(HOST) Ruth Page reports three ideas that might help us improve our health – but be sure to ask your doctor before changing treatments.
(PAGE) It seems Americans are worrying more about their health than ever before. There isn’t a magazine that doesn’t recommend “health” foods or tout new ways to lose weight, or avoid cancer.
In recent months I’ve run across several articles in science journals and in National Geographic with quite unusual descriptions of possibilities for improving health, and believe it or not, not one of them recommends a new diet, activity, or mental exercise that promises weight loss.
But they offer ways to avoid Alzheimer’s disease and re-relieve arthritis and asthma, three of our common, and feared, afflictions.
The arthritis idea sounds like fun. You go to the Merry Widow Mine in Basin, Montana, and just sit there chatting with others for an hour or so, a couple times a day. After doing this for a couple of weeks, the sufferers claim their pain is gone. Not forever; some folks return yearly; but those who have visited the mine over the years call it a “miracle.” It works for pets, too.
The Merry Widow Mine and its neighbor the Earth Angel Mine, naturally release radon gas and radon-laced water. You breathe in the gas and drink some of the water and over time your pains go. Your knees work again, your fingers move easily, and your dog who was crippled by arthritis can now run and jump, after resting in the radon mine daily.
There are too many visitors with too many amazing experiences to ignore: they can be seen coming in looking crippled and after a course of this relaxed treatment, can leave walking easily. Such mines have been visited in Europe for centuries. Radon spas there have been so popular, medical studies were done. They showed that radon does relieve rheumatism and arthritis.
The hesitation of our medical community is that radon is radioactive and over-exposure could conceivably lead to cancer.
Now to the dread Alzheimer’s: Experiments have shown that the B vitamin niacin might protect us from mental decline; other B vitamins may help too. Comparisons of patients over years show that those consuming the recommended 14.1 milligrams of niacin a day are three times as likely to develop the disease as those who consume at least 17 milligrams a day. Further studies confirm that finding, so bring on your niacin.
This next one has so far been tested only in mice: a key omega-3 fatty acid called DHA prevents some memory loss in the little rodents. When they get plenty of DHA, they can remember better where something is located, like us trying to remember where we parked the car.
I don’t mind being related to mice: bring on your fish and canola oil containing DHA. I hate having to memorize where I park the car in one of those huge supermarket lots.
This is Ruth Page in Shelburne.