Do you have health-related questions for Dr. John, the Naturopathic Doctor? Send them to the WA Free Press at 1463 E Republican #178, Seattle WA 98112, or email to editor@WAfreepress.com. Please keep questions short. Health information in the WA Free Press should not be construed as medical advice. Always make your own choice regarding medical treatment by seeking multiple sources of information and consulting with your personal physician.

medical opinion by John F. Ruhland, ND

Cell Phones

Dear Doctor John,

What do you think about cell phones? I've read that they may cause brain tumors, and my 13-year old daughter spends literally hours on hers every day. Her behaviour is erratic, and she has been getting very difficult to deal with, and I worry that her cell phone may be the problem.

Dr. John responds:

Your daughter is going through many changes in her physiology as she matures. That probably accounts for some of her behaviour. Nevertheless, the radiation from her cell phone is not healthy. I encourage people to carefully examine the studies done in recent years in the US and abroad on this radiation. It is clear that the cellular communications industry has been steadily funding research designed specifically to downplay the problems inherent in cellular Electro-Magnetic Radiation (EMR). They fund short-term studies in an attempt to show that the electromagnetic radiation emitted by cellular antenna does not cause health problems.

We must demand studies designed to determine the long-term human effects of radiation exposure. Fortunately, some other governments are not always quite as corrupt as ours. Some of the research funded abroad is actually designed to determine whether or not cell phones cause long-term harm.

My recommendation is to set strong boundaries with your child. As a parent, it is your responsibility to say no in a case where your child's health is at risk. It is no use being their "friend" and then having your child get sick. One of the saddest things I have seen in my practice is when a child dies before their parent, even if the child is 40 years old.

For more information on the health effects of electromagnetic radiation from cellular antennas, see www.emrnetwork.org .

Naturopathic IVs

Dear Doctor John,

Could you please explain why many naturopathic doctors use intravenous therapies in their medical practices? IVs sound invasive, and do not sound very natural to me.

Dr. John responds:

In the past, I would have agreed with you. While studying Naturopathic Medicine, I thought intravenous (IV) therapies were very invasive, and I believed that there must always be more natural ways to treat patients without resorting to intravenous injections. Now I realize that IV therapies can often offer a rapid and dramatic benefit to patients that is difficult to achieve with other therapies.

In some cases, IVs may be used to avoid much more invasive conventional treatments. To give some examples, in patients with cataracts, the opacities stop worsening and often clear up partially or completely without eye surgery. In patients with fibromyalgia accompanied with a wide host of neurological symptoms, I have seen nearly miraculous results.

In fact, one patient had such dramatic neurological symptoms, that her neurologist told her he was unable to help her, and told her to put her things in order, as her condition was terminal. She is currently an active artist now, four years later.

Chelation Therapy is one of the important intravenous treatments. In doing chelation therapy, I have seen heavy metal toxicities improve, including mercury toxicity from dental fillings and from eating tuna and other large fish. Heavy metal toxicity is one of the most overlooked causes of acute and chronic disease.

Chelation utilizes amino acids to remove plaque build-up in the arteries, the cause of atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis contributes to strokes and heart attacks, which are very common problems in the US. To give an idea of the seriousness of the problem, statistics show that women are much more likely to die from heart disease than breast cancer.

To summarize, I would argue that IV therapies--including IV Vitamin C drips, IV Mineral Repletion, and IV Chelation Therapy--have an important place in the practice of Naturopathic Medicine. In the seven years I have been in practice, I have been very impressed by the consistently positive benefits, and have seen no serious adverse reactions.