What Doctors Don't Tell You Australia/NZ December 2022 - January 2023

In 1953, the award-winning and much-lauded American playwright and author Lillian Hellman was called to testify before the Committee on House Un-American Activities (HUAC), chaired by Senator Joseph ("Have you now or have you ever been a Communist") McCarthy. Like many other intellectuals. Hellman was essentially told that she could save her neck by exposing suspected communists among her acquaintances, or go to tria lfor political subversion. Hellman refused to hand over any names—famously announcing, "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions"—and also managed to avoid standing trial. But like so many of her friends in the screenwriting and literary community, she was blacklisted from much future work, sustaining enormous financial loss. Twenty years later, Hellman published Scoundrel Time, a detailed memoir of her experiences during the Red…

Dr Damien Downing, a specialist in allergy, environment and nutrition, is current president of the British Society for Ecological Medicine, on the editorial board of Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, Chief Medical Advisor of cancer charity Yes to Life (www.yestolife.org.uk), and author of numerous books including The Vitamin Cure for Allergies. Dr Michel Odent, a French-trained surgeon and obstetrician, is a pioneer of the natural birth movement, emphasizing home and water birth. Founder of the Primal Health Research Centre in the UK, he has written some 50 scientific papers and 11 books. Dr Sarah Myhill has worked in the UK National Health Service and private practice since 1981. Honorary Secretary of the British Society for Ecological Medicine for 17 years, she is a frequent lecturer and author of Sustainable Medicine and Diagnosis and…

Time to embrace women's aging As a woman in early perimenopause, I read your article about HRT online (in print in this issue) with great interest. It's a bit disheartening when it turns out that a long-touted solution isn't a solution after all. Trading irritability, night sweats and low libido for a higher risk of breast cancer and lethal blood clots doesn't sound like an even trade in the least. I can't help wondering if a major portion of the true motivation for such "solutions" (beyond the profit motive) is a form of misogyny—a desire to keep women in a younger stage of life for as long as possible, as if we are worth less as we age. Maybe it's time to leave this mentality behind and embrace every stage of a woman's…

Having a spiritual belief keeps you healthy. People with religious and spiritual beliefs will live longer and are less likely to suffer from depression or become suicidal And if they do get ill, their symptoms won't be as severe as someone with no religious beliefs, and they'll recover quicker. A person's spiritual beliefs should be front and center in a doctor's relationship with a patient, say researchers from the T. H. Chan School of Medicine at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital, who have carried out the most exhaustive search yet into the impact of spiritual beliefs on health and recovery. They reviewed nearly 600 studies to discover the profound impact that spiritual beliefs have on our health and well-being. Spirituality is the path a person follows for ultimate meaning, purpose and connection…

A little alcohol is good for you—but only if you're over the age of 40. If you're younger, no amount is safe, a new study has claimed. Health benefits from alcohol apply only to healthy over-40s, the ages at which a small glass of red wine, for instance, could help reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. By the time you reach your 60s, two servings a day can have a beneficial effect, while those over the age of 65 can safely drink three servings of alcohol a day. Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation analyzed data from 204 countries to discover that age is the key factor that determines the benefits—or dangers—of alcohol. In each of the countries, people aged 15 to 39 were drinking dangerous amounts…

Mindfulness meditation can help ease your pain. The technique can reduce pain intensity by as much as 32 percent, a new study has discovered—and even people who haven't meditated before can quickly reap these benefits. The key is in not associating with the pain, but instead observing it as if it was happening to someone else, say researchers from the University of California at San Diego. They tested the benefits of mindfulness on a group of 40 volunteers, half of whom were taught the technique while the others were told just to relax. When a painful heat was applied to the leg, the mindfulness group reported a 32 percent reduction in pain intensity and a 33 percent reduction in unpleasant feelings about the pain, compared to the relaxation group. Brain scans endorsed the…