Treatment Approach of Conventional Medicine
Over the past three decades, cardiology has undergone impressive successes. Today, a supportive stent can be placed with the aid of catheters at the afflicted coronary vessel in an acute heart attack to prevent further damage of the heart muscle. Heart valve defects can also be treated via catheters. However, these technical interventions and advancements don’t influence the underlying vascular disease, the arteriosclerosis. The renowned American cardiologist Eric J. Topol called treating coronary heart disease without a heart attack with balloon dilatation and stents “medical cosmetics.”4 And it’s true: If the original disease—the arteriosclerosis—isn’t tackled with a change in lifestyle and with medication, the patient’s life expectancy isn’t prolonged by the procedure. To make matters more complicated, heart attacks don’t develop at the very narrow places, but usually at early-stage stenoses where there is only a slight constriction. Many patients who undergo a heart catheter examination aren’t even aware of this fact. It’s possible that physicians don’t convey this, but maybe it’s that people, out of sheer enthusiasm for the technology, don’t want to hear that the disease continues to exist. But it can also have to do with the fact that men are more likely to suffer from a heart attack than women, and cardiology and cardiac surgery are male-dominated specialties. Men tend to favor technical solutions.
Treatment Approach of Naturopathic Medicine
Naturopathy focuses mainly on a change of lifestyle with a vegetarian, high-fiber diet and a lot of exercise. Water treatments using hot and cold water in turn are useful to train the vessels. Exercise through stamina training and conscious periods of rest, supported by targeted and very regular relaxation techniques, are important, as well as yoga, mindfulness exercises, or meditation. Since stress is a great risk factor for heart attacks, stress reduction plays a pivotal part in heart diseases. Medicinal plants like hawthorn can help with slight cardiac insufficiency.
My Top Ten for Coronary Heart Disease and Arteriosclerosis
Vegan diet: Even though nowadays all patients are prescribed a fat-reducing drug after a heart attack, it’s quite possible (even though the opposite is often claimed) to achieve a similar effect with an extensive change in diet. Olive oil and walnuts have a particularly protective effect on the vessels. Therapeutic fasting is good, but not during the first three months after a heart attack. Sometimes the heightened LDL cholesterol levels are genetically determined, in which case diet, as healthy as it may be, can unfortunately only help very little.
Moderate exercise therapy: It’s good to have a varied exercise program with stamina training that isn’t focused on high performance and that also contains other elements, especially playful forms of exercise such as tai chi.
Yoga: According to studies, yoga not only lowers heart risk in general, it also reduces the intensity and the duration of atrial fibrillation, a frequent cardiac arrhythmia (Iyengar yoga is best in this case).5 Breathing slowly as part of yogic practices improves the symptoms of cardiac insufficiency.
Heart superfoods: The frequent consumption of certain foods can successfully lower LDL cholesterol levels. These foods include almonds, flaxseed, and oats, as well as walnuts, which ensure greater elasticity of the vessels. Particularly surprising is that the daily consumption of (high-fat) avocado also lowers LDL cholesterol levels since this fruit contains simple unsaturated fatty acids similar to that of olive oil. Ginger reduces other risky fats, the triglycerides.
Plant-based omega-3 fatty acids: Flaxseed oil, flaxseed, canola oil, walnuts, green leafy vegetables, soy oil, wheat germ oil, algae, and algae extracts provide these vessel-protecting fatty acids.
Garlic: Though it only minimally lowers the blood pressure and the cholesterol levels, garlic does improve elasticity of the vessels.
Pomegranate juice: The juice and extracts of the pomegranate have the highest antioxidant effect of all plant-based juices. One study was able to show that the repeated consumption of pomegranate increased blood flow to the heart.6 It also lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Dark chocolate: It reduces the risk of vascular diseases slightly (and tastes good).
Dental health: Dental abscesses and periodontitis are accompanied by a heightened risk of vascular diseases like heart attacks. Similar to cases of hypertension, I always ask patients with cardiovascular diseases or diabetes about the state of their dental health and recommend regular dental prophylaxis (dental cleaning).
Sauna and Kneipp treatments: Water treatments help treat cardiac insufficiency and vascular diseases. Regular visits to the sauna can—according to a Finnish study—protect from life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias.7 But the temperatures should not be too high (and the sauna visit not too long). Heliotherapy, meaning moderate sun bathing, is also a part of heart protection. However, sunburn should be avoided at all costs. It’s better to take short sunbaths between April and September (if you live in the northern hemisphere).
ARTHROSIS
The fact that we are now living longer contributes to us developing more arthroses. But in an arthrosis, wear and tear due to overstraining isn’t the decisive issue (with some exceptions, such as high-performance athletes, for example). Even though we tend to perform work that is much less physically straining than we did only one hundred years ago, arthroses nevertheless occur more frequently. The crucial factors today are bad diet, obesity, and lack of exercise. From the age of sixty onward, half of all women and one in three men in the Western world are affected by arthrosis.8 Arthrosis begins with an inflammation and the attrition of articular cartilage. The chronic pain, however, only occurs many years later. It is caused by a complex interplay of bad posture, muscular deterioration and shortening, irritated tendons and ligaments continuously trying to stabilize the joint, as well as dysfunctional pain processing in the brain.
Treatment Approach of Conventional Medicine
Conventional medicine recommends a normalization of weight for obese people and employs physical therapy to achieve this. Subsequently, physical treatments are prescribed, with cold, heat, and electricity—they have a detumescent effect and relieve the symptoms. Pain medication often includes nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which can, however, lead to severe side effects. Ibuprofen and Diclofenac, for example, have come under criticism because of the potential kidney damage, heightened heart risks, and asthma they can cause. When these medications are taken over a prolonged period of time, there is great danger of kidney failure, which may even lead to the need for dialysis; gastric bleeding occurs frequently. Good physical therapy may be able to alleviate the symptoms, but usually surgery is necessary at some stage. An artificial joint replacement (endoprosthesis) is implanted, often to great effect, in arthroses of the hips. Knee endoprosthesis, on the other hand, is more complicated and not as successful as hip endoprosthesis.
Treatment Approach of Naturopathic Medicine
Arthrosis is an important domain of traditional therapy methods from India, China, and Europe. Particularly when it comes to arthrosis of the knees, they are very effective in relieving symptoms and improving mobility and resilience. They can help delay the joint replacement procedure. But if other areas of the body are increasingly affected by the arthrosis, e.g., the back due to problems with the hips, or the shoulders due to walking with a cane, a surgical-orthopedic treatment becomes necessary.
My Top Ten for Arthrosis
Leech therapy: Particularly in arthrosis of the knees, but also in osteoarthritis of the thumb or arthrosis of the shoulder, this method can often alleviate symptoms, have a detumescent effect, and improve function for months at a time.
Acupuncture: It relieves pain, but because the effect is not lasting, you should go in for acupuncture treatments on a regular basis, especially in arthroses of the knees and shoulders.
Ay
urveda: With its multimodal approach, Ayurveda is well-suited to relieve pain and improve functionality, particularly in arthroses of the knees.
Cupping: The effect is not as pronounced as that of leech therapy or Ayurveda, but it can help temporarily.
Physical and moderate exercise therapy: It strengthens the muscles, especially in arthroses of the knees, hips, or shoulders. It must be performed regularly under supervision and also practiced at home.
Medicinal plants: Use rosehip extracts (only cold extracts are effective, which is why rosehip tea doesn’t help, unfortunately), rampion, or tree bark extracts internally. Comfrey, wolf’s bane, or amber oil are suitable for external application. Phytotherapy has a mild effect, but it can be used as a supplement.
Therapeutic fasting: It can reduce chronic pain caused by arthrosis. Apart from the anti-inflammatory effect of fasting, the weight reduction generally shows a beneficial effect immediately. Since the transition to a healthy, plant-based diet is easier after fasting, it is a sustainable supplementary therapy method.
Plant-based, vegetarian diet: In obese patients, this helps normalize weight. By adopting a plant-based, vegetarian diet, you avoid the intake of pro-inflammatory arachidonic acid, an unsaturated fatty acid contained in meat, fish, and eggs.
Application of cabbage leaves or fenugreek: These common domestic remedies are effective. They are easy to do at home and according to a study, they are just as effective as ointments that contain Diclofenac.9
Heat and cold therapy: Local warm applications like fango and peloid packs, hay bags, or cold quark poultices are suitable here. A systemic therapy in a cold chamber is also recommended.
DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY SYNDROMES
Depression is on the rise in Germany as well as in the United States.10 The causes are manifold, many questions remain unsolved. Every fourth to fifth patient visits their GP because they are suffering from a mild or moderate depression.11
Treatment Approach of Conventional Medicine
The most common treatment is—apart from psychotherapy—drug-based. It’s mainly tricyclic antidepressants and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors that are being prescribed. But in the scientific review of the effectiveness of these drugs, many studies are overlooked—almost half of them. It’s not hard to guess that the overlooked studies are those that were unable to show that treatment with antidepressants was more effective compared to treatment with a placebo. Overall, then, the impact of these antidepressants is based largely on the placebo effect. Peter Gøtzsche, director of the Nordic Cochrane Center in Copenhagen, questions the effectiveness of antidepressants entirely.12 I wouldn’t go that far. In severe depression, it’s a blessing to have these medications available. In the much more common milder depressions, however, I think preference should be given to naturopathic and integrative methods, because many antidepressants lead to weight gain and numerous subsequent problems. Other antidepressants have come under criticism, since they possibly increase suicide rate and cause addictions.13 So, it is high time for more naturopathy to be used in the treatment of depressions.
Treatment Approach of Naturopathic Medicine
Depression has many causes: it can be biographical, situational, biochemical, or due to lifestyle. From a naturopathic point of view, depression is caused by many factors and not just by a malfunction of receptors and neurotransmitters, to which biological psychiatry tries to narrow it down. Naturopathy can address many of these levels simultaneously. If, for example, one doesn’t consider body and soul to be separate entities, it is obvious that a healthy diet and sufficient exercise as well as stress-reducing practices affect a person’s mood. Medicinal plants such as amber can have a mood-enhancing effect. Acupuncture helps against anxiety. Mind-body medicine provides exercises through which, if they are carried out regularly, the balance of neurotransmitters in the brain is changed in a positive way. Similarly, light, touch, and spirituality are possible starting points.
My Top Ten for Depression and Anxiety Syndromes
Exercise and physical activity: Even though it takes a lot of effort to exercise or engage in physical activity when you are suffering from depression, it is worth it—serotonin levels increase and the processing of noradrenalin in the brain is improved. In addition, exercise facilitates the growth of new nerve cells. It’s not that important what you do, but that you do it regularly.
Experiencing nature, “forest bathing,” and gardening: When it is done in nature, every form of exercise seems to help counteract depression even better.
Yoga: Most studies confirm—no matter which disease they are concerned with—that yoga has a distinct mood-enhancing effect. Even with depression, we find a clear therapeutic effect. It’s important to find a yoga technique that you like and that doesn’t demand too much of you.
Light and sun therapy: White-light therapy is particularly effective in seasonal depression, meaning depressive disorders that occur more frequently over the dark winter months. There are special lamps for this that achieve a luminosity of 10,000 lux over a distance of ten to twenty inches, so that you don’t have to look directly into the light but can eat, talk on the phone, or have breakfast while bathing in the light. Thirty minutes a day are recommended, with a spectrum that resembles sunlight. The effect is greatest when the treatment is carried out between half past seven and half past eight in the morning and sets in after about a week. People who know about their propensity for winter depressions should ideally start the therapy as early as October. Sunbaths (not too frequent and without getting sunburnt) are also mood-enhancing. Sun beds can support antidepressant treatment.
Kneipp therapy: The various water treatments stimulate the autonomic nervous system and thus foster motivation and improve the mood. Alternating Scotch hose treatments, compresses, and full-body baths can be combined with calming (lavender, melissa) or stimulating (rosemary, ginger) plant extracts.
Heat therapy and therapeutic hyperthermia: One single systemic hyperthermic treatment with a special machine lifts the mood for about two weeks. If this is not a possibility for you, you should visit a sauna regularly. (Coldness also has a similar effect. There is no satisfying scientific data on this available yet, but the experiences in rheumatology centers with cold chambers indicate an antidepressant effect.)
Medicinal plants: Amber is effective in mild to moderate depressions. It’s important here to be aware of its interaction with other drugs—talk to your doctor about this. In Ayurvedic medicine, ashwagandha (winter cherry or poison gooseberry) has an anxiolytic and mood-enhancing effect, and in European naturopathy the same is achieved by using lavender extracts. Extracts of ginseng or roseroot can help with exhaustion. By the way, in mild depression, aromatherapy is helpful, too—lavender, rosemary, or saffron are suitable essences for an aroma lamp or for an aroma bath.
Meditation and mindfulness training: Mild depression, burn-out, or other chronic fatigue syndromes are the result of prolonged stress. Mindfulness training or mantra meditations can help restore strength and show ways of handling the stress of life differently.
Massages: Different massage techniques show good symptomatic effects in depression and anxiety syndromes. Subcutaneous reflex therapy, rhythmic massage (which has its origins in Anthroposophy), and Ayurvedic massages are particularly effective. This is presumably also due to the mere touch that is part of these methods, which is healing in many respects. But Ayurveda seems to be helpful in the treatment of depressions in other ways, too.
Therapeutic fasting and diet: Therapeutic fasting can show an astonishing effect in mild depressions. Where severe depressions are concerned, one should be cautious, however, and only fast in exceptional cases in a clinic that has experience with it. Presently, nutritional therapy is being discovered as a potentially important therapeutic approach by psychiatry: For some time now,
studies have been showing that an unhealthy diet with too much animal fat, sugar, and little fruit and vegetables goes hand in hand with an increasing number of depressions.14 By now, it has also become apparent that the transition to a plant-based and wholesome diet actually does lead to an improvement of a person’s mood and the reduction of depressive moods quite quickly. Not all of the details are clarified yet, but it seems, for example, that lycopene (a phytochemical) contained in tomatoes, leafy greens, and legumes as well as lentils and beans plays a major role in this.15 Some foods, such as cocoa, bananas, cashews, and dates, provide the substance from which the happiness hormone serotonin is created. Avoiding meat, eggs, and fish reduces the intake of arachidonic acid, which leads to more depressive moods—probably because of its pro-inflammatory effect. The brain doesn’t translate slight inflammatory impulses to pain, but to depression.
Those who don’t want to become vegetarians or vegans should turn to a Mediterranean diet, which consists of large amounts of vegetables, fruit, and healthy fats. Omega-3 fatty acids have antidepressant effects—they are found in flaxseed oil and flaxseed, canola oil, soy, and walnuts. By the way, some studies show that artificial sweeteners are connected to increasing depressiveness.16 So please don’t try to reduce your sugar intake by switching to Diet Coke, for example.
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