Where does cancer come from?

Cancer cells arise from a toxic chemical, biological, or radiation exposure. Their DNA has been mutated, and they begin to reproduce abnormally fast. Normally, the immune system recognizes cancer cells and isolates and destroys them without intervention. But if there are too many, or your immune system is compromised, they reproduce rapidly and then spread using a protein-dissolving enzyme called protease. Continue Reading >>

Orthomolecular Medicine - For Health and Mental Illness

Orthomolecular medicine describes the practice of preventing and treating disease by providing the body with optimal amounts of substances which are natural to the body. The term "orthomolecular" was first used by Linus Pauling in a paper he wrote in the journal Science in 1968. This paper first described the theoretical foundations for what was later to become a specialty within complementary medicine.

The key idea in orthomolecular medicine is that genetic factors are central not only to the physical characteristics of individuals, but also to their biochemical milieu. Biochemical pathways of the body have significant genetic variability in terms of transcriptional potential and individual enzyme concentrations, receptor-ligand affinities and protein transporter efficiency. Diseases such as atherosclerosis, cancer, schizophrenia or depression are associated with specific biochemical abnormalities which are either causal or aggravating factors of the illness. In the orthomolecular view, it is possible that the provision of vitamins, amino acids, trace elements or fatty acids in amounts sufficient to correct biochemical abnormalities will be therapeutic in preventing or treating such diseases.Want to learn more? The following essays give a more detailed overview of the nature, efficacy and history of orthomolecular medicine. Continue Reading >>

Orthomolecular Treatment of Cancer

Between 1978 and March, 1999 I have seen over 1040 patients suffering from cancer who came to me for nutritional and psychiatric counseling. This is no longer a surprising combination as it was when I first started to practice psychiatry in 1952. I attended my first annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Los Angeles, in 1952. I did not meet another psychiatrist there with a PhD in Biochemistry. Since then many more scientists with the double degrees have become active in this field but of these very few actively pursue this particular combination. Orthomolecular theory and practice drives these two together. I have retained my interest in the biochemistry and clinical aspects of nutrition combining this with my education in medicine and later in psychiatry. The recovery of my first patient in 1960 from terminal bronchiogenic cancer of the lung arose from this coalescence of these two disciplines. Continue Reading >>

Linus Pauling

When Linus Pauling died on Aug. 19, 1994, the world lost one of its greatest scientists and humanitarians and a much respected and beloved defender of civil liberties and health issues.

Because of his dynamic personality and his many accomplishments in widely diverse fields, it is hard to define Linus Pauling adequately. A remarkable man who insistently addressed certain crucial human problems while pursuing an amazing array of scientific interests, Dr. Pauling was almost as well known to the American public as he was to the world's scientific community. He is the only person ever to receive two unshared Nobel Prizes — for Chemistry (1954) and for Peace (1962). Continue Reading >>

Clinical trial to test vitamin C against non-Hodgkin lymphoma

Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and the Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health, are initiating a trial to test the effects of high dose vitamin C in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). The study will be the first to test the effects of the vitamin when administered intravenously to NHL patients.

A team led by Daniel Monti, MD, who is the director of the Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson, plans to enroll twenty patients for whom standard non-Hodgkin lymphoma therapy has been unsuccessful. Trial participants will receive varying doses of intravenous vitamin C three times per week while being monitored for disease progression. Continue Reading

Nutrition and Your Mental Health

Nutrition and Your Mental Health

What does nutrition have to do with mental health? You might be surprised to find out the truth behind what happens when a person has a nutritional deficiency.

Nutritional deficiencies can cause all sorts of psychiatric symptoms including apathy, low energy, irritability, insomnia, low energy, agitation, fatigue, concentration problems, aches and pains, weight changes, including weight loss or weight gain. Sound a lot like the symptoms of depression? The truth is the average American diet of fast food is low in vital nutrition that you need for your body to function correctly.

This isn't to say that all depression is caused by bad nutrition but it's certainly a contributing factor in many cases and poor nutrition will always make depression worse. Antidepressant drugs also do not correct nutritional problems. So if your depressed because of nutritional problems an antidepressant will only partially cover up the problem and you body still won't function correctly.




Please visit Natalie's website at

http://www.nutritionbynatalie.com

To find out more about orthomolecular psychiatry visit,

http://orthomolecular.org/index.shtml

This video was produced by Psychetruth

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© Copyright 2007 Zoe Sofia. All Rights Reserved.

Time to take on time

To significantly reduce disease, we must slow the aging process, according to a team of experts who published their conclusion online in the British Medical Journal on July 8. In an article entitled, “New model of health promotion and disease prevention for the 21st century,” Professor S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago and his associates suggest that the current focus on preventing and curing individual diseases will become outmoded as people in developed countries live longer and develop the multiple chronic illnesses that come with aging.
“The change in strategy we are calling for requires a systematic attack on aging itself,” they write. “Evidence in models ranging from invertebrates to mammals suggests that all living things, including humans, possess biochemical mechanisms that influence how quickly we age and that they are adjustable.” Due to a greater life expectancy in developed countries, the increased incidence of diseases related to aging has resulted in a dramatic rise in health care costs. Dr Olshansky and colleagues note that if an extended life span is combined with health, it could result in a number of economic, social, and other benefits, which they call “the longevity dividend.” They propose increased funding for studies that will increase our knowledge concerning the relationship of aging to such diseases as type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and most cancers, in addition to research into the processes that control aging itself. Continue Reading

Some genetic defects treatable with supplements

An article published early online on June 3, 2008 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports the prediction of Jasper Rine and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley that soon-to-be-available personalized genome sequencing will uncover minor genetic flaws that can easily be corrected with nutrition, enabling people to personalize their supplement routine.

"Headlines for the last 20 years have really been about the triumph of biomedical research in finding disease genes, which is biologically interesting, genetically important and frightening to people who get this information," Dr Rine. "I became obsessed with trying to decide if there is some other class of information that will make people want to look at their genome sequence."Variations in genes responsible for the production of enzymes involved in metabolism affect the efficiency of these enzymes.

While having two copies of a defective gene can result in one of many rare metabolic diseases that can be treated with vitamin supplements, many individuals have only one copy, or have two copies of only slightly defective genes, whose subtle effects on enzymes, Dr Rine’s team found, could also be remedied by vitamin supplementation. The current study examined one human enzyme, methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), which requires the B vitamin folate to function properly.

The enzyme plays a role in DNA nucleotide synthesis. Among 564 individuals, 3 common variants and 11 minor, uncommon genetic variants of MTHFR were found. When these gene variants were synthesized and inserted into yeast cells, the most common variant and 4 of the uncommon variants were found to affect the enzyme's function, yet supplementation of the yeast with folate restored full functionality to all but one of these. Continue Reading

Linus Pauling orthomolecular medicine until end of millenium

Linus Pauling about orthomolecular medicine until the end of the millenium (1993).

DEPRESSION, MENTAL ILLNESS CURED WITH NUTRITION

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 7, 2005

Mental Health Treatment That Works
(OMNS) Doctors report that mental health problems including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, ADHD, anti-social and learning disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorders often have a common cause: insufficient nutrients in the brain. Nutritionally-oriented physicians assert that the cure for these problems is to give the body the extra nutrients it needs, especially when under abnormal stress.

Orthomolecular medical researchers say the future of psychiatry is in nutrition because nutrition has such a long, safe and effective history of correcting many mental problems. Nutrients such as the B-vitamins are most successful when taken regularly, taken in relatively high doses, and taken in conjunction with vitamin C, the essential fatty acids (EFA’s), and the minerals magnesium and selenium.

A summary of what has worked for many people follows below. The safety of vitamins and minerals is extraordinary, and the expense of trying them is much less than the cost of hazardous pharmaceutical drugs. These nutrients can be purchased in a discount or heath store.

Taking 1,000 mg of vitamin B-3 three times a day often cures mild to moderate depression. Dramatic results are often achieved within one week of beginning this nutritional program, especially in alcoholics. (1)

Sometimes a simple deficiency of vitamin D causes depression. 3,000 I.U./day from all sources can alleviate the problem. (2)

3,000 mg/day or more of niacin (vitamin B-3), along with the same quantity of vitamin C, taken in divided doses throughout the day can successfully treat both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. (3)

Vitamins B-3, B-6, C and the minerals magnesium and zinc frequently produce a good response in ADHD and autistic children. (4)

Vitamins B-6, folate, and B-12 taken together lower elevated homocysteine levels in the elderly while improving mental function. (5)

As pointed out by chemistry professor and vitamin discoverer Roger J. Williams, PhD (6), each individual has different nutritional needs and responds differently to nutrients. Are you tired of being depressed, suffering from anxiety, paying huge prescription drug bills for unsafe prescriptions that don’t solve the problem or produce undesirable side effects? Are you tired of the piece-meal trial and error approach to finding a solution to your mental or emotional problems? If so, adults should consider the following nutritional protocol, which will bathe your brain and nerves in natural nutrients and may well produce dramatic results. The cost of trying the program below is less than the cost of a typical doctor’s office visit. It is safe and convenient. All of these nutrients can be purchased at large discount stores. Continue reading >>

Niacin (Vitamin B3) Lowers High Cholesterol Safely

OMNS - There is a safe, inexpensive, nonprescription, convenient and effective way to reduce high cholesterol levels and reduce heart disease risk: niacin. Niacin is a water-soluble B-complex vitamin, vitamin B-3. One of niacin's unique properties is its ability to help you naturally relax and to fall asleep more rapidly at night. It is well established that niacin helps reduce harmful cholesterol levels in the bloodstream. Niacin is one of the best substances for elevating high density lipoprotein cholesterol (the "good cholesterol) and so decreases the ratio of the total cholesterol over high density cholesterol.

The finding that niacin lowered cholesterol was soon confirmed by Parsons, Achor, Berge, McKenzie and Barker (1956) and Parsons (1961, 1961a, 1962) at the Mayo Clinic, which launched niacin on its way as a hypocholesterolemic substance. Since then it has been found to be a normalizing agent, meaning it elevates high density lipoprotein cholesterol, decreases low density and very low density lipoprotein cholesterol and lowers triglycerides. Grundy, Mok, Zechs and Berman (1981) found it lowered cholesterol by 22 percent and triglycerides by 52 percent and wrote, "To our knowledge, no other single agent has such potential for lowering both cholesterol and triglycerides."

Elevated cholesterol levels are associated with increased risk of developing coronary disease. In addition to niacin, a typical diet generally recommended by orthomolecular physicians will tend to keep cholesterol levels down in most people. This diet can be described as a high fiber, sugar-free diet which is rich in complex polysaccharides such as vegetables and whole grains.

With adequately high doses of niacin, it is possible to lower cholesterol levels even with no alteration in diet. E. Boyle, then working with the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C., quickly became interested in niacin. He began to follow a series of patients using 3 grams (3,000 milligrams) of niacin per day. He reported his conclusions in a document prepared for physicians involved in Alcoholics Anonymous by Bill W (1968). In this report, Boyle reported that he had kept 160 coronary patients on niacin for ten years. Only six died, against a statistical expectation that 62 would have died with conventional care. He stated, "From the strictly medical viewpoint I believe all patients taking niacin would survive longer and enjoy life much more." His prediction came true when the National Coronary Drug Study was evaluated by Canner recently. But Boyle's data spoke for itself. Continuous use of niacin will decrease mortality and prolong life. Continue reading >>

VITAMIN C KILLS CANCER CELLS

Intravenous Vitamin C is Selectively Toxic to Cancer Cells
(OMNS) National Institutes of Health scientists have confirmed the concepts that vitamin C is selectively toxic to cancer cells and that tumor-toxic levels of vitamin C can be attained using intravenous administration. The article, published in the September 12, 2005 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (1) concluded, “These findings give plausibility to intravenous ascorbic acid in cancer treatment.”

Orthomolecular medical researchers, including Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, have long recognized the great importance of vitamin C in fighting cancer. (2) Scientists associated with the Bio-Communications Research Institute (BRCI) in Wichita, Kansas have published 20 scientific articles on the subject. (3) BCRI researchers first reported in 1995 that vitamin C in sufficient amounts is selectively toxic to tumor cells. The authors concluded that tumor-toxic levels of vitamin C could be achieved only by giving the vitamin intravenously. Subsequent research from BCRI, published in the British Journal of Cancer in 2001 (4), was the first to describe in detail the pharmacokinetics of high doses of intravenous vitamin C.

"It is gratifying to have our research on vitamin C and cancer confirmed by scientists at the prestigious National Institutes of Health," said Neil Riordan, Ph.D., BCRI’s Research Director. “The findings reinforce our goal and commitment to pursue cutting edge cancer research,” added Michael Gonzalez, Ph.D., D.Sc. of the University of Puerto Rico.

BCRI’s vitamin C research was headed by its founder Hugh D. Riordan, M.D. The research team includes Dr. Xiaolong Meng, Dr. Joseph Casciari, Dr. Nina Mikirova, Dr. Jie Zhong, Dr. James A. Jackson, Dr. Don Davis, Dr. Jorge Miranda, Dr. Michael Gonzalez, Dr. Neil Riordan, and Mr. Paul Taylor.

What is Orthomolecular Medicine?
Linus Pauling defined orthomolecular medicine as "the treatment of disease by the provision of the optimum molecular environment, especially the optimum concentrations of substances normally present in the human body." Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org/

Continue reading >>

HIGH-DOSE VITAMIN C FIGHTS ASTHMA

(OMNS) People with severe asthma have low blood concentrations of ascorbate (vitamin C), particularly men [1] and children [2].

Effective asthma treatment is readily available with cheap, safe and convenient vitamin C. The only requirement is to take enough vitamin C to be effective. Typical dietary quantities and low supplemental doses do not work. Robert F. Cathcart III, M.D., who has treated many asthma sufferers, says “Asthma is most often relieved by bowel tolerance doses of ascorbate (vitamin C). A child regularly having asthmatic attacks following exercise is usually relieved of these attacks by large doses of ascorbate. So far all of my patients having asthmatic attacks associated with the onset of viral diseases have been ameliorated by this treatment.”[3]

If you want asthma relief, consider trying this:

Go to a discount store and buy a large bottle of 1,000 mg vitamin C tablets. The cost should be less than $15.

Beginning when you awake in the morning, take 1,000 to 2,000 mg of vitamin C every 30 minutes and continue doing so until you have a single episode of loose stool (not quite diarrhea). If you haven’t had loose stool after 15 hours on this dosage, increase the vitamin C to 3000 mg every 30 minutes.

After you have a loose bowel movement, reduce the dosage to 2,000 mg of vitamin C every hour. You will quickly find the dosage that is right for you. Adjust the dosage of vitamin C downward to stay below the dosage that will cause loose stool and adjust it upward to relieve asthma symptoms. The usual maintenance dosage to remain asthma-free is 15,000 to 50,000 mg of vitamin C per day taken in eight equally divided doses.

People with asthma should also avoid tobacco smoke, minimize stress in their lives and minimize their consumption of junk foods, meat and dairy products.

Remember:
Vitamin C replaces antibiotics, antihistamines, antipyretics, antitoxics, and antiviral drugs at saturation (bowel tolerance) levels. It reduces inflammation.

A vitamin can act as a drug, but a drug can never act as a vitamin. Continue reading >>

Treatment Protocol for Alcoholism

A Message from Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.:

"Ever since I met Bill W, the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous and we became close friends, I have had a personal interest in the treatment of alcoholism.

Bill taught that there were three components to the treatment of alcoholism: spiritual, mental and medical. AA provided a spiritual home for alcoholics that many could not find anywhere else and helped them sustain abstinence. But for many AA alone was not enough; not everyone in AA had achieved a comfortable sobriety. Bill recognized that the other two components were important. When he heard of our use of niacin for treating alcoholics, he became very enthusiastic about it because niacin gave these unfortunate patients immense relief from their chronic depression and other physical and mental complaints.

"Niacin is the most important single treatment for alcoholism, and it is one of the most reliable treatments. And it is safe, much safer than any of the modern psychiatric drugs. Niacin does not work as well when alcoholics are still drinking but in a few cases it has decreased the intake of alcohol until they were abstinent. This conclusion is based on the work my colleagues and I have done since 1953.

"I know of many alcoholics who did not want to stop drinking, but did agree to take niacin. Over the years, they gradually were able to reduce their intake until they brought it under control. Some alcoholics can even become social drinkers on a very small scale. I have not found many who could. But I think that if started on the program very early, many more could achieve normalcy. I suspect that treatment centers using those ideas will be made available one day, and will be much more successful than the standard treatment today. This all too often still consists of dumping them into hospitals and letting them dry out, with severe pain and suffering. When they are discharged, most go right back to the alcohol, the most dangerous and widely used street drug available without a prescription. Continue reading >>

Doctors Report Vitamin C Cures Shingles

OMNS - Shingles can be cleared up by using a safe, convenient, inexpensive, nonprescription treatment of vitamin C. Vitamin C is anti-viral and anti-toxin and inactivates the virus that causes shingles. If you have shingles and want relief, you can try this:

Go to a discount store and buy a large bottle of 1000 mg vitamin C tablets. The cost should be less than $15.

Begin when you wake in the morning by taking 3000 mg of vitamin C every 30 minutes and continue until you have a single episode of loose stool (not quite diarrhea). If you haven't had loose stool after 15 hours on this dosage, increase the vitamin C to 4000 mg every 30 minutes.

After you have a loose bowel movement, reduce the dosage to 2000 mg of vitamin C taken every hour. You will quickly find the dosage that is right for you. Adjust the dosage of vitamin C downward to stay below the dosage that will cause loose stool and adjust it upward to relieve shingles symptoms. Continue the oral vitamin C therapy until the shingles disappear.

It sounds too simple to be true, doesn't it? But it works in the majority of cases, as recently reconfirmed by Thomas E. Levy, M.D., J.D. (1)

Sometimes it's necessary to take vitamin C intravenously (IV) for massive shingles outbreaks. (2) Much higher concentrations of vitamin C in the blood can be achieved intravenously than when taken orally. As early as 1950, the medical literature reported that one physician had confirmed intravenous vitamin C curing shingles in 327 patients within 72 hours. (3) Ask your doctor if he or she offers vitamin C IV and, if not, ask friends or search the Internet to find a doctor or facility that does offer this treatment.

Vitamin C blood serum levels of individuals fall during periods of high stress and they develop sub-clinical scurvy (depleted vitamin C levels). This situation can set the stage for a shingles attack.

Remember, a vitamin can act as a drug, but a drug can never act as a vitamin.
With vitamin therapy, at any given quantity, frequently divided doses are more effective than one large single dose.

The reason one nutrient can cure so many different illnesses is because a deficiency of one nutrient can cause many different illnesses.

What is Orthomolecular Medicine? Continue reading >>

Narrator: A person afflicted with the disease has inherited two sickle cell genes from his parents. This realization, that the two genes manufacture the abnormal hemoglobin, set the stage for Dr. Pauling's entry into the field of molecular medicine.

Dr. Pauling: Well, when Doctors Itano, Singer, and Wells, and I published our paper in 1949, we gave it the title: "Sickle Cell Anemia: A Molecular Disease." Now of course, in fact, one might say that any inborn error of metabolism, any hereditary disease, is a molecular disease because it involves an abnormal gene. And the gene we know, almost certainly, is a molecule of DNA, deoxyribose nucleic acid.

The abnormal molecule of deoxyribose nucleic acid that is inherited by the child, prospective patient, causes the trouble for him, and the hereditary disease is accordingly a molecular disease.

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER AND SEVEN OTHER GIANTS OF MEDICINE INDUCTED INTO THE ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE HALL OF FAME

(Toronto, May 14, 2005) Eight giants in the field of medicine, who were advocates of the use of nutrition in the treatment of cancer, were inducted in the Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame on May 14, 2005 at a special reception held at the Fairmont Château Laurier in Ottawa, Canada.

The annual induction ceremony is one of the highlights at The International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine (ISOM) 34th Annual International Conference, Nutritional Medicine Today, which this year met in Canada's capital and at which leading physicians and scientists from around the world gather to discuss ground-breaking studies in nutritional medicine, cardiovascular disease, oncology and mental health.

All inductees, whose seminal work has been influential in the medical and scientific worlds, are pioneers in their respective fields and include the Nobel Prize winner who discovered vitamin C, and numerous advocates of Vitamin C Therapy especially with respect to cancer treatment. The 2005 inductees are: Emanuel Cheraskin, MD, DMD; Max Gerson, MD; David Horrobin, MD, PhD; Josef Issels, MD; Frederick Klenner, MD; Cornelius Moerman, MD; Hugh Desaix Riordan, MD and Nobel Prize Winner Albert Szent-Gyorgi, PhD.

Although they have now passed away, their contributions to the betterment of mankind have been significant and will live long after them. Members of their families and colleagues were on hand to join in the acknowledgment and celebration of their life's work.

Dr. Cheraskin, who, for decades, headed the Department of Oral Medicine at the School of Dentistry at the University of Alabama was among the very first to recognize and demonstrate that oral health indicates total body health.

Dr. Horrobin was Medical Adviser and President of the Schizophrenia Association of Great Britain and his study of human physiology lead him to investigate the role of fatty acids and their derivatives in human disease and to investigate the therapeutic potential of lipids in medicine.

Dr. Max Gerson, began observing that cancer could be cured with nutrition in tandem with systemic detoxification. Albert Schweitzer stated that Dr. Gerson was one of the most eminent geniuses in medical history, while Prince Charles who knew of a terminally ill patient who had undergone Gerson Therapy and is alive and well remarked that "rather than dismissing such experiences, we should further investigate the beneficial nature of these treatments."

Dr. Issels also believed that good nutrition and a clean environment were central to his cancer therapy and felt that cancer was the ultimate symptom of a lifetime of immune system damage which had created an environment for a tumor to grow while conventional therapy just looked at the tumor without recognizing this longtime preconditioning period.

Dr. Klenner asserted that vitamin C is the safest substance available to the physician and was the first doctor to emphasize that small amounts of ascorbic acid do not work and that only adequate uses and huge doses of vitamin C will provide results.

Dr. Moerman's name remains symbolic in the Netherlands as a leader in nutritional therapy for the treatment of cancer as he also believed that strengthening the immune system by proper nutrition was the answer to this disease.

Dr. Hugh Riordan was the first to demonstrate how large doses of vitamin C are chemotherapeutic for cancer patients and his vitamin C intravenous chemotherapy studies are being continued at the University of Kansas and at McGill University in Montreal.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, PhD, won the 1937 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of vitamin C. In fact, it was he who named the vitamin ascorbic acid and first predicted its use in cancer treatment.

Last year, the first inductees to the Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame included double Nobel Prize laureate LINUS PAULING, PhD; WILLIAM KAUFMAN, MD, PhD; WILLIAM J. McCORMICK, MD; EVAN SHUTE MD and WILFRID SHUTE, MD; ALAN COTT, MD; HUMPHRY OSMOND, MD; CARL PFEIFFER, MD, PhD; IRWIN STONE and ROGER J. WILLIAMS, PhD. Continue Reading >>

Vitamins Cure Skin Conditions

(OMNS Jan 23, 2008) Skin troubles are a common, often painful problem. Topical applications of vitamin E, and/or vitamin C and niacin provide rapid relief. The first reports indicating that vitamin E, and concentrated topical and IV solutions of vitamin C were a highly effective treatment for burns surfaced over 50 years ago. Vitamins may be used to treat both thermal burns and sun burns, as well as wrinkles, pigmentation, scrapes, bug bites, and even bed sores.

Foods alone do not provide sufficient vitamins to provide maximum healing. Vitamins also provide protection against skin-aging damage caused by exposure to the sun. The benefits of vitamin C and niacin have been proven in numerous controlled clinical trials using high potency vitamin C and niacin creams. [1-9] The scientific literature contains at least 29 reports published since 2003 using niacin creams and 8 using vitamin C creams. Even before the Korean War, orthomolecular physicians were reporting topical vitamin E to be a superior treatment for burns. [10] Recent research conforms this. [11, 12] Read the full story >>

JOURNAL OF ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE NOW ONLINE

(OMNS February 29, 2008) The archives of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine are now posted online. Past issues from 1967 through 2002 are available for downloading, at no charge, at http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/index.shtml

"36 years of important material is now freely available to everyone," said Steven J. Carter, Executive Director of the Toronto-based International Schizophrenia Foundation, which publishes the Journal.

The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine has led the way in presenting, in advance of other medical journals, new health concerns and treatments including niacin therapy for schizophrenia and coronary disease; vitamin C for cancer; and the nutritional treatment of behavioral disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse. The JOM was also the first medical journal to publish papers on the nutritional treatment of allergies, autism, and AIDS. JOM published pioneering research on candiasis in 1978, mercury amalgam toxicity in 1982, and chronic fatigue syndrome in 1988. The Journal has published over 100 papers on nutritional medicine and cancer, and over 400 articles on schizophrenia and other psychiatric illnesses. JOM is peer-reviewed.

The Journal was founded in 1967 as the Journal of Schizophrenia, and subsequently titled the Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry until 1986. Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling authored 9 papers in the Journal from 1970-1992. It was Pauling that gave nutritional medicine the name "orthomolecular." Says JOM Editor-in Chief Abram Hoffer, MD, PhD: "In 1968, Dr. Pauling proposed the term orthomolecular (1,2) which we recognized as the correct word to define the total interest in nutrition, clinical ecology, and the use of vitamin and mineral supplements. All the pioneers in orthomolecular medicine have reported their findings in this journal. It thus represents a unique source for these earlier and current studies which provide a basis for the increasing growth of nutritional medicine." Continue the full article >>

CURING ALCOHOLISM NATURALLY

Dr. Carolyn Dean, MD, ND and
Elissa Meininger
November 17, 2005
NewsWithViews.com

One of the most satisfying things about the natural healing arts is that when you are thoroughly committed to its principles, you discover a contentment you can never find in modern medicine. Natural healing is about making people whole. It’s about arranging all the elements of your life to be as supportive as possible in all ways so that when you pass from this life, you do so at peace with yourself and the world around you. It’s not about fighting off the evils of disease or postponing the grim reaper no matter what the cost. And it certainly isn’t about diagnosing some disease and declaring yourself a victim of that disease, a label you must carry through life like a scarlet letter branded on your forehead.

The worst part of having a drinking problem is giving the behavior a name with the implication that once you have been branded an alcoholic, the next unspoken thought is “always an alcoholic”. Softening this branding by claiming those who have stopped drinking are “recovering” alcoholics, is just sliding into another form of discrimination, believing that we are nothing more the diseases we suffer and are life-long victims.

The plain fact of the matter is that all of us have issues that involve emotional, spiritual and physical components. We all need to establish the parameters of how we shall live out our lives. Those of us who want to maximize our lives learn to wrestle with, in a positive manner, those issues which make life less than perfect. To claim that we are all victims of disease or victims of situations that scar us for life is about feeling sorry for ourselves and not embracing life to the fullest.

A good example of how not to fall into this trap is something my NewsWithViews.com writing partner, Elissa, experienced. She was so poisoned by mercury from her dental amalgams, she was in pain for months on end, trying to detox it from her system. Pain killers were out of the question, and when her spirits were particularly low, she’d muster what little sense of humor she had, call her naturopath and say, “Skip the rest of the herbs, send the hemlock”. In return, knowing that she was at the end of her rope emotionally, he, being a true blue naturopath of the best kind, would ask her, “What is the gift?” This was a signal for her to embrace her suffering so she could fully examine the lessons pain and suffering could teach her about the value of life, the learning of patience, and other deeply spiritual issues, so that when the suffering was over, she would be a much wiser person, more ready to really live life to the fullest.

How many of us have known people who have suffered a great deal and have become incredibly wonderful people? How many of us have taken the trouble to surround ourselves with a positive support system and how many of us have arranged to have good things come our way because we have become positive thinkers and doers? These are all important issues that when we are caught in the throws of suffering, might be worth thinking about.

When I suggested to Elissa that we provide information from my colleagues in Orthomolecular Medicine about how they successfully treat alcoholism through nutrition, Elissa quickly pointed out that having been trained in Transactional Analysis back in the 1970’s, she was well aware that TA practitioners were not into naming diseases, either, and, in fact, didn’t consider alcoholism a disease at all.

Created by Eric Berne, MD, Transactional Analysis is a system of analyzing people’s patterns of behavior. It became the first of several therapeutic models that is particularly adaptable to self-help by lay people. Central to its core philosophy is that the client has the capacity to change and that the teacher-therapist is largely there to assist the client in taking charge of his/her own healing. In allopathic psychiatry and similar therapies, the therapist’s role is to diagnose a “disease” and be the authority figure who helps the “patient” become more well adjusted, though rarely healed.

When it was introduced in the 1960’s, TA revolutionized our understanding of what really goes on during our most basic social interactions. Best selling books such as “Games People Play”, “I’m OK, You’re OK”, “Success Through Transactional Analysis”, and “Born to Win” were on everyone’s coffee tables and the concepts of TA was quickly adopted into common usage. Everyone was analyzing “games”, discussing “life-scripts”, giving and receiving positive “strokes” and making jokes about who was more “OK” than somebody else.

Back then Elissa would have been delighted to add to her TA knowledge information about nutritional approaches that support the health of people who’d been trashed out by too much alcohol. She pointed out that to a TA counselor, the goal is to teach the client about the principles and practical methods of clarifying true emotions, develop useful information about how to run you own life, clean up old baggage from the past without going on what she calls an archeological expedition to rehash how much you hate your mother or other old anger that has yet to be resolved. Establishing a good diet to improve and maintain better health would certainly be a major part of such a health-promoting plan of action. In addition, it can improve a person’s state of mind, as malnourishment can lead to depression and other emotional imbalances, not to mention muddled thinking.

Sorting out the various elements of how a person came to have problems with alcohol is something TA counselors have had a great deal of success with because so many of the issues involved, are basically reviewing all the elements of a person’s life that may need to be updated. In fact, most people, once they understand TA, go over a checklist every now and again to keep on target to make sure they are maximizing their lives based on constantly updated information.

Since discussions about Transactional Analysis, and how to use it to deal with alcohol issues can get complicated in a short column like ours, Elissa suggests that readers interested in learning more about it, might like to read two books by TA’s premier alcohol treatment expert, Claude Steiner. Even though written in the 1970’s they are

1, Games Alcoholics Play: The Analysis of Life Scripts – (Random House, 1974)
2, Healing Alcoholism – originally published by Grove Press in 1971 – Now available as a free download

A book that I recommend about the nutritional approach to alcoholism is Food and Behavior by Barbara Reed Stitt. Barbara was one of the first parole officers in the country who put her charges on a good diet and saved most of them from further jail time. Knowing that diet can change criminal behavior should give you some indication of the power of good nutrition. It should also prepare you for the following Treatment Protocol for Alcoholism from Dr. Abram Hoffer, who, along with Linus Pauling is the father of orthomolecular medicine.

We include the full press release of July 1, 2005 from the Orthomolecular News Service.

Treatment Protocol for Alcoholism

A Message from Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.:

"Ever since I met Bill W, the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous and we became close friends, I have had a personal interest in the treatment of alcoholism. Bill taught that there were three components to the treatment of alcoholism: spiritual, mental and medical. AA provided a spiritual home for alcoholics that many could not find anywhere else and helped them sustain abstinence.

But for many AA alone was not enough; not everyone in AA had achieved a comfortable sobriety. Bill recognized that the other two components were important. When he heard of our use of niacin for treating alcoholics, he became very enthusiastic about it because niacin gave these unfortunate patients immense relief from their chronic depression and other physical and mental complaints.

"Niacin is the most important single treatment for alcoholism, and it is one of the most reliable treatments. And it is safe, much safer than any of the modern psychiatric drugs. Niacin does not work as well when alcoholics are still drinking but in a few cases it has decreased the intake of alcohol until they were abstinent. This conclusion is based on the work my colleagues and I have done since 1953.

"I know of many alcoholics who did not want to stop drinking, but did agree to take niacin. Over the years, they gradually were able to reduce their intake until they brought it under control. Some alcoholics can even become social drinkers on a very small scale. I have not found many who could. But I think that if started on the program very early, many more could achieve normalcy. I suspect that treatment centers using those ideas will be made available one day, and will be much more successful than the standard treatment today. This all too often still consists of dumping them into hospitals and letting them dry out, with severe pain and suffering. When they are discharged, most go right back to the alcohol, the most dangerous and widely used street drug available without a prescription.

"Orthomolecular treatment is the treatment of choice. The following protocol for alcoholism outlines the importance of the nutritional factors that have been shown to be very successful on treating this condition. The treatment can be used alone but is best combined with dietary advice and additional nutrients."

The late Dr. Roger Williams, a chemistry professor at the University of Texas and former president of the American Chemical Society, also wrote extensively on the alcoholism.[1] Dr. Williams recommended large doses of vitamins and an amino acid called L-glutamine.
What should the alcoholic do to help stop drinking and return his or her body to normal functioning? Supply the following nutrients to the body:

* Vitamin C to saturation (on the order of 10,000 to 20,000 mg per day and more). High doses of vitamin C chemically neutralize the toxic breakdown products of alcohol metabolism. Vitamin C also increases the liver's ability to reverse the fatty build-up so common in alcoholics.

* To titrate to saturation, take 1000 mg of vitamin C every hour. When saturation is reached, there will be a single episode of diarrhea; then reduce the dosage to 1000 mg every four hours.
* A B50-complex tablet (comprising 50 mg of each of the major B-vitamins, 6 times daily).

* L-Glutamine (2000 or 3000 mg). L-Glutamine is an amino acid that decreases physiological cravings for alcohol. It is one the two primary energy providers that burn glycogen to provide fuel to the brain and stimulates many neurofunctions. L- Glutamine is naturally produced in the liver and kidneys. Alcohol harms the kidneys and liver, thus supplementation is vital (concurrently reducing cravings for sugar and alcohol).

* Lecithin (2 to 4 tablespoons daily). Provides inositol and choline, related to the B-complex. Lecithin also helps mobilize fats out of the liver.

* Chromium (at least 200 to perhaps 400 mcg chromium polynicotinate daily). Chromium greatly reduces carbohydrate mis-metabolism, and greatly helps control blood sugar levels. Many, if not most, alcoholics are hypoglycemic.

* A good high-potency multi-vitamin, multi-mineral supplement as well, containing magnesium (400 mg) and the antioxidants carotene and d-alpha tocopherol.

In summary, the alcoholic’s body needs the proper nutrients in adequate quantities to return to normal metabolic functioning. The above nutrients are safe, effective, inexpensive and available from discount stores or health food stores without prescription. There is not even one death per year from vitamins. Pharmaceutical drugs, properly prescribed and taken as directed, kill over 100,000 Americans annually. Hospital errors kill still more. Most illness is due fundamentally to malnutrition. This not only includes the chronic diseases, but also viral and bacterial acute illness, which are greatly aggravated by inadequate nutrition. Supplements are not the problem; they are the solution. Malnutrition is the problem.

Editorial Review Board:
Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D. Harold D. Foster, Ph.D. Bradford Weeks, M.D. Carolyn Dean, M.D. N.D. Eric Patterson, M.D.Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D.

References;
1, Williams, RJ, Roach, MK, "Impaired and inadequate glucose metabolism in the brain as an underlying cause of alcoholism--an hypothesis.", Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1966 August; 56(2): 566-571.

ACT FOR HEALTH FREEDOM NOW: Go to http://www.friendsoffreedominternational.org/ and purchase "Death by Modern Medicine" and view and purchase the new movie on Codex and Free Trade called "We Become Silent" by Kevin Miller. Proceeds from the sale of these products are crucial to help fund our health freedom action. For state action go to:

http://www.nationalhealthfreedom.org/ . To support HR 4282, the new Health Freedom Protection Act bill that we talked about in our November 7, 2005 article in News With Views “A Call to Action to Protect Free Speech” go to: www.stopfdacensorship.org and send a letter to Congress.