Epigenetics

If you haven't heard about this rapidly growing branch of biology, you will be intrigued. Nutshell: environmental factors such as diet can cause changes in gene expression that can be passed on to offspring.

In other words, you are what your grandmother ate. But, wait, wouldn't that imply what every good biologist knows is practically scientific heresy: the Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics?

If agouti mice are any indication, the answer could be yes. The multicolored rodents make for a fascinating epigenetics story, which Randy Jirtle and Robert Waterland of Duke University told last summer in a Molecular and Cell Biology paper; many of the scientists interviewed for this article still laud and refer to that paper as one of the most exciting recent findings in the field. The Duke researchers showed that diet can dramatically alter heritable phenotypic change in agouti mice, not by changing DNA sequence but by changing the DNA methylation pattern of the mouse genome.3 "This is going to be just massive," Jirtle says, "because this is where environment interfaces with genomics."

Honey Remedy Could Save Limbs

I knew honey has antibacterial properties, but I must admit I find this both remarkable and surprising (and great news, indeed).

Most tantalizingly, honey seems capable of combating the growing scourge of drug-resistant wound infections, including group A streptococcus -- the infamous flesh-eating bug -- and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which in its most severe forms also destroys flesh. These have become alarmingly more common in recent years, with MRSA alone now responsible for half of all skin infections treated in U.S. emergency rooms. So-called superbugs cause thousands of deaths and disfigurements every year, and public health officials are alarmed.

As an aside I was telling a friend who is quite skeptical about natural medicine about this and how some in the field of alternative medicine would tout this as proof of either god watching over humans or a benevolent nature here to serve us. She laughed out loud and was quick to point out that the vast majority of natural substances are either useless or harmful to humans. I, of course, agreed. It is human trial, error, and ingenuity that revealed the presence of substances beneficial to us despite having evolved for reasons that had nothing to do with us. How much longer have bees been making honey than humans have existed? I think it is on the order of millions of years.

Coffee may cut alcohol liver damage

Another culprit rescued from unfounded criticism. It also reduces type II diabetes.

Stem cells can cure urinary leakage

It is always in the interest of patients that all healthcare
practitioners keep abreast of current therapies. An article like this
brings several things to mind. First, the treatment is clearly a
form of natural medicine in that it uses animal products (stem cells
and collagen) rather than synthetic drugs. Chinese Medicine has along
history of using animal products in medicine. It is also
regenerative and curative, rather than palliative or destructive. It
would fit in the realm of supplementing therapy and, of course, most
urinary leakage in middle-aged women is due in part to spleen and
kidney yang xu. Finally, chinese medicine has a long history of using
human tissue containing stem cells (e.g., placenta), adopting
medicines from other systems and cultures (e.g., mo yao and ru
xiang), and embracing the latest in technology when it comes to the
processing and extraction of raw medicinals (e.g., the use of
distilled alcohol, which was invented by the Arabs in the middle
ages, to produce highly effective liniments used as hit medicine).
While much of the American herbal community has been biased towards
the use of low tech methods and largely unprocessed plant materials,
this has never been the case in china.

Probiotics may ease gut disorders

Another unsurprising finding. There is also recent evidence that normal flora provide protection against some types of cancer as well. Below, I make a case that traditional chinese herbs and diet may be unable to alleviate this problem without the addition of modern probiotic supplements.

The chinese have long expressed concern about digestive health and the potential damage done by bitter heat clearing (anti-bacterial) herbs. In modern times, we know that the overuse of antibiotics leads to disruption of intestinal flora and candida overgrowth, food allergies and autoimmunity.

It would seem to me that in order to fully treat theses iatrogenic conditions, one will need to restore normal flora. I doubt the Chinese had a conception of beneficial symbiotes living in the human gut. all literature seems focused on the harmful parasites known to be there. Yet in order to successfully treat these conditions, normal flora would have to be restored. This didn't necessarily have to be done directly or with knowledge of microbiology, it just had to happen as an indirect effect of therapy.

The source of intestinal flora is fermentation. As long as the chinese were eating fermented foods and providing a good growth medium for these critters, all is good. In fact, healthy chinese diet probably included some naturally fermented foods (miso). Water soluble fiber (from various grains and veggies) and mucilage (as found in seaweeds and funguses; typical of congees) also are now known to feed normal flora and inhibit the bad ones. Digestive aids containing enzymes (like shen qu and mai ya) also improve the implantation of flora. Add to this chinese herbs to improve digestion, such as huang qi, bai zhu, etc. If strong digestive "qi" is said to prevent leakages, I think this concept is easily extended to the microscopic level to prevent leakage of poisons from the intestines into the bloodstream. All this suggests that skillful chinese medicine could have treated this condition without any knowledge of microbiology—just good convalescent diet and herbs for the GI tract. However, I think the chinese did not have to wrestle with the degree of flora disruption experienced by modern patients. It also underscores a vital point; these conditions do not resolve well without addressing the diet and flora. If a person is unwilling or unable to eat a convalesecent diet with adequate flora, mucilage, enzymes, etc, then it is vital that one supplement with these things in order to effect full recovery. In fact, I am skeptical that this can be accomplished with traditional diet and herbs.

Herbalist Simon Mills also points out something very interesting. There is abundant evidence that the activity of many herbs is based upon changes caused to the active constituents of those herbs by the intestinal flora. The herbs are not as active in deranged gut environments. Thus, the importance placed upon digestion by all herbal traditions worldwide and a reminder to us that we cannot expect to successfully treat many chronic illnesses without use of therapeutic diet or supplements to make up for dietary deficiencies. This is one of the main uses I make of my background in naturopathy.

I have found that most people will not eat a traditional chinese diet and thus it is necessary to consider what is lost when eating even a wholesome american diet. I suggest that many people do not get adequate mucilage, fiber, enzymes, antioxidants, minerals, and ferments in even a low fat fish and veggies diet. Many of the important sources of these substances are just not considered palatable (such as seaweed) and whole grains are still hard to come by outside the home (I really wrestle with this one‚—I can eat freshly cooked refined grains when I am at work or microwaved whole grains I bring from home). We can't overlook this crucial component of our patient's healing process and we can't be so stubborn to think that only adherence to Chinese diet is the way to address this.

Baby antibiotics 'link to asthma'

Further evidence that antibiotics should be used with care.

A Canadian study of 12,082 children suggests those treated with
antibiotics under the age of one are twice as likely to develop
asthma in childhood.

And researchers writing in US journal Chest found additional courses
of antibiotics in the first year of life increased asthma risk still
further.

Earlier studies suggested the drugs may affect the way the immune
system works.

Experts believe they kill off beneficial bacteria in the intestine
and that this may lead to changes in the way the body deals with
disease.

Pinch of controversy over salt in diet

I never said we should always trust science. I said the value of science is that it questions and recreates itself regularly, something not true of dogmas like traditional religion and philosophy. This time we must reconsider the issue of salt in the diet. One of the reliable bits of wisdom from ancient cultures are the diets that have sustained us for thousands of years. That is empirical evidence. Whenever a scientific study contradicts a widely held empirical observation, one should have pause. So, for example, advocates of vegetarian and/or raw food diets have little footing in the face of history. Same with those who advise against all use of spices or salt (as some natural health advocates have done in the past). For those who practice natural medicine, it is important to carefully consider what there is actually evidence for (like eating meat as part of a healthy diet, for example) against that which is pure speculation (such as sexual activity harms the body, for example—see my lengthy digression below).

Despite traditional chinese admonitions, a google scholar search for sexual activity and life expectancy plus various other permutations (morbidity, mortality, etc.) revealed not a single peer reviewed journal article that lends credence to the idea that excessive sexual activity (in the absence of STD) has any adverse effect on one's health. Almost all the articles focused on AIDS and other STDs, perhaps lending some indirect credence to my hypothesis that sex-related chronic illness in ancient times was probably due to chronic infection rather than semen loss. Erectile dysfunction also seems to have no correlation with excessive sexual activity and instead correlates strongly with known blood flow issues, such as hypertension, diabetes, and habitual tobacco smoking. Masturbation, traditionally taboo amongst all cultural conservatives including chinese confucians, is now thought to prevent prostate cancer, a leading disease of the elderly.

When I first posted, these thoughts to a listserv, I was met with the most ridiculous pseudoscience from the faithful who resided there. The completely erroneous premise here is that cell division is a zero sum game (i.e, if you do more meiosis—produce more sperm, you do less mitosis—make somatic cells). However this is just not true. One has no effect on the other as far as long term health is concerned. Male laboratory animals who are allowed to mate and reproduce frequently experience no adverse health effects. In fact, the reverse it true. I think the facts are being fudged to fit an a priori assumption here. The lack of evidence to support adverse health effects is overwhelming. This concept clearly has so many layers of cultural baggage, it is next to worthless. For one thing, there is no agreement in chinese culture on what constitutes too much sex anyway, so no way to give clinical advice on this matter even if it were medically reasonable.

Why not assume the matter is unproven and actually produce some evidence to support one's case. I came to my hypothesis after the preponderance of evidence seemed to contradict what I had long accepted as dogma. No mental machinations will convince me otherwise. For those of us who are proponents of integrative medicine rather than TCM, per se, we must be willing to dispense with bogus ideas. TCM doctors no longer prescribe used menstrual rags or hangmen's nooses. There is no gospel. Just ideas which must withstand scrutiny and the test of empiricism. Each generation is charged with letting go of that part of the past that was mistaken and embracing that which was correct.

Low-Fat Diet Myth Busted

This article reviews recent findings calling into question most of
the dietary advice offered to us in the past 40 years.

Compound In Cocoa Responsible For Improving Blood Flow

Certainly not a reason to add more fat and sugar to one's diet, but if one chooses to indulge in chocolate in moderation, there is an upside.

Mental health problems linked to diet change

I am sure there is more to it than this, but still interesting.

Food campaigners Sustain and the Mental Health Foundation say the way food is now produced has altered the balance of key nutrients people consume.

The period has also seen the UK population eating less fresh food and more saturated fats and sugars.

They say this is leading to depression and memory problems, but food experts say the research is not conclusive.

A big factor is apparently the type of fat one eats. Its all about the omega
3's and you can't get em on a vegan diet, no way, no how. Eat wild
fish and grass fed beef and those high DHA eggs. They are the key.
Of course, you still need your veggies and plenty of them. And the
one thing we all agree upon. Those nasty refined carbs.

Is Dropping Acid a Cure for Old Age?

While I have recently posted on the mounting evidence that chronic
use of even a mild mind altering substance like cannabis likely
causes brain damage, I did include the caveat that occasional use of
such substances in certain settings may well be regenerative. It
certainly makes sense from a TCM perspective that a substance that
has an opening effect on the mind may clear the veils on perception,
but if used regularly (to use chinese medical dogma), like all "orifice opening" substances, one will burn up their "yin" and begin to go mad. Albert Hoffman, who discovered LSD, turned 100 today and by all accounts is quite robust. But he was never a fan of the Kesey or Leary crowd with their drug-abusing tendencies. He favored restrained use of the substances others indulged themselves in, some to quite an early death. Hoffman may well be a poster child (poster sage?) for the dictum that because a little may be good, more is definitely not better.

Deer Antlers Hold Clues To Stem Cell Research

Thought some might find this interesting.

New research carried out by veterinary scientists at the Royal Veterinary College reveals that deer antler regeneration may use stem cells and involves similar mechanisms to those used in limb development. The research could take us towards a "holy grail" in human medicine: the ability to restore organs damaged through trauma, disease, cancer or excision.

Keep in mind that you can't absorb stem cells through the gut via oral ingestion of an alcohol tincture or decoction, but the chinese were certainly thinking like scientists when they recognized the potential of lu rong (deer antler) and its variants as a regenerative medicine. To me, this is further evidence that the true value of chinese medicine is its empirical observations of the effects of various treatments. For thousands of years before any chinese doctor ever tried to rationalize the effects of herbs on the body, they merely observed patients and recorded what they saw without rationalizing about that which they could not know (i.e., the workings of biochemistry and physiology). If TCM practitioners could set aside their allegiance to the arcane metaphysical dogma about how the body supposedly works and focus instead on the clinical observation made over thousands of years, then and only then will this body of knowledge truly serve to advance the field of healthcare. Ironically, the chinese themselves are already moving in this direction, a fact that many in the west find disturbing. But then it is not westerners who are known for their insights about things, especially not Americans.

Magnet therapies 'have no effect'

This is one that hardly surprised me. Regarding the use of magnet to control pain,

"... a systematic assessment comes to the conclusion that the evidence is not compelling for the effectiveness of static magnets for reducing pain above non-specific effects."

The reply from an industry advocate was not surprising:

Debbie Shimadry, director of World of Magnets, said use of magnets was not a cure, but a treatment that was very effective for relief of symptoms of joint-related disorders.

This type of unsubstantiated claim is typical in the field of alternative medicine, where practitioners depend upon persuasion rather than clinical evidence to attract clientele. Sadly, professional TCM relies on this type of charlatanism, as well. This is unfortunate as there is ample evidence that various natural treatments are effective, but the more practitioners cry wolf, the less anyone wants to listen to them at all. To make matters worse, there is now a drive in the field of TCM to elevate anecdotes of personal experience to be considered as reliable as actual clinical evidence. Flying under the banner of scholarly discourse, one academic writes that there is "evidence in these [ancient chinese] manuscripts for a medical tradition led and shaped by bodily experience, rather than clinical observation." If this is correct, it does not make the TCM explanation of physiology more reliable, but rather highly suspect.

It is interesting to note that the scholar Paul Unschuld has written at length about the two major strains of thought in the development of TCM. One was a highly analytical strain, while another was an empirical one. While there were no doubt those who based their assumptions upon personal experiences in their own bodies, there was another group whose ideas were based upon long clinical observation. It will be a dark day for TCM if the rationalists prevail over the empiricists.

RNAi interferes with disease

A major biotech breakthrough that could have significant effects on many chronic illnesses. RNAi works by:

[attacking] the messenger RNA, or mRNA, sent out by diseased genes, as opposed to just killing the diseased cells (as chemotherapy does) or attacking the genes themselves (a method plagued by dangerous side effects).

The relevance for natural medicine is that these drugs interfere with the production and accumulation of defects in cells allowing them to function normally. They exhibited zero side effects in studies. However, they are considered just part of an approach to therapy that would rest primarily on normal physiology taking over when pathological by-products are removed, rather than interfering with healthy functioning to suppress symptoms like much current drug therapy. The need for healthy normal functioning as part of the healing process when using these drugs creates an opening for TCM herbalists (and other practitioners of natural medicine) who want to be on the cutting edge of integrative medicine. If TCM makes RNAi drugs work better and faster, win-win (except for purists, who may someday realize they never get to win in any arena).

Sickle cell disease corrected in human models using stem cell-based gene therapy

An exciting development. Somewhat "old news" to me and perhaps many of you of, but it's been sitting in my files for 10 months waiting to be posted. Of particular interest to me is that RNA interference (RNAi) is used in this study. While not as glamorous or as well known as stem cell therapy, RNA interference is much further advanced and has significant short term potential. the concept also raises an interesting analogy with traditional chinese medicine, as RNAi is a way to eliminate the pathological by-products caused by poorly functioning organs. (In TCM, poor organ function is said to result in toxic accumulation that is the proximate cause of all disease.)

In a study to be published in the January 2006 issue of Nature Biotechnology, researchers led by a team of scientists at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have devised a novel strategy that uses stem cell-based gene therapy and RNA interference to genetically reverse sickle cell disease (SCD) in human cells. This research is the first to demonstrate a way to genetically correct this debilitating blood disease using RNA interference technology.

High-veg diet 'wards off [pancreatic] cancer'

The basic concept will come as no shock to anyone here, however the fine print is interesting:

Raw vegetables were found to be more protective than cooked ones, the study said after conducting interviews with 532 people with the cancer, and 1,700 people who did not have the disease.

But researchers acknowledged the results may have been influenced by food which may often be eaten with the vegetables.

It is the first preventive nutrition study I have seen that specifically touts the benefits of raw over cooked food. While I have fairly dismissive of this idea in the past, this could very well have something to do with vegetable enzymes. Several vegetable based enzymes have been shown to have anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory effects, such as bromelain and papain. However, it has long been in dispute whether such enzymes were active in the human body when orally ingested as part of normal foodstuffs (as opposed to enteric coated capsules).