parasites

[SL S <stepnout@swva.net>]

Hi Bette,

Be very careful acting on advice from a person with a "science" background
who is not a physician...or even if he or she is a physician, if unsupported
by others in the field.  What you described has all the signs and symptoms
of the "one source" theory of human disease.  These theories often come from
logicians with fractured premises, are thinly supported if at all, and the
references do not hold up to scrutiny from a rigorous researcher's approach.
Their marketing, however, is usually quite rigorous.

I'm currently working on a symposium for health care providers concerning
the current status of alternative medicine, herbal remedies, and dietary
supplements.  The research in this area is being done, slowly, and some of
it is sound.  Much of it is unsound and merely designed to redistribute
money from many wallets to a few...and the consequences be damned, because
the extant  applicable laws do not reliably protect the consumer.  (See the
Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act of 1994, a project of, among
others, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, whose constituents include dietary
supplement manufacturers.)

Just for fun, here's a study to make many of us hard-heads happy:  Longevity
has been found to be correlated MOST with autonomy, not nearly so much with
diet, exercise, vices, etc.  Lose autonomy, and no matter what else you do,
your longevity suffers.  

Sally in Floyd, VA