Rawkathon with Rick Dina. Rick Dina has been a raw foodist for over 20 years. Rick is a chiropractor and teaches a series called The Science of Raw Nutrition as well..

Kevin: Dr. Rick Dina, it's great to have you on the program.

Rick: I'm happy to be here. Thank you.

Kevin: So, for those people who don't know who you are and what you represent why don't you talk a little bit about your background and where you come from.

Rick: OK, well I, like a lot of people, grew up in the standard American way eating a regular, crummy diet and like a lot of kids, drinking beer and doing other things that weren't so healthy. I finally got sick of that and in 1986 started studying raw food nutrition, excuse me, started studying sports nutrition, trying to get myself a little bit healthier. I was a freshman in college at that time. Then from there went on to learn about natural hygiene and after that Viktora Kulvinskas, Anne Wigmore, Hippocrates approach. So really I've been a raw food vegan since 1987. So 21 years now. I've figured a few things out in that time.

It's made a tremendous difference in my health and well-being. I've been a chiropractor since 1997. So I've been in chiropractic practice for the last ten years. I incorporate nutrition into my practice as well as my wife and I now, for the last couple of years…basically at this point we teach raw food nutrition.

After I got out of chiropractic school I spent four years at a place called TrueNorth Health
Education Center, which is a water-fasting facility here in Northern California. During the time there I got to witness people recovering from high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, debilitating autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, by just having people drink water. Not giving them any supplements, any nutrients, not doing any kind of radical therapies, just allowing their body to rest and heal. I just got an enormous amount of clinical experience seeing what can happen when you really let the body heal itself. So that was a great experience.

After that I went and taught at a place called Bastyr University. They train naturopathic doctors. My wife actually was going to school there. Then we moved back to California and we've been in our own practice for the last five years doing chiropractic and teaching raw food nutrition.

Kevin: Your course is called The Science of Raw Food Nutrition.

Rick: Yes.

Kevin: I think, in my own opinion, that sometimes the science gets muddied and that people misunderstand it. It's hard to get to the mainstream without having something very solid behind it. So what do you think are some of the biggest issues with the science and why did you delve into it to such an extent?

Rick: Great question. Part of that is because I'm just kind of nerdy and I like that stuff. I like reading about scientific things and seeing how it all fits together and being analytical in that way. You're right, there's so much confusion out there. Part of initially why I wanted to delve into it was because I was trying to educate myself about how all this stuff works. Initially of course, the first thing that comes up is, "Where do you get your protein?" Then you hear the other things, "What about iron and B12?" And, "If you become a vegetarian you're going to be anemic. You need to eat fish for your Omega-3 fats," and all that kind of stuff. Really out of trying to educate myself and make sense out of it I started to delve into the science.

Unfortunately there's a lot of confusion out there and there's a lot of things that tend to steer people in the wrong direction toward health whereas if they knew the facts they'd actually go back in the right direction. Another key thing with that is the whole understanding of blood sugar. People are afraid of carbohydrates, they're afraid of fresh fruit because of the carbs in there and they think that's going to make them diabetic. But as it turns out some of the different diet programs that actually help people reverse diabetes are actually very high in healthy carbohydrates and much lower in fat and moderate in protein.

Kevin: You mentioned about five things; you mentioned iron, B12, protein, carbohydrates and nitrosamines, these five things. These are huge issues in the raw food community. Can we go through each five of those?

Rick: Yeah, let's go through them. Absolutely.

Kevin: Great.

Rick: Why don't we start with blood sugar regulation because that's a really interesting one and it also gets into some other topics of what they call within the scientific literature "cooked food toxins."

Kevin: OK.

Rick: It's a little complicated but we'll try to tie some things together there.. OK, well first of all we all hear that carbs are bad for us. Whether it's a mango or a banana or brown rice or a Snickers bar or jellybeans, whatever, it's all carbohydrates. That's a huge mistake. Some carbohydrates make your blood sugar rise gradually and go back down gradually and others make it spike up very quickly. So not all carbohydrates are the same.

Secondarily, the big issue with blood sugar regulation doesn't really have that much to do with carbohydrates. It has to do with when people eat unhealthy fats, saturated animal fats, processed hydrogenated oils. Those fats actually become part of our cell membranes. So with fat we literally are what we eat.

Now when we talk about blood sugar we've got glucose, or sugar, in the blood and what that has to do is it has to get into our cells. Glucose is our primary source of fuel, so like gasoline it's kind of reactive. So when you get high levels of that in your bloodstream it actually reacts with other things. It reacts with LDL cholesterol and actually damages it. Damaged LDL cholesterol contributes to cardiovascular disease. It can actually interact with the lining of our arterial walls and cause things called cross-links where glucose actually glues the collagen strands of the protein of our arterial walls together and when you form these cross-links then your arteries aren't as flexible as they're supposed to be. So when your heart pumps the top number of the blood pressure is how much pressure the blood is exerting against the wall of your arteries. When your arteries are flexible and they give a little bit that's good. When too much glucose has created cross-links within the lining of your arteries and your arteries are stiffer, when your heart pumps then the arteries don't give and your blood pressure goes up. So we don't want too much glucose in the bloodstream. That's part of why when people with diabetes have high levels of glucose they have dramatically increased risks for cardiovascular disease, even more than the average population, which is too high for lots of reasons..

So anyway, your body doesn't want too much glucose in the blood but it does want to get it into the cells because glucose is the main source of fuel, the preferred source of fuel, for pretty much all of our cells. So to go from the blood into the cells you've got to go through the cell membrane. The cell membrane separates the outside of the cell from the inside of the cell. That cell membrane, getting back to fat, is made largely out of fat and it's made out of the fat that we eat. Now when we eat too many unhealthy fats, like the Standard American Diet is made out of, domesticated animals and processed foods, our cell membranes have the wrong kind of fats in there. Each particular fatty acid has different physical and electrical characteristics. So when we have too much unhealthy fat and not enough healthy fat our cell membranes can't work properly and that causes insulin. Insulin is the hormone that brings glucose from the blood into the cells; insulin can't work right when we've got the wrong mix of fats in our cell membranes. As a result of that the glucose stays in the blood and it doesn't go into the cells. Then we get all those reactions in the bloodstream that increase our risk for cardiovascular disease.

So when we clean up fat, when we eat healthful fats like Omega-3 fats that we can talk about in a little bit, and we get rid of the animal fats and the processed junk food fats, insulin works properly and then no matter what you eat the glucose is going to much more easily get into the cells, which means it's not stuck in the blood. And the blood sugar levels are going to drop.

To use a non-raw food example the Pritikin Longevity Center did a study a number of years ago, and they continue to do this all the time. But one that happened to make it into the scientific literature, where they took 60 people with Type II or adult onset diabetes and they put them on a diet with 80% of the calories from carbohydrates, 10% from protein and 10% from fat, so clearly a high-carb diet. But they weren't giving them Snickers bars and jellybeans they were giving people fruits and vegetables and brown rice and potatoes and whole, natural, high-fiber plant foods. Their diabetes reduced dramatically in their 26-day program. Most of the people got off of their insulin. Most of the people got off of their medications. Their blood sugar level went from an average of 195 to 145, a number of improvements. Dr. John MacDougal and other people have done similar studies that find the same thing. So even on a higher carbohydrate diet than they were eating before their blood sugar actually went down because they got rid of the fat, they made the cell membranes work right and insulin could get the glucose from the blood stream into the cells. So that's really good news.

So when people eat a lot of fruits and vegetables they don't have to worry about their
carbohydrates because their cell membranes are working properly and their blood sugar stays under control like it should. So hopefully that helps clear up that one big misconception because I've heard a lot of people say, "Well I can't eat fruit because my blood sugar's going to go crazy." It doesn't work that way because fruit doesn't have the unhealthy fat that causes insulin resistance.

Insulin Support
Chromium
Alpha Lipoic Acid

by: Kerri Knox

(NaturalNews) Carpal Tunnel Syndrome affects millions of people every year. With increasing use of computers, more and more people each year seek medical attention for the wrist pain, numbness and tingling that characterize Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. While surgery is often done for cases that don't respond to physical therapy, it's unknown how many people could avoid unnecessary surgery every year if only their THYROID problems were addressed first.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is usually defined as an 'impingement' of the median nerve that runs down the wrist. According to doctors, strain and repetitive motion causes inflammation of the connective tissue that surrounds this nerve running through your wrist into your hand; surgery is often indicated as a treatment to 'release' the impingement on this nerve. But Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is simply a collection of symptoms and not a disease itself. As with many 'Syndromes', there can be different causes for similar symptoms and 'nerve impingement' is not the only cause of these symptoms.

As unlikely as it may sound, the symptom of an under active thyroid gland, termed hypothyroid, can show up as symptoms of 'Carpal Tunnel Syndrome'. This was actually discovered by accident when patients with hypothyroidism suddenly found their carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms disappearing. While it SOUNDS easy to have a doctor simply check a person's thyroid levels before they consider surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome, it's not always that simple.

"Especially in the treatment of entrapment neuropathy
in hypothyroidism, the chance of medical treatment must
be given to patients before considering surgical treatment."

'Hormone replacement therapy in hypothyroidism and nerve conduction study'

Unfortunately, hypothyroid isn't necessarily easy to diagnose. Even though the blood tests are readily available, doctors generally only look at ONE of the many different thyroid tests that are available. If this Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) is normal, then the doctor will determine that hypothyroidism is not present and will not check the many other thyroid hormones and antibodies that can be tested. But in the case of some study participants who had carpal tunnel syndrome, the majority who benefited from hypothyroid treatment actually had completely normal TSH levels. But these lucky carpal tunnel sufferers had ALL their levels analyzed and were diagnosed with 'Subclinical Hypothyroid', qualified for the more conservative medical treatment that eliminated their 'Carpal Tunnel Syndrome' and avoided unnecessary surgery.

Not only does Underactive thyroid cause Carpal Tunnel Symptoms, but Overactive thyroid can cause these Same symptoms. And just like with hypothyroid, treatment for hyperthyroid also prevented what would have been surgical cases. In the article 'Carpal tunnel syndrome and hyperthyroidism: A prospective study' the authors state, "CTS can be considered another peripheral neurological manifestation associated with hyperthyroidism." Yet instead of routinely screening patients for subtle health problems before surgery, doctors rarely check for these problems. In fact, one study that reviewed all of the literature available on metabolic causes of carpal tunnel syndrome concluded that "there is insufficient evidence for routine laboratory screening" in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome.

Certainly, for those who end up having an unnecessary and unsuccessful surgery, there is not 'insufficient evidence'. But until routine screenings with the simple and readily available blood tests are being done, it will be impossible to know how many people receive unnecessary carpal tunnel surgery every year. Given that there are always a percentage of people who don't improve with carpal tunnel surgery, it's evident that some of these surgical 'Non Responders' might have benefited far more from having some simple and inexpensive screening procedures for thyroid problems before having surgery.

Iodine

by: Lorraine Heller

A US District Court has ruled against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and in favor of a supplements firm, in a landmark case that found FTC’s criticism of the company’s advertising was simply a “difference of opinion”.

FTC had filed a motion against New Jersey-based LaneLabs in 2007, alleging that it was making unsubstantiated claims for its calcium and male fertility supplement products.

The agency, which works together with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to monitor product advertising, had claimed that LaneLabs violated an earlier consent decree by making unsubstantiated claims for AdvaCal and Fertil Male. FTC recommended a fine of $24m.

However, Judge Dennis Cavanaugh of the US District Court of New Jersey last week denied the motion, on the grounds that LaneLabs had “clearly offered support and substantiation for the claims regarding their products”.

“This is not a case of a company making claims out of thin air,” stated the opinion.

The court highlighted the fact that LaneLabs had hired a compliance officer and had also sought expert advice to interpret the scientific evidence it used to back its claims.

“LaneLabs found a product and obtained scientific evidence that the product is efficacious. LaneLabs then consulted experts who opined that the research supporting the product and the product itself were good,” it said.

Jack Wenik, the Sills Cummis & Gross attorney representing LaneLabs, called the ruling a “total victory.”

Product claims

AdvaCal, which has been marketed since 2000, is derived from oyster shells, which are ‘super-heated’ to produce calcium hydroxide and calcium oxide. This is then combined with a heated algae ingredient to enhance the absorbability of the calcium.

Claims that FTC took issue with included statements that AdvaCal can “build bone density”, that it is the “only” calcium that can increase mineral bone density, and that it is “clinically shown to be three times more absorbable that other calciums”.

Fertil Male is derived from the Peruvian plant root Lepidium meyenii, also known as LMG or maca. The product has been marketed as a “natural supplement for male fertility:” since 2003, and claims it is “clinically shown to promote sperm count and motility”.

In its complaint, FTC stated that these claims were “unsubstantiated”, and that the results of scientific trials had been “misrepresented”.

“The Defendants’ unsubstantiated claims constitute contempt and have resulted in injury to consumers,” stated the FTC complaint.

Expert witnesses

During the hearing for the case, held in April this year, FTC and LaneLabs had each presented two expert witnesses, who were physicians, researchers or professors of medicine.

They were all found by the court to be “credible and knowledgeable in their respective fields of expertise”.

“In considering the testimony offered by all of the experts the difference between FTC’s experts and the Defendants’ experts came down to a difference of opinion – not necessarily matters of right and wrong,” said the court.

‘All reasonable steps’ taken

Significantly, neither of FTC’s experts said the products in question were not effective or constituted a health risk to the public. In addition, the court said FTC had provided no evidence that consumers had complained or were harmed by the use of the supplements.

The court added that LaneLabs undertook “significant efforts” and “all reasonable steps” to be compliant with the Consent Orders.

“In this Court’s opinion, to tell Defendants that their efforts were not good enough years after not advising them of any compliance issues is disingenuous and is highly relevant to the inquiry into whether Defendants should have done something different in the first instance,” it sated.

FTC’s discretion limits

According to Jonathan W Emord of Virginia-based law firm, Emord & Associates, the case is a “rare and signal victory”.

“This case recognizes largely for the first time that FTC’s discretion has limits and may not overcome good faith, science-backed efforts at compliance simply based on the whim or caprice of the agency’s enforcers,” he said.

by: Thomas Corriher

The article that this summary describes and points to details an actual case of alternative (traditional) medicine verses "conventional" (allopathic/experimental) medicine. It details an actual case in which we tried to save someone from the system, so it should be a fascinating read for many people. However, due to its degree of length and elaborate detail, it has been placed outside our main articles index.

"Department of Homeland Security officials are declaring that any disease outbreak is a matter of homeland security. Department of Defense officials are defining public demonstrations as ‘low level terrorism.’ In some states, like Massachusetts, public health doctors have persuaded legislators to quickly pass pandemic influenza legislation that will allow state officials to enter homes and businesses without the approval of occupants; to investigate and quarantine individuals without their consent; to require licensed health care providers to give citizens vaccines and to ban the free assembly of citizens in the state."

— Barbara Loe Fisher, President of the National Vaccine Information Center, 6/18/09

Western 'civilized' countries now have laws for just about every action imaginable. You cannot construct property, protest against it, engage in controversial speech, purchase fireworks, start a business, and even smoke in some areas without first considering the legalities. When we consider such laws, we must also consider which people would have supported them. If there were a true democracy, and each person was to vote on each issue, how many of those laws would have been passed? Without doubt, they were all passed under the guise of protecting people. Perhaps the real question is: If people are so incapable of protecting themselves, then how can we expect a small group of elitist men in government to protect everyone?

by: Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) You can't fix one broken system by replacing it with another broken system. Sure, the current health care system of "that's a pre-existing condition" insurance companies, employer-funded health insurance and miserable Medicaid is a public health disaster, but if we're going to fix the system, we have to come up with something that actually addresses the root cause of disease in America.

he current health care reform debate in Washington is really just a distraction — a ploy to keep everyone focused on all the wrong topics while quietly refusing to talk about the big issues that threaten the health of an entire nation.

Here are the top 10 things missing from Obama's health care reform plan (and often absent from the debate):

#1) Ending the FDA's suppression of natural cures and safe, effective nutritional supplements.

#2) Initiating a real investment in public education to teach people about how to prevent disease with nutrition.

#3) Ending Big Pharma's monopoly on drug prices and drug patents (not to mention patents on human genes and animals).

#4) Restoring the ability for local doctors to practice local medicine without being controlled from bureaucrats in Washington.

#5) Cracking down on junk food advertising, soda advertising and pharmaceutical ads that convince people to purchase products that will only harm them.

#6) Banning dangerous chemical ingredients that cause diseases in the first place (aspartame, MSG, sodium nitrite, etc.)

#7) A real effort to improve school lunches and serve food that's nutritious instead of food that's cheap and convenient.

#8) Ending bizarre food subsidies on crops like corn that end up making high-fructose corn syrup the cheapest sweetener for manufacturers to use.

#9) Affirming health freedom for parents who wish to opt out of the current system of forced vaccinations and gunpoint-enforced chemotherapy.

#10) Requiring honest food labeling where irradiated and GMO foods are clearly labeled as such.

In fact, the current health care reform debate is missing a long list of items that are essential to a genuine improvement in the health outcome of the American people.

With the help of several health freedom pioneers (and attorneys), I put together the Health Revolution Petition (http://www.HealthRevolutionPetition.org) which offers an affordable, freedom-oriented approach to real health care reform.

Here's the full text of the petition:

We, the People of these United States of America, hereby call for revolutionary changes in our health care system that encourage health and prosperity instead of disease and corporate profit.

Specifically, we call for:

1. Federal government encouragement and reward for the People taking personal responsibility for their own health

– A full federal income tax deduction, with no minimum, for the purchase of any product, service, or device that is intended for use in the improvement of health. This includes, but is not limited to, dietary and herbal supplements, gym memberships, health coaching services, exercise equipment, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) therapies or any other health-enhancing products and services.

– The immediate creation of an investigatory panel, comprised of leaders from both conventional and naturopathic backgrounds, that would investigate the "Citizens In Charge" debit card health care system described at www.HealthRevolutionPetition.org/Ci…

* The "Citizens In Charge" health care system is a "socialized-free-market" system of health care that eliminates all health insurance and puts health care decisions back into the hands of the People, allowing them to spend their government-provided health care funds on any health-related products or services they choose (conventional, alternative, licensed or unlicensed).

* The investigatory panel shall report on the economic viability (and potential savings) of the program, as well as the likely improvements in health care outcomes. This report shall be made publicly available on the internet for all citizens to read and discuss.

2. Restore Health Freedom to All Americans and Legalize Healing

– Allow all practitioners of the healing arts, licensed or otherwise, the freedom to practice healing arts with the consent of patients. End all government persecution of alternative and complementary care practitioners and clinics.

– End FDA oppression of free speech about health products and therapies.

– Protect access to dietary supplements, colloidal silver, medicinal herbs and anti-cancer products.

– End FTC and FDA assaults on the Free Speech rights of natural health companies who accurately describe the health benefits of their products.

– Affirm the rights of American moms and dads to choose to avoid mandatory vaccinations of their children.

– End federal assaults (DEA) on the possession or sale of medicinal plants that have been medically recognized and legalized by States such as California.

– Legalize Healing: End state monopoly medical licensing laws that grant conventional medical authorities absolute power to decide who can or cannot practice medicine.

3. End FDA Tyranny, Censorship and Corruption

– End the FDA's definition of a "drug" and strip it of authority to censor truthful health claims about dietary supplements.

– End revolving door employment between the FDA and Big Pharma; fire current FDA employees and advisors with past financial ties to Big Pharma.

– Require full disclosures of financial conflicts of interest of FDA managers, scientists and decision panel members.

– End the FDA's Big Pharma-initiated attack on compounding pharmacies and bioidentical hormone therapy.

– Investigate the FDA's collusion with pharmaceutical companies in hiding clinical trial data from the American public.

4. Protect the Food Supply

– Ban GMOs in the U.S. food supply.

– Ban harmful food additives: MSG, aspartame and sodium nitrite.

– Require honest labeling of irradiated foods.

– Require country-of-origin labeling for all foods sold in the U.S.

– Ban the importation of foods using pesticides outlawed in the U.S.

– Save California's almond growers and end the fumigation of raw almonds.

– Require honest investigation into mad cow disease and the questionable practices of factory animal farms.

– Only permit "harmonization" of our healthcare and food laws with other nations if all the freedoms and rights mentioned in this petition are respected and guaranteed both domestically and in the harmonizing nation.

5. Restore Honest Science to Medicine

– Require the open, timely publication of all medical studies.

– Require open disclosure of all ties between study authors, researchers and for-profit entities.

– Require clinical trial results to report ABSOLUTE numbers, not just relative numbers.

– Require long-term testing of drugs (at least 12 months) before approval in order to determine real-world side effects.

– Require safety testing of multiple drug combinations that are commonly prescribed to real patients.

– End disease mongering and the psychiatric medication of infants and toddlers. Outlaw the drugging of young children with mind-altering chemicals such as ADHD drugs.

6. End Era of Big Pharma Domination Over Health Care

– End all drug-company-funded "benefits" to doctors, including vacation-style CME events, speaking fees, consulting fees and author fees.

– Investigate and prosecute drug company executives for intentionally hiding negative drug trial data and misleading the public about the safety of their products.

– Get Big Pharma out of medical schools.

– Guarantee the right of consumers to sue drug companies and medical device manufacturers for damages caused by unsafe products.

– Restore power to the FTC to regulate commercial drug advertising practices.

– Modify the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to double product liability and personal injury awards involving any pharmaceuticals that are advertised in a Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) manner.

– Enact legislation that would impose substantial criminal penalties for executives of drug companies that advertise drugs for which serious adverse events were known by the company at the time the drug was submitted to the FDA for approval.

– Regulate direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription medications by removing its jurisdiction from the FDA and shifting it to the FTC, which is normally the agency that exercises jurisdiction over commercial advertising. Additionally:

* Require such ads to prominently and conspicuously display, for a period of no less than five seconds, a toll-free phone number that drug consumers may use to report drug side effects.

* Disallow the practice of using celebrity spokespersons for the promotion of any drug.

* Disallow ads that exaggerate claims of drug benefits or that do not accurately reflect the scientific findings of clinical trials.

* Require all statistical claims of drug benefits to be stated in absolute numbers, not relative numbers.

* Require drug side effects reports gathered through the toll-free phone number to be reported on a timely basis to the FDA.

* Require the FTC to disallow pharmaceutical "lifestyle advertising" that suggests taking a drug will dramatically transform the lifestyle of the patient. Lifestyle advertising sends a dangerous message that the "before" person (depressed, miserable, unhealthy-looking) will be magically changed into the "after" person (healthy, vibrant, happy, energetic and sexy) by taking the drug.

7. Protect Children From Products That Compromise Their Health

– Restrict commercial advertising of junk foods, sodas and caffeine energy drinks to programming hours not commonly viewed by children.

– Eliminate junk food and soda vending machines from all schools and public buildings.

– Get processed foods out of the school lunch program and encourage the use of fresh, unprocessed foods.

– End mandatory vaccination requirements (as per section 2, above), restoring this decision to parents.

8. Ban Man-Made, Non-Natural Cancer-Causing Chemicals in Cosmetics and Personal Care Products

– Ban man-made, non-natural chemicals in cosmetics that have not been proven safe.

– Require government-funded testing of commonly used man-made, non-natural chemicals to determine their safety.

– Require honest labeling of cosmetics and personal care products with appropriate cancer warnings.

– Recognize that the skin absorbs chemicals, and chemicals used on the skin can enter the bloodstream.

9. Invest in Disease Prevention

– Encourage and permit tax deductions for routine testing of vitamin D as part of routine patient exams.

– Encourage vitamin D supplementation and sensible sunlight exposure to correct deficiencies.

– Teach the population about nutrition, vitamin D, medicinal foods and disease prevention by using Public Service Announcements.

10. Protect the Environment from Drug and Chemical Companies

– Require the EPA to investigate the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals in the water supply.

– End the chemical fluoridation of public water supplies.

– Require hospitals, pharmacies and nursing homes to dispose of expired pharmaceuticals in an environmentally-conscious away that avoids more drugs being flushed down the drain and passing intact through waste water treatment facilities and then into our bodies when we consume tap water.

(Note: The actual wording of this petition may change slightly over time for purposes of clarity and completeness. Any changes will be minor and shall honor the spirit and substance of the petition text you are reading now.)

by: David Gutierrez

(NaturalNews) People who drink more than two quarts of cola per day may induce severe and possibly fatal potassium deficiency, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Ioannina, Greece, and published in the International Journal of Clinical Practice.

"We are consuming more soft drinks than ever before, and a number of health issues have already been identified including tooth problems, bone demineralization and the development of metabolic syndrome and diabetes," researcher Moses Elisaf said. "Evidence is increasing to suggest that excessive cola consumption can also lead to hypokalemia, in which the blood potassium levels fall, causing an adverse effect on vital muscle functions."

Researchers reviewed the cases of several patients who had consumed between two and 10 quarts of cola per day, including two pregnant women. One of these, a 21-year-old who drank as much as three quarts per day, was admitted to the hospital for persistent vomiting, fatigue and appetite loss. The other was admitted after drinking seven quarts per day for 10 months and suffering from progressive weakening of her muscles.

Both women recovered after they stopped drinking cola and were treated with intravenous or oral potassium.

Potassium plays a critical role in the functioning of the body's nerves, muscles and heart. Critical deficiency like that experienced by the patients in the University of Ioannina study can lead to cramping, paralysis, irregular heartbeat and even death. In one of the cases studied, a man suffered lung paralysis after drinking 10 quarts per day.

The researchers believe that both caffeine and sugar contributed to the observed potassium deficiency.

In an accompanying editorial, Clifford D. Packer at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center in Cleveland warned, "There is very little doubt that tens of millions of people in industrialized countries drink at least 2-3 [quarts] of cola per day. The soft drink industry needs to promote safe and moderate use of its products for all age groups, reduce serving sizes, and pay heed to the rising call for healthier drinks."

Shark Cartilage
Coral Calcium