Posts Tagged ‘Allergy’
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
Those who frequent the Yahoo Helminthic Therapy forum will know that, in early November, 2009, the US Food and Drug Administrtation moved against Autoimmune Therapies, the company that supplies therapeutic doses of hookworm and whipworm to individuals who wish to use these organisms as a treatment for allergy and autoimmune disorders.
By declaring these natural ‘probiotics’ to be pharmaceuticals, the FDA effectively ended AIT’s production and shipping of helminths from within the US but, with no other company anywhere in the world able to supply these particular organisms to the scores of very sick individuals who need them, Jasper Lawrence and his colleagues were determined to continue to meet their obligations to customers, so Jasper was left with no option but to abandon his home, and leave family and friends in order to relocate in haste to another country.
Shortly after this event, I heard of two somewhat similar cases in which small companies selling completely natural products have been prosecuted by government agencies.
A small US farmer selling unadulterated, raw milk – as drunk by humans since animals were first domesticated – was prosecuted after a sting operation by a local Health Department, and a small UK firm selling a sleep-aid made solely from common grasses was prosecuted by local Trading Standards officials in Wales.
Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents, but just further examples of the steady – one might even say stealthy – erosion of the choices available to individuals who prefer alternative or natural approaches to healthcare. And, sadly, the vast majority of citizens in the US and Europe are blissfully unaware of what is taking place.
Those who are not already aware of the situation will find enlightenment in these two blogs by Jon Barron – Alternative Health – Now You See It, Now You Don’t and Nutritional Freedom, the Frog in the Water.
I feel sure that, one day, justice and common sense will prevail and consumers will assert their right to have whatever form of healing they choose for themselves, but it could be a long time yet before this happens and things may well get much more difficult in the meantime.
Those who ask what can be done about this situation might care to examine the work of Dr Joseph Mercola, whose website has been the most visited natural medicine site in the world for the last seven years, and is now also in the top ten most visited general health sites.
In the last year, mercola.com has been instrumental in educating the public about the truth behind the Swine Flu debacle. In partnership with the National Vaccine Information Centre, mercola.com helped avoid the use of squalene in the H1N1 vaccine in the US, as well as helping to prevent mandatory H1N1 vaccination, and saving the majority of US citizens from being duped by the massive PR media campaigns into accepting an unsafe and ineffective vaccine.
This is just one example of what can be achieved when individuals are appropriately informed and enabled by the internet to make a stand against scheming corporations and a clueless government, and I urge everyone who cares about maintaining freedom of choice in healthcare to join the Mercola online community and/or to bookmark the Mercola Natural Health Newsletter (or RSS link) and the Mercola Vital Votes Blog (or RSS link).
This will keep you up to date with the latest news on health and provide sound, impartial advice on how to maintain your well-being by the most natural means possible. It will also keep you abreast of the activities of those who would sacrifice your health for dubious motives. The latter are clearly stealing some of the skirmishes but, if they go on to win the war, it will be because we have let them!
As for the three companies mentioned above, the prosecution of the Bechard family by the Missouri State Milk Board and Attorney General for selling raw milk in contravention of state regulations is ongoing. The Welsh sleep-aid manufacturer is now getting back on its feet following its prosecution, and has already picked up an award for its reformulated product, Asphalia, which I can personally vouch for as a remarkably effective and side effect-free sleep-aid. Autoimmune Therapies, meanwhile, have completed the relocation of their production department and should begin shipping hookworm again this week, with whipworm to follow in a few weeks time.
Tags: Allergy, Alternative Healthcare, Asphalia, Autoimmune Therapies, Dr Joseph Mercola, FDA, Helminthic Therapy, Helminths, Hookworm, Jon Barron, National Vaccine Information Centre, Natural Healthcare, Probiotics, Raw milk, Sleep, Swine Flu, Swine Flu Vaccine, Whipworm
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Friday, December 18th, 2009
Appearing at the same time as the United Nations climate change conference is meeting in Copenhagen to try to avert impending global catastrophe, this cogent essay considers the peril that threatens each individual from within, as the human microbiome reacts to changes in sanitation, lifestyle and medicine that have taken place during the last century and are continuing apace.
This piece looks not only at the implications of losses already being sustained by sections of the human microbiome, but also considers new and hopeful developments in the drive to address this trend, such as the borrowing of models from outside medical science – taking the concept of extinction from the field of ecology, for example – and the possibility of one day screening infants for native microbiota and giving ‘immunizations’ to fill in important missing niches, in much the same way that users of helminthic therapy are already doing by reintroducing lost helminths in order to treat the allergy or autoimmune disease that has developed as a result of their absence.
Tags: Allergy, Autoimmune Disease, Helminthic Therapy, Helminths, Immunisation, Microbiome, Microbiota, Sanitation
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Friday, December 11th, 2009
Several new reports highlighting the importance of ‘friendly’ microbes have been in the news recently (exposure to germs, pets and other children may affect asthma risk; childhood exposure may prevent diseases in adulthood; bacteria are essential for skin health; and dirt keeps piglets healthy too).
Perhaps most significant, however, is new research from Germany showing that it’s literally never too early to start the young on beneficial microbes, and that they may even benefit from their mothers’ exposure during pregnancy.
It was already known that children raised on farms teeming with microbes develop fewer allergies than those raised in cities or non-farming rural areas. But children of farming mothers are less susceptible to allergies regardless of their own exposure, and the new German research has found that exposure to environmental bacteria triggers a mild inflammatory response in pregnant mice that renders their offspring more resistant to allergies.
Tags: Allergy, Asthma, Bacteria, Dirt, Farms, Microbes, Pets, Piglets, Pregnancy
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Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
Taking part in the Hookworms for Crohn’s Disease trial at Nottingham University in 2007 had provided me with a brief but tantalising glimpse of how my health might be improved by hosting a small colony of benign intestinal worms, and I was determined to acquire a long-term infection as soon as possible.
To this end, I had secured the agreement of my gastroenterologist, who referred me back to the trial team for reinfection. However, in spite of an earlier indication that they would be willing to provide me with a further dose of hookworm, the trial coordinator then told me that this would not be possible until the study was complete.
This was a considerable disappointment because the trial was taking an inordinately long time – probably due to difficulty finding sufficient volunteers willing to host a small worm colony – and it became clear that the trial would not be complete until the middle of 2009.
In the meantime, I had required further bowel surgery, to repair yet more Crohn’s-related intestinal strictures, and I was still unable to eat any normal foods due to multiple allergies and overwhelming food intolerance, not to mention having a number of other long-term health problems, including M.E., a subgroup of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome characterised by inordinately exaggerated exhaustion following any activity, either physical or mental.
I was becoming impatient… (continued)
Tags: 'Old Friends', Allergy, Annabel Senior, Autoimmune Disease, Autoimmune Therapies, Benedryl, Catarrh, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Constipation, Cramps, Crohn's Disease, Dairrhoea, Eczema, Exhaustion, Fatigue, Food Allergy, Food Intolerance, Headache, Helminthic Therapy, Hookworm, Hypoallergenic Formula Feed, Immune System, Intestinal Gas, Jasper Lawrence, Larvae, M.E., Migraine, Nasal Congestion, Nausea, Necator Americanus, Nottingham, Osteopath, Ovamed, Restless leg Syndrome, Steroid, Strictures, Surgery, Temperature Control, Worms
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Monday, November 23rd, 2009
The worm is already transforming lives previously blighted by asthma, allergies and autoimmune disorders (Which diseases have responded well to helminthic therapy?).
Now, unfolding research suggests that the worm might also be effective against a diverse range of conditions that were not previously considered to have inflammatory components, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, gastric reflux, schizophrenia and aortic dissection.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Recently announced research indicates that the origins of pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Tourette syndrome and/or tic disorder may lie in an inappropriate immune response to bacteria which cause common throat infections.
The team involved have been able to demonstrate an association between the appearance of antibodies directed against Group A beta-hemolytic streptoccoccus (GABHS) in peripheral blood and the onset of repetitive behaviors and deficits in attention, learning, and social interaction.
The revelation that antibodies alone are sufficient to trigger the onset of this behavioral syndrome will undoubtedly have medics reaching for sophisticated solutions such as intravenous immunoglobulin, or plasma exchange to remove the antibodies, in order to attenuate the autoimmune response, but the humble helminth may well do the job as effectively as any drug, and without any long term side effects.
This work may also suggest a role for helminths in treating and preventing other disorders potentially linked to autoimmunity, including mood, attentional, learning, and eating disorders, as well as autism spectrum disorders.
Schizophrenia
The provocative conclusion that a mental disorder can result from a lingering immune response inevitably makes one wonder about schizophrenia, and a Swedish study has already found that patients with recent-onset schizophrenia do in fact have higher levels of inflammatory substances in their brains.
While previous studies had analysed inflammatory factors in the blood of patients with schizophrenia, the Swedish researchers were able to examine inflammatory substances in the patients’ spinal fluid, and found raised levels of interleukin-1beta, a signal substance released in the presence of inflammation, which is not seen in anywhere near the same quantities in healthy control patients.
Interleukin-1beta is known to be able to upset the dopamine system in rats, which may explain the overactive dopamine system which has, until now, been the main focus of attention in schizophrenia in humans.
This development will inevitably raise hopes that schizophrenia may be treatable using immunotherapy, and perhaps that it might even be possible to interrupt the course of the disease at an early stage of its development.
Immunotherapy using helminths is unlikely to be considered by researchers, but these organisms would seem to be ideal candidates for the role, in view of their proven track record against inflammation and their freedom from adverse events.
Acid Reflux
According to newly released information, the common condition referred to as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) might not be due to burning by stomach acid backing up into the oesophagus, as has long been thought to be the case, but by inflammation caused by immune cells in response to exposure to bile salts.
The study has shown that gastroesophageal reflux causes tissue in the oesophagus to release immune chemicals called cytokines, which, in turn attract inflammatory cells, resulting in the heartburn and chest pain that characterise GERD.
As helminths are past masters of inflammation control, their presence could potentially bring relief from GERD.
Aortic Dissection
Aortic dissection, the condition that develops when a bulge in the aorta gives way and leaks (leading to nearly 16,000 deaths annually in the US alone), was formerly thought to be the result of a simple structural failure. However, researchers appear to have uncovered biochemical processes that chip away at the aorta from within, until it finally tears, and inflammation has been revealed as the central player in this process.
Once again, one wonders whether this condition might be prevented from developing at all in someone who is hosting helminths.
Tags: Acid Reflux, Allergy, Antibodies, Aorta, Aortic Dissection, Asthma, Autism, Autoimmune Disease, Bacteria, Bile Salts, Cytokines, Dopamine, Eating Disorder, GABHS, Gastric Reflux, GERD, Heartburn, Helminths, Immunotherapy, Inflammation, Interleukin-1 beta, Intravenous Immunoglobulin, Learning Disorder, Mood, Obsessive-compulsive Disorder, Plasma Exchange, Schizophrenia, Throat Infection, Tic Disorder, Tourette Syndrome
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Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
The use of antidepressants in the US has nearly doubled since 1996, and over ten percent of the US population aged six and above now take an antidepressant – twenty seven million Americans using pharmaceutical drugs to help them get through the day, with very little, if any attempt to address or even consider possible underlying causes.
This pharmaceutical approach invariably produces additional problems ranging from increased depression and suicide to weight gain, insomnia, nausea, chest pain, stroke, congenital defects, and more. Thirty percent of those on antidepressants experience sexual dysfunction, and a recent report found that antidepressants blunt the ability to express and experience love.
It may be, however, that there is another form of treatment that might prove to be effective without any of the long-term side effects attached to pharmaceutical products.
It is known that the administration of neutralizing anti-TNF antibody to patients with Crohn’s disease not only alleviates the symptoms of their Crohn’s but also reduces any depressive symptoms, and treatment with anti-TNF and other anti-inflammatory drugs has also been shown to relieve symptoms of depression in other patient groups.
This may suggest that the immunoregulatory failure that is now known to be implicated in the increased incidence of chronic inflammatory disorders such as Crohn’s disease, as well as other autoimmune disorders and allergies, could also be involved in depression, and it might be that the effectiveness of some of the currently available antidepressant medications is actually due to inflammation-reducing properties.
New research in mice has in fact recently found a biological link between inflammation and depression, identifying an enzyme which appears to be connected with both chronic inflammation and depressive symptoms.
This research has therefore revealed both a new target for drug manufacturers to aim for, and also pointed to the possibility that depression – and perhaps other stress-related psychiatric disorders – may, like allergies and autoimmune diseases, be the result of a lack of the organisms now referred to as our ‘old friends’.
If this is so, then reintroducing some of these organisms by means of Helminthic Therapy – a practice which is highly effective against inflammation – may also relieve depression.
Unlike drugs, the helminthic therapy approach, which uses low doses of carefully selected, benign intestinal worms, has no lasting side effects and is readily available from Autoimmune Therapies. This company offers a ‘no benefit, no fee’ program for those with illnesses previously not treated using Helminthic Therapy, which currently include depression. This program provides treatment free for a year, after which time the clients themselves decide whether the treatment has been successful or not. If they feel they have benefited, they pay for the treatment at that point but, if they are not satisfied with the results, the treatment is terminated and they owe nothing.
Tags: 'Old Friends', Allergy, Anti-inflammatory, Anti-TNF Antibody, Antidepressant, Autoimmune Disease, Autoimmune Therapies, Chest Pain, Congenital Defects, Crohn's Disease, Depression, Helminthic Therapy, Insomnia, Intestinal Worms, Nausea, Psychiatric Disorder, Sexual Dysfunction, Stress, Stroke, Suicide, Weight Gain, Worms
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Saturday, September 26th, 2009
The European drugs regulator has given the go-ahead for one of the UK’s two swine flu vaccines – Pandemrix, made by GlaxoSmithKline – for use in adults and children over six months and pregnant women, and the Department of Health plans to start vaccination in October.
The GSK vaccine is made in eggs, so is not suitable for anyone with an allergy to egg, but the second vaccine – to be available soon and made by Baxter – is not manufactured using eggs so can be used in people with an egg allergy. More…
Flu vaccines also typically contain one or more of the following toxic/hazardous ingredients: thimerosal (mercury, which causes nerve cell damage), aluminum (a neurotoxin that has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease and may be involved in Multiple Sclerosis), squalene (an adjuvant which generates concentrated, unremitting immune responses over long periods of time), Triton X-100 (a detergent), phenol (carbolic acid), ethylene glycol (antifreeze), betapropiolactone (a disinfectant), nonoxynol (used on condoms to kill or stop growth of STDs) and octoxinol 9 (a vaginal spermicide).
Although, according to reports, the GSK Pandemrix vaccine ‘appears safe’, nearly 50% of people in one of the key studies experienced local discomfort or systemic symptoms – i.e. headaches – and it is unlikely that the long-term effects of this vaccine have been determined in the couple of months that evaluation has been carried out.
The vaccine used during the swine flu outbreak in 1976 increased the risk of developing Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) by eight times and led to 500 people succumbing to this syndrome, 25 of whom died before the immunisation programme was halted.
No-one has ever figured out why the 1976 vaccine caused this disease – in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the nerves – and doctors have again been advised to watch for Guillain-Barré syndrome during the current swine flu vaccination programme.
According to a study released by the British Medical Journal, more than half of Hong Kong’s healthcare workers have said they would refuse the swine flu vaccine because of side effects and doubt about its safety and effectiveness. The study suggested that health workers worldwide were likely to repeat this trend.
As an alternative to a vaccine, a daily dose of 800-2000 IU of vitamin D has been shown to more or less eliminate flu symptoms. Vitamin C is also a surprisingly effective prophylactic against viral infections such as swine flu and, if delivered intravenously, will safely and effectively treat the illness, if contracted.
Further information:
More on vitamin D…
More on vitamin C and swine flu…
Other preventive measures…
Face masks are effective…
Swine flu: the phony war…
More on swine flu vaccine…
Tags: Allergy, Aluminium, Alzheimer's Disease, Betapropiolactone, Egg Allergy, Face Masks, Flu Vaccine, Guillain-Barré Syndrome, Headache, Immune System, Immunisation, Mercury, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Nonoxynol, Octoxinol-9, Pandemrix, Squalene, Swine Flu, Swine Flu Vaccine, Thimerosal, Triton X-100, Vitamin C, Vitamin D
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Monday, September 14th, 2009
Many of us who suffer from nasal allergies have long known that even the simple act of kissing can be compromised by frequent sneezing, a blocked nose and, worst of all, by post-nasal drip. Now, at last, research has finally caught up with reality and confirmed our experience.
When polled for this new study, 83 percent of people with allergic rhinitis said it affected their sexual activity at least sometimes, with almost 18 percent of those affected saying that their allergies nearly always got in the way of a satisfying sex life.
Itchy eyes and other allergy symptoms can be extremely distracting and make a person feel less than sexy and, if embarrassment caused by many of the other aspects of rhinitis doesn’t cramp one’s style, tiredness from chronic loss of sleep, induced by nasal blockage, almost certainly will.
A friend of mine who spent many years trying unsuccessfully to get help from the UK medical profession for his rhinitis and the problems that it caused, finally found that the only solution was a small dose of tiny worms!
Dave (not his real name) had had rhinitis from childhood, but had managed to live with it well into adulthood before it began to have a major impact on his life. His nose would physically swell up and block, and this prevented him from sleeping and left him extremely exhausted.
He tried everything that his GP offered, but the latter finally told him he would just have to live with the problem! Only after constant baggering of the GP was an appointment arranged for Dave to see a specialist, but this proved to be just another dead end, as did several further consultations with private specialists.
Dave struggled valliantly to hold down his job, although his work inevitably suffered because of his constant tiredness. His performance in other areas also suffered, and his wife eventually left him. At that point, he felt he had nowhere to turn and nothing left to live for, so took an overdose. Fortunatley, this was discovered in time and, as this type of acute problem is something the medics are good at dealing with, he survived.
Shortly after this, I told Dave about my recent therapeutic inoculation with hookworm and how this had completely cleared my own nasal congestion. He didn’t hesitate, despite the significant cost of the treatment, and promptly ordered a dose of hookworm from Autoimmune Therapies.
“Anyone who doesn’t try this,” he said, “isn’t suffering enough!”
After the few weeks that it took for his worms to mature, he began to improve, and I began to get almost daily excited phone calls with updates about his progress.
To cut a long story short, his life has been transformed. He can now once again breathe freely through his nose and he sleeps like a baby – right through the night. His job is going really well and he now also has a new girl friend. In short, he’s ‘full of the joys of Spring’, and all thanks to a few little buddies living in his gut!
This remarkable new treatment, which can turn lives around but which most doctors still know nothing about – and a few are violently opposed to – is called Helminthic Therapy, and involves aquiring a small, controlled dose of tiny (less than a centimetre long), harmless intestinal worms that have co-evolved with our own species for millions of years and which are therefore fully adapted to us – and we to them – but which our modern sanitation practices effectively banished from our lives several decades ago.
Dave and I have both found that having these amazing little creatures back inside us is a simple but very effective long-term solution to nasal problems as well as other forms of allergy, with none of the harmful side effects of regular medical treatments, which, in both our cases, had proved ineffecitve anyway.
Now that we have realised the remarkable benefits of hosting a few carefully selected beneficial organisms, neither of us will ever willingly be parted from our new ‘old friends’.
Tags: 'Old Friends', Allergic Rhinitis, Allergy, Autoimmune Therapies, Gut Buddies, Hookworm, Inoculation, Intestinal Worms, Itchy Eyes, Kissing, Nasal Congestion, Post-nasal Drip, Rhinitis, Sanitation, Sex, Sleep, Sneezing, Tiredness, Worms
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Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
In the past few days, media representatives have flocked around the carcass of the hygiene hypothesis, apparently believing that they were witnessing the passing of this decades-old idea.
Following the release of details about a single new study, an unprecedented number of news outlets ran articles declaring the demise of the hypothesis which had proposed that the increasingly germ-free surroundings of modern life are actually contributing to the recent increase in allergies, asthma and autoimmune diseases.
The study in question has found that, contrary to what some previous studies have suggested, children who enter the bacteria-rich environment of daycare at an early age may not have a reduced risk of allergies and asthma in later childhood.
The most objective comment on the new research has been provided by NHS Choices. Other media reports of the research include: Reuters, EurekAlert, BBC News, The Daily Telegraph, Science Daily, Medical News Today, The Nursing Times, The National Examiner, The Los Angeles Times, Press TV, ABC News, and The Australian.
What none of the reporters involved seem to have realised is that the hygiene hypothesis was already dead, having been superseded by a new ‘old friends hypothesis’ which emphasizes the need for exposure not just to infectious bacteria, but to a particular range of organisms with which our species has coexisted throughout much of its evolutionary history – notably harmless microorganisms from soil, untreated water and fermenting vegetable matter and, critically, parasitic worms.
Not a single one of the above media reports mentions the old friends hypothesis!
Tags: 'Old Friends' Hypothesis, Allergy, Asthma, Autoimmune Disease, Daycare, Hygiene Hypothesis, Microorganisms, Worms
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Saturday, August 15th, 2009
As each new piece of technology appears on the horizon, we embrace it without question and add it to the ever-growing collection of ‘must have’ gizmos that adorn our lives. Perhaps, however, we should be a little more circumspect about what we adopt.
When I first moved into a house with an inside loo, I was overcome with joy that I would no longer have to empty my chamber pot each morning into the tippler at the far end of the yard. And our tippler was quite a posh affair – a fully enclosed, brick-built ‘thunder box’, unlike the more usual, ramshackle wooden structures. Users of the latter would relate stories about how they had had their posteriors pecked by hens while answering the call of nature, or prodded with sticks by local miscreants looking for a quick giggle.
An indoor flush toilet was just the most amazing thing, and little did I realise, back then, that this technology might actually be involved in the causation of the eventual collapse of my health, of years of pain, and the loss of a job that I loved dearly. I knew nothing at that time about the effect on the parasitic worm cycle of sanitation and the wearing of shoes, and their consequent relationship with allergy and autoimmune disease.
I never even questioned why I didn’t have worms like those that my aunt had told me she had pulled from her anus on one occasion. I just thought that such things were, like chamber pots and tipplers, ‘of the past’, and good riddance to them! Only now, after reintroducing worms to my intestines and beginning to regain a degree of health that I had come to think impossible, have I realised the price that we in the West have paid for using flush toilets and wearing shoes.
Another contributor to the steep learning curve that I have experienced recently is a realisation about the effects on human health of the plethora of microwave-emitting electronic devices, on which many in the West have now come to rely.
Soon after I installed Wi-Fi in my home, and I began enjoying the freedom provided by this, I noticed that, whenever I used my laptop computer on my knee for any length of time, my legs began to tingle, and this was certainly not due to the weight of the laptop. I wondered if it might be the heat but, eventually, discovered that the tingling stopped when I disabled the Wi-Fi function on the laptop.
This led to a series of related discoveries, including the fact that my DECT telephone was bathing me and my family in microwave radiation 24/7!
The Wi-Fi went into the bin and I switched to a dLAN internet connection which works via the household power main. The DECT phone was replaced by an alternative which only emits radiation when it is actually being used, and I now use a wired land-line phone whenever I can.
Prompted by this experience, I began to research the whole issue of radio-frequency radiation, and was, frankly, astounded by what I discovered. This article looks at most of the many sources of microwave radiation to which we are now exposed, the effects which these can have on humans, and what we can do to protect ourselves.
It is now clear that we need to be constantly vigilant when assessing new technologies, whatever form they may take, and adopt a skeptical approach to protestations about safety from manufacturers and representatives of the UK and US governmental and medical establishments in particular, especially as the latter have yet to take any action at all on radio-frequency radiation… and still insist that mercury dental fillings and the fluoridation of public water supplies are both completely safe.
In spite of our obvious technological sophistication, we are still, physiologically, simple hunter-gatherers, biologically unadapted to many aspects of twenty-first century ‘civilization’, such as diet, sedentary working practices, the absence of parasites and exposure to ubiquitous industrial pollution. We ignore this reality at our peril.
Tags: Allergy, Autoimmune Disease, Bluetooth, DECT Phones, Electromagnetic Radiation, Fluoride, Hunter-gatherer, Mercury, Microwave, Mobile Phones, Parasite, Sanitation, Shoes, Telephone, Toilets, Wi-Fi, Wimax, Worms
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Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
Replacing lost worms to regain health
(This article first appeared at foodsmatter.com)
Helminthic therapy is an experimental approach to the treatment of asthma, allergies and inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, which involves the administration of controlled quantities of selected, benign intestinal parasites such as hookworm and whipworm.
The treatment developed out of understanding gained from scientific studies which showed that, while these illnesses have escalated in developed countries during the past 50-100 years, they remain much less common in parts of the world where intestinal parasites are still prevalent.
The aim of the treatment is to rebalance the host’s immune system by replacing one or more of the harmless organisms which have been lost in recent decades due to improved hygiene, sanitation and lifestyle changes.
The organisms used have become masters of the human immune system during millions of years of coexistence with man and are adept at regulating their host’s immune response. In fact, the codependent relationship between worm and man is so close that the human genome is now arguably incomplete without the genes contributed by these organisms.
Tags: 'Old Friends' Hypothesis, Allergy, Anti-inflammatory Drugs, Arthritis, Asthma, Atherosclerosis, Autism, Autoimmune Disease, Bacteria, Cholera, Coeliac Disease, Colon, Crohn's Disease, Depression, Diphtheria, Eczema, Enema, Faecal Bacteriotherapy, Fibromyalgia, Foods Matter, Genes, Genome, Heart Disease, Helminthic Therapy, Helminths, Hookworm, Hygiene, Immune System, Inflammation, Inflammatory Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Larvae, Lupus, Microorganisms, Migraine, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Non-ulcer Dyspepsia, Nottingham, Parasites, Probiotics, Psoriasis, Psychiatric Disorders, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Sanitation, Superbugs, Type 1 Diabetes, Ulcerative Colitis, Whipworm, Worms
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Saturday, July 11th, 2009
Since pioneering individuals began hosting helminths for therapeutic purposes, there have been reports of local anesthetics causing a return of symptoms – possibly due to a temporary adverse effect rather than an actual loss of worms.
In one case, the local anesthetic Marcaine was suspected as the possible culprit, and it has been suggested that, being a particularly strong pain killer with a long period of action, Marcaine might indeed have been responsible. Lidocaine, which is a shorter acting anesthetic, may be safer, but the jury is still out on all of this.
In the case of anesthesia for dental treatment, one solution to this dilemma may lie in a remarkably simple breakthrough in pain management which completely removes the need for any drugs – a cryo-anesthetic mouthpiece called the gumEase G100, which is made from latex-free biocompatible PVC and filled with a saline solution. After being chilled in a temperature-controlled freezer to minus 7 degrees C, the device is placed around the teeth, where it acts to produce a surprisingly powerful pain relief effect.
Up to three devices can be applied in succession, for 4 minutes each, until the required amount of anesthesia is achieved. In tests, the average patient experienced 100% pain relief in 2 to 3 minutes, and this lasted for up to twenty minutes.
The device is suitable for use with most procedures, including fillings, crowns, extractions and root canals, as well as brace application and adjustment.
Patients can even apply this device post-operatively, after storage in a household freezer. Proprietary ingredients in the solution within the mouthpiece prevent it from freezing, and allow it to form comfortably to the patient’s mouth when put in place.
The device is obviously also likely to be of interest to anyone with an allergy or sensitivity to any of the constituents of regular injectable anesthetics, anyone with an aversion to needles, or anyone who simply wishes to avoid the prolonged numbing of the face which typically follows injections.
Anyone who wishes to use this new technology should approach their dentist well in advance of their appointment to check whether this type of anesthesia is routinely offered to patients and, if not, suggest that the dentist obtain a supply and try them. As the device is likely to save dentists both time and money, s/he will probably be grateful for the suggestion!
Supplies of the gumEase can be obtained in the US from http://www.cryodevices.com or http://www.olympicdmd.com ($109.45, including shipping, for a box of 10) and, in the UK, by contacting George Harrell at gharrell@cryodevices.com (£69.77, including shipping, for 10).
PS
Patients who have migraine and tension-type headaches who have tried this device have reported that, in addition to delivering effective dental anesthesia, the device has also provided relief from their headaches. In fact, such has been the success of the device in this respect that a trial is about to begin to test this new application. See: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/05/prweb2480164.htm
Tags: Allergy, Crowns, Cryo-anaesthetic, Dentist, Extractions, Fillings, Gum Ease, Headache, Helminths, Lidocaine, Local Anaesthetic, Marcaine, Migraine, Needles, Pain, Root Canals
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