Message from the Author ............................................................................................... 3
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 5 Part I: Why Are We Unhealthy? ...................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1: The Failure of the Health Care System ...................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2: You Are What You Eat - The Perils of Modern Agribusiness and Junk Food ............................. 14 Chapter 3: Our Toxic Environment ............................................................................................................ 19 Chapter 4: Stress and Toxic Emotions ...................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 5: Cancer - Friend or Foe ............................................................................................................ 27 Part II: The Solutions ................................................................................................. 32 Chapter 6: Get Off Drugs for GOOD ......................................................................................................... 32 Chapter 7: Keep Your Muscles and Joints Healthy .................................................................................... 42 Chapter 8: Treating Depression and Stress ............................................................................................... 46 Chapter 9: Your Body was designed for Physical Work .............................................................................. 48 Chapter 10: The Unsuspected Illnesses .................................................................................................... 54 Chapter 11: Intelligent Design in Nutrition ............................................................................................... 62 Chapter 12: Detoxify Your Body ............................................................................................................... 70 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 72
3 | P a g e
Message from the Author
I am excited to have you join me on this journey to better health. I call myself a natural medicine physician and I try to filter my recommendations for my patients through the lens of common sense and using natural approaches for treatment and prevention before resorting to drugs. The problem with drugs is that they are commonly tested for only a short time and may have serious side effects. Before embarking on a course of therapy or a strategy for the treatment or prevention of disease, I ask myself: (1) What is the evidence? (2) Who did the research? (3) Are there traditional or nutritional treatments that are effective? (4) If I do use a drug, is there evidence beyond the drug company sponsored clinical trials for the drugs safety and efficacy? My credentials include a Medical Doctorate from the University of Nevada School of Medicine, board certification and Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine, board certification by the American Board of Physician Nutrition Specialists, a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, and Masters degrees in Public Health and Exercise Physiology from the University of Arizona. I have been appointed to the position of Clinical Assistant Professor at the University Of Arizona College of Medicine. For 12 years, I consulted with thousands of patients on the road to health at the world-famous Canyon Ranch Health Resort Medical Department in Tucson, Arizona. I left that position and now I can give you this health information that was once reserved for the wealthy and elite. Join me on this journey of learning how to sidestep processed food, toxic exposures and the hazardous healthcare system. You must know the truth in order to improve your health. Doctors spend an average of 16 minutes with their patient and then write a prescription for a drug, which, if like Vioxx or a multitude of 4 | P a g e
other medicines, might actually make your health worse, if not outright kill you. In this book, I will outline the common traps that people fall into in a medical system with its foundation of greed and unethical practices. More importantly, I'll teach you how to avoid those traps. By following the steps in this book, you can have the energy and health that our Creator originally designed you to have. This will occur by gradually changing your thinking and lifestyle. Is it easy? No, it is not always easy. It is a process and neither you nor I will ever get it perfectly right. We will always have struggles. But we must realize this is a war. Truth is the key. We are being fed a long list of lies regarding our health. Finding out what is true is the most important step. This book will give you a battle plan. We can use science to help guide us toward the truth, but we also need to have our eyes open to how science is so often perverted for monetary gain.
5 | P a g e
Introduction
In this book, you will learn how to resist the quick-fix mentality and how to stop thinking you can solve a health problem by focusing on, or masking, symptoms. Deception is a major cause of disease. We have been misinformed and misled as to what is good for us and what is dangerous. Trying to fix symptoms instead of looking for the cause is the universal error of the present health care system. If you discover the cause, then you can truly heal. Do you want to awaken each day with boundless energy and optimism? Following the steps outlined in the solutions section of this book will help. You will be a better steward of the Creators gifts to you; your body, your mind, and even your money. Let me warn you now that these changes will not happen without a fight. You'll come up with all kinds of reasons and excuses as to why you can't do something, or that what is written here is a lie. Your doctor will tell you its crazy not to have faith in the cholesterol medicine, anti-hypertensives, anti-depressants, antacids, anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, invasive procedures, chemotherapy, ionizing radiation, vaccinations or cancer screenings that he or she recommends. You may also get resistance from your spouse, kids, relatives, co-workers and even your clergy. The government will coerce you, even to the extreme of enforcement at gunpoint, to have you fall in line with modern medical care. We have all been blinded to the truth. It could be that the drugs you are taking now have numbed your brain and you may not be thinking clearly. I am not saying that drugs are evil. I am not against using a drug for a specific purpose. But too often, drugs or other risky treatments are the only option given to us because our health care system 6 | P a g e
has been built upon a foundation of greed and lies. The system keeps you where they want you; plagued by low energy, depression, and wasting your money on expensive drugs with poisonous side effects. We hold onto toxic emotions that make us sick. Please join me in the battle to take back our health. You will need all the help you can get. I am here to educate and encourage you, but you will need to recruit others to help you as well. The enemy isolates us and then takes us out. If you are healthy now and have good energy, the ideas in this book are the best preventive medicine you will find anywhere. I believe that a higher power is in control, and if you have this book, you have it for a reason.
Disclaimer
This publication contains the opinions and ideas of the author. It is intended to provide helpful and informative material on the subjects addressed in this publication. It is sold with the understanding that the authors and publishers are not engaged in rendering medical, health, psychological or any other kind of professional services in this book. If the reader requires personal medical, health or other assistance or advice, a competent professional should be consulted. The author and publisher cannot be held responsible for any liability, loss or risk, personal or otherwise, that is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book. If you do not accept these terms please return the book for a refund of the purchase price within seven days from the date of purchase.
7 | P a g e
Part I: Why Are We Unhealthy?
Chapter 1: The Failure of the Health Care System
The first truth is that the medical system in the United States is the biggest impediment we have to health and living the life the Creator meant for us. Looking at statistics, one independent study, www.vacinfo.org/Null.pdf, shows that medical mistakes and side-effects from medications is one of the leading causes of death in the USA, killing over 700,000 persons per year. I am grateful to live in the United States, and as a physician practicing in this country, I have always believed Americans are getting above-average health care when compared to the rest of the world. My specialty, Preventive Medicine, has never been a popular field. It is difficult for medical schools to keep preventive medicine training programs funded because of the way our system pays for health care services. A doctor doesnt get paid by the insurance company or government unless there is a diagnosis. If I am practicing prevention, there should be no disease yet, thus no diagnosis and no payment. The Preventive Medicine residency at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center in Tucson, where I did my training, has since closed because of lack of funding. Having to wait until a disease has manifested itself is one of the reasons Americans are so far below average in terms of health. 8 | P a g e
This is also one reason why our health care system is so expensive. I knew we spent a lot on our care, but I was surprised to see how we compared to other affluent nations. If you look at the health of our nation, and look at statistics that compare the 44 richest nations on earth, the USA comes in near the bottom for almost all health categories, including longevity. But what is most disturbing is the cost. Compared to countries in the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), we spend twice as much on health care than average. The USA is by far number one at two trillion dollars per year. The percentage of the gross domestic product spent on healthcare has risen from 8.8 percent in 1980 to 15.2 percent in 2003. What do we get for all this money spent? The USA is ranked 31st in life expectancy and 28th in infant mortality. We rate poorly in most other categories as well. So there you have it. We have the most expensive and ineffective healthcare system in the world. As I see it, a big factor in our poor rating is the reliance on drugs for treatment rather than looking for the root cause of a problem. A drug generally doesnt impact the cause of an illness or disease; it only treats a symptom. From 1990 to 2001, the percentage of the health care dollar spent on drugs in the U.S. has increased by 70 percent. In my 27 years of practicing medicine, drugs have always been the primary tool used by American physicians to treat diseases. More and more drugs are being recommended to prevent disease as well. Examples are the blood pressure medicines, osteoporosis drugs, cholesterol drugs, diabetes drugs, acid blockers, and mood altering drugs. The list is ever expanding. These are the drugs the pharmaceutical companies want to promote to doctors and patients. They're highly profitable because, theoretically, you could put every single person on a preventive drug and the misinformed patient is going to take it for her/his entire life. The drug company would like the patient to think, Why would I ever want to stop preventing a disease? Prevention should be focused not on drugs, but on diet, adequate exercise, reducing stress, avoiding or eliminating toxins, and monitoring for cellular dysfunction. My job and mission through the www.naturalfoodsdiet.org 9 | P a g e
website is to keep subscribers informed of the latest information on optimal health so that they can make better choices to prevent or treat disease in the most effective and least toxic way. Down the road, there will be a cost for not looking to the root-cause of a problem and relying on a man-made chemical to block a function in the body to help override a cellular process. We should have learned this lesson with Vioxx, synthetic hormones, diabetes drugs, and a laundry list of others. It is hard to imagine this startling statistic, but according to the FDA, the toxic effect of properly prescribed medicines is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Evidence suggests the possibility of adverse health reactions from many blockbuster drugs like statin drugs for cholesterol, blood pressure drugs, bisphosphonates for low bone density, acid-blocking agents for acid reflux, diabetes medications, antidepressants, pain medications, sleep medications and many others. Since ancient times, medicinal herbs have been used for healing. The advantage of using a natural substance for health is that the body is more likely to have a way to metabolize the molecule and it will be less likely to have toxic side effects. Medicinal herbs have supporting chemicals that optimize the active ingredient and prevent toxicity whereas a drug is just a one molecule poison that is much more likely to cause harm. There is no windfall profit potential for animal and plant derived, natural compounds because of the present patent laws. That means the pharmaceutical companies are not interested in natural products they cant patent. Its not that I blame them. A company would be crazy to settle for a 100% mark-up when they could instead create their own chemical and mark it up 50,000% or more. I have seen a report where it was estimated that Prozac was marked up by 224,973% for the retail price as compared to the cost of production. Talk about a profitable product. These companies are in business to make a profit, and because of patent laws, big profits are only achievable with a new, man-made chemical they can convince doctors to prescribe for their patients. I mean BIG as in billions of dollars. 10 | P a g e
Lipitor, the drug for treating cholesterol elevation, has been taking in an estimated $12 billion a year in sales. That kind of money will pay for plenty of ad campaigns for physicians and patients, excessive research, marketing campaigns, lobbyists pushing for beneficial legislation, building wings on hospitals and medical schools, and a ton of influence over all involved. There have been over 400 studies done in an attempt to find more and more indications for Lipitor. At the same time, we have no studies for testing the natural molecule co-enzyme Q10 to see if it can prevent the adverse side effects of statin drugs like Lipitor. I suppose if they did that study, and found that you needed to supplement with co-enzyme Q10 in order to prevent the side effects of the drug, fewer people would take the drug. These critically needed studies are ignored when dozens of worthless studies continue to be carried out; which goes to show how it is all about profits and not about health. Money, and the influence it allows, is used to suppress the truth. It keeps you and me in bondage, ignorant of the fact that there are other options. Im not saying that all manmade chemicals are evil and we need to throw them out. What I am saying is that there are evil forces involved behind the scenes, agreements made with the dark side for the sake of profit. There are numerous examples of this profit-seeking practice. You may wonder why I think drugs are often more toxic, especially when compared to a medicinal herb. The cost involved to bring a new chemical to market through the FDA approval process is enormous, typically hundreds of millions of dollars. That means the molecules that are chosen are the ones with the strongest effects. If you have the choice between two chemicals to put through this long process, the stronger one generally will be used because it would be more likely to pan out in the end, thus showing the result the pharmaceutical company is seeking. I believe this is why the drugs we do have are so toxic. They 11 | P a g e
bind to their target and they wont let go, as if Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator grabbed onto your leg. This is not usually what is best for the body. Slowing the target molecule down instead of killing it may be more effective and less toxic. It is important for you to know how the large profits from drug sales are used and how they might impact the poor health of our nation. This has an impact on what information your physician is taught in medical school, residency, and after he or she is out in practice. The money is used to influence our laws and, ultimately, suppress our freedom to make an informed choice. Natural substances are direct competition for drugs, but have no deep-pocket lobby to protect them. Your access to natural alternatives to drugs is slowly being legislated away. Certainly, your ability to receive information about how an alternative treatment can be used has been severely limited by our laws and regulating agencies. The FDA is an agency that appears to be a major force for suppressing all natural treatments under the guise of protecting us. Protecting us from what nature provides for healing--natural substances that have been used for hundreds and even thousands of years. The FDA has become an arm of the pharmaceutical companies with the goal of wiping out any unapproved therapies. That would include almost all natural therapies, so that the pharmaceutical companies can keep us in bondage to their drugs. Another strategy of the drug companies is to turn natural treatments into profit making drugs. The goal is to require any supplement that makes a health claim to undergo clinical trials. Then the FDA comes in and bans all competing natural products and only allows the tested supplement made by the drug company to be sold. This system has already taken hold in Europe. I could envision this happening with a drug like Lovaza. Fish oil is known to lower triglycerides so a drug company took fish oil and made it into a drug. So if a patient goes into their doctor and says Hey Doc, I dont want to pay $20.00 a month for fish oil, can you write me script for Lovaza because my co-pay is $10. 12 | P a g e
Although the patient may pay the $10.00 co-pay, Lovaza costs $300.00 to $900 a month, a difference to regular fish oil only in price, not efficacy. We all ultimately pay for this in the form of higher health insurance premiums. It really harms everyone except the pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders. The next step in this devious plan will be for the FDA to ban all fish oil supplements that have not undergone clinical trials. Then the only alternative would be to squeeze your own fish or shell out the ridiculously inflated price of the drug company product. Do you think that cant happen? The FDA has already outlined their plan for doing this very thing with many natural therapies. The drug companies have bought and paid for many physicians. When one of the major medical journals wanted to get an unbiased review of antidepressant medications, it searched for a psychiatrist department head in an academic setting who had no ties (payments from) to the drug companies to write the article. The article was not written because they could not find one single, independent, qualified psychiatrist. If you go to an annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, it is more like a pharmaceutical company festival than a scientific meeting for researchers and physicians. A few years back, my own specialty of preventive medicine took a pharmaceutical company grant that paid a stipend for a resident to do a year-long fellowship in medical informatics. Does this mean my specialty society is indebted to this company? It may be why the American College of Preventive Medicine went into the business of promoting a drug, aspirin, for prevention. The company that gave them the grant for the fellowship just happened to be a major seller of aspirin. When a leading cardiologist in the community is paid by a drug company to give an evening talk to local physicians on how to aggressively lower your LDL cholesterol using high-dose statin drugs, is he going to be unbiased, think holistically and use lifestyle change, herbs, vitamins, or other natural approaches? Will he or she advise a search for an underlying hormonal imbalance that might be 13 | P a g e
better treated by hormone corrective therapy? No, he or she wont. Thankfully, the bandwagon to give high-dose simvastatin is beginning to crumble as a warning was recently released by the FDA advising doctors against high doses of this commonly prescribed drug, as it has been found to have dangerous side effects. Does the average doctor even have the knowledge of the various choices available to the patient besides the drug? Chances are that he or she does not. Remember, in medical school, and in the training thereafter, doctors are taught to diagnose, prescribe drugs and to perform procedures. Prevention or using natural therapies is not part of the training. Be informed about your choices. You do have choices. If your intuition and evidence leads you and your physician to treat with drugs, at least you will have explored the alternatives, which for thousands of people each year, could be life-saving.
14 | P a g e
Chapter 2: You Are What You Eat - The Perils of Modern Agribusiness and Junk Food
Big agribusiness has looked for and found ways to reduce the costs of food production. One big development was the use of chemical fertilizers. To find a better way to fertilize crops, scientists extracted various minerals out of manure until they discovered the bare minimum requirements for plants to grow. NPK was discovered (nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium). If a farmer adds these elements to the soil, the plants will grow. This allows the fertilization process to cost less. It is also less time consuming compared to natural fertilizers or letting nature replenish the soil by leaving it fallow. The problem is that there are many other minerals besides NPK that are necessary for optimal health for animals. After three or four seasons of crops grown on a plot of land, the other minerals are depleted from the soil and you get crops with poor nutritional value. Big agribusiness has the goal of making fertilizers cheap to maximize profits and to make the crop look good, so it will sell. It doesn't matter that people may not be as healthy or that the local family farmer is run out of business. In fact, the art of destroying the competition is the ultimate goal for many large corporations to further solidify their markets. Of course, depleted soils and chemical fertilizers are just the beginning of the assault on our health from agribusiness. Toxic pesticides and herbicides are in most fruits and vegetables. Animals are 15 | P a g e
routinely fed antibiotics and shot-up with hormones. Genetic engineering gives us Frankenstein plants for food that may be further assaulted by sterilization with irradiation. Organic farming techniques are sustainable, give people wholesome work, and really do increase the nutritional value and taste of food. A 30 year study called The Farming Systems Trial compared organic farming with conventional farming. The FST Facts List was presented on the first page of the report. 1) Organic yields match conventional yields. 2) Organic outperforms conventional in years of drought. 3) Organic farms build up the soil organic matter rather than deplete it as conventional farms do. 4) Organic farms use 45% less energy and are more efficient than conventional farms. 5) Conventional systems produce 40% more greenhouse gases than organic systems. And finally, 6) organic farming systems are more profitable than conventional. Studies have been done that show there are levels of pesticide toxins in just about everyones blood, including pregnant women and their unborn children. The good news is that these levels go down to near zero when people consume a diet of organic fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, seafood, meat and eggs. It is pure arrogance of modern industry to think that altering a plant genetically, like making a corn plant inedible to the European corn borer, might not have some unforeseen consequences. If it makes the corn borer sick, how do they know it won't make us sick? It is much more likely that the corn borer will adapt to the toxin than humans. So, they sell the farmer the alien corn. Oh, and by the way, if the farmer tries to plant one of those corn kernels the next year, guess what? It won't grow. They cleverly genetically engineer the plant so that it cannot reproduce on its own; making the farmer forever dependent on the company that developed it. If that doesn't sound like the strategy of an evil empire, I don't know what does. 16 | P a g e
Most corn grown in the United States is genetically modified. Is it safe? It is chemically different to normal corn. It contains a protein toxic to insects. How do we know if the monster won't turn on us, like an agricultural Frankenstein? It seems, at the very least, long-term safety studies would be required. But with the political clout of these large businesses, they have had no problem getting their products approved; in essence, we are all part of a long-term experiment with an unknown outcome. The very survival of our species may be at stake. Animal studies of GMO foods have shown that the health effects may show up in a later generation. One of those effects is sterility. Soy is another problem food. In the United States, most soy is genetically engineered and heavily dosed with pesticides and herbicides. Modern agribusiness has developed soybean oil as a major product. Their dilemma was what to do with the waste left over after the oil was extracted? They couldn't feed it all to animals as it would make them sick if they ate too much. They figured out a brilliant plan to make us think it is a health food and they feed it to us in the form of highly processed, soy protein. The only way that soy should be eaten is in the naturally fermented form (miso, tempeh, and natto), as that removes the toxic anti-nutrients contained in soy. If you look carefully at the ingredients of most processed food, you will see soy protein has been added, though it may be disguised under different names. In my opinion, soy protein is the ultimate junk food ingredient. If you want to consume soy, make sure it is fermented, non-GMO and organically grown. Avoid all soy milks, tofu, soy burgers, soy ice cream, soy cheese, and all soy-containing junk food. Most importantly, never give soy-based formula to an infant. All of these foods are super processed and contain anti-nutrients that are harmful to your health. Have you ever heard of the land of milk and honey? In the Bible, it alludes to a land of great abundance. Unfortunately, I often have to tell my sick patients to reduce or get off dairy products. This is another example of agribusiness having a negative effect on health. Big dairy producers, along 17 | P a g e
with public health departments, have pretty much succeeded in driving small organic dairies which produce raw milk out of business. Pasteurizing and homogenizing have not only killed the living health properties of milk but have also altered the fats in milk to make them potentially toxic. There are also the issues of hormones, antibiotics, stressed-out cows, and overcrowded conditions. To make matters worse, cows are given unnatural feed filled with pesticides, herbicides, rendered dead animals, soy waste and then injected with bovine growth hormone. For milk to have the nutrition designed for abundance, the cow should feed on pasture. After a period of time, the fat in raw milk will naturally separate to the top of the bottle. So, with its usual arrogance, big business says, Hey, we can fix that. Now it is very difficult to find non- homogenized milk. It is thought homogenized milk is harmful is because when fat is mechanically broken down into small chunks in the homogenization process, it can then penetrate into where it isn't supposed to go, such as the intestinal and arterial walls. It may also be more prone to oxidation. My own son, Robbie, was quite active as a toddler and preschooler. When I say active, I mean people would suggest we put the child on ADD drugs. He tended to be small for his age but the big problem was gas. That tiny kid could smell up a whole room. We finally got him off pasteurized milk and onto whole, raw milk. We also added a natural, cod liver oil supplement. Within a few weeks, the flatus disappeared. He was calmer, began to catch up on growth, did very well in school, and became a standout basketball and baseball player in high school. I know that the public health departments have us all convinced that raw milk is full of dangerous bacteria. And if you get your milk from a factory-farmthey are probably right. But if you raise cows in a healthy environment and give them access to pasture, milk is one of the Creators gifts to mankind. I suggest you use your intuition and common sense to decide what is best for you and your family. If the Bible tells me that the land of milk and honey is the land of abundance, I believe it. I 18 | P a g e
will not let corporate greed and evil influence brainwash me into believing that good, pure milk, straight from a cow or goat, is bad. We are a nation of junk food eaters. When you take refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated oils together, you get the largest source of calories in our diet. If refined carbohydrates and hydrolyzed soy protein are added, there isn't room for anything else. We are an obese nation because we are malnourished. Weston Price was a dentist who studied primitive cultures in the early 1900s and found when these populations ate their natural diet (no grocery stores), their health was good. They had straight teeth with no cavities, big smiles on their faces and were almost completely immune to infectious diseases like tuberculosis. When a neighboring tribe was introduced to modern foods (a grocery store came to town),the people started to develop cavities, and within two generations they had narrow faces, crooked and crowded teeth, increased susceptibility to infectious diseases along with a paranoid attitude. Dr. Price documented these same changes in many different cultures from all over the world. If you read his classic book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, you will be as convinced as I am.
19 | P a g e
Chapter 3: Our Toxic Environment
We are being drowned by a sea of toxic chemicals that are being added to our environment every day. A few years back, a study was carried out by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org) to test the umbilical cord blood on ten newborn babies to see the amount and number of toxins present. There were 287 toxic chemicals detected. Of these, 180 cause cancer in humans or animals; 217 are toxic to the brain or nervous system; 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animals. If this isn't a wakeup call to all of us that we are being poisoned by evil forces, I don't know what is. Some of the chemicals found were 8 perflourochemicals which are used in stain and oil repellents in fast-food packaging, clothes, and textiles. This group includes the Teflon chemical PFQA, a carcinogen. These chemicals are also used in flame retardants and pesticides. There are over 80,000 chemicals used in industry and 3,000 of these are used at a rate of over a million pounds per year. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been given the enormous task of regulating the use of these chemicals. The Toxic Substances Control Act requires that the government approve or reject a new chemical within 90 days. Up to seven new applications for chemical approval are made each day. The reality is that few safety studies, if any, are being done and new chemicals are approved through a negotiation process with the EPA. A new chemical is innocent until proven guilty. And even if a chemical is found to be toxic, the excuse for allowing its use is that there is no evidence that the small amount a person is exposed to would affect their health. This assumption is applied without any evidence to back it up. 20 | P a g e
One of the roles of government is to protect those that are most vulnerable in society. An example would be a newborn baby. There is ample evidence that shows that the toxic level of a chemical is much lower for a newborn than it is for an adult. Studies of the detrimental effects of lead on the growing child show that there is no safe level except zero. This could be true of many toxins and it is indeed frightening to see the number of chemicals our most vulnerable are exposed to.
Don't Drink the Tap Water
Most of us know there can be bad things in our tap water including chlorine, fluoride, lead, and many other chemicals. Water is one of the keys to life itself and it is just common sense that it needs to be pure. Did you know you may be taking drugs along with the rest of your friends and family, even if your doctor hasnt prescribed any? Again, thanks to an investigation by the Environmental Working Group, municipal water testing showed that at least 41 million Americans are exposed to a wide range of pharmaceuticals in their water. The list included antibiotics, sex hormones, and drugs used to treat epilepsy and antidepressants. I recall educational seminars that were sponsored by drug companies when I was first in practice. Several times the speaker would comment This drug is so good we may one day put it in the water supply. Sometimes evil prayers are answered. So, what does the EPA tell us about this problem? First of all, there is no limit on the amount of drugs that can be in the water. Then we get the standard statement the amount that a person would be exposed to is so small there is no evidence for harm. But if you look at all U.S. drugs, 13 percent 21 | P a g e
list serious side effects at levels of 100 parts per billion. Some drugs may have an effect in the parts per trillion ranges. Again, we need to protect our most vulnerable. We cannot let chemical and pharmaceutical companies decide what we get exposed to.
The Problem with Heavy Metals
Mercury and lead are the heavy metals I find elevated most often in my patients. Susan, a CPA, came to me complaining of fatigue, bloating, and intermittent episodes of her heart racing. Her history was significant in that she had six amalgam fillings in her teeth, was a regular sushi eater and also got a flu shot every year for the past ten years. It was also significant that her mother developed Alzheimer's disease in her 50s. We did a comprehensive nutritional analysis and found that the mercury level in her red blood cells was elevated. When I get a patient with high mercury levels and health challenges, I feel it is prudent to do further testing to see if there is evidence of an overburden of mercury in the body. For Susan we did a DMSA challenge test, which involves taking a chelating drug, DMSA, and then measuring how much mercury comes out in the urine. The premise is that if a lot comes out, then there may be an overburden, which may lead to health challenges. We also did genetic testing that showed she had one Apo E-4 gene, which compromises her ability to excrete mercury and also raises her risk for developing Alzheimer's and coronary disease. Susan's baseline mercury level in the urine was low, but after DMSA, it went up into the probable overburden range. We found a biologic dentist to safely remove her fillings, which were 50% mercury. 22 | P a g e
Next, we treated her with intermittent DMSA along with nutritional support, including a nutrient- dense diet that was low in mercury. Supplements that may help your body excrete mercury and lead include cilantro, chlorella, garlic, selenium, clay bathes, zeolite, alpha lipoic acid, N-acetyl-cysteine, food energy, sun exposure and vitamins. Why do you suppose your doctor has never inquired about your mercury exposure? One reason may be that if a doctor believes an overburden of mercury may impact your health, he or she will labeled as entering into the realm of quackery based on many state medical board investigations. How can this be, you ask, when there are thousands of studies that document mercury toxicity? There is evidence of the association of mercury levels with coronary artery disease, Alzheimer's disease, autoimmune disease, kidney problems, multiple sclerosis, infertility, food allergies, thyroid problems, arrhythmias, and cardiomyopathy. In addition, mercury levels are associated with various neurological disorders including tremors, insomnia, polyneuropathy, paresthesias, emotional lability, irritability, personality changes, headaches, weakness, blurred vision, dysarthria, slowed mental response, and unsteady gait. The truth is, if any doctor does anything different than prescribing the toxic, FDA-approved drugs, which have become the standard of care, he or she is risking the loss of his/her medical license. After a year of treatment, Susan's mercury levels tested much lower and her symptoms resolved. We hope that removing this neurotoxin will reduce the risk of following her mothers footsteps in regard to Alzheimer's disease. It only takes a few cases where a physician sees the overburden, treats it, and gets a good response to make her or him believe that this is a common problem. You don't need a double-blind, placebo controlled study (that will never be done, by the way, because DMSA is a generic drug with no blockbuster financial potential). In summary, there are several possible sources of mercury exposure. The first is silver fillings in the teeth which are 50% mercury. Studies show that mercury blood levels increase with increasing 23 | P a g e
surface area of amalgam fillings and having four or more fillings in an adult could have an impact. There are other factors that can increase mercury exposure with dental fillings. If you have an amalgam filling next to a gold crown or another metal in bridgework, the process of electrolysis can increase mercury release up to ten-fold. Remember what Dr. Price taught us. We can probably eliminate cavities all together with the proper diet. The next source is fish and seafood. Go to gotmercury.org to find out how much mercury is in the seafood that you like. There is also the preservative thimerosol in many vaccines, including most of the flu vaccines, and this contains mercury. Many of us have genetic polymorphisms that can impair detoxification, as Susan did. Remember, mercury binds firmly to cell structures, many of which are in the central nervous system (CNS). The half-life of mercury in the CNS is estimated to be 15 to 30 years.
24 | P a g e
Chapter 4: Stress and Toxic Emotions
Stress can be both good and bad. Stress may be the stimulus for great achievement. It may also be a part of what brings us back to our Creator. Chronic fear and worry can have devastating consequences to our health. Stress is usually not addressed by the average physician except for placing the patient on tranquilizers and/or antidepressants. As I mentioned earlier, psychiatry and psychiatrists, for the most part, have become drug pushers. I look at depression as a symptom of a problem and not as a diagnosis. Psychiatric diagnoses are voted on by a committee of experts. This diagnosis, by the way, allows them to get paid for their services by third parties like insurance companies and Medicare. So, the practitioner who stands to benefit most from depression being called a disease is the same one who decides the criteria and what is classified as a disease, just by a show of hands. That same practitioner is again financially rewarded for prescribing a drug to treat it. Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels in their book Selling Sickness: How the Worlds Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients describe how a public relations firm for a pharmaceutical company was able to invent a disease, social phobia disorder, and then get physicians to prescribe a medication (Paxil) for it that took in three billion dollars a year. Oh, by the way, psychiatrists lead the pack for the specialty with the most payments from drug companies. There is almost always an underlying cause for depression, anxiety, and hyperactivity; be it physical, emotional or spiritual. Treating symptoms while ignoring the cause can be a recipe for disaster. There 25 | P a g e
are a multitude of side-effects from the antidepressant drugs, just take a look at the package insert. Included in these side-effects are lowered bone density, sexual dysfunction, weight gain, insomnia, possible increased cancer, suicidal thoughts and attempts, to name a few. I believe another of these side-effects has led to continual tragedies of persons committing mass murders. Many of the high- profile mass killings have been committed by people on or coming off these drugs. If you dont believe me, take a look at a list of 4,800 SSRI stories from media about this potential effect. One of the side effects of the psychoactive drugs is a break from reality. To the killer, it may be more like a video game than a real act. These kinds of episodes are extremely rare in people who are not drugged. The real tragedy is that these drugs are not even that effective. A recent meta-analysis (combination of many studies) showed that for treating mild to moderate depression, overall, antidepressants are no more effective than a placebo (sugar pill). You might wonder, as I did when I heard this, how can we have millions of people on these drugs if they don't work, or their effectiveness is equal to a sugar pill? In many studies, exercise has been shown to be an effective treatment and has mostly healthy side effects. Several studies show that herbs such as Saint John's Wort or supplements like SAMe, tryptophan, 5-HTP also work as well or better than the drugs. Trying something as natural as increasing your sun exposure may be one of the best treatments for depression. This shows how the influence of money and profit affect what is used by our doctors. We, and I mean all of those involved in the modern healthcare system, have made an agreement with the devil. After reading this, you may be fighting mad and want to fire your doctor or psychiatrist. Remember, over 90 percent of doctors are caught up in the flawed system, totally blind to the moral boundaries they have crossed. So, don't blame them and do not discontinue any regimen without consulting your physician. Abruptly stopping these drugs can be extremely dangerous. In addition, the same study mentioned above shows that antidepressant drugs appear to have a better record for treating severe 26 | P a g e
depression. Drugs can be an alternative in the short term for severe depression or can be tried if treating the cause is not effective. In the solutions portion of this book, we will look at common causes of multiple medical diagnoses and alternative treatments.
27 | P a g e
Chapter 5: Cancer - Friend or Foe
Cancer is killing more people every year is now estimated to be the leading cause of death worldwide, which means the death of 22,000 persons per day. One question we might ask is: Why was the disease so rare in the past? Another good question is: Would a Creator or nature design our cells in such a way that they have a tendency to become malignant (uncontrolled growth)? What you may not realize is that cancerous cells are being produced in our bodies all of the time. Under normal circumstances, these cells are taken care of by the immune system and other mechanisms. The truth is that we have always had cancer and it isn't something unnatural at all. These aberrant cells are there for a reason and are probably a survival mechanism, rapidly altering cellular genetic information in a stressful environment. If we look at cancer from this perspective, it would seem the reason the incidence of cancer is increasing is because of the numerous assaults on our body that occur in our present environment. This includes toxins and pollution, low nutrient foods, lack of exercise, stress, emotional trauma and spiritual warfare. A big problem is how our medical system defines cancer and the methods used to treat it. I see reports of all of the cancer survivors we have in this country. In the present system, we identify cancer as the enemy and then immediately attack it with all the lethal means we can employ. Rarely is there any thought given to the cause. Looking at all the cancer survivors, we get the impression that we are making progress in conquering the disease. The statisticians have conveniently added skin cancer survival rates into the statistics, which gives the impression that millions of lives are being saved. The flaw is that skin cancer is rarely fatal. 28 | P a g e
Another reason people are living longer after the diagnosis of cancer is because of intensive screening. We are identifying cancer earlier; sometimes diagnosing a cancer that our own immune system might have taken care of on its own. This makes it seem as if the person lives longer after diagnosis, but actually may die sooner due to side effects of treatment. You can see how we would call this unnecessary treatment a success and how it would be classified as a statistical victory. The reality may actually be years of productive life taken away. There have been some successes with modern cancer treatment, but if you look at the overall mortality rates from cancer, there has been no significant change in the past 50 years. Such little progress suggests that our trillion dollar cancer industry is a failure. Chemotherapy treatment is used because it makes money. There are many alternative cancer therapies that may be more effective and far less toxic, but are commonly banned as a treatment by the FDA. They are banned because they have not gone through the hundred million dollar FDA approval process. Most of the treatments that do go through the FDA approval process are manmade poisons that kill both the cancer cells and normal cells and can be patented. Once patented, they can be sold at monopoly prices to make back the initial hundred million spent on them. So, if an onion cured cancer, it would be banned as a treatment that your doctor could use unless someone forked over the money to get it through the approval process. With the evil, money-grubbing system we now have in place, we can NEVER have a non-toxic, inexpensive, and FDA approved cancer therapy even though I believe there are hundreds, if not thousands, of potential treatments out there. Obviously, it makes more sense to prevent cancer in the first place. But the problem is that there is no big money to be made here. No side-effect-laden and expensive drug. No machine or treatment to sell. The billions of dollars that go into cancer research are focused on finding a man-invented cure or developing more unproven screening tests to get as many patients as possible. Children's cancer rates are rising in direct relationship to our exposure to more and more toxic chemicals. Tons of 29 | P a g e
money goes into cancer research searching for another treatment because that is the Holy Grail for profit. The sad fact is that thousands more children every year are diagnosed with cancer but the chemicals we are exposing ourselves to continue to be unstudied. In other words, the cause is almost completely ignored. This is truly absurd. I try to take a different approach with my patients, focusing first on lifestyle for prevention. And, if cancer is identified, I don't advise blindly following the recommendations of those that profit from the illness. Take Jake, for example. A 62-year-old retired policeman, he was found to have an elevation of his PSA blood test. Even though this commonly used screening test has not proven to save any lives, it is a risk factor for possibly having prostate cancer. He was advised by his urologist to have a prostate biopsy to make sure he didn't have cancer. I don't generally advise prostate biopsies because of the risks of the procedure--and it may miss the cancer anyway. Biopsies may inflame the prostate which may actually increase cancer risk. I propose and use alternative ways to make the diagnosis. I advised Jake to have a more sensitive and specific test called the Dia-pat test, which is a proteomic test. This test was also abnormal. He then had a PET scan, which showed the cancer in the prostate. The first step after cancer is discovered is to do a survey for possible causes. This would include evaluation and treatment of nutrition, detoxification, and a search for toxic emotions and stress. Praying for healing is inexpensive, effective and has good side effects. Next, we looked into alternative cancer therapies. In Germany, there is a clinic that treats prostate cancer by the simple method of heating the prostate with a catheter containing hot water. Records from the clinic showed 80 to 90 percent cure rates with no side effects. This treatment is not available in the USA because of the lack of corporate support. I mean, how much can you charge for hot water? The treatment was effective and the cost was even covered by his USA-based health insurance. By addressing lifestyle issues that may have contributed to his developing cancer, he is not as likely to have a recurrence or develop a 30 | P a g e
new cancer. In the USA, he was advised to be slashed by a robot and then burned with radiation; both of which commonly have permanent side effects. The unfortunate truth is that if you have been treated with chemotherapy and/or radiation, you have a much greater risk of getting another cancer or some other serious condition because of the unavoidable damage to your immune system caused by these treatments. The shortening of your life as a result of these treatments is not necessarily included in all the cancer statistics that are reported. If you have a heart attack or die from pneumonia, it will likely not be linked to your cancer therapy, but that may very well be what caused it. I hope you can see the failing of our health system and how it is profoundly dangerous. If cancer is discovered in you, it will be thought of as a potentially lethal enemy that needs to be immediately treated with its removal and/or other aggressive and poisonous treatments, even if they have not been proven to work. Your doctor or oncologist will use scare tactics to get you to use the profitable, poisonous treatments. The truth is, if you correct the cause, the tumor may resolve on its own, just as the multitude of other cancer cells that have appeared in your body during your life. It could be that taking poison is the exact wrong thing to do. If the cause of your cancer is cells trying to mutate because of toxic threat, what do you think will happen if we pile on even more potent toxins? If any of the cancer cells survive, or new ones form, they will be even more out of control when they start to grow again. Even if the chemo or radiation kills all the cancer cells, there is a good chance another cancer will start. If you decide to go the route of chemotherapy, there are now innovative ways to greatly reduce your exposure to the toxicity. An example is insulin potentiation therapy for cancer. It allows some patients to use 10% or less of the usual dose of chemo with the same effectiveness, yet is rarely recommended by mainstream oncologists who get their information from the drug companies. There are other promising treatments using older, less toxic drugs but these are not studied because of low 31 | P a g e
profit potential. An example is low-dose naltrexone which has been shown to safely treat some cancers and autoimmune diseases. So old, non toxic drugs like this one, with the potential to cure cancer, will not be studied because of the choke-hold the FDA and the drug companies have on our healthcare system and nation. The evidence that we are making progress against cancer is weak. When you take into account the studies we do get are biased toward what is profitable, it becomes all the more apparent we are on the wrong track. In the name of profit, we are headed in the wrong direction. I have faith that our Creator did not make a mistake in the design of our bodies. He didn't include a self-destructing cell. Cancer is not the enemy. It is an urgent message telling us that we need to make a radical change.
32 | P a g e
Part II: The Solutions
Chapter 6: Get Off Drugs for GOOD
In my practice, I have consulted many patients who are taking a laundry list of drugs that have been prescribed by their physicians. Most of the time, many, if not all, of the drugs are unnecessary. Jim came to me complaining of fatigue, trouble sleeping, feeling depressed, elevated blood sugar and he was wheezing while working out. He was a 56-year-old oral surgeon who had issues with chronic neck pain as well. His doctors had him on blood pressure medications, including one that can worsen asthma symptoms and can reduce the ability to exercise. He was also on a cholesterol medicine, a diabetes medicine, inhalers for his asthma, sleeping pills, pain pills and an antidepressant. To top it all off, his physicians also had him on vitamin V (Viagra). I searched for a possible underlying cause for all of his symptoms; to look at his health challenges from a holistic perspective. His army of specialists included an internist, cardiologist, psychiatrist, allergist, urologist, pulmonologist and a pain specialist. Each specialist was prescribing a different drug. None of his doctors were looking at the whole picture. After a thorough work-up, I found that Jim had a very low testosterone level. Getting this hormone up to optimum levels would have a positive impact on pain, energy, mood, sexual functioning, strength, endurance and improve insulin resistance. In addition, testosterone is one of the best 33 | P a g e
treatments for improving circulation and reducing cardiovascular disease risk. Of course, improved nutrition and weight loss are vitally important, but even they will not work in the soup of so many devitalizing drugs. I started him on a transdermal testosterone gel and weaned him off most of the drugs, substituting natural alternatives in the form of supplements and a whole-food, unprocessed diet. There was one drug that he should have been on but wasnt. The drug is Metformin which was originally extracted from the French Lilac plant. If there ever was a drug close to being a panacea, this is it. Long-term controlled trials have proven its safety, tolerability and effectiveness. It is one of the few drugs proven to dramatically cut mortality and reduce cancer, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Doctors still use it as a frontline drug for diabetes, but the drug companies are steadily trying to undermine its use by combining it with new, expensive, unproven drugs. After six months, Jim had lost the excess weight, had great energy and was drug-free. His cardiologist was adamant about at least keeping him on the cholesterol medicine and gave him dire predictions of the increased risk of prostate cancer from being on testosterone. The evidence actually shows a low testosterone is a risk factor for prostate cancer. One of the benefits Jim hadn't expected with his new regimen was the dramatic reduction in his neck pain. At his cardiologists insistence, he went back on the statin medication. In a matter of days, his pain intensified again. After I explained to him that muscle pain is the most common side effect of the statins, it wasn't hard to convince him to get off the statins for good. Research has shown that statin drugs activate a gene that actually destroys muscle. So, the question you may be asking is, why do doctors use drugs to treat symptoms instead of looking for the underlying problem? Part of it is time. Remember the average time of an office visit is 16 minutes. It is much easier to write a prescription in that short amount of time than to search for 34 | P a g e
the cause of a problem. Four billion dollars a year is spent on drug ads to patients and 5.3 billion dollars is spent on the training of doctors in the use of drugs by pharmaceutical reps. Your doctor has not been trained to look for the cause of your problem; he/she has been trained to prescribe drugs. Plus, your doctor is inundated with ads for drugs just like you are, only worse. I subscribe to the American Medical Association journals and you wouldn't believe how many times I have had to look at the same photo of a woman twirling a red scarf above her head with a big smile on her face, all because of the antidepressant she was put on by her doctor. You can imagine how down she looked on the previous page (before antidepressants). She had no makeup on and the photo was in black and white; her facial expression was one of melancholy. Look at the magazines you subscribe to. If there are many drug ads, then you know who is paying the bills for that publication, and you can count on biased reporting of health issues. A good portion of the required continuing medical education for physicians is financed by the drug companies. Do you think it is good for the drug company's bottom line to find the cause and cure a disease? The best patient is one where you treat the symptoms, but keep the cause in place; then you have a customer for life. Does that sound like bondage? The big push and the biggest blockbuster drugs are the ones that supposedly prevent disease. The statin cholesterol lowering drugs like Lipitor, Pravacol, Mevacor, Crestor, and others are in this category. Up until recently, I had pretty good grounds to say that patients shouldn't take the statins for prevention of heart disease. I must admit, however, that the evidence is good that statins do treat heart disease. I want you to know that I am still wary of any drug, even if the evidence for it is good, because of the nature of the system and the track record of unethical actions by pharmaceutical companies and researchers that turn up on a regular basis. Examples include hiding data, breaking laws, suppressing studies, studies being ghostwritten, and the bribing of doctors. Add to that, undue 35 | P a g e
influence over Congress with direct donations and lobbying as well as seeing that the people that once policed the industry with the FDA are often given lucrative consulting positions and vice versa (the revolving door). Getting back to statins, I now have to fight extra-hard to keep my healthy patients off statins because of new evidence that they are good for everyone, even if you have normal cholesterol or low cholesterol. I believe, as do many other physicians, that statins reduce the risk of heart disease not because they lower cholesterol, but because of other actions, including the blocking the proliferation of smooth muscle in the artery, anti-clotting effects, and anti-inflammatory effects. A recent study that treated people without heart disease with the statin drug Crestor, relied solely on the CRP test (a measure of inflammation) to decide who got the drug, instead of using the cholesterol level. They found a decrease in cardiovascular events and an improved mortality for patients using the drug versus placebo. This finding was hailed as a breakthrough in preventive cardiology by the press and the researchers. They forgot to mention the persons getting the drug had an increase in diabetes to the same magnitude of the decrease in heart disease. That doesn't sound so good to me. The decrease in heart disease was so large they halted the study early because they felt it was unethical to let those poor souls in the control group go without the medication. It was absurd to halt the study early because critics of statins (like me) will say it takes time to develop the many side effects that come with these medications. The longer you are on them, the worse you will do. It goes to show the devious genius of the drug companies. By halting the study early, they have everything they need to convince doctors to put millions more of their patients on statins without the risk of finding that the drug is really poisonous, particularly over time. They also saved themselves a ton of money. 36 | P a g e
Now, measuring CRP as a marker of inflammation is smart. I have been doing that on my high risk patients for many years, because inflammation is an underlying mechanism of many degenerative diseases, and if it is high, you have work to do. In the past, drug companies only wanted doctors to measure cholesterol, not inflammation. But what if the CRP test could get millions more patients that they didn't get before because they had normal cholesterol? They estimate $9 billion a year for the makers of Crestor if doctors treat using the new criteria. These guys are smart! Add in the fact that the principal investigator of the study and the teaching hospital where the study was headquartered conveniently own the patent on the CRP test--more billions to be made. I'm not surprised that, in the short-term, patients with elevated CRP get some benefit from statins. Like I said before, their anti-inflammatory action is part of how they work. But what they don't tell you is that you need to treat 80 patients to reduce one event, at a cost of $557,000 per life saved. With that money, several organic farms could have been started which would save many more lives and improve the health of multitudes more. It is such as waste of precious resources. The side effects of statins--muscle pain, mental deterioration, neuropathy, liver toxicity, and heart toxicity--are a direct attack on the body, no different than taking a poison. Crestor is the most expensive of the statin drugs and is already listed in the ads of personal injury attorneys because it is reported to cause more kidney failure than all of the other statin drugs combined.
37 | P a g e
Table 1. Recommended Tests for Cardiac Disease Risk Evaluation Lp (a) cholesterol (If elevated, increases coronary disease risk-four fold) HDL and LDL cholesterol HDL and LDL particle size (VAP, NMR or Immunogel eletrophoresis) Triglycerides C reactive protein (cardio CRP) Fasting insulin (ideal level is 5 or less) Homocysteine Fibrinogen Imaging tests of arteries: Ultrasound of carotid artery, CT heart scan Tests of artery function: Endo-PAT (tests artery elasticity) Apo E and other genetic tests
38 | P a g e
If the drug companies would do the long-term studies, I think we would get the real answer. The statins inhibit an enzyme involved in cholesterol synthesis, and unfortunately, it also inhibits the synthesis of other critical molecules as well. According to the drug companies and most cardiologists, even though cholesterol is the largest component of the dry weight of the brain, it is bad stuff. Our Creator made just a few little mistakes in our biochemistry, so that millions of us need to take drugs to reduce the risk of disease. My advice, again, is to listen to your intuition. A statin drug is not unreasonable if you have heart disease, but please also take a good dose of coenzyme Q10. Coenzyme Q10 is required for your cells to make energy from oxygen and is depleted by statin drugs. Because of this and other reasons, I am concerned that statin drugs may increase the risk of cancer and heart failure. Again, one of the problems we see with drugs, and especially new drugs, is that many times they are approved based on improving a biomarker such as cholesterol or blood sugar, instead of proving the drug has an effect on health or mortality. An example of this is the diabetes drug Avandia. The drug was effective at reducing blood sugar, but it was eventually discovered that it increased heart failure, heart attacks, and death. When this research came out, I thought, it sure is good that we have after-market surveillance systems in place so we can identify dangerous drugs. This is a system where a drug's side effects are reported and kept track of. Avandia became a blockbuster diabetes drug with $3.2 billion in yearly sales. Based on the statistics of its sales and the amount of increased risks, it may have contributed to the early death of 35,000 people per year. The scary part is that the research that identified this problem was carried out by an independent researcher. It was not detected by the market surveillance system. If we had left it up to the FDA and the drug companies to protect us, we would still think Avandia is an 39 | P a g e
effective drug and its sales would continue to increase. Of course, you can still take Avandia if you like. Believe it or not, at the time of this writing, it is still on the market; although to get it, you now have to sign a release so when it kills you, your family cant turn around and sue the drug company. I would like for you to name one natural product that has stayed on the market despite killing many thousands of people. Didnt they pull ephedra off the market for killing 117 people? Thats not per year--that is the total. One of the common conditions I see in my practice is called GERD, or gastroesophageal reflux disease. The most common symptom is heartburn. This occurs when hydrochloric acid that is usually contained in the stomach backs up into the esophagus. The esophagus cells are not resistant to the acid, which usually results in painful burning in the chest area or abdominal area. It is thought to be caused by impairment of the lower esophageal sphincter, which is a muscular band that closes the esophagus so that stomach contents do not go into the esophagus. In traditional medicine, if there are alarm features present, the symptoms are then evaluated by endoscopy (using a thin, flexible instrument to look at the esophagus). These alarm features are signs that an underlying problem could be causing the symptoms. The alarm signs include persistent vomiting, difficulty swallowing, throwing up or coughing up blood, anemia, five percent or greater weight loss, or symptoms for 10 years or more. In general, if a patient has symptoms and is greater than 55-years-old, they are usually examined with an endoscope in order to rule out cancer or other significant diseases. If under 55, the individual is examined for H. pylori, a bacterium associated with ulcers. If H. pylori are found, it is treated with antibiotics and acid blocker. If it is not found, a proton pump inhibitor drug like Prilosec is used. 40 | P a g e
The proton pump inhibitor drug treatment usually goes on for eight weeks. Endoscopy is recommended if this trial doesnt work. Many patients are prescribed these medications as if that is the cure, staying on the drugs indefinitely. There are several studies that show proton pump inhibitor treatment may increase the incidence of hip fractures and infections such as pneumonia. There are other studies that show it may dangerously lower magnesium levels. My concern is that when you block stomach acid production, an important component of the physiological process, your risk for illness will be higher. In my practice, I try to look at a variety of factors that may contribute to or cause GERD symptoms. Nine times out of ten, GERD can be resolved if you address the nutritional deficiencies of the modern diet. Trying to lose weight and avoiding overeating may also help. Allowing three hours between dinner and bedtime helps. Light exercise after dinner and avoiding trigger foods such as fried foods, citrus fruits, tomatoes, high-fat foods, processed oils, coffee, alcohol, and caffeinated beverages are also good preventive measures. Avoid chewing gum or sucking on hard candies, as this can increase gastric pressure by swallowed air. Food allergies may be another cause of GERD symptoms. Overconsumption of simple sugars and carbohydrates can also aggravate symptoms. A natural treatment to use to reduce inflammation and aid in healing of the lining of the stomach and esophagus include tablets or powder of deglycerized licorice or DGL. A quality aloe vera product may also help symptoms. Zinc-carnosine has also been shown to help relieve symptoms of heartburn. I recommend eating a natural, whole-foods diet, with plenty of the animal-source, fat soluble vitamins. Make sure the diet is low in the factory-made fats. The hydrogenated oils and fats--avoid them! Drink unpolluted water every day; I prefer spring water and not in plastic bottles. It is important to replace salts when drinking a lot of water. I recommend Himalayan salt or a natural sea salt. Many times, excess acid is not the problem. The Heidelberg pH test is a procedure a natural 41 | P a g e
medicine physician can do that will determine if stomach acid production is normal or not. The website phcapsule.com can direct you to a physician who does Heidelberg testing. Paradoxically, stomach acid can be low in many patients with heartburn symptoms. Most drugs that are prescribed are prescribed for various conditions and the cause is ignored. These include depression, type 2 diabetes, hyperactivity, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, arthritis, elevated cholesterol, overactive bladder, prostate enlargement, erectile dysfunction, menopause symptoms, anxiety, insomnia, pain and many other conditions. I advise finding a resource to locate a practitioner who would be open to natural treatments. Look for a naturopathic doctor (naturopathic.org), a holistic physician (holisticmedicine.org) or a physician member of the American College of the Advancement of Medicine (acamnet.org). Unfortunately, almost all of the traditional medical organizations have compromised themselves for financial or other reasons and cannot be relied upon to give unbiased information. The allopathic physicians may be well trained and help with specific diagnoses, but please be wary of the reliance on drug prescribing that is geared toward suppression of symptoms.
42 | P a g e
Chapter 7: Keep Your Muscles and Joints Healthy
Are We Causing Our Own Joint Degeneration?
How are we told to treat our everyday aches and pains? If you listen to your doctor, or to ads on television, magazines, and the Internet, it would be with a drug like ibuprofen, or any other of a number of both prescription and over-the-counter pain relievers. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen are estimated to cause the death of 16,500 Americans per year as reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1999. This death rate includes only people using NSAIDs to treat arthritis and only those who developed bleeding ulcers. Other studies show that regularly taking NSAID medications doubles the risk of heart disease mortality in the elderly compared to non-users or infrequent users. If you added up all the ways NSAIDs can kill you, and all the different conditions for which they are used, the number of deaths caused by these drugs must be staggering. You would think such a dangerous drug should be taken off the market instead of being sold everywhere without a prescription. Yet, if you go to the Advil website you will be given helpful advice as to how you should take these medicines as the first intervention for all kinds of pain. 43 | P a g e
Besides causing bleeding ulcers, these drugs can damage the kidney and liver. I find in my practice what studies have already shown, that NSAIDs predictably raise the blood pressure and increase the risk of a heart attack. Studies show that just one pill damages the lining of the gastrointestinal tract. The first phase of healing for an injury or overuse is inflammation. And inflammation results in pain. What a beautiful system our creator has designed. The same process that starts the healing process also warns us to stop the initiating event. Let's say you injured your knee skiing. The pain would probably give you the hint you should forgo skiing until the injury has healed. So instead, we reach for the bottle of Advil because we want the quick-fix that we have been brainwashed into thinking is good. We injure our knee and take Advil, which blocks inflammation so that we don't heal completely. This is great news for the joint replacement surgeons, the medical device manufacturers, and the hospitals. If you keep treating your injuries and override symptoms with these drugs, you will eventually need a joint replacement and you will praise God for the abundance of orthopedic surgeons in this country.
Prolotherapy
I have been practicing sports medicine for over 20 years and completed a Fellowship in Sports Medicine at the University of Arizona. I also have a Masters degree in Exercise Physiology from Arizona. I have always wished there was a reliable way to augment natural healing for a particular sports injury. Over the years, I have used most of the medical and physical therapies that have been applied to these injuries. Anti-inflammatory drugs, icing, resting, bracing or immobilizing, and after 44 | P a g e
the tissues have healed, beginning the rehabilitation process. All the while, however, I realized the body has an amazing God-given capacity to heal itself and humbly knowing that this one factor is by far the most important. General health will always be an important factor when considering how someone might recover from an injury. Is the athletes health good enough to support anabolic processes necessary to heal injured tissues? This would include factors such as nutrition, stress, sleep and hormonal levels. About 15 years ago, I first learned of a group of physicians that used a method of stimulating the natural healing response with a treatment called prolotherapy, also known as sclerotherapy or regenerative injection therapy. This treatment has been used in the USA successfully for over 50 years to stimulate the healing of damaged tissues such as ligaments, tendons and cartilage. According to the hypothesis, often times a person will have continued pain and instability after an injury. This is because of incomplete healing in the structure (ligament or tendon) which results in extra movement, stimulating nerve endings, which are abundant in ligaments, and ultimately causing pain. By injecting the structure with an irritating substance (sugar water or other substances like PRP, Stem cells, hormones etc) the body's own internal healing mechanism is reactivated, the area is strengthened and the pain resolves. After I learned the technique and applied it to some of my patients and also to myself, I found prolotherapy to be effective. I began to wonder, as other physicians have before me, are we wrong in how we treat musculoskeletal injuries? Could it be that by treating ligament and cartilage injuries with anti-inflammatory therapies, we are increasing the rate of failed healing? The result being the chronic pain and tissue degeneration that is now an epidemic in our society. This is another instance where man is interfering with the intelligent design of our physiology, and now we are paying the price. Here . . . 45 | P a g e
just take this little pill for that annoying knee pain. You dont deserve this. We will have an artificial replacement joint ordered right away. When my financial planner was going over my investment portfolio, he advised me to consider investing in a company that produced the hardware for total hip and knee joint replacement. The growth of the company has been amazing, and because of the aging baby boomer population, joint replacement rates are causing sales to skyrocket. It probably is a good investment, but I just cant bring myself to invest in something that will profit from a failure of health care providers to find ways to prevent joint degeneration. Presently, when I see a ligament or tendon injury, I advise against or modify the R.I.C.E. protocol (rest, ice, compression, elevation). Dr. Ross Hauser, a longtime prolotherapy proponent, has come up with the mnemonic M.E.A.T. for the treatment of ligament injuries. M stands for Movement, as ligaments heal faster and stronger when moved and stressed. E is for Exercise which increases circulation to the area. A is for Analgesic (pain-killers) herbs or drugs (not NSAIDS or corticosteroids). Enzymes are also helpful in facilitating the removal of cellular debris without blocking the natural role of inflammation in wound healing (animal or plant-based enzyme products or foods). Finally, T is for treatments, such as prolotherapy and others such as physical therapy, ultrasound, light therapy, magnetic therapy, massage, topical herbs, and so on. Next time you get an injury, try MEAT instead of RICE. If there is continued pain and/or instability, get to a prolotherapist. It might lead you down a path to healing and restoration of function as opposed to degeneration and bone-on-bone arthritis that leads to lucrative, high-risk, slash-and-glue joint replacement. Remember it is good to have a normal, healthy joint--needing a joint replacement as a result of drug side effects and improper treatment is bad. Three websites that can direct you to a doctor in your area to see if you are a candidate for prolotherapy treatment are: aaomed.org, acopms.com and getprolo.com. 46 | P a g e
I'm not against joint replacement as a solution for severe osteoarthritis, but I believe that nine times out of ten it could have been avoided by following the principles outlined above. Imagine if the billions of dollars we spend on joint replacements every year in the USA were spent instead on creating a way to enable people to eat a nutrient-dense dietthe foundation for health. Chapter 8: Treating Depression and Stress
If drugs are not the answer for depression and anxiety, what is? The underlying causes can be anything that affects our physiology, emotions or spirit. Nutrition is important. There is evidence that low vitamin D levels are associated with depression (we'll talk more about vitamin D later). Hormone imbalances associated with aging are commonly a contributor. This can include the thyroid and adrenal hormones, which I address in Chapter 10. The other important hormones that tend to drop with aging are the sex hormones. Spiritual issues can also cause depression. You might ask, what can be done about the emotional causes of depression and anxiety? Emotions can affect our subconscious mind and a person may not even be aware that an emotional issue plays a role in their problem or symptoms. The subconscious programming from the past can create many problems. For this reason, I recommend most of my patients with depression and anxiety use some form of treatment that works through toxic emotions. Prayer is an important first step and will usually help. Pray for wisdom, guidance and discernment as to which treatment to use. The so-called energy techniques EMDR and EFT are often used and can be helpful for stress and depression. There is a life force in biological forms that goes beyond mere chemical reactions. It is a physical energy that we can't really explain, much like gravity and electricity. Just because I can't 47 | P a g e
explain how gravity works, I still respect it and use it. The same is true with electricity and most of the forces in nature. These forces can be used for either good or evil purposes. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and is used often used for clients in the sports peak performance program at the world-famous health resort, Canyon Ranch, where I served as a physician for many years. This treatment has been shown to be particularly effective for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The premise for the technique is that when emotional trauma occurs, it gets locked into the nervous system with the original picture, sounds, thoughts and feelings at an unconscious level. The eye movement unlocks the disturbing material and allows it to be processed, thus draining the reservoir of negative emotions. EFT stands for the Emotional Freedom Technique. It releases the same kind of emotional traumas by tapping on acupressure points. Another technique is called BSFF (Be Set Free Fast) developed by Larry Nims, Ph.D. as a refinement of EFT. The technical title is Behavioral and Emotional Symptom Elimination Training for Resolving Excess Emotion: Fear, Anger, Sadness and Trauma. These techniques can take the place of bottles full of pills and have no harmful side effects.
48 | P a g e
Chapter 9: Your Body was designed for Physical Work
Our bodies are designed to be used for physical work. As a preventive medicine physician, I have seen countless transformations in health where the main focus of change was regular exercise. The attributes of physical fitness include strength, flexibility, aerobic endurance and speed, all of which are important and should be included in your fitness plan. My advice is not to go out today and join a gym and start pounding out the sessions. You must have the energy for, and the desire to, exercise to get the benefits. One should first have good nutrition, proper hydration, an optimistic mood, proper sleep, and a low toxic burden. Which exercise is most important for health? Each of us was created with a unique genetic blueprint and a unique expression of the genes so the program that is right for one person may be wrong for another. Take an Olympic sprinter. You could not find a more impressive physical specimen, but that person might not do well or be as healthy with a long-distance running program. Her body thrives on sprinting and with those types of workouts, she will tend to stay at her ideal weight and optimal health. How do you know what type of exercise is right for you? I often ask patients to think back to when they were in grade school and the teacher lined them up for a race across the school yard. Did they 49 | P a g e
finish in the top three or four, more in the middle, or in the last group? Then I ask the same question, but for a run around the school campus or some other longer race of over four minutes. This is one way to determine if you are a sprinter, an intermediate or primary endurance type. If you want to be more scientific, you could have a muscle biopsy and see if you have more fast-twitch muscle fibers (sprinters) or slow-twitch fibers (marathon runners). Humans need to be able to sprint for survival. This is how you get away from that grizzly bear that is about to attack you at Yellowstone Park. We also need to have endurance. This enables you cover 10 miles to get away from the raging forest fire. We have the pure sprint types (burnt to a crisp) and the pure endurance types (eaten by bears), but most of us are intermediate, which means we will thrive on a program that is balanced. We need a combination of sprints or intervals as well as long, slow distance work that is at least 40 minutes in duration and ideally longer. To complete the program, you incorporate resistance and flexibility work. The minimum is one to two sessions per week of intervals/sprints and two sessions of endurance work. Add in two to three sessions per week for strength and flexibility and you have a complete program. Again, this can and should vary depending on your preferences and your genetic make-up.
Interval Workouts
Interval workouts are the most difficult ones to do properly, but for the time invested they are also the most productive. You need to have some kind of physical exam before starting intervals, 50 | P a g e
especially if you are at risk for heart disease. If you are completely out of shape, please take it slow. Remember that exercise is not helpful for your health if you don't have the energy for it. Exercise should refresh you, not leave you feeling exhausted. Eventually, you will work up to about eight intervals in a session. An interval can be anywhere from 30 seconds to four minutes or longer. I advise starting each session with longer intervals and make the last ones shorter and more intense. The key is to push yourself to the point of being out of breath when you stop. I'll describe one of my workouts that I do on the track at my son's high school. First, I do a warm-up lap on the track at a slow jog followed by a lap at a hard pace, finishing at the end like it is a race. Then, I recover with a slow jog to let my heart rate and breathing return to normal. After I am completely recovered from the first effort, I then do a 300 meter intervala little shorter than the first one, but I try to go faster so that I am still out of breath at the end. Once again, I jog or walk until recovered and do the next interval with a shorter distance but more intense. I do the sprint/recover for a total of eight cycles. The great benefit of interval training is that it is short (about 20 minutes), but challenges your cardio-respiratory capacities much more than a 40-minute slow run or walk. I also do a ride on a mountain bike around my neighborhood which has eight hills. This is great for an interval period to the top of each hill and then a recovery on each descent. Research has shown interval workouts build heart and lung reserves, which are important for optimal health. These reserves are vitally important when the inevitable health challenges occur such as coming down with pneumonia or being injured a car accident. Research shows this type of exercise is more efficient for stimulating your metabolism for weight loss and aerobic fitness than continuous exercise. Another way to get this same kind of workout is playing sports, especially sports like basketball, tennis, football, soccer, tag or other activities where you go hard and then catch your breath. This is 51 | P a g e
a great way to combine fun with your workout. Even better yet is to do productive work while you are getting a workout. If I'm working in the yard, I'll rake like a madman for a couple of minutes to get out of breath and then recover. You can try pushing a loaded wheel barrel from the front to back yard at a sprint. My favorite is swinging an ax to chop wood or a pick to dig a hole until the forearms and core start to burn and then recover. My wife helps me out with this. Whenever I plant a tree, about a month (or year) later she will decide she doesn't like where I planted it. So, I get the great work out of digging it up, digging a new hole, moving it to the new hole, replanting it, and finally filling in the old hole. You don't need a gym!
Endurance Workouts
Endurance training is defined as doing work utilizing the large muscles and trying to get the heart rate above 70 percent of its maximum. Exercise experts will commonly tell you that maximum heart rate can be estimated by the equation of 220 minus your age. Forget about the formula, it is worthless for the individual. Your actual maximum could be 30 beats higher or lower. Generally, people are within their aerobic range when they feel the work they are doing is rated as moderate exertion as opposed to very light, light, heavy or very heavy. Heavy exertion is also within the aerobic range and that is where advanced exercisers may want to do their aerobic/endurance work. For endurance work, you need to find an activity that you enjoy, or at least tolerate. My favorite are hiking, running, biking, swimming, skiing or rowing. It is interesting that all these activities are forms of transportation, so they can be used productively as well. I like to use an endurance activity as a method of transportation to reach a place of solitude for prayer. 52 | P a g e
Again, chores can be done in an aerobic fashion. You can scrub floors, wash the car or till the soil for gardening. What if your house is already clean? Find a neighbor, a school or someone with a physical disability that needs some help. Just pick a 40-minute stretch or more where you are working at a level of moderate exertion. You can get nearly the same benefit by doing two 20 minute sessions or four 10 minute sessions. I always appreciate it when I can get out into God's creation and get some spiritual rejuvenation along with my healthy endurance work. Ventanna Canyon, near my home, is one of my favorite places to hike. It is steep up-hill in the beginning and it is easy to keep my heart rate in the aerobic zone. So, I hike up for 40 minutes to get in the aerobic work. While going up, I pray or chant. On the way down, I work on strength (eccentric loading of the muscles) and balance, as I scramble over the boulders, cacti and yucca spines. I use these times also to quiet my mind and to appreciate nature. We have a shrub here in Arizona called the ocotillo. It has stems that stick straight out of ground that look like a bundle of dead sticks with thorns. When I first moved to Tucson, I thought they were all dead. But when it finally rained, within a week succulent green leaves emerged out of the stalks and scarlet flowers sprouted out of the top. We desperately need to get out and experience natures signs and designs on a regular basis. Oh, by the way, high-definition TV doesn't count.
Strength and Flexibility
53 | P a g e
The beauty of doing interval workouts is that speed work also builds strength, so you already have a head start. You just need to work on your core and upper body to complete the program. This can be accomplished with simple exercises that utilize your body weight for resistance. Again, strength work can be part of productive work. Arms and core get a great workout when you dig a hole in the ground to plant a tree (and then transplant it). Flexibility exercise is more important for tight-jointed folks than for those that are highly flexible. People that are born with loose ligaments can develop problems from too much movement in their joints so they want to focus more on strength. For the inflexible person, it is better to stretch on a regular basis as opposed to a yoga class once per week. I've always said stretching should be like a shower. A daily five minute shower is better (for those around you anyway) than a one-hour shower once a week. One of the best ways to improve your flexibility is to throw away the couch in the living room and sit on the floor (a mat is allowed).
54 | P a g e
Chapter 10: The Unsuspected Illnesses
Could Your Thyroid Be the Problem?
Over the years, I have consistently seen patients in my office with a similar constellation of symptoms. It is typically a woman or man complaining of fatigue, weight gain, depressed mood, dry skin, cold extremities, poor circulation, constipation, thinning hair, elevated cholesterol, frequent infections, headaches, puffiness in the face or extremities, pain in the low back or some other chronic pain, and a feeling of anxietyor even panic. In medical school, I learned that many of these symptoms are listed in the medical textbooks as being typical of patients suffering from low thyroid function. Nine times out of ten, when I have checked the thyroid hormones levels like the TSH, free T3, free T4 and thyroid antibodies, they are in the normal range. Many of these patients have a history of seeing their doctors and being prescribed anti- 55 | P a g e
depressants, sedatives, pain medications, cholesterol-lowering drugs, frequent antibiotics, and maybe even some new weight loss pill that requires the use of a diaper. These symptoms are common but the patients are usually told that their thyroid is normal. In medicine, when there isnt an industry or profit center involved in a therapy, it can quickly die out. Years ago, I was listening to an audio CD of a medical conference where Dr. Jonathan Wright was speaking about a way of making the diagnosis of low thyroid using a simple test of metabolism. I had learned to admire the way Dr. Wright doesnt throw out treatments just because they are old as opposed to how I was taught to do in medical school. If there isnt a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of the therapy published within the past five years, well, it must be no good was the thinking that was drilled into me as a student. But Dr. Wright mentioned a simple method of measuring body temperature as a way to determine possible low thyroid function. A low temperature in the context of hypothyroid symptoms would be enough to consider a trial of thyroid hormone therapy. Dr. Wright mentioned a book, Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness written by Dr. Broda Barnes. I went out and purchased the book right away. In the book, Dr. Barnes used the basal temperature method in his practice, and through his own research determined what a normal temperature was supposed to be. He found, through treating thousands of patients, that the method was very reliable in identifying hypothyroid sufferers and they consistently improved when he treated them with thyroid hormone. He based the diagnosis on basal body temperature. If the temperature of a patient was below normal and they had symptoms, then he or she was a candidate for a trial of thyroid hormone therapy. Another of his hypotheses was that low thyroid was the reason for the epidemic of heart disease of his day and he even wrote a book titled Solved: The Riddle of Heart Attacks based on this premise. He found that none of his patients that were treated for low thyroid function developed heart disease. 56 | P a g e
Dr. Barnes also speculated that the reason for the epidemic of low thyroid he was seeing in his practice might be attributed to low thyroid children now living to reproduce after the advent of antibiotics. Before antibiotics, children with low thyroid would usually die from infections because of poor function of their immune system. Effectively, they were culled from the herd. After antibiotics, the pneumonia that would have killed a child is treated and she survives and reproduces, passing on the genetic propensity for hypothyroidism to her children. He estimated that a large percentage of the population was hypothyroid back in the 1970s and this fraction would continue to grow over time. Another alternative explanation for thyroid problems is possible lack of iodine in the diet and iodine- depleting substances in food, water and other exposures. Iodine is not only beneficial for the thyroid but increases the excretion of toxic metals like mercury and lead. It is important to also realize that taking thyroid hormones will increase the need for iodine. Why are we so often at risk for low iodine? First off, iodized salt is a poor source of iodine. Studies suggest that only 10 percent of the iodine in iodized salt is bioavailable. In addition, poor farming methods don't replenish iodine in the soil. We have always had a goiter belt in the middle of the USA around the Great Lakes, where iodine is very low in the soil. Diets without fish and sea vegetables will tend to be low in iodine. Also, people on a low-salt diet are at risk. High consumption of bakery products reduces iodine. Vegan vegetarians are also at risk for iodine deficiency. Bromide is used as an anti-caking compound in baked goods and depletes iodine. In the past, iodine was used as an anti-caking agent, but it was replaced by bromide in the 1980s because of concerns that excessive iodine might be a problem. Other sources of exposure to bromide include its use as a fire retardant and as a fumigant for crops. Fluoride may have a similar effect and is often added to municipal water supplies, toothpaste and many drugs. 57 | P a g e
Iodine is concentrated in the thyroid, breasts, prostate, adrenal glands, salivary glands, cerebral spinal fluid and ovaries. Diseases associated with iodine deficiency include thyroid disease, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, depressed immune function, mental retardation, goiter, infertility, and increased infant mortality as well as breast and prostate cancer. Iodine has been shown to induce apoptosis (cell death) of cancer cells. Iodine can function as both an oxidant and an antioxidant in the cell. Oxidation is another important mechanism for how our body disposes of unruly cells such as precancerous cells. Iodine deficiency appears to be widespread. NHANES (the National Health and Nutrition Survey) data shows that iodine levels dropped 50 percent in the American population from 1971 to 2000. During this time, we have had an increase in thyroid illness, and various cancers including breast, prostate, endometrium, and ovarian. There are ongoing studies trying to determine if identifying and correcting low iodine can prevent or treat breast cancer. The ways to keep bromide exposure down include eating organic food, limiting the intake of bakery products, taking supplemental iodine, getting adequate natural salt and getting optimal amounts of magnesium. In my experience, both as a clinician and personally, I have found both iodine deficiency and thyroid disorders to be very common. My professors in medical school who talked about the double-blind, placebo-controlled studies also told us, treat the patient and not the lab. We were not supposed to blindly treat lab results without looking at the patient. My patients have told me countless times they have been told by their doctor that their thyroid was normal based on the blood test and either they should suffer through their symptoms or their doctor may say, Let's try some Prozac, maybe youre just depressed. If my patient has a constellation of symptoms that look like low thyroid but the lab tests are normal, could there be a normal lab, but still abnormal thyroid function? Does that make sense? It does when 58 | P a g e
an excellent physician like Dr. Barnes has found an effective treatment through experimenting in his practice. But it didnt catch on. Was it that his method is too simple? Not enough profit to get any deep-pocket organization to support bigger studies? For my patients, it is worth a trial of thyroid hormone. If the symptoms are improved, there is no need for more proof. But, for some people, the prospect of being on a medication like thyroid hormone forever doesnt sound so good either. I found many times that taking the hormone helps at first, but the symptoms may return. In my search for thyroid solutions, I came across Dr. Wilsons work on a disorder he has termed Wilsons Temperature Syndrome, which builds on the work of Dr. Barnes. Dr. Wilson began looking deeper into the constellation of hypothyroid symptoms and temperature. His theory is that the problem with low thyroid function comes about because of a stressful event in the patients life. A survival mechanism kicks in during severe stress to lower metabolism, to conserve energy in order to avoid starvation. The body then makes less T3 (the most potent thyroid hormone) and makes more reverse T3 (which is inactive and blocks the thyroid hormone receptor). Conventional doctors typically treat low thyroid with synthetic T4 (Synthroid, Levoxyl), which in this situation will be converted to more of the blocking reverse T3 and, in the case of Wilsons Temperature Syndrome, can make the patients symptoms worse. The solution then is to give T3 in a dose that normalizes the temperature and allows the excess reverse T3 to be metabolized, which resets the thyroid system. The treatment includes weaning the patient off the T3 medication after capturing normal temperature. This doesnt always work, but should be considered before permanent hormone therapy if the clinical picture fits Wilsons Temperature Syndrome. This is something you can easily test yourself. Normal oral temperature is 98.6 degrees F. Dr. Wilson advises checking your temperature three times daily. It is done three hours after you get up, three hours later and, again, three hours later. If your 59 | P a g e
average temperature over a period of weeks is significantly below the norm, say below 98.2 degrees F, and you have any of the symptoms related to low thyroid, you may benefit from a trial of the Wilsons T3 protocol to correct your thyroid function. Iodine supplementation along with other nutrients important for thyroid function can be tried as an alternative to T3 therapy under the guidance of an experienced physician. Remember, the symptoms of low thyroid can include weight gain, cholesterol elevation, depression, fatigue, dry skin, constipation, edema or puffiness, thinning hair, irregular menses, carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia, coronary artery disease, migraine headaches, panic attacks, frequent infections and many more. Thyroid treatment is not a cure-all for every symptom. Do not overlook the possibility of iodine deficiency as it is always better to treat the cause than to treat the symptoms. Thyroid malfunction is a common problem that may be an underlying cause of numerous, seemingly unrelated, symptoms. You won't be served well by taking prescription drugs in an attempt to suppress symptoms. Go to brodabarnes.org or wilsonssyndrome.com for more information. A test called the iodine loading test may be helpful for determining low iodine levels in the body. Iodoral is an iodine supplement that is used for the loading test. Iodine supplements or iodine-rich foods can be used to treat iodine deficiency under supervision of a physician skilled in nutritional and natural medicine.
Adrenal Fatigue
60 | P a g e
The other gland that can be under-functioning is the adrenal gland. The endocrine disease where these glands stop functioning entirely is called Addison's disease. The adrenal glands make important hormones that help us with stress. The one that is secreted during sudden stress is adrenalin (epinephrine). This hormone gets us ready to fight or run. It raises the blood pressure, dilates the pupils, and opens the arteries to the large muscles. Another hormone produced in the adrenals that is increased with stress is cortisol. This hormone mobilizes stored energy so that it can be used. I see that patients in early stress will tend to have elevated cortisol levels. When a person has had long-standing stress and has become fatigued, they may have a low cortisol level, known as adrenal fatigue. What are the symptoms of compromised adrenal function? Difficulty in getting up in the morning, continuing fatigue despite adequate sleep, craving for salt or salty foods, lack of energy, increased effort to do daily tasks, decreased sex drive, decreased ability to handle stress, increased recovery time from illnesses or trauma, low blood pressure, light-headedness when standing up quickly, irritability, depressed mood, increase in allergies, and lack of mental clarity and memory. How is adrenal fatigue diagnosed? First, a physician or patient would look for the symptoms. Blood, urine, or saliva tests for the adrenal hormones can also be helpful when evaluated by an experienced physician. Before beginning treatment, it is always important to look for a possible cause or causes. Do you have a bad diet? Are you overstressed, not sleeping enough, not exercising enough or too much, or do you have hidden infections or toxins in the body? There are some key nutrients that are needed in the production of the adrenal hormones. These include vitamin C, vitamin E, magnesium, pantothenic acid, niacin, and vitamin B6. After improving diet and/or adding supplements, other possible treatments for adrenal fatigue are herbs like licorice and adaptogen herbs like ashwagandha, 61 | P a g e
rhodiola and cordyceps. The corticosteroid drugs can also be used, but will most often have unacceptable side effects. In the old days, adrenal glandular preparations from animals were popular for treating people with adrenal fatigue, but when the corticosteroid drugs came on the market they went out of favor. The other option is to use prescription cortisol. The problem with this is you are replacing only one of several adrenal hormones so it is not as likely to be as effective as replacing all, or most, of the hormones as would be the case with using the glandular preparations. It is common for adrenal problems to coexist with thyroid problems. I have found that if you try and correct the thyroid when a person has underlying adrenal fatigue, the thyroid symptoms will often get worse with treatment, so this can be a major clue as to why thyroid treatment sometimes will fail. Has your doctor tested you for adrenal fatigue or even considered it? Again, this is probably not on the radar for your doctor. There is no drug company with a patented drug to treat the problem, no expensive procedure or medical device to fund studies. If you feel you are experiencing the symptoms listed above, you must be proactive and find a qualified natural medicine doctor who will guide you through the process of diagnosis and treatment.
62 | P a g e
Chapter 11: Intelligent Design in Nutrition
I have complete confidence in my Creator, so the most important guideline and the first priority in eating is to eat what is natural. I have little faith that what mankind has done to our food supply since corporations took over is healthy, and I believe it is the major cause of our unprecedented increase in degenerative diseases. It is important to read food labels and try to reduce or eliminate imitation food. One of the worst foods ever to be developed is margarine. Chemically, it is one step away from plastic, yet we were all convinced by the food industry and the government that it was healthier than butter. If you leave margarine out in the garage, the mice won't eat it and it will not decompose, just like plastic. Earlier, I discussed the findings of Weston Price that isolated primitive populations have been able to find a healthy diet in a variety of ways with a variety of foods. Almost universally, when the people Dr. Price studied were switched to a modern, highly processed diet, they developed cavities, had poor facial development, and had decreased resistance to infectious diseases. 63 | P a g e
The incredibly important point is that most of the foods that contain the critical nutrients that Dr. Price identified in the traditional diets are vilified by modern diet experts, our medical system and the government. Why do you think we are a fat nation and getting fatter and more diseased by the day? One of the main reasons is we do not get optimal nutrition from our food, so we continue to crave more. Hunger and food craving is the natural reaction of our bodies trying to get what is missing from the diet. I have found when I get my patients on a nutrient-rich diet, they will naturally move toward their normal weight and the cravings tend to disappear. Take the example of Billy. He had been frustrated by countless diets and yo-yo weight loss and gain. He bought into all the propaganda that low fat eating is the healthiest diet. He even did a year as a vegetarian. But it never worked for him. The low calorie diets would work for weight loss, but when it came time to get on a diet to maintain weight, he could not control his appetite. So how did I help him to keep his weight off? We started by raising his deficient levels of fat-soluble vitamins D, A, and K2. How? By eating food that was raised naturally: cows eating grass, chickens eating seeds and insects out in the sun so they can produce vitamin D (chicken wings can be a health food if from a natural bird because of the fat- soluble vitamins). Modern agribusinesses raise chickens in buildings crowded with an insane number of birds fed hormones, antibiotics and their beaks are cut off so they dont kill each other. With a combination of natural meat, nutritious vegetables, properly prepared grains and nuts, and natural fats, Billy was able to feel satisfied with smaller meals and had substantially more energy for continuing his exercise program. The weight came off gradually, and more importantly, stayed off. Why are these fat soluble vitamins so important? Dr. Price found that all the traditional, healthy cultures he studied had one thing in common: an animal source of the fat-soluble vitamins. The first was vitamin A. He found the diets of healthy, isolated people had a diet that had ten times the vitamin A content of the American diet of his day. Vitamin A acts as the catalyst for innumerable 64 | P a g e
biochemical processes in the body. It acts as a powerful antioxidant and also stimulates the secretion of gastric juices for optimal digestion. The best sources for the preformed vitamin A are butter fat, egg yolks, liver and other organ meats, seafood, and fish liver oils. Carotenes in vegetables are also converted to vitamin A in the body, but this process is compromised in children, diabetics, persons with thyroid dysfunction and in those with overall poor nutrition. Sound familiar? Studies have suggested that synthetic retinol, the vitamin A contained in vitamin pills, may be toxic, so it should be avoided. Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin that most clinicians and patients know is related to blood clotting. Most also know that the major source of this vitamin is green leafy vegetables such as lettuce and spinach. Since the 1980s, studies have shown a correlation between vitamin K intake and the risk of fractures. More recently, information has also related vitamin K intake to other diseases and conditions. As far as bone density is concerned, it is known that calcium is incorporated into the protein matrix of the bone by an activated osteocalcin. Osteocalcin is activated through a carboxylation process that is catalyzed by vitamin K. Studies have shown that people with the highest percentage of inactivated osteocalcin have a five times higher hip fracture rate than those with the activated osteocalcin. It has also been shown that vitamin K2 is more efficient than vitamin K1 for activating osteocalcin levels. Japanese studies have shown that supplementation with high levels of vitamin K2 can reverse osteoporosis. Sources of vitamin K2 in the diet include natto, which is a fermented soy food eaten in Japan, cheese and animal fat as well as organ meats. There is evidence linking persons and animals that are deficient in vitamin K2 to abnormal calcification of soft tissue such as the arteries. A large clinical trial done in Europe showed that low vitamin K intake was strongly associated with the risk of developing coronary artery disease and was also significantly related to reduced mortality 65 | P a g e
with higher blood levels. The proposed mechanism is that if calcium is not put into bone because of inadequate levels of activated osteocalcin, then it may wind up in arteries and soft tissues where it is not wanted. The studies in animals have shown that supplementing with vitamin K2 can completely prevent calcification of the arteries in certain animal models. In the same studies, vitamin K1 supplementation was shown to have little effect.
It may be that vitamin K2 is the reason for the French paradox; this being lower rates of coronary artery disease in French people despite a high fat diet including butter and cheeses. Other possible reasons for the French paradox have been thought to be red wine antioxidants reducing coronary disease as well as protection afforded by their lifestyle, which usually incorporates more walking. Hardening of the arteries may also affect blood pressure and deficiency of vitamin K2 may be involved in elevation of blood pressure. Research has also shown that vitamin K2 catalyzes an enzyme that produces sulfatides in the brain. Decreased sulfatides have been associated with aging and Alzheimer's disease. Another possible area where vitamin K2 deficiency may be important is as a potential cause of kidney stones, again related to calcium and calcium oxylate. It could be that increasing vitamin K2 in the diet or with supplements could prevent kidney stones. There is other evidence that K2 may have important ramifications for immune function. It has also been noted that there are vitamin K2 receptors both in the mitochondria and cell nucleus of many tissues. We may have only seen the tip of the iceberg as far as the effects of vitamin K2 go. It is possible that fortifying the diet with foods rich in vitamin K2 may decrease risk for osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, brain diseases, immune dysfunction and possibly other diseases. 66 | P a g e
Again, foods high in vitamin K2 are mostly the animal source foods including hard cheeses, butter from grass-fed cattle, organ meats, egg yolks and curd cheeses. Vitamin K2 supplements are also available in the form of MK-4 and MK-7 and there is evidence that these may also treat vitamin K2 deficiency. Vitamin D really functions as a hormone in the body and is now thought to affect the expression of thousands of genes, especially those related to the immune system; thus affecting susceptibility to infectious disease, autoimmune disease, and cancer. You may know that vitamin D is activated by the ultraviolet light that is present in sunshine. Of course, we all know we must stay out of the sun but I have always had a hard time believing God would create the sun and then expect us to hide from it. A vitamin D researcher has estimated that 30 percent of cancer deaths could be prevented if we had adequate vitamin D levels. That would be 200,000 deaths in the USA and two million deaths world-wide prevented every year. There is good evidence that a majority of people today have suboptimal vitamin D levels and its deficiency is a major cause of disease and disability. In the winter, when the sun is low, vitamin D levels drop significantly. Some speculate this is the prime reason for the cold and flu season. My advice is to get regular sunshine and add in the super foods from animal sources. The fat portion of an animal that has been in the sun is a dietary source for vitamin D. If you must resort to supplements, keep track of your vitamin D blood level with a 25 OH vitamin D test to avoid overdosing and to optimize blood levels. I advise avoiding vitamin D2 that is used in some supplements and most of the prescription forms. Use vitamin D3 instead. The ability of humans to consume grains has greatly contributed to the growth of civilization. So why have I noticed my patients usually improve when wheat and dairy have been removed from their diet? This has become the mantra of many nutritional medicine physicians. We can also look at the popularity of the Paleolithic diet comprised of fruits, vegetables, roots and animal products as the 67 | P a g e
foods that a caveman would eat, thus the foods our genes are designed for. The idea is that grains and dairy came much later and our genes haven't adapted. The real issue, however, is that grains require careful preparation. If we look at the cow, an animal designed to live off of plants, we see it has four stomachs to allow for a predigestion process for materials that would otherwise be impossible to break down. And even when there are nutrients we could digest, like the protein, fats and carbohydrates in nuts and seeds, there are also toxins and anti-nutrients contained in them that prevent the germination and growth of the plant until the conditions are just right. A seed that falls to the ground will not germinate until the conditions signal good growing medium such as the right season and ample moisture in the soil. The seed requires moisture, time, warmth and a slightly acidic environment in order for its growth potential to be unleashed. These happen to be the same conditions present in the cow's stomach. Cultures from all over the world would accomplish removing these growth inhibitors through soaking or fermenting grains before consumption. Modern technology has turned bread from being the staff of life into a poison. First, the parts of the grain are unnaturally separated into bran, germ and starch. Soaking the grains is not done. Soaking at low temperature is important to remove the enzyme inhibitors, but at the same time leave the beneficial enzymes intact. Soaking and fermenting also causes other compounds like tannins, lectins, complex sugars and gluten to be partially broken down so that they are more digestible. Modern milling is done at high temperatures and pressures. This can denature the healthy enzymes and destroy nutrients that make grain the staff of life. The grain is usually sprayed with pesticides and often stored for long periods of time after being milled. All of this makes typical modern breads one of the worst foods you can eat, even if made from whole grain. So what can you do? You can learn to make your own bread the proper way. A good cook book for instructions on this process and other traditional recipes is Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. You can purchase bread at a health 68 | P a g e
food store. It should be organic, using stone-ground flour, and made with sprouted grains or sour dough. It is important to try to reduce exposure to the pesticide and herbicide toxins in food. Fruits and vegetables are better when organically grown, but knowing what foods have the highest pesticide residues can help you with using resources wisely when it comes to buying nontoxic food. The Environmental Working Group (ewg.org) has come up with a list of the dirty dozen fruits and vegetables that have the highest pesticide residues. These should be purchased organically grown. The Dirty Dozen Peaches Apples Sweet bell peppers Celery Nectarines Strawberries Cherries Lettuce 69 | P a g e
Grapes (imported) Pears Spinach Potatoes
The foods scored lowest for pesticide residues were onions and avocados. You might be surprised (as I was) to learn that you might want to use the term human loosely. The Human Microbiome Project is a National Institute of Health initiative that has made great advances in the knowledge of our bodys microbial inhabitants. This has been done by identifying organisms by their genome instead of growing cultures which will fail to identify up to 80% of the organisms. According to gene testing, our human cells may be outnumbered by microbial cells ten-to-one. If we look at life on the basis of genetic material, we are outnumbered 100-to-one. We are essentially a super organism and the impact this has on our health is almost totally unknown. On the surface, it appears that the healthiest ecosystem is the most diverse one. Studies of the flora of premature infants at Duke University have shown that a diverse gut flora means a more disease- resistant baby. Our modern diet, toxic exposures, genetically modified food, and microbial-phobic healthcare system all conspire to disturb the trillions of symbiotic friends that we carry around. It may be that we eventually discover that the devastation of our microbiome is the most important factor in the epidemic of degenerative disease in our modern world. 70 | P a g e
Our misguided public health officials will soon have our entire food supply sterilized with pasteurization, irradiation, fumigation and whatever other alteration they can dream up. I predict we will discover this has a tremendous negative impact on our health. I am happy to know there is a growing group of passionate consumers and food producers that are trying to go back in time and give us the health-giving, natural food of our ancestors. Foods like raw milk and cheeses, soaked and fermented grains and beverages, organic fruits and vegetables with traces of soil-based organisms, and other sources of the thousands of species that have evolved with us.
Chapter 12: Detoxify Your Body
Your body will naturally detoxify if you follow a healthy, natural diet and get plenty of sunshine and exercise. Exercise helps with the elimination of toxins through increasing circulation, producing sweat, and the effect of movement pushing waste through our bowels. Saunas are another way to get your body sweating. Eating organic food and carefully watching the use of, and exposure to, chemicals in the environment and around the home will help as well. The vitamins and minerals contained in a nutrient-dense diet are vital for healthy detoxification. A way to get into toxic trouble is to eat a poor diet and get exposed to a large toxin load. Unfortunately, this is easy to accomplish--just follow where big business marketing firms guide you to junk food and toxic products. Another factor is that everyone is different in how they handle 71 | P a g e
toxins. There are genetic polymorphisms that result in impaired detoxification which can be identified with genetic tests. Toxins are usually in the form of fat-soluble molecules that need to be converted to water-soluble molecules so that they may be excreted in the urine or sweat. The detoxification processes has two to three phases. Phase I changes the toxic molecule to what is termed a reactive intermediary molecule. Phase II then adds another molecule to the toxin to make it water-soluble. Phase III is an additional step that required for certain toxins. It is important for these phases to be in sync. If phase I is overactive relative to phase II, then the reactive intermediary may be even more toxic than the original toxin. Phase II detox requires a steady source of co-factors and energy. This is why fasting is not necessarily a good way to detox. The co-factors necessary for detoxification include taurine, glycine, glutamine, sulfate reserves, glutathione, methylation co-factors, and healthy glucose (blood sugar) levels. The key factors to improve detoxification include: 1) Decreasing the toxic load. 2) Plentiful modulators to balance phase I, II and III. 3) Antioxidant protection. 4) Support for phase II detoxification. 5) Support for healthy digestion and excretion. An example of a food compound that increases phase I detoxification is indole 3 carbinol, which is found in cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts). Ellagic acid 72 | P a g e
found in pomegranates and berries supports phase II. Catechins in green tea and watercress also support phase II. Milk thistle provides antioxidant protection as do the antioxidant vitamins A, C, E, and the mineral selenium. Additional supplements that can be used for supporting detox include enzymes, chlorella, garlic, N-acetyl-cysteine, alpha-lipoic acid, choline, methionine, folate and vitamin B 12. Once our detoxification system gets overwhelmed, we may start to have health challenges, which can present as a variety of chronic symptoms. Detoxification can be done with plants in a juice fast. Another alternative is to use formulas from companies that make combinations of these ingredients to aid in detoxification in a prepackaged product. A product I have used successfully in my practice is Ultraclear made by Metagenics. Coffee enemas stimulate liver detoxification and are another alternative that I prescribe regularly to fire up a sluggish detoxification system. Be sure to use organic coffee so that you are not inadvertently adding pesticides that are commonly used on coffee plantations.
Summary
After reading this information about all of the obstacles we have to optimal health, you may feel a little discouraged. It is amazing how many harmful exposures we have that are just assumed to be okay. But now you have had a taste of the truth and I hope you can see that by knowing the truth you can be set free. I know you can break away from many of the lies. I know because I did, as did my family, friends and many of my patients. You can accomplish much more for yourself and your loved ones with the increased energy and health you will have following a natural approach to 73 | P a g e
wellness. If you take just one of these suggestions each week or month and make it happen, you will start to move in the right direction, which will create momentum to carry you further than you ever thought possible. If you need more information and coaching advice filtered through TRUTH, visit our website www.naturalfoodsdiet.org and subscribe to my blog. Check out our videos on our YouTube channel. Get to work and let me know how you are doing.