Is Alternative Medicine An Effective Rosacea Treatment?

Ignoring the failures of alternative medicine
The U.S. spends millions testing popular supplements. It's a futile effort.
Call it swimming against the tide of alternative medicine. It is a futile effort costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars a year.
Last week’s study showing that the widely touted and sold supplement DHEA does nothing to slow the effects of aging was only the latest major piece of research with powerfully negative results from the National Institutes of Health Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine. Previous placebo-controlled trials proved the uselessness of St. John’s Wort for depression and saw palmetto for enlarged prostates, shark cartilage for cancer, echinacea for the common cold and glucosamine plus chondroitin sulphate for arthritis.
But it doesn’t matter much — few seem to care.
The NIH launched its office of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in 1991 in response to the public’s huge interest in finding ways around mainstream medicine. At first, those heading the effort brought dubious credentials. Much of the research ranged from mediocre (meaningless animal studies) to laughable (passing magnets over sore knees).
But, in 1999, with the name changed to the National Center for CAM, Dr. Stephen E. Straus took over. Straus, who spent much of his career at the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases, enjoys a reputation as an accomplished scientist. In his time as director, the Center for CAM has spent much of its $122 million annual budget on clinical trials putting most popular alternative treatments to the same rigorous tests as those required of pharmaceuticals and medical devices before approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
Except for acupuncture, already proven effective in China, almost all the research has come to the same conclusion: the stuff doesn’t work.
The powerful industry that sells these products ignores the results and often finds allies who believe in them because of an anecdote or advertisement.
After the chondroitin results appeared, Jane Brody, the longtime health columnist for the New York Times who has always prided herself in offering advice based on scientific research, wrote that she would continue taking chondroitin for her knee pain because “it transformed my 11-year-old spaniel from an arthritic wreck into a companion with puppylike agility, giving him nearly six more active years."
CAM means many things — often just the search for care beyond the 12-minute visit to a harried physician. Some treatments under the alternative medicine heading, like massage, clearly do no harm and could make anyone feel better. CAM can offer a vehicle for a sick person simply to spend time with someone attentive to their symptoms.
As long as it doesn't kill anyone So-called “dietary supplements,” such as DHEA, saw palmetto and chondroitin, present the biggest problem.
Marketers often sell them under the guise of a mom-and-pop alternative to big pharma. Yet the $29 billion-a-year dietary supplement industry wields such power that it got Congress to pass a law in 1994 that basically frees it to peddle almost anything that doesn’t kill people with claims of medical benefit that need not be proven.
No doubt some of the thousands of products sold as dietary supplements work well, but the industry that sells them has neither motivation nor desire to know which ones work and which don’t.
Neither do many of those who advocate their use, such as the guru of alternative medicine Dr. Andrew Weil.
On his Web site someone recently inquired if a supplement called NT was useful for fatigue. “I'm not convinced by the scant literature on the subject that there's anything to recommend taking NT Factor for fatigue,” Dr. Weil replied, in a surprisingly forthright response.
But, then he added that the fatigue sufferer might want to try “Siberian ginseng (Eleutherococcus senticosus), coenzyme Q10, the Ayurvedic herb ashwaganda or cordyceps, a traditional Chinese medicinal mushroom that may help fight fatigue and boost energy levels.”
I can find no evidence that any of these relieve fatigue any better than NT.
It gets better.
Dr. Weill concluded his answer by advising that a better-studied treatment might be something called Juvenon. At the bottom of the Web page appeared an ad from the manufacturer of Juvenon with the quote “I take Juvenon every day — Dr. Andrew Weil.”
Such crass commercialism would put most big drug companies to shame.
Dr. Weill has claimed he approaches medicine with a new way of thinking. But, in the end, no matter what the hype, either something is effective or it isn’t. If no one really cares, maybe we should stop spending millions to find the answer.

By Robert Bazell
Chief science and health correspondent
NBC News

Avoid the Possible Harmful Reactions To Rosacea Medications

Treating rosacea naturally without the use of chemicals may reduce the unwanted side effects and drug interactions resulting from the use of many prescribed rosacea treatments. One such natural treatment is Rosacea-Ltd, which has been marketed internationally since 1997.

Drug reactions send 700,000 yearly to ER
By LINDSEY TANNER AP Medical Writer © 2006 The Associated Press

CHICAGO — Harmful reactions to some of the most widely used medicines _ from insulin to a common antibiotic _ sent more than 700,000 Americans to emergency rooms each year, landmark government research shows.
Accidental overdoses and allergic reactions to prescription drugs were the most frequent cause of serious illnesses, according to the study, the first to reveal the nationwide scope of the problem. People over 65 faced the greatest risks.
"This is an important study because it reinforces the really substantial risks that there are in everyday use of drugs," said patient safety specialist Bruce Lambert, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago's college of pharmacy.
Even so, the study authors and other experts agreed that the 700,000 estimate was conservative because bad drug reactions are likely often misdiagnosed.
The study found that a small group of pharmaceutical warhorses were most commonly implicated, including insulin for diabetes; warfarin for clotting problems; and amoxicillin, a penicillin-like antibiotic used for all kinds of infections.
"These are old drugs which are known to be extremely effective. We could not and would not want to live without them. But you've got to get the dose exactly right. Variations, especially on the high side, are really dangerous," Lambert said. He was not involved in the research.
Those aged 65 and older faced more than double the risk of requiring emergency room treatment and were nearly seven times more likely to be admitted to the hospital than younger patients.
The results, from 2004-05, represent the first two years of data from a national surveillance project on outpatient drug safety. The project was developed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The study was published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
The database included 63 nationally representative hospitals that reported 21,298 bad drug reactions among U.S. adults and children treated in emergency rooms during the two-year period. The tally is based on what emergency room doctors said were complications from using prescription drugs, over-the-counter medicines, dietary supplements or herbal treatments.
The researchers said it translates to 701,547 complications nationwide each year.
"Experts had thought that severe outpatient drug events were common, but no one really had good numbers" until now, said lead author Dr. Daniel Budnitz, a CDC researcher.
Complications included diabetics on insulin passing out from low-blood sugar, excessive bleeding in patients on warfarin, and severe skin rashes in patients taking amoxicillin. Drug reactions were severe enough to require hospitalization in about 17 percent of patients. The study did not include information on whether any of the reactions were fatal.
"The numbers are quite troubling," said Jim Conway, senior vice president at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. The tally underscores that "there is a tremendous number of consumers in the United States taking medication."
The CDC has estimated that about 130 million Americans use prescribed medication every month. U.S. consumers buy far more medicine per person than anywhere else in the world.
Yet a recent study found that doctors' conversations with patients when prescribing new drugs aren't very thorough and that side effects often aren't mentioned. Many of the drugs implicated in the new study require frequent physician monitoring to make sure the dose is correct.
The new findings highlight the need for better doctor-patient communication about use of medicines, Conway said.
The number likely underestimates the number of people who have bad drug reactions outside a hospital setting because many don't get ER treatment, while others who do may have symptoms that are mistakenly attributed to something else, said patient safety expert Dr. David Bates, a professor at Harvard Medical School.
Still, Bates called the effort a significant contribution since previous reports on the problem have not been national in scope.
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Alkaline Water For The Treatment Of Rosacea

Overall, a simple and easy method for better management of Rosacea is to drink plenty of pure filtered, Alkaline water.

According to http://www.drlam.com/A3R_brief_in_doc_format/2002-No5-Water.cfm

The Best: Pure Filtered WaterSecond Best: Bottled WaterUse Sparingly: Distilled WaterAvoid: Tap WaterIt actually says the best is water that has been filtered through a reverseosmosis system. Pricey but.

Purpose and Why?
The information below suggests that if you're serious about your water intake,you might also want to consider the type of water you are consuming in order to help reduce the severity of your rosacea, As some bottled waters can actually be acidic.

Adequate water intake prevents dehydration, cleans out the body, and promotes healing processes. It is recommended to drink around 8, 8 ounce glasses of water a day, depending on your body size (roughly 2.4 liters a day!)

The Rosacea LTD site claims that"most bottled water is acid and is not good for the body or rosacea"(http://www.rosacea-ltd-lifestyles.com/) Approximately 85% of rosacea sufferers are very dehydrated and would benefit from 10 and 12 glasses of water per day.

Contaminants in Bottled Water
This website http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/nbw.asp claims that "After testing more than 1,000 bottles of water, NRDC found that 33% were contaminated". These included bacterial contaminants, synthetic organic chemicals including industrial solvents, and inorganic contaminants such as arsenic. The full report also mentions carcinogens from plastic leaching.

Diseases and High Acidity Levels
I found this page (http://www.betterwayhealth.com/bottled-water.asp) from a terminal Cancer survivor who strongly recommended the use of Ionised alkaline water to improve your health.
It gave an example of an unhealthy system, i.e a body with cancer. "5.5 pH is the pH range of most cancer patients' cells".High acidity levels in the body are linked to numerous diseases. A prime example is Cardio Vascular disease (http://www.phbalancingdiet.com/)
Drinking enough pure filtered alkaline water could help balance your bodies PH levels and provide an environment that does not support bacteria and is beneficial for you skin cells.