natural treatment for skin diseases

00:51 hello and welcome to "health for a lifetime"00:54 i'm don macintosh, your host, and today we're joined with00:57 dr. kevin bryant from wichita, kansas 01:00 he is a specialist in family practice,01:02 and focuses on helping the older adult or geriatric concerns,01:07 and one of his special things that he likes to study01:10 are natural remedies for many different concerns...01:14 and also with those who are 01:15 getting older, isn't that right, doctor?01:17 that's right since my area of practice is for the elderly,01:21 in the geriatric population, looking

at something01:26 in the area of natural remedies, 01:27 has always been an interest of mine.01:30 now, natural remedies, when we talk about natural remedies,01:34 some people probably get a little frightened... 01:36 that sounds alternative, sounds kindof, 01:38 you know, maybe on the fringe.01:40 you are a medical doctor, correct? 01:42 that's correct, and we do want to sayright at the beginning, 01:48 that any of the things we're going tobe talking about 01:51 ...if someone listening says, "thatsounds like something 01:56 i'd like into further," it's importantthat they

01:59 do talk to their physician,02:01 because some of the herbal preparations that we're02:05 going to be talking about may interfere or interact02:08 with medications they're on, and they need to02:10 be sure that their physician is aware of that.02:13 you literally see hundreds of 02:15 patients a year... isn't that right?02:16 you have many nursing homes, 02:18 and many patients you see. right02:21 and many of them are on medications, 02:24 but what's the difference between pharmaceutical,02:26 or a medication that's made and then sold in a pharmacy,02:31 and a natural remedy?

02:34 well, one thing that has been interestingto me 02:39 as i've looked at this area is lookingat the difference 02:42 the way plants produce chemicals,02:47 and the way they're produced in a chemistry lab.02:51 when they're produced in a chemistry lab,02:54 the chemical compounds that are made there,02:58 the drugs, the pharmaceutical agents, 03:02 have what we call left and right-handforms. 03:06 they're like our hands, and they can'tbe 03:10 superimposed on each other, but they'remirror images.

03:13 so, in any given drug, there's a righthand, 03:16 there's a left hand...03:17 right... left and right hand form of that drug.03:21 so you have a right-handed aspirin, 03:23 and you have a left-handed aspirin...whatever 03:25 now, the importance of that is thatour bodies 03:30 only interact with the left hand form.03:34 and so, pharmaceuticals produced in the lab,03:37 produced a mixture, a 50:50 mixture 03:39 of left and right hand, so half of thedrug 03:44 is not interacting with the body andproducing the effect

03:48 that it's designed to produce; onlythe left hand. 03:51 so what... i mean, to use a simple,you got this pill, 03:54 only half of it is working, is whatyou're saying, 03:56 and what's the other half doing then?03:59 the left hand form is the one that's actually active04:01 and producing the effect that the drug is designed to do.04:07 in the plant kingdom, when plants produce compounds,04:12 that are effective in our body, they only produce04:17 the left hand side 100% 04:20 some people think that may have somethingto do with

04:24 a difference that we see in the amountof side effects 04:28 that are evident.04:30 you only have to pick up a physicians' desk reference04:33 which is the manual that goes over all the pharmaceutical04:37 drugs and look through the section on adverse reactions,04:42 or side effects to realize that they do cause side effects.04:48 so that pill, whatever it is we take from the pharmacy,04:51 half of it really works; the other half we're not sure04:54 what it's doing, but it's that right hand versus left hand.04:57 that doesn't mean you're saying to people...

04:59 do away with your medicines,05:01 or stop them, or anything like that. no05:02 it's just kind of a way of thinking... understanding05:06 understanding why it is that the herbal preparations,05:09 by and large, seem to have a less number of side effects.05:13 what are some of the things you're going to05:15 talk to us about today? 05:16 we're going to talk about some of thesenatural remedies. 05:18 what are some of the things you're goingto be covering? 05:19 well, we want to look at some of theconcerns that our

05:22 geriatric population are facing.05:25 and, we've talked about the difference between05:28 pharmaceutical agents, and herbal preparations. 05:31 we want to spend a few minutes lookingat 05:33 some natural remedies for ophthalmologyor eye concerns. 05:39 many of the elderly population are facingcataracts, 05:43 or blindness due to macular degeneration.05:46 we're going to spend a little bit of time on prostate problems05:51 and then something that many of the older population fear05:56 is the diagnosis of alzheimer disease. 05:59 what can we do to maybe prevent or treatit

06:01 with natural remedies.06:03 and then lastly, focus on osteoporosis. 06:07 sounds very interesting.06:11 i know my grandfather lived with me the last06:13 3-1/2 years of his life. 06:15 i was able to... had the privilege oftaking of him. 06:17 and he did have problems with cataractsand whatnot. 06:21 what can you tell us about natural remediesfor cataracts, 06:24 and the other big word, i think youused, was 06:26 macular degeneration, right.06:28 let's talk about cataracts first... okay06:31 some researchers in baltimore did some

interesting06:36 studies on a geriatric population where they06:40 did something simple as looking at the amount of06:45 fruits and vegetables that were in their diet,06:49 and then they followed them to see how many of them06:52 developed cataracts. 06:54 and what they found was that if theydivided the group 07:00 into 2 groups; one group eating 3.5or more servings 07:06 a day of fruits and vegetables, versusthe group that 07:09 ate less than 3.5 servings of fruitand vegetables a day.

07:13 the difference between those 2 groupsin developing cataracts 07:17 was incredible!07:19 in fact, the group that ate less than 3.5 servings a day07:23 had 13 times the risk of developing cataracts.07:29 so development of cataracts is not necessarily just07:33 something that's in a person's fate. 07:35 something as simple as eating more than07:38 3.5 servings of fruit and vegetables a day can help07:41 reduce that risk. 07:42 so if you don't have cataracts, andyou're watching today... 07:45 hey, start eating those fruits and vegetables,07:48 and you're going to avoid those... right!

07:51 that's good news... i mean, i thoughtyou were going to say 07:55 that it was helpful, but i didn't knowit was that helpful. 07:58 that was a phenomenal finding in thatstudy. 08:01 now the other aspect they looked atwas 08:03 macular degeneration.08:05 which means... what does that mean? 08:06 that's a deterioration of the retina.08:09 and they found, again... 08:10 just a minute, what is the retina?08:12 what does the retina do? 08:13 the light comes in the eye, and thenwhat... 08:15 and it is focused on the back of theeye...

08:17 so these are the cells on the back ofthe eye that 08:19 the light is focused on.08:22 and the area that's most important is called the "macula"08:26 the macula is part of the retina 08:29 where the light focuses on. right08:31 and deterioration of that area causes a considerable08:35 amount of the blindness in america. 08:37 they found a similar type of thing wherethose that were 08:42 low in the fruits and vegetables hadtwice the rate 08:48 of this disease process occurring.08:51 so fruits and vegetables... 08:53 was mother right? eat your carrots?08:55 they do help! they really do.

08:58 so maybe if you're watching,08:59 you'll want to go and get a carrot, that would be great!09:02 let's go on and ask what kind of things can help in09:08 these other areas you mentioned. 09:09 i think the other one you mentionedwas prostate. 09:11 yeah, for men, by the age of 75 in americatoday, 09:16 50% of men are having problems withtheir prostate, 09:21 and one of the newest herbal preparationsthat is 09:27 finding some real help in this areais one called... 09:31 "saw palmetto"09:34 as the name might indicate, it's taken

from an extract09:38 from the berry of a palm tree... 09:41 and they found that in various studieswhere they compare it 09:49 against a drug, a pharmaceutical agentcalled "proscar," 09:57 the studies looking at those 2, comparingthem, 10:01 we find that it's just as effective.10:04 just as effective, but less side effects, 10:08 although it does have some small amountof side effects 10:12 with headaches, nausea, dizziness.10:14 one other thing we have to mention about this10:19 it does affect what we call "psa" level. 10:23 what's that? a fancy name for...10:26 "prostatic assay" which is measuring

for10:31 the possibility of prostate cancer. 10:34 so if you take this, it could mask aproblem? 10:38 it can mask a problem. right10:40 so that's again coming back to the reason why it's10:43 important to let your physician know if10:46 you are taking some of these herbal medications10:49 because of the effect they can have on lab tests,10:52 and it's also important to mention here that10:56 saw palmetto is really only to be used for10:59 prostate enlargement problems;

11:01 it's not really useful for prostatecancer. 11:06 all right, many of these things youcan get over-the-counter, 11:10 in a health food store, or some place...11:13 how do you now whether or not you're getting a good11:16 source of palmetto. 11:19 and that's an important point.11:21 in europe, herbal medications are used extensively.11:30 in germany, 90% of the prescriptions written by11:33 physicians are for herbal medication. 11:36 is that right, 90%! of medical doctors!11:40 of medical doctors in germany 11:41 are writing for herbal preparations,11:43 and so they've developed a much better

regulatory system11:48 for making sure that it's standardized in quality control.11:53 we don't have that yet here in america, 11:56 and so there is some concern that somepreparations 12:00 may not be as quality controlled.12:03 one important helpful point on that is if12:07 on the bottle, and you're looking at the12:11 active ingredient portion, 12:13 if it says "standardized" in the dosagearea, 12:18 that this is standardized, then thatis indicating 12:22 that they've had some quality control,12:25 and that you can be a little more sure

that12:27 that's the amount that's in there. 12:30 another question about that over-the-counterbusiness... 12:33 you find out it's standardized and whatnot,12:36 but really, what you're saying is, you could help yourself,12:40 but you could also endanger yourself if you're not12:43 communicating with your physician. correct 12:47 well, we've talked about saw palmettofor prostate. 12:54 we've talked about fruits and vegetables12:57 for cataracts and for macular degeneration. 13:02 we've been talking with dr. kevin bryant,13:04 he's a specialist in family practice from wichita, kansas13:08 he has a real interest in using natural

remedies13:11 for the things that affect older americans 13:14 and we hope that if you joined us,13:17 you'll come back and listen after the break.13:19 we're going to be talking about some other13:20 fascinating discoveries, and things that we13:23 think can be of help to you, and perhaps your physician13:26 as you work together, and we hope that you join us!13:44 have you found yourself wishing 13:45 that you could shed a few pounds?13:47 have you been on a diet for most of your life,13:49 but not found anything that will really

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15:00 he's a specialist in family practice,15:02 and he focuses especially on the older adult,15:05 and different health concerns... 15:07 and he's not telling you to go awayfrom your 15:10 normal doctor in any way, but to workwith your doctor 15:13 and to look at some natural remediesthat can address 15:16 some of the problems that older americansdeal with. 15:18 doctor, we've talked about cataracts...15:20 we found out that if someone eats fruits and vegetables,15:24 they can decrease their risk of having a cataract by 13%.15:28 you've talked to us about macular...

15:31 or 13 times the... that's amazing!15:34 and then we talked about macular degeneration. 15:37 if you eat those same fruits and vegetables,15:40 it's 2 times... 2 times, right, 15:43 and then we also talked about prostateenlargement; 15:46 not prostate cancer, but enlargement,15:49 and we found out this herb called "saw palmetto"15:54 can help us not have that enlargement, 15:56 and all the problems that come withthis. 15:58 but you also said, "hey, be carefulit can throw off 16:01 your psa test, and those of you thathave experienced 16:04 or know someone that's had prostatecancer,

16:06 know what that's all about.16:08 we've come back now, we're going to talk a little bit16:11 about another problem that many older americans face,16:16 and that's alzheimer's. 16:18 what is alzheimer's, just to give usan idea of what it is, 16:21 and then what can you do to help us16:22 from a natural remedy standpoint? 16:25 okay, some interesting things here...16:27 in alzheimer disease, it's simply put as a16:32 brain degenerative disease that affects one's memory,16:37 and ability to make judgments and process information.16:42 for many elderly in this country they

would almost rather16:47 hear the word "cancer" than alzheimer disease.16:51 i think for most people, that's true. 16:53 and so, a couple of things that we wantto look at 16:56 that are very interesting, and in thearea of 17:01 natural remedies; and in this area of17:05 alzheimer disease, there is mounting evidence that17:09 what we call "free radicals" are causing some of the17:13 damage to the brain cells leading to this disease17:17 we call alzheimer disease. 17:19 so, just a minute before you go...17:22 to finish with that, when you say, "free

radical"17:25 i mean, that sounds like some weird person running around,17:28 but what does that mean exactly, a free radical?17:32 well, in our body's metabolism, energy metabolism17:38 ...sometimes oxygen is metabolized into free radicals17:44 and our bodies generally, for the most part,17:48 are able to correct any of the damage that occurs17:51 from free radicals. 17:53 and a free radical, what does it do,just bounce off 17:54 everything and injure things, is thatwhat you mean? right

17:57 it's almost like a loose cannon firingaway in our cells. 18:02 i didn't mean to get you off your point,18:03 but what you were saying, i believe, 18:05 was alzheimer's... they theorize thatthese 18:08 molecules that are banging off everythingcan lead to 18:12 actually alzheimer's.18:14 okay, go ahead, what next... 18:15 one of the herbal preparations is ginkgobiloba. 18:21 now this comes to us from china, theorient japan, 18:27 and, in fact, it's from a sacred treein china and japan. 18:32 it's been used medicinally there forcenturies,

18:37 and the extract is actually a free radicalscavenger. 18:41 looks for the bad guys... looks forthose people 18:44 that are bouncing off the walls ... andneutralizes them. 18:47 now there's some interesting studiesthat have been done 18:49 in the recent years in the "archivesof neurology" 18:52 they reviewed all of these studies,18:54 and they found 4 studies that met strict scientific19:00 criteria that they could use. 19:03 and they found that using 120-240 mga day of ginkgo 19:10 showed a very significant effect over19:13 a 3-6 months' treatment period of actually

19:16 improving the person, or slowing19:18 the progression of the disease. 19:22 another research journal called, "brainresearch" 19:27 i found this very interesting...19:29 they reported in march 1996... 19:32 these researchers were taking nervecells and exposing them 19:39 to hydrogen peroxide which is a very19:41 strong free radical producer that causes oxidation.19:46 that's a good way to describe free radicals, isn't it?19:48 if you've had hydrogen peroxide, you know what it does19:52 ...that's a free radical! 19:53 to put and exposing normal nerve cellsto that

19:57 causes a significant amount of damage.20:00 when they pre-treat it with ginkgo, those nerve cells,20:05 and then exposed them to the hydrogen peroxide,20:08 found a marked decrease in the 20:10 damage that the hydrogen peroxide wascausing; 20:13 another indication that the ginkgo wasprotecting 20:17 the nerve cells from that damage bythese free radicals. 20:21 again, probably this ginkgo, you saidit in the first section 20:25 of our program today, maybe some peoplejust joined us; 20:28 this needs to be that standardized ginkgo...20:32 in other words, you know, the type that's

really good.20:34 look for it to say "standardized" on there.20:36 right... finding the best brand out there that you can.20:39 another thing, i think that i don't want people to miss,20:43 but i heard it... 20:44 you did a lot of research on this;20:46 and you didn't just look at any study that was off the wall...20:50 you said, "hey, there's this group that looked at all...20:52 and looked for those really 20:53 scientifically well-researched claims.exactly, right. 20:57 what other good news do you20:59 have for us concerning alzheimer's?

21:01 well, back to something we talked inprevious programs is 21:06 vitamins... the vitamin c, and vitamine 21:11 there are vitamins that we know haveantioxidant effects 21:16 that are powerful antioxidants,21:19 and they've looked at the rush university in chicago,21:24 studied a group of patients, 633, 21:28 and they found that those that wereusing vitamin e supplements 21:33 and vitamin c supplements had a markedreduction 21:36 in the number of alzheimer dementiaor disease 21:42 development among those patients.21:45 so in other words, they gave them these

things,21:47 they thought they were going to develop alzheimer's,21:49 and then they didn't because they got these things.21:51 it seemed to protect these users. 21:55 when you say, "a marked," i mean what,they studied 20, 21:57 and only... what happened?22:00 well, in a group of 27 that were using vitamin c,22:04 none of them developed it, as were it had been predicted22:09 ...they use models to predict how many they would expect22:13 to develop the disease... 22:14 they were expecting approximately 4to develop it

22:17 out of 27, but none developed it duringthe study. 22:22 so their conclusion was that vitaminc and e 22:25 appears to be able to lower the riskof development 22:28 of alzheimer disease...22:32 another researcher, called dr. sano, looked at vitamin e22:40 in a study where they were looking at patients that22:44 already had alzheimer disease, were in the early stages,22:47 and they were wanting to look to see if they could22:50 slow the progression of the disease down.22:54 and what they found it was using 400

iu a day,22:59 of vitamin e, slowed the progress of the disease23:04 by nearly two-thirds. wow 23:07 now you might say, two-thirds of a year...23:10 but that's still probably significant. 23:12 it was a significant difference betweenthat, and a placebo pill 23:17 dummy pill, sugar pill or something.right. 23:20 so in other words, what you are sayingwith that is... 23:23 any time is valuable time if someoneis losing 23:25 their ability to remember something.23:27 right, because the things they were looking at was23:29 the progression of the disease was someone

that23:33 could do all of their activities of daily living,23:36 now lose that ability, or have to be moved into a nursing home.23:41 so these were looking at significant events23:44 in the progress of the disease, 23:46 and those things were pushed off downin the road. 23:53 one question for you...23:54 when you talk about vitamin c and vitamin e,23:57 does this mean the actual supplements in this case...24:01 it sounds like you're talking about taking supplements24:02 in this case, or is it fruits again,

that you're talking about24:07 well in this study, they studied the supplement itself,24:11 vitamin e, 400 iu. 24:14 well let's move on...24:16 we have one other thing you wanted to talk to us about,24:18 and you've dealt with several different things here,24:21 but another big thing is brittle bones, "osteoporosis"24:25 osteoporosis, and we'll just focus briefly on that.24:29 the first concept to recognize with osteoporosis, brittle bones24:37 is that our bones are like calcium banks, 24:44 and from birth until about the age ofin the 30s

24:49 we're putting calcium into our bones;24:52 99% of the calcium in our body resides in our bones,24:57 1% is dissolved in the bloodstream. 25:02 so they just keep packing it away untilyou're in your 30s. 25:05 right. at that point, it's a processof withdrawing calcium 25:10 from those bones...25:11 and in america, we withdraw too much, 25:14 and by the time someone is in their50s, 60s and 70s, 25:18 the calcium has been withdrawn25:21 from the bones too rapidly, and they're brittle.25:24 so our goal is to slow that process of withdrawal25:29 or stop it completely. what draws it

out?25:33 just sitting around, could that be one thing?25:36 sedentary lifestyle, a good example are the astronauts;25:41 when they're in a weightless state, 25:43 they lose calcium rapidly from theirbones. 25:47 so sedentary lifestyle, not enough weightbearing25:51 exercise is important. 25:53 another one that is little known isthe area of 25:57 protein in the diet.25:59 if we take in more protein than our body needs,26:04 then the body has to eliminate that protein26:10 from the body and it eliminates it through

the kidneys.26:14 as they're eliminating it, it takes calcium with the26:18 protein molecules with the amino acids 26:21 and it actually takes that calcium outof the bank... 26:25 draws it out of the bank from the bones.26:28 any other things we should avoid? 26:29 some of the other things are phosphates.26:32 phosphates are found in soda drinks; 26:36 the animal products' meats are highin phosphates 26:39 and they tend to rob calcium from thebones... 26:43 as well as things like cigarette smoking.26:47 we know that that doubles the rate of someone having26:51 a hip fracture from osteoporosis.

26:55 alcohol intake leads to calcium lossfrom the bones. 27:01 and so, in the area of getting calcium,27:05 the goal is to get as much calcium as you can,27:09 but without the protein. 27:11 and there are calcium-rich foods thatare high in calcium; 27:16 a lot of green leafy vegetables.27:19 green leafy vegetables, broccoli kale, string beans, tofu...27:26 high in calcium but low in protein. 27:30 we've been talking with dr. kevin bryant,27:32 from wichita, kansas 27:34 we've looked at some health concernsfor older americans. 27:36 we've looked at natural remedies forthose.

27:40 we've looked at how we can avoid thesethings through 27:43 proper medical care...27:45 also through proper lifestyle choices, 27:47 but then in addition, looking at naturalremedies to 27:51 stop these things from happening orreverse them. 27:54 we hope that today's program has beena blessing to you, 27:57 and that you have health that lastsfor a lifetime!