"A Beautiful Mind" mental health conference 22/11/09

This excellent presentation on the very latest trials and investigations on nutritional and herbal support for brain nerves was given by Dr Michael Lyon from Canada.

Iodine 

DR Lyon looked at many of the nutritional deficiencies that could affect the performance of the mind. Chief among these is the humble iodine that researchers showed affects 80% of female  and 70% of male children in Australian schools. Iodine deficiency has been a concern over the decades and was once overcome by compulsory iodisation of salt and also of milk that was sterilised by iodine. But alas, no more. Much evidence was presented to prove that iodine deficiency leads to low IQs and dull minds and is endemic in Australia. Severe deficiency leads to gross mental abnormalities in children, called Cretinism.

Solution: Take Iodine in a liquid form. Just a couple of drops a day confers great benefits. It is needed daily as it is not stored in your body, like most elements and vitamins.

Magnesium

DR Lyon also demonstrated that magnesium deficiency could prolong painful conditions and detailed the best form of magnesium to take in order to avoid this. This low magnesium status causes a previously mysterious chemical called Substance P to accumulate around the source of pain and generally in your system. It now turns out that this substance effects the triggering off of pain fibres in the nerve plexus, causes dilation of blood vessels and the release of more chemical pain messengers called cytokines.

He gave us a solution to this problem. This regime rapidly returns the level of substance P in your body to normal and therefore helps to relieve chronic muscle pain.

If your blood is too acidic - even mildly - then pain is also exacerbated. This condition (called acidosis) also causes your bone mass to shrink and become spongy. The medical term for this condition is osteoporosis. He showed us how to reverse this condition using natural therapy that both alkalinises your blood and rebuilds bone. And reduces substance P - no matter what your age.

Sex Hormone Replacement

We then looked at hormone replacement at menopause, stressing how the medical doctrine changed dramatically when the synthetic hormones became known to increase the risk of heart disease and cancer rather than reduce it, as was first thought.

Bio Identical Hormones

He recommended that you use bio-identical hormones instead, if you need to control your menopausal or andropausal symptoms. He went on to say that - with natural therapy - you can re-build your body's ability to control menopause naturally, while using the bio-identicals to control it in the meantime.

These are obtained from compounding chemists like our pharmacy, Wade's Chemists of Lane Cove. 

Calcium

Dr Lyon then presented evidence to show that just supplementing with calcium on its own actually increased pain by displacing much needed magnesium at the diseased or injured nerve/pain sites and how the question of supplementing with calcium must be done carefully.

Mental Depression and magnesium

We also saw the role that magnesium plays in relieving depression - especially in diabetics - but also in non-diabetics. Most forms of magnesium would be helpful but magnesium glycinate it the best all-round form of this mineral. The seemingly ubiquitous Substance P is also implicated in depression. He showed this in neurology diagrams, case studies and lab studies.

Omega-3 oils part of the solution

Specially concentrated Fish oils, high in EPA act in various ways to help with nerve health. They help to construct healthy cell walls, reduce Substance P and also help your body to produce harmonic chemicals that reduce inflammation and interfere with the production of inflammatory cytokines. Remember these cause problems like inflammation, leaky gut and are even implicated in diabetes?

Brain

Omega-3 deficiency is implicated in practically all areas in the brain where things can go wrong - from nerve chemical production (modulating thought, reflex actions, mood and wakefulness), glucose uptake, energy production, electrolyte transfer, physical structure of the neurones and overall viability.

The hippocampus is the first area of your brain that is affected by EPA deficiency. Being involved in memory storage, changes to the hippocampus are implicated in Alzheimers disease. 

In severe cases, reflexes may be almost non-existent.

Other nutrirional requirements of the brain

Phosphatidyl serine and other phosphatidyls are critically important to brain health. You can obtain this in a healthy diet from the fatty part of food but too often people suffer a lack of this.

The liver

So much activity happens in your liver to convert fats into hormones and then detoxifying unwanted steroidal hormones that maintaining liver health is critically important.

Leaky Gut

Leaky gut is evident in over 80% of chronic illness cases This causes the liver cells to become choked with food particles still needing digestion, as well as fungal and bacterial toxins and with bacteria and candida spores themselves,  and this overload reduces your liver's ability to catabolise steroid hormones and make HDL presursors to steroid hormone production. Steroids control major roles in your body including sex characteristics, inflammation, response to infection and growth. So, treating leaky gut is critically important. The extreme end of leaky gut cases will eventually lead to diagnosed IBS and coeliac conditions and may lead to most other chronic illnesses including diabetes.

Get your leaky gut tested at our clinic and treated early before trouble arises. Our test is done in house and only takes a few minutes.

Leaky gut and depression

Leaky gut causes inflammation and we have seen that this takes you to a place where pain and depression are inevitable sequellae.

Treatments

• Herbs
• Several herbs have shown remarkable ability to assist brain activity. They are Ginkgo biloba, Bacopa monnieri and Rhodiola rosea.
• Rhodiola has a remarkable number of properties. It reduces stress-induced cortisol and according to research, this will reduce your chances of contracting dementia. It also acts like tamiflu and may help prevent getting a virus infection. Another popular Chinese herb called Star Anise also has this property and is the source of the popular drug. Why not do it naturally?
• Fish oils containing concentrated EPA, DHA 
• phosphatidyl serine
• Self training
• Many techniques are available to help you to get into good sleep patterns and we can show them to you in our clinic.
• This instruction is also available by telephone appointment following a comprehensive health assessment via our questionnaire system or on a letter of referral.

 All above treatments are available in convenient, combination dosage forms. Contact us for an appointment in clinic or by phone.

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Energy for life (Metagenics seminar Oct/Nov 2009 held at Manly)

Natural approaches to the treatment of fatigue  

Recharging the batteries

Do you ever drift off to sleep and awaken the next morning only to find that you feel as if you haven't slept at all? If this is you, this report might interest you.

Grow your own energy batteries inside your own cells (mitochondria). 

Energy is produced for your entire body inside each of your 50 trillion cells. There are hundreds of little organelles, called mitochondria, that each produce 36 units of a chemical energy storage "battery" (called ATP) from one single molecule of glucose. So, if you want more energy, then just eat more glucose, right? Wrong. Why? Because every time a molecule of glucose is "burnt", a lot of chemical activity has to occur in your mitochondria.

Growing more mitochondria in your cells

There are dozens of chemical reactions involved. Each one of those requires its own set of catalytic converters called enzymes. It has long been recognised that Mitochondrial enzymes require special vitamin and mineral co-factors. Previous seminars have emphasised the importance of ensuring sufficient dietary amounts of these that we need daily to "keep the engines moving". 

So, this fascinating seminar was about revealing the co-factors involved in triggering off their reproduction and growth within your cells and to ensure that your cells can actually produce optimal amounts of mitochondria.

I won't bore you with the details of the biochemistry involved (although it is very absorbing reading) but the big surprise to me was the discovery that mitochondria were actually primordial bacteria-like single cells that existed in symbiotic relationships with other cells and became part of them over billions of years. That's why they have theri own DNA.

The bottom line is that biological stressors can induce their growth but "soft living" will do the opposite. So, regular exercise and lowering your calorie intake is essential to producing energy - provided that you have enough help from nature in the form of special plant products found only in organic, fresh plant foods.

Power nutrients

However, if you live in a mineral-poor part of the world, like Australia, you will need to supplement with these special nutrients. Naturally, for those who do not have access to freshly-picked, seasonal plant foods grown in naturally replenished and vitalised soil, Metagenics actually produced a few magnesium-based products to do this job for us. Yes - magnesium is a major mineral required by the mitochondria for both growth and activity.

Other nutrients

But others are also needed in these highly specialised chemical steps in glucose conversion. Things you would not normally think of - like resveratrol (from grapes and pigmented fruits and berries); carnitine (an amino acid that some people cannot make sufficiently); panthenol; niacin; ubiquinone; riboflavine.

Problems

If your cells don't produce enough active mitochondria, they will convert glucose very inefficiently, producing a lot of lactic acid in the process. This causes an acidic fluid and blood medium, that in itself is a dangerous health challenge, leading to osteoporosis and inflammatory conditions that can lead to chronic ill health. It is important to test for this balance. At our clinic, we use a simple, cheap, 5-minute test routinely for this purpose called Urinary Indicans.

Food

You must keep eating plenty of fruit (and vegetables) in these conditions. Why? Because the acids in fruit have a balancing effect on your lactic acid and tend to break it down to a biological acid-base "buffer" that nature provides and can employ with a little help from plants.

Fatigue

So, if your stress has led to fatigue, you need a supplement with magnesium and carnitine and the other elements mentioned. These are contained in one of the new supplements produced my Metagenics. Only practitioners can prescribe this following an assessment of your condition, so contact us for details.

Stress and nutrients

If you are "wired up" as a result of all this, you need a magnesium supplement with taurine and glutamate, amino acids that balance the levels of nerve transmitters that can stimulate your "relaxing" nervous system and keep you permanently tense. Yes - another deficiency of another micronutrient and yet another specific solution to address this. Just contact us and we will steer you on to the right thing to do.

Thyroid

The thyroid gland is the gland that produces the mitochondrias' "starter motor" - a hormone called thyroxine. Iodine and selenium are two importent elements in the production of this important hormone. Deficiencies of these have been shown to cause widespread hypothyroidism in about 80% of schoolchildren recently tested in NSW (see the above report of the "Beautiful Mind" seminar).

So, a special supplement that balances the thyroid gland is now available and we use it routinely in our clinic.

Energy is your birthright

Finally, don't puit up with fatigue. There are quick, easy solutions available now, so take advantage of them. See us and we will assess your individual needs, any underlying causes that have lead toi your condition, whether they are food allergy, leaky gut, simple dietary deficience, a recent glandular fever or hepatitis or candida attack or some as yet undiscovered prelude  to your condition that we can deal with that may help us to put you right.

See you in the clinic,

 Phil Wade

International Conference on Clinical Nutrition and Natural Medicine 2009

Held again at the Gold Coast, the theme for this conference was breakthrough discoveries on the origin of pain and also newly invented natural therapies for its relief at several levels.

Day 1

Central pain and pain at its source. (Mike Curley)

Pain starts at a source (e.g. a sore joint) and the pain message is sent via spinal chord nerves to the brain at a specialised group of nerves that are designed to interpret these signals. Like any organ, this centre can be induced to become more active if it receives more signals. The upshot is that, after a while, your brain will tell you that the same amount of pain hurst more. That's right, this nerve centre can be sensitised.

The task of the modern natural therapist is to de-sensitise this area via selected herbs and nutrition. Not only that, but also the transmitting nerves can be similarly sensitised and similarly treated.

To show us how to achieve this, highly sophisticated studies were performed at the Nutrigenomics ExpresSyn™ lab in Washington by the research arm of Metagenics, led by Geoffrey Bland.

The upshot of the discoveries wer many stranded. You need to adopt a truly wholistic approach to defeat chronic pain as it is made worse by many factors relating to diet, nutrition and lifestyle - all of which can be rather "painlessly" addressed.

DNA (Jeff Bland)

This controls all biological networks in your cells and body via a chemical messenger system. Part of this messaging relates to pain and can be made to work faster or slower and more or less accurately. The big changes to your chemical messenger system can be caused by oxidative stress and conversely by selected antioxidant strategies (dietary adjustments, herbs and selected nutrients). This can affect circulation and bring on cardiovascular events and can be prevented.

Also dietary signals can influence the "modern disease" or metabolic syndrome and these can be identified and addressed.

Next, immune cells called macrophages can cause inflammation and pain if they are sent the wrong signals. These can also be "trained" the right way and reduce pain signalling.

Brain sensitisation to Pain (Michael Maas)

All of this stimulation of the brain circuitry by immune cells and other chemical triiggers can cause an exhaustion of the central nervous system, better known as depression. This cause of pain sensitivity and depression can be readily addressed by treating these immune messenger chemicals (called cytokines), usually at the pain source..

Blood pH and pain (Paul Mannion)

The modern diet has caused your blood to slowly become more acidic than it used to be. Acidic pH increases sensitivity to pain. Thhis is a chief target of modern "detoxification" therapy used at our clinic. Acidic (low) pH also causes bone loss and children, teenagers, pregnant women and the elderly are particularly challenged by this condition. And it is easily fixed.

Inflammation also causes increased bone mineral and protein loss. We specialise in treating chronic inflammation at this clinic, using the latest discoveries released at this conference as well as our own specialised, in-house frequency-specific deep tissue treatment. 

Dietary Triggers of Pain (Thomas O'Brien)

Tom pointed out that simply by changing diets, many elderly patients of his improved their lives dramatically. They all turned out to be sensitive to a dietary protein and that's why they got better when this was changed. He listed many case histories, complete with clinical notes, pathology tests and scans. Their pain scores improved, their bone and muscle scans and circulation improved and their mental health improved. All by "test-driving" therapies revealed at this conference.

Workshops were conducted on Hemaview (used at our clinic) and Food and Chemical Desensitisation. We also feature negotiated food selection at our clinic.

Day 2

We then learned how to implement:

• Tissue specific strategies in pain desensitisation
• Control of imbalanced hormone production as related to pain and infertility as well as menopause and menstruation
• The role of nutritional support in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• Dyspepsia, IBS and Depression - the other faces of fatigue and pain
• The role of the immune system in pain syndromes - short circuiting or survival. This discussed pollutants like BPA, the way they cause hormone disorders, inflammation, unregulated tissue growth, prostate enlargement, infertility and cancer. And world governments are ignoring it. Its effect can be transmitted to foetuses in the womb.

Other maternal irritant dietary substances (food allergies) can cause immune-defence proteins to accumulate in the brain of foetuses and are a possible cause of interference in the formation of brain nerves. 

Special nutritional processes including methylation can help to reverse some of the damage. Nature provides methylating agents, and they are available as extracts in tablets and capsules and powders at our clinic.

Day 3

Inflammation and menopause (Mike Curley)

If all of the previously highlighted causes of inflammation affect circulation and hormone production, it should be possible to treat or prevent menopause with a well chosen dietary, nutritional/herbal strategy. And it is.

Management of nerve activity and function in pain management (Dr Michael Maas)

Fatty acids high in EPA are a great benefit when incorporated into the correct dietary regime - but get advice because you can overdo them. Balance of nutrient intake is the key. Concentraded omega-3 fatty acids (like fish oils) can be beneficial but also can be dangerous.

Putting Out the Fire - Nutriceutical Management of Pain (Thomas O'Bryan)

The wholistic approach - including all considerations we studied over the course of the conference - were put into order and perspective at this session. Tom showed us how to individualise patients treatments by testing for allernic dietary components, balancing dietary elements for different groups of people, rationalising the use of the natural substances on show and purring it together on a case by case basis.

Hormesis and Epigenetics in Clinical Practice (Jeff Bland)

Jeff overviewed the practical methods of controlling outside influences on your genes in our day to day clinics and exactly which parts of the DNA replication steps are affected by pollutants like BPAs and how to recognise these clues and treat them with specific common food flavonoids and other protective nutritionals all made available for us to commence using.

Exciting, breakthrough stuff, practical to implement and beneficial for our clients - as we have come to expect from any conference that Jeff Bland and Mike Curley put together.  

Let's now turn to the outcomes of the 2007 Conference 

Brain Health

What causes a breakdown in brain health?

1.    Plaque forms in the neurones within the brain

2.   The plaque is associated with a "tangling" of the neurones and their gradual death

3.   The dead neurones lose their function - memory

What can we do about preventing this?

• Undertake our immune support programme to zonk the rogue macrophages
• Improve cognition through nutrition
• This nutrition must be individualised as you will not defeat Alzheimer's without spotting and correcting other underlying causes that may be affecting the patient.
• So, undergo a Wellness Outcome protocol.

To find out more details, contact us. 

So now, let's take a quick look at the June 2005 Conference at the Gold Coast in Queensland.

This was simnilarly exciting  - this time looking at the causes and natural therapy treatments available for Hypertension.

Hypertension is high blood pressure. It has several causes. They are:

*    Your response to prolonged stress via your adrenal cortex gland.

*    Your blood vessels themselves and how they respond to cholesterol plaque

*    How your system can be improved by balancing electrolytes such as magnesium

The solutions to the above problems are as stark as they are readily available. By utilising breakthrough studies in methods to control your body's reaction to prolonged stress we can now:

1.    reduce cholesterol plaque

2.   relax nerves that can cause tension in your arteries

3.   relax the actual muscle tone of your arteries, thus further reducing hypertension 

How do we do this?

1.    by using specific antioxidants and omega -3 oils)

2.   using newly-discovered combinations of specific herbs and nutrients that restore and calm nerve function

3.   Give the artery cells the electrolytes they need to effect a relaxation cycle following each contraction 

Want details? Contact us for more info.

Update on the International Congress on Natural Medicine  

In 2003, huge breakthroughs were made in the treatment of pain and inflammation and also irritable bowel syndrome as alluded to below.

Pain

A vast study was undertaken in Washington State (USA) to investigate herbal extracts and compare them to conventional pain killers and a surptising result was obtained.

It turns out that a specific combination of three herbs - not previously noted for any sort of pain-killing activity individually - when taken in combination, gave a similar effect to Celebrex. The significance of this discovery lies in the absence of any side effects. The NSAIDS (of which Celebrex is a member) all have one major problem - they cause a break down and ulceration of the stomach and intestine. The new herbal product does not do this. It acts gently on the body and just does its job quitetly and with no corrosive effect on the gut. Contact us for information about this new peoduct.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

 In Sweden, a similarly thhorough research effort was undertaken to identify a new bacteria - part of the normal gut flora in humans - that has the property of reducing inflammation in the bowel lining. It is another dramatic breakthrough in the research of natural products that get at the cause of a problem rather than just trying to suppress the symptoms. It has now been cultured and put into a product. Contact us for more info. We can also give you dietary advice that may enable a permanent solution to this problem, from our experience. 

Apologies for the time that it has taken to make this addition but it's here now. (Phil - 3/12/2008)

Federatione Internationale Pharmaceutique

As he is also a pharmacist, your erstwhile Naturopath attended the F.I.P. recently. Held over 7 days at delightful Darling Harbour, Sydney, the pharmacy conference was last convened in Sydney in 1984.

The overriding theme was expanding the changing role of the pharmacist. The response from studies with the public conducted in many countries showed a common theme - people want quality information from a pharmacist. Moreover, they want positive planning in their health lives.

Instances where pharmacists have followed up clients who implemented a health management programme with their pharmacist showed dramatic health improvement.

We at Lane Cove Wellness Centre, being associated with our pharmacy, offer this service in all of its dimensions. We integrate the provision of quality pharmacy information with naturopathic wellness outcome advice. Our clients have shown an even greater response to this approach than quoted in surveys from as far flung as Finland and Tasmania.

How do we perform this amazing feat?

Simple. We listen. Because you can't hope to build an individual health platform without taking the individual's uniqueness into account.

Take headaches.

Headaches can arise from many causes. We have several clients who had headaches ranging from three months to twenty years.

Without going into pages of boring detail, we found that several had had sinusitis on and off for many months to years. We have established a causal relationship between sinusitis and chronic headache and it goes like this. Infectious deposits in the sinus can travel via the bloodstream to various parts of the head and "dig in". Various organs within the brain may become infected, ranging from the meninges to the substanta nigra to any of the vesicles to any brain segment to the inner ear (balance centre).

The result is often nausea, loss of balance, burning scalp or back of neck, tremors and all are associated with pain.

We treat using herbs, lavage technique and microcurrent and have invariably experienced success. Mind you, the longer you've had it the longer it takes to completely go but most people feel immediate improvement after the first treatment.

We have a hundred such topics we can talk about - all with their own variations according to the individual's background.

Our final aim is to help the client achieve a wellness outcome and - boy - it's fun. And rewarding for both parties.

PS: The body of our treatment frequently circles around the issues covered by the "Health Disease Continuum", the "4 Vectors of Distress" and takes into account our understanding of The Impact Of Contributing Nutrition and Lifestyle which centres on the Zone of Preferred Intervention.

As we say in Australia, See you for now, mates and - for the benefit of our international friends, remember - Strewth! helping people to a wellness outcome is bewdy bottler.

16th September 2003

The Lane Cove Wellness Centre is pleased to welcome Henry Pajak to our practice. Henry is a qualified massage therapist with diplomas in lymphatic drainage and remedial massage who has been professionally massaging for may years.

Henry has a background in hands on healing of advanced post breast cancer lymphoedema, professional athletes and dancers' muscular injuries. He has workedin the busy Natural Therapy Clinic at North Sydney and Vass & Shaw Pilates at Neutral Bay and also worked at the Mater Private Hospital in Renal Unit as Remedial Masseur (volunteer basis).

Healing, therapeutic massage combined with Henry's quiet, professional manner will put you at ease, whether you suffer from muscular problems, headaches, arthritis, rheumatism, fluid retention, lymphoedema or simply need to relax and unwind.

Henry has written an article on Lymphatic Drainage. If you were ever curious about what exactly Lymphatic Drainage is , now is your chance to find out!

11 July 2003

Your Naturopath, Phil Wade, recently attended The International Congress of Natural Medicine held in Melbourne over the June long weekend.. The very latest research papers on Functional Medicine were showcased, which we will highlight for you over the coming weeks. The following international speakers discussed their own original research papers and other related breakthrough research.

Jeffrey Bland PhD - USA. Renowned international research Professor of nutritional and functional medicine, Dr Bland has presented seminars attended by over 60,000 health professionals. He is widely regarded as the world authority on subclinical biochemistry. He is president of the Bland research Institute in Washington, employing 104 researchers in functional medicine.

Dr Bland's focus throughout the congress was on low grade inflammation that is unable to be detected by standard laboratory assessments and how this is responsible for many chronic diseases like arthritis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and various hormonal abnormalities such as menopausal syndrome. Breakthroughs in the treatment of inflammatory diseases, using natural medicines are set to revolutionise the way patients are treated with a resultant dramatic improvements in clinical and wellness outcomes.

Dr Bland presented papers on the latest research in the following areas:

• Breakthroughs in the treatment of inflammation
• Inflammation and oestrogen metabolism (or how inflammation affects female hormones and the cause of discomfort in PMS and especially Menopause).
• Inflammation in cardiovascular disease (or how inflammation affects your chances of getting heart disease and how to prevent it)
• Inflammation and the stress response (or how inflammation can affect your ability to withstand stress and suffer poor health as a result and how to prevent it)

Professor of Surgery and Gastroenterology in the University of Malmo Hospital, Sweden, and board member of the Swedish Nutrition Foundation, Dr Jeppsen has more than 30 years of clinical experience. He is a board leader or member of many research and educational committees in Sweded.

Dr Jeppsen discussed advances in probiotic research which indicates that different probiotic species and strains have have marked different effects on the immune system.  The current clinical application of probiotic therapy would be considered crude at best, based on the current tenet that “one size fits all” gut problems. Current investigations involving human clinical trials demonstrate the emergence of a new paradigm (approach) in probiotic therapy and the ability to achieve remarkable clinical results  with previously difficult conditions.

Dr Jeppsen presented the following topics:

• Probiotics, Mucosal Immunity and Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
• Probiotics research and Ulcerative Collitis.

Dr Jeppsen unveiled his research using a new bacterial probiotic species that was hitherto basically unknown and the results have been truly remarkable

Other distinguished doctors that gave papers were:

• Prof. Qing-Fu Hu MD Ms, PhD, TCM - USA.
• Dr Carolyn McMakin MA, DC - USA.
• Dr Marilyn Golden - MB ChB - Australia
• Mike Curley - BSc. Biochem, Dip. Clin. Nutrition - Australia.

More details about the above will follow soon, so stay tuned.

11 July 2003

Check out Phil's new article telling us exactly what a Wellness Outcome is and how we can help you achieve it!

7th June 2003

Your naturopath/Pharmacist Phil Wade recently headed up talks between The Pharmacy Guild of Australia and the Trans Tasman Harmonisation Committee on the scheduling and regulation of complementary medicine.

Phils' suggestions were largely taken up by the Guild and the Pharmaceutic Society of Australia (the Guild's sister  organisation) as their official position on complementary medicine.

Read the complete proposal

23rd May 2003

Further Comment on Pan Labs:

Remember Pan Laboratories?

It's interesting that this fiasco has highlighted an unexpected problem - to me, at least.

And that is - Metagenics Australia had actually contracted with Pan to produce a small amount of their own manufactured range under strict controls. These were that they had to produce their range of tablets under special low temperature, low pressure conditions, allow Metagenics staff to supervise the operation and test the viability of their products AFTER manufacture.

The reason? MGs found that standard production methods destroyed most of the active constituents in vitamins and herbs.

(As it happened, poor old Metagenics had virtually quarantined off their operation from the rest of what was happening at Pan but still became caught up - most unfairly in my view - in the mass product recall).

The interesting thing is that Pan was the ONLY firm to undertake this challenge. This raises a critical question. Are all other manufacturers tableting their products under conditions, which destroy sensitive nutrients and herbal "actives"?

And why does not the TGA insist on post-production testing and only on pre-production testing of label claims of sensitive nutrients?

And just what are people really getting from virtually all other tableted products?

People buying supermarket ranges might be getting mainly binders and fillers, for all we know.

So, it is essential to talk to your naturopath to find the right thing that will do the job for you.

You may expect to pay a little more - for all the extra quality control and research staff but I can assure you that it is worth it. Isn't it better to pay a little more to ensure a guaranteed product than to shave a few cents off the price and finish up with an unknown quantity?

20th May 2003

The PAN-demic

Much has been written and spoken about the Pan Laboratories fiasco. We have maintained all along that it is greatly to your benefit to spend your hard-earned on only quality brands. That is because these practitioner brands are closely scrutinised by the profession and known to be produced to a higher level of quality. The brands that we recommend are usually
• Manufactured in house
• Tableted in special low-temperature conditions - High temperatures can destroy vitamins and cause essential fatty acids to become rancid (and toxic)
• Carefully analysed for ingredient claims both before and AFTER manufacture. That means that if the only assay on the tablet’s ingredients was performed prior to being compressed, then the label may be claiming vitamins which may be not even present in the bottle. (We now know how important that is)

• Constantly investing in research teams as well as quality-control personnel

20th May 2003

The Lane Cove Wellness Centre is pleased to announce that Sigrid MurrayQuist and Simon Coat will join our practice as acupuncturists

1st May 2003

As you know, the Therapeutic Goods Administration has ordered the recall of any products manufactured at Pan Laboratories. This unfortunately has affected us in that about 30% of Metagenics products have been recalled. We recommend and supply Metagenics products to our customers because of the stringent post production quality control that Metagenics practice. Unfortunately, Metagenics used Pan facilities in the final stage of manufacturing of some of their products. Pan facilities were only used in the final tableting process and not in the sourcing of raw materials or the mixing of the compounds.

Most of the complementary products affected are supplied to supermarkets and discount stores that sell products at the lower end of the quality spectrum

We believe that Metagenics products are completely safe and customers using these products will not be harmed in any way. Should you have any concerns we have sourced alternative supplies for products that were originally manufactured by PAN