Letter from the publisher

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  July, 2002  

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When I was first introduced to alternative medicine 25 years ago I was impressed with the breadth of therapies all claiming to be effective in treating illness. I was intrigued that the medical school curriculum all but ignored these treatments. I was determined to find out if these remedies really could be of benefit, offering help without the harsh side effects of medication or possibly the need for invasive surgery. The simplest of conditions, the symptoms which make life uncomfortable -- fatigue, depression, muscle aching, thinking unclearly -- all seemed to respond to many of these alternative supports. It didn't seem to matter whether the approach was diet, exercise, nutritional medicine, homeopathy, herbal medicine, energetic medicine; each of these approaches seemed to bode well for the low-grade functional symptom. What was not nearly as clear was the benefit of these approaches to serious degenerative disease. Joint pains and muscle aches were responsive, but did alternative approaches offer an effe ctive response for arthritis? Cold hands and feet were responsive, but did alternative approaches offer an effective response for severe atherosclerosis? Fortunately, both arthritis and atherosclerosis have been clearly benefited by alternative medical approaches. The question becomes much more difficult with dementia. While unclear thinking, what some patients may call "brain fog," seems to respond nicely to alternative medicine, it is not at all clear that Alzheimer's disease is responsive to alternative approaches. Yet much has been considered important if not tantalizing in the alternative arena for support of dementia. In this issue our columnists, Robert Anderson, Kerry Bone, Bob Flaws, Alan Gaby, Tori Hudson, Gina Nick, and Melvyn Werbach all examine the potential benefits of alternative therapies in supporting Alzheimer's. David Perlmutter offers a neurologist's point of view to managing Alzheimer's with alternative medicine, what he calls a 'functional' approach.

A number of years ago, an Alzheimer's patient, Tom Warren, wrote a book (Beating Alzheimer's) on his successful alternative medical program which enabled him to conquer his illness. Warren is now preparing an update of his first book. Listening to Warren now, it is hard to imagine that he once suffered from the Alzheimer's process. On his path to reversing Alzheimer's he removed fillings from his mouth and underwent mercury elimination and detoxification, had chelation therapy, changed his diet eliminating wheat and other food allergens, modified his lifestyle, employed megavitamin and herbal treatment, and did other energetic approaches. At one point Warren wanted to organize a study of many of the patients having early symptoms of Alzheimer's following much of the program he had written about. Unfortunately this study project was never organized. He still believes that such a study would be an ideal way to inform the public and researchers of alternative medicine's role in the treatment of Alzheimer's.

In the interim, we need to remember the tragedies which continue to occur in nursing and adult homes, primarily to dementia patients. Abandoned, unloved, and neglected, these elderly suffer the indignities of a cruel disease, frequently living for years in a vegetative state. For these individuals, if alternative medicine offers any answers it should be made available to them.

Jonathan Collin, MD

COPYRIGHT 2002 The Townsend Letter Group
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group