"It is a matter of common knowledge that any processing that foods undergo serves to make them more harmful than unprocessed foods." (McDonald's Corporation legal statement, shown in the documentary "Supersize Me")
The DOCTOR YOURSELF NEWSLETTER (Vol. 5, No. 2 for January 5, 2005)
"Free of charge, free of advertising, and free of the A.M.A." Written and copyright 2004 by Andrew W. Saul of
http://www.doctoryourself.com/ , which welcomes 1.5 million visitors
annually. Commercial use of the website or the contents of this Newsletter is strictly prohibited.
ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE NEWS SERVICE
My long-time readers have likely taken notice that the DOCTOR YOURSELF Newsletter is now a monthly. Yes, after five years of twice- monthly publication, I am giving a nod to the reality of some 30,000 hits a day at the
http://www.doctoryourself.com/ website. There is only so much
time in a day.
The good news: I will continue to assail your ears about every four weeks or so with my edifying editorials and health hints. And, there is still NO CHARGE for the Newsletter. (To subscribe to the Doctor Yourself Newsletter:
newsletter-subscribe@doctoryourself.com )
Here's the really good news: With my copious new free time, I am beginning another project: the ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE NEWS SERVICE. Like the Associated Press or Reuters, OMNS is a wire-service style news feed directed to members of the press, radio and TV news
media.
We have authoritative scientific clout and plan to use it. The OMNS editorial board consists of:
Abram Hoffer, M.D.
Hugh D. Riordan, M.D.
Harold Foster, Ph.D.
Bradford Weeks, M.D.
I see the creation of the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service as an increasingly necessary step to counter the pharmaceutically-biased factoids and vitamin misinformation that the media seem ever so ready to accept uncritically. The recent allegedly-negative E and C studies bear this out. (
http://www.doctoryourself.com/safety.html/ )
Now with many hundreds of media email addresses, both newspaper and TV, we will shortly go ahead with a mass e-mail press release and inaugural announcement.
YES, YOU TOO MAY SUBSCRIBE TO THE ORTHOMOLECULAR NEWS SERVICE, free of charge. To do so, you will need to promptly send a blank email to
omns-subscribe@doctoryourself.com . (Requests to other addresses, such as my regular email address, will not be processed.)
ASCORBATE: THE SCIENCE OF VITAMIN C
"It's not what we don't know that harms us, but what we do know that ain't so." (Eubie Blake, 1883-1983)
What is it about a little left-handed molecule of six carbons, six oxygens, and eight hydrogens that ticks off so many in the medical community? Maybe it's cases like this one: Ray, a health professional I know, had an 11-month old son who was very sick for over a week. No one, and I mean no one, in their family had had any sleep in a long time.
They were up night after night with this child, who had a high fever, glazed watery eyes, tons of thick watery mucus and labored breathing. The child would not sleep, and did little else but cry. The baby was under the care of a pediatrician, who, in the infant's eleven months on earth, had already prescribed twelve rounds of some very serious antibiotics. That they clearly were not working was all too apparent to Ray, who out of desperation decided to try something he previously had been taught to not try: bowel tolerance quantities of oral ascorbate.
Ray and his wife gave their baby some vitamin C about every 15 minutes. As a result, the baby
was noticeably improved in a matter of hours, and slept through the night. With frequent doses continuing, the child was completely well in 48 hours. Ray calculated that the baby had received just over 2,000 mg vitamin C per kilogram body weight per day. This is even more than what Dr. Frederick Robert Klenner customarily ordered for sick patients. Remarkably, at 20,000 milligrams of vitamin C/day, that 20-pound baby never had diarrhea. With such a little body, you have to marvel at where all of it was going. Of course, it is the opinion of those who promulgate the US RDA and related nutritional mythology that almost all of that baby's vitamin C went uselessly into the toilet. Ray and his wife would tell you differently. They would say
that their sick child soaked it up like a sponge, and then promptly got better.
For the layman unable to obtain intravenous vitamin C, one of the most important parts of Hickey and Roberts' new book, Ascorbate: The Science of Vitamin C, is its attention to oral administration, divided dosing, absorption, and vitamin C retention time in the bloodstream. With simple graphs and uncomplicated language, the authors illustrate 1) how high oral
doses of vitamin C yield higher blood levels of the vitamin, and 2) how dividing the oral doses maintains those higher levels. Although initially seeming almost too obvious to mention, these are not self-evident concepts. Government-based intake standards such as the RDA hinge on
ignoring them.
Hickey and Roberts zero in on this serious public health error. Their critical analysis of research studies purporting to justify a mere 100 or 200 mg/day ascorbate dose is worthy of Linus Pauling himself. Dr. Roberts says: "Stressed and even mildly ill people can tolerate 1,000 times more vitamin C, implying a change in biochemistry that was ignored in creating the
RDA. The RDA concept does not differentiate between short and long- term effects of deprivation.
The possibility that sub-clinical scurvy causes chronic disease has enormous implications for health. In setting the RDA, unsubstantiated risks of taking too much vitamin C have been accorded great importance, whereas the risks of not taking enough have been ignored. Real scientists understand that 'no scientific proof' is a fancy way of saying 'we don’t like this idea.' Furthermore, there is no clear mechanism for the RDA to be modified when new scientific evidence emerges."
Ascorbate: The Science of Vitamin C is a compellingly written, fast-paced inspection of belief-based bias that permeates the scientific method. It is not a tirade; Hickey and Roberts simply tell it the way it is. They are well qualified to do so. Steve Hickey has a PhD in Medical Biophysics from the University of Manchester, and spent about ten years in research at the
Manchester Medical School and associated hospitals. Interestingly, he had initially trained as a biologist specializing in pharmacology, later switching to biomechanics and medical physics. In addition to degrees in physiology and computer science, Hilary Roberts' University of Manchester PhD was on the effects of early life malnutrition. She spent ten years in research
and teaching at the university.
When asked how he and his coauthor came to write the book, Dr. Hickey said: "Since Linus Pauling's death, there seemed to be a great deal of misinformation. The NIH had performed some questionable experiments and were making the apparently ridiculous statement that blood plasma and tissues became saturated with low doses of vitamin C. There was no mainstream research on high doses and the establishment was making wild extrapolations from their low dose data. We could not see how a clinical trial with 200 mg of vitamin C, for example, could be used to suggest that higher doses were not effective. The work of physicians like Robert Cathcart, Archie Kalokerinos and Abram Hoffer intrigued us. The reported effects, especially of intravenous vitamin C, were astounding. It was difficult to find any reason to explain the lack of scientific follow-up. We had friends and relatives that were sick or dying from diseases that
high dose vitamin C was claimed to cure. Eventually we felt we had no choice but to write the book."
Dr. Roberts adds: "Most RDA standards are based on data which was not measured in actual experiments on real people. Even the small amount of data from the 19–30 year old subjects, who were measured, is based on neutrophils, a white blood cell type that is known to have unusual vitamin C biochemistry, along with an exceptional ability to pump the vitamin into
itself. Neutrophils have ascorbate levels from 25-60 times that of the surrounding plasma. This cell type is not a reliable model for the whole body."
Additional topics discussed in Ascorbate: The Science of Vitamin C include infectious disease, oxidation and illness, the safety of vitamin C, and a presentation of the authors' dynamic flow model of continual vitamin C-mediated tissue reduction. The book contains substantial sections
devoted to cardiovascular disease, with the welcome inclusion of an efficient discussion of the roles of vitamin E and lysine. Two excellent chapters on cancer take the starch right out of the Mayo Clinic "refutations" of the Pauling/Cameron vitamin C studies. The authors state that Dr.
Charles "Moertel's switch to oral does would clearly have biased the results" even though Pauling "stated clearly that intravenous doses are more effective than oral doses and explained the reasons for the difference."
Ascorbate: The Science of Vitamin C contains 575 references, and especially good ones. Though not alphabetized, all are keyed to the text with numbered footnotes. For a book this important, the index could be and should be more detailed. A glossary is included for the general reader.
All will enjoy the well-selected epigrams that form the chapter lead-in quotes.
The authors expert command of their topic has enabled them to successfully encompass an enormous, and enormously important, subject. To make a 216-page book this comprehensive, and also so exceptionally comprehensible as well, is no small achievement.
I wish I'd had a book of this caliber back in the 1970's when my kids were infants. I raised my children all the way into college without a single dose of any antiviral, antihistamine, or antibiotic. What they did get were megadoses of vitamin C. We, like so many other parents, learned the
principles of vitamin C therapy (quantity, frequency, and duration) at our kids' bedsides at three in the morning. Now, the pioneering work of megascorbate orthomolecular physicians has been concisely summarized and very skillfully explained in Ascorbate: The Science of Vitamin C. It is a thorough, up to date and very readable analysis of what, to some, may still appear to be a controversial topic.
Those who use it know that taking enough C results in three C's: patient comfort, low cost, and parental control. Without necessitating the use of invasive technology, nor the trauma of hospitalization, parents can regain confidence and mastery over illness to a degree that they might never have thought possible. For this reason, vitamin C therapy will, at least in
some quarters, continue be decried and denounced as irresponsible. It takes some real ego strength for a parent to stand firm and say, "This is what I am going to do: I am going to follow the Klenner/Pauling/Cathcart vitamin C protocol." Hickey and Roberts' review of vitamin C research is a solid buttress that makes such a stance possible. No bias or belief system
can withstand their first-rate presentation of the safety and effectiveness of megadoses of ascorbate.
Hickey S and Roberts H. Ascorbate: The science of vitamin C. 2004. ISBN 1-4116-0724-4. Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com. www.lulu.com/ascorbate NEW REVIEW of DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that Works "Take Charge of Your Own Health"
Review by Beatrice Trum Hunter, in the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients
Several recently published books deal with subjects that emphasize the importance of an individual taking charge of health practices and decisions. . . The illnesses and health problems discussed in Doctor Yourself: Natural Healing that Works are presented in alphabetical order,
and include acid reflux, allergies, hemorrhoids, sleep disorders, and vaccinations, among many others. According to Andrew Saul, many diseases can be treated with safe, inexpensive, and drugless approaches. He writes conversationally, interspersing protocols with personal
experiences and case stories. Take psoriasis, an intractable condition. Try a complete change of diet, with fresh foods, vegetable juices, lecithin, and vitamins including extra vitamin D, instead of the palliative ointments and lotions. For additional information on the scientific studies supporting the protocols. Dr. Saul refers readers to DoctorYourself.com website with
more than 4000 references.
Doctor Yourself: Natural Healing that Works, by Andrew, Saul, PhD.
(oversized quality paperback, 241 pages, bibliography, index, 2003) [from the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, #253-254, May 2004, p 132.
http://www.townsendletter.com/ / Telephone (360)385-6021.] Editor's Note: This particular review was a special treat for me. Beatrice Trum Hunter's NATURAL FOODS COOKBOOK (New York: Pyramid, 1961) was one of the very first health books I read. (It is reviewed at
http://www.hoboes.com/html/Diner/revue/naturalfoods.shtml) I was therefore most honored to have made her list of recommended books. Incidentally, the Townsend Letter also very favorably reviewed Doctor Yourself in the Aug-Sept 2004 issue. The review is posted at
http://www.doctoryourself.com/townsend.html . Additional reviews of my book are posted at
http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html/TO ORDER AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY of DOCTOR YOURSELF:
Natural Healing that Works, please go to
http://www.doctoryourself.com/order.html/FREE ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE
There is no longer any excuse to not have the latest and most recent, and
I mean this morning's, antivirus protection. With AVG Free Edition
Antivirus software, such protection is free and updates are, too. I have
used this excellent, downloadable, and totally free of charge program for
years:
http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/
(You can also go to http://www.grisoft.com )
FIRM FLUORIDE FACTS
Please especially note the sources of these statements.
"THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT FLUORIDE IS AN ESSENTIAL
NUTRIENT FOR HUMANS." (Physicians' Desk Reference)
http://www.pdrhealth.com/drug_info/nmdrugprofiles/nutsupdrugs/flu_0109.shtmlFLUORIDE IS NOT APPROVED BY THE U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION
http://www.cm-life.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/12/06/41b3e6ab68a3c("CITY REMOVES FLUORIDE FROM WATER. The City of Mount Pleasant (Michigan) followed the will of its resident-voters and began removing fluoride from its water supply. . . (City) ordinance states anything added to the city water must be approved by the Food and Drug
Administration, and fluoride is not.")
FLUORIDE DOES NOT WORK
California is 28% fluoridated; Hawaii is 9% fluoridated. These states are tied for the lowest rate of tooth loss in the USA. On the other hand, Kentucky is 100% fluoridated and has the highest toothless population of older adults.
(
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-me-health2jan02,1,2990789.story?coll=la-health-medicine)
CORRECTION: My review of Pottenger's Cats, in the December, 2004 Newsletter (posted at
http://www.doctoryourself.com/news/v5n1.txt ) omitted rightful mention of the Selene River Press (
http://www.seleneriverpress.com/), publisher and distributor of health books.
They kindly provided me with the review copy of Pottenger's Cats.
VITAMIN E WITCH HUNT
by Michael Fumento
http://www.fumento.com/nutr/vitamine.htmlLess than two months ago I debunked a report in the Lancet medical journal claiming antioxidants slightly increase your chance of dying, rather than reducing it as most researchers believe. Now I'm writing about a report that says the same thing about a specific antioxidant, vitamin E. Why are these pills being persecuted? Among the similarities of the earlier report and this one, authored by researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, is that the mainstream media accepted both without question. Both times the researchers smugly declared their work to be the final word on the subject, though both reports were, as the vitamin E one
admitted, 'a qualitative departure from previous findings.'
Since a good scientist knows no single report ever proves anything, we know these weren't good scientists. In fact, they have less in common with Johns Hopkins than Matthew Hopkins - England's infamous 'Witch-finder General.'
Consider the vitamin E paper, published in The Annals of Internal Medicine (full citation at
http://www.doctoryourself.com/safety.html ). It analyzed 19 clinical trials between 1993 and 2004, involving 136,000 people in all. These were combined into what's called a 'meta-analysis,'
which showed no overall increase in deaths. But at high levels, defined as above 400 international units (IUs) per day, the researchers insisted 'vitamin E supplements may increase (deaths) and should be avoided.'
A glaring problem with the report is that there have been far more than 19 vitamin E trials since 1993, and one way the pack was whittled down was by excluding all studies reporting fewer than 10 deaths. The witch-hunters weren't about to interrogate witnesses who might keep the accused from a visit to the gallows.
Also, if 'more is worse,' why did the two studies that used the highest dose, 2,000 IUs per day, indicate fewer deaths among vitamin E users? Another problem with declaring this report to be the final word on vitamin E is that while clinical trials are important, epidemiological studies cannot be ignored. Yet ignored they were.
Thus there was no reference to the 1996 one from the National Institute of Aging that followed 11,000 elderly persons for seven years and found that the death rate for vitamin E users was a third that of non-users. Adding another antioxidant, vitamin C, cut fatalities even more.
A 1993 Harvard study of 40,000 male health professionals found those who took at least 100 IUs daily for two years had a third fewer cases of heart disease than those receiving no vitamin E supplements.
A Harvard study of 87,000 nurses that year found an even greater reduction in heart disease when comparing women who took the highest amount of vitamin E vs. those taking the lowest amount. Does this have you running in terror at the sight of a vitamin E capsule?
But what's with the supplement witch-hunt? Why the reports of vitamin E flying on broomsticks, and beta carotene casting hexes? "Unfortunately, there are some doctors who are biased against dietary supplements," says John Hathcock, vice president of Scientific & International Affairs at the D.C.-based Council for Responsible Nutrition. To an extent, this is understandable. For one, some supplements are worthless while a few have proved harmful. But you just can't lump 'eye of newt' in together with vitamin E or other antioxidants.
Mainstream medicine is also biased toward that which has formal FDA approval. You know, like Vioxx. And never mind the many supplements such as iron and iodine that have tacit FDA support but no formal approval.
Some doctors also fret that people will try to substitute supplements for good eating habits. 'We don't think that people need to take vitamin E supplements, that they get enough from the diet,' said the lead vitamin E prosecutor, associate professor Edgar Miller.
Yet the average American gets only about 10 IU daily. With some studies showing 2,000 IUs to be beneficial, dietary intake leaves us a bit shy of the mark. Anyway, those taking vitamins and other supplements also have the best diets.
The final explanation for vitamin-pill persecution is that medical journals are becoming increasingly sensationalist. Publishing articles contrary to popular wisdom is a cheap and easy way to get headlines. But there's no excuse for throwing a noose around the neck of good
science and healthful products.
[Reprinted with the kind permission of the author. Michael Fumento
http://www.fumento.com/) is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, syndicated columnist with Scripps Howard News Service and author of BioEvolution: How Biotechnology is Changing our World.]
The GERSON THERAPY MOVIE IS NOW ONLINE!
If you've been wanting to watch THE GERSON MIRACLE ever since I reviewed it the July 20 Doctor Yourself Newsletter (
http://www.doctoryourself.com/gersontherapy2.html or
http://www.doctoryourself.com/news/v4n16.txt), you are in luck. The entire movie, or any specific chapter you like, can now be viewed FREE OF CHARGE at
www.gersonmiracle.org/movie.html . Grab some unsalted popcorn and pull up a chair.
BOOK REVIEW:
FAST FOOD NATION: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by Eric
Schlosser.
Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2001. ISBN: 0395977894
Why, why, why are so many, many, many people so sick, sick, sick? The main reason is staring right back at them from their dinner. It's the junk food, people. An ever-increasing proportion of our food is fast food. "In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food; in 2000, they spent more than $110 billion," writes Eric Schlosser in his book Fast Food Nation. "They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music - combined. . . On any given day in the United States, about one-quarter of the adult population visits a fast food restaurant." (p 3)
What does this mean to our health? Everything. Fast food is a high- additive, high-fat, high-meat, high-sugar, and high-salt diet. And what's just as bad, it's a low-fiber, low vitamin, low mineral diet to boot. Fast food is exactly the wrong way to eat.
And we are teaching our kids just how to do it . . .wrong. Chapter 2 discusses how the fast-food industry sells to kids, especially in schools. This is the last thing we need; a typical teenage boy already drinks 20 oz of soda a day. Indoctrination starts early: page 30 of Fast Food Nation shows a superb photo of Ronald McDonald speaking to a large room full of enraptured elementary schoolchildren. How can this be?
Because the cafeterias in so many of our school districts are for sale for the right price. The actual franchise income that any school district may get pales when compared to what fast food industry takes in. After all, says Schlosser, "A medium Coke that sells for $1.29 contains roughly 9 cents' worth of syrup."
Adults are to blame. We, not our kids, are the ones who allowed fast food in our schools. We are the ones who let Harlem Memorial Hospital contain its very own McDonald's. It is our money that enables McDonald's to open FIVE new restaurants every DAY. It is our U.S. Federal Communications Commission and our U.S. Federal Trade Commission that permit every American child to watch 10,000 television food ads every year. Are these ads for carrots? Not according to Yale professor Kelly Brownell, PhD., who says that 95% of TV food commercials promote candy, soft drinks and fast food.
Fast Food Nation is much more than a history of soda pop and the flipped burger. In Chapter 3, Schlosser takes us "Behind the Counter" to examine labor issues in the fast food biz. "No other industry in the United States has a workforce so dominated by adolescents," he writes. And teenagers work hard and they work cheap. Too cheap. "Increasing the federal minimum wage by a dollar (an hour) would add about two cents to the cost of a fast food hamburger." Fast Food Nations also explores "Why the Fries Taste Good" in Chapter 5, as well as the very real dangers for those who work at meat packing factories.
Your making a point to read the exceptionally well-written Fast Food Nation would be the perfect New Year's resolution. Here is some video encouragement to help you on your way as you change your lifestyle and fight to eat right:
DIET WARS
"Nobody ever got rich marketing self-control." That is my favorite quote from "Diet Wars," a recent PBS' Frontline presentation. If you missed this truly excellent program, you can still watch it online, for free, at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/diet/view/Privacy Statement:
We do not sell, and we do not share, our mailing list or your email address with anyone. We never send out advertisements of any kind. You may notice that there is no advertising at http://doctoryourself.com and no advertising in this newsletter. We have no financial connection with the supplement industry. We do not sell vitamins or other health products, except for Dr. Saul's books, which help fund these free public services.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE: This newsletter is not in any way offered as prescription, diagnosis nor treatment for any disease, illness, infirmity or physical condition. Any form of self-treatment or alternative health program
necessarily must involve an individual's acceptance of some risk, and no one should assume otherwise. Persons needing medical care should obtain it from a physician. Consult your doctor before making any health decision.
"DOCTOR YOURSELF" "DoctorYourself.com" and "Doctor Yourself Newsletter" are service marks of Andrew W. Saul. All rights reserved.
Copyright c 2005 and prior years Andrew W. Saul
drsaul@doctoryourself.com . Permission to reproduce single copies of this newsletter FOR NON-COMMERCIAL, PERSONAL USE ONLY is hereby granted providing no alteration of content is made and authorship credit is
given.
The January 23, 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association published the finding of Benedetta Bartali, RD, PhD, of Yale University School of Medicine and colleagues that having reduced serum levels of vitamin E, an indicator of poor nutrition, is significantly associated with a decline in physical function among men and women aged 65 and older.
