Cancer is such a pervasive and formidable condition that the capacity to treat it is perhaps the most important yardstick by which a therapeutic modality can be measured. While ‘the’ cure for cancer remains as elusive an objective as the alchemist’s pursuit of gold, there are numerous therapies, many of them relatively unknown to the population at large, that have proven effective in treating various manifestations of the disease. Broadly speaking though, almost all of these treatments can be categorized into one of two approaches. The first aims to remove or destroy cancer cells, usually be aggressive intervention. This is best represented by conventional oncology, which employs surgery or the introduction of a toxic elements into the body.
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.
Leptins
Over the last few years, I’ve come across a number of references to a hormone called Leptin that have piqued my interest. So, I decided to do a bit of research to find out more about it… Hormones are the great communicators of our bodies. They deliver information from a single cell, or a group of cells, to another cell or another group of cells. Some hormones, released by endocrine glands, travel via the bloodstream; others, released by exocrine glands, travel via ducts to their target cells.
While the layperson readily associates endocrine hormones with major glands like the pituitary, adrenal, thyroid, adrenal, pancreas, ovaries and testes, amongst others, there are numerous glands in various tissues throughout the body that secrete hormones.
The Diabetes Dilemma
During my recent trip to the Indian city of Pune, I was told more than once that twenty years ago it was a slow paced, relaxed place quite distinct from Mumbai, its enormous, frenetic, over-populated neighbor to the north. Unfortunately, that atmosphere appears to have been a casualty of ‘progress’ as the city epitomizes India’s headlong rush into modernity. Once a city of bicycles, the streets are now filled with all varieties of motorized vehicles whose drivers seem to be playing an endless game of chicken with each other and pay little heed to pedestrians whatsoever. The air quality likewise has suffered from the traffic and industrial growth. Many people take on the ‘bandit look’, wrapping their mouths and nose with a scarf or kerchief to filter out the pollution.
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.