Archive for the ‘Medical Alternatives’ Category

A new study into cannabis and its relation to weight gain or loss has found that, interestingly, it is associated with weight loss and should be further studied as a possible obesity-fighter.

From the abstract:

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of an organic cannabis extract on ?-cell secretory function in an in vivo diet-induced obese rat model and determine the associated molecular changes within pancreatic tissue. Diet-induced obese Wistar rats and rats fed on standard pellets were subcutaneously injected with an organic cannabis extract or the vehicle over a 28-day period. The effect of diet and treatment was evaluated using the intraperitoneal glucose tolerance tests (IPGTTs) and qPCR analysis on rat pancreata harvested upon termination of the experiment.

The cafeteria diet induced an average weight difference of 32 g and an overall increase in body weight in the experimental groups occurred at a significantly slower rate than the control groups, irrespective of diet. Area under the curve for glucose (AUC_g) in the obese group was significantly lower compared to the lean group (p < 0.001), with cannabis treatment significantly reducing the AUC_g in the lean group (p < 0.05), and remained unchanged in the obese group, relative to the obese control group. qPCR analysis showed that the cafeteria diet induced down-regulation of the following genes in the obese control group, relative to lean controls: UCP2, c-MYC and FLIP. Cannabis treatment in the obese group resulted in up-regulation of CB1, GLUT2, UCP2 and PKB, relative to the obese control group, while c-MYC levels were down-regulated, relative to the lean control group. Treatment did not significantly change gene expression in the lean group. These results suggest that the cannabis extract protects pancreatic islets against the negative effects of obesity.

The study was conducted by R-A Levendal, D. Schumann, M. Donath, and CL Frost of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa and at the University Hospital Basel in Switzerland.  Find out more about it here.

by Christina Luisa, NaturalNews

In a review published in the December issue of the journalComplementary Therapies in Medicine, women receiving Chinese herbal medicine treatments weretwice as likely to get pregnant within a four-month periodthan those receiving conventional Western medical fertility drug treatment or IVF. The findings also suggested that the quality of the menstrual cycle – a key component in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) diagnosis — appears to be crucial to the successful treatment of female infertility. Infertility is generally defined as an inability to conceive after a year or more of regular sexual activity without using birth control.

There is a long recorded history of Chinese herbs being used in the treatment of infertility. In fact, records indicating herbal treatment ofinfertility and miscarriagedate back to 200 A.D., including mention of formulas that are still used for those same purposes today. The first book devoted solely to gynecology and obstetrics, “The Complete Book of Effective Prescriptions for Diseases of Women,” was published in 1237 A.D.

Alternative TCM treatments have become increasingly popular in Western countries as more and more couples find out firsthand howeffective and safethey are. It is with good reason that more than a quarter of the world’s population regularly uses Chinese medicine as part of their health care regimen and that TCM is the only form ofclassical medicinethat is regularly used outside of its country of origin.

Study methodology

The study examined abstracts in English of studies investigating infertility, menstrual health and TCM. Researchers then did meta-analyses of (non)randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or cohort studies and compared clinical pregnancy rates achieved with Chinese herbal medicine versus Western medicine drug treatment (IVF). In addition, they collected common TCM pattern diagnosis in infertility in relation to the quality of the menstrual cycle and associated symptoms. Eight RCTs, 13 cohort studies, three case series and six case studies involving a total of 1851 women with infertility were included in the systematic review.

Results

The results showed a 3.5 greater likelihood of achieving a pregnancy with Chinese herbal medicine therapy over a four-month period compared with Western medicine drug therapy alone. Average pregnancy rates were 60 ± 12.5% (60%) for Chinese herbal medicine compared with 32 ± 10% (32%) using Western medicine drug therapy. Meta-analysis of selected cohort studies showed a mean clinical pregnancy rate of 50 percent using TCM compared with 30 percent for IVF.

Why choose TCM over conventional fertility treatments?

While health is said to be the common goal of both TCM as well as conventional medicine, their ideas on the etiology of disease, disease in itself and the process used to recover and maintain wellness are decidedly different. The Western medicine physician learns that disease should be cured by prescribing medicine or using invasive and often dangerous surgical intervention. The physician trained in TCM, however, focuses on healing the patient not by treating the disease but rather bytreating the whole person, taking into account the various combined attributes of an individual that account for that individual’s state of health. According to the tenets of TCM, a person is much more than their pathology; treating the pathology may produce desired results, yet, they are usually temporary.

For female infertility, the key therapeutic factors in TCM are focused onre-establishing balance and reducing stresswhile regulating hormones and menstruation. TCM recognizes that many cases of infertility stem from a problem that may be more functional than structural. In contrast, Western medicine treatment techniques like IVF are not only invasive and expensive but are often stressful for the patients, and stress is not conducive to the achievement of a healthy pregnancy.

Fertility management has been extensively studied and well-developed in Chinese medicine. Doctors in modern China have reported up to a 70% success rate in treating both female and male infertility with herbs, and the results of large scale clinical trials are reported in Chinese medical journals. Hundreds of different herbs are used frequently in the treatment of infertility, often given in complex formulas comprised of multiple ingredients. Herbal medicine is often used in combination with acupuncture, massage, diet and lifestyle modifications for treating fertility. TCM fertility techniques are relatively non-invasive and can often offer a better success rate for significantly less cost.

Sources for this article include:

1.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22036524?dopt=Abstract

2.http://www.shen-nong.com

3.http://www.itmonline.org/arts/fertility.htm

4.http://www.livestrong.com/article/169613-chinese-herbs-infertility/

5.http://www.bubhub.com.au

6.http://www.altmd.com/Articles/TCM-for-Infertility

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/035436_Chinese_medicine_infertility_treatment.html#ixzz1rKn8W9SX

by Michael Snyder, BLN

Most Americans do not realize this, but we are on the verge of a major doctor shortage in the United States.  All over America, good doctors are going broke.  The way that our health care system is currently set up, they simply cannot make it.  These days a lot of politicians are warning us about the dangers of “socialized medicine”, but the truth is that we already have it.  About half of all health care dollars in the United States are now spent by the federal government, and a lot of health insurance companies base reimbursements on what the federal government does.  In addition, there are a whole host of parasites that have gotten between the doctor and the patient these days.  Everyone wants a piece of the health care pie.  Health insurance companies, pharmaceutical giants, lawyers, health care “administrators” and government bureaucrats all make a sweet living off of the doctor/patient relationship.  It really is sickening.  And now Obamacare is going to make things much, much worse.  As you will read about later in this article, a stunning percentage of doctors say that they plan to leave the medical profession because of Obamacare.  What this means is that we are headed for a chronic doctor shortage and there is a good chance that there will be no doctor for you when you really need one in the years ahead.

Today, approximately 40 percent of all doctors in the United States are 55 years of age or older.  Large numbers of them are getting ready to retire.

Even before Obamacare was passed, we were already facing a massive shortage of doctors in the coming years.  The American Association of Medical Colleges has projected that we will experience a shortage of more than 150,000 doctors over the next 15 years.

Unfortunately, the passage of Obamacare is going to make this crisis even worse.  A whole host of surveys have shown that a massive number of doctors in America are headed for the exits because of the new health care law….

*According to a Merritt Hawkins survey of 2,379 doctors for the Physicians Foundation that was conducted in August 2010, 40 percent of all U.S. doctors plan to “retire, seek a nonclinical job in health care, or seek a job or business unrelated to health care” at some point over the next three years.

*A shocking IBD/TPP Poll taken in 2010 found that 45 percent of all U.S. doctors are considering leaving the medical profession or retiring early as a result of Obamacare.

At the moment, there are approximately 960,000 doctors in the United States.

So what is going to happen if a couple hundred thousand of them suddenly leave the medical profession?

Already we were in desperate need of a lot more doctors.  The following comes from an article in the Wall Street Journal….

Health-care reform will add an estimated 32 million people to the ranks of the insured, driving them to seek medical attention that in the past they may have avoided due to expense. The aging population will also create much greater demand. The number of seniors who need more medical care is expected to soar to 72 million by 2020—nearly double today’s number.

So what is going to happen if the number of doctors starts declining rapidly?

Most Americans think of doctors as being “wealthy”, but that is not the reality of what is going on out there these days as a recent CNN article explained….

Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke.

This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists.

Americans spend more on health care than anyone else in the world and yet thousands upon thousands of doctors are going broke.

How can that be?

Well, one huge contributing factor is the mismanagement of the federal government.

The following comes from an article in the New York Post….

Existing government programs already reimburse physicians at rates that are often less than the actual cost of treating a patient. Estimates suggest that on average physicians are reimbursed at roughly 78% of costs under Medicare, and just 70% of costs under Medicaid. Physicians must either make up for this shortfall by shifting costs to those patients with insurance — meaning those of us with insurance pay more — or treat patients at a loss.

So guess who has to make up the difference?

You and I.

When we go to see the doctor we get smacked with a huge bill in order to make up for the Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Things have gotten so bad that a lot of doctors won’t even see Medicare and Medicaid patients anymore.

Just check out what some researchers found when they called around to doctors in Illinois back in 2010.  The following comes from an article in the New York Times….

The study used a “secret shopper” technique in which researchers posed as the parent of a sick or injured child and called 273 specialty practices in Cook County, Ill., to schedule appointments. The callers, working from January to May 2010, described problems that were urgent but not emergencies, like diabetes, seizures, uncontrolled asthma, a broken bone or severe depression. If they were asked, they said that primary care doctors or emergency departments had referred them.

Sixty-six percent of those who mentioned Medicaid-CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) were denied appointments, compared with 11 percent who said they had private insurance, according to an article being published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.  Without Medicaid, millions of children would not receive health care.

But now large numbers of doctors are rejecting patients on Medicaid because they simply cannot afford to treat them.

And now as Obamacare is fully implemented over the next few years it is going to make our health care mess a whole lot worse.

Obamacare is going to burden our doctors with a gigantic mountain of new regulations and red tape.  It is going to become incredibly difficult to make a living as a doctor and the federal government is going to be pretty much running the entire health care system.

Did you know that Obamacare is so oppressive that it is even causing the cancellation of new hospitals?

According to the executive director of Physician Hospitals of America, Obamacare has already forced the cancellation of at least 60 doctor-owned hospitals that were scheduled to open.

In addition, as Obamacare is fully rolled out the wait to see a doctor is likely to get much longer.  If you urgently need to see a doctor you may simply be out of luck.

If you doubt this, just check out what happened in Massachusetts.  As a result of Romneycare, the average wait to see a doctor in Massachusetts is now much, much longer….

In fact, we have already seen the start of this process in Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney’s health care reforms were nearly identical to President Obama’s. Romney’s reforms increased the demand for health care but did nothing to expand the supply of physicians. In fact, by cracking down on insurance premiums, Massachusetts pushed insurers to reduce their payments to providers, making it less worthwhile for doctors to expand their practices. As a result, the average wait to get an appointment with a doctor grew from 33 days to over 55 days.

Is that the kind of health care system that you want?

The more doctors that leave the system, the worse that things are going to get.

We need a system where doctors can make a living.  It is just as simple as that.

The following is one example of a doctor that is going broke from a recent CNN article….

Beau Donegan, senior executive with a hospital cancer center in Newport Beach, Calif., is well aware of physicians’ financial woes.

“Many are too proud to admit that they are on the verge of bankruptcy,” she said. “These physicians see no way out of the downward spiral of reimbursement, escalating costs of treating patients and insurance companies deciding when and how much they will pay them.”

Donegan knows an oncologist “with a stellar reputation in the community” who hasn’t taken a salary from his private practice in over a year. He owes drug companies $1.6 million, which he wasn’t reimbursed for.

The following is another example from that same article….

Dr. Neil Barth is that oncologist. He has been in the top 10% of oncologists in his region, according to U.S. News Top Doctors’ ranking. Still, he is contemplating personal bankruptcy.

That move could shutter his 31-year-old clinical practice and force 6,000 cancer patients to look for a new doctor.

Are you starting to get the picture?

There are already not enough doctors, and the number of doctors is going to continue to decline unless something is done.

We need to fundamentally restructure the way that health care is done in the United States.  What we are doing now is not working, and Obamacare is going to make things much worse.

Today, the average medical school student graduates with over $295,000 of student loan debt.

So if doctors can’t make any money, then where is the incentive to go into so much debt?

Something has gone very wrong.

It isn’t as if we are not spending enough money on health care.  Just consider the following stats….

-What the United States spent on health care in 2009 was greater than the entire GDP of Great Britain.

-According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980.  Today they account for approximately 16.3%.

-Over the past decade, health insurance premiums have risen three times faster than wages have in the United States.

-According to a report released in 2010, Americans spend approximately twice as much as residents of other developed countries do on health care.

So we are definitely spending more than enough money on health care.

So where is it all going?

Well, it is going to the parasites….

-According to a report by Health Care for America Now, America’s five biggest for-profit health insurance companies ended 2009 with a combined profit of $12.2 billion.

-The chairman of Aetna, the third largest health insurance company in the United States, brought in a staggering $68.7 million during 2010. Ron Williams exercised stock options that were worth approximately $50.3 million and he raked in an additional $18.4 million in wages and other forms of compensation.  The funny thing is that he left the company and didn’t even work the whole year.

-There were more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies that made over a billion dollars in profits each during 2008.

-According to the CDC, the percentage of Americans that say that they have taken a prescription drug within the last month has risen to almost 50 percent.

-Lawyers are certainly doing their part to contribute to soaring health care costs. According to one recent study, the medical liability system in the United States added approximately $55.6 billion to the cost of health care in 2008.

Are you starting to understand?

This gigantic mess is causing an increasing number of Americans to seek medical care outside of the country.  According to numbers released by Deloitte Consulting, a whopping 875,000 Americans were “medical tourists” in 2010.

Our health care system is irretrievably broken.  The federal government has messed it up beyond all recognition and it is not going to get better any time soon.

from BreastCancer.co

New research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute this month shows that targeted radiation for breast cancer has been widely overused. The research uses new criteria established in 2009 by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) for the use of brachytherapy (targeted irradiation for breast cancer). It compares that new criteria with patient records from the past several years, showing that 2/3 of those receiving brachytherapy probably should not have.

Using records from 138,815 U.S. women who’d received brachytherapy from 2000 to 2007, the study shows that most of them do not fit into the currently recommended criteria for the therapy. This would likely account for some higher recurrence rates amongst the women.

The study compared women who received targeted radiation and those who received the more common whole breast irradiation (WBI). It found that 29.6% of the women receiving brachytherapy would have been classified as “cautionary” (not likely to benefit) and 36.2% would have been classified as “unsuitable” under current ASTRO criteria.

The study briefly discussed cancer return rates (versus recurrence in WBI), but admits that this data would be too preliminary given the specific scope of the study itself.

Targeted irradiation is more convenient for women, since it requires only about a week of therapy instead of a full month, but is designed for very specific situations that only about 7-10% of breast cancer patients fall into. Its use, the study found, varies greatly by geographic region, by rural versus urban (urban is more likely), and by racial demographic (whites are more likely to receive it), but not necessarily by means or income (Medicare covers it).

Findings from another study published this year show that women who receive brachytherapy at twice as likely to eventually have a mastectomy than those who receive WBI.

by Dr. Mercola

The medical profession has a long history of opposing alternative healing professions.

While always claiming public safety as its reason for the attacks, the true reasons often involve protecting their monopoly of the healthcare market.

Medicine’s opposition to chiropractic was its strongest under the leadership of Morris Fishbein, Secretary of the American Medical Association from 1924 to 1949, who led a 50-year anti-chiropractic campaign in both professional publications and the public media.

Historical Antitrust Lawsuits Against Medical Societies

In 1975 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Goldfarb vs. the Virginia State Bar, that learned professions are not exempt from antitrust suits.

In 1982 the Court ruled that the FTC could enforce antitrust laws against medical societies.

These two suits paved the way for five chiropractors to file an anti-trust suit against the American Medical Association (AMA) and several other heath care agencies and societies in Federal District Court (known as the Wilkes Case).

Judge Susan Getzendanner found the AMA and others guilty of an illegal conspiracy against the chiropractic profession in September of 1987, ordering a permanent injunction against the AMA and forcing them to print the court’s findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Even with success of the Wilkes Case and other anti-trust litigation, the AMA continues to this day to wage a campaign against chiropractic.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has maintained a decades-long battle against “alternative” healing traditions, dating back to the 1920s and arguably even earlier. The courts eventually ruled in favor of the chiropractors in 1987, finding the AMA guilty of a conspiracy to take down the chiropractic profession, as the above article recounts in detail.

But was this the end of it? Has the AMA resigned itself to the fact that chiropractic, as well as other forms of natural medicine, are here to stay? Not a chance.

The AMA’s Bedfellows

Even with the success of the Wilkes Case, the AMA has continued to wage war against natural medicine for the past 20 years—but in more covert ways. It’s the “Cold War” phase of this battle, but every bit as fierce. And now the AMA has rallied up a few significant allies, including:

• The American Dental Association (ADA)
• The American Cancer Society (ACS)
• The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and
• The American Psychiatric Association (APA)

… not to mention governmental regulatory agencies; all willing to march toward a common goal—a monopoly on medical care in this country. Together, they form a formidable lobbying force that controls just about every regulatory and legislative body in America. The truth is that chiropractic, naturopathic, and osteopathic medicine have PROVEN to be medically effective and cost effective for the patient, and the AMA can’t stomach this, viewing natural medicine as a huge threat to their bottom line.

Federal Courts Rule AMA “Guilty as Charged”

In 1987, the federal courts found the AMA and several other medical groups guilty of seeking to create a healthcare monopoly. Specifically, they were found guilty of the following actions (published in the January 1988 issue of JAMA):

1. Systematic defamation of naturopathic, chiropractic, and osteopathic physicians
2. Publishing and distribution of propaganda specifically intended to ruin other healthcare professionals’ reputations
3. Forcing MDs to refuse collaboration with naturopathic, chiropractic, and osteopathic physicians in the co-management of patients
4. Denying hospital access to naturopathic, chiropractic, and osteopathic physicians

The attack on osteopathic medicine has largely faded away since then, but chiropractic and naturopathic practitioners, as well as other legitimate natural medicine practitioners, continue to be the targets of suppression and misrepresentation. The war isn’t over, but the rules of engagement have changed.

AMA Declares New War on Natural Medicine in 2006

In 2006, the AMA declared war on natural medicine by publicly stating on its website its intention to forcibly oppose licensure and practice of naturopathic physicians. Although they quickly removed this from their site, the following is a direct quote from that post, according to Naturopathy Digest:

“RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association work through its Board of Trustees to outline a policy opposing the licensure of naturopaths to practice medicine and report this policy to the House of Delegates no later than the 2006 Interim Meeting. (Directive to Take Action) Fiscal Note: Implement accordingly at estimated staff cost of $10,836.”

Translation: Eliminate the competition.

According to The Integrator Blog, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) joined the battle with a statement that their goal was to “thwart the growing threat of expansion of scope of practice for allied health professionals” and included psychologists on the list of medical practitioners who needed to be “thwarted” (in addition to naturopaths, chiropractors, and midwives). The APA pledged their allegiance to the AMA in assisting them with “coordinating research to help medical specialty societies and state medical associations fight expansions in non-medical scope of practice, and improve information sharing among those groups.”

Other medical associations have made similar pledges, such as the Minnesota Medical Association and the New York Academy of Family Physicians. They maintain that their position is based on concern for quality of care and patient safety, but the REAL agenda is just an attempt to destroy the competition.

As Chiropractor Louis Sportelli writes in his 2010 article in Dynamic Chiropractic:

“Just look around and you will see clear and compelling evidence that the long-standing war between the AMA and everyone else who does not come under the AMA umbrella is far from over. The names have changed, the venue has changed, but the intent has remained the same: to maintain monopolistic control over the delivery of health care.”

Old Mission, New Tactics: AMA Learns How to Discriminate with Impunity

In 2010, the AMA House of Delegates introduced a resolution regarding scope of practice that contains limitations on who can be considered a legitimate physician, and who can medically diagnose. Specifically, the AMA’s “Definition of a Physician” (H-405.969) contains the following language:

“The AMA affirms that a physician is an individual who has received a ‘Doctor of Medicine’ or a ‘Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine’ degree.”

This is proof, without a doubt, that the AMA as well as individual state medical associations intend to continue doing everything they can to prevent you from accessing natural healthcare. Texas and Connecticut medical associations were the first to join the cause, and others will likely follow. Similarly, the AMA’s “Comprehensive Physical Examination by Appropriate Practitioners” reads as follows:

“…the performance of comprehensive physical examinations to diagnose medical conditions [should be limited] to licensed MDs/DOs or those practitioners who are directly supervised by licensed MDs/DOs.”

State Medical Associations Jumping on Board

In 2010, the Texas Medical Board of Examiners filed an action against the Texas Chiropractic Board of Examiners challenging the authority of DCs (Doctors of Chiropractic) to perform some of their medical procedures, and challenging their authority to diagnose. How can medical associations get away with such shenanigans now, when they were given such a clear message to back off in the injunction of 1987? After all, these are very similar tactics to what they were found guilty of back in 1987.

Well, according to Sportinelli, the AMA has learned some lessons about how to beat the law—loopholes that allow them to go on the attack while sidestepping “restraint of trade” or “illegal boycott” violations:

“It [AMA] now understands that government action is protected under the Constitution, as is action in petitioning the government. It can lawfully petition local, state and federal legislators and attempt to influence any legislation without fear of committing actionable restraint of trade or illegal boycott. (However, the AMA does seem to be getting dangerously close with its resolution regarding the “definition of a physician,” in that it appears to involve hospital action without the intervention of government.)”

And what does one need in order to effectively influence the government? Money. This is something the AMA has—and piles of it.Sportinelli goes on to say that the medical industry is likely gearing up for a 50-state effort to put non-MD/DO physicians out of business. And this means fewer choices about your own medical care.

Profit Motives Cleverly Disguised as Concern for Your Health and Safety

According to Naturopathy Digest, the AMA and other medical groups justify their opposition to natural medicine on the basis of three areas of concern:

1. Quality of patient care
2. Patient safety
3. Quality of education of medical practitioners

As the article so eloquently points out, none of these arguments holds up, and most are based on medical and pharmaceutical industry propaganda. If they were TRULY concerned about patient care and safety, they would not be targeting natural medicine, which has an incredibly low incidence of adverse consequences, but instead going after their own allopathic medical practices that are leaving a trail of death and destruction.

Drug “side effects”, prescription errors, unnecessary surgeries, nosocomial infections, and hospital “errors” are a leading cause of death in the United States. In fact, one estimate is that allopathic medicine kills 493 American patients daily. The number of people who die each week as a result of medical treatments surpasses the number of deaths caused by the September 11^th terrorist attacks.

Yes, each and every week!

Many of the drugs advertised in JAMA (the AMA’s scientific journal) are the very same drugs that are killing tens of thousands of Americans each year. This massive funding of the AMA by drug companies is a blatant conflict of interest. If the AMA really cared about your safety, they’d be putting their substantial assets into overhauling the American healthcare system. The AMA is fond of lambasting the education and training of chiropractors, when in actuality, they should be more concerned about the educational qualifications of their own physicians. In their own publications, they have stated:

“Medical education is failing to prepare students adequately for their future practice… medical education is currently being held together with peanut butter and bubble gum.”

At least four consecutive studies have documented that most MDs are incompetent when it comes to diagnosing and treating musculoskeletal problems, something at which chiropractors excel. Another example of an abysmal lack of education of Western physicians is in the area of diet and nutrition. The AMA itself has published research showing that dietary interventions should be used before drugs in the treatment of heart disease. Yet, medical students receive virtually NO training in nutrition. Naturopathic and chiropractic physicians, on the other hand, are usually well versed in the importance of nutrition and exercise.

It’s Not Just the AMA

Perhaps it’s time to take a real look at medical associations, and the concern that they may be doing more harm than good. For groups who claim to exist in order to protect your health, they inevitably end up sabotaging it. It isn’t just the AMA. Other medical associations that claim to exist for the betterment of public health include the following:

• American Dental Association (ADA): Continues to support the use of mercury fillings and demonizes biological dentists who oppose the use of mercury in dentistry; continues to support fluoridation, in spite of the evidence it does more harm than good.
• American Cancer Society (ACS): This charity has close ties to the mammography industry, the cancer drug industry, and the pesticide industry; has rampant conflicts of interest; consistently promotes drugs and screening procedures while ignoring environmental causes of cancer.
• National Cancer Institute (NCI): Has spent billions of taxpayer dollars promoting treatments while ignoring strategies for preventing cancer; abundant ties to the cancer drug industry (for more information, read Samuel Epstein’s new book, National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society: Criminal Indifference to Cancer Prevention and Conflicts of Interest)
• American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): Claiming to be protecting your children, the AAP is largely funded by vaccine manufacturers but refuses to disclose just how much money it gets from them; partners with Congress to protect pediatricians and drug companies from liability for vaccine injuries, while preventing you from getting truthful vaccine information.

Actions Speak Louder than Words

When someone’s words differ from their actions, chances are that their actions more accurately reflect their values—and this is true for organizations, as well as individuals. Although medical associations claim to have your best interests at heart, their actions tell a different story. It’s time to begin holding them accountable for their behavior and stop letting them hide behind the same old tired rhetoric.

You have a right to make your own choices about your healthcare, be it allopathic or naturopathic—whether you see an MD, an ND, or a DC should be YOUR decision and yours alone.

References:

• JAMA January 1988
• Naturopathy Digest August 2006
• The Integrator Blog May 2006
• Dynamic Chiropractic July 2010
• Clin Orthop Relat Res. August 2005

A new study published in the Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development looked at non-cancer chronic pain and complementary and alternative medicine use in military veterans.  It found that of the 401 veterans suffering chronic pain interviewed, 82% had tried a complementary or alternative medicine (CAM) for their pain. Nearly all (99%) were willing to try it.

Massage therapy was the most preferred method and those who used CAM therapies were less likely (68% vs 54%) to have service-connected disabilities, despite lifelong pain.

The study discusses the implications these findings have for Veterans Administration policy.

Although direct comparisons are difficult because of differing methodologies and definitions of CAM, a larger percentage of the veterans in this study reported previous CAM use and greater treatment willingness than in the few prior veteran studies [23,25]. Several reasons may explain these differences. As CAM is more accepted and used in the general public, an increase in CAM use among veterans over time may be expected.

Americans are using more alternative and preventive medicine as costs for traditional healthcare swells. 38 percent of American adults use alternative and complementary medicine, according to the National Institutes of Health. An increasing reliance on alternative and preventative medicine is not surprising when healthcare costs rise 8 percent each year, nearly three times the rate of inflation.

What may surprise some, though, is how effective alternative and preventative medicine can be. Elderberry, used medicinally in Europe for hundreds of years, received some long-overdue respect when researchers in Norway confirmed that it effectively relieves flu symptoms.¹ Even ardent fans of Dr. Oz may have a hard time pronouncing this funny-sounding herb after he featured it on one of his episodes, but Umckaloabo is gaining recognition as an immunity booster since The Journal of Family Practice cited four encouraging studies before saying that Umckaloabo “represents a promising treatment” for viral upper respiratory infections.² And while licorice may go down better than a spoonful of sugar, several studies show that it may be a promising treatment for ulcers as well.

While alternative treatments and herbs have shown promise when used in conjunction with traditional medicine for existing illnesses, the real promise in curtailing healthcare costs lies in prevention. According to the Prevention Institute, even a 5 percent reduction in preventable illnesses and injuries could mean substantial healthcare savings.

While genetics and lifestyle have long been the primary focus of preventative measures, recent science points to the immune system as a powerful predictor of illness. According to the Integrative Medicine Department at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, the immune system is the deciding factor between who gets sick and who doesn’t.

from BreastCancer.co

In a retrospective study, Barbara Brouwers, PhD of the University of Leuven in Belgium found that women who have higher levels of vitamin D when diagnosed with breast cancer appear to have smaller tumors on average.

“Lower vitamin D levels were correlated with much bigger tumors,” says Dr. Brouwers. “We also saw that higher vitamin D levels were associated with better outcomes, but it wasn’t significant.”

Studies have shown that vitamin D status is important in many chronic disease and illness of various types. Low vitamin D levels have been associated with higher breast and other cancer risks and in some studies higher levels have been shown to correlate with better outcomes for some cancers.

Brouwers and her colleagues look at data from 1,800 breast cancer patients treated at the University of Leuven from 2003 to 2010 which included data on serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D₃ collected at diagnosis. Following those patients for four years showed that lower vitamin D levels were significantly associated with larger tumor sizes (every 0.4ng/mL decrease in level linked to 1cm in tumor increase).

Accompanying this, to no surprise, was a 27% lower risk of death per 10ng/mL increase in vitamin D levels at diagnosis. Close the same could be said for risk of relapse as well.

Research published in the October 26, 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) conclusively proved that “annual screening with chest radiographs over a 4-year period did not significantly reduce lung cancer mortality.” The trial included more than 150,000 participants who underwent an annual chest radiograph for 4 years. These findings are changing the way medical professionals approach the diagnosis of lung cancer.

EarlyCDT-Lung is a commercially available blood test used to measure specific autoantibodes, or immunobiomarkers, which are elevated in patients with lung cancer. Because these autoantibodies are present at the earliest stages of the disease, EarlyCDT-Lung can be used to determine a patient’s lung cancer risk before a tumor is detected. This critical information can then aid in the early diagnosis of the disease, potentially before a patient exhibits specific symptoms of lung cancer.

CT scans are another screening method for those at risk for lung cancer. As reported in the landmark National Lung Cancer Screening Trials study (NLST) published in the NEJM in July 2011, early detection enabled by low-dose CT scans resulted in a 20% reduction in lung cancer mortality in a high risk patient population. Though this news is very positive in regard to early lung cancer detection, there are several issues associated with utilizing CT scans for lung cancer screening. These issues include: a high false-positive rate, a significant out-of-pocket cost for patients and radiation exposure.

This newly published study by King’s College London establishes a more conclusive role for Essential Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids in Depression and Anxiety Disorders, from young to old.

The study by the King’s College London states Plasma linoleic acid (Omega-6) levels were found to have a negative linear relationship with depressive symptoms. (Negative association denotes factors that lead to various forms of mental disorder.)

The study, which included 130 participants, aged 60 to 86 years of age, from outpatient psychiatric services of four hospitals, concluded that the higher levels of Omega-6 are associated with higher residual Depression and Anxiety.

The results of another recent study by National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggested that a daily diet of Omega-3 fatty acids should be incorporated for the young and healthy individuals, since it has reduced their symptoms of anxiety.

According to the NCCAM study, a 12 week, double-blind study that included 68 healthy young medical students (38 men, 30 women), not only suggested that omega-3 fatty acids reduced the symptoms of Anxiety, and consistent with the previous studies of NCCAM, Omega-3 diet was suggested for reducing depressive symptoms in “clinically” depressed young subjects.

Moreover, another recent study by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of National Institutes of Health and Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHA) recommended that 2 grams of omega-3 fatty acids per day to reduce depression and anxiety scores among active service members with recurrent self-harm tendency.

Omega-3 and Omega-6 are classified as Essential Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids, both of which are only obtained through diet and they form an important part of all cellular membranes. Human body is incapable of producing either Omega-3 or Omega-6 and thus depends on the diet for their supply.

Omega-6 is found in most food but Omega-3 can only be attained from leafy green vegetables and cold-water fishes. Due to its scarcity in the diet, the deficiency of Omega-3 is substituted with readily available Omega-6, which explains the association between the higher residual depression / anxiety and the higher levels of Omega-6, as suggested by the King’s College study.

The higher levels of Omega-6 can only be reduced through higher dietary intake of Omega-3.

Higher intake of Omega-3, not only would reduce the high levels of Omega-6, determined to be the key focus of elderly depression and anxiety in the King’s College London study, but consistent with the various recent studies of NIH, higher intake of Omega-3 reduces the anxiety symptoms for the younger population.