Alternative to Medicine?

Over at the blog site of Robert Scoble there is a tragic post about the recent death of his mom, who chose to avoid the care of a physician out of fear and a preference for "alternative" medicine.

Back in March I posted about "complementary and alternative" therapies in medicine and my belief that the integration of both types of care can frequently improve patient outcomes.

There is a lot to like about alternative medicine, because it is so unlike traditional, allopathic care. Many people who have had a "bad" experience with traditional medicine seek out alternative practitioners because they approach the individual as a "whole" person, rather than a disease attached to a person.

You can see the appeal, we are all longing to be viewed as our individual selves, not as a cog in the big wheel of life. When approached by a practitioner of alternative medicine, who may seem much warmer and empathic than a traditionally trained MD, the patient may feel as though they have found a medical "home." How unfortunate then, that individuals often are encouraged by those practitioners to abandon the evidence-based care of the individual's traditionally trained practitioner in favor of therapies that may not be proven.

There is a basic wrong in medicine, and that is that traditional practitioners dismiss as quackery those therapies that are considered by them to be alternative, including something as close to their own medical training as osteopathic medicine and manipulation.

As long as they continue to treat individuals as their disease parts and refuse to support their exploration of alternative therapies in addition to what the traditional provider has to offer, patients will believe that they have to make a "all or nothing" choice, often with tragic results.

Laurie

One has a greater sense of intellectual degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience.
Alice James

Related Topics: Herbal Supplements and Drug Interactions, The Safety of Alternative Treatments

Technorati Tags: alternative medicine, complementary medicine, Robert Scoble

Garden Therapy

An article currently on line at Web MD extols the virtues of gardening for good-for-your-heart, aerobic exercise and peace of mind. I have to say I agree absolutely! I would love to hear about your garden: where do you live, what do you plant, how does it make you feel? Over at Dr. Charles' place they are gearing up for the 2006 tomato competition; look on his page for the "First Sunday in May" post.

My sister and I have birthdays about 5 weeks apart in April and May and last weekend our parents took us to a wonderful place in Mason, New Hampshire, called Pickity Place. If you have a chance to get there and have lunch, do so. You'll be glad you did!

I would have loved to have walked through the gardens at this lovely herb farm, but by the time we'd finished lunch it was pouring rain, and we decided that skipping the gardens today gave us an excuse for another trip back very soon.

I love to garden: herbs, vegetables, and flowers all mingle in my beds. As soon as spring arrives I get out there to turn the leaves over, looking for those first green shoots that tell me my perennials have made it through another winter. Then the first green sprouts of things that have reseeded themselves start to show up. So far this year that means tickseed flowers, dill, parsley, and feverfew, but it's early yet, and I may have other surprises.

I am an organic gardener, which has its own challenges. For example, I have the most beautiful swamp milkweed in my garden, that I planted last year. By the end of the season, it was COVERED with aphids. In case you don't know aphids, they are a disaster to most of the other plants in the garden, and difficult to get rid of organically (if anyone has any secrets, please tell me). The milkweeds are very attractive to butterflies, so I don't want to get rid of it completely, but now that it's sending up its first shoots and I can see it, I think I am going to move it to another location.

As the Web MD article points out, gardening can be good exercise to strengthen the heart and other muscles, increase flexibility, and give you peace of mind. At this time of year my garden promises the renewal of all life, the warmth of the sun, and the richness of a compost pile full of fat worms. The herbs are greening up, and rubbing them with my hands is a delightful experience of scent, that brings thoughts of herb-flavored foods from my kitchen, shared with my family and friends. As I write this there is half of a wren's egg sitting in front of me on my computer tower, which I found in my garden bed. Evidence once again, that life begins anew...

Laurie

"An optimist is the human personification of spring."
Susan J. Bissonette

Related Topics: Watch and Learn: Women and Heart Disease, The Healthy Gardener

Technorati Tags: Gardening, heart, health, organic

Coming Soon to a Grocery Near You?

Another piece of news from the world of medical research; one that will make some readers very happy. Scientists have discovered that a group of plant components called furanocoumarins cause the interaction between some medications and grapefruit juice.

Furanocoumarins disrupt the normal medication processing system in the liver, causing there to be much more medication available in the blood stream. The result is the potential for toxic levels of the medication to build up in the blood, significantly increasing the risk of side effects.

This interaction affects those with cardiovascular disease in particular, because it is common with the cholesterol lowering statin drugs, and the calcium channel blockers, used for blood pressure control, abnormal heart rhythms, and Prinzmetal's angina.

Researchers were able to remove the furanocoumarins from grapefruit juice and these samples did not cause the interaction. You can bet that companies making grapefruit juice will be marketing furanocoumarin-free grapefruit juice as soon as it is humanly possible. Scientists are also hopeful that now that the problem chemical has been identified they can test other likely foods for it, thus allowing them to warn individuals about other possible drug-food interactions. Some days science is a wonderful thing!

Laurie

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

Related Topics: Drug Interactions: What You Should Know, Have Hypertension? Watch What You're Popping For Pain

Technorati Tags: medication interaction, grapefruit juice, hypertension, statins

Heart: Breaking News

Some interesting tidbits from the world of medical research...

First, in the category of can't we put this to rest once and for all -- Research done at the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard School of Medicine and published in the journal Circulation on April 24, 2006, concludes that drinking up to 6 cups of filtered coffee a day does not increase ones' risk of developing coronary heart disease.

This long-term study followed 128,000 men and women for a range of 14 to 20 years. When the researchers controlled for all other risk factors that could cause heart disease, they found men and women who drank six or more cups of filtered coffee daily had a similar risk of fatal and nonfatal heart disease as those who did not drink coffee.

They emphasize that this study was for filtered coffee because apparently unfiltered coffee (boiled and French press) contains "cholesterol-raising substances." I haven't heard that before, so I guess I'll have to ask that researching wonder, Cardiostar (a member of my Heart Disease message board), to find me a reference :>) For years I've been telling patients who have a regular coffee habit that maintaining that habit before or after the development of heart disease isn't going to change anything.

Now that 128,000 people and the likes of the Harvard schools have proven it, I hope that hospitals and traditionally-behaving medical personnel can let people have their caffeine and stop inducing withdrawal headaches in hospitalized patients.

In the category of new treatments from old ideas --

British scientists are in the early stages of developing a drug that binds to C-reactive protein, preventing it from binding to heart muscle during a heart attack.

C-Reactive protein (CRP) increases under any circumstance that causes inflammation in the body, such as trauma, heart attack or stroke, infection, and arthritis. During a heart attack, CRP levels begin to rise at about 6 hours and peak at about 50 hours.

Researchers have noticed that the higher the CRP level during the attack, the greater the risk of death or long-term problems, such as chronic heart failure. They are talking with drug companies who may be interested in funding the development of this drug, and hope to begin clinical trials in humans within one to two years.

The drug would be given to the heart attack victim on arrival to the hospital, effectively reducing the size of the heart attack and thus improving prognosis. Because CRP rises as a result of a number of illnesses, the researchers are hopeful that this medication will ultimately help to control other conditions in which CRP plays a role.

Take care, Laurie

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.
-- Sir William Bragg (1862 - 1942)

Related Topics: The Buzz on Coffee, Statin Withdrawal Hard on the Heart

Technorati Tags: heart disease, coffee, heart attack, c-reactive protein, CRP