Talk about health

I was watching TV this morning before starting work when I saw the "Resident GP" talking about a survey that had found tea was good for you. It's amazing just how particular GP s can be when discussing surveys on alternative and natural medicines. She mentioned right away that the survey had been funded by the Tea Council of GB, before condescending to agree that tea probably wouldn't do you any harm.

I get really annoyed by the attitude of conventional doctors. I'm sure that had we been concerned about a new drug from the vast multinational drug companies, the same GP would manage to NOT mention that the research had been paid for by the very company that was marketing the drug. Funny that, isn't it?

I think it is too much for TV producers to call only on a conventional representative in these situations. It's about time that they balanced things by inviting an alternative practitioner to give their point of view.

Why should conventional medicine get all the publicity, as if their's is the only voice that matters. What really matters is a balanced view that can be got only by hearing more than one side of an argument. How many recent drug launches have been supported by conventional medicine, only to find a few years later that they are killing unnacceptable numbers of people. In the case of Vioxx it was estimated that it ran to thousands who died from its side effects. How many die from a cup of tea in an average year? And who asked anyone other than the resident GP?

After all, there are new findings almost every day that prove the value of tea drinking, whether green tea, white or black teas. All the report mentioned today was about was that any sort of tea drinking can do you good in the context of a balanced diet. Here, here!

I don't know if you read the newspapers or watch TV news programs. I tend to look at the TV news a couple of times a day and read the occasional paper to keep up to date with the world. Some things annoy me about the way things are reported these days - it could be my advancing years.

Calling those things newspapers is a misnomer because what they carry is rarely new. Most of the time they promote CDs and DVDs, never news, to sell their wares. And, TV tends to base their reports on what is happening where they have reporters - not necessarily where anything interesting is going on. So, you get a selective series of items that they grandly call the "Main Stories", but they omit anything covered by other channels, especially sport.

But, something thay all have in common is their superficial take on anything medical. They begin with the sensational headline - the new magic bullet; costly but wonderful new drug; why alternatives don't work and so on. Ten they skirt round the research picking on the phrases that suits their take.

They major on the benefits, perceived or imaginary, of the new drug while managing to forget about potential and real side effects or drawbacks. I must admit it get right up my nose. Why can't they just tell us the truth - all of it, not just a selected part. OK So, a new drug might well help the survival rate for a certain cancer. I think that is the way of progress. But, all drugs have side effects, some of them can be fatal when dealing with life-threatening conditions such as cancer.

The drug companies must have a list of side effects and their frequency. Why not tell us so we can get the thing in perspective. It's no good if a drug helps 30 people while also killing 60 more.

And, why the double standards? If an alternative medicine is thought ( thought, mind you, not proved) to perhaps have been involved in a small number of incidents, the media crucify it, shouting for it's immediate withdrawal. Yet, a drug like Vioxx kills thousands in the US alone and it takes years to get it taken off the market. I suspect it's down to money and power.

I have to admit the press can and do do a good job in exposing charlatans and cheats, fat cats and dodgy politicians. They are like a two headed man, one being logical and thoughtful, the other short-sighted and biased.

It makes me want to shout at the TV and give up buying papers.

That's why I started this blog and my site at http://www.healthexplored.co.uk to let more people have a balanced view of health matters, to explain what I think is going on in a straigtforward way, and let you have your say in it too. So pop over there now and join the newsletter - no charge- and get a gift as well for your trouble.

If you are anything like me you will have signed up to receive e-zines and e-newsletters in the subjects that interest you. Over the years I've subscribed and unsubscribed to quite a few, usually under the headings of all-things-health, building-a-list and marketing.

I mention this because I was reading the latest marketing one this very morning and was struck by something the "guru" had written. He said that it should be easy for the customer: he should do no work: simply pay and get.

I thought, "that would be nice, wouldn't it. Do no work, pay a little money to someone and earn a fortune for yourself."

But, is that realistic? It it were true, you wouldn't bother getting up in the morning, or ever!

I try to take most of the groundwork out of the advice and research I supply. (If you think about it anyone can get any information they like about anything at all. It's all out there somewhere - Internet, books , magazines, etc. But, the argument that there is no need for any more books, newsletters or whatever because we already have it somewhere isn't practical.) It would take weeks and months to research it yourself even assuming you know where to look.

Some of the information is flawed or plain wrong, some is good and some is biased or confusing. I see my job is to look through all of it or as much as I can get to in a limited time scale. Then put it together in a logical fashion while discarding the misleading and mistaken and adding my experience and opinion to the final vesrion.

The result is, I hope, a reasoned and reasonable overview to allow the reader to understand what is going on and give enough detail to let him or her come to a conclusion as to their own best route forward.

The client or reader really has to do some work in order to gain some benefit, even although the amount of work should be fairly small and most of that is in the mind. I can't tell you what to do. That is what your doctor tends to do based on his experience. The problem is that he has had a lot of experience in a very limited section of the health spectrum. It is not their fault. there is a great deal to know about, and one person cannot know it all.

My aim is to get you thinking about more options in health treatment, not just conventional therapy. Then, you have a better chance in getting just what you need from a range of health professionals - just what suits your circumstances at the time.

Use more than the easy option. By all means go to your dotor and get the conventional view. But, don't stop there. Do a little work based on my independent advice and choose your individual path to better health.

It might be good to have everything done for you, but only you can do exactly what you need to help yourself.

Why not take a look at my site on http://www.healthexplored.co.uk to see some of my booklets and Guides to alternative and conventional health topics, or sign up to my free newsletter (e-zine) and get a free booklet on supplements and vitamins.

It's been a funny old week for me. Because it's the summer holidays, loads of people are away enjoying a well-earned break. My daughter has come home from university and really adds sparkle to my otherwise fairly humdrum life. And I went to look after a relatives garden while they are out of the country for a few days.

The sum total of this has meant my time "at work" has been very limited. However, an article in a newspaper caught my eye last night. The headline was "Supplements may damage health" penned by the paper's health correspondent.

"Here we go again ", I thought. A tirade against supplements because we all know that a balance diet is all you need. But, I was wrong. Well, not entirely.

It was based on research done some years ago where smokers were given antioxidant supplements to see if it reduced their risk of cancer. It seems that it actually increased their risk instead, so the trial was stopped and the results screamed around the world.

The problem as I see it is that the researchers were trying to use a fairly simple test for a very complex situation. In other words they wanted to show whether antioxidant supplements could treat cancer. Now, antioxidants are not like drugs. They won't act right away, even in large doses. Natural products such as antioxidants need months and years to build up their effect in small doses, so you can't expect a drug-style trial to work in these circumstances.

Recent research using vitamin C to treat cancer uses very large doses given by intravenous injection. Initial results have been promising. Small oral doses simply don't have any effect over the short-term.

Then, smokers have altered their body's circumstances because they smoke - the nicotine, tars and other chemicals they inhale regularly must change things even in minor ways. So, expecting regular doses of antioxidants to work miracles is stretching the imagination a bit.

I think this type of trial will never work to the satisfaction of mainstream medical scientists and journalists writing articles based on flawed reports.

The good thing about the article was that it concluded that dietary changes were better than antioxidant supplements. But you have to start now, not when you get struck down by some disease-or-other.

I would add that as well as a diet with more fresh fruit and vegetables, a good general multivitamin and mineral supplement is your best bet for good health. High doses of antioxidants might help in certain circumstances, but won't counter poor dietary choices or protect you if you smoke.

There's a moral there if you think about it.

Discover more on supplements for free when you sign up to my newsletter at http://www.healthexplored.co.uk -you'll get a copy of my food and supplements tips booklet as a gift.