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As an adolescent, I recall my mother pointing a finger in my face, her hand still wet from the evening dishes and smelling of onions and dishwashing liquid. "As ye sow, so shall ye also reap," she'd quote from the Bible. I would snicker to myself, thinking how silly her words were.

Of course, in my adult years I would learn over and over and over the bitter lesson that, yes, as we sow so do we reap. What we do in life has an amazing, almost mystic, way of coming back to haunt us or nurture us, depending on the legacy we have left behind us.

It is a lesson that the pharmaceutical companies will need to learn, if they wish to survive.

For decades public outcry has been at their doors for many reasons. They are marketing to relentlessly drug the behavior of more and more children. The antidepressants which they have pushed into medicine cabinets across America turn out to be not only nominally effective but may actually increase suicide rates.

Well, the good times appear to have come to an end. This ezine gives two articles covering investigations in New York and the United Kingdom. That is only a quick glance at the trouble Big Pharma has gotten itself into.

A recent Harris poll finds the public's approval of drug companies is now at the same level as tobacco companies, with a 35% drop in popularity since 1997. The New York Times reported on July 8, "No industry has fallen as far or as fast in public esteem in recent years as the pharmaceutical industry, according to the Harris Poll."

Federal legislators are buzzing on all this like a cracked hornet's nest. The American Medical Association is proposing that drug companies be required to register and publish all clinical trials so they can't just select the favorable ones for public view.

The sad part of this is that drugs can be quite valuable if used when they are truly needed (as compared to being marketed to the whole population). Big Pharma could be heroes if they would market their drugs ethically.

But the dominoes have already started to fall. Drug execs around the world are huddled in board rooms sweating out their PR and legal strategies. They're lucky my mom isn't around. She'd have her finger in their faces: "As ye sow..."

After applying the concepts of smart nutrition to her clients, therapist Judy Stone tells us, "So dramatic were these changes that I began to feel I could do more to help people in less time as a nutritionist than as a psychotherapist."

Her book, Take Two Apples and Call Me in the Morning, is an excellent tutorial on how food affects mind and body and what you can do about it. She discusses all the basics such as balancing blood sugar, hormones, exercise, fatty acids, etc., as well as some of the fine points for people with specific conditions.

For those looking for a very readable text on how to live healthier (and why you should!) Judy Stone's book lays out a compelling explanation of how the body functions and how you can use this knowledge for greater physical and mental well-being. 

Did you know that walking is one of the best activities you can do to dramatically increase your level of health?

Many people today are afflicted with "couch-potato-itis!" They come home from work, switch on their TVs and forget that their bodies need maintenance. But one day reality comes crashing through when their doctors say, "You have a problem!"

This article will show you a simple strategy for improving your health through a fun and inexpensive walking program that promises many benefits.

First, it will increase your energy level. Since walking is an aerobic exercise, it helps the heart and lungs become more efficient.

Both PCOPF (the President's Council on Physical Fitness) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease (NIDDK) state that a regular walking program can lower resting heart rates and blood pressure. It can help burn excess calories and increase muscle tone too.

Second, walking can enhance your mental health. Taking regular walks can help reduce stress and enable you to sleep better. It can also help relieve symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. When you walk, your body produces endorphins which produce a feeling of wellbeing.

Third, it's fun! The President's Council on Physical Fitness (PCOPF) calls walking the most popular form of exercise. It can be very enjoyable taking walks with a friend or loved one or even in groups. My husband and I often take walks at night and discuss our day. It's a special time for me.

Here's what you'll need as you begin your new walk-for-health lifestyle. Purchase a pair of comfortable shoes, sunscreen or a hat and sunglasses. Choose loose-fitting garments. Bring along a bottle of water on warm days.

But before you briskly stride out the door to begin your new adventure, you'd better check with your doctor first if you experience any of these symptoms: -persistent dizziness -chronic shortness of breath -high blood pressure -heart problems -chest pain

When you're ready to begin walking regularly, there are some precautions to take. Walk during daylight hours or at night only in well-lit areas. Be sure to obey all traffic rules for pedestrians. If you decide to wear headphones, make sure you can still hear what's going on around you - like cars honking. Stop and rest if you start feeling sick to your stomach, dizzy or experience unusual pain.

Try to walk whenever possible as part of your daily activities.

* For example, park a distance from stores so you can get some extra exercise going to and from your destination.
* Why not visit local parks to enjoy the beauty of nature while you're exercising?
* Check out the neighborhood where you live to find good routes.
* On rainy days you can walk in malls instead of doing without your exercise time.
* It's a good idea to make a habit of selecting stairs instead of elevators when you need to spend time in office buildings.
* It's more fun if you have a companion. This is good exercise for dogs too - they love to go for walks!

Experts recommend thirty minutes of brisk striding per day. It's best to walk every day, but you only really need to walk five days a week. This can be broken down into smaller segments of time - three ten-minute walks instead of one long 30-minute one.

Try to stride as fast as you can without overexerting yourself. You can tell when you are going at a brisk pace because your heart will beat faster and you'll breathe deeper. However, your heart should not be racing and you should still be able to carry on a conversation.

So get off the couch, put those chips down, slip on your comfortable shoes and start striding your way to better health!

 

Patricia Wagner offers informative tips on living a more energetic lifestyle at www.a-to-z-wellness.com and through her free "A to Z Health Tips" newsletter. Subscribe at www.a-to-z-wellness.com/subscribe.htm. Contact Patricia at wagner.art@verizon.net.

The Institute of Australian Psychiatrists has announced that its fourteenth annual conference, scheduled for November 12-14, 2004, will be devoted to "Complementary Approaches to Psychiatry."

"This conference is the first in Australia dedicated to the exploration of complementary approaches to Psychiatric treatment and Psychotherapy," begins the announcement on the Institute's website, www.astmanagement.com.au/iap04/.

"Its objective is to examine the foundation of current beliefs about effective options in psychiatry in the treatment of mental illness, and present some complementary approaches.

"At least fifty percent of the Australian population utilize complementary approaches toward their health; these involve a range of treatments which include acupuncture, multivitamins, herbs, nutriceuticals, breathing, bodywork, mediation, energy field based therapies, ... to name just a few modalities.

"Medical and psychiatric opposition to alternative approaches is often based as much on ideological factors, as lack of information or training.

"The aim of this conference is to open a dialogue, and provide an arena where psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and practitioners of naturopathy and complementary medicine can come together and develop an overview of current thinking in this area, review the effectiveness of various approaches, and examine how these various modalities might complement existing treatments, and/or replace some."

Topics and speakers will include:

• Reviews of mind-body paradigms to accommodate recent advances in our understanding of brain function.
• Biorhythms in psychiatry (Dr Hans Stampfer and Prof Jack Pettigrew)
• The place of "energy field" paradigms in psychiatry (Dr Ruth Doherty, Prof Timkin of the Ukranian "Institute of Man", Dr Leon Alexander and Russian colleagues)
• Complementary medicines in psychiatry (Prof Tim Lambert)
• Nutriceuticals in the treatment of stress, and mental illness (Presenter to be arranged)
• Homeopathic treatment in psychiatric care (Presenter to be arranged)
• Acupuncture in psychiatric treatment (Dr Stefan Neszpor)
• Spirituality and psychotherapy (Dr Bill Wilkie)
• Meditation and psychotherapy (Dr Michael Huxter and A/Prof Leon Petchkovsky)
• Women's Indigenous healing practices (Prof Judy Atkinson)  

Sarah Boseley, health editor for The Guardian, wrote on June 14 that the British government's Committee on the Safety of Medicine (CSM) was expected to follow its recent warning against antidepressant use in children with a similar caution about prescribing the drugs for adults.

An expert working group of the CSM has already warned of risks of children becoming suicidal, aggressive and suffering mood swings through the use of SSRIs, adding that the drugs were not very effective in any case.

"Now the committee is close to completing its review of the safety and efficacy of the SSRIs in adults," writes Boseley. "The Guardian understands that it has found a similar picture and that the drug regulatory body, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), is likely to impose restrictions on the use of some of them."

Just a week earlier, the British Times Online reported that officials of the MHRA had launched an investigation into charges that GlaxoSmithKline hid the juvenile suicide risks found in clinical trials of Seroxat (Paxil), with criminal prosecution a likely outcome.

Yet the MHRA, in a move characterized by Richard Brook, chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, as "a fundamental breach [of impartiality] that the [health] minister must investigate," has approached Eli Lilly - Prozac's manufacturer - to apply for a license to treat children with depression in the UK and Europe.

"Preventing the loss of memory will always be easier than restoring it," writes Gary W. Small, M.D., in his book The Memory Bible: An Innovative Strategy for Keeping Your Brain Young.

Small's new book, The Memory Prescription, introduces his "boot camp for the brain" program, which combines four proven strategies for physical and mental well-being: physical conditioning, mental activity, stress reduction, and a "healthy brain diet" rich in omega-3 fatty acids, fruits, and vegetables.

In a study, Small evaluated 17 volunteers who had reported minor memory problems. Eight of the study participants were randomly chosen to take part in the two-week "brain boot camp" program while the other participants continued their usual activities.

Light stretching, walking and stress-relieving exercises are performed many times throughout the day. Memory exercises are practiced for around 15 minutes a day.

Results from brain scans, which were taken before and after the participants completed the program, showed dramatic improvement with brain activity in the frontal portion of the brain, which is responsible for daily memory functions.

One participant, 43-year-old Kimberly McClain, though far from an extreme case, had been troubled by memory lapses. "I'd walk into a room and wonder, 'Why did I come in here again?' Or I'd put something down and not be able to remember for the life of me where I'd put it."

To the married, employed mother of two young children who also pursues demanding volunteer work, nothing less than the razor-sharp memory she once enjoyed was acceptable.

Thanks to the "boot camp" program, she now has it back.

"This memory problem was getting in the way, and now it's not," she says. "I feel so much more conscious."

Other scientists are cautiously optimistic about Small's approach, the findings of which are largely subjective.

"It sounds promising," says Robert Wilson of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Wilson is a researcher on a long-term study of members of religious orders that has found that mentally stimulating lives can postpone memory problems. Fatty diets, sedentary living, stress and little mental challenge all have been linked to higher risk of dementia, Wilson says, "and so he may have hit on a good combination."

In addition to doing a larger study, Small plans to try just one or more of the four elements of the program in future studies to see whether one part is more important for certain types of memory. 

In January 2004, a group of German researchers announced what they consider the first hard evidence that the mind continues solving problems during sleep and that the right answer may come more easily after eight hours of rest.

"A single study never settles an issue once and for all, but I would say this study does advance the field significantly," said Dr. Carl E. Hunt, director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research at the National Institutes of Health. "It's going to have potentially important results for children for school performance and for adults for work performance."

Scientists at the University of Luebeck in Germany found that volunteers taking a simple math test were three times more likely than sleep-deprived participants to figure out a hidden rule for converting the numbers into the right answer if they had had eight hours of sleep. The results were released in the journal Nature.

The study involved 106 people divided into five separate groups of equal numbers of men and women ages 18 to 32. One group slept, another stayed awake all night, and a third stayed awake all day for eight-hour periods before testing following training in the main experiment. Two other groups were used in a supplemental experiment.

The study participants performed a "number reduction task" according to two rules that allowed them to transform strings of eight digits into a new string that fit the rules. A third rule was hidden in the pattern, and researchers monitored the test subjects continuously to see when they figure out the third rule.

The group that got eight hours of sleep before tackling the problem was nearly three times more likely to figure out the rule than the group that stayed awake at night.

The changes leading to creativity or problem-solving insight occur during "slow wave" or deep sleep that typically occurs in the first four hours of the sleep cycle, Born said. "Even gradual decreases in the total time for slow wave sleep and deep sleep is correlated to a kind of decrease in memory function, and in turn to a decrease in the ability to recognize hidden structures or the awareness of such things." The results also may explain the memory problems associated with aging because older people typically have trouble getting enough sleep, especially the kind of deep sleep needed to process memories, Born said.  

Thomas Armstrong (author of The Myth of the ADD Child) offers "50 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion" at his website, www.thomasarmstrong.com. Here are half of them:

1. Provide a balanced breakfast.
2. Consider the Feingold diet.
3. Limit television and video games.
4. Teach self-talk skills.
5. Find out what interests your child.
6. Promote a strong physical education program in your child's school.
7. Enroll your child in a martial arts program.
8. Discover your child's multiple intelligences (link)
9. Use background music to focus and calm.
10. Use color to highlight information.
11. Teach your child to visualize.
12. Remove allergens from the diet.
13. Provide opportunities for physical movement.
14. Enhance your child's self-esteem.
15. Find your child's best times of alertness.
16. Give instructions in attention-grabbing ways.
17. Provide a variety of stimulating learning activities.
18. Consider biofeedback training.
19. Activate positive career aspirations.
20. Teach your child physical-relaxation techniques.
21. Use incidental learning to teach.
22. Support full inclusion of your child in a regular classroom.
23. Provide positive role models.
24. Consider alternative schooling options.
25. Channel creative energy into the arts.

"Over the past ten years," Thomas writes, "attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has emerged from the relative obscurity of cognitive psychologists' research laboratories to become the 'disease du jour' of America's schoolchildren. Accompanying this popularity has been a virtually complete acceptance of the validity of this 'disorder' by scientists, physicians, psychologists, educators, parents, and others.

"Upon closer critical scrutiny, however, there is much to be troubled about concerning ADD/ADHD as a real medical diagnosis. There is no definitive objective set of criteria to determine who has ADD/ADHD and who does not. Rather, instead, there are a loose set of behaviors (hyperactivity, distractibility, and impulsivity) that combine in different ways to give rise to the 'disorder.' These behaviors are highly context-dependent. A child may be hyperactive while seated at a desk doing a boring worksheet, but not necessarily while singing in a school musical.

"These behaviors are also very general in nature and give no clue as to their real origins. A child can be hyperactive because he's bored, depressed, anxious, allergic to milk, creative, a hands-on learner, has a difficult temperament, is stressed out, is driven by a media-mad culture, or any number of other possible causes."  

In response to the lawsuit filed June 2, 2004, by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer against Glaxo SmithKline (GSK), which alleges that GSK suppressed evidence that Paxil failed to demonstrate efficacy and increases the risk of suicide in children and adolescents, Baum Hedlund attorney, Karen Barth Menzies, stated:

"Hopefully this will set an example to other drug companies who are guilty of the same malfeasance. There is no difference between what GSK has done regarding Paxil and what Pfizer has done related to Zoloft. Quite frankly, there has been a huge fraud perpetrated against the public by these companies. They tout the benefits as huge and the risks as minimal in an extremely deceptive way. It's about time this fraud was exposed.

"We have been trying for years to raise public awareness about these issues because we have seen, through our litigation, the secret internal company documents that no one ever gets to see, not even the FDA. Even now, we are prohibited, due to confidentiality orders, from disclosing these documents. But you can only hide the truth for so long. Too many people have been harmed by these drugs, too many lives have been shattered.

"Internal company documents demonstrate that the companies have been well aware of their respective drugs' safety issues and that they lacked efficacy, however, they have continued to tout the drugs as highly effective, despite their risks. This has left doctors incapable of conducting a proper risk/benefit analysis. On the efficacy issues, one internal FDA document points out 'the lack of robustness' of the clinical evidence supporting Zoloft's efficacy ...' and stressed that the FDA itself might come 'under attack by constituencies that do not believe [the FDA] is as demanding as it ought to be in regard to its standards for establishing the efficacy of antidepressant drug products."

A study published in 2002, which analyzed the clinical trial data submitted to the FDA to establish the efficacy of six of the most widely prescribed antidepressants (including Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft), found the efficacy of these drugs to be 'clinically negligible.' (The Emperor's New Drugs: An Analysis of Antidepressant Medication Data Submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, by Irving Kirsch, Thomas J. Moore, Alan Scoboria, and Sarah S. Nicholls.) That is not to say the drugs have no effect, but that they lack effectiveness in treating the conditions for which they are prescribed (e.g., depression).

Karen Barth Menzies, a partner in the national law firm of Baum Hedlund and a recent speaker at Safe Harbor's Non-Pharma III Conference, is the lead attorney on dozens of antidepressant (SSRI) suicide and violence cases and is spearheading the Paxil withdrawal/dependence cases in the United States. Ms. Menzies and her firm represent more than 5,000 Paxil withdrawal victims. Her firm has been involved in SSRI-induced suicide/violence litigation for 14 years. Ms. Menzies filed the first Paxil withdrawal/dependence class action against the makers of Paxil, Glaxo SmithKline, in 2001 and has subsequently filed class actions, mass joinders and individual death cases in over 25 states across the United States. She is Lead Counsel and a member of the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee in charge of the MDL-1574 in re Paxil Products Liability Litigation (Paxil withdrawal/dependence litigation).

For background on the Paxil Withdrawal Litigation, see www.baumhedlundlaw.com/Paxil/paxilupdate.htm.