Natrual Ways to Reduce Anxiety – Part 1

Patients who have a cystectomy following bladder cancer may benefit from massage and reflexology to reduce pain and improve wellbieng, according to a pilot. The pilot sevice provided 38 cystectompy patients with one hour of massage, reflexology of a combination the day after they had surgery and this was followed by another one hour treatment two days later. Self-reported concerns, wellbeing and pain were measure before and imediately after each treatment and in the evening of each therapy day.  Common concerns among patients included pain at the wound site, anxiety, nausea and bloating. Self-reported concerns, wellbing and pain were significantly reduced after treatments.  These results were maintained on the evening of the day one but not on day three. Reference https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1744388118304316?via%253Dihub=

Around half of all women will get cystitis or some other unirary tract infection (UTI) at somepoint in their life.  The female anatomy makes women more susceptible.  Having had cystitis many years ago I can vouch for the pain.  As some women are prone to suffer multiple episodes, I wanted to share some natural options to help them stop coming back. Cranberry Juice 300-500ml of unsweetened cranberry juice or 400mg of concentrated cranberry extract twice a day appears to be sucessful is preventing or reducing the number of urinary tract infections (UTI).  However, there is limited evidence that cranberry can stop a UTI once you have it. Acupuncture Acupuncture was put to the test against sham acupuncture (the needles go into the wrong place or inserted in the wrong way) or no treatment for UTI prevention.  After six months 85% of those who had genuine acupuncture sufferend no UTIs compared with 58% of those of the sham group and 36% of the untreated group.  In another study UTI-prone women receiving acupuncture twice a week had half the rate of infections compared to those receiving no treatment.   References https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27251185 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9612877 https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/12721123

Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are the standard approaches to slow the growth of colon cancer  - but high intensity exercise can have the same positive effect - a new study has found. Even a short session of high intensity interval training (HIIT) can induce changes in blood cells that slow the growth of colon cancer cells or even kill them off completely. These positive effects were seen after just one exercise session, although the colon cancer patients went on to complete 12 HIIT sessions over a month. Even after the first session, blood samples showed an increase in markers of inflammation, and when cancer cells in the lab wehre exposed to these samples they started dying, researchers at the University of Queensland have discovered. Although earlier studies have shown that intesntive exercise can dlow the growth of cancer cells, the researchers were surprised to see it was also reducing the number of cancer cells, suggesting they were beign killed off. Reference James L. Devin, Michelle M. Hill, Marina Mourtzakis, Joe Quadrilatero, David G. Jenkins, Tina L. Skinner. Acute high intensity interval exercise reduces colon cancer cell growth. The Journal of Physiology, 2019