May 21, 2001 Research Update

James Bogash, D.C. Mesa, AZ
info@lifecarechiropractic.com
www.lifecarechiropractic.com

Gestagens May Reduce Estrogen's Effects on Bone Resorption

So, we add synthetic progesterone to synthetic estrogen to protect against endometrial and breast cancer, right? But, by adding them in, this study suggests that the synthetic progesterone reduces the synthetic estrogens' ability to protect bone. Does anyone see a problem here? JCEM -- Abstracts: Tobias et al. 86 (3): 1194 http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/86/3/1194

Repeated Doses of Porcine Secretin in the Treatment of Autism

This study found no benefit to the use of secretin for autism. Hopefully one day soon medicine will begin to address the biological individuality of its patients. Secretin is a hormone that stimulates the production of pancreatic enzymes for digestion. We have previously discussed the phenomena of certain milk proteins making it to the brain IN SUSEPTABLE INDIVIDUALS and causing morphine-like effects. Pull these kids off of milk and it's like a miracle how they recover. But it may only be a select few that response to this. I feel that secretin is no different. This study included 64 children and found no benefit. What if only 1 in 100 autistics would benefit from secretin use? It would not show up in any study because the incidence is too low. There's a reason why some parents claim that it works--probably because it has! Pediatrics -- Abstracts: Roberts et al. 107 (5): e71 http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/abstract/107/5/e71

Maternal Lead, Infant Weight, Weight Gain at One Month

Heavy metals, despite their lack of importance in mainstream medicine, continue to play a major role in human health and disease. Hair and urine analysis are an excellent method to determine overall lead burden and we should begin to strongly consider them with all women considering pregnancy so that excess heavy metals can be chelated out of the body prior to becoming pregnant. Pediatrics -- Abstracts: Sanín et al. 107 (5): 1016 http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/abstract/107/5/1016

Leptin Is Associated with Increased Prostate Cancer Risk

Try this out for size: this study suggests that leptin levels influence prostate cancer risk. Many studies have shown that insulin resistance can lead to leptin resistance and subsequent elevated leptin levels. It may be a stretch right now, but might eating refined carbs lead to increased risk of prostate cancer via this mechanism? I think it is entirely possible. Not that we needed yet ANOTHER reason to avoid refined carbs.. JCEM -- Abstracts: Stattin et al. 86 (3): 1341 http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/86/3/1341

European Court Rules Against Diet Pill Manufacturers

Europe has always been way ahead of the US in regards to health and wellness, and this is yet another example. The list of drugs on the banned list is quite extensive; but interestingly still does not contain some of the drugs manufactured by the bigger pharmaceutical giants...

(article) The European Court has rejected appeals by diet pill manufacturers to be allowed to continue selling numerous anorectic agents that have been withdrawn from the market because of the risk of serious cardiac side effects. On March 9, 2000, the European Commission ordered national marketing authorisation withdrawals of all drugs containing amfepramone, phentermine, clobenzorex, fenbutrazate, fenproporex, mazindol, mefenorex, norpseudoephedrine, phenmetrazine, phendimetrazine and propylhexedrine. The action followed several earlier alerts by the Commission and national authorities about the potential dangers of anorectic agents, many of which had already been taken off the market by manufacturers. However, many companies, especially small firms dependent on these drugs for their financial survival, went to the European Court in Luxembourg to challenge the Commission's decision. The companies successfully obtained a stay of execution during 2000 but the President of the Court has now annulled this, saying that the lower court should not have substituted its own opinions for those of the European Commission's scientific advisory committee. In a judgement dated April 11, President Rodriguez Iglesias added that allowing the drugs to stay on the market could have presented a serious risk to the health of consumers. He recalled that the protection of public health is more important than company economic considerations.

Bovine Milk Formulation As Alternative to Oral Rotavirus Vaccine

Remember the rotavirus vaccine? The one pulled off the market due to increased risk of intussusception (in some cases fatal...). Interestingly, this article reviews the use of bovine colostrum as a potential new drug application. Colostrum has been used in the natural health field for many years without any modification needed for the patent. Colostrum works by providing the infant with pre-formed antibodies against specific diseases--the same way a nursing mother does with her newborn. Instead of searching hard for a way to modify colostrum and make it work, why not spend money to further investigate the ability of probiotics to reduce the severity and duration of rotavirus infections? I would firmly believe that maintaining a healthy (and territorial) normal flora will do a nice job at reducing the risk of rotavirus infection without side effects (let alone deaths!).

(article) In the wake of recent concerns about complications with the oral rotavirus vaccine, an Australian company has developed a bovine milk formulation that achieves passive immunity. In two studies presented Monday at the Fourth Annual Conference on Vaccine Research, Dr. Janina Pacyna, from NorthField Laboratories in North Adelaide, South Australia, and colleagues assessed the immune-related effects of hyperimmune bovine colostrum containing antirotavirus antibodies (HBC-R). In the first study, 742 children from 22 childcare centers were randomized to receive HBC-R, whole milk, or neither product, three times daily for 20 weeks. The researchers found that the incidence of rotavirus-associated diarrhea was significantly lower in the HBC-R group than in the other groups. In the second study, the investigators assessed rotavirus antibody activity in fecal samples from children given different doses and formulations of HBC-R. Eighty-six percent of samples from children given HBC-R showed antibody activity. In addition, there was a strong direct association between the amount of antibody ingested and the level of antibody activity.

Chiropractors Team up With Alternative Medicine Network

The results of this partnership--using DCs as primary care providers--is astounding when you look at the numbers. But what astounds me even more is that the results of this partnership should be plastered across every headline in the US, and yet few have ever heard of it.

(article) The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) has partnered with a Highland Park, Illinois-based alternative medicine network to encourage managed care plans to use doctors of chiropractic as primary care physicians. The ACA said that its joint venture partner, Alternative Medicine Inc. (AMI), provides managed care companies and large self-funded employer groups with "fully integrated traditional and alternative healthcare." The agreement marks the ACA's first-ever formal recognition of a managed care provider's approach to healthcare. "We have successfully demonstrated that an integrated medical model featuring doctors of chiropractic as primary care physicians working in conjunction with MDs/DOs and RNs can provide better quality care than any of the specialties working independently," said James Zechman, chairman and CEO of AMI. AMI launched its wellness-based model in 1997 with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois. Since then, the company said, its integrated approach has resulted in a 66% decrease in total medical service expenses when compared to independent provider associations with MDs as primary care providers. That includes a 69% reduction in hospital utilization, an 85% drop in outpatient procedures and a 56% decrease in pharmaceutical use. The partners said they would explore avenues such as joint presentations, seminars, news releases, videos and other means of teaching people about AMI's approach.

COX Inhibitors in Broad Role in Cancer Prevention And Treatment

Envision the very slipperly slope we tread with this one, with the pharmaceutical companies wringing their hands and drooling at the mere prospect. Recall how often we talk about inflammation as a contributor to just about every chronic disease known to man. So is it any big shocker when a drug designed to lower one pathway of inflammation lowers the risk of one of these chronic diseases? Of course not. And recall also that there are literally hundreds of natural ways to lower your overall inflammatory burden without drugs...

American Cancer Society Science Writers Seminar Cyclooxygenase inhibitors may not only have the potential to reduce precancerous colon polyps, they may also play a role in slowing the development of many other cancers, according to a presentation Tuesday at the American Cancer Society Science Writers Seminar. Dr. Ernest Hawk of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland said it may be possible to intervene at every stage, from pre-invasive lesions to advanced cancers, in a broad range of organs. "Cyclooxygenase-2 appears to be overexpressed, and appears to correlate very tightly with carcinogenesis in a number of target organs — really, most every target organ we've seen so far: head and neck cancer, bladder cancer, colon cancer, pancreatic, breast, prostate," Dr. Hawk said. "And I'll note that there is additional work suggesting that overexpression exists among almost every other tumor, in both animal models as well as [in] human settings." According to Dr. Hawk, more than a half-dozen COX-2 inhibitors are currently under investigation for anticancer effects. Expanded studies of the most well-developed COX-2 inhibitor, celecoxib, are being performed by the National Cancer Institute and the pharmaceutical manufacturer Pharmacia, he said. "We have a trial here that will look at tackling cyclooxygenase at an earlier step in familial adenomatous polyposis patients...before the flagrant phenotypic manifestation of hundreds of adenomas in the colon," he explained. "We're going to see if we can use this drug to delay phenotypic expression, and so, thereby, potentially...delay the time of surgery so that these children and young adults could live with their colons for a longer period of time." Dr. Hawk said that researchers are also excited by animal and laboratory studies indicating synergistic effects of COX inhibitors with statins and other agents, which might provide stronger anticancer effects while preventing serious side effects.

Alzheimer's Disease Linked to Proteins Associated With Aging

We have mentioned numerous times the link between inflammation and AD. This study provides further evidence that inflammation plays a key role in development of this disease. Aluminum has been implicated via its displacement of zinc in anti-inflammatory enzymes that protect the delicate brain tissue. Wheat allergy has been implicated via the systemic upregulation of the immune system leading to damage in the brain. As more evidence arises, we will hopefully begin to view AD as a disease of lifestyle that can be modified just like any other.

Trends in Neurosciences Alzheimer's disease may be caused by inflammatory processes associated with aging, not by plaque-like deposits in the brain, researchers say. Scientists from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said their findings, published this week in the journal Trends in Neurosciences, still lay the blame for Alzheimer's disease on amyloid beta, but trace the basic cause of the disease to the formation of toxic proteins rather than the build-up of plaque and tangles. "We were able to identify in laboratory test tubes a new kind of toxic activity that is implicated as a root cause of Alzheimer's," Dr. Caleb Finch, director of the Neurogerontology Division at the USC Andrus Center's Gerontology Research Institute. The researchers discovered a novel form of wadded-up amyloid called "amyloid b-derived diffusible ligands" — ADDLs or "addles" for short — that form in the presence of certain inflammatory proteins in the brain.