The Complete Patient

A glass of milk was one of the great pleasures of nearly all my childhood meals. Since I was "supposed" to have three glasses of milk a day anyway for good health, the fact that I actually enjoyed it (especially with cookies) was a bonus.

Over the years, though, I've gotten away from cow's milk nearly entirely--until just a few days ago. I had become concerned about all the news about hormones and antibiotics that are part of most of the milk we buy, not to mention saturated fat, so I had gradually made a transition to soy milk for cereal and fruit shakes. But then I had an opportunity to purchase so-called "raw" milk--milk that hasn't been either pasteurized or homogenized--at a farmers market in New Hampshire, so for $3 I took home a gallon.

I'd read about the supposed benefits of raw milk in various Internet postings, notably the presence of beneficial enzymes that are killed off in the pateurization process, and the absence of harmful processing inherent in pasteurization and homogenization. (Just go to Google and search "raw milk.")

Unfortunately, I'd read more recently the semi-hysterical mainsteam media, such as a major article in USAToday which boils down to this: you could easily become deathly ill from drinking raw milk...and if you want to risk endangering your family's health...well, that's your business...don't say we didn't warn you...

So when I poured out milk shakes for family members after dinner that I had made from the raw milk, I did it with trepidation. I wondered if we'd wake up in the middle of the night deathly ill...or even wake up at all!

Well, we all woke up the next morning feeling fine. I loved seeing how the cream had come to the top of the milk container and shaking it up to ready it for my cereal. Made me feel like it must have been like in old times. I even had the milk straight, and couldn't help but notice how crisp and clean it tasted, none of the slightly "milky" taste or after-taste that was the main thing I disliked about milk as a kid.

In the meantime, the media's assault on people's growing desire to drink milk that is less processed and/or contaminated by hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides continues. At MSNBC, a writer argues that "research" doesn't show added benefits from organic milk (which is pasteurized and homogenized). I love the little throwaway line near the end of the article: "Recent USDA reports show that nonorganic milk may contain low levels of certain pesticides, but these are far below established tolerance levels." Sure, just wait years for "the research" to show that "the established tolerance levels" were a bit optimistic. (Damn, I hate when that happens!)

I'm looking forward to getting back into the milk habit again.

One of the things that really stayed with me from my research on "the baby industry" for my latest BusinessWeek.com column is the courage of the women (and their partners) who embark on the fertility search. Committing to having a surrogate birth mother requires surrendering not only control but lots of other emotional attachments that are part of the birthing experience. It also means putting yourself out there in a unique way.

The willingness of so many women to do that is testimony to the power of parenthood. For all its stresses, parenthood is one of the great joys of life, and its attraction continues to be enduring in an ever-more-uncertain world.

As in all such health-related matters, there is a lot of money at stake. And whenever there is money at stake, there will be the less than scrupulous. I didn't get to meet these individuals in my brief foray into the baby business, but I know they are there, and prospective parents heading down the fertility path should stay alert.

My favorite yoga teacher likes to use "juice" as a verb, as in, "I try to juice every day." When I did a Google search for "juicing," something like 1.4 million citations came up, so I guess it's not that great an extension to say, "I juice" and "They are juicing." Anyway...the yoga teacher, Pat, has lots of useful health tips she shares, and she's been pushing juicing for a while, so I tried one of her recipes a couple months back. (I purchased a juicer a few years back, but didn't use it much till recently.)

The recipe is: a bunch of kale (or spinach or chard, or something else real leafy green), four or five celery stalks (or cucumber), a piece of fresh ginger, half an apple, half a lemon. You put them through the juicer and, wow,  you have quite a wake-me-up in the two-plus cups of juice. Pat recommends drinking it first thing in the morning, but I usually can't manage it till late morning. That ginger and lemon give it a real pop, and you can almost feel instant energy as you sip it down.

I can't prove anything about the benefits, but I feel as if I have more energy, and I also feel as if it dampens my appetite some. It certainly seems more relevant as the U.S. government encourages us to eat as much fruit and vegetables as we can every day. As I said, when I looked up "juicing," much of what I came across was speculative. One article pointed out that juicing likely contributes to health on several levels--via high dosages of phytogens (thought to be cancer-inhibiting component of certain vegetables and fruits), chlorophyl, enzymes, and a wide variety of nutrients.

But my guess is that we'll be hearing more about juicing. According to the article I mentioned in the previous paragraph, raw juice (the real vegetable-based juiced, as opposed to the sweetened fruit juices in so-called juice bars that are fairly widespread) is appearing in certain restaurants in San Diego and Seattle, so the trend will likely move west to east.

The challenge of fresh juice is keeping it fresh. It is best consumed immediately after being produced, and generally loses its punch as it is stored or pasteurized or shipped. I'll keep an eye out for studies and such on this subject. We absolutely want to be up on what's trendy.

I've long subscribed to an investment newsletter written by an 81-year-old stock market guru, Richard Russell. He writes comments and analysis about the markets every day the market is open, which is typically five days a week--a rigorous workload for anyone half his age. Sometimes he goes adrift and writes about politics and personal health. In the latter area, one of his favorite topics is something called EDTA chelation, an intravenous treatment used to clear the arteries of toxins, including heavy metals (for further information, just google the term). He credits chelation with significantly extending his life following heart bypass surgeries and related conventional treatment when he was in his fifties, when the treatments failed to be anything more than short-term solutions. (The reason the subject comes up is that once a month, Russell goes in for his chelation treatment, and apologizes for a shortened stock market commentary.)

I thought his latest comment about the subject was especially insightful, and am quoting from him here:

"I've received a lot of mail regarding EDTA chelation. I guess I've told hundreds of people (most with heart problems) about chelation, but very few have looked into it.

"People tend to be very passive, even about their own health. It's amazing, they ask their cardiologists about chelation, and the cardiologists tell them chelation is "voodoo medicine," and it's dangerous -- and people accept this. Ironically, EDTA chelation is the accepted treatment for metal poisoning, and the FDA approves of chelation for metal poisoning. But when chelation is used for removal of plaque in the vascular system, the medical establishment tells us that it's 'unproven' and furthermore, that it's "dangerous.'

"Talk about stupidity! Reminds me of the old days when doctors objected to women breast feeding. Mothers were told that breast feeding was insanitary and that bottle-feeding was far superior. Now, decades later, breast feeding is widely recommended by the medical profession. In fact, a month ago I read where doctors were saying that avoiding breast feeding could actually endanger the child. Full circle, I guess you could call it. Some day the American Heart Association will get honest about EDTA chelation. Of course, if they do, a lot of hospitals that survive on heart surgery are going to go file for bankruptcy."

I once asked a physician friend about chelation, and got the answer Russell alludes to: When he was in medical school, the physician told me, he was taught that chelation was quackery.

I guess it's difficult for many people to challenge their physicians. They are, after all, authority figures, glamorized on television and in movies. But as Russell points out, if something as inexpensive as chelation was found to work, the financial effects would be disastrous...for the medical profession. It needs to keep those operating rooms full, after all! Actually, the federal government is in the midst of a multiyear study about the effects of chelation on heart disease, so one of these years we may get some data.

The Wall Street Journal's op ed page has a pretty amazing article today by a Harvard Medical School physician, Dr. Jerome Groopman, who seems to be saying that if a patient feels relief or is helped by a nutritional supplement or other alternative therapy not proven out by "rigorous metrics," the patient is likely a victim of the placebo effect. He spends a lot of space defending a physician friend who refused to believe the testimonials from "many of her patients" that glucosamine, chondroitin sulfate helped relieve their arthritis pain. He then goes on to argue that now that the federal government's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is doing "rigorous testing" of alternative approaches, we'll soon have all the answers we need about what works and what doesn't.  Whew, I feel better already!

Dr. Groopman is someone who does a lot of intelligent writing about medicine for the New Yorker magazine. But you have to wonder about his parroting of the medical establishment's company line trashing most alternative approaches as "magic," just where he's coming from these days.