photo by Keith Peterson
wisewords Affordable Medicine
Julia Schopick on Effective,
by Randy Kambic F
ollowing up on the success of her best-selling book Honest Medicine: Effective, Time-Tested,
Inexpensive Treatments for Life- Threatening Diseases, Julia Schopick plans to spread awareness of the effi cacy of low-dose naltrexone (LDN) in treating autoimmune and other ailments later this year with a new book co-authored with professional writer Don Schwartz. Her fi rst book, endorsed by
many leading integrative health practitioners, earned the top National Indie Excellence Award for Alternative Medicine. It taps into nearly 200 scientifi c studies, with her research into innovative treatments driven by a quest that she and her late husband both believed added 15 years to his life after a terminal prognosis at age 40. The former English teacher at Long Island University and Virginia State University, now an Oak Park, Illinois resident, has contributed to the American Medical Association publication AM News, writes online and print guest columns and shares her journey in media interviews.
until pharmaceutical companies began to produce lucrative anti-seizure medications; then its use diminished through a lack of proponents in the medical fi eld. Its use was revived in the 1990s due to the efforts of Jim Abrahams, a Hollywood writer/ director, father of a child with epilepsy and one of my heroes.
I found small studies that proved that the ketogenic diet successfully stops children’s seizures nearly 70 percent of the time. This highly effective alternative has none of the negative side effects of anti- seizure drugs. Most doctors aren’t in favor of the diet approach and instead often prescribe affected children up to three or four meds as an easier option. The diet follows Hippocrates’ dictum, “Let food be thy medicine.” Another standout is intravenous alpha lipoic acid, pioneered since the 1970s by Dr. Burt Berkson, who used it mainly for end-stage liver disease and diabetic neuropathy. He saved many people from needing liver transplants with infusions of this powerful, versatile antioxidant.
What are some of the most signifi cant natural alternatives you report on in Honest
Medicine? The ketogenic diet is one standout because it was the standard of care for children with epilepsy in the 1920s—
Did anything surprise you? I chose to include effective treatments that are non-toxic and inexpensive. I didn’t realize that several of them were effective for many different conditions. For example, LDN has been used since the mid-1980s to treat autoimmune diseases, of which there are more than 100; it also treats some cancers and AIDS. Research shows good results for conditions as varied as multiple sclerosis, lupus, Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, fi bromyalgia and Parkinson’s, because all of them have an autoimmune
22 Central Florida natural awakenings
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