Alternative Medicine Used For Swine Flu

Alternative therapies used to fight flus and influenza are considered  good against the H1N1 virus.

 Alternative medicine practitioners reported that with herbal remedies and good nutrition people without the vaccine can avoid the swine flu.  Some herbal remedies mentioned are: astragalus, geisemium and cecchetto.

A healthy immune system can be a defense against many illnessses including colds and flus.  It would therefore make sense  that if these herbal  remedies work by building  the immune system, they would protect against the swine flu.

F0r those whose immune system is already suppressed  this may be a challenged.

Health Education Effective In Adolescent Obesity

Combining education with healthy satiating snacks such as peanuts and peanut butter can be effective in normalizing adolescent eating pattern.  This is according to a recent report.

Researchers studied two groups.  One group, the study group received:

1. Nutritional education
2. A snack intervention
3. Physical activity

The comparison group received received physical activity only.

According to the findings, overweight adolescents ate fewer times per day and were  not as hungry when they were taught to make healthier food choices.

There were also  reduced weight at six months among adolescents in this group. These benefits were not seen in the comparison group.

Based on these findings peanut and peanut butter are nutritious snacks and are good in a healthy eating pattern.

Text Messaging Linked to Smoking Cessation

Smokers have another intervention to help them quit.

Researchers analysed data from 4 trials in the UK, New Zealand and Norway.

The interventions were:

1. Text messages with advice and encouragement sent regularly to smokers’ mobile phone
2. Text messages to the phone in conjunction with email

They found that mobile phone intervention appeared to increase the prevelance of self reported smoking abstinence at 4 weeks after cessation.

They also found an increase in long term self reported quitting  with the Internet and text messsages. Data was taken from the same trials, but both modes of delivery were not evaluated separetely

More studies are planned on the long term effects of mobile phones.  Smoking cessation is part of the health program of makinghealthdecisions.com.