Positive Health Online

Dr Nicholas Gonzalez: 28 December 1947 – 21 July 2015 

Dr Nicholas Gonzalez who died suddenly apparently of a heart attack at his home in New York City on 21 July, was one of the most innovative and pioneering and successful holistic cancer doctors. Dr Nicholas Gonzalez provided individualized nutritional regimens for many types of cancer, as well as other illnesses such as Lyme, allergies, autoimmune disorders and chronic fatigue.

In a number of YouTube interviews, including with Ty Bollinger and Jonathan Landsman, Dr Gonzalez recounts his astonishing career journey, including working at Sloan Kettering, researching the amazingly comprehensive Nestle archives. He recounts the story about how William Kelley actually cured Steve McQueen's cancer and other cases of unprecedented healing of intractable cancers. It is fervently hoped that this man's knowledge, research archives and techniques will be carried on by clinical colleagues.

Here are links to several YouTube Video interviews describing Dr Gonzalez’ protocols.
www.youtube.com/watch?t=53&v=zUQEpWSH9ic
Dr. Gonzalez Interview: The Quest For The Cures

www.youtube.com/watch?v=24YkS4bwHvs

Dr Gonzalez Interview with Jonathan Landsman: Natural News Chemotherapy

Further Information

www.dr-gonzalez.com/index.htm

Medical Research not Addressing Patient and Clinician Priorities

Research on treatments for health problems, such as diabetes, stroke and schizophrenia, is not being focused on the treatments considered most important by patients and clinicians, according to a study published in the open access journal Research Involvement and Engagement.[1]

The study suggests that current research is instead favouring drug treatments over physical or psychological therapies, or interventions to improve educational approaches or service organization.

Study author Iain Chalmers, one of the founders of the Cochrane Collaboration and James Lind Alliance, said: “We have confirmed earlier, less extensive studies indicating important mismatches between what patients and health professionals want to see researched, and the research that is actually done. On average, patients and clinicians prefer the evaluation of non-drug treatments, while researchers tend to prioritise studies into drug treatments.

“This discrepancy was first uncovered 15 years ago, and so it is disappointing that the situation still has not improved. The research community needs to make greater efforts to involve patients and health care professionals in setting research agendas, and take account of their views.”

The James Lind Alliance is an initiative that establishes partnerships between patients, carers and clinicians to inform treatment research agendas. Each of these ‘Priority Setting Partnerships’ (PSPs) identifies the top research priorities relating to specific health problems, including Type 1 diabetes, schizophrenia, stroke and eczema.

In the study, the researchers identified the research priorities of 14 PSPs, which highlighted 126 different treatments. They then compared these with the treatments being studied in UK clinical trials registered between 2003 and 2012 in the WHO’s International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. These included 1,682 research studies (53% non-commercial research, 47% commercially-funded).

The results revealed marked differences between the types of treatments highlighted by patients, carers and clinicians as priorities, and those being evaluated by researchers. In PSPs, drug interventions accounted for only 18% of the treatments mentioned as priorities, while they accounted for 37% of treatments evaluated in non-commercial trials and 86% of treatments evaluated in commercial trials.

A very low proportion (2.6%) of registered commercial trials studied the effects of the non-drug treatments that were priorities for patients and clinicians. The authors say this suggests that few of the drug trials can have used non-drug comparators, for example, comparing anti-depressant drugs with psychological therapies for treating depression.

The study suggests there may also be ‘methodological disincentives’ for researchers to include non-drug comparators. This is because designing, running and interpreting drug trials will usually be more straightforward compared with evaluating psychological or physical therapies, and other non-drug treatments.

The authors say that an obvious explanation for this mismatch is that the users of research evidence - patients, carers and clinicians - apparently only very rarely contribute to setting research agendas. Therefore the research questions rated as important to them may simply never occur to researchers.

They add: “If research is to reflect the priorities of patients and clinicians, leadership and incentives will be needed. The current research ‘system’ and culture is not geared to bridging the mismatch we have documented.”

The authors warn that similar findings may not necessarily result in replication of similar analyses done for other health problems, or for replications that are not limited to the very highest priorities that the PSPs aim to identify.

The research article [1] marks the launch of the open access journal Research Involvement and Engagement, which recognizes the importance of patient and the wider public input in co-producing knowledge. The Editorial Board is representative of both patients and academics, with all articles peer reviewed by both groups and carrying equal weight in the editorial decision.

Reference

1. Sally Crowe, Mark Fenton, Matthew Hall, Katherine Cowan and Iain Chalmers. Patients', clinicians' and the research communities' priorities for treatment research: there is an important mismatch. Research Involvement and Engagement 2015, 1:2  doi:10.1186/s40900-015-0003-x.  www.researchinvolvement.com/content/1/1/2

Source and Further Information

Joel Winston <news@meltwaterpress.com>

T: +44 (0)20 3192 2081

M: +44 (0)7766540147

Joel.Winston@biomedcentral.com

Trust Me I’m A Doctor - Broadcast BBC 2, Wednesday 15 July 2015

The National Institute of Medical Herbalists (NIMH) draws attention to the BBC programme Trust Me I’m A Doctor broadcast on BBC 2, Wednesday 15 July at 20:00 which highlighted the concerns surrounding members of the public self-medicating with herbal products of unknown origin. 

The NIMH has long campaigned for recognition that herbal medicines are effective when prescribed by qualified medical herbalists and potentially harmful when obtained over the internet or in shops from an  unverified source.

The NIMH urges the public to use herbal medicines under the supervision of a qualified medical herbalist who is a member of NIMH, trained to degree level, and with at least 500 hours of clinical practice.

Commenting on the BBC 2 programme NIMH’s Director of PR Dee Atkinson said:

“The BBC has performed a valuable service in drawing attention to the variable quality in herbal products available to the public.  A qualified medical herbalist will always prescribe herbal medicines that are appropriate for the patient and at correct doses that will be both safe and effective.  They will also obtain herbal medicines from reputable manufacturers where there is complete traceability, standardization of production and quality systems that ensure correct species identification. Qualified Herbalists will develop individual formulations for their patients, often liaising with other health care providers including the patients’ GPs."

Notes

1.  Over 40% of the United Kingdom population takes herbal medicines (Mintel study).

2.  The NIMH is the oldest and largest professional organization of medical herbalists, and the NIMH sets the profession’s educational standards and runs an accreditation system for training establishments, maintains mandatory programmes of professional development, provides codes of conduct, ethics and practice, has a complaints mechanism and disciplinary procedures, represents the profession, patients and the public through participation in external processes such as regulation of the profession and herbal medicine. Members are required to have professional indemnity, public liability and medical malpractice insurance.

Further Information

For further information or to locate a Medical Herbalist near you please visit www.nimh.org.uk/

Save NHS Homeopathy Update

change.org

Dear Homeopathy Supporters,

I am writing to give you an overview of the latest news on homeopathy in the NHS.

Firstly, the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital will be leaving the South Bristol Community Hospital, to go the Portland Centre for Integrative Medicine in Bristol, headed by Dr. Elizabeth Thompson. http://portlandcentre.healthcare/

"University Hospitals Bristol NHS Trust has announced that a range of services offered from the community hospital are to be transferred to a new independent social enterprise called the Portland Centre for Integrative Medicine in October." This very negative article, taken practically word for word from a 'Good Thinking Society' skeptic press release appeared in the Bristol Evening Post in June. http://bit.ly/1IIQlGs

Regarding the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital (Centre for Integrated Care), homeopathy is still being practised there and efforts are being made to keep this going but I will keep you informed.

Share Code: https://soundcloud.com/bmjpodcasts/should-doctors-recommend

Embed Code: <iframe width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/214685304&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true"></iframe>

A head to head debate between Dr Peter Fisher, the Queen's homeopath and Prof Edzard Ernst was published in the British Medical Journal on 14th July. You can listen to it here: http://bit.ly/1HAa0Dk and leave your comments here: http://bit.ly/1RBevrn Please scroll down that last link to vote in the Poll 'Should Doctors Recommend Homeopathy?' (on the right hand side), where currently the Yes vote is winning!

Straight after this debate a rather good article was published in the Daily Telegraph concerning it, for once putting our opinion first and our detractor's second!

Queen's physician calls for more homeopathy on NHS

http://bit.ly/1RBevrn

You might want to watch this absolutely excellent video about a homeopathic practitioner who worked for 14 years in a GP surgery in Somerset! This ended when NHS funding changed but for a few years afterwards the GPs dug into their own pockets to keep him on, as they were so impressed! http://bit.ly/1HH3vnJ

You can also watch Dr. Noel Thomas, a GP based in South Wales, outlining his views on the benefits that Homeopathy offers a modern GP Practice. http://bit.ly/1gDm9kc and here are all Prince Charles' letters to the Blair government calling for more homeopathy on the NHS http://dailym.ai/1QfqLgz

In addition, there is a 2 minute video of David Balen of Balen & Co., saying in the last 25 years after millions of treatment, the amount of claims against homeopaths have been negligible or non-existent. http://bit.ly/1OgtykN

Lastly, the Petition to Save NHS Homeopathy has nearly reached 30,000 signatures! Please get more people to sign it, so we achieve this figure!

If people would like to donate to the work of Homeopathy Heals, please do so via the Paypal link on the website below. Thank you.

Long Live Homeopathy!

Louise Mclean, LCCH MHMA.

Homeopathy Heals Me!
www.homeopathyheals.me.uk

"Change.org" no-reply@change.org 

Congratulations Nevada! Passage AB295 - The Healing Arts Bill for Wellness Services

Governor Brian Sandoval signed into law Nevada AB295 June 9, 2015, protecting Nevada’s citizen access to their many wonderful practitioners providing “wellness services”. The bill was introduced by Assemblyman Kirner on March 13, 2015, signed into law on June 9, 2015, and went into effect July 1, 2015.  Click Here for Full bill language.

The bill came forth from a dedicated team, working to protect access to wellness services including such practices as  anthroposophy, aromatherapy, traditional cultural healing practices, detoxification practices and therapies, energetic healing, folk practices, Gerson therapy and colostrum therapy, healing practices using food, dietary supplements, nutrients and the physical forces of heat, cold, water and light, herbology and herbalism, reflexology and Reiki, mind-body healing practices, nondiagnostic iridology, noninvasive instrumentalities, and holistic kinesiology.

Caption: Alexis Miller and Jim Jenks

Jim Jenks of Sunshine Health Freedom Foundation is credited for his years of diligent service educating legislators about wellness services and his own profession, herbalism.  He and their brilliant and effective lobbyist, Alexis Miller, of Amplify Relations Lobbying Firm in Reno, Nevada, were successful at gaining near unanimous support for the bill.  Attorney Diane Miller of National Health Freedom Action reports that she has been involved in, and supporting the work of, Nevada activists for a number of years and is completely delighted and impressed with the team’s commitment to protect access to Nevada practitioners who practice in the public domain. NHFA would like to especially thank Jim Jenks for his central role, dedication, and hard work in bringing this bill forward and to completion.

Health Freedom activists from across the state and around the country are celebrating Nevada’s success which will protect Nevada health seekers’ rights to access traditional, cultural, complementary and alternative health care therapies and remedies and other wellness service freely. NHFA works with over 30 states on the issue of protecting consumer access to wellness services from a broad variety of practitioners practising in the public domain and reports that in many states the medical occupation laws are so broad that natural or traditional practitioners can be shut down or criminally charged for practice of medicine or other medical occupation without a license. Diane Miller states that Nevada wanted to avoid any chance of that happening given their population using wellness services.

Nevada now joins nine other states that have passed safe harbour bills to protect consumer access to these practitioners ensuring that these traditions and practices are preserved for generations to come. Those other states are Minnesota, Rhode Island, California, Louisiana, Arizona (for Hahnemanians), Idaho (since 1975), and Oklahoma (since 1994), New Mexico and Colorado. Congratulations Nevada and thank you Governor Sandoval and the Legislators of Nevada, for your protection of the healing culture of Nevada!!!

Further Information

Source: National Health Freedom Action info@nationalhealthfreedom.org
Tel: 507-663-9018;  Fax: 507-663-9013

www.nationalhealthfreedom.org

Support

National Health Freedom Action

TAU Researcher Discovers Trigger of Deadly Melanoma                

Study pinpoints cause of melanoma transformation within the epidermis

Skin cancer is the most common of all cancers, and melanoma, which accounts for 2% of skin cancer cases, is responsible for nearly all skin cancer deaths. Melanoma rates in the US have been rising rapidly over the last 30 years, and although scientists have managed to identify key risk factors, melanoma's modus operandi has eluded the world of medical research. 

A new Tel Aviv University study published in Molecular Cell sheds light on the precise trigger that causes melanoma cancer cells to transform from non-invasive cells to invasive killer agents, pinpointing the precise place in the process where “traveling” cancer turns lethal. The research was led by Dr Carmit Levy of the Department of Human Genetics and Biochemistry at TAU's Sackler School of Medicine and conducted by a team of researchers from TAU, the Technion Institute of Technology, the Sheba Medical Center, the Institut Gustave Roussy and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

If melanoma is caught in time, it can be removed and the patient's life saved. But once melanoma invades the bloodstream, turning metastatic, an aggressive treatment must be applied. When and how the transformation into aggressive invasion took place was until now a mystery.

Understanding the Skin

"To understand melanoma, I had to obtain a deep understanding about the structure and function of normal skin," said Dr Levy, "Melanoma is a cancer that originates in the epidermis, and in its aggressive form it will invade the dermis, a lower layer, where it eventually invades the bloodstream or lymph vessels, causing metastasis in other organs of the body. But before invading the dermis, melanoma cells surprisingly extend upward, then switch directions to invade.

"It occurred to me that there had to be a trigger in the microenvironment of the skin that made the melanoma cells 'invasive,'" Dr Levy continued. "Using the evolutionary logic of the tumour, why spend the energy going up when you can just use your energy to go down and become malignant?"

After collecting samples of normal skin cells and melanoma cells from patients at hospitals around Israel, the researchers mixed normal and cancerous cells and performed gene analysis expression to study the traveling cancer's behaviour. They found that, completely independently of any mutation acquisition, the microenvironment alone drove melanoma metastasis.

"Normal skin cells are not supposed to 'travel,'" said Dr Levy. "We found that when melanoma is situated at the top layer, a trigger sends it down to the dermis and then further down to invade blood vessels. If we could stop it at the top layer, block it from invading the bloodstream, we could stop the progression of the cancer."

A New Way of Saving Lives

The researchers found that the direct contact of melanoma cells with the remote epidermal layer triggered an invasion via the activation of "Notch signaling," which turns on a set of genes that promotes changes in melanoma cells, rendering them invasive. According to the study, when a molecule expressed on a cell membrane - a spike on the surface of a cell, called a ligand - comes into contact with a melanoma cell, it triggers the transformation of melanoma into an invasive, lethal agent.

"When I saw the results, I jumped out of the room and shouted, 'We got it!'" Dr Levy said. "Now that we know the triggers of melanoma transformation and the kind of signalling that leads to that transformation, we know what to block. The trick was to solve the mystery, and we did. There are many drugs in existence that can block the Notch signalling responsible for that transformation. Maybe, in the future, people will be able to rub some substance on their skin as a prevention measure."

Dr Levy is continuing to explore the research with the end goal of providing medical professionals with another tool of analysis of different stages of melanoma. "Melanoma is a cancer with a very long gestation period," said Dr Levy. "If you can provide a simple kit with precise answers, you can catch it at the beginning stage and hopefully save lives."

Further Information

www.aftau.org/weblog-medicine--health?&storyid4704=2221&ncs4704=3

Congratulations to Positive Health

Dear Sandra & Mike:

Today  I would like to congratulate you for publishing one of the best Health Magazines worldwide online I ever came across in the last twenty one years!

I receive Health Magazine from all over the world but yours has an excellent style, design, content, a range of health topics and quality of writers!

It is highly educational and you will not find similar articles anywhere else and please keep up the good work with honesty, fairness and integrity! Hopefully your Magazine will be also in the future available in the United States of America and Canada!

I am honoured to have my educational articles published in your prestigious Magazine and it has been a pleasure working with you and I am looking forward working with you for many years to come!

Yours in health,

Klaus Ferlow HMH HA Mission BC, Canada
Honorary Master Herbalist, Professional Herbal Advocate, co-author of 7steps to dental health and author of Neem: Nature's Healing Gift to Humanity published Sept/Oct 2015. klausferlow1@gmail.com   www.positivehealth.com/author/klaus-ferlow/klaus-ferlow