OptimalHealthResearch.com
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Optimal
Health Research News
October
2009 ~ Well over 1,000 subscribers
benefit from our newsletter containing news,
downloads, and instructional videos |
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Dear Clinicians and Colleagues,
Please enjoy the latest improvements to
our newsletter and the practical,
clinical information that can help
advance your practice.
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Clinical Pearl & Question-of-the-Month:
What is the single most important mechanism
for the effectiveness of low-carbohydrate
diets in the treatment of systemic
hypertension?
Try to
name at least 3 mechanisms, one of
which is
most important.
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"Chiropractic
and Naturopathic Mastery of Common Clinical
Disorders" is now available in
*every* chiropractic and naturopathic
college in the USA!
Don't worry about the competition. Just
practice the best evidence-based
integrative clinical care in your area.
Most students and faculty are "too busy"
to read about science-based integrative
protocols for the most common clinical
conditions seen in clinical practice.
However, in the interest of advancing
the profession(s),
Chiropractic and Naturopathic Mastery of
Common Clinical Disorders
has been mailed to every
chiropractic/naturopathic college
library in the USA. Check out the
textbook details
here.
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Clinical News
You
Can Use
1) Drug company greed and
manipulation of Doctors' prescribing habits
results in $2.3 BILLION DOLLAR fine:
"In what it calls the largest
health-care fraud settlement in U.S.
history, the Justice Department said
Wednesday that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer
Inc and a subsidiary have agreed to pay a
$2.3 billion penalty for illegally promoting
certain drugs." "Today's landmark settlement
is an example of the Department of Justice's
ongoing and intensive efforts to protect the
American public and recover funds for the
federal treasury and the public from those
who seek to earn a profit through fraud,"
Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli said
in the news release. Kathleen Sebelius,
secretary of the Department of Health and
Human Services, said: "The Department of
Health and Human Services will continue to
seek opportunities to work with its
government partners to prosecute fraud
wherever we can find it. But we will also
look for new ways to prevent fraud before it
happens. Health care is too important to let
a single dollar go to waste."
Source:
US News and World Report. "The Justice
Department said Pfizer sales people created
sham requests from physicians asking for
information about unapproved uses of certain
drugs. The information was then mailed to
doctors. Officials said Pfizer also
entertained doctors at resorts and
encouraged them to prescribe its drugs. ...
The Justice Department said the
investigation and settlement would not have
been possible without the assistance of
whistle-blowers who worked at Pfizer. The
settlement includes a provision for six of
those whistle-blowers to split more than
$100 million dollars."
Source:
CNN
2) ACA "Superconference" in St Louis
Oct31-Nov1 promises to educate hundreds of
chiropractic doctors in new clinical
techniques:
Dr Vasquez will be delivering 3 separate
presentations on the clinical applications
of interventional nutrition for the
following common clinical situations: 1)
wellness promotion, 2) diabetes mellitus and
the metabolic syndrome, and 3) chronic
hypertension. For more details,
see the brochure and registration form
available for download.
3) Clinical Skill *Video*
Review:
If you're not swabbing and treating for flu
and the deluge of upper respiratory
infections flying around, then you are
missing out on helping a lot of patients and
on helping to build your practice. Why
would you do that? Here's a low-tech way to
get back in the game by swabbing and testing
your patients.
See these
technique videos demonstrated by Dr
Nerida Bates and by Nova Scotia's Capital
District Health Authority. What's next?
Implement the
Immunorestoration and Anti-viral Protocol
from
Chiropractic and Naturopathic Mastery of
Common Clinical Disorders, of course!
4) Texas hospital routinely tests nearly
all patients for vitamin D deficiency:
This past week I met with several of the
directors of a local Family Medicine
Residency program and was pleasantly
surprised that they had adopted routine
vitamin D testing for nearly all patients.
Even though we get plenty of sunshine here
in Texas, I've personally seen patients with
vitamin D levels so low that they are
reported by the lab as UNDETECTABLE and our
medical Family Practice colleagues are
reporting levels of 4...sometimes 3...among
some of their inpatients and outpatients.
One of their most interesting patients was
one who could not be weaned from a
ventilator until her vitamin D deficiency
was discovered and corrected. AMAZING!
Of course, if you've followed my work on
this topic, then
you're way ahead of the pack. All
clinicians should be testing for and
treating vitamin D deficiency on a daily
basis!
See our publications and new
guidelines on vitamin D testing and
treatment.
We must
offer our congratulations to this hospital
system for implementing nutritional
surveillance (at least in part) for the
benefit of its patients and customers.
5) Rapid Metabolic Improvements from
Utilization of the Paleo-Mediterranean
Diet--Results of a New Clinical Trial:
BACKGROUND: The contemporary American diet
figures centrally in the pathogenesis of
numerous chronic diseases-'diseases of
civilization'. We investigated in humans
whether a diet similar to that consumed by
our preagricultural hunter-gatherer
ancestors (that is, a paleolithic type diet)
confers health benefits. METHODS: We
performed an outpatient, metabolically
controlled study, in nine nonobese sedentary
healthy volunteers, ensuring no weight loss
by daily weight. We compared the findings
when the participants consumed their usual
diet with those when they consumed a
paleolithic type diet. The participants
consumed their usual diet for 3 days, three
ramp-up diets of increasing potassium and
fiber for 7 days, then
a
paleolithic type diet comprising lean meat,
fruits, vegetables and nuts, and excluding
nonpaleolithic type foods, such as cereal
grains, dairy or legumes, for 10 days.
Outcomes included arterial blood pressure
(BP); 24-h urine sodium and potassium
excretion; plasma glucose and insulin areas
under the curve (AUC) during a 2 h oral
glucose tolerance test (OGTT); insulin
sensitivity; plasma lipid concentrations;
and brachial artery reactivity in response
to ischemia.
RESULTS:
Compared with the baseline (usual) diet, we
observed (a) significant reductions in BP
associated with improved arterial
distensibility (-3.1+/-2.9, P=0.01 and
+0.19+/-0.23, P=0.05);(b) significant
reduction in plasma insulin vs time AUC,
during the OGTT (P=0.006); and (c) large
significant reductions in total cholesterol,
low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and
triglycerides (-0.8+/-0.6 (P=0.007),
-0.7+/-0.5 (P=0.003) and -0.3+/-0.3 (P=0.01)
mmol/l respectively). In all these measured
variables, either eight or all nine
participants had identical directional
responses when switched to paleolithic type
diet, that is, near consistently improved
status of circulatory, carbohydrate and
lipid metabolism/physiology.
CONCLUSIONS: Even short-term consumption of
a paleolithic type diet improves BP and
glucose tolerance, decreases insulin
secretion, increases insulin sensitivity and
improves lipid profiles without weight loss
in healthy sedentary humans.
Source:
Frassetto LA, Schloetter M, Mietus-Synder M,
Morris RC Jr, Sebastian A. Metabolic and
physiologic improvements from consuming a
paleolithic, hunter-gatherer type diet.
Eur J Clin
Nutr. 2009 Aug;63(8):947-55. Epub
2009 Feb 11
These
benefits of the Paleo-Mediterranean diet are
well known to doctors who utilize
my 5-part nutritional wellness protocol.
6) Clinical Pearl,
Answer
to Quiz-of-the-Month:
To understand how high-carbohydrate diets
contribute to chronic hypertension, one must
first--and only--understand the spectrum of
physiologic effects mediated by insulin.
Beyond activation of GLUT receptors for the
facilitated entry of glucose into cells,
insulin also promotes reduced arterial
compliance (ie, "stiff arteries") and sodium
retention. This should make the explanation
of the importance of dietary optimization
much easier for clinicians who now know the
mechanisms involved and can easily explain
these to your patients; for more details and
pearls, see this newsletter pearl in context
in Chiropractic and Naturopathic Mastery of
Common Clinical Disorders, with the detail
page for
this month's Quiz and Clinical Pearl (Oct
'09).
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As always, please let me
know if you have suggestions or
corrections for any of the textbooks.
If your edits are substantial and
significant, I'll provide you a discount
or complimentary copy of the next
updated printing.
Sincerely wishing you
the best of health and success,
naturally!
Dr. Alex Vasquez
Alex
Vasquez DC ND
Seminars, Presentations, Research:
www.OptimalHealthResearch.com
Integrative and Biological Medicine Research
and Consulting LLC
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