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Naturopathic medical advice for staying well this flu season

By Terri Hansen
Environment, Science & Health Writer
As seen in Indian Country Today

Portland, Ore.—When naturopathic physician Dr. Orna Izakson looks at a plant she sees more than its stem, leaves or vibrant flower – she sees medicine. And naturally, she takes a natural approach to flu prevention and hastening a healthy recovery.

“Our bodies are trying to bring us toward health,” she says. “The responses we experience to outside stressors are our body’s intelligent response to that stressor. A fever is an intelligent response: It makes the body more responsive to invaders… and it makes us feel lousy so we slow down and go to bed so that our bodies can heal.”

So what can you do to stay well this flu season? “Keep things moving,” says Dr. O, as her patients call her. That means drinking clear fluids — especially water — and eating foods that are close to nature. You can get most of the pieces you need in your diet for good health from colorful vegetables, including fiber.

Avoid simple sugars they best as you can; they stun the immune system. “Each handful of berries you give your children is one less Twinkie, it’s a positive step.”

Cigarette smoking depletes vitamins and decreases natural immunity. “You need to cut back, smoke less and what you do smoke should be natural, or if packaged smoke American Spirits,” Dr. O says. “Make up for the extra cost by smoking less.”

Vitamin D, produced naturally in the skin by sun exposure, is critical to your immune system. Deficiencies are epidemic and darker-skinned people are more likely to have low levels. Depending on her patient’s lab assessments of their blood levels, she generally recommends 2,000 to 4,000 iu daily of D-3.

Probiotics support healthy gut bacteria, a barrier between you and the outside world. One 2009 study found regular use of probiotics reduced children’s cold and flu symptoms. Another found probiotics helped elders get more immunity from flu vaccines. Buy probiotics as supplements – acidophilus is one, and find them in traditionally fermented foods such as yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchee and uncooked miso.

Herbal steams are an old and effective tradition for any respiratory infection: Mix herbs with boiling water in a bowl and cover for a minute with a towel. Drape the towel over your head and the bowl, close your eyes and breathe the steam through nose and mouth into your nasal passages, throat and lungs to loosen mucous, strengthens mucus membranes, and disinfects your passages. Repeat as needed.

“You can use thyme, pine needles, cedars, eucalyptus, and chaparral. Orange peels can be effective too, but wash them well before using,” Dr. O says. “Talk to the Elders, they often know what’s best to use in your location. It could be herbs from the place your grandparents called home, or you may have a grandma in your head; listen to whose voice is louder.”

Lomatium and osha root are best taken as tea, tincture or by chewing on the root directly. “When you take it internally, you’re taking in the volatile oils. They want to volatize, spread out. They go into the bloodstream, their aromatics bubble out into and through your lungs and mucus, disinfecting.” Think of the flu as leaving junk stuck in your lungs, a perfect spot for breeding bacteria. Herbs move it out, disinfecting from underneath.

Garlic helps to fight many bugs that can make you sick, making it one of Dr. O’s favorites. Raw is best if your stomach tolerates it. Add a chopped clove or two, if you can, to any hot or cold food.
If you get sick in spite of these positive steps call your medical provider.

Home remedies Dr. O suggests for her patients include mustard plasters; to make your own grind yellow (or any) mustard seed and mix with water. Place a brown paper bag on your chest as a barrier, then smooth the mustard plaster on top. Use the plaster two to three times a day. How long you keep it on depends on your comfort level, but check frequently; if the skin starts turning red it’s time to take it off.

The next treatment, like the mustard plaster, moves blood and helps immune cells get to where they’re needed most. Wet a pair of cotton socks with cold water; wring them out thoroughly. Put on well-warmed feet, cover with a pair of dry wool socks and get into a warm bed for the night. You can also do this with a cotton t-shirt and wool sweater.

Bottom line, Dr. O says, is it’s the simplest things that help the most: Eat simply. Exercise moderately. Get plenty of rest. Drink water. Cover your cough. Wash your hands. Get outside and breathe clean air. And find some way to cultivate joy in your life every day. “This is traditional medicine, the best memory of the traditional medicine. It’s practical, it empowers people.”

2009-H1N1 (swine) flu vaccine on its way to IHS clinics, ETA October 7

By Terri Hansen

Environment, Science & Health Reporter

The vaccine for the 2009 H1N1 influenza A (swine flu) virus makes it arrival at Indian Health Service clinics and facilities October 7. The seasonal flu vaccine is at the clinics now.

“We want people to get their seasonal vaccination as quickly as they can, and once the H1N1 vaccine arrives, get that as quickly as they can,” said IHS epidemiologist John Redd M.D. Those unable to make separate appointments can get both vaccines at the same time, he said.

Testing of vaccines for H1N1 shows they work with a single dose and quickly take effect.

Influenza is increasing in all 50 states, and 98 percent of it is the H1N1 strain. Most cases are occurring in children and young adults, Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at a briefing. The viruses remain similar to those chosen for the 2009 H1N1 vaccine, and nearly all cases respond well to the antiviral drugs oseltamivir and zanamivir.

Clinic patients should not delay in calling their clinic to learn what the vaccination plans are, said Redd. Many clinics plan mass vaccination days.

Last month President Obama’s science advisory council released a report that said Native American populations are considered at elevated risk of severe outcomes from 2009 H1N1 infection due to their populations being “historically at high risk for severe respiratory infections,” and, “A cluster of severe H1N1 disease among First Nation people in remote Manitoba, Canada suggests these groups may be at high risk. Cases of H1N1 virus infection in these clusters have had rapidly progressive, diffuse, lower airway disease … resulting in development of acute respiratory distress syndrome and prolonged ICU admission.”

“We don’t think that American Indian and Alaska Native people strictly by virtue of being AI/AN are individually at higher risk for H1N1 disease,” said Redd. “But risk factors such as diabetes and obesity are known to be more common in American Indians and Alaska Natives, so the population may be at higher risk because of the risk factors.”

The CDC says pregnant women, health care workers, people 6 months to 24 years of age, those who care for infants and those with chronic health conditions are priorities for the H1N1 vaccination.

The IHS has a proactive approach to pneumonia prevention, a severe respiratory infection that can be a serious and sometimes life threatening complication of influenza. “We take pneumonia in itself and as a complication of flu very seriously,” Redd said. “We definitely want to stay on top of that. In 2008 we vaccinated 82 percent of the American Indian and Alaska Native population against pneumonia.” He said the IHS offers the pneumococcal vaccine, and encourages those who haven’t received the vaccination to ask for that vaccination, too.

He said IHS efforts regarding H1N1 have been vigorous. “We started the first weekend of the outbreak,” he said. “We’ve issued guidance involving use of the Strategic National Stockpile. We’ve spent a lot of time communicating with states to consider those tribal populations within their borders. We’ve done a lot of outreach to providers including community health representatives and public health nurses on getting the system ready to receive the vaccine.”

The SNS is a large stockpile of medicines and supplies designed to support public health agencies during a public health emergency. It is deployed, according to guidance issued by the federal government, as a joint effort among state, local, territorial, tribal and federal officials if the health of a community is threatened.

As far as the antiviral medications, those intended for the general population are distributed through the SNS by the states, said Redd. “In the Arizona outbreaks, we received the antivirals we needed from the state.” The IHS has some internal distribution for their health professionals if they fall ill.

Redd said a big goal of the IHS is what they call mitigation – minimizing the impact of sick patients who might overwhelm a health facility. “A small hospital could deal pretty well with taking two intensive care patients for 10 days, whereas it might be very difficult for them to take 20 ICU patients in one day,” he said. “So one of our goals is to minimize spread and slow the flu down.

“The second portion in all this is every clinic having a local flu plan. That plan includes contingency planning – if the hospital intensive care unit or the local capacity is overwhelmed, in a worst-case scenario, we’d continue to see people as outpatients.

“We’ve got all these issues very much in mind.”

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Native Americans at higher risk from H1N1 swine flu, report warns

President Obama’s advisory council led by the nations’ leading scientists and engineers released a report assessing preparations for H1N1 Influenza A. The report outlined steps to implement nationwide to curtail a serious H1N1 outbreak.

It said that while the precise impact of the resurgence of H1N1 infection is impossible to predict, a plausible scenario is that it could produce infection in 30 to 50 percent of the U.S. population this fall and winter.

And it said that certain populations including Native American groups are considered high risk, with elevated risks of severe outcomes.

The report said it is unlikely that the 2009-H1N1 pandemic will reach the same deadly proportions as happened in the 1918-1920 Spanish flu, also an H1N1 swine flu, but that the outbreak of 2009-H1N1 will be more dangerous than the 1976 swine flu outbreak.

The seriousness of H1N1 is not due to it’s severity but rather the fact that people have no immunity to the virus. The report indicates the possibility that overwhelming numbers of people could become infected, and that mortality could reach 30,000 to 90,000.

Dr. James Cheek, director of the Indian Health Service Division of Epidemiology and Disease Prevention said the IHS is doing much the same as are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, like identifying which people are at risk.

"We’ve been in the field the last month and a half, spending a lot of time with the over 200 hospitalized cases among Native Americans in Arizona," Cheek said. "They’re confirmed respiratory disease cases though not 100 percent confirmed H1N1 cases. We’re testing the blood of those who have recovered to see if it was H1N1. " He said the IHS hasn't received additional funding to fight H1N1.

Federal health officials recently announced $350 million in national grants to fight H1N1, but that money is going to states and hospitals, not to the federally recognized tribes, prompting the National Indian Health Board to cite this policy as making reservation communities increasingly vulnerable to epidemics.

An internal document produced by the CDC says a disadvantage of the Public Health Emergency Response grant is that it doesn’t allow enough time for local and tribal concurrence, but instead uses alternative strong language that asks that most or a significant amount of funding should go to local and tribal efforts.

This grant is a little different in that by using the states as a conduit the money is available very fast for communities to use, CDC spokesman Von Roebuck said. “We’re trying to work within the system, and we’re definitely running against the clock.”

Roebuck said the CDC has asked the state health departments to reach out to all local and tribal communities to provide them information about how this funding could be used, and asks that tribal governments provide the states information as to how they could use that funding and why they deserve the highest priority.

“As we learn more about the virus we’ll continue to reach out based on the science into where we feel that it is going to get the most information out to populations,” Roebuck said. “Protecting as many folks and as many locations is definitely our goal.”

Cheek said the IHS as a great record of providing vaccinations, and that their vaccination machine "is geared up to deliver the new H1N1 vaccine to all our populations the minute we get them."

Detailed guide to caring for flu stricken family without getting sick

A recent survey in a medical journal found that 76 percent of Americans worry about becoming ill if they have to stay home and take care of their sick during a severe flu pandemic.

Pandemic Flu Home Care: A Detailed Guide for Caring for the Ill at Home is a practical resource manual by health care professionals to caring for the ill at home in a public health emergency or pandemic. It’s free to download at http://www.pandemichomecare.com/.

The authors took on the project after citizens at local and regional pandemic planning meetings – including one with tribal representatives from the New Mexico area – asked for information about how to take care of themselves and their families during a severe pandemic.

In their review of existing resources, they found that most materials covered primarily mild symptom management and recommended that people contact physicians and hospitals when symptoms were more severe. But their historical review and current analyses of health care systems determined that people may have to manage severe symptoms and death at home if a virulent influenza outbreak is widespread.

“Existing resources lacked instructions on infection prevention, setting up a sick room, how to monitor a sick child or adult by taking a temperature with a thermometer, preventing dehydration, keeping the person comfortable and knowing when to contact a health care provider if one is available,” said co-author Sandra L. Schwanberg, Ph.D., R.N.

The authors decided that the more detailed information people had the better their coping would be in a changing situation. They also wanted to cover the key public health information people were likely to see in the news; infectious disease transmission, severity, reasons for vaccination, isolation of the sick and possible quarantine of those exposed to the disease.

“We took the same care in writing the book for the public that we would take in preparing information for a professional audience,” Schwanberg said. “We felt that if people had thorough information, they could cope effectively with a difficult situation and make good decisions for themselves and their families.”

The book took Schwanberg and co-authors Maurine Renville, L.I.S.W., M.Ed, and Lesley J. Mortimer, M.S.N., M.P.H., F.N.P., nine months to write, review and edit. Lay people and health care professionals reviewed the work throughout the process. There was a charge for the book until April 2009, when the U.S. declared a public health emergency.

Their goal now is to locate fiscal sponsors to increase the book’s distribution, provide more illustrations and include coloring books for kids, DVDs and games. They’ve translated the entire book into Spanish, and illustrations are complete for one chapter.

It’s distribution includes acute care facilities, public health centers, churches, businesses, tribal nations and other groups. It is also a resource for doctors, nurses, paramedics and community health workers.

“We wanted people to have information that hopefully they will never have the need to use,” Schwanberg said.

If you have a problem downloading the eBook contact info@pandemichomecare.com for assistance, or ask that they send you the pdf file to copy and print.

CDC Advisors Make Recommendations for Use of Vaccine Against Novel H1N1

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met today to make recommendations for use of vaccine against novel influenza A (H1N1).

The committee met to develop recommendations on who should receive vaccine against novel influenza A (H1N1) when it becomes available, and to determine which groups of the population should be prioritized if the vaccine is initially available in extremely limited quantities.

The committee recommended the vaccination efforts focus on five key populations. Vaccination efforts are designed to help reduce the impact and spread of novel H1N1. The key populations include those who are at higher risk of disease or complications, those who are likely to come in contact with novel H1N1, and those who could infect young infants.

When vaccine is first available, the committee recommended that programs and providers try to vaccinate: pregnant women, people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months of age, health care and emergency services personnel, persons between the ages of 6 months hrough 24 years of age, and people from ages 25 through 64 years who are at higher risk for novel H1N1 because of chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems.

The groups listed above total approximately 159 million people in the United States. The committee does not expect that there will be a shortage of novel H1N1 vaccine, but availability and demand can be unpredictable. There is some possibility that initially the vaccine will be available in limited quantities. In this setting, the committee recommended that the following groups receive the vaccine before others: pregnant women, people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months of age, health care and emergency services personnel with direct patient contact, children 6 months through 4 years of age, and children 5 through 18 years of age who have chronic medical conditions.

The committee recognized the need to assess supply and demand issues at the local level. The committee further recommended that once the demand for vaccine for these prioritized groups has been met at the local level, programs and providers should begin vaccinating everyone from ages 25 through 64 years. Current studies indicate the risk for infection among persons age 65 or older is less than the risk for younger age groups. Therefore, as vaccine supply and demand for vaccine among younger age groups is being met, programs and providers should offer vaccination to people over the age of 65.

The committee also stressed that people over the age of 65 receive the seasonal vaccine as soon as it is available. Even if novel H1N1 vaccine is initially only available in limited quantities, supply and availability will continue, so the committee stressed that programs and providers continue to vaccinate unimmunized patients and not keep vaccine in reserve for later administration of the second dose.

The novel H1N1 vaccine is not intended to replace the seasonal flu vaccine. It is intended to be used alongside seasonal flu vaccine to protect people. Seasonal flu and novel H1N1 vaccines may be administered on the same day.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Having one less child dramatically reduces your CO2, new study finds

People serious about wanting to reduce their “carbon footprint” on the Earth have one choice available to them that may yield a large long-term benefit – have one less child.

A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environmentally sensitive practices people might employ their entire lives – things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.

The research also makes it clear that potential carbon impacts vary dramatically across countries. The average long-term carbon impact of a child born in the U.S. – along with all of its descendants – is more than 160 times the impact of a child born in Bangladesh.

“In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime,” said Paul Murtaugh, an OSU professor of statistics. “Those are important issues and it’s essential that they should be considered. But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources.”

In this debate, very little attention has been given to the overwhelming importance of reproductive choice, Murtaugh said. When an individual produces a child – and that child potentially produces more descendants in the future – the effect on the environment can be many times the impact produced by a person during their lifetime.

Under current conditions in the U.S., for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent – about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible.

And even though some developing nations have much higher populations and rates of population growth than the U.S., their overall impact on the global equation is often reduced by shorter life spans and less consumption. The long-term impact of a child born to a family in China is less than one fifth the impact of a child born in the U.S., the study found.

As the developing world increases both its population and consumption levels, this may change.
“China and India right now are steadily increasing their carbon emissions and industrial development, and other developing nations may also continue to increase as they seek higher standards of living,” Murtaugh said.

The study examined several scenarios of changing emission rates, the most aggressive of which was an 85 percent reduction in global carbon emissions between now and 2100. But emissions in Africa, which includes 34 of the 50 least developed countries in the world, are already more than twice that level.

The researchers make it clear they are not advocating government controls or intervention on population issues, but say they simply want to make people aware of the environmental consequences of their reproductive choices.

“Many people are unaware of the power of exponential population growth,” Murtaugh said.

“Future growth amplifies the consequences of people’s reproductive choices today, the same way that compound interest amplifies a bank balance.”

Murtaugh noted that their calculations are relevant to other environmental impacts besides carbon emissions – for example, the consumption of fresh water, which many feel is already in short supply.

OSU PRESS RELEASE July 31, 2009.

About the OSU College of Science: As one of the largest academic units at OSU, the College of Science has 14 departments and programs, 13 pre-professional programs, and provides the basic science courses essential to the education of every OSU student. Its faculty are international leaders in scientific research.