Hi Everybody,
Here are a few new tidbits for you…
HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GOOD FOR SOME- A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s (JAMA) Archives of Internal Medicine found that healthy, robust adults over 65 with high blood pressure may be at risk for stroke and other problems; but weak, frail adults may benefit from higher blood pressure and actually live longer because of it. In fact, in frail people, high blood pressure actually lowered their rate of deaths by 62%.
What is so interesting about this to us is that this falls right in line with Chinese Medicine. In Chinese Medicine, everyone is different. There are no absolute normals. Many herbal remedies you give a “robust person” you would never give a “frail, deficient” one, and vice versa. In oriental medicine it is known that no two people respond identically to identical treatments, so oriental medicine has found a way to categorize people into different groups that require different treatment approaches.
The lead author in the study sounded like an Oriental Physician when she said “Higher blood pressure could be a compensatory mechanism to overcome this loss of vascular elasticity and keep fresh blood pumping to the brain and heart.” This is why, they believe, that frail people benefited from high blood pressure – because in the case of frail elderly people, high blood pressure was not the problem, it was the body’s way of coping with other problems in those people to keep blood flowing properly to the heart and brain. To take a pill to bring the blood pressure down would be to undo the body’s attempt to keep adequate blood flowing to these vital organs.
FIRST GENETICALLY MODIFIED BABIES BORN- The world’s first genetically modified human beings have now been created after a series of experiments in the United States.
The experiments required altering the human ‘germline’ – in effect tinkering with the DNA of our species. This practice is pretty scary, and is evidently shunned by the vast majority of the world’s scientists. Many geneticists fear that one day this method could be used to create new races of humans with extra, desired characteristics such as strength or high intelligence. Jacques Cohen, the scientists behind the work, claims that he could easily clone people now, but has not.
GLAXOSMITHKLINE SPANKED- You may have heard by now that that drug maker GlaxoSmithKline must pay out $3 billion for the “fraudulent sale and marketing” of several different drugs including the antidepressant Wellbutrin (also sold as the smoking cessation drug Zyban). Basically, the British pharmaceutical giant has admitted to purposefully and fraudulently pushing Wellbutrin to medical doctors for uses not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Wellbutrin is approved to treat depression, but Glaxo pushed its use to physicians for the treatment of many other conditions including anxiety, biopolar disorder, obesity, sexual dysfunction, weight loss, and more, despite the fact that there was no research to support those other claims. Evidently, Wellbutrin was even promoted to treat bulimia and alcohol withdrawal, two treatments that the label specifically warns against.
In addition, the FDA warned GlaxoSmithKline about the dangers of the usage of Wellbutrin for those other conditions, and told them to stop marketing the drugs to physicians for those conditions. The company not only did not stop, but was then caught offering physicians everything from spa treatments to outright bribes in order to get them on board with their drug. In fact, TV’s Dr Drew Pinsky , host of “Lifechangers” and “Celebrity Rehab” was caught taking $275,000 from GlaxoSmithKline in 1999 to push the drug on TV in a manner that looked like he was not working for the Pharmaceutical Giant.
Hope this helps,
Dr Matt and Dr Robin
mattandrobin@yahoo.com (email)
This week’s bit of Useless Information: Xenophobia is the fear of strangers or foreigners. Tonsurphobia is the fear of haircuts. Phobatrivaphobia is fear of trivia about phobias.
This email is courtesy of Matthew Barnes, D.C. and Robin Barnes, D.C. Neither this nor any of our emails are intended to be medical advice and should not be taken as such. They are opinion and are for informational purposes only. None of the nutrients discussed here are meant to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease.