Thursday, July 29, 2010

Fatal familial insomnia

Fatal familial insomnia is a terrifying genetic disorder and disease that seems too sensational to be real. Unfortunately, it does exist even though it is very rare. It can be found in only 40 families worldwide. FFI is incurable. The disease is a result of a mutation of a normal protein that is associated with brain tissue.

FFI is defined as a very rare autosomal dominant inherited prion disease of the brain. The disease's beginning and the patient's ultimate progression into complete sleeplessness is untreatable and ultimately fatal. The age at which the disease becomes apparent varies although it usually happens after age 30 and before age 60 with an average of 50 years old. Signs of the disease can include extreme sweating, the beginning of menopause for women and impotence for men, neck stiffness, elevation of blood pressure and heart rate, and constipation. Other symptoms of this disease include the inability to produce tears or feel pain as well as poor reflexes and dementia. Massage Training Institutes

There are four distinct stages of this disease.

1. The patient begins to have insomnia that progressively gets worse which leads to panic attacks, phobias and paranoia.

2. The patient begins having hallucinations and the panic attacks become very noticeable. The second stage lasts approximately five months..

3. Eventually the patient is completely unable to sleep. He begins to lose weight at a startling speed. This stage usually lasts around three months.

4. Finally the patient will have dementia and will be unresponsive and mute. This stage can last up to six months. The patient will ultimately die. Massage therapy courses

While there is no cure, there is also no known treatment for this disease. Gene therapy has been unsuccessful. Treating the symptoms is the only way to improve the quality of life for the patient at this point in time.

Some diseases that are related to fatal familial insomnia are kuru, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (also called “mad cow disease”) and chronic wasting disease in Elk and Deer in the United States and Canada. Also CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) is related through the involvement of the mammalian prion. These diseases are transmissible through contact with infectious tissue, transfusion, or transplantation. Ayurveda in india

Because the disease is so rare and occurs in so few people, it is extremely hard to find a cure. In one Italian family, there were many instances of this disease, traceable back to the 1760’s. The family was decimated by this disease. An author by the name of D.T. Max wrote a book about the family and the disease called, “The Family That Couldn’t Sleep” in 2006. It remains to this day one of the best inside looks you can get at the disease, from a family who lived, and died, because of FFI.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Can yoga be used as a treatment for IBS?

There is hope found in a practice long thought to be the domain of health nuts and yoginis. Researchers at The University of North Carolina Hospitals are now studying Yoga as a possible treatment for patients struggling with this enigmatic disorder. Participants have shown a decrease in flare-ups of their symptoms and an overall increase in their sense of well being. And Shelley Wroth, an OB/GYN at Duke Integrative Medicine says that other studies have shown Yoga to be helpful not only in IBS but many other difficult to treat diseases such as Arthritis, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Depression, Diabetes and Anxiety.

Though the benefits for IBS are evident, researchers do not yet fully understand why Yoga is so helpful. This is in part because the underlying cause of IBS is not always clear. It is known that stress can cause a release of adrenaline which in turn can upset the normal rhythmic muscle contractions of the gut.


Since IBS sufferers already have this abnormal muscle contraction, any added stress can exacerbate this condition causing painful gas, bloating, diarrhea and/or constipation. By using Yoga and its combination of exercise, breathing and meditation, IBS sufferers can better manage their stress which in turn minimizes or even wards off the difficult symptoms which can disrupt their lives.

According to Gary Krastow, founder of American Viniyoga Institute, there are several postures which might be particularly beneficial for those suffering from IBS. Abdominal breathing, forward bends, abdominal twists such as Jathara Parivrtti (revolved twist) and Apanasana (knee to chest pose) may soothe and calm an overactive bowel, or help to stimulate an under-active one. And since Yoga has had proven benefits for such a wide variety of health issues for thousands of years, there is little downside to getting out your mat and giving it a go.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Ayurveda Medicare System Brings Lot for Curing Diseases

Ayurveda is one of the well known traditional medicare system native to the Indian subcontinent and practiced in other parts of the world as a form of alternative medicine. It is one of the systems with no side effects and curing diseases from the root. It is considered to be a form of alternative and complementary medicine system of the western world. The earliest literature on Indian ayurvedic practice appeared during the vedic period in India. Mainly ayurveda is a word, taken from the Sanskrit language where it means ayus that is "longevity" and veda, means "related to knowledge" or "science". Over the following centuries, ayurvedic and massage practitioners have also identified a number of ayurveda medicare preparations and surgical procedures for curing various types of ailments and diseases. In now days it has becomes very popular and favorable among the people mostly from outside the India. Major section from Europe society always keen to get massage therapies and enroll themselves with ayurveda training courses and programs for making career as ayurveda and massage therapist. There are many institutes in India that offers various types of massage therapy training and courses programs that not only offer massage education but also provides on job training programs where students will get awesome experience about how to use various massage therapies on different angles of the body structure.

Among the various ayurveda massage centers, kerala-ayurvedics is one of the famous and prominent ayurveda and massage training center that have an excellence ayurvedic
panchakarma & Kerala special rejuvenation treatments / training program. Kerala-ayurvedics used to put more emphasis on fundamentals and basics of ayurveda, relaxing massage, massage therapy training, ayurvedic cookery program, life style management, rejuvenation therapies, ayurveda medicine usage, panchakarma, yoga and other types of minor treatments. The growing popularity of massage therapies and Ayurveda medicare system has opened up a whole new spectrum of new opportunities for trained ayurveda therapists.

Ayurveda medicare system therefore is not a simply health care system, now it turns out as one of best system of curing various types of diseases and people also adopt this system as their lifestyle in order to maintain perfect body balance and harmony within the human existence, from the most abstract transcendental values to the most concrete physiological expressions, based on the premise that life represents an intelligent co-ordination of the Indriya (Senses), Mana (Mind), Atma (Soul) and Sharira (Body). That revolves around the five different types of elements that go into the making of the constitution of each individual, called Prakriti which in turn is determined by the vital balance of the three different physical energies - Pitta, Vata, Kapha and the three mental energies - Rajas, Satwa and Tamas. Here at kerala-ayurvedics what you will find is ayurveda panchakarma training courses are prepared by highly qualified and experienced ayurveda professionals in the field of traditional ayurveda in India. They have enough theoretical ayurveda classes along with massage practical time that allows the candidates to understand the different types of traditional ayurveda therapies in Kerala, India.