What Doctors Don't Tell You Australia/NZ

Every year, half a million Americans undergo surgery for low back problems alone, at a cost of more than US$11 billion. For the most part, the surgeries are for herniated (or slipped) discs, where a disc tears, some of its gelatinous insides come out

Dr. Jean Monro, medical director of the Breakspear Hospital, is an internationally recognized specialist in environmental medicine, including such conditions as chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease and multiple chemical sensitivity. She is Fellow o

Zoloft (sertraline) is the world’s most commonly prescribed antidepressant, with more than 37 million prescriptions written every year in the US alone—and it doesn’t work. Researchers who carried out the trial, one of the first independent studies th

As a subscriber, I have loved your UK magazine for years and have learned much. I just wanted to make a few comments about the hormones article in a recent issue, based on my experience using bioidentical hormone gels (estradiol/estriol and progester

Before SSRI antidepressants were developed, just 100 people per million were diagnosed with depression—but this exploded to 100,000 people per million, 10 percent of the population, when the drugs were launched on the back of the chemical imbalance t

Tens of millions of American children were given at least one dose of a polio vaccine that had been contaminated with a monkey virus between 1955 and 1963, when the contamination was discovered. By 1961, it was estimated that up to 90 percent of Am

Jimmy Wales’ and Larry Sanger’s idea of an online encyclopedia created by the people, for the people, seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. Wikipedia’s concept of crowd-sourcing information on anything and everything, and making it accessible to

Yvonne Petty, age 55, from Bright, Indiana, had been on insulin for nearly 30 years. She had hit the steering wheel full force during a car accident when she was 21 years old. “My pancreas was severed in a 90/10 split,” she says. Doctors tried to sav

There are zero reported dangers to taking hydrogen gas—if you are just ingesting hydrogen water. At less than 4 percent concentration, hydrogen gas is not flammable. What’s more, it has no reported side-effects; it’s been used by deep sea divers for

Mainstream medicine’s answer for type 2 diabetes, as Greg Perry discovered, consists of insulin and more insulin, while treating complications like foot ulcers, kidney problems and heart disease as they arise. Nephrologist Jason Fung is a rare doctor

Certain behaviors, such as smoking a cigarette, drinking a glass of wine or eating sugary foods, can cause you to feel a pleasurable high that has you going back for more. It’s perfectly normal to want and seek out what gives you pleasure—it’s part o

Q I’ve suffered from acne for nearly three decades. It’s not severe but gets me down nonetheless, and it tends to worsen before my period. I’ve tried all sorts of prescription creams and gels over the years but would like to find a natural solution.

Natasha was an avid runner and a hairdresser, always on her feet. She also worked search and rescue in Canada. Her back problems started with painful sciatica when she was 32. She tried managing the pain by stretching out her back and doing exercises

Nevada suffered from asthma, allergies and eczema from birth. In her early teens, she was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal disorder triggering prolonged menstrual periods or excess male hormone (androgen) levels. She experi

For years, Linda suffered with chronic Candida, including urinary tract infections. She felt generally unwell, and normal everyday tasks took most of her energy. Over the course of some 10 years, she consulted several physicians, but all test results

If I’d been paid a dollar every time someone has been told “Eat less” as the best way to lose weight, I’d be twice as prosperous as Croesus and half as wealthy as a president and a presidential candidate combined. The calorie myth—that there’s a dire

Tatsuya had been immobilized for eight months with a herniated disc, severe low back pain and sciatic pain down his left leg. When he first started experiencing the symptoms, he saw a chiropractor and an osteopathic specialist, but nothing worked. By

Jennie had had back pain for as long as she could remember. An MRI scan showed a herniated L5 disc in her lumbar region impacting the sciatic nerve, triggering extreme sciatic nerve pain that was at times immobilizing. For a while, she managed her co

Oxalic acid is an organic compound with the formula C2 H2 O4 . Its name comes from the wood sorrel pant (Oxalis) from which the compound was first scientifically isolated, and it’s a colorless crystalline solid that dissolves in water. Free-form oxal

For 13 years, Cindy experienced chronic pelvic pain, including vulvar pain and burning. She had been diagnosed with vulvodynia—chronic pain of the vulva with (officially) “no known cause.” Initially, she was prescribed a number of drugs including an