As a former student of biochemistry who maintains an interest in the field, and as a person who’s seen and experienced the benefits of dietary supplements, I can only shake my head at the barrage of research that denies their effectiveness in addressing problems associated with chronic illness. Each time proponents call for increased access to these products in the health care system, detractors flood the media with negative reports.

Our medical system is full of specialists who treat symptoms instead of finding their underlying causes. Most physicians understand little about how different systems of the human body work together. Most studies also fail to address the biochemical individuality of each participant. Experienced practitioners have presented peer-reviewed evidence that supports the importance of these critera in publications like The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

Physicians who know little about vitamin science have conducted many of the negative studies. They don’t account for the fact that most nutrients work best with other co-factors. Until recently, the primary emphasis of medical training in the United States and most industrialized nations has been on how to administer drugs.

Since 2002, when the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) launched it’s PharmFree Campaign, the number of medical educators and practitioners who no longer base their practices upon information from pharmaceutical representatives has grown. Prior to this, the pharmaceutical industry was in charge of all medical education for physicians and students.

For now, drug-based thinking continues to influence most research. In some studies, like the one reported in 2004 by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, which cited the dangers of using high doses of vitamin E, the participants were in the advanced stages of chronic illness. Experienced practitioners know that supplements are not magic bullets. They are most effective when used to target specific deficiencies and imbalances.

Another study reported in a 2008 article by Reuters claimed that beta carotene supplements increase the risk of cancer among smokers. The participants were practicing a habit that, according to the National Cancer Institute, has been connected with 87% of lung cancer deaths.

Like any product, quality is also an issue. As of last year, the labels on all products produced by manufacturers with more than 500 employees must contain exactly what is on the label. Companies with less than 20 employees must comply this year.

And not all studies by top physicians produce positive results. The authors may not understand all the conditions that contributed to the success of studies in other settings or what may cause a product to work under untested circumstances. Sometimes they just won’t work in the situation in which they have been applied.

Don’t be fooled by attempts to discredit all supplement science. Do your own homework, and seek the services of a qualified provider.

© 2009 – 2011, Unmasked Communications™. All rights reserved.

The evidence is clear. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), people with chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease account for more than 75% of the nation’s $1.4 trillion in medical care costs each year. That figure could jump 42 percent by 2023, according to an Oct. 2007 report by the Milken Institute, a think tank in Santa Monica, Calif.

As the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), and practitioners in emerging and ancient disciplines report positive results in fighting these illnesses, the path to reducing health care costs seems clear. Equal access to disease prevention services and effective natural treatments could reduce costs for all.

You wonder aloud if we can afford to increase entitlements. The government is so inefficient, you protest. Let’s discuss why these concerns are unfounded.

Medicare and Medicaid are headed for disaster. The cost of treating advanced chronic illness in the aging baby-boom generation is a major cause. But many chronic ailments can be prevented through lifestyle changes. As early as 1949, The Commision on Chronic Illness warned of the costs of delaying treatment until the advanced stages.

Public health campaigns are sounding the alarm, but the majority of Americans still look to their physicians for specific advice. According to IFM, the majority of mainstream medicine is based on acute care and not on correcting the underlying causes of disease.

By training physicians to detect these causes, and paying lifestyle educators such as nutritionists and exercise physiologists to teach patients how to reverse these causes through instruction tailored to their needs and learning styles, we should see a rapid decrease in lifestyle-related diseases and, thus, realize a dramatic savings in health care costs for individuals, businesses, and the government. The Milken Institute estimates that just by lowering the rates of obesity, which leads to diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments, we could see productivity gains of $254 billion and avoid $60 billion in treatment expenditures per year.

But what about government inefficiency? Inefficiency in health care is not limited to government programs. An Institute of Medicine report in 1999 titled “To Err is Human” estimated that avoidable errors in hospitals throughout the country were killing 44,000 to 98,000 Americans a year. They were injuring thousands more.

According to a Feb. 7, 2005 report by the Newshour on PBS, the Veterans Administration (VA) ran one of the most efficient health care systems in the country before its recent problems with handling the influx of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The VA has taken the lead in reducing common medical mistakes by developing checklists for routine procedures, requiring reports on medical mistakes, investigating their causes, developing strategies to prevent repetition of those mistakes, and computerizing health records and prescriptions.

The cost of all these changes except the electronic records system totaled ten cents for every $100 spent on medical care. Just think of the huge savings from reductions in both malpractice insurance premiums and lengthy stays caused by mistakes.

By providing equal access to disease prevention and proven natural treatments, and reducing preventable medical mistakes in the health care system, the government should be able to afford the cost of health care for all U.S. citizens.

© 2008 – 2012, Unmasked Communications™. All rights reserved.

According to a study reported in the April 14, 2006 edition of the Times Online, researchers found that tea tree oil, which comes from the Melaleuca alternifolia plant of Australia, cured potentially lethal Staphylococcus aureus. These results also were published in the Journal of Hospital Infection. (The article no longer appears on the site. Here is another that appeared in the Journal of Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery.)

Tea tree oil can be purchased at most health food stores. This oil is very potent. Just a few drops added to your own skin lotion may be effective in treating a staph outbreak. External allergic reactions for the small number of people who have reported sensitivity to the oil include skin irritation, redness, blistering, and itching. Consult with your physician if these problems occur.

You also should consult with your physician before taking the oil internally. According to InteliHealth Inc., reactions from internal use can include drowsiness, muscle weakness, muscle tremors, depression, loss of coordination, and difficulty walking, though other sources claim no reaction to small amounts taken internally. This product has not been evaluated in women who are pregnant or nursing, and they should not ingest the product for this reason.

Products containing safe amounts of the oil for topical use, oral hygiene, and home care also can be purchased through distributors of Melaleuca, Inc.

*The name of this subject has been changed to protect his privacy.

© 2007 – 2011, Unmasked Communications™. All rights reserved.

Patients often give up on getting diagnosed and treated for verifiable illnesses after wasting several years and thousands of dollars searching for answers. They resort to unsupervised self-treatment, with mixed results, or ignore their problems until a crisis develops.

“Because of the widespread use of CAM by patients, and the growing scientific evidence that certain CAM therapies are more effective than orthodox alternatives, CAM education must be integrated into medical education in allopathic and osteopathic schools in the near future,” according to the American Medical Student (AMSA) Foundation Report on Educational Development for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (EDCAM).

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• Shortcuts for personal research that will empower you to deal with your illness
• Creative ways to pay for medical services

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• Web sites about complementary and alternative medicine
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© 2007 – 2010, Unmasked Communications™. All rights reserved.

The American Medical Student Association (AMSA) Foundation has just ended a pilot study designed to develop a curriculum for including complementary/ alternative medicine (CAM) training in MD and DO programs nationwide. The study, conducted at six medical schools, was financed with a $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). Details about the study as well as the resulting curriculum are available on the AMSA website.

Previously, alternative/complementary medicine courses were electives.

The resulting report, titled Report on Educational Development for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (EDCAM), said:

Medicine today is experiencing a paradigm shift that involves the blending of two disparate philosophies of health and disease, the biomedical or scientific reductionist view and the clinical, experiential holistic view. While the biomedical model reduces disease to a disturbance in biochemical processes and relies heavily on the “curative model” of care, holistic medicine derives from a “healing model,” which emphasizes the complex interplay between multiple factors: biochemical, environmental, psychological, and spiritual. . . .

Because of the widespread use of CAM by patients, and the growing scientific evidence that certain CAM therapies are more effective than orthodox alternatives, CAM education must be integrated into medical education in allopathic and osteopathic schools in the near future.

Although the study has concluded, the AMSA Foundation will continue its summer CAM Leadership Training Program, which introduces information about CAM to 20 students each summer, said Caitlin Phelps, Project Manager. Participants return to their schools to educate fellow students and administrators about CAM and sometimes help initiate plans to incorporate CAM practices into the curriculum of their schools.

According to Phelps, this fall The Journal of Academic Medicine plans to devote an entire issue to the findings of the EDCAM study.

Schools involved in the study were:

• University of Connecticut School of Medicine
• University of Massachusetts School of Medicine
• University of California at Irvine School of Medicine
• Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences
• University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
• Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine

While this study was under way, NIH also funded similar initiatives for medical education programs at the following schools and hospitals:

• Children’s Hospital (Boston)
• Georgetown University
• Maine Medical Center
• Oregon Health & Sciences University
• Tufts University Boston
• University of California, San Francisco
• University of Kentucky
• University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
• University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
• University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
• University of Washington

Additionally, nursing programs at Rush University Medical Center and the University of Minnesota received funding to study the same topic.

Fatima Hyder edited this post.

© 2007 – 2010, Unmasked Communications™. All rights reserved.

Despite my frustration with some natural health supporters, I am proud to have persevered enough in my research to develop a regimen that has made a difference in my life.

After years of ridicule from mainstream practitioners, who refused to believe that I was ill, I began research into natural health and sought help from practitioners in various natural disciplines. After several years of trial and error and patience, I have improved considerably.

Any improvement is better than the life I had before. I spent half of each day in bed—after awakening for the day—and seldom left my apartment. I couldn’t wash my hair, put dishes in the dishwasher, or attend church on a regular basis. I do all those things now and more.

Each day I write and help care for an aging parent. Last month I attended my 30-year high school class reunion and danced until 11:30 p.m. Recovering from that experience took most of the following week, but much less activity would’ve landed me in bed for a month in the not-so-distant past.

Many mainstream professionals are embracing natural practices because what they have been taught is not working for the ever-increasing number of chronically ill patients in this country. Older civilizations with healthier populations than ours have used some of these practices for years. Who are we to claim they don’t work?

Even the Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA), once steadfastly opposed to nutritional supplements, stated in 2002 that most Americans don’t obtain optimal amounts of essential nutrients through diet alone and should supplement with a multiple vitamin.

Of course, as with any service or product, caveat emptor (buyer beware) should be your guide. To help sort through all the hype, consult my previous post, which contains links to valuable resources.

Please don’t allow yourself to suffer needlessly. Think about seeking help from someone who is trained in natural practices. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Fatima Hyder edited this post, which originally appeared as a comment to a post on Dx: Unknown.

© 2007 – 2011, Unmasked Communications™. All rights reserved.