Woodford Files

Woodford Files

Good grief, 2008 is already a month old! We greatly enjoyed our break over the holiday season, due to our double issue, and now we’re back in fighting form.

In celebration of Chinese New Year (February 7), this month we bring you the Shiitake mushroom, an Asian symbol of longevity. With its antiviral, antibacterial, and cholesterol-lowering properties, not to mention its divine culinary uses, this fragrant fungus is a wonderful example of nutritional medicine from the kitchen pharmacy. With a handful of savoury recipes, culinary herbalist Pat Crocker makes this mushroom sing and dance in the pot.

And our ode to St. Valentine’s this month is a feature on Sexy Supplements by Dr. Zoltan Rona. In it, we learn of the vitamins, minerals, and herbs that can ramp up your sex life and address reproductive disorders. Mind you, there is one point in the article that’s debatable – Rona’s statement that essential fatty acids are particularly important for sexual health but: “Since virtually every fish on this planet is contaminated by mercury, it’s best to keep fish and seafood out of your diet.” I have heard good arguments both for and against eating fish for their EFAs, and I hope to initiate further debate on the topic in our Letters to Editor section. So feel free to weigh in on the subject. Send your email to: letters@vitalitymagazine.com

Helke Ferrie’s feature on Surviving Mainstream Medicine points to the precautions that any patient should take when undergoing treatment by a conventional doctor. That the pharmaceutical agenda is a significant influence in the typical doctor’s office is no secret. Add to that the now severe shortage of doctors in Ontario, which means that little time is spent with each patient, and what we end up with is a healthcare system unable to meet the needs of its aging population, particularly in the area of chronic disease. It’s a system that is underfunded, underqualified to cure chronic disease, and uninterested in supporting alternatives to drugs and surgery.

But there is a silver lining in the cloud. As patients have begun to realize they can’t rely on conventional medicine to cure their diseases, they’re taking greater interest in alternatives to conventional medicine which can genuinely help them. Indeed, natural health and alternative medicine is enjoying a surge in popularity as patients seek solutions from sources outside the medical mainstream.

Unfortunately, none of these alternatives are covered by OHIP, so only those who can afford the fees of homeopaths, naturopaths, massage therapists, nutritionists, herbalists, osteopaths, orthomolecular physicians, etc, have a shot at truly curing their health problems. In fact, I’d venture to say that a two tier health care system already exists here – one for those who can afford to pay the cost of alternative medicine out of their own pocket, and the other for those who cannot. Yet in all fairness to the patient, OHIP should be expanding their coverage to all health professions that can genuinely help people get better and stay out of the doctor’s office.

In my view, the prescription for a genuine cure to any disease is not to be found within conventional medicine but rather within the natural health and alternative medicine community where health professionals are willing to spend the time necessary to correctly diagnose each patient’s health status, and able bring more to the table than just symptom-suppressing drugs.

Since emergency rooms are now being flooded by patients without a doctor, a new OHIP strategy that diverts patients away from conventional medicine and towards preventive medicine and alternative healthcare would in turn free up emergency rooms for what they were intended to do in the first place – deal with emergencies.              

JW