Archive for the ‘heart disease’ Category

Mainstream Medicine versus Alternative Medicine

Friday, October 19th, 2007

This article will compare medical professionals from mainstream medicine to medical professionals in alternative medical practices so you can be the judge on which is best for you.

There are many doctors that care about their patients and they want to help them live a better life but mainstream medical schools do not provide them the education they need to do the job. Many practitioners of alternative medicines are taught to look at the patient as a whole and not just at the specific symptoms or ailment that’s being complained about.

Mainstream medical schools do a good job of teaching their students anatomy and recognizing different diseases. They also teach them how to treat the symptoms of the disease but there are very few, if any, classes that teach the importance of including the whole lifestyle and nutritional habits of their patients in the care plan. This type of teaching is disease oriented instead of prevention based.

In some areas of the Far East, medical professionals have their pay based on the health of their patients. If a patient becomes ill, the pay is reduced.

Practitioners of alternative medicine are often taught to work with nature and their patients to try to create a harmony that restores health and well being. This approach forces the professional to look at the person, their lifestyle, their nutritional habits and their total being.

Here are a few conditions that may be treated without prescription medicines with the right medical professional:

Heart disease - This is a growing problem in the world as more people adopt the western lifestyle of too much fat food and too little exercise. Mainstream medical doctors have a wide assortment of pills and surgical procedures available to them but they are just treating the symptoms. Dr. Robert D. Willix Jr., M.D. quit his practice of heart surgery at the height of his career because he was tired of treating the disease and wanted to move to the prevention and reversal of the problem. “How to Prevent or Even Reverse Heart disease - Without Drugs or Surgery” is one of the results of his switch.

Migraine headaches - In our article Is Magnesium a Miracle Mineral?, we discussed how a high percentage of migraine headaches are caused by a mineral deficiency. Since mainstream medicine doesn’t have enough nutrition classes for their doctors, many don’t have the skill set needed to recommend anything other than the pills presented by pharmaceutical companies.

High cholesterol or triglycerides - A friend of mine was recently told his triglyceride level was too high and he was given a prescription for a medicine that had a $130 price tag for a month’s supply. The doctor gave him enough samples to last about 2 weeks. During this 2 week period, he experienced pains in his legs every day as a side effect from the prescribed medication. This friend is currently studying alternative medical options and therapies and he asked the doctor if no flush niacin in a certain dosage would yield the same results and the doctor said yes. A 100 day supply of no flush niacin was purchased and delivered for less than $40. the pain vanished once the prescription medicine was stopped and the no flush niacin was started.

Acne - Studies are increasingly showing the root cause of acne is hormones out of balance. There is a whole industry surrounding the treatment of acne and many of the products use chemicals that leach toxins into your body through your skin. There are natural alternatives that work with your body to remove the pimples without adding poison to your body.

Cancer - Mainstream medicine has made great strides in treating cancer but the treatment often includes surgery followed by radiation, chemo therapy or both. I’m not advising anyone to ignore mainstream medicine but alternative medicine has been helping cancer patients for years with some amazing results. Natural Cancer Treatments is a resource you should read to inform yourself of options you may not otherwise hear about.

More mainstream medical professionals are choosing to learn about some of the alternative medical options available. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones to check out both mainstream and alternative options for your medical care to see which works best for you.

Cellular energy booster

Thursday, October 4th, 2007
All living cells are powered by a molecule called adenosine triphosphate or ATP. It is a mobile power store that carries energy from the breakdown of nutrients in the form of double bonds within its structure. Its energy can be released when and where the cell needs it by breaking these bonds.

However, when the blood flow is stopped to a region of the body, during a heart attack, for example, the supply runs out. Researchers have tried to get around this problem by injecting ATP directly into the bloodstream. But this has had limited success, because the ATP rarely makes it to the inside of the cells. Now William Ehringer from the School of Medicine at the University of Louisville, US, plans to deliver ATP by encapsulating it within a wrapper of fatty lipid molecules.

The resulting tiny containers, or vesicles, are then injected into the bloodstream and distributed around the body. Importantly, the lipids are similar to those in the membranes of cells within the body. As a result, the vesicles will be partially absorbed into the cells, ensuring that the ATP is delivered directly where needed.

Ehringer has tested the technique with cells from human umbilical cords and says it works well. However, more tests will be needed to see whether it has a clinically valuable role to play in humans.

The method of using vesicles to carry biomolecules directly to cells within the body is not limited to ATP alone, and might have other useful applications in the future.

Justin Mullins, New Scientist contributor

Read the full cellular energy booster patent application.

Electrospraying drugs

Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
Medical implants can be vastly improved by coating them with substances that release drugs over a period of time. For example, coating the stents used for keeping veins and arteries open with a substance that releases an anti-inflammatory drug over a period of months can help the body accept the stent more easily.

But creating an even coating on the stent that contains a specific dose of drug is not easy. When the coating is applied by dipping or spraying, some surfaces get a thicker coating and hence a higher dose than others. And drugs that don't end up on the stent are often wasted.

Now Robert Hoerr and colleagues at the University of Minnesota have come up with a way of delivering an even coating that contains a specific dose. The idea is to mix the drug with a dielectric solvent and then atomise the mixture to create an aerosol in which the droplets are charged. Then, by generating the opposite charge on stent, the droplets are attracted to its surface forming an even coating. Hoerr has formed a start up called Nanocopaeia to commercialise the idea.

Drug coated stents have shown themselves to be vastly superior to the uncoated variety. As a result they have become a hugely popular way of opening partially blocked blood vesssle. Hoerr's idea offers a way to reduce the cost of these implants, something that could benefit many people.

Read the full electrospraying patent application.

Justin Mullins, New Scientist contributor