Looking for Good Samaritans :: Health and Disease

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Looking for Good Samaritans
by author Josie Padro

University of Alberta researcher James Shapiro recently collaborated with a team of Japanese physicians to transplant islet (insulin-producing) cells from a mother to her daughter. This successful procedure allowed the younger woman to go without daily insulin injections.

Cases such as this one underscore the benefits of live donor transplants. Although organ transplants have become a routine surgical procedure, there continues to be a gap between the number of people needing transplants and the number of available organs. Living donors could help close this gap. According to the British Columbia Transplant Society (BCTS), live organ donations are now accepted for kidney, liver, and islet cell transplantation.

Whether they are known or unknown to the recipient, organ donors must be medically and
psychologically healthy. They must be aware of potential health risks and must not feel pressured into taking part in the procedure.

After an in-depth study of live anonymous donors, The BCTS concluded that “there are altruistically motivated potential donors out there.” The BCTS believes that recruiting such good Samaritans will help those in need of transplant surgery.

Source: alive #L

Diabetes: An Aboriginal Epidemic
Statistics show high rates of diabetes mellitus (types I and II) among aboriginal peoples. However, it is not the diabetes, but the complications of the disease, which kill.

The Diabetes Debate
Over 10 million people in North America have been diagnosed with diabetes and another eight million don't know they have it yet. That means that one out of 20 North Americans is afflicted with the diseas.

Caring for Your Diabetic Feet
Diabetes is the leading cause of foot amputations not related to injuries. Each year, thousands of diabetics have to learn to live without one of their precious limbs.

Diabetic Discipline-10 Basic Rules
1.Be aware of what you eat. Diabetics convert everything they eat, even fat and protein, into sugar. The more they eat, the more sugar they have in their systems. The answer is to curb eating indulgence. 2.Don't overeat.

Sweet Conspiracy
Hungry, Jenny ate four teaspoons of peanut butter straight from the jar. Within minutes she became hyperactive. Sound familiar? In these four teaspoons of grocery store-bought peanut butter, Jenny just ate one whole teaspoon of sugar..

Taming the Silent Killer
Ovarian cancer, the fifth most diagnosed, is called the "silent killer. Vague symptoms make this cancer difficult to detect, allowing it to invade other tissues.

The 21st-Century Epidemic
Diabetes is one of the biggest drains of our society's resources -both financial and human. The total economic toll of diabetes in Canada is an absolutely staggering excess of over $10 billion annually.

The Stress and Diabetes Link
Diabetes is a disease of civilization. It is a disease of unhealthy eating patterns, low levels of physical activity, and chronic emotional stress. Canada's aboriginal people provide a dramatic example. A few decades ago, diabetes was virtually unknown among the Cree nation of northwestern Ontario.

Sweet Little Lies
Consumers have filed a $350 million class action against the world's most-used chemical sweetener in a bid to expose aspartame's deadly side effects.

Help for Diabetes
Supplements can help diabetics regulate blood sugar levels. In particular, vanadyl sulphate and chromium are effective individually or in formulas that also include herbal extracts and micronutrients.

Diabetes and Metabolism
Dr. Boyd Eaton, an expert in the diet of early man, believes that the less you eat like your ancestors, the more susceptible you'll be to many of the diseases of modern civilization-heart disease, arthritis, cancer, and diabetes.

Dealing with Diabetes
In the past 30 years, the rates of those diagnosed with diabetes, in both the young and old, have increased at such an alarming pace that it is now considered a healthcare epidemic. The World Health Organization says the situation is serious worldwide, with more than 177 million people currently diagnosed with diabetes.

Fibre-Licious
The increasing age of our population puts more people at risk of diabetes, but poor diet and lack of exercise are also contributing factors. Greater understanding of the risk factors for this disease can prevent a diabetes diagnosis.

The News About Chromium
Chromium is an essential micronutrient required for proper insulin function, healthy blood-sugar levels, and carbohydrate, fat, and protein metabolism. However, many North Americans are deficient because of poor diets, that is, over-consumption of simple carbohydrates and refined sugars that are lacking in chromium.

Full of Beans
Blood sugar levels are easy to manage with a diet that focuses on whole foods and beans, which consistently appear on the low end of the glycemic index (a measure of how a given food will raise blood sugar when compared to pure glucose). Beans are an excellent source of protein, but they also contain protective fibre; for example, one cup (250 mL) of chickpeas provides 11 grams of fibre.

Sweet Talk
Medical researchers say we have more control over our blood sugar levels than we may realize. Scores of published studies support the use of a variety of nutritional and herbal supplements in combination with a high-fibre, nutritionally balanced diet as the best natural approach to blood sugar control.

Eating Our Way to a New Epidemic
A surge in obesity in North America and a sedentary lifestyle are two of the major factors contributing to this rising epidemic. People are literally poisoning themselves by eating excessive amounts of all the wrong foods. Products such as refined, sugared, processed and caffeinated carbohydrates are causing the blood sugar of many to become dangerously uncontrollable.

Diabetes Dilemma
Diabetes is now considered a public health problem of enormous proportions. The most effective treatment of diabetes requires the utilization of lifestyle, dietary, and nutritional supplement strategies. Controlling blood sugar levels and promoting good health with natural medicine are quite simple.

Unscramble the Number
Until relatively recently, experts incorrectly assumed that all simple carbohydrates digested quickly, causing a rapid rise in blood sugar, and that all starches digested slowly, causing a gradual rise in blood sugar. High blood sugar and insulin levels have been associated with insulin resistance, hypertension, strokes, and cardiovascular disease.

Cancer Down There

Pet Therapy
"He's saved my life so many times, my mom says to me. "He's figured out when my blood sugars are low. Living with diabetes, my mom often enters a state called hypoglycemic unawareness, in which she can't recognize when her blood sugar levels become dangerously low-but her beloved Maltese Cross Paddy can.

Hanging Down Diabeties
This month's Research Watch examines the growing body of research linking a mother's weight before, during, and after pregnancy to the rising rates of type 2 diabetes.

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Leaf
Many people associate mulberry with the Mother Goose rhyme that goes: "Here we go round the mulberry bush, yet this plant has a much longer history of use.

Milk Thistle
Even though milk thistle (Silybum marianum) is not a new herb to the health food industry, the studies and clinical evidence of this amazing medicinal botanical continue to expand each year.

Type 2 Diabetes
Currently, more than 1.8 million Canadians have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. This diabetes used to be considered a disease of late onset; however, it is now being diagnosed in more young people then ever before.

Carb Balancing Act
Making headlines today is something called the GI diet—a carb balancing act recommended by the Canadian Diabetes Association and the World Health Organization.