An ancient healing technique, massage is known to have been used as long ago as 3000BC in China, and was recommended by the well-known Greek physician Hippocrates in the 5th century BC. Most masseurs use oil as they rub, stroke and knead various parts of the body. One of the benefits of these actions is [...]
We experience anxiety in pure form as apprehension. This is a particular form of nervous tension. There is the feeling of fear, but it is an objectless fear, and at the same time as we experience it we are aware that there is nothing that should make us afraid. When we feel real fear, we [...]
It’s a fair bet that you either suffer from period pain yourself or know somebody who does. It’s possible that you’ve already tried aspirins or Panadol, or some other well-advertised pain-killers and they haven’t been much help, or have produced side-effects you weren’t too keen on. It’s possible that you’ve been to a doctor who [...]
Allergies can not only cause familiar physical symptoms but can also be responsible for a host of so-called mental problems, including some cases of what looks like outright psychoses. Remarkably, the complete avoidance of a particular food or foods sometimes brings relief of such symptoms, while the reintroduction of the incriminating food can bring back [...]
Burns are injuries of the skin caused by excessive heat, by chemicals (acids and alkalis), or by electricity. The seriousness of a burn depends on the size, the location, and the depth of the skin burned. Burns are classified as first-degree (the least serious), second-degree, or third-degree (the most serious).
First-degree burns cause reddening of the [...]
The count is a measurement of how many sperm there are per milliliter, there should be at least 20 million. And yet a man might have a volume of 4ml, which would equal 80 million sperm in that one sample. As it only takes one sperm to fertilise the egg, and indeed nature tries to [...]
Alcohol doesn’t just help against the biggest life-threatening ailments. There are scads of research to show that moderate drinking can ward off other common health problems-the kind that can make life pretty miserable sometimes. Here’s a catalog of the conditions you can raise a glass to.
Beating the runs: Diarrhea may not be particularly life-threatening to [...]
Cysts
A lump in the breast is most likely to be a fluid-filled cyst or one of a variety of benign tumours which can be treated effectively (e.g. a duct papilloma or fibroadenoma).
Cysts are most common in women between the ages of 40 and 50, particularly in those who have not had children. Although the majority [...]
Are screening procedures likely to pick up the diseases that really matter?
This is difficult to answer but an examination of the results of ten major industrial health examination programmes in the US found that less than half of the people who subsequently died from cancer had the condition diagnosed at a screening examination, and slightly [...]
When you want to lose weight, how much you eat is just as important as what you eat. Phyllis Barbour found that out the hard way.
In 1993, Phyllis went on a special low-fat, low-salt diet after undergoing cardiac bypass surgery. She followed the diet to the letter. To her pleasant surprise, her weight dropped from [...]