Widely Used Agricultural Pesticide Causes Sex Change

There is something strange in the water indeed!!

In my previous life as a scientific researcher, I spent hours and hours conducting studies on atrazine and it's effects on the endocrine system. Last year the EPA approved of its continued use despite results from various laboratories throughout the country arguing that more stringent regulation may be necessary. This past Monday, the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America published an article from my former laboratory called: "Atrazine induces complete feminization and chemical castration in male African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis)"

From the title of the paper you can probably guess what they were able to find.

Male frogs not only showed signs of demasculinization, but actually became fully female and had the ability to lay viable eggs. Essentially, they had a chemical sex change through environmental exposure! If that isn't crazy enough, the levels at which these frogs were exposed to atrazine are thousands of times below the level currently allowable in drinking water.

Read the abstract from PNAS.

Here are some quotable quotes from around the news world:

About 75% of stream water samples and 40% of groundwater samples contain atrazine, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, detected atrazine in 90% of tap water samples from 139 water systems. Inexpensive faucet-top water filters can remove the chemical" - USA Today, March 1, 2010

Atrazine can be transported more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the point of application via rainfall and, as a result, contaminates otherwise pristine habitats - AFP, March 1, 2010

Approximately 80 million pounds (36,287 tonnes) are applied annually in the United States alone, and atrazine is the most common pesticide contaminant of ground and surface water.

The negative impacts on wild amphibians is especially concerning given that the dose examined here (2.5 ppb) is in the range that animals experience year-round in areas where atrazine is used as well within levels found in rainfall, in which levels can exceed 100 ppb in the Midwestern United States - Reuters, March 2, 2010

Atrazine was banned in the European Union (EU) in 2004 because of its persistent groundwater contamination. In the United States, however, atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides, with 76 million pounds of it applied each year, in spite of the restriction that used to be imposed. It is probably the most commonly used herbicide in the world, and is used in about 80 countries worldwide. Its endocrine disruptor effects, possible carcinogenic effect, and epidemiological connection to low sperm levels in men has led several researchers to call for banning it in the US. - Wikipedia

Men with higher levels of three commonly used farming pesticides—alachlor, atrazine, and diazinon—in their bodies were much more likely to have a low sperm count than men who showed low levels of the pesticides. - National Geographic, April 2005

Ling Zhi

My former roommate with some Ling Zhi

Eric Brand has a good blog post about about Ling Zhi (灵芝 ganoderma, aka reishi mushroom). Some key points are that although Ling Zhi is mentioned from way back as a very important herb, it does not appear in a single classical formula. Does that mean it was meant to be taken only by itself? Only on special occasions? Who knows?

The modern TCM functions, covered in Eric's blog post, suggest that it could be a useful addition to Tian Wang Bu Xin Dan or Yu Ping Feng San. Many people swear by it to prevent and/or as an adjunct therapy for cancer (see what Wikipedia has to say about it), but beware of the internet - it's full of shady sites that will claim to cure your cancer/AIDS/etc. with their special blend of super-extracted reishi mushroom (this blog post may automatically generate Google ads for some of these same sites). As always, the best way to determine how to use Chinese herbs is by visiting a trusted herbal doctor, or at the very least very careful and thorough self-directed research from authoritative sources.

A few years ago I took a trip to Chinatown and bought one of the large whole mushrooms, about a foot in diameter (that's it in the picture above). I took it home and looked at it for awhile, took pictures of it. Then I tried slicing it - very difficult. It turned out that the easiest way for me to decoct it was to break off pieces in chunks. I didn't bother weighing it since it was for personal use. I cooked it as do most tonics - low and slow with plenty of water, about 2 hours in all. It was late afternoon when it was done. I drank a mug. It was certainly bitter, but something about the taste appealed to me, like clean spicy dirt. About twenty minutes later I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep right there on the couch and woke up feeling slightly drugged but also very very refreshed.

Disease Smells

This short National Geographic video here shows how dogs can smell certain diseases and can be trained to help those in need. One researcher in the video talks about how one day we humans might even be able to use the dogs' sniffing skills to diagnose disease.

Chapter Four of the Huang Di Nei Jing had stated thousands of years ago that a medical diagnosis could be made or confirmed by the presence of certain smells, ones that humans can detect. According to the five phases theory:

In the five odours, the odour of liver is stink. (urine)

In the five odours, the odour of heart is scorching.

In the five odours, the odour of spleen is fragrance.

In the five odours, the odour of lung is stinking. (fishy)

In the five odours, the odour of kidney is rancid. (rotten)

The above was quoted from: Yellow Emperor's Canon of Internal Medicine by Wang Bing (Tang Dynasty), translated by Wu Liansheng and Wu Qi.

I've found that after I leave a patient in the room with the door closed, their distinctive smell is always much more noticeable when I come back. I've definitely smelled the scent of burnt or scorched, but I haven't yet encountered a person smelling like stink and urine during treatment. That's probably a good thing.

Green Tea vs. Breast Cancer

Regular consumption of green tea may reduce a woman’s risk of breast cancer by about 12 per cent, according to a new study from the US and China.

See the full study here.

Better Than Chemotherapy

Qing Hao 青蒿 has been shown to be much more effective at killing human cancer cells than chemotherapy drugs.

According to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Washington, this medicinal herb is more specific in killing cancer cells than current pharmaceutical therapies. Current chemotherapy drugs destroy one normal cell for every five to ten cancer cells, whereas Qing Hao was shown to kill 12,000 cancer cells for every one normal cell. Development of a treatment utilizing qing hao could potentially lower the risk of undesirable side effects, allowing more of the compound to be taken safely, as well as being lower in cost to produce. A mature artemesia takes only about five months to mature from seed to harvest.

One Doctor's View of Health

There was a revealing essay in the New York Times the other day. It's by an M.D., and the subject is the definition of health. The author shows that, despite modern integrative medicine bringing Western and Eastern models of health closer together, there is still a wide gap in how we view the body.

Women who get a diagnosis of breast cancer, for example, are usually quite healthy. It is the appendage that is sick. After they lose the appendage, they must take treatment that makes them very sick, so they can stay healthy. But, of course, some never quite make it back to that shore, for the terror of recurrent illness can itself negate health.

Rub your eyes and read it again: women who get a diagnosis of breast cancer are usually quite healthy. It's the "appendage" that is sick, so it follows that all you have to do is lop off the offending appendage and the problem is solved. This quote illustrates what Efrem Korngold and Harriet Beinfield call the "mechanistic" view of the body.

The findings of the early anatomists validated the mechanistic view that the body is made out of distinct and separate parts, connected and yet autonomous... for the mechanic, it is best if the parts of the machine are standardized and uniform. That way the parts are interchangeable, easily replaced, and the ways in which they break down become predictable from one body to the next. Standardized diseases develop from established causes, and protocols of treatment are fixed. Uniform parts sit on the shelf. This view focuses entirely on the ways in which all people are alike and tends to overlook the ways in which people are unique and dissimilar. When a group of people receives the same diagnosis, they receive the same treatment. Science and industry have enabled medicine to be practiced on a mass basis. The same mechanistic philosophy that inspired mass production in industry also inspired mass medicine and health care. --Between Heaven and Earth

By comparison, the Chinese medicine doctor views the body as a garden, an innate part of nature. This view both simplifies and complicates treatment.

On the simple side, if your garden isn't doing well, what is the first thing you think of, even if you've never done any gardening? Water and sun. Is the plant getting enough water and sun? Is it getting too much? Each plant is different - some like the shade and some like blazing heat. Almost all of your plant problems can be traced back to water and sun. It's the same with people: nearly all of our problems can be found in our immediate environment, in what we take in on a daily basis, whether that be food, air, water or emotions.

Then again, nature is an incredibly complex subject, and if knowledge of the body requires knowledge of nature, we are all far behind. For all of humanity's great achievements and machines, there is little we can do when faced with the tremendous power of nature. We still can't predict earthquakes or hurricanes.

Gardening is one of those "a little bit every day" kind of disciplines. If you take the time to weed a little every day, water a little every day, talk to your plants and tell them that you love them, your garden will be fine. You can't wait until the blackberry bush has taken over the entire fence before you start trimming - at that point the fence itself may have toppled over. You can't save up all your watering and do it all at the end of the month - some plants will have died already, and watering dead plants only gets you mud. So tend the garden of your body with a little bit of exercise every day, fresh food (maybe some vegetables from your actual garden, eh?) and clean water. Tend the garden of your mind with meditation to quiet the mental garbage you accumulate. And tend the garden of your soul with good friends, good music, and whatever spiritual or religious tradition you connect with. Don't wait until your fence needs to be torn out and rebuilt.

Acupuncture Mitigates Side Effects of Conventional Breast Cancer Treatments

There's a new study which confirms that acupuncture can relieve the unpleasant side effects of standard medication. In this case it's tamoxifen and anastrozole, which are used to help prevent recurrence of breast cancer.

Tamoxifen is a selective estrogen reuptake modulator (SERM), which disrupts the body's ability to bind with estrogen. Anastrozole decreases the amount of estrogen made by the body in the first place. Estrogen is targeted because some breast cancers respond to estrogen.

This is from the National Cancer Institute:

The known, serious side effects of tamoxifen are blood clots, strokes, uterine cancer, and cataracts (see Questions 5–8). Other side effects of tamoxifen are similar to the symptoms of menopause. The most common side effects are hot flashes and vaginal discharge. Some women experience irregular menstrual periods, headaches, fatigue, nausea and/or vomiting, vaginal dryness or itching, irritation of the skin around the vagina, and skin rash. As with menopause, not all women who take tamoxifen have these symptoms. Men who take tamoxifen may experience headaches, nausea and/or vomiting, skin rash, impotence, or a decrease in sexual interest.

And this from the NY Times:

The acupuncture worked just as well as the antidepressant Effexor to curb hot flashes. Women who received acupuncture also reported fewer side effects and more energy, and some reported an increased sex drive, compared to women who used Effexor, the study showed.

So, to recap: All the women in the study were taking tamoxifen and anastrozole. Half of them took Effexor, and half got acupuncture once or twice a week for twelve weeks.

This sort of study is very important in advancing acceptance of acupuncture in mainstream circles. For those women who are taking these highly toxic medications, which suppress the production of their natural hormones, acupuncture should be available to alleviate their suffering.

If we accept the dominant bacteriological medical paradigm, this is the best that acupuncture can do: cleaning up around the edges after the worst diseases have taken their toll. This role is least threatening to pharmaceutical money and M.D. status, and therefore is not crushed.

The "modern" medical model ignores the role of emotion, jeers at notions of "energy" and would rather wait years for highly selective "evidence" to become available before admitting that dirty air and chemically-tainted water can cause disease.

But if we are true to our medicine, and do our best to advance the Chinese medical model of health, that is where I believe we will do the most good. Cancer is a form of stagnation. Therefore, to avoid stagnation, you have to move. It follows that exercise is one the single best ways to treat just about everything.

Stagnation can also be caused by overburdening the body's digestive system. Therefore, to avoid stagnation, don't eat too much. Limit your intake of fatty, greasy and sweet foods.

Lots of people talk about the "mind-body" connection, but in Chinese medicine there is no clear line between the mind and body. The mind, as a set of neuro/emotional habits distinct from the physical brain, is a part of the body just as much as your thigh bone or your endocrine system. In Chinese medicine, we say that long-term stagnation can transform into fire, and that is certainly true of emotions. It is therefore vitally important to your health that you understand your emotions. Meditation is a wonderful way to separate yourself from your "self", to gain some perspective on your personality and see yourself from the outside. When you realize that you aren't a slave to your emotions, the whole world becomes your playground. Or so I'm told... I've still got work to do in that department. ;)

Eat well, exercise, and express yourself - the three E's. It's easy advice to ignore because it's so bland. But it becomes less bland when you personalize it. One person's eating well is entirely different from another person's eating well - a small, weak person needs fortifying foods like lamb and small amounts of alcohol to aid circulation. But give that same prescription to a 6 foot tall, 300 pound 50-year-old man with high blood pressure and you'll be sending him to an early grave. Some people have a lot of energy and need to go to kickboxing class to work it off, while for some others, some gentle tai ji quan or qi gong would be best. And of course, emotional expression varies widely.

There is a fourth E! The three E's should be done everyday! Avoid cancer! Live your life! Be happy!

Eating Your Way to Health: Curry

姜黃 Jiang Huang, commonly known as turmeric, is not only an herb known in Chinese Medicine to increase blood circulation and reduce pain, it is also a delicious spice used in many curries of South and Southeast Asia. Jiang Huang translates as "yellow ginger," but is not a ginger at all; it is part of the family of curcumin, which give curries containing turmeric its yellow color.

Jiang Huang has been shown to have anti-tumor, anti-oxidant, anti-arthritic, anti-amyloid, and anti-inflammatory properties. There have been studies conducted that it can block the development of melanoma and other cancers by blocking the biological pathway necessary for development, and had stopped laboratory strains of melanoma from proliferating, promoting cell death.

One of the most recent studies, presented at the annual meeting of The Endocrine Society in 2008, shows that Jiang Huang significantly reduces inflammation in both fat tissue and the liver. The researchers speculate that it lessens insulin resistance and prevents Type 2 diabetes by dampening the inflammatory response provoked by obesity.

Jiang Huang has been known in Chinese medicine to affect the Spleen and the Liver systems, and reduce pain and inflammation. The Spleen plays a fundamental role in transforming the foods we eat into utilizable parts, and then transporting them to the parts of the body that need them. The Liver is in charge of the free flow of qi in the body, ensuring that all the materials we consume and make get put into good use. If both the Liver and the Spleen are working in harmony, the body will not develop such pathologies as Xiao Ke, a disease condition in Chinese Internal Medicine that is comparable to Diabetes.

The researchers at the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center gave turmeric to fat mice and showed statistically that they were less likely to develop Type 2 Diabetes. You can feed yourself some delicious yellow curry whether or not you have Type 2 Diabetes, and know that you are eating your way to health with Chinese herbs!

Here's a delicious recipe you can try! It's a Vietnamese version of yellow curry, usually eaten with a nice loaf of fresh baguette bread:

3 Tablespoons curry powder or garam masala
1 Tablespoon ground turmeric
1 pound of chicken pieces or tofu
1 Tablespoon raw sugar
2 Tablespoons sesame oil
2 shallots, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 inch of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
2 stalks of lemongrass (not necessary if you can't find it), chopped
2 teaspoons of chili paste or chili flakes
2 medium sweet potatoes, skinned and cubed
3 Tablespoons fish sauce (you can try Bragg's or soy sauce mixed with a lime if you can't find it)
2.5 cups of coconut milk
small bunch of basil and cilantro, stalks removed

Mix the curry powder and turmeric in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, coat the chicken or tofu with half of the spices. (If using tofu, add just a dash of vegetable oil to coat).

Caramalize the sugar in a small pan with about 2 teaspoons of water until the sugar dissolves and turns golden.

In a wok or pan, add a little oil and stir fry the shallots, garlic, ginger, and lemon grass. Stir in the rest of the spices with the chili paste (or flakes). Add the chicken and stir fry for about 5 minutes. Add the sweet potatoes, fish sauce, caramel sauce, and coconut milk. Also add about 2/3 cup of water and mix well.

Bring the pan to a boil, reduce the heat, and cook for about 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the potatoes fall off the fork when poked. Stir in half of the basil and coriander, and use the rest of it as garnish when you're ready to serve and eat!

Barbed Skullcap for Cancer

Ban Zhi Lian (barbed skullcap) was recently found to have anti-cancer activity. This generated a lot of mainstream press - there was even an article in Time magazine about it.

There are in fact many herbs that are used to treat cancer in the Chinese pharmacopeia. In China, besides using the latest radiation and chemotherapy, herbs are used to directly treat cancer. Those herbs generally fall in the traditional Chinese categories of "move blood resolve stasis", "clear heat and relieve toxicity" and possibly "transform phlegm".

Here in the U.S., herbs are generally used to treat the side effects of conventional cancer treatments. Those herbs generally fall into the "tonic" category, meaning herbs that supplement and nourish the body rather than attacking and dispersing. Radiation and chemotherapy are extremely harsh, attacking and draining treatments, so Chinese herbs can be used to counteract the often vicious side effects.

As a side note, the verbs used above are translations of traditional Chinese terms for treatment principles. "Attacking", "draining", "supplementing" and "tonifying" are just a few of many ways that Chinese medicine describes how you can go about treatment. Part of the problem with modern Western medicine is that it is often too much on the attacking and draining side.

Another problem is that biomedical treatments tend to be either too exact or not exact enough. Antibiotics, for instance, kill all bacteria indiscriminately, and therefore significantly weaken the body if taken for long periods of time. I recommend all my patients to take a course of probiotics after taking antibiotics. Then again, some Western medicines get highly specific, blocking certain receptors but not others. I'm thinking here of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac and other depression medications, which can actually increase the likelihood that someone might kill themselves.