IHP March 2015

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WWW.IHPMAGAZINE.COM MARCH 2014

Nothing’s Hotter Than Hemp

Looking Back – Looking Forward: InsideOut Health Solutions

the Halifax Naturopathic Health Centre

MANAGING THE BRAIN/HEARTCONNECTION

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contents

DEPARTMENTS

FEATURES

MARCH 2015 • IHPMAGAZINE.COM 6

9 Publisher’s Letter

12 Bits and Bites Industry and Research News

24 Gallery In-Cam Symposium

26 Product Profiles

54 Exit Strategy Three powerful Natural Health Supplements

22 US Declares War on Global Tuberculosis Epidemic

30 Clinic Profile Updates Revisiting InsideOut Health Solutions and the Halifax Naturopathic Health Centre

36 The Brain Heart Arteries Connections

40 Nucleotide related therapy as a novel approach Uses in Alzheimer’s Disease and Hepatitis C

44 Nothing’s Hotter Than Hemp

50 The Healing Power of Fat Tissue

find us on 4030

36

IHP Contents.indd 6 2015-03-11 3:19 PM


publisher’s letter

W elcome to the redesigned Integrated Healthcare

Practitioners. You will probably notice many

changes inside – and there are many more excit-

ing changes to come.

We have built a dedicated readership over the past seven

years, and intend to keep serving that core audience with

plenty of articles focusing on research and contributing to

the knowledge and evolution of integrative healthcare. We

will keep running research papers – but shorter, simplified

versions – with the full, referenced versions available on

your tablet and our website. This makes all the articles more

accessible and meaningful while still serving as a “journal.”

We also aim to expand that readership – by providing

interesting, lively discussion and engaging information for

alternative healthcare practitioners in a wide range of

specialties.

As always, your participation is welcome. Call us, talk

to us, check out our social media pages and keep reading

Canada’s best resource for Integrated Healthcare

Practitioners.

Founder, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Olivier Felicio

Managing Editor Dale Sproule

Art Director Scott Jordan

Junior Designer Kaitlin Yep

Contributors Adina Currie, Rochelle Fernandes, Irina Lytchak, Leonard Taylor

President Olivier Felicio

General Manager Melanie Seth

General Customer Care Manager Lucy Holden

Subscription RatesCanada $80 (gst included) for six issues International $120

Canada Post Canadian Publication Mail Agreement Number 4067800 The publisher does not assume any responsibility for the contents of any advertisement and any and all repre-sentations or warranties made in such advertising are those of the advertiser and not of the publisher. The publisher is not liable to any advertiser for any misprints in advertising not the fault of the publisher and in such an event the limit of the publisher’s liability shall not exceed the amount of the publisher’s charge for such advertising. No portion of this publi-cation may be reproduced, in all or part, without the express written permission of the pub-lisher. ihp magazine is pleased to review unsolicited submissions for editorial consideration under the following conditions: all material submitted for editorial consideration (photo-graphs, illustrations, written text in electronic or hard copy format) may be used by ihr Media Inc. and their affiliates for editorial purposes in any media (whether printed, elec-tronic, internet, disc, etc.) without the consent of, or the payment of compensation to, the party providing such material. Please direct submissions to the Editor, ihp magazine.

Published by IHP Magazine

CirculationRive Gauche Media1235 Bay St., suite 400; Toronto, Ontario, M5R 3K4Email: [email protected]

Advertising Olivier Felicio(416) 203-7900 x [email protected]

Toronto ParisTheRGMGroup.

MARCH 2015 • Volume 8 Issue 1

Olivier Felicio

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief

The Evolution of IHP

IHP PubLetter.indd 9 2015-03-12 11:43 AM


cover story

The BrainHeartArteries Connectionsby Leonard Taylor

IHP HeartBrain.indd 36 15-03-11 2:16 PM


After the leaves had turned their million autumnal

shades of red and yellow, but before the first

snows had fallen, a study appeared in the pages

of the journal Public Library of Science (PLOS) One.

It contained details on research being conducted by

scientists at the Ottawa Heart Institute and the University

of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) – disclosing

that they had uncovered a new pathway by which the

brain uses an unusual steroid to control blood pressure.

The study, which also suggests new approaches for

treating high blood pressure and heart failure, could

eventually lead to new treatments for hypertension and

heart failure.

“This research gives us an entirely new way of under-

standing how the brain and the cardiovascular system

work together,” said Dr. John Hamlyn, professor of phys-

iology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine,

one of the principal authors. “It opens a new and exciting

way for us to work on innovative treatment approaches

that could one day help patients.”



cover story

For decades, researchers have known

that the brain controls the activity of the

heart and the diameter of the peripheral

arteries via the nervous system. Electrical

impulses from the brain travel to the heart

and the arteries via a network of nerves

known as the sympathetic nervous system.

This system is essential for daily life, but is

often chronically over active in patients with

high blood pressure or heart failure. In fact,

many drugs that help with hypertension and

heart failure work by decreasing the activity

of the sympathetic nervous system. However,

these drugs often have serious side effects,

such as fatigue, dizziness, depression and

erectile dysfunction.

“A lot of the medications we used in the

past to block the sympathetic nervous

system interfere with the acute regulation,”

says Dr. Frans Leenen, Director of

Hypertension at the Ottawa Heart Institute,

and a principal author of the study. “These

drawbacks have led to the search for novel

ways to inhibit sympathetic nerve action

while causing fewer problems for patients.”

Working with an animal model of hyper-

tension, Dr. Leenen in collaboration with Dr.

Hamlyn and Dr. Mordecai Blaustein, professor

of physiology and medicine at the UM SOM,

found a new link between the brain and

increased blood pressure, namely, a lit-

tle-known steroid called ouabain (pro-

nounced WAH-bane).

This new study is the first to identify a

particular pathway by which the brain reg-

ulates the diameter of the arteries via

ouabain in the bloodstream, and causes an

increase in contractile proteins in the arter-

ies. This new humoral “chronic” pathway

acts together with the more “acute” sympa-

thetic nervous system pathway to control

the function of arteries and thereby contrib-

utes to high blood pressure.

“Now that we understand the role of

ouabain (EO), we can begin working on how

to modify this new pathway to help people

with cardiovascular problems,” said Dr.

Blaustein. “The potential for this is big.” Dr.

Blaustein, who has been doing research on

the substance since 1977, said medications

that block ouabain’s effects might improve

the lives of people with hypertension and

heart failure.

Dr. Leenen explains that there are new

drugs being tested in clinical studies that

can specifically block the Angiotensin II/EO

effect in the brain. He says these newer drugs

are just starting phase two trails. They

HEART FAILURE“Digoxin is in the same chemi-

cal class as ouabain – but the

body makes its own ouabain,

whereas digoxin is a derivative

of foxglove that has been used

for I don’t know how many

centuries. It’s used in heart

failure to increase the activity

of the heart – and get the

blood pumping. It’s not much

used anymore because it’s not

that effective. We have better

drugs now that regulate longer

as well. That is a different situ-

ation though – high blood

pressure than heart failure.

Even if some of the mecha-

nisms may be similar.”

– Dr. Frans Leenen

“Now that we understand the role of ouabain, we can begin working on how to modify this new pathway to help people with cardiovascular problems.”



basically prevent “that resetting in the brain of the sympa-

thetic nervous system to a higher level, leaving the acute

regulation intact. Once these drugs have been tried in healthy

volunteers – the phase one trials are done and the drugs

are determined safe, with no major side effects, one moves

to what’s called phase two A studies – small scale studies in

this case of people with high blood pressure. This develop-

ment may not have come directly out of our study, but they

are building on each other and that’s the way to look at it.

I am actually collaborating with one of the discoverers of

this new drug class,” says Leenen.

The research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of

Health Research, the National Institutes of Health, and the

University of Maryland School of Medicine. The paper,

“Neuroendocrine Humoral and Vascular Components in the

Pressor Pathway for Brain Angiotensin II: A New Axis in Long

Term Blood Pressure Control,” is available on the The

University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI) website

(www.ottawaheart.ca), as is a video of Dr. Frans Leenen

explaining the meaning of these recent findings.

The University of Ottawa Heart Institute is Canada’s

largest and foremost heart health centre dedicated to

understanding, treating and preventing heart disease. UOHI

delivers high-tech care with a personal touch, shapes the

way cardiovascular medicine is practised and revolutionizes

cardiac treatment and understanding. It builds knowledge

through research and translates discoveries into advanced

care. UOHI serves the local, national and international com-

munity and is pioneering a new era in heart health.

CHRONIC HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE“In the past, high blood pressure was a common cause

of heart failure. Now this is much less common,” say Dr.

Leenen. “Now heart failure is more due to heart attacks

which destroy the heart muscle and that’s quite a different

kind of thing. I rarely see anybody anymore with high

blood pressure induced heart failure. In North America

anyway – of course you can’t extrapolate that throughout

the world.

“We have to come up with better strategies to prevent

the blood pressure from going up in the first place. So this

is separate from heart failure issues, because chronic high

blood pressure results in a much broader consequence –

and for that you really have to understand what the mecha-

nisms are. And so in the past we would say whatever

happens in the brain would be all about the sympathetic

nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system is

crucial for acute second-to-second regulation of your blood

pressure in the biospheres of the brain that control the

acute regulation of EO that’s crucial for survival or living.

You have people who don’t have an effective sympathetic

nervous system anymore and they can barely stand because

the blood pressure would drop into their boots. When you

stand up there’s a potent reflex that prevents the blood

pressure from going down. So when you stand up you have

to think about gravity impacting on your body and if

nothing happened, all the blood would pool in your legs.”


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