An Ongoing Investigation Into Non Orthodox Therapies & Product Claims

January 2007

If you are using any of the therapies mentioned below, and they work for you, then read further at your peril, for you may be one of the fortunate few for whom the 'placebo effect' is working.

The reports that follow are from our independent research correspondent
Loretta Marron BSc AAII Assoc Dip Bus (Accnt)

Flower Essences, Herbs and Vitamins, Homeopathy, Iridology, Naturopathy, Natural Therapies Generally, Magnetic Madness, Sex without drugs, Sex with herbs, Acupuncture, Spiritual healing, Food additives, and more….

Definitions of Terms: It can be very confusing when looking at Alternative practices without understanding the basic meaning of a number of the words and phrases used. This segment deals with definitions, mostly out of the Oxford Dictionary, for terms used in this research on Natural Therapies.

Natural established by nature (wind, sea, rain, sun, - think Adam and Eve and you will get the picture)
Therapy a medical treatment of a disease (in my opinion most natural procedures are not therapies)
Cure– relieve a person of a disease (for example - you have parasites, you take a remedy and then they are gone and you are cured)
Remedy means of removing or relieving anything undesirable (this one doesn’t have to be medical)
Science reproducing similar results for the same experiment when repeated (hit your thumb with a hammer and the results will be the same every time, wherever you are)
Placebo medicine given to humour, not to heal (jellybeans perhaps?)
Clinical trial a technique used when testing drugs or procedure whereby half of the participants are given a placebo and the other half get the new drug or procedure. Neither group knows what they are being administered. When the data is compiled, the researches can then make allowances for the placebo effect before assessing and publishing the results.
Placebo effect also called mind over matter cures 30% - 50%
Anecdote a narrative of an incident
Alternative instead of Complementary as well as

Flower Essences - Flower Power?
This follows the concept that the energy force of some flowers is transferred after the flower is dunked into water, which is then heated before drinking.

Dr Edward Bach, a Homeopath in the 1930’s, created 38 flower essences to treat emotional disturbances. He spent his mornings sucking the dew from particular flowers reasoning that the healing effects of these plants were captured in these dewdrops. One cant help wondering what his neighbours though

Herbs and Vitamins - does Natural mean Safe?

The only trials I can find on vitamins state that a multivitamin tablet is great for you if you are over 75, frail and housebound and have a medium to poor nutritional diet, otherwise you are just making ‘expensive pee’.

Research indicates that five serves of fruit and vegies provides you with all the vitamins and minerals you need (washed down with lashings of water and a glass of red wine). Of course if you have a medical condition, are pregnant or a blood test identifies a deficiency, specific vitamins may be recommended.

Herbal remedies, and there are countless number of them and their manufacturers, really send out conflicting information. Their side effects can be unknown and they can have adverse reactions with other medication. Some of them have been found to contain heavy metals and pesticides.

On the positive side, over 40% of today’s pharmaceutical products came out of nature foxglove (digitalis) for your heart and willow bark (aspirin) for headache.

Herbal remedies have been recorded as far back as 1500BC in Egypt. Ethno-botanists are sailing down the Amazon River collecting samples from disappearing rain forests and talking to the natives they hope to find cures for Western ailments in the treetops there.

Wonderful and effective remedies have been developed from many indigenous races from around the world but some remedies assume we have the digestive system of a rabbit and some have ended in patient tragedy.

On Thursday 10, 2005 the Federal Government announced a major overhaul of the regulations governing the $800 million a year alternative medicine industry.

This followed the mass recall of complementary medicines by Pan Pharmaceuticals in 2003. While this is a world first and should clean up the false claims made by some rogue herbal manufacturers, every GP and Pharmacist that I have interviewed has 0% confidence that this will make any difference to protecting their patients. I’ll keep you posted as to what I find happens in the future.

Homeopathy - a million reasons to test it?

We can thank German born Samuel Hahnemann for both the name and the philosophy behind this Natural Therapy. In the late 1700’s he was disenchanted with all the purging and bloodletting that his fellow physicians used on their patients.

He was a linguist so he changed careers to translating medical books. While doing so he read up about Quinine and its use in helping with Malaria. He decided to try the drug for himself and found that he came up with the same symptoms as malaria and drew the conclusion that this is how it cures with this newfound enlightenment, he changed again and so Homeopathy was born.

His principles, which now form the Doctrine of Homeopathy, include the law of similars (like cures like), giving a single remedy (based on one, and only one, natural substance from a list that includes herbal, mineral and chemical potions such as anthrax (from the spleen of an infected sheep), mercury, arsenic, puss (from a scabies blister), faecal material, caffeine, rattlesnake and cobra venom, even Sulphuric Acid).

The mixtures are then subjected to Potentising by vigorously shaking them (thus adding what is now called a vital force, whatever this means).

The patient is then given a dose so dilute (one drop in a hundred drops of fluid, this solution is then diluted again to one drop in a hundred and this process repeated as much as 30 times) so that none of the original compound is left therefore making it safe (less is more) the claim being that the water (or alcohol -depending what is used in the dilution) remembers.

From what I can understand, he meticulously wrote a detailed account of the symptoms experienced by his patients when they were recovering from eating concentrations of what he documented later as his remedies. Hahnemann initially wrote The Organon of the Healing Art and later produced six volumes of Materia Medica that I believe continues to be the Homeopath bible. It details minute-by-minute personal, emotional and physical details of these patients and, rather disgustingly, the texture and smell of their bodily functions.

He must have had some very obliging patients with very odd diets because if he asked me over for dinner during this research period, I’d certainly be concerned about what was floating in my soup.

A modern day Homeopath may spend up to 2 hours with their patient. It is a long interview that covers symptoms, appearance, sexual appetite, sleep positions (side, back or front, arms up or down?), dreams, moodiness, energy levels during the day and the effect of the weather and place the patient lives.

From this interview, using their insight and experience, the Homeopath selects a particular remedy and dilutes it to the equivalence of one drop in a swimming pool.

The patient takes this before meals and an appointment may be made six weeks ahead to see if the patient is cured or if a different remedy is required.

All this I’ve learnt from encyclopaedias, magazines and countless Homeopath sites on the internet. The reading was heavy going for me because terms like re-establishing the harmony; vital force and energy force’ seem to conflict with the basic Laws of Physics I am so passionate about and certainly seem to conflict with my limited medical knowledge.

However, there are over 300,000 homeopaths and 40 medical schools in Europe - my research continued. As a trained scientist my next step was to look at the clinical trials for homeopathy. Searching the Internet I soon found a trial conducted in London, England in 2002 by Profession Martin Brandt using a dilution of histamine.

The trial was conducted at the St George Hospital Medical School. An American by the name of James Randi offered a $1m prize for any homeopathic experiment that could be proven through a trial and the Homeopaths agreed to the terms and conditions and the trial went ahead.

The Clinical Trial was shown on the ABC Catalyst Horizon show during 2002 over a two week period. I also found references to other trials conducted in the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and the Department of Complementary Medicine (Exeter University).

All these trials and articles showed that homeopathy failed.

According to the results, the patients are just drinking water and Mr Randi's money is still safely tucked away in his own bank account.

Iridology, the eyes have it or do they?

From the internet I’ve found an iridology eye chart developed by Bernard Jensen D.C. Ph.D. I keep looking for the part that would have told me I had breast cancer, but it doesn’t seem to be there.

By the reasoning of Iridology, it seems that mammograms may not be necessary after all, if what I have read from the Iridology web sites is true.

The definition of Iridology is the study of the iris to diagnose disease, personality, mutual compatibilities and for revealing ones future. It seems they can do your medical diagnosis, mental and physical past, present and future using just a torch and a magnifying glass. Back in the 18th century, so the story goes, a Hungarian physician by the name of Ignatz von Peczely noticed a dark streak in the eye of a patient with a broken leg. This reminded him of a similar streak in the eye of an owl he had once owned which had a similar ailment (which incidentally he caused).

He then started to work back from the ailments of his patients noticing the marks on their eyes and drawing up a chart. Each eye was divided up like a clock face and soon the known body organs were marked around the diagram – head and brain were seen in the top of the iris and the stomach toward the centre. Patient’s eyes were studied as they are today and meticulously compared with these charts for their diagnosis.

As time passed other iridologist added more detail to the chart but the position on the eye chart that might represent breasts, and which might indicate breast cancer, are not marked anywhere that I can see – since the Iridologists were undoubtedly male this seems rather unusual.

There are several different versions of the chart, but the one most widely used was developed over 70 years ago and features 50 parts of the body. As far as eye physiology is concerned, my research shows that there are only four occasions when the iris colours and patterns change.

From what I understand the iris is the coloured part of the eye, a small muscle that controls the aperture of the eye, monitoring the light that hits the retina.

Many babies are born with blue eyes. For some, however, a few days later, as they continue to develop pigmentation, the eyes may change colour. As we grow older just as the body gets freckles so can our eyes.

In our senior years we may even develop a white ring surrounding each iris.

The only other occasions our iris may change is from eye drops such as those used for Glaucoma.

Five clinical trials have been undertaken in Holland, Australia and America using hundreds of patients with known medical conditions, using photos of the same eye taken a few minutes apart and using the photos of eyes taken when patients were healthy and later when they were ill.

All trials have failed not even close it seems.

Even my trusty Alternative Health Care encyclopedia that has been such a great source of information to me in my research, states that people should take their eyes and bodies elsewhere.

Personally, as a breast cancer survivor, I’m going to continue with my yearly mammograms. [

Naturopaths Physics or Fiction?

When I started to research Naturopaths I contacted one of the Applied Science colleges that offers courses for Naturopaths. I asked them, out of curiosity, if it mattered if I had not completed grade 10 to be assured that there was no minimum requirement for entry.

I soon received the course details and costs (and to this date I’m still getting updates in the mail). It was cheaper if I did the subjects from videos and from home (distance education).

Naturopathy follows two major principles. The first is that all disease and cancer is caused by poor lifestyle, the second is that the body can cure itself of all disease and cancer.

This rules out surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. This is not the information my Breast Cancer group want to hear and it certainly offends me - the only reason I can say I became a cancer patient is because I turned 50 and with one in eleven women over this age being diagnosed, the law of probability hit me.

They seem to believe that you should de-tox regularly and boosting your immune system is central to their jargon lots of boiled fruit and pills are prescribed.

Sometimes even secret herbal remedies are prepared (behind closed doors) and recommended. The costs soon escalate. Now we hear that these De-toxification products can harm our livers (hepatitis and cirrhosis), cause Irritable Bowel Syndrome, diarrhoea and Asthma and, according to the AMA and Nutritionists, should be taken off the shelves.

When Journalist Helen Chryssides wrote her article on Natural Therapies for the Readers Digest, she reported that the 25 Naturopaths from around Australia that she consulted declared she had “everything from poor digestion and a malfunctioning liver to intestinal parasites, breast cancer, a blocked ovary, thyroid imbalances and brain lesions and that her brain lacked oxygen.

Her treatments, had she bought them, would have cost up to $9,000. Considering that Ms Chryssides was in good health, at these prices it is no wonder we spend up to $2 billion on Natural Therapies when we hear those diagnoses.

Anyway, my immune system has always been great, as it is for most people without AIDS, and I love my fruit, veggies and fish and I drink lots of water and a regular glass of red wine but I’m still a cancer patient – I think I slipped ‘through the crack’ on that one.

According to my Naturopathy course details, they study Homeopathy, Iridology, Herbal and Chinese remedies and Flower Essences. Some Naturopath colleges state that they do a high level of psychology training (three times more than for GPs).

Each patient requires an extensive interview sometimes lasting two hours and costing up to several hundred dollars. Compared to the AMA that regulates GPs, over 30 bodies regulate Naturopaths and there seems to be no minimum training requirement before they hang up their shingle and most people don’t seem to check these details.

Dr Hilda Clark, ND, wrote a book titled Cure for all Cancer, which claimed that cancer was caused by a 7cm intestinal fluke worm, where the fluke went determined where the patient developed cancer. She sold $7m worth of books in the USA and some in Australia. Incidentally Dr Clark, I am led to believe, achieved her Naturopathy qualifications by correspondence from Claytons University in the USA.

I have also read claims that AIDS, Cancer and a wide range of major illness have been cured all you have to do is to purchase the book to find out how.

What Natural Therapies and Therapists should we use?

Whatever their choice of healing practice, my advice to seniors is to establish a partnership with the health care professional they feel good with.

They can monitor, interpret, advise and counsel.

I recommend they do their own research into Clinical trials and check these against the claims made by many manufactures of health products.

I also ask that they vote for legislation that supports efficacy testing of products that is currently not required by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

They should ask for proof that products work and return products that do not work for them.

They should complain about products that have undesirable side effects, and write or email the media when they suspect false and misleading advertising.

I also suggest that they go out and have fun with friends and family, use their brain, get fit and get a good night sleep – even Yoga, Tai Chi and meditation can help heal the hurt – all low cost, chemical free and safe therapies.

Magnetic Madness

When magnetic pest control devices were first announced I wondered at the claims made about this 'magnetic madness' product, for I had seen that cockroaches and mice can happily co-exist around refrigerator motors that, like all motors, generate a magnetic field.

If you have wondered why their advertising campaigns seem to have disappeared from the morning grey-pester-power television shows, the answer is simple. The companies were taken to court by the ACCC and lost and were forced to retract their claims and offer refunds to unsatisfied customers.

The good news is that these devices have had their day in court and should have been withdrawn from sale. If you have one, you are not alone, but don't forget you are now entitled to a refund that I encourage you to claim. The bad news is that some of the companies concerned are still going strong and re-promoting such devices.

To end on a positive note, there are some magnetic therapies that work. They are called 'pulsing magnets' and they seem to speed up the healing process in broken bones and may soon be replacing Electroconvulsive Therapy for depression. I'll be researching that topic shortly.

Mind/Body Strategies

This is one area of natural treatments that can actually claim the word therapy. They are low cost, chemical free, safe and more importantly, are very effective. They are readily available at most community centres and are highly recommended for patients recovering from cancer and depression, in fact, all chronic illnesses benefit by embracing one or more of these activities.

More time will be spent researching the history of some of these activities later this year, but more out of interest, because the bottom line is that Mind/Body strategies can be enormously beneficial to many patients while recovering from their illnesses. They can also help healthy people maintain good health.

There are many many links from major health sites to strategies that include the following:
Tai Chi
Yoga
Meditation
Exercise (dancing, walking, cycling & swimming anything that keeps you moving with minimal mechanical assistance)
Music
Laughter
Relaxation tapes
Dietary therapies
Gentle massage, exercise and pampering yourself
Support groups are also highly recommended that can include your church, your community, your friends & family. This can also include specific support groups for your condition (for example breast cancer, Parkinsons, Arthritis, Alzheimers, Strokes to name a few). If you have a condition, these have the added benefits of being able to arrange for experts and speakers specific for your condition
Hydrotherapy marvellous for Arthritis, pain management and general health and exercise
Pet therapy - unconditional love for a small price
Working your brain – crossword puzzles, taking an interest in current affairs, joining the University of the 3rd Age and learning something new.
Doing volunteer work and taking up challenging hobbies (safe ones of course) can also get those endorphins going, which are natural highs that the body produces that make you feel great. The more times you get these natural highs the more your brain will re-program itself for good health. The feelings of being stress free and happy will maintain your health and will reduce the risk of one of the most depilating and misunderstood conditions, Major Depression.

Magnetic Therapy (using static magnets)

I won't be talking about magnetic therapy using spot magnets because the School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Science, Griffith University, Queensland are currently doing a study on spot magnets for pain relief on patients with tennis elbow. I'll wait until I see what happens. I sincerely hope they get great results, because if my GP is satisfied that they work, at $1 per magnet it will be the lowest cost, safest, pain relief therapy available and I will personally donate 1000 high strength magnets to Arthritis Australia.

I would also like to point out that the magnets used in underlays are different from spot magnets. All those I have seen are made of Barium Ferrite with a range of surface readings from 200 to 1200 times the earth's magnetic field. Many charismatic television and sporting personalities have continued for the past decade to use grey-pester-power time slots on both the radio and television to bombard us with anecdotal statements of pain relief. This is a multi-billion dollar business that needs no TGA licence number, and has failed to conduct a single double blind clinical trial.

As a trained Physicist I decided to measure the magnetism over the underlays. In the past two years I have measured the magnetic field of a wide range of brands of underlays, both new and second-hand (some which did not even have magnets in them). My findings confirm my initial hypothesis that most fields are zero just above the underlays and all were significantly less than the humble fridge magnet. I have also found that the magnetism on new magnets dissipates to less than half of the strength claimed on the underlay packaging within three months.

Putting magnetic field strengths into perspective - an engineer from Queensland Railways stated that the DC railway transformers (NSW) have a field strength of 700 times the earth's magnetic field, workers smelting aluminium for the past 110 years have worked in a field strength of 5000 times the earth's magnetic field and MRI machines are up to 30,000 the earth's magnetic field. No pain relief has ever been reported in any of these situations.

Like many other unproven 'Natural Therapy' claims, if they were proven to work by a double blind clinical trial, they would be splashed on the front page of every newspaper in the world. I'm still waiting for that to happen. Meanwhile, I would like to suggest that perhaps during the 1990's Magnetic underlays were the real 'sale of the century'? For more information http://www.extraonline.com.au/story/details.asp?StoryID=10983

Sex without drugs.

Nearly every week, in newspapers and magazines around Australia, a fairly decent sized advertisement with the heading 'Sex without Drug ... 90 Day Free Trial Offer… 100% DRUG FREE… AN ACTIVE SEX LIFE… This is the news you've been waiting for".

I also showed the diagram to my GP who stated that, based on human physiology, this device, could not possibly work. The device cost $606.00 and has a TGA listing number - and it appears to be safe. The TGA does not require products to work, it only requires that they be safe.

Sex with Herbs

In the Natural Remedies section there are always herbs that they claim will improve your sex life. I contacted the manufacturers of one such product and asked for an itemized breakdown of the contents of the pills. I contacted Steven Chong, the Editor of the Complementary Medicine Journal, for information on any clinical trials on herbal remedies that dealt with impotence.

It seems that there is credible evidence that libido can be increased with the correct combination, dosage and use of some herbs, but it can take up to six weeks. My advice for you men is to talk to your GP.

Does Acupuncture Work? - A Prickly Question

This is an 'alternative' practice that to some extent my General Practitioner (GP) and I disagree on. While everyone agrees that acupuncture cures nothing and therefore cannot be called a therapy, I am aware that some GP's offer acupuncture to their patients and some Universities have courses in this topic. As a researcher I try not to give my opinion but in this case, until any remotely positive scientific information is available, I will have to make an informed exception.

I'm going to write a separate section on the mysteries of 'potentization & vital force' (homeopathy) 'channelling the energy of the universe' (reiki), 'healing energy' (flower essences) and ch'i (acupuncture and acupressure) which all seem to defy the basic laws of physics and physiology and predate modern medicine. As far as I can see, they have nothing to do with health and healing. Their histories are fascinating and I admire the imagination and concern these physicians had for their patients in trying to give them cures that were different to the accepted butchery and barbaric medicine of their times.

On the 'Anti-acupuncture' research to date I have only found five clinical trails all of which failed to perform better than placebo.

They involve trails that include acupuncture (and acupressure) for weight loss and cessation of smoking. They also include trials for pain relief in osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis and with Aid's patients. On the 'Pro-acupuncture' research I have not found any clinical trials at all which may just be because they are not on the internet.

People whose opinion I respect have assured me that for chemotherapy and mothers-to-be in some situations it can reduce nausea. I have asked a number of medical people and cancer support workers for a copy of this clinical trial research to see where the needles were placed, the number of patients and other relevant details about trials so I can present a case for this side of the argument but, to-date, none have turned up in my mailbox.

The Victoria University of Technology became the first university in Australian to offer acupuncture in 1992. The national newspaper CAMPUS REVIEW dated August 5 -11, 1993 made the statement "Acupuncture - degree status" for the University of Technology, Sydney. Does this mean it works? To quote Allan Milgate of the University of Newcastle, NSW, "I am now confused as to whether there is anything to acupuncture". Another placebo? I'll keep researching … I have my doubts that acupuncture works, but let's hope I'm wrong.

Spiritual Healing

Indigenous, folk or traditional healers have thousands of years experience in their trade. They are holistic healers who take care of their sick and dying by chanting, dancing and other ceremonial activities. Rituals may include animal sacrifice or the use of sacred bones, stones and artefacts. Often the administration of a brew of local herbal remedies may be included.

For the past months I have been investigating the power of 'mind over matter' in the process of healing in relation to therapies and belief systems. The terms 'soul', 'life force', 'spirit', 'energy force' et ilk seem to describe a similar concept across most cultures both ancient and modern. Holy water administered to a sick Christian can be 'good for the soul'; mediation may 'lift the spirit' and both these practices have been known to contribute to the well being of patients. In the 18th century, the founder of Homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann used his minimal dilutions (1 drop of remedy in an Olympic swimming pool) to get rid of evil spirits that were thought to cause illness in those times before disease, brain dysfunctions and other health conditions were identified. Homeopathy is a healing technique that does not claim to counteract the disease, nor does it claim to heal your body, it works on repairing your 'life force'. Just as Holy water may be blessed remotely so too can homeopathic water be energized over the Internet.

What really matters is what each individual believes will help them.

Now when I hear the term 'energy' in healing, such as in reiki, acupuncture and kinesiology, I think of 'spiritual' energy not 'physics' energy. I do not discount the power of 'positive thinking' to make a difference, but without the patient having the appropriate belief system, these spiritually based therapies will fail. The debilitating condition of major depression sees 'negative thinking' as a similar power but acting in reverse. Orthodox medicine can take you most of the way when recovering from a major illness. However, it is up to each individual to go the extra distance by finding out what makes them feel good about themselves and it doesn't cost much and certainly does not require any pills or potions.

Food Additives – friends or foes?

Research shows that 70% of us believe that chemicals added to food can harm us. However, for most people, food additives, and there are thousands of them, are mostly natural products that have wonderful properties in that they can add flavour and prevent spoilage of food.

Statistically speaking, 5% of adults experience a range of food intolerances but only 2% have food allergies so most of us have cast iron stomachs and can enjoy the tasty delights of everything sold in our supermarkets.

Medically speaking, food intolerance, a condition that often disappears after a year or two, means that you do not have enough enzymes to adequately digest specific foods, while a food allergy, which may remain for life, means that the immune system identifies particular proteins as harmful and histamine floods your system giving you, a sometimes life-threatening, allergic reaction. http://www.virtualallergycentre.com/

Mono Sodium Glutamate (MSG - 261)

Everything we eat is made of chemicals. Unfortunately, when we hear the chemical name of a product, immediate suspicion falls on it, including thoughts of cancer and toxicity. Everyday, our bodies produce about 50 grams of glutamic acid and MSG is the purified, crystallized, stable and low cost water-soluble salt version of this natural product. Sometimes blamed for the mysterious “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”, MSG has been a victim of incorrect information for decades. There is no such condition as an allergy to MSG because it is not a protein and food intolerance is unlikely unless massive doses are consumed. Italian restaurants with their tomato dishes and many of your common home cooked meals contain far more MSG than your favourite Chinese take-away.

Usually made from fermented molasses, it gives the wonderful savoury taste we get when we eat a wide range of foods ranging from tomatoes to two-minute noodles. As Vegemite contains 1.5% MSG, this chemical seems to be an important part of the Australian diet. Used as a flavour enhancer in cooking for 1200 years, it was extracted by Japanese scientists in 1908 from seaweed. Containing only a third the sodium than salt, MSG is heart-healthy and makes food tastier and is consequently a great additive to boost food pleasure, particularly for the elderly with our declining taste buds. http://www.msg.org.au/main.html

Organic Food – is it worth the cost?

If you like getting dirt under your fingernails, then you know the great pleasure you get and health benefits of picking your own fruit and vegetables. For those people like myself, who seem to kill everything green, when it comes to selecting your five veg and two fruit serves per day, your local supermarket comes with a range of choices for your selection.

In the USA the organic food market is growing at a rate of 30% per annum. Does this mean that organic food is better for you? The answer may well be “No”. For a start the cost is considerably higher – not good for your pocket and this may limit the volume and selection of produce you purchase. Then there is the risk of mould and bugs that could lead to 50 times more toxins than commercially grown foods. Some of the so-called “natural” insecticides used in Organic food can be even more toxic than the well-tested commercial products. There is also considerable regulation on commercially grown crops and with the cost of insecticides; mass produced crops are unlikely to have excessive amounts of chemicals sprayed on them. Rumours abound that our soils are deficient in all sorts of minerals, but farmers know the plants wouldn’t grow if this were the case and appropriate supplements are added.

While nothing will replace the back-yard veggie patch, with its added benefit of being a therapeutic hobby in itself, selecting a wide variety of fruit and vegies, preferably those that are in season, and washing and preparing this food properly, will provide you with all the vitamins and minerals you need for a healthy diet. http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/060515crat_atlarge

Food Preservatives – will they harm your health?

Smoked or salted; dried or desiccated; fat covered or fermented; since the Stone Age, man has found ways to preserve surplus foods for the lean times ahead. Cheese and red wine, for example, as with all the preserved foods, little resemble the taste of their original ingredients, as all these processes bring about chemical changes that help minimise spoilage. http://www.acahf.org.au/books/reviews/jm-poison.htm

Quite a few products now boast that they are preservative free, suggesting that it is a healthier food than one with those “nasty added chemicals”. Provided you intend to consume your food within a day or two of picking or opening the packaging, stored in the refrigerator, there is minimal risk that mould or bacteria will grow in preservative-free products. However, most of us tend to keep things for slightly longer periods, so buying food with preservatives added might well be a cost saving option. These days, chemical preservatives, including acetic acid (260 – also known as vinegar), propionic acid (280 – which is used in cheese production), sodium benzoate (211) and potassium sorbate (202) will keep the nasty bugs at bay for much longer periods and, despite bad publicity, these products have been extensively tested and do you no harm. http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/

Food Irradiation – will it give you cancer?

Irradiated food never comes in contact with a radioactive substance, so despite the bad press the process often gets, the food does not become radioactive. The process kills most of the insects, fungi and bacteria that cause disease and food spoilage without compromising the foods nutritional value. In other words, your food keeps longer, tastes as it should and there are fewer bugs and other nasties in it and it certainly won’t cause you to get cancer.
This process is sometimes used to kill insects from wheat, potatoes, flour, spices, tea, fruits, and vegetables and to control Salmonella and other harmful bacteria in chicken, turkey, and other fresh and frozen uncooked poultry. Being more sterile than other foods, it can be the recommended dietary option for patients with compromised immune systems. www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/food.htm

Salt – will it really kill you?

Most of us love our salt but as we get older we are encouraged to cut down on it. For some of us this is correct, as research shows that about one third of people with high blood pressure will benefit from salt restriction. If you are one of these people, remember that at least two thirds of your salt intake is from processed foods like breakfast cereals, margarine and cheese which have a high salt content, and from fast food and ready-made meals, some canned vegetables and snack foods. Bread is the single largest source of salt in our diet. For the rest of us, low to moderate salt intake (less than a teaspoon for women and two teaspoons for men per day) is shown to have no effect. MSG has one-third the sodium of salt and, if flavour is an issue, foods high in MSG such as sun-dried tomatoes, soy sauce and yeast extracts such as vegemite or marmite, could be considered as a salt substitute. Remember that limiting processed food in your diet is a healthy option for all ages.

It is only at the highest salt intake level that studies show that there is some increase in blood pressure, with a salt restricted diet giving a less than 10% reduction in heart disease and stroke, so if you have an otherwise healthy diet, a little extra salt now and again will do you no harm.
http://www.stroke.org.uk/information/preventing_a_stroke/factsheets/salt_and_stroke.html

Herbs and supplements – what the research is saying.

Australians spend millions of dollars annually on ‘natural’ remedies to cure just about every real and imagined health condition and the shelves in health food stores, supermarkets and pharmacies grown with the weight of them. If a product makes claims of a therapeutic benefits, when we buy them, we expect it to improve our health. When we see a Government listing number on a product, understandably we assume that it works. What we are not told is that the Therapeutic Goods Act, which was written in 1989, does not require “evidence of efficacy” for many natural remedies.

Institutions specialising in herbal remedies, such as the US based National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) in recent times have undertaken and published considerable high quality research, which is showing that many of these products are failing to deliver the benefits claimed.

http://healthinformation.com.au/textPage.php?pageID=18

Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)

When the Act was written last century, it included rules that legitimised so called “traditional” remedies on the basis that the sponsors or manufacturers could provide documented evidence that these remedies had been used for three generations or, in the case of homeopathy, that the correct number of dilutions had been completed. The Act also states that scientific research eclipses tradition, but even when the research proves that the products are a placebo they continue to remain for sale. Even though the research on some herbs, such a Echinacea, Saw Palmetto, Tribulus and Black Cohosh, suggests that these herb are ineffective for their indicated health condition, I have yet to see any of their listing numbers withdrawn.

http://www.tgacc.com.au/

If a consumer considers that an advertisement claims a health benefit that cannot be substantiated, they can complain to the Complaints Resolution Panel, which is independent to the TGA. If their complaint is found “justified”, the sponsor of that advertisement will be asked to withdraw it, but the product keeps its listing number and can still remain on the shelf and will continue to be sold – it just can’t be advertised with those claims.

http://www.tgacc.com.au/ComplaintsList_print.cfm

Ageing

With skin care, the most cost effective moisturiser is applying your SPF 30+. It moisturises, prevents sun damage (and consequently premature ageing) and costs very little, so keep a tube handy. The molecules in the so called anti-wrinkle creams, such as collagen and elastin, are too big to get through our skin, and as wrinkles are created under the skin, if you buy expensive products, you are wasting your money.

With pain management, forget your magnets and don’t bother taking your glucosamine, unless you have clinically diagnosed Osteoarthritis with moderate to severe pain.

If your granny made you drink cod liver oil when you were a kid because you didn’t eat enough fish, she was indeed a wise woman. If you take fish oil capsules, check the dosage. A little red wine and dark chocolate can help your heart and lower your blood pressure and they taste great too

When research on Ginkgo on memory was conducted on more than 200 healthy adults over age 60 they found that ginkgo taken for 6 weeks did not improve memory.

If you are in a nursing home and are unable to get out for 15 minutes of sunshine per day (preferably in the early morning or late afternoon), Vitamin D might reduce your risk of osteoporosis. Men are increasingly being diagnosed with osteoarthritis as well.

http://healthinformation.com.au/textPage.php?pageID=19

Menopause

Products that claim to help with hot flushes and other menopausal symptoms include Black Cohosh, Red Clover, Dong Quai, Soy and Wild Yam. Many clinical trials have been published and not only do these products fail to help, but some have caused harm.

http://healthinformation.com.au/textPage.php?pageID=12

PMS

Products that claim to help with PMS include Chaste Berry and Evening Primrose Oil (EPO). EPO does not help and according to the NCCAM no “firm conclusions about chaste berry for PMS cannot be drawn.”

http://healthinformation.com.au/textPage.php?pageID=14

Prostate Health

Products that claim to help men with the symptoms associated with enlarged prostates include Saw Palmetto, Pygeum and Flower Pollen. Of these three only the outdated review on Pygeum has some evidence (Cochrane Review - 1997), which states that it may provide “moderate relief from the urinary problems caused by an enlarged prostate”.

http://healthinformation.com.au/textPage.php?pageID=13

Sex, Libido and Body Building Research

Horny Goat Weed and Tribulus (DHEA) are the favourite products to help with our libido, but unfortunately, I could find no evidence to support these claims either and some men actually grow breasts. Of great concern are those products that contain nicotine.

http://healthinformation.com.au/textPage.php?pageID=15

Weight loss and Detox

The TGA has over 500 weight loss and detox products listed, which according to research, including our own Choice Magazine, do not work as claimed. Many of these are combinations of herbs, none of which have any evidence to substantiate the claims made by the sponsors of these products. Caffeine is often the only ingredient that may help, but it seems cheaper and safer to have a cup of coffee.

Loretta Marron BSc AAII Assoc Dip Bus (Accnt)

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