1. Every patient with a chronic respiratory disease, especially asthma. 2. Every patient with a chronic disease, especially neurological or immunological, and chronic respiratory symptoms. 3. Any patient with a chronic disease, again especially neurological or immunological, who is not responding as expected and all other causes have been ruled out. Let us be clear: We do not believe that every patient in one of the 3 categories above is affected by mold. We do believe that potential mold exposure should be considered. With the solid advances in technology for both medical and environmental testing during the last 10 years, we can now, as practitioners, actively begin to link medical symptoms with indoor mold exposure. For individual patients we can now use enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) testing to detect 15 mycotoxins both in the patient and in their environment and assess the relationship between the two. In addition, we can now detect and quantify the presence of 36 molds by qualitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) in human tissue and the environment. Genetic testing can help us to identify those most susceptible to mold toxins and other environmental toxins. Genetic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), proteomics, and other markers of cellular function of the immune, detoxification, mitochondrial, and methylation systems may help identify those most susceptible and those most affected, as well as potential treatment options. In addition, assessing potential nutritional deficiencies and levels of other environmental toxins that may help identify those with increased individual susceptibility. As additional research is completed, it will be imperative to improve and expand these technologies. Given the complex nature of the interaction between the human genome and environmental toxins, this seems a likely problem to be solved, at least in part, with applying the science of bioinformatics. Such an approach will help us understand more fully the relationship (ie, severity and magnitude) of indoor mold exposure to human health. In This Issue Thank you Ann Shippy, MD, for coauthoring the second part of this mold editorial with me. I was really struggling with the topic and she brought clarity. As a former IBM engineer, Dr Shippy left over a decade in engineering to adapt her skill-set to the world of medicine after recovering from an illness that allopathic medicine alone did not have solutions for. She attended the University of Texas Medical School and has a thriving functional medicine practice in Austin, Texas. She is board certified in internal medicine and functional medicine. As part of our efforts to continually improve IMCJ, we are now also putting commentaries through our standard
Pizzorno and Shippy—The Path Ahead
peer-review process. I would to express my sincere appreciation to our contributing editors for being willing to subject themselves to this added rigor. As widely acknowledged and leading experts in their field, having others critique their work might be felt as disrespectful. I believe their receptivity is a powerful validation of their commitment to excellence and egoless advancement of this medicine that is so critical to restoring and improving health. Associate Editor Jeffrey Bland, PhD, leads off this issue with an intriguing discussion of the intersection of personalization of health care, technology, and innovation. I thought particularly compelling his quote from NEJM of how this will impact health care professionals and professions and the choices they can make. To paraphrase: ignore, regulate, or compete. We know the choices made by the conventional medicine political entities in the past. Let’s not make the same mistakes. Congratulations to John Weeks, the new editor in chief of Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Good luck in your new endeavor my friend. In his review of the new federal strategies on opioid addiction, he chastises the Obama administration for total lack of consideration of nonpharmacological approaches and the non-MD healing arts experts. One of the first chapters written for the Textbook of Natural Medicine in 1985 was “Non-Pharmacological Control of Pain” by Richard Kitaeff, MA, ND, LAc. Come on people, the research has been there for more than 30 years and practiced for centuries! Loren Israelsen and Frank Lampe take on the very challenging issue of the politics, regulatory environment, and marketplace dynamic that powerfully affect the quality of the natural health products we prescribe our patients. Long-time readers will remember that we have published more than 50 editorials and articles on the extremely important issue of product quality and safety. We practitioners must take a lead in recognizing and supporting the companies investing the resources to create truly great product and warn our patients about the unscrupulous who don’t. Christopher Hobbs, PhD, LAc, through his interview by Managing Editor Craig Gustafson provides us useful guidance in the use of mushrooms for wellness and health promotion. He is a keynote lecture at the 14th Annual International Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Restorative Medicine. I will also be lecturing at this conference on how toxicity has become one of the primary causes of chronic disease. Original research on postmarketing safety of Rheum rhaponticum is provided by Jyh-Lurn Chang, PhD; Michael B. Montalto, PhD; Peter W. Heger; Eva Thiemann; Reinhard Rettenberger, PhD; and Jürgen Wacker, MD, PhD. Assessing the efficacy AND safety of natural medicines is critical for the advancement of our medicine. Ferdi Yavuz, MD; Bayram Kelle, MD; and Birol Balaban, MD, from Turkey provide us an informative case report of the use of neural therapy in patients with Bell’s
Integrative Medicine • Vol. 15, No. 3 • June 2016
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