•
If the child passes a bowel movement into the potty, praise him profusely. However, it is then important not to give him the idea that he is expected to do this every time. Revert back to the low key suggestion that he sit on the potty, and don’t be distressed if, after initially delivering the goods, he then resists or doesn’t do it again for a long time. This is a crucial stage, for if the child suddenly becomes aware of just how much this miserable bowel action means to his parents, then he just may realise at the same time the sort of power he wields.
Once this process has taken place, at some stage the child will begin to use the potty regularly, initially for faeces and then soon after for urine, at which point the child is essentially toilet trained. However, parents must expect that it may not go so smoothly — there may well be stops and starts, as well as frequent accidents. Again, it is important to be relaxed and low key about these as well.
There are several other points that are worth emphasising:
1. Never punish your child for any ‘mistakes’ in toilet training, or to subsequent accidents, no matter how frustrating they are to you. This will only make matters worse, and will most likely delay the completion of successful toilet training. Praise and encouragement are always a much better strategy, not only for toilet training but in all interactions with children.
2. Let the completion of toilet training be the child’s accomplishment rather than yours. You can share his pride, but it is important to allow your child to determine the timing and the pace of his toilet training.
*125\90\8*
•
This is the symptom that you probably worry about the most, even if you don’t have it! Here are some facts that may surprise you. Cancer is not always painful, not even at the end. Cancer pain reacts to painkillers just like any other pain. When people with cancer do get pain, it is always possible to greatly relieve it, and sometimes even to get rid of it completely.
I know why you are anxious and frightened about the possibility of pain. You have read about, heard of, or known people who did have pain with cancer and whose pain was not controlled. You, yourself, may even have pain which is not being controlled right now. It doesn’t have to be that way for you.
We can do something about it. The most common reason for unrelieved cancer pain is simply ignorance— ignorance on the part of many doctors and nurses, as well as on the part of many people with cancer. Many doctors and nurses simply don’t know enough about the individual painkillers and how to use them most effectively. They don’t know how small the risk of addiction is when painkillers are used simply to control pain. Sometimes they don’t even know that it is realistic to aim for good control of cancer pain with painkillers.
*163/40/1*
•
Vitamins and their place in human nutrition are very poorly understood by most people.
Sold and swallowed in large quantities to give instant energy, restore potency or prevent colds, they represent an expensive, but also a probably useless fad.
The vitamins are organic chemicals present in small quantities in food, and are necessary for the normal nutrition of the body.
Vitamins are divided into two groups — the water-soluble vitamins (the  group and Vitamin C) and the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K).
The body requires a certain minimal amount of these chemicals daily for the proper maintenance of health. If the diet contains less than the required amount for long enough, then signs and symptoms of a deficiency state will occur.
However, taking an excess quantity of vitamins — above that necessary for health — provides no extra benefit. In fact, with some of the vitamins, such as A and D, definite disease states may occur from excessive intake.
*606/71/1*
•
The heart is a pump and regular, sustained exercise makes the heart work harder and so improves its efficiency.
The heart rate slows and the stroke volume — the amount pumped with each beat — increases. The coronary arteries dilate and become permanently wider.
Arteriosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, is associated with a laying down of the atheroma or fatty tissue along the inner walls of the artery. This — like rust in a pipe — narrows the artery and can obstruct the blood flow. Widened arteries can take a great deal more build-up of atheroma before the narrowing obstructs the blood flow.
The lungs become more efficient and develop a greater capacity. But exercise also has other effects on the body.
Those who exercise regularly appear to become addicted to it. Certainly it gives a good reason for stopping smoking. You can’t really become fit while you continue to smoke.
Some experts have come up with a reason why those who push themselves hard with physical exercise seem to enjoy it despite the pain of aching limbs and a panting chest.
*348/71/1*
•
If the woman is not awake for several hours after the birth, she may be separated from her baby and miss the initial “bonding” or closeness to the baby.
Following a general anaesthetic and a caesarean section, the woman may be nauseated and the bowels may not start working for one or two days. The abdomen is full and bloated. It may be necessary for her to have intravenous feeding. Despite all this, it is still possible for her to breast feed.
If time allows, most surgeons use the “bikini” cut. This incision is transverse across the abdomen and low so that it is hidden in the pubic hair. Despite having had a caesarean section, a woman can still wear brief bathers without a scar showing. Under emergency situations, the doctor may have to work through the older incision from the navel down.
Caesarean births are increasing, and this is not just for the convenience or financial gain of the doctor. Because modern medicine has made this operation so safe, it can be used more frequently in the interests of the baby.
Because of the possibility that what is hoped to be a natural birth may run into complications, all pregnant women should discuss a caesarean with their doctors.
*98/71/1*
•
In case you still believe that experts always make better decisions than you could, here are some actual examples of what can and does happen. Some surgeons do pointless extensive and mutilating operations to remove secondary growths. Doctors often recommend intensive chemotherapy to patients with cancers for which it makes no difference to the average length of life. The only ‘benefit’ is that the growths of a minority of patients get smaller for a short time. Thus, chemotherapy is often recommended when it has only, say, a one in twenty chance of temporarily (for a few weeks or months) shrinking cancer growths and no chance at all of curing the cancer. Doctors sometimes continue patients on chemotherapy while their cancer growths are actually getting bigger and more extensive. Practitioners whose patients’ cancers continue to grow while undergoing treatment with cleansing diets usually still exhort them to persevere with their diets and take no medications at all, not even painkillers.
*128/40/1*
•
Scientists have been studying what makes one food high and another low for more than fifteen years. There is a wealth of information that can easily confuse. We have summarised the results of their research in the following table which looks at the factors which influence the G.I. factor of a food.
The key message is that the physical state of the starch in the food is by far the most important factor influencing the G.I. value. That’s why the advances in food processing over the past two hundred years have had such a profound effect on the overall G.I. factor of the food we eat.
Particle size. Another factor that influences starch gelatinisation is the particle size of the food. Grinding or milling of cereals reduces the particle size and makes it easier for water to be absorbed and enzymes to attack. That is why cereal foods made from fine flours tend to have high G.I. factors. One of the most significant alterations to our food supply came with the introduction of steel roller mills in the mid-nineteenth century. Not only did they make it easier to remove the fibre from cereal grains, the particle size of the starch was smaller than ever before. Prior to the nineteenth century, stone grinding produced quite coarse flours that resulted in lower rates of digestion and absorption.
When starch is consumed in its natural packaging—whole intact grains that have been softened by soaking and cooking—the food will have a low G.I. factor. For example, cooked barley has a G.I. factor of only 25. Most cooked legumes have a G.I. factor between 30 and 40. Cooked whole wheat has a G.I. factor of 41.
The only whole (intact) grain food with a high G.I. factor is rice, specifically low amylose rice, such as Calrose rice at 83. These varieties of rice have starch which is very easily gelatinised during cooking and therefore easily broken down by digestive enzymes. This may help explain why we sometimes feel hungry not long after rice-based meals. However, some varieties of rice (Basmati, a long grain fragrant rice, and Doongara, a new Australian variety of rice) have lower G.I. factors because they have a higher amylose content than normal rice. Their G.I. factors are in the range of 54 to 64.
*79\33\4*
•
The implications of all this are that someone who is unfit is less efficient at using fat in the fuel mix for exercise than someone who is fit, and that this difference increases with the intensity and duration of the exercise. Fat utilisation in an unfit person would therefore only be optimal at an exercise intensity much lower than that required for a fit person—in both absolute and relative terms. This then, gives a totally different outlook to the approach often promoted by the fitness industry based on the ‘no pain, no gain’ philosophy.
There have also been suggestions that the majority of the energy deficit resulting from physical activity is supplied by fat after the activity, or in ‘excess post-exercise oxygen consumption’ (EPOC), and hence the amount of fat oxidised during the exercise is only part of the story. If this were the case, the total energy use during exercise is again likely to be the biggest factor influencing fat use. However, if we look at this suggestion closely, we see that it is likely to be true first only if the exercise is sustained long enough to significantly deplete glycogen stores, thus diminishing their function as the primary energy source and second, if no carbohydrate is eaten post-exercise, in which case this would take priority as the energy source and fat would once again be ’saved’, and deposited into fat stores. This proposal also doesn’t explain the increased high rate of re-esterification of fat that occurs in EPOC, particularly in women, probably in defence of their reproductively important energy sources. This is opposed to the approach of re-loading carbohydrate stores for energy after exercise in athletes that is commonly agreed to by exercise physiologists. It does suggest that the issue of type of food intake relating to exercise is more complicated than may first seem.
*142\186\4*
•
People working in the obesity area use the term weight control, and the measure of weight as their surrogate measurement of body fatness. Yet degree of fatness only partially contributes to body weight. Muscle tissue is almost two-and-a half times as dense as fat tissue and therefore a muscular person is likely to weigh more than a fat person of the same overall body size. Hence a fit, exercising person with a high muscle density is likely to weigh more, but have a much lower fat level than an unfit, fat person.
Weight is the combination of a range of things; bones, organs, muscle, even the length you grow your hair; whereas fat, if measured properly, is just fat. The difficulty, of course, is in accurate measurement. There are no simple, accurate measurements for body fat. So far, there are only reasonable estimates. Still, these existing measurements are likely to give a better estimate of fatness level than the more general measure of body weight. A change in body weight, however, usually reflects changes in fat mass and lean mass (particularly in women), and hence the terms weight and weight control, while not technically correct, are still used as a form of convenience.
We tried to use the terms fat and overfatness where this is a more accurate representation of the situation, except where referring to weight as such, or where this is used to describe other work more specifically directed at weight. Despite their awkwardness, the terms overfatness and fat control are used where possible in an effort to get those working in this area to use the appropriate terminology. However, most studies, especially in larger populations, have to rely on some form of weight measurement as a surrogate for fatness.
Myth-Information. Rapid weight less, as advertised in many ‘diet-style’ programs, has been found to be not only potentially dangerous, but to increase the speed with which weight is put back on. Weight loss greater than 1.5kg per week dramatically increases the risk of disease.
*3\186\4*
•
Since time immemorial man has regarded honey and pollen as ambrosia—the food of the gods. Honey is mentioned in the Bible as a specially blessed food. In cave paintings from the Neolithic age (about 15,000 years ago) are illustrations of honey combs being gathered for food. Honey has been found in 3,000-year-old Egyptian pyramids. Pythagoras, a great Greek scientist (600 B.C.), recommended honey for health and long life. Throughout the ages honey has been regarded as a divine food with age-retarding and rejuvenating properties.
The miraculous powers of pollen were also recognized by man in the early ages. Ancient texts from Egypt, Persia and China refer to it. Greek philosophers claimed that pollen held the secret of eternal youth. Pollen was revered as nature’s own propagator of life. Raw, unstrained honey, with large proportions of pollen, was used by the original Olympic athletes for extra energy and vitality.
*117\58\2*
