E-news broadcast 11 January 2007 No.324 WDDTY

[Guest guest]

ARTHRITIS: Chondroitin is proven to slow its progress and prevent

cartilage loss

BREAST CANCER: Housework is a great way to prevent it

ANTI-OBESITY DRUGS: Sales rocket, but they may not be safe, and they

don't work too well

DRUGS OR NOTHING: New FDA policy targets practitioners who offer an

alternative

 

 

ARTHRITIS: Chondroitin is proven to slow its progress and prevent

cartilage loss

The anti-inflammatory supplement chondroitin can dramatically slow

the progress of osteoarthritis, scientists have confirmed. It can

prevent cartilage loss, and it can significantly reduce pain.

 

Chondroitin has always had its advocates, but they've mainly been

from natural or nutritional medicine. This major new study, whose

results have been revealed in just the past few days, could see it

being finally acknowledged as a proven treatment by conventional

medicine.

 

It's been tested on 622 patients with osteoarthritis of the knee.

Half took 800 mg of chondroitin, 4,6-sulfate every day for two years,

while the rest were given a placebo, or sugar pill.

 

After two years, the erosion of cartilage in the placebo group was

more than twice as bad as those who had taken chondroitin. The

chondroitin group also experienced far less pain over the time than

those taking the placebo.

 

The results, prepared by the STOP (Study on Osteoarthritis

Progression Prevention) group at universities in France and Belgium,

have just been revealed at the American College of Rheumatology

conference in Washington.

 

(Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, 2007; 297: 28-

9).

 

· CHONDROITIN IS JUST ONE of the therapies that we say works

for arthritis. Our comprehensive Arthritis Manual lists 41

alternative therapies that have been scientifically proven to work.

You can read about the other 40 in the Manual. To order your copy,

 

BREAST CANCER: Housework is a great way to prevent it

 

 

Here's music to the ears of every male chauvinist pig: women can

reduce their chances of getting breast cancer if they do more

housework.

 

Researchers from the UK's Medical Research Council found that post-

menopausal women who were busy about the home reduced their breast

cancer risk by 19 per cent.

 

Women who went to the gym for more strenuous exercise didn't derive

the same benefit. The key, say the researchers, is the moderate and

continuous exercise offered by housework.

 

There's one piece of ammunition from the research that women can fire

back at their menfolk: housework has no protective qualities in women

who hadn't reached the menopause.

 

All we need to complete the set is a study that suggests men are

healthier if they sit in an armchair while watching football on the

television and drinking beer from a can.

ANTI-OBESITY DRUGS: Sales rocket, but they may not be safe, and they

don't work too well

 

 

Anti-obesity drugs are the new kids on the block – and they're

already doing great business. They've been approved for use only

since 1997 in the USA, and a year later in Europe, yet they are

already achieving sales of US$500m every year, and this is expected

to treble by 2010.

 

They are supposed to be prescribed only to obese patients who cannot

lose weight by changing their lifestyles – which suggests either that

nobody has any will-power or that the marketing tactics of the drug

companies are working well.

 

First on the market were orlistat, approved in 1998, and sibutramine,

an antidepressant that was approved as an anti-obesity therapy in

1997 in the USA and in 1999 in Europe.

 

They've now been joined by rimonabant, which has been approved in

Europe, and is likely to get its license in the USA shortly.

 

Remarkably, the anti-obesity drugs are getting approval with

virtually no evidence of their safety and effectiveness. Hardly any

studies have been properly carried out because of the vast numbers of

participants who drop out long before the end.

 

The little we know suggests that orlistat and sibutramine achieve a

weight loss of less than 5 per cent – half the target suggested by

the European drug regulator, the EMEA (European Agency for the

Evaluation of Medicinal Products).

 

Orlistat often causes gastro-intestinal problems, and sibutramine

increases blood pressure and pulse rate. Early results back on

rimonabant suggest that it can dramatically alter the patient's mood.

 

As researchers from Canada's University of Alberta Hospital in

Edmonton point out, we also don't know what the long-term effects of

the drugs are.

 

(Source: The Lancet, 2007; 369: 71-7).

 

· YOU DON'T have to take anti-obesity drugs to lose weight.

The real secrets of slimming and weight loss are explained in the

WDDTY guide, Secrets of Longevity. To order your copy, and so

getting your 2007 off to a healthy start,

DRUGS OR NOTHING: New FDA policy targets practitioners who offer an

alternative

 

 

There seems to be a sea change in the enforcement policy of America's

health watchdog, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It's

targeting more alternative and complementary practitioners, and using

methods taken straight out of the Stasi Customer Relations manual.

 

Dr James Forsythe, of Renor, Nevada, got an early taste of the new

Love and Light approach when armed FDA officials pushed their way

into his crowded surgery while he was seeing a patient, demanding

that he appear in court the following day. They then intimidated his

staff and patients for good measure before leaving.

 

While this was going on, a libellous article against Dr Forsythe and

his wife appeared in his local newspaper, and hospitals near his

surgery were urged to deny him privileges, insurance companies were

told to drop him, and nursing homes were told to sever directorships

with them that he held.

 

These tactics have successfully broken alternative practitioners in

the past, and the great thing is that nothing has to be proved in

court.

 

This is just as well, as the case against Dr Forsythe seems to be

slight to the point of being non-existent. Dr Forsythe has been a

board-certified oncologist for 33 years who, along with the usual

chemotherapy drugs, treats his patients with human growth hormone.

 

It's a therapy that may be controversial, but it's one that is

working well for Dr Forsythe's patients. He's achieving between a 70

per cent and 80 per cent response rate, even among stage 4 cancer

patients, which compares well against conventional centres that are

recording response rates of between 3 and 14 per cent.

 

The FDA seems to be almost as interested in Dr Forsythe's wife,

Earlene, a nurse practitioner who was also slandered in the local

newspaper article. She's been a thorn in the side of the Nevada

Medical Board for the longest time, having formed the Homeopathic

Medical Board, saved chelation therapy as a choice for Nevada

citizens, and set up the Nevada Institutional Review Board, which

evaluates natural medicines.

 

No wonder that in the article an investigator with the Nevada State

Medical Board described the Forsythes as some of the state's " worst

offenders " .

 

(Source: Townsend Letter, 2007; 282: 17-8).

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