[Reblog] THIEVES Essential Oil – Crimes against public health | Science-Based Pharmacy

THIEVES Essential Oil – Crimes against public health | Science-Based Pharmacy.

Excerpt:

As discussed in one of my previous posts, the promotion of quackery is so ubiquitous in my town it’s become white noise for me. I mostly tune it out unless I’m personally asked my opinion. Often this promotion comes in the weekly newspaper, in the advertising-disguised-as-advice page “Ask the Expert.” Occasionally there are columns by financial advisors and home improvement experts, but by far the majority of “expert advice” comes from chiropractors, naturopaths, Chinese Medicine practitioners, and holistic nutritionists. One regular advertiser is a local who calls herself a “Divine Healer”. She has some initials after her name, none of which I can trace back to any actual licenced health profession, degree or diploma. Her services include reflexology, mediumship, craniosacral therapy, aromatherapy and card-reading. She also offers a special massage called “vibrational raindrop technique” which apparently involves the use of essential oils and tuning forks or singing bowls.

 

This actually sounds like it might be kind of relaxing and entertaining. Something I would personally never pay the money for, but harmless, right? Earlier this year, however, a local public health nurse who I consider a kindred spirit based on our views of alternative medicine contacted me about the weekly claim. In the wake of a severe local flu outbreak and depletion of vaccine supply, the healer recommended an essential oil called “Thieves” claiming that “research shows that it has a 99.96 percent kill rate against airborne bacteria – interrupting the life cycle and interfering with the ability of viruses to replicate.” Further information available on her website goes on to describe how you can boost your immune system by placing a few drops on your feet every morning (this old wives’ tale makes me shake my head, every time I read it – which is too often).

Also provided are several recipes for making your own capsules with various essential oils which you should then take three times a day if you actually become sick. In bold, she warns that you must never take essential oils internally unless they are Young Living brand, which of course, is the brand that she represents. I found that information to be very interesting, considering the Health Canada guidelines for approval for aromatherapy essential oils clearly states that they are for topical or inhalation only. Also interesting is the fact that Young Living doesn’t appear to have an NPN for Thieves.

Young Living has also been under fire recently from the FDA for boldly claiming that Thieves can kill Ebola. While the letter from the FDA may prompt some correction at their top level, I doubt the message has trickled down to their thousands of distributors who will still likely be selling it any way they can, and that really is the modus operandi of all multi-level marketing schemes. Dr. Harriet Hall discussed a similar MLM company, and states:

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[Press release] Future air quality could put plants, people at risk

Future air quality could put plants, people at risk — ScienceDaily.

Kyoto is intended to cut global emissions of greenhouse gases. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From the 6 November 2014 press release

Source:University of Sheffield

Summary:Future ozone levels could be high enough to cause serious damage to plants and crops, even if emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced, says new research. And without sufficient reductions in emissions, ozone levels could also pose a risk to human health.

y combining projections of climate change, emissions reductions and changes in land use across the USA, an international research team estimate that by 2050, cumulative exposure to ozone during the summer will be high enough to damage vegetation.

Although the research findings — published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions — focus on the impact in the USA, they raise wider concerns for global air quality, according to lead researcher Dr Maria Val Martin, from the University of Sheffield’s Faculty of Engineering

“Modelling future air quality is very complex, because so many factors need to be taken into account at both a global and local scale,” says Dr Val Martin. “The picture isn’t uniform across the USA, with some areas seeing much higher surface ozone levels than others. However, our findings show that the emissions reductions we’re expecting to achieve won’t guarantee air quality on their own, as they will be offset by changes in climate and land use and by an increase in wildfires. This is an issue that will affect all parts of the world, not just the USA.”

The research looked at air quality under two scenarios set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: one which envisages greenhouse gas emissions peaking in 2040 and then falling, the other in which emissions continue to rise until 2100. The team combined data on climate change, land use and emissions to create a picture of air quality across the USA in 2050.

The model showed that, if greenhouse gas emissions peak in 2040, then by 2050 surface ozone will remain below levels set to safeguard human health, despite increases in ozone caused by higher temperatures and changes in agriculture and forestation. If emissions continue to rise until 2100, then some areas of the USA will see surface ozone above the safe levels set for human health.

…

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[Press release] How important is long-distance travel in the spread of epidemics?

How important is long-distance travel in the spread of epidemics?.

Three scenarios depicting the simulated spread of a simple epidemic from a single point outbreak. Long-range jumps — mimicking air travel, for example — lead to sub-outbreaks. If long-distance jumps are rare, the main outbreak will quickly merge with the satellite outbreaks, leading to a rippling, wave-like growth (left). As the likelihood of long-distance jumps increases, the epidemic spread exhibits a super-linear power-law growth (center) or a stretched exponential or “metastatic” growth. (Simulations by Oskar Hallatschek, UC Berkeley, and Daniel Fisher, Stanford. Video editing by Christian Collins.)

From the 4 November 2014 UC Berkely press release

By Robert Sanders, Media Relations

BERKELEY —

The current Ebola outbreak shows how quickly diseases can spread with global jet travel.

Yet knowing how to predict the spread of these epidemics is still uncertain, because the complicated models used are not fully understood, says a UC Berkeley biophysicist.

Using a very simple model of disease spread, Oskar Hallatschek, assistant professor of physics, proved that one common assumption is actually wrong. Most models have taken for granted that if disease vectors, such as humans, have any chance of “jumping” outside the initial outbreak area – by plane or train, for example – the outbreak quickly metastasizes into an epidemic.

Hallatschek and co-author Daniel Fisher of Stanford University found instead that if the chance of long-distance dispersal is low enough, the disease spreads quite slowly, like a wave rippling out from the initial outbreak. This type of spread was common centuries ago when humans rarely traveled. The Black Death spread through 14th-century Europe as a wave, for example.

But if the chance of jumping is above a threshold level – which is often the situation today with frequent air travel –the diseases can generate enough satellite outbreaks to spread like wildfire. And the greater the chance that people can hop around the globe, the faster the spread.

“With our simple model, we clearly show that one of the key factors that controls the spread of infection is how common long-range jumps are in the dispersal of a disease,” said Hallatschek, who is the William H. McAdams Chair in physics and a member of the UC Berkeley arm of the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3). “And what matters most are the rare cases of extremely long jumps, the individuals who take plane trips to distant places and potentially spread the disease.”

[Press release] Study shows integrative medicine relieves pain and anxiety for cancer inpatients

 

Study shows integrative medicine relieves pain and anxiety for cancer inpatients.

From the 6 November 2014 EurekAlert!

 

Study shows integrative medicine relieves pain and anxiety for cancer inpatients

Pain is a common symptom of cancer and side effect of cancer treatment, and treating cancer-related pain is often a challenge for health care providers.

The Penny George Institute for Health and Healing researchers found that integrative medicine therapies can substantially decrease pain and anxiety for hospitalized cancer patients. Their findings are published in the current issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute Monographs.

“Following Integrative medicine interventions, such as medical massage, acupuncture, guided imagery or relaxation response intervention, cancer patients experienced a reduction in pain by an average of 47 percent and anxiety by 56 percent,” said Jill Johnson, Ph.D., M.P.H., lead author and Senior Scientific Advisor at the Penny George Institute.

“The size of these reductions is clinically important, because theoretically, these therapies can be as effective as medications, which is the next step of our research,” said Jeffery Dusek, Ph.D., senior author and Research Director for the Penny George Institute.

The Penny George Institute receives funding from the National Center of Alternative and Complementary Medicine of the National Institutes of Health to study the impact of integrative therapies on pain over many hours as well as over the course of a patient’s entire hospital stay.

“The overall goal of this research is to determine how integrative services can be used with or instead of narcotic medications to control pain,” Johnson said.

Researchers looked at electronic medical records from admissions at Abbott Northwestern Hospital between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2012. From more than ten thousand admissions, researchers identified 1,833 in which cancer patients received integrative medicine services.

Patients were asked to report their pain and anxiety before and just after the integrative medicine intervention, which averaged 30 minutes in duration.

Patients being treated for lung, bronchus, and trachea cancers showed the largest percentage decrease in pain (51 percent). Patients with prostate cancer reported the largest percentage decrease in anxiety (64 percent).

[Press release] Is violent injury a chronic disease? Study suggests so & may aid efforts to stop the cycle

From the 8 November 2014 U of M press release

Two-year study of urban teens & young adults shows high risk of additional violent injuries among assault victims, especially those with PTSD or drug use

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Teens and young adults who get seriously injured in an assault are nearly twice as likely as their peers to end up back in the emergency room for a violent injury within the next two years, a new University of Michigan Injury Center study finds.

The study followed nearly 600 teens and young adults for two years after an emergency room visit for an assault injury or other condition. The assault group’s members were twice as likely to suffer another violent injury – most within 6 months.

The researchers call this repeating pattern of violent injury a reoccurring disease, but their landmark study also suggests potentially powerful opportunities to intervene in ways that could stop the cycle.

The first six months after a young person seeks care for a violence-related injury is an especially important time, the study shows.

Patients with post-traumatic stress disorder or drug abuse problems have the highest likelihood of suffering injuries in another violent incident, the researchers find.

The findings come from a unique effort that involved multiple interviews and medical record chart reviews conducted over two years with nearly 600 residents of the Flint, Mich. area between the ages of 14 and 24 — starting when each one sought emergency care at a single hospital. Nearly 350 of them were being treated for assault injuries at that first encounter.

The findings are published online in JAMA Pediatrics by a group from the University of Michigan Medical School and School of Public Health, the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, and other colleagues.

Rebecca Cunningham, M.D., director of the U-M Injury Center and first author of the new paper, notes that it’s the first prospective study of its kind, and 85 percent of the young people enrolled were still in the study at 24 months. Five of the participants died before the study period ended, three from violence, one from a drug overdose, and one in a motor vehicle crash.

“In all, nearly 37 percent of those who qualified for this study because they were being treated for assault-related injuries wound up back in the ER for another violent injury within two years, most of them within six months,” says Cunningham, who is a Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the U-M Medical School and the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education in the U-M School of Public Health.

“This ER recidivism rate is 10 percentage points higher than the rate for what we traditionally call chronic diseases,” she continues. “Yet we have no system of standard medical care for young people who come to us for injuries suffered in a violent incident. We hope these data will help inform the development of new options for these patients.”

The authors note that non-fatal assault-related injuries lead to more than 700,000 emergency visits each year by youth between the ages of 10 and 24. Fatal youth violence injuries cost society more than $4 billion a year in medical costs and $32 billion in lost wages and productivity.

Despite this costly toll, most research on how often the cycle of violent injury repeats itself, and in which young people, has relied on looking back at medical records. This has resulted in widely varying estimates of how big the problem is.

But through the Flint Youth Injury Study, based at U-M, the research team was able to study the issue prospectively, or starting with an index visit and tracking the participants over time.

The study was performed at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, where Cunningham holds an appointment and where U-M emergency physicians work with Hurley staff to provide care.

The study’s design allowed them to compare two groups — those whose index visit was for assault injuries and those seen for other emergency care. Each time a new assault victim was enrolled, the research team sought to enroll the next non-assault patient of the same gender and age range who was treated at the same ER.

Nearly 59 percent of the participants were male, and just over 58 percent were African American, reflecting the broader population of Flint. Nearly three-quarters of those in the study received some form of public assistance.

Among those whose first visit was for assault, nearly 37 percent wound up back in the ER for violent injuries in the next two years, compared with 22 percent of those whose first visit wasn’t for an assault injury. And a larger proportion of the “assault group” actually came back more than once for violent injuries, compared with the other group.

“Future violence interventions for youth sustaining assault-related injury may be most effective in the first six months after injury, which is the period with the highest risk for recidivism,” says Maureen Walton, MPH, Ph.D. senior author and associate professor in the U-M Department of Psychiatry. “These interventions may be most helpful if they address substance use and PTSD to decrease future morbidity and mortality.”

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[Press release] Swallowing sponge on a string could replace endoscopy as pre-cancer test

 

From the 4 November 2014 Cancer Research UK press release

Swallowing a sponge on a string could replace traditional endoscopy as an equally effective but less invasive way of diagnosing a condition that can be a forerunner of oesophageal cancer.

“[The Cytosponge test] should be considered as an alternative to endoscopy for diagnosing the condition and could possibly be used as a screening test in primary care.” – Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald, lead author.

The results of a Cancer Research UK trial involving more than 1,000 people are being presented at the National Cancer Research Institute’s annual conference (link is external) in Liverpool.

The trial invited more than 600 patients with Barrett’s Oesophagus – a condition that can sometimes lead to oesophageal cancer – to swallow the Cytosponge and to undergo an endoscopy. Almost 500 more people with symptoms like reflux and persistent heartburn did the same tests.

The Cytosponge proved to be a very accurate way of diagnosing Barrett’s Oesophagus. More than 94 per cent of people swallowed the sponge and reported no serious side effects. Patients who were not sedated for endoscopy were more likely to rate the Cytosponge as a preferable experience.

Lead author Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald, based at the MRC Cancer Unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “The Cytosponge test is safe, acceptable and has very good accuracy for diagnosing Barrett’s Oesophagus. It should be considered as an alternative to endoscopy for diagnosing the condition and could possibly be used as a screening test in primary care.”

Barrett’s Oesophagus is caused by acid coming back up the food pipe from the stomach – known as acid reflux – which can cause symptoms like indigestion and heartburn. Over time people with these symptoms may develop changes in the cells that line the oesophagus. These cells can become cancerous and so patients with Barrett’s Oesophagus are tested every couple of years.

Barrett’s Oesophagus is usually diagnosed by having a biopsy during an endoscopy. This can be uncomfortable and carries some risks – and it’s not always practical for everyone who has symptoms like reflux and heartburn.

Oesophageal cancer is the thirteenth most common cancer in the UK. Around 5,600 men develop the disease each year compared with 2,750 women. And each year around 5,200 men and 2,460 women die from the disease.

Dr Julie Sharp, Cancer Research UK’s head of health information, said: “These results are very encouraging and it will be good news if such a simple and cheap test can replace endoscopy for Barrett’s oesophagus.

“Death rates are unacceptably high in oesophageal cancer so early diagnosis is vital. Tackling oesophageal cancer is a priority for Cancer Research UK and research such as this will help doctors to diagnose people who are at risk quickly and easily.”

 

[Press release] Flu infection has long-ranging effects

From the Rockefeller University Press  4 November 2014 press release

English: Main symptoms of influenza. (See Wikipedia:#Influenza#Symptoms_and_diagnosis). Model: Mikael Häggström. To discuss image, please see Template talk:Häggström diagrams References Centers for Disease Control and Prevention > Influenza Symptoms Page last updated November 16, 2007. Retrieved April 28, 2009 (Diarrhea is not mentioned, since it is mainly a symptom in children) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Flu infection has long-ranging effects beyond the lung that can wreak havoc in the gut and cause a dreaded symptom, diarrhea, according to a study published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Gastrointestinal symptoms are often seen with flu infection, but because the virus only grows in lung cells, it’s unclear how intestinal symptoms develop. Researchers in China now show that flu infection in mice prompts responding immune cells in the lung to alter their homing receptors, causing them to migrate to the gut. Once there, they produce the antiviral mediator IFN-γ, which alters the natural composition of gut bacteria. In turn, the bacterial changes lead to inflammation that promotes tissue injury and diarrhea. Blocking inflammatory molecules in the intestine or treating mice with antibiotics to deplete bacteria attenuated flu-induced intestinal injury without affecting immune responses in the lung.

Why some flu infected patients develop gastrointestinal symptoms while others do not remains unknown. However, these findings suggest ways to directly relieve intestinal symptoms like diarrhea during flu infection without interfering with the body’s ability to fight the virus in the lung.

Reference: Wang, J., et al. 2014. J. Exp. Med. doi:10.1084/jem.20140625

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[Reblog] From a physician: A plea to big medical corporations

Next time my physician urges a screening, I’ll wonder if it is because of his concern for my health (most likely- knowing my physician) or his corporation’s interest in profit…
As this article outlines is that physicians in corporations are often

English: A doctor examines a female patient. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

in Catch-22 positions.

From a November 2014 post at KevinMD

thought more highly of business folks until I started working for them.  I thought CEOs and boards of directors of companies had a vision, whether to maximize shareholder profit, or to produce a stellar product or provide a singular service, etc.  Once the vision was elucidated, everyone worked together like a team to make it happen.

Then I became employed by a large corporation as a family physician to provide medical care.  And it’s been one eye opening experience after another ever since.  To me, it’s quite simple.  The vision of a medical practice should be to provide good medical care while being cost conscious, and maintaining strong patient satisfaction.  That’s how all the money gets generated, right?  The patient pays his/her premium, part of which gets funneled to our large corporation, who is then tasked to provide care for that patient.  How is care provided to that patient?  By having a doctor see, talk to, examine and treat that said patient.

OK.  So we all know that it’s not quite that simple.  Enter primary care 2014, the world of risk adjustment factor (RAF) scores (which entail the corporation getting paid more for sicker patients), electronic health records (EHR), and quality metric incentive payments (the corporation gets more money from insurance companies by meeting certain goals in screening, like colonoscopies, mammograms, etc.).  Now health care has become more complicated.  But it’s still all based on that interaction we physicians have with our patients.  We can’t meet quality metric goals if we don’t see the patients, we can’t determine if they are sicker and therefore require more funds to care for if we don’t see them, and we can’t use EHR if we don’t see the patient.  There’s just a bunch of road blocks and distractions added in….