Musical instruments play an important role in music therapy. Sometimes therapists play them to exert a calming effect on certain kinds of patients. Often the therapy consists of patients themselves extemporizing on instruments they choose. Or a patient can undertake to learn how to play an instrument as part of healing. The piano or various wind instruments are popular in these uses, but any instrument can presumably be employed. Continue reading »
Amid the fanfare regarding initiatives to treat the devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic, a noteworthy finding has been overlooked. After more than two decades of debate, experimentation by patients, and scattered clinical testing of non-drug therapies of HIV, we now know much better which ones actually work.
Humankind needs a low-cost, low-side effects therapy for disseminated infections like HIV and multidrug-resistant TB. In fact, circumstantial evidence and logic suggest that such a therapy exists. But, for perverse reasons, it has never been properly tested. That therapy is Biophotonic Therapy, which can be administered to the blood extracorporeally with various kinds of light or intravenously with a low-intensity laser. BT has an excellent track record as a treatment of viral disorders ranging from bulbar spinal poliomyelitis to chronic hepatitis. Invented in the United States in the 1920s, BT has been used extensively in Germany and Russia, but not in any clinical trial against HIV or MDR-TB.
Biophotonic Therapy, however, is not the only approach that calls out for testing against HIV, MDR-TB, and other disseminated infections. Another candidate is Magnetized Water Therapy. Continue reading »
Micromin is a form of Transdermal Micronutrition (TDM) that is a treatment of certain effects of iron-deficiency anemia. Micromin has other potential applications as well, including in the area of environmental medicine where its ion-substitution effect can help ward off many kinds of toxic substances.
Micromin exploits a capability that human beings have inherited from distant ancestors. Its action suggests that in certain circumstances human beings can exhibit behavior reminiscent of medusa and polyp stages; and that the transition between the two can convey certain unusual benefits, especially in the area of gynecology and obstetrics. Micromin’s abilities to bypass the liver and to provide a steady supply of micronutrients differentiate it from gastrointestinal feeding and may explain some of its effects. There are some indications that Micromin’s mechanism of action overlaps with—and thus may elucidate—the mechanism of action of Traditional Chinese Medicine moxa therapy (moxibustion). In turn, this may mean that Micromin will prove effective in the various and at times remarkable indications for which moxa has traditionally been employed. Continue reading »
Advances in antioxidant therapy have led to significant benefits in many areas of human health. Vitamins C and E, phytochemicals like lycopene in tomatoes, and oral zinc have found relatively widespread use as prophylactics and treatments of bronchial asthma, cancer, and other disorders.
Still, the results of clinical trials of Vitamins C and E against atherosclerosis have been disappointing. Yet they were predictable because oxidative processes go on inside of arterial walls, whereas Vitamins C and E are known to operate only in the plasma and lipid membranes.
Meanwhile, statins can be effective antioxidants in cardiovascular disorders (Shishehbor et al., 2003a; Shishehbor et al. 2003b). Unfortunately, statins are rather expensive and may have unacceptable side effects. Continue reading »
Halotherapy (HT, from Greek halos=salt) uses dry aerosol microparticles of salt and, in one version, minerals to treat respiratory diseases. HT seeks to replicate the conditions of speleotherapy (from Greek speleos=cave), a treatment that has been practiced in old salt mines of Eastern Europe since the early 19th Century.
Halotherapy belongs to the category of the physical therapies–non-drug treatments of diseases, many associated with the spa treatments of Eastern Europe. In the former Soviet Union, medical researchers engaged in a concerted effort to develop physical therapies in order to avoid the costs and side effects of drug therapy as well as microbial and tumor resistance. Russia has become the world leader in developing and testing new and increasingly effective physical therapies. Continue reading »
Identifying the best ways to stimulate the immune system to fight infectious diseases and cancer makes eminent sense and could provide highly attractive benefits. But it is not easy to do. Here is a list of category-leading immunostimulants, followed by a discussion of the issues involved.
Cytokines: IL-2 has shown itself to be an effective general immunostimulant in scores of clinical trials against different indications and appears promising against HIV (Cohen and Powderly, 2004). Used in high doses, IL-2 has significant side effects, so it is best used as a low-dose adjuvant. Other cytokines of proven general merit include G-CSF and GM-CSF, both for hematopoiesis. Interferons may work in specific cases, but their side effects make them less suitable as broad-spectrum adjuvants.
Microbial fragments/toxins: Of the large number of candidates, beta-glucans (also found in plants) are the most frequently investigated as an approach to provoking a general immune response (Wagner, 1999). Continue reading »
It is a little-known fact that one can treat respiratory infections quite effectively without drugs, primarily with the use of physical therapies and correctly applied remedies. Here are two methods:
1. Therapeutic Gargling (TG). Many respiratory viral and bacterial infections commence with a sore throat or a small infection in the inside lining of the mouth–for instance, inside the cheek. In these cases, the invading microbe appears to establish a beachhead in the throat or mouth lining where it can safely multiply before the immune system can develop a response sufficient to wipe it out. Once the numbers of microbes reach a high enough level, they can break out and spread the infection throughout the respiratory tract or even system-wide.
The finding that NSAIDs can cause heart attacks and strokes in certain patients has disrupted the lives of millions of arthritis patients as well as throwing a scare into the pharmaceutical industry.
But it needs to be put in perspective. There is no better place to start than with the famous dictum of the Swiss Renaissance physician Paracelsus: “All things are poison, and nothing is without poison. It is the dose alone that makes a thing not a poison.” In the case of the painkillers, it is likely that lower doses and limits on the duration of therapy would avoid most problems. Quite possibly, some of the people who suffered heart damage belonged to high risk categories for whom most or all prescription painkillers would be dangerous. In fact, NSAIDs and other pain relief drugs have shown themselves to be very effective and safe for certain groups of patients in modest doses for limited periods of time, so it is unreasonable to withdraw them from the market. Of course, they should compete there on the basis of their merits compared to other drugs. Continue reading »
The treatment of severe depression remains a forbidding scientific frontier (Nemeroff, 2007). No current pharmacological therapy seems more than occasionally effective on those who suffer from it. Of the traditional device-based treatments, only Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT) has shown itself effective, and ECT is only effective to some extent and in some cases. ECT also comes with a significant price tag and consistent mid-level side effects. Many patients do not respond to any therapy, while the suicide rate among victims of severe depression remains tragically high.
Treatment-resistant depression, whether moderate or severe, is an unusually expensive disorder because it tends to affect people at relatively young ages, making them less able to perform at work, frequently absent from work, or simply unable to work at all for decades on end (Crown, 2002). Researchers are currently investigating various novel approaches to the treatment of severe depression. But expanding the range of possible approaches to such a refractory syndrome can in the long run lead to a more optimal outcome. Here are three new approaches not currently under consideration. Continue reading »
[For a fuller discussion of Biophotonic Therapy and the underlying science, including citations to the medical literature, see Close-to-Nature Medicine, Intriguing Anomalies: An Introduction to Scientific Detective Work, and Healing Photons: The Science and Art of Blood Irradiation Therapy. For a brief discussion, see 10 Key Points about Biophotonic Therapy.]
Overview
Biophotonic Therapy uses light in an extracorporeal or intravenous mode to activate the red blood cells, a form of immunity inherited from humankind’s distant oligocellular ancestors. BT has an instructive 80-year history (see below); a range of modalities; well-characterized mechanisms of action; a wide array of indications; several counterindications; well-understood, limited side-effects in certain cases; and a scientific literature that now includes some 400 articles as well as a dozen books. No drug resistance to BT has ever been reported. Continue reading »
Caffeine, the world’s most widely used psychoactive substance, attracts a lot of research. Caffeine also attracts controversy. Some scientists argue that caffeine is a benign and useful drug whose side effects are only of concern in regard to a small number of “sensitives”, including those with pre-existing anxiety or similar symptoms. They note that caffeine improves attention, reaction time, numeric and verbal memory, and work output and endurance in long-term exercise.
But other researchers claim that caffeine causes multiple damaging effects ranging from boosting blood pressure to disrupting sleep, and that these affect hundreds of millions. Continue reading »