Disbelief

Disbelief?
By H. Bernard Wechsler

The headline of the scientific story reads – Mint Pain-Killer Takes Leaf out of Ancient Medical Texts

Disclaimer: the writer is not a fan of alternative-medicines which are often the modern name for Cancer Quacks of the 19th Century. Still, we suggest an open mind to evaluate scientific research.

A legitimate scientific journal called – Current Biology – published the research by Dr. Rory Mitchell and Professor Susan Fleetwood-Walker, of the University of Edinburgh, on August 22, 2006 – about chronic-pain relief.

The use of cooling chemicals with Mint Oil properties, applied to the skin, produces a chronic pain-killing effect for suffers of arthritis and nerve damage.

The Rest of the Story

These researchers got their idea from Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician practicing about 500 B.C., and Chinese medicine of two millennia ago. The ancients did not have antibiotics or psychiatrists, and had to improvise.

The Greek physicians healed their patients with cool water and ice applies to the skin. They wrote that chronic pain was extinguished by these cooling applications, and specifically recommended this procedure for sprain, joint-pain and inflammation.

Chinese physicians got paid for prolonging and maintaining the health of their patients, not for curing illness. They prescribed Mint Oil for their chronically pained patients; it was applied topically to alleviate symptoms of arthritis, rheumatism, and nerve damage – picture Christopher Reeves.

This Research produced a discovery of a Receptor that spiked the pain-signal to the brain. TRPMS is the protein-receptor activated by cooling chemicals or temperature; it interferes with chronic-pain by inhibiting the pain message from the local area to the brain.

Unless you have experienced chronic-pain that is unrelenting, 24/7, such as rheumatism, arthritis or nerve damage, you will not sing-and-dance about this discovery. You should.