Forgotten Research in Medicine

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Forgotten Research in Medicine

 

They are no smarter than you, Scarecrow.

But they do have one thing you haven't got:

a diploma.

(Frank Morgan in The Wizard of Oz)

 

This is the article that is going to be banned

everywhere. This is a virtual Index of Naughty Ideas.

This is the chapter for the misguided reader who is

still unsatisfied and wants more, more, more.

 

If you are like the people who have come to see me,

or like the thousand or so students I've had, by now

you must be thinking, " If what you say is true, how

come it isn't more widely known? " Often, people

advise me to go public. " Why don't you write to the

newspaper (did that), go into education (been there),

go on The Tonight Show (now there's a good idea!),

write another book (did that, too), or put up a huge,

internationally infamous health-homesteading website? "

 

 

OK, let's get something straight: Everything I'm

going to tell you in this chapter has already been

published, but I'll bet you've never heard of any of

it until now.

 

Why? The disease-care establishment will not debate

this subject; the only way they want to deal with this

research is to ignore it, and hope the public never

finds out. Too late! Because here it is, beginning

with the number one, all-time killer of Americans.

 

 

Cardiovascular Disease

 

Regular supplementation with even a moderate quantity

of vitamin C prevents disease and saves lives. Just

500 mg daily results in a 42 percent lower risk of

death from heart disease and a 35 percent lower risk

of death from any cause (Epidemiology, May 1992).

 

The New England Journal of Medicine (312:1205, 1985)

reported that as little as 30 grams of even low-fat

fish per day reduced the 20-year death rate from

coronary heart disease by fifty percent. That is only

about one ounce of fish daily, actually providing

only about 300 mg of omega-3 fatty acids each day.

 

More recently, New England Journal of Medicine had

two articles in the May 20, 1993 issue (Vol. 328, pp

1444-1456), both of which clearly support vitamin E

supplementation. Persons taking vitamin E supplements

had an approximately 40% reduction in cardiovascular

disease. Nearly 40,000 men and 87,000 women took part

in the study. The more vitamin E they took, and the

longer they took it, the less cardiovascular disease

they experienced. Such effective quantities of

vitamin E positively cannot be obtained from diet

alone.

 

Stampfer, M.J., Hennekens, C.H., Manson, J., Colditz,

G.A., Rosner, B. and Willett, W.C. (1993) Vitamin E

consumption and the risk of coronary disease in women.

New England Journal of Medicine. 328:1444-1449.

 

Rimm, E.B., Stampfer, M.J., Ascherio, A., Giovannucci,

E., Colditz, G.A. and Willett W.C. (1993) Vitamin E

consumption and the risk of coronary heart disease in

men. New England Journal of Medicine 328:1450-1456.

 

 

Stopping Smoking

 

Vitamin C sprayed into the mouth during cigarette

smoking gradually reduces the craving to smoke. Food

consumption also declines, as do hunger cravings. By

the end of one study, smoking behavior was either

reduced or stopped completely. This unusual example

of vitamin C's versatility was published in Drug and

Alcohol Dependence, 1993:337, pp 211-213.

 

Isn't it a wonder that we have never been told about

this amazingly important research?

 

 

Liver Disease

 

Vincent Zannoni at the University of Michigan Medical

School has shown that vitamin C protects the liver.

Even doses as low as 500 milligrams daily helped

prevent fatty buildup and cirrhosis. 5,000 mg of

vitamin C per day appears to actually flush fats from

the liver. (Ritter, M. " Study Says Vitamin C Could

Cut Liver Damage, " Associated Press, October 11, 1986)

 

 

F. R. Klenner, M.D. showed that very large doses of

vitamin C (between 500 to 900 mg per kilogram body

weight per day) can cure hepatitis in two to four days

(Smith, L. H., ed., Clinical Guide to the Use of

Vitamin C, Life Science Press, Tacoma Washington,

1988, pp 22-23).

 

 

Earaches

 

In 1983, the February 10th issue of the New England

Journal of Medicine reported that a three-year study

of decongestants and antihistamines commonly

prescribed by ear specialists showed that these drugs

are absolutely no better than taking nothing at all.

 

 

The Elderly

 

Over two thirds of all hospital admissions of the

elderly are alcohol related (New York State Office of

Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, OASAS Today,

1:1, Sept.-Oct. 1992).

 

85% of the elderly in nursing homes suffer from

malnutrition. Routine vitamin supplements are almost

never given. (Williams, S. R. Nutrition and Diet

Therapy, 6th edition, 1989)

 

 

Osteoporosis

 

According to the Arthritis Foundation, the average

American consumes only about 500 milligrams of calcium

daily. This is only about 50% of the US RDA.

(Pennock, F. " Calcium: Something to Bone Up On "

Lancaster, PA Intelligencer-Journal, September 18,

1991, p C-1). The National Institutes of Health

thinks the calcium RDA itself is too low, that we are

not even coming close to getting even that much, and

it ends up costing us $10 billion per year in higher

medical bills ( " Committee Recommends Higher Levels of

Daily Calcium, " Rochester, NY Democrat and Chronicle,

June 9, 1994). Taking supplemental calcium can make a

big difference.

 

 

Doctor-Caused Disease

 

One of the really amazing books of our time is

Medical Nemesis, by Ivan Illich (Bantam, 1977). One

in five hospital patients is there today because a

physician's mistake put him or her there. George

Washington's doctors actually killed him with their

prescriptions. No kidding. (Medical and Physical

Journal, London, 1800, Volume 3, page 409, and

Appendix 2 of this book). Each year,

doctor-prescribed drugs kill far more Americans than

street drugs do. Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN)

statistics indicate fewer than 10,000 deaths annually

from illegal drugs (National Institute on Drug Abuse,

Statistical Series 1:9, 1989). 130,000 Americans die

in hospitals each year due to prescription medication.

(Whitaker, J., in Health and Healing, September 1993

Supplement, Phillips Publishing, page 3). The Journal

of the American Medical Association states that over

100,000 deaths annually are due just to normal,

expected side effects of prescription drugs. (quoted

by FDA Acting Commissioner Michael Freidman, MD, June

22, 1998, on PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer.)

Vitamins are a vastly safer alternative.

 

The Merck Manual still recommended bloodletting for

some ailments as late as the 1934 edition. (Wall

Street Journal, May 3, 1983, and Appendix 2 of this

book)

 

According to a 1993 statement by Ralph Nader,

300,000 Americans are killed in hospitals each

year. These deaths are due to doctors' mistakes,

not euthanasia.

 

 

Allergies

 

One third of all Americans think they have food

allergies. Only one percent of adults actually do,

says the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and

Immunology. (Associated Press, June 25, 1998).

 

 

Safety of Vitamins

 

Vitamin D is regarded as the most potentially toxic

vitamin. Yet it is instructive to note that as far

back as 1939, even really enormous doses of vitamin D

were found to be remarkably non-toxic. In several

countries, infants including preemies were safely

given from 200,000 IU to over half a million units of

vitamin D in a single injected or oral dose. This is

hard to believe; the references are on pages 544 and

584-591 in the medical textbook The Vitamins in

Medicine, third edition, by Bicknell and Prescott

(1953). This is quite a comprehensive work. There

are a total of 344 scientific papers on Vitamin D

cited in just one chapter.

 

 

Kidney Stones

 

Kidney stones are not a condition that you can

attribute to vitamin C use. In fact, William J.

McCormick, M.D. authored a paper in 1946 explaining

that kidney stones are formed by a lack of vitamin C

( " Lithogenesis and Hypovitaminosis, " Medical Record

159:7, July). More recently, Linus Pauling shows the

fallacy of the supposed kidney stone connection with

vitamin C in How to Live Longer and Feel Better

(1986). If your physician still believes that vitamin

C causes stones, that is a " stone-age " belief! The

fact is that vitamin C is far safer than the doctor's

safest medicines.

 

Drs. Emanuel Cheraskin, Marshall Ringsdorf, Jr. and

Emily Sisley explain in The Vitamin C Connection

(1983) that acidic urine or slightly acidic urine

reduces the union of calcium and oxalate, reducing the

possibility of stones. " Vitamin C in the urine tends

to bind calcium and decrease its free form. This

means less chance of calcium's separating out as

calcium oxalate (stones). " (page 213)

 

B-6 deficiency produces kidney stones in experimental

animals. B-1 (thiamin) deficiency also is associated

with stones (Hagler and Herman, " Oxalate Metabolism,

II " American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 26:8,

882-889, August, 1973). Kidney stones are also

associated with high sugar intake, so eat less (or no)

added sugar to reduce your stone risk (J. A. Thom, et

al, " The Influence of Refined Carbohydrate on Urinary

Calcium Excretion, " British Journal of Urology, 50:7,

459-464, December, 1978).

 

 

Gastrointestinal Diseases

 

To give you an idea of the therapeutic potential of

something as simple as vegetable juice, consider the

work of Garnett Cheney, M.D. He had 100 peptic ulcer

patients drink four glasses of raw cabbage juice

daily. The patients reported dramatically less pain,

and X-ray examination confirmed faster healing time.

There was no other change in their diet, and they did

not have drug therapy. 81% of the patients were

symptom-free within one week; over two-thirds were

better in just four days. The average healing time

for patients given standard hospital treatment was

over a month. Cabbage juice worked well for other

types of ulcers, also. (Cheney, G., " Vitamin U

Therapy of Peptic Ulcer, " California Medicine, vol.

77, number 4, October, 1952). Note the date.

 

 

Women's Health

 

Oral contraceptives lower serum levels of B-vitamins,

especially B-6, plus niacin (B-3), thiamin (B-1),

riboflavin (B-2), folic acid, vitamin C and B-12.

(Wynn, V. in Lancet, March 8, 1975). Ladies, when is

the last time your physician instructed you to be sure

to take a daily multivitamin as long as you are on the

Pill?

 

Women attempting to become pregant that consume more

than one cup of coffee per day are half as likely to

conceive as those who drank less of it. The more they

consumed, the less likely they were to conceive. This

applies to other caffeinated beverages and the effect

increases with the dose. A. Wilcox, C. Weinberg, D.

Baird: Caffeinated beverages and decreased fertility.

Lancet. 8626-7:1473-1476, December 24/31, 1988.

 

 

Cancer

 

Children who eat hot dogs once a week double their

risk of a brain tumor. Youngsters eating other cured

meats, such as ham, sausage and bacon, had an 80

percent higher risk of brain cancer. This study was

done at the University of North Carolina at Chapel

Hill. Kids eating more than twelve hot dogs a month

(that's barely three hot dogs a week) have nearly ten

times the risk of leukemia as children who ate none.

This research was done at the University of Southern

California School of Medicine in Los Angeles.

Children taking supplemental vitamins had reduced

cancer risk. (Jean Carper in Lancaster, PA

Intelligencer-Journal, Weds., June 22, 1994.) Do you

recall ever hearing anything in the media about this?

 

About 1,200 mg calcium daily may protect against

colon cancer, even in persons with a family cancer

history, and with a precancerous colon already.

" Before they took the calcium, the cells of their

colon linings were producing new cells, or

proliferating, at a relatively high rate. But after

taking the supplements two to three months, their

colon linings resembled those following vegetarian

diets. " (D.Q. Haney, The News Journal (Associated

Press), Wilmington, DE, November 28, 1985). This

speaks as well of vegetarianism as it does of calcium.

 

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret

M. Heckler (quoted in Executive Health, Dec. 1985):

" We know that fully 80 percent of cancer cases are

linked to lifestyle and environmental factors. "

 

 

AIDS

 

Consider this: as many as half of all HIV-positive

individuals are still free of disease after ten years

(Haney, D. in Rochester, NY Democrat and Chronicle,

February 13, 1994). What is going on? Can nutrition

be a contributing factor?

 

A seven year long Johns Hopkins medical school study

of 281 HIV positive men showed that those taking

vitamins had only about half as many new AIDS

outbreaks as those not taking supplements. Imagine: a

50 percent reduction in AIDS cases just from vitamins!

The real wonder is that the dosages used were so

small: only 715 milligrams of vitamin C a day, and

about 5 times the US RDA of the B-vitamins and beta

carotene. Larger amounts would almost certainly save

still more lives (Neil Graham, M.D. in American

Journal of Epidemiology, December, 1993).

 

 

Health Care Costs

 

" A study of health insurance statistics on over 2,000

people practicing the Transcendental Meditation

program over a 5-year period found that the

Transcendental Meditation meditators consistently had

more than 50% fewer doctor visits than did other

groups with comparable age, gender, profession, and

insurance terms. The difference between the

Transcendental Meditation and non-Transcendental

Meditation groups

increased in older-age brackets. "

 

" Medical care utilization and the Transcendental

Meditation program, "

Psychosomatic Medicine 49: 493­507, 1987.

 

" Reduced health care utilization in Transcendental

Meditation practitioners, " presented at the conference

of the Society for Behavioral Medicine, Washington,

D.C., March 22, 1987.

 

Hospital admissions for neurological illnesses and

cardiovascular disease

are each reduced by 87% among long-time meditators

using the TM technique. The research was well

controlled; these patients still had routine medical

exams and physicals, and accident care. There was,

then, no confounding reason that they might have been

merely avoiding medical care.

 

 

" From 15 to 30 percent of diagnostic tests may be

unnecessary...a quarter of all hospital admissions. "

" Illnesses related to lifestyles account for half of

our health care costs. " (Aetna Insurance Co. " The

Managed Care Solution, " 1992)

 

Over 80% of all health care interventions and

technologies have no scientific evidence of

effectiveness. (Smith, R. " Where is the Wisdom: The

Poverty of Medical Evidence, " British Medical Journal,

303:798-799, 1991)

 

 

Believe it or Not

 

Nearly three-quarters of all children over the age

of 6 months regularly use caffeine, according to the

Medical Tribune, a newspaper for physicians. (Jean

Carper, " Your Food Pharmacy " June 15, 1994)

 

12 percent of all the cola beverages bought in

the U.S. are consumed with, or instead of,

breakfast, says the Food Almanac.

 

Almost one-quarter of Americans do not eat even one

single serving of a fruit or vegetable in a given day,

according to the National Cancer Institute.

 

General Mills admits that during early 1994, 110

million boxes of its cereals including Lucky Charms,

Trix, and Cheerios were contaminated with a chemical

insecticide used in termite sprays and flea powder for

dogs and cats. (Sharon Walsh, " Saga of Cheerios,

pesticide. " The Washington Post, August 21, 1994.)

 

I believe there never was a recall of these

contaminated boxes.

 

 

Did you know that eight Russell Stover Chocolate

Fudge Truffle Eggs contain your US RDI for dietary

fiber?

*

Did you know thay Food Stamps can be used to buy

" Froot Loops " and " Twinkies, " but not used to buy

vitamins?

*

Did you know that the US RDA for vitamin C for humans

is far lower than the government's standards for

monkeys?

 

 

Copyright C 1999 and prior years Andrew W. Saul.

From the books QUACK DOCTOR and PAPERBACK CLINIC,

available from Dr. Andrew Saul, Number 8 Van Buren

Street, Holley, New York 14470