Alternate Treatments, Pain, Philosophy
Common Sense in End-of-Life Choices
Few want to think about it. But there are choices to make about death. Doing nothing is one option. Life will, inevitably, one way or another, come to an end. But making common sense decisions about personal preferences for end-of-life should not be taboo or disallowed. And politicians should get out of the way. In Canada, the would-be “just society”, the vast majority of citizens, about 80%, have repeatedly affirmed support for people who wish it to have the option of medical assistance in dying. In the U.S., over the past decade, polls have ranged from 55-75% in support. But why are there still restrictions on who is eligible? In the U.S., there is a hodgepodge legislation, as only some states have...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Neurology
Music for the Mind
Music may be the world’s greatest medicine. From infants to centenarians, people love music and the way it makes them feel good. In tribute to its universal qualities, Hans Christian Andersen said, “Where words fail, music speaks.” Even without lyrics, songs certainly convey feelings. Among healthy people, researchers have shown that across cultural divides, people can readily place vastly different types of music into emotional categories ranging from sad to heroic, annoying to beautiful, and desirous to indignant. But the miracle of music is in its healing qualities. Scientists studying people with brain injuries and neurological conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are making remarkable discoveries. Music, for example, can improve the gait of people relearning to walk after a brain injury....Read More
Alternate Treatments, Miscellaneous
Is Virtual Healthcare the New Normal?
The current pandemic is deeply affecting many aspects of society. Accelerated usage of virtual healthcare is a good example. While frontline healthcare workers serve patients needing essential in-person care, some doctors and patients are meeting up over the phone or on video calls. Virtual healthcare is well known to those living in remote communities. But during the pandemic, it has become an option for everyone. A debate has ensued about whether such care is good or bad. Proponents of either side are lining up evidence to prove the case. How can you argue with the fact that curable cancers in children have been missed in the absence of face-to-face consultations? But how many lives have been saved by “seeing” the doctor virtually,...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Diabetes, Obesity
Challenge Yourself to Better Glycemic Health
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher and poet, wrote, “All life is an experiment.” So this week, to conclude our six-part series on the devastating and relentless pandemic of type 2 diabetes, we conclude with a challenge to readers to undertake an experiment. The premise of the experiment is that achieving the “perfect” diet and carving time for physically active lifestyles is not always feasible. The evidence is overwhelming that for too many people, losing excessive weight is not easy. In fact, society has become not only complacent about obesity, but accepting and even promotional of it. For “skinny fat people” too – the ones who may not present as overweight, but whose bodies harbour visceral fat around internal organs – there...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Diabetes, Nutrition, Obesity
Reversing Pre-Diabetes with Glycemic Control
The most important thing readers should have learned from last week’s column is that pre-diabetes is reversible. And fancy pharmaceuticals aren’t to thank. Rather, it’s glycemic control, achieved naturally, by managing blood sugar with the help of concentrated brown seaweed. But what’s glycemic control? And what’s so special about brown seaweed? For decades, this column has advocated for a change in lifestyle as a strategy for reversing the steady societal march towards higher and higher rates of type 2 diabetes – the consequence of complacency about obesity and other risk factors. But either people aren’t listening, or they are being overwhelmed by negative socioeconomic factors, such as the costs of healthy food choices, lack of time for the preparation of healthy...Read More
Alcohol, Alternate Treatments
Retirement Homes Should Include a Lively Bar
What is the greatest loss to aging seniors? It happens when a loved one dies, and loneliness consumes the surviving partner. As the great composer Chopin lamented, “I feel alone, alone, alone.” Retirement is another benchmark for the onset of loneliness. Retirees often miss the day-to-day contact with colleagues. The impact of social isolation can lead to physical and mental health decline. A move to a retirement residence may also be a time of misgivings. So when weighing the options, you may wish to ask, “Is there a bar?” In an expansion forty-five years ago, Sunnybrook Veterans Hospital in Toronto opened an English-style pub called the Boar’s Head. Hospital management at the time was convinced that “pub therapy” helped patients cope with convalescence...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Cardiovascular, Vitamins
Long-term survival after heart attack
Diana Gifford-Jones: You were 74 when a coronary attack nearly killed you. A short time later you had a coronary bypass. Readers often ask what you have done to prevent another coronary for so long? Gifford-Jones, MD: I have no single answer. I’m convinced it’s been a combination of factors. Diana: What’s your personal routine for heart health? G-J: I was lucky to interview Dr. Linus Pauling years ago. He believed that heart disease is partially due to a deficiency of vitamin C. This causes microscopic cracks in the inner lining of arteries. A blood clot results with possibility of death. I didn’t want to pop handfuls of vitamin C tablets, so I formulated Medi-C Plus, a powder form of C in combination...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Cardiovascular, Neurology
No Moderation Needed When Bathing in the Woods
Mae West, the American movie star who rarely lacked for lifestyle advice, once conceded, “When in doubt, take a bath.” She didn’t have a forest setting in mind. But did you know that forest bathing might be just as therapeutic as a soak in the suds? Some people gravitate, even in unfavourable weather, to the outdoors. Others are most comfortable in front of the hearth. But a walk in the woods may be just the remedy you could use after months of confinement at home. A glimpse into the research surrounding this little-known “forest bathing” therapy offers insights on benefits including improved cardiovascular function, brain activity, immune systems, self-esteem, and reduced anxiety and depression. According to Ann Martin, a certified Forest Therapy...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Cancer
Go Natural to Debut Your New Hair Colour
The American star of the silver screen, Jean Harlow, was known as the “Blonde Bombshell”. She once remarked, “If it wasn’t for my hair, Hollywood wouldn’t know me.” But did the blonde hair come at a huge price? Harlow was dead at the age of 26. Do you make a habit of dying your hair? Now that lockdowns are easing and you cannot wait to get a haircut, you might want to think twice about permanent hair dye and chemical hair straighteners. Some recent studies have raised health concerns. The practice of dying hair goes back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome when terrible concoctions were used to alter hair colour, both for beauty and to show rank on the battlefield. In...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Neurology
Bridging Generations Online for Health
Everywhere, people are fed up with enforced isolation. While adhering to stay-at-home orders at the urging of public health officials and in empathy with frontline health care workers, the restrictions are taking a toll on the physical and mental wellbeing of all. While senior citizens can be especially impacted, it is less commonly acknowledged that younger people, particularly teens, struggle with isolation too. For older adults, enduring long periods cut off from family and friends is known to cause depression, generalized anxiety disorders, decreased sleep, and functional impairment. Research published in Lancet Public Health warns that social isolation can also accelerate cardiovascular and brain aging, exacerbating dementia. Likewise, students of all ages are suffering from lockdowns. They are not getting the exercise...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Cardiovascular, Cholesterol, Diabetes, Nutrition, Pain
“Beeting” Yourself to Increase Good Health
Would you like to improve your physical endurance? An exercise routine is the answer. Being physically and mentally active leads to a longer life. But diet can help too. You can start “beeting” yourself to improved health simply by adding beets to your menu. You should also know that nitrates in beets can treat more than one medical problem. Atherosclerosis, thickening of the inside lining of arteries, decreases the flow of oxygenated blood to coronary arteries. This results in anginal pain or heart attack. For years researchers have known that nitroglycerine eases angina. But they had no idea why it dilated coronary arteries and increased blood flow to the heart. Then, three U.S researchers received the Nobel Prize for proving it was nitric...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Dermatology, Infection, Pain
The Agony of Shingles: How to Decrease the Risk
“It was like going through hell,” he said. A friend had developed facial shingles, involving his ear, and despite medication the pain continued for weeks. So what is the best way to prevent an attack of shingles? Take action quickly. If you delay, you’ll wish you hadn’t when the pain from hell strikes. Today, most children are vaccinated against chickenpox. But it was not in the mix of common childhood shots until the mid-1990s. It’s a rare older person who escaped this childhood infection. Unlike other childhood diseases, the varicella zoster virus never leaves the body. Rather, it goes into hiding in nerve cells near the spinal cord. These cells transmit messages from skin to the central nervous system. The virus...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Nutrition, Sports, Vitamins
Can Athletes Escape Covid Virus?
Professional sporting events have never been entirely about the game. Team owners, player sponsorships, media contracts, ticket sales, and merchandising licenses are the playgrounds of big business. But the tiniest of offensive players, the novel coronavirus, has upended the sporting world. It has become a matter of great debate whether your grandmother or your favourite sports star should have priority for a vaccine. Take NHL hockey as an example. A delayed season has started. Only a handful of arenas are allowing limited spectators to attend the games. The league is working hard to keep players safe from COVID-19, but games have been delayed and postponed due to positive tests among players, coaches and staff. As one wise sage remarked, “It’s hard...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Vitamins
What’s the Best Approach to Natural Supplements?
Readers of this column know, the Gifford-Jones natural health philosophy is built on the premise that the medical establishment should not be your first stop for staying healthy. Doctors are best as a last resort. Tragic bad luck aside, your first defense should be Mother Nature in combination with good lifestyle choices. But what does this mean as you age? Natural supplements are low-cost and widely available, but they are not marketed with the same multimillion-dollar budgets as most pharmaceutical drugs. So a good starting point is to adopt common sense. Unless your doctor has a strong rationale for putting you on drugs, and a plan to get you off them, you should ask more questions and do more homework. Have you,...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Gastroenterology
Unripe Apples Protect from Threat of a Fatty Liver
Worried about having too many alcoholic drinks during the coronavirus pandemic? Think you’re on the way to liver cirrhosis? If so, think again and wonder whether you are instead developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). It can lead to cirrhosis and possibly liver cancer. A report from the University of California says NAFLD is now the most common liver disorder in North America. So how do unripe apples decrease the risk of this growing threat? Today, it’s estimated that worldwide 25 percent of adults have NAFLD. And if you are obese, nine out of ten obese people, suffer from this condition. Researchers report that between 2000 and 2010 liver cancer associated with NAFLD soared tenfold. The result? It’s fast becoming the...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Cardiovascular, Diabetes
Artificial Intelligence to Help Avert Blindness
How can doctors diagnose and treat 425 million worldwide diabetes patients? That number keeps going up and up, projected to reach 700 million by 2045. There are millions more with undiagnosed prediabetes. Add more millions with undiagnosed hypertension. All these people are destined to lives defined by cardiovascular problems and complications that include debilitating conditions like blindness. Diabetes is swamping healthcare systems worldwide. Let us be clear: whatever we have been doing to fight the problem, it is not working. But now, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is offering new possibilities. Using new technologies, data science, vast quantities of medical images, and computer algorithms, it is possible to fight diseases differently. The medical model of a patient and a doctor is outdated. We...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Dermatology, Pain
What You Should Know About Light Therapy
What could you do if you sprained your ankle during the COVID-19 pandemic? Or if you suffer a bad cut? You may feel that the last place you want to visit these days is a hospital. But do you have options? Maybe it’s time to learn more about light therapy. It’s sometimes called low-level laser therapy or low-intensity light therapy. And with one of the many portable devices available on the market, you can safely treat yourself at home. So, what should you know about this therapy as you get older and invariably develop various aches, pains, injuries and infections? Dr. Mary Dyson, Emeritus Professor at King’s College, University of London, England, is an international expert on wound healing. She reports...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Infection
Sometimes It Takes an Apple to Hit You on the Head
Sir Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravity when a falling apple hit him on the head. Now, as the healthcare industry scrambles, an enterprising fruit farmer has discovered a smart way to resolve the shortage of masks. Using technology built to protect consumers from fruit-borne listeria or other bacteria, food industry equipment can be repurposed to sterilize masks in 30 seconds, with tests showing that masks can be cleaned and recycled 50 times. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the bacteria E. coli 0157:H7 is responsible for 73,000 infections and 63 deaths every year. It produces a toxin that causes bloody diarrhea and abdominal pain, lasting 2-3 days, or longer for some people. E. coli 0157:H7 is...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Lifestyle, Miscellaneous, Obesity
Is Home Confinement a Good Time to Try Fasting?
Today, nearly all of us are in enforced home confinement due to an invisible foe, the coronavirus. So, how do we amuse ourselves? Some pick up books they’ve always wanted to read. Others get household chores done. But how about some of us losing weight? If typical busy schedules have interfered with your efforts in the past, could the current context support a concentrated effort on fasting to shed pounds? And what are the best ways to fast? Fasting diets have generated considerable buzz among diet gurus in the media, not only as an approach to weight loss but also as a way to improve overall health. But do facts back it up? Researchers say that animals and humans share some comment...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Miscellaneous
Sleep: The Third Pillar of Health
Sleep, it’s not the most exciting topic. But a report from Tufts University says sleep is the third pillar of health along with diet and activity. Besides, we spend a third of our lives sleeping, and if you sleep poorly, it can trigger a cascade of health problems. José Ordovás, professor of nutrition at Tufts, says, “We can survive for extended periods without eating, but not for long without sleeping.” Recent research suggests that we need sleep to remove toxins and metabolic trash from the brain. This trash may be related to Alzheimer’s disease. Short periods of sleep are also associated with greater risk of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, depression, and cardiovascular disease. And about one third of North Americans get less than...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Infection
People Are Dying Needlessly of Coronavirus
Why “needless” deaths from this threatening virus? Because doctors, health authorities, hospital administrators and politicians have not read history. Not even the Chinese! This week several members of the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service (OMNS) were asked, “How would you treat the coronavirus?” Here are opinions of experts who study the potential of nutrients to fight disease. Dr. Andrew W. Saul, an international expert on vitamin therapy, says, “The coronavirus can be dramatically slowed or stopped completely with the immediate widespread use of high doses of vitamin C. Bowel tolerance levels of C taken in divided doses throughout the day, is a clinically proven antiviral, without equal.” Saul adds, “Dr. Robert F. Cathcart, who had extensive experience treating viral diseases remarked, ‘I have...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Cancer, Miscellaneous, Pain, Philosophy
The Saga Continues: Rotten Law, Rotten Politicians, and Rotten Eggs
How long will patients, those dying in pain, have to endure the political nonsense surrounding the law, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID)? The government has announced it will conduct yet another survey to determine if Canadians want to modify its incomplete law. Why another survey, another expense? The current MAID law has horrendous and painful consequences. For instance, a signed “Advanced Directive” of a patient diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or, another type of dementia, has no bearing once a patient has lost capacity to give consent. It’s lunacy to expect a patient to reconfirm consent when their brain is comatose, they’re incontinent of urine and feces, and living in diapers. Why won’t MPs and Senators realize this is unspeakable cruelty to...Read More
Alternate Treatments
Pet Therapy: Unconditionally Good for You?
Harry Truman, when elected President of the U.S., was well aware of the potential hazards of his job. He famously remarked, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Truman was a good judge of character and knew a dog would always provide him with unconditional loyalty, regardless of cutthroat politics in Washington. But if dogs are suitable companions for Presidents, are they also good for the rest of us? A recent report from the Mayo Clinic asks, “Is medicine going to the dogs?” The answer is “Yes, but in a good way.” Hospitals and doctors are increasingly aware that dogs bring joy and rehabilitation to patients with a variety of health problems. There are more than a dozen...Read More
Alternate Treatments
What You Should Know About Low Intensity Light Therapy
Years ago I nearly made a bad decision. I was asked to attend a pain conference and initially declined. The meeting was about treating pain and other medical problems with low intensity light therapy (LILT). I thought it resembled old-fashioned snake oil. But then I noticed the speaker’s credentials and decided to attend. Now for the last 15 years, I’ve seen how this natural remedy is able to treat a variety of acute and chronic conditions. Dr. Mary Dyson, Emeritus Professor at King’s College, University of London, England, an international expert spoke about wound healing. She provided evidence that LILT gives a jump-start to the body’s natural healing process, delivering energy that is transformed into biochemical energy. The end result is...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Neurology
Coffee Boosts Protection Against Alzheimer’s Disease
I receive a lot of questionable mail. One says I can invest one thousand dollars and make an easy million. Another, that a simple lifestyle change will cure anything that ails me. Still another arrives that I initially believe is rubbish until I read on. It’s a report from The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. It states that researchers from the University of South Florida claim that coffee could decrease the risk of this mind-robbing disease. But is this possible? Or just another hoax? Previous studies in humans have suggested that daily coffee intake during middle and older years has decreased the risk of this frightening disease. They credit caffeine with lowering the production of beta amyloid, a protein that has been...Read More
