In my review of Petrene Soames' book The Essence of Self-Healing, I quipped that she has more courage than I to predict that serious illnesses such as cancer, stroke and Alzheimer's would be eradicated between the years 2030 and 2040.

In my opinion, based upon reading widely from complementary and orthodox sources, I believe that we could progress a great deal faster with these life-threatening conditions if the huge clinical knowledge bases from the complementary and allopathic professions were used together, instead of remaining as they still largely do two solitudes.

It has become almost a cliché to complain about the explosion of information and the human impossibility for clinicians to keep up with developments in their own field, let alone to discover what colleagues in totally different disciplines have been publishing. I can certainly attest to this state of affairs, as I spend a huge amount of time devoted to reading (sometimes just turning the pages) of the numerous journals, magazines, books and other sources of information from complementary medicine (this means at least 10 different fields), as well as reviewing the published research from the orthodox world from which we compile the Research Updates for Positive Health.

In this issue of Positive Health alone, we publish Anne McIntyre's column about clinical applications for turmeric, including serious published research regarding its application for antimicrobial and antihelminthic applications, liver detoxification, lowering of cholesterol levels, inhibiting blood clotting, anti-inflammatory purposes, and anti-cancer (cervical, melanoma, colon and breast).

There is also the ground-breaking development by James Zhou PhD of a herbal liquid formula based on Chinese mushroom-derived polysaccharides for treating liver viral infections. This article also reviews the literature about clinical applications of Chinese mushrooms for anti-cancer activity, arthritis, lupus and psoriasis, liver protective properties, lowering blood pressure, anti-cholesterolaemic, anti- microbial and antiviral applications (herpes and HIV), anti-inflammatory and immune modulatory actions.

A further beacon onto future potential treatments is described in Peter Smith's Glyconutrients - The Missing Link a thorough review of how sugar (saccharide) moieties, attached to proteins (glycoproteins), carbohydrates (oligosaccharide glycoforms) and lipids play a profound role in vital cell to cell communications. Again the list of clinical applications is impressive: cancer (leukaemia, pancreatic, liver, ovarian, endometrial, prostate, urinary tract, lung and breast), arthritis, diabetes, allergy symptoms, viral conditions, cystic fibrosis, ulcerative colitis Crohn's disease.

From my perspective as a research scientist who nowadays spends more of her time communicating the results of research to a fairly wide audience of professionals and serious general readers, I surmise that the majority of oncologists or rheumatologists treating cancer patients don't read the latest herbal or Chinese medicine or non-drug nutritional journals. They probably struggle to keep up with the narrow range of journals in their particular field of oncology or arthritis, as well as treat their patients.

The problem, as I see it, is that patients suffer for not being informed of other treatment developments for their condition, and not having these other treatment modalities offered. This includes the use of flower essences for rheumatoid arthritis (see Flower Remedies - How They Can Help in Arthritis), the use of hypnotherapy for irritable bowel syndrome (see Case Study by Carol Squire), or even Sports Massage - A Therapy for All by Wrio Russell.

When one considers the huge number of people affected by stroke, arthritis, cancer (over 250,000 new cases of cancer diagnosed each year, over 150,000 deaths from cancer each year), then it is blindingly obvious how massive the cost, in terms of pain, suffering, disability and death is the failure to treat fully and ameliorate the symptoms of treatment using every clinical modality available.

It is heart wrenching to view documentaries about people suffering from diseases such as cancer and see people grappling with the side effects from brutal chemotherapy or radiotherapy because there is nothing else on offer. Even if these treatments are the treatments of choice, I hazard an educated guess that many complementary modalities could offer serious alleviation from the suffering from cancer treatments.

In the next issue I would like to expound upon my prescriptive vision for the bona fide integration of all medical treatments.