Tapering - Is Bio-Reduction Therapy a scam?

[adzket]

it is done thru acupunture points though, and as swim mention in one of the posts that was deleted when they have acupunture done on there ears it has helped with withdrawel syptoms. help relax them, get rid of anxiaty. feel generaly alot beter. swim can not say if this is a plecebo effect or not. also they understand this idea with sound waves but does not understand how they recon they can do this. plus as has been mentioned it is worrying that you are arount temptation during and after treatment plus no help to deal with issues. is worrying swiy would have to have major will power if they had that they would not need help in first place. would like to thank every one who has added to this discusion.

[johngalt]

Hey Alfa and all other DFers

I'm sure you are not worried about threats from Tony Wilk at New Ways Clinic but in case you were, here's the facts you need.

New Ways Clinic is run by Tony Wilk and his brother Andy Wilk. But if you google for them under these names, you'll draw a blank. If however you look for Antoni and Andrei Wilk, which are there given names, you'll hit the paydirt.

Previously, the Wilk brothers use to own a franchise business called Drivertime Recruitment Ltd.

In 2006 the Wilk brothers were disqualified from being Directors of Companies after their company, Drivertime Recruitment Ltd was wound up by a court order. http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file34501.pdf

The Autumn 2004 edition of Corporate Recovery And Insolvency Bulletin reported on the Court Case which led to the winding up of the company. It highlighted the measures that the Wilks went to conceal their interest in the business, and said “They presented prospective franchisees with false marketing material which claimed that they had regional networks and established blue chip clients both of which proved not to be true. They provided none of the promised support or advertising to franchisees and the sample sales and gross profit figures were fabricated by the brothers for the sole reason of selling these franchises.”
http://nt4992.vs.netbenefit.com/resources/pdf/CorporateRecoveryInsolvencyBulletin.pdf

The bulletin linked above also said
“The individuals in charge of the companies, Antoni and Andrei Wilk (“the Wilks”), were neither registered as directors or employees of either company. They described themselves as “consultants” and went to great lengths to conceal their control over the companies by having as shareholders and/or directors of both companies, their other and one of their wives (using their maiden names).
All of the franchisees who gave evidence had serious criticisms of the Wilks and their methods. Some had invested and lost their life savings and many have disputes with the companies and were seeking damages for
misrepresentation. The franchisees were led to believe that they were buying into a very successful franchise business, which was not the case. Whilst they were under investigation the Wilks lied to the investigator in the hope that the very high failure rate of its franchisees would not be discovered.”
http://nt4992.vs.netbenefit.com/resources/pdf/CorporateRecoveryInsolvencyBulletin.pdf

All of this puts the Wilks at something of a disadvantage should they seek to sue anyone - the issue of their honesty has already been called in to question.

After the closure of the Drivertime business, the Wilks appear to have bought a bioresonance machine and set up their website.

They rely heavily on the internet to promote their treatment, and have a long history of posting listings, reviews, testimonials under a variety of names. When anyone posts anything derogatory they launch in to legal threats or abuse. This has worked reasonably well for them to date: posts tend to get deleted for a while so unfortunately people looking up New Ways Clinic can't get the truth. Ben Goldacre on the Bad Science website is also currently receiving threats from the Wilk brothers so DF is in good company.

http://www.badscience.net/2005/11/wh...#comment-28584

The 'science' is bogus on a number of levels. The key claim for bioresonance as peddled by the Wilks is that they can identify the frequency of drugs of abuse, then by inverting that frequency, broadcast the inverted frequency in to the body to cancel out the drug, thus eradicating it and leaving no trace.

It's hard to know where to start when challenging the bogus nature of their claims. The bigger the lie, the harder sometimes to dismantle.

In terms of debunking the science, it's hokum of so many levels.

Take for example the line quoted earlier:

"For example, cocaine responds to a high specific pulse frequency of 78Hz and heroin 90Hz. By reversing these frequencies it is possible to cancel their effects so the body craves less substance without severe withdrawal."

This is arrant nonsense on so many fronts: the first is of course that in the UK brown (base heroin) is invariably acidified and turned from a base to a salt for injection. So even if it had a "frequency" (which is debatable) then it would change when it was acidified.

But as anyone with half an idea about drugs knows, heroin (diacetyl morphine) doesn't reach the brain; it needs to be deactlyised for the morphine to reach the brain. And again morphine would have a different frequency, if drugs had a frequency.

Alternatively, think of cannabis as an example: Testing "cannabis" to identify its frequency is probably bogus to start with. But even if this were possible, it wouldn't identify the frequencies of the psychoactive components - THC, CBD et al.

Likewise testing diazepam for its frequency ignores the fact that diazepam is metabolised in to the psychoactive and long lasting metabolite nor-diazepam - which presumably would have its own frequency.

Further, simply removing the drugs - either chemically or through some bogus radio transmitter - wouldn't normalise the brain's levels of dopamine, endorphines or noradrenaline. Nor would it eradicate the learned behaviours that come with dependency. The idea of the bioresonance treatment for addiction is lie piled on lie piled on lie. And peddled by two people with a history of lieing.

If there really a machine capable of removing specific chemicals from the body it could be set to erase (for example) potassium - and then a person would rapidly die. It would be the most dangerous weapon imaginable. Which is why it is only an imaginary machine.

So there is no evidence that drugs can be erased by inverting their frequency, or even that they have their own frequency.

And even if this were true, it wouldn't allow for the identification and erasing of active metabolites;

And even if this were true it wouldn't represent a cure for addiction...

I hope DF will be able to stand firm against the threats and tirades of the New Ways boys. It's important that anyone searching for treatment can find this and similar threads and know what they would be spending their money on.

JG

Reputation Comments on this post:

	excellent contribution with references
	fantastic contribution to the discussion, thanks
	easily the most informative post thusfar re:NWC & the validity of Bio-Reduction "Therapy"
	Excellent information and welcome to the forum.

[Alfa]

Thanks for this great contribution John. I have merged your original post into the above posts, so that it contains the reference links.

You now have silver status, which means you can edit your post. Please check if you want to make one text out of it.

A warm welcome and thanks for digging this up.

[helene]

Fantastic debunking of fraudulent claims people. Well done all!

Originally Posted by Spucky

Do somebody know how high to Dose can be in the UK. (the Web say 80mg.?)
Because in Switzerland they start with a Dose of only 20mg. Methadone!

Generally speaking, they start you on 30mg a day methadone, and then increase it by about 10mg a day until you're at the required dose.

I'm not sure what the legal requirements are on maximum initial dosage, but 30mg seems to have been adopted as the standard starting amount. Which is odd, when you think about it, as less than 30mg can quite easily represent a lethal dose for an opiate-naive adult.

H

[Spucky]

Originally Posted by helene

Generally speaking, they start you on 30mg a day methadone, and then increase it by about 10mg a day until you're at the required dose.


H

It was a question related for a Detox with this Bio-Resonance-Therapy!

Is "Pro-Adicta" http://www.proadicta.ch/ the same scam with a different name?

[ThirdEyeFloond]

Originally Posted by Spucky

Is "Pro-Adicta" http://www.proadicta.ch/ the same scam with a different name?

It doesn't appear to be although I've only read the english abstract. They seem focused only on opioid addiction and the described method of using electrostimulation to make the body release natural beta-endorphines is documented in the scientific litterature.

Development of opioid tolerance with repeated transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation administration


Prasant Chandran and Kathleen A. Sluka,

Graduate Program in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, Neuroscience Graduate Program, Pain Research Program, 2600 Steindler Building, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA

Received 13 June 2002; accepted 2 October 2002. ; Available online 23 January 2003.
Abstract

The analgesia produced by low and high frequency transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is mediated by the release of μ- or δ-opioids, respectively in the central nervous system. Repeated administration of either μ- or δ-opioid agonists induce opioid analgesic tolerance. Thus, we tested if repeated administration of TENS (either low or high frequency) in rats leads to a development of tolerance to its antihyperalgesic effects with a corresponding cross-tolerance to μ- and δ-opioid agonists. Unilateral knee joint inflammation (3% carrageenan) was induced in adult Sprague–Dawley rats. Either low (4 Hz) or high frequency (100 Hz) TENS was administered for 6 days (20 min daily) to the inflamed knee joint under halothane anesthesia. The no TENS controls were administered anesthesia only for the same period. Withdrawal threshold to mechanical stimuli was measured before and after administration of TENS on each day and also on the sixth day. A separate group of animals was tested for tolerance to either the μ-opioid agonist, morphine (1.32, 3.95, 13.2 nmol/10 ml, intrathecal (i.t.)) or the δ-opioid agonist, SNC-80 (6, 20, 60, 120 nmol/10 ml, i.t.) 30 min after i.t. administration. The reduced mechanical withdrawal threshold following the induction of inflammation was reversed by the application of TENS. However, repeatedly administering either low or high frequency TENS for 6 days, lead to a diminution in its effectiveness in reversing the ipsilateral secondary mechanical hyperalgesia by the fourth day. The effects of morphine in the low and SNC-80 in the high frequency TENS groups were significantly less than the group that did not receive TENS. On the other hand, morphine and SNC-80 were similar to the no TENS control in the high and low frequency TENS groups, respectively. Thus, repeated administration of low and high frequency TENS leads to a development of opioid tolerance with a corresponding cross-tolerance to i.t. administered μ- and δ-opioid agonists, respectively. Clinically, it can be inferred that a treatment schedule of repeated daily TENS administration should be avoided to possibly obviate the induction of tolerance.

J Pak Med Assoc. 2008 Dec;58(12):667-71.
A randomized effectiveness trial of methadone, TENS and methadone plus TENS in management of opiate withdrawal symptoms.

Bakhshani NM, Lashkaripour K, Sadjadi SA.

Psychiatric and Clinical Psychology Department, School of Medicine, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran.

OBJECTIVE: To compare effectiveness of methadone, TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) and methadone+ TENS in management of opiate withdrawal symptoms. METHODS: The study was conducted in Zahedan Psychiatric center in 2005. Forty five opiate addicted men meeting DSM-IV criteria for substance dependency disorder participated in the study after informed consent. The subjects were randomly assigned to 3 treatment groups. Patients of first group were given 20-60 mg methadone daily, tapered over a period of 2 weeks. Patients of second group received daily 10-30 mg methadone, tapered similar to first group in combination with TENS treatment. The other 15 patients (third group) experienced low frequency (2 Hz) TENS for two weeks. RESULTS: There was no statistically significant difference in severity and number of withdrawal symptoms between the 3 groups prior to the start of treatments. But, severity and number of symptoms were significantly higher in TENS group (third group) in third day. In addition, 10 patients of TENS-group left the treatment programme after 5 days. The results showed that methadone only and Methadone plus TENS for the management of opioid detoxification were effective treatments. The comparison of number and severity of withdrawal symptoms in the methadone group and methadone+TENS group by seventh day didn't show significant differences. But, number and severity of withdrawal symptoms in methadone+TENS group were significantly lower than methadone group during tenth and fourteenth days. CONCLUSION: The results provide support for the use of methadone alone and methadone plus TENS for managing opiate withdrawal, but TENS by itself has no significant effect on withdrawal symptoms. However, TENS in combination with a moderate dose of methadone could reduce severity of withdrawal symptoms effectively.

Suppression of cue-induced heroin craving and cue-reactivity by single-trial transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation at 2 Hz.

Zhong F, Wu LZ, Han JS.

Neuroscience Research Institute, Department of Neurobiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of 2 Hz transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) to reduce cue-induced heroin craving and the corresponding cardiovascular responses. Seventy heroin addicts with at least 1 month of abstinence were enrolled and randomly divided into two groups of 35, to receive single-trial 2 Hz TENS (TENS group) or mock TENS (mock group) during experimental procedure, respectively. They were required to express their degree of craving by visual analog scale before and after the presentation of a video-cue, and after TENS treatment, which lasted for 30 minutes. Heart rate and arterial blood pressure were simultaneously monitored in 56 cases, with 28 in each group. Results show that in mock group, video-cue induced a dramatic increase of craving score, which did not return to baseline in 150 minutes, whereas in the TENS group, 2 Hz TENS treatment produced a significant decrease of craving, reaching baseline in 90 minutes. Video-cue induced a significant increase of heart rate and systolic and diastolic blood pressure, which remained elevated for at least 60 minutes in the mock group; whereas in the TENS group, they returned to baseline immediately after the termination of TENS. These results indicate that the craving induced by a heroin-related cue can be immediately and significantly suppressed, and the cardiovascular activation totally abolished by a single-trial 2 Hz TENS for 30 minutes.

Addict Biol. 2008 Mar;13(1):47-51.
Chronic morphine-induced neuronal morphological changes in the ventral tegmental area in rats are reversed by electroacupuncture treatment.

Chu NN, Xia W, Yu P, Hu L, Zhang R, Cui CL.

Neuroscience Research Institute, Peking University, China.

The aim of this study was to observe the effect of electroacupuncture (EA) on chronic morphine-induced neuronal morphological changes in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) in rats at electron-microscopic level. Fourteen days of administering escalating doses of morphine induced pathological morphological changes of neurons in the VTA: the rough endoplasmic reticulum swelled, membrane configuration of the nucleus and mitochondria blurred, and structure of myelin sheath changed. Both 2 and 100 Hz EA treatment reversed the morphological alterations induced by chronic morphine administration. The findings provide new evidence that EA may serve as a potential therapy in treating opiate addiction.

Suppression of morphine withdrawal by electroacupuncture in rats: dynorphin and kappa-opioid receptor implicated.

Wu LZ, Cui CL, Tian JB, Ji D, Han JS.

Neuroscience Research Institute, Beijing Medical University, China.

Our previous work has demonstrated that 100-Hz electroacupuncture (EA) or 100-Hz transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) was very effective in ameliorating the morphine withdrawal syndrome in rats and humans. The mechanism was obscure. (1) Rats were made dependent on morphine by repeated morphine injections (5-140 mg/kg, s.c., twice a day) for eight days. They were then given 100-Hz EA for 30 min 24 h after the last injection of morphine. A marked increase in tail flick latency (TFL) was observed. This effect of 100-Hz EA could be blocked by naloxone (NX) at 20 mg/kg, but not at 1 mg/kg, suggesting that 100-Hz EA-induced analgesia observed in morphine-dependent rats is mediated by kappa-opioid receptors. (2) A significant decrease of the concentration of dynorphin A (1-17) immunoreactivity (-ir) was observed in the spinal perfusate in morphine-dependent rats, that could be brought back to normal level by 100-Hz EA. (3) 100-Hz EA was very effective in suppressing NX-precipitated morphine withdrawal syndrome. This effect of EA could be prevented by intrathecal administration of nor-BNI (2.5 micrograms/20 microliters), a kappa-opioid receptor antagonist, or dynorphin A (1-13) antibodies (25 micrograms/20 microliters) administered 10 min prior to EA. In conclusion, while the steady-state spinal dynorphin release is low in morphine-dependent rats, it can be activated by 100-Hz EA stimulation, which may be responsible for eliciting an analgesic effect and ameliorating morphine withdrawal syndrome, most probably via interacting with kappa-opioid receptor at spinal level.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Very interesting post/abstract.