Countering Side Effects and Adverse Consequences of Drug Therapies, Radiation, and Other Therapies

Paul Reller, L.Ac.

You may have chosen to utilize a harsh allopathic regimen to cure or decrease your illness, infection, cancerous growth or injury, or you may be concerned about side-effects from chronic use of standard medications. After these treatments, worry about the current state of your health, and long-term implications of the side-effects and risks need to be addressed. The positive method of dealing with these adverse effects of therapy is to utilize a step-by-step approach with Complementary Medicine to reduce the damage, counter the physiological side-effects, and improve overall health, especially of the liver and kidney, which are often adversely effected as they try to clear toxicities and break down and eliminate chemicals in the body. Work with a Complementary Med Physician or physicians, such as a Licensed Acupuncturist, Herbologist, Naturopath etc. will help guide the restoration of your health. A knowledgeable Licensed Acupuncturist/herbalist will be able to utilize the current research to analyze risks and side effects, and counter these with clinically proven strategies.

Much research is being conducted into the potential of herbs, nutrient supplements, and acupuncture to protect against the harmful effects of radiation therapy and chemotoxic agents, and remarkable findings are emerging. Such herbs as Gingko bliloba, ginseng, piper longum (bi ba), tinospora cordifoila (kuan jin teng), and ginger have been proven to protect against radiation (see extensive articles below in additional information). In addition, sulfur containing food and herbs have long been studied in relation to protection against harmful effects of radiation, as has chlorella. The United States government offers a medical database of such research on PubMed, the National Institutes of Health medical research database. In addition, a wealth of research within the sphere of Complementary Medicine, has long sought answers to these common public health problems, and much of this research is not published in standard medical journals, a criteria for admittance of research onto such databases as PubMed.

Today, many patients may present symptoms that are related to either acute or chronic use of pharmaceutical medicines. The analysis of these symptoms and the treatment is often a complex matter. Treatment may serve to both alleviate symptoms, as well as to correct the underlying physiological damage. Treatment protocol thus needs to be thoughtful and thorough. The patient needs to utilize a knowledgeable physician to perform careful health analysis and individualized research to see if the symptoms may be attributable to medication. Most patients today realize that most medications come with a long list of potential side effects and long-term health risks. This list is so extensive for many medications that it is ignored. While clinical studies show that a small percentage of patients in drug trials experience these symptoms and risks, even a few percent of patients accounts for many when the drug is taken by millions of patients. When there is a long list of side effects, and a few percent of the participants in clinical trials experience experience each of these side effects, the potential is that a great percentage of these patients experienced some significant side effect. While the patient may not want to go off of the medication due to a potential side effect, ignoring this health problem is not a smart option.

Today, there is a fast growing field of medical research in herbal and nutrient chemistry. We no longer need to rely on historical or anecdotal evidence to treat. While the United States lags behind most countries in utilizing Complementary Medicine, medical research is being shared across the planet. By sharing herbal and nutrient medical research, patients and physicians will have greater options for the best possible integrated health care. Much of the research from China in the past was not accepted for publication in standard medical journals due to social and political bias, and industry decisions based on profit motive. We can hope that the opening of research sharing between China and the United States, as in the historic agreement of 2008 between the University of California San Francisco and Peking University, will provide us with more useful information that is evidence-based concerning Chinese herbal medicine today.

Here is a step-by-step logical guide to correcting these problems:

Clearly define your symptoms

Symptoms are not something we like to think about, especially when they are chronic. You need to overcome this aversion and clearly define, in writing, what are your symptoms, so that the exact cause of these symptoms can be discovered and treated. Treatment of symptoms is the first step in your recovery, but is not the most important step. To insure sustained benefit, actual reversal of damage to the physiological function in your body must be achieved, and this is not always evident by looking at the symptoms. If you stop your recovery when your symptoms subside, you are not achieving your goals. The Complementary Medicine physician will explain how your symptoms of drug and radiation side effects reveal damage to essential systems in your body. These long-term health problems need to be addressed with a step-by-step protocol to regain healthy homeostasis and function.

Understand how the drug or other therapy worked

When you know the mechanism of damage, reversal of this damage can be achieved in your therapy. For instance, if you took Interferon, you will note that this drug works by genetically inhibiting protein expression, especially in the liver. After the therapy, liver function and protein expression needs to be enhanced again. Certain nutrient supplements greatly aid this process and these supplements should be combined with foods containing them to insure greatest utilization. Herbal strategies can be used to improve liver function as well, and Acupuncture stimulation will also be very effective to encourage improved physiological function, and will work to increase the effectiveness of the supplements and herbal formulas. Herbal formulas are usually taken in short courses, while nutrient medicines need to be taken for a longer period of time. Acupuncture stimulation helps these strategies work better, and the complete package of care insures a faster and better outcome. Discuss this process with your physician.

Help your body to help itself

The body has a natural mechanism to repair damage, called the immune system. This complex system can be made to work better by both utilizing specific herbs, supplements and acupuncture, and also by decreasing physiological stress and improving general health. Your body has certain limitations or tolerances for stress. When these limitations are exceeded, your immune system will not work effectively. Stress is defined as the physiological needs in the body, not just work deadlines and emotional situations at home. Each individual has a certain capacity for stress. The less healthy you are, the less stress tolerance that you have. To decrease stress and improve your physiological tolerances, you need to decrease work, emotional aggravation, and exposure to harmful chemicals. To improve tolerances, you need to increase therapies, healthy diet, healthy exercise, sunlight, fresh air, and restful periods. You may need to discuss a temporary reduction in the amount of medication that you consume with the prescribing M.D.. When you do all of these things positive results will happen. When you fail to do these things, you will perpetuate your problem. Changes in your lifestyle are difficult, but not as difficult as the changes to your lifestyle that will be forced on you if you don’t temporarily deal with restoration of your health.

Controversies concerning industry drug trials and research

In recent years, investigations into medical research and clinical trials by such prominent sources as Senator Charles Grassley has revealed the extent of the problems with public trust in the published findings of both harmful effects and efficacy of many pharmaceutical medicines. The extent of payments to physicians and researchers by pharmaceutical companies that influence both the study designs and outcomes has been a cause of great alarm to both public health experts and to patients. In addition, the investigations into medical studies and published evidence has revealed an extensive system of paid ghost-writing to attach prominent names to research articles created by the pharmaceutical companies to promote their medicines. These problems are the result of the many alarming health problems generated by the medicines themselves, and the lax oversight by the FDA. While pharmaceutical medicine provides us with the tools to effectively combat serious disease, we must not overlook the harm that it creates as well. Integrating Complementary Medicine into your health protocol insures that these issues are addressed.

I hope this short guide to therapy is helpful to you in organizing your physical recovery. You need to work with your physician to insure that this process works as well as you want it to, and stick to a guided therapeutic course till you achieve your goals. Don’t let worry consume you and prevent positive action. You also need to address the mental problems that often accompany these harsh therapies, such as depression and anxiety. I hope that I can be your guide to a full recovery.

Some serious side effects from common off label prescription of a class of drugs called atypical antipsychotics

In 2009 and 2010, the pharmaceutical industry has paid fines of billions of dollars related to federal prosecution of off label illegal advertising of atypical antipsychotic medication. This class of drug produces many serious neurological and hormonal side effects, and FDA approval for their use limited guidelines to treating psychological disorders that were untreatable with other therapies. Atypical antipsychotics affects a broad array of neurotransmitters and brain centers, and were developed due to the very harsh side effects of the early class of antipsychotics, which caused alarming neurohormonal disorders in a majority of patients over time. While it appears that these companies used public advertising improperly, the real story is that the pharmaceutical companies spend up to 3 times the amount spent on public advertising in various promotional practices to doctors, clinical nursing prescribers, and other professionals. Typically, these antipsychotic drugs would be promoted by a highly paid medical doctor or other expert giving semiars and continuing education concerning various health topics, such as depression, dementia, and behavioral disorders, for which they recommended these antipsychotic drugs to be prescribed off label, or for symptoms and diseases not approved by the FDA. Now, it is legal for MDs to prescribe drugs off label, but not for the industry to advertise and promote this use, or provide economic incentive for the off label prescription.

Billions of dollars in fines for criminal violation of these drug bad advertising and promotion laws were handed to Pfizer for Geodon, AstraZeneca and Seroquel, Eli Lilly and Zyprexa, Bristol-Myers and Abilify, and Johnson and Johnson and Risperadal. These drugs were widely prescribed for elderly dementia, pediatric depression and behavioral disorders, and adult bipolar disorders. Atypical psychotics, though, all have serious neuroleptic consequences, although the atypical class has far fewer than previous drugs. The hidden risks, though, were seen in the high percentage of patient on certain of these drugs acquiring insulin insensitivity and weight gain, metabolic disorder, increased risk of cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, and other hormonal imbalances causing erectile dysfunction, loss of libido etc. These newer drugs did not have the immediate alarming side effects of the prior antipyschotic class, but government investigations uncovered that some of these long term problems were hidden in the released data on clinical trials.

If these drugs were prescribed, the patient may have some work to do to reverse the damage even after discontinuing the drug. Since the drugs typically affect the various dopamine receptors in the brain, a cascade of effects, like those typically seen in attention deficit and hyperacitivity disorders, related to an imbalance between the different types of dopamine receptors, and the eventual expression of the wrong balance of receptors on the brain cells, may have caused neurodegenerative problems. Hormonal problems related to the hypothalamus may have affected a broad array of hormonal feedback systems in the body as well. Restoring healthy brain metabolism and cell functions, and restoration of hormonal balance, is something that a knowledgeable Complementary Medicine physician can help with.

Information Resources

The growing body of research concerning protective effects of Chinese herbs with radiation and chemotherapy is often not published in medical journals that are primarily funded and promoted by the standard medical industry. Below is just a sample of the research available to the public. The fact that herbal and nutrient medicine, as well as acupuncture, is being incorporated into the standard protocol of many prominent cancer clinics is proof that this research is sound. The research the confirms that hepatoprotective effects of herbs and nutrient medicines to decrease liver dysfunction and disease as a result of the stress of pharmaceutical drug breakdown and detoxification by the liver is also extensive. Of course, antioxidant mechanisms, immune stimulation, and many other protocols, such as enhancement of glutathione metabolism are important subjects to be explored as well. Below is just a small sample of the research and articles devoted to this subject.

1. A 2007 study of herbs to protect against radiation therapy effects: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2127223
2. A 2010 study of herbs to protect against chemotherapy effects: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20015572
3. A 2009 study of the herbs astragalus (Chinese herb Huang qi) and Angelica (Chinese herb Dang gui), used in combination, revealed that they can significantly reverse the anemia induced by chemotherapy: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19627214
4. A 2007 study of the herb hawthorn fruit to protect against radiation therapy effects: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17185880
5. A 2007 meta-analysis of the limited studies published in Western medical journals on Chinese herbs used to treat the side-effects of chemotherapy in breast cancer patients revealed a small number of randomised placebo-controlled clinical trials establishing efficacy, and called for the funding of more and larger clinical trials to explore this adjunct therapy: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17443560
6. A 2010 article in Reuters reported on a clinical study published in the professional journal Cancer that found that Milk Thistle was effective in reducing liver damage induced by chemotherapy in children. By combining such herbs in formula, the professional herbalist is able to tailor an effective treatment protocol to decrease chemotherapy damage: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BD2XS20091214
7. A 2009 article in the New York Times reveals that the integrity of medical research in the United States has been severely damaged by the findings of extensive ghostwriting of published articles, and the use of scientific publication to market and promote drugs: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/business/18ghost.html
8. A 2010 article in the New York Times reveals that pharmaceutical companies are now conducting up to 80% of their clinical trials outside of the United States, where FDA oversight is lax: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/health/research/22trial.html?ref=health
9. A 2003 article in the British Journal of Psychiatry reveals that classic antipsychotic medications, now used for many offlabel health problems, for which the major drug manufacturers have paid huge fines in the billions of dollars, have for decades caused hyperprolactinemia, or excess prolactin hormone excretion from the pituitary (stimulated by hypothalamic dysfunction), causing amenorrhea, infertility, erectile dysfunction, chronic fatique, and a host of hormonal problems in 17-78% of patients. This is the reason why the pharmaceutical industry has introduced prolactin-sparing antipsychotic medications: http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/182/3/199
10. In 2009 and 2010, 5 major pharmaceutical companies paid criminal fines or settled in federal court for off label promotion to doctors of various atypical antipsychotic drugs totalling billions of dollars in settlements and fines. This new class of antipsychotic drugs had fewer side effects than the classic antipsychotics, which all produced significant unwanted neurological, neuroleptic, and hormonal effects, nevertheless, large weight fluctations, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and neuroleptic symptoms of involuntary muscle contraction, jerking and facial grimacing, as well as milder symptoms of twitch, have all been seen in significant percentages of patients over time and attributed to these drugs: http://www.cheatingculture.com/off-label-marketing/

The information on this website is not intended to be used as a specific medical advice or cure. Please consult with the practitioner or an appropriate physician, such as a licensed acupuncturist, naturopath, or medical doctor, to discuss the proper application of the information contained on this website.