Herbal Health

1. There is a need to recognise individual differences and, in particular, the influences of the environment, biology, behaviour and physiological adjustment in deterrnining equilibrium body fat levels.

2. Distinguishing between different types of environments (micro, macro, physical, socio-cultural) is helpful for understanding the variety of external influences on an individual.

3. Obesity in modern society should be seen as a normal physiological response to a pathological environment rather than vice versa. For this reason, there is limited value in searching for abnormalities (genetic /metabolic/ psychological) as major causes of obesity.

4. There should be increased emphasis on influencing fat intake and fat oxidation as the modalities of first choice in managing and preventing obesity.

5. This approach heralds a move away from restrictive dieting and calorie counting, in favour of ad libitum lifestyle eating plans with an emphasis on a reduction in dietary fats.

6. It is necessary to emphasise the distinction between physical activity for fat loss (or prevention of fat gain) in contrast to ‘exercise’ for fitness.

7. Because of physiological adaptation, greater emphasis should be placed on long term maintenance of body fat losses in contrast to easier, short term, immediate changes in body weight.

8. It is ethically inappropriate to advertise or promote quick and large weight losses.

9. Because of the broad ranging requirements of the field of weight control management, its treatment belongs to no one particular profession. Hence, professionals must learn to work with and refer to experts in other disciplines in order to provide clients with the best opportunity to deal with their problems.

*85\186\4*

Many endometriosis sufferers feel that they cannot exercise because of chronic pain or constant tiredness and lethargy. However, exercise is important in that it increases your muscle tone, improves your fitness and gives you a feeling of well-being. Exercise also increases the production of endorphins.

Before starting on an exercise programme it might be sensible to visit your doctor for a physical examination.

One of the most important aspects of exercise is that you must find it enjoyable. Try to find a form of exercise that causes you little or no pain. Start exercising slowly for a short time each day. As your muscles strengthen you will gradually be able to increase the rate and length of the time that you exercise.

If necessary avoid jarring exercises, such as jogging, which may cause more pain by pulling on adhesions and scar tissue.

An excellent non-jarring exercise is swimming. Your exercise regime should also include some weight-bearing exercises such as walking, to help protect against the development of osteoporosis.

During the last few years many women in Australia have found that they have benefited by attending water aerobics classes.

Water aerobics has the benefit of being a weight-bearing, low impact exercise and is suitable even for those who can not swim. Because the water is supportive it does not have the same jarring effect on the body as floor aerobics.

*76\83\2*

There is a huge range of possible symptoms of endometriosis and it is important to remember that the symptoms women experience can vary widely. Some women will have few symptoms. Others, unfortunately, suffer many. A few women experience no symptoms and their endometriosis is only discovered during surgery for an unrelated condition. Other women experience no symptoms other than infertility.

The symptoms experienced depend on a number of factors including the severity and extent of the endometriosis and the location of the implants.

The severity of the symptoms varies from mild to severe and does not necessarily have any relationship to the extent of the disease but it usually bears a closer relationship to the location of the implants.

Thus, a few tiny spots of endometriosis may cause excruciating pain especially if they are located in an area where there are many nerve endings, such as in the Pouch of Douglas or on the utero-sacral ligaments. In contrast, severe endometriosis may cause little pain because the implants are located in an area where there are few nerve endings, such as on the ovary.

The range and severity of symptoms often increases as the disease progresses. In addition, the number of days in the month during which the symptoms are felt often increases as the condition worsens.

Thus, in the early stages of the disease the symptoms may be mild and only apparent for the first one or two days of a period but, as the condition worsens, the symptoms may be felt with increasing severity for most of the month. However, for some women the range and severity of their symptoms remains constant for many years.

The most common symptoms include dysmenorrhoea, dyspareunia, pelvic pain, bleeding problems, ovulation pain, bowel problems and infertility.

*16\83\2*

1.    Calc. fluor.

salt: Calcium fluoride

function: Promotes elasticity of tissues

uses: Cold sores at the corners of the mouth, cracked lips and

tongue, circulation problems, muscle weakness, piles, mptures,

strained tendons.stretch marks, varicose veins

2.    Calc. phos.

salt: Calcium phosphate

function: Helps build new blood cells, aids digestion, strengthens bones and teeth

uses: Convalescence, chilblains, indigestion, iron deficiency anaemia, lowered vitality, poor circulation, tooth decay and teething problems

3.    Calc. sulph.

salt: Calcium sulphate

function: Blood constituent and purifier

uses: Adolescent spots, sore lips, slow healing skin and wounds

4.    Ferr. phos.

salt: Iron phosphate

function: Constituent of red blood corpuscles which helps in distribution of oxygen in the body

uses: Chestiness, coughs, colds, chills, fever, inflammation of the skin, muscular rheumatism

5.    Kali mur.

salt: Potassium chloride

function: Promotes respiratory health

uses: Asthma, bronchitis, catarrh, colds, sluggish digestion, sore throat, tonsillitis, wheezing

6.    Kali phos.

salt: Potassium phosphate function: Nerve soother and nutrient

uses: Depression, excitement or worry causing irritability or loss of sleep, headaches, indigestion, tension

7.    Kali sulph.

salt: Potassium sulphate

function: Promotes and maintains healthy skin

uses: Catarrh, discharge of the nose or throat, poor condition of

nails, hair and scalp, skin eruptions with scaling, sticky or

yellowish discharge

8.    Mag. phos.

salt: Magnesium phosphate

function: Nerve and muscle fibre nutrient

uses: Acute spasms, colic, cramp and menstrual pains, darting

pains, hiccups, wind

9.    Nat. mur.

salt: Sodium chloride

function: Controls distribution of water in the body

uses: Loss of smell or taste, watery colds with runny nose and

eyes

10.    Nat. phos.

salt: Sodium phosphate function: pH regulator of the cells

uses: Acidity, gastric indigestion, heartburn, rheumatic pains

11.    Nat. sulph.

salt: Sodium sulphate function: Balances body water

uses: Biliousness, colic, digestive problems, headaches, influenza symptoms, morning sickness, queasiness

12.    Silica

salt: Silicon dioxide

function: Conditions, cleanses and eliminates wastes uses: Boils, pimples, sties, toxic accumulations

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The only studies of efficacy of St John’s Wort conducted to date have been done in Europe. These studies came to the attention of the US medical community initially when an issue of the Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology was devoted to Hypericum in 1994 and later, when the highly regarded British Medical Journal published a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials of the herbal remedy. In a meta-analysis, several small studies are combined together in order to determine whether certain general conclusions can be derived from the data obtained from them.

In their meta-analysis, Linde and colleagues addressed three simple questions: Is Hypericum more effective than placebo? Is it as effective as standard anti-depressant treatments? And does it have fewer side-effects than standard anti-depressant treatments ? In order to increase their chances of reaching valid conclusions, these researchers included in their meta-analysis only those studies that randomly assigned patients to different treatment conditions, which is generally regarded as a prerequisite for a valid clinical trial. It would not be valid, for example, to assign severely depressed patients one type of treatment and mildly depressed patients another. These researchers also used state-of-the art statistical methods to compare the treatment interventions.

Interestingly, when Linde and colleagues used only conventional computerized searches of the medical literature, they located fewer than a third of those clinical trials that they ultimately chose to include. This reflects the division separating herbal and conventional medicine which has been so prominent until recently and which persists to some extent even at the present time. Almost all studies were published in languages other than English, reflecting the fact that the recent development of herbal medicine has come predominantly from the German-speaking world. Finally, the authors had to go through many revisions before the prestigious mainstream British Medical Journal was willing to publish the review.

Altogether the authors analysed 23 randomized trials involving 1,757 patients suffering from mild to moderate depressions. In 13 trials of Hypericum versus placebo, Linde and colleagues found Hypericum to be clearly superior to placebo, yielding a response rate of 55 per cent as compared with 22 per cent for the control placebo treatment. In three trials of Hypericum versus standard anti-depressants, the two treatments were very similar, possibly favouring Hypericum. But when side-effects were compared, Hypericum emerged as the clear winner, with approximately 20 per cent of the Hypericum group reporting side-effects, as compared with about 53 per cent of those taking standard anti-depressants. Several studies reviewed by the researchers used combinations of St John’s Wort and valerian, an herbal sedative. I have excluded those studies from the present discussion, though their results were consistent with those which used St John’s Wort alone.

Linde and colleagues concluded rather persuasively that Hypericum is superior to placebo in the treatment of mild to moderate depression and that it has a very benign side-effect profile. Evidence is less persuasive when it comes to comparing the relative efficacy of St John’s Wort with other anti-depressants, mostly because adequate studies have not been performed. Studies comparing herbal and synthetic anti-depressants used dosages of the synthetic compounds that were lower than those often used in clinical practice.

Clearly there is room for more research on the efficacy of St John’s Wort, especially into questions of who would best benefit from Hypericum versus conventional anti-depressants, how best to regulate dosage and how to blend Hypericum with conventional anti-depressants. To date, there have been no head-to-head comparisons between St John’s Wort and the SSRIs. Such a comparison is part of the design of the multi-centre US study currently being planned under the aegis of the US National Institute of Mental Health. It is important to compare these two types of anti-depressant, since the SSRIs are the most commonly used anti-depressants at present and, in practice, both doctor and patient may often wish to choose between these and St John’s Wort in deciding how to initiate the treatment of a depression. There have also been no long-term studies of the anti-depressant effects of St John’s Wort but, in this regard, the herbal antidepressant is no different from many of the conventional anti-depressants for which long-term studies are lacking. While these questions have yet to be resolved to the satisfaction of scientists, for the person seeking relief from the painful symptoms of depression they are of much less importance than the fundamental question, ‘Does the herbal anti-depressant work?’ In my view this question has already been answered with a resounding ‘Yes.’

To date there has been only one study that has addressed the question of whether St John’s Wort works for more serious depression. The work of Daniel in the 1930s, mentioned in Chapter

6, suggests that the herbal remedy might be helpful in severe as well as in milder cases. In recent times, Vorbach and colleagues in Germany conducted a multi-centre study of 209 severely depressed patients, of whom 38 were hospitalized at the time of the study. They used a higher dosage of Hypericum than has been used in the studies of mild to moderate depressions (1,800 mg as opposed to 900 mg) and compared this with imipramine, an old standard anti-depressant. While the anti-depressant effects of these two treatments were very similar, far fewer side-effects were reported by those receiving Hypericum than by those receiving imipramine (23 per cent versus 41 per cent). This study suggests that there may indeed be a role for Hypericum in the treatment of severe depression, though more studies in such patients are clearly needed before St John’s Wort can be used with any confidence as a first-line treatment in those suffering from profound depressions.

As I have noted elsewhere, there is one study that suggests that Hypericum may be of value in seasonal affective disorder (SAD), though no one has properly researched how best to combine the herbal remedy with light therapy.

I should mention that most of the research on the St John’s Wort and depression has been conducted with the Kira™ brand of the herb. This preparation is extracted from the leaves and flowers of the plant by a special method and it is unclear whether the research findings with this type of extract can be generalized to other preparations.

*38\75\2*

Connie Mullens was an attractive woman in her early thirties. She appeared to have many of the things which would help to make a person happy: a loving spouse, a beautiful home, a good educational background, and a rewarding job. Yet before she came to the Ecology Unit, she was contemplating suicide. Mrs. Mullens had many illnesses and problems practically all her life, but was completely unhelped by conventional treatment. In fact, her health was endangered by being prescribed amphetamines. Clinical ecology helped her, in part by breaking her dependence on these drugs.

During her childhood, she had had many illnesses, some of them bizarre. She had had asthma so badly that her parents doubted at times that she would live. This problem went away after the family moved to a new house. In high school, she had frequent stomach problems, diagnosed as the result of a “virus.” One such “virus” lasted for over a year.

In college, she demonstrated superior academic ability, got straight A’s most of the time, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Nevertheless, during this same period a curious sort of malaise started to creep over her, imperceptibly at first.

At times, especially in chemistry lab, she would feel a kind of euphoria. She was known as the chemistry class prankster and would devise complicated practical jokes to play on her instructors. Of course, this sort of behavior among college students is “normal” when looked at in isolation. It is only when seen in the context of her overall development, and the onset of her more serious symptoms, that it begins to take on medical significance. In retrospect, some of this behavior may have been a lesser stimulatory reaction (plus-one) to the presence of chemicals and natural gas (in the bunsen burners) in the classroom.

At the same time, Mrs. Mullens had an increasing number of bad days. On these occasions, she had headaches of ever-increasing frequency and intensity. On some days, she could not get out of bed, could not concentrate, and could barely stay awake. To combat these doldrums, she relied on junk food. She would drink cola beverages or eat chocolate and candy whenever she had to “cram” for a test. Every day she would go down to the drugstore and have a chocolate malt and a piece of pie, which seemed to temporarily relieve her tiredness and headaches.

Because she was, not surprisingly, overweight, she consulted an internist, who prescribed diet pills which contained amphetamines. “With these,” she later recalled, “I could leap tall buildings at a single bound.” She stopped taking them when she realized that she was becoming addicted.

Connie was married in college, but the marriage did not work out, This was mainly because of her irritability, she says. She would throw temper tantrums in the house, fling shoes at her husband, or force him to watch his favorite television shows with the sound off (she was very sensitive to noise). She kept on eating, too; her husband called her the “cookie monster” because of her insatiable sweet tooth.

By the time she reached graduate school, her problems were worse. She now had headaches once or twice a week, but each lasted a couple of days. She began to consult doctors, and each had a different diagnosis and solution. One internist, she says, prescribed twenty different pills, mostly amphetamines. She was instructed to try each of them in turn and keep a record of their effects. None of them did anything for her head pain.

She also saw an endocrinologist (hormone specialist), an otolaryngologist (ear-nose-and-throat specialist), and, of course, a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist analyzed her psyche in depth and at length. He came to the conclusion that, as an only child, she had had too much pressure put on her to achieve. In fact, except for her illnesses, she had had a particularly happy childhood. Her parents were both successful and well-educated and probably expected their daughter to be the same, but did not force her to emulate them in this regard.

Connie could not drive an automobile. If she attempted to she became confused and could not interpret traffic signs or even make sense out of a simple stop light. Rather than look for something in the environment (for example, automobile fumes) that might cause such a condition, the psychiatrist interpreted this problem as a psychological need for perfection. He recommended that she relax more.

After finishing graduate school, Mrs. Mullens undertook a job which brought her into contact with industrial chemicals. All of her symptoms worsened. She got married again and gave up the full-time job.

As bad as all these symptoms were, her condition took a sharp turn for the worse (from minus-two or -three to minus-four) when her new home was sprayed with powerful pesticides, inside and out. Winter came, and the gas-fired heater was turned on. Soon afterward she started to feel so weak that she could not get out of bed. She was depressed to the point of dwelling on suicide. Her new husband would come home each day and find her crying uncontrollably.

Her psychiatrist prescribed amphetamines again, this time for ten days, to bring her out of what he called a “short-term depression.” At the end of this period, she was worse and had developed a numbness in her fingers and a tingling in her limbs. To all of her other problems, she now added a fear of multiple sclerosis—an unfounded fear, it now appears.

When she was admitted to the Ecology Unit, her symptoms were particularly bad. The water fast accentuated her symptoms; she developed a terrible headache and cried almost continually at first. After a few days on the fast, however, she underwent a remarkable recovery. “I got completely better,” she recalls. “I became absolutely convinced that my problem was related to the environment.”

Mrs. Mullens reacted to most of the foods she was given. Some brought on arthritislike aches in her fingers and other joints. The worst food for her was beef. After eating a portion of beef, she told the nurse on duty that she wanted to kill herself. She wandered the halls, crying aimlessly. The next day she said that she felt as if she “had been run over by a bulldozer.”

All of her many symptoms were reproduced in several weeks of food testing. What is more, tests with chemicals in various forms showed that this patient had the problem of chemical susceptibility. Mrs. Mullens has made excellent progress in controlling her food and chemical difficulties. “In the real world we face serious problems,” she has said. For example, it is difficult for her to avoid all exposure to natural gas. The gas heater and range have been removed from her house, but she still runs into them in other peoples’ homes, as well as in stores. In certain shops, she becomes so irritable that she feels like strangling those who get in her way. It is only in gas-heated stores that she has this problem. Despite periodic setbacks, her mental state recently has been cheerful.

An understanding of the food and chemical problem has brought with it many rewards. But it also has added responsibilities. Once, when she was in a hospital for some physiological testing, a conventional doctor “caught” her making lists of her reactions to artificially colored and flavored medicine. He actually took papers which she had discarded out of the wastebasket, read them, and remarked, “I see that you are involved with your symptoms. You apparently want to be sick!” When she tried to reason with the man, who was a gastroenterologist, he said brusquely, “I have forty other cases in the hospital. I don’t need you.” To his amazement, she promptly checked herself out of the hospital.

Mrs. Mullens’ case thus represents both the triumph and the tragedy of treatment by the methods of clinical ecology. On the one hand, like many other patients, she was brought back from the brink of suicide by coming to understand the multiple environmental factors responsible for her reactions. She credits it with saving her life. Yet, on the other hand, the world itself sometimes seems hostile to this new approach. Much yet needs to be done to make the environment completely livable for the Connie Mullenses of this world.

In summary, it may be said that the concepts and techniques of ecologic mental illness are opening up new horizons for patients with the symptoms of depression and related psychiatric disturbances. In contrast to the longstanding artificial distinctions between physical and so-called mental illnesses, both physical and cerebral and behavioral manifestations of allergy/ecology represent different levels of reaction. At long last, large sectors of the field of psychiatry are yielding to medical management based on the demonstrability of cause and effect.

*89\110\2*

Aspirin is one of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), a group of medications used in the symptomatic treatment of arthritis and many other causes of mild to moderate pain. Other drugs included in this group are Indomethacin, Motrin, Nalfon, Naprosyn, and Tolectin. Since they are “non-steroidal” (not like cortisone), they lack many of the undesirable properties of cortisone-like drugs, such as cortisone’s ability to raise the blood pressure, weaken the bones, depress immunity, and to mask infections.

The NSAIDs, however, have some serious side effects of their own, and one of these is a type of kidney damage, which occurs in about 1 percent of people treated with these drugs, particularly if they are taken for a long time. For this reason, some people are afraid to take an aspirin every day to slow blood clotting and hence to help reduce their risks of coronary heart attack and stroke.

That worry, according to correspondence in the Lancet (1:736), is an unnecessary one, since aspirin differs from all the other NSAIDs in that it lacks any ability to harm the kidneys when taken in usual doses by mouth. The reason for this is that aspirin is broken down by digestion in the intestine and further changed in the liver immediately after absorption so that, after usual dosages by mouth, not enough intact aspirin gets into the general circulation to harm the kidneys.

*167\143\2*

Symptoms: Swelling in the front of the neck

Home care Do not attempt to treat at home. Treatment depends on the cause, which must be diagnosed by a doctor.

Precautions:

-    During pregnancy, do not take medications (even over-the-counter drugs) without your doctor’s approval.

-     Since not all thyroid glands are in exactly the same position, a lump in the neck should never be removed without first testing to be sure it is not the thyroid gland.

A goitre is an enlargement of the thyroid gland which causes a swelling in the front of the neck. The thyroid gland lies just below and to either side of the larynx (Adam’s apple). The thyroid gland produces hormones that control the body’s metabolism rate – the rate at which foods are used for energy and growth. A normal thyroid is barely if at all visible and can barely be felt.

A goitre may be present in a newborn infant, especially if the pregnant mother was on certain medications (including iodides in anti-asthma or cough medicines). Insufficient iodine in your child’s diet also can cause a goitre. Once common, this disease is now rare because of general use of iodized table salt and more widespread eating of seafood. (Seafood is naturally high in iodine content.)

A goitre is most common between the ages of six and 16 years. It occurs in girls nine times as often as it does in boys. It is most often due to an autoimmune (self-destructive) disease-Hashimoto’s thyroiditis -of unknown cause. Enlargement of the thyroid is rarely due to malignancy. A goitre may be hyperactive (producing too much hormone) or hypoactive (producing too little hormone), but usually it is neither.

Signs and symptoms

A goitre can be seen and felt as a swelling in the front of the neck. This swelling usually appears just below and to either side of the Adam’s apple. Often the swelling is noticed when a shirt collar or neck jewelry no longer fits. Generally, there are no other symptoms.

Home care

No home treatment should be attempted until the cause of goitre is diagnosed by your doctor. The cause cannot be diagnosed without laboratory tests.

Precautions

• During pregnancy, do not take medications (even over-the-counter drugs) without your doctor’s approval.

• Not all thyroid glands are in exactly the same position in the neck. Any lump in the midline of the neck may be a goitre of an unusually positioned thyroid. A lump should never be removed from this area without first testing to be sure it is not the thyroid gland.

Medical treatment

Blood tests, often requiring complicated laboratory work, are used to find the cause of goitre. The treatment for goitre depends on the cause and can include giving oral thyroxine (thyroid hormone) or desiccated thyroid for months or years. Surgery is rarely necessary except in rare cases of malignancy or when the goitre obstructs breathing in infants.

*84/84/5*

Some very recent studies are showing that statin drugs can reduce inflammation in the body; specifically they are able to lower C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. According to Dr Christopher P. Cannon, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, USA, “CRP is a global screen for bad things in the cardiovascular system”. If you have high blood levels of this substance, you are much more likely to have a heart attack.

Currently the mechanism by which statin drugs lower CRP is not known, but patients who have low levels (especially lower then 2mg/L) are less likely to have a heart attack, regardless of what their LDL level is. Perhaps statin drugs are exerting their protective effects on cardiovascular disease not by lowering cholesterol, but by lowering C-reactive protein.

It is good to know that statins can do something useful for your health, like lowering inflammation, but there may be a high price to pay. It is very easy to lower C-reactive protein with a healthy diet and lifestyle.

Maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly, and having a high intake of vegetable juices and antioxidants are simple ways to lower your CRP level. The thing is that these natural treatments don’t make much money. Drag companies make enormous profits on cholesterol lowering drags.

*30/53/5*

Certain kinds of work may be linked with reduced fertility for both partners. This is backed up by substantial research.

For example, professional drivers spend long hours sitting which can result in a lower sperm count and higher numbers of abnormal sperm.

Likewise, welders exposed to intense heat may have reduced quantity and quality of sperm. In the same way, firefighters face intense heat, and they are also exposed to a large variety of chemicals which affect their fertility. Indeed, any man who works in a hot environment (such as a foundry or bakery) could find that his sperm production decreases.

Agricultural workers exposed to pesticides and other chemicals have low sperm counts. Research also shows that their partners have a high rate of miscarriages. In 1991, 1,500 men in Costa Rica became sterile after being exposed to a pesticide used to treat bananas. Other pesticides, such as DBCP (dibromochloropropane), have caused changes in sperm counts, of which were reversible after exposure had stopped. Women exposed to pesticides can have problems conceiving and an increase in miscarriages.

Healthcare workers can be exposed to waste anaesthetic gases, ethylene oxide, cytostatic drugs, mercury and X-rays. And, as we have already seen, s and their assistants experience fertility problems due to the mercury in amalgam fillings.

Painters and printers are exposed to solvents and pigments which can affect male fertility.

Women who are exposed to chemicals and heavy metals often have problems with their menstrual cycle, experiencing hormone imbalances and miscarriages, while taking longer to get pregnant.

Problems with fertility can occur if you or your partner works with lead (used to make storage batteries), radiation, pesticides and/or solvents. For example, workers in drycleaners and hairdressers come into contact with a wide range of chemicals.

In 1997 the Lancet, the leading medical journal, published a whole range of occupations and their implications for fertility. Agents toxic to sperm included inorganic mercury, dibromochloropropane, ethylene dibromide, ethylene glycol ethers, chloropropene and carbon disulfide. Certain other occupational risks were found, including heat, strenuous work, ionising radiation, exposure to lead, antineoplastic agents, waste anaesthetic gases, ethylene oxide, methyl mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls and carbon monoxide.

Visual Display Units

Like televisions, VDUs produce a range of electromagnetic radiation frequencies, including ultraviolet, infrared, microwave, radio frequency and extra low frequency (ELF). Even though so many workers, male and female, now sit in front of a screen all day, surprisingly little is known about the impact of VDUs on health and fertility.

The Health and Safety Executive, the UK’s main workers’ watchdog, found no evidence of an increased miscarriage risk among VDU operatives in a 1992 survey. But other studies point to dangers.

The length of time spent at the computer may be the key. One study found that women who spent more than 20 hours a week in front of the screen had twice as many miscarriages as non-VDU workers. But under 20 hours there was no increased risk. Researchers have also found that not only are miscarriages correlated to the amount of time spent on a VDU but also the same for premature births and stillbirths. Out of those spending up to 6 hours a day at a computer 66 per cent had a problem relating to either a miscarriage, premature birth or stillbirth compared to only 25 per cent for those women spending one hour a day on a VDU.

A number of studies on women VDU workers have also considered stress as a contributing factor to fertility problems. Working at a screen means that women can be sitting in the same position for long hours, doing repetitive work, and often under time pressure.

*15/73/5*