Glaucoma, which can be successfully treated if diagnosed in time, is primarily a disease of people over 40. Although the cause of the glaucoma disease is often not known, it may result from eye injury, infection, cataracts or other eye diseases, and some medications.

Unfortunately, the most common form of glaucoma (chronic glaucoma) has no symptoms, and those who have it may be unaware of its presence until visual loss occurs. Therefore, early diagnosis is most important.

Experts recommend that those over age 40 have their eyes checked for increased pressure every one to two years by an ophthalmologist or at a health screening clinic. People with a family or personal history of glaucoma or other serious eye disease usually require more frequent examinations.

There is also an acute form of glaucoma which is relatively rare but is a medical emergency, since permanent loss of vision can occur within hours. Fortunately, this type of glaucoma has symptoms. These may include severe eye and facial pain, nausea and vomiting, decreased or blurred vision with haloes or rainbows around lights, and redness of the eye.

If you have these symptoms, you should see an ophthalmologist at once.

Cure Glaucoma Disease

Chronic glaucoma, the most common type, is usually successfully treated with medication. Eye drops such as piocarpine, Epinephrine, or timolol are the glaucoma cure of choice. These decrease the
pressure within the eye by improving the eye’s drainage system or decreasing the amount of fluid produced. (These fluids are within the eye and have nothing to do with tears or other external fluids.)

These eye drops are usually well tolerated, although they may cause some blurring of vision. Most eye drops must be inserted several times daily. There is also a time release medication called Ocusert which is inserted in the eye once a week and which allows medication to be released at a steady rate.

The major problem with this medication is its cost, which is several times higher than that of most eye drops. Oral medication, such as Diamox, may also be used, usually in combination with eye drops. Since Diamox may have serious side effects such as kidney stones, weakness, weight loss, and depression, it is usually used only in those people for whom eye drops alone are not effective.

Since chronic glaucoma has no symptoms, many people do not realize the seriousness of the glaucoma disease and are unwilling to take their medication regularly or to spend money for it. Glaucoma causes permanent blindness if not treated.

Regular use of eye drops or other medication is a small price to pay for the ability to see. Treatment with medication is successful in most cases. However, if it is not effective, surgery is necessary to prevent visual loss.

Fortunately, surgery for glaucoma has a very high success rate and carries a low risk. Acute glaucoma almost always requires surgery to prevent a recurrence of symptoms, although eye drops and oral medication are usually used initially.

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The pain is usually described as an ache, pressure, tightness, or burning in the center of the chest or behind the breastbone. It can be brought on by exercise or by exposure to cold, stress, emotional upset, or a heavy meal, and is relieved by rest. Some people also have shortness of breath and palpitations along with chest pain.

Angina Pectoris Treatment. Angina is usually treated with nitroglycerin tablets which dissolve under the tongue. Nitroglycerin relaxes the walls of the blood vessels supplying the heart, allowing more blood and oxygen to reach the heart muscle.

Nitroglycerin may be taken to prevent angina when a situation arises in which an anginal attack usually occurs. It is also taken to treat an attack which is occurring. The most common side effects of nitroglycerin are headache and flushing.

Nitroglycerin tablets gradually lose their potency when exposed to air. Therefore, a container of nitroglycerin tablets which has been opened is good for only about two months. Nitroglycerin is also available as an ointment, or impregnated in a disposable pad.

In this way it is applied directly to the skin, providing continuous pain relief. Other medications used in Angina pectoris treatment are a longacting nitrite similar to nitroglycerin, isosorbide dinitrate (Isordil), and propanolol (Inderal), which reduce the amount of oxygen needed by the heart.

Another way to ward off anginal attacks is to avoid the activity which brings about the angina if possible. A controversial method of treating angina which has not been helped by medical treatment is coronary artery bypass surgery.

In this procedure a vein graft is taken from the leg and is used to bypass the blocked coronary artery, thus providing the heart muscle with an adequate supply of blood and oxygen. At this time, the procedure is thought to be effective only when certain arteries are blocked.

The costs and risks of surgery as well as the pain and disability involved must also be considered. While surgery may help some people with angina, it is not an appropriate angina treatment for everyone.

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It may be caused by high blood pressure, rheumatic heart disease, or atherosclerosis.

Symptoms include shortness of breath; tiredness; swelling of the ankles, legs, and feet (edema); cough; rapid weight gain (from edema); and mental confusion.

Treatment of congestive heart failure depends on both the severity of symptoms and the underlying cause of the illness.

Usual treatment consists of:

- rest

- a low salt/sodium diet

- diuretics (water pills)

- and digitalis, which strengthens the heart muscle.

PREVENTION:

1.    Control high blood pressure, if present, and check yearly for high blood pressure if blood pressure is now within normal range.

2.    Stop smoking.

3.    Exercise regularly. Brisk walking or swimming are good ways to maintain cardiac health.

4.    Maintain ideal weight.

5.    Cut down on animal fats, watch salt intake, eat a variety of foods lean meats, poultry, fish, low fat dairy products, whole grain breads and cereals, fresh fruits and vegetables.

6.    Drink plenty of water.

7.    Get enough rest and relaxation.

8.    Reduce or control emotional stress.

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Since prevention and cure of high blood pressure are essentially the same, the measures listed above under “Prevention” are applicable to treatment as well.

That is, you should stop smoking, lose weight if necessary, decrease the amount of sodium/salt, cholesterol, and saturated fat in your diet, reduce stress; and exercise regularly.

In mild high blood pressure, this may be all the treatment that is needed. In other cases, however, medication to lower blood pressure may be necessary in addition to these measures. There are several major categories of medication to control high blood pressure.

The most commonly used are diuretics (water pills). Diuretics help the kidneys to get rid of salt as well as water which decrease the blood volume in the body and lower the blood pressure to a desirable level. However, some diuretic medications promote loss of potassium, and supplements may need to be taken as prescribed by a health care practitioner.

Examples of diuretics: Lasix, Hygroton, Esidrex, Dyrenium, Aldactone, Dyazide.

The second group of medications acts directly on the blood vessels by opening up the narrowed arterioles (small arteries). Example: apresoline (hydralazine).

The third group acts on the nervous system by relaxing the tightened and narrowed arteries and arterioles, thus allowing the blood to flow more easily. Examples: Aldomet, Minipress, Catapres (cloth dine).

The fourth group decreases the work of the heart by blocking the body’s response to adrenalin, thus lowering blood pressure. Examples: Inderal, Lopressor.

All the medications that are used to control high blood pressure should be taken regularly under the supervision of a health care practitioner. The thought of taking medication for an extended period of time, possibly for the rest of one’s life, may not be particularly appealing.

However, we are fortunate that high blood pressure can be controlled through treatment. The benefits of control (decreased risk of heart disease, stroke, increased life expectancy) are too great to ignore. Medications used to treat high blood pressure can cause side effects.

Some of these are minor and may decrease with time; others may be more unpleasant. It is important to be aware of the side effects of the particular medication you are taking so that you may report their occurrence to your health care practitioner.

If side effects occur, or if treatment is not successful, your practitioner may try several different medications or combinations of medications to find what works best for you. It is not wise to skip, stop, or increase your medication unless told to do so by your health professional.

If stopped abruptly, some medications may cause serious side effects such as a very rapid rise in

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But you may be able to prevent and reverse some of the disintegrating function of your heart by protecting and strengthening the workings of tiny structures (mitochondria) inside cells that produce and transport the energy that keeps the heart strong and pumping.

It’s a myth that your heart does not weaken as you get older. Several major studies suggest that heart function does not fizzle with age, that an older heart pumps just as well as a younger one. However, that may be true of a heart measured “at rest,” but it’s not true of ordinary aging hearts undergoing the normal stresses of life, according to Jeanne Y. Wei, M.D., director of the division on aging at Harvard Medical School.

Actually, the vital machinery of heart cells becomes increasingly damaged by free radical attacks as you age. Each heart cell, like other cells, has many tiny energy factories, called mitochondria, that are the “respiratory centers,” the life force of cells, that keep them alive and functioning properly.

But with age, large portions of the DNA of these mitochondria are literally chipped away. The weakened mitochondria then have to work harder, they require more oxygen. Consequently, the metabolic functioning of heart mitochondria declines by 40 percent in aged hearts, Dr. Wei says.

In aged animals, the formation of vicious super-oxide radicals in heart mitochondria surges 40 percent; mitochondria membranes become stiffened, stuffed with cholesterol and less efficient at transporting all important ionized calcium that controls heart function.

Microscopic photos of old animals’ heart mitochondria show a scarred and tangled mess compared with those of young animals. This relentless free radical damage to heart mitochondria DNA over the years can lead to enlarged hearts, diastolic dysfunction (when blood flows back into the ventricle), reduction in blood flow, and congestive heart failure, exactly the symptoms that gradually beset aging populations.

Half of all Americans have diastolic dysfunction after age eighty, and congestive heart failure is a growing epidemic, the number one cause of hospitalization for Americans over age sixty five, says Dr. Wei. Rates of congestive heart failure double every decade after age fifty.

“The old heart is simply less able to keep up. When there is something wrong with muscle function, let’s say, or you have hypertension or a touch of arrhythmia, you can’t generate enough energy to pump blood through the heart because you can’t mobilize the machinery inside each of those heart cells to keep the muscles relaxing and contracting appropriately, so the heart will go into failure,” explains Dr. Wei.

Worst of all, this cycle of damage to the heart mitochondria is self-perpetuating and accelerating. The more damaged they become over time, the less able they are to snuff out new damage, and it accumulates, picking up speed, causing more and more severe global heart dysfunction with age.

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As I have mentioned, heart disease is now increasing in developing countries as their populations age and people adopt the unhealthy habits of the affluent West. Look to your children: they may appear healthy enough, but the insidious process of heart disease may already have begun.

Atherosclerosis the narrowing of the coronary arteries due to fatty deposits can start early in life. Its initial stages often occur in children and young people, and it tends to progress silently and without symptoms, until illness strikes.

Yet, while the disease maybe creeping up on people unawares, health experts are now well acquainted with the how and why. Years of research have made it abundantly clear that it is our dangerous lifestyles and unhealthy diets and habits, beginning in early childhood, that lead us slowly and relentlessly to that moment of devastation.

A heart attack is an earth-shattering, sometimes fatal shock to your system the body’s alarm signal, which cannot be ignored. A deadly band of villains conspire to bring about this menace. I think that after reading this book you will recognize them: high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, dietary habits (particularly excessive intake of saturated fat), elevated blood cholesterol and homocysteine levels, lack of physical activity obesity and diabetes.

And lurking in the background are the genetic factors that interact with your environment to bring about added risk. Nevertheless, you can fight back! Even after heart disease strikes, there is plenty of hope through the use of HQ medicine and the HQ approach to restoring wellness.

Of course, I understand that it is hard to think clearly in the midst of the anguish of diagnosis and the realization that you are facing this life threatening disease. It probably doesn’t even register when your physician first tells you what is happening in your body.

There are various stages of the disease, and it is important to find out which one you are in. Medical treatment varies, depending on the severity of the disease, from a simple prescription of aspirin or other “clot buster” drugs to surgery.

Angioplasty, which opens up the blocked artery with a balloon distention, and bypass heart surgery are becoming common procedures. That’s only the beginning. There is a whole distinct dimension of health care for people recovering from heart attacks or heart surgery.

It involves a combination of exercise, health education and counselling, and it can be set up in any community, however small. You don’t have to live in a big city to recover well. The goal is to enable you to return to a useful and personally satisfying role in society.

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Smoking
There is overwhelming evidence to prove that smoking is extremely detrimental to your health and well being. You need to know the truth. I am going  to look at some plain statistics, facts and information, collected over decades, to show the devastation that smoking causes .

I will also give you some ideas to help you stop smoking. If you don’t smoke, well done; you can skip this. If you do, stub out that cigarette and take note.

Tobacco smoke is a major cause of premature death and mortality. The estimates show just how destructive the tobacco epidemic has been in developed countries over the last half of the twentieth century.

Between 1950 and 2000, about 62 million people died in these countries from tobacco use, most (52 million) of them men, with the majority (38 million) dying in middle age (thirty five to sixty nine years).

On average, those killed by tobacco in this age group lost more than twenty years of life expectancy. Currently, smoking causes 30 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States, making tobacco smoke the single most lethal carcinogen in that country today.

Few researchers doubt that repeatedly exposing parts of the body to the chemicals in tobacco smoke may eventually bring about the cellular changes that can lead to cancer. Studies also demonstrate that one in four deaths among males is attributable to smoking.

Smoking now causes about a third of all male deaths in middle age, plus about a fifth of those in old age. Smoking is the cause of about half of all male cancer deaths in middle age and about a third of male cancers in old age.

Indeed, analysis of the statistics shows that smoking accounts for virtually all the differences in cancer trends between men and women, and between countries. When the effects of smoking are removed,
cancer trends are remarkably similar, at least in middle age, for men and women, and for different countries.

This finding reinforces the need to sound the alarm bells even louder. National cancer control agencies should be blasting tobacco as public enemy number one in their fight against the disease. The epidemic has not yet reached its peak among women in any country.

Female deaths from smoking have become common in only a few countries (most notably the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Hungary and Ireland), but the death toll will rise in other countries where many young women now smoke.

Already in the United States, smoking is the cause of a third of all female deaths in middle age, and overall about 225,000 American women die each year from tobacco use. The mortality rate of females from tobacco use is expected to exceed that of males within about a decade.

Smoking, mainly of cigarettes, causes cancer of the lung, and there is strong evidence for its association with cancers of the upper respiratory tract, esophagus, bladder and pancreas, and probably of the stomach, liver, kidney and colon as well.

Whether smoking will result in cancer depends on several things, including the number of cigarettes smoked, the cigarettes’ tar content and, most important, the duration of the habit. Youngsters who take up smoking dramatically increase their risk. These dangers vary from one type of cancer to another. Passive smoking, or inhalation of tobacco smoke in the surrounding air, also causes lung cancer and other diseases associated with smoking.

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There is no simple solution. Attempts to prevent obesity that are targeted at groups of people in communities, work sites and schools have been found to have little effect for individuals.

Personal action seems to have a greater chance of success. While attempting to diet, it is important for us to understand how natural metabolism functions. Research has shown that the body burns calories more slowly than normal after weight is lost and faster than normal when weight is gained.

Metabolism is adjusted by making the muscles more or less efficient in burning calories. Some success has been reported in treating weight problems in children eight to twelve years old. Fighting obesity for adults, however, has been far less successful.

Typical programs that combine diet, exercise and behaviour training to manage eating habits result in an average weight loss of about nine kilograms over twenty weeks. True success, however, means keeping the weight off, and that is a greater challenge.

The success rate is improved by greater contact between patient and therapist, emphasis on both diet and exercise, use of certain strategies such as self monitoring, and a well structured plan to prevent relapse.

Even when weight loss is modest, the results are beneficial to an individual’s blood pressure levels and lower the risk of heart disease. These benefits remain for as long as the weight is kept off. Don’t be discouraged by the yo yo phenomenon.

Previous concerns about the potentially bad effects of weight cycling (repeated weight loss followed by weight gain) appear to have been disproved. Most studies now show that weight cycling per does not cause problems. Growing recognition that some drugs may have serious adverse side effects has dampened enthusiasm for using drug treatments to help people lose weight.

Now, drugs tend to be recommended only for the very obese. They may be more effective when combined with diet, exercise and behaviour changes. Although drugs are not the solution for obesity, new findings show that drugs may help in some cases.

In a recent study, leptin and placebo injections were given to fifty three lean people and seventy who were moderately obese. All participants were placed on a weight reduction diet. At the end of six months, the leptin injections proved to have been effective in causing weight loss without significant adverse effects.

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Between 60 and 90 percent of all medical visits in the United States are for stress related disorders .

The three major components of stress are physiological, behavioural and psychological.

Let’s take a look at what is happening to you in each case.

Physiologically, stress begins when a threat is perceived. Your unconscious response to a stressful event occurs before you think about reacting to it. For example, when you have been insulted, your blood pressure goes up long before you have decided how to respond.

This innate physiological response to stress is often referred to as an “emergency reaction,” similar to the kind that prepares an animal for fight or flight. Responding in this way may have been a necessary part of our evolution, but in modern life it can lead to serious consequences.

Growing evidence shows that stress hormones are the villains in a wide variety of illnesses. For example, changes triggered by stress may affect the heart in these and other ways:

•    Blood pressure is elevated in both healthy individuals and people with borderline high blood pressure and may induce a spasm or sudden constriction of the arteries of the heart.
•    Under extreme, acute stress, the brain’s control over the heart rate may be disrupted, leading to abnormal heart rates and even sudden death in patients with coronary heart disease.
•    Stress hormones may indirectly increase the blood’s tendency to clot, which can block the supply of blood to the heart muscle and lead to a heart attack.

Behaviourally, stress has a direct influence on how we handle our responsibilities in life. Even a little stress will compromise the performance of our daily tasks. For jobs that are solely dependent on physical exertion, such as building a brick wall or mending a leaky tap, stress may be quite a nuisance.

Tasks that call for fine motor skills or that involve intense concentration may well be endangered by even a small amount of stress. Nobody wants to see a bus driver, an airline pilot, a truck driver or a brain surgeon undergoing even minor stress.

And what is a typical result? We see it every day. As stress increases, so do smoking, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, poor food choices and even violence. What about you? Perhaps you are a victim of stress without realizing it.

Look at yourself in the mirror. Nicotine stained fingers? Too much junk food? Too much anger? The odds are that you’ve got too much stress in your life.

Psychologically, as a result of the mind’s conditioning, we get caught up in patterns of thinking that create and exacerbate stress. Generally, when we feel stressed, it is because we are dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, wanting something we don’t have or having something we don’t want.

These mental tendencies lead to anxiety, fear, guilt, anger, dissatisfaction and confusion, which stimulate the sympathetic nervous system and produce physical distress. The physical symptoms of anxiety then magnify the disturbing mental and emotional patterns.

Once we get caught up in this anxiety cycle, we are riding on the stress merry-go-round and feel out of control. The creative potential of our mind is overridden by worries, obsessions and fears as we go round and round in stress  bound circles.

Fortunately, even when these vicious circles have become extreme, it is possible to reverse them by shifting the mind’s focus. It takes a positive focus to bring the mind up to the present and move beyond negative thoughts.

Relaxation methods, meditation and other mind/body techniques are some ways of coping with stress. What an enormous relief it is when the mind becomes calm and absorbed in a positive focus. I’m not saying that reconditioning the mind is going to be easy.

Sometimes when you are trying to soothe your anxiety filled mind, it feels instead like a drunken monkey stung by bees. Yet with determination it is possible to draw away from this stress induced tyranny and become quiet, serene and sure of yourself once more.

The following goals will help motivate you to practise stress management and treating stress:

1.      I want to be more energetic and less prone to fatigue.
2.      I want to think more clearly and logically.
3.      I wish to look and feel better.
4.      I hope to experience greater self-confidence and relief by knowing that I can control my stress.
5.      I want to be happier about my work, my life and my family.
6.      I want to be better able to keep myself calm and to handle emotional problems.
7.      I want to enjoy wellness and better health.
8.      I would like to have fewer physical and psychological symptoms and complaints.
9.      I want to reduce the likelihood that I will develop lifestyle-related diseases.
10.   I want to achieve higher HQ Profile scores.

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When they are clogged with clot or cholesterol, they fail in their function, and damage ensues. A program of lifelong physical exercise is the single most important protection against stopped up pipes and heart trouble.

Exercise confers major advantages on virtually every step in the process that leads to circulatory collapse. Once a heart attack or stroke has occurred, a cure is not only unlikely, but impossible. The doctors struggle to preserve what is left, but when the damage is already don; permanent injury results.

One reason that the recognition of exercise’s preventive force in heart and artery trouble has taken so long to be appreciated is the numbers of reports that indicated the relatively short life expectancy of college athletes.

If exercise were good for you, how come these stars failed to live long lives? The answer now is very simple. Merely because an individual was fit in his or her 20s means little if the level of fitness isn’t sustained into the 60s and beyond.

To provide value, physical exercise must be a lifelong habit. The benefits exercise brings to the fight against heart disease are huge. All of the factors that contribute to heart attacks because of blocked arteries can be addressed by exercise.

Not only does exercise help lower the total blood cholesterol levels, but it alters the types of cholesterol as well. Exercise also helps lower the blood pressure. As you no doubt know, people with higher blood pressure run higher risks of heart disease.

When you exercise, your arteries dilate, and thus the blood has a larger volume within which to be distributed, and in turn blood pressure falls. Want more evidence? Exercise helps smokers quit. Cigarette smoking is a strong predictor of early heart problems.

Almost no one who is physically active smokes. Rather than my trying to convince my heart disease patients to stop smoking, I instead encourage them to start to exercise. It is easier to engage in positive behavior than to stop negative behavior.

More? Exercise cuts down .the clottability of blood, so it is less likely that a block will occur in a crucial artery. There are many medical efforts to thin the blood of people with heart disease. Exercise does it naturally.

Finally, exercise enlarges the arteries. Larger arteries can tolerate more cholesterol sludge passing through. All of these and more provide ample incentive to be fit. Heart surgeons and undertakers probably won’t like it, but as you become better conditioned, your arteries and your heart will thank you for preserving their ability to keep the juices flowing.

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