You Can Make a Difference

Dr. Mercola brings us an update on the news that Chicago Schools are cleaning out their vending machines: You Can Make a Difference he says: "Today we learn of a report from England that shows a one-year campaign discouraging both sweetened and diet soft drinks led to a decrease in the percentage of elementary school children who were overweight or obese.

This makes perfect sense as each can of soda a child consumes as a daily average increases their risk of obesity by 60%. Scientifically, this is related to the high fructose corn syrup that is used as a sweetener in sodas.

This is a serious issues because nearly 20 million children under five are overweight. Considering that the consumption of soft drinks has increased 500% in the last 50 years, it is high time we started reversing this trend."

We should take heart that there is evidence that it is not too late and we can indeed make lasting changes if we work together and do what we know is right. Do you have schoolage children? The talk to your local school or schoolboard. Today. Enough pressure like this and the powers that be will eventually get the message.  ⊕

Medication for the nation

Medscape has this story today: Following Evidence-Based Hypertension Guidelines Could Save Billions. "During 2001, the study group was given more than 2.05 million prescriptions for anti-hypertensive agents. The annual program cost for these prescriptions was $48.5 million.

For 40% of the prescriptions, however, the authors identified alternative treatment regimens that were more consistent with evidence-based guidelines. Had these regimens been followed, a cost savings of $11.6 million would have been achieved. The bulk of these savings came from substituting other agents for calcium-channel blockers."

So it looks like the solution is to use drugs, but to select drugs based on different 'evidence'. Sense, then, the invisible hand of the pharma industry and the traditional view: no mention here of the possible benefits from using non-drug alternatives.

Healing Touch, Reiki or other energy based therapies would obviously not qualify as 'evidence based' at this time.

Also, nutrition and life-style changes are famously ignored as a source of saving to the health care budget.

The underlying mentality seems to be: 'when it breaks, fix it'. How about this one instead: ''prevent things from breaking in the first place'.

This doesn't mean we should ignore the important need for acute care when something breaks unavoidably. It's just that in terms of savings opportunities, prevention has got to be a no-brainer. Or have I lost my mind altogether? Why is this so hard?  ⊕

The problem with natural remedies

This news item from Austin, Texas, tells us to Be cautious when using homeopathic remedies: "For any childhood ailments parents come across, there's a medicine that claims relief. Some nutrition experts claim many of the ailments are tied to nutrition and vitamin deficiencies.

But medical experts warn when it comes to natural remedies, what you see on the label isn't always what you get."

Much as I and many others prefer natural remedies over isolated, fragmented chemical solutions, the above story points to some very real issues.

If natural remedies work, that means they contain one or more active ingredients with a therapeutic effect.

Since natural remedies are not produced to any common standard, it is often impossible to know the amount of active ingredient contained in the remedy.

Furthermore, in the absence of common standards for product labelling, it is not always possible to determine exactly what is in the remedy in the first place.

Lastly, natural remedies are frequently available without the benfit of any form of expert guidance on how to use them. Natural remedies are quite often self-administered.

So here's the problem, then:

Active ingredients with theraputic effects are potentially taken in unknown quantities by people unqualified to make judgements about how to use these ingredients correctly.

A lot of over-the-counter (i.e., non-prescription) drugs are sold to the same public that uses natural remedies. The difference is, the pharmaceutical companies claim, that the non-prescription drugs have documented research results and carefully controlled dosages of ingredients. And we have to admit there is some truth to this.

Natural remedies are coming from behind and are disadvantaged because of lack of formal research and product and labelling standards.

The solution, in my opinion, is not to ban natural remedies, but to continue to press for more research in this area and develop meaningful product and labelling standards. There is light at the end of the tunnel, because more and more health care professionals are awakening to the fact that natural remedies can be as effective - if not more effective - than conventional drugs. And often a lot less expensive with fewer negative side-effects.

As the general public becomes better educated about their options and how better to look after their own health and wellness, more intelligent judgement can be applied in the selection of natural remedies.

I'd like to bring up another point dear to my heart while I am at it: the importance of skill and experience. In our time of quick fixes for everything where patience is a scarce virtue, we overlook - or have perhaps forgotten - what can be achieved by people who take the time to learn a craft or an art or the correct application of natural remedies.

It is like we do not trust skill and experience anymore. We have to have 'it' - the solution - in a prefabricated something or other. As if nothing can go wrong in a manufacturing process. (Dream on.)

Personally, I think part of the solution to improve health care in general lies in the greater emphasis on skill and experience, not on greater mechanization or automation. We must increase the role of human interaction in the health care services, not reduce it which seems to be the direction we have been heading for some time.  ⊕

Some days I am encouraged

I found something encouraging this morning over at Dr. Mercola's blog: "So I was very pleased to read that today the third largest school district in the US will ban soft drinks, candy and fat-laden snacks from school vending machines. Last month Philadelphia became the first to ban them. New York has also followed suite. This is an exciting trend.

It took a lot of courage for Chicago to do this as they will lose $4 million dollars a year on profits from the drinks."

All schools should follow suit and then throw out all fast food concessionaires as well. In addition, it might be a thought to ban all fast food outlets and snack stores from a quarter mile radius of any school. We have to do a better job of protect the children.

But I am encouraged today by the news. I hope Canadian schools gets on the band wagon.  ⊕

Rats, sophomores and people

In his post Cure For Sweet Cravings, Dr. Mercola writes: "Anyone who exercises intensely regularly will know the answer which is, of course, significant cardiovascular exercise. It always amazes me how my appetite, especially for sweets, dramatically decreases after exercise. Now Japanese investigators have performed rat experiments that validate this observation. My guess is the mechanism is related to a dramatic reduction in insulin levels after exercise. Elevated insulin levels are one of the primary reasons for food cravings and if the insulin level is reduced many of these cravings disappear. So if you haven't already picked up the exercise habit, here is a powerful motivation to do so if you struggle with sweet cravings."

He references research on rats and makes an implicit assumption that the results are relevant for people. This reminds me of a statement made by my one of my professors many years ago:

"Psychologists know all there is to know about rats and sophomores, but it's not clear that either are people."
Gary Mauser, Ph.D.

Still and all, I think Dr. Mercola is correct in his assertion that exercise works on reducing sugar cravings. How do I know? See, it works on me, and I'm people.  ⊕

Right for the wrong reasons

I learnt a new word over the weekend: kenosis. I came upon it when I was reading about the mathematician George Ellis of Cape Town University who just received a very prestigious award, the Templeton Prize, for spiritual research. You can read more about this at Metanexus.

In his acceptance speech, Dr. Ellis made reference to the concept of kenosis. He defined it as self-sacrificing love. This is a pretty interesting concept and "self-sacrificing love" is a pretty lucid term as these things go. I searched on kenosis and hunted around a little in various ways.

I came across many references to kenosis, but none of them defined it as anything close to an easily assimilated term like "self-sacrificing love". As a matter of fact, most were very Biblical in their wordings and that quickly gets obtuse in the extreme.

More interestingly, and I suppose, not terribly surprising; there are mixed feelings about kenosis out there in theology land. Some are vehemently opposed to the whole idea. So what's new, you ask? Well, not much, human nature being what it is and never denying itself if given the opportunity.

But I had this thought: Wouldn't it be nice if we could carry on a discourse where, in the absence of conclusive evidence, we just accepted that notion that either party to the discussion could be right? Think about it. The idea that the world was round met with considerable opposition back when. But the world was what it was. How much more foolish do you look if proven wrong after taking a fierce and uncompromising stance rather than assuming a more humble one?

I suppose that the motivating factor is control in the moment; like power, greed or some other manifestation of the 'seven deadly sins'.

Despite the vicariousness of human nature, wouldn't it be great if we could agree to disagree without killing each other? If we could accept the possibility that until what passes for conclusive evidence is generally acknowledged, either side could be right or wrong.

Just because we cannot articulate the cause and effect relationships in the accepted terms of consensus science, doesn't mean this isn't 'true'. Absence of an explanation doesn't obviate the existence of the observed phenomenon. We accept gravity, but cannot 'explain it'. We just have a lot of experience relating to it.

So what's different with energy based therapies? Not as pervasive as gravity? OK, but doesn't 5,000 years of history observing it count for anything? Some of us are convinced by our own experience and observations of the effects on others that there is something very real at work here. Still, we have to accept that our attempts at explaining how this works may not be correct or capture the whole story.

You might say we could be right for the wrong reasons, but we'd still be right. And that's the point.
  ⊕

A real life example of healing making a difference

ABC Ch7 in Chicago ran a piece on Energy Healing: "Kenneth and Karenna Jones treasure every day with their son, Kenny. Three years ago, he nearly died.

'Kenny had wandered on a hot, sunny day and fell into my neighbor's pool,' said Karenna Jones, Kenny's mom. When they pulled him out, he was not breathing.

'I had just kissed him that morning when I took him to daycare, and he said, 'I love you Mommy.' That was the last thing I heard from him,' said Karenna.

Determined to hear those words again, Karenna found energy healing. Healers use therapeutic touch that feeds off their energy and the person being healed.

'Mostly, it's calming. It's relaxing, and there's a sense of warmth and peace that comes with it,' said Sharon Reeves, R.N., nurse executive, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD.
Studies at the Kennedy Krieger institute show it's doing more than that.

'After several treatments, it was found that they could have a little bit easier range of motion, a little bit easier to position that child as they sat them in a chair,' said Reeves.
Kenny was stuck in a fetal position. Then, a healer stepped in.

'Kenny's hands and arms. He started blossoming like a flower. I could not believe he's moving,' said Karenna.

Kenny's parents don't need studies to know the healing works. He's progressing and has even come off some of his medications. "

The story concludes that "Most of the doctors at the Kennedy Krieger institute have teaching positions at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. They have several studies underway studying the effects of energy healing on children with an array of injuries."

Guess the staff figures they're on to a good thing. And they're right. The whole story has some more detail's, but the above captures the gist of it.  ⊕