WDDTY e-News Service - 27 May 2004

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WDDTY e-News Service - 27 May 2004

Thu, 27 May 2004 21:44:13 +0100

 

 

WHAT DOCTORS DON’T TELL YOU - E-NEWS BROADCAST No. 84 - 27 May 2004

 

Please feel free to email this broadcast to any friends you feel would

appreciate receiving it.

 

 

 

 

PROSTATE CANCER: Stick with the cancer, it's kinder

 

It's true to say that most men die with prostate cancer rather than from it.

It's now the most prevalent cancer in men, having overtaken lung cancer, but

it's also one of the most benign.

 

Sadly the same cannot be said for the remedy. Radical interventions such as

surgery and radiotherapy can cause permanent incontinence and impotence in

around a quarter of all patients.

 

Doctors never seem to get around to telling the patient about these risks, nor

do they put forward gentler approaches that may at least make life worth living.

 

The other essential part of the treatment choice should be determined by the age

of the patient. Not only is prostate cancer a relatively benign cancer, it also

tends to be a slow-acting one as well. So the treatment may be different for a

man in his fifties compared with one in his seventies. In the latter case, a

'watchful waiting' approach is by far the kindest.

 

While all of this is very familiar to regular rs of What Doctors Don't

Tell You newsletter (the print version), it's something that is finally being

taken up by the Institute for Cancer Research in the UK. They've finally put

their collective heads above the parapet and pronounced that the treatment may

be worse than the disease.

 

They point the finger at the standard PSA test for detecting prostate cancer,

which E-news readers will know is not the most reliable of tests. But, worse

still, it cannot detect aggressive cancers from the slower-acting ones, which

the Institute helpfully dubs in user-friendly speak 'tigers' and 'pussycats'.

 

The Institute reckons that up to half of all men diagnosed with prostate cancer

do not need any treatment at all. As Chris Parker at the Royal Marsden Hospital

succinctly put it: " Prostate cancer is the only human cancer that is curable but

which commonly does not need to be cured. "

 

* To find out more about prostate cancer-and every other type of cancer-and the

treatments, both conventional and alternative, read the WDDTY Cancer Handbook.

To order your copy, :

http://www.wddty.co.uk/shop/details.asp?product=8

 

 

 

PATIENT POWER: OK, but just don't tell 'em

 

Phrases that include words such as 'tips' and 'icebergs' come to mind when the

scale of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs has tried to be established.

 

One French study reckoned that just 1 in 20,000 reactions is ever reported,

while the Yellow Card system in the UK has been a valiant failure. In virtually

every reporting system, on both sides of the Atlantic, it's down to the doctor

to do the paperwork. He either doesn't have the time, or he doesn't believe the

drug has caused the effect, or perhaps he's being 'funded' by the pharmaceutical

company to recruit unwitting patients in an invaluable 'trial' of the drug.

 

So the UK government came up with the astonishing idea that patients should be

allowed to report their own reactions to a drug. They tested it over a 15-month

period in one area of the UK to see if it is an idea worth introducing

throughout the whole of the UK.

 

But in all that time just 39 reports of adverse reactions were received. So are

drugs safer than we feared, or could it be that the public doesn't care less

about better drug policing? Whatever the reason, it hardly seems worth the

trouble and expense of democratizing medicine.

 

But hold! Could there be a third reason? Yes, of course, those who organized

the trial forgot to tell anyone about it! Doctors in the area heard about it

only for the first time last week when they read of its failure in the British

Medical Journal. And a quick straw poll among pharmacists in the area found

that they had never heard about it, probably because they don't read the

journal.

 

This vexing dilemma has only one solution, health experts agree. The real

problem is that patients in the trial area had to report reactions to NHS

Direct, the 'public face' of the National Heath Service. Response would be far

better if patients could report directly to the Medicines and Healthcare

Products Regulatory Agency. The agency in turn passes on its findings to the

Committee on the Safety of Medicine, which has been criticized for being one of

the most secretive groups in the UK, funded and run by the pharmaceutical

industry.

 

That way we can get back to those tips and icebergs, and everyone can agree that

at the very least they tried.

 

* To find out what's really going on in the world of pharmaceuticals, one book

you really should read is Secrets of the Drugs Industry. To order your copy,

: http://www.wddty.co.uk/shop/details.asp?product=341

 

 

 

SUPPLEMENTS: When they're better than food

 

Most doctors are of the view that vitamins and other supplements are a waste of

money, and that we can get all our nutritional needs from the food we eat.

 

Theoretically that's right, but several things have to be in place before that

also works in practice. For one, the food has to be free of contaminants, and

at the very least should be organic, and the soil in which the food is grown has

to be rich. But it's a fact recognized since the early years of the last

century that our soil is depleted from intensive farming. The goodness just

isn't getting into our foods.

 

One example of this is fish - and especially fatty fish such as swordfish and

salmon - which can protect against coronary heart disease. They are rich in

omega-3 fatty acids, but unfortunately they also contain high levels of mercury,

thanks to our polluted oceans and waterways.

 

So do the omega-3 supplements have the same protective effect, but without

exposing people to the risk of mercury poisoning? Researchers from the

Massachusetts General Hospital tested five different fish oil supplements, which

contained levels of mercury that were 'nondetectable' to 'negligible', and were

certainly far lower than levels found in fish they examined.

 

The protective qualities are the same, but without the risk. So the next time

your doctor advises you to stop taking the supplements, tell him to 'Go fish'.

 

(Source: Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, 2003; 127: 1603-05).

 

 

 

DIABETES: Another double glycaemic mocha betta healtha?

 

If there's one thing that people in Finland do, it's drink coffee. Lots of it.

In fact, Finnish people drink more coffee than anybody else in the world.

 

So it seemed a good place to test the theory that coffee drinking might even be

good for some diseases, such as type II diabetes.

 

The trouble with lifestyle studies is that there are just so many other

variables. Some who take part in the study might also be vegetarian, or they go

to the gym five times a week, or they smoke.

 

Good researchers try to smooth out these differences, and the latest Finnish

study does just that, and accounts for sex, age, body weight, alcohol

consumption, and smoking (but leaves out diet).

 

But it gets more complicated still, because there's coffee and coffee. By the

end of the 1960s three-quarters of Fins were drinking pot-boiled coffee. By

1987 the trend had switched and just 25 per cent were drinking boiled coffee,

and 69 per cent had turned to filtered coffee.

 

Researchers discovered a three-fold increase in cases of diabetes among men who

drank pot-boiled coffee compared with those who took their beverage filtered.

Furthermore, they discovered an inverse association between filter coffee and

diabetes. In other words, the more you drank, your risk decreased.

 

The researchers believe the key protective agent in coffee is chlorogenic acid,

which inhibits the onset of diabetes. Levels of acid are determined by the way

the coffee is roasted. Filter coffee retains more acid than does boiled coffee,

it seems.

 

Protection is one thing, but what causes type II diabetes in those poor

unfortunates still stuck on their boiled coffee? May we suggest processed

foods, the one thing the researchers didn't include?

 

(Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, 2004; 291: 1213-19).

 

 

 

CANCER: Those who try to help mankind medicine will destroy

 

The story of Royal Raymond Rife is an extraordinary one. He spent decades

perfecting a frequency machine that could reverse most diseases, including

cancer. When it was tested on 16 patients with end-stage cancer, 14 were

independently declared to be clear of the cancer after treatment, and the

remaining two were later given the all-clear after Rife altered the frequency.

 

It might have been hoped that Rife's work would have been tested further. But

instead the American medical Association tried to buy him out and, after he

refused, vital research papers began to disappear from his laboratory, and

pieces from his meticulously prepared equipment also vanished.

 

He died in relative obscurity, with his experiments and discoveries all but

forgotten. Fortunately a few pioneers took up Rife's work, in the face of stiff

opposition from regulatory bodies, to offer the treatment to patients considered

to be lost causes by doctors.

 

One such person is Dr Karl Horst Poehlmann, who practices the Rife technique

from his clinic in Germany. Karl will be joining us at our two-day Cancer

Battle-Plan conference on June 19 and 20 when he will be explaining the Rife

method and the level of success he's achieved with it.

 

Seats are going fast, so we strongly advise you to book yours today. Tomorrow

may be too late! To book now, :

http://www.wddty.co.uk/conference_booking.asp

 

 

 

IT'S OFFICIAL: Medicine has never harmed anyone, ever, no way

 

We all know that statistics can be our flexible friend. They can be used to

support almost any theory and, if we're of a perverse disposition, they can even

give some approximation to what really happened.

 

One set of figures, published in the Journal of the American Medical

Association, and quoted ever after, shows that medicine is the fourth main

killer in the USA, and that the number of deaths from a prescription drug has

been likened to a jumbo jet crashing every other day.

 

So it's time for a new set of statistics. These, prepared by the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention, see the mysterious disappearance of medicine and

drugs from the picture altogether. Instead, people are dying from the diseases

themselves, with heart disease heading the pile, followed by cancer. In fact,

disease accounts for nine of the top 10 causes of death, with injury being the

one exception. Presumably every one in the list, which tracked deaths across

the USA during the year 2000, was being treated for their disease, but that's

clearly for another set of statistics.

 

(Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, 2004; 291: 1238-45).

 

 

 

READERS' CORNER

 

Molluscum: Lots of suggestions for the woman looking for natural remedies to

treat molluscum that her two children have suffered in the past year. Advice

ranged from " do nothing, the warts will disappear on their own " to aloe vera and

bee propolis, to Comfrey ointment, to a product called Sekebal, designed for

anyone who wants to balance their metabolism. Another suggests trying a mixture

of undiluted lavender and tea tree essential oils. One reader suggests a

product, or system, called Transfer factor, and specifically Transfer Factor

Plus for molluscum.

 

 

Frozen shoulder: The woman who wanted help for frozen shoulder has also had a

postbag (or its e-mail equivalent) of suggestions. Try Cell Salt Ferr Phos,

suggests one reader, while another was cured by a ballet physiotherapist and an

exercise teacher. One reader says frozen shoulder can be referred pain from

problems with the gall bladder or lung, or even an indication of low thyroid

activity. One osteopath says any trained osteopath or chiropractor can treat it

successfully. Interestingly, he says, frozen shoulder, or adhesive capsulitis,

is often mistaken by doctors for arthritis or trapped nerves. Several Bowen

practitioners recommend their own therapy, as does a practitioner of the

Alexander technique. We're sure all can be helpful. One reader takes a more

holistic line, and says that a friend's frozen shoulder was a symptom of her

procrastinations. Once she decided to get on with the job she'd been putting

off, the shoulder freed itself within 48 hours. One reader had

great success with a product called Knox Gelatin, which she took in a half cup

of water every day. After taking it for six weeks, she realized she could

rotate and lift her arm normally.

 

 

Migraine: Plenty of suggestions from fellow sufferers and practitioners alike.

One person takes one teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda in a glass of water as soon

as an attack seems imminent. In a similar vein, one reader has found that

drinking plenty of water and salt every day can help. At the onset of a

migraine, he has a couple of mugs of water and a few pinches of salt. One

reader suggests trying cranial sacral therapy, while another swears by

acupuncture and feverfew.

 

 

Thrush: Then there was the woman last time who is looking for a good herbal

remedy to treat thrush that seems to occur just before her menstrual cycle. One

reader suggests a sitz bath of Calendula (marigold), and a thyme herb infusion

may also help. Include 'live' organic yogurt and raw garlic in your diet, and

drink plenty of fluids and eat fresh foods, seeds, oils and green leafy

vegetables. Wear organic materials around the vaginal area, or even go

knickers-free in the summer months if you're wearing a dress. Another

suggestion is for Genetianviolet, while one woman puts a peeled clove of garlic

in her vagina for a few hours at night. Trouble is, it makes the breath smell

of garlic, she warns, and we guess it's not just the breath. Try drinking some

aloe vera juice, says one reader, while another feels the solution lies more in

the diet. Cut out all yeast foods, such as alcohol, marmite, bread, mushrooms

and peanuts, and take acidopholous capsules. Threelac could work if

the problem is candida, while one therapist recommends a combination of

Horopitto, which is a herb mixed with aniseed, and then followed up by Ecologic,

a bacteria mix. They're both available from Noma Complex Homeopathy in

Southampton (UK). TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) seems to recognize the

process our reader describes, and an acupuncturist should be able to restore

balance. Alternatively, try tea tree pessaries.

 

 

Ovarian cyst: Help is on hand for the woman with an ovarian cyst who is 29

weeks pregnant. One reader suggests an NLP technique, while another says it is

best treated by reducing all forms of refined carbohydrate, sugar and milk

derivatives from the diet, take high doses of omega-3 fish oils, and try a

herbal formula that contains Melastoma malabatricum.

 

 

Prickly heat: It was a health concern raised several E-News ago, but it's

something you're still hot about! One reader suggests a link with candida, so

try tea tree oil in the bath, and avoid sugars and certain fruits in the diet.

One reader from the USA suggests a product available there that's called Aveno

Powder, which has a base of oatmeal ground into a fine powder. It's also good

for other rashes.

 

 

Radiation from the tv: One reader was concerned about radiation emissions from

electrical gadgets such as the tv and computer. One suggestion is to put a big

piece of amethyst on top of the tv, and put a large piece of malachite by the

PC. Draper makes a small screwdriver that can detect electromagnetic radiation.

The new televisions and LCD computer screens emit far lower levels of radiation

than older products. Keep live mains wires away from the sleeping area, and you

can put aluminized plastic film over screen cables, but don't use standard-issue

kitchen foil for the purpose.

 

 

Any other business: We've been taken to task by several women over our

suggestion that the HRT cake should be given to the dog. It's delicious, they

tell us. . . Another reader wonders if the cancer pioneer Ryke Hamer is German,

and yes, he is. . . One reader feels that the link between macular degeneration

and a high-fat diet mentioned last time is part of a conspiracy theory

perpetrated by a food industry that wants us to eat processed foods. Our

ancestors eat fats with impunity(but possibly not to the extent that we do -

Ed). . .Soya milk mentioned in the HRT Cake recipe may not be so good for you (I

have a friend!) It's not always the 'healthy' food it's marketed to be. We've

seen the studies too, and we agree. . . Several people have told us of the

amazing therapy that is the Bowen Technique. We'll try to look into it sometime

soon. . . Another alternative to steam inhalations is a facial sauna, suggests

one reader. . . Heavens! Something we suggested actually worked

(back to the drawing board). A woman tried an apple juice flush for

gallstones, which is mentioned on our website. After the seventh day (sounding

quite Biblical, now), the woman passed eight pea-sized stones and 20 the size of

ball bearings. . . The woman who sells Mercy Cream asks us to point out that it

does not contain Shea Butter, but is made up of African herbs, and can be used

for psoriasis and eczema. We can't recall if we mentioned the product in our

E-news or in the printed newsletter but we're happy to make the clarification.

 

 

 

Readers' health queries

 

Glaucoma: How can glaucoma be prevented, asks one reader? Her father had it,

and she has regular checks that suggest she doesn't have the problem. Her eye

pressure varies between 20 and 24. Do readers have any suggestions on ways to

lower the pressure?

 

 

Menopausal itching: Do readers have any simple solutions for menopausal itching

in the vaginal area and also around the navel?

 

 

Dry eye: One 50-year-old woman has had to give up wearing contact lenses

because her eyes have suddenly become so dry. Any suggestions?

 

 

Arthritis remedy: One woman wonders if other readers have any experience of a

remedy called Artosilium from CI Research, which is a combination of silicon,

meadowsweet and blackcurrant, for the relief of arthritis.

 

 

Eating intolerance: Slight problem between husband (a doctor) and wife (who

isn't). She's had her children tested for food intolerances, and the usual

suspects, such as diary and wheat, came up. Her children have runny noses and

occasional loose stools, but her husband doesn't understand the problem. Is

there a way of explaining food intolerances to him in a way that would

demonstrate some scientific validity to the findings?

 

 

* To search the WDDTY database - where every word from the last 14 years of

research can be found – click on http://www.wddty.co.uk/search/infodatabase.asp

 

 

 

 

 

View missed/lost e-News broadcasts:

 

View our e-News broadcast archives, follow this link -

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