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NO MORE HEADACHES
NO MORE MIGRAINES
A Proven Approach to Preventing
Headaches and Migraines
by
Zuzana Bic, Dr.P.H., and L. Francis Bic, Ph.D.
ABOUT THE BOOK
No More Headaches, No More Migraines begins with an insightful history of headaches, explores the different types of headaches that people experience, and looks at the shortcomings of existing treatments. Following this information, you'll learn about the biochemical imbalances in the body that have been linked to headaches, as well as the lifestyle factors that can cause these imbalances to occur. Highlighted is the pioneering Loma Linda University study--a study that demonstrated a strong connection between high-fat diets and migraine headaches. Most important, No More Headaches, No More Migraines provides practical guidelines and proven strategies for relieving headaches through a new approach, called lifestyle modification, to treating headaches.
Recurring headaches are often the result of a larger problem, which may be caused by a multitude of lifestyle factors. If these problems are ignored, your body's natural defense mechanisms may become exhausted and leave you susceptible to other, seemingly unrelated, chronic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, or coronary heart disease. By finding and eliminating the causes of headaches, you will improve your immediate quality of life. But you will also decreases the risk of developing much more serious conditions that could await you many years down the road.
If you have been searching
for relief from pain of headaches and migraines, No More Headaches,
No More Migraines offers a fresh perspective and an amazingly simple
solution. You have nothing to lose--except your headaches.
SPECIAL HIGHLIGHTS
The Loma Linda University Study
During 1994-96, researcher at Loma Linda University's School of Public Health in California conducted a clinical study to determine whether a low-fat, high-complex-carbohydrate diet could alleviate migraine headaches. The outcome of the experiment surpassed even the most optimistic expectations: |
nearly all patients (94%) reported a significant improvement (at least a 40%) in their headaches |
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approximately half the patients were almost completely headache-free |
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the average headache frequency, intensity, duration, and medication intake decreased by around 70% |
These results were published in the scientific literature (Medical Hypotheses, January 1998, and Journal of Women's Health & Gender-Based Medicine, June 1999). But since the improvements were so dramatic, a number of popular magazines (Glamour, Men's Health, Women's Health Today, Allure, and many others), as well as national radio and TV stations, featured articles, reports, and interview on these new findings.
The Loma Linda University was the first step toward a new systematic way of treating headaches using lifestyle modification to reduce blood-fat levels (blood lipids and free fatty acids) and to restore the natural biochemical balances of the body necessary to prevent headaches.
To read more about
this poineering study, click on:
Migraine
Headache Study
Lifestyle Modification Strategies
The approach advocated in this book is based on the findings of the above Loma Linda University study. In addition to providing new insights into the headache problem, the book describes specific techniques and strategies that can easily be incorporated into the busy daily routine of a working person. These will bring about gradual lifestyle changes necessary to reverse headache without medication or other conventional medicine treatments. There are three specific areas of lifestyle modification:The first and most important is balanced nutrition, which includes a wide variety of foods containing low fat, low refined sugars, high complex carbohydrates, and proper ratios of omega-6 to omega-3 fats. However, unlike many other nutrition-based approaches to headache treatment, this book does not advocate "elimination diets" or other treatments based on forbidding the consumption of certain types of foods or nutrients. Rather, it will teach you specific techniques and strategies to achieve a gradual change in your dietary preferences, leading to a voluntary shift in taste toward healthier nutrition, without any perceived deprivation.
The second area of lifestyle modification is physical activity. The book explains the negative influence of a sedentary lifestyle on the occurrence of headaches and teach you how to improve physical well being. The techniques are designed to gradually include additional physical tasks and exercises in your daily routine, without requiring strong will power to overcome an aversion toward any systematic exercise.
The third area of lifestyle modification is devoted to understanding the negative long-term effects of stress on your health and its connection with headache. The most important realization is that stress is to a great extent a matter of perception. While eliminating the actual stress triggers from the environment may be beyond your control, there are techniques that can be used effectively to reduce the impact of such triggers on your state of mind. These also tend to improve sleep, which has been shown to be an important factor in controlling headaches.
Headache as a Warning Signal
Pain is something we automatically label as negative. Yet pain is one of the most important mechanisms that protects us from injury and harm. We automatically try to avoid any pain. A child that touches something hot will immediately and instinctively remove her hand from the heat source. She also learns to avoid making the mistake of touching hot things again in the future. Unfortunately, headache is a pain whose origins are not immediately obvious. We don't know how to prevent it and we learn nothing from it for the future.Recurrent headaches are a signal that you are suffering from some physiological imbalances, most likely related to your lifestyle. Headaches occur most frequently and with the greatest severity in people under the age of forty-five. And it is at this age that many other chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and many others, begin to become apparent. Since the various lifestyle factors that cause headaches are the same as those causing such chronic diseases, headaches can be seen as early warning signs of possible future diseases.
As a direct consequence,
preventing headache using appropriate lifestyle modifications will not
only reduce the immediate suffering resulting from the headaches but will
also greatly reduce the risks of developing other chronic diseases in the
future.
HOW TO GET THE BOOK
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Through
book stores and health food stores. Ask for:
No More Headaches, No More Migraines by Z. Bic and L.F. Bic, Penguin Putnam Publishing, New York, 1999, $11.95, ISBN: 0-89529-924-0 |
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Through
the Internet--just click on: Amazon.com
or |
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
L. Francis Bic
holds a Ph.D. in Information and Computer Science. For the past twenty
years he has been a professor at the University
of California, Irvine, where he teaches and carries out research in
the area of biomedical computing. He is the author of several books and
over 100 other scientific publications.
PRIVATE HEADACHE CONSULTATIONS
Private headache consultations based on the above approach are offered
by the first author, Zuzana Bic, Dr. of Public Health.
To find out about the services provided, please visit: Lifestyle Medicine Over the Phone
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