British Virgin Islands

Recently my wife and I traveled to the British Virgin Islands and spent 6 days on the island of Tortola. This was our first vacation away from the kids since we have been married (14 years). I do not know if it was the sunny weather, which averaged 82 degrees, or the island living but I can honestly say it was one of the most relaxing vacations I have ever spent. I wish I would have taken more pictures but the ones I have I will share and some of the neat places we were able to visit. Here is a little information I was able to dig up on the BVI’s and there will be more pictures to follow.

The British Virgin Islands located in the Northeastern Caribbean is an archipelago of 60 islands, cays and islets offering a myriad of holiday activities. Lodge at a beachside cottage or luxurious villa, an international hotel or a resort that is the last word in understated elegance. Snorkel with exotic fish on coral reefs. Scuba dive on the wrecks of sunken galleons. Relax amid lush vegetation in National Parks and botanic gardens. Or simply spend the day on a deserted beach where your only decision will be which palm tree to shade yourself under.

Tortola is the largest island, and home of the BVI’s capital Road Town. From the green slopes of Mount Sage to sheltered yacht filled harbours; Tortola offers hotels, luxury villas, beachside cottages and more. The island of Tortola offers a variety of exciting holiday possibilities.

Virgin Gorda home to The Baths and the third largest island in the chain, boosts steep vegetation-covered slopes that tumble down from Gorda Peak to deserted white beaches far below. Today’s discerning travellers are drawn to Virgin Gorda for its yacht clubs, quiet coves, safe anchorages, luxury resorts and villas.

Anegada the second largest island, is a coral atoll and the only non-volcanic island in the chain. Anegada means “Drowned Land”, its highest point being a mere 28 feet above sea level. Relax on some of the loveliest beaches in the Caribbean, whose names conjure up the island’s rich past – Cow Wreck Beach, Loblolly Bay and Flash of Beauty. Chances are you’ll have the entire beach to yourself, with the breeze rustling in the palm and sea grape trees.

Jost Van Dyke is named for an early Dutch settler reputed to have been a pirate. Sunbathe at the unspoilt beaches of White Bay, Great and Little Harbours. You can even jump across to Little Jost or take a boat to Sandy Cay and imagine yourself a castaway for the day. Or simply relax in the natural bubbling pool Jacuzzi formed by the foaming seas at the east end of the island.

Men’s Fitness Guide To Supplements: Part 2 – Fat Burners

Article by: Jim Stoppani, Ph.D.

You’ve asked yourself the question many times when you see an advertisement of a formerly pudgy guy who’s now ripped to the bone promoting a fat-burning supplement: Does that stuff really work? Actually, yes, it does. But it’s only a small part of the equation. Getting extra lean requires intense training over a long period of time and a clean diet.

A good supplement, however, can make that extra bit of difference that gets you over the hump in losing those last few pounds of body fat. And in an industry always on the cutting edge of nutrition science, fat-burning supplements (also called thermogenics because they help the body burn more calories) now do more than just burn fat. They increase energy, improve mood, and even make you stronger in the gym.

Here are the different types of fat-burning ingredients and what you should keep your eye out for.

Lipolytic Agents

Lipolysis is the process of releasing fat from your fat cells, so, as you can imagine, lipolytic agents are good things to have on your side when you’re looking to lose weight.

When fat is removed from cells and burned for fuel, those cells shrink and you get leaner. Caffeine is great for increasing lipolysis, but so are the ingredients yohimbine, forskolin (which also boosts testosterone), and hydroxycitric acid.

When searching for an effective fatburning supplement, look for those ingredients.

Caffeine

Caffeine is not only great for quick energy, but it’s also becoming a popular fat loss support supplement and workout performance booster.*

Find Caffeine products in our store.

Fat Transporters

Releasing fat from fat cells isn’t enough. If that fat isn’t burned for fuel, it’ll remain in the bloodstream and end up getting stored again. That’s bad news.

This is why carnitine is a great supplement. It helps transport the released fat into your cells’ mitochondria, where it’s subsequently burned and gone for good.

L-Carnitine

L-Carnitine works by potentially helping to convert fatty acids into fuel your body can use for energy, while at the same time promoting growth and development.*

Find L-Carnitine products in our store.

Thyroid Stimulators

The thyroid gland plays a highly crucial role in your body: It produces thyroid hormones that increase your metabolism. For those guys well into their 30s or 40s, revving up the metabolism is highly desirable.

Two of the more effective thyroid-stimulating supplement ingredients are bacopa monniera and forskolin.

Healthy Appetite Support

Consider this category of ingredients a means of behavior modification. If you’re cleaning up your diet in hopes of shedding fat, two of the biggest things to overcome are food cravings and hunger pains.

You remove unhealthy foods and extra calories from your diet, you get hungry. That’s just the way it goes.

Luckily, appetite supports like glucomannan, phenylethylamine, simmondsin, and 5-HTP will help maintain a healthy appetite level that’s supportive of fat loss.

Metabolic Support

Few hormones play a bigger role in staying lean than insulin. When you eat a carb-heavy meal, insulin levels rise, fat-burning is blunted, and your body instinctively begins hoarding fat. Good luck trying to get ripped when this happens on a regular basis.

For those who refuse to go low-carb, ingredients that support healthy blood sugar levels already within normal range, such as antioxidant alpha lipoic acid, cinnamon extract (aka Cinnulin PF), chromium, and evodiamine may help provide added metabolic support.

Alpha Lipoic Acid

Supplementing with Alpha Lipoic Acid can be useful for providing antioxidant support, because ALA is water and fat soluble.*

Find Alpha Lipoic Acid products in our store.

Mood/Brain Boosters

If you’ve ever gone on a serious get-lean, calorie-restricted diet, you probably recall experiencing some moodiness as a result. If you don’t recall, your significant other definitely does.

Fortunately, supplement manufacturers understand this effect, which is why they include in their fat-burning products ingredients to boost your mental well-being.

Caffeine is one such ingredient, as are phenylethylamine, which also increases calorie burn; the amino acid tyrosine; and vinpocetine.

Diuretics

Your body-fat percentage can be well into the single digits, but if you’re holding too much water under your skin, you won’t get that sharp muscle definition that bodybuilders and high-level fitness models possess.

You may not want to hold that “dry” look for long, but it’s nice for the periodic trip to the beach or a photo shoot.

This is where a supplement with diuretic ingredients can help. Natural diuretics that will get rid of some of that water under the skin include dandelion (Taraxacum officianilis) extract, uva ursi (aka bearberry), and horsetail extract.

Diuretics

These products promote the excretion of excess water in your system so that you maintain that hard, vascular look that you’re after.*

Find Diuretic products in our store.

Thermogenics

A good starting point when looking for supplements that will help you lean out is the stimulants market.

The most common fat-burning supp is caffeine, as it’s a proven calorie and fat burner; and it also reduces hunger, improves mood, and boosts strength levels. Caffeine has a lot going for it, which is why it’s found in most fat burners.

Green tea is another popular one. Its active ingredient, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), has been suggested to increase calorie burning.

Two other thermogenics, synephrine and capsaicin (often listed as capsicum), also ramp up calorie burning.

Breakfast Food – Heartburn-Free Recipe – Acid Reflux Diet

Do you suffer from Acid Reflux??? Dont worry you re not alone in fact many suffer with this ailment in silence instead of going to a dietician or nutritionist for advice on what you should eat and when. I found this recipe of Apple Oatmeal and thought I would share it with you. Because breakfast is an important meal, and is necessary to start your day off right. The recipe below is not only fast and delicious, it is also heartburn friendly.

Get your morning off to a great start with this warming apple oatmeal. It’s sweet and full of fiber.
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutesIngredients:
•3 cups apple juice
•1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
•1 1/2 cups quick oats
•1/2 cup chopped apple
•1/4 cup maple syrup
•1/4 cup raisins
•1/4 cup chopped walnuts
•4 tbsp fat free vanilla yogurt
Preparation:
Combine apple juice and cinnamon in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Stir in oats, chopped apple, maple syrup and raisins. Reduce heat and cook until most of juice is absorbed, stirring occasionally. Fold in walnuts.
Serves 4. Top each bowl with a tablespoon of yogurt.

Per Serving: Calories 271, Calories from Fat 62, Total Fat 6.8g (sat 0.8g), Cholesterol 0mg, Sodium 15mg, Carbohydrate 46.2g, Fiber 4.2g, Protein 6g

Nick

Beating the blahs!!!!!

You ever just have one of those days were you just feel like doing something but you are trapped in your daily rut and can’t escape???? You try to explain your feelings but nobody seems to understand….Its almost like you are in a jail cell and there is no escape!!!!

Ya, I am having one of those days and it is at this very moment that I start to think about missed opportunities and waisted time and how time is now my enemy…..I know I know blah blah blah boo hoo and all that stuff but is there anybody out there???? or am I alone in my fight against well against I don’t know you tell me what I am fighting against…….is it a fight or am I just complaining?

Mood Management

Don’t wallow in a foul mood. Run, for the gym, and take your headphones.

A recent survey of more than 300 Californians ranked exercise as the surest way out of a bad mood. Listening to music was a close second.

A bad mood has two major components-feelings of tension and low energy–says psychologist Robert Thayer, Ph.D., of Cal State, Long Beach. Exercise’s strong finish confirms Thayer’s previous research–that even a short brisk walk can energize, cut tension, and increase optimism.

Music may work by conditioned response. You associate certain songs with good moods and turn them on when you want out of a bad one. Or, lyrics may distract you from your misery. Moving to music may also release tension.

Thayer found that people combine ways of tension lowering and energy raising for an overall mood-manipulating strategy. The most effective and popular involves relaxation, stress management, cognitive control–giving yourself a pep talk–and exercise. Though men and women equally employ this strategy, they resort to other methods in gender-specific ways.

Men go for distraction and pleasure-seeking activities like sports. Women surrender to passive pursuits like TV or eating–both less effective.

Women also seek social support, emote, or ventilate a problem. Unfortunately, these involve rumination, which may promote depression.

But men are no paragons. They reach more readily for cocktails or drugs, neither of which work very well.

So, I am off to the gym were I can change my mood for the better and I hope to see you closet Blah Blahs there!!!

Nick

How can you get past the excuses and get exercising?

You know you should be exercising. We’ve all heard that physically active people are healthier. They’re less likely to develop heart disease, diabetes, and some cancer, they sleep better, and they feel happier and more energetic. Of course, a fit body looks better, too. But when it comes time to actually get out there and start moving, many of us have a long list of excuses not to exercise — too little time, too little energy, or we simply don’t like to work out.

Exercise Excuse No. 1: “I Don’t Have Time.”

“How much television do you watch?” asks Walter Thompson, PhD, professor of kinesiology and health at Georgia State University

During your shows, use resistance bands, or walk in place. Or use Tivo so you can skip the commercials and see a one-hour show later in just 40 minutes, says James Hill, PhD, co-founder of the National Weight Control Registry: “That’s 20 minutes right there.” Better yet, turn off the TV and spend your newfound time working out.

If it’s work that’s sapping all your spare time, try exercising on the job. Close your office door and jump rope for 10 minutes, or walk in place, Thompson suggests.

Your exercise doesn’t have to be a formal workout either. Try making small lifestyle changes that help you move more: take the stairs instead of the escalator, don’t drive when you can walk, and get a pedometer and try to increase the number of steps you take throughout the day.

The U.S. Surgeon General recommends at least 150 minutes of aerobic activity per week, which may sound daunting, but actually works out to a little over 20 minutes each day. The good news is that three 10-minute exercise sessions work just about as well as one 30-minute one, and can be much easier to fit into your schedule.

People who exercise regularly “make it a habit,” says Hill, who is director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado, Denver. “They haven’t bought any more time during the day than anyone else. What we’ve done is prioritize it. We find time for things we value.”

Tune in tomorrow for Excuse No. 2 and how to overcome it……

Nick

Why Eat RAW FOOD???

My wife started a RAW FOOD diet and I had to find out What is the benefit of eating food raw?  The most important reasons are that heating your food above 115 degrees F (45 Celsius):

• Kills enzymes. Enzymes help you digest your food. Your body can create enzymes but that process takes a lot of energy. This process makes you feel tired and heavy after a cooked food meal. Further, the enzymes your body makes are not as efficient and effective as the ones that were destroyed in your food.

  Consequently, your food is not be broken down as well and thus harder to digest. This also results in food starts rotting in your intestines, that parasites have more chance to survive

  It is further believed that your body has a limited amount of enzymes that it can produce. If the supply is finished, body organs will function less and less. It will accelerate aging.

• Changes the pH of the food and makes food acidic. We like to eat alkaline foods. Eating acidifying food makes your body a welcome feeding ground for disease.
• Converts easy to absorb minerals into inorganic – hard to absorb – minerals. INorganic minerals such as calcium are hard to absorb and might cause calcium stones, whereas organic ones are easier to digest, make you alkaline, help you get rid of too many acids
• Destroys most vitamins
• Destroys the life force. Eating cooked food is eating dead food. This will make you feel heavy and tired. Live food has live energy. It will give you energy. Simply put. A raw seed will grow, a cooked seed won’t. When you pick (raw) unripe fruit it continues to ripen for weeks. Cooked fruit starts to decay within days.

These reasons are enough to explain why most people on a raw food diet feel more energetic and have a stronger immune system.

What are the (health) benefits of eating a raw food diet?

The raw food diet benefits are endless. The major benefits are weight loss and better overall health.

When your diet consist of more than 75% raw foods, here are just some of the improvements likely to happen to you.

• More energy
• Up to 3 hours less sleep
• Weight loss
• More beautiful skin
• Clarity of mind and better memory
• Improved immune system
• Improved fertility
• Prevent or even reverse diabetes

What can you eat on a raw food diet?

Generally raw foodists eat at least 75% of raw fruits, vegetables, (germinated) seeds, (germinated) nuts and super foods and sprouts (see video from David Wolfe on home page.)

You can eat them plain or you can juice or blend them for easier absorption.

If you like gourmet foods, there are many raw food cook books telling you how to make gourmet raw food and there are some fantastic raw food restaurants. Pure Food & Wine – a 100% raw and vegan restaurant in Manhattan – was named in the list of Top 50 best restaurants in NY by the Time Out Magazine.

How do you get enough vegan protein?

On a raw food diet you may wonder where to get your protein. But you don’t need to worry:

• Based on 700 studies, a diet consisting of about 7% protein is more than enough for most people.(“The China Study” by dr Campbell)
• Raw food has much more usable protein and of higher quality than cooked food. So you’ll need less.
• Multiple studies show that eating vegan protein is much healthier for you than protein from animals (dairy and meat).
• The best sources of non animal protein are green leafy vegetables, nuts & seeds, (wheat) grasses, sprouts, grains.
• Look at this nutrition chart to get an exact breakdown of where you could get your raw protein.

Is it safe to eat food raw?

When you’re on a raw food diet, you may be concerned about e-coli on spinach, salmonella, parasites? You may think: “Is it really safe to eat raw food? I’m sure there must have been a reason why people started cooking their food?”

Before people had a fridge, cooking their food was the best way to kill parasites and bacteria. Louis Pasteur “invented” pasteurization to ensure that food was safe to eat for everyone. However, today this method is obsolete. It doesn’t just kill the bad bacteria, it also kills the good ones, as well as the enzymes, makes the food acidic, takes away vitamins and minerals, etc.

Today, we have much better methods for keeping our food safe. Some methods are:

• Refrigerating;
• Food Grade Hydrogen Peroxide;
• Vacuum Sealing.

I am sure I will have more to report as the diet moves along. My hope is that this will spark something in me to give it a try as well. The verdict is still out so stay tuned……

NEW STUDY ON VISCERAL FAT……

 

 A study conducted by exercise physiologists in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Human Studiesfinds that as little as 80 minutes a week of aerobic or resistance training helps not only to prevent weight gain, but also to inhibit a regain of harmful visceral fat one year after weight loss.

The study was published online Oct. 8 and will appear in a future print edition of the journal Obesity.

Unlike subcutaneous fat that lies just under the skin and is noticeable, visceral fat lies in the abdominal cavity under the abdominal muscle. Visceral fat is more dangerous than subcutaneous fat because it often surrounds vital organs. The more visceral fat one has, the greater is the chance of developing Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

In the study, UAB exercise physiologist Gary Hunter, Ph.D., and his team randomly assigned 45 European-American and 52 African-American women to three groups: aerobic training, resistance training or no exercise. All of the participants were placed on an 800 calorie-a-day diet and lost an average 24 pounds. Researchers then measured total fat, abdominal subcutaneous fat and visceral fat for each participant.

Afterward, participants in the two exercise groups were asked to continue exercising 40 minutes twice a week for one year. After a year, the study’s participants were divided into five groups: those who maintained aerobic exercise training, those who stopped aerobic training, those who maintained their resistance training, those who stopped resistance training and those who were never placed on an exercise regimen.

“What we found was that those who continued exercising, despite modest weight regains, regained zero percent visceral fat a year after they lost the weight,” Hunter said. “But those who stopped exercising, and those who weren’t put on any exercise regimen at all, averaged about a 33 percent increase in visceral fat.

“Because other studies have reported that much longer training durations of 60 minutes a day are necessary to prevent weight regain, it’s not too surprising that weight regain was not totally prevented in this study,” Hunter said. “It’s encouraging, however, that this relatively small amount of exercise was sufficient to prevent visceral fat gain.”

The study also found that exercise was equally effective for both races.

How does alcohol affect building muscle?

Whether you’re a student, businessman, crane driver or rock star, many of us love helping ourselves to a few drinks every now and then. The fact is, a drinking culture is engrained into our society, it has become second nature to bring a few drinks to the party or have a few beers while watching the footy on the weekend.

If your one of the billions who enjoy the odd beverage, I’ve written this post for you!

What affect can alcohol have? 

Alcohol to you and me is any drink containing ‘ethanol’, commonly found in the form of beer, wine or spirits.

We all know that alcohol can cause slurred speech, clumsiness and slow reaction times but does the consumption of alcohol have a direct impact on building muscle or is all the bad just washed away after a good sleep and feed the following morning?

Sorry to say it but alcohol has a very negative impact on some of the most important processes for changing the way your body looks.

Let’s start with the big bad basics…

The catabolic affect

As I have mentioned many times over the last few months, one of the keys to getting lightning fast results is maintaining your body in an ‘anabolic’ state for as long as possible each and every day. This means your body is in ’tissue/muscle building’ mode during times of rest and recovery. Alcohol on the other hand is completely opposite, it has a ‘catabolic’ affect on your body which instigates the process of ’tissue/muscle burning’ once it enters the body and while it is filtered out.

Fat, fat and a little more fat 

You might have heard that drinking beer makes you fat, well sorry old pal, it’s not necessarily the beer that’s the main problem. Raw alcohol (ethanol) has 7 calories of energy per 1g of liquid, this means that for 1 beer, 1 glass of wine or 1 shot of liquor you’re getting approximately 12g of pure alcohol.

I’m no saint believe me, but I myself and lots of others have been known to enjoy a night with 20+ drinks under their belt. 

20 beers = 240g of alcohol = 1680 calories of energy!

Now that’s just the alcohol, add another few thousand for the carbs in the beer, your mixer when drinking spirits, the kebab you smashed down while stumbling round to find a taxi and your fun night out just turned into a fat filled nightmare!

So as you can see, alcohol equals lots of extra energy, but the most worrying thing is that alcohol isn’t like other beneficial nutrients, it’s most similar to FAT and can actually transforms proteins (amino acids) into fat cells, storing them as just that.

Pissin’ like a racehorse!

That’s right, alcohol is a ‘diuretic’ which means it actually increases your rate of urination. What does this mean? Well for starters, every time you use the toilet valuable vitamins and minerals are being flushed away too, which ultimately need to be replaced. Increased urination on a night out, means increased chances of dehydration due to an imbalance in water entering the body compared to the amount going out. 

Once dehydration kicks in its impacts can last several days (hangover).

Dehydration = less BLOOD to a muscle during a workout = less OXYGEN and NUTRIENTS in that muscle = drastically reduced physical performance.

Banged up immune system

You might not think this is very serious but alcohol’s affect on almost every major organ causes our body’s natural immunities to practically switch off an take a holiday! This will increase your susceptibility to infections caused by viral and bacterial pathogens, meaning if someone is sick around you (consider the many public places people drink) you have a much greater chance of getting really sick too.

I hate being sick, it’s one of those things I dread when I wake up with a sore throat in the morning. How many days of training will I miss? How will I maintain my eating plan? 

Catching some form of common virus is often pretty hard to stop, but where is the sense in increasing those chances regularly by drinking a little too much, a little too often.

*Average alcohol consumption per person per year, by country. How do you rate? 

The impact on your muscle building hormones…

When you look at a bodybuilder or athlete that ‘claims’ to be completely natural and you think to yourself that there is NO WAY KNOWN that they got that way without performance enhancing drugs, it is most often due to the athletes success at manipulating their natural supply of anabolic hormones with a correct approach to their diet, training and recovery.  

> Insulin
> Growth Hormone
> Testosterone
> IGF-1

The above 4 hormones are absolutely instrumental in building muscle mass and maintaining low levels of body fat. The consumption of alcohol has been proven to REDUCE the production and release of testosterone and growth hormone immediately once absorbed, lasting several days later. 

Alcohol increases the production of cortisol

For those in the know, cortisol is one of those hormones we want to stay away from! 

Cortisol has the opposite effect of the above 4 hormones and is the primary ‘catabolic’ hormone in our body. It’s main roles include;

> Reduces GH and testosterone output
> Stops protein synthesis in its tracks
> Halts tissue growth

With alcohol’s ability to increase cortisol levels by upwards of 150% in 4 hours, not much more needs to be said.

So what can YOU do?

In order of effectiveness, here is some tips I recommend for you;

1) Limit or stop of your alcohol consumption during intense periods of training.

Be serious with yourself, you wouldn’t be in this position if you didn’t want quality results, those results come from making a commitment to a routine for an extended period of time. Ideally, staying completely off the drink for an 8-12 week period during your program would be most beneficial, but if that’s simple not possible and that is totally understandable, try your best to limit your consumption to as little as possible. 

2) Don’t go crazy!

It’s often not the alcohol itself that causes the problems, but the amount we drink. In fact beer and red wine in small doses can be very beneficial to your health with its high levels of antioxidants to protect and watch over our cells.

3) Drink the clear stuff at the same time 

No I’m not talking about vodka! Try and drink a full glass of water with every 3 glasses of beer, wine or spirits. That’s not too much to ask is it? Also, before putting your head down for the night, drink at least 500ml (16 fl oz) of water and keep some next to you for when you wake up.

4) Eat before a drinking session and not straight after

This is important as eating before drinking can help alcohol’s absorption and control its effects. Eating after, not only increases the amount of calories in your body which need to be processed but puts excess pressure on your metabolism causing a much larger amount of food to be converted into fat stores rather than glycogen (energy) or amino acids (protein).

5) Drinking is not an excuse to miss a workout

Just because you woke up in someone else’s bed with your eyebrows shaved off, doesn’t mean your muscle building goals should fly out the window! Alcohol is known to depress your nervous system, which reduces the connection quality between your brain and your muscle. Trust me, your explosiveness and overall strength will be pretty ordinary a day or two after a heavy night, so save a multi station circuit training session for days like this. This will raise your heart rate and allow you to maintain it there for 20-30 minutes, helping to flush the body of its toxins and return it to near peak physical condition.

Audio Post

Skin Cream Soothes Sore Muscles……

There is new hope on the horizon to soothe sore muscles but without the aggravating – and sometimes dangerous — side effects of anti-inflammatory pills like aspirin or ibuprofen.

 A study published in the July issue of the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine shows that an 

Massage Cream (Photo credit: shipbrook)

can ease the muscle soreness that develops after a workout.

 Researchers at the University of California, San Diego tested 32 healthy men between the ages of 18 and 35. They compared a cream version of the anti-inflammatory drug ketoprofen (Orudis KT) with a placebo skin cream. (Researchers excluded women to avoid fertility or pregnancy complications.)

 The results? At 48 hours after exercising, the volunteers who used the anti-inflammatory cream reported up to 45% less muscle soreness than those who used the placebo cream. Muscle soreness tends to peak 24 to 48 hours after a work out.

 The Problem With Pills

 Today, anti-inflammatory pills are the most commonly prescribed medications to treat pain and inflammation related to exercise. Common forms include ibuprofen, Aleve, and the old standby, aspirin. But the side effects can take their toll on the body, solving one problem while creating others. Side effects include:

• Gastrointestinal complications such as ulcers and heartburn
• Liver problems
• Kidney problems
• Headaches and dizziness
• Higher bleeding tendency, especially with aspirin

 Each year, an estimated 103,000 patients are hospitalized in the U.S. for gastrointestinal complications from anti-inflammatory pills. More than 16,000 such deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone, according to researchers of the study.

 How an Anti-inflammatory Cream Can Help

 Researchers say the best news about a skin cream alternative is it probably will not have the same side effects as a pill. The study shows only 1% of the medication is absorbed into the bloodstream. Researchers say another advantage to using a cream is patients can apply the anti-inflammatory drug directly where it’s needed.

 Skin cream formulations of anti-inflammatory drugs are not available over the counter in the U.S. Doctors must prescribe a customized compound that is prepared by a pharmacist.

 Researchers say that additional studies are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment with ketoprofen skin cream as well as its use in treating chronic inflammatory conditions such as arthritis.

 SOURCE: Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, July 2003. News Release, University of California San Diego.