DHEA is short for dehydroepiandrosterone. Made by the adrenal glands located just above the kidneys, scientists have known about this hormone since 1934. Although more than 150 hormones are made by the adrenal glands, DHEA is the most abundant. After it is made, it moves into the bloodstream and travels all over the body. Once in our cells, it is converted into male hormones, known as androgens and female hormones, known as estrogens. Interestingly, in 1995, DHEA supplements became widely available to the public without a prescription.

What are the benefits? DHEA and its sulfate DHEAS are the major circulating adrenal steroids and substrates for the synthesis of peripheral sex hormone. A supplement may benefit those who have adrenal deficiency. The benefit in those who are deficient include improved sense of well-being, more alertness and stamina, and enhanced sexual interest and libido. Various studies have shown that women who have low DHEA levels usually have low sex drive; thus, some women notice the benefit of improved libido. Blood levels of all the steroid hormones that derive from DHEA metabolism are often increased when people take a DHEA supplement. This may lead to both beneficial and harmful effects. DHEA has been tested in those with HIV (improved mild depression symptoms) and lupus.

The overall benefit from a supplement must be balanced against negative effects. Have your doctor analyze your hormone levels and supplement if necessary. Be careful with taking high doses. Listen to your doctor.

Normal DHEA level for women are:
  Age 18–30: 70–400 ug/dL
  Age 31–40: 40–300 ug/dL
  Age 41–50: 30–250 ug/dL
  Age 51–60: 20–200 ug/dL
  Age 61 plus: 13–120 ug/dL

Normal DHEA level for men are:
  Age 18–30: 100–650 ug/dL
  Age 31–50: 100–550 ug/dL
  Age 51–50: 70–300 ug/dL
  Age 51–60: 20–200 ug/dL
  Age 61 plus: 30–270 ug/dL

by Laurie Roth-Donnell ~ Master Herbalist and Holistic Health Practitioner

One of the cornerstones to long term health and vitality is the formation of deep intimate loving relationships. There is a “magic” in love that has been scientifically traced to molecules in your brain, which trigger attraction and attachment. Phenyl ethylamine (PEA) is the chemical, which controls levels of neurotransmitters such as adrenaline, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. These compounds are responsible for triggering sexual responses ranging from lust to deep intimacy.

The initial PEA surge allows one to go without food or sleep during the infatuation stage of love; it triggers an obsession with your newfound love. In turn, norepinephrine stimulates the production of adrenaline and makes your blood pressure soar, your heart pound and your palms sweat. Studies have revealed that brain activities related to increased levels of serotonin are similar to the brain activity of people with obsessive e disorder. Therefore, if one medicates with antidepressant pharmaceuticals such as Prozac and Zoloft, serotonin levels are manipulated and may result in difficulty falling in love.

PEA levels generated when we first fall in love can last several years. Over time this surge wanes, and the passion cools into what Helen Fisher, author of “Anatomy of Love”, calls the “attachment” phase. At this stage, your brain produces endorphins (brain opiates) akin to morphine. The hormones, oxytocin and vasopressin, are released into the system. Oxytocin, referred to as the cuddly hormone, is produced during uterine birth contractions, breastfeeding and by both men and women during orgasm and may explain why you feel more attached to a mate immediately after sex. The hormone vasopressin also assists in the enhancement of monogamy, but levels of the hormone in humans are so low that it has little effect on a human’s monogamous bonding.

You can get a non-romantic dose of PEA from high-intensity activities like skydiving and bungee jumping or by eating chocolate and strawberries, which have naturally occurring PEA. It is suggested that most of the PEA ingested from food sources will never make it to the brain. Commercial supplements are also available, but it seems the most basic, natural way to access PEA is to increase ones sexual intimacy. Reignite the spark, consider scheduling a bungee jumping date and remember to pack the chocolate dipped strawberries!

Please speak with your primary care physician regarding any new health regime you are considering.

Sources:
“Why Marriages Succeed or Fail” by: John Gottman
“Anatomy of Love” by: Helen Fisher
Laurie@DonnellsHealingGarden.com

Renewal of the self is a passage that can be liberating to experience. The result is well worth the effort no matter how difficult the journey has been. Through the winter months, it becomes difficult to focus on our weight loss goals. The weather is dreary, the sun is shy, and our energy level becomes drudgingly low. We have set expectations for the New Year, and we don’t want to let ourselves down.

Our patient has experienced a life-time of drudgery with weight loss and gain over 50 years. She is a loyal patient to the Riordan Clinic and heard about our HCG Rx+ weight loss program through our newsletters and our doctors. Having finally become emotionally exhausted from her own attempts to reduce her weight, she started our program. For years she fought with the 10 and 20 pound syndrome, until it became the 40 and 60 pound syndrome. That is when she knew it was time to become active and to take control of her life.

She joined the HCG Rx+ weight loss program and became very focused and determined. Her desire was to lose 80 pounds and to sustain that weight loss by changing her eating habits and by learning how her body responded to foods.

When the patient began the HCG Rx+ program she was focused and prepared. She had her foods and water available and ready each day. Her meats were pre-weighed and packaged, fresh fruits and vegetables were readily available, and she was sure to drink at least 64 ounces of water every day.

She enjoyed trying new HCG recipes that offered variety in what can become an uninteresting diet. She began her journey to better health weighing 279 pounds with an initial goal weight of 200 pounds. Like most of us, one of her weaknesses was emotional self-sabotage. Whenever there was an issue in life that was difficult to deal with, she would turn to food for satisfaction and comfort. Most of us have emotional issues that we have learned to suppress with foods. We want immediate comfort and security and food has become that for us. Through her program and with time, she has learned to recognize these emotional eating habits. She has developed strategies that help her to cope when this is happening and to change her response to life’s stressors.

Over time, our patient has reduced her weight by 50 pounds, and she continues on her weight loss journey. She has come to recognize how stressors that are overwhelming can trigger her emotional eating, and she has broken the cycle of selfsabotage. She understands that this is a life process, and through this course, she is renewing herself. She is changing her self-image, has regained her self-esteem, and has transformed herself into a healthy, confident woman that better understands herself and her body.

This patient is a great example of the weight loss success that awaits you with the Riordan Clinic HCG Rx+ weight loss program.

Visit our HCG Rx+ page for additional information. If you are ready to improve your health and well-being, call 316- 682-3100 to get started today!

In 2008, a patient came to us seeking treatment options for polycystic ovarian syndrome, decreased libido, fatigue and restless leg syndrome. She was not getting any sleep at night due to her restless legs which even led her to sleep in a separate room from her husband at night. She was becoming depressed and felt like she had no sex drive after having two children. A toll had started to weigh on her marriage, her relationship with her children and her self-image.

An initial laboratory assessment was ordered to check for deficiencies of specific vitamins, minerals and hormones that might have indicated the cause of all of her symptoms and illnesses.

The lab results indicated that the patient’s hormones were not balanced; she had some fairly low and fairly high levels. She was not regulating her blood sugars, which an increase of chromium would have helped. Her CRP was high showing non-specific inflammation throughout the body. The patient was started on progesterone cream, probiotics, chromium, magnesium sulfate, pro EFA, biotin complex, Armour thyroid, vitamin D, vitamin B6, and a strict low/non-dairy diet.

With the hormone replacement therapies and with thyroid support using vitamins and minerals, this patient saw a tremendous change in her daily mood and emotions. Her energy increased from supplementing her low thyroid production, blood sugars became more regulated and helped bring about weight loss and her restless legs tremendously improved by refraining from eating dairy.

Not realizing that all of these symptoms and side effects were the root cause of her decreased libido, once the symptoms began to improve, she was able to return to her room with her spouse and began seeing tremendous positive changes in their marriage as her libido and her self-confidence increased. Sometimes people forget the five basic necessities of life: food, water, air, shelter and sex. When any of these needs are decreased or altered in any way, it puts a strain on the well being of any individual. Noticing the signs and symptoms and seeking help is the first step to getting back in balance.

Most people intuitively know that the quality of their important relationships impacts their health. Who hasn’t heard that famous soap opera line delivered by the maligned spouse to his/her unfaithful, ungrateful, or critical spouse: “I’m sick and tired of your blah, blah, blah!”

Researchers at UCLA have scientifically confirmed that woman in happy marriages recover more quickly from workday stress than women in unhappy relationships. Other studies have found that married men live longer and recover faster from illness than single men. This phenomenon is true for women too…if their marriages are happy. The research begs an important question: just what is a “happy” marriage? What makes one relationship “good” and another “bad”?

Of course, most of us know when we feel happy. We somehow “just know” a healthy relationship when we are in one. Our so-called emotional intelligence “knows” what a good relationship is and most certainly prefers a good one over a bad one. We even know that good ones are better for our health than bad ones. It really doesn’t take scientific research to confirm this emotional truism.

Why do so many people have so much trouble with relationships?! Are we purposefully choosing to have bad relationships? Do we want to be sick? Or is it that we haven’t learned just how to cultivate a healthy relationship?

The answer is surprising: We do know how to cultivate healthy relationships! Almost all of us learned how to “do this” when we were just kids. Unfortunately, parallel to this important “life knowledge,” there often exists a set of insidious cultural assumptions that often dooms our efforts to create and live in healthy relationships. So what is this magic secret?!

Okay…it is possible that there are a few tragic souls reading this piece who have never had a friend and know nothing about “the art of friendship.” It is possible…but unlikely. Even evil people seek the company of other evil people.

Quintus Ennius succinctly stated that “Life is nothing without friendship.” Here is the key point of this article: knowing how to be a friend turns out to be the secret essence of just how to cultivate a healthy relationship. But wait…not every human relationship is a friendship…or is it?

Let’s look at the major types of relationships all of us experience…and consider the degree of choice that we are given in each category:

Not everyone reading this article will have experienced all of these relationship categories. I’m going to assume for the sake of argument that all my readers have experienced basic friendship. This leads to the following question: Are friendships less problematic (and happier) than the other relationships listed above?

If you think, “Yes!” please ask yourself, why?!

The above chart asserts that true friendships are freely chosen and rarely problematic. Granted, any relationship—even a friendship—can become problematic…but only when the principle of free choice is violated. How does this element of free choice enter into relationship dynamics?

Healthy relationships are built upon the assumption of the intrinsic freedom of choice. Unhealthy relationships are built on the assumption of external control—a term coined by psychiatrist Dr. William Glasser in his 1998 HarperCollins’ book—Choice Theory. What does Dr. Glasser mean by external control?

External control is a psychological assumption which holds that you can and somehow deserve to control those with whom you are in important relationships (… except friends!) The staggering depth of this assumption commonly obscures our awareness of it. If you find yourself criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing, and/or bribing someone with whom you are in relationship, in order to control their behavior… then external control is your hidden assumption made manifest!

External control violates our intrinsic need to be free. Do you feel nourished when you are with a controlling person? Do you even want to be with them? Or are you trapped by the external circumstances of that particular relationship (child, spouse, boss, insurance doctor, etc.)?

External control is often dictated by the contractual nature of many of our important relationships. Marriage in the legal sense is a contract. Your job is often dictated by a contract. Doctor-patient relationships may be contractual through an insurance program. Many consider responsible parenting an unwritten contract. Contracts necessarily restrict freedom of choice by binding us to specific agreements. When we break those agreements, there are often serious consequences. But even in a contract, we were free to enter into it. The spirit of any good contract is based upon a mutual benefit to both parties. Good contracts are based upon:

Listening
Supporting
Encouraging
Respecting
Trusting
Accepting
Willingness to negotiate disagreements

These are the “seven caring habits” that Glasser feels are so essential to healthy relationships…even legal ones! In essence, the best contracts are made between friends.

I’ll bet you are saying to yourself: “I already know all this!” Of course you do! This is what you learned when you learned how to make innocent childhood friendships. Unfortunately, adult life is too often peppered with unhealthy, destroyed relationships based upon the assumption of external control. If this is the sad story of your grief-stricken life, then you had better begin to relearn and renegotiate your current relationships based upon the seven caring habits of friendship. Glasser sums it all up with this fundamental question: “How can I figure out how to be free to live my life the way I want to live it and still get along well with the people I need?”

Each of us must strive to achieve connectedness with others in a way that preserves our individual freedom while still meeting our basic needs to belong and be cared for, to be respected and listened to, to have fun, and to be free to choose. A tall order you say. Is it really possible? Do we have to attend some kind of intensive relationship seminar to learn it? No. We only have to always remember what it is to be a true friend. A friend listens. A friend supports. A friend encourages. A friend is trustworthy. A friend respects. A friend accepts. A friend is always willing to negotiate disagreements without becoming disagreeable. A friend is…well, a friend.

When friendship becomes the basic assumption of all your important relationships, rather than external control, then the spirit of connectedness is alive and well in your life. Your important relationships are allowed to breathe! Mutual need fulfillment, bilateral benefits, and sensitive responsibility through service become the life and soul of friendly relationships.

Choice Theory states that it is solely up to each of us to make that fundamental choice of responsibly creating and maintaining healthy relationships. External control psychology, by contrast, is based on a strange but all-to-common line of thought:

• I am not responsible for the way I feel.
• Other people, unhappy events, or abnormal brain chemistry cause my pain.
• My choices are not the cause of my misery.
• To feel better, I will punish the people who are doing wrong, so that they will do what I say is right, then reward them, so that they will keep doing what I want them to do.

In essence, external control uses “the blame game” as a means to forcibly meet our basic needs. Blame justifies control. Control does meet our need to be listened to…but at the expense of our need to be loved and to belong. Let’s face it: control is no fun…especially if you are at the other end of being controlled. (Trying to exploit and control others is a sick way to get a false sense of empowerment!) The great lessons of history tell us over and over again that external control never lasts. Our human need and drive for freedom is too great.

So why do we do it? Why do we perpetuate unhealthy relationships through the application of external control? We do it because it seems to work short term. You can yell, threaten, criticize, blame, punish, and bribe…and you will get “results.” People will respond and change their behavior…temporarily! But the life of such relationships will almost certainly begin to die a little bit every day. The human connectedness will certainly erode. Agreements will begin to be broken, more and more often. Usually, it is only a matter of time before those relationships will either quietly or dramatically end.

Do we ever learn? Unfortunately, 99% of humankind will choose controlling behaviors over and over. Rarely do we stop to think how much misery these pathologic behaviors cause us and those upon whom we inflict them. This psychology of coercion destroys happiness, health, marriages, families, and quality work. It is often the root cause of the violence, crime, drug abuse, illness, and unloving sex so pervasive in our society.

What small bit of wisdom do I have to contribute to this giant mess? Just this little aphorism: “The smart bird does not poop in its own nest.”

We live in our important relationships. All of our basic needs as humans are met in these relationships. They deserve to be handled with care. Pay attention to the feelings of others as if they were your own. Take time to listen and sort things out. Don’t speak impulsively. Spend some quality time together. Have some fun. Cultivate, cultivate, cultivate. Healthy relationships, like friendships, don’t just happen…they are cultivated!

“Friendship is a plant we must often water” —Shalom Aleichem.

Choice Theory states that the only person I can ever really control is my own self! Since trying to control others typically proves counterproductive, why not ask “What can I do to improve my relationships?” Ironically, the other almost always changes as soon as I stop trying to externally control them. Why not instead, pay greater attention to their basic human needs, i.e., the Golden Rule! Why not ask “What can I do to help my _____________ satisfy his or her basic needs?”

In summary, healthy relationships are good for your health. Friendship is the universal basis of healthy relationships. We can cultivate healthy relationships (“connectedness”) by listening, supporting, encouraging, respecting, trusting, accepting and always being willing to negotiate disagreements. These habits of caring are much more effective at building quality relationships than the destructive habits of criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing, bribing (or rewarding in order to control.)

Friendship is a choice you make. In order to have good friendships and healthy relationships, be a good friend first. You’ll increase your chances of greater happiness, and you’ll probably live longer too!

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service
by Stuart Lindsey, PharmD.

(OMNS, Jan 30, 2012) When an insider breaks ranks with pharmaceutical orthodoxy, it is time to take notice. “Whistleblower” may be an overused term, but the article that follows might be well worth readers’ consideration before standing in line for their next prescription refill. – Andrew W. Saul, OMNS Editor

I’m a registered pharmacist. I am having a difficult time with my job. I sell people drugs that are supposed to correct their various health complaints. Some medicines work like they’re supposed to, but many don’t. Some categories of drugs work better than others. My concern is that the outcomes of treatment I observe are so unpredictable that I would often call the entire treatment a failure in too many situations.

How It Started

In 1993, I graduated with a BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of New Mexico. I became pharmacy manager for a small independent neighborhood drug store. Starting in the year 2000, nutrition became an integral part of our business. The anecdotal feedback from the customers who started vitamin regimens was phenomenal. That same year, my PharmD clinical rotations began with my propensity for nutritional alternatives firmly in place in my mind. On the second day of my adult medicine rotation, my preceptor at a nearby hospital informed me that he had every intention of beating this vitamin stuff out of me. I informed him that probably wouldn’t happen. Three weeks later I was terminated from my rotations. The preceptor told my supervisor at UNM that there were acute intellectual differences that couldn’t be accommodated in their program. What had I done? I was pressuring my preceptor to read an article written by an MD at a hospital in Washington state that showed if a person comes into the emergency room with a yet to be diagnosed problem and is given a 3,000-4,000 mg bolus of vitamin C, that person’s chance of dying over the next ten days in ICU dropped by 57%!

One would think that someone who is an active part of the emergency room staff might find that an interesting statistic. His solution to my attempting to force him to read that article was having me removed from the program.

Pecking Order

The traditional role of the pharmacist in mainstream medicine is subordinate to the doctor. The doctor is responsible for most of the information that is received from and given to the patient. The pharmacist’s responsibility is to reinforce the doctor’s directions. The doctor and the pharmacist both want to have a positive treatment outcome, but there is a legally defined ‘standard of care’ looking over their shoulder.

The training that I received to become a PharmD motivated me to become more interested in these treatment outcomes. After refilling a patient’s prescriptions a few times, it becomes obvious that the expected positive outcomes often simply don’t happen. It’s easy to take the low road and blame it on “poor compliance by the patient.” I’m sure this can explain some treatment failure outcomes, but not all. Many (indeed most) drugs such as blood pressure regulators can require several adjustments of dose or combination with alternative medicines before a positive outcome is obtained.

Wrong Drug; Wrong Disease

One drug misadventure is turning drugs that were originally designed for a rare (0.3% of the population) condition called Zollinger-Ellison syndrome into big pharma’s treatment for occasional indigestion. These drugs are called proton-pump inhibitors (PPI). After prolonged exposure to PPIs, the body’s true issues of achlorhydria start to surface.

These drugs are likely to cause magnesium deficiency, among other problems. Even the FDA thinks their long-term use is unwise.

The original instructions for these drugs were for a maximum use of six weeks . . . until somebody in marketing figured out people could be on the drugs for years. Drug usage gets even more complicated when you understand excessive use of antibiotics could be the cause of the initial indigestion complaints. What you get from inserting proton pump inhibitors into this situation is a gastrointestinal nightmare. A better course of medicine in this type of case might well be a bottle of probiotic supplements (or yogurt) and a few quarts of aloe-vera juice.

Many doctors are recognizing there are problems with overusing PPI’s, but many still don’t get it. An example of this is my school in NM had a lot of students going onto a nearby-impoverished area for rotations. They have blue laws in this area with no alcohol sales on Sunday. The students saw the pattern of the patients going into the clinics on Monday after abusing solvents, even gasoline vapors, and having the doctors put them on omeprazole (eg. Prilosec), long term, because their stomachs are upset. This is medicine in the real world.

Reliability or Bias?

Mainstream medicine and pharmacy instill into their practitioners from the beginning to be careful about where you get your information. Medical journals boast of their peer review process. When you discuss with other health professionals, invariably they will ask from which medical journal did you get your information. I actually took an elective course in pharmacy on how to evaluate a particular article for its truthfulness. The class was structured on a backbone of caution about making sure, as one read an article, that we understand that real truthfulness only comes from a few approved sources.

I was never comfortable with this concept. Once you realized that many of these “truthfulness bastions” actually have a hidden agenda, the whole premise of this course became suspect. One of my preceptors for my doctoral program insisted that I become familiar with a particular medical journal. If I did, she said, I would be on my way to understanding the “big picture.” When I expressed being a little skeptical of this journal, the teacher told me I could trust it as the journal was non-profit, and there were no editorial strings attached.

Weirdly enough, what had started our exchange over credibility was a warm can of a diet soft drink on the teacher’s desk. She drank the stuff all day. I was kidding around with her, and asked her if she had seen some controversial articles about the dangers of consuming quantities of aspartame. She scoffed at my conspiracy-theory laden point of view and I thought the subject was closed. The beginning of the next day, the teacher gave me an assignment: to hustle over to the medical library and make sure I read a paper she assured me would set me straight about my aspartame suspicions, while simultaneously demonstrating the value of getting my information from a nonprofit medical journal. It turned out that the article she wanted me to read, in the “nonprofit medical journal,” was funded in its entirety by the Drug Manufacturers Association.

Flashy Pharma Ads

As I read the literature, I discovered that there is very decided barrier between two blocks of information: substances that can be patented vs. those substances that can’t be. The can-be-patented group gets a professional discussion in eye-pleasing, four-color-print, art-like magazines. This attention to aesthetics tricks some people into interpreting, from the flashy presentation method, that the information is intrinsically truthful.

The world’s drug manufacturers do an incredibly good job using all kinds of media penetration to get the word out about their products. The drug industry’s audience used to be confined to readers of medical journals and trade publications. Then, in 1997, direct-to-consumer marketing was made legal.

Personally, I don’t think this kind of presentation should be allowed. I have doctor friends that say they frequently have patients that self-diagnose from TV commercials and demand the doctor write them a prescription for the advertised product. The patients then threaten the doctor, if s/he refuses their request, that they will change doctors to get the medication. One of my doctor friends says he feels like a trained seal.

Negative Reporting on Vitamins

A vitamin article usually doesn’t get the same glossy presentation. Frequently, questionable vitamin research will be published and get blown out of proportion. A prime example of this was the clamor in the press in 2008 that vitamin E somehow caused lung cancer.

I studied this 2008 experiment and found glaring errors in its execution. These errors were so obvious that the experiment shouldn’t have gotten any attention, yet this article ended up virtually everywhere. Anti-vitamin spin requires this kind of research to be widely disseminated to show how “ineffectual” and even “dangerous” vitamins are. I tracked down one of the article’s original authors and questioned him about the failure to define what kind of vitamin E had been studied. A simple literature hunt shows considerable difference between natural and synthetic vitamin E. This is an important distinction because most of the negative articles and subsequent treatment failures have used the synthetic form for the experiment, often because it is cheap. Natural vitamin E with mixed tocopherols and tocotrienols costs two or three times more than the synthetic form.

Before I even got the question out of my mouth, the researcher started up, “I know, I know what you’re going to say.” He ended up admitting that they hadn’t even considered the vitamin E type when they did the experiment. This failure to define the vitamin E type made it impossible to draw a meaningful conclusion. I asked the researcher if he realized how much damage this highly quoted article had done to vitamin credibility. If there has been anything like a retraction, I have yet to see it.

Illness is Not Caused by Drug Deficiency

If you’ve made it this far in reading this article you have discerned that I’m sympathetic to vitamin arguments. I think most diseases are some form of malnutrition. Taking the position that nutrition is the foundation to disease doesn’t make medicine any simpler. You still have to figure out who has what and why. There are many disease states that are difficult to pin down using the “pharmaceutical solution to disease.” A drug solution is a nice idea, in theory. It makes the assumption that the cause of a disease is so well understood that a man-made chemical commonly called ‘medicine’ is administered, very efficiently solving the health problem. The reality though, is medicine doesn’t understand most health problems very well. A person with a heart rhythm disturbance is not low on digoxin. A child who is diagnosed with ADHD does not act that way because the child is low on Ritalin. By the same logic, a person with type II diabetes doesn’t have a deficit of metformin. The flaw of medicine is the concept of managing (but not curing) a particular disease state. I’m hard pressed to name any disease state that mainstream medicine is in control of.

Voltaire allegedly said, “Doctors are men who pour drugs of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, into human beings of whom they know nothing.” Maybe he overstated the problem. Maybe he didn’t.

Source:
This article was written by the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. You can subscribe to their content here.

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service
by Andrew W. Saul, OMNS Editor

(OMNS, Jan 23, 2012) When physicians criticized Linus Pauling for advocating vitamin C, Dr. Pauling wrote a book that became an all-time nutritional bestseller: Vitamin C and the Common Cold. It won the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science. Then, after he and colleagues demonstrated that vitamin C fights cancer, he was attacked again. When medical orthodoxy prevented him from publishing timely rebuttals in their pharma-funded journals, Pauling wrote more books. When critics go after the Gerson nutritional therapy, Charlotte Gerson writes another book. She will turn 90 on March 24. The more efforts to silence, the more education gets out.

When psychiatric journals refused to publish Abram Hoffer’s controlled studies showing that niacin cured many forms of mental illness, Dr. Hoffer started his own Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. When scientific journals refused to publish studies questioning water fluoridation, the journal Fluoride was started to get the research in print. Someday, you might actually be able to find these journals at the US National Library of Medicine/Medline. But don’t hold your breath. NLM, your taxpayer-supported “largest medical library on earth,” censors your access to journals it does not like. Worldwide, as well as in the United States of America, most people feel that such behavior from a public library is reprehensible. If you are among these who do, you can write to NLM’s Medline boss and tell him so. They will not let you write to committee members, who make their decisions in closed meetings.

Every time pharmaphilic opponents of nutritional medicine try to monopolize the news media, the Orthomolecular Medicine News service publishes another press release or two, directly to the public. OMNS articles are all over the internet, and there have been 120 different releases, all free of charge and without advertising. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/ Thank you for your continued interest and support.

Not everyone likes this newsfeed. Most of the media ignore it. Not surprising. Perhaps they think that no one is searching the internet for a second opinion, and that people only read and believe what they, the major magazines and newspapers, select as fit to print. Maybe the TV networks have forgotten about YouTube, and websites where there is a growing presence of free-access orthomolecular video.

And as for Wikipedia, if you want to read what cliques of amateurs have need to say about subjects that do or do not fit their belief systems, be our guest. I taught for the State University of New York for nine years, and I never met a single faculty member that would pay the slightest heed to a Wikipedia reference. They know better. You know better. That is why OMNS goes directly to academics, researchers, and physicians for information and commentary. Many years ago, my father taught me that when you want to know, “Go to the organ grinder, not the monkey.”

As you read this, the medical monopoly is melting like an iceberg in the Panama Canal. Nutritional medicine is catching on worldwide. Original case reports and research papers of Dr. Max Gerson are, this minute, being translated from German into English for the first time ever. They will be published for free access online this year. No longer will cancer organizations get away with rhetoric such as, “If the Gerson approach worked, there would be evidence that demonstrates it.” Well, it does, and there are. If your doctor does not know this, teach him or her to click a mouse button.

We love piquing the medical industry. We are grateful for our critics. We love it when they respond, because we just go ahead and issue yet another OMNS release showing how nutritional therapy is proven safe and effective. When they don’t respond, we will keep provoking them until they do. For example, let them explain these:

• A Harvard study showed a 27% decrease in deaths among AIDS patients taking vitamin supplements.
• There has never been a single death from a vitamin. That’s right: zero.
• Women who take two aspirin tablets per day have an 86 percent greater risk of pancreatic cancer.
• Milligram for milligram, vitamin supplementation is cheaper than trying to get vitamins from food.

Here is the latest thorn in Big Pharma’s paw. Starting Feb 1, the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service will be available in Japanese, thanks to the Japanese College of Intravenous Therapy, the Japanese Society of Orthomolecular Medicine, and other progressive medical organizations.

We are not going to rest with that. If you are multilingual and interested in volunteering to translate OMNS releases into other languages, please write in and let us know. You can pick the release http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/ and you can pick the language.

Vitamin and nutrient therapy is safer and more effective than drug therapy. Let’s get this message out to every person, everywhere, in every language.

Source:
This article was written by the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. You can subscribe to their content here.

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service
by Daniel L. Scholten

(OMNS, Dec 3, 2012) What follows is an innovative new paper that we feel deserves publication. We concede that this article is a stretch for OMNS in both size and content. However, the nonstandard but thought-provoking aspects of this work need to be presented and we choose to let our readers read or delete. – Andrew W. Saul, OMNS Editor.

As part of their recent OMNS critique of the practice of “evidence-based” medicine (EBM) http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v07n15.shtml (1), researchers Steve Hickey and Hilary Roberts argue that the legalistic requirements of EBM, such as its insistence on treatments that have met the “gold standard” of “well-designed, large-scale, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, clinical trials”, actually prevent doctors from effectively diagnosing and treating their patients. In this article, I would like to elaborate on this part of their argument, which they warrant with a piece of cybernetic common-sense (2) known variously as the “Good-Regulator” theorem (GRT), or “Conant and Ashby” theorem, after the researchers who published its original proof. (3)

No need to worry about the technical jargon. If you can read these words then you have already understood something important about this result from the system sciences, even if you don’t call it that. (4) Likewise, if you have ever used a street map to navigate a new city, a book index to browse the contents of a book, or perhaps an x-ray image or lab report to diagnose a patient’s ailment, then you are already quite comfortable handling at least the gist of this conceptual power-tool, which can be paraphrased as follows: every good solution to a problem must be a representation of that problem. (5)

What’s It All about?

Here are several other ways to paraphrase the theorem:

• Every good regulator of a system must be a model of that system.
• Every good key must be a model of the lock it opens. (6)
• Control implies resemblance.
• Identical situations imply identical responses.

The basic idea of the theorem can be illustrated with simple thought experiments. (7) Just imagine trying to order a meal in a new restaurant without using a menu, or assemble a piece of furniture without an instruction pamphlet, or diagnose diabetes without a blood-sugar lab report. Of course, you could probably muddle your way through any number of situations with roughly the same basic set of skills that was available to our preliterate ancestors, but the unassailable fact of the matter is that maps, menus, x-ray images, and medical lab reports are potent performance enhancers and without them we risk getting lost, going hungry, or medically misdiagnosing. (8,9)

Why is There a Problem?

The truth of this can be easily obscured. One problem is that some representations are clearly better than others. At the extreme we have outdated maps, poorly written instruction pamphlets and menus with mouthwatering images that turn out to represent bland, salty, or greasy food. Another problem is that representations – from street-maps to MRI scans – can be costly to prepare. Furthermore, the expertise required to prepare or use them is costly to acquire, as measured by the years, dollars, and brain-sweat it takes to complete one’s formal education. The upshot here is that those paying the costs of such representations might reasonably wonder whether those costs outweigh the benefits. Perhaps there is a cheaper way to enhance the performance of our system regulators, to find “good solutions” to our problems, and “good keys” to fit the locks we wish to open.

One common work-around is to rely on a memorized “mental model.” Although this approach works fine for simple tasks, such as a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up extra milk, as soon as a task becomes even moderately complex, the limitations of working-memory (10) quickly render this approach useless, little better than using no representation at all. Another approach is to simply avoid the sorts of complex behavior that require us to use external representations. In the end, we must all rely heavily on this approach, if for no other reason than because the cost, time and effort required to learn how to use, say, ultrasound imaging equipment, necessarily blocks one from simultaneously learning to use, say, actuarial modeling techniques, or perhaps the Hubble Space telescope. To choose is to renounce. But this approach also has its limits and the total avoidance of such complex behaviors – perhaps due to illiteracy, innumeracy or maybe a deliberate decision to return to a preliterate hunter-gatherer way of life – is just a different sort of burden.

Yet a third way to dodge expensive models or modeling expertise is to look for “multipurpose” representations; for instance, generalized maps, menus, and user-guides, that can be reused for many different cities, restaurants, and types of equipment. (11) According to Hickey and Roberts, this third approach is actually the one that EBM advocates.

One Key Cannot Fit All Locks

They illustrate their argument with the above-mentioned lock-and-key paraphrase of the Good-Regulator theorem. To follow it, we start by making the analogy that a given patient’s symptoms are a a “lock” the doctor hopes to “open.” It follows then, by the Good-Regulator theorem, that the doctor’s diagnostic and therapeutic behaviors must “model” (represent) these symptoms. A critical qualification to be added, however, is that the doctor must model these symptoms as they occur within the specific context of the patient’s genotypically and phenotypically “characteristic anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry.” (12)

Of course, this does not mean that the doctor must perform some outlandish Jim Carey-esque caricature of the patient, perhaps donning the patient’s same clothing, hairstyle, speech patterns, behavioral mannerisms, etc. Rather, it means that the associations that arise between the doctor’s diagnostic and therapeutic responses and the patient’s symptoms must be characterized by the same sort of conventional reliability that holds between the splashes of color on, for example, a map of Manhattan and the real streets, parks, and buildings in the actual city of Manhattan.

If that splash only occasionally represented Lincoln Center – or if it sometimes represented Central Park, and sometimes, say, the South Street Seaport – you would surely be confused. Even though one could use the same given splash on a map to represent two or more real-world landmarks, common-sense and strong cultural conventions require each given color splash to reliably represent just one particular real-world location. As established by Conant and Ashby’s Good-Regulator Theorem, a doctor’s responses must have the same sort of reliable association to a given patient’s symptoms. This reliability allows us to construe the doctor’s responses as a representation or model of the patient’s symptoms. (13) “Evidence-based” medicine (EBM), with its insistence on treatments that have been confirmed by “well-designed, large-scale, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, clinical trials” (14) will almost always cripple a doctor’s ability to model symptoms as they actually occur within the anatomically, physiologically, and biochemically specific context of a given patient. By way of analogy, we might consider a whimsically allegorical “evidence-based locksmith” (EBL) attempting to open a particular lock with the latest and greatest “Whiz-Bang EBL Master Key,” recently developed in accord with results determined by a meta-analysis of hundreds of “well-designed, large-scale, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials.” Those trials have determined the absolute critical attributes of the perfectly average key, and the patently absurd claim is that the Whiz-Bang Master Key, by virtue of its perfectly average attributes, can now be used to open any particular lock.

Pretty silly, isn’t it.

Clearly such a perfectly average key would open very few locks, if any. To reason otherwise is to commit the “ecological fallacy,” which Hickey and Roberts summarize as “the assumption that a population value…can be applied to a specific individual.” (15) If one tries to shove such a key into some particular lock, twisting and pulling in an effort to force it, then that violates the Good-Regulator Theorem, which reminds us that a good key must actually fit the lock it’s supposed to open, not some other lock, and especially not some hypothetical perfectly average lock. The same goes for actual medical practice.

EBM Stops Doctors from Effective Practice

We still need scientific research and the data it presents. Representations are potent performance enhancers. Just imagine what our lives would be like without grocery lists, the periodic table of the elements, and ultrasound imaging techniques. But however obvious and abundant the evidence might be, medical judgment is impaired by an apparent lapse of common sense. The practice of EBM may well be a consequence of the legal system and pharmaceutical corporate bottom line. In other words, money.

But whatever the cause of such impairment, the limitations of real people, real illnesses and real doctors point to the reality that EBM is DOA. The patient is not a statistic. The treatment should not be a statistic. Every good doctor must represent the patient. Personally.

(Daniel L. Scholten has a degree in mathematical sciences and over 12 years of information technology experience as programmer, analyst and consultant. He founded the The Good-Regulator Project [http://www.goodregulatorproject.org], an independent, volunteer research effort dedicated to increasing public awareness and understanding of the crucial role played by models and representations in the regulation of complex systems.)

Notes & Reference:

1. Hickey, Steve and Roberts, Hilary, Tarnished Gold: The Sickness of Evidence-Based Medicine, 2011, CreateSpace.

2. A more complete list of “mostly self-evident” cybernetic principles, including the Good-Regulator theorem, have been compiled by Francis Heylighen. See “Principles of Systems and Cybernetics: An Evolutionary Perspective”, available on-line http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/PrinciplesCybSys.pdf.

In his paper, Heylighen distinguishes between Conant and Ashby’s “Good-Regulator Theorem” and a “Law of Requisite Knowledge”, which states that “In order to adequately compensate perturbations, a control system must ‘know’ which action to select from the variety of available actions.” Note that although Heylighen distinguishes between them, he also states that these are equivalent principles.

3. Conant, Roger C. and Ashby, W. Ross, 1970, “Every Good Regulator Of A System Must Be A Model Of That System”, International Journal of Systems Science, vol. 1, No. 2, 89-97.

4. Those of us who can read sometimes take it for granted. Many don’t have this luxury. According to a recent UNESCO fact sheet, in 2009 more than 16% of the world’s adults (793 million people) were illiterate, with more than 64% of these being women. “Adult and Youth Literacy”, UIS Fact Sheet, September 2011, no. 16, The Unesco Institute for Statistics. Available online at http://www.uis.unesco.org/FactSheets/Documents/FS16-2011-Literacy-EN.pdf

5. I have argued for the plausibility of this paraphrase in Scholten, Daniel L., 2010, “Every Good Key Must Be A Model Of The Lock It Opens: The Conant And Ashby Theorem Revisited”, available on-line at http://www.goodregulatorproject.org. It is also congruent with an observation made by Herbert A. Simon: “Solving a problem means representing it so as to make the solution transparent”; Simon, Herbert A., 1981, The Sciences of the Artificial, 2nd edition, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA; as cited in Norman, Donald A., Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine, pg. 53, 1993, Basic Books, New York, NY.

6. Scholten, ibid.

7. Although I believe that such thought experiments are justified in the context of the present argument, their use in general should not be taken lightly. After all, as notes James Robert Brown, they have been used to refute the Copernican world view. See, Brown, James Robert, 1991, The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences, Routledge, New York, NY; page 35. See also, Brown, James Robert and Fehige, Yiftach, “Thought Experiments”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/thought-experiment/.

8. A critical distinction that can be made between an idealized good-regulator model, which is really a dynamic entity, and its “technical specification”, or what we might call its control-model. (Scholten, Daniel, L., “A Primer For The Conant And Ashby Theorem”, http://www.goodregulatorproject.org).

Another distinction to be recognized is that whereas the good-regulator model is dynamic, the control-model may be either static or dynamic.

As an example of a static control-model, consider a written recipe for roast duck, being used by an inexperienced cook to prepare an evening meal for guests. In this case, the system to be regulated consists of the various ingredients and kitchen tools to be used to create the meal, the dynamic good-regulator model is the human being doing the cooking, and the recipe is what we are calling the static control-model. The recipe is a control-model because the human being uses it, like a technical specification, to guide (control) his behavior and thus to “turn himself into” a good-regulator model.

As an example of a dynamic control-model, consider the case in which a child learns to use an idiomatic expression such as “two wrongs don’t make a right” by overhearing an adult use that expression in a conversation. In this case the system to be regulated is a particular portion of some conversation in which the child is participating, the dynamic good-regulator model is the child, and the dynamic control-model is the adult role-model. The idea here is that the adult’s behavior serves as a type of dynamic technical specification that the child then uses to control his or her own behavior in the context of the given conversation.

It is important to make these distinctions between a dynamic good-regulator model and its static or dynamic technical specification because otherwise the GRT appears to prove that the technical specification (control-model) is necessary, which is, I believe, a misreading of the theorem. The GRT only proves that the good-regulator model is necessary. On the other hand, it does appear to be an empirical fact that such technical specifications are also necessary. The thought-experiments illustrate this explicitly, although they also help us to see what our behavior looks like when we aren’t acting as good-regulator models.

(For an in-depth, authoritative analysis of behavioral modeling, see Bandura, A., Social Foundations Of Thought & Action: A Social-Cognitive Theory, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey)

9. Let’s recognize that one uniquely human characteristic is our astonishing capacity to simulate (in the manner of a Turing machine) the behavior of an enormous variety of much simpler and more specific machines. I have written more extensively about this in the “Three-Amibos Good-Regulator Tutorial,” available on-line at http://www.goodregulatorproject.org .

10 For a recent accessible discussion, see Klingberg, Torkel, 2009, The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload And The Limits Of Working Memory, Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

11. I am making the assumption here that the multipurpose model is meant to apply to cities, restaurants, equipment, etc. that are not replicas of each other. Clearly there is no problem if all owners of the same brand of laptop computer use the same user-guide.

12. Hickey and Roberts, Tarnished Gold, page 43. Hickey and Roberts emphasize that it is not simply the symptoms that matter. Also important is the particular person in which those symptoms occur, where the particularities of that person have been determined by the complex interactions between that person’s genes and the environments in which those genes have been expressed over the person’s lifetime. In their discussion of this notion of “biochemical individuality”, Hickey and Roberts cite Williams, R., 1998 (1956), Biochemical Individuality: Basis for the Genetotrophic Concept, McGraw-Hill, New York.

13. In the words of Conant and Ashby “…the theorem says that the best regulator of a system is one which is a model of that system in the sense that the regulator’s actions are merely the system’s actions as seen through a mapping….” Conant and Ashby, 1970, pg. 96.

14. Hickey and Roberts refer to this ponderous, adjectival freight-train as the “EBM-mantra”; ibid, page 164.

15. Ibid, page 24. Hickey and Roberts attribute the term to Robinson, W.S., 1935, “Ecological correlations and the behavior of individuals,” Journal of the American Statistical Association, 30, 517-536.

Source:
This article was written by the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. You can subscribe to their content here.

As a not-for-profit organization, we rely on many to make our vision a reality. So many come together to provide our patients with a place of hope, health and healing. Here are just a few we’d like to thank.

• All individuals and groups who have donated to our cause through financial support, including:
  • Aidan Foundation
  • Meggs-Nguyen Family Charitable Foundation
  • Garvey KS Foundation
  • Flossie West Memorial Trust
  • Hazel B. Linder Rev Trust
• Crestcom International for event/meeting space rental
• Everyone who continually spreads the word of the help we provide and our mission to promote healthy living from within.

Before beginning your HCG Rx+ weight loss journey, several laboratory tests are performed by the Bio-Center Laboratory, our onsite lab. These include a Complete Blood Count (CBC), a Chemistry Profile, and a C-Reactive Protein-hs (CRPs). Many people may wonder why these particular tests are required for the Riordan Clinic’s HCG Rx+ weight loss program. The following is a breakdown of the tests and why they are important:

COMPLETE BLOOD COUNT—CBC:
A properly functioning immune system is important for your health. By understanding your complete blood count, we are able to see if your white blood count is healthy and normal as well as make sure your immune system is functioning optimally.

• White Blood Cells are used by the body to fight infection and inflammation. White blood cells defend the body via phagocytosis, and produce, transport, and distribute antibodies as part of the immune process.
• Red Blood Cells function to carry oxygen from the lungs to the body tissues and to transfer carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs. An increase of RBC is associated with the need for vitamin C.
• Hemoglobin is the oxygen-carrying molecule in the red blood cells. A decreased hemoglobin level is associated with a decreased vitamin C level.
• Hematocrit is expressed as the volume of red blood cells in a known volume of centrifuged blood.
• Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV) will indicate whether the red blood cell size appears normal, small, or large. It also can help to determine the presence of anemia or a deficiency of vitamin B-6, vitamin B-12, or folic acid.
• Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin (MCH) is an expression of the average weight of hemoglobin per red blood cell. A decrease in this level is also indicative of vitamin C deficiency.
• Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin Concentration (MCHC) measures the average concentration of hemoglobin in the red blood cells.
• Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW) is an indication of the degree of abnormal variation in the size of red blood cells.
• Neutrophils are the white blood cells used by the body to combat bacterial or pyrogenic infections.
• Bands are young non-segmented neutrophils or metamylocytes.
• Lymphocytes migrate to areas of inflammation in both the early and late stages of the inflammatory process. Lymphocytes are used by the body to destroy and get rid of the toxic by-products of protein metabolism.
• Monocytes are the body’s second line of defense against infection. They are phagocytic cells that are capable of movement; they remove dead cells, microorganisms, and particulate matter from circulating blood.
• Eosinophils are often elevated in patients that are suffering from intestinal parasites or from food or environmental sensitivities or allergies. They help to remove and breakdown the byproducts of protein catabolism.
• Basophils constitute only a small percentage of the total white blood cell count. They are phagocytic and contain histamine, heparin, and serotonin in their cytoplasmic granules.
• Platelets or thrombocytes are the smallest of the formed elements in the blood. Platelets are necessary for blood clotting, vascular integrity, and vasoconstriction.

CHEMISTRY PROFILE:
A Chemistry Profile helps us make sure that your body, especially the liver and kidneys, is metabolizing energy as well as releasing toxins and waste. These various levels are checked when a chemistry profile is performed.

• Glucose levels in the blood are primarily dependent on the liver. Glucose is also directly formed in the body from carbohydrate digestion and from the conversion in the liver of sugars, such as fructose, into glucose.
• Uric Acid is a chemical created when the body breaks down substances called purines, which are found in some foods and drinks.
• Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN) is a test that is predominantly used to measure kidney function. BUN is useful as a first indicator of renal insufficiency, especially if all the other renal indicators are normal.
• Creatinine is a by-product of the breakdown of creatinine phosphate in the muscle during muscle contraction. It is produced primarily from the contraction of muscle.
• Sodium constitutes 90% of the electrolyte fluid and is the most prevalent action in the extracellular fluid. Sodium acts as the chief base of the blood. It functions to maintain osmotic pressure and acid-base balance.
• Potassium plays an essential role in nerve conduction, the maintenance of osmotic pressure, muscle function, cellular transport via the sodiumpotassium pump, and acid-base balance.
• Chloride is under the same influence as sodium and is affected by many of the same conditions that affect serum sodium levels, due to their reciprocal relationship.
• Calcium, in its majority in the body, is stored in the bone and teeth, which act as a major functional store. The body normally uses this reservoir to maintain the levels of calcium in blood, which are tightly regulated within a narrow range. Calcium absorption is dependent on optimal acidity of the stomach.
• Phosphorus functions in the metabolism of glucose and lipids and is an important part of acid-base regulation and the storage and transfer of energy.
• Total Serum Protein is composed of albumin and total globulin. Protein absorption is affected by stomach, pancreatic, or small intestine dysfunction. Therefore, total serum protein can be used to screen for nutritional deficiencies and functional digestive problems.
• Albumin is one of the major blood proteins produced primarily in the liver. It plays a major role in water distribution and serves as a transport protein for hormones and various drugs.
• Globulins function to transport substances in the blood and constitute the antibody system and clotting proteins. They are produced in the liver as well as other tissues in the body.
• Albumin/Globulin Ratio (A/G Ratio) is totally dependent on the albumin and total globulin levels.
• Bilirubin is formed from the breakdown of hemoglobin from red blood cells, by the cells of the spleen and bone marrow.
• Alkaline Phosphatase levels are measured, as an increase in one or more of the isoenzyme levels indicates a problem in the specific tissue that is related to the elevated isoenzymes. An increase is seen in early liver disease.
• Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) is the enzyme that is involved in the catalytic conversion of pyruvate into lactate.
• SGOT (AST) is an enzyme present in highly metabolic tissues such as skeletal muscle, the liver, the heart, kidney, and lungs.
• SGPT (ALT) is an enzyme present in high concentrations in the liver and to a lesser extent skeletal muscle, the heart, and kidney.
• Gamma Glutamyl Transferase (GGT) is an enzyme that is present in highest amounts in the liver cells and to a lesser extent in the kidney, prostate, and pancreas. It is involved in amino acid and protein metabolism and can be liberated into the blood stream following cell damage or destruction and/or biliary obstruction.
• Iron is in the form of hemoglobin in 70% of the body. The remaining 30% is found in storage form in the liver, spleen, and bone marrow.
• Cholesterol is a steroid found in every cell of the body and in the plasma. It is an essential component in the structure of the cell membrane where it controls membrane fluidity. It provides the structural backbone for every steroid hormone in the body, which includes adrenal and sex hormones and Vitamin D.
• Triglycerides are composed primarily of fatty acid molecules attached to a glycerol backbone. They enter the blood stream endogenously from the liver and exogenously from the diet.

SPECIAL ASSAYS:
By measuring inflammation in the body the C-Reactive Protein-hs assay can differentiate between chronic and acute inflammation. Various lifestyle choices have an effect on inflammation in the body.

• C-Reactive Protein-hs (CRP) is produced in the fat cells and is related to both inflammation and an increased risk of heart disease and stroke. Fat cells have the ability to produce inflammatory signals that trigger cells to produce CRP’s. CRP’s may also produce biological effects on vascular walls that can cause a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. Obesity can cause an individual to have a higher level of CRP’s and therefore a higher risk of developing heart disease and stroke.

For more information on the Riordan Clinic HCG Rx+ weight loss program and all laboratory testing required, please call 316-682-3100 today.