Letter from the publisher

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  Oct, 2002  by Jonathan Collin

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A while back we planned our editorial calendar for 2002 and October's theme was to focus on eye and ear health. When we offered these choices to our columnists nearly every one selected eye disease and natural medicine; Kerry Bone, alone, opted to consider herbal approaches to ear conditions. One would probably have expected this response from a statistical model; we have a great many options when it comes to our eyes and nearly zero alternatives when it comes to preserving our hearing. Perhaps the most annoying symptom for patients is tinnitus, an endless, loud background noise which disturbs conversation, thinking and sleep. It is perhaps an apt depiction of medical progress that one of the best treatments for tinnitus is a device which creates an obnoxious background noise to overwhelm the characteristic screeching tinnitus noise. How many of us are frustrated by the mediocre technology of hearing aids, when it is clear that the instrument's disturbing buzzing sounds still offers little improvement to the patient's hearing abilities. And yet, every once m a while, a patient comes along and engages in a major change in diet, exercise, weight, uses nutritional supplements, changes medications, and there is a change in the tinnitus noise. One would think that the ear would be responsive to alternative medical approaches; unfortunately we still await better alternative approaches for tinnitus and hearing loss. If the occasional patient has improvement, there must be a biochemical model to improve tinnitus.

On the other hand, one boon to pediatric ear health which has gone unmentioned in this issue is the role of natural approaches to pediatric ear infections. Partially due to the marketing efforts of pharmaceutical companies, children's ear infections have been almost exclusively treated by multiple rounds of antibiotics and the not so infrequent ear tubes for the perforated ear drums. In the late 1960's it became apparent to practitioners in the alternative world that food allergies were contributing greatly to recurrent upper respiratory and ear infections. When children were given special diets which eliminated refined sugars, dairy products, gluten, corn, eggs as well as processed foods with food colorings, MSG, and other excipients, there were frequent miracles in the apparent cure of little Johnny's chronic ear infections. Later Dr. Orian Truss, MD and William Crook, MD educated physicians about the role candida albicans played in exacerbating ear infections. The fact that a low dose of Nystatin, a drug f or candida infection available since the 1960's, could arrest many incurable ear infections, led to perhaps the greatest paradigm shift in alternative medicine, the diagnosis and treatment of chronic candidiasis (yeast infection) as the cause of widespread symptoms in children and adults. Yet to this day this approach remains controversial, so most university ear/nose/throat medical departments do not use it. Instead they treat pediatric ear infections with antibiotics despite the growing concern by public health officials that chronic use of antibiotics is creating widespread resistance in common and less common pathogenic microorganisms. If everything else about alternative medicine was ignored, these two concepts of treatment of ear infection, allergy elimination and anti-candida treatment, would by themselves represent a major advance in medical treatment. 'Tis a pity that medicine fails to recognize either.

We are pleased to publish a review of natural approaches to vision problems from the book Alternative Medicine, now in a new softback edition from Celestial Arts and Ten Speed Press (see article on page 54). Burton Goldberg, who is the editor of this text and publisher of the Alternative Medicine Magazine, is a long-standing supporter of alternative and natural medicine. In the late 1980's he brought together 500 of the best minds in alternative medicine and compiled this book, examining alternative medicine from the myriad of viewpoints ranging from naturopathy to herbal medicine to homeopathy to nonconventional uses of conventional medicine. Goldberg has been particularly enthusiastic about energetic approaches to healing. He has been a water dowser and introduced himself to me at a medical meeting by his use of a dowsing instrument which he explained would be useful in understanding abnormal electrical fields and more importantly, in diagnosing and treating patients. Alternative Medicine (the book) definit ely emphasizes energetic approaches to illness. Behavioral optometry is an alternative to the immediate gratification of Lasik surgery.

Glaucoma, one of the banes of old age, generally means a routine of glaucoma drops that need to be administered daily or twice daily. Unfortunately, for too many patients glaucoma medications are systemic in their side effects, despite the fact that the drops are topically applied to the eyes. Unexplained dizziness and other irritating symptoms frequently arise after initiating the use of glaucoma medication. Yet for the most part, family physicians ignore these medications when evaluating the patient for a physical and internal complaint. I would like to say that nutritional medicine offers a definite alternative to glaucoma medications. A number of our writers suggest that nutraceuticals may play some role in glaucoma treatment. However, glaucoma remains as difficult as hypertension to treat naturally; it is not at all clear that one may eliminate glaucoma medications with natural treatment.