I decided to run an experiment last week, after a single blood pressure reading was high and got me concerned. I wondered about the circumstances, the machine itself, and, of course, my actual cardiovascular state of health. And I thought, "If I can get a NORMAL reading out of that same gizmo, under any or some circumstances, then I'll have a better idea of what that high reading meant."

So my neighbor let me borrow the sphygmomanometer, to take it through a 24-hour period, beginning with after-dinner reclining, through later evening, pre-rising in the morning, while getting ready for work, at work, arriving home, while making dinner, after-dinner reclining while opening mail, etc.

The most important information I gleaned was that blood pressure -- mine, anyway --really does vary, even quite widely, in the same subject under different conditions, such as:

Ambient temperature
Body position
Arm used (maybe)
Time of day
Proximity to meal-, wine-, and supplement/medication-consumption
Degree of environmental/mental stress
Type of environmental/mental stress

There were a few stressful moments during this day, so it was informative to take readings while reacting to them. And there are surprises, such as there being no significant variation in my blood pressure readings when listening to soothing classical strings music as opposed to listening to Rush Limbaugh's talk show!

Note: This particular model also records pulse, which might or might not relate to (a) systolic and/or (b) diastolic values.

Now that so many consumers self-monitor, it's vital that they run a similar experiment; indeed cardiologists recommend that a get-acquainted product orientation be undergone. This practice helps one determine the best time(s) and setting(s) in which to take a reading, when it's likely to come up low, normal, and/or high, and how high. While not making light of high blood pressure, I am suggesting that high readings be factored into a more all-encompassing picture, if, indeed, there is one.

And then, if a medication trial or a lifestyle alteration is undertaken, there'll be a baseline pattern against which to analyze their efficacy.

Last month I turned on the radio and immediately heard a man saying "OK: As for the blood group diets? They're nothing, nonsense, a lot of hooey. Liz Hurley and everything? It's just ridiculous!" He then derided breatharianism, iridology, colonics, anything called "Detox", and ear-candling, ending with "These are the twelve [I'd missed the others] alternative therapies/modalities that are pure hogwash". The speaker? Dean Edell.

Poor guy. Just think how much less trial and error he'd have to resort to if he knew his patients' blood types. Just think of how many lives he's positioned to positively impact and what an opportunity he's throwing away, all because he's ignorant about the inexorable direction medical science has begun to take, not to mention eastern systems of medicine that date back thousands of years and which view Edell's brand of medicine as yet one more flash in the historical pan.

One day, in this world or the next, many Western allopaths are going to discover the truth, the open-minded ones to their awe and wonder, the closed-minded ones to their shame, shame for their sheer arrogance.

I have experimented, throughout my lifetime, with a few systems and modalities of medicine. Many had merit, and a few didn't work for me, though others claimed they did for them. Far more numerous are those I haven't ever personally used. Yet I too have been known to make fun of a few really outrageous-seeming ideas; one of these was...(drumroll)...Peter D'Adamo's Blood Type Diet! I saw his first book on the store shelf when it was released, and I said to the clerk, "Next thing you know, someone will come out with the Zodiac Diet". I was cynical about it, and my guess is that most who swear by it - or aspects of it - today, made fun of it at first. D'Adamo isn't ashamed to reveal these instances amid his anecdotes about some of his most extraordinary successes. I admit that it can sound preposterous until you look more closely, as I did, or need it desperately, as do many of Dr. D'Adamo's patients.

For about thirteen years I've been practicing aromatherapy, but I can remember attending a dinner, a few years before I took it up, at which someone asked if any of us knew anything about this "new" modality. I was actually among those who razzed her. "Gimme a break" might have been uttered by me at that time.

It's because I've looked into and found validity to health practices of which I'd previously been ignorant, such as essential oils, Blood type medicine, Ayurveda and Macrobiotics, that I can be lenient with those who bash them. Knowing what I know, I'm aware that these people simply haven't been presented with either the evidence or the need for it. One brief experience with lavender oil for burns, or tea tree oil for fungi, and a person simply cannot laugh at aromatherapy anymore. Reading the chapter(s) about one's own blood type and/or those of one's family, in Eat Right 4 Your Type, renders one hesitant to discard the work as balderdash. Macrobiotics, which many mistakenly believe to consist of a stark brown rice-only diet, quickly catapulted me from grave illness to robust health in the 1980s. And Ayurveda? I'd looked at those questionnaires many times before actually trying an Ayurvedic diet, beginning 3 months ago. Seventeen pounds lighter, hale
and hardy, I can say that weight loss is only one of the benefits accruing from this program. And I still don't understand what all the homeopathic fuss is about (though Bach's Rescue Remedy has amazed me a few times), but some must be benefiting from it, just as they do from chiropractic, rolfing, and shiatsu.

One of the most fortunate formative experiences I had in my youth was to personally know Dr. Robert Atkins in the early 1970s in New York City, when he was dating my (divorced) mother. I rolled my eyes many a time over this medical renegade and his convictions about vitamins and minerals. Today, most know of Dr. Atkins's body of work as respected and well-established medicine. But I remember when he was viewed by the orthodox as a fringe crank with a screw loose. When he'd hold forth on Brewers' Yeast and the B-complex, I'd excuse myself and go watch TV or something. My mother would insist Bob was a maverick genius and that sometime in the future the world would recognize his contribution as seminal.

In the early 1980s, a terrific surgeon, call him Frank, asked me out for lunch (we worked at the same hospital in Manhattan). Over our meal he informed me that he couldn't eat in the Doctors' dining room because he was being "shunned" by attending physicians who'd heretofore blanketed him with referrals. It seems he'd been interacting increasingly personally and informally with his in-patients, referring to them by name, spending "too long a time" with them on rounds, and interacting with them out of a deep, genuine concern for them as whole persons. Word had gotten around, and he'd been taken aside and spoken to about his "making the other doctors look bad".

As Frank told me of his ordeal (sotto voce, so as not to be overheard at this restaurant so near the hospital), it became clear that he believed his story was unique, that his need to identify with his patients' wholeness and humanness was some one-of-a-kind aberration, and he - so ingenuously and achingly - didn't know what to do. I proceeded to rattle off names of formerly-mainstream MDs and RNs who'd been at the forefront of the then-emerging holistic movement, and I urged him to locate and contact them, as they'd no doubt be thrilled to welcome him among their number, to assist him in finding more congenial hospitals in which to work, and to refer cases to him. I lost touch with Frank, but I imagine that the sneers of his colleagues launched this truly top-flight general surgeon into a far more rewarding career.

Dr. Peter D'Adamo has advantages that neither Bob nor Frank had: He's not an MD under obligation to play by AMA and associated unwritten rules. He's already operating within an established alternative medical community, and with credentials therein. He's doing so decades after naturopathy and nutritional therapy have appeared in the mainstream public square. He is familiar with the history of the career trials of the likes of Bob and Frank before him. He also has sold millions of books and has a very active website, clinical practice, and nutritional supplements line.

Dean Edell has also sold millions of books, and has a national radio program, to boot. Think of how much back-pedaling he'll have to do if and when he discovers that his public errors, born of a snide skepticism, are historically more worthy of scorn than the (brilliant) contribution of Peter D'Adamo.

A recent issue of my alma mater's review (Brown Alumni Monthly, March/April 2008) features a report on the plans and priorities for its Division of Biology and Medicine, as part of a current fundraising campaign.

I am deeply heartened to discover there a profile of Edward Hawrot, Ph.D., associate dean for the Program in Biology, who is taking his department in the direction of Genomics and Personalized Medicine. Dr. Hawrot is committed to "facilitat[ing] the research that will make personalized medical practice a reality...This knowledge will revolutionize primary care. Patients can be counseled to change their behaviors, and the earliest signs of disease can be treated swiftly, heading off complications". He continues, "This is the new biology. We are trying to identify genome-wide variants in genes that no one knew were involved in disease states".

Very considerable resources are being brought to bear upon the field. "Brown has made significant investments in genomics and proteonmics facilities and faculty". "Whole-genome surveys of large groups of people" are in the works, to "determine which gene variations will result in a bad reaction to a drug or predispose an individual to a certain disease". Gifts to Brown's campaign for Academic Enrichment are solicited via this article and can be targeted to faculty research in this area, influencing Brown's Program in Public Health and its Warren Alpert Medical School.

We certainly agree with Dr. Hawrot's admission, "One size does not fit all". He may not realize what a grassroots groundswell is well established, already subscribing to blood type science and genotype medicine, thanks to the pioneering and bestselling works of Dr. Peter D'Adamo, and the work of his colleagues, such as Bland, Crinnion, Pizzorno, et al.

Elsewhere, the medical establishment has shown signs of familiarity with D'Adamo's work in a positive light. I personally have recently met two psychiatrists in San Francisco who are acquainted with it and have immense respect for him ("He's brilliant", declared one). Furthermore, each of these two MDs is nutritionally savvy, which I find very encouraging. Both are concerned with memory loss in the elderly and are advocates of antioxidants, B vitamins, et al. One of these doctors spoke to me of Resveratrol and its effects upon DNA; we actually got into methylation and acetylation, and he went on to tell me "There are 'hunters' and there are 'nomads'"...Both of these individuals were USSR born and USA-trained, one at Mount Sinai and Columbia Presbyterian, the other here in SF.

The revolution is here!

With immune strength, one passes through major infectious epidemics and challenges relatively unaffected; one's terrain is simply too well protected to succumb. I say "relatively" because the common cold that progresses in most from upper to lower respiratory symptoms, for instance, may never affect the bronchi in a strong host. It behooves us to attain maximal immune strength and to facilitate that for our families as well.

The Blood Type Diet is a crucial avenue to host immunity, as are blood type-specific lifestyles, fitness choices, and nutritional supplements. Then, if one does succumb to infectious illness, one may be afflicted to a lesser degree than otherwise.

I also favor French-school aromamedical approaches to the palliation of an infection's symptoms, as these naturally strengthn the terrain and host-immunity at the same time. Significantly, many essential oils are actually anti-viral, whereas allopathic medicine has yet to compete with these, synthetically or derivatively. Certain essential oils also strengthen the liver, helping to rid the body of infectious debris during convalescence, plus: They uplift mood and disinfect the sickroom.

Remember that antibiotics are over-prescribed and are actually harmful in cases wherein they are inappropriately matched to the specific infective organism. The overwhelming majority of cold and flu cases do not require them, and, often, even severe cases of viral illness are better served without resorting to them.

One knows one is robustly healthy when a cold is suffered briefly with no chest symptoms, or when one is on the verge of succumbing to the cold and doesn't. Though I'm rarely ill, I recently came down with a cold and spent 3 days at home with it. I used no nighttime antihistamine and, yet, when it was finished with my nose and sinuses, it was OVER. I'd had no fever, no hoarseness, and no bronchial congestion. I emerged from it feeling very vigorous on day 4. Most important, I know that the immunity I enhanced by permitting my own system to rally to the challenge will stand me in good stead the next time I'm exposed to a cold virus (something particularly important for my blood type, B, which, Dr. D'Adamo teaches, is somewhat more prone to debilitating viral infection).

Over-The-Counter symptom relievers may be required at bedtime and/or if one must be out and about during the early phase. One can gradually learn to implement self-care with natural substances, however, and it is actually more considerate to isolate oneself from social contact at this critically contagious time.

For the common cold, steam vaporization is highly effective. The infusion of mucolytic and decongestant essential oils into the the steam brings relief, and these can also be incorporated into chest rubs and nasal ointments. Antiviral and antiseptic essences are good choices, too, for diffusion and, if available, internal application. Peppermint gelcaps now grace the shelves of health food stores: Take as directed during the convalescence phase for natural hepatic support. The herb thyme is a phenomenal expectorant. Use thyme teabags (or a sprig of thyme) in your teapot.

If at all possible, head off what feels like an imminent cold, by taking a Larch-elderberry supplement, drinking double-packets of Alacer Emergen-C, and letting drops of eucalyptus globulus essential oil fall onto the edge of your mattress/pillow or onto tissues placed around the head of your bed...or vaporizing them overnight; this latter essential oil can be a real miracle worker! And try to avoid your blood types "avoids".

"Cold Season" comes around at least once a year. Learn what works and. over time, you'll find yourself often resisting all signs of it.

I've just seen a warm 'n fuzzy pharmaceutical TV commercial, whose voice-over begins, "If you could have fewer periods, life could be a whole lot nicer".

It happens that there is one perfectly natural way for reproductive-age women to have fewer periods and still remain both alive and female: Pregnancy/lactation. That's in fact the very opposite of what, apparently, some reproductive-age women desire.

Romans 1:26 is apropos: "...even their females changed the natural use to that contrary to nature".

I'm baffled by women -and men- who submit to drugs and procedures they'd loudly protest if perpetrated upon pets or wildlife. "Learn how life can get a whole lot nicer", ends the ad/says the serpent. If a woman's "life get[s] a whole lot nicer" by chemical defeminization (of unknown long-term consequences), then what is meant by "Life"? If by "Life" is meant that which increases in quality ("niceness") in proportion to its involving assaults against nature, then what is Death? What is Nature? What is Health?

I'm here writing for the website of a brilliant Doctor of Naturopathy, representing one of two philosophies of medicine: The one pursuing natural health, preventative measures, and "holistic" lifestyle views. As for the other philosophy, it gets wackier and wackier. And the more vehemently consumers demand and accept its "innovations", the more stridently they lobby for kindness to desert rats, protection of wildlife habitats, and anti-vivisection legislation. Sure: Why experiment on guinea pigs when you can BE one?

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My Restaurant Ordering Guide for B's is not finished. God willing, I'll be back with more...