For physicians and healthcare professionals Net is quite a boom. They can get up to speed on latest research with a minimum of fuss, interact with their peers around world and generally ensure that they're providing best service and care to their patients. Doctors are already using Internet as a means of interacting more frequently with their patients - doctors use e-mail and their web sites to schedule appointments; patients who need to monitor themselves daily (such as diabetes or hypertension) can now upload results to their doctor's web site for treatment advice.

Yes, Internet is changing doctor-patient relationship and way medical care is given; increasing layman's knowledge of health and diseases; and, making us all more aware of how our bodies work and how to take care of them. But let's not get carried away. There is too a downside to epidemic of online medicine that's sweeping through web. When browsing through medical information, never make mistake of taking what you read as gospel - least of all in unmoderated chat forums.

Guidelines for proper medical advice

1. Just because a doctor puts up a photograph and resume on web page, don't conclude that he's a reputed physician.

2. Connect only to recognizably reputed sites. Reasonably safe sites include reputed hospitals, well-known medical colleges, respected medical journals, top news agencies, and national associations of medical practitioners or healthcare professionals.

3. Medical sites which have been reviewed and recommended by well-known medical associations are likely to be safer.

4. Always corroborate information and advice through more than one source.

5. Be wary of sites that ask you to purchase a proprietary medicine or some strange medication.

6. Sites offering psychiatric advice after payment of a one-time fee are often fraudulent and rip-off.

7. Advice from fellow-sufferers, especially if they recommended medication/dosage has to be treated with extreme caution. Always double-check with your family doctor before implementing advice you receive on Net.

8. Don't take seriously any web site which ridicules traditional medicine and offers unique miracle cure with promises of eternal life. Listen to them and you may well land up at heaven's angel.

In final analysis, you cannot expect to use web as a replacement for your doctor, who is after all a trained professional who understands you and your needs far better than some CyberDoc in Cyberspace who would perhaps not even be legally liable if his negligence or advice were to kill you.

Excess sodium can force its way into spaces between tissues constricting capillaries that are so small only one red blood cell may pass through them at a time. This phenomena shuts down blood and nutrient (including oxygen) supplies to various areas of body. Unchelated sodium also has ability to hold water in tissues causing edema. Salt is also very hard on small tubules in kidneys and has an affinity for cholesterol--another substance which plugs up arterial plumbing.

Dr. John Christopher, N.D. would often recommend foods high in potassium to help in blood pressure regulation. Grape juice, potatoes, tomatoes, citrus fruits and green vegetables are only a few of such foods.

In other words, by combining lifestyle modifications with whole-food supplements designed to bring body into homeostasis, you'll have a winning combination to balance body's electrical construction.

Many monitor their hypertension with a sphygmomanometer and a stethescope. Today, that market produces easier monitoring devices. In any case, once you are in harmony with nature's cures and electrical construct of both universe and your body, you will not need external instruments to measure your health, which I'm sure you'll agree is a gift.