Pickle juice for leg cramps!

I used to get leg cramps at night. To combat this problem, I took a daily mineral supplement containing magnesium, sodium, potassium, calcium and other minerals. It did the job nicely, but I hated taking the pills. They are big and rough. I am a terrible pill swallower and have problems even with small pills such as aspirin. (I know: the problem is psychological.) After a while, I quit taking the pills with no ill effects. For years, the cramps didn’t resume—until recently.

I remembered reading something about drinking pickle juice to stop leg cramps. The next time I got a cramp in the middle of the night, I opened a jar of pickles, and took a couple of big swigs. The cramps didn’t return that night. Because this could have been coincidental, I tried some experiments. One night I would swig pickle juice before turning in and get no cramps. The next night, I’d not swallow the juice and would get a leg cramp, at which time I’d get up and go for it again. I tried variations of this pattern for about a week. Once I tried just eating a pickle, which seemed to work. 

I wasn't sure if there was a real cause and effect relationship in my experiment--whether the juice really worked. So I did some Google searches on this topic, mostly on runners sites. It turns out that quite a few scientific experiments proved that pickle juice does indeed help. First, researchers determined that it wasn’t the salt in the juice that did the trick. The latest thinking is that muscle cramps are caused by a glitch in the neuromuscular mechanism that usually keeps extreme muscle contraction in check. The muscles get stuck in an “on” position. The acidic quality of pickle juice triggers a reflex when it hits a nerve center on the back of the throat that sends a signal that shuts down the overactive neurons causing the cramp.

You can buy little bottles of pickle juice for just this purpose! Or  you can swig from the pickle jar, as I did.

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Maybe just let that skin cancer grow

After receiving the bill for Mohs surgery to remove two basal cell skin cancers on my face, I vowed I’d ignore new ones and let them grow. My portion of the bill was around $600. I was horrified. (In the Mohs type of treatment, the surgeon cuts away a bit at a time, checking between cuts to see if the edges are clean—that no cancer is left. If the edges are not clean, he or she cuts some more, and so forth.) The charge for each cut was about $1,200—even more horrifying. I thought that my surgeon might be more expensive than others because his practice is in a high-end community near Stanford. But I discovered that his charges were typical.

Having gone through this before, prior to the surgery I instructed the surgeon take “big hunks.” He said he followed my orders. Nevertheless, while the cancer on my forehead took only one cut, the one at my jaw line required three before the edges showed no more cancer.

Basal cell carcinoma is slow-growing. Knowing this, in my initial visit to my dermatologist for the biopsy on the suspicious growths, I asked about leaving the cancer alone. She said she thinks about this and has decided that if it looks like you’ve got five years of life left in you, you should have it done. In my case, she recommended that I have them removed (she does not do the surgery). But she told me about a man in his early 90's with dementia and in very poor health, who she counseled to not have the surgery. Now in his late 90's, he has an open sore on his leg.

I discussed this same topic with the surgeon. He agreed with the dermatologist but told the story of a woman in her 90's whose GP told her to forgo the surgery. At the age of 103, the woman complained that the sore on her foot made it impossible to wear her pumps. My surgeon removed the cancer.

I am too good at detecting the cancers. I can feel them when they’re tiny invisible bumps that the dermatologist can’t even see but which the biopsy proves are cancer. Now we’ll see if I have the nerve to ignore them.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

Should you go to the ER?

Apparently, Anthem insurance is refusing to pay some ER bills for visits it deems unnecessary, such as for the young man who felt a jolt of pain in his back when lifting a heavy box. At the ER the docs diagnosed his problem as a muscle strain and sent him home. His bill was $1,722. On the whole I agree with the new policy, called the “avoidable E.R. program.” The ER contributes a substantial portion to the nation’s enormous health costs. Many trips are unnecessary. But decision-making can be tricky.

Take my sister’s visit following a serious automobile accident. She reluctantly went to the ER on the advice of people on the scene but was sorry she did (see earlier post). After five hours, she was pronounced OK and was sent home. A next-day visit to her GP would have sufficed in her case.

In contrast, there’s my friend Janice who flipped her car upside down on one of our curvy mountain roads. She was hanging upside down from her seat belt. As in my sister’s case, she was advised to go to the ER, but she declined. A good decision. She was fine.

Then there’s the time I was standing on a chair outside washing windows. The chair toppled and I came down hard onto the patio pavers, landing on my elbow and hip. I concluded that I was OK and went about my business, although soon my elbow swelled up horribly and I found it hard to walk. So I went to the ER (husband drove). The docs quickly said my elbow was fine: my bursa simply filled with liquid. An x-ray of my hip also showed nothing broken. The pain in walking was surely a strained groin muscle. Thus, my trip was unnecessary. (But I was glad I went because the hip x-rays showed I have dense bones. Nice to know.)

Doctors and consumer groups are fighting this new policy, arguing that it forces patients to diagnose their own illnesses. Well, that’s not such a bad idea. I think we’re often good at knowing whether our health incident calls for emergency treatment—if we can just trust our instincts.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

Trans fats in the news again

The World Health Organization has issued a set of guidelines for eradicating trans fats from global food supplies by 2023. They argue that if adopted, some 10 million lives may be saved. I don’t usually care about food warnings, but in the case of trans fats, the warnings are warranted. (You may have thought that the U.S. had already banned trans fats. Actually, the ban doesn’t go into effect until this month.)

Trans fat is oil to which hydrogen has been added in a process called hydrogenation (or partial hydrogenation), turning the liquid oil into a solid like butter. Think Crisco. Baked goods, such as cookies and crackers, are (or were) commonly manufactured using trans fats. The term, trans, means “across,” and refers to the way in which the hydrogen atoms get rearranged in the fat molecule such that the liquid is turned into a solid. While this molecular change may seem trivial, its effect changes the fat’s capacity to bind to enzymes in your body, an effect with consequences for your health.

Trans fats compromise many bodily functions, including hormone synthesis, immune function, insulin metabolism, and tissue repair. They impair the structure and properties of cell membranes, especially those in crucial tissues such as the immune system and the brain. Trans fats are also dramatically increase a subclass of LDL cholesterol which is composed of small dense particles and is associated with an increased risk of heart disease. 

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Americans ate a negligible amount of trans fats. Beginning about the ‘50s, believing that saturated fats were implicated in heart disease, medical organizations, such as the American Heart Association, and government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration, urged Americans to abandon traditional fats, such as butter, in favor of trans fats, such as margarine.  Now the Harvard School of Public Health is saying that eliminating trans fats from the American diet would prevent 250,000 heart attacks and related deaths every year. (Denmark restricted trans fats in 2004; by 2010 the incidence of heart disease and related deaths dropped 60 percent.)

As frequently happens, the “experts” got it all wrong, probably because in dietary studies trans fats were lumped with animal (saturated) fats, skewing the results. Actually, Fred A. Kummerow, a professor at the University of Illinois, had spoken about about the dangers of trans fats, publishing his research as early as 1957. Not only was his work criticized, it was dismissed. Big mistake.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.