DOCTOR YOURSELF Newsletter (Vol. 5, No. 2 for January 5, 2005)

[Guest guest]

" Andrew W. Saul " <drsaul

 

 

DOCTOR YOURSELF Newsletter (Vol. 5, No. 2 for January 5, 2005)

Mon, 3 Jan 2005 13:55:11 -0500

 

 

 

" It is a matter of common knowledge that any processing that foods

undergo serves to make them more harmful than unprocessed foods. "

 

(McDonald's Corporation legal statement, shown in the documentary

" Supersize Me " )

 

The DOCTOR YOURSELF NEWSLETTER (Vol. 5, No. 2 for January 5, 2005)

 

" Free of charge, free of advertising, and free of the A.M.A. "

 

Written and copyright 2004 by Andrew W. Saul of

http://www.doctoryourself.com , which welcomes 1.5 million visitors

annually. Commercial use of the website or the contents of this

Newsletter

is strictly prohibited.

 

ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE NEWS SERVICE

 

My long-time readers have likely taken notice that the DOCTOR YOURSELF

Newsletter is now a monthly. Yes, after five years of twice-monthly

publication, I am giving a nod to the reality of some 30,000 hits a day

at

the http://www.doctoryourself.com/ website. There is only so much time

in a

day.

 

The good news: I will continue to assail your ears about every four

weeks or

so with my edifying editorials and health hints. And, there is still NO

CHARGE for the Newsletter. (To to the Doctor Yourself

Newsletter:

 

newsletter-)

 

Here's the really good news: With my copious new free time, I am

beginning

another project: the ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE NEWS SERVICE. Like the

Associated Press or Reuters, OMNS is a wire-service style news feed

directed

to members of the press, radio and TV news media.

 

We have authoritative scientific clout and plan to use it. The OMNS

editorial board consists of:

 

Abram Hoffer, M.D.

 

Hugh D. Riordan, M.D.

 

Harold Foster, Ph.D.

 

Bradford Weeks, M.D.

 

I see the creation of the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service as an

increasingly necessary step to counter the pharmaceutically-biased

factoids

and vitamin misinformation that the media seem ever so ready to accept

uncritically. The recent allegedly-negative E and C studies bear this

out.

(http://www.doctoryourself.com/safety.html/)

 

 

Now with many hundreds of media email addresses, both newspaper and TV,

we

will shortly go ahead with a mass e-mail press release and inaugural

announcement.

 

YES, YOU TOO MAY SUBSCRIBE TO THE ORTHOMOLECULAR NEWS SERVICE, free of

charge. To do so, you will need to promptly send a blank email to

omns- . (Requests to other addresses, such

as my

regular email address, will not be processed.)

 

ASCORBATE: THE SCIENCE OF VITAMIN C

 

" It's not what we don't know that harms us, but what we do know that

ain't

so. " (Eubie Blake, 1883-1983)

 

What is it about a little left-handed molecule of six carbons, six

oxygens,

and eight hydrogens that ticks off so many in the medical community?

Maybe

it's cases like this one: Ray, a health professional I know, had an

11-month

old son who was very sick for over a week. No one, and I mean no one,

in

their family had had any sleep in a long time. They were up night after

night with this child, who had a high fever, glazed watery eyes, tons

of

thick watery mucus and labored breathing. The child would not sleep,

and did

little else but cry. The baby was under the care of a pediatrician,

who, in

the infant's eleven months on earth, had already prescribed twelve

rounds of

some very serious antibiotics. That they clearly were not working was

all

too apparent to Ray, who out of desperation decided to try something he

previously had been taught to not try: bowel tolerance quantities of

oral

ascorbate. Ray and his wife gave their baby some vitamin C about every

15

minutes. As a result, the baby was noticeably improved in a matter of

hours,

and slept through the night. With frequent doses continuing, the child

was

completely well in 48 hours. Ray calculated that the baby had received

just

over 2,000 mg vitamin C per kilogram body weight per day. This is even

more

than what Dr. Frederick Robert Klenner customarily ordered for sick

patients. Remarkably, at 20,000 milligrams of vitamin C/day, that

20-pound

baby never had diarrhea.

 

With such a little body, you have to marvel at where all of it was

going. Of

course, it is the opinion of those who promulgate the US RDA and

related

nutritional mythology that almost all of that baby's vitamin C went

uselessly into the toilet. Ray and his wife would tell you differently.

They

would say that their sick child soaked it up like a sponge, and then

promptly got better.

 

For the layman unable to obtain intravenous vitamin C, one of the most

important parts of Hickey and Roberts' new book, Ascorbate: The Science

of

Vitamin C, is its attention to oral administration, divided dosing,

absorption, and vitamin C retention time in the bloodstream. With

simple

graphs and uncomplicated language, the authors illustrate 1) how high

oral

doses of vitamin C yield higher blood levels of the vitamin, and 2) how

dividing the oral doses maintains those higher levels. Although

initially

seeming almost too obvious to mention, these are not self-evident

concepts.

Government-based intake standards such as the RDA hinge on ignoring

them.

 

Hickey and Roberts zero in on this serious public health error. Their

critical analysis of research studies purporting to justify a mere 100

or

200 mg/day ascorbate dose is worthy of Linus Pauling himself. Dr.

Roberts

says: " Stressed and even mildly ill people can tolerate 1,000 times

more

vitamin C, implying a change in biochemistry that was ignored in

creating

the RDA. The RDA concept does not differentiate between short and

long-term

effects of deprivation. The possibility that sub-clinical scurvy causes

chronic disease has enormous implications for health. In setting the

RDA,

unsubstantiated risks of taking too much vitamin C have been accorded

great

importance, whereas the risks of not taking enough have been ignored.

Real

scientists understand that 'no scientific proof' is a fancy way of

saying

'we don't like this idea.' Furthermore, there is no clear mechanism for

the

RDA to be modified when new scientific evidence emerges. "

 

 

Ascorbate: The Science of Vitamin C is a compellingly written,

fast-paced

inspection of belief-based bias that permeates the scientific method.

It is

not a tirade; Hickey and Roberts simply tell it the way it is. They are

well

qualified to do so. Steve Hickey has a PhD in Medical Biophysics from

the

University of Manchester, and spent about ten years in research at the

Manchester Medical School and associated hospitals. Interestingly, he

had

initially trained as a biologist specializing in pharmacology, later

switching to biomechanics and medical physics. In addition to degrees

in

physiology and computer science, Hilary Roberts' University of

Manchester

PhD was on the effects of early life malnutrition. She spent ten years

in

research and teaching at the university.

 

When asked how he and his coauthor came to write the book, Dr. Hickey

said:

" Since Linus Pauling's death, there seemed to be a great deal of

misinformation. The NIH had performed some questionable experiments and

were

making the apparently ridiculous statement that blood plasma and

tissues

became saturated with low doses of vitamin C. There was no mainstream

research on high doses and the establishment was making wild

extrapolations

from their low dose data. We could not see how a clinical trial with

200 mg

of vitamin C, for example, could be used to suggest that higher doses

were

not effective. The work of physicians like Robert Cathcart, Archie

Kalokerinos and Abram Hoffer intrigued us. The reported effects,

especially

of intravenous vitamin C, were astounding. It was difficult to find any

reason to explain the lack of scientific follow-up. We had friends and

relatives that were sick or dying from diseases that high dose vitamin

C was

claimed to cure. Eventually we felt we had no choice but to write the

book. "

 

Dr. Roberts adds: " Most RDA standards are based on data which was not

measured in actual experiments on real people. Even the small amount of

data

from the 19-30 year old subjects, who were measured, is based on

neutrophils, a white blood cell type that is known to have unusual

vitamin C

biochemistry, along with an exceptional ability to pump the vitamin

into

itself. Neutrophils have ascorbate levels from 25-60 times that of the

surrounding plasma. This cell type is not a reliable model for the

whole

body. "

 

Additional topics discussed in Ascorbate: The Science of Vitamin C

include

infectious disease, oxidation and illness, the safety of vitamin C, and

a

presentation of the authors' dynamic flow model of continual vitamin

C-mediated tissue reduction. The book contains substantial sections

devoted

to cardiovascular disease, with the welcome inclusion of an efficient

discussion of the roles of vitamin E and lysine. Two excellent chapters

on

cancer take the starch right out of the Mayo Clinic " refutations " of

the

Pauling/Cameron vitamin C studies. The authors state that Dr. Charles

" Moertel's switch to oral does would clearly have biased the results "

even

though Pauling " stated clearly that intravenous doses are more

effective

than oral doses and explained the reasons for the difference. "

 

Ascorbate: The Science of Vitamin C contains 575 references, and

especially

good ones. Though not alphabetized, all are keyed to the text with

numbered

footnotes. For a book this important, the index could be and should be

more

detailed. A glossary is included for the general reader. All will enjoy

the

well-selected epigrams that form the chapter lead-in quotes.

 

The authors expert command of their topic has enabled them to

successfully

encompass an enormous, and enormously important, subject. To make a

216-page

book this comprehensive, and also so exceptionally comprehensible as

well,

is no small achievement.

 

I wish I'd had a book of this caliber back in the 1970's when my kids

were

infants. I raised my children all the way into college without a single

dose

of any antiviral, antihistamine, or antibiotic. What they did get were

megadoses of vitamin C. We, like so many other parents, learned the

principles of vitamin C therapy (quantity, frequency, and duration) at

our

kids' bedsides at three in the morning. Now, the pioneering work of

megascorbate orthomolecular physicians has been concisely summarized

and

very skillfully explained in Ascorbate: The Science of Vitamin C. It is

a

thorough, up to date and very readable analysis of what, to some, may

still

appear to be a controversial topic.

 

Those who use it know that taking enough C results in three C's:

patient

comfort, low cost, and parental control. Without necessitating the use

of

invasive technology, nor the trauma of hospitalization, parents can

regain

confidence and mastery over illness to a degree that they might never

have

thought possible. For this reason, vitamin C therapy will, at least in

some

quarters, continue be decried and denounced as irresponsible. It takes

some

real ego strength for a parent to stand firm and say, " This is what I

am

going to do: I am going to follow the Klenner/Pauling/Cathcart vitamin

C

protocol. " Hickey and Roberts' review of vitamin C research is a solid

buttress that makes such a stance possible. No bias or belief system

can

withstand their first-rate presentation of the safety and effectiveness

of

megadoses of ascorbate.

 

Hickey S and Roberts H. Ascorbate: The science of vitamin C. 2004. ISBN

1-4116-0724-4. Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com. www.lulu.com/ascorbate

 

NEW REVIEW of DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that Works

 

" Take Charge of Your Own Health "

 

Review by Beatrice Trum Hunter, in the Townsend Letter for Doctors and

Patients

 

Several recently published books deal with subjects that emphasize the

importance of an individual taking charge of health practices and

decisions.

.. . The illnesses and health problems discussed in Doctor Yourself:

Natural

Healing that Works are presented in alphabetical order, and include

acid

reflux, allergies, hemorrhoids, sleep disorders, and vaccinations,

among

many others. According to Andrew Saul, many diseases can be treated

with

safe, inexpensive, and drugless approaches. He writes conversationally,

interspersing protocols with personal experiences and case stories.

Take

psoriasis, an intractable condition. Try a complete change of diet,

with

fresh foods, vegetable juices, lecithin, and vitamins including extra

vitamin D, instead of the palliative ointments and lotions. For

additional

information on the scientific studies supporting the protocols. Dr.

Saul

refers readers to DoctorYourself.com website with more than 4000

references.

 

Doctor Yourself: Natural Healing that Works, by Andrew, Saul, PhD.

(oversized quality paperback, 241 pages, bibliography, index, 2003)

 

[from the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, #253-254, May 2004,

p

132. http://www.townsendletter.com/ Telephone (360)385-6021.]

 

Editor's Note: This particular review was a special treat for me.

Beatrice

Trum Hunter's NATURAL FOODS COOKBOOK (New York: Pyramid, 1961) was one

of

the very first health books I read. (It is reviewed at

http://www.hoboes.com/html/Diner/revue/naturalfoods.shtml) I was

therefore

most honored to have made her list of recommended books.

 

Incidentally, the Townsend Letter also very favorably reviewed Doctor

Yourself in the Aug-Sept 2004 issue. The review is posted at

http://www.doctoryourself.com/townsend.html . Additional reviews of my

book

are posted at http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html/

 

TO ORDER AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY of DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that

Works,

please go to http://www.doctoryourself.com/order.html/

 

FREE ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE

 

There is no longer any excuse to not have the latest and most recent,

and I

mean this morning's, antivirus protection. With AVG Free Edition

Antivirus

software, such protection is free and updates are, too. I have used

this

excellent, downloadable, and totally free of charge program for years:

 

http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/

 

(You can also go to http://www.grisoft.com )

 

 

FIRM FLUORIDE FACTS

 

Please especially note the sources of these statements.

 

" THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT FLUORIDE IS AN ESSENTIAL NUTRIENT FOR

HUMANS. "

(Physicians' Desk Reference)

 

http://www.pdrhealth.com/drug_info/nmdrugprofiles/nutsupdrugs/flu_0109.shtml

 

FLUORIDE IS NOT APPROVED BY THE U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION

http://www.cm-life.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/12/06/41b3e6ab68a3c

 

( " CITY REMOVES FLUORIDE FROM WATER. The City of Mount Pleasant

(Michigan)

followed the will of its resident-voters and began removing fluoride

from

its water supply. . . (City) ordinance states anything added to the

city

water must be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and

fluoride is

not. " )

 

FLUORIDE DOES NOT WORK

 

California is 28% fluoridated; Hawaii is 9% fluoridated. These states

are

tied for the lowest rate of tooth loss in the USA. On the other hand,

Kentucky is 100% fluoridated and has the highest toothless population

of

older adults.

 

(http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-me-health2jan02,1,2990789.st\

ory?coll=la-health-medicine)

 

CORRECTION: My review of Pottenger's Cats, in the December, 2004

Newsletter

(posted at http://www.doctoryourself.com/news/v5n1.txt) omitted

rightful

mention of the Selene River Press (www.seleneriverpress.com), publisher

and

distributor of health books. They kindly provided me with the review

copy of

Pottenger's Cats.

 

VITAMIN E WITCH HUNT

 

by Michael Fumento

 

http://www.fumento.com/nutr/vitamine.html

 

 

Less than two months ago I debunked a report in the Lancet medical

journal

claiming antioxidants slightly increase your chance of dying, rather

than

reducing it as most researchers believe. Now I'm writing about a report

that

says the same thing about a specific antioxidant, vitamin E.

 

Why are these pills being persecuted? Among the similarities of the

earlier

report and this one, authored by researchers at the Johns Hopkins

School of

Public Health, is that the mainstream media accepted both without

question.

Both times the researchers smugly declared their work to be the final

word

on the subject, though both reports were, as the vitamin E one

admitted, 'a

qualitative departure from previous findings.'

 

Since a good scientist knows no single report ever proves anything, we

know

these weren't good scientists. In fact, they have less in common with

Johns

Hopkins than Matthew Hopkins - England's infamous 'Witch-finder

General.'

 

Consider the vitamin E paper, published in The Annals of Internal

Medicine

(full citation at http://www.doctoryourself.com/safety.html). It

analyzed 19

clinical trials between 1993 and 2004, involving 136,000 people in all.

These were combined into what's called a 'meta-analysis,' which showed

no

overall increase in deaths. But at high levels, defined as above 400

international units (IUs) per day, the researchers insisted 'vitamin E

supplements may increase (deaths) and should be avoided.'

 

A glaring problem with the report is that there have been far more than

19

vitamin E trials since 1993, and one way the pack was whittled down was

by

excluding all studies reporting fewer than 10 deaths. The witch-hunters

weren't about to interrogate witnesses who might keep the accused from

a

visit to the gallows.

 

Also, if 'more is worse,' why did the two studies that used the highest

dose, 2,000 IUs per day, indicate fewer deaths among vitamin E users?

Another problem with declaring this report to be the final word on

vitamin E

is that while clinical trials are important, epidemiological studies

cannot

be ignored. Yet ignored they were.

 

Thus there was no reference to the 1996 one from the National Institute

of

Aging that followed 11,000 elderly persons for seven years and found

that

the death rate for vitamin E users was a third that of non-users.

Adding

another antioxidant, vitamin C, cut fatalities even more.

 

A 1993 Harvard study of 40,000 male health professionals found those

who

took at least 100 IUs daily for two years had a third fewer cases of

heart

disease than those receiving no vitamin E supplements.

 

 

A Harvard study of 87,000 nurses that year found an even greater

reduction

in heart disease when comparing women who took the highest amount of

vitamin

E vs. those taking the lowest amount. Does this have you running in

terror

at the sight of a vitamin E capsule?

 

But what's with the supplement witch-hunt? Why the reports of vitamin E

flying on broomsticks, and beta carotene casting hexes?

 

" Unfortunately, there are some doctors who are biased against dietary

supplements, " says John Hathcock, vice president of Scientific &

International Affairs at the D.C.-based Council for Responsible

Nutrition.

To an extent, this is understandable. For one, some supplements are

worthless while a few have proved harmful. But you just can't lump 'eye

of

newt' in together with vitamin E or other antioxidants.

 

Mainstream medicine is also biased toward that which has formal FDA

approval. You know, like Vioxx. And never mind the many supplements

such as

iron and iodine that have tacit FDA support but no formal approval.

 

Some doctors also fret that people will try to substitute supplements

for

good eating habits. 'We don't think that people need to take vitamin E

supplements, that they get enough from the diet,' said the lead vitamin

E

prosecutor, associate professor Edgar Miller.

 

 

Yet the average American gets only about 10 IU daily. With some studies

showing 2,000 IUs to be beneficial, dietary intake leaves us a bit shy

of

the mark. Anyway, those taking vitamins and other supplements also have

the

best diets.

 

The final explanation for vitamin-pill persecution is that medical

journals

are becoming increasingly sensationalist. Publishing articles contrary

to

popular wisdom is a cheap and easy way to get headlines.

 

But there's no excuse for throwing a noose around the neck of good

science

and healthful products.

 

[Reprinted with the kind permission of the author. Michael Fumento

(http://www.fumento.com) is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute,

syndicated

columnist with Scripps Howard News Service and author of BioEvolution:

How

Biotechnology is Changing our World.]

 

 

The GERSON THERAPY MOVIE IS NOW ONLINE!

 

If you've been wanting to watch THE GERSON MIRACLE ever since I

reviewed it

the July 20 Doctor Yourself Newsletter

(http://www.doctoryourself.com/gersontherapy2.html or

http://www.doctoryourself.com/news/v4n16.txt), you are in luck. The

entire

movie, or any specific chapter you like, can now be viewed FREE OF

CHARGE at

www.gersonmiracle.org/movie.html . Grab some unsalted popcorn and pull

up a

chair.

 

BOOK REVIEW:

 

FAST FOOD NATION: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by Eric

Schlosser.

 

Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2001. ISBN: 0395977894

 

Why, why, why are so many, many, many people so sick, sick, sick? The

main

reason is staring right back at them from their dinner. It's the junk

food,

people. An ever-increasing proportion of our food is fast food.

 

" In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food; in 2000, they

spent

more than $110 billion, " writes Eric Schlosser in his book Fast Food

Nation.

" They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines,

newspapers,

videos, and recorded music - combined. . . On any given day in the

United

States, about one-quarter of the adult population visits a fast food

restaurant. " (p 3)

 

What does this mean to our health? Everything. Fast food is a

high-additive,

high-fat, high-meat, high-sugar, and high-salt diet. And what's just as

bad,

it's a low-fiber, low vitamin, low mineral diet to boot. Fast food is

exactly the wrong way to eat.

 

 

And we are teaching our kids just how to do it . . .wrong.

 

Chapter 2 discusses how the fast-food industry sells to kids,

especially in

schools. This is the last thing we need; a typical teenage boy already

drinks 20 oz of soda a day. Indoctrination starts early: page 30 of

Fast

Food Nation shows a superb photo of Ronald McDonald speaking to a large

room

full of enraptured elementary schoolchildren. How can this be? Because

the

cafeterias in so many of our school districts are for sale for the

right

price. The actual franchise income that any school district may get

pales

when compared to what fast food industry takes in. After all, says

Schlosser, " A medium Coke that sells for $1.29 contains roughly 9

cents'

worth of syrup. "

 

 

Adults are to blame. We, not our kids, are the ones who allowed fast

food in

our schools. We are the ones who let Harlem Memorial Hospital contain

its

very own McDonald's. It is our money that enables McDonald's to open

FIVE

new restaurants every DAY. It is our U.S. Federal Communications

Commission

and our U.S. Federal Trade Commission that permit every American child

to

watch 10,000 television food ads every year. Are these ads for carrots?

Not

according to Yale professor Kelly Brownell, PhD., who says that 95% of

TV

food commercials promote candy, soft drinks and fast food.

 

Fast Food Nation is much more than a history of soda pop and the

flipped

burger. In Chapter 3, Schlosser takes us " Behind the Counter " to

examine

labor issues in the fast food biz. " No other industry in the United

States

has a workforce so dominated by adolescents, " he writes. And teenagers

work

hard and they work cheap. Too cheap. " Increasing the federal minimum

wage by

a dollar (an hour) would add about two cents to the cost of a fast food

hamburger. " Fast Food Nations also explores " Why the Fries Taste Good "

in

Chapter 5, as well as the very real dangers for those who work at meat

packing factories.

 

Your making a point to read the exceptionally well-written Fast Food

Nation

would be the perfect New Year's resolution.

 

Here is some video encouragement to help you on your way as you change

your

lifestyle and fight to eat right:

 

DIET WARS

 

" Nobody ever got rich marketing self-control. " That is my favorite

quote

from " Diet Wars, " a recent PBS' Frontline presentation. If you missed

this

truly excellent program, you can still watch it online, for free, at

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/diet/view/

 

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AN IMPORTANT NOTE: This newsletter is not in any way offered as

prescription, diagnosis nor treatment for any disease, illness,

infirmity or

physical condition. Any form of self-treatment or alternative health

program

necessarily must involve an individual's acceptance of some risk, and

no one

should assume otherwise. Persons needing medical care should obtain it

from

a physician. Consult your doctor before making any health decision.

 

" DOCTOR YOURSELF " " DoctorYourself.com " and " Doctor Yourself Newsletter "

are

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Copyright c 2005 and prior years Andrew W. Saul

drsaul .

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For information about my book, " DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that

Works "

please go to http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html .

 

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" Don't feel you owe me any respect; you can listen or not, as you

please. "

(Benjamin Franklin)

 

 

 

 

 

--