October 2011 Classical Medicine Health & Wellness Newsletter

 

  

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10 October 2011

 

Happy Columbus Day! How many of you, upon hearing or reading those words, cannot help but think: "In fourteen-hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue..."? And now you scratch your head to try to remember the rest of it, when you know those first lines so well.

 

If memory is an issue, you might want to check out an article about how eating beets can improve cognitive functioning. We posted this research last fall; but, for reasons that remain a mystery, this was one of the most-read Classical Medicine Journal stories in September. The people in this study drank beet juice for breakfast for two days and then had MRIs done to measure blood flow to their brains. The MRIs showed that drinking beet juice improved blood flow to the white matter of the brain’s frontal lobes, the area that degenerates in dementia. Will beets replace Wheaties as the "breakfast of champions?" Drink a big glass and then say with confidence: "He had three ships and left from Spain; He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain."

 

Speaking of research, a very interesting brief published by the National Institutes of Health summarizes research from Mumbai, India that was designed toobserve and measure the action of homeopathic medicines on heart rate and blood flow. Amazingly enough (at least to western scientists), it turns out that the impact of homeopathic remedies can be measured by physiologic parameters of the autonomic nervous system. So see...it's not all in your head! And your infants and animals are not necessarily demonstrating the power of placebo when they improve after a dose or two of a correctly-prescribed remedy.

 

Speaking of "in your head," did you get this far? "He sailed by night; he sailed by day; He used the stars to find his way. / A compass also helped him know How to find the way to go." Ouch. Maybe the best lines are in that first couplet?

 

While not a medical topic, our re-post of a New York Times story about how the earth's carbon cycles are revealed by inclusions in diamonds drew CMJ readers. Read carefully to learn how the ocean floor seems to function like some kind of giant conveyor belt, continually drawing slabs down to a distance of over 400 miles beneath the earth’s surface, recycling carbon between the oceans and the earth’s mantle -- the shell of rock, about 1,800 miles thick, that lies directly beneath the earth’s surface. The impurities in the diamonds formed during this process provide clues about the composition of ancient seabeds and also hold evidence of the distances these rocks have traveled, cycling from ocean floor down to the earth's mantle and then eventually, slowly, back up again.

 

No matter how much beet juice you consume, bet you (happily) forgot this passage: "Ninety sailors were on board; Some men worked while others snored. /  Then the workers went to sleep; And others watched the ocean deep. / Day after day they looked for land; They dreamed of trees and rocks and sand." Do the prehistoric diamonds have similar dreams as they make their 100-million-year journey?

 

Finally, readers are watching a video clip from CBS Newsreporting on how cancer patients -- even extremely young ones -- are finding vital support from a variety of alternative therapies. Acupuncture, massage, yoga, meditation and homeopathy are just a few of the therapies that some cancer patients are using to support their journies through chemotherapy and radiation. It's an inspiring story and an idea whose time is long past-due.

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