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Neal Barnard, M.D.: 4 Steps To Ensure You'll Keep Your New Year's Resolution

2009-12-23T10:55:33Z

In you're like most Americans this time of year, you've stuffed yourself with cookies and other sweets and washed it all down with eggnog. But instead of feeling jolly, you're feeling bloated and lethargic.

Studies show that nearly all the weight people gain over the course of the year comes on during the holiday season. And because we tend not to lose quite all of it the following spring, our weight ratchets up, year after year. The average American gains about 15 pounds per decade.

But most of us have trouble breaking out of that pattern. If you've made a New Year's resolution to lose weight, chances are your resolve doesn't last very long. New Year's resolutions can be hard to keep. But if you follow these simple steps, you're more likely to keep your resolution--and keep the weight off for good.

1. Use the V-word. Abundant research has shown that the more vegetarian meals people eat, the easier time they have maintaining a healthy weight. And the most powerful meals are vegan. In May, researchers at Loma Linda University published results of a study of nearly 61,000 Americans. Vegans were the thinnest, meat-eaters were the heaviest, and fish-eaters and ovo-lacto-vegetarians were between the two. People who switch to a vegan diet typically lose about a pound a week--and this prescription for weight loss doesn't require portion control or calorie-counting. A meatless diet also helps reduce the risk of heart disease, type two diabetes, and some cancers.

2. Focus on the Short Term. A healthy diet is a lifestyle, not a fad or a quick-fix weight-loss plan. But a lifetime commitment sounds daunting. So the key is to set your sights on the short term. Cut out meats, dairy products, and eggs for three weeks, and see how you feel. Chances are, your weight will start trimming down before your very eyes. Your cholesterol is likely to drop, and your energy will rebound.

Perhaps most surprisingly, your tastes will change. Just as a person who switches from whole milk to skim milk soon adapts to the lighter taste (and then can't go back to that fatty whole milk), if you lighten the entire diet, you'll soon find that the new tastes really seem just right.

3. Break the craving cycle. Start with a good breakfast. Cutting hunger is the first step in cutting cravings. Eat at least 10 calories each day per pound of your ideal body weight. Some calorie-cutting dieters don't realize that if they eat too little, their bodies stop making an appetite-controlling hormone called leptin. A person whose ideal weight is 150 pounds needs at least 1,500 calories per day, and probably much more.

Also, choose foods that steady your blood sugar. Beans, green vegetables, fruit, and whole grains help prevent blood sugar dips that can lead to cravings.

4. Get some help online. To help you along the way, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is launching a 21-Day Vegan Kickstart program. Our doctors and dietitians have teamed up with leading researcher Dean Ornish, MD, actress Alicia Silverstone, chef Tal Ronnen, basketball star John Salley, best-selling authors Kathy Freston and Rory Freedman, and many other celebrities and nutrition experts to offer this free online program. The Kickstart provides recipes, nutrition advice, and an interactive support network to help participants transition to a sustainable, healthful diet in 2010.

The program starts on Jan. 1, so pop open your champagne (or sparkling apple juice) on New Year's Eve to celebrate the beginning of a new healthy lifestyle. Sign up at http://21DayKickstart.org.

http://21DayKickstart.org

Neal Barnard, M.D., is a nutrition researcher and president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Elizabeth Gordon: Learning To Live With Food Allergies

2009-12-22T14:43:41Z

Seven years ago, in what proved to be a permanently lifestyle-altering moment, I was diagnosed with food allergies. Pregnant with my first child, excited and aware that my life was about to change forever, I never imagined that the birth would trigger adult onset food allergies. I figured that my sleep schedule would probably change when the baby arrived, but it never occurred to me that I might never be able to eat eggs or wheat again.

When I first came home from the hospital with the baby, there was no time to cook. So, my diet consisted of easy things to make for lunch and dinner like pasta and omelets. And then the itching began. One day a month or two after the birth, I felt a tickle on my chest that morphed into an itch so intense that no amount of scratching could alleviate it. I also developed an unbearably sore throat and a chronically stuffy nose.

A lifelong Psoriasis sufferer, I figured that I was simply having a flare and had caught a cold. However, the itching persisted and eventually exploded into an angry rash that covered my entire body. The sore throats made it difficult to swallow.

After visiting dermatologists and internists to no end, I was finally referred to an allergist. It seemed silly to go since I had never had allergies before, but I was willing to do anything to stop the itch and rash and to get back to my life and new child. When the doctor called with the test results I was shocked. He cleared his throat and said, "You are allergic to wheat, eggs, and string beans." "Impossible," I sputtered, seeing family-style Italian meals and the homemade ice cream of yesteryear flash before my eyes. "I've eaten those things my entire life." The doctor explained that it was possible but that no one is really sure why.

He went on to say that I could alleviate my symptoms but that I would have to change everything about my diet. He emailed me a list of the foods that contained wheat and eggs; to say that it was extensive would be conservative. And then he told me that I would have to read labels on everything, to eat simply and explore alternative grains. Alternative whats?! Having previously been a girl who loved to cook but lived on take-out, this was a new language.

Now, in a way, the news was a blessing. I lost all of those extra pounds that were hanging around after the birth in no time, because my daily black and white cookie habit abruptly ended. But on the other hand, the prospect of life without dessert seemed unbearable. In the beginning, adapting to this new lifestyle of closely monitored eating was very difficult. I had to rebuild my diet from scratch.

Restaurants and dining in peoples' homes were a challenge, because on top of not being able to eat much, I was suddenly the annoying friend who dictated restaurant choices and had to review the approved ingredient list before a homemade dinner at someone else's house.

The diagnosis wasn't all gloom and doom. It forced me to feed myself in an entirely new and healthier way, and I learned that many convenience foods, like the basic broth that I used to buy at the supermarket, take almost no time to make and usually taste better when I prepare them. I found that I could discreetly bring my own wheat-free Tamari to sushi restaurants or mix lemon juice with Wasabi as an alternative. I discovered that risotto is not only simple to make, but also a great pasta substitute. I learned about quinoa, millet and buckwheat soba noodles. Learning so much about food and healthy living was actually fun. I became a much better and more inventive chef.

Most importantly, at least to me, I realized that being allergic to what felt like everything didn't mean that I had to abandon my lifelong passion for baking. True, wheat particles in the air do upset my delicate constitution, but after much experimentation, I discovered that Chinese rice flour, sorghum flour, potato starch or a mix of bean flours provide a terrific alternative to traditional wheat flour. I also found that applesauce, flaxseed or gelatin substitute nicely for eggs in many baked recipes. And, through all of this experimentation,, I developed so many recipes it made sense to write my new cookbook Allergy-Free Desserts.

The fact is that my life changed dramatically when I was diagnosed with food allergies. I had to change what I eat, learn to read every label, to ask many questions, to advocate for myself. Waiters might not like me much because I do ask so many questions, but I actually think that the food allergies have enriched my life. I have tapped into a large network of people going through the same thing. I eat healthier because I can't eat most commercially prepared foods, and I have gained not only the skill of baking for people like me, but a career that feels both helpful and meaningful.

Bernie Siegel, M.D.: Therapeutic Intention In The Doctor's Office

2009-12-22T12:26:33Z

In my recent readings I have come across many interesting concepts which have always been a part of how I cared for people but are now finally becoming scientific and accepted. For example one revealed the benefits of playing music in the operating room, or reading stories to children that were read to them at home by their parents, while they underwent surgery. The government is actually funding this research and the exploration of the benefits of music. Let me say that the music and stories allowed the anesthesiologist to use fewer drugs and at a lower dosage then in the control group. I would recommend that all of you use the proper music in your treatment regimen and environment.

I laugh now because when I brought a tape recorder and tapes of music and nursery rhymes into the operating room, almost thirty years ago, I was called an explosion hazard due to some explosive anesthetic gases being used then. However, after several days the staff stopped complaining about the risks because they all felt better at the end of the day after working with me.

Another aspect of practice I have written about is the intention of the doctor, therapist, waiter or whomever, and the affect it has upon the persons they are interacting with. The article I read used the term TI, for Therapeutic Intention. Several studies were mentioned showing the benefits of the correct and appropriate therapeutic intention on the person being cared for.

I would suggest strongly to all of you that before you enter the room to interact with a client you pause and clear your mind of any negativity or thoughts like; I'm hungry, late, tired etc. and focus your intention in a therapeutic way upon the person you are about to interact with, be it through massage, or any other modality. What I hope we will see in the future is more research supported by the NIH and others as they open their minds and begin to accept the validity of these findings.

Years ago when I started acting strange and discussing my findings people would ask if I had done any research. When I said no they scoffed at my comments. The reason I didn't do research is that no one believed in what I was doing so I could never get any support from the government or organizations.

I talked to people under anesthesia and was again called crazy. When my patients showed a response to my words, remembered what was said while they were anesthetized and shared what they heard when awake postoperatively, the anesthesia department changed their views. Remember no one is against success even when they can't accept the reasons it works. Now with brain scans we can show that peoples' brains are functioning even when they are not responding consciously to the words being spoken.

The last point I would make is to remember we are created to survive. Bacteria make genetic alterations and resist antibiotics. We recover from illnesses and heal wounds. There is an inherent inner intelligence to provide these mechanisms. In a recent article a botanist discussed a plant which has a genetic defect that leads to its buds not opening. If this happened to all the plants of this species it would become extinct. What he noticed was that some of the plants spontaneously started to open their buds again. He called it a spontaneous reversion to a healthy, normal state. He believes the RNA makes changes which repair the DNA defects and lead to a reversal of the abnormal pattern.

When I read those words I couldn't help but think of the term we use for cancer patients, spontaneous remission; in other words an unexplained disappearance of their disease. From my experience it is the same mechanism as in the plant. The will and intention to live and quality of life created lead to changes within the genetic make up of the person and their cancer cells. This has even been seen in concentration camps where people sought life and health when disease and the inability to work meant death and to the other extreme where one's mortality starts one off truly living.

So in summary remember to live as if you are going to die, enjoying the experience by living your authentic life and not what was imposed upon you by others and you will intentionally reverse the aging process. Grow young along with me; the best is yet to be.

Peace,
Bernie Siegel, MD

Weight Loss Yoga With Tara Stiles: Sweat And Tone (VIDEO)

2009-12-22T09:50:59Z

Just in time for the new year, Tara Stiles, yoga teacher extraordinaire, has produced a four-week weight loss series for you.

In this episode, the flexible gal shows you how to get your body moving with a focus on sweating it out and toning your abs, butt, and thighs--a perfect launching point to give your 2010 fitness routine a kick in the asana.

Thomas Goetz: Welcome To The Era Of Personalized Medicine

2009-12-22T08:41:23Z

There are certain ideas that hover in the ether, hinting at some perfect future where our cars will fly and robots will fetch our slippers. Personalized medicine is one of these - an idea that someday, somehow, we will all enjoy customized medical care that keeps us healthier and enables us to live better and longer. In the meantime, though, we're stuck with the healthcare we have now: an inefficient system with cookie-cutter predictions and trial-and-error treatments.

Part of the problem, so far, is that personalized medicine has often been understood as mostly about drugs - specifically, the idea that one day pharmaceuticals will be tailored to us, individually. This has been slow to happen. Aside from a few cancer drugs like Gleevec and Tamoxifen, the science of pharmacogenomics (the term for matching drugs to specific genetic traits) has been largely a disappointment. And until more personalized drugs emerge from the pharmaceutical pipeline, the thinking goes, personalized medicine will remain a pipedream.

But personalized medicine isn't just about drugs. It's also about data - our personal data, the stuff in our medical records, as well as less clinical information like how much sleep we get or how often we exercise. All this data can personalize our healthcare right now, today - it can be worked back into the equation of how we care for our health, improving decisions like what we eat, how to reduce our risk factors for disease, and what we get tested for (and when). When you start thinking about our healthcare this way, it starts to look like a series of choices, opportunities we have to make better decisions to affect and improve our health. Line all these choices up in sequence from prevention to diagnosis to treatment, and it takes the form of a Decision Tree - which is what I've called my forthcoming book.

Consider, for instance, Lose It!, a free diet tracking tool for the iPhone. Just click on what foods you eat, and the software, using a database of thousands of foods, can calculate the calories and nutritional value of your meal. Choose a weight loss goal and the app will calculate how much you can eat each day to get you there. The easy, engaging tracking tool has become one of the iTunes stores most popular apps.

Or log on to EPSS, short for the Electronic Preventive Service Selector. Based on recommendations by the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force, this free tool (it also comes in iPhone and Blackberry versions) uses a few bits of personal data - your age, your gender, whether you smoke - to crunch a personalized list of recommended screening tests. (Turns out for someone like me - a 41-year-old non-smoking male - there are 10 recommended tests, and 17 not recommended).

Or take a look at Nike Plus, the ingenious exercise system that lets runners track not just how much they've run, but also how many calories they've burned, and how close they are to accomplishing personal exercise goals. More than five million people have discovered that tools like Nike Plus not only make exercise more fun, they also make it more productive.

In this respect, it turns out that personalized medicine is already here. Personalized medicine is what happens when we go online and do our own research at MayoClinic.com before we check in with our doctor. It's what happens when we use iPhone apps to monitor our exercise or weight. And it's what happens when we ask our doctor for our lab test results, and then work with her to make a treatment decision (instead of just leaving it up to them). These tools and opportunities are just the tip of the iceberg though, the first signals of a new mode of healthcare, where individuals will be able to readily track their health and control their healthcare.

Now all this talk about data and statistics can sound intimidating. After all, not all of us are math geniuses, and most of us don't go looking for ways to brush up on high-school algebra. But it doesn't have to be all that scary. After all, we've already gotten used to dealing with numbers and statistical information in all sorts of situations. We manage to handle interest rates when we take out a mortgage. We're quick to calculate prices during a 30 percent Off sale at Macy's. And in our health, many of us already mind our cholesterol level, our blood pressure, and other numbers. If we can handle the math in balancing our checkbook, certainly putting these same skills to work for our health shouldn't be beyond any of our reach. Personalized medicine isn't something that happens to us; it's something that we have to choose to engage in. And the thing is, that's not as hard as it sounds.

Of course, engaging patients is only half of what personalized medicine is about. The other side of the coin requires that healthcare itself get better, in the form of better research and more patient-friendly clinicians. Medicine must be able to deliver more tailored, patient-specific predictions, diagnoses and treatments. This means that geneticists need to keep interrogating the human genome for the links between our DNA and disease, so we can identify our risks earlier. It means biochemists and molecular biologists need to keep spelunking for the biomarkers in our blood that can turn up a disease in its earliest, most treatable stage. And it means that healthcare providers - our doctors, nurses, and nurse practitioners - need to be trained to engage with more informed patients who may be bringing self-generated research and records to the doctor's office.

Thankfully, both components of personalized medicine are making rapid progress. Patient empowerment, long paid lip-service but given little heed by a medical profession steeped in paternalism, has made great strides in recent years, bolstered by the Internet and other consumer technologies. Genetics, proteomics, and other molecular sciences have all made stunning advances the past decade, fueled by bioinformatics (the combination of huge data sets and massive computing power). The pieces are coming together, and personalized medicine is starting to take shape.

In the coming weeks, I'll be sharing some ideas here at the Huffington Post for how personalized medicine is playing out, right now, today. As is so often the case with new tools, engaging in personalized medicine right now takes some work; it's still a piecemeal experience that demands diligence and initiative. But for those willing to do the work and make the effort, the returns can be nothing less than better health and a better life.

Thomas Goetz is the executive editor at Wired Magazine, and holds a master's in public health. His book The Decision Tree: Taking Control of Your Health in the New Era of Personalized Medicine comes out in February. You can follow him on twitter and read his Decision Tree blog.

Stanton Peele: Addiction: Fruit Flies Create AA Group!

2009-12-18T17:36:12Z

News Item: Like humans, fruit flies that get intoxicated on alcohol can become addicted and keep drinking regardless of the consequences. (One addiction news digest headline called the critters "Buzzed Fruit Flies.") Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco indicate this phenomenon will allow us to better understand how alcoholism works, U.S. News and World Report concluded in a stunning article, "Fruit Flies Can Be Alcoholics Too."

The scientists studied the behavior of Drosophila melanogaster who (or is it "that"?) were given the option of drinking alcohol. They found that the flies consumed food spiked with alcohol faster than plain food, and they wanted more alcohol over time.

That's alcoholism all over! People just keep drinking like - well - fruit flies. But, wait a moment, don't some people, after they get drunk a few times, decide to cut back on their drinking or not drink at all? After all, I have heard people say, "I get silly if I have more than a glass of wine - so that's all I'll drink."

I mean, don't human beings exercise some choices in line with their values? I know a lot of people who have quit smoking after being addicted. The reason they quit (or didn't start in the first place even if they were drawn to it) is because of, well, their values. They want to be healthy. They don't want people to think they are addicts. They don't want their kids imitating them in an addiction or, when pregnant, they don't want to pollute their babies.

And how do fruit flies become alcoholics, really? I mean, the alcoholics I knew blacked out, sneaked drinks and hid bottles, ran out to convenience stores to get six packs in the middle of the night, and had promiscuous sex. Can the flies do that? (I know they have promiscuous sex, but don't they do that sober?)

I had trouble in biology classes in high school and college because I asked all sorts of impertinent questions like these. Here I go again! Do fruit flies have similar kinds of feelings to humans about sex? (Are there slut fruit flies?) In terms of what might make them quit drinking, do they have similar feelings to us about pregnancy? Do they have pregnancy? Do they have intercourse or oral sex? Do they practice tantric sex? Hey, I'm getting way off topic.

Let's focus for a moment on the other end of the process. Let's say the Drosophila malanogasters (is it too late for me to retake that biology final? - I'm feeling so knowledgeable) become chronic inebriates. After talking to their pastor or their uncle in Alcoholics Anonymous, do some decide to join AA? I mean, what the heck do they say at the beginning of the meeting - you know, the part where you are supposed to admit you are an alcoholic and you're powerless over alcohol?

"I am powerless over alcohol-spiked fruit fly food." That just doesn't sound right. Maybe they can stick to the plain, "I am powerless over alcohol." That's better. But they can't talk, can they. Maybe they can dance that message out (or am I thinking of bees - did I mention my problems in biology class?). "I'm (two step) an alcoholic (dip) for life (twirl)." But, wait a second - don't fruit flies live only days? How will they do 30 meetings in 30 days?

I can see we're going to have to go back to the laboratory on this one.

Geneen Roth: How To Avoid Binge Eating During The Holidays

2009-12-18T13:21:52Z

We enter the holiday season with unreal expectations of gladness, blazing fires and ruddy cheeks. But when it doesn't turn out that way, we often turn to-yup, you guessed it -- food.

The most painful thing about using food to comfort ourselves during the holidays (or any other time) is that it is only a temporary solution. After the food is gone, whatever you ate about is still there. And, to make matters worse, you now feel fat or stuffed or spacey as well as lonely, sad, or angry. So turning to food only compounds the original problem by giving you another problem -- your weight -- to deal with.

For many years, I led one-day holiday workshops, listening to people talk about their fears, their expectations, their joys during the holiday season. I heard what triggered their descent into binging and what helped them out of it. And what I saw again and again is that as tempting as it is to eat 20 butter cookies shaped like Christmas trees when you are lonely, food is most pleasurable, delicious, satisfying when you are hungry. In every other situation, there is always something besides eating that will help you, comfort you, give you peace, which is after all, the true message of the holidays.

So here's what my students taught me about making it through the holidays (note: it takes a commitment to do these things. You have to want to to be sane more than you want to eat.)

(1) Wear clothes with pockets. Put interesting things in them (rocks, crystals, and, um, any precious stones like sapphires or diamonds that are just laying around) so that you have something to do with your hands besides eat.

(2) When you go to a party, take only three kinds of food on your plate. Go to a relatively quiet place and let yourself really really taste what's on your plate. Play with it. Eat it in different orders. Mush it around in your mouth. Notice how one food explodes on your tongue and another takes a while to be fully tasted. Have fun with the food when you are hungry. Get every last ounce of pleasure out of it -- and then, if you are still hungry, go back for three more foods. Follow the same instructions. When your body has had enough food, remind yourself that you can eat again when you get hungry.

(3) Then, find another kind of nourishment, another kind of food. Another way to give yourself
pleasure. Talk to someone. Listen to someone. Play the piano. Look at the night sky. Pray.

Remember that food is everywhere, all the time, not just on our plates. Food for the eyes, for the senses, for the heart.

One last thing: May there be peace on earth; it's the only planet with egg nog.

Erika Milvy: Possible MS Breakthrough Neglected By American Media

2009-12-17T18:41:00Z

Folks who suffer from Multiple Sclerosis are not really a rowdy bunch. Activism and outrage are hard to muster for the chronically fatigued. But since Thanksgiving, people with MS and their loved ones have gone all ACT-UP 2.0.

That is, the past few weeks have seen a surge in online activity within the MS community - as bloggers, vloggers and forum posters are calling one another to action in response to the lack of response to what many perceive to the scientific breakthrough they've been waiting for.

If you haven't heard about the report in December's Journal of Vascular Sciences by Italian vascular surgeon Dr. Paolo Zamboni, then you probably live in America.

I don't suffer from premature ejaculation but I do know, (thanks to the New York Times), that there's a new drug for it available in nine countries, but that it hasn't yet been approved for sale in the United States.

But when I went looking for news about Dr. Zamboni's research, I could not find it the mainstream press. I did find it all over the Canadian Press and European Press.

Let me start by saying I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV.

On November 21, CTV W5 (Canada's top television network), aired an in-depth story about "a stunning new discovery of a revolutionary new treatment for a debilitating disease." They interviewed Dr. Paolo Zamboni, from the University of Ferrara in northern Italy. His research suggests that MS is not, as widely believed, primarily an autoimmune condition, but a vascular disease (CCSVI, short for chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency.) Dr. Zamboni found that, in over 90 percent of people with Multiple Sclerosis, the veins draining blood from the brain were constricted and this led to a buildup of iron in the brain that, he theorized, causes the neurological symptoms of MS.

MS would therefore be caused by a drainage problem, a plumbing clog that Zamboni posits can be rectified with a simple but experimental surgical technique similar to an angioplasty. Zamboni (and up until last week, a doctor at Stanford) have since done the procedure on over 100 patients and Zamboni reports vast improvement in patients' symptoms nearly immediately. Zamboni's wife, Elena Zamboni was one of his first success stories - her MS being his driving force.

Since then, a battle between patients and practitioners has hit the net. Fervor has collided against skepticism and medical cynicism - and media disregard has stirred up resentment and even conspiracy theories.

Patients' blood (whether it is or is not circulating adequately in the veins) has been boiling.

It began after the Canadian television aired their interview with Dr. Zamboni. The broadcast went swine viral. Avis Favaro, the reporter who broke the story, said that she has been "shocked at the tremendous response to this story. It is beyond that for any other medical story we have worked on." The segment has been linked to countless times worldwide and translated into other languages."

The web was ablaze. People with MS finally heard the word "breaththrough" and heard the long long-awaited announcement of what was a potentially paradigm shifting game changer. These were not just mice getting better.

"My legs don't work, but I'm jumping up and down," said one hopeful MS patient on YouTube.
So when the videos and links arrived in the inboxes of MS patients in the U.S. they looked to the reputable news media for more information.

But still the mainstream press wasn't reporting the story. On ThisIsMS.com, an MS info-exchange, postings about CCSVI topped 16,000, (other treatment news numbers in the tens or hundreds.) In online forums, discussions turned to "where is the coverage on this?" "No one will listen" is the title of one long thread. A Facebook group called "MS Uprising" was born, a YouTube channel was born.

The MS society of Canada crafted a statement of cautious optimism. They adapted a "wait and see stance, urging patients to "temper their euphoria."

Web activists were not satisfied and began to draft petitions and suggest diverting donations to directly support hospitals like University of Buffalo where Zamboni's approach is being further studied.

Of the MS society's statement, Dr. Lorne Brandes, an oncologist who blogs for CTV News' Health Blog, wrote, "If their official response to Dr. Zamboni's research was any cooler, icicles would form on their spokespersons' lips. Why am I not surprised? These organizations are big money operations, run by risk-adverse professionals and fundraisers who are absolutely petrified of making a mistake and prematurely backing a losing horse. Their interests are also heavily intertwined with those of Big Pharma."

This sentiment is echoed again and again. Online articles scream out with Woodward and Bernstein-wannabee headlines like "Simple Surgical Cure for Multiple Sclerosis Opposed by Big Pharma" and "Multiple Sclerosis cure found, MS societies in panic" - (but the article's content is just a reprint of The Globe and Mail's less provocatively titled "Researcher's labour of love leads to MS breakthrough."

But when bloggers and vloggers and posters invoke "Big Pharma," they start sounding like they think they're Ralph Fiennes in "The Constant Gardener" - blowing the whistle on the industry's evils.

Still, when newly radicalized sick people notice that the media isn't reporting on this big story and notice that neurologists and advocacy organizations are minimizing or denigrating the importance of Zamboni's findings, their conspiracy theories start to sound sort of plausible.

That is, just because they're paranoid doesn't mean that Big Pharma isn't out to get them. The pharmaceutical industry stands to lose a lot if Zamboni's one-time treatment pans out. The most common drug therapies for MS cost about $30,000 a year. And there are well over 100 medications for various MS symptoms.

On one MS forum is a link to another pharma-gate headline: "Big Pharma's Crime Spree", in which the reporter for Bloomberg Markets Magazine assesses that "finding cures is not even remotely a consideration by pharmaceutical executives."

While this idea is not a new one, when you pair it with the recent directives from the MS Society (well-funded by the drug industry) patient distrust doesn't seem unwarranted.

The Canadian MS Society urged patients "not to abandon the treatment they are on." The US went further, discouraging patients from getting tested at all. Prescribing ignorance is bad advice. At best it's condescending.

Much of the medical establishment's approach seems to be likewise paternalistic. Some patients have concluded that naysaying neurologists are territorial - MS is their disease. And if Zamboni is right, MS researchers have been barking up the wrong tree for decades.

Bloggers gripe that the US scientific establishment is mired in red tape and is overly-concerned about malpractice. So some have already undergone experimental surgery. With degenerative disease breathing down their necks, some patients are ready to pursue even a glimpse of a cure, damning the torpedoes. Which alarms many of their doctors. Who rain on their parade. Which causes more suspicion and activism.

Dr. Elizabeth Crabtree, a neurologist at UCSF's MS Center, has plans to begin an ongoing podcast to better inform MS patients of new developments. So they don't have to learn it on the streets, as it were. "No wonder there's so much distrust," she said. "The treatment options are inadequate." She expressed frustration that medical facilities compete instead of collaborate. Patients, doctors and support groups should be working in alliance, she said.

Whether egos and money do get in the way of out-of-the-box thinking, one cautionary tale does loom. A patient at Stanford died following CCSVI surgery recently and another patient underwent open heart surgery after a stent migrated to his heart. The Stanford program was swiftly halted.

Dr. Michael Dake's "under the radar" stent implants (Zamboni uses a "balloon" procedure ) were conducted before a clinical trial. But instead of being deemed unethical, Dr. Dake was called a hero and a "pioneer" in online groups.

"This I would do," said Dayle Baich of the Zamboni procedure. Baich, who now uses a walker because of her MS, told The Ottawa Citizen, "it's a very simple surgery, compared to two years of chemotherapy. In three years, I have gone from being normal to now. So where am I going to be in two or three more years? I don't have the time. Neither do most of the people here."

As a direct result of patient activism, the MS Society has announced plans to fund CCSVI research and clinical trials will commence at several medical centers in 2010. CBS and other esteemed news outlets have caught wind of the whirlwind. Their coverage is due out soon.

Such is the story of keyboard activism - among the "handicapable" (a term the TV show "Glee" recently coined.)

In case Ralph Fiennes is looking for his next project.

South African Plant Helps With Back Pain

2009-12-16T12:35:05Z

Devil's claw is a plant from South Africa named for the small hooks on its fruit. Known for its anti-inflammatory effects, it has been shown in recent years to work well for chronic lower back pain.

The Truth About Tamiflu

2009-12-15T11:35:53Z

This week, the British medical journal BMJ published a multi-part investigation that confirms that the scientific evidence just isn't there to show that Tamiflu prevents serious complications, hospitalization, or death in people that have the flu.

Sondra Kornblatt: Sleep: Restful Insomnia

2009-12-15T10:31:48Z

Insomnia can haunt the best of us, especially during the busy holiday season. Nagging thoughts of end-of-year reports, visiting family members, and the growing list of to-dos--they'll keep you awake or rouse you at 3 a.m. You can try to force yourself back to sleep, take a sleeping pill, or attempt to be productive, but you'll be dragging in the morning.

The insomnia story doesn't end there, though. The Restful Insomnia program helps you deeply rest, let go of the demanding mind, and even mimic the benefits of sleep. Here are five steps from the Restful Insomnia program that can lead to a better night sleep and a more rested holiday season.

1. Create a soothing night environment. Spending time in the middle of the night looking for tissue, chap stick, or fresh water can waken your body and mind. Instead, build your own Night Nest full of soothing sleep goodies to keep near your bed. By having everything you need at hand, your mind won't cogitate if the lip stuff is in the drawer or briefcase. And you won't see the unmade lunch as you search the house for it. Your Night Nest can include book lights, eye masks, a glow pen, paper, lavender cream, photo of your favorite vacation spot--whatever supports your nightly peace.

2. Befriend the body. We're on the go from the alarm clock to lights out, with the mind leading the way. During Restful Insomnia at night, your body leads the way and helps you rest. But you may need to get acquainted with it again. Start simply, just focusing on your physical self: your big toe, right elbow, ribs expanding. Notice your skin, what touches it on the outside, sensations on the inside. Come back to your focus again and again when your thoughts horn in. By focusing on the sensations, you will feel better connected to what the body wants at night: to move into a deeper state of relaxation

3. Diminish the overwrought mind. When your mind is obsessed with an argument with your girlfriend or the fear of getting the swine flu, it's hard to rest and sleep--an obvious statement to most insomniacs. Even the obsession with having to sleep can keep you awake. To help your mind calm down, give it something else to do, just like you distract a demanding two-year-old. Befriending the body is a great place to start. Become aware of your breathing, your skin, or even the pit in your stomach from anxiety. (Don't think about the pit, just notice its location temperature, movement and color.) Or let your mind solve a puzzle, such as counting backwards from 3594 by 7s. How about humming a little tune--it changes well-worn brain patterns. Remind yourself that rest solves as many problems as obsession.

4. Release the hold of emotions. Emotions make thoughts more real, more vivid, and more compelling. This can be a wonderful sensation or a horrible one. Many think they need to control their feelings by controlling emotional triggers--telling off the boyfriend or creating a "perfect" Christmas. However, you can use variations on acupressure to release the intensity of emotions. These techniques are called Energy Psychology. They involve touching or tapping specific points on your face, hands and torso while focusing on the emotional sensations as they wane. One simple calming version is to put a hand on your forehead and the other where your neck meets your head. Or run your fingers on your scalp just outside your ears, from the temples, up and over to the neck. You can rest more deeply when emotions are not running the show.

5. Tap into the natural or spiritual self. It's not all about you--which is a humbly powerful deal. After all, you can't save the world at night. However you can find your Spiritual Center (whether you call it God, science, or some higher power) to rely on something beyond your mind's ability to solve problems. Spend some time visualizing and talking to your God, Goddess, Jesus, Natural Flow, Allah, or Divine Spirit. Ask for help getting rest. At the very least, you create a way to let go.

Find your unique Restful Insomnia techniques to let go at night. When you do, your body leads the way to rest, giving you the benefits of sleep, and perhaps real slumber, too. So when snores from your visiting relative make the floor rumble, simply reach for your earplugs from your personal Night Nest, tune into your body, and rest well. You'll be rejuvenated in the morning for the holiday excitement. Embrace relaxation and enjoy your nights!

Sondra Kornblatt is the author of Restful Insomnia, How to Get the Benefits of Sleep Even When You Can't (Conari Press, January 2010).

Milk Thistle Shown To Help Cancer Patients

2009-12-15T09:54:08Z

A new study, published online today in the journal Cancer, finds that milk thistle may help reduce the liver inflammation associated with chemotherapy.

Scott Mendelson, M.D.: The Prevention Of Alzheimer's Disease

2009-12-14T13:40:42Z

There is growing evidence that an epidemic of Alzheimer's Disease may be around the corner. People are justifiably concerned. Many distraught individuals have come to my Psychiatry office asking if their elderly parent's or grandparent's diagnosis of Alzheimer's has doomed them as well to a future of dementia. The answer is, "Probably not."

There are two major forms of Alzheimer's Disease, an early and a late onset form. Auguste Deter was 51 years old in 1901 when her distraught husband, Karl, brought her to see Dr. Alois Alzheimer in Frankfurt, Germany. She was the first person to be diagnosed with what we now refer to as Alzheimer's Disease. Over a period of only a few years, she had developed problems with her memory and dramatic changes in her behavior. She had become insanely jealous of her husband. She had fits of screaming and hallucinations. She was described as dragging bedclothes and other items through the house, sometimes hiding them from people she suspected were out to steal them. Her ability to perform her usual daily functions had drastically deteriorated. In one of his evaluations of Auguste, Dr. Alzheimer asked her to simply write her name. In his clinical notes Alzheimer wrote, "The patient is not able to progress in writing and repeats, "Ich hab mich verloren" ("I have lost myself".)

Such severe an illness in a relatively young woman led Dr. Alzheimer to study Auguste Deter's brain to determine what was responsible for the untimely disintegration of her mind. He noted that her brain was remarkably shrunken, and through the microscope he saw that its tissue was riddled with plaques and tangles of unknown material. Modern research has determined that the plaques of Alzheimer's Disease are formed from build up of an aberrant protein called amyloid. The tangles are abnormal knots of the protein tau, which is a substance naturally found in neurons.

Auguste Deter suffered from the early onset form of Alzheimer's. This form of Alzhiemer's can occur well before the age of 65. It is strongly determined by genetics and is likely difficult to avoid. Thankfully, the early onset form accounts for only a small percentage of cases of the illness. Genes can also contribute to the development of the late onset form of Alzheimer's, which is the predominant form of the illness. However, scientific evidence shows that genes are neither necessary nor sufficient to cause late onset Alzheimer's Disease. The evidence suggests that in most, perhaps not all, but most cases, Alzheimer's can be prevented or at least delayed and diminished in severity. Most of us can avoid the mind ravaging effects of Alzheimer's by healthy changes in lifestyle, diet, exercise, remaining active, achieving ideal weight, reducing stress, and in some cases, supplementing with certain vitamins, herbs and nutraceuticals.

The genes responsible for early onset Alzheimer's are directly involved with the production and processing of amyloid precursor protein (APP). When those genes are faulty, sticky forms of amyloid are produced and accumulate as plaque. The tangles of tau are not so easily explained, but have classically been thought to be secondary to the development of plaque. There can also be genetic contribution to late onset Alzheimer's. The only gene that has consistently been found to increase the risk of this most common form of Alzheimer's is the APOE4 gene. Like brown, blue and green eyes, the APOE gene comes in three main varieties. The APOE3 type is most common and benign. The APOE2 gene may reduce some risk for Alzheimer's. However, the APOE4 form of the gene, which is found in 12% of our population, can double the risk of developing Alzheimer's. Inheritance of two APOE4 genes, one from each parent, is seen in 2% of the population and can increase the risk by up to 20 fold.

The question remains as to how the APOE4 gene increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's. It does not appear to be directly involved in the production and processing of APP. Rather, it is one of the body's house keeping proteins. Indeed, most APOE protein in the body is made in the liver, not the brain. Presence of the APOE4 variety of the gene leads to too much fat and cholesterol in the blood. It increases the risk of heart disease, hardening of the arteries, and stroke. APOE4 also predisposes to inflammation and oxidative damage in the body, including the brain. A major part of how APOE4 increases risk of Alzheimer's is likely its exacerbation of other conditions that are known to be risk factors. In fact, the best evidence indicates that the bad things the APOE4 gene does can be overcome by healthy living.

Amyloid plaques and tangled tau disrupt brain tissue. However, scientists have begun to recognize that plaques and tangles may be equally deleterious in their initiating subsequent pathological processes that damage tissue and diminish brain function. Such processes include inflammation, oxidative stress, insulin resistance, damage to mitochondria that produce the energy neurons use to function, disruption of chemical messenger systems, deposition of amyloid in blood vessels, and other changes. Some of these secondary effects are themselves known to increase deposition of amyloid and disruption of tau, thus forming a vicious cycle that can spiral out of control.

To prevent Alzheimer's, it is imperative to avoid the major risk factors for the illness, which include heart disease, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and triglycerides. The means to do this are to improve the diet, exercise, get adequate sleep, reduce stress, and follow a health maintenance plan with the help of your doctor. Good dental care is a critical component of any plan to avoid Alzheimer's, as tooth and gum disease predispose to heart disease and stroke. It is also essential to maintain levels of nutrients, such as vitamins B12, folic acid, C, D, and others that the brain and organs of the body require to maintain their function and tissue integrity. The brain, like muscles in the body, requires exercise to remain strong in function. Stimulation of the brain increases the growth of neurons that support cognitive function, and these beneficial effects can be seen in people of all ages. Thus, it is important to pursue intellectually challenging activity throughout life. A good education and lifelong intellectual pursuits are known to decrease the risk of dementia as well as to diminish the deleterious effects of amyloid plaque and tangles that may accumulate. There are a variety of herbs and nutraceuticals, that is, substances that the body produces but in insufficient amount, that are likely to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. Many possess anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory effects that protect the brain and help break the cycle of degenerative processes that result in late-onset Alzheimer's Disease. Such substances can also increase the birth of new neurons in the recently discovered process of neurogenesis, stimulate nerve growth factors, increase the levels of important chemical messengers, and enhance the activity of insulin in brain tissue. We now know that adequate insulin activity can prevent the formation of abnormal tangles of tau protein. Some herbs and nutraceuticals may even help the brain rid itself of amyloid and tangles of tau that have already accumulated. However, no single measure can stop Alzheimer's. Moreover, since the degenerative effects of Alzheimer's begin as many as 15 years before any symptoms appear, it is necessary to start early.

An epidemic of dementia is looming before us. Some of us may be genetically destined to develop dementia, and it is not the job of a physician to peddle false hopes. However, there is abundant evidence that the unhealthy lifestyles of modern society have brought many of us to the doorstep of dementia. For most of us, Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia can be prevented.

Dr. Mendelson is the author of the new book, Beyond Alzheimer's.

Deepak Chopra: The Fatal Prescription Pad

2009-12-14T11:04:10Z

It's well known that the most expensive medical technology in America is a doctor's ballpoint pen. Doctors call for hundreds of billions of dollars in unnecessary tests and procedures every year. This has become a major thrust in health care reform. But now we discover that the prescription pad can also be deadly.

A story in USA Today reports on a statistic from the Centers for Disease Control showing that deaths by drug overdose are now higher from prescription painkillers than from heroin and cocaine. Prescription drug overdoses more than tripled from 1999 to 2006, giving rise to 13,800 deaths that year; the overall total from both legal and illegal drugs is around 26,000 fatalities. An authority quoted in the USA Today story was certainly right when he said, "The biggest and fastest-growing part of America's drug problem is prescription drug abuse. The statistics are undeniable."

For decades it's been slow going to convince Americans, especially older ones, to kick the prescription drug habit. This spreads far beyond painkillers. Effective prevention could radically cut into the seven prescription medications taken by the average person over seventy. Whole categories of disorders, such as obesity, type II diabetes, and heart attacks could be profoundly reduced. But instead of joining the wellness movement, as a nation we wait until we get sick, and then we turn to big pharma and the latest silver bullet, as billion-dollar drugs are promoted to be.

If 13,800 deaths by overdose seems small, consider that emergency rooms see a far larger number of patients who overdose and survive, about 120,000 a year from opiate painkillers like morphine and codeine. The abuse extends much further, to antibiotics, for example. Over-prescribed by the hundreds of millions, common antibiotics have been losing their efficacy for decades, and we may be losing the battle against so-called supergerms, which have developed strong immunity against a wide range of antibiotics. The next super bug may outwit anything a doctor can fire at it.

The whole image of brave physicians warring against insidious germs began in the era of microbe hunters like Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin. We are stuck with that image, even though prevention is based on a better idea: instead of trying to win a battle, don't go to war. Human beings aren't isolated life forms. Our evolution has been entwined with that of viruses and germs. They adapt in response to us; we adapt in response to them.

In modern times, this mutual adaptation has begun to favor the germ side, because with high-speed air travel and mass refugeeism, viruses and germs can spread around the world in a matter of days and weeks -- in the past they moved much more slowly or not at all. In the face of this sped-up evolution, humans can't evolve fast enough physically to keep pace. But we can evolve mentally. Developing new drugs is a form of mental evolution, since we use our brains to pursue research and devise new theories of disease formation.

Wellness is another kind of mental evolution, one that is far safer, less expensive, and much less traumatic on the body. People tend to forget that all drugs have side effects and all drugs lose their efficacy when taken over a long enough period. Wellness has no side effects and never wears out. With the latest research showing that diet, exercise, stress reduction, and meditation actually change the expression of our genes, the argument in favor of positive lifestyle changes is overwhelming.

Prevention waits to be used. The only missing ingredient is you and I, the people who can decide to be well or wait until a doctor begins to move his ballpoint pen across a prescription pad.

Published in the San Francisco Chronicle

For more information go to deepakchopra.com

Dana Ullman: How Homeopathic Medicines Work: Nanopharmacology At Its Best

2009-12-12T09:30:00Z

It is commonly assumed that homeopathic medicines are composed of extremely small doses of medicinal substances. And yet, does anyone refer to an atomic bomb as an extremely small dose of a bomb? In actual fact, there is a power, a very real power, in having atoms smash against each other.

Homeopathic medicines are made through a specific pharmacological process of dilution and vigorous shaking. However, when skeptics say that there is nothing but water in homeopathic medicine, they are proving their ignorance, despite the incredible arrogance in which they make these assertions. Dr. Martin Chaplin, a respected British professor who is one of the world's experts on water, has verified that "homeopathic water" and "regular water" are not the same, and his review of almost 2,000 references to the scientific literature on water (!) confirm this fact (Chaplin, 2009).

It should be noted that a large number of homeopathic medicines sold in health food stores and pharmacies are made in doses with known physiological doses. In fact, there are several thousand (!) studies in conventional scientific journals showing a wide variety of biological effects from extremely small doses of various substances on specific systems.

Homeopathic medicines can and should be considered to be a type of "nanopharmacology" (Ullman, 2006). Although the word "nano" also means one-billionth of a size, that is not its only definition. In fact, "nano" derives from the word "dwarf," and "nano" is the only word in the English language that is used on common parlance as denoting extremely small AND yet extremely powerful. Homeopathic medicines are both extremely small in dose and yet extremely powerful in their therapeutic effect.

For 200 years now, millions of physicians and hundreds of millions of homeopathic patients have observed and experienced the power and effectiveness of homeopathic medicines

The Power of Nano-doses

Precisely how homeopathic medicines work remains a mystery, and yet, nature is replete with mysteries and with numerous striking examples of the power of extremely small doses.

For instance, it is commonly known that a certain species of moth can smell pheromones of its own species up to two miles away. It is no simple coincidence that species only sense pheromones from those in the same species who emit them (akin to the homeopathic principle of similars), as though they have developed exquisite and specific receptor sites for what they need to propagate their species. Likewise, sharks are known to sense blood in the water at distances, and when one considers the volume of water in the ocean, it becomes obvious that sharks, like all living creatures, develop extreme hypersensitivity for whatever will help ensure their survival.

That living organisms have some truly remarkable sensitivities is no controversy. The challenging question that remains is: How does the medicine become imprinted into the water and how does the homeopathic process of dilution with succussion increase the medicine's power? Although we do not know precisely the answer to this question, some new research may help point the way.

The newest and most intriguing way to explain how homeopathic medicines may work derives from some sophisticated modern technology. Scientists at several universities and hospitals in France and Belgium have discovered that the vigorous shaking of the water in glass bottles causes extremely small amounts of silica fragments or chips to fall into the water (Demangeat, et al., 2004). Perhaps these silica chips may help to store the information in the water, with each medicine that is initially placed in the water creating its own pharmacological effect. In any case, each medicinal substance will interact with the silica fragments in its own idiosyncratic way, thereby changing the nature and structure of water accordingly.

Further, the micro-bubbles and the nano-bubbles that are caused by the shaking may burst and thereby produce microenvironments of higher temperature and pressure. Several studies by chemists and physicists have revealed increased release of heat from water in which homeopathic medicines are prepared, even when the repeated process of dilutions should suggest that there are no molecules remaining of the original medicinal substance (Elia and Niccoli, 1999; Elia, et al., 2004; Rey, 2003).

Also, a group of highly respected scientists have confirmed that the vigorous shaking involved with making homeopathic medicines changes the pressure in the water, akin to water being at 10,000 feet in altitude (Roy, et al., 2005). These scientists have shown how the homeopathic process of using double-distilled water and then diluting and shaking the medicine in a sequential fashion changes the structure of water.

One metaphor that may help us understand how and why extremely small doses of medicinal agents may work derives from present knowledge of modern submarine radio communications. Normal radio waves simply do not penetrate water, so submarines must use an extremely low-frequency radio wave. The radio waves used by submarines to penetrate water are so low that a single wavelength is typically several miles long!

If one considers that the human body is 70-80 percent water, perhaps the best way to provide pharmacological information to the body and into intercellular fluids is with nanodoses. Like the extremely low-frequency radio waves, it may be necessary to use extremely low (and activated) doses for a person to receive the medicinal effect.

It is important to understand that nanopharmacological doses will not have any effect unless the person is hypersensitive to the specific medicinal substance. Hypersensitivity is created when there is some type of resonance between the medicine and the person. Because the system of homeopathy bases its selection of the medicine on its ability to cause in overdose the similar symptoms that the sick person is experiencing, homeopathy's principle of similars is simply a practical method of finding the substance to which a person is hypersensitive.

The homeopathic principle of similars makes further sense when one considers that modern physiologists and pathologists recognize that disease is not simply the result of breakdown or surrender of the body but that symptoms are instead representative of the body's efforts to fight infection or adapt to stress.

Using a nanodose that is able to penetrate deeply into the body and that is specifically chosen for its ability to mimic the symptoms helps to initiate a profound healing process. It is also important to highlight the fact that a homeopathic medicine is not simply chosen for its ability to cause a similar disease but for its ability to cause a similar syndrome of symptoms of disease, of which the specific localized disease is a part. By understanding that the human body is a complex organism that creates a wide variety of physical and psychological symptoms, homeopaths acknowledge biological complexity and have a system of treatment to address it effectively.

Although no one knows precisely how homeopathic medicines initiate the healing process, we have more than 200 years of evidence from hundreds of thousands of clinicians and tens of millions of patients that these medicines have powerful effects. One cannot help but anticipate the veritable treasure trove of knowledge that further research in homeopathy and nanopharmacology will bring.

Nobel Prize-winning Scientist on Homeopathy...

Brian Josephson, Ph.D., (1940-) is a British physicist who won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 for work he completed when he was only 22 years old. He is currently a professor at the University of Cambridge where he is the head of the mind-matter unification project in the Theory of Condensed Matter research group.

Responding to an article in the New Scientist (October 18, 1997) that expressed skepticism about homeopathy, Josephson wrote:

Regarding your comments on claims made for homeopathy: criticisms centered around the vanishingly small number of solute molecules present in a solution after it has been repeatedly diluted are beside the point, since advocates of homeopathic remedies attribute their effects not to molecules present in the water, but to modifications of the water's structure.

Simple-minded analysis may suggest that water, being a fluid, cannot have a structure of the kind that such a picture would demand. But cases such as that of liquid crystals, which while flowing like an ordinary fluid can maintain an ordered structure over macroscopic distances, show the limitations of such ways of thinking. There have not, to the best of my knowledge, been any refutations of homeopathy that remain valid after this particular point is taken into account.

A related topic is the phenomenon, claimed by Jacques Benveniste's colleague Yolène Thomas and by others to be well established experimentally, known as "memory of water". If valid, this would be of greater significance than homeopathy itself, and it attests to the limited vision of the modern scientific community that, far from hastening to test such claims, the only response has been to dismiss them out of hand. (Josephson, 1997)

Later, when Josephson was interviewed by the New Scientist (December 9, 2006), he chose to emphasize that many scientists today suffer from "pathological disbelief"; that is, they maintain an unscientific attitude that is embodied by the statement "even if it were true I wouldn't believe it." Sadly, such scientists are simply showing evidence of an unscientific attitude.

Quantum Medicine

Quantum physics does not disprove Newtonian physics; quantum physics simply extends our understanding of extremely small and extremely large systems. Likewise, homeopathy does not disprove conventional pharmacology; instead, it extends our understanding of extremely small doses of medicinal agents. It is time that physicians and scientists began incorporating both Newtonian and quantum physics into a better understanding of what healing is and how to best augment it.

The founder of homeopathic medicine, Samuel Hahnemann, MD, rewrote and updated his seminal work on the subject five times in his lifetime, each time refining his observations. Homeopaths continue to refine this system of nanopharmacology. While there is not always agreement on the best ways to select the correct remedy or the best nanopharmacological dose to use, the system of homeopathic medicine provides a solid foundation from which clinicians and researchers exploring nanopharmacologies can and should explore.

Dana Ullman, MPH, is America's leading spokesperson for homeopathy and is the founder of www.homeopathic.com. He is the author of 10 books, including his bestseller, Everybody's Guide to Homeopathic Medicines. His most recent book is, The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy. Dana lives, practices, and writes from Berkeley, California.

References:

Chaplin, Martin. 2009 (updated regularly) http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/index2.html

Demangeat, J.-L., Gries, P., Poitevin, B., Droesbeke J.-J., Zahaf, T., Maton, F., Pierart, C., and Muller, R. N. Low-Field NMR Water Proton Longitudinal Relaxation in Ultrahighly Diluted Aqueous Solutions of Silica-Lactose Prepared in Glass Material for Pharmaceutical Use, Applied Magnetic Resonance, 2004, 26:465-481.

Elia, V. and Niccoli, M. Thermodynamics of Extremely Diluted Aqueous Solutions, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1999, 879:241-248.

Elia, V., Baiano, S., Duro, I., Napoli, E., Niccoli, M., and Nonatelli, L. Permanent Physio-chemical Properties of Extremely Diluted Aqueous Solutions of Homeopathic Medicines, Homeopathy, 2004, 93:144-150.

Josephson, B. D., Letter, New Scientist, November 1, 1997.

Rey, L. Thermoluminescence of Ultra-High Dilutions of Lithium Chloride and Sodium Chloride. Physica A, 2003, 323:67-74.

Roy, R., Tiller, W. A., Bell, I., and Hoover, M. R. The Structure of Liquid Water: Novel Insights from Materials Research; Potential Relevance to Homeopathy, Materials Research Innovations, December 2005, 9(4):577-608..

Ullman, Dana. "Let's have a serious discussion of nanopharmacology and homeopathy". FASEB. 2006;20:2661.

David Rock: Are Our Minds Going The Way Of Our Waists?

2009-12-11T17:46:33Z

The average waistline of people in the developed world has increased
400% in 25 years, with three-quarters of adults now overweight or obese. For the first time in history, there are literally more people overweight than there are starving.

One part of the problem is the food distribution system. In the absence of any oversight, the industrial food system has evolved to give people exactly what they want, and exactly what they don't need - the immediate gratification of high-calorific food. My breakfast muffin on a recent flight across the US was so insanely sugar-rich, a few crumbs of it would sweeten your coffee.

The other part of the problem is that our brain has terribly weak circuitry for inhibiting impulses, especially impulses that look delicious. The brain network involved in impulse control sits inside the smallest, most easily overwhelmed region of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. Like our limited ability to do complex calculations in our heads, impulse control is a limited resource that tires with each use.

Put these two issues together, cheap resources available everywhere and poor self-control, and you get a weight problem literally of epidemic proportions. The trouble is, this same phenomenon may be happening with our minds. If current trend continues, we could see millions of people's minds becoming as unhealthy and dysfunctional as their stomachs. The reason? Social media.

Social Issues Are Primary

My hyper-sugary muffin contained what is sometimes called 'empty calories'. Empty calories make you feel better short term, but your brain then craves more, and there's no nutritional goodness like this is in more complex foods. I have sense that we are rapidly moving toward giving people 24/7, easy access to 'empty neural calories'. These calories, in the form of perceived social connectivity, increase the overall stimulation of the brain, but may not do much to make our brain more integrated, adaptive or functional. In fact, just like sugar, some types of neural stimulation have you wanting more and more, without ever feeling satisfied. The result can be a reduction in healthy neural functioning.

The reason for this comes down to the way the brain processes social interactions. Social connections, literally feeling you are in a positive social exchange with another person, are classed as primary rewards by the brain, something essential for survival. As a result, your brain craves social connections using similar circuitry to how it craves sugary food.

Both sugary foods and positive social connections activate the reward circuits activate the reward circuits in the ventral striatum, releasing dopamine into the prefrontal cortex.

One way to understand this is to explore what happens in the absence of social connections. University of Chicago social neuroscientist John Cacioppo led a study of 229 people between 50 and 68 years old, finding a 30-point difference in blood pressure between those who experienced loneliness and those with healthy social connections. Loneliness, the study showed, could significantly increase the risk of death from stroke and heart disease.

As Cacioppo tried to understand the data, he realized that loneliness might be more important than society generally realizes. "Loneliness generates a threat response," Cacioppo explains, "the same as pain, thirst, hunger, or fear." Being connected to others in a positive way, feeling a sense of relatedness, is a basic need for human beings. An absence of glucose in the blood occurs as hunger, which makes you feel anxious until resolved with a good feed. The absence of social connections also generates a type of hunger, it's a hunger otherwise known as 'loneliness' that also makes you feel anxious until it's resolved.

It's this hunger that starts to explain the incredible success of organizations like Facebook and Twitter. When you connect with people online, you're getting a little zing in your reward center, which makes you want to stay there and keep zinging. Don't blame Facebook - like the food distribution system, they have just worked out what people most want, and are giving it to them as richly and intensely as possible. Social media sites are like an online candy store for your brain.

Empty neural calories

So far, so good. The trouble is, like a syrupy muffin, connecting socially online may be like eating empty calories. The circuitry activated when you connect online is the 'seeking' circuitry of dopamine. Yet when we connect with people online, we don't tend to get the oxytocin or seratonin calming reward that happens when we bond with someone in real time, when our circuits resonate with real-time shared emotions and experiences. As a result, you want more and more social connections. On Twitter, you rarely get to feel satisfied and 'full' the way you might if you chatted in person with 50 people at a conference (after which you'd want nothing more to do with people for a while as your circuits recovered.)

This problem was further explained in a story in Slate magazine.

In summary, there's a circuitry for 'seeking' and a circuitry for 'liking'. The 'liking' response settles down the excitement of the 'seeking' circuitry. Without the 'liking' response, we end up looking like the rat that keeps pressing the level over and over to get a little dopamine hit, forgetting all about food and rest.

To the brain, simply receiving new information tends to activate the reward circuitry: information itself can be rewarding, which prompted neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer to coin the term 'information craving.' Thus people can easily become addicted to getting information quickly and often. The social circuitry does the same thing, only sometimes more intensely. One new study, (still under review) showed that a computer saying 'good job' in an experiment activated people's reward circuitry more intensely than financial rewards.

Too much social seeking isn't good for you

The trouble with such ready access to empty social rewards is that we just keep wanting more. As this reward-seeking circuit fires up, our ability to hold more subtle ideas in mind diminishes: intense activation of the limbic system, which fires up with strong rewards or threats, results in the de-activation of prefrontal regions needed or executive control. An overabundance of dopamine, while it feels good on one level as sugar does, creates a mental hyperactivity that reduces your capacity for deeper focus. It is also likely to reduce one's ability to have more subtle insights, the kind required to solve complex problems. The ability to have insights is linked to one's capacity to notice 'weak activations,' which can be easily overwhelmed by the intense neural activity of a dopamine rush.

I am sensing a dramatic upswing in people's sense of overwhelm in the last three years. I don't think it's just the uncertainty of the economy. It's social media. Like delicious deserts, it's hard to say 'no' to. The brain loves it so (my brain included). Getting any work done these days with Twitter on in the background is like putting a 10 year-old child in a candy story and telling them they can't touch anything; they will be constantly distracted. What happens when you're distracted a lot? Your IQ goes down, one study (while funded by a tech company, was still a study) showed that leaving a communication device always on drops IQ by 15 points for men, same as taking up marijuana or losing a night's sleep.

If your job is to stay 'high' all the time and make tons of new connections, like a reporter on an entertainment show, then this hyperactive, dopamine-high state of mind isn't a problem - it can actually help. But if you're trying to focus, do any deeper thinking, or perhaps learn something, it's not such a good thing. Consider this from a blogger on Psychology Today.

A study this year by psychology students at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Ga., found that the more time young people spend on Facebook, the more likely they are to have lower grades and weaker study habits. Heavy Facebook users show signs of being more gregarious, but they are also more likely to be anxious, hostile or depressed. Almost a quarter of today's teens check Facebook more than 10 times a day, according to a 2009 survey by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group that monitors media's impact on families.

Self-regulation is a limited resource

All this wouldn't be a problem if our brain had stronger self-regulation systems. While people should in theory be able to regulate their own behavior, our self-regulation circuits are built out of the newest, most easily overwhelmed and easily tired region of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. We only have one circuit for inhibiting, which if used up for an inhibitory processes (like trying to diet, or not say the wrong thing) becomes diminished when used again. With ready, cheap and easy access to such immediate rewards, it's very tempting to be distracted, and very hard not to. And if you're tired or hungry, it may take more effort to inhibit a distraction like twitter than to just lose yourself in it - you brain's braking system is metabolically expensive.

The good news is it's possible to step out of this paradigm. The bad news is it's about as hard as practicing eating well. It takes discipline. It takes learning to switch off regularly from social media the way an overweight person has to learn to walk past a fast food outlet. We need to reduce the likelihood of distraction, not beat ourselves up for our distractability, which is only human after all. Limiting yourself to a specific amount of time on social media, while not easy, is one good plan to focus on.

The mental pyramid?

As a society, we should be studying the effects of new technologies more deeply, and making people aware of how they impact brain functioning. I am not saying we should regulate internet start ups, but we should be more proactive about understanding emerging technologies that take over people's attention. If nothing else, to ensure our children develop the right habits.

With food, there are worldwide efforts to educate kids about the 'food pyramid'. The food pyramid essentially says it's okay to eat cakes and sweets, but only one daily serving, and you need many more servings of fruits and vegetables in comparison. While we're not doing a great job on the food education front, at least we're trying. When it comes to the internet, it's a free-for-all, with no education or awareness of what a good mix of mental activities might be required for a healthy mind. I propose that we need to start thinking about the mental health pyramid. In the end it's going to be some combination of focused mental time (perhaps less than we'd like), mental resting time, plus allowing just a small serving daily of social hyper-connectivity.

It's time to develop a concerted approach to understanding the impact of these new technologies on ourselves, and on future generations of adults. Let's do this before we find ourselves battling an epidemic with even wider reaching implications.

For more on how your brain functions during everyday activities, see my new book 'Your Brain at Work'.

Ellen Langer: The Medicalization Of Mundane Experience: The "Syndrome" Syndrome

2009-12-08T17:49:45Z

My fingers hurt after I've been typing all day; I get cranky and bloated once a month before I get my period; and every time I eat Chinese food I have chest pains from the MSG I consumed. Uncomfortable yes; tragic, probably not. Some sensations are, of course, worse: after radiation therapy I vomit; sometimes I have pain and muscle weakness in my shoulder.

At least to me, these symptoms don't sound as bad or irreversible as they do once they are called syndromes. There are actually 97 named syndromes. As a culture, I think we have the syndrome syndrome--the naming of sensations. This kind of naming has a hidden downside in that it may actually cause ill health.

There are syndromes that have been categorized and those that haven't. For example, there are those syndromes that stem from environmental causes like Acute Radiation Syndrome that results from radiation exposure and leads to vomiting, bloody diarrhea, exhaustion and Chinese Restaurant Syndrome that is a reaction to MSG and leads to chest pain and a burning sensation. There are cardiovascular syndromes like Shoulder-Hand Syndrome which results from Myocardial Infarction leading to Pain in the shoulder and swelling in hand. There are endocrine syndromes like Premenstrual Syndrome that results in abnormal sensation in the breasts, abdominal pain, thirst, headache, pelvic congestion, nervous irritability. There are neurological syndromes like Carpal-Tunnel Syndrome which is a compression of the median nerve through the carpal tunnel that leads to pain and parasthesia.

And there are syndromes that are uncategorized, like Munchausen Syndrome, which is malingering--where people make up a clinically convincing disease. There is even, Munchausen syndrome by proxy where a person deliberately causes injury or illness to another person (most often his child) usually to gain attention or some other benefit.

What all of these and the remaining ninety not mentioned have in common is that people who are given these diagnoses probably feel some relief in knowing that their discomfort is "real." (Of course, it's real. Why should we think psychological discomfort is any less real than physical discomfort?) The problem is that once symptoms are given a name they run the risk of becoming more permanent than they might otherwise have to be.

Labels lead to expectations and expectations tend to be fulfilled. Surely there are instances when there are no symptoms, but these times are easily overlooked, making the diagnosis seem that much more accurate.

When we expect to have symptoms, we over-assimilate our experience to those expectations. Very minor stomach discomfort, for example, is seen as PMS, even though on a particular occasion it could have resulted from overeating.

More important, when we expect symptoms now that we know we have a legitimate medical condition, we may be less likely to take steps to self-heal. After all, one may think, if it can be self-healed it wouldn't be a medical condition in the first place.

These syndromes are evidence of the medicalization of mundane experience. Sensations fluctuate. Sometimes they are there and sometimes not; sometimes their felt effects are great and sometimes not. By naming them we tend to hold them still and overlook all of this variability. If we mindfully attended to the changes we would at least stand a chance of healing them ourselves.

For example, if I have Carpal-Tunnel Syndrome I will not experience the same degree of pain every time I work at the computer. If I notice the changes in my experience--sometimes it hurts more and sometimes it hurts less--I may think to ask why this is so. Once I ask the question I can start testing my hypothesis. Perhaps when I'm writing something required I'm tense when at the computer while writing to friends does not result in any discomfort. If this were the case, then I should try to figure out how to make the assignment less stressful resulting in diminished symptoms and the end of the syndrome.

Nothing stays the same so no matter what the syndrome or disease, we can gain control in this way by mindfully attending to the variability and then questioning why the change ocurred. If everything becomes a syndrome, we give up this control over our health. The cure, then, for the Syndrome Syndrome is to become mindful.

Dr. Andrew Lange: How Thyroid Medications Can Destroy Your Thyroid

2009-12-08T15:00:55Z

Many people with thyroid disease have trouble getting well. The majority of hypothyroid disease is actually an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto thyroiditis. As an autoimmune disease Hashimoto thyroiditis attacks the cells of the thyroid slowly destroying its ability to function. Unfortunately, even when the disease is diagnosed correctly, the common treatment is just to replace the diminished thyroid hormone, usually with an oral tablet or pill of the thyroid hormone thyroxine (T4 or levothyroxine), a synthetic analog. According to conventional medical practice, most patients with hypothyroidism will need to be on T4 treatment for the rest of their lives.

The problem with only giving hormone replacement, is it does nothing to stop the progression of the true disease; it only masks some of the symptoms. So initially your thyroid tests come back normal. Meanwhile your immune system is still attacking your thyroid. Eventually your symptoms may get worse and more thyroid hormone may be prescribed. So while you are increasing your levels of thyroid hormones, making your levels of thyroid look normal on the lab results, you are still getting worse.

This may come as a shock. It did to me. I was taught both the conventional and alternative methods for treating thyroid disease, neither of which was wholly satisfying. It made so much sense to understand its autoimmune aspect, and it helped me to find solutions in situations in which I had previously failed. Autoimmune thyroid problems can present as hyperthyroid or hypothyroid. It may be marked by an inability to regulate our response to thyroid medications.

Symptoms common to hypothyroidism are:

• Enlarged thyroid (or goiter)
• Trouble swallowing
• Intolerance to cold
• Mild weight gain
• Fatigue
• Constipation
• Dry skin
• Hair loss
• Heavy and irregular menses
• Infertility
• Difficulty concentrating or thinking
(Source: The Hormone Foundation)

So how should it be treated? Autoimmune diseases are multi-factorial in their causes. That means that further tests must be done to properly evaluate the real underlying source of the disease. Some of the most common factors are:

• Wheat (gluten) sensitivities or celiac disease,
• Sudden changes in the hormone estrogen that may occur after pregnancy, abortions or menopause.
• Heavy metal toxicity.
• Vitamin D deficiency.
The important FACT is that without a more complete assessment of a complex situation, proper treatment is more than unlikely. And despite most usually reliable sites such as the mayoclinic.com, there is mention that the problem is autoimmune, but it's treatment as such is not addressed.

How can you find out if this is a problem for you? First you can discuss this with your doctor or endocrinologist. This is not a hidden secret, ask them about testing for autoantibodies. Most endocrinologists perform these tests regularly. The two major ones tested are Thyroid Antithyroglobulin Ab and Thyroid Peroxidase Ab. People with Hashimoto's disease have these antibodies in increased amounts, but people whose hypothyroidism is caused by other conditions do not. You can also find a source for testing thyroid autoantibodies by visiting: http://saveonlabs.com/wordpress/?page_id=151

Autoimmune diseases are not simple to treat and they require a sophisticated understanding of biochemistry and nutrition. But with proper diagnosis, the path to healing becomes more clearly defined.

Srinivasan Pillay: Depression: Illness Or Stuckness?

2009-12-08T09:54:54Z

It is incontrovertible that depression itself accounts for much suffering in the world. It is estimated that approximately 16.2 percent of adults will have one major depressive episode at some point in their lives, and that in any 12-month period, about 5 percent of people in the US have depression (that is approximately 1 in 18-20). When people are depressed, they are not just "down in the dumps", but also have trouble sleeping and eating and may find their energy and concentration "low" with little interest in day-to-day activities. In the worst cases they may also be suicidal. Thus, this state of being can lead to tremendous diminutions in productivity and life can seem to pass by unless this problem is addressed. Antidepressants and certain forms of psychotherapy have been found to be helpful. Still, there are times when, despite the suffering that depression causes, I wonder: what makes this an "illness"? And does thinking of this as an illness help in the long-term?

In other aspects of medicine, illness is usually quite obvious. We either see organisms that should not be there under microscopes, or we see cells dividing as they should not be. This kind of "evidence" helps to convince us that something other than "ourselves" is causing what we have. While this is also debatable, it is not within the purview of this article. What is, though, is depression, and whether we have enough "evidence' to support thinking of it as an illness.

Points in support of depression being an illness are: (1) brain imaging studies that show that the brains of depressed people do not look like the brains of other people; (2) that the syndrome can be diagnosed using set criteria; (3) that when we put chemicals into peoples' bodies (like SSRIs), they feel better; (4) that sometimes, until people are "treated" they are stuck in their lives for years. These and some other factors support the view of depression as an illness, but I do not find them convincing or without some doubt.

It is clear from studies done so far that depression is part genetic, and part acquired. and that things that happen in our lives can make us feel badly. Divorce, separation loss and boredom can all lead to depression and the stuckness that depression brings. But why do we need to think of this as an "illness" in order to take it seriously? Is the suffering of depression not enough to take it seriously anyway? Do we do so because we have to refer the problem to psychiatrists? That is, because depression was defined by people in the psychological field who have to justify why you should consult us, is there not something biased about "marketing" the idea of "illness" to justify a living? Is it possible that people feel too ashamed about being "human" and being victims of this inert state, that since this state is pretty widespread, we all come to collude that this must in fact be an illness since thinking otherwise would have many deleterious impacts: it would mean that we are somehow responsible for being a way that appears to have come on suddenly; it implies that insurance companies would not reimburse for this and that somehow, if we do not call it an illness, then we can't "justify" our suffering.

Clearly, the world is growing in its perspectives about how to manage depression. Sports enthusiasts will swear to the benefits of physical activity (to eliminate an illness?), yoga practitioners will swear to the benefits of movement and new spiritual perspectives (to eliminate an illness?) and still others will swear to changing around one's life (new partner, new job, new place to live) to address this threatening quality of stagnation.

My objections to just widely accepting the "illness" view are these : (1) People come to integrate their "illnesses" into their identities, and in the long-term often bring more suffering into their lives; (2) People tend to hold a secret 'shame" about their illnesses; (3) People tend to feel disempowered to do anything about their illnesses; (4) People think only in terms of psychiatry, when in fact, coaches, physical trainers, yoga instructors and friends can all make a huge difference.

My view here is that depression is serious, affecting, needs to be attended to and well within the purview of psychiatry, psychology and related fields. We can be helpful. But the "label" of "illness" is best handled with questions: Am I really "ill" or am I experiencing something very difficult to handle? If I change my brain chemistry, what else am I doing to my brain? Is this a short-term or long-term state? How much of this is a part of being human and what are the other 80% of people who appear to never have depression doing?

My recommendations: even if you suffer from depression, always ask questions about this "state". Within the field of psychological and psychiatric research, we ask questions all the time-so why shouldn't you? What would it mean to you if depression was not an illness? Why would this matter?

John McDougall, M.D.: ACS Chief Sends Mixed Messages On Mammography

2009-12-07T16:49:12Z

Dr. Otis Brawley, Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society, voiced strong support for annual mammography for women beginning at age 40 in an Op-Ed piece published November 20, 2009, in newspapers nationwide. This position is in sharp contrast to his statement about mammography made in the New York Times on Wednesday, October 21, 2009. On that day he told women "We don't want people to panic, but I'm admitting that American medicine has overpromised when it comes to screening. The advantages to screening have been exaggerated." Dr. Brawley has known about the questionable benefits of screening for more than a decade. Regarding mammography, his words in the August 2000 issue of Hematology/Oncology Clinics of North America were, "There has been considerable debate about the benefit:harm ratio of mammography screening for women below the age of 50 years, and about what proportion of the observed benefit arises from screening that occurs after these women have entered their 50s." The burden of proof of "the benefits outweighing the harms" rests with those making the recommendations--the American Cancer Society and its Chief Medical Officer in this case. Dr. Brawley has voiced doubt about the benefits of mammography, and now appears conflicted by communicating two opposing stands in less than a month. The American Cancer Society, on the other hand, has remained steadfast in a position that enhances the profits of breast cancer-related businesses, regardless of the effects on women.

Adequate scientific evidence to stop mass screening programs, such as mammography, has been readily available for more than three decades. In 1976 Pietro M. Gullino presented his findings on the natural history of cancer, showing "early detection" is really "late detection," at the Conference on Breast Cancer: A Report to the Profession, sponsored by the White House, the National Cancer Institute, and the American Cancer Society. He explained: "If the time required for a tumor to double its diameter during a known period of time is taken as a measure of growth rate, one can calculate by extrapolation that two-thirds of the duration of a breast cancer remains undetectable by the patient or physician. Long before a breast carcinoma can be detected by present technology, metastatic spread may occur and does in most cases." This report was subsequently published in the journal representing the American Cancer Society (Cancer 1977 Jun;39(6 Suppl):2697-703).

This largely invisible natural history of breast cancer was further explained to doctors and scientists in 1997 in an article published in the Journal of Surgical Oncology titled, "On the growth rates of human malignant tumors: implications for medical decision-making." The authors, Friberg and Mattson concluded, "Most tumors are several years old when detectable by present-day diagnostic methods. This makes the term 'early detection' questionable." (J Surg Oncol. 1997 Aug;65(4):284-97).

For a cancer in the breast to grow from one cell to one centimeter in diameter--a size that can be detected by breast self-examination or mammography--on average takes ten years. Unfortunately, when the cancer is still so tiny that it cannot be detected, it nevertheless has already spread (metastasized in medical terminology) to other parts of the body in virtually every case of true cancer (as opposed to the latent forms of cancer). It is the cancer cells that have spread to, say, the liver, lungs, bones, and brain, that kill the patient, and not the cancer cells confined to the breast.

Just as tragic is the devastation to the lives of millions of women with indolent cancers (the latent forms) that would have never appeared in their lifetime if no one had been busy looking for them with screening programs. Once found, these nonthreatening lesions are aggressively treated with life-changing surgeries, radiation treatments, and/or chemotherapies.

The American Cancer Society and its representatives need to provide an unambiguous message to women that screening mammography is a blunt technology, and that even after four decades of use the evidence has not shown that the benefits outweigh the harms. Understanding the natural history of this disease could lead to no other conclusion.

John McDougall, MD
www.drmcdougall.com

Sound Body Equals Sound Mind, Study Finds

2009-12-06T10:08:28Z

A new study proves the old Roman saying, "A sound mind in a sound body" �" the more fit one's heart is, the more one's brain seems to benefit, scientists now find.

Julia Moulden: The Aging Population: A Silver Tsunami?

2009-12-05T07:00:00Z

I just spent two days with some smart, thoughtful people, talking about something everyone knows is coming, but most of us are in denial about. No, not climate change. Our aging population. Here's a small slice: in 2000, there were 600 million people 60 and over worldwide. By 2025, that number will double. And right now in the developed world, people 80 and over are the fastest growing population group.

Two hundred people from around the world gathered at The Business of Aging Summit in Toronto (co-hosted by MaRS Discovery District and the Province of Ontario), to talk about the challenge and opportunity of what was quickly dubbed the "silver tsunami".

In fact, whether our aging population will be a deficit or a dividend was hotly debated. By the end of the summit, I was listing heavily to one side. Yes, there are huge challenges, and we must acknowledge and address them. But, ohmigod, such amazing things are underway and we are going to reshape the world!

In my head, I replaced the tsunami with a gorgeous wave - huge but not terrifying - and all of my favorite experts were yelling "surf's up!" and paddling their boards madly into the roiling waters. Here are the people you'll see riding the crest of this wave. (If you're like me and need a little soundtrack to go along with your visualization, try the boomer-friendly Hawaii 5-0.)

• Jane Barratt
Jane will be the first one into the water. Secretary-General of the International Federation on Ageing, she kicked off the summit with the thought that aging begins at birth. "I'm not an older person, I'm a person who's growing older." She got us thinking about why we need to create an age-friendly society, and how each of us can contribute. In fact, she was particularly emphatic that this work can't be left to the "experts", that we all need to speak up and chip in.

• John Beard
He had me from hello. John showed us a news item about a woman working on her 100th birthday. "Why is this news?" he asked. "Because she's 100, of course, and because she's working. This won't be abnormal in the future." He then debunked a bunch of myths about aging, like that older people are a burden on society (in fact, most of us continue to live independently right up to our last year of life). That the real objective is how to stretch out what he calls the middle years - by doing things like preventing chronic illness, creating environments that foster engagement, and introducing age-appropriate care. John is Director of the Department of Ageing and Life Course at the World Health Organization in Geneva. Check out their website for data and publications about how we can all adapt to what's coming and realize potential benefits.

• Alvaro Fernandez
Imagine a workplace brain fitness program that will help you think better now and ward off the symptoms of dementia as you age. One that is grounded in two decades of research. That's what Alvaro and his team are developing at Sharp Brains. It's one of the projects launched by Cogniciti, a joint venture between MaRS and Baycrest (a health sciences centre), created to bring cutting-edge research to market.

• Laurie Orlov
Laurie's New Radical career started with a deeply personal event: the death of her mother in 2006 (New Radicals are people who put skills acquired in their careers to work on the world's greatest challenges, for more please see archived articles). A technology industry veteran, Laurie realized that tech could be used to help seniors achieve one of their goals - to "age in place". So she founded Aging in Place Technology Watch to provide insight, analysis, and guidance about technologies that can help people do just that. Great resources on her site. Not to be missed.

• Saul Kaplan
The fact that he calls himself Chief Catalyst and his organization the Business Innovation Factory speaks volumes about Saul. He got us all stirred up by asking "where's the urgency, where's the outrage?". He insisted that we don't need to simply tweak existing systems, but transform them. His team designs and tests new solutions in real-world laboratories, including something they call the "Elder Experience Lab". Highly recommended. (And count on Saul to be wearing the most creative trunks.)

Buzz Aldrin, one of the first two astronauts to walk on the moon (and fellow HuffPo blogger), was supposed to wrap up the summit, but had to cancel due to illness (we wish him a speedy recovery!). As the full moon rose in the early evening sky over Toronto, Buzz's stepdaughter, Lisa Cannon, showed us a video that brought back memories for everyone in the room (where were you when they walked on the moon in 1969?). She spoke about the insatiable curiousity of humankind, and our desire to try new things - in JFK's phrase, "Not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

I'll be writing more about who's out there surfing the wave, including what technology companies like Cisco are doing, about cool new ideas in urban planning, transportation, health care, and storytelling - and how it all fits together. In the meantime, be sure to sign up at the Business of Aging website.

Now, over to you. Do you think the "silver tsunami" is a problem or an opportunity? And should we suggest to Arianna that HuffPo add a new section called, perhaps, Silver? Please comment below, or feel free to email me directly: Julia (that familiar symbol) wearethenewradicals (punctuation) (COM).

Julia Moulden is on tour, talking about the New Radicals.

Breast-Feeding May Protect Moms' Health

2009-12-04T11:08:23Z

Breast-feeding may offer mothers long-term protection against a condition linked to diabetes and heart disease, researchers report today.

Vaccine Tested In Fight Against Tainted Beef

2009-12-04T10:45:41Z

Jason Timmerman coaxed a balky calf into a chute on his feedlot one recent afternoon and jabbed a needle into its neck. He was injecting the animal with a new vaccine to make it immune to a dangerous form of the E. coli bacteria.

Lloyd I. Sederer, MD: Antipsychotic Medication Use In Children And Adolescents: What's A Parent To Do?

2009-12-04T10:37:11Z

If you are among the great predominance of families whose children merely drive you mad, rather than suffer from some form of serious mental illness, this commentary need not concern you (directly). But a small percentage of children in this country will suffer, by the time they are 18 (especially in late adolescence), from symptoms of a major mental disorder where thinking, behavior and mood are severely impacted and functioning as a member of the family, a friend and in school is clearly compromised. The conditions I am referring to are the psychotic illnesses of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as well as some youth with autism (on the severe end of the spectrum), aggressive behaviors, and an uncommon but disruptive tic disorder called Tourette Syndrome. These are conditions for which doctors often prescribe antipsychotic medications such as aripiprazole (Abilify), olanzapine (Zyprexa) quetiapine (Seroquel), and risperidone (Respirdal and other brands).

A recent Journal of the American Medical Association article (October 28, 2009) by Dr. Christoph Correll and colleagues reported on a 12 week trial of these four antipsychotic medications, so called "second generation" drugs because of their more recent development, in children from age four to 19 who had not previously received this class of medication. The children received medication doses decided upon by their doctors; a comparison group of youth was followed and did not receive any of these medications. The research sought to ask if there were significant changes in three important physical measures in this short period of time: weight, lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides), and insulin resistance (a measure of how the body handles sugar that is predictive of obesity and diabetes). Their results were disturbing.

All four of the studied antipsychotic medications were associated with weight gain, ranging from about 10 to 22 pounds, with the comparison group showing no significant changes, in 12 weeks. Significant changes in body lipids were associated with three of the medications but not with aripiprazole or the comparison group. Evidence of changes in glucose and insulin were noted only for olanzapine.

In 2007, New York State Commissioner of Mental Health Mike Hogan (disclosure - my boss) and I wrote an advisory entitled: Bipolar Disorder in Children: Why are the Rates Rising?

Rates of the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents had risen forty (40) times in ten years. What was going on? Genes surely don't mutate that quickly, nor families, and while the environment continues to worsen it is not at that rate. The diagnosis of bipolar disorder was being made liberally, perhaps to better identify those youth in need of treatment, but at a price we are increasingly seeing since the diagnosis is usually accompanied by the prescription of an antipsychotic medication. New additions to what doctors will prescribe are likely now that the FDA Psychopharmacological Drugs Advisory Committee (June 2009) approved quetiapine and olanzapine for the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar mania (risperidone had already been approved) - though the FDA has yet to act on the Committee's approvals.

I am not crusading against the use of antipsychotic medications in youth. These medications are a proven treatment for youth with psychotic illness and thus critical to their safety, health and recovery. Untreated psychosis, over time, is known to be "neurotoxic", which is to say that in ways we do not yet understand the brain undergoes tissue destruction, at a time of important brain development, with resulting loss of functioning. The dilemma, thus for families and doctors, is that a needed treatment brings with it significant side-effects and health risks. Serious mental illness in a child is a very tough and sometimes heartbreaking journey for a family, all the more unsettling by evidence that treatment can carry its own - and a different - set of problems.

As Commissioner Hogan and I wrote in the Bipolar Advisory, and the same applies to all major mental illnesses, doctors and families need to prudently pursue a thorough diagnostic evaluation to feel confident that a psychotic disorder warranting antipsychotic treatment is what your child is experiencing. Families are entitled to full information about their child and should not be shy about asking questions that are answered in everyday English that explain the basis for the diagnosis offered - and what to expect from treatment, including benefits and risks. A second opinion, when in doubt, or if treatment is complex or not working well enough, should be sought; any doctor who does not welcome a second opinion is probably a doctor worth getting rid of. Youth change, and so does their illness, so
reconsidering the diagnosis from time to time, and the treatment, is fair and should not be dismissed as some form of denial of the reality of a child's illness.

When antipsychotic medications are needed, guidelines for their use have been developed for psychiatric practice. In general, a doctor should seek the minimal effective dose; there is no evidence for using more than one antipsychotic medication, called polypharmacy, though in exceptional instances, with an individual patient, it may prove useful (but ask the doctor to explain why one antipsychotic will not suffice); and medications should be sustained as long as necessary but that does not necessarily mean forever. With the now indisputable evidence of the effects of "second generation" antipsychotics on weight, lipids and likely glucose metabolism (over time), and the consequent risk for heart disease, diabetes, and stroke (to name a few diseases) these health measures need careful monitoring combined with efforts to improve nutrition and exercise, and help youth elude the dangers of tobacco, alcohol and drugs that will add to their problems. Research is underway to determine if there may be medications (now used in diabetes treatment) that may help avert these problems, and the search for better antipsychotic medications, with more benefit and fewer side-effects, continues.

Families need to also understand that medications are only one of the interventions that can be provided your child. Specific psychotherapies complement medications and work to improve thinking, mood and everyday social and educational functioning. Don't settle for just medications when more can be done. And talk to other families who also struggle with the dilemma of how to care for their child while minimizing harm.

The opinions expressed herein are solely my own as a psychiatrist and public health advocate.
Lloyd I Sederer, MD