Reversing Heart Disease the Easy Way and Nutritional Treatment of Osteoporosis

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Reversing Heart Disease the Easy Way and Nutritional Treatment of Osteoporosis
Daniel Cobb DOM

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Reversing Heart Disease The Easy Way

By Daniel Cobb DOM

Reversing Heart Disease

The Easy Way Table of Contents Introduction ……………………………………………………….. 2 Chapter 1 - Two Conventional Wisdoms ………………………….. 3 Chapter 2 – The Vitamin C Theory ……………………………….. 12 Chapter 3 - The Heart Disease Prescription ………………………. 16 Chapter 4 - What Conventional Medicine Expects To Achieve What the Vitamin C Therapy Expects To Achieve …. 36 Chapter 5 - Stop Fixing the Adaptive Response …………………. 39 Chapter 6 - Chelation Therapy ……………………………………. 42 Chapter 7 - High Fat, Saturated Fat, Trans Fat, Omega-3’s ……… 44 Chapter 8 - Sex Sells ……………………………………………… 50 Chapter 9 - Cholesterol-Reducing Strategies and Drugs …………. 51 Chapter 10 - Aspirin Therapy ..………………………………..….. 55 Chapter 11 - Some Toxic Causes of Heart Disease ………………. 58 Chapter 12 – Touch The Ground…………………………………… 63 Footnotes …………………………………………………………... 66

Introduction

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I am going to tell you about the world’s very best treatment for atherosclerosis (aka hardening of the arteries via plaque deposits). It doesn’t involve drugs or surgery, primarily requires commonly available nutritional supplements and usually substantially improves the patient’s condition inside of a month. This therapy has been around for 25 years, has been effective in tens of thousands of cases, and has been championed by Linus Pauling, who was a two-time recipient of the Nobel Prize. The supplements usually cost less than $90 per month and the major side-effect is that you become more resistant to colds and flu. In this book, “heart disease” will always mean the partial-blockage of arteries by plaque deposits that can also be known as atherosclerosis, arteriosclerosis, coronary artery disease, coronary heart disease, and hardening of the arteries. There are other types of heart disease that this book does not pretend to deal with. If you have any of the other types of heart disease, you should be careful to remember that this book only applies to those partial blockages. I chose to use the words “heart disease” because the vast majority of heart disease is this type, and because average people tend to discuss it using exactly these words.

Daniel Cobb, Doctor of Oriental Medicine [email protected] Copyright 2015 Reproduction and dissemination of this material is allowed and encouraged as long as it is used solely for educational purposes and it is credited to Daniel Cobb, Doctor of Oriental Medicine. Permission in writing is required if you intend to collect money for the sale of any part of this document.

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Chapter 1 - Two Conventional Wisdoms Conventional Wisdom #1 (Can You Believe This ?) The following is a very simple diagram of the blood flow in the cardiovascular system:

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Here is another diagram that also shows valves in the lower part of the body in the larger veins.

The heart pumps the blood out of the left ventricle and into the “large arteries”. Then come the smaller arteries and the capillaries. On the way back to the heart, the blood goes from the capillaries to the small veins, then to the large veins, and back to the right side of the heart. The right ventricle supplies blood to the lungs, where exchange of gasses occurs, and this blood comes back to the left auricle. It is worth noting that the coronary arteries are the “first” arteries supplied blood from the left ventricle, as they take blood to the heart right after it passes the aortic valve. The blood that nourishes the heart muscle is not the blood contained within the heart, but instead the blood brought to the heart through the coronary arteries. I want to point out several characteristics of the blood, as it moves along its path. Those characteristics are: pressure, speed, and turbulence.

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Blood Pressure Here is a diagram of blood pressure as it moves through the circulatory system:

The numbers on this graph are very arbitrary. With any given person they could be very different. However, the trend of the line is fairly predictable, and almost always falls slightly below zero just before the blood returns to the heart. You will notice that the pressure is highest at the source of the pumping action of the heart (In the big arteries), and that it gradually decreases until, just before it gets back to the heart (in the big veins), the pressure actually goes just a bit below zero. That “negative” pressure is overcome partly by suction, partly by the movement of muscles, and partly by the movement of the lungs as we breathe in and out. Speed Keep in mind that the arteries have a significant layer of muscle in them, and it is the job of this muscular layer to perpetuate the “pulse” generated by the heart. Throughout the arterial system the speed of the blood varies within the cycle of the pulse. It flows very fast for a short period of time, and then moves more slowly for a slightly longer time. By the time the blood begins

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to return to the heart, the blood no longer pulses, but simply flows at a relatively constant speed. Turbulence If you have ever watched the flow of water in rivers and streams, you would know that the water in the center of the stream flows the most forcefully. The flow of the water at the edges is limited by friction with the river bank, and can often develop circular side eddies that even have areas where the water flows in the opposite direction from the larger flow of the river. The flow of blood through the vascular system follows a similar pattern. Here is a diagram of the flow vectors in a large artery

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Here is a diagram of the flow vectors in a large vein

Notice that the forcefulness of the “side eddies” is greater in the arteries specifically because the blood moves more forcefully at the height of the pulse. This is why I make the statement that there is much greater “turbulence” in the arteries than in the veins. So, you can see that the blood in the arteries has significantly greater pressure and turbulence than the blood in the veins. The Cholesterol Problem Cholesterol is one of the major topics tied to heart disease. Tens of billions per year are spent on blood tests to measure cholesterol levels and the drugs prescribed to treat this condition. At every step, we are warned about the deadly dangers of too much cholesterol, and we are told that, if it gets out of hand, we will end up on a first name basis with cardiologists, heart surgeons, and emergency room physicians (or, possibly dead from a heart attack). Amidst all this talk about plaque deposits, what we really need is a model for how these plaque deposit problems develop. Here is one statement of the “conventional wisdom”. We are left to imagine that our blood can only hold so much cholesterol in solution, and when we go past that limit, some of that cholesterol will “fall out of solution” and then end up sticking somewhere in our vascular system. I would like you to role-play that first piece of cholesterol that falls out of solution and tell me where you are going to stick. Remember the previous discussion of pressure, speed, and turbulence.

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I routinely do presentations on heart disease, and steer the conversation around to just this question. The usual consensus is that first piece of cholesterol will stick somewhere in the large veins. Of course, there are some who insist that that piece of cholesterol will settle somewhere in the large arteries, but then I remind them about the pressure and turbulence that would make it almost impossible for the cholesterol to settle in the arteries, and they always acknowledge the superior logic that puts that first damaging piece of cholesterol in the large veins. From this point, it is easier to imagine that, because cholesterol is sticky, that the next piece of cholesterol will have an even better chance to stick to the first, and so, before long, a plaque deposit will be forming. Then I ask them to “name” the condition. If they don’t come up with a really descriptive one, I suggest “hardening of the veins”. I proceed to ask them if they have ever heard of “hardening of the veins”. When they say they haven’t, I admit to them that I haven’t either, and I ask them why do they think none of us have ever heard of this condition ? Of course, the answer is that it never happens. (Actually it does happen, but it’s so rare that “never” is a fairly accurate approximation of the frequency). We then discuss the fact that heart disease always involves plaque deposits in the arteries. The point here is that plaque deposits could not possibly be caused by excess cholesterol just acting how cholesterol would act on its own. What this means is that high cholesterol doesn’t “cause” plaque deposits, or at least not all by itself. So, let me summarize Conventional Wisdom #1. Your blood can only hold so much cholesterol, so when your levels get too high, some of that cholesterol starts to just fall out of solution. Because it is sticky stuff, it wants to find a place to stick to somewhere on the walls of the vascular system. This cholesterol curiously rejects sticking to the walls of the large veins, or even behind the valve flaps of the veins of the large veins in the lower portions of the body (where low pressure and turbulence would never threaten to scrape it from its chosen location). Instead, this cholesterol settles into the most difficult place in all of the circulatory system to attach. It comes to rest on the walls of the large arteries, and especially the coronary

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arteries (which is the place where there is the highest levels of pressure and turbulence.) From there, the plaque deposit grows and eventually a blood clot comes along and there you have it – a heart attack. Can You Believe This ? I can’t. Conventional Wisdom #2 In the past couple of decades, medical researchers have discovered that the original bit of plaque in any plaque deposit is “drawn to” locations where there is inflammation related to damage to the artery wall. From this starting point, the development doesn’t seem to differ much. Once the plaque starts, it builds (seemingly because there’s too much cholesterol in the blood). Finally, the open area of the artery at the location of the plaque deposit is so small that a small blood clot can get stuck there and totally close off all blood circulation past that point. Additional research indicates that some of the blood clots that close off these clogged arteries are blood clots formed elsewhere that just happen to be passing by this clogged artery and get stuck. However, some of these clots come into being from bleeding from the artery wall right at the site of the plaque deposit ! The medical professionals and researchers pushing this “more advanced” description of heart disease also tend to take note of “more advanced” markers and have also focused upon measuring C-Reactive protein, which is a measure of inflammation, and high homocysteine levels, which is known to promote blood clots and damage artery walls. From this “conventional wisdom #2”, we have a much more developed picture of what is really causing heart disease. We see the following: The process starts when there is inflammation in an artery wall brought on by damage at that location. Cholesterol and other materials needed to form plaque deposits are drawn to the locations where this inflammation exists.

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High homocysteine levels promote the clotting of blood and damage the inside of artery walls. High homocysteine levels are a risk factor for heart attacks. C-Reactive protein is an indicator of whole-body inflammation levels. High C-Reactive protein levels are a predictor of heart attacks. Some of the blood clots that close off arteries at the site of plaque deposits come directly from bleeding in the artery walls at the location of the plaque deposit. 1 With this more advanced information, the treatment changes very little, except that vitamins B6, B12, and folic acid are commonly recommended to reduce the homocysteine levels, and more tests are available to better evaluate the level of the heart disease. The treatment is still primarily drugs to lower the cholesterol, lower blood pressure, and thin the blood to limit blood clots. What bothers me about this more advanced view of heart disease is that there are several obvious questions staring us in the face which conventional medical researchers refuse to ask. Here are a few: If localized damage/inflammation begins the process of building a plaque deposit, how can this damage be prevented or reversed ? Why does the cholesterol seem “drawn” to the area of inflammation in the artery wall ? Is this entirely a maladaptive response ? Is the bleeding in the artery wall that ends up forming a blood clot at the location of a plaque deposit in any way related to the original damage/inflammation that started the whole process ? These are not hard questions to ask, and the logic of these questions is not beyond the powers of students in a junior-high science class. Yet, I have been unable to find any such discussion. If these questions are being posed in a clinical research setting, I would like someone to e-mail me and point this out. ([email protected])

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Chapter 2 – The Vitamin C Theory In this chapter, I am going to present what I believe to be a theory of heart disease that withstands much greater scrutiny than the conventional model. Let’s suppose that you had a very small pinhole in the vena cava (the largest vein) and the Aorta (the largest artery). Would you be worried ? If so, which pinhole would you be most worried about ? Of course, the pinhole in the large artery would be more threatening. The high pressure would cause much more bleeding and would also have the capability to tear open that pinhole and result in bleeding that could kill someone very quickly. I will call this “breakthrough bleeding”. A response to such a problem begins well before it ever reaches the pinhole stage. Your body “knows” that a damaged area in a large artery could easily become a life-threatening problem, so something needs to be done about it quickly. Of course the standard response to any damaged tissue is to repair it. Under optimal circumstances, this is exactly what would occur. In the case of a damaged artery wall, repair revolves around laying down new collagen fibers. Collagen is one of the most abundant proteins in the body, and it forms the basis for most of the strength of connective tissues such as skin, ligaments, and artery walls. Let’s imagine that you were doing some cooking, and the list of ingredients for your dish were flour, water, butter, saffron, and salt. Each recipe has a critical ingredient. If I were to look in my kitchen, I would probably find the flour, water, butter, and salt. The saffron would not be so predictable. Even if you like to cook with saffron, I might not have it on hand because it is so expensive. So, in this recipe, the saffron is the “critical” ingredient. Likewise, there is a “recipe” for making collagen fibers, and this recipe has a most “critical ingredient”. This ingredient is vitamin C. To see why vitamin C is the critical ingredient, we need to look at why vitamin C might be commonly in short supply. Vitamin C is abundant almost everywhere in our food supply. It is found in almost every fruit, vegetable, and even in meats. The problem is that vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is an unstable molecule and is very heat sensitive.

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So, if you pick an apple from a tree, it will have plenty of vitamin C, but if you turn it into applesauce and cook it along the way, the vitamin C is gone. Similarly, if you cut the apple into pieces and dry it, most of the vitamin C would be destroyed. Also, if you put that apple in a box, send it 1000 miles away, and make it sit in a warehouse for a month before someone takes it home, the amount of vitamin C will have gradually diminished over time. Exposure to oxygen, heat and light, over time, will all deplete or completely destroy vitamin C. So, if most of your food is cooked, dried, pickled, preserved, processed, packaged, prepared, or just plain “old”, then you will not be getting very much vitamin C from your food. Furthermore, vitamin C can’t be stored in the body. What you need today needs to be consumed today, so you can’t make up for a vitamin C-poor diet with the occasional gorging on kiwis and grapefruit. The problems of vitamin C don’t stop there. Vitamin C has many uses. It is a primary antioxidant, is extensively used in immune function, is essential in stress response, chelates toxic heavy metals, AND is required for the production of collagen fibers. That is, of course, if there is any left for this purpose. Compare yourself with someone living 100 years ago. You live in a much more chemicalized, stressful world, and you food is much more likely to be processed, packaged, and prepared. You probably need more vitamin C than a comparable person from a century ago, and you probably consume less. What this means is (unless you take vitamin C supplements), you are probably almost always a little deficient in vitamin C. Plan B Now, let’s return to the problem of the damage to the artery wall. We need vitamin C to fix it, but there isn’t enough to do the job right now. Fortunately, you body has a “Plan B”. While we are waiting for enough vitamin C to appear and make normal repairs, the weakened area of the artery wall will be coated with something that will reduce the danger of any breakthrough bleeding. What should we use to coat the area ? How about something that will be sticky enough and waxy enough so that it can hold onto the artery wall and not just be dissolved back into the blood right

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away ? This coating also needs to be flexible enough so that it doesn’t break into pieces when the arteries move and flex. Now that you know the purpose and the specs for a plaque deposit, you can see what a brilliantly-designed substance it is. Plaque deposits are not your enemy. Cholesterol and the plaque deposits that it contributes to are trying to save your life. When applied to a weakened area of an artery wall, they are nature’s perfect band-aid designed to prevent breakthrough bleeding. The problem with “Plan B” is that people don’t seem to be aware of it. The formation of plaque deposits, right up until the very advanced stages of heart disease cause no pain or obvious symptoms. There is no voice whispering in our ear – “get more vitamin C”. The result is that we don’t know anything is wrong, and we don’t change out diet and we don’t get vitamin C supplements. Instead of fixing the damaged artery wall next week or next month, we allow more and more damage to the arteries to occur. When more damage occurs in an already damaged area, the artery wall becomes weaker, and so the appropriate response is to make the plaque deposit even thicker. This process usually continues until a blood clot closes down a narrowed artery completely. When this occurs in a coronary artery, we call this a “Heart Attack”. Testing the Vitamin C Theory The vitamin C theory sounds interesting on paper, but it is nothing more than a theory until you test it out. The logic of this theory indicates that the damaged artery walls hiding behind plaque deposits are just waiting for the correct nutrients to fix all the damage. Furthermore, this theory states that the plaque deposits were purposely placed over the damaged portion of the artery walls to protect them from breakthrough bleeding. Therefore, when the damage to the artery walls is repaired, the plaque deposits should be “released”. And this is exactly what has been observed thousands and thousands of times. Furthermore, I am not talking about a statistically significant 3% of heart patients that have a reversal of their condition, or an occasional success here and there. The observation is that the vitamin C cure for heart disease works ALMOST EVERY TIME. It works so consistently that, within the

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small medical community that is aware of this therapy, further inquiry tends to focus on the cases where it doesn’t work. 38 History of the Vitamin C Cure Fortunately, I am not the originator of this heart disease therapy, and so there is some history to refer back to. One of the most prominent promoters of this therapy was Linus Pauling. He was the recipient of two unshared Nobel Prizes and 48 honorary Doctorates, and he repeatedly used the word “cure” when he talked publicly about the vitamin C therapy for heart disease. Anyone with internet access can search for his articles, and even videos. He was not the first, but just the most visible to promote the vitamin C heart disease cure. The trail of proponents goes back more than 50 years. 39

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Chapter 3 - The Heart Disease Prescription I have been referring to the “Vitamin C” theory and the “Vitamin C Cure” for heart disease as if that is all that you need to do – take enough vitamin C and your heart disease will go away. I was using vitamin C in the name because the number one nutrient is vitamin C, but there are several others that are required, and many beyond that that can be useful. In this chapter, I will cover all of the recommendations for supplements and dietary changes that together will reverse heart disease. I will list them in their approximate order of importance and try to give you enough information on each one so that you can put together your own program. Vitamin C Some nutritionists say that ascorbic acid is not vitamin C. They instead make the claim that vitamin C is a composite of ascorbic acid allied with many nutritional factors that work with ascorbic acid. I accept the idea that there are a lot of nutrients that contribute towards the benefits derived from ascorbic acid. But I contend that this is just a squabble over a naming convention. When I say “vitamin C” in this book, I mean specifically ascorbic acid. Any other “allied nutrients” I will mention by name. If you go to the health food store to purchase some vitamin C, make sure that you look at the chemical name on the back of the bottle. For example, a common form of vitamin C is calcium ascorbate. There are also other mineral-ascorbate forms. These are pH-neutralized forms of vitamin C. It limits problems with stomach upset that can occur in some people, and it also delivers some of the nutrient calcium (or other minerals). If you are going to take one or two grams of vitamin C, this might be a fine way to get your vitamin C, but if you are getting this vitamin C for the purpose of treating heart disease, you might intend to take quite a bit more that one or two grams per day. In this case, the amount of calcium (or other mineral) might be an overdose. For this reason, I always recommend that heart patients take their vitamin C as pure ascorbic acid. Usually a vitamin C product that really is pure ascorbic acid will have just one item on the list of ingredients – ascorbic acid.

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For someone who is an advanced heart disease patient, I usually recommend somewhere between 6 and 12 grams/day. For someone who merely wants to take this formula as a preventative, I recommend about 3 grams/day. Vitamin C does not stay in your system for very long. Particularly when you are taking larger doses and have a more advanced heart condition, it is advisable to split up the vitamin C into several smaller doses per day. For someone with heart disease, I recommend that you find the right dosage by increasing the dosage until you get some diarrhea. This is called “bowel tolerance” and indicates that you exceeded the amount of vitamin C that you needed. Back the dosage down a bit and continue on. If you are taking pure ascorbic acid as a powder, be careful not to keep it in your mouth too long. The acidity of the solution is enough to erode the enamel of your teeth if you routinely drink it slowly and swish it around in your mouth. The only overdose symptom for vitamin C is the diarrhea that I have mentioned. There are no other consequences related to the diarrhea (as long as you are taking pure ascorbic acid). L-Lysine L-Lysine is an amino acid. It is used in the creation of collagen fibers. A common collagen fiber looks like a 3-strand rope. The “rope” consists of a strand of L-glycine molecules, a strand of L-proline molecules, and a strand of L-lysine molecules. These strands of amino acid chains are twisted around each other in a helical fashion and, in fact, do look like a rope. Of all the amino acids, L-glycine is the simplest one chemically and, in general, is always in ample supply in the body.  L-proline and L-lysine, the other two amino acids in the collagen fiber, however, are not always in ample supply, and the body benefits from supplementation to ensure good collagen synthesis. 2 L-Lysine also helps to “dissolve” away the plaque deposits in very small pieces as the artery walls heal and “melt” the plaque deposit. It does this by attaching to the bonding sites where the plaque deposit attaches. You would

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definitely want to avoid the possibility that a plaque deposit separated as a large clump that could get stuck somewhere else in your circulatory system. Wheat is a Lysine-deficient grain, and people who get a significant portion of their protein from wheat bread, pasta, etc. tend to be deficient in Lysine. The dosage of L-Lysine should approximately match the dosage of vitamin C. L-Proline L-Proline is an amino acid. Like L-Lysine, it is part of some collagen fibers and it also helps to dissolve plaque deposits in very small pieces to prevent larger pieces of plaque from causing embolisms. Linus Pauling And Mathias Rath MD received a US patent #5230996 in 1993 for a solution used during bypass surgery to melt-away plaque deposits near the surgical site. The solution was highly concentrated L-Lysine and LProline. 3 . For the advanced heart disease patient, I recommend a dosage of about 1 to 2 grams/day. For the “preventive” patient, I recommend 500 mg/day. Overdoses of L-Proline will cause nausea. Vitamin E It is a quirk of vitamin naming conventions that there are 8 different chemicals that are all called vitamin E. They have similarities, but they also do different things. To avoid vitamin E deficiency problems, you need a supplement with all 8 types. Check the back of the bottle and look for all 8 chemical names. There will be 4 tocopherols, and 4 tocotrienols. The tocotrienols (which are the least common type to be included in a supplement) are important in cancer prevention, and are critical in breast cancer prevention. 4 It is important to note that the types of vitamin E tend to “displace” each other. Therefore, if you only supplement d-alpha tocopherol, you will be

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suppressing the availability and function of all the other seven types of vitamin E. 40 There have been a lot of medical journal articles recently on how high doses of vitamin E are “dangerous”. These are all either gross misinterpretations of the data or studies that were engineered to fail from the start. Many of these studies use only d-alpha tocopherol, which provides you with one of the 8 different types of vitamin E and suppresses the other seven types. Several other of these studies used dl-alpha tocopherol, which is the synthetic form of only one of the 8 vitamin E molecules. 7/8ths of dl-alpha tocopherol is plastic garbage and is not a naturally-occurring molecule. It is therefore predictable that studies done with this mostly useless chemical would produce results that dim enthusiasm for vitamin E. Make sure you get a vitamin E with all 8 chemical names on the back of the bottle. Since the best kind of vitamin E for a heart disease patient is gammatocopherol, it is worthwhile to look for a brand with “High-Gamma Tocopherol”. Take between 400 and 800 IU/day. In my opinion, the best vitamin E supplements are produced by A. C. Grace. They put the 4 tocopherols in one supplement and the 4 tocotrienols in a second supplement. The tocopherols are available in a “High-Gamma” version. A. C. Grace doesn’t combine the two groups of vitamin E because they compete for assimilation, and Grace’s position is that they should be taken at different times during the day. Unfortunately, this vitamin E supplement is more expensive and seldom available locally. If you are taking blood-thinners (warfarin or coumadin, for example), you need to be aware that vitamin E makes the blood “slippery” and therefore even less prone to clot. When starting to take vitamin E, you should simultaneously lower the dose of any blood-thinning medicine. A failure to do this could result in a bleeding stroke, which is the more deadly kind. Dropping the blood thinner medicine too quickly could result in a clotting stroke (not as serious as the bleeding kind) or a heart attack. In this heart disease formula, there are several other blood-thinning nutrients, such as magnesium, B-complex, and especially L-Arginine. Foods can also have blood-thinning effects, especially fresh fruits and vegetables that are consumed with all of their enzymes intact. You should be making your

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decision about when to reduce blood-thinning medications based upon your whole nutrient picture. As time goes on, and the condition of your arteries improves, the logic behind taking blood thinners in the first place will disappear. You should check into cutting out the blood thinners entirely when related heart disease symptoms (high blood pressure, chest pains, out of breath quickly) return to normal. This indicates that your arteries have mostly healed up and the plaque deposits would be no where near as severe as when you started. I have heard warnings that, even on a long-term basis, that high doses of vitamin E should be avoided because its tendency to promote bleeding. I pay little attention to these statements. Remember that vitamin E both promotes bleeding (has an anti-coagluant effect) and prevents bleeding at the same time. Of course, it prevents bleeding, because it is a strong antioxidant and therefore protects the integrity of all parts of the vascular system. At the risk of stating the obvious, vitamin E is a vitamin, and Coumadin is not. After the vascular system has been substantially repaired, there is little danger in having high and balanced levels of the 8 types of vitamin E in your blood. Other than those who are taking blood-thinning medication, there are no overdose warnings for vitamin E until you double the dosage and reach around 1500 IU/day, at which point you might see nausea and/or tiredness in addition to increased tendency to bleed. Co-Enzyme Q10 Co-Q10 is necessary for the production of collagen fibers, and it is needed in large amounts wherever there is high energy usage. Of course, the heart, because it is the one muscle that never rests, needs a lot of Co-Q10. Co-Q10 is naturally produced by our bodies, but this production usually declines as we age, so that most people over the age of 40 would benefit from supplementation. Heart patients, particularly those with high blood pressure, which forces the heart muscle to use more energy, stand to benefit from supplementation at even higher levels. The penalty for such heart patients whose Co-Q10 levels get too low is congestive heart failure. 5

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Co-Q10 is produced through the same biological pathway as cholesterol. The most popular class of cholesterol-reducing drugs are statins. All statin drugs work by inhibiting that biological pathway that produces cholesterol, and therefore also reduce the natural production of Co-Q10. So, when a statin drug is prescribed for a patient with heart disease, they are trading the theoretical but highly debated benefit of lower cholesterol for the almost certain problem of further reducing desperately-needed Co-Q10 levels. Red Yeast Rice is a naturally-occurring product that works by the same metabolic inhibition, so it will have the same adverse effect on Co-Q10. 6 Merck, who produced one of the first statin drugs Mevacor, was aware of this problem from the very beginning. They even went so far as to patent a drug that would combine Mevacor with Co-Q10. During the process of getting that patent, the use of Mevacor rose so sharply that, when the patent was finally received, it was clear to Merck that the potential market for CoQ10 combined with Mevacor was far greater than the entire world supply of Co-Q10, and that if they pushed this “combination” drug, they wouldn’t be able to sell as much Mevacor. In addition they would be initiating a public discussion about the adverse side effects of statin drugs. So, as expected, they did the right thing – for the bottom line. They did not market the Mevacor/Co-Q10 combination, and we have seen a dramatic rise in congestive heart failure ever since. Merck threw us under the bus, but not of course, before they picked our pocket. 7 Dosage – There is no overdose problem with Co-Q10, so err on the high side if you are in doubt and cost is not an issue. I usually recommend between 60 and 100 mg/day, but I have heard of benefits for doses several times this level. Co-Q10 requires oil to be properly absorbed, so take it with a meal where some fat/oil is consumed. Country of origin can be a problem. For years, all the Co-Q10 was made in Japan. Recently, some Co-Q10 has been made in China, and there have been quality control problems that have led to allergic responses and overall negative results from the Chinese product. Until this is resolved, it is worthwhile to check with the manufacturing company to see where they get their Co-Q10. Copper/Zinc

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Copper is a more recent addition to the heart disease formula. Decades ago, most homes had copper pipes and most people drank tap water. Even the slightest bit of acidity in their water would leach sufficient copper to meet their nutritional needs. Now, a lot of people are aware that their municipal tap water should not be used for drinking (because it has chlorine, fluoride, aluminum and other contaminants) . In addition almost all new homes have water pipes made from PVC. Predictably, copper deficiencies have been popping up everywhere. Copper is required for the creation of collagen fibers. Deficiency symptoms (besides heart disease) would primarily be microcytic anemia, where the red blood cells are too small. Overdose symptoms include nausea, digestive problems, mania, paranoia, and related mental problems. Copper over-accumulation is much more likely in vegetarians than in meateaters. Zinc helps to limit copper accumulation, and zinc is likely to be deficient in a vegetarian diet. Zinc is also important in healing damaged tissues (including artery walls). Therefore the copper/zinc balance is an important but difficult topic to get exactly correct. Copper dosage should be in the area of 2 mg/day, and Zinc should probably be in the area of 30 mg per day. If you are a vegetarian or have copper pipes in your house, you might consider skipping the copper, and just supplementing the zinc. Most of the rest of you might do best to find a zinc/copper combination supplement. For those who have worries about Mad Cow Disease/BSE/CJD, you should be aware that it all starts as a copper deficiency. The time-line of the rise of this condition in people corresponds with the conversion of copper pipes to PVC. For all those who wish to pursue this topic, I strongly recommend the original website of Mark Purdey - http://www.markpurdey.com/.

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Organic Sulfur Organic Sulfur – This is also known as MSM, but I recommend looking for products that describe themselves as “Organic Sulfur” because they tend to be much more pure, and therefore much more effective. Organic sulfur will deliver oxygen to cells, is excellent at removing a wide variety of toxins, and is required to form disulfide bonds in the creation of collagen fibers. 52 The only downside to organic sulfur is that it will also “sulfate out” some beneficial minerals. Therefore, some users can develop mineral-deficiency problems after some months of usage. For best results, take one teaspoon of organic sulfur in chlorine-free water upon waking up in the morning on an empty stomach. Then wait 30 minutes before you eat or drink anything else. To prevent long-term mineral deficiencies, upping the dose of magnesium and adding a multi-mineral supplement are good ideas. I order mine at 1801-290-2013. Mercury is very toxic. Sulfur has a strong affinity for mercury, and is very capable of removing it from the tissues. But one problem is that it can also “stir up” and leach out more mercury from mercury/amalgam dental fillings. If you have such fillings, this is a reason to keep the dosage of organic sulfur down to at most one teaspoon per day and possibly as low as ½ teaspoon. Long-term the best approach if you have mercury amalgam dental fillings is to replace them with composite fillings. The mercury filling removal and replacement is expensive and dangerous and if you have more than one filling, should be done by an IAOMT-certified dentist. Magnesium Magnesium should probably be labeled as the number one mineral for heart disease patients. Magnesium is very effective at treating heart arrhythmia, is an anti-coagulant (debatably better than aspirin), is required for many energy-producing metabolic reactions, and tends to relieve cramps. It is one of the most common mineral deficiencies among people who do not take supplements. I usually recommend between 200 and 400 mg/day. At these dosage levels, it is unlikely you will get any adverse reaction even if you are not deficient. Too much magnesium can result in diarrhea (think milk of magnesia). Avoid magnesium oxide as it is the most difficult to absorb. I prefer to 2

recommend magnesium malate, as it is easily absorbable, and the malic acid that it is combined with will help dissolve gallstones. The malic acid portion of magnesium malate is not just a trivial topic. You should know that “gallstones” are probably more plentiful in the liver than the gallbladder, and can “plug up” the sinusoids that filter the blood in the liver. A wide variety of problems can result even if a small group of the several hundred functions of the liver are limited because of congestion from gallstones. 8 This country has been on a “calcium kick” for about the past twenty years and it is worth mentioning one of the adverse effects here. Calcium and magnesium work in opposition to each other. Calcium limits absorbtion of Magnesium, and it has many of the opposite effects physiologically. Where Magnesium causes muscles to relax, Calcium causes them to contract. Also, Calcium is known to cause constipation. This is important to keep in mind when supplementing either one. I have had patients who have exhibited signs of magnesium deficiency. I advised them to start taking magnesium. They would go down to their local health food store and talk to the person working supplements to help them pick out a magnesium supplement. They would be advised that calcium and magnesium are commonly taken together and that they should buy a supplement that contained both. They would come home with a Cal/Mag supplement that had a Ca/Mg ration of 2:1. This would make their magnesium deficiency symptoms worse because the high dose of Calcium would more than overwhelm any benefit from the low dose of Magnesium. Getting a different supplement either with no calcium or with a 1:2 ratio (more Mg than Ca) usually fixed the problem. Vitamin K The conventional world of cardiology sees blood clots as one of the two main dangers (development of plaque deposits being the other). My medical model points out that the plaque deposit is not pathological, but instead an adaptive and protective response to protect against breakthrough bleeding at a location of damaged artery walls.

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Vitamin K is a blood coagulant, and you might guess that I include vitamin K in the formula to suppress bleeding. This would be close, but not exactly correct. Vitamin K is included in the formula because of its’ ability to neutralize the blood-thinning effects of both vitamin E and magnesium. Blood thinning/blood clots are a touchy subject for heart patients and cardiologists. My goal is to construct this formula so that it is usable alongside almost any conventional treatment. I want to make this formula usable by heart patients who are still being treated by conventional cardiologists without first having to convert that conventional cardiologist to thinking about heart disease with my medical model. Vitamin K is a lightning-rod for the most common misunderstanding about heart disease. Many of the best innovative alternative physicians are promoting the use of vitamin K2 for heart disease patients. Their reasoning is that K2 can move calcium from “where it is not supposed to be” back to “where it is supposed to be”, such as in the bones, etc. They are looking at the calcium content of the plaque deposit as part of the “dreaded” calcium score, and they see it as a dangerous thing. If these innovative alternative doctors are ever going to play a part in leading the world out of the abyss of how heart disease is treated, they will need to see that the calcium is part of the plaque deposit, and the plaque deposit is NOT the pathology but instead a protective and adaptive response to damaged artery walls. B-Vitamins B-Vitamins are usually best taken as B-complex, rather than as singles. Because many of them work together on several metabolic processes, supplementing just one may rev-up the whole system for a brief time and result in deficiencies of other B-vitamins. B-vitamins affect heart disease patients in two significant ways. A person with high blood pressure is going to have to make their heart work harder to pump the blood. This is going to require more energy usage by the heart muscle, and therefore a better supply of B-vitamins.

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High homocysteine levels have drawn much attention as a problem for heart disease patients. Homocysteine tends to irritate artery walls and it tends to make blood more prone to clot. Both of these are serious problems. High homocysteine levels are resolved by taking B-6, B-12 and folic acid. A note on B-12 supplements. Most B-12 supplements have the chemical name cyano-cobalamin. This is a precursor to the active form of B-12. It is the cobalamin molecule attached to a cyanide molecule. It needs to be converted to the active form. This will usually happen in the liver. As people age, the liver sometime weakens and in some cases is unable to perform this conversion, leaving the patient with plenty of cobalamin in the bloodstream, but no usable B-12. The conversion involves replacing the cyanide molecule. The result of this conversion is that the cyanide is released in the liver. The amount of cyanide is very small, and is almost always detoxified adequately. I have read of one case where someone actually died from cyanide poisoning from routinely taking large doses of cyano-cobalamin over a long period of time. My concern however, isn’t about the 1-in-a-billion case, but instead the stupidity of voluntarily introducing cyanide into your liver, even if it is a small amount. I always recommend getting B-12 either as methyl-cobalamin or as dibencozide.

Niacin (B3) Niacin has a long history of reducing cholesterol levels. Some people take this as an alternative to statin drugs or other cholesterol-reducing strategies. I want make sure that you understand what I have said previously that CHOLESTEROL IS NOT THE PROBLEM. High cholesterol in a heart disease patient is evidence that your body is responding correctly to heightened levels of damage/inflammation/tissue repair going on throughout your body.

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Niacin, particularly when flushing occurs has a detoxifying effect, and if you are using it for this reason, I have no objection. However, other than as part of a B-complex, I don’t recommend additional niacin. I have been able to find studies that show that the high levels of niacin (several grams per day) used to lower cholesterol levels actually reduce mortality (unlike statin drugs), but I am wondering about two things: What would the effect have been if a considerably lower dose of niacin – something in the neighborhood of 200 mg/day – had been used instead ? It is possible that the subjects in these trials were niacin deficient so that any additional niacin would show benefits, even if there were also overdose symptoms. What is the mechanism for the reduction of cholesterol levels by niacin ? If the cholesterol is removed directly, then I can foresee problems. But, if the niacin works indirectly – by fixing the background problems that require high cholesterol in the blood, limit free-radical damage, and reduce inflammation, then I would be much more favorable.

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Rutin and Other Bioflavonoids Some nutritionists say that vitamin C is not just ascorbic acid, but also includes many other chemicals that work in conjunction. Bioflavonoids fall in this category. They will always help ascorbic acid to be more effective. They assist in the absorption of ascorbic acid and make it persist longer in the blood by preventing its breakdown. Rutin is the one bioflavonoid that is most specific to the circulatory system, which makes it the perfect bioflavonoid for a heart disease patient. Consequently, when I recommend bioflavonoids, I hope that you can find a supplement where Rutin is the bioflavonoid with the highest dose. Dosage – More is better. Extremely high doses may cause diarrhea, although is makes more sense to suspect a vitamin C overdose than a bioflavonoid overdose if you do experience diarrhea. Take at least 500 mg/day. I take 1 gram per day. If you have advanced heart disease, you should consider taking 2 or 3 grams per day. Omega-3 Fatty Acids Omega-3 fatty acids can’t be produced by humans, and so must be consumed in the diet. Common sources are flaxseeds/oil, chia seeds/oil , hempseeds/oil, and fish oil. All omega-3 oils are volatile and tend to go rancid much easier than more stable oils, such as olive oil. Humans have a need for a variety of different types of fats and oils. Omega3 fatty acids are one of those requirements. The reason why we are bombarded with information that omega-3 oils are so good for us is that the food on the supermarket shelf has just about none. From the perspective of a food packager/processor, omega-3 oils are “the enemy”, because the food that is packaged and processed will have to sit in warehouses and on the supermarket shelf so long that the omega-3 oils will turn rancid before the food is eaten. Of course, the result is that the food industry would lose billions of dollars per year in spoiled returned food unless they meticulously avoided putting these omega-3 oils into most foods. So, we need to seek out sources of omega-3 oils in order to avoid deficiency problems. Omega-3 oils are used wherever oxygen needs to be moved around very quickly and in large quantities. Omega-3 oils are most 2

prominently used in the brain, nervous tissue, retina of the eyes, heart, lungs, and reproductive organs. It is because of how fast the omega-3 oils can go through chemical reactions that we can see “continuously” instead of as a series of stills. Just because you have discovered how valuable omega-3 oils can be doesn’t mean that the omega-3 oils that you buy will be exempt from the rancidity problem. Keep in mind that light, heat, and oxygen all contribute to rancidity. So, NEVER cook with omega-3 oils, always keep them refrigerated, and keep the bottle closed except to dispense some oil. If you buy liquid omega-3 oils – buy the smallest containers. This gives you the best chance to use the oil before it goes rancid. Buy it from refrigerated shelves only, and you should know that the black plastic containers do the best job of keeping the light out. Make sure you can taste the oil. This is the only way you can know if it has gone rancid. If it tastes “bad”, it probably is – throw it out and get more. Rancid oil does a lot more harm than good. If you buy gel-caps – The gel-caps do a good job of protecting the oil from oxygen and light, and are therefore not always refrigerated when you buy them. I still recommend that you get them in small bottles and I still favor the black plastic containers because it limits light energy from reaching the oil. My one strong recommendation is that you should make a point to taste the oil about once per week. Bite into one of the gel-caps. If it tastes “bad”, throw away the whole bottle. If you are buying fish oil – Remember that fish oil is the much more volatile than flaxseed oil. There will always be at least a little bit of rancidity in fish oil, but it is so “good” that it is acceptable to put up with a little bit of rancidity. Fish oil doesn’t smell or taste “fishy” naturally. The smell and taste that we have come to call “fishy” is actually a low level of rancidity that happens before any fish can be brought to market. The more fishy the oil smells/tastes, the worse it is. Even flaxseed oil can have a “fishy” taste. Arginine L-Arginine is an amino acid that can do triple-duty for a heart disease patient. It is an anti-coagulant which works much better than aspirin, it 2

reduces blood pressure, and it protects the inner lining of the artery walls. By its virtues, it deserves a much higher place in this collection of “additional nutrients for heart disease”, but it does have one significant drawback. L-Arginine promotes the reproduction of a collection of viruses that include herpes, cytomegalovirus, and Epstein-Barr. 9 In that I am promoting this collection of nutrients as relatively “worry-free” and with a very low potential for overdose problems or adverse effects, I must downplay LArginine just a bit. On the other hand, it is likely that some people following this nutritional prescription who have one or more of these viruses will have no adverse effects. This is because L-Lysine prevents outbreaks of these viruses, and LLysine is found in this formula in dosages much higher than the typical dosage of L-Arginine. Also vitamin C, vitamin E, and the mineral Selenium (to be discussed a little later in the list), contribute significantly to immune function, and would further diminish the possibility of viral outbreak. The most comprehensive article available on the internet on the subject of LArginine and its uses for the heart disease patient is: http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/arginine.htm I strongly recommend reading this. As you read more about the use of LArginine as a nutritional supplement, you will also run across suggestions for dosages of 10 grams per day or more, as a way of overcoming certain biological limitations, such as getting past the blood-brain barrier. In choosing a dosage for heart disease patients, I am interested only in supplementing deficiency and working within normal biological processes. In line with this approach, I recommend dosages of L-Arginine of approximately one gram per day. The article posted on the Vitamin C Foundation website that I have just mentioned makes several points that are worth summarizing here. The basic idea of that article is that hundreds of millions of people worldwide are taking an aspirin a day as a way of dealing with heart disease and preventing heart attack. L-Arginine is presented as a highly superior alternative to aspirin for the following reasons:

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1. A close inspection of the clinical trials used to promote the aspirin-a-day idea are seriously and obviously flawed. (See later article on An Aspirin A Day …) 2. Aspirin is an “unconditional” anticoagulant. This means that it always suppresses coagulation, even in those cases where you need coagulation to suppress bleeding. For this reason, the use of aspirin has always been associated with bleeding strokes (the more lethal kind) and ulcers of the intestinal tract. L-Arginine, on the other hand is a “conditional” anti-coagulant. It will help thin the blood, except in the presence of inflammation and tissue damage, where it will not interfere with normal coagulation. Therefore, it would have the positive effects of aspirin without the negative side-effects. 3. Aspirin is capable of dissolving tissue. Next time you have a wart on your hand, put an aspirin tablet directly on top of the wart, and put a bandage on top of it to keep it in place. Replace the aspirin/bandage each day. In a couple of days, the wart will be gone – because the aspirin dissolved it. Once you understand that the fundamental problem in heart disease is the integrity of connective tissue in the artery walls, it seems beyond belief that competent medical authorities would recommend the use of a substance that is capable of dissolving tissue. Of course, the concentration of aspirin is greatly reduced once it gets into the blood, but the principal is still in effect. The only difference is that the adverse effect happens at a much lower level.

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Glucosamine Sulphate/Chondritin Sulphate Glucosamine sulphate and chondritin sulphate are the raw materials to rebuild damaged cartilage. They have also been observed to help in building stronger connective tissues, so that the strength and integrity of artery walls can be improved. Though the improvement is tangential, because these supplements are not used in the production of collagen fibers, they do appear to be used to cross-link such fibers and make them more durable. 10 Glucosamine sulphate is typically derived from the exoskeleton of shellfish, so that it is possible to have allergic reactions – even severe allergic reactions. For this reason, I put this supplement near the bottom of the list for heart-disease patients. This, of course, should not imply that glucosamine sulphate/chondritin sulphate are not useful for such patients. There have been reports of significant benefits in heart disease, I should at least warn that the logic may be skewed here. Those who treat their cartilage/joint pain with glucosamine sulphate are often doing this in place of using COX-2 inhibitors such as Vioxx, which are known to promote heart problems. Garlic Garlic is a potent anti-coagulant as well as a food-source of selenium and a useful antibiotic/antifungal/antiviral. It will lower blood pressure. 11 Lecithin Lecithin is a food that is also a powerful emulsifier. It is used in all cells in the body, and especially in the nervous-system tissue. When a lecithin deficient person is given lecithin, a wide variety of problems may be improved or entirely cleared up. In a heart disease patient, the primary benefit is to assist the L-Lysine/LProline dissolving of the plaque deposits slowly, so that no large clumps separate and cause a blockage elsewhere. There are 3 major type of lecithin – soy, egg, and sunflower. Soy should not be used because it is almost always GMO, and can cause unpredictable

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problems because of unnatural proteins created by the areas of genetic modification. Sunflower and egg lecithin are both acceptable sources. About two years ago, I was looking for some lecithin, and could not find egg lecithin on the shelf. So, I purchased soy lecithin instead. The package indicated that it was certified organic and non-GMO. I took the first teaspoonful, and within twenty minutes I had blurred vision in my left eye. This lasted for about 90 minutes. It had never happened before, and it has never happened since. I threw away the package of soy lecithin. 20 years ago, before GMO soy had ever come out of the lab, I had often consumed and recommended soy lecithin always without any adverse effect. Cardio-C Usually, I do not mention specific brands of supplements unless there are significant benefits to be gained from following vendor-specific recommendations. One such recommendation is the brand of vitamin C that I routinely purchase. There are many packaged vitamin C-based heart disease formulas available over the internet. Cardio-C, which is sold by the Vitamin C Foundation is one of those formulas. I use this formula (I am my own most significant heart patient) primarily because I think that the Vitamin C Foundation sells the best vitamin C that I have been able to find. The vitamin C in Cardio-C is L-ascorbic acid. Almost all vitamin C is synthetic (except for some food-based low-dosage sources). Almost all of the synthetic vitamin C is a 50/50 mixture of L-ascorbic acid and Dascorbic acid. L-ascorbic acid is what is found in nature. D-ascorbic acid must be discarded by your body. Therefore, a purified L-ascorbic acid will be twice as effective as a random 50/50 mixture of both, plus it will have the additional benefit of not requiring excretion of the unusable “D-“ portion. Almost all synthetic vitamin C is produced from cornstarch. Corn is a common source of allergens, and is one of the two most common GMO crops. I try to avoid the ingestion of all substances that are derived from corn. Cardio-C is never derived from corn.

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Several decades ago, almost all the synthetic vitamin C was manufactured in Japan, the United States, or Germany. Over the past ten years, China has become the major manufacturer of vitamin C. China has a bad reputation when it comes to contamination and quality control. The Vitamin C Foundation never uses vitamin C manufactured in China. Cardio-C also contains L-Lysine and L-Proline in proportions appropriate for the treatment of arterial weaknesses. So, there is an additional convenience for heart disease patients because three nutrients come in one package. The phone number for the Vitamin C Foundation is 1-800-894-9025. I have no financial connection to the Vitamin C Foundation. Vitamin D and Selenium Neither vitamin D nor selenium plays any significant part in creating collagen fibers or repairing artery walls. I address them solely because they are frequently mentioned in studies as being good for heart health. They are very good in this respect primarily because they prevent infectious disease, and the heart always does better when it is not suffering from an infection. A common virus that may involve the heart and create more fertile ground for heart attacks is the coxsackie virus. Common dosages are 1000 IU/day for vitamin D, and 100 mcg/day for selenium. A Generic Heart Disease Treatment Formula Here is a generic formula designed to treat someone with advanced and serious arterial blockages: Vitamin C – 6 to 12 grams in divided doses throughout the day L-Lysine – 6+ grams per day L-Proline – 1+ gram per day Or Cardio-C - 2 to 3 scoops spread throughout the day And you may have to add vitamin C separately as 3 scoops will total about 7.5 grams ascorbic acid. 3

Vitamin E Complex (all 8 kinds) – Between 400 and 800 IU / day Co-Q10 - 100 mg per day (take with oil consumption) Magnesium Malate - 200-400 mg total magnesium per day Zinc/Copper - Zinc 30 mg, Copper 2 mg take once per day Vitamin K – 100 mcg per day Organic Sulfur – 1 tsp per day B-Complex - Follow dosage on bottle Rutin / bioflavonoids – 2 grams in divided doses throughout the day Flaxseed oil or fish oil – 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon per day The cost of this level of supplementation would usually be under $90/month. Here is a generic formula designed for prevention Vitamin C – 3 grams per day L-Lysine – 3 grams per day L-Proline – 500 mg per day Or Cardio-C - 1 scoop per day Vitamin E Complex (all 8 kinds) – Between 400 and 800 IU / day Co-Q10 - 30 mg per day (take with oil consumption) Magnesium Malate - 200 mg total magnesium per day Zinc/Copper - Zinc 30 mg, Copper 2 mg take once per day Vitamin K – 100 mcg per day Organic Sulfur – 1 tsp per day B-Complex - Follow dosage on bottle Rutin / bioflavonoids – 1 gram per day Flaxseed oil or fish oil – 1 teaspoon per day The cost of this level of supplementation would usually be less than $70/month.

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Chapter 4 What Conventional Medicine Expects To Achieve What the Vitamin C Therapy Expects To Achieve In this section, I am making some assumptions, and I am dividing the heart disease treatment world into two groups. One group will use primarily the “vitamin C therapy”. The other will use primarily drugs and surgery. I will refer to this group as the “Conventional” group. Of course, the drugs and surgery group is by several orders of magnitude the bigger group. Both groups use recommendations such as stop smoking, reduce stress in your life, limit alcohol and routinely exercise moderately. Significant portions of the conventional group also make recommendations about omega-3 fatty acids, trans fats, saturated fats, and other dietary topics. The following statements are not based upon specific citations of sources, because in this section, I must make very general statements. Neither the conventional group nor the vitamin C group ever expects to completely cure their patients. Therefore, to one extent or another, both groups claims their patients for life. The conventional group hopes that some improvement might occur through the use of the omega-3’s, exercise, or even reduced stress levels. I was unable to find published percentages for such improvements. It appears the “success” in the conventional treatment world means that the damage is halted, or proceeds so gradually that the patient will likely die from something other than heart disease. In some discussions, open heart surgery still falls within the definition of successful treatment as long as the patient doesn’t die from the surgery. Side effects are a problem. Blood thinners prevent the blood clots that might get stuck in a narrowed artery, and so they help to prevent both heart attack and clotting stroke (which is the more common but less serious kind). Unfortunately, thinning the blood also promotes bleeding strokes (the more deadly kind), and interferes with clotting where it is needed, such as healing from a bleeding injury. All drugs that reduce cholesterol levels, and especially statin drugs have a wide variety of negative side effects. Among these are muscle pain, muscle weakness, peripheral neuropathy, dizziness, 3

cognitive impairment, depression, low resistance to infection, and increased incidence of cancer. Then there are the blood pressure med side effects. Since there are so many different classes of hypertension medication, the list of symptoms reads like the list of just about everything that can go wrong with a human being. The cost of conventional treatment will be in the 5-10 thousands of dollars per year even if no emergency-room visits or heart surgery are required, and closer to $60,000 per year if surgery is involved. Cardiologist visits are routine, and multiple drug prescriptions are the norm. If the patient has excellent health insurance, their out-of-pocket costs might be minimal. The fact that heart disease is the number two cause of death in the United States is a reminder that the success of the conventional group is marginal. Please note that the only cause of death that exceeded heart disease in the United States, as of 2005 is iatrogenic diseases – which means disease caused by medical treatment. 12 In the vitamin C group, success involves the substantial reversal of symptoms. Chest pains, energy levels, out-of-breath problems, high blood pressure and incidence of stroke, heart attack and congestive heart failure are all presumed to drop off to levels expected in populations that do not include heart patients. The presumption is made that the patient is prone to heart disease and still has low levels of the symptoms including plaque deposits. If they reverted to their old habits, the more severe heart disease symptoms would return quickly. Side effects are another area of significant difference. The negative side effects of the vitamin C therapy include: Diarrhea if the dose of vitamin C or magnesium is too high Promotion of virus outbreaks if taking L-Arginine

The positive side effects include:

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Improvements in integrity and appearance of skin Improvements in tendons and ligaments Better immune function Better chelation of toxic heavy metals Better adrenal stress response The cost of continued care, after a period of initial improvements may or may not include regular doctor visits with occasional diagnostic tests. Certainly, the topic changes from whether or not the disease is getting worse to whether or not the disease is coming back. A common assumption, supported by observation, is that the patient that sticks with what reversed their heart disease will continue to be in good heart health. Therefore, such doctor visits and diagnostic tests are kept to a minimum or stopped entirely. Emergency heart interventions are much less common, and mostly limited to those who stop their heart-healthy habits. The cost of supplementation, if it reverts back to maintenance doses usually costs less than $50 per month. This is almost never covered by insurance, so those with the very best health insurance might myopically conclude that the vitamin C approach is “more expensive” than conventional treatment.

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Chapter 5 Stop Fixing the Adaptive Response As doctors, scientists, and researchers try to find and refine ideas about the mechanism, prevention, and treatments for heart disease, there is a “wrong turn” that gets taken by just about everyone. The plaque deposit/blood clot combination is the focal point of the discussion and the inquiry into prevention and treatment. A person’s view of the plaque deposit may be theoretical – in the case of a relative or friend, or it may be more visceral – in the case of a medical professional. Once you see that big ugly plaque deposit that certainly played a big part in killing your friend/family member/patient, or if you are a coroner – member of your community, it holds your attention. Once you have seen this deadly, messy glob that looks about as far away from a healthy artery as anything you have ever examined, you are usually repulsed with some degree of terror or disgust. It dominates your emotions and your thoughts about treatment, prevention, etc. We are often asked to look at a system that has failed, analyze what went wrong, and propose a solution. In the case of a death from heart attack in a patient with heart disease, we instinctively look at the plaque deposit and then work backwards. Almost all of our proposals are about the deadly plaque deposit. We discuss the fatty nature of the plaque, the cholesterol, the calcium buildup, the blood clot, how to prevent them, and how to remove them. The medical community has been coming up with solutions for heart attacks caused by these plaque/blood clot combinations for decades, and the one constant seems to be that we have more heart attack deaths and heart disease patients almost every year. In this book, I have proposed that labeling the plaque deposit as the pathology is this “wrong turn”. Instead I propose that the following sentences be prominent in discussions of heart attack deaths in heart disease patients:

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The plaque deposit is NOT PATHOLOGICAL. The plaque deposit is an ADAPTIVE RESPONSE to what is found underneath the plaque deposit, which is damaged and weakened artery walls. If doctors/researchers/scientists can be convinced that the plaque deposit is not the pathology, then maybe they will stop trying to fix it. Here are some proposed causes of heart attacks that I have found looking through current literature on heart disease: Saturated fat Total Cholesterol Toxicity of oxidized cholesterol High Triglycerides The Calcium content of a plaque deposit The calcium sources that allow calcium buildup in the plaque deposit Lipoprotein(a) Cracks in the artery walls allowing too much cholesterol into the artery tissue Immune response to oxidized cholesterol Very small, dense LDL particles squeeze through the lining of the arteries and then oxidizing Blood clots that get stuck in plaque deposits Blood that has the capability to form such clots The ratio of LDL to HDL The ratio of HDL to total cholesterol Research into cholesterol as a cause of heart disease has been an ongoing project for more than 40 years. In the past few years there have been articles popping up everywhere with the theme of “cholesterol is not the problem” 43, 44, 45, 47 . The same pattern is already unfolding for an aspirin-a-day to prevent heart attacks 49, and the restriction of sodium 50, 51, dietary fats 43, 45, and dietary saturated fat 43, 45, 46, 48. For each of these suspected causes, hundreds of millions of research dollars and hundreds of thousands of research hours might be spent over the course of a couple decades. At the end of that gigantic effort, the scientific community circles back to about where it started when it finally admits – “this is not the problem”.

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If you accept the idea that the real pathology is the damaged artery walls behind the plaque deposits, then all of these research failures are actually predictable. No amount of money or research effort is ever going to prove that suppressing an adaptive response will cure a major disease. Most of this book is an appeal to individuals to understand how effective and appropriate the “Pauling Therapy” is for the prevention and treatment of heart disease. But here, I am acknowledging that I need some help. Because heart disease is year by year the disease that kills the most people in the industrialized countries, it generates a lot of fear, and most people are unable to trust themselves to understand such subjects. Heart disease patients are usually afraid to do anything other than what their doctors tell them to do. Furthermore, most MD’s/cardiologists are afraid to risk their license by pursuing any therapy that does not have multiple studies backing it. So, it all starts with the medical researchers. Until they realize that the plaque deposits are not pathological, we are doomed to spend billions of dollars and decades of research looking for the cure to heart disease in places where it can’t possibly be.

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Chapter 6 - Chelation Therapy Chelation therapy is a general term for removing metals from your bloodstream by attaching them to various other amino acids, vitamins, etc. that make the metals inert and easy to remove. Of course, the focus is on toxic heavy metals, but not exclusively so, because the substances used to chelate will attach to a wide variety of minerals, many of them being beneficial. 13 So, the routine is expected to be to chelate, and then replace the nutritional minerals that were lost in the process, and over time, repeat the process until enough of the toxic metals have been removed. It is possible to take chelation formulas orally, and this getting to be a more favored method because it ends up being very low-cost. Chelation can also be accomplished by suppository. The historically most famous chelation treatment is taking EDTA by IV. This was originally done to treat lead poisoning. The EDTA treatment for lead poisoning was very successful, but the EDTA didn’t restrict itself to lead, but also removed mercury, arsenic, and other metals. Health benefits were noted that were not necessarily related to lead removal, and EDTA chelation treatments for patients with heart disease became more popular. One of the “other metals” that di-sodium EDTA would take out in sometimes dangerous amounts was calcium. When trying to figure out the mechanism for how EDTA chelation helped heart patients, many pointed to the potential for calcium removal and also the fact that plaque deposits have a significant calcium content. The logic became that the EDTA produced its very positive results by dissolving parts of the deposits on the artery walls. 14 It sounded like solid logic. The calcium and plaque deposits were the problem, and the EDTA helped to remove them by dissolving them. Case closed. First of all, the plaque and calcium deposits are NOT the problem. The damage to the artery walls is the problem. The plaque and calcium deposits 4

are a hopefully temporary solution to this problem, and if the EDTA really worked by directly dissolving the deposits, then one of the common results would be bleeding from the damaged areas of the arteries. This did not appear to be the case. The side-effects that did commonly occur included deficient mineral levels if the nutritional minerals that were chelated out were not replaced, and kidney problems if the level of heavy metals to be excreted may have overwhelmed the kidneys. So another explanation was necessary. Even the critics of chelation acknowledge the potential for EDTA to remove toxic heavy metals and for those toxic heavy metals to create free-radical damage. I am siding with the explanation that says that the improvement to heart disease symptoms is indirect. It reduces the potential for free-radical damage, and therefore allows the body to “catch up” on its backlog of arterial repair.

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Chapter 7 High Fat, Saturated Fat, Trans Fat, Omega-3’s In the 1950’s, there was a big switch in identifying the primary cause of heart attacks. The focus had been on blood clots, but the use of warfarin to prevent heart attacks was not very noteworthy, so now the focus would be on the plaque deposits. These plaque deposits contained some cholesterol, and the blood cholesterol levels were observed to be affected by the consumption of butter, lard, and animal fats, which are primarily saturated fats. So, the focus shifted to lowering cholesterol in part by limiting these “dangerous” fats. What would be promoted in their place were the oils produced by the oil seed industry, such as corn, safflower, sunflower, etc. These were not saturated fats (they were mostly polyunsaturated), and it was presumed that they would be much less likely to “settle out” of the blood and become part of the plaque deposits.

Wayne Martin So, how well this promotional effort for unsaturated fats go ? For the answer to this question, I will turn your attention to my favorite medical writer – Wayne Martin BS, CEng. While at Purdue University, Wayne switched his course of study from biochemistry to chemical engineering, because he didn’t see many biochemistry job prospects in the great depression. He never lost his love for the medical field, and he made a habit of reading medical journals. Wayne ended up being a stunning success as a metallurgist, but it was for his medical writing that he became known around the world. In my following comments, I am relying heavily upon Wayne’s book Blood Caked Frock Coat Effect which was published by Just-Us Printers Inc, Springdale AR, and an article of his published on a website maintained by Barry Groves from the UK Reducing Deaths from Heart Attacks and Cancer. This article can be found at: http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/martin_chd.html.

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I highly recommend reading these and all medical articles written by Wayne Martin.

The Prudent Diet Trials The “prudent diet” was a diet based upon the idea that saturated fat and animal fats would raise cholesterol levels, and that this was a major part of what was causing deaths from heart attacks. A series of trials were conducted with the expectation of proving this to be true. The first was run by the Joliffe Anti-Coronary Club. The controls were men of wealth who were known to have all the wrong things in their diet – butter, cheese, and high-cholesterol roast beef. They had almost none of the “good” polyunsaturated fats in their diet. The subjects who were to live on the “prudent” diet were teachers at universities in and about New York City. They had a special margarine to supply the right amount of polyunsaturated fat. All their milk was to be skim milk, and they were to avoid butter and cheese. The trial ran for six years, and was reported in 1966. The results of the trial were given the maximum PR in the news media, and were given as the reason why we should all live on the Prudent Diet. Serum cholesterol reduced from 250 to 200 in the group that lived on the Prudent Diet. One had to read the fine print to find that eight men living on the Prudent Diet had died of a heart attack, while none of the controls living on the “wrong” foods died of a heart attack. Of course, this could have been predicted, because the control group had been living on a diet similar to what was consumed in 1900 when heart attack was very rare. 15 A second trial was paid for by the US government and headed by Dr. Irwin Page of the Cleveland Clinic, who had recently had a heart attack. This trial produced identical rates of fatal and non-fatal heart attacks in both the Prudent Diet group and the control group. During the trial Dr. Page died of a heart second heart attack. Of course, the data was getting very clear that the prudent diet either did nothing to prevent death from heart attacks or it caused fatal heart attacks. But it would be hard to contend that the Prudent Diet was anything short of 4

dangerous. A following study, planned to be much larger, was cancelled “for reasons of cost”. 16 When it came to the prudent diet trials, anything that seemed to work was dragged out in front of the public with a full brass band. Anything that reflected poorly on the Prudent Diet was downplayed or hidden. In the end the doctors who had organized these trials knew that the Prudent Diet was a failure, but it seems that they preferred not to admit to the public that they were wrong. You have to be amazed at how fast people can forget. Heart attacks were extremely infrequent in 1900. They probably happened at a rate of about 1% of what is seen today. Back in 1900, what types of fat did people consume ? It was mostly butter and lard. But, by the 1950’s, doctors were telling everyone that the fats that seemed to cause no problems whatsoever just 50 years before needed to be avoided to reduce the risk of heart attacks. We still have not recovered from this misunderstanding. Everywhere I look, foods are evaluated based upon saturated fat (assumed to be bad for the heart) and low fat (assumed to be good for the heart), as if there was no other nutritional fact that need be considered. A worthwhile footnote to the discussion of saturated fat vs. polyunsaturated fat in the consideration of heart disease is how much saturated fat ends up in plaque deposits. In the past few decades, the content of plaque deposits have been analyzed, and the amount of saturated fat in the plaque has consistently shown to be zero. What Is Wrong With Seed Oils ? There is a long history of the usage of seed oils and that history indicates that such oils are nutritionally beneficial and that they do not cause health problems. So what was going wrong with the polyunsaturated oils that were causing such problems with these Prudent Diet trials ? Much of the information that describes what went wrong with the seed oils comes from the book Fats that Heal, Fats the Kill by Udo Erasmus. This can be an intimidating book to the person who reads casually, but to someone who really wants to know their fats and oils, there is no substitute.

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Traditionally, in Europe, oil pressing was a cottage industry. Large estates, villages and little towns had their own small oil press….. Many older people who lived in Europe before the second world war remember how fresh oil was sold door to door like milk and eggs…..People knew from experience that the best oils turn rancid quickly and then taste bad, so they had to be bought in small quantities and used fresh before they spoiled, just like fresh vegetables, milk and eggs…..Fresh oils are identifiable by their seedspecific characteristic odor and flavor. They are light and easy to digest. They sustain health and have therapeutic value because of the nutrients they contain. 17 But the cottage industry did not fit into the post-war business model. Huge oil presses came into use, some that could press over 100 tons of seed per day. 18 Enormous quantities of oils were produced in one location – more than could ever be used by people in the immediate area before the oil would go rancid. Therefore, technologies were pursued that would dramatically improve the shelf-life and therefore make this oil marketable to a much larger geographical area. Such processes aimed to remove all “impurities” including all vitamins, minerals, lecithin, chlorophyll, flavorful and aromatic molecules, natural preservatives, and natural anti-oxidants. In order to accomplish this processing, heat was applied at over 500 degrees F for up to an hour. In order to remove the maximum amount of oil from the seed, solvents such as hexane or heptane (very similar to gasoline) were added to the seed as they were being pressed. These solvents are removed, but they can never be completely removed, and traces remain in the marketable oil. 19 At such temperatures, and chemical treatments, several unusual things happen to oils. Certain percentages can become mutagenic, trans-fats, cyclic compounds, dimers, polymers, molecules similar to plastics and vulcanized rubber. These molecules are not found in nature and are almost certainly a challenge to health. 20 But they aren’t done yet. Because all the natural antioxidants were removed, synthetic antioxidants are added. Common ones are BHA and BHT.

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If the oil is intended to be used as a margarine, it is then “partially hydrogenated” to give it a texture more like butter. In this process, more trans-fats are created, and traces of nickel and aluminum leach from the catalyst into the margarine itself. 21 Given the description of how such oils are processed, I would be willing to believe that these oils were intended to be used in bio-chemical warfare. But instead, they are intended to be sold to an unsuspecting public as FOOD. In 1977, Dr. Eric Newsholme had a report in the Lancet, 1977, i 634, telling how greatly immunosuppressive the polyunsaturated fats are. He suggested that they be used to immunosuppress patients with renal transplants to prevent rejection, and to treat autoimmune diseases in general. 22 So, it is really no surprise that the “Prudent Diet” crashed and burned whenever it was subject to clinical trials. Strangely enough, possibly because its scientific backers hated to admit defeat, focus was kept on the cholesterol data, not on the mortality data, and the idea that polyunsaturated seed oils are good for your heart has persisted to this day.

Yet Another Fats And Oils Misdirection In the 1980’s and 1990’s another trend appeared in scientific research concerning fats and oils. Two conclusions kept coming up in study after study. One conclusion was that low-fat diets were good for the heart, and a variety of other ills too. The other conclusion was that olive oil was beneficial for a variety of health problems. These two ideas could easily have come out of Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill as a prediction. Given the sorry state of most of the seed-oil polyunsaturated fats, the low-fat idea could have been restated – if you are forced to eat poison, try to consume as little as possible. The olive oil “effect” was also predictable because “virgin” olive oil was the only mass-market oil not heated above 150 C, and it was also spared most of the refining processes. What is not usually pointed out in the analysis of studies of this time was that unrefined olive oil is being compared to refined versions of other oils. 23

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Chapter 8 - Sex Sells Or How to Get People to Reverse Their Heart Disease Without Really Trying Inevitably, most of the people who attend my public presentations are the people who have already figured out that diet and supplements can dramatically affect most diseases. They are just trying to fine-tune their system. So the people who need my help the most seldom bother to listen to me or read my books. For this reason, a significant number of people who come to my lectures are there because they are concerned about a friend or relative. The problem here is that the person with heart disease often doesn’t care enough to actually do anything about their condition except to follow the drug and surgery path of conventional medicine. Much of the time any effort to persuade them that the nutritional approach is much better is useless. In order to get past their resistance to the nutritional approach, you may need a “hook”. You may need to offer them something that they are very interested in that comes along as a pleasant side-effect of the vitamin C heart disease therapy. Here are some possibilities. Women are almost universally interested in their looks. A major cosmetic part of aging is seen in the skin. The stretching and wrinkling is essentially the collagen fibers giving way. Because this heart disease therapy primarily enhances the production and repairing of collagen fibers, women who follow this plan can expect that their skin will age much more gracefully. Men are not so interested in their skin, so we have to look to the effect of LArginine to “hook” them. One of the things that L-Arginine does is help produce the NO (nitric oxide) radical. In this way it reduces blood pressure and it works much like Viagra. The difference is that it produces a gentler result with much fewer side effects. The age range when men start to have heart disease symptoms is also the age range where they start to have impotence problems. So, they might be more likely to protect their arteries if they knew that one of the side-effects was to improve their sex-life.

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Chapter 9 Cholesterol-Reducing Strategies and Drugs Decades ago, when test for blood cholesterol first became available, a correlation was noticed between high blood cholesterol and heart attacks/heart disease. The plaque deposits that are characteristic of heart disease were known to contain cholesterol. An entire medical industry was formed because the assumption was made that the reason why cholesterol collects in plaque deposits is because there is too much in the blood. Thus high cholesterol levels “cause” plaque deposits and plaque deposits “cause” heart disease. These assumptions were hardly ever tested, and in those rare occasions where they were, the cholesterol-lowering “industry” didn’t let the facts get in the way of promoting their business. In the first few pages of this book, I made the case that damage to artery walls is the starting point of heart disease and that plaque deposits are our second line of defense against the possibility of breakthrough bleeding in an artery. Clearly, high cholesterol does not “cause” plaque deposits, and plaque deposits should be recognized as a bunch of life-saving band-aids. The following is an article that I write a few years ago on the topic of statin drugs for a local newspaper.

Are You Taking A Statin Drug ? A woman’s cardiologist prescribed statins for her after she had a small heart attack at the age of 68. She has since been troubled by insomnia, chronic tiredness, thinning hair, muscle weakness, non-healing itchy rashes, memory loss and loss of her skill in creative writing. She thought that these were all due to aging. However, after she stopped taking the statin drug, she sleeps well, has greatly increased energy, her rashes have cleared, her hair is no longer so thin, her memory has improved, and her writing skills have returned. 24 This is not an isolated case, nor is this a description of some very rare allergic reaction to her statin drug. Statin drugs work by blocking the biological pathways involved in the production of cholesterol, and that

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pathway involves the creation of vitamin D with the help of sunlight, Coenzyme Q10, and many hormones. Cholesterol itself is required in every cell membrane in our whole body, and is a major component of the brain. Vitamin D is essential for building bones and teeth, and is critical in immune function. The interference in these pathways frequently results in muscle pain, muscle weakness, peripheral neuropathy, dizziness, cognitive impairment, depression, and low resistance to infection. It is also worth pointing out that co-enzyme Q10 is used heavily in the heart to keep up the energy levels needed for continuous muscle use. Therefore, when statins are taken by a person with a heart problem, (unless they supplement with Co-Q10), they are actually inducing muscle weakness that could lead to congestive heart failure. Statin drugs have made enormous profits for pharmaceutical companies. When big pharma saw all the money coming in, their spreadsheet programs started popping out answers to the question – How much MORE money would we make if the definition of high blood cholesterol was set at a lower level ? Predictable arm-twisting has ensued. The original level for “high cholesterol” used to be 240 but ONLY for men and ONLY if they had some other risk factors, such as overweight or smoking. In 1984, the level was lowered to 200, it applied to both men and women, and the requirement for other risk factors was dropped. More recently, that number has been lowered to 180. 25 Doctors have even been known to prescribe statins to patients who have never had high cholesterol as a preventative or if they have had heart problems of some kind. Needless to say, the drug companies are selling a lot more statins, and heart patients are feeling a lot more of the side effects of low cholesterol levels. This medical chicanery could be mostly forgiven if the lowering of cholesterol levels actually reduced the incidence of heart disease and resulting heart attacks. Let’s look at how likely that is. Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD says the following in his article The Benefits of Cholesterol: Old people with low cholesterol died twice as often from a

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heart attack as did old people with high cholesterol. Now consider that more than 90 % of all cardiovascular disease is seen in people above age 60 also and that almost all studies have found that high cholesterol is not a risk factor for women. This means that high cholesterol is only a risk factor for less than 5 % of those who die from a heart attack. But even in those 5%, is cholesterol the culprit ? In a previous article, I have made the case that when high cholesterol is associated with heart disease, cholesterol does not cause heart disease. It is most likely that whatever adverse conditions cause high cholesterol also cause heart disease. One possibility is that a body full of toxins and the resulting free-radical damage will cause the cholesterol to rise, because the number of new cells that need to be created rises, and cholesterol is needed to produce all new cells. That same body full of toxins can cause damage to artery walls, which will then draw plaque deposits to the location of inflammation. In any case, it appears that the small degree to which statin drugs (the major class of cholesterol-lowering drugs) actually lowers the rate of heart attack is not due to the lowering of cholesterol, but instead to statin drugs being a low-level anti-inflammatory. 26 Pharmaceutical companies are very aware that they can’t be sued for problems with their drugs that they clearly acknowledge in print. Could these drug companies be sued for producing a whole class of drugs that do little else to overall health and life expectancy besides create harmful side effects? Certainly this is a possibility, and it might cause them to change what they put in print about their statin drugs. In a recent ad for Lipitor, there appeared this disclaimer: Lipitor has not been shown to prevent heart disease or heart attacks. 27 Should You Be Taking A Statin Drug ? No ! But please don’t just take my word for it. If you are going to become the kind of person who takes control of their own health, you take on the obligation to educate yourself. Three articles that I referenced in my discussion come highly recommended. They are: Le Fanu, James, Statin Drug Holiday, Well Being Journal, Sep/Oct 2007 p. 41 5

Fallon, S. and Enig, M. , Dangers of Statin Drugs: What You haven’t Been Told About Popular Cholesterol-Lowering Medicines, http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/statin.html Ravnskov, Uffe, The Benefits of Cholesterol, http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/benefits_cholest.html Daniel Cobb is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine practicing at the Integrative Holistic Healing Center in Santa Fe. (505-424-9527) He is at his best convincing patients that they can overcome the vast majority of chronic diseases through nutrition and detoxification.

For those of you who want to dig deeply into the subject of the biochemistry of cholesterol and statin drugs, the best article I have run across was written by Stephanie Seneff and is titled: How Statins Really Work Explains Why They Don't Really Work. It can be found with the following link: http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/why_statins_dont_really_work.html This is the article that I give to people if I want them to never take cholesterol-lowering medication – or to stop taking it immediately.

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Chapter 10 - Aspirin Therapy Taking a low-dose aspirin has become a “standard” add-on to heart disease treatment. It seems so inexpensive, so easy, and is non-prescription. What could be wrong with it ? The following is an article that I wrote for a local newspaper on just this topic. An Aspirin A Day Is The Wrong Way Heart disease patients are frequently told by their doctors to take one lowdose aspirin a day as a way of preventing heart attacks. My purpose in this article is to present an alternate viewpoint. I want to make it clear that not all experts recommend long-term aspirin therapy. Furthermore, even within the camp that promotes the aspirin therapy, there are those who state that aspirin doesn’t work so well for two significant groups: (1) Women and (2) People with high-risk heart profiles. My final point is that there are many alternatives to aspirin that are much safer and more effective. In the 1970’s, medicine had started to look at aspirin as a method of reducing platelet adhesion and thereby the blood clots that bring on heart attacks. There were 4 major trials in the United States and Great Britain over the course of a decade. 28 All of them recorded the gastric/intestinal bleeding as a significant problem, and only one study of the four showed even a slight benefit in the prevention of heart attacks. Finally, in 1989, an aspirin study produced what seemed like a very positive result and a dramatic reduction in heart attacks. 29 The news media covered it in glowing terms, suggesting that all men over 40 should be taking aspirin. The world’s fascination with taking one-a-day aspirin to prevent heart attacks was born. Unfortunately, the fine print had another story to tell. The 44% reduction in heart attacks applied only to non-fatal heart attacks, but there was no reduction in mortality because the fatal heart attacks were not affected. There was a small, but statistically insignificant rise in hemorrhagic strokes (the more lethal type), and a more significant incidence of gastro-intestinal 5

ulcers. Furthermore, the reduction in the risk of heart attack only applied to those under 50, and was most significant among those with the lowest cholesterol levels. There was one more interesting detail. This study, which became the foundational scientific reason for tens of millions of people to take one aspirin per day, DIDN’T USE ASPIRIN ! 30 In the study, they used Bufferin, which is aspirin buffered with magnesium. It is worth noting that magnesium, by itself reduces platelet adhesion, is a vasodilator, and is an antiarrhythmic agent. It is probably the one mineral most likely to be needed by heart patients. I wonder what would have been found if a follow-up study had been done with 800 mg of magnesium malate per day and NO aspirin. My guess is that the results would have been even better. Dr. John G. F. Cleland MD, a British Cardiologist, in his article Aspirin Not Recommended for Heart Disease Anymore, states that all the long-term trials of aspirin after a heart attack show no effect on mortality. Dr. Cleland contends that the meta-analyses of aspirin studies show inconclusive results. Furthermore, given that aspirin is known to cause bleeding disorders and the fact that other therapies of more proven effectiveness are available, he indicates that long-term aspirin therapy should no longer be considered. I have recently run across articles identifying groups of people for whom the aspirin-a-day therapy may be less effective. In each case, the title of the article conveys the message, so I will just list them here: 1. Aspirin May be Less Effective Heart Treatment For Women Than Men http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070427172938.htm 2. Aspirin is ineffective in preventing heart disease when the blood pressure is high http://www.lifeclinic.com/focus/blood/articleView.asp?MessageID=333 3. Aspirin’s Risks May Outweigh Benefits For Elderly http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/804/0 If I am forced to rule out women, the elderly (people over 70 in this article), and those with high blood pressure, I am left to wonder, “who’s left ?” (Maybe troops of Boy Scouts ?).

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Certainly, the aspirin-a-day therapy has a multitude of supporters, and there may be some benefit to be had for some limited sub-populations. However, even if this therapy is more effective and less dangerous than I have just described, there is still no reason to use it because there are alternatives that have virtually no side-effects. A partial list of commonly available foods and supplements that inhibit platelet adhesion better than aspirin include Vitamin E 400 IU, Vitamin B6 40 mg, fish oil, GLA, l-arginine, and grape juice 10 oz. In addition, the prescription drug dipyridamole is both more effective and much safer than aspirin for this purpose. 31 I do not want to make heart patients throw away their aspirin bottles. Taking aspirin at the onset of heart-attack symptoms could save your life by helping to dissolve a clot stuck in a coronary artery. I also think that aspirin is acceptable for short-term use to relieve pain, but I never recommend it for long-term use. I hope that if you are taking low-dose aspirin to prevent a heart attack, that you will at least decide to check into both sides of this issue. Daniel Cobb is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine practicing at the Integrative Holistic Healing Center in Santa Fe. (424-9527) He is at his best convincing patients that they can overcome the vast majority of chronic diseases through nutrition and detoxification.

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Chapter 11 Some Toxic Causes of Heart Disease In this book, I have focused primarily upon enhancing the body’s ability to fix damaged arteries by making sure the materials for collagen production are in abundance. Of course, it also makes sense to pay attention to things that cause the damage to the connective tissue. I have not spent much time on this topic, because most people are aware that things such as smoking, excessive drinking, a stressful job, stressful relationships, irregular hours, bad diet, and exposure to herbicides, pesticides, and other environmental toxins all contribute free-radical damage. The fact that this damage could occur in the arteries and bring about heart disease is the logical next step. However, I wish to bring to your attention a few sources of toxicity that contribute to heart disease because they are either very surprising or very toxic. Chlorine Joseph G. Hattersley has written an excellent article on the relationship between chlorine and heart disease. This is available on the internet at: http://www.orthomolecular.org/library/jom/2000/articles/2000-v15n02p089.shtml. I highly recommend reading it. Highly reactive chlorine is one of the industrial waste products profitably disposed of using people as garbage cans. 33 Chlorine kills beneficial bacteria in water, creates trihalomethanes and chloramines, causes miscarriages and cancer (especially melanoma and digestive cancers), turns “essential” fatty acids rancid, creates chloroform which can be inhaled, and kills plants. Unfortunately, chlorine is most dangerous when you look at artery walls. Here chlorine causes the damage that turns into plaque deposits quicker than any common toxin. And we inflict this upon ourselves in order to kill some harmful bacteria that would be easier to kill with either hydrogen peroxide or ozone. When I mention that hydrogen peroxide and ozone would both accomplish what we are attempting to do with chlorine, I am not talking about speculative technologies, but instead water systems that have already been successfully in place for decades. 5

Germany and France commonly only chlorinate their municipal water supplies and pools in an emergency. 34 In 1984, many leading European swimmers threatened to boycott the Los Angeles Olympics if the pool was chlorinated. The Olympic organizers gave in. The Olympic pool was ozonated. Two weeks after the Olympics were over, the pool was converted back to chlorine. Everyone should try to avoid the harmful effects of chlorine, especially if you have heart disease. If your water supply is chlorinated, you should consider putting a filter on the sink in your kitchen so that chlorine can be removed from drinking and cooking water. Also, chlorine will easily absorb through your skin and lungs while you are showering. It is easy to fix this problem by installing a shower filter that will absorb the chlorine. Homogenized Milk There is an ongoing debate about whether or not homogenized cow’s milk is a major contributor to heart disease. The theory was put forth by Dr. Kurt Oster in the 1930’s. 36 His theory went like this: When milk is consumed that has not been homogenized, xanthine oxidase is digested into smaller molecules. However, when milk is homogenized, some of the xanthine oxidase passes into the bloodstream intact. Xanthine oxidase is normally found in the liver of human beings, however, when “foreign” xanthine oxidase gets into the body, it begins to attack plasmologen in the artery walls. 35 Many of the parts of his theory have proven to be false, but there is a lingering suspicion that his major contention might still be correct. Consider the following information: Finns consume about 272kg of milk each per year; 90 percent is homogenized, meaning 245kg of homogenized milk per Finn per year. Swedes drink about 60 percent as much milk, but only 2 percent of it is homogenized (only 4.9kg per year). The death rate from heart attack in Finland is more than three times the Swedish level (about 245/100,000 5

compared with only 75/100,000). Because there can be other factors, these statistics are not as strong as a carefully-designed study, but they still should serve to warn us that something is seriously wrong. 37 It is very difficult to get milk that has not been homogenized. Homogenization does nothing positive for the milk except to stop the cream from rising to the top, so you are not really missing anything by getting milk that has not been homogenized. Raw cow’s milk will never be homogenized. There is a big debate about whether raw milk is wonderful (as it’s proponents say) or dangerous (as many government agencies insist). At least this much is clear. If the dairy farmer uses factory-farm methods to raise the cows, then raw milk is not an option, because the cows are sickened by the factory farm methods, and are much more likely to give milk that can cause infections. If the cows are raised with organic methods, allowed to graze on grass in open pastures, without growth hormones, antibiotics, or pesticides, then the cows and the milk will be much healthier, and this milk can be consumed raw. Goat’s milk is naturally homogenized, so this is another option. Of course, the last option is to just not drink milk or consume dairy products. Teeth and Jawbone problems There is one source of toxins that can be so strong that it might overwhelm this nutritional therapy. It is possible to develop necrotic tissue in the jawbone. This could happen as a result of mercury poisoning from fillings, or problems related to tooth extraction, root-canals, or even physical injury to the jawbone that adversely affects its blood supply. When such areas in the jawbone become necrotic, they can support bacteria which can produce substances known as thio-ethers, which are the most toxic substances known. Once these thio-ethers get into the bloodstream, they can cause trouble just about anywhere. In most cases, they tend to focus most of their damage on specific organs. The heart and kidneys are common sites for such damage. 32

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Fixing necrotic tissue in the jawbone is difficult. Many dentists will deny that such a thing exists, or that it would be causing much of a problem. There are a few dentists and oral surgeons that will try to remove such tissue. The oral surgery required to solve this problem is both bloody and brutal. Also, sometimes the restorative capabilities of the patient are so limited that more necrotic areas of bone form again even after the surgery. I believe that I had such a problem with necrotic tissue in the jawbone. I had 13 amalgam fillings in my mouth and had my impacted wisdom teeth removed at the age of twenty. I have had two molars extracted since then. This would make me a prime candidate for the necrotic lesions in the jawbone. I had somewhere between aches and pains at 4 specific locations in my jaw for about 20 years. I also had angina pains for about 8 years. A friend of mine, Bruce Wright, told me that Dietrich Klinghart MD had taught him that MSM can displace the thio-ethers, temporarily relieving symptoms. He indicated that this might temporarily relieve my angina pains, and if that was successful, that it would help to inexpensively diagnose the presence of the necrotic tissue in the jawbone. So, I tried a heaping tablespoon of MSM once a day, and after 2 days, the angina pains were gone. Now that I was convinced that some of my health problems derived from my jawbone, I finally decided that I had to do something about it. I scheduled myself for about $7,000 of oral surgery. At the last moment, I backed out. Instead I put together a diet and supplement plan that I thought might heal my jawbone without surgery. Three months later, my jaw was 95% improved. A year later, the improvement was close to 99%. I rarely have jawbone pains now, and when they do occur, they are by comparison very minimal. The chest pains that were theoretically caused by the thio-ethers are also 99% relieved. Since I am not inclined to participate in “conventional medicine”, I never got the kind of lab tests or scans that would prove that I really had necrotic tissue in my jawbone or that thio-ethers were causing my chest pains. Still, I contend that my explanation makes sense, and I have used it as a basis for successful recommendations a few times since. The formula that I used to repair my jawbone is difficult to understand and subject to very painful overdose problems, so I won’t write it down here, but 6

if I ever get around to writing a book on osteoporosis, I will describe the formula in great detail. More Help For Teeth/Gums - Oil Pulling With Coconut Oil There have been many articles written about other approaches to improving oral/dental health in an effort to prevent/improve coronary artery disease. Many articles recommend brushing your teeth and flossing more often. 42 Others also recommend getting new toothbrushes frequently to prevent the possibility of dangerous bacteria living in older toothbrushes. I have become a proponent of “oil pulling”, which means taking about a teaspoon of oil and swishing it forcefully around the mouth for about 15 minutes to remove debris, plaque, and bacteria. I believe that oil pulling, done correctly, in conjunction with brushing/flossing, is far superior to even compulsive levels of brushing and flossing. In addition, I have chosen to use coconut oil as my toothpaste. My experience is that organic extra virgin unrefined coconut oil produces the best results especially with respect to knocking down infections. The high levels of medium chain triglycerides are primarily responsible for the antimicrobial effects. 41 Coconut oil is known for many other beneficial effects when taken internally, however, on occasion, individuals may suffer from the strong antimicrobial effects knocking out beneficial flora if they have poor intestinal function and the oil takes too long to absorb. Remember that you should not swallow the coconut oil, but instead spit it out after the 15 minutes. By then it will be full of bacteria, viruses, food particles etc. that you do not want to run through your digestive system.

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Chapter 11 The following is an article that I wrote to summarize the benefits of “grounding” or “earthing”.

Touch the Ground If you want to add something to your list of healthful practices, you could start to “touch the ground”.  Humans have evolved to have their feet on the ground, or at worst to wear shoes with thin leather soles (Native American moccasins are a good example here). The earth is a reservoir of electrons (negatively charged particles)1 , and we need to replenish our supply routinely.2, 3 If we do not do this, our bodies will develop a positive charge, which will be detrimental in a couple of ways. The reason why we need to think about touching the ground is because we have developed cultural practices that prevent this from happening. We wear shoes with thick leather soles or rubber soles, and purposely live in above-ground dwellings. We have even given the word “dirt” an excessive aura of negativity.   Free radical damage, if you start reading about it in the biochemistry texts, is essentially the result of an unpaired electron.  The atom that needs the electron then steals it from the first available source, which then steals it from another atom in a chain reaction.  All the while molecules are damaged.  One of the functions of vitamins C, E and other antioxidants is to “donate” an electron to stop this damaging chain-reaction, which is why they are also called free-radical scavengers. Our bodies are electrical. To understand another problem of an electron deficiency, I will use the example of a direct current electric motor. Most motors are set to spin in one direction. But, in the case of some motor designs, simply switching the positive and negative wires can make the motor spin in the opposite direction. 4 In a very similar manner, when the charges in our bodies are not correct (i.e. positive charge because of electron deficiency), the meridian system, which is one of the major electrical systems in our bodies, also runs backwards. This is not as disastrous as is sounds. I have encountered an abundance of

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people whose acupuncture meridian systems are running backwards almost all the time, and they appear to be functioning close to normal. But it is clear that they would function better if their meridians were running in the correct direction.   Instead of using up some of your antioxidant vitamins/minerals as a source of electrons and preventing free-radical damage, why not replenish your electron supply by touching the ground ? 3 A Bare foot works the best, but in inclement weather hands do just about as well.  Dirt with some moisture is the target for “touching the ground”, because the dirt is just a bunch of fine minerals that are part of the earth’s electrical “grid”.  By comparison, touching an asphalt driveway does not work, because asphalt is an oil-based mixture, so it is an insulator rather than a conductor. On occasion, patients have asked me if, during bad weather, they can bring a flower pot into the house and touch that dirt instead of having to go outside. This dirt will not have the same effect because it has been removed from the earth’s electrical field. It’s not the dirt that we need to absorb, it’s the electrons.   The best test to see if you need this is to touch the ground and see if you feel better.  Most people feel the difference immediately.  Five to fifteen minutes per day is usually enough to keep you in good electrical condition. Daniel Cobb is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine who practices in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His areas of expertise are the nutritional treatment of chronic conditions and infectious diseases such as heart disease, osteoporosis, AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, etc. He can be reached at his clinic at 505-4249527 or by e-mail at [email protected]. Citations: 1. Goodman, Jason, MadSciNetwork http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2000-10/972662284.Es.r.html 2. EMR Labs LLC, Positive Ions Versus Negative Ions, https://www.quantumbalancing.com/negative_ions.htm 6

3. Mercola, Joseph MD, Grounding Is A Key Mechanism By Which Your Body Maintains Health, http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/08/02/ grounding-earthing.aspx 4. Physics & Electromagnetism : How to Make an Electric Motor Run Backwards, https://search.yahoo.com/ search;_ylt=AvQss3BxnAJX4vq1hzf4LXabvZx4? p=electric+motor+runs+backwards&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF8&fr=yfp-t-901&fp=1

Footnotes 6

A note about my footnotes. I have given internet references in many of my footnotes. I did this because it would give readers much easier access to some background articles. Inevitably, some of these links may disappear. Periodically, I expect to go through my internet links and find new ones to replace those that have disappeared. Specific Footnotes 1. US Food and Drug Administration, Device Identifies Fatty Deposits in Coronary Arteries, http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm048709.htm

2 and 3. Mike Ciell, R.Ph,  One Pharmacist’s View of Coronary Heart Disease:  Comparing the “Lipid Theory” With the “Unified Theory”, http://www.ourhealthcoop.com/pauling.htm  4. Byron Richards, CCN, Gamma Tocotrienol for Breast Cancer Prevention and Treatment, http://next-level-nutrition.com/?p=7220

5. Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD, Dangers of Statin Drugs: What You Haven’t Been Told About Popular Cholesterol-Lowering Medicines, http://www.drmyattswellnessclub.com/StatinsEnigFallon.htm

6. Chris Woolston, LA Times January 14, 2008, Statin-Free Supplement ? Not Quite, http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-heskeptic14jan14,1,2973474.story?coll=la-headlines-health

7. Owen R. Fonorow PhD, ND, CoQ10 and Statins: The Vitamin C Connection http://www.townsendletter.com/FebMar2006/coq100206.htm

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8. Deborah Graefer, L.Ac M.T.O.M, Gallbladder Attack, http://www.gallbladderattack.com/gallbladderandliverflush.shtml 9. Wikipedia, Arginine, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-arginine 10. James Meschino,DC,MS, The Research Status of Glucosamine Sulfate, http://www.chiroweb.com/archives/20/02/10.html 11. UAB Health System, Eat Garlic Lower Your Blood Pressure, http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Eating-Garlic-To-Lower-BloodPressure-Naturally/1713582

12. Gary Null, PhD et al., Death By Medicine, http://www.whale.to/a/null9.html

13.  Elmer M. Cranton, M.D. and James P. Frackelton, M.D., Scientific Rationale for EDTA Chelation Therapy  Mechanism of Action, http://drcranton.com/chelation/freeradical.htm 14. Saul Green, Ph.D., Chelation Therapy: Unproven Claims and Unsound Theories, http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/chelat ion.html 15 and 16. Wayne Martin, (2004), Blood Caked Frock Coat Effect, Just-Us Printers, Springdale AR, P 8.

17. Udo Erasmus (1997), Fats that Heal Fats that Kill, Alive Books, Burnaby BS Canada, p 85. 18. ibid p 86. 19. ibid p 93-97. 6

20. ibid p 97. 21. ibid p 100. 22. Wayne Martin, (2004), Blood Caked Frock Coat Effect, Just-Us Printers, Springdale AR, P 10. 23. Udo Erasmus (1997), Fats that Heal Fats that Kill, Alive Books, Burnaby BS Canada, p 257. 24 Le Fanu, James, Statin Drug Holiday, Well Being Journal, Sep/Oct 2007 p. 41 25, 27 Fallon, S. and Enig, M. , Dangers of Statin Drugs: What You haven’t Been Told About Popular Cholesterol-Lowering Medicines, http://www.docmeade.com/dangers-of-statin-drugs-what-you-haven-t-beentold-about-popular-cholesterol-lowering-medicines/ 26. Chris Gupta, Cholesterol Does Not Cause Coronary Heart Disease, http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2004/01/29/cholesterol_does_no t_cause_coronary_heart_disease.htm 28, 30, & 31. Martin, Wayne, Reducing Deaths from Heart Attacks And Cancer, http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/martin_chd.html 29. Final report on the aspirin component of the ongoing Physicians’ Health Study. Steering Committee of the Physicians’ Health Study Research Group. The New England Journal of Medicine, July 20, 1989 32. Various contributors, Root Canals and Jawbone Cavitations, http://biologicdentists.com/custom2.html

33 and 34. Joseph G. Hattersley, The Negative Health Effects of Chlorine, http://www.orthomolecular.org/library/jom/2000/articles/2000-v15n02p089.shtml

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35. Sepp Hasslberger, Milk and Vascular Disease, www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/06/29/milk_and_vascular_dis ease.htm

36 and 37. NZ Society of Naturopaths, About Homogenized Milk, http://www.naturopath.org.nz/homogen.html

38. Owen Fonorow and Sally Snyder Jewell, Practicing Medicine Without A License, Lulu Press (Lulu.com), 2008, p. 145

39. Mathias Rath MD, Why Animals Don’t Get Heart Attacks, But People Do, http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/pdf-files/why-book/whybook_02 _sep2003.pdf

40. William Faloon, Dietary Supplements Under Attack, http://www.doctorbain.com/index.php?p=92064 41. Bruce Fife N.D., Coconut Oil and Medium-Chain Triglycerides, http://www.coconutresearchcenter.org/article10612.htm 42. Joseph Mercola MD, Take Control of Your Health website, http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/06/15/will-brushingyour-teeth-prevent-heart-disease.aspx#! 43. Deccan Herald, Ignored Risk Factors, http://www.deccanherald.com/content/215524/ignored-risk-factors.html 44. Mark Hyman,MD, Why Cholesterol May Not Be the Cause of Heart Disease, http://drhyman.com/blog/2010/05/19/why-cholesterol-may-not-bethe-cause-of-heart-disease/#close 45. Stephan Guyenet, Does Dietary Saturated Fat Increase Blood Cholesterol? An Informal Review of Observational Studies,

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http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/01/does-dietary-saturated-fatincrease.html 46. Siri-Tarino PW et al, Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20071648?dopt=AbstractPlus 47. Dr. Sharon Norling, Cholesterol is Not the Problem Causing Heart Disease. Inflammation Is., http://drsharonnorling.com/cholesterol-is-not-theproblem-causing-heart-disease-its-inflammation/ 48. Mercola, Joseph MD, Saturated Fat is Not the Cause of Heart Disease, http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/02/25/saturated-fat-isnot-the-cause-of-heart-disease.aspx 49. FDA Website, Use of Aspirin for Primary Prevention of Heart Attack and Stroke, http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm390574.htm 50. Blue heron health News, The Salt Myth Debunked, http://blueheronhealthnews.com/site/2012/07/07/the-salt-myth-debunked/ 51. Science 2.0, High Salt Intake Risk Debunked, http://www.science20.com/news_releases/high_salt_intake_health_risk_deb unked 52.McGean, Patrick, Cellular Matric Study, http://www.naturodoc.com/sulfurstudy.htm

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Stop Fixing the Adaptive Response Why Cardio-Vascular Disease Should Be Named Chronic Scurvy Defining My Terms In this article, when I say “chronic scurvy”, “heart disease”, or “cardio-vascular disease (CVD)”, I mean the accumulation of damage most commonly in the coronary arteries that is associated with high blood pressure, plaque deposits, and the increased incidence of heart attacks. You may think of this condition by several other names, such as coronary artery disease (CAD), atherosclerosis, hardening of the arteries, or coronary heart disease (CHD). Introduction “Pauling Therapy” is a nutritional treatment for CVD/chronic scurvy that was championed by Linus Pauling PhD and is based upon research into the relationship between CVD and Vitamin C. It was first publicly described in 1991. In the 24 years since, it has, despite its’ exceptionally high success rate, has never been used by mainstream cardiologists. This article is primarily about how naming the condition “Chronic Scurvy” can focus attention on the true location of the pathology and logically lead many more people to use “Pauling Therapy” Pauling Therapy History The earliest public pronouncement that I am aware of was 1991 when Linus Pauling and Mathias Rath MD examined some research and concluded that there was a connection between vitamin C and CVD. Here is the conclusion to Pauling and Rath’s 1992 paper: In this paper we present a unified theory of human CVD (cardio vascular disease). This disease is the direct consequence of the inability of man to synthesize ascorbate in combination with insufficient intake of ascorbate in the modern diet. Since ascorbate deficiency is the common cause of human CVD, ascorbate supplementation is the universal treatment for this disease. The available epidemiological and clinical evidence is reasonably convincing. Further clinical confirmation of this theory should lead to the abolition of CVD as a cause of human mortality for the present 17 and future generations of mankind.

I’m sure they felt like they were at the stage where they dust off their hands and proclaim “done with that disease”. Although this treatment has yet to hit mainstream medicine, it has not entirely fallen on deaf ears. The small group who feel confident to research their own medical challenges and make their own medical decisions have frequently discovered some version of

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Pauling Therapy and are routinely reversing their CVD/chronic scurvy . But what about the vast majority of people who depend upon the “experts” for their heart disease choices ? When will they be advised by their cardiologists that their heart disease can be reversed in a matter of months instead of being mired in a managed disease for the rest of their life ? I will attempt to point out what has gone wrong, and how it might be fixed. The Conventional Viewpoint The plaque deposit/blood clot combination is the focal point of the discussion and the inquiry into prevention and treatment. A person’s view of the plaque deposit may be theoretical – in the case of a relative or friend, or it may be more visceral – in the case of a medical professional. Once you see that big ugly plaque deposit that certainly played a big part in killing your friend/family member/patient, or if you are a coroner – member of your community, it holds your attention. Once you have seen this deadly, messy glob that looks about as far away from a healthy artery as anything you have ever examined, you are usually repulsed with some degree of terror or disgust. It dominates your emotions and your thoughts about treatment, prevention, etc. We are often asked to look at a system that has failed, analyze what went wrong, and propose a solution. In the case of a death from heart attack in a patient where one of the plaque deposit blockages suddenly became 100% blocked, we instinctively look at the plaque deposit and then work backwards. Almost all of our proposals are about the deadly plaque deposit. We discuss the fatty nature of the plaque, the cholesterol, the calcium buildup, the blood clot, how to prevent them, and how to remove them. The medical community has been coming up with solutions for heart attacks caused by these plaque/blood clot combinations for decades, but heart disease still remains as the number one 2 disease cause of death . A Wholistic Viewpoint To understand how the nutritional treatment of “chronic scurvy” really works, you need to see the plaque deposit in a totally different way. If you do have the plaque deposits in the coronary arteries, then you do have this disease, but if you want to find the disease, you must look UNDERNEATH the plaque deposits. There, you will find weak and damaged artery walls. Scurvy is essentially a bleeding disease. Chronic scurvy differs from the normal experience of scurvy only in degree and by the body’s response. Both have at their core the inability to repair/replace collagen fibers in the vascular tissue and the resulting failure of that vascular tissue to “contain” the blood. The difference appears because whereas scurvy results from several months of near-zero levels of vitamin C, chronic scurvy results from years if not decades of merely inadequate levels of vitamin C, and so allows our bodies a chance to mount a secondary defense.

Here are relevant comments from the same Pauling/Rath paper (the bolding is mine). The invariable morphological consequences of chronic ascorbate deficiency in the vascular wall are the loosening of the connective tissue and the loss of the endothelial barrier function. Thus human CVD is a form of pre-scurvy. The multitude of pathomechanisms that lead to the clinical manifestation of CVD are primarily defense mechanisms aiming at the stabilization of the vascular wall. After the loss of endogenous ascorbate production during the evolution of man these defense mechanisms became life-saving. They counteracted the fatal consequences of scurvy and particularly of 17 blood loss through the scorbutic vascular wall.

Keep in mind that the arteries are a high-pressure system compared to the veins, and that a primary purpose of the artery is to “contain” the blood. If enough damage accumulated in one area of an artery, it might become weak enough that “breakthrough bleeding” could occur, which would be a catastrophic event. Whenever there is damage to artery walls, the first order of business is to repair the damage. These repairs require a collection of nutrients. But what happens if one or more of those nutrients are absent or in short supply ? Repairs get backlogged, and the arteries get weaker. When the arteries get to the point where breakthrough bleeding becomes a danger, and the required repairs still can’t be made due to nutrient deficiencies, your body has a “plan B”. It will build up a layer of material on the inside of the artery wall to protect the damaged artery wall against the force of the blood pressure. What I have just described, of course, is a plaque deposit, but I prefer to call it “nature’s perfect band-aid”. This is one way that I remind people that the plaque deposit is NOT PATHOLOGICAL, but instead an ADAPTIVE RESPONSE to weakened artery walls. The plaque deposits occur on purpose, not by accident, and they are saving your life by preventing the possibility of breakthrough bleeding. One more time, I will quote the Pauling/Rath paper to point out that this idea has been around the full 24 years. The genetic countermeasures are characterized by an evolutionary advantage of genetic features and include inherited disorders that are associated with atherosclerosis and CVD. With sufficient ascorbate supply these disorders stay latent. In ascorbate deficiency, however, they become unmasked, leading to an increased deposition of plasma constituents in the vascular wall and other mechanisms that thicken the vascular wall. This thickening of the vascular wall is a defense measure compensating for the impaired vascular wall that had become 17 destabilized by ascorbate deficiency.

The positive resolution of this messy scenario involves making sure that the nutrients required to catch up on the backlog of vascular tissue repairs are in abundant supply. The result that has

always been observed when this occurs is that as the arteries are repaired (thus removing the purpose for the plaque deposits), the plaque deposits gradually disappear on their own. I my clinic, we have a saying – that heart disease is easier to treat than low-back pain. Treating 1 chronic scurvy nutritionally, because it directly addresses the cause, almost always works . Why Is Naming This Disease “Chronic Scurvy” Important ? There is an abundant public discussion of the nutritional treatment of heart disease and how successful it is. You might think that this alone would be enough to gather a wildly-increasing number of converts. Yet, there is a significant problem in how the wholistically-minded physicians tend to describe their treatment.

How Heart Patients Are Funnelled Back Into Conventional Treatment General Practitioner’s office. Diagnosed with Cardio-Vascular Disease (CVD)

Cardiologists’ Office. Let’s see what your problem is.

Anything Else

Got Problem Plaque Deposits

Cardio-Vascular Disease

Recommendation: Moderate exercise, statins, BP meds, Blood Thinners, reduce saturated fat and sodium intake. Willing to follow these ?

No, Looking For Alternatives 40%

OK (Or I give up) 60%

Read about or talk to nutritionallyminded physician. Get outline for nutritional therapy to reduce or eliminate the plaque deposits. Are you willing to follow it ?

Manage chronic disease rest of life. (60% + 35% from the “looking for alternatives” side = 95%)

No, I am not willing to override the recommendations of my cardiologists without speaking to them again. I’ll ask what they think is the best way to eliminate my plaque deposits (35%).

Yes, I am a detail-oriented critical thinker willing to follow my own convictions when it comes to my own healthcare (5%).

Successfully reverse the disease ! (5%)

How “Chronic Scurvy” Can Change the Treatment of Heart Disease General Practitioner’s office. Diagnosed with Cardio-Vascular Disease (CVD)

Cardiologists’ Office. Let’s see what your problem is.

Scurvy

Got Problem Plaque Deposits

Recommendation: Take lots of vitamin C. If your cardiologists are really up on their biochemistry, they might add copper and zinc to the list.

Successfully Reverse the Disease ! (35%)

Cardio-Vascular Disease

Recommendation: Moderate exercise, statins, BP meds, Blood Thinners, reduce saturated fat and sodium intake. Willing to follow these ?

No, Looking For Alternatives 40%

OK (Or I give up) 60%

Read about or talk to nutritionallyminded physician. They say this is “chronic scurvy” and he gave me a list of nutrients to take starting with vitamin C. Will you do this ?

No, I am not willing to override the recommendations of my cardiologists without speaking to them again. I’ll ask what they think is the best way to treat my scurvy. (35%)

Manage chronic disease rest of life. (60%)

Yes, I am a detail-oriented critical thinker willing to follow my own convictions when it comes to my own healthcare ( 5%).

Successfully reverse the disease ! (5%)

These are approximate percentages. There are no statistics kept on how many people are looking for nutritional alternative treatments for their CVD, or how many actually follow through with such a treatment. This result isn’t perfect, but 40% is a lot closer to getting into the mainstream than 5% on the previous diagram. It also tips the balance quite a bit because a lot more people become public examples of how the Pauling therapy really does work.

In the first example, the patient consults with a nutritionally-oriented physician. The doctor names the disease atherosclerosis, which describes the complex development of the plaque deposit in a major artery. They discuss the nutritional treatment in terms of how it would heal/remove the plaque deposits. When the patient leaves the consultation, their attention is focused on the plaque deposits. The patient goes back to their cardiologist to discuss this asks – “How do I get rid of my plaque deposits ?” Most of the time, the cardiologist is able to steer him right back into mostly conventional treatment, because the conventional treatment looks like it is designed to fight those “deadly plaque deposits”. In the second example, the patient consults with a different nutritionally-oriented health care professional. They discuss this condition by the name of “chronic scurvy”. It is made clear to the patient that this is a disease of weakened connective tissue in the arteries, and the discussion centers around which nutrients are required to repair connective tissue. When the patient leaves the consultation, they are completely focused on treating “chronic scurvy” by nutritionally facilitating repairs to the artery walls. The patient goes back to their cardiologist and asks – “How do I treat my scurvy ?”. The cardiologist’s answer inevitably centers around the idea of taking high and regular doses of vitamin C. This is the same answer the patient would have received if they asked a carpenter, a bartender, or a cashier at a restaurant. This is because it is hard to avoid learning that scurvy is a vitamin C deficiency by the time they get through elementary school. Optimal nutritional treatment involves a few more nutrients, but at least the patient is now headed in the right direction. It is worth noting here that the nutritional protocols outlined by the two wholistic doctors were probably almost identical and both would have worked to reverse the disease. The difference is that naming the disease scurvy keeps the focus on the real pathology in the artery walls. In this way, the treatment focus stays on the integrity of the arteries, and does not wander back to the plaque deposits as more people become involved in the discussion. Medical Writers and Medical Researchers Make This Same Mistake You might think that how a disease is named would have almost no effect on how it is researched and treated, but in the case of heart disease, a quick look tells you otherwise. The patients and their doctors are not the only ones making this mistake. Medical writers, and medical researchers are doing the same thing. They seem to be almost totally focused on the plaque deposit. I have read an abundance of peer-reviewed journal articles on: 1. Tracking and evaluating the “Calcium Score”

2. Using Vitamin K2 to reduce the calcium levels in the plaque deposits 3. Lowering total blood cholesterol 4. Lowering LDL cholesterol 5. Raising HDL cholesterol 6. The dangers of oxidized of cholesterol 7. Ratios of HDL to LDL cholesterol 8. Tracking and lowering blood Lipoprotein(a) levels 9. Lowering blood triglycerides 10. Lowering consumption of saturated fat All of these share the same problem. They are addressing the problem of the plaque deposit, and therefore attacking an “adaptive response”. Unfortunately, no amount of treatment of an adaptive response is ever going to cure a major disease. Simultaneously, they are ignoring the real pathology of the damage to the artery walls. It is as if, in the 1950’s, they stuck one foot into the “lipid hypothesis” of Ancel Keys, and then for the past 6+ decades, haven’t been able to find their way back out. The Prescription I have spoken in general terms of the “vitamin C” treatment for chronic scurvy. The actual formula is never quite so simple. The “basic” formula is vitamins C, E, zinc, copper, sulfur, and a couple of amino acids. Other optional nutrients can be considered. Also, dietary improvements always help, but are very hard to describe in a short article or presentation. What follows is a common prescription that I would use for a chronic scurvy patient. Other doctors are likely to use different but similar nutritional prescriptions. As long as they contain an abundant source of vitamin C, full-spectrum vitamin E, sulfur, L-Lysine, and address the copper/zinc status of their patient, I would have confidence that they would also work well. I do not like to specify brand names, but I feel obligated to do so in the case where there is a dramatic difference in the benefit received when using the best available. Vitamin C (pure ascorbic acid, NOT mineral ascorbates) – 6 + grams per day Smaller doses of vitamin C might be OK to take as mineral ascorbates, but at these high doses, the minerals used to make the ascorbate might turn into an overdose or create mineral imbalances. Purified L-ascorbic acid (the active isomer) is definitely important, because if your vitamin C is not purified L-ascorbic acid, then you are only getting half of the indicated dose. The other half will be D-ascorbic acid, which is not true vitamin C 3. Take the vitamin C in small doses throughout the day. This will give you better “coverage” of your vitamin C needs. Not all vitamin C is equally useful. Especially when treating an advanced case of chronic scurvy, it is worthwhile to spend a more to get the most effective result. I always recommend 4 the vitamin C from the Vitamin C Foundation (1-800-894-9025). Besides the fact that they only sell purified L-ascorbic acid, their vitamin C is never derived from corn, and it is never

manufactured in China. It is worthwhile to note that almost all high-dose vitamin C that does not specifically state to the contrary is not purified for the L-isomer, derived from corn starch, 4 and probably manufactured in China . L-Lysine – 6 grams per day L-Lysine is used in the production of collagen fibers and makes plaques release in very small pieces to avoid embolisms 5. L-Proline – 1 gram per day L-Proline is similar in it’s functions and effects to L-Lysine 5. Vitamin E – You should aim for between 400 and 800 mg of vitamin E. You should be getting all 4 tocopherols and all 4 tocotrienols. The best results for CAD can be obtained by taking a “full spectrum” vitamin E that is highest in d-gamma tocopherol, because the gamma form of tocopherol is known to be the most effective form of vitamin E for the prevention/treatment of heart disease 6. One of the “tricks” of vitamin E studies for CVD that are “designed to fail” is to only use d-alpha tocopherol, which will not do much for CVD, and will actually suppress the levels of all the other types of vitamin E, including the gamma tocopherol 7. Vitamin E is also a mild anticoagulant. To get the best vitamin E, you should get both the tocopherols and the tocotrienols (2 bottles) of 8 “Unique E” from AC Grace . This is available on-line at a reasonable price from Swanson. Organic Sulfur – This is also known as MSM, but I recommend looking for products that describe themselves as “Organic Sulfur” because they tend to be much more pure, and therefore much more effective. Organic sulfur will deliver oxygen to cells, is excellent at removing a wide variety of toxins, and is required to form disulfide bonds in the creation of collagen fibers. 18 The only downside to organic sulfur is that it will also “sulfate out” some beneficial minerals. Therefore, some users can develop mineral-deficiency problems after some months of usage. For best results, take one teaspoon of organic sulfur in chlorine-free water upon waking up in the morning on an empty stomach. Then wait 30 minutes before you eat or drink anything else. To prevent long-term mineral deficiencies, upping the dose of magnesium and adding a multi-mineral supplement are good ideas. I order mine at 1-801-290-2013. Magnesium (as citrate or chelated) – 400 mg / day. Magnesium helps to keep energy levels up, and is very useful in maintaining a good heart rhythm 9. Magnesium is also a mild anticoagulant. Co-Enzyme Q10 – 100+ mg per day. Co-Q10 is used by the heart more than any other tissue in the body because it enables the use of higher amounts of energy 10. This is even more critical in CVD patients, where hypertension is common. Statin drugs suppress the body’s normal creation of Co-Q10, so many CVD patients are weakening their heart by taking their medications 10. My favorite Co-Q10 is from Natural Factors. Vitamin K – 100 micrograms (mcg) / day. Vitamin K is a natural blood coagulant 11. Blood clots and the effects of blood-thinning drugs are touchy topics for CAD patients. I include the

vitamin K to neutralize the anticoagulant effects of magnesium and vitamin E. This results in an overall formula that is roughly neutral in its coagulant/anticoagulant effects. Copper – 2 mg / day Zinc – About 20 - 30 mg per day Zinc and copper work in opposition. High zinc levels will depress copper, and high copper levels will depress zinc. Zinc is useful for the immune system and also for the repair of tissue (such as artery wall repairs) 12. Overdoses of zinc will depress the immune system. Copper is necessary for the production of collagen fibers, and so is an essential part of artery wall repairs 13. Overdoses of copper usually result in nausea, digestive problems, and occasionally mania. You might want to get your copper in a zinc/copper combination supplement so you don’t get these two minerals out of balance. If you are a vegetarian, you are likely to be deficient in zinc and much more prone to copper overdose, so you might want to supplement zinc and rely on your diet for copper. If you have copper water pipes, then you probably don’t need to supplement copper. B Complex – use dosage on bottle. High homocysteine levels will damage artery walls. Vitamin B6, B12, and folate (avoid folic acid) will reduce the homocysteine levels dramatically 14 . Rutin – About 500 mg/day. Rutin is a bioflavonoid that assists Vitamin C 15. Some source of omega-3 fats (fish oil or flaxseed oil) - somewhere between 1 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon per day. An abundance of studies have indicated that fish oil can be very valuable in keeping the heart healthy 16. These highly volatile unsaturated fatty acids are very prone to rancidity. If you take a spoonful and it tastes bad, the rancidity has kicked in to the point that it is doing more harm than good. Throw it away and get more. I usually recommend getting a small bottle so you can use it up while it is still fresh. For the same reason, if you are taking fish oil gel-caps, you will not know if the oil is OK because the gel-caps conceal the taste. Once a week you should bite one open and taste it to see if it is rancid.

My Conclusions The pathology in heart disease is damaged artery walls. The plaque deposits that the medical industry is so fond of treating are an adaptive response – like a band-aid over a damaged area – to prevent breakthrough bleeding. Treating an adaptive response doesn’t work, and we have decades worth of examples of the “management” of heart disease to prove it. Treating the plaque deposits with cholesterol-reduction and manipulating the HDL/LDL ratio etc., is the logical equivalent to treating a skin abrasion by picking at the scab. On the other hand, providing an abundant supply of the nutrients required to repair arterial damage works almost

every time and it is orders of magnitude less inexpensive. It uses normal body processes to heal naturally. As attractive as that sounds, Pauling therapy might never become a mainstream practice until hordes of alternative health care professionals and medical researchers achieve “escape velocity” from the idea of treating the plaque deposits by repeating over and over the following: Cardio-Vascular disease should be properly named “chronic scurvy”, which is a bleeding disease brought on by damage to the artery walls. Treatment should start much like you would treat scurvy - with high and frequent doses of vitamin C along with a few additional related nutrients. The focus should be almost exclusively upon the efficient repair of the artery walls. Plaque deposits are not the pathology, but are instead an adaptive and protective response to the damaged artery walls. Once the artery walls are repaired, the plaque deposits will disappear on their own. Citations: 1. Fonorrow, Owen, Linus Pauling’s therapy, http://www.paulingtherapy.com/ 2. Center For Disease Control and Prevention, Leading Causes of Death, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm 3. Linus Pauling Institute, The bioavailability of different forms of vitamin C, http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminC/vitCform.html 4. Vitamin C Foundation, http://vitamincfoundation.org/alerts.php 5. Save Your Heart, Inc, https://saveyourheart.com/clean-arteries 6. Jiang Q et al, Gamma-tocopherol, the major form of vitamin E in the US diet, deserves more attention, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11722951 7. William Faloon, Preliminary rebuttal to recent attacks against dietary supplements, http://altmedsales.com/index.php?target=pages&page_id=NIH_Vitamin_Study 8. A. C. Grace Company, Unique E, http://www.acgrace.com/unique-e-vitamin-e/ 9. University of Maryland Medical Center, Magnesium, http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/magnesium-000313.htm

10. COQ10 Benefits for Heart Health, http://coq10wellness.com/coq10-benefits/ 11. Wikipedia, Vitamin K, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_K 12. National Institutes of Health, Zinc, http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-QuickFacts/ 13. Wikipedia, Copper peptide GHK-Cu, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_peptide_GHKCu 14. Ray Sahelian, M.D., B-complex supplement health benefit, http://www.raysahelian.com/bcomplex.html 15. Phytochemicals, Rutin, http://www.phytochemicals.info/phytochemicals/rutin.php 16. Health Central, Fish oil and heart disease, http://www.healthcentral.com/heart-disease/surviving-heart-attack-36549-5.html

17.Rath, Matthias Rath M.D. and Pauling, Linus Ph.D., A Unified Theory of Human Cardiovascular Disease Leading the Way to the Abolition of This Disease as a Cause for Human Mortality http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1992/pdf/1992-v07n01-p005.pdf 18. McGean, Patrick, Cellular Matric Study, http://www.naturodoc.com/sulfurstudy.htm

10 Nutrients To Optimize Your Immune System and Prevent Cancer It is important that it is understood that: mg = milligram mcg = microgram 1000 micrograms = 1 milligram 1000 milligrams = 1 gram The following nutritional factors for optimizing the immune system are listed in order of importance. Vitamin D – This needs to be vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol). D2 (ergocalciferol) should be avoided because it is only half as effective by dose and usually more expensive. Dosages should vary with body weight, color of skin, how much time you spend out in the sun, how much skin you expose while you are out, whether you use sunscreen, season of the year, altitude of residence, and latitude of residence. Even after taking all of these into account, vitamin D is still the hardest nutrient to dose correctly. I know people who take and do well with 5000 UI per day and I have heard of people who do well with 10,000 IU per day. At the other end of the spectrum, I have people in my family that will get overdose symptoms if they take 700 IU per day. There used to be a lot of discussion about avoiding overdoses if you take more than 400 IU/day, but this is not usually enough, especially in higher latitudes and with people who spend most of their time inside or who have darker skin. This is one of the most common deficiencies. Vitamin D is very important in maintaining bones and teeth, but is also very important to the immune system including cancer prevention and treatment. Vitamin D helps the body create over 1000 antibodies. Vitamin D assists in the creation of glutathione, which one of the most prominent molecules in the immune system. If you “overdose” you should notice pain at old bone/joint injury sites. If this happens, just skip a day or two and scale back a bit on the dosage. If the pain goes away, then this is evidence that the pain really was a vitamin D overdose. Adult dose to treat existing cancer – at least 3000 IU per day. Most need more. In the absence of cancer or existing infectious disease, take 1000 to 2000 IU’s per day. Take with a meal that contains fat. You will always need less in the summer if you are routinely getting sunlight.

Selenium – This is the most common mineral deficiency for the immune system and the most important one too. Selenium is VERY important in the prevention of almost any infectious disease and cancer. A normal person should probably take between 100 and 200 mcg/day. If you have cancer, are HIV+, or have chronic Hep-C, Hep-B, or Coxsackie Virus, then you will need more. It is very difficult to get adequate selenium from food because acid rain tends to make it (and other minerals) unavailable to crops. You can get enough selenium if you eat brazil nuts, but I don’t like to recommend this because brazil nuts cause a lot of allergies, especially if eaten routinely over a long period of time. Too much selenium will cause inflammation around the cuticles. If this happens, skip the selenium for a few days and the resume at a lower dosage. Take With a meal that contains fat. Iodine – If you don’t eat fish (I don’t because of the mercury) , or use iodized salt (I recommend that you don’t because the only salt that is iodized that I have ever found is refined salt), or eat sea vegetables, or supplement iodine, then you will almost for sure be deficient in iodine. You can take kelp, or get a liquid iodine supplement. Iodine is important for thyroid health, but it is also used by every cell in the body. You have to try really hard to experience overdose symptoms of iodine. Iodine is the number one supplement to prevent/treat cancers of all of the reproductive organs. The thyroid needs iodine. A hypothyroid condition will result in low body temperature. Remember that a fever is a high body temperature, and is the most common immune response to systemic bacterial infection. Low core body temperature is also a major risk factor to the development of cancer. Iodine supplementation can help this, but can’t completely overcome this problem, because there are more causes than just iodine deficiency. The best type of iodine supplement is called “Lugol’s Solution”. This is superior to most common iodine supplements because you need two types of iodine – elemental iodine and potassium iodide. Lugol’s Solution has both, whereas most other iodine supplements have only one of these. Lugol’s Solution is ulikely to be available locally. My favorite source for Lugol’s Solution is JCrow (Phone 1-800878-1965). This is the successor company to the one started by Dr. D. C. Jarvis – a famous New Hamphire country doctor. Lugol’s solution is available in “Full-Strength” and “Half-Strength”. I recommend the Half-Strength because the DEA thinks that the Full Strength is

likely to be used in a meth lab, especially if you purchase multiple bottles. So, buying it in half-strength prevents unwanted visits from the DEA. Take the indicated dose orally, but also apply it topically to any cancerous area near the surface. Iodine is especially powerful in treating reproductive organ cancers such as prostate, cervical, ovarian, and breast cancers. It is almost impossible to overdose on the iodine in Lugol’s solution. Common Adult dose – 6 mg/day. This would be 2 drops of Half-Strength Lugols. Put it in water or on food. You might want to adjust the dose upward until you stop noticing improvements. Vitamin C – Vitamin C performs a lot of functions in your body, and all of them are very valuable. It is a primary antioxidant, is required for the repair of connective tissue (collagen fibers), chelates out heavy metals, is required for stress response, and is a major contributor to the proper functioning of the immune system. More is better. I take between 3 and 6 grams per day from supplements. For higher dosages, the recommended form is pure ascorbic acid. This might be too acid for the stomach, and it might cause diarrhea, but these are self-limiting symptoms and easy to interpret. Mineral ascorbates, such as calcium ascorbate are good choices if you are taking a lower dose, such as 2 grams or less. If you take a mineral ascorbate form of vitamin C in higher dosages, this might result in slight overdose symptoms for the mineral that is attached to the ascorbic acid. Vitamin C is available inexpensively at almost every grocery store, drug store, etc. However, if you want to go upscale and get really high-end vitamin C, the Vitamin C Foundation (1-800-894-9025) is the best place to look. They offer purified Lascorbic acid NOT manufactured in China and NOT made from corn. They also have this same vitamin C in a liposomal form. To get the highest blood levels of vitamin C from oral vitamin C, combine powdered vitamin C to “bowel tolerance” with additional liposomal vitamin C. Because the liposomal vitamin C is processed through the lymph system, it will not contribute to any further acidic irritation of the intestines. Also, because it is liposomal, it will degrade much slower on it’s way to the bloodstream, and will contribute as much as 5 times what powdered vitamin C will contribute gram-for gram to the eventual blood levels.

For cancer patients, there is also a lot of literature indicating that vitamin C IV’s are useful in cancer treatment. What you need to understand is that what you can consume and absorb orally is wonderful stuff because it is an ANTIOXIDANT in addition to contributing to the immune effects of white blood cells. However, when you start getting 50 grams and up over a period of an hour and a half, you get a PRO-OXIDANT effect. Yes, this means that vitamin C IV’s are actually chemotherapy – a type with very few toxic side effects. Cancer cells use fermentation in preference to aerobic respiration. This means that they get about 2 ATP’s out of each glucose molecule as compared to the 34-38 that normal cells get by using oxygen. The consequence is that cancer cells are always looking for more glucose. One clue here is that any source of sugar in the diet of a cancer patient needs to be limited or reduced. They should be getting as much of their energy as possible from fats (look up ketogenic diet) and proteins. The sugars should be from less concentrated sources like non-starchy vegetables (carrots, greens, tomatoes, radish, etc). Fruits should be avoided, even the carbohydrates in beans are too high for most cancer patients. The other idea here is that, in most animals, vitamin C is made in the liver from glucose. Consequently, the vitamin C molecule looks a lot like glucose. When you flood the blood stream with vitamin C, the cancer sees all these molecules flowing by that look like glucose, and pulls lots of them into it’s cells (more than normal cells). At such high concentrations, the vitamin C becomes a pro-oxidant and starts tearing apart the cancer cell. The only defense against such high levels of vitamin C is the enzyme catalase. Normal cells have sufficient amounts of this to defend themselves against vitamin C IV of even 200 grams over an hour and a half, but cancer cells are deficient in catalase, and they frequently succumb to the vitamin C invasion. Vitamin C IV’s should always use sodium ascorbate, which is pH neutralized. If pure ascorbic acid were used instead, the acidity would “burn” the vein at the point of insertion. Adult dose – at least 3 grams per day – but you will need more if you are treating cancer or an infectious disease. Take it in divided doses throughout the day to avoid intestinal upset. Dietary Sulfur – Sulfur does two things very well – detoxify and deliver oxygen to the cells. Both of these are very important to the immune function, especially in the long term. Sulfur is found in many foods, but is found in higher concentrations is onions, garlic, kale, mustard greens and seeds, and cruciferous vegetables.

Most people do not like the taste of sulfur-rich foods and will never get optimal levels of sulfur from dietary sources. The best type of sulfur supplement is commonly referred to as “Organic Sulfur”. It is important that this type of supplement be very pure. My favorite source for this is 1-800-290-2013. If you take organic sulfur, it should be taken on an empty stomach. It is also important to take it with chlorine-free water. I take it almost every day upon rising, which is one way to guarantee an empty stomach. Organic sulfur works by sulfating out EVERYTHING – toxic heavy metals, metabolic waste, pesticides, herbicides, cleaning solvents, but also nutritional minerals. Most of us in the industrialized world have a collection of toxins in our body in addition to what is known as a “mineral reserve” (so we have more nutritional minerals than we really need. When we take organic sulfur, it sulfates out some of the bad stuff AND some of the nutritional minerals that we didn’t really need. In addition, it delivers oxygen to the cells. The immediate result is you feel and function better. You do it again, and feel better still. This continues until you have wiped out the mineral reserve, and then you will start experiencing mineral deficiencies (low blood pressure, muscle cramps, muscle twitches usually in the hands or feet. These are not the only possible symptoms, but the most common ones that I have seen). To prevent this from happening, a multi-mineral with additional magnesium should be added to the patient’s routine on a daily basis. With just one teaspoon per day the mineral deficiencies are not likely to happen, but with each increase in dose, they are more likely, and at two tablespoons per day are an inevitability unless you aggressively supplement minerals. Adult dose – 1 teaspoon in chlorine-free water on empty stomach then do not eat or drink anything else for 30 minutes. Do this every 12 hours. Experiment with higher doses. 1 tablespoon every 12 hours should be about the maximum. Vitamin E – Vitamin E is a very strong antioxidant that protects the cell membranes and recycles vitamin C. It is a quirk of vitamin naming conventions that there are 8 different chemicals that are all called vitamin E. They have similarities, but they also do different things. To avoid all types of vitamin E deficiency problems, you need a supplement with all 8 types. Check the back of the bottle and look for all 8 chemical names. For the “full-spectrum vitamin E’s,

there will be 4 tocopherols, and 4 tocotrienols. The tocotrienols are very important in the prevention of cancer. Almost all drug-store vitamin E is either dl-alpha-tocopherol (mostly plastic garbage) or d-alpha-tocopherol (better, but still a very unbalanced vitamin E). With a little effort, you should be able to find a full-spectrum vitamin E a most health-food stores (all 4 tocopherols and all 4 tocotrienols listed on back of label). If you want to go high-end, the best vitamin E available is Unique E by AC Grace. In this brand, the tocopherols are in one bottle, and the tocotrienols in another. This vitamin E is most easily found online through vitamin resellers like Swanson and Vitacost. Adult dose : For Unique E, take 1 tocopherol in AM and 1 tocotrienol in PM. For other brands, take one gel-cap daily . Take with a meal that contains fat. Zinc/Copper – Zinc works in opposition to copper. Excessive zinc will suppress copper, and excessive copper will suppress zinc. Both zinc and copper deficiencies will result in poor immune function. Excessive zinc will also depress the immune system. Excessive copper can produce mania. So, the key is to get the dosage right. The US RDA for zinc is between 12 and 20 mg per day. Most holistic authorities commonly recommend higher dosages. Vegetarians tend to be deficient in zinc and high in copper. If you routinely eat meat, a good dosage might be 20-30 mg zinc and 2 mg copper per day. If you are a vegetarian who does not eat fish, then your dosage should be more in the range of 30-40 mg zinc probably with no copper. Adult dose – 30 mg zinc and 2 mg copper per day. Take with a meal that contains fat. Grounding(AKA earthing) – Humans are constantly losing highly energized electrons (the high energy allows them to leave their atom). Many of us are familiar with the definition of a free-radical as a molecule with an unpaired electron. This causes that molecule to “steal” an electron from an adjacent molecule which damages that molecule, and causes it to “steal” an electron from another adjacent molecule. This is the description of a “chain of free-radical damage”. When vitamin C or vitamin E or selenium or any other antioxidant is being an antioxidant, all it is doing is standing at the end of a chain of free-radical damage, and when that molecule looks for a “replacement” electron, the antioxidant offers up it’s own, stopping the chain of damage. So you could describe a person with a lot of free radicals as someone with an “electron deficiency”. You could replenish those electrons by routinely taking large amounts of antioxidants, - but there is an easier way. The surface of the

earth has a significant negative charge because it is where those stray electrons go. Putting a bare foot on bare ground in the presence of even the most modest amount of moisture in the ground (to increase conductivity) will deliver all the missing electrons to the appropriate locations in a human body in a matter of 10 minutes. Doing this once or twice per day, especially for someone would does not normally “touch the ground” will go a long way to minimizing free radical damage and sparing vitamin C, E, selenium, etc for other important purposes. Daniel Cobb DOM

http://danielcobbdom.com Worksheet Exercises Related to this course:

Exercise 1: Gregory is a 250 lb immigrant from Nigeria who lives in Cleveland, OH. He is a strict vegan. He has been diagnosed with osteopenia and gets frequent upper respiratory infections. He has also been experiencing mood and energy swings lately. He has been paying attention to supplementation recently, and he takes the following: (He gets everything from his local Walgreen drugstore) Vit C – 1 gram 2 times per day Vit E – 400 IU per day Vit D3 – 400 IU per day Selenium – 100 mcg A Multi-mineral capsule that contains a wide variety of minerals including: Zinc 30 mg Copper 2 mg Iodine 150 mcg Recommend changes he might make, tell me why, and make sure to PRIORITIZE them. Make sure you are not putting too much strain on Gregory’s limited budget. Exercise 2: In your own words, explain the why cancer cells love sugar.

Melting Calcium Deposits with Ascorbic Acid I want to describe a method for “melting” calcium deposits that I have used on several occasions to treat both myself and my wife Karen. The technique involves the use of DMSO, and requires a specific kind of vitamin C. Therefore, I will start with a few paragraphs on both vitamin C and DMSO. DMSO was originally a by-product of the paper manufacturing industry 1. It drew attention because it has many unusual biological properties. One of the more interesting properties was that it could penetrate biological membranes very quickly, and it could carry with it a wide variety of molecules, most of which had very limited ability to penetrate those membranes on their own. I became familiar with DMSO by reading excepts from a legendary book titled “Devil’s Diary” 2. This book was a manual for mayhem produced by the CIA in the 1950’s. The presumptions of the book were that the CIA agent could be dropped into a foreign country with no backup and nothing but the clothes on their back. The book covered the use of plant/animal poisons and other disruptive chemicals that could be made from nature. In the Devil’s Diary, DMSO was mixed with boomslang (a sub-saharan snake) venom 3. This mixture was then put into what may have been the world’s first felt-tipped pen. The felt-tipped pen was then intended to be “accidentally” rubbed up against the exposed skin of the assassination target. The DMSO would carry the venom through the skin and into the blood stream. Because the boomslang venom has a delayed reaction, the assassin can be long gone before the victim even suspects that anything is wrong. Molecule size is a limiting factor for absorption into the human body through the skin. DMSO appears to dramatically change the limitations of this absorption. For example, insulin – a very large (about 5800 Daltons) is poorly absorbed even with DMSO, but snake venom tends to be a composite of different molecules, many of which are much smaller than insulin. Ascorbic acid is a relatively small molecule (C6H8O6) that is poorly absorbed transdermally. “Vitamin C” is actually not a specific molecule, but is the generic term for all those molecules that can release ascorbic acid into our bodies. Pure ascorbic acid sometimes creates stomach upset in people who do not tolerate

much acid in the stomach. For this reason, the most common forms of vitamin C found as supplements are mineral ascorbates. These are “pH neutralized” forms of vitamin C that will be gentler on the stomach. It is possible to get vitamin C as a pure ascorbic acid, but you have to read the labels to be sure. Acids melt metal. This is just basic chemistry. Try and find a lab that keeps its hydrochloric acid in a stainless steel container. What most of the nonchemists in the world are unaware of is that common minerals such as calcium, magnesium, etc are also metals. Acids, therefore are a good candidate to melt calcium deposits, and ascorbic acid is an acid that might be able to accomplish this task. Now, I want to present two painful stories. About four years ago, I started to develop vague pains in my right thigh just below the greater trochanter. I tend to have tightness in my leg muscles, and I assumed that these pains were nothing more. The pains got worse, and I would periodically try to stretch them out, with some success. Finally, one afternoon, the pain got dramatically worse. I tried everything that I could think of with no result. I was in relatively little pain as long as I didn’t move. I could even limp around the house with minimal pain as long as I proceeded slowly. However, some movements/positions were almost impossible and very painful. I could not lay down in my bed or go to sleep without very significant pain. As I would later discover, trying to get into the passenger seat of my car was a truly horrible experience. I was up all night, and the pain continued. I made an appointment with a chiropractor who had always in the past fixed what I could not fix myself. After working on me for almost two hours, and finally giving up, I asked him what else it could be. He rattled off a couple of possibilities, but when he said “calcium deposit”, I immediately made the possible connection to an exercise that routinely put me on my right side on a hard floor – putting significant pressure on the exact location that was the source of the pain. If you have ever seen surfer’s knees, you know that repetitive pressure on a specific location, can eventually result in “protective” calcium deposits. I had an X-Ray done, and it confirmed that the pain was from a calcium deposit. In this case, it looked like a cloudy area on the X-ray. It was a large collection of very small calcium deposits

I left the medical center with a description of the problem, but without any recommendation as to how to fix the problem. I had a prescription for pain pills, which I didn’t bother to fill. On the way home, I was desperately trying to figure out how to deal with the calcium deposit. When I got home, I looked for and found a bottle of pure ascorbic acid powder. I asked my wife Karen to get me a bottle of DMSO from a local health-food store. I had never heard of using DMSO/ascorbic acid to melt calcium deposits beneath the skin, but I was willing to try anything that didn’t seem terribly dangerous. While she returned, I mixed some of the pure ascorbic acid with enough DMSO to turn the mixture into a thin paste. I rubbed it on the skin at the location of the calcium deposit. In the next couple of hours, I repeated this three more times. By the next morning, I the pain was almost totally gone. I applied the ascorbic acid/DMSO one more time in the morning. By that afternoon, I remember going out to the hay storage area, and carrying a bale of hay to the goat pen without pain or difficulty. Now comes my wife’s story. Karen broke her tailbone twice before she was twenty years old. By the age of 35, she had developed terrible back and hip pain. X-rays finally confirmed a diagnosis of spinal stenosis due to calcium deposits. She was very prone to any inflammation in that area of her spine because it would lead to more irritation, and more inflammation. I finally suggested that we try the ascorbic acid/DMSO treatment on her low back area, and Karen agreed. Karen’s treatment took considerably longer than my own because my calcium deposits were diffuse, and hers were solid. Over a period of about 6 months, I applied the ascorbic acid/DMSO treatment to the painful areas of her lower back about 10 times. After that, she said that she still had some hip pain, but that the pain was reduced by about 80% both in intensity and in frequency of occurrence.

Karen’s calcium deposits tend to reappear, and I have occasionally had to do one or two additional treatments, always with the same success. Some Hints for Using DMSO I don’t claim to be an expert on the solvent properties of DMSO, but I thought it would be useful to at least mention the precautions that I take when using DMSO on the skin. Because DMSO can carry a lot of chemicals right through the skin, cleanliness is a top priority. It would not make sense to come in from applying chemical herbicides to your garden, and proceed directly to using DMSO on your body. I want to mix the DMSO and ascorbic acid only in glass, because glass will not leach into solvents. Metal containers will leach excessively because of the ascorbic acid (even stainless steel), and ceramic containers may be contaminated with lead or aluminum. Plastic containers would probably leach because of the DMSO solvent. Cleaning the glass container is important. I like to use the bottom of a water glass, especially if it is slightly concave. The volume of the mixture is small, and cleaning just the exposed surface of the bottom of the glass is much easier. I do not use dish detergent or soap. These are contaminants. I clean the bottom of the glass ONLY with water, and wipe it down only with a clean cotton cloth. I will mix and apply the ascorbic acid/DMSO paste only with my fingers. Because I know that I can safely absorb the paste, I deem my fingers to be a safe method to mix and apply it, as long as they are clean. Once, again, soap and detergent are contaminants. I wash my hands very thoroughly and ONLY with water. I dry with a clean cotton cloth. Some hints about using ascorbic acid to “melt” calcium deposits. It is probable that a wide variety of acids could be used with DMSO to melt calcium deposits. I chose ascorbic acid because I know that it is not just safe, but also generally very beneficial.

Acids like what I describe in this article can melt calcium deposits, but they can also melt away the mineral content in bones. The calcium deposits will melt much quicker, because they are poorly constructed, do not have a collagen matrix, and do not easily regenerate themselves like living bones. Still, especially in areas where bones are small and fragile (such as the lower end of the spine), I would caution against applying the ascorbic acid/DMSO treatment too frequently. I always let a couple weeks pass between treatments so that bone remodeling could bring her bones in the area of the treatment back to “normal” before applying the mixture again. Notes: 1. American Cancer society webpage on DMSO http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_5_3X_DMSO.asp? sitearea=ETO 2. Here is the only reference I could find to the Devil’s Diary http://www.amazon.com/review/RQ300W7LPE8S7 You can’t buy it here. It looks as though the CIA has “cleaned up after itself” very well this time. 3. Biosulf webpage on DMSO http://www.biosulf.org/1/pop65.htm Sometime publications want to add a brief bio of the author. Here is a short paragraph on myself: Daniel Cobb is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine practicing at the Integrative Holistic Healing Center in Santa Fe, NM. He is an instructor at Southwest Acupuncture College and routinely speaks/instructs on various health-care topics in Santa Fe and the surrounding area. He is at his best convincing patients that they can overcome the vast majority of chronic diseases through nutrition and detoxification.

Should you Replace your Daily Aspirin with Arginine? © copyright 1999 by Owen R. Fonorow

On the advice of their physicians, millions of Americans, encouraged by massive advertising and the apparent government stamp of approval, are taking an aspirin a day to keep a heart attack away. Is this the best advice orthodox medicine has to offer? An explosion of recent research, stemming from the 1998 Nobel prize in medicine, now strongly supports the idea that there are better; safer and more effective alternatives to aspirin for preventing heart attacks and extending life. The recent research into Nitric Oxide (NO), a short-lived free radical that the human body can create out of arginine, an essential amino acid, lead not only to the prescription impotence drug Viagra®, but also to the finding that arginine, like aspirin and many other substances, can act as a very potent blood anticoagulant. Thus arginine, like aspirin and other substances, may prevent Myocardial Infarction (MI) AKA heart attack. Arginine vs. Aspirin

L-Arginine, an amino acid, is essential to our diet and required for life, has no known toxicity. Arginine has been shown to stimulate the body's production of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) by the pituitary gland, probably by blocking the secretion of HGH inhibitor somatostatin. It increases the body's ability to produce Nitric Oxide when needed, and restores sexual function in impotent men. Studies have shown that oral arginine boosts immunity, fights cancer, promotes healing, protects and detoxifies the liver, improves thymus function, enhances male fertility and is the precursor of the non-essential amino acid ornithine.[1] Aspirin on the other hand is not always safe and there are no studies that show taking plain aspirin extends life. Linus Pauling pointed out in 1986 that "Aspirin, like other salicylates, has the property that in concentrated solution can attack and dissolve tissues. An aspirin in the stomach may attach to the stomach wall and cause a bleeding ulcer." [2] A recent report from the Boston University school of Medicine confirms that aspirin can irritate the stomach lining, sometimes causing severe upper gastrointestinal bleeding and, in rare instances, death. [3,4].

The Aspirin Trials Given the potentially serious health concerns surrounding aspirin, why is this substance being heralded as a miracle drug in the fight against heart disease and worthy of the U. S. Government's stamp of approval? One reason is that aspirin is readily available over-the-counter; another reason is that one of aspirin's many properties is the inhibition of platelet clumping. Less clumping might mean fewer blood clots resulting in fewer heart attacks. Medical correspondent Wayne Martin writing in the Townsend Letter explains the Platelet Adhesiveness Index (PAI) test: "At the National Heart Hospital in London circa 1970, they were using a test for platelet adhesion and the results were stated as PAI, platelet Adhesiveness index. In this test a blood sample was taken and a platelet count was made. Then a second blood sample was taken and this time the blood was passed over glass beads. If half the platelets stuck to the beads, PAI was 50. Patients who had survived a heart attack would have PAI of 50 and hence were considered to be at risk of death from a second heart attack. Young women who never suffer from Myocardial Infarction (MI) have PAI of 20 yet they will have proper blood clots in wounds. At the National Heart Hospital, in the years 1960 to 1965, they did a PAI test on every patient to come to this hospital and they never found a single patient with PAI less than 40. They felt anyone with a PAI of less than 40 was not going to have a heart attack. Put another way, they felt that the great problem about MI was one of blood clots in coronary arteries. The idea of testing for PAI never came to the USA. [5] Because aspirin will reduce blood clotting, clinical trials were launched to find out whether aspirin may benefit heart patients. These trials have mixed results, none showing longer life; but two recent studies concluded that aspirin is a "life saver" because it cut down the number of nonfatal heart attacks, especially second heart attacks in the aspirin group. Wayne Martin's interpretation of these trials: "In 1980 cardiologists resurrected platelets and blood clots as a cause of Myocardial Infarction (MI) deaths - and told everyone over 40 to take aspirin to prevent having a heart attack. One factor in the prevention of MI is the Adhesiveness of platelets as the greater the adhesion of platelets the greater the chance of having a coronary blood clot. Then came a series of trials on aspirin for the prevention of MI. There were in the 1970s two trials in England that were failures. No benefit or very slight benefit was found for aspirin in the prevention of MI. This was followed by a much larger US government-financed trial in the USA and reported in 1980. This trial was an abject failure with much bleeding of the stomach due to aspirin and no benefit at all in the prevention of MI. Doctors felt that the case could be made for aspirin if only doctors were the subjects. A trial in England among doctors was again a failure, however a larger trial among doctors in the USA was hailed as a great success. In this American trial, non-fatal heart attacks were reduced by

40%. The bad news however, was that fatal heart attacks were not reduced and moreover overall survival was not increased. Nonetheless as the result of this trial, it was suggested or even demanded that all men over 40 should be taking aspirin. There was something a bit different about this trial among doctors in the USA. Bufferin was used and Bufferin contains both aspirin and some magnesium. Magnesium is greatly beneficial to the heart. It reduces platelet adhesion, is a vasodilator and is a potent antiarrhythmic agent. [5] The authors of The Arginine Solution, Robert Fried, Ph.D. and Woodson Merrell, MD, summarize the aspirin research this way: "The results of the physician study, which were published in 1997 in The New England Journal of Medicine, concluded that a daily aspirin does indeed have a significant impact on heart health, lowering the risk of heart disease and heart attacks. Other researchers have also shown that aspirin can slash the risk of a second heart attack in patients who have already suffered a first heart attack. And because unchecked platelet clumping has also been implicated as one cause for chronic high blood pressure, aspirin and other anticoagulants may help in the treatment of hypertension as well. "Unfortunately, many of these anticoagulant drugs, aspirin included, can have pernicious side effects for many patients, side effects that can range from serious stomach bleeding to kidney damage. Indeed, further analysis of the same landmark physician study itself found that those doctors in a control group who received a placebo instead of aspirin had the same overall incidence of death as those who received the aspirin.[2] Surprisingly, Fried and Merrell question the validity of the claim that aspirin takers enjoy such a comparative reduction of heart disease and heart attacks: "Well it turns out that physicians on aspirin increased their odds of another, often fatal condition: hemorrhagic stroke, that is, unchecked bleeding into the brain. This kind of stroke is a prime example of where you need some protective blood clotting, but the anticoagulants have turned of the capacity to do so".[2]

There Are Many Alternatives to Aspirin Although aspirin apparently reduces the incidence of blood clots that lead to heart attack, much safer substances are known that work equally well or better: "There are all kinds of things other than aspirin that reduce PAI, one of which is the drug dipyridamole. Here mention will be made of the European Stroke Prevention Study. About 90% of strokes are thrombotic strokes, blood clots in blood vessels in the brain. This trial had as subjects patients who had had an indication of a stroke. First aspirin alone was used with little or no benefit. Then dipyridamole was added to treatment, 300 mg a day and the results were outstanding. Stroke deaths were reduced by 50%, heart attack deaths by 35% and cancer deaths by 25%.

There are many things that reduce PAI better than aspirin. Vitamin E at 400 iu a day will, as will Vitamin B6 at over 40 mg day. There was an editorial in The Lancet a few years ago on how anti-thrombic is vitamin B6 at over 40 Mg. So is fish oil. This is the omega-3 fatty acid that we have been hearing so much about of late. Then recently, from the University of Wisconsin, comes a report that purple grape juice at 10 oz. a day will reduce PAI better than aspirin. It has been suggested that gamma linolenic acid in evening primrose oil will reduce PAI better than anything else. Also the oils of onion and garlic will reduce PAI. Ground ginger also is greatly effective in reducing PAI and like aspirin, it will reduce pain. It is highly anti-inflammatory. It is a sad state of affairs that doctors in the USA have gotten most men over 40 taking aspirin while not setting up a test to see if it is in fact reducing PAI. [5]

Arginine Derived NO Mediates Platelet Adhesiveness One of the great discoveries stemming from the recent NO research is that the amino acid arginine may share an ability to prevent blood clots with aspirin, without any known risks. Scientists now think that NO derived from arginine regulates whether or not blood platelets clump together. If platelets were always clumping, The entire circulatory system would grind to a sludgy halt. Whenever a blood vessel suffers an injury, platelets clump together blocking blood from seeping out of the artery until the damage can be repaired. Clumps or clots that block coronary arteries can cause a heart attack. Something has to trigger clumping when it's called for, while inhibiting it when there is no need. It turns out that a number of blood-borne chemicals are released when an injury occurs that can alter electrical charges, and these chemicals determine whether or not platelets will repel or attract. According to Fried and Merrill, nature's elegant solution for regulating whether platelet's clump relies on the free radical Nitric Oxide (NO) made available in the body from arginine. [2] "The good news is that researchers have found another "blood thinning" approach that is equally effective in controlling platelet aggregation, but without the side-effects of conventional anticoagulants from aspirin to leech saliva. This discovery came after Drs. M. W. Radomski, R. M. J. Palmer and Salvador Monacada learned that platelets themselves contain their own form of the enzyme nitric oxide synthase, which lets them create NO from arginine. [2] Researchers now say that supplemental arginine can also help the hypertensive patient's remaining undamaged endothelial cells produce additional NO to keep arteries open and to prevent platelets from clumping and sticking to vessel walls. In 1994, researchers at the Hanover Medical School in Germany reported that intravenous arginine resulted in a 33 percent decrease in platelet aggregation - very impressive results. Moreover, the researchers concluded that arginine inhibits platelet aggregation specifically "by enhancing nitric oxide formation." [2]

In Theory, Aspirin may Aggravate Atherosclerosis According to the Linus Pauling/Matthias Rath Unified Theory of cardiovascular disease, the primary cause of heart disease is a vitamin C deficiency. This deficiency leads to an inability to manufacture sufficient collagen, which causes blood vessel weakness and instability. Collagen is a basic animal protein that provides structural integrity analogous to the function of cellulose in

plants. Blood vessel instability from a lack of collagen leads to lesions or wounds in the arterial wall, especially where blood pressure is high and mechanical stresses are great. Plaque forms as a healing response to these wounds. It has long been known that taking aspirin increases one's requirement for vitamin C. Vitamin C molecules are used up detoxifying the body, so taking aspirin may lead to lower blood and tissue levels of vitamin C. According to Irwin Stone in 1976: Certain drugs, such as aspirin, cortisone, and other anti-inflammatory agents, and cinchophen, are known to provoke ulcers and gastric hemorrhage. This is especially the case when a deficiency of ascorbic acid [vitamin C] is present. In animal experiments, the administration of ascorbic acid along with the toxic drug reduced the incidence of peptic ulcer and gastric hemorrhage to such an extent that it prompted one author (Aron) to suggest, "Therefore it would seem judicious in human therapeutics to include ascorbic acid in every prescription for an antiinflammatory drug"[6]. Aspirin's ability to dissolve human tissues would seem to make this substance contraindicated in atherosclerotic patients. If Pauling and Rath are correct and the lack of vitamin C causes heart disease, and if aspirin can cause blood vessel lesions, and finally, if the body uses its vitamin C stores to "fight" the toxic effects of aspirin, then taking aspirin may be the last thing a heart patient should do.

Arginine May be the Best Alternative Most authorities now accept the proposition that heart attack is not generally a problem of arterial occlusion; rather MI is a problem of blockage. The problem with occlusion is that blockages are more likely in arteries narrowed by atherosclerosis. When platelet adhesiveness increases, the risk of heart attack rises. Nitric Oxide causes arteries to dilate and blood pressure to drop. Interestingly, the research shows that atherosclerosis interferes with the ability of endothelial cells to make NO, so clotting is more likely when atherosclerotic plaque is present. If a blood clot is the reason for the blockage, thinning the blood with an anti-coagulating agent may be of significant value. The discovery that NO derived from arginine regulates blood coagulation at the platelet level is important. Arginine has been shown to have the same anti-clotting ability as aspirin, but not continuously, only when needed, i.e., when chemicals associated with injury are released into the blood stream. Aspirin's health risk is that this substance may unconditionally prevent blood coagulation, even when clotting is called for, e.g., to prevent a stroke. Furthermore, aspirin's known characteristic of dissolving tissue may not be limited to the stomach. If aspirin causes arterial lesions, then it would be a contributing factor in atherosclerosis.

The Final Word from Linus Pauling While rethinking your daily aspirin, please consider these remarks made by the late chemist and medical researcher Linus Pauling writing in HOW TO LIVE LONGER AND FEEL BETTER:

"It is drugs, especially the analgesics and antipyretics such as aspirin, that are responsible for most of the five thousand deaths by poisoning that occur each year in the United States. Of that mournful total about twenty-five hundred are children. About four hundred of these children die each year of poisoning by aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) and some other salicylate. Aspirin and similar drugs are sold openly, without prescription. They are considered to be exceptionally safe substances. The fatal dose is 0.4 to 0.5 gm per kilogram body weight: that is 5 to 10 gm for a child, 20 to 30 g for an adult." "Aspirin has been in use as a nonprescription drug, sold casually over the counter, for more than a century before the physiological basis of its pain killing and fever-reducing action was discovered in 1971. Then it was found that aspirin acts upon a central hormonal control system in the body. If it were now coming on to the market from a pharmaceutical laboratory, it would be surely placed under the constraint of prescription. "Some people show a severe sensitivity to aspirin, such that a decrease in circulation of the blood and difficulty in breathing follow the ingestion of 0.3 g to 1 g (one to three tablets.) "The symptoms of mild aspirin poisoning are burning pain in the mouth, throat and abdomen. Difficult in breathing, lethargy, vomiting, ringing in the ears, and dizziness. More severe poisoning leads to delirium, fever, sweating, incoordination, coma, convulsions, cyanosis (blueness of the skin), failure of kidney function, respiratory failure, and death. "Aspirin, like other salicylates, has the property than in concentrated solution it can attack and dissolve tissues. An aspirin in the stomach may attach the stomach wall and cause the development of a bleeding ulcer. "The U. S. Centers for Disease Control have reported that if children and teenagers suffering from influenza or chicken pox are given aspirin they have a fifteen to twenty-five times greater chance of developing Reye's syndrome, an acute encelphalopathy and fatty degeneration of the viscera, causing death in about 40 percent of the patients." [2] Should you decide, in consultation with your physician, to replace your daily aspirin with 3-6 grams of oral arginine, you may notice some other interesting effects as well. One effect in particular may negate the need for men to spend upwards of $10 on a Viagra pill. Owen R. Fonorow PO Box 130130 Spring, Texas 77393 [email protected] http://www.vitamincfoundation.org REFERENCES

1. 2.

Klatz, Robert et. al., Grow Young with HGH, (1998) Pauling,Linus, How to Live Longer and Feel Better (1986)

3. 4. 5. 6.

Fried & Merrell, The Arginine Solution (1999) Kelly et al, The Lancet, 348 (1996), 1413-1416 Martin, Wayne, Townsend Ltr, (1998) Stone, I. The Healing Factor: Vitamin C Against Disease (1976)

HIV Is a Viral Infection AIDS Is a Collection of Nutritional Deficiencies This article is based upon information from several sources, but the most important source is the book by Harold Foster PhD titled “What Really Causes AIDS”. This book is available online at this link. http://www.hdfoster.com/what-really-causes-aids Dr. Foster was the central figure in the creation of almost all studies to demonstrate the value of the nutritional ideas in his book. When he died in 2009, most of the effort to bring attention to this book died with him. If you find interesting the parts of this article that tie the symptoms of AIDS to specific nutritional deficiencies, then I would strongly recommend that you read his entire book.

HIV/AIDS is one of the most misunderstood diseases in the industrialized world. The conventional view is that HIV/AIDS is a very dangerous disease that has killed millions by infecting and killing the part of the immune system called CD4 cells. In the beginning, it was feared because there was no known effective treatment. Decades later, it is feared because the medical management of this disease is so expensive that most patients feel completely dependent upon insurance companies and government programs to keep them alive. I want to paint an entirely different picture of HIV and AIDS. They are two related but different conditions. HIV is an infection from a virus that is only minimally infectious, kills very few cells, and would be a totally innocuous virus were it not for one characteristic – it competes for several of the same nutrients that we use to keep our immune systems functioning well. It harms us not because it infects us, but because it steals important nutrients, leaving our immune system increasingly weakened. AIDS is a collection of diseases and conditions resulting from several nutritional deficiencies. That these nutritional deficiencies are frequently the result of HIV is merely coincidental, as these same conditions can also result from the same nutritional deficiencies from other causes.

The high cost of AIDS treatment is rooted on the fundamental misconception that the condition must be treated by killing the virus. The proper approach is that treatment must restore the immune function by addressing the nutritional deficiencies. A properly functioning immune system is more than adequate to defend yourself against HIV. This will both eliminate AIDS symptoms and keep the virus under control. This method is orders of magnitude less expensive, less problematic, and requires little medical supervision. As an Infectious Agent, HIV is a Dud As an infectious agent, HIV is a dud. For example, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) states that The risk of acquiring HBV from an occupational needle stick injury when the source is hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive ranges from 2% to 40%. Whereas, The risk of acquisition of HIV from a hollow-bore needle with blood from a known HIV seropositive source is between 0.2% and 0.5%. 3 The difference between these rates is a factor of between 10 and 80. But the infectious possibilities from needle-stick injuries are just the beginning.

The conventional medical view is that AIDS results from the direct destruction of the CD4 T Lymphocytes by HIV 4. The virus certainly infects and destroys such immune cells, but not at levels that seem particularly significant. A third difficulty with the HIV hypotheses is that there is very little detectable virus in AIDS patients. Fewer than 1 out of every 10,000 of the host's T-helper cells are actively infected by HIV even during AIDS; moreover, the tiny amount of virus produced by these few cells is neutralized by the same antiviral antibodies that are detected by the "AIDS test." Fewer than 1 in 500 of a host's T cells contain even dormant HIV which can only be found by isolating these cells from the body and stimulating them artificially with compounds that help reactivate these latent viruses from within the cells. The resulting difficulty, and often impossibility, of isolating HIV from

AIDS patients make the presence of antibodies against the virus the only practical basis for diagnosis. 5 The very highest estimate of CD4 T Cells that are ever infected by HIV is 1 in 100. 6 Even in the worst possible circumstances, losing 1% of existing CD4 cells will not make a significant difference in immune function. Another factor that brings into question how directly damaging HIV infections are is the observed time-frames for the progression of the disease. The typical viral sequence is: Exposure and infection Latency – a few days to a week Onset of symptoms Immune systems responds – a couple days to a couple of weeks If the immune system is successful, the symptoms recede If not the patient may die over the next month or two In HIV infections, the latency can be for years, and even after the onset of symptoms, the disease can go on for many years. Pharmaceutical intervention can make the disease go on for much longer. Therefore, it is fair to say that HIV progression is distinctly different from the progressions of almost all other viruses.

The most important observation is that people don’t die from HIV infections. They always die from other conditions and opportunistic infections that occur in a weakened body deprived from a properly functioning immune system. If HIV was such a virulent destroyer of human cells, the viral infection alone would not require the assistance of other infectious agents to kill the patient. The Role of Glutathione Peroxidase HIV creates an enzyme which is an analogue to glutathione peroxidase. Glutathione peroxidase is an enzyme that humans produce, and it is very important in immune function. When HIV produces this molecule, it will use the very same nutrient building blocks as humans use to create the similar molecule 7. Those nutrients are:

Selenium L-Tryptophan L-Glutamine L-Cysteine Because our own bodies and HIV use the same nutrients for important purposes, there arises a competition for nutrients. There are two ways of approaching an infection where you know what it needs. The first is to reduce what the infection needs and hope that it dies before you do. This is what your body does with iron when you get a bacterial infection. 8 In this case the human body makes most iron unavailable. This places stresses on the human and the bacteria, but the bacteria does not tolerate this as well as the human body. Thus this has become an effective strategy for bacterial infections, especially those bacteria that spread fast and capable of doing much tissue damage quickly. The second approach is to make sure that there’s enough necessary nutrients for both you and the infection and hope that your immune system can keep the infection under control. This places stresses on your immune system, but has a good chance to work well against a microbe that is not a strong infectious agent and doesn’t damage tissue quickly. Because HIV is a weak infectious agent, it would make sense that insuring sufficient supplies of the critical nutrients that both the virus and our own bodies need might be a winning approach.

How the Symptoms of HIV/AIDS Match Up With Nutritional Deficiency Symptoms Resulting From The Creation of Glutathione Peroxidase L-Tryptophan and niacin are metabolized back and forth, so their deficiency symptoms are often shared. The most notable of the tryptophan/niacin symptoms are the 4 D’s associated with pellagra – dermatitis, dementia, diarrhea and death. 9 L-Glutamine deficiency primarily concerns the integrity of the intestinal lining, and primarily of the small intestine. Because most L-Glutamine is used to maintain the intestinal walls, absorbtion of nutrients becomes

compromised and undigested food particles and toxins can more easily pass into the bloodstream. 10 L-Glutamine is also used in tissue generation, so a deficiency can easily result in muscle-wasting. L-Glutamine is often used as a post-operative supplement to decrease healing time. 11 L-Cysteine is essential for the production of both L-Glutathione and T-Cells, so it has the strongest negative effects of any of the amino acids on immune function when it is in deficiency. 12 Selenium deficiency is commonly associated with depression, immune system problems, particularly with viral infections, cancer, and heart disease (primarily because coxsackie virus may periodically get out of control). 13 So these nutritional deficiencies directly explain the following common AIDS symptoms: Muscle wasting – Glutamine, Tryptophan Diarrhea – Glutamine, Tryptophan Depression – Selenium Heart problems, heart attacks – Selenium, Glutamine Karposi’s sarcoma – Selenium, Cysteine Psychosis, Dementia – Tryptophan Immune weakness – All 4 The Downward Spiral But first, let’s look at what happens when when we follow the first pattern – hope that we do better than the “bug” in conditions of scarcity. An initial HIV infection is mostly uneventful. Sometimes there is a minor and short-lived fever. But sometimes there is nothing at all. We have enough of the major nutrients to keep our immune system working well. We feel completely normal.

At some point, weeks, months, or even years later, our immune function may take a small dip. It may be because of emotional troubles, bad diet, work stress, or just about anything. Here is the pattern of what follows: 1. This causes the HIV viral count to rise 2. This causes more competition for the 4 listed nutrients 3. This causes the immune system to drop off more (producing fewer CD4 cells, among other problems) 4. Return to 1 and repeat Eventually, the person with HIV ends up with enough of the common symptoms if HIV/AIDS to seek medical help. From there the path is predictable – test positive for HIV, get diagnosed with AIDS, the doctor makes the standard presumption that the HIV virus is “killing off” too many of the CD4 cells, and the only way to proceed is to take drugs that will bring the HIV viral load down to where symptoms will stabilize and allow the patient to lead a near-normal life. At this point, the patient may be out of the “downward spiral”, but they are stuck in a pharmaceutical rut that is very expensive, has many side effects that they are very fearful of abandoning. Common Side Effects of HIV/AIDS Drugs Some side effects from HIV medicines appear months or even years after starting a medicine and can continue for a long time. Examples of long-term side effects include:        

Kidney problems, including kidney failure Liver damage Heart disease Diabetes or insulin resistance An increase in fat levels in the blood Changes in how the body uses and stores fat Weakening of the bones Nervous system/psychiatric effects, including insomnia, dizziness, depression, and suicidal thoughts 14

Look at What is Possible With the Nutritional Approach It is important to restate what is in the title at this point. HIV is a viral infection and AIDS is a collection of nutritional deficiencies. The symptoms of AIDS that are killing people are not direct symptoms of HIV infection. They are just predictable nutritional deficiencies that result from an HIV infection. Therefore it is very logical to proceed by supplementing the 4 nutrients that a HIV infection depletes. L-Tryptophan 2 grams/day @ $.66 L-Glutamine 2 grams/day @ $.11 N-Acetyl-Cysteine 2 grams/day @ $.40 Selenium 800 mcg/day @ $.13 (reduce dosage if cuticles under fingernails become inflamed) The nutrient costs per day that I quote above are calculated from the Swanson Health Products website prices as they appeared on 9/3/17. 15 This supplementation will counteract all of the nutritional deficiencies outlined in a previous paragraph. Because one of those deficiency symptoms is a poorly functioning immune system, when the immune system gets back to normal, the HIV viral count will be correspondingly reduced. I am making the case that for about $1.30 per day in supplements available without a prescription, and without medical supervision, you can recover from all the worst AIDS symptoms. This may sound like preposterous statement, but for those who are skeptical, I would like to point out that this has been tried many times and been successful. Here is an excerpt on an article that detailed such results: 16 In 2003, Gilbert, an employee of our small company in “South Africa, asked to go home to Zimbabwe to bury his brother saying that he he had died from HIV/AIDS. When Gilbert returned to Johannesburg he was distraught and reported that his sister-in-law Sibongile had been unable to come to the grave. She too had AIDS and was lying on the floor dying.

I had read Dr. Fosters’ book online and felt sure that the orthomolecular approach he suggested could cause no harm… Gilbert agreed that a bottle of the nutrients needed to be sent to his sister-inlaw…. Within weeks we heard from other relatives that this woman who had been moribund, seemed to be improving. Over the next several weeks, Sibongile continued to get better and was later able to move to her own room and begin to look after her own children, cooking for them and taking them to school. John, a 28-year-old hard-working laborer, took to staying in his bed every third day. He simply could not get up and if he did, he was too weak to work. He had a deep rasping cough and was rapidly becoming skeletal in appearance…. I suggested to John that he take the supplements. Within a week he was improving so much and go back to work on a normal schedule. He is still taking 400 mcg selenium per day, and is still (more than one year later) in good health and working. In these cases, the nutrient formula given to the patients included vitamin C, alpha-lipoic acid, and a collection of minerals intended to counteract the effects of diarrhea and loss of electrolytes. These additional nutrients, added to the $1.30 from the previous calculation might raise the total daily cost up to about $2.00. After Stabilization Once a patient becomes stabilized, their world seems to be normal, they can work and they can play a role in their communities. Their remaining problem is that they still have HIV infection, and they can still infect others. But remember that HIV is a fragile virus that is not strongly infectious. 5 A note about L-glutamine dosage. If diarrhea stops and body weight increases, the dosage of L-glutamine may be cut to 1 gram or even 500 mg per day. The danger is that L-glutamine may be converted to glutamate. Glutamate is an essential neurotransmitter, but when it is present in the brain in excessive quantities, it can become what is known as an “excitotoxin”. This commonly might result in headaches, but when high levels are maintained over longer periods of time, especially when magnesium is deficient, brain damage can occur. 17

The Possibility of an HIV/AIDS Vaccine HIV’s most important defensive characteristic is that it mutates rapidly. This is primarily due to it being a RNA virus, which always will have more mistakes than DNA replication. 18 There been a lot of discussion about the possibility of developing an HIV vaccine. An RNA virus like HIV is the least suitable target for the development of a vaccine. A vaccine has a multi-year timetable for development, testing, and deployment (that is, of course, if any testing is done). An RNA virus like HIV can easily mutate and spread that mutation widely in a given patient in 3-6 months. This strongly implies one important idea. There are so many different strains of HIV that the likelihood of vaccinating an individual with antigens from the exact right strain or even a strain close enough to produce meaningful antibodies is an unappealingly low percentage. The much better approach is to keep your own naturally-occurring immune system running like a well-oiled machine. When your natural immune system is working well, you can adapt to successful viral mutations within days (instead of months for searching for an effective drug or possibly years for an effective vaccine). Optimizing the Immune System This usually is done in two main parts – supplements and food. There are other subjects, but they are complex discussions that take up many pages, so I’ll just stick with the “quick and dirty” approaches to the shorter subjects here. Here are my favorite supplements for immune function in order of importance: Vitamin D3 – Dosing is always a challenge. An average adult should expect to take approximately 2000 iu in the winter and somewhat less in the summer if they get outdoors to get sun routinely. Take with a meal that contains fat. Of course darker skin is both a protection against sun damage and an impediment to the creation of vitamin D3 from sun exposure. Dark-

skinned people in norther latitudes are very likely to be vitamin D deficient and may need higher dosages. Selenium – 100 to 400 mcg per day. Take with a meal that contains fat. If you overdose on selenium, the cuticles underneath you fingernails will get red and inflamed. Stop the selenium for a few days and then resume at a lower dose. At the low end of the dose, 100 mcg/day is unlikely to produce overdose symptoms for an adult unless they eat Brazil nuts frequently. 200 mcg / day is a commonly recommended dose for adults, but can produce overdose symptoms more easily. 400 mcg / day is a dose that is very likely to generate overdose symptoms unless that patient has a reason to need high amounts of selenium (such as a persistent viral infection). Organic Sulfur – Must be 99.9% pure. Take between 1 and 2 teaspoons 2 times per day on an empty stomach. Then do not eat or drink anything else for 30 minutes. You may get more benefit if you experiment with higher dosages. Vitamin C – One gram at least two times per day. Vitamin E – There are 8 types of naturally-occurring vitamin E. When buying vitamin E, it is useful to make sure that it contains all 4 tocopherols and all 4 tocotrienols. This would make it a full-spectrum vitamin E and is an indicator that the manufacturer is actually trying to help you with your health. Take with a meal that contains fat. Copper/Zinc – These two need to be kept in balance somewhere between a 10:1 and 15:1 ratio with zinc being the higher dose. High zinc depresses copper function and high copper depresses zinc function. It is a good idea to take this as a combination supplement so that, if you run out of it, you run out of both at the same time. If you are a vegetarian, you will tend to be high in copper, so you will probably need just the zinc. If you are a meat eater who believes that a vegetable is a garnish that is supposed to be left on the plate, then you will be high in zinc, so you should just take the copper, or at least reduce the ratio of zinc/copper to 5:1. If you live in an old house with copper pipes and you drink tap water, then you can skip the copper because you probably get enough that leaches from the water pipes. Take copper and zinc with a meal that contains fat.

Turmeric – This is a wonderful herb some of the time and a problem the rest of the time. If it grown in lead-contaminated soil, it can be a disaster because it naturally accumulates lead. Even buying “certified organic” turmeric doesn’t guarantee that the soil was lead-free. This herb is one of the best arguments for learning how to muscle-test. Take dosage indicated on bottle. 19 Acetyl-glutathione – Half of Harold Foster’s book is about making glutathione peroxidase, so you know that it’s an important part of a healthy immune system. Most glutathione that is taken orally is broken down by stomach acid, so you end up with only about 10% of the dose that you took. In this form, the acetyl group protects it from stomach acid, and you might get 60% or more of the dosage that you take. Take 200 mg 1 to 2 times per day. Best on an empty stomach. Food is actually to more important part of maintaining an immune system, but it can get terribly complex and individualized, so I’ll just write down the thumbnail sketch. No refined foods Eat the amount of vegetables that would have made your grandmother stand up and applaud Corn is not food (almost always GMO and full of Round-up) Wheat is not food (Full of Round-up unless it’s certified organic 20, even if it’s organic, it still had problems with gluten and gliaden) Soy is not food (almost always GMO and full of Round-up) Prepare most meals from scratch (canned/bottled packaged food is always inferior) No added sugar, even if it’s unrefined and certified organic If you eat beef or lamb, make sure it is sold directly to you by a rancher you trust that promises that the animals were 100% grass fed on pasture that never see herbicides or pesticides and that the animals were never administered growth hormones or antibiotics If you eat chicken, raise it yourself or get certified organic No fluoridated water for drinking or cooking Buy organic as much as you can afford, especially oils Eliminate all dairy foods except organic butter

The Work of Dr. Sebi If you search the internet for cures of HIV/AIDS, you will find many cases of “cures” that are mostly partial or temporary. But you will not find any mention of Dr. Sebi and his HIV/AIDS cures unless you specifically search for him by name. Dr. Sebi had no education whatsoever, not even elementary school. He was entirely self-taught in every respect, and used the title “Dr.” without actually having any medical school training or any medical license. 21 In spite of his breathtaking lack of credentials, he was probably the most effective single medical practitioner at curing HIV/AIDS. His approach was to optimize nutrition and to meticulously avoid mucus-forming foods. His patients consistently cleared up their symptoms, and when they were deemed to be cured, frequently sought confirmation from one or even two other conventional MD’s. In searching information on his cases, I have not seen any indication of relapses, which tends to indicate that the effects of his treatment may have produce at least a few sterilizing cures (which means that they cannot regenerate the disease unless they are re-exposed). What are the Results of Optimizing the Immune System ? I am recommending the optimization of the immune system because it makes sense to me that, once you neutralize the nutritional deficiency syndromes of AIDS, all that is left to do is to get rid of a not very infectious virus. I don’t know if it is going to work, but even if it doesn’t completely eliminate the virus (a sterilizing cure), it will generally improve your health/quality of life, and it may get you to the level of a viral load that is so low that you do not need ongoing medical attention (a functional cure). Conclusion HIV is a virus that is not very infectious and doesn’t do much damage to tissues. It has attained a reputation for being deadly, but only because it completes for nutrients that are required for our own immune functions. If levels of the main nutrients are allowed to drop below normal levels and

AIDS drugs are not used or not available, then the patient is likely to go into a downward spiral that can ends in death from an opportunistic infection. If AIDS drugs are used because the nutritional treatment is not understood, then the patient will be subject to a wide variety of side-effects and compromises on quality of life. On the other hand, those who understand the nutritional treatment of AIDS sidestep a multitude of drug side-effects. Their side effects are actually all beneficial and typically include better overall health than they had even before they got sick at a cost that could barely strain any personal budget. Daniel Cobb is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine located in Santa Fe, NM. His medical approach is based upon using nutrition, detoxification, and control of the environment to treat chronic conditions and degenerative diseases. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

Footnotes: 1. Kelly A. Gebo MD, MPH et al. Contemporary Costs of HIV Health Care in the HAART Era. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3551268/ 2. Peter H. Duesberg PhD. Duesberg on AIDS. http://www.duesberg.com/ 3. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Needle stick injuries in the community. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2529409/ 4. Mayo Clinic. HIV/AIDS. http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hiv-aids/basics/causes/con20013732 5. Peter H. Duesberg PhD. Is the AIDS Virus a Science Fiction ? http://www.duesberg.com/about/pdpolicy.html

6. Foster, Harold D. PhD. What Really Causes AIDS. Trafford Publishing. 2002 page 38. 7. Foster, Harold D. PhD. What Really Causes AIDS. Trafford Publishing. 2002 page 55. 8. Parrow, Nermi L. et. al. Sequestration and Scavenging of Iron in Infection. http://iai.asm.org/content/81/10/3503.full 9. Niacin Deficiency Symptoms and Best Food Sources of Vitamin B3. https://www.healthambition.com/niacin-deficiency-symptoms-food-sourcesvitamin-b3/ 10. Shabert, J.K. et al. Glutamine deficiency as a cause of human immunodeficiency virus wasting. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8676762 11. Wilmore, Douglas W. The Effect of Glutamine Supplementation in Patients Following Elective Surgery and Accidental Injury. http://jn.nutrition.org/content/131/9/2543S.full.html 12. Levering, Trine B. et al. Human CD4+ T cells require exogenous cystine for glutathione and DNA synthesis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4673131/ 13. National Institutes of Health. Selenium. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Selenium-HealthProfessional/ 14. US Department of Health and Human Services. Side Effects of HIV Medicines. https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/understanding-hiv-aids/fact-sheets/22/63/hivmedicines-and-side-effects 15. Swanson Vitamins. https://www.swansonvitamins.com 16. Bradfield, Marnie MA and Harold D. Foster PhD, Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Fourth Quarter 2006

17. Blaylock, Russel MD. Excitotoxins, Neurotoxins & Human Neurological Disease Lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nxLm2LAPQo 17. Blaylock, Russel MD. Excitotoxins, The Taste that Kills. Health Press, Santa Fe, NM 1997. Page 209. 18. Foster, Harold D. PhD. What Really Causes AIDS. Trafford Publishing. 2002 page 46. 19. Lead Contamination in Turmeric. https://www.consumerlab.com/answers/how-can-i-make-sure-im-notgetting-lead-in-my-turmeric-supplement-or-spice/turmeric-lead/ 20. Healthy Home Economist. The Reason Why Wheat is Toxic. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/real-reason-for-toxic-wheat-itsnot-gluten/ 21. Is There Really A Cure For AIDS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFQEYUXozXQ

Preparation For A Hospital Visit Because Exercising Your Medical Rights Requires Planning Introduction There is a growing chasm between an educated/aware segment of the population and conventional medicine. These people are coming around to the viewpoint that well-chosen food and nutritional supplements are the keys to health and that drugs do not need to play a part in their health-care except in occasional and unusual circumstances. They often make appointments with practitioners of alternative medicine such as massage therapists, acupuncturists, and chiropractors, but see an MD rarely and try to steer clear of hospitals. This is a good system, but it is not perfect, because wholistic medicine is excellent for chronic conditions and degenerative diseases, but conventional medicine still does the best trauma care. Even those people with excellent diets and supplementation are a traffic accident or a fall from a ladder away from ending up in a hospital at some point in their lives. They will then be thrown into an “alien” culture where drugs and surgery are viewed as the primary pathways back to health and “vitamin R” (radiation) is doled out like candy. If you are not prepared for this cross-cultural experience, you will probably survive it. But even if you do, you will likely be steered, against your better judgement, into an experience where you believe you are powerless to object. My message is that you are not powerless, but you need to be very clear about what your rights are in a hospital circumstance and you need to do your education and preparation well in advance. Hospitals are Dangerous Places Modern medicine is a dangerous process. Medical treatment is one of the top causes of death in the United States. Even when medical authorities are doing the counting, the death toll exceeds 200,000 per year. 1 One other estimate, from 2010, done by alternative health-care professionals, put the total at over 700,000 per year.2 This would make medical treatment the number one cause of death in this country – exceeding even heart disease or cancer. This is not an “unfair” calculation, that would include people who would have died because they were already very sick, but instead is a computation of the people

who would have lived if it were not for mistakes such as unnecessary surgery, incorrect dosages of prescription drugs, etc. This idea is confirmed by data derived from doctor strikes, which almost invariably result in plummeting death rates – even when these strikes stretch out for months at a time. 3 Hospitals are the location where this dangerous medical treatment is more concentrated than anywhere else. In addition, they have the problem of being the location where certain drug-resistant infections tend to appear with alarming regularity. Pesky infections such as MRSA, drug-resistant tuberculosis, and cdifficile routinely strike fear into the hearts of hospital staff and provide consistent employment for their lawyers. The dangers associated with medicine and hospitals in particular, are not controversial. A typical study, done by the Institute of Medicine, describes the risks of a stay in Boston’s University Hospital. These were defined as issues resulting from a diagnostic procedure or from any form of therapy. In addition, they included harmful occurrences (for example, falls or bedsores) that were not consequences of the patient’s diseases. From a total of 815 consecutive patients, 36 percent suffered hospital-induced injuries; in 9 percent, the injuries were considered severe enough to threaten life or serious disability. For fifteen patients, the hospital-induced injuries “contributed to the death of the patient”. …….The Boston hospital was not singled out as being an accident black spot; rather, the risks reported are similar to those in other hospitals. 1 Don’t Go To A Hospital Alone If you need to go to a hospital, you should not be there alone. Someone who knows and cares about you should be with you at all times. This will help you intercept obvious hospital errors, and put you in a much better situation should you become incapacitated during your stay. Ideally, the person who stays with you should have medical power of attorney (POA) so that they can make medical decisions for you if you become incapacitated. Because the people that you know and trust are not always available, it would be a good idea to have a “hierarchy” of POA’s set up to that, almost certainly, at least one of them will be available even in the case of an unplanned visit to the hospital. Hospital Food

I have often thought of hospital food as part of a marketing plan designed to “drum up business”. Though I understand that a hospital makes its’ money by treating sick people, I am reminded by the statement that every medical student and every student nurse ran across in their schooling – “First do no harm”. Though I have not eaten at a hospital in over 55 years, what I have seen of hospital fare when I have visited patients tells me that I will want to extend that streak out another couple of decades. In the Unites States, neglect of nutrient intake of many hospital patients is a real concern, but sadly it’s not getting the attention it deserves on a government level. Research regarding hospital food is mostly outdated, as it seems there hasn’t been a strong enough push for improving either hospital cafeteria options or meal plans for patients in recent years. The research that does exist about hospital food — mostly dating back to the 1980s, ’90s and early 2000s — shows that it’s not uncommon at all for hospital patients to suffer nutrient deficiencies and even “malnutrition” while staying at the hospital! 4 Here is an example of what I hope is a low point in the history of hospital meal plans: At one point during my gastroenterology fellowship, I cared for a patient who was suffering from Crohn’s disease, which causes inflammation of the gut. He was having bloody diarrhea several times a day; a colonoscopy revealed damaged intestinal membranes, with patchy redness and scattered ulcers. He was still well enough to eat, though, and his appetite didn’t appear to be affected. One day, I came into his room to find him starting on the hospital lunch of the day: chicken wings with hot sauce, creamy mashed potatoes, chocolate cake, and a soda—more or less the opposite of what a patient with gastrointestinal issues should be ingesting.  5

There have been a handful of success stories in recent years. There are fewer fast food outlets at hospitals that there used to be in previous years. 5 But these improvements are few and far between, and you should not expect to be reaping the benefits of any nutritional turnaround at your local hospital. Taking Nutritional Supplements in Hospitals Even the definition of a nutritional supplement is in doubt inside of a hospital. Oral nutritional supplementation (ONS) when used in a hospital setting, typically means taking additional liquid food that may or may not contain some added vitamins and minerals. When I refer to a “nutritional supplement” in this article, I

mean a vitamin/mineral/amino acid etc. that might be taken orally as a capsule/pill/gelcap or even delivered through an IV. The MD’s that are decision-makers in any hospital probably received as part of their medical education not more than a couple hours on the subject of vitamins and minerals. In addition, they are the target audience of a public disinformation campaign by the pharmaceutical industry to convince the world that nutritional supplementation (with vitamin/minerals, etc.) is at best a waste of money and at worst dangerous. 6 Consequently, when confronted with a patient request for vitamin and mineral supplements by patients, they tend to respond with answers somewhere between laughter and ridicule. This is the desired message of the pharmaceutical company upper management. They lose sleep at night each time they read about people, with no medical training, who found out how to completely cure their disease such as cancer 7, diabetes 8, or heart disease 9 by changing their diet, adding nutritional supplements and exercising. They are worried because they see that nutrition works, and if average people figured this out, the multi-billion dollar profits of the pharmaceutical companies would dwindle down to pennies on the dollar. It is difficult to convince a hospital to give a nutritional supplement to a patient. I have tried, and finally succeeded, but it was a difficult experience, and I do not expect it to be any easier the next time. Instead of trying to convince the hospital to do what they should be doing, I recommend that the patient just take it themselves. If they are incapacitated, you should have Medical Power of Attorney (POA) in place, and have the person with POA administer the supplements or direct any friend/relative who may be staying with the patient to give the nutritional supplements to the patient. A key idea here is not to ask permission, but to ask if there might be any known adverse consequences for a specific supplement. You need to retain the right to decide for yourself if taking a particular supplement is appropriate. For example, before surgery, you will always be told not to take vitamin E because it has a bleeding risk. You must however, keep in mind that even though vitamin E promotes bleeding because it has a mild blood-thinning effect, it also prevents bleeding by helping to maintain the integrity of vascular tissue as an antioxidant. Vitamin E also plays a part in the prevention of infectious disease. The positive effects might outweigh the adverse effects, and you need to be making these

decisions from an educated perspective that might exceed the grasp of even your attending physician. Another common point of contention is vitamin C. Vitamin C has a long history of being a remedy for scurvy, which is a bleeding disease, because it is required for the production of collagen fibers. It is, therefore, very valuable to be able to take vitamin C before and after surgery to prevent bleeding and to repair damaged tissue. The complication is that vitamin C is also a strong detoxifier that will detox the anaesthesia drugs, so the surgeons may not like this. Even if you agree to limit vitamin C before a surgery, you should without hesitation take it in large doses afterwards. The hospital may even object to this. It is best not to try to hide what you are doing, because that would create the impression in them and in yourself, that taking nutritional supplements might somehow be wrong. As I will outline in subsequent documents, it’s probably best to tell them that you are going to do this before you enter the hospital (suitable for elective surgeries) or as you enter the hospital (suitable for unplanned events and injuries). The bottom line is that nutritional supplements are not controlled substances, they are not illegal, and if the patient wants them there is very little the hospital can do to stop this behavior other than threaten to discharge the patient. Keep in mind that at the root of the problem with hospitals is the relentless pursuit of more money. If they really did discharge a patient for such a reason, they would be letting a bunch of money out the door. They might say it, but they are very unlikely to actually do it. If the hospital objects to giving the patient nutritional supplements, it may be because they have a “policy” in the hospital. Keep in mind that anything that a bunch of doctors decided behind closed doors can be reversed by those same people when faced by the potential for lost revenue. If you tell them what is necessary to get you into the hospital, they will almost always agree. Once they have agreed in writing, the discussion is over, because you have invoked what is called “contract law”. Special Preparation for Vitamin C Vitamin C is one of the most important nutrients for your hospital stay. It has so many functions that relate to needs during a hospital stay that it would be ridiculous to ignore it. It is important for the immune system, so it protects you against hospital infections. It is required for the creation of collagen fibers, so it maintains blood vessels and is important to limit bleeding and to speed tissue

repairs from surgery. It detoxifies almost all poisons, including anaesthesia. 10 It is important for stress responses, and it is your primary antioxidant. Because of all of its’ obvious utility for a hospital patient, you might think that hospitals would want every patient to take vitamin C. If you thought that, you would be wrong. Ascorbic acid (the basic vitamin C molecule) can be easily converted to oxalic acid inside the body. Oxalic acid when combined with calcium is the formula for the creation of calcium oxalate kidney stones. Nephrologists and most MD’s are aware of the potential for this problem, and use this idea to tell you not to take vitamin C in the hospital, especially if you have any known kidney problem. The reason why the doctors are aware of this problem is because many articles have been written that state that “high intakes” of vitamin C could cause kidney stones. Some of these articles, just indicate that there is a plausible mechanism for causing kidney stones, while others show some evidence that vitamin C does cause kidney stones. These articles are the tentacles of the pharmaceutical industry reaching out to try to convince people not to take vitamin C, and these articles ignore the long history of people taking high doses of vitamin C that never get kidney stones. In fact, most doctors who recommend high doses of vitamin C indicate that the only time their patients do get any kidney stones is when the patient stops taking vitamin C. 11 Once the patient starts taking vitamin C again at the same high doses, the kidney stones go away and do not come back. As a patient you can win this argument just by saying that you are going to take the vitamin C regardless of what you doctor says, and there is nothing they can do to stop you. But I think you can do better than this in two ways, thus keeping the relationship with your doctor more cordial. First, the only bio-chemical rationale for vitamin C forming kidney stones is the following: 1. Oxalic acid blood levels rise because of higher ascorbic acid blood levels 2. Excess calcium is flowing through the kidneys 3. The patient is slightly dehydrated, which promotes the creation of crystals in the kidneys 4. The urine is not very acidic, which promotes the creation of crystals in The kidneys

To convince your MD that the way you are taking vitamin C does not put you at risk for the creation of kidney stones, proceed as follows: 1. Take pure crystalline ascorbic acid. This keeps your urine more acidic. 2. Make sure you are NOT taking calcium ascorbate, which is a common form of vitamin C (look on the back of the bottle to make sure). This will prevent excess calcium from constantly flowing through your kidneys. The calcium also neutralizes the acidic pH of Vitamin C. 3. Keep yourself well hydrated. This will limit crystals of any kind from forming in your kidneys. The second thing you need is to speak to your MD in their own language. It will be very useful to have several articles/ peer reviewed studies that indicate that high vitamin C consumption does not necessarily cause kidney stones in your possession so you can pull them out and show your doctor that you are making a well-informed statement. 12, 13 One other relevant idea here is relative risk. Kidney stones do not occur in all people, but the dangers that vitamin C protects against are relevant to all almost all hospital patients. Only about 5% of American women and 12% of American men will have any problem with kidney stones during their lives, and not all of these stones will be calcium oxalate stones. 16 Formation of these stones is a process that takes at least weeks if not months even in the most susceptible individuals. Hospital stays are usually of short duration. Also, even though the problems from a kidney stone can be serious if it gets stuck in the ureter and blocks urine flow, this is very rare. The dangers that vitamin C address in a hospital setting are much more diverse and therefore far more likely to occur than the relatively obscure possibility of a dangerous kidney stone. Vaccines The effects of vaccines can be divided into two categories: 1. The adverse effects, which range from a little redness and swelling at the site of the injection all the way to debilitating injury and death. 2. The positive immune effects that make people more resistant to a specific infectious disease.

The positive effects of vaccines can easily be matched and exceeded through the following nutritional supplements: Vitamin D3 1000 IU / day Selenium 100 mcg / day Iodine 6 mg per day (I like Lugol’s Solution for this purpose) Vitamin C @ 3 grams per day in divided doses Vitamin E (full spectrum i.e. all 4 tocopherols and all 4 tocotrienols) 600 mg /day Zinc 30 mg / day Copper 2 mg / day Organic Sulfur 1.5 teaspoons in chlorine-free water on empty stomach / day This can be accomplished even if the diet is a bit sloppy. With a well thought out diet in addition to these supplements, the immune system can become almost “bullet-proof” with respect to infectious disease. So, why would anyone risk the toxic heavy-metals, contaminants, and other adverse effects in vaccines if they knew how to make their immune system work better than any combination of vaccines could ? In addition to this, one of the dirty little secrets of vaccines is that they are not supposed to be given to people who are sick, because in those circumstances the vaccines do not work as well and they are more likely to cause adverse effects. 14 The bottom line on vaccines is to tell the hospital in advance not to give you any vaccines. But even after you tell them, and they agree to this, you (or your relative/ friend staying in the hospital with you if you are incapacitated) need to be vigilant, because the hospitals always want to give you a vaccine. Government reimbursements for Medicare/Medicaid are in part determined by the percentage of patients who are made to be up-to-date for the recommended vaccines 15, so there is a lot of intense financial pressure to vaccinate EVEN IF THE HOSPITAL KNOWS IT IS DETRIMENTAL TO THE PATIENT’S HEALTH. All Other Drugs and Procedures For all other drugs and procedures, you need to insist upon written “informed consent”. This means that: 1. You need to be told in advance about any drug or procedure. 2. You need to be fully informed about the risks and benefits.

3. The drug or procedure cannot be used unless you (or your POA) agree to this in writing. In order to make this run smoothly, it would be a good idea, whenever possible, to research in advance which drugs are likely to be used so that you or your POA can provide a quick written permission so that the hospital procedures are not unduly interrupted. Also, it would be useful to keep a PDR in the hospital room so that unexpected drugs can be quickly researched. I suggest that prior to entering the hospital the patient and any POA research the problems with the gadolinium imaging material that is commonly used in MRI’s, and read the research of John Gofman MD on the hazards of medical radiation. Here are some useful links for these purposes: https://www.forthepeople.com/class-action-lawyers/gadolinium-lawsuits/ http://www.jpands.org/vol8no2/kauffman.pdf Conclusion If you are oriented towards alternative medicine and nutrition, then you will probably spend a lot less time in hospitals than most other people. But if you do end up in a hospital you will be in an environment where the definition of “what restores health” is very different from what you are used to. You could choose to bend to the hospital’s point of view or, with sufficient preparation, you could bend the hospital around to your point of view. If you choose the latter, you will need to do some things in advance. You should figure out how you want to handle your food and nutritional supplements. You should arrange a POA “hierarchy” so if one trusted friend or family member is not available, then another will be. You need to be clear how you want to handle informed consent, and you need to write all of this down, so that even if you need to go to a hospital in a hurry, you are ready to go at any time.

Footnotes: 1. Hoffer, Abram MD PhD and Saul, Andrew W. PhD. Hospitals and Health. Basic Health Publications, 2011. 2. Null, Gary PhD, et al. Death By Medicine. http://www.webdc.com/pdfs/deathbymedicine.pdf 3. The Moral Climate of Health Care. http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/ MEDICAL_ETHICS_TEXT/Chapter_3_Moral_Climate_of_Health_Care/ Reading-Death-Rate-Doctor-Strike.htm 4. Axe, Josh MD. The Truth About Hospital Food, Plus What to Eat at the Hospital. https://draxe.com/what-to-eat-at-the-hospital/ 5. Ravella, Shilpa. When the Hospital Serves McDonald’s. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/02/unhealthy-hospitalfood/461898/ 6. The Pulse of Natural Health Newsletter. Has PBS Become a Front for Big Pharma ? http://www.anh-usa.org/has-pbs-become-a-front-for-big-pharma/ 7. Chris Beat Cancer. http://www.chrisbeatcancer.com/ 8. Taub, Rob. How I beat Diabetes with the “Duke Diet”. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/29/how-beat-diabetes-with-dukediet.html 9. Cross, Robert. Formerly Dying of Heart Disease. https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/health-science/stars/starswritten/robert-cross/ 10. How to Detox From Anaesthesia. http://www.surgerysupplements.com/detox-from-anesthesia/

11. What really causes Kidney Stones. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v09n05.shtml 12. Hickey S, Roberts H. (2005) Vitamin C does not cause kidney stones. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n07.shtml 13. Baxman AC et al. Effect of vitamin C supplements on urinary oxalate and pH in calcium stone-forming patients. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12631089 14. Can A Sick Child Be Vaccinated ? https://www.focusforhealth.org/can-a-sick-child-be-vaccinated/ 15. Why Are Nurses and Healthcare Workers Across the U.S. Refusing Mandatory Flu Vaccines? https://vaccineimpact.com/2017/why-are-nurses-and-healthcare-workersacross-the-u-s-refusing-mandatory-flu-vaccines/ 16. Evan, Andrew P. Pysiopathology and etiology of stone formation in the kidney and urinary tract. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2839518/

Example Documents The following is an abbreviated example of a designation of power of attorney. It is not a legal document and should not be copied to create a legal document. All such documents are statespecific. This one is an abbreviated version of documents partly from the state of Michigan and partly from the state of New Mexico. DURABLE POWER OF ATTORNEY FOR HEALTH CARE, CUSTODY AND MEDICAL TREATMENT DECISIONS I, ___________________, a resident of ______________, as Patient, designate ___________________, as my Patient Advocate holding power of attorney (POA) to exercise the powers set forth below if I become unable to participate in care, custody, medical, psychiatric and psychological treatment decisions. The determination of when I am unable to participate in such decisions shall be made by my attending physician or licensed psychologist. General Grant of Power. My Patient Advocate shall have the power to exercise or perform any act, power, duty, right or obligation in order to provide for my care and custody, and to make decisions relating to all health services without limitation. This power of attorney shall take effect upon my disability, incapacity or incompetency, and shall continue during such disability, incapacity or incompetency. RELEASE OF INFORMATION. I agree to, authorize and allow full release of information by any government agency, medical provider, business, creditor or third party who may have information pertaining to my healthcare, to my Agent named herein, pursuant to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 19xx, Public Law xxx-xxx, as amended, and applicable regulations. LIMITATIONS ON THE DECISION-MAKING AUTHORITY OF MY AGENT: Under no circumstances is a vaccine ever to be administered to me. DESIGNATION OF ALTERNATE PATIENT ADVOCATE (PA). If the person designated as my PA is not available or unable to act, I designate the following persons to serve as my PA to make health care decisions for me as authorized by this document, who serve in the following order: FIRST ALTERNAT PA Agent Name: Address:

Telephone:

xxxxxxxx x. xxxxxxxxxxxl xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxx Santa Fe, New Mexico xxxxx Home: 505-xxx-xxxx

SECOND ALTERNATE PA Agent Name: xxxxxx xxxxxxx Cobb Address: PO Box xxxxxx xxxxxxxx, OR xxxxxxx Telephone:

503-xxx-xxxx

Work: 505-xxx-xxxx

THIRD ALTERNATE PA Agent Name: Address:

Telephone:

xxxxx xxxxxx Cobb PO Box xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx, MI xxxxx 269-xxx-xxxx

HOLD HARMLESS. All persons or entities who in good faith endeavor to carry out the terms and provisions of this document shall not be liable to me, my estate, my heirs or assigns for any damages or claims arising because of their action or inaction based on this document, and my estate shall defend and indemnify them.

I have read and understand the contents of this document and the effect of the grant of powers to my Patient Advocate who shall have power of attorney (POA). I am emotionally and mentally competent to make this declaration. Signed on _____ day of ________________, _______.

Signature_____________________________________ Name: Address:

Daniel Clay Cobb Santa Fe Santa Fe County New Mexico

SSN: Birthdate:

____________________ xxxxxx xx, 19xx

I, the undersigned witness, state that I have witnessed the signing of this document by Daniel Clay Cobb and that Daniel Clay Cobb is of sound mind and free of undue influence. Date Signed: _______________________________ Witness Signature:_______________________________________ Name: Address:

xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx Santa Fe, NM xxxxx

Suggested “Agreement” To Be Presented Before any Hospital Visit This is not state-specific because it is a contract. Once signed and dated, it is a legal document. I, Daniel Cobb, routinely take the following nutritional supplements: Vitamin C (as L-ascorbic acid) 3-6 grams per day Vitamin B-Complex 1 per day Vitamin D3 2000 IU per day Vitamin K2 100 mcg per day Vitamin E Tocopherols 1 gel-cap per day Vitamin E Tocotrienols 1 gel-cap per day Flaxseed Oil 1 gel-cap per day Selenium 100 mcg per day Zinc (30 mg)/Copper (2 mg) combination A low-Dose multi-mineral – 1 capsule per day Digestive Enzymes – 2 capsules per day PB7 (a probiotic) 1 capsule per day Acetyl-Glutathione – 1 capsule per day Magnesium Citrate - @ 400 mg per day Pure-Thyro (a freeze-dried cow thyroid supplement) L-Arginine – 1 capsule per day Lugol’s Solution (Half-Strength) – 4 drops per day Organic Sulfur (a 99.9% pure version of MSM) 1.5 tablespoons in chlorine-free water 2X per day) I will be taking these same supplements while I am in the hospital. If any doctor has any objection to any of these, I will listen to any information they wish to present to convince me to do otherwise, but I may continue to take these supplements if I chose to do so I may also choose to increase or decrease my dose any of these supplements. I need Chlorine-free water for several reasons. If it provided, and it is otherwise suitable, I will use what is provided. If not, I will arrange for suitable drinking water to be routinely brought to my hospital room. I will be managing my supplements myself. If I become incapacitated during my stay, the supplements will be administered to me by any family member or friend who is currently visiting me. I am very particular about the food that I eat. I might choose to eat the food that the hospital provides, but more likely, I will have my meals delivered to my room by friends/relatives. I refuse all vaccines, and I insist that I give written informed consent to all prescription drugs and medical procedures prior to any drug being used or procedure performed. If I am incapacitated, informed consent for such drugs/procedures may be obtained from ______________, who will have medical POA during my stay. Mistakes on this topic will result in legal action. Oxygen, saline solution, etc., because they are not controlled substances, are excepted from this discussion. Daniel Cobb

Date: ________________

Signature: ____________________________ Responsible Representative Who Agrees To These Terms on behalf of all hospital personnel: Name: ________________________________ Signature: ______________________________

Date:__________________

The Nutritional Treatment of Osteoporosis

By Daniel Cobb DOM [email protected]

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The Nutritional Treatment of Osteoporosis Table of Contents Introduction ……………………………………………………….. 3 Chapter 1 - Louis Kervran’s Biological Transmutation Equations For Building Bones ………………………………………………... 4 Chapter 2 – A Generic Prescription For Reversing Osteoporosis….. 6 Chapter 3 - Major Dietary Factors ……… ………………….……. 16 Chapter 4 - Building Bones Through Exercise – The Piezo-Electric Effect ………………………….…. 20 Chapter 5 – Bone Drugs ………………………. …………………. 22 Chapter 6 - Misdirection in Bone Density Tests..…………………. 42 Chapter 7 - Fluoride ……………………………………….……… 30 Chapter 8 – Fear of Breaking a Hip..……………………………… 33 Chapter 9 - An Alternate Method for Determining Optimal Vitamin D Levels ………………………….…………. 35 Chapter 10 - How Do You Know if Your Osteoporosis Has Been Reversed ? ..…………………………..….. 43 Chapter 11 – Earl Staelin ………………………. ………………. 45 Footnotes ………………………………………………………... 47

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Introduction If you have osteoporosis, you are probably told that you will have it for the rest of your life, and the goal is to avoid breaking bones as much as possible. If you accept this prognosis, then you will slip into the life of someone with a “managed” condition. If you do not accept it, you can reverse the condition, but you will have to understand and implement a substantial list of nutritional, environmental, and lifestyle changes. I frequently give talks on osteoporosis. I always ask if anyone in the class knows anyone who has ever overcome osteoporosis by taking calcium. No hands have ever been raised. Then I ask them if they know of anyone who has ever overcome osteoporosis by taking calcium and vitamin D. Still no hands have ever been raised. The primary reason why osteoporosis is a frustrating condition is because almost everyone in the medical community looks at the bones and asks – What is missing from this bone ? The answer that is generally agreed upon is that it is - not enough calcium. That generates the common answer that the patient needs to eat more foods that contain calcium and take calcium supplements. This usually helps a little bit, but if you take larger doses, it doesn’t appear to help any more, and the higher doses can actually have some negative effects on bone health. The public health officials started digging a little deeper and realized that vitamin D was part of the puzzle. So they started recommending calcium with vitamin D. The results were a little better, but still didn’t reverse the condition. This is about when they declared that osteoporosis was just a part of aging and couldn’t be reversed. Osteoporosis presents several difficult challenging questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

How are bones strengthened ? (or - How is osteoporosis cured ?) Why doesn’t calcium and vitamin D cure osteoporosis ? How much vitamin D should I take ? Are bone density tests reliable ? My doctor has recommended some osteoporosis drugs. Should I take them ? -3-

6. How do you know if your osteoporosis has been reversed ? Chapter 1 Louis Kervran’s Biological Transmutation Equations For Building Bones Magnesium (24) + Oxygen (16) = Calcium (40) Potassium (39) + Hydrogen (1) = Calcium (40) Silica (28) + Carbon (12) = Calcium (40) The most fundamental impediment to understanding how to build bones and recover from osteoporosis/osteopenia is the theory of “Biological 1 Transmutation of Elements” as written down by Louis Kervran . This theory states that an abundance of animals and plants routinely transmute elements. Kervran and his followers state that the process for building bone in humans is either primarily or even exclusively involving transmutation of magnesium, potassium, or silicon into calcium by adding oxygen, hydrogen, or carbon to these elements. The evidence is indirect and based upon observation of closed system studies. It is not based upon observation of mechanism. This leads to acceptance problems in the scientific arena. I live in New Mexico, and within a 60 mile radius, I am surrounded by Sandia National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. These organizations have gathered one of the largest collections of top-flight PhD physicists in the country. If I was to start asking these physicists if it was possible for the human body to routinely transmute elements, I would probably not just be told “NO”. I would probably have my professional/medical friends and associates notified that I needed to start getting psychiatric care. In the laboratory, the amount of energy required to transmute elements is so great that the consensus among scientists is that it would like cause our bodies to either spontaneously combust or to explode. All this tells me is that the elemental transmutation capabilities of plants and animals are much more sophisticated than those of laboratory physicists. -4-

Kervran’s theories are not limited to purely biological transmutations. He also puts forth a theory for the abiotic production of petroleum and explains how some welders have experienced carbon monoxide poisoning in conditions of no obvious source of carbon monoxide. Kervran was not the first to propose that plants and animals are capable of transmuting elements. Many others before him had hinted at this idea or even proposed it publicly. Kervran’s advantage over his predecessors was that he held a prestigious position in French scientific circles, and therefore was not so easily suppressed. Here is an example of the experience of one of the earlier scientists who did such research: From 1875-1883, von Herzeele conducted 500 analyses which verified an increase in weight in the ashes of plants grown without soil in a controlled medium. He concluded that, "Plants are capable of effecting the transmutation of elements". His publications so outraged the scientific community of the time, they were removed from libraries. His writings were lost for more than 50 years until a collection was found in Berlin by Dr. 2 Hauscka, who subsequently published von Herzeele's findings .

The equations at the beginning of this chapter describe the combination of two elements to form calcium. The carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen are of little importance because these are available in abundant quantities from multiple sources. The potassium, magnesium, and silicon are the important parts of the equation along with the resulting calcium. This bears directly on the nutritional implications of Kervran’s theory, which are that magnesium, silicon, and potassium are very important mineral inputs in bone growth and are more important than calcium. Although Kervran’s theory, as it relates to bone-building, is sometimes stated multiple ways, it either comes down to either: 1. The calcium in your bones did NOT enter your mouth as calcium, but instead entered your mouth as potassium, magnesium, or silicon, and was transmuted by your body as part of the bone formation process. 2. You could start out the statement in item #1 with “Almost all of”.

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Chapter 2 A Generic Prescription For Reversing Osteoporosis

Calcium I want to address calcium first – not because it is the most important part of an osteoporosis prescription, but simply because everybody has been trained for decades to think that it is the most important mineral for bone health. The major message is that calcium is NOT used to build bones. You do definitely need calcium, and it can impact your bones, but only indirectly. You need calcium to keep your blood and body fluid levels adequate. 3

Calcium is used to make muscles contract , and because your heart is a muscle, this makes calcium very important. And it’s not just important to make sure you have enough calcium in the blood, but also to make sure the calcium levels aren’t too high. We don’t want the heart to contract when it’s not supposed to (heart rhythm problems). The utility of dietary calcium and calcium supplements for preventing/reversing osteoporosis is limited. The observed evidence is that taking calcium supplements helps a little bit, but never cures osteoporosis. Increasing the dose further doesn’t appear to increase the benefit. There’s a reason for this effect. Because the blood calcium doesn’t actually end up in bone cells, the improvement occurs via the parathyroid glands. Here’s the usual sequence of events (Also read the chapter on acid/alkaline foods): A very acid-forming meal is eaten. For example, this might be a doublecheese and pepperoni pizza with a liter of Coca-Cola. Your blood pH will tip towards the acid end of the tolerable range. To neutralize your blood pH, your parathyroid glands will create a hormone which tells osteoclasts to break down some bone which releases calcium into your blood. This brings the blood pH back to normal.

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Unfortunately, the net result is that you just lost some bone. It wasn’t much bone, but if you keep eating meals that are too acid-forming, after a couple of decades, you will have osteoporosis. Now, let’s go through the same scenario, but with one twist. You eat the very same pizza and Coke, but have a high-calcium vegetable side-dish or take a calcium supplement (which is magically in exactly the right dose). The side-dish/calcium citrate decays to an alkaline pH, so the acid-forming effect is neutralized, and there is no resulting bone loss. Now let’s replay that a third way. You eat a smaller portion of pizza and Coke, so that the side-dish/calcium supplement is more calcium that you need. The acid-forming effect is neutralized, and there is no resulting bone loss. The excess calcium isn’t used to build bone. If there is only enough extra to remove through urination, then the kidneys will eliminate it, but if there is significantly more than the kidneys can handle, you might end up with the beginnings of a painful calcium deposit. Here is a diagram that I use in my Anatomy & Physiology classes to describe the important ideas about how calcium moves through the body.

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The CDC/NIH recommendations for calcium intake rise to 1000 mg per day at 4 years old, and stay between 1000 mg and 1300 mg per day for both men 4 and women thereafter . I have seen some recommendations for women concerned about osteoporosis of up to 2000 mg per day. These dosages are more a reflection of frustration and lack of understanding of how to prevent osteoporosis than any nutritional need. An average adult needs about 500 mg / day. You may need more if you consume protein for calories (which generates more acidity in the blood). You are no doubt getting some calcium from your food, but most people do not get all that they need just from their food. So, it is likely that least part of this will have to come from supplementation. If you supplement calcium, -8-

consider about 300 – 400 mg per day. Because minerals are never completely absorbed, this recommendation still presumes that most of your calcium will come from your diet. Kervran concludes from the evidence that the excessive calcium consumed by many people in their attempts to meet the RDA tends to accumulate in internal organs and joints, where it forms calcium deposits and causes other problems. A catchy mnemonic used in medical schools in the early 1900’s to help medical students remember some of the more common symptoms of excessive calcium goes like this: “Moans, Groans, Stones, Fragile Bones, and Psychiatric Overtones.” However, most doctors today are so conditioned to recommend high and probably excessive amounts of calcium that they are slow to recognize the symptoms of too much calcium. How is it that excessive calcium could actually weaken the bones ? It appears possible that if calcium from supplementation or dietary sources frequently raises blood calcium to levels very near or sometimes above the normal range, that the body’s response might be to limit the formation of calcitriol – the final functional form of vitamin D. In Earl Staelin’s 2006 article, this effect was specifically stated as “excess calcium was found to 5 reduce the level of the active form of vitamin D (1,25(OH2)” . Magnesium You can’t afford to underestimate magnesium in bone health. There are many different ways in which magnesium has its’ positive effects. 7 Magnesium is important for conversion of Vit D precursor to final form . Magnesium influences the activities of osteoblasts and osteoclasts 9. There 6 is also some magnesium in bones . The magnesium in bones is important in making hard and strong bones. But most importantly, magnesium is an important part of one of Kervran’s equations for the transmutation of magnesium into calcium as part of bone formation. There is also many statements floating around suggesting that magnesium improves the absorption, blood levels, or usage of calcium and that magnesium “keeps calcium dissolved in the blood”. I view these with some suspicion, because these statements are almost all made without an understanding of Kervran’s Theory of Biological Transmutations.

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I believe that there are more basic biochemical explanations. For example, there is abundant evidence that magnesium is a critical ion for the function of the cellular sodium/potassium pump AND the movement of calcium via 8 active transport . These functions, plus Kervran’s magnesium transmutation equation could explain many statements that are correct observationally, but lack an accurate description of mechanism.

Two factors are important in choosing a type of magnesium. Magnesium is usually poorly absorbed and magnesium attracts water in the intestinal tract. Because absorption rates are an issue, the delivery method is also important. Pills are the worst, because the excipient and tableting aids can dramatically interfere with the breakdown and absorption process. Capsules are next best, because the capsule is usually easier to break down than the tablet. The best form is always pure powder, because there is nothing to hinder absorption. The form of magnesium is important. Inexpensive magnesium supplements are frequently magnesium oxide. Because this has the poorest absorption rate of all types of magnesium, it is useful to prevent constipation. This is because almost all of it remains in the intestinal tract, which optimizes the drawing of water into the intestines. But, because so little of it is absorbed into the blood, this makes the oxide form a poor choice for someone with osteoporosis. The glycinate and citrate forms of magnesium a better absorbed, and therefore better choices for bone health. Magnesium malate is another interesting form of magnesium, because it is complexed with malic acid. Malic acid is valuable for someone who: Creates calcified gallstones (melts the calcified surface) Has significant exposure to aluminum (chelates out the aluminum, which is a known neurotoxin) Has significant exposure to arsenic (chelates out the arsenic) Therefore, magnesium malate might help you solve more than one problem at a time.

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I have frequently recommended magnesium malate because most people have at least some exposure to aluminum and arsenic. The only problem with magnesium malate is that one large pill/capsule only delivers about 125 mg of magnesium, so you end up having to take several large pills/capsules per day. Magnesium can promote loose stool/diarrhea. People have varying tolerances to this problem. A patient should put themselves in a position to self-adjust the doses of magnesium based upon digestive disturbances. If they do have digestive disturbances, magnesium oil can be substituted for oral magnesium supplements. Magnesium oil is applied topically and absorbed through the skin, so it has no effect on the digestion. Magnesium “oil” has NO oil content, but it feels like an oil because of its’ very high concentration of magnesium chloride. If you are routinely using magnesium oil, you should not apply it to the same skin area every day. If you do, after a few days, you may experience what feels like a mild sunburn at that location. This is because the chloride ions have irritated the skin. Of course, the remedy is to apply the magnesium oil elsewhere. There are many brands of magnesium oil. Since they are usually not created in a laboratory, they do have some impurities. The purest and therefore the best ones are derived from the “Zechstein” formation in Northern Europe. I always make sure that any magnesium oil that I purchase states on the label that it was derived from this formation. Almost everyone in industrialized countries who depends completely upon 10 their food for magnesium is deficient in magnesium . Therefore almost everyone should supplement it. Recommended dose: Somewhere between 200 and 800 mg per day. If you experience loose stool or diarrhea that result from the magnesium, you will need to divide the dose into 2 or 3 separate doses per day. You could also self-adjust the dose depending upon your digestive response. If you are taking organic sulfur, you will need to be at the higher end of this range. Take with a meal that contains some fat, because this will improve absorption. Constipation and muscle cramps are indicators of magnesium deficiency, so if you have either or both of these, you probably want to push closer to the upper end of this range.

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Potassium Potassium (K) is part of Louis Kervran’s 2nd equation involving the creation of calcium through transmutation. It involves the addition of a hydrogen atom. Unlike magnesium, many people get sufficient potassium from their food. This is because conventional fertilizer (NPK) is nitrogen/phosphorus/potassium, so potassium is found in most foods. Some people do need to supplement, and their needs might easily go as high as 500 mg per day. Keep in mind that when you supplement potassium to treat osteoporosis, you are not treating a potassium deficiency, you are taking extra potassium that is intended to be transmuted into calcium. Because potassium is a natural diuretic, many potassium deficiency symptoms are related to water retention. Potassium pills/capsules are typically limited to 99 mg. This is based upon misunderstanding the difference between injectable potassium chloride and potassium taken orally. Oral potassium takes much longer to be absorbed, and so has multiple layers of protection against overdose. Since the RDA 11 for potassium can go as high as 5.1 grams per day (5100 mg) , you can see that 500 mg is only a minor contribution to the overall requirement.

Silicon Silicon (Si) is part of Louis Kervran’s 3rd equation involving the creation of calcium through transmutation. It involves the addition of a carbon atom. The best source of silica is horsetail herb – Take at least 500 mg per day, and up to 2 grams (2000 mg) per day. This is a good source of silica and is easily absorbed. The two potential problems with horsetail are: 12 1. Since horsetail is a natural diuretic , you need to make sure that you do not allow yourself to become dehydrated, because this would place additional stress on the kidneys. Since the people most likely to be reading this are people committed to healthy eating, it is important to point out a common mistake relating to keeping hydrated. We have been bombarded in the past decades that we - 12 -

need to drink more water. Though this is generally true, it can be overdone. One of the surest way to become dehydrated is to drink too much water ! When you drink water, it goes in pure, and it is urinated out salty. So the overall process of water consumption almost necessarily involves the loss of some electrolytes. It is your electrolytes, most importantly the sodium ions, that allow your body to hold onto water. If you lose too much sodium because of drinking a lot of water, you might experience ever-present thirst, dry mouth and frequent urge to urinate. This means that you have become dehydrated because of loss of electrolytes. If you are drinking a lot of water, you need to remember to replace your electrolytes. 2. Because horsetail contains an enzyme that degrades Thiamine (vitamin 12 B1) , whan you take horsetail, you should also be taking daily doses of B1 or a B-complex. Of course, the importance of both of these points increase as the dosage increases.

Vitamin D3 Vitamin D3 is the most important non-mineral part of the therapeutic formula. The dosage will vary by the darkness/fairness of skin, body weight, latitude and altitude of residence, how much time you spend in the sun, whether you use sunscreen, diet, season, immune challenges, and state of bones and teeth. Almost everybody needs more vitamin D3 in the winter months than in the summer months. If you want to arbitrarily pick a dosage, without experimentation that will probably not cause problems, an averagesized adult might pick 1000 IU/day in the summer, and 2000 IU/day in the winter. But this is a gross oversimplification of the question of dosing D3. This still could cause overdose symptoms, but more importantly, you might need more, and the only way to find out for sure is blood tests, or experimentation with different doses. Always be suspicious of “new and unexplained pains”, because they could be a calcium deposit indicating

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vitamin D overdose. In the summer months, always try to get some of your vitamin D from sunlight in the middle of the day – 15 minutes is often enough. Also, try to get some sunlight into your uncovered eyes (no glasses). Dosing vitamin D is probably the most perplexing of all nutritional problems. In an effort to explain why, one of the later chapters will be devoted entirely to this subject. Boron Boron has no official “essential nutrient” status, and no specific RDA. This is because it is a poorly studied mineral and is present in enough commonly consumed foods that it never got much attention. However, the limited studies that have been done clearly indicate that boron is a critical nutrient for bones and joints, and is important to prevent arthritis 13 . Building bones requires boron. Boron supplementation is associated with mental clarity. Boron supplements are commonly 3 mg. Take one per day. If your osteoporosis is severe, for a month or two, you might take 6 mg (usually 2 capsules) per day. Vitamin K Theoretically this is found in abundance in leafy green vegetables, but I have seen cases where people with plenty of leafy greens in their diet were still deficient in vitamin K. This is probably an absorption problem. 14

Vitamin K is necessary for new bone building and blood clotting . I have seen people get all stirred up about the differences between K1 and K2 and which is the best one to supplement. My advice is to save yourself a couple weekends of internet research and get a supplement that would provide you with between 100 and 200 of both per day. There are Vitamin K supplements that provide between 2 and 5 mg in a single tablet. These are not intended for normal supplementation. They are intended for use by people who are taking warfarin (AKA coumadin) as an anticoagulant, and the high dose of vitamin k, which opposes the warfarin because it promotes clotting, is intended to create a more stable end result.

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So, unless you are taking Coumadin/warfarin, these higher doses are not for you. Manganese You will need approximately 5 mg per day. It is valuable for formation of bone and cartilage. If you routinely eat avocados, you won’t need to supplement this. Do You Also Have Heart Disease ? If you have heart disease, this indicates a deficiency of the nutrients needed to form collagen. A collagen matrix is required to be used as a framework for the bones. In this case, you should also be taking 3 grams of vitamin C per day, some animal gelatin, copper, zinc, and a full-spectrum vitamin E.

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Chapter 3 Major Dietary Factors A diet that keeps your bones strong is all about building the bones up just as fast as they get torn down. If you already have osteoporosis, it becomes about building them up a bit faster than they are getting torn down. The bone-building and tearing-down cycle is called “remodeling”. Cells called osteoclasts break down old brittle bone, and cells called osteoblasts create new strong bone, frequently in the places where the osteoclasts just broke down bone. The remodeling process can never be stopped (at least not to your advantage), but it can be adjusted to meet your needs. Proteins Avoid “high-protein” diets. These will prevent you from making any improvement with your osteoporosis. Proteins are necessary for building tissues and making enzymes, but you should use carbohydrates and fats for energy. When food is used for energy the “ash” is the parts of the food that are left over after all the energy is taken out. The most important element, for an acid-producing discussion, would be carbon, sulphur, nitrogen, and phosphorus. Carbon is easy to get rid of. It turns to carbonic acid in your blood, and you breathe it out as carbon dioxide. The sulphur, nitrogen and phosphorus are where the problems lie. Each of these elements form acids (think of nitric acid, sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid) that need to be taken out of the blood through the kidneys. Two factors are important here. The first is that eliminating these acid wastes through the kidneys is a much slower process than eliminating the carbonic acid wastes through the lungs. The second is that our body’s tolerance for pH changes in the blood is VERY small and VERY important. If we run a 100 meter sprint, and increase the pH of our blood out of the normal range by putting a lot of carbonic acid into it. At the end of the race, we can take 20 or so big breaths and bring our pH quickly back to the tolerable range. If, on the other hand, we eat a meal that generates a large amount of acidic waste from nitrogen, sulfur, and/or phosphorus, the kidneys do not have the equivalent of “20 quick breaths” to bring the pH back to normal. It will take the kidneys a couple of hours to remove that, and in - 16 -

between, you might be adding still more acidic waste. Because we have so little tolerance for changes in pH, we need another system to normalize pH when the source is nitrogen, sulfur, and/or phosphorus. The system to normalize pH from sources other than carbonic acid is to dissolve some bone, and release calcium into the blood. When the pH gets too acidic (too low), the parathyroid glands will release parathyroid hormone into the blood. This causes the osteoclasts to break down some bone until enough calcium is released into the blood to normalize the pH. The amount of bone that is broken down is very small, so that no one meal makes much difference in bone health. But, if someone’s diet contains very frequent meals with lots of nitrogen/sulfur/phosphorus, then this could get to be a problem over a longer period of time. Acid/Alkaline Foods Of course, the rate at which bone is broken down needs to be balanced against the rate at which bone is rebuilt. If the full range of nutrients required to rebuild bone are almost always available in abundance, the rate at which bone breaks down will seldom matter. This, in part relates back to the supplement prescription, but the nutrients required to build bone can also come from food. When I was describing the problem with proteins, I was describing foods that decay to an acid ash. Foods that decay to an alkaline ash will help you prevent bone loss. These foods are mostly fruits and vegetables. They have average amounts of what a chemist would call metals – calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, iron, copper manganese, chromium, vanadium, molybdenum, boron, selenium, zinc for example. They have no more metals than the high protein foods, but since they are very low in nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus, the effect on blood pH is alkalizing. Not all of these “metals” are actually used in building bone, but all of them are capable of neutralizing the acidifying effect of the sulfur/nitrogen/phosphorus in proteins. For this reason the breakdown of existing bone to neutralize acidity occurs less when there is an abundance of fruits and vegetables in the diet.

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Dairy Products for Strong Bones ?? One of the most misleading statements you are likely to come across about bone health is that you need dairy products to build/keep strong bones. This is not only wrong, it is backwards. First, from Kervran’s equations and related statements, you can see that calcium is used to build bones either seldom or possibly never. The purpose of dietary calcium is to provide calcium for blood and body fluid calcium levels and to neutralize the acidifying effects of some foods. So, yes consumed calcium does have an effect on bone health, but it is a surprisingly small effect. The more important factor for why dairy products are not useful for building bones is that they contain a large amount of phosphorus. This, of course has an acidifying effect (think “phosphoric acid”). Therefore, in most cases milk and cheese, contribute to breaking bones down much more than they contribute to building bones. But it gets worse from there, because the best chance to get calcium from dairy products come from unpasteurized milk. The pasteurization process makes the metals in milk less absorbable. One theory states that the phosphorus, on the other hand is more easily absorbed, even in pasteurized milk. Therefore, if the milk/cheese that you consume is pasteurized there will be an even greater acidifying effect on the blood and a greater potential for resulting bone loss from using bone to neutralize acidity. This theory is not well supported, and often disputed. But one related idea is uncontested. Consumption of dairy products are strongly associated with 15 osteoporosis . I take the point of view that this means that the phosphorus is not as effected by pasteurization as the alkalizing metals in milk, such as calcium, magnesium, etc. The exception to this idea is detailed in Weston A. Price DDS’s book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. In some locations where the water supply is principally derived from melting glaciers and the dairy products are consumed without pasteurization, then there will be enough mineral content in the dairy products to actually build bones. This is because the water from melting glaciers (AKA glacier “milk”) contains such high mineral content that it appears “milky”. - 18 -

The bottom line is that the dairy products that are commonly available almost always make bones weaker.

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Chapter 4 Building Bones Through Exercise – The Piezo-Electric Effect Whenever a crystalline structure is stressed to the point that it is very slightly deformed, it gives off a very weak electric current. In physics terms, this is referred to as piezo-electricity. Your bones are a crystalline structure, and they too will give off this weak electric current when they are stressed. Your body is then alerted that the bone is weak right where the electric current was produced, and responds by building a stronger bone right at that location 16 . When you go to exercise, remember that the types of exercise that tell your body to build bone are those types of exercises that threaten to break bones. Fortunately, there is a large margin of error, and you don’t need to get very close at all to the amount of mechanical stress that would actually break the bone before your body responds by making the bone stronger. Experts often state that the correct type of exercise for bone-building is “weight-bearing”. Although I agree generally, I think that there is a much better description available. To build bones, think of exercises that are “striking, pounding, twisting, or weight-bearing”. All of these have the potential to subtly deform the crystalline structure of the bone. For example, instead of lifting a 2 lb weight 100 times, consider lifting a 25 lb weight 8 times. Depending upon your muscle and bone strength, you might also change that to a 50 lb weight 4 times or a 100 lb weight 2 times. In each case, you would be lifting a total of 200 lbs. The lower weight/higher repetitions options are a better cardio-vascular workout. The higher weight/lower repetitions are better for building bone. The key idea here is to get just over the threshold where your bone generates a piezoelectric current, but still not very close to where the bone might actually break. One additional very important idea is that the piezo-electric current is merely the “instruction” for the body to build a stronger bone at a particular location. This can only happen if the nutrients needed to do so are in the blood. So, even the best weight-bearing, striking, twisting, pounding exercises will do no good if your diet/supplements combination leave you devoid of the nutrients required to “follow” this instruction. - 20 -

Exercise without proper bone nutrition case has a negative effect on the health of the bones. The shocks to the bones that generate the piezoelectricity are the same types of stresses that create “micro-fractures”. This is the primary mechanism for how an area of bone will become old and brittle and in need of “remodeling”. When enough of these micro-fractures occur in a given area of bone, the strength of that bone tissue declines, and becomes targeted for remodeling. But, if remodeling cannot occur, because the nutrients for replacing old bone are not available, the percentage of old brittle bone will simply increase beyond healthy limits. Thus, strenuous exercise in the absence of a complete collection of bone nutrients will simply speed up the process through which bones become weak. You should probably not even do these types of exercises if your bones are very weak. Wait until your bones have improved some, and then use these exercises to keep your bones strong. Also, remember that the exercise will do no good whatsoever unless you keep the bone-building nutrients in abundant supply in your bloodstream.

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Chapter 5 Bone Drugs The following discussion of bone drugs is based upon an article on bone drugs that can be found at the following link: http://www.doctorsaredangerous.com/articles/bonedrugs.htm The pharmaceutical industry has come up with a variety of drugs to address osteoporosis. All of them are dangerous and, when discussing uncomplicated osteoporosis (i.e. no Paget’s disease, no bone cancer) all of them are a disaster compared to a well thought-out nutritional approach to bone health. Here are the various classes of drugs with their related side effects detailed: Bisphosphonates: Fosomax Alendronate (Binosto) Actonel Boniva (Ibandronate) Zometa (Zoledronic Acid) (Aclasta) (Reclast) Atelvia Risedronate Didronel, Etidronate Because bisphosphonates were the first big class of bone drug, there was a time when they were virtually the only drug being prescribed. Bisphosphonates have a lot of problems, and instead of spending an hour trying to convince patients/students not to take them, I would tell them to read and article by Byron Richard – The Delusion of Bone Drugs. I would give them the internet link. If they actually read the article, it was almost 100% effective at preventing them from ever starting or ever taking another dose of one of these drugs. Here is that link: https://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron46.htm For the benefit of those who do not want to read this wonderful article, I will try to summarize the problems of bisphosphonates.

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Bisphosphonates are caustic and highly inflammatory chemicals. They can produce inflammation in any tissue they come in contact with. The instructions for the oral versions of these drugs tell you not to take them if you have difficulty sitting or standing because if you chose to lay down for a couple hours after taking an oral dose, the drug might pool in an area of your digestive tract and cause very serious damage in one area. Moving around limits the damage in any given area because it spreads the inflammatory effect around to a lot more tissues. Bisphosphonates can cause atrial fibrillation, digestive disturbances, the near-total destruction of the jawbone, and severe bone pain. When atrial fibrillation occurs as a result of bisphosphonates, warfarin is often prescribed to prevent blood clots from forming in the heart. Unfortunately, the “Catch22” is that one of the side effects of warfarin is bone fractures ! The way that bisphosphonates work is by killing osteoclasts, which are a necessary part of the “bone remodeling” process. The osteoclasts are the cells that break down and remove old brittle bone. Normally this is to make way for the osteoblasts to build new strong bone in the same location. Keep in mind that the osteoclasts are also part of the blood calcium regulation system, so when most of the osteoclasts are killed off, the normal response to low blood calcium is compromised and this may have consequences for muscular strength and heart rhythm. A person taking bisphosphonates will initially have stronger and more dense bones. This is because even old brittle bone still has some strength left in it, and not tearing it down will, at first keep the bones a bit stronger. But that old, brittle bone continues to get more micro-fractures, and oxidative damage, so the longer it sticks around, the weaker it gets. There are two reasons why reports of increased bone density are common in conjunction with bisphosphonate treatment, but in neither case does this result in stronger bones. The first is that because the osteoclasts are being killed off, there will be an increasing amount of old brittle bone. Yes, this means increased bone density, but does little or nothing for bone strength. The second reason is the inflammatory effect on tissues. The inflammatory effect also applies to bones, and it causes the bones to become swollen. On an X-Ray, a doctor might look and point out how the bone is larger than before the beginning of treatment. This is a pure pathology, will not - 23 -

increase the strength of bones and certainly is diametrically opposed to the desire for “bone health”. In the beginning, the osteoblasts might have other locations where they could build new strong bone, but eventually, in the absence of pockets of old brittle bone being cleared out, there are no good new sites to build new strong bone. Meanwhile, the percentage of old brittle bone is increasing because it is not being removed. Also the chaotic nature of how new bone is added while taking this category of drug results in some new strong bone interspersed with many areas of old brittle bone. Keep in mind that a chain always breaks at its’ weakest link. At some point the percentage of weak bone gets high enough that even though bone density is much better than at the beginning of the treatment, bone strength is worse than before the drug treatment was begun. The time frame for this is variable from patient to patient, but a good guess is somewhere between 1 to 4 years. From there it can only go downhill. Because the bisphosphonate drugs persist in the body up to 10 years, even if the patient stops taking the drug, it will be several years before normal levels bone remodeling activity can resume, so the high percentage of old brittle bone gradually rises, and there is very little that can be done about it. Broken bones are often the result. Jawbones, hips and vertebrae are the most common bones to fail.

Monoclonal Anitbody/ RANKL Inhibitor Prolia (Denosumab) Prolia interferes with the ability of the body to create osteoclasts. The result is that there are a lot fewer osteoclasts to break down bone. Blood calcium levels are tightly regulated to be within a very narrow range. A major part of that regulatory system is the osteoclasts, because when they break down bone, the calcium is released into the blood. Prolia, because it disables part of this regulatory system has several side effects related to the poor regulation of low calcium levels. It has other side effects directly related to the presence of the drug. A generalized list of side effects would include: Pain (muscle or bone) - 24 -

Irritated inflamed skin Infections Confusion Convulsions Fast or irregular heartbeat Frequent urination Because Prolia partially disables normal bone remodeling, it generates the same kind of short-term strengthening/long-term weakening of all bones as has been described with bisphosphonates. This can result in the destruction of the jawbone and the breaking of bones that would have never broken without the drug treatment.

Estrogen-like drugs Premarin Prempro, Premphase Climara Estradiol (Alora) (Minivelle) (Estraderm), Estradiol Patch, Menostar Vivelle-Dot, Vivelle Conjugated Estrogens, Cenestin, Enjuvia Duavee, Conjugated Estrogens/Bazedoxifene Mesest, Esterified Estrogens Ortho-Est, Estropipate, Ogen Evista (Raloxifene) Estrogen is the hormone that tells a woman’s body to over-engineer their bone structure because they have to be prepared to support an extra 40 lbs. in a hurry in the case of pregnancy. After menopause, the estrogen levels drop off and the over-engineering of the bone structure does too. Estrogen will prompt the bones to re-enter that over-engineered state (build stronger bones), but at a cost. Estrogen promotes cancer and more estrogen promotes more cancer. This can be mitigated to some degree by opposing the estrogen with progesterone. The combination of Premarin (pregnant mare’s urine – horse estrogen) and Prempro (a synthetic progesterone) was the combination that caused the famous warning that HRT (hormone replacement therapy) should be avoided because it causes a lot of cancers. Parathyroid Inhibitors - 25 -

Microzide (Hydrochlorothiazide) (Aquazide H) (Esidrix) Forteo (Teriparatide) The parathyroid gland releases parathyroid hormone (PTH) in response to low blood calcium levels or high blood pH. This instructs the osteoclasts to break down bone to increase the blood calcium levels which also increases the blood pH. When a drug meddles with blood calcium regulation, problems related to low blood calcium are the inevitable side effects, so all the side effects of Prolia/bisphosphonates are back in play here. The 4 drugs in the Hydrochlorithiazide line are all relatively weak inhibitors which produce weak benefits to osteoporosis and weak side effects. Forteo is stronger in this regard, so it can have a stronger positive effect on osteoporosis. I have seen the list of side effects and it is about 4 pages long and includes cancer. Vitamin D-like drugs Calcitonin (Miacalcin) Fortical These are both the final-form version of vitamin D (calcitriol). They are very difficult to dose correctly and are prone to quickly produce vitamin D overdose effects when slight overdoses are taken.

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Chapter 6 Misdirection in Bone Density Tests The main problem with bone density tests is that they test something that is not very important – density. What really matters is bone strength. We presume that higher bone density translates to higher bone strength, and in a general way averaged over a million test subjects, it probably does. But was matters is patient by patient, what is the bone strength, and possibly how closely does bone density relate to bone strength. There are several ways in which bone strength and bone density can diverge, and you should be aware of what they are. Susan Ott at the University of Washington conducted an interesting study indicating the problems with accuracy of DEXA bone density measurements. Two readings were taken for each patient – one when the arrived, and another after they walked around the room a couple of times. There was up to a 7% difference between the two readings. Sometimes the 2nd reading was higher, sometimes lower. Obviously, because the readings were taken within minutes of each other, they were expected to be within the published error range of the machine, which was 2%. But instead many readings showed dramatic enough differences to claim either an osteoporosis “cure” or a reason to initiate osteoporosis treatment. Dr. Ott’s message is that anything up to a 6% may be just a machine or technician error, and it 17 should take more to prompt the physician to start treatment . But let’s assume for the moment that bone density tests can be accurate. The next question is – Do they provide reliable information. Here is an example of bone density being irrelevant to bone health: The authors noted that all of the women in three of the five counties consumed no dairy products and therefore consumed amounts of calcium well below even the Chinese standard of 800 mg/day, and virtually all of them over 50 had bone mineral densities (BMD)