Today In Alt Med

Ginkgo Fails Another Study On Alzheimer's

Ginkgo biloba has long been touted as an herbal remedy for better memory, improved cognition and even as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. But a new study published this morning at the website for the journal The Lancet Neurology says that people who take ginkgo while hoping to slow or stop the progression of Alzheimer's are, essentially, wasting their money.

The study, which looked at a specific brand of standardized ginkgo extract, followed more than 2800 elderly French patients for 5 years. Of the patients, 1406 of them took the ginkgo extract while 1414 of them were given a placebo product. All of the patients had sought treatment for memory problems at some point and by the end of the study 61 of the ginkgo takers had been formally diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. That compares to 73 of the placebo users.

About the only good news to come out of this study--at least if you're a believer in ginkgo--is that the extract did seem to be safe. A similar number of patients in both groups died over the course of the study and only a few more of the ginkgo patients had a stroke during that time.

Herbalists believe that ginkgo works, in part, by increasing blood flow to the brain. Unfortunately, recent studies on both elderly and younger patients have not found the increased blood flow to be beneficial. A 2005 study, for example, found that college kids who took the remedy got a short-term boost in memory but after a few weeks the ginkgo stopped working. The students, the researchers speculated, eventually developed a resistance to the herb.

And while some studies on Ginkgo biloba have produced promising results large double-blind studies have generally not.

Corn Refiners' Study Says High Fructose Corn Syrup OK

A new study published this month at the website for Nutritional Journal questions recent research on high fructose corn syrup and says that its data shows no special link between high fructose corn syrup, or HFCS, and obesity. There's just one itty bitty thing you might want to know before you read it, though--this study was funded by the Corn Refiners Association.

For the study researchers put 247 overweight or obese adult volunteers on 1 of 5 hypocaloric meal plans. Each individual was given a specific caloric goal to shoot for and encouraged to aim for a caloric deficit of 500 calories. Then 4 of the groups were also given sweetened 1% milk to figure into their equations. One group consumed 10% of its total calories from high fructose corn syrup while a second group consumed 20% of its calories from the stuff. The third and fourth groups used sucrose instead of high fructose corn syrup.

What the researchers found at the end of 12 weeks is that the folks who took in even 20% of the daily calories in the form of high fructose corn syrup all lost weight and all ended up with healthier cholesterol and triglycerides levels.

These results seem to fly in the face of other research which has long blamed added sugars for America's obesity problem. And some people have even gone so far as to suggest that because of the way high fructose corn syrup is produced it's actually used differently by our bodies. A 2004 piece in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition speculated that high fructose corn syrup doesn't activatethe body's natural food response system. To really simplify the theory . . . your body doesn't get the I've-eaten-so-now-I-feel-satisfied messages that it gets you eat, say, a vegetable or a piece of fruit.

The authors of this study say that that kind of thinking has warped public perception of high fructose corn syrup and caused people to shun what is, ultimately, a healthy source of energy.

Can A Fat Doctor Be A Good Role Model?

For 3 months I've wanted to write about something that I noticed during my recent medical check-ups but hesitated to, because it seemed a little . . . mean-spirited . . . to the men and women who were so caring during a couple of recent health scares. And let's just be blunt here--I could stand to loose a few pounds myself.

But then I ran across this at MDNews.com.

Written by Dr. Corey Mote, the piece "Unhealthy Doctors Are Poor Role Models for Patients" talks about a study that finds overweight doctors often hesitate to talk to their own patients about weight. The study was published earlier this year in the journal Obesity; it concluded that doctors who were overweight or obese were less likely to encourage their patients to shoot for a healthier weight.

Why? Well, according to these researchers, doctors who are overweight or obese seem to think that their patients won't take them as seriously as they would if a normal-weight doctor was talking to them about weight. And they don't have confidence in their own ability to have that conversation with authority, either.

The number of overweight doctors who felt this way was staggering. Only 18% of overweight or obese doctors said they discussed weight loss with their patients.

Now, these doctors certainly understand that many of their patients will see them as hypocrites for preaching weight loss while being obese themselves. After all, this study also found that 56% of the overweight doctors believed that doctors should be good role models for weight and 57% of them also believed that doctors should also be role models when it came to exercise.

But the biggest gap, by far, between normal-weight and overweight doctors was seen when it came time to actually label a patient "obese". When the doctor was "fatter" than the patient an obesity diagnosis was given to the patient only 7% of the time. When it was the patient who was "fatter" an obesity diagnosis was made 93% of the time.

Readers, what do you think of all this? Does your doctor's physical appearance really mean that much to you? And what about all the other healthcare professionals you see? Should nurses, lab techs and your doctor's receptionist be held to the same standards? Whether you're a doctor, a patient or you have a take on all this I haven't even thought of I hope you'll leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Ron Teeguarden & Dragon Herbs Warned By FDA

Ron Teeguarden and his company, Dragon Herbs, are taking another trip around the FDA's dance floor. This morning the US Food and Drug Administration published its August 15, 2012, warning letter to Teeguarden, informing him that more than a dozen of his herbal concoctions are in violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

I don't know how long Teeguarden has been in the FDA's crosshairs but an FDA letter to Teeguarden from 2004 suggests that he and the agency are anything but strangers. Teeguarden's original correspondence to the agency has not, as far as I can tell, been made public but it seems that Dragon Herbs was seeking to make therapeutic claims for 2 of its products. The FDA denied those requests.

This time the products have names like  Supreme Protector and Super Pill. The full list of products that the FDA says are being hawked with un-allowed medical claims is:

• CardioPro 2000
• Cordyceps
• Duanwood Reishi
• Gynostemma
• Ginseng and Astragalus Combination
• Dang Gui and Gelatin
• Sweet Relief
• Remove Stagnation
• Bupleurum and Dragon Bone
• Amolo Tea
• Activated Minor Bupleurum
• Standardized Scute
• Salacia
• Shou Wu Formulations
• Ant Essence Capsules
• Ten Complete Supertonic
• Super Adaptogen
• Endocrine Health
• Supreme Protector
• Super Pill

The allegedly bogus claims appear on the DragonHerbs.com website as well as the Ron Teeguarden catalog. The list of claims is too extensively to adequately cover here and the FDA says that its letter to Teeguarden isn't intended to be all-inclusive. But even if the claims weren't in violation of The Act, Dragon Herbs would still be in trouble because some of the medical conditions for which they're touted aren't the kinds of things the average person is capable of diagnosing and treating himself, anyway--like HIV.

The FDA's warning letter to Ron Teeguarden and Dragon Herbs gives the company the standard 15 working days to either remove the violating claims or present its rebuttal to the agency. I couldn't get my hands on a catalog but I did take a look at the website. As of my visit early this afternoon I found the claims I looked up--like the one for his Minor Burplerum product, "demonstrated conclusively to have excellent anti-viral functions in humans with no side effects"--to be still there.

Colloidal Silver Peddler Lewis Blodgett Gets FDA Warning Letter

Since 1999 colloidal silver products have been officially deemed by the US Food and Drug Administration to be "not generally recognized as safe" and any product made with them is treated as "misbranded". But that has not stopped dozens and dozens of people from schlepping the stuff around the internet, claiming it treats everything from fungal infections to prostate cancer. And one of those hucksters just got an official warning letter for his efforts.

This morning the agency made public a copy of its August 15, 2012, warning letter to Healing Ways and its owner, Lewis David Blodgett. In it Blodgett is accused of using his website, healingways.com to peddle his colloidal silver as well as a powdered shell product and a "detox" program built around aloe vera and psyllium.

Blodgett, according to his website is a student of both John Christopher and Bernard Jensen. Christopher was the founder of the unaccredited School of Natural Healing in Utah. (The "school's" website isn't even an .edu.)  Jensen is perhaps best known for his advocacy of a type of pseudoscience called iridology in which practitioners claim to be able to diagnose diseases simply by examining the iris of your eye.

The FDA isn't impressed with Blodgett's credentials, though, and regard his shell powder, his colloidal silver and his detox program as "misbranded" and "new drugs". His colloidal silver product, for example is hawked for enlarged prostate, shingles and infections caused by bacteria, viruses and fungi.

His shell powder product is even more amazing. Although I can't find any info on just what kind of shells are ground up to make this miracle-in-a-jar I can tell you that Blodgett says it will treat skin disorders, joint problems, diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

By contrast the claims made about Blodgett's ABC Detox Program seem downright tame. This system promises only to get rid of toxins, help you shed a few pounds, increase your energy and get rid of symptoms of "dis-ease," whatever "dis-ease" is supposed to mean.

The FDA says that none of the products has ever been proven safe or effective for any of the medical conditions for which they're touted but even if they were Blodgett would still be in trouble with the agency because things like enlarged prostate, diabetes and high blood pressure aren't things the average person can accurately and fully diagnose by himself or treat with home remedies, anyway.

The agency also has a big problem with some of the patient "testimonials" Blodgett is using on his website. Some of those get even more dramatic than the claims Blodgett himself makes. "E.C." says that the colloidal silver healed up his oral "cancer sore" while "Sister Rosemarie" says that spraying the stuff up her nose cured her "running fawcett". 

And, finally, the FDA informed Blodgett that his facility should be registered as a food facility. It is not.

The FDA warning letter to Healing Ways and its owner Lewis Blodgett lists many other examples of alleged violations of the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act and the agency stresses that the letter is not intended to be all-inclusive. Blodgett has 15 working days to respond to the FDA's accusations of selling "misbranded" drugs and 30 days to register as a food facility.

Samantha Lynn Issues Reumofan Recall

Screen shot of cached ReumofanShop.com website.

On the heel's of the Food and Drug Administration's latest warning about the "natural" supplements Reumofan a company called Samantha Lynn Inc., has announced its own recall of 500 lots of Reumofan Plus.

In its official press release the business, for which I can find almost no information at all, basically repeated what the FDA has been saying for weeks now--despite their claims to the contrary Reumofan products aren't "natural" and they contain potentially dangerous pharmaceutical drugs that have the potential to cause very serious and even life-threatening problems in users.

What I can tell you about the business is that Samantha Lynn is the company behind the website reumofanshop.com. (The email address given in the press release is the same email address that pops up when you hover over the website's "contact" link but you'll have to look at an old web cache of the page to see it.) That site is currently displaying only a blank page.

The company says that if you bought Reumofan Plus from them between February and June of this year you'll soon be getting an email letting you know about your "options". (If you bought your Reumofan product anywhere else, though, you're simply up the creek without a paddle.) Samantha Lynn did not say what those "options" entailed and provided only the email address naturallifeandhealth@aol.com as contact info. There was no telephone number given in the press release.

Sleep Problems Tied To Dementia In Older Women

 

Research presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference 2012 says that sleep disorders in older women increase their risk of dementia. The lead author of one of those studies urges physicians who treat elderly patients to take the risk seriously and talk to their patients about it. Sleep disorders in older folks "are comm and they are treatable," says Kristine Yaffe in the August issue of Clinical Neurology News.

In Yaffe's study more than 1300 elderly women allowed researchers to study them for several days and then follow up several years later; the researchers found that women who had breathing problems during sleep were twice as likely to develop mild dementia than women with normal sleep. The same was true for women who routinely had trouble falling asleep. And women who had trouble staying asleep were twice as likely to have delayed verbal recall than normal sleepers.

The link between sleep and serious health problems won't really surprise anyone. Sleep problems have long been linked to things like falls in older people and scientists have long known that Alzheimer's patients often have trouble sleeping. But Yaffe says that her study is the first to actually blame dementia on poor sleep patterns.

Others studies seem to support Yaffe's results. A study on female nurses found that women who slept 5 hours or fewer per night had lower cognition than women who got 7 hours a night. (For the purposes of this study 7 hours of sleep was deemed normal.) But the reverse was also true; women who slept 9 hours or more also had lower cognition. The author behind this study, Dr. Elizabeth Devore, said that getting too little or too much sleep was the equivalent of being about 2 years older.

So what's going on here? Well, the science behind sleep gets complicated pretty quickly from here but a study by Dr. Yafei Huang suggests that your brain chemistry changes with too much or too little sleep. And those changes in your brain's peptides could be encouraging the formation of brain plaques, she said.

Forgiveness Linked To Better Mental Health

A new study set to be published in the Journal of Religion and Health says that the ability to forgive is directly tied to better mental health, especially when it comes to coping with things like traumatic injuries, cancer and stroke.

The study looked at a small number of Buddhists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Protestants and found spiritual beliefs "grounded" those individuals and gave them a sense of perspective about where they "fit" into the world. To put it a bit less nicely, this study basically says that religious people are less narcissistic when they get sick or injured and that makes for better mental health.

This study did not, however, find that deeply religious people were any healthier than the casual religious observer. Mental health did not improve, for example, as someone became more active in their particular house of worship.

And according to the results of this study the only spiritual practice that really matters is the ability to forgive. Forgiveness was the only spiritual trait to stand out after the volunteers' various personality traits were figured into the mix.

This study was done by researchers from the University of Missouri. It's available now as an ahead-of-print piece at the website for the Journal of Religion and Health, which is currently hosting another study on spirituality. That one is titled "The Growing Evidence For Demon Possession: What Should Psychiatry's Response Be?"

FDA Re-Issues Its Reumofan Warning

Image of Reumofan provided by FDA.

Early in June the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, warned Americans not to use the supposedly "natural" dietary supplements marketed under the Reumofan brand. The "supplements" were anything but natural, says the FDA. Tests performed by the agency allegedly turned up 3 different pharmaceutical drugs--none of which are disclosed on the products' labels, of course.

Now, more than 2 months after that first warning the agency says that it's documented more than 2 dozen cases in which users of Reumofan products suffered serious side effects. At least 1 death has already been blamed on the garbage and others have suffered liver damage, severe bleeding, drug withdrawal and a lot more.

The supplement is manufactured in Mexico and is hawked in this country primarily to the Spanish-speaking market. It's billed as an all-natural treatment for everything from muscle pain to bone cancer. It is sold through the internet but can also be found at flea markets and a smattering of retail stores.

In addition to the serious side effects posed by the undisclosed drugs themselves, there's also a very real risk of those drugs interfering with medications that users might already be taking. The risk is so great that the FDA is urging all physicians to now talk to any patient exhibiting any sign of NSAID toxicity and warn them of the danger. And if that's not already infuriating enough, the FDA is also warning doctors to consider putting Reumofan users on a corticosteroid tapering program.

If you're taking any Reumofan product health experts urge you to seek medical care right away and tell your doctor about your usage of the supplement. And if you've taken it in the past and believe you've been injured by it you're also urged to seek medical assistance and fill out a report with the nation's MedWatch program.

FDA Issues Its Own Neti Pot Warning

Less than an hour after we reported on the study about the 2011 neti pot deaths the US Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, issued its own statement about the popular sinus irrigation tools. Titled Is Rinsing Your Sinuses Safe? the piece takes a swipe at what the agency calls "misleading" information and "missing" instructions that often come with those little plastic pots.

Officially the FDA still says that nasal rinsing, whether it's done with a neti pot, bulb syringe or even a battery powered machine, is safe and helpful. The practice can thin mucus, wash out pollen and dust and give temporary relief from colds and allergies. But you have to know what you're doing.

Most important, says this new consumer update, is that you use sterile water. Tap water straight from your faucet is not safe, the agency cautions. (Remember, salt water will not destroy the pathogen that killed the people last year.) The only safe water is water that has been treated in very specific ways. If you're buying water purchase only water that is distilled or marketed as "sterile". And if you're using your own tap water make sure you boil it for 5 minutes then let it cool. Water run through a 1-micron or better filter is also safe to use, adds the FDA's update.

And use a little common sense when it comes to keeping your device clean, the agency says. Wash your hands before you use it and make sure your neti pot, bulb syringe or other device is clean. After you're finished with your nasal irrigation, clean your equipment thoroughly with sterile water and either dry it with a paper towel or let the thing air dry before you store it away.

The agency also has advice for anyone who experiences side effects from nasal irrigation, too. Nosebleed, fever and headache are not normal after using a neti pot and if you develop any of those symptoms you should see a doctor right away.