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 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2003
Welcome to the premier edition of the Redhawk Healing Arts NewsForum! This bimonthly newsletter will be available on our website, by email subscription and at our clinic.
Each newsletter will feature 6 sections:
Feature Therapy: A particular therapy offered at RHA will be explored in depth
"Have You Heard?": Naturopathic Medicine in the News & in Research
"Did You Know?": A common health issue will be explored from a naturopathic point of view
New at Redhawk Healing Arts: New services; New treatments being developed
Special Offers: Clinic promotions
Classifieds: Employment, Buy & Sell
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Feature Therapy No. 1:
Clinical Nutrition
II. "Have You Heard?"
Cancer Patients' Attitudes Unrelated to Survival? (From: C.E. Huggins, from Reuters Health) Edited by K. Blyden-Taylor.
III. "Did You Know?"
Environmental Toxicity, Part I: As big a deal as holistic practitioners say it is?
IV. New at Redhawk Healing Arts!
Welcome! RHA is the newly established venture of naturopathic doctor, Kimberlee Blyden-Taylor.
V. Classifieds
Redhawk Healing Arts is offering 2 beautiful rooms for lease!
Show your Visual Art at RHA!
VI. Special Offers
Bonus Coupon! When you subscribe to our bimonthly newsletter.
I. Feature Therapy No. 1: Clinical Nutrition
What's the difference between "Clinical Nutrition" and diet counseling? Clinical nutrition is the use of the most current, scientifically validated research to make specific food and supplement recommendations based on a patient's specific health and disease history. Clinical nutrition consultations should be done by a certified physician who thoroughly understands the research and the patient's diagnosis.
Diet counseling can be useful for more general inquiries. For example: "What's a good healthy diet at my age?" or "How do I optimize my workouts at the gym?" A diet counselor will advise you as to the best food choices for your age, weight/height, level of activity, and general state of health.
As an example, let's consider high blood pressure. A diet counselor can advise you as to what foods may aggravate your high blood pressure and what foods may help control it. A Clinical Nutritionist will also make supplement recommendations taking into consideration your other health issues (for example, you may also have high cholesterol or maybe hardening of the arteries), the medications you are currently taking, exactly how high your blood pressure is, and how your blood pressure fluctuates.
General dietary recommendations for controlling high blood pressure include eliminating caffeine, alcohol and tobacco, minimizing red meat, saturated fats and sodium, and increasing cold water fish, vegetable, fruit whole grain, potassium, and water consumption. But there are also lots of supplements and herbs that are said to help lower blood pressure. How do you choose? How do you know what's right for you and how much is enough?
These are the kind of questions answered by clinical nutrition studies. For example, Co-enzyme Q-10 is an excellent cardiovascular tonic. It improves the "output" of the heart, may help inhibit "hardening" of the arteries, and helps to lower blood pressure. CoQ10 levels may be lowered in the body by certain cholesterol-lowering drugs, beta-blockers, tricyclic antidepressants, and phenothiazines. It is an excellent supplement for people at risk for cardiovascular disease, but perhaps not for diabetics. Some research shows CoQ10 to lower fasting blood sugar levels, particularly in type II diabetics. However, some endocrinologists at Toronto's Mt. Sinai Hospital feel Co-Q10 may interfere with insulin levels. For a type I diabetic patient with cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure, we might alternatively suggest taurine, an amino acid that also strengthens cardiac output, along with an herb such as Crataegus to lower blood pressure.
Who practices Clinical Nutrition? Most Naturopathic Doctors will offer Clinical Nutrition as part of their practice and many, including myself, will specialize in it. I use clinical nutrition along with therapies such as acupuncture or homeopathy to address both the physical and energetic aspects of a patient's health and illness. My patients get more comprehensive, longer lasting results with this multi-faceted approach.
What conditions can be treated with Clinical Nutrition? Physical issues such as allergies, skin rashes, digestive problems, gynecological and fertility issues, and chronic conditions such as cancer, HIV, and cardiovascular disease all respond very well to Clinical Nutrition recommendations. Mental-emotional issues such as ADHD, depression, anxiety, and insomnia also respond extremely well with Clinical Nutrition.
II. Have You Heard?
What do you think of the following article? The studies quoted only assess length of survival and/or cancer recurrence after initial cancer diagnosis, not quality of life. You can send your comments to the editor at redhawk@rogers.com.
Cancer Patients' Attitudes Unrelated to Survival?
(From: C.E. Huggins, from Reuters Health) Edited by K. Blyden-Taylor.
While cancer patients may be told that staying upbeat is good for their health, a new analysis of past studies suggests this may not be true. A "fighting spirit" attitude may have little or no effect on cancer survival, according to the report.
Researchers report that cancer patients who have a fighting spirit are equally likely to survive the disease as those who cope with stoic acceptance or even denial.
"There's sometimes pressure on cancer patients to engage in positive thinking," study author Dr. Mark Petticrew, associate director of the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow, Scotland, told Reuters Health. "They are told they have to do this because it will affect their cancer survival or recurrence."
"There's not very much evidence that particular methods of coping with cancer can help survival," he said.
Petticrew and his colleagues investigated the influence of various coping methods--including a fighting spirit, feelings of hopelessness and stoic acceptance--on cancer survival. They looked at 28 published and unpublished studies on the topic. The follow-up periods in the studies ranged from as short as 8 weeks to as long as 15 years.
Petticrew's team only considered 13 studies to be scientifically valid. The majority did not have sound study methods, such as taking into consideration the age of the study participants and other factors that may have skewed the results, they report in the November 9th, 2002 issue of the British Medical Journal. Studies of each coping style reported mixed results, with some studies finding that the coping style lengthened survival or reduced cancer recurrence, and others finding no such association, the report indicates. The "evidence was more patchy than we expected," Petticrew said, noting that the association between psychological coping and cancer survival has been widely accepted.
"I was surprised that there were so few studies and that by and large they were so small," he added.
For example, of the 10 studies that evaluated the influence of a fighting spirit on survival, only two small studies reported positive findings. And although three of four studies reported a reduced risk of cancer recurrence associated with this coping style, a fourth, larger study that included 578 patients did not confirm that conclusion.
Similarly, only 2 out of 12 studies found that frequent feelings of helplessness or hopelessness were associated with reduced survival and those two studies were also small, the authors note.
In fact, smaller studies were more likely to have positive findings than larger studies, the researchers report. This finding "could indicate publication bias," they write.
In light of the findings, "although the relation is biologically plausible, there is at present little scientific basis for the popular lay and clinical belief that psychological coping styles have an important influence on overall or event-free survival in patients with cancer," Petticrew and colleagues conclude.
This is not a "gloomy conclusion," Petticrew said. "I am not saying that those particular factors are unimportant to people living with cancer, because they have many good benefits."
He explained, "People with better coping styles are generally less likely to suffer from mental health problems," for example, and they may also have a better quality of life. Coping styles are just "not clinically that important...there is no reason for that to be a burden" for cancer patients.
III. "Did You Know?"
Environmental Toxicity, Part I: As big a deal as holistic practitioners say it is?
By Kimberlee Blyden-Taylor
No one leaves a naturopathic doctor's office without hearing something about "toxicity" and the need to "cleanse". Why? If you eat a reasonably good diet, don't smoke, drink alcohol only occasionally, and exercise regularly, do you still have to think about "toxicity"? The answer is a resounding "YES!"
There is no area of our planet that has not been touched by industrial pollution. Most industrial pollutants are fat-soluble and relatively stable. This means they will last for long periods of time without breaking down and that they will "bio-accumulate". Bio-accumulation happens as each animal in the food chain stores these chemicals in its fatty tissue and as larger animals eat smaller animals the concentrations of stored chemicals grow. Humans are at the "top" of the food chain. We eat a pollutant-laden salmon that has eaten a pollutant-laden smaller fish that has eaten a pollutant laden smaller fish that swam in pollutant laden oceans…
But these pollutant levels must be within "safe" levels to be sold as food. True enough. And so are the preservatives, additives, colourings, flavorings, conditioners, and emulsifiers that we also daily ingest in our food supply. So is the atmospheric radiation and electromagnetic fields we are daily exposed to from satellites, electrical wires, radio waves, and telecommunications systems. So is the side-stream cigarette smoke, the automobile fumes, household cleaner fumes, and cosmetic product "odours". So are the pesticides, fertilizers, genetic modifications, ripeners, hormones, and antibiotics that help produce our foods. So are the antibiotics, painkillers, birth control pills, laxatives, hormones, antidepressants, and other pharmaceuticals that we daily take. And what about the alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, and "recreational" drugs we occasionally "indulge" in?
What happens when we mix all of these together over the lifetime of stress that is the 21st century norm?
First and foremost our liver attempts to break down all of these toxic chemicals. The liver's ability to do this in any given amount of time is limited by two things. 1. The amount of enzymes and other catabolists necessary for breaking down the toxins, and 2. The amount of toxin ingested over a given span of time. If there is more toxin present than the liver can immediately break down, these toxins are stored in the fatty tissue of the liver. What happens if the liver runs out of storage room? Toxins are stored in other fatty tissues in the body. This includes areas of "cellulite", joints, nerves, breasts, skin, and the brain.
Additionally, the liver slows in it's breakdown ability over time as enzymes and catabolists are used up and not replenished due to inadequate diet and high intake of toxins. In North America, Ontario ranks #2 overall in total release and transfers of pollution (from Taking Stock: North American Pollutant Releases and Transfers, 1996). As toxins accumulate throughout the body "non-specific" symptoms develop such as unexplained fatigue, digestive complaints, muscle aches, joint stiffness, skin eruptions, increased PMS symptoms, headaches, lack of concentration, generalized anxiety, depressive episodes, and irritability.
Cleansing the body of toxins requires a thorough analysis of the most likely sources of exposure and the individual's physical areas of weakness. Heavy metal levels such as lead, mercury, aluminum, barium and others can be ascertained through Hair Mineral Analysis. Hair Mineral Analysis, as well as saliva and urinary analysis can help to ascertain levels of bodily acidity. A nutritionally oriented physical exam and medical history intake can help pinpoint areas of the body most affected by toxic overload.
See Part II next newsletter for "How to Detoxify"!
IV. New at Redhawk Healing Arts!
Welcome! RHA is the newly established venture of naturopathic doctor, Kimberlee Blyden-Taylor. Dr. Blyden-Taylor has run a general family naturopathic practice in Toronto since 1999 and is expanding now to direct a full clinic environment. Watch our website as we add new practitioners to our roster! We hope to offer massage, shiatsu, psychotherapy, osteopathy and more! Know a practitioner looking to join a dynamic new clinic? Tell them to check out our classified ad below!
V. Classifieds
Redhawk Healing Arts is offering 2 beautiful rooms for lease! Newly renovated, professional environment. Spacious, quiet, lots of natural light! Ideal for massage therapist, psychotherapist, osteopath, etc. Steps from the subway, high walk-by traffic, prime location. Full-time or part-time available immediately.
Show your Visual Art at RHA! Large central reception/waiting room area in busy clinic has wall space to spare! Neutral ("natural") walls and carpet in newly renovated office excellently suited to large or small pieces. All pieces may be offered for sale. Call Dr. Blyden-Taylor at 416-712-2796 for further info.
VI. Special Offers
Bonus Coupon! Subscribe to our bimonthly newsletter and receive a thank you coupon for 20% off your next clinic appointment. Good for any services provided at Redhawk Healing Arts (not applicable to product purchase).
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