Vitamin B and folate supplements could be the key to fighting the debilitating symptoms of migraines, according to new research.

Vitamin B and folic acid 'help fight migraines'
article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"They "significantly" reduced the frequency and severity of attacks in a clinical trial involving 50 migraine sufferers.

Professor Lyn Griffiths, director of the Genomics Research Centre (GRC) at Griffith University in Australia, said the results of the six-month study were very positive.

The findings showed "a drastic improvement in headache frequency, pain severity and associated disability for those treated," she said."

"The success of the trial proved that "safe, inexpensive" supplements - rather than expensive medication that can have adverse side effects - could treat migraine patients, [Professor Griffiths] said."

Avoiding salt and salty food lessens the incidence and severity of migraines and other headaches.

If you want to reduce water/fluid retention, it's no good cutting down on fluids. - You need to cut down on salt and salty food.

If you cut down on fluids - i.e. if you don't drink enough, you will get thirsty and headachey. - It is salt/sodium that is holding excess liquid in your body, so it is your intake of salt and salty food that needs to be lowered.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

advice for pregnant mothers

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

A British team is to test a home "brain stimulation" method to short-circuit migraines before they become disabling.

DIY brain therapy could halt migraines

Extract from the Telegraph:

"Migraine is the most common neurological condition in the developed world. It affects over 15% of the UK population and is a more than just a headache; it can cause intense throbbing, visual disturbance and nausea and attacks can be so severe that sufferers have to take time off work.

Recently, a team at Ohio State University showed that zapping the brain with a magnetic field, using transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS, can abort attacks as they start to develop, when sufferers see an "aura" , a disturbing pattern of zig zags, stars or flashes.

But the coil has to be applied to precisely the right part of the brain to be effective and now a simpler method to achieve the same effect, using two electrodes, is to be tested on migraine sufferers around the country by Prof Vince Walsh of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Queen Square."

The simplest, most effective way to prevent most migraines and most other headaches from actually starting is to avoid eating salt/sodium and salty foods, and my personal experience of preventing the headache coming when the visual disturbance has started is to take two paracetamol ASAP.

Migraine sufferers 'have increased risk of heart attacks and strokes'

Migraine sufferers 'have increased risk of heart attacks and strokes'

Extract from the Telegraph:

"Millions of people who suffer from migraines have a greatly increased risk of suffering heart attacks and strokes, according to new research.

People who have the debilitating headaches just once a month are one and a half times more likely to go on to suffer a heart attack.

Those who have a migraine once a week are three times more likely to have a stroke than those who don’t suffer, the Harvard Medical School study found.

Around nine million people in the UK suffer from migraines and 80 per cent of those - some 7.2 million - have an attack at least once a month.

The findings of the study, which is one of the first to make a link between the frequency of migraines and serious illness, could lead to increased monitoring of migraine sufferers and preventative treatment to reduce the risk of having a heart attack or stroke.

Dr Tobias Kurth, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, who led the study, said: “Our findings suggest that migraine frequency may be an indicator for increased risk of cardiovascular disease, particularly ischaemic stroke.""

Well I've been linking migraines with strokes and heart attacks and other serious illnesses for years. - The risk of and severity of all of these health problems (which are all connected to weakened blood vessels) are reduced or eliminated by avoiding salt and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

Treat ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) more seriously, doctors have been advised

Treat ME more seriously, doctors ordered - Telegraph

Extract:

"ME, or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, affects 193,000 people in Britain. Symptoms can include debilitating fatigue, headaches, sleep problems and muscle pain.

Doctors had argued over whether the condition existed. Some experts suggested it was just "yuppie flu".

Sir Liam Donaldson, the Government's chief medical officer, sought to end the controversy in 2002 when he said it was a genuine and disabling condition.

The disease is also listed as a neurological disorder by the World Health Organisation.

The guidance from Nice recommends that doctors develop a management plan for each patient.

Doctors should also offer advice on activity, rest periods, sleep patterns, diet, equipment to help maintain independence such as the blue badge for disabled drivers, and advice on fitness to work or study."

It is very helpful for people with ME to cut down on their intake of salt and salty food. They will then have much more energy.

Lose weight and improve your health in many ways by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! - How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

If you are overweight and disabled, or a wheelchair user, it is easy to lose weight without exercise. - Just try to avoid salty food. - It works!

This is because people who are overweight are sensitive to salt and are carrying excess weight in the form of fluid retention. Cutting down on salt/sodium reduces this fluid retention so weight is lost and you have more energy and feel much better. It benefits your health in so many ways - not just the benefits of lowering blood pressure and lowering the risk of having a stroke or developing diabetes or heart disease/heart attack, but dozens more benefits, including better sleep, fewer headaches, reduced cholesterol problems, easier breathing... - Go on! - Try it! - It could transform your life!

Lose weight and improve your health by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

If you are a frequent flyer you may be interested to read here about poisons in the air supply on planes

Christopher Booker's notebook - Sunday Telegraph

See the first part: "Pilots disabled by poisoned air"

Extract:

"The essence of the problem is that the air supply to the cockpits and cabins of many modern airliners is bled off from their engines, where it becomes contaminated with carcinogens, immunosuppressants and highly toxic organo-phosphorus (OP) chemicals, especially a compound known as tricresyl phosphate (TCP) used as an anti-wear additive. Both crew and passengers are thus exposed to small amounts of OPs and a cocktail of other nasties. OPs, more commonly used as pesticides, cumulatively attack the nervous system, causing disorders ranging from nausea, headaches and dizziness to, eventually, serious mental and physical breakdown.

Although this problem was first identified 30 years ago, following a near-fatal incident in the US, it was kept so quiet that when hundreds of pilots in the 1980s began to experience adverse reactions they had no idea why. One of the first to track down the cause was Susan Michaelis, flying BA146s in Australia, when in 1997 she was permanently grounded by severe illness. Two years later, at her instigation, an official inquiry by the Australian Senate heard enough expert evidence to confirm that the cause of so many pilots and cabin crew suffering ill-health was contamination of cabin air by TCP and other chemicals.

In 2001 the cause was taken up in Britain by Captain Loraine, a senior member of the British Air Line Pilots Association (BALPA), who flew Boeing 757s. But from the industry and regulators, such as the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), they met with a wall of denials. Although more pilots were suffering from "aerotoxic syndrome" every year, there began a cover-up which uncannily parallelled the methods used by government in the 1990s when the health of thousands of farmers was destroyed by OPs in sheep dip."

Two giant mobile phone companies are going to move a mast at a primary school, after parents claimed their children became ill.

The school that took on mobile phone companies - The Independent

Extracts:

"Two giant mobile phone companies are to move a mast at a primary school, after parents claimed their children fell sick.

The mast was already in use when St Edward's RC primary school opened in Coleshill, Warwickshire 11 years ago. It is owned by O2, which rents space on it to Orange. An O2 spokesman said "there were concerns from some of the local people that there are health issues" but added that the mast posed no risks to health."

"56 per cent of the children and 86 per cent of the staff had problems sleeping, 54 per cent and 59 per cent respectively were getting headaches and migraines, and 46 per cent and 95 per cent respectively reported fatigue and numbness. About 45 per cent of teachers and pupils had red eyes; other symptoms included dizziness, nosebleeds, nausea and hearing strange hums and clicks."


Do your health a big favour and also lose weight - by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Risk of heart attack is raised by painkillers. Cut down on salt.

High doses of ibuprofen raise heart attack risk - Telegraph

Extract:

"The common pain killer ibuprofen has been found to increase an existing risk of having a heart attack or a stroke in people who suffer from arthritis, research shows today.
For some the risk was nine times higher.

The findings bring more anxiety to the millions of arthritis sufferers in Britain as they follow a series of research studies that have shown increased risk of heart disease from the pain killers they take to ease the condition.

The latest evidence comes from a study of more than 18,000 people who took one of three pain killers for their arthritis.

One patient in 10 was also at high risk of heart attack or stroke and some of these patients took low dose aspirin as well as one of the pain killers for arthritis. For high risk patients taking both aspirin and ibuprofen the risk of a heart attack or stroke was nine times greater, over one year, when compared with those who were taking one of the other arthritis painkillers, lumiracoxib, alone."

Well I've been advising for years, both on my website and when people contact me as individuals, that taking drugs is hazardous. The NSAIDs painkillers are among the drugs I specify. Avoid taking drugs if you possibly can.

Painkillers are pretty ineffective for severe pain anyway. - The safest way to reduce or prevent many kinds of pain, including the pain of osteoarthritis, is to reduce salt/sodium intake permanently. - Either cut down on salt and salty food or, preferably, give it up completely. This is also the best way to avoid headaches or migraines. Cutting out salt will also lower your blood pressure and lower your risk of heart attack or stroke and a host of other diverse health problems, including diabetes. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Do you often wake up with a headache or a migraine? or with the visual disturbance that precedes a migraine? flashing lights? jagged lines...?

Do you often wake up with a headache or a migraine? or with the visual disturbance that precedes a migraine? flashing lights? jagged lines? blurred vision? Not finding tablets very helpful?

These symptoms are often caused by salt sensitivity or by sodium retention. - You may like to try cutting down on salt/sodium. (You can be sensitive to salt even if you do not eat a lot of salt.) - Why not try it? - It costs nothing and does not involve taking drugs/pain-killers.)

There are many illnesses and many symptoms that can be cured or made less severe by eating less salt. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/sodium_foods.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Leading headache pills 'put strain on the heart' and up risk of high blood pressure, stroke, kidney failure: - NSAIDs, ibuprofen, paracetamol, aspirin

Leading headache pills 'put strain on the heart'

Extracts:

"Regularly taking some of the most popular painkillers on the market is linked to a much greater risk of stroke and heart attack from higher blood pressure, according to research published yesterday."

"Graham MacGregor, the professor of cardiovascular medicine at St George's Hospital, London, and chairman of the Blood Pressure Association, said last night: "High blood pressure is the biggest cause of death and disability in the UK."

There should have been warnings about these drugs years ago! - It's good to know that medical advice is catching up with the advice on my website! - My website has long had the following information (on page http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html):

A Note about Pain-killers.
The class of drugs known as NSAIDs - Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs - is listed as causing Sodium Retention and in particular causing swelling in the lower legs and ankles. These include commonly used pain-killers, which are available both as prescription drugs and over the counter drugs. Examples are Ibuprofen (Brufen), Aspirin, Diclofenic and many others.
Also remember that effervescent tablets may contain a high proportion of sodium, so you may prefer to change from taking effervescent tablets to taking the non-effervescent type.

And throughout my website (and in this blog) it is made clear that sodium retention is the main cause of fluid retention and obesity, which in turn causes many other health problems, the most significant of which is high blood pressure.

To avoid/reduce high blood pressure, try to avoid unnecessary medication. - If you have to take drugs it is usually a wise precaution to minimise salt intake because so many drugs cause sodium retention.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)