To blindly place our trust solely within the realm of conventional medicine is often a poor choice. We all know of and can attest to unfortunate results from not exploring alternative options. We need to ask specific and often difficult questions in order to make the most informed decisions, and if a doctor is alienated during that process, perhaps he/she is the wrong doctor.

But neither should we trust only in alternative methods … delaying proven treatments have also resulted in serious consequences. It’s clear there is room for both conventional and alternative treatments in our health care.

While conventional medicine certainly has its uses (I recently had abdominal surgery and am thankful for my competent surgeon), many doctors openly admit to treating disease or illness “symptomatically” rather than holistically. It’s not their fault … it’s how they are trained by our medical schools.

“What’s wrong with that?” you ask. Well, nothing on the face of it … an illness can usually be identified by its symptoms. The doctor will then hand you a prescription for a best-guess medication to treat that symptom and tell you to come back in two weeks if you don’t improve. And if that drug doesn’t work, they’ll prescribe another. So they are basically telling you to get sicker before they can help you!

To me, there seems to be a fundamental flaw in this concept, and that is: Understanding and interpreting symptoms has its place, but if you’re invested in only treating the symptoms, you aren’t really looking for a cause and/or prevention. The medical establishment (at least here in the U.S.) may give lip service to prevention of illness and disease, but in reality they’re saying to just trust them to eventually figure it out. In the meantime, you are also supposed to believe that they know what they’re doing … after all, you are only the patient. And as they plod through their protocols you may get worse before you get better.

This is how folks end up taking a whole sack full of prescription drugs. Take for example, high blood pressure. Wouldn’t it make more sense to first look at the possible causes as to why an individual has developed high blood pressure in the first place? (These things seldom happen overnight). Once the reasons are understood, you can explore avenues such as changing diet and lifestyle habits, eating certain foods, or taking supplements that will more naturally keep the arteries and veins elastic and healthy.

I believe, as the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, so I feel it important that we do all we can to help our body take care of itself. It has a remarkable capacity for self-healing and regeneration, given half the chance, and that help doesn’t always come in the form of a prescription drug with a myriad of negative side effects (and a high price tag).

But then the medical establishment (and the drug companies they service) couldn’t keep prescribing more drugs and tests, could they? And that’s the real name of the game.

Yours in health …

Its “liquid sunshine” not withstanding, I love the Pacific Northwest with its clean air and water, evergreen trees, and snow-covered mountains. It has wonderfully mild summers with (surprise!) plenty of sunshine and temps that rarely top 85 degrees, at least here in Western Washington … hot enough to grow a healthy crop of tomatoes in my garden without causing me to keel over from the heat. But winters? You must be kidding.

One of the main ways to get our daily dose of vitamin D is thru our skin via sunshine … about 15 minutes daily up here where the sunlight is weaker and a bit less in sunnier climes. So during the winter I can either 1) scurry to the deserts of California or Arizona or 2) get my vitamin D through food sources and nutritional supplements. Although salmon is king up here in the PacNW, I confess that I don’t eat salmon (or mackerel, or sardines), so I get my vitamin D through daily doses of high-quality Omega-3 fish oil capsules, a calcium supplement containing D3, and fortified soy milk.

In a well-researched article, Jane Brody, health columnist for the New York Times, notes: “In addition to fortified drinks like milk, soy milk and some juices, the limited number of vitamin D food sources includes oily fish like salmon, mackerel, bluefish, catfish, sardines and tuna, as well as cod liver oil and fish oils. The amount of vitamin D in breakfast cereals is minimal at best. As for supplements, vitamin D is found in prenatal vitamins, multivitamins, calcium-vitamin D combinations and plain vitamin D. Check the labels and select brands that contain vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol, because D2, or ergocalciferol, is 25 percent less effective (than D3).” *

Her article goes on to state: “… a growing legion of medical researchers have raised strong doubts about the adequacy of currently recommended levels of intake, from birth through the sunset years. The researchers maintain, based on a plethora of studies, that vitamin D levels considered adequate to prevent bone malformations like rickets in children are not optimal to counter a host of serious ailments that are now linked to low vitamin D levels.”

A team of nutrition experts noted in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that “randomized trials using the currently (govt) recommended intakes of 400 I.U. vitamin D a day have shown no appreciable reduction in fracture risk.”

“In contrast,” they continued, “trials using 700 to 800 I.U. found less fracture incidence, with and without supplemental calcium. This change may result from both improved bone health and reduction in falls due to greater muscle strength.” * So it sounds like we’re not just talking about women and children’s needs here … if you aspire to be a jock, take your vitamin D and you’ll have more bone AND muscle mass.

In addition to the benefits to bone protection, in animal studies vitamin D has been demonstrated to strikingly reduce tumor growth, and other studies have shown it to be a factor in reducing the incidences of M.S. and diabetes in humans.

So get out there in the sunshine and soak up your vitamin D, everyone. I’ll just continue taking my supplements and dream of California.

Yours in health …

*Personal Health, “An Oldie Vies for Nutrient of the Decade” by Jane Brody; New York Times; February 19, 2008

While we laugh at such odd notions today, the fact is, many “old time” remedies should have a permanent place in our home medicine cabinet. In fact, a friend recently advised me that soaking with common vinegar will indeed (over a few day’s time) remove a wart.

Some time-tested, common cures and treatments are now being seriously investigated under laboratory conditions with interesting results. Grandma didn’t know exactly how or why they worked, she only knew that they did.

One of the most useful items in our cupboard is ordinary, humble honey. We might expect honey to be useful for soothing a sore throat when added to hot herbal tea (or brandy), but its medicinal uses are many.

Due to its wound-healing properties, it was used extensively during the Civil War. Doctors in battlefield hospitals, known more for butchery than for surgical success, used honey as both an immediate field dressing and for post-surgical treatment of wounds. As well as needing no refrigeration, honey also had the advantage of being readily available (a short scouting trip of the surrounding countryside usually could produce a “honey tree”), and it could be put into jars or oilcloth packets and easily transported.

The notion of “germs” was still rather vague back then, so they couldn’t have known that honey has natural antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties derived from enzymes in what my uncle called “bee spit”. They only knew it was useful.

Those same properties also make it helpful for treating minor burns. One old-time method was to slather butter or fat on the burn, a treatment we now know does more harm than good. The reason is, you want a wound of any kind to “breathe” and not be sealed … butter can trap bacteria and actually encourage infection. I was always taught to just use plain ice on a minor burn, then pat dry and cover with a clean bandage.

But additionally, according to a blurb in the Health section of the New York Times*, scientists have now found that honey may be a quick and easy treatment to soothe and promote healing of minor burns. One study in 2006 examined results of more than a dozen previous studies and found that small, non-serious burns healed faster when treated with gauze and a dash of honey, on average, than those treated with antibiotic creams and other dressings. A separate report published earlier found similar results.

So take the honey jar on your next camping trip … you might just find it comes in handy.

Yours in health …

* Tom Sawyer; Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain)
* “Honey Can Soothe a Burn” by Anahad O’Connor; NYTimes, Feb 19, 2008

For example, here’s a link to an easy, make-it-yourself sugar scrub from The Green Guide which will help you cope with those dry, winter skin blues, and another for a simple bath salts recipe from wikiHow. One caveat: No matter how pretty those chunky bath salts are in the jar, they do not dissolve readily in your bath water and will feel like little shards of broken glass when you step on them. Ask me how I know.

So from time to time be sure to check back to find practical, inexpensive (and eco-friendly) do-it-yourself solutions for seasonal health woes, skincare issues, cleaning products, and organic gardening.

Yours in health …

We are beginning to see articles in magazines, on newstands, and through mainstream media about everything from the health benefits of honey to recent studies touting the potential of rice bran as a treatment for diabetes.

The basis of many modern medicines are often rooted, so to speak, in common plants or their components, and food and dietary factors relative to health (and disease) are now beginning to be at long last recognized and studied.

This is certainly gratifying, but altruistic aspects aside, there is also money to be made. Big money.

According to the New York Times, in a study by the European Commission, natural plant substances generate more than $75 billion in sales each year for the pharmaceutical industry, $20 billion in herbal supplement sales, and around $3 billion in cosmetics sales. The Times article states, “Although the efficacy of some of the products the herbal ingredients go into is hotly debated, their popularity is not in doubt. Thirty-six percent of adults in the United States use some form of what experts call Complementary and Alternative Medicine, CAM for short, according to a 2004 study published by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health.”*

Indigenous “medicines” are showing great potential in eventually leading to cures for some of our most devastating diseases … and what company wouldn’t like be the one to find a cure for cancer or any of the other Holy Grails of the world of medicine in a commonly found plant? This is exciting and heady stuff, but at what eventual cost? According to the article, Big Business and Big Pharm are joining hands and beating a path to remote areas as diverse as the Amazon rain forests and the Andes in Peru in aggressive searches for the latest discoveries. It’s telling that the aforementioned article was found not in the Travel or even in the Health sections, but in the Business section of the New York Times.*

Whether the indigenous peoples (and their fragile environments) will benefit or be on the losing end, victims of both the so-called “biopirates” (those who steal traditional knowledge and don’t give back to the local community) and the drug companies who are investing large sums in the hope of lucrative profits, remains to be seen.

* “On a Remote Path to Cures”; New York Times; Jan.1, 2008

I believe we are still the primary caretakers of our own health, making the daily decisions and choices, and should never relinquish that responsibility. We live in the “Information Age”, do we not? And information is very empowering.

So my goal is to provide content about health and wellness issues and more natural approaches to health by providing resources, articles, and links to relevant websites for health-related information. My hope is that you can then use those tools to help you make better informed choices regards your own and your family’s health care.

The primary focus will be on women and children’s health issues and concerns, but also on health promotion and illness prevention in general, using safe and proven methods or products. While open to alternative ideas and more natural solutions, I’m also a true believer in authentic research as opposed to “junk science,” and not interested in promoting the latest fads or dubious (and potentially dangerous) “cures” or treatments. Anyone selling machines that hook up wires to your head, promising everything from communication with residents of Alpha Centauri to rearranging your molecules need not apply here.

So in these posts you will find content on traditional medicine and practices, complementary and alternative medicine, holistic approaches to common ailments, more natural alternatives to that prescription drug, and links to and articles about the latest research on a variety of topics from Asthma to Xylitol.

You may also find topics such as functional and organic foods, herbs and their uses, organic gardening, healthy recipes, and “green” living, for all these threads are in synergy and connected to a larger whole. In the end, we are all fruits of one tree.

It’s in our own best interest to learn about and pay attention to our bodies, to look for avenues that will open other doors leading to better self-care, and explore solutions that will complement conventional medicine. We are on this journey together, and I value your input.

Yours in health …