This page includes links relating to health and medical issues.
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Links
American Cancer Society Homepage: http://www.cancer.org . . . American Cancer Society's views on prevention strategies and news on lifestyle issues.
AMA Health Information: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/3457.html Medical library and link directory.
Government of Canada Site Site du gouvernement du Canada: http://www.canada.gc.ca Many topics and links re all of government and health.
CancerNet Credible, current, comprehensive cancer information from the National Cancer Institute: http://www.cancernet.nci.nih.gov
CBSHealthWatch- Health News: http://cbshealthwatch.medscape.com/medscape/p/gcommunity/HNews/hnews.asp?RecID=227192&Channel=0 A Trip to the Gym May be Deadly for Some. And other links.
Central Pain, the Pepper Spray Disease: http://medicalreporter.health.org/tmr0796/pain.html By Kenneth McHenry, M.D., J.D. "Pain is a more terrible lord of mankind than death itself." -- Albert Schweitzer. . . . she felt like she was being put on ice and then put into a fire with a million ice picks plunged into her body.
drkoop.com: http://www.drkoop.com/
Faculty of Medicine at Edinburgh: http://www.med.ed.ac.uk/links/discipline.htm. Many articles and links.
Family Practice Notebook: http://www.fpnotebook.com/index.htm An ongoing compendium of the diagnosis and management of common medical problems seen in Family Practice.
Food and Drug Administration Home Page: http://www.fda.gov/default.htm
Links To Medical Sites: http://personal.cfw.com/~write/medicine.html MODERN MEDICINE WWW Source Data Sites.
MayoClinic.com - Cancer Center: http://www.mayoclinic.com/home?id=3.1.5 All of the major cancer care centers in the U.S. have excellent websites but this one from the world-famous Mayo Clinic is likely the best. It has easy to understand sections on cancer.
OncoLink A University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center: http://www.oncolink.upenn.eduThis has been called the best cancer site in America. It does have a huge article database.
WebMD: http://www.webmd.com
Grapefruit Juice and Certain Drugs Don't Mix: http://www.drkoop.com/news/dartmouth/january/grapefruit_drugs.html Dr. Lionel Lewis, Dartmouth Medical School. . . . Drinking as little as one cup of grapefruit juice may result in as much as a nine-fold increase in the concentration of certain drugs in the blood. . . .
Grapefruit Juice Interacts with Drugs: http://www.ohsu.edu/som-lipid/vol153/juice.htm
GREEN TEA "LOWERS CHOLESTEROL": http://www.abc.net.au/ra/elp/innovatn/inots806_b.htm
CONTACT: Dr Paul Roach, CSIRO Health Sciences & Nutrition, PO Box 10041, Adelaide BC, S.A. 5000.
ABC Radio Australia. Innovations 4 - 6 February 2001 Heard on World Radio Network at 5:20 am 11 Feb 01 via CBC Radio 1, Ottawa.
Radio Australia Online - Home Page: http://www.abc.net.au/ra/
BLANCH : Australian scientists have discovered why green tea reduces cholesterol. CSIRO studies have shown that antioxidants in green tea can lower cholesterol in rabbits, by increasing the amount of a liver protein that works to clear cholesterol from the blood. Although research overseas has already linked green tea consumption with lower cholesterol levels, the CSIRO results are the first to identify the mechanism responsible. Senior research scientist on the project is Dr Paul Roach. So Paul, it's the antioxidants in green tea that can lower cholesterol, but first a little about what antioxidants are.
ROACH : Well, antioxidants are, I guess the common ones that we normally associate with antioxidants are vitamin C and vitamin E for example which are very strong antioxidants and when we come to tea, there are different chemicals. They're related to other chemicals called polyphenols and these specific ones are called catachins. They're a very strong antioxidants compared to vitamin E for example, they're four to five times stronger antioxidants.
BLANCH : So while the link has been established that green tea can lower cholesterol, what is the mechanism responsible for this, which one, it's catachins isn't it?
ROACH : Yes. What we did was actually purify catachins from green tea and put it back into the rabbit diet in their solid pellets that they eat. And we found that they were very effective at lowering cholesterol in the rabbits. We got about sixty per cent decrease in their blood cholesterol. And then we looked at their liver and tested the activity of this receptor protein that's in the liver. We found that it was increased by about seventy per cent. Now this receptor protein, what it does, is actually link up with the cholesterol in the blood, and this is so-called Lower Density Lapraprotein cholesterol which is the bad cholesterol - that's the one that's related with heart disease. We found that because the receptor was up it was clearing more cholesterol from the blood and therefore lowering the blood of these rabbits, the blood cholesterol that is.
BLANCH : So what do the results of the rabbit study confirm for humans then?
ROACH : Well, it sort of confirms previous studies done in Japan where they looked at different people drinking different amounts of green tea and found that those that drank between five and ten cups of green tea had lower cholesterol levels than those who didn't drink any green tea. Other studies have been done in other animals but we were first to identify that the lower density lapra protein receptor was involved in clearing cholesterol when you feed them these catachins.
BLANCH : Well, many of our listeners in Asia consume green tea as an integral part of their diet, so do their cholesterol levels compare to those of us who consume a more Western style diet, what's the comparison today?
ROACH : Generally Asians have lower cholesterol levels than typical Western levels, but unfortunately their diets are being Westernised at the moment and their cholesterol is actually creeping up, especially in countries like Japan that have been Westernised for a while now. And that's a big worry because with the lead-in time of thirty or forty years for heart disease, local, I guess medical communities fear that there's going to be an epidemic of heart disease in the future, so it's important for us, as well as for them, to find out what sort of things are in their traditional diets that keep cholesterol down.
BLANCH : When we're talking about green tea, in Japan they have two different types that I'm aware of, you know, there's the light green tea that we tend to drink with Asian style foods or they have their more traditional one which is particularly thick, which green teas are we particularly talking about?
ROACH : Green tea that we used was of Chinese origin but the Japanese green tea, they actually source a lot of their tea from China. It's the typical green tea you find in your local Chinese restaurant in Western countries. There are different types, some with jasmine and some with other things in them, but basically the basic green tea's the same but there's also, sort of, different teas which are maybe halfway between green and black and different amounts of oxidation. When you prepare black tea, there's an enzyme that inactivates or oxidises these catachins and it turns the tea from a more greenish leaf to a black leaf and that's how we get black tea. But there are processes to keep the tea green. Basically by heating you inhibit - you destroy the enzyme and you keep the green tea green, but there are processes where they actually stop it at a different times to let it oxidise a bit, and then they heat it, so there's different colours and different consistencies of the teas.
BLANCH : So there aren't the same level of catachins?
ROACH : No. The more oxidation or the more, they sometimes refer to as a fermentation process, the less catachins they contain, so black tea has much less of these catachins than green tea.
BLANCH : You're suggesting five cups of tea a day then, would be an adequate amount?
ROACH : Well, from the Japanese studies, that's the sort of levels that they found was related with lower cholesterol levels. We intend to do some intervention trials, that means feeding some people tea and some people, you know, just hot water, to see whether actually we can lower the cholesterol of people with high cholesterol. At the moment there's no study actually looking at that, but it hasn't really been done in humans yet.
BLANCH : So is this the next step for your project to test on humans?
ROACH : Yes it is, we hope to do that in 2001. What we'll do is select people that already have high cholesterol and put them on the green tea plus a control like a hot water for example, and look at the differences in their plasma cholesterol before and after treatment.
BLANCH : And in the meantime for the rest of us human beings that are just drinking green tea, just continue to do so, is that the message?
ROACH : Yes I quite enjoy green tea myself, so it's quite an enjoyable refreshing drink and if it's just a possibility that it's good for your cholesterol or anything else for that matter, I guess if you enjoy it, keeping drinking it.
BLANCH : CSIRO's Dr Paul Roach encouraging us in a green tea habit.
healthfinder® - your free guide to reliable health information: http://www.healthfinder.gov/ Federal gateway to health information.
Journals - LibrarySpot.com: http://www.libraryspot.com/journals.htm Links to thousands of e-journals!
Mayo Clinic Internet Health & Medical Resources: http://www.mayo.edu/healthinfo/resources.html
Medical - Health Sciences Libraries on the Web: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin-www/hslibs.html All links hand-checked. Has a vast array of links to libraries online.
Medical News - HeadlineSpot.com: http://headlinespot.com/subject/health/feeds/medical.htm Today's Headlines.
Medical - LibrarySpot.com: http://www.libraryspot.com/medical/ Very comprehensive links to links of all kinds!
MEDLINEplus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine - Home Page: http://medlineplus.gov/. Articles and searches.
Medical Dictionaries - LibrarySpot.com: http://www.libraryspot.com/medicaldictionaries.htm Links to ten dictionaries.
THE MERCK MANUAL, Sections: http://www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual/sections.htm
Musicians and Injuries: http://www.engr.unl.edu/ee/eeshop/music.html Maybe it's a nagging ache in your thumbs, every time you practice at the piano. Perhaps there have been long rehearsals for that crucial recital, and now you notice stabbing pains in your forearms. Or you find yourself struggling with hands that have become increasingly clumsy, or numb. It may be that you are even waking up at night with pain in your arms, or your back, or your neck. . . .
U.S. National Library of Medicine - Home Page: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/
New England Journal of Medicine On-line -- Home Page: http://www.nejm.org/content/index.asp
OHSU Lipid Clinic Info: http://www.ohsu.edu/som-lipid/index.htm Oregon Health Sciences University.
OttawaMRI: http://www.ottawamri.com/ We need your help to expand MRI services in Ottawa! Ottawa is receiving the lowest level of MRI services of any major urban area in Ontario. We now have a waiting list of over 7000 patients and a waiting period of over seven months. Some patients have had waits of over one year.
. . . Neuroscience for Kids - Coffee-Parkinson's Disease: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/parkinc.html Does Drinking Coffee Prevent Parkinson's Disease? This new study was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, March 24, 2000.
. . . Environment News Service Researchers Link Welding and Parkinson's Disease: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-23-07.html
Precautions With Warm Up Exercises: http://www.taichiaustralia.com/WarmUpPrecautions.htm
. . . CQ - Canadian Quackery Watch - Protecting the public when the government fails to take action: http://www.healthwatcher.net/Quackerywatch/index.html
. . . Evidence of Unscientific Teachings at Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College: http://www.chirobase.org/03Edu/york.html Stephen Barrett, M.D.
. . . HealthWatch-uk: http://www.healthwatch-uk.org/index.html Enhancing informed choice through reliable information.
. . . Museum of Questionable Medical Devices: http://www.mtn.org/quack/ Dubbed "The Quackery Hall of Fame" .
. . . Quackwatch Home Page: http://www.quackwatch.com/ Your Guide to Health Fraud, Quackery, and Intelligent Decisions. Operated by Stephen Barrett, M.D. An invaluable source of many articles and links.
. . . Religious groups that reject medical treatment in favor of prayer: http://www.religioustolerance.org/medical.htm The battle between medically needed treatment and freedom of religion. Copyright © 2001 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance.
. . . SIDE EFFECTS OF ALTERNATIVE REMEDIES: http://dietsite.com/AlternativeNutrition/Side%20Effects%20of%20Unconventional%20Remedies.html
RADON A Physician's Guide - The Health Threat with a Simple Solution: http://www.epa.gov/iaq/radon/pubs/physic.html
SOAP NOTES Cool Medical Links Section: http://www.concentric.net/~Rajeevn/stuff/cl.html Many links.
WebMD - Health has a homepage: http://my.webmd.com/index Look up info by condition or disease.
Yahoo! Health - Disease, Condition, or General Health Topic: http://health.yahoo.com/health/Diseases_and_Conditions/Disease_Feed_Data/WhitePages/1.html
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You can e-mail me at waynerp@sympatico.ca