Okay, this is no time to be yawning and pining away for a nap. Christmas is a high-energy holiday season and if you snooze, you lose.

You want to savor every moment of the season but . . for some reason you’re tired?

Don’t be alarmed. Time does that to a body.

I’ve noticed a trend in recent years among grandparents – they’re exercising more and eating better. Why? Many of them say they want to be around to enjoy their grandkids. More importantly, they want to be healthy so they can do active things with the kids.

Makes sense to me.

Christmas is a good time to start thinking healthy because that’s when kids are the most excited and energetic. If your body isn’t up to par then you’ll be napping during the gift unwrapping.

Scientists worldwide have studied aging and age reversal since the invention of the laboratory. As you already suspect, the human body sometimes doesn’t age too well.

Growing old is the price of living a longer life. Feeling old is the price of not living right.

So, where is your body at right now? Are you “older” or “younger” than your chronological age?

Youth, as they say, is relative. For a while, we feel invincible – almost immortal.

Then, deterioration creeps up on us like an invisible mist. We suddenly feel aches and pains that weren’t there yesterday. We forget things. We sleep less. We forget things.

There it is: we’re AGING!

The bad news is that there is no magic cure for old age . . . yet.

The good news, however, is that there are many ways to feel younger by using natural products from plants with antioxidants, such as red wine-derived resveratrol and its analogues.

These analogues mimic several of the biochemical effects of calorie restriction that promotes longevity. Look at it this way: your body is like an internal combustion engine. You burn calories for energy. The more calories you burn, the more wear and tear on your internal systems. When your caloric intake is more balanced, your body appreciates it.

Flavenoid antioxidants also have positive physiological effects on your brain, your mitochondria, and your central nervous system (Miquel, 2002). Your mind remains sharp, you have more energy, and all systems are “Go.”

Herbs also have antioxidant properties. Brain-specific nutrients such as choline and taurine may improve your memory.

Before I forget to say it, memory loss is often a byproduct of aging. Neuron damage is caused by a number of chemicals and poisons in our diets and in our surrounding environment.

There is good news here, however. When rats ate the essential oil of thyme, they showed significant age-related improvement, due to overall antioxidant activity from polyphenols distilled from the herb (Youdim, 1999).

Experiments have proven that rats can live longer lives, with improved brain capacity, and better heart and liver functions. Data suggests that antioxidants and the proper balance of fatty acids may have a beneficial effect on many other age-related diseases, such as cancer, dementia, and certain diseases of the eyes, such as macular degeneration and cataracts.

Essential oils have also shown benefits to the aged who suffer dementia.

At The Mattie C. Hall Health Care Center in Akin, South Carolina, staff monitored residents for signs and symptoms observed during the use of essential oils for weight gain or loss; disruptive, combative, or resistive behaviors; and the need for prescriptions medications.

The staff used simple methods to dispense the oils, such as spray bottles (hydrosols), compresses, bathwater, nebulizers, diffusers, and massage. Remarkably, both abnormal loss of weight and the need for medications to control bad behaviors decreased dramatically.

As the number of elderly people living in extended-care nursing facilities and hospice settings rises, the role of aromatherapy and berry fruit juice therapy could be instrumental in treating and alleviating the signs and symptoms of aging, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease (Campbell, 2001).

The stress of aging – and oxidative stress in particular – profoundly alters physiology.

Growing areas of interesting research identify herbal remedies for disorders of attention span, perception, memory, and decision-making (Gold, 2001).

The body’s inability to cope with stress and aging could be partly due to a diet low in vitamins, minerals, trace elements, and antioxidants.

Live well and enjoy the holiday season. A healthier you will make it a happier New Year and that’s the best present you can give yourself and your family this Christmas.

Maybe you don’t need to be the life of the party anymore but you don’t want to be napping during the unwrapping either.

Merry Christmas from the oilMD

Dr. James L. Geiger

There is no shortage of emotions when your child is sick. Especially in light of the recent statistics documenting the increased trend in this point of the pandemic of deaths of children from Swine Flu. Although the CDC has verified that the deaths were among children with serious chronic illnesses like diabetes, asthma and immune compromised patients, that is not comforting to parents of well children. Nonetheless, during this H1N1 Swine flu pandemic there are pre-existing conditions which the CDC has identified and publicized which must be considered when making medical care decisions for special groups, such as pregnant women, children and the elderly. These emotions and conditions may generate considerable questions which must be answered by the patient’s parents and doctor prior to initiating any treatment.That process is known as obtaining  informed consent.

A virus does not need consent to infect a child but a doctor must obtain the informed consent of the parent or guardian in order to vaccinate a child or initiate treatment for an infected child.

What constitutes informed consent?

According to the FDA, it is the process of obtaining a patient’s permission for a procedure after the patient and doctor have discussed the risks, benefits, and alternatives of the procedure and the patient understand them.

For example, as an anesthesiologist, the process of obtaining informed consent prior to surgery involves a discussion of both allopathic and integrative medical methods of administering an anesthetic. Intravenous medications such as propofol and inhaled anesthetic gases are administered to keep a patient asleep throughout surgery. A potential anesthetic complication often discussed before surgery is the patient’s fear of having nausea and vomiting while  recovering from anesthesia. I obtain consent to use essential oil of ginger as an integrative medicine technique as well as intravenous medications like ondansetron, to prevent and treat post-op nausea and vomiting (PONV).

The topics surrounding the  Swine flu pandemic are so complex and emotions are so high during this season of national debate on health care reform, that one would be  hard-pressed to say they are truly informed . Especially, when you are in line of people waiting to get immunized by a caregiver at a  minute clinic. Our government has spokespeople saying the flu vaccinations are necessary and safely tested. Some lawgivers have written into law that all health care providers must be vaccinated. There are numerous opponents making claims otherwise.

Say your doctor recommends the live, attenutated virus intranasal vaccine (LAIV),  for your child. Are you one of the 27% of parents who say they will not allow their child to be vaccinated?  Are you informed enough to ask the doctor if the vaccine will harm an unborn child if my child sheds virus for the next 21 days around me? Is the clinic where you are seeking treatment aware that your child has asthma and is therefore not a recommended candidate for FluMist? If your child gets a complications of the vaccine are you aware  that the manufacturer is protected from lawsuits. You can apply for government assistance to cover the added medical expenses if it is determined that the complications are indeed from the vaccine.

What is a person to do? Do your due diligence. Seek help using online digital triage.

Be as informed as you possibly can while adopting safe practices. Besides watching Sesame Street videos with your kids to teach them the proper techniques of sneezing and handwashing, one could adopt natural methods of boosting immunity. Using food as your medicine, consider that mangosteen, acai, garlic, olive, onion, ginger, echinacea, cat’s claw, shiitake & maitake & reishi mushrooms, lomatium dissectum, lemon balm, St John’s wart, vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc and probiotics are known traditional remedies with anti-viral and immune boosting function.

Have you heard of Inhalational Therapy? Then stay tuned. Breathing the vapors of essential oils distilled from plants is wonderful.

Be proactive and stay informed.

The oilMD

James Tad Geiger MD

It seems that nowadays, people will do anything to get high to ease the stresses of everyday modern life and some even die trying.

Soldiers are getting high on DUST-OFF, the massively available deadly cure for war zone stress.

Kids are also huffing to escape stress and just want to get high.

Incredibly, huffers are literally dying to get high and it’s not clear whether they know or even care about the deadly consequences of huffing.

Tragically, it’s now happening all over the world, including your own neighbourhood and, incredibly, the cause of death is often caused by something almost all of us have in our own homes: common household products.

These everyday cleaning products are actually vehicles for chemicals that deprive the brain and the body of oxygen, causing Sudden Sniffing Death Syndrome.

Death comes quickly in just five frighteningly simple steps:

1) A person (child) picks a product to inhale like DUST-OFF, household sprays or glues.

2) The person inhales the vapors.

3)  S/he experiences nausea, slurred speech,dizziness,headache,disorientation.

4)  S/he becomes unconscious, stops breathing and suffers cardiac arrest.

5)  Death.

One time is all it takes. It is that serious.

So why does it happen?

DUST-OFF contains difluroethane.Trading chemicals for oxygen in the lungs, heart and brain is deadly.

The History of Volatile Aromatic Anesthesia

In 1929, William Allen published an article about inhalation reflexes in man when using essential oils of wintergreen, clove, orange, rose, lavender, bergamot, eucalyptus, and mustard, plus the chemicals butyric acid, menthol, camphor, xylol, benzol, formalin, ammonia, and chloroform.  The  vapors of the essential oils were pleasantly pungent but the common household chemicals were terribly irritating to the airways. Interestingly, Allen describes an inhibitory respiratory reflex reaction obtained during inhalation of each agent’s vapors on unanesthetized and anesthetized subjects that is akin to the olfactory trigeminal reflex known in rabbits.

This implies oropharyngeal absorption of the vapors of essential oils and other chemical compounds affecting the chemosensory ability of cranial nerves. The oral-pharyngeal nervous tissue absorption of the vapor of anesthetic agents as well as vapors of essential oils is significant but not well-quantified. Cranial nerves 5, 7, and 9, the trigeminal, facial, and hypoglossal, all have nerve endings intimately related to the tongue, posterior tongue, anterior tongue, back of the throat, and trachea. Huffing vapors affects these nerves too.

Modern Aromatics

Understanding how general anesthetic drugs work is the lifelong pursuit of Dr. Edmond Eger. In 2006 he completed a landmark study using eight aromatic benzene-like compounds (benzene, fluorobenzene, o-difluorobenzene, p-difluorobenzene, 1,2,4-trifluorobenzene, 1,3,5-trifluorobenzene, pentafluorobenzene, and hexafluorobenzene) and found that these aromatic compounds produce immobility in the face of noxious stimulation by blocking the action of glutamate on the NMDAreceptor.

The eight conventional anesthetic agents (cyclopropane, desflurane, enflurane, halothane, isoflurane, nitrous oxide, sevoflurane, and xenon), which include those used every day in the operating room to induce anesthesia (sevoflurane, isoflurane, and desflurane), did not block movement in the face of noxious stimulation by that same NMDA receptor. One point of the studies by Allen and Eger, published ninety years apart, is that the phytomolecules from the essential oils from plants are similar to other aromatic compounds that induce various types of anesthesia, possibly through similar mechanisms.

Anesthesia is safe because supplemental oxygen is given and vital signs are maintained.  Huffing is deadly.

This post and my book is dedicated to all members of Armed Forces of the United States.

Dr Geiger

the oilMD