Townsend Letter Alternative Medicine Magazine

 

 

  FREE e-Edition

 

 EDTA Chelation Therapy

 

 E-mail List

 

 TLDP.com


From the Townsend Letter
May 2018

OncANP 2018: Capable Hands 
by Jacob Schor, ND
Search this site
Share this article...

Page 1, 2

The Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians held its 7th annual conference in mid-February 2018. This conference continues to be, for me, the most interesting and thought-provoking conference of the year. Speakers are selected by a committee that includes some of the best presenters in our profession, and the relatively narrow focus on naturopathic oncology allows some of our selected speakers to dive deep into particular topics while other speakers survey the breadth of our field.
     
Dr. Eric Marsden opened the conference with a highly detailed discussion on managing intravenous infusions treatment (IVIT) for advanced cancer patients. In addition to the basic vitamin C IVs most of us are now familiar with, he also covered infusional hydrochloric acid, viscum, colloidal silver, and glycyrrhizic acid. Marsden is an analytical sort with extensive experience administering some 40,000 infusions to patients over the years. The first topic discussed in depth was prevention of thromboembolic events (VTE), that is avoiding blood clots triggered by treatment. VTE risk is significantly higher in advanced cancer patients. For example, in pancreatic cancer patients, VTE risk is 4.5 times that of a person without cancer.

SUPPORTTownsend Letter provides a platform for those examining and reporting on functional and integrative medicine. Please support these independent voices.

Weakened immune function along with accessing ports to administer drugs and other intravenous treatments puts cancer patients at higher risk for infection. Marsden reviewed the way he treats these infections and perhaps, more importantly, the procedures he follows to prevent them. He also discussed how to prevent and address cachexia.
     
I was the second speaker of the conference. My assumption is that the scheduling committee wanted to get it over with asap. That was my feeling as well. Speaking at conferences leaves me anxious enough that I can't pay attention to what anyone else says until I've gotten my lecture over and done with. I tend to view public speaking as a standup comedy act and like to see my audience smiling and laughing out loud. I spoke on the quest to trigger spontaneous remission in cancer patients, a somewhat serious topic, and one not particularly designed for laughter-provoking punch lines. Thus, I lowered my expectations for being the funniest lecture of the conference and hope my lecture nudged at a few paradigms.

Lamson, Schor and Traub

Longtime OncANP Members: Davis Lamson, Jacob Schor and Michael Traub.

Methylation SummitErin Sweet followed my act with a thoroughly academic review of a study in progress conducted by Leanna Standish, ND, at Bastyr University and Robyn Andersen, PhD, MPH, at Fred Hutchinson. They are conducting an observational study on whether naturopathic oncology interventions effect the quality of life of breast cancer patients. They have already had over a dozen studies published using data drawn from these women. Does what we do really work? These researchers will be the first to know. Stay tuned. Dr Standish is scheduled to deliver a webinar for OncANP members in the near future on how to take part in a web-based outcome reporting effort that Bastyr University is conducting: https://redcap.bastyr.edu/redcap/surveys/?s=XKR9Y3HDLC.
  
The next two lectures looked at pain management. The first was given by Drs. Wright and Green who spoke on persistent breast pain and distress in breast cancer survivors. They asked us to consider improving our screening and broaden our approaches for treating these issues for the good reason that survival improves significantly for women with support networks, relaxation counseling, and yoga. Specifically, they discussed a few large RCT's where stress reduction counseling offered breast survivors a 45-55% reduction in recurrence and decreased mortality in 10-12 year follow up. The second pain talk was given by our old friend Dr. Eric Yarnell and was on the herbal formulas he uses for pain. With this particularly interested and attentive audience, Dr. Yarnell was able to go into great depth on prescribing the herbs corydalis, aconite, pulsatilla, and hyoscyamus. Yarnell is the owner of Heron Herbs; and what many conference attendees failed to notice was that at their tradeshow vendor booth, Eric had a fair number of samples of herbal pain formulas. This one particularly curmudgeonly conference attendee happily cleaned up at the end of the trade show.
     
These lectures were followed by a 'sponsored lecture' given by Dr. Michael Morse, MD, from Duke University. He spoke about his research on a product made by Oliventures inc., an extract rich in tyrosols made from olives. He did a decent job of convincing us that swallowing their pills would have an impact equivalent to consuming several liters per week of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). Given that in the PREDIMED trial a single liter of EVOO per week was associated with a 68% decline in breast cancer incidence, this caught my attention. Dr. Morse presented unpublished data that suggests these tyrosol-rich extracts might reduce inflammatory markers and aromatase inhibitor arthralgia in women with breast cancer. Regardless of being a sponsored presentation, a lecture about a compound that promises these things caught my attention.
     
That was day one, and while some people might hope I go lecture by lecture through entire the conference, such a plan strikes me as tedious, both to write and to read. Suffice to say that the following two days continued along the same vein of useful, inspiring, and occasionally mind-shifting presentations.

Research poster

Research Poster Presentations: L to R: Chad Aschtgen, ND, FABNO;
Mark Carney, ND; Gurdev Parmar, ND, FABNO; Michael Whitney, ND, FABNO.

I am lobbying the speakers to write articles for this journal based on their lectures and hopefully this will happen over the coming months. These include in particular Ian Biers, Judith Boice, Lise Alschuler, and others.
     
I do want to single out Ian Bier's lecture as I've been meaning to go back and read his notes again. He reviewed common lab tests that are under appreciated, tests that possess prognostic value in cancer and might be useful in monitoring patients. Some of these mentioned tests caught this listener by surprise as they are routinely run as part of chemistry screening panels. Most of us are aware that monitoring lymphocyte and neutrophil ratios is useful, but I suspect few know to watch gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (ggt) levels just as carefully.
     
As useful as the information from these speakers might prove to be in practice, what was more interesting was the range of projects that association members are moving forward on. Drs. Gurdev Parmar, Chad Aschtgen and Michael Traub have created a manual for residency training in naturopathic oncology. They have successfully created systems in their own practices that bring new doctors in and train them up to be full-time associates. Practicing naturopathic oncology has grown into such a specialty with such a complex field of knowledge that many believe residency training is needed for a practitioner to practice naturopathic oncology effectively and safely. Providing opportunities for this sort of training is crucial as the prevalence of cancer increases. Increasing quantity and quality of residencies is fast becoming the most important thing our association can do.

OncANP Residency Committee

OncANP Residency Committee responsible for the OncANP Residency Toolkit.
L to R: Michael Traub, ND, DHANP, FABNO; Dave Allderdice, ND, FABNO; Gurdev Parmar, ND, FABNO; Chad Aschtgen, ND, FABNO.
Not pictured: Dan Lander, ND, FABNO.

The other urgent task at hand is increasing public awareness of naturopathic oncology. There are a large number of patients who seek the science-informed integrative approach to oncology that we offer who have no idea that OncANP or even naturopathic doctors exist. Tina Kaczor, ND, FABNO, has created the Naturopathic Oncology Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit, which is soliciting donations and initiating projects to make our specialty more visible to the public.
     
Finally at the end of the conference, Heather Wright, ND, FABNO, current president of the OncANP acknowledged an important challenge in both our specialty and in naturopathic practices in general when she selected Cynthia Bye as this year's recipient of the President's Award. Dr. Bye has created a transition model that will help experienced colleagues, who want to retire, find younger doctors to transition into their practices. Dr. Wright's presentation acknowledged how important Cynthia's work may prove to be for the health of the profession. Dr. Bye described her self-assigned project to me in an email in November 2017:

I worked with four fourth-year business and marketing students. My goal was to do a transition model to take the experience of successful docs who want to retire and match them with new docs to help them thrive in private practice. I spent six months working with and directing the students as to the goals, and then gave them the resources to use to put the information together. Essentially, I was the project manager. Given that none of my students even knew what naturopathic medicine was, I spent a lot of time helping them get up to speed both from a ND business model stand point and helping them to understand the naturopathic market. As I started talking with other health care professionals that had retired – ND, DC, dentists – I kept hearing the same thing, "I tried to bring on an associate and they sucked my brain dry" and either left or went down the street to start their own practice taking many patients with them. So, a large percentage of retiring docs just closed their doors. Given the large failure rate of new docs in any profession, I found this to be a shame. Thus, this model was born.… I love my profession and want to bring naturopathic medicine to more people. In my humble opinion the best way to do this is to help new docs become successful.

Heather Wright, ND

President Heather Wright, ND, FABNO, enjoying lectures.

I found these efforts that look toward our shared futures to be the most exciting part of the conference.
     
The 8th Annual OncANP conference will be held at the Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa on February 15-17, 2019. Visit our website at www.oncanp.org to stay up to date with our call for abstracts and registration.

Page 1, 2

Consult your doctor before using any of the treatments found within this site.

Subscriptions are available for Townsend Letter, the Examiner of Alternative Medicine
magazine, which is published 10 times each year. Search our pre-2001 archives for further information. Older issues of the printed magazine are also indexed for your convenience.
1983-2001 indices ; recent indices. Once you find the magazines you'd like to order, please
use our convenient form, e-mail subscriptions@townsendletter.com, or call 360.385.6021.

 

360.385.6021
Fax: 360.385.0699
info@townsendletter.com

Who are we? | New articles | Featured topics | e-Edition |
Tables of contents
| Subscriptions | Contact us | Links | Classifieds | Advertise |
Alternative Medicine Conference Calendar | Search site | Archives |
EDTA Chelation Therapy | Home

© 1983-2018 Townsend Letter
All rights reserved.
Website by Sandy Hershelman Designs