Category Archives: healing philosophy

Open Letter to Consumer Reports – In Defense of Homeopathy

Posted on July 25, 2008 by continuum wellness| Leave a comment

Liddell Laboratories Sends Open Letter to Consumer Reports – In Defense of Homeopathy
MORAGA, Calif., July 24, 2008
Dear Mr. Podolsky:

Below is a significant body of evidence that refutes your recent article on homeopathy, Homeopathic Drugs — Look-Alike Medicines. In your article you say that “there’s little evidence to back up the notion … that homeopathy can improve health.” I believe that the accuracy of your article suffered greatly from inadequate research.
When people tell me that there is little convincing proof of the efficacy of homeopathy, I always find that they have not had access to the relevant scientific literature. As you will see below, there are an abundance studies demonstrating the efficacy of homeopathic remedies:

1. Clinical Trials in Homeopathy, the British (more)

Posted in healing, healing philosophy, Health, health beliefs, health care, holistic medicine, Homeopathy, Uncategorized

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Targeting 8-year olds for Cholesterol Drugs, Instead Try This

Posted on July 7, 2008 by continuum wellness| 1 Comment

In an attempt to fight off childhood obesity and help children with too little HDL the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that some children, as young as 8 be given cholesterol-fighting drugs. The recommendations are based on evidence that heart disease begins early in life. The cholesterol medications are “generally recognized as safe”. The focus is on “treatment” instead of healing and promoting healthy living. And while nutrition counseling and exercise is mentioned it is listed as a passing reference. Since when are drugs needed, to be healthy? Why is drug use pushed as a means to health? A pill-popping mentality encourages dependence and opens the door for abuses be it with “legal” or illegal drugs. It is much better to teach by example and for the family to develop healthier habits.

Have doctors given up on how to heal people? Are they taught how to heal in medical school? These are valid questions as the American public is steered to life long medication habits vs. prevention, wellness, and healing as if these are simply not possible.

A Few Healthy Tips

  1. Remove the video games and encourage physical activity.
  2. Every state has wonderful national parks – go exploring in nature and pack a healthy lunch to take with you.
  3. Wean the family off of ‘fast food.’
  4. Exercise together as a family.
  5. Eliminate sugary drinks.
  6. Add whole grains to the diet.
  7. Speak kindly to one another.

For more information, Prescription Drugs, Pharmaceuticals End Up in the Drinking Water
Do Cholesterol Drugs, Do Any Good?

Continuum Wellness offers holistic healing and wellness services for the family.

Posted in adolescents, alternative medicine, children, cholesterol, diet, drugs, healing, healing philosophy, Health, healthy eating, nutrition, prescription drugs, wellness

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Chocolate, Every Day, What is Wrong with That; Would You Volunteer for a Chocolate Study?

Posted on April 28, 2008 by continuum wellness| Leave a comment

The requirements, eat a bar of chocolate daily for a year and a half. The alleged goal is to determine if flavonoids found in chocolate will reduce the risk of heart disease in menopausal women with type 2 diabetes. Oh, for those of you who want to peruse the article read it here .

However, you may not want to rush to sign up. Eating anything every day for a year and a half will tend to unbalance your health. This is because all food has energetic properties. Part of the premise for the study is to see how to isolate “healthy” components of chocolate so that those in the business of selling chocolate can promote it as a health food and charge more for it’s…benefits.

If you want to learn more about chocolate read the homeopathic literature, the materia medica of chocolate. It is fascinating. Chocolate also contains complex alkaloids, sugar and fat. Theobromine is also being ingested daily, a component of chocolate. Taken in excess symptoms such as nervousness, insomnia, poor sleep, certain types of heart disease, intestinal problems and moodiness may result. Chocolate can also inhibit calcium absorption. And the participants are to be women with type 2 diabetes. What is going on here?

Chocolate has a high magnesium content. Research suggests that a chocolate craving may result from a deficiency of this essential nutrient. However, chocolate is often not available in a healthy form to use it as a nutritional source (e.g. refined sugar and milk). If what your body is really craving is magnesium, eat unprocessed fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

The bottom line. If you have a sweet tooth and want chocolate, eat it with pure gusto, eat it in moderation. Eating it everyday for a year and half a half, my vote is, Thumbs down.

Posted in diabetes, food, healing philosophy, Health, health beliefs, healthy eating, Uncategorized, women

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Tips for Nourishing The Body Mind, Healthy Eating

Posted on March 20, 2008 by continuum wellness| 2 Comments

istock_healthyeatingxsmall.jpg
by Catherine Carter www.continuumwellness.org

Love yourself. The phrase has become trite. However it remains alive as there is a kernel of truth to it. Have you sought it out? The concept of love itself is abused and misunderstood as well. So for this discussion “love” is used in the sense of “to care for, to nurture.” The body is the mind. This is one reason why medicine people could assess someones well being by looking at them. They understood the body map, its terrain and how it related to the world of spirit.

Research tests cannot do that. When we lose our connection to the spiritual we can easily become tools…for whomever. Marketers are sophisticated in the application of this and develop advertisements that play on fears, passions and unmet emotional needs.

If you are interested in strategies to promote your health and well-being here are a few tips you can use.

  1. Avoid “fortified foods”.
  2. Read the labels of food items that you purchase. Does that pancake mix have bleached flour as an ingredient?
  3. Calcium in orange juice, why?
  4. Learn where the local farmer’s market produce outlets are in your community and support them.
  5. Eat fresh fruit. A guideline from DASH is 4-6 servings a day. Ask yourself would that work for you to eat, say, 4 or 5 apples a day? Perhaps the old adage of, “an apple a day, keeps the doctor away”, is more appropriate.
  6. Eat fresh vegetables.
  7. Prefer frozen vegetables over canned. The least processed your foods the better.
  8. Ask yourself, is what I am eating food? Or is this something that is a laboratory creation intended to stimulate my taste buds, but in no way promotes my health, well-being and revitalization?
  9. Avoid, eliminate artificial colors. This includes many confectionery, sweet candy, items. However, you could still feed this habit without artificially colored snacks which are available at a “natural foods grocer”.
  10. Want a sweet treat? Blend a frozen banana. Quick sweet and nourishing.

More to come. The emphasis is to apply what you know. A journey of 1000 miles, begins with one step. If you are already doing this short list let me know how it is working for you.
Be Well

Posted in children, diet, elderly, family, food, fruit, healing, healing philosophy, Health, health care, healthy body, healthy eating, healthy mind, men, nutrition, Uncategorized, wellness, women

A Double-Blind Trial of a Homeopathic Proving

Posted on March 7, 2008 by continuum wellness| Leave a comment

A double-blind, randomized, homeopathic pathogenetic trial with healthy persons: comparing two high potencies.

Möllinger H, Schneider R, Löffel M, Walach H.

Health Center Sokrates, Güttingen, Switzerland.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: According to homeopathic theory, symptoms provoked by the homeopathic remedy in a pathogenetic trial (PT) make up the remedy picture serving as the basis for the homeopathic treatment. Little is known whether the symptoms produced by the remedy differ from symptoms produced by placebo. This is because both homeopathic remedy and placebo also produce so-called unspecific effects due to psychological reasons. We therefore explore the distinctiveness of homeopathic symptoms and placebo symptoms. DESIGN: A three-armed, randomized PT pilot study. SETTING: A blinded materia medica expert identifies symptoms with regard to their number and specificity. PARTICIPANTS: 21 healthy homeopathic practitioners note symptoms produced after remedy intake. INTERVENTIONS: Patients are randomly assigned to receive either (1) Calendula officinalis, (2) Ferrum muriaticum, or (3) placebo. After a seven-day baseline symptoms recording period, proving substances are taken until symptoms occur. In daily supervision phone calls, symptoms are verified by the supervisor. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Total number of symptoms produced and number of specific symptoms produced. OUTLOOK: The results showed that both remedies ‘produced’ significantly more symptoms than placebo. With regard to the specificity, the Calendula officinalis group displayed more remedy-specific symptoms than placebo. However, in the Ferrum muriaticum group more Calendula symptoms than placebo were also recorded.

Posted in alternative medicine, calendula, complementary medicine, healing philosophy, homeopathic proving, Homeopathy, placebo, Uncategorized

Homeopathic Studies

Posted on February 21, 2008 by continuum wellness| Leave a comment

Healing itself is considered an art. Art is fuzzy. Healing can be too. It is a process, when things come together it is an ‘aha’ moment, a gestalt. You have seen the whole, how everything fits or at least enough of it to be of true assistance. In homeopathy one of the areas of study is understanding physical generals.

Physical generals are symptoms that encompass the whole person, the ‘I’ symptoms…”I feel better when I’m still, moving, walking”, etc. One of the keys to finding the simillimum are these class of symptoms.

Here are a list of (some) physical generals:

  • Time of aggravation or amelioration.
  • Thermal modality, i.e. whether the patient as a whole is aggravated or ameliorated by cold air, by warmth, by open air, etc.
  • The circumstances of aggravation or amelioration of the patient, which are given in the “Generalities” chapter of the repertory.
  • Menstrual function in women.
  • Appetite and thirst (want of appetite, thirstlessness, ravenous appetite or extreme thirst)
  • Cravings and aversion of food and drinks.
  • Sleep, sleepiness or sleeplessness; sleeplessness after waking at night; Seleep unrefreshing in the morning.
  • Sexual problems in males or females.

These are some of the questions that allow us to relate the symptoms that one is experiencing to rubrics in the repertory and to the descriptions of remedies in homepathic materia medicas (book of medicines/remedies).

So there you are, another way of looking at and understandings symptoms.

Posted in healing, healing philosophy, holistic, Homeopathy, symptoms, Uncategorized

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