Category Archives: Medical Research

Bipolar Disorders and Children – Growing Epidemic or Drug Company Bonanza?

Nothing is as painful as having a child with emotional issues. I should know, I have one. My daughter Tasya has had emotional problems ever since she started having epileptic seizures 7 years ago. She has had mood swings and temper tantrums which by themselves is not unusual (most kids go through that) but the number and severity has been a problem. Most every doctor we see wants to put her on one medication after another without regard to the potential for long term damage.

In a report coming from the British magazine, New Scientist, they question whether doctors in the United States are too quick to treat children with what they are diagnosing as bipolar disorder. Since 1996 the number of children being diagnosed with this behavioral problem went from 13 out of every 100,000 to 73 out of every 100,000 in 2004, a five-fold jump in the number of diagnoses in a scant 8 years. Children as young as 3 are being diagnosed with the disease despite the absolute ridiculousness of even attempting to diagnoses this in children that young.

The use of psychotropic drugs on young children should be viewed as a crime unless there is overwhelming evidence. The fact that we have absolutely no evidence that in the long-term, these drugs are anywhere near safe should be a red-flag. Add to that the fact that a child who was 4 years old has died when given not one, not two, but three drugs for supposedly having a bipolar disorder. The child, Rebecca Riley, was given clonidine, Depakote (anti-convulsant also known as valproic acid) and the anti-psychotic Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate). Her parents are on trial to see if they deliberately overdose her or it was an accident. My finger is pointing straight at the physicians who prescribed the drugs to this unfortunate little girl with the hopes of stabilizing her mood.

No other country is seeing this increase in the incidence of bipolar disorder despite following the same guidelines from the DSM-IV (the official psychiatric manual).  Instead of seeking natural and much, much safer means, drug companies are throwing parties for doctors who would prescribe their money making drugs for children. My daughter had enormous success and improvement in mood and seizure activity following her eliminating foods that were causing an inflammatory response (LEAP MRT Test). Amino acid therapy, nutrition and even psychotherapy should be our first line of attack on neuropsychiatric disorders and NOT harsh and life threatening drugs.

Thankfully the editors at the New Scientist call into question whether the diagnoses and treatments are real, or as I suspect, profit driven by an increasingly money hungry pharmaceutical industry.

A Test for Everyone Thinking of Having a Child

In a past blog I mention that giving a developing fetus the best opportunity for a healthy life started with the parents making sure that they were as environmentally healthy as possible. In lectures I have given around the world, there is one test I adamantly propose as a must for both men and women who are contemplating having children and that is the Environmental Pollutants panel from US Biotek in Seattle, Washington.

This test looks at excretion levels of the following chemicals, some of which are carcinogenic and can disrupt hormonal levels in the developing child. These chemicals include benzene, trimethylbenzene, styrene, toluene, xylene, parabens and phthalates. The last one, phthalates, has been shown to affect male children especially, making them more feminine structurally as well as shortening pregnancy by up to two weeks which has been shown to have a negative long-term health effect on children.

Breast Cancer and Hormone Replacement Therapy – A Major Indictment

In the April 19th, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, a special report was issued showing a significant drop in the incidence of breast cancer starting in mid-2002 through 2003 due in large part, according to the authors, to the drop in the use of hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) due to the release of the Women’s Health Initiative report. The decrease was largest in women over the age of 50, those most likely to use HRT.

An observation I have is that this study shows the effects of artificial hormones that are prescribed to women but what about the multitude of toxins in our environment that have estrogenic effects like bisphenol A?  How about phthalates?  What about all those other chemicals that are known to disrupt the endocrine system?  Our bodies, male or female, are awash with these carcinogenic chemicals. This is why it is critical to do what you can to avoid exposure and to get your body efficient at detoxifying itself.

Another issue I have here is how the pharmaceutical industry has responded to this travesty. Instead of a mia culpa, it is attacking natural hormone replacement therapy produced by compounding pharmacies. These are far safer than the horse urine derived toxins the harmaceutical industry foisted on unsuspecting women. Senator Ted Kennedy is helping his harma buddies by introducing a bill to ban compounding pharmacy’s from making this and other healthy compounds. Shame on Mr. Kennedy for being so blatantly purchased by an industry that continues to put out one dangerous drug (Vioxx, et al) after another.

Another Stupid CNN Anti-Supplement Article

You would think by now, CNN would monitor its writers for accuracy but in the case of Caleb Hellerman, I guess he gets a free pass. His article posted on the CNN website today is such a load of garbage that you would have to wonder where this writer gets his paycheck from. Entitled No scientific evidence diet supplements work this pile of trash is unbelievably poorly written and so lacking in honesty, I think it should be listed under fiction instead of being on a news website.

His claim that there is no evidence that nutritional supplements would is a bold faced and unadulterated lie. There are so many studies showing efficacy that he should be ashamed to have even written this drivel. My challenge to Hellerman is that I can come up with 10 studies showing benefits to every one that shows otherwise. His bringing up the embarrassing recent Danish study which purports to show that antioxidant nutrients may shorten life spans should tell you that his prejudice regarding supplements cloud his judgement. The study was so flawed and so obviously twisted since it clearly eliminated any study showing benefits to antioxidant nutrients that no scientist with any credibility would take it seriously. I challenge Hellerman to subscribe to to an email put out by Tishcon called Vitasearch which comes out weekly with studies showing benefits of nutritional supplements from numerous peer-reviewed journals around the world.

This clearly biased writer (cannot call him a reporter as this would imply his ability to report the truth) also states, “studies have found virtually no evidence supplements improve health your health.” Is he really serious?  Can he be that dishonest? I guess so. What would motivate a writer to so blatantly write nonsense like this is beyond me unless there is something nefarious going on. Either that or he is illiterate and unable to read research papers that number in the thousands that show benefits to taking supplements.

Shame on Hellerman and even more shame on CNN for writing this person a paycheck and publishing his crap.

Overeating and Liver Damage

In an article published in the March 31-April 1 issue of New Scientist, writer James Kingsland talks about how overeating and the obesity epidemic are causing more and more people to be diagnosed with liver disease. If I asked you what the leading cause of cirrhosis of the liver was you would likely say alcohol. Guess again. Some may say hepatitis but that would be wrong also. Obesity is the leading cause of a diseased liver in most affluent nations.

Other interesting tidbits include:

  • 5-10 percent of Americans have liver disease.
  • 2/3rds of them have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
  • Four cups of coffee a day seems to reduce the risk of NAFLD!
  • Children are now being diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver.

One interesting finding is that liver disease, in early stages can be reversed by changing dietary habits. The key is to eat healthy (less fat and simple carbohydrates) and exercise. I would add that taking the herb milk thistle and the amino acid glycine (1-3 grams daily) would greatly improve liver health.

The one thing that annoyed me about the article was the talk of developing drugs to fight off liver disease. I can see it being critical in late-stage disease where liver transplantation is the only option but you know that pharmaceutical industry will market the hell out of the drug instead of making people change their lifestyle. What I did like was the last quote of the article from Dr. David Jones is “I put the fear of God into them, then I send them off to buy a heart rate monitor and to exercise. I tell them it’s the best £50 they’ll ever spend. And patient after patient comes back with normalised liver function tests. They feel a lot better, the tiredness goes away. It’s quite extraordinary.”  Advice well given.

Economics Over Your Child’s Life – The Conservative View of the World

In a book I reviewed earlier this week, How Everyday Products Make People Sick, by Dr. Paul D. Blanc, there is one part that both angered and sickened me. It had to do with a review of the effects of lead by the conservative think tank – the American Enterprise Institute – Brookings Joint Center AEI/BJC on Regulatory Studies. The comment shows the kind of denial and obfuscation that the conservative right uses to protect industry’s ability to dump toxins on us despite overwhelming research.

Lead is a well known neurotoxin that was used in both gasoline and paint prior to the 1970s. According to numerous studies, lead causes IQ levels to drop, especially in children. What amazed me is that the AEI/BJC did not dispute the fact that lead was neurotoxic but that economically parents gain only $1,100 per IQ point while their children gain $1,900 through lead abatement. Are they kidding me??? Do we measure life benefits in terms of parents versus children? What kind of moral system do these people hold dear? One of their comments was “This analysis suggests lead standards will redistribute resources from parents to their children, because the benefits to parents are less than the costs of the standards. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development should reconsider their lead standards.”

Appalling?  You bet. Morally corrupt?  Closer to the truth. My parents came to this country back in 1953 to make their kids lives better, not at our expense but at theirs. The AEI/BJC is one of the many groups that our present administration looks to for advice. What does that say for us when the argument used to reconsider reintroducing lead into our environment is that parents should make more money at the expense of their children?

But lest this be a Bush-Bashing party, let me make it clear that this kind of disgusting government behavior has been going on for centuries and by just about every government in this world. In 1868, the British Fisheries Preservation Authority wrote a pamphlet entitled On Pollution of the Rivers of the Kingdom. they saw the problems back than.

Dr. Blanc even points out that in 1549 writers talk about things like sick building syndrome (not that term exactly) in a paper called Aerarium Sanitatis. We know that pollution and the dumping of toxins are killing us and causing incalcuable damage to our children and generations to come. As long as it is business as usual, we will continue to be dumped on and lied to about the dangers that surround us.

Please get this book. I don’t care if you get it through clicking on the link below or through any portal you chose, get it. It is one of the finest books on the effects of environmental toxins on human health I have ever read and believe me, I have read a lot of them.

 

How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace

Adult versus Embryonic Stem Cells – Is there a difference?

I know this is a volatile issue but I think we need to at least clarify why there is a need for embryonic stem cells (ESC) versus adult stem cells (ASC). Whether you feel that it is a moral issue or not, the bottom line is that ESC is superior because you can generate vastly more cells with them as opposed to ASC.

Human embryonic stem cells are known as pluripotent, which means they can become any type of cell in the body. The same cannot be said for adult stem cells. You may object to using ESC due to religious or personal beliefs but it is wrong to delude the public, which the present administration has done, that ASC is just as good. It isn’t.

My concern is that other nations, more scientifically enlightened than the U.S. will further the research, come up with the technology to make ESC work, and we will be left behind. The present administration has continually thwarted real science advancement because of religion. I am not in any way, shape, or form an atheist but I do believe in a separation of church and state. If our country is to continue to be the leader of the free-world, we need to change the way we approach science.

If you believe that we should not use ESC, then I respect your opinion. If the majority of people in this country believe that we should not use ESC, then we should not use them. That is simply not the case though as the majority of Americans are for the use of embryonic stem cells. What we should not do is lie to the American people and tell them ASCs are as good. It isn’t true, and it isn’t science.

Vitamin C, E, and A are Bad for Your Health!!! Another Example of Bad Science.

CNN seems to feel that anytime someone comes up with a study that bashes vitamin supplementation, it is their duty to print it regardless of its validity or how biased the report is. The website posted a report about how vitamins C, D, and E are not beneficial in extending life. In the article, they cite a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association which proports to show that not only are these supplements worthless, they actually increase the risk of dying.

Let us look at the facts behind this study. First off, it is not based on any original research. It is a review of other studies, 68 to be exact. They picked which studies they were to look at and then made judgements based on whta they deemed good research. Then they removed 19 studies they said were of poor quality and saw that the nutrients were detrimental to health. Too bad they didn’t seek to remove studies funded by groups (big harmaceutical – my spelling) that had something to gain through the publishing of negative studies. Don’t think that happens?  It does and it does happen a lot.  They also avoided using some Chinese studies that show definitive improvements from these essential nutrients.

But the one big error is one that I bring up all of the time and that is the lack of understanding of the concept of biochemical individuality. All this study says, if it is correct, is that vitamin C, E, and A aren’t effective for the greater population. They then extrapolate it to mean no one would benefit. How do they know?  Did they check my blood and determine that?  Did they look at my needs?  Hell no!!! They made a platitudinal statement that has no bearing on my life.  I may need 5 grams of vitamin C a day and you may need 250 milligrams. Until you test, you do not know the answer.

Bad science being chased by irresponsible media equals health damaging information.

I want to add one additional comment that CNN did put into the article and that was a quote from Dr. Meir Stampfer of professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Stampfer said the studies were too diverse to pool together because they looked at various combinations and doses of antioxidants tested in different groups of people. The trials ranged from a three-month study of 109 elderly nursing home residents to a 12-year study of 22,071 male doctors.

“This study does not advance our understanding, and could easily lead to misinterpretation of the data,” said Stampfer, who was not connected to the new report.

Couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Weekly Nutrition Update

Beneficial Effect of Green Tea Extract on Serum and Cardiac Lipids – Aside from its known benefits in protecting you against cancer, turns out green tea extract (GTE) helps improve your lipid makeup which may help reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

Policosanol Supplement Found Ineffective in Altering Serum Lipid Profile – While other studies have suggested that policosanol was as effective as statin drugs in improving serum lipids, this study suggested otherwise. A few possible reasons that the results were different

  • is that this study only looked at individuals with mild hypercholesteremia
  • the doses (20 mg/d) were too low
  • the study was too short (8 weeks)

Reduced Form of Coenzyme Q10 – Ubiquinol – Found to be Highly Bioavailable and Safe at Doses up to 300 mg – A complaint from traditional medicine is that nutrients are not tested for safety at high doses. Here is yet another study that begs to differ with that assessment. I have always recommended 100 mg per day of CoQ10 in split doses and here we see safety at three times that amount. Taking CoQ10 should be part of everyone over the age of 40’s regular regime and 100-200 mg’s minimum if you are taking stating drugs.

Dietary Supplementation with Flaxseed Oil May Lower Blood Pressure in Dyslipidemic Men – If you have high blood pressure and have a poor LDL to Total Cholesterol ratio, start taking flaxseed oil. Of course this shouldn’t be the only thing you do (lower your weight, exercise and eat better) but it seems to be a good step in the right direction based on this study.

Dietary Treatments that Raise Low HDL Cholesterol Levels – While this study suggests that soy protein isoflavones are beneficial in raising low LDL levels, it was the additional mention of adding multivitamins to the mix that caught my attention.

Consumption of Trans Unsaturated Fats may Increase the Risk of Ovulatory Infertility – As if we needed another reason to ban trans fats, here is yet another. Given the fact that infertility is at an all time high, is it any wonder that trans fats are being implicated. Taste over sanity I guess.

Low Levels of Coenzyme Q10 May Be Linked to Migraine Headaches in Children and Adolescents – Supplementation with CoQ10 May Help – This one caught me off guard but it did suggest that CoQ10 may be beneficial in treating children with migraines. From what the earlier study showed, adding 50-100 mg’s of CoQ10 is a safe protocol to try out.

Thioctic Acid (Lipoic Acid) May Be Effective in Preventing Migraine Headaches – In this small study lipoic acid was shown to be beneficial in preventing migraine headaches. One interesting thought is that according to Dr. Andrew Cutler , lipoic acid is a good chelator of mercury from the brain which may explain its benefits here.

Supplementation with Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids May Improve Psychological Well-Being in Patients with Recurrent Self-Harm – Long known for psychological benefits, this is just another in a long string of positive studies on the benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids.

Supplementation with Calcium + Vitamin D during a Weight-Loss Intervention May Enhance the Beneficial Effect of Weight Loss – You should know my opinion of vitamin D by now so if you need more information and research on its benefits, here is yet another study showing additional benefits not reported previously.

Nutrition Update for the Week of January 29th, 2007

Augmenting Zinc Supplementation with Vitamins A and D May Increase Plasma Concentrations of Zinc: Implications for Alzheimer ‘s Disease and Other Diseases – In this study, researchers found that when zinc was combined with vitamins A and D, plasma zinc went up faster than and higher than any other combination tried. This is significant especially with the elderly who are notorious for being zinc deficient.

Increased Dietary Intake of Omega-3 PUFAs from Plant Sources May Improve Bone Health – This study suggest that supplementing with omega-3 fatty acids may improve bone health via a reduction in bone resorption. Yet another reason to take at least 1 gram of omega-3’s daily (3 grams would be even better in my opinion).

Maternal Intake of Folic Acid During Early Pregnancy May Lower Risk of Isolated Cleft Lip (with or without cleft palate) in Infants – Cleft palate is a tough disease to go through as it requires multiple surgeries in many cases to correct. Taking a nominal amount of folic acid every day (400 micrograms) has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of an infant developing a cleft palate. One word of caution, there is some evidence that too much folate (over 2 milligrams daily) may increase the risk of having a child with cleft palate. Doing a simple organic acid in urine test from MetaMetrix can give you a strong clue if you are folate deficient. The marker they use is formiminoglutamic acid or FIGLU for short.

Elevated Homocysteine and Low Folate May Exert a Negative Effect on Specific Cognitive Domains – Yet another reason to supplement with folic acid. Test yourself for homocysteine as early in life as possible and work on lowering it. The blood test is available through many major labs and should become a standard of care.

Green Tea may Alleviate Diabetes in Rodents – One of the active ingredients in green tea, ECGC, is beginning to get a lot of good press, especially in the treatment of obesity. In this study, it seems to be beneficial in treating diabetes.

Association between Low Plasma Vitamin D and Type 1 Diabetes in Young Adults – As my regular readers know, I am a big vitamin D fan and this study just keeps my enthusiasm going. Get yourself a bottle and take at least 800 IU’s a day in the winter, spring and fall and 400 IU’s in the summer.

Supplementation with Korean Red Ginseng May Improve Glucose and Insulin Regulation in Subjects with Well-Controlled Type 2 Diabetes – This is another in a string of studies I have read that show benefits of ginseng with diabetes.

Choline: Critical Role During Fetal Development and Dietary Requirements in Adults – Choline is one of those great brain nutrients that may have a lot of other benefits including the reduction of homocysteine via its conversion into the essential amino acid methionine.

Come back next week for another update and don’t forget to go to Vitasearch for more details on the studies reviewed here today.