756 Healing the Heart

Do you think it would be a good idea for the AMA to pressure the business industry to make their environments less stressful, thus making a healthier community?

first rate segment - I wake up to NPR each morning and heard Dr. G this morning.

thank you very much.

EH

Your programs are always very informative and helpful; but this is the best one I have heard in the many years I have been listening to your show. I have been raised in a three generation traditional medical family and am also open to alternative medicine so this fills the bill for an integrative approach.

Great show. 'Recommending it to family members and friends who have cardiac issues and some who do not.

Your shows and books are a beacon of light. I have several of your books and keep some of them at work to check possible interactions with patients rx meds etc.

Your guests are always of high academic caliber. I have learned much.

GT

Thank you for this most informative and hopeful program!

This show riveted me to my radio for the entire hour. It encompassed so many of the issues that are facing our family right now...my husband is post-stent emergency surgery as the result of a heart attack, I live under tremendous personal and business stress, and our daughter is an energy healer and has given me wonderful treatment sessions to deal with my stress.

Dr. Guarneri reinforced all that we are doing to deal with these issues without drugs: changing our diets, adding exercise, periodic treatment sessions...what a difference!

My husband is still on medications, we are told that he needs to be on them for a year because of the stent, but he looks forward to weaning off of them in time...he knows it is not the solution..and is watching his diet (for the most part...though he hasn't given up meat yet) and has increased his exercise. I will send the MP3 file to my daughter as well!

I really don't believe "healing touch" cured her frozen shoulder. Frozen shoulder generally goes away on its own after some months have passed.

In my case it went away in about 6 months. All I did was some arm stretching exercises for about a minute or two a day. When doctors on your program make unscientific sounding claims like this, I don't feel like I can trust them.

I know that healing touch can make pain lessen or go away, the way placebos can, by getting the body's own pain relieving neuro-transmitters to go into action, but frozen shoulder is quite a different matter. It's a physical inability to move the arm. In difficult cases, a doctor can try to force the arm to move under anesthesia, and sometimes this can even cause the arm to break. Do you really think that "healing touch" can cure a situation like that?

PEOPLE'S PHARMACY RESPONSE:

We have no way of proving it did or did not help Dr. Guarneri's frozen shoulder. Please remember, she coupled it with acupuncture. She went from immobility to almost full range of motion within a very short period of time. In her mind, the improvement was dramatic and convinced her that the combination worked whereas the corticosteroid injection she first received did virtually nothing.

This is an anecdote...a case report if you will. It could have been coincidence, no doubt. But the risk is very low compared to the possible side effects of prescription drugs.

I so totally enjoyed the entire show, with Dr. Guarnari's comments presented in such excellent fashion!

Am a board certified pediatrician who becomes really passionate and - happy! when hear other doctors, especially "hi-tech" interventional docs, take a stand for Prevention.

There is so much contributing to the toxic health being experienced by we Americans, and Dr. Guarnari is a wonderful concise communicator of these factors.
Many Kudos, Dr. Guarnari!
Sofia M. Temple, M.D.

How is BP affected by occasional stress...... difficult personalities in one's life? Would meditation be helpful?

PEOPLE'S PHARMACY RESPONSE: MEDITATION CAN BE HELPFUL. SLOW BREATHING CAN ALSO HELP LOWER BLOOD PRESSURE.

Great, informative show as always! I am sending an e-mail to many politicians in Washington DC, to hopefully spark some of them to study the possibility of Integrative/Preventive Medicine being studied as part of the health reform.

I am 70+ and in perfect health because of exercise,and healthy diet. There are so many avenues available for us today that we should not have to be told how to stay healthy. A tax credit for those who do would be nice!
Carla

I love your show and I have purchased numerous books that were written by your guests. I use a lot of the information in my wellness and holistic health classes and I share knowledge gained from you and your guests with family and friends.

Having said all of that, I am a little surprised about the topic. Guys, this stuff is 20 YEARS OLD. Dean Ornish published his landmark study in Lancet in 1990 and he has been doing follow up work ever since. If the public still that much in the dark about the material Mimi covered after two decades? What does THAT say about the state of our health care system?

Thanks for the great work you are doing.

peace and love
talks to trees

Dear Joe and Terry,

You usually have excellent, well informed guests, often mining the wealth of expertise in the Research Triangle. The "neurocardiology" guest, however, is an exception, delivering one non sequitor after another, pronouncing conclusions without a discernible connection. For example, she makes a brain-heart connection by citing the vagus nerves (but not their sympathetic counterparts), and concludes that the heart can control the brain; yet she doesn't have any evidence that there is feedback afferent communication between heart and hypothalamus or limbic structures.

She cites the HR variability studies linking morbidity with low HR variation (true), as if her flaky brain-heart association were the cause of low HR variation. Then it's off to how heart arrhythmias can lead to panic attacks. What a mess.

I am disappointed that you gave airtime to such a self-serving, willfully ignorant person, MD or no MD.

Thanks for the consideration,

Sol S., PhD

Dr. Guarneri's practice and opinions are simply poorly reasoned. The use of her credentials, degree, appointment, and license to prescribe yoga and acupuncture are the next thing to fraudulent, in that her training as a physician gives her no more expertise in these than thousands of teachers and practitioners across the country.

Yes, excellent evidence exists to support the Ornish diet, yet she goes far beyond this. It is said that a good con artist interweaves a few lies or misdirections among a larger number of truths. Similarly, Dr. Guarneri mixes unproven statements with high tech and well proven treatment to argue for the program she oversees.

This is common in 'integrative' medicine, and I think is often a variation of the 'god complex' to which physicians are susceptible. Physicians are motivated by a variety of different desires, not least of which is a genuine desire to help people. We really dislike telling a patient we do not have a solution to their problem.

We are trained to help with health. Assisting people in finding quality of life, as in stress reduction and spiritual matters, is beyond our purview.

Thank you so much for another informative and inspiring show...I live this life style, lots of exercise by way of hard farm work, fresh and healthy food and no prescriptions...55 and going strong.

Food is my medicine. Thank you for your wise words

Really enjoyed this lady's presentation.

Practical advice for a sometimes impractical medical profession.

Hi!
This was a great informative program & just at the right time as my husband is having atrial fibrillation problems. I've personally been doing some alternative things for cholesterol & they've worked. Red rice yeast & panothenic acid as well as niacin & try to do daily exercise. It has brought my cholesterol counts down & not had all the side effects of the drugs that the Docs & drug companies are pushing. Thanks for your program!

Great show! Dr. G addressed my stress situation to a tee! All my dr. does is write drug prescriptions! Rolls his eyes at Cortisol/adrenalin fatigue subject. Was extremely healthy all my life, albiet it stressful. Retired in January but not making much progress. Blood pressure is eratic. Been to holistic md, but ran out of funds. Am a die hard Mediterranean Diet fan. Would love to be treated by Dr. G.

Thanks, Kathi

truly enjoyed this very informative radio segment on 90.7 Public Radio Milwaukee

Many of your shows strike a chord with me, but this one in particular was riveting. My veterinarian, in addition to traditional methods, uses healing touch, bio-resonance, aromatherapy, acupuncture, etc. My dogs (and horses) have all had holistic therapy with great results. The horses give instant & honest feedback: once they trust you will not harm them they readily accept treatment and tend to show marked improvement. Rescue dogs have also exhibited good responses to healing touch and red light laser therapy.

Thanks,
Barb

In the opening segment of the program on Jan. 30, you mentioned the possible link of a chemical used in non-stick pans to thyroid problems.

Are there any non-stick pans that do not contain this chemical? I would like to know the names of those which DO NOT. Thanks.

Folks w/ major heart problems very often also suffer clinical depression, which needs to be treated for maximizing the potential for long-term survival.