News You Can Use

by Michael Braunstein

Time for another installment of "News You Can Use," highlights of news around the world that points out how we might want to consider alternatives to the way we’re doing things, especially in areas affecting our health.

Another Top Forty “Hit” for American Medicine - American medicine was able to crack the Top Forty statistically in August. Details emerged that infant survival rates for our high-tech, high-cost method of delivering babies has plunged us to a worldwide ranking of #40. That’s right. We're on a par with Qatar. Want to know where you should live if you want to have a better chance of your infant surviving childbirth? You could move to Slovenia. Or you could move to Lithuania,…

Supplementary, My Dear Watson

by Michael Braunstein

The fictional super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes was known to chide his simplistic sidekick, Dr. Watson. When explaining obvious steps in his line of deduction Holmes uttered that it was, “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

It would seem fitting that we paraphrase Mr. Holmes when it comes to the obvious: The market for nutritional supplements, vitamins and minerals, health food products and items sometimes folderol, has exploded in the past decade, becoming far more than elementary.

Fifteen years ago it would have been tough to find the selection of herbal supplements and vitamin derivatives now common in great numbers at the typical Walgreen’s and in even greater numbers at a Whole Foods or No Name Nutrition. How do we wade…

Who’s Your Bodyworker?

by Michael Braunstein

The audacity! Johnson & Johnson, one of the largest drug companies in the world, has launched a television ad that touts the “healing power of touch” then goes on to shill their latest Tylenol product. Talk about bait and switch!

The ad draws the viewer’s attention by using the appeal of a natural, safe and effective way to relieve pain that has been known for millennia: human touch. But within a few seconds, we realize touch has nothing to do with what the new Tylenol product is about. They’re trying to sell you a cream containing methyl salicylate, C12-15 alkyl benzoate, carbomer, cocoglycerides, distearyl ether, edetate disodium, ethylparaben, fragrance, glyceryl laurate, glyceryl stearate, methylparaben, myristlyl alcohol, phenoxyethanol, propylparaben,…

The Economy is Bankrupt Because the Planet is Bankrupt

by Michael Braunstein

They hover around glowing flatscreens with the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. Numbers and readouts declare the prognosis grim. Blips and beeps, numbers blinking indicate things could get worse before they get better. Then again, the situation could even be terminal. Watchers wonder if life support is the last chance.

Are "they" doctors and nurses worrying about a patient in intensive care? Relatives watching heart monitors and respirators as a loved one struggles? No. The scene describes stock analysts, broadcasters and most of the rest of America watching CNN and FNN as the stock market heads downward. It’s not a human being they are worried about. Instead, it is the very real sickness that afflicts our…

News You Can Use

by Michael Braunstein

Time again for another installment of News You Can Use, highlights of news around the world and headlines that point out how we might want to consider alternatives to the way we’re doing things, especially in areas affecting our health. First, let’s start off with headlines about why hospitals are exactly the places you want to avoid if you want to remain healthy.

Caution: Hospitals are hazardous to your health. We think of hospitals as safe places to go, especially if when sick. But if we stop and think about it, many of us have stories about a friend, loved one or relative who went to the hospital for a minor health issue and because of…

Medicine from Mummies

by Michael Braunstein

Western medicine has made some amazing advances in the past century or so. Its ability to market itself and affect so much of the world’s economy is impressive. The number of pharmaceutical and chemical interventions that Western medicine’s drug merchants have introduced to the marketplace and acquired governmental approval for is astounding.

But have methods of treatment and the understanding of the relationship between health and nature really advanced that much over the knowledge of those who practiced medicine in ancient Egypt, India or China?

Emergency trauma medicine in a modern setting can be awe inspiring. Do not dare to compare current practices of heroic emergency room measures with those of 5,000 years ago. However,…

Must Be the Season of the Itch

by Michael Braunstein

Summertime is peaking and there’s a chance that you, like 500,000 other Americans, will enjoy the park or a picnic and return home with a friend. Her name is Ivy. Her victims call her Poison.

Contact dermatitis is her gift to you. It’s the result of touching the oily toxins in a trio of plants named poison ivy, poison sumac and poison oak. Though each is a different plant, all have something in common. They contain urushiol (pronounced oo-roo-shee-ohl) in their sap. Urushiol is among the planet’s most toxic substances. It likely won’t kill you (though it can,) but you might wish you were dead. As little as one-billionth of a gram of urushiol can cause…