Category Archives: Medical Research

Serotonin – More than a Neurotransmitter, Possible aid to Liver Regeneration

Serotonin (aka 5-hydroxytryptamine) has long been known as an important neurotransmitter with implications in depression and sleep disorders but according to research published in the April 7th, 2006 issue of Science; it is also an important hormone that may be very important in regenerating damaged liver tissue. The use of tryptophan or 5-HTP (5-Hydroxytryptophan) although not prominently mentioned in the article (they only talk about drugs to improve platelet carrying of serotonin), may be crucial in helping people with impaired liver function (excessive toxicity) or alcoholism. 

While there was some evidence that mice injected with 5-HTP received benefits the focus unfortunately was more on receptor agonists than natural agents. Further study is necessary on the benefits of 5-HTP on liver regeneration.

Mood Stabilization – Serious disorder or drug company marketing?

Before 1995, bi-polar disorders were diagnosed in 0.1% of the population and were typically treated long-term by the trace mineral lithium.  When the FDA granted Abbott Laboratories license to sell the drug Depakote to treat people mania, a new disorder popped up which needed treatment.  Mood stabilization became the new marketing mantra used by drug companies ever since to sell drugs such as olanzapine, risperidone (Risperdal), quetiapine (Seoquel) and others.

Of course, .01% of the population is too small of a market so they had to increase the diagnosis of bi-polar disorders to include people who normally would not be considered in need of treatment.  The new DSM IV diagnoses for the disease upped the market to 5% of the population. The conferences and papers to back this increase were heavily funded by the pharmaceutical industry but in reality, there are no randomized controlled trials that show that these drugs actually do better than placebo or no treatment at all.  How can this be allowed?  Is someone asleep at the regulatory wheel?  Or is it all about the Benjamins ($100 dollar bills and lots of them)?  Sorry Mr. Franklin, I think it’s about you.

The issue is also bigger than just the money being made; it is the issue of increased death rates among those using long-term antipsychotic medications.  When I was a kid, I remember going from what now would be considered a manic phase to a down phase many times during the day.  This is normal for developing children and has been for millennium.  Today, we deem it necessary to treat this normal condition because teachers and parents don’t want to deal with a typically active child.  Better to drug them than to deal with their energy.

What staggers me is that despite all of our supposed improvements in drug therapy, four times as many people are admitted to hospitals for bi-polar issues than 100 years ago. If it’s working, why are people getting worse?  Could it be that if a person stops taking the drug, the withdrawal symptoms are worse than the so-called disease was initially?  Pharmaceutical company’s profits are up and the mental health of our world is down.  Is this what we all really want?

Does stress cause toxins to be more dangerous to health?

Evidence presented at the 45th meeting of the Society of Toxicology suggests that this may be true.  Glass, TA, Bandeen-Roche, McAtee, M and Schwartz, BS of Johns Hopkins suggested that environmental stress increased the cognitive damage caused by lead poisoning.  This is the first study of its kind and has major implications in human health.

Environmental toxins like heavy metals and solvents have long been know to cause neurological dysfunction in humans, especially children, but the effect of stress has not been tested on environmentally poisoned individuals until now.  The researchers found that higher levels of stress exacerbated the effects of lead exposure in children in Baltimore. These findings give rise to interesting treatment options to better aid those environmentally challenged.  Not only do they need to detoxify but they may need counseling as well as ways to lower their stress.

More on this subject in the coming days.

Obesity and Toxicity. The correlation gets stronger.

About 4 years ago, I made a presentation at a clinical nutritionists meeting in Las Vegas, proposing that toxicity (solvents, heavy metals, toxins produced by bacteria and parasites, etc) were part of the reason for the growing obesity issues facing people today.   I proposed that some toxins have the ability to block the entry point of the citric acid (Kreb’s) cycle and cause our resting metabolism to go down, sometimes dramatically.  Additionally, a number of these toxins are endocrine disruptors affecting the thyroid, adrenals, pituitary, hypothalamus and pancreas. 

Four weeks ago my brother came to my house and proclaimed that toxicologists have just discovered that obesity and toxicity are being linked together.  Needless to say my wife and I had a big laugh and reminded him of what I had proposed a few years before.  The abstracts of the presentations done at the annual meeting of the Society of Toxicology are available at http://www.toxicology.org. Beware, it is a huge file (552 pages).

I spent the past 4 days going though it and noticed a number of abstracts related to obesity and toxicity (start on page 307, abstracts 1503 – 1508). I will be posting some of the most pertinent issues and abstracts on this website in the coming weeks along with commentary.

Oxygen – The Molecule That Made The World

If you have an interest in antioxidants, nutrition, aging, science or just want a good book to read, this is it.  Author Nick Lane presents a captivating vision of the world in which we live in and how oxygen helped drive evolutionary forces that led to life as we know it. It will make you rethink the way you look at health and illness and give you a deeper insight into how life came about.  An absolute must read.

 

Oxygen : The Molecule that Made the World (Popular Science)

A Must Have Book – Overdo$ed America

Last summer at a conference called Boulderfest, I had the privilage of being on a panel with John Abramson, M.D., author of the book Overdo$ed America.  His speech ended with a thunderous standing ovation from the room of 250 health care practitioners from around the country. His book uncovers the packs of lies that have been perpetrated by the pharmaceutical industry which has been selling the American public a bill of goods that only helps enrich their pockets yet does little to improve the quality of life.

Every person in this country or any other, that take medications should read this book and they should buy a second copy for their primary care physician to read. I recommend this book to everyone I work with and at every lecture I give around the world.

Overdosed America : The Broken Promise of American Medicine

It continues – Wall Street Journal Chirps In

In the March 20th 2006 issue of the Wall Street Journal, they continue their anti-nutrition ways with a vitriolic article against taking vitamins claiming that supplements are somehow dangerous because of recent research. This is another example of pro-big Pharma whoring that is perpetrating American media.  They cite research that is terribly flawed, but then again, what would you expect? Follow the money and you find the source. 

How does one fight this?  Not by crying wolf and claiming that the sky is falling, but pointing out the falsehoods and writing letters to the editors of the offending newspapers or other media outlets. Also, by blogging and passing the truth on to your friends and family.  It won’t be easy but it is possible and very necessary to protect our rights.

Blogging, Nutrition and the Truth

Today’s news media is no longer the independent, investigative force they were in the past due to the increasing pressure of advertisers.  This is no better illustration than the misleading reviews of medical research being publicized by radio, TV and news print.  The distortions of reality, the misquoting and downright dishonest reporting makes blogging, one of the most important parts of modern society in my opinion.

When my friend, Jim Larsen, sends me articles like the review of a Lancet paper from April 2005 where the authors tell their audience that they should abandon their calcium and other nutritional supplements in favor of pharmaceuticals I get my hackles up (my wife thanks you Jim. Wink The paper he sent me is so poorly done that my 9 year old would be scolded for writing it, I have to wonder whether some people’s drive for money has so clouded their thinking that any semblance of morality was dropped off somewhere far away from their homes. The participants in the study from the Lancet had a incredibly high drop out rate (over 1/3rd) which in and of it self should have thrown it out but it also did not look at levels of Vitamin D (critical in calcium metabolism), did not look at hydrochloric acid levels which are necessary for proper absorption of calcium and they use too low of a dose!  Many of the studies putting down calcium also used the wrong form, calcium carbonate which is a cheap but very poorly absorbed form. 

When you look at the advertising in journals like the New England Journal of Medicine (I commonly refer to it as the NEJ of Aggravation) and The Lancet, you can see why they consistently whore themselves to Big Pharma.  You may think my words are harsh but the distortion and lying is of such a catastrophic nature, that I should be accused of being too mild in my characterizations of these people.

Now to turn my focus to the other side of nutrition, the hucksters and sales sharks who tout things like horny goat weed as the solution to all male sexual dysfunction, or some self-proclaimed health truth tellers from some dark corner of the Amazon who claim they are the only bastion of truth yet when you disagree with them (with good cause), they call you Nazi’s (yes I have been accused by one such lunatic as having opinions reminiscent of the perpetrators of the Holocaust) and big Pharma shills.  These are the ones that allopathic medical practitioners point to as the model of alternative minded people. They do such a disservice to nutritional health that I feel some of them may really be the big Pharma shills.

While not all blogging is filled with truth sayers, by sharing our ideas and thoughts, we allow people to hear all sides of a story, not just the side that advertisers want you to hear.  We blog not just to see ourselves on the net but to allow you to see what the truth might be.  As for me, I will continue to blog as long as I see deceit, disinformation, falsehoods and shills.

As Featured On Ezine Articles

Which form of Magnesium is best???

This is kind of a loaded question as I get arguments from some pretty learned people about this but if you look at the data, its pretty much a safe bet that magnesium bound to amino acids (chelates) is the best way to go.  Thanks to my friend James Larsen, he made me add this to my blog as he sent me a study entitled “Magnesium bioavailability from magnesium citrate and magnesium oxide” by J. S. Lindberg, M. M. Zobitz, J. R. Poindexter and C. Y. Pak at the Center for Mineral Metabolism and Clinical Research, University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas 75235.

In this paper, and many others like it, it is pretty clear that using magnesium oxide as a supplement is just not as effective as magnesium citrate.  There is some guy that trolls Yahoo forums trying to get everyone to buy magnesium chloride as some magical form, especially his topical one because he just knows its the best. Problem is, many people are elevated in total chloride loads in their bodies and we just don’t need to add anymore of that to our systems.  To top it off, when asked for proof, he, as many other’s who tout that they have “it”, he resorts to some silly banter about how I’m out to get him and that his proof is on how great he and his family feel.

I’m not here to sell any products, I just want to present the facts.  If you want a good form of magnesium, try magnesium citrate.  It works, and its cost effective. 

Aspartame and Cancer

A study coming out in March 2006 not funded by the manufacturer shows that there is a strong link between aspartame (Nutrasweet®) and cancer.  Rsearchers at the nonprofit European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences in Bologna, Italy examined 1,800 lab rats consuming this artificial sweetner. They found more lymphomas and leukemias in the rats exposed to aspartame proportionate to the amount they ate.

Dose-response reactions are good indicators of causation of cancer so the link is quite strong.  Opponents of this study cite previous work which did not show a link.  Those studies were either funded by the makers of this poison (wow, surprise surprise they found nothing bad), were poorly done or were too small. Come on FDA, do your job and ban this poison!!!