I didn't want to believe it

Cannabis as a broad-spectrum source of health?

School lunches

I was reading the latest This is True and ran across a most amazing story about a woman who works in a public school and decided to eat the same lunch that the kids are served every day. She blogged about it for the full year.

Her entire view of food was transformed during that year.

I just looked at the so-called "food" the children are being served and was appalled.

Check out the article by Rebecca Dube about the Fed Up With School Lunch blog: Year of mystery meat.

[O]n the first day of school last January, [Mrs. Q, an employee in a Chicago area school] made her way to the cafeteria with the kids. Since that day, her commitment to eat lunch there every day has been tested by the prepackaged peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich that literally made her sick; by the monotony of processed, spongy meat patties; and by fears of being found out and losing her job. . . .

Day after day, patty after patty, she ate and she blogged, and began to find her voice: Her initial just-the-facts descriptions of gross meals evolved into funny stories about the kids at school and personal musings about food. She learned to drink the juice from the bottom of her fruit cup, just as the kids did. . . .

Mrs. Q almost didn’t do the lunch blog because of concerns it would take too much time away from her son, now 2, who suffered from chronic ear infections and colds when she started the project. But, ironically, he’s been the one to benefit most. As she wrote and thought more about food, and communicated with commenters on her blog, she realized her son’s health problems might be related to what he was eating. She cut out gluten and dairy from his diet, and his health improved dramatically.

“I wouldn’t have made those connections if I had not done this blog. I’ve seen a complete change in my son,” she said.

She and her husband are eating differently, too: “I would never have thought of feeding my family quinoa. It sounded too hippie. Now I like it.”

There's more in the story. And a whole lot more in the blog itself . . . which is continuing today with stories and photos of Mrs. Q's new and nutritious gluten- and dairy-free lunches.

Health insurance? Or disease and accident insurance?

A couple of months ago, Dr. Jonathan V. Wright featured a couple of articles in his newsletter that spoke to some of the issues that I've been slowly discovering through experience and sorting through in my mind.

In his lead article, Wright suggests we need to take a different approach to health insurance.

[W]hat's generally called "health insurance" really isn't about being healthy at all. It's about being able to pay for doctors, hospitals, and patent medicines--all of which are very expensive--just in case we get sick, or are in an accident. A more accurate term for this kind of insurance is "disease and accident insurance."

Real health insurance helps insure that we stay healthy! Real health insurance isn't cheap, but it's a lot less expensive than "disease and accident insurance." Real health insurance includes an excellent diet, appropriate exercise, a positive mental attitude, getting enough sleep, and avoidance of toxins, including tobacco and other addictive substances, and no more than a little alcohol.

But the most commonly consumed toxins--herbicides, pesticides, other agricultural and food chemicals, as well as artificial flavorings and preservatives--are somehow regarded as too costly to avoid.

Wright continues with a powerful argument for (doing what Sarita and I have begun to do in the last several months) avoiding conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables and eating organic instead. (See The Organic Center's report about the Nutritional Superiority of Plant-Based Organic Foods (19.5MB PDF) or, at least, the Executive Summary (1.8MB PDF).)

Are organics expensive? Oh, yes! But are they as expensive as the kinds of issues that the SAD (Standard American Diet) is creating in so many of us, the problems associated with obesity and inflammation and heart disease and diabetes? I don't think so.

On the other hand, as numerous people have pointed out, the federal government of these United States subsidizes the lousy foods (with our tax money) and then makes us pay full boat for the good stuff. (More about that subject in a later post.)

Wright concludes his article with the words,

While it's very important for optimal health to avoid as many herbicides, pesticides, and other agricultural chemicals, it's also now well established that organically grown foods have not only higher levels of many important nutrients, but a wider, more diverse set of nutrients than conventionally grown foods.

Now that's really "health insurance"! Why not buy it for your family?

A couple of pages later, Wright then quotes a letter he received from a doctor (MD) who has been moving more and more toward a "natural" or "naturopathic" approach to medicine.

He wrote to Wright with the following story about "what I see in practice much too often."

I thought, "Good grief! This is my experience!"

"Dear Dr. Wright," he began,

Sometimes it is a curse to have generous health insurance.

Last week, I saw a 55-year-old woman who is very, very sick due to insurance-covered treatment with patent medicines.

Ten years ago she had her gallbladder removed. She never was told about needing to take bile salts with oily meals from then on so she'd absorb lipid-soluble vitamins and other nutrients. [I have to ask my daughter, who just had her gallbladder removed, whether she has been told any such thing. --JAH]

Eight years ago she was said to have "gastro-esophageal reflux disease" (GERD) and has taken a proton pump inhibitor ever since to suppress her stomach acid. Nobody ever told her that stomach acid helps break minerals from their matrix (for absorption), helps break down proteins into amino acids, and keeps the stomach free of intestinal bacteria. [Yeah. No one mentioned that when my doctor casually prescribed Famotidine for my gastric reflux. Oh, yes! It gave me almost immediate relief from a number of problems for which I had not realized I could enjoy relief. Wonderful! . . . Until I started reading about the downsides of this approach to acid reflux. --JAH]

Seven years ago she was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes mellitus (AODM), hypertension, and hyperlipidemia and was put onto an insulin pump (her condition was too brittle for anything else), a statin to lower cholesterol, and strong anti-hypertensive drugs. She started to get muscle aches, cramps, and very poor endurance. Nobody told her that statins interfere with the body's ability to make Co-Enzyme Q₁₀, nor did they put her on a healthy daily dose of Co-Enzyme Q₁₀. [Gee! Is this surprising? I had the same experience. "You've got elevated cholesterol. Let's put you on a statin." --Now that particular doctor also put me on CoQ₁₀, but he never explained that the two were related, nor that it might be possible to lower overall cholesterol and rebalance it through non-pharmaceutical means. --JAH]

Five years ago she started to get peripheral neuropathy (pain with numbness) and skin lesions, which she was told were of unknown cause. ("You have dry skin. Here, rub on this emollient cream.") More drugs for neuropathic pain.

Three years ago she was diagnosed with monoclonal gammopathy of unknown significance ("MGUS"; overproduction of gamma-globulin from a single line of blood cells). Old Human tactic: if you don't know what it is, put a name on it to make it less scary.

Two years ago she was diagnosed with severe anxiety, so she was given Xanax and other psychotropics. . . .

Naturally, with all of this, her liver enzymes are up, and so is her creatinine (indicating early kidney failure)!

She is postmenopausal, but never has been tested, never been put on bio-identical hormone replacement. She can't sleep, of course, so there goes another patent medicine into the mix. . . .

Incredibly, the list of ailments and failed (and failing) pharmaceutical "fixes" continues!

Wright says this is a good description of "what 'great insurance coverage' can do to good health. It's a tragic description of how 'health insurance' can do exactly the opposite, actually insuring a more rapid progression of illness, as well as allowing disease to proceed because patent medicines never, ever address causes, but just cover up symptoms for a variable period of time."

How do you get off the conveyor belt of declining health? Wright suggests eating healthy foods and pursuing naturopathically oriented doctors like those you'll find through the American College for Advancement in Medicine, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, or the International College of Integrative Medicine. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to read a well-researched and heavily referenced newsletter like the one Wright publishes.

"Weird" Science #1 - Properly mineralized agriculture better than modern medicine?

One of my new favorite magazines, Acres USA, included a striking opinion piece this month.
"Newspapers, magazines and electronic media outlets all over the world recently announced a breakthrough vaccine that will hopefully protect women against breast cancer," the author began.

He then referenced a report from CBS News (5/31/2010):

In the current study, genetically cancer-prone mice were vaccinated -- half with a vaccine containing the antigen and half with a vaccine that did not contain the antigen. None of the mice vaccinated with the antigen developed breast cancer, while all the other mice did.

Dr. Vincent Tuohy, Ph.D., the principal investigator on the project, said, "We believe this vaccine will someday be used to prevent breast cancer in adult women in the same way that vaccines prevent polio and measles in children. If it works in humans the way it works in mice, this will be monumental."

All well and good. Indeed, exciting.

But, asked the author of the Acres USA article, if this research is worthy of excitement, why have so few people heard of research conducted close to 60 years ago that produced similar results based solely on diet changes?

Specifically, why have so few of us ever heard of the pioneering work of Dr. Maynard Murray, M.D., who conducted multiple experiments from 1938 through the 1950s that showed that animals fed vegetables, fruits and grains that had been fertilized with sea minerals were able to overcome cancers that the same animals fed the very same foods grown in more conventional ways were not?

Murray first became interested in sea minerals when he realized that he had never found a sea creature suffering from cancer, even though cancers are very common in similar species that live in freshwater. "For example, fresh-water trout all develop terminal cancer of the liver at the average age of five and one-half years; cancer has never been found in sea trout. It is also known that all land animals develop arteriosclerosis, yet sea animals have never been diagnosed as arteriosclerotic." (Sea Energy Agriculture, p. 30)

So what kind of experiments did Murray do?

In 1954 he had Ray Heine and Sons Farms of Rutland Township, Illinois, grow oats, corn and soybeans--approximately half of each of these crops the normal way, and the other half exactly the same except for one difference. The experimental crops were grown in soil that received an application of 2,200 pounds of sea solids (sea salts--including whatever trace elements were present in the sea water before evaporation) per acre.

Murray was interested in how the crops grew. (The crops grown with the sea solids did better.) But then, after the crops were harvested, Murray wanted to see if these crops, now used as feed, would offer any differential benefits to the animals that ate them.

Researchers from the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University conducted the experiments.

They mixed up similar blends of the control grains and experimental grains--one part soybeans, two parts oats, and four parts corn--and fed them to different kinds of animals.

For example,

C₃H mice were obtained. . . . This strain of mice has been bred so all females develop breast cancer which causes their demise. The mice were two months of age when received and started on the feeding experiments. The life expectancy of this strain for females is no more than nine months which includes the production of two or three litters. The experimental and control groups both consisted of 200 C₃H mice and those fed on control food were all dead within eight months, seven days. The experimental mice that were fed food grown on the sea-solids-fertilized soil lived until they were sacrificed at 16 months; definitive examination revealed no cancerous tissue. The experimental group produced ten litters compared to the usual two to three litters and none developed breast cancer.

--Ibid., pp. 50-51

Then there were the Sprague Dawley rats: 25 controls and 25 experimentals were all injected with Jensen Carcino-Sarcoma (cancer).

All of the rats fed on the control diet died within 21 days of cancer. Nine of the rats that were fed the experimental diet died of cancer within 40 days; 16 lived five months until they were sacrificed; there were no cancer "takes" in the 16 . . . survivors that were fed experimental food.

--Ibid., p. 51

And the 24 rabbits, 12 experimentals and 12 controls. This time, both groups were fed a high cholesterol diet for six months and then fed their respective soybeans, oats and corn diets.

The control group did develop hardening of the arteries and all had died within ten months. The experimental group did not exhibit hardening of the arteries.

--Ibid., p. 52

Murray was very careful in the way he reported these results:

I want to emphasize that these feeding experiments and the results are only preliminary and it must be kept in mind that the mice, rabbits and rats used in these feeding experiments have a different physiology than human beings. The results are not definite but merely indicate an interesting trend and further research should be done to further document the findings. . . . In no way . . . do I suggest that the same results would occur in a human being due to the preliminary stage of research.

--Ibid., p. 50

Sounds like good science to me! So why don't we hear about it? Has it been disproven? Not that I've seen!

So what has become of Murray's work? What has the medical establishment done with it?

As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing.

Why?

Maybe it has to do with money . . . and the cozy relationship between the major pharmaceutical companies and the FDA. After all, the FDA can't permit people to think of foods as possessing healing qualities!

As reported by Mike Adams in Natural News back in May of this year:

[The FDA] has structured the rules to categorize anything that treats or prevents disease as a drug. So if you eat walnuts, and those walnuts lower high cholesterol (which they do), the FDA declares your walnuts to be "drugs."

Existing law dictates that if anything is advertised as providing health benefits without the FDA's approval, it's automatically considered to be an "unapproved drug", even if it's a common, everyday food like walnuts, cherries, grapes or oranges.

Amazingly, references to peer-reviewed scientific studies are not allowed to be made by companies without permission from the FDA because the agency considers this to be an illegal health claim. So if you sell walnuts, and your website merely links to published scientific studies that describe the cholesterol-lowering benefits of walnuts, then you can be threatened, arrested, imprisoned and fined millions of dollars by the FDA for selling "unapproved drugs."

If you flee the country, you can be then be listed on INTERPOL as an international fugitive wanted for "drug offenses." This is exactly what happened to Greg Caton, who was recently kidnapped from Ecuador by U.S. agents working on behalf of the FDA, brought back to the USA against his will, and sentenced to federal prison where he remains to this day. . . .

If you're skeptical that what I'm saying here is true, take a look at the warning letter the FDA sent to Diamond Food, Inc. back in February concerning the health claims the company had been making about its walnuts.

There's plenty more where that came from!

And it's enough to make me angry.

How is our federal government serving us, helping us, by engaging in this kind of behavior?

And then there was this gem from Dr. Jonathan Wright's Nutrition and Healing newsletter (received 5/8/2009):

For decades, the FDA has been a danger to you and your family's health. Nearly 20 years ago, the government's own General Accounting Office (GAO) wrote: "GAO found that of the 198 drugs approved by FDA between 1976 and 1985...102 (or 51.5%) had serious post-approval risks...the serious postapproval risks...[included] heart failure, myocardial infarction, anaphylaxis, respiratory depression and arrest, seizures, kidney and liver failure, severe blood disorders, birth defects and fetal toxicity, and blindness."

That terrible record continues into the 21st century (Vioxx is just one example that springs immediately to mind).

And to add insult to injury, while it has been busy approving all those potentially lethal patent medicines, the FDA has also been actively fighting against your right to keep yourself healthy with foods and food supplements! Picking on cherries is just one recent example. All the way back in 1949, former FDA commissioner Dr. George Larrick said: "The activities of...so-called health food lecturers have increasingly engaged our attention....[we are fighting] the good fight against dried vegetables, vitamins, and similar products."

Sure is comforting, isn't it?

What happened to the world's fourth-largest freshwater lake?

The demise of the Aral Sea produces massive problems outlined in this education video. Is there hope? Amazingly, yes! --10:29.

Follow-up to DCA post

You may recall my post on a potential semi-universal cure for cancer.

One of my readers contacted a professional cancer researcher, a friend-of-a-friend, who offered the following input:

• A quick literature search indicates that there have been promising in vitro studies (using cells grown on plates) which show cancer cells dying after treatment. However,
   
• In vivo there has only been one animal study using rats to show a decrease in tumor size (one lab did it with Michelakis as first author on the paper).
   
• Keep in mind that nothing is really believable until it can be replicated in other labs.
   
• Many other papers indicate that ingestion of DCA in mice caused liver cancer and another showed damage to peripheral nerves.
   
• Basically, there are no human or even monkey studies to support the claims of DCA being a safe and effective drug for cancer treatment.

The same researcher then forwarded original versions of two articles:

1. A popular article from Nature magazine, written in March 2007 (almost three years ago, and just a month after the DCA story first came out in the scientific press: Cancer patients opt for unapproved drug

and,

2. An academic (but relatively readable) article by Dr. Michelakis, the researcher who first brought DCA to the attention of cancer researchers: Dichloroacetate (DCA) as a potential metabolic-targeting therapy for cancer. (This article was published in September 2008, but was first received for publication in December 2007.)

The first article takes a generally antagonistic stance toward patients who would ingest "unapproved" drugs:

Jim Tassano, who owns a pest-control and marketing company in Sonora, California, came across DCA when researching alternative cancer therapies to help his dying ballroom-dance instructor. He wanted something that was effective, safe and that he could lay his hands on: DCA fit the bill. He ordered some from chemical supply companies, teamed up with a chemist friend and they worked out a way to synthesize the compound themselves. “I couldn’t walk away from it,” Tassano says. “It could do so much good for so many people.”

Tassano set up two websites. The first of these (thedcasite.com) hosts information on DCA and a patient chatroom. On the second (buydca.com) Tassano is selling his homemade DCA. . . . Many patients taking DCA — acquired from Tassano, chemical companies or other sources — are reporting their progress on thedcasite.com.

And the problem with this, according to Dr. Michelakis and others?

Although DCA seems safe overall, they point to a clinical trial that was stopped early because those taking the drug developed damage to their peripheral nerves (P. Kaufmann et al. Neurology 66, 324–330; 2006). Without a control group, they point out, it will be impossible to tell whether any improvement in the patients’ condition is caused by the drug. Patients could also be taking DCA that is not of pharmaceutical grade and might contain harmful impurities.

Michelakis says the patients could end up undermining efforts to do a controlled clinical trial if, for example, some develop harmful side effects and the drug earns a bad reputation. “It’s destroying efforts to do this right,” he says. “Any way you look at this, it’s a negative development.”

"Any way you look at it," it's a negative development? From the perspective of the patients who have, otherwise, been given no hope?

The article's author continues:

The battle between dying patients who want immediate access to unapproved drugs and doctors who urge trials and caution is a perennial one. Some patients argue that they cannot wait for trials and should have the right to take unapproved drugs, regardless of the risks.

But there are arguments against this. An estimated 95% of cancer drugs that enter clinical trials do not get approval, many because they are ineffective or unsafe, so patients risk shortening their life or making their last days more uncomfortable.

Okay. But shouldn't it be up to the patients themselves to determine whether they are willing to take the risks? On what grounds should that decision be left to the government or the "powers that be" who get to "approve" drugs for trial?

Oh. And then there's another argument "against" permitting patients to make their own decisions about whether to use "unapproved" drugs:

[I]f patients can access DCA — or other unapproved drugs — there is no incentive for them to enter a clinical trial. So in terms of public health, ethicists argue, more people will be helped if access to unapproved drugs is restricted and proper trials performed.

So, apparently, selflessness is to be mandated by law. You must, by law, sacrifice yourself for the potential of helping others--"one day, maybe, long after you're dead, if we can just get the funding."

Peter Jacobsen, an expert in ethics, health and law at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, doubts whether any good can come of the patients’ efforts. They are so desperate to see results, he says, that there is no way they can report unbiased results and no mechanism to ensure the reports are accurate. “I don’t trust the data,” he says. “It’s hard enough to rely on them in clinical trials, let alone this.”

Okay. I'll buy that. I'll buy the need for caution and the need for skepticism. But . . .

Then I read Michelakis' article.

Remember that clinical trial that was "stopped early because those taking the drug developed damage to their peripheral nerves"? Michelakis notes,

[T]he first two randomised control trials of chronic oral therapy with DCA in congenital mitochondrial diseases were reported in 2006. In the first, a blinded placebo-controlled study was performed with oral DCA administered at 25 mg kg^-1 day^-1 in 30 patients with MELAS syndrome (mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes) (Kaufmann et al, 2006). Most patients enrolled in the DCA arm developed symptomatic peripheral neuropathy, compared with 4 out of 15 in the placebo arm, leading to the termination of the study.

Whoa! Sounds bad!

But he continues:

Seventeen out of 19 patients had at least partial resolution of peripheral neurological symptoms by 9 months after discontinuation of DCA. . . . No other toxicities were reported.

Beyond this,

It is important to note that peripheral neuropathy often complicates MELAS because of primary or secondary effects on peripheral nerves; for example these patients also have diabetes and diabetes-related peripheral neuropathy.

And then,

In contrast [to the negative results of this one study that was terminated], another randomised placebo-controlled double-blinded study failed to show any significant toxicity of DCA, including peripheral neuropathy. In this study only one of 21 children with congenital lactic acidosis treated with DCA orally at 25 mg kg^-1 day^-1 for 6 months demonstrated mild peripheral neuropathy. Serial nerve conduction studies failed to demonstrate any difference in incidence of neuropathy in the 2 arms (placebo vs DCA). Sleepiness and lethargy, muscular rigidity of the upper extremity and hand tremor were reported in one patient in each group (Stacpoole et al, 2006).

So what is Michelakis' view of the divergent results with respect to neuropathy?

The higher incidence of peripheral neuropathy in adult MELAS patients may represent an intrinsic predisposition to this complication in MELAS or its associated conditions, that is, diabetes mellitus; this toxicity might also be age-dependent. . . . [Moreover, a]s peripheral neuropathy is a frequent complication of taxane, platinum and vinca-alkaloid chemotherapies, the risk for DCA-associated peripheral neuropathy may depend on whether cancer patients have prior or concurrent neurotoxic therapy. . . . [But i]n summary, peripheral neuropathy is a potential side effect of DCA that appears to be largely reversible.

I want to quote one more section from Michelakis' article. Before I do, however, I would like to add some weight to what he said in the section I have just quoted. One of the moderators on thedcasite.com, Jay C, comments,

Researchers at the University of Alberta have reported that DCA is relatively non-toxic, since it has already been used as a medicine on adults and children to treat metabolic disease, and for hypertension. It has been known to have some mild side effects in a minority of patients and they include a change in gait [and] some nerve problems, but both of these symptoms appear to be reversible upon cessation of DCA. This is certainly in positive contract to most of the poisons being administered today as "chemo", including IL-2 (requires on[e] week in ICU), Interferon, and DTIC.

So why the apparently special concern over possible complications from DCA? Is it really scientific objectivity at work here? Or, possibly, something else? [Fear of losing power on the part of gatekeepers like the FDA? Fear of lost profits on the part of major pharmaceutical companies? "The preclinical work on DCA (showing effectiveness in a variety of tumours and relatively low toxicity) (Bonnet et al, 2007), its structure (a very small molecule), [and] the low price (it is a generic drug) . . ., provide a strong rationale for rapid clinical translation," Michelakis says early in his article. Oh. I should probably include the last comment that I elided from the immediately preceding quote. One other factor that ought to provide a rationale for rapid clinical translatioin? " . . . and the fact that DCA has already been used in humans for more than 30 years" (presumably without notable safety concerns).]
The concluding paragraph in Michelakis' article adds another note of interest to this reader:

[E]ven if DCA does not prove to be the ‘dawn of a new era’ (Pan and Mak, 2007), initiation and completion of clinical trials with a generic compound will be a task of tremendous symbolic and practical significance. At this point the ‘dogma’ that trials of systemic anticancer therapy cannot happen without industry support, suppresses the potential of many promising drugs that might not be financially attractive for pharmaceutical manufacturers. In that sense, the clinical evaluation of DCA . . . will be . . . [a] paradigm shift.

While I'm at it, I ought to include one last note. A "Note to Proof" appended by the editors of the British Journal of Cancer at the end of Michelakis' article:

Since the acceptance of this review two important papers have confirmed the novel anticancer effects of DCA in prostate and endometrial cancers: Wong JY et al, Dichloroacetate induces apoptosis in endometrial cancer cells. Gynecol Oncol June 2008; 109(3): 394–402 and Gao et al, Dichloroacetate (DCA) sensitizes both wild-type and over expressing Bcl-2 prostate cancer cells in vitro to radiation. Prostate 1 August 2008; 68 (11):1223–1231.

[NOTE: If you are reading this article on Facebook, it originally appeared on my personal blog.]

Thyroid difficulties . . . and the US government

I had my thyroid destroyed back in 1984 as a result of a hyper-hyper case of Grave's Disease. --The lab that did the tests said they had never seen thyroxine levels as high as mine; they were "off the charts."

So my doctor gave me the radioactive isotope Iodine-131 to destroy my thyroid gland . . . and a few months later I had none.

I have been taking thyroxine tablets ever since. For some time, now, I've been taking the "natural" stuff sold under the Armour^® brand name by a company named Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals (what, in just the last few days, I found out are desiccated and pulverized pig thyroid glands formed into pills). Most of the time, however, I've been taking synthesized thyroxine sold as generic levothryroxine or a branded product like Synthroid^®.

What's the difference between the two? I mean, physiologically . . . for the person like me who is ingesting the stuff?

I will confess that, for me, I haven't really been able to tell the difference. But then, I haven't been all that attentive to my physical condition until the last couple of years.

For many people, however, the difference between the two concoctions is dramatic, though the majority of doctors seem to believe the difference is all in hypothyroid sufferers' heads.

Happily, only one of my doctors has actively opposed my use of the Armour^® tablets. But despite his opposition, I've been able to use the Armour^® product for the past seven years or so.

This last year, however, I started bumping into supply difficulties. Back in January I was told the pharmacy didn't have 120 mg tablets (the daily dose I needed at the time). . . . Happily, they "simply" gave me the equivalent in the form of two 60 mg tablets per day. No big deal.

Last time I refilled prior to when I began writing this post in mid-October, I still had almost a month's worth of pills left. But for various reasons, at that time I got a three-month supply of 60 mg tablets from our insurer's mail order pharmacy. . . . Then, only a few days after I got my three-month supply, I was told I should reduce my dose to only 90 mg--1½ tablets--a day. So in mid-October, I was just coming to the end of my supply.

Meanwhile, in mid-October I had another blood test to see how my thyroxine levels were.

My doctor wanted to run with the "standard" TSH-only (thyroid stimulating hormone-only) test. I said I believed we really needed the T4 and T3 levels measured as well. (Since then I have found some interesting data on the need for all three tests.)

TSH measures what your body "thinks" it needs in the way of thyroxine. T4 and T3 measure actual thyroxine levels in the blood--and, based on tests I've been having done throughout this past year on the direction of my longevity and vitality doctor, I know that one or more of these numbers can be "out" of range while TSH is "in" range.

My doctor relented.

The tests came back: TSH and T4 levels both indicated a significant deficiency, but T3 was slightly out-of-range on the high end.

"How about bumping your dose back up?" my doctor asked.

"Sounds reasonable," I said. (I had gotten the sense, somehow, that my body was slowing down a bit.)

But what should we make of the T3? Why is that so high?

Is it that kind of anomalous/strange number that got Armour's thyroxine in trouble, here, in the last year [so that it is unavailable for purchase]?

I still have a few weeks' worth of Armour left if I take it at 120 mg/day.

Meanwhile, I asked, "Is there any 'natural' thyroxine that can/will replace Armour while they are out of production?"

I thanked him for any help he could provide.

He replied:

1. I've been in touch with my pharmacologist. She states that since Armour is an animal product, the amount of T3 and T4 will vary from batch to batch which might explain the high T3 and low T4. Synthetic products like synthroid are more consistently dosed.

2. I don't think Kaiser has any of the other brands of the natural thyroid of any kind so we might have to get you to get it elsewhere during the shortage.

Somehow, I had this feeling the pharmacologist was misinformed. I can't imagine Armour/Forest Pharmaceuticals has been able to get away with inconsistent product quality for all these years.

So I did a little research. And then some more. And then a lot more.

I'm astonished at what I have found.

• First--not terribly astonishing, but worth noting: The pharmacist really was "blowing smoke" about the supposed quality or lack thereof in the Armour thyroid. Armour Natural Thyroid is carefully controlled for potency and purity:
  

  The amount of thyroid hormone present in the thyroid gland may vary from animal to animal. To ensure that Armour Thyroid tablets are consistently potent from tablet to tablet and lot to lot, analytical tests are performed on the thyroid powder (raw material) and on the actual tablets (finished product) to measure actual T4 and T3 activity.
  
  Different lots of thyroid powder are mixed together and analyzed to achieve the desired ratio of T4 to T3 in each lot of tablets. This method ensures that each strength of Armour Thyroid will be consistent with the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) official standards and specifications for desiccated thyroid lot-to-lot consistency. The ratio of T4 to T3 equals 4.22:1 (4.22 parts of T4 to one part of T3).

  Beyond that, however, the synthetic hormone manufacturers have faced numerous and "significant stability and potency problems" themselves with their products. It's not as if they are above reproach.
• Despite the statements about quality control by the manufacturer of the Armour brand thyroid, you can still read claims such as this:
  

  Armour Thyroid was the only treatment for hypothyroidism for about 50 years, but it was found that the amounts of T3 and T4 varied greatly from batch to batch. Eventually, synthetic T4 (Synthroid) was being produced and widely used because it did not have similar problems of standardization in common with the naturally derived Armour Thyroid.

  You can also find even stranger and more inaccurate information from the American Thyroid Association.
  
  But, as Mary Shomom notes in the About.com Guide to Thyroid Disease, there may be good reasons for this kind of disinformation even "from the top." Just follow the money--from Abbott Laboratories, maker of Synthroid, to the American Thyroid Association, for example. [Look toward the bottom of this article for the evidence.] --Or how about the payments from all the synthetic hormone manufacturers to the FDA in order to get their products approved in the early 2000s after the FDA threatened them with being pulled off the market due to those "significant stability and potency problems" I mentioned above?
   
• Armour REFORMULATED its thyroid product in the spring of 2009--changing its binders and excipients . . . and causing a bunch of problems for many patients.
   
• Whether Armour thyroid is efficacious or not, it turns out there really is no source of natural thyroid in the United States as of this moment. And, it appears, the FDA may have actually outlawed--or may be in the process of outlawing--the manufacture of this product in the United States, a product that has been on the market and helping people like me for more than 100 years.
  
  The more I have read, the more disturbed I have become at this turn of events.
   
• Despite the shortage here in the United States,
  

  Canada has a generic natural desiccated thyroid drug, referred to as 'Thyroid,' which is made by ERFA Drugs . . . [and s]ome of the foreign pharmacies that ship to the US may have some remaining stock of Nature-Throid, Westhroid, Armour Thyroid, or foreign brands of natural desiccated thyroid like Thyroid-S.

  It took a while, but eventually I discovered the natural thyroid preparation made by Greater Pharma of Thailand: a product that goes by the brand name Thiroyd and available in wholesale quantities at a wonderful price. I also found a Canadian source with very good prices of the ERFA Thyroid and in a wide variety of specific dosages.
  
  I had my doctor write me a highly "generic" prescription for natural thyroid along the lines of the following advice from the http://is.gd/4hhvT article:
  

  During the shortages, ask your doctor to write your prescription for desiccated thyroid as broadly as possible. For example, a prescription for 'desiccated thyroid, 1 grain' can be filled with Armour, Nature-Throid, Biotech, or a generic. But if they write 'Armour Thyroid, 60 mg' for example, you won't be able to get 'Nature-Throid.'

• I should have learned these things years ago, but I just now discovered: the synthetic thyroxines normally prescribed by the medical profession supply only one form of thyroxine, "T4"--tetra­iodothyronine--commonly formulated as levothy­ro­xine sodium (a synthetic thyroxine molecule that contains four molecules of iodine bonded by sodium). Our bodies, however, use T4, T3 (triio­dothy­ro­nine--i.e., thyroxine with three iodine molecules), T2 (diiodothyronine--thyroxine with two iodines), T1 (monoiodothyronine), and something called cal­ci­to­nin, a hormone that participates in and/or regulates calcium loss from bone, calcium levels in the blood, and, possibly (proven in rats and monkeys; not yet demonstrated in humans), satiety.
  
  Not only do our bodies use all five of these hormones, when they are healthy, our bodies manufacture them. If--as happened to me via Iodine-131 therapy--your thyroid has been knocked completely out of commission, the only way you're going to get the T2, T1 and calcitonin is if you take natural thyroid. Yes, your body can convert some T4 to T3, but, I am given to understand, it cannot further break down the T3 to T2, T1, or calcitonin.
   
• An article published in the February 11, 1999 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (1999;340:424-429, 469-470) reports that treatment with thyroxine [T4--the commonly prescribed synthetic levothyroxine/Synthroid hormone] plus triiodothyronine [T3--rarely prescribed by American doctors, but available under the brand name Cytomel; a synthetic T4/T3 combination product is also available under the brand name Thyrolar] improved the quality of life for most hypothyroid patients. Indeed, "Among 17 scores on tests of cognitive performance and assessments of mood, 6 were better or closer to normal after treatment with thyroxine plus triiodothyronine. Similarly, among 15 . . . scales used to indicate mood and physical status, the results for 10 were significantly better after treatment with thyroxine plus triiodothyronine [i.e., T4 plus T3]."
  
  Of course, that is a dispassionate medical/scientific statement.
  
  A more partisan description comes from the StopTheThyroidMadness.com website:
  

  [I]n nearly ALL patients on T4 meds, the T4 does NOT convert into an adequate amount of T3, leaving you with symptoms that neither you OR your uninformed doctor realize are related to inadequate treatment—poor stamina compared to others, chronic low grade depression, thinning hair or outer eyebrows, feeling cold when others are warm, cholesterol problems, aches and pains, hard or small stools, easy weight gain, memory problems, foggy thinking, a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia, difficulty conceiving . . . the list is long and pathetic. In other words, healthy thyroids are NOT meant to rely solely on T4-to-T3 conversion!

  (I should note, for full disclosure, a report issued by the British Thyroid Association in 2007 says,
  

  Since [the] initial study [reported in the NEJM in 1999], there have been a further seven rigorously conducted (“randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled”) studies, encompassing more than 900 hypothyroid patients (summarised in refs. 3 & 4). None of the subsequent studies showed a beneficial effect of combined T4/T3 therapy on measures of wellbeing, health and mental functioning. Three of the seven studies show harmful or undesirable effects of the T4/T3 combination. . . .
  
  In three of the subsequent studies of combination treatment, the patients were asked which treatment they preferred, and in two of these 3 studies more patients preferred the combination T4/T3 therapy. There is no obvious explanation for these observations, and it may or may not be a reproducible effect.

  [One last note on these statements: I found an article in the journal Thyroid in 2004 that seems to prove at least one of the negative statements, here, wrong. Clearly, at least one subsequent study "showed a beneficial effect of combined T4/T3 therapy on measures of wellbeing, health and mental functioning"!
   
• Despite the fact that the medical profession recently tightened the definition of "normal TSH" to no more than 3.04 mU/l (they used to say "normal" went as high as 5 mU/l), a 1997 article in the British Medical Journal concluded, "Thyroid stimulating hormone concentrations above 2 mU/l are associated with an increased risk of hypothyroidism." --And again the author at StopTheThyroidMadness.com ups the ante:
  

  Around 1973, the TSH lab test was developed. Based on a sampling of several volunteers, a so-called “normal” range was established—.5 to 5.0 (recently lowered to 3.0). But volunteers with a history of family hypothyroid were NOT excluded, leaving us with a range that leans towards being hypothyroid! In fact, the TSH RARELY corresponds to how a patient feels [i.e. to actual hypothyroid symptoms]. There is a large majority of patients who have a “normal” TSH, even in the “one” area of the range, and have a myriad of hypo symptoms. There is a complete chapter on the TSH with more information in the Stop the Thyroid Madness book.

I am deeply tempted to continue, but I need to post this, finally, after sitting on the story for the better part of three months.

Perhaps at a later date I can talk about the FDA's apparent war against non-Big Pharma medicine. (Imagine the position we skeptics will face when the federal government begins to dictate all medical care!)

But this is more than enough for one post.

Well . . . maybe not quite.

One last note. There are reasons to consider avoiding the desiccated thyroid pills and taking synthetic T4 and synthetic T3 pills as an alternative. Two reasons that I've found:

1) The ratio of T4 to T3 in the desiccated thyroid pills does not match the ratio normally found in the human body. Indeed, I am given to understand, the ratio of T3 to T4 is higher than is normal in humans. Desiccated thyroid pills give you an approximate 1:4 ratio (T3:T4) as compared to--I have seen numbers anywhere from 1:7, to 1:14, to 1:20! Whatever the "correct" normal ratio, it is clearly different from the standard ratio found in desiccated thyroid pills.

2) Most of the desiccated thyroid pills are made from pig thyroids. If you are allergic to pig, you may have difficulties finding a "natural" product you can use. I am told a few exist, but they are exceedingly difficult to find. (I have not found any.)

For more on the T4/T3 controversy, check out the About.com T4/T3 Thyroid Drug Controversy page.

[NOTE: If you are reading this article on Facebook, it originally appeared on my personal blog.]

(LDN) Low-Dose Naltrexone and other health-related comments

Following Linda's comment, as I noted, I decided to pursue the low-dose naltrexone (LDN) option.

I wrote my rheumatologist. He turned me down.

Meanwhile, while my "vitality and longevity" doctor was the one who first suggested I may be dealing with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), he repeatedly stated he wants nothing to do with treating my RA. "It's not my area."

As I bore down on a year under his care--a year in which I made significant progress in my blood lipids and other markers of general health (HDL from 44 to 70; LDL from 134 to 64; number of LDL particles ("more important than total quantity of LDL") went from 1942 to below 1000; LDL particle size went from 20.0 ("too small; too compact") to a "bigger, fluffier" 21.6; insulin went from 6.0 and higher down to less than 2.0; total testosterone went from a low of 441 to a healthier 758; total body fat went from 24.9% to 15.8% . . . and so on and so forth)--Sarita and I were not particularly happy that he has been charging us $200 a month basically just to "be there," ready to answer any questions I may have about the issues he does deal with.

I decided to see if I could find a doctor who would deal with all my issues--not only my lipids and testosterone and cancer risks, but my autoimmune problems as well.

And as I looked for a doctor who might prescribe and have experience with LDN, I found such a doctor in our area.

When I visited Dr. C--an MD but/and with a strong naturopathic orientation--I discovered he had been a rheumatologist.

"You're not a rheumatologist anymore?" I asked. "You mean you don't keep up on the field?"

"Right. I wouldn't want to pretend I was still qualified in the area."

Still, he obviously had experience with people just like me. That was a nice "bonus"!

Several things came out of my appointment with Dr. C:

• "LDN is a great therapy, but it won't cure your arthritis."
   
• "Your greatest threat from rheumatoid arthritis is not the pain and the potential damage to your joints--the things that you're worried about. The greatest threat is heart disease. It dramatically increases your risk of heart attack."
   
• "RA is a forest fire. You need to throw everything at it you can."

As a result of that last piece of good news:

• "Though I am no fan of statin drugs, and normally I would try to have one of my patients use another modality to attack the blood lipid issues, in your case, because of your RA, I would strongly advise you to continue on the statins." 
• "I know you are afraid of the plaquenil [hydrochloroquine], and I am not going to demand that you get back on; but I would like to appeal to you, in the strongest terms, that you try it again."

So, with his encouragement . . . I am taking my LDN, back on my statin, and, yes, taking plaquenil/hydrochloroquine . . . with no significant side-effects besides much looser bowels than I have had in the past.

I pray the combination of medicines might actually stop the advance of the RA. It has been very painful recently.

*****
While I'm on the subject, I should encourage you to take a look at a report that just came out from leaders in the field of LDN therapy. It's called The Faces of Low-Dose Naltrexone (PDF; 1.5MB). It was produced for the First International Low Dose Naltrexone Awareness Week coming up October 19-25th, 2009.

Amazing results for people with MS (multiple sclerosis), various forms of cancer, and much else.

--If you're seeing this post on Facebook, it is a reprint from my personal blog.

The land of the unfree . . . especially when it comes to medical care and health

I have been reminded, this last week, several times, of why I'm finding it harder and harder to sing the last lines of "The Star-Spangled Banner":

O, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free . . . and the home of the brave?

Obviously, the banner still waves. The question is, does it still wave over a land of a free and brave people? Or of an enslaved and cowardly people?

I am beginning to think, more and more, we ought, rightly, to view ourselves as enslaved and cowardly.

I'll begin with the most recent issues, then go back to a few that have caught my attention in the semi-recent past.

Most recent: In my ongoing research into options for dealing with my rheumatoid arthritis--and very much thanks to Linda who brought this to my attention, I discovered a promising therapy called Low-Dose Naltrexone. (Besides this particular website, see also here, here, and here.

I wrote to my rheumatologist:

Dr. H:

I don't want to bore you with details of my somewhat successful, but mostly UNsuccessful pursuit of a dietary solution to my RA. If you would like the most recent details, you can find them on my personal blog at http://johnscorner.blogspot.com/2009/08/health-update.html.

Main point: I'm still looking for full relief and am just as motivated as ever to avoid the standard pharmaceutical "solutions." The side effects--and/or POTENTIAL side effects--creep me out.

Anyway. One of the readers of my blog suggested I look into LDN/low-dose naltrexone. I found this page (http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/ and http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/ldn_and_ai.htm) and thought: "This sounds promising."

Your thoughts?

I imagine KP won't cover the drug. But, hey, I'm already looking outside the "system."

What do you think? Foolish? Worth a try?

THANKS.

He replied:

Interesting concept.

Apparently LDN is used in doses approximately 1/10 those used for drug/alcohol rehab purposes.

Looks like some folks are using it on an experimental basis for a whole bunch of "off-label" purposes, including autoimmune diseases.

It would really need more extensive testing before one could advocate its widespread use.

Yeah. But I'm not looking for you to advocate its widespread use. I'm wondering about getting a prescription for me!

I wrote him back:

So . . . would you be willing to prescribe it for me so I could acquire it at the dosage referenced on the referenced website?

Answer:

No. I believe we should stick with conventional RA treatments.

Great!

So I am aware of this promising therapy, but I'm not allowed to get it unless I get a doctor's prescription. I can't just do my own research and come to the conclusion that I'd like to try it. No. I have to have my doctor's permission.

Why? The government protecting me? Hardly! The only drugs my doctor has to offer include lethal and permanent-bodily-injury kinds of side-effects. And I come up with one that has no known significant or long-term side-effects and that appears to hold great promise, and I'm not allowed to try it?

Why can't I "simply" sign some kind of waiver of liability?

Nope.

I have to find a medical doctor who is willing, possibly, to put his or her medical license on the line (in case some overbearing bureaucrat decides he or she has failed to "toe the line" quite tightly enough to satisfy the FDA).

I'm looking.

******
So: Land of the free?

I don't think so!

And then there is the following.

Only hours before I came to the conclusions I have summarized above, I ran into this story by Mike Adams of the Natural News e-letter:

A new law passed by the state Senate in Massachusetts [now awaiting approval in the House] calls for mandatory vaccinations of all citizens and a $1,000 / day fine for those who refuse to cooperate. It also legalizes health care "interrogations" of Massachusetts citizens, forced entry into homes without a warrant, the on-site destruction of buildings or objects suspected of harboring a disease or condition dangerous to the public health, the government kidnapping of family pets, "involuntary transportation" of people into quarantine camps and . . . language that allows Massachusetts police . . . to arrest, detain and interrogate anyone who gets in their way.

Meanwhile, all state law enforcement and medical personnel are granted complete immunity from prosecution for their part in violating your Constitutional rights. So if they violate your right to due process, or they accidentally destroy your home, or they kill your family dog because they suspect it might be infected, you have absolutely zero recourse.

Under this bill, Massachusetts becomes a medical police state. There is no debating it. It's all written, clear as day.

You can read the bill itself here.

I got thinking: Why does this bill come up now? Because of the mildly problematic H1N1 virus that has received so much news coverage? Because of concern over the deadly HIV? (No! Not HIV! That is explicitly excluded from coverage (lines 456-458): "In this section, 'disease or condition dangerous to the public health' does not include acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) or the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).")

Adams comments,

Massachusetts . . . is the same state that rounded up the parents of schoolchildren who hadn't been vaccinated, then corralled them into a courtroom (with attack dogs standing guard outside) and forced vaccine injections onto all the schoolchildren under the threat of jail time for parents who resisted.

Remember, readers, that this is all taking place in the "land of the free," a nation that former President George Bush claimed was so envied around the world that terrorists attacked America because they "hate freedom" and wanted to destroy our way of life. But terrorists need no help attacking freedom as long as Massachusetts is in the vaccine game, because this latest form of "gunpoint medicine" destroys freedom for everyday Americans in a way that terrorists could have never hoped to accomplish with all the bombs in the world.

Massachusetts . . . [is about to turn] "free" Americans into medical slave subjects who no longer have any freedom to decide the details of their own medical care. All options [will be] stripped from them but one: The Big Pharma option. That's the one that involves using untested, unproven and potentially dangerous vaccines that could paralyze you or even kill you. All to defend you against a virus that's so weak, almost anyone with decent levels of vitamin D and basic nutrition can resist the virus without incident.

Thank God we don't live in Massachusetts! Right?

Maybe not!

Adams notes that Massachusetts isn't the first state in the U.S. to include these kinds of mandated vaccinations. The U.S. federal government got there first. Remember? (I did not. I have no recollection about this at all.)

Republican President George Bush signed the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP) in 2006.

It gives power to the Secretary of the U.S. government's Health and Human Services department (HHS) to declare any infectious disease a "national emergency" and therefore require mandatory vaccination of the entire population. Because of the existence of this PREP Act, the entire population of the USA is now but one pen stroke away from being subjected to mandatory swine flu vaccinations at gunpoint.

Those who resist such vaccines will be arrested and taken away for "isolation" in domestic prison camps. . . . [T]hose who refuse the vaccine [will be labeled] "a threat to national security" (enemies of the state) and [will be] imprison[ed] without trial, without charges and without any legal representation whatsoever.

Meanwhile, all those who take part in enforcing these crimes against the American people will be granted complete immunity. From the HHS website: "[The Secretary may] issue a declaration . . . that provides immunity from tort liability (except for willful misconduct) for claims of loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of (vaccine or other pharmaceutical) countermeasures to diseases, threats and conditions determined by the Secretary to constitute a present, or credible risk of a future public health emergency . . ."

******
About four or five months ago, I ran into The Raw Truth About Milk by Dr. William C. Douglass.

Douglass tells the story of how raw, unpasteurized milk, a whole and wholesome food, slowly got squeezed out of the marketplace by its very much inferior replacement, homogenized and pasteurized milk--a product with fewer nutrients and more contaminants than its unadulterated cousin that comes from certified dairies.

I was so incensed at what I read, I decided I would see how our family might get raw milk.

Well. Legally, we can't. Not allowed. No one can sell us raw milk. It's against the law.

And yet a growing number of families are acquiring raw milk and drinking it.

We discovered that though no one can sell us raw milk, and--I wouldn't expect them to--no one will give us raw milk, it is still legal to own a cow (or a portion of a cow) and enjoy--without government interference--the milk it produces.

So we entered into a contract with a farmer. We bought a portion of one of her cows and are paying her an upkeep fee. We also pay her a delivery fee. And she makes sure we get a gallon of milk each week as our share of the cow. Total cost of the milk we receive under this arrangement is not too much more than it would cost us to purchase good quality organic milk from the grocery store.

Our family is happy. The farmer is happy. I just hope the State of Colorado will stay out of our hair as we engage in open trade of goods and services for money.

******
Any stories you'd like to tell about freedoms--or lack thereof--that you've found in the health sphere?

A tool for the brain

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I have become concerned about health issues . . . including mental health. (I haven't particularly been concerned about possible "going crazy" kind of mental health, but I have been concerned about mental function and memory-related mental health.)

A couple of Christmases ago, I bought a little Sega "Brain Trainer Advance[d]" toy.

I found the screen rather difficult to use. I also found that many of the memory exercises quickly went beyond my abilities--rather frustrating! So I quit using it.

Yesterday, our health insurer/provider, Kaiser Permanente, sent me an email:



It took me a while to load the Yahoo! Widgets tool, get it set up, and then add the Kaiser Brain Teaser widget. But it's pretty cool!

Most of the exercises have to do with sequences and correlations and verbal knowledge. But this morning I was stumped by a spatial puzzle:



I'll let you noodle on it for a while. . . .

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Stumped?

Answer below . . .

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Amazing stuff that's available for free online nowadays!

Get your Brain Teaser widget (including instructions) at Kaiser Permanente's widgets page.

Health update

It began about a month and a half or two months ago. I thought I must have strained my muscles. My thumbs and big toes began "killing" me. And then I realized it was my pointer fingers and middle fingers, too, were causing me pain as well . . . as well as the equivalent toes in my feet . . . and the outside of my little toes . . . and the balls of my feet.

A weird pain pattern, but . . . who knows?

I took some ibuprofen.

It didn't touch it.

I got thinking (as I have a few times over the past couple of years): You can be in great shape, but if something comes along to cause you severe pain, it will be whatever that source of pain is that will cause you to quit exercising as you ought . . . which, of course, then, will lead to loss of muscle tone, loss of muscle mass, loss of flexibility, loss of cardio function, and an increase in all the other concomitant factors that lead to general physical decline.

Anyway.

I was finally motivated, this past week, to contact my vitality and longevity doctor. I thought, perhaps, I could be dealing with gout or some other condition brought on by a decline in liver function due to the high levels of niacin he's having me take (2500 mg/day).

He's been keeping an eye on my liver function. He said he didn't think my pain was related to the niacin or any of the other supplements he's had me taking. Instead, "The locations are consistent with Rheumatoid arthritis. Worth a trip to your Primary Care Physician (PCP) and possibly referral to a Rheumatologist depending what the PCP finds."

So I got an appointment with my PCP at Kaiser Permanente on Thursday afternoon, and he had me go down for several blood tests and X-rays of my feet and hands.

Kaiser sent me an email last night: "You have a test result" . . . and then provided a URL where I could view whatever-it-was they came up with.

So I visited their site this morning. (I love how Kaiser operates! Truly. I don't think I've ever had such friendly, upbeat, competent health care as at Kaiser. . . . But back to my story.)

Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (whatever that is) was normal.

Oh. Wait a second. I just found out Kaiser actually explains all test results. And for erythrocyte sedimentation, they say:

The sedimentation rate (sed rate) blood test measures how quickly red blood cells (erythrocytes) settle in a test tube in one hour. The more red cells that fall to the bottom of the test tube in one hour, the higher the sed rate.

When inflammation is present in the body, certain proteins cause red blood cells to stick together and fall more quickly than normal to the bottom of the tube. These proteins are produced by the liver and the immune system under many abnormal conditions, such as an infection, an autoimmune disease, or cancer.

There are many possible causes of a high sedimentation rate. For this reason, a sed rate is done with other tests to confirm a diagnosis. After a diagnosis has been made, a sed rate can be done to help check on the disease or see how well treatment is working.

But the rheumatoid factor screen doesn't look so good:

Component	Value	Standard Range	Flag
Rheumatoid factor, nephelometry	168	<=13- IU/mL	High

So, now, what does the rheumatoid factor screen mean?

A rheumatoid factor (RF) blood test measures the amount of the RF antibody present in the blood. Normally, antibodies are produced by the immune system to help destroy and eliminate invading bacteria and viruses that can cause disease. But the RF antibody can attach to normal body tissue, resulting in damage.

A high level of rheumatoid factor can be caused by several autoimmune diseases (including rheumatoid arthritis) and some infections. Occasionally an elevated level of RF is present in healthy people.

The amount of rheumatoid factor in blood can be measured in two ways:

• Agglutination tests. One test method mixes blood with tiny rubber (latex) beads that are covered with human antibodies. If RF is present, the latex beads clump together (agglutinate). This method is best used as a first-time screening test for rheumatoid arthritis. Another agglutination test mixes the blood being tested with a sheep's red blood cells that have been covered with rabbit antibodies. If RF is present, the red blood cells clump together. This method is often used to confirm the presence of RF.
   
• Nephelometry test. This test mixes the blood being tested with antibodies that cause the blood to clump if RF is present. A laser light is shined on the tube containing the mixture and the amount of light blocked by the blood sample is measured. As levels of RF increase, more clumping occurs, causing a cloudier sample and less light to pass through the tube.

So. Of course, without a doctor to provide any further interpretive or diagnostic or strategic clues (concerning "where we go from here"), I begin thinking:

• Interesting, that the one test seems to contra-indicate for autoimmune disease, yet rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease.

So what could the high RF mean?

Ah! Kaiser has another page that explains results:

High RF levels may be caused by:

• Rheumatoid arthritis. This is the most common reason for a positive rheumatoid factor (RF) level.
   
• Hepatitis C infection.
   
• Other autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), scleroderma, Sjögren's syndrome, and vasculitis.
   
• Infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, mononucleosis, syphilis, and malaria.
   
• Liver diseases, such as cirrhosis and chronic active hepatitis.
   
• Infection of the heart (endocarditis).
   
• Leukemia.

One more note (on another page):

• A small number of people have a high RF level but do not have rheumatoid arthritis. A small number of these people will later have rheumatoid arthritis.
   
• A health professional always uses the results of an RF test along with information gained from a medical history and physical examination before diagnosing rheumatoid arthritis.
   
• Cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP) is an antibody that is found in the blood of more than half of all people who have rheumatoid arthritis. It is used to confirm a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.

Should be an interesting conversation when (I expect) my doctor contacts me tomorrow!

A different view of the swine flu epidemic (or, as suggested yesterday, pandemic)

Following my post Monday on the Swine Flu "pandemic," I thought, for fairness, I should post an opposite perspective.

First, I should note Paul's thoughtful comment on my original post:

I think taking such meds potentially decreases our immune system's effectiveness.

But, then, listen to William Campbell Douglass II, MD, a skeptic, par excellence, of the modern American health system, wrote the following in his "Daily Dose" email this morning:

The swine flu "epidemic" is only a few days old, and Big Pharma is already plotting to make a fortune.

European drug maker Roche announced it was scaling up production of Tamiflu, giving a boost to its stock price and sending millions into the Roche coffers. GlaxoSmithKline, which makes the anti-flu drug Relenza, is also seeing its stock price climb, as investors hope this swine flu is the biggest thing since the bubonic plague.

There's only one problem here – it's not going to happen. You read the Daily Dose because I always give you the straight scoop, and because I'm not afraid to tell you when the mainstream has it wrong.

And they have it wrong on swine flu. It won't be an epidemic – it'll barely even be a ripple. I've run medical clinics in Africa – I know what an epidemic looks like.

And this isn't it.

The media is blowing swine flu out of proportion so it can feed its 24-hour news cycle – the same media, mind you, that had us convinced that avian flu was going to destroy the planet a few years ago.

But here are the facts about swine flu – it has affected so few people in America that it's hardly worth discussing. There are 64 confirmed cases in America as I'm writing this – not 6,000 or even 600. There are 64.

Of course, the media is fixated on the 100 or so people who have died in Mexico from the swine flu. But let me clue you into something that no one seems to be discussing – health care in Mexico is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. I know – I've been there more times than I can count.

Disease spreads rapidly through Mexico because large areas of the country lack clean water and basic sanitation. Seeing a doctor – let alone a qualified doctor – is a luxury unavailable to most of the population. Of course the flu is killing people in Mexico – so are a lot of other diseases that are successfully treated in America. People in Mexico still die from diarrhea, for Pete's sake!

Yes, they have apparently had some cases of bad swine flu in Mexico. They've had lots of dengue fever and chagas, too, but you don't need to stay up at night worrying about it. Beating the swine flu isn't any different from beating the regular flu. Wash your hands. Avoid large crowds if you can. Get plenty of rest and fluids if you start getting sick.

And don't be afraid to eat pork or any other meat, for that matter, as it's not the pigs who are getting sick. Of course, I'm not recommending you eat Mexican pork – or any food produced in Mexico, for that matter. Hopefully the tainted peppers outbreak of 2008 taught us that. But don't change your diet because of some so-called swine flu epidemic.

It's no epidemic. It's no public health catastrophe. It's good theatre – and nothing more.

Ouch!

Oh. And to track the flu, check out this Google Maps Mashup. Very nicely done.

Synsepalum dulcificum - the "miracle fruit"

Hope for seniors and chemotherapy patients who find their taste has so shifted that they find food unpleasant to eat.

People who have tried it say that, after chewing the fruit and rubbing the pulp against the tongue, "for about 15 to 30 minutes, everything sour is sweet." "Lemons . . . taste like candy. Oranges become sickeningly sweet. Hot sauce that usually burns the tongue tastes like honey barbecue sauce."

The miracle fruit contains a natural protein, called miraculin, which has sugar molecules that bind to the tongue, . . . said [Linda Bartoshuk, a professor at the University of Florida's Center for Smell and Taste]. When acid enters the mouth, the sugar molecules press into the sweet receptors.

Some of her colleagues are looking into how the berries could help people with diabetes and obesity, because they sweeten the taste of food. Unlike sugar, the miracle fruit has very few calories and unlike artificial sweeteners, the berries are natural.

Bartoshuk said she hasn't seen any reports of dangers from eating the berries, but warned against premature health benefit claims.

"Everyone's immediate response is it's an artificial sweetener, it'll help you lose weight," she said. "But the bad side is artificial sweeteners don't help you lose weight. Any real claims for health benefits are going to have to be supported by good research."

Go to CNN Health for more.

Fine to keep exercising when you have a head cold . . .

I had been wondering.

I exercise five or six times a week. I have never enjoyed exercising. I "just" realize it's something I've got to do.

One of my "secrets" for being as faithful as I am is the acquisition over five years ago of an exercise machine that cost us, at the time, more than any of the four Toyota Corollas we had purchased up to that point. Perhaps you have seen ads for it: the ROM [Range-of-Motion] Quick Gym.



"Crazy" price . . . but it was the promise to give me a complete workout in exactly four minutes a day that sold me on it. And after having spent that kind of money, I have to confess, there is no way I can afford not to exercise except under extreme circumstances.

So in the last five years, I can tell you, I have missed my normal five- or six-days-per-week exercise pattern only

• When I have been on vacation or otherwise unavoidably away from home.
• When I have been suffering from congested lungs. (I tend toward asthma two or three months a year, on average. If I find myself coughing pretty uncontrollably throughout the day despite using my inhaler, I will skip the ROM to do some less aerobically challenging exercise).

And, very rarely:

• When I am feeling really, really sick.

Otherwise, however--and I would say that over the last five years that has been a good 90% of the time or more (even including the substantial quantity of travel I've been doing lately)--I'm using the ROM every morning. No excuses.

I record exactly what I do on the ROM each day, all my "splits" (how many strokes I am able to do each minute), my final score (total strokes; and the "percent of goal" I achieve), and what, specifically, I attempted to do each day (upper body or lower body, at what difficulty level, and how many minutes; the manufacturer suggests "only" 4 minutes, and that is what I did for five years--until the last couple of days of August, when my vitality and longevity doctor urged me to push it up to 6 or even 8 minutes [!!! deadly!!!]).

Well, a couple of weeks ago, two days after noting that I felt "lousy; swollen glands [in the neck, below the jaw]," I recorded the very worst performance I have ever had on the ROM . . . I mean, ever. Five percent worse than my next worst day ever. I completely "ran out of gas."

"Wow!"

I have wondered in the past whether I should skip exercising when I feel lousy.

Well, I think I finally got "the answer."

From the New York Times: Don’t Starve a Cold of Exercise:

[T]wo little-known studies . . . were published a decade ago in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. Results from the studies were so much in favor of exercise that the researchers themselves were surprised.

The studies began, said Leonard Kaminsky, an exercise physiologist at Ball State University, when a trainer at the university, Thomas Weidner, wondered what he should tell athletes when they got colds.

The first question was: Does a cold affect your ability to exercise? To address that, the researchers recruited 24 men and 21 women ages 18 to 29 and of varying levels of fitness who agreed to be deliberately infected with a rhinovirus, which is responsible for about a third of all colds. Another group of 10 young men and women served as controls; they were not infected.

At the start of the study, the investigators tested all of the subjects, assessing their lung functions and exercise capacity. Then a cold virus was dropped into the noses of 45 of the subjects, and all caught head colds. Two days later, when their cold symptoms were at their worst, the subjects exercised by running on treadmills at moderate and intense levels. The researchers reported that having a cold had no effect on either lung function or exercise capacity. . . .

[Dr. Kaminsky] said he . . . tested the subjects at different points in the exercise sessions, from moderate to intense effort, and found that their colds had no effect on their metabolic responses.

Another question was: Does exercising when you have a cold affect your symptoms and recovery time?

Once again, Dr, Kaminsky and his colleagues infected volunteers with a rhinovirus. This time, . . . 34 young men and women . . . were randomly assigned to a group that would exercise with their colds and 16 others . . . were assigned to rest.

The group that exercised ran on treadmills for 40 minutes every other day at moderate levels of 70 percent of their maximum heart rates.

Every 12 hours, all the subjects in the study completed questionnaires about their symptoms and physical activity. The researchers collected the subjects’ used facial tissues, weighing them to assess their cold symptoms.

The investigators found no difference in symptoms between the group that exercised and the one that rested. And there was no difference in the time it took to recover from the colds. But when the exercisers assessed their symptoms, Dr. Kaminsky said, “people said they felt O.K. and, in some cases, they actually felt better.”

Now, Dr. Kaminsky said, he and others at Ball State encourage people to exercise when they have colds, at least if they have the type producing symptoms like runny noses and sneezing. He is more cautious about other types of colds that produce fevers or symptoms below the neck such as chest congestion.

There's more.

I think it's good and helpful information!

Improving your health

Here's another great TED video--a simple, quick summary of much of what my Vitality and Longevity doctor has been telling me over the last couple of months: Cardiovascular disease kills more people than everything else combined -- and it’s completely preventable in almost all cases. Indeed, it's reversible with correct diet.



Dr. Dean Ornish, clinical professor at University of California, San Francisco, summarizes the benefits of a healthy diet . . . and explains what's involved. Recorded in 2004, but just uploaded to the web this month.

I love the last line: a student asked his teacher, "Teacher, what is the difference between illness and wellness?"

The teacher wrote the two words on the board and circled the first letter of illness and the first two letters of wellness.

The one references I, by myself. The other references we, together. I, by myself, am very much more likely to be ill. We, together, can be whole and well. . . .

Good stuff.

******

Don't have time to watch a 16-minute video?

Try this 3-minute brief summary of the overall idea:


And one more: "Your genes are not your fate."

And now the other side . . .

I get all this bad news about my cholesterol levels and then . . . I receive a little advertising booklet by Dr. William Campbell Douglass II, M.D., called The Biggest Medical Lie of the Last 50 Years.

More than 50 years of evidence involving thousands of patients PROVES that your cholesterol count isn't your biggest worry. . . .

Cholesterol is so important that every cell in the human body needs it. And which of your organs has the highest concentration of cholesterol? Your brain! That's right, your brain is loaded with this supposedly deadly stuff. But when it comes to making cholesterol, your liver is the main "factory."

In fact, your own liver makes most of the cholesterol that's detected by blood tests. That's why changing what you eat causes almost NO change in your cholesterol count. Your liver just produces more cholesterol to make up for what you don't get in your diet.

When people try strict diets, a small number, called "high respondent" can lower their blood cholesterol by about 10 percent. The rest of us can totally give up saturated fat and cut calories like crazy, but we'll see only a 5 or 6 percent drop in cholesterol.

That's because your body needs cholesterol and your liver fights back when you try to take it away. All the diet does is make you deficient in a nutrient you need. Study after study proves high cholesterol is associated with longer life.

Yes, that's right. You can live longer if you have high cholesterol. . . .

If your cholesterol is too low, you could be in trouble. Low cholesterol is one of the most accurate signs of bad health ever found. . . . Because in the government's own Framingham study, older people with the lowest cholesterol levels had some of the highest death rates. . . .

Mainstream doctors tell us we should try to get our cholesterol below 200. Their advice is absolutely crazy. Here's the truth . . .

Elderly people with low cholesterol die more often from a heart attack compared to old people with high cholesterol. That's what a Yale University doctor found. His name was Harlan Krumholz. . . . His findings were even published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The truth is even more shocking
if you look beyond heart disease
A recent study shows that death from all causes--not just heart disease--is lower among elderly people with high cholesterol.

It's not just old people, either. Among people of all ages, low cholesterol is connected to a higher risk of death from gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases. That discovery came out of 19 studies involving 68,000 people.

You want more proof? I've got it.

Another research team kept track of 100,000 healthy people for 15 years. They discovered that folks with low cholesterol were more likely to catch serious infections— the kind that send you to a hospital.

And University of Minnesota scientists found that low cholesterol actually INCREASES your risk of certain infections like pneumonia or AIDS.

Low cholesterol is a death warrant
An article in the European Heart Journal confirms that low cholesterol is dangerous to your health. Examining 11,500 patients, they found those with cholesterol below 160 were more than twice as likely to die than those with high cholesterol.

And here's something very interesting: The number of deaths from heart disease was the same in both groups--but the low-cholesterol group had far more cancer deaths. . . .

Low cholesterol is linked to cancer
The medical community has known for years that low cholesterol is linked to cancer. A big French study in 1980 revealed that the cancer rate climbs steadily as cholesterol levels fall below 200.

But, this is exactly the range the heart experts tell us to aim for! We're supposed to take drugs till we get our cholesterol below 200. . . .

Way back in 1987, the National Cancer Institute was intrigued enough to back a big study of 12,488 men and women. They found that men with the lowest cholesterol levels were more likely to get cancer than those with the highest levels. The article appeared in The Lancet, one of the world's most prestigious medical journals.

The guys behind this study were basically right across the hall at the National Institutes of Health from the heart "experts" who were telling the world to take cholesterol drugs.

The heart researchers ignored the evidence
They were too proud to change their minds. And maybe—just maybe—money had something to do with it. (Gosh! You think?) Cholesterol reduction is now a $20-billion-a-year industry.

The whole cholesterol scare was cooked up by a tiny handful of powerful doctors at prestigious institutions. They crammed it down the throats of the whole medical profession, over the objections of their own advisors and a majority of practicing doctors.

And leading cholesterol "experts" collected fat payments from drug companies all the way.

Yeah.

And, of course, Douglass keeps going.

Now I have to follow through on his references, cryptic as they may be.

*******
While I'm on the subject, I might as well reference some additional articles that seem to advocate the same positions as Dr. Douglass.

For example: The Truth About Cholesterol:

Only 7% of cholesterol is in the blood. The other 93% is located in every cell of the body, where its unique, waxy soapy consistency provides the cells with their structural integrity. Because cholesterol’s unique structure makes it impossible to dissolve in water, it forms a crucial component of the membrane surrounding every cell. Cholesterol acts to interlock lipid molecules, which stabilise our cell walls. The presence of cholesterol in the fatty double layer of the cell wall membrane adjusts the fluid level and rigidity to the proper value needed for both cell stability and function. Therefore, cholesterol is a vital building block and structural component for all bodily tissues.

The highest concentration of cholesterol is found in the brain and nerve cells. Most notably, cholesterol is an essential part of the myelin sheath, which allows neurons to conduct impulses necessary to communicate with each other. The myelin sheath, similar to the coating on copper wire, ensures that the nervous system functions properly by aiding the passage of electrical impulses. Cholesterol is the ‘synaptogenic factor,’ responsible for the development of highly specialised contact sites between adjacent neurons in the brain, known as synapses. (Announced in 2001 by researchers from the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science)

The formation of synapses is necessary for learning and the formation of memory. Cholesterol has been found to be the rate-limiting factor in the formation of synapse, Cholesterol not only helps guide the connecting parts of neurons to the right places, but is necessary for their ability to grow in the first place. The brain cannot tap the cholesterol in the blood, since lipoproteins, that mediate the transport of cholesterol, are too large to pass the blood-brain-barrier. The glial cells in the brain therefore produce their own cholesterol, to provide nerve cells with this vital component.

Cholesterol has beneficial effects on the immune system. Men with high cholesterol levels have stronger immune systems, than those with low cholesterol, as can be seen by the fact that they have more lymphocytes, total T-cells, helper T-cells and CD8+ cells. Researchers have also identified cholesterol as an inactivator/neutriliser of multiple bacterial toxins.

Further, many strains of disease-causing bacteria, are almost totally inactivated by Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (Ravnskov 2003; Quarterly J of Medicine; 96)

Cholesterol, or more precisely 7-dehydrocholesterol, is the precursor to Vitamin D. Vitamin D has long been recognised for its role in maintaining calcium balance and promoting bone health. More recently it is becoming known for a wide range of other functions, including the maintenance of mental health, a strong immune system, blood sugar regulation and the prevention of cancer.

Cholesterol also acts as an anti-oxidant, protecting cell membranes from free radical damage. . . .

Where does one get truth?