Recently, I saw a patient freshly diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer. He had been my patient for a number of years already and had apparently responded well to homeopathic treatment. That is, the symptoms he had complained of were alleviated and his sense of well being increased. He felt well and there were no indications of illness. Then he underwent a routine colonoscopy...
HRT - Going, Going, Gone?
HRT - GOING, GOING, GONE? Since landmark research a few years back, the cat has finally gotten out of the bag on hormone replacement therapy. As was widely reported, a large, longterm federal study on HRT was halted because the women taking hormones in the study had a clear increase in the incidence of breast cancer. Actually, it wasn’t only cancer: the study showed that there was also an increased risk for heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots.
Millions of women have gotten the message. Pharmaceutical companies are reporting dramatic drops in sales of the estrogen containing drugs that once were touted as the latest medical miracle, and even up until a few months ago were often routinely prescribed for women for no other reason than that their periods had stopped.
Thyroid Dysfunction
One of the most common clinical problems I seein my practice is thyroid dysfunction. Nearly twenty years ago, while working in Sri Lanka, it was common to see people, the great majority of them women, walking about with huge lumps - some the size of a tennis ball, some closer to a bowling ball - under their chins. These goitres, or enlarged thyroid glands, were for the most part a result of malnutrition, specifically a lack of iodine in the diet.
At the time I was working as an acupuncturist in a rural clinic, and it was possible to achieve considerable success in treating this condition through nutritional advice and acupuncture. The thyroid problems I see today in this country, though, are of a different sort. Rarely are they caused by a simple iodine deficiency.