When Brooke Brumfield wasnt battling morning sickness, she craved nachos. Like many first-time expectant mothers, she was nervous and excited about her pregnancy. She had just bought a house with her husband, a wildland firefighter who had enrolled in paramedic school to transition to firefighting closer to home. Everything was going according to plan until 20 weeks into Brumfields pregnancy, when she lost her job at a financial technology startup and, with it, her salary and three months paid maternity leave. After building a new business to support her family, she had clients, but childcare was limited, and her husbands schedule was always shifting. By the time her baby arrived, everything was beyond overwhelming, Brumfield says. I pretty much felt like a truck hit me.

Brumfield had heard stories from friends and family about a way to minimize the stress and emotional fallout of the postpartum period: consuming her placenta, the vascular organ that nourishes and protects the fetus during pregnancy and is expelled from the body after birth. The women swore by the results. They said their milk supply improved and their energy spiked. The lows caused by plummeting hormone levels didnt feel as crushing, they explained.

Brumfield enlisted her doula who, for a fee, would steam, dehydrate, and pulverize her placenta, pouring the fine powder into small capsules. She swallowed her placenta pills for about six weeks after delivering her daughter. She said they helped her feel more even, less angry and emotional. When her milk supply dipped, she says, I re-upped my intake and [the problem] was solved.

Social scientists and medical researchers call the practice of consuming ones own placenta placentophagy. Once confined to obscure corners of alternative medicine and the countercultures crunchier communities, it has been picked up by celebrities (Kourtney and Kim Kardashian, January Jones, Mayim Bialik, Alicia Silverstone, Chrissy Teigen) and adopted by the wider public.

Although there are no official estimates of how many women ingest their placenta after delivery, the internet is increasingly crowded with placenta service providers preparers of pills, smoothies, and salves to support new mothers in the slog to recovery. But the purported benefits are disputed. Depending on whom you ask, placenta-eating is either medicine or a potentially dangerous practice based on myth. How did this practice go mainstream, despite a lack of reported scientific or clinical benefits? The answer may say much more about the world new mothers live in than it does about the placenta.

* * *

In any doctors office or primary care setting, a provider treating a patient will often mention new research that supports a recommended treatment. A pregnant woman diagnosed with preeclampsia, for example, might learn from her health care provider that low-dose aspirin has been shown in recent studies to reduce serious maternal or fetal complications. But the basis for placentophagy, a practice that lies beyond the boundaries of biomedicine, is a 16th-century text.

Li Shizhens Compendium of Materia Medica, or Bencao gangmu, first published in 1596, is a Chinese pharmacopoeia and the most celebrated book in the Chinese tradition of pharmacognosy, or the study of medicinal plants. It appears on the websites of placenta service providers and in the pages of the standard references for practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), a millennia-old medical system with a growing global reach.

A physician and herbalist, Li drew on his empirical experiences treating patients but also on anecdotes, poetry, and oral histories. His encyclopedia of the natural world is a textual cabinet of natural curiosities, according to historian Carla Nappis The Monkey and the Inkpot, a study of Lis life and work. Containing nearly 1,900 substances, from ginseng and peppercorn to dragons bone and turtle sperm, Lis book describes dried human placenta as a drug that invigorated people, and was used to treat impotence and infertility, among other conditions. For advocates of placentophagy, this book serves as ethnomedical proof of the long-standing history of the practice and by extension, its efficacy and safety.

But like many claims to age-old provenance, the origins of placentophagy as a postpartum treatment are disputed. Sabine Wilms, an author and translator of more than a dozen books on Chinese medicine, scrutinized classical Chinese texts on gynecology and childbirth and told me theres no written evidence at all of a woman consuming her own placenta after birth as a mainstream traditional practice in China, even if formulas containing dried human placenta were prescribed for other conditions, as described in Lis book.

Beyond Lis 400-year-old encyclopedia, evidence of postpartum placenta-eating is nearly impossible to find in the historical record. Womens voices are notoriously difficult to unearth from the archives, and even in the 19th century, the details of childbirth and what happened to the placenta went largely unreported. But when two University of Nevada, Las Vegas anthropologists pored over ethnographic data from 179 societies, they discovered a conspicuous absence of cultural traditions associated with maternal placentophagy.

The earliest modern recorded evidence of placentophagy appears in a June 1972 issue of Rolling Stone. I pushed the placenta into a pot, wrote an anonymous author, responding to the magazines call asking readers to share stories from their personal lives. It was magnificent purple and red and turquoise. Describing her steamed placenta as wonderfully replenishing and delicious, she recounted eating and sharing it with friends after delivering her son.

Raven Lang, who is credited with reviving the oldest known and most commonly used recipe for postpartum placenta preparation, witnessed placentophagy while helping women as a homebirth midwife and TCM practitioner in California in the early 1970s. These women lived off the land, she explained, and might have drawn inspiration from livestock and other animals in their midst.

It wasnt long before placentophagy made its way beyond Californias hippie enclaves. In 1984, Mary Field, a certified midwife and registered nurse in the U.K., recounted eating her placenta, an unmentionable experience, to ward off postpartum depression after the birth of her second child. I remain secretive, Field wrote, for the practice verges on that other taboo cannibalism as it is human flesh and a part of your own body. She recalled choking down her own placenta. I could not bear to chew or taste it.

* * *

The rise of encapsulation technology, developed for the food industry and picked up by placenta service providers in the early aughts, put an end to visceral experiences like Fields. No longer must women process their own placenta or subject themselves to its purported offal-like flavor. Tidy, pre-portioned placenta pills resembling vitamins can be prepared by anyone with access to a dehydrator, basic supplies, and online training videos.

The boom in placentophagy highlights a longstanding puzzle for researchers. Almost every non-human mammal consumes its placenta after delivery, for reasons that remain unclear to scientists. Why did humans become the exception to this nearly universal mammalian rule? For Daniel Benyshek, an anthropologist and co-author of the UNLV study that found no evidence of placentophagy being practiced anywhere in the world, the human exception raises a red flag: It suggests the reasons that humans have eschewed placentophagy arent just cultural or symbolic, but adaptive that theres something dangerous about it, or at least there has been in our evolutionary history.

Scientific data on the potential benefits and risks of placentophagy is scarce, but a few small studies suggest that any nutrients contained in cooked or encapsulated placental tissue are unlikely to be absorbed into the bloodstream at concentrations large enough to produce significant health effects. Whether and in what quantity reproductive hormones such as estrogen survive placental processing has been little studied, but ingesting them after birth could have negative effects on milk production and may also increase the risk of blood clots.

Yet placental encapsulation services which remain unregulated in the U.S. have found a receptive audience of American consumers. (The food safety agency of the European Union declared the placenta a novel food in 2015, effectively shuttering the encapsulation business on the continent.) Mostly small and women-owned, placenta service businesses position themselves as an alternative to a highly medicalized, bureaucratized birthing process that has often neglected the needs of women. Postpartum checkups focus narrowly on pelvic examinations and contraceptive education. One survey of U.S. mothers found that one in three respondents who received a postpartum checkup felt that their health concerns were not addressed. In contrast, placenta service providers speak the language of empowerment.

That language can resonate with new mothers like Brumfield, who face overwhelming pressures to care for a newborn, nurse on demand, manage a household, and return to work amid anxieties about postpartum depression, dwindling energy, and inadequate milk supply.

In some ways, placenta consumption is motivated by a desire to perform good mothering, wrote scholars from Denmark and the United States in a paper on the emergence of the placenta economy. It reflects the idea of maternity as a neoliberal project, in which new mothers are responsible for their own individual well-being as well as that of their babies, they added.

Meanwhile, rates of postpartum depression keep climbing, maternity leave policies are stingy, and child care costs are often prohibitive. Its easy to see why many women would be eager to seek help, real or perceived, wherever they can find it.

* * *

Daniela Blei is a historian, writer, and book editor based in San Francisco.

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

Read more:

Medicine or myth? The dubious benefits of placenta-eating - Salon

veriheal personalized cannabis consultation

Background Information About Veriheal:

Veriheal is an innovative cannatech platform that connects prospective patients with licensed doctors that will approve them for their states medical cannabis program. Veriheal aims to educate the public about cannabis and is eager to encourage them on their path to healing. Thus, they are willing to take it to the next level by introducing a new state of the art service you wont be able to find elsewhere.

Most people set out to educate themselves on medical cannabis but often struggle to find the right information that is vital to them as an individual. Luckily, Veriheal has recently launched its new personalized cannabis consult service that is available nationwide in all 50 states. This service will give everyone the opportunity to thoroughly evaluate whether or not cannabis therapy is right for them. The purpose of these personalized assessments is to provide those new or old to cannabis with a one-on-one discussion with an expert that can further target and refine their recommendations based on a patients individual interests. These consultations cover things such as recommended terpene and cannabinoid profiles, offer guidance on due-diligence, as well as up to date information on state cannabis laws. The results are all exclusively tailored to the patient.

cofounder of veriheal sam adetunji

Warren Bobrow=WB: Why Cannabis? When did you first discover the healing benefits of the plant? What is it like out there in the real world of medical cannabis?

Sam Adetunji: Joshua and I got involved with the cannabis industry after trying to get our medical marijuana cards in Washington DC. The process was very difficult and challenging. There were not tech platforms that made the process easier or sped up the process. However, we both had our own realizations on the benefits through our own personal experiences. On my end, I saw my father battle liver cancer at home. It was one of the most painful things to watch your hero suffer from a disease he could not control. One day, a friend recommended Rick Simpson Oil for my father and I wanted him to try whatever was available. So, I brought it to him and had him try it. A couple of hours later, my dad is eating food and thanking my mom and I for providing him with something to eat. That's when I realized this plant could really help people. Josh had a friend in California that used cannabis as a form of treatment while battling chemo. During this intense form of treatment, his friend was able to cope with the intense sessions and stay in a positive state while going through his battle. Both of our experiences created a spark in us to do something great for the people around us.

WB: How do you intend to make it easier for your client to attain a medical cannabis card? How long does it take? What kind of ailments are needed by the states to qualify?

Sam Adetunji: Our strengths come from our knowledge and understanding of technology and strong personnel.Weve spent the last few years of building Veriheal focused on utilizing technologies such as telehealth and scheduling platforms to make things ten times easier than our competition. All of our technology is built in-house by our development team who come from some of the top universities in the country. In regards to personnel, we make sure to constantly train our customer service representatives on making people feel like a family of ours either when they call us, email us, or even shout us out on social media.

The process, as you know, really varies per state. However, we see patients with an abundance of conditions ranging from PTSD, to chronic pain, to epilepsy, and everything in between. We pride ourselves on making the process as fast as possible for those that need it most.

WB: Tell me about your company? What is your six month and twelve-month plan? How do you deal with stigmas to cannabis? How do doctors (MDs) deal with cannabis?

veriheal-trash-for-trees-event

Josh Green: As Sam said earlier - we started Veriheal after discovering the need for fast and reliable access to world-class cannabis professionals. The whole company is young at heart, but in just three years, we went from serving a couple hundred patients in a handful of states, to helping tens of thousands of patients nationwide. It humbles us to be on the ground as the first point of contact for so many people looking to try cannabis. We are really committed to helping every community we can. With our Trash for Trees events, we go out and help those who are less fortunate by allowing them to consult with one of our professionals entirely for free. Most of these people were told their entire lives to stay away from cannabis and have this demonized image of what effects it might have on them. By going out there and allowing them to have a conversation with a medical professional it helps lift that black cloud that has stigmatized this medicine for so long. Our team will be engaging in events like this all throughout 2020, so keep your eyes open. Veriheal is also expanding to Europe and Latin American in 2020! Big things are coming, were just getting started.

WB: Do you cook? If so, who taught you? Whats your favorite restaurant? Where? What kind of food?

Sam Adetunji: I do cook, but not as good as my mom! Im a first-generation Nigerian so cooking was somewhat taught at home after seeing my mom throw down daily. If I was to cook now though Id say Im pretty simple. White rice, grilled salmon, asparagus, maybe a little beans on the rice. Nothing crazy!

I love Nigerian food but my favorite type would have to be Japanese. If I were to choose my favorite restaurants Id choose Nobu if I want a good variety of dishes - or Sushi Taro just for sushi.

WB: What is your passion?

Josh Green: My passion is inspiring and helping people. I love to serve; I think I get that trait from my father who has served his community as a clergy member for over 45+ years. I am what you would call a hyper-creative, I enjoy coming up with ingenious and fun ideas on how to do something in a more interesting and impactful way. In this manner, Veriheal has transformed into the perfect company for me because it allows me to chase my dreams, help people find healing and happiness, and be an inspiration for others. I wholeheartedly believe that medical cannabis science is the future path to seeing a lot more people healed, and living better and happier lives.

The Future of Cannabis Care

Cannabis has garnered worldwide popularity as alternative medicine, but current laws, its lack of research, and ever present stigma often keep many from learning more about it or even attempting to consider it in their treatment plan. Furthermore, companies in the cannabis space are not even allowed to boast any medical claims. They often resort to submitting disclaimers to avoid any legal ramifications. Product and website disclaimers advise the consumer to seek the advice of a medical professional before using cannabis products. However, most physicians have little to no advice to give which is increasingly problematic. This is where Veriheal steps in to help.

Since cannabis is not completely backed by authoritative research, the standard healthcare professional is not likely to be well-informed about it as a whole. While doctors can recommend or approve of cannabinoid therapy, their wisdom usually ends there. This leaves patients to fend for themselves in an uncharted and confusing market where the law is not clearly laid out in black or white. It can be scary and offputting which will ultimately turn people away from potential options that could have been legitimately beneficial.

Bonafide experts are the ones that are looked up to for advice. Nutritionists, dieticians, fitness experts and the like all have specialized knowledge that lets them be able to formulate wellness plans that fit their clients interests. The cannabis industry is in a critical need for such experts who are willing to educate the general public and provide patients with some clarity on what products to use, how to use them, and where to access them.

Go here to read the rest:

Veriheal: A Highly Innovative MD Cannatech Platform - Forbes

A visit to a Sri Lankan herb and spice garden reveals a rich history of trade and alternative medicine.

The drive to Luckgrove Herb and Spice Garden was a harrowing one. Our small bus narrowly missed getting rammed head-on by much larger public buses passing in the traditional Sri Lankan manner moving into the middle of the winding mountain road and expecting all other vehicles to move out of the way. After too many near misses, we pulled into Luckgrove's parking lot, relieved to be on solid ground.

I needn't have worried about any potential injuries, however, because Luckgrove contains a cure for every imaginable mishap. After listening to our animated guide for an hour, I figured that, had I been carried in on a stretcher, not only would I have skipped out, but also seen wrinkles erased, energy boosted, and entire years added to my life.

Cinnamon is nearest and dearest to Sri Lanka's heart, the indigenous spice that first attracted Dutch and Portuguese traders from afar. Sri Lankan cinnamon is the best in the world, our guide said, and indeed its Latin name Cinnamonum verum or 'true cinnamon' would suggest the same. It has an older botanical name called Cinnamonum zeylanicum, which comes from Ceylon, Sri Lanka's former name. Perhaps it's easiest just to call it 'brown gold'.

A cinnamon tree lives for 40 years and can be harvested three years after planting. From then on, it is harvested once annually by removing the bark in bands. True Sri Lankan cinnamon bark dries into curly pieces like bamboo. It crumbles under your fingertips, unlike the Chinese and Indonesian cinnamon that is hard as wood. Cinnamon bark can be ground or pressed for oil. This, the guide explained, is useful for drawing wax out of ears, rubbing onto cold feet to warm them, bleaching teeth, lowering blood sugar.

Other spices were brought to the island by European traders once they realized how perfect the growing conditions were. Vanilla came from Mexico but flourished here. It is a natural insect repellent, which is why no bees or butterflies pollinate it and all the work must be done by hand. The bean pods are dried for three months in the shade before being pressed for their extract. It takes 1 kilogram of vanilla beans (roughly 65 beans) to make a small vial of extract.

Lemongrass is also a natural insect repellent. It is planted in the soil ahead of tea crops to get rid of pests, and is used to make citronella cream.

Pepper is the king of spices, the guide announced. He showed us tiny green peppercorns growing at the end of branches. The pepper plant is a creeper vine that climbs up other trees, and different colored peppercorns all come from the same plant but have been processed in different ways.

Beside the pepper vine was a cloves plant. Cloves, which originated in Zanzibar, grow at the end of a branch in clumps of 15. They are a natural anaesthetic and keep insects away, hence the age-old practice of stuffing oranges with cloves. (I thought it was because it smells great.) The wood from the cloves tree is rock-hard and perfect for building walking sticks and chess boards.

Nutmeg and mace come from the same plant. The nutmeg is the nut at the center of the fruit, the mace comes from the reddish skin surrounding the nut, and the apricot-like fruit is used locally for making jam.

Turmeric and ginger are root crops. Both take nine months to mature, 'just like a baby,' the guide said. A single ginger plant will yield 3 kilograms of tubers. Turmeric is known as cheap saffron and a pinch is added to every curry in Sri Lanka to kill off germs. It has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties and is helpful for managing menopausal hot flashes.

Not everything in the garden received the guide's praise. 'Don't eat pineapple more than once or twice a week,' he told us. It attracts insects and the acidity is hard on your bowels and teeth, bad for psoriasis. Then he pointed to a jackfruit and said, 'Any fruit that grows off a trunk is fattening. Think of bananas, coconut, even rice.' The lesson was to eat these in moderation.

'If pepper is the king of spices, what is the queen?' I asked. 'Cardamom,' he replied, and took me to see a cardamom plant on the far side of the garden. He showed me where the pods would form if it were the right season, but then I promptly stepped in some dog poo and the tour was over. Alas, there was no herbal or spice cure for that predicament, and I had to make do with a bucket of water.

The author is a guest of Intrepid Travel. There was no obligation to write this story.

A visit to a Sri Lankan herb and spice garden reveals a rich history of trade and alternative medicine.

Visit link:

A brief history of the items in your spice drawer - Treehugger

India is bearing a big burden of cancer and if the recent reports are to be believed, cancer will be the biggest threat in the next 10-20 years. Among women, the occurence of breast cancer is on the spike with more and more cases being detected every year. Despite regular clinical trials and studies being carried out, it seems like we are still far away from curbing this menace. We spoke to Dr Anthony Pais, Clinical Director and Senior Consultant Oncoplastic Breast Surgery, Cytecare Cancer Hospitals, Bangalore to understand the issue. Is it true that Indians are more prone to cancer than their western counterparts?While it is true that certain cancers are more common in India than in the western countries, it is a misconception that Indians are more prone to cancer. Every country has its own unique healthcare challenges. For India, oral, head and neck and cervical cancers pose the biggest problems. The causes are many from the widespread use of betel quid and tobacco to the high incidence of cervical human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and poor hygiene standards, especially among the lower socioeconomic strata of society. In many cases, the issue is far more complex. For instance, when it comes to breast cancer, Indian women are not more prone than their western counterparts. However, the average age of breast cancer patients in India is 47-49 years which is almost a decade earlier than for most women in the west. Research shows that our biology is different, causing some cancers at a younger age and typically more aggressive. This often makes timely diagnosis and treatment a greater concern.

Its scary to see so many Indian women being diagnosed with breast cancer. Why are they succumbing to breast cancer so easily?Out of the nearly two lakh new cases of breast cancer reported every year in India, around 90,000 die in the first year itself. In fact, while the incidence of breast cancer is lower in India, the mortality rate is much higher than in the west. There are several reasons for this perturbing reality.

First, theres lack of awareness. In most parts of India, women are uncomfortable to discuss symptoms and go in for a physical examination. Studies show that most deaths occur among the unscreened population as the cancer is typically detected at a late stage.

Secondly, most Indian healthcare centres lack the basic facilities for early diagnosis of cancer. And centres that have the facilities arent often armed with adequate expertise to diagnose and treat the disease in the most effective manner. Unfortunately, we see this scenario even in the so-called advanced centres of excellence!

The high cost of treatment is another factor that hinders timely treatment. Patients often have to sell their property, jewellery and valuables to avail of cancer care. In quite a few cases, the financial worries drive patients towards alternative medicine, further delaying diagnosis and scientific treatment. Unless, we offer affordable healthcare solutions, the situation is unlikely to change.

We keep reading reports about studies being conducted but how close are we in discovering the reasons behind the incidence of breast cancer?Several studies have shown that estrogen is the main culprit. Besides the hormone factor, dense breast on a mammogram, obesity, lack of exercise, stress, alcohol and smoking also play a role in the causation of breast cancer.

Go here to read the rest:

India and breast cancer: The missing link and what we can do - Times of India

Skiing make you a little queasy? You're not aloneand living in Colorado doesnt make it any better. But there are lots of ways to counteract the nausea.

When I learned to ski five years ago, both my general anxiety and experienced friends kept my brain occupied with terrifying scenarios: surprise cliffs, yard sales, boarding the chairlift alongside a first-time snowboarder.

I did not anticipate hurling at the lift line.

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Ive been prone to motion sickness since middle school. It always happens when Im not the one controlling the movement, like sitting in a car or bobbing on a kayak. In the backseat of a carpool to Taos, New Mexico last year, I got queasier with each turnbecause of the drive and anticipation. But it would be fine once we got some fresh air and I was the one doing the steering! I thought.

But as I booted up, made shaky turns, and paused at the bottom of each run, I felt like the snow before me was still somehow moving. On the lift, I held back dry heaves while my friend ate a quesadilla next to me. And finally, at a regrettably busy lift line, I turned and let my breakfast burrito exit my body in a beautiful projectile that landed neatly between my skis. Still, I tried to rally a few times before realizing it was the skiing, not my dearly departed burrito, making my stomach turn.

Theres an explanation for what I was dealing with: Huslers disease, coined exactly for the experience of skiing in bad lighting conditions and getting really, really dizzy. Apparently, its the skiers brand of motion sickness. It starts with the inner ear, a snail-shaped bundle of systems that assist with balance and communicating sound to the brain. Motion sickness generally happens when your inner ears detect one kind of motion and your eyes detect another, says Carol A. Foster, M.D., associate professor of otolaryngology at the University of Colorado.

Continuous movement, like waves, makes that confusion worse, because your inner ears are more stimulated. If youre not seeing a lot of movement on top of that, get the barf bags out. You can make almost anyone get motion sick if you expose them to the right sorts of motion, Foster says. But there are some people who are much more resistant than others.

These things all compound in Colorado, where a typical winter weekend involves winding roads, lower-oxygen levels, and sliding downhill fast in all kinds of conditions, Foster says. You are more at risk when youre here.

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After all, skiing in bad light or a whiteout ticks all the boxes: constant movement, few visual cues, and being at a higher altitude. Focusing on something stable, like the horizon when youre on a boat, might help. But thats not an option on snowy or foggy days when you can barely see. High-contrast ski goggles can be beneficial on flat-light days, but Foster says when visual conditions are really bad, the only thing thatll truly help is to stop skiing. For people who can ski with their eyes closed, it doesnt matter, she jokes. But those of us who require vision to ski, flat lightits bad.

I require vision to ski, and just when Id started feeling more confident on the snow, my vestibular system of all things was sabotaging me. And I felt ridiculous because none of my friends seemed to have any trouble with ski-sickness. But Im perfectly normal, Foster assures me. Actually, about 10 percent of people are very susceptible to motion sickness.The better your ears, she says, the more likely you are [to get motion-sick] because you feel motion more.

So, what can someone like me do about it? The first step is acceptance: pay attention to how you feel on good- versus bad-light days, and consider that a wobbly stomach may not just be altitude sickness or those beers you had last night. If youre more prone to motion sickness, prevention and awareness are key. Meclizine, found in seasickness drugs like Dramamine and Bonine, is mild enough to use on a regular basis, but it will make you drowsy. Still, Foster knows people who are perfectly happy to take it before getting on the ski hill. If you dont want to medicate, invest in high-contrast lenses you can switch out and dont force yourself to keep going when visibility deteriorates. Those are the most expert-approved options, but Foster says people find all kinds of alternative fixes that seem to work for themme included.

One day this summer, I remembered that my grandma always wore weird little bracelets called Sea-Bands to counteract seasickness. One Google search and $12 later, a tiny plastic box arrived on my doorstep holding two fabric wristbands, each about as big as a fun-size candy bar and fitted with an M&M-shaped piece of plastic in the middle. These admittedly geriatric-looking accessories are to be worn on both arms, dots pressing on the inner wrists. Theyre called acupressure bands, and theyre supposed to engage an acupuncture point between the two tendons of the wrist that is thought to relieve nausea and balance issues.

Its hard to explain the exact mechanism that make acupressure bands work, and the benefits have not been strenuously tested. (Some studies have supported the idea that acupressure bands seem to have some effect in certain cases.) But my sweet little Sea-Bands have changed my life. The first time I wore them, on a two-hour car ride on mountain roads, I felt like I could stand on my head while doing donuts and reading The Odyssey with not one twinge of queasiness. Foster notes the workings of acupressure bands are not totally clearand the benefit might just be a placebo effect.

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I was raised with a dose of alternative medicine passed down from my mom and grandma, so I am down for acupressure. But even if it is just the placebo effect, Ill take it. In fact, I suspect Im more susceptible to it; having a non-invasive but concrete intervention has always calmed my anxious brain. I had spontaneous and violent bloody noses for years as a kid, and my grandma gave me a necklace that she said I should wear whenever I felt one coming on: a tiny jade teapot on a red string. This was definitely a kindness more than any medical belief, but the nosebleeds started to feel shorter. Within a year, theyd stopped altogether. Motion sickness feels similar in that its impossible to control, as if my brain is one step behind my body (and it kind of is!). Like putting on the necklace, maybe donning my Sea-Bands and feeling the pressure on my wrists grounds me enough to get a grip on things.

And thats what Ill keep telling myself as ski season starts. I wore them for my first uphill skin of the season on a foggy day, and though I gritted my teeth on the way down anticipating that this would be where the placebo effect fadednot so! Ill continue to proudly slip on my dorky little Sea-Bands for every carpool, and Ill enter every lift line in peace, dammit.

I have a professional otolaryngologist supporting that plan. You know the old cartoon Dumbo, holding the feather? Foster asks. Dumbo always thought it was the feather that helped him fly, when it was something else (his ears) all along. Well, is having a Sea-Band just holding a feather that you really believe in? My view is, if all you need is a little placebo effect, then thats great.

Read more here:

Why Some Skiers Pukeand What They Can Do About It - 5280 | The Denver Magazine

SAN DIEGO People across the country are crossing the border to Mexico, hoping an alternative form of therapy will cure their addiction to opioids.

One former addict shared his story with Scripps station KGTV in San Diego. He asked that he only be referred to as Bob.

"I had been to traditional rehabs throughout my life, mostly against my will," said Bob.

He said he got hooked on painkillers after multiple injuries due to skateboarding and snowboarding.

His addiction quickly escalated. He started using heroin when he was fourteen.

"One day, I only had $10 or $15, and a friend told me, why you gonna waste your money on half of a pill? It's not going to do anything for you. You're going to be sick. Why don't you just get heroin? Just that "H-word" has a stigma attached to it, and I was like, I shouldn't, but financially, it made sense, cause when I did a $5 bag of heroin, it did the exact same thing as $120 worth of "Oxy's", so it was kind of a no-brainer to make the switch," said Bob.

He bounced in and out of rehabs, but always caved to the withdrawals.

"It's just like the flu times 1,000. It's a really miserable experience, and a lot of times, you feel like you're going to die," said Bob.

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He was 23 years old and living out of his car when he agreed to try an alternative treatment.

He heard about a clinic in Rosarito, Mexico that was treating addicts with Ibogaine. Ibogaine is described as a psychoactive alkaloid that comes from the shrub, Iboga, in West Africa.

Ibogaine is illegal in the United States; classified as a Schedule I drug, or a drug with a "high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted medical use."

In Mexico, Ibogaine is unregulated. There are a handful of clinics providing the treatment just across the border from San Diego.

"When the medicine kicked in, it was very different than let's say, eating LSD or magical mushrooms," said Bob.

Ibogaine is given in capsule form. Patients can hallucinate for more than 24 hours.

"My experience was tough. It wasn't easy, but it needed to be that way. It wasn't an enjoyable experience," said Bob.

He described seeing a snapshot of his life while under the influence of the drug.

"It pulled me out of my body and brought up these high definition bubbles that would just pop up and disappear, pop up and disappear, with images with motion video inside of them."

He said he was forced to look at his life from a different perspective.

"They were focused on all the negative things I had done in my life. I had really hurt my family, my friends, did awful things to people and myself," said Bob.

During the treatment, he was hooked up to a heart monitor and under the care of a medical staff.

That was eight years ago. Bob says he's been clean ever since. He said the physical cravings for drugs were gone almost immediately, but mentally, he still had work to do.

"You're never going to forget how good a high feels like, you're stuck with that curse for life, but what Ibogaine does, it gives you the option of whether you have to react on that urge or not."

He said Ibogaine is not a cure. Aftercare is critical to long-term recovery.

"It's never going to make you forget your go-to easy coping mechanism of "Oh, I can make this problem temporarily go away by getting high, but it gives you a window of opportunity."

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Thomas Kingsley Brown, Ph.D., runs an undergraduate program at the University of California at San Diego. Unrelated to his work at the school, he's been researching Ibogaine for a decade. In 2010, he conducted a study with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) on the outcomes of people who received Ibogaine for the treatment of opioid addiction.

"Ibogaine is really helpful for taking away the withdrawal symptoms that you would ordinarily get when you stop using the opioids," said Kingsley Brown.

According to Kingsley Brown, Ibogaine can reduce drug use after just one treatment, unlike the years it can take to be weaned off of Methadone or another replacement drug.

"It doesn't act in the same way that the standard treatments do; those are replacing the opioid at the receptor site and letting your brain continue trying to receive that type of action. Ibogaine doesn't do that," said Kingsley Brown.

Patients report experiencing a "wake up call" of sorts while undergoing treatment.

"They realize all the harm they've been doing with their addiction. Sometimes they'll have insight into the roots of their addiction, and they come out of that with this sense that they can stop using and they change their lives. I think that makes a really big difference," said Kingsley Brown.

The drug doesn't come without risks. It can be fatal for people with heart problems and other pre-existing conditions. There are also dangerous drug interactions.

According to MAPS, "over 30 fatalities temporally associated with the ingestion of Ibogaine have been reported in the published peer-reviewed scientific literature."

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Nancy Knott is a Carlsbad based Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She specializes in addiction. She does not recommend Ibogaine.

"It creates a psychosis, which can be so absolutely life-threatening and mentally threatening to a developing brain, or any brain, for that matter," said Knott.

She is skeptical about claims that one treatment of Ibogaine will end years of addiction.

"The belief is that the person will have less of a withdrawal and an early start in recovery. None of that is anything I, or most professionals, would subscribe to because treating addiction involves many, many, things on every spectrum," said Knott.

Treatment costs usually start around $5,000. It is only legal in New Zealand, Brazil, and South Africa.

"I think it should be made available as a legal treatment. I don't think it should be widely made available like a dispensary, because people won't really know how to use it safely. It should really be administered by someone who knows what they're doing, but it should be made available," said Kingsley Brown.

According to the County Health and Human Services Agency, one out of every eight San Diegans has a substance use disorder, but about 90 percent of those suffering from addiction do not access treatment.

Bob and other former addicts say any risk associated with Ibogaine is worth it.

"Every time you stick a needle in your arm, it's just as dangerous as traveling to a foreign country or doing a drug that could potentially be dangerous. Heroin is far more dangerous than Ibogaine."

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Opioid addicts seek alternative treatment in Mexico - ABC Action News

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I recently lost my dearly beloved brother-in law because in the end there was more faith in the efficacy of western medicine even when it had really nothing to offer. While an initial surgery certainly helped to slow the growth of cholangiocarcinoma with admirable support from ayurvedic and Tibetan medicine, a follow-up surgery five years later did not prove to be useful. Making choices becomes difficult when faced with incurable illnesses.

Questions are always posed to alternative medical practitioners that are almost never asked of western medical practitioners. Can you guarantee a cure? Will you take responsibility for the consequences? I did not find any such questions being asked of our western medicine-practising surgeons and physicians. In fact, there was a certain reluctance to pose difficult questions and also there was this willingness to believe that all would turn out right even when the evidence was to the contrary.

What I found amazing was the arrogance of allopaths who believed that if they did not have a solution, no other system could possibly have a solution. How did we get to the stage where we are so willing to go with western medicine and all its drawbacks and not even explore other alternatives? Is it because of a well-orchestrated media campaign by western pharma to belittle other medical systems so that they dont lose out? Or is it that we are still slaves to the white man and his philosophy? Or is it that we as a community of believers in ayurveda have not sufficiently educated the opinion makers?

It grieves me that I am often unable to overcome deeply held beliefs in western medicine and people die because they are unwilling to look at alternatives. It constantly surprises me that people cannot look at logical arguments and believe that a disease trajectory is not dependent on ones lifestyle or dietary patterns.

When you are recovering from a major surgery, where there have been complications, does it make sense to undertake long plane journeys to another continent? Western trained doctors do not have any notion of the pathya or apathya concept which is so important in ayurveda. In ayurveda, each disease is studied according to its nidana, samprapti, sampraptighataka, bheda, chikitsa and pathya/apathya regimens.

Basically the cause of the disease is studied in detail. Rarely do the texts say it is idiopathic. Detailed explanation regarding the nidana and hetuthat are the causesare spelt out. The patho-physiology of the disease is dealt with in amazing detail considering that many of these texts were written 2,000 years ago. After a detailed discussion of the disease pathway and the way the digestive fire has been affected, details regarding treatment are given. The options are plenty. Many combinations of herbs, minerals and metals are spelt out so that different options are available for people of different prakriti.

The section on pathya/apathya spells out in great detail the diet choices the patient should make: what can he eat and what he should avoid. In similar fashion, the classics spell out the activities he can undertake. Can the patient travel riding a camel? Can he travel on a bumpy road? Can he walk around in the sun exposing himself to the hot rays and sweating profusely? Can he sleep during the day? The patient has to conduct himself in a manner that does not aggravate the disease and helps in his convalescence and recovery.

This section is so important that in a discussion of the treatment of a disease, if the ayurvedic student fails to write about the pathya and apathya to be followed, he will be penalised quite substantially. Some of these general principles of medicine, which are quite logical but somehow seem alien to our countrymen, need to be retaught. It is time we introduced some basic concepts of ayurveda, siddha and unani in our school curriculum so that we become a healthier nation.

The writer is retired Additional Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu. She can be reached at sheelarani.arogyamantra@gmail.com/arogyamantra.blogspot.com

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Ayurveda without fear - The New Indian Express

Psoriatic arthritis is a chronic inflammatory joint disease that develops in some people with psoriasis. Psoriasis can affect the joints, skin and nails, skull, spine, fingers, or toes, causing them to become inflamed and painful.

It is a serious condition that can become steadily worse. If left untreated, psoriatic (PsA) can lead to joint destruction, disability, and impaired quality of life.

Although there is currently no cure for PsA, early diagnosis and targeted treatment plans may slow, or even halt, its progression.

PsA has traditionally been managed using a combination of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (), corticosteroids, and disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs).

Recent advances in understanding the bodys immune response to PsA has led to new therapies, including the use of necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFs).These have been shown to reduce the progression of joint damage in some patients.

Contents of this article:

Drug treatments may control inflammation and relieve discomfort for people with PsA.

The current pharmacological treatment options for PsA aim to:

NSAIDs are used to relieve pain and reduce inflammation. They work by blocking the production of compounds known as prostaglandins. These signal the bodys immune system to trigger an inflammatory response.

The most common over-the-counter NSAIDs are ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) and naproxen sodium (Aleve). Stronger NSAIDs are also available by prescription.

Doctors commonly prescribe NSAIDS to people who have mild symptoms of PsA:

However, NSAIDs increase the risk of and , bleeding, and kidney problems. People with a history of cardiovascular disease should use NSAIDs with caution.

Corticosteroids mimic the anti-inflammatory hormone cortisol, which is normally made by the bodys adrenal glands. They are either taken by mouth or administered as a local injection to provide temporary inflammation relief.

However, long-term use can lead to side effects such as facial swelling, weight gain, , and weak bones.

DMARDs and biologics, a subtype of DWARDs, work to suppress the overactive immune system but may also raise the risk of infections.

DMARDs, including methotrexate, sulfasalazine, leflunomide, and cyclosporine, are frequently prescribed alongside to NSAIDs.

They help to suppress the bodys overactive immune system, which causes persistent inflammation. They can take several weeks to take effect.

A new DMARD, called apremilast (Otezla), was recently approved by both the (FDA) and (EMA) for the treatment of PsA.

It works by blocking an enzyme that regulates immune and inflammatory processes. Clinical studies suggest that it is effective and generally well-tolerated.

Biologics are a special subclass of DMARDs. One group of biologics, known as TNF inhibitors, are typically only offered to people who do not respond effectively to other DMARDs. Examples include:

Biologics work by blocking a specific protein that is produced by immune cells and which signals other cells to start the inflammatory process.

Another biologic, called ustekinumab (Stelara), works by blocking two proteins that cause inflammation. Two other biologics block another pro-inflammatory protein, these are called Ixekizumab and Secukinumab.

While biologics can be very effective, they suppress the immune system and raise the risk of infections.

Drug therapy Impact of PsA on quality of life Mild NSAIDs (possibly with local corticosteroid injections) Minimal Moderate DMARDs or TNF inhibitors Impacts everyday tasks and physical and mental functions; does not respond to NSAIDs Severe DMARDs and TNF inhibitors Cannot perform everyday tasks easily without pain; heavy impact on physical and mental functions; does not respond to DMARDs or TNF inhibitors as monotherapy

The following non-drug management strategies are recommended in addition to drug therapy:

Many people manage their PsA using complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in addition to conventional treatments. People with PsA should discuss these therapies with healthcare providers before trying them.

Among the most popular are:

Acupuncture and massage may help relax the muscles and reduce stiffness and pain in the joints.

Some people claim that an alkaline diet may reduce inflammation in the body. An alkali diet is one where the focus is on eating alkaline foods, such as whole fruits and vegetables instead of more acidic foods, such as meat and dairy products.

A healthful diet also helps to prevent , which is a risk factor for people with PsA.

Management of PsA usually involves a combination of NSAIDs, corticosteroid injections, or a combination of the two. DMARDs and biologic therapies are prescribed for people with more severe symptoms.

The best choice of therapy will depend upon the disease severity, prior treatment, other conditions that are present, access to therapy, and patient choice.

Written by Goretti Cowley

Here is the original post:

Medical News Today: Psoriatic arthritis treatment: Drug classes and home remedies - Stock Daily Dish

Sometimes, pills and medications just don't cut it for people with serious illnesses of both the mental or physical variety.

Depression, pain and inflammation are just a few of the ailments that plague millions of Americans every single day.

For those that are tired of medicating to get rid of their problems or feel like they have been ineffective, there are new alternative therapy treatments to testout.

Cryotherapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation and cupping are three techniques now availablein St. George where people can treat their bodies in an effort tofeel like their natural selvesagain.

Weston Ivison tries out the cryotherapy chamber at Cool It! Cryotherapy and Massage in St. George(Photo: Terell Wilkins/The Spectrum & Daily News)

Developed in Japan in 1978 as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritisand brought to the United States in the late 2000s, cryotherapy is a cooling treatment that involves exposing the body to extremely cold temperatures in order to relieve pain and reduce inflammation.

"Liquid nitrogen is used and my machine will pull the liquid into it and then convert it to a gas and then we're just surrounding a person withthe gas." said Jody Wright, owner of St. George's sole cryotherapy location, Cool It! Cryotherapy.

Temperatures in the chamber are reduced anywhere from-200 to -250 degrees for up to threeminutes.

The nitrogen bursts are circulated around the chamber and directed away from the skin of the patient to prevent them from freezing but maintaining the temperature that gives cryo its therapeutic effects.

Ten-second nitrogen bursts with 20-30 seconds between them keep the ambient temperature withinrange of being helpful to the patient, according to Wright.

"If you've ever been in a cold-weather climate that's what it's like so imagine being in Cedar City standing out with a breeze almost totally naked and standing there for three minutes," Wright said. "It's not as extreme as jumping into an ice bath but it's still cold, you'll feel it."

Wright jumped on the cryotherapy wave early after it gained popularity in Dallas with a man named Mark Murdock.

Murdock, a Division II basketball coach for 17 years, tried the treatment in 2009 and liked it so much that he created a company called CryoUSA that does cryotherapyand has become a vendor for cryo chambers.

Murdock met Wright while in Las Vegas and invited him back to Dallas to try it out for himself.

"I got this guy on my phone, Mark Murdock, who was the guy that installed them for Tony Robbins and he was visiting Vegas on an expo sohe told me to come to Dallas and he said 'we will feed you lunch, we'll tell you all about cryo businesses and you can try everything at our facilities'," Wright said. "He and his buddy had heard about a Russian salon in Dallas that had this machine. He was a basketball coach so he tried it out, loved it and they ended up getting a machine and started working with the Dallas Mavericks."

The Mavericks were the first team to use cryotherapy consistently and their NBA championship in 2011 opened people's eyes to just how beneficial the treatment can be to physical performance.

Wright took his experience in Dallas back west to Southern Utah and opened Cool It! in 2015 in St. George.

Spectrum writer Jud Burkett stands in a cryotherapy machine Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2016. (Photo: Chris Caldwell / The Spectrum & Daily News)

He says he has plenty of clients with a wide range of ailments from local marathon runners to people who have had injuries and use cryotherapy to maintain their lifestyle.

"It's all relative so I have a guy that broke a bunch of bones from a work injury who comes in every day, I have a little older lady who has bad arthritis and she comes in every day that she can," Wright said. "I have athletes who will come in when they're in heavy training mode to recover too so some people just do it consistently and some less often, it depends on how they feel individually."

Wright says that he does hear from cryotherapy skeptics but stays firm in his beliefthat henever forces anyone to trustthe science behind it. All he asks is that people try it out for themselves and decide on their own whether it works for them.

"I'm not going to try and convince anybody because usually people are convinced one way or another," Wright said."I just say that I'm not making medical claims and I have people that do it just because it makes them feel good and sharpens the senses."

A close look at the transcranial magnetic stimulation machine at TMS Success that helps patients treat depression and a few other mental conditions.(Photo: Terell Wilkins/The Spectrum & Daily News)

One of the newer forms of alternative treatment comes in the form of transcranial magnetic stimulation or TMS.

"We use a magnet to help stimulate people's neurotransmission processes andthose processes are where we as humans produce chemicals that make us feel good like dopamine and serotonin," Janis Hatch, who works at TMS Success, said. "When we are depressed, we don't produce these naturally so usually a person would take anti-depressant medications and those medications work but only because they're supplying with the chemicals that it's lacking."

Anti-depressant medications bring the necessary chemicals to curb depression for a short time,but they don't do anything to help teach the brainhow to produce those chemicals themselves.

"You're giving the brain dopamine and serotonin but you're not teaching it how to create them on it's own," Hatch said. "It's like the story of taking a man to fish versus teaching him how to fish for himself."

According to Hatch,transcranial magnetic stimulation does not just solve briefly solve depression, it brings your brain the knowledge of how to produce the chemicals to keepit away effectively.

The transcranial magnetic stimulation machine at TMS Success in St. George.(Photo: Terell Wilkins/The Spectrum & Daily News)

The magnet on the machine consists of pulses that, when put on a person's scalp, taps on their head to stimulate the brain.

The treatment takes place over a six-week period where patients come in Monday through Fridayfor 18minutes a day.

"Usually people will just squeeze it in, either in their lunch breakor after work but we do whatever time is best for them during the day," Hatch said. "They come in and we just strap them up to the chair and it's nice because they can be on their phone to listen to music or podcasts or whatever they want so it goes bysuper fast."

The magnetitself has two bumps that tapthe left side of the head and pulse over 3,000 times in the 18-minute treatment session, a feeling that Hatch says is uncomfortable at first but not painful.

"People on their very first day will tell me it is uncomfortable because it's new but by about the third day, you get used to it and it doesn't ever really hurt at all," Hatch said. "It goes pretty fast but there's no pain involved it's just awkward at first."

Most insurance providers docover the cost of the treatment, which is important because that price tag is not cheap.

"It's good that insurance companies do cover this treatment because it is prettyexpensive, it costs $10,000," Hatch said. "That's for six weeks so it is kind of steep but insurance does pay forit if you meet the criteria. As in, you're diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorder and things like that."

TMS Success is one of two locations in St. George where people can get TMS treatment for their depression and has been around for about a year now.

Though it is a relatively new treatment, Hatch says its effects are undeniable in the patients she has gotten to observe.

"What is great about TMS treatment is that a year after people finish their treatment, their success rate is higher sothey have better results a year later than they had even at the end of the six week mark," Hatch said. "Their brains just kept working and working and itstarted developing those healthy chemicals on it's own."

A look at the cups and suctions used in different cupping techniques at Synergy Massage & Personal Fitness in St. George.(Photo: Terell Wilkins/The Spectrum & Daily News)

Made popular in the mainstream by Michael Phelps using the technique during the 2016Olympics before his meets, cupping is a massage technique that involves using tiny cups and suction to utilize negative energy.

"With cupping, the difference between a massage and cupping is that with a massage there is positive pressure so someone is pushing down and massaging but with cupping, there is a negative pressure so it pulls things up and out of your skin," saidJacque Heaton of Synergy Massage and Personal Fitness in St. George.

Heaton likens cupping therapy to sucking out all of the toxins in your skin and bringing them to the surface so they can be cleaned out.

"When you take chicken skin away and you see that white fiber material underneath, that's in our bodies and it basically acts like fiber optics so it goes in all different directions," said Jacque Heaton of Synergy Massage and Personal Fitness in St. George. "Well when that gets tangled up, then communication from the brain to other parts of the body slows down or stops. So your brain is like this fabulous communication systemand our bodies are meant to heal themselves, but when you get these clogs, that's where inflammation and pain comes in."

Instead of force being applied to iron out all the kinks in our bodies in a traditional massage, cupping straightens it out through suction and leaves the dark circles suction marks that Heaton calls "cup kisses" behind for about a week or so.

"We do have people that will say negative things or they think it's broken capillaries but it's not broken capillaries, it's just bringing things up to the surface so your body can get rid of it," Heaton said."We have found out through cupping that actually just that negative pressure does the job so we just use suction and there's no heat to it."

United States swimmer Michael Phelps swimming with dark circles on his shoulders as a result of his cupping therapy during the 2016 summer Olympic Games.(Photo: David Eulitt/Kansas City Star)

In the same way that the Dallas Mavericks put cryotherapy on the map, Michael Phelps did it for cupping.

The dark circles seen on his body while he swam his way to five gold medals led to general curiosity and an increased belief that the practice of cupping does have its benefits.

"I just tell people they need to come experience it and see. Expect that it's going to leave rings and they're going to have some cup kisses but just come and try it and see because it really is positive," Heaton said."Especially if you like massages already, you'll find a definite benefit to cupping."

Follow reporter Terell Wilkins on Twitter,@SpeedyVeritas, call himat 252-367-8463or email himat twilkins@thespectrum.com.

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Cryotherapy, cupping and TMS: New forms of alternative medicine treatment in St. George - The Spectrum

Susan Delaney, a naturopathic and homeopathic physician, has been at Ray House since it opened its doors in 1994. She said she believes there has been a shift in popular culture when it comes to peoples views on alternative medicine.

When people think about herbal medicine or homeopathy they think, Oh, you know, this is California woo-hoo, foo-foo. But this is a form of medicine that has been practiced for thousands of years, she said.

Delaney said this craving for change in healthcare options is echoed in the student body, too. Many of the patients she already sees at the Ray House are UNC students.

Conventional science is trying to embrace and open its doors as much as they can to natural medicine because the culture has changed," she said. "People want something different.

Even those who are not familiar with the work of the Wellness Alliance, like Thomas Harley, a first-year chemistry major at UNC, are intrigued by the new possibilities that their work presents.

Ive always been interested in sort of finding new and different ways to treat illness, Harley said.

After a visit to Campus Health last week left him uncertain of what actions he should take to craft a healthier lifestyle, Harley found himself more open to the idea of alternative medicine.

Maybe if there was another course of treatment available, I wouldve felt more comforted by it. I want more options.

Those options are exactly what Delaney and the practitioners at Ray House aim to provide, along with further ways to inform the population about the different methods that she and her colleagues use to promote health and wellness in her community.

Delaney said she is excited about the growth of alternative medicine, claiming there has been a shift in public and scientific opinion on the fields she and her colleagues specialize in.

Who knows," Delaney said. "Maybe in five years student health at UNC will have some of these services for you. Wouldnt that be nice?

The Wellness Alliance will celebrate its 25th anniversary in December and hopes to continue to serve the community at large for many years to come.

@GMolero1

city@dailytarheel.com

Excerpt from:

Group of physicians in Carrboro aims to provide alternative to conventional medicine - The Daily Tar Heel

The Global Complementary and Alternative Medicine market report centers around giving admirably examined information on the Complementary and Alternative Medicine_market request and supply proportion, the fare/import situation, and the present and future development proportion, cost and income just as an itemized and SWOT examination of key parts of the organizations on the territorial level including the volume utilization of the gadgets.

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Global Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market Analysis Columbia Nutritional, Herb Pharm, Herbal Hills, Helio USA, Deepure Plus, Nordic Naturals, Pure encapsulations, Iyengar Yoga Institute, John Schumachers Unity Woods Yoga Center, Yoga Tree, The Healing Company, Quantum Touch along with their company profile, growth aspects, opportunities, and threats to the market development. This report presents the industry analysis for the forecast timescale. An up-to-date industry details related to industry events, import/export scenario, market share is covered in this report.

Complementary medicine is treatments that are used along with standard medical treatments but are not considered to be standard treatments. One example is using acupuncture to help lessen some side effects of cancer treatment.Alternative medicine is treatments that are used instead of standard medical treatments. One example is using a special diet to treat cancer instead of anticancer drugs that are prescribed by an oncologist.

Major Types of Complementary and Alternative Medicine included are:

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Acupuncture

Mind, Body, and Yoga

Magnetic Intervention

Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market Analysis by Direct Contact

E-training

Distance Correspondence

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Global Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market mainly highlights:- The key information related to Complementary and Alternative Medicine industry like the product detail, price, variety of applications, Complementary and Alternative Medicine demand and supply analysis are covered in this report. A comprehensive study of the major Complementary and Alternative Medicine will help all the market players in analyzing the current trends and Complementary and Alternative Medicine market segments. The study of emerging Complementary and Alternative Medicine market segments planes the business strategies and proceeds according to the present Complementary and Alternative Medicine market trends. Global Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market figures the production cost and share by size, by application and by region over the period of 2025.

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Production Analysis Production of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine is analyzed with respect to different regions, types and applications. Here, price analysis of various Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market key players are also covered.

Sales and Revenue Analysis Both, sales and revenue are studied for the different regions of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market. Another major aspect, price, which plays important part in the revenue generation, is also assessed in this section for the various regions.

Supply and Consumption In continuation with sales, this section studies supply and consumption for the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market. This part also sheds light on the gap between supple and consumption. Import and export figures are also given in this part.

Competitors In this section, various Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market leading players are studied with respect to their company profile, product portfolio, capacity, price, cost and revenue.

Other analyses Apart from the aforementioned information, trade and distribution analysis for the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market, contact information of major manufacturers, suppliers and key consumers is also given. Also, SWOT analysis for new projects and feasibility analysis for new investment are included.

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sales@marketinsightsreports.com | irfan@marketinsightsreports.comComplementary and Alternative Medicine Market

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Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market Enhancement And Growth Rate Analysis forecast 2019 to 2025 - The Ukiah Post

Acclaimed Neurologist Dr. Ravinder Singh will be appearing at The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles, this coming Monday, October 14th, to talk about his newest book release "Not Tonight I Have a Headache."

Dr. Ravinder Singh, a board-certified neurologist, a member of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), is on the board of Complementary and Alternative Medicine branch of the American Headache Society (AHS) and is consulted by physicians all over the United States and internationally in his approach to headache treatment. You will benefit greatly from the wisdom and insight Dr. Singh brings to the topic of headache management. "Not Tonight I Have a Headache" is here to help you make the transition from headache sufferer to life lover.

Amazing insights for control of and freedom from headaches await you within these pages. You will understand the problem and its solutions like never before, with non-technical and easy to understand language written with wit, heart, understanding, and compassion. His book, "Not Tonight I Have A Headache" is a best-seller in migraine and stress mastery. He has extensive research experience in the acute treatment and prevention of stroke. He was part of the initial thrombolytic (clot-busting drugs) trials using TPA for stroke, and has past and current participation in multiple stroke treatment and prevention trials. In addition, Dr. Singh has extensive research experience in the pharmacological treatment of epilepsy. He has participated in clinical trials of many anti-epileptic drugs.

An insightful and educational night will truly be brought to life, as Dr. Ravinder Singh shares his knowledge and expertise.

Details:

Monday, October 14, 2019 7:30 PM 9:00 PM The Last Bookstore 453 South Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90013

Get advance tickets to the talk and book signing, here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/not-tonight-i-have-a-headache-with-dr-ravinder-singh-tickets-73900868487

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In Talks: Dr. Ravinder Singh at The Last Bookstore on 10/14 - Patch.com

Zanzibarstraditional healers, with their toolkits of herbs, holy scriptures and massages are being registered by authorities keen to regulate the practitioners who treat everything from depression to hernias.

About 340 healers have been registered since Zanzibar, a region of Tanzania, passed the Traditional and Alternative Medicine Act in 2009. An estimated 2,000 more healers, or mgangas, are hoping to register, saysHassan Combo, the government registrar at the council that records them.

Mgangas must be aged at least 18, have at least three years of experience and have a recommendation letter from a trained mganga. A council of 11 members that can include birth attendants, respected healers, village elders and lawyers approve applications each month.

From 15p 0.18 $0.18 USD 0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.

While the government does not dictate healers methods, it tries to work with them on quality control. Doctors are linked up with traditional healers to give them some medical education on diseases like hypertension, diabetes and pregnancy while the mgangas share information about patient statistics and needs.

Some healers use herbs. Others use scriptures from the Muslim holy book, the Koran. Most use both. Belief in supernatural spirits like djinns features strongly.

Fatawi Haji Hafidh, manager at Makunduchi Hospital, the second largestgovernment-run hospital on Zanzibars main island, says overstretched doctors and nurses may not have the time to see patients or the diagnostic equipment.

Patients may also be unable to afford the medicine prescribed or they may stop taking it before the course is finished, leading them to relapse and adding to their suspicion of government-run facilities, he said.

Many simply believe djinns are the problem.

Writing by Katharine Houreld

Reuters

The rest is here:

Zanzibars traditional healers: How alternative medicine is growing in Tanzania - The Independent

Type 2 diabetes is a condition in which the body cant control the amount of glucose in the blood. The body doesnt respond to insulin properly, and may not produce enough, causing a persons blood glucose level to become too high. If blood sugar stays too high and the condition is left untreated, a number of complications can occur, including kidney failure, nerve damage, heart disease, foot ulcers and stroke. So what can you do to control blood glucose levels?

Regularly eating a poor diet can increase a persons risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Bupa explains: This might be a diet that doesnt contain much fibre, for example.

A high glycemic index (GI) diet may also make you put on weight, which in turn, increases your risk of type 2 diabetes.

So eating a healthy diet is one way to help manage blood sugar levels.

The NHS advises: Theres nothing you cannot eat if you have type 2 diabetes, but youll have to limit certain foods.

You should eat a wide range of foods - including fruit, vegetables and some starchy foods like pasta and keep sugar, fat an salt to a minimum.

The health body adds the importance of eating breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, and not to skip meals.

When it comes to the first meal of the day, breakfast, what foods are considered best?

Rising in popularity over the last few years and dubbed a superfood, turmeric - a bright yellow spice commonly used in Asian food - has been proven to have a positive impact on blood sugar levels, and may be the perfect addition to your morning meal.

Scientists believe turmeric may have properties that help reduce inflammation and oxidative stress - factors that appear to play a role in diabetes.

For this reason, its believed turmeric may be useful for people with diabetes.

Turmerics blood sugar-lowering properties have been attributed to its curcumin content - most research to date has focused on curcumin rather than whole turmeric.

Authors of a review published in the journal Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative medicine compiled more than 200 research papers on the connected between diabetes and curcumin.

The results found curcumin can help people with diabetes in different ways, including improving insulin resistance and cholesterol levels.

A study in Diabetes Care also found people with pre diabetes who took cur cumin for nine months were less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those taking a placebo.

Turmeric can be added to eggs and oats - both of which have also been shown to have a positive impact on blood sugar levels.

When it comes to the last meal of the day, enjoying a certain drink before bed may help lower blood sugar.

Other ways to control blood sugar levels include regular exercise and losing weight if youre overweight.

See more here:

Type 2 diabetes: Adding this 'superfood' to your breakfast could lower your blood sugar - Express

Orthorexia occurs when people become so fixated on the idea of eating "cleanly," or choosing only whole foods in their natural state, that they end up imperiling their physical and mental health. Sometimes this means missing critical nutrients or not getting enough calories. Meredith Rizzo/NPR hide caption

Orthorexia occurs when people become so fixated on the idea of eating "cleanly," or choosing only whole foods in their natural state, that they end up imperiling their physical and mental health. Sometimes this means missing critical nutrients or not getting enough calories.

Whether it's gluten-free, dairy-free, raw food, or all-organic, many people these days are committed to so-called "clean eating" the idea that choosing only whole foods in their natural state and avoiding processed ones can improve health.

It's not necessarily a bad thing to eat this way, but sometimes these kinds of food preferences can begin to take over people's lives, making them fear social events where they won't be able to find the "right" foods. When a healthful eating pattern goes too far, it may turn into an eating disorder that scientists are just beginning to study.

Alex Everakes, 25, is a public relations account executive from Chicago. As a kid, he struggled with being overweight. In his teens and 20s, he tried to diet, and he gained and lost and regained about 100 pounds.

When he moved to Los Angeles after college, he took his diet to a new level. He started working out twice a day. At one point, he ate just 10 foods "Spinach, chicken, egg whites, red peppers because green peppers make you bloated spaghetti squash, asparagus, salmon, berries, unsweetened almond milk, almond butter," Everakes says.

He went from 250 pounds at his heaviest, down to 140. He posted pictures of his six-pack abs and his "clean" diet online and was praised for it. He felt virtuous, but at the same time, he was starving, tired and lonely.

"My life literally was modeled to put myself away from destruction of my fitness," Everakes says.

He became afraid to eat certain foods. He worked at home to avoid office parties where he'd have to eat in front of others. He didn't go out or make friends because he didn't want to have to explain his diet.

It turns out Everakes was struggling with something called orthorexia nervosa.

Orthorexia is a fairly recent phenomenon. Dr. Steven Bratman, an alternative medicine practitioner in the 1990s, first coined the term in an essay in the nonscientific Yoga Journal in 1997. Many of his patients eschewed traditional medicine and believed that the key to good health was simply eating the "right" foods. Some of them would ask him what foods they should cut out.

Whether it's gluten or dairy, many people avoid certain types of foods. Sometimes food avoidance can turn into fear, obsession and even veer into an eating disorder that scientists are just beginning to study. Meredith Rizzo/NPR hide caption

Whether it's gluten or dairy, many people avoid certain types of foods. Sometimes food avoidance can turn into fear, obsession and even veer into an eating disorder that scientists are just beginning to study.

"People would think they should cut out all dairy and they should cut out all lentils, all wheat ... And it dawned on me gradually that many of these patients, their primary problem was that they were ... far too strict with themselves," he says.

So Bratman made up the name orthorexia, borrowing ortho from the Greek word meaning "right" and -orexia meaning "appetite." He added nervosa as a reference to anorexia nervosa, the well-known eating disorder which causes people to starve themselves to be thin.

"From then on, whenever a patient would ask me what food to cut out, I would say, 'We need to work on your orthorexia.' This would often make them laugh and let them loosen up, and sometimes it helped people move from extremism to moderation," he recalls.

Bratman had no idea that the concept of "clean eating" would explode over the next two decades.

Where dieters once gobbled down no-sugar gelatin or fat-free shakes, now they might seek out organic kale and wild salmon.

The rise of celebrity diet gurus and glamorous food photos on social media reinforce the idea that eating only certain foods and avoiding others is a virtue practically a religion.

Sondra Kronberg, founder and executive director of the Eating Disorder Treatment Collaborative outside New York City, has seen a lot of diet trends over the past 40 years.

"So orthorexia is a reflection on a larger scale of the cultural perspective on 'eating cleanly,' eating ... healthfully, avoiding toxins including foods that might have some 'super power,' " she says.

Now, Kronberg and other nutritionists applaud efforts to eat healthfully. The problem comes, she says, when you are so focused on your diet that "it begins to infringe on the quality of your life your ability to be spontaneous and engage." That's when you should start to worry about an eating disorder, she says.

"In the case of orthorexia, it centers around eating 'cleanly' and purely, where the other eating disorders center around size and weight and a drive for thinness," she says.

Sometimes these problems overlap, and some people who only eat "clean" foods miss critical nutrients from the foods they cut out or don't consume enough calories. "It could become a health hazard and ultimately, it can be fatal," Kronberg says.

The rise of celebrity diet gurus posting food photos on social media has reinforced the idea that eating only certain foods is a virtue. Meredith Rizzo/NPR hide caption

The rise of celebrity diet gurus posting food photos on social media has reinforced the idea that eating only certain foods is a virtue.

While people with these symptoms are showing up in clinics like Kronberg's, scientists don't agree on what orthorexia is.

Dr. S.E. Specter, a psychiatrist and nutrition scientist based in Beverly Hills who specializes in eating disorders, notes that there are only 145 published scientific articles on orthorexia. "For anorexia nervosa, there are 16,064 published studies and for eating disorders in general, there are 41,258. So [orthorexia] doesn't stack up in terms of the knowledge base so far," he says.

A 2018 review of orthorexia studies published in the journal Eating and Weight Disorders finds no common definition, standard diagnostic criteria, or reliable ways to measure orthorexia's psychological impact.

Orthorexia is not listed specifically in the DSM the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders but that doesn't mean it's untreatable.

"I just think orthorexia is maybe a little bit too hard to pin down, or it's looked at as a piece of the other related disorders the eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, and general anxiety disorder as well," Specter says.

To treat it, "we have to look at the thought process and try to disentangle the beliefs that a person has. They become very entrenched," he says.

"It's a very kind of gradual process for ... many in terms of trying to back out of a need to always check to see that, you know, locks are locked or that a food is not going to be harmful to them cause their skin to break out or increase their risk of cancer," he says.

Alex Everakes has been in treatment for two years. While he's still significantly underweight, he says he's happier and learning to see his diet a little differently.

Everakes eats more freely on the weekends now and tries to add a new food every few days. He's made some friends who don't restrict their eating.

For Everakes, taking control of his orthorexia is "knowing that your world isn't going to come crashing down if you have like, a piece of pizza."

He's managed this by taking baby steps. Instead of going right for a slice of standard pizza, he started with cauliflower crust pizza. He ordered frozen yogurt before going for full-fat ice cream.

Eating disorders can strike anyone. Roughly 1 in 3 people struggling with eating disorders is male, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. And these disorders affect athletes at a higher rate than the rest of the population.

If you think you have orthorexia or any eating disorder, it's important to seek professional help and friends who support you, Everakes says.

Read the rest here:

Orthorexia: When 'Clean Eating' Become An Unhealthy Obsession : The Salt - NPR

IANS

Panaji: Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Friday stopped his convoy to provide assistance to a woman tourist who had met with an accident, by first examining her and then taking her to the nearest hospital in one of his escort vehicles.

On his way back from the Dabolim international airport, after returning from an official visit to the national capital where he met several BJP leaders as well as Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, he stopped the convoy at the Zuari bridge to enquire after the woman who was knocked down in a hit and run case.

Sawant, who is a doctor in alternative medicine, examined her wounds and then facilitated her visit to the nearest hospital in a car from his convoy. The video of Sawant rendering help to the injured tourist was uploaded to the social media by an eyewitness.

"The Chief Minister also enquired whether the injured lady had noted down the number of the vehicle which had collided with a two-wheeler," an official attached to the Chief Minister's Office said.

Get the best of News18 delivered to your inbox - subscribe to News18 Daybreak. Follow News18.com on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, TikTok and on YouTube, and stay in the know with what's happening in the world around you in real time.

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Goa CM Pramod Sawant Stops Convoy for Injured Tourist, Takes Her to the Hospital - News18

Patients who are beyond treatment under the standards of conventional medicine often seek help from alternative medical treatments; however, these methods pose not only medical risks for patients, but also legal risks for doctors.

Facts

A surgeon with qualifications in vascular, heart and thorax surgery treated seriously ill patients using an innovative method. The patients suffered from morbus Parkinson, multiple sclerosis, various forms of myatrophy and paralysis, traumatic spinal cord injuries, macular degenerations or psychiatric impairments such as autism. All of the patients were beyond treatment under the standards of conventional medicine. The surgeon treated them with stem cell therapy.

First-instance and appeal decisions

In April 2014 the Viennese Administrative Authority fined the surgeon under Section 49(1) of the Act on the Medical Profession for failing to observe patient welfare namely, for not evaluating the side effects and counterindications of using stem cell therapy to treat the abovementioned conditions.

In July 2015 the Viennese Administrative Tribunal(1) partly confirmed this decision. The tribunal ruled that potential health risks cannot be withheld from patients.

Supreme Administrative Court decision

On appeal, the Supreme Administrative Court(2) overruled the Viennese Administrative Tribunal's decision. The court held that the administrative tribunal had accused the surgeon of regularly using autologous stem cell therapy as a new treatment, even though clinical studies had yet to determine its benefits and risks.

According to the court, stem cells fall within the definition of medicinal products under Section 1 of the Medicinal Products Act.(3) The court could therefore revert to the doctrine and precedents on the off-label use of medicinal products. In its view, the tribunal had not shown that the treatment was clearly prohibited. Further, without a prohibition on the off-label use of medicinal products with marketing authorisation, such a prohibition cannot be based on the Medicinal Products Act. Therefore, an infringement of "compliance with existing rules according to sec 49 (1) Act on the Medical Profession" was not obvious.

The use of medicinal products or treatments that have not been clinically evaluated in terms of benefit-risk ratio for certain (new) indications is referred to as 'compassionate use'. The Declaration of Helsinki on ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects states as follows:

Unproven interventions in clinical practice

37. In the treatment of an individual patient, where proven interventions do not exist or other known interventions have been ineffective, the physician, after seeking expert advice, with informed consent from the patient or a legally authorised representative, may use an unproven intervention if in the physician's judgement it offers hope of saving life, re-establishing health or alleviating suffering. This intervention should subsequently be made the object of research, designed to evaluate its safety and efficacy. In all cases, new information must be recorded and, where appropriate, made publicly available.

According to legal literature, compassionate use is a deviation from medical standards in special treatment situations, either because the standard is unhelpful or no standard for the special treatment is available. Unlike clinical studies, it refers to individual cases and not to a clinical sample.

Under Section 49(1) of the Medical Profession Act physicians must observe the rules of medical science; however, these rules are only guidelines with respect to patient welfare insofar as it is possible to go beyond conventional medicine. Therefore, Section 49(1) does not prohibit compassionate use for patients who are beyond therapy under conventional medicine if they are comprehensively informed and the compassionate use makes objective sense.(4)

There is no legal definition of 'compassionate use' and no Supreme Court precedents in this regard. On 13 February 1956 the German Federal Court ruled(5) that a method of treatment is a clinical study and not a compassionate use if the method is applied not primarily in the interests of treating a patient, but in the interest of scientific research. A new method of treatment may be applied if the responsible medical evaluation and comparison of the expected benefits and risks of the new method with the standard treatment under consideration justify its application.(6)

New methods may be used only on patients who are fully informed that said methods imply unknown risks. Further, patients must be able to evaluate and consent to (or not) said risks.(7)

In the case at hand, all of the surgeon's patients were beyond treatment such that, according to the medical standard, no successful cure could be expected at the time of the treatment.

The Viennese Administrative Tribunal failed to establish that the applied treatment had posed a danger to the patients; rather, it stated only that health risks cannot be excluded without clinical studies. The tribunal reproached the applicant for integrating the method of treatment into regular clinical operations. Compassionate use that is legitimate in individual cases becomes illegitimate if it is adopted in regular clinical operations, as it becomes a regular treatment with an unverified method. This further implies that the person administering the treatment has applied it in multiple cases. It is unclear whether the application of a new therapy on a larger number of patients excludes the qualification of the treatment as compassionate use.

Insofar as the Viennese Administrative Tribunal questioned the surgeon's claim to have evaluated the risks of stem cell therapy in each case, the tribunal lacked evidence to evaluate the types of risk that would prohibit compassionate use. Further, the tribunal failed to establish the circumstances and specific patient information that would prohibit compassionate use. Therefore, the Supreme Administrative Court set aside the Viennese Administrative Tribunal's decision.

Comment

The Supreme Administrative Court's decision appears to favour a liberal approach to new therapies and compassionate use and enhances the possibilities for developing new therapies and alternative medicines in future. However, patient welfare remains paramount for qualifying a new method as compassionate use.

Endnotes

(1) VGW-001/047/26739/2014-28.

(2) 24 April 2019, RA 2015/11/0113.

(3) Kopecky, Stammzellenforschung in sterreich, 2008, 269.

(4) Resch and Wallner, Handbuch Medizinrecht (second edition), 2015, 222.

(5) III ZR 175/54.

(6) German Federal Court of Justice, 13 June 2006, VI ZR 323/04.

(7) German Federal Court of Justice, 13 June 2006, VI ZR 323/04 and Federal Court of Justice, 27 March 2007, VI ZR 55/05.

This article was first published by the International Law Office, a premium online legal update service for major companies and law firms worldwide.Register for a free subscription.

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Alternative medical treatments and compassionate use - Lexology

with Maria Fleseriu, MD, FACE, and Vivien Herman-Bonert, MD

Cushing's disease, an uncommon but hard to treat endocrine disorder, occurs when a tumor on the pituitary gland, called an adenomathat is almost always benignleads to an overproduction of ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone), which is responsible for stimulating the release of cortisol, also known as the stress hormone.

Until now, surgery to remove the non-cancerous but problematic tumor has been the only effective treatment. Still, many patients will require medication to help control their serum cortisol levels, and others cannot have surgery or would prefer to avoid it.

Finally, a drug proves effective as added on or alternative to surgery in managing Cushing's disease. Photo; 123rf

Now, there is good news about long-term positive results achieved with pasireotide (Signifor)the first medication to demonstrate effectiveness in both normalizing serum cortisol levels and either shrinking or slowing growth of tumors over the long term.1,2 These findings appear in the journal, Clinical Endocrinology, showing that patients followed for 36 months as part of an ongoing study had improved patient outcomes for Cushings disease.2

"What we knew before this extension study wasthe drug will work in approximately half of the patients with mild Cushing's disease," says study author Maria Fleseriu, MD, FACE, director of the Northwest Pituitary Center and professor of neurological surgery and medicine in the division of endocrinology, diabetes and clinical nutrition at the Oregon Health and Sciences University School of Medicine.

Pasireotide also offers good clinical benefits," says Dr. Fleseriu who is also the president of the Pituitary Society, which includes improvements in blood pressure, other signs and symptoms of Cushings symptom], and quality of life.2

Among the signs and symptoms of Cushings disease that are lessened with treatment are:3

The accumulation of adipose tissue raises the risk of heart disease, which adds to the urgency of effective treatment. In addition, many individuals who have Cushings disease also complain of quality of life issues such as fatigue, depression, mood and behavioral problems, as well as poor memory.2

As good as the results appear following the longer term use of pasireotide,2 Dr. Fleseriu admits that in any extension study in which patients are asked to continue on, there are some built-in limitations, which may influence the findings. For example, patients who agree to stay on do so because they are good responders, meaning they feel better, so theyre happy to stick with the study.

Fortunately, for the patients who have responded to pasireotide initially, this is a drug that can be continued as there are no new safety signals with longer use," Dr. Fleseriu tells EndocrineWeb, "and when the response at the start is good, very few patients will lose control of their urinary free cortisol over time. That's a frequent marker used to monitor patient's status. For those patients with large tumors, almost half of them had a significant shrinkage, and all the others had a stable tumor size."

What Are the Reasons to Consider Drug Treatment to Manage Cushings Symptoms

The extension study ''was important because we didn't have any long-term data regarding patient response to this once-a-month treatment to manage Cushing's disease," she says.

While selective surgical removal of the tumor is the preferred treatment choice, the success rate in patients varies, and Cushing's symptoms persist in up to 35% of patients after surgery. In addition, recurrent rates (ie, return of disease) range from 13% to 66% after individuals experience different durations remaining in remission.1

Therefore, the availability of an effective, long-lasting drug will change the course of therapy for many patients with Cushings disease going forward. Not only will pasireotide benefit patients who have persistent and recurrent disease after undergoing surgery, but also this medication will be beneficial for those who are not candidates for surgery or just wish to avoid having this procedure, he said.

This long-acting therapy, pasireotide, which is given by injection, was approved in the US after reviewing results of a 12-month Phase 3 trial.1 In the initial study, participants had a confirmed pituitary cause of the Cushing's disease. After that, the researchers added the optional 12-month open-label, extension study, and now patients can continue on in a separate long-term safety study.

Those eligible for the 12-month extension had to have mean urinary free cortisol not exceeding the upper limit of normal (166.5 nanomoles per 24 hour) and/or be considered by the investigator to be getting substantial clinical benefit from treatment with long-action pasireotide, and to demonstrate tolerability of pasireotide during the core study.1

Of the 150 in the initial trial, 81 participants, or 54% of the patients, entered the extension study. Of those, 39 completed the next phase, and most also enrolled in another long-term safety studythese results not yet available).2

During the core study, 1 participants were randomly assigned to 10 or 30 mg of the drug every 28 days, with doses based on effectiveness and tolerability. When they entered the extension, patients were given the same dose they received at month.1,2

Of those who received 36 months of treatment with pasireotide, nearly three in four (72.2%) had controlled levels of urinary free cortisol at this time point.2 Equally good news for this drug was that tumors either shrank or did not grow. Of those individuals who started the trial with a measurable tumor (adenoma) as well as those with an adenoma at the two year mark (35 people), 85.7% of them experienced a reduction of 20% or more or less than a 20% change in tumor volume. No macroadenomas present at the start of the study showed a change of more than 20% at either month 24 or 36.2

Improvements in blood pressure, body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference continued throughout the extension study.1 Those factors influence CVD risk, the leading cause of death in those with Cushing's.4

As for adverse events, most of the study participants, 91.4%, did report one or more complaint during the extension studymost commonly, it was high blood sugar, which was reported by nearly 40% of participants.2. This is not surprising when you consider that most (81.5%) of the individuals participating in the extension trial entered with a diagnosis of diabetes or use of antidiabetic medication, and even more of them (88.9%) had diabetes at the last evaluation.1

This complication indicates the need for people with Cushings disease to check their blood glucose, as appropriate.

Women typically develop Cushings disease more often than men.

What else should you be aware of if you and your doctor decide this medication will help you? Monitoring is crucial, says Dr. Fleseriu, as you will need to have your cortisol levels checked, and you should be on alert for any diabetes signals, which will require close monitoring and regular follow-up for disease management.

Another understanding gained from the results of this drug study: "This medication works on the tumor level," she says. "If the patient has a macroadenoma (large tumor), this would be the preferred treatment." However, it should be used with caution in those with diabetes given the increased risk of experiencing high blood sugar.

The researchers conclude that "the long-term safety profile of pasireotide was very favorable and consistent with that reported during the first 12 months of treatment. These data support the use of long-acting pasireotide as an effective long-term treatment option for some patients with Cushing's Disease."1

Vivien S. Herman-Bonert, MD, an endocrinologist and clinical director of the Pituitary Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, agreed to discuss the study findings, after agreeing to review the research for EndocrineWeb.

As to who might benefit most from monthly pasireotide injections? Dr. Herman-Bonert says, "any patient with Cushing's disease that requires long-term medical therapy, which includes patients with persistent or recurrent disease after surgery." Certainly, anyone who has had poor response to any other medical therapies for Cushing's disease either because they didn't work well enough or because the side effects were too much, will likely benefit a well, she adds.

Among the pluses that came out of the study, she says, is that nearly half of the patients had controlled average urinary free cortisol levels after two full years, and 72% of the participants who continued on with the drug for 36 months were able to remain in good urinary cortisol control .1

As the authors stated, tumor shrinkage was another clear benefit of taking long-term pasireotide. That makes the drug a potentially good choice for those even with large tumors or with progressive tumor growth, she says. Its always good for anyone with Cushings disease to have an alterative to surgery, or a back-up option when surgery isnt quite enough, says Dr. Herman-Bonert.

The best news for patients is that quality of life scores improved,1 she adds.

Dr Herman-Bonert did add a note of caution: Although the treatment in this study is described as ''long-term, patients will need to be on this for far longer than 2 to 3 years," she says. So, the data reported in this study may or may not persist, and we dont yet know what the impact will be 10 or 25 years out.

Also, the issue of hyperglycemia-related adverse events raises a concern, given the vast majority (81%) of patients who have both Cushings disease and diabetes. Most of those taking this drug had a dual diagnosishaving diabetes, a history of diabetes, or taking antidiabetic medicine.

If you are under care for diabetes and you require treatment for Cushings disease, you must be ver mindful that taking pasireotide will likely lead to high blood sugar spikes, so you should plan to address this with your healthcare provider.

Dr. Fleseriu reports research support paid to Oregon Health & Science University from Novartis and other 0companies and consultancy fees from Novartis and Strongbridge Biopharma. Dr. Herman-Bonert has no relevant disclosures.

The study was underwritten by Novartis Pharma AG, the drug maker.

Last updated on 09/27/2019

Multimodal Approach Promises Best Outcomes for Cushing's Disease

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Cushing's DiseaseMonthly Injection Is Good Alternative to Surgery - EndocrineWeb

Commentary

What if I told you that social media platforms are manipulating you, steering you toward health information that they think is right, rather than letting you evaluate content for yourself?

Accredited professionals, meanwhile, who stand for health freedom and who criticize BigAnything, are losing posting privileges, getting banned, being buried, finding themselves deranked, and getting digitally assassinated.

Content is literally disappearing from the Internet along with our health choices.

It sounds conspiratorial because it is. Independent journalists and health experts are blowing the whistle. But its become a silent one.

The censorship that is being applied to alternative health is nothing less than demonic, saidZach Vorhies, 39, who worked as a Google software engineer for eight-and-a-half years before coming out as a whistleblower. That may seem extreme, but Ive been following the happenings in the new cures that are being suppressed.

According to Vorhies, in the last three years, Google has rolled out changes that purposely down-rank independent health websites, even extremely high-quality and independent medical articles that are written by credentialed health care professionals.

At the same time, establishment, big corporate pharma websites like WebMD are monopolizing the first page of results, added Vorhies.

He continued, Whats terrifying is that many of these establishment medical articles landing on the first page do not even have a stated author and make assertions that are contradicted by science.

Consider that people use Google to search for about1 billion health questions a day, states author and health professionalJoe Cohen. Eighty percent of Internet users have searched for a health-related topic online,according to a recent study.

High-quality online health sites that have been negatively affected includeGreenmedinfo,Dr. Axe,Erin Elizabeth of Health Nut News,SelfHacked,Dr. Joseph Mercola, andHoneyColony(my website).

Censorship and freedom of speech vis a vis politics is being discussed, but no one in the mainstream media is covering the impact on the health space.

As Vorhies reminds us, Googles stated mission statement was to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible. But in the last three years, it has betrayed those values by intervening in the search algorithm to tunnel users toward big corporate establishment players, he said.

In late June 2019,Project Veritaswith the assistance of Vorhies proved that Google is indeed manipulating search results,filtering content, and dubbing information news based on Googles agenda. Vorhies released 950 pages that insinuate that the search engine secretly boosts or condemns content on a platform that was supposedly neutral.

A document entitled news blacklist site for Google now singles out nearly500 websitesto be hidden from users of Google Now, an Android application that was phased out in 2016 and replaced by the Google Feed.

The stifling of natural remedies in favor ofpeddling pharmaceuticalsand monetizing medicine isnt new. We gave our health over to thefaux faithof maligned science and technology ages ago, back in 1910, when a teachernot a doctorwrote the so-calledFlexner Report. Since World War II, thepharmaceutical industryhas steadily netted increasing profits to become the worlds second-largest manufacturing industry after war toys.

Over100 years ago, the powers-that-be created a gatekeeper who would help influence legislative bodies on state and federal levels to create regulations and licensing red tape that strictly promoted drug medicine while stifling and shutting down alternative, inexpensive natural remedies, according tohealth journalist S.D. Wells.

Whatisnew and novel is that now Big Tech is collaborating with Big Pharma to suppress free speech. As if Big Pharma doesnt do enough harm, Big Tech is harnessing their power to modify search algorithms to align and appease an arguably sick agenda in the name of the supposed safety and protection of the public.

Jason Erickson, a writer forNaturalBlaze.com,wrote:

Evidently, the fact that a level playing field of informationwhich is exactly what the Internet was promised to beis skewing toward anti-vaccination (and other holistic healing)must be worrying to those who rely on the financial support of Big Pharma and establishment medicine.

Consider that alternative medicine empowers the patient and that the supplement industry is an approximately $32.5 billion business, according to the Nutrition Business Journal.

Googles latest trick? Autosuggestions. Its bad enough that Google is effectively scrubbing previously high-ranking sites from their search results, now they are actually suggesting what you should search for.

Heres Googlesofficial statement:

Autocomplete is designed to help people complete a search they were intending to do, not to suggest new types of searches to be performed. These are our best predictions of the query you were likely to continue entering.

From a psychological point of view, autosuggestions are arguably the simplest yet strongest tool for mind control. Incredulously,Google statesthat the autosuggestions are actually predictions, not suggestions.

Tsk, tsk, Google, who made you resident psychic?

For instance, when I searched for supplements are on Sept. 1, the suggestions were bad, useless, not regulated, and so on. In the past few weeks, Google has peppered in some positive keywords: amazing and healthy.

Sayer Ji, founder of GreenMedinfo, a reputable health site,writes:

Google is auto-completing the search fields of billions of users with false information (topics ranging from natural health to candidates for election), based not on objective search volume data, but on an extremely biased political and socio-economic agendaone that is jeopardizing the health and human rights of everyone on the planet.

The articles we publish atHoneyColony.comall reference studies published in the peer-reviewed scientific literaturethe commonly recognized gold standard for research. But that doesnt matter now that Big Pharma propaganda is disseminated via Google.

Dont believe you are being bamboozled?View the disparitiesin volume yourself by going to Google Trends. Compare the actual search volume with Googles amazing new predictions feature.

These actions trump the principles of truth and justice. Its called social engineering. Human experimentation even. What it isnt is a search engine synonymous with looking for and finding objective answers. The Project Veritas video was promptly removed by YouTube (owned by Google) and then by Vimeo.

Many of these acts can be classified as technofascist.

Four years ago,Chet Bowers, a now-deceased author, lecturer, and environmental activist, described technofascism as an increased reliance upon computer-mediated learning at all levels of education [to spur] conformity of thinking.

As Bowers put it, the populace assumes they are being given accurate information and over time are only able to digest short explanations. In addition to conformity, fascism necessitates the loss of historical memory and a perceived crisis or endpoint that requires the collective energy and loyalty of the young and old.

The Internet has certainly shorten[ed] peoples attention spans to the point where slogans and sound bites conveniently serve as the basis of political decision-making. Masking disinformation as models of factual accuracy and objective reporting, the prevalence of disinformation and fake news facilitates the ability to condition millions of Americans to accept ideologically driven propaganda, which further reduces the likelihood of mass resistance to the techno-fascist agenda.

While the moral foundations of techno-fascism align with the values of market capitalism and the progress-oriented ideology of science that easily slips into scientism, its level of efficiency and totalitarian potential can easily lead to repressive systems that will not tolerate dissent, especially on the part of those challenging how the colonizing nature of techno-fascism promotes consumerism that is destroying the environment and alternative cultural lifestyles such as the cultural commons, wrote Bowers.

Its 2019. Or wait, is it 1984?

Social media platformstoxins for the mind and intellectnow feed the masses processed manufactured information while omitting or fudging whatever doesnt jive with Big Healthcare, aka Sick Care.

The future is now. The zombies are here.

Were being reduced to robots obsessively gazing at blue-lit screens, like in a twisted version of the Greek myth of Narcissus where we never recognize who we truly are: a magnificent species worthy of complete health and vitality. But alas, in this rendition, were too busy engaging in palatable online vitriol and trollism and ingesting toxic lies.

Instead of debating the subjects at hand with civilized decorum, were being polarized and were engaging in red herrings and ad hominem attacks. For instance, you begin talking about the negative impacts of 5G and someone on social media calls you a tin hat-wearing loon and discredits you, instead of focusing on all the experts that have spoken up and shared scientific evidence against this technology.

In this balkanization, we become part of sub-tribes, making it easier for corporations and government to manage and manipulate us.

Smoke and mirrors. Cloak and daggers. Crowd control.

All sickness. No health.

In 2006, Google became so popular that the Oxford English Dictionary officially turned the company into averb. Their role, we hoped, was not to take sides on a debate but to give the world access to information on an unprecedented scale. Knowledge is power.

Thirteen years later, Google is no longer an unbiased platform; theyre a publisher with an agenda. And theyre not only the most powerful search engine; theyre also a drug company. Google is a beautifully crafted Trojan horse for Big Pharma.

Simply put, Googles parent company,Alphabet, owns pharmaceutical subsidiaries. In 2013, Google foundedCalico.Calicos mission is to understand the biology that controls lifespan and to treat age-related diseases. Two years later, Alphabet foundedVerily LifeSciences(previously Google Life Sciences). Both pharma companies are partnering with others and having babies of their own.

Verily joined forces with the European pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, one of the worlds leading vaccine manufacturers. They formed a new drug company,Galvani Bioelectronics.

In January 2019, BusinessWirereportedthat Mary Ellen Coe, Googles president of customer solutions, was joining Mercks board of directors. Merck is another huge vaccine producer.

But the real clincher is that GV, the venture capital arm of Googles parent company, Alphabet, has also invested inVaccitecha companydescribedas the future of mass vaccine production.

Founded by scientists at Oxford University, Vaccitechs end goal is to develop a vaccine that would be the first in the world to fight all types of flu.

If all goes well, Vaccitechs shot could potentially be ready for launch in 2023. The potential developmenta so-called universal flu vaccine that elicits immunity against parts of the virusthat do not change from year to yearhas been described as a Holy Grail.

The Vaccitech trial marks the first time a universal flu vaccine has progressed beyond phase one clinical testing, wroteThe Independent.

Yet to others, a one-size-fits-all flu shot sounds like a disastrous future on several levels. According to a 2018 Department of Justice report, the annual flu shot is the most dangerous vaccine in the United States.

This invention doesnt take into account or respect biodiversity. Not every body system reacts to medicine in the same way.Not to mention that we are sovereign humans; we should be able to choose what we do with our bodies, not be forced to subject ourselves to questionable medicine.

Is it just coincidence that vaccine safety has become so maligned in the media as of late? Were being divided by design. People are being ostracized like never before for merely questioning alternative views. Its to pave the way for what is comingmandatory vaccines, not only for children but for adults, too.

Vaccines are a billion-dollar business. In 2012 alone, theworlds 11 top pharmaceuticalcompanies generated $700 billion-plus in profits on vaccines.

Stated another way: Google and Friends stand to earn a lot of money from vaccinating whomever they can stick a needle into, multiple times over. And letting people have access to valid questions about vaccine safety might damage their bottom line.

Commenting on the United States National Vaccine Plan, Dr. Sherri J. Tenpenny,wrote:

It lays bare the incestuous public-private relationship between the pharmaceutical vaccine manufacturers, the U.S. government and the World Health Rulers.

Furthermore, the objectives in Healthy People 2020 represent the massive expansion of a nanny-state government, intent on taking over every area of a persons life and eliminating health choices,Tenpenny added.

Did you know that partners from all over the world came together with a global commitment to vaccination,declaring20102020 the Decade of Vaccines? Meanwhile, in January 2019, the World Health Organizationin perfect timingstressed the importance of getting your child vaccinated to protect them, and others, from deadly diseases. Not doing so poses a global threat.

Check, please.

How about the$4 billion-pluspaid out to those who have been impacted by vaccine injuries? The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was started as a result of a law passed in 1986, giving pharmaceutical companies total legal immunity from being sued due to injuries and deaths resulting from vaccines, according to Health Impact News.

Said another way, Big Pharmacan create as many shots as they wantwith no accountability involved. Its a liability-free market.

Given whats in the pipeline, isnt it a bit odd that simply engaging in an educated conversation/exploration, or presenting opposing evidence, results in being 86d from the Internet? Oftentimes, opposers do not have informed arguments nor are they scientifically literate. And if you use intuition on whats best for your own body? Fuhgeddaboutit.

One health influencer I spoke to pointed out that other platforms like Vimeo and MailChimp are also helping to shut down the discussion.

In early July,Vimeo announcedthat it will no longer publish sites critical of vaccines, or sites that question vaccine safety.

Facebook, whose committee members include former Big Pharma employees, hasalso censoredlegitimate scientific inquiry and debate regarding vaccine safety.

No matter what your view is on vaccines, the point Im illustrating here is that Big Pharmas tentaclesfull of suction and swaynow extend to Big Tech, and that prohibiting the sharing of (health) informationa tenet of the Netis wrong. Unless you do not believe in the First Amendment.

If you bother to look, the conflicts of interest are obvious. Google has a clear agenda that serves pharmaceuticals, and its success is now directly built into its search algorithms.

Back in the good ole days, organic search results closely matched the users search query. The algorithm was based on relevance and popularity unless you paid Google extra to get listed on top as an obvious ad.

Until recently, popular search terms helped connect Googlers with the information they were actually looking for. This, in turn, spurred writers to pivot and employ search engine optimizationsuch as keywordswhen crafting content online.

By June 2016, our online magazine and marketplaceHoneyColonywhose mission is to empower you to be your own health advocatewas getting about 500,000 unique visitors a month, according to Google Analytics. We were genuinely and organically garnering interest and offering value withsolid well-researched articles.

Until we werent.

What happened?Google changed its algorithms.

Updates on Google arent new. The company has gone through thousands of updates throughout its existence. And every once in a while, it rolls out a majoralgorithmic update. But until now, theres been nothing as sinister as the recent changes, which apparently are powerful enough to do serious damage to a health-oriented sites revenue, alongside the sites organic traffic. Especially if Google doesnt agree with what theyre saying.

In the past, Google claimed their updates were actually beneficial to pages that werent getting as many views. But its becoming clear that Google has other aimsto control what information is most accessible to searchers.

In August 2018, traffic toHoneyColony.comdwindled 30 percent. We proverbially scratched our heads during marketing meetings, wondering what we were doing wrong, based on Googles standards. And then, we learned we had been impacted by what would be referred to as the Medic Update.

According toSearch Engine Land, the focus of the changes made under the Medic Update centered around the medical and health space, as well as the areas referred to as Your Money Your Life, defined by Google as:[T]ypes of pages [that] could potentially impact the future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety [of users].

When asked how to ensure their sites dont lose traffic, a Google employee named John Mueller said in a Webmaster Hangout, There is no specific thing where wed be able to say you did this and you should have done that and therefore were showing things differently.

This kind of vagueness and evasiveness is something Ive encountered when interviewing government or big corporate lackeys who excel in the language of gobbledygook (or in this case, Googlygook) who speak from pre-approved PR texts.

Google claims that sites can improve their rankings by improving their EAT: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. But what criteria are they using to decide these?

Joe Cohen of the reputable and detailed siteSelfHacked, another site that has found its traffic plummet,says, The thing is, no matter who I ask, theyve all told me thatSelfHackedis already authoritative, trustworthy, and displays expertise. You can look at any of our posts and judge for yourself.

Were witnessing a slow, sneaky purge where crowdsource relevance is now seemingly irrelevant. The definition of what constitutes credible has drastically changed.

Then, inJune 2019, Google rolled out yet anotheralgorithmic change.

Sites impacted in previous core updates were once again affected. On average, the impact was smaller than the August Medic update, as measured byMozCast.

While one source says the impact was smaller than the August Medic update, many would disagree. Devastating may be a more appropriate word than smaller, depending on if youve personally experienced content go from page one of a Google search to being buried on page six.

The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth, said George Orwell in 1984.

The new updates make it so searchers have to know the site name to find us. Unless you add HoneyColony.com, or Mercola.com to a key term, you wont find the content our sites publish.

Even skipping .com will minimize your search results,wroteMercola, whose Google search results had been topping the charts organically for years. Since these updates, Mercolas site traffic has been slashed by about 99 percent.

Shadow-banned. Ostensibly scrubbed.

Google used to rank pages based on whether an author could prove his/her expertise, on how many people visited a page, or on the number of other reputable sites that linked to that page. How about when an author has a degree? Doesnt seem to matter anymore.

Google now buries expert views if theyre deemed harmful to the public, explains TheSEM Post:

There has been a lot of talk about author expertise when it comes to the quality rater guidelines. This section has been changed substantially. [I]f the purpose of the page is harmful, then expertise doesnt matter. It should be rated Lowest!

But who decides? What qualifications do Google quality checkers possess? Who is deciding whats harmful?

Who exactly defines fake news at Google?According to Vorhies, If one was expecting an open and transparent group then they would be wrong: It turns out its the hyper-partisan left-wing groupMedia Matters.

Read more:

Google Censors, Shadowbans, and Blacklists Alternative Health News - The Epoch Times

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. New research reveals thousands of donated kidneys are thrown away or left unused each year, many of which could be used to save lives.

Currently nearly 100,000 Americans desperately need organs on the transplant waiting list. Experts say 12 people die every day waiting for a kidney transplant. So, why waste the organs?

Researchers say doctors dont want to risk using lower-quality kidneys even though they may be better than keeping a patient on dialysis.

Right now a Minnesota company is working to develop a kidney transplant alternative. Its a one-of-a-kind solution to end the transplant waiting list as we know it. Using a breakthrough process developed at the University of Minnesota, Eden Prairie-based Miromatrix Medical Incorporated is creating transplantable human organs out of pig organs.

Dr. Jeff Ross, Miromatrix CEO, said Minnesota researchers are leading the regenerative medicine race. Were creating human organs out of discarded pig organs. We take what nature designed, a fully functioning liver, kidney or heart and with our patented technology, which was developed at the University of Minnesota, we remove all of the cells from the organ. Whats left is a scaffold.' All of the organs natural design and architecture remain. Then from the inside out, we seed or implant new, human cells back into it, ultimately creating a completely functional, transplantable organ that could save a life, explained Dr. Ross.

Scientists and bioengineers are making strides every day in the field of regenerative medicine, and its very exciting," said Dr. Ross. "At Miromatrix, were aiming for our first human clinical studies to happen in the next three years. Our mission is to dramatically reduce the number of patients on dialysis, as well as save millions of lives by eliminating the kidney transplant waiting list."

For more information, click here.

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Kidney transplant alternative research gives transplant patients on the waiting list new hope - KARE11.com