Daily Healthy Blog

Sometimes, paranoia is good for you. You can be just about to do something unwise or actively dangerous, and the suspicions kick in. What if? you ask yourself. And this hesitation saves you from making a mistake. So what’s the problem here? Well, some men are alarmed by all the stories going around the news media and the internet suggesting the online pharmacy industry is run by thieves who will take our money and fail to give us the drugs we need. As a note of explanation, ask yourself who owns many of the news media? Either the same corporations that also own pharmaceutical manufacturers, or the corporations that rely on all the advertising dollars spent by the manufacturers. So they have a direct interest in frightening you out of buying online. Remember, there are always one or two black sheep in every trade or industry. This does not make the whole industry suspect. All these scare stories are placed to protect the profits of Big Pharma. Anyway, some men seem not to draw the right lesson from these stories. They accept the lie that the online pharmacies, many of which are regulated by governments around the world, are unsafe. So they sign up to buy sex-enhancement remedies from random websites. This is not one of those out of the frying pan, into the fire decisions. This is abandoning a safe harbor to go for a swim with crocodiles. If the pharmacies, many of which have been trading for years, are criminal, what does that make the fly-by-nighters offering to turn you into stallion overnight? One of the less-well-advertised functions of the FDA is to police the market for supplements and non-pharmaceutical remedies. Although the manufacturers don’t have to get a license to sell their magic products, they do have to be truthful in what they claim for them. So, if the FDA finds misleading ads, they can order the ads removed and, in bad cases, the product pulled from the market. What then counts as the “bad” cases? Let’s say the manufacturer claims this herbal product will produce the most enhanced erection you have ever seen or felt. Making allowances for the usual exaggeration, the FDA might get suspicious if the business seemed to be growing. Although the placebo effect can persuade some men to produce erections, most herbal and “alternative” products don’t work. So repeat orders and good word-of-mouth would persuade the FDA to test samples. In the case of “ExtenZe”, the FDA found the herbs were supplemented by Cialis. It’s relatively easy to make your own product effective when you include the best of the erectile dysfunction drugs as a secret ingredient. Yet it’s this failure to warn men that makes this product so dangerous. When we buy a prescription-only drug, we are given clear instructions on safe dosages. If we don’t know we are taking a drug, we may believe it safe to take several tablets at once. This can produce an overdose which, if not treated properly, can be dangerous. Any drug, including Cialis, can be dangerous if you overdose. The FDA has therefore ordered the manufacturer of “ExtenZe” to cease selling their drug-enhanced product.

Posted in Guest Post

Anyone who has ever experienced problems with their hair knows how discomforting it may be to see your head going slightly bald. You start to observe every bald spot on your head, worrying that others will notice it and make fun of you. Sure, hair loss doesn’t really pose any danger to your health but it’s really a depressing process that not everyone can cope with. For centuries people have tried to use different lotions and potions to stop and reverse the process of hair loss. But in most cases they had no real effects or were able to just prolong the process without effectively reversing it. Is it the same these days or there are really effective treatments for hair loss available on the market?

The problem of hair loss wasn’t in focus of intense medical research up until lately. Doctors were always more focused on conditions that were threatening the lives of people, and only in the last decades of the past century healthcare professionals have shifted their interest towards such health problems as hair loss. Different factors were observed to influence the condition of hair and it wasn’t quite clear what exactly triggers hair loss problems. As these problems are more common in men and male pattern hair loss is the most widely spread form of hair loss, some specialists assumed that it has to do something with the male physiology. And they were not far from the truth.

Only in the past couple of years it was observed that male pattern hair loss is triggered by hormonal changes in the majority of cases. Earlier it was believed that factors like environment, hair nutrition, hygiene, stress and medications play a very important role in the condition of hair. However, while these factors certainly influence the condition of hair in general, it’s more important if there are particular hormonal changes in the body. It was well-established that a specific androgen called dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is responsible for triggering male pattern hair loss in men. This hormone is the product of testosterone transformation and if there’s too much of this hormone in the bloodstream it starts affecting the hair follicles, making them weaker and smaller. This in turn reduces natural growth rates that fall below the natural hair loss rates, thus making the hair less dense and provoking balding in specific regions. The level of this androgen tends to rise with age, which explains the common male pattern hare loss among older men.

Fortunately for men, there’s a solution to this problem. By far, there’s only one drug approved by the FDA that can effectively reduce the levels of DHT, and it’s called Propecia. Initially the drug was developed and used for treating specific prostate conditions. However, during the clinical trials it was observed that prolonged use of Propecia effectively stops and even reverses hair loss in men. The only problem with this drug, however, is that it is only meant to be used by grown men. Women should never take this drug because it is known to cause severe birth defects and affect hormonal balance.

Posted in Guest Post

There’s been a slow but steady change in the age at which acne appears. If we go back into the last century, the observational evidence showed the first signs during puberty, i.e. in most cases, this would mean children had a clear run until their teen years. Now, it’s beginning to affect more children before their teen years. The current observational research evidence shows three-quarters of girls in the range 9 to 10 years are suffering attacks of acne. The reason for this is the earlier onset of adrenarche. Previously this was delayed until nearer the time of menarche. Now the sebaceous glands are being triggered into higher levels of production younger and younger. Indeed, there are the first real signs of it affecting both boys and girls as early as 6 to 7 years which is a dramatic shift. Under normal circumstances, doctors would have at least one drug readily available for prescription no matter what the age of the patient. However, none of the standard drugs for the treatment of acne have been approved for use with children by the FDA. This has produced a difficult ethical problem. Should doctors offer prescriptions knowing the FDA has not approved the drugs?

Given the trend to early-onset acne, there are an increasing number of research projects testing the safety of remedies for younger children. The most recent comes from a team at the University of California. The trial was to test a topical retinoid. This is a cream or lotion using chemicals derived from Vitamin A, the basis of many of the standard treatments for acne. At present, all these creams are only licensed for use in children who are at least twelve years old. This trial recruited 40 participants aged between 8 and 12. All were suffering mild to moderate acne outbursts that had begun around their ninth birthdays. They were all given pump dispensers containing a gel.

The results show about the same level of performance expected in older children and young adults. Over a period of about three months, the count of zits was reduced by just under 40% in slightly more than three-quarters the participants. Despite using a moisturizing cream, just over a third found their skin drying out and growing irritated during the initial stages of use. No one quit the trial and everyone found the adverse symptoms disappeared after about one week.

Although this is a very small sample and so not statistically significant, these results would suggest the FDA should revise its license to permit the prescription of this treatment to younger patients. For those more seriously affected, adding an antibiotic will usually improve physical appearance. As it stands, Accutane is not available for use with such young children. So for these children, we must look for more research evidence to convince the FDA. As it stands, the evidence seems to suggest that untreated acne in the young leads to more severe outbreaks during adolescence. If these creams, lotions and gels are safe and effective, they should be used as early as possible. Should the acne reappear in later years, Accutane may then be tried.

Posted in Guest Post

There’s a strange physical thing when we’re young. Given the right incentives, we seem able to manage with far less sleep than normal. Sure, we have to catch up sometime. But we cope with disturbed nights and find unexpected energy to see us through the walking dead phase in the mornings. Sadly, as the years roll by, this energizer bunny back-up system starts to fail. If we don’t get a reasonable amount of sleep every night, tiredness wears us down. We get desperate and start taking pills to deal with the “insomnia”. Of course, life can wake us up again fast. Sex keeps us interested and excited. We can be drifting along, feeling everything is against us, bored and in a rut. Then, with the suddenness of a bolt of lightning, we can get some sack time in and all seems well with the world again. Except, there can be a small problem to overcome as the years go by. It’s a biological fact men slow down the production of testosterone as they age. This is not voluntary, you understand. We just make less of the stuff and this affects our libido. The older we get, the less interested in sex we become. Or, at least, that’s what the books tell us is going to happen. Many men seem to keep going into the senior years, never losing the drive. Perhaps they do supplements and get enough sleep. Enough sleep, you ask. Well, there are some newly published preliminary research findings suggesting a link between poor sleep and erectile dysfunction. Now before we get started on this, it’s important to accept this as a complicated area of medicine where many different factors can be at work, or not as the case may be. So the new research finds there’s a link between sleep apnea and erection failure. Apnea is one of these disconcerting problems where we actually stop breathing for short periods of time and have to wake up enough to recognize this fact and remind ourself to start again. The study recruited about 870 men, most of whom were under the age of 50 and clinically obese. Because of the apnea, all suffered disrupted sleep and twice as many than the norm had erectile dysfunction. This is, however, not yet reliable information. There are several problems with making the direct link. First, quite a high percentage of the participants were smokers and there’s a well-proven link between nicotine and artherosclerosis, one of the most common causes of erectile dysfunction. Second, there’s also good evidence to show that men who are overweight are more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction. These participants had an average BMI of over 30 with many being significantly obese. Finally, sleep disturbance has many different health effects, and separating erectile dysfunction out of the range of problems is not very scientific. However, there’s also no doubt the majority of us enjoy a better quality of life when we sleep well. So whatever can be done to reduce restlessness and eliminate causes of waking will improve our lives. If sleep does prove difficult, Cialis is the best answer to relieve any problems of erectile dysfunction. This is the conventional as-needed tablet, or the once-daily Cialis if sex is more regular.

Posted in Guest Post

It’s one of those deeply frustrating experiences when something that worked so well in the past suddenly stops working quite as well. Keeping this real, most of us want sex. It’s usually best in a loving relationship, but that’s not always possible. So we want the confidence that, should the opportunity arise, we’re going to be up to the job. If something disturbs that confidence, it disturbs the way we relate to women. This is something we should aways take seriously and have a check-up. Except we come back to that underlying fear of discussing such a personal failure. It shames us in our own eyes. It allows others the opportunity to judge us. So, with the rise of the online pharmacy industry, we’ve stopped going to the doctor for a prescription. We preserve our privacy and decide to hope for the best on the health front. Why “hope for the best”? Because some of the causes of erectile dysfunction can be serious. If we get early treatment, everything is under control and we can look forward to a long life. Leave it too long and we can find ourselves in an ER wondering what’s gone wrong. Erectile dysfunction is most often caused by a build-up of plaque on the wall of the penile artery. This prevents the muscles from expanding and contracting. If this happens to you when you’re young (that’s anyone under the age of 40), there’s a real risk you will have a stroke or heart attack within five years. The reason? What happens to the penile artery today, happens to the main arteries in the chest and lungs tomorrow. All of this is treatable. The costs are controllable. It’s the same if the cause is diabetes. Leave this untreated and the erectile dysfunction will become permanent. Worse, what affects your sexual performance today can damage the nerve endings in other parts of the body. Pride should not get in the way of your health. But if the problems are more psychological and arise out of a stressful lifestyle or depression, the need for formal consultation is much greater. The first piece of bad news is that none of the erectile dysfunction drugs improve performance if depression is affecting your sex drive. It will often be necessary to take drugs to combat anxiety or depression first. This may solve the erection problem. If not, you can then switch to the erectile dysfunction drug of choice. As a general rule, you should not take them together. Should the cause be stress, you should consider improving your fitness, exercising at least three times a week. This will help you sleep better. If in doubt, cut down on alcohol and quit smoking – nicotine is a cause of plaque in your arteries. No matter how embarrassing you find the idea, there are some highly effective relaxation techniques that often help improve your sex drive. These lifestyle changes may make it unnecessary to use Cialis. Counseling and therapy are also effective, albeit more expensive. However, if you don’t have the time and only want a short-term fix, Cialis is the best answer to the problem. It will delay the need to see a doctor about your general health.

Posted in Guest Post