Monthly Archives: October 2014

Changing Health with Vitamin D3 – Vitamin D Day

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Health Returned Plus SunHappy Anniversary!   On November 4, it will be ten years since I started to supplement with vitamin D3. I am glad that the advocates of vitamin D have named November 2 as Vitamin D Day as it coincides with my anniversary. It has been a lot of ups and downs on the roller coaster of health. I am now on the top of the ride. An experience of complete joy and glee. What became extremely obvious during the journey is there is not just one thing that controls our health. The advocates of vitamin D are certainly correct in that vitamin D is a start. After all, it controls or aids in control of at least ten percent of how our genome expresses itself. It is not this vitamin or this drug or this food or that thought, but the interaction of all of things that bring exhilaration in health.

The way that research is conducted in medicine is complete absurdity. When we study just the effect of one thing in the pathology of health, we completely ignore the interactions. This is the primary failing that is not a true scientific approach or art for that matter. This specialization of one molecule or a particular pathology without consideration of the interactions causes great confusion. Could it be that all of our present medical research has been confounded because we have not considered the interactions of vitamin D to our pathology? Some vitamin D advocates certainly believe this is the case. But if we proceed with testing a molecule with the interaction with vitamin D and not all the other molecules that are required for health, then we have repeated the error.

This was my error in using vitamin D3 for health. It may be that after a few months of supplementing with vitamin D, the beneficial results seem to disappear. Maybe the large amount of vitamin A complexes that are stored in your liver have become depleted. After all, certainly for cellular differentiation and the boost to our immune system requires a heterodimer that is a combination of vitamin D/vitamin A. Perhaps the amount of total body magnesium has become depleted. The vitamin D has given a boost to the action of your energy production, but without the many roles that magnesium plays, you start to have low energy, muscle cramps, and heart arrhythmias. Perhaps the improved performance of your thyroid gland and your parathyroid has depleted all your iodine reserves – you start to feel bad and your thoughts become muddled. Or, with the increase in your biological activity, you are not getting enough folate (not folic acid) and/or tri-methyl-glycine (TMG) to allow the methylation processes to properly proceed for genetic expression and many health problems crop up. We could go on for a while, but you get the point.

The interactions of all molecules required for health and not any single one is the important issue. Let’s not forget about your thoughts, or the placebo effect.   If you have positive thoughts, then you most likely will feel well and negative thoughts will make you feel bad. This cascade of hormones from your thinking will truly affect your total well-being from its impact on your spiritual energy and biology. Do not hold negative emotions for extended periods or you will develop a mood. This mood will eventually become your personality. This personality will define your reality. Collapse all negative thoughts through forgiveness, prayer, and meditation. Observe your thinking constantly and not allow your subconscious from past experience express your present reality.

We may not have the best medical system in the world to prevent and treat chronic disease, but it keeps us going when acute illnesses strike. The rest of your health is up to you. Share your positive understanding of major components of health with family and friends and be the example. As we move into a season in the Northern Hemisphere of low UVB or loss of the natural production of vitamin D3, let this Sunday, November 2, Vitamin D day be the start of a new beginning. Certainly, November 4, 2004 was the start of my new beginning. Let that door not close on the health of the world. – Pandemic Survivor

Further Reading:

Vitamin D Day – http://www.vitamindday.net/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/VitaminDDay
Vitamin D Council – Vitamin D Day https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/vdc-news/for-the-fifth-year-in-a-row-november-2nd-is-vitamin-d-day/
Vitamin D Society Canada – http://www.vitamindsociety.org/
GrassRoots Health – http://grassrootshealth.net/ Click Newsletter, at this writing, the newsletter for Vitamin D Day had not been posted, but received by email.
Vitamin D Wiki – http://www.vitamindwiki.com/VitaminDWiki

If I Could Get That One Drug for my Health!

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Health ReturnedHealth is only found through the abundance of life. This not only includes materials items, but also how you feel and the hormones that you generate by how you think. Otherwise known as the placebo effect. We have depended on modern medicine to relieve us of illness without consideration for the cheese burgers, sodas, cake, ice cream, and other processed junk food. We believe that if we do everything that our doctors tell us we will be healthy. But an invigorating, exciting, and healthy life is only accomplished through your thinking and how you experience your environment. All things are necessary for life: love, vegetables, meat, grains, water, air, sun, healthy environment, medical care, living in community, and attitude.

What has happened to health in America as we are suffering from many ailments as we age? Not only do we suffer from ailments of chronic disease as we age, we are allowing our youth to age too quickly. The issue with health in America is specialization. Specialization by the institutions that are overseeing our environment and the things that we consume. Everyone thinks that the doctor can solve all of our problems of health, but he only acts in his area of specialty. I could list all of the government organizations and other institutions to show the conflicts. There is no one that has the priority of health. Government believes that the economy is the most important thing to provide you security and health. This priority is repeated many ways in food, medicine, and medical insurance. Think about the conflict of isolating people with Ebola exposure versus the economy. During the recent months, the economic loss from SARS was cited as the reason to not over react to Ebola fears by the head of the CDC.

Consider the GMO foods that we are now consuming. How do these things get approved when no one really has control over them? Who controls the food supply? It is the economic benefit of food companies and government that controls the food supply. You would think that the FDA would be in control of GMO’s. However, anything that is generally consider as safe is provided to you as a food. But what is safe? Does food that gives us calories in large quantities with the nutrients processed into unknown substances safe?   Have you read a label recently on any processed food item and can you recognize all of the chemical compounds?

Our nation is truly blessed with a very competent medical service that is constantly being balanced by economic factors. I say, give the people health by understanding that “food is medicine.” Of course, if there was a significant reduction in chronic disease, the large medical economy would collapse. One out of every five people are now getting their income from the medical industry. It truly is a balancing act when all the acrobats have gone south for the winter. – Pandemic Survivor

 

How Mom and Dad Dealt with Flu and Colds

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Writing the last post about building the immune system to protect against viruses, made me think about how my parents used to protect our health with nutrition. Some would consider it a very drastic environment for a child growing up with hard work on the farm. It was a way of life that I hope we do not disrupt with new rules about farm labor. We toiled together every day and we got diseases together because close contact. We also had a wonderful life being in the great outdoors every day. Close contact with the earth, plants, and animals helped me to establish the value of life. To love and value life and not treat life as the last of priorities.

There were many forms of illness that were experienced during my childhood. We hardly ever went to a doctor. We only sought the aid of a doctor in case of a serious illness that could result in disability or death. Of course this was the way of life during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Yes, we got all the necessary vaccine requirements of the time. Small pox, polio, and tetanus were of main concern. There were always the diseases that we considered minor because the symptoms would disappear quickly from great nutrition provided by growing our own vegetables, fruit, meat, and grain. Let’s not forget the large amounts of fat from grass fed cow’s milk and meats and the unadulterated enzymes in skimmed milk that was not processed.

In the last post, I suggested that vitamin D, vitamin C, vitamin A, magnesium, other minerals, and folate are necessary for a strong immune system. So how did we get these important nutrients without science to guide us? It was through the understanding of long used remedies that had been passed along through centuries of farm life and trial and error.

It was the winter of 1959 that can best explain how this was accomplished. After Thanksgiving, the whole family had various forms of lung congestion and sinus issues that were brought on by unknown causes. Dad could not stand to see the ailments continue. The Saturday after Thanksgiving, he took off to find the remedies necessary to relieve us. When he returned he had only three things. A gallon of cod liver oil, a box of oranges, and three gallons of black strap molasses, sulfured, that was used to fortify cattle feed. We lined up every day to take our dose of cod liver oil, followed by a helping of the sulfured black strap molasses. We were encouraged to eat the sweet oranges. In less than a week, everyone was well.

The cod liver oil provided us with the needed vitamin D and vitamin A. I am sure that there were other unidentified nutrients to be found in this concentrate of fish liver oil. The oranges were a source of vitamin C as well as other helpful nutrients. In the concentrated remnants of the cooked-down molasses cane were the many minerals that were stored in the grass. The fortification of sulfur in the molasses was there to drive the many sulfate requirements for health. We also had huge amounts of turnip and collard greens. There it is, vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin C, minerals, and folate. I am also sure that our normal diet with the many forms of fruit, vegetables, grains, and meats also contained all of the vitamin B and vitamin E that were required for health. This is truly the way of sustaining natural health during farm life.

Now, we are struggling to define what constitutes healthy forms of nutrients. With all of the processed food and the many enzymes and nutrients that have been removed, our only action to achieve health is to use drugs as dictated by societal norms. Get the proper amounts of vitamins and minerals every season to boost your immune system and to protect your health. – Pandemic Survivor.

RXr1

Treating and Preventing Viral Infections

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Modern medicine has solutions to many things that can be treated with drugs or surgery. However, when it comes to viral infections, medicine takes a back seat to the body’s innate immunity.   We have very effective drugs for treating bacteria and fungus infections. When it comes to viruses the best thing seems to be to prevent the disease. This is typically done through acquired immunization. Sometimes the vaccines are not very effective. Have you ever had the flu vaccine and still got the flu? The many varieties of the common cold virus and its constant mutations have prevented the development of a vaccine.

But what about treatment for really serious viral infections like the flu or the present concern over the Ebola virus. It seems that the best course of treatment for these two very serious diseases is to maintain nutrition and hydration as the disease runs its course. I find it odd that we don’t have a vaccine for many of the common bacterial infections that we treat with antibiotics, but we have vaccines for viral infections that we have no drug for treatment. Is there an economic factor in the development of drugs versus vaccines with different types of infections?   Would it not be great to have a vaccine against the streptococcus bacterium? Of course it would “kick the crap” out of the antibiotic economics because of reduced need. Would it not be great to have a vaccine for antibiotic resistant diseases like MRSA? MRSA diseases do account for about fifteen thousand deaths each year in the US.

When there is not a drug to effectively treat an infection, the best course of action is to assure that your innate immunity or your body’s natural immune system is running at peak performance. So how do you accomplish this peak performance to prevent and treat virus infections? I will tell you how I have gone for ten years without getting a cold or the flu. I had one bacterial lung infection during this period that was most likely caused by not wearing a respirator when entering a very nasty crawlspace under an old home. I also had a MRSA infection that was brought home from a hospital by a family member. It seems that our natural immune systems are much more effective at taking care of viral infections versus bacterial infections. Since I have not had a cold or the flu during this period except for the time I tempted fate by not taking my normal course of vitamins and minerals, we have to believe that proper nutrition and exercise to keep the body healthy is the best course of action against viral diseases.

Vitamin D, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, zinc, and iodine: These vitamins work together for producing many effects in the immune system. This includes boosting your white blood cells and the differentiation into the many types of natural pathogen “killers”. Also vitamin D and vitamin A work together to allow the body to make a very effective pathogen killer called cathelicidin antimicrobial peptides. This family of anti-pathogens is very effective against bacteria, viruses, and fungus. The amounts of these nutrients in the body are very critical to their effectiveness.

I read one story about how during a research project, the serum vitamin D of the subjects was being taken once per week. It was noted that one of the subjects had a 25(OH)D level above 60ng/ml one week and the next week the level had dropped to below 20 ng/ml. The next day this subject came down with the flu. When a viral infection becomes active in the body, the immune system can use up its stores of nutrients very rapidly. To repeat, the amount of important micronutrients is extremely critical. For example, you should increase the amounts of vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin C, and zinc if an infection is present.

It may be that you need to take 50,000 IU of vitamin D3 for a couple of days or the amount you would make at the beach in the sun for a week. You may also want to consider the amount of vitamin C that you are taking. A good way for short term increase in vitamin C is to take liposomal vitamin C. I do not think that you should take this form on a regular basis as it will be too much. One gram, 1000mg, of liposomal vitamin C may act as taking as much as 20 grams or more IV. Antidotal cases have shown that vitamin C is a very effective disease fighter. On a regular basis, you should get at least 3 to 4 grams per day. Zinc is another disease fighter that you may also want to increase. You might increase your intake to as much as 50 mg/d until the virus symptoms recede. Also, folate from leafy greens or as supplement of methyl folate with vitamin B12 is critical for the methylation cycle for proper genetic expression. All of the above nutrients can be depleted rapidly during disease.

Since there is not an effective method for treating Ebola, I wonder why nutritional techniques are not practiced on a disease where the death rate is 50 to 70 percent and sometimes higher. I guess modern medicine has simply decided to remove these efficacious tools. It seems that they do understand the need for hydration and the replacement of minerals, but what about all of the other nutrients that get depleted.

Protect yourself this winter as common viruses start to invade the population. Be sure that you are getting enough of the important nutrients. – Pandemic Survivor

Further Reading: Linus Pauling Institute Oregon State University – Immunity: http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/immunity.html

Dr. David Brownsteins Blog Ebola: A Scurvy-Like Illness: http://blog.drbrownstein.com/ebola-a-scurvy-like-illness/

List of viral diseases – CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/disinfo/disease.htm