The practice and science of natural medicine

Integrative Health &
Applied Nutrition
magazine (IHCAN)

Since 2002, Integrative Healthcare & Applied Nutrition magazine (formerly known as CAM magazine) has kept professional practitioners in-the-loop every month with its mix of news, views and fully referenced features.

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IHCAN magazine June 2023 cover
The practice and science of natural medicine

 Integrative Health &
Applied Nutrition
magazine (IHCAN)

Since 2002, Integrative Healthcare & Applied Nutrition magazine (formerly known as CAM magazine) has kept professional practitioners in-the-loop every month with its mix of news, views and fully referenced features.
IHCAN magazine February 2024 cover

Editor’s note –
May 2025

“All food is processed, but some foods are more processed than others”

Some bizarre quotes appeared in the Daily Mail. “’All food is processed food to some degree and there are many different ways this can be done. And not all processing or additives are harmful,’ adds Prof William Li, who according to the Mail, “works with food manufacturers and researches ways to improve nutritional value of food”.

“All food is processed food…”? About what you’d expect from someone tied to the junk food industry.

What they’ve done here is played around with language. As they do. UFOs (unidentified flying objects) have become UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena), which opens the way for them to be discussed as strange weather. We all know what junk food is. But they changed it to “ultra processed foods”, and now the discussion is that “all foods are processed, but some are more processed than others”. This is the food equivalent of George Orwell’s “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” (Animal Farm, 1945).

Yes, meat is “processed”; vegetables are picked and washed = “processed”; baked potato – “processed” (that’s direct from Harvard – surprise, surprise); milk and eggs – we don’t get them straight from our animal friends do we? “Processed”. Cheese? Highly processed.

Here’s Li on his blog: “It is generally assumed that processed foods are those that have been stripped of all nutritional merit and are riddled with harmful additives. But according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the term ‘processed’ refers to any food that has undergone a ‘change in character.’.

“In today’s world”, he says, “it would be nearly impossible to eradicate processed foods from your diet altogether. And, in reality, there is little need to. What is important is understanding the difference between ‘processed’ and ‘ultra-processed’”.

No. The only important thing is to know the difference between junk food and real food. And we were all clear about that before you people decided to confuse the issue. By the USDA definition, all cooked food is “processed”.

What this fiddling with the language leads to is this misinformed drivel, to quote from the Mail again: “Sian Porter, a dietitian and spokesman for the British Dietetic Association (which has previously partnered with food manufacturers), is among those who argue ‘much of the evidence linking UPFs with serious health conditions fails to identify clear cause and effect’”.

This is so obviously bonkers that I won’t rip into it.

To give him credit, Li disagrees with the BDA. “Multiple studies have illustrated that consuming high levels of ultra-processed foods can increase the risk of chronic conditions such as cancer, type 2 diabetes, celiac disease, and more”, he says. “One study that began in 2009 found that for every 10% increase in ultra-processed foods consumed, participants’ risk of cardiovascular disease increased by 12% and their risk of coronary heart disease increased by 13%.

“And it is not only snack foods and frozen meals that can be ultra-processed. Deli meats and other far-from-nature forms of animal protein like hot dogs are extraordinarily processed and can have severe harmful effects. In fact, the WHO has acknowledged these forms of meat as a major contributor to colorectal cancer and classifies them as carcinogenic to humans”. (Refs online.)…

...Read more...

Yes, I know it’s long, but…

Nitric oxide (NO) is so important, so fundamental to our understanding of health and disease, that I make no excuses for letting the genius Dr Nathan Bryan lay out the WHOLE story for us in one big 16-page exposition.

Well actually I am making excuses, I suppose, but really this is a must-read, so gear up and prepare to be amazed. (Starts on page 42.)

It’s conversational, not academic, mostly easy reading with only a few technical bits – and there are LOTS of graphics!

What we can do for migraineurs

Migraines are so severe that not many sufferers would think that we could help them. Or as Ben Brown, in characteristic down-to-earth style puts it: “They want a shot of morphine! When they’re in bed, puking in the dark, they’re not thinking about taking some B vitamins!”

Likewise, most of us don’t know we have some powerful interventions – from a keto diet to single nutrients like riboflavin, PEA and creatine – that could literally change the lives of migraine sufferers. Ben has uncovered a wealth of evidence that for some reason has never seen the light.

What I loved about this interview  is Ben’s idea to look at migraine as a brain energy problem. The headache is paralysing – it isolates the sufferer in bed, in the dark, forcing a retreat from all the triggers and stimulation that have overloaded the brain – perhaps causing the brain’s mitochondria to “burn out” – and giving it a chance to recover and repair. What a brilliant natural healing mechanism!

Great practical takeaways and much food for thought (page 26).

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“I consider IHCAN magazine to be a good reference source because the authors
are reputable, sound-thinking experienced clinicians. I read it to keep
up-to-date with current trends. Keep up the good work!”

Susan Farrer

We’re always fully referenced

We don’t put a big emphasis on being “evidence based” in the conventional sense, mainly because the bulk of the evidence used in meta analyses and systematic reviews and to produce “guidelines” is not to be trusted. As Prof Richard David Feinman puts it, the meta-analysis is the “most dangerous” activity plaguing modern medical literature. And RCTs are of no use in assessing complex conditions that we address with multiple interventions – such as Dr Dale Bredesen’s Alzheimer’s protocol. Likewise, we highly value the hard-won clinical experience of multiple practitioners accumulated over the years and handed down over generations of evolving natural medicine practice. That said, we do put a lot of effort into referencing our features. References are online to save space, available within our members area.

We’re always fully referenced

We don’t put a big emphasis on being “evidence based” in the conventional sense, mainly because the bulk of the evidence used in meta analyses and systematic reviews and to produce “guidelines” is not to be trusted. As Prof Richard David Feinman puts it, the meta-analysis is the “most dangerous” activity plaguing modern medical literature. And RCTs are of no use in assessing complex conditions that we address with multiple interventions – such as Dr Dale Bredesen’s Alzheimer’s protocol. Likewise, we highly value the hard-won clinical experience of multiple practitioners accumulated over the years and handed down over generations of evolving natural medicine practice. That said, we do put a lot of effort into referencing our features. References are online to save space, available within our members area.

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