holistic wellness Archives

On Allopathic Medicine and Universal Health Care

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
On Allopathic Medicine and Universal Health Care

July 22, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $2,114. Gold closed at $1,103 per ounce. Oil checked out just under $51 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.37%. Bitcoin is trading around $278 per BTC today.

Dear Journal,

The big news in the markets this week is gold’s staggering fall. The reason: nearly 5 Tonnes of gold was unloaded on the Shanghai Gold Exchange within a two minute window during the Asian trading session on Monday. This activity represented nearly 20% of the average daily trading volume in gold on the Shanghai Exchange – all within a two minute window. Nearly simultaneously, 7,600 contracts of the August 15 gold contract sold off on the COMEX within a two minute window as well. Somebody knows something. Nevertheless, this pullback looks like a great buying opportunity to me.

Las week we examined ways to disintermediate the State and I suggested holistic wellness as a means of distancing yourself from the corruption and cronyism that manifests in the relationship between allopathic medicine and its lobbies, big pharmaceutical corporations and their lobbies, big health insurance corporations and their lobbies, and the federal government and its regulatory agencies. You could potentially throw Wall Street and the big agriculture corporations into this mix as well for the roles they play in perpetuating the sickness paradigm.

Here’s how it works in a simplified nutshell: the allopathic medical establishment (AMA) preaches a hyper-interventionist mentality that focuses on prescribing drugs for every illness – real or imagined. Big-Pharma provides the drugs and constantly develops new drugs for the temporary treatment of symptoms. Big-Insurance sets the reimbursement figures for each drug and each treatment thus incentivizing certain practices. All three fund massive lobbies that exert influence upon the FDA and other State-regulatory agencies which in turn protect the established interests from competition and law suits. For their part, Big-Agra manufactures a huge variety of unhealthy food products that help keep people sick which leads to more doctor visits and more drugs. Wall Street keeps the pressure on Big-Pharma and Big-Agra to grow revenues which incentivizes marginal innovations and aggressive marketing campaigns. This system does not seek to improve health, it seeks only to treat sickness symptoms over and over again. Continue reading “On Allopathic Medicine and Universal Health Care”

Disintermediate the State

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Disintermediate the State

July 15, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $2,109. Gold closed at $1,155 per ounce. Oil checked out above $53 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.399%. Bitcoin is trading around $293 per BTC.

Dear Journal,

The Greek banks are still closed as I write to you today. Let’s revisit the timeline real quick:

Saturday, June 27: The head of the government’s coalition ally in Greece advised “Citizens should not be scared, there is no blackmail. The banks won’t shut, the ATMs will (have cash). All this is exaggeration.”

Sunday, June 28: Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced that Greek banks would be closed until Monday, July 6. “The bank deposits of the Greek people are fully secure”, he added.

Sunday, July 5: The national referendum on the EU’s proposed bail-out is held. Greek citizens vote “no” emphatically.

Monday, July 15: Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras conceded to a bail-out agreement with the EU consisting of terms very similar to the bail-out Greek citizens voted against ten days prior.

Wednesday, July 15: Greek banks are still closed and there has been talk of a 30% haircut on all deposit accounts in excess of €8,000.

As we can clearly see, the Greek people have been mislead and lied to throughout this entire process. The Greek political class threw the people a bone with the referendum on July 5 to ease some of the discontent and then they proceeded to ignore the results of the referendum entirely. Those of us familiar with laissez-faire philosophy are not surprised by this in the least. Such is the nature of the relationship that exists between governments and citizens everywhere. Continue reading “Disintermediate the State”

Take Crying Seriously

by Author Chris White, MD – ICPA.org:

Let’s be honest—crying is tough on the nervous system. It’s designed to be. When children have an unmet need that is beginning to cause a disruption in their nervous system, they cry, or get really whiney, as a direct reaction to the discomfort. The crying then enters us through our senses—mostly through sound, but visually, as well, if we see their contorted faces and the tension in their bodies. Then it travels from the sensory areas of our brain, into the limbic system and down into our bodies, all resulting in this feeling: “Something is wrong, and I have got to fix it now!” Since crying usually is the signaling of a dysregulated nervous system—usually that some need of the child’s has not been met—it is important that we pay attention to our instincts and respond by going to the child and finding out what is wrong.

Whether the crying is coming from your infant because he is hungry, or if he is colicky and needs to release the tension accumulated from the day—in either case, go to him. Perhaps it is coming from your clingy toddler who is in her rapprochement phase of development—pushing hard for independence in some moments, but seemingly terrified of you leaving the room in others. Still, when she lets out those blood-curdling screams that seem so dramatic when you’re just going downstairs, respond to her anyway. Her fear is real.

Or maybe your 5-year-old just took a spill on his bike in the driveway and is starting to bawl. You saw the whole thing and know he isn’t gravely injured; go to him anyway. He may need for you to be close by to help move easefully through the tears, and digest the shock of the bike crash.

In each of these cases, your child’s nervous system is doing what it is designed to do: make distress calls to his caretakers when he feels he needs some help. It is important to take these distress calls seriously by finding out what your child needs.

But don’t take crying too seriously.

Many times I see parents become dysregulated themselves whenever their child cries. They come running in, yelling, “What’s wrong?!?” and find that the child was simply frustrated because he was unable to get a toy to work right, and was a little overtired, so his frustration bubbled over into tears. The dysregulated mother may then get irritated with her son and say, “Why are you having a hissy fit over something so small? Pull yourself together!” What great advice, for both child and mother!

Even in a situation like this, where a child’s crying is over something relatively minor, she still needs comfort and to be brought back to a state of better regulation. More frustration and anger are not going to help. Discharging your own dysregulated emotions will only add to the child’s sense of frustration and lack of support.

In other situations, I have seen parents go running to their kids whenever they cry, as if trauma will ice over their nervous systems forever. They explode onto the scene with an intense, anxious fretting and nervous dancing around, trying to make everything perfect so the child won’t experience any discomfort. These parents seem to be afraid of tears, and will do anything to keep their children’s state “sunny and 75 degrees” at all costs. Their anxiety is, in itself, somewhat dysregulating, and their children get the unspoken message: They are fragile, they can’t handle the bumps and bruises of life, and they’ll always need Mommy nearby to make things right. These kids grow up believing that they are made of glass.

As a parent, do your best to “get yourself together” before dumping your own anxieties or frustrations on your kids. Try to understand your own histories around crying and other states of dysregulation like frustration, anger or an intense compulsion to make everything go right. Inquire into why your particular nervous system reacts the way it does. Most likely, it formed this way in an attempt to protect you from a lack of attunement you experienced as a child. Have compassion for yourself: We are all still children in so many ways.

If you are one of those moms or dads who gets intensely activated by hearing your child cry (I know I still do from time to time, especially if I am awoken from sleep!), there are some things you can do to help soothe your limbic reactivity.
The next time you hear your child cry, remember:

• Crying is a communication of need; rarely is it anything serious.

• Crying is also, oftentimes, the intelligent response of the nervous system when tension needs to be released. The movement of tears and sobbing are ways the body cleanses itself of toxicity and potentially “frozen memories” that might otherwise get stored as trauma.

• Whatever the cause of the crying, you will be of sounder mind and more spacious heart if you begin getting yourself together as you move toward your child.

Try these things to help get yourself together the next time your child’s crying revs up your nervous system:

• Even as you reflexively get up to go to your child, mentally note the intensity that your body and mind are experiencing. Feel the electricity or warmth or tension in your body as you continue to move to your child’s side for support, and remind yourself that this is how the body is supposed to react to crying.

• Grounding down is a great way to smooth out the intensity and stay level-headed as you move to help your distressed child. Inhale deeply into the belly, and then, as you exhale, imagine the breath going down from your belly, through your pelvis and legs, and exiting down into the earth. Make the exhale as long as possible (this activates the calming parasympathetic nervous system) and release it through an open mouth with a little Haaaaaaaa sound from the back of the throat. This will leave you in a clearer state of mind, and feeling more “warrior like” to meet whatever challenge presents itself.

• Get spacious. Even as you arrive to find out that nothing too serious is wrong—that no major fire needs extinguishing—take your child up in your arms and begin breathing deeply as you hold him. Again, try to gently emphasize the exhale, as this is very calming—to both your system as well as your child’s. And as you are holding him, let the exhale and your awareness dissolve outward in all directions, creating a feeling of vast space to hold this difficulty. In my experience, all difficult feelings run their course more quickly and gracefully when I give the difficulty room to breathe and allow Kai (my son) to be exactly where he is at emotionally, and allow his nervous system to heal itself in its own way, in its own time. Get spacious and trust the process.

• Let it flow. As you hold your child, you will probably feel the natural response of your heart—its kindness and sensitivity and compassion—flow from you into all pain and suffering: your child’s and your own. There is no need to work hard to make everything all right; no need to fret and try to placate or distract her from the tears. Just stay grounded, stay spacious, and let the natural kindness of the heart pour from you effortlessly.

Step by Step

Over the next two weeks, pick one of these suggestions to work with when your child cries. You might start with simply becoming aware of how your body feels when you hear your child cry. Once awareness is established and becomes second nature to you, try adding “grounding down” or “getting spacious.” Or if you often feel you need to distract your child from his tears—to give him a treat or something else to focus on—consider instead simply giving him room to have his tears in your loving arms. Your quiet confidence will ignite and support his innate capacity for resilience.

Crying is usually a signal of some unmet need, and therefore deserves to be taken seriously and responded to. But if we allow the fear-based part of our nervous system to spread a wildfire within us, we won’t be able to respond in the most effective, loving and spacious way possible. Develop a basic trust in the nervous system and its cycles of tears. Your openness and confidence will help your children mature into healthy, vibrant, courageous beings.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Ear Infections: Causes and Holistic Care

by Linda Folden Palmer, DC– ICPA.org:

Causes of Ear Infections

Middle ear infections are on the rise. The ailment, also known as otitis media, has become far more prevalent in children throughout the twentieth century, increasing 150 percent between 1975 to 1990 alone. This dramatic increase illustrates the parameters of wise antibiotic use and its abuse, while at the same time revealing the effects of breastfeeding and formula.

The middle ear is the part of the ear that is enclosed behind the eardrum. A tiny tube, called the eustachian tube, drains any fluids from the middle ear into the throat. Colds and episodes of allergic runny nose, due to airborne allergens or allergies to cow’s milk or other foods, block this eustachian tube with mucus and inflammation. When this tiny mucous-membrane-lined canal is closed off, inflammatory fluids build up in the middle ear cavity (serous otitis media), sometimes referred to as effusion. Over time, passage of nasal and throat bacteria into this tube, from pacifier use or especially when a child is lying on his back, can seed the middle ear. Bacteria can then multiply to large numbers when finding a friendly fluid-filled middle ear environment, creating painful infection (acute otitis media).

The major source of these infections is threefold: the withholding of protective mother’s milk; antibiotic treatment for mild or non-bacterial ear conditions; and inflammatory reactions to certain foods, particularly cow’s milk.

The occurrence of otitis media is 19 percent lower in breastfed infants, with 80 percent fewer prolonged episodes. The risk of otitis remains at this reduced level for four months after weaning and then increases. By 12 months after weaning, the risk is the same as in those who were never breastfed. In addition to providing general immunities to the infant, breastmilk also provides specific antibodies that prevent otitiscausing bacteria from attaching to the mucous walls of the middle ear.

Misguided Concerns About Infection

The presence of fluid in the middle ear from chronic or acute conditions reduces a child’s capacity to hear. This fluid muffles sounds but does not damage the hearing mechanism, so hearing returns once the fluid is gone. While permanent hearing damage does not occur from acute or chronic otitis, chronic interference with hearing can delay language development.

In some cases of acute infection, treated or not, the eardrum may rupture. While fear is generated around this possibility, the rupture allows the pus to drain and the middle ear to dry, most likely resolving the infection. The eardrum will then heal with some scar tissue, just as it would have after tube insertion. This scar tissue, found in many an eardrum, typically affects hearing very minimally or not at all. (Drainage from an ear can also be an outer ear infection. This is common after swimming, and the condition will respond to ear drops. Drainage from the ear for more than two days, especially when associated with hearing loss, requires prompt medical attention.)

The major concern with ear infections is that infection could develop in the mastoid air cells behind the ear. This rare condition is called mastoiditis, and is primarily of concern because of the proximity to the brain. Mastoiditis, seen as redness behind the ear and protrusion of the outer ear, can occasionally lead not only to permanent hearing loss, but to brain damage as well. Although claims are made that the incidence of mastoiditis has been greatly reduced since the introduction of antibiotics, this is not clear from a review of the literature. After the advent of antibiotics and CT scans, however, it is apparent that serious complications of acute mastoiditis have been reduced, and that the number of mastoid removals (mastoidectomies) has been reduced as well. In fact, antibiotic therapy for cases of mastoiditis appears to be valuable for preventing surgery in 86 percent of cases.

Just over half of all mastoiditis cases occur following bouts of acute otitis media. While there are other causes of mastoiditis, fewer than 4 percent of the rare deaths from mastoiditis complications occur in cases that originated as ear infections.

Some mastoiditis is blamed on poor antibiotic treatment of ear infections; other cases are blamed on antibiotic therapy itself. At the 1998 meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology, it was reported that serious cases of mastoiditis are rising as a direct result of strongly resistant bacteria developed through the common use of antibiotic therapy for ear infections.

Additionally, “masked mastoiditis,” in which the clearing up of the visible symptoms of the middle ear infection mask the existence of the mastoiditis, is a highly worrisome, occasionally seen condition that is directly caused by antibiotic treatment of ear infections. The behavior of the bacteria that promote this condition makes it very difficult to discover, and the condition has a high rate of dangerous complications.

Antibiotic Ills

The standard treatment for acute middle ear infections is antibiotic therapy. Alas, antibiotics are prescribed very often when simple fluid buildup is present without infection, as described earlier, or when the eardrum just appears red, suggesting inflammation. At times the eardrum can appear very red just from crying, allergies or a fever of other origin. It is impossible to accurately diagnose infection without puncturing the eardrum and taking a fluid sample. This leads doctors to suspect infection based upon the presence of symptoms, and prescribe antibiotics.

One-third of all ear infections are viral, and the distinction cannot be made upon examination. Antibiotics do not kill viruses, and can make viral infections worse by wiping out competing bacterial flora and encouraging secondary bacterial infections of resistant strains. Although seldom recognized, a number of chronic ear infections are actually fungal in nature (candida), produced when multiple courses of antibiotics disrupt the normal floral balance and encourage fungal growth.

Many large studies have shown that antibiotic treatment provides only a small benefit over no treatment at all for short-term resolution of ear infections. A 1994 analysis reviewed 33 studies, covering 5,400 cases of acute otitis, and found that spontaneous recovery without medical treatment occurred in 81 percent of acute cases. Short-term recovery occurred 95 percent of the time when antibiotics were used.

At least one third of children on antibiotics experienced side effects. Although their rate of short-term resolution was slightly improved, there was no long-term benefit to antibiotic therapy: Medicated children demonstrate no less otitis four weeks after antibiotic treatment than those treated with placebos. In fact, there was a higher rate of returning acute ear infection seen in those who received antibiotic therapy, and the return of serous otitis was two to six times higher in those treated with antibiotics.

However, when language development is retarded due to prolonged middle ear fluid, the temporary hearing improvement provided by the tubes might be worth the risks.

Generally, fever or great localized pain accompany signs of drum inflammation (redness) and fluid buildup (bulging of drum) in a true acute infection. The most sensible modern recommendation regarding ear infection treatment is to use antibiotic therapy only in genuinely acute infections that do not resolve on their own within a few days. This regimen is currently followed in several European countries with positive results; it also reduces the development of bacterial strains resistant to antibiotics. A heating pad over the ear affords some relief, and many feel that recovery can be hastened by warm garlic or tea tree oil drops in the ear. Favorite antimicrobial supplements, such as goldenseal or grape-seed extract, may prove beneficial. Fever should not be reduced, as it is the body’s own powerful process for killing infecting microbes.

The value of surgical insertion of tubes through the eardrum to treat chronic ear conditions is widely debated. There are many risks involved, including a much greater return of infection once the tubes are gone.
In conclusion, medical treatments complicate the picture of middle ear infections without providing long-term benefits. Removing the chief causes of middle ear infections should be the preferred goal. This can be achieved by providing breastmilk, avoiding overuse of antibiotics and recognizing, treating and avoiding exposure to allergens, especially food allergens.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Non-intervention: Don’t Just Do Something; Stand There!

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Non-intervention: Don’t Just Do Something; Stand There!

February 26, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,114 today. Gold is up to $1,215 per ounce. Oil is back up to $50 per barrel. Bitcoin is up slightly at $237 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 1.94% today.

Don’t just do something; stand there!

I chuckled when I heard this spin on the popular cliché in regards to the proper approach to natural childbirth. Then it occurred to me that this call for non-intervention is applicable for pretty much every other subject we take interest in here at Zenconomics: finance, economics, health care, education, government, all of them. Modern culture has taken a hyper-invasive approach in each of these areas to most everyone’s detriment.

Non-intervention in childbirth is based on the understanding that the mother is perfectly capable of delivering her child without any external ‘help’ save the support of her partner and her health care team. Non-intervention in childbirth operates on the firm belief that the mother’s body is perfectly designed for the task at hand and we have a lot of historical evidence to support this position.

We don’t know for sure how long the human race has been around. History textbooks tend to start the timeline around 10,000 B.C. and they say we were all cavemen for about 25,000 years prior to that. I have seen compelling alternative studies that suggest the caveman story is largely false and that humans existed at least 100,000 years ago with relatively the same genetic structure and cognitive ability. Regardless of the timeline, what we do know is that children have been born naturally according to the non-intervention principle for 99.9% of human history. Modern hospitals did not take shape until the turn of the 20th century and 95% of all children in the U.S. were still born at home in 1910. The number of homebirths plummeted to 3% by 1960 and looks to have bottomed at 1% in 1980. Approximately 5% of all births in the U.S. are currently homebirths outside of the hospital.

The data shows that complications do occur during natural labor about 10% of the time and the vast majority of these cases are minor but best addressed in a hospital setting. This is the primary risk when doing a homebirth but the risk can be mitigated with an emergency back-up plan. Fortunately, the possible complications are well-documented and they can be detected early simply by monitoring the baby’s heartbeat during labor which is now very easy to do thanks to the advancement of technology.

U.S. hospitals are extraordinarily good at handling emergency complications but this has led to a hyper-invasive approach. U.S. hospitals view childbirth as an emergency situation and employ all manner of invasive interventions during every birth whether or not a complication arises. This interventionist approach actually increases both the probability of a complication occurring as well as the severity of that complication because invasive interventions have unintended consequences. This is why you hear about so many birth horror stories in the U.S. Standard interventions like planned inductions, synthetic labor enhancing drugs, drugs for pain relief, and the restriction of free-movement disrupt normal physiology which can have undesirable effects on both mother and baby.

Non-intervention in childbirth is about trust. We must trust in the magnificent creative power that permeates the Universe. We must trust in the chaotic order and balance of the natural world. We must trust in the innate strength and wisdom of the mother. And we must trust in the majesty of childbirth.

The non-intervention philosophy is simple, holistic, and comprehensive. This applies to natural childbirth just as it applies to holistic wellness practices, free market economics, sound personal finance, childhood education, and the role of government which we will look at tomorrow.

Non-intervention requires a commitment to research, knowledge, and understanding which will cut through unsubstantiated fear and propaganda. It requires strength of will and a calmness of mind capable of tuning out the noise while tapping in to the inner wisdom we all possess. Perhaps most of all non-intervention requires an acceptance of personal responsibility: we are each personally responsible for every choice we make.

Non-intervention is not complicated but it does fly in the face of modern culture. We are constantly inundated with messages of insecurity, materialism, conformity, status, fear, intolerance, and hate from mainstream media sources – especially from the television “news” programming. These messages almost exclusively hold intervention as the solution to any problem and this outlook has shaped modern culture as most people buy right in to this way of thinking. But an amazing internal transformation occurs within those who tune out the noise and embrace the philosophy of non-intervention.

Our midwife made a profound statement to wife Rachel and I during our initial informational interview and the wisdom of her words still echoes in my head:

”A good midwife knows when to sit on her hands.”

I am convinced that this ability to sit patiently on one’s hands with a calm mind while the crowd screams for action is the peak of self-discipline.

Until the morrow,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the paradigm shift underway please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Children May Not Need Antibiotics for Acute Infective Conjunctivitis

by Pathways Magazine – ICPA.org:

Antibiotics are not necessary for most children with acute infective conjunctivitis, according to the results of a randomized, double-blind trial published in the June 22 Early Online Publication issue of The Lancet.

“We have shown that symptoms resolve without antibiotics in most children with acute infective conjunctivitis,” lead author Peter W. Rose, from the University of Oxford, England, said in a news release. “The health economic argument against antibiotic prescription for acute conjunctivitis is compelling.”

The authors note that each year, one in eight schoolchildren has an episode of acute infective conjunctivitis annually, and that standard clinical practice is to prescribe a topical antibiotic. However, there is little evidence to support this practice.

“Parents should be encouraged to cleanse their children’s eyes if an antibiotic is not prescribed,” the authors conclude. “Parents should be encouraged to treat children themselves without medical consultation, unless their child develops unusual symptoms or the symptoms persist for more than a week.”

1 in 8 schoolchildren has an episode of acute infective conjunctivitis annually, and that standard clinical practice is to prescribe a topical antibiotic. However, there is little evidence to support this practice.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Antibiotics and Ear Infections

by Linda Folden Palmer, DC – ICPA.org:

In cases where the immune response lags behind a bacterial infection that is dangerously decimating the body, the 1950s advent of antibiotic medications saved the lives of millions of people who would have otherwise succumbed. However, the overzealous use of these wonder drugs has now created a new realm of powerful diseases we are unable to fight with existing antibiotics.

Once a resistant bacteria has been created in response to antibiotic therapy, it has the power to transfer its resistance to other microbes, developing new resistant strains. This has been an especially significant issue for the young, who have been chief targets for antibiotic misuse because they are more susceptible to infections and infections are more worrisome in them. Powerful, antibiotic-resistant strains spread easily around day care centers.

Tuberculosis and pneumonia were once conquered with antibiotics, but we are now threatened again by TB epidemics and increased pneumonia deaths. The excitement over antibiotics has also led to reduced hygiene in hospitals. Hospital sanitation peaked decades ago, when its importance was first widely recognized. Now 10 percent of the patients in hospitals acquire infections, a large portion of which are resistant to antibiotics due to their expansive use in hospitals. Three percent of these patients die from their infections.

Antibiotics have many possible side effects, including diarrhea, malabsorption, cramping, yeast infections, agitation, rashes and blood disorders. By wiping out much of the normal flora throughout the body, antibiotics leave patients, especially children, far more vulnerable to other infections, such as thrush (oral yeast), and dangerous intestinal microbes that cause diarrheal illness. Infectious diarrhea follows antibiotic use at rates ranging from 5 to 39 percent, depending on the drug. The most common intestinal infection caused by antibiotics is colitis from clostridium infection, which has a 3.5 percent mortality rate.

Significantly, antibiotics are generally inappropriate for treating ear infections. They have no effect on viruses and are certainly inappropriate for colds and flus, where they can lead to secondary infection. Yet the majority of children visiting physicians with these complaints will receive antibiotic prescriptions. This is unfortunate. Most of the time, children are better off left to fight illness with their own immune systems, while their parents and physician provide careful monitoring.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Whose Prescription Is It, Anyway?

by Author Howard Markel, MD, PhD – ICPA.org:

Attention Deficit Disorder and Ritalin

The boy is 14 years old and has one of the most severe cases of attention deficit disorder (ADD) that I have seen as a pediatrician. He fidgets; there are nonstop hand gestures, leg swinging and tapping. More troubling, he simply will not pay attention to any adult attempting to engage him in conversation, placing him in great jeopardy of flunking out of school.

During his first office visit, the boy explained his predicament to me: “It’s like I’m in a room with 20 big screen HDTVs blaring away in surround-sound. And on them are all the newest videos from MTV. The problem is that I can’t decide which one to watch, so I try to watch them all.”

His mother is less focused on her son’s perpetual motion than on his angry outbursts and what she sees as his refusal to listen to her. The day we met, she had already decided what she wanted to do. I was being told to write a prescription for Ritalin.

As every pediatrician knows, stimulant drugs like methylphenidate (Ritalin) cause most people to speed up their actions and thoughts. But for those with ADD (with or without hyperactivity), these drugs can slow them down, reduce overactivity, increase attention span, and can even improve relationships between a child and parents or other family members. There are, however, some nagging problems: none of us is exactly certain how these drugs work or what their long-term benefits and risks might be. Sometimes, they cause intolerable side effects such as tics and sleep disturbances.

The young man was clearly unhappy with his mother’s decision and let it be known with a slew of scowls and outcries of “Shut up!!” I asked him why he would prefer not being able to pay attention to his schoolwork, to which he replied: “You just don’t get it. I’m a lot more fun when I don’t take Ritalin. I crack great jokes in class and my friends think I am really cool. But when I take that stuff, I’m zoned out. I’m like a log. Ritalin ruins my life.”

This description went a long way in explaining why many teachers (and not a few parents) of kids with ADD prefer their charges to be medicated and why many children resist such attempts. Left untreated, however, many of these kids create problems with disruptive behaviors and can destroy the normal dynamics of a classroom and at home.

Here was my dilemma: The boy’s mother, and not the young man, wanted the prescription. The law defines a 14-year-old as a minor, but given that his condition was hardly fatal and essentially a behavioral issue, to whom should I have listened? The mother, who wants a more controllable child, or the boy, who simply wants to be what he perceives to be his true self? After all, the essence of adolescence is finding out who you are and figuring out who you want to be. As a pediatrician, I am supposed to be assisting youngsters in this difficult process.

That day, I listened to the parent and wrote the standard prescription for 40 mg of Ritalin a day. Like millions of youngsters with ADD, he takes 20 mg before going to school in the morning and another 20 mg at lunch.

Every month, I see the boy to renew his prescription for Ritalin and to make sure that there are no serious side effects. At each visit, he greets me with a deep-rooted but quiet anger. His fidgeting and outbursts seem to have diminished, but there has been little improvement in his schoolwork. Last year, he barely passed the eighth grade and his mother admitted that 2 of his teachers simply elected to pass him to avoid a repeat year with him. Nevertheless, she is delighted with the results.

When the boy is on vacation from school, I have noticed a definite change in his demeanor. Typically, when school is out, pediatricians give children with ADD a “drug holiday.” When he does not take his medication, his fidgeting and inattention are back in full force but he beams with joy, at least when I see him, and tells me that without Ritalin he can again enjoy cutting up in front of his friends.

But in his mother’s defense, I don’t live with him and have no real idea how disruptive his ADD behaviors can be at home. In cases like these, I have to listen to the parent that does live with him. I remain terribly conflicted about pharmacologically altering this young man against his will. Using potent pills to treat a disorder we do not completely understand flies in the face of prudent medical practice, and yet we pediatricians do this all the time with our ADD patients. More than a century ago, the great physician Sir William Osler observed that “the desire to take medicine is one feature which distinguishes man, the animal, from the rest of his fellow creatures.” In the practice of pediatrics, we are often compelled to include the parent’s desire in that rubric.

But still, I wonder, am I doing the right thing?

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Nutritional Considerations for ADHD

by Pathways Magazine – ICPA.org:

Early Use of ADHD Drug Alters Brain

Ritalin use in preteen children may lead to depression later in life. Ritalin and cocaine have different effects on humans. But their effects on the brain are very similar. When given to preteen rats, both drugs cause long-term changes in behavior.

One of the changes seems good. Early exposure to Ritalin makes rats less responsive to the rewarding effects of cocaine. But that’s not all good. It might mean that the drug short-circuits the brain’s reward system. That would make it difficult to experience pleasure—a “hallmark symptom of depression,” Carlezon and colleagues note.

The other change seems all bad. Early exposure to Ritalin increases rats’ depressive-like responses in a stress test. “These experiments suggest that preadolescent exposure to [Ritalin] in rats causes numerous complex behavioral adaptations, each of which endures into adulthood,” Carlezon and colleagues conclude. “This work highlights the importance of a more thorough understanding of the enduring neurobiological effects of juvenile exposure to psychotropic drugs.”

my.webmd.com/content/article/78/95700.htm?lastselectedguid={5FE84E90 -BC77-4056-A91C-9531713CA348}

Consider Fish Oil Over Ritalin

Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have problems paying attention, listening to instructions, and completing tasks; they also fidget and squirm, are hyperactive, blurt out answers, and interrupt others.

It is conservatively estimated that 3-5% of the schoolage population has ADHD. Although drugs, such as Ritalin, are frequently used to treat ADHD, they are fraught with complications. Disadvantages include possible side effects, including decreased appetite and growth, insomnia, increased irritability, and rebound hyperactivity when the drug wears off.

One would not expect to find that a single cause or even a handful of factors could explain why ADHD appears to be so rampant in our society. Because it is accepted that both genetic and environmental factors play a role in ADHD, many other factors—both intrinsic and extrinsic— could influence an individual’s fatty acid status.

Inefficient Conversion of ALA (Flax Oil) To EPA And DHA

A possible cause for the low fish oil status of the ADHD children may be impaired conversion of the fatty acid precursors LA and ALA to their longer and more highly unsaturated products, such as EPA and DHA (fish oil fats).

It appears that children with ADHD just are not able to chemically convert the plant omega-3, ALA to fish oil very well. The problem is further worsened when omega-6 fats are consumed and the ideal omega-6:3 ratio of 1:1, progresses to the typical standard American ratio of 15:1. Many of these children have ratios which are even worse and can be as high as 50:1.

This study provides the research evidence supporting the use of the omega-3 fats found in fish oils to effectively address the underlying deficiency that is present in most of these children and appears to be contributing to the ADHD.

Two books worth having for your lending libraries:

Smart Fats: How Dietary Fats and Oils Affect Mental, Physical and Emotional Intelligence
by Michael A. Schmidt

Omega 3 Connection
by Dr. Stoll

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

The Myth of Attention Deficit Disorder

by Thomas Armstrong, PHD – ICPA.org:

Over the past thirty years, attention deficit disorder (ADD), or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), has emerged from the relative obscurity of cognitive psychologists’ research laboratories to become the “disease du jour” of America’s schoolchildren. Accompanying this popularity has been a virtually complete acceptance of the validity of this “disorder” by scientists, physicians, psychologists, educators, parents, and others. On closer critical scrutiny, however, there is much to be troubled about concerning ADD/ADHD as a real medical diagnosis.

There is no definitive objective set of criteria to determine who has ADD/ADHD and who does not. Rather, there are a loose set of behaviors (hyperactivity, distractibility, and impulsivity) that combine in different ways to give rise to the “disorder.” These behaviors are highly context-dependent. A child may be hyperactive while seated at a desk doing a boring worksheet, but not necessarily while singing in a school musical. These behaviors are also very general in nature and give no clue as to their real origins. A child can be hyperactive because he’s bored, depressed, anxious, allergic to milk, creative, a hands-on learner, or has a difficult temperament, is stressed out, is driven by a media-mad culture, or any number of other possible causes.

The tests that have been used to determine if someone has ADD/ADHD are either artificially objective and remote from the lives of real children (in one test, a child is asked to press a button every time he sees a 1 followed by a 9 on a computer screen), or hopelessly subjective (many rating scales ask parents and teachers to score a child’s behavior on a scale from 1 to 5: these scores depend upon the subjective attitudes more than the actual behaviors of the children involved).

The treatments used for this supposed “disorder” are also problematic. Ritalin use is up 500% over the past six years. Yet, Ritalin does not cure the problem; it only masks symptoms. In addition, there are several disadvantages to Ritalin: children don’t like taking it, children use it as an “excuse” for their behavior (“I hit Ed because I forgot to take my pill.”), and there are some indications it may be related to later substance abuse of drugs like cocaine. Behavior modification programs used for kids labeled ADD/ADHD work, but they don’t help kids become better learners. In fact, they may interfere with the development of a child’s intrinsic love of learning (kids behave simply to get more rewards), they may frustrate some kids (when they don’t get expected rewards), and they can also impair creativity and stifle cooperation.

ADD/ADHD is a popular diagnosis because it serves as a tidy way to explain away the complexities of turn-of-the-millennium life in America. Over the past few decades, our families have broken up, respect for authority has eroded, mass media has created a “short-attention-span culture,” and stress levels have skyrocketed. When our children start to act out under the strain, it’s convenient to create a scientific-sounding term to label them with, an effective drug to stifle their “symptoms,” and a whole program of ADD/ADHD workbooks, videos, and instructional materials to use to fit them in a box that relieves parents and teachers of any worry that it might be due to their own failure (or the failure of the broader culture) to nurture or teach effectively. Mainly, the ADD/ADHD label is a tragic decoy that takes the focus off of where it’s needed most: the real life of each unique child. Instead of seeing each child for who he or she is (strengths, limitations, interests, temperaments, learning styles etc.) and addressing his or her specific needs, the child is reduced to an “ADD child,” where the potential to see the best in him or her is severely eroded (since ADD/ADHD puts all the emphasis on the deficits, not the strengths), and where the number of potential solutions to help them is highly limited to a few child-controlling interventions.

Instead of this deficit-based ADD/ADH paradigm, I’d like to suggest a wellness-based holistic paradigm that sees each child in terms of his or her ultimate worth, and addresses each child’s unique needs. To do this, we need to provide a wide range of options for parents or teachers.