Happy Holiday

During this holiday season it seems appropriate that we have a miracle in Colorado, a reminder that modern medicine doesn't have all of the answers. I'm sure you're familiar with the story by now of Tracy Hermanstorfer dying during labor on Christmas Eve. Her doctor says there was no blood pressure, no breathing, she was in full cardiac arrest. The doctors delivered the baby by Cesarean section but it was limp with a very slow heartbeat. Their attempts to revive her failed.

But Tracy wasn't done in this life. The new mother began breathing again on her own and baby Coltyn also revived. Today they're both healthy with no ill effects from the experience.

The doctors cannot explain the cardiac arrest or the recovery. Dr. Stephanie Martin, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs said "We did a thorough evaluation and can't find anything that explains why this happened."

Let's simply appreciate and enjoy this miracle.

Positive Attitude is Best Medicine

Optimism is good for you according to a study of 100,000 women published in Circulation magazine. They have a 16% lower risk of heart attacks. This research confirms similar findings in a 2004 Danish study.

Pessimists had a 19% higher risk for early death according to a 2000 Mayo Clinic study.

Optimists have better immune system functioning, quicker recovery from heart surgery and greater ability to handle life-threatening illnesses like cancer. The good news is everyone can learn to be more optimistic, even pessimists. Wouldn't you prefer to wake up on the right side of the bed every morning?

Optimism is its own reward.

NCCAM 10th Anniversary Symposium

Today, Dec. 8th, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine will hold its 10th anniversary symposium at Washington, D.C. Those unable to attend can catch the webcast of the activities at videocast.nih.gov

Did you know that over 11% of all out-of-pocket expenditures for health care were for complementary and alternative medicine? The field continues to grow in popularity today as more information becomes available.

Surgical Errors Reported

A survey commissioned by the American College of Surgeons and published in the Annals of Surgery finds that 9% of surgeons admit to a “major medical error” in the past three months. So let's see, that means in a year's time there could be more than 1/3 of all surgeons making major medical mistakes? Or is it just the same 9% making errors all year long?

Is it any wonder that more than 100,000 people are killed each year in hospitals due to medical errors and failures? Obviously the culture of medicine has flaws that are literally killing people and need to be fixed for the benefit of both doctor and patient.

NCCAM's 10th Anniversary

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), 1 of 27 divisions of the National Institutes of Health, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. NCCAM Director Josephine P. Briggs, M.D noted the organizations accomplishments saying "We have funded more than 2,200 research projects, resulting in more than 3,300 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals." More important Dr. Briggs added, "Based on the growing evidence base for CAM interventions, a number of medical professional organizations—such as the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, and the American Academy of Pediatrics—have included CAM modalities in recent guidelines."

Clearly these accomplishments are in stark contrast to the recent series of articles from the Associated Press which claimed that they have never found a single cure and that the millions of dollars spent on research could have been better spent on traditional research. This pro-prescription drug campaign should have been listed as editorial instead of news.

Drug Costs Jump

The headline on the front page of today's Dallas Morning News says it all: "Drug Costs Rise At Fastest Rate In Years." While the Consumer Price Index has fallen 1.3% in the past year the wholesale price of prescription drugs has gone up by 9%. This will bring the bill for drugs to about $300 billion this year. This is the fastest rate since 1992 but this time it's happening when the drug companies pledged to reduce costs by $8 billion a year after health care reform is in effect.

Does it look like a phony deal to you? The drug companies crank up sales by $10 billion in order to offer a price cut of $8 billion? I won't even go into the latest studies on heart drugs that show how they actually increase the risk of heart attack.

It's time for Americans to find better answers to their health problems than prescription drugs.

CAMbrella Investment of 1.5 Million Euros

The European Union is funding a 3-year project called CAMbrella with 1.5 million euros to create a research network to study complementary and alternative medicine. The group that won the grant includes 16 scientific organizations from 12 European countries. Their goal is to develop a comprehensive view of the present CAM situation in Europe that will serve as a benchmark and starting point for future research.

CAM is much more accepted in Europe, it was just this past spring that Switzerland voted to add it to their constitution to protect it. However there hasn't been as much investment in research compared with the NCCAM in America. Germany, for example, has not invested any government funding since 1996.

In an era of health care reform this investment by Europe may pay dividends to America.