Integrative Endocrinology: The Rhythms of Life Review

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(More customer reviews)Author Dr. Donald Beans goal was to write a general overview book on diagnosing and treating endocrine disorders using an integrative approach. The book was written for health care professionals or motivated patients.He has done a very good job of meeting this goal. What makes this book unique is that it is a broad compilation ofhealing modalities for each endocrine gland.

Beans overall philosophy is centered on rebuilding the worn out gland so it will return back to normal function. He talks about hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and how it causes the gland to atrophy.He says "The use of exogenous hormones is the creation of a pharmacological effect, not nutritive, healing, or rebuilding effect."However, he does acknowledge that in certain cases HRT is necessary.

The book gives a general overview to the following healing modalities:

Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Gland Cell therapy, Manipulative therapy, Nutrition, Western Herbal medicine, neural Therapy, Color therapy, Chinese medicinal, Sound Therapy, Reflexology, and Iridology.

There is enough here to whet your appetite. But again, it is a general overview and those needing more detail would require further study.

A chapter is dedicated for each gland of the endocrine system where function, testing and treatment is described.The various healing modalities are listed with information on how to apply them.Some areas provide specific detail where others are left general.For example, in the acupuncture, glandular and manipulative therapy areas very specific details are consistently presented. When it comes to areas such as Western herbals and Chinese medicine, specific dosages and frequencies are often omitted..I assume this is where a general model cannot apply and the practitioner needs to use judgment in each case.I did find it odd that nutrition or dietary considerations were frequently omitted from these chapters as Dr. Beans views nutrition as the foundation of any integrative endocrinology program.

Dr.Beans speaks to nutrition in its own chapter and specifically addresses supplementation and food.He simply states "Food as whole, raw and natural is best". He advocates taking supplements that come from whole foods versus a synthetic source. He goes on to say that synthetic supplements may cause a pharmacological effect.He expresses concerns with the origin of synthetic supplements. As an example he states currently 90% of the vitamin C produced in the world comes from Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturers.He is not specific, but I assume he is concerned with overall quality much more so than a supply chain interruption. Both are legitimate concerns.

Dr. Beans anticipates critics coming from an allopathic background will discredit many of the methods presented as they are not proven by current medical testing standard (the double blind, placebo, crossover trial). He points to the many patients that have been helped for years with these methods. He also references a study done by the Office of Technology and Assessment on evaluating medical practices in the USA.In 1978 they concluded the following: "Only 10 to 20 percent ofall procedures currently used in medical practice have been shown to be efficacious by controlled trial"I assume this office has not reproduced this study and it is the most current. Nonetheless, this information is compelling enough. He goes a bit deeper into this topic.

One of the more interesting topics for me was that of Oral Tolerance (OT) and Protomorphology (PM).These are methods used to treat autoimmune conditions by feeding the body orally what the immune system is undesirably attacking.The autoimmune attack is directed from the gland and onto the glandular material digested.The concept is similar to a sacrificial anode in a water heater where corrosion is directed from the tank to the anode,
The difference between OT and PM is that OT uses the whole glandular while Protomophology (PM) uses only the nucleolus of the glandular material. Dr. Beans states that the PM processes has better success in treating autoimmune conditions than OT. My disappointment is that there are no case studies provided showing the results of treating an autoimmune condition with either OT or PM glandulars.Dr. Beans will reference specific glandular products made by the Standard Process Company throughout the book. The process for manufacturing glandulars made with only the nucleus was developed by the founder of the Standard Process Company. The company's sales policy is to sell only to health care practitioners.If you don't qualify as a health care practitioner, you can't directly buy their products.

Overall this is a very good book on an important topic and the author has covered his objective.It is an overview book but it gives enough information so a trained practitioner can apply techniques ormake an intelligent referral. As someone who has an interest in this topic and practices Reflexology and Reiki, I found it informative enough. I feel it is a good addition to my library.I do have some disappointments that prevent me from saying it is an excellent book.In short I wish more nutritional information was provided for each gland.I also wish there were more case histories.Including conditions that are more common these days such as Hashimoto's, Lupus, and PTSD.There is one case history on PTSD but it is on a dog.I have no problem with this. However, it would be more beneficial to most readers having a human case history as well.Putting this book together obviously took a tremendous amount of work and I congratulate Dr. Beans in doing so. My hope is that he will update these areas in a future revision.

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Product Description:

This book explains the treatment of endocrine disorders using natural therapies. Donald Beans provides the reader with everything there is to know to treat endocrine disorders without hormones. This book outlines the function of the endocrine glands and the testing of their function including clinical laboratory evaluation and bedside diagnosis. This is the first book to include the entire endocrine system and many natural therapies in one text, thus allowing the practitioner an unprecedented insight into endocrine treatment. Integrative Endocrinology discusses, in depth, the fundamental philosophical difference between hormone replacement therapy and integrative endocrinology. Natural therapies include acupuncture, gland cell therapy, homeopathy, herbal medicine, and a number of other methods. This book is of great value to health professionals, students and scholars in integrative medicine, alternative medicine and endocrinology. It is also valuable as a self help handbook for the motivated non-professional.

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