Modern diseases are fictional names for cellular malfunction, expert says

http://www.newstarget.com/019330.html

Med school students rack their brains trying to learn about the 10,000 diseases they are told exist, but according to Dallas-based naturopath and research scientist Dr. Gary L. Tunsky, all they're studying is the big lie told in med school: That these different diseases exist at all. According to Dr. Tunsky, there is only one disease -- cellular malfunction -- and all other "diseases" are just labels that tell us the location of the cellular malfunction.
"Every disease known to man can be explained in seven minutes," Dr. Tunsky explained at his November lecture at the First Annual Arizona Choices Exposition in Tucson, Ariz. He then explained how cellular malfunction develops into the symptoms we know as diseases. To understand this concept, Dr. Tunsky says we must first realize that the biggest error in mainstream medicine and naturopathy is that the body is compartmentalized, suggesting that the systems are not interrelated. In reality, the human body is a complete unit with highly complex systems working together to keep it functioning optimally.
Our bodies are designed to recognize self and non-self, but they're not designed to absorb synthetic materials like soda and pharmaceuticals. When our bodies do absorb these toxins, as well as any emotional toxins, through the environment or through eating and drinking, they are able to expel some of the hazardous material, but not all. As a result, this material builds up until the blood becomes contaminated, according to Dr. Tunsky. For the purpose of self-preservation, the blood then pushes out the contaminants into the genetically determined "weakest link" body systems. This is why certain diseases run in some families but not others. When our "weakest link" body systems become affected by these contaminants, we then develop the symptoms mainstream medicine recognizes as individual diseases, but that are really just our cells "crying out," says Dr. Tunsky.
Mainstream medicine teaches physicians to treat the symptoms of one underlying disease, rather than cellular malfunction itself. To explain this phenomenon, Dr. Tunsky evokes the analogy of a car that has a "check engine" light on. Treating the individual "diseases" that really are just symptoms of overall cellular malfunction is like cutting the wires to the warning lights rather than actually fixing the engine. This type of medicine is ineffective because it is just the illusion of healing, making it what Dr. Tunsky calls "David Copperfield medicine."
To prove his point, Dr. Tunsky used cancer as an example. Mainstream medicine usually treats cancer by removing the tumor or tumors from the affected body parts. However, the tumor is not the problem, according to Dr. Tunsky. Rather, it is the solution. When cells malfunction in the manner that we call cancer, the body forms a bubble (a tumor) around the malfunctioned cells to isolate them with the hope that someday the immune system will be able to defeat the cut-off cells. Merely removing the tumor without addressing the factors that are causing cellular malfunction will not effectively treat or cure cancer, according to Dr. Tunsky, nor will further poisoning the body with chemotherapy or radiation.
Cellular malfunction is not instantaneous; it is a multi-stepped process. The first step is of course toxicity, which results from the consumption of environmental and emotional toxins, as mentioned before. When you consume drinks like soda or breathe in chemicals like artificial fragrances on a regular basis, these toxins build up in your body over time. As a result, your cells become "gummed up," starving them of nourishing oxygen and water. At this time, heavy metals and malnutrition come into play, as well as bacteria and viruses.
Dr. Tunsky's view of infectious agents' role in cellular malfunction opposes the beliefs of mainstream medicine. He believes that these agents are "trying to clean things up," as everything is integrated. Furthermore, because of the cells' anaerobic and dehydrated conditions, circulation problems develop, turning them into a stagnant swamp, breeding things like fungus and mold and representing another factor in cellular malfunction.
Like tumors, cholesterol, deemed "bad" by mainstream medicine, is nothing more than the body's attempt to isolate malfunctioned cells, according to Dr. Tunsky. He believes that the body uses hardening agents like cholesterol, calcium and iron to "wall off" the bad cells. In other words, high cholesterol isn't a result of eating cholesterol-rich foods; it is, in Dr. Tunsky's words, "like a scab on the walls of the arteries." As you might imagine, the last stage of cellular malfunction is tissue death, but fortunately there are ways to halt the malfunction before it gets to this point.
In order to stop cellular malfunction, you must first stop poisoning your body with the toxins that are causing it. This means limiting your consumption of trans fats, refined white flour and sugar and pharmaceutical drugs, as well as limiting your exposure to environmental and emotional toxins. For more information on the metabolic disruptors in your refrigerator that might be making you sick, see the Health Ranger Mike Adams' book, Grocery Warning, available from Truth Publishing. Then, once you stop adding to the problem, you must also detoxify and remove the agents that are already wreaking havoc on your cells. Following a raw foods diet is a great way to do this, according to Dr. Tunsky. If you think it would be too difficult to incorporate raw foods into your busy lifestyle, be sure to visit Karen Kevala Parker's informative web site Raw Food for Real People for tips on going raw. Defeating cellular malfunction is the key to preventing illness and disease while restoring your body to its greatest functional potential.

'New Medicine' documentary was Dana Reeve's last projectBy Tim WhitmireThe Associated Press

http://www.thestate.com/mld/centredaily/living/14201668.htm?source=rss&channel=centredaily_living

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Dana Reeve would be alive only about three more months when she taped an introduction to the two-hour PBS documentary "The New Medicine."
The widow of paralyzed "Superman" actor Christopher Reeve was battling lung cancer diagnosed last summer, but was upbeat that late November day of the taping.
"She was very hopeful at that point that she would survive," director Muffie Meyer said. "She was buying Christmas presents for her son that day, and really had a tremendous amount of energy. She seemed wonderful, and very, very grounded and strong."
In her introduction to the first segment of "The New Medicine," Reeve tells viewers: "Your emotional state has a tremendous amount to do with sickness, health and well-being. For years, my husband and I lived on -- and because of -- hope. Hope continues to give me the mental strength to carry on."
The project was the last she is known to have completed before her March 6 death, and it was a fitting one: "The New Medicine," which debuts today, looks at how mainstream doctors are embracing treatment of the whole patient -- not just symptoms of a disease.
Reeve's appearance after her death unintentionally underscores one of the central points of the documentary: Holistic medicine is a tool for fighting illness -- not a cure-all.
"Part of the challenge is we get patients all the time that are really looking for a magic cure," said Dr. Tracy Gaudet, an obstetrician-gynecologist who heads the Duke Center for Integrative Medicine in Durham. "We're not in the business of magic cures; we're in the business of good medicine."
The Duke center uses any available technique -- from alternative to mainstream -- that might improve a patient's experience and outcome, Gaudet said. Accepted practices include herbal supplements, acupuncture, massage and meditation.
"The Science of Emotion," the first hour of the documentary, follows Gaudet as she treats Tammy Patton, who was hospitalized in her 25th week of pregnancy after her water broke prematurely.
Gaudet led Patton through a series of relaxation exercises, because stress is known to raise the risk of infection and to spur early labor.
"We can help your mind take a little vacation," Gaudet told the patient, who carried her baby boy another four weeks. Though born premature, the baby has a good chance of a healthy life.
In an off-camera interview with the film's producers on the day she taped her introductions, Reeve said she was doing "creative image work" -- evoking images and sensations as a cue to the body to relax.
With her doctors' blessing, she said, she was taking botanical supplements along with prescribed medicines.
The film avoids a New Age tone. There are no magic crystals. Just a sincere effort to find something -- anything -- that will lead to a better quality of life for patients.

Phony doctor gets 13 years
Supporters, victims make emotional pleas at sentencing
Brian O'Connell was accused of duping his patients with fake credentials.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4575248,00.html

By Sue Lindsay, Rocky Mountain News March 28, 2006
A man who promised he could cure terminal cancer patients with unconventional treatments was sentenced to 13 years in prison after a judge heard emotional pleas from both sides Monday.
Brian O'Connell, 37, was accused of hastening the deaths of two cancer patients and causing a heart -attack that nearly killed a 17-year- old girl in therapies he administered while holding himself out as a naturopath.
O'Connell was hauled away in handcuffs after a six-hour sentencing hearing in Jefferson County District Court. The courtroom was packed with his supporters and victims who wanted him behind bars.
O'Connell told Judge Margie Enquist that he simply wanted to help people - not for money or prestige.
"I never did anything out of malice," he said. "I am painfully sorry and very remorseful, but I have accepted responsibility for what I have done."
He acknowledged lying about his background but said he has learned from his mistakes.
Enquist, however, told him she didn't believe it.
"People came in the most desperate of situations, and you took advantage of them," she said. "What price would people pay for the promise of a cure? The seriousness of this case comes not from the number of victims but from the vulnerabilities you exploited for your own gain."
Two of the three victims' families were satisfied with the outcome.
"We're happy. He got what he deserved," said Laura Flanagan, whose 19-year-old, terminally ill son, Sean, died in 2003, soon after receiving a blood treatment from O'Connell.
"He has no credentials. He's not what he says he is. He's a liar and a crook."
Monday's sentence stems from O'Connell's guilty plea to charges of criminally negligent homicide, practicing medicine without a license, theft, assault and perjury.
Some patients thought O'Connell was a physician. He said he was a doctor of naturopathy, basing his assertions on a degree from a correspondence school.
The Flanagans said they went to O'Connell after their son's physicians said there was nothing more they could do.
O'Connell told them "he could save Sean and that no Irish kid was going to die on his watch," said David Flanagan, Sean's father.
But Flanagan died two weeks after getting "photoluminescense" treatments in which a small amount of his blood was removed, exposed to light and reinjected along with hydrogen peroxide.
Another patient, Rory Gallegos, 45, developed a severe blood infection after receiving corrosive "Black Salve" treatments that O'Connell said would cause his liver cancer to come out through the skin. Instead, he developed large open sores that wouldn't stop bleeding.
Although Gallegos was losing his battle with cancer, "the poison in his body from O'Connell's treatment hastened his death," said his widow, Janet Mansfield. "Rory was robbed of dignity in death, robbed of the chance to say his last goodbyes. O'Connell filled Rory's head with false hope and false promises."
A 17-year-old girl went into cardiac arrest and nearly died just after receiving a photoluminescense treatment at O'Connell's office.
But her mother remains among his most steadfast supporters.
"It's a very, very good procedure," Catherine Bresina said. "It does no harm. It cleanses. What he was doing was wonderful."
A dozen other patients told the judge that O'Connell helped them with a variety of ailments.
Phil Broncucia Jr. said he first thought O'Connell was a quack but went ahead with treatments because his doctors said they couldn't treat his inner-ear disorder. O'Connell cured him, he said.
Many patients said they didn't care about O'Connell's bogus credentials. "I'm more interested in outcomes than credentials," former patient Greg Archer said.
The prosecutor said O'Connell duped his patients with walls filled with phony credentials, including one that claimed he was "Physician of the Year."
But defense attorney Rick Jaffe said many patients came to O'Connell because conventional medicine failed them.
"They want results and don't care about credentials," he said.

Ginseng, one of the most widely used herbs in traditional Chinese medicine, may improve survival and quality of life after a diagnosis of breast cancer, according to a recent study by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center researchers.

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=16723

The large epidemiological study, led by Xiao-Ou Shu, M.D., Ph.D., was published online recently in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Ginseng is a slow-growing perennial herb whose roots have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for more than 2,000 years. The two main classes of ginseng - red and white - have different biological effects, according to traditional Chinese medicine theory. White, or unprocessed, ginseng is used over long periods to promote general health, vitality and longevity. Red, or processed, ginseng provides a much stronger effect and is used for short periods to aid in disease recovery.
Both varieties of ginseng contain more than 30 chemicals, called ginsenosides, which have anti-tumor effects in cell culture and animal studies, suggesting that the herbs may provide specific benefits to cancer patients. In fact, ginseng use has been increasing among cancer patients in recent years, particularly in women diagnosed with breast cancer.
However, despite the encouraging laboratory findings, scientific analysis of ginseng's health benefits in patient populations has been lacking. "There is a lot of skepticism about herbal medicine," said Shu. "That is why we are taking the observational approach at this time to see whether there is any efficacy. If so, we can go to the next phase, and eventually go to clinical trials."
Shu and colleagues assessed the effects of ginseng use in breast cancer survivors as part of a large epidemiological study, the Shanghai Breast Cancer Study, which has followed 1,455 breast cancer patients in Shanghai since 1996. For the current study, Shu and colleagues evaluated breast cancer patients for ginseng use both before and after their diagnosis of breast cancer. All patients who used ginseng had received at least one type of conventional cancer therapy (e.g., surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy).
Information on ginseng use prior to cancer diagnosis, which was available for every subject, was used to determine whether prior ginseng use predicted survival. At follow up - about three to four years after diagnosis - the researchers asked about ginseng use since diagnosis. That information, which was available only for survivors, was used to look at quality of life measurements - i.e., physical, psychological, social and material well-being.
Before diagnosis, about a quarter of patients (27.4 percent) reported using ginseng regularly. After diagnosis, that percentage jumped to 62.8 percent, the researchers found. They also found significant improvements in both survival and quality of life measures in patients who used ginseng. "When patients used ginseng prior to diagnosis, they tended to have higher survival," Shu explained. "Ginseng use after cancer diagnosis was related to improved quality of life."
The findings suggest that ginseng may provide tangible benefits to breast cancer survivors, but there are limitations to the study. The varieties and the methods of ginseng use and the use of other complementary and alternative therapies could not be fully accounted for in the analysis. Also, the quality of life measures exclusively relied on patient self-reporting.
Although side effects of ginseng use were not recorded in this study, Shu warned that the seemingly innocuous root can create problems when improperly used and should be taken with caution. "It's not a 'drug' in terms of being managed by the FDA, but it was used as a drug in traditional Chinese medicine," she said. "Any drug may have some side effects and may interact with other drugs. So, discuss with your primary care doctor before you decide to take ginseng roots or products."
Shu hopes to confirm and expand the current findings through continued collection of data in this patient population, from another ongoing study of 4,000 breast cancer patients, and eventually, in randomized clinical trials. Scientific study of complementary and alternative medicines is tricky though, said Shu. "Chinese traditional medicine is very individualized. It gives you different drugs based on your symptoms and your overall health. There is much to be learnt."
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu

Medical ethicists say Northfield study flawed

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060320/us_nm/northfieldlabs_ethics_dc_1

By Susan Kelly
Three medical researchers, in an open letter to hospital review boards, said a study of a blood substitute by Northfield Laboratories Inc. is "seriously flawed" and should be redesigned to protect patients.
The medical ethicists' letter adds to a raging debate over the use of Northfield's blood substitute, PolyHeme, in trauma patients who cannot give their consent.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley has demanded that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration publicly explain the benefits of PolyHeme and the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the product's clinical development for elective surgery.
Northfield shares, which have plunged 20 percent since a February 22 Wall Street Journal article called into question the safety of PolyHeme, were down about 17 cents, or 1.71 percent, at $9.77 in afternoon trading on Nasdaq.
The current Northfield Laboratories study compares use of PolyHeme to traditional saline in trauma patients who can unknowingly receive the experimental product because of a federal regulation that waives the need to get their consent under certain circumstances.
Blood, the standard treatment for patients with hemorrhagic shock, or uncontrolled bleeding, is not available in ambulances. Northfield's oxygen-carrying PolyHeme fluid is intended to prevent death before a patient can receive blood in an emergency room.
In a letter posted on the Web site of The American Journal of Bioethics, the three medical ethics professors said the consent waiver "should cease to apply as soon as suitable blood is at hand."
In Northfield's study, taking place in 18 U.S. states, patients can continue to receive PolyHeme for up to 12 hours.
A Northfield spokeswoman was not available for comment. The company, in a statement released earlier this month, said the study meets FDA criteria requiring potential for patient survival benefit.
The medical ethicists -- Ken Kipnis of the University of Hawaii, Nancy King of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and Robert Nelson of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine -- said use of the blood substitute can be justified when blood is not available, but should be stopped once donor blood is matched in the hospital.
They argue the hospital stage of the study fails to meet regulatory as well as ethical standards.
Because of the severity of their injuries, it is inevitable that some patients in the study will die, the researchers warned.
"Putting the point most dramatically, these men and women will have died while being denied an available treatment (blood transfusions) that is indicated by the standard of practice, following unconsented-to enrollment in a research study," the letter said.
Northfield has said some data indicate blood may not be the optimal treatment in early trauma care, which provides a scientific and ethical basis for continuing treatment with PolyHeme in the study.
But Nelson, in an interview, said such research is justified only when a patient's condition is life-threatening and no alternative treatment exists.
"Our concern is that when blood is available in hospitals, then it doesn't meet that bar," he said.
He also called on Northfield to make more details of its trial's design available to the public.

Reiki, Wholistic Healing and Your Pet: PupLife.com Interviews Reiki Master and Animal Communicator

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/3/prweb360044.htm

Massage, acupuncture, animal communication and Reiki are just a few ways in which we are creating happier and healthier lives for ourselves and our pets. PupLife.com recently had the opportunity to talk with a Chicago-area Reiki Master to discuss the myriad ways in which alternative forms of medicine are gaining popularity in the pet world.
Fennville, MI (PRWEB) March 20, 2006 -- Massage, acupuncture, animal communication and Reiki are just a few ways in which we are creating happier and healthier lives for ourselves and our pets. PupLife.com recently had the pleasure of talking with Annette M. Amelkovich, a Chicago-area Reiki Master and Wholistic Healer.Reiki is a Japanese word that literally translates “universal life energy”. The Reiki method is not only for curing illness. Its true purpose is to correct the heart and mind and to keep the body fit. According to PupLife.com CEO, Leslie Hayes, "A majority of pet owners are increasingly interested in finding new and beneficial ways to provide healthy lifestyles for their companion animals." She continued, "Reiki is one way in which both humans and our animal counterparts gain mutually beneficial results." In the interview, PupLife.com asked Reiki Master, Annette M. Amelkovich, about her philosophy and her practice. "Reiki is a hands-on or remote natural healing modality utilized to promote healing, to feel peaceful, to re-balance, and to achieve stress release for the mind, body, and spirit. I am the conduit, the vessel, in which the cosmic or chi energy comes through me and out my hands; some people refer to it as 'laying on of hands'. When the mind, body, and spirit are balanced and blockages are removed, the physical body may then function effortlessly," said Annette. Ms. Amelkovich continued, "Alternative healing practices enrich both humans and animals making our lives better with a spiritual smorgesbord of wholistic modalities such as Reiki healing energy, intuitive insight, and nutrition and wellness education. My practice focuses on in-home visits and telephone sessions. Additionally, I offer Pampered Pooch Parties where pets and their caregivers receive Reiki sessions."The full article can be found online at: http://puplife.com/dogcaretips/reiki-holistic-healing-pet.html. PupLife.com is the place where conscientious dog owners can find up-to-the-minute information on what's happening in the world of companion animals. PupLife.com offers the best products for pets online. Our mission is to provide the finest products for your dog along with reliable information and superior customer service. As a business, we strive to promote ethical treatment of animals, and we encourage compassion and responsibility toward our pets. Most of all, we celebrate the incredible bond between humans and animals.For more information, contact Leslie Hayes at 269-561-2570 or visit http://www.puplife.com.

Alternative practitioners understand business is all about service

http://www.ottawabusinessjournal.com/302925900415314.php#

By Kristin Harold, Ottawa Business Journal StaffMon, Mar 20, 2006 12:00 AM EST

As the debate over the healthcare system in Canada rages on, fee-for-service alternative medicine clinics are seeing an increase in popularity due to the choice in options and control they offer consumers.
One local clinic that focuses on naturopathic medicine is celebrating its second year in business this month. Dr. Colleen McQuarrie, a naturopath who is the founder and director of Ottawa Integrative Health Centre on Carling Avenue, says the clinic has found success by focusing on its clients' wants and needs.
"We're a full service family clinic, so we do annual physical exams, bloodwork, allergy testing, acupuncture, botanical medicine, nutritional counseling, massage therapy and hydro therapy," she says, adding most of their business comes from referrals. "It's a growing market because I think people are looking for options outside of conventional medicine. People are realizing they have to be consumers for their own healthcare, be responsible for taking care of themselves and they're looking for better quality of life."
While most Canadians are still not accustomed to having choice and control regarding healthcare, Dr. McQuarrie says that notion is slowly changing.
"We're coming from a model where everything should be paid for, so that obviously drives the way in which we run our business and market ourselves and the demographic whom we market ourselves to," she points out. "The average person who comes for fee-for-service healthcare isn't going to be your average person at this stage in the game."
Dr. McQuarrie says naturopathic medicine tends to appeal to women with a post-secondary education between the ages of 30 and 50. Many of these women are also making the healthcare choices for their families, so she says most naturopathic clinics end up with a family practice as a result.
"We find that more and more young professionals are coming in because they want a different quality of care and a doctor who gets to know them and spend quality time," she says. "We're also an 80 per cent female profession, which is highly unusual and it seems that our biggest patient demographic matches ourselves. There has been quite the growth in the field because in the province of Ontario naturopathic doctors went from approximately 120 in the 1970s to now approaching 700."
The future success of naturopathic clinics and other fee-for-services alternative medicine clinics in the country will be largely dependent on the consumers' perceptions and requirements, says an expert in the field.
"Consumers are becoming discerning at whether or not somebody is offering a service because their intention is healthcare or if someone is offering a service because their intention is revenue and profit," says Dr. Iva Lloyd, a naturopathic doctor herself and chair of the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors. "And that goes whether it's fee-for-service or a hospital."
Dr. Lloyd teaches the business course at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in Toronto, one of only two schools of its kind in Canada.
"I teach people how to run a business successfully with the premise that you're only going to be successful in the long-run if the decisions you make benefit your patients," she says. "If you over-charge on products, charge for services people don't want or if you link too many services together that patients don't want to do, then they're not going to come back and see you."
She says fee-for-service clinics are teaching Canadians how to take charge of their healthcare wants and needs because it gives them choice in the marketplace.
"Customers can afford to be choosy with fee-for-service clinics while with the traditional healthcare system people feel like they can't say no and that they can't say they don't like this doctor," she says.
"In fee-for-service environment, the practitioners have to contentious and be more aware of what the client is looking for because they will pick and choose."
Dr. Kelly Norman, a local chiropractor who is the clinic director at the Back In Balance Chiropractic Centre, says her practice has found success by establishing patient trust.
"We offer gentle chiropractic care because it's something some people are worried will be very rough, as well as acupuncture, ART (active release technique), custom-care made orthotics, nutritional counseling and family counseling so it's multi-disciplinary," she says.
"Some chiropractic clinics can be very competitive, but we're successful because we depend on referrals and people trust us. I really believe in word-of-mouth marketing and
in any business that's a great way to attract people."
The clinic, which opened in Westboro in June 2005, is located in a building with a pharmacy, a medical doctor and a massage clinic. Dr. Norman says each of these businesses exchange referrals to better serve their patients while also helping each other grow.
Dr. Norman says she is seeing a growing openness to alternative medicine in the market for many reasons, but many are turning to it because they're struggling to find a general practitioner.
"In the state the healthcare system is in, it's becoming more and more difficult for people to find doctors, so sometimes they don't know whom to turn to," she says. "So we're seeing
a lot more people I think who wouldn't
have sought out our services in the past. And then they come to us and see the awesome results they can get with alternative healthcare practitioners."

Herbal remedies Our ancestors were far more sophisticated in their use of herbs for culinary, medicinal, even magical purposes. It's time to expand our minds, says Monty Don Sunday

March 19, 2006The Observer
Any British household with a scrap of land has always grown herbs for the kitchen. From the superb monastic herb gardens down to the humblest cottage, a supply of fresh herbs would have been considered essential. The list of long-standing British herbs might surprise a modern cook who associates herbs principally with the Mediterranean. The Saxons, for example, were hugely sophisticated in their use of herbs for both the kitchen and as medicinal plants. Indeed, as in modern-day Chinese medicine, the division between the two uses was scarcely acknowledged and they apparently recognised at least 500 plants that could be used for taste and health. Many of the Mediterranean herbs were introduced by the Romans, although a vigorous trade in herbs and spices from Europe and the Middle East was in operation by Saxon times. Later, this intense intimacy with plants, which also included spells and an almost magical belief in the power of herbs, such as watercress (which was regarded as a sacred plant), camomile, chervil, fennel and mugwort, came to be viewed as evidence of witchcraft and was thus discouraged and has arguably never been recovered to this day.
The modern gardener and cook has, by historical standards, a very restricted concept of what a herb might be. In the monastic or castle garden, every plant that was not listed as a fruit tree was a herb. As far as the medieval and Tudor kitchen went, herbs covered what we might call salad leaves as well as being the province of the apothecary. In this area, along the Welsh borders, until very recently it was normal to source most of your own raw materials for ointments, lotions and infusions to deal with common health problems. Until the Nineties, the woman who farmed our land before us used to collect elderflowers to make an infusion to wash her hair with and her mother regarded the hedgerow outside the kitchen window as 'her chemist'. This is wholly in the spirit of the medieval herbalist, who saw plants providing an almost limitless source of good health and good flavour. There is no reason why we cannot tap into that in a modest way in any garden that has room for a few pots.
The modern kitchen need not emulate this range or variety, but it is quite impossible to cook even the simplest of dishes without access to a supply of fresh herbs. Since Neolithic times, British cooking has always been an eclectic mix of cultures. Herbs like mint, coriander, tansy and marjoram grew wild. The Romans brought with them spices such as ginger, pepper and cinnamon, and herbs including borage, chervil, dill, fennel, lovage, sage and thyme, all of which have remained staples of the British kitchen.
Many of the herbs that the Romans introduced had become escapees and were growing wild by the time the Saxons had colonised England. Mustard (the white kind, Brassica alba), chervil, dill, coriander and parsley all fled the Roman garden and became at home in the British countryside. So, too, did cherry, almond, quince, medlar and peach trees. The Romans certainly brought bulb garlic (Allium sativum) with them, too, but thought it coarse and only good for giving soldiers or slaves strength. Wild garlic (Allium ursinum) has been gathered since prehistoric times, and in medieval times was grown and eaten almost daily by the peasant classes with cheese or boiled bacon. It is also one of the very first green vegetables available in spring. However, by the 19th century, probably as a result of the lengthy wars against the French, garlic was looked upon with great suspicion and Mrs Beeton, writing in 1860, probably reflected the general attitude that persisted right up until the end of the 20th century: 'The smell of this plant is generally considered offensive, and it is the most acrimonious in its taste of the whole of the alliaceous tribe.'
This cultural wrinkling of the nose seems to me to be part of the whole parochialism of food in the 20th century. Despite the much proclaimed globalism, I think it continues today outside the biggest cities. We may not know much about food, but by God and empire we know what we like - even if it is ← mostly bland, limited and often disgusting.
However, growing in our fields and woods (hidden from the chemical fallout of the past 50 years of farming) is a huge range of herbs of real diversity. Our precepts of what constitutes 'British' food have become hopelessly limited. This applies to our gardens, too. The divide between a 'wild' plant and what is suitable for the garden is unnatural and meaningless. Gardens begin and end in the mind, and the Western way of thinking is not good at accommodating that. Japanese gardens, on the other hand, have refined the concept past our comprehension. I am very taken with all this because, as well as my garden at home (which remains formal, structured and much loved), I also have a slab of Welsh hillside which is the exact opposite, just filled with beautiful things or incidents. Somewhere between the two is the garden in my head.
If this is all too introverted and in danger of disappearing up its own fundament, perhaps just extending our concept of what a herb is and where it might grow is a start. My list is by no means inclusive, but it is, to paraphrase the title of Mirabel Osler's great book, a gentle plea for chaos and the blurring of lines.
We have wild basil (Calamintha officinalis), which looks a bit like a small deadnettle and grows along hedgerows and waste ground and makes a tea. There is caraway (Carum carvi), which is good in salads and cakes and breads, and was very popular in medieval times. It is a cousin of dill and fennel, and has been grown as a cultivated plant since at least the 8th century BC. Coriander was used in pickles and in curing meat, and is my children's favourite herb. Apparently, Essex was the place to find it, although I don't know why.
Lamb's lettuce (Valerianella locusta) was so called because it appeared about now (lambing time) and was picked and eaten as a fresh green vegetable, just as it is now. Wild lettuce, on the other hand, was used primarily more like opium. The juice was dried into brown cakes that were administered to help sleep and as a painkiller. Lovage was associated with Scotland, but brought south by the east coast fishing boats. Chickweed is regarded by most gardeners as just that - a weed - but is excellent in sandwiches or salads. Like fat hen (Chenopodium album), it is a weed of manure, and both will spring up enthusiastically from seeds in a load of cattle dung. Fat hen has leaves that can be eaten like spinach, and seeds that will grind to make flour. Even ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria) was famously introduced as a vegetable. It still serves well for that purpose, and if you have it you might as well eat it.
Wild marjoram is a native, as are chives, wild thyme and camomile. Salad burnet is only grown in herb gardens now (and not many of those), but it was named as a salad herb to distinguish it from the other available wild burnet, great burnet. Sweet cicely (Myrrhis odorata) is an aniseed-tasting sweetener and grows well in my own patch of coppice. The Romans introduced smallage or wild celery, and I have often seen it referred to, but have never used it - though apparently it is delicious. Good name, too.

Alternative medicine touted at conference

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060319/NEWS/603190346/1006/RSS

Growing number of patients seek nontraditional treatments for ailments from anxiety to back pain
By IN-SUNG YOOThe News Journal
03/19/2006
When it comes to alternative medicine, many patients and doctors don't know where to start.
Despite an increase in the number of people seeking alternative and complementary forms of medicine, the wide range of therapies and sometimes questionable effectiveness of such approaches can leave people's heads spinning with questions. That's why Marie McCaffrey, creator of the alternative medicine Web site www.altmedangel.com, organized Saturday's first Delaware Conference on Alternative Medicine, held at the Center on the Riverfront.
The conference brought together alternative health providers and speakers who discussed anxiety, depression, cancer, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, eye health and herbs.

"It's really about empowerment," McCaffrey said. "I hope people can walk away from this with whatever they need to learn to be able to start a discussion about what they learned with their doctors. And hopefully, they can teach their doctor something."
Conference participant Nicole Rohloff said she knows the benefit of keeping an open mind.
After a car accident two years ago left the 27-year-old Bear resident with lower back pain, physical therapy and massage weren't enough to manage her pain. Then a friend recommended she see a chiropractor. Skeptical at first, Rohloff said she has seen a big difference in just a few months of chiropractic therapy. She came to the conference to feed her fast-growing curiosity in the world of alternative medicine, she said.
"I just want to get as much information as I can on areas of alternative medicine that I'm not as familiar with," said Rohloff, who, along with husband James, 33, is transitioning to an organic diet.
Many are becoming wary of reliance on drugs for treatment of health concerns, said Michelle Madden of Alternative Connections Inc., who was presenting information on the Interactive Metronome, a computer program used as a drug-free alternative to treating conditions like ADHD, cerebral palsy and stroke. The program teaches people to keep time to a computer-generated beat to improve coordination, attention and language processing.
Deborah Lindinger, 56, of Newark, has found using magnetic insoles in her shoes has "taken the edge off" her arthritis, she said. She also sees a nutritionist and lowered her cholesterol from 205 to 159 with a diet of non-processed foods. While she feels awareness of alternative medicine is growing, more people need to stop relying on drugs, she said.
"It's coming, but most people want the easy way out," she said. "They want to take a pill and they don't want to be bothered with what you need to do to get healthier."
Interest in conferences like Saturday's attests to dissatisfaction with traditional medicine, said Burton Goldberg, author of "Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide," who spoke at the event. When it comes to preventing illness, alternative medicine is superior because "the concept is to go to the cause of disease," he said.
"In conventional medicine, you can't beat the emergency room and trauma," Goldberg said. "They sew you up, they take away your pain and they keep you alive. But in degenerative disease, they're drug pushers."
Doctors are more open to the idea of integrating less-traditional forms of medicine into treatment these days, but it is often up to the patient to initiate the conversation, Goldberg said.
"Conventional medicine only goes to alternative medicine when the population demands it, kicking and screaming," he said.

Yunnan finds a cure for ailing TCM industry

http://atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/HC11Cb05.html

By Rui Xia KUNMING, China - The cool, white, state-of-the-art labs of Yunnan Baiyao ("white medicine") Company may not be what one has in mind when thinking of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). It is nevertheless the place where chemists and experts on Chinese medicine produce the patented drug san qi, a ginseng-based medicine that is now being marketed worldwide. In other labs in Yunnan, a treatment for the AIDS virus is being developed, while in isolated mountain areas, where a wealth of medicinal
");
//-->
herbs grow in the wild, one can still see wandering medicine women selling the same san qi to villagers for a few yuan. These two spectacles, though worlds apart, represent the two faces of Yunnan's traditional medicine industry, an embryonic industry now preparing to leap forward. Chinese medicine's journey to the WestYunnan province, known in China as "the kingdom of plants", has always been of immense importance to Chinese medicine. The 6,500 or so types of medicinal herbs growing in the province account for more than 60% of all the plants used in traditional Chinese medicine. Despite Yunnan's wealth of herbs and local knowledge, until recently, the province has lagged behind Shanghai, Chengdu and Nanjing as a center of TCM. Yunnan's TCM industry is still only 16th in the country in terms of production capacity, but this situation is rapidly changing, as the provincial government has big plans to develop the industry, improve marketing and attract foreign investment. "Yunnan is now one of China's fastest-growing provinces for Chinese medicine," said Dr Joshua Pollock, director of the Yunnan Educational and Health Services program at the Yunnan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. "The success of Yunnan Baiyao with the san qi drug serves as a role model for the TCM industry," he said. "They brought a local Yunnan product into the international market. Internationally, traditional Chinese medicine is met with skepticism and is continuously battered by modern pharmaceutical lobbyists tying down traditional remedy supplies with regulations and litigation." Attitudes toward TCM are changing. At a TCM conference held in Beijing last year, statistics were presented indicating growing interest in TCM remedies and treatments worldwide. In the United States alone in 2004, more than 20,000 TCM clinics and 400 companies specialized in TCM products. Inside China in the same year, sales of traditional medicine products counted for 26% of pharmaceutical sales. These statistics actually understate the importance of TCM, however, since in many parts of China, including Yunnan, traditional medicine is still the most commonly used form of medicine and many people still brew their herbal remedies themselves. The growing interest in TCM in Western countries has also drawn attention from some of the world's largest producers of pharmaceuticals. With prices for developing new medicines skyrocketing, some large drug companies are turning to TCM and the vast knowledge accumulated over thousands of years as a way to test new drugs against their disease targets. For example, Swiss pharma giant Novartis is financing a research project in Shanghai, hoping to isolate active ingredients from thousands of medicinal herbs that it hopes will be used for a wide range of diseases in fields such as cancer, diabetes and central nervous system disorders. In another project, supported by the World Health Organization, the traditional herbal product qing hao is being used to fight malaria, the world's No 1 killer. The target: Southeast AsiaCan Yunnan grasp its share of this development? Pollock believes it can. "I have been very impressed with local TCM professionals and government departments' enthusiasm for continuing education, research and drive towards higher standards in the TCM industry. The government currently provides incentives and invests in many fields within the traditional medicine industry. "Yunnan's wealth of traditional and ethnic medicinal knowledge is a world treasure that should be protected, researched and utilized. The government seems to recognize this and is interested in further developing the local and international traditional Chinese medicine market," said Pollock. To achieve this, the Yunnan provincial government announced last year a three-year plan to develop its traditional-medicine industry, encourage foreign investment and create a better marketing system. According to a Yunnan Daily report, marketing efforts - surprisingly perhaps - will be focused not on Western countries but rather on the neighboring countries of Southeast Asia. In Thailand, a Yunnanese remedy to relieve the symptoms of AIDS has already been registered and put into use. Malaysia and Singapore, both with large and influential Chinese communities and a long tradition of using TCM, are also potential markets. Clean air and standardization"Integration (incorporating Chinese and Western methods into a single, integrated medical practice) and "standardization (achieveing consistent, repeatable results in drug preparations and treatment outcomes) are oft-repeated terms in any discussion of TCM industry development.Huge efforts are being made to standardize prescriptions and the manufacturing of TCM products. Yunnan is a part of these efforts, as the modern technology used in the Baiyao labs shows. An Economist magazine review of China's pharmaceutical industry suggested that standardization and significant development could be achieved mainly through cooperation between academic research institutions and the private sector, cooperation that was a cornerstone in the development of the drug industry in the US. In Yunnan, both the government and private sector seem to agree with this view; enhancing cooperation is one of the main issues the local government intends to address in its new plan for the industry. Much has been done already. "Our institution works with the local government and private-sector pharmaceutical TCM companies on a consulting basis to provide information on international TCM standardization trends, international markets, brand naming and image building," said Pollock. "We also work on education programs aimed at increasing international TCM awareness." But despite many positive developments, and the provincial government's intention to make the TCM industry the biggest in the country, development of the sector still faces many obstacles, especially with regard to foreign investment. "Yunnan has great potential to become a world center for traditional medicine development," stated a manager in one of the province's largest TCM companies. "But the climate for foreign investment requires improvement. The legal system should be transparent, and regulations for foreign investment should be standardized; this factor is no less important than the standardization of the products themselves." Improving infrastructure is important, the man added, but so is environmental protection. "Clear air and clean water are among Yunnan's biggest assets. Keeping a healthy environment is the key to producing high-quality organic medicinal herb products, and the government should take that into consideration when discussing the development plans of other industries in the province." Another hindrance is the enforcement of patent regulations. Although China strengthened pharmaceutical patent protection in 2001, there remains a thriving counterfeit industry in the medical field, and investors are worried about enforcement of patent laws, especially in remote areas such as Yunnan. The holistic approachIntegration of Chinese and Western medical methods is under way, but whether it can be done and, furthermore, whether such integration would be desirable, remains controversial. "There are positive and negative effects of this development," explained Pollock. "Any development that brings funding into the TCM field can benefit its overall growth. Developing TCM drugs can benefit the world, especially in times of concern over pandemic disease. That qing hao is gaining acceptance in the modern medical community after being used in China throughout history for treating malaria is a positive development. However, it must be remembered that Chinese herbal therapy is a holistic method, which combines different herbs into a formula to treat illness. "Isolating a single herb and furthermore isolating its active ingredient reduces the overall effectiveness of the remedy, and is not a holistic science. Unfortunately, science is still far from being able to tie the complicated human physiology into holistic and comprehensive understanding. I hope that future scientific research on Chinese herbal therapy will try and measure the effectiveness of herbal combinations rather than that of isolated active ingredients," said Pollock. Despite this reservation, Pollock concluded on an optimistic note, "The future looks bright for international TCM investments in Yunnan. We might see Yunnan emerge as a national leader in 'green food' and organic herb production, as well as become a TCM educational hub for international students." While local producers enthusiastically embrace this forecast, foreign investors are still checking the field. If good intentions and ambitious plans translate into action, "the kingdom of plants" might very well become an empire of medicinal herbs. Rui Xia is a Western teacher and freelance writer living in China. Rui Xia is her unofficial Chinese name.

Common antibiotic linked to potentially fatal blood-sugar changes: study

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20060301/ca_pr_on_he/health_antibiotic_worries_2

SHERYL UBELACKERWed Mar 1, 6:47 PM ET
TORONTO (CP) - One of the most widely prescribed antibiotics in North America appears to dramatically boost the risk of potentially life-threatening blood sugar abnormalities, a large-scale study by Canadian researchers has found.
The study found that the antibiotic gatifloxacin, sold under the brand name Tequin by manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb, is associated with an increased danger of both low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) and high blood sugar (hyperglycemia), when compared with other antibiotics.
"What we found was that people taking gatifloxacin had more than a fourfold increase in the risk of being treated in hospital for low blood sugar than people who were on other antibiotics," study co-author Dr. David Juurlink said Wednesday.
"And the people on gatifloxacin had almost 17 times more risk of developing high blood sugar," said Juurlink, a senior researcher at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) in Toronto.
The research, released online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, involved patients over age 65 admitted to hospital in Ontario. While younger patients were not part of the study, Juurlink believes they, too, could be adversely affected by the drug.
He warned that both low and high blood sugar, or glucose, can be fatal, although plunging levels can cause death more quickly.
It's unusual for a drug to have two opposing effects, but it's believed Tequin may interfere with regulation of insulin secretion from the pancreas, which controls blood sugar levels. It is not known why some patients on the drug get low blood sugar, while others end up with an elevated level.
Symptoms of low blood sugar include sweating, shakiness, confusion, light-headedness, a racing heart beat and trouble speaking. As the levels drop further, a person may experience seizures, coma and eventually death.
The hallmarks of high blood sugar include excessive urination and thirst, confusion, and nausea. The condition can escalate to the point of coma and death.
There have been 14 deaths in Canada potentially linked to low or high blood sugar among users of Tequin since the drug was approved in 2001. The cases are still being assessed and no link between the drug and the deaths has been established. As of December 31, Health Canada had also received 169 reports of low blood sugar and 109 reports of high blood sugar possibly related to the drug.
However, some people with abnormal blood sugar may experience no symptoms at all.
If someone taking Tequin develops any of these symptoms, "they need to seek medical attention urgently," said Juurlink. Even those without symptoms taking the drug should discuss with their physicians whether their medication should be changed, he said.
Previous reports about the broad -spectrum antibiotic - commonly prescribed for bacterial infections of the lungs, sinuses and urinary tract - suggested it caused blood sugar abnormalities in diabetics, who already have problems maintaining control of blood glucose.
But the ICES study found that the drug also adversely affected patients without diabetes," said Juurlink.
"And this is important because the recent warnings that have come forth from regulators (Health Canada and the U.S. Federal Drug Administration) and the company really have stressed the avoidance of this drug in patients with diabetes.
"Our result simply is that this is a problem that can affect people who do not have diabetes, as well."
Health Canada, which recently issued two warnings about possible adverse effects for diabetics taking gatifloxacin, plans to update safety information on the drug's product labelling and is considering whether that should include a "black box" warning, spokeswoman Jirina Vlk said from Ottawa. A black box warning is used when a drug is potentially lethal.
"The department is enhancing the warnings for non-diabetic patients as well," she said. "The issue here is to try to restrict the use to mitigate the risk."
Marc Osborne, a spokesman for Bristol-Myers Squibb in Canada, said the company notified Health Canada in December about new safety information on Tequin and informed Canadian doctors and pharmacists through special letters.
Whether newer warnings would be issued for non-diabetics in light of the ICES study's findings is something that would be decided in conjunction with Health Canada, Osborne said from Montreal.
"Tequin is generally well-tolerated in appropriate patients," he said.
Gatifloxacin belongs to a class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones, the most prescribed antibiotics in North America. While one other drug in the class, called levofloxacin, appeared to slightly increase the risk of low blood sugar, Juurlink said the adverse effects on blood glucose are not a "class effect."
Still, he advised doctors to think twice before prescribing Tequin.
"I will never prescribe this drug," he said. "These side-effects can kill people. They are relatively common as side-effects go. They are unpredictable and we've got plenty of alternative agents out there that we could use instead."
Commenting on the study in an editorial, Dr. Gerry Gurwitz of the Meyers Primary Care Institute in Worcester, Mass., said previous FDA and Health Canada decisions not to put black box warnings on Tequin's labelling "probably warrants reconsideration" in view of the Canadian findings.
"Gatifloxacin now takes its place among an ever-growing list of medications that have been associated with very serious adverse effects. The most immediate question is what should be done with gatifloxacin?" writes Gurwitz, an expert in geriatric medicine.
"It seems clear that the drug's place among broad-spectrum antibiotics available for out-patient use is tenuous at best. For every approved indication for gatifloxacin, there are safer, equally effective and less costly alternatives."

Government pays for compliance, not medical care

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0306/medicine.men.php3

By Drs. Michael A. Glueck & Robert J. Cihak
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com Two years ago, the University of Washington School of Medicine paid the government $62 million to settle a Medicare billing dispute. In addition to its legal expenses, the medical school paid more than $750,000 for a high-powered, outside committee to review what happened and write up a report.
Obviously, the medical school learned an expensive lesson. But will the lesson help improve patient care?
We doubt it.
The title of the 111-page report summarizes the emphasis: "Achieving Excellence in Compliance." The document uses the word "compliance" 620 times, and recommends a new objective for the school: achieving "a culture of compliance" in addition to the more traditional medical school goals of research, teaching and patient care.
To implement the recommendations of the report, the school is spending money for more lawyers, more layers of staffing, re-educating physicians and more oversight of who bills for what and how.
Unfortunately, the process is eerily like that for many businesses where the Sarbanes-Oxley law has resulted in complicated, expensive and difficult-to-comply-with rules.
Once upon a time, an organization could be successful by ethically providing goods and services to customers and clients. The ethical guidelines for this behavior were ultimately based on underlying and universal moral rules, such as those prohibiting stealing or cheating. Understandable and enforceable laws and contracts often reflected those ethics.
Over time, many lost sight of the underlying moral code but still followed the ethical codes set up by business or professional organizations.
More recently, complicated laws governing business and professional behavior are causing increased emphasis on compliance to the often arbitrary rules, sometimes leaving common sense and ethics behind. Judges agreeing with new ideas put forth by trial lawyers or government prosecutors often defeat rather than fulfill justice.
Many enterprises, probably now including the UW medical school, visualize these exceedingly complicated rules as an impenetrable briar patch. It's easy to understand why they now concentrate their compliance resources in the areas targeted by government enforcers. Because it's impossible to consistently comply with all the myriad rules, the goal becomes damage control; the modus operandi becomes risk management.
Instead of being a uniform and solidifying bedrock underpinning civilization, law enforcement has become an unmarked minefield destroying lives and enterprises almost willy-nilly.
In medicine, Congress is now considering "pay for performance" and "best practices" incentives that would reward doctors for following government guidelines (i.e., rules) on how to treat patients with particular conditions or diseases.
One difficulty with this government micromanagement is that the scientific studies used to establish the "best practice" rules typically include patients with a given condition, such as congestive heart failure and a narrow range of possibly complicating factors. Researchers do not further analyze patients with a significant complicating factor because it would take too many such patients to generate a statistically significant result. For these patients, there's no "best practice" science to unerringly guide the doctor in treatment.
For example, a patient with heart failure might have a past history of a previous stroke and also come down with pneumonia on top of the heart failure. It would be rare for an up-to-date scientific study to account for even this relatively simple set of complicating factors.
And, medical advances quickly outdate these studies.
In addition, research funds for promising but politically-incorrect treatment methods, such as chelation therapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy, is cut off by the medical-political complex controlling almost all research grants.
Most people want doctors with experience in treating their condition rather than a technician treating them based on a printout from the best-practices computer.
There's a huge disconnect between the goals of compliance and excellent patient care. "Compliance" implies there's something to comply with, such as government billing and practice rules. But successful patient care often depends on creative insight. The practice of medicine is as much an art as a science.
If it were only science and technique, we'd have high-school-graduate best-practices technicians following computer printouts rather than medical doctors taking care of patients. Why waste all that time and money for college plus five to ten years of medical training?
We agree that doctors should be moral, honest and ethical. But "compliant" as a primary motivation? Ethical should cover that base.
The more energy and costs expended on compliance, the less is left over for patient care. The alternative is for increased costs of medical care, without any added patient benefit. Ironically, although the government insists that Medicare recipients get first class medical care at the same time it clamps down on medical costs, the result of more compliance efforts will be decreased access and higher costs.
If the University of Washington succeeds in "achieving excellence in compliance," it may avoid further government penalties, but patients will ultimately pay the price, both in the quality of care and dollars.

Alternative medicine common in kids; docs unaware Fri Mar 3, 11:43 AM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060303/hl_nm/alternative_medicine_dc_1

In places as far apart as Wales and Australia, about half of the children seen at pediatric hospitals are using complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), investigators report.

In a second study, British researchers found that children with chronic diseases were three times more likely to use CAM than healthy children.

In both studies, reported in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, the researchers found that parents and their children were unlikely to discuss CAM use with their doctors.

Although the number of people using complementary or alternative remedies has been increasing with time, there have been no studies of CAM use by youngsters, note Dr. Colin V. E. Powell, from University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff and his associates.

To find out more, the team interviewed approximately 500 children and their parents attending a major specialist hospital in Cardiff, Wales and in Melbourne, Australia.

CAM was used by 41 percent of patients in Cardiff and 51 percent in Melbourne.

Powell's group observed that Cardiff patients were less likely to use specific medicinal CAM, such as vitamins and minerals, herbs, or naturopathy, as well as non-medicinal CAM, such as chiropractic and therapeutic massage.

Only about one third of patients or their parents reported CAM use to their doctors. "The poor communication highlights the importance of local policy development," the authors say, to promote a dialogue about alternative medicine between patients and their health care providers.

For the second article, Dr. l. J. McCann from University College London and Dr. S. J. Newell from St. James's University Hospital in Leeds interviewed parents of 25 children with cerebral palsy, 25 with inflammatory bowel disease, 25 with cancer, and 25 healthy "controls" regarding CAM use.

They found that children with chronic illnesses were significantly more likely to use CAM than their healthy counterparts -- 40 percent versus 12 percent. The sick children were also more likely to use complementary medications (21 percent versus 4 percent) -- primarily Echinacea, and herbal and Chinese remedies.

The investigators also observed that 55 percent of parents whose children were using CAM had not discussed the issue with their doctor.

McCann and Newell suggest that doctors gain a working knowledge of complementary and alternative medicine, so they can discuss it with their patients.

Editorialist Dr. E. Ernst from the Universities of Exeter & Plymouth, UK, points out that although alternative therapy may be harmless, bad advise from a homeopath or naturopath, such as recommending against immunizations, "would almost inevitably cause serious harm."

Ernst agrees that clinicians need up-to-date knowledge about which CAMs work, which do not and which may be harmful.

SOURCE: Archives of Disease in Childhood, February 2006.

Studies Show Grapefruit Fights Battle of the Bulge and More; Three Published Reports Coincide With National Nutrition Month(R)

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/413787/studies_show_grapefruit_fights_battle_of_the_bulge_and_more/index.html?source=r_health#

From weight loss to heart health to disease protection, three recent studies confirm the multiple health benefits of grapefruit. With March designated as National Nutrition Month(R), it's an opportune time to highlight the benefits of the tangy nutrient-packed fruit, which unlike some citrus fruits is available year round.
Human Study Confirms Grapefruit Promotes Weight Loss
A study published in the March 2006 issue of the Journal of Medicinal Foods supports the long-held belief that grapefruit is useful in the battle of the bulge. Dr. Ken Fujioka from Scripps Clinic in San Diego conducted a 12-week study of 100 obese men and women and found that consuming one half grapefruit before meals resulted in an average weight loss of 3.6 pounds with some participants losing up to 10 pounds. Individuals who ate the grapefruit had significantly lower levels of insulin in their blood, which the researchers speculate resulted in the weight loss. The smaller the amount of insulin in the blood after a meal, the more efficiently the body uses food for energy rather than storing it as fat. The researchers further speculated that a natural plant compound in grapefruit, not the fiber content, was responsible for the weight loss since those who consumed grapefruit juice also lost weight despite the lack of fiber.
Grapefruit Lowers Cholesterol Levels
Researchers in Israel found that red and white grapefruit contain powerful antioxidants that may help reduce the risk of heart disease. Published in the February 2006 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry(1) scientists found that serving heart bypass patients the equivalent of one grapefruit a day significantly reduced cholesterol levels. The study included 57 patients, both men and women, who recently had coronary bypass surgery and failed to respond to cholesterol-lowering medication. Red grapefruit was especially effective, reducing cholesterol by 15 percent and triglycerides (a type of fat that increases the risk of heart disease) by 17 percent.
Compound in Grapefruit May Protect Against Prostate Cancer
A laboratory study conducted by researchers at UCLA and Zhongshan University in China discovered that naringenin -- a beneficial plant compound in grapefruit and oranges -- helped repair damaged genetic material (DNA) in human prostate cancer cells. DNA repair is an important factor in cancer prevention since it stops cancer cells from multiplying. The research was published in the February 2006 issue of the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry(2). Scientists noted that DNA repair by naringenin might contribute to the cancer-fighting effects associated with a diet high in fruits and vegetables.
At only 60 calories, one half a grapefruit is an excellent source of Vitamin C and fiber and also offers Vitamin A, potassium and folate. Grapefruit and other citrus fruits are included in the dietary programs of some of the world's leading nutrition organizations including USDA's Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the Produce for Better Health (PBH) Foundation's 5 A Day Program, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute.
About Sunkist Growers
As one of the world's oldest and largest citrus marketing cooperatives, Sunkist Growers is owned by more than 6,000 citrus growers in California and Arizona, most of whom are small family farmers harvesting oranges, lemons and grapefruit. For more citrus information, nutrition tips and healthy recipes, visit www.sunkist.com. (1) Gorinstein S, Caspi A, Libman I, et al. Red Grapefruit Positively Influences Serum Tryglyceride Level in Patients Suffering from Coronary Atherosclerosis: Studies in Vitro and in Humans. J. Agric Food Chem. ASAP Web Article released Feb. 3, 2006. (2) Gao K, Henning SM, Niu Y, et al. The citrus flavonoid naringenin stimulates DNA repair in prostate cancer cells. J of Nutr Biochem 2006;17(2):89-95.
Story from REDORBIT NEWS:http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=413787

Herbal Master of Diarrhoea Mmeg

http://allafrica.com/stories/200602280797.html

The Reporter (Gaborone) NEWSFebruary 27, 2006 Posted to the web February 28, 2006 By Monkagedi Gaotlhobogwe
Most of the time she is relaxing on her mat outside the house, with her children and her grandchildren entertaining her. She is a tall figure and a gifted speaker. At 77, Rosinah Moeng of Malolwane is still practising traditional medicine she learnt in 1953.
Everyone in Malolwane knows her very well and where she lives. They know her as the children's herbalist in the village. And with the country now reeling under a diarrhoea outbreak, which has so far claimed the lives of 177 children, a member of the Malolwane community revealed that Moeng's yard has become the most frequented spot lately. But a mention of this, is likely to land anybody in trouble.
Moeng does not want people to refer to her or her yard as some kind of medical ward. In fact, she denies she is a healer. "Who told you I am a herbalist? I don't know anything about children's diseases. I don't heal children," she denies sternly as her daughters contradict her and ask her to open up. "These people are not the police. Nobody is going to arrest you. These people are only asking," pleads one of her elder daughters.
"I am not a herbalist, who sent you here. I have never been a herbalist. People are liars. I can't believe what I'm hearing. My God, people can lie!" For a whole hour, she denied that she is a herbalist. She denies ever using herbs because she is a Christian of Apostolic Church. "Look, I am semi-blind, how can I touch people and help them when I am in this condition? Whoever said I am a healer is lying. I have been helping people for years, I have never been bothered by newspapers, and now what brings you today? I suspect it is the young people I help who spread it. Young people can lie. I am not a healer". Her daughter, Motlatsi Moeng later says that the old woman would not help us because she fears that she can be ordered to pay tax and licence fees for practicing. Later, she expressed fears that soon, people would be coming to ask her to pay for a certificate or even tax.
Moeng is a tricky person who does not like to talk about her herbal mixtures to strangers. She says she often sends away her clients, when they come to her with their babies. "I want people to come first without their babies, then we can talk, and reach an agreement as to how I can help." She however says it is not easy to drive her customers away.
"When they begin to plead with me, I often change my mind." The old woman says that often after she has helped her clients they refuse to pay her. "I cannot follow them because I fear they might report me to the police because I do not have a licence." In Malolwane, Moeng is popular for her ability to cure diarrhoea. She says there should be no cause for panic as it is normal for babies to have diarrhoea and vomit. She says these are centuries old problems for babies.
"Sometimes it can be healed, sometimes the baby can die if it develops into a serious condition we call noga. I cannot heal the noga condition. I refer people to other healers." Usually in Tswana customs, it is believed that a new-born baby should be strengthened by performing certain rituals on its head. The baby is also given some mixture to eat and inhale. Moeng says she learnt the trick in 1953 when her first born was sick.
"My baby was having diarrhoea, vomiting and his eyes had changed colour. Some one came here and saw my child. After she helped the child, she offered to teach me how to help my children in future. It was a gift. Ever since then, I helped my children". Moeng says the herbs that are used to heal diarrhoea are seasonal. They grow in her yard, but she says in winter, when everything is dry, they are not there. She cannot show anyone which of the plants that grow in her yard treats diarrhoea. "It is my secret, I cannot teach anyone".

Medical students take lessons from the Far East

http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060301/NEWS/603010309/1028

When June Tester was growing up in California, her Chinese mother often used Oriental medicine to treat her and her brother for colds and sore throats. When her brother got cancer, her mother helped ease his discomfort with a daily herbal tea treatment.Tester went to medical school, but, still feeling the Eastern pull, she went to China to study traditional Chinese medicine for a month. There, Eastern and Western practitioners coexisted in the same hospital, consulting with and referring patients to the other. "It was unlike anything I had ever seen," Tester said. "It was amazing to see that kind of mutual respect."That kind of communication between Western-trained doctors and alternative healers appears to be gaining ground in the United States. Patient interest in alternative medicine continues to grow, with about 62 percent of American patients seeking some type of alternative treatment, according to a survey on the Web site of the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.As more patients ask about unconventional treatment, more medical students want to be exposed to non-Western health care options. And while many scientists do worry about the safety and efficacy of alternative medicine — which encompasses a wide range of treatments ranging from megavitamins to acupuncture to prayer — the medical establishment now acknowledges that all doctors need to at least be able to talk about the options.To encourage sound curriculum development, the center has awarded grants to 15 schools over the last seven years to develop standards for weaving alternative healing education into the medical curriculum. Nearing the program's end, the grant recipients will meet this June at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Md., to make recommendations on a nationwide standard.The University of California, San Francisco, one of the grant recipients, has been incorporating information about nontraditional methods into required courses. In the first year, for example, students break into groups where they are presented with scenarios where patients ask them about alternative options for treatment. Dr. Ellen Hughes, the school's curriculum director, thinks it's important for students to learn about alternative medicine because so many patients will be using it."Independent of your confidence level, your patients are interested," Hughes tells students.A handful of schools are going further, requiring courses on complementary and alternative medicine. At Howard University's medical school, second-year students take an alternative medicine course with Dr. Adnan Eldadah, who has studied traditional and nontraditional treatments his entire career. "I'm old country and new country," he said.Eldadah's course encourages students to think of alternative ways to treat common ailments like hypertension and chronic pain. He also teaches his students how to recognize cases where there may be cheaper and safer ways to treat patients than with pills or surgery. "The other courses the students take here end," Eldadah said. "But this course extends beyond medical school for the rest of their lives."More Americans are also earning degrees in alternative medicine. The Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego has seen a large increase in the number of applicants over the last five years. Stacy Gomes, Pacific College's dean of students, said the school opened campuses in Chicago and New York to meet the increased demand.Like Tester, most students drawn to non-Western medicine often have had personal experience with it. When leg cramps crippled Greg Sperber, his martial arts instructor suggested he take an herbal concoction of Chinese rock sugar and corn silk. The leg cramps disappeared.Sperber, then 19, had planned to follow in his grandfather's footsteps to become a doctor, but his first experience with Chinese medicine changed him. "It was at that point that I decided I didn't want to be a doctor," Sperber said. "I wanted to be a healer."Sperber did end up attending medical school, but he is now studying for his doctorate at Pacific College and will open his own acupuncture practice this spring.Holistic medicine still raises questions among scientists because so much of the alternative forms of treatment either can't be or haven't yet been tested using Western evidence-based experiments. Lyla Hernandez, who led a study on complementary and alternative medicine, known as CAM, says that because the term "alternative" covers such a broad range of treatment, it's difficult for many to agree on what to accept and what not to accept. There are, for instance, some very conclusive randomized acupuncture trials showing that the treatment reduces pain."There are extremes of belief of effectiveness," Hernandez said. "For some individuals, no other evidence than hearsay or their own experience is necessary to determine that CAM therapy is effective. For others, no evidence of any quality or quantity is sufficient."Since most medical schools are now offering some type of coursework in complementary and alternative medicine, Hernandez says it is safe to assume that medical school faculty members now belive that students should at least be able to talk with their patients about it.The ideal, then, for Hughes and many others in the field of complementary and alternative medicine, is to encourage communication and respect between Western-trained doctors and alternative healers, like what Tester witnessed in China. That way, health care practitioners will understand when it's appropriate to prescribe certain types of care.As Sperber said of his own field's limitations: "I always tell people that if I get into a car accident, don't call my acupuncturist."Acupuncture is performed on a student at the University of California at San Diego.

Ethnicity the most important personal characteristic in predicting complementary medicine use

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=16301

A survey of older adults in rural North Carolina shows that they widely use complementary medicine therapies, but tend to focus on folk or home remedies, such as taking a daily "tonic" of vinegar or using Epsom salts.
"What most people think about as complementary medicine - acupuncture, homeopathy and massage therapy - they aren't using at all," said Thomas Arcury, Ph.D., lead researcher, from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. "Their use is largely limited to home remedies, vitamins and minerals."
The goal of the study, which is reported in the March issue of Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, was to learn more about what complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies older adults are using and why.
"We want to understand how people make decisions about managing their health," said Arcury. "If we understand how people are treating themselves, the information can be useful for physicians."
Researchers found that the majority of participants don't use CAM therapies to treat diabetes or other chronic diseases.
"They are using CAM for prevention or for treating symptoms (a headache, a sore throat, a cut) but not for treating a chronic condition," wrote the authors. "CAM use among these rural older adults is largely a form of self-care."
Arcury said it is common to use some of the therapies, such as vinegar or honey, as a general "tonic."
"I've talked to older adults who'll tell you should take two tablespoons of vinegar every day in a glass of warm water because it's good for you," he said. "They aren't treating anything in particular."
The study divided CAM therapies in eight categories to better document which types of therapies are being used. The categories (and examples) are: food home remedies (honey, lemon and garlic), other home remedies (tobacco, Epsom salts, and salves), vitamins (multivitamins, folic acid and vitamin E), minerals (calcium, magnesium and zinc), herbs (gingko biloba, ginseng and Echinacea), popular manufactured products (flax seed, amino acids and glucosamine sulfate), CAM therapies (imagery, biofeedback and energy healing) and CAM practitioners (chiropractor, herbalist and acupuncturist).
More than half of participants used food home remedies (52 percent) and other home remedies (57 percent). Vitamins were used by 45 percent of participants and minerals by 17 percent. Interestingly, only 6 percent of participants used herbs for self-care.
"We have learned over the years that people in this community didn't learn about herbs," said Arcury. "When they were growing up, their grandmothers may have used chamomile tea. But, doctors were coming into these communities, so they weren't home-doctored by their grandmothers and didn't learn about the herbs. However, the use of home remedies has continued here."
Researchers found that ethnicity was the most important personal characteristic in predicting CAM use. African-Americans and Native Americans were 81 percent and 76 percent (respectively) more likely to use food home remedies than whites and more than twice as likely to use other home remedies.
The ELDER (Evaluating Long-term Diabetes Self-management among Elder Rural Adults) study assessed complementary medicine use among 701 rural adults over age 65 with diabetes. Participants were selected from two rural North Carolina counties with a high proportion of ethnic minorities and people living below the poverty level.
Participants were interviewed in their homes about their health and use of complementary and alternative medicine therapies. Participants were asked if they had used each item for any purpose in the past year and if they had used it specifically for diabetes.
http://www.wfubmc.edu/

Cuyahoga Community College Presents Holistic Health Expo on Saturday, April 1Wednesday

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060301/clw004.html?.v=39

March 1, 6:15 am ET
All-day event to present the "real story" on complementary alternative medicine and educate the public on drug-free ways to improve overall health
WARRENSVILLE HEIGHTS, March 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Complementary alternative medicine (CAM) therapies are now being used by over 50 percent of Americans in addition to their traditional health care regimes. To educate the public about the growing trend of CAM and drug-free ways to improve personal health, Cuyahoga Community College's Office of Community Continuing Education will host its first Holistic Health Expo on Saturday, April 1 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Corporate College East, 4400 Richmond Road in Warrensville Heights.
"Our goal is to educate the average health care consumer about what CAM alternatives are available to help people deal with a variety of medical conditions," said Dr. Dennis Ulrich, dean of Community Continuing Education at Tri-C. "Attendees will be able to actually try therapies and learn about certain modalities to find out what might work best for them."
The College has assembled experts from across Ohio who will be on hand to share their knowledge. The Expo will feature more than 20 different CAM seminars and activities, some available on a first-come, first served basis.
Attendees will be able to experience 15-minute sessions of massage therapy, polarity therapy, cranial sacral, reflexology, acupressure and Reiki bodywork.
There will be 40-minute lectures on aromatherapy, herbal therapy, acupuncture and naturopathy/homeopathy as well as 30-minute Tai Chi, Yoga, ChiQong, Energy Movement and Pilates classes that can be sampled by attendees.
Detailed 75-minute presentations will be given concerning migraines, back problems, meditation, women's health, herbs and supplements, and how to afford complementary alternative medicine therapies and integrative therapies.
The event is a collaborative effort between Tri-C and retired Ohio State University professor Mary Jo Ruggieri, who is now the director of the Ohio Institute of Energetic Studies Cleveland Polarity/Columbus Polarity. She continues to teach CAM mini modules to first year medical students at Ohio State in addition to supervising clinical rotations in CAM for their fourth year students.
Dr. Tanya Edwards, medical director of the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Integrative Medicine, has also served as a consultant for this event. She has been teaching CAM courses at Case Western Reserve University for the past eight years and will be presenting sessions at the event on integrative therapies and women's health, and herbs and supplements.
Admission to the Holistic Health Expo is $15 for the general public and $10 for Tri-C students and senior citizens over 65. For more information or to register and purchase tickets for this event, please call 216-987-2800 or visit www.tri-c.edu/CAM.
For those seeking further information after attending the event, Cuyahoga Community College will be offering in-depth non-credit classes on CAM subjects this summer and fall. Among the CAM classes to be offered will be Introduction to Complementary Alternative Medicine, Complementary Alternative Medicine vs. Western Allopathic Medicine, How to Afford Holistic Healthcare, Complementary Approach to Cancer Rehabilitation, Dealing with Depression, Herbal Medicine, How's Your Back?, and Managing Migraines.
For more information on these CAM courses, call 216-987-2333.