Why not REALLY test alternative medicine?

Great idea in this book. Let's subject all our proposed healing methods to the same rigorous testing.

You've heard how back in 1970 the Nobel prizewinning scientist Linus Pauling touted large doses of vitamin C as a cure/palliative treatment for cancer, right? This author examines the history of that proposal as an example of how standard medicine, by failing to thoroughly test any treatment option that smacks of "alternative," manages to maintain the status quo. He says the National Academy of Science actually broke its own publication rules when it refused to publish Pauling's paper.

Looks like a telling account of how selective vision can slow us human beings down.

Nitric oxide: Not news, but good anyway

One of my favorite natural substances, nitric oxide, gets further kudos, this time for helping regain movement for the stiffened, immobilized blood cells that are responsible for a lot of the nasty and life-threatening complications of diabetes. They've known for a long time that NO helps relax blood vessels, which can help movement. But it seems this latest discovery indicates nitric oxide actually restores mobility, and it can do so both when administered within the body and when applied to cells while extracted from your body but then returned after treatment.

Good news for the 4.1 million Americans and countless millions of others with this life-changing disease. It's not easy to drastically change your lifestyle to accommodate this disease, but it's critical to do so--or suffer severe consequences. The government has recommendations for how to control diabetes here.

California ahead of the curve on stem cell research

California voters two years ago approved the idea of the state supporting stem cell research--though federal legal wrangles have been holding things up. Now a couple of philanthropists have given the University of Southern California $25 million to build a stem cell center.

Federal law authorizes states to do what they want with stem cell research (you can read all about the NIH's position on this issue in their FAQs here)--unless it decides to issue a ban on what they decide.

So with this separation of powers, we have states that pass laws and then have to engage in battles with specific groups of citizens and legislators about whether they can use embryonic stem cells in addition to adult stem cells. This battle is being waged along the fine line between legislating "morality" and hampering American scientists and researchers--I say hampering and not stopping because, in fact, they can do research with embryonic stem cells if they go to a non-federally funded laboratory to do the work. And of course they have to invest a bunch of time studying the minute fine points of how stem cell funding must be applied for and used.

Almost makes it look like lip service that we're objecting to using embryonic stem cells. And the fact that legal, legitimate in vitro fertilization labs are already freezing and eventually discarding lots of unused embryos also makes writing all these convoluted regulations seem a bit like creating a tempest in a teacup...and possibly even a less-than-ideal use of taxpayer dollars.

But oh, well. How often do people agree on anything anyway? Each person wants to defend his position against the "other" --and so it goes.

Non-invasive trends foretell kinder, gentler medicine

Sorry for the protracted failure to post. Been doing the overworked-entrepreneur-cum-road-warrior thing lately...

Following the latest trend toward non-invasive tests and procedures, Mayo Clinic researchers made an exciting discovery, albeit with a small test population. They found that a simple "aortic pulse wave velocity test" was able to detect stiffness in arterial veins "after adjusting for age, male sex, total cholesterol, HDL, diabetes, history of smoking, systolic blood pressure, body mass index, and use of hypertension and statin medications."

Whew. They sure eliminated a lot of variables there.

As our knowledge expands and our technology grows ever wiser and kinder, it may be that our hearts will have more room for recognizing the spiritual/emotional aspects of illness--and discover that they are often the first line of defense against the germs and viruses that make us sick.

If you haven't seen the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?" yet, set aside an hour and a half. It's an eye-opener. And check out this book, Molecules of Emotion, by Candace Pert, one of the participants in the movie. You'll love her description of her discovery that emotions actually reside physically within our bodies (riding around on items called neuropeptides).

The wisdom of the subconscious

I have long been a believer in the power of my inner wisdom to guide me. In fact, in the book I co-authored with Brian Tracy and other thought leaders, I suggest that to know the deepest reasons for being in your business, you do a simple meditation exercise and when possible, perform it before you go to sleep at night.

Now a group of Dutch scientists has put together an experiment proving that people tend to make better decisions about complex matters after "sleeping on it" than they do after spending hours trying to evaluate every factor.

From Einstein to quantum physics, from solving a ponderous life problem like "should I get married to this person?" to coming up with the right opening for a scientific white paper (as I often do after I've slept on it), our subconscious is a great power that's completely at our disposal if we only learn to access it.

I wrote the eulogies for both my mother and my father when I awoke on the day of their funerals. How could I ever divine the right things to say about them by thinking about it? There was too much water, flowing too fast, beneath those bridges. But when I trusted it to my subconscious mind, the words that came were full of truth and tempered by a deep and benevolent understanding.

It's nice to know science is putting together hard data to prove that we don't need to rely on outside sources to learn the truths that will make our lives better.

Eating humble pie on low-fat diets

I hate when that happens, don't you? When somebody runs a study--a huge, long-term, well-funded study--that makes a liar out of me for what I've been telling people for years?

Apparently, such a study (with nearly 50,000 subject, 8 years in the making) concluded recently has definitively determined that low-fat diets are not protective against heart disease or several cancers. This reminds me of the time my dad was told he could no longer eat eggs for breakfast after his open-heart surgery--and oh, what cruel and unusual punishment that was for this burly, hard-working, oatmeal'n'eggs'n'bacon-lovin' man...only to be told after 7 long years of suffering and denial that, well, "they" didn't think maybe cholesterol was all that they had been making it out to be.

You know, the same thing happened to dad with the Catholic Church. He lost his faith for a while after they announced that doing something that had been condemning people to hell for centuries--eating meat on Friday--was no longer a mortal sin. "Make a fool out of a man," he said.

So, hey, just take what your doctors tell you with a grain of salt. We may find lots of other things that seem unnatural (how do you like eating your meals with absolutely no fat?) aren't really all that beneficial for you either.

Call to the bioscience community

Nobody wants to talk about what we're going to do to handle the massive influx of 60-somethings hitting the economy these days. On one hand, many of these boomers are still contributing significant amounts of intellectual capital to the workplace and money to the economy. And because most of these "seasoned citizens" are healthier, they're like to be able to go on doing that well beyond the magical old retirement numbers of 62 and 65.

President Bush acknowledges government programs will reel under the tidal wave of boomers. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will stagger under the weight of claims for which there is no money.

The U.S. comptroller says it's gonna take a miracle-- that we've got to look at "overhauling the country's non-system of health care, revising tax policies, shoring up pensions and designing strategies to boost savings for retirement."

Given the dynamic energies here and the race among states to attract and finance the bioscience community, wouldn't it be nice if its members would set an example for the rest of the business community? Bio-executives could use their massive collective brainpower to envision steps that private companies can take--design innovative programs to boost employee savings and encourage the same tough-love independence in employees that they themselves showed to get their companies up and running.

What about a special retirement savings account into which the boss could put a small bonus each time an employee did an exceptionally good job? The key is to make the solutions win-win-win--for the company, the employee, and the straining economy.

Old wisdom

People have been saying this for years, but we are daily gaining more scientific evidence to back it up. Here's a University of Maryland School of Medicine study that shows---ta-da--laughter helps blood vessels function better.

Seems the endothelium (lining of the blood vessels that helps maintain their tone, regulates blood flow, controls thickening and helps heal wounds) expands when you laugh. Stress does the opposite. In fact, the study concluded that laughter has approximately the same effect on your system as aerobic activity!

So instead of worrying that your employees are wasting time, let 'em keep those email jokes comin', folks.