Showing posts with label homeopathy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homeopathy. Show all posts
Why I Love Homeopathy
By Louise N. Edwards, ND, LAc
AANP 2011 Vis Award Winner
Having been invited to write a post for the AANP blog (Thank you Mandisa), I logged in to see what other topics had been covered.
The most recent post by my dear friend Dr. Shiva Barton was titled, “Why is homeopathy dead?” I found this question startling and disturbing.
Once I read the post about how fewer naturopathic graduates are using homeopathy and the reasons why, it became clear to me what I wanted to write about, which is why I love homeopathy and the “slightly twisted” trail that brought me to this point. I am hoping that this will inspire some of you younger docs to lose the fear and embrace the therapy that I love the most!
To give some context, let me share a bit about my practice. I graduated from NCNM in 1988 and the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine (OCOM) in 1989. I’ve had a general family practice in Colorado where I occasionally see patients and now primarily teach naturopathic medicine at Bastyr and NUHS.
My practice is based on traditional naturopathic philosophy, always focusing on re-establishing the basis for health by correcting the underlying imbalances such as diet, hydration, sleep, exercise and mental state and then supplementing with other therapies. The therapies that I use include herbal medicine from both the western and Chinese traditions, nutrient supplements, hydrotherapy, acupuncture, manipulation, counseling, cell salts and homeopathy.
During my time at NCNM, we were only required to take 2 courses in homeopathy, both on acute prescribing. Unfortunately my instructor did not impress me with the value of the remedies, so I didn’t take any of the elective classes in homeopathy.
When I began my practice in Colorado, I occasionally prescribed homeopathy based on the acute prescribing I’d been taught in school. No prolonged histories or deep analysis just simple acute prescribing, such as Arnica for trauma, and I witnessed remarkable results! I saw profound, fast and clear responses to the remedies.
This happened so consistently I couldn’t ignore it. I began to regret that I hadn’t taken those electives because I was ill prepared to use this powerful medicine. I needed more training.
So I started studying, books and notes by George Vithoulkas and Dr. Eizyaga. I attended intensives with docs such as Drs. Paul Herscu, Robin Murphy and Rajan Sankaran. I went to conferences sponsored by the Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians and National Center for Homeopathy.
During these years, I was exposed to many different types of prescribing: high potency, low potency, single doses, repeated doses, single remedies, combinations, families, constitutional, miasmas and more acute prescribing. I also encountered many strong opinions about which were the right ways to prescribe. Intriguingly, I found that most of these folks, prescribing in a diversity of ways, were having consistently good results. So, I experimented with all the methods, learning and refining my techniques of choosing remedies and dosing. I became ever more impressed with the phenomenal healing capacities of homeopathy. I witnessed significant pathology resolve and even more impressive to me, I observed significant and often deep seated psychological disorders resolved.
Practicing holistically, I’ve always focused on the patient’s state of mind as a central feature of their overall health. As I mentioned above, I do quite a bit of counseling. It is not uncommon for patients to tell me that they have had counseling, that they know what the problem is, the causes of their disturbance, that they have tried many times to change and that it “feels cellular” and they can’t seem shake it. This is where the correctly chosen remedy can work miracles. Literally, hundreds of times I have seen people’s state of mind transformed by the right remedy, freeing them from years of suffering. I keep hoping that the field of psychiatry will finally accept homeopathy because it will transform the practice.
For many years, there has rarely been a patient that gets out of my office without a remedy. Like Dr. Barton, I use it in combination with all the other therapies in my toolbox, including necessary pharmaceuticals (although these can often disrupt the remedy, so I have to use repeated doses). I do recommend to my students that when they are learning any therapy, that they use them singularly, so that they understand the effects of that herb, nutrient or remedy. However, once they have experience with each of them, then I encourage them to combine them, when appropriate, to optimize the treatment of each individual.
In all my years of practice, I’ve missed the remedy a few times. I’ve seen a few provings when I gave the wrong remedy for too long (which is easily corrected), but I have never witnessed harm and am so sad to hear that students are told this is a risk. If someone were to tell me that I could only use one therapy in my practice (in addition to basic nature cure) I would choose homeopathy, because in my experience, there is no other therapy that has such profound and broad effects. That’s why I love homeopathy.
Homeopathic Treatment of Psychiatric Conditions and Emotional Imbalances
By Christopher Johnson, ND
In practice, I have had significant success in treating clinical psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depressive disorders, ADHD/behavioral disorders, PTSD, bipolar affective disorder and panic disorder using homeopathy. Most patients who come to me for help with these conditions are using psychotropic medications, but are often able to discontinue or reduce the dosage of these meds (under the supervision of whoever prescribed them) once they experience improvement.
In addition to treating clinically diagnosable psychiatric conditions, homeopathy is also extremely effective at treating everyday anxieties, irritabilities, moods, etc. Literally every day I see patients who come back for their first follow up visit to tell me they feel less anxious, irritable, etc. This, even though many of these patients did not come to me for help with emotional issues and in some cases were not even aware the issues were present until they took the homeopathic remedy, became healthy, and realized how good it feels to be without emotional imbalances.
Not only do many patients tell me they feel less anxious or depressed, I actually expect it from every patient. If it is not so, I have not given them the correct homeopathic remedy and they are not truly healing. A healthy body is an emotionally calm and happy body.
Homeopathy restores health quickly, gently and usually in a permanent fashion by stimulating the body’s own healing capacity.
People are often amazed to see that emotional issues can be resolved without years of psychotherapy, yet this is common with homeopathic treatment. In other cases, patients who are undergoing psychotherapy and are intellectually aware of their issues but unable to resolve them often have rapid progress upon initiating homeopathic treatment. I have seen patients suffering from anxiety for 30 years have it resolved within weeks of homeopathic treatment.
The fact that homeopathic remedies affect the body in this manner is not trivial. Two recent major studies demonstrated that anxiety is a very significant risk factor for heart disease – as much or more than hypertension, elevated cholesterol, etc. An anxious or depressed body is one out of balance and at risk for all manner of diseases.
Unlike conventional medical treatments, homeopathy has no side effects and the positive effects are curative (to the extent the body is capable of healing) – meaning that treatment need only proceed for a finite time period, after which the patient no longer need use the homeopathic remedy to remain healthy. This was demonstrated in a 2008 study which followed 3,709 patients for 8 years. It found, “Patients who seek homeopathic treatment are likely to improve considerably. These effects maintain for as long as 8 years.”
The following is a sampling of trials demonstrating homeopathy’s effectiveness in treating psychiatric disorders:
In a 2009 randomized, double-blind trial at a Brazilian state medical school, homeopathy outperformed Fluoxetine (Prozac) on all measured parameters in treatment of moderate to severe depression.
A 2006 study of 1,783 patients receiving homeopathic treatment for a variety of complaints found, “Strongly positive outcomes… were achieved most notably in the frequently treated conditions of anxiety, depression, and irritable bowel syndrome.”
A 2005 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study published in the European Journal of Pediatrics found, “scientific evidence of the effectiveness of homeopathy in the treatment of ADHD, particularly in the areas of behavioral and cognitive functions.”
Photo by Eggybird via Flickr, used under the Creative Commons License.
As a naturopathic physician I work regularly with patients who have emotional imbalances, sometimes as a chief complaint, and sometimes as simply one symptom amongst many. It seems that having some degree of anxiety and/or depression is simply a part of being human – most persons experience them at some point in their lives.In practice, I have had significant success in treating clinical psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depressive disorders, ADHD/behavioral disorders, PTSD, bipolar affective disorder and panic disorder using homeopathy. Most patients who come to me for help with these conditions are using psychotropic medications, but are often able to discontinue or reduce the dosage of these meds (under the supervision of whoever prescribed them) once they experience improvement.
In addition to treating clinically diagnosable psychiatric conditions, homeopathy is also extremely effective at treating everyday anxieties, irritabilities, moods, etc. Literally every day I see patients who come back for their first follow up visit to tell me they feel less anxious, irritable, etc. This, even though many of these patients did not come to me for help with emotional issues and in some cases were not even aware the issues were present until they took the homeopathic remedy, became healthy, and realized how good it feels to be without emotional imbalances.
Not only do many patients tell me they feel less anxious or depressed, I actually expect it from every patient. If it is not so, I have not given them the correct homeopathic remedy and they are not truly healing. A healthy body is an emotionally calm and happy body.
Homeopathy restores health quickly, gently and usually in a permanent fashion by stimulating the body’s own healing capacity.
People are often amazed to see that emotional issues can be resolved without years of psychotherapy, yet this is common with homeopathic treatment. In other cases, patients who are undergoing psychotherapy and are intellectually aware of their issues but unable to resolve them often have rapid progress upon initiating homeopathic treatment. I have seen patients suffering from anxiety for 30 years have it resolved within weeks of homeopathic treatment.
The fact that homeopathic remedies affect the body in this manner is not trivial. Two recent major studies demonstrated that anxiety is a very significant risk factor for heart disease – as much or more than hypertension, elevated cholesterol, etc. An anxious or depressed body is one out of balance and at risk for all manner of diseases.
Unlike conventional medical treatments, homeopathy has no side effects and the positive effects are curative (to the extent the body is capable of healing) – meaning that treatment need only proceed for a finite time period, after which the patient no longer need use the homeopathic remedy to remain healthy. This was demonstrated in a 2008 study which followed 3,709 patients for 8 years. It found, “Patients who seek homeopathic treatment are likely to improve considerably. These effects maintain for as long as 8 years.”
The following is a sampling of trials demonstrating homeopathy’s effectiveness in treating psychiatric disorders:
In a 2009 randomized, double-blind trial at a Brazilian state medical school, homeopathy outperformed Fluoxetine (Prozac) on all measured parameters in treatment of moderate to severe depression.
A 2006 study of 1,783 patients receiving homeopathic treatment for a variety of complaints found, “Strongly positive outcomes… were achieved most notably in the frequently treated conditions of anxiety, depression, and irritable bowel syndrome.”
A 2005 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study published in the European Journal of Pediatrics found, “scientific evidence of the effectiveness of homeopathy in the treatment of ADHD, particularly in the areas of behavioral and cognitive functions.”
The Problem with Research
By Tim Birdsall, ND, FABNO
2009 AANP Physician of the Year
To top it off, the reason I was out of the office last week was that I was attending the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the advisory body to NIH’s NCCAM. On that council, we have talked about just this issue – why do therapies which seem to make biological and physiological sense, which have some epidemiologic data to support their use, and which naturopathic physicians (and other alternatively-minded practitioners) have been using for decades (or much longer), seem to fail in double blind, randomized clinical trials?
The reasons are multiple, complex, and often convoluted. And conventional medicine is all too willing to accept a negative study of a natural therapy, proclaim that “it doesn’t work,” and wash their hands of the entire mess, while leaving the public with the impression that alternative medicine isn’t really worth much. In reality, these therapies often fail in clinical trials because those trials are designed to answer simple, straightforward questions, and as anyone who has provided care to patients can attest, clinical medicine is anything but simple and straightforward. The typical randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study can only answer a limited set of very specific questions, and if the wrong question is being asked, or if it is being asked in the wrong patient population, the answer may be equivocal, confusing, or just plain wrong.
In the lung cancer study I saw today (J Clin Oncol 28:7s, 2010 (suppl; abstr CRA7004)), selenium actually appeared to show benefit in one sub-group – those who had never smoked. True, that finding did not reach statistical significance, but then neither did the finding of potential harm (P=0.15). But which one made the headline? You already know the answer.
And so I began to ponder the question, “What’s wrong with research?” A part of me becomes enraged at the reductionistic, allopathic, biomedical model, which breaks things down into components so small that all synergism, all interdependence is stripped away, and then declares those components to be ineffective. Another part argues that the wrong component was selected, or was a synthetic form (although in the lung cancer study, they used selenium yeast). But ultimately, I find myself becoming offended because I believe that these therapies work… Whoa! Believe? OK, but where is the role for evidence? I used to believe that stress caused gastric ulcers. And then along came Helicobacter pylori, and I had to change my belief to match the evidence.
For naturopathic medicine to survive and thrive in the 21st century climate of evidence-based medicine, I think at least three things must happen. First, we should be willing to judge ourselves critically and objectively, and subject our therapies (and ourselves) to scientific scrutiny. Scary and intimidating? Perhaps. Essential? Absolutely.
Second, we need to step up and recruit and train naturopathic physicians to be world-class researchers. We make great doctors – our patients tell us so every day. We have yet to prove that we can also make great researchers, although we have begun to lay the groundwork to create this success. We are playing catch-up with academic institutions that have a 50-60 year head start, but we have the advantages of being able to learn from their mistakes and of having a public who demands the type of care we provide. While the schools will bear much of this burden, it will require the concerted effort of the entire profession to create the infrastructure necessary to make this reality.
Third, we should collaborate with other professions and institutions to craft the research models necessary to adequately perform “whole systems” naturopathic research. There are examples of this type of approach already existing in the health systems research literature which can be adapted to our needs. In the end, we must create and validate the tools to dethrone the randomized controlled trial as the gold standard, and construct new ways to validate clinical approaches to health issues. Much as the homeopaths of 2+ centuries ago created the proving as a way to better understand and utilize their remedies, we must refuse to be limited by the way conventional medicine views health and disease.
We must boldly strike out to create the systems needed to transform both our research questions and the systems we use to generate the answers. Only then will we be able to use the tools of research to promote and defend naturopathic medicine, instead of feeling beaten over the head by them. Research as an advantage, instead of an impediment. Imagine that.
2009 AANP Physician of the Year
Photo by US Army Africa via Flickr, used under the Creative Commons License.
I’ve been out of the office for a few days, and was way too busy catching up on all of the countless things which don’t get done when you’re not there attending to them. So perhaps I can be forgiven for not seeing it immediately. But, at the end of the day, there it was in my Inbox, leering at me, daring me to open it up. “Selenium Does Not Benefit -- and May Harm -- Most Patients With Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer.” What? Not again… Yet another study showing that antioxidants may do more harm than good. First it was beta-carotene. Then vitamin E. Now selenium. And that’s just the antioxidants. To top it off, the reason I was out of the office last week was that I was attending the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the advisory body to NIH’s NCCAM. On that council, we have talked about just this issue – why do therapies which seem to make biological and physiological sense, which have some epidemiologic data to support their use, and which naturopathic physicians (and other alternatively-minded practitioners) have been using for decades (or much longer), seem to fail in double blind, randomized clinical trials?
The reasons are multiple, complex, and often convoluted. And conventional medicine is all too willing to accept a negative study of a natural therapy, proclaim that “it doesn’t work,” and wash their hands of the entire mess, while leaving the public with the impression that alternative medicine isn’t really worth much. In reality, these therapies often fail in clinical trials because those trials are designed to answer simple, straightforward questions, and as anyone who has provided care to patients can attest, clinical medicine is anything but simple and straightforward. The typical randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study can only answer a limited set of very specific questions, and if the wrong question is being asked, or if it is being asked in the wrong patient population, the answer may be equivocal, confusing, or just plain wrong.
In the lung cancer study I saw today (J Clin Oncol 28:7s, 2010 (suppl; abstr CRA7004)), selenium actually appeared to show benefit in one sub-group – those who had never smoked. True, that finding did not reach statistical significance, but then neither did the finding of potential harm (P=0.15). But which one made the headline? You already know the answer.
And so I began to ponder the question, “What’s wrong with research?” A part of me becomes enraged at the reductionistic, allopathic, biomedical model, which breaks things down into components so small that all synergism, all interdependence is stripped away, and then declares those components to be ineffective. Another part argues that the wrong component was selected, or was a synthetic form (although in the lung cancer study, they used selenium yeast). But ultimately, I find myself becoming offended because I believe that these therapies work… Whoa! Believe? OK, but where is the role for evidence? I used to believe that stress caused gastric ulcers. And then along came Helicobacter pylori, and I had to change my belief to match the evidence.
For naturopathic medicine to survive and thrive in the 21st century climate of evidence-based medicine, I think at least three things must happen. First, we should be willing to judge ourselves critically and objectively, and subject our therapies (and ourselves) to scientific scrutiny. Scary and intimidating? Perhaps. Essential? Absolutely.
Second, we need to step up and recruit and train naturopathic physicians to be world-class researchers. We make great doctors – our patients tell us so every day. We have yet to prove that we can also make great researchers, although we have begun to lay the groundwork to create this success. We are playing catch-up with academic institutions that have a 50-60 year head start, but we have the advantages of being able to learn from their mistakes and of having a public who demands the type of care we provide. While the schools will bear much of this burden, it will require the concerted effort of the entire profession to create the infrastructure necessary to make this reality.
Third, we should collaborate with other professions and institutions to craft the research models necessary to adequately perform “whole systems” naturopathic research. There are examples of this type of approach already existing in the health systems research literature which can be adapted to our needs. In the end, we must create and validate the tools to dethrone the randomized controlled trial as the gold standard, and construct new ways to validate clinical approaches to health issues. Much as the homeopaths of 2+ centuries ago created the proving as a way to better understand and utilize their remedies, we must refuse to be limited by the way conventional medicine views health and disease.
We must boldly strike out to create the systems needed to transform both our research questions and the systems we use to generate the answers. Only then will we be able to use the tools of research to promote and defend naturopathic medicine, instead of feeling beaten over the head by them. Research as an advantage, instead of an impediment. Imagine that.
Why is Homeopathy Dead?
By Shiva Barton, ND, LAc
Despite what they may have heard about me, I have quite a few naturopathic students and young doctors that visit my office. My most recent visitor was Dr. Laura Chan, a recent graduate of Bastyr U, a smart, dedicated and enthusiastic new practitioner. She is excited, dedicated and enthusiastic about almost all the aspects of being a practitioner as she embarks on her new career. One of the things she was most notably not enthusiastic or excited about was homeopathy. Dr. Chan was interested in homeopathy when she first arrived at Bastyr. However, her training in homeopathy led her to believe that homeopathy was too complicated to use as a treatment modality in a general naturopathic practice. Now, I would like to think that Dr. Chan's experience was an anomaly, but it is not. Almost all of the students that I have been a preceptor for, no matter the college, have had an experience like Dr. Chan. So my question is, “What's up with the way the ND schools are teaching homeopathy?”
2011 AANP Physician of the Year
Despite what they may have heard about me, I have quite a few naturopathic students and young doctors that visit my office. My most recent visitor was Dr. Laura Chan, a recent graduate of Bastyr U, a smart, dedicated and enthusiastic new practitioner. She is excited, dedicated and enthusiastic about almost all the aspects of being a practitioner as she embarks on her new career. One of the things she was most notably not enthusiastic or excited about was homeopathy. Dr. Chan was interested in homeopathy when she first arrived at Bastyr. However, her training in homeopathy led her to believe that homeopathy was too complicated to use as a treatment modality in a general naturopathic practice. Now, I would like to think that Dr. Chan's experience was an anomaly, but it is not. Almost all of the students that I have been a preceptor for, no matter the college, have had an experience like Dr. Chan. So my question is, “What's up with the way the ND schools are teaching homeopathy?”Classical or Bust?
Is this the idea, then, that the only way you can do homeopathy is to do classical prescribing? Homeopathy, evidently, is a very serious endeavor. It seems like the version that is taught in the ND medical colleges is something similar to the following:
1. You have to take a 1.5 - 2 hour intake and get every minute detail to be effective.
2. Homeopathy doesn't mix well. You can only prescribe a homeopathic remedy. You can't mix it with other treatments because:
a. The other stuff messes up the homeo.
b. You can't tell what is working if you give homeo with something else.
3. You have to wait a month to see if it works (this alone is a good strategy for unemployment and/or starvation of the practitioner).
4. You can really do incredible, irreparable harm to a person's vital force if you pick the wrong remedy. I mean, we are not just talking about vital force, for gosh sakes. We are talking about VITAL FORCEhere. You don't want to screw with someone's VITAL FORCE, do you?
So, the combo platter of taking too long, waiting too long, too much danger, too little income and too many rules scares people from using homeopathy in their practice.
Homeo, Homeo, Where Art Thou Homeo?
I hate to break it to you, but homeo (okay, it has a nick name now. How serious can something be with a nick name like Homeo?) is a valuable tool for the general ND practice. I encourage all of you newbies to throw out the homeo philosophy books (really!) and stick to the basics: match the remedy to the person with the symptoms. Corresponding to the point numbered above you will find:
1. You can use homeo in the context of a regular 1 hour new patient office exam or shorter follow up. Just take a minute to change your thinking towards a homeopathic remedy. That's really all it takes.
2. You can use it – no, you SHOULD use it – with any other modality.
a. The other stuff doesn't interfere with the homeo effect (by the way, neither does coffee, nor usually does mint).
b. Homeopathy creates an “Aha” reaction, much different from the slower slope of improvement with botanicals or nutrition.
3. Homeo works very quickly – acutely within hours and chronically within a day or two. Nothing else generally works this fast. If you don't see a change this quick, recommend another remedy.
4. You can have side effects from any naturopathic intervention. The side effects from homeo are generally fewer and less intense than from other treatments.
Use It or Lose It
So, you new grads/new docs: give it a shot. The current rules are dogma. Let your karma eat your dogma. You can use combination remedies. You can use one remedy at a time. You can use two at a time (I double dare you!). Your patients can use mint. They can use coffee. They can take homeo right before they eat. They can take it right after they eat. They can even take it WHILE THEY ARE EATING. Just use it. You will find your groove. Mostly, you will find a very valuable tool to help people get well, which is why we took this job, isn't it? Maybe the ND schools will catch on sooner or later.
Two Schools
By Jacob Schor, ND, FABNO
Curcumin is the principal curcuminoid of the popular Indian spice turmeric, pictured above.
Photo by FootosVanRobin via Flickr, used under the Creative Commons License.
There were two distinct schools of thought regarding the dosing of herbal medicines when I was a student at National College of Naturopathic Medicine during the 1980s, a couple of decades ago. Most of our teachers in Portland thought in terms of what I now regard as low doses of botanical medicines. We would often prescribe doses of just several drops of tincture diluted in water.
Apparently those at Bastyr University held a different view. This was brought home when Dr. Silena Heron came down to Portland from Seattle one rainy day and lectured our class. She didn’t talk of drops but instead talked of doses in milliliters and teaspoons. She was dosing herbs to get pharmacological effect while we were looking for homeopathic effects.
These thoughts are on my mind because of a study I came across recently about curcumin and cholesterol. Over the years a number of papers have looked to see if curcumin or turmeric lowered cholesterol. Some report benefit, others not. But this paper reports something I would have not predicted. Let me tell you more about it.
The paper, authored by Alwi et al., was published in 2008 in an Indonesian medical journal and looked at the effect of curcumin on lipid levels in patients with acute coronary syndrome. This is a broad term, referring to most any situation in which the heart isn’t getting enough oxygen. For a year, between May 2005 and May 2006, the researchers enlisted patients at several hospitals to participate in a randomized double blind controlled trial. They administered curcumin in escalating doses that ranged from a low dose of just 15 mg/ 3 times per day, up to 60 mg/ three times a day, on the participathing patients’ lipid profiles. The researchers tracked total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides along with other common blood parameters in 63 patients who completed the study.
The researchers report that they saw lipid improvements stemming from the curcumin that varied with the doses and that in regard to, “… the effects of curcumin on total cholesterol level and LDL cholesterol level, there was a trend that the lower the dose of curcumin, the higher the effect of reduction. For HDL cholesterol level, there was also a trend that the lower the dose of curcumin, the higher the effect of increase in HDL cholesterol level.”
Let me make sure you are reading this right. They are telling us that 45 mg of curcumin per day worked better than 180 mg per day. Neither of these are particularly high doses. The smallest capsule we have on our pharmacy shelf contains 250 mg of curcumin and that product in particular claims enhanced absorption so that it is equivalent to a dose of 2,000 mg. Our standard curcumin product comes in 750 mg capsules. If we believe this Alwi study, we should divide those 750 mg capsules and spread it out over a two week period.
Perhaps we need to rethink our ‘more is better’ assumptions and even re-examine our earlier habits of using tiny doses when it comes to prescribing some botanical medicines.
The late William Mitchell would sometimes use a specific word to describe how a botanical extract affects an organism. He would say that it “informs” the body or the mind or the vital force. I don’t pretend to understand exactly what Dr. Mitchell meant by the word ‘inform,’ but I’ve taken it to mean that the particular molecules isolated from the plant bring information, that teaches or shows by example, a different pattern of behavior and function to the organism. Thus botanical medicine can act as a catalyst to change function.
We certainly have some unpleasant examples with which we might illustrate this idea. Certain addictive drugs appear to trigger permanent changes in brain chemistry after even a single exposure. Even if we aren’t talking about crack cocaine, it is not unreasonable to think that other more benign plant extracts will also cause lasting permanent changes in function. Botanical medicine, when well practiced, is perhaps more like the automatic software updates that my computer routinely downloads. They teach the system how to work better and update it so it understands how to respond to new challenges.
If we are using the analogy that herbs act like catalysts, then it makes sense that relatively small doses are all that’s needed to turn the trick. Maybe we only need the large doses when we are using herbs as drugs and not as information carriers. Perhaps drugs deliver orders to the body, while herbs deliver knowledge. [If I keep up this kind of train of thought I may have to move back to Oregon and eat granola again.]
These are the sorts of discussions we engaged in decades ago as naturopathic students. We hear these kinds of arguments less often these days. I often just reach for standardized plant extracts whose chemical actions have been multiplied by refining, distillation and concentration. More is better and stronger is better; these have become our quiet mantras. We once condescendingly attributed this type of thinking to medical doctors (especially those claiming to practice natural medicine) and considered it to be an inferior approach to treating the patient. We allowed that some one in our profession might out of necessity fall back and prescribe botanical medicine like this out of desperation but it wasn’t the preferred path of treatment, the way a real naturopathic doctor worked. We were such idealists.
Luckily many of us still are idealists and this paper on curcumin should serve as a reminder. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes what we need is a tiny nudge from something so small as to seem like magic. Or perhaps, in our rush to keep up with all the new science, we have to leave a little space in our understanding for the magic in our medicine to do its work.
Curcumin is the principal curcuminoid of the popular Indian spice turmeric, pictured above.Photo by FootosVanRobin via Flickr, used under the Creative Commons License.
There were two distinct schools of thought regarding the dosing of herbal medicines when I was a student at National College of Naturopathic Medicine during the 1980s, a couple of decades ago. Most of our teachers in Portland thought in terms of what I now regard as low doses of botanical medicines. We would often prescribe doses of just several drops of tincture diluted in water.
Apparently those at Bastyr University held a different view. This was brought home when Dr. Silena Heron came down to Portland from Seattle one rainy day and lectured our class. She didn’t talk of drops but instead talked of doses in milliliters and teaspoons. She was dosing herbs to get pharmacological effect while we were looking for homeopathic effects.
These thoughts are on my mind because of a study I came across recently about curcumin and cholesterol. Over the years a number of papers have looked to see if curcumin or turmeric lowered cholesterol. Some report benefit, others not. But this paper reports something I would have not predicted. Let me tell you more about it.
The paper, authored by Alwi et al., was published in 2008 in an Indonesian medical journal and looked at the effect of curcumin on lipid levels in patients with acute coronary syndrome. This is a broad term, referring to most any situation in which the heart isn’t getting enough oxygen. For a year, between May 2005 and May 2006, the researchers enlisted patients at several hospitals to participate in a randomized double blind controlled trial. They administered curcumin in escalating doses that ranged from a low dose of just 15 mg/ 3 times per day, up to 60 mg/ three times a day, on the participathing patients’ lipid profiles. The researchers tracked total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides along with other common blood parameters in 63 patients who completed the study.
The researchers report that they saw lipid improvements stemming from the curcumin that varied with the doses and that in regard to, “… the effects of curcumin on total cholesterol level and LDL cholesterol level, there was a trend that the lower the dose of curcumin, the higher the effect of reduction. For HDL cholesterol level, there was also a trend that the lower the dose of curcumin, the higher the effect of increase in HDL cholesterol level.”
Let me make sure you are reading this right. They are telling us that 45 mg of curcumin per day worked better than 180 mg per day. Neither of these are particularly high doses. The smallest capsule we have on our pharmacy shelf contains 250 mg of curcumin and that product in particular claims enhanced absorption so that it is equivalent to a dose of 2,000 mg. Our standard curcumin product comes in 750 mg capsules. If we believe this Alwi study, we should divide those 750 mg capsules and spread it out over a two week period.
Perhaps we need to rethink our ‘more is better’ assumptions and even re-examine our earlier habits of using tiny doses when it comes to prescribing some botanical medicines.
The late William Mitchell would sometimes use a specific word to describe how a botanical extract affects an organism. He would say that it “informs” the body or the mind or the vital force. I don’t pretend to understand exactly what Dr. Mitchell meant by the word ‘inform,’ but I’ve taken it to mean that the particular molecules isolated from the plant bring information, that teaches or shows by example, a different pattern of behavior and function to the organism. Thus botanical medicine can act as a catalyst to change function.
We certainly have some unpleasant examples with which we might illustrate this idea. Certain addictive drugs appear to trigger permanent changes in brain chemistry after even a single exposure. Even if we aren’t talking about crack cocaine, it is not unreasonable to think that other more benign plant extracts will also cause lasting permanent changes in function. Botanical medicine, when well practiced, is perhaps more like the automatic software updates that my computer routinely downloads. They teach the system how to work better and update it so it understands how to respond to new challenges.
If we are using the analogy that herbs act like catalysts, then it makes sense that relatively small doses are all that’s needed to turn the trick. Maybe we only need the large doses when we are using herbs as drugs and not as information carriers. Perhaps drugs deliver orders to the body, while herbs deliver knowledge. [If I keep up this kind of train of thought I may have to move back to Oregon and eat granola again.]
These are the sorts of discussions we engaged in decades ago as naturopathic students. We hear these kinds of arguments less often these days. I often just reach for standardized plant extracts whose chemical actions have been multiplied by refining, distillation and concentration. More is better and stronger is better; these have become our quiet mantras. We once condescendingly attributed this type of thinking to medical doctors (especially those claiming to practice natural medicine) and considered it to be an inferior approach to treating the patient. We allowed that some one in our profession might out of necessity fall back and prescribe botanical medicine like this out of desperation but it wasn’t the preferred path of treatment, the way a real naturopathic doctor worked. We were such idealists.
Luckily many of us still are idealists and this paper on curcumin should serve as a reminder. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes what we need is a tiny nudge from something so small as to seem like magic. Or perhaps, in our rush to keep up with all the new science, we have to leave a little space in our understanding for the magic in our medicine to do its work.
Mahatma Gandhi, India’s "Father of Naturopathy"
Michael Cronin, ND
AANP President
AANP President
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| The entrance to S-VYASA's Prashanti Kutiram Campus |
The ICYN was sponsored by the state government of Karnataka’s Department of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH). They see Naturopathy as an intrinsic part of the healthcare system and just this week announced that 10% of the state's overall healthcare budget would be dedicated to patients receiving AYUSH care. There is an epidemic of non-communicable disease in India, including diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases are the country’s leading cause of death. There are also other provisions in the works to improve the public access to Naturopathy care, including adding outpatient naturopathic services in all municipal hospitals.
The scope of practice in Naturopathy includes hydrotherapy, fasting, diet therapy, massage, Acupuncture and Yoga. It does not include medicine administered orally, Homeopathy or Botanical Medicine. Steps are being taken to bridge this divide in order to use evidence-based practices, following the established principles of Naturopathy. Historically, Homeopathy, Ayurveda, and Unani (Persian herbal medicine, widely practiced in Southern Asia) have existed as separate branches of traditional knowledge systems in India and traditional Chinese medicine is not practiced.
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| The Jindal NatureCure Center |
Naturopathic evidence-based research is alive and well in India. At S-VYASA, where we are staying, they have Ph.D. candidates in Yoga who are focusing on many aspects of naturopathy. One Ph.D. candidate I spoke with is researching hydrotherapy for hypertension, another on diabetes and a third on migraines. There is much published work on the physiologic effects of meditation as well as work towards understanding which specific yoga asanas (postures), breathing, relaxation and meditative techniques are best for specific conditions.
An international working group on naturopathy and yoga convened the day after the conference with participants from over 20 countries. There were four subgroups established, including education, research, clinical practice and regulatory advocacy. Participants from the United States included representatives from Harvard Medical School, the Department of Defense, the Samueli Institute and the AANP. The working group is being funded by the State government of Karnataka’s Department of AYUSH. The government perceives the promotion of Naturopathy and Yoga as not only good for public health, but also an economic engine, separate from their conventional medical tourism. The state has 3 colleges and many hospitals/sanatoriums including, one 275-bed facility and another 200-bed facility. There is clearly dynamic development of Karnataka’s medical tourism capacity and naturopathy is seen as an important component.
The Indian educational system offers a Science pre-university “stream” in what would be considered an American 11th and 12th grade. They have a four-year academic program and a fifth year of internship. They have also established a two-year advanced degree program offering an MD in Naturopathy.
Learning about India’s unique relationship with Naturopathy was very exciting, but the enthusiasm of the students, doctors, educators and officials was by far the best part. They are all so pleased to connect with the North American profession, as we are to connect with them!
Namaste,
Michael Cronin, ND
Getting Over It
Guest Post By Christopher Johnson, ND
http://www.thrivenaturopathic.com/
Monument to Samuel Hanneman founder of the
homeopathic school of medicine. Photo by dbking
via Flickr, used under the Creative Common's License.
A group of so-called “skeptics” recently staged public relations events at various cities in Great Britain designed to discredit the science of homeopathy. Yawn.
These hooligans purport to stand up for scientific principles, while in fact their zealous dogmatism and denial of evidence would make Galileo’s persecutors proud. Score one for book burning and witch trials.
But me thinks thou dost protest too much.
They named their campaign “10:23”, a reference to Avogadro’s number. This number is significant to chemists in that it supposedly sets the limit below which no material elements are likely to be present in a given dilution. Homeopathic remedies are made with solutions far more dilute than Avogadro’s number.
Do these “skeptics” really think the public cares about Avogadro’s number when homeopathy has just significantly improved their toddler’s autism or offered help with any of a vast range of diseases which respond so well to homeopathic (and often not to conventional) treatment?
This is just another tantrum by the clueless wing of the scientific/medical community that can’t understand why the people don’t praise them for their ideological purity and courage, even when the fruits of their scientific labors rot like a brown banana. Note to protestors: maybe they’re just not that into you.
As Peter Fisher, personal physician to Queen Elizabeth II and editor in chief of the journal Homeopathy so eloquently pointed out in a letter to the Canadian Pediatric Society, “[you are] not alone among bodies representing the medical establishment in countenancing almost any explanation for the popularity of homeopathy except the obvious one – that it is effective!”
http://www.thrivenaturopathic.com/
Monument to Samuel Hanneman founder of the
homeopathic school of medicine. Photo by dbking
via Flickr, used under the Creative Common's License.
A group of so-called “skeptics” recently staged public relations events at various cities in Great Britain designed to discredit the science of homeopathy. Yawn.
These hooligans purport to stand up for scientific principles, while in fact their zealous dogmatism and denial of evidence would make Galileo’s persecutors proud. Score one for book burning and witch trials.
But me thinks thou dost protest too much.
They named their campaign “10:23”, a reference to Avogadro’s number. This number is significant to chemists in that it supposedly sets the limit below which no material elements are likely to be present in a given dilution. Homeopathic remedies are made with solutions far more dilute than Avogadro’s number.
Do these “skeptics” really think the public cares about Avogadro’s number when homeopathy has just significantly improved their toddler’s autism or offered help with any of a vast range of diseases which respond so well to homeopathic (and often not to conventional) treatment?
This is just another tantrum by the clueless wing of the scientific/medical community that can’t understand why the people don’t praise them for their ideological purity and courage, even when the fruits of their scientific labors rot like a brown banana. Note to protestors: maybe they’re just not that into you.
As Peter Fisher, personal physician to Queen Elizabeth II and editor in chief of the journal Homeopathy so eloquently pointed out in a letter to the Canadian Pediatric Society, “[you are] not alone among bodies representing the medical establishment in countenancing almost any explanation for the popularity of homeopathy except the obvious one – that it is effective!”
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