Both sea salt and rock salt were well known to the ancient Greeks who noted that eating salty food affected basic body functions such as digestion

Both sea salt and rock salt were well known to the ancient Greeks who noted that eating salty food affected basic body functions such as digestion and excretion (urine and stools). This led to salt being used medically. The healing methods of Hippocrates (460 BC) especially made frequent use of salt. Salt-based remedies were thought to have expectorant powers.

A mixture of water and salt was employed as an emetic. Drinking a mixture of two-thirds cow's milk and one-third salt-water, in the mornings, on an empty stomach was recommended as a cure for diseases of the spleen. A mixture of salt and honey was applied topically to clean bad ulcers and salt-water was used externally against skin diseases and freckles. Hippocrates also mentions inhalation of steam from salt-water.

We know today that the antiinflammatory effects of inhaled salt provide relief from respiratory symptoms (c). Thus, 2000 years ago, Greek medicine had already discovered topical use of salt for skin lesions, drinking salty or mineralized waters for digestive troubles and inhaling salt for respiratory diseases!

The doctor and alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541 A.D.) introduced an entirely new medical concept. He believed that external factors create disease and conceived a chemically oriented medical system which contrasted with the prevalent herbal medicine. Only salted food could be digested properly: 'The human being must have salt, he cannot be without salt.

Where there is no salt, nothing will remain, but everything will tend to rot.' He recommended salt water for the treatment of wounds and for use against intestinal worms. A hip-bath in salt water was a superb remedy for skin diseases and itching: 'This brine - he said - is better than all the health spas arising out of nature.' He described the diuretic effect of salt consumption and prescribed salt preparations of different strengths that were used for instance against constipation.

'In recent years there has been much publicity about the need to reduce salt consumption in societies where salt is added to many processed foods (Denton 1984, 584-7). It has tended to be forgotten that some salt intake is absolutely necessary; that people need salt, sodium chloride, to survive: The chemical requirements of the human body demand that the salt concentration in the blood be kept constant.

If the body does not get enough salt, a hormonal mechanism compensates by reducing the excretion of salt in the urine and sweat. But it cannot reduce this output to zero. On a completely salt-free diet the body steadily loses small amounts of salt via the kidneys and sweat glands. It then attempts to adjust this by accelerating its secretion of water, so that the blood's salt concentration can be maintained at the vital level. The result is a gradual desiccation of the body and finally death.' Roy Moxham An eight-year study of a New York City hypertensive population stratified for sodium intake levels found those on low-salt diets had more than four times as many heart attacks as those on normal-sodium diets - the exact opposite of what the 'salt hypothesis' would have predicted. (1995)

Dr. Jeffrey R. Cutler documented no health outcomes benefits of lower-sodium diets. Salt Institute A past president of the American Heart Association, Dr. Suzanne Oparil of the University of Alabama-Birmingham, said her personal view is that the government may have been too quick to recommend that everyone cut back. 'Salt restriction as a solitary recommendation for the population for the prevention or the treatment of hypertension

An abundance of the ingredients in unrefined real salt are as synonymous with life today as they were a billion years ago before single cells appeared here. Lack of them is synonymous with birth defects, organ failure, decay, diseases, premature aging and death at a young age.

The problem with salt is not the salt itself but the condition of the salt we eat - refined! Major producing companies dry their salt in huge kilns with temperatures reaching 1200 degrees F, changing he salt's chemical structure, which in turn adversely affects the human body.

The facts are that in the heating process of salt, the element sodium chloride goes off into the air as a gas. What remains is sodium hydroxate which is irritating to the system and does not satisfy the body's hunger and need for sodium chloride. Sodium chloride is one of the 12 daily essential minerals. In countries which do not alter their salt supply, heart disease and arthritis are so rare that many doctors have never seen a case.

Their salt is dried from the ocean by the sun. Many people believe that salt is harmful to the human body. The truth is we cannot live without salt (sodium chloride). From salt the body makes sodium bicarbaonate which is one of the essential compounds for alkalizing the fo od we eat. There is not enough natural salt in our foods, so we must supplement our diet. When salt is withheld, weakness and sickness follow.

Try this experiment: Mix a spoonful of salt in a glass of water and let it stand overnight. If the salt collects on the bottom of the glass, it has been processed. NATURAL SALT DISSOLVES! Salt that will not dissolve in water cannot dissolve in your body. Any foreign substance that collects in the body organs and tissues will eventually result in malfunctioning of essential body processes: heart disease, arthritis, hardening of the body tissues and arteries, calcium deposits in the joints, etc. Natural organic salt (saline) will not cause calcification in your body. Real salt can dissolve damaging calcium deposits in the body.

Science and medicine have tried to define the precise roles of salt in the healthy and diseased human organism. Blood, sweat, and tears all contain salt, and both the skin and the eyes are protected from metabolic acids from the effects of salt. When salt is added to a liquid, particles with opposite charges are formed: a positively charged sodium ion and a negatively charged chloride ion. This is the basis of osmosis which regulates fluid pressure within living cells and protects the body against excessive water loss (as in diarrhea or on heavy sweating).

Sodium and chloride ions, as well as potassium ions, create a measurable difference in potential across cell membranes. This ensures that the fluid inside living cells remains separate from that outside. Thus, although the human body consists mainly of water, our 'inner ocean' does not flow away or evaporate. Sodium ions create a high pressure of liquid in the kidneys and thus regulate their metabolic function. Water is ex tracted through the renal drainage system. The body thus loses a minimal amount of essential alkaline water. Out of 1500 liters of blood which pass daily through the kidneys, only about 1.5 liters of liquid leave the body as urine.

Salt is 'fuel' for nerves. Streams of positively and negatively charged ions send impulses to nerve fibres. A muscle cell will only contract if an impulse reaches it. Nerve impulses are partly propelled by co-ordinated changes in charged particles.

Fish from the ocean will die quickly if placed in a solution of refined salt and water. The sodium chloride, in its form as it comes from the refinery, is actually poisonous to them. Bottom line, is that yes it can be harmful to consume too much refined salt, but you cannot consume too much natural unrefined liquid real salt.

more info at:
http://www.dreddyclinic.com/ayurvedic/ayurvedic.htm

Why Video Games May Be Hard to Give Up

(HealthDay News) -- Researchers say they've found another reason why video games are so hard to give up: They may help fulfill basic psychological needs.

In a study published in the January issue of Motivation and Emotion, investigators from the University of Rochester and Immersyve Inc. looked at what motivated 1,000 gamers to keep playing video games.

"We think there's a deeper theory than the fun of playing," lead investigator Richard Ryan, a motivational psychologist at Rochester, said in a prepared statement.

The gamers were divided into four groups, each asked to play different games.

They answered questionnaires both before and after playing the games. The researchers used the questionnaires to look at the underlying motives and satisfactions that can spark players' interests and sustain them during play.

The researchers found that the games can provide opportunities for achievement, freedom and even a connection to other players. Those benefits trumped a shallow sense of fun, which doesn't keep gamers as interested. Players reported feeling the best when the games produced positive experiences and challenges that connected to what they knew in the real world.

"It's our contention that the psychological 'pull' of games is largely due to their capacity to engender feelings of autonomy, competence and relatedness," said Ryan. He believes that video games not only motivate further play but "also can be experienced as enhancing psychological wellness, at least short-term."

For the participants who played massively multiplayer online, or MMO, games -- which are capable of supporting hundreds of thousands of players simultaneously -- the need for relatedness emerged "as an important satisfaction that promotes a sense of presence, game enjoyment and an intention for future play," the researchers found.

Ryan pointed out that while not all video games are able to satisfy basic psychological needs, "those that do may be the best at keeping players coming back."

More information
The Nemours Foundation has more about healthy habits for video games.

Health Tip: Use Smoke Detectors Correctly

(HealthDay News) -- Smoke detectors can prevent damage to your home and serious injury to you and your loved ones -- as long as the detectors are installed and maintained properly.
The Arlington, Va., Fire Department offers these suggestions to keep your smoke detectors in working order:

• Install a smoke detector near the ceiling on each level of your home -- especially on levels where you sleep.
• Don't place them next to windows, doors, stoves, or heating/cooling vents to make sure that the devices can accurately test the air.
• Test your smoke alarm each month -- most of them have a "test button" feature.
• Replace batteries every year, and replace the detector itself every 10 years.
• Clean smoke detectors regularly with a vacuum.

Can Aspirin Prevent Asthma?

(HealthDay News) -- Can taking an aspirin each day stop asthma from developing in adults?
Maybe, suggests new research published in the January issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine that found adult-onset asthma risk was reduced by 22 percent in men who were already taking a daily aspirin for heart-disease prevention.

"Our findings suggest that low-dose aspirin may have beneficial effects on asthma," said study co-author Dr. Tobias Kurth, an assistant professor of medicine and an associate epidemiologist in the division of aging at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

But, Kurth added, it's too soon to recommend that anyone start using daily aspirin solely for asthma prevention.

As many as 20 million Americans have asthma, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI). Despite advances in treatment, about 5,000 people die due to asthma every year in the United States, the AAAAI reports.

The incidence of asthma has been rising in recent years, according to background information in the study. And that rise coincides with the decreased use of aspirin as people have switched to other over-the-counter pain relievers, or avoided aspirin use in children due to concerns about Reyes syndrome. That led some researchers to wonder if the reduction in aspirin use was contributing to the rise of asthma.

To test that hypothesis, Kurth and his colleagues reviewed data from the Physicians' Health Study, which began in 1982. They included data from 22,071 male physicians between the ages of 40 and 84. The physicians were randomly assigned to receive either a daily dose of 325 milligrams of aspirin or a placebo. The original aim of the research was to study aspirin's role in heart-disease prevention.

During the five-year study period, 113 new cases of asthma were diagnosed in the 11,037-member aspirin group, compared with 145 in the placebo group. This represented a 22 percent decrease in the risk of developing asthma for those taking low-dose aspirin.

Kurth said the researchers weren't able to study the reasons why aspirin might have this preventive effect against asthma, but theorized that aspirin's anti-inflammatory effects might play a role.

He did caution, however, that for some people who already have asthma, aspirin can be an irritant that can actually trigger asthma symptoms.

"This is a complex issue and is more of a study for the research community," said Kurth. The question for researchers now, he said, is "for those at risk of getting asthma, should they be treated with aspirin or not?"

Dr. Rick Vinuya, an allergist and immunologist at Providence Hospital and Medical Center in Southfield, Mich., echoed Kurth's comments.

"Any time you have an intervention to prevent the onset of disease, it's exciting, and a 22 percent reduction in risk is huge. But, that excitement is tempered because this is not a cause-and-effect study, but an epidemiological one. This study needs to be followed up with a study specifically designed to answer whether aspirin really does have an affect and how does it work?"

Right now, Vinuya said, no one should start taking aspirin to prevent asthma. "This study adds on to the beneficial effects of aspirin. It's a healthy practice to take aspirin to prevent heart attacks and now it looks as if a secondary benefit is a possible decrease in the development of asthma. But, asthma prevention can't be the primary reason for taking daily aspirin," he said.

More information
To learn more about aspirin's role in heart attack and stroke prevention, visit the American Heart Association.

New Gene Linked to Alzheimer's

(HealthDay News) -- Scientists has discovered a major new gene and linked it to the development of late-onset Alzheimer's disease.

The researchers found that faulty versions of the gene --known as SORL1 -- are more common among those with the disease than among healthy people of a similar age. The finding is significant, the researchers said, because the study included more than 6,000 people from a wide range of racial and ethnic groups -- white Europeans, blacks, Caribbean-Hispanics and Israeli-Arabs.

Abnormal SORL1 genes seem to set in motion a neurological chain of events that promotes the production of amyloid plaque in the brain -- a development integral to the onset of Alzheimer's.
People with these gene variants also appear to have fewer normal SORL1 genes overall, a dip that the researchers believe could also raise the risk for developing late-onset Alzheimer's.
But, the researchers added that not all people with the faulty SORL1 gene will develop Alzheimer's.

"There are multiple genes and maybe some environmental factors [involved], and it may be that some people carry a risk gene but don't get the disease," explained study co-author Dr. Richard Mayeux, co-director of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain in New York City.

"So, until we map out all of (the) genes involved we're not going to understand exactly how to calculate risk for this disease," he said.

The findings are published in the Jan. 14 online issue of Nature Genetics.

Mayeux made his remarks during a news conference prior to the study's release. He was joined by his co-lead collaborators: Dr. Peter St. George-Hyslop, director of the University of Toronto's Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases; Lindsay Farrer, chief of Boston University's Genetics Program; and Dr. Steven Younkin, chairman of the department of pharmacology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, in Jacksonville, Fla.

The researchers pointed out that three other genetic variants have been previously tied to the development of early onset Alzheimer's, a relatively rare form of the illness that typically strikes between the ages of 30 and 60.

However, only one other genetic variant has been previously linked to late-onset Alzheimer's, which typically strikes people over the age of 65 and accounts for 90 percent of all cases of the disease. This other variant -- known as ApoE4, and first isolated in 1993 -- is thought to account for about 20 percent of all late-onset Alzheimer's cases. ApoE4 is believed to elevate the risk of disease by between 30 percent and 40 percent, the researchers said.

As for the SORL1 variant, the study authors said it probably accounts for fewer cases of Alzheimer's than the ApoE4 variant.

The researchers based their SORL1 finding on a five-year genetic analysis of blood drawn from 6,000 people from around the globe. They included 500 black sibling pairs with one sibling who had Alzheimer's; 350 families in New York City, Toronto and the Dominican Republic -- totaling 1,800 people -- half of whom had the disease; and elderly residents of a northern Israeli-Arab community.

The researchers divided the entire pool into two groups -- one to establish the presence of SORL1 and the other to establish the gene's role. Describing SORL1 as a "big gene" that may contain as many as 500 variants, the researchers focused on the activities of just 29 -- leaving lots of gene turf yet to till.

None of the 29 variants so far appears to be directly related to an Alzheimer's chain of events.
But, when tallying the overall presence of both normal SORL1 and SORL1 with abnormal variants, the researchers found that in each of the racial and ethnic groups, SORL1 with variants was more common among the Alzheimer's patients than among the healthy men and women. And normal SORL1 was less common among those with the disease.

The researchers concluded that SORL1 clearly plays a role in the late-onset Alzheimer's.
While enthusiastic about the finding, Mayeux said it doesn't represent a smoking gun. "Alzheimer's disease is caused by a complex genetic puzzle, and the finding about SORL1 explains a section of the puzzle," he said. "It is not the entire story."

Mayeux and his colleagues stressed that much more work needs to be done.
Dr. Sam Gandy is chairman of the Alzheimer's Association's Medical and Scientific Advisory Council, and director of the Farber Institute for Neurosciences at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He agreed that the new finding is just one step down a long and complicated research road, but he said it could be an important step.

"It fits into what we believe is the main mechanism of Alzheimer's already," Gandy said. "This reinforces the idea that we're on the right track with therapies already in the pipeline, while also suggesting a totally new strategy that could be used to target entirely new classes of drugs."
An estimated 4.5 million people in the United States have either early or late-onset Alzheimer's disease, a number that's expected to double during the next 25 years as the population ages.

More information
To learn more about Alzheimer's visit the Alzheimer's Association.