My Latest Blog on Igniting THE Change in Medicine is here!

Here’s an excerpt

Psychotic, Depressed, Dyspeptic (Excerpt of Holistic Primary Care-Winter ed)

The IMS data indicate that Americans
spent $308 billion on pharmaceuticals last year; collectively, we
consume 47% of all pharmaceuticals by the drug categories with the
biggest total expenditures, one can conclude that, “the US is psychotic,
depressed, has hyperlipidemia and heartburn!” Dr. Guarneri joked. But
it’s really not a joke. It’s a frightening reality, one that’s
economically unsustainable.

Like many clinicians involved with
Bravewell, Dr. Guarneri believes that a fundamental shift from
disease-based interventions to wellness focused care has tremendous
potential to save lives and save money.

“We have the tools. We know that for
every dollar we spend on, say, the Ornish lifestyle based programs for
CVD, we save $6. We have the research. We need to apply it.” Last year,
Dr. Guarneri co-authored a review paper entitled The Efficacy and Cost- Effectiveness of Integrative Medicine, documenting
the actual real-world outcomes and savings from application of
integrative principles and practices in treatment of heart disease,
stroke, cancer, diabetes and depression.

It is not my intention to suggest that our current model is not
needed, rather that I’ve found it to be lacking and not in resonance to
this idealized prevention and wellness model in my mind. To me, health is more than the absence of symptoms; it is about thriving and the ability to participate in life with full vitality and joy! This is why I continue to study Naturopathic and Functional medicine. This is also why most of my blogs continue to stress the importance of a holistic and systems biology approach to medicine.

Environmental medicine
is one example that highlights how preventing and maintaining health is
not just about looking at the individualized pathology of one system,
but in evaluating the interaction between the patient and his or her
surroundings. This approach exhibits that factors such as the quality of
food and environmental toxicity
can no longer be ignored and must become an integral part to the
solution. (Be sure to see a great example of this in my Naturopathic Fun
Facts this week!)

Last week, I gave you two baby steps to take to move forward
in creating a strong foundation for a holistic and integrated approach
to health. This week, I’ll continue with two more infant footies by
encouraging you to:

1. Plan on food and you first, especially when stress rears its ugly head

2. Make your way safely through the grocery store aisles–with a very famous doctor!

IN THIS NEWSLETTER:

1. Naturopathic Philosophy Highlight…
Fun Facts:

a.Is
Your Birth Control Hurting your Partner?

b.Saw
Palmetto & Prostate Cancer

c.Nature’s
Antifungal as Good as Rx Drug?

d.Genetic
Differences in Detox highlight Negative Drug Reactions- Functional Medicine to
the Rescue!

2. Happenings:

Upcoming
Essential Oils Workshops with Terry Quigley at the Healing Garden. Contact
Terry at 518-831-9469

Trader
Joe’s is Coming! It’s True. Thanks Bruce Roter and the Crew.

PATIENTS:
Please review follow ups and cancellation policy on my website

Time
for a symptom re-evaluation?

All
patients can now download the symptom survey done at the original visit online. If you haven’t re-evaluated your
symptoms in a year or more, it may be a good time to fill out the form again
and bring it in to your next visit. (Please add the numbers in every section
when you return it)

3. Radio For Your Body-Mind-SoulM: arcelle Pick

 

January 11, 2012 Are You Fizzling Instead of Sizzling in the New Year?
Has the hustle and bustle of year end activities taken its toll on
you? Are you finding getting out of bed in the morning to be harder than usual?
Is your energy dipping earlier in the day? Listen in today as Marcelle talks
about getting your energy back!

4. Book of the week: Manifesto
for Medicine: Your Guide to Healing Partnerships & the Wise Use of
Alternative Therapies. By James Gordon

Learn
the importance of self-care and true holistic medicine.

5. Don’t miss out:

The
Rest of Fun Facts on my Saratoga.com blog.

Listen
to my colleagues and other experts as they discuss solutions to menopausal
issues on a show dedicated just for women in mid-life! Here is a link from my interview on 360menopause Radio
Show on Panic Attacks and Menopause and a list
of archived shows.

Check
out my latest answer on Dr. Oz’s Sharecare: Side
effects of Birth Control Pills

View
the Updated Link Resources on my
homepage

Naturopathic Fun Facts:

Your Birth Control May be Hurting His MoJo!

Uh-oh. For years, women have been
putting synthetic hormones in their body in order to suppress ovulation and
prevent pregnancy. In relation to
biotransformation, synthetic hormones can create nutrient deficiencies and create
extra burden on the woman’s liver. Poor women, victims again, right? Nope, guys
don’t escape that easy, it’s now an
equal opportunity issue.

In a recent blog, Dr. Mercola
discusses how the
toxicity of our world and how a women’s synthetic
hormones can affect a man’s prostate health and some solutions to correct this
affect. He also gives some safer alternatives for contraception for a women’s
body.

(Note: If you are currently on
any form of hormones, it is wise to consider being assessed by a competent practitioner
for the nutrient and phytochemicals deficiencies that if restored, can protect your
body and prevent side effects).

Using data
from the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the United Nations
World Contraceptive Use report, which spanned 100 countries, researchers
analyzed rates of prostate cancer and prostate cancer deaths, as well as oral
contraceptive use among women.

The report
concluded that the areas with a high rate of oral contraceptive use also had a
high rate of prostate cancer. In addition, the researchers speculated that
higher environmental levels of estrogen — and by implication, higher cumulative
estrogen exposures in men — may be to blame.

In the
United States alone, over 82 percent of
women aged 15-44 have used oral
contraceptives, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC). Typically, hormonal birth control methods like The Pill work
by releasing estrogen and progestin into a woman’s body, preventing her ovaries
from releasing eggs.

While it’s
argued that only a small amount of additional estrogen is excreted by a woman
using this form of contraception, this “small amount” is compounded
by millions of women, many of whom use the pill for long periods of time. Also,
synthetic estrogen and progesterone (progestin) – being unnatural – does not
biodegrade as rapidly and is far harder to remove through conventional water
purification systems – resulting in greater accumulation in the environment.

It’s also
important to consider that you are exposed to a large number of estrogen-like
compounds daily, called xenoestrogens. Estrogen pollution is increasingly
present all around you, from plastics to canned food and drinks, food
additives, household cleaning products,
and pesticides. And estrogen
levels are rising in our waterways, not only
as pollution from birth control use but as a result of the runoff from confined
animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

So whether
it’s a promoter or a causative factor (likely it’s both), there’s a wealth of
evidence supporting excess estrogen exposure as a risk factor for cancer.

What’s All the Buzz About Saw
Palmetto and Prostate Cancer?

As we age,
testosterone levels decline. One reason why this occurs is because of the
overexpression and/or overactivity of an enzyme known as 5-alpha reductase.
This enzyme converts testosterone into dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a process
which simultaneously lowers the amount of testosterone in the
body and contributes to both the benign (BPH) and malignant (cancer) growth of
the prostate gland.

While the
pharmaceutical companies have already capitalized on this biological fact by
producing a class of drugs which inhibit 5-alpha reductase activity, thereby
blocking the conversion of testosterone to DHT, these drugs come with a
significant set of risks, including — no joke! — increasing
your risk of developing prostate cancer.

Unlike the
laughably inept pharmaceutical approach, which typically creates greater
malignancy than improvement in the organ it is “treating,” i.e.
suppressing symptoms in, natural substances like saw palmetto provide a viable
alternative. It is, in fact, through this same mechanism of DHT inhibition that
saw
palmetto works and can make a big difference
in your cancer risk.

Source: Dr. Mercola. How Women
May Be Contributing to Men’s Rising Cancer Rates. Mercola.com. January 2, 2011.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/01/02/use-of-pill-raise-prostate-cancer-risk.aspx?e_cid=20120102_DNL_art_1

 

Garlic vs. Fluconazle

A recent trial reported in
Phytomedicine compared the efficacy of Garlic as an antifungal with the
medication Fluconazole. The result, both of these treatments are very potent anti-fungals!
Here’s the abstract:

Candida
albicans is an opportunistic human pathogen with the ability to differentiate
and grow in filamentous forms and exist as biofilms. The biofilms are a barrier
to treatment as they are often resistant to the antifungal drugs. In this
study, we investigated the antifungal activity of allicin, an active compound
of garlic on various isolates of C. albicans. The effect of allicin on biofilm
production in C. albicans as compared to fluconazole, an antifungal drug, was investigated
using the tetrazolium (XTT) reduction-dependent growth and crystal violet
assays as well as scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Allicin-treated cells
exhibited significant reduction in biofilm growth (p < 0.05) compared to
fluconazole-treated and also growth control cells. Moreover, observation by SEM
of allicin and fluconazole-treated cells confirmed a dose-dependent membrane
disruption and decreased production of organisms. Finally, their expression of
selected genes involved in biofilm formation such as HWP1 was evaluated by
semi-quantitative RT-PCR and relative real time RT-PCR. Allicin was shown to
down-regulate the expression of HWP1..

Source: Alireza Khodavandi, et al. Comparison between allicin and
fluconazole in Candida albicans biofilm inhibition and in suppression of HWP1
gene expression (abstract).
Phytomedicine

Volume 19, Issue 1,
15 December 2011, Pages 56-63.

Genetic Differences in Detox highlight Negative Drug Reactions

Here it is! In one of the biggest
health newsletter around! Whoo-hoo. Modern medicine is beginning to see the
importance of a systems biology approach! Genetic differences in detox
abilities affect not just health, but drug metabolism and behavior.

Dr. Mercola explains how slow
detoxifiers, related to genetic difference in one liver enzyme pathway, creates
more side effects for this unfortunate genetic lot:

• Since the late 1980s,
  there have been frequent reports of increased violent behavior, including
  homicides and suicides, among individuals taking antidepressant drugs
• A newly published
  study provides a plausible theory about how a genetic mutation in the
  CYP450 gene family can cause a metabolic disturbance resulting in
  uncontrollable violent impulses and behaviors in some individuals taking
  these drugs, which establishes the link between the drugs and the violent
  impulses
• “Homicidal akathisia”
  is an extreme motor restlessness sometimes caused by antidepressant and
  antipsychotic drugs that is thought to underlie these violent outbursts
• Depression and other
  emotional disturbances can be safely and effectively treated by an energy
  psychology technique called EFT, which a growing number of scientific
  studies are showing to be incredibly effective; EFT is even more effective
  when combined with healthy diet and lifestyle choices.

Source: Mercola, J. If You Have
These Genes, This Popular Drug Can Trigger Impulsive Violence. January 07 2012.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/01/07/antidepressants-trigger-violent-behavior.aspx?e_cid=20120107_DNL_art_3|