Sep 17, 2007 Filed in:
MedicalA recent American Family Physician journal, citing a JAMA article, puts the lie to the idea that people (particularly women) with osteopenia (low bone density) should be on medications. With all the evidence that these medications (like Fosamax or its friends) shouldn't be first-line treatments, why are doctors still prescribing them so quickly? If your doctor pulls out the pad for this, ask them when the last time they saw that drug rep and whether they are pushing the doc to use it as a preventative. This kind of behavior is occurring more and more, so let your doctor know that it's getting so obvious and blatant that even the patients are picking up on it. There are some movement among conventional docs to limit their exposure to drug reps, No Free Lunch for practicing physicians and Pharmfree for medical students. Sadly, the No Free Lunch doesn't turn up any drug-rep free primary care physicians in Ann Arbor (though it does find a pediatrician in Ypsilanti).
Interestingly, the article points out that the only treatment that has been shown to reduce nonvertebral fracture risk in women with osteopenia is estrogen. Bioidenticals, anyone?Tags: Drug reps, Hormones, Medical Orthodoxy, Osteoporosis
Sep 09, 2007 Filed in:
MedicalI just got a note from SaveMyMedicine.org about the latest way that insurance companies are working to help the drug companies: by refusing to pay for compounded hormones. You'd think they'd be smart enough to see that by covering compounded bioidentical hormones they could be saving themselves drastic amounts of money: Premarin or Prometrium are about $45 a month each and testosterone gel or patches are upwards of $200 a month, while compounded estrogen (usually a combination of estrone, estradiol, and estriol), progesterone, or testosterone each start at around $25 or so a month (they can go a little higher at higher doses). Add the additional costs of higher incidences of breast cancer in women taking Provera and they could really be making out by supporting bioidenticals.
Aetna's going to stop on October 1, while BCBS changed their policy back in May (note that BCBS cites an unscientific 2001 FDA study that even the FDA doesn't support).
As the note I got says: If you are an Aetna or BlueCross BlueShield customer, please contact your employer’s HR department and ask them to petition your health insurance company to reinstate coverage of bioidentical hormones and other compounded medicines. Remind them that healthy employees are productive employees and your health depends on these drugs. Your doctor has decided that compounded medicines such as bioidenticals are the best treatment option for you. Both your employer and your insurer have a responsibility to provide you with the medicines you need at a reasonable cost.Tags: Hormones, Insurance
Sep 03, 2007 Filed in:
MedicalAlright, new there's even more stuff I've found on hyperbarics and I hate to keep it to myself. HBOTreatment.com carries a variety of mountains of info on the utility of HBO, including this article (in PDF format) on HBO for multiple sclerosis. In fact, this page is a catalog of articles on using HBO in a variety of disorders.
The AAHA (American Association for Hyperbaric Awareness) is seeking to advance the understanding of HBOT. Their website is worth a look (just be ready for the audio "Welcome!" when the page loads). The Hyperbaric Healing Institute has a few notes on using HBO for various disorders.Tags: Hyperbarics, Multiple Sclerosis
Aug 20, 2007 Filed in:
MedicalEvery time I read more on the utility of hyperbaric oxygen (HBOT), I'm more annoyed that it isn't being used more frequently to treat some of the things it's really good at: neurovascular diseases (MS, alzheimer's, etc.), ischemic conditions (stroke, heart attack, sickle cell exacerbations). In addition to the article I mentioned last november, I've come across a couple more: a journal article about the successes of HBOT (and the politics holding it back) and an article about the unrelenting attacks on a physician who is using it to successfully treat patients, as well as an article about the American Heart Association's demonstration that HBOT is an effective treatment for heart attack.
In fact, here's 13 benefits to the heart from HBOT (from that last article, please see it for the references):
1. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy applied to the heart during critical loss of oxygen exerts a remarkable defibrillating effect so that tremulous, rapid, ineffectual contractions are prevented; total death of the heart muscle cells is avoided; and abnormal dilation of the blood vessels with subsequent complications is controlled.1
2. Using HBOT in conjunction with various drugs enhances the effectiveness of both the oxygen and the drugs.2,3,4,5
3. Combining HBOT with drugs completely arrests or considerably reduces angina attacks in patients otherwise resistant to prolonged drug treatment.6,7,8.9
4. Patients with cardiac pain from ischemic heart disease experience total relief, along with disappearance of dyspnea (difficulty breathing), when they receive HBOT.10,11
5. Administering HBOT lowered elevated blood cholesterol in all 220 patients cited in a study conducted by the Russian internist Dr. S.A. Borukhov and her colleagues.12
6. HBOT normalized electrocardiograms in all patients in that same Soviet study.13
7. For diminished muscular power of the heart, HBO exerts long-term normalizing effects for circulating blood through the body.14
8. HBOT exerts antiarrhythmic action on the heart.15,16,17
9. HBOT increases heart patients' tolerance to hard work and taking on physical loads.18,19
10. HBO taken at three atmospheres of pressure (a pressure rarely used in the United States) protects any individual's heart from damages due to lack of oxygen.20
11. One's entire heart conduction system functions better from receiving HBO treatment (even when prophylactically administered).21
12. Without taking drugs of any kind, breathing oxygen under pressure stabilizes impaired fat metabolism and improves liver function for someone with ischemic heart disease.22
13. Due to its characteristic of mollifying stress and distress, HBO has long-term and short-term protective effects for a person with a heart problem.23
Finally, I just came across a virtual font of articles on HBOT written by Dr. R. A. Neubauer MD, including 2 articles specifically about the etiology of multiple sclerosis and the treatment of MS with HBOT (1, 2).Tags: Hyperbarics, Multiple Sclerosis
Jun 19, 2007 Filed in:
MedicalThe American College of Physicians noticed that all those mammograms in younger women may not be a good idea. This article doesn't mention the downsides like compression possibly rupturing tumor capsules or high radiation exposure from mammograms (which increase the risk of breast cancer, particularly in women at high risk). They did also admit that mammograms cannot prevent most breast cancer deaths. So, the final recommendation is that women 40-49 should discuss it with their doctors. If only more doctors knew about alternatives like thermography.Tags: Thermography, Medical Orthodoxy
Mar 17, 2007 Filed in:
MedicalSometimes I'm disappointed by the journals. Circulation recently had an article on reducing women's risk of cardiovascular risk, in which hormone replacement was listed as class III (not useful/effective, may cause harm). A summary of the article in Medscape breaks down the variation in risk:
Researchers found that "route, type, and dose" of hormone therapy matters, in the Estrogen and Thromboembolism and Risk Study (ESTHER), a multicenter study conducted in 8 hospitals in France that included 271 cases and 610 controls. Compared with nonusers, oral estrogen users had an odds ratio of 4.2 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.5 - 11.6) and 0.09 [this is probably a typo and the risk should be 0.9] (95% CI, 0.4 - 2.3) for transdermal estrogen. Norpregnane derivatives were linked to a 4-fold increase in venous thromboembolism; but there was no risk for venous thromboembolism with micronized progesterone and pregnane derivatives in the study.
So, there is risk in the standard hormone treatment of oral estrogen and progestins (synthetic progesterone-like molecules): each raises the risk of a clot 4-fold. However, it also shows that transdermal estrogen doesn't increase the risk and may lower it and that progesterone similarly doesn't raise the risk. Using bioidentical hormones in a smart manner, then doesn't raise the risk and likely lowers it going from this article.
Sadly, they also list folic acid and antioxidants in the same class that says "may cause harm". Clearly, no one has died from antioxidants or folic acid. There has been a limited number of studies showing some increase in risk with fractionated antioxidants (beta-carotene or alpha-tocopherol alone) in certain circumstances, so it is important to get use full-spectrum antioxidants when using higher doses (mixed carotenoids with selenium or mixed tocopherols).
Sadly, newspapers often pick up these articles without any background and trumpet it as fact. It pays to read in more depth, and be cautious about people who paint all hormone replacement with the same brush: there are clear differences in risk between approaches, and this is why I do not use oral estrogen at all.Tags: Hormones, Medical Orthodoxy