghurts with added probiotics
- 24 small pots of yogurt drinks, again with added probiotics
- 3 cartons of cranberry juice
- 3 cartons of fruit smoothies made from 100% fruit
- 4 pints of semi-skimmed milk
- 4 organic bread rolls
I’m quite fascinated with how we can “eat ourselves healthy” and we’ll be publishing a series of articles on FurtherHealth.com about the health benefits of foods such as pomegranates and cranberries, but I hadn’t realised just how far this was impacting our shopping habits!
What I haven’t said yet, is that I was on the way home from the swimming pool, where I had just swum a mile.
Perhaps I should be running a web site about health and well being after all!
August 2nd, 2006
Written By: chris
Elmsford in United Kingdom recently was host to one of the largest yoga camps in the world outside India.
The yoga camp was also the first outside India organized by Swami Ramdev, who is spearheading the yoga movement in India. “I am basically a nationalist, so my first priority is to set my own home in order”, he has said, so his Yoga camp in England was a notable event.
Swami Ramdev is the head of Patanjali Yog Peeth, a charitable institution which has a sophisticated hospital and research facility devoted to yoga and ayurveda.
The Elmsford yoga camp was a long time in coming as Swami had vowed to complete a planned number of yoga camps in India first. Under the banner of Patanjali, Swami and his team are working on a target of training 10,000 teachers in the discipline of yoga by the end of this year. While the process for reaching the target is in place, Swami can now concentrate on running yoga camps in other countries.
The Elmsford yoga camp was different from the ones normally organized in India. Here the participants and/or patients were asked to bring diagnostic reports about their health problems to the eight-day camp. As videos of the camp show, there were scores of testimonies by the participants on improvements in the health.
The participants reported relief in their problems, which ranged from obesity, blood pressure, diabetes, sinus, asthma to arthritis. There were quite a few participants who had been following up the yoga instructions of Swami on television through the live telecast of the camps in India. They told how they were coping with their mild to serious health problems and how yoga had helped them.
A lady from Elmsford, in her mid-fifties presented a moving testimony - “I suffered depression for more than ten years; I rarely slept soundly and never felt like eating too; I was losing my hair every time I touched my head”. She said that she had longed for an end to her life; yoga changed all that. “Now I sleep like a child and have a healthy appetite too; I am even getting my hair back” She said.
For the convenience of patients with blood pressure problems, sphygmomanometers were provided at the camp. The patients were asked to measure their BP on the first day of the camp and see if they improved at the end of it. All reported varying degrees of improvements.
There were a large number of Britons including some politicians, at the camp, as well as native indians, and everybody reported on time for the early morning starts for all eight days of the camp.
Speaking mostly in Hindi, Swami was particularly impressed with the British habits of punctuality and cleanliness when he said,” Not a single one I noticed coming in here late even by a single minute, and that’s the first and the basic quality a yogi must have”.
August 1st, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
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