James Geiger MD

Prescription for Successful Aging in the New Year

Can aging be slowed down or even reversed? The first decade of the 21st Century has provided insight into the age old search for the fountain of youth. The various schools of thought and practice exploited by longevity experts remain unproven.

Decrease Oxidative Stress to Age Well

Is that all there is to staying young? Chemical stresses due to dietary and environmental factors have negative effects, notably, acceleration of aging (Bonnefoy, 2002). As we age, body tissue, including fat, is oxidized by free radicals, which basically are chemicals with unpaired electrons exerting oxidizing, rustlike damage at the cellular level (Barja, 2004). The aging reaction of the body as a result of these combined negative energies is called ?oxidative stress.? Antioxidants protect the over eighty trillion body cells from oxidative stress by scavenging free radicals and binding them to render them harmless.

Supplementing with antioxidants,essential oils,vitamins, specific dietary foods, juice therapy,hormones or extremes of surgical procedures and genetic engineering have all been suggested as the possible tools of aging meaningfully.

The aged population of the notable blue zones of planet earth have been consulted and studied. The centenarians (>100 years of age) prescription for successful aging is based on certain key principles.

What really works?  The centenarians reveal the secret significant adaptations which have  contributed to their process of  growing old gracefully. Their secrets are found in these four powerful and yet simple topics.

• What to do

• What to think

• How to eat

• How to build social relationships

The details of this prescription for successful aging will be one of  the foundational topics of this blog throughout 2010.

James Geiger MD
the oilMD

2010 New year and New Mindset

Ideal Brain Exercise

Although plenty of studies describe the ideal workout, little data defines the ideal workout for the brain. Exercise for many people often stops permanently when it is no longer required as part of physical education class in school, contributing to the obesity epidemic of Americans.  Certainly most people realize that the better quality foods you eat and the more you exercise throughout all the decades of life, the more benefits you will gain from those endeavors. Not just in building muscles but in preventing medical and emotional heart failure and brain failure.

In the previous century, a basic concept of human physiology stated that the brain (i.e., the central nervous system, or CNS), did not regenerate when damaged, destroyed, or lost due to the aging process. Current research has shown that CNS cells can regenerate. Stem cell research using various tissues, like skin cells and umbilical cord blood  is accelerating worldwide. A little known area of research has shown that the smell cells of the nerve sheath of the first cranial nerve for olfaction have totipotent stem cell ability when surgically implanted into the spine.

New research on brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) shows why physical exercise is important to the brain. Scientists have made powerful observations that new nerve cells can be grown in the human brain simply by putting subjects on a three-month aerobic workout regimen. Exercise treats depression effectively as well. A pill could be developed that simulates the effects of exercise.

Physically and mentally challenging activities are currently approved prescriptions for health and wellness.

Psych yourself up to exercise with scientifically blended essential oils. Aromatherapy is more than just the nose. Topical application of oils is a time honored athletic practice.

Get pumped up with Sports Perfomance Enhancer by the oilMD

James Geiger MD

the oilMD

Who does the AMA represent?

The AMA has given support to the Affordable Heath Care bill despite the loud protests of many physicians.

AMA conflict of interest is called in question here on several counts.

This conflict if interest is true in part because the billing codes for ALL medical billings are controlled by the AMA which does not include billing codes for the vast majority of complementary/alternative medicine practices. The codes for C.A.M. services  should be incorporated into the US health care system in order to implement the integration of preventative health care practices. Doctors Weil, Oz, Ornish and Hyman testified before the U. S Senate committee on Health and agreed that the US system of health care would be much more effective if preventative measures were implemented as Health Care reform.

I agree.

James Geiger MD

Books on wellness have been written from many points of view. The Sweet Smell of Success takes a very unique approach to both of these topics. As an acute care anesthesiologist, I believe clinical aromatherapy should be integrated with conventional allopathic Western medicine in the Wellness Revolution of the twenty-first century. Aromatherapy with essential oils is one entity of the vast array of holistic specialties comprising nutritional medicine and complementary alternative medicine. Consider food and essential oils as nutritional medicine.

Tune in on your internet radio to hear the oilMD discuss aromatherapy for women?s health.

Host Ann Butenas  interviewed  Dr Geiger, a board certified anesthesiologist and clinically certified aromatherapist.

The doctor?s new book The Sweet Smell of Success: Health and Wealth Secrets promotes medical aromatherapy research in the 21st Century

and a whole lot more secrets revealed.

Consider this……..if an anesthesiologist found novel wellness information that was so new and exciting to him,  shouldn’t you think it is worth checking out as well.

Available for interviews in 2010.

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590)

Dear Dr. Geiger,

Sincerely,
Brent Eastman, M.D., FACS, Chair of the ACS Board of Regents
LaMar McGinnis, M.D., FACS, President of the American College of Surgeons
Andrew Warshaw, M.D., FACS, Chair of the ACS Health Policy and Advocacy Group
Thomas R. Russell, M.D., FACS, Executive Director of the American College of Surgeons

Informed Consent for H1N1

There is no shortage of emotions when your child is sick. Especially in light of the recent statistics documenting the increased trend in this point of the pandemic of deaths of children from Swine Flu. Although the CDC has verified that the deaths were among children with serious chronic illnesses like diabetes, asthma and immune compromised patients, that is not comforting to parents of well children. Nonetheless, during this H1N1 Swine flu pandemic there are pre-existing conditions which the CDC has identified and publicized which must be considered when making medical care decisions for special groups, such as pregnant women, children and the elderly. These emotions and conditions may generate considerable questions which must be answered by the patient’s parents and doctor prior to initiating any treatment.That process is known as obtaining  informed consent.

A virus does not need consent to infect a child but a doctor must obtain the informed consent of the parent or guardian in order to vaccinate a child or initiate treatment for an infected child.

What constitutes informed consent?

According to the FDA, it is the process of obtaining a patient’s permission for a procedure after the patient and doctor have discussed the risks, benefits, and alternatives of the procedure and the patient understand them.

For example, as an anesthesiologist, the process of obtaining informed consent prior to surgery involves a discussion of both allopathic and integrative medical methods of administering an anesthetic. Intravenous medications such as propofol and inhaled anesthetic gases are administered to keep a patient asleep throughout surgery. A potential anesthetic complication often discussed before surgery is the patient’s fear of having nausea and vomiting while  recovering from anesthesia. I obtain consent to use essential oil of ginger as an integrative medicine technique as well as intravenous medications like ondansetron, to prevent and treat post-op nausea and vomiting (PONV).

The topics surrounding the  Swine flu pandemic are so complex and emotions are so high during this season of national debate on health care reform, that one would be  hard-pressed to say they are truly informed . Especially, when you are in line of people waiting to get immunized by a caregiver at a  minute clinic. Our government has spokespeople saying the flu vaccinations are necessary and safely tested. Some lawgivers have written into law that all health care providers must be vaccinated. There are numerous opponents making claims otherwise.

Say your doctor recommends the live, attenutated virus intranasal vaccine (LAIV),  for your child. Are you one of the 27% of parents who say they will not allow their child to be vaccinated?  Are you informed enough to ask the doctor if the vaccine will harm an unborn child if my child sheds virus for the next 21 days around me? Is the clinic where you are seeking treatment aware that your child has asthma and is therefore not a recommended candidate for FluMist? If your child gets a complications of the vaccine are you aware  that the manufacturer is protected from lawsuits. You can apply for government assistance to cover the added medical expenses if it is determined that the complications are indeed from the vaccine.

What is a person to do? Do your due diligence. Seek help using online digital triage.

Be as informed as you possibly can while adopting safe practices. Besides watching Sesame Street videos with your kids to teach them the proper techniques of sneezing and handwashing, one could adopt natural methods of boosting immunity. Using food as your medicine, consider that mangosteen, acai, garlic, olive, onion, ginger, echinacea, cat?s claw, shiitake & maitake & reishi mushrooms, lomatium dissectum, lemon balm, St John?s wart, vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc and probiotics are known traditional remedies with anti-viral and immune boosting function.

Have you heard of Inhalational Therapy? Then stay tuned. Breathing the vapors of essential oils distilled from plants is wonderful.

Be proactive and stay informed.

The oilMD

James Tad Geiger MD

The second opinion book. Give Wellness a chance.

The Sweet Smell of Success by James Tad Geiger MD

Books on wellness and aromatherapy have been written from many points of view. The Sweet Smell of Success takes a very unique approach to both of these topics. As an acute care anesthesiologist, I believe clinical aromatherapy should be integrated with conventional allopathic Western Medicine in the Wellness Revolution of the twenty-first century.

Aromatherapy with essential oils is one entity of the vast array of holistic specialties comprising nutriogenomic medicine and complementary alternative medicine. Although these specialties and aromatherapy are not appreciated by many physicians and are often misrepresented to the public, there are tremendous advantages to be gained from their diverse applications.

There is a widening health care information gap between health consumers and care providers. The material presented here bridges the gap between laypeople as health care consumers and medically oriented health care providers, with detailed natural healing information based on the art and medically scientific knowledge. It is my impression from working with my patients and their families that many people have an interest in using ?natural? ways of healing but have doctors who are uninformed, disinterested, or not accepting of alternative medicine. This text contains current and compelling scientific explanations and references, offering food as medicines alternatives meant to be integrated with all forms of healthcare including traditional medical treatment. Patients can give this book to their doctor to provide another medical doctor?s viewpoint, a second opinion.

This process represents a tremendous shift in thought and action for most people. Awareness and concern for the health of the people of our country and all the nations of the world are increasingly shared by growing numbers of medical and health care workers, professionals, celebrities, and even some politicians. The maldistribution of food worldwide perpetuates starvation and obesity epidemics, affecting more adults and children with each passing day. A generation of premature deaths, whether from obesity or starvation, is a sad and unacceptable result. Awareness of these problems is the critical first step to circumvent the predictable progression of illness, disability, and death due to these malnourished states.

Another major concern for our society is aging. Aging increases the need for essential foods as medicines that function as antioxidants, which the body uses as critical building blocks for the formation of free radical scavengers and the energy required for effective metabolism. Read and get enthused to practice these revealing wellness secrets, acting on exciting healthy choices that are naturally good for you.

Aromatically Yours,

James Tad Geiger MD

the oilMD

Peace and Safety

Another Consultation with the Muse of  Wellness.

Metalloproteinases:Enzymatic impact on cardiovascular and prostate health.

Metalloproteinase:Enzymatic impact on cardiovascular system.

An enzyme called matrix metalloproteinase-8 plays a crucial role in raising blood pressure and causing abnormal build-up of cells in the arteries ? both of which increase the risk of heart disease.

The same metalloproteinase family of enzymes  is inhibited by alpha-mangostin found in the mangosteen fruit and impacts prostate cancer cells in the laboratory.

J Agric Food Chem. 2009 Feb 25;57(4):1291-8.

Alpha-mangostin suppresses PC-3 human prostate carcinoma cell metastasis by inhibiting matrix metalloproteinase-2/9 and urokinase-plasminogen expression through the JNK signaling pathway.

Division of Urology, Department of Surgery, Chi Mei Medical Center, No. 901, Jhong-Hua Road, Yong-Kang, Tainan 710, Taiwan, Republic of China.

Alpha-mangostin, a component of Garcinia mangostana Linn, is a xanthone derivative shown to have antioxidant and anticarcinogen properties. In this study, we first report the antimetastatic effect of alpha-mangostin in the human prostate carcinoma cell line PC-3. The results show that alpha-mangostin exhibited an inhibitory effect on the abilities of adhesion, migration, and invasion by cell-matrix adhesion assay, wound healing assay, and Boyden chamber assay. In the cancer cell metastasis process, matrix degrading proteinases are required. Results from zymography showed that alpha-mangostin treatment could decrease the expressions of matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), and urokinase-plasminogen activator (u-PA) in a concentration-dependent manner. Moreover, alpha-mangostin also exerted an inhibitory effect on phosphorylation of c-Jun N-terminal kinase 1 and 2 (JNK1/2) and inhibition of activation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kappaB), c-Fos, and c-Jun. Furthermore, the treatment of inhibitors specific for JNK (SP600125) to PC-3 cells could result in a reduced expression of MMP-2, MMP-9, and u-PA. These results demonstrated that alpha-mangostin could mediate PC-3 cells metastasis by reduction of MMP-2, MMP-9, and u-PA expression through the suppression of the JNK1/2 signaling pathway and inhibition of NF-kappaB and AP-1 binding activity. These findings proved that alpha-mangostin might be offered further application as an antimetastatic agent.

James Tad Geiger MD

The Green Theory of Meaningful Ageing

Is there a well balanced wellness paradigm  available to  adopt which would increase  a healthy lifespan?

Heal the US health care system by promoting integrative medicine which is preventative and enhances meaningful ageing.

Nutriogenomics of the Body/Soul/Spirit

Meaningful Ageing Begins Early

Can we intervene in human ageing?

Faragher RG, Sheerin AN, Ostler EL.

School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Science, University of Brighton, Brighton, BN2 4GJ, UK. rgaf@brighton.ac.uk

Ageing is a progressive failure of defence and repair processes that produces physiological frailty (the loss of organ reserve with age), loss of homeostasis and eventual death. Over the past ten years exceptional progress has been made in understanding both why the ageing process happens and the mechanisms that are responsible for it. The study of natural mutants that accelerate some, but not all, of the features of the human ageing process has now progressed to a degree that drug trials are either taking place or can be envisaged. Simultaneously, a series of mutations have been identified in different species that confer extended healthy life, indicating that the ageing process is much more malleable than might have been expected and that single interventions have the potential to delay the onset of multiple age-associated conditions. Data generated using these organisms have led to the formulation of a powerful new hypothesis, the ‘green theory’ of ageing. This proposes that a finite capacity to carry out broad-spectrum detoxification and recycling is the primary mechanistic limit on organismal lifespan. This is turn suggests important new experimental approaches and potential interventions designed to increase healthy lifespan.

Wellness paradigm  increases healthy lifespan.

James Geiger MD

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