Potassium

Q.I was raised to believe that a daily bowel movement is essential for good health. If we couldn't go, we had to have an enema, which was terribly embarrassing.Now that I am older I sometimes need a laxative to get things moving. I recently heard an ad on the radio touting the benefits of an herbal product for inner cleansing. It contains a lot of things, including aloe vera, cascara sagrada and senna.A natural laxative should be safe, but the label said to check with your doctor if you have a medical condition.

Q. My husband takes DHEA because he thinks it keeps his skin from damaging easily. Without it, a slight bump or putting his hands in his pockets can cause bleeding abrasions.He works outdoors in the Florida sun and won't wear sunscreen. He is 54, very slim (no body fat), tanned (blond), smokes but is otherwise healthy.Since taking DHEA for a year, he has developed erectile dysfunction. When he stopped DHEA for a month, that problem disappeared, but the skin fragility returned, so he resumed DHEA.

A simple, inexpensive treatment that could be used successfully by low-technology hospitals worldwide can dramatically reduce the number of deaths caused by heart attacks, researchers report today.In the United States, the treatment, which involves giving the patient a mixture of sugar, insulin and potassium to nourish heart muscles deprived of oxygen by a heart attack, might prevent about 75,000 heart attacks a year, the new research indicates.The treatment was first devised in the 1960s, but was then discarded because poorly conducted clinical tests led doctors to doubt that it worked.

With the widow of slain Baltimore police Officer Vincent Adolfo watching through the window of the sealed death chamber, Flint Gregory Hunt was executed this morning by lethal injection, ending his legal odyssey to avoid becoming the first man in Maryland to die against his will since 1961.The execution also ended a torturous 12 years for the family, friends and fellow police officers of Adolfo, who was gunned down at age 25 after he spotted Hunt running from a stolen Cadillac in a Baltimore alley on Nov. 18, 1985.

Did you ever eat a whole pint of strawberries all by yourself? Cathy did, and it saved the day.She called me at work to say she was starving and wanted to indulge in some diet-breaking treat. I suggested, instead, that she walk to the store and stop at the produce department instead of the cookie aisle.It worked. Succulent strawberries were too tempting to pass up. And eating them all was a complete indulgence instead of a diet deprivation. Best of all, she ended the day feeling virtuous instead of guilty, and that helped keep her diet on track.

A SAD COROLLARY to having your parents die before their time is all the things you don't get to ask them: questions of philosophy and genealogy, and how their own experience relates to what we see and read and assume about the aging process.It's quite possible that I wouldn't have asked the questions, had my parents lived longer, but I sure wanted my mom in the middle of the night last week, when I discovered leg cramps . . . or they discovered me.I'd have awakened her to ask if they run in the family, could they conceivably get any worse than what I was feeling that night and, if she'd had them, how come she'd never said anything?

You've waited all year for this moment.Through the winter, while your garden patch slumbered under a quilt of pine straw. Through the spring, when it finally got warm enough to plant a feathery sprout that would surely never get big enough to hold up a butterfly, much less a full-grown Best Boy.You tapped your knife and loosened the lid on the mayonnaise jar while the yellow blooms appeared and slowly swelled into green Ping-Pong balls.And then -- is that a patch of red, peeking from the tangle of summer growth?

Q: For many years I have been treated with hydrochlorothiazide for high blood pressure. I am concerned now because a newspaper article mentioned that the use of this drug is associated with an increased risk of sudden death. Should I ask my doctor to prescribe a different medicine?A: Hydrochlorothiazide (frequently referred to as HCTZ) is one of the thiazide diuretics that is often effective in the treatment of heart failure and hypertension. The thiazides work by promoting the output of salt and water by the kidneys.

I'm going grocery shopping for my garden. It may take severa trips; I'm running low on staples. The potting shed is bare of basics like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium -- the agricultural equivalent of bread, milk and toilet paper.My soil is hungry, and I must feed it.This is no easy task. Certainly it is more arduous than a trip to the grocery store. When I shop for myself, I take coupons and checkbook. When I shop for the garden, I take pitchfork and pickup.When the garden's tummy starts growling, I don't go to the farmer's market.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer left Johns Hopkins Hospita yesterday after a 25-hour stay in the coronary care unit, saying he had merely been feeling dizzy as a side effect of his blood pressure medication."

Can I transplant my dogwood while it is blooming? I planted it too close to the house two years ago, but it is flourishing. Dogwoods are forest understory trees, so choose a new location that is at least part shade. Spring is the time to transplant your dogwood, but wait until the soil is workable, i.e. dry enough that a ball of soil squeezed in your hand will crumble when you bounce it. Working with soggy soil that contains a high percentage of clay could turn it into cement. When you transplant your dogwood, prepare the transplant hole ahead of time.

My 81-year-old mom is currently prescribed allopurinol to prevent gout, enalapril and labetalol for high blood pressure, metformin for diabetes, Plavix to thin her blood, Zocor to control cholesterol, plus extra magnesium and potassium (Klor-Con). She exhibits confusion, symptoms of dementia and dizziness, and has fallen several times. I think these medications may be excessive, and at this stage, some may even be counterproductive. Opinion? Your mother's medicines could be having an impact on her overall health.

With flu season and the MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) staph infection upon us, we are urged to wash our hands frequently, usually "with warm, soapy water." My memories of Bacteriology 101 aren't clear, but I can't recall that warm water kills anything. Soapsuds, on the other hand, do carry nasty things away. Is there any science behind the "warm water" suggestion? You are absolutely right that warm water is no more effective than cold for removing germs. Soap and water don't kill germs, but only wash them off the surface of the skin.

Figures protest domestic violence The Harford County Chapter of Silent Witness Initiative will display human figures, to represent people killed as a result of domestic violence, at various locations during October for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Free-standing, wooden figures will be unveiled today at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 2515 Churchville Road, Churchville; and Deer Creek Harmony Presbyterian Church, Route 161 at Harmony Church Road, Darlington. Each figure represents a woman, man or child in the local community who was killed as the result of domestic violence.

Residents who live or work within 10 miles of the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant can acquire potassium iodide to keep at their home or business by attending either of two sessions planned by the Harford County Health Department. The sessions will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Oct. 6 at North Harford Middle School, 112 Pylesville Road, Pylesville. After those dates, potassium iodide may be obtained by calling 410-638-8476. Potassium iodide helps protect the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine, which might be released in the event of a radiation emergency.

Is there any adverse interaction between Lipitor and pomegranate juice? I know there is a problem with grapefruit juice and Lipitor and wondered whether there could be a similar problem with other tart juices. I have been reading that pomegranate juice is very beneficial, but I take Lipitor, so I thought I should check first. Grapefruit affects drug metabolism and leads to higher levels of many medicines, including Lipitor. As a result, Lipitor may be more likely to cause side effects.

My husband hates wearing a coat in the winter. Unless it is freezing and blowing, he mostly throws on a flannel shirt over a turtleneck. Forget hat, gloves or boots. He's had one bad cold already and is still taking a lot of cough medicine. He insists that catching a cold has nothing to do with getting cold outside. Please settle this argument. For years, science supported your husband's side of the battle. There was no evidence that getting chilled led people to catch colds, and the connection was dubbed an old wives' tale.

Steven Munger knows all about your sweet tooth. As a neurobiologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, he explores how sweeteners tickle your tongue in his search for treatments for obesity and eating disorders. One elusive goal - and a potentially lucrative one for many food scientists - is an artificial, low-calorie sweetener that really tastes like sugar. "It's the sort of thing that would be worth millions," said Manfred Kroger, a retired Penn State food science professor and flavor expert.

I'd like to flatten my belly, but I was always told that doing sit-ups builds the stomach muscles, so that area stays kind of thick. I want mine to be perfectly flat (no flab, and no extra muscle). What's the best way to achieve this? First, let's dispel this sit-up myth. Crunches will not bulk up your abdominal region. The opposite is true. Working your ab muscles will only firm up the area, making it appear trimmer. Combine crunches with calorie-burning cardio (to work off the layer of fat over the muscles)

I am in the construction industry and have to deal with all kinds of weather. I am also an emergency medical technician with 18 years of experience. On July 19, I "died." Fortunately for me, I was with co-workers when I passed out with no vital signs. They immediately started CPR while waiting for the on-site medics to arrive. The medical team had a defibrillator, and I was resuscitated within a few minutes. When I arrived at the hospital, my potassium level was critically low. The temperature in the facility that day was over 109 degrees.