10/15/02 NEWSLETTER carlstonmd.com
Hello Patients HOME
     I hope you are ready for the change of seasons. It is easier to get your exercise habits established before it gets cold and dark and rainy than to start later.  The exercise will also help your immune system gear up for the cold and flu season, lift your mood and, if you exercise out of doors, give you a chance to enjoy the fall weather.

     Please remember to check the web site periodically (www.carlstonmd.com) because the site has lots of useful health information and we are continually adding to the site.

     The book should arrive any day.  You can see a picture of it on my homepage.

Best,
Michael Carlston
In This Issue: INDEX
Book Release:  Classical Homeopathy - By Michael Carlston M.D. TOP
     After many years of labor and with the assistance of many I will become a parent again on October 8 when my book Classical Homeopathy is published. As I had long recognized that it was my task to create this book to bridge homeopathic and conventional medicine, this represents the completion of a major life goal. In my inevitably biased opinion it is close to perfect (See how the parenthood analogy applies?). However, as the book was created for health professionals and health sciences students I do not know how many of you would enjoy reading it. If you read it, it will certainly be informative, maybe too much so. It is, after all a textbook. You will certainly learn more than you ever wanted to learn about homeopathic medical research. It is much more than just research though, with discussions of the ancient roots of homeopathic medicine, clinical methods in homeopathy, the place of homeopathy internationally and speculation about the role of homeopathy in the future as well as other academic information (homeopathic pharmaceutical practices, credentialing etc). We will have copies of the book for sale for anyone who is interested.
SUPPLEMENT ORDERING TOP
     Those of you with lengthy memories will recall that I have been promising that you will be able to purchase supplements online through the website.  Late last year I arranged for the site to be hosted by a company with the capability of providing this service.  Unfortunately we have run into problems with the manufacturers.  Only one of them will allow us to sell their products by name through the site without arranging for the use of cumbersome passwords for you.  Their reasoning is that they only allow sales of their products through physician's offices directly to patients under the care of those physicians and free access through the Internet could subvert this prohibition.  So we are considering other ways to solve this problem including sending a list of items available to those of my patients who receive this newsletter. Sorry for the delay but we are doing what we can to make it easier for you.
BOTTOM LINE HEALTH TOP
     Probably because my point of view is a bit different, regularly over the past 20 years, some media representative takes an interest in my perspective.  Sometimes it has been a very bad experience, rarely a very positive one and, most often, just sort of an interesting communication challenge.  My hope is to achieve the Hippocratic admonition “First do no harm”.  If they educate in some way, all the better.  The new issue of BOTTOM LINE/HEALTH includes an article written from some interviews I gave.  Let me know what you think of it.  I think it belongs in the usual midrange "hmmm" category.
HYGIENE HYPOTHESIS TOP
     I am pleased about the flurry of recently published “hygiene hypothesis” research studies.  This is a very important breakthrough in our understanding of immunity and too few people have been aware of it.

One study found that prior use of antibiotics significantly increased the risk of developing one form of inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s disease).  Investigators concluded that antibiotics probably caused 28% of the cases of Crohn’s disease in their sample.  Smoking and use of birth control pills also increased risk of developing Crohn’s disease. This recognition of the beneficial health effects of dirt/infectious disease and the adverse effects of antibiotic use is very, very important to our growing understanding of human disease.

Another study found that children growing up in dirty houses had a lesser risk of developing asthma and allergies (my kids are safe).

At the same time we are collecting data on the other side of the equation. Up to 80% of medications taken by people and animals comes out the same way they went in.  As a result our ponds, rivers and lakes usually contain significant levels of prescription medication.  Unfortunately, this "soup" of medicine appears to be more toxic than its individual parts.  A series of studies have found that microorganisms exposed to common drugs (including antibiotics, antidepressants and cholesterol lowering medication) had no ill effects when exposed to one at a time but a variety of deformities and death rates up to 90% when these same medications were mixed together.

My hope is that we learn about these problems fast enough to minimize the damage we have been doing to our immune systems and to the rest of the web of life on this planet.
BREAST CANCER TOP
     Adding to the growing controversy about limitations of mammography comes evidence that routine breast self examination (BSE) might not help much either.  A carefully done 10 year study of 260,000 Chinese women found no difference in the rate of breast cancer death between the half of the group that received training in BSE, monthly reminders and semi-annual supervised self exams and the other group who had no training at all.

Maybe a longer study, or one conducted in an area with higher rate of breast cancer (for example SF Bay Area) would have shown some difference. However, a big difference would be quite unlikely given the power of this study.  The study did not investigate whether examination by a professional had any impact on breast cancer deaths.

Coupled with ongoing questions about the utility of mammograms, I think we are all feeling more than a little but confused at this point.
NEWLY IDENTIFIED CARCINOGEN IN COMMON FOODS TOP
     In another blow to the reputation of carbohydrates, food scientists have discovered that acrylamide, a highly carcinogenic chemical, commonly appears in many cooked starchy foods.  An amino acid (protein) called asparagine when it is heated to high temperatures in the presence of certain sugars leads to the formation of acrylamides.  Frying or baking carbohydrates at high temperature appears to be the key.  The process of browning these foods seems to create the acrylamide. Breads, potato products and some breakfast cereals all contain this nasty chemical.  It has probably been in foods ever since our ancestors began cooking food.  This is a big surprise though as we had no idea this chemical was in food and, given these new data, estimates are that each year this chemical causes several hundred cases of human cancer in the United States.
OMEGA-3 OILS AND MS TOP
     We can to the list of diseases benefited by omega-3 oils. Multiple sclerosis taking fish oil had significantly fewer symptom relapses than did control patients taking olive oil. Although this was a small study and only single blinded (patients didn�t know their treatment but the treating physicians did know), given the many, many studies that have found that omega-3 oils help inflammatory and neurologic disease, a positive effect here should be expected.
CO Q 10 AND PARKINSON�S DISEASE TOP
     Also a small but compelling study found that high doses of Co Q10 slows the progression of Parkinson�s Disease. In every aspect measured, patients receiving Co Q10 did better than those taking placebo. The decline was 44% less in the treated group and most significant for the ability to continue daily life functions. The improvement was greatest at the highest dosage used (1,200 mg/day). The rate of side effects (headache, back pain & dizziness) was the same in placebo and treatment groups.
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