Beyond Aspirin : Nature's Challenge to Arthritis, Cancer & Alzheimer's Disease

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Summary: it really works!
Review: Beyond Aspirin is a wonderful story of how our bodies are influenced by specific herbs. We can work to better our health by using herbs to treat arthritis, cancer, and alzheimers disease (maybe more! ). It is written by master herbalist Paul Schulick and the educator Tomas Newmark. I have found that for my own purposes, I get amazing relief form constant back pain, and insomnia using their recommendations. I have found products at health food stores that have many of the herbs in the book all in one product! Buy it, It can change your life!

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Summary: Good For Doctors - Not for patients
Review: Beyond Aspirin may be a good book for alternative health care practitioners, but of little use to a patient who wants immediate useful information. It delves into complex metabolic chemistry and the chemical makeup of herbs, but not into how you'd go about using them on your own (with the exeception of green tea - drink lots of it, the authors tell us). They tell us how great ginger and tumeric are for reducing inflammation, but omit telling us how much fresh ginger or tumeric is useful for tonic or therapeutic dosages, and then tout the wonders of extracts of these plants. Then, they don't tell us what dosages are useful if you get extracts. If there were a companion volume to this book for civilians, it would be a great service to people who would like to experiment with their claims. As it stands, the book is incomplete.

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Summary: Take Part in the Revolution
Review: For anyone truly interested in exploring alternative methods of prevention and healing this book is a must. Not only does it give a concise and clear explanation of the main thesis -- that of the efficacy of botanical inhibition of the COX-2 enzyme -- but it gives an easily understandable explanation of the qualities and uses of several common and extremely useful herbs. The book is written in such a way that the information can be understood by those of us not necessarily schooled in alternative methods of healing, and it is convincing enough in its arguments to cause even the most sceptical to consider the awesomeness of the possibilities proposed. All of us know someone whose life has been effected by arthritis, cancer, or Alzheimer's disease. Thomas M. Newmark and Paul Schulick have done a great service in explaining the workings of the COX-2 enzyme as it relates to those diseases. Anyone who wants to be informed in approaching their own or a loved one's health should read this book.

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Summary: Good herbal advice, but sketchy science
Review: I like this book for the list of helpful herbs to add to your diet and personal care plan but the science is sketchy.

The discovery of the COX-2 inhibitors is a major breakthrough, but there isn't much research to connect it with other than some phenomenology about the effects of certain herb components on these enzymes.

Part of the problem with pharmacological research on herbals is that the research requires the isolation of one component of the herb and studying its effects on physiological and biochemical reactions in a controlled manner. This is science. Herb preparations, however, as the author points out, are complex mixtures of compounds. Traditional Chinese Medicine, in fact, requires a mixture of herbals to balance their effects.

Having said all that, is this book worthwhile? I think the advice here, on using certain herbs, and some in oil applied to the skin can have a good effect for a number of ailments. I use some of these myself (ginger and rosemary, for example.) But to assure oneself that these herbs will prevent Alzheimer's and other diseases? It's impossible to know. However, the herbs are pleasant and this book lists some excellent herbal treatments. Just be sure to mention them to your doctor, as some herbs have counteractive effects on prescription drugs.

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Summary: Written to sell author's products
Review: I was suspect when I discovered this book racked in my local health food store right next to an herbal product developed by the authors that "coincidentally" blocks the COX2 enzyme mentioned in this book. Does that invalid the book? No, but it casts doubt on the authors true motives for writing it.

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Summary: Incredibly Insightful
Review: Incredibly insightful, I immediately thought of all the friends and family members I have that need to know this information. After reading Beyond Aspirin why would anyone choose a pharmaceutical when you have a natural choice that makes so much sense! I highly recommend this book.

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Summary: Nature has an answer
Review: It is so exciting to know that we are on the heels of the medical community. A medical breakthrough Cox-2 may be, but to Mother Nature, the answers have always- in all ways- been there. And NO side effects. Thank you Paul and Tom for enlightening us on the wonders and power of nature's ability to heal.

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Summary: Clear and Useful
Review: Newmark and Schulick don't patronize their readers, don't make glib cure-all claims for the herbal COX-2 inhibitors, don't disparage normal medical practice, and do make good sense that anyone suffering from osteo arthritis (as I do) should pay close attention to.

Inflammation is, as the authors make clear, a critical component in many other disease processes, a fact prominent in recent medical news. The core of their book, though, is the well-argued claim that the remarkable improvement over the likes of aspirin, ibuprofen and other NSAID's achieved in the last year or two by new COX-2 inhibiting drugs (such as Celebrex and Vioxx) is also attainable via a number of herbs that have been used for centuries and whose "biochemistry ... is infinitely more complex, balanced, effective and safe than the silver bullet approach of using one synthetic molecule."

I found their general explanation of the paradoxically helpful/harmful nature of the body's natural inflammatory response to injury very clear and most interesting for understanding my own particular case. I also enjoyed the rather bold analogies frequently employed in their explanations as well as the literary quotes and herbal drawings. In general, this is a book that anticipates and pleases a skeptical reader.

For the record, I took their advice and found a highly concentrated source of several of the herbs they mention. The very substantial and rapid reduction in swelling and pain in my ankle impressed and delighted me. The product I used (Zyflamend) is actually produced by Newmark and Schulick, but is not even mentioned in their book!

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Summary: Written to sell author's products
Review: On the basis of a feverishly enthusiastic recommendation from a long-time friend, I purchased (from amazon.com) and read Beyond Aspirin, by Thomas M Newmark & Paul Schulick, in order to attempt to form an objective opinion. I was very interested in trying to learn how the two authors, neither of whom possesses any discernible medical or scientific credentials that I have yet discovered, were able to solve the mysteries of diseases like arthritis, cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

After reading this book, the bottom line for me is that, while I find it conceivable that many of the authors' assertions in this book may one day be proven to have been 100% correct, I find it impossible to substantiate today that they are correct on the basis of the data they provide in the book to support their positions.

The authors assert that it is now established that "COX-2 inflammation" causes rheumatoid arthritis, cancer and Alzheimer's disease and recommend that herbal remedies, which incorporate constituents that inhibit the production of the COX-2 enzyme, be taken for prevention and treatment of these diseases.

I have two problems with accepting these assertions:

(1) After checking the websites of accepted medical authorities, including those of the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins, I can find no independent corroboration for the assertion that recognized medical experts today know the cause of these diseases, nor can I find any mention of the term, "COX-2 inflammation".

(2) In Beyond Arthritis, the authors never seem to me to substantiate their assertions with verifiable data. Instead, the "support" they offer seems to fall exclusively into one of the following three categories of "proof":

· More assertions ("It is known that . .", etc.) without data

· References to "studies" which purport to support the authors' claims, but without attribution, leaving me unable to validate or invalidate the claim

· Occasional references to studies that I was able to find and examine but which, once I carefully studied the original document, failed to support the authors' assertions.

In the following example, a speculation by the scientists who conducted the study was taken out of context and presented as a "conclusion" in order to support the central premise of Beyond Aspirin.

Page 50 Beyond Aspirin: "A recent study, published in the U.S. government's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, identifies some of green tea's prominent constituents called polyphenols (GTP) as causing a "marked reduction" in COX-2 induced arthritis. The scientists from Case Western Reserve University concluded in this study that a "polyphenic fraction from green tea that is rich in antioxidants may be useful in the prevention of onset and severity of arthritis."

That sounded pretty convincing to me at first glance. Had I been reading superficially and uncritically, my tendency might have been to conclude that such a prestigious research institution recommends that we should drink green tea to prevent and treat arthritis. However, that's not actually what it says. Also, the phrase "COX-2 induced arthritis" is from Newmark and Schulick, not the study. It is not a term used anywhere in the study they cite.

When I found the actual report itself on the website of the National Academy of Sciences, I discovered that the scientists from Case Western who conducted this study:

(a) Used the following "green tea polyphenic fraction": ". . dried green tea leaves were extracted twice with hot water and three times with 80% ethanol under nitrogen. The combined extract was concentrated and then extracted with an equal volume of chloroform. The aqueous layer was extracted three times with ethyl acetate under nitrogen, and the total organic soluble fraction was concentrated under vacuum, dissolved in water, and freeze-dried . ." (N.B. That is not "green tea" and may well have properties that differ from those of "green tea".)

(b) Administered this "herbal extract" to 18 mice in a scientifically accepted, but artificial, chemically-induced, experimental model of arthritis. That is, the scientists speculated that this "polyphenic fraction", not "green tea", might conceivably have salutary effects in human beings based upon the results of a small mouse study, not on results in actual people with arthritis.

While it is certainly customary in the conclusions of scientific papers reporting on animal studies for the authors to speculate about possible effects in human beings, I feel that the authors of Beyond Arthritis could have better served their readers by fully describing the basis of the scientists' speculation -- and by making it clear that it was only a speculation and an extrapolation to a totally different species, not a "conclusion" based upon observed effects in human beings.

This is not to say that green tea isn't good for patients with arthritis (it may very well be), but I don't think one can intelligently reach that conclusion on the basis of this kind of "data".

I also found myself puzzled by the inclusion of the impressive list of references at the end of the book (which added 53 pages to its length). Because they're not referenced to specific statements in the book (as is normally done for the purpose of enabling the reader to verify sources), I don't understand the intended function of this long list for the reader.

In conclusion, while I found Beyond Aspirin to be entertainingly written, I was unable to independently verify any of the authors' major assertions and thus I remain skeptical of the authors' proposal that it is sensible to use herbal remedies to prevent and/or treat diseases such as arthritis, cancer and Alzheimer's Disease.