The practice and science of natural medicine
Helping practitioners stay informed, confident and effective.
Since 2002, Integrative Healthcare & Applied Nutrition magazine (formerly known as CAM magazine) has kept professional practitioners in-the-loop every month with its mix of news, views and fully referenced features.
Helping practitioners stay informed, confident and effective.
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Editor’s note –
August 2026
You can’t make it up….
A near 20-year study tracking more than 650,000 Americans with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has found that some widely used medications are linked to a “noticeable” increase in the risk of death.
It turns out that this is the FIRST study to test proper long-term safety of these commonly-prescribed drugs.
The senior author of the Cedars-Sinai research (full story, page 22 in our IBS/IBD research update) says that most clinical trials of these medications last less than a year: “So we know very little about their long-term safety. This study begins to address that gap”.
Here’s where it gets very silly.
The head of Bioinformatics at Cedars-Sinai cane out with this communication gem: “IBS patients should not panic”! He then shifted responsibility to those same patients by continuing, “But they do need to understand and weigh the small but meaningful risks when considering long-term treatments”.
Right, so patients have to “weigh the risks” when, at this point, even their doctors are unlikely to know about this new research.
I think panicking is just what’s needed.
Mice who eat beef
There’s a certain group of researchers who will go to any lengths to push their plant-based diet agenda.
The latest Bad Scientists hail from the University of North Carolina and Stony Brook University in a paper actively promoted by the American Gastroenterological Association. The claim: the protein component of beef worsens gut inflammation, while protein from peas is protective (report page 20).
To get this result they subjected mice – who are mostly vegetarian – to a diet based on beef. Must say I’ve never seen a herd of mice pulling down a cow. Not surprisingly, mice eating beef developed the most severe intestinal inflammation – compared to mice fed pea protein.
You couldn’t make it up. They get paid to do this!
Welcome to NED
Yes, it’s a big issue – and we’re delighted to welcome the first of many specially curated collections from NED.
This is the Nutrition Evidence Database, developed originally by BANT (the British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine) to be the UK’s first scientific database dedicated to nutrition and lifestyle medicine research.
The eight-page bonus section in this month’s magazine is a taste of NED’s peer-reviewed, in-depth analysis and expert reviews. NED will be contributing regularly to IHCAN, boosting our coverage of the nutrition evidence base and, by the way, adding to our usual exemplary (if we do say so ourselves) monthly reference count…
...Read more...
…
People are getting sicker younger – because they’re ageing faster
The endless debate about why diseases such as cancer (especially colon cancer), type 2 diabetes and heart disease are cropping up in younger and younger age groups – there is even a concern about Alzheimer’s starting to affect more under-65s – may be at an end, thanks to research published in Nature Medicine (report, page 5).
An investigative team led by Washington University Medicine has discovered that people are starting to age faster.
Time was that there was usually a heathy gap between chronological/calendar age and biological age – the age of organs, tissue and, say, the immune system. For a lot of people, that gap is getting smaller. For some it may be that while their next birthday is 40, their organs are celebrating their 60th.
The suggestion is that accelerated biological ageing is linked to the global rise in early-onset cancers (diagnosed at age 55 or younger). The bigger the difference between a person’s biological age and chronological age, the higher their risk for solid tumours – especially lung, GI and uterine cancers.
Farewell to Heather
Shockingly, Heather Rosa, the Dean of ION, has died suddenly aged 67.
I was one of hundreds of people honoured to call her a friend – and in getting on for 50 years involvement in natural medicine, I have never seen anyone in our field remembered so fondly, and passionately, by so many.
Our nearly four complete pages of tributes (starting page 8) reflect that.
Heather was dealt a bad hand by birth and genetics but overcame it all with an inspirational zest for life and an uncanny ability to mentor everyone around her. She didn’t quite fulfil her aim of becoming “a very eccentric old lady”, but she was well on the way!
She leaves a huge hole in our hearts.
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We care deeply about the planet and creating a business that gives back to nature.
That’s why we’ve partnered with One Tree Planted to plant a tree on your behalf, as a thank you for subscribing.
Trees clean our air and water, create habitats for biodiversity, contribute to our health and wellbeing, and create jobs for social impact.
“I consider IHCAN magazine to be a good reference source because the authors
are reputable, sound-thinking experienced clinicians. I read it to keep
up-to-date with current trends. Keep up the good work!”
Susan Farrer
We’re always fully referenced
We don’t put a big emphasis on being “evidence based” in the conventional sense, mainly because the bulk of the evidence used in meta analyses and systematic reviews and to produce “guidelines” is not to be trusted. As Prof Richard David Feinman puts it, the meta-analysis is the “most dangerous” activity plaguing modern medical literature. And RCTs are of no use in assessing complex conditions that we address with multiple interventions – such as Dr Dale Bredesen’s Alzheimer’s protocol. Likewise, we highly value the hard-won clinical experience of multiple practitioners accumulated over the years and handed down over generations of evolving natural medicine practice. That said, we do put a lot of effort into referencing our features. References are online to save space, available within our members area.
We’re always fully referenced
We don’t put a big emphasis on being “evidence based” in the conventional sense, mainly because the bulk of the evidence used in meta analyses and systematic reviews and to produce “guidelines” is not to be trusted. As Prof Richard David Feinman puts it, the meta-analysis is the “most dangerous” activity plaguing modern medical literature. And RCTs are of no use in assessing complex conditions that we address with multiple interventions – such as Dr Dale Bredesen’s Alzheimer’s protocol. Likewise, we highly value the hard-won clinical experience of multiple practitioners accumulated over the years and handed down over generations of evolving natural medicine practice. That said, we do put a lot of effort into referencing our features. References are online to save space, available within our members area.
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