CAM Watcher

Influenza Season: Renew your Herbal Skills for Fevers, Coughs...

A great set of articles by Paul Bergner Medical Herbalist and Clinical Nutritionist from the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism. 

Focus on Influenza:

• Rethinking the 1918 Pandemic: Excess mortality not all due to viral strain
• Influenza Prevention:
• Treatment of Febrile Illness: Focus on influenza
• Treating the Dry Cough of Influenza

    Sabra Way MNIMH

Editor in Chief and Founder, Galen's Watch

 Galen's Watch reports on complementary and alternative medical literature that is relevant to CAM practitioners. Visit our journal watch service and see the medical journals we scan regularly

Do You Have a Waiting List?

Another excellent post by AlternativeHealthPractice.com: How To Use a Waiting List in Your Practice – No Matter How Busy You Are

We were already using a waiting list, but it wasn’t working the way we thought it should. This time, we fixed our process for good and noticed the following in just a few days:

Less waiting for new and existing clients
More client visits in fewer clinic hours
More convenient scheduling for patients
Better daily flow for practitioners
Greater revenue with the same or lower costs
To make that happened required five key shifts. Not difficult ones, but each is important. Read on...

Sabra Way MNIMH

Editor in Chief and Founder, Galen's Watch

 Galen's Watch reports on complementary and alternative medical literature that is relevant to CAM practitioners. Visit our journal watch service and see the medical journals we scan regularly

Diabetic Foot Exam- Instructional Video

Watch this video by Dr A. Peters on how to conduct a diabetic foot exam.

 

All individuals with diabetes should receive an annual foot examination to identify high-risk foot conditions. This examination should include assessment of protective sensation, foot structure and biomechanics, vascular status, and skin integrity.

 

People with neuropathy should have a visual inspection of their feet at every visit with a health care professional.

 

Sabra Way MNIMH

Editor in Chief and Founder, Galen's Watch

 Galen's Watch reports on complementary and alternative medical literature that is relevant to CAM practitioners. Visit our journal watch service and see the medical journals we scan regularly

 

 

 

Insecticides: Toxic to humans?

A recent study presented at a conference: Farm history, insecticide use and risk of autoimmune rheumatic disease in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study shows an observational link between insecticide use and autoimmune diseases. Although it does not prove causality it warrants further research.

Among women who sprayed at least six times a year, the risk of autoimmune disease was more than twice that of women who didn't use insecticides

The study is also hypothesis-generating: Is it skin exposure? Is it inhalants?

Researchers cited studies showing that up to 75% of U.S. households use insecticides in the home or garden, with 20% of householders reporting that they had applied insecticide in the month before being surveyed. She also noted that insecticides don't break down readily in the home environment.

Sabra Way MNIMH

Editor in Chief and Founder, Galen's Watch

 Galen's Watch reports on complementary and alternative medical literature that is relevant to CAM practitioners. Visit our journal watch service and see the medical journals we scan regularly

Lead: Blood Levels and Herbal Supplements

A recent study entitled Herbal Supplement Use and Blood Lead Levels of United States Adults found that lead levels were 10% higher in women using herbal supplements than non-users. Women using Ayurvedic or traditional Chinese medicine herbs, St. John's wort and 'other' herbs had lead levels 24% and 21% higher than non users.

Here is a critique of the study by Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman. Dr. Fugh-Berman makes some very strong points about where the study went wrong:

• Men had higher blood lead levels than women, and although the use of supplements was similar in men and women, no association between lead levels and herb use was found among men.
• A limitation of the current study, which the authors acknowledge, is that information on Occupation (the primary source of exposure in adults) was not available.
• classification of herbal products in the Buettner study is idiosyncratic; why examine echinacea, ginkgo and St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) separately and then lump the hundreds of herbs (and potentially thousands of combinations) in the Chinese and Ayurvedic pharmacopoeias into a single category?
• Perhaps we should be testing produce, as well as herbs, for heavy metals.
• Mean lead levels in a population sketchily surveyed on the dose, duration, and details regarding intake of specific herbs cannot rationally be used to demonstrate lead concerns regarding specific herbs.

Sabra Way MNIMH

Editor in Chief and Founder, Galen's Watch

 Galen's Watch reports on complementary and alternative medical literature that is relevant to CAM practitioners. Visit our journal watch service and see the medical journals we scan regularly

Fish? Sustainable Seafood with High Omega-3 Fatty Acids

The Monterey aquarium has compiled what they call a Super Green List: Good for You, Good for the Oceans

Combining the work of conservation and public health organizations, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has identified seafood that is "Super Green," meaning that it is good for human health and does not harm the oceans. The Super Green list highlights products that are currently on the Seafood Watch "Best Choices" (green) list, are low in environmental contaminants and are good sources of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids.

Alist of safe healthy seafood has also been comlpiled by Kids Safe Seafood.

Sabra Way MNIMH

Editor in Chief and Founder, Galen's Watch

 Galen's Watch reports on complementary and alternative medical literature that is relevant to CAM practitioners. Visit our journal watch service and see the medical journals we scan regularly

 

Delayed Cord Clamping Should it be the New Routine Care at Birth?

An interesting article outlining the benefits, potential adverse effects, special considerations and implications in practice of delayed umbilical cord clamping.

Cord clamping immediately after birth is a routine obstetric procedure in the United States[1,2] despite a dearth of supportive evidence documenting its benefits. The case described here represents a common scenario in US hospitals, where discussion of the timing of cord clamping is rare. Currently, there is no set practice guideline for practitioners that delineates when this action should be taken. Active management of the third stage of labor—the objective of which is to reduce the risk of postpartum hemorrhage—often includes clamping the umbilical cord within 30 seconds of birth.[3] Several theories about the potential benefits and risks of delaying the clamping of the umbilical cord have been postulated and studied in recent years. This article reviews the benefits of delayed cord clamping, specifically increased hemoglobin (Hgb) and hematocrit (Hct) levels for the neonate with a subsequent reduction in rates of anemia and iron deficiency that may extend into the infant period. We then analyze the potential dangers of delaying cord clamping (i.e., increased rates of pathologic jaundice, polycythemia, and transient tachypnea in the neonate or increased rates of maternal postpartum hemorrhage). We also take into consideration populations for whom delayed cord clamping could provide extra benefit, such as preterm infants and babies born in areas where anemia is endemic.

Sabra Way MNIMH

Editor in Chief and Founder, Galen's Watch

 Galen's Watch reports on complementary and alternative medical literature that is relevant to CAM practitioners. Visit our journal watch service and see the medical journals we scan regularly

It's cold and flu season!

Natural Medicines in the Clinical Management of Cold and Fluis an excellent primer for the beginning of the cold and flu season. Review the causes, pathogenesis, symptom chart, conventional and CAM medicines, and prevention.

The "common" cold is aptly named. It is something nearly everyone encounters. The U.S. population experiences nearly a billion colds annually. Children usually have about 6-10 colds per year. Adolescents and adults have about 2-4. Adults over 60 typically have less than one cold per year.

Influenza, more commonly called "the flu", is much more serious and much less common than the common cold. Each year 35-50 million people in the US get the flu. Most people recover. But the flu still causes complications which lead to 100,000 hospitalizations and more than 50,000 deaths each year.

Sabra Way MNIMH

Editor in Chief and Founder, Galen's Watch

 Galen's Watch reports on complementary and alternative medical literature that is relevant to CAM practitioners. Visit our journal watch service and see the medical journals we scan regularly

Pesticides and Parkinsonism?

A commentary the recent study: Occupation and risk of parkinsonism: a multicenter case-control study.

Any exposure to the herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) almost tripled the risk of parkinsonism compared with individuals who reported no exposure to the agent, according to a report in the September Archives of Neurology.

Some of the article criticisms of the study were:

• Limitations of the study included use of a referral population, exclusion of patients with dementia, and a largely Caucasian group, all of which may limit generalization of the findings to other groups. 
• Other limitations include the absence of pesticide exposure measurements, as opposed to patient recall, inclusion of multiple association data, and inability to determine causality from case-control studies.
• Because of the case-control design of the study, the results do not prove that exposure to pesticides increases the risk of parkinsonism.

Sabra Way MNIMH

Editor in Chief and Founder, Galen's Watch

 Galen's Watch reports on complementary and alternative medical literature that is relevant to CAM practitioners. Visit our journal watch service and see the medical journals we scan regularly

 

Read Chinese Medicine Times- Free Articles

Chinese Medicine Times (CMT) ejournal. This ejournal covers all aspects of Chinese medicine, acupuncture and herbal medicine. New articles include:

• Thought, History and Critique: An Appreciation of Chinese Medical Canon Relative to Pulse Diagnosis
• The Treatment of High FSH Levels in Fertility Patients using Traditional Chinese Medicine
• Analysis and Evaluation on Acupuncture Treatment of Cervical Pains in the UK - A Study of 74 Cases

Sabra Way MNIMH

Editor in Chief and Founder, Galen's Watch

 Galen's Watch reports on complementary and alternative medical literature that is relevant to CAM practitioners. Visit our journal watch service and see the medical journals we scan regularly