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The Metabolic Treatment
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by Dr. John C. Lowe
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Your Guide to
Metabolic Health
by Dr. Gina Honeyman-Lowe & Dr. John C. Lowe
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February
25, 2005
News from the Center
for Metabolic Health
and
Dr. John C.
Lowe & Dr. Gina Honeyman-Lowe
SPECIAL REPORT
Air Hunger to Death: Breathing Problems
from too Little Thyroid Hormone Regulation
by Dr. John C. Lowe
Some patients consult with us to ask
whether hypothyroidism can cause breathing problems. They say their
doctors aren’t aware of any such relationship. There is a relationship, however,
and it's well established. So that patients and their doctors learn
about the relationship, I’ve prepared a special
report. In it, I cite
studies that show breathing problems patients with hypothyroidism or
thyroid hormone resistance can suffer from. The problems range from air hunger, which can be frustrating, to sleep apnea,
which for at least one patient was fatal. I hope you find the report
informative. Special
Report on Breathing Problems
February
2, 2005
News from the Center
for Metabolic Health
and
Dr. John C.
Lowe & Dr. Gina Honeyman-Lowe
New Items:
1. Dr. Lowe Barred From Speaking
at Houstonian
2. Dr. Lowe Speaks at Poutre
Valley Hospital
3. DietFacts.com: A Useful
Website for Our Readers
4. If You Received Our Newsletter in Barely Readable Format
On
Being Barred from Speaking at Houston’s
Houstonian Hotel in December, 2004
by Dr. John C. Lowe
I was scheduled to give a
presentation on metabolic health in Houston, Texas on December 4, 2004.
The site was to be the Houstonian Hotel, an upscale, pricey facility with
a popular health club and spa. The presentation was cancelled, however,
due to the judgment of the Houstonian's new manager, Mark
Stevens.
On November 15, 2004, Mr. Stevens gave two reasons for barring me from
speaking at the Hotel. First he wrote that I'm controversial. He expressed
caution about "not exposing us [the Houstonian] to any potential
controversy, [or] member or community backlash."
Mr. Stevens' second reason explained his first: "A lot of the
public don’t believe in the idea of chiropractic medicine and its
directions." This, of course, is merely an expression of prejudice—albeit
a euphemistic one—against my health care discipline, and it appears that
his prejudice blinded Mr. Stevens to the purpose of my presentation. The
promotional materials for my presentation made it perfectly clear that I
was to speak on metabolic health, not chiropractic medicine. My focus was
to be the crucially important recent study finding by our research team—that
fibromyalgia patients have abnormally low metabolic rates.
Prejudice against my profession is no just reason to deprive those who
were to attend of my explanation of this important research finding. For
some of those who would’ve attended, the study result points to the solution
to their chronic suffering. I deeply regret that Mr. Stevens denied them
the chance to learn about it. And I also regret the considerable
inconvenience to which Mr. Steven's decision put my host. She had worked
diligently preparing for the presentation, and his decision made waste of
her effort and time.
Despite Mr. Stevens' misguided reasons for barring me from speaking,
barred I was. Thankfully, though, as the news item below shows, as one
person snatches the microphone from my hand, someone else gives me another
one. Eventually, I'll speak into a microphone in Houston and describe our
new study result to all who want or need to hear it. But I probably won't do
so at the Houstonian Hotel—at least not while Mr. Stevens is in charge.
On
Speaking at Poudre Valley
Hospital in Fort Collins, CO
by Dr. John C. Lowe
As the news item above shows, I’m persona non grata in
some lecture halls. At others, however, I’m quite welcome, at least
sometimes.
On Tuesday, January 11, 2005, I did a presentation at the Poudre Valley
Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. My presentation was part of the
Hospital’s educational series on integrative medicine.
It was attended by more than a hundred physicians and ancillary
hospital staff.
My presentation was on evidence-based integrative metabolic treatments
for fibromyalgia. It was televised to other hospitals in Colorado and
adjacent states. I presented evidence for the effectiveness of various
metabolic treatments for fibromyalgia, particularly non-conventional
thyroid hormone therapy.
After the presentation, some physicians were complimentary about our
research, and others asked to refer patients to our Center for Metabolic
Health. One physician told me, "I came here cynical about the
treatment you were to describe, but now I want to try it with my
fibromyalgia patients." This feedback is gratifying, and suggests to
me that the presentation was successful.
DietFacts.com:
A Useful Website
for Those Monitoring Their Nutrients Intake
DietFacts.com
is a free-use website that gives the nutritional contents of individual
food products and meals. It includes hundreds of foods by brand name and
meals served by scores of restaurants. It is an excellent resource for
learning what we ingest when we in restaurants and at home.
The "nutrition facts" window at
DietFacts.com gives the amounts per serving of the following: calories,
total fat, saturated fat, total carbohydrates, protein, sodium, fiber, and
the percentage of calories from fat and carbohydrates. We encourage our
readers to check out the website. The address is: http://www.dietfacts.com/fastfood.asp
If
You Received Our Email
Newsletter in Barely Readable Format
After our last email newsletter was sent
out, a subscriber wrote: "Help! I get your email newsletter on a
black background with pale, very pale, tan print. Your news is very
important to me, yet it is a strain to read it. Can something be done to
correct this?"
Out of the thousands of email newsletters
we send, we receive only a few such appeals. We’re sorry, however, that
even those few subscribers get the newsletter in a distorted format. We’ve
checked with our technical people, and they tell us that they can't fix
the problem on our end.
When a new newsletter is ready, we email
it to all subscribers. But we also publish it at http://www.drlowe.com/emailnewsletter/2005archive1.htm.
For those who receive the email version of the newsletter in a distorted
format, we email notice that the newest newsletter is posted at the
website. We include a link to the newsletter.
If you’re receiving the emailed
newsletter with the format distorted, please send us an email and let us
know. We’ll include you in the list of subscribers who receive an email
with a link to the newsletter at drlowe.com. Thanks for your cooperation
and for your interest in the our newsletters.
January
8, 2005
News from the Center
for Metabolic Health
and
Dr. John C.
Lowe & Dr. Gina Honeyman-Lowe
New Items:
NEWS ITEMS
1. Dr. Honeyman-Lowe Interviewed on Boulder County's CCTV
2. Dr. Lowe Interviewed on Boulder's NPR Affiliate, KGNU
3. Dr. Barry Durrant-Peatfield Again Available to Patients in the UK
4. OTC Desiccated Thyroid Available Again at Nutri-Meds.com
Dr. Gina Honeyman-Lowe Interviewed on
Boulder County's Free-speech
Community Cable TV
Dr. Honeyman-Lowe appeared last night, January 5, 2005, on Community Cable TV for Boulder County, Colorao. Cec Girz, the host of the show "East County
Live!", interviewed Dr. Honeyman-Lowe. The title of the interview was "Effective Treatment for Fibromyalgia: Why Your Doctor May Not Know About It."
Dr. Honeyman-Lowe and Cec talked about the three 1997 double-blind, placebo-controlled studies conducted by Dr. Lowe and the research team of the Fibromyalgia Research Foundation (FRF). In the studies, fibromyalgia patients fully recovered from their symptoms with thyroid hormone (T3) therapy.
Late in 1997, FRF researchers also published a follow-up
study. This study showed that fibromyalgia patients who had undergone metabolic rehab were still free from fibromyalgia symptoms 1-to-5 years later.
Dr. Honeyman-Lowe explained why most doctors don't know about the metabolic treatment these studies showed to be effective for fibromyalgia patients. One reason is that several major medical journals declined to publish the studies because Dr. Lowe, the principal investigator, is a chiropractic physician. Presumably, the journals would have published the studies if one of the MDs on the research team would have taken Dr. Lowe's place as principal investigator. But as Dr. Honeyman-Lowe pointed out, this would have been dishonest and unethical. Some journal editors, however, weren't above suggesting this.
Dr. Lowe Interviewed on Boulder,
Colorado's NPR Affiliate, KGNU
Shelley Schlender, host of KGNU radio's "Living Dialogs for Your Health," interviewed Dr. John C. Lowe on November 20, 2004. In the interview, Dr. Lowe described a study he's currently conducting at the Fibromyalgia Research Foundation. He's measuring patients' resting metabolic rates (RMRs) and their TSH, free T3, and free T4 levels, and testing for correlations.
According to Dr. Lowe, "Most doctors presume that if a patient's TSH, free T3, and free T4 levels are ‘in range,' then her RMR must be normal. But this is not what we've found. We have not found a correlation between the RMR and blood levels of the hormones." He pointed out that this confirms what another research group reported a couple of years ago.
The study result challenges the common belief among doctors that we can assess a patient's metabolic status with thyroid function test results. "Our data flatly contradict this," Dr. Lowe said.
Dr. Barry Durrant-Peatfield Again
Available to Patients in the UK
Dr. Barry Durrant-Peatfield, the UK's popular champion of clinical medicine, is once again available for consultations. We strongly recommend that patients consult him for diagnostic advice for metabolic problems and for nutritional treatment. Patients can reach him through the following contact information:
Dr. Barry Durrant-Peatfield
36A High Street
Merstham, Red Hill
Surrey RH1 3EA UK
Telephone within the UK: 01737215462
Telephone from the US: 011-44-1737215462
We also recommend that patients and doctors read Dr. Durrant-Peatfield's book, "The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Survive It." It's available from the publisher at
www.baronsdownpublishing.com.
Dr. Durrant-Peatfield's bio and seminar schedule are online also at the publisher's website. Throughout the UK, he holds two-day teaching seminars about the thyroid, adrenals, the endocrine system overall, and the role of nutrition in recovering from hormonal imbalances. His seminars are for anyone wishing to learn, including members of the public as well as health care practitioners. Information about his seminar schedule and online registration are available at
www.baronsdownpublishing.com/seminars.htm.
OTC Desiccated Thyroid Available
Again Through Nutri-Meds.com
Article by Dr. John C. Lowe
In November 2004, we began receiving calls from hypothyroid patients who use Nutri-Meds' over-the-counter (OTC) desiccated thyroid. They told us that the company no longer had desiccated thyroid in stock.
Some patients were alarmed. They had done well treating themselves with Nutri-Meds' OTC thyroid products, and they dreaded the thought of having to consult doctors for thyroid hormone prescriptions. As one patient put it, "I hate to go through the frustrating and demeaning process of trying to get a doctor to treat me right with prescription thyroid."
One patient said that she'd learned the FDA was somehow responsible for OTC thyroid being out of stock. This seriously concerned me. I've been in health care long enough to have often seen the FDA deprive US citizens of freedom of choice in health care, for the obvious purpose of protecting the financial interests of Big Pharma. If the FDA was making OTC desiccated thyroid unavailable without a prescription, that would take away a health freedom ensured by Congress through the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health Education Act. In my mind, however, if the FDA could get away with doing this, it wouldn't hesitate.
I quickly wrote to a representative of Nutri-Meds. She replied, "It is beginning to look as though the FDA may take a position that will only allow thyroid to be available by prescription." She wasn't sure whether Nutri-Meds could replenish its inventory of OTC thyroid. The company's supply chain had been interrupted and there simply was no product available to supply customers.
I mentioned to her that I was considering starting a legal fund to provide attorneys to work to keep OTC thyroid available to patients without a prescription. Several lawyers around the country are well known for getting concessions from the FDA that curb its excesses. "As you know," I wrote to her, "this is an issue of health freedom, and its implications spread far beyond the issue of OTC desiccated thyroid—although that issue alone is just cause to oppose the FDA."
Fortunately, starting the fund hasn't been necessary. In early December, the Nutri-Meds representative wrote, "I have found that we should receive our thyroid, after all. I am waiting for a date. I am cautiously optimistic and jubilant, but it will have to be in my hands before I celebrate. This has been going on over five months now." Later in December, she let me know that Nutri-Meds again has bovine thyroid tablets in stock and available without a prescription.
The company's home page is www.Nutri-Meds.com. A link to "Thyroid" is in the list of products on the right side of the page.
Comprehensive Metabolic Evaluations,
Treatment, and Long-distance Consulting
At the Center for Metabolic Health, we now provide comprehensive metabolic evaluations that include measurement of patients' metabolic rates. We also provide treatment and long-distance consulting. To inquire about these services, please contact
Peggy Myers. You can reach her by e-mail at
Tammy@drlowe.com, or by telephone at
(603) 391-6061.
Books by Dr. Lowe & Dr. Honeyman-Lowe
The Metabolic Treatment of
Fibromyalgia
Sponsored by,
Dr. John C. Lowe
1800 30th Street, Suite 216
Boulder, CO 80301
603-391-6061 Tammy@drlowe.com
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