Health Marketing at the Centers For Disease Control
I was very interested to see that The Centers For Disease Control have launched a website for the National Center for Health Marketing. I learned about it from Carol Kirshner.
This could be an important step for creating and disseminating accurate information about health, and health care options.
I just have one small worry about all this: if insightful and knowledgeable people do not become involved in providing direct input into the enterprise, it is inevitable that the main focus will be on physical interventions: diet, exercise, nutrition, workplace stress and so on. In other words, the medical model. Only because that’s the dominant way of thinking about illness and health.
But as I have been showing in these pages, there are tens of thousands of leading thinkers around the world who have long since recognized the limitations of that medical model, to say nothing of the demonstrable fact that some new Laws of Health and Healing have been emerging over the last century.
I laud this new initiative, but I’m also hoping that it will also include communication about not just the physical, but also the psychological, social, subtle and spiritual aspects of health, wellness and healing.
If these fine people would like some documented research to do so, I know that we can oblige!
Apple Computers
I make no bones about it; I’m a Mac guy. Always have been, and probably always will be.
I don’t have any stock in the company, but I think that I’m on about my ninth or tenth Apple computer. Every time that I have to scuttle off to use a Window’s based machine I start getting antsy.
Apple has just had their Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
As a scientist and clinician very concerned about the epidemic of attentional and mood disorders in the population, something caught my eye. During Steve Jobs’ keynote preview, in which he highlighted some of the key features of the new Mac OS X “Leopard” operating system, there was more and more emphasis on developments designed to reduce the frustrations of working with a computer and ways to deal with the ever-increasing number of demands on our attention. There were a dozen new gizmos all designed to simplify and streamline our interactions with our computers, email and our Internet experience.
I don’t know whether this is the fruit of market research, or just a natural reaction by computer developers who are feeling themselves overwhelmed by a constant barrage on information. But whichever it is, I’m delighted to see this very welcome development.
Note to self, maybe I should send this note to Steve Jobs and say a big "thank you" on behalf of millons of users.
Airport Security and That Liquid Explosive
Well, your humble reporter was in New York on Thursday and became a statistic: one of the people held up for hours after the arrests in the United Kingdom and Pakistan. I mused that it was not aiport security that foiled the plot, but some very good detective work.
I’m not usually the most patient of people, but I grew up in Europe during the years that multiple groups of terrorists considered us to be fair game, so I’m used to this kind of thing. On 9/11/01, I happened to be lecturing in New Jersey, got trapped after the airline system was closed down, and ultimately took one of the very first commercial flights in the country once the airports were re-opened.
It was not machismo, but an understanding that if we give in to terror, we have lost. Turned out to be a good thing that I was on the flight: three people had panic attacks outside the departure gate, and some of the tapping therapies did them the world of good.
As I spent hours waiting, my thoughts turned to one of my first loves: chemistry. I had some terrific teachers who taught me to really understand science.
Since several had been in the military, we used to have all kinds of discussions about how to make things go bang. An unusual way to learn chemistry. But now I had several hours to see what I could remember: I began to wonder what explosives these could have been?
From the little described in the media, I came up with a short list. A few minutes ago I saw an article on the Scientific American website that seems to have come up with many of the same thoughts that I did. The one that I had not thought of was Astrolite.
This whole thing is such a sad development, but it just shows the importance of understanding some of the roots of our current global crisis and what we may each be able to do help.
Black Cohosh and Liver Damage
After discovering that some of the Black Cohosh sold in the United States contains precious little of the active ingredient, we now learn that that may not have been such a bad thing.
In 2004, a Conference sponsored by National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institutes of Health indicated that Black Cohosh appeared to be safe. However, earlier this year, the regulatory authorities in Australia issued a policy statement about adding warnings about liver toxicity to all herbal products containing Black Cohosh. The European and British regulatory authorities followed suit.
This highlights a problem with which we’ve struggled before: are the reports of hepatotoxicity due to a “bad batch?” Adulterated perhaps, or collected incorrectly? Yet that highlights both the strength of natural remedies and also their Achilles’ heel. We have so little information about the purity of individual products.
The standardization of herbal medicines is difficult, particularly since herbals usually contain complex mixtures of constituents, some of which are active, and some not. We often do not know exactly which component of an herbal medicine is responsible for clinical effects. There are often also differences in the composition of herbal preparations among manufacturers and lots. There are also enormous variations in the identification of plants by the manufacturers, how they are handled and the presence of other chemicals. Just think of the variations in the taste of different types of coffee, and you will see the point.
This variation has important consequences in clinical trials, many of which have failed to address the question of whether the herbs that they were using were of high quality.
The information on the label does not always reflect the actual content of the preparation and it is difficult to give one standard dose for an herbal medicine.
I thought that I should give you the wording from The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) and the Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products (HMPC)”
“Following review of all available data, the HMPC considered that there is a potential connection between herbal medicinal products containing Cimicifugae racemosae rhizoma (Black Cohosh, root) and hepatotoxicity.
The EMEA therefore wishes to give the following advice to patients and healthcare professionals:
Advice to patients:
— Patients should stop taking Cimicifugae racemosae rhizoma (Black Cohosh, root) and consult their doctor immediately if they develop signs and symptoms suggestive of liver injury (tiredness, loss of appetite, yellowing of the skin and eyes or severe upper stomach pain with nausea and vomiting or dark urine).
— Patients using herbal medicinal products should tell their doctor about it
— Advice to healthcare professionals:
— Health care professionals are encouraged to ask patients about use of products containing Cimicifugae racemosae rhizoma (Black Cohosh, root).
— Suspected hepatic reactions should be reported to the national adverse reaction reporting schemes."
A New Warning from the FDA about Some “Sexual Enhancers”
On Wednesday of this week the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to consumers not to purchase or consume Zimaxx, Libidus, Neophase, Nasutra, Vigor-25, Actra-Rx, or 4EVERON. These products are promoted and sold on web sites as "dietary supplements" for treating erectile dysfunction (ED) and enhancing sexual performance, but they are in fact illegal drugs that contain potentially harmful undeclared ingredients. Chemical analysis by FDA revealed that Zimaxx contains sildenafil, which is the active pharmaceutical ingredient in Viagra. The other products contain chemical ingredients that are analogues of either sildenafil or a pharmaceutical ingredient called vardenafil, which is the active ingredient of Levitra.
These undeclared ingredients can interact with some prescription drugs, in particular nitrates. In combination with nitrates, they can cause a catastrophic fall in blood pressure. You may have seen Keanu Reeves warn Jack Nicholson about that in the 2003 movie Something’s Gotta Give.
We have seen so many examples of adulteration of herbal remedies and supplements, and I’ve written a previous item about this huge problem. Huge, not in terms of numbers of cases, but in terms of the potential for harm.
I always recommending reading the label whenever you buy anything. The problem with the products mentioned in this latest FDA warning, is that there was no indication that the products contained drugs. Also be careful about whose advice you trust. Several years ago, a study done in health food stores in the United Kingdom showed that most of the staff knew very little about the products that they were promoting. Things have improved in recent years: we have a couple of health food stores in Atlanta with very knowledgeable staff. But it’s always a good idea to check before accepting the advice of someone in a store. Be doubly careful if you are buying things online: it’s you body.
So Caveat Emptor!
Technorati tags: Food and Drug Administration Sexual enhancers Herbal remedies Viagra Sildenafil Vardenafil Levitra Keanu Reeves Jack Nicholson
The Passing of the Crazy Diamond
You may have heard of the passing of Syd Barrett, one of the founding members and creative drivers of Pink Floyd. He was only 60 years old.
His extraordinary creativity is well known: his fingerprints were all over the early performances and albums, and he was a muse to a generation of performers. I remember everyone’s consternation as his behavior became progressively more erratic between 1967 and 1968. I was very young then, but we all loved the music.
Some blamed his psychological meltdown on his consumption of prodigious amounts of LSD and all manner of other trendy chemical amusement aids. But in hindsight, he was probably suffering from a psychotic illness, and he was either self-medicating, or the drugs pushed him over the edge. Without doing a full evaluation, I could not say for sure. Although it’s now a moot point, several things make me think that he had a psychotic illness:
1. His startling type of creativity before and in the early stages of his illness.
2. There are clues suggesting that he already had problems before become obviously unwell.
3. The chronicity of his problems are not at all like drug-induced psychosis. I saw a man in Australia who told me that all his years of psychosis were the result of a single “bad trip” in the 1960s. Unlikely.
4. He suffered for years from diabetes mellitus. Diabetes may be as much as twice as common in people suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and also in their first-degree relatives. (England’s first chess grandmaster, Tony Miles, who sadly had a psychotic episode in the late 1980s, also struggled with diabetes for many years, and died at the age of only 46.)
Why does any of this matter now?
If you ever see a young person abusing drugs, be aware that it is not necessarily that he or she is being impulsive or has just fallen in with a bad crowd. It may be that they are self-medicating.
People with major mental illnesses are at increased risk of many other physical illnesses, not all of which are a result of poor lifestyle choices. If you in contact with someone struggling with mental illness, anything that you can do to help them look after their physical health is all to the good.
And finally, a favorite song of mine that was written about Syd. According to legend, by a strange coincidence he arrived at the Abbey Road studio un-announced, at very time that the song was being recorded. It was nice that he was well enough to come and listen.
Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the cross fire of childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter, come on you stranger,
you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,
rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter,
you piper, you prisoner, and shine!
Technorati tags: Syd Barrett Pink Floyd Psychotic illness Diabetes mellitus Substance abuseSelf-medication
The End of Life As We Know It?
Your humble reporter was discombobulated to read a recent report from E3: the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.
It appears that hordes of young men – yes they were virtually all young and male – were far more interested in the electronic games on display than they were in a number of quite attractive young dancers and models who graced the event. Though we have not one iota of interest in the orientation of the assembled company, on statistical grounds alone we would expect that at least some of these young men should be wired to take an interest in presumably intelligent members of the opposite sex. Yet they seemed to prefer playing with their silicon monsters and joysticks.
Perhaps the gamers are all too cerebral to be interested in young models who may be unable to tell a bit from a byte. But in the midst of all the sage commentary about the expanding gaming market and the ready accessibility of computer games to people who have access to not much else in the way of entertainment, our thoughts meandered off in a different direction: we have been wondering if we are here witnessing some form of natural selection at work….
Technorati tags: Evolution Relationships Sexual attraction
The Prince of Wales and Integrated Medicine
It is not widely known in the United States that His Royal Highness Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, has been instrumental in the development and adoption of integrated medicine in the United Kingdom and in some parts of Europe and the Middle East. I had the privilege of working extremely closely with his Foundation for many years, and have acknowledged his personal influence in my most recent book, Healing Meaning and Purpose.
The British media is today reporting that his position on trying to integrated the best of conventional medicine with the best of traditional approaches if once again under attack, from a well-known group of critics. This time they are saying that the adoption of inadequately tested therapies is a needless drain on resources, and that regardless of what patients want, the money should be spent on treatments that are “evidence based.” This has become the new clarion cry of medicine: that everything that we do should have a defined research base. A terrific idea in theory, but sometimes disastrous in practice. As an example, there is not much in the way of an evidence base for appendectomy.
This morning, one day after the critics published their letter in the Times of London, the Prince of Wales spoke about his position and his work at a meeting of the World Health Assembly in Geneva and he had this to say:
"I believe that the proper mix of proven complementary, traditional and modern remedies, which emphasize the active participation of the patient, can help to create a powerful healing force for our world.
This is where orthodox practice can learn from complementary medicine, the West can learn from the East and new from old traditions."
It will not surprise you to hear that I strongly agree with the Prince’s views. If you glance through a few of my blog entries, you will see that I am a huge advocate of good research: I analyze dozens of studies every week and present you with the best. I have also had to spend a great deal of time making decisions based upon cost. But it would be a big mistake for us to declare that any therapy that does not have a biological basis, or conform to the medical model should be excluded from health care. After all, patients also have a say, and they are clearly deriving benefit from complementary medical therapies. And as I have reported before, we are slowly collecting more and more data indicating that at least some of the 500 different schools of complementary and alternative medicine do have research to support their use.
“In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.”
–Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist and Educator, 1825-1895)
Technorati tags: alternative medicine complementary medicine evidence based medicine
prince of wales
Crackpot
I thought that title might attract your attention!
But before you think that I am being rude or self-referential, I’m referring to a report from the BBC, about a tiny hamlet in the Yorkshire Dales that does indeed rejoice in the name of Crackpot.
I have previously reported that I am directionally challenged. I am speculating about whether I need a GPS system in my own house. But now I discover that some of the electronic marvels aren’t all that they are, ahem, cracked up to be.
It turns out that a satellite navigation system is directing strangers on to a steep unclassified road that is normally impassable, and boasts a 100 foot drop on one side. Because everyone has assumed that the electronics are infallible, delivery men, sales people and minibus drivers have ignored a sign saying that there is no through road, and have, lemming-like, even opened a five bar gate so that they can continue in the direction indicated by the silicon spy in the sky. Local farmers have not been amused by having to rescue vehicles that have got stuck on the road to Crackpot.
I’m no Luddite, but I think that it may just be safer to use a map and do without these newfangled electronic things. And it’s an interesting example of people trusting technology more than themselves….
Technorati tags:satellite navigation, England
