Green Health Spot

Anesthesia Concerns for Children's Brains

A recent study in April 2009, Anesthesiology Journal suggests that the use of anesthesia in children, especially very young children (under age 3) puts them at risk for being diagnosed with developmental disorders or learning disabilities as they get older.  This makes sense since children whose brains are still developing and are easily affected by assaults of chemicals or toxins that are in anesthetics.  This study is particularly of importance since anesthetics are being more liberally used in dentistry and out-patient testing procedures especially for children.  Many parents of autistic children in my practice will ask me about the safety of anesthesia and their kid's dental procedures.  Up until now, I've always said that they should weather the procedures just fine with some extra liver detox support to get the anesthetics out of the system more quickly.  However, in light of this new study, I will probably rethink allowing this for dental procedures unless the procedures are imperative.  

It seems that one use of anesthetics were fine and did not seem to have a long term impact on the brain of children and two uses increased the risk of developing a learning disability by 59%.  Three or more uses increased the risk by a whopping 2.6 times.  Obviously, the longer the child is under anesthesia, the more at risk they are for developing development disorders.  

This research was done on healthy children with no brain deficits or learning problems at the start of the study.  I am supposing that the risk for children who already have learning disabilities or developmental problems like autism or ADD/ADHD will find that their risk might go up exponentially or exacerbate their current situation.  As parents, it is important to take this into consideration prior to allowing your child to undergo procedures that require anesthesia.

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Cervical Cancer Vaccine's Dark Side

Many parents ask me about the safety of various vaccinations.  Generally, my suggestion is for people to fully understand the risk of the disease the vaccination is poised to prevent and then to understand the possible side effects of the vaccination itself.  A frequent question I get is about Gardasil, the new HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) vaccine made by Merck.  Gardasil was recently approved for wide distribution for the prevention of HPV infection in teenage girls.  HPV is the virus known to cause cervical cancer.  Gardasil has been shown to prevent the infection of about 70% of the HPV strains.  It is the assumption of doctors who administer the vaccines and the public health organizations that support the development and implementation of the vaccine that this vaccine can be widely used to prevent a life threatening cancer that affect women.  

Well, hold the phone.  Here's a reality check on some new and old facts about cervical cancer and HPV.  First, cervical cancer leads to about 3,700 deaths per year in the US compared to about 300,000 annual deaths that heart disease lays claim to.  It's true if you were one of those 3,700 people that die of cervical cancer like the unfortunate death of the actress Jane Goody at the age of 27 it becomes very personal.  However, since HPV is very treatable in early stages and that every sexually woman knows to get a pap-smear every year, then women should think twice about getting the HPV vaccine.  

The dark side of vaccines have been argued for years with opponents claiming various auto-immune, cancer and neurological problems with many vaccines.  The vaccines with the most contention is the MMR (measles mumps rubella) vaccine and Thimerosal, a preservative placed in some vaccinations (such as flu shots) that contains almost 50% mercury by weight. Thimerosal and the MMR vaccine have been thought to contribute to the development of autism in some kids.  Since I treat autistic children, I've seen a number of regressions in young children after the administration of vaccinations and don't recommend them for children at risk for developing autism.

New information has been coming to light about the risk of Gardasil and the development of a juvenile form of ALS or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or commonly known as Lou Gherig's disease named after the famous baseball player who died of the disease.  The CDC is more closely looking at the potential relationship between Gardasil and juvenile ALS.  Because of the rareness of the ALS relationship it was not seen in Merck's trials when they tested the vaccine.  But recently, there were three cases of ALS in their teens causing the death of two of the girls after the administration of Gardasil.  Interestingly, the CDC acknowledged a similar pattern with the use of the anthrax vaccination and ALS.  Now with all things being equal and knowing what I know in the treatment of HPV using herbs and vitamins, I know that I would rather treat someone for HPV and cervical dysplasia than to help them reverse the devastating process of paralysis and ALS.  

So buyer beware.  All you parents out there should think twice about vaccinating your teenage daughters with Gardasil without more information on the potential devastating side effects of this vaccine.  Meantime, talk to them about safe sex practices, the importance of regular visits to the gynecologist and pap-smears and personal responsibility in health.  Know that your naturopathic doctor can offer treatment of HPV and cervical dysplasia with little or no side effect and a 98% cure rate.  Until this vaccine has been used for longer and shown to be very safe one should proceed with caution.

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Men with Low Testosterone Have the Greatest Heart Disease Risk

Here's a shocker for all of you.  Remember how for years our doctors have told us to know our cholesterol levels, to be careful of high blood pressure and to stop smoking?  Well, if you are worried about heart disease risk and risk of heart attack, the things you should be most concerned about are your free testosterone levels, HDL and your age.  In one study published in the Journal Metabolism in March of 2004, researchers found that low testosterone levels posed the greatest risk for men and was the greatest predictor of heart attacks and clogging of the arteries.  NOT high cholesterol, not diabetes, not smoking, not high blood pressure, not even being fat.

It's not that we shouldn't be careful of obesity because it does lead to diabetes which is the number 3 killer of Americans.  It doesn't mean that we shouldn't still stop smoking because we still care about lung cancer, emphysema and terrible breath.  And it doesn't mean we shouldn't be very concerned about high blood pressure because of risk of strokes.  But for heart disease risk, make sure that your doctor has checked you for free testosterone.  A Total testosterone measurement might not pick up the risk.  But it seems that low free testosterone is very related to heart disease risk.  Interestingly, low testosterone is found more often in people with diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure.  Maybe that is why for years we've thought it was the high blood pressure, diabetes or being too fat that caused heart disease.

In men, signs of low testosterone include loss of body hair, low libido, muscle weakness, depression, mood disorders, erectile dysfunction, small testicles.  Men can actually have low testosterone without experiencing all these symptoms.  But if you have had an early heart attack and have family history of heart disease, ask your doctor to check your hormone levels thoroughly.  

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Faked Pain Study Results can Affect You

In the past year, we ordinary citizens have found our whole world crumbling around us.  The economic situation in the US has precipitated a World-wide economic disaster.  We find out that trusted people in the financial world of Wall Street like Bernard Madoff are actually swindlers of the rich and famous as well as the ordinary investor.  So too, comes to light a similar ruse headed by a man of equivalent stature and esteem in the pain and anesthesiology world as Bernard Madoff was in the financial world.  Meet, Dr. Scott Rueben, anesthesiologist extraordinaire, working for the highly regarded Baystate Medical Center.  In the past decade, millions of Americans were unknowingly affected by his fakery and fiction he published in at least 21 medical studies published in various respected medical journals.  Dr. Rueben's work had "revolutionized" post-operative recovery and helped other doctors and pain specialists better understand the value of using COX2 inhibitors rather than the traditional NSAIDS (non-steroidal Antiinflammatory Drugs).  Or so they thought....

In Dr. Rueben's publications, he touted the effectiveness of the new class of drugs thereby leading to billions of dollars of sales of the COX2 inhibitors for the companies of Merck (Vioxx), Pfizer (Celebrex) and Pfizer (Bextra).  He also recommended the use of Pfizer's Neurontin and Lyrica in combination with the above medications prior to surgery, claiming that they significantly reduced the post operative pain and reliance on addictive pain killers like morphine.  It all sounded good, hundred of thousands of doctors relied on the many published studies (10 published in the same journal, Journal of Anesthesia & Analgesia).  As it turns our ALL of the data and results were faked and fabricated by Dr. Rueben.  Pfizer had paid undisclosed sums of money toward Dr. Rueben's research and Baystate Medical Center.  

Baystate finally caught up with Dr. Rueben's falsifying antics recently after over a decade of allowing fake studies to be published under their name.  Dr. Rueben was on Pfizer's funding list but Baystate says that they did not receive any of the money that Pfizer supposedly paid out to Dr. Rueben.  As many of you know that Vioxx and Bextra were taken off the market in 2004 because they caused an uncommon amount of heart attacks after long term use.  Most doctors agree that the short term use of Celebrex or the other COX2 inhibitors were unlikely to cause long term damage to your heart but may have slowed down your healing time after surgery.  Meantime, Pfizer and friends sold billions of dollars in medications that may not have worked and may have made our recovery time longer, all thanks to their support of one doctor's research and his false & fabricated data on their behalf.

For a more complete story, read Scientific American's great story on "a Medical Maddoff".  So if any of you out there are prescribed Celebrex, just check with your doctor to ensure that he or she knows the truth about the research they might be basing their clinical actions on...that most of it was faked and purely made up in someone's mind.

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Hope for Pancreatic Cancer in a Little Black Seed?

A dear friend of mine just sent me an interesting little study done at Thomas Jefferson University that is showing a lot of promise for patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the future.  Last year researchers at Jefferson University in Philadelphia identified a compound called thymoquinone extracted from black cumin seed oil (nigella sativa seed) to kill 80% of the cancerous pancreatic cells by helping turn on the cell's own program for self-destruction.  Every normal cell has a "self-destruct" program that turns on when there is something wrong with the cell.  However, most cancer cells have this program disabled and thus leads to aggress duplication of the cancer cells. 

It was found that thymoquinone was able to have a rewriting or healing effect on the defective genes in the cancer cell. Cancer cells have a tendency to overgrow, take all the nutrition from the surrounding cells and do not go through a programmed cell death that normal cells do.  Pancreatic cancer is particularly a challenge to treat because it is often diagnosed at a very late stage.  Less than 5% of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is still alive 5 years later.  These are bleak results in a losing battle with pancreatic cancer.  Pancreatic cancer is the 4th leading cause of death from cancer in the United States.

Nigella sativa is a small black seed used found in eastern Europe, the middle East and middle Asia.  It has been used for centuries in middle Eastern cooking and herbal medicine.  Thymoquinone has been isolated from the seed's oil and has been shown to have an antibiotic effect on many bacteria (staphylococcus aureus, e. coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa), yeasts (candida albicans) and fungi like aspergillus niger.

Other names for Nigella sativa include fennel flower, nutmeg flower, Roman coriander, blackseed, black caraway or black onion seed.  This finding is very exciting in a number of ways.  First, it demonstrates that cancer cells have the ability to have their DNA fixed by another substance which then allows it to die like other cells.  Second, pancreatic cancer is so difficult to treat and this is quite possibly a viable treatment.  Third, the amount of cancer cells that this affects is phenomenal allowing the body to have a chance to better recover from the cancerous process.  Nature is so amazing in so many ways and hope may be just around the corner for a lot of very sick people.  This may be a cheap and effective way of treating cancer patients and patients with many varied infections.

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Slowing the Hands of Father Time...Reversing the Aging Process

Few people realize that the symptoms of aging is largely a function of how well our bodies deal with environmental toxins that affect our skin, brain, eyesight, weight, joints and our cells in general.  Americans are living longer than ever yet many of us are finding that living longer does not necessarily mean living healthy while alive.  Who wants to live to 100 only to find that we need to drag ourselves over the finish line connected to our oxygen tank and walker?  Not me and not most people.  So if living longer is a fact we need to address the issue of living healthy.  Living healthy starts with the issue of environmental toxins and their impact on your body. 

We are surrounded with many toxins that are hormone disruptors, give you brain fog and possibly Alzheimers, make your skin look wrinkly and take the bounce out of your step.  Most of my patients are fatigued, can't sleep, can't think or concentrate, can't remember what they had for breakfast and ache.  In fact, so many people have aches and pains as they age, most think it's a normal aspect of aging.  Well, here's news for you.  It's not.  If poor eyesight, wrinkly skin, loss of sex drive, achy joints and brain fog are signs and symptoms of aging then there's good news for all of us because it's mostly reversible.

The best way to reverse many symptoms of aging is to follow the 3 rules of thumb:

1) Avoidance: Minimizing exposure to common hormone disrupting plastics, pesticides, teflon, heavy metals, formaldehyde, phthalates, parabens etc is a must.  You don't have to start this immediately, but you should work this into your awareness.  Eat organic fruits and vegetables, filter your water, and avoid as many toxic air, food or water polluting substances you can find.  This includes not taking unnecessary medications, stopping smoking, reducing alcohol consumption and exercising.  All of this will slow down the speed at which you are accumulating your toxic load so that there will be less to deal with.

2) Detoxify: I could write extensively on this topic but suffice it to say that your liver, kidneys, and colon need to be working really well to minimize accumulation within your cells and skin.  If you are finding yourself developing acne, eczema, brown spots, or rashes, have joint pain, fatigue or are gaining weight, then your body can benefit from detoxification.  Find nutritional supplements to help bind toxins in your digestive system like Clear and Restore and to help your cell's mitochondria work more efficiently.  Liquid life and Amino ICG are excellent assistance for this (not to mention a couple of my favorite detox support of all time).  General detoxification support can be provided by Primary Toxin Shield.  Your eyes, prostate, heart and bones can be supported by R-defense.  Finally for good stress and adrenal support, Freedom Formula helps improve your mood and helps your body adapt to stress better.  Also, consider doing some heavy metal detoxification as well because many people have mercury and lead accumulation that affects the brain and cells.

3) Heal: Ask your doctor how to balance your thyroid, adrenals and sex hormones.  There are many ways to repair your brain and joint function.  As your body repairs itself you will find that your hormones will kick back in.  You'll have more energy, feel more frisky, sleep better, think more clearly and have better orgasms.  Best of all, your skin will start to glow and tighten up all by itself.  Of course, some people need more help than others and this is due to genetics and the toll of toxic burdens thus far.  

Slowing down the aging process is much easier than turning back the hands of time so start now.

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