The natural products industry has done a poor job of regulating itself thus far, making it difficult for many doctors who are committed to natural medicine to know which products they can trust. An overhaul of the regulatory system is long overdue.
For years, industry consultant Ian Newton has been trying to convince health insurers that they ought to cover multivitamins. To do so, he developed a comprehensive computer modeling system that allows insurance execs to see the kinds of savings and health benefits they would gain. While institutional inertia has prevented most of them from moving, increasing cost pressures are starting to open some eyes.
Packed with lipid-lowering plant sterols and several types of fiber, Right Direction chocolate chip cookies are a drug-free way of helping mildly dyslipidemic patients reduce their cardiovascular risk.
A massive French study suggests that the type of progesterone used in postmenopausal HRT is the decisive factor in determining the breast cancer risk associated with hormone therapy. Synthetic progestins appear to increase risk, while bio-identical progesterone does not. Digital mammography can improve detection of breast cancers in younger women with dense breasts, but the cost is high.
Market research from the Hartman Group, Bellevue, WA, indicates that 60% of parents surveyed indicated that doctors were the most important sources of information on dietary supplements for their children.
A number of rare childhood metabolic disorders, such as Wilson’s disease, sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, and short bowel syndrome, can be ameliorated with judicious use of various dietary supplements. But variations in quality of existing supplement products has made it difficult for many parents to provide these benefits to their children.
The patient, a 51-year-old woman, “showed jealousy toward her husband as the first noticeable sign of the disease. Soon a rapidly increasing loss of memory could be noticed. She could not find her way around her own apartment.
Mushrooms are mysterious, and where there is mystery, there is often medicine. Asian traditional medicine has known this for centuries, and various kinds of mushrooms occupy a prominent place in Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan medicine. A review of some modern mushroom medicines making their way into Western clinical practice.
A listing of the coding tools and software to support Alternative Link’s ABC Code system for insurance reimbursement in holistic health care.
NEW YORK—Data from three new clinical trials show that reducing dietary fat to levels below 20% of total calories, and increasing vegetable and fruit intake can prevent relapses of breast cancer, and reduce colon cancer, reported David Alberts, MD, at a conference on Nutrition and Health, sponsored by Columbia University’s Rosenthal Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and the University of Arizona’s Program in Integrative Medicine.
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