Kaizen Clinic

Comments please

Another piece that needs reading to the end.

Once again vested interests seem to be trying to get rid of their competition. All I can say is that people are not stupid. The Homeopathic method of treatment has been used for 180 years and there are an estimated 450 million people worldwide who use homepathy. Don't you think that in that time "the public" would have seen through a con?
Lets put aside the arguaments about "scientific proof" for the moment. Most people who use homeopathic treatments have to use their own mon...ey If it didn't work for them do you really think that they would continue to "buy" into it?
According to a House of Lords report (2000), 17 percent of the British population use homeopathic medicines (11). The respect accorded homeopathy and homeopathic practice by British physicians is evidenced by a 1986 survey in the British Medical Journal that showed that 42 percent of physicians referred patients to homeopathic doctors (12). Other evidence of support from health professionals was a 1990 survey of British pharmacists that found 55 percent considered homeopathic medicines "useful," while only 14 percent considered them "useless" (13). The normally conservative British Pharmaceutical Association held a debate in 1992 to decide whether pharmacists should promote homeopathic medicines (14). They concluded by a large majority that they should.
Homeopathy is the leading alternative medicine used by Europeans. In France, 40% of the population uses homeopathic medicines and around 30% of physicians prescribe them http://www.littlemountainhomeopathy.com/h ow-popular-is-homeŌĆ”
See also http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ŌĆ”/homeopa thic-medicine-euro_bŌĆ”
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Congratulations to Tamsin Henman (Distinction) and Saiorse Cassidy (Merit) who qualified as Pathogenisists last Friday.
Saiorse will be setting up in Croydon very shortly whilst Tamsin will be based in Harpenden. I will update with more details as I get them.

You may have seen the report in the press today that a team of "experts" (in parenthesis to express doubt) led by Professor Michael Sharpe say that ME/CFS can be cured simply by counselling and "positive thinking".
I have to agree with the ME Association who have dismissed his claims as ŌĆśbunkumŌĆÖ.
ME/CFS is a "real" (in parenthesis to express certainty) illness which is most often caused by viral infections.
... For many ME/CFS sufferers the only way they are going to recover is by eliminating these pathogens.
If you know of anyone that suffers from this debilitating condition, and you think we could help, please share this link with them...
www.kaizenclinic.org
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I've been following Dr Rowen for a while now and think he always talks sense. The nice thing about his posts is that they don't fall into the trap of mud slinging and abusiveness that so many others do.

Well, I thought it was funny...

Anyone know who I should send this to? Hahahaha!

No comment needed

Probably won't be posting everyday for the next couple of weeks as sloping off to Porto Santo for a well earned break.
However, don't worry, if you do need to contact us, my colleague Hayley Taylor will be holding the fort and will deal with any of your questions etc. You can either ring the Clinic number 01234 325155 or leave a message on my direct number as she will have my phone.

Currently putting together our new website. It is amazing how quickly things change. Literally every page needs updating (ugh). Watch this space for the "grand relaunch" in the next few weeks or so (well, definitely before Christmas :))

One of many interesting (and for a change non-hysterical) comments both pro and anti homeopathy I found recently on a Guardian web page:
http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueriŌ Ć”/ŌĆ”/0,,-9542,00.html
I particularly liked the last six lines.
... Many years ago my two-year-old son suffered from allergic asthma. The conventional answer then was aggressive steroid treatment which carried some risks so my wife suggested the alternative of homeopathy. She was far from convinced and I was frankly sceptical but we found a local NHS doctor who also practised as a homeopath and he prescribed a dose of something very dilute. The result was astounding. The blue, wheezing toddler turned pink within minutes, became able to breath and would usually drop into peaceful sleep. The effect was, in scientific terms, decisive, observable and entirely repeatable. Placebo effects, in this case, are as unconvincing an explanation as anything else I have read in 25 years. Like Prof Harvey Rutt I find the ideas of water memory and enormous dilution apparently risible - but the corollary of this is to find a better explanation, not to damn homeopathy as impossible. As Lavoisier, Pasteur and so many others understood, good science always fits the hypothesis to the evidence. History is littered with tales of the arrogant and the foolish who have preferred the easier route of reversing that logic or who have denied that something happens simply because they can't explain why it does.
Chris Woolf, Liskeard, Cornwall
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Another example of science not necessarily being able to explain how things work even though they do...
No.2 The Humble Bumble Bee.
Flight Of The Bumble Bee Is Based More On Brute Force Than Aerodynamic Efficiency ... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009 /ŌĆ”/090507194511.htm
The old myth that "bumblebees shouldnŌĆÖt be able to fly" was based on calculations using the aerodynamic theory of 1918-19, just 15 years after the Wright brothers made the first powered flight. These early theories suggested that bumblebee wings were too small to create sufficient lift . This was obviously wrong (since they have been flying around for at least 25 million years) However, it took scientists until 2009 to finally (and correctly) explain how they have being doing it. They modeled how insect wings interact with the air around them to generate lift by using computational models that are relatively simple, often simplifying the motion or shape of the wings. "We decided to go back to the insect itself and use smoke, a wind tunnel and high-speed cameras to observe in detail how real bumblebee wings work in free flight," said Dr Richard Bomphrey of the Department of Zoology, co-author of a report of the research published this month in Experiments in Fluids. ŌĆśWe found that bumblebee flight is surprisingly inefficient ŌĆō aerodynamically-speaking itŌĆÖs as if the insect is ŌĆśsplit in halfŌĆÖ as not only do its left and right wings flap independently but the airflow around them never joins up to help it slip through the air more easily.ŌĆÖ Such an extreme aerodynamic separation between left and right sets the bumblebee [Bombus terrestris] apart from most other flying animals. "Our observations show that, instead of the aerodynamic finesse found in most other insects, bumblebees have a adopted a brute force approach powered by a huge thorax and fuelled by energy-rich nectar," said Dr Bomphrey. "This approach may be due to its particularly wide body shape, or it could have evolved to make bumblebees more maneuverable in the air at the cost of a less efficient flying style." Professor Adrian Thomas of OxfordŌĆÖs Department of Zoology, co-author of the report, said: "a bumblebee is a tanker-truck, its job is to transport nectar and pollen back to the hive. Efficiency is unlikely to be important for that way of life." Observing insects in free ŌĆō as opposed to tethered ŌĆō flight is a considerable challenge. The Oxford team trained bumblebees to commute from their hive to harvest pollen from cut flowers at one end of a wind tunnel. They then used the wind tunnel to blow streams of smoke passed the flying bees, to reveal vortices in the air, and recorded the results with high-speed cameras taking up to 2000 images per second. From these images the team were able to visualise the airflow over flapping bumblebee wings.
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Watched a really interesting Horizon programme on the theory of "multiple universes" and thought the following observation from one of the scientists on the programme was very apt to the current situation facing Pathogenics and Homeopathy...
"Every truth passes through three stages before it is finally recognized/accepted. In the first stage it is ridiculed, in the second it is aggressively [and often violently] opposed and, in the third it is regarded as self-evident".
Obvio...usly the boundaries between each stage are always going to be fluid. However, I do believe that there are clear signs that the "non-agenda-ed" observers are beginning to edge (albeit nervously) towards stage 3.
Don't get me wrong, the majority are almost certainly camped in stage 2. And, although there is clearly a "rump" of "flat-worlders" stuck at stage 1, I really do think we can ignore their, what seem to be suspiciously "ulterior motive" driven, rants.
Of course, I could be completely wrong and what we are doing doesn't work at all and everyone who has got better only think they have...
I guess time will tell
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A new series for you...Detractor Accusations:
No.1 "It's only the Placebo Effect"
I never mind when I am told "It's just a placebo" when people get better from their treatment.
... The conversation generally goes like this...
Them: "Although doctors accept that up to 1 of 3 people can see improvement with a placebo, in the majority of cases it usually only lasts for a short time. What you do is just a placebo".
My stock answer?
Me: "I suppose there is a possibility that it could be "just" a placebo [but it isn't]...But there are two strange things that keep happening when I treat patients
1) I seem to be able to make it work pretty much every time and, not only that, it completely resolves the condition.
2) Babies (as young as 3 months old) and very young children (under 2) who cannot possibly understand that what you are giving them is to help them get better, get better.
and explain the fact that...
3) Vets regularly give animals homeopathic remedies and they get better. [I think only Mr. Ed and Caesar might get the concept of placebos...]
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