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Dr. C Classical Homeopathy by Dr. Carlston Fundamentals |
March 1, 2010 Dear Patients, This time of year with the blossoming trees and return of some very pleasant days has always been my favorite here in Sonoma County. I hope you are finding ways to get outside between the rain storms. After a lengthy delay due to a new and even higher level of purity analysis, my MVM multiple vitamins will be back in stock in the next two weeks. Our apologies for the inconvenience. Reaffirming the wisdom of my decisions with the MVM formulation, research is increasingly indicating that even low levels of vitamin A supplementation (as vitamin A NOT as carotenoids) blocks many beneficial effects of vitamin D. Vitamin A content is one reason I have cautioned against using most cod liver oil products. Thank you for the encouragement with my new book. Although it is not yet completed, we are starting to look at publishers. If you have any suggestions please let me know. The book is, in a way, built upon these newsletters, although with greater depth, and organized by topics. Also, I am strongly considering changing how I share this information with you. Trying to avoid sending you too many emails, my tendency has been too accumulate material for weeks and then send it all out at once. The problem with that approach is that the information becomes less timely, the whole point of the endeavor. My thought is to post a blog on the website whenever I feel compelled by some health news, while continuing to send out the accumulated posts to you on a monthly basis. The first test of the blog is up at /news As always, a new year brings changes. Best
Researching The Heart, They Lost Their Minds A classic study was just released warning heart patients to avoid essentially all herbal medicines. One commentator recommended that instead that of buying herbs patients should save their money and “buy a pair of shoes”. As this publication walks all over herbal medicine with callous regard, the shoes seem to be on the other pair of feet. As the “study” is at best extremely poor, a better use of the shoes might be to deliver a kick to the backsides of the authors of the report and the editorial board of the journal that published it. Having read several articles about the study, I have yet to find any data contained in the study. That is bizarre. While reviewing the complexities of the data obtained, especially how they were obtained, almost always tells me if the study is decent; in this case the lack of data in the commentary articles is even more revealing. The articles simply gush warning phrases and lists of “dangerous” herbs. Reading between the lines, this “study” is apparently really just a warning that many patients with heart disease use herbs and take prescription medication at the same time, and that they can interact with one another. Okay, go on. Of course prescription medications and herbs can interact. Research has shown that for decades, and common sense told us that from the beginning. How can two things directly effect the same organ and not interact in some way? At the same time, the authors regurgitate conventional hype about interactions, overlooking considerable research evidence contradicting those “old doctors tales”, as for example garlic and blood thinning medication. Instead of this Chicken Little overreaction, a better use of medical journal pages would have been to urge physicians to learn about common herbs, the infrequent interactions that really do occur, and ask patients about their use of herbs. You should be reminded that using prescription medication requires you to be especially careful about other things you might take, and that you should purchase herbs that have been tested for purity, potency and identity. Vitamin D Prevents Falls A recent review of clinical trials using vitamin D to prevent falls among elderly patients found that it reduces risk by one quarter. This is an important finding for a couple of reasons. First, falls are a major problem affecting one third of American elderly people each year, sending nearly 10% of them to the emergency room. Broken hips, wrists, ankles, shoulders and serious head injuries are the result. Maybe more impressive is the fact that this 25% reduction was achieved by raising blood levels to 24, which is well below the “normal” level of 32, and the 50 recommended by most of us familiar with the medical literature on vitamin D. A very large study of people living in Western Europe has shown that vitamin D markedly lowers the risk of developing colon cancers. Individuals with the highest blood levels of vitamin D (top 20%) had a risk of colon cancer that was less than one-half that of those with the lowest levels. As the blood was taken from subjects and stored before the cancers had appeared, this data is convincing. Dietary vitamin D consumption did not alter the risk. That is probably due to the limited amount of D available in food. The difference was achieved by supplementation. They also found that higher retinol intake (i.e. vitamin A) was associated with increased cancer risk, blocking the preventive effects of vitamin D in the blood. Interference with vitamin D could account for years of research indicating that vitamin A increases the risk of osteoporosis, possibly by blocking the bone-building action of D. Your Heart Is Happy When You Are A ten year Canadian study of personality and heart disease confirmed the effects of personality on heart disease. For decades we have known that certain personality components increase the risk of heart disease. This study shows that the opposite is also true. While confirming the link between depression and death from heart disease, these investigators found that patients who expressed themselves in a positive, happy manner were significantly less likely to die from coronary heart disease. Supplements For Behavioral Modification One way to keep people smiling is to keep their omega-3 levels high. In addition to previous studies on depression, anxiety and ADD, a new Dutch study found that supplementation with essential fatty acids and vitamins reduced violent behavior by 34% among adult male prisoners. Although I would expect positive effects from all we already know, the magnitude of this effect, with such a large decrease in such dramatic, undesirable behavior, is quite impressive. In addition, the prisoners were only treated for one to three months and, in my experience, it takes more time to see the greatest impact. This study was inspired by a British prison study several years earlier that found supplementation reduced rule violations by 26% and violent outbursts by 37%. |
ArchivesNovember 10, 2009 |
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