Why is nutrition considered 'alternative medicine'?

Watched the first of this BBC series last night on I-player.

It looks at the range of private medicine on offer in Harley Street. It was interesting watching the doctors justifying working privately (some of them worked in the NHS and all of them were trained there). I have no problem with private medicine per se - it's that the standards are so much higher but it's not available for all. The same problem with private education of course.

My main issue though was with the fact that despite mentioning the large numbers of alternative practitioners who work in Harley street the programme failed to highlight any of them and instead focussed on the same narrow 'conventional' medical treatment plans including a lot of high tech chemotherapy and surgical interventions. And all were male interestingly.

It's the same old same old as far as I'm concerned.. no mention of what any of these people could do to help their treatment with lifestyle and diet changes, no mention of stress or inflammation as contributors to the conditions shown.  All seemed to believe in the magic bullet approach. One woman, who had underdone chemo and a lumpectomy was told 'that's all the cancer out of your body - you are now cancer-free!' Which of course was very emotional for her as she'd gone through months of hell with losing her hair and all the worry and fear of cancer. It seems churlish to point out that there is always cancer in your body, but a healthy immune system keeps it in check. There was no attempt to give her any advice on nutritional changes she could make to make sure it stayed that way. And her family's response was quite dysfunctional - as a student psychologist  I looked on in incredulity as they seemed to depend on her to stay well, clinging on to the notion of her survival like it was their life that was at stake. There's a story in that family of previous trauma for sure..

One lad came from Kuwait to be told he had a pituitary tumour that was threatening to take away his sight. No comment on the fact he was obese and needed to look at the role of excess weight in causing cancer. Surgery was the only thing on offer.

It was all so depressing.. I DO have a lot of respect for the skill of the surgeons and the wonderful technology that we now have at our disposal (if we have the money it seems). Also,  I understand people want to have their pain taken away. But our approach now in the west is so disempowering of the individual. It takes away everything that we can do to help ourselves. And it makes vast profits for the biomedical industry it supports.

Why oh why is something as basic as nutrition considered alternative? It makes no sense to me.
Just yesterday I was advising a client on dietary changes she can make to help her acid reflux. Very common in women, particularly over the age of 50 as the hydrochloric acid in your stomach decreases which opens up the valve to the oesophagus causing reflux, amongst other things. The problem usually isn't too much acid as you will be told by the doctor. It's the opposite. I recommend this article to read on the subject by the reliably good and evidence-based Doctor Mercola. So, you end up being prescribed drugs that reduce your HCl further and... hey presto.. it get's worse.. It beggars belief really. Anyhow if any of you out there in bloggerville are interested then please see my links and my website (and social media links). I try to keep it positive, but sometimes.. Grrrrr...
There I've finished now.

Superfoods and healing

Last Tuesday was present at an inspirational talk by Kavi Jezzie Hockaday at the Art House cafe in Southampton - someone who has healed himself from Inflammatory Bowel Disease which is a pretty astonishing thing. He did it over 10 years of Ayurvedic and emotional cleansing which he admitted is very hard and by the sounds of it 3 sessions of 6 week juice cleanses plus numerous other treatments it wasn't an easy path to tread. Much easier to take the tablets and look to surgery to sort it out. His consultant assured him he would 'be back' as alternative methods didn't work. I felt while listening and indeed, looking round the room, that people were fascinated to hear this story, that is not often told.
Today he eats a diet which is centred around raw, whole and superfoods (things like Spirulina, Chlorells, Maca and Raw Cacao, Coconut, etc. his website www.divine-kitchen.com is one I have promoted to several friends and intend to make a part of my practice of holistic healing.

When my new practice www.alchemytherapies.co.uk is fully operational with the hypnotherapy now the case! Ed) I want to offer a range of treatments depending on the person and the issues they have. I realised early on that just offering massage, for instance, doesn't work for everyone. Some people need more emotional healing (which can be a big part of physical illness) and others want to reconnect with their bodies. Whatever issues they have there are different options available. My model is to offer a treatment protocol, including those therapies that I offer plus others from different therapies - a team-based idea. And Nutritional Medicine will be at the heart of that.

I heard today from a friend who has just had an operation and is wondering why things are taking a long time to heal. I asked her - what are you doing to speed your healing? Nothing of course. The hospital give you a bag of painkillers to last several months but at no point do they tell you - increase your vitamin C intake, make sure you eat a lot of green foods for the next several months, etc. you are left to 'heal' at your own pace and, depending on the inadequacy of your diet, that could take a long time. So, superfoods could be ideal for someone in her situation - the readily assimilable nature of the green powders(chlorella, spirulina and wheatgrass) makes them powerful stimulants for repair and renewal of the tissues of the body.

I do want to use more of these foods - in my blended drinks for example. Currently I have been relying on my stalwart spinach and orange drink - but have been finding it hard to find the motivation where it has been so cold. Now that spring is finally here and things are warming up I may find my body accepts these cold foods better. I look forward to a dialogue with Kavi over his approach to health and healing. I can honestly say he shone. At 54 he looked younger than many people 10 years younger. There were some grey hairs sure, but he had an inner light and a body that just vibrated with health. He still has some issues to deal with - Reynauds' for instance (which I have too and is now recognised as an auto-immune disease which is intimately linked to gut health) . Like he said, healing is an ongoing process. We are never finished til we die.

Post-Christmas blues

Hi warriors. It's been a strange Christmas blighted by the death (or 'passing on' as some euphemistically say) of two people, one a friend, the other a relative. Both were men in their 70's so perhaps you could say they had a 'good innings' but my sadness is still very real. It is those of us left behind who suffer their loss. The first to go was my ex-father-in-law who had become a real friend to me in recent years, who was so gentle and quietly supportive without ever interfering that I came to rely on his email missives which would always be sent back at times when I needed it. The last I saw of him was in the summer, when on my annual visit, we did the usual things of going shopping, eating a meal out and getting told off by the police. Well perhaps the last is not that usual but it is an endearing memory I will have of him of being ticked off by a well-meaning female police-officer who thought I should take more care of the poor chap. She obviously thought his mind was going as he'd lost a wallet and assumed, I think, that I had more influence than I, in fact, had. We laughed about it afterwards for quite a while. So, I know that I can carry those memories with me, though they will never substitute for him they are at least a subtle connection to his spirit which I do believe is still around somewhere.

My uncle I barely knew to be fair but I'm sad for my mother (whose brother it was) and his family who I can imagine are very sad at this point. Having lost my own father many years ago (when I was 19) I still remember the shock and sadness of that time. Time heals it is said but in my experience it just numbs you til you are ready to do the real work of healing and that takes effort and skills. Mine has only just begun really and it was over 25 years ago.

So, anyway my thoughts have been with loss but also with my own health which, as you know, has had a few shake-ups this year. 2010 began with a suspected skin cancer which turned out to be a wart which fell off within a few weeks, and now continues with a large fibroid which it seems I have been developing quietly (asymptomatically) over the last year. It has eventually made itself known by growing so large I could not avoid it and took myself to my GP in October. She was so worried she immediately sent me for blood tests, scans and the like and, though the diagnosis is not so worrying as she obviously first suspected (nothing was expressly said but her urgency said it all), it is a benign tumour nonetheless.

Now, as you know, my interest and specialism is cancer so I guess you could say this is all learning for me, of the deepest kind. I know I don't have cancer at this point but I do know my body is out of balance. Fibroids are related to oestrogen dominance (as are some forms of breast and prostate cancer) so evidently something is out of whack. I have been through the usual forms of self-enquiry - is it my childlessness (one of the predisposing factors), is it my use of soymilk (a phytoestrogen) or some unresolved emotional conflict from my past? However, you look at it there is some work to be done. I have got over the initial shock and am focussing on both conventional and more holisitic treatments. I am signed up for a procedure called embolisation which fires little pellets of an inert substance into the artery supplying the uterus which aims to block the blood supply to the fibroid and cause it to shrink. But I am also castor oil packing (soaked on a cloth and applied with heat to the body), taking proteolytic enzymes (fibroids are largely composed of fibrin, a protein so these enzymes should help to break it down), Di-indole methionine (a natural product of cruciferous vegetables) and herbs to help my body regain its balance. I also had a very powerful acupuncture session in a dream (don't laugh, this was as real an experience as one in so-called 'reality'). I do mean to follow it up with another one in this dimension but haven't found the right person yet. I have had a colonic irrigation and a liver cleanse to clear the chanels of elimination. And much mindfulness meditation and some EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) which I have found released a lot of fear around a new relationship and my sexuality.

Clearly there is a lot more to do. 2011 will be a year where I continue to connect with my body, learn what it is trying to tell me and heal myself. I will also see what conventional medicine has to offer - this procedure is clearly very clever and ingenious but what of the long-term effects of blocking the blood supply? This is something I will be enquiring when I go for my next check-up. It is an intruiging and complex story, I am only grafeful to be given the chance to explore it. So, goodbye 2010 and to those we have lost. Good healing to you all in 2011.

Cancer risk factors

Was just contemplating life, the universe and everything after hearing that a dear friend of mine has developed a brain tumour and thought I'd drag out my books to see what information I can pass on to his relatives as a diagnosis like that is bound to be scary. The two books I consider bibles on the subject are 'Cancer is not a disease it's a survival mechanism' by Andreas Moritz which outlines in plain language what cancer is and what it isn't and ways to heal your mind, body and spirit. The other is 'Anti-cancer' by David Servan-Shreiber which I think I may have mentioned before in another post. This latter book looks at the nutritional treatment of cancer and has a handy pocket-sized shopping guide so you only buy foods which will help your body (and specifically your immune system) overcome the cancer. Both are valuable tools in the quest to understand the message that cancer is.

Anyhow, was then reading some notes I made last year at the CAMexpo event at Earl's Court (CAM = Complementary and Alternative Medicine). The speaker was Dr. Marilyn Glenville and she was speaking about Breast Cancer risk and how to reduce it. Some of the things she highlighted were surprising. For instance Mammograms are dangerous; for every 1 life prolonged 10 women have unnecessary treatment (they are notoriously inaccurate) PLUS the radiation of the breast that this involves actually increases your risk by 50%. How about Tamoxifen which is given to women as a chemotherapy drug for hormone-dependent breast cancer? Well studies have shown that it increases the risk of cancer in the other breast by 400% i.e a 4x risk increase!! Not surprising when you consider that you are suppressing the immune system precisely when it needs to be stimulated. This is the great difference between conventional and CAM approaches. (Bizarrely, nutrition still falls within CAM not conventional medicine even though you would think food is the most conventional approach possible).

In fact if you asked an oncologist what you could eat to help you overcome cancer most if not all would deny there was any point in changing your diet. Some even recommend 'eat what you like, it won't make any difference' and suggest cream cakes and biscuits etc to 'fatten you up'. Cachexia (weight loss) is often a factor in people with cancer as cancer cells use up a lot of energy while they are growing in an uncontrolled fashion. Their main fuel; sugar. More specifically; glucose. So telling someone to go away and eat cream cakes as happened to a work colleague of mine after having stomach cancer is probably the worst thing you could possibly do. Instead natural foods like onions, ginger, turmeric, green veg, green tea, garlic, wholegrain foods, legumes, fermented soya products (tofu, tempeh, etc) are much better.

And where do you hear about the toxic products that have been linked to breast cancer risk? Xenoestrogens present in things like artifical air fresheners, cosmetics, perfumes and fabric conditioners - especially Bisphenol A present in plastic bottles - check labels and avoid , avoid. Unfortunately these are precisely the products that are targeted at women by the advertising industry! Also, pesticides particularly organochlorines are very linked to cancer risk - wash your veg if it's not organic.

Anyway, I am just amazed this isn't more widely known or a feature of Breast Cancer awareness fun-runs, etc. Whilst I know these are well-meaning events few women realise where their sponsorship money ends up and even fewer know the simple things they can do to reduce their risk; reduce the amount of fat and increase the quality (more omega-3 e.g. flax oil), eat less diary & red meat, drink more water, exercise more (especially in the open air to increase Vitamin D levels) and deal with your emotional issues. Breast cancer in particular seems to be linked to certain personality types - the martyr who puts everyone else before herself. Look after your own emotional needs and speak up. Don't be a doormat - it will make you ill.

So, anyhow that was what I have been musing on. Looking forward to this years CAMexpo - don't want to do their marketing for them but really it is a wonderful event that is targeted at therapist/practitioners but anyone with an interest in their health should go. The quality of the speakers is very high and the cost (£7) is very low. OK well that's all for now, back to study.

Juicing at last!

Finally got round to buying a blender for trying out the juicing idea (note blender not a juicer - you get more nutrients and less waste I've now changed my mind on this I think they are both useful, Ed). After much reading and discussion with my friend Dawn re which product to buy (she has both) I used my gift vouchers (leaving present from work) to purchase a Kenwood blender- chosen cos it's a food processer, blender, grinder, etc all in one and within my budget (under £100). For a novice, uncertain about juicing I thought it rather unnecessary to go buying one of the really expensive ones - Rhino or Vitamax though I can see if I was doing this professionally or more than once a day I would need one of these industrial monsters. I actually saw a demo of the Vitamax last week at the Mind, Body Spirit Fayre in London. Very impressive - you can chuck anything thing in, including ice, and hey presto it deals with it all. They guy made soup in it (warmed by being left to blend for 6 minutes - perfect temperature), ice cream (by adding frozen fruit and chocolate bars - very tasty!) as well as juices so it's thoroughly versatile. Then into my inbox arrived a tempting email from the self-styled Green Queen to try juicing for 3 days with a guided 3 day detox and I thought - why the hell not? So, not wishing to re-visit my weeks detox back in March (heavy duty upchucking and flu-like symptoms), the deal is; I replace one meal a day with a juice of fresh ingredients including some greens. Yesterday I tried spinach and banana - surprisingly good - for lunch. Today's was beetroot, grape and ginger -also good (I know beetroot breaks the greens rule but it's a very powerful detoxing root veg so I thought the Green Queen wouldn't mind if I made up my own.
So far what I have noticed is a general raising of energy levels and a decrease in the urge to stuff myself stupid with sugar and chocolate. Also, am feeling very positive but that may be the time of year and of the month (hormones being what they are).

Hey, anyway have had a very interesting couple of weeks with trips to London to the aforementioned fayre and a scientific meeting on DHA which is an essential omega-3 fatty acid. I felt very privileged to be in such esteemed company though a slight imposter being as i am no longer a bona fide university researcher. What was really interesting was watching the politics going on - during the questions some academics making pointed digs at rival academics. Lots of posturing and point scoring. Hilarious but also slightly depressing. And why is it that the few women who make it in the scientific community do so in spite of being female still? I always get the impression they have to deny their femaleness to succeed and become more competitive and aggressive than the men. There is a complete absence of the sense of holism at these events. The 2 days feel like chalk and cheese. A perfectly schizophrenic trip then which mirrors the events of my life where I have one foot in one camp and one in the other. Why is there no dialogue between them? - that's not entirely true as Alex Richardson was at the DHA conference and I have seen her at the Complementary and Alternative Medicine fayre in October so she evidently has some sympathy with that approach but it is rare. You get the definite impression that there would be much sneering if I had talked about my overtone chanting the day before. They can barely tolerate mention of CAM without derision. Shame as both sides have much to teach eachother. Ah well, carry on juicing that's what I say.

Oh and er massaging - my exam is end June so am busy revising (well I ususally end up watching stuff on the internet which isn't quite what I should be doing) and practicing which I am really enjoying. That I get to connect with people in a very physical way is a very powerful feeling - I described it yesterday to someone as an act of love - not sexual - but certainly of wishing to heal and caring. Mm, I wouldn't have believed I enjoy it so much when I decided to learn it. I think I saw it as an opportunity to learn more about the body and make it a good introduction to my holistic practice. I had no idea it would be so spiritual an experience - much like I find gardening - connecting with the earth or with human being-ness. Wow.
Anyway enough esoteric musings. S'all for now, over n out earthlings.