Weight Loss Myths and Facts
By Raphael Calzadilla, BA, CPT, ACE
(If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, my favorite part of this article is where he compares muscle mass to jello: One pound of muscle may appear to be the size of baseball; one pound of fat will be three times the size and look like a squiggly bowl of JELL-O.)
It’s important to ask not only, “What is my goal,” but also, based on what I've researched on the way the human body works, “Will this work?” “Does it make sense?” and, “Is it safe?”
It doesn’t require being a biochemist or an exercise physiologist but simply acquiring a small amount of knowledge about the way the human body works. Sometimes it’s good to experiment with unorthodox methods. However, there are some things that are simply ineffective, yet people continue to believe they work.
Here is my top 10 fitness "facts" that in reality are hogwash:
1. Lifting lighter weights will make your muscles more defined and cut. FALSE!
Muscle responds to overload. If you lift heavier weight with sufficient intensity, you will create more microscopic tears in the muscle. When the muscle recuperates, it will become bigger and stronger over time.
However, your supplemental nutrition must support your training. Reduced body fat is what creates the "cut" look, not high (15 or more) reps. Reduced body fat is a result of efficient weight training, proper amounts of cardiovascular exercise and nutrition that places you in somewhat of a calorie deficit. That’s how you get defined.
2. A lot of cardio is the most efficient way to lose body fat. FALSE!
Excessive cardio will strip muscle mass and body fat. This is definitely not the most efficient method for losing body fat. Once you begin stripping muscle mass, your body becomes less efficient at burning body fat. Muscle is metabolically active, which simply means it stimulates the metabolism.
For each pound of muscle you put on, you will burn up to 50 additional calories per day. If you strip muscle mass, all you accomplish is sabotaging your efforts to efficiently reduce body fat.
3. You can gain 20 pounds of muscle in a few months. FALSE!
All the claims that you read about certain routines or supplements that can help you gain "10 pounds of muscle in a month" are big fat lies. They're marketing scams to get you to buy a product. It takes diligent weight training using sufficient overload, consistency and patience to build significant muscle mass. Except for initial muscular gains which happen quickly when one begins a weight training program, it can take up to a year to gain 5-6 pounds of muscle mass.
4. The best way to lose fat is to eat very few calories. FALSE!
Always consider your body from the inside out. Your body’s main objective is to survive. It doesn’t care if you want to lose fat. In fact, it would prefer to increase fat in case of famine. Internally, the body has no idea that it’s the year 2003. It could still be 10,000 years ago for all it cares. Survival is its number one objective.
If you eat very little, the body perceives an emergency and will accommodate you by holding onto stored body fat. As well it should, because it has no idea when it will be fed again.
5. The best way to lose fat is to eat a lot of calories. FALSE!
Just as you don’t want to eat too little, you don’t want to eat too much. Duh. I know this is a “no brainer,” but the big message in the nutrition and personal training world today is that most people need to eat more to stimulate the metabolism. The truth is you need the CORRECT AMOUNT of total calories to lose body fat, not simply more food!
6. Calories are the only thing that counts when trying to lose fat or gain muscle. FALSE!
Ratios of protein, carbohydrate and fats are also important. The key to losing fat and gaining muscle is controlling and manipulating insulin levels. In simple terms, when we consume excessive calories or excessive amounts of high glycemic carbohydrates at one meal, the body’s blood sugar rises. When this happens, the pancreas secretes insulin to lower blood sugar levels.
One of the many drawbacks of this happening excessively is, along with putting you at risk for diabetes, the body also holds onto stored fat! A balance of protein, carbohydrate and fats works most efficiently in losing fat and gaining muscle.
7. A woman will get muscles as big as a guy if she lifts heavier weight (8-12 reps). FALSE!
This myth never seems to die. A woman has approximately one third of the testosterone of a man. Unless she is on anabolic steroids, growth hormones or other chemicals, a woman will never achieve the muscular size of a man. However, she can get a degree of muscularity that makes her lean, hard and tight.
8. One pound of muscle and one pound of fat are the same size. FALSE!
If I place one pound of muscle on a scale and one pound of fat on a scale, they will both weigh one pound. The difference is in total volume. One pound of muscle may appear to be the size of baseball; one pound of fat will be three times the size and look like a squiggly bowl of JELL-O.
9. You can put on a lot of muscle and lose a lot of fat at the same time. FALSE!
You can put on muscle and lose some fat in minimal amounts. However, the body functions best when it has one goal at a time. If your goal is to put on a lot of muscle, then make that your number one objective. If your goal is to lose significant body fat, then your focus should be on preserving your much earned muscle mass.
In 2001, prior to starting my training for one of my bodybuilding shows, I weighed 164 pounds (I compete as a bantam or lightweight) at 15.7 percent body fat. In 2003, prior to starting to train for a show this June, my weight was 169.5 pounds at 12.6 percent body fat. As you can see, I put on some muscle and lost some fat. The change was significant but realistic. As I prepare for my show in June, I will attempt to preserve what I’ve earned as I reduce to approximately 3 percent body fat.
10. The more protein I consume, the more muscle I will put on my body. FALSE!
The human body requires the correct amount of protein to put on muscle. The hardworking weight trainer requires a lot more protein than the sedentary person. However, the correct amount is key, not excessive amounts.
In addition, the body uses protein, carbohydrate and a small
amount of fat to build muscle, not simply excessive protein.
I hope you find these points helpful. Now that you have some newly found knowledge, just remember to bite your tongue when someone spouts out a fallacy. With tact and patience, share your knowledge and help spread the word.
Curious About The Master Cleanse? Then You Need To Know... The Master Cleanse Is Not As Easy As Everyone Thinks -
Here's How You Can Avoid The Side Effects
And Comfortably Finish The Master Cleanse
Saturday, June 28, 2008
MEAT
Animal source proteins are considered superior by
the medical establishment because they are:
(A). High in protein content. (Actually they have too much protein, which is then stored in the body as a toxin.)
(B). Complete Proteins: (Although this is true, this is not necessarily advantageous, since animal source proteins have the following disadvantages:)
1. They are difficult to digest; More energy is required to digest meat than can be obtained from the meat. This wears out the protein digestive organs, and leads to stressful indigestion.
2. The body's attempt to rid itself of the excess protein congests the liver and overworks the kidneys which have to expel the excess nitrogen through urine. People with kidney disease are urged to eat low protein diets. Perhaps eating a low protein diet to begin with would PREVENT kidney disease. Excessive protein consumption is also linked to Urinary disease, Renal cancer and Lymphosarcoma.
3. Animal source proteins are not a real food - they are missing some of the ingredients of real food.
4. Animal proteins contain inorganic acids which are TOXIC to humans. Only modest amounts of animal protein have been found to result in cancerous tumors in animal studies. Moreover, human studies also support this carcinogenic effect of animal protein, even at usual levels of consumption. In my view, no chemical carcinogen is nearly so important in causing human cancer as animal protein. (Dr. T Colin Campbell M.S., Ph.D. Nutrition Advocate Vol. 1 No.6 December 1995.)
5. Meat is high in fat. Dr. Benjamin Spock M.D. Says that a high fat diet, which means eating relatively large amounts of meat, dairy products, and fried foods, is the main cause of arteriosclerosis, coronary heart disease, stroke, certain forms of cancer, and obesity. (not good).
6. The artificial hormones, steroids, and other chemicals injected or fed to the animal to make them grow faster/bigger/healthier (healthier?) don't do us humans any good at all; they are toxic.
7. The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC), Enteric Diseases Branch, has concluded that subtherapeutic amounts of antibiotics added to animal stock feed have subsequently caused animals to develop highly resistant strains of bacteria (mutant forms of E. coli and others) which are then passed on for human consumption in all meat products. In fact it's estimated that 20-25 percent of all bacterial illnesses (and perhaps 50% of all food poisoning) in the U.S. stem directly from antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria and the consumption of meats. (New England Journal of Medicine Vol 243, p.617-621, 1984)
The response of the European Economic Community to the routine feeding of antibiotics to U.S. livestock (55% of all antibiotics used in the US) was to BAN the importation of U.S. meat. So the answer to the question: "What's for Dinner?" is: Antibiotics, Steroids, Pesticides, DDT, Dieldrin, bacteria and Cholesterol. . . . . . . . . Yum!
Take a piece of steak. Cut it open and the juice runs out right? and it's nice and juicey and tender looking? We know that the red fluid is BLOOD, right? and you dunk your bread in it. There is a clear fluid there too...now some of it is fat, and water, but one of the main components of that clear fluid is uric acid...(cow pee). And you dunk your bread in it....why do you do that?
By the way, the old advice that your hamburger is safe if it's brown in the middle is WRONG. Unless you want to feed your family raw E. coli bacteria, you should use a digital meat thermometer, and be certain the interior of the hamburger is 160 degrees F. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in January 99 that the DEATH TOLL from tainted meat {do click on this one} from just one plant has risen to 12 people. If you would like to see a list of some of the more recent meat recalls click here Also see where the FDA is now OK'ing diseased meat for sale in a supermarket near you.
OK, I'll just eat CHICKEN:
30 to 50% of supermarket chickens are contaminated with salmonella (which can survive microwave cooking). Almost 100% contain campylobacter pathogens; look that one up!
One day just PULL THE PLUG on your freezer, but don't open it for three to five days. When you open the door it will smell. The stink you smell is the smell of death. Your Freezer is sealed pretty well isn't it? Nothing can get in or out when the door is closed, but you will not be alone in the room. In your freezer will be maggots and worms. Where did they come from? The maggots and the worms were in the meat! and you EAT them....Why do you do that.?
Vegetable source proteins are good for us, easy to digest, and can supply all our nutritional needs.
BUT when you eat meat, the body regards most of it as a toxin, so it depletes the immune system to get the enzymes to try & handle the problem, steals calcium (osteoporososis) from the tissues and bones to neutralize the phosphoric acid, and speeds up the metabolism to rid itself of this junk...why do you do that?
Is it worth it? is TASTE your overriding concern?
Do you live to eat ?
or
do you eat to live?
Most Americans live to eat. They are controlled by a six inch long organ.
If you identify with that, (your tongue, silly!) you may want to re-think your priorities in life.
Pound for Pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars,
so give up hamburgers and get a new car instead!.
the medical establishment because they are:
(A). High in protein content. (Actually they have too much protein, which is then stored in the body as a toxin.)
(B). Complete Proteins: (Although this is true, this is not necessarily advantageous, since animal source proteins have the following disadvantages:)
1. They are difficult to digest; More energy is required to digest meat than can be obtained from the meat. This wears out the protein digestive organs, and leads to stressful indigestion.
2. The body's attempt to rid itself of the excess protein congests the liver and overworks the kidneys which have to expel the excess nitrogen through urine. People with kidney disease are urged to eat low protein diets. Perhaps eating a low protein diet to begin with would PREVENT kidney disease. Excessive protein consumption is also linked to Urinary disease, Renal cancer and Lymphosarcoma.
3. Animal source proteins are not a real food - they are missing some of the ingredients of real food.
4. Animal proteins contain inorganic acids which are TOXIC to humans. Only modest amounts of animal protein have been found to result in cancerous tumors in animal studies. Moreover, human studies also support this carcinogenic effect of animal protein, even at usual levels of consumption. In my view, no chemical carcinogen is nearly so important in causing human cancer as animal protein. (Dr. T Colin Campbell M.S., Ph.D. Nutrition Advocate Vol. 1 No.6 December 1995.)
5. Meat is high in fat. Dr. Benjamin Spock M.D. Says that a high fat diet, which means eating relatively large amounts of meat, dairy products, and fried foods, is the main cause of arteriosclerosis, coronary heart disease, stroke, certain forms of cancer, and obesity. (not good).
6. The artificial hormones, steroids, and other chemicals injected or fed to the animal to make them grow faster/bigger/healthier (healthier?) don't do us humans any good at all; they are toxic.
7. The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC), Enteric Diseases Branch, has concluded that subtherapeutic amounts of antibiotics added to animal stock feed have subsequently caused animals to develop highly resistant strains of bacteria (mutant forms of E. coli and others) which are then passed on for human consumption in all meat products. In fact it's estimated that 20-25 percent of all bacterial illnesses (and perhaps 50% of all food poisoning) in the U.S. stem directly from antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria and the consumption of meats. (New England Journal of Medicine Vol 243, p.617-621, 1984)
The response of the European Economic Community to the routine feeding of antibiotics to U.S. livestock (55% of all antibiotics used in the US) was to BAN the importation of U.S. meat. So the answer to the question: "What's for Dinner?" is: Antibiotics, Steroids, Pesticides, DDT, Dieldrin, bacteria and Cholesterol. . . . . . . . . Yum!
Take a piece of steak. Cut it open and the juice runs out right? and it's nice and juicey and tender looking? We know that the red fluid is BLOOD, right? and you dunk your bread in it. There is a clear fluid there too...now some of it is fat, and water, but one of the main components of that clear fluid is uric acid...(cow pee). And you dunk your bread in it....why do you do that?
By the way, the old advice that your hamburger is safe if it's brown in the middle is WRONG. Unless you want to feed your family raw E. coli bacteria, you should use a digital meat thermometer, and be certain the interior of the hamburger is 160 degrees F. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in January 99 that the DEATH TOLL from tainted meat {do click on this one} from just one plant has risen to 12 people. If you would like to see a list of some of the more recent meat recalls click here Also see where the FDA is now OK'ing diseased meat for sale in a supermarket near you.
OK, I'll just eat CHICKEN:
30 to 50% of supermarket chickens are contaminated with salmonella (which can survive microwave cooking). Almost 100% contain campylobacter pathogens; look that one up!
One day just PULL THE PLUG on your freezer, but don't open it for three to five days. When you open the door it will smell. The stink you smell is the smell of death. Your Freezer is sealed pretty well isn't it? Nothing can get in or out when the door is closed, but you will not be alone in the room. In your freezer will be maggots and worms. Where did they come from? The maggots and the worms were in the meat! and you EAT them....Why do you do that.?
Vegetable source proteins are good for us, easy to digest, and can supply all our nutritional needs.
BUT when you eat meat, the body regards most of it as a toxin, so it depletes the immune system to get the enzymes to try & handle the problem, steals calcium (osteoporososis) from the tissues and bones to neutralize the phosphoric acid, and speeds up the metabolism to rid itself of this junk...why do you do that?
Is it worth it? is TASTE your overriding concern?
Do you live to eat ?
or
do you eat to live?
Most Americans live to eat. They are controlled by a six inch long organ.
If you identify with that, (your tongue, silly!) you may want to re-think your priorities in life.
Pound for Pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars,
so give up hamburgers and get a new car instead!.
[ cancer treatment ] [ BanishDiabetes secretsof living]
[ stop heavy bleeding ] [ Nature’sMiracles] [ Full Detox ]
[Burn The Fat] [ Learn Guitar in only 7 Days]
[THE BIGGEST HEALTH TIP IS HERE! >> “It amazes me that most people’s lives seem
to be getting dressed in the clothes that they buy for work, driving through morning traffic in a car they are still paying for in order to get to the job they need so they can pay for
the clothes, pay for the car and pay for the home they leave empty all day in order to
afford to live in it”… REALLY THINK ABOUT IT!
Meat Eating Society
Meat Eating Society (What's the connection to our health?)
How much longer can we allow this incredible madness to go on? Can we remain silent while corporations run these legalized murder factories? Torture, sacrifice, abuse, mistreatment - the evil act of killing innocent sentient beings for profit and greed. It's also costing the lives of millions of humans to cancer, stroke and heart disease.
There's a sick and evil travesty that's taken' over the planet Earth. It's these abominable animal exploitation and killing realities. Mankind's ritualistic and hideous animal concentration camps of filth, disease, death and brutality. Yes, It's just another gruesome and horrifying major holocaust of unimaginable cruelty.
Money, money and more money is all the industries of death care about. Cut em up, slice em up, feed em to the masses of hungry carnivores. Hang em upside down by their hind legs, 'till it's for mercy they beg. Blood thirsty professional killers, high tech machinery butchering' billions of cows, chickens, lambs and pigs behind the blood splattered slaughterhouse steel doors.
Is there any wonder why there has to be so much anarchy? It's all because the government and fast food companies are drugging' and brainwashing you into this corrupt and violent meat eating society.
Just close your eyes to the horror that's hidden behind there. Your neighborhood supermarket brings your choice of flesh right to you. You don't have to kill it, and you don't have to watch it die. Just pay the robotic cashier up front, that's all you have to do. Then you can drive on home, and cook your E-Coli contaminated poisoned stew.
Have you ever wondered why there's so much violence in America and all over the world? Well, I'll tell you, The same disrespect man has for animals, he has for himself. No wonder there are serial killers, world wars, women being raped, capital punishment, and gangs killing' one another, is that {enough of a clue}? Our prison systems most violent criminals are being fed on a steady diet of murdered animal beings.
So much of this madness and killing stems from man's inhumanity to animals. {What a shame} PepsiCo, I.B.P., McDonalds, ConAgra, Tyson foods, and all the other criminal meat merchants of death are all cold and heartless, murderous capitalistic beasts, who fuel the violence flame.
Is there any wonder why there has to be so much anarchy? It's all because the government and fast food companies are drugging' and brainwashing you into this corrupt and violent meat eating society.
I'm sick and tired of all this, poor defenseless animals getting their throats cut - All for steak, ribs and chops.
I'm sure proud, and I'll say it clear and loud. I don't eat cows, pigs, fish or fowl. I'm a vegetarian - In defense of all the animals incarcerated on death row. We've got to liberate them, set them free, and let them go! We've got to educate the masses, or face total destruction! For everything we do, we reap what we sow!
You are what you eat, and what you eat can kill you. More people on this Earth, they die with their knife and fork. , swallowing chemicalized pieces of rotted flesh. Chewing on their greasy fat burgers, and their disgusting bacterial ridden, cancerous Farmer John pork.
Is there any wonder why there has to be so much anarchy? It's all because the government and fast food companies are drugging' and brainwashing you into this corrupt and violent meat eating society.
So what's this stuff about, burnt dead chicken so finger lickin' good? Just more deceptive advertising, and more government cover-up and lies. The legal system, and the deceitful media (keeps us from the truth.) Ten thousand butcher shops, slaughter plants and Ronald McDonalds are hypnotizing and mind-controlling our youth.
Haven't we had enough of this world-wide animal murdering insanity that's causing so much human violence and suffering?
It's time to WAKE UP!
Meat is cold blooded murder my friends and that's no lie.
THERE WILL BE NO PEACE ON EARTH UNTIL WE STOP SLAUGHTERING ANIMALS!
How much longer can we allow this incredible madness to go on? Can we remain silent while corporations run these legalized murder factories? Torture, sacrifice, abuse, mistreatment - the evil act of killing innocent sentient beings for profit and greed. It's also costing the lives of millions of humans to cancer, stroke and heart disease.
There's a sick and evil travesty that's taken' over the planet Earth. It's these abominable animal exploitation and killing realities. Mankind's ritualistic and hideous animal concentration camps of filth, disease, death and brutality. Yes, It's just another gruesome and horrifying major holocaust of unimaginable cruelty.
Money, money and more money is all the industries of death care about. Cut em up, slice em up, feed em to the masses of hungry carnivores. Hang em upside down by their hind legs, 'till it's for mercy they beg. Blood thirsty professional killers, high tech machinery butchering' billions of cows, chickens, lambs and pigs behind the blood splattered slaughterhouse steel doors.
Is there any wonder why there has to be so much anarchy? It's all because the government and fast food companies are drugging' and brainwashing you into this corrupt and violent meat eating society.
Just close your eyes to the horror that's hidden behind there. Your neighborhood supermarket brings your choice of flesh right to you. You don't have to kill it, and you don't have to watch it die. Just pay the robotic cashier up front, that's all you have to do. Then you can drive on home, and cook your E-Coli contaminated poisoned stew.
Have you ever wondered why there's so much violence in America and all over the world? Well, I'll tell you, The same disrespect man has for animals, he has for himself. No wonder there are serial killers, world wars, women being raped, capital punishment, and gangs killing' one another, is that {enough of a clue}? Our prison systems most violent criminals are being fed on a steady diet of murdered animal beings.
So much of this madness and killing stems from man's inhumanity to animals. {What a shame} PepsiCo, I.B.P., McDonalds, ConAgra, Tyson foods, and all the other criminal meat merchants of death are all cold and heartless, murderous capitalistic beasts, who fuel the violence flame.
Is there any wonder why there has to be so much anarchy? It's all because the government and fast food companies are drugging' and brainwashing you into this corrupt and violent meat eating society.
I'm sick and tired of all this, poor defenseless animals getting their throats cut - All for steak, ribs and chops.
I'm sure proud, and I'll say it clear and loud. I don't eat cows, pigs, fish or fowl. I'm a vegetarian - In defense of all the animals incarcerated on death row. We've got to liberate them, set them free, and let them go! We've got to educate the masses, or face total destruction! For everything we do, we reap what we sow!
You are what you eat, and what you eat can kill you. More people on this Earth, they die with their knife and fork. , swallowing chemicalized pieces of rotted flesh. Chewing on their greasy fat burgers, and their disgusting bacterial ridden, cancerous Farmer John pork.
Is there any wonder why there has to be so much anarchy? It's all because the government and fast food companies are drugging' and brainwashing you into this corrupt and violent meat eating society.
So what's this stuff about, burnt dead chicken so finger lickin' good? Just more deceptive advertising, and more government cover-up and lies. The legal system, and the deceitful media (keeps us from the truth.) Ten thousand butcher shops, slaughter plants and Ronald McDonalds are hypnotizing and mind-controlling our youth.
Haven't we had enough of this world-wide animal murdering insanity that's causing so much human violence and suffering?
It's time to WAKE UP!
Meat is cold blooded murder my friends and that's no lie.
THERE WILL BE NO PEACE ON EARTH UNTIL WE STOP SLAUGHTERING ANIMALS!
[ cancer treatment ] [ BanishDiabetes secretsof living]
[ stop heavy bleeding ] [ Nature’sMiracles] [ Full Detox ]
[Burn The Fat] [ Learn Guitar in only 7 Days]
[THE BIGGEST HEALTH TIP IS HERE! >> “It amazes me that most people’s lives seem
to be getting dressed in the clothes that they buy for work, driving through morning traffic in a car they are still paying for in order to get to the job they need so they can pay for
the clothes, pay for the car and pay for the home they leave empty all day in order to
afford to live in it”… REALLY THINK ABOUT IT!
The Magical Power of Fermented Foods
The Magical Power of Fermented Foods
Most of us are familiar with the concept of how important it is for our planet to have a balanced ecosystem in order to perpetuate itself, where each species contributes to the life of another in an environment that supports healthy growth and vitality. At the present time, it appears that Earth's ecosystem is at risk of deteriorating at an alarming rate, unless we can change this course of events.
Just like the planet that we live on, we too have an ecosystem inside our bodies that supports our growth and vitality, and just like the Earth's, our inner world is also at risk, as evidenced by the tremendous increase in infectious disease, degenerative conditions and autoimmune disorders. Cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, allergies, chronic fatigue, candidiasis, fibromyalgia, and depression are affecting adults and children alike.
What's even more significant is the tremendous increase in cases of autism, afflicting over 1 million American children in the past five years and more in England, Australia and Canada that we know of. In California, one out of every 125 children is born autistic. Vaccines have been largely blamed for this increase; however, the problem begins even before birth.
Why are these problems unique to modern society, and what did our ancestors know that enabled them to live their lives free of these ailments? The answer may lie in that inner world struggling to survive inside of us.
Before birth, a baby grows in the sterile environment of its mother's womb. Just before delivery, the mother's cervix dilates about 2 cm, which allows bacteria from the birth canal to enter the amniotic fluid in the womb.
The baby drinks this fluid and is inoculated with the bacteria. A healthy mother's birth canal is filled with beneficial bacteria or microflora such as lactobacillus and bifidus. These healthful bacteria are known as probiotics and form the foundation for a healthy immune system. Probiotic means "for life," in contrast to antibiotic, which means "against life." As the baby travels through the birth canal he picks up more of the bacteria there until he exits into the outer world.
In truth, most mothers no longer have the beneficial microflora living inside of them, so they cannot give it to their babies. Approximately 85 percent of pregnant women now have pathogenic bacteria inside their birth canal instead of the healthful bacteria their baby needs for protection.
Once the baby is born, if he is nursed, the colostrum secreted by his mother's breasts before her milk comes in further enhances his immunity. The colostrum is teeming with immune-enhancing antibodies, proteins, peptides and transfer factor that enter the baby's body and are immediately absorbed through the baby's now-permeable intestines to allow this event to occur.
For the first six hours the colostrum that is produced contains no sugar, but then the baby's gut seals up and the colostrum becomes sweet with sugar. The sugar feeds the microflora and causes a bed of mucus to form on the lining of the intestines, which allows the beneficial microflora to adhere to it. As the baby continues to nurse he develops a fully functioning ecosystem, which establishes a healthy immune system early in life. This is the way nature vaccinates our children.
Currently, because of the presence of pathogenic bacteria in the mother's birth canal which may or may not cause a problem, doctors are recommending that mothers be hooked up to an antibiotic I.V. drip as soon as they begin labor. Since antibiotics do not discriminate between harmful bacteria and beneficial bacteria, this practice essentially destroys the baby's fragile ecosystem and young immune system.
In an ideal world, as the child grows he would be fed foods that are rich in probiotics, which would continue to protect him from harmful pathogens normally encountered in daily life. These foods are largely missing from the modern American diet, which is unfortunate since beneficial microflora make up 85 percent of our immune system.
In her groundbreaking book "The Body Ecology Diet," Donna Gates, a pioneer in the field of nutrition and health, refers to these microflora as alchemists and highly intelligent beings that communicate at all times with our enteric nervous system, located in the intestines and commonly referred to as the second brain. In fact, she maintains that it is this second brain that is ultimately controlling the primary brain in our head. Recent scientific research has discovered that the same receptor sites for neuropeptides and other brain chemicals that exist in our brain are also present in our gut. Of course, we all can relate to that "gut feeling" we have when we are intuitively guided to do something.
The brain in our head needs nutrients to function such as high-quality proteins, glucose, and essential fats, which all come from the intestines. Neurotransmitters such as serotonin, which help us to relax, are created from these nutrients in the intestines and transported up to the brain. The microflora play an essential role in the production of these substances.
They help to break down our food so we can digest it and actually produce all of the B vitamins, vitamin K, and short-chain fatty acids that are essential for immune and nervous-system function. They assist in alkalizing our blood by pulling out minerals from the food that nourishes our cells, and create an environment where harmful bacteria, viruses, yeasts and parasites cannot thrive. They eat excess sugars from our diet so they cannot harm us, and effectively eliminate sugar cravings.
If we are deficient in a particular mineral such as calcium, the microflora can change other minerals such as silica into the calcium that we need. They can even transform harmful substances such as the toxic byproducts of undigested proteins, chemicals and heavy metals into substances that are useful to the body, hence their reputation as alchemists.
Without this healthy ecosystem in place we become malnourished, toxic, emotionally stressed and sick. Donna Gates feels that autism is essentially a "gut-brain" disorder and that the only way to heal these children is to re-establish a healthy inner ecosystem. Her BEDROK diet, the Body Ecology Diet for Recovering Our Kids, has a protocol for healing autism that is very successful. As adults, we can also restore our inner world and heal disease, slow down aging, and become healthier and happier fully functioning human beings.
In order to do this we need only to look at the way our ancestors ate and prepared their foods. Traditional cultures from around the world all incorporated probiotic-rich foods into their diets. Before modern technology gave us refrigeration and even in underdeveloped countries today, the only way to preserve food was to ferment it. As it turns out, these cultured or fermented foods contained the life-giving microflora that nourished and protected them through the ages.
Nutritionist Sally Fallon reveals in her fascinating book, "Nourishing Traditions," the incredible health benefits of ancient foods and inspires us to return to this way of eating to recover our health. In days of old, crops were grown in the spring, harvested in the summer and fall, and then preserved through the process of lacto-fermentation to continue to provide food throughout the winter. This was possible because of lactobacilli bacteria, which is naturally present on the surface of all living things, especially on the leaves and roots of plants and in raw, unpasteurized dairy products.
Under certain conditions, lactobacilli will convert the starches and sugars in vegetables, fruits and dairy products into lactic acid, which is a natural preservative that inhibits the growth of putrefying bacteria. The lactobacilli also produce enzymes that enhance digestibility and increase vitamin and mineral levels in the food. Natural antibiotic and anti-carcinogenic substances are also produced. In addition, lactic acid promotes the growth of healthy intestinal flora and alchemically creates hydrogen peroxide that oxygenates the blood.
The traditional process of fermentation begins with first washing and cutting up vegetables or fruits and mixing them with herbs and spices. They are then pounded briefly to release juices, mixed with a solution of salt water and then put into airtight containers where they remain at room temperature for several days.
After that, they are stored in a cool, dark place where they will keep for several months. Now, culture starters are available containing healthy microflora and beneficial yeasts that provide a nutrient-rich base for fermentation without the need for salt. Today fermented foods can be purchased in stores, but many of them have added vinegar or have been pasteurized, which destroys the beneficial microflora. Historically, the American Indians pounded vegetables and put them in vessels below the ground, where they were stored for months or even years.
In Europe, sauerkraut is perhaps the most popular fermented food. It is made from cabbage, which is known for its anti-cancer properties and high levels of vitamin C and major minerals. The ancient Romans valued sauerkraut for its medicinal properties. In 18th century England, Captain Cook stored 60 barrels of sauerkraut on his ship before embarking on a 27-month voyage.
During that entire time not one sailor came down with scurvy, a debilitating condition caused by vitamin C deficiency, which was common on the high seas. Cucumbers, beets and turnips were also typically fermented in Europe. In Russia and Poland, green tomatoes, peppers and lettuces were favorite cultured foods. Ketchup, chocolate, coffee and tea were also originally fermented foods.
Oriental people prepared and ate cultured foods with every meal. The Korean food kimchi is a fermented blend of cabbage, carrots, green onions, ginger, garlic and hot peppers. The Japanese eat fermented umeboshi plums, miso, soy sauce, nato, and tamari. The Chinese government distributes cabbage to the population each fall to ferment and store through the cold winter months. The Indonesians eat tempeh, which is fermented soy. It is important to note that the only soy foods that the body can actually digest and tolerate are fermented. Unfermented soy products such as soy milk and tofu are actually harmful to health.
Kefir, which means "feel good" in English, is a fermented dairy product originally from the region of Turkey where it is believed Noah's Ark was discovered. It is said that kefir was a gift from the gods, and that the gods told the Turkish people to never reveal the secret of how it was prepared. However, legend has it that the Russians heard of the healing, rejuvenative properties of kefir and tricked the Turks into giving them the recipe. Even today, Russian schoolchildren receive a glass of kefir daily, compliments of the government.
Kefir can be easily made by adding a starter culture of beneficial microflora to milk. Raw organic milk from grass-fed cows or goats is best, since pasteurization kills the beneficial enzymes normally present in milk. Cultured or soured milk products are common throughout the world, including Scandinavia, the Middle East and India. Crème fraiche, a soured milk product, is used in France in many recipes. Cultured butter and fermented cheeses are also common throughout Europe. Yogurt is a cultured milk product that has some helpful microflora, but does not have the potent probiotic properties or beneficial yeasts inherent in kefir.
Any food can be cultured. During the fermentation process, even high-glycemic foods such as fruits, carrots, beets and sweet potatoes are beneficial as the microflora eat the sugars in these foods, rendering them harmless to the body.
Fermented dairy products provide numerous benefits. During fermentation the casein, or milk protein, is broken down, making it more digestible. Vital enzymes that are destroyed during pasteurization may be restored, including lactase, which enables us to digest the milk sugar lactose. Donna Gates believes that no one is actually lactose-intolerant. She feels that it is the lack of a healthy inner ecosystem that prevents us from being able to digest dairy products. She herself was unable to digest milk for 25 years until she discovered how to balance her ecosystem.
She now has raw and cultured dairy products on a regular basis. She believes raw butter to be an important food for the recovery of autistic children because of its content of high-quality essential fats, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and butyric acid. Her Body Ecology Diet, which incorporates food combining, the blood-type diet, and aspects of Chinese medicine, is also excellent for anyone who would like to recover from chronic candidiasis, digestive problems, cancer, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, osteoporosis, depression, or for anyone who would like to reach the peak of health.
Donna has recently introduced a new cultured food into her diet: kefir made from the juice of young green coconuts. This delicious drink nourishes the body, cleanses the liver and enhances digestion. While most fermented foods can be quite tart and tangy, coconut kefir has a sweet aftertaste. A scrumptious fermented pudding can also be made from the pureed coconut meat. Rich in anti-microbial and anti-parasitic lauric acid and balanced amounts of calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium and vitamin C, these foods are a tonic for exhausted adrenal glands and emotionally stressed systems.
I personally had a profound experience just five days after beginning the Body Ecology Diet, which included drinking coconut kefir twice daily and eating cultured vegetables with every meal. Having a history of dental problems, I have always had a build-up of tartar behind my lower front teeth, regardless of regular professional cleanings. On the fifth day of being on this diet, the tartar buildup easily came right off my teeth when I brushed them in the morning. I was astounded! The only thing I can surmise is that my body chemistry had changed to a more alkaline pH, which facilitated the disintegration of the tartar. Others have reported numerous benefits from eating this way, including healthy weight loss, improved digestion, elimination of joint pain, easier, cleaner menstrual periods, improved vision, more beautiful glowing skin, and a general feeling of well-being. In time, many people find that they no longer need their antidepressants.
Eating cultured foods on a regular basis is the most effective way to heal a leaky gut, a condition that exists because of a weakened and often inflamed permeable intestinal membrane, which allows undigested food particles to enter the blood stream. Crohn's disease, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic allergies and immune system disorders are all ultimately caused by this problem. In fact, most of the population has this condition because of diet and lifestyle.
Many people believe that taking probiotic supplements such as acidophilus capsules is sufficient for populating the intestines with beneficial microflora. However, without the foundation established by dietary sources of probiotics, the microflora in the supplements cannot properly colonize the intestines.
By including fermented foods in our diet, we can reestablish a healthy inner ecosystem, which protects us from harmful pathogens and environmental toxins. We can then eat foods such as raw eggs and raw meats (as our ancestors did) without fear of getting salmonella, E. coli or parasites.
Even if we did pick up these things we might have some slight discomfort, but we wouldn't become seriously ill as we do now. The ancients knew the powerful magic that nature gave them to stay strong and healthy. We, too, can carry on the traditions that enabled many generations to survive through the ages and ensure a healthy future for our children and the planet that we live on.
Most of us are familiar with the concept of how important it is for our planet to have a balanced ecosystem in order to perpetuate itself, where each species contributes to the life of another in an environment that supports healthy growth and vitality. At the present time, it appears that Earth's ecosystem is at risk of deteriorating at an alarming rate, unless we can change this course of events.
Just like the planet that we live on, we too have an ecosystem inside our bodies that supports our growth and vitality, and just like the Earth's, our inner world is also at risk, as evidenced by the tremendous increase in infectious disease, degenerative conditions and autoimmune disorders. Cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, allergies, chronic fatigue, candidiasis, fibromyalgia, and depression are affecting adults and children alike.
What's even more significant is the tremendous increase in cases of autism, afflicting over 1 million American children in the past five years and more in England, Australia and Canada that we know of. In California, one out of every 125 children is born autistic. Vaccines have been largely blamed for this increase; however, the problem begins even before birth.
Why are these problems unique to modern society, and what did our ancestors know that enabled them to live their lives free of these ailments? The answer may lie in that inner world struggling to survive inside of us.
Before birth, a baby grows in the sterile environment of its mother's womb. Just before delivery, the mother's cervix dilates about 2 cm, which allows bacteria from the birth canal to enter the amniotic fluid in the womb.
The baby drinks this fluid and is inoculated with the bacteria. A healthy mother's birth canal is filled with beneficial bacteria or microflora such as lactobacillus and bifidus. These healthful bacteria are known as probiotics and form the foundation for a healthy immune system. Probiotic means "for life," in contrast to antibiotic, which means "against life." As the baby travels through the birth canal he picks up more of the bacteria there until he exits into the outer world.
In truth, most mothers no longer have the beneficial microflora living inside of them, so they cannot give it to their babies. Approximately 85 percent of pregnant women now have pathogenic bacteria inside their birth canal instead of the healthful bacteria their baby needs for protection.
Once the baby is born, if he is nursed, the colostrum secreted by his mother's breasts before her milk comes in further enhances his immunity. The colostrum is teeming with immune-enhancing antibodies, proteins, peptides and transfer factor that enter the baby's body and are immediately absorbed through the baby's now-permeable intestines to allow this event to occur.
For the first six hours the colostrum that is produced contains no sugar, but then the baby's gut seals up and the colostrum becomes sweet with sugar. The sugar feeds the microflora and causes a bed of mucus to form on the lining of the intestines, which allows the beneficial microflora to adhere to it. As the baby continues to nurse he develops a fully functioning ecosystem, which establishes a healthy immune system early in life. This is the way nature vaccinates our children.
Currently, because of the presence of pathogenic bacteria in the mother's birth canal which may or may not cause a problem, doctors are recommending that mothers be hooked up to an antibiotic I.V. drip as soon as they begin labor. Since antibiotics do not discriminate between harmful bacteria and beneficial bacteria, this practice essentially destroys the baby's fragile ecosystem and young immune system.
In an ideal world, as the child grows he would be fed foods that are rich in probiotics, which would continue to protect him from harmful pathogens normally encountered in daily life. These foods are largely missing from the modern American diet, which is unfortunate since beneficial microflora make up 85 percent of our immune system.
In her groundbreaking book "The Body Ecology Diet," Donna Gates, a pioneer in the field of nutrition and health, refers to these microflora as alchemists and highly intelligent beings that communicate at all times with our enteric nervous system, located in the intestines and commonly referred to as the second brain. In fact, she maintains that it is this second brain that is ultimately controlling the primary brain in our head. Recent scientific research has discovered that the same receptor sites for neuropeptides and other brain chemicals that exist in our brain are also present in our gut. Of course, we all can relate to that "gut feeling" we have when we are intuitively guided to do something.
The brain in our head needs nutrients to function such as high-quality proteins, glucose, and essential fats, which all come from the intestines. Neurotransmitters such as serotonin, which help us to relax, are created from these nutrients in the intestines and transported up to the brain. The microflora play an essential role in the production of these substances.
They help to break down our food so we can digest it and actually produce all of the B vitamins, vitamin K, and short-chain fatty acids that are essential for immune and nervous-system function. They assist in alkalizing our blood by pulling out minerals from the food that nourishes our cells, and create an environment where harmful bacteria, viruses, yeasts and parasites cannot thrive. They eat excess sugars from our diet so they cannot harm us, and effectively eliminate sugar cravings.
If we are deficient in a particular mineral such as calcium, the microflora can change other minerals such as silica into the calcium that we need. They can even transform harmful substances such as the toxic byproducts of undigested proteins, chemicals and heavy metals into substances that are useful to the body, hence their reputation as alchemists.
Without this healthy ecosystem in place we become malnourished, toxic, emotionally stressed and sick. Donna Gates feels that autism is essentially a "gut-brain" disorder and that the only way to heal these children is to re-establish a healthy inner ecosystem. Her BEDROK diet, the Body Ecology Diet for Recovering Our Kids, has a protocol for healing autism that is very successful. As adults, we can also restore our inner world and heal disease, slow down aging, and become healthier and happier fully functioning human beings.
In order to do this we need only to look at the way our ancestors ate and prepared their foods. Traditional cultures from around the world all incorporated probiotic-rich foods into their diets. Before modern technology gave us refrigeration and even in underdeveloped countries today, the only way to preserve food was to ferment it. As it turns out, these cultured or fermented foods contained the life-giving microflora that nourished and protected them through the ages.
Nutritionist Sally Fallon reveals in her fascinating book, "Nourishing Traditions," the incredible health benefits of ancient foods and inspires us to return to this way of eating to recover our health. In days of old, crops were grown in the spring, harvested in the summer and fall, and then preserved through the process of lacto-fermentation to continue to provide food throughout the winter. This was possible because of lactobacilli bacteria, which is naturally present on the surface of all living things, especially on the leaves and roots of plants and in raw, unpasteurized dairy products.
Under certain conditions, lactobacilli will convert the starches and sugars in vegetables, fruits and dairy products into lactic acid, which is a natural preservative that inhibits the growth of putrefying bacteria. The lactobacilli also produce enzymes that enhance digestibility and increase vitamin and mineral levels in the food. Natural antibiotic and anti-carcinogenic substances are also produced. In addition, lactic acid promotes the growth of healthy intestinal flora and alchemically creates hydrogen peroxide that oxygenates the blood.
The traditional process of fermentation begins with first washing and cutting up vegetables or fruits and mixing them with herbs and spices. They are then pounded briefly to release juices, mixed with a solution of salt water and then put into airtight containers where they remain at room temperature for several days.
After that, they are stored in a cool, dark place where they will keep for several months. Now, culture starters are available containing healthy microflora and beneficial yeasts that provide a nutrient-rich base for fermentation without the need for salt. Today fermented foods can be purchased in stores, but many of them have added vinegar or have been pasteurized, which destroys the beneficial microflora. Historically, the American Indians pounded vegetables and put them in vessels below the ground, where they were stored for months or even years.
In Europe, sauerkraut is perhaps the most popular fermented food. It is made from cabbage, which is known for its anti-cancer properties and high levels of vitamin C and major minerals. The ancient Romans valued sauerkraut for its medicinal properties. In 18th century England, Captain Cook stored 60 barrels of sauerkraut on his ship before embarking on a 27-month voyage.
During that entire time not one sailor came down with scurvy, a debilitating condition caused by vitamin C deficiency, which was common on the high seas. Cucumbers, beets and turnips were also typically fermented in Europe. In Russia and Poland, green tomatoes, peppers and lettuces were favorite cultured foods. Ketchup, chocolate, coffee and tea were also originally fermented foods.
Oriental people prepared and ate cultured foods with every meal. The Korean food kimchi is a fermented blend of cabbage, carrots, green onions, ginger, garlic and hot peppers. The Japanese eat fermented umeboshi plums, miso, soy sauce, nato, and tamari. The Chinese government distributes cabbage to the population each fall to ferment and store through the cold winter months. The Indonesians eat tempeh, which is fermented soy. It is important to note that the only soy foods that the body can actually digest and tolerate are fermented. Unfermented soy products such as soy milk and tofu are actually harmful to health.
Kefir, which means "feel good" in English, is a fermented dairy product originally from the region of Turkey where it is believed Noah's Ark was discovered. It is said that kefir was a gift from the gods, and that the gods told the Turkish people to never reveal the secret of how it was prepared. However, legend has it that the Russians heard of the healing, rejuvenative properties of kefir and tricked the Turks into giving them the recipe. Even today, Russian schoolchildren receive a glass of kefir daily, compliments of the government.
Kefir can be easily made by adding a starter culture of beneficial microflora to milk. Raw organic milk from grass-fed cows or goats is best, since pasteurization kills the beneficial enzymes normally present in milk. Cultured or soured milk products are common throughout the world, including Scandinavia, the Middle East and India. Crème fraiche, a soured milk product, is used in France in many recipes. Cultured butter and fermented cheeses are also common throughout Europe. Yogurt is a cultured milk product that has some helpful microflora, but does not have the potent probiotic properties or beneficial yeasts inherent in kefir.
Any food can be cultured. During the fermentation process, even high-glycemic foods such as fruits, carrots, beets and sweet potatoes are beneficial as the microflora eat the sugars in these foods, rendering them harmless to the body.
Fermented dairy products provide numerous benefits. During fermentation the casein, or milk protein, is broken down, making it more digestible. Vital enzymes that are destroyed during pasteurization may be restored, including lactase, which enables us to digest the milk sugar lactose. Donna Gates believes that no one is actually lactose-intolerant. She feels that it is the lack of a healthy inner ecosystem that prevents us from being able to digest dairy products. She herself was unable to digest milk for 25 years until she discovered how to balance her ecosystem.
She now has raw and cultured dairy products on a regular basis. She believes raw butter to be an important food for the recovery of autistic children because of its content of high-quality essential fats, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and butyric acid. Her Body Ecology Diet, which incorporates food combining, the blood-type diet, and aspects of Chinese medicine, is also excellent for anyone who would like to recover from chronic candidiasis, digestive problems, cancer, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, osteoporosis, depression, or for anyone who would like to reach the peak of health.
Donna has recently introduced a new cultured food into her diet: kefir made from the juice of young green coconuts. This delicious drink nourishes the body, cleanses the liver and enhances digestion. While most fermented foods can be quite tart and tangy, coconut kefir has a sweet aftertaste. A scrumptious fermented pudding can also be made from the pureed coconut meat. Rich in anti-microbial and anti-parasitic lauric acid and balanced amounts of calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium and vitamin C, these foods are a tonic for exhausted adrenal glands and emotionally stressed systems.
I personally had a profound experience just five days after beginning the Body Ecology Diet, which included drinking coconut kefir twice daily and eating cultured vegetables with every meal. Having a history of dental problems, I have always had a build-up of tartar behind my lower front teeth, regardless of regular professional cleanings. On the fifth day of being on this diet, the tartar buildup easily came right off my teeth when I brushed them in the morning. I was astounded! The only thing I can surmise is that my body chemistry had changed to a more alkaline pH, which facilitated the disintegration of the tartar. Others have reported numerous benefits from eating this way, including healthy weight loss, improved digestion, elimination of joint pain, easier, cleaner menstrual periods, improved vision, more beautiful glowing skin, and a general feeling of well-being. In time, many people find that they no longer need their antidepressants.
Eating cultured foods on a regular basis is the most effective way to heal a leaky gut, a condition that exists because of a weakened and often inflamed permeable intestinal membrane, which allows undigested food particles to enter the blood stream. Crohn's disease, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic allergies and immune system disorders are all ultimately caused by this problem. In fact, most of the population has this condition because of diet and lifestyle.
Many people believe that taking probiotic supplements such as acidophilus capsules is sufficient for populating the intestines with beneficial microflora. However, without the foundation established by dietary sources of probiotics, the microflora in the supplements cannot properly colonize the intestines.
By including fermented foods in our diet, we can reestablish a healthy inner ecosystem, which protects us from harmful pathogens and environmental toxins. We can then eat foods such as raw eggs and raw meats (as our ancestors did) without fear of getting salmonella, E. coli or parasites.
Even if we did pick up these things we might have some slight discomfort, but we wouldn't become seriously ill as we do now. The ancients knew the powerful magic that nature gave them to stay strong and healthy. We, too, can carry on the traditions that enabled many generations to survive through the ages and ensure a healthy future for our children and the planet that we live on.
[ cancer treatment ] [ BanishDiabetes secretsof living]
[ stop heavy bleeding ] [ Nature’sMiracles] [ Full Detox ]
[Burn The Fat] [ Learn Guitar in only 7 Days]
[THE BIGGEST HEALTH TIP IS HERE! >> “It amazes me that most people’s lives seem
to be getting dressed in the clothes that they buy for work, driving through morning traffic in a car they are still paying for in order to get to the job they need so they can pay for
the clothes, pay for the car and pay for the home they leave empty all day in order to
afford to live in it”… REALLY THINK ABOUT IT!
FOODS TO AVOID
FOODS TO AVOID
A more fitting description of these items might be "poison." By definition, a poison is: Any agent which, introduced into the organism may chemically produce an injurious or deadly effect. That which taints or destroys purity, to exert a baneful influence, to corrupt." If that doesn't fill the bill here, we don't know what does!
If you are a meat eater, you don't have to adopt a vegetarian diet to more toward better health, though it would probably be a wise step to take. But anyone can begin by eliminating the following from their diet:
The "Deadly Whites"
Other "Foods" to Avoid
Chemical Additives
White Sugar
Processed foods
White Flour Artificial sweeteners
White Salt Artificial colorings
White Bread Artificial flavorings
White Rice Caffein
Cornstarch Beer
Baking Powder Alcohol
Baking Soda Soda Pop
Animal Fat Genetically engineered foods
White Meat All dairy products
The "Other" White Meat (pork) Soy Products (except ferminted soy, e.g., miso)
White oil (processed-filtered-bleached) Pasteurized Dairy
Miscellaneous "Avoids"
Lard Microwave Ovens
White Distilled Vinegar Heated fats (cooking oils) - Very Dangerous!
What's Wrong with Meat?
In addition to the fact that most red meat and chicken on the market today is full of antiobiotics and hormones which adversely affect the body of any human who consumes them, all flesh food that has not been freshly killed just prior to consumption has the built-in problem of putrification.
Almost all meats found in the supermarket fit into this category.
These foods provide toxic chemical breakdown products that adversely affect the mind and irritate the nervous system. In addition, they accelerate premature aging and chronic degenerative disease. That would be enough reason right there to avoid them, but there is more...much, much more.
When people start moving toward a healthier diet, they usually start favoring chicken over red meat. The problem is, chicken isn't much better. If you haven't completely made the transition yet, at least look for range-fed chickens ("organic" chickens), which won't be quite as harmful.We don't believe in scare tactics, but sometimes the truth IS scary. Consider, for example, this fact: According to Dr. Rous, Nobel Prize winner and long-time researcher at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research,
95% of the chickens for sale in the U.S. are cancerous!
While we are on the subject of meat consumption, here is a provocative thought: Not only is the killing of animals for food inhumane, but if you eat them, their death will hasten your death. While people can sometimes get around the laws of the land, they cannot get around the laws of nature.
God, Who is the designer of the human body and Who therefore knows how it runs best, originally gave man "every herb bearing seed" for food. It was not until after the flood in Genesis 9:4 that God put the dread of man in the animals and gave them to him to eat, but with one restriction, "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat," which is repeated in the New Testament (Acts 15:20). What is interesting about this is that it is a command that is impossible to obey unless one is a vegetarian.
I can't help but think that there is a direct relationship. The interesting thing about this is right after this concession was made to man, his lifespan immediately decreased significantly, from around 900 years (the longest lifespan was that of Methuselah, at 969 years) down to around 300 years and then it dropped off again to around 70 years. This would be the physiological modern-day fulfillment of "your blood of your lives will I require."
While it is best to move toward an 80% raw food diet, most people are used to cooking everything and it would be difficult (and not recommended) to make the change all at once. But in the process of making changes, a few food preparation items that would also best be avoided include Microwave ovens, aluminum cookware, cookware with Teflon coatings and plastics.
A more fitting description of these items might be "poison." By definition, a poison is: Any agent which, introduced into the organism may chemically produce an injurious or deadly effect. That which taints or destroys purity, to exert a baneful influence, to corrupt." If that doesn't fill the bill here, we don't know what does!
If you are a meat eater, you don't have to adopt a vegetarian diet to more toward better health, though it would probably be a wise step to take. But anyone can begin by eliminating the following from their diet:
The "Deadly Whites"
Other "Foods" to Avoid
Chemical Additives
White Sugar
Processed foods
White Flour Artificial sweeteners
White Salt Artificial colorings
White Bread Artificial flavorings
White Rice Caffein
Cornstarch Beer
Baking Powder Alcohol
Baking Soda Soda Pop
Animal Fat Genetically engineered foods
White Meat All dairy products
The "Other" White Meat (pork) Soy Products (except ferminted soy, e.g., miso)
White oil (processed-filtered-bleached) Pasteurized Dairy
Miscellaneous "Avoids"
Lard Microwave Ovens
White Distilled Vinegar Heated fats (cooking oils) - Very Dangerous!
What's Wrong with Meat?
In addition to the fact that most red meat and chicken on the market today is full of antiobiotics and hormones which adversely affect the body of any human who consumes them, all flesh food that has not been freshly killed just prior to consumption has the built-in problem of putrification.
Almost all meats found in the supermarket fit into this category.
These foods provide toxic chemical breakdown products that adversely affect the mind and irritate the nervous system. In addition, they accelerate premature aging and chronic degenerative disease. That would be enough reason right there to avoid them, but there is more...much, much more.
When people start moving toward a healthier diet, they usually start favoring chicken over red meat. The problem is, chicken isn't much better. If you haven't completely made the transition yet, at least look for range-fed chickens ("organic" chickens), which won't be quite as harmful.We don't believe in scare tactics, but sometimes the truth IS scary. Consider, for example, this fact: According to Dr. Rous, Nobel Prize winner and long-time researcher at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research,
95% of the chickens for sale in the U.S. are cancerous!
While we are on the subject of meat consumption, here is a provocative thought: Not only is the killing of animals for food inhumane, but if you eat them, their death will hasten your death. While people can sometimes get around the laws of the land, they cannot get around the laws of nature.
God, Who is the designer of the human body and Who therefore knows how it runs best, originally gave man "every herb bearing seed" for food. It was not until after the flood in Genesis 9:4 that God put the dread of man in the animals and gave them to him to eat, but with one restriction, "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat," which is repeated in the New Testament (Acts 15:20). What is interesting about this is that it is a command that is impossible to obey unless one is a vegetarian.
I can't help but think that there is a direct relationship. The interesting thing about this is right after this concession was made to man, his lifespan immediately decreased significantly, from around 900 years (the longest lifespan was that of Methuselah, at 969 years) down to around 300 years and then it dropped off again to around 70 years. This would be the physiological modern-day fulfillment of "your blood of your lives will I require."
While it is best to move toward an 80% raw food diet, most people are used to cooking everything and it would be difficult (and not recommended) to make the change all at once. But in the process of making changes, a few food preparation items that would also best be avoided include Microwave ovens, aluminum cookware, cookware with Teflon coatings and plastics.
[ cancer treatment ] [ BanishDiabetes secretsof living]
[ stop heavy bleeding ] [ Nature’sMiracles] [ Full Detox ]
[Burn The Fat] [ Learn Guitar in only 7 Days]
[THE BIGGEST HEALTH TIP IS HERE! >> “It amazes me that most people’s lives seem
to be getting dressed in the clothes that they buy for work, driving through morning traffic in a car they are still paying for in order to get to the job they need so they can pay for
the clothes, pay for the car and pay for the home they leave empty all day in order to
afford to live in it”… REALLY THINK ABOUT IT!
green foods
The following shows the ingredients of many green drink products and highlights some of the benefits of each element:
• Kamut Grass - Can decrease cholesterol levels, lead to weight loss and add protein to the diet.
• Alfalfa Sprouts - Also helps to lower cholesterol, shift weight, and is also a source of protein and folate.
• Broccoli - Strong anti-cancer ingredient. Also helps to cleanse and strengthen the blood, boost the immune system and improve digestion. Broccoli helps to lower cholesterol and adds vitamins c, a, b6 and b2, and the minerals folate, iron, potassium and magnesium!
• Dandelion Greens - Excellent at warding off cancer, strengthens the immune system and also helps with weight loss and cholesterol levels. Great source of iron and calcium.
• Kale - Also anti-cancer, strengthens blood, strengthens immunity, lowers cholesterol, contributes to weight loss and contains Vitamin C, A, Iron, Calcium, Potassium, Magnesium.
• Kelp - Strengthens the blood and immune systems while lowering cholesterol! Importantly, also assists in breakdown of protein and regeneration of blood cells. Also a source of folate, Iron, Calcium, Magnesium and Iodine.
• Okra - Anti-cancer, Strengthens blood, Strengthens immunity, Improves digestion, Lowers Cholesterol, Weight Loss, Source of Fibre, Vitamin C, B1, B6, Folate, Iron, Calcium
• Parsley - Anti-cancer, Strengthens blood, Strengthens immunity, Lowers Cholesterol, Weight Loss, Vitamin C, A, Folate, Iron
• Spinach - Anti-cancer, Improves blood pressure, Strengthens blood, Strengthens immunity, Improves digestion, Lowers Cholesterol, Weight Loss, Source of Fibre, Vitamin C, A, B2, B6, Folate, Iron, Calcium, Potassium, Magnesium
• Tomato - Anti-cancer, Strengthens blood, Strengthens immunity, Lowers Cholesterol, Weight Loss, Vitamin C, A, Folate, Iron, Potassium
• Watercress - Watercress has strong cancer fighting capabilities and can also help to reduce cholesterol and aid with weight reduction. It is a good source of vitamins A and C.
• Oat Grass - As with watercress, but also contains a high level of fibre, iron and magnesium.
• Soya Bean - Soya bean is a great source of protein and give the immune system an almighty kick!
• Sprouts - Sprouts contain literally hundreds of condensed vitamins, minerals and micronutrients.
• Celery - Lowers Cholesterol, Weight Loss, Source of Fibre, Vitamin C, Folate
• Cabbage - Anti-cancer, Strengthens blood, Strengthens immunity, Weight Loss, Source of Fibre, Vitamin C, Folate
• Bilberry Leaves - Improves blood sugar control in diabetics, Lowers triglycerides, Strengthens capillaries, Protects against atherosclerosis, and blocks E. coli bacteria
• Boldo - Helps indigestion, Protects the liver from toxins, has anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties
• Goldenseal - Anti-fungal and Anti-bacterial properties
• Lecithin - May lower cholesterol, may protect liver
• White Willow - Anti-inflammatory
• Slippery Elm - Aids irritable bowel syndrome, gastritis, heartburn, and haemorrhoids
• Marshmallow Root - Good for digestive and respiratory problems
• Turmeric - Anti-inflammatory, works on indigestion and gall bladder disease
• Peppermint - Treats colicky pain, irritable bowel syndrome, indigestion, gall stones, candida, yeast infections, and relieves mucus congestion
• Corn Silk Diurectic - rich source of potassium, helps disorders of the kidneys, bladder and urinary tract, and liver
• Couch Grass - Improves sore throats, difficult urination and kidney stones
• Pau d’Arco - Immune stimulant, effective against bacterial, fungal, viral, parasitic, and yeast infections
• Rosemary - Potent antioxidant, antiseptic, and antispasmodic. Used for nervous disorders upset stomach, headaches, pain, strains and bruises
• Thyme - Antiseptic, treats respiratory problems such as asthma, allergies and coughs, as well as digestive problems and headaches
• Black Walnut Leaf - Anti-fungal and anti-parasitic, relieves constipation, and may help eliminate warts. Helps balance blood sugar levels, burn toxins and fatty deposits, and has anti-cancer effects.
• Wintergreen - Helps headaches, arthritis and muscle pain. Reduces inflammation and stimulates circulation
• Celery Seed - Reduces blood pressure, eliminates arthritis, gout and kidney problems. Diuretic and antioxidant properties
• Dandelion Diuretic - cleans blood and liver, increases bile production, improves kidney, spleen, pancreas, and stomach function
• Lemon Grass - Aids in digestion, reduces fevers, flu, headaches and intestinal irritation
• Meadowsweet - Tightens tissues, promotes elimination of excessive fluids, anti-inflammatory. Works on colds, flu, nausea, digestive disorders, diarrhoea, muscle cramp and ache
• Papaya - Aids digestion, eliminates heartburn, indigestion and inflammatory bowel diseases
• Plantain Diuretic - treats indigestion and heartburn
• Sage - Stimulates central nervous system and digestive tract
• Rosehips - Antioxidant properties, fights inflammation, bacteria and fungi. Relaxes stomach, stimulates circulation and digestion, and detoxifies the liver
• Parsley - diuretic, anti-cancer effects, stimulates digestion, helps kidney, liver, stomach, lung and thyroid function.
• Kamut Grass - Can decrease cholesterol levels, lead to weight loss and add protein to the diet.
• Alfalfa Sprouts - Also helps to lower cholesterol, shift weight, and is also a source of protein and folate.
• Broccoli - Strong anti-cancer ingredient. Also helps to cleanse and strengthen the blood, boost the immune system and improve digestion. Broccoli helps to lower cholesterol and adds vitamins c, a, b6 and b2, and the minerals folate, iron, potassium and magnesium!
• Dandelion Greens - Excellent at warding off cancer, strengthens the immune system and also helps with weight loss and cholesterol levels. Great source of iron and calcium.
• Kale - Also anti-cancer, strengthens blood, strengthens immunity, lowers cholesterol, contributes to weight loss and contains Vitamin C, A, Iron, Calcium, Potassium, Magnesium.
• Kelp - Strengthens the blood and immune systems while lowering cholesterol! Importantly, also assists in breakdown of protein and regeneration of blood cells. Also a source of folate, Iron, Calcium, Magnesium and Iodine.
• Okra - Anti-cancer, Strengthens blood, Strengthens immunity, Improves digestion, Lowers Cholesterol, Weight Loss, Source of Fibre, Vitamin C, B1, B6, Folate, Iron, Calcium
• Parsley - Anti-cancer, Strengthens blood, Strengthens immunity, Lowers Cholesterol, Weight Loss, Vitamin C, A, Folate, Iron
• Spinach - Anti-cancer, Improves blood pressure, Strengthens blood, Strengthens immunity, Improves digestion, Lowers Cholesterol, Weight Loss, Source of Fibre, Vitamin C, A, B2, B6, Folate, Iron, Calcium, Potassium, Magnesium
• Tomato - Anti-cancer, Strengthens blood, Strengthens immunity, Lowers Cholesterol, Weight Loss, Vitamin C, A, Folate, Iron, Potassium
• Watercress - Watercress has strong cancer fighting capabilities and can also help to reduce cholesterol and aid with weight reduction. It is a good source of vitamins A and C.
• Oat Grass - As with watercress, but also contains a high level of fibre, iron and magnesium.
• Soya Bean - Soya bean is a great source of protein and give the immune system an almighty kick!
• Sprouts - Sprouts contain literally hundreds of condensed vitamins, minerals and micronutrients.
• Celery - Lowers Cholesterol, Weight Loss, Source of Fibre, Vitamin C, Folate
• Cabbage - Anti-cancer, Strengthens blood, Strengthens immunity, Weight Loss, Source of Fibre, Vitamin C, Folate
• Bilberry Leaves - Improves blood sugar control in diabetics, Lowers triglycerides, Strengthens capillaries, Protects against atherosclerosis, and blocks E. coli bacteria
• Boldo - Helps indigestion, Protects the liver from toxins, has anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties
• Goldenseal - Anti-fungal and Anti-bacterial properties
• Lecithin - May lower cholesterol, may protect liver
• White Willow - Anti-inflammatory
• Slippery Elm - Aids irritable bowel syndrome, gastritis, heartburn, and haemorrhoids
• Marshmallow Root - Good for digestive and respiratory problems
• Turmeric - Anti-inflammatory, works on indigestion and gall bladder disease
• Peppermint - Treats colicky pain, irritable bowel syndrome, indigestion, gall stones, candida, yeast infections, and relieves mucus congestion
• Corn Silk Diurectic - rich source of potassium, helps disorders of the kidneys, bladder and urinary tract, and liver
• Couch Grass - Improves sore throats, difficult urination and kidney stones
• Pau d’Arco - Immune stimulant, effective against bacterial, fungal, viral, parasitic, and yeast infections
• Rosemary - Potent antioxidant, antiseptic, and antispasmodic. Used for nervous disorders upset stomach, headaches, pain, strains and bruises
• Thyme - Antiseptic, treats respiratory problems such as asthma, allergies and coughs, as well as digestive problems and headaches
• Black Walnut Leaf - Anti-fungal and anti-parasitic, relieves constipation, and may help eliminate warts. Helps balance blood sugar levels, burn toxins and fatty deposits, and has anti-cancer effects.
• Wintergreen - Helps headaches, arthritis and muscle pain. Reduces inflammation and stimulates circulation
• Celery Seed - Reduces blood pressure, eliminates arthritis, gout and kidney problems. Diuretic and antioxidant properties
• Dandelion Diuretic - cleans blood and liver, increases bile production, improves kidney, spleen, pancreas, and stomach function
• Lemon Grass - Aids in digestion, reduces fevers, flu, headaches and intestinal irritation
• Meadowsweet - Tightens tissues, promotes elimination of excessive fluids, anti-inflammatory. Works on colds, flu, nausea, digestive disorders, diarrhoea, muscle cramp and ache
• Papaya - Aids digestion, eliminates heartburn, indigestion and inflammatory bowel diseases
• Plantain Diuretic - treats indigestion and heartburn
• Sage - Stimulates central nervous system and digestive tract
• Rosehips - Antioxidant properties, fights inflammation, bacteria and fungi. Relaxes stomach, stimulates circulation and digestion, and detoxifies the liver
• Parsley - diuretic, anti-cancer effects, stimulates digestion, helps kidney, liver, stomach, lung and thyroid function.
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[THE BIGGEST HEALTH TIP IS HERE! >> “It amazes me that most people’s lives seem
to be getting dressed in the clothes that they buy for work, driving through morning traffic in a car they are still paying for in order to get to the job they need so they can pay for
the clothes, pay for the car and pay for the home they leave empty all day in order to
afford to live in it”… REALLY THINK ABOUT IT!
Heart Attacks and Cancer
Reducing Deaths from
Heart Attacks and Cancer
This is to suggest that deaths from heart attacks and cancer can be reduced by half without changing our lifestyles all that much.
First I will address the subject of deaths from the kind of heart attack now called myocardial infarction (MI) but which seventy years ago was called coronary thrombosis. There are in the USA now about 500,000 such deaths a year, but this is a new disease that has come about in this century. Prior to 1925, there was almost no knowledge of this disease.
I have had a long exchange with Dr. Rodney Finlayson, who is now in retirement in North Devon in England. Beginning in 1975, he did a study of the records of several London hospitals back to 1869 looking for case histories that were obvious cases of death from MI. Here is what he found. His figures are a ratio of deaths from MI per unit of population.
From 1869 until 1900, there was one MI death per unit. By 1910, there were 10 MI deaths per unit. This was the time when machine-made cigarettes were on the market, and Dr. Finlayson suggested that cigarette smoking had caused deaths from MI to increase by a factor of ten. By 1980, MI deaths per unit of population had increased to 80.2 Dr. Finlayson did not know it, but at the same time Dr. Alaster Mackinnon had been doing a similar study in Yorkshire.
This study was of a constant population of about 22,000. The Mackinnon results were the same as in the Finlayson study; that is, MI deaths increased in a ratio of one in 1900, to 10 in 1910, to 80 in 1980.
There were in the late 1960s reports of two populations in the world who were as free from MI deaths as was the English population in 1900. One such population was the black population in Uganda and the other was the North Indians living near Udiapur. This suggests that we could again be as free from MI deaths as was the population of England in 1900.
We will now go back to 1882 when Bizzozero discovered blood platelets and suggested that they start all blood clots. He had it all figured out right then that the beginning of all blood clots is a white or platelet thrombus. He said that in a blood clot, there is first the platelet thrombus followed by the more massive fibrin thrombus.6 The only problem was that he was about the only doctor in the world who thought that way, although the editor of The Lancet in 1883 made favorable comment about Bizzozero's discovery. Nearly all doctors then were certain that there were no such things as blood platelets. In 1926, Tait and Burk of the University of Montreal redid the work of Bizzozero and said that `yes,' that was the nature of a blood clot.7 They had no better luck in convincing doctors than did Bizzozero, however. At this time, a blood clot was made of fibrin, and while at long last it was agreed that there were such things as blood platelets, they had nothing to do with disease or blood clots.
In 1930, Professor Karl Link of the University of Wisconsin discovered warfarin and said that it would tend to prevent the formation of the fibrin portion of a blood clot. Thereafter, his university made millions of dollars on the sale of warfarin to kill rats. A big dose of warfarin will cause rats to die of internal bleeding.
In 1945, doctors began to treat heart attack patients with a low dose of warfarin to prevent the formation of fibrin in coronary artery blood clots. Thereafter, heart attack patients by the millions were maintained on a low dose of warfarin for year upon year.
By 1955, it was decided that treatment with warfarin was not doing much to prevent a second heart attack,8 so cholesterol was discovered as being the cause of heart attacks. Cholesterol in foods such as eggs would settle out of blood like mud out of water, clogging the arteries and causing a heart attack. As blood clots seemed to no longer be the problem, the name of the disease was changed to myocardial infarction.
The Prudent Diet It was then found that the polyunsaturated liquid vegetable fats, such as corn oil, in the diet would reduce cholesterol in blood a little, which led to the birth of the Prudent Diet.
In the Prudent Diet, the amount of polyunsaturated vegetable fatty acids in the diet should be double the saturated animal fat. It is difficult to believe, but almost overnight cardiologists had unlimited faith in the Prudent Diet as being the ultimate answer to the pandemic of heart attacks.
Having said that everyone should live on the Prudent Diet to keep from having a heart attack, cardiologists then set about to prove this to be true.
The first study was the Joliffe Anti-Coronary Club in New York City. Joliffe was a doctor working for the city. He was a diabetic and a vascular wreck. He was in a wheelchair and had gone blind in one eye. He looked to the Prudent Diet for his salvation.
The control group in this trial was men of wealth on Wall Street who could afford good food. They had a diet that included lots of eggs, butter, cheese, and beef. The Prudent Diet group was mostly teaching staff at city universities. A drug firm made a special margarine rich in polyunsaturated fats to be part of the Prudent Diet. The Prudent Diet was very strict in having almost no butterfat and very little red meat.
The trial ran for four years and was hailed as a great success for the Prudent Diet, as total serum cholesterol was reduced by 25 percentage points. One had to read the fine print, however, to discover that eight men on the Prudent Diet died of MI, whereas none of the controls eating eggs, butter, and beef died of a heart attack.9 Then Dr. Joliffe died, it was said of complications of his diabetic condition. He may have had a heart attack.
Cardiologists then decided that to prove the need for the Prudent Diet, there would have to be an anti-coronary club formed, with over a million men enrolled. This was the National Diet Heart Study, and it was formed by Dr. Irwine Page of the Cleveland Clinic, who had survived a heart attack. This trial had millions of dollars of US government funds to support it. There were food warehouses set up in seven cities, where men on the Prudent Diet could get (free) the proper food, which included polyunsaturated donuts.
Before they would get one million men involved, there would first be a pretrial of two thousand men. This pretrial ran for three years, and the results were an utter failure. There were exactly the same number of heart attacks, both fatal and non-fatal, in both groups, the ones on the Prudent Diet and the controls.10 This trial had been started with the maximum of PR and fanfare. It was terminated with no public announcement for “reasons of cost.” I saw Dr. Page at the beginning of this trial, and he was absolutely confident that the Prudent Diet was going to keep him from having another heart attack. He then died of a second heart attack.
Here is a thought. In the Joliffe trial there were no MI deaths among the controls, who were living on a diet very much like the diet of 1900 in the USA. In the National Diet Heart Study, there were the same number of fatal heart attacks in both the Prudent Diet group and the control group. By this time, the entire nation was living on something very close to the Prudent Diet. The men in the Prudent Diet group were living on a diet that was just a little more Prudent.
In England, during the same time, there was a trial that had patients who had survived a heart attack. Here again, the Prudent Diet was an utter failure, with the same number of heart attack deaths in both the Prudent Diet group and the controls.11
Then there was an 8-year trial of the Prudent Diet at a VA hospital in California, in which cancer deaths increased among the patients on the Prudent Diet by 15%.11a Not long after that, there was an editorial in the British Medical Journal asking if polyunsaturated fats were causing cancer, with a strong suggestion that they were.12
By now we were up to 1970 and, notwithstanding the failures of the Prudent Diet trials, the Prudent Diet had become engraved in stone as the way to not have a heart attack. Most of the population of our Western World was living on something very close to the Prudent Diet by then.
The Prudent Diet Causes Heart Attacks
Then there were five population studies all of which suggested that the Prudent Diet was causing heart attacks. First there was the Roseto, Pennsylvania, study. This small city is 100% Italian— prosperous Italians. If the Prudent Diet was right, then what these Italians were doing was wrong. They had in their diet lots of cheese and meatballs, and the main fat in their diet was olive oil, which is not very polyunsaturated. In 1955, among this Italian population, there were only one-third the MI deaths as compared to other cities in eastern Pennsylvania and the nation as a whole. Here it was suggested that living in big families reduced the stresses of life, thus preventing heart attacks. In no way could it be suggested that the Prudent Diet was causing deaths from MI.
By 1970, the population of Roseto was having the same number of MI deaths as the nation, doctors having persuaded them to live on the Prudent Diet.13
Next there was the Boston Irish Brothers Study. Here brothers were found where one brother remained in Ireland and one went to Boston. In 1965, the population of Ireland had in their diet large amounts of saturated animal fat in milk, butter, and meat, and very little of the “good polyunsaturated fats.” Again, if the Prudent Diet was right, then the diet in Ireland was wrong. It was fully expected that the brothers in Boston who were living on a diet near to the Prudent Diet would be having fewer MI deaths than the brothers in Ireland. What was found was just the opposite, with the butter-eating brothers in Ireland having far fewer MI deaths.14
Cardiologists said that men in Ireland did more walking around, which kept them from having MI deaths. Again there could be no suggestion that the Prudent Diet was causing MI deaths.
Then there was a study in India. The North Indians were found to be nearly free from MI deaths. These Indians in 1970 were the world's biggest eaters of butter fat as ghee. By religion, they could eat some meat. They were also the world's biggest eaters of onions and garlic.
At this time, there was a strict vegetarian population in the South of India who lived on the Prudent Diet more closely than anyone in the USA. They had a high fat diet in which all the fat was polyunsaturated vegetable oil or margarine made from it. They were having 15 times the MI deaths as compared to the butterfat-eating North Indians.15
By 1988, things had changed in the North of India. Low-cost liquid polyunsaturated vegetable oil had priced ghee out of the market. Also, doctors were teaching the Prudent Diet. By then the death rate from MI in North India had increased to match that in the USA.16
Then there is the South of France-Scotland study. The population of the South of France was eating much more butter and cheese than the population of Scotland. Both populations had elevated serum cholesterol; however, the population in Scotland was having five times the death rate from MI among men and 11 times greater among women. The difference was that the French were drinking about 400 cc. a day of wine. One of the good things in wine is bioflavonoid antioxidants.17 There will be more on this later. [See Part II, in the September/October issue of Well Being Journal.]
Then there is the population on Okinawa. This population again was compared to Scotland. Here again both populations had elevated serum cholesterol, the same in both nations; however, there was only about 10% the MI death rate among the population of Okinawa as compared to Scotland. There was almost none of the polyunsaturated fats in the diet in Okinawa. These people raise a lot of swine, and the main fat in their diet is lard. They also eat a lot of fish.
Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Increase MI Deaths
So, in the population studies that have been done to date, adding polyunsaturated fatty acids to the diet seems to have been increasing MI deaths.
I have had a long friendship with Professor Terrence Anderson who last was Head of the School of Public Health at the University of British Columbia. He maintains that the pandemic of MI death that has happened since 1900 has been caused by adding to the diet large amounts of polyunsaturated vegetable fats from which the antioxidants have been removed.18 It is a fact that as MI deaths have increased 80-fold since 1900, polyunsaturated fats have increased in the diet by a factor of three. He cited references that corn oil from which the antioxidants have been removed is cardiotoxic.
It is a fact that MI deaths have increased in direct proportion to the increase in polyunsaturated fats in our diet.
Just look at the fats in the diet in 1900, when MI was unknown and most rare. They were butter and lard. The only polyunsaturated vegetable oil to be had then was cottonseed oil, and the use of it was minuscule.
In 1980, cardiologists resurrected platelets and blood clots as a cause of MI deaths—and told everyone over 40 to take aspirin to prevent having a heart attack. One factor in the prevention of MI is the adhesiveness of platelets, as the greater the adhesion of platelets, the greater the chance of having a coronary blood clot.
Then came a series of trials on aspirin in the prevention of MI. The results were about the same as with the Prudent Diet trials. There were, in the 1970s, two trials in England that were failures. No benefit or very slight benefit was found for aspirin in the prevention of MI.19,20 This was followed by a much larger government-financed trial in the USA, reported in 1980. This trial was an abject failure, with much bleeding of the stomach due to aspirin and no benefit at all in the prevention of MI.21
Doctors felt that the case could be made for aspirin if only doctors were the subjects. A trial in England among doctors was again a failure;22 however, a larger trial among doctors in the USA was hailed as a great success. In this American trial, non-fatal heart attacks were reduced by 40%. The bad news, however, was that fatal heart attacks were not reduced and moreover overall survival was not increased.23 Nonetheless, as the result of this trial, it was suggested or even demanded that all men over 40 should be taking aspirin.
There was something a bit different about this trial among doctors in the USA. Bufferin was used, and Bufferin contains both aspirin and some magnesium. Magnesium is greatly beneficial to the heart. It reduces platelet adhesion, is a vasodilator, and is a potent antiarrhythmic agent.24
Platelet Adhesiveness
At the National Heart Hospital in London circa 1970, they were using a test for platelet adhesion and the results were stated as PAI, platelet adhesiveness index. In this test, a blood sample was taken and a platelet count was made. Then a second blood sample was taken, and this time the blood was passed over glass beads. If half the platelets stuck to the beads, PAI was 50. Patients who had survived a heart attack would have PAI of 50 and hence were considered to be at risk of death from a second heart attack. Young women who never suffer from MI have PAI of 20, yet they will have proper blood clots in wounds.
At the National Heart Hospital, in the years 1960 to 1965, they did a PAI test on every MI patient to come to this hospital, and they never found a single patient with PAI less than 40. They felt anyone with a PAI of less than 40 was not going to have a heart attack. Put another way, they felt that the great problem about MI was one of blood clots in coronary arteries.
The idea of testing for PAI never came to the USA.
There are all kinds of things other than aspirin that reduce PAI, one of which is the drug dipyridamole. Here mention will be made of the European Stroke Prevention Study.25 About 90% of strokes are thrombotic strokes, blood clots in blood vessels in the brain. This trial had as subjects patients who had had an indication of a stroke. First, aspirin alone was used with little or no benefit. Then dipyridamole was added to treatment, 300 mg a day, and the results were outstanding. Stroke deaths were reduced by 50%, heart attack deaths by 35%, and cancer deaths by 25%.
There are so many things that reduce PAI better than aspirin. Vitamin E at 400 IU a day will.26 So will vitamin B6 at over 40 mg a day. There was an editorial in The Lancet a few years ago on how anti-thrombic vitamin B6 is at over 40 mg.27 So is fish oil.28 This is the omega-3 fatty acid that we have been hearing so much about of late. Then from the University of Wisconsin of late has been a report that purple grape juice at 10 oz. a day will reduce PAI better than aspirin. It has been suggested that gamma linolenic acid in evening primrose oil will reduce PAI better than anything else. Also the oils of onion and garlic will reduce PAI. Ground ginger also is greatly effective in reducing PAI and, like aspirin, it will reduce pain. It is highly anti-inflammatory.29
It is a sad state of affairs that doctors in the USA have gotten most men over 40 taking aspirin, while not setting up a test to see if it is, in fact, reducing PAI.
Wayne Martin is a biochemist who received his degrees in Bacteriology and biochemistry from Purdue University in 1933.
Correspondence: Wayne Martin, 25 Orchard Drive, Fairhope, AL 36532; 334-928-3975.
References
1. A.G. Gibbon, Ischemic necrosis of the heart. Lancet, 1925, i, pp. 1270-9.
2. Rodney Finlayson, Ischaemic Heart Disease, aortic aneurysms and atherosclerosis in the city of London 1868-1982. Medical History Supplement 5, 1995, pp. 151-69.
3. Alastair Mackinnon, The origin of the modern epidemic of coronary heart disease in England, Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, April 1987, pp. 174-6.
4. Wilber Thomas et al., Incidence of myocardial infarction with venous and pulmonary thrombosis and embolism. The American Heart Journal, Jan. 1960, pp. 41-47.
5. S.L. Malhotra, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 20, May 1997, pp. 462-74.
6. G. Bizzozero, Virchows Archiv fur Pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und fur Klinische Medizin 1882, Vol. 90, p. 261.
7. H.E. Burk and John Tait, Blood coagulation as by intravenous injection of tissue extract. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Physiology, 16, 1925, pp. 111-27.
8. Irving Wright et al., Report of the committee for the evaluation of anticoagulant in treatment of coronary thrombosis with myocardial infarction. American Heart Journal, Vol. 36, 1948, pp. 801-15.
9. JAMA, Nov. 7, 1966, pp 129-35.
10. Circulation, March 1968. The entire issue devoted to this trial.
11. Lancet, 1968, ii, pp. 693-6.
11a. American Heart Association Monograph No. 25, 1969. This entire monograph was devoted to this trial.
12. British Medical Journal Editorial, August 11, 1973.
13. Stewart Wolf et al., The Roseto Study, Transactions of the American Climatological Association, Vol. 85, 1973, pp. 100-112.
14. Fredrick Stare et al., Nutritional and epidemiologic factors related to heart attacks, World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics, Vol. 12, 1970, pp 1-42.
15. S.L. Malhotra, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 20, May 1967, pp. 462-74.
16. Bihari Raheja, Ghee, cholesterol and heart disease. Lancet, Nov. 14, 1987, p. 114.
17. S. Renaud and M. deLorgeril Whine, Alcohol, platelets and the French Paradox for coronary heart disease, Lancet, June 20, 1992, pp. 1523-6.
18. Terence Anderson, Nutritional Muscular Dystrophy and human myocardial infarction, Lancet, August 11, 1973, pp. 298-302.
19. C.H. Hammond and L. Garfinkel, Aspirin and coronary heart disease findings of a prospective study. British Medical Journal, 2: 1984, pp. 269-71.
20. Lancet, 1979, ii, pp. 1313-16.
21. Aspirin myocardial infarction study group. JAMA, Feb. 15, 1980, Vol. 243, pp. 661-9.
22. R. Peto et al., Randomized trial of prophylactic daily aspirin among British male doctors, British Medical Journal, 1988, Vol. 296, pp. 313-6.
23. Final report on the aspirin component of the ongoing physicians' health study, NEJM, July 20, 1989, pp. 129-35.
24. James Landauer, Reply to physicians' health study, NEJM, April 7, 1988, p. 925.
25. European Stroke Prevention Study, Lancet, Dec. 12, 1987, pp. 1351-3.
26. W.D. McDonald, Inhibition of human platelet cyclo-oxygenase by alpha tocopherol, Prostaglandins and Medicine, Vol. 4, 1980, pp. 79-85.
27. Editorial. Is vitamin B6 an antithrombic agent?, Lancet, June 13, 1981, p. 1299.
28. S. Moncada et al., Eicosapentaenoic acid and the prevention of thrombosis and atherosclerosis. Lancet 1978, i, pp. 18-20.
29. K.C. Srivastava and T. Mustafa, Ginger in rheumatoid and musculoskeletal disorders, Medical Hypotheses, 1992, Vol. 39, pp. 342-8.
Heart Attacks and Cancer
This is to suggest that deaths from heart attacks and cancer can be reduced by half without changing our lifestyles all that much.
First I will address the subject of deaths from the kind of heart attack now called myocardial infarction (MI) but which seventy years ago was called coronary thrombosis. There are in the USA now about 500,000 such deaths a year, but this is a new disease that has come about in this century. Prior to 1925, there was almost no knowledge of this disease.
I have had a long exchange with Dr. Rodney Finlayson, who is now in retirement in North Devon in England. Beginning in 1975, he did a study of the records of several London hospitals back to 1869 looking for case histories that were obvious cases of death from MI. Here is what he found. His figures are a ratio of deaths from MI per unit of population.
From 1869 until 1900, there was one MI death per unit. By 1910, there were 10 MI deaths per unit. This was the time when machine-made cigarettes were on the market, and Dr. Finlayson suggested that cigarette smoking had caused deaths from MI to increase by a factor of ten. By 1980, MI deaths per unit of population had increased to 80.2 Dr. Finlayson did not know it, but at the same time Dr. Alaster Mackinnon had been doing a similar study in Yorkshire.
This study was of a constant population of about 22,000. The Mackinnon results were the same as in the Finlayson study; that is, MI deaths increased in a ratio of one in 1900, to 10 in 1910, to 80 in 1980.
There were in the late 1960s reports of two populations in the world who were as free from MI deaths as was the English population in 1900. One such population was the black population in Uganda and the other was the North Indians living near Udiapur. This suggests that we could again be as free from MI deaths as was the population of England in 1900.
We will now go back to 1882 when Bizzozero discovered blood platelets and suggested that they start all blood clots. He had it all figured out right then that the beginning of all blood clots is a white or platelet thrombus. He said that in a blood clot, there is first the platelet thrombus followed by the more massive fibrin thrombus.6 The only problem was that he was about the only doctor in the world who thought that way, although the editor of The Lancet in 1883 made favorable comment about Bizzozero's discovery. Nearly all doctors then were certain that there were no such things as blood platelets. In 1926, Tait and Burk of the University of Montreal redid the work of Bizzozero and said that `yes,' that was the nature of a blood clot.7 They had no better luck in convincing doctors than did Bizzozero, however. At this time, a blood clot was made of fibrin, and while at long last it was agreed that there were such things as blood platelets, they had nothing to do with disease or blood clots.
In 1930, Professor Karl Link of the University of Wisconsin discovered warfarin and said that it would tend to prevent the formation of the fibrin portion of a blood clot. Thereafter, his university made millions of dollars on the sale of warfarin to kill rats. A big dose of warfarin will cause rats to die of internal bleeding.
In 1945, doctors began to treat heart attack patients with a low dose of warfarin to prevent the formation of fibrin in coronary artery blood clots. Thereafter, heart attack patients by the millions were maintained on a low dose of warfarin for year upon year.
By 1955, it was decided that treatment with warfarin was not doing much to prevent a second heart attack,8 so cholesterol was discovered as being the cause of heart attacks. Cholesterol in foods such as eggs would settle out of blood like mud out of water, clogging the arteries and causing a heart attack. As blood clots seemed to no longer be the problem, the name of the disease was changed to myocardial infarction.
The Prudent Diet It was then found that the polyunsaturated liquid vegetable fats, such as corn oil, in the diet would reduce cholesterol in blood a little, which led to the birth of the Prudent Diet.
In the Prudent Diet, the amount of polyunsaturated vegetable fatty acids in the diet should be double the saturated animal fat. It is difficult to believe, but almost overnight cardiologists had unlimited faith in the Prudent Diet as being the ultimate answer to the pandemic of heart attacks.
Having said that everyone should live on the Prudent Diet to keep from having a heart attack, cardiologists then set about to prove this to be true.
The first study was the Joliffe Anti-Coronary Club in New York City. Joliffe was a doctor working for the city. He was a diabetic and a vascular wreck. He was in a wheelchair and had gone blind in one eye. He looked to the Prudent Diet for his salvation.
The control group in this trial was men of wealth on Wall Street who could afford good food. They had a diet that included lots of eggs, butter, cheese, and beef. The Prudent Diet group was mostly teaching staff at city universities. A drug firm made a special margarine rich in polyunsaturated fats to be part of the Prudent Diet. The Prudent Diet was very strict in having almost no butterfat and very little red meat.
The trial ran for four years and was hailed as a great success for the Prudent Diet, as total serum cholesterol was reduced by 25 percentage points. One had to read the fine print, however, to discover that eight men on the Prudent Diet died of MI, whereas none of the controls eating eggs, butter, and beef died of a heart attack.9 Then Dr. Joliffe died, it was said of complications of his diabetic condition. He may have had a heart attack.
Cardiologists then decided that to prove the need for the Prudent Diet, there would have to be an anti-coronary club formed, with over a million men enrolled. This was the National Diet Heart Study, and it was formed by Dr. Irwine Page of the Cleveland Clinic, who had survived a heart attack. This trial had millions of dollars of US government funds to support it. There were food warehouses set up in seven cities, where men on the Prudent Diet could get (free) the proper food, which included polyunsaturated donuts.
Before they would get one million men involved, there would first be a pretrial of two thousand men. This pretrial ran for three years, and the results were an utter failure. There were exactly the same number of heart attacks, both fatal and non-fatal, in both groups, the ones on the Prudent Diet and the controls.10 This trial had been started with the maximum of PR and fanfare. It was terminated with no public announcement for “reasons of cost.” I saw Dr. Page at the beginning of this trial, and he was absolutely confident that the Prudent Diet was going to keep him from having another heart attack. He then died of a second heart attack.
Here is a thought. In the Joliffe trial there were no MI deaths among the controls, who were living on a diet very much like the diet of 1900 in the USA. In the National Diet Heart Study, there were the same number of fatal heart attacks in both the Prudent Diet group and the control group. By this time, the entire nation was living on something very close to the Prudent Diet. The men in the Prudent Diet group were living on a diet that was just a little more Prudent.
In England, during the same time, there was a trial that had patients who had survived a heart attack. Here again, the Prudent Diet was an utter failure, with the same number of heart attack deaths in both the Prudent Diet group and the controls.11
Then there was an 8-year trial of the Prudent Diet at a VA hospital in California, in which cancer deaths increased among the patients on the Prudent Diet by 15%.11a Not long after that, there was an editorial in the British Medical Journal asking if polyunsaturated fats were causing cancer, with a strong suggestion that they were.12
By now we were up to 1970 and, notwithstanding the failures of the Prudent Diet trials, the Prudent Diet had become engraved in stone as the way to not have a heart attack. Most of the population of our Western World was living on something very close to the Prudent Diet by then.
The Prudent Diet Causes Heart Attacks
Then there were five population studies all of which suggested that the Prudent Diet was causing heart attacks. First there was the Roseto, Pennsylvania, study. This small city is 100% Italian— prosperous Italians. If the Prudent Diet was right, then what these Italians were doing was wrong. They had in their diet lots of cheese and meatballs, and the main fat in their diet was olive oil, which is not very polyunsaturated. In 1955, among this Italian population, there were only one-third the MI deaths as compared to other cities in eastern Pennsylvania and the nation as a whole. Here it was suggested that living in big families reduced the stresses of life, thus preventing heart attacks. In no way could it be suggested that the Prudent Diet was causing deaths from MI.
By 1970, the population of Roseto was having the same number of MI deaths as the nation, doctors having persuaded them to live on the Prudent Diet.13
Next there was the Boston Irish Brothers Study. Here brothers were found where one brother remained in Ireland and one went to Boston. In 1965, the population of Ireland had in their diet large amounts of saturated animal fat in milk, butter, and meat, and very little of the “good polyunsaturated fats.” Again, if the Prudent Diet was right, then the diet in Ireland was wrong. It was fully expected that the brothers in Boston who were living on a diet near to the Prudent Diet would be having fewer MI deaths than the brothers in Ireland. What was found was just the opposite, with the butter-eating brothers in Ireland having far fewer MI deaths.14
Cardiologists said that men in Ireland did more walking around, which kept them from having MI deaths. Again there could be no suggestion that the Prudent Diet was causing MI deaths.
Then there was a study in India. The North Indians were found to be nearly free from MI deaths. These Indians in 1970 were the world's biggest eaters of butter fat as ghee. By religion, they could eat some meat. They were also the world's biggest eaters of onions and garlic.
At this time, there was a strict vegetarian population in the South of India who lived on the Prudent Diet more closely than anyone in the USA. They had a high fat diet in which all the fat was polyunsaturated vegetable oil or margarine made from it. They were having 15 times the MI deaths as compared to the butterfat-eating North Indians.15
By 1988, things had changed in the North of India. Low-cost liquid polyunsaturated vegetable oil had priced ghee out of the market. Also, doctors were teaching the Prudent Diet. By then the death rate from MI in North India had increased to match that in the USA.16
Then there is the South of France-Scotland study. The population of the South of France was eating much more butter and cheese than the population of Scotland. Both populations had elevated serum cholesterol; however, the population in Scotland was having five times the death rate from MI among men and 11 times greater among women. The difference was that the French were drinking about 400 cc. a day of wine. One of the good things in wine is bioflavonoid antioxidants.17 There will be more on this later. [See Part II, in the September/October issue of Well Being Journal.]
Then there is the population on Okinawa. This population again was compared to Scotland. Here again both populations had elevated serum cholesterol, the same in both nations; however, there was only about 10% the MI death rate among the population of Okinawa as compared to Scotland. There was almost none of the polyunsaturated fats in the diet in Okinawa. These people raise a lot of swine, and the main fat in their diet is lard. They also eat a lot of fish.
Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Increase MI Deaths
So, in the population studies that have been done to date, adding polyunsaturated fatty acids to the diet seems to have been increasing MI deaths.
I have had a long friendship with Professor Terrence Anderson who last was Head of the School of Public Health at the University of British Columbia. He maintains that the pandemic of MI death that has happened since 1900 has been caused by adding to the diet large amounts of polyunsaturated vegetable fats from which the antioxidants have been removed.18 It is a fact that as MI deaths have increased 80-fold since 1900, polyunsaturated fats have increased in the diet by a factor of three. He cited references that corn oil from which the antioxidants have been removed is cardiotoxic.
It is a fact that MI deaths have increased in direct proportion to the increase in polyunsaturated fats in our diet.
Just look at the fats in the diet in 1900, when MI was unknown and most rare. They were butter and lard. The only polyunsaturated vegetable oil to be had then was cottonseed oil, and the use of it was minuscule.
In 1980, cardiologists resurrected platelets and blood clots as a cause of MI deaths—and told everyone over 40 to take aspirin to prevent having a heart attack. One factor in the prevention of MI is the adhesiveness of platelets, as the greater the adhesion of platelets, the greater the chance of having a coronary blood clot.
Then came a series of trials on aspirin in the prevention of MI. The results were about the same as with the Prudent Diet trials. There were, in the 1970s, two trials in England that were failures. No benefit or very slight benefit was found for aspirin in the prevention of MI.19,20 This was followed by a much larger government-financed trial in the USA, reported in 1980. This trial was an abject failure, with much bleeding of the stomach due to aspirin and no benefit at all in the prevention of MI.21
Doctors felt that the case could be made for aspirin if only doctors were the subjects. A trial in England among doctors was again a failure;22 however, a larger trial among doctors in the USA was hailed as a great success. In this American trial, non-fatal heart attacks were reduced by 40%. The bad news, however, was that fatal heart attacks were not reduced and moreover overall survival was not increased.23 Nonetheless, as the result of this trial, it was suggested or even demanded that all men over 40 should be taking aspirin.
There was something a bit different about this trial among doctors in the USA. Bufferin was used, and Bufferin contains both aspirin and some magnesium. Magnesium is greatly beneficial to the heart. It reduces platelet adhesion, is a vasodilator, and is a potent antiarrhythmic agent.24
Platelet Adhesiveness
At the National Heart Hospital in London circa 1970, they were using a test for platelet adhesion and the results were stated as PAI, platelet adhesiveness index. In this test, a blood sample was taken and a platelet count was made. Then a second blood sample was taken, and this time the blood was passed over glass beads. If half the platelets stuck to the beads, PAI was 50. Patients who had survived a heart attack would have PAI of 50 and hence were considered to be at risk of death from a second heart attack. Young women who never suffer from MI have PAI of 20, yet they will have proper blood clots in wounds.
At the National Heart Hospital, in the years 1960 to 1965, they did a PAI test on every MI patient to come to this hospital, and they never found a single patient with PAI less than 40. They felt anyone with a PAI of less than 40 was not going to have a heart attack. Put another way, they felt that the great problem about MI was one of blood clots in coronary arteries.
The idea of testing for PAI never came to the USA.
There are all kinds of things other than aspirin that reduce PAI, one of which is the drug dipyridamole. Here mention will be made of the European Stroke Prevention Study.25 About 90% of strokes are thrombotic strokes, blood clots in blood vessels in the brain. This trial had as subjects patients who had had an indication of a stroke. First, aspirin alone was used with little or no benefit. Then dipyridamole was added to treatment, 300 mg a day, and the results were outstanding. Stroke deaths were reduced by 50%, heart attack deaths by 35%, and cancer deaths by 25%.
There are so many things that reduce PAI better than aspirin. Vitamin E at 400 IU a day will.26 So will vitamin B6 at over 40 mg a day. There was an editorial in The Lancet a few years ago on how anti-thrombic vitamin B6 is at over 40 mg.27 So is fish oil.28 This is the omega-3 fatty acid that we have been hearing so much about of late. Then from the University of Wisconsin of late has been a report that purple grape juice at 10 oz. a day will reduce PAI better than aspirin. It has been suggested that gamma linolenic acid in evening primrose oil will reduce PAI better than anything else. Also the oils of onion and garlic will reduce PAI. Ground ginger also is greatly effective in reducing PAI and, like aspirin, it will reduce pain. It is highly anti-inflammatory.29
It is a sad state of affairs that doctors in the USA have gotten most men over 40 taking aspirin, while not setting up a test to see if it is, in fact, reducing PAI.
Wayne Martin is a biochemist who received his degrees in Bacteriology and biochemistry from Purdue University in 1933.
Correspondence: Wayne Martin, 25 Orchard Drive, Fairhope, AL 36532; 334-928-3975.
References
1. A.G. Gibbon, Ischemic necrosis of the heart. Lancet, 1925, i, pp. 1270-9.
2. Rodney Finlayson, Ischaemic Heart Disease, aortic aneurysms and atherosclerosis in the city of London 1868-1982. Medical History Supplement 5, 1995, pp. 151-69.
3. Alastair Mackinnon, The origin of the modern epidemic of coronary heart disease in England, Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, April 1987, pp. 174-6.
4. Wilber Thomas et al., Incidence of myocardial infarction with venous and pulmonary thrombosis and embolism. The American Heart Journal, Jan. 1960, pp. 41-47.
5. S.L. Malhotra, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 20, May 1997, pp. 462-74.
6. G. Bizzozero, Virchows Archiv fur Pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und fur Klinische Medizin 1882, Vol. 90, p. 261.
7. H.E. Burk and John Tait, Blood coagulation as by intravenous injection of tissue extract. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Physiology, 16, 1925, pp. 111-27.
8. Irving Wright et al., Report of the committee for the evaluation of anticoagulant in treatment of coronary thrombosis with myocardial infarction. American Heart Journal, Vol. 36, 1948, pp. 801-15.
9. JAMA, Nov. 7, 1966, pp 129-35.
10. Circulation, March 1968. The entire issue devoted to this trial.
11. Lancet, 1968, ii, pp. 693-6.
11a. American Heart Association Monograph No. 25, 1969. This entire monograph was devoted to this trial.
12. British Medical Journal Editorial, August 11, 1973.
13. Stewart Wolf et al., The Roseto Study, Transactions of the American Climatological Association, Vol. 85, 1973, pp. 100-112.
14. Fredrick Stare et al., Nutritional and epidemiologic factors related to heart attacks, World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics, Vol. 12, 1970, pp 1-42.
15. S.L. Malhotra, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 20, May 1967, pp. 462-74.
16. Bihari Raheja, Ghee, cholesterol and heart disease. Lancet, Nov. 14, 1987, p. 114.
17. S. Renaud and M. deLorgeril Whine, Alcohol, platelets and the French Paradox for coronary heart disease, Lancet, June 20, 1992, pp. 1523-6.
18. Terence Anderson, Nutritional Muscular Dystrophy and human myocardial infarction, Lancet, August 11, 1973, pp. 298-302.
19. C.H. Hammond and L. Garfinkel, Aspirin and coronary heart disease findings of a prospective study. British Medical Journal, 2: 1984, pp. 269-71.
20. Lancet, 1979, ii, pp. 1313-16.
21. Aspirin myocardial infarction study group. JAMA, Feb. 15, 1980, Vol. 243, pp. 661-9.
22. R. Peto et al., Randomized trial of prophylactic daily aspirin among British male doctors, British Medical Journal, 1988, Vol. 296, pp. 313-6.
23. Final report on the aspirin component of the ongoing physicians' health study, NEJM, July 20, 1989, pp. 129-35.
24. James Landauer, Reply to physicians' health study, NEJM, April 7, 1988, p. 925.
25. European Stroke Prevention Study, Lancet, Dec. 12, 1987, pp. 1351-3.
26. W.D. McDonald, Inhibition of human platelet cyclo-oxygenase by alpha tocopherol, Prostaglandins and Medicine, Vol. 4, 1980, pp. 79-85.
27. Editorial. Is vitamin B6 an antithrombic agent?, Lancet, June 13, 1981, p. 1299.
28. S. Moncada et al., Eicosapentaenoic acid and the prevention of thrombosis and atherosclerosis. Lancet 1978, i, pp. 18-20.
29. K.C. Srivastava and T. Mustafa, Ginger in rheumatoid and musculoskeletal disorders, Medical Hypotheses, 1992, Vol. 39, pp. 342-8.
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[THE BIGGEST HEALTH TIP IS HERE! >> “It amazes me that most people’s lives seem to be getting dressed in the clothes that they buy for work, driving through morning traffic in a car they are still paying for in order to get to the job they need so they can pay for the clothes, pay for the car and pay for the home they leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it”… REALLY THINK ABOUT IT!
CAYENNE
CAYENNE:
Capsicum annuum
Solanaceae
A farmer used to give Cayenne to his chickens and cows when they were ailing, but never to the children when they were sick. One of the sons said, “We were worth more to him than those animals! He should have given it to us, too.” Dr. Christopher assured us that Cayenne is one of the greatest herbs of all time-though it is also one of the most misunderstood and ridiculed. He said that every home should have a good supply of Cayenne pepper.
When only a young man in his thirties, Dr. Christopher was told by the medical doctors that he could not live past his fortieth year because of arthritis, hardening of arteries, stomach ulcers, and some automobile accidents that had damaged him rather badly. He was so concerned that he started using Cayenne, working up to a teaspoon taken three times a day. By the time he was forty-five years old, he was working in a business wherein the group wanted him to have a $100,000 insurance policy because of the importance of the business deal.
Because it was such a large policy, the company required the examination to be given by two medical doctors, each to examine twice. At the end of one of these physicals, one of the doctors said, “This is astounding! You have the venous structure of a teenage boy, at forty-five years of age !”
The other doctor kept pumping up his blood pressure equipment over and over again, repeating the blood pressure check. Dr. Christopher began to be perturbed, and asked him if the equipment was broken. “It always has worked up till now, but I keep looking at your chart, which says you are forty-five years old, and yet your systolic over your diastolic is absolutely perfect. I cannot comprehend it.”
Dr. Christopher assured him that it was indeed perfect, and he attributed this clean bill of health to Cayenne. However, Dr. Christopher needed to be converted to the use of Cayenne. When he was attending the Herbal College in Canada, the teacher announced that they were going to study Cayenne. “Why Cayenne?” asked Dr. Christopher. “It will burn the lining out of the stomach.”
“Where did you get your information,” asked the teacher, Dr. Nowell. “Oh, my mother told me,” answered Dr. Christopher.
Everybody in the class laughed-except the teacher and Dr. Christopher. Dr. Nowell took Dr. Christopher around Vancouver and introduced him to over a dozen people whose lives had been saved with Cayenne: people with heart troubles, ulcers, asthma, and many other ailments. Wherever they went, the people were full of gratitude for being taught about Cayenne, and from then on Dr. Christopher was sold on it.
While Dr. Christopher was working in the business world, he was taking Cayenne, and on one business trip, he was traveling with an athlete, a man who had a black belt in karate and who was, in Dr. Christopher's words, “a husky little guy.” Yet he came from a family with a history of high blood pressure, and his uncle had died of varicosity. He was under the care of a doctor at the time. Every morning, Dr. Christopher would take a spoonful of Cayenne in a glassful of water, followed by a few tablespoons of wheat germ oil. The young man wanted to know what Dr. Christopher was taking and wanted to try some.
“You're probably too chicken,” Dr. Christopher told him! This reverse psychology worked; Dr. Christopher noticed that his Cayenne was disappearing gradually. When they returned from the trip, the man continued taking Cayenne, one teaspoonful three times a day. The doctor was astonished at the young man's next checkup - after a lifetime of high blood pressure, he now had a clean bill of health.
Once a child was shot in the abdomen; a bullet hit the spine, ricocheted, and made a second wound leaving the body. One of Dr. Christopher's herbal students, living next door, heard the shot and raced over, as she knew that the parents were not home and that the children, ages eight and four, would not be shooting guns. There was the eight-year-old gushing blood out both sides. She ran to the cabinet and mixed a tablespoonful of cayenne in a glass of water; she poured it down the boy and immediately called the ambulance, which was eighteen miles away.
The emergency room attendant said that the boy would probably bleed to death, being that the distance was so great. The ambulance arrived and rushed the child (who had been playing “Cops and Robbers” with his fathers pistol, which he had found Under the pillow of the bed, to the Primary Children's Hospital eighteen miles away. When he arrived, he was the center of attraction, not because his ease was so dangerous, but because he was chatting a mile a minute - and there was not bleeding.
The bleeding had stopped by the time they arrived at the hospital. The chief doctor said to the parents, “I have seen many accident victims in my life, but this is the first time in such an emergency operation that I have opened an abdomen to find no blood, except for a small amount that was there before the bleeding stopped so quickly. This has saved your boy's life.”
In that same year, Dr. Christopher treated four other gunshot victims, and each ease responded the same, although sometimes the blood coagulates and comes out in clumps before it stops completely. By the time you count to ten, however, the heavy bleeding should stop completely after administering Cayenne. The Doctor even used tincture of Cayenne on open wounds and, as he put it, “There may be a bit of muttering about it,” referring to the burning feeling of the Cayenne, but the bleeding stops.
Dr. Christopher related the humorous story of a very fine student of his who had begun teaching herb classes on his own. This young man happened to precede Dr. Christopher's lecture one evening in Arizona. The young man said, “You know, ladies and gentlemen, that Dr. Christopher has always made me gasp.
I've seen him drink two or three tablespoons of Cayenne in water - and I'd just shudder. But tonight I'm going to do something that he may have never done himself.” With that, he reached down into a container of Cayenne and threw a pinch right into his eye. Dr. Christopher thought that the man must have gone crazy and he was concerned that one of his students would do such a thing in public, although he knew that Cayenne can never hurt the cell structure, no matter how delicate it is.
The tears ran down the man's cheek as he continued talking, and when he was finished, he opened his eye and invited everyone to look. The eye just sparkled; it was by far the brighter of the two, although Dr. Christopher said that he never had seen this antic performed again - and that he never dared to try it himself.
A lady who had been attending Dr. Christopher's lectures over the years told the story of her husband who had a severe ease of stomach ulcers. The doctor recommended that part of the stomach be removed, but the man preferred to suffer the pain rather than risk such an operation. But he also ridiculed his wife's recommendations to use Cayenne and other herbs. Whenever he would see Dr. Christopher in town, he'd bellow, “Hello, Doe! Killed anybody with Cayenne today?” Naturally, Dr. Christopher tried to avoid him, but one day he came directly to the Doctor—but this time without any sarcasm, instead being very apologetic, telling this story.
He had come home from work one night, so sick he wanted to die, with stomach ulcers. His wife was not home, but he was in such pain that he decided to commit suicide. When he looked into the medicine cabinet to find some kind of medicine poisonous enough to kill him, he discovered that his wife had discarded all the old bottles of pharmaceutical medicines. All he could find were some bottles of herbs and a large container of Cayenne pepper. He figured that a large dose of that would kill him, so he took a heaping tablespoon in a glass of hot water, gulped it down, rushed into the bedroom, and covered his head with a pillow so that the neighbors couldn't hear his dying screams.
The next thing he knew, his wife was shaking him awake the next morning. He had slept all night, the first time in years, instead of waking every half hour or so for anti-acid tablets. To his amazement, all his pain was gone. He continued using the Cayenne faithfully, three times a day, and never had any more trouble with ulcers.
Once, when traveling with a business partner, Dr. Christopher recommended Cayenne to him, as the man had extremely high blood pressure and such bad hemorrhoids that he had to wear a belt. Dr. Christopher used the same reverse psychology on this man - "I don't think you are brave enough”—and pretty soon the man was taking the Cayenne and the wheat germ oil, too. In a few months, he did not have to wear a belt any longer, and his systolic and diastolic at his blood pressure examination were nearly perfect. He no longer had to go to the doctor—and he lived many long years, for he kept taking his Cayenne.
Early in Dr. Christopher's practice, he was called in the middle of the night by a woman whose husband had just passed out from a heart attack. The Doctor told the woman to heat some water, and he arrived at the house and mixed a teaspoon of Cayenne into the water, propped up the man, and gave him just a little. When he came to, he finished the cup, and within a few minutes felt much stronger. Soon he was well, and became converted to the use of herbs, even buying and running one of the health food stores in Salt Lake City for many years.
One young man had cut his hand deeply, fingers as well as the palm. The blood spurted out in streams. He poured a large amount of Cayenne into the wound, and within seconds the blood flow slowed down, congealed, and stopped. He wrapped with wound, covering it first with a goodly amount of Cayenne. He was so excited about these results that he could hardly wait to attend the next herb lecture to tell about it. But when he unwrapped the bandage to show the audience, instead of a deep, ugly scar, the area was healed and there was no scar at all!
Cayenne can be used on any part of the body and for anybody, Dr. Christopher claimed. He even saved the life of a six-week-old baby who was born with chronic asthma by giving Cayenne tea, from an eyedropper, until the baby was able to breathe again. He said that Cayenne could even be given by enema for chronic constipation (if you are brave!).
At the age of seventy, a few years before he died, Dr. Christopher was asked by a premed student if he could take his blood pressure. The lecture group saw the blood pressure reading of a healthy young man, not the average reading of a seventy-year-old. In addition to a healthy life-style and the mucusless diet, Dr. Christopher attributed this good reading to his thrice-daily dose of Cayenne.
To show what a miracle worker Cayenne really is, Dr. Christopher related the experiment performed by medical doctors in the eastern United States—and printed in the medical journals. They put some live heart tissue in a beaker filled with distilled water, and fed it nothing but Cayenne pepper, cleaning off sediments periodically and adding nothing else but distilled water to replace that which was lost from evaporation. During the experiment, they would have to trim the tissue every few days, because it would grow so rapidly! Having no control glands (pituitary and pineal), the tissue just continued to grow rapidly. They kept this tissue alive for fifteen years.
After the doctor doing the experiment died, his associates kept it alive for two more years before destroying it for analysis This shows the tremendous regenerative and healing power of Cayenne, especially upon the heart.
Capsicum annuum
Solanaceae
A farmer used to give Cayenne to his chickens and cows when they were ailing, but never to the children when they were sick. One of the sons said, “We were worth more to him than those animals! He should have given it to us, too.” Dr. Christopher assured us that Cayenne is one of the greatest herbs of all time-though it is also one of the most misunderstood and ridiculed. He said that every home should have a good supply of Cayenne pepper.
When only a young man in his thirties, Dr. Christopher was told by the medical doctors that he could not live past his fortieth year because of arthritis, hardening of arteries, stomach ulcers, and some automobile accidents that had damaged him rather badly. He was so concerned that he started using Cayenne, working up to a teaspoon taken three times a day. By the time he was forty-five years old, he was working in a business wherein the group wanted him to have a $100,000 insurance policy because of the importance of the business deal.
Because it was such a large policy, the company required the examination to be given by two medical doctors, each to examine twice. At the end of one of these physicals, one of the doctors said, “This is astounding! You have the venous structure of a teenage boy, at forty-five years of age !”
The other doctor kept pumping up his blood pressure equipment over and over again, repeating the blood pressure check. Dr. Christopher began to be perturbed, and asked him if the equipment was broken. “It always has worked up till now, but I keep looking at your chart, which says you are forty-five years old, and yet your systolic over your diastolic is absolutely perfect. I cannot comprehend it.”
Dr. Christopher assured him that it was indeed perfect, and he attributed this clean bill of health to Cayenne. However, Dr. Christopher needed to be converted to the use of Cayenne. When he was attending the Herbal College in Canada, the teacher announced that they were going to study Cayenne. “Why Cayenne?” asked Dr. Christopher. “It will burn the lining out of the stomach.”
“Where did you get your information,” asked the teacher, Dr. Nowell. “Oh, my mother told me,” answered Dr. Christopher.
Everybody in the class laughed-except the teacher and Dr. Christopher. Dr. Nowell took Dr. Christopher around Vancouver and introduced him to over a dozen people whose lives had been saved with Cayenne: people with heart troubles, ulcers, asthma, and many other ailments. Wherever they went, the people were full of gratitude for being taught about Cayenne, and from then on Dr. Christopher was sold on it.
While Dr. Christopher was working in the business world, he was taking Cayenne, and on one business trip, he was traveling with an athlete, a man who had a black belt in karate and who was, in Dr. Christopher's words, “a husky little guy.” Yet he came from a family with a history of high blood pressure, and his uncle had died of varicosity. He was under the care of a doctor at the time. Every morning, Dr. Christopher would take a spoonful of Cayenne in a glassful of water, followed by a few tablespoons of wheat germ oil. The young man wanted to know what Dr. Christopher was taking and wanted to try some.
“You're probably too chicken,” Dr. Christopher told him! This reverse psychology worked; Dr. Christopher noticed that his Cayenne was disappearing gradually. When they returned from the trip, the man continued taking Cayenne, one teaspoonful three times a day. The doctor was astonished at the young man's next checkup - after a lifetime of high blood pressure, he now had a clean bill of health.
Once a child was shot in the abdomen; a bullet hit the spine, ricocheted, and made a second wound leaving the body. One of Dr. Christopher's herbal students, living next door, heard the shot and raced over, as she knew that the parents were not home and that the children, ages eight and four, would not be shooting guns. There was the eight-year-old gushing blood out both sides. She ran to the cabinet and mixed a tablespoonful of cayenne in a glass of water; she poured it down the boy and immediately called the ambulance, which was eighteen miles away.
The emergency room attendant said that the boy would probably bleed to death, being that the distance was so great. The ambulance arrived and rushed the child (who had been playing “Cops and Robbers” with his fathers pistol, which he had found Under the pillow of the bed, to the Primary Children's Hospital eighteen miles away. When he arrived, he was the center of attraction, not because his ease was so dangerous, but because he was chatting a mile a minute - and there was not bleeding.
The bleeding had stopped by the time they arrived at the hospital. The chief doctor said to the parents, “I have seen many accident victims in my life, but this is the first time in such an emergency operation that I have opened an abdomen to find no blood, except for a small amount that was there before the bleeding stopped so quickly. This has saved your boy's life.”
In that same year, Dr. Christopher treated four other gunshot victims, and each ease responded the same, although sometimes the blood coagulates and comes out in clumps before it stops completely. By the time you count to ten, however, the heavy bleeding should stop completely after administering Cayenne. The Doctor even used tincture of Cayenne on open wounds and, as he put it, “There may be a bit of muttering about it,” referring to the burning feeling of the Cayenne, but the bleeding stops.
Dr. Christopher related the humorous story of a very fine student of his who had begun teaching herb classes on his own. This young man happened to precede Dr. Christopher's lecture one evening in Arizona. The young man said, “You know, ladies and gentlemen, that Dr. Christopher has always made me gasp.
I've seen him drink two or three tablespoons of Cayenne in water - and I'd just shudder. But tonight I'm going to do something that he may have never done himself.” With that, he reached down into a container of Cayenne and threw a pinch right into his eye. Dr. Christopher thought that the man must have gone crazy and he was concerned that one of his students would do such a thing in public, although he knew that Cayenne can never hurt the cell structure, no matter how delicate it is.
The tears ran down the man's cheek as he continued talking, and when he was finished, he opened his eye and invited everyone to look. The eye just sparkled; it was by far the brighter of the two, although Dr. Christopher said that he never had seen this antic performed again - and that he never dared to try it himself.
A lady who had been attending Dr. Christopher's lectures over the years told the story of her husband who had a severe ease of stomach ulcers. The doctor recommended that part of the stomach be removed, but the man preferred to suffer the pain rather than risk such an operation. But he also ridiculed his wife's recommendations to use Cayenne and other herbs. Whenever he would see Dr. Christopher in town, he'd bellow, “Hello, Doe! Killed anybody with Cayenne today?” Naturally, Dr. Christopher tried to avoid him, but one day he came directly to the Doctor—but this time without any sarcasm, instead being very apologetic, telling this story.
He had come home from work one night, so sick he wanted to die, with stomach ulcers. His wife was not home, but he was in such pain that he decided to commit suicide. When he looked into the medicine cabinet to find some kind of medicine poisonous enough to kill him, he discovered that his wife had discarded all the old bottles of pharmaceutical medicines. All he could find were some bottles of herbs and a large container of Cayenne pepper. He figured that a large dose of that would kill him, so he took a heaping tablespoon in a glass of hot water, gulped it down, rushed into the bedroom, and covered his head with a pillow so that the neighbors couldn't hear his dying screams.
The next thing he knew, his wife was shaking him awake the next morning. He had slept all night, the first time in years, instead of waking every half hour or so for anti-acid tablets. To his amazement, all his pain was gone. He continued using the Cayenne faithfully, three times a day, and never had any more trouble with ulcers.
Once, when traveling with a business partner, Dr. Christopher recommended Cayenne to him, as the man had extremely high blood pressure and such bad hemorrhoids that he had to wear a belt. Dr. Christopher used the same reverse psychology on this man - "I don't think you are brave enough”—and pretty soon the man was taking the Cayenne and the wheat germ oil, too. In a few months, he did not have to wear a belt any longer, and his systolic and diastolic at his blood pressure examination were nearly perfect. He no longer had to go to the doctor—and he lived many long years, for he kept taking his Cayenne.
Early in Dr. Christopher's practice, he was called in the middle of the night by a woman whose husband had just passed out from a heart attack. The Doctor told the woman to heat some water, and he arrived at the house and mixed a teaspoon of Cayenne into the water, propped up the man, and gave him just a little. When he came to, he finished the cup, and within a few minutes felt much stronger. Soon he was well, and became converted to the use of herbs, even buying and running one of the health food stores in Salt Lake City for many years.
One young man had cut his hand deeply, fingers as well as the palm. The blood spurted out in streams. He poured a large amount of Cayenne into the wound, and within seconds the blood flow slowed down, congealed, and stopped. He wrapped with wound, covering it first with a goodly amount of Cayenne. He was so excited about these results that he could hardly wait to attend the next herb lecture to tell about it. But when he unwrapped the bandage to show the audience, instead of a deep, ugly scar, the area was healed and there was no scar at all!
Cayenne can be used on any part of the body and for anybody, Dr. Christopher claimed. He even saved the life of a six-week-old baby who was born with chronic asthma by giving Cayenne tea, from an eyedropper, until the baby was able to breathe again. He said that Cayenne could even be given by enema for chronic constipation (if you are brave!).
At the age of seventy, a few years before he died, Dr. Christopher was asked by a premed student if he could take his blood pressure. The lecture group saw the blood pressure reading of a healthy young man, not the average reading of a seventy-year-old. In addition to a healthy life-style and the mucusless diet, Dr. Christopher attributed this good reading to his thrice-daily dose of Cayenne.
To show what a miracle worker Cayenne really is, Dr. Christopher related the experiment performed by medical doctors in the eastern United States—and printed in the medical journals. They put some live heart tissue in a beaker filled with distilled water, and fed it nothing but Cayenne pepper, cleaning off sediments periodically and adding nothing else but distilled water to replace that which was lost from evaporation. During the experiment, they would have to trim the tissue every few days, because it would grow so rapidly! Having no control glands (pituitary and pineal), the tissue just continued to grow rapidly. They kept this tissue alive for fifteen years.
After the doctor doing the experiment died, his associates kept it alive for two more years before destroying it for analysis This shows the tremendous regenerative and healing power of Cayenne, especially upon the heart.
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[THE BIGGEST HEALTH TIP IS HERE! >> “It amazes me that most people’s lives seem
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JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF YOUR COLON
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF YOUR COLON
This Chapter Has a Few Specific Applications:
1. for those who have reached that certain crest between self-loathing and self esteem where they can no longer endure the condition of their body and are prepared to do whatever it takes to reverse the tide
2. for those who have begun a nutrition or supplement program with no results, or else may have reached a plateau in their progress.
3. for those with long term allergies which years of shots and pills have not cured
4. for those who suspect that they're not eliminating normally
5. for those who have been diagnosed with one of the following dead-end labels:
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Spastic Colon
Crohn's Disease
Chronic Colitis
Leaky Gut Syndrome
Regional Ileitis
Esophageal Reflux
Malabsorption Syndrome
Candida albicans
This is not a discussion for the improvement of the above conditions. We're talking about resolution: the return to normal operation of the systems. If 1–4 above apply to you, and you grasp the principles cited in the medical sources at the end of this chapter, your problems may well be over.
Many doctors have noted the pivotal importance of the colon in the body's health, from the ancients to the moderns. Physicians from ancient Rome and Greece felt that "death begins in the colon." (Hippocrates) These healers regarded the colon as a life-center of the body - one of its most important organs.
The colon's importance seems often to be glossed over and patronized by today's mainstream approach, in which the colon is thought of simply as the body's sewer, without regard for its many critical, dynamic biologic functions. Consequently, rates of death from colon cancer are at an all time high in our country's history. Colon cancer is now the #3 cancer in the U.S.
The above list of "diseases" are experienced today in epidemic proportions, and with standard treatment are almost never cured.
The irony is that to return to a normal state is simplicity itself. The biggest obstacle seems to be finding that out.
Let's begin with some
BASIC PLUMBING
The digestive tract can be thought of as a long tube from one end to the other. Food goes in one end; waste exits the other. The tube is divided into sections we know:
Mouth
Throat
Esophagus
Stomach
Small intestine
Large intestine
The large intestine is also called the colon.
That's the whole tube, top to bottom. It's important to remember one odd fact: the inside of the tube is still considered the outside of the body. No misprint. The food sitting there in your intestines is still outside the body. Reason: it hasn't been absorbed into the bloodstream yet.
Let's follow a grape through the tube.
You pop the grape into your mouth. Chewing releases the grape's enzymes, which are going to help break it down into its component parts.
You swallow the chewed grape. It goes down the esophagus and ends up in the stomach. There the grape gets churned around some more, and has some of the body's digestive juices break it down further. After about an hour of this, the stomach spits the chewed grape particles into the next section of the tube, the small intestine.
The small intestine is about 22' long. After more enzymes are added, this is when the grape particles first get inside the body. Happens like this: the inside of the small intestine is lined with a velvety layer of tiny fingerlike projections called microvilli. It's kinda like a microscopic version of one of those pieces of mattress foam rubber with the bumps on it. The microvilli increase the absorptive surface area of the colon to the size of a football field. Absorption of the nutrients contained in the grape particles happens through the microvilli. The nutrients are passing from the inside of the small intestine through the intestine wall, into the bloodstream.
After several hours of giving the small intestine enough chance to absorb all nutrients, the undigested waste, whatever's left over of the grape that wasn't absorbed, gets moved along and propelled into the final section of the tube: the colon.
The colon is a muscular tube about six feet long. All along the walls are infoldings called haustrae, which mark off sections of the colon.
By the end of adolescence, the passage through the colon should be about two inches in diameter. Adolescents should have little trouble eliminating, because the process of undigested layers of waste sticking to the lining of the colon wall is not that advanced. With an unrestricted diet high in rancid fats and excess protein, the inside passageway gradually becomes smaller and smaller, requiring more force to push everything through. Straining at stool is an obvious sign of a blocked colon and is not normal.
Elimination should be effortless, no matter what the person's age. Producing rabbit pellets with great effort is a sign of serious obstruction, as well as a toxifying lifestyle. Adolescents who are educated to eat lots of raw live foods may never experience the buildup of sludge layers at all. Here we see the distinction between average and normal.
The average American teenager has a bad diet and little dietary advice, eating about 125 grams of protein a day with only about 25 grams being sufficient. The normal American teenager likely has been shown what to eat for optimum health, and knows the indigestibility and absence of nutrients in most foods available in the cafeteria.
There are three primary reasons for rotting food persisting in the digestive tract:
1. We kill our friendly bacteria
2. Acidification of the body decreases enzyme production
3. Mucoid plaque in the intestinal lining halts peristalsis
Let's do them one at a time:
1. FRIENDLY BACTERIA
Wrongly described as the body's sewer, the colon is actually buzzing with life activity. Millions of friendly bacteria are hard at work in the colon. Their job is the final stage of digestion, leaving only what is absolutely of no use to the body to be eliminated. The friendly bacteria, weighing as much as three pounds in the normal colon, more than 400 species, also function to keep bad bacteria in check. (Shahani) It seems that most bacteria in the world and in the body are actually beneficial to our health. Bacteria are the janitors of the world, disposing of decaying and diseased cells. Think of a beach with no bacteria. What would happen to all those dead fish that wash up there? Wouldn't be much of a Club Med spot, that's certain.
How do the friendly bacteria, called probiotics, keep the bad bacteria in check? Well, think of a crowded theatre. You walk in, and there's no place to sit; all the seats are taken. So you can't stay. Same thing with bacteria. There's only a certain number of "seats" in the colon. If they're all taken by friendly bacteria, then there's no chance for the bad bacteria to set up shop and start to duplicate themselves. According to most researchers, like Simon Martin, normal probiotics should be more numerous than the cells of the intestinal lining itself.
Here's why probiotics are so important. Normal people generally have some cancer cells, Candida yeast, HIV, staphylococcus, strep, and any number of other potentially bad organisms you can think of in their tract most of the time. But they don't get any disease. Researchers know, for example, that 50% of men over age 75 actually have prostate cancer, found on autopsy, but only 2% die from it. Why? The body encapsulated the cancer: limited and controlled its growth, walled it off. The discoverer of the HIV virus himself, Dr. Luc Montagnier, said that HIV alone cannot cause AIDS. (The Coming Plague) Depressed immune environment is also necessary. Same with Candida or most other bacteria; normally they'll be held in check by sufficient friendly bacteria. E. coli is actually a probiotic when held in check by normal friendly flora. It's only when the friendly probiotic bacteria get killed off that the potentially bad organisms get a chance to get a foothold and take over. The bad bugs are then called opportunists.
So probiotics (friendly bacteria) are extremely important. The whole key is balance. Problem is, our friendly bacteria are constantly being killed off. How?
antibiotics we take
antibiotics given to the animals whose meat we eat
antacids, like Zantac, Tagamet, Prilosec, etc.
NSAIDs, like Advil, Tylenol, Excedrin, Motrin, etc.
other prescription and over the counter medications
white sugar
carbonated drinks
antihistamines
chlorinated water
fluoridated water
coffee
Without friendly probiotics, the final stage of digestion can't take place in the colon. Debris rots in there. Opportunistic bacteria and Candida albicans start taking over. Bernard Jensen, on the relation between the bad bacteria and the undigested food
"…bacteria and viruses, which are cell scavengers, are not there for lack of something better to do. They're there because there is malnourished, enzyme-depleted, diseased, and necrotic tissue. Functioning as nature's biological sanitation department, they must break down and eliminate the sick tissue to prevent further poisoning of the body. If you stop their action, you allow continuous poisoning by the decaying tissue…"
Jensen makes a point here that should not be missed. He's talking about rotting food in the colon as well as diseased living cells of the colon itself, both attracting bacteria. It's an identical situation in the two separate instances:
"Undigested food in the colon"
"Bacterial infection in a diseased organ of the body (the colon)
In neither case are the bacteria causing illness. They are trying to prevent illness by breaking down the dying tissue. Whether it's rotting yogurt in a blocked colon, a dead coyote in the forest, or infected liver cells in the body of an alcoholic, bacteria are just doing what they do best: cleaning up. When the bacteria are "diagnosed" as the cause of the illness, rather than a sign of the illness, the medical approach is to try and kill them. But that's like killing the garbage men. The garbage remains. Understanding such a simple concept is pivotal in arriving at a holistic outlook toward health.
Chronically undigested food is often present in quantities too great for any bacteria to scavenge. The debris then becomes plastered onto the inside lining of the colon, eventually making it smooth and shiny, like the inside of a new shotgun barrel. When this happens, absorption is blocked. (Rogers)
2. ACIDIFICATION OF THE BODY
This is a bit technical, so don't feel bad about skipping it. It involves pH. That means acid/base balance. You know, like soap is basic or alkaline, and oranges are acidic. Now in the body certain places only operate correctly if they're at exactly the right pH. The stomach lining for example has to be alkaline in order to counteract the acidic digestive enzymes. Otherwise we'd constantly be burning holes in the stomach lining. All phases of digestion are totally dependent upon a delicate acid/base balance.
The problem is, most foods in the Standard American Diet – Big Mac, fries, coke, pizza, etc. are acid-forming. That means they lower the pH of the body: too acid. The balance is disrupted: many enzymes can't operate. Digestion is inhibited: food sits there and rots.
A sixteen ounce bottle of Coke has a pH around 2. Very acidic. To bring the pH back up to our normal 7.3, we would have to dilute the Coke with about ten gallons of water. But we don't usually drink ten gallons of water after every Coke. So how does it work?
The blood must maintain a pH between 7.3 and 7.45. (Guyton). If not, we die. With all the acid foods we keep eating, the body tries desperately to keep its pH within the range. The first things it tries are buffering with bicarbonates in the blood and lungs. (Guyton, p 392) Next, the body begins to sweep the extra acids into the tissues, especially muscles and joints. That's what lactic acid buildup comes from. If that's still not enough, as a final effort to keep from acidifying, the body will actually precipitate acids out of solution, in the form of solid crystals and salts. This is the exact mechanism of gallstones, kidneys stones, uric acid crystals, plaque, and cholesterol crystals. A built-in protection for self preservation. We think of these stones as major medical problems, but in reality it's just a sign that the body's systems are functioning as they should. Otherwise we'd be dead of acidosis.
So what happens to the colon from an over-acid diet? In a word, enzymes. Or rather, lack of enzymes. Enzymes are necessary to break down and digest food. If the environment is too acid, the enzymes in the stomach and small intestine don't work very well. By the time it gets to the colon, everything that was supposed to be digested should have already had it happen. But it hasn't. So the undigested food gets dumped into the colon. There are no digestive enzymes in the colon. So the food just sits there and rots.
Now, minerals can only be absorbed at a certain pH. And minerals are a necessary component of enzyme formation. So it's a vicious circle: acidification of the body causes decreased minerals, which cause decreased enzyme production, which causes the food to rot in the tract. Which further blocks absorption of water, nutrients, and minerals. Downward spiral.
Absorption. Another critical job of the colon is electrolyte reabsorption and water reclamation back into the bloodstream, so we're not constantly losing them. Electrolytes are important minerals, like sodium and potassium which conduct electrical charge through the body. They are necessary for normal cell function. The idea is for the body to maintain as much water, sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium as possible, for maximum conservation. Remember, we're almost 70% water. The colon is the logical place for this reabsorption to happen since it's the last portion of the tube.
In the sick human, the colon is blocked. Water and electrolytes don't get reabsorbed. Where do they go? Out. The body loses water, general dehydration, cell death, premature aging, kidney destruction, spilling of electrolytes, blood thickening, the whole enchilada of downward health then follows. Blocked absorption alone is enough to slowly kill you.
3. MUCOID PLAQUE HALTS PERISTALSIS
Mucoid plaque is a term used by many doctors and researchers to describe the uniform rubbery layers of mucous and rotting food which compact themselves year after year along the entire length of the digestive tract. (Anderson)
Peristalsis is the normal rhythmic muscular action of the intestine to push food down and outward, out of the body.
Mucoid plaque is formed as the intestine keeps producing mucous as a normal response to an irritant: undigested food. Food is not supposed to just sit there and rot. We're only supposed to store three meals (Jensen.) But most Americans store nine, twelve, or even more meals before one comes out. This increased transit time is irritating to the intestinal lining. Mucous is not powerful enough to move the toxic, enzymeless sludge of Taco Supremes and Curlie Fried Onion Rings with ketchup. But the body keeps on valiantly trying, and more and more mucous is constantly being produced. Eventually the mucous becomes matrixed with the most indigestible elements, like trans fatty acids from the Barbecue and Sour Cream chips. And it goes on day after day, week after week, month after month, etc. And the layers get thicker and harder and the colon grows in diameter. And we absorb less and less nutrients and we lose more and more water and minerals.
Want to discover your own transit time? Try this simple test: eat something you usually don't eat that will be easily identifiable when it comes out. Frozen corn, peanuts, and pistachios are some good examples. Simply note the time from when you eat the markers to the time when you see them leaving. That's your transit time, at least of the matter that is not cemented to the colon walls.
The intestinal walls contain long muscles whose job it is to keep things moving along. These muscles gradually become overstretched and weakened by the pressure of too much waste pushing against them, expanding outward, like blowing up a long thin balloon. Thus peristalsis – the normal wavelike muscular motion of the colon – is further inhibited and blockage is again promoted.
Mucoid plaque blocks inflow and outflow, resulting in lack of nutrient, water, and electrolyte absorption, as well as retention of toxic putrefaction in balloon-like blocked outpocketings of the intestine. In addition, pathogenic bacteria, parasites, and Candida thrive in the mucoid plaque layer and are actually protected by it from prescription or natural herbal remedies and efforts to remove them. Researchers refer to the mucoid plaque as a "culture medium" for these organisms. (Forstner)
Mucoid plaque is described as a natural response to an unnatural stimulus. It is a necessary protection the body produces to try and shield itself from poisons. Mucoid plaque is a product of the constant production of mucous by the glycocalyx lining cells, brought on by the modern American diet of fake, empty, processed, chemical-laden, hormone-laced, antibiotic-soaked foods. Many doctors have noted that when the plaque can be removed by a cleanse, remission from virtually any disease may result. Simple cause and effect.
Mucoid plaque has been definitely linked to gastric cancer by the simple mutation of the lining cells – metaplasia. (Sipponen, Filipe) No big surprise here – cell damage is caused by inflow/outflow blockage, and after a certain time, mutation occurs. Another mechanism is that the constant secretion of mucous captures the toxins, but since normal transit is blocked, the toxins become locked in one location, often for years, resulting in irritation and eventual cell mutation. The cells steep in their own wastes, month after month.
In a lecture in San Jose California on 26 Sep 98, Dr. Anderson told the story of one of his patients who underwent the cleanse in Hawaii a few years ago. The patient was passing long strands of the rubbery mucoid plaque, some over 20 feet in length! Fascinated, the patient hung the strands over his clothesline in the back yard. He then took a length of the plaque, and packaged it in a box to send to the mainland to prove what happened to him. He mailed the package at the local post office in Hawaii.
A few days later, two serious-looking officials knocked on the patient's door and asked him if he had sent such and such a package to such and such an address. The patient said yes, and asked what was the problem. They answered that the post office has dogs that sniff out all packages mailed off the island, and that one of them had become very excited about this package. The patient asked what were the dogs trained to detect. Only two things, came the answer: drugs and explosives. Which dog was it? The one for explosives. The patient was incredulous, especially when he recalled that he had worked with munitions some 25 years ago, and his job was to handle explosives! He explained the detox cleanse to the two agents and they were satisfied. This story illustrates the power of a such an intestinal cleanse: the body had retained these strong toxins in the mucoid plaque lining of the colon, stored in a concentration powerful enough to be detected by dogs through the layers of wrapping of a sealed package some 25 years later!
Of course it's anecdotal, but Anderson has been doing this for 15 years and has cleansed several thousand patients. He has amassed a ton of clinical data, but not through double blind studies. (Only drugs require double blind studies.) The rubbery mucoid plaque layer seals in toxins and prevents absorption of water and nutrients. Toxic sludge promotes proliferation of pathological bacteria and yeasts, like Candida.
Now for the bad news.
There's another separate demon at work in the blocked colon. His name is
AUTOINTOXICATION
Here's how he works: The sludge that's stopping up the works is undigested food. Undigested means rotting: putrefying, fermenting, going rancid. Proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, respectively. Want to see what that looks like? Leave some meat, some french fries, and some bread out on the counter for a week. A blocked colon can be even worse, because of the time frame involved: in many people the sludge sits in the colon for weeks or even longer. The colon walls are normally very well sealed in order to protect the body against reabsorbing the waste that is about to be eliminated. It's a sophisticated design, set up to allow water and electrolytes back into the body, but no toxic poisons. Stay with me now. In long-term buildup of undigested food in the colon, eventually a situation emerges that doctors call Leaky Gut Syndrome.
Essentially what's happening is that the sludge has built up so much blockage that the inner membranes of the colon develop leaks. Some of the toxic debris is forced through the walls of the colon, along with the water and electrolytes, back into the bloodstream. Hence, the name autointoxication: you're poisoning yourself.
Once in the bloodstream, the undigested debris, now a foreign irritant, can take up residence in any organ or tissue it finds room. Chronic inflammation begins, and gradually, degeneration of that organ. Here are some of the diseases that such a sequence can cause:
Chronic Allergies----- Jaundice
Kidney disease----- Acne
Hepatitis----- Psoriasis
Blinding headaches--- AIDS
Arthritis----- Pancreatitis
Chronic fatigue syndrome--- Depression
Infections------- Fibromyalgia
Septicemia----- Multiple Joint Pain Syndrome
Dermatitis----- Autoimmune Disorders
Candida albicans----- Cancer
to name just a few. This list is taken from an article by Leo Garland, MD who has done extensive research in this area of hyperpermeability, as illustrated by the list of over 150 references at the end of the article.
It's funny, when people with average intelligence first hear about Leaky Gut Syndrome, they usually understand it right away because it seems logical. Very often, it is the nutritionists, dieticians, and doctors who seem more apt to question the existence of hyperpermeability, or Leaky Gut Syndrome. Even though there has been years of copious research in the best medical journals thoroughly documenting its characteristics and nature, Leaky Gut Syndrome is not commonly taught as part of the medical curriculum, or the abbreviated curriculum presented to nutritionists and dieticians. Many of these people therefore conclude that since they got their degrees without hearing about hyperpermeability or Leaky Gut Syndrome, it must not exist! Very curious.
Dr. Garland suffers from no such illusions. He traces the physiology of how large molecules of the "toxic/antigenic load" (undigested sludge) work their way through the intestinal walls and are first introduced into the liver before they are available to the bloodstream. Dr. Garland describes the "high cost" of the liver's detox work: creation of free radicals and other "reactive intermediaries" which themselves may be passed into the bloodstream if the toxic burden becomes too great for the liver's defenses. Here we see the particulars of autointoxication, not just some New Age literary theory. Dr. Garland points out the wide range of pathological conditions, listed above, which may come about exactly through this mechanism. Very sophisticated markers have been devised which can measure the toxins that "leak" into the body. (S. Martin)
Jensen has an axiom that the disease is named by where the toxins finally settle.
Candida albicans, the opportunistic yeast, can be both a cause and a result of Leaky Gut Syndrome. Once Candida gets a foothold in the gut, it puts down "roots" through the gut wall, causing openings through which large molecules and toxins can leak. Candida cells can themselves be introduced into the bloodstream in this same fashion. (Simon Martin)
Sherry Rogers MD, implicates Leaky Gut Syndrome as a primary cause for autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus. She says such conditions can be the result of the
"formation of auto-antibodies due to leaking of body tissue look-alike antigens…"
TRANSIT TIME
Let's talk propulsion for a minute. Normal elimination involves rhythmic contraction of the muscles in the colon wall, to push the waste outward. Again, this natural, wavelike motion is called peristalsis.
It is normal to eliminate two or more times per day. Transit time: how much time between food in and waste out. Normal transit time is less than 24 hours. This means that only two or three meals should be in transit throughout the digestive tract at a time. Today's breakfast IN pushes yesterday's breakfast or lunch OUT. Toxic fecal matter is supposed to totally leave the body in one day, not hang around to toxify. That's the design. Many people you know have been brought up to think that it is normal to eliminate only once every two or three days. Or even longer. That means they are storing NINE meals or more in the tract at all times. The waste from nine meals or more is always inside them.
Want to track your transit time? Use a marker; corn perhaps. Time it.
The problem is that the longer the food is in the colon, the more it begins to rot and toxify the body. Modern soft foods and empty junk foods have greatly increased transit time, for two reasons:
1. They are indigestible
2. They lack fiber
The colon thus becomes a breeding ground for pathological bacteria whose toxic byproducts further add to the totality of biochemical poisons. All this yuk is then available to be reabsorbed into the bloodstream, because of Leaky Gut Syndrome. From the chapter on Allergies ( www.thedoctorwithin.com ), you'll remember that means hyperpermeability of the gut wall: stuff gets through into the bloodstream which shouldn't get through, because of the destruction of the cells of the colon's lining. Large molecules of rotting fats, proteins, and carbohydrates, which also may drag along with them the toxic wastes of the pathological bacteria that have been breeding in the putrid sludge, all this can leak through into the bloodstream. From there the toxins have access to every cell in the body. Getting the image?
Let's make it worse. Let's hypothesize a lot of indigestible chips and margarine into the mix. No enzymes. Less than one glass of water per day. That's right – we're making cement here. Solid compacting of unmetabolizable sewage, daily pasted and encrusted in ever-thickening layers along the inside folds, the haustrae, of the colon. Mucoid plaque. Think the inside diameter of that shotgun barrel is getting bigger, or smaller year by year?
SIX FOOT BALLOON
The colon is fabulously extensible: it can expand up to five times its normal size when stuffed. Surgeons report expanded colons up to 12 inches in diameter, with a central opening the size of a pencil! (Tissue Cleansing p. 27) Technicians who measure percent body fat on patients day after day begin to notice an odd fact: many people with almost normal body fat readings have enormous abdomens. Pregnant trucker Santa Clauses with skinny legs. Reason: it's not fat. It's a monster colon, packed with sludge to five times of its normal size, expanding outward. (Rich. Anderson) Actually makes sense – if it were otherwise, many people would be dead in their 20s because the colon walls would become so layered with sludge that there would be no passageway left for elimination. The colon would simply close up.
Doing sit-ups? Trying to flatten that lower abdomen, and you aren't really overweight? But it won't get flat, right? It isn't fat. Most likely it's rotting food in the colon. How's the elimination? Transit time?
In his fascinating book, Cleanse and Purify, Dr. Richard Anderson cites his encounter with one medical doctor who did not want to be identified. This doctor, after hearing Anderson's lecture about mucoid plaque and expanded toxic colons, told the audience:
"I have spent twelve years working in the field of post-mortem diagnosis. I have seen many thousands of dissected cadavers. What Rich is telling you is the absolute truth. Everybody has it in there. We have a way of attaching a hose to the upper intestines and with the aid of powerful chemicals, we literally blow the stuff right out of the intestines. I have seen the heavy 'beer belly' and so called fat people lose all that bulk in five minutes. It wasn't fat. It was the mucoid layer that Rich was talking about. and in that filthy substance we see all sorts of worms, bacteria, fungi, and many unidentifiable things. It is almost unbelievable that people can live with that filth in them. All these people were dead of course, and it wasn't hard to see why…" (Anderson p2-46)
Probably won't read a story like that in any of the popular press…
The noted surgeon, Dr. Harvey Kellogg, of the Kellogg Sanitarium in Battle Creek Michigan, whose experience was with the colons of living subjects, agreed:
"Of the 22,000 operations that I have personally performed, I have never found a single normal colon. Of the 100,000 that were performed under my jurisdiction, not over 6% were normal."
Dr. Kellogg estimated that over 90% of the "diseases of civilization" were due to a blocked and non-functioning colon.
- cited in Iridology: the Science and Practice p 408
If "normal" people can have up to 22 lbs of undigested food in the colon, how much can the Beef Barbecue Buddhas be carrying? 50 lbs? 100? The imagination reels.
A little more plumbing, now. The colon begins in the lower right abdomen, goes up toward the head about 8 inches or so and then makes a right angle straight across the upper abdomen over to the left side. Then it angles downward again, and then out. Trace this path with your finger. OK. The section of the colon that traverses straight across from one side to the other is known as the Transverse Colon.
Gastroenterologist researchers now know that in the stuffed and expanded transverse colon, the horizontal section, the extra weight is enough to make it prolapse, or fall down, so that it is lying atop organs that it normally wouldn't be in contact with, like the bladder, the uterus, the prostate, or the ovaries. Dr. Stephen Chang at the University of California has now shown that combining the effects of Leaky Gut Syndrome with a collapsed colon can actually be the mechanism for toxification, infection, and disease of any organ that is now touching this leaking, sagging toxic tube. (Ross Anderson) Obviously it would be an ineffective waste of drugs to treat these new infections in isolation, as long as the process of autointoxication continues, wouldn't you say?
Another common condition is
REFLUX
Intestinal reflux, gastric reflux, esophageal reflux – who cares? All the same idea. The pipes are backed up. You start eating and you're already full. Stomach juices back up and burn the delicate lining of the esophagus. Heartburn. Classic misdiagnosis: hiatal hernia, which is something rare and completely different and unrelated. Reflux is much more common and easily explained, in light of the empty, toxic, indigestible American diet we teach our children. When the overall pressure can be relieved by a colon cleanse, transit returns and reflux is no more. Reflux never was the underlying problem. Like the rest of them, reflux was just a sign of the problem: blocked pipes.
You're getting a lot of information here, more than most doctors want to think about. The medical attitude toward the colon generally takes the Sewer View. Much simpler to deal with: laxatives which force the most recent contents out by introducing a corrosive irritant drug into the bowels. But the cemented sludge remains. Some 44 million Americans depend on laxatives for elimination. With $23 billion a year in antibiotics (Chapter 3) being given to American patients, concern for normal flora repopulation doesn't get much airplay either.
The view of the colon as a living, breathing, active, vital organ is probably not something you're going to hear about at your next HMO visit. Corrosive laxatives may bring a day or two of relief, but the underlying condition persists. Antibiotics may kill all the bacteria for awhile, but why were the bad bacteria there in the first place? Rotting food. And what about the friendly bacteria also killed off by the antibiotics? Who's gonna do their job? No one.
Then there's the standard drugs most internists use. One of the most common is Prilosec. Prilosec is a powerful inhibitor of HCl (hydrochloric acid.) The reasoning goes something like this: the patient has tremendous burning gut pain and bad digestion and elimination. Must be too much stomach acid. So Prilosec turns off the stomach acid and the burning stops. For today. But guess what else stops. Digestion. Without HCl, protein doesn't get broken down, and it sits there and rots, further contributing to the toxic build-up and cess-pooling. This is called treating the problem by harming the patient.
With reflux, clearing the colon takes the pressure off the lower part of the GI tract, allowing room for the contents of the small intestine and the stomach to move downward. No more splashing acids into the esophagus. It's simple plumbing. But natural cures are always overlooked if they interfere with drug sales.
Another drug - Propulsid - supposedly works by forcing the impacted food out of the intestines. Unfortunately, so many people have died of heart failure from it, that is was scheduled to be taken off the market after 6 months, which would be Aug 2000. (Rubin) [That's standard procedure. Even though the FDA knows people are dying from a drug, they keep it on the market for up to a year to allow the drug companies to recover some of their investment!]
In the colon, the layers of compacted inner cement prevent reabsorption of water and electrolytes, as well as the return of normal flora activity. Dehydration and indigestion ensue. The toxic debris begins to irritate and inflame the delicate mucosal cells of the inner lining. Aspirin, Motrin, and Tylenol further aggravate the lining. (Rogers)
Chronic inflammation of the colon's inner lining – colitis – is epidemic. It is a precursor to cancer. Many patients have found that after detoxing the colon and getting rid of rotting wastes that have been in there for weeks or months, suddenly their colitis is history!
COLON CANCER
Colon Cancer is now the third most common cancer in America. Simple mechanism: blockage of inflow and outflow by rotting sludgy plaque. Surface lining cells swim in toxins day in day out, then weeks and months. Can't get nutrients, can't get rid of wastes. That about covers it for cell needs.
Colon cancer has also long been linked directly to the chlorination of municipal drinking water. (See the Water article) The mechanism is simple: chlorine sterilizes the colon by killing off the normal friendly bacteria which should live there. A 1989 report from Oak Ridge Associated Universities showed definite correlation between increased cancer incidence and fifteen years of chlorine in Denver's drinking water. (Eco-Update)
With no flora, sludge builds up and the delicate epithelial cells of the colon lining become packed with toxic decaying waste. Same scenario: the cells can't perform the two necessary functions of every living cell – nutrition and waste removal. Many cells die, but other simply mutate. That's what cancer is: altered, or mutated, cells.
Sections of the colon can collapse and become very narrow, like ribbons, easily blocked with hardened waste. This creates a condition called Crohn's Disease, and the narrow sections are called strictures. Extreme force is then necessary to propel waste past these blocked narrow passageways. Between the narrowed sections, outpocketings of toxic poisons can then balloon out, due to lack of normal transit of wastes. These pockets are very hospitable environments for bad bacteria and parasites to set up shop. Imagine the potency of by-products given off by pathological bacteria who are themselves feeding off toxic sludge. Autointoxication advances.
A desperate reflex to try and expel the mounting poisonous load commonly results in violent and painful cramping of colon wall muscles – Spastic Colon. The problem is not with the colon. The problem is with the human who keeps poisoning himself.
Resection, or cutting away a problem length of the colon, is a common medical recommendation in the persistent "problem colon" case. Sometimes the impacted waste has become like hard rubber or even calcified like a cement. Laxatives and drugs just won't do the trick. Standard medical thinking is, when drugs fail, something has to be cut out. The Kragen Method: the body is an automobile. Not a very holistic or long-term outlook, but it pays the bills. And it's got quite a tradition. Usual result is that the scar tissue which forms after the surgery can be as much an obstruction as the original undigested cement load.
For colon cancer, resection is routine. Cleansing is not even a medical option at that point. What they'll never tell you is that one third of all colon resections for cancer end up in recurrence of the cancer later on. (Yamada p 1801) Stands to reason: if you don't remove the cause of the cancer in the first place – autointoxication – what's to keep the cancer from returning?
ALLERGIES
The connection between Leaky Gut and should now be apparent. Allergy symptoms are one of the signs of autointoxication. Most allergies are food allergies, and Leaky Gut Syndrome is one mechanism and one explanation of that entire process: indigestible food, rotting in gut, leaking into bloodstream, symptoms of allergy. When the doctors "can't find the cause" of your allergies, here it is. Read the chapter on allergies: The Threshold of Reactivity (www.thedoctorwithin.com).
Time for a reality check. The colon should be seen as a life center of the body, in my opinion, not as a sewer. Conserving water and minerals, creating a hospitable environment for the life-promoting probiotic bacteria, and providing an unobstructed path for waste elimination – these are indispensable functions of the colon, and should be the only goals of any treatment program.
Back in the 1920s Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Alexis Carrel began his famous experiment in which he proved that living cells could be kept alive indefinitely by simply controlling the nutrients and waste removal in the surrounding solution. After 28 years, the original chicken liver cells were still alive in the petri dish, and Dr. Carrel's point was proven. For living cells, there are two main requirements: proper nutrients, and unobstructed elimination of wastes. With a blocked colon, all the body's cells suffer: autointoxication poisons the entire body, all its tissues, and all its organs. This can be the cause of practically any disease, especially those conditions listed in the pathology books as "cause unknown." JH Tilden, MD actually went so far as to say that this type of chronic blood poisoning was the only disease.
That's a brief overview of how the colon should work. For the majority of Americans, it doesn't. Death rates from colon cancer have been increasing since 1971. So the other side of the coin is that a clean, unblocked colon can dramatically boost the health of the entire body, allowing the body's natural defenses to start defending. Disease cannot coexist in a healthy body.
Provided with the preceding information, what kind of shape do you think your colon is in? Impacted? Diagnosed pathology? Pregnant Buddha? Average functioning, but some cement layers suspected? Even the healthiest colons can benefit from periodic roto-rootering.
SOLUTIONS
Colon hydrotherapy when performed by a licensed professional is more than just an enema. My opinion is that its real value is as a jumpstart to cleansing. To get weekly maintenance colonics may not allow the normal proliferation of the body's own friendly bacteria, because they are always getting flushed out. But to get things moving in the person who has decided to detox and cleanse, colonics can certainly be effective.
Spinal adjustment can have immediate and dramatic effects on colon pathology, especially with Spastic Colon. The nerve plexus through which the brain controls the action of the colon, those nerves exit the spinal cord in between the lumbar vertebrae. The nerves turn the colon ON and OFF. Any spasm is a blocked reflex arc: the OFF switch is stuck. Specific adjustment of the involved vertebra can break the stuck spasm reflex instantaneously, and restore normal function of the colon. No colon diagnosis should ignore this simple biomechanical approach.
Visceral massage by a trained therapist can certainly be temporarily beneficial.
There are a variety of effective natural colon cleanse programs. You won't find out about them at Kaiser or your HMO. They don't involve drugs or surgery; therefore insurance doesn't cover them. Big surprise. There are several effective holistic cleanses, and most are herbal.
1. No dairy: pasteurized milk, cheese, butter, yoghurt, white dressings, creamy soups, ice cream.
2. No white sugar: cookies, donuts, soft drinks, candy, junky desserts…
3. Drink 2 liters of water per day (not tap water).
4. Consider stopping all drugs unless it is life-threatening to do so, both prescription and over the counter
5.Get the lumbar spine adjusted.
That's it. A 60-day colon detox. Doing part of it is a waste of time. It's a unit.
THE HEALING CRISIS
Natural cures are different from drugs; first of all, drugs don't cure anything, nor is that their intent. The focus of drugs is to cover up the symptoms. The underlying problem may remain, but so what? There's always one more drug to try - that's why there's 12,000 of them on the market at any one time.
In an actual healing situation, especially one involving detox, there may be some new unpleasant symptoms that are the result of a temporary shifting back to normal. Holistic healers are quite familiar with the healing crisis, and generally regard it as a good sign that the body is responding and making a needed change.
In the example of colon detox, the body often protects itself from a toxin - drugs, chemicals, additives, etc - by encapsulating it in fat cells and mucoid layers. In this way toxins can remain for years in many areas of the body, including the colon, walled off and unable to do direct harm to the body. It's a survival mechanism, well documented. Then when the person begins an herbal cleanse, these toxins may suddenly be liberated and re-enter the bloodstream as the protective encapsulations are broken down by the herbs. Slight dizziness or nausea may occur, but only for a short time. Unless they have been informed, patients unfamiliar with natural cures may become anxious and think 'something is wrong,' especially if they have lived their lives conditioned to take a drug for any and every symptom.
The best course of action is to drink several glasses of water in order to facilitate the cleansing of the blood. Many a morning hangover could have been avoided by the inebriate having drunk two glasses of water prior to passing out the night before. It's the dehydration due to the high concentration of the toxic alcohol that brings on the "hair of the dog." Same idea in colon detox. Look for that healing crisis. Then back off a little, and continue.
LEVELS OF DETOX
How long should you detox? When will you know if you "got it all"? Good question. My opinion is that initially, your goal is just to get yourself eliminating on a daily basis much more than what you're accustomed to, but with no real discomfort. At some point, one day you will experience a catharsis, or major cleansing ejection. A few people get nervous when this happens and call the doctor, thinking their "brains have come out" or some other such illusion. Most will experience a feeling of lightness and clarity they haven't had for years. That is the beginning of detox. At first I thought that this catharsis was the final goal of detox. But the more people I talked to and read about, I learned that there are many levels of detox. The initial catharsis is just the beginning. Like a geologist digging deeper into the earth to find prehistoric layers of rock, detoxification can gradually uncover and liberate deeper levels of preserved toxins within the colon, the fat cells, and elsewhere. Think back to your teenage years and your twenties and all the trashy foods you ate - years of toxification. If all that poison came out at once, the result would be death. The body won't allow that to happen; gradual detox is a protective mechanism.
Even people who have extremely clean diets, who may be vegetarian and eat mostly raw foods, often go on routine fasts, colon programs, and liver cleanses and get surprising results. They are going for optimum clean blood - maximum purity of the biological terrain, just like in Dr. Carrel's petri dish. This is the true objective of any detox program - excavate deep and bring the old debris out, level by level. Then keep it clean.
The rate of detox should be controlled so that extreme fatigue and prolonged nausea are avoided. What's the hurry? Except for transient, momentary discomforts, a detox program should bring new energy and strength, almost immediately.
YOU KNOW IT DON'T COME EASY
For the average American, The Program is very difficult. For those with a colon problem, it's almost impossible: Candida and other organisms are gonna crave their little milk and sugar fixes. But it's counterproductive to think you can take some magic bullet and all your colon problems will be gone in a week. The only way that's going to happen is when a lifestyle change, involving all the above steps, allows your body to heal itself.
If you actually follow The Program like your life depends upon it, it will. Such cleanses have been life-transforming, even for people the most serious conditions. After shaking the monkey, you'll be free. The healthy body rejects any and all disease conditions. The body heals itself from the inside out, and yours is no exception. No matter how far gone you think you are, no matter how hopeless you've been told your condition is, no matter how long you've been like this, no matter what you've already tried, one fact is on your side: you're just flesh and blood. Flesh and blood has to follow immutable biochemical laws. Not that we know what all these laws are. But your body knows. Just like in Alexis Carrel's 28-year petri dish experiment, if you detox your cells, they will live.
Major forces are today being marshalled against your right to choose non-mainstream techniques like colon cleanses. You can do it; you just can't learn about it. So who's driving the bus here? Who controls the health of your body?
This Chapter Has a Few Specific Applications:
1. for those who have reached that certain crest between self-loathing and self esteem where they can no longer endure the condition of their body and are prepared to do whatever it takes to reverse the tide
2. for those who have begun a nutrition or supplement program with no results, or else may have reached a plateau in their progress.
3. for those with long term allergies which years of shots and pills have not cured
4. for those who suspect that they're not eliminating normally
5. for those who have been diagnosed with one of the following dead-end labels:
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Spastic Colon
Crohn's Disease
Chronic Colitis
Leaky Gut Syndrome
Regional Ileitis
Esophageal Reflux
Malabsorption Syndrome
Candida albicans
This is not a discussion for the improvement of the above conditions. We're talking about resolution: the return to normal operation of the systems. If 1–4 above apply to you, and you grasp the principles cited in the medical sources at the end of this chapter, your problems may well be over.
Many doctors have noted the pivotal importance of the colon in the body's health, from the ancients to the moderns. Physicians from ancient Rome and Greece felt that "death begins in the colon." (Hippocrates) These healers regarded the colon as a life-center of the body - one of its most important organs.
The colon's importance seems often to be glossed over and patronized by today's mainstream approach, in which the colon is thought of simply as the body's sewer, without regard for its many critical, dynamic biologic functions. Consequently, rates of death from colon cancer are at an all time high in our country's history. Colon cancer is now the #3 cancer in the U.S.
The above list of "diseases" are experienced today in epidemic proportions, and with standard treatment are almost never cured.
The irony is that to return to a normal state is simplicity itself. The biggest obstacle seems to be finding that out.
Let's begin with some
BASIC PLUMBING
The digestive tract can be thought of as a long tube from one end to the other. Food goes in one end; waste exits the other. The tube is divided into sections we know:
Mouth
Throat
Esophagus
Stomach
Small intestine
Large intestine
The large intestine is also called the colon.
That's the whole tube, top to bottom. It's important to remember one odd fact: the inside of the tube is still considered the outside of the body. No misprint. The food sitting there in your intestines is still outside the body. Reason: it hasn't been absorbed into the bloodstream yet.
Let's follow a grape through the tube.
You pop the grape into your mouth. Chewing releases the grape's enzymes, which are going to help break it down into its component parts.
You swallow the chewed grape. It goes down the esophagus and ends up in the stomach. There the grape gets churned around some more, and has some of the body's digestive juices break it down further. After about an hour of this, the stomach spits the chewed grape particles into the next section of the tube, the small intestine.
The small intestine is about 22' long. After more enzymes are added, this is when the grape particles first get inside the body. Happens like this: the inside of the small intestine is lined with a velvety layer of tiny fingerlike projections called microvilli. It's kinda like a microscopic version of one of those pieces of mattress foam rubber with the bumps on it. The microvilli increase the absorptive surface area of the colon to the size of a football field. Absorption of the nutrients contained in the grape particles happens through the microvilli. The nutrients are passing from the inside of the small intestine through the intestine wall, into the bloodstream.
After several hours of giving the small intestine enough chance to absorb all nutrients, the undigested waste, whatever's left over of the grape that wasn't absorbed, gets moved along and propelled into the final section of the tube: the colon.
The colon is a muscular tube about six feet long. All along the walls are infoldings called haustrae, which mark off sections of the colon.
By the end of adolescence, the passage through the colon should be about two inches in diameter. Adolescents should have little trouble eliminating, because the process of undigested layers of waste sticking to the lining of the colon wall is not that advanced. With an unrestricted diet high in rancid fats and excess protein, the inside passageway gradually becomes smaller and smaller, requiring more force to push everything through. Straining at stool is an obvious sign of a blocked colon and is not normal.
Elimination should be effortless, no matter what the person's age. Producing rabbit pellets with great effort is a sign of serious obstruction, as well as a toxifying lifestyle. Adolescents who are educated to eat lots of raw live foods may never experience the buildup of sludge layers at all. Here we see the distinction between average and normal.
The average American teenager has a bad diet and little dietary advice, eating about 125 grams of protein a day with only about 25 grams being sufficient. The normal American teenager likely has been shown what to eat for optimum health, and knows the indigestibility and absence of nutrients in most foods available in the cafeteria.
There are three primary reasons for rotting food persisting in the digestive tract:
1. We kill our friendly bacteria
2. Acidification of the body decreases enzyme production
3. Mucoid plaque in the intestinal lining halts peristalsis
Let's do them one at a time:
1. FRIENDLY BACTERIA
Wrongly described as the body's sewer, the colon is actually buzzing with life activity. Millions of friendly bacteria are hard at work in the colon. Their job is the final stage of digestion, leaving only what is absolutely of no use to the body to be eliminated. The friendly bacteria, weighing as much as three pounds in the normal colon, more than 400 species, also function to keep bad bacteria in check. (Shahani) It seems that most bacteria in the world and in the body are actually beneficial to our health. Bacteria are the janitors of the world, disposing of decaying and diseased cells. Think of a beach with no bacteria. What would happen to all those dead fish that wash up there? Wouldn't be much of a Club Med spot, that's certain.
How do the friendly bacteria, called probiotics, keep the bad bacteria in check? Well, think of a crowded theatre. You walk in, and there's no place to sit; all the seats are taken. So you can't stay. Same thing with bacteria. There's only a certain number of "seats" in the colon. If they're all taken by friendly bacteria, then there's no chance for the bad bacteria to set up shop and start to duplicate themselves. According to most researchers, like Simon Martin, normal probiotics should be more numerous than the cells of the intestinal lining itself.
Here's why probiotics are so important. Normal people generally have some cancer cells, Candida yeast, HIV, staphylococcus, strep, and any number of other potentially bad organisms you can think of in their tract most of the time. But they don't get any disease. Researchers know, for example, that 50% of men over age 75 actually have prostate cancer, found on autopsy, but only 2% die from it. Why? The body encapsulated the cancer: limited and controlled its growth, walled it off. The discoverer of the HIV virus himself, Dr. Luc Montagnier, said that HIV alone cannot cause AIDS. (The Coming Plague) Depressed immune environment is also necessary. Same with Candida or most other bacteria; normally they'll be held in check by sufficient friendly bacteria. E. coli is actually a probiotic when held in check by normal friendly flora. It's only when the friendly probiotic bacteria get killed off that the potentially bad organisms get a chance to get a foothold and take over. The bad bugs are then called opportunists.
So probiotics (friendly bacteria) are extremely important. The whole key is balance. Problem is, our friendly bacteria are constantly being killed off. How?
antibiotics we take
antibiotics given to the animals whose meat we eat
antacids, like Zantac, Tagamet, Prilosec, etc.
NSAIDs, like Advil, Tylenol, Excedrin, Motrin, etc.
other prescription and over the counter medications
white sugar
carbonated drinks
antihistamines
chlorinated water
fluoridated water
coffee
Without friendly probiotics, the final stage of digestion can't take place in the colon. Debris rots in there. Opportunistic bacteria and Candida albicans start taking over. Bernard Jensen, on the relation between the bad bacteria and the undigested food
"…bacteria and viruses, which are cell scavengers, are not there for lack of something better to do. They're there because there is malnourished, enzyme-depleted, diseased, and necrotic tissue. Functioning as nature's biological sanitation department, they must break down and eliminate the sick tissue to prevent further poisoning of the body. If you stop their action, you allow continuous poisoning by the decaying tissue…"
Jensen makes a point here that should not be missed. He's talking about rotting food in the colon as well as diseased living cells of the colon itself, both attracting bacteria. It's an identical situation in the two separate instances:
"Undigested food in the colon"
"Bacterial infection in a diseased organ of the body (the colon)
In neither case are the bacteria causing illness. They are trying to prevent illness by breaking down the dying tissue. Whether it's rotting yogurt in a blocked colon, a dead coyote in the forest, or infected liver cells in the body of an alcoholic, bacteria are just doing what they do best: cleaning up. When the bacteria are "diagnosed" as the cause of the illness, rather than a sign of the illness, the medical approach is to try and kill them. But that's like killing the garbage men. The garbage remains. Understanding such a simple concept is pivotal in arriving at a holistic outlook toward health.
Chronically undigested food is often present in quantities too great for any bacteria to scavenge. The debris then becomes plastered onto the inside lining of the colon, eventually making it smooth and shiny, like the inside of a new shotgun barrel. When this happens, absorption is blocked. (Rogers)
2. ACIDIFICATION OF THE BODY
This is a bit technical, so don't feel bad about skipping it. It involves pH. That means acid/base balance. You know, like soap is basic or alkaline, and oranges are acidic. Now in the body certain places only operate correctly if they're at exactly the right pH. The stomach lining for example has to be alkaline in order to counteract the acidic digestive enzymes. Otherwise we'd constantly be burning holes in the stomach lining. All phases of digestion are totally dependent upon a delicate acid/base balance.
The problem is, most foods in the Standard American Diet – Big Mac, fries, coke, pizza, etc. are acid-forming. That means they lower the pH of the body: too acid. The balance is disrupted: many enzymes can't operate. Digestion is inhibited: food sits there and rots.
A sixteen ounce bottle of Coke has a pH around 2. Very acidic. To bring the pH back up to our normal 7.3, we would have to dilute the Coke with about ten gallons of water. But we don't usually drink ten gallons of water after every Coke. So how does it work?
The blood must maintain a pH between 7.3 and 7.45. (Guyton). If not, we die. With all the acid foods we keep eating, the body tries desperately to keep its pH within the range. The first things it tries are buffering with bicarbonates in the blood and lungs. (Guyton, p 392) Next, the body begins to sweep the extra acids into the tissues, especially muscles and joints. That's what lactic acid buildup comes from. If that's still not enough, as a final effort to keep from acidifying, the body will actually precipitate acids out of solution, in the form of solid crystals and salts. This is the exact mechanism of gallstones, kidneys stones, uric acid crystals, plaque, and cholesterol crystals. A built-in protection for self preservation. We think of these stones as major medical problems, but in reality it's just a sign that the body's systems are functioning as they should. Otherwise we'd be dead of acidosis.
So what happens to the colon from an over-acid diet? In a word, enzymes. Or rather, lack of enzymes. Enzymes are necessary to break down and digest food. If the environment is too acid, the enzymes in the stomach and small intestine don't work very well. By the time it gets to the colon, everything that was supposed to be digested should have already had it happen. But it hasn't. So the undigested food gets dumped into the colon. There are no digestive enzymes in the colon. So the food just sits there and rots.
Now, minerals can only be absorbed at a certain pH. And minerals are a necessary component of enzyme formation. So it's a vicious circle: acidification of the body causes decreased minerals, which cause decreased enzyme production, which causes the food to rot in the tract. Which further blocks absorption of water, nutrients, and minerals. Downward spiral.
Absorption. Another critical job of the colon is electrolyte reabsorption and water reclamation back into the bloodstream, so we're not constantly losing them. Electrolytes are important minerals, like sodium and potassium which conduct electrical charge through the body. They are necessary for normal cell function. The idea is for the body to maintain as much water, sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium as possible, for maximum conservation. Remember, we're almost 70% water. The colon is the logical place for this reabsorption to happen since it's the last portion of the tube.
In the sick human, the colon is blocked. Water and electrolytes don't get reabsorbed. Where do they go? Out. The body loses water, general dehydration, cell death, premature aging, kidney destruction, spilling of electrolytes, blood thickening, the whole enchilada of downward health then follows. Blocked absorption alone is enough to slowly kill you.
3. MUCOID PLAQUE HALTS PERISTALSIS
Mucoid plaque is a term used by many doctors and researchers to describe the uniform rubbery layers of mucous and rotting food which compact themselves year after year along the entire length of the digestive tract. (Anderson)
Peristalsis is the normal rhythmic muscular action of the intestine to push food down and outward, out of the body.
Mucoid plaque is formed as the intestine keeps producing mucous as a normal response to an irritant: undigested food. Food is not supposed to just sit there and rot. We're only supposed to store three meals (Jensen.) But most Americans store nine, twelve, or even more meals before one comes out. This increased transit time is irritating to the intestinal lining. Mucous is not powerful enough to move the toxic, enzymeless sludge of Taco Supremes and Curlie Fried Onion Rings with ketchup. But the body keeps on valiantly trying, and more and more mucous is constantly being produced. Eventually the mucous becomes matrixed with the most indigestible elements, like trans fatty acids from the Barbecue and Sour Cream chips. And it goes on day after day, week after week, month after month, etc. And the layers get thicker and harder and the colon grows in diameter. And we absorb less and less nutrients and we lose more and more water and minerals.
Want to discover your own transit time? Try this simple test: eat something you usually don't eat that will be easily identifiable when it comes out. Frozen corn, peanuts, and pistachios are some good examples. Simply note the time from when you eat the markers to the time when you see them leaving. That's your transit time, at least of the matter that is not cemented to the colon walls.
The intestinal walls contain long muscles whose job it is to keep things moving along. These muscles gradually become overstretched and weakened by the pressure of too much waste pushing against them, expanding outward, like blowing up a long thin balloon. Thus peristalsis – the normal wavelike muscular motion of the colon – is further inhibited and blockage is again promoted.
Mucoid plaque blocks inflow and outflow, resulting in lack of nutrient, water, and electrolyte absorption, as well as retention of toxic putrefaction in balloon-like blocked outpocketings of the intestine. In addition, pathogenic bacteria, parasites, and Candida thrive in the mucoid plaque layer and are actually protected by it from prescription or natural herbal remedies and efforts to remove them. Researchers refer to the mucoid plaque as a "culture medium" for these organisms. (Forstner)
Mucoid plaque is described as a natural response to an unnatural stimulus. It is a necessary protection the body produces to try and shield itself from poisons. Mucoid plaque is a product of the constant production of mucous by the glycocalyx lining cells, brought on by the modern American diet of fake, empty, processed, chemical-laden, hormone-laced, antibiotic-soaked foods. Many doctors have noted that when the plaque can be removed by a cleanse, remission from virtually any disease may result. Simple cause and effect.
Mucoid plaque has been definitely linked to gastric cancer by the simple mutation of the lining cells – metaplasia. (Sipponen, Filipe) No big surprise here – cell damage is caused by inflow/outflow blockage, and after a certain time, mutation occurs. Another mechanism is that the constant secretion of mucous captures the toxins, but since normal transit is blocked, the toxins become locked in one location, often for years, resulting in irritation and eventual cell mutation. The cells steep in their own wastes, month after month.
In a lecture in San Jose California on 26 Sep 98, Dr. Anderson told the story of one of his patients who underwent the cleanse in Hawaii a few years ago. The patient was passing long strands of the rubbery mucoid plaque, some over 20 feet in length! Fascinated, the patient hung the strands over his clothesline in the back yard. He then took a length of the plaque, and packaged it in a box to send to the mainland to prove what happened to him. He mailed the package at the local post office in Hawaii.
A few days later, two serious-looking officials knocked on the patient's door and asked him if he had sent such and such a package to such and such an address. The patient said yes, and asked what was the problem. They answered that the post office has dogs that sniff out all packages mailed off the island, and that one of them had become very excited about this package. The patient asked what were the dogs trained to detect. Only two things, came the answer: drugs and explosives. Which dog was it? The one for explosives. The patient was incredulous, especially when he recalled that he had worked with munitions some 25 years ago, and his job was to handle explosives! He explained the detox cleanse to the two agents and they were satisfied. This story illustrates the power of a such an intestinal cleanse: the body had retained these strong toxins in the mucoid plaque lining of the colon, stored in a concentration powerful enough to be detected by dogs through the layers of wrapping of a sealed package some 25 years later!
Of course it's anecdotal, but Anderson has been doing this for 15 years and has cleansed several thousand patients. He has amassed a ton of clinical data, but not through double blind studies. (Only drugs require double blind studies.) The rubbery mucoid plaque layer seals in toxins and prevents absorption of water and nutrients. Toxic sludge promotes proliferation of pathological bacteria and yeasts, like Candida.
Now for the bad news.
There's another separate demon at work in the blocked colon. His name is
AUTOINTOXICATION
Here's how he works: The sludge that's stopping up the works is undigested food. Undigested means rotting: putrefying, fermenting, going rancid. Proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, respectively. Want to see what that looks like? Leave some meat, some french fries, and some bread out on the counter for a week. A blocked colon can be even worse, because of the time frame involved: in many people the sludge sits in the colon for weeks or even longer. The colon walls are normally very well sealed in order to protect the body against reabsorbing the waste that is about to be eliminated. It's a sophisticated design, set up to allow water and electrolytes back into the body, but no toxic poisons. Stay with me now. In long-term buildup of undigested food in the colon, eventually a situation emerges that doctors call Leaky Gut Syndrome.
Essentially what's happening is that the sludge has built up so much blockage that the inner membranes of the colon develop leaks. Some of the toxic debris is forced through the walls of the colon, along with the water and electrolytes, back into the bloodstream. Hence, the name autointoxication: you're poisoning yourself.
Once in the bloodstream, the undigested debris, now a foreign irritant, can take up residence in any organ or tissue it finds room. Chronic inflammation begins, and gradually, degeneration of that organ. Here are some of the diseases that such a sequence can cause:
Chronic Allergies----- Jaundice
Kidney disease----- Acne
Hepatitis----- Psoriasis
Blinding headaches--- AIDS
Arthritis----- Pancreatitis
Chronic fatigue syndrome--- Depression
Infections------- Fibromyalgia
Septicemia----- Multiple Joint Pain Syndrome
Dermatitis----- Autoimmune Disorders
Candida albicans----- Cancer
to name just a few. This list is taken from an article by Leo Garland, MD who has done extensive research in this area of hyperpermeability, as illustrated by the list of over 150 references at the end of the article.
It's funny, when people with average intelligence first hear about Leaky Gut Syndrome, they usually understand it right away because it seems logical. Very often, it is the nutritionists, dieticians, and doctors who seem more apt to question the existence of hyperpermeability, or Leaky Gut Syndrome. Even though there has been years of copious research in the best medical journals thoroughly documenting its characteristics and nature, Leaky Gut Syndrome is not commonly taught as part of the medical curriculum, or the abbreviated curriculum presented to nutritionists and dieticians. Many of these people therefore conclude that since they got their degrees without hearing about hyperpermeability or Leaky Gut Syndrome, it must not exist! Very curious.
Dr. Garland suffers from no such illusions. He traces the physiology of how large molecules of the "toxic/antigenic load" (undigested sludge) work their way through the intestinal walls and are first introduced into the liver before they are available to the bloodstream. Dr. Garland describes the "high cost" of the liver's detox work: creation of free radicals and other "reactive intermediaries" which themselves may be passed into the bloodstream if the toxic burden becomes too great for the liver's defenses. Here we see the particulars of autointoxication, not just some New Age literary theory. Dr. Garland points out the wide range of pathological conditions, listed above, which may come about exactly through this mechanism. Very sophisticated markers have been devised which can measure the toxins that "leak" into the body. (S. Martin)
Jensen has an axiom that the disease is named by where the toxins finally settle.
Candida albicans, the opportunistic yeast, can be both a cause and a result of Leaky Gut Syndrome. Once Candida gets a foothold in the gut, it puts down "roots" through the gut wall, causing openings through which large molecules and toxins can leak. Candida cells can themselves be introduced into the bloodstream in this same fashion. (Simon Martin)
Sherry Rogers MD, implicates Leaky Gut Syndrome as a primary cause for autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus. She says such conditions can be the result of the
"formation of auto-antibodies due to leaking of body tissue look-alike antigens…"
TRANSIT TIME
Let's talk propulsion for a minute. Normal elimination involves rhythmic contraction of the muscles in the colon wall, to push the waste outward. Again, this natural, wavelike motion is called peristalsis.
It is normal to eliminate two or more times per day. Transit time: how much time between food in and waste out. Normal transit time is less than 24 hours. This means that only two or three meals should be in transit throughout the digestive tract at a time. Today's breakfast IN pushes yesterday's breakfast or lunch OUT. Toxic fecal matter is supposed to totally leave the body in one day, not hang around to toxify. That's the design. Many people you know have been brought up to think that it is normal to eliminate only once every two or three days. Or even longer. That means they are storing NINE meals or more in the tract at all times. The waste from nine meals or more is always inside them.
Want to track your transit time? Use a marker; corn perhaps. Time it.
The problem is that the longer the food is in the colon, the more it begins to rot and toxify the body. Modern soft foods and empty junk foods have greatly increased transit time, for two reasons:
1. They are indigestible
2. They lack fiber
The colon thus becomes a breeding ground for pathological bacteria whose toxic byproducts further add to the totality of biochemical poisons. All this yuk is then available to be reabsorbed into the bloodstream, because of Leaky Gut Syndrome. From the chapter on Allergies ( www.thedoctorwithin.com ), you'll remember that means hyperpermeability of the gut wall: stuff gets through into the bloodstream which shouldn't get through, because of the destruction of the cells of the colon's lining. Large molecules of rotting fats, proteins, and carbohydrates, which also may drag along with them the toxic wastes of the pathological bacteria that have been breeding in the putrid sludge, all this can leak through into the bloodstream. From there the toxins have access to every cell in the body. Getting the image?
Let's make it worse. Let's hypothesize a lot of indigestible chips and margarine into the mix. No enzymes. Less than one glass of water per day. That's right – we're making cement here. Solid compacting of unmetabolizable sewage, daily pasted and encrusted in ever-thickening layers along the inside folds, the haustrae, of the colon. Mucoid plaque. Think the inside diameter of that shotgun barrel is getting bigger, or smaller year by year?
SIX FOOT BALLOON
The colon is fabulously extensible: it can expand up to five times its normal size when stuffed. Surgeons report expanded colons up to 12 inches in diameter, with a central opening the size of a pencil! (Tissue Cleansing p. 27) Technicians who measure percent body fat on patients day after day begin to notice an odd fact: many people with almost normal body fat readings have enormous abdomens. Pregnant trucker Santa Clauses with skinny legs. Reason: it's not fat. It's a monster colon, packed with sludge to five times of its normal size, expanding outward. (Rich. Anderson) Actually makes sense – if it were otherwise, many people would be dead in their 20s because the colon walls would become so layered with sludge that there would be no passageway left for elimination. The colon would simply close up.
Doing sit-ups? Trying to flatten that lower abdomen, and you aren't really overweight? But it won't get flat, right? It isn't fat. Most likely it's rotting food in the colon. How's the elimination? Transit time?
In his fascinating book, Cleanse and Purify, Dr. Richard Anderson cites his encounter with one medical doctor who did not want to be identified. This doctor, after hearing Anderson's lecture about mucoid plaque and expanded toxic colons, told the audience:
"I have spent twelve years working in the field of post-mortem diagnosis. I have seen many thousands of dissected cadavers. What Rich is telling you is the absolute truth. Everybody has it in there. We have a way of attaching a hose to the upper intestines and with the aid of powerful chemicals, we literally blow the stuff right out of the intestines. I have seen the heavy 'beer belly' and so called fat people lose all that bulk in five minutes. It wasn't fat. It was the mucoid layer that Rich was talking about. and in that filthy substance we see all sorts of worms, bacteria, fungi, and many unidentifiable things. It is almost unbelievable that people can live with that filth in them. All these people were dead of course, and it wasn't hard to see why…" (Anderson p2-46)
Probably won't read a story like that in any of the popular press…
The noted surgeon, Dr. Harvey Kellogg, of the Kellogg Sanitarium in Battle Creek Michigan, whose experience was with the colons of living subjects, agreed:
"Of the 22,000 operations that I have personally performed, I have never found a single normal colon. Of the 100,000 that were performed under my jurisdiction, not over 6% were normal."
Dr. Kellogg estimated that over 90% of the "diseases of civilization" were due to a blocked and non-functioning colon.
- cited in Iridology: the Science and Practice p 408
If "normal" people can have up to 22 lbs of undigested food in the colon, how much can the Beef Barbecue Buddhas be carrying? 50 lbs? 100? The imagination reels.
A little more plumbing, now. The colon begins in the lower right abdomen, goes up toward the head about 8 inches or so and then makes a right angle straight across the upper abdomen over to the left side. Then it angles downward again, and then out. Trace this path with your finger. OK. The section of the colon that traverses straight across from one side to the other is known as the Transverse Colon.
Gastroenterologist researchers now know that in the stuffed and expanded transverse colon, the horizontal section, the extra weight is enough to make it prolapse, or fall down, so that it is lying atop organs that it normally wouldn't be in contact with, like the bladder, the uterus, the prostate, or the ovaries. Dr. Stephen Chang at the University of California has now shown that combining the effects of Leaky Gut Syndrome with a collapsed colon can actually be the mechanism for toxification, infection, and disease of any organ that is now touching this leaking, sagging toxic tube. (Ross Anderson) Obviously it would be an ineffective waste of drugs to treat these new infections in isolation, as long as the process of autointoxication continues, wouldn't you say?
Another common condition is
REFLUX
Intestinal reflux, gastric reflux, esophageal reflux – who cares? All the same idea. The pipes are backed up. You start eating and you're already full. Stomach juices back up and burn the delicate lining of the esophagus. Heartburn. Classic misdiagnosis: hiatal hernia, which is something rare and completely different and unrelated. Reflux is much more common and easily explained, in light of the empty, toxic, indigestible American diet we teach our children. When the overall pressure can be relieved by a colon cleanse, transit returns and reflux is no more. Reflux never was the underlying problem. Like the rest of them, reflux was just a sign of the problem: blocked pipes.
You're getting a lot of information here, more than most doctors want to think about. The medical attitude toward the colon generally takes the Sewer View. Much simpler to deal with: laxatives which force the most recent contents out by introducing a corrosive irritant drug into the bowels. But the cemented sludge remains. Some 44 million Americans depend on laxatives for elimination. With $23 billion a year in antibiotics (Chapter 3) being given to American patients, concern for normal flora repopulation doesn't get much airplay either.
The view of the colon as a living, breathing, active, vital organ is probably not something you're going to hear about at your next HMO visit. Corrosive laxatives may bring a day or two of relief, but the underlying condition persists. Antibiotics may kill all the bacteria for awhile, but why were the bad bacteria there in the first place? Rotting food. And what about the friendly bacteria also killed off by the antibiotics? Who's gonna do their job? No one.
Then there's the standard drugs most internists use. One of the most common is Prilosec. Prilosec is a powerful inhibitor of HCl (hydrochloric acid.) The reasoning goes something like this: the patient has tremendous burning gut pain and bad digestion and elimination. Must be too much stomach acid. So Prilosec turns off the stomach acid and the burning stops. For today. But guess what else stops. Digestion. Without HCl, protein doesn't get broken down, and it sits there and rots, further contributing to the toxic build-up and cess-pooling. This is called treating the problem by harming the patient.
With reflux, clearing the colon takes the pressure off the lower part of the GI tract, allowing room for the contents of the small intestine and the stomach to move downward. No more splashing acids into the esophagus. It's simple plumbing. But natural cures are always overlooked if they interfere with drug sales.
Another drug - Propulsid - supposedly works by forcing the impacted food out of the intestines. Unfortunately, so many people have died of heart failure from it, that is was scheduled to be taken off the market after 6 months, which would be Aug 2000. (Rubin) [That's standard procedure. Even though the FDA knows people are dying from a drug, they keep it on the market for up to a year to allow the drug companies to recover some of their investment!]
In the colon, the layers of compacted inner cement prevent reabsorption of water and electrolytes, as well as the return of normal flora activity. Dehydration and indigestion ensue. The toxic debris begins to irritate and inflame the delicate mucosal cells of the inner lining. Aspirin, Motrin, and Tylenol further aggravate the lining. (Rogers)
Chronic inflammation of the colon's inner lining – colitis – is epidemic. It is a precursor to cancer. Many patients have found that after detoxing the colon and getting rid of rotting wastes that have been in there for weeks or months, suddenly their colitis is history!
COLON CANCER
Colon Cancer is now the third most common cancer in America. Simple mechanism: blockage of inflow and outflow by rotting sludgy plaque. Surface lining cells swim in toxins day in day out, then weeks and months. Can't get nutrients, can't get rid of wastes. That about covers it for cell needs.
Colon cancer has also long been linked directly to the chlorination of municipal drinking water. (See the Water article) The mechanism is simple: chlorine sterilizes the colon by killing off the normal friendly bacteria which should live there. A 1989 report from Oak Ridge Associated Universities showed definite correlation between increased cancer incidence and fifteen years of chlorine in Denver's drinking water. (Eco-Update)
With no flora, sludge builds up and the delicate epithelial cells of the colon lining become packed with toxic decaying waste. Same scenario: the cells can't perform the two necessary functions of every living cell – nutrition and waste removal. Many cells die, but other simply mutate. That's what cancer is: altered, or mutated, cells.
Sections of the colon can collapse and become very narrow, like ribbons, easily blocked with hardened waste. This creates a condition called Crohn's Disease, and the narrow sections are called strictures. Extreme force is then necessary to propel waste past these blocked narrow passageways. Between the narrowed sections, outpocketings of toxic poisons can then balloon out, due to lack of normal transit of wastes. These pockets are very hospitable environments for bad bacteria and parasites to set up shop. Imagine the potency of by-products given off by pathological bacteria who are themselves feeding off toxic sludge. Autointoxication advances.
A desperate reflex to try and expel the mounting poisonous load commonly results in violent and painful cramping of colon wall muscles – Spastic Colon. The problem is not with the colon. The problem is with the human who keeps poisoning himself.
Resection, or cutting away a problem length of the colon, is a common medical recommendation in the persistent "problem colon" case. Sometimes the impacted waste has become like hard rubber or even calcified like a cement. Laxatives and drugs just won't do the trick. Standard medical thinking is, when drugs fail, something has to be cut out. The Kragen Method: the body is an automobile. Not a very holistic or long-term outlook, but it pays the bills. And it's got quite a tradition. Usual result is that the scar tissue which forms after the surgery can be as much an obstruction as the original undigested cement load.
For colon cancer, resection is routine. Cleansing is not even a medical option at that point. What they'll never tell you is that one third of all colon resections for cancer end up in recurrence of the cancer later on. (Yamada p 1801) Stands to reason: if you don't remove the cause of the cancer in the first place – autointoxication – what's to keep the cancer from returning?
ALLERGIES
The connection between Leaky Gut and should now be apparent. Allergy symptoms are one of the signs of autointoxication. Most allergies are food allergies, and Leaky Gut Syndrome is one mechanism and one explanation of that entire process: indigestible food, rotting in gut, leaking into bloodstream, symptoms of allergy. When the doctors "can't find the cause" of your allergies, here it is. Read the chapter on allergies: The Threshold of Reactivity (www.thedoctorwithin.com).
Time for a reality check. The colon should be seen as a life center of the body, in my opinion, not as a sewer. Conserving water and minerals, creating a hospitable environment for the life-promoting probiotic bacteria, and providing an unobstructed path for waste elimination – these are indispensable functions of the colon, and should be the only goals of any treatment program.
Back in the 1920s Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Alexis Carrel began his famous experiment in which he proved that living cells could be kept alive indefinitely by simply controlling the nutrients and waste removal in the surrounding solution. After 28 years, the original chicken liver cells were still alive in the petri dish, and Dr. Carrel's point was proven. For living cells, there are two main requirements: proper nutrients, and unobstructed elimination of wastes. With a blocked colon, all the body's cells suffer: autointoxication poisons the entire body, all its tissues, and all its organs. This can be the cause of practically any disease, especially those conditions listed in the pathology books as "cause unknown." JH Tilden, MD actually went so far as to say that this type of chronic blood poisoning was the only disease.
That's a brief overview of how the colon should work. For the majority of Americans, it doesn't. Death rates from colon cancer have been increasing since 1971. So the other side of the coin is that a clean, unblocked colon can dramatically boost the health of the entire body, allowing the body's natural defenses to start defending. Disease cannot coexist in a healthy body.
Provided with the preceding information, what kind of shape do you think your colon is in? Impacted? Diagnosed pathology? Pregnant Buddha? Average functioning, but some cement layers suspected? Even the healthiest colons can benefit from periodic roto-rootering.
SOLUTIONS
Colon hydrotherapy when performed by a licensed professional is more than just an enema. My opinion is that its real value is as a jumpstart to cleansing. To get weekly maintenance colonics may not allow the normal proliferation of the body's own friendly bacteria, because they are always getting flushed out. But to get things moving in the person who has decided to detox and cleanse, colonics can certainly be effective.
Spinal adjustment can have immediate and dramatic effects on colon pathology, especially with Spastic Colon. The nerve plexus through which the brain controls the action of the colon, those nerves exit the spinal cord in between the lumbar vertebrae. The nerves turn the colon ON and OFF. Any spasm is a blocked reflex arc: the OFF switch is stuck. Specific adjustment of the involved vertebra can break the stuck spasm reflex instantaneously, and restore normal function of the colon. No colon diagnosis should ignore this simple biomechanical approach.
Visceral massage by a trained therapist can certainly be temporarily beneficial.
There are a variety of effective natural colon cleanse programs. You won't find out about them at Kaiser or your HMO. They don't involve drugs or surgery; therefore insurance doesn't cover them. Big surprise. There are several effective holistic cleanses, and most are herbal.
1. No dairy: pasteurized milk, cheese, butter, yoghurt, white dressings, creamy soups, ice cream.
2. No white sugar: cookies, donuts, soft drinks, candy, junky desserts…
3. Drink 2 liters of water per day (not tap water).
4. Consider stopping all drugs unless it is life-threatening to do so, both prescription and over the counter
5.Get the lumbar spine adjusted.
That's it. A 60-day colon detox. Doing part of it is a waste of time. It's a unit.
THE HEALING CRISIS
Natural cures are different from drugs; first of all, drugs don't cure anything, nor is that their intent. The focus of drugs is to cover up the symptoms. The underlying problem may remain, but so what? There's always one more drug to try - that's why there's 12,000 of them on the market at any one time.
In an actual healing situation, especially one involving detox, there may be some new unpleasant symptoms that are the result of a temporary shifting back to normal. Holistic healers are quite familiar with the healing crisis, and generally regard it as a good sign that the body is responding and making a needed change.
In the example of colon detox, the body often protects itself from a toxin - drugs, chemicals, additives, etc - by encapsulating it in fat cells and mucoid layers. In this way toxins can remain for years in many areas of the body, including the colon, walled off and unable to do direct harm to the body. It's a survival mechanism, well documented. Then when the person begins an herbal cleanse, these toxins may suddenly be liberated and re-enter the bloodstream as the protective encapsulations are broken down by the herbs. Slight dizziness or nausea may occur, but only for a short time. Unless they have been informed, patients unfamiliar with natural cures may become anxious and think 'something is wrong,' especially if they have lived their lives conditioned to take a drug for any and every symptom.
The best course of action is to drink several glasses of water in order to facilitate the cleansing of the blood. Many a morning hangover could have been avoided by the inebriate having drunk two glasses of water prior to passing out the night before. It's the dehydration due to the high concentration of the toxic alcohol that brings on the "hair of the dog." Same idea in colon detox. Look for that healing crisis. Then back off a little, and continue.
LEVELS OF DETOX
How long should you detox? When will you know if you "got it all"? Good question. My opinion is that initially, your goal is just to get yourself eliminating on a daily basis much more than what you're accustomed to, but with no real discomfort. At some point, one day you will experience a catharsis, or major cleansing ejection. A few people get nervous when this happens and call the doctor, thinking their "brains have come out" or some other such illusion. Most will experience a feeling of lightness and clarity they haven't had for years. That is the beginning of detox. At first I thought that this catharsis was the final goal of detox. But the more people I talked to and read about, I learned that there are many levels of detox. The initial catharsis is just the beginning. Like a geologist digging deeper into the earth to find prehistoric layers of rock, detoxification can gradually uncover and liberate deeper levels of preserved toxins within the colon, the fat cells, and elsewhere. Think back to your teenage years and your twenties and all the trashy foods you ate - years of toxification. If all that poison came out at once, the result would be death. The body won't allow that to happen; gradual detox is a protective mechanism.
Even people who have extremely clean diets, who may be vegetarian and eat mostly raw foods, often go on routine fasts, colon programs, and liver cleanses and get surprising results. They are going for optimum clean blood - maximum purity of the biological terrain, just like in Dr. Carrel's petri dish. This is the true objective of any detox program - excavate deep and bring the old debris out, level by level. Then keep it clean.
The rate of detox should be controlled so that extreme fatigue and prolonged nausea are avoided. What's the hurry? Except for transient, momentary discomforts, a detox program should bring new energy and strength, almost immediately.
YOU KNOW IT DON'T COME EASY
For the average American, The Program is very difficult. For those with a colon problem, it's almost impossible: Candida and other organisms are gonna crave their little milk and sugar fixes. But it's counterproductive to think you can take some magic bullet and all your colon problems will be gone in a week. The only way that's going to happen is when a lifestyle change, involving all the above steps, allows your body to heal itself.
If you actually follow The Program like your life depends upon it, it will. Such cleanses have been life-transforming, even for people the most serious conditions. After shaking the monkey, you'll be free. The healthy body rejects any and all disease conditions. The body heals itself from the inside out, and yours is no exception. No matter how far gone you think you are, no matter how hopeless you've been told your condition is, no matter how long you've been like this, no matter what you've already tried, one fact is on your side: you're just flesh and blood. Flesh and blood has to follow immutable biochemical laws. Not that we know what all these laws are. But your body knows. Just like in Alexis Carrel's 28-year petri dish experiment, if you detox your cells, they will live.
Major forces are today being marshalled against your right to choose non-mainstream techniques like colon cleanses. You can do it; you just can't learn about it. So who's driving the bus here? Who controls the health of your body?
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