Volume 1 * Number 1

Words from Dr. Biddle:

Wow, what an amazing journey since our last newsletter four months ago! Moving the clinic certainly was an adventure and I'm loving our new, homey location on South French Broad Avenue.

I want to share with you some of the recent teachings the universe has been showing me, medically that is. I've noticed that patients tend to come to me in groups of 3 or 4 at a time with certain diagnoses. Remarkably, one of two things usually happen with each diagnosis group: either the patients show up right after I'm exposed to some really good article about natural or advanced treatment options, or the patients bring me a packet of research they've been gathering on their diagnosis and ask me to help them implement an innovative treatment program. They usually have a story about their "regular" doctor being unwilling to take a serious look at their information, either due to skepticism or time constraints. I sympathize with constrictions around time, but find that I'm usually amply rewarded when I finally manage to look at the data.

Over the last quarter, the topics that have been most obvious for teaching me new treatment strategies include hyperlipidemia (i.e. high cholesterol), subclinical hypothyroidism (i.e. Wilson's syndrome), rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma, and Hepatitis C.

Hyperlipidemia: We have great success with clients dropping their cholesterol and lipid values by following our adequate-protein, fibrous-carbohydrate, healthy-fat dietary philosophy. However, some patients still need additional help with their lipid levels, either due to genetics or dietary indiscretion. In these cases, the studies and our experience both show great results with using Gugulipid (an herb from India) and/or Niasafe (a safe form of non-flush Niacin; see Anne's article this edition). If your lipid levels are still high or borderline after dietary changes, consider adding one or both of these herbs, which compete favorably with prescription medications for results, but beat the heck out of them in their absence of uncomfortable or unhealthy "side effects."

Subclinical Hypothyroidism (Wilson's Syndrome): Here's--one of those diagnosis and treatment protocols that defies recognition in mainstream medicine by invoking the adage of "all evidence that does not fit the ruling paradigm will be ignored." In this condition, patients have normal thyroid labs but low body temperatures, usually with numerous or "vague" complaints that don't fit into a conveniently classical diagnostic constellation. In other words, conventional physicians experience these patients as complaining and frustrating, because they don't have a good label and they're not getting better with symptomatic band-aids. Here's the theory behind Wilson's Syndrome: a body has a defect converting thyroid hormone (T4) to its more active form of T3. In brief, the thyroid hormone receptors throughout the body don't get stimulated enough in spite of normal lab values, so metabolism is slow, temperature is low, enzymes throughout the body perform below par, and symptoms are diffuse. Treatment consists of taking several cycles of T3, about 2-3 weeks per cycle. Symptoms often resolve when the body is able to restore normal operating temperatures and enzymes work appropriately. Although it is a complex treatment program and many patients do report uncomfortable symptoms during treatment, results can be dramatically positive. (see http://www.wilsonsyndrome.com)

Rheumatoid Arthritis and Scleroderma: A new patient brought me a wonderful book entitled "A New Arthritis Breakthrough" by Henry Scammell, documenting Dr. Thomas McPherson Brown's novel treatment approach to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as an allergic autoimmune response to chronic mycoplasma infection, as well as his 50-year battle with the arthritis establishment. My favorite chapter is "In Defense of Heresy," which gives clear examples of how most really useful medical innovations are first ignored, suppressed, and even persecuted. In this case, the data is clear that many cases, perhaps even the majority of cases, of RA are associated with chronic infection with species of mycoplasma. Even though it's clear that Strep infections initiate, rheumatic arthritis, spirochete infections cause Lyme arthritis, and gut infections can trigger ankylosing spondylitis, the American Rheumatology Association has been vociferous in its unwillingness to even consider the possibility that long-term antibiotic therapy might improve many cases of RA. I'm personally excited to be exposed to this data and hope it will be useful for my patients. (see http://www.roadback.org and http://www.rheumatic.org)

It's already clear that 85% of all ulcers are caused by chronic infection with Helicobacter pylori and it's now becoming clear that a significant percentage of heart disease is being caused by chronic infection with Chlamydia pneumoniae. It's odd for me as the "natural" medicine doctor to be prescribing extended courses of antibiotics, but that's part of practicing Integrative Medicine, using what works and will get the best result for the patient.

Hepatitis C: With this diagnosis, it's not so much that I've come across any spectacular new treatments recently, but it has come to my attention just how often Hepatitis C goes undiagnosed. This month I had three healthy and asymptomatic clients present after having a positive test for Hep C during an insurance physical or donating blood. This is a sneaky infection in several ways. The first is that less than 20% of infected individuals ever have symptoms. The second is that we don't really know how most people get it, since most carriers never had a blood transfusion. Sexual transmission is probably the most common route, but partners of carriers often remain uninfected for decades. The third sneaky aspect of Hep C is that it tends to mutate inside your body, thereby escaping the immune system's attempts to abolish it. Thus far, only about 15% of infected people seem able to spontaneously and completely cure themselves of the infection, while 20% develop cirrhosis after 20 years.

What to do if you come up with a positive test? First of all, stay calm and do further testing to see if you're already in the 15% spontaneous cure category. This test is the Hep C serum RNA level hypolymerase chain reaction (PCR). Next, get further educated at http://www.shn.net or see the NIH Consensus Statement at http://odp.od.nih. gov/consensus/statements/cdc/105/105 stmt.htmI (whew!) Unfortunately, conventional therapy with alpha-interferon only offers modest gain with great expense and side effects, although recent addition of ribavirin has improved results.

Finally, start on a program to increase your odds of being a spontaneous healer, or at least of surviving a normal lifespan with normal liver function, thereby eventually dying with Hep C rather than from it. At CCMM we focus on three basic strategies for somebody in this situation: support the immune system, support liver function, and suppress viral replication. The specifics are too complex to describe here and are of course individualized to the client, but I'm convinced that "we" could do much better than just 15% spontaneous healing if "we" did a better job of providing the body what it needs to do the job.

In summary, I'm grateful that my clients continue to educate me as I endlessly refine my "practice" of Integrative Medicine. At times this means walking into territory on "the road less traveled" and risking medical heresy, yet the reward is in consistently seeing improvements in patients who would typically be expected to have only progressive deterioration.

In Good Health,
Dr. Jim Biddle