Dear Patients,

A major theme of this edition of the newsletter is old business. That is, things I forgot to include and further comments on a topic. Reflecting on the topics I’ve covered in this newsletter over the years, it is shocking to realize that I have never said anything about chocolate. I must confess that I suspect my own subconsciously motivated desire to hoard it all for myself may be the reason.

Best, Michael Carlston, M.D.
www.carlstonmd.com 
707-545-1554

When I write a newsletter, my goal is to generate a reaction. That is usually a change in patient awareness and/or behavior. The last newsletter led to action on my part. After some of you wrote back to me about the unused medication/environmental toxicity issue, I did some hunting. I learned that many states have considered, and some have passed, legislation about donations of unused medication. Unfortunately, the presumption of evil intent leads to fairly severe restrictions on what medications are acceptable and who will accept them. An email from the coordinator of the most accommodating follows:

------ Forwarded Message
From: MADRE <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Medication donations
Dear Michael Carlston,

Thank you for your interest in MADRE’s Medical Project! We do accept out-of-state donations. Please note that we accept medical supplies and unopened medicine that will not reach its expiration date within 1 year.

You may send donations to our office in New York:

MADRE
Attn: Medical Project
121 West 27th St.
Room #301
New York, NY 10001
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any other questions.
Regards,

Carolina Paula
Medical Project Coordinator

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Today’s paper included an article linking aging fathers to increased risk of autism in their children. As fathers’ got older, the risk increased dramatically. We must interpret this carefully. It could be that men with autistic qualities themselves tend to marry later and so pass along their genetic tendency belatedly. It could be that other factors are causative, not just the fathers’ age. However, despite the uncertainty that age is the cause, there is a high likelihood that some inherited factor is involved. At the very least, this is a powerful piece of information in the effort to sort out the puzzle of an increasingly common disease.

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Chocollissima is a new “functional food” (i.e., a food with medicinal/health effects) based upon organic chocolate. Among the many “desirable” effects of chocolate touted in the media is an apparent aphrodisiac influence. Apparently inspired by Mae West (“Too much of a good thing can be wonderful”), one company has decided to augment chocolate’s innately aphrodisic qualities by adding herbs of similar repute. Although heightening hedonism may be needless, the many other life enhancing qualities of chocolate make it worthy of consideration.

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The most common kidney stones are made of calcium oxalate. Reducing oxalates reduces the incidence of kidney stones. It turns out that a fraction of the probiotic preparations commercially available seem to rid the body of oxalates and, thus, probably reduce the likelihood of kidney stones. We don’t know that this is true yet, and we aren’t certain which probiotics might be the best in this situation. As kidney stones are very common (and extremely painful), I am certain that more research is coming.

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Pomegranate juice has been one of the hottest “latest things” recently. The latest, latest thing on pomegranate juice has me excited (juiced?). Sure, the findings about pomegranate juice reducing angina were great, but the diabetes findings jump into my extremely interesting category. Pomegranate juice is loaded with potassium, so its good effects on the heart were somewhat predictable. It is also loaded with simple sugars and so should mess up diabetic control.

OOOPS. Not so. A recent study showed that it actually reduced blood sugars, or at least did not raise them as much as it “should” have.

I love unexpected results in medical research because they are always the opening chapter of an interesting story. At the very least it means somebody who should know better messed up. Sometimes it means the clock is ticking on someone’s confession of fraud. The absolute best ones, though (and this is what I expect here), are when we uncover our own ignorance. It does not make sense because we knew too little to understand why it does make sense.

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Among medicine’s long-standing informal traditions has been antipathy towards other health care viewpoints. Interestingly, the AMA was formed in response to the formation of the first national organization of physicians, the American Institute of Homeopathy, three years earlier. One local medical doctor once told me that his father (also an MD) taught him to walk on the opposite side of the street from the chiropractor’s office in their small town.

Imagine how impressive it is then to read about a recently published pilot study demonstrating the positive effect of chiropractic on high blood pressure.

The study included 50 patients without neck pain, who had mildly elevated systolic (the upper number) blood pressures and evidence that the highest neck bone (the atlas) was misaligned on chiropractic examination. No hypertension medications were allowed. If a test subject was on antihypertensive medication, it was stopped. Half of the patients received a single standardized adjustment. The other half had a “placebo” adjustment.

The average systolic blood pressure in the placebo group stayed the same, 150 before and 148 eight weeks after the “treatment”. In the true procedure group, the average blood pressure showed a statistically significant drop by three weeks and continued to drop over the eight-week study (147 before and 130 by eight weeks).

This result only applies to mild hypertension in those with a specific type of misalignment in the neck, and it is a preliminary finding. However, when you consider the need for only one manipulation and the benefit of avoiding overuse of medication, it is great. Hopefully this will lead to further high quality research on this specific issue and others.Among medicine’s long-standing informal traditions has been antipathy towards other health care viewpoints. Interestingly, the AMA was formed in response to the formation of the first national organization of physicians, the American Institute of Homeopathy, three years earlier. One local medical doctor once told me that his father (also an MD) taught him to walk on the opposite side of the street from the chiropractor’s office in their small town.

Imagine how impressive it is then to read about a recently published pilot study demonstrating the positive effect of chiropractic on high blood pressure.

The study included 50 patients without neck pain, who had mildly elevated systolic (the upper number) blood pressures and evidence that the highest neck bone (the atlas) was misaligned on chiropractic examination. No hypertension medications were allowed. If a test subject was on antihypertensive medication, it was stopped. Half of the patients received a single standardized adjustment. The other half had a “placebo” adjustment.

The average systolic blood pressure in the placebo group stayed the same, 150 before and 148 eight weeks after the “treatment”. In the true procedure group, the average blood pressure showed a statistically significant drop by three weeks and continued to drop over the eight-week study (147 before and 130 by eight weeks).

This result only applies to mild hypertension in those with a specific type of misalignment in the neck, and it is a preliminary finding. However, when you consider the need for only one manipulation and the benefit of avoiding overuse of medication, it is great. Hopefully this will lead to further high quality research on this specific issue and others.

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