Should alternative therapies be included in insured health care programs?

Cinnamon used to reduce sugar levels but with negligible results, if any, according to science

Carol Forsloff--Around 10 per cent of the money spent on health care in the United States is on alternative medicine and that percentage is growing rapidly.  How does this fit into the health care debate and should these alternative therapies be part of insurance costs and government sanctions?

If the new Congress overturns Obama's health care program, how will this impact what is accepted or not accepted in any new program that may be adopted?

These are some of the questions people seek to have answered, as they embrace an ever-increasing number of alternative remedies outside of traditional medicine.

Herbal remedies and other alternative therapies are used by a variety of people. Some take traditional medicine and add to it with alternatives. So people may have their family practitioner and a massage therapist for that bad shoulder and herbal remedies for sleep. That 10 per cent that people spend on alternatives goes for different things and for different reasons asBlack America Web pointed out in its lifestyle feature some years ago.

What research has found is that as the cost of traditional medicine has increased, people turn more and more to alternative therapies they find may be cheaper and some believe more efficient and accessible. These natural remedies lead some people to relying on alternatives because they can’t afford to see the doctor and turn to non traditional methods of healing as well. So why not rely on brother Bob up the street who teaches physical conditioning and sells herbal medications on the side along with his massage practice? That’s what some people consider when they have to make decisions these days.

But the question remains, in addition to costs, do alternative therapies work? KevinMD looks at the matter of alternative medicine to answer that question. Despite the bandwagon more and more people are leaping aboard, the doctor site maintains with respect to alternative therapies:

“Not only have they been shown not to work, the lack of FDA regulation surrounding supplements means that some of them may actually harm patients, or are laced with prescription drugs. In fact, the president of an independent lab that tests such products says, “one out of four supplements has a problem.
And worse, those who shun traditional medicine may be missing their last chance at treatment.”

Indeed there is that other side to the issue of alternative medicine.  Science has established that some alternatives can be helpful, but many therapies are not supported despite popular opinion.  For example, research has found that cinnamon, which is highly touted as a remedy for diabetes, has not been found to have any significant effect on factors related to diabetes, specifically reducing sugar levels.  Furthermore, because it inhibits clotting, in some European countries doctors counsel against taking it, as it has acts like warfarin and may be contraindicated especially when an individual is facing surgery.

Those who question the efficacy of alternative medicine caution people to be thoughtful and do their homework to find out about any specific alternative, as there are remedies that either do not work or that interfere with other treatments.  So while traditional medicine may have its drawbacks, there are also concerns about alternative remedies, as either not working or actually causing harm.  

What causes people to embrace alternatives in the modern era in opposition to traditional medicine?  Experts tell us the struggle between traditional and alternative therapies has gone on for centuries.  The increase in acceptance of alternatives appeared as religions began to accept new ways of thinking and orthodox principles began to be questioned.  What one expert maintains is moral relativism and political correctness has also been another reason why people will accept alternative remedies without question while voicing concern about traditional medicine.

So while the debate rages about health care, this side issue continues to be part of the consideration Americans make when they can’t afford health care. The question is how much and how far will this continue, given the issues before the political decision makers today and will people continue to turn to alternative therapies which haven’t been proven successful?

Crystal healing: Is it hype or hope?

Amber Pendant

The antique store carried a small crystal pendant, a fascinating piece of jewelry one might think, even as the store owner said it had special powers because it could offer healing.  Many people believe crystals can heal, but is this hype or hope for people who suffer from illness or pain?



The use of crystals, according to those whose expertise is in their uses as well as historical and social aspects, dates back more than 30,000 years.  The first were amber beads, amulets from the Baltics and from Britain have been found that were used as adornment.  But others found stones useful for both mental and physical health.  Egyptians used them for health and protection, for example.  Hematite was associated with the God of war.  Amethysts were used to prevent drunkenness and hangovers.



Crystals have been used in healing for as far back as recorded history, as many have observed; however in searching for research evidence, those interested maintain they have not been able to find that kind of definitive proof.  However, the long record of man's use does offer the idea that people had to place upon a stone some type of special power.  In fact it is said that crystals have been used by virtually all cultures of the world for mental, physical and spiritual healing or protection.



Crystal healing is described by some as a "pseudo-scientific or alternative medicine technique that employs stones and crystals as healing tools.  The practitioner places crystals on different parts of the body, often corresponding to chakras, or places crystals around the body in an attempt to construct an "energy grid." which is purported to surround the client with healing energy."



While many people point to the benefits of crystals in the healing of the mind, body and spirit, those who debunk the practice say there is no hard evidence crystals actually have any special powers.  Instead those who question the practice say it is a cultural bias or has the placebo effect where people believe in an object's powers and attribute any positive gain in relationship to that object.



There is evidence that what someone believes can heal or help can actually provide benefit, because of the nature of belief itself.  It is likely that belief that makes crystals work for some people but not for others, while at the same time they remain part of man's eternal jewels for beauty or for benefit.

Vitamin supplements show positive results in helping breast cancer patients

[caption id="attachment_5692" align="alignleft" width="459"] Pills[/caption]

Editor---Instead of repeating the same news over and over with every program throughout the day, some maintain it would be far better to bring to the table those news items that can be of great value to others.  In the spirit of that, here's a tidbit that needs a headline, for cherry-picking the news may eliminate information that is important such as the benefits that do exist with supplements and alternative medicine.

There were a number of items mentioned on the Internet that never made it to mainstream news, yet they are very important when women are trying to decide whether or not to take supplements.

“Older women who developed invasive breast cancer while taking multivitamin supplements with minerals had a 30% lower rate of breast cancer mortality than women who did not take supplements, according to an analysis of data from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). This was published online October 7 in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.”

Then again in Medscape it was reported:  “Vitamins might reduce breast cancer mortality”

Along the same lines of this are reports that show that a sham or pretend knee surgery provided patients with a more positive attitude and relief than those who actually had the operation.  In fact it turns out that many people who have had extensive knee surgery end up with arthritis and other issues.  That does not mean there aren't benefits from knee surgery, but some of the issues related to it are seldom mentioned in the press, according to a doctor who has looked at conventional medicine's mistakes and wondered why the negatives are emphasized with alternative medicine and not as often with conventional approaches to helping patients.

The message that remains most important is that there are positives and negatives in both alternative and traditional medicine, but one must go beyond the mainstream media oftentimes to find the positive in the stories related to alternative or non-conventional treatments.  So it pays to research options for care as widely as possible to become informed when there is anticipated risk, including the risks from medications that can also cause harm as well as help.

Natures own herb seen as potential remedy for AIDS, cancer andAlzheimer's disease

[caption id="attachment_3980" align="alignleft" width="300"] Babies born with AIDS[/caption]

Editor--Some news information can be condensed and rewritten along with additional citations when a critical piece of information is made available.  However, when it is about an herb that chemists from the American Chemical Society maintain can potentially eradicate the AIDS virus and has applications for Alzheimer's disease and cancer, then the entire news release must be presented, as it is here from the Newswise source:

An ingredient in a medicinal tea brewed from tree bark by tribal healers on the South Pacific island of Samoa — studied by scientists over the last 25 years — is showing significant promise as a drug lead in the long-sought goal of eliminating the AIDS virus from its sanctuaries in the body and thus eradicating the disease, a scientist said here today.

Speaking at the 246th National Meeting & Exhibition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Paul A. Wender, Ph.D., described efficient new ways of making prostratin and related leads, as well as other drug candidates first discovered in sea creatures, that appear even more effective for AIDS and have applications for Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.

In his presentation, Wender focused on fundamentally new approaches to some of the most serious unmet health challenges of our time. He is with Stanford University. They include the eradication of AIDS, developing medicines that stop the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and treating resistant cancer — the major cause of chemotherapy failure for most cancers. Almost 7,000 presentations on new molecular discoveries in science and other topics are on the agenda for the meeting of the world’s largest scientific society, which continues through Thursday in the Indiana Convention Center and downtown hotels.

Wender leads a scientific team at Stanford University that first developed a way to make the tea ingredient, prostratin, in large amounts from readily available ingredients. He described how that initial synthesis broke down a major barrier to probing prostratin’s antiviral effects. Until then, scientists had to extract prostratin from the bark of the Samoan mamala tree, and only tiny and variable amounts were so obtained. Samoa is where another scientist, Paul Cox, in 1987 heard a native healer praise mamala bark tea as a remedy for viral hepatitis. It led scientists at the National Cancer Institute to analyze the bark and identify prostratin as a key ingredient. Wender’s synthesis of prostratin opened the door to research on the substance and enabled his team to change prostratin’s architecture.

“We now have made synthetic variants of prostratin, called analogs, that are 100 times more potent than the natural product,” Wender said. “That’s part of the basis for our approach to advancing potentially transformative treatments for AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease and resistant cancer. The mamala tree did not start making prostratin millions of years ago to treat a disease that appeared in the 20th century. The same is true for other substances that occur naturally in plants and animals. But we now have the tools to read nature’s library and use the lessons learned there to design, make and study new molecules that address unmet medical needs. This “function-oriented” approach seeks to identify useful parts of molecules and then, based on this knowledge, to design new and more readily synthesized molecules that work better or work in totally new ways. This is a well-validated strategy, perhaps best exemplified by the emergence of modern aviation from knowledge of how birds fly.”

Those new versions of prostratin show promise in laboratory tests for both preventing HIV from infecting human cells and awakening dormant HIV viruses that are hiding inside human latently infected cells. Latent HIV cell reservoirs are untouchable by today’s antiviral medicines. Antiviral medicines reduce active virus levels in patients’ blood and keep patients healthy. But when patients stop the medication, the hibernating HIV in reservoirs awakens to resupply active virus. Prostratin flushes HIV out of its cellular sanctuaries so that antiviral drugs can attack and hopefully eradicate the HIV from the body. In essence, if one wants to eliminate a weed, one needs to get rid of its roots.

Wender’s group used those same “function-oriented” approaches in the design and synthesis of analogs of bryostatin, a substance that occurs naturally in sea creatures called bryozoans.

“Bryostatin has shown great promise in laboratory experiments as the basis for development of potentially transformative medicines for cancer, Alzheimer's disease and the eradication of HIV/AIDS,” Wender said. “However, its limited supply from natural sources has slowed research, and as with prostratin, it was not evolved in nature for modern therapeutic use. We have overcome both the supply and performance barriers by designing simpler and thus more readily synthesized analogs of bryostatin — over 100 of them so far. When tested in various assays related to HIV/AIDS eradication, these analogs are up to 1,000-fold more potent in flushing HIV out of its hiding places than prostratin. Much needs to be done, but we are on a promising trajectory.”

Wender’s group is working with colleagues at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the UCLA Center for AIDS Research and the Collaboratory of AIDS Researchers for Eradication to conduct further studies on the analogs. The AIDS Research Alliance, an independent not-for-profit research organization, is advancing prostratin toward clinical trials.

The research team is currently also focusing on bryostatin and designed analogs for their potential use in boosting memory in Alzheimer’s patients. The compound is known to improve learning and memory in laboratory rats. It appears to cause formation of new connections in the brain that are associated with learning and memory. Wender noted that bryostatin and its analogs may also have benefits for people who have had strokes or other conditions in which learning and memory are impaired.

Wender acknowledged funding from the National Institutes of Health.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.