Good Calories, Bad Calories: Ignoring the Paradox And Trashing Carbs.

In reading Good Calories, Bad Calories, there is a hope that the author will give a balanced viewpoint of the situation.  He disproves the idea that fat causes weight gain, then takes issue with the idea that carbs cause weight gain. 

In a chapter entitle the Paradox, he points out that when you starve people they lose various amounts of weight.  He also shows that when you stuff people they gain various amounts of weight.  So any blanket statement about weight gain and weight loss is moot.  It doesn't exist.

Then, because everyone needs an ending, he goes back to carbs and makes them the villain.  It isn't just the carbs, it's the insulin imbalance caused by the carbs.  But wait, didn't we just show that it wasn't straight carbs and that any weight gain or loss is a highly individualized process?   Under those circumstances, wouldn't it be possible that some individuals might even gain weight by eating fat? 

What starts off extremely well becomes one more carb trash fest while glorying the joys of meat and fat.  What's missing from all this is some allowance for the fact that we all cannot eat meat and survive as a planet.  It isn't a sustainable eating pattern, and it isn't terribly healthy.  We've got other books that make that clear.  They are focused on lifespan, rather than weight loss. 

The End Of Illness. David Agus' Inability to See His Own Prejudices.

One day I too hope to write the definitive book on the cure for Cancer.  But I think I will base my treatment protocols on more than one reference book.   

Let me begin by saying I like much of The End of Illness.  Dr. Agus and I agree on many things, including that Michael Pollan does a wonderful job of talking about food.  But my admiration for Pollan does not distract me from the simple reality that Pollan is one of hundreds of opinions about food and what we should eat. 



So, I do not base my recommendations about food while referencing a single author, no matter how authoritative. 

Given that Dr. Agus' focus is on food, and that he spends a great deal of time trashing supplements of all kinds, I would expect a little more emphasis on what will be the most curative diet.  For it is diet alone, and nothing else, that will impact our genetic inheritance and help us live. 

I disagree with the concept that we'll be getting personalized medication any time soon.  Perhaps the very wealthy will be able to afford the sort of technological testing Dr. Agus describes, but the reality is that for almost everyone modern medicine is too expensive already. 

And here is the the fundamental flaw I see in the End of Illness.  Dr. Agus dedicates a huge section of the book to really making readers second-guess taking even a multivitamin because of the possible health consequences.  But he waxes rhapsodic about the benefits of the Statin medications and baby aspirin, taking both himself for "preventative purposes."  Hello?  We're not talking about inert medications.  A statistic percent of those following Dr. Agus' recommendations of daily statins and baby aspirins will suffer debilitating muscle pains and/or hemorrhagic stroke as a result of his "preventative" pharmaceutical supplements.  While we have large studies that show possible risks from overuse of multivitamins, we have no large scale studies that confirm the benefits of statins or aspirin for the general population without the real risk of side effects for a minority of those individuals. 

To place preventative supplementation off limits as a clear negative while recommending pharmaceutical medications as healthy and safe clearly shows a prejudice and double-standard for conventional medical "solutions."  Given the cost and safety profile of the statins, they are at least as dangerous for the general population as the Vitamin E supplements that Dr. Agus so effectively vilifies.  And aspirin is as dangerous to elderly populations as their multivitamin.  So we are left with food as the only panacea, and that needs a bit more book time that simply gushing over Pollan's ideas. 

17 Day Diet, Really the 68 Day Diet

Well, like anyone I was intrigued by the idea of a 17 day diet.  Really?  That's all it takes to conquer obesity in America?  How could we have been so foolish? 

But then I found out it was really four cycles of 17 days, and I thought:  this guy's been watching too many late night infomercials:  "Just four cycles of 17 days each..."  but the 68 day diet just doesn't sound as sexy.

You can do the 17 minute workout, get the 17 day meal packages, spend a great deal of time thinking about why it isn't the 15.7 day diet or the 18.33 day diet.  When you watch Dr. Moreno defend the 17 there really isn't any reason why the other two numbers wouldn't work.  Wouldn't part of a day be better at confusing the body? 

In the end, it's one more young, healthy male doctor explaining to middle aged women that they just need more discipline when really it's a matter of hormones.

Does Alternative Medicine Cost More Money Or Less For Fibromyalgia?

There are two schools of thought on this issue.  One says that adding insurance coverage for alternative medicine will cost more money because people will use both.  The other says that using alternative medicine saves money because people get less sick and take care of themselves more.  Can we have the drumroll please?  The cost less people win!  Washington state did an analysis of people who had coverage and the people who use alternative medicine cost the insurance companies about $400 dollars less.  Most interesting is that the really sick people cost insurers almost $1500 less per year.  Some of these people had  back pain, fibromyalgia or menopausal symptoms. 

In terms of Fibromyalgia, I went looking for the alternatives for Fibromyalgia on WebMD.  The person writing about Fibromyalgia is an M.D. who happens to have Fibromyalgia.  He's written thirteen books on Fibromyalgia.  He also happens to be "a physician speaker for pharmaceutical companies that make medications used to treat fibromyalgia."  I sense a vague conflict of interest when discussing alternative treatments as primary. Not surprisingly, he doesn't mention dietary change, GABA, DHEA, probiotics, or a range of other likely treatments.  Instead he focuses on a number of antidepressant herbs that are basically milder versions of the antidepressant pharmaceuticals being used.   

In focusing on the antidepressant aspect of treatment, our expert is playing to the "all in your head" phenomenon I see more and more often in chronic diseases.  But the reality is that a range of other factors affect Fibromyalgia patients, including a blunted adrenal response.  A number of different studies support this connection (one is below).  So rather than saying it's all in your head, we should be looking at the rest of the body.  Maybe this is why alternative medicine saves people money.  We look toward the big picture rather than just managing the symptoms. 

J Rehabil Med. 2010 Sep;42(8):765-72.


Evidence of reduced sympatho-adrenal and hypothalamic-pituitary activity during static muscular work in patients with fibromyalgia.

Kadetoff D, Kosek E.

SourceOsher Center For Integrative Medicine, Stockholm Brain Institute, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To assess activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis during static exercise in patients with fibromyalgia.
PATIENTS AND METHODS: Sixteen patients with fibromyalgia and 16 healthy controls performed a static knee extension until exhaustion. Plasma catecholamines, adrenocorticotropic hormone and cortisol, as well as blood pressure and heart rate, were assessed before, during and following contraction. Plasma C reactive protein was analysed at baseline.
RESULTS: Blood pressure and heart rate increased during contraction (p < 0.001) and decreased following contraction (p < 0.001) in both groups alike. Compared with baseline, plasma catecholamines increased during contraction in both groups (p < 0.001), but patients with fibromyalgia had lower levels of plasma adrenaline (p < 0.04) and noradrenaline (p < 0.08) at all times. Adrenocorticotropic hormone increased at exhaustion in controls (p < 0.001), but not in patients with fibromyalgia, who also had lower adrenocorticotropic hormone at exhaustion (p < 0.02) compared with controls. There were no group differences, or changes over time in plasma cortisol. High sensitivity C reactive protein was higher in patients with fibromyalgia compared with controls (p < 0.02).

Homeopathy: Boy, It Makes the Pharma Boys Quake.

Imagine, just imagine, that we had a process whereby we could take a single bottle of aspirin and use it to treat every single person on the planet.  Where we could orally vaccinate an entire third world country for a tenth of the cost.  Where families that could not afford medications for their dying children could receive medications for free.  Not donated by a charity, for free because the cost of producing the medication is so low that it can be given away by other families for free.  Wouldn't that be a good thing? 

Not if you want to make money, it wouldn't.  Hence the amazing resistance to homeopathy, and the perpetual attacks upon it.  If homeopathy replaced pharmaceuticals in even a small area, the billions saved would make the whole world sit up and take notice.  We'd have a roll-back to patients preparing their own remedies, a drop-off in surgeries and office visits, and a significant decrease in the total dollars spent on health care.  Most importantly, we'd finally see the huge hole in the logic that the "cure" for anything is a pharmaceutical.  Pharmaceuticals primarily manage, they rarely cure. 

 I got to read another salvo from Dr. Steven Novella recently.  He's upset because Dr. Oz has a TV show and he doesn't.  So he attacks Dr. Oz's credibility and insults his wife.  It's sort of disturbing, but since Dr. Novella works for Yale as a professional skeptic/neurologist I suppose we should assume he's well balanced. 

So here's a nice video of that supposed quack Dr. Oz washing up for surgery.  Compare him to his critic lower down. 

I do wonder what Dr. Novella will do with the upcoming radio show for Dana Ullman, author of the Homeopathic Revolution.  I imagine a bit of frothing at the mouth, following by some eye twitching.  All in a day's work for a professional skeptic.  I can only imagine that they must run shrieking from the aisles of supplements filling every supermarket, hunkering down in the canned goods aisles and filling their baskets with conservative choices like Spam and Twinkies.  At the checkout line they have to avert their eyes from every magazine, all trumpeting alternative treatments.  It's a lonely life, somewhat of a hermetic existance, and the nightly flagellation in penance for enjoying aromatherapy candles or a nice long bath has to get a bit wearing. 

That most skeptics are men is telling.  They also must be clueless men, because in all likelihood their spouses are merrily buying all the soaps and supplements they desire.  So these men, unable to bring their version of truth into the home,  seek solace with other men online.  What they are really saying is the world isn't going my way and I don't like it.  It is fortunate that the women of the world are running things, because for these guys anything beyond the stone scapel and a rock to bite on is too newfangled to be trusted.

For some basic research about homeopathy, please have a look at http://www.maloneymedical.com/id30.html  

Ernst Reporting On Colic Alternatives.

Since I can link to Amazon easily from Blogger, I thought I would provide a link to Ernst's book.  He's not an objective observer of alternative medicine, he's one of the outspoken skeptics.  So his reporting on studies involving alternative medicine should not be taken as definitive.  Here's my other report on colic, and my webpage showing his review, a previous review by the same journal, and the evidence in support of alternative medicine. 

The Prophet: Eye Opening If You Actually Read It.

I truly love the passages about children and how to think of our responsibility to them.  But in continuing reading, I found myself in strong disagreement with a range of Gibran's other assessments of how we should live our lives. 

How often do we hear quotations about Gibran's take on the law?  Forgiveness and looking inward toward our own guilt concerning the crime do not seem to answer many of the needs I see around us. 

So I find myself wanting to explore the book with a group.  Can we truly ask any society to live the way he describes?  Can we live in any society that does not aspire to the ideals, knowing that they are out of reach? 

Gandhi: One of the Few Untouchables.

I mean untouchable in terms of personal integrity, not a reference to the caste system.

It is truly an extraordinary story, how a man went from being an English lawyer to the de facto leader of a non-violent revolution.  It was his mother who would fast if things displeased her, and his English law degree helped him understand what would push the English out.  But it is the moment when Gandhi was shoved off the train and fought back that I think is his most courageous moment.  He was no one.  To start a mad group willing to burn their registration papers, and to allow himself to be beaten senseless in trying to do so, without fighting back.

All the rest is history, but it is his time as a nobody fighting an impossible fight and winning that really inspires me.

William Shakespeare: Would He Be Writing Now?

It is unfortunate to think, that were Shakespeare alive today, he probably be a speechwriter or an advertising executive.  He might even be in one of those high priced think tanks where they come up with catchy names for new pharmaceutical drugs.  But he most definitely would not be writing for some theater in England.  And he probably would have given up on iambic pentameter, because his editor would have given him heck for "making up words." 

Sometimes a man is perfect for his time. 

Probiotic Capsules: A New Pharmacy Section in the Supermarket.

I'm suddenly seeing a great number of probiotic products on the supermarket pharmacy section shelves.  Looking through the claims and labels, these products are overwhelmingly similar to health food store offerings with one exception.  They are not refrigerated. 

Consumer reports did an analysis of probiotics some years back and found that the die off from manufacture date to purchase time was pretty extraordinary.  An equivalent metaphor would be packaged fish.  It might be possible to package fish well enough that they wouldn't start to stink, but that would be a pretty gamey fish by the time you got it. 

For any and all of you considering probiotics, either go to a refrigerated product or use the yogurts in the dairy aisle.  Ounce for ounce probiotic capsules are more concentrated, but we generally eat far more yogurt at a sitting.  So they work out to be equivalent.  Consumer reports found that all yogurt brands continued to have live bacteria. 

If you are determined to buy probiotics, consult someone like me.  I can at least tell you what brands are doing independent testing at the consumer end to make the little guys are still alive. 

The Value of Real Fats.

We've got a group of NDs who really like good fats and point out that fat doesn't necessarily mean disease or obesity.  It's hard to reconcile this viewpoint with the reality of obesity in our society.  On the other hand, all the low fat foods we've been stuffing ourselves with haven't made us any thinner. 

I'm not a convert to high fat, but I think it's worth thinking about real food vs. processed food. 

Here's the link to the AANP article. 

Inositol and Bipolar Disorder: Do Not Supplement On Your Own.

It's rare to see a supplement so directly problematic for a drug, but inositol regulation may be how lithium works in the brain.  As such, patients wanting to supplement with inositol could be inactivating their lithium.  Definitely discuss and monitor with your physician. 

Here's a link to the August 2010 study and here's the abstract below.  Another study looks at the complexities of the interaction (inositol supplementation might even be helpful, but don't chance it.)

Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Aug 26. [Epub ahead of print]


Association analysis between polymorphisms in the myo-inositol monophosphatase 2 (IMPA2) gene and bipolar disorder.

Bloch PJ, Weller AE, Doyle GA, Ferraro TN, Berrettini WH, Hodge R, Lohoff FW.

Psychiatric Pharmacogenetics Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Abstract

Linkage studies in bipolar disorder (BPD) suggest that a susceptibility locus exists on chromosome 18p11. The myo-inositol monophosphatase 2 gene (IMPA2) maps to this genomic region. Myo-inositol monophosphatase dephosphorylates inositol monophosphate, regenerating free inositol. Lithium, a common treatment for BPD, has been shown to inhibit IMPA2 activity and decrease levels of inositol. It is hypothesized that lithium conveys its therapeutic effect for BPD patients partially through inositol regulation. Hence, dysfunction of inositol caused by IMPA2 irregularity may contribute to the pathophysiology of BPD. In this study, we hypothesize that genetic variations in the IMPA2 gene contributes to increased susceptibility to BPD. We tested this hypothesis by genotyping 9 SNPs (rs1787984; rs585247; rs3974759; rs650727; rs589247; rs669838; rs636173; rs3786285; rs613993) in BPD patients (n=556) and controls (n=735). Genotype and allele frequencies were compared between groups using Chi square contingency analysis. Linkage disequilibrium (LD) between markers was calculated and estimated haplotype frequencies were compared between groups. Single marker analysis revealed several associations between IMPA2 variations and BPD, which were subsequently rendered non-significant after correction for multiple testing. Although our study did not show strong support for an association between the tested IMPA2 polymorphisms and susceptibility to BPD, additional larger studies are necessary to comprehensively investigate a role of the IMPA2 gene in the pathophysiology of BPD.

Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

PMID: 20800640

Civil War: A Reminder

I just got the issue of Newsweek talking about armed militias.  It reminded me that we desperately need a sense of history in this country.  Any type of armed conflict within the United States is unthinkable.  We did that, and it was terrible for everyone concerned.  Whatever our disagreements, our children deserve to hear us debate them rather than fight them out. 

Hayao Miyazaki: Japanese Spielberg

Although Miyazaki works with animation, don't let that fool you into thinking he isn't the best thing for the genre.  Unlike U.S. animation, the movies have a much more complex feel, with views and down moments.  The Incredibles was very much influenced by the complexity and you can often see Pixar's Lasseter talking about Miyazaki.

Kiki is the only full length animation movies I know of without a villain.  Yet it holds your interest and lives within Miyazaki's world of a futuristic Victorian era. 

Eat, Pray, and Love, but not with a Dragon Tattoo

I watched both these movies recently.  EPL the book is better and more complex, but there are aspects of the movie that come to life more, and Julia Roberts is great.  The second movie is pretty graphic and disturbing, a good mystery, but seeing Lisabeth, well, if you read the book you know.  So I'd watch the first as part of a chick flick night, but I wouldn't recommend watching Girl with a Dragon Tattoo unless you've read the book and loved it (and don't mind subtitles). 

The Most In Depth Discussion of Energy Work.

Despite their age, these are still the two most comprehensive books on energy work.  Preparation, explanation of phenomena, basic patient interactions.  I found the second book much more interesting in terms of depth and concepts.  A great deal of what is said dovetails off of the Course in Miracles.  If you make it through all the text at the beginning of that book, then you've got me.  I just skipped to the lessons (spoiler:  we're all one.) 

Tim Hawkins: A Little Southern Humor

Tim has finally explained to me the fascination with Chick-fil-A.  When we were in State Farm land outside of Chicago, everyone asked us if we'd been to the only Chick-fil-A in Illinois.  We didn't make the pilgrimage, but here's Tim singing a tribute.  Where are our songs about healthy food?  Besides cookie monster's rap, that is. 

Looking for Naturopathic Doctors?

Many people assume if they don't live in a licensed state (we're working on it) they can't see a licensed N.D.  Not so.  The best place to check is the AANP website, which lists all members (you can be licensed and not be a member, so also check your state licensing board).

If you are local and want a mostly complete list of licensed N.D.s go to the MAND website.  If you want a complete listing, go to the Maine State license search.  It's complicated, so I would use the MAND site first. 

Life is fleeting, breathe.

In every breath, a molecule of the air breathed by every fallen hero enters your lungs.  Rather than speculation, this is the simple reality of the recycling of oxygen in our atmosphere.  We are literally connected. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16MjXSj-Kek

Allergies

The application of sublingual desensitization is a necessary part of any allergy therapy.  We aren't supposed to be allergic to everything.  Check out http://www.maloneymedical.com/ under the What Do I Treat? page.  I just added a page on allergies.