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Clinical Focus: Pain and America’s Opioid Epidemic, Part 1
July 6, 2017
America is in the grips of an unprecedented opioid epidemic. This time, it’s not just about heroin, confined to the inner cities among impoverished minorities. It’s spread to suburbs and rural areas and is affecting predominantly white middle-class populations. It started when, under marketing pressure from makers of pain medications, doctors were encouraged to view pain as “the fifth vital sign,” on a par with blood pressure, heart rate, and temperature. But pain is subjective, and not amenable to such a simplistic formula. More people see doctors for pain than for diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined! Along with liberal prescribing, the ubiquity of powerful, long-acting drugs, and more lenient sentencing of drug sellers have fostered a surge in drug overdoses. Moreover, we have created a huge underclass of addicted, hopeless, unemployable, debilitated Americans, who often succumb to suicide. Statistics show far too many people take more medication than is prescribed, stockpile or share medications, doctor-shop to obtain more prescriptions, mix drugs with alcohol, and continue use of medications for purposes other than pain relief. Unscrupulous doctors often sell prescriptions. We need a total reassessment of the way we treat pain in America. As a society, we have far too little tolerance for transient (physical and psychological) pain, and the medical profession and drug companies are all-too-wiling to oblige. Experts now call for a closer look at alternative modalities like yoga, meditation/mindfulness, Tai-Chi, QiGong, acupuncture, core-training, acupuncture, etc. Diet may play a role in curbing inflammation; certain supplements like fish oil, curcumin, boswellin, vitamin C and D, and magnesium may help pain. The revolutionary work of the late Dr. John Sarno, who urged patients to let go of stress that perpetuated their pain syndromes, also deserves consideration. Click HERE for part 2.
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ENCORE: The True Metabolic Basis of Cancer, Part 1
July 4, 2017
Pioneering cancer researcher Dr. Thomas Seyfried argues that we’ve taken a massive wrong turn in cancer exploration by ignoring the true metabolic basis of cancer. Dr. Seyfried cites the work of Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Otto Warburg, who identified the Warburg Effect in the 1930s. Featured in a recent NY Times article entitled “An Old Idea Revived: Starve Cancer to Death,” Dr. Seyfried argues that depriving cancer cells of glucose and glutamine, their prime metabolic fuels, offers a non-toxic way of curbing cancer growth. This can be achieved, in part, via a ketogenic diet, in conjunction with certain blocking drugs. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) provides an ideal accompaniment to the diet. What precisely does a true ketogenic diet consist of (Hint: It’s not Atkins!)? How can patients following the diet monitor whether they are achieving true ketosis? What role does the Charlie Foundation (CharlieFoundation.org) play in supporting patients following ketogenic diets? What new research is Dr. Seyfried pursuing? Why has the Cancer Establishment been slow in accepting this paradigm? Click HERE for part 2.
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Intelligent Medicine Radio Show for July 1, Part 1
July 3, 2017
Remembering iconoclastic physician John Sarno, author of "Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection", who died this week at 93; To your health--immune-enhancing probiotic beer debuts; What type of Magnesium is best? When to take L-glutamine for exercise; Is there no limit to human longevity? Does frequent sex make you smarter, live longer? Hydrogen breath test to detect Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). Click HERE for part 2. Click HERE for articles and resources relating to this podcast episode.
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