Kevin Kelly, Executive editor of Wired magazine and has a wide ranging personal web site that includes a blog called Cool Tools devoted to gadgets that work. I am a fan of Kelly’s writing and if you are unfamiliar with it go check out his work at kk.org. His Cool Tool blog is here

Cool Tools today mentions The Blender Bottle - a brilliant non electrical device for blending smoothies - for camping, road trips, travel or just home convenience. The protein plus smoothie is a foundation of all patient protocols at our clinic, and the challenge of making these brews on the road is a recurrent complaint. The Blender Bottle is the best answer to date.

The Blender Bottle is a shaker bottle with a free-floating surgical stainless steel wire ball inside. Not unlike a kitchen whisk, the ball moves freely within your drink, breaking up clumps and further mixing the mix as you shake it for a smooth, totally grit- and clump-free serving..

Blender Bottle
$7
(20 oz.)
Available from Amazon

$8
(28 oz.)
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Sundesa

A blog called LiveSmarter which is curiously attached to a site for online nursing degrees has a survey of alternative medicine blogs which may be of interest to some Herblog readers. Several of my regular reads are there, including the informative blog by Tori Hudson, ND the fabulous Portland, OR- based naturopathic physician who has specialized in the sharp end women’s health care for many many years, as well as The Herbal Science Research site run by ozzie Shayne Foley, also now from Portland. His site aggregates feeds from different botanical medicine sources including PubMed, herbal blogs and podcasts and others in a compiled news format. Herbal Science Research is a must read for any herbalist, and many Herblog entries are initially gleaned from this valuable aggregator. Shayne is an accomplished specialist in on-line botanical education system design and delivery, and a capable multi-media consultant - if you are planning an on line herbal education project that requires content management systems check out Shayne’s services at Digitalis Media.

Top 50 Alt Med Blogs

Dr Tori Hudson’s Blog

Herbal Science Research

Digitalis Media

Elsevier are publishing our long awaited (at least by us) textbook on herb-drug and nutrient drug interactions under the Mosby Medical imprint in December this year - 2007 (production deadlines being what they are it may run a little later).

This collaborative text offers a unique perspective on this controversial field, and hopefully will be useful to practitioners of mainstream and non-conventional modalities…

more updates on final publication dates as info becomes available…

Well Since Henrietta Kress is blogging on her herb blog about my lack of herblogging since the summer - what can I say except … its time to start again.

Watch this space!

Despite continuing mainstream hysteria, there are some balanced reports appearing that review the data on BC toxicity in a rational way. Latest is an Italian summary in a German journal - Research in Complementary Medicine. Full text is free - follow the link.

Is Black Cohosh a Hepatotoxic Medicinal Herb?

L. Gori; F. Firenzuol Forsch Komplementärmed 2007;17:109-110 (DOI: 10.1159/000101352)

The long awaited document from the FDA on GMP’s for US dietary supplement (which includes botanicals) manufacture is released as of June 22. At over 800 pages, its going to take some digesting. The ostensible purpose of the rule is to ensure that dietary supplements are produced in a quality manner, do not contain contaminants or impurities, and are accurately labeled. More on this later, especially for small businesses and practitioner made remedies. FDA link starts here:

FDA Issues Dietary Supplements Final Rule

This jackass headline accompanies a piece by Angela Paolino reporting to Lancet Oncology readers (current issue) on a study by Mok et al, (from Annals of Oncology earlier this year January 17th) that is typical of the anti-herb propaganda and garbage that mainstream medicine endlessly serves up….it is almost beyond the point of being funny it so stupidly transparent. Are the readers of Lancet oncology really this dumb? Will all Chinese medicine practitioners kindly see the light and stop what they have been doing ( for the last few thousand years) now that Lancet Oncology has spoken in its profound wisdom, especially since the execrable Ernst endorses this headline, and indeed extends it to ALL of herbal medicine….
FWIW - the study in question compares two groups of cancer patients (resected breast and colon) undergoing chemotherapy (adriamycin/cytoxan) and 5FU/leucovorin) repsectively, with and without concomitant CHM (Chinese herbal medicine) Total n=111 for both groups. The verum groups were assigned to one of three “experienced Chinese herbalists” who assessed each patient on day 1 and day 14 of each cycle of chemo. The assessments were apparently “traditional”. The subjects were then prescribed “individualized herbal teas”. After the cycles of chemotherapy were completed the patients were evaluated for a range of chemotherapy induced toxicities compared to those that had received “placebo herbal teas” No significant differences were found between the control and herbal Rx groups of patients with respect to hematological toxicity (neutropenia and leukopenia) nor any other toxicity except nausea and vomiting for which the herbal treatment groups did better than controls.

We shall report the gory details of this study in the following post since it is bound to get a lot of attention but trust me for now, the study is flawed to the point of absurdity - but the point here, even if it were an intelligent study design, is that how come one negative finding calls ALL of Chinese herbal medicine into question??

The author of this piece and the Editor of the journal should apologize for such a low life attempt to rubbish something they know nothing about. But instead, the reporter wheels out our old friend Eddie Ernst, champion of evidence based CAM who says , this one study actually “questions the validity of all of individualized herbal treatment in general” .

Ernst is a fatuous fool for making such a remark, and the Editors of Lancet Oncology are moronic to print it.

The bigger and deeper tragedy is, that for the countless people with cancer facing the daunting prospect of toxic chemotherapy for advanced disease despite its pathetic cure rate, as well as the few herbal practitioners ( Chinese or Western) dedicated, thick skinned, or perhaps foolish enough to persist in attempting to help forge a more inclusive, integrative multidimensional model of cancer care, these kind of comments are not merely egregiously retarded, but they arguably harm patients as well as the emerging integrative approach which will inevitably supercede the current reductionist/materialist/toxic/and banalized model of cancer care promoted by pharmaceutical companies and the majority of mainstream oncology. Shame on you Lancet Oncology.

Just a quick note for Herblog subscribers - you may have noticed. we took a vacation! (What a concept) Two weeks in Belize, a killer combo of jungle/rainforest, medicinal plants and Mayan spiritual healing work with a couple of days on the islands to recover from scorpions etc. Having re-landed in the contiguous 48 we are now changing servers and testing the new system. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible - actually later today.

Check back soon for Lancet Oncology and Chinese medicine jackass of the week award.

BY the end of January the appeal to the herbal community for donations to the AHG Herbalist Medical Trust for Michael Moore exceeded $15,000.00. Michael and Donna sent a message of thanks and requested that from now on, further donations should remain in the Medical Trust Fund to be distributed to others in need in future. Their message and a brief health update are on the appeal web page (sidebar link) which will be taken down at the end of his month. (more…)

1. COOLEST PERSONALITY = H Wagner

Wagner has been cranking for decades on all the important stuff, and he keeps updating the big picture in herbal medicine. This year he has published on synergy, and the application of “omic” technologies in phytomedicine. He is a perennial on immunomodulators and adaptogens, and one of the consistent intellects of natural product research and its impact on phytotherapy. Now in his 80’s - go Bert!

2. MOST UNCOOL PERSONALITY = Edzard Ernst

For a while there, it was hard to think of who might succeed poor old Varro Tyler as the biggest panjandrum with a personal crusade to debunk herbal medicine, but in the last year or so Ernst has been the outstandingly prolific smug, arrogant, pontificatory self-important “authority” of “evidence based” criticism of herbal medicine not to mention every other “CAM” modality.

In fact we have to say that he is now definitively out of control, with opinion pieces and editorial commentaries way outnumbering his so called systematic reviews. So much so that Ernst and evidence based herbal medicine will become the subject of one of the 2007 Herbal Hypothesis series - look for our forthcoming piece “The Importance of Being Ernst”.

3. COOLEST TOPIC = HERBAL MELANIN

If you missed this one, check back in herblog posts this year under the “research” category. This is a fascinating and still unfolding story, but it is deepening our understanding of the spectrum of influences that immunomodulating herbs may exert, and the mechanisms involved, such as Toll-like receptors and inflammatory pathway signaling cascades. And a special mention of thanks to Dr Pascoe who took the trouble to write us very graciously after we blogged a little harshly about his paper on melanin in echinacea. Watch this space, especially Pascoe et al….

4. MOST UNCOOL TOPIC = BLACK COHOSH TOXICITY

This is not going away despite the complete lack of any hard boiled data supporting hepatotoxcity. Needless to say, the Medical Journal of Australia, (a sort of protofascist rag for medical ignorati) is a key source for so called “reports” of cimi toxicity. The main point is that the herb is being negatively profiled - in police parlance - “fitted up” for regulatory restrictions….meanwhile acetominophen remains the leading cause of liver failure requiring hepatic transplant.. why do we not hear about that? Duh.

5. COOLEST HERB WEB SITE

This is a close call with Michael Moore’s site, but for sheer hard graft you have to hand it to Henriette Kress, she is the unrivalled internet herb maven, and sworn enemy of all bots, crawlers and spammers. It maybe the dark nights of the northern Winter in Finland (huh where?) , but Henriette seems to be permanently on line while running her own practice and making medicines, growing herbs and taking pictures. Go Hetty.

6. MOST UNCOOL SITE

Got to give this to Sloane Kettering Memorial. A barrage of blatant anti-herb propaganda for cancer patients that is BS from top to bottom, masquerading as scientific “information” about “integrative therapeutics” for people with cancer from a so-called “center of excellence” (my arse) SO, meditation, Reiki, sound therapy etc etc (yawn) are all fine for cancer patients - but herbs –no way. These people suck, big time. Avoid, may damage your health.

7. COOLEST HERB PRODUCT COMPANY = NATURA HEALTH PRODUCTS

8. MOST UNCOOL PRODUCT = NCD (Zeolite)

What a pathetic scam. The ignorant fools peddling this MLM product are guilty of profound stupidity but more disturbingly they try and push this insoluble volcanic effluent as a science based “cure” for everything from cancer to whatever ails you - classic snake oil and seriously unethical. Early placebo effects (common with new MLM products) are dissipating, but these people persist, motivated like all MLMers solely by personal greed. See herblog posts under “scams” for details. Uncool.

8. HERBAL HALL OF FAME = MICHAEL MOORE

The HERBLOG top award of the year goes to Michael Moore. After an incredible 28 years of running his residential course in the South West, Michael is converting it all to an on-line learning system: as usual all home-grown as well as developed on the Apple Mac platform. Michael had some health scares this year, but has bounced right back and is going to be pushing his unique hybrid of energetic botanical medicine, South West materia medica, and chaneling of Michael Moore wisdom mind for a whole lot longer…go check out his new DVD offerings . Salute Michael. (more…)