Wake up and enjoy an aroma of health

I do have to admit that I love the aroma of coffee and the many varieties of coffee beans. I get attacked for my position, just as I have been attacked for my position on chocolate. However, it is good to know that the science is catching up with my philosophy.

Coffee Beans May Be A Stress Buster
FRIDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- Just sniffing that first hot cup of coffee in the morning may help ease some stresses you might be feeling, a South Korean trial indicates.
When rats inhaled the aroma of roasted coffee beans, a number of genes were activated, including some that produce proteins with healthful antioxidant activity, the researchers reported.
"The meaning of it is not totally clear yet," said Dr. Peter R. Martin, director of the Institute of Coffee Studies at Vanderbilt University. "What it does show is that coffee smells do change the brain to some degree, and it behooves us to understand why that is happening."
The findings, from a team led by Han-Seok Seo at Seoul National University in South Korea, were expected to be published in the June 25 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
The experiment was done with laboratory rats, some of whom were stressed by being deprived of sleep. The researchers did detailed genetic studies that showed the activity of 11 genes was increased and the activity of two genes was decreased in the rats that smelled the coffee, compared to those who did not. In effect, the aroma of the coffee beans helped ease the stress of the sleep-deprived rodents.
The experiment provides "for the first time, clues to the potential antioxidant or stress-relaxation activities of the coffee bean aroma," the researchers wrote.
And they added, "These results indirectly explain why so many people use coffee for staying up all night, although the volatile compounds of coffee beans are not fully consistent with those of the coffee extracts. In other words, the stress caused by sleep loss via caffeine may be alleviated through smelling the coffee aroma."
"They used the latest in technology to see how brain expression of RNA changed," Martin said. RNA is the molecule that carries out the instructions encoded in genes. "This is just the beginning of a very interesting line of investigation," he added.
The aromatic compounds responsible for coffee's odor may be antioxidants, "but they are not the same as the major antioxidants that are in the drink," said Joe A. Vinson, a chemistry professor at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.
Chemically, the antioxidants in liquid coffee are polyphenols, Vinson said. Those in the aroma are heterocycle compounds containing sulfur or nitrogen atoms.
"There are two ways to get things into your system, and the quickest way is to smell them," Vinson said. "Caffeine gets into the brain via the blood stream. Here, aromatic molecules get into the brain through the olfactory system. The levels in the air are parts per million, so obviously these are minor components in the air. But they are doing something."
Previous studies have shown that coffee consumption can reduce depression and suicide risk, as well as relieve stress, effects generally attributed to the caffeine in coffee, the researchers noted. But while some 900 compounds that float away from the bean have been identified, this is the first study to assay their possible effects, they added.
It's too early to recommend that people feeling stress sniff coffee to ease their way, Martin said. But, he added, "people who don't even drink coffee are fascinated by the odor of it. Ever since my little boy was two years old, he has loved the odor of coffee. I have always thought that coffee has some mystic quality, and there is some deep historical basis for it."
More information: The latest on coffee health research is available from the Coffee Science Information Centre.

Tragedy strikes people with AIDS

This is indeed a travesty of justice. There are at least four known supplements that do block the progess of HIV to AIDS. This gives much more weight to the use of genetically engineered drugs that are very costly and often are not accessable to people of low income or in underdeveloped areas. It also gives more profit to BigPharma. Shame on S. Africa.

S Africa bans Aids vitamin trials
A South African court has banned unauthorised trials of vitamin therapies for Aids, which some say are a health risk.

The High Court in Cape Town ruled against German physician Matthias Rath and US doctor David Rasnick, a former adviser to President Thabo Mbeki.

The case was brought by the pressure group the Treatment Action Campaign and the South African Medical Association.

They accused Dr Rath of conducting illegal trials among poor communities.

"It is declared that the clinical trials conducted in South Africa are unlawful," Judge Dumisani Zondi said in his ruling.

Matthias Rath and his Rath Foundation promote vitamin pills and minerals which they say can reverse the development of HIV/Aids.

But critics say such trials had led to unnecessary deaths when HIV-positive people stopped using anti-retroviral drugs.

TAC and SAMA accused the South African government of not doing enough to stop the trials and failing in its duty of care to the public.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who has controversially advocated garlic and beetroot instead of anti-retroviral drugs, denied the allegations.

Nathan Geffen of the Treatment Action Campaign hailed the judgment as a victory for scientific governance, which he said had been contested by the health minister and president.

South Africa has one of the world's highest incidences of HIV. One in five adults are reported to be infected and an estimated 500,000 people are infected each year.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7453449.stm
Published: 2008/06/13 © BBC MMVIII

Ask for nutritional support as firstline treatment in depression -

And question your medical provider about just what might be wrong with you, really. Don't accept a knee-jerk response and trying to fit your symptoms into a category where they might not belong.

From the London (UK) Daily Mail 10 June.08
"HOW THE WRONG DRUGS MIGHT BE CAUSING YOUR DEPRESSION"

Prof. Jane Plant of University College, London, & Janet Stephenson, a psychologist at a London Hospital say that doctors often mistake physical illness for depression. A study by an American psychiatrist found that over 10% of patients diagnosed with mental illness actually suffer an underlying physical condition such as thyroid problems or a mineral deficiency of calcium or magnesium etc.

Another study found that over 40% of patients diagnosed as depressed at one medical practice were found to have been given medication that causes depression as a side-effect.

"Asthma treatments, for example, can cause depression, but some doctors don't know this", says Prof. Plant. "If a doctor does prescribe a drug, they should ascertain if the patient has low levels of neurotransmitters - brain chemicals such as serotonin that influence mood - and which one is low. This can be checked by a urine or blood test in a private clinic. The problem is most NHS doctors aren't even aware such tests exist. This leads to doctors randomly trying drugs before they find the right combination."

The book "Beating Stress, Anxiety & Depression" by Prof. Jane Plant & Janel Stephenson. (Piatkuson, 2008. Tel: 0845 606 4206.

Shame on Bastyr U

Having had the great pleasure of knowing John Bastyr, I am again amazed at a researcher at the Seattle area scool named for him.

Bastyr U, of course, in its master plan wants to have control over all of "natural" health care. It current approach is about as far away from the life and work of Dr. John as one can get, but then the public fails to know the history of real naturopathy as opposed to"the new definition of "naturopathic medicine".

Since Carla Johnson fails to identify in her article exactly what type of St. John's Wort capsules were utilized in this study, it leads to a lot of speculation.

The speculation may include whether or not Wendy Weber specified a "standardized" form of St. John's Wort or used a whole herb blend or complete concentrate.

Another question I would ask is why was this particular herb chosen.

Considering that Bastyr U beleives itself to be the penultimate source of herbal information, Weber might have considered the fact that SJW is a sedative-nervine herb and anti-viral that is generally considered - as a result of a large amount of research - used primarily for things besides the manufactured diagnosis of ADHD.

Certainly, based on research and herbal knowledge, a much better choice for the disease that was designed for the Ritalin like drugs, Passionflower would have been my choice. I would have chosen liquid herbal extract above capsuled dried herbs too.

And I would have considered that sometimes a blend of several appropriate herbs might be used, mainly primary herbs combined with secondary choices such as SJW.

This might also be a way to spin the best function of herbs off and away from the basic rules of choosing drugs in therapy - The right drug, for the right person, at the right time on the right form and for the right use.

Perhaps Carla doesn't know this rule, and perhaps Bastyr students haven't heard of it either.

So if you are looking for non-drug approaches to ADD or ADHD, contact us for more information and more appropriate choices.

St. John's wort fails to help kids with ADHD
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 10, 2008
Children and teens with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder fared no better on St. John's wort than they did on dummy pills in a government study, another blow for herbal supplements.

St. John's wort, pine bark extract and blue-green algae are among commonly used herbal treatments for children with ADHD. They appeal to parents who want to avoid stimulants like Ritalin and other drugs used to help children control their behavior.

But unlike prescription drugs, supplements are only loosely regulated by the government and their makers don't have to prove they are safe or effective.

"Do an Internet search and you'll find a wide variety of herbal products marketed for ADHD," said lead author Wendy Weber of Bastyr University's School of Naturopathic Medicine in suburban Seattle. "I've found there is very little research on the majority of products out there."

Weber, working with colleagues at Harvard University and University of Washington, focused on St. John's wort because studies in rats found it increases brain chemicals like norepinephrine, which is thought to help focus attention.

Weber reasoned St. John's wort might work the same way as the prescription drug Strattera, approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat ADHD. Strattera makes norepinephrine more available in the brain.

In the study, appearing in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, 54 children with ADHD were randomly assigned to take either St. John's wort capsules three times a day or placebos. They ranged in age from 6 to 17 years old.

Symptoms were measured at the start of the study and four other times. After eight weeks, the two groups showed no difference in symptoms or side effects.

Adriana Arjona, a 15-year-old diagnosed with ADHD several years earlier, took part in the study in the Seattle area. She has never taken standard prescription medication for the condition because her mother, Aracelly Salazar, believes the potential side effects of nervousness, agitation and insomnia are worse than her daughter's symptoms.

St. John's wort didn't seem to have much effect, both mother and daughter agreed. The teenager learned after the study ended that she had taken the supplement, not the dummy pill.

The study's results should give pause to parents who have avoided well researched prescription medicines in favor of herbal remedies, said Dr. Eugenia Chan of Children's Hospital Boston, who was not involved in the new research.

Earlier this year, the American Heart Association recommended that children should be screened for heart problems before getting drugs like Ritalin. That increased parents' anxieties about the drugs, Chan said.

But "natural" doesn't mean risk-free. St. John's wort can increase sensitivity to the sun and reduces the effectiveness of some medications, including birth control pills.

ADHD affects more than 4.4 million children, according to government estimates.

Chan, who has studied the use of alternative medicines in ADHD, found that more than half of parents of ADHD children had tried alternative treatments and special diets, but only 11 percent had told their children's doctors about those strategies. She wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal.

The research follows other studies with disappointing results for alternative remedies such as echinacea for the common cold, saw palmetto for prostate problems and glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis pain.

It was funded by a grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health.
___
On the Net:
JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org
National Resource Center on ADHD: http://www.help4adhd.org
NCCAM: http://www.nccam.nih.gov
Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.

Later this morning a second mesaage quoted another report on this issue. This ones refers to a standardised dried herb capsule made from a single component of SJW.

Weber and co-workers recruited 54 children with ADHD aged between six and 17, and randomly assigned them to receive a daily supplement of 300 mg of H. perforatum standardised to 0.3 per cent hypericin (Vital Nutrients Inc, Connecticut) or placebo for eight weeks. The participants were not allowed to take other ADHD medications during the trial.
"The product used for this study was not one of the newly marketed "high-hyperforin" products that range from three to five per cent hyperforin," wrote Weber. "The product used in this trial was tested for hypericin and hyperforin content at the end of the trialandcontained only 0.13 per cent hypericin and 0.14 per cent hyperforin."

This is a study of very short duration and a limited number of participants, things that often skew negatively the outcome of the study.

In addition, see

and from one of my articles -
"Dr. Hyla Cass, a psychiatrist who works with natural treatments for mood disorders, recommends St. John's wort to promote restful sleep and enhance dreaming.

A study in 1993 shows that St. John's wort improved the condition of those who regularly experience winter depression. The extract has been thoroughly researched as a natural anti-depressant. A total of 1,592 patients have been studied in 25 double-blind controlled studies. The studies show St. John's wort reduces anxiety, depression and sleep disturbances, without side effects. Use organic, whole herb extracts for the best results."


also from another of my articles, "...at a talk presented by world class scientists, ...demonstrated to me that standardization for hypericin content alone is at least misguided. ...even after .. plucking the plant apart into all its varied constituents, it is the whole herb that does the work, and this still holds true." Richo Cech, Horizon Herbs

more here

Red Rice Yeast is a Statin

Lovastatin is the active substance in red rice yeast that acts similarly to Lipitor et al yet with more subtle effect.

It can still produce side effects including but not limited to rhabdomyolysis, a debilitating side effect of the drugs that may lead to kidney failure.

In the US the FDA is blocking sales of OTC RRY.

From The Times June 10, 2008

Red yeast rice extract XZK cuts risk of dying after heart attack
Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor

A form of fermented rice used as a herbal remedy and a colouring agent in food has shown remarkable results in patients who have suffered heart attacks.

Red yeast rice cut the risk of dying from a second heart attack by almost a third, and the risk of a non-fatal heart attack by almost two thirds, a trial in 5,000 people in China showed.

The results sound incredible but the trial was well-conducted and large, and the findings highly statistically significant.

They are less hard to believe when it is remembered that red yeast rice was the source of the first statin drug, lovastatin. So, in effect, the patients treated with red yeast rice were being given a statin in raw form.

Red yeast rice is made by fermenting rice with a yeast called Monascus purpureus. The result is a purple form of rice, known throughout the Far East under different names and sold in markets. It is also used to colour food.

In the trial, published online in the American Journal of Cardiology, 5,000 patients of both sexes who had already had a heart attack were divided into two groups and randomly allocated to be treated either with an extract of the red yeast rice, called XZK, or a placebo. They were then followed for an average of four and a half years.

The research team, led by Dr Daniel Capuzzi of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, counted how many patients in each group suffered a serious second heart attack (including those who died from one). They found that the risk was reduced by almost half in the group given XZK.

There was also a dramatic drop in the number of cancer deaths, but the numbers were too small to draw any real conclusions — 29 cancer deaths in those on placebo, 13 in those on XZK.

Dr Capuzzi said that the health benefits from red yeast rice even exceeded those of statins, the acclaimed cholesterol-lowering drugs.“I think it is surprising that a natural product like XZK would have this great an effect” he said.

“If further testing and study prove true, my hope is that XZK becomes an important therapeutic agent to treat cardiovascular disorders and in the prevention of disease whether someone has had a heart attack or not.

“But it is important to recognise that we do not know exactly how Chinese red yeast rice works. The exact ingredients from the XZK capsules have not been isolated and studied yet. Still, the results were so profound, even outperforming statins prescribed in numerous Western populations, that further study should certainly be investigated.”

Red yeast rice has been used in China for thousands of years as a food preservative, colorant and seasoning and herbal medicine. It is the ingredient that gives Peking duck its red colour.

Dr Capuzzi, who led the study together with Dr Zonliang Lu, from the Chinese Academy of Medical Science in Beijing, pointed out that the capsules used in the study were carefully prepared for the research and were not the same as red yeast rice supplements available in health food stores.

“Those over-the-counter supplements are not regulated, so exact amounts of active ingredient are unknown and their efficacy has not been studied yet,” he said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article4099336.ece?Submitted=true

Alcohol treatment: Risky Rx or Helpful Herbs

For many years we have offered a comprehensive herbal formula for help with alcohol abstinance and loss of desire. We call it Chalmer's Choice, named after a supporter of our work who had a longtime history of alcohol abuse. We also know that nutritional support and dietary change is critical.

We introduced this in the college communities in 2004 to help combat increased probelms assocaited with campus drinking. Our reports showed wide acceptance and benefits to use.

Additionally we supplied our "recovery" drink to taverns and clubs, as well as frat houses in an effort to reduce DUI or other serious accidents related to driving while intoxicated.

Alcohol craving reduced by drugs

Twin research projects have offered both present and future hope to people suffering from alcohol addiction.

US researchers say that epilepsy drug topiramate boosts general health as well as cutting the craving for drink.

A UK specialist said the potential side-effects of topiramate still merited caution.

A separate project showed that a single injection of a protein into the brains of rats almost immediately stopped them wanting alcohol.

Topiramate treats the alcohol addiction, not just the 'symptom' of drinking
Bankole Johnson, University of Virginia

Topiramate is not licensed in the UK for the treatment of alcohol addiction, although doctors are allowed to prescribe it if they wish, and occasionally do.
The latest study results, published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, could increase the number of doctors willing to do this.

Researchers from the University of Virginia analysed the results of the US-wide trial, which took 371 people with a heavy drinking problem, and gave them either topiramate or a placebo "dummy" drug.

They found, that over 14 weeks, those taking topiramate not only had fewer obsessive thoughts and compulsions about using alcohol, but had generally improving health.

Their weight, cholesterol and blood pressure dropped, and levels of liver enzymes linked to "fatty liver" disease, the forerunner of cirrhosis, also fell away.

Lead researcher Professor Bankole Johnson said: "What we've found is that topiramate treats the alcohol addiction, not just the 'symptom' of drinking."

Side effects

Dr Jonathan Chick, a specialist in the psychiatry of addiction, welcomed the results, particularly the figures which proved better health, rather than relying on an estimate of reduced drinking levels, which could prove misleading.

He said: "There are other drugs which were originally developed to prevent epileptic seizures, which have also shown promise in reducing relapse in alcoholism, but topiramate is so far the most convincing."

However, he said that his own limited use of topiramate had been very carefully monitored to minimise the powerful side-effects of the drug.

In the other study, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Journal reported on a study in rats carried out at the University of California at San Francisco.

The scientists injected a brain protein called GDNF directly into a part of the brain called the ventral tegmental area, which is thought to be heavily involved in "drug-seeking" behaviour.

The rats were placed in an environment designed to mimic human social drinking, with a lever that could be pushed to deliver an alcoholic drink.

Rat rehab

The protein began working almost immediately, with effects noticed within 10 minutes.

The research also suggested that other cravings were unaffected, as the rats' desire for their supply of sugary water continued unabated.

In addition, once treated with GDNF, rats seemed to be less likely to "relapse" to alcoholism after a "rehab" situation, in which the alcohol supply was cut off for a period of time, then reintroduced.

"Our findings open the door to a promising new strategy to combat alcohol abuse, addiction and especially relapse," said lead author Dr Dorit Ron.

Dr Chick said that there had been various attempts to interfere directly with the brain systems controlling alcohol cravings, although these had only achieved "mixed success" when transferred from experimental animals to humans.

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/7443725.stm
Published: 2008/06/09 23:13:40 GMT
© BBC MMVIII

Topamax is also known to be used as a chemotherapy treatment in psychiatry.

The adverse events in the controlled trial that occurred most commonly in adults in the 400 mg/day group and at a rate higher than the 50 mg/day group were: paresthesia, weight decrease, somnolence, anorexia, dizziness, and difficulty with memory NOS. Other reports include weight decrease, upper respiratory tract infection, diarrhea and mood problems.

Why to Avoid Genetically Modified Food

and if you do not understand the issue please read more here.

The most widely grown GE crops, accounting for nearly 99% of the GE crop acreage in North America, are corn, soy, canola and cotton.

You will find, if you read the label, that Promise margarine ( other brands too) and Promise 'shots', CardioWise vitamins, Dannon products, and even products sold in health stores contain soy and canola. Many other products contain this duo. Some companies admit that their soy-canola combo (usually called CoroWise)is genetically modified. Promise pleads ignorance.

You choice!