Categories
Laughter, The Best Medicine

The Cowboy in Church

One Sunday a cowboy in South Texas went to little country church.
When he entered, he saw that he and the preacher were the only ones present. The preacher asked the cowboy if he wanted him to go ahead and preach.
The cowboy said, "I ain’t too smart, but if I went to feed my cows and only one showed up, I'd feed him anyway."

So the minister began his sermon.

One hour passed, then two hours, then two-and-a-half hours.
The preacher finally finished and came down to ask the cowboy how he liked the sermon.
The cowboy answered slowly and thoughtfully,  "Well, …I ain’t too smart, but if I went to feed my cows and only one showed up, I danged sure would save some hay for the other cows."

Categories
The Best Years In Life

Bromelain – The Wonder Supplement

By Tony Isaacs

I first experienced bromelain several years ago when I was bitten by a brown recluse spider on the front of my upper left leg – in three places no less.  This was the second time I had been bitten – the first time I was bitten resulted in the loss of a chunk of flesh and, much worse, being crippled for several months thanks to the treating physician botching the treatment and thrusting his deadening needle into my bursal sac.  Since I did not want to repeat that ugly memory and I  was in my first few years of studying natural health, I decided to try to handle it myself.

One of the people I consulted for help was an old naturopathic healer who claimed to have been a doctor in Russia before immigrating to the United States many decades ago.   He suggested that, among other things, I made sure that I used bromelain , which he called a wonder supplement.

And so, armed with garlic (which I took internally and used externally), some hydrogen peroxide, over-the-counter ointments, a vial of homeopathic ledum pallustre, raw garlic, whatever else I could round up, and bromelain, I began to treat the spider bites.  For a couple of days it was touch and go it seemed, as the bites continue to redden and swell and the radiating areas of red and pink grew until it encompassed an area about 6 inches by 12 inches.  But then the tide turned and the bites began to get better.  Within a little over a week, they were mostly healed and within two weeks there was virtually no sign of the bites.

After the success against the spider bite, I decided to take a closer look at bromelain.  What I found amazed me – bromelain truly is a wonder supplement!. Just take a look at a partial list Bromelain’s proven powers to see what I mean:

Bromelain:

Helps  bruises and injuries heal an average of three times faster and helps athletes regain peak form much more quickly. Is a strong binder and increases the absorption of supplements and medicines up to three times or more of the amount that the body would normally absorb.

Helps heal or lessen:

  • Angina

  • Arthritis

  • Athletic and Musculoskeletal Injuries

  • Bacteria Infections

  • Bronchitis

  • Cancer and Tumors

  • Cellulitis

  • Cutaneous Staphlococcus Infection

  • Debridement of Burns

  • Dysmenorrhea

  • Edema

  • Inflammation

  • Maldisgestion

  • Pancreatic Insufficiency and Steatorrhea

  • Platelet Aggregations

  • Pneumonia

  • Rectal abscesses

  • Sinusitis

  • Surgical Truama

  • Thrombophlebitis

Categories
Healthy Recipes

French Country Bean Soup

Using the dark green outer leaves from sweet Savoy cabbage, as Judy Rogers does at Zuni, will enhance the flavor, too. So would making a supply large enough to serve it several times, which concentrates the flavors of this country soup every time you reheat it.

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 carrot, cut in half-moons
1 rib celery, sliced
1 small onion, chopped in bite-size pieces
1 small leek, chopped in bite-size pieces
3 outer leaves Savoy cabbage, rolled and cut in 1/2” strips
4 cups fat-free, reduced sodium chicken broth
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 garlic clove, chopped
2 cups squash (e.g. butternut), peeled and diced
1 can (15 oz.) chickpeas or white beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup cooked chicken cut in bite-size pieces (optional)

Instructions:

Heat oil in medium Dutch oven or large, deep saucepan. Sauté carrot, celery, onion, leek, and cabbage until leaves are bright green and other vegetables start to soften, about 3 minutes. Add broth. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add thyme, garlic, squash and beans. Cover and simmer 15 minutes. Stir in chicken, if using. Ladle soup into deep bowls and serve accompanied by toasted slices of whole-grain French bread or other rustic bread. (This soup reheats well. It keeps up to 5 days, covered, in refrigerator.)
Nutritional Information:

Makes 8 servings (with chicken).

Per serving: 123 calories, 4 g. total fat (less than 1 g. saturated fat), 19 g. carbohydrate, 5 g. protein, 4 g. dietary fiber, 464 mg. sodium.

Categories
Natural Remedies

Muscle Strain

•  Bromelain . Enhances healing and clears up bruising.

•  Magnesium . Mineral that is essential for allowing muscles to relax.

• Ice. The use of ice within the first several hours of getting a muscle strain can make the difference between a few hours and perhaps a week or longer of being sore and laid up.

•  The tried and true Epsom salt bath works magic on sore or strained muscles. Epsom salts contain magnesium, a mineral which relaxes muscles when absorbed through your skin. The salts also soothe pain and kick-start your body's muscle repair process. Dump two cups of Epsom salts into a tub filled with warm water and soak for 20 minutes.

• Apple cider vinegar. Add a couple of cups of apple cider vinegar to your bath water and soak your strained muscles until the water cools. It is also a good idea to drink a glass of water every day with a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, as the potassium helps relieve strained muscles.

• Eucalyptus oil is also good for muscle aches and pains.

Categories
Customer Testimonials

Iain in Oregon

Utopia Silver,

I read with great interest the article describing Ben Taylor's fight with the corporate machine dba US[A] [UNITED STATES federal corporation defined in 28 United States Code Sec. 3002(15), http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode28/usc_sec_28_00003002—-000-.
html
].
Where/how did he come by the knowledge that allowed him to stop this giant in its tracks? This is information every citizen should have as a matter of daily course of living their lives. On behalf of the grateful few, thank you, Mr. Taylor.

Iain in Oregon
 

Categories
Health & Freedom

The Truth Is the Best Answer

by Ben Taylor

The truth is the best answer to growing government intrusion into our healthcare Rights and we all must understand the truth about the ‘quasi-corporations’ that make up what is currently masquerading as ‘our government’  

See what happened in 1871 when The United States federal corporation was set up.
Even if there were ten thousand ‘Blue Men’, the truth is, neither the USFDA nor any other federal agency has any regulatory authority over the manufacture or sale of any food, supplement, colloidal silver, or over any drug for that matter within the ‘several’ States. It may only regulate interstate commerce, which is only the actual shipment across the lines of the several States or within the District of Columbia or within any other territory not organized with a legislative body. Read the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that brought this now “out of control” agency into existence in 1938. (Note: You must read the original act to get the correct language. In more recent government postings and printings, certain key phrases are deliberately left out so that we will not understand the limits of their authority.) The system is one of illusion rather than truth and operates on threats, fear and propaganda in order to strip us of our freedom. I will elaborate in future parts to this article.

Further prima facie evidence that the ‘United States’ ‘federal’ government has a very narrow and limited authority as do all so-called “federal” agencies is clearly illustrated in the 18th and 21st Amendments to the Constitution. In 1919, the 18th Amendment was ratified “abolishing” the manufacture, sales and transportation of intoxicating liquors and then later the 21st Amendment was purported to have “re-legalized” liquor. In truth, what was done with the 21th Amendment was to bring the 18th Amendment, “the so-called alcohol prohibition amendment”, back into compliance with the Constitutional mandates for the authority of the “federal’ government. The 18th Amendment had overstepped the boundaries of the federal government regulatory authority and the 21st Amendment simply corrected the Constitutional violations in the 18th. The substantive difference between the two is that in the 21st, the terms “manufacture” and “sale” are removed. They are stated to wit:

Amendment 18- (ratified 1/16/1919)
Sec. 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Amendment 21 (ratified 12/5/1933)
Sec. 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited. To be continued in Part 2.

Categories
Ask Utopia Silver

CFS/Fibro

Q:
Hi Utopia Silver,
I have cfs/fibro and would like some info as to what product would best reduce the symptoms?

Charlene in Texas

A:
Hi Charlene,

Have you been clinically diagnosed by a healthcare professional or have you simply narrowed it to that possibility? Many doctors callously dismiss such CFS symptoms as hypochondria or mis-diagnose it altogether. There are some natural products and supplements that can support the body’s response/immune system and  often be helpful in alleviating such a problem.

To start with, one must get on a good diet of raw fruits and vegetables (preferably organic) as well as eliminating most junk drinks and foods that contain processed flours and sugars. Although processed foods may not be the cause of the CFS, a bad diet will cause the effects to be worse that they would be otherwise.

According to the “Prescription For Nutritional Healing” book by Dr. Balch, one of the possibilities is that it is caused by the Epstein-Barr virus or even a Herpes virus which is also in the family with shingles, chicken pox, measles, mononucleosis, etc., in which case colloidal silver may be the best solution. It may also be a systemic yeast infections in which case silver may also be helpful.

http://www.utopiasilver.com/products/silver/

There is seldom any one magic bullet, but other natural supplements that may be of benefit are, Plant Minerals to boost the immune system; Acidophilus and Probiotics to replace essential colon bacteria/flora; Chromium GTF to control hypoglycemia (if you’re not suffering from cancer, raw cane sugar is a great source of Chromium GTF); Co-Q10 to boost the immune system and protect the heart; and Lecithin granules.

http://www.utopiasilver.com/products/supplements/75_plant_derived_minerals.htm

http://www.utopiasilver.com/products/supplements/super-acidophilus.htm

http://www.utopiasilver.com/products/supplements/probiotics.htm

http://www.utopiasilver.com/products/supplements/liquid_life_complete.htm

http://www.utopiasilver.com/products/supplements/coq10.htm

Vitamin B-12 is something that is often overlooked in CFS and may be the simplist and most effective supplement if there is a severe deficiency of B-12 that may be contributing to the symptoms of fatigue.

If you can’t do injections, sublingual is best (under the tongue), such as http://www.utopiasilver.com/products/supplements/dicobalene-V.htm

Please let us know if we can be of service.
You are appreciated in Utopia.

Ben Taylor
Utopia Silver Supplements
830 966-2315
http://www.utopiasilver.com

Notice: We are not doctors and we suggest that you consult a healthcare professional, preferably a qualified naturopathic doctor or one who has been trained in integrative medicine if you have a life or health threatening illness. All opinions and information presented by me are done as an exercise of our God-given unalienable right of free speech.

 

Categories
Featured Articles

Conquer Heart Attack With Facts

interview with Christopher Barr

Be Careful What Doctors Tell You About Heart Disease. The Answer To Cardiovascular Health Is Nutrition, Not Drugs!

“Once there is an active heart problem the importance of magnesium actually increases considerably.  This has actually been noted in medical research since the 1950s.”  — Christopher Barr

Almost all adults are concerned about the condition of their heart and cardiovascular system. Some live in constant fear wondering whether any ache, cramp or pain in their upper body is a sign of a heart attack. There isn’t an adult living in North America that hasn’t lost a loved one or a family member to heart disease. The fact is, heart attacks kill, and they kill by the millions every year!

Just recently we witnessed the sudden death of TV news anchorman Tim Russert from a massive heart attack. Tim was only 58 years old. It came as a complete shock to the world. Since Tim was internationally recognized, our society tends to give deaths like his more attention than others. What happened to Tim Russert is only a microcosm of what is happening on a massive scale every year. Generally we expect people in their seventies, eighties and nineties to die from heart attacks. When it occurs with people in their twenties, thirties, forties or fifties, it’s usually considered a tragedy.  

There’s a reason why statin drugs, high blood pressure drugs, and diabetes medications are the best selling drugs on the market. Drug companies have done a masterful job of instilling fear into virtually everyone alive that if there are any imbalances, their risk of dying from heart disease greatly increases. What they haven’t told you is that these numbers have been deliberately manipulated so they can sweep in millions and get them on a regimen of drugs for life on the false assumption that they will live longer by taking them.

What you will rarely hear is that most heart disease is caused by nutritional deficiencies. You won’t get well or live out the years you were created to live until you know what’s causing your heart condition or how to prevent one altogether. Of all the organs in the body the heart is the one most often damaged by nutritional deficiencies. It is also the most responsive organ to nutritional therapies.

Over the course of the past year, our readers have been blessed beyond measure by the incredible insights and pearls of wisdom that Christopher Barr has shared with us on a number of important health topics. We continuously get calls and letters all the time from readers who have followed his advice and have seen the results in their own life. In this issue of Crusador we have a special interview that is over the top. If you, a loved one, co-worker, friend, or associate ever wanted to know the full truth about heart disease and what you need to do to avoid becoming another victim, the following interview below is one of the best ones you will ever come across.

Crusador:  Chris, it is truly a pleasure to interview you again. I want to give more coverage to heart health than we have in previous issues since heart disease is the #1 killer in this country. You have spent many years doing some amazing research to distill out truth people need to know to stay well. What pearls of wisdom can you share with our readers and why should someone listen to what you have to say on this subject as opposed to anyone else?

Well, Greg, pearls are formed over time from an irritant.  It is through a lifetime of research by way of science, history and journalism that I have come to a variety of pearls of wisdom with inestimable value – considerably by way of my being an irritant to both medical and nutritional mainstreams.

You’ve heard of the proverbial “between a rock and a hard place”?  That is where I do my work.  The “rock” is modern medi$in and the “hard place” is nutrition.  Either of these is filled with erroneous biases and neither of these is open to being challenged due to their “love of money” which as the Scripture notes “is the root of all evil”.  I do what I do due to the Scriptural precept of “love of the truth” rather than for “love of money”.

“The proof of the pudding” as they say “is in the eating”.  More and more people all the time taste for themselves the proof of my knowledge by way of the interviews provided by me to Crusador over the past year or so.

Crusador:  Mainstream medicine’s answer to heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes/blood sugar issues is to treat it with drugs. Why do they have it all wrong?

The simplest answer is that neither heart disease, high blood pressure nor diabetes/blood sugar issues are due to “drug deficiencies”.  The reasons for each of these problems are due to complexities of nutritional deficiencies.  The most complex of these matters you have mentioned is heart disease.  A variety of nutritional deficiencies are what leads to heart disease.  These deficiencies come from a few very bad dietary habits that have only become common place over the last 100 years.

100 years ago cardiovascular disease was not even among the top ten causes of death.  Today it is the number one cause of death and has been number one more than half a century.

Crusador:  So much bad press has made headline news lately regarding the ineffectiveness and outright dangers of statin drugs. Some have even argued that statin drugs are the biggest scam ever. Where do you stand on this issue and why?

If statin drugs are not the biggest scam ever they are at least right near the top.

The whole purpose of statins is to lower cholesterol levels in order – allegedly – to protect the heart.  Cholesterol levels are reduced due to statins interfering with normal liver processes.  Liver problems are one of the two most common and most serious side effects of taking statins which should not be surprising since statins work by interfering with normal liver processes.

The other most common and most serious side effect of taking statins is muscle damage.  Isn’t the heart a muscle?  Why, YES, it is!  “Sometimes it is just a matter of asking the right question,” my good friend Dr. Kenneth O’Neal, M.D. said with a smile when I put forth this question to him in a discussion of statins when he was a guest on my daily radio broadcast, ‘VOICE OF CHANGE’.

Additionally, cholesterol is not an issue because one has too much cholesterol but rather because one has too little of the essential trace mineral element chromium.

Chromium manages cholesterol.  In the absence of chromium cholesterol is unmanaged and goes haywire.  Low density lipoproteins (LDL) increase which are commonly regarded as “bad” cholesterol while high density lipoproteins (HDL) decrease which are commonly regarded as “good” cholesterol.

High HDL levels are so much more important than low LDL levels that even a recently published medical research study noted that if HDL levels are high enough then LDL levels are irrelevant when it comes to heart disease.

Statins are very effective at reducing the “bad” LDL cholesterol but do not increase the “good” HDL cholesterol.  Medical options – in other words DRUGS – for increasing the “good” HDL cholesterol are limited both in number of options and in their effectiveness, PLUS they have serious side effects so that they are barely used at all.  Of course, statins also have serious side effects but since they are very effective in their targeting of the “bad” LDL cholesterol they are prominently used anyway.  The use of statins is so prominent that they are the number one most prescribed class of drugs in the world.

Now back to chromium.  Increased chromium does two things; it increases the levels of “good” HDL cholesterol and decreases the “bad” LDL cholesterol.  The nutrient option provides the best of both worlds with no side effects as well as numerous other benefits.  However, only 100 per cent whole food, grown varieties of chromium are significantly utilized by the body.  Meanwhile, the drug options are many though limited in application and with many side effects.

The nutrient answer to the cholesterol question is superior in every way to the multitude of drug answers.  Yet, the nutrient answer of 100 percent whole food, grown chromium is too little known and even less addressed.

Dr. Henry Alfred Schroeder received the highest award of The American Heart Association and established the dietary and drug protocols used for high blood pressure.  He was one of the greatest researchers of the 20th century – if not the greatest – yet his considerable researches on the mineral chromium were almost entirely ignored.

Dr. Schroeder wrote that “we found that chromium in the aorta was not detected (too low to be found) in almost every person dying of coronary artery disease, one manifestation of atherosclerosis, and was present in almost every aorta of persons dying accidentally.”

How does this happen?

Refined white flour and refined white sugar made up a negligible part of the average American dietary 100 years ago at which time such began to increase in American dietaries.  Through the 1920s and 1930s there was a dramatic escalation of these “foods” and cardiovascular disease cracked the Top 10 causes of death.  That dramatic escalation continued and cardiovascular disease has been the number one cause of death now for more than 50 years.  Refined white flour consumption now averages more than 150 pounds per person per year in America and refined white sugar consumption is about the same.

Whole grain is an abundant source of chromium but refining it into white flour removes 91 per cent of that chromium.  Whole sugar cane is also an abundant source of chromium but refining it into white sugar removes 98 per cent of that chromium.

Recent U.S. government figures note that refined white flour is 20 per cent of the typical American diet.  That means that refined white flour and refined white sugar now makes up almost half of the typical American diet.

Schroeder wrote of “the typical American diet, with about 60 per cent of its calories from refined sugar, refined flour, and fat”.  He noted that this diet “was apparently designed not only to provide as little chromium as feasible, but to cause depletion of body stores of chromium”.

“The result is a prevalent disease, in this case, atherosclerosis,” concluded Schroeder about chromium deficiency.

You do not have high cholesterol and heart disease because of a deficiency of Lipitor!  Artificial means (DRUGS) do not fix the problem.  They may delay the problem although at what cost in both dollars and cents, and in side effects?

Regarding chromium Schroeder wrote that “the most effective way of avoiding the atherosclerotic-diabetic syndrome is by prevention.”  He looked for the day that “this essential micronutrient so necessary to the integrity of arteries” would no longer be removed by refining.  Either that “or if the public insists on white flour and white sugar” that chromium would be “restored in sufficient quantities to those foods to ensure their adequate metabolism.”

Schroeder has been gone now for more than 30 years and that day he longed for has yet to arrive.

“Modern man makes many mistakes through lack of knowledge, but there is no excuse for his continuing his mistakes in the face of knowledge,” Schroeder wrote in his writing on chromium more than 30 years ago.

I agree with Schroeder.  There is no excuse for modern man to continue removing chromium from his food supply and not add it back.

Crusador:  CoQ10 is a naturally occurring compound that is found in every cell of the body. It also plays a major role in protecting the heart, hence the reason why millions of people take it regularly. There is a real interesting side to this story that is rarely discussed though. You stated in a previous interview with me that selenium is more important than CoQ10? I found that rather shocking since it flies in the face of accepted nutritional dogma. Why Is that?

There are many reasons.  First, CoQ10 is produced in the body from selenium.  Second, selenium is relatively inexpensive and CoQ10 is one of the more expensive products on the market.  Plus the superior, whole food varieties of CoQ10 are rare and hard to find, and even much more expensive than the commonly available varieties.  It is a matter of common sense and dollars and cents – as well as scientific sense – to concentrate more on selenium supplementation than on CoQ10 supplementation.

There is also no better antioxidant than selenium.  Antioxidants protect against free radicals that damage the arteries, thereby setting up the basis for plaque build-up.

Selenium deficiency is also at the root of hypertension (commonly called high blood pressure) that also increases cardiovascular risk.  This is a very technical matter that a whole article could be devoted to but I’ll just sum it up here.

It was Dr. Schroeder who discovered the connection of salt to hypertension and devised the low salt for high blood pressure that continues to be used today more than 50 years after his discovery of this.  However, his later, more advanced finding that salt was not actually the culprit have been ignored.

Schroeder found that refined, white salt was a carrying agent for the mineral cadmium and that a build-up of cadmium was the real agent for causation of hypertension.

Cadmium is a heavy metal and as such is stable against the processing that removes other minerals when refining salt deposits to the pretty, white, sodium chloride salt so popular with almost everybody  –  thereby setting up an exaggerated imbalance of cadmium in the body that results in high blood pressure so very, very common to so very, very many.

Cadmium displaces zinc due to some technical matters of physics.  The only normal means by which the body has to remove cadmium is the mineral selenium.  Selenium physically bonds with cadmium to escort it out of the system.  Of course, selenium is sacrificed in this role so that it is then unavailable to protect the heart, prevent cancer, or to perform any of the other myriad functions that it nutritionally performs.

Cigarette smoking is documented to dramatically increase high blood pressure risk.  Cigarette smoke is very high in cadmium.  The subsequent loss of selenium due to such cadmium increase also explains why cigarette smokers have so much more heart disease as well as cancer.

The processing of whole cane sugar to refined, white sugar has the same cadmium problem as with salt refining noted earlier.

Whole grains can be very high in selenium, although there is a wide disparity due to modern farming practices and geographical distribution of selenium in the soil, In any case, refined, white flour removes 92 per cent of selenium from the whole grain and leaves a similar exaggerated imbalance of cadmium, as with white salt and white sugar.

Dr. Alexander Schauss is noted to have said that practically the only mineral left in white flour and white sugar is cadmium.  Dr. Schauss is the author of the book, ‘Diet, Crime and Delinquency’, and has been researching physical, mental, and social effects of nutrient mineral deficiencies and toxic element build-ups for many decades.

Selenium is important for so many functions in the body that it just makes sense in so many ways to concentrate on selenium supplementation rather than CoQ10 supplementation.

Crusador:  What effect do statin drugs have on the body’s CoQ10 levels?

The artificial means by which statin drugs interfere with the production of cholesterol also interferes with the production of CoQ10 from selenium.

So, if you are so brainwashed and/or brain dead as to use a statin drug then you must supplement with the very expensive supplement of CoQ10 because this very important substance for heart health (and so much more) cannot be produced from the more economical selenium due to the interference from the statin drug.

Crusador:  Isn’t it true that Merck, the maker of Zocor, originally patented this drug with CoQ10 but never brought it to market?

“Speaking of the devil” to coin a phrase, and speaking of brainwashed and brain dead, yes there is quite a story regarding Merck and the FDA when it comes to statins and CoQ10.

Indeed, the Merck magicians who first opened the cursed Pandora’s Box — that is statin drugs — did know from the outset that the Merck black magic of statin drugs – subsequently copied by most every other black magic sorcerer of the pharmaceutical world and the number one most prescribed drug in the world today – prevented the body’s own production of CoQ10.

Please note again that CoQ10 is expensive and Merck chose not to utilize the patent for statins with CoQ10 since there was no demand from the marketplace for it.  Of course, how can there be demand if almost nobody knew – other than those at Merck?

Just the normal course of business practices at Merck.

Almost 20 years ago internal memos at Merck noted dangers of mercury in vaccines – a BIG part of Merck’s murky business – but they took no action for more than a decade.  It was only after mercury in vaccines began to become a common news item that Merck “volunteered” that they were going to stop adding it to vaccines.  Even at that it took some years before they actually stopped adding mercury to vaccines – or at least to mostly stop adding most of the mercury in most of their vaccines – even though they knew about the problem for a very long time before it gathered considerable attention from others.

Then there is the whole Vioxx illicit affair in which there was years of delay after its connection to increased heart deaths before Merck finally “volunteered” to remove it from the marketplace.

Back to CoQ10, statins, Merck and the FDA.

Dr. Julian Whitaker, M.D., is a fairly well-known doctor who has at least attempted to integrate nutrition extensively with his practice of medicine.  Sometimes I’m amazed at how much he doesn’t know about nutrition considering how much that he does know about nutrition.

Anyway, Dr. Whitaker spent considerable time and expense preparing and submitting a petition to the FDA regarding statins and CoQ10.  He had quite a combination of lawyers, researchers and documentation compiled and submitted on the matter.

Dr. Whitaker was calling for one or more of several options regarding statin drug usage.  One option was to require CoQ10 with all statin drug usage.  Another was to at least recommend CoQ10 with all statin drug usage.  Yet another was to place a black box warning on statin drugs about the interference of these drugs with production of CoQ10.

Categories
Featured Articles

Diabetes and Heart Ailments

by Christopher C. Barr

The much ballyhooed connection of overweight and even obesity issues to illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes have been brought into question by two studies in this week’s Archives of Internal Medicine.

More than half overweight and nearly a third of obese adults in a national health/nutrition survey had healthful figures for such risk markers as cholesterol including the so-called “good” high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, and blood sugar, as well as insulin sensitivities.

By contrast, almost one quarter of those recognized as having normal weights had unhealthful figures for the same risk markers.

“A considerable proportion of overweight and obese U.S. adults are metabolically healthy, whereas a considerable proportion of normal-weight adults express a clustering of cardiometabolic abnormalities,” wrote Judith Wylie-Rosett, Rachel Wildman and colleagues in their published report.

Wylie-Rosett of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York oversaw one study and according to Reuters News said in a telephone interview, “We really don’t know as much about obesity as we think we do.”

No kidding.

“Her team did not look at people’s diets,” stated the Reuters News report.

To ignore (the root of the word ‘ignorance’) “people’s diets” is to miss the most important part of the equation.

Size doesn’t matter

The often rotund peoples on traditional Mediterranean diets such as in Greece and Italy have been well documented for less coronary artery disease than skinnier western counterparts in studies dating back more than half a century.

These studies are neither small nor obscure.  The Framingham studies were large and long-term through four decades and well renowned.

The primary healthful differences came down to the type of oil – olive oil – and whole grains.

Much has been made of the olive oil.

That’s great.

Not so much has been made of the whole grains.

That’s too bad.

Simple breakdown

The biggest difference between whole grains and refined grains are three minerals that just happen to figure prominently in all of the observed markers and characteristics of the recent study.

The minerals silicon, selenium and chromium are abundant in whole grains and almost entirely absent in refined grains.

Chromium nourishes and strengthens muscle (like the heart) as well as offering some level of protection of the tissues.  Chromium also manages cholesterol.  Abundant chromium levels result in an abundance of the “good” HDL cholesterol.  Low chromium levels result in low HDL and high “bad” LDL (low density lipoprotein) cholesterol.

Selenium provides protection of heart tissues from free radical damage, and assists with heart energy levels by way of production of Coenzyme Q10.  Selenium also assists chromium with cholesterol management.

Silicon (or silica) is responsible for both strength and elasticity of arteries and other tissues.

One more study

The other study noted that the liver may be the key.

Unseen fatty accumulations in the liver were noted as a more accurate indicator of heart risk than easily seen fat.

Both selenium and chromium were established as nutrients essential for life 50 years ago in liver studies.

Coincidence?

A wait problem … not a weight problem

Almost 100 years ago the minerals chromium, selenium and silicon began to be routinely removed more than 90 per cent from whole grains by refining and bleaching processes.  This was ruled a violation of the Pure Food & Drug Act by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1915 yet the practice continued – and continues today.

It is the wait for government to enforce the law and for food providers to follow the law that is the key to heart health – and diabetes as well (chromium was specifically cited as essential for blood sugar metabolism by the National Institutes of Health 50 years ago).

The people await the all too serious wait problem of the government and food providers to be addressed as a far more weighty issue than the weight of the people.

Categories
Featured Articles

Another Celebrity Death By Medicine?

By Byron J. Richards

Before the dust settles on the Bernie Mac tragedy it is important for everyone to understand two things:

1) It is abnormal to die from pneumonia at age 50.
2) There are millions of Americans with autoimmune problems of one type or another at risk for the same fate as Bernie Mac.

Conspicuously absent from the facts surrounding Bernie’s death is the lack of specific information about what actually caused his death. We are left to connect the dots based on non-specific comments made by family members that were reported in People magazine. Isn’t it convenient that doctors and hospitals can hide behind medical privacy, especially when their blunders and off-label experiments are the likely cause of death?

It is a national disgrace that more than 100,000 Americans needlessly die every year in a system they have turned to for help. Add Bernie Mac to the list.

Are Hospitals Even Safe?

Bernie Mac was hospitalized with serious pneumonia on July 24, 2008 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, considered one of the best hospitals in the city and above average nationally. Northwestern Memorial Hospital is also a teaching hospital.

According to People magazine, Mary Ann Grossett, Bernie’s sister-in-law, stated “He was critically ill when he was in the hospital. He was in intensive care the whole time….and he contracted a second strain of pneumonia while in the hospital.”

While on average the care may be better in teaching hospitals, they also carry their own unique life-threatening risks. In an April 23, 2006 Time magazine cover story, reporting on why a doctor’s greatest fear is becoming a patient, the problem of teaching hospitals was explained, “For all their fame and all-star doctors, teaching hospitals carry risks of their own. The sickest patients often have compromised immune systems and may need to be treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics – which increases the chance that antibiotic-resistant strains of staph and other bacteria will make the rounds of the intensive-care unit.”

It is also known that the death rate in teaching hospitals jumps in July, as a new round of interns arrive on the scene. I wonder how many interns with three weeks experience were involved in Bernie’s care. Did someone forget to wash their hands?

The reality is that teaching hospitals struggle to teach themselves how to keep their intensive-care units in a condition suitable for the patients they need to treat. What responsibility does a hospital bear when it further infects a patient who is struggling for his life with an existing infection?

A Grossly Incompetent Medical System for Autoimmune Problems

Most of the commentary about Bernie’s underlying health problems have pointed out his long-term struggle with sarcoidosis, an autoimmune problem wherein a person’s immune system inappropriately attacks normal cells of their body. In this case cells stick together forming clumps that can affect any organ in the body, but most often restrict the function of the lungs. Since Bernie had the illness for several decades it is likely that his lungs had extensive tissue damage/scarring, making them a significant “weak spot” in his health. This point should have been well understood by any physician prescribing medication for his condition.

The focus relating to sarcoidosis in the aftermath of Bernie’s death has been to raise awareness of this somewhat infrequent problem. While it is fine to raise awareness on any health issue, this emphasis has shifted the concept of cause relating to his death to his condition, not to the care he received. My focus is much different – it is to raise awareness of the barbaric stone-age experiments carried on by physicians around the country treating millions of Americans with autoimmune problems – including much more common autoimmune problems like rheumatoid arthritis.

Working with a near-kindergarten intelligence level, the Big Pharma-sponsored model for dealing with autoimmune issues is to treat the immune system itself as the disease. The logic goes like this: since the immune system is excessively reacting against the person’s body, treatment means we need to kill off the immune cells doing the damage. Our strategy will be to poison them to death. We will use prednisone, chemo drugs, or malarial drugs – all drugs that poison immunity into a state of reduced function, thus containing the overactive immune system. Almost no thought is given to getting the person’s immune system to work normally again.

An appropriate analogy is to consider an autoimmune problem like a forest fire burning. You must do something to put out the fire. Medical treatments are like dumping fire retardant on the fire, not a bad idea when it is threatening to burn up valuable body parts. Such concepts have clear medical validity and utility – especially when they are used as temporary solutions to bring a problem under control.

However, you would never manage a forest on a long-term basis in this way, even if it were prone to fire flare ups. Most likely you would want to know how the fires are starting – something doctors almost never consider.

Here is where medicine gets in a lot of trouble and causes a lot of harm. The “fire fighting” strategy becomes long term care. Prednisone makes a person fat, destroys their bones over time (bones are where your immune cells are born), and induces Candida albicans to grow in the sinuses, digestive tract, and lungs. These factors alone significantly add to the inflammatory burden of the individual and further contribute to immune system confusion, in turn feeding fuel to the underlying autoimmune problem and locking it into place as a chronic health condition.

When the side effects of prednisone become unbearable or the drug is no longer effective, then the next levels of poison are pulled out. Chemo drugs and malarial drugs are high level toxins. Of course they have devastating side effects to healthy tissue – once again inducing more tissue inflammation and confusion to the immune system.

Any person with an autoimmune problem quickly finds themselves between a rock and a hard place. If they don’t take the toxic drugs then their “forest fire” flares back up. If they do take the toxic drugs they keep heading into a condition of overall worse health. Millions of Americans are stuck in this predicament, betrayed by false practitioners of health beholden to the Big Pharma golden idol and its system of “medical” training.

The finest medical treatment facilities in the country seldom bother trying to figure out why a person’s immune system is misbehaving in the first place. Instead, these practitioners take the fifth – saying they just don’t know what the cause could be. The sick part is they don’t even bother asking the person, who can often tell them exactly how their problems started and what inflammatory situations in their life caused their immune systems to overheat. Oftentimes the patients will volunteer to their doctors the data they need to know, and such information is simply ignored and the patient is told that what they have to say is not relevant and could not be causing their problem.

Autoimmune problems are triggered by traumatic stress, ongoing stress, chemical exposure, pollution, the use of many medications including antibiotics, digestive problems, sinus problems, estrogen, chemicals in food, junk food, etc. The “straw that breaks” the immune system’s back is almost always in plain view and relatively easy to figure out simply by questioning the individual – and is often different from person to person. Such low-tech, labor-intensive detective work is disdained at the Disney World technology centers pretending to be the authorities on health. Yes, these places can measure almost anything in the body down to the molecular level – can they talk to the patient?

Bernie’s Turning Point

Place yourself in Bernie’s shoes. You’ve been struggling with this problem for 20 years. You finally got it into remission on some cocktail of poisons, but they are either not working so well anymore or you just can’t take the side effects. You go to your doctor and ask for help. What else can be done?

And now you enter the world of medical experimentation. The off-label use of powerful new drugs that no longer act as poisons, rather this new generation of biological medicines throw gene switches that control function in a much more powerful way. In the case of autoimmune problems, these drugs are targeted to turn of inflammatory immune system messengers such as TNFa.

There is one major problem; your immune system needs TNFa in order to mount an immune response to fight an infection. What happens if you get sick when you are on one of these newfangled biologic drugs that have your immune system turned off?

Once again we turn to People magazine and Bernie’s sister-in-law to help us understand what likely happened, “He had sarcoidosis, but it was in remission….But because he had it, his immune system was compromised. He had an infection….He was on a new medication that suppresses the immune system, and that's where the pneumonia came from.”

Because sarcoidosis is not as common as rheumatoid arthritis, Big Pharma will not spend millions to prove the safety of the drug specifically for this problem. That means doctors will conduct what is known as an off-label experiment on sarcoidosis patients, giving them the new biologic medicine and seeing what happens – even though such drugs contain clear warnings of their powerful immune suppressing features that could pose a problem. The bumbling FDA stands by counting the deaths, assuming they are reported at all, while preoccupied damaging the tomato industry and watching tainted drugs come in from China.

There are currently three of these new TNFa medications on the market today (Remicade, Enbrel, and Humira), approved for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. The risk of the use of these drugs is highly problematic even in arthritis patients, but arthritis patients don’t typically have lungs as a primary weak spot that can easily become infected.

The death of Bernie Mac was most likely the result of off-label medical experimentation, occurring against a backdrop of general medical incompetence treating and solving autoimmune problems. Quality of care at Northwestern Memorial Hospital didn’t help.