Paul K. Branch, M.D. - Holistic Medicine and Classical Homeopathy

The recent events in Japan remind us that radiation exposure is a risk of modern life. There has been talk that even the west coast of the U.S. may be at risk of some radiation exposure. Along with this comes an air of fear and mystery. There are images from the past, of Hiroshima, Chernobyl, which brought death, genetic damage, and deformity. Or we may have visions of science fiction movies, with their nuclear-powered space ships and gamma ray guns.

“Radiation” comes from the Latin verb radiare, which means “to shine” or ‘beam.” A “radius” originally meant a “beam of light.” Radiation refers back to our original source of all light, the sun. In the combustion of gases that give rise to its blinding intensity, the sun emits all types of radiation in the form of highly energized particles. Radiation, like the heat radiator in your living room, is akin to “fire.”

Radiation, of all types, is a fire toxicity, i.e. it burns. How toxic it is directly relates to how “hot,” i.e. how highly energized, it is. Radiation we know causes genetic damage, but then again, if you put your hand in a burning fire, that would cause genetic damage to the tissue it burned as well.

It goes even a step further than this. With the Digimeridian machine I use in my practice, if a measurement shows a toxic imbalance in an energy meridian, it is highlighted in red. This red imbalance points to an area of inflammation in the body. Dr. Ni, who developed the Digimeridian, explained to me, “When you have a yin-yang imbalance, the genetic material starts to mutate.” Inflammation is a toxic heat, and prolonged exposure causes the DNA of cells to change.

Exposure to high-energy radiation damages cells because of the heat transferred to your cells as radioactive particles hit them. Depending how highly energized the radiation is, it can literally melt them down. This is no less true of x-rays and cell phone radiation than nuclear radiation. All such radiation is capable of injuring tissue. It is simply a matter of degree. We live in a high-energy world. Those of us in cities exist in radiation akin to an electric smog. We zip around in radiation-producing jet airplanes. We cook things fast, (i.e. with microwave radiation, which, by the way, you should avoid. It does not so much cook your food as melt it.) All of this affects us.

Counteracting radiation requires a corresponding increase of the element that cools down the hot, melting fire: water. The element of water is associated with the kidneys in Chinese medi cine, and protecting the kidneys becomes a critical goal when one is exposed to radiation. Many foods and herbs that bolster the kidney energy and build vital fluids apply. Below are my suggestions and comments:

1) Avoiding harm from radioactive energy should not be something you adopt when you first hear you may have some exposure. You are likely always being exposed to some degree, unless you live in the wilderness. Because of the excesses everywhere in modern life, “staying cool” and bolstering your vital fluids should simply be a way of life. Call it an “anti-inflammatory” way of being.

It is common for patients I see to be a bit “toasted” these days. That is to say, they live a fast-paced lifestyle, travel a lot, and take many foods and beverages that deplete the body of vital fluids: too much alcohol, too much coffee, too much processed food, too much meat. Then w e take in too little of foods that replenish the lost essence.

2) Those who are out of balance with too much toxic heat in the body may have a much more difficult time healing from harmful radiation than those who are balanced.

3) The substances that bolster water energy (i.e. tonify the kidneys) are highly cleansing (cooling) by nature. Some of my favorites include all sea vegetables (kelp, nori, wakame, nori, kombu, etc), algae (e.g. chlorella and wild blue green algae), aloe vera juice (inner filet is best), wheat grass, sprouts of most varieties, stinging nettles, and salt (use only Himalayan or a good sea salt). Certain legumes also apply, especially mung beans, lentils, and black beans. Most important here are mung beans, which, in addition to being cooling, are a potent kidney tonic and detoxifier. You can cook a kidney tonic by preparing any of these beans with sea vegetables. (After soaking in salt for 8-12 hours, rinse and cook the beans in sea vegetables WITHOUT salt until soft. Then add sea or Himalayan salt and herbs. Adding a bit of unpasteurized apple cider vinegar helps make the beans even more digestible.)

4) It makes good sense to include a bit of kidney tonifying energy in your daily diet. Whole Foods guru Paul Pitchford recommends we take a small amount of sea vegetables every day. Because it takes our body time to adjust and digest sea vegetables, starting with a small bit and then increasing over time is a good idea.

5) If you have radiation exposure, whether through xrays, CT scans or MRI, or possible nuclear exposure, it makes sense to increase your intake of kidney tonifiers. However, because over-tonifying the kidneys can throw one out of balance, it is important to increase them without taking an excess. Eating these foods to excess can make you sick in itself. ; Stay tuned in to your body!

6) A word on salt: Because it holds in fluids and supports the kidneys, it is another type of kidney tonic. Salt is grounding and centering, exactly the opposite of the scattering quality of radiation. When eaten unrefined and in mild to moderate amounts, salt plays an important detoxifying role for radiation. Nuclear waste can actually be stored in salt, testifying to its detoxifying nature. It makes sense, particularly for those in cities, to have about 3 grams of unrefined salt daily.

7) Sea vegetables, because of their high iodine content, play an important role in helping the body get adequate amount of iodine, inhibiting uptake of radioactive iodine. I prefer a healthy intake of sea vegetables to oral iodine tablets, which can cause toxicity.

For the case of known or high-probability intense exposure to nuclear fallout, I recommend one additional step. Homeopathic Radium bromatum of either 6c or 12c potency (30c or 30x would also be ok) can be dissolved (i.e 2 -3 pellets) in distilled or filtered water and taken in sips up to a few times daily, depending on the degree of exposure.

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Successful weight loss has been one of medicine’s challenges. In medical school and residency I learned that weight loss was a matter of “eating fewer calories and exercising.” Far from being this simple, I have found the complexity of obesity lends itself to a holistic, multi-disciplinary approach. Weight loss involves aspects of many different aspects of medicine–energy, nutrition, cooking and food science, emotions, detoxification, acid-base balance, Chinese yin-yang balance, hormones–and an even deeper energetic layer that has to do with classical homeopathy.

It is this deeper layer that is most out-of-sight and hardest for people to grasp. As far as successful treatment, it often is the most important. This is particularly true when weight gain involves factors that the person is unable to control–psychological, emotional, or even physical.

An example of this came up recently in my office. I was treating someone who has had a lifetime issue with controlling hunger. Typically this person cannot stop from eating three or four plates of food at a meal. Recently I worked this person up with a classical homeopathic work-up and gave this person a remedy, and after the second round of dosing sent me this email, which I quote with permission:

“I redosed last night. I never really get hungry until around 10 am and was out running errands until almost noon and was absolutely starving. I stopped into my favorite buffet, got my first plate and was only half way through when I started feeling full and the food stopped tasting so good. I did finish the plate and did go back for a little more because I can’t only have one plate at a buffet. Yet I didn’t even finish what I got. I got a little dessert and didn’t finish that either.

This has never happened in my life before. i would normally get 3 plates worth. Also, I was as full the rest of the day as if I had eaten 3 plates.

Pretty amazing!”

Taking this remedy brought a swift and dramatic shift in a long-standing pattern. What is important to understand–in addition to how powerful and deep classical homeopathic medicine can act–is that classical homeopathy treats a deep, out-of-sight energetic pattern. Looked at from a slightly different angle, the remedy acted on this person’s unconscious. For weight loss, such treatment can be essential.

Such a deep, entrenched pattern can be overcome by people trying to lose weight, yet it takes a lot of energy to fight such a pattern. People can and do succeed in fighting it, of course. Nevertheless, frequently, people fight it for a while and then give up. You hear things like “I tried so hard to keep my eating under control, and then I couldn’t do it anymore. I just gave up.” For such patients, the lap band and gastric bypass surgeries have become the way to deal with many of these patients.

This is bad medicine for a number of reasons. It not only requires an expensive, invasive surgery, with its associated pain and recovery. It leaves the patient in an energetically compromised state, which can interfere with proper absorption of nutrients and provoke frequent bouts of nausea and discomfort. Often these surgeries are only marginally effective, because the underlying emotions are as disturbed as ever. Then, they spur on future encounters with the medical system because of the problems they cause.

The purpose of any good treatment is to resolve the underlying energetic cause, making changing the pattern almost effortless. This is the result of expert classical homeopathic treatment. Treatment with a good classical homeopath should be step one for all obese patients for whom the thought “lap band” so much as makes a brief appearance. It is not only far less expensive than a trip to the operating room, it actually resolves the imbalance. All good treatment should free people from doctors, not make them more dependent.

It is gratifying to see that more and more scientists are willing to speak out and support the efficacy of classical homeopathy in treating such a deep energetic layer. The latest has been nobel prize winner Luc Montagnier, who discovered the AIDS virus [see this article at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/luc-montagnier-homeopathy-taken-seriously_b_814619.html].

In coming years, we can hope that classical homeopathy becomes a standard treatment for those who struggle with obesity. This is particularly true when there is hunger and overeating that the person is struggling to control. If you have more questions about this and how it applies to you, let me know.

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One of the most common clinical problems is insomnia.   It can be one of the trickiest disease states to resolve in a satisfactory way.  The information you receive on insomnia is woefully inadequate.  It is important for all those who suffer from insomnia to have a better idea of what is going on and how to deal with it.

Contemporary medical thinking focuses on quieting the mind through drugs.  People agree to drug themselves to sleep with pharmaceuticals such as Ambien, Xanax, or Prosom mainly because no other approaches are available.  Rarely is anyone satisfied with this solution.   These medications are addictive, and, if anything, aggravate the underlying cause.  Although I am open to the use of insomnia medicine on an infrequent basis, I do not believe such drugs are wise.  A drugged sleep, although it is arguably more satisfying than a night awake, does not qualify as “good sleep.”  It is no more, no less than what it seems to be:  an artificial sleep produced by a drug, which does not achieve the levels of rest and restoration of natural sleep.

People with insomnia complain that they are stirred up in some way.  Many complain that they “cannot stop their thoughts” at night.”  “Worries” are another common complaint.  People wake in the middle of the night with things on their mind and they cannot get back to sleep.  Others simply complain of an “awake-ness” where they lie in bed for hours and the release of sleep refuses to come.

Looked at from this angle, it would seem that anyone with real worries must submit to the inevitable interrupted sleep.  Yet, when you look at the big picture, something else is going on.  I can find plenty of people with huge worries and stress who sleep fine.   One cannot divide out the population between those who have heavy stress and those who do not and make any sense of insomnia.  As a rule, applicable to all but the most stressful of times, it is not the worries that cause the insomnia.  It is just the opposite:  the energy of the insomnia itself is what causes sleep to be interrupted with awake-ness, worries and racing thoughts.

What, then, is the cause of insomnia?  It is not simple to explain, but even a difficult explanation is better than the misinformation you are receiving.  So let’s start from point one.

In my measurements of people with sleep difficulties (using the Digimeridian machine) one theme stands out:  people with insomnia almost invariably have toxicity or weakness in the Fire meridians (specifically the heart, pericardium, or triple warmer meridians).  There is one exception to this.  Occasionally the toxicity is in the Water element (kidney and bladder meridians).

This starts to drive at some fundamental truths about insomnia.  It is important to realize that energies described by Chinese medicine are not abstractions.  They are real–and actually measurable with new machines such as the Digimeridian.

1) In Chinese medicine, the Fire meridians have to do with “consciousness.”  Weakness or toxicity in the Fire meridians point to a “disturbed consciousness.”  Feelings of un-groundedness at night, eg. floating, of mind racing, of a mind that refuses to settle, of worries coming out nowhere refer to a disturbed consciousness.  This has to do with disturbed energy in one’s heart.

2) Insomnia disturbs the energy of the heart and is a risk for developing pathology with the heart itself.  It does not necessarily mean disease of the actual heart.  If the body has sufficient strength to protect the heart, it will remain fine.  Eventually, though, disturbed heart energy will impact the physical heart.  Take insomnia as a warning sign that you need to take steps to protect your heart.  Depression, which also often relates to heart energy (liver energy can be dominant in certain cases) is also a warning sign for trouble around the heart.  It is a call for action, and anti-depressants do not help.  The may actually create more risk for the heart.

3)  More specifically, insomnia relates to the balance between Fire and Water.  That is, in Chinese medicine language, if there is “dirty water,” i.e. toxicity in the kidneys or bladder, it may not balance the Fire element.  If the Fire “burns out of control,” uncontrolled by the Water element, it disturbs consciousness.  I find a strong heart is protection against insomnia in all cases.  Yet, even those with a strong heart may encounter disturbance if the kidney meridians have a lot of toxic energy.

4) It is often mentioned that people sleep less well as they age.  Elderly people, we are told, sleep less.  Years ago I accepted this as an inevitable consequence of aging.  Now I know it is a problem of energy, not of aging in itself.  Generally people “dry out” as they get older.  They do not have the “vital juices” like they did when they were young.  This most directly relates to the kidneys.  Because of loss of kidney essence, the Water element does not balance the heat in the heart.  This disturbs consciousness and sleep.  Menopausal symptoms in women also relate to this phenomenon.

Most importantly, what do you do about it?  The first step is to find out what is going on.  It could point to one or more of the following energy imbalances:

1)  A weak heart energy, perhaps congenital,

2)  Toxicity in one or more of the fire medians that disturbs its energy and disrupts consciousness–and therefore sleep.

3) A decline in vital essence, in a manner of speaking, you are “drying out” as you age, and there is a resulting heat in the heart region disturbing sleep.  The way to think of it is “there is not enough water to control the fire.”  This relates to hormonal issues.  I also see this lack of vital essence in younger people.  Often it comes with obsessive behavior, bipolar disorder, or other such mental condition.

4) Relating to #3, there may be a deficiency of blood, which causes heat to occur in the heart.  This frequently occurs in very thin people, but you do not have to be thin for this to apply to you.  If you have had a diagnosis of anemia, or have borderline anemia, this possibility increases.  “Deficiency of blood” is not exactly anemia, but they are close.

5)  The kidneys are toxic.  There may be no problem in the heart meridians, but the toxicity in the kidneys creates a problem by its lack of adequate “counter-balance.”  This most often occurs with people who have “panic” somewhere in the mix.   Dreams of intense anxiety or panic, panic attacks point to this.  Occasionally you see this in a deep and suppressed way, that is, there is no panic on the surface, but you find it if you dig a bit.  These people are very “calm and collected” souls–until they tip out of balance and feel panicky.

Treatment of these five causes is a complex matter, which I will leave for another time.  My main modalities are classical homeopathy and Chinese herbals.  For now, it is enough for you to know to search for deeper answers.  You do not need to sell out to an unhealthy “drugged” sleep.

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Dr. Susan Love, well-known expert on breast cancer, has been in the news recently.  A lot of what she has to say is not positive.

•    No real improvement in the number of breast cancers in the last 20 years.
•    No progress in discovering the cause of breast cancer.

Below find my response and a summary of my current understanding of this highly complex disease:

1)  Breast cancer is caused by persistent toxic energy in the pericardium meridian of Chinese medicine.

In my measurements with the Digimeridian machine, this has been a consistent finding, and my belief is that the Digimeridian points the way to prevention of breast cancer, both through screening of women, and a basis for treatment through methods of relieving the toxicity, e.g. targeted acupuncture.  The pericardium energy meridian originates a couple centimeters lateral to the nipples and flows down the arm and forearm.  Heavy toxicity in the pericardium meridian leads to inflammation of breast tissue and mutations in cellular DNA of breast cells.

As for Dr. Love’s comment that “we are no closer to finding the cause of breast cancer,” using her current investigative methods, she never will find a cause.  That is because the causes lie at the energetic level, not the physical level, i.e. the causes are invisible.

As a general rule of thumb for government and life, if you spend billions of dollars to find a solution to a problem, and still find no success, change your assumptions and your approach.  Currently breast cancer research operates under certain wrong assumptions.   Billions more dollars spent on the same approach will yield the same conclusion.

There are a couple other situations where I see toxicity in the pericardium meridian that relate to breast cancer.  The first is high prolactin levels secondary to a prolactin secreting tumor in the pituitary.  In this condition, the nipple may inappropriately release a milky discharge (prolactin is the hormone that stimulates milk production).  Not surprisingly, breast cancer incidence goes up with prolactinomas.  From a TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) standpoint, if you suppress the milky discharge (e.g. through medicines such as bromocriptine), the risk of cancer increases dramatically.  This is because the breast releases toxicity through the milky discharge.  Suppress this release and the retained toxicity can explode into breast cancer.

The second situation is in younger women.  You can tell if she is going to get a heavy period because toxicity shows up in the pericardium meridian on the Digimeridian measurement.  This is important to consider, because if she would not bleed for some reason (e.g. menopause), there may be difficulty in unloading the toxicity.  It helps us understand why menopause can be a dangerous time.  Toxicity can be loaded in the pericardium meridian, and if the woman’s immune system is not strong enough to push it out, inflammatory changes can occur in the breast.

2) Stage I cancer confined to the breast is not necessarily life-threatening.

I have had breast cancers in my practice that I have treated in collaboration with TCM experts that have disappeared on follow-up radiography.  It is questionable whether such cancers ever would have become dangerous.  A major challenge now is learning to distinguish dangerous cancers from those that are not. 

More disturbingly, a pharmacist friend recently told me the story of a woman diagnosed with breast cancer. Doctors recommended the usual invasive treatments–surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. This woman had a level of suspicion and flew to Great Britain to see a leading breast cancer specialist. This specialist told her that she did not have breast cancer. Talk about a close call!

This story comes to me second hand. Nevertheless, my friend has the highest ethical standards. I have no doubt it is true based on her credibility and what I have seen in my clinical practice. It is problematic for women, because there is no economic reward for finding the non-dangerous cancers. The system probably lost out on $100,000 in treatment because this woman chose to seek a second opinion.

3)  Left-sided breast Cancer and right-side breast cancer are different diseases.  Cancer in the right breast is likely to be more dangerous than breast cancer in the left breast.

Because the left side of the body and right side of the body are energetically different, left-sided breast cancer and right-sided breast cancer are not the same disease.  From a TCM perspective, the right side is the yin or feminine side, the left side is the yang or masculine side.  For a woman to have breast cancer in the right breast represents a more virulent intrusion into her feminine energy.

I have not been able to find studies on left-sided vs right-sided breast cancer.  I am more cautious in cases of right-sided breast cancer, because they frequently appear to be more aggressive than left-sided.

4) Metastatic breast cancer represents an entirely different, much more dangerous disease.

The critical questions in breast cancer are what causes it to metastisize and how to stop it.  There are definite energies that drive breast cancer metastisis.  It is not accidental or arbitrary that breast cancer ends up in the brain or the liver, for example.  An important line of inquiry should be to track the energies that drive metastasis.  A firm understanding of TCM theory, in conjunction with a Digimeridian assessment as well as a study of the emotional state of the woman, should allow insight into the cause and prevention of metastasis.  This will take effort and money, but it would likely yield far more exciting results than we currently have.

Nevertheless, one of the harsh realities of cancer is that there will always be cases that defy understanding.  Cancers are an explosion of toxicity into disease.  The source of that toxicity, particularly in certain aggressive, virulent cases, we will not always be able to understand.  This is especially true in cases of children, where cancer usually makes no sense.  In certain situations, we can speculate that the biblical idea “the sins of the father are visited upon the son” applies, only in this case it likely relates more to the mother.  Toxicity can trace back through a dysfunctional and stuck family history, which an individual is heir to.

5)  If you are diagnosed with breast cancer, detoxification is necessary–at all levels, the emotional above all.

I have taken the homeopathic case of quite a few breast cancer cases over the years.  That means I have had the luxury of 3-4 hour, in-depth investigations of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions of the disease.

The most common theme I have seen in breast cancer cases is a toxic, intimate relationship.  Quite frequently a woman feels she needs to leave the relationship and cannot.  Generally such cases carry deep, unresolved resentment.  I have seen another case where a woman developed breast cancer during a period of uncontrolled anger towards her adopted children.   The themes of nurturing or codependency, often at the expense of one’s individual values, appear to be central to the disease of the breast.

Commonly, the diagnosis of breast cancer forces a woman into an examination of toxic emotions.  There is the feeling that, if one is going to survive, one needs to “clean house” and face up to emotions and situations that have been damaging.  All cancer brings  the search for peace, because at root, its “beyond my control” character, not to mention the harsh treatments, mean exactly the loss of peace.

TCM doctor Yongli Ni has made the observation:  In Chinese medicine, the woman cleans up for the man.  Therefore, if they are mismatched, there is trouble for the woman. I consider it highly possible that certain cases of breast cancer originate because of such a “cleaning up” process.  I consider cleaning up the primary relationship–and ideally that would include getting the husband or mate as healthy as possible–an integral part of recovery from breast cancer.

6)   If you are diagnosed with breast cancer, you need to pay special attention to the liver, and its associated emotion, anger.

Anger, often deeply suppressed, is something I have seen in every case of breast cancer.  From a TCM perspective, anger that is unexpressed brings energy stagnation to the liver,   Although difficult to prove, in my understanding this plays a role in bringing about the spread of breast cancer to other organs, not least of which because proper functioning of the liver is critical for good immune function.   Confronting the issues that are causing anger, releasing anger through meditation, exercising a few times weekly (ideally getting the pulse rate up near maximum for short intervals of time), and herbal medicine to release heat and stagnation from the liver all should play a role.

Summing up, a purely physical level approach to breast cancer–or any cancer–is not enough.  It is a disease that involves all dimensions of the human, and all dimensions need to be involved in the treatment plan.  Most important is addressing the energy toxicity in the upper meridians of the body, as defined in TCM, with focus on the pericardial meridian above all.  Also key is the triple warmer meridian, which is associated with the upper body immune system.  The triple warmer energy is responsible for “pushing out” dampness and toxicity.  The corresponding meridians in the lower body (stomach and gallbladder) also play an important role.  The stomach may be particularly important in certain breast cancer cases,  because the stomach meridian travels directly across the nipple.

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