How can I protect my kidneys?
A healthy lifestyle helps to maintain kidney health, particularly through diet, because what you eat has a direct effect on the kidneys. One of their main functions is to eliminate waste.
From the age of 40, kidney filtration begins to decline by around 1% per year. In the long term, the risk is of developing kidney disease, which is all the more insidious because it develops silently. At the stage of kidney failure, personalised advice from a dietician is essential. But before that happens, there are a few points to bear in mind.
- Eating too much salt encourages high blood pressure and certain forms of kidney stones. On average, the French population consumes too much salt (around 8 to 9 g a day). A maximum of 6 to 7 g a day is sufficient. To enhance the flavour of dishes, salt can easily be replaced by spices or herbs.
- Calcium helps regulate blood pressure. It is therefore essential, even for people prone to calcium kidney stones. The recommended intake is 900 milligrams a day. The only precaution is to spread your calcium intake evenly throughout the day. 150 mg of calcium corresponds to 1 glass (150 ml) of semi-skimmed milk or 1 yoghurt (125 g). Fruit and vegetables with each meal provide 200 to 300 mg of calcium a day. Tap water contains an average of 100 mg of calcium per litre. Contrexéville, Hépar or Courmayeur mineral waters contain 500 to 600 mg of calcium per litre.
- Take in the equivalent of 1g of protein per kilo of ideal body weight every day. For example, a non-renal-sufficient woman weighing 70 kilos, but who should weigh 55 kilos, needs around 55 g of protein a day. Animal proteins provide the body with the amino acids it needs. In vegetable proteins, you need to combine cereals and pulses to find all these basic elements. To enable the body to assimilate them without increasing the workload on the kidneys, it is best to divide your protein intake between the three meals of the day.
- Drink: on average, the body needs 1.5 litres of water a day. In general, there's no need to go beyond this recommendation, except in cases of extreme heat, sweating or diarrhoea. Another exception: people with a tendency to suffer from urinary tract infections or kidney stones should dilute their urine even more and drink around 2 litres a day. This includes not only water, but also tea, coffee, herbal teas and all liquids with no added sugar.
The kidneys can be poisoned by molecules found in every medicine cabinet, particularly anti-inflammatories and antacids.
In magnetic therapy, the advice is simple: drink as much magnetised water as you like - you won't believe all the benefits!
How can therapeutic magnets help relieve sciatica?
Sciatica is an inflammation of the sciatic nerve, generally due to irritation of one of its roots. Sciatica is often linked to a herniated disc. The pain starts in the upper buttock and then moves down the leg or even the foot.If you don't want to swallow anti-inflammatories and/or painkillers, therapeutic magnets are a natural and effective alternative.
- But which magnets to choose: in this particular case, choose Medimag magnets with a diameter of 15 mm.
- How to place them: you need to palpate the irradiating point, then use the adhesives to place the Medimag magnets along the sciatic nerve, spacing them about 5 cm apart and alternating, i.e. the north side against the skin, then 5 cm further down the south side, and repeat as far as the calf if necessary.
- How long should you keep them on: 2 to 3 days, including nights. This should be enough to calm the pain, but if it persists, replace the magnets, moving them 1 to 2 cm to allow the skin to breathe.
Once you're relieved, put your Medimags back in their box. They won't wear out or get damaged, and they'll be ready for the next time you use them.
Deep slow wave sleep: restorative sleep
Deep sleep, also known as slow wave sleep, is one of the most important phases in the cycles that punctuate our nights. It is considered to be the most restorative.
As a reminder, sleep is made up of four to six successive cycles, each lasting around 90 minutes. Each cycle comprises 3 main phases: light slow wave sleep, deep slow wave sleep and REM sleep. Deep sleep follows the awake-sleep transition and light sleep. It is characterised by :
- a drop in body temperature
- slower breathing
- an accelerated pulse
- muscles relax
- reduced sensory perception
- total relaxation
The sleeping person is no longer able to react to external stimuli (noise, light, movement, etc), so this is the time of night when it is most difficult to wake them up. This is also the phase when sleepwalking and night terrors most often occur. Dreams are much less frequent during deep sleep.
While sleep time varies from person to person, the duration of deep sleep is more or less the same, whether you're a light sleeper or a heavy sleeper. On average, it accounts for 25% of total sleep. So it lasts around two hours a night for adults, and up to three hours for children.
The Institut national de prévention et d'éducation pour la santé (National Institute for Prevention and Health Education) specifies that deep sleep is more abundant at the start of the night and until 3 or 4 in the morning. On the other hand, the second part of the night until waking up is richer in light sleep and REM sleep.
In magnetic therapy, the Actipol sleep set enhances relaxation and promotes the deep sleep phase.
Auriculotherapy: what is treated?
By stimulating points in the auricle, auriculotherapy can relieve migraines, addictions, anxiety and pain.Practised empirically since the dawn of time, auriculotherapy was rediscovered in the 1950s by Dr Paul Nogier. He identified points on this nerve-rich reflex zone, corresponding to each part of the body and linked to different areas of the brain. This neurophysiological correspondence enables therapeutic requests to be sent to the brain by tapping on the keys of the auricular keyboards. If the requests are sensible and relevant, the brain then attempts, by virtue of numerous neurophysiological laws, to correct or alleviate the problem(s).
Recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1990, auriculotherapy is increasingly being used in hospitals.
Auris offers Medimag Slim/Smoke magnetic auriculotherapy. A neodymium magnet 5 mm in diameter is combined with one of 3 magnets 10 mm in diameter and 1, 1.5 and 2 mm thick to adjust the ideal pressure on the ear. The pair of magnets is placed on the point to be stimulated.
Auriculotherapy is particularly effective for all types of pain: musculotendinous, rheumatological (sciatica, osteoarthritis, etc.), inflammatory (colitis, gastritis, etc.), post-traumatic and post-surgical. It can also be used to treat addictions (tobacco, alcohol, food, etc.), neurofunctional disorders (tics, stammering, etc.), as well as neurological problems (headaches, migraines, sleep disorders, etc.), ENT problems (ear infections, vertigo, sinusitis, etc.), stomatological problems (dental pain, preparation for an operation, etc.) and gynaecological problems (problems with the cycle, sexuality, hot flushes, preparation for childbirth, etc.).
