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Alternative Medicine in the News
February 2009 edition 10
published weekly
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Greetings!
If you're receiving this mini e-zine for the first time, we're inviting you to subscribe. We're publishing some of the many alternative medicine news articles scanned from various sources from around the world.
We publish weekly. I hope you like it. If so, you'll need to click on subscribe below.
(If you are one of our regular readers, you are already subscribed. No need to do anything more.)
Enjoy it. Didi
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Drugs Prescribed for Alzheimer's Disease Increase Mental Decline and Deaths
When people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD) " act up" and show signs of neuropsychiatric symptoms such as aggression and agitation, they are often given antipsychotic drugs. Now, it turns out, that's a practice that could be deadly. The result of a long-term study , just published online and in the February edition of The Lancet Neurology journal shows there's a large increased risk of severe side effects and death in patients receiving these medications. What's more, they hasten mental deterioration.
Dr. Clive Ballard of the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases at King's College in London and her colleagues are the first researchers to document long-term data for AD patients given antipsychotic drugs. They followed 165 patients with AD between the ages of 67 and 100 who resided in four United Kingdom facilities between 2001 and 2004. The research subjects were randomly assigned to take antipsychotic medications (thioridazine, chlorpromazine, haloperidol, trifluorperazine, or risperidone) or an oral placebo.
After a year, there was 70% survival in the antipsychotic group compared with 77% in placebo. But after two years, there was a far bigger difference in the death rate. Survival was 46% in the antipsychotic group and 71% in the placebo group. And at three years, the difference was even more stunning. Only 30% of people being given antipsychotics were still alive while almost 60 percent of those on placebos, inert substances with no drug activity, were still living. When the scientists computed the death rate for the AD patients throughout all the years, they found it was 42% lower in the placebo group than in the antipsychotic group.
So what adverse effects did the drugs have on the people with Alzheimer's? Specifically, they were found to increase the incidence of Parkinson's disease, sedation, edema, chest infections, stroke and death . Those taking antipsychotics also experienced an accelerated decline in their brain function. In a statement released to the media, the scientists said their research highlights the need to seek less harmful treatments for AD patients who exhibit neuropsychiatric symptoms.
"Our data add further serious safety concerns about the long-term use of antipsychotics in this population, and clinicians should certainly try to replace antipsychotics with safer management approaches. Several studies have shown that psychological management can replace antipsychotic therapy without any appreciable worsening of neuropsychiatric symptoms... Our opinion is that there is still an important but limited place for atypical antipsychotics in the treatment of severe neuropsychiatric manifestations, particularly aggression, of AD. However, the accumulating safety concerns, including the substantial increase in long-term mortality, emphasize the urgent need to put an end to unnecessary and prolonged prescribing," the researchers stated.
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HRT Drugs Shrink Women's Brains
Natural News
A new study carried out at Wake Forest University and published in the medical journal Neurology has found that HRT drugs literally shrink women's brains. Subjects who took HRT drugs for an extended period of time showed a loss of 2.37 cubic centimeters in the frontal lobe of the brain.
The frontal lobe is responsible for memory and thinking skills. These study findings may explain why women who use HRT drugs are increasingly being diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
Dr. David Sturdee, president of the International Menopause Society, disagrees that brain shrinkage is a bad thing. "The benefits (of HRT) are still way in excess of the risks," he explains in a BBC report. HRT drugs also increase the risk of strokes and cancer, but they earn billions of dollars in revenue for drug companies.
Are HRT drugs part of a campaign to keep the women in society barefoot, pregnant and stupid? It just so happens that these drugs -- which are mostly pushed by men -- keep women in a state of cognitive impairment in which their thinking skills are suppressed. (It turns smart women into stupid women.) The shrinkage of their frontal lobe also causes them to be unable to make good decisions about getting OFF the medications, and that plays right into the hands of Big Pharma's profit schemes.
This article continues as a feature article on NaturalNews. Click here to read: http://www.naturalnews.com/025354.html
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The "Secret Language Codes" Used by Doctors and
Drug Companies
to Manipulate Patients and Push Pills, Surgery and Chemotherapy
by Mike Adams, NaturalNews Editor
Last year, I met a small, frail woman in Los Angeles who approached me after a speech
I gave on nutritional cures. In a weak, crackled voice, she told me my speech
was all wrong. There were no cures for diabetes or cancer, she said, and I was
wrong to give people even a hint of hope at reversing disease.
She was a type-1 diabetes sufferer, and she talked about the
disease as "my diabetes." She described the pharmaceuticals she was
taking for hormone balance as "my medicine," and her description of
her bone health included the admission that she had a disease called "osteoporosis"
that caused her bones to become fragile.
It didn't take long to realize there was something odd about
her choice of words. This wasn't the way healthy people talk... it was almost
like she was speaking some sort of alien language that had been taught to her
by doctors and health authorities -- a language that kept her trapped in a
system of medical control.
That's when it hit me: She had adopted a new language of
disease victimization that practically guaranteed she would stay sick forever!
The owning of disease ("my" cancer), the possessive pronouns
describing pharmaceuticals ("my" medicine), the belief in a condition
called osteoporosis that causes fragile bones (hint: It's the other way around,
see below)... it was all part of a new language of personal disempowerment being
taught to patients by doctors and medical authorities! You might call it
"medical psychobabble..." or the language of
"anti-self-improvement."
Ultimately, I came to discover this was all part of a
high-level linguistic technology used by doctors, journalists and health
authorities -- a technology based on reprogramming the mind through virtually
undetectable language sleights. I've come to call this the "Secret
Language Codes" of modern medicine, and this article tells the story of
discovering how these language codes were being used, reverse engineering them
and creating a set of defensive strategies that completely disarm them.
Unveiling the Secret Language Codes of modern medicine
You won't believe what I found...
I discovered that before patients come into contact with
western doctors regarding a health complaint, they only experience symptoms of
discomfort or concern. They generally believe those symptoms have an underlying
physiological cause, and that the symptoms are reversible.
But after contact with western doctors, everything changes!
Their beliefs suddenly shift, and they now believe they have a
"disease" (with a technical-sounding Latin name) and that their
disease is incurable and can only be "managed" by medication or
surgery.
Their ownership of those diseases also shifts from a
dissociated perspective to a personal, possessive perspective. For example, if
they had originally been experiencing symptoms of thirst and light-headedness,
they talked about those symptoms as things separate from their definition of
self (they don't walk around describing themselves as someone suffering from
"thirst disorder," for example). But after visiting the doctor, they
immediately assigned a name to the symptoms ("diabetes") and had
taken ownership of the disease, talking about "my diabetes" or
describing themselves as "being diabetic."
[from Didi: This article is interesting and rather long. I had to cut it short. For reading the complete article please click: http://www.naturalnews.com/025396.html]
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Chamomile Tea Regulates Blood Sugar, Prevents and Manages Diabetes
Jan 15, 2009 by: Elizabeth Walling www.naturalnews.com
The importance of regulating blood sugar is clear: stabilizing blood sugar can prevent many health problems, one of the most obvious being diabetes, which is often a result of years of unstable blood sugar. Fortunately, for most of us it is within our power to take control of our blood sugar levels by remaining active and making the right food choices and also by drinking chamomile tea.
Chamomile tea has long been prized for its ability to calm and relax, making it a favored tea for bedtime, but now a recent study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry shows chamomile may serve another purpose: regulating blood sugar.
At the University of Toyama in Japan and at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in the United Kingdom, researchers studied the effect of chamomile tea on diabetic rats. Half of the rats were given a dose of chamomile extract for three weeks. Another set of diabetic rats was given a normal diet with no addition of chamomile.
The study observed that when chamomile was given to the rats, a lesser amount of glucose was turned into sorbitol (a sugar alcohol). Excess sorbitol can cause damage to kidneys, eyes and nerve cells. The enzymes primarily responsible for this kind of damage in diabetics were also inhibited in the chamomile rats. The rats who were fed chamomile extract also showed an overall decrease in blood glucose compared to the other rats.
The authors of the study stated there is a clear link between the daily consumption of chamomile tea and preventing the progression of diabetes and hyperglycemia. As usual there are those who say more research needs to be done to determine just how effective this treatment can be, but to anyone searching for a natural way of regulating blood sugar, the results of this study are more than enough encouragement to start drinking chamomile tea.
Chamomile tea's benefits aren't only for those with diabetes. For diabetics, stabilizing blood sugar is crucial for good health, but the truth is even people without diabetes can benefit from maintaining normal blood sugar levels. Blood sugar swings are associated with fatigue, sugar cravings and insulin resistance, among other symptoms. Taking measures to regulate blood sugar can actually prevent the onset of diabetes in healthy individuals, and it will also help you feel more energetic and maintain a healthy weight.
Of course, if you're considering drinking chamomile tea solely to regulate your blood sugar, keep in mind it's a healthy addition to an overall lifestyle that naturallly contributes to healthy blood sugar. Other steps which should be included in this lifestyle are regular exercise, eating balanced meals, avoiding refined foods and getting plenty of sleep.
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Five Ways to Pick up the Exercise Habit Again
Even people who consistently stick to an effective health and fitness routine can sometimes fall out of the habit. Getting back on track can be challenging - unless you find ways to rebuild a strong desire to start exercising again.
Here are some ways to give yourself the mental kick in the pants that you need to stop procrastinating and get up off the couch:
1. Use it as an excuse to get "me" time. If you lead a life of chaos where it seems like every moment of your time is consumed with obligations, use a consistent exercise routine as an excuse to spend some much needed time all by yourself.
2. Put away your "fat" clothes. It's a lot easier to put off exercising when you can hide underneath clothes that make us feel like you're not as out of shape as we really are. Take all of the clothes that allow you to hide your extra pounds and put them in a box.
3. Make yourself an irresistible offer. If you want to crank up your motivation to get in shape, promise yourself an entire weekend of frivolity, a shopping spree, etc.
4. Turn it into a social experience. You have a friend, a neighbor, a co-worker, or a family member who also needs to lose weight, so grab a partner and make a solemn pact to force each other to stick to it.
5. Take a good look in the mirror. When all else fails, get naked and stand in front of a full-length mirror. Take a good look from the front, turn to the side, and even turn around and look back over your shoulder at your backside. If you need to lose even 10 pounds, the mirror will be more than happy to show them to you.
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Compact Fluorescent Bulbs are Making People Sick
Mike Adams NaturalNews
Compact fluorescent light bulbs are filling home and office environments with dangerous electromagnetic pollution, causing devastating health effects on some people. Neurologists are increasingly taking notice of the headaches and migraines being reported by people exposed to compact fluorescent light bulbs.
I've [Mike Adams] been warning NaturalNews about CFLs for years. It's not only the fact that they cause headaches and skin problems, it's also the fact that they contain mercury vapor, which is highly toxic to the nervous system if inhaled. (Unless you're a conventional dentist, of course, who absurdly believes mercury isn't harmful to the human body.)
This is why I founded EcoLEDs (www.EcoLEDs.com), which has been selling mercury-free, eco-friendly LED lights since late 2007. But LED lights are still too expensive for most consumers, and they're nowhere near the affordability of compact fluorescent bulbs.
Meanwhile, CFLs are all the rage these days, with hotels, offices and retail stores all turning to them as light sources, unwittingly unleashing a new wave of electromagnetic pollution onto consumers.
So what should you do in your home? Don't buy compact fluorescent light bulbs! Buy LED lights and you'll earn back the entire cost of the lights in just a couple of years due to savings on electricity expenditures. If you can't afford LEDs, stick with regular incandescent light bulbs until a better solution comes along. They aren't the best thing for the environment, but neither are mercury-containing CFL light bulbs, almost none of which are properly disposed of anyway.
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Homoeopathy: Ideal for Pregnancy and Infants
Sharing Experiences from our Readers
contributed from Dr. Rajeev, homeopath, (India) AltMed ezine reader
I
have delivered normally 16 babies using only homoeopathy medicine,
while today most of women are delivered by ceasarian section (CS). My
own research concludes that much of this is due to overuse of iron,
calcium and folic acid tablets. These tablets inhibit the mechanical
processes of digestive system. While the mathematic values of iron and
calcium in pregnant women show normal but it causes an absence of
mechanical energy which is needed for the fetus to follow its natural
path in delivery.
During pregnancy a women require more time
and attention to deliver naturally. And if she is given a
constitutional homeopathic remedy during her pregnancy she can develop
a resistance against most diseases in nature which may be inherited to
the infant. Physical and mental abnormalities are also avoided at this
time. Following such treatment, I found 100% that she can deliver
normally. This is possible because the increased immune system and
enhances the mechanical energy needed for the fetus to deliver through
the natural path.
Following delivery I found in my research
that most infants are further treated by the mother's own remedy which
was given during pregnancy.
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Are you a carb addict?
Could it really be that sweets and chocolate are as addictive as cigarettes?
Some treats could be addictive, say scientists
www.dailymail.co.uk
That's
the controversial conclusion from a study by New Zealand scientists who
found that foods made largely from refined sugar and flour have the
same addictive qualities as tobacco.
'Heavily processed
carbohydrates such as cornflakes, sweets and croissants quickly raise
the amount of sugar in your blood,' explains lead researcher Dr Simon
Thornley, a registrar with the Auckland Regional Public Health Service.
'This rush of sugar stimulates the same areas of the brain that are involved with addiction to nicotine and other drugs.'
In other words, some of us may be piling on the pounds not just because we are greedy but because we are addicted.
If
Dr Thornley's claim is supported, that would open up new ways of
dealing with the obesity crisis, including a food version of the
nicotine patch used to help smokers quit.
'Drug addicts have to
keep taking larger amounts of their chemical of choice. They find it
difficult to stop, they keep doing it despite negative consequences and
they feel depressed if they do stop,' says Thornley, whose paper was
published in the journal Medical Hypotheses. 'People do all those
things around refined carbohydrates.'
Just how big a
contribution this could be making to the obesity crisis isn't yet
clear. 'We need more research,' says Thornley, 'but the evidence for
refined carbs being potentially addictive is growing fast. There's a
good case for treating highly refined foods as we do cigarettes -
banning TV ads, taxing them and even insisting on pack health
warnings.'
Studies of brain scans suggest that people who
put on a lot of weight could be doing it to improve their mood; the
same reason addicts take drugs.
This research shows that
people with a high Body Mass Index (BMI) have fewer receptors in the
part of their brains that generate pleasurable feelings. The same
pattern is evident in people addicted to cocaine and alcohol.
These
findings are backed by scientists at Princeton University in America,
who have been turning rats into sugar addicts. The rats not only suffer
cravings when sugar is taken away from them but they then binge on it
when it becomes available again.
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Medical Disclaimer:
The information contained within does not take the place of medical diagnosis or
prescription. See your health care provider in case of sickness.
Editorial Disclaimer: Publication of these articles are to promote food for thought. The opinions expressed in these articles may not be the opinion of editors.
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