Category Archives: Alternative Medicine

My family and I have been living in Teaneck for over 10 years, but only lately have I finally had the opportunity to practice family medicine in my community.

My path to becoming a family physician started at the Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. I was the first woman to be accepted to a general surgery residency in Hadassah, and I remember female medical students coming to congratulate me on that achievement. I was also offered a position at Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheva, with one of my teachers who moved there from Hadassah, to start a new surgical department, and I decided to go there for residency. However, God had other plans. One night returning with my colleagues from a professional visit to one of the Kibbutzim in the Negev, our bus was involved in an accident. The period of rehabilitation gave me the opportunity to ask myself what kind of physician I really wanted to be. I was constantly drawn to the image of the old-time country physician who knew his patients and their families, came to their homes and treated complex cases, showing his wisdom and love for the people. Those physicians have not disappeared; my dream in going to medical school was to be a doctor like that.

My training in family medicine in Israel exposed me to a wide variety of treatments in primary care that I never learned in medical school. In addition to the traditional fields of Western medicine I completed a homeopathy course for physicians in London, and went to Japan to study Oriental (Chinese) herbal medicine and acupuncture. I also became acquainted with other alternative-medicine methods such as Alexander technique, Feldenkrais technique, osteopathy, chiropractic, Ayurveda and many others.

I worked for eight years as faculty in a residency program in New York and then in primary care practice in Connecticut and central New Jersey. This year I was fortunate to be offered a position with Holy Name Medical Partners. Finally, I am able to practice medicine in my own community.

As an Orthodox Jewish woman (we are members of Rinat Yisrael in Teaneck), I was impressed to find a local Catholic Hospital that has high-level specialists and a state-of-the-art facility, and is very eager to care for the local Jewish Community.

I work with the whole range of resources available to my patients. I collaborate with local rabbis, organizations, Yoatzot Halacha (I am happy to have already spoken to Yoatzot Shoshana Samuels and Nechama Price), therapists, other physicians, nutritionists and schools. There really is no end to the benefits of working with the community.

I would like to see my community engaged in healthy eating, exercise and other healthy behaviors and I will gladly help and participate in any initiative to which I can contribute my skills.

If youre looking for a primary care physician who will take your whole self into account as she cares for you, and also knows when and whom to refer out to while continuously managing your case, a family physician is for you.

I look forward to treating you and your family.

By Naomi Smidt-Afek, MD, MHPE

Naomi Smidt-Afek MD, MHPE, Family Medicine, is a member of Holy Name Medical Partners. She can be reached at 201-342-2771 or holynamemedicalpartners.org.

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What Is Family Medicine, and Why Should We Be Happy That There Is Now a Local Family Physician? - Jewish Link of New Jersey

I

t is easy to mock the ridiculous and potentially harmful health advice and product lines promoted by Gwyneth Paltrow and her team at Goop. Sleeping near healing crystals, lugging around jade eggs in the vagina, swilling moon juice, undergoing raw goat milk cleanses, dabbing on sex dust, and snapping photos of your aura are just some of the ridiculous treatments and remedies offered at high prices to those looking for health ideas from a movie star.

The mocking may be a bit understated. How does this company and other equally daffy outfits pull off these highly lucrative health scams?

Mainstream medicine is partly to blame.

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Some of the most prestigious hospitals and clinics in North America offer many of the same kinds of treatments that Goop promotes. And some of the practitioners who advise the company, those Goop calls the best doctors and experts in the field for advice and solutions, work at these same institutions.

Why is this? And isnt it time for all of mainstream health care to condemn rather than tolerate doctors who are advising the Goop-like companies of the world that are growing rich by peddling a potent mix of glamor, hipness, and mumbo jumbo?

Several thousand years ago, whether you were an Egyptian pharaoh with migraines or a feverish Spartan soldier, chances are your doctor would try to cure you by bloodletting. He would open a vein with an unsterilized knife or sharpened piece of wood, causing blood to flow into a handy bowl. If you had a high-tech doctor, he might have used leeches instead of a knife.

Despite the fact that bleeding did not work and probably killed a fair number of those who got it, this treatment was a mainstay of medicine for thousands of years. It wasnt until late in the 20th century that doctors began to argue that tradition, custom, and patients willing to pay were a lousy foundation upon which to base medical care. Evidence, in the form of objective clinical trials, needed to be the basis upon which doctors treated their patients.

Still, the twisted logic that ancient therapy means effective therapy can be found on both Goop.com to justify cupping, essential oils, and jade vagina eggs and, incredibly, on many academic and university websites pushing alternative practices.

Today, all medical education from medical school through continuing professional education preaches the value of evidence-based medicine, with one exception. Up in medicines attic, the crazy uncle of medical practice, alternative and complementary medicine, is allowed to offer aromatherapy, crystals, herbal remedies, homeopathy, reiki, detoxification, and other nostrums and elixirs at many of the finest hospitals and clinics in North America. Neither evidence nor scientific plausibility are required. Custom, cultural beliefs, and fairy dust are deemed sufficient to entice patients willing to pay for the equivalent of bleeding.

Think we are kidding? In fact, many universities and academic health centers throughout North America have provided either explicit or implicit support for everything from spoon bending to homeopathy to reiki.

Worse, some of these institutions also endorse the supernatural underpinnings of these therapies. The Cleveland Clinic, to cite just one example, suggests that energy therapies like reiki work by promoting balance and flow in the bodys electromagnetic and subtle energies. Ridiculous? Yes. But not very different from the much-mocked language that Goop and Gwyneth use to market wearable stickers that target our bodies energy imbalances, because, as the Goop website explains, human bodies operate at an ideal energetic frequency.

Little wonder that Goop and its ilk are flourishing. Medicine is sitting inside a glass pyramid from which it is tough to throw stones at alternative and complementary medicine.

A team of researchers recently published a wonderful study outlining how primary school children in Uganda could be taught critical thinking skills in the context of health claims. Teaching a few basic concepts that testimonials are not evidence and that ancient and/or popular does not mean a therapy is effective had a significant impact on how the children assessed claims about health remedies. Perhaps Gwyneth and a few of the leaders of our best academic health institutions should take the same course.

Arthur L. Caplan heads the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU School of Medicine. Timothy Caulfield is the Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Alberta and author of Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong about Everything?

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Mainstream medicine is partly to blame for the ridiculous 'treatments' Goop promotes - STAT

Home General Health Using worm blood as an alternative to human blood could change medicine forever

Worms are not normally thought of as the most useful creatures on the planetwe mostly just use them as bait. The lugworm (Arenicola marina) is slimy, deep pink, and not fit for human consumptionit hasnt really provided much in terms of usefulness for humans. That is until now.

French researchers have discovered that the lugworm has an extraordinary ability that could transform medicine as we know it. The blood of the lugworm has the ability to load up with oxygenthe molecule needed for every tissue in the body.

Worm blood could prove to be a viable blood substitute. It could potentially save countless lives, speed up recovery times post-surgery, and even help organ transplant patients.

The hemoglobin of the lugworm can transport 40 times more oxygen from the lungs to tissues than human hemoglobin.

It also has the advantage of being compatible with all blood types, says Gregory Raymond, a biologist at Aquastream, a fish-farming facility on the Brittany coastline.

The lugworm garnered medical interest in as early as 2003, but it had never been studied. The researchers began their own study without having any parameters regarding how to proceed. Instead, they had to learn as they went. Lugworms have the ability to survive in extreme conditions. When exposed to conditions that have very little oxygen. their hemoglobin stocks up on an astonishing amount of oxygen, allowing it to survive more than eight hours out of the water.

The main hindrance to using the blood of the lugworm as an alternative to human blood is the possibility of it causing an allergic reaction and potentially causing kidney damage. One of its main advantages, however, is that lugworm hemoglobin is almost the same as human hemoglobin and doesnt need to be contained within red blood cells. This making differing blood types inconsequential.

Initial studies led the researchers to extract and purify lugworm hemoglobin, testing how well the substance works in mouse models. The rodents were found to adapt well, with no signs of immune response seen in other animal studies.

As of 2015, clinical trials began, with the blood being used in 10 human kidney transplant patients. An additional 60 participants are currently enrolled in the study across France. While there is some time left before the researchers get definitive answers on safety and effectiveness of the lugworm blood, the initial signs look promising.

The properties of extracellular hemoglobin extracted from the lugworm could help protect skin grafts, promote bone regeneration and lead to universal blood, says Raymond.

Related: Inflammatory bowel disease treatment with parasitic worms shows promise: Study

Related Reading:

19 foods that increase blood flow

Daily meat and eggs may increase blood clot formation

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1470611/story-worm-turned-bringer-medical-miracles/

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Using worm blood as an alternative to human blood could change medicine forever - Bel Marra Health

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Herbs & Alternative Medicine | Alternative Medicine | eHow

Once, I thought I was a bear.

For one long night, tethered to medical equipment after a grueling more-than-six-hour cancer surgery performed by a human-robot team, I felt this as a strange and overwhelming certainty. I wasnt one of the wild bears Id observed loping through the hills in Yellowstone National Park, or even a bear in a zoo. I was a caged bear held in a bile farm somewhere in Southeast Asia.

WHAT I LEFT OUT is a recurring feature in which book authors are invited to share anecdotes and narratives that, for whatever reason, did not make it into their final manuscripts. In this installment, Barbara J. King shares a story left out of her new book, Personalities on the Plate.

It was May 2013, and for the past few years I had been researching the expression of emotion in animals. Along the way, I had learned about the bile-farm bears and the hard cruelty of how they are kept.

For about 30 years now, bears have been squeezed into cages on farms, surreal places where they dwell in a nightmarish limbo as their bile is harvested.

For more than a thousand years, bear bile produced in the liver, stored in the gallbladder, and extracted from that organ by humans has played an extensive role in traditional Chinese medicine. Used to treat liver diseases, including cirrhosis and cancer, the bile is also supposed to fight fever and pain, increase libido, and even, according to an article published last year in the journal Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, to stop endogenous wind.

The efficacy of many of these treatments is highly debatable, but the suffering caused by the bile extraction process is clear. Originally, the bile was procured by killing wild bears and removing their gallbladders. For about 30 years now, bears mostly Asian black bears (also called moon bears), but also sun bears and brown bears have been squeezed into cages on farms, surreal places where they dwell in a nightmarish limbo as their bile is harvested. In 2010, Fiona MacGregor, a reporter for The Telegraph, visited such a farm on the outskirts of Luang Prabang, Laos. There, the bears are confined in barred enclosures measuring 15 square feet, she wrote. Some of the animals cannot stand fully upright and some display the repetitive swaying movements of severe stress. Most also have mange, and scratch incessantly at their patchy fur. Despite the 100F heat outside, there is no water in any of the cages.

Grimly, MacGregor noted that the Luang Prabang bears were luckier than others because in some bile farms the bears live with a catheter inserted into their gallbladder. In the 2009 book Smiling Bears, Else Poulsen has more to say: Without proper anesthetic, drugged only half-unconscious, the bear is tied down by ropes, and a metal catheter, which eventually rusts, is permanently stuck through his abdomen into his gallbladder.

That catheter was the point of connection for my imagined hospital transfiguration. My catheter didnt hurt, but it caused constant unpleasant pressure. I was also hooked up to cardiac telemetry equipment, and on both legs were boot-like devices that automatically inflated and deflated to reduce the risk of blood clots. My husband and daughter had gone home to sleep; I was alone and feeling gutted, because to some extent I was.

Skillfully working the controls of a da Vinci surgical robot and boring small holes into my abdomen, my oncologist had removed my uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and 29 lymph nodes. A few weeks earlier, a biopsy indicated that serous papillary carcinoma, a rare and aggressive cancer, had invaded my uterine lining. The sequence of my treatment was clear: surgery, three rounds of chemo, 25 sessions of external-beam radiation, three courses of internal radiation via canister inserted into my vagina, and three final rounds of chemo.

In the years since that treatments conclusion, I have never spoken of my nighttime bear visitation to anyone but my husband. Profound and at first inexplicable, it was not a fever dream or hallucination, I now believe, but an attack of acute, embodied empathy.

Like us, bears are omnivores, smart and often highly social. In the wild, they show evidence of prodigious learning and memory skills in foraging. Working in a zoo, the psychologists Jennifer Vonk of Oakland University and Michael J. Beran of Georgia State University have demonstrated that black bears have a degree of numerical competence, according to a 2012 study. Vonk and Beran devised a touch-screen experiment in which the bears, using their noses, showed they could distinguish sets of items based on number and surface area.

Our primate brains ability to take the perspective of others (our theory of mind) causes us to realize to feel as well as to know that bears must experience anguish when their bile is continuously harvested using the methods I have described. Yet the animal studies scholar Lori Gruen cautions in her 2014 book Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationships With Animals that empathy is far more complicated than it looks on the surface.

Entangled empathy involves a particular blend of affect and cognition, she writes. The empathizer is always attentive to both similarities and differences between herself and her situation and that of the fellow creature with whom she is empathizing. This alternation between first- and third-person points of view allows us to preserve the sense that we are in relationship and not merged into the same perspective.

Humans, Gruen says, are in relationship with many, many animals and we may never have the opportunity to meet them or look into their eyes. Our connection doesnt depend on being with them; it exists and is primary. Or as the anthropologist Gregory Bateson put it in his 1972 masterwork, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, The mental world the mind the world of information processing is not limited by the skin. We are in relationship all the time, everywhere.

So we need to distinguish between the experiences of other creatures and anything we might imagine to be parallel in our own experiences. Unlike the bears, for instance, I was in a safe place as a post-surgical patient. My organs had been removed for my own good; I was surrounded by people caring for me and about me; and my distress was acute, but it was temporary and inflicted without cruelty.

The bears, turned into harvestable commodities year after year and decade after decade without relief, do experience cruelty. Only by focusing on this central difference can we begin to understand and to address what is happening to them.

Claims of human exceptionalism are increasingly unsustainable because evidence from animal behavior lets us see the lives of thinking and feeling animals: Chimpanzees who make tools, hunt, and swing between poles of compassion and lethal aggression; cetaceans who create vibrant learning-based cultures in the ocean; and the savvy, moody invertebrates described by Sy Montgomery in The Soul of an Octopus.

Cruelty, though, stands as unique or nearly unique to humans. When lions run down antelopes, orcas hunt and consume whales, or house cats toy with mice, theres no evidence that they are aware of causing harm to another being. (Its an open question whether male chimpanzees, capable of taking the perspective of others to at least some degree, might qualify as cruel when they attack other male chimpanzees and twist off limbs, beat and kick their bodies, and rip a testicle clean off the body.)

In a very real way, bile farms mirror the factory farms that underpin our food system in North America and the West.

A lesson of the Asian bear bile farm in addition to the primary one, that the bears need our attention and our rescue is that it acts as a pointer to what we may not so readily want to see. Despite intense and often successful rescue efforts by organizations like Animals Asia, bear bile farms still arent very widely known. Its tempting to exoticize them as Asian, as something that supposedly civilized Westerners wouldnt do. But in a very real way, they mirror the factory farms that underpin our food system in North America and the West. Unlike the prolonged suffering of the bears, the crowded, uncomfortable, and wholly unnatural lives of pigs and chickens raised for food are drastically short: They are chemically fattened and slaughtered within months.

We have the burden and the opportunity, writes Jonathan Safran Foer in Eating Animals, of living in the moment when the critique of factory farming broke into public consciousness. That opportunity critically depends on understanding where cruelty is present, and where its absent.

I have argued that eating less meat adopting a reducetarian, vegetarian, or vegan diet according to our individual abilities is an ethical way to put our large, evolved brains to good use for the sake of our planet (reducing global warming), other animals (reducing animal suffering), and our bodies (reducing meat-induced physical harms). A balky response often comes back to me: But many animals eat other animals! Its the natural way of the world!

Its precisely cruelty that makes what Gregory Bateson called the difference which makes a difference. We know or we can know, if we choose that we are in relationship with the other animals on our planet. We know or we can know, if we choose that we can eliminate or reduce the cruelty we inflict on other animals bodies. The bears I write of are not, of course, bile bears any more than chickens and pigs are factory farm animals. They dont exist for the use we can make of them. They are inherently valuable animals with their own thoughts and emotions who want to live untethered.

BarbaraJ. King, emerita professor of anthropology at the College of William and Mary, is also the author of How Animals Grieve and Evolving God.

Originally posted here:

The Night I Was a Bear: Reflections on Cruelty to Animals - Undark Magazine

OAKLAND, Calif., July 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/-- In honor of National Mutt Day, America's Favorite Veterinarian, Dr. Gary Richter, is donating his #1 Amazon Best-Selling book, The Ultimate Pet Health Guide, to animal rescue shelters who participate in the campaign, #RescuesRock. Pet owners have an opportunity to win a signed copy of his best-selling book on Pet Parent Pack Facebook page, #RescuesRock.

In an effort to bring awareness to rescue animals and pets, Dr. Richter and his team educate pet owners how to take the best care of pets. The #RescuesRock Campaign is a fun way for pet lovers to celebrate pets and rescue animals. The process of the campaign is:

In his book, The Ultimate Pet Health Guide, Dr. Richter discloses his best-kept nutritional secrets that help pets live much longer and healthier lives. The Ultimate Pet Health Guide uncovers essential steps for pet owners to navigate treatment options for their pets while leveraging the best traditional and holistic veterinary techniques. He reveals 50 of his best custom-developed dog and cat food recipes. Some recipes are specifically designed for diseases such as cancer, heart and kidney disease. Dr. Richter's book is gaining momentum at a rapid pace and was also featured on nationally recognized Pet Shows with Dr. Katy and also Dr. Frank Adams.

Dr. Richter is generously donating the Ultimate Pet Health Guide, where he shares his expert recommendations for an integrative approach to common pet diseases such as allergies, skin condition, diabetes, pancreatitis, GI and heart disease and cancer. All of the recommended treatments discussed in the book are backed by extensive research and from years of success using these treatments at Dr. Richter's clinical practice.

Dr. Richter's book has caught the attention of Ian Somerhalder - actor and founder of the Ian Somerhalder Foundation, who invited Dr. Richter to join ISF as a Veterinarian Medical Advisor to the Foundation. "We absolutely wanted to be involved to help pet parents get these life-changing insights, to ensure you have as much time as possible with your furry loved ones," said Ian Somerhalder.

About Dr. Gary RichterDr. Gary Richter M.S, D.V.M, C.V.C, C.V.A., has owned and been the medical director of Montclair Veterinary Hospital in Oakland, California since 2002 and launched Holistic Veterinary Care in 2009.

He obtained a B.S in animal science, an M.S. in veterinary medical science and a doctorate of veterinary medicine with honors from the University of Florida. He is also certified in veterinary acupuncture and as a veterinary chiropractor, using these treatments alongside his traditional veterinary education.

Alongside his two animal hospitals, Dr. Richter has received more than 30 awards at a local and a national level. These awards include Best Veterinary Hospital, Best Veterinarian, Best Canine Therapy Facility and Best Alternative Medicine Provider. Dr. Richter was also voted as America's Favorite Veterinarian in 2015 by the American Veterinary Medical Foundation (AVMF).

Those wishing to find out more about Dr. Richter can visit the website http://www.PetVetExpert.com. The Ultimate Pet Health Guide is available on Amazon: https://amazon.com/Ultimate-Pet-Health-Guide-Breakthrough/dp/1401953506.

About Ian Somerhalder FoundationThe Ian Somerhalder Foundation works to empower, educate and collaborate with people and projects to positively impact the planet and its creatures. ISF delivers unique programs and services and provides public outreach, education and grants in support of creatures, environment, youth and grassroot initiatives.

Contact Susan Koehler 425-999-9816170236@email4pr.com

View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dr-gary-richter-announces-the-rescuesrock-campaign-and-donates-his-new-book-to-animal-rescue-shelters-300496306.html

SOURCE Dr. Gary Richter

http://www.DrGaryRichter.com

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Dr. Gary Richter Announces the #RescuesRock Campaign and Donates His New Book to Animal Rescue Shelters - PR Newswire (press release)

The HCMC Center for Hyperbaric Medicine has treated patients in six cases in a little over a year, and has seen two cases in the past two months for what's known as "food grade hydrogen peroxide" poisoning. http://kare11.tv/2u3iToN

Lindsey Seavert, KARE 7:04 AM. EDT July 28, 2017

The HCMC Center for Hyperbaric Medicine has treated patients in six cases in a little over a year, and has seen two cases in the past two months for whats known as food grade hydrogen peroxide poisoning. (Photo: KARE 11)

MINNEAPOLIS - Over the weekend, Hennepin County Medical Center doctors worked swiftly to save a man's life, treating him for an emerging and deadly risk, the ingestion of high-concentration hydrogen peroxide.

The HCMC Center for Hyperbaric Medicine has treated patients in six cases in a little over a year, and has seen two cases in the past two months for whats known as food grade hydrogen peroxide poisoning.

The 35 percent concentrated peroxide is often used in commercial settings to store or prepare food, but some believe in diluting the solution as an alternative medicine therapy for health benefits.

There is some thought in some groups that it might be a general panacea things that can help with inflammation, any sort of general illness, said Dr. Ann Arens, HCMC physician of emergency medicine and toxicology.

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Not to be confused with the 3 percent peroxide you'd buy at a drug store, the doctor says this version is often ingested accidentally because it can be mistaken for water.

Dr. Arens says food grade hydrogen solution is not scientifically proven with no medical use, and is anything but safe.

The people who have ingested this are generally in so much pain they have to have a breathing tube in, they can have holes in their esophagus and stomach, said Dr. Arens.

In the most recent case at HCMC, first handled by the Minnesota Poison Center, a man was working outside on a hot summer day, and came inside to find a sports drink bottle similar to the bottle he had previously used. When he took a big drink, he had no idea someone else in his home was storing the concentrated hydrogen peroxide in the bottle. He experienced immediate pain.

So when you swallow just a little bit of this food grade hydrogen peroxide, quite a bit comes out into your intestine and into your stomach and get absorbed and cause bad things, said Dr. Stephen Hendriksen, HCMC physician of Hyperbaric Medicine.

Doctors say two ounces of the potent peroxide releases six liters - or two milk jugs full - of gas into your system, causing air bubbles that can travel to your brain or heart, specifically putting patients at the risk for an embolism.

And cause stroke-like symptoms, what hyperbaric oxygen does is shrink those bubbles, said Dr. Hendriksen. Because we put them in the hyperbaric chamber, and we put them under pressure. You, as a patient, are breathing 100 percent oxygen under pressure, usually 45 to 60 feet below sea level.

But after the latest cases, HCMC doctors stress the best alternative of all - prevention.

Talk to your doctor, make sure you educate yourself about what these products are, is the most important thing, said Dr. Arens. Keep anything that can cause poisoning in a well-labeled bottle, in the original bottle, of course out of reach of other food products and out of reach of children.

A recent study released this past Febuary warned consumers about the risks of ingesting high-concentration hydrogen peroxide.

Researchers for the study, published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, looked at 294 cases of peroxide ingestion over a 10-year period.

They found that a large number of cases where patients swallowed high-concentration peroxide resulted in critical illness, some with continued disability or death.

Unintentional hydrogen peroxide exposure is common.

In 2015, the American Association of Poison Control Centers said in its annual report that there were 7,257 cases of peroxide exposure reported in that year, and of those 92 percent of them unintentional.

2017 KARE-TV

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Doctors warn of potent peroxide risk - W*USA 9

A doctor who appeared to vouch for and defend Gwyneth Paltrows high-profile lifestyle and e-commerce site, Goop, now says that she does not see herself as a Goop doctor and would not endorse the site, according to an interview with Stat.

The post was written in response to a wave of online criticism from journalists, medical professionals, and patient advocates, particularlyblogger Dr. Jen Gunter, an Ob/Gyn who has written often about Goop.

Under a heading that included our doctors, Romm appeared firmly connected to Goop and its mission. But, in an interview published online Thursday on Stat, Romm said she doesnt see herself as one of Goops doctors and doesnt pay enough attention to know whats on the site. She refused to endorse Goop and, in fact, expressed criticism of it. Romm suggested that the site is a caricature of everything alternative health for women. She advised the Goop team to re-evaluate all of the sites products and recommendations with the help of doctors.

I cant endorse Goop, in that... just because [products are] natural or organic, doesnt mean that theyre beneficial for women, she told Stat. Just because it hasnt been proven harmful and its natural doesnt mean its safe. We cant just say that thats sort of the default position.

You cant just say its better than conventional medicine. If its wrong, its wrong.

Romm explained that she was sympathetic to women who are dissatisfied with conventional medicine. And she stressed that she wasnt disavowing Goop and said that there was no justification to dismiss alternative medicine in general. But she noted that just because women seek alternatives doesnt mean alternatives are good.

That said, Romm, a Yale-educated doctor, sells her own line of proprietary herbal supplements, includingAdrena soothe and Adrena nourish. She also espouses detoxing, which is not supported by science.

In the Stat interview, Dr. Romm said she wasnt concerned that her medical credentials might appear to lend support to unproven and unscientific theories and products, such as her own or those on Goop. She replied that she essentially saw herself as an independent contributor to the site and was open to patients trying harmless products that arent too expensive if they want.

She also seemed comfortable with the for-profit aspect of the health advice she and Goop offer. Goop is certainly commercial, Romm said, adding I have to make a living, too.

Dr. Romm elaborated:

I think Gwyneth Paltrow was a fabulous actress in her day of acting, and Im not a sort of advocate or antagonist of her work. I understand that she is probably a very decent person, trying to do good work, and [she] does things that feel meaningful to her. And, yes, theres a commercial aspect to it, [but] theres nothing that doesnt have a commercial aspect to it, unless youre a saint doing medical work.

The interview ended with Romm noting that drug companies also make lots of money.

Read more here:

Goop doctor says she's not really Goop's doctor, calls site a ... - Ars Technica

T

he headline on Gwyneth Paltrows wellness site, Goop, looked straightforward enough: Uncensored: A word from our doctors.

It featured a defense of the alternative medical practices that Goop has promoted, such as tucking a jade egg in the vagina to enhance sexual pleasure. An attack on an OB-GYN who has publicly slammed Goops advice. And then, open letters from two doctors who have written for Goop in the past.

But one of those physicians, Dr. Aviva Romm, told STAT that she doesnt see herself as Goops doctor at all. She hasnt read most of the content on the site (which promotes things like goats milk cleanses, energy healing stickers, and brain dust to align you with the mighty cosmic flow). She cant give it a scientific stamp of approval. And shes wary of anyone who automatically endorses products or therapies simply because theyre branded as natural.

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In fact, she said shes advised Goop that if it wants to be more than a caricature of everything alternative health for women, the editors need to do an audit of all their content, in consultation with physicians.

I dont think everything in there is necessarily evidence-based or effective, said Romm, who lives in Massachusetts and runs a small practice in New York City.

She added: Im not one of these integrative doctors who basically just because its alternative thinks its safe and good. I try to keep my doctor thinking cap on as well.

Goop said its considering a medical advisory board but hasnt yet established one and in the meantime, uses a number of physicians as sounding boards before publishing its articles. There may be more open letters in the future, a spokeswoman said.

Despite her reluctance to endorse the publication, Romm isnt disavowing Goop.

She has been interested in alternative medicine since her college days, spent 20 years as a midwife and herbalist before getting her M.D. at Yale Medical School, and said she understands why women are dissatisfied with conventional medicine and searching for new paths to well-being.

And she promotes her own takes on alternative medicine some of which have drawn sharp criticism from mainstream doctors.

Romm sells proprietary blends of nutritional supplements branded with her name and sold in formulations such as soothe, nourish, and uplift. She also urges women to consider seasonal detoxes, use herbal alternatives to antibiotics for some infections, and try her month-long program to revamp their adrenal and thyroid health, and in turn, boost energy and lose weight. Critics have saidsome of those ideas arent backed by evidence, either.

Here are excerpts from STATs recent conversation with Romm, condensed and edited for clarity. Some themes touched on more than once in the interview have been consolidated for clarity.

As she explored alternative medicine in college, Romm said her outlook shifted from being the spelling bee, science fair kid to being a do-it-yourselfer hippie.

More recently, she said, I wrote the seminal its always an odd word to put to womens things womens health and botanical medicine textbook.

Thats how she got to Goop. The publicist for her new book suggested she expand her audience by writing for publications including Goop, and put her in touch with someone at the site.

My role with Goop is nothing formal at all, Romm said. I really just write my articles.

The editors at Goop write her from time to time, looking for an article about endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome, or a fresh take on Epstein-Barr virus. (Goops first story on the virus was written by a self-proclaimed medical medium who claims to have been guided, at age 4, by a voice to diagnose his grandmothers lung cancer. Romms own take on Epstein-Barr virus that it can cause autoimmunne diseases such as thyroiditis and can be treated with herbal supplements such as lemon balm, licorice, and holy basil has also been criticized by some in the medical community as lacking in evidence.)

Romm isnt paid for her contributions to Goop, nor does she consider herself one of Goops doctors. She said she simply doesnt pay enough attention to Goops content to make a judgment on it.

In short: no.

I think theres this sense that sort of by default by writing for them, I was endorsing them, she said. But Romm said she sees that as the equivalent of assuming that every writer in the New York Times agrees with every piece published in the New York Times.

I had a letter to the editor published in the [New England Journal of Medicine]. I certainly dont endorse everything in NEJM, she said.

Romm got roped into the Goop fight after Dr. Jen Gunter a longtime critic of the site lambasted the lack of scientific evidence behind Goops recommendations in a widely shared post on her blog in May.

When the Goop hit the fan, lets say, with the Jen Gunter piece, it was just kind of in the early stages of my writing for them, she said.

Goop asked her to submit a quote addressing the criticism. She responded that she couldnt endorse the site, but she could share her thoughts on womens wellness. Thats how she came to write the open letter which Goop later published as A word from our doctors.

Romms key goal with that letter: pushing back against a conventional wisdom that she said trivializes women seeking alternative medical options as participating in a wellness trend.

Romm acknowledged that some women may be choosing things that arent necessarily the healthiest, best, or wisest therapies, like constantly detoxing but said thats no justification for dismissing the entire arena of womens alternative medicine in one fell swoop.

But, Romm said, two wrongs dont make a right. Just because women are searching for alternatives to conventional medicine doesnt mean any alternative is a good one.

And she criticized the sea of internet noise and people wearing white coats when theyre not even doctors as confusing women about whats valid, whats trustworthy and whats not.

I cant endorse Goop, in that just because [products are] natural or organic, doesnt mean that theyre beneficial for women, she said. Just because it hasnt been proven harmful and its natural doesnt mean its safe. We cant just say that thats sort of the default position.

You cant just say its better than conventional medicine. If its wrong, its wrong.

Romm said shed start by trying to understand why a patient felt like she needed to jump on a health trend train. Maybe its that shes newly single, feels bad about her body, and wants to lose weight, Romm said. Or perhaps, its that she has migraines and read online that a detox might help.

She might be being told by a rheumatologist that she needs an immunosuppressant drug but maybe theres not great evidence for that either, and shed rather try something more benign for 21 days before she goes on that, she said.

Im really respectful of other peoples choice and autonomy if theres nothing harmful in the plan. Ill say, Great, awesome, give it a try. But not if theres something harmful in the plan, or even if its not harmful but its gonna cost a lot of money out of pocket, she said.

All health care is for wealthy white women, Romm said.

When you look at the statistics on maternal mortality, infant mortality, mental health problems, abuse at home, drug problems, with the exception of the growing opioid problems, which are typically more in the white community, all of these have to do with lack of access to health care which correlates with socioeconomic status, she said.

Romm added that she understands that Goop is certainly commercial.

She is, too, she said: I have to make a living, too. I sell my books and courses on my website.

I think Gwyneth Paltrow was a fabulous actress in her day of acting, and Im not a sort of advocate or antagonist of her work. I understand that she is probably a very decent person, trying to do good work, and [she] does things that feel meaningful to her. And, yes, theres a commercial aspect to it, [but] theres nothing that doesnt have a commercial aspect to it, unless youre a saint doing medical work.

But, Romm said, its not just celebrities and alternative medicine providers who are making money off patients. She pointed to the billions drug companies spend on TV ads.

Lets not be misled here, she said. Those drug company commercials are making lots of people millions. So its not just one isolated situation with Goop.

Reporter, Morning Rounds Writer

Megan writes the Morning Rounds newsletter and covers health and medicine.

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Read the original post:

Goop promoted her as one of 'our doctors.' But Dr. Aviva Romm is concerned the site is becoming a caricature - STAT