I lived in Xian, China, from July 2001 to August 2002 and breathed coal dust the entire time, contracted pneumonia in December 2001, took Zythromax, and wiped out the good intestinal flora. Two years later I was diagnosed with chronic yeast asthma and yeast bronchitis, was treated by an allergist and a pulmonologist, went on a strict, mainly vegetarian diet with restricted carbs (no more than 18 daily), and in three months was announced asthma and bronchitis free.

A year and a half ago my cough returned. We had a leak below our kitchen sink, had it repaired and replaced wood, but we discovered mold in our heating/cooling vents. We had the vents cleaned and an attic bacteria-destroying light installed that is activated every time the fan comes on. However, I still have the cough and have lost my singing voice. I don’t want to take steroids, so my inhaler sits in the cabinet.

What can I safely do to get rid of this cough and have my energy back? I’m 77 years old, use the treadmill two or three times weekly, weigh 133 pounds, eat lots of fresh vegetables and fruit and small amounts of meat, and am generally healthy otherwise. Yesterday I took my blood pressure at WalMart and it was 81/50 and my pulse was 97. My husband took his blood pressure immediately after, and his was normal. I shopped for ten minutes, took my blood pressure again, and it read 87/50 with a pulse rate of 94. I felt weak, went home, and slept soundly for two hours! What can I do to get rid of this asthma and bronchitis. Thank you!

It sounds like you are doing all the right things-good diet, regular exercise, cleaning vents from mold, bacteria destroying light. Let me mention a few other things, some of which you are probably already doing.

1. If you had yeast asthma, bronchitis, it probably is also in your intestinal tract, so long-term (probably indefinitely) probiotics is important-10 to 30 billion each day.

2. Depending on where you are living in Florida, it is impossible to remove mold from your house. You may want to try NAET to desensitize you to either the mold itself, or the toxins it produces that you may be sensitive to.

3. You may want to try Caprylic acid as a safe long-term anti-yeast/Candida agent. You may even need anti-fungals for several months. Allopathic medicine tends to treat yeast with short term, sometimes even just a few days, anti-fungals.

4. There are frequency generators that have frequencies specific for trachea, bronchi, lung, pharynx tissue that can assist with healing. Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM) is the machine I use. There may be a  practitioner that uses it in your area. Dr. Carolyn McMakin has a website that may have a list of practitioners. You can find her site at http://www.frequencyspecific.com/index.htm

We have a grand-daughter with what has been diagnosed as eczema. She is just 3 1/2 years old and has had extreme eczema all of her life. Her skin is red crusty and she itches terribly . Her hands are particularly painful but she really has problems all over her body including her face. Her mother keeps her covered head to toe to keep her from causing damage with scratching. I have recommended she try Quercetin. She has tried every thing else imaginable including a very restricted diet which I think may actually complicate things but who knows. Help Please

As you know, eczema is an itchy skin condition.  The dermatologists think it is a skin condition, the allergists think it is an allergic condition.  In my experience, it responds to allergic treatment.

Quercetin and stinging nettle would both be effective in trying to slow down the histamine reaction that is causing the itchiness.  I have seen it in a product for children.  The food restricted diet is a good idea, but it is often hard to eliminate enough of the potentially allergic foods long enough to solve the problem.  The most common foods at this age would be milk (dairy), eggs, wheat and perhaps other grains, yeast, corn and, depending on exposure, nuts.  And by 3 ½ years of age there may also be dust, mold or dander allergies mixed up in the picture.  Treatment with energy desensitization with NAET has been most successful in my office.  The children tolerate it well.  The muscle testing is done through a surrogate.

Other options include virgin olive oil rubbed gently onto the skin.  Check to make sure that laundry soaps and fabric contents do not include irritating elements.  Some fabrics are toxic to sensitive skin, and laundry soaps can be devastating as well.  We use only organic soaps and fabric softeners.

Dear Editors…

Interesting article. Wish I could tell you that it is largely
“evidence-based” and far removed from “folk medicine.”

Your publication deserves to maintain the precious credibility it is
earning. Your promotion of articles such as this diminishes your
credibility.

David
Retired pediatrician, Rochester, New York

I received the above response to an article I wrote in Meridian Magazine advocating the use of vitamins to help people be healthy. At the same time, the Wall Street Journal of that day (February 11, 2010) was in front of me. I read an article entitled A Simple Health-Care Fix Fizzles Out, about the research (is that ‘evidence-based’ medicine?) coming out of the Courage study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007. It found that a $15,000 stent placement in a patient with chronic chest pain did not do better in long term outcome for the patient compared with medication use. This study tracked 2,287 patients for five years, and found no change in mortality or subsequent heart attacks in either group. They reserved stents for those who did not improve with medication therapy.

The article points out that since the 1970s, the ‘evidence-based medicine’ movement has encouraged doctors to use studies like this to decide how to treat patients. Has this happened?

Immediately after the study was printed, there was a 13% drop in stent placements, but it rose to the previous level within a few months. Here are some insightful comments that I have extracted from the article:
• “If a doctor attempted to persuade a patient to delay stenting in order to see whether drug treatment would work by itself, the patient would likely drop him and see another cardiologist instead.”
• “Patients have little incentive to decline costly care when insurers are paying. Interventional cardiologists, on the other hand, have a financial incentive to use stents-they receive about $900 per stenting procedure, roughly nine times the amount they get for an office visit.”
• When researchers asked for assistance trying to decide who should be eligible for these guidelines, “The industry and doctors declined to help. ‘We don’t want to end up being our own willing executioners.’”

Curiously, the very next day, the Wall Street Journal reported the former President Bill Clinton underwent “emergency heart treatment,” after suffering chest discomfort and had “stents placed in a coronary artery.” Apparently his doctors did not read the Courage study, or perhaps they disregarded it as “folk medicine.”

Vitamins: “FOLK Medicine?”

The research support for the use of vitamins is voluminous. Just because it is not in physician-read mainstream medicine journals (and there is some there), it does not mean it does not exist.

Just because you or I have not read it, it does not mean it does not exist. There are thousands more excellent research articles coming out in the vitamin, herbal, Chinese medicine, every year, than any of us could possibly read. So, we choose those areas in life and medicine for which we are passionate, become good at them, and try to help people with that knowledge base.

Does this philosophy mean that everything outside my or your expertise ‘box’ should be called ‘folk-medicine’?

Perhaps we should not so quickly discount health ‘medicine’ coming down through the ages of time, from our grandmothers. I was warned about white sugar, white flour and processed food by my grandmother when I was a teenager. We smugly smiled, just short of mocking her. Only now do I realize how right she was! We tend to discount thousands of years of Chinese Medicine as ‘folk-medicine’, yet when the scientific studies are done, we discover how right they were-even millennia ago.

It only adds to the credibility of these thousands-of-years-old folk medicines that someone in the pharmaceutical industry will want to extract the ‘active component’, add a chemical group to it, patent it, call it a name, and sell it as if it were the plant from which it was extracted.

It is a travesty that the FDA limits the use of science in the marketing of vitamins and minerals and herbs, while permitting the drug industry to market their products blatantly in magazine ads and on TV (have you listened to the frightening lists of side effects that the spokesperson refers to at top speed in an undertone?). Vitamins have a track record of being far more healthy and beneficial, yet their advertisement is censored.

The delay in conveying known information about folic acid is a case in point. For 10 to 15 years it was well known that 800 micrograms of folic acid would prevent most of the spina bifida problems in the birth population, and during those 10-15 years, that information was suppressed.

Finally after countless efforts to make the knowledge accepted in “mainstream medicine,” obstetricians placed it within their ‘box’ and it was actively added to all prenatal vitamins.

In the last few years, a number of ‘orthomolecular’ products have been added to standard medicine, things we in ‘alternative medicine’ have been doing for 30 years-anti-oxidants for macular degeneration, fish oils for vascular/heart disease, niacin for cholesterol-lowering.

Credibility is very much an element of your point of view, and your definition of the word. Should credibility be defined as the prevailing majority opinion only, science based information only, thousands of years of proven worth only? Perhaps each of us must consider all our options, all our sources of information, and choose that course that is right for us at that time.

As for me, I’m choosing to listen to my patients, keep my mind open, and explore all options. It is the height of arrogance to assume that we know everything.

To your dynamic health and energy.
Stan Gardner, MD, CNS

Dear Healthy Thinkers,

Please take a few moments and fill out this brief survey, so that I can know how to serve you better.  I have prepared a special masterclass that I’ll be offering you for free that answers your questions, and I’ll let you know about it soon

To access the survey, please here: http://www.stangardnermd.com/heartsurvey

Thanks in advance!  Dr. Stan

Unlocking the Secrets of Lupus

Forbes

Lupus (SLE) was described in the 1800s, and doctors still don’t know how to treat it. In these patients, the body makes antibodies that attack itself, manifesting as joint problems, kidney problems, rashes, fevers—many organs may be affected. There have been no new drugs in 50 years for this disease—and steroids are the only effective drug, but side effects preclude long-term use. A new drug that may help a small proportion of lupus sufferers—belimumab—is starting final stages of studies for submission to the FDA for clearance. When the patient population studied was limited to those with active antibodies at the time of enrollment, the group given the drug had significant symptom improvements in 43%, compared to 34 % in the placebo group. The race is on from a number of pharmaceutical companies to be the first on the market for this group.

Dr. Gardner’s comments:

Millions and millions of dollars are spent on these studies, trying to find a medication that will control the antibody against a person’s own body without affecting other parts of the immune system. Can you imagine how many more people that could be helped or prevented from even getting the disease in the first place if we spent that kind of money on prevention? Although the exact cause or triggering event for most auto-immune diseases, or allergies, for that matter, is usually unknown, there are some things that we do that reduce the symptoms. These include simple things like

1. cleaning up the diet, getting off junk food and pop and sugar, and

2. getting the nutrients needed through supplements.

3. Getting rid of toxins is also important, including toxic metals that may set up a Type IV allergic reaction.

4. There may be unusual organisms that may be triggering the reactions, like Mycoplasma, C. pneumonia, or even some spirochetes.

5. Reducing stress levels (lupus symptoms are often triggered by stress).

If aggressively reducing the above 5 factors can reduce symptoms, imagine what could be done to prevent them altogether if managing each of those factors is advocated. Since we don’t know exactly what causes it, let’s get rid of the triggers that make it worse.  Make sense?

Yesterday’s post covered some of the benefits of Omega-3’s and Omega-6’s; with some explanation of how fish oil benefits us.  Interestingly, I read this article in the Wall Street Journal this morning, and have some comments about it:

Wall Street Journal

February 2, 2010

A Study Finds Mental Benefit of Fish Oil

Eighty-one young people, ages 13 to 25, were identified with high risk symptoms of schizophrenia. Forty-one of them were placed on 4 fish oil ‘pills’ and the rest were placed on placebo look-alikes. One year later, 2 of the 41 (5 %) in the treated group were diagnosed with schizophrenia, and 11 of the 40 (28 %) in the placebo group were given the same diagnosis. The study is printed in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, with the lead author from the University of Melbourne in Australia. The researchers speculate that omega-3 fish oils may help brain cells to repair and stabilize. Dr. Wozniak of Harvard Medical School is hoping psychiatrists will start to recommend this to their patients because of the potential benefits and little risk.

Dr. Gardner’s comments: It’s great seeing this study in the mainstream literature. Nerve support has been just one of many benefits of fish oils, whether it is directly helping the fat content in the nerve cell membrane or the myelin sheath surrounding the nerve, or by its anti-inflammatory action through which it is helping decrease inflammation in blood vessels. Niacin was the first effective treatment for schizophrenia, but was unfortunately discarded when anti-psychotic medications hit the market soon after and received much better marketing. ‘Orthomolecular’ medicine (the use of vitamins and minerals in medicine) was also mocked at that time, even though Linus Pauling, the only person to ever receive 2 Nobel Prizes by himself, was advocating it.

Since fish oil can help schizophrenia, this stresses the importance of the essential fatty acids for all nerve conditions. In your zeal for fish oil, don’t forget the need for the omega-3 parent compound, alpha-linolenic acid, found in flaxseed oil. The omega-6 oils found in borage oil and evening primrose are also critical for membrane function in every cell of the body.

What have you heard about fish oil causing hallucinations?

Fish oil is the oil that comes from fish, which contain the derivative products EPA and DHA from the omega-3 essential fatty acids. Research has shown benefits with fish oil in inflammatory conditions (vascular disease, allergic itchy rashes, arthritis) and neurologic conditions (schizophrenia, autism, depression). Fish oil does not cause hallucinations, but is a treatment for schizophrenia, which often has hallucinations as part of the symptom complex.

The parent compound, alpha-linolenic acid, is missing from the fish oil, and the derivative products can be made from the parent compound. Flaxseed oil is the best source of the parent compound, and that is my preference.

Because of the heavy marketing emphasis on the fish oils and omega-3 oils, very little is being said about the omega-6 oils. The parent compounds linoleic acid from the omega-6 line and alpha-linolenic are important substances in all cell membranes, and the cells will not function properly without them. My preference is to add an omega-6 oil (borage oil, evening primrose oil, black currant oil) to your omega-3 regimen.