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Prevention of Flu - When do you brush your teeth?

1/28/2017

As a result of researching 5800 people who was infected by flu and their family for 16 years, new facts have come to light.

1. Who easily transmits flu to other family members is father.
When father is infected to flu first in the family, there is high possibility to transmit it to other family members. The possibility of father’s transmitting flu is 2 times more than mother’s. Father’s consciousness to prevent infection tends to be less than mother’s.

2. The time period when infection spreads out most at home is during a meal.
During a meal, we don’t wear masks and have a conversation, easily spreading viruses.

How to prevent flu brushing teeth

When is good to brush teeth to prevent cold and flu?

To strengthen immune system, brushing teeth right after getting up in the morning is the best timing. 500 people who had flu were researched about their life style by a doctor and it turned out that a lot of them didn’t brush their teeth right after getting up in the morning. since the doctor instructed their patients to brush their teeth right after getting up in the morning, the number of flu patients dramatically decreased.

Why can brushing teeth right after getting up in the morning prevent flu infection?

Viruses of flu and common cold are usually covered by protein, so even if they go into the body, they can’t easily invade the body cells. But there is an enzyme which breaks the cover of protein, called protease. Protease is an enzyme which breaks down proteins coming into the intestines. Protease exists in the mouth and when viruses contact protease, the covered protein is broken down and the viruses are exposed. That makes the viruses easy to invade the membrane of the cell and highly contagious. Brushing teeth right after getting up in the morning washes out protease in the mouth not to contact viruses, preventing the infection of viruses.

When we are awake, saliva plays a role to wash out bacteria in our mouth. But while we are sleeping, saliva in our mouth decreases and bacteria increases. The number of bacteria at the time that we get up in the morning becomes about 30 times as many as the number of bacteria after dinner. The more bacteria in the mouth increase, the more protease which exposes viruses increases. If you eat breakfast without brushing your teeth, this protease attaches to the membrane of the mouth and the throat. If viruses invade the body and come to the area, protease exposes the viruses, strengthening the power of their infection. So it is effective for prevention of virus infection to remove protease by brushing teeth right after getting up in the morning.

In addition to brushing teeth, if you clean your tongue using a tongue cleaner, it is more effective. However, it is not recommended to use a toothbrush to clean your tongue because it can be a cause that you lose taste.

Related articles:
Actions you should not do on a cold winter morning (2/3)

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Visual Field Defect Is Difficult To Notice

1/25/2017

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Glaucoma is a disease that a part of the optic nerve which transmit visual information from the eye to the brain is damaged, resulting in defect of visual field.

Glaucoma is difficult to notice the initial symptoms so the detection is delayed, leading to severe condition.

Why isn’t it noticed even if there is visual field defect?
Fig.1 shows the normal vision and glaucoma’s vision which the traffic light is invisible.
Fig. 2 shows the vision that the upper part is defected, which makes the traffic light invisible. The traffic light is not dimly visible but invisible because the eyes fill out the defected part creating information from the scenery around. As a result, the defected part is filled with the color of the sky which doesn’t feel strange. This makes difficult to detect glaucoma at the early stage.

Flicker visual field test

Flicker visual field test is to check whether you can see flickers appearing with sound or not because glaucoma makes difficult to see flickers. Checking whether each eye can see the flickers tells whether or not there is visual field defect.

Let’s start checking your right eye.
Cover your left eye with your left hand. (Fig. 3)
Bring your face to a screen as close as the vertical length of the screen. (Fig. 4)
Gaze the cross in the center of the screen with your right eye. Do not your sight from the cross. (Fig. 5)
Flickers will appear 16 times with Japanese counting everywhere on the screen.
Check if you can see the flickers, gazing at the cross.
If you hear the sound (Japanese counting) but you can’t see a flicker, that part of your visual field can be defected.
Start the movie “Test for right eye”.
Do the same thing for your left eye, starting the movie “Test for left eye”.

Fig. 6 shows the order of the flickers.

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Is Your Balance OK?

1/22/2017

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The ears also control equilibrium (sense of balance). If the equilibrium becomes weak, you experience dizziness or wobble.

Equilibrium is controlled by the semicircular canals of the ear. The semicircular canals are filled with water. When the body inclines, the flow of the water in the semicircular canals changes and a sensor in the semicircular canals catches the inclination. But the function of the sensor becomes weak due to aging and the sensor becomes unable to catch the inclination of the body accurately. If you don’t notice the weakness of the sensor, you fall down, causing bedridden in the worst case.

Check your equilibrium using a pen and a sheet of paper

Prepare a pen and a sheet of paper.
1. Fix the paper on the table with tapes or something heavy for the paper not to move.
2. Pick up the pen with one hand and put the other hand on the thigh. (Fig. 1)
3. Put down the tip of the pen on the paper not to make the hand touch the paper. (Fig. 2)
4. Write “ABCDE” on the left side of the paper vertically. The size of the letter should be about 2 inches.
5. Write “ABCDE” on the right side of the paper vertically, closing your eyes. (Put down the tip of the pen where you start to write and then close your eyes.)

Diagnosis:
If the inclination of the letters is within 5 degrees, it is considered as normal. (Fig. 3)
If the inclination of the letters is between 6 and 9 degrees, there is a possibility that the function of the semicircular canals is weak.
If the inclination of the letters is more than 10 degrees, it is diagnosed with having abnormal condition.
If the letters are inclined toward the left side, the left semicircular canals are weak. (Fig. 4)
If the letters are inclined toward the right side, the right semicircular canals are weak.
You can check the inclination, enlarging Fig. 5 and putting what you wrote on it, or you can use a sheet of paper folded 3 times like Fig. 6 and place the tip of the paper at the center of “A”. a half of the width of the paper is about 5 degrees.

Exercise to improve equilibrium

1. Raise your thumb in front of your face and stare at the tip of the thumb. (Fig. 7)
2. Swing your head from side to side 10 times at a speed of 1 time per second, staring at the tip of the thumb.
3. Put your thumb sideways and swing your head up and down staring at the tip of the thumb. (Fig. 8)
4. Place your thumb at the closer to your face and do the same things. (Fig. 9)

If you continue this exercise 1-2 times a day, you can improve the weakness of your equilibrium.

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Difficulty of Hearing Can Be Connected To Serious Diseases

1/19/2017

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Check your ears if there is dangerous disease hidden or not using fingers and spoons.

Difficulty of hearing is usually caused by aging, but some of them are caused by serious diseases. Checking hearing of high and low pitched sounds helps differentiate it.

Low pitched sound:

Separate your thumb and index finger about an inch and tap them lightly. This finger tapping sound is low pitched sound which is from 125 to 250 Hertz. Tap the fingers near your ears simultaneously. (Fig. 1) If you feel the difference in either ear like right ear is difficult to hear, there is a possibility that you may have Meniere's disease which causes dizziness.

High pitched sound:

Prepare 2 tea spoons. Rub the spoons near your ear gently not to make hitting noise. (Fig. 2) This rubbing sound of spoons is high pitched sound which is from 4000 to 8000 Hertz. If you clearly hear the sound in your both ears, there is no problem, but if you feel difficult to hear or you can’t hear, there is a possibility of arteriosclerosis (hardening of arteries). Progression of arteriosclerosis decreases the blood flow in the ear and that sometimes makes you not to hear starting from high pitched sound.

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FREE Quick Acupuncture for Adults & Kids on Sat, Jan 21st

1/15/2017

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Cozy Acupuncture will provide FREE Quick Acupuncture for adults and full acupuncture treatment for kids.

If you want to know about acupuncture or if you have any pain or aches, please give it a try!

It is FREE!

Come and find out what acupuncture can do for you!

For any questions or to sign up, please call 617-584-8703 or email [email protected]
When you like to sign up on-line, please click APPOINTMENT ONLINE below, click SCHEDULE NOW and choose service "FREE Quick Acu on 1/21/17" and the date has to be Saturday, January 21.

Event: FREE Quick Acupuncture
Date: Saturday, January 21, 2017
Time: 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Place: A Sacred Place Wellness Center, Museum Place Mall #112, Salem, MA 01970

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Cause of Gout Is Not What You Eat!

1/9/2017

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If you don’t want to have gout which causes severe pain, your uric acid should be 2.1-7.0 mg/dL.

Animals’ uric acid are the followings.

Human 5.0 (mg/dL)
Tiger 0.6
Mandrill 0.4
Thoroughbred 0.2
Pig 0.2
Slow loris 0.2

What makes the difference of uric acid between human being and other animals?

That is life-span. It is thought that uric acid suppresses inflammation in the body with its high antioxidative effect, making human longevity longer.

From time immemorial, mammals had decomposed uric acid and discharged it from the body. But hominid ancestors prolonged their life-span using the antioxidative effect of uric acid during their evolution.

But once uric acid increases too much, it is crystalized, congealed like cement in the joint and sticks to the bone firmly. The crystalized uric acid grows around the joint and comes off. The peeled crystalized uric acid is attacked by the immune cells, considered as the enemy. As a result, inflammation occurs and you have to suffer from a severe pain.

High uric acid causes the risks of other diseases higher.

The risk of dialysis caused by chronic kidney diseases is about 5.7 times more.
The risk of death caused by heart attack is about 1.8 times more.

Only 20 % of high uric acid is caused by foods. Another 80 % is caused by the cells.

When you eat meat, every cell of the meat has purine body. Purine body is a part of DNA. The liver transforms purine body into uric acid. But this is only 20 % of the method to produce uric acid. Another 80 % is produced even if you don’t do anything else. The 80 % of uric acid is produced by the metabolism of the body when the old cells are transformed into the new cells because the cells of our body has also purine body.

Does exercise decrease uric acid? Intense exercise like weight training increases uric acid temporally because it breaks down and reproduces the muscles.

90 % of high uric acid is caused by the problem of discharge of uric acid!

Uric acid increased by meals is just a little part. The major cause of high uric acid is inability of discharge of uric acid.

What do you need to take to increase the discharge of uric acid?

That is milk. In an experiment, the discharge of uric acid increased by 37 % after drinking a glass of milk. Casein contained in milk is decomposed in the stomach and intestines and is transformed into alanine which helps the kidney discharge uric acid.

How much milk should you drink?

According to a research of 41750 people for 12 years, the occurrence of gout of people who drank a glass of milk or low fat milk per day was lower by 43 %. The effect of discharge of uric acid is higher when you drink low fat milk. You can take yogurt for the same purpose. Soy milk doesn’t have casein so it is not effective.

Drinking a lot of water is effective to prevent dehydration and urinary stones, but it doesn’t decrease uric acid.

What causes the inability of discharging uric acid?

Obesity is one of causes. Obesity prevents the effect of insulin so your body secretes more insulin. Unused insulin prevents discharge of uric acid. If you lose weight, the amount of insulin decreases, making easy to discharge uric acid.

Another cause is constitution. There is a gene called ABCG2 which makes it hard to discharge uric acid. About a half of male adults have mutated gene. If the mutation is strong, the chance to have gout is 22 times more.

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[CASE] Treatment of Toothache by Acupuncture (Self-Treatment)

1/2/2017

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I have wisdom teeth. I’m not sure if that is the reason or not, but I have toothache once in a while.

A few days ago my upper left teeth suddenly started to hurt. I was wondering how I could stop the toothache. I came up with Chinese Clock Treatment. Around the teeth, Stomach and Large Intestine Meridian flow. The opposite of Stomach in the Chinese Clock is Pericardium and the opposite of Large Intestine is Kidney.

[Treatment]
At first, I checked which point can be useful. When I put my consciousness on my right Pericardium-6 (PC-6: 1 inch above the center of the wrist), the toothache decreased. When I put my consciousness on my right Kidney-6 (KD-6: Below inner side of the ankle), the toothache didn’t change. I decided to use PC-6 and put Teishin (Non-insertion needle) on the point. A short time after putting Teishin, the toothache decreased but didn’t go away completely. I also felt muscle tension and pressure pain around the left jaw, so I put the ticker side of Teishin on the point where was pressure pain. Since the pressure pain and muscle tension became less, I finished the treatment and slept. The next morning the toothache and the tension around the jaw was gone.

The next day this time my lower left teeth started to hurt. The pain was not so severe but I decided to treat it. I put my consciousness on PC-6 and KD-6 alternately. This time KD-6 seemed like alleviating the toothache, so I put Teishin on the point. The toothache was instantly gone.

[Consideration]
The pain in the back teeth happens a few times a year, but I don’t take any medications so Chinese clock treatment is useful to alleviate the toothache in case of an emergency. It is interesting that the difference of effective meridians between upper teeth and lower teeth shows the difference of meridians flowing upper and lower teeth.

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Prevention of Flu - When do you brush your teeth?

Visual Field Defect Is Difficult To Notice

Is Your Balance OK?

Difficulty of Hearing Can Be Connected To Serious Diseases

FREE Quick Acupuncture for Adults & Kids on Sat, Jan 21st

Cause of Gout Is Not What You Eat!

[CASE] Treatment of Toothache by Acupuncture (Self-Treatment)

Ichiro

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