Exciting News:

Agora has expanded its services and is now offering six additional programs!! Full Description coming soon....

Dr. Stefan Kuprowsky

Agora brings on Dr. Stefan Kuprowsky as their lead Naturopathic Doctor. Read more about Dr. Kuprowsky

14th Annual Mental Health Conference

Agora team members, John and Anne Louise Flaherty both participated as speakers at the 14th Annual Cross-Cultural Mental Health Conference.

As Consciousness Expands, Addictions Dissolve

John and Anne Louise Flaherty teach a practical, clear, simple and direct message:

As a person allows the unfolding of consciousness, unwanted addictive patterns of behaviour and limiting beliefs naturally give way to a more congruent and fulfilled experience of life

Read more about the conference here: Link

Visit Anne Louise and John's website: Link

Good as Gold

By Jennifer Croll

Shared Vision, October 2, 2008

Maggie Gold has a dilemma. “I’m trying to figure out the best way to organize this,” she says, flipping through a large notepad full of talking points. Maggie’s right: trying to cram her many health initiatives into a one-page profile is no easy feat.

The founder of Agora Regeneration Clinics, Maggie is a cancer survivor who healed herself with natural medicine, and a mother who lost a son to drugs. She opened Europe’s first natural medicine clinic in Madeira, Portugal, and founded the Integrated Medical Association of B.C., an organization that brings medical doctors and complementary practitioners together.

But what she’s best known for—a direct product of the loss of her son and her background in natural health—is launching Agora, Canada’s first (and only) naturopathic drug and alcohol detoxification centre.

“They absolutely love it. They feel brand-new,” Maggie says of the clinic’s clients, who boast a 70 per cent success rate. Agora combines methods such as acupuncture with intravenous amino acid therapy designed to repair the brain’s disrupted biochemical balance. The clinic operates on an outpatient basis, making treatment accessible. “Entrepreneurs and employees of companies don’t want to take 30 or 60 or 90 days out of their lives,” Maggie points out.

But she isn’t stopping there. She’s set up the Jason Dodd Wellness Foundation, which offers financial assistance to cash-strapped youth who want to enroll in Agora’s detox program. She also plans to expand Agora across Canada, as well as open the Agora Care Centre, a holistic clinic that will offer physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual treatments.

“It’s very exciting,” Maggie enthuses. And to think, she’s barely covered the first page of that jam-packed notebook.

link to original article

Maggie Gold and Dr. Aaron Van Gaver chat with Bill Good (Audio)

Maggie Gold and Dr. Aaron Van Gaver spoke with Bill Good on Vancouver's CKNW news talk radio. The interview lasted approximately 20 minutes. It began with a discussion about addiction and Agora, followed by phone calls from listeners.

Listen the audio below:

Part 1 (time - 8:43)

Part 2 (time - 9:57)

Amino-acid therapy claims massive success in treating drug addiction

By Travis Lupick

The Georgia Straight, November 15, 2007

Jay Dodd was travelling through Thailand in 2002 when he took the wrong drugs and died. Five years later, Dodd's mother has nearly completed the journey that began with her son's untimely death.

"He died in a drug-related death, and I was not able to do anything about that," Maggie Gold told the Georgia Straight. "He died of anaphylactic shock."

She continued, speaking softly in her Yaletown office: "You can't stop somebody from having anaphylactic shock, but there are so many other people out there who have got drug and alcohol challenges that maybe you can do something to help."

In 2002, Gold had been practising naturopathic medicine for 15 years. When her son died, she focused all her energy on researching addiction and eventually found something called amino-acid therapy.

On October 1 of this year, the Agora Regeneration Clinic opened in Vancouver. Amino-acid therapy has been offered in the United States and Mexico for more than a decade now, but Agora is the first private clinic to offer the therapy in Canada.

Gold said she did not believe that standard addiction therapies, cited in government reports with success rates averaging about 20 percent, were the best treatments available for drug and alcohol addiction. "I said, 'There has got to be another way; there has got to be something else'," she explained. "And that's when I went into the natural-medicine world to see what was there."

Agora's Cameron McIntyre, a naturopathic doctor, explained amino-acid therapy to the Straight. He said drug abuse damages neuroreceptors in the brain. That damage then makes a person more susceptible to addictive tendencies, reinforcing the cycle of drug abuse. What Agora does, McIntyre continued, is inject an amino-acid solution into the blood. The amino acids then repair damaged proteins in a drug user's brain, "basically giving the brain the chemicals that it is craving, but in a healthy way".

The result is a reestablishment of a healthy balance of neurochemistry. Withdrawal symptoms are reduced, and a patient's ability to make logical decisions about substance use is restored, McIntyre said.

Gold claimed that treatment centres across the U.S. that use amino-acid solutions similar to Agora's have a success rate of about 70 percent. However, because there has never been an independent study performed on the amino-acid therapy's impact on drug addiction, that number cannot be verified. "But even if it is half that, it's worth going through," she said. "If something does no harm, if it has anecdotal evidence that it works, why wouldn't we try it?"


When the Straight got Nicolas Huibers on his cellphone, he didn't sound like someone who had just emerged from five years of substance abuse. Laughing with his mother on their way home from Agora, Huibers was cautiously optimistic about his future.

"The last 10 days were good. I just kind of kept getting better and better," he said. "I've gone through a conventional residential treatment centre, and it nowhere near did what this kind of treatment did."

Huibers declined to comment on the details of his abuse problems but was happy to talk to the Straight about the treatment he had just undergone at Agora.

"The first couple of days, I was fairly tired," he began. "By day three and by day four, my mind was getting clearer; I was feeling much more healthy in the body and the mind." By days five and six, Huibers continued, cognitive abilities to reason and understand his addictive tendencies had noticeably improved.

Alongside the amino-acid therapy, with which Huibers was injected on a daily basis, Agora provided a string of complementary therapies designed to provide "the best possible option for all-natural drug and alcohol treatment", according to an Agora brochure.

On arrival at the clinic, Huibers said, he was given a complete naturopathic physical exam. During treatment, he spent time in an infrared sauna, underwent acupuncture, attended energy psychology sessions, and received massage therapy.

But the key to his treatment, Huibers claimed, was the amino-acid solution. "With the intravenous therapy, with getting the brain rebalanced, I noticed right away a clear and more accurate understanding of what I want, what I don't want, and [how] not to give in to those cravings," he said.

On his way home from 12 days at Agora, Huibers felt that he knew he did not want to be a substance abuser any more. "I feel like I've got my brain and body back," he said.

However, he acknowledged there was a tough road ahead, stressing that he planned to continue immediately with regular counselling sessions.


Huibers may be happy with Agora's approach to addiction so far. But when he spoke with the Straight he wasn't even a day out. What's more, he was only Agora's second patient.

Dr. Adam Frankel, assistant professor and Canada research chair in Drug Discovery at UBC, told the Straight that he was "highly skeptical" of Agora's treatment program.

"The problem is that they are not accounting for all of the other pathways that all of these natural amino acids can play into," he said. Frankel argued that when Agora injects the amino-acid tyrosine, for example, with the goal of producing a dopamine neurotransmitter, there is no guarantee that will actually happen. "That's not a good assumption to make, because tyrosine can be metabolized into a whole variety of different things in addition to dopamine," Frankel said.

Steve Sewell, program director for the National Organization for Recovering Alcoholics in the U.S., who, together with Dr. Dan Hepburn, designed the amino-acid solution used by Agora, claimed that there are ways of increasing the odds of a desired outcome. He said that his amino-acid solution includes vitamins and minerals that help direct the metabolization of amino acids into the desired proteins that will help repair the brain.

"We're basically giving the body what it needs to heal itself," he told the Straight in a phone interview from his office in Durango, Colorado. "I can't make any claims other than that."

Gold's plans for the future include starting a foundation in her son's name, which she hopes can raise money to pay for patients' treatment at Agora.

"We cannot solve the [Downtown] Eastside, because the Eastside is more than a drug and alcohol problem," she said. "But we can take people who want to get clean and run them through this program."

link to original article

Revolutionary Treatment for Drug and Alcohol Issues Coming to Canada

Vancouver, BC (October, 2007) - Agora Regeneration Clinics announce their revolutionary treatment for drug and alcohol detoxification, Neuroreceptor Repair and Regeneration (NRR) Protocol. October 1, 2007, the first clinic in Vancouver, BC will offer the Agora Protocol and will quickly expand across Canada with a franchise program.

Previously unavailable to the general public in Canada, the NRR Protocol proprietary formula creates an innovative and nurturing detoxification treatment based on examining the neurological aspects of chemical dependency and seeks to correct them at the source. This healing method of detoxification removes chemicals that often remain in recovering addicts and are largely responsible for dependency relapse. An intravenous infusion of specific amino acids, vitamins and minerals, satisfy and heal the damaged areas of the brain, and enable the body to flush out the addictive substances' stored metabolites.

Vancouver's own Maggie Gold, Agora CEO, is a woman on a mission. A few years ago, she lost her beloved son in a drug-related death and became determined to find a way to help with the ever-increasing numbers of people dealing with drug and alcohol issues. After much research and many discussions, she has developed a new approach to provide specific treatments yet to be included in current rehabilitation facilities.

"An essential benefit of the NRR Protocol is that detoxification is very gentle," explained Gold. "A large number of addicts fear the detoxification process because of how painful it can be. Fortunately, our integrated treatment significantly reduces these unpleasant withdrawal effects."

The North America industry standard for successful recovery is only 10 - 20%. Most drug and alcohol treatment programs emphasise the essential psychological component of recovery, their missing link is physical detoxification and brain chemistry. Gold said, "Unless the stored metabolites from drug or alcohol intake are completely eliminated and brain function is repaired and regenerated, addictive cravings continue and recovery remains a struggle."

Agora Regeneration Clinics addresses these issues by offering a unique and proprietary 10-day detoxification treatment combining:

Agora's Neuroreceptor Repair and Regeneration (NRR) Protocol to re-pattern neuroreceptors in the brain; eliminate craving for addictive substances, soothing erratic behavior, and improving short-term memory and cognitive abilities.

Far Infrared Sauna for gently deep cleansing toxins stored in the body's fatty tissue. Enables detoxification to proceed even when liver and kidneys are under toxic stress and unable to eliminate the toxins.

Programs include Naturopathic workup and treatment protocols, Energy Psychology, Sauna detoxification, and Massage therapy.

Who Needs Detox?

Many consider alcoholism and drug abuse to be largely issues of people who are marginalized and poverty stricken, the truth is that many professional people, especially in service work and in the film and television industry, struggle with addictions that go unrecognized for longer periods of time, because their apparent vocational and household successes disguise dysfunctional habits. Demographic group displaying the largest incidence of alcohol and drug dependency is 20 - 34 years olds, with some post-secondary education. Fortunately, this professional group is also a group more inclined to seek detoxification and recovery programs to gain control of their lives, and more inclined to be successful in doing so because they often have good support nets of family and colleagues.

About Agora Regeneration Clinics Ltd.

Developed by Vancouver based social entrepreneur and visionary, Maggie Gold, Agora Regeneration Clinics is a new and innovative source of drug and alcohol detoxification. Agora is truly a professional, world-class, integrated health resource designed to address the growing demand for informed, comprehensive and customized health care. The clinics' signature approach combines natural medicine, healing, personal and spiritual development and educational programming to conquer alcohol and drug dependency.

Contact:

Agora Regeneration Clinics Ltd.
Maggie Gold, C.E.O.
604.688.6848
maggie@agoraforlife.net