Positive Health Online

Here we are on the cusp of another New Year - 2011 - which will make it Positive Health PH Online's  17th  year of publication since 1994. Everyone who knows and is in contact with me will agree that as each issue is worked and slaved on (there is truly a huge amount of material in each issue), I will invariably state that this is a great issue. Of course I would say that, wouldn't I, since guess who commissions the features, selects the Research Updates, publishes the letters, book reviews and so on? So perhaps that is as it should be.

I get to look back to issues from previous years, particularly when, out of the blue, I am emailed with a request from a practitioner or publisher to reprint a particular article sometimes from one of the first issues of PH Online. It is at these times that I realize how relevant is the content on PH Online - even 10-15 years later. Some 3,000 articles, many thousands of research updates - and still in date and useful.

However, nothing makes one more humble in the face of life's curve balls, and health or illness more real, than to be suddenly afflicted with a condition which doesn't respond to usual remedies, and which causes life to become a misery with no certainty regarding the resolution of symptoms.

We are not speaking here of life threatening conditions like heart attack, stroke, cancer and the like. Rather, more mundane excruciatingly niggling, annoying complaints such as itching, restless legs, shingles post herpetic nerve pain and tmj pain. Or, as happened to one of PH Online's Expert Columnists, a practitioner fell and injured her shoulder and had to cease working as a practitioner for several months while undergoing physiotherapy and bodywork to heal her injury.

It doesn't help either that, as a practitioner, one is an 'expert', knowledgeable and veritably fully read on the condition, its causes, multiple treatment options and inevitable prognoses.

That is why I think it so important to attempt to include the widest ranging articles, research, case studies, book reviews and letters, as well as the promotional Brief Takes and Short Features, because despite the fact  that we are in the 21st century, the cure and solution to many of life's health problems are simply not available.

This issue publishes features across a wide spectrum of subjects - Naturopathy - Living Medicine, NLP for Depression, Presenting the Case for Complementary Medicine,  Home Birth Choices for Expectant Mothers, Chronic Fatigue - Immune Modulation, Cellular Nourishment, Mercury Toxicity, Phytomedicine for Herpes Zoster (Shingles), Causal Healing and Gentle and Natural Birth Induction. The authors of these features are, without exception, practitioners of long clinical experience.

As is usual, there are also nuggets of gold within the Research Updates, including the review under Cancer from Sun et al from Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, China, regarding berberine - an alkaloid in medical plants used in traditional Chinese Medicine.
www.positivehealth.com/research-list.php?subjectid=49

"Natural products represent a rich reservoir of potential small chemical molecules exhibiting antiproliferation and anticancer properties. An example is berberine, a protoberberine alkaloid widely distributed in medical plants used in traditional Chinese prescriptions.

"Recent advances have shown that berberine exerts anticancer activities both in vitro and in vivo through different mechanisms.

"Berberine shows inhibitory effects on the proliferation and reproduction of certain tumourigenic microorganisms and viruses, such as Helicobacter pylori and hepatitis B virus. Transcriptional regulation of some oncogene and carcinogenesis-related gene expression and interaction with both DNA and RNA are also well documented. Besides, berberine is a broad spectrum enzyme inhibitor, which affects N-acetyltransferase, cyclooxygenase-2, and topoisomerase activities and gene/protein expression. These actions, together with the regulation of reactive oxygen species production, mitochondrial transmembrane potential, and nuclear factor-kappaB activation might underlie its antiproliferative and proapoptotic effects.

"More importantly, the suppression of tumour growth and metastasis, the beneficial application in combined medication, and the improvement of multidrug resistance both in vivo and in vitro clearly show its potential as an alternative medicine for tumour chemotherapy." www.positivehealth.com/research-list.php?subjectid=49  

The Letters page contains an invaluable resource - courtesy of Orthomolecular Medicine News Service omns@cihfimediaservices.org - regarding the use of Vitamin C for Nutritional physicians, including a vast wisdom clinical expertise from the most experienced clinicians worldwide, as well as a resource bibliography with web links to die for. Keep this handy in case you need to take it to your or your patient's doctor:
www.positivehealth.com/article-view.php?articleid=2947  

Much new is around the corner; 2011 is the year that PH Online will finally be attempting to achieve a global network, enabling practitioners and organizations within each country to have their own platform to promote books, courses and products. The structure is almost in place, with a brand-new look website; what is required is to locate and forge relationships with interested people in each country who are interested in this bold and potentially highly lucrative enterprise. If we can achieve this global network of international agents, then maybe I can have my first holiday since 1989.