Natural Holistic Health Blog

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer

Every psychiatric expert involved in writing the standard diagnostic criteria for disorders such as depression and schizophrenia has had financial ties to drug companies that sell medications for those illnesses, a new analysis has found.

Of the 170 experts in all who contributed to the manual that defines disorders from personality problems to drug addiction, more than half had such ties, including 100 percent of the experts who served on work groups on mood disorders and psychotic disorders. The analysis did not reveal the extent of their relationships with industry or whether those ties preceded or followed their work on the manual.

“I don’t think the public is aware of how egregious the financial ties are in the field of psychiatry,” said Lisa Cosgrove, a clinical psychologist at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, who is publishing her analysis today in the peer-reviewed journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.

The analysis comes at a time of growing debate over the rising use of medication as the primary or sole treatment for many psychiatric disorders, a trend driven in part by definitions of mental disorders in the psychiatric manual.

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A Canadian study, whose findings were presented at the North American Research Conference on Complementary and Integrative Medicine in Canada last week, found few potential drug-herb interactions in patients with osteoporosis. While a report published in the March issue of Geriatric Nursing found that older women mixing herbal and prescribed medication could be risking their health.

In the first study, 1.3 percent of the 1069 patients assessed were using a contraindicated drug-herb combination.

“In this randomly selected, population-based sample we found a relatively low rate of potential drug-herb interactions, most of which were among subjects using specific cardiovascular medications”, the University of Calgary authors concluded.

The second study, at the University of Florida College of Nursing, looked at 58 women over the age of 65 who were taking both herbal and over-the-counter prescription medication. 74 percent of the study’s 58 participants were found to have a moderate or high-risk drug interaction.

“Many of these older women do not consider over-the-counter and herbal medications ‘real drugs’ and therefore don’t report them”, said the Florida study leader, Dr. Saunjoo Yoon, “However, it is clear that many healthcare providers are not following through to learn their patients’ complete medication history.”

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Women who took ginkgo supplements for six months or longer were shown to have a 60 percent lower risk of ovarian cancer. (Photo by Jon Chase/Harvard News Office).

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found initial laboratory and epidemiological evidence that, for the first time, demonstrates that ginkgo may help lower a woman’s risk of developing ovarian cancer. The findings were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting in Baltimore on Oct. 31, 2005.

In a population-based study, which involved more than 668 ovarian cancer cases and 720 healthy, matched controls, women who took ginkgo supplements for six months or longer were shown to have a 60 percent lower risk of ovarian cancer.

Daniel Cramer, MD, ScD, director of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Epidemiology Center at BWH, and colleague Bin Ye, PhD, found that ginkgo, echinacea, St. John’s wort, ginseng, and chondroitin were the most commonly used herbals among study participants. A further analysis of the data showed that ginkgo was the only herb linked to ovarian cancer prevention. The preventive effect was more pronounced in women with non- muncious ovarian cancers, with data showing that ginkgo may reduce the risk of this type of ovarian cancer by 65-70 percent.

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June 19, 2006 — By Associated Press

MIAMI — Biomedical researchers who dove down nearly 3,000 feet to
search a newly-discovered coral reef found treasures they say may
help doctors fight cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other illnesses.

Scientists with the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution descended
to water sunless, black water in the Florida Straits, a passage
located between the Keys and Cuba.

There, they found a new coral reef ecosystem that features man-size
coral thickets and limestone towers.

“Gorgeous. Oh, beautiful goblets, just gorgeous,” said Shirley
Pomponi, president of Harbor Branch. “It’s a richer area than we
thought, for sure.”

Most importantly, they also found sponges and coral, including a new
species of bamboo coral. Scientists have previously used chemicals
from the underwater finds to fight diseases.

Researchers discovered hints of the reef’s existence in the 1970’s,
but didn’t witness the real majesty of this unknown ecosystem until
December. Using solar technology developed at the University of
Miami, they located sites that sustain themselves without sunlight or
obvious energy, according to Mark Grasmueck, a UM assistant
professor.

Armed with a robotic torpedo, advanced sonars, sensors and cameras,
explorers descended in a state-of-the art, submersible bubble the
size of two vehicles.

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Researchers at the National Taiwan Normal University and the National Chia-Yi University report that rats with induced reduction of blood flow (ischemia) in the brain experienced an improved blood flow from a single dose of resveratrol.

“We found that resveratrol administration… led to cerebral blood flow elevation and protected animals from ischemia-induced neuron loss”, said lead author Kwok Tung Lu.

Strokes occur when blood clots, or when an artery bursts in the brain and interrupts the blood supply to a part of the brain. It is the leading cause of disability and the third leading cause of death in Europe and the US. According to the Stroke Alliance for Europe (SAFE) about 575,000 deaths are stroke related in Europe every year. In the US every 45 seconds someone will experience a stroke, according to the American Stroke Association.

The new study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (Vol. 54, pp. 3126-3131), divided 60 adult male Wistar rats into three equal groups. The first group was the control. The second group underwent the induction of cerebral ischemia, and the third group underwent the same operation but also received an intravenous dose of resveratrol (20 milligrams per kilogram body weight).

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ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) — Women going through treatment for breast cancer felt better when they tried yoga, according to one of the first scientific studies of its kind.

“Our belief is something as simple and brief as a short (yoga) program would be very useful” at combating side effects from cancer treatment, said Lorenzo Cohen, a psychologist who led the pilot study.

Yoga incorporates meditation, relaxation, imagery, controlled breathing, stretching and physical movements. Although the study was small and preliminary, it’s one of the few to try to rigorously measure the benefits of this form of exercise, Cohen said.

Researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center focused on 61 women who had surgery for breast cancer and now were getting six weeks of radiation treatment. Thirty women were assigned to a test group that took twice-a-week yoga classes. The others did not.

At the end of six weeks, study participants filled out detailed questionnaires grading their ability to lift groceries, walk a mile and perform other physical activities. They also were asked about feelings of fatigue, their sense of well-being and other aspects of their quality of life.

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DATELINE recently featured a segment on popular salad mixes being sold in plastic bags in supermarkets. The documentary highlighted the entire production process and disclosed that E-coli had been showing up in the bagged salad.

It has not been ascertained how the salad mix gets contaminated with E-coli, but serious illness and even deaths have been occurring in many states. One woman featured spoke about her child who had almost died after eating salad prepared from the mix and was ill for a long time after.

The public is warned not to buy any salad mix until the cause of the contamination has been determined.

Read full information here: http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/salad.asp

Note: Snopes is a reliable source of information and sorting out hoax and truth . Snopes is often quoted in newspapers, etc.

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SEATTLE, Washington (AP) — Researcher David Baker believes the key to an AIDS vaccine or a cure for cancer may be that old PC sitting under a layer of dust in your closet or the one on your desk doing little else but running a screen saver.

Those outdated or idle computers may be just what Baker needs to turn his ideas into scientific breakthroughs.

Baker, 43, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington, realized about two years ago that he didn’t have access to the computing horsepower needed for his research — nor the money to buy time on supercomputers elsewhere.

So he turned to the kindness — and the computers — of strangers.

Using software made popular in a massive yet so far fruitless search for intelligent life beyond Earth, he and his research team are tapping the computing power of tens of thousands of PCs whose owners are donating spare computer time to chop away at scientific problems over the Internet.

Baker’s Rosetta(at)home project is attracting PC users who like the idea of helping find a cure for cancer and admire the way Baker has involved regular people in his research that aims to predict how protein structures unfold at the atomic level.

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By Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe Columnist

TYPE 2 DIABETES is sweeping so rapidly through America we need not waste time giving children bicycles. Just roll them a wheelchair. Forget the basketballs and baseballs. Give them Braille flash cards. The next thing you know, iPods, Game Boys and Xboxes will come with glucose meters, beeping ”Sorry to interrupt your song or movie, but it will not continue until you use me.”

One of the saddest, emerging facts about Type 2 diabetes is how it is robbing children of their childhood. It is well on its way to dropping the overall life expectancy of Americans. This grim world of amputations, blindness, heart disease and kidney failure, once assumed to be confined to those with wrinkles, has descended into the tender world.

We have created this monster by allowing trash food marketers to prey on our children and by letting our children disappear into video screens. The number of Americans with type-2 diabetes, the kind that can be controlled by exercise and eating right, has exploded from 5.8 million in 1980 to 18.2 million today, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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With Strivectin, Stretch marks and Wrinkles, Gone!

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Clinical Studies Don�t Lie – A groundbreaking series of studies have demonstrated, without a doubt, the amazing effectiveness of the active StriVectin SD isolates. After reviewing and verifying the clinical data, the researchers noted an incredible 93% of subjects demonstrated a marked improvement in stretch marks.

The results speak for themselves. Additionally, clinical observations further document the independent active Strivectin SD isolates dramatically:

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