A Farmacy Near You

Someday in the not too distant future, the local pharmacy could very well turn into a farmacy. Last week I went to a series of lectures on nutrition, inflammation and chronic disease at the Tuft’s School of Nutrition Sciences and Policy in Boston. One lecture focused on Alzheimer’s, a second on Cancer, and a third on how the Nestle Corporation, the makers of Toll House cookies and KitKat bars, has re-positioned itself as a nutritional health and wellness organization.
 
On the Alzheimer’s front, researchers have discovered an anti-microbial peptide that is capable of cleaning up the neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques that are believed to cause Alzheimer’s disease (AD). They have also developed a method of creating tangles and plaques in a laboratory environment to test new drugs.
 
Also to know about AD:

• Just about everyone over the age of 40 have the pathogens for Alzheimer’s, whether they end up getting it or not.
• Alzheimer’s starts 20 years before it is actually detected.
• 40-to-50 percent of people over the age of 85 show signs of dementia/AD.
• The average lifespan for someone with Alzheimer’s is 80 years old.
• Some people do not get AD even with brain scans that show that they have more tangles and plaques than those that have it.
• Preventive Measures--exercise, eat the right foods (Mediterranean Diet) including those with Omega-3s, engage in social activities, learn new things, get eight hours of sleep per night, and reduce stress.

 
On the Cancer front, we are in the early stages of seeing the development of Polymolecular Botanical Drugs that can work independently or in conjunction with chemotherapy to eliminate or reduce the size of tumors. They can also be used to reduce the level of glucose which fuel tumor growth.
 
One drug, Epidiferphane (EDP), is composed of natural ingredients including green tea, curcumin, and broccoli powder. Another treatment approach, Cancerna, is a patented regiment using EDP along with a type of ketogenic diet (used to treat difficult-to-control epilepsy in children) with 60 percent fat, 20 percent carbs and 20 percent protein. Cancerna is often used with conventional chemotherapy or used to give the patient a “drug holiday.”
 
Also, researchers are beginning to look at complex adaptive systems (CAS) for answers to AD, Cancer and other chronic diseases. CAS’s consist of many diverse and autonomous components or parts, called agents, which are interrelated, and behave as a unified whole in learning from experience and adjusting to changes in the environment. Each individual agent of a CAS is itself a CAS. For example a tree is a CAS within a larger CAS, a forest, which is a CAS in still a larger CAS, an ecosystem.
 
Learn more:
 
https://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/publication/part-2-what-happens-brain-ad/hallmarks-ad
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/complex-adaptive-system-CAS.html
http://www.gainesville.com/news/20160428/cancer-expert-steers-talk-away-from-chemo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet
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