Positive Health Online

I have been ruminating about Karin Leonard’s inspiring and highly practical feature Seven Principles for Life-Balance, which is totally in accord with the way that we ought to lead our lives: a balance of our work, family and leisure pursuits. My thoughts, however, wandered subsequently to my perception that this ideal isn’t remotely the way my life has been. There have been periods where each part of my life has received its fair allotment; however, most periods in my life have been exceedingly intense, focussed upon one or perhaps two main endeavours.

Hence, when I was a graduate student, research was my main focus; now, Positive Health consumes much of my time and effort. There have been extended periods when I have been more footloose and fancy-free, travelling and living abroad, or periods when building family relationships has been the primary focus. Friends and colleagues with family commitments have to juggle even more, between their careers, their families, as well as their friends and leisure pursuits.

In fact, the majority of people that I know, who are passionate and intense about their life and spiritual work, are not given to lots of free time. Practitioners have to juggle their practices and patients with their family and other commitments. Some people do however manage to maintain an even keel; I just haven’t managed to meet them.

Life balance may not be realistically attainable; lifestyle certainly is under our control. This has been imaginatively expounded in Reversing Diabetes – A Hypothesis by Anthony Aurelius (see page 33). In this intriguing and provocative feature, the author argues that two key factors behind the epidemic of adult-onset diabetes are a lack of exercise, as well as nutrition and diet. His article describes the connection between insulin resistance, the new cell surface receptor protein Resistin, a lack of exercise and under-utilized mitochondria. Exercise is also linked with flexibility and capillary density, vital to the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the body’s cells. A hypothesis by definition is not proven fact; hypotheses are attempts to try to explain concepts and phenomena which don’t entirely make sense to our current thinking. I applaud Anthony Aurelius; his thesis may not be entirely scientifically sound; however the ideas introduced therein certainly merit serious consideration.

Something that should be trumpeted from all the rooftops concerns the Research published in March 2005 by Weinstein et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute regarding the relationship between blood serum levels of vitamin E and prostate cancer risk. The authors were following up an earlier study in which it was demonstrated that there was a 32% reduction in prostate cancer risk as a result of daily supplementation of vitamin E. In this study, the researchers discovered that men with higher levels of vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol and gamma-tocopherol were both studied) had lower risks of prostate cancer (0.49 for alpha-tocopherol; 0.57 for gamma-tocopherol).

I for one have not heard of this result in the mainstream media. There certainly hasn’t been a run on vitamin E supplements, in fact the reverse. There was a media scare about vitamin E causing cancer reported in PH Issue 108 (February 2005), which turned out to be a flawed interpretation of a poorly designed study. A highly referenced and authoritative rebuttal appeared in PH Issue 112 (June 2005).

We are all fortunate, and should be most grateful to the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) that various forms of vitamin E were not axed from our shelves due to the EU Supplement Directive. It is shocking, indeed scandalous that important research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, a mainstream cancer medical journal, does not even merit a mention to the wider public audience.

Other research deserving attention is a review by Hanser and Mandel (see page 40) regarding the effects of music therapy upon cardiac health in patients suffering from myocardial infarction, coronary artery bypass graft and other conditions. In fact, for all those interested in sound and music therapy, I would wholeheartedly recommend Gordon Dalgarno’s authoritative feature A Scientific Approach to Sound and Music Therapy (see page 22).

On a far sadder note, continuing on from my comments last issue regarding the sad death of Vivienne Silver-Leigh (we will be publishing a tribute to Vivienne by her sons in the next issue 116), I am extremely saddened to report the death, not only of Prof Michael Guerin-Tosh (not from cancer, but an unrelated infection; please see obituary page 52), but also of Serena Smith, who lost her battle against an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (her riveting story was published in Issue 112 – June 2005).

The PH community, and the wider world, will miss these brave and bright souls who have certainly made
their mark in their individual ways.