‘Matters Of Health’ Topics

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!

I saw a lady in the office a while back that just hasn’t done well on the CELL Program. Her sister has lost over 50 pounds, but she hasn’t lost much at all. We talked quite a bit about what she actually was eating. She’s substituted whole wheat noodles for regular noodles and brown rice for white rice. She’s frying catfish in soy flour instead of regular flour. This is better, but it’s not really following the rules of the CELL Program. She’s skipping breakfast and grabbing handfuls of Cheetos from the kids instead of taking time for a meal. She’s eating too much in the grain category. Remember, if you have grains, it must be whole grains, but the grains are limited.

After talking about the foods she’s been eating, I made a comment, “You really don’t believe you can do this, do you.” She said I was right. She didn’t believe it. She’s tried so many diets, listed all kinds of them. And then proceeded to tell me that she gained the weight back when she got off whatever diet she had been on.

THAT is the problem. The CELL Program is changing your eating habits for a lifetime. You can’t lose weight and keep it off by planning to go back to some “normal” way of eating. Fish is great, but anything battered and fried is not on the list, battered with soy flour or anything else. The type of oil you fry it in doesn’t save you from the rules. Fine if you want it for Sunday dinner once a week, but then the “free day” is once a week, not whenever it’s convenient. But all of it comes down to making up your mind that you CAN do it, that YOU are worth the TLC to feel better and live longer.

Tags: BELIEVE IN YOURSELF
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CAN WE BELIEVE DRUG STUDIES?

I’m just waiting for the day when something like this will come out on all the statin drugs (Lipitor, Crestor, Zetia and the rest). They are the single biggest medication-induced cause of the I-don’t-feel-well’s I see in my practice. The powers that be such as insurance companies are forcing us docs to use “evidence-based” clinical treatments. What are we to believe any more?

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/
la-oe-abramson7jan07,1,4571818.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

From the Los Angeles Times

Drug profits infect medical studies By John Abramson JOHN ABRAMSON, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, is author of “Overdosed America” (HarperCollins, 2004). He is a consultant to attorneys of patients who took Vioxx and are suing Merck.

January 7, 2006

SEVERAL OF OUR most venerated scientific journals have recently been besmirched by allegations of scientific misconduct. Shocking? We should be just as shocked as Inspector Renault when he discovered gambling at Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca.

First, the New England Journal of Medicine made public its concerns about crucial data having been withheld from its 2000 report on a study sponsored by Merck exaggerating the safety of its blockbuster drug Vioxx, now withdrawn. Then the lead author of a seminal article published in the journal Science reporting the creation of viable stem cells from cloned human embryos admitted he falsified results and resigned his academic post in disgrace.

This week brings the news that a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary failed to include the deaths of two patients in a clinical trial of its new drug for heart failure, Natrecor, in an article published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine.

Why shouldn’t we be surprised? Because over the last 25 years, clinical research has been largely privatized. Three-quarters of the clinical studies published in the three most respected medical journals (the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Assn. and the Lancet) are now commercially funded. As a result, our medical knowledge grows not in the direction that best improves our health but toward corporate profits, the way that plants grow toward sunlight.

This wasn’t always so. Before 1980, most medical studies were publicly funded, and most academic researchers scorned industry support. Now, however, the vast majority of clinical trials are commercially funded, and with the financial stakes so high, there is mounting evidence of individual scientists and corporations manipulating their findings.

Even our most trusted journals are dependent on drug-company money. Drug makers don’t just buy advertising in their pages. According to Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, they also pay up to $1.75 million for reprints of articles favorable to their drugs, which sales reps then hand out to doctors.

And many journal articles are biased in favor of their sponsors’ products. A 2003 report in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. found that clinical studies funded by drug companies are three times more likely to conclude that the sponsor’s drug is the treatment of choice, compared to studies of the same drug that were not commercially funded. (This study of the effects of commercial bias, by the way, was funded by Danish research institutions.) The disturbing conclusion is that most of the evidence in what doctors believe to be “evidence-based medicine” is more infomercial than dispassionate science.

It’s vital to protect the integrity of our medical knowledge. But the current peer review system alone can’t do the job. The journals, and the peer reviewers they rely on, are in the untenable position of having to trust that corporate sponsors have accurately and completely reported their findings. At present, journal editors and peer reviewers typically are not allowed unrestricted access to the data from commercially sponsored research. Amazingly, many drug company-funded researchers who write the articles are also not allowed access to all of the data the company has collected.

There is no better cautionary tale than the unwarranted success of Vioxx. Greater safety was the only reason for doctors to have prescribed Vioxx, given that it provided no better relief of arthritis symptoms or pain and cost up to 10 times more than the older anti-inflammatory drug, naproxe (sold without a prescription as Aleve). But Merck’s own study clearly showed that Vioxx was more dangerous than naproxen overall and caused significantly more heart attacks, blood clots and strokes - whether or not the patient had a previous history of cardiovascular disease.

SO WHY DID American doctors prescribe $7 billion worth of Vioxx after Merck and the Food and Drug Administration knew all this?

Because the New England Journal article that ostensibly reported the results of Merck’s study didn’t even mention either the cardiovascular or the overall dangers of Vioxx. Instead, it reported only selective data on heart attacks and strokes, allowing Merck to claim that Vioxx wasn’t a risk to people without a history of these problems.

The Journal’s editors are now accusing Merck of withholding critical data. Shame on Merck. But shame on the Journal too for not insisting that the article include a discussion of the most important complications. Doctors were left with the impression that Vioxx was safer than naproxen when exactly the opposite was true.

The Journal again misled its readers in 2001, when one of its influential review articles dismissed the dangers of Vioxx as perhaps reflecting “the play of chance.” This article was published seven months after FDA reviewers’ concerns and Merck’s own research data, which documented the dangers, had been posted on the FDA’s website. Worse, the Journal violated its own policy prohibiting scientists with conflicts of interest from writing review articles. (Both authors had financial ties to Merck.) That the Journal disclosed those ties mitigates neither its ethical breach nor the consequences of its repeated understatement of the risks of Vioxx.

This is hardly an academic argument. According to an article in the Lancet, based on Merck’s own data Vioxx probably caused between 88,000 and 144,000 cases of serious heart disease.

The stem cell and Natrecor debacles offer further evidence that the problem is not just individual bad actors or occasional lapses of scientific integrity by drug makers. It’s that even the most prestigious journals are unable to perform the quality control that doctors take for granted.

Sadly, the evidence shows that it’s time for the journals to change their policies from trust to “trust, but verify.” They should introduce a new standard requiring an independent audit of the accuracy and completeness of research reports before they are sent out for peer review. These scientific auditors should be statisticians and medical experts who are completely free of conflicts of interest and are given unfettered access to the data.

The journals will rightfully claim they cannot afford to pay for such scientific oversight. But the lack of oversight is even more costly. Americans waste billions each year on drugs of dubious value. Until we find a way to fund quality controls on published research, the cost of our medical care will continue to soar and our health will suffer

Tags: drug studies
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FARMED OR CAUGHT SALMON?

1/10/2004

Fished or Farmed Salmon? We don`t know either…..here`s a well-written story posted on CBSnews.com at
Click Here …

It seems the wonderful fish oils are tainted with dioxins and other potentially cancer-causing pollutants if farmed, or mercury if fished.

They are saying the farmed fish food is the problem! Does this sound similar to the mad cow disease problem to you?

Tags: salmon
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HERBAL TREATMENT FOR GALLSTONES

Gallstones are a frequent problem in people who are overweight. Losing weight seems to be a particular trigger. I was taught, as good medical doctors are, that gallstones need to come out…surgery is the only acceptable treatment. One of my patients got the, “You need your gallbladder out” talk about a month ago. She said she would think about it. Today, she came back all excited, jingling greenish gallstones in a jar. She said she passed them with an herbal medicine recipe. She just did not want to have surgery. The gallstones were definitely there. One was almost the size of a marble. She said it didn�t even hurt. Medicine is always learning new things.

I thought I would share the recipe. I would love to hear feedback from anyone who has tried it. My worry is that one of these stones would get stuck and then cause pancreatitis, the main reason surgery is recommended for gallbladder problems. Pancreatitis is NOT fun, and can be deadly. So USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Recipe for passing gallstones:

1. Upon arising, drink 1 glass of unfiltered (preferably organic) apple juice and 3 Hydrangea capsules.

2. Do that every hour all day long. No food or drink except water and the apple juice.

3. Upon retiring, make up 1/2 cup of fresh-squeezed lemon juice and 1/2 cup of olive oil and drink it. Then go to bed. Lay on your right side for about an hour if you can.

4. When you get up the next morning, you will start passing the stones. The stones are hard, irregular, will look greenish and will float. They vary in size. You will need to “fish them out” of the stool IF you want to keep them.

5. In two weeks do the flush again to make sure you have them all.

Tags: gallstones treatment
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HERITAGE FOOD SUPPLY

ime Magazine had a really interesting article on breeds of animals we used to eat, and that some people are trying to bring them back. Our post-World War II massive farms have all but eliminated the food sources we used to have. Are we better off???

The article is cut & pasted below or you can go to the link at time.com:http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1069098,00.html

EAT THEM OR LOSE THEM

Food lovers are developing a taste for “heritage” breeds ignored by big farms and nearly extinct

By MARGOT ROOSEVELT

Posted Monday, Jun. 06, 2005
Down a dirt road, amid rolling hills of alfalfa, Larry and Madonna Sorell’s 40-acre spread looks, smells and sounds like any other Kansas homestead. The weathered wooden farmhouse. The whiff of manure. The cacophony of grunting, gobbling and bleating. But the livestock at Lazy S Farms are no ordinary farm animals. Rooting about in the fields are Red Wattle pigs, a breed thought to have been imported from New Caledonia in the 1700s and practically extinct until a wild herd surfaced in Texas. The turkeys are Standard American Bronzes, which were Thanksgiving fare for more than a century but have now been reduced to some 950 breeder birds. The lambs are Katahdins, a subspecies developed in Maine and named for the state’s highest peak.

Fifty years ago, such breeds were common on family farms. But with the intensive post–World War II industrialization of American agriculture, they all but died out, surviving only on isolated farmsteads for local consumption. In the past five years, however, a new market has sprung up for now rare varieties, thanks to a lively network of big-name chefs, conservation-minded farmers and slow-food devotees. Like heirloom tomatoes and antique roses, so-called heritage meats are attracting discriminating customers–and fetching top dollar.

For Larry Sorell, 65, a fourth-generation grain planter, raising rare animals began as a lark. But as he learned more about the threat to the survival of traditional varieties, he came to see his hobby as a higher calling. “If a breed goes extinct, all the genetics go down the tube,” he says. Besides, he adds as he waters a passel of squealing piglets, “I just love to watch ‘em grow.”

Sorell’s pigs aren’t the only things that are growing. Heritage Foods USA, the largest mail-order firm in the business, was buying five 200-lb. hogs a month from Lazy S but is ratcheting up to 25 a month to meet demand. Besides Red Wattles, named for their ruddy hair and folds of neck skin, the company’s biannual “almanac” offers 70 products, from Tunis lamb to Bourbon Red turkeys. “Dozens of delicious American treasures with a long history are on the brink of extinction,” says Patrick Martins, co-founder of the company. “We must eat them to save them.”

The renewed interest in rare breeds is driven in part by the limited offerings of factory farms in the U.S. Agribusinesses, trying to maximize efficiency in a competitive market, pursue a ruthless genetic specialization, driving the industry toward what ecologists call monocultures–vast numbers of a single variety. According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC), 15 different breeds of pigs were raised for market in the 1930s; today, six of them are extinct. Only three varieties–Hampshire, Yorkshire and Duroc–account for 75% of U.S. production. In the 1920s, some 60 breeds of chickens thrived on American farms; today one hybrid, the Cornish Rock cross, supplies nearly every supermarket. A single turkey dominates: the Broad Breasted White, a fast-growing commercial creation with such a huge breast and short legs that it is unable to mate naturally.

Mass marketing may demand a cow that produces more milk or a duck with a bigger breast. But narrowing the genetics means losing valuable traits, such as resistance to disease and drought, intelligence, easy birthing and longevity. Alarmed at the trend, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is creating a national gene bank in Fort Collins, Colo., for endangered livestock. The urgency has grown since 9/11. “A virus introduced into a poultry plant with 10,000 birds of a single variety is a potent terrorist opportunity,” says ALBC executive director Charles Bassett.

But what fires up many old-breed farmers–and draws food lovers from New York to California–is how the heritage meat tastes. Chefs rave about the complex, succulent flavors of Tamworth pork and Katahdin lamb. Martha Stewart has featured a Standard American Bronze on her Thanksgiving cooking show. At Muss & Turner’s in suburban Atlanta, chef Todd Mussman puts Lazy S Farm’s lean, dark Red Wattle ham on sandwiches that sell for $11.99 each. “The texture is so silky, it melts on the tongue,” says Mussman. He tells customers they are saving not just endangered breeds but small farmers too. Says Mussman: “People want to feel good about what they eat.”

And there’s a lot to feel good about. Most of those animals are organically fed and humanely raised in free-range conditions, although that is at least in part out of necessity. Heirloom breeds tend to be unsuited to factory farming; they grow slowly and reach smaller sizes than industrial varieties. At Flying Pigs Farm in Shushan, N.Y., Gloucestershire Old Spots hogs root around in the woods even in the snow–making for a marbled meat that is, like other old breeds’, high in healthy omega-3 fatty acids. At Good Shepherd Turkey Ranch in Lindsborg, Kans., owner Frank Reese brags that he doesn’t clip his purebreds’ beaks or pump them full of antibiotics. A webcam allows customers to spy on their prospective Thanksgiving dinners while the birds are still squabbling and gobbling grasshoppers.

Much of the trade in heritage fare these days is either at farmers’ markets or over the Internet. LocalHarvest.org connects consumers to 140 heritage-meat farms, including Peaceful Pastures, in Hickman, Tenn., which sells lamb from rare Lincoln Longwools. HeritageFoodsUSA.com touts Texas’ Thunder Heart ranch, whose bison are killed in the fields in a Cohahuiltecan Indian ceremony. Farmers are even putting up their own websites and shipping directly to consumers. Two years ago, Mary and Rick Pitman added Bourbon Reds and Narragansetts, an old New England breed, to their Fresno, Calif., ranch and began selling them at MarysTurkeys.com Soon, says Mary, “I was on my hotline eight hours a day with calls about heritage turkeys.” She sold 5,000 last year, including one to a U.S. soldier in Iraq.

Such efforts have led to a comeback in heritage turkeys that an ALBC report this month calls “amazing.” In 1997, from eight traditional varieties, only 1,335 breeding turkeys were found nationwide, including just six of the splendidly black-and-white-feathered Narragansetts. Today the total has grown to 5,363, including 686 Narragansetts. Highland cattle and Shetland sheep are also moving out of the danger zone. And this month Heritage Foods USA began selling rare Barred Plymouth Rock chickens from farms in Michigan and Kansas. “It�s been 50 years since authentic chickens have been on the market,” says Reese.

How big that market will grow and how much of a premium customers will be willing to pay remain to be seen. Today heritage turkey sells for up to $6 per lb. and Red Wattle pork for $10 per lb., prices that won’t fall unless a lot more Americans change their eating habits. Meanwhile, however, the trend is supporting a growing number of small farms that might otherwise have gone under. Since Sorell began raising old breeds, his farm income has doubled, to $40,000 a year, and could grow bigger when his Red Wattle pork starts getting ground for sausages and hot dogs. But profit, he says, is not the point. “I don’t like to see things disappear,” he says–not small farms or Red Wattles.

Tags: food supply
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HOW TO AVOID TOXINS IN OUR ENVIRONMENT

Our techo-world has so many good inventions and innovations, but only with a heavy price of toxins everywhere. Dr. Mercola ofwww.mercola.com has a list that I found most interesting and scary. I copied his list. If you want the full article, just click on the title below.

The 10 Most Common Toxins

The following toxins are among the most prevalent in our air, water and/or food supply. This list is by no means all-inclusive, as thousands of other toxins are also circulating in our environment. Keep reading to find out tips to avoid these toxins and others as much as possible.

PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls): This industrial chemical has been banned in the United States for decades, yet is a persistent organic pollutant that�s still present in our environment.

Risks: Cancer, impaired fetal brain development
Major Source: Farm-raised salmon. Most farm-raised salmon, which accounts for most of the supply in the United States are fed meals of ground-up fish that have absorbed PCBs in the environment and for this reason should be avoided.
Pesticides: According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 60 percent of herbicides, 90 percent of fungicides and 30 percent of insecticides are known to be carcinogenic. Alarmingly, pesticide residues have been detected in 50 percent to 95 percent of U.S. foods.

Risks: Cancer, Parkinson�s disease, miscarriage, nerve damage, birth defects, blocking the absorption of food nutrients
Major Sources: Food (fruits, vegetables and commercially raised meats), bug sprays
Mold and other Fungal Toxins: One in three people have had an allergic reaction to mold. Mycotoxins (fungal toxins) can cause a range of health problems with exposure to only a small amount.

Risks: Cancer, heart disease, asthma, multiple sclerosis, diabetes
Major Sources: Contaminated buildings, food like peanuts, wheat, corn and alcoholic beverages
Phthalates: These chemicals are used to lengthen the life of fragrances and soften plastics.

Risks: Endocrine system damage (phthalates chemically mimic hormones and are particularly dangerous to children)
Major Sources: Plastic wrap, plastic bottles, plastic food storage containers. All of these can leach phthalates into our food.
VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds): VOCs are a major contributing factor to ozone, an air pollutant. According to the EPA, VOCs tend to be even higher (two to five times) in indoor air than outdoor air, likely because they are present in so many household products.

Risks: Cancer, eye and respiratory tract irritation, headaches, dizziness, visual disorders, and memory impairment
Major Sources: Drinking water, carpet, paints, deodorants, cleaning fluids, varnishes, cosmetics, dry cleaned clothing, moth repellants, air fresheners.
Dioxins: Chemical compounds formed as a result of combustion processes such as commercial or municipal waste incineration and from burning fuels (like wood, coal or oil).

Risks: Cancer, reproductive and developmental disorders, chloracne (a severe skin disease with acne-like lesions), skin rashes, skin discoloration, excessive body hair, mild liver damage
Major Sources: Animal fats: Over 95 percent of exposure comes from eating commercial animal fats.
Asbestos: This insulating material was widely used from the 1950s to 1970s. Problems arise when the material becomes old and crumbly, releasing fibers into the air.

Risks: Cancer, scarring of the lung tissue, mesothelioma (a rare form of cancer)
Major Sources: Insulation on floors, ceilings, water pipes and healing ducts from the 1950s to 1970s.
Heavy Metals: Metals like arsenic, mercury, lead, aluminum and cadmium, which are prevalent in many areas of our environment, can accumulate in soft tissues of the body.

Risks: Cancer, neurological disorders, Alzheimer�s disease, foggy head, fatigue, nausea and vomiting, decreased production of red and white blood cells, abnormal heart rhythm, damage to blood vessels
Major Sources: Drinking water, fish, vaccines, pesticides, preserved wood, antiperspirant, building materials, dental amalgams,chlorine plants
Chloroform: This colorless liquid has a pleasant, nonirritating odor and a slightly sweet taste, and is used to make other chemicals. It�s also formed when chlorine is added to water.

Risks: Cancer, potential reproductive damage, birth defects, dizziness, fatigue, headache, liver and kidney damage.
Major Sources: Air, drinking water and food can contain chloroform.
Chlorine: This highly toxic, yellow-green gas is one of the most heavily used chemical agents.

Risks: Sore throat, coughing, eye and skin irritation, rapid breathing, narrowing of the bronchi, wheezing, blue coloring of the skin, accumulation of fluid in the lungs, pain in the lung region, severe eye and skin burns, lung collapse, reactive airways dysfunction syndrome (RADS) (a type of asthma)
Major Sources: Household cleaners, drinking water (in small amounts), air when living near an industry (such as a paper plant) that uses chlorine in industrial processes.

Tags: toxins in environment
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IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME

IBS, irritable bowel syndrome, is a difficult problem. It is a condition in which the bowels do not work as they should. The muscles of the colon seem to overreact to all sorts of things, such as food, exercise, stress and hormones. In some cases, simply eating a large meal will trigger symptoms. This syndrome is marked by abdominal discomfort, bloating, the feeling of not being finished with a bowel movement, constipation, diarrhea, or alternating constipation and diarrhea. IBS is used as a diagnosis by physicians when no other explanation for the problem could be found.

Many physicians are fatalistic about IBS, saying they don’t know what causes it and nothing cures it. I disagree. By far and away our SAD (standard American diet) is the culprit! Some people tolerate abusing their bodies better than others. When your stomach hurts, it hurts for a reason. Your job (I didn’t say your physician’s job) is to find out why. You don’t have to live with pain. You just have to be willing to give nurtition the importance in your life that it deserves.

Diet is by far the most common cause of irritable bowels. Sometimes the change in diet required needs to be fairly drastic. Dairy (milk, cheeze, yogurt, ice cream, etc) is probably the single biggest cause of irritable bowels. I once had a gastroenterology specialist tell me that if people quit eating dairy, 90% of his business would go away. The next most common is gluten, a protein in wheat, rye and barley. Other foods that tend to cause symptoms include chocolate, alcohol, caffeine, carbonated drinks, and fatty foods. Notice, these are things that we probably shouldn’t be eating anyway, at least in any quantity or with any regularity.

One often overlooked cause of irritable bowel symptoms is Celiac disease. This is an intolerance to gluten, the protein in grains such as wheat and barley. There is a blood test that helps diagnose more severe cases. The only way to find milder cases is a trial with a 100% gluten-free diet. There are links to more information about Celiac Disease on the Links page.

IBS has no cure, but change in diet can control it. In fact, some people never get the symptoms back after a change in diet, or the debiliting problem becomes just a rare annoyance.

So what to do? Here is an outline of where to start:

#1. Eliminate the junk food. Quit eating the chocolate, alcohol, caffeine, carbonated drinks, and fatty fast foods. They just aren’t good for you anyway.

#2. Increase vegetable and fruit fiber in the diet. Fiber reduces irritable bowel symptoms, especially constipation, because it makes the stool soft, bulky, and easier to pass. Fiber is found in 100% whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Cross potatoes and corn off the vegetables list. Potatoes are too high in starch, and I have found corn to be a problem for some people.

#3. Change your diet gradually. Add foods with fiber a little at a time. Let your body get used to the new diet. Too much fiber all at once might cause gas, which can trigger more symptoms.

#4. Eat frequent small meals. Large meals can cause cramping and diarrhea in some people with irritable bowels. That means 5 to 6 small meals a day. Learn to munch instead of gorge.

#5. Eliminate all sources of dairy for a two week trial. See if there is a change in symptoms. Dairy, like I said earlier, is by far and away the most common culprit. If stopping dairy doesn’t work, the next thing to try is eliminating gluten for 4 weeks.

I bet these first 5 starting points sound familiar to folks that have read our book, Obesity’s Answer, the CELL Program. Over and over again, folks have said they feel better on the CELL Program diet. If you still have symptoms after two to three months, then a trial of a 100% gluten-free diet is worth doing. The web site,Celiac.com, has a good forbidden food list. You can do this. You don’t have anything if you don’t have your health.

Tags: IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME
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MERCURY IN TEETH

Discover Magazine has a really nicely-written article about mercury. The old amalgam (50% mercury) fillings could cause health problems? view page

And then this article in the Chicago Tribune: view page

Are Your Teeth Toxic?

The mercury in ’silver’ fillings would be hazardous waste in a river—-yet it’s sitting in your mouth

Published December 11, 2005

A professional musician from Arlington Heights suffers from mysterious rashes and lip blisters. A dental hygienist in Hoffman Estates battles migraines. And a social worker in Prospect Heights is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

All three tried treating their ailments using a controversial method: by having dentists remove and replace their so-called “silver” amalgam tooth fillings, which contain about 50 percent mercury. And all three swear they experienced life-changing health improvements.

Their personal testimonies are part of what makes dental amalgam, the silver lining for hundreds of millions of American mouths, one of the most divisive issues in dentistry. Though it’s one of the oldest materials in oral health care–used by people of all ages for the last 150 years–anti-mercury groups are pushing the startling message that mercury residing in the mouth can leach into the body and cause illness.

“I thought my career was over,” said Arlington Heights’ Matt Comerford, now a trumpet player with the Lyric Opera who was suffering from painful sores along his gums. He began investigating the metals in his mouth and eventually had nine silver fillings replaced with a mercury-free alter-native material.

“Within a week [of having the amalgams replaced], everything healed,” Comerford said.

Amalgam, most dentists admit, is crude and ugly, but they say it’s a valuable option because it’s strong, durable and relatively cheap.

And studies have shown that there is insufficient evidence to link it to health problems (with the exception of allergic reactions), according to the American Dental Association and several federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Regardless, anti-mercury groups are appalled by the notion that the toxic element, which is considered a hazardous waste by the Environmental Protection Agency, is safe when it’s packed inside a tooth. They argue that although it was once thought to be inert inside the mouth, studies now show that mercury can be emitted in minute amounts of vapor and absorbed by the patient through inhalation and ingestion.

At Doctor’s Data, a Chicago lab that specializes in trace-metals analysis, clinicians have found that the amount of mercury in a person’s stool is highly correlated to the number of amalgams in the mouth.

“What stool testing drives home is that parts of the amalgams don’t stay in the teeth and we’re swallowing mercury,” said Dean Bass, a chemist at Doctor’s Data and a scientist at Argonne National Laboratories. “But it doesn’t necessarily tell you how much mercury the body absorbs.”

A long-running controversy

The debate over silver amalgam dates at least to 1845, when the now-defunct American Academy of Dental Surgeons asked its members to sign a pledge never to use it. Though amalgam use has been declining since the 1970s because more eye-pleasing options are available and cavities are smaller, federal lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill to ban silver/mercury fillings for children and pregnant and nursing women and to phase them out completely in three years.

In California, dentists are required by state law to post a warning that dental amalgams “cause exposure to mercury, a chemical known to the state of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm.”

“The ADA is wrong that the issue is `safety.’ The issue is `risk,’” said Charlie Brown, national counsel for Consumers for Dental Choice and Coalition for Mercury-Free Dentistry. He has filed a petition asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the ADA and the Connecticut State Dental Association for what the groups claims is making false, deceptive and unsubstantiated claims in promoting silver/mercury amalgam.

“On this point scientists agree: Mercury is a virulent neurotoxin that can permanently harm the developing brain of a child or fetus. Yet a recent Zogby poll shows three in five people don’t know that `silver’ fillings have mercury,” said Brown, who pointed out that silver fillings are in fact mainly mercury.

The ADA staunchly defends the safety of amalgam, still used in about 30 percent of restorations. Amalgam, made by mixing elemental liquid mercury with an alloy powder composed of silver, tin, copper and sometimes smaller amounts of other metals, hardens quickly and tolerates saliva. This makes it useful for treating squirmy young children or special-needs patients who have a hard time sitting still.

Money and ethics

Some dental insurance companies don’t cover the more expensive alternatives to amalgam. And because science doesn’t definitively link the silver fillings to health problems, the ADA considers it unethical for dentists to tell patients that removing amalgams can improve health.

“Amalgam has the longest history, the most data and the largest number of studies supporting it. Yet time after time, we have to come back and address it,” said Dr. Fred Eichmiller, director of the ADA Foundation’s Paffenbarger Resource Center, where alternatives to amalgams have been invented.

Critics argue that the issue also is environmental. Mercury is emitted into the air when bodies with mercury fillings are cremated. It gets into the water when fillings are removed and leftover material is not disposed of properly.

“Amalgams don’t need to be used in the 21st Century,” said Downers Grove dentist Janet Stopka, who uses composite, porcelain and gold.

For consumers, the decision whether to replace amalgams can be a difficult one. Urine, hair and feces can all be tested for mercury levels and chelating agents can pull mercury out of the organs. But the results don’t necessarily tell whether there is enough mercury present to pose a health risk and an official diagnosis of “mercury poisoning” can be tentative.

Swapping out old fillings can be expensive; each replacement can cost $75 to $200. And there are no guaranteed benefits.

Nevertheless, Dawn Quast, a dental hygienist for Dr. John Rothchild in Hoffman Estates, decided to have four small fillings replaced after she witnessed both small and profound improvements in Rothchild’s patients who had amalgams replaced.

“I had a migraine the night I had the last silver one removed and haven’t had one since [in 12 years],” Quast said.

Rothchild, a mercury-free dentist, said he doesn’t push people into having silver fillings removed.

No guarantees

“I never promise any medical cures because you can’t,” he said. Instead, he presents both sides of the issue on his Web site and provides patient referrals. “If people come in asking about amalgams, I’ll tell them,” he said. “If they’re there for basic dentistry, I don’t say anything.”

Linda Brocato of Prospect Heights went to several dentists before she made the difficult decision to have her 16 silver fillings removed. Her problems began in 1980, when she looked in the mirror one morning and noticed her right eye was drooping. Seven years and dozens of health issues later, the former social worker was crippled, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

It wasn’t until Brocato heard about the Minneapolis-based group Dental Amalgam Mercury Syndrome (DAMS), however, that she began to believe she had mercury poisoning.

Two weeks after she had her last amalgams replaced, Brocato said her slurred speech began to disappear and her strength and balance improved. She knows the symptoms of MS come and go, which could explain her improved health, but she is convinced that removing the silver fillings made a big difference.

“I have five pages of improvements,” said Brocato, 56, who is still in a wheelchair but no longer takes medication for MS. She is now one of the Illinois coordinators for DAMS. “I don’t know how people can say there isn’t evidence.”

- - -

Help on the Web

For more information:

The American Dental Association: ada.org.

The International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology: iaomt.org.

Consumers for Dental Choice, www.toxicteeth.org.

———-

jdeardorff@tribune.com

Tags: teeth
Posted in Matters Of Health | No Comments »

MILK INCREASES OSTEOPOROSIS

Dairy is the single biggest overrated food in this country. Your body does not “need” milk. The dairy industry has lined their pockets from all the advertising, to the point where mothers think they are abusing their children if they don’t force them to drink milk. Just think what the cow people did to Oprah! She won but she lost in time and money defending herself. And do you think she says anything bad about cows any more? Heck no! But I have a feeling milk is not included in her “no white stuff” new diet. There is a great web site that is worth looking at www.notmilk.com. It has all kinds of information about just why NOT milk. I copy-pasted information here on osteoporosis. Check their web site for more.

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American women have been consuming an average of two pounds of milk per day for their entire lives, yet thirty million American women have osteoporosis. Drinking milk does not prevent bone loss. Bone loss is accelerated by ingesting too much protein, and milk has been called “liquid meat.”

In order to absorb calcium, the body needs comparable amounts of another mineral element, magnesium. Milk and dairy products contain only small amounts of magnesium. Magnesium is the center atom of chlorophyll:

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“Osteoporosis is caused by a number of things, one of the most important being too much dietary protein.”

Science 1986;233(4763)

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“Countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis, such as the United States, England, and Sweden, consume the most milk. China and Japan, where people eat much less protein and dairy food, have low rates of osteoporosis.”

Nutrition Action Healthletter, June, 1993

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“What appears to be important in bone metabolism is not calcium intake, but calcium balance. The loss of bone integrity among many post menopausal white women probably results from genetics and from diet and lifestyle factors. Research shows that calcium losses are increased by the use of animal protein, salt, caffeine, and tobacco, and by physical inactivity.”

Neal Barnard, M.D., Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine, Understanding Health, December, 1999

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“Dietary protein increases production of acid in the blood which can be neutralized by calcium mobilized from the skeleton.”

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1995; 61 (4)

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“About 50,000 Americans die each year of problems related in some way to osteoporosis.”

Osteoporosis International 1993;3(3)

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“Even when eating 1,400 mg of calcium daily, one can lose up to 4% of his or her bone mass each year while consuming a high-protein diet.”

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1979;32(4)

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“Increasing one’s protein intake by 100% may cause calcium loss to double.”

Journal of Nutrition, 1981; 111 (3)

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“The average man in the US eats 175% more protein than the recommended daily allowance and the average woman eats 144% more.”

Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health, 1988

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“Calcium intake demonstrated no protective in preventing bone fractures. In fact, those populations with the highest calcium intakes had higher fracture rates than those with more modest calcium intakes.”

Calif Tissue Int 1992;50

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“There is no significant association between teenaged milk consumption and the risk of adult fractures. Data indicate that frequent milk consumption and higher dietary calcium intakes in middle aged women do not provide protection against hip or forearm fractures… women consuming greater amounts of calcium from dairy foods had significantly increased risks of hip fractures, while no increase in fracture risk was observed for the same levels of calcium from nondairy sources.”

12-year Harvard study of 78,000 women American Journal of Public Health 1997;87

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“Consumption of dairy products, particularly at age 20 years, were associated with an increased risk of hip fractures…metabolism of dietary protein causes increased urinary excretion of calcium.”

American Journal of Epidemiology 1994;139

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From www.notmilk.com

Tags: milk, OSTEOPOROSIS
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OBESITY AND CELIAC

Weight loss is a classic symptom of Celiac, sometimes to the point of nearly dying. Thirty years ago Celiacs who were diagnosed had to wither away like concentration camp survivors before someone figured out what was wrong with them. Many died in misery without a diagnosis. Some have persistent nausea and vomiting for unexplained reasons. Losing weight happens only in severe Celiac at the end stages when there is a lot of gut damage.

More people actually GAIN weight in the early stages of Celiac Syndrome than lose weight. Five years ago I started trying to figure out why some really obese people TRY to lose weight yet can not. My book, Obesity’s Answer, the CELL Program published in 2003 was a result of those efforts. Quite often, food sensitivities are the culprit. In fact, I found in my practice that about 10 to 15% of really big folks who cannot lose weight on my CELL Program, need to also stop eating gluten to succeed. Sometimes the weight drops quite rapidly after that.

I’m still not sure I should call what these folks have Celiac something? Often their blood test are negative. But then negative blood tests don’t rule out Celiac Syndrome.

Tags: celiac
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