Many people are trying to stay healthy with as few pharmaceutical drugs as possible. Luckily there are many natural herbal health products available to help with a multitude of ailments. You should always research any supplement you are thinking of taking. Some may have adverse reactions or side effects that are unpleasant or detrimental to your health. Whether you are trying to boost your immune system or improve your mood, your local drugstore or health store should have a variety of supplements on hand. Here are a few of the more popular herbal supplements and what they are used to treat: • Bilberry can help improve visual acuity and is an excellent antioxidant that strengthens capillaries and collagen. • Dong Quai can help relieve menstrual disorders and menstrual cramps. It is also used to relieve menopausal symptoms. • Echinacea is used to stimulate the immune system with anti-inflammatory, antiviral and antibacterial effects. • Feverfew is used for migraine headache prevention and for arthritis, rheumatic diseases and allergies. • Fish Oil Caps supply omega-6 fatty acid DHA and EPA, which can help reduce cholesterol and triglyceride levels. • Ginger is used widely as an anti-nauseant. Many pregnant women take ginger to help relieve morning sickness. • Ginkgo Biloba is used as an antioxidant and circulatory stimulant. It is widely used to help improve memory. • Ginseng is used to improve physical and cognitive performance as well as enhance the mood. • Kava Kava is used as a sedative and muscle relaxant. It is often used to help ease anxiety. • Licorice Root is used for gastric and duodenal ulcers. • Ma Huang is used in weight loss and energy products and has a powerful stimulant effect; however, more than 800 adverse reactions were reported to the FDA. • Melatonin regulates many hormones involved in controlling the circadian rhythm. It is used for jet lag, insomnia and seasonal affective disorder. • St. John’s Wort is used as a mild anti-depressant and sedative. • Valerian relieves anxiety, nervousness and insomnia. • Vitamin E is used in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease, cancer and age-related degenerative diseases. The list of herbal supplements is endless. It is very important to take your health seriously and discuss any conditions you may have with your doctor. Some conditions will require pharmaceutical drugs and/or medical intervention. However, there is a vast area of herbal supplements that may help you in one or more areas of your health. Always talk to a doctor and be aware of side effects. Just as drugs affect people differently, natural herbs may have different reactions as well.

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After a number of requests from the UK, Australia, and other English-speaking but more-standardized countries, I’ve finally (sorry!) updated my medical calculations website to be friendly to the rest of the world. Introducing MDCalc version 2.0, now with a quick way to select either US or SI units. Once I get a few volunteers that use SI units regularly to just triple-check my work (I’ve already double-checked it), the SI site will be come the new full-fledged site.

It’s been fun to create and update the site—I’ve received great suggestions and feedback from residents, med students, and docs from around the globe. Please send me your comments and feedback, either through the contact form or in this post!

Shoot, all your wonderful comments were getting marked as spam, and the email address I setup to get them from was working. I think we’re fixed again. Thanks for reading—and writing!

I just got some requests for information on how to prep for the Boards (Step 1), so I figured I’d supply this to all you new second- and first-years. (If you’re a first year and you’re already prepping for the Boards, you’re a gunner. But the Boards books are really useful for getting through second year Path, Pharm, Micro, and Phys, so I’d buy these before I start any of those classes.) A note of warning: these will definitely help you prepare for boards, and will also help you prepare for your classes, by helping organize information and provide mnemonics, but likely won’t be in-depth enough for you to ace your class’s final exam.

Your bible: First Aid for the USMLE Step 1. You will, essentially, compile all information from every other board review book into this one. (This one already has a ton of information.) You will study from this every day. You will memorize every word of every page of this book. And if you do, you will probably do okay on the Boards. It has some good mnemonics you won’t find elsewhere, and some people say if you start studying from it from day 1 of med school, you’ll be better off, but I didn’t really use it until I started studying for Boards. I’d hold out until 2nd year to buy it, as you can get the latest edition, which has been updated for what the authors have learned about the previous year’s board exam and its subject material. Expert tip: go to Kinko’s, get the binding cut off, three hole-punch it and throw it in a binder. Much easier to study with. Example pages with my chicken scratch everywhere:

If you buy any other review books, make them BRS Pathology and BRS Physiology. I don’t think I could have handled the sheer amount of information in med school without these two books. They’re essentially bullet points of every body system and disease. They help you organize the information in your head, and give you the really high-yield facts you’ve gotta know. I think most, if not all of our class owned a copy of each. They’re that good.

Because Developmental Biology just sucks monkey balls, you’ll want a copy of High-Yield Embryology for yourself.

The rest of my suggestions, you can really just get used, or get a group of friends together and share. Pharm and Biochem were big challenges for me, and I really liked Lippincott’s for both of them—very complete, and very easy to read: Lippincott’s Illustrated Reviews Pharmacology and Lippincott’s Illustrated Reviews Biochemistry.

Finally, the rest of the High-Yield series are good short reviews, but not worth buying full price. Borrow from a friend or get them used.

And then there’s always the question of the dreaded, way-too-expensive Kaplan Q-Bank. I used it, probably everyone in my class used it. It’s not necessary, but I guess I have to recommend it. It gives you an insane number of questions, and does a number of things:

• Forces you to practice taking computer tests.
• Forces you to get used to not knowing the answer. (There are a ton of really random questions in Qbank that are totally minutae and worthless, but as a med student, it’s good to practice not freaking out when you have no freaking CLUE as to the answer to like 5 questions in a row.)
• Helps you get really good at eliminating bad answers and guessing.
• Gives you some feedback on what sections you are doing okay at and what sections you need more work on.

So there’s my little Boards talk.

Oh, and one more thing: Make a calendar for yourself and stick to it! Give yourself breaks during the day, and reward yourself: “If I finish this section today, I’ll go get a Frappacino,” or “I’ll go to the gym,” or whatever you like doing. And give yourself the illusion of choice. Sure, you have to study for 10-12 hours a day for weeks on end, but ask yourself, “Hmm, do I want to study in the library today or the study lounge?” So many choices. It makes it more fun tolerable. Really.

My poor little mother….how horrifying it must have been to have her first born child reject her own mother’s milk. She had dreamed about having her first baby since she was a small girl. It would be such a wonderfully nourishing experience to hold her new born child while suckling her breast. What normal mother has not enjoyed these fantasies about child birth? She was so young and delicate and naive. I had been a most difficult birth. She, of course, had wanted to deliver me in the most natural way, but the doctors had to resort to cesarean section. She was in a much weakened condition when we left the hospital. The very first time that she breast fed me, I screamed with great pain, pursed my little red face and spewed sour milk all over the room, rejecting that precious natural gift of love. She tried over and over again to feed me. I was an eight pound baby boy and was ravenously hungry. She was all alone and desperately afraid for my well being. WW2 was just ending and my father, who was in the Coast Guard, was stationed five hundred miles away, in Florida. Lucky for both of us, my great uncle Everett was a pediatrician. He knew exactly what to do. He instructed my mother how to correctly prepare Cream of Wheat for a new born child. It had to be cooked in a double boiler for at least two hours in order for it to be soft enough for an infant to digest. My mother said that when she fed me that Cream of Wheat, I smiled for the very first time. I did grow out of my acid reflux condition. By the age of two, I had no symptoms at all. In fact, I was gerd free for more than thirty years. But something changed and I started gradually suffering from indigestion again. It happened to me after a particularly stressful period in my life. I had become an accomplished cook and consequently I was eating food that was far too rich with fat. I had also become somewhat of a wine aficionado, as well. The combination of the stress, food and wine simply did me in. At first, I would drink baking soda dissolved in water and try to regurgitate, when heartburn became overwhelming. After resorting to this too many times, I realized that I had developed a hiatal hernia. This, of course, compounded the situation. My doctor scolded me and prescribed antacids. Little did I know at the time that antacids contain more aluminum than even baking soda. I then graduated to proton pump inhibitor drugs (PPI). My doctor prescribed Prilosec. It was truly incredible. I could eat anything that I wanted and never have indigestion. It was a cook’s dream come true! I was the American Dream personified â€" a person who could abuse their body and never feel the pain or inconvenience of doing so. Everything was going along just hunky dory until one night, after a particularly huge French dinner in New York City; I had an atrocious case of acid reflux. I was abruptly awakened from a deep slumber by the acute pain of acid regurgitating from my mouth onto the bed linens. I was horrified. I was three days old again and in pain. This couldn’t be happening to me! I went back to the doctor and he told me to double the dosage. After two months of this, I became increasingly worse. I realized that the PPI drug was not working anymore. I did some research and found out that you are only supposed to take these drugs for eight weeks at the most. I had been taking them for years with my doctor’s approval. After further investigation I found that there are hundreds of potentially harmful side effects associated with PPI drugs. I was very confused as to what to do. My doctor said that surgery was the only answer, at this point. He also advised me that this surgery was not always effective and was very dangerous. The procedure is called fundoplication, which entails removing the damaged part of the esophagus and attaching the remaining section to the stomach. That did it. I was now determined to find a natural way to beat this terrible condition. It wasn’t easy, but after a great deal of research and experimentation, I did cure myself. I talked to everyone I could find who knew anything about the subject. I read hundreds of books and articles. I scoured the internet for new breaking information. I tried every method I could find; herbs, tonics, special foods, plant extracts, exercises, Chinese formulas, yoga, and meditation â€" you name it and I tried it! I finally found the correct combination of items and methods. They were all safe and natural. I was astounded to discover how easy it really was to actually cure acid reflux. Herbs like marshmallow and slippery elm not only have a soothing affect on the throat and esophagus, but aid in the healing process. Certain meditations actually can alter the PH factor of the body. Plants like ginger and licorice can reduce the acid in your stomach, naturally. The list goes on and on. I now live a normal life with healthy eating habits and I don’t depend on harmful drugs. So, you see, I will not carry acid reflux to the grave. Had I listened to my doctor, I would probably already be there. I would encourage anyone not to resort to drug therapy or surgery, but to explore the natural possibilities that can be used to cure the acid reflux condition. © 2006 Wind Publishing For more information on how to heal acid reflux the natural way, go to: http://www.refluxgoneforever.com

Charles Stewart Richey is a self-educated expert on how to cure acid reflux disease by natural means and has written an extensive report entitled, REFLUX GONE FOREVER, Natural Acid Reflux Remedies. For more information on how to heal acid reflux the natural way, go to: <A HREF="http://www.refluxgoneforever.com" target=_blank>http://www.refluxgoneforever.com</A>