Our fear of death and the great beyond has fueled a seemingly endless supply of myths and lore, not to mention bad B-movies. Here are a few of our favorites.

Count on “the count.” With Tom Cruise’s portrayal of the Vampire Lestat in Interview with the Vampire, the world marked nearly 1,000 years of vampire lore. Popularized in the late 1800s with the publication of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, the notion of vampires first appeared in 1047, when someone referred to a Russian prince as “Upir Lichy” or wicked vampire. Vampire hysteria ran rampant from 1600 through the 1700s. Things got so bad in Romania that they developed “automatic vampire-piercing devices”-sharpened stakes driven into the grave so that if the body tried to leave, the vampire would be pierced instantly.

Essentially, vampires are thought to be folks who have died before their time, often violently, who have come back to kill their family and friends. Telltale signs of vampires are needle-sharp incisors used to suck blood from their prey. A wooden stake through the heart, cutting off the head, or burning the body to ashes is the best-known ways to bring one down for good.

Do the zombie. Countless cult classics like Night of the Living Dead show once-dead and buried folks clawing their way from their earthly tombs and oozing into nearby neighborhoods to wreak havoc among once-happy, unsuspecting citizens. Though nobody can say for certain where the concept of so-called zombies came from, it’s one we clearly dread-and one that may be more reality-based than you think.

Reportedly, Haitians schooled in the science of voodoo could administer a fish poison known as tetrodotoxin that would induce a state just inches from death. The victim would then be buried and, provided the voodoo maker had administered just the right dose, could later be “resurrected” to terrorize the living.

Tell it to your mummy. Ancient Egyptians believed that they were “magically resuscitated” after they died. To help the dead along, they would first embalm the corpse to mummify it. Then they’d bury it in an elaborate tomb, equipped with furnishings and toilet facilities so that the mummy could live comfortably once he came back to life. Somewhere along the way, people began to worry that maybe the mummy would wake up not in the Egyptian afterlife but in his tomb, mad as hell, and with a hankering to take his anger out on the living.

Today, we’re less nervous about that possibility but just as fascinated with mummies. More than 100,000 people a year travel to Kampehl, Germany, to view the remains of Christian Friedrich von Kahlbutz, a seventeenth-century count who was found naturally mummified in his crypt.

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Preventive medicine is probably imbued with more rhetoric and noble ideas than any other medical speciality, but amongst all the high-flown talk one assertion stands out-that people ought to be more responsible for their own Health. This argument suggests that if we were all more ‘responsible’ and ‘pulled ourselves together’ we could prevent much illness both in ourselves and others. I personally find this a naive and unhelpful way of looking at prevention because it puts too great a burden of responsibility on millions who can’t cope with it. If they then ‘fail’ they are double losers-not only do they have the health problems to deal with but they are deemed to have brought them upon themselves.

The idea that personal lifestyle has implications for health is very old indeed. It underlines many of the injunctions of the Old Testament. The golden rule formulated by Juvenal (a healthy mind in a healthy body) was intended to achieve both physical and psychological well-being simultaneously. Even during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when real strides were being made in preventive public health Measures, novels of the day suggested that it was the responsibility of individuals to look to their own well-being.

The idea that an individual can prevent the occurrence of illness is not new, then. What we now understand better is that human behaviour is not simply a matter of what people can will themselves to do-it is the combined result of forces acting from within (many of which are unconscious) and without. So today we can look in a very different way at how human behaviour affects health. No longer can we condemn people on ‘moral’ grounds for their lack of control, or whatever, and punish them, however unconsciously, with ill health. Also, the almost total control of mass infectious illnesses and the increase of chronic diseases as a cause of death makes the whole business of prevention even more important because the latter are so difficult or even impossible to cure.

This has all led to a generally held assumption that the next great milestone in medical advances will be a wholesale change in personal health-related behaviour brought about by a better understanding of human beings as a result of the behavioural sciences. If this is so and if it is to form the basis of preventive medicine for the future we ought to look at it more closely.

We have looked at health and illness behaviour in some detail already. Obviously an understanding of the subject is crucial if we are really to make any progress in preventing anything. The key study in this area has resulted in the Health Belief Model which attempted to explain how and why people used preventive services such as ÒÂ screening, dental check-ups and vaccinations. Since this model was first developed in the US in the 1950s numerous studies have classified areas touched on by the Model.

The Health Belief Model, simply stated, proposed that in the presence of certain triggers to take health action the likelihood of action actually being taken depends on the person’s belief about the seriousness of the health condition, his or her susceptibility to it, the efficiency of the proposed action and the difficulties he or she might encounter in attempting to carry out the action. This, then, is a rational model of human behaviour in which people respond to given situations with thought and with some knowledge.

Unfortunately, even this simple analysis of what happens is fraught with problems, and when we look at a specific example it begins to fall apart. For example, studies have found that women who are relatively young and well educated and have higher incomes are more likely to hold beliefs that are appropriate to taking action to have a cervical smear test than are women with less education and lower incomes. It is obviously not satisfactory to rely on any particular group’s own perception of health risks and the advisability of preventive action. The facts, alas, are often that the very groups who are least able to perceive the value of a preventive measure are those most at risk.

The next challenge then is to understand why people believe what they do and to try to find out how their attitudes can be changed to their advantage. In a free society this is a complex business because the people concerned have first to be convinced that a particular health goal is worth achieving. Many approaches are possible and an oblique one often works better than a full-frontal one. For example, many men happily take exercise because it makes them feel good yet they are blissfully unaware of the positive health benefits of their actions. These are purely a bonus to their sporting activities.

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Linda O’Hanlon used a measuring cup to lose 57 pounds.

Overweight since she was a child, Linda, of Maspefh, New York, never developed that “I’m full” signal that makes most people push away their plates after eating a serving or two. “When I sat down for a spaghetti dinner, I didn’t get up until every last strand of pasta in the pot was gone,” she recalls.

Over the years, as her weight crept upward, Linda invested thousands of dollars in fad diets with hopes of slimming down. But they didn’t help. “I’d lose 5 pounds and go off the diet,” she explains. “Then I’d gain back the 5 pounds, plus another 5.”

By the time Linda reached 208 pounds, she gave up trying to lose weight, resolving to accept herself as she was. But that changed in August 1997, when she went with a friend to Weight Watchers. Through the program’s meetings, she learned how to make healthful food choices and control her portion sizes. “The lesson was that if you put junk in your body, you’ll feel like junk,” she says.

She took that lesson to heart. Realizing that she had a natural tendency to overeat, Linda became extra-vigilant about her portion sizes. When she’d sit down for pasta, she’d pull out her trusty “|measuring cup and carefully measure out 1 cup of spaghetti, 1 cup of cooked vegetables, and 1 cup of garden salad. She’d eat that and no more.

Over time, Linda became adept at eyeballing her portion sizes. By relying on her brain instead of her stomach to say “when,” she dropped three pants sizes in 7 months. Two years later, at age 30, she’s holding steady at 151 pounds. “My clothes fit great, and I’m bursting with energy,” she says.

WINNING ACTION

Learn to recognize portion sizes. For foods that are easy to overdo, especially pasta, cereal, and ice cream, measure out one serving and transfer it into the bowl you would normally use. Make a mental note of how it looks (it’s probably a lot smaller than you’re used to seeing). You’ll need some time to retrain your brain, but eventually, the smaller portions will seem normal.

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New additives are all tested very thoroughly, although there are rarely tests on humans – rats, mice, bacteria and human cells cultured in a test tube are the main subjects used for testing. There are quite a few reports of illness among food-workers handling certain additives, which raises the question of whether humans might react differently from these test animals. There has also been some concern about how well tests are carried out. A commercial laboratory in America, which was reponsible for over 30 per cent of the world’s safety testing, was found to have been fabricating their data for many years. Although the laboratory was closed down, many of the additives that were passed as safe on the basis of their tests are still in use.

Concern has also been expressed over the possibility of ‘cocktail effects’ – the unknown impact of eating two or more additives together. A single meal can contain as many as 60 different additives, yet, surprisingly, the effect of additives in combination is never taken into account when setting safety standards. Very few tests have been carried out in this area,

because of lack of resources. One test, in which two preservatives were tested together, showed that they had a much greater effect in combination than when eaten separately. A public health specialist, writing in a book on additives published by the European Commission, comments: ‘It is not scaremongering to say that the possibility cannot be ruled out of two substances, both harmless by themselves, interacting to yield a product which is toxic.

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If you get a reaction to any food, stop eating it immediately. You may be able to abort the symptoms by taking a mixture of sodium and potassium bicarbonate. It is not known how or why this works, but it appears to do so. However, it is only effective if you are clear of symptoms at the outset – it cannot be used as a general remedy for food-induced illnesses, and in any case, it should not be taken too often. Mix two level teaspoons of sodium bicarbonate (bicarbonate of soda) with one level teaspoon of potassium bicarbonate, dissolve in a small glass of warm water and drink as quickly as possible. Potassium bicarbonate should be obtainable from your chemist, although it may have to be ordered – if you want to try this remedy, rather than just sweating it out when you get a reaction to a food, then you should buy some in advance. Do not test any more foods until the symptoms have completely subsided.

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A bottle-fed baby, or one that receives solids before three months of age, is exposed to large quantities of ‘foreign’ proteins entering the bloodstream, and there is ample evidence that these can cause allergic reactions. Even a baby that is never bottle-fed is not entirely safe. Proteins from the mother’s food can be absorbed intact from her gut and pass into her breast milk. Although the quantities involved are small, there is little doubt that these can sensitize an atopic child. In fact, the most violent reactions to cow’s milk are seen in children who have been sensitized via breast milk, rather than those that have been bottle-fed from birth. This might seem like a good argument for bottle-feeding, on the face of it, but bear in mind that these violent reactions are rare, whereas the less acute but very troublesome symptoms that might result from bottle-feeding are far more widespread.

The advice generally given to parents of high-risk babies is to feed the baby on nothing but breast milk for the first four to six months of life. Weaning should then be conducted at a very gradual pace, with breast-feeding continuing until the child is a year old if possible. If breast milk is still supplying most of the baby’s food needs, then the amount of solid food eaten can be much less.

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One aspect of colic is difficult to explain from either viewpoint – the fact that the symptoms tend to disappear or diminish at about three months of age. The traditional explanation is that all mothers with colicky babies – regardless of what sort of people they are or what else is happening in their lives – suddenly become more confident and relaxed at this point. This seems implausible, to say the least, but is there an alternative explanation that is compatible with food intolerance? One possibility is that the colic represents an initial ‘crisis’ reaction as the child is exposed to large amounts of cow’s-milk or other foreign proteins. The child later ‘adapts’ to the problem foods, and the colic apparently clears up, but its sensitivity continues in the form of other, less acute symptoms, such as eczema, asthma or diarrhoea. There is ample evidence from case-histories that this might happen – and the retrospective study described above supports the idea.

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All of us, patients and doctors alike, are conditioned to think about food and other aspects of our environment in a particular way. As civilized inhabitants of temperate climes, we can indulge in the luxury of regarding ‘nature’ as safe and welcoming, and of thinking of food as entirely wholesome and beneficial. These attitudes are part of our culture, another luxury that we simply take for granted, like armchairs or motor cars. If we are to understand food intolerance, some of these accepted ideas need to be challenged.

Much of the medical prejudice against food intolerance is rooted in the idea that food – as long as it is part of a balanced diet – ‘cannot be bad for you’. What is often forgotten is that our foods were not designed specifically for human consumption, but were drawn from a pool of wild plants and animals that were domesticated by the first farmers.

In the wild, most food items are reluctant food items. They do not want to be eaten, and their efforts to stay off the menu are part of what Charles Darwin called the ’struggle for existence’. Most animals can run away, or fight back, but plants do not have this option.

Their defence is based partly on thorns and prickles, but far more important than these is the array of invisible chemical weapons that pervade almost all plant tissues. Some of these simply taste bad, others cause vomiting or other ill-effects. A few even mimic the hormones of insects or mammals and thus disrupt their growth or sexual development.

Plant-eating animals have, in the course of their evolution, simply adapted to these chemicals in their food. They can detoxify them sufficiently to be able to feed on their chosen food or foods, and the plants can ward them off sufficiently to stay alive. It is rather like the situation between criminals and the police, where each side becomes increasingly cunning, better armed and more ruthless, but neither side ever wins and obliterates the other. The term ‘biological arms race’ aptly describes this situation.

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The pain of adapting to life without a loved one is real but natural. The whole routine of your life is upset and it is not easy to readjust. This is a difficult time but as a result, your life will change in ways you can’t imagine at the time.

     My mother has recently died. My son’s response that ‘Nana had gone to a higher rank’ reflected our opinion too. We grieved for her in different ways. She lived with me for almost fifty years.

    I am lucky I had the opportunity to really know my mother. She did so much for me and was the centre of my household. Her absence is noticed in so many ways. No one places fresh garden flowers on my desk, anymore. She always ’said it with flowers’.

     Mum taught us love and laughter, and I now see that her greatest gift to me was that of time. I couldn’t have done so many studies without her help and support.

     Grief is never easy. It is an ongoing process encompassing many emotions – regret, remorse and loss.

     The formal stages of grief are firstly denial, when we can’t believe what has happened. The second stage is anger, when we want to hit out at someone or something (why me?) The third stage is bargaining (if only I can … till… I will. . .).The fourth stage is depression and the fifth, serene, stage is acceptance.

     The emotional pain has an individual timing but it usually takes about two years for the ache in your heart to gradually subside. It never completely goes but becomes less intense with the passage of time. There will always be moments when a memory will be triggered and you find tears streaming down your face.

     ‘Letting go’ has to be learnt many times in our lives. We must let go of the past, including its mistakes (although we call them opportunities).Throughout our lives we have to learn to deal with grief. We must leave our mothers to go to kindergarten, we must leave the support of our school to go to work. We must say goodbye to our youth. All this sorrow has to be accepted as part of gaining maturity. If we are successful guardians, we allow this process in our children without pain or guilt.

     In acupuncture, the channel of chi energy which is out of balance is the metal meridian. This controls all crying, weeping and sobbing. Yin and yang must be balanced if people are having difficulty overcoming their grief.

     Star-of-Bethlehem (a Bach Flower remedy) helps immeasurably when your emotions become embarrassing to you. Homeopathically, there are many choices, but you need an expert to work them out.

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The shooting hot pain down one leg, or both if you are unlucky, is well-known to every chiropractor and osteopath in the world. We specialise in this condition and it forms one of the major parts of our practice.

     The sooner after any injury, be it from sport or from a fall, that you have the joint adjusted, the sooner it will be mended. It is important not to waste time. If you ignore treatment the next two or three days will be crucial. You are an injury waiting to happen.

     During the next couple of days, you will be just bending over to pick up the soap, or simply twisting to heave yourself out of bed, when this gripping pain will race down your back into your leg.

     Do you want to know how to make it worse? Put the electric blanket on! Or have a hot bath! The inflamed ligaments around the sprain/strain will be further aggravated by the heat. The last thing you want is a ride to hospital for traction.

     All you need is ice to reduce the swelling. Think of a lower back injury as if it were a sprained ankle. How would you handle that situation? That’s right – lie down and take the weight off it. Next, ice pack it, and then support it with an elastic wrap. Then a few hours later when you can walk trot down to the

chiropractor to have the joint adjusted and take the pressure off the nerve.

     You must have no exercise for ten days to three weeks — until the ligaments heal – then into the pool or whatever exercise your chiropractor recommends.

     A long car journey is an aggravation to chronic sciatica. The sitting position stretches the sacro-iliac joint and the repetitive movement of getting in and out of the car as you stop to look at something or to visit the toilet, brings the irritated sciatic nerve to screaming point. Consequently I hear about many people’s holidays first hand as I treat their sciatic pain after a long trip.

     The first thing you should do is lie down and take the stretch off the pelvic joint. Put a pillow under the troubled leg to release the tension over the joint.

     Don’t heat the joint if the pain is radiating into the thigh, knee or ankle. Ice it for ten minutes every hour till the pain subsides. The next morning you will be able to walk to the toilet, get dressed, move your body to your chiropractor’s couch!

     If possible, let the sweeping and vacuum cleaning be done by another member of the family. Or you will injure yourself again. Don’t become depressed because ‘it never seems to heal’. Just do the right thing and be patient.

     Sitting is often the wrong thing to do. Watching TV while recuperating will aggravate the condition – that low lounge chair wrecks your lower back every time. Can’t someone make furniture that supports our spines?

     If you are elderly and your back injury occurred many years ago, this does not mean that you cannot be helped. So much depends on the cause of the problem and on the condition of the joints needing therapy. The skeleton needs gentle handling at any time, but more so when the frame has taken a lot of stress over the years.

     Osteopathic work is always available to you no matter what your age. All muscles can be gently ‘untangled’ to improve their circulation and assist the drainage of tried muscles. Fibrositis can be massaged away to restore the stretch necessary for movement.

     Acupuncture and moxibustion easily attract warmth and relaxation to the area, and are valuable tools when relieving sciatica. We can help cramps and coldness in the leg. Many a seventy-year-old has told me that this was their first massage and they were sorry they had waited so long.

     Chiropractic also has specific adjusting techniques for the frail, the young and the frightened.

     Mrs Mac’s story-I’m a woman in my eighties and had been incapacitated with a painful thigh and hip for two years. My doctor said it was a bit of rheumatism that comes with old age and gave me something to rub in with some tablets to take. I’ve got so many tablets now that I rattle.

     Well I suffered with it for over two years till I came to Sydney to visit my daughter and she took me along to see her chiropractor. I was very nervous about this as my doctor had advised me not to have anything to do with them at my age.

     But my daughter insisted, so I went along. I was surprised at how gently I was handled. I was told that I had twisted my leg somehow. I remembered that one day several weeks before the trouble started I had jumped up quickly from my rather low lounge chair. I had a twinge in my hip for a while then I forgot about it.

     Anyway, my leg and hip were worked on and I was assured that nothing had to be ‘clicked’, especially at my age. In three treatments I was so much better that I could get to sleep without pain. I have so many things I want to do at my age. I am glad that the pain does not interfere with my bowls now.

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