Integrative Medicine And Its Future

[Guest guest]

The NBC National News, quoted the Washington Post in March 2000 about the

concerns that the FDA had over the mixing of supplements and conventional

medications. There was concerns that millions of people are taking supplements

(considered herbs, homeopathic, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes and

some diet products) and having reactions when they mix these things with common

and prescribed medications.

 

I have studied this phenomenon for over 20 years and do know for a fact that

with conventional medications, these reactions are quite common. The AMA is

calling for the FDA to reverse their ruling on supplements implemented in 1997.

Is this really the best approach?

Many Universities across the nation have closed their Ethno -botany and Botany

labs, disallowing many with the gift in this field to aid in the search for new

cures, and to determine which plants will have adverse reactions when combined

with other chemicals

A good example is the treatment of Gout.

Mediations that are prescribed by traditional medicine are normally

Allopurinal or Zyloprim and Colchicine (which, by the way, is a homeopathic

remedy from the bulb of the Autumn Crocus) which decreases the reaction that

causes uric acid in the blood. Allopurinal and Colchicine can be enhanced by a

specialized diet and the elimination of some supplements that can cause an

elevation of certain enzymes in the diet. Both of these drugs can also cause

serious side effects and toxicity when taken in high doses and/or for a

prolonged period of time.

The deficiency of certain nutrients can provoke an attack of gout, people who

take antibiotics can increase the risk of an attack and a persons diet can

certainly influence not only the severity of an attack, but the frequency of

attacks.

There are other reactions that need to be taken into account also, and the is

that Allopurinal and Colchicine has a negative effect on the liver after 6

months of use, which will make it harder for those drugs to work effectively. If

you also add some supplementation, even a regular multi-vitamin into the system

when the liver is already struggling to keep up with the demands of the system,

this can cause an adverse reaction to the liver, in part because the liver has

to work harder to absorb the micro-nutrients given in the multi-vitamin.

The balance between conventional medicine and alternative medicine is a

delicate one. Right now, both schools of thought refuse to work together, and

the general public is who suffers.

For some who suffered from allergies when Seldane was prescribed, this was a

very concerning issue. When taking Seldane, patients were not told that taking

the medication along with certain micro-nutrients could prove to be fatal, and

was in a few cases across the United States.

In 1993, the New England Journal of medicine published an article in which

researchers estimated that as many as 60 million people had participated in

alternative medical care. A follow-up study to that one, which appeared in a

1998 issue of JAMA, estimated that the number of visits to alternative

practitioners had increased more than 47 percent between 1990 and 1997 and that

expenditures in 1997 for alternative medicine services exceeded 21 billion

dollars.

In our small town we had a family practitioner that took care of the community

needs. He was a wonderful man that always gave of his time, energy and knowledge

freely. A week after he was diagnosed with Gastric Carcinoma, he called me for

advice. I asked him why he would call me and ask me for help. He told me that he

had watched the patients that he had diagnosed with this same disease die slow,

painful and miserable death, even while they were on conventional medications.

He said he knew that the traditional medications and protocols didn’t work, he

had diagnosed cancers, informed the patients, watched them slowly die and he

wanted something else. I treated him for 9 months; the cancer did not advance in

that time, it didn’t go away either, but it didn’t advance. I asked him to do

both treatments together, traditional and integrative, but he refused. He had a

friend that was a Oncologist and this friend finally convinced him to try some

clinical trials at a couple of

Universities. In order to do that, the family doctor had to come off all other

protocols that he had been taking. They waited a few weeks for the nutrients to

leave his body, then started him on a a protocol called PP6 and Thalidomide. A

few days after the first treatment, he told his closest friend, “I’ve killed

myself”. Within a few weeks, he was totally incapacitated. He passed away some 5

months later, in sever pain and agony.

It’s not always conventional medicine at fault….A cancer patient in N-stage

was being treated by both conventional physician and naturopathic physician.

Because the patient had been put on Prednisone he had become edemic. The

Naturopath told the patient to come off the drug immediately, and then left town

on a business trip. I got a call a few days later, the patients breathing was

labored and he had fluid in his lungs. The massage therapist that called

explained what had happened. I told her to call the man’s medical physician

immediately, the reduction of Prednisone is not suppose to be halted immediately

without the patient undergoing repercussions . The patient paid the ultimate

price for the bridge between alternative and conventional medicine. There is so

much that can be integrated into both schools of thought and treatment. These

stories are why the public is turning to other methods for treatment, most do a

combination, which, as the previous story illustrates,

can be detrimental to health, unless the health care giver has a knowledge of

both fields and an understanding of the chemical reactions that can occur. It is

always best to be responsible for your own health and treatment. No health care

professional should be given total and complete control over another man’s life.

The need for knowledge is a necessity when deciding to integrate different

methods of treatment for the health care provider involved, it could mean the

difference between the life and death of a patient.