The Sugar and Alzheimer’s Connection
mellydonut/Flickr
Egged on by massive food-industry marketing budgets, Americans eat a lot of sugary foods. We know the habit is quite probably wrecking our bodies, triggering high rates of overweight and diabetes. Is it also wrecking our brains?
That’s the disturbing conclusion emerging in a body of research linking Alzheimer’s disease to insulin resistance—which is in turn linked to excess sweetener consumption. A blockbuster story in the Sept. 3 issue of the UK magazine The New Scientist teases out the connections.
Scientists have known for a while that insulin regulates blood sugar, “giving the cue for muscles, liver and fat cells to extract sugar from the blood and either use it for energy or store it as fat,” New Scientist reports. Trouble begins when our muscle, fat, and liver cells stop responding properly to insulin—that is, they stop taking in glucose. This condition, known as insulin resistance and also pre-diabetes, causes the pancreas to produce excess amounts of insulin even as excess glucose builds up in the blood. Type 2 diabetes, in essence, is the chronic condition of excess blood glucose—its symptoms include frequent bladder, kidney, and skin infections, fatigue, excess hunger, and erectile dysfunction.
Here in the US, Type 2 diabetes rates have tripled since 1980, New Scientist reports.
What’s emerging, the magazine shows, is that insulin “also regulates neurotransmitters, like acetylcholine, which are crucial for memory and learning.” That’s not all: “And it is important for the function and growth of blood vessels, which supply the brain with oxygen and glucose. As a result, reducing the level of insulin in the brain can immediately impair cognition.”
So when people develop insulin resistance, New Scientist reports, insulin spikes “begin to overwhelm the brain, which can’t constantly be on high alert,” And then bad things happen: “Either alongside the other changes associated with type 2 diabetes, or separately, the brain may then begin to turn down its insulin signalling, impairing your ability to think and form memories before leading to permanent neural damage”—and eventually, Alzheimer’s.
Chillingly, scientists have been able to induce these conditions in lab animals. At her lab at Brown, scientist Suzanne de la Monte blocked insulin inflow to the brains of mice—and essentially induced Alzheimer’s. When she examined their brains, here’s what she found, as described by New Scientist:
Areas associated with memory were studded with bright pink plaques, like rocks in a climbing wall, while many neurons, full to bursting point with a toxic protein, were collapsing and crumbling. As they disintegrated, they lost their shape and their connections with other neurons, teetering on the brink of death.
For a paper published this year, Rutgers researchers got a similar result on rabbits with induced diabetes.
There’s also research tying brain dysfunction directly to excess sugar consumption. In a 2012 study, UCLA scientists fed rats a heavy ration of fructose (which makes up roughly a half of both table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup) and noted both insulin resistance and impaired brain function within six weeks. Interestingly, they found both insulin function and brain performance to improve in the sugar-fed rats when they were also fed omega-3 fatty acids. In other words, another quirk of the American diet, deficiency in omega-3 fatty acids, seems to make us more vulnerable to the onslaught of sweets.
Another facet of our diets, lots of cheap added fats, may also trigger insulin problems and brain dysfunction. New Scientist flags yet another recent study, this one from University of Washington researchers, finding that rats fed a high-fat diet for a year lost their ability to regulate insulin, developed diabetes, and showed signs of brain deterioration.
Altogether, the New Scientist story makes a powerful case that the standard American diet is as devastating for our brains as it is for our bodies. The situation is tragic:
In the US alone, 19 million people have now been diagnosed with the condition, while a further 79 million are considered “prediabetic”, showing some of the early signs of insulin resistance. If Alzheimer’s and type 2 diabetes do share a similar mechanism, levels of dementia may follow a similar trajectory as these people age.
Yet another reason to load up on fruit and veggies—and work to wrest federal farm policy (which encourages the production of cheap sweeteners and fats)—from the grip of agribusiness.
Source: http://www.motherjones.com
A New Greek Name for Statin Toxicity: Polymyalgia Rheumatica
New Research: Statins Increase Risk of Polymalgia Rheumatica 14-Fold
Few drugs are as toxic to the organ they are prescribed to “treat” as statins. There are already hundreds of studies indicating that statin drugs are muscle-damaging (myotoxic) and nerve-damaging (neurotoxic), and yet they are somehow still legally allowed to be sold to millions of patients worldwide, ostensibly to protect the human heart — which is, mind you, a muscle with an exceptionally high density of nerves.
After research published back in 2009 in the journal Cardiology found that statin drug use was associated with impaired heart muscle function, there is little doubt remaining that they do far more harm than good. In fact, no less than 300 adverse health effects have been linked to this chemical class of drugs.
Some of the most consistently observed effects listed below
- Liver Damage
- Rhabdomyolysis
- Coenzyme Q10 Deficiency
- Type 2 Diabetes
- Cataract
- Pancreatitits
- Cognitive Decline/Dysfunction
- Erectile Dysfunction
- Peripheral Neuropathies
- Mitochondrial Dysfunction
Recently published research reveals another way in which the obvious damage caused by statin drugs is being covered up, whether by ignorance or intention. Statin drug-induced symptoms have been renamed in Greek as a newly minted, seemingly unrelated disease: Polymyalgia Rheumatica.
Polymyalgia translates from the Greek “pain in many muscles,” and rheumatic means “flux.” Published in the journal PLoS, researchers analyzed the World Health Organization’s Global Individual Case Safety Database, and found that of the 327 cases of PMR reported, ” statins were more frequently reported as suspected agent (29.4%) compared to non-cases (2.9%).”
They found a 14-fold increased relative risk for PMR in statin users:
After adjustment for several covariates, statins were significantly associated with reports of PMR (ROR 14.21; 95% CI 9.89-20.85)
Research like this reveals a likely possibility, namely, that the well-known muscle soreness (myalgia) and inflammation (myositis) associated with statin drugs is far from a rare “side effect” and is likely universally present, the difference being only the degree to which the damage and subsequent adverse effects are experienced. So, instead of calling statin-induced muscle damage by its proper name, the medical establishment projects a “new syndrome,” dressed up in Greek, onto the symptom picture.
Furthermore, given the wide range of natural substances with cholesterol-lowering properties which are available either as foods, e.g. chocolate and coconut water, or benign plant extracts, e.g. policosanol, with far superior safety and at least equivalent efficacy versus a drug, continuing forward with the statin drug paradigm is not only illogical but highly immoral.
Source: www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/
Why Schizophrenics Smoke
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When it comes to cigarettes, schizophrenics just can’t seem to get enough. They’re two to three times more likely to smoke than the general population, and patients have been known to puff through up to four packs a day. New research on mice may explain this behavior: Nicotine spurs the production of a key neural protein that’s scarce in schizophrenics–and that may help relieve their symptoms.
The 100 billion neurons in our brains are continually signaling one another. These impulses are like cars zooming through a city without traffic lights to deliver a message–they would pile up and the messages would get garbled. To keep neural signal traffic flowing, the brain uses certain neurotransmitters as stoplights to prevent neurons from firing out of turn. Reduced levels of one such neurotransmitter, called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), characterizes the brains of schizophrenia patients. Researchers think that without the stoplight effect of GABA, signals in the schizophrenic brain overlap and get jumbled in a sort of neural traffic jam, resulting in hallucinations, disorganized thinking, and anxiety.
Previous studies have pinpointed nicotine receptors on the surface of GABA-making cells. That observation, plus the knowledge that schizophrenics often abuse cigarettes and report relief from their symptoms afterward led Alessandro Guidotti, a neuroscientist at the University of Illinois in Chicago, and colleagues, to explore the connection between nicotine and GABA production. They wanted to determine whether smoking represented an unconscious attempt at self-medication in schizophrenics.
The team injected groups of six normal mice with the equivalent amount of nicotine as someone would receive from smoking 20 to 30 cigarettes at a time (about one pack). Some groups received the treatment once every 3 hours for 4 days–simulating constant, heavy smoking–and the second group received the treatment only once. Mice that received the largest amount of nicotine produced up to 38% less of a protein called DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1), which led to a surge in the protein that produces GABA, the researchers report online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers speculate that high levels of nicotine switch off DNMT1, which is present in large amounts in the schizophrenic brain. Patients with the disorder may crave cigarettes because they are trying to tamp these DNAMT1 levels and get their GABA flowing, the team concludes. “The goal now is to study what else besides GABA is affected by the increase in DNMT1,” says Guidotti.
Francine Benes, a psychiatrist at Harvard University’s McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, says these initial findings represent an important step forward in schizophrenia research. Understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in GABA synthesis can lead to more specific, possibly nicotine-derived schizophrenia treatments, she explains. “And the more specific treatments get, the more likely they are to be effective,” Benes says.
Baking Soda & Cancer (The Last Laugh)
Dr Mark Pagel
University of Arizona Cancer Center member Dr. Mark Pagel will receive a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the effectiveness of personalized baking soda therapy to treat breast cancer. In other words, clinical trials on the use of oral sodium bicarbonate for breast cancer treatments are about to start![1] Obviously there are people in the know who have understood that sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), that same stuff that can save a person’s life in the emergency room in a heartbeat, is a primary cancer treatment option of the safest and most effective kind.
Of course I feel vindicated for everything I wrote in Sodium Bicarbonate – Rich Man’s Poor Man’s Cancer Treatment, which still stands as the only full medical review on the subject of using simple baking soda in the practice of medicine. When taken orally with water, especially water with high magnesium content, and when used transdermally in medicinal baths, sodium bicarbonate becomes a first-line medicinal for the treatment of cancer, kidney disease, diabetes, influenza and even the common cold. And importantly, it is also a powerful buffer against radiation exposure, so everyone should be up to speed on its use. Everybody’s physiology is under heavy nuclear attack from strong radioactive winds that are circling the northern hemisphere.
Actually it is no surprise that a University of Arizona researcher received this grant because there has been cancer research going on for years there. Dr. Robert J. Gillies and his colleagues have already demonstrated that pre-treatment of mice with sodium bicarbonate results in the alkalinization of the area around tumors. The same researchers reported that bicarbonate increases tumor pH and also inhibits spontaneous metastases in mice with breast cancer.[2] It also reduces the rate of lymph node involvement.
I recently published about fungal infections, and breast cancer has been found to be associated with increased frequency of mold-fermented cheese consumption.[3] Fungi produce toxic metabolites called mycotoxins[4] that can cause cancer. Aflatoxin is a mycotoxin with carcinogenic potency that is found in inferior peanut butter and other nut and dairy products. Researchers in 1993 examined human breast cancer tissue and found significant carcinogenic aflatoxin within the cancer tissue implicating aflatoxin and thus fungus as a cause of breast cancer.[5]
The pH level of our internal fluids affects every cell in our body.
Chronic over-acidity corrodes body tissue, and if left unchecked
will interrupt all cellular activities and functions. In other words,
over-acidity interferes with life itself. It is at the root of cancer.
Sodium bicarbonate medical treatments are the time honored method to “speed up” the return of the body’s bicarbonate levels to normal. Sodium bicarbonate happens to be one of our most useful medicines as it treats the basic acid-alkaline axis of human physiology.
The pH of our tissues and body fluids is crucial and central because it affects and mirrors the state of our health or our inner cleanliness. The closer the pH is to 7.35-7.45, the higher our level of health and wellbeing. Staying within this range dramatically increases our ability to resist acute illnesses like colds and flues as well as the onset of cancer and other diseases. Keeping our pH within a healthy range also involves necessary lifestyle and dietary changes that will protect us over the long term while the use of sodium bicarbonate gives us a jump-start toward increased alkalinity.
The pH scale is like a thermometer showing increases and decreases in the acid and alkaline content of fluids. Deviations above or below a 7.35-7.45 pH range in the tightly controlled blood can signal potentially serious and dangerous symptoms or states of disease. When the body can no longer effectively neutralize and eliminate the acids, it relocates them within the body’s extra-cellular fluids and connective tissue cells directly compromising cellular integrity. Conversely when the body becomes too alkaline from too much bicarbonate in the blood, metabolic alkalosis occurs, which can lead to severe consequences if not corrected quickly.[6]
Jon Barron presents a way of looking at pH that opens up one of the major benefits of alkaline water:
Hydrogen ions tie up oxygen. That means that the more acid a liquid is, the less available the oxygen in it. Every cell in our body requires oxygen for life and to maintain optimum health. Combine that with what we know about hydrogen ions and we see that the more acid the blood (the lower its pH), the less oxygen is available for use by the cells. Without going into a discussion of the chemistry involved, just understand that it’s the same mechanism involved when acid rain “kills” a lake. The fish literally suffocate to death because the acid in the lake “binds up” all of the available oxygen. It’s not that the oxygen has gone anywhere; it’s just no longer available. Conversely, if you raise the pH of the lake (make it more alkaline), oxygen is now available and the lake comes back to life. Incidentally, it’s worth noting that cancer is related to an acid environment (lack of oxygen)—the higher the pH (the more oxygen present in the cells of the body), the harder it is for cancer to thrive.
Understanding this is important for two reasons: (1) it reveals one of the primary benefits of alkaline water—more “available” oxygen in the system and (2) it explains why alkaline water helps fight cancer.
The ocean, the mother of all life, has an average pH of about 8.1.
The ideal pH for blood sits at about 7.4, slightly alkaline—not acidic.
Jon Barron
Barron concludes:
If you’re eating well and living cleanly, then yes, you want to drink water with a naturally occurring pH only slightly above neutral. However, if you are eating the typical Western diet, high in meat, grains, sodas, and sugars that acidify the body, then you have a different problem. Your pH balance is now so far out of normal that you must go beyond normal in the other direction to counter it. My recommendation for daily drinking water pH is about 7.5-8—depending on how acid forming your diet is. Long-term consumption of higher pH water should be reserved for special circumstances. The most famous mountain waters in the world, waters renowned for their healing properties, are highly alkaline. I’m referring to the waters coming down from the Himalayas, and specifically to the waters of the Hunza Valley, which have a pH that runs between 9 and 11.
One does not have to be a doctor to practice pH medicine. Every practitioner of the healing arts and every mother and father needs to understand how to use sodium bicarbonate. Bicarbonate deficiency is a real problem that deepens with age so it really does pay to understand and appreciate what baking soda is all about.
[3] One sample study is by Le, et al. (1986), in a French case-control study of 1,010 breast cancer cases and 1,950 controls with nonmalignant diseases, found that breast cancer was found to be associated with increased frequency of mold fermented cheese consumption.
[4] Going, et al. (1990) found that weddellite (calcium oxalate) crystals are present in calcifications found in the breast tissue of patients with breast cancer. Calcium oxalate crystals are formed when calcium binds with oxalic acid. Oxalic acid is a mycotoxin that can be produced by a number of different fungal species. Some fungi produce such large amounts of oxalic acid that they are used for commercial production of chemicals. Aspergillus niger fungal infection in human lungs produces large amounts of oxalic acid.
[5] Researchers examined human DNA from a variety of tissues and organs to identify and quantify aflatoxin DNA-adducts. Such adducts are considered to be proof of the mycotoxin’s presence in a particular tissue.Their finding? “Tumor tissues had higher aflatoxin-adduct levels than did normal tissue from the same individual.”
Big Pharma Whistles, and the Drug Enforcement Administration Comes Running
The DEA is enabling—even encouraging—a generation of opiate addicts, while the FDA tries to quash safe and helpful supplements like DHEA.
Goodness, the legal drug-makers have been busy! This week the Associated Press revealed that in 2010, US pharmacies dispensed the equivalent of 69 tons of pure oxycodone (used as ingredient in OxyContin, Percocet, and Percodan) and 42 tons of pure hydrocodone (used in Vicodin, Norco, and Lortab). That’s enough to give forty 5-milligram Percocets and twenty-four 5-milligram Vicodins to every single person in the United States.
The production and sale of both drugs has increased tremendously over the past decade; in some locations, sales have increased by 1,500 percent. Distribution is particularly high in Appalachia, the Midwest—particularly suburbia—and the Southwest.
Why the increase? Our poor diets and inactive lifestyles increase inflammation and pain. Older people are especially vulnerable in this regard. And doctors are increasingly willing to treat pain with drugs. Sales are also being driven by addiction, as users become physically dependent on painkillers and begin “doctor shopping” to keep the prescriptions coming.
As with all opiates, oxycodone and hydrocodone bind to opiate receptors in the brain, blocking not only pain signals but any negative emotions like stress or anxiety. The euphoria associated with early use fades relatively quickly as tolerance builds. The pain-managing efficacy will also be reduced as tolerance builds—which is why these drugs should not be used for long-term or chronic pain. If users take the drug for longer than prescribed, or in higher doses, it is likely that they will become addicted.
Addicts die from drug overdoses at a much higher rate than the rest of the population. Opioid pain relievers like oxycodone and hydrocodone caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008. Addiction is also responsible for the alarming rise in pharmacy robberies nationwide.
The epidemic is not likely to abate soon. The explosion of pain management clinics in Florida, dubbed “pill mills,” prompted the state legislature to close a loophole that had allowed physicians to fill oxycodone prescriptions on the spot. Authorities say a half-billion doses of the drug and its generic equivalents were distributed in the state during 2009 alone. An unknown number wound up in the hands of “patients” who had come from out of state to have prescriptions filled by multiple pill mills, before driving home to resell the pills on the black market.
According to Gene Haislip, who for seventeen years was head of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Office of Diversion Control, the DEA’s policy of allowing increases in the production of these drugs in the face of widespread illegal and non-medical use shows a “serious lack of accountability and oversight”:
The DEA is the lone federal agency with the power to decide how much of the drug gets made and put out there; it alone has had all the responsibility to do something about this problem. The way I did it for seventeen years, which was basically the way it had always been done even before the DEA was the DEA, is that when a significant diversion problem occurred, the quota increase requests would come under greater scrutiny. With Oxy, there has been a significant diversion problem since the late 1990s, so the requests should have come under greater scrutiny.
That apparently didn’t happen, Haislip says. Instead, the DEA has rubber-stamped Big Pharma’s requests to increase oxycodone production. And why is that? Political influence, plain and simple.
As Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, pointed out in her 2004 book The Truth about the Drug Companies, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) employs more lobbyists in Washington than there are members of Congress. Since 2007, the group has spent more than $20 million annually on lobbying in Washington to see that its interests are protected. Haislip says DEA won’t block a company’s requested quota increase “if that company is supporting members of Congress who have the power to block the agency’s funding.”
Then there’s the revolving door between the Office of Diversion Control and drug manufacturers or consulting firms that work with both industry and DEA. People working in the Office of Diversion Control know they might get lucrative work with drug companies upon retirement, and this constitutes a huge conflict of interest that prevents DEA officials from doing their duty. They certainly aren’t going to offer an opinion or do something that’s going to cut off their future prospects.
Contrast the “hands-off” approach dealing with incredibly addictive narcotics with the aggressive disapproval of perfectly safe supplements like DHEA. DHEA, which is short for dehydroepiandrosterone, is a natural hormone produced by the adrenal glands, the gonads, and the brain. DHEA is the most abundant circulating steroid hormone in humans and is sometimes referred to as the mother hormone since other hormones can be made from it. In its supplement form, DHEA is used for slowing or reversing aging, improving thinking skills in older people, slowing the progress of Alzheimer’s disease, weight loss, decreasing the symptoms of menopause, and boosting the immune system.
As we reported last October, DHEA supplementation also helps create improvements in muscle strength and bone mineral density with a reduction in body fat mass. And there is substantial support for its effectiveness in fighting adrenal insufficiency, hypopituitarism, general osteoporosis, systemic lupus, depression, schizophrenia, and balancing the overproduction of cortisol produced by excessive stress. Too much cortisol ages us rapidly; a little extra DHEA can make all the difference.
There are a number of different forms of DHEA. 5-DHEA is the form most commonly sold on the market and used for aging, depression, obesity, cardiovascular risk, and adrenal insufficiency. However, it can result in an increased production of male hormones, which may be positive or negative depending on various factors. For example, some aging males convert extra testosterone to estrogen, a process called aromatization, and too much in women can cause unwanted hair growth. For men with prostate troubles, 1-DHEA might be a better choice (no estrogenicity and decreased androgenicity), while 19Nor-DHEA might be better for women (little estrogenicity and anti-androgenic metabolites). But these little-known forms of DHEA are especially vulnerable to being lumped together with dangerous drugs and banned—simply because they are not well known.
DHEA has had a fifteen-year record of complete safety. Despite this, FDA and certain members of Congress keep trying to regulate it as a controlled substance, specifically as an anabolic steroid, even when used in dietary supplements.
Currently DHEA could be classified as an illegal anabolic steroid if the DEA were to present evidence that it meets all eight requirements under the Anabolic Steroids/Controlled Substances law. As the DEA has not yet put DHEA on the list, they clearly either don’t think it fits or hesitate for other reasons. Legislation was introduced a few years ago to add DHEA to the DEA’s controlled substances list, even though DEA already had the power to put it on the list if they met the burden of proof.
No deaths from DHEA. No addictions. No shameful deals between the manufacturer and federal agencies. No organized crime because of DHEA in America’s heartland. And yet DHEA is under attack, while big Pharma keeps churning out dangerous opiates by the ton.
Source: http://www.anh-usa.org/big-pharma-whistles-and-dea-comes-running/
Dr. Abram Hoffer on the Treatment of Schizophrenia
Dr. Abram Hoffer, MD (Medical Doctor), PhD (Doctor of Philosophy), RNCP (Registered Nutritional Consulting Practitioner), founder of The Orthomolecular Vitamin Information Centre.
I have a PhD from the University of Minnesota, a Medical Degree from Toronto. I’m a Fellow Neuropharmacology Physician in Canada. I became Director of Psychiatric Research in the Province of Saskatchewan of the Department of Public Health in 1950 until 1967. I was Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan; at that time I was in charge of very large research programs and we became known for our work in psychedelic drugs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HbUxPisISmQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=X9cg4454mYA
Orthomolecular Treatment for Schizophrenia. COMBAT SCHIZOPHRENIA WITH THE MEGAVITAMIN AND NUTRITIONAL STRATEGIES OF ORTHOMOLECULAR PSYCHIATRY – Schizophrenia is a disease and syndrome with biochemical origins that has the hallmarks of debilitating perceptual disorders and thought disturbances. Orthomolecular psychiatry, a treatment strategy that uses megadoses of vitamins B-3 and C in conjunction with correct nutrition, yields a 90 percent recovery rate in acute cases and up to 50 percent in chronic patients. This guide by the cofounder of orthomolecular therapy offers a step-by-step approach so that patients and their families will get the maximum benefits from treatment.
From the Publisher
THE MAGIC OF ORTHOMOLECULAR TREATMENT – Orthomolecular treatment of schizophrenia is a comprehensive approach that includes megavitamin therapy, nutrition, and counseling of both patient and family members. This guide, written by a cofounder of orthomolecular psychiatry, outlines the strategies you will need to get an informed diagnosis, proper treatment, and appropriate, flexible follow-up for the schizophrenic patient.
In fact, there’s a film called Psychedelic Pioneers, which on the first 10 years of our research, when we made our major discoveries about Schizophrenia and about the use of vitamins as a potentially good treatment.
In 1967, I resigned from my two jobs. They were nice cushy jobs. I didn’t have to do anything. I could have stayed there forever until I retired when I turned 65, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to help patients.
I opened a private practice in Saskatoon, moved to Victoria in 1976. At the end of that year, I surrendered my medical license for many reasons. I opened up a new business, The Orthomolecular Vitamin Information Centre. That year I was sitting in the office of OVIC (Orthomolecular Vitamin Information Centre).
Can you explain what orthomolecular is?
It was a term developed by Dr. Linus Pauling who was a good friend of mine. “Ortho” means correct. Molecule, molecule, we know what that is. [ Molecule: The smallest particle of a substance that retains the chemical and physical properties of the substance and is composed of two or more atoms; a group of like or different atoms held together by chemical forces. ]
Dr. Linus Pauling implied that the human body would function normally as long as it was able to obtain the right natural molecules that it needed in order to survive. As long as the body had the right number of amino acids, vitamins, minerals, hormones, and all these other things [nutrients], it was okay. Orthomolecular Medicine meant that we would emphasize the use of these natural components to provide treatment on the assumption that in most cases there was something wrong in these different elements [vitamins, minerals, amino acids and fatty acids, hormones, enzymes, etc.].
Dr. Linus Pauling published the term “Orthomolecular Medicine” in 1968 in an article in Science Magazine. It was a very major article. The term, Orthomolecular Medicine, was accepted with hostility, fantastic hostility and the medical community became extremely hostile to Dr. Pauling. They hadn’t heard about me so I didn’t get any of that hostility. But Dr. Pauling was a double Nobel Prize winner so he stuck his foot out. They said he was a mere PhD, in fact he had 48 of them. He also had many DSEs, Doctor of Science. But they [the medical community] said he ought not to be making any statements about the use of vitamins. In fact, it was Dr. Linus Pauling’s work with the structure of molecules and the reactions of molecules within the body that created the basis for modern medicine today.
Orthomolecular Medicine means we emphasize proper nutrition; the use of vitamins in adequate quantities, which may mean large or small. Minerals, we use everything we can to help our patients get well. We are not against drugs. We are against the ways in which drugs are used today. We are in favour of the proper use of drugs. That is, in minor quantities and get the patient off as soon as you can. So, that’s Orthomolecular Medicine.
What sort of results have you found using orthomolecular medicine?
The main difference is that our patients get well. Now, the term “cure” does not exist in psychiatry. You didn’t know that, did you? If you look in the standard psychiatric dictionary, the word “cure” has been deleted because the average psychiatric point of view is that you cannot cure anyone. You cannot cure them, you can help them. You can relieve them of some of the symptoms but you cannot cure them. So that’s why they are contend ??? with some of the schizophrenic patients, who are placed on heavy medication so he’s no longer hallucinating, he’s not longer hearing voices, and seeing visions. The fact now that he can’t function; he’s sitting at home salivating and watching television all day, psychiatrists think that’s great. After all, that’s all they’re expected to do, they’re expected to merely get them out of the hospital so they can stay at home and let their family worry about them.
On the other hand, we don’t have that view. My friends and I, in the field of orthomolecular psychiatry, we are aiming at recovery. A young patient I saw in 1973, I think it was, when he was 15 or 16, he was schizophrenic. I started him on the orthomolecular approach which meant paying attention to the right nutrition. Getting him off junk food, getting him on the right vitamins which in his case was vitamin B3, niacin. I think it was niacin. I only saw him once or twice because at that time I left Saskatoon to come here [Victoria, B.C.], so I couldn’t see him anymore. Today he is on the Professorial Staff at Oxford University in England. He’s normal, he’s been normal ever since.
I’ve seen over 5,000 schizophrenic patients. I know 17 men who were Schizophrenic in their teens, who recovered and became doctors. One today heads up a Pediatric clinic; he’s a graduate of Harvard University. One today is the head of a large psychiatric department in an American University. The third one became the head of the Canadian Psychiatric Association; he had been a patient of mine. These were young men who were seriously sick and who became doctors and who were able to practice.
[With orthomolecular medicine] We are aiming toward recovery. We can’t always get there, but we try. There are 4 things you have to do to help people get well.http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9-D7Ehz8lvI
1. You have to give them shelter. You never get the homeless well. You cannot treat the homeless and half the homeless are schizophrenic. They’ve been very shabbly treated. There are no shelter.
2. Secondly, you have to have good food. You have to have really good food, as we all agree with that.
3. They have to be treated with civility; they have to be treated with respect. They have to be treated as humans. Today, unfortunately, in psychiatry, too often the patients are not treated that way at all. They’re badly treated, mistreated. They’re forced to take injections against their will, even though that’s against the law in Canada.
4. The fourth aspect of treatment is what I call orthomolecular. They have to be given the right combination of nutrition, vitamins, minerals, and medication if necessary. But the medication has to be used carefully and all to make sure the medication is not damaged in that process.
The main message has to be that we have to change the system. The system is sick and corrupt. We have to change the system. Eventually we have to make the medical profession accountable. Someone has to ask the medical professional, “Why do you tolerate this?” We have to ask them that. What we need in Canada is an independent commission headed by a Judge, broad-sweeping commission to actually examine the whole issue, “Why is the medical profession not being held accountable?”
If you blame anyone, who do you blame? You blame the drug companies? You blame the hospitals? You blame the government for not putting enough money in the system? You blame the food supply? Have you ever heard of anyone saying to the medical profession, “How come you don’t do a better job?” Have you ever heard that? Well, I think this has to be examined.
If you go to a hospital and you say, “Why don’t you do better job?” They’ll say I will, give me more money, give me more staff, more doctors, more nurses. They don’t give a damn. You can give them 10 times more doctors. If you have the wrong treatment, the patients still won’t get well.
Big Pharma controls medicine today. They give huge grants to the medical schools. Often times, these medical schools don’t have time to do any other studies. They just obediently work for the drug companies. Big Pharma controls everything. In the United States alone, in [2006] they spent $19 billion dollars, $19 billion dollars a year advertising to doctors. They claim the advertising doesn’t persuade doctors, which is kind of funny. If the advertising didn’t persuade doctors, why would Big Pharma spend $19 billion trying to do that? They control the journals. Any medical journal today that you pick up, at least half the pages are drug ads. You’ll never find an ad for good food, you won’ find an ad for vitamins, you won’t find an ad for holistic health. You won’t find an ad for these things.
We are really in a terrible situation. The system is really sick. You can quote me literally. I think the system is absolutely sick and it has to be changed. I’m not the only one who says that. The Province of Ontario said the same thing. The latest Senate Committee by Senator Kirby said the same thing. If you read his report, he says [the healthcare system] is dysfunctional. He called the Canadian Health Care system dysfunctional. That means it’s sick. All these people who have looked at it, studied it, written books about it, all maintain that the healthcare system is sick. And I agree. We have to do something about it.
What do you think we should do?
We have to do what you’re doing. We have to inform the public. We have to let the public know exactly what is happening. Because right now, they don’t know.
ORTHOMOLECULAR VITAMIN INFORMATION CENTRE Inc.
2717 Roseberry Avenue, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada V8R 3V1
Telephone 250-386-8756 Fax 250-590-8757
ffuller@islandnet.com
http://www.orthomolecularvitamincentre.com/
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