Positive Health Online

It never ceases to amaze me how stridently opposing views are voiced from health and medical professionals inhabiting the same world of healthcare, and who all supposedly must be reading the same research. It simply does not, and never has computed for me how eminently qualified physicians and research scientists can repeatedly state throughout the various media – print, broadcast and social networking – that, for example, there is no science or medical evidence about vitamin C, or that nutritional therapy can be called pseudo-science.

Vitamin C is a topic with which I am familiar – once upon a time I wrote a book – Vitamin C The Master Nutrient (Keats 1991)  which summarized the scientific literature at the time and discussed numerous clinical applications, including the newly discovered metabolites in the then novel Ester-C© form.  www.drsgoodman.com/vitamn-c-the-master-nutrient .

Recently I have been reading Dr Thomas Levy MD JD’s latest book Primal Panacea to be reviewed in due course, which has 60 pages - 1200 references to the scientific literature in very small type! For those requiring additional substantiation, Dr Levy provides Resource sections A-H with chemical / biochemical mechanisms, clinical properties and factors detailing the global role vitamin C plays in virtually every body system – heart, immune, diabetes, antioxidant / free radicals species, skin, muscle, collagen, wound healing, clotting. Resource section H provides an A-Z list of published studies documenting the role of vitamin C in the treatment of infectious diseases and toxic exposure. www.medfoxpub.com/medicalnews/product/S-PRP/Primal-Panacea.html

In an accompanying DVD Living Proof is the story from New Zealand about how physicians’ ignorance or negative information has led to situations have been taken to the extreme point of allowing individuals on life support machines to be switched off and die rather than granting the pleas of patients’ family that they should be permitted to be treated with therapeutic doses of intravenous vitamin C: compelling reading and viewing. www.3news.co.nz/Living-Proof/tabid/371/articleID/171328/Default.aspx

Many individuals and organizations have been playing important roles throughout the past few decades in refuting and disinformation and negative campaigns incited presumably by money, and corporate interests opposed to natural medicines. While researching my Vitamin C book 20 years ago I came across physicians during the 1930s and 1940s extolling the virtues about how vitamins C and E helped to reverse heart disease and complaining about their lack of availability in every A&E. In another of Dr Levy’s books Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, & Toxins - Curing the Incurable, reviewed on PH Online, www.positivehealth.com/review/vitamin-c-infectious-diseases-toxins-curing-the-incurable

“Dr Levy has trawled through the vitamin C clinical and scientific literature (>24,000 publications on MedLine) and re-unearthed (over the past 50-60 years) the highly substantive clinical and scientific evidence documenting vitamin C's therapeutic efficacy for a wide range of serious, frequently fatal diseases including polio, hepatitis, measles, mumps, encephalitis, chickenpox, influenza, rabies, AIDS, Ebola virus, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, tuberculosis, malaria, as well as against many deadly poisons and toxins including alcohol, barbiturates, paracetamol, endotoxin, pesticides, radiation, strychnine, snake and spider venoms.”

And in this ongoing publication approaching 20 years, Positive Health PH Online continues to contribute to the clinical knowledge across a wide spectrum of disciplines. In this Issue 194 of PH Online, Zhut et al, School of Biomedical and Health Science, University of Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, published a review in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews showing that the use of acupuncture for pain in endometriosis was clinically highly effective, but stressed that further research is needed. www.positivehealth.com/research/zhu-and-colleagues

194 Huang et al, China Medical University, Taiwan determined that [6]-gingerol, a component of ginger inhibits melanogenesis of B16F10 melanoma cells. www.positivehealth.com/research/huang-and-colleagues-3

And Merle et al, Bordeaux France confirm a decreased risk for age-related maculopathy (ARM) in subjects with high intake of long-chain omega-3 PUFA. www.positivehealth.com/research/merle-and-colleagues

Also in Issue 194 are featured features including Denise Tiran’s Expert Column arguing that women shouldn’t choose a Caesarean birth lightly: www.positivehealth.com/article/women-s-health/complementary-therapies-can-help-discourage-women-from-choosing-caesarean-section-due-to-fear-of-chi

In his statistical analysis and provocative exposé of how the environmental cycles affect health outcomes, Dr Rodney Jones opines:

“In England, the current health service ‘reforms’ will put GPs in charge of most NHS resources and will be commissioning (purchasing) healthcare for their patients. Whilst some can argue that GPs are well placed to do this, after all, collectively they see more than 1 million people per day, this may underestimate the level of expertise needed to do this job well. Furthermore, under the “localism” agenda, GPs have been encouraged to form commissioning groups, called clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) based on small clusters of GP practices. This is a totally inappropriate application of “localism” since it loses economies of scale and exposes each CCG to unacceptably high levels of financial risk which arise from the inherent volatility and growth in costs due to the environment sensitive diagnoses.[2,26] This could then lead GPs into an ethical dilemma with decisions dictated by local volatility in costs. Indeed is this ‘reform’ an attempt to solve the wrong problem? Could the correct solution be to understand why the environment sensitive diagnoses are showing such high growth in admissions and costs and solve the cause rather than the symptoms?” www.positivehealth.com/article/clinical-practice/environment-induced-volatility-and-cycles-in-population-health

And a lively and informative account by Tim Willcocks, detailing the life and career of Tom Bowen “… having a clinic in Geelong, was assessed by a government commission to be giving upward of 13,000 treatments annually, had a 'success' rate of about 90%” and the development of Bowen Therapy. www.positivehealth.com/article/bowen-technique/from-bonesetter-to-bowen-exploration-of-the-therapy-inspired-by-tom-bowen

Other features discuss How to Redefine Success and Failure

Hypnotherapy for Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Sleep Disorders and the Sleeping Environment

Infant Nutrition Part III

Healthy Eating

and

Shin Splints

The amalgamation of information and connection of global communities worldwide via the internet has enabled the experience and realization by individuals that they can research the many treatment options available and to some degree make their choice. These advances will hopefully prevent the pincer movement of the EU Directives, CODEX and campaigns by well-funded corporate and government bodies to limit and in some cases eradicate natural medicines. We must all play our part in preventing such a tragedy.