It's possible that there's something in this but we have no way of knowing at this stage
According to folklore, mistletoe 'magic' may seal romance, bestow fertility and bring peace to warring spouses. The plant has also been credited with the power of healing - an attribute currently being harnessed by a new outpatient unit at the independent Raphael Medical Centre in Kent, which offers integrated cancer care.
The centre uses mistletoe (known by its Latin plant name, viscum album) to combat undesirable effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, such as fatigue, nausea, weight loss, low mood and infections.
Advocates believe the herb boosts the immune system and may even help kill tumour cells - particularly breast, gynaecological, colo-rectal, pancreatic and lung cancer, along with lymphomas and leukaemia.
Results have been so promising that Professor Gene Feder, a GP and Professor of Primary Care at Bristol University, is initiating the UK's first pilot study.
From his GP experience he says: 'Patients receiving mistletoe during and after radiotherapy or chemotherapy appear to tolerate those treatments better. The university is planning a pilot double-blind randomised controlled trial, and hope to start recruiting in Bristol in April.'
Treatment is usually by injections - two a week for two years. Patients inject at home after initial treatment by medical staff to monitor effects.
Dr Maurice Orange MSc, who heads the integrated cancer care clinic at Raphael, explains: 'We look for inflammation at the injection site.
This may be itchy, tender or painful for a day or two. Like after-effects of a bee sting, redness indicates the body's immune response. For this treatment that's desirable. After weeks or months of treatment it settles down.
'Similarly, within 24 hours of an injection we expect patients to feel off-colour, fatigued, headachy with bodily aches and pains, and possibly raised body temperature - like mild flu, but lasting about 12 hours. Again it's a positive sign. The immune system is firing into action. Depending on reactions we adjust doses, increasing as patients get used to it.'
Dr Orange stresses that mistletoe is an adjunct to conventional cancer treatment. While patients sometimes want to avoid orthodox treatment, he sees his job as discussing best treatments, often referring patients to sympathetic oncologists.
SOURCE
The magic of garlic
Just epidemiological speculation so far
It may do no favours for your breath, but enjoying a diet rich in garlic, onions and leeks could reduce your risk of developing the most common form of arthritis. Researchers at King’s College London and the University of East Anglia investigated possible links between diet and the painful joint disease. They found that women who ate a lot of allium vegetables (in the garlic family) had lower levels of hip osteoarthritis.
The findings, published in the BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders journal, show the great potential garlic compounds have in developing new treatments for the disease. Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis in adults, affecting around 8 million people in the UK, with women are more likely to develop it than men.
It causes pain and disability by affecting the hip, knees and spine in the middle-aged and elderly population. Currently there is no effective treatment other than pain relief and, ultimately, joint replacement.
A relationship is known to exist between body weight and osteoarthritis but this was the first study to delve deeper into how diet could impact on development and prevention of the condition.
The study, funded by Arthritis Research UK, the Wellcome Trust and Dunhill Medical Trust, looked at over 1,000 healthy female twins, many of whom had no symptoms of arthritis. The team carried out a detailed assessment of the diet patterns of the twins and analysed these alongside x-ray images, which captured the extent of early osteoarthritis in the participants’ hips, knees and spine.
They found that in those who consumed a healthy diet with a high intake of fruit and vegetables, particularly alliums such as garlic, there was less evidence of early osteoarthritis in the hip joint.
To investigate the potential protective effect of allium vegetables further, researchers studied the compounds found in garlic. They found that that a compound called diallyl disulphide limits the amount of cartilage-damaging enzymes when introduced to a human cartilage cell-line in the laboratory.
Dr Frances Williams, lead author from the Department of Twin Research at King’s College London, says: 'While we don't yet know if eating garlic will lead to high levels of this component in the joint, these findings may point the way towards future treatments and prevention of hip osteoarthritis. 'If our results are confirmed by follow-up studies, this will point the way towards dietary intervention or targeted drug therapy for people with osteoarthritis.’
Professor Ian Clark of the University of East Anglia said: ‘Osteoarthritis is a major health issue and this exciting study shows the potential for diet to influence the course of the disease. 'With further work to confirm and extend these early findings, this may open up the possibility of using diet or dietary supplements in the future treatment osteoarthritis.’
SOURCE
No comments:
Post a Comment