How to Make Good Decisions Fast

Do you ever feel like you’re pressured into making decisions before you’re truly ready? It’s always a good idea to weigh your alternatives and make your decision in a calm fashion. Sometimes, though, you may not have a lot of time on your hands, and in these situations you can speed up your decision making skills instead of throwing yourself into a panic.

Try these techniques to help you make good, quick decisions: Continue reading “How to Make Good Decisions Fast”

Homeopathy has a ‘clinically relevant’ effect way beyond placebo

Critics have always dismissed homeopathy as offering nothing more than a placebo effect – you just think it’s making you better.  A new study has proved them wrong.  Classical homeopathy has clear benefits to cancer patients that are “clinically relevant and statistically significant”, say researchers. Continue reading “Homeopathy has a ‘clinically relevant’ effect way beyond placebo”

Cancer-blocking herb to be taken off shelves in Europe

A herb used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can block cancer growth, researchers have discovered this week – and it’s about to disappear from stores throughout Europe.

The herb, thunder god vine (lei gong teng), has been used for centuries by TCM as a remedy for rheumatoid arthritis.  But researchers from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine say it can also stop tumour growth.  Its active ingredient, triptolide, is an anti-inflammatory, an immunosuppressant, contraceptive – and anti-tumour agent, says Jun Liu, professor of pharmacology and molecular sciences.

Yet, on May 1, it will disappear from the shelves around Europe under an EU directive that will dramatically reduce the range of herbal remedies we can buy.  Every single remedy from TCM, Ayurvedic and Amazonian medical traditions will disappear under the EU’s Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive.  Of the hundreds of remedies currently available, just 79 will survive – and a pharmaceutical company manufactures a third of these.

In laboratory tests, low doses of thunder god vine blocked cell growth in 60 different types of cancer, and even killed off some cancers.

(Source: Nature Chemical Biology, 2011; 7: 182).