“I had hoped to change arthritis treatment because the traditional treatments are, in my opinion, a violation of the physician’s Hippocratic oath to ‘Do no harm.” As Jason does, I too feel that the medical profession tactfully avoids the root causes of disease and only acts in the best interests of those signing their fancy-car-buying paychecks—”…in the long run they simply cover up the symptoms while the disease progresses further.”

These maskers of symptoms and villains of the real world can be identified as painkillers and anti-inflammatory medications. I had a hard time choosing between this book and another book when choosing an author I would like to collaborate with. One book offered all of the ‘alternative’ insight one could handle and the other—this one—,unlike the first, offered both insight and the actual breakdown of the disease process.

I hesitatingly chose this one because Jason approaches this—at least what I thought after reading the review and chapter breakdown—with the mindset that osteoarthritis can be thwarted with a set of natural-medical supplements—”…since they are substances we already consume, and also produce in very small quantities  in our bodies, glucosamine and chondroitin have no significant side effects.” I knew, prior to beginning the journeyed read, that these ‘supplements’ were natural bodily mediators and or found in the food we eat…

…but I didn’t know how important they were to any effect. Doctors can shove small-paper-cupped pills into your field-of-vision and towards your grasping hands, but unless you understand their function, you will be no better at improving your health. Understanding involves a realization of the bodily process and how this drug and or supplement interacts with that bodily process—understanding is not a realization or verbal acceptance of doctor’s, nurse’s, etc… surge of words. Their words are almost always more effective at combating the disease because their words are scapegoats of mental relief.

I am no advocate for the use of any supplements or medications, but the message offered within his book elevates them to another level. If you go too far, these supplements may be beneficial, but the true and underlying message is that one should never have to go ‘too far.’

POPULATION

70 Million Americans—one in every three

• 60% of over-65 Americans—expected to double
• 3 out of 5 of those under 65—”…not a disease just for the elderly.”
• 10-20 years before noticeable symptoms
• Leading cause of disability—17%
• Age, obesity, diabetes, and joint injuries increase the numbers/risk

WHAT IS OSTEOARTHRITIS?

A quick break down reveals….—cartilage or the cushions at the ends of the afflicted joints degenerates; bone spurs and cysts may then develop and the structures around the joint—tendons, ligaments, and muscles—become strained and or inflamed—…but at a closer glance, one can come to see why Jason recommends these supplements over the current medication regimen and why studies fail to disclaim this evidence.

THREE MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT OSTEOARTHRITIS

1. Normal part of aging.
2. Simply a ‘wear and tear’ disease.
3. Cannot be halted or reversed.

PARTS OF A JOINT

• Joint capsule—a tough membrane that connects one bone to another.
• Synovial membrane—secretes synovial fluid.
• Articular cartilage—absorbs shock/slick surface.
• Ligaments—attach bones to bones.
• Tendons—attach muscles to bones.
• Muscles
• Bursae—fluid-filled sacs that provide cushion.

ARTICULAR CARTILAGE

Composed of somewhere between 65 and 85% of water, cartilage is designed with two functions in mind:

1. Reduction of bone-on-bone friction.
2. Blunting the constant trauma of daily life.

Jason compares this cartilage to ice—like two flat ice cubes rubbing together, but 5-8 times more slippery. As for the rest of its composition:

• Collagen—elasticity, absorbs shock, and acts as a glue to hold proteoglycans together.
• Proteoglycans
• Made of protein and sugars.
• Resilient—bounce back when stretched and rapidly absorb synovial fluid (sponge).
• Chondrocytes
• Produce new collagen and proteoglycans.
• Enzymes remove the old ones.

In essence, joint cartilage functions as a sponge with synovial fluid being soaked up at rest and squeezed out with movement and pressure. Take a moment and visualize yourself walking, running, or participating in any form of movement. Our movement tends to behave in a dual nature in that it has an active state and a resting state—so as you walk, one side is squeezing out its synovial juices and the other is drinking it back up.

It is the chondroitin molecules’ magnetic effect that prevents these bodily sponges from flattening so easily like the one in your sink. These negatively charged molecules repel one another—just like the opposite poles of magnets do when you try to force them together—and this builds pressure and an even greater force of repel. It is the disuse, misuse, and environmental bombardment that can disrupt this process.

PHYSICAL STRESS ON YOUR JOINTS

“We do know that above a certain threshold, physical impact can cause normal cartilage cells to turn into ‘osteoarthritic’ cells.” As these cells become enlarged, rugged, and pockmarked—it may eventually wear through—they become very active in producing and destroying cartilage, but mostly of the latter. Your body’s half-hearted response is lacking because the newly produced cartilage, used to plug these cracks, is often of inferior quality. The synovium can also become inflamed and pump excesses of poor quality synovial fluid, which can then swell and induce both pain and a very restricted range of motion.

THEORIES ON PRIMARY OSTEOARTHRITIS

1. AGEs—Advanced Glycation End products
• Build-up of metabolic wastes—interferes with chondrocytes.
2. Changes in subchondral bone
• Hardening of the bone beneath the cartilage—reduction in ability to deform under stress.
3. Enzyme/chemical signal out of control
• Hypertrophy of chondrocytes disrupts proteoglycans.
4. Bone disease
• Alcoholism, infection, trauma, etc…
5. Abnormal liver function
• Hormones, growth factors, & other substances—aid in the cartilage & bone formation.

GLUCOSAMINE

To begin, I shall conclude…”…it can actually help the body repair damaged or eroded cartilage.”

• Amino Acid—Glucose + Glutamine = Glucosamine
• Major building block of proteoglycans.
• Makes glycosaminoglycans (GAGs)—chainlike molecules whose function is to bind water in the cartilage matrix.
• Stimulates chondrocytes.
• Decreases production of enzymes.
• Aids in keeping cartilage cells adhered to the cartilage matrix.
• Decreases the production of nitric oxide—shown to promote an earlier cartilage cell death.
• Inhibited the COX-2 enzyme in one study.
• Possible explanation as for why inflammatory relief is achieved.

Before I proceed into a few of the studies regarding glucosamine, I must mention that Jason ‘believes’ there is no difference between the pill and natural form of glucosamine. My problem with this type of belief is the same one with most supplements and or drugs. When glucosamine is being produced by the body, there is a series of steps to that line of production, a very important series of steps. Taking the supplemental form jumps the line and avoids these steps altogether. We have become too reliant on this synthetic jump and I feel that although the ‘natural’ substance is being replaced in this case, it is not treating the root problem.

It may stimulate or kick these steps back into gear, but when did it become okay and or necessary to outsource the body’s functionality? I see it as a problematic solution because on the surface, it solves the problem, but beneath the surface, the problem may likely still exist.

In 2001, a three-year study involving 212 patients was published in the Lancet. The 106 participants taking glucosamine had no significant loss in joint space and their pain and levels of functioning improved significantly. As for the 106 on the placebo, they had an average joint space loss of 0.31mm and their pain and level of functioning slightly worsened. Another study chose the microscopic route and found that those taking glucosamine had healthy looking cartilage while that of the placebo group looked “sick.”

Jason also provides studies in which glucosamine is put up against anti-inflammatories. In two of these studies, glucosamine equalled the anti-inflammatories’ ability to decrease pain and improve function while in the other two, it exceeded. It was also noted, as we shall see shortly, that the anti-inflammatories tended to always drift back towards the pain and functional problems—it was glucosamine that appeared to be both long-acting and to have an improving effect on the actual disease process. So for the title bout, it is 1.5g/day of glucosamine versus 1.2g/day of ibuprofen.

• Pain dropped significantly in both groups—first two weeks.
• Ibuprofen provided much quicker relief.
• After two weeks—ibuprofen pain relief began to fade.
• At eight weeks—pain scale from 0 to 3 with three being the most painful.
• Glucosamine—0.8 average & swelling stopped in 20%; 29% more had a good outcome.
• Ibuprofen—2.2 average & swelling ceased in none.

…and to end, one must begin early, before symptoms begin to develop.

CHONDROITIN

“…long chain of repeating sugars, acts like a ‘liquid magnet’ and helps attract fluid into the proteoglycan molecules.” And the importance of this fluid and the chains:

• Spongy shock absorber.
• Sweeps nutrients into the cartilage.
• Cartilage has no blood supply.
• Without this supply → malnourishment → degeneration.
• Chains have negative charges → repel → forms matrix → super water-retainer

In a 2001 Swiss, French, and American study, lasting two years and involving three-hundred patients—chondroitin vs. placebo—the x-ray revealed no significant changes amongst the chondroitin-ers and the expected cartilage loss at two years for the placebo-ers.

Chondrocytes are “…normally quiet in healthy cartilage…” and it is in trauma that they can become hypertrophied. As they become enlarged and overworked, the process becomes harder to stop, even with healthy cartilage.

• Hallmark sign—”…destruction of cartilage occurs faster than your body can repair it.”

ROLES OF CHONDROITIN

1. Protects existing cartilage from premature breakdown.
2. Prevents age related death of chondrocytes.
3. Stimulates production of proteoglycans, GAGs, and collagen.
4. Increases synthesis of hyaluronan.
• Can make the joint fluid thicker and a better shock absorber.
5. Inhibits negative effects of interleukin-1 beta and blocks tumor necrosis factor.
6. Mild anti-inflammatory effect.
7. Works in synergy with glucosamine.
• Neither glucosamine nor chondroitin have been shown to have adverse side effects.
• Chondroitin appears to have a longer residual effect than glucosamine.

ASU—AVOCADO SOYBEAN UNSAPONIFIABLES

Unsaponifiable—”to make soap.” Jason writes that they are phytosterols and that there are so little in avocados and soybeans, that it needs to be extracted to be therapeutically useful. I must tangent from here before following the GPS’s suggested course of more information on phytosterols. I recently saw a commercial for a company that had bottled and pilled the antioxidants from blueberries—One BlūScience™ capsule provides the amount of pterostilbene found in over 500 cartons of blueberries. We will get to the benefits of these ‘labeled chemicals’ found naturally in foods, but I find it vibrantly important that you understand something first.

The more we investigate and label the chemical make-up and properties of our natural sources of food, the more corrupt the whole process becomes. Who would ever—if it is even possible—consume ‘over 500 cartons of blueberries’? Who would need that much of that specific chemical at any given time? The unfortunate answer is us, we, and who ever you be. We become the poor saps that think we can avoid and overcome years of misaligned nutrition by popping a yacht’s worth of one of a blueberry’s named ‘chemicals’ with only a sip of water, water that would only evaporate before landing on a real yacht.

Make a u-turn ahead, but don’t forget what you have learned in outstepping the average mindset of what it means to be ‘normal’ or ‘industrialized.’

Since the 1970s, phytosterol research has been utilized for gum disease—still is today. Where can we find these virally-labeled chemicals?

• Plants—highest concentrations
• Japanese/Vegetarian diet—400 & 345 mg/day respectively.
• Seeds & nuts—intermediate levels
• Fruit & veggies—lower levels
• Animal products including fish—”void of phytosterols.”
• Western diet—80mg/day

“…are to plant cells as cholesterol is to animal or human cells.” Although cholesterol is a cell wall component and a building block for certain hormones, “you don’t need to eat cholesterol however, because your liver will make it from various foods you eat.” These chemicals have been shown to lower cholesterol by blocking its absorption in the small intestine.

ASU STUDIES

2003 ASU Lab Research

• Stimulates production of proteoglycans.
• Decreases production of interleukins and other pro-inflammatory substances.

2002 ASU Cartilage Loss Study—2 years/163 people

• Less severe osteoarthritis—no difference between it and the placebo group.
• Worse than average osteoarthritis—0.43mm versus the placebo’s .86mm loss.

ASU & NSAID USE—3 months and 260 people

• NSAID/Analgesic intake—decreases by at lease 50% in almost 75% of those taking ASU.

Study in which ASU was switched out for the placebo—both groups on placebo at 6 months

• “…positive effect continued for two more months.”
• No side effects shown over the years.

NSAIDS

“Covering up your symptoms with pain pills without doing anything to improve your joint health makes about as much sense as ripping the wires out of your car’s dashboard if the engine warning light comes on!”

Some of the problems with NSAIDS:

• Damage the stomach and small intestine → GI bleeds
• Raise blood pressure
• Acetaminophen and osteoarthritis
• Kidney/Liver damage
• A recent review found that a daily dose at or above 2g/day can cause severe stomach bleeding—previously thought to be kinder to the stomach when compared to NSAIDS and aspirin.

ARTHRITIS CURE STEPS

EXERCISE

“Without exercise, the cartilage becomes thin, dry, and more susceptible to damage.”

1. Synovial fluid flows in and out and lubricates and nourishes the components of your joints while doing so.
2. Strengthens supporting structures, and improves flexibility, range of motion, and shock absorption.
• Strength loss often precedes osteoarthritis.
3. Improves biomechanics and you essentially move better.
4. Prevents joint deformity.
5. Contributes to better emotional health.
6. Reduces stress and promotes relaxation.
7. Enhances sleep.
8. Improves body composition and increases its resistance to other diseases.
9. Improves insulin sensitivity.
10. Builds up a reserve capacity.

Proper exercise can strengthen and maintain healthy bones for the rest of your life, but “you don’t have to lift hundreds of pounds to improve your strength.”

• Obese people have strong bones—”If you gain just 10 pounds, you may be increasing the force certain joints must bear from 25 pounds up to 100 pounds.”
• “The slower you lose weight, the better.”
• “Never exercise through joint pain!”
• Never stretch a cold muscle.
• “…vigorous exercise actually increases the functional status of those with osteoporosis…”—Heed this advice with caution.

MAINTAINING A HEALTHY WEIGHT (OBESITY)

A 1990s study revealed that for every 10 pounds of extra weight, you increase your osteoarthritis risk by 1.4 times. Obesity is a vicious cycle, but it is also a choice. We can feel bad for the obese and they can feel bad for themselves, but there is something they can do. Continuing with their current trend, they become unable to exercise sooner or later, thus making their joint situation even less adequate. Diabetic neuropathy and the onslaught of obesity-related disease—practically every disease imaginable—will follow. It all affects your joints—diabetic neuropathy for instance, alters joint movement, balance, and sensation.

Jason writes: “…it’s what you do on a daily basis that makes the difference.” I am going to borrow my already borrowed quote from above about losing weight and crash dieting/exercising—”The slower you lose weight, the better.” I touched on this topic in my Kidney Stones article and I feel you should check that out. What most do not realize, is that their weight does not just go poof. Your weight has toxins, hormones, and bodily wastes stored within its fat cells. Losing weight too quickly or yo-yo-ing on diet and exercise plans will only put your body at an even bigger disadvantage.

Imagine that onslaught of toxins, hormones, and bodily wastes surging through your body as you pop a pill that promises to make you petite in under a few weeks. It overwhelms your entire system. We must also realize that fat is not the only thing to be digested, your muscles, bones, etc… will also have to be restructured in order to match your ‘new’ body’s requirements, which will be much less. Something the author brought up in my kidney stones article really opened my mind—digesting your ‘meat’ results in an “infusion of the same substances in your system as the digestion of meat.”

Jason recommends the Mediterranean diet—Lyon Diet Heart Study—and one low in arachadonic acid.

Common Weight Loss Characteristics

1. Changes are for you, not others.
2. Focus on fitness.
3. Some exercise each day.
4. Never skip meals.
5. Watch fat intake.
6. Alcohol, only in small quantities.
7. Don’t count calories or ‘diet.’
8. Don’t weigh yourself more than once/week.
9. Realistic goals and be content with your body.
10. Organized plan.
11. Understand reasons for overeating and past failures.

DIET

“If you continually eat the same foods over and over (even foods high in nutrients), you may be missing out on important building blocks for your health.” I used to fall inline with a similar but less disastrous mentality, but this way of thinking is nothing other than an obsessive-compulsive train wreck. If you eat a variety of healthy foods each and every day, even if you eat that same variety each and every day, your body will be satisfied to say the least. If you rely mostly on processed and unnatural foods each and every day, you do have something to worry about.

FREE RADICALS

Combatted via antioxidants—Vitamins A, C, and E, & Selenium

• Best “from fresh, whole foods rather than from supplements.”

BIOFLAVONOIDS

In virtually all plant foods…

• Reinforce ability of collagen to form a strong matrix.
• Prevent free radical damage.
• Slow inflammatory response.
• Prevent collagen destruction when inflamed.
• Hasten the healing process.
• Promote healthy capillary walls.
• Aid in vitamin C metabolism.

FATTY ACIDS

Right off the bat, animal products are blasted via arachodonic acid—”…main food culprit when it comes to producing inflammatory prostaglandins.” Jason writes that it is found “entirely” in animal and saturated fats and results in inflammation, platelet stickiness, hardening of arteries, heart disease, and strokes. It is the unknown plight of the fork twiddler that such events amass for a big-bang of a surprise going away party—going away for ever.

It is the omega-3 fatty acids—Alpha-Linolenic Acid or ALA—found in plants, nuts, seeds, and natural foods, that blocks white blood cell-released prostaglandins and leukotrienes. Doubling up the number to the omega-6 fatty acids—Gamma-Linolenic Acid or GLA—can trigger inflammation in some people, hence why Jason urges a sense of balance. Take note that all of our healthy fats are essentially prepackaged and ‘pre-balanced’ in naturally sustainable food sources.

As for Eicosapentaenoic Acid—EPA—, linoleic acid has been shown to increase EPA levels. EPA has also been found in a few marine plants too—”…actually made by algae, plankton, and seaweed, which are then eaten by certain fish.” What I write next is a springboard of wisdom and a totally interesting view on the common interpretation of fish.

Whether it is a once daily small capsule you pop, an out-to-eat treat, or a Good Friday fry, fish has been pedestaled to such a position of superiority that even I had trouble attacking its ‘achievements.’ Land eaters eating fish are living longer, obliging faithfuls are avoiding the pits of a promised and much abhorred fiery h-e-double hockey sticks, and fish oil pills have been showing very promising evidence in nationally recognized studies.

To be quick with a dagger-to-back approach rather than a dragged about dramatic cat-and-mouse presentation, may I present the reader with this: “Not all fish are good sources of EPAs.” As mentioned, I had trouble tackling the fish phenomenon, but these eight words unleashed something. I instantly harbored cannibalistic thoughts and from that point on made it clear to myself that meat even at the healthiest level is not healthy.

Our bodies cannot process it properly. For this reason, if I were to live on hypothetical copies of myself—a meat I would consider extremely ‘healthy’—I do feel that I would come to the same eventual demise with disease in a hospital coffin. Jason writes that freshwater fish have relatively little of these fatty acids while cold water ocean fish have the greatest amounts. As for those fried-fish-fiery-pit avoiders, deep-frying destroys omega-3s! This clearly points to an ability to incorporate these fats into our bodies, yet it absconders the solitary necessity to survive with these fats alone.

FOOD ALLERGIES

According to Jason, when large molecules of food proteins enter the bloodstream, if we are allergic, then our immune system will identify them as invaders and proceed with an attack. An allergy can be acute or it can be delayed…

• Many cases appear after antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and acid-blockers—all alter the normal flora and promote gastrointestinal inflammation.
• Delayed onset can be anywhere from 2 to 72 hours.

DIET MYTHS

“A good diet can help you control some of the symptoms of osteoarthritis, but there is no single diet that can ‘cure’ arthritis.” Jason mentions some dietary myths…

• Removing nightshade vegetables.
• Dong Diet
• Rich in alfalfa

…but to say that there is no perfect diet is beyond a risk. Although I believe perfection cannot be achieved, I do believe it is achieved. I believe it is ever-changing, but not necessarily more perfect as it evolves. I believe we were and are supplied with an abundance of natural perfectness to live and survive. Nature adapts around itself in a perfect and evolving manner. We have unfortunately set out to spoil this system or ‘perfect’ it to our manipulated wants and needs. But our wants and needs are very unnecessary and only require more man-induced perfecting. I believe, as does the totality of evidence, that man-induced perfection and or the striving to achieve such an impossible rank, is the cause of disease, degeneration, and death at an age where we could still be young.

DEPRESSION

Jason notes that 9.5% of the general population are depressed at some point during a given year and that in an anxiety study—”…the patients who felt the most anxiety had the highest levels of pain and disability, no matter how much joint damage was visible on the x-rays.” So here are some general recommendations:

• Exercise & positivity
• Avoid sugar, caffeine, and fat/sugar-laden foods and instead eat veggies, fruits, and grains.
• Sleep and relaxation—meditation and yoga
• Avoid nightcap alcohol—”…can actually leave you feeling tired and unrested in the morning.”
• Babies and touch study—gained 45-50% more weight while in the hospital.
• Also noted to be more alert, active, and involved.

EIGHT STEPS TO PREVENT OSTEOARTHRITIS

1. Prevent injuries
• Teenage female soccer players with ACL injuries frequently have x-ray diagnosable osteoarthritis by age 30—34% report disability as result.
• “The awareness needs to start in the young and with their parents.”
2. “Almost all professional athletes pay the arthritis price later for their days in the spotlight.”
3. Ensure proper recovery if you are injured.
• Rest and do not resume activity.
4. Maintain a healthy body weight.
5. Exercise regularly.
6. Optimize your biomechanics to counteract stress on you joints.
7. Consider preventative use of chondroitin, glucosamine, and ASU.
8. Use joint-supporting dietary supplements.

CELIAC DISEASE

Jason connects the dots of the vital necessity to properly and adequately absorb nutrients with joint health. He points out that celiac disease is indeed quite common—actually greatly under-diagnosed—and is found in 1 out of every 200 within the general population.

CONCLUSION

“…as you take the pressure off the affected joint and put it on another…” We have become a nation of chronic and dependent leaner-on-ers. If something feels awry or a bit off-kilter, we twist the kid-proof medicine cap off or we seek an even more invasive means to avoid the seemingly unavoidable. Leaning on one leg because the other one was bruised, banged-upped pretty badly, or broken and shattered just puts more pressure on that good-as-of-right-now leg.

Our bodies can only handle so much pressure until the once healthy and supporting leg eventually collapses too. Reducing and treating the symptoms is a symptom of stupidity in itself. We walk around in our white lab-coats and spring out of picture-boxes found in almost every room of every single house nowadays as if we know our bodies enough to outsmart them. If only more people could realize that each lean-on requires even more lean-ons…until the ultimate coffin door slams shut.

Jason writes about some statistically significant numbers showing how three supplements have been proven to promote better joint health, but what about joints in their naturally healthy states? Why do we need studies to prove the effectiveness of our body’s own handiwork? Why do we fail to recognize failures and recalls as failures and recalls? Why should anyone, including myself, ever even have to indulge in how the body functions, when it is likely that it will never be entirely understood, at least for the benefit of mankind?

Why is it that we proceed through life with a predetermined knowledge about how our bodies are going to fail miserably as if they were a box checked off by disease? There are no cemented laws decreeing one to failure, only individuals failing to walk a ‘different’ path.

Do you have osteoarthritis?

What seems to help—longterm?

Have you tried returning to the natural—food, exercise, and personal wellbeing?

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Join the forum discussion on this post

Years ago, lead was used by painters, drivers running on empty, water rushing its way to your glass or de-clothed body, toy manufacturers, and etc… Awareness has spread about the troubles of lead and now new paints, unleaded gas, piping, filters, and childhood gizmos are ‘safer.’ Occasionally there will be a huge recall for some toy—almost always from Asia—, but other than old homes, the problem has been dealt with half-appropriately.

Half because lead is still present—both in outbreaks and in many of the places we live. Half because of our inability to make a transition from our past learnings into a learned, ready, and evolved future. Half because lead is only the intro to a topic that is much more widespread. It is a plague of sorts, but nobody realizes the catch involved with a plague of pretty pink nails and today’s toxic painters’ canvasses of skin.

Ideally—according to societal ‘standards’—the painters are women, young ladies, and princesses to be. Ideally, in reality, there should be no painters. There should be no businesses pumping out batches of beautiful-to-the-eye and tingling-to-the-nostril chemicals for each and every square millimeter of skin and or crevice your imagination can reach. There should be no women, young ladies, and princesses to be who feel they can only ‘fit in’ or feel ‘beautiful’ by donating their bodies as chemical splash-zone canvasses.

Jason writes about the “toxic trio”—toluene, dibutly phthalate (DBP), and formaldehyde…

• “Investigators randomly chose 25 brands of polishes that are available only at nail salons, including a number of products claiming to be free of the chemicals toluene, dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and formaldehyde, which are known as the toxic trio. Regulators said exposure to large amounts of the chemicals has been linked to developmental problems, asthma and other illnesses.”
• “Investigators found that 10 of 12 products that claimed to be free of toluene actually contained it, with four of the products having dangerously high levels.”
• “The report also found that five of seven products that claimed to be “free of the toxic three” included one or more of the agents in significant levels.”
• “The DTSC said all three chemicals are linked to chronic health conditions when inhaled, and that the 121,000 licensed nail care technicians who work in the salons, many of them young Asian-American women, are most at risk. Two of the three chemicals tested on humans and animals have shown links to developmental problems, while DBP has only been tested on animals.”
• “DBP has been banned in nail products in the European Union, which has strict limits on the amount of formaldehyde and toluene that can be used.”

…and our reaction—a scheme to transverse without change—is unavailingly pathetic.

• “The use of the three chemicals in nail products is legal if properly labeled. But agency officials said the false claims may violate a state law that requires disclosure of harmful chemicals in consumer products.”
• “Doug Schoon, a scientist who works with the Nail Manufacturers Council, agreed that mislabeling products should never be done, but said that proper ventilation and training of salon workers are much more important to preventing health problems. He said the levels of toluene and other chemicals found in the nail polishes did not pose a serious threat.”
• “Mike Vo, vice president of Miss Professional Nail Products Inc., the maker of the Sation products and others on the list, said he disputed DTSC’s findings.— “We will look at the report and challenge it,” he said.”
• “The DTSC found Dare to Wear polish contained small traces of toluene even though it was labeled as free of the chemical. Newton Luu, owner of LeChat Nail Care Products, which makes the polish, said he had no idea where the toluene could have come from.”
• “We as a manufacturer do not use toluene in our nail polish, or any of those three,” Luu said. “Perhaps the polish was contaminated through the lab tests or by some other method.”

Jason includes a nail salon in San Francisco—ZaZa—which did not carry any of these tested and mislabeled brands—”… said it uses products labeled free of the toxic trio and animal products.” The truth is, they know as much as the little princess to be—face all clowned-out—and should not be communicating faith in something Doug, Mike, and Newton currently attribute to disputed findings or safe and tolerable levels. Not only are there loopholes within the labeling of a product, there are hiding places when the truth is revealed.

Olly olly oxen free. I give up. I cannot find you and you may reveal yourself. These players will reveal themselves, whether it is in the acute sense or the chronic. This news story is an example of the acute sense. It is a blip of concern rationalized into the ultimate hiding spot—chronicity. Just as in the child’s game, our bending rules for chemicals make the game fun and lasting—“…that players who are hiding can come out into the open without losing the game…”

Regulations are put forward—”Proposition 65 is a state law that requires that all harmful chemicals in a product be revealed by the manufacturer. It requires warning signs be posted in areas where consumers could be exposed”—but when it comes down to it, we are the meat in between some stale bread. We know we shouldn’t eat that meat, so we switch to the healthier white meat or fish. Society—where we live, breathe, and exercise our right to self-harm—is the bread. So, as the inner workings are being tweaked for the consumer’s imagination and short attention span, the breads of life pass through with little change.

Our attempts to swap meat and bake fresh bread falter forward and dissipate way before the news even hits your corneas and vibrates your inner ear bones. Take this case for instance: “A Department of Toxic Substances Control report determined that the mislabeled nail products have the potential to harm thousands of workers in more than 48,000 nail salons in California, and their customers.” What kind of response would you have? What kind of response would you expect? What is the most ideal, to the absolutest degree, response?

Our response…

• “”I’m shocked. I’m a mother now, so I try to stay away from different chemicals,” said Juanita Navarrete, a 27-year-old from San Leandro who was getting a manicure and pedicure. Navarrete said she relies on labels to make choices in buying products and was happy that the state did random testing of nail polishes.”
• “Loann Tran, co-owner of Happy Nails in Salinas, Calif., said she can only control certain elements of workplace safety for the handful of workers and customers in her salon: better ventilation and equipment sterilization. She cannot force manufacturers to accurately label products, she said, and hopes the report will help.”
• “”We are alarmed by the results of this report,” Julia Liou, co-founder of the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative and a public health administrator for Asian Health Services, said in a statement. “The misbranding of products is not only a major public health problem, but also interferes with a salon worker’s right to a safe and healthy work environment.”"
• “”We know there are exposures at salons, both to workers and customers, and we’re concerned about potential harm,” said Karl Palmer, the DTSC’s pollution prevention performance manager who oversaw the report.”
• “San Francisco passed an ordinance in October 2010 that gives a “green seal” to salons that voluntarily choose to use nail polishes free of the three chemicals included in the DTSC’s report. New York City had a similar ordinance to recognize salons that choose products devoid of the toxic trio.”

…is purely caveman reactive. I shoot for a proactive approach whereby I can garner an expected outcome based on past experiences and learnings and future estimates which reflect back on the past. The gist of this response is in concern with how these companies and customers are going to handle chemicals in the future. We lack the tongues to even pronounce their scientific syllables, yet they have advanced—unpronounced—to become part of the international dialect.

Having the ability to read labels assuredly and provide workers with a safe work zone is beyond an ability. It is a natural task that only becomes more weighty with each ounce of industrialized-like innovation. Juanita, mothers were not always reading labels to find safe chemicals. Loann, Julia, and Karl, a safe work zone is only possible when the idea of ‘potential’ harm is eliminated. You three—joined by the rest of us—have developed a disability to turn evidence-backed news into potential harm, when in fact it shedded such an identity when in metastasized from idea into physical form. By the time it hits the airwaves, it has already reached a level of full blown pancreatic malignancy.

You can put a ‘green seal’ on anything you want, but it won’t suffice. It may only attract the uncanny ‘naturalists’ of this world and it will only linger in the minds of the consumer. By linger, I mean it exists as wholly natural within the consumer’s mind because the consumer only knows Webster’s definition of ‘natural’ or ‘green’ and not the one plagiarized with toxins and disease. Labeling is an advertisement ploy that takes advantage of the consumer’s dictionary-based beliefs. If it is labeled ‘natural’, ‘green’, ‘vegan’, ‘gluten-free’, or any other form of jargonated be-ess, and comes in some type of weird packaging, or needs to be applied strangely, or cannot be found in its present form without undergoing an assembly line of manipulations, then you are certainly quite savvy about today’s definition of ‘normal behavior’.

Are you a princess or a princess to be?

Do you use nail polish and or cosmetics in general?

What are your feelings on this news blip?

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Join the forum discussion on this post

“There is every reason for people now diagnosed with MS to optimistic about the future.”

It was during my advanced medical surgical clinical rotation that I came across my first patient with multiple sclerosis. He was in his mid-forties and his body was where it had been for many years—bed rest and on a submissive decline. Feeding tubes and IVs were flooding his body with the metabolic necessities of life and myself as well as the nursing staff provided his physical requirements.

I had a vague idea about what MS was at the time—a terrible freakin’ disease that we have no control over with a decline that is utterly inevitable. Confirmed by much of the staff and my instructors, this drilled nonsense led me to believe that some people are just doomed. Doomed to die, and doomed to suffer along the way.

I was not the least bit skeptical at the time because the modern medical view of disease was the same that I was being lectured on. Although this incredibly reckless ‘knowledge’ has been slapped-clean from my interior mush, George’s book is both intriguing and ridiculously informative about our heinous attempts to ‘treat’ diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

“Lifestyle change is the most important issue as it is with most chronic diseases. Diet, sunlight, exercise, meditation, preventing depression, resolution of difficult emotional issues. These are the keys.”

Picking through and disregarding the nonsense can be extremely difficult…

• New England Journal of Medicine—2007 Study
• 94% of physicians report financial links with drug companies.

…but it can be done. As with every factor of life, multiple sclerosis is both real and profitable. Whether it’s a wavering commitment or a jump because everyone’s jumping mentality, someone’s making money and someone’s health is not improving. Money will not protect you from crossing the thin and highly permeable line that separates the diseased and those who have capitalized. Seeping back is an accepted and much expected impossibility within the modern medical view. Seeping back utilizing what many have ironically slurred the ‘alternative’ approach is more than feasible…it has been feased.

“It is important to realize right at the outset that recovery from MS requires a sustained commitment over many decades, really the rest of your life.”

WHAT IS MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

Sclerosis defined with a few finger taps:

1. “abnormal hardening of body tissue.”
2. “excessive resistance to change.”

Multiple: I think you get the picture and I will refrain from belittling your skull mush by defining ‘mulitple.’ But then again, maybe I will.

1. “having or involving several parts, elements, or members.”

Sclerosis times multiple yields multiples of abnormally hardened body tissue and a rising resistance against change. In essence, multiple sclerosis involves the demyelination of the myelin sheath that surrounds the nerves. Our nerve branches function similarly to telephone wires and “talk to each other”, but when inflammation causes demyelination and demyelination causes lesions, white blood cells gain access to the myelin sheath—this is usually prevented by the blood brain barrier. Dwindled down to its deadly simplicity, phones calls are dropped between nerves and the dial tone of hope is only crushed by your doctor’s diagnosis and unsound perspective.

CAUSES

Immune Attack: See myelin as foreign → autoimmune reaction.

• Molecular Mimicry: “part of some foreign molecule looks just like part of myelin” → immune response → another immune response later, on the actual myelin.
• Dairy protein and gut bacteria have been suggested to cause such mimicry.

Degeneration like Parkinson’s

Diet, Especially Fats

• CNS (brain and spinal cord) is predominantly fat—”The type of fat that is incorporated into the cells that make up the CNS depends on what we eat.”
• “It takes some months…”—different fats spark different changes in a membrane’s composition.

Cow’s Milk Protein

Lack of Sunlight

Environmental

• Organic Solvents
• Painters have 2x the risk of other workers.
• “MS is triggered by multiple environmental agents in genetically susceptible people.”
• “…modifiable environmental factors hold the key to preventing some 80 percent of cases of MS.”

Venous Blood Flow Disruption

• Lesions tend to occur around the venous vasculature of the brain.
• Noted to be abnormal in patients with MS, but not in others.

DIETARY FATS

THE EVIDENCE

Here, in verbatim, is the summarized evidence concerning dietary fats that George provides:

• The immune system is in balance between exciting the immune response (Th1 response) and dampening it down (Th2 response).
• MS is an inflammatory disease characterised by an over-active Th1 response towards components of the body’s own brain and spinal cord.
• Fatty acids are the basic building blocks for the chemicals the immune system uses in these responses.
• Saturated (animal) fats and omega 6 (vegetable) fatty acids tip the balance towards the Th1 response.
• Omega 3 fatty acids (fish and flaxseed oils) tip the balance towards the Th2 response.
• Monounsaturated fats (olive oil) are immune neutral.
• MS is not just about auto-immunity; degeneration plays a significant role.
• Unsaturated fatty acids (omega 3, omega 6 and monounsaturated) combat degeneration.
• Eating fewer calories also protects against degeneration—”Animal work has shown that acute starvation caused a shift to a Th2 cytokine pattern in animals with EAE delayed onset of the disease, and resulted in milder clinical symptoms in the animals.”
• Epidemiological studies have consistently shown that MS is more common where saturated fat consumption is high, and less common where fish consumption is high.
• Many epidemiological studies have now confirmed the close association of cow’s milk consumption and the incidence of MS.
• Laboratory data strongly support this link of cow’s milk consumption to MS.
• Case control studies have revealed a protective role for vegetarian diets and an increased risk of MS with high calorie intake and animal-based diets.
• There is good evidence from clinical studies that diet plays a major role in the initiation and progression of MS.
• The key aggravating factor appears to be high saturated-fat consumption.
• Intervention studies where people with MS have maintained very low saturated-fat diets have consistently shown significant reductions in relapse rates and slowing of disease progression.
• The major work is that of Roy Swank, Professor of Neurology in Oregon, who followed 144 patients for 34 years; those who stuck to the low saturated-fat diet had dramatically better outcomes.
• Basic science research in the laboratory has confirmed that people with MS have more saturated fat in their cell membranes and less polyunsaturated fat.
• RCTs have shown that essential fatty acid supplements can also slow the progression of the disease.

MY SPIEL

“There is growing evidence now that remyelinization occurs throughout the disease and is considerably more prominent than we realized to date.” He writes that symptoms wax and wane and he does so to uncover the apparent, but sadly hidden by time facts about life. Fat is something beyond the nutritional facts your eyes gaze before even considering an evening of or momentary indulgence. Every cell in your body—cells are your body and are what constitutes your ears, eyes, lungs, liver, etc…,etc…,etc…—has a membrane and every cell in your body is affected by what materials you choose to deposit.

Unsaturated fats—those found in naturally occurring foods and sadly pills too—allow the cellular membrane to adopt a fluid-like and pliable construction plan whereas a diet deluged with saturated fats makes the membrane rigid, inflexible, and prone to degenerative changes. To get a countertop and or refrigerator perspective on this very intriguing dietary factor, let’s check out the melting points of these fats.

• Saturated Fats—High melting points and solid or near solid at room temperature.
• Found heavily in animals—coconut & palm oils too, but they don’t seem to share these same characteristics.
• “…shown to aggravate the effects of brain trauma.”
• Monounsaturated Fatty Acids (Omega-9s)—Lower melting point; Liquid at room temperature; Solid/Cloudy in the fridge.
• Found in olive oil.
• Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids—Lowest melting point and liquid at room temperature and while in the fridge.
• Omega-3s—fish oil, nuts, seeds…
• Omega-6s—cooking oils

It is these melting point characteristics that contribute to the stickiness and flexibility, when incorporated, of the cell membrane. Our bodies are that road construction that never seems to be finished and in fact it never will be. Just as wear and tear affects the streets we walk, drive, and often get overly stressed upon, our cells are constantly remodeling too. It is the stickiness factor of saturated fatty acids that leads to clots, strokes, and heart attacks.

• Omega-9s—neutral
• Omega-6s (Linoleic)—promote inflammatory response
• Promote tumor growth.
• Western World—overbalanced towards omega-6s
• Omega-3s (Linolenic)—suppress inflammation
• Slow/suppress tumor growth.

“…balance is key…”

• Omega-6s vs. Omega-3s Study—”…marked decrease in the chemicals which promote inflammation after only four weeks’ supplementation with fish oils.”
• “…even more pronounced after three and then six months.”
• Fish Oil Study—”The authors noted that to get a similar level of suppression of the immune system as they had achieved with fish oil, one would have to use standard agents used in chemotherapy, such as steroids and cyclosporine.”
• Developing Countries with Infections by Intestinal Worms—have a greater Th2 response → “…seem to be protected against the autoimmune diseases MS, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis.”
• “So while I believe there is probably little difference between omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in terms of membrane pliability and function, the suppression of immune system activation achieved by omega-3 fatty acids make them the supplements to concentrate on in replacing saturated fats.”
• He notes that the Mediterranean Diet dampens inflammation.
• Plant sources of omega-3s are converted to fish oil form in the body—some sources claim that only a small percent (10%) is converted, but George found little information to support this.
• Conversion can be blocked by saturated fats and missing vitamins.

THE U.S. NURSES HEALTH STUDY

“This study failed to confirm the results of the studies I have presented previously”…

• “Nurses consuming the lowest amount of saturated fat in the study essentially developed MS at the same rate as those consuming the most saturated fat.”

…and this is where we must consider the work of Swank and avoid the temptation to avoid recognizing the flaw in discrediting previous work because a small amount of this unhealthy fat brought the same amount of risk as the larger caloric intake.

PROFESSOR SWANK’S LOW SATURATED-FAT STUDY

George urges the reader to not categorize the small from above with all the items belonging to the can-fit-in-a-thistle group. Small in the sense of this study is likely a misrepresentation to the effect that no difference could be noted. We know smoking is an unhealthy habit and although some may deem a few now and then as ‘okay’ and cancer-free, most, by now, understand their true gravitational pull towards cancer and a box in the ground.

George taps the plate with some intriguing facts…

• USA Fat Intake by Year:
• 1909—125g
• 1948—141g
• 1972—150g
• Calorie % Jump—of fat in diet—40%

…before winding up for Professor Swank’s grandslam of a study. Using “meticulous examination and recording of dietary fat consumption,” he followed 150 MS patients for 34 years. The criteria of his study matched that of his time, but has been noted to be lacking in our own.

• No control group, but comparison with other studies with patients who did not stick to the diet.
• 72/144 stuck to the diet—<20g per day of saturated fat.
• Swank Scale—range from 0-6
• 0—normal performance & normal neuro findings.
• 1—normal performance physically & mentally, neuro signs present.
• 2—mildly impaired physical performance but ambulant, neuro signs present, able to work part time or full time, occasional variable memory impairment.
• 3—severely impaired performance but ambulant, able to work (usually part time), neuro impairment usually widespread, variable memory impairment frequently present.
• 4—wheelchair needed, memory often impaired.
• 5—confined to bed & chair.
• 6—Deceased.

‘Good Dieters’—”Regardless of level of disability at entry to the trial, good dieters did not deteriorate significantly”

• Level 1 at entry—1.9 average
• Level 2 at entry— 3.6 average
• Level 3 or worse at entry—4.0 average
• All three groups “shown to markedly slow progression.”

Those with minimal disability at entry—95 alive after 34 years.

‘Bad Dieters’

• Minimal disability at entry—5.3 average
• Moderate disability at entry—5.3 average
• Severe disability at entry—5.6 average
• Only 7% remained active.
• Death rate—58/72 (45 from MS related causes)

‘Those Who Did Not Adhere’

• 78-91% dead, depending on entry level.
• “There is real hope of stabilizing the illness no matter how advanced it is.”
• “…those who could not stick to the diet and deteriorated actually reduced their saturated fat consumption very significantly (to 29-33g/day: this is a huge change compared with the average American intake of around 150g/day), but this was not enough. It is clear that close enough is not enough; the diet is really an all or nothing change.”
• George writes that we preferentially take up slash incorporate saturated fatty acids into our cells and that an aim of “almost zero” is the only way around this.

15 years after…—Swank attempted to contact…

• Found 15 of them—ages 72-84
• 13—”essentially normal and walking without difficulty.”
• 2—”required assistance” with walking

Continued following into 2003…

• ‘Good’ dieters—16g of saturated fat per day—47 survivors at 50 years
• ‘Bad’ dieters—38 g of saturated fat per day—16 survivors at 50 years

So, why no changes with the medical approach?

“…potentially could have won Swank a Nobel Prize had it been published at the time he started it.”

• Dr. George Minot won the 1934 Nobel prize with a chopped liver diet that eventually made the participants sick again very quickly—”cured” pernicious anemia.

I will list a few more of George’s observations on Swanks apparent failure to allure, but I strongly urge you to pick up a copy of this book. There is so much information—quality information—that I cannot and will not include it all…I would need to photocopy his book into an article.

• ‘Good’ vs. ‘Bad’ P Values—p<0.0001 to <.0005—he explains this very well…
• Swank was a “…highly respected, leading academic neurologist.”—170 papers, 6 books, harvard teacher…as if this stuff really matters when you see his results. I provide these for the inherently blind who only find comfort when confiding with the best ‘wine-tasters’ of the day.
• Interferon vs Swank Diet Relapse Rates—1/3 vs Reduced by 3x to “nearly zero.”
• 2005 RCT debated how great his results were—’Good’ has a 69% reduction while the ‘Control’ has a 59% reduction in relapses.
• One year study—Swank noted maximal relief not seen until at least the three year mark.
• Not focused on saturated fats and both groups lowered fat intake—defeats the purpose when comparing to the average man, woman, or child within the real population.
• British Journal of Nutrition (2007)—”…concluded that epidemiological, biochemical, animal model and clinical trial data strongly suggest that polyunsaturated fatty acids have a role in the development and treatment of MS.”
• UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence—”…people with MS should be advised that linolenic acid 17-23g/day may reduce progression of disability.”

COW’S MILK & THE CASEIN PROTEIN

“A number of cow’s milk proteins have now been shown to be targeted by the immune cells of people with MS.” For those splashing some white magic upon their sparkly one-hundred calorie or less cereal each morning, injecting casein into animals should not seem that distasteful, even if your are a fur-hating activist. Maybe these proteins’ ability to mimic the myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein and create CNS lesions—thought to initiate autoimmune reaction—will sour your taste for any milk other than that of the woman who birthed you.

DIABETES & DAIRY

In a University of Helsinki Randomized Control Study—RCT for short, and for now on—242 newborn infants with a first degree relative with type 1 diabetes were studied. Having a genetic predisposition to diabetes, avoiding cow’s milk enabled them with “significant protection from developing the autoimmunity associated with diabetes.” George mentions a study that is in progress that was ignited with the results of the study I have just typed—this larger study consists of 78 clinical centers in 15 countries and 2000+ children.

PARKINSON’S & DAIRY

One-hundred and thirty-five thousand lads and ladies within the U.S. were studied and their risk of developing Parkinson’s increased by 2-3x with consumption of dairy products.

DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS

Here, in verbatim, is the summarized evidence concerning dietary supplements that George provides:

• Antioxidants have been recommended for many inflammatory conditions including MS, although there has been little evidence to support any beneficial effect.
• Major meta-analyses of all RCTs on the health benefits of antioxidants and vitamin supplements compared to placebo have now been undertaken.
• Beta-carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E supplements have been consistently shown to cause an increase in overall death rate in these studies, from about a 4 percent increase for vitamin E alone to about 29 per cent for a combination.
• Regular multivitamins have been associated with a one- third increase in risk of advanced prostate cancer, and nearly a doubling of risk of death from the disease.
• The B group vitamins are extremely important for normal brain function; they have not been shown to have the same risks.
• Vitamin B12 is non-toxic and is frequently low in people with MS and those on a vegan diet.

MY SUPPLEMENTAL SPIEL

“A whole industry has grown up around extracting or synthesizing these nutrients, and convincing us through clever maketing that taking these ‘magic ingredients’ in a tablet or capsule on a regular basis will keep us well or help us recover from disease.”

Any infomercial touting a new-and-improved pill stimulates our souls—AKA our hands—to reach into our leather for some money and for the phone. It amazes me how these ‘magical’ components compound at such a ridiculous rate. As of recent, it is the anti-oxidant craze—for heaven’s sake, you can now get your antioxidants in your makeup, ‘natural’ drinking water, and almost anything they will market.

“While oxygen is necessary to keep us alive, it also causes oxidation of our bodily cells.” Free radicals result, for which there is accumulating evidence suggesting that their instability—they look for electrons to stabilize themselves—is more than a minor player in the aging process. In reference to grapes, grape seeds, and wine—”…as with other antioxidants, they work best in their natural form, in combination with the other chemicals in their original state.” The middleman enshrines itself as a global kickin’-disease-to-the-curb savior, but the evidence…

• National Cancer Institute—Multivitamin Use & 5 Year Risk of Prostate Cancer—295,000 Men
• 32% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer
• 98% increased risk for those taking multivitamins seven times a week
• Excessive Iron—”Th1 pro-inflammatory cytokines were more toxic to nerve cells if they were loaded with iron.”
• Vitamin B12—“People with low levels of acid in the stomach are susceptible to deficiency.”
• George falls victim to his own contradictoriness by making a claim that supplementation of vitamin B12 is okay because it is “completely non-toxic.” As of yet, studies may suggest that it is safe, but too much of anything on the intake scale can kill you—you can drink yourself to death with the purest water on earth…

SUNLIGHT & VITAMIN D

Here, in verbatim, is the summarized evidence concerning sunlight and vitamin D that George provides:

• Adequate exposure to sunlight is essential for optimal human health.
• The health benefits of sunlight are mediated through at least vitamin D, formed in the skin from the action of ultraviolet B light.
• Sun avoidance due to fears of skin cancer is causing an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency in Western countries.
• Vitamin D deficiency is implicated in osteoporosis, depression, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and autoimmune diseases like MS, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes as well as certain cancers.
• Lack of sun exposure and subsequent vitamin D deficiency are implicated in causing MS; this is supported by epidemiological, laboratory, animal and human research.
• Lack of winter sun in childhood raises the risk of developing MS in later life.
• Low dose (>400IU per day) vitamin D supplementation reduces the risk of developing MS by 40 per cent; blood levels of vitamin D above 100nmol/L are associated with a two-thirds reduction in risk of developing MS.
• There is seasonal variation in the activity of the disease process in MS, related to changing vitamin D levels.
• Currently recommended vitamin D supplementation doses are too low, and ‘normal’ blood levels are set too low; a blood level considerably higher than currently accepted normal levels may be optimal in MS.
• If vitamin D levels are adequate, there is no need for calcium supplementation.

MY SUNNY-D SPIEL

With a few exceptions—populations where fish consumption is high—the incidence of MS rises in direct proportion to how far away from the equator you go—”virtually” no MS at the equator. “…journals have been full of scientific papers suggesting that we have overdone sun avoidance in Western Society, and that sun avoidance may be even more harmful than overexposure.” With deficiency—”recent high quality epidemiological data”—comes…

• Muscle weakness
• Depression
• Hypertension
• Cardiovascular disease
• Autoimmune disease
• Diabetes

George writes that it is the band of UVB that acts on the byproducts of cholesterol metabolism in the skin. Chemicals are formed and eventually vitamin D results. The implications and importance of vitamin D are too strong to avoid. Vitamin D receptors have been found on white blood cells too, suggesting a vital role in the regulation of immunity. It is also key to calcium utilization—”As the main effect of vitamin D in the body is to extract calcium from the food we eat and incorporate it into bone…”

So, if you are not one to venture out into the sun often—UVB blocked by glass windows—your calcium levels will likely become depleted. George recommends vitamin D supplementation, especially during the winter, but I feel we should attack the root problem. Not everyone feels this way and the food industry could not be ever more obvious in their opposition. Encouraging dairy consumption to up the calcium that has been depleted is like increasing the volume of water running through a hose with a leak in it—more problems will arise.

Although skin cancer is a very real thing, so is a lack of sunlight. Finding a balance…

• “Somewhere, there is a balance between too much sun and melanoma risk or too little sun and autoimmune disease.”
• Fifteen minutes of allover sun exposure 3-5x/week is what George recommends.
• UV light inhibits melatonin release → pigment cells increase pigment → tan
• Melatonin shown to promote inflammation.

Studies & Etc…

• Annals of Neurology (2009)—Higher vitamin D levels correlated to less lesions.
• Brain (2009)—”…vitamin D levels were significantly lower in people with MS than a control population without the illness.”
• US Nurses Health Study—Very low vitamin D supplementation → Risk reduced by 40%
• Radiation Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute of Maryland—24 States
• Greater sunlight exposure during work = less likely to die from MS
• Additional exposure out of work = even less likely…
• US Genetic Study—79 pairs of twins
• 43-75% reduction in risk—”…concluded that the benefit of sun exposure were independent of genetic susceptibility to the disease.”
• British Medical Journal (2008)—1471 Menopausal Women
• 732 with calcium supplement—45 heart attacks
• 739 without…—19 heart attacks
• Calcium Channel Blockers—”…intuitively it seems problematic to be giving them the very mineral whose effects we are trying to block in the body.”
• Vegetarian & Vegan Populations—lower rates of osteoporosis and fractures.
• Phosphate is low in vegan diets—calcium supplements tend to raise it.

EXERCISE

Here, in verbatim, is the summarized evidence concerning exercise that George provides:

MY EXERCISE SPIEL

Information & Tips:

• Brain proteins—BDNF & NGF—increase with exercise
• Shown to have protective effects for neurons in MS.
• 2008 Review of Literature Tips:
• Endurance training at low to moderate intensity.
• Resistance training at moderate intensity.
• Aerobic exercise—if maintained—counteracts depression & fatigue.
• “…although heat makes the nerves conduct more slowly and the symptoms worse, it is not actually damaging to the nerves.”

STRESS

Here, in verbatim, is the summarized evidence concerning stress that George provides:

DEPRESSION

Here, in verbatim, is the summarized evidence concerning depression that George provides:

• Depression is very common in people with MS; at least 50 percent of people with MS experience it at some time.
• The presence or absence of depression may be the most important factor in determining quality of life for people with MS.
• Getting depressed can make the disease worse through shifting the immune system towards a Th1 response.

MY DEPRESSION SPIEL

Noteworthies:

• Over 50% with MS diagnosed during the disease process.
• Evidence for omega-3s and exercise reducing stress.

SMOKING

Here, in verbatim, is the summarized evidence concerning smoking that George provides:

• Smoking (active and passive) increases the risk of developing MS, and of it becoming progressive.

MY SMOKING SPIEL

Studies:

• Nurses’ Health Study
• Smokers—1.6x increase in risk
• Past smokers—1.2x increase in risk
• French Case Control Study—Smoking Parents
• Kids 2x greater risk of getting MS—longer exposure = more likely
• Harvard School of Public Health Case Control
• Those with MS who have smoked, past or present—3-4x more likely to develop secondary progressive MS.
• In General—studies show that people with MS smoke more than the general population.

GLUTEN

Here, in verbatim, is the summarized evidence concerning gluten that George provides:

• There is no real evidence of an association between gluten and MS.

MY GLUTEN SPIEL

George does mention that legumes and gluten are thought to be recent additions to our diet, but he has failed to find any MS studies with statistical significance—Major population study in Sweden (2007). He did however mention a 2006 Harvard study—people who took antihistamines regularly for three years prior to diagnosis reduced their risk by 80%. Maybe the studies surrounding MS and gluten do not exist yet, and for this, I urge you to see the connections in other diseases and disorders.

I find that antihistamine study extremely intriguing, not because I want you to go to your local pharmacy and buy some now—I don’t—but because of what it may mean. It opens the door to another possible dietary connection, one with links everywhere.

DENTAL AMALGAMS & HEPATITIS B VACCINATIONS

Here, in verbatim, is the summarized evidence concerning dental amalgams and hepatitis B vaccinations that George provides:

• There is no proven link between dental amalgam and MS; the risk of developing MS for people with amalgam fillings is not significantly higher than for those without.
• There is conjecture about the role of hepatitis B vaccination in MS; some studies suggest a link.

MY DENTAL AMALGAM & HEPATITIS B VACCINATION SPIEL

Studies:

• 2007 Review of Dental Amalgam—Slight increase in incidence, but not significant (George’s Opinion).
• Higher mercury levels in the body.
• Large US Case Control Study—Hepatitis B Vaccination
• “…found an alarming increase in the risk for several major autoimmune diseases, including MS.”
• Vs. the Control—5.2x more likely to get MS.

MIND-BODY CONNECTION

Here, in verbatim, is the summarized evidence concerning the mind-body connection that George provides:

• There is little evidence about the role of the mind and emotions in healing, yet most of us intuitively understand the clear association.
• Survivors of serious illness share similar characteristics; they see the illness as a challenge, actively seek solutions, and engage wholeheartedly in the healing process.
• Repressed emotions and unresolved grief and conflict can trigger or worsen serious illness.
• Faith and hope are important companions in the healing process; it is important to replace fear with faith.
• An RCT has shown that writing down difficult feelings produced a 30 per cent improvement in people with chronic inflammatory diseases.
• Meditation has numerous health benefits and has been shown to be of value in auto-immune conditions.

MY MIND-BODY CONNECTION SPIEL

Study:

• Journal of the American Medical Association (2009)—112 patient RCT
• Patients had an autoimmune disease—asthma or rheumatoid arthritis
• “Were the authors to have provided similar outcome evidence about a new drug, it is likely that it would be in widespread use within a short time. Why? We would think we understood the mechanism (whether we did or not) and there would be a mediating industry to promote its use.”
• Experimental Group—wrote, on one occasion, of the most stressful event of their lives.
• Control Group—wrote, on one occasion, about a neutral event.
• The experimental group got better…—RA severity by 28% and Asthma by 19%—…the control group did not.

MEDICATIONS

Here, in verbatim, is the summarized evidence concerning steroids, interferons, and glatiramer that George provides:

• A short course of steroids clearly improves the rate and extent of recovery of MS relapses.
• There appears to be no difference between routes of administration; oral is as good as intravenous, and much less unpleasant.
• Side effects are generally mild if the course is short.
• There is no need to taper the dosage if the course is short.
• Long-term therapy with steroids in MS is not beneficial and has many side effects.
• Preliminary evidence suggests that intermittent, pulsed doses of steroids may be helpful in slowing disease progression.
• Interferons are only modestly effective (30%) in reducing relapse rate in MS.
• The evidence of benefit in reducing rate of progression to disability is less convincing.
• It is unclear how long the interferons remain effective with continued use; it may be as short as twelve months.
• Neutralizing antibodies which reduce the drug’s effectiveness may be formed.
• There are many problems with the clinical trials, including drug company sponsorship, issues with unblinding and failure to account for drop-outs from the studies, weakening the findings.
• Side effects of the interferons, some of them serious, are often a problem.
• Glatiramer is modestly effective (30%) in reducing relapse rate in MS.
• Glatiramer appears to work by shifting the immune balance to a Th2 response.
• It also has neuro-protective effects.
• Clinical trials suggest a similar benefit to the interferons, but the studies were more robust as they were truly blinded.
• Side effects are relatively minor.

MY MEDICATION SPIEL

Steroids…

• NICE Guidelines—for any given episode, steroids should not be used more than three times per year or more than three weeks at a time.

Interferons…

• “…intended to modify cause of disease rather than make a difference to current symptoms.”
• “…secreted by cells exposed to viruses and interfered with replication of the virus.”
• Two Types
• Type 1-Alpha—Tends to suppress the immune system
• Type 2-Gamma—Tends to promote inflammation
• Besides Swank’s work in comparison to interferons, NABS—Neutralizing Antibodies—are what caught my eye. Decreased levels of interferons have been found in those with MS and in one study, 38-44% had NABs. These neutralizers tend to decrease the effectiveness of the interferon.
• Rampant side effects including infertility, depression, hair loss, liver disease, thyroid dysfunction, and “Flu-like illness, however, is very, very common. So is headache.”
• Evidence not strong enough “to draw any conclusions about the benefits of interferons beyond the first year.”
• Swank vs. Interferons—Relapse Rates
• Swank—Less than 1 relapse every 10 years
• Interferons—0.8 relapses every year

Glatiramer…

• “In humans it appears to induce an anti-inflammatory state in the cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the brain and reduce free radical formation in the blood.”

IS IT A VIRUS?

The use of interferons as a proposed treatment regiment—although it is often proposed for everything nowadays—led me to wonder if George would make a possible viral connection. He did. It has been shown that when children move from one country to another, they adopt the level of risk of their new dwelling. I thought sunshine…then George fills the gap in with some evidence showing that adults maintain the original level of risk.

Here, in verbatim, is the summarized evidence concerning viruses that George provides:

• A number of viruses have been linked to causing or triggering MS.
• Human herpes virus 6, Epstein-Barr virus (glandular fever virus), and varicella-zoster virus are the most likely candidates; it is likely that any of these may trigger the disease in susceptible people.
• Varicella-zoster virus may be a trigger for relapses in MS.
• Anti-viral agents have been inadequately studied despite promising preliminary work.

DIETARY WRAPUP

REFINED OILS

George explains how oils labeled ‘natural,’ when in fact they contain trans fatty acids, cyclic compounds, dimers, and polymers—things not found in nature—come to be. Originally-natural nuts and seeds are crushed and have their oils heated at high temperatures—up 95 degrees Celsius—for roughly two hours. After exiting the sauna, these oils are treated with acids, alkalis, deodorizers, and bleach. The process is then wrapped up at your local grocery store where the oil is sold as ‘natural’ pure vegetable oil.

FOODS THAT SHOULD BE AVOIDED

“The crux of the eating change is to cutout animal fat, dairy products, and ‘hidden’ saturated fats in apparently vegetarian products like cakes, pastries, potato chips, etc.”

• All meat
• Eggs (except egg whites)—George’s advice
• Dairy
• Biscuits, pastries, etc…
• All commercial baked goods
• Snacks like chips
• Margarine
• Shortening
• Lard
• Chocolate
• Coconut/Palm oil
• Fried/Fast foods
• Altered fats/oils

ALCOHOL

“I am reassured by the evidence we saw in the case-control studies that there seems to be no particular risk for people with MS drinking alcohol, apart from the usual general risks, unless they drink too much.” He goes onto compare alcohol to sunlight in the respect that maybe we have shunned it all to quickly by tagging it as dangerous at all levels. On a personal note, I have come to know way too much to even consider this a possibility. If I were a writer looking to shape and craft my article towards my knowledge, I would be shutting the door on skepticism.

Skepticism is what fuels true and reliable societal contributions, but dangerous skepticism, with regards to what has been shown, that is something completely different. Unlike sunlight, alcohol is of our creation. Unlike sunlight, alcohol can be avoided completely without any malnourishment effects down the road. For these reasons, I label it an addiction.

DISEASES

DIABETES

“There is growing evidence that lifestyle change is in many cases more effective than drug therapy, particularly in Western degenerative diseases, of which MS is one.”

• “For instance, research published in Diabetes Care in 2006 showed that a low-fat vegan diet was not only better than the currently recommended diabetic diet, but also more effective than standard diabetes drugs.”
• British Medical Journal—2007 Review—People with glucose intolerance on the verge of developing diabetes…
• Lifestyle changes—diet and exercise—50% less likely to develop diabetes
• Drugs—30% less likely…
• Journal of the American Medical Association (2007)—Study of children over the age of one at an increased risk of developing diabetes.
• Infants with higher omega-3s—55% less likely to develop autoimmunity to pancreatic cells.
• Children with 2/3 of the antibodies (highest risk)—77% drop in risk.

FIBROMYALGIA & RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS

• Low-saturated fat & vegan diet shown to be effective in one study.
• Mediterranean diet with RA
• Disease activity reduced and quality of life improved.
• Higher omega-3s to omega-6s shown to be more beneficial.

CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE

Healthy Heart Trial—low-fat vegetarian diet, exercise, and medication led to a reversal of CAD.

• Cholesterol dropped by 24%
• Stroke volume per beat increased by 30%

CONCLUSION

To wrap up this beast of an accomplishment by George, he jots a very serious and misleading gap between MS, and in his example, cancer. If you are a sufferer of cancer or a ‘cured’ cancer patient, you have something an MS patient cannot—will not in the current medical establishment, unless it is a miracle of course…cue the chuckles.

Cancer patients wait for those 5-10 years where they are relapse free and become un-diagnosed by their doctors. In an instant they are ‘cured’ and it is only confirmed by their doctors. The terms may not slip so easily off the doc’s tongue, but he or she knows and or believes, thus why they relay such a positive perspective. Sometimes you stick to your regiment and sometimes you resort back, but eventually, that damn cancer springs forth again, ripping through that barren and enduring winter of a cure.

Fictitious at best and vicious when we really take a seat with it. You were not cured. Cancer likely exists in all of us, right now. They eliminated what they could see, test, and diagnose, but they cannot remove the possibility of one cell becoming malignant and cancerous. That is an impossibility. It is the checks and balances of a healthy lifestyle that can keep it at bay. A balance needs to be found, not a cure.

“It is clear that close enough is not enough; the diet is really an all or nothing change.” The simplicity of his message translates into something too many find terribly impossible and absolutely impractical, yet we hope and donate fortunes to find cures for all these ailments! A wise man once said, a cure for *insert disease name* can and will be found. We have come so far with our technological ingenuity, we will find a cure. Years later, still bereft of a cure, we can only hope that the wise will be wiser—or at least wise.

Do you have MS?

What have you found to be helpful?

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Before I became vegan. Before I ever even thought about becoming a vegan—a thought that did not occur until the actual action had. I proceeded through life on my journey to live longer, longer than anyone ever has, to an age that friends and family view as an impossibility, but to an age that only ceases to exist because we have made it so.

So, I read the China Study one night—Ash Wednesday to be exact—a holy day of obligation within my former religion. We were obligated to go to extra masses, have ashes smeared upon our foreheads, and to abide by some dietary restrictions. I failed to abide, but more so chose to microwave some turkey meatloaf on that meatless Wednesday—I needed my protein and that is literally all I knew.

Little did I know that I could know more and that I would be vegan within a few hours and in an all so invitingly manner. My goal is to live to 150, not to be stringent and stubborn with how I am going to achieve it. I sought and found information as I continue to do so today. Before this epic read that seemed to open new possibilities and expand my thinking beyond my nursing-school background and general interest in the body, I relied heavily on what was already known, lived, and practiced and there in laid the flaw in the feat I was hoping to complete.

It was flawed because it is ever-so obvious that one cannot live longer than those already living and dying by only modestly modifying the tactics of theirs truly. So I swept veganism up into myself and continued from there in a creative snowball of progression.

It wasn’t well accepted within my family at first as I was flooded with the “where will you get your protein/nutrients” and “you have always loved these foods” statements and hostile remarks. This initial flash flood of inquiries was only short lived thankfully—in a very sarcastic tone—to the one and only Dr. Oz or the ‘tv doctor’. The tides seemed to withdraw rapidly as he materialized on his usual 4pm Eastern slot and appeared to be encouraging a vegan diet.

My mom’s worries quickly faded and fast forward to present-day, she has adopted a more vegetarian/veganish lifestyle, including a trial run on a raw vegan diet. Here are the links to the story about incorporating a plant-based diet over the American meaty platter…

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/nutrition-plan-will-save-your-life

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/diet-changes-lower-disease-risk-pt-1

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/diet-changes-lower-disease-risk-pt-2

I italicized ‘appeared’ because  he sat and or stood there in the national limelight and appeared to encourage the vegan diet. He mentions that his wife is vegetarian and that he himself had adopted a more vegetarian lifestyle and then proceeds to question his guests as to why a plant-based diet is optimal. Together, he and his special guests that day, unravel the troubles with an animal-based diet, but he is promoting, not encouraging.

You can childishly argue that before this episode appeared on tv that he was unaware of the benefits of a vegan diet—as was his audience?—but to only come back with a slew of episodes either promoting this meat over that meat…or etc… There’s something wrong here. I along with any other viewers I knew all seemed to find a place for this man in our hearts. We believed and truly trusted his intentions.

In reality, he is a smorgasbord of dietary advice that lacks an evolving mind. Instead, his weekday shows revolve in such a redundant progression-regression cycle that one can only get caught up in the hype while getting lost in what’s what. It’s Monday, April 26, 2011 and now I know that I should avoid all animal-based products and switch to a plant-based lifestyle.

That is great to know because back in November of 2010, Emeril Lagasse was on and asked Doctor Oz how much red meat is too much.

http://www.drozfans.com/dr-ozs-advice/dr-oz-emeril-lagasse-how-much-red-meat-can-you-eat-in-a-week/

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/celebs-ask-oz-emeril-lagasse

Seems like progression from this standpoint, but…Then weeks after or even days, another episode flickers to life and it is like you are in another world. It’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or maybe a rerun on the weekend and now I know I can revert, reinvent, and or shamelessly relapse. With many repetitive road bumps along way, you inch your way back into the mentality that I can eat this food but not that food. Did you ever get a sudden case of some shivering laughter. You find something oddly peculiar and funny, but its humor seems a bit off-base.

I got that feeling when I was driving home one day from the gym. Dr. Oz was on XM radio about to provide a snippet of advice. I do not recall the date, time, or the exact radio station, but I do recall what occurred during the conversation—I remember being home a few days later searching the web for the audio because I knew I would love to incorporate it down the road. The radio dj prompted Doctor Oz about nutrition and health and the publicly craved and idolized Doc had responded that in some countries where disease did not exist, it is because of their extreme habits in exercise, not their diets. The laughter creeped out and a shiver slipped its way to the forefront as he said diets did not have that big of an impact—keep in mind that this occurred months later.

I said we kept him close and regarded him kindly in our hearts, but I came to realize he is no different than the Nike checkmark over our hearts or hanging at our knees. I could buy a plain-jane t-shirt at any store nowadays, BUT IF IT HAS A CHECKMARK!—WHOO-EEE!…or at least that is how I used to dress. As the pitchman of the anything and everything, he promotes what the audience wants to hear and allows each and everyone of us to fall guiltlessly back into our false comforts.

I personally view him as a medical-media womanizer due to his tremendous and tortuous influence on the female population. Men are victims too, but women are the target audience to be seduced by this weekday rapture.  With a weakness in wanting to shed pounds and be mighty healthy too, their necks are exposed and the network doctor is on the prowl. Hey ladies, want lose some pounds and still have your cake too? Will you can do that today if you buy and try this insert-name-and-or-extract pill today!

I feel we are wasting money by printing graphic images on boxes and cartons of cigarettes. It is a smear campaign on an industry that has been successfully smeared by years and years of crippling death and is only sought out by morons who feel their lungs are spending a little too much time breathing and not enough time hacking up cancer. The surgeon general and FDA need to team up and began censoring the man who has turned freedom of speech into a freedom to misleadingly harass the public with what his money-pocketing employers feel pump-worthy.

You may say cut him some slack, and I will respond knick-knack paddywhack give this dog to Michael Vick. He has outstepped all boundaries. He has no boundaries beyond his one-hour, an hour that is easily escaped by finding refuge in the chatter of professional dieters—AKA America. He has stumbled his way into immediate success by springing forth via The Oprah Winfrey Show and I think it is time he followed her off-air.

My biggest pet-peeve with the Dr. Oz show is not him though, but the seldom few health advocates with true intentions who appear on his show. For instance, the people at Forks Over Knives who appeared on the episode where a plant-based/veganism became an acceptable trait within my household. I recall both this episode and an even more recent Facebook post of theirs when they decided to let their followers know that Dr. Oz had recently recognized the good mission of this bunch.

If Dr. Oz were ever to invite me on his show, I would unhesitatingly decline. If Dr. Oz were ever to tell people that moreapplesaday.com was a great source for health information, I would call the cops. In actuality, I would make all new readers read this very article before they could have access to the rest of the site, and then I would call the cops. If I were to accept his recognition and further promote his promotion, I would be sending an extremely misleading message to my readers.

Forks Over Knives has done this by subliminally telling their watchers and followers that Dr. Oz is an okay guy because hey, look he likes us and mentioned us on the tube. It bonds them in a unity with the man who can both bring you a million more Facebook ‘likes’ and a few more dvds sold too, but his words transition and twist into something new for tomorrow’s couch potatoes. It is these mangled words that will sink your battleship.

So before you sell your soul, decide whether it is the message you are bottling that is of upmost importance, or if your soul just needs a checkmark to add some more digits to its price tag.

Do you watch Dr. Oz?

Do you feel he offers valid and honest advice?

…or do your feel he is the QVC of cancer?

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Join the forum discussion on this post

“I was looking for a cure in an arena where a cure does not exist.” Richard was wandering where many have wandered, where many still wander, and where many will continue to wander until their demise. He had the symptoms, and like most, he treated them. What other way could there be? Could there be another way?

“In truth, an estimated one out of every three Americans regularly battles digestive problems, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).” As evidenced by the three-billion dollars we spend each year on the over-the-counter laxatives, antacids, anti-diarrheals, and fiber, we have permanently cemented digestive problems into existence by only sugar-coating the symptoms. It has become normal to be gassy or bloated after your daily chewing and gulpings. It has become something much more sinister.

Fueled by these meds, is there any reason to believe that this digestive carnage is unrelated to anything beyond the symptomatic cry for relief? Richard believes so. Richard believes: “When it comes to treating ongoing medical problems, such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, medication is the not answer. In these cases, medicines end up masking the patient’s symptoms when what the doctor needs to do is to determine the cause of the problem.”

It is powerful to know and menacing to not. As you pop another pill, plop down for another greasy Friday afternoon tasty treat, and breathe easily as memories of pain dwindle in the past, you soon realize the dwindling was only your cloudy judgement and that this Friday afternoon treat did nothing but re-kindle the already fiercely burning fire.

“This woman ate foods that were so irritating to her digestive system that they were almost the equivalent of eating glass.” You may be able to anesthetize the hell out of your gut with as many laxatives, antacids, anti-diarrheals, and fiber as you or your professionally licensed health care provider deems necessary to calm the fire, but sharp glass remains sharp even when you cope its feeling out of existence.

7 PROBLEMS WITH THE TRADITIONAL APPROACH

1. Treating the symptoms and not the root of the problem.
2. Traditional treatments make the IBS worse—Normal pH of the stomach: 1.5-2.5
• Raised above 3.5 by antacids → inhibits the acid responsible for protein digestion.
• Good Flora is weakened
• Bad Flora is encouraged
3. Medications have unwanted side effects.
• “…far from benign.”
• Yeast & digestive flora imbalances
• Suppress immune system
4. Food Allergies & Hypersensitivities are dismissed.
5. IBS is often used as a catchall diagnosis.
• “IBS is not a disease; it is a collection of symptoms indicating that the body is out of harmony.”
6. Doctors are often satisfied before their patients have been cured.
7. Failure to recognize environmental factors.

THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM

Richard estimates a travel time of 12-18 hours for your parcel of food to gallivant, unload its goods, and depart, but along the way:

1. Enzymes are secreted.
1. Acetylcholine—at the very sight, smell, or even mention of food, this neurotransmitter triggers a cascade of contractions and production of digestive juices (2-3 quarts/day).
2. Muscles are contracted.
3. Food is converted into energy.

STOMACH & HYDROCHLORIC ACID

Hydrochloric acid—HCl for short—is the stomach’s digestive juice:

• Kills harmful bacteria and microorganisms swallowed with food.
• Stomach lined with alkaline to prevent corrosion—HCl pH of 1.5-2.5
• Level declines with age.
• “…more than 30% of all people over age sixty have inadequate levels of hydrochloric acid in their stomachs.”

It can be viewed as the dagger that disrupts your digestion or it can be viewed as the gatekeeper to the very important inner environment. To view it as the latter, take a step back, only a few words, until you reach the word dagger again. You may view hydrochloric acid as that dagger that will bully your digestive tract each and every time you sit to have a bite or indulge in a particular liquid. You may be oblivious,  and for that, let me make it all too obvious: you are that dagger, and no, you are not HCl…unless your parents named you Henrietta Clarence. If everyone were to mess with fire, cities would burn. When everyone messes with their diet, environment, and every other tangible lifestyle factor, we call that disease…and in this case, that disease is irritable bowel syndrome.

SMALL INTESTINE, BIG ABSORBER

Thirty minutes of travel, “…depending on the composition of the meal.”

• Main digestive organ
• Chemical breakdown of food is completed.
• Most nutrients absorbed into bloodstream.
• Gets digestive juices from:
• Pancreas—carbohydrates, fats, and proteins
• Liver—filters toxins, stores nutrients, makes cholesterol, and bile for digestion.
• Gallbladder—stores and concentrates bile.

COLON & ANUS

Colon, AKA the Large Intestine:

• Removes waste you cannot digest—2 quarts each day.
• Water
• Electrolytes
• Plant
• Fiber
• Bacteria
• Shed digestive lining cells
• Travel Time: 12 Hours
• Absorbs nearly all the water.
• Bacteria in the colon is harmless, if it is kept there…—but it can ferment with certain foods.
• Sulfur-based preservatives—bread, beer, potato chips, etc…

CAUSE & SYMPTOMS

IBS was at one time solely attributed to stress, but studies have indicated that those 40 million affected each year—women 2x more often—share physiological and psychological triggers. The common symptoms of IBS include:

1. Abdominal cramping
2. Gassiness
3. Bloating
4. Mucus with stool
5. Diarrhea
6. Constipation
7. Alteration between constipation and diarrhea

ACID BASE BALANCE

Richard makes note that a pH of 7.0—on a scale from 0-14— is neutral and that anything below this level is acidic, whereas anything above is alkalinic. As a former nursing student, we primarily focused on the slightly alkalinic 7.35-7.45 range that was regimented into our minds over the years. Other areas were noted, but our focus was primarily in recognizing the global significance of being within these safety parameters. Richard mentions the varying pH levels within our bodies:

• Blood & Tissues—slightly alkaline
• Urine—neutral/slightly acidic
• Stomach—acidic

“When the body is too acidic, every cell in the body is affected.” To combat these risky levels of acid, alkaline minerals are drawn to neutralize it:

1. Sodium
2. Potassium
3. Calcium
4. Magnesium
5. “…acidic diet can lead to nutrient deficiencies.”

“The body has compensating mechanisms to keep the pH at a steady level, but these systems can be overstressed when a person consumes a highly acidic diet—which is the typical American diet—on an ongoing basis.”

MEDICATIONS & SUPPLEMENTS

“I do not recommend the use of these medications in the treatment of IBS.”

1. Antidiarrheals
2. Fiber
• Many people sensitive to psyllium—a common ingredient in fiber supplements.
3. Laxatives
4. Zelnorm
5. Alosetron
6. Smooth Muscle Relaxants
7. Antidepressants

“Some people want to take a pill and feel better so that they can go back to their old ways of eating.” As advertised on tv, these pills exist only because they produce profit. Tempting you to eat your favorite foods and to forget about their past offenses, these pills offer a middle ground where you can have both the inflammation and the dessert. I cannot help but chuckle when an ad pops up and a middle-aged man sits down to a sloppy joe or maybe some tacos, but before introducing these foods to his salivary glands more intimately, he pops a pill. There is no difference between this man and the metaphorical man who likes to get stabbed with rusty knives in the dark alleys of the night. Both have strange health deterring addictions, but there are currently no pills to push the gushing of a rusty knife out of sight and out of mind…unless you are tripping on something else of course.

FOOD SENSITIVITIES & ALLERGIES

“I have also had patients who thought they were allergic to a certain type of fruit or vegetable, only to learn from the blood test that they did not respond to the produce itself but rather to a pesticide residue left on the produce.”

• 10% are immediate reactions.
• 90% are delayed reactions—4-48 hours after.
• Food additives
• Food coloring
• Pesticides
• Heavy metals
• Pollutants

Symptoms of Delayed Food Allergies:

1. Chronic digestive problems
2. Recurrent infections
3. Difficulty losing weight
4. Severe fatigue after eating
5. Holding water—not associated with menstrual cycle
6. Dark circles under eyes
7. Horizontal crease under lower eyelid
8. Frequent stuffy nose/postnasal drip/clearing throat after eating
9. Chronic swollen glands
10. Anxiety/heart palpitations
11. Unexplained skin rashes
12. History of gallbladder disease
13. History of aches
14. History of antibiotic abuse
15. Mental fogginess after eating
16. Low blood sugar
17. Headaches

MOST COMMON FOOD ALLERGIES

Foods:

1. Dairy
2. Wheat
3. Oats
4. Eggs
5. Corn
6. Peanuts
7. Shellfish
8. Tomatoes
9. Strawberries

Food Additives:

1. FD&C Yellow no. 5
2. Vanillin
3. Sulfites
4. Benzaldehyde
5. MSG
6. BHT/BHA
7. Benzoates

LEAKY GUT SYNDROME

To a degree, a leaky gut is how your body can become highly sensitive to foods that most can digest normally. Undigested foods can literally slip through these thin and tiny perforations in the digestive tract and be labelled as antigens. The trouble is that when something is labelled an antigen, it becomes an antigen. It is not as if this substance can slip off its Halloween costume and retain its original identity. Its original identity has not changed, only the body’s perception of that original identity has. It no longer needs a Freddy Krueger mask to scare because it is now recognized as the actual Freddy Krueger.

What causes a leaky gut:

1. Yeast/bacteria
2. GI infection
3. Viral Infection
4. Poor nutrition/absorption
5. Genetics

“Sometimes the long period of digestive rest will allow you to tolerate it again.” In short, Richard proclaims that eating the same thing everyday can lead to a leaky gut and that resting the gut may be in your best interest—”avoid it for life” if you reintroduce it for a third time and you have another reaction. He also writes that some sensitivities can be eliminated with a healed digestive tract. I feel his information is a tad bit misleading.

For starts, eating the same thing every day is not necessarily bad nor risky. Sure, if you deluge your body with an onslaught of unhealthy foods each and every day, the effects will culminate. However, if you eat truly nutritious foods every day and avoid all the fake stuff, you can be sure that your digestive system will be operating at its optimal level. As for reintroducing foods, I feel Richard is playing to the reader’s dietary addiction rather than to their health. As you begin to eliminate those foods that trigger and offset your bowels, you will be healthier. Richard opens the gate here for reintroduction and I wish to slam it before you even consider that option.

Our body has no absolute or peak levels, it operates on a system of balances. There is no definite pH, number of red blood cells, body temperature, etc…etc…etc… It is a balance, one that can signal us when our threshold has been breached. Too much and too little can trigger some spontaneous vomiting, diarrhea, respirations, etc…etc…etc… Eliminating the triggers brings the body into greater balance, a balance that can better tolerate whatever you choose to throw its way.

Trigger A, B, & C may have synergistically compromised your gut earlier, but after eliminating them, you feel great and ready to take another stab at these triggers. I ask why and truly wonder how you could possibly want to delve back into these triggers. Even if you only reintroduce Trigger B, why would you? Your body can tolerate it now, but toleration is only defined by your body’s ability or inability to churn out symptoms. The damages are smaller, but the damages are damages. If four glasses of milk a day killed you instantly, why would you reintroduce one while being on the verge to introduce even more?

MILK INTOLERANCE

“In my experience, almost all my patients with IBS are milk intolerant.”

“The milk industry has done a marvelous job convincing Americans that milk is a healthy beverage, but it is not. Cow’s milk is the perfect food for calves, but not for human beings. Milk does not, in fact, do a body good, as advertisers claim. Forget your milk mustache.”

• Lactose free—doesn’t help with true sensitivity
• Chronic exposure—more vulnerable to food allergies/IBS symptoms
• Calcium—leafy greens & other plant sources
• “…milk drinkers tend to have more problems with calcium deficiency that people who consume fewer dairy products.”
• 2002 Journal of Clinical Nutrition Study—veggies & fruit had a positive impact on bone health whereas dairy did not.
• Animal proteins—speed elimination of calcium from the body and make it more acidic→calcium can leach from bones, magnesium absorption can become disrupted→osteoporosis
• Milk calcium—we absorb 30%
• Plant calcium—we absorb 40-70%

LACTOSE INTOLERANCE

“…most adults worldwide have some difficulty digesting dairy products”—other than northern Europeans.

• Almost all babies are born with lactase enzyme, but after 1-2 years, these levels drop off with an inherited predisposition to lactose intolerance.
• 70-80% of African-Americans, Native Americans, Jews, Asians—by adulthood
• Most people write off minor symptoms as being ‘normal’

Six Additional Reasons to Give Up Dairy Products:

1. Undigestible proteins
• Putrefy and cause digestive problems
2. Encourage the excess production of mucus
• Burdens respiratory, digestive, and immune systems
3. Fewer colds & sinus infections when his patients give it up
4. Pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, and chemicals in milk
• rBGH—insulin growth factor→Breast/Colon cancer, juvenile diabetes, hypertension, glucose intolerance
5. Higher intake = greater risk
• The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Study (2001)—600mg of calcium vs 100mg of calcium from milk = 32% increased risk.
6. Increased risk of hip fracture in women—Harvard University Nurses Health Study
• 78,000 women for 12 years
• Those who consumed the most calcium from dairy had the most broken bones, compared to those who rarely drank milk.

CANDIDIASIS/YEAST

Candidiasis exists harmoniously as part of the natural flora of the digestive tract, in fact, these natural bacteria keep each other in check. But when problems arise and only the symptoms of these problems are treated, yeast infections can grow roots into the intestinal wall and other mucous linings. In doing so, it poisons the bloodstream with mycotoxins—toxins given rise by the fermentation of glucose, proteins, and fats. As it continues to be a menace, our body eventually makes an antibody to the candida. You may not see it yet, glance back a few sentences and let it be re-revealed to you that candida exists naturally, harmoniously, and plays a vital role in digestion.

Some Contributors to Yeast Growth:

1. Low gastric juice levels—medications
2. Body’s pH becomes to acidic
• “friendly bacteria”→cannot metabolize/control sugar/failure to thrive→yeast feasts on the sugar.
3. Low pancreatic enzyme levels
• Incomplete digestion→yeast digests and releases toxins.
4. High sugar diet/alcohol intake (broken down into sugar)
5. Antibiotics—kill helpful bacteria
6. Birth control pills encourage yeast growth
• Hormones raise the amount of sugar in the vagina.
• Pregnancy, menstrual cycle, & menopause too.
7. Immunosuppressant drugs—steroids/chemotherapy

CANDIDA & CARBOHYDRATES

Simple sugars…

• Refined sugar
• Brown sugar
• Corn syrup
• White rice/bread/pasta/flour

…are converted to sugars and fuel a yeast uprising. As the yeast feeds there are rapid shifts in blood sugar levels and the pancreas overreacts by releasing too much insulin. The blood sugar drops and you inevitably crave more food—more fuel for the candida fire—and enter a temporary relief cycle. You eat, but it is never enough. You can splurge, but your condition will only worsen as the relief consistently subsides.

“Instead of turning to medications, you should create an environment that is inhospitable to yeast.”

• “Almost every patient I have ever seen with IBS has had yeast overgrowth as well.”
• “Candidiasis almost never occurs in people with healthy immune systems who eat a diet low in sugar and yeast.”

Richard serves up an excellent analogy to sum up our ineffective approaches in treating candida. Kitchen bugs can be eliminated by spraying pesticides in every nook and cranny and by setting little bug hotels, but this treatment is as effective as our approach in treating any illness with the modern mentality. It is a chronic treatment for an acute problem. Instead of removing the garbage, rotten food, etc…—AKA their food supply and what draws them to your kitchen—we hire a professional and pay them handsomely to nuke our kitchens.

The difference with medical care is the definition of being paid handsomely, but other than that, the approach is as reckless as hiring the exterminator. Temporary relief is achieved. Symptoms are painted over. And you schedule in advance for your next check-up because elimination no longer means to make extinct but to suppress until next month.

FOODS TO AVOID

1. Sugar of any kind
• corn syrup, sugar cane, beets, dates, maple syrup, honey, molasses, fructose, dextrose, maltose, lactose, & fruit juices
2. Artificial sweeteners
3. Brewer’s yeast
4. Baker’s yeast
5. Mushrooms
6. Fruits/Veggies with any mold
• If severe, avoid all fruit because it is readily converted to simple sugars.
7. Fermented beverages & condiments
8. Cheeses
9. Processed & Smoked meats/fish
10. Canned, bottled, or frozen fruit & veggie juices
11. Dried fruits
12. Coffee & Tea
• Caffeine & mold on leaves
13. Melons
• Tends to develop mold
14. Alcoholic beverages of any kind

FOODS TO EMPLOY

1. Vegetables
2. Legumes
3. Nuts
4. Seeds
5. Fish*
6. Red Meats*
7. Non-dairy butters
8. Whole grains**
9. Non-grains
10. Poultry*
11. Water
12. Fats
13. Fresh fruits

*I could list all the benefits of becoming a vegan, but Richard pokes a nice little hole through meat-eating America—Animal proteins speed elimination of calcium from the body and make it more acidic→calcium can leach from bones, magnesium absorption can become disrupted→osteoporosis. Only minutes after he pokes it, it seems to disappear as the pages turn. It is as if he poked it only through those few pages and as you flipped on and eventually trudged upon his dietary recommendations, that hole was patched with paper. He then upholds a red meat, fish, and poultry diet as a go-to healer. Of all the literature I have read up to this point, not one author has mounted enough courage to unleash red meat as being beneficial to their readers.

I am perplexed, as you should be too. To have sliced and diced through the problems with animal proteins only to become a convert as his writing progressed?

**Refer to the section on whole grains & celiac disease.

HIS MEAL PLAN

Accentuate the Alkaline
Banish bread & other yeast foods
Cut carbohydrates
Drop dairy from your diet

He recommends:

• “Strive to consume only whole, unprocessed foods (organic if possible), and prepare them yourself.”
• “Avoid commercially prepared foods, which often contain additives and preservatives.”
• Dietary Reintroduction Phases
• Phase 1 (1-2 weeks)—remove foods
• Phase 2 (3 weeks to 3 months)—rotate and eliminate those that cause reactions
• Phase 3 (lifetime)—maintenance
• “Occasionally you can indulge.”*
• “Our bodies are resilient…”*
• Meat—”high-quality protein, but they tend to be high in fat.”—buy lean.**
• Dairy—Eggs, butter, and goat milk are okay.**
• Fats—not in excess, even the essential fatty acids

*”Occasionally you can indulge.” ”Our bodies are resilient…” The only thing resilient within the confines of Richard’s mind is his willingness to spring back into the war we are seeking to cease. Would you place some trash or rotten foods around the kitchen so that the bugs would come back? Then why would you want to trash your body and indulge in such ignorance.

**”high-quality protein, but they tend to be high in fat.” I do not feel my words need to be as redundant as Richard’s contradictoriness.

OTHER FOOD TIPS

1. Chew throughly
2. Drink 6-8 glasses of pure water each day
3. Limit fluids during meals—dilutes stomach acid
4. 3 meals & 3 balanced snacks each day
5. Don’t overeat
6. Poultry—free-range/organic
7. Certified organic fruits & vegetables
8. Restrict salt intake
9. Avoid chemical additives
• MSG
• Nutrasweet
• Saccharin
• Aspartame
• Olestra
• Hydrolyzed protein
• Sodium Caseinate
10. No alcohol
11. Become educated consumers—food labels

FATS

Omega-6 & Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids

• Found naturally in plants, but also oils & fish.

Saturated/Trans Fatty Acids

• Avoid…found heavily in animal products.
• ↑ Cholesterol
• ↓ HDL
• Interfere with liver detoxification.
• Interfere with the function of essential fatty acids.
• Hydrogenated fats were created to prolong shelf life, avoid these non-spoiling foods.

STRESS & RELAXATION

A 2001 study—Journal of Clinical Psychiatry—at the Medical University of South Carolina found that somewhere between 50-90% of people who seek treatment for IBS also have psychiatric problems…

• Panic Disorders
• Anxiety
• Social Phobia
• Depression
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

I will proceed beyond this next quote, but I feel it does a fine job in outlining both the role of stress and its various triggers in the disease process. “An auto accident is stressful and so is buying a new car.” We often fail to recognize how a stressful day is a promoter of the disease process. We forget to relax and we tread on. I flipped through Richard’s pages of text internally debating his approach and only hoping he would not avoid factoring in stress to the IBS treatment equation.

“70% have enough bowel symptoms to be diagnosed with IBS.” This little statistic which could have been easily breezed over because it was just ten-stringed words amongst thousands, has stuck with me. I was compelled to know more because I was shocked when I learned that fibromyalgia patients suffer from digestive disturbances too. These few words glistened at the time and still remind me of how important the relationship between health and stress really are. Learn more about our fight or flight adaptive mechanism and how fibromyalgia patients have become maladaptive.

STRESS RESPONSE

Fight, Flight, Freeze—AKA the stress response and or choice, triggers the hypothalamus (brain):

• ↑ Heart Rate & Blood Pressure
• Breathe Faster
• Muscles Tense
• Metabolism in High Gear
• Hearing Improves
• Pupils Dilate
• Digestive System
• Mouth dries
• Stomach churns & feel the need to clear bowels.
• Affects stomach acid content—oxygen is diverted away from the stomach during stress.
• *
• Hormones—adrenaline, epinephrine, & cortisol
• Prepare for danger, but also interfere with digestion, reproduction, growth, and tissue repair.
• Ongoing stress leads to adrenal fatigue & no more hormones → IgA → leaky gut → IBS
• “Not surprisingly, during periods of stress, the body often becomes deficient in many key nutrients.”
• The chronicity of stress is a bewildering impediment to maintaining a healthy body. You can eat the right stuff or you can eat the wrong stuff, but if you feel stressed, your body shuts sectors down, not as an act of aggression, but purely as a coping mechanism. We are prepared for acute attacks and will likely never be prepared to adapt to a war-like scenario.

*I am greatly intrigued by how such a little adaptation can be so counter-productive to overall health. I have to step back for moment and remember that these mechanisms allow us to adapt and survive. The operators—chemical mediators such as hormones, etc…—behind the fight, flight, or freeze response have no idea that societal norms necessitate such an attack. Milkshake, burger and fries, another cup of coffee, more meat, and a dash of another stressful day at work is the American way.

You may not slot yourself into all of those categorical norms, but that is just a short list. Broaden your health knowledge and you will begin to the see that the war you thought only existed on CNN exists at home too, and you are the perpetrator of your own territory. When oxygen is diverted away from the stomach during stress, food is left undigested and metabolic wastes build up because the stomach cannot produce enough enzymes. The acidic waste follows gravity and some rippling peristaltic waves into the thin-walled—thin for absorptive purposes—small intestine. Lacking a protective alkalinic lining like that of the stomach, the small intestine inflames and healthy bacteria cannot survive.

TYPES OF STRESS

1. Physical
2. Environmental
3. Mental
4. Emotional
5. Nutritional
6. Traumatic
7. Psychological

RELAXATION TECHNIQUES

1. “Deep breathing helps relax the body and quiet the mind.”
• We breathe poorly when under stress.
2. Transcendental Meditation
• Breathing & Heart Rate ↓
• Oxygen consumption ↓ by 20%
• Blood lactate ↓
• Brain waves—greater alpha wave activity
3. Progressive Relaxation
4. Visualization
5. Biofeedback
6. Hypnosis
7. Massage
8. Yoga

EXERCISE

“Regular exercise can relieve your IBS symptoms and improve your digestive health.”

• “…just half an hour of moderate exercise such as aerobic walking four or five times a week may be all it takes to make you feel better.”
• Journal of Gastroenterology Nursing Study—IBS women found to be “significantly” less active than control group.
• “…make you look years younger than your chronological age.”
• “The average American loses 10 to 20 percent of muscle strength between the ages of twenty and fifty and another 25 to 30 percent between fifty and seventy.”
• Strength training helps stave it off.

BENEFITS

1. Strengthens defense against disease.
2. Decreases:
• Cancer
• Cardiovascular disease
• Colds
• Urinary tract infections
• Diabetes
• Hypertension
• Obesity
• Osteoarthritis
• Osteoporosis
• Stroke
3. Relieves:
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Stress
• Low back pain
• Constipation
4. Improves:
• Cholesterol
• Lymphatic flow—delivers immune cells & eliminates toxins
• Flexibility
• Immune System
• Mental alertness/Reaction time
• Mood
• Muscle strength
• Self-esteem
• Sexual drive
• Short-term memory
• Sleep
• Relaxation
• Vision

Studies show that heart attack sufferers, with exercise, can reduce their risk of a second attack by as much as 20-25%, but…

• “You don’t have to spend hours in the gym to enjoy these benefits.”
• “…but don’t try to make up for lost time by increasing the intensity of your workout.”

…take it easy and do not exceed your limits. For some odd reason we seek an exercise regiment that has become a generalized struggle. A grunted run or an aching bench press…is it worth it?

SUPPLEMENTS

“You cannot get all the nutrients you need from the foods you eat”—”…modern-day intensive farming methods and depleted soils.” Seriously Richard!? Did we thrive on the pill when the pill did not exist? Are we the only creatures roaming this planet? Other than domesticated animals or hormonally surging farm animals, who else has had years pilfered by a pill?…we have…

• “Taking too many supplements too quickly can have undesirable side effects…”

RELATED DISEASES & DISORDERS

CELIAC DISEASE

“…celiac disease is considered the most under diagnosed common disease today, affecting as many as 1 out of every 130 people in the United States.”

• 2003 Study of 4000 people with no genetic risk factors nor symptoms of celiac disease—1 out of every 133
• Greater incidence with familial links.
• 1 in 56 with IBS have celiac disease too.

“Many people have a genetic susceptibility to celiac disease, but the disease lies dormant until a triggering event occurs…”

• Wheat
• Spelt
• Triticale
• Kamut
• Rye
• Oats
• Barley
• Teff
• Aramanth
• Quinoa

It is the gluten or gluten-like protein found in these ‘foods’ that triggers a reaction and inflames the villi within the small intestine. Nutrients are poorly absorbed in a snowball like effect as the body undergoes a continual dietary attack. For treatment, Richard recommends avoidance—”cannot cheat”— so that the small intestine can heal. Full recovery can extend from 3-6 months or, a rarity, to as long as 18-24 months.

The symptoms of IBS mimic those of celiac disease, but I do not feel that is extraordinary. An attack on the digestive tract will stimulate the body to throw up its arms and proceed hastily with battle. The consequences will be similar, as will the rewards of avoidance. “Irritable bowel syndrome is an exasperating condition, but not a medically dangerous one.” I am not sure how Richard was trying to approach his audience with this one. If in comparing it to a traumatic bodily manifestation such as a cerebral aneurysm, yes, IBS does not warrant similar medical treatment.

As for severity though, IBS hidden within the duration of a life should not require a speculative safety net. It is not safe to harbor IBS for one day let alone a lifetime.

INGREDIENTS THAT MAY ORIGINATE FROM GLUTEN

1. Unidentified starch
2. Modified food starch
3. Hydrolyzed vegetable/plant protein
4. Texturized vegetable protein
5. Malt/natural flavorings
6. Brown rice syrup
7. Soy sauce
8. Mono/diglycerides
9. Caramel flavor
10. Alcohol based extracts
11. Maltodextrin
12. Distilled vinegar
13. Ketchup
14. Pickles
15. Mayonaise
16. Salad dressings
17. BBQ
18. Other condiments
19. Drug binders
20. Lipstick
21. Postage stamp glue

LINK TO DERMATITIS HERPETIFORMIS

• Blistering itchy patches of skin on pressure points (elbows, knees, etc…).

DIGESTIVE CANCER

“Oncologists believe that most people have dormant genes that can produce cancer cells, and that these genes do not cause problems until they’re activated by an outside agent, such as an infection, tobacco, pollutants, or some sort of irritant to the body.”

DIVERTICULA

Diverticula are a weakening of the smooth wall that causes small pockets to form within the colon.

• “By age forty-five, about 40 percent of Americans have diverticula and this percentage increases with age.”

I will refer back to this quote when I wrap up IBS in my conclusion.

GERD

1 in 10 Americans, regularly or daily…and the factors:

• Overweight
• Immediate family member with GERD
• Smoking
• Alcohol
• Being pregnant
• Asthma
• Diabetes
• Peptic ulcer
• Pepsin breaks down protein—NSAIDs, smoking, alcohol, & H. pylori
• Delayed stomach emptying
• Connective tissue disorders
• Many medications

CONCLUSION

“By age forty-five, about 40 percent of Americans have diverticula and this percentage increases with age.” Coupled with the scandalous under diagnosing of digestive problems, especially celiac disease, these statistical numbers do not detract from one another, they complement one another. It is no complement to be buried by the disease process and then by some shoveled dirt upon your dimensionally appropriated box at an age when you could should still be thriving.

Are we unconvinced by these statistics because ’40%’ seems cute, little, and cheek-pinch worthy? Are we unconvinced because we are one hidden and protected amongst a population of millions, and billions globally? As these statistical anomalies restructure themselves in time into average lifespans, are we unconvinced because we now find it equally comforting to be identified as part of the statistical many…millions…billions?

Do you have IBS or any digestive problems?

What treatments have you tried? Did they actually treat the problem effectively?

What lifestyle changes have you incorporated into your treatment regiment?

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Analysis: Clamor for obesity pill may test FDA limits

“The FDA has set a high approval bar for obesity drugs in the past, primarily because of worries that a large portion of the population is likely to take them.”

Another one bites the dust and that other one is not the up and coming fat-pill tagged Qnexa—oh how that slips so beautifully off the tongue—but that other one can and very will may be you. We find it troubling that we cannot eat and imagine-off our pounds so we resort to some magical candy that must undergo rigorous testing to even be considered. I find it troubling that we can reach such a level where the totality of our reliance is shifted to a pill where current success is defined as:

• “U.S. drug regulators may have a hard time stopping millions of overweight Americans from taking a new obesity drug that many are likely to view as a miracle pill for slimming waistlines, despite its safety risks.”
• “Regulators and doctors are hoping they can limit the pill, called Qnexa, to only those patients that need it most, helping fight the nation’s obesity epidemic while avoiding exposing people to unnecessary risks of birth defects and heart problems.”
• “It combines the appetite suppressant phentermine with the anti-seizure drug topiramate, and helped patients lose 10 percent of their weight after a year during trials. However, the pounds started to creep back on after the first 12 months.“
• “FDA staff reviewers said patients taking the drug had more safety problems, including memory loss and higher heart rates, than those on a placebo.”
• “They also said exposure to topiramate has been linked to a higher rate of oral clefts in infants of women taking the drug during pregnancy.”
• “Qnexa has some uncertain effects on the heart: it lowers blood pressure, but raises heartbeat. Doctors on the FDA panel were divided about what signal that sends, and asked Vivus to conduct more studies on heart safety, most likely after Qnexa is approved.”
• “”There is going to be a huge demand for Qnexa… (and) if the FDA doesn’t regulate Qnexa appropriately there are going to be a deluge of lawsuits,” said Gortler.”

Current success, what about future success?

• “”Based on the data that we’ve seen, we think this drug may do enormous good,” he said during the panel meeting. “But we may not know that for a long time, or we may find out we’ve been fooled.”"

That last one was voiced by one Dr. Michael Lauer, one of the two—22 total—FDA panelists who voted against Qnexa’s approval. I am extremely irked that an individual who is in opposition against a drug’s approval can say “we think this drug may do enormous good.” I am even more irked by the reality that we fully depend upon a government agency to be our Brita filter for drugs and to act accordingly to our best interests. When did it become best to loophole our way from obese… to still obese… coupled with a trek through the drug’s currently known side effects and those lurking. I view this loophole as I could only currently imagine a body being sucked into a black-hole, lighter in weight, but only because the body would likely exist in scattered pieces.

If only… If only we could learn from our past successes:

• “The infamous diet drug “fen-phen” was pulled from the market in 1997 after reports of sometimes fatal heart-valve problems.”
• “Another diet pill, Meridia, was removed in 2010 after it was linked to heart problems.”
• “The drug from Orexigen has also been flagged for heart risks, while FDA reviewers have cautioned about cancer risks associated with the pill from Arena.”

Anna—after noting: “A Senate appropriations committee has directed the FDA to provide a report by the end of March on how it plans to support the development of new obesity treatments.”—slips this one in: “Obesity, a leading cause of diabetes, heart disease and other serious health problems, has reached epidemic proportions in the United States, with nearly 68 percent of the U.S. population considered overweight, and a third obese.” As they would on Reddit or at your illegally operated home poker game, I see your misleadingly placed text and raise you: FDA adds diabetes, memory loss warnings to statins.

We ride a merry-go-round called life. Some, a rarity in their own, ride it respectfully, but some have been lassoed into believing there is something beyond this endless circle. Some have crept onto the centrifugal whip, a ride so jarring something is apt to go awry. In the real world, such a thrill tends to end in nothing more than a squashing of the youngest rider. In the metaphorical real world…

It gets so fast, too fast. One thing leads to another and eventually the real cause of obesity is thrown from the ride, out of reach and completely intangible. It is a vicious cycle where riders line up again with some freshly purchased tickets for another ride on the Qnexa. So when Anna’s words skirt around the idea that disease exists because the g-damn FDA has not taken your abdominal girth seriously by arranging for a new ensemble of pills, I implore you to reach out beyond your tarnished reality and grasp the previously intangible.

“Obesity drugs are seen as the middle ground for patients who struggle with strict diet and exercise regimens, but do not want the risks of bariatric surgery.”

Their middle ground lacks a longitudinal exactitude and only exists within the minds of the lazy and ignorant. They find warning labels on drugs trivial—as insignificant as the mile-a-minute spokesperson who reads the illegible insect text at the end of a truly heartwarming drug commercial that makes you crave some fresh fruit. For an obese society that is so afraid of the word calorie or finding a gram of fat on the back of their candy-bars, I have great difficulty in seeing how you can disregard the this will likely kill you warning so easily.

“The FDA is set to make its final decision by mid-April” and I would like you to make your decision now while you still can. The FDA does not regulate a healthy lifestyle, they regulate concoctions and poisons that produce outcomes that are beautifully masked by the duration of life. Hidden within these minutes, days, weeks, and years are the accumulating effects that unmask the often pre-imagined and highly disregarded realities of the past, and thus a drug recall—”…we may find out we’ve been fooled”.

Some people say that the future is un-imaginable and beyond the comprehension of the mushy material within our heads. I may not be able to predict the social trends, technological improvements, and whether or not they will have invented that microwave-like box that requires nothing more than your imagination to pop out some food, but I do know that my health will be in excellent condition because I made that decision already. I do know that I won’t have to run, eat, or intoxicate some flab off and I do know that the magically appearing food will fail to even slightly entice me.

The FDA is at a standstill with the public. The public wants to load up on garbage and take a pill to make it… okay? FDA panelists are cornered with the public’s outcry for better healthcare and so they must act. A pill pops out every now and then and then it eventually sinks with an even greater public outcry about its side effects—as if they did not exist prior to the initial launch. As evidenced by the perennial recalls and those individuals that actually do suffer from those tiny-fonted and often hidden side-effects—likely anyone taking the drug—our current vision for health is downright reckless, chaotic, and one-hundred percent hopeless.

Obesity is very much like drunk-driving in that it is very unsafe. In one case you are arrested for your offense while in the other you become the patient. If we were to reverse these roles by jailing the obese and by creating high-impact crash durable cars and outlawing walking on sidewalks, we would be a much leaner nation. Instead, we cushion ourselves with medications and tainted mentalities and only jail those who have an immediate impact on society. If becoming fat could somehow run that red-light and speed carelessly into oncoming traffic…but no, becoming fat only endangers the belt-less driver and only secondarily damages others emotionally or by influence.

The FDA just needs to act in our best interests and tell people they are fat because they made themselves fat. They are not here to help you loophole and they are most certainly not here to help you loophole out of your currently preexisting loopholes. It shouldn’t work this way. It doesn’t work this way.

What are your feelings on Qnexa and diet pills in general?

Do you parade for fat pills?

Can health be sustained without such measures?

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“In Lupus, the body reacts to an unknown stimulus and makes too many antibodies, or proteins against body tissue.”

As with almost every disease, the standard fallback is blindly concluded and leans on an ever pressurized worn-down shed wall—just don’t know. One million U.S. citizens are afflicted with SLE (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus)—90% of these individuals are women and 90% of these women are of childbearing age. Daniel, the author, skirts around the problem and eventually casts his die in with a hope of continued future medical and technological ingenuities. He is aware of what may be causing lupus and provides an almost complete cookbook for better health, but he only slightly nudges the reader to take action.

Being a male though, he does bring a voice to what he may term a mute community—”If the population of patients suffering from lupus were ninety percent male, I daresay that the medical community would be more responsive.”

WHY DO WE GET LUPUS?

“Lupus results when a specific predisposing set of genes exposed to the right combination of environmental elements, infectious agents, lupus-inducing drugs, excessive ultraviolet light, physical trauma, emotional stress, or other factors.”

IMMUNITY

In response to Lupus, our body can corral the necessary response to simmer it cold and derail its deathly trajectory. Everything can be placed back into the confines of a properly ticking machine. Lupus is an autoimmune attack though, and three-finger tapped, an autoimmune disease is “of or relating to disease caused by antibodies or lymphocytes produced against substances naturally present in the body.” Naturally present in the body… Let’s take a brief pause from this train of thought and delve a bit into the body’s immune task force.

Armed and ready, here they are: Types of White Blood Cells

1. Neutrophils: General/First Responders
2. Eosinophils: Allergies
3. Basophils: Parasites/Fungals/Allergies
4. Lymphocytes: Immune Response Gatekeepers
• T-Lymphocytes: ‘T’ for thymus and they are memory cells that act to warn of re-encounters with previous offenders.
• B-Lymphocytes: ‘B’ for bone and they make the antibodies.
• Natural Killer Cells: Double-O agents with a permission to kill as needed.
5. Monocytes: Process antigens and macrophage (eat) byproducts of inflammation.

Another set of defenders: Immunoglobulins

1. IgG: Majority
2. IgM: Fights antigens and has a secondary role in autoimmunity
3. IgA: External secretions
• Tears, GI, & Respiratory
4. IgD: Helps B-Cells recognize antigens
5. IgE: Allergic reactions

“Interferons were originally described as proteins that interfered with the growth of viruses. Their levels are increased in the sera of lupus patients and are probably important in the inflammatory process.” I next quote myself from my article on Hepatitis C: “Interferon is a substance released by cells that have become virally infected. Its purpose serves to protect the uninfected cells by preventing the infection from spreading to them too—it interferes.” It is little inked lines like these that encompass a before and after picture of our body’s abilities—from sperm to coffin, something happens…

WHERE DO AUTOANTIBODIES COME FROM?

“It is as if the body’s police force found itself unable to tolerate healthy law-abiding cells and schemed to undermine them.” Essentially it is a series of collapses and an eventual recognition by B-cells to make autoantibodies against you. But where do they come from? “Autoantibodies are triggered by antigens in the environment (e.g. foods, dyes, tobacco smoke), auto antigens (self-driven), and idiotypes.”

Antinuclear Antibody, sounds nice and quaintly fits as a peaceful armistice of nuclear weapons, but when ‘anti’ means to destroy and ‘nuclear’ refers to the nucleus of a cell, a pleasant scene can no longer be envisioned. It is this antibody that affects the nucleus of all cells and that has been linked to Lupus and various other autoimmune diseases. “As many as 10 million Americans may receive a positive ANA test result, but fewer than 1 million probably have SLE.”

These digits are insightfully delicious, but they offer a false comfort that is as equally malicious. To be argumentatively clear, ANA is not a good thing to have. 10 million positives minus 9 million SLE’ers does not equal 1 million SLE’ers with a remainder of zero. It leaves 1 million with a diagnosis and 9 million without a current diagnosis. Time changes things and as ANA or any antibody roaming freely in the body, the 9 million groupers will not sustain such a recluse diagnosis forever.

CAUSES OF LUPUS…

GENETICS

Although 30 genes have been identified, Daniel writes: “…in my opinion, only ten percent of those who carry lupus genes will ever develop the disease.” A dagger to many, this statement only acts to undermine a common comfort in America: a fallback on genetics coupled with a relentless avoidance of the obvious. Family ties, more-so in females, only have a slightly increased risk and they may have ANA without any symptoms.

ANIMAL RESEARCH

Lupus is found in many animals too:

• Dogs
• Cats
• Rats
• Mice
• Guinea Pigs
• Pigs
• Monkeys
• Goats
• Hamsters
• Aleutian Minks
• Maybe etc…

Mice have a very similar immune system to us and that is why 95% of animal research is conducted with them. Some findings have been:

1. Lupus Genes
2. Environmental & Hormonal Influences
3. Meds & Treatment

GENDER

“Hormones may play a preferential role in promoting autoimmunity or protecting males from it.”

EMOTIONAL STRESS

Cortisol, in animal studies, has been shown to induce inflammation in animals with arthritis and lupus.

ROLE OF INFECTIONS

“Many patients note that lupus starts after having an infection, and infections can flare a pre-existing lupus.” In a U.S. Army Recruits Study, 85% of the recruits had lupus antibodies for up to nine years before it was evident—9 million…

ENVIRONMENT

“Ultraviolet light from the sun, silica exposure, tobacco smoke, drugs, and possibly certain hair dyes, pesticides, allergens, foods, heavy metals, vaccines, and solvents can promote autoimmune reactions under the right set of circumstances.” To me, it is blatantly obvious what the ‘right set of circumstances’ is. It is exposing oneself to these elements continually while disregarding any evidence cautioning you to seriously reconsider. It is a synergy of malpractice brought on mostly by you.

“…a person’s environment can trigger modifications in his or her DNA with any alterations in the basic sequence of the genetic code.” These abnormal mutations become autoimmunities passed down and inherited by the next generation. DNA methylation is supposed to repair damaged DNA, but as humans, we can only adapt so much…

Some chemical factors listed by Daniel, Aromatic Amines, have been shown to induce and aggravate Rheumatic Disease:

1. Hair Coloring Solutions
2. Hydrazines
• Tobacco Smoke
3. Tartrazines
• Food colorings
• Medication preservatives

These substances are broken down via acetylation, but “about half of Americans are slow acetylators.” I am not sure what angle to attack this one. To begin, I will use the under-your-very-own-nose approach in that isn’t it obvious that we cannot acetylate something that is not meant to be acetylated. It’s like shoving a banana into your disc drive and hoping you don’t get another error message like last time. Error message it is again as I reorient my approach with a I-cannot-believe-you-are-doing-this-again stance while I watch your face sadden with dismay at another banana-peeled disaster.

Repeat offenders with no remorse is what we are. We are slow acetylators because we are suspiciously slow learners. This quote is the needle in Daniel’s haystack of words, it is potent and has the virility to inflict a painful prick. It should be duly noted that it is not normal to be a slow acetylator. Fifty percent is a flip-of-a-coin proposition and a one-to-one ratio for many, but in reality, fifty percent represents over 150 million Americans. Fifty percent represents all those tinkering on disaster and only shadows those following suit.

One type of slow-acetylator is those afflicted with drug-induced lupus. By definition, these individuals metabolize aromatic amines slowly.

HAIR COLORING

“Do I advise my lupus patients to avoid hair dyes? No, because I rarely see patients who report a flare up because they used a hair care product; also, they already have the disease when they visit me.” Oh Daniel, your ignorance sends waves of WTFs rummaging through my mind seeking clarity. Your ignorance acts only to kick them when they are already down—they already have the disease when they visit me. When and why do preventative measures become insubstantial in the face of a real disease? Accepting that you have a disease is one thing, feeding its venomous fires with the poisons that likely spurred its genesis is quite another. To the reader, Daniel offers some very sound information, but sometimes he neglects to encourage the reader to abide by it.

HYDRAZINES

1. Hydralazine
• Blood Pressure medication known to induce lupus.
2. Variety of compounds used in agriculture and industry.
3. Occur naturally in tobacco smoke.

TARTRAZINES

1. Food Dyes
2. Tattoos
3. Medicine Tablets

SILICA & SILICONE

1. Injections & Sandblasting Dust
• Associated with autoimmune reactions.

VACCINES

“Occasional reports have appeared of healthy persons developing lupus after receiving a routine vaccination.”

• Very rare
• Flu & Tetanus Vaccines → Some SLE patients make antibodies against DNA or other lupus autoantigens.

OTHER CHEMICALS

“Scleroderma is a first cousin of lupus, and many overlapping features are present in both”:

1. Polyvinylchloride (PVC)
2. Trichloroethylene
3. Cocaine
4. Appetite Suppressant Amphetamines
5. Adulterated Cooking Oils
6. Animals exposed to mercury, chloride, gold, and cadmium.
• Develop autoimmune diseases resembling lupus.
7. Eosin
• Chemical in lipstick
• May trigger sun sensitivity rashes and allergic dermatitis.
• Widely cited report speculated on the role of lipstick with lupus thirty years ago but there have been no follow-ups.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION BLAMED

Daniel’s debate:

1. Autoantibodies of relatives
2. Large minority populations
3. Media advertising litigation attorneys.
• Suggests people have lupus.
4. Family doctors labeling because of a positive ANA.

His debate stems off the idea that clusters or epidemics of lupus exist…

1. Moorpark, California
2. Newton, Georgia
3. Boston, Massachusetts
4. Nogales & Tucson, Arizona

…and he notes that it “may exist; however, none have yet been confirmed using accepted field testing methods.” And to sum up environmental concerns: “You should try not to become so fearful of the environment that you cannot function socially.” He writes that only a small percentage exposed to “lupogenic” materials actually develop lupus. I agree, we should not be fearful of our environment, but we must be aware. Aware enough to know that lupus exists because of “lupogenic” materials and aware enough to know that these materials should be avoided.

FOODS & SUPPLEMENTS

LOW-CALORIE & LOW-FAT DIETS

Back to the mice again. High calorie diets within this rodent population has been shown to accelerate kidney disease. Daniel takes the opportunity here to mention that we lack sufficient evidence to declare that humans get this same boost too. “Star-vation” low-calorie or low-fat regiments tend to help mice with lupus, but Daniel seems to want to appease only the reader. He takes the safe side on both, and in the latter he claims that these diets can occasionally worsen the disease process in humans.

True. A low-calorie or low-fat diet can do as much harm to the body as a high-calorie and high-fat one can. As with the mice, there seems to be a middle ground, ground where our footing is steady and our body is in balance. I feel he misleads the reader by grouping low-calorie and low-fat eaters all into one subjective bundle. Without knowing it, he has produced a smear campaign. In short, a diet lacking in nutrition or one filled with non-nutritional fillers will obviously promote disease. It is finding that natural middle ground, an area nowhere near that of an obese individual and nor that of the bulimic model.

L-TRYPTOPHAN

Thanksgiving kicks in every year sometime in late November, and so does L-tryptophan. Probably an unpronounceable word in the past, it now slips effortlessly off one’s tongue about a month before Christmas. As the go-to reason for a Thanksgiving nap or the equally important avoidance of chores, L-tryptophan does not need any further explanation beyond its pronunciation. Until 1989, L-tryptophan was a supplement taken to induce sleep, but it was taken off the market because it caused a scleroderma-like disorder.

EMS for short and Eosinophilic Myalgic Syndrome for more syllables, this disorder came as an epidemic. Eosin… sounds familiar. Although some traced it back to impurities in the manufacturing process, there have been sporadic cases over the last 20 years of a closely related disorder: Eosinophilic Fascitis. Some cases, of each disorder, have been linked to excessive L-tryptophan intake and others from poor metabolization.

L-CANAVANINE

Present in legumes and highly concentrated within alfalfa sprouts, immunological testing has concluded that L-canavanine is capable of causing and or aggravating autoimmune responses.

EICOSAPENTAENOIC ACID (POLYUNSATURATED FATS)

Sparing you the reading of this long acid again, it is a constituent of fish oil and a diet rich in this acid has been shown to benefit those with human rheumatoid arthritis and animals with lupus. As for humans with SLE, the results are conflicting.

SKIN: SUN EXPOSURE & RADIATION

“UV light can damage DNA and prompt production of anti-DNA as an immune response to the altered DNA.” Sixty to seventy percent report some skin complaint and two-thirds report they are sun sensitive.

There are three bands of rays—A, B, & C—but it is UVA and UVB which “…may damage superficial deposits of DNA, which are the body’s building blocks.” It is important to understand that not all sunlight is ‘evil’—UVA-1 actually helps those with psoriasis—but antibodies to skin cells can formulate due to excessive or inappropriate exposure. Exposure has also been linked to other antibodies:

1. anti-Ro (SSA)
2. anti-La (SSB)
3. anti-RNP

DRUGS & LUPUS

“…eighty agents have been reported to bring on the disease.”

1. Sulfa Drugs
• Antibiotics
• Antidiabetics
• Diuretics
• Rheumatoid Arthritis Drugs
• Ulcerative Colitis Drugs
2. NSAIDS
• 10 NSAIDS, but 90% implicate ibuprofen
3. Hormones

DILE: DRUG INDUCED LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS

Fifteen to twenty-thousand cases—5% with a complicated and unfavorable course—occur annually and although a much longer list is provided, these drugs are often the offenders:

1. Hydralazine
2. Procainamide
3. Methyldopa
4. INH
5. Thorazine
6. TNF Blockers
7. D-Penicillin

Compared to SLE, DLE:

1. Rarely have symptoms involving multiple organs.
2. Rare among African-Americans
3. Age of Average Onset: 60
• I found this very interesting. When do our bodies began to wear down the most? Old age of course. And how do we counteract this? More medications, more than we have ever likely taken.
4. Usually stops when the drug stops and only a small percentage develop clinical lupus.
• “A positive ANA does not constitute grounds to discontinue with a useful drug.” I would disagree on the ground that this is misleading advice. I believe that ANA is indeed bad and that it constitutes you to make some lifestyle changes.

THEORIES OF HOW DRUGS CAUSE LUPUS

1. Bind to part of cell that alters DNA → Immune Reaction → anti-DNA
2. Activate B & T-Lymphocytes or anti-Lymphoctye Antibodies
• Antibodies to white blood cells is a common feature in lupus.
3. Hypomethylation
4. Increased Sun Sensitivity
5. Chemicals & Byproducts of Metabolism → Autoantibodies
6. Several Genetic Factors
• Slow Acetylation

DURATION & DOSAGE

At five years:

• 50 mg/day → No risk of DLE
• 100 mg/day → 5%
• Even though 1/2 will have positive ANA at this point.
• 200 mg/day → 10%
• Average dose is 50-100 mg/day

STEROIDS

I know many of us believe that drugs are a godsend delivered to us by the creative minds of doctors and scientists alike. For emergency purposes and possibly idiopathic diseases, if such diseases actually exist, my thinking is inline with yours. I have boundaries though, boundaries that urge me to see beyond what we label as ingenuity and to see how the simple can prevent the complex while the complex only makes the complex more complex. For this, I offer up steroids as an example as to why the drug-for-a-cure mentality is not the best approach.

Problems with steroids as listed by Daniel:

1. Skin thins, wrinkles, and stretches
2. Bruises and poor wound healing
3. Male balding pattern and facial hair increases
4. Facial acne
5. Muscle weakness
6. Loss of calcium → avascular necrosis
7. Glucose intolerance → diabetes
8. CNS stimulation → agitation & confusion
9. Salt & Water retention → hypertension
10. Menstrual Irregularity
11. Central obesity
12. Stunts growth
13. Suppresses natural steroids
14. Production of fats, cholesterol, and triglycerides increased
15. Cataracts & Glaucoma
16. Blood Potassium levels decreased
17. Heartburn, Ulcers, & Diverticula
18. Pancreas inflamed
19. Prevents antibodies from killing antibodies, viruses, fungi, and parasites

…as Daniel’s list ends I hope you can see why the complex is rarely a cure for the complex.

LUPUS & YOUR BODY

ARTHRITIS, MUSCLES, & BONE

•  80-90 % complain of arthralgia & arthritis seen in 1/2
• synovial joints only
• 2/3 complain of muscle aches

OSTEOPOROSIS

We have two types of bone…

1. Cortical (hips)
2. Trabecular (vertebrae & spine)
• “…onset of menopause selectively demineralizes trabecular bone.”

…and as we age—aging is defined by you and only you—we lose calcium in our bones. Some additional risks:

1. Caucasian
2. Thin Build
3. Alcohol & Tobacco Use
4. Accelerated by Lupus & Steroids

LUNGS

• Pleural Effusions: 20-30%
• 90% show pleural abnormalities (autopsies)

HEART

“In the past, 5 to 10 percent of lupus patients developed congestive heart failure, although recent surveys suggest that—as a result of general medical advances and improvements in lifestyle and diet—its incidence is decreasing.”

“To minimize heart failure, patients are advised to restrict salt in their diets.”

• 25-30% with SLE have Hypertension

“Patients with lupus develop more hypertension, elevated lipid and blood sugar levels, coronary artery disease, heart attacks, strokes, and hardening of the arteries than healthy individuals for their age.”

• SLE associated with defective HDL
• GERD: 50%

NERVOUS SYSTEM

Major neurological manifestations of lupus:

1. Cognitive Dysfunction
2. Headaches
• “Compared with the general population, lupus patients are perhaps twice as likely to suffer from migraine-like headaches.”
3. Seizures
• “Up to 15% of patients with lupus experience epileptic seizures.”
4. Altered Mental Alertness
5. Aseptic Meningitis
6. Stroke
7. Peripheral Neuropathy
8. Paralysis
9. Altered Behavior
• “Behavioral testing of lupus patients revealed that up to 70 percent at the time had decreased ability to focus, deficits in attention span and task completion, altered memory, and decreased problem-solving capabilities. Only 20 percent of the control subjects had similar difficulties.” Daniel’s Theory of Possible Causes:
1. Circulating chemicals such as cytokines (interleukins and interferons).
2. Hypoperfusion and poor oxygenation.
10. Visual Changes
11. Autonomic Neuropathy
12. Myasthenia Gravis & Multiple Sclerosis: Increased incidence among SLE patients.

FIBROMYALGIA

“It can be difficult to differentiate lupus flare-ups from aggravated fibromyalgia.”

• “The administration of steroids, with an adjustment of their doses, induces most of the fibromyalgia I see in lupus patients…”
• 15-30% with SLE also have concurrent fibromyalgia.

SJOGREN’S

“However, if minimally or asymptomatic patients with lupus undergo vigorous testing for the syndrome, perhaps as many as 1/3 would fulfill accepted Sjogren’s definitions.”

• 5-10% of Sjogren’s patients have SLE
• 10% of Lupus patients “have obvious Sjogren’s”

HORMONES

Sex hormones act on the immune system:

1. Simulate central nervous system to release immunoregulatory chemicals.
2. Regulate production of cytokines.
3. Stimulate endocrine glands to release other hormones.

Estrogens:

1. Can promote autoimmunity → can indirectly increase inflammation.
2. Increases production of autoantibodies.
3. Inhibit Natural Killer Cell function
4. Induces atrophy of thymus gland
5. Metabolized differently in SLE

Androgens (male hormones):

1. Generally suppress autoimmunity
2. Males with lupus have lower than normal levels of testosterone and other androgens.

“Published reports are evenly divided between males having a similar outcome to that of females and those suggesting that men have a poorer prognosis.”

“If SLE is aggravated by female hormones…” A debated 1960s study focused on the miscarried fetuses of women diagnosed with SLE. With the numbers tabulated, the majority were males and this leads one to think that maybe lupus-gene males are less likely to be born and thus their decreased numbers in society.

SEX

“Even though sexual problems of a physiologic nature are unusual, many patients have antibodies to reproductive hormones.”

• 30% of women with SLE have anti-estrogen & anti-ovarian antibodies in their blood—more common with birth control.
• Males have increased anti-sperm antibodies.

PREGNANCY

“Patients with very active disease frequently have irregular periods or none at all. This is the body’s reaction to stress, menstrual regularity is restored to normal when the disease is under adequate control.” This made me think of nothing other than female athletes and I don’t why because this material has come up before. I used to believe that they were phenomenal specimens and at the peak of their health. Two conflicting dilemmas clash here: Are young females too young and is extreme exercise to achieve an olympic athlete status the best measure to suppress womanhood?

From what I have read thus far, yes I believe young girls begin menstruating at an age that is way too young. As for the second, that is an obvious no and is nothing but a bodily reaction, just as David stated. These female athletes may appear healthy with the apparent markings—muscles and endurance feats—but these markings are only misrepresentations of their health. Misrepresentations that have been concluded for a bit too long as of being the source of health.

Although 90% of females with SLE develop it during their childbearing ages, an “overwhelming majority of lupus patients have normal babies.” In a study/survey of 307 women with 634 pregnancies, all with SLE:

• 80 (26%) never conceived—3x the national average
• 439 (69%) live births—national rate = 85%
• 106 (17%) therapeutic abortions
• 95 (15%) spontaneous abortions

Those with the antiphospholipid antibodies, 20-50%, had spontaneous abortions—Chemotherapy, Dialysis, and other meds decrease fertility. As for the fetus, “…fewer than 10% of patients who carry the lupus gene will ever develop the disease,” but 50% will carry autoantibodies in their blood—especially ANA.

BIRTH CONTROL

“Estrogen-containing contraceptives are not recommended for patients with SLE who have antiphospholipid antibodies, high blood pressure, migraine headaches, a history of abnormal blood clotting, or very high lipid (cholesterol or triglyceride) levels“—makes me chuckle because this population sounds very much like America!

KLINEFELTER’S SYNDROME

“It has been suggested that klinefelter’s patients have an increased incidence of SLE and that this is directly related to female hormone excess.”

ADRENAL

The adrenal gland normally makes 7.5 mg of prednisone per day while “higher oral steroid doses turn off the adrenal gland.” If the oral steroids are decreased, production can resume, but if steroids are used for a prolonged period of time, the return may be sluggish—AKA adrenal insufficiency.

GI & LIVER

• GERD
• “Esophogeal motility problems are managed by eating small, frequent meals rather than a few large ones.”
• Daniel recommends not lying down for 2 hours after eating—a common teaching tool in nursing and an attempt to counteract the effects of a vegetative society.
• Fibromyalgia
• “At various times, many of my patients complain of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or constipation.
• Medications can erode the GI tract—NSAIDS & Corticosteroids

KIDNEYS

“High blood pressure should be managed aggressively, because it accelerates functional kidney impairment.”

• 40% of SLE patients are affected—Mostly Glomerulonephritis
• “Stress reduction helps lower blood pressure.”
• “Because many of the drugs used to prevent or related to this disease are quite potent in their own right, a careful balance is important.”
• Salt intake less than 3 g/day
• Watch protein intake when kidneys are compromised.

BLOOD

80% are anemic during course of the disease

• Iron deficiency from heavy menstrual bleeding.
• NSAIDS → blood loss with erosive gastritis
• Decreased Erythropoietin—hormone that stimulates red blood cell production—from kidneys.
• Folic acid or vitamin B deficiency

OTHER

1. Menstrual: Amenorrhea seen in 15-25%
2. Thyroid Disease: 10%
3. Diabetes Mellitus
• Steroids raise the blood sugar
• “Interestingly, many individuals with juvenile diabetes have positive ANAs even though lupus is uncommon among this group of patients.”
4. Prolactin: Disproportionate number of lupus patients have elevated blood levels.
5. HIV & AIDS—”…when our blood supply was not safe.”
• Between 1978 and 1973 fifty-thousand SLE patients had blood transfusions and, in reference to AIDS, “…not a single case was reported.” As did the author, I found these statistics staggering and it alludes to some resistance as he mentions that less than 100 cases have been reported at the writing of his book.

MANAGEMENT

SUNLIGHT

1. UVB strongest between 10AM and 3PM
2. Sunlight penetrates clouds.
3. Sun-sensitivity chemicals found in:
• Perfumes
• Xenon Arc Lamps
• Mercury Vapor Lamps
• Halogen or Tungsten Light Sources
• Photocopy Machines

DIET

“Individuals with SLE should eat a well-balanced, healthy, nutritious diet.” Daniel fills his book with a lot of important and educational material but I feel he either lacks or stubbornly refused to provide greater insight into how a diet affects the lupus patient. Most authors make this a huge piece of their literature as it is a simple change that can often counteract the complex problems we face while eliminating our need for pills and other synthetic solutions. He also mentioned that studies do not exist—”…none of these has been adequately surveyed in lupus” in reference to climate, occupation, diet, and exercise—and he is rather adamant about studies, but I feel he should have at least some experience from all of the patients he has treated thus far. This is one reason I feel it is important to treat the body as a whole and not as a singular disease. Diseases offer insight that can be built upon and used against the totality of disease.

“Eating several fish meals a week is equivalent to taking several aspirin. It will never cure the disease, but it might bring about a modest improvement in well-being.” Although I do not personally recommend the intake of fish, I feel he is being quite modest and holding a taut leash on the realities of nutrition. Other than this nice little quote, he mostly focuses his energy on the avoidance of alfalfa which can be found in many food products and even “…some aggressively marketed ‘natural’ vitamin remedies.”

EXERCISE

“Judicious exercise is very important and is a very important part of managing lupus.”

1. Improves flexibility & sense of wellbeing
2. “…Never exercise beyond the point of minimal discomfort.”
• Great advice, and I could not agree more. Exercise is not something to counteract an obese belly or to power a body through a defensive line or even a locker. Exercise should be enjoyable and beneficial, not grueling and pain-inducing.
3. It is best to strengthen and improve endurance without putting too much stress on a single joint.
4. Inactivity = osteoporosis and muscle weakness and wasting.

SLEEP

“One of my most common complaints I hear from my patients is that they are always tired.” He concludes that it is due to anemia, active inflammation, and medications and I would like to include lifestyle choices and fibromyalgia.

1. Determine Cause
2. Pace Yourself
3. Take Appropriate Medications
4. Get a Restful Night’s Sleep
5. Walk

SMOKING

“Smoking is bad for those who don’t have lupus, but it makes lupus even worse.”

STRESS

“It is very clear that stress and trauma can cause a pre-existing lupus to flare-up.”

1. “Learn to relax, rest, and exercise.”
2. Relaxation Exercises—Deep Breathing, Relaxation Tapes, & Visualization
• Decrease sympathetic nervous system activity
• Slow Heart Rate
• Improve oxygen delivery to muscles and brain
• Decrease muscle tension, pain, and stress
3. Avoid scams and “natural” remedies

PROGNOSIS

79% are alive after 10 years.

2-10% have their lupus disappear—non-organ threatening lupus.

90% die from:

1. Complications of Kidney Disease
2. Infections
• Opportunistic Infections similar to chemotherapy and AIDs
• 80% on steroids & 10-30% on chemotherapy
3. CNS Lupus
4. Blood Clots
5. Cardiovascular Complications

FUTURE & CONCLUSION

Daniel hopes for a future where we can continue to cry wolf in anticipation for the help just over the hill. He believes that today’s villagers—scientists and doctors—are equipped with the tool-bags that can eventually save. He does not seek the riddance of this particular disease, he more or less seeks the medically sanctioned maintenance of an individual’s quality of life. Quality in this sense is not the quality you may have experienced at the peak of your life, it is the last drop of a cherished drink that he is trying to save.

In its whole form, that drink may have satisfied you. As a raindrop on the tongue, if it can even escape its clinged attractiveness to the glass which holds it, it can only displease as an insufficient tease. Quality and quantity are only separable in the brainwashed mind. Together, they can ensure a long and healthy life, but only if you have the willingness to do so.

Do you have lupus?

What triggers it?

What lifestyle modifications have helped you?

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