Health Tip: Considering an Alternative Therapy?

(HealthDay News) -- Alternative therapies, such as herbal remedies, are becoming increasingly popular. But you should always use caution when using any alternative remedy. In the United States, there is no single federal regulating body, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for alternative therapies. Read more

Talking to Your Health Care Provider About Using Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Talking to Your Health Care Provider About Using Complementary and Alternative Medicine - Why tell your health care providers about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use? Giving your health care providers a full picture of what you do to manage your health helps you stay in control.... Read more

Health Tip: Considering Alternative Medicine?

Since these products are not regulated by government agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, it's important to research whether they are safe and effective. The University of Virginia Health System recommends these precautions:... Read more

Alternative Medicine, Two Bodies of Evidence

Alternative Medicine, Two Bodies of Evidence - Right around Halloween two years ago I (along with my 10-year old cocker spaniel Max) proved the laughingstock of just about everyone we knew outside of the San Francisco Bay Area where we then lived.... Read more

What Is Complementary and Alternative Medicine? -

What Is Complementary and Alternative Medicine? - Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventi...... Read more

Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Also called: CAM
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is the term for medical products and practices that are not part of standard care. Standard care is what medical doctors, doctors of osteopathy and allied health professionals, such as registered nurses and physical therapists, practice. Alternative medicine means treatments that you use instead of standard ones. Complementary medicine means nonstandard treatments that you use along with standard ones. Examples of CAM therapies are acupuncture, chiropractic and herbal medicines. Continue Reading >>

• integrative medicine
  

Complementary/Integrative Medicine Education Resources

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and complementary and integrative Medicine (CIM) are therapies of proven or unproven efficacy that have been used to promote wellness, to manage symptoms associated with cancer and its treatment or to treat cancer. When properly combined with standard cancer treatments, some complementary therapies can enhance wellness and quality of life, but others may be harmful during or after treatment for cancer. Most, but not all, are natural products.

M. D. Anderson Cancer Center’s Complementary/Integrative Medicine Education Resources (CIMER) Web site is offered to help patients and physicians decide how best to integrate such therapies into their care Continue Reading >>

Integrative Medicine: Can We Truly Integrate Care?

Is it possible to develop a model of health that incorporates Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) therapies with conventional treatment? Join Beverly Burns, an Integrative Medicine Specialist at UCSF's Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, for a frank and stimulating discussion of integrative medicine. Series: "Women's Health Today" [6/2006] [Health and Medicine] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 11113]

Complementary Medicine: Traditional Chinese

Nearly half the US populations turns to complementary, alternative and integrative practices to maintain or improve their health. Beverly Burns of UCSF's Osher Center for Integrative Medicine explores traditional Chinese medicine including acupuncture, meridians and chi. Series: "UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public"

New Hope for Depressed Teens

(HealthDay News) -- If a depressed teen doesn't respond to treatment with commonly prescribed antidepressants the first time around, new research suggests there's still hope.

Switching medications and adding behavioral talk therapy turned out to be the most effective alternative, although just switching medications also helped many individuals.

"On average, these kids were ill for two years and no matter which treatment they got, at least 40 percent responded within 12 weeks," said study author Dr. David Brent, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "I really think the take-home message to families is if you don't respond to the first treatment, don't give up."

The study appears in the Feb. 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The issue of whether depressed or troubled children should even take antidepressants has been at the center of an intense public debate in recent years.

Some research has turned up evidence that kids on antidepressants have a higher rate of suicide ideation, meaning suicidal thoughts and behavior.

Heeding this data, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2004 asked manufacturers of antidepressants to add a black-box warning to their labels warning about the increased suicide risk.

Recent research, however, has found that the benefits of antidepressants outweigh the risks for children and teens under the age of 19.

About 60 percent of adolescents with depression respond to treatment with antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Guidelines recommend prescribing SSRI medications, psychotherapy or both as a first-line treatment for this younger population. (The only SSRI approved by the FDA for use in pediatric patients is Prozac, but others are prescribed on an off-label basis).

Unfortunately, 40 percent do not respond to the first therapy they try, and there's little guidance on what to do next.

"There's just not that much research in kids, period," said Dr. Jane Ripperger-Suhler, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and a psychiatrist with Scott & White Mental Health Center in Temple.

For this latest study, the researchers chose 334 patients aged 12 to 18 years, all of whom had major depressive disorder and had not responded to two months of SSRI treatment. They were randomly selected to receive one of four treatment possibilities for 12 weeks: a second, different SSRI; a different SSRI plus cognitive behavioral therapy; Effexor (a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, or SNRI); or Effexor plus cognitive behavioral therapy.

While the drugs were taken for 12 weeks; therapy lasted nine sessions.

There was a 54.8 percent response rate among those teens who switched to talk therapy plus either medication, compared to 40.5 percent for a medication switch alone.

There was no difference in response rates between Effexor and a second SSRI. However, there was a greater increase in blood pressure and pulse and more frequent skin problems with Effexor than the other drugs.

Ripperger-Suhler said that every time she puts a teen on an antidepressant, she refers them for therapy anyway. The results of this trial might prompt primary-care doctors, who are more apt to write a prescription and do nothing else, to also recommend therapy, she said.

One caveat, however, is that there are few really good cognitive behavioral therapists out there, nor is there any way to distinguish clearly among them, Ripperger-Suhler stated. "To do cognitive behavioral therapy effectively you really need someone who is well-trained and there aren't very many," she said.

But other types of talk therapy might also be effective, she added.

More information
Visit the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health for more on adolescent depression.

New Crohn's Disease Drug Shows Promise

(HealthDay News) -- A new drug against Crohn's disease may be of real help to people who don't respond well to existing medications, two new studies show.

Certolizumab pegol, which works in a similar fashion to standard medicines, isn't on the market yet and hasn't been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Still, "it may at some time offer another option for patients," said University of Louisville associate professor of medicine Dr. Gerald W. Dryden Jr., who studies Crohn's disease and is familiar with the new research.

Crohn's disease causes inflammation in the intestines and other parts of the body. It typically causes cramps and diarrhea, and other symptoms are possible.

In the United States, young people in their 20s and 30s seem to be most susceptible, but scientists appear to be far from fully understanding the disease.

Prednisone, a steroid that dampens the immune system, is often the first line of treatment, Dryden said. In moderate-to-severe cases, doctors often turn to two drugs that appear to tinker with a protein called tumor necrosis factor (TNF) alpha, which has also been linked to the inflammation caused by the disease.

The introduction of the first anti-TNF drug, infliximab (Remicade), revolutionized the treatment of Crohn's disease, wrote Dr. James Lewis, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania, in a commentary accompanying the two studies. Another drug, adalimumab (Humira), is now available.

The problem? They can both cause side effects. Also, "none of the currently available medications are effective at inducing remission in all patients," Lewis said in an interview. "Even the most effective medications typically induce a sustained remission in well less than 50 percent of patients."

That forces many patients to turn to surgery.

Enter the new drug, certolizumab pegol, which is being developed by the pharmaceutical company UCB Pharma. The company helped pay for the two new studies, which are published in the July 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

In one of the studies, 668 patients with moderate-to-severe Crohn's disease received 400 milligrams of the injectable drug three times over four weeks. Those who responded were assigned to more of the drug or a placebo.

According to the team led by Dr. Stefan Schreiber of Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany, 48 percent of patients who showed an early response to the drug were still in remission in the 26th week after staying on the drug. In comparison, just 29 percent of patients who responded to the drug early but were then assigned to a placebo later went into remission.

In the other study, this time led by Dr. William Sandborn of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., 662 patients took the drug or a placebo three times over a four-week period and then once every four weeks. Patients had a better short-term result if they took the drug, but the long-term remission rates were nearly identical between the two groups.

In other words, the two studies of the same drug produced somewhat different results. Still, commentary author Lewis wrote that they suggest that the drug is an "effective therapy."

If approved, the drug would offer an alternative to the two existing similar drugs, he said. "It appears that patients who lose response to or become intolerant of one anti-TNF medication may respond to another anti-TNF medication. Thus, we may ultimately see patients switching between the different anti-TNF medications."

Dryden, the University of Louisville professor, said that the new drug's convenience may appeal to patients. It may need to be injected only once every month, a procedure that could be done at home, compared to other drugs that must be administered more often, he said.

According to Lewis, it's unlikely that studies will measure the new drug and the two old ones against each other, meaning they may end up being prescribed based on their perceived effectiveness, cost, and ease of use.

More information
Learn more about Crohn's disease from the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

No Clear Evidence Meditation Can Boost Health: Study

(HealthDay News) -- There's no definitive evidence that meditation eases health problems, according to an exhaustive review of the accumulated data by Canadian researchers.

"There is an enormous amount of interest in using meditation as a form of therapy to cope with a variety of modern-day health problems, especially hypertension, stress and chronic pain, but the majority of evidence that seems to support this notion is anecdotal, or it comes from poor quality studies," concluded researchers Maria Ospina and Kenneth Bond of the University of Alberta/Capital Health Evidence-based Practice Centre, in Edmonton.

They analyzed 813 studies focused on the impact of meditation on various conditions, including high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and substance abuse.

Released Monday, the report looked at studies on five types of meditation practices: mantra meditation; mindfulness meditation; yoga, Tai Chi and Qi Gong.

Some of the studies suggested that certain types of meditation could help reduce blood pressure and stress and that yoga and other practices increased verbal creativity and reduced heart rate, blood pressure and cholesterol in healthy people.

However, the report authors said it isn't possible to draw any firm conclusions about the effects of meditation on health, because the existing studies are characterized by poor methodologies and other problems.

"Future research on meditation practices must be more rigorous in the design and execution of studies and in the analysis and reporting of results," Ospina said in a prepared statement.

Bond added that the new report doesn't prove that meditation has no therapeutic value, but it can inform medical practitioners that the "evidence is inconclusive regarding its effectiveness."

For the general public, the report "highlights that choosing to practice a particular meditation technique continues to rely solely on individual experiences and personal preferences, until more conclusive scientific evidence is produced," Ospina said.

The study was funded by the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Bethesda, Md., part of the National Institutes of Health.

More information
The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has more about meditation for health purposes.

Researching Alternatives: A Talk With Donald Abrams

By Bob Huff
June 2003
You have a reputation as being a rigorous clinical researcher and tough advocate for making evidence-based treatment decisions.

Yet you've also been very open to studying a number of alternative and complementary therapies that have been used in the HIV patient community. How did all these concerns come together and what are you involved with these days?

I was training in oncology at UC San Francisco just as the first AIDS cases were reported. I helped found the AIDS program there and I've been participating in academic clinical research for over 20 years. More recently I've become an associate fellow of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona that was founded by Andrew Weil.

This is a two-year program, mostly online, that is increasing my training and background in integrative medicine, including things like botanical medicine, manual medicine, and spirituality. It's been a stimulating experience so far and I'm really enjoying it.

I've been interested in complementary medicine since the very beginning of my career, so one of the reasons I'm doing the fellowship is to learn more that I can integrate into my own healthcare discussions with my patients. Of course another impetus is to see what other things we might want to do clinical research on.

My intention is to continue to investigate the complementary and alternative approaches that our patients are using. We want to determine whether or not they may be beneficial, but also determine whether or not they may be harmful, particularly in how they interact with the conventional medications that patients are taking.

In the earliest days of AIDS we didn't have any treatment for this new disease; people were dying and everybody was frightened. Being here in San Francisco, we were near the Linus Pauling Research Institute in Palo Alto, so there were a number of people in the city who were proponents of high doses of Vitamin C.

One of the first responses we saw in the early '80s were storefront clinics opening up where people went to receive intravenous injections of very high doses of Vitamin C.

At that point in time we didn't even know that it was a virus causing the disease. So I used to go around on the lecture circuit with someone who would talk to audiences of concerned people who listened to him while hooked up to intravenous infusions of Vitamin C.

Then I would speak as the academician who cautioned people that we really don't know if this is beneficial and there may be some dangers to being hooked up to intravenous vitamin C, and so on. Ultimately, this led to me to write a grant proposal in collaboration with the Linus Pauling Institute.

It was right about the time we learned that HIV was the cause of AIDS so we wrote a proposal to the NIH to study the in vitro effects of Vitamin C on HIV. That grant didn't get funded.

In San Francisco at that time there were also a number of DNCB proponents. DNCB, dinitroclorobenzene, is actually a photographic chemical used for developing pictures, but it is also a skin sensitizer that had been used to test for delayed hypersensitivity reactions.

There were people who believed that somehow it might be useful in restoring some of the T-cell immunity that patients with this new disease were lacking. So there were people who would paint themselves weekly or so with DNCB until they developed these skin reactions, thinking that the skin reaction was some sort of improved T-cell immune response that would help combat the virus.

And again, seeing that people were using this and seeing that we really didn't have much else happening, I worked with some of the DNCB proponents, as well as some experts from the University of California -- I remember Jay Levy was involved, as was Marcus Conant and others -- and we wrote a protocol that we submitted to the FDA for funding. That also was rejected.

Around the time that AZT first became available in 1986, I went to a conference in Japan where I was introduced to some investigators from the Ueno Fine Chemicals company who told me that they had the cure for this disease. They said it was something that was very commonly used in Japan but they couldn't tell me about it until I signed a confidentiality agreement.

That turned out to be dextran sulfate. Not long after I was going through the process of filing the paperwork to get approval from the FDA to do a phase I study of dextran sulfate in the United States when evidently some people heard about it.

They realized that it was a product that was widely available in Japan -- I believe it was used for lowering cholesterol -- so they started an importation scheme similar to what had happened in earlier days with isoprinosine and ribavirin, which were brought across the Mexican border.

But people had now become more sophisticated in their methods and began to import dextran sulfate from Japan to sell in the underground AIDS therapy market.

I remember that activists stormed the offices of a Japanese drug distributor in New York for refusing to make dextran sulfate more widely available. Ultimately it became such a political issue that, even though my clinical trial here in San Francisco didn't show much benefit, Congress got involved and the AIDS Clinical Trial Group (ACTG) was asked to do a study of dextran sulfate through the NIH-funded mechanism. It turned out the drug was not even absorbed into the blood.

Another Japanese product I worked with was lentinin, which was an intravenously administered extract of shiitake mushroom. In Japan it was felt to be an immune booster for patients with cancer. Although it was being used by mainstream doctors in Japan, it was an alternative therapy here because it was not something that we had ever learned about or used in hospitals in the U.S. That's David Eisenberg's description of what an alternative therapy is -- that it's not taught about in medical schools or widely available in U.S. hospitals -- and certainly shiitake mushroom extracts qualified. Again, that's another study we did that had negative findings;

there was no benefit to the intravenous infusions of lentinin. Since I've learned more about botanicals, it would seem to me that if there were immune enhancing benefits to shiitake mushrooms then they are more likely to be obtained by eating them rather than by injecting an extract intravenously.

During that time I was also involved with studies of conventional therapies. Even in the days of early AZT monotherapy, which I was not a big supporter of, I was involved in trying to put some evidence behind the claims of the proponents for these various agents. And since that time, I've had a constant history of investigating conventional therapies through the federally-funded CPCRA (Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS), and more recently through the ESPRIT study of interleukin 2, as well as in other, sometimes pharmaceutical industry-sponsored trials. But always ongoing with those studies, I've been involved with clinical trials of complementary and alternative interventions.

When we first became aware of immune thrombocytopenic purpora (ITP) in AIDS, I worked with a nurse who was very interested in therapeutic touch and we studied men with low platelet counts to see if therapeutic touch could decrease their stress and increase their platelet counts. That was another study that turned out to be fairly negative.

I then became interested in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and, in fact, one of the colleges of TCM here in San Francisco sent me to China in 1989 just to learn about Qigong (Chi Kung) -- that exercise that's felt to improve the immune system -- to see if it was something that I wanted to study here. Although I never studied Qigong I collaborated with Misha Cohen from the Quan Yin Healing Arts Center here in San Francisco. We did three studies of traditional Chinese herbal interventions for, first, symptomatic HIV, then for patients with diarrhea without a pathogenic source, and then another study for patients with anemia.

The last two were hindered by the fact of being initiated about the time that HAART became available, so patients with diarrhea as well as anemia became scarce. There were also a lot of pills that needed to be taken in these Chinese herbal investigations and patients at that time were taking huge amounts of pills with their antiretroviral regimens, so the studies weren't very attractive. None of these studies had spectacular results and the anemia study was terminated for poor enrollment.

Have "soft endpoints" such as life satisfaction created a problem for designing and conducting credible studies?

The TCM herbal study that we published in 1996 investigated herbs versus placebo in symptomatic HIV infection. At the time of the study in 1993, we had patients with about 14 symptoms on average and we found that there was a significant decrease of symptoms in the herb-treated group -- they decreased from 14 to 12 -- whereas the other group still had 14 symptoms. We also found that they had improved "life satisfaction" which improved by a factor of +0.86 or thereabouts.

Yet, if you look at the rest of the results, the Chinese herbal patients actually lost weight over 12 weeks compared to the placebo group, and their CD4 counts also dropped -- not statistically significant, but it was a trend. So that was an example of where their symptoms improved and their life satisfaction increased, but the parameters that we would normally look at to see if a patient is doing well (i.e., weight and CD4 count) went in the wrong direction. So, although I was also first author on a study that showed that epoetin alfa improves quality of life in HIV patients who are anemic, I'd have to say that a study whose main endpoint is quality of life is something I would find difficult to interpret.

The CPCRA actually did a large study of acupuncture for patients with HIV-related peripheral neuropathy that was published in JAMA. That was a landmark, having the NIH support an acupuncture study, although, again, it turned out to have negative results; acupuncture didn't appear to be effective in treating peripheral neuropathy.

About this time I began trying to study another botanical, which has consumed my efforts for the past decade, and that would be cannabis, or marijuana. Starting in 1992 I began proposing and developing clinical trials to investigate first the effectiveness -- but then I realized that that wasn't going to happen -- so subsequently, the safety of smoked marijuana in patients with HIV.

We finally completed a study in the year 2000, that we hope will soon be published, that looked at the safety of marijuana in patients taking protease inhibitor regimens. And since that time we have obtained funding from the State of California that allows us now to conduct clinical trials to look at the potential effectiveness of smoked marijuana in patients with various syndromes. We have also just completed a pilot study in patients with HIV peripheral neuropathy, which allowed us to ascertain that there was some effectiveness of marijuana. But an open-label pilot study is not going to prove that, so we're now in the process of continuing on with a randomized, placebo controlled, double-blind trial in patients with HIV-related peripheral neuropathy. We're also doing marijuana studies in patients with cancer who have pain who are on opioid analgesics, and another study to look at the effect of smoked marijuana in patients who have delayed nausea and vomiting from breast cancer chemotherapy.

It was working with marijuana and all the problems that are inherent in studying a plant as a therapy that has led me to a broader interest in botanicals and the use of substances that come from nature as medicinal agents. Certainly, for thousands of years, people have depended primarily on these things. Whether or not they worked is unclear, but as an oncologist I know that many of my most potent chemotherapeutic agents were derived from plants. So right now we are waiting to hear if a protocol we submitted to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) to investigate the lipid lowering effects of oyster mushrooms in patients on Kaletra is being funded. There's good evidence that mushrooms, including oyster mushrooms in particular, have some activity for lowering blood lipids and cholesterol.

We're also just finishing a three-year NCCAM grant studying the effects of DHEA, dehydroepiandrosterone, which is an over-the-counter adrenal steroid that people are taking for many reasons. We received a grant to investigate it as an antiviral and to see what impact it has on the immune system. Hopefully that data will be available by the end of the year and we will know if DHEA had any impact, positively or negatively, in our patients.

The goal, ultimately, would be to submit a center grant to the NCCAM, to allow us to establish a center here for the study of botanicals in HIV because there are still a number of herbal preparations and mushroom extracts that warrant further investigation for their potential benefit -- and to make sure that they're not harmful in our patients.

Safety keeps coming up again and again as one of the inarguable justifications for doing this research.

There's not a huge amount that we know about some of these botanical products and how they're metabolized, but there's probably more than people think. There are a number of textbooks available that talk about herb-drug interactions. That was the question in our marijuana study: is there an interaction between cannabinoids and protease inhibitors, which are both metabolized by cytochrome P450 enzymes in the liver, that may alter the activity of the protease inhibitors such that patients lose their viral suppression when they mix cannabis with their treatments?

And in fact, in our article that was already published in AIDS, we saw no such effect. We've all heard about garlic and St. John's Wort and their interactions, and I think there are many other agents that we would like to study to make sure that they are not having significant interactions with protease inhibitors. We don't want people to either lose control of their viremia (through underdosing) or experience toxicity (through overdosing) because of antiretroviral concentrations that have been affected by herb-drug interactions.

You had to be enormously persistent to accomplish your marijuana study. In the current political climate, is it going to be more difficult to do marijuana studies?

I think we're blessed to live in the State of California, which is somewhat of a freestanding republic in and of itself. In 1996, the people of California voted to allow physicians to talk to their patients about the medicinal use of cannabis. Then, through the work of Senator John Vasconcellos, one of our state senators, appropriations were made to the University of California that established the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (http://www.cmcr.ucsd.edu/). And that Center has had funds for the past three years that allows it to support clinical trials to investigate the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Whereas the NIH and NIDA, via their congressional mandate, could only give marijuana to clinical trials that show that it was harmful (they are the National Institute on Drug Abuse, not for Drug Abuse, as NIDA's director Alan Leshner always reminded me), they were not really able to provide us with marijuana to study the benefits. But now, they have modified their system so they can provide marijuana for peer reviewed clinical trials that will look at its effectiveness as a therapeutic agent -- as long as they are not funding it. So they have now created this ability for us to obtain government marijuana.

Is there a need to increase provider knowledge about these issues?

I think a part of the problem is a lack of communication from both sides. Patients don't really perceive that these substances are something that they need to tell their doctor about -- in fact many studies show they don't want to tell their doctor because they're afraid they're going to be reprimanded or told that they're wasting their money. And many physicians never even think about asking about these things as potential confounders or as things that are causing clinical symptoms.

There also may be a variable of where in the country you are. I know many surveys show that we in the West have the highest percentage of people in the population who are using complementary and alternative interventions. So many of my colleagues here might be more familiar with how to ask the question and what to be looking for.

I remember once seeing a patient at our drop-in clinic who clearly had a drug rash. I looked through his chart -- this was when we had paper charts -- and he had a high CD4 count and a low viral load but he wasn't taking any medications.

So I said to the guy, "You're not taking any medications, huh?" And he said, "No."
"Are you taking any vitamins?" And he said, "Yeah."

So I asked him what he took and he listed about four or five vitamin preparations. Then I asked, "Do you take any herbs?" And he said, "Sure."

And so I listed the three or four herbal substances th
at he took.
"Do you take any minerals?" And he said, "Yeah."
By the time I finished I had a list of 12 different things he was taking.
So I asked, "Well, how come everybody else wrote down that you don't take anything?" And he said, "Well, nobody ever asked me before."


more info at:
http://www.dreddyclinic.com/integrated_med/integrated_med.htm

Mistletoe Injection Linked to Tumor-Like Growth

(HealthDay News) -- Adding a new twist to the debate over the value of mistletoe as an alternative cancer treatment, British doctors are reporting the case of a patient whose consumption of an extract from the Christmas decoration led to a tumor-like growth.

An accompanying commentary suggests the case provides yet another reason to avoid using mistletoe as anything other than a holiday decoration. But an alternative medicine specialist points out that risks are inherent in conventional medicine, too.

While the plant itself is poisonous, mistletoe extracts have long been touted as an alternative cancer cure, especially in Europe and Germany. Extracts are typically given by injection and said to boost the immune system to fight tumors.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), some mistletoe studies have suggested that it has value as a cancer treatment. However, the NIH -- which has launched its own study -- said the previous research has been flawed.

In the Dec. 23-30 issue of the British Medical Journal, doctors report about the case of a 61-year-old woman who reported a tumor-like mass in her abdomen after undergoing breast cancer treatment. She had previously suffered from lymphoma.

Doctors were mystified by the mass, until the patient revealed that she had been taking under-the-skin injections of a mistletoe extract as a treatment for lymphoma.

The doctors wrote that the mass appeared to be an inflammation caused by the mistletoe treatment. The report didn't say if the woman had any further problems.

In the commentary, Dr. Edzard Ernst, of the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth and a professor of complementary medicine, wrote that mistletoe produces many other side effects, including joint pain and kidney failure.

The claim that mistletoe injections have no serious risks "is therefore misleading," wrote Ernst, who added that "the costs of regular mistletoe injections are high."

Still, it's important to put the risks into context, said Dr. Adam Perlman, executive director of the Institute for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

"I don't think the significance of this case report should be exaggerated," he said. "There is much that we do in conventional medicine that has limited evidence and potential for harm.

The main issue here is less the risk of mistletoe and more the idea that the public needs to understand that 'alternative' medicine, in general, can have both potentially positive and negative consequences."

He added that the case points out that it's important for patients to be up front with doctors about alternative medications that they're taking.

More information
Learn more about mistletoe from the National Institutes of Health.

The Mind as Medicine

(HealthDay News) -- What if your mind's eye could take you to a place so peaceful that the experience eased your pain or sped your recovery from surgery? It's not such a far-fetched concept.

"Guided imagery," a type of mind-body therapy that uses visualized images to communicate to the housekeeping systems of the body, is making its way into traditional medical settings.

"People are just now taking a very serious look at it," said David E. Bresler, co-founder of the Academy for Guided Imagery, in Malibu, Calif., and author of the book Free Yourself From Pain. "There are a handful of hospitals around the country and around the world that are starting to implement these programs," he said.

In one study, researchers at Harvard Medical School found that more than 30 percent of U.S. adults have used some form of mind-body medicine, a category that includes imagery, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Bresler, a traditionally trained Ph.D. neuroscientist, first became intrigued with alternative methods of pain relief in the early 1970s, as founder and director of the University of California, Los Angeles, Pain Control Unit. Patients often used vivid images to describe their pain. It felt like an ice pick to one person, fire ants to another. One particular patient, a psychiatrist with a painful rectal carcinoma, suffered low back pain that he said "felt like a dog chewing on my spine."

Bresler knew that when patients used their imagination to go to a peaceful place, it helped them to relax, so he guided the agitated psychiatrist through a relaxation exercise. When the man's pain flared up, Bresler instructed him to speak to the dog. Would it let go of his spine? Then, an astonishing thing happened -- when the dog let go to talk, the man's pain subsided.

Today, guided imagery has numerous applications. Sports psychologists use it to enhance athletes' physical performance. Cancer centers often use it to relieve patients' pain and nausea.
In a 2004 study in the journal Pain, researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center found that children who used guided-imagery tapes before and after routine surgery had significantly less pain and anxiety than a control group. More recently, researchers examined how children used these tapes, which suggested that they "go" to a park, at least in their mind. Many, though, put their own spin on the proposed image, allowing them to escape to places like a swimming pool, a lake or an amusement park.

Bresler said imagery is the language of the autonomic nervous system, the part of the nervous system that regulates many involuntary body functions, such as heart rate, blood pressure and digestion. "So, when you're working with images, it's really a set of instructions to the system," he said.

Victoria Menzies, an imagery researcher and professor at Florida International University's School of Nursing, in Miami, said the first step for a patient in any guided-imagery session is to develop a rapport with the guide who is asking you to close your eyes and relax. Once the patient is in a relaxed state, the guide will either offer an image or ask the person to come up with their own, someplace where he or she would feel calm and safe or joyful -- the mountains, the seacoast, a favorite room in their home, whatever.

Engaging the senses is the next step, she explained. The guide might ask where you are and what you see, hear, smell, feel and even taste.

Menzies led a 10-week guided imagery intervention for a small group of patients with fibromyalgia, a condition involving chronic pain and fatigue. In the study, published in January 2006 in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, one group of patients received usual care and used a set of guided-imagery audiotapes. The other group received only usual care. Compared with the controls, the patients who participated in guided imagery were better able to perform activities of daily living and had a greater sense of being able to manage their pain and other symptoms, the study showed.

What's more, Menzies found, "The pain did not change, but the ability to cope with the pain was improved."

Bresler considers it shocking that medical colleagues would reach their hands into someone's body and remove organs before allowing a patient to go through an imaging exercise.
"It only takes a few moments to do these things and to really check on the wisdom from inside, because there is tremendous wisdom that's being generated if only we'd listen to it," he said.

More information
To learn more, visit the University of California, San Diego.

Acupuncture, Turmeric May Help Ease Arthritis

(HealthDay News) -- Acupuncture and an extract of turmeric -- the spice that gives curry its kick -- may both offer significant pain relief to some arthritis patients, two new studies suggest.
Reporting in the November issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a German team says a combination of acupuncture and conventional medicine can boost quality of life for patients suffering from osteoarthritis.

And in a second study in the same issue, American researchers say the ingestion of a special turmeric extract could help prevent or curb both acute and chronic rheumatoid arthritis.
The findings should be heartening to the roughly 40 percent of arthritis patients in the United States who say they've turned to some form of alternative medicine.

"If I had arthritis, I would be very excited about this," said Dr. Janet L. Funk, the lead author of the turmeric study and an assistant professor of physiological sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

According to the Arthritis Foundation, nearly one in five Americans (46 million) suffers from one of the more than 100 various joint diseases that constitute arthritis. An additional 23 million have chronic joint pain that has yet to be formally diagnosed.

Osteoarthritis is caused by a progressive degeneration of bone cartilage and is the most common type of arthritis in the United States. Rheumatoid arthritis is an immunological disorder characterized by a painful inflammation of the lining of the joints.

In her study, Funk built on earlier research she had conducted with rats. Those efforts suggested that turmeric might prevent joint inflammation.

In her current work, she first broke down the specific contents of commonly sold turmeric dietary supplements.

In the lab, she and her colleagues then isolated a turmeric extract that was free of essential oils and structurally similar to that found in commercial varieties. The extract was based largely on curcuminoids -- a compound they believed to be most protective against arthritic inflammation.
Funk's group administered the extract to female rats both before and after the onset of rheumatoid arthritis. They then tracked changes in the rodents' bone density and integrity.

The turmeric extract appeared to block inflammatory pathways associated with rheumatoid arthritis in rats at a particularly early point in the development of the disease. The extract had a beneficial impact if given three days after arthritis set in, but not if given eight days after disease onset.

Investigations in the laboratory revealed that turmeric stops a particular protein from launching an inflammatory "chain reaction" linked to swelling and pain. The expression of hundreds of genes normally involved in instigating bone destruction and swelling was also altered by the turmeric.

Funk stressed, however, that the findings are preliminary, and the extract needs to be tested in people.

"I feel an obligation to make clear that people should not run out to buy and consume turmeric powder," she cautioned. "First of all, a very small percent of the ground-up root that we buy in the grocery store is the protective part of the root, so it's not going to get you anywhere." In fact, the compound used in the study probably makes up only about 3 percent of the weight of current store-bought turmeric supplements, Funk said.

"That means that if this pans out in further studies, patients will be taking a purified extract, and this is all really exciting," she said. "But we still need conclusive proof that this extract is safe and efficacious."

In the second study, researchers led by Dr. Claudia M. Witt of Charite University Medical Center in Berlin spent three years tracking the treatment results of 3,500 male and female osteoarthritis patients suffering from either knee or hip pain.

For six months, all the participants were permitted to continue whatever conventional western medical treatments they had been undergoing prior to the onset of the treatment trials.
However, in addition, over 3,200 of the patients also received up to 15 sessions of needle-stimulation acupuncture during the first three months of the study. The remaining 310 patients received no acupuncture in the first three months. They were offered such treatment in the final three months of the study period, however.

All acupuncture sessions were administered by physicians who had received a minimum of 140 hours of certified training.

Symptom and pain questionnaires were completed at the onset of the study and at three months and six months of therapy.

Patients with chronic osteoarthritis pain who underwent a combination of routine medical care plus acupuncture demonstrated significant quality of life improvements, the researchers found. This included increased mobility and pain reduction above and beyond that experienced by patients who did not receive acupuncture.

For those who began their acupuncture treatments immediately, osteoarthritis improvement held steady three months after cessation of the sessions. For those patients who had begun acupuncture three months into the study period, comparable improvements occurred by the time they ended their sessions at the six-month mark.

The authors said acupuncture appeared to be a safe medical intervention with minor side effects observed in just over 5 percent of patients.

The study, one of the largest of its kind, demonstrated that acupuncture was a viable therapeutic option for people suffering from osteoarthritis, the German team said.

"I'm not surprised that people can be treated with acupuncture and get better," said Marshall H. Sager, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based doctor of osteopathic medicine, acupuncturist, and past president of the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture.

"Using acupuncture adjunctively with western medicine is very common, because if you can do both approaches, you're way ahead of the game," he said. "Some people are not amenable to medication, either because of allergenic effects or because they just don't want to consume artificial things. And so, this is a way to start the healing process by engaging and stimulating the body's own inherent ability to heal itself."

However, Sager cautioned that American patients who consider this alternative route should choose carefully when they seek out acupuncture care.

" 'Medical acupuncture' is acupuncture as practiced by a physician, which is much different than acupuncture as practiced by non-physicians in the east, such as in China," he noted. "And I would most definitely recommend that patients in the west deal with a physician that's properly trained and a member of the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture," Sager said.

More information
Find out more about arthritis at the Arthritis Foundation.

The Effects of SRT on Four Bottled Waters

Over the years I have had the honor of working with Clarus Transphase Scientific, the developers of the Q-Link Pendant and other related products in researching the effects of their patented Sympathetic Resonance Technology on organic and inorganic matter.

We have had several papers published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine specific to SRT.

I have found the technology of SRT to be effective in increasing the zeta potential or life force of matter. The following is a blinded pilot study I conducted on four commercially bottled waters and the chemical and electrical changes that took place in that water, treated with SRT.

The results are impressive and demonstrate the efficacy of the SRT technology.

Summary: The effects of SRT or Sympathetic Resonance Technology on water were measured. The pH, ORP and rH2 of water, with and without SRT processing were measured for four (4) different types of water.

All four (4) waters were commercially bottled waters. The results showed some consistent changes due to SRT including improved pH, ORP and rH2 in all waters tested.

In brief, it is shown that SRT increases pH, lowers ORP and rH2, which could help to reduce states of oxidative stress or over-acidity of the blood and tissues of living organisms.

Introduction: This is an exploratory pilot study to test a variety of drinking waters with and without SRT-treatment. The purpose is to compare the waters without SRT treatment to waters with SRT treatment to measure any changes in the hydrogen ion concentrations (pH) and the proton/electron concentrations (ORP and rH2), to demonstrate how SRT processing of the water affects positively the pH, ORP and rH2.

Materials and Methods: Four (4) types and eight (8) samples of commercially available bottled drinking waters were processed with SRT for 45 hours. These eight (8) samples from four (4) types of waters were then compared with the same four (4) types of waters without SRT using a Thermo-Orion multi-function pH/ORP meter.

The eight (8) samples of bottled water treated with SRT and the four (4) samples of bottled water not treated with SRT were tested twice for pH, ORP and rH2. Average values were calculated from duplicate measurements. Prior to testing all samples there was no prior knowledge of what samples were treated with SRT and what samples were not treated with SRT, making this a blinded exploratory pilot study.

Table 1 summarizes the results of 72 measurements.

Explanations of pH, ORP and rH2: The pH is a scientific exponential measurement of the concentration of hydrogen ions (H+) and hydroxyl ions (OH-) in an aqueous solution ranging from 1 to 14 with 7 being neutral. A pH below 7 would be acidic; having a higher concentration of hydrogen ions (H+) and a lesser amount of hydroxyl ions (OH-) and a pH, above 7 would be alkaline, having a lesser concentration of hydrogen ions (H+) and higher concentrations of hydroxyl ions (OH-).

The pH scale is exponential, so a pH of 6 would have 10 times more hydrogen ions (H+) and 10 times less hydroxyl ions(OH-) than a pH of 7 and a pH of 8 would have 10 times less hydrogen ions (H+) and 10 times more hydroxyl ions (OH-).

There are two ways to measure the electron/proton activity, or the energy potential of an aqueous solution: ORP and rH2. The value of ORP (oxidative reduction potential) quantifies the amount of energy in the aqueous solution by numbering its electrons.

It is expressed in milli volts (mV), either positive or negative. Typically water samples show a positive ORP or proton saturation of over +100 mV. A positive ORP means that the aqueous solution is acidic or oxidized and has no potential energy for further oxidation: that is, it has no free electrons for energy. Such an aqueous solution has no antioxidant or anti-acid potential to support life.

A negative ORP means that the aqueous solution possesses electrical potential - energy, and is rich in electrons to support living organisms. Aqueous solutions with a negative ORP has antioxidant or anti-acid properties and are beneficial in that they can buffer or neutralize acids and thus reduce oxidative stress.

Water with a negative ORP is the only water that can support life, buffer gastrointestinal and metabolic acids and provide electrons to support the energy needs of any living organism. Water with a negative ORP no longer exists on the earth because of inorganic and organic contamination of our oceans, rivers and streams.

All negative ORP water has to be created chemically, electrically or through the use of SRT or a combination thereof. Consider rH2 (reduction of hydrogen; sometimes called "redox") as sort of a backup measurement to ORP. rH2, is measured on a scale, just the way pH is.

The rH2 scale ranges from 0 to 44, with 22 being neutral; the lower the number, the greater the concentration of electrons. With each step, the number of electrons increases by a factor of 10; water with rH2 of 22 has 10 times more electrons than water at 23.

An increase of just two places on the scale, then, means 100 times fewer electrons. Ideally, you want your water to have an rH2 of 22 or less. Unfortunately, most municipalities have, on the average, an rH2 of 30 or greater.

That's 100 million fewer electrons.Conclusions: The waters not treated with SRT showed positive ORP's at +378 to +431 and rH2's at 27.9 to 28.04. The untreated Evian water was the best bottled water with an alkaline pH of 7.39, an ORP of +390 and an rH2 at 27.9, but was still lacking in electrical potential and electron concentration. All other non treated waters were acidic, with AquaFina, a purified municipal water, being the most acidic, at a pH of 5.83.

However, the effects of SRT on pH, ORP and rH2 were similar for all four (4) waters and all eight (8) samples, in that SRT increased pH from .44% to 19.21%, reduced ORP from 48.21% to 60.09% and reduced rH2 6.64% to 9.15% respectively. (Refer to Table 1)

Of the four (4) types of waters and eight (8) samples treated with SRT, AquaFina had the best result with a pH prior to treatment of 5.83 and with SRT treatment, a pH increase to 6.95, a 19.21% increase.

The ORP went from +431 to +200 and a rH2 of 28.31 to 25.93, indicating a 1500 times increase of electrons or electrical potential.This pilot study showed the effects of SRT on physical properties as well as the subtle energetic properties of water.

However, not all waters appear to react in the same way to SRT. Some waters showed a stronger effect than others. The most notable changes were the increases of the pH, and reductions in ORP and rH2 of the AquaFina water, which is nothing more than treated tap water.

This means that water treated with SRT can reduce hydrogen ions, increase hydroxyl ions, decrease protons and increases electrons and thus lower oxidative stress, gastrointestinal and metabolic acids and provide energy for living organisms to sustain life.

Moreover, this is consistent with previously published research on SRT, which shows that SRT makes human cells, tissues, organs and living organisms more resistant and resilient to the ravages of acidic stress.

The fact that various types of waters react somewhat differently to SRT may be due to their molecular structure and mineral composition and the ability of the atoms of the waters ability to hold new information.

It is also possible that the various bottled waters may already contain information from the processing at the bottling plant, which makes it harder for them to hold SRT processing.

In summary: SRT or Sympathetic Resonance Technology is shown to enhance drinking water properties including its electrical or energetic potential and antioxidant/anti-acid capacities.

Water Non SRT Water Type pH % Change1) Evian Mineral 7.30 pH2) Calistoga Mineral 6.81 pH3) Dasani Treated Tap 6.60 pH4) AquaFina Treated Tap 5.83 pHWater With SRT 1) Evian Sample 1 Mineral 7.54 pH 2.03%2) Evian Sample 2 Mineral 7.65 pH 3.52%3) Calistoga S-1 Mineral 6.84 pH .

44%4) Calistoga S-2 Mineral 6.91 pH 1.47%5) Dasani S-1 Treated Tap 6.81 pH 3.18%6) Dasani S-2 Treated Tap 6.81 pH 3.18%7) AquaFina S-1 Treated Tap 6.95 pH 19.21%8) AquaFina S-2 Treated Tap 6.68 pH 14.58%Water Non SRT Water Type ORP% Change rH2 %

Change1) Evian Mineral +430 mV 27.902) Calistoga Mineral +404 mV 28.04

3) Dasani Treated Tap +378 mV 27.78

4) AquaFina Treated Tap +431 mV 28.31Water With SRT

1) Evian Sample 1 Mineral +202 mV 48.46% 26.03 6.77%
2) Evian Sample 2 Mineral +202 mV 48.21% 26.02 6.74%
3) Calistoga S-1 Mineral +190 mV 52.97% 25.90 7.63%
4) Calistoga S-2 Mineral +200 mV 50.50% 26.00 7.27%
5) Dasani S-1 Treated Tap +156 mV 57.73% 25.56 7.99%
6) Dasani S-2 Treated Tap +156 mV 57.73% 25.56 7.99%
7) AquaFina S-1 Treated Tap +172 mV 60.09% 26.01 6.77%
8) AquaFina S-2 Treated Tap +193 mV 55.22% 26.02 6.74%

Table 1: pH, ORP and rH2 values on four (4) types of water with and without SRTFor more information concerning SRT and the Q-Link Pendants and other related energy products, visit our website at:
www.phmiracleliving.com
ph Miracle Center

Seeking an Integrative Medicine Physician?

Q: Seeking an Integrative Medicine Physician?
I am interested in finding a doctor trained in or open to Integrative Medicine. Where should I look?

A: You could start by contacting the medical school nearest your home to ask if it has a program in Integrative Medicine. If so, call the office of the program director to ask for a physician referral.

You should also take a look at the Web site of the Program in Integrative Medicine (http://integrativemedicine.arizona.edu/alum/index.html) here at the University of Arizona to see if one of the graduates of our fellowship programs is located in your area. To date, more than 120 graduates and associates are practicing in the United States (including Puerto Rico), Canada, and Japan.

I realize that at present the demand for physicians who practice Integrative Medicine or are open to its goals is far greater than the supply. Fortunately, there is growing pressure on medical schools and on those who administer government funding of medical education to put more emphasis on Integrative Medicine. As programs like the one at the University of Arizona proliferate and begin to graduate doctors, we'll have a larger supply of physicians willing to expand the horizons of medicine by focusing on the body's natural healing potential and by drawing on the rich diversity of other therapeutic systems.

If you can't find an Integrative Medicine practitioner, you may be able to "create"one among your own team of health-care professionals by discussing the effective alternative therapies you have used or are using and urging them to become more familiar with such treatments. (Tell them to look at the University of Arizona website for available training programs.) Certainly alternative treatments are widely popular.

Results of a government survey released in May 2004 showed that 36 percent of U.S. adults age 18 and older use some form of complementary or alternative medicine. (The total comes to 62 percent when prayer is included.) The survey data are considered the most comprehensive and reliable information on use of complementary and alternative treatments ever collected. If you can't find a doctor today who practices Integrative Medicine or is open to its principles, chances are that you'll be able to find one close to home sooner rather than later.
Andrew Weil, M.D.

Licensing Naturopaths?

Q: Licensing Naturopaths?I just became aware of the ongoing effort to license naturopathic physicians. I was shocked. Aren??t these physicians already licensed?

A: Surprising as it may seem, naturopathic physicians are licensed to practice in only 14 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. In April 2005, Idaho became the most recent state to pass a licensing law. You may also be surprised to know that without licensing, anyone can obtain a "degree" to practice naturopathic medicine through correspondence courses or just hang out a shingle in most states.

In the 14 states that do require licensing, naturopathic physicians must be graduates of accredited four-year schools. Legislative efforts are ongoing elsewhere, and we soon may be hearing about licensing laws passing in more states. In Canada, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan license naturopaths.

Physician-level NDs are trained not only in natural modalities but in biomedical sciences as well. The first two years of naturopathic medical education are dedicated to the medical sciences and include courses in cadaver anatomy, biochemistry, pathophysiology, and neuroanatomy that are similar in content and length to the courses required for medical doctors. In the second two years of education, students can undertake the study of systems (e.g., cardiology, gynecology, and gastroenterology) and populations (e.g., pediatrics, geriatrics). Throughout their education, NDs are steeped in naturopathic principles and the study and application of natural therapies such as clinical nutrition, botanical medicine, homeopathy, physical medicine, and health counseling.

Having spent most of my professional career working with healthcare providers all over the world, from the conventional, alternative, and complementary professions, I value the critical role that NDs play in the emerging field of integrative medicine.

At the Program in Integrative Medicine here at the University of Arizona, NDs are an essential part of our multidisciplinary clinic team. I see many possibilities for MDs and NDs to work collaboratively to meet the needs of their patients.
Andrew Weil, M.D.

Can Prayer Heal What Ails You?

(HealthDay News) -- Whenever a loved one suffers a health crisis, well-wishers often pass on the heartfelt promise that they'll "pray for you."
In fact, so many people believe in the power of prayer that it's now caught the attention of scientific researchers.
"Praying for your health is one of the most common complementary treatments people do on their own," said Dr. Harold G. Koenig, co-director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University Medical Center. "About 90 percent of Americans pray at some point in their lives, and when they're under stress, such as when they're sick, they're even more likely to pray."
More than one-third of people surveyed in a recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine said they often turned to prayer when faced with health concerns. In the poll involving more than 2,000 Americans, 75 percent of those who prayed said they prayed for wellness, while 22 percent said they prayed for specific medical conditions.
Numerous randomized trials have been done to assess the effect of intercessory prayer on heart patients' health.
In one such study, neither patients nor the health-care providers had any idea who was being prayed for. The coronary-care unit patients didn't even know there was a study being conducted. And, those praying for the patients had never even met them.
The result: While those in the prayer group had about the same length of hospital stay, their overall health was slightly better than the group that didn't receive special prayers.
"Prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care," wrote the authors of this 1999 study, also published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
However, a more recent trial from the April 2006 issue of the American Heart Journal seemed to contradict these findings, suggesting that it's even possible for some harm to come from prayer.
In this study, which included 1,800 people scheduled for heart surgery, the group who knew they were receiving prayers developed more complications from the procedure, compared to those who had not been a focus of prayer. Additionally, this study found no benefit in the group that received prayers, but didn't know it.
But Koenig said there's a simple explanation why people might fare worse if they knew they were being prayed for in a study.
"These people got the news just before they went into surgery. They were given pieces of paper that said they'd be getting prayer, which may have made them think, 'Oh my God, what's wrong with me?' " Koenig explained. "That's a totally artificial situation. Normally, you have loved ones and friends praying for you and there's nothing negative in that situation."
This new study also points out the difficulty of trying to quantify the effects of prayer, said Koenig.
"Studies cannot prove that prayer does not work. We don't know any more about the efficacy of prayer after reading these studies and they shouldn't affect anyone's belief in prayer," he said.
With scant evidence to support prayer for healing, should doctors encourage the practice?
Clearly, many patients are reluctant to bring up the subject with their physicians. In one study, only 11 percent of people surveyed have mentioned prayer to their physicians. But, physicians may be more open to the subject than patients realize, particularly in serious medical situations.
In a study of doctors' attitudes toward prayer and spiritual behavior, almost 85 percent of physicians thought they should be aware of their patients' spiritual beliefs. Most doctors said they wouldn't pray with their patients even if they were dying, unless the patient specifically asked the doctor to pray with them. In that case, 77 percent of physicians were willing to pray for their patient.
The bottom line on prayer and health: If it's something you want to do and you feel it might be helpful, there's no reason you shouldn't do it.
"I think many people are convinced that prayer helps, otherwise I don't think they would do it. Some people are 'foxhole religious' types and prayer's almost a reaction or cry to the universe for help. But, many people do it because they've experienced benefit from it in the past," Koenig explained.
"So, if you have any inclination that prayer might work, do it," he said.

More information
For more research on spirituality and health, head to the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.