Monthly Archives: December 2014

Historic Breakthrough in Health – Nano Policosanol

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“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.” – Galileo Galilei

Nature will typically provide at least two pathways or redundancy for anything that is critical to the survival of life. Consider that we have two arms, two kidneys, two eyes, two lungs, etc. If you want to get more technical consider there are two substances to allow homocysteine to go to methionine [trimethylglycine (TMG or Betaine) or the combination of folate with vitamin B12] for the methylation cycle for the expression of genes. The discovery is a substance that works along some of the pathways of vitamin D and enhances the action of nutrients and more.

The remarkable thing about the action of this form of policosanol, as described in the patent, is that it does not drive up serum calcium. This has always been the issue with simply giving the hormone form of vitamin D to patients. Imagine anything that can work on physiological systems of the body without side effects. This natural substance has been consumed forever. Could this be the gift for an extremely healthy life? Like vitamin D in animals, it is also produced by the sun on plants and in many of our foods. The issue has been the ability of the body to absorb it so that it can get to where it needs to be active.   The new discovery is the effectiveness of a small droplet sized emulsion of policosanol. Policosanol is found as a waxy aliphatic alcohol on the leaves of sugar cane and in the husk of many grains and in other plants as well.   This may be reason that diets like the unprocessed paleo diet are so effective.

In conversations with Dr. P.R. Raghavan, he describes the finding as nature’s way of providing a pathway to health for animals who cannot obtain their vitamin D from the sun. He states that his discovery came from observing rats. The first thing that rats do is to eat grass when experiencing long periods without any exposure to sun. Grass makes the waxy alcohol on its leaves. “Rice-field Rats primarily reside in cultivated areas such as rice paddies and grasslands. It [where they reside] is largely dependent on human rice fields and plantations. Rice field rats shelter in burrows in soil, under rocks, and in logs”. It now makes me wonder when I see a dog eat grass if they are trying to achieve health from policosanol. Animals will do whatever is necessary for survival. Dr. Raghavan has been vigorous in making this understanding.

Consider the elephant with its hard dermal layer. How does it get its vitamin D? Or is its health from eating the policosanol in all the plants that it consumes.   “Asian elephants eat a wide variety of plants including grasses, shrubs, bamboo etc. While more than 100 different species may be eaten, only about 10 to 25 foods are likely to make up more than 8% of the diet. The percentage of grasses versus browse eaten varies seasonally; the nutrient value of grass is greatest early in the wet season, while that of leafy browse is higher in the dry season. Elephants do show choice in feeding: foods eaten do not necessarily match foods available. Crops such as bananas, sugar cane and paddy (rice) are favoured.” The sugar cane and paddy rice are very high in policosanol. The serum concentration of 25(OH)D for elephants is low compared to what is considered healthy for animals at an average of 16 ng/ml.

From Dr. Raghavan’s Into to Metadichol: “In the late 1880’s Dutch physician, Christiaan Eijkman was sent to the East Indies(now Indonesia to investigate why beriberi was so widespread in the region. Eijkman observed that hens in his Jakarta laboratory suffered symptons of nerve disease (polyneuritis) that were strikingly similar to those for beriberi – including muscle weakness, nerve degeneration, and paralysis. He then began a series of experiments to try to find a culprit organism, which he assumed was the cause.

He showed that the hens contracted the beriberi like polyneuritis soon after their feed was changed to polished rice – that is, rice whose outer husk had been removed. He also proved that by adding rice bran (the parts removed in polishing) to the hens’ food, the disease could be cured. The outer Husk contains Metadichol (policosanol).” We should clarify here that beriberi is commonly thought to be caused by vitamin B1 (Thiamine) deficiency, but Dr. Raghavan believes that the lack of policosanol was also a cause.

Emulsions are liquid colloids of droplets that are typically less than one micron in size. If you think about homogenized milk, it has fat droplets that range from 300nm to 500nm (0.3 microns to 0.5 microns). There are many small sized droplet emulsions that we normally use. Think about sugar in water, soap in water, or a supplement like vitamin E, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin K, etc. in water. The droplet size of the patented emulsion of policosanol, Metadichol®, is about 50nm in size.   This allows for easy absorption through the gut wall or through dermal layers if used topically.

Think about the many pathways that are described by Anthony W. Norman for health in his paper:
The History of the Discovery of Vitamin D and Its Daughter Steroid Hormone
Norman A.W. Ann Nutr Metab 2012;61:199–206 (DOI:10.1159/000343104)
It is truly astonishing the possibilities for health through vitamin D pathways of the vitamin D receptor. Consider this diagram derived from this paper for immune response:

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Let’s take mast cells as an example in an autoimmune response. The mast cells become over active causing significant inflammation. The Metadichol®, name given in the patent, binds to the mast cell VDR and calms it down. As a result, the inflammation that is being caused disappears. Dr. Raghavan says, “Based on our invitro and invivo data Metadichol ® behaves as an agonist for one receptor and an antagonist or neutral antagonist or inverse agonist for another receptor.” The many cells that are involved in an immune reaction and other physiologies with the VDR makes the possibilities for health unlimited.

Dr. Raghavan likes to describe the VDR super family of nuclear receptors and the action of Metadichol® as follows: “A simplified way of looking at it is that the Vitamin D receptor (VDR) present in chromosome 12 in each and every cell is the conductor of an orchestra and he/she, is not relaying to the orchestra the proper cues. This will impact the performance of other members of the orchestra. Metadichol by acting on VDR restores the conductor to peak performance and ensures that both the conductor and the orchestra will perform at their peak potential (read; disease free).”

We have been scared from the sun for the last fifty years. It is time to take advantage of the nature’s gift from the sun, vitamin D in animals and policosanol in plants. This is truly a wonderful and historic discovery in nutritional health. I believe that it is a discovery worthy of the Nobel Prize! – Pandemic Survivor

Knowledge advances not by repeating known facts, but by refuting false dogmas. – Isaac Newton

Brief Bio: Dr P. R. Raghavan CEO of Nanorx Inc. has a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Oregon State University, USA (1979) and a M.S in Chemistry (1972) from I.I.T Mumbai, India. . He has worked on drug discovery for over 25 years at Columbia University, Max-Planck Institute, Germany, Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis) and Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals. His fields of specialization are CNS, Inflammation, AIDS and ACE inhibitors. His experience in drug research includes Chiral synthesis, process, scale up and clinical research. He has been working for the last 12 years in the area of nutraceuticals and developing environmentally cost effective solutions for Bio-Diesel production.

Dr. Raghavan’s Business Philosophy: “Value for Money and Value for Many”

The Sun, Infectious Disease, or What Happens in the Dark

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Gen: 1:2 NIV, “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep…”

We have been scared out of the sun for the last fifty years. It has been constantly screamed at us about the danger of sun exposure. We have slathered huge amounts of sunscreen on our bodies when we do go into the sun. Also, with the invention of TV and computers, we have spent significantly more time inside than out during the recent decades. This has presented the question, “Have we created an opportunity for a major pandemic because of the reduction of vitamin D from low sun exposure?”

I thought a unique way of determining the answer to this question is to look at past pandemics. I also decided to look at just bubonic plague outbreaks as this is well documented over the last fifteen hundred years. There have been three major outbreaks.

First Outbreak

The first outbreak of bubonic plague began in Europe, Constantinople, in approximately 542. There was a significant event just prior that cause the solar incidence to be significantly reduced. This event occurred in approximately 536. The reduced sun and resulting cold and crop failures went on for many years. Michael the Syrian, who wrote “the sun became dark and its darkness lasted for one and a half years… Each day it shone for about four hours and still this light was only a feeble shadow…the fruits did not ripen and the wine tasted like sour grapes.”

Robert A. Dull of the University of Texas believes that this reduce solar incidence occurred because of a volcanic eruption in El Salvador. The volcano is named Llopango and its caldera forms Lake Llopango that is 11 x 17 km near the city of San Salvador. There is enough scientific evidence that Dull is certain the ash cloud from this eruption was the cause.

It is interesting to note that the disease was carried by rats, a nocturnal animal. It is easy to understand that nocturnal animals would have a much lower opportunity to receive vitamin D from any source. It is estimated that the plague killed approximately 50 million people in the Roman Empire alone.

Second Outbreak – The Black Death

This outbreak was believed to have begun in Mongolia in the earlier 1330’s. It then spread to Europe as merchant ships arrived from the Crimea in approximately 1347. It is reported that approximately a third of the population was killed in Europe. In looking for volcanic activity, I found that Mount Tarawera (New Zealand) erupted around AD 1315. The ash thrown from this event may have dropped temperatures around the globe and precipitated the Great Famine of 1315–1317 in Europe. This was also the start of the Little Ice Age. Again, we find significant reduction in solar incidence. Also, I would imagine people started to wear more clothing because of the cold. It is interesting to note that the world’s population increased in areas other than Europe.

Third Outbreak

The third outbreak started again in Eastern Asia in approximately 1855. It was mostly localized. It then spread to the rest of China and India in the 1890’s where approximately 12 million people died. I found volcanic activity from another major eruption of Mount Tarawera in 1886 and Krakatoa in 1883(Sunda Arc). Again the eruptions occurred just a few years before a major outbreak.

Are we a population of sun deficient, vitamin D deficient people waiting for another major pandemic to occur? This is a very unnerving scenario. We can only hope that the current outbreak of Ebola is localized to West Africa. Ebola is a disease that is believed to have originated with bats, a nocturnal animal. Have we discovered enough science to arrest the disease? With this concern, the incidence of sun cancer should be the least of your worries. Responsibly spend time in the sun. Don’t let your skin burn, but stay long enough to build your vitamin D3 stores. If you live in northern latitudes or stay inside, then supplement. It is not as good as the sun, but better than no vitamin D3. – Pandemic Survivor

NOAA “A New Look at the 1918/1919 El Nino Suggest Link to Flu Pandemic”
Earth Magazine   AAG: Eruption of El Salvador’s Llpango Explains A.D. 536 Cooling
Wiki Timeline of Volcanic Eruptions
Wiki Mount Tarawera (New Zealand)

The Microbiome – A New Model for Health

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sunday musting 2Buckminster Fuller: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

What would a new model in medicine look like? Perhaps that new model has already been developed, but we have not begun to understand it. In the late 1990’s, a new paradigm in health was published. That is we live in a symbiotic relationship with a community of microbes. There are ten times more cells in this community of microbes than human cells within the body. There is also significantly more DNA in this community than human DNA that was discovered when trying to map the genome. Our model of genes or mutations of genes that affect our health is a poor model when we have ten times or more the genetics living with us that has to be properly expressed.

“You mean there is this tiny community of life living within our personal biosphere?” – Pandemic Survivor

“Yes, that is absolutely correct.” – A Cognizant Commentor “

“Hello, Mr. A. C. Commenter, where did you come from?” – PS

“It’s not commenter, it is Commentor. You introduced me a few weeks ago in a musing. You also got my name wrong in that post. A commenter is one that makes random suggestions where a commentor is one that typically has knowledge of a particular subject.” – ACC

“Sorry.” PS

“So there are ten times as many cells living in my body than my own human cells. That is certainly unnerving to think I have my own personal zoo living all over my body. Are they just in my gut?” –PS

“No they live everywhere in your body. There are literally trillions of these organisms that call your body home. A tiny bio home which lives everywhere in your body. Because this colony lives within you, it can either make you or break you. “ – ACC

“What do you mean by ‘make you or break you’?” -PS

“The way I like to think about our relationship with this colony is to imagine a bee keeper. The bee keeper goes about taking care of the hive to be sure there is plenty of fresh blossoms for them to collect the needs of the hive. Also the bee keeper makes sure that the colony always has a fresh place to store honey. The keeper may also take some of the honey for his own needs.  Certainly the bees also pollinate the fruits and vegetables in the keepers garden for an abundant yield.“  –ACC

“Wow! That is really interesting. I have never thought of anything like this. So I have to keep this living colony happy so that I am well? I always thought that anti bio substances were necessary to kept pathogens from causing disease. Every type of cleaner that I have purchased lately has some form of antibiotic in it. Even the dish washing detergent I bought last week.” – PS

“It is unfortunate that we have used such a large volume of chemicals that has significant impact on our friends that live with us. This destruction of their colonies has caused us much harm. If you think of it like the bee keeper analogy, so goes the colony, so goes the good fortune of the bee keeper. “ –ACC

“Interesting, a healthy hive, a healthy life or living symbiotically.” -PC

“Yes, that is exactly right. If you go out and kick over the hive, you will create an angry swarm of bees that attack you to protect their home. If you give them a place to live, and some nectar to keep them calm, they will re-track their anger. This may account for infectious disease as well as autoimmune diseases and allergies. It may also account for biochemical missteps as well. You introduce a pathogen (or a cougar in the hen house) that angers the hive or a substance that angers the hive and the attack of inflammation begins. You give them their natural needs and the hive calms down and stops attacking you. Pharmaceuticals under our existing paradigm of working on just human cells may actually anger the hive and cause severe inflammation commonly called side effects.” -ACC

“So ole Hippocrates was right two millennia ago. Medicine really is about food and keeping the ‘hive’ happy.” – PS

“Our present model of health has given us many great things for emergency healing, but I believe all the other diseases and possibly severe infections may be treated by keeping the microbiome well. I suspect this is the reason that chronic disease has not gotten any better since the understanding of DNA and the Central Dogma of molecular biology. We have totally ignored the environmental effect on expression of DNA and the DNA of our microbiome. The central dogma of saying that a gene or a gene mutation is the reason for disease is just wrong. It is like saying that you can throw a set of blueprints on a vacant lot and expect a building to spring up. It is the acts of the contractors and the skill of the crews that give you the building. The better you treat the workers, the better the building is likely to be.” – ACC

“That certainly is a new model of health. They actually named our present model central dogma? What arrogance! How can I learn more?” –PS

“Just read.” –ACC

Wiki – Microbiome

Central Dogma

National Institute of Health – Microbiome

The Miracle of the Sun

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You are a child again and it is the night before that long awaited event. It’s the evening before the little league play off game. You dream of that power shot you plan to hit over the right field fence. Perhaps it is the evening before your birthday or Christmas eve. You know that the doll you have been longing for is wrapped and waiting. In bed, you toss and turn in excitement and anticipation. You know what is about to happen is going to be so joyful and loving to you and everyone you know. I did not think this type of excitement can happen to an old man. It has happened to me in the last several weeks.

It is interesting to think of the things that are required for life. A life with abundant good health that is happy and joyful. What are those things that you need ? Without air, you would die in a few minutes. Without water, you would die in a few days. Without food maybe you could make it for a couple of weeks. How long would you make it without the sun? Without the sun you would have no food and possibly not enough heat to survive. And could you survive without love? Think of the trial in the 1930’s when they tried to feed babies without touching them. The trial was ended because the babies started to die. Yes air, water, food, sun, and love are needed for an abundant life.

For at least the last fifty years, our medical professionals have been scaring us from the sun. We have even told people, after Dr. Cook’s proclaimation that vitamin D would cause birth defects in the 1960’s, to limit any source of vitamin D. (Note: Dr. Cook was friends of the Kennedys and had great political and public attention.) Chronic disease has flourished in America as we have limited our exposure to sun. Now research on vitamin D has shown at least fifty health issues that have been proven by clinical trials to be caused by deficiency in this sun driven vitamin. Is that why all the people that I know over ninety enjoy spending time in the sun and make it a habit?

My excitement is over a second molecule that appears to work along the vitamin D pathways in the body. The two patents that I have been shown, each make ten unique medical claims that are beyond what we would expect of vitamin D. And yet this natural substance is completely safe as it has been consumed for years. The unique novelty of the formulation is in a form that allows the policosanol to enter the cell where our biological life happens. Yes that’s right, just policosanol, an extract primarily of the sun splashed portions of sugar cane and other sun washed plants.

I picked one of the disease claims and decided compare how the unique formulation worked in a similar way as vitamin D. The claim in the patent is that the formulation of policosonal is an inverse agonist for the vitamin D receptor.   Hunh? I had heard of agonist and antagonist, but not an inverse agonist. It is apparent to me, that this unique condition has not been defined in a way that a novice could understand. Here is an explanation at Wiki and at Pharmacology Corner

The Metadichol®, a name given the formulation in the patent, puts the vitamin D receptor in a state of action. It most likely is optimizing the performance of vitamin D to allow life. This is where the good stuff begins that causes you to really get excited. The sun created vitamin D has to go through several chemical/biological conversions to get to an active state that causes receptor action. This does not seem to be the case with Metadichol®. Once the policosanol is inside the cell, the receptors take action. Let’s take one of the claims to see if we can show the action of the sun over the years.

MRSA has become a true blight on mankind. The claim is that the Metadichol® healed MRSA. There are thousands of deaths in the US each year from this disease. Its sister, sepsis, claims hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. We know that vitamin D works well as an effective fighter of viruses, but to also treat bacterial infections is amazement. Of course this works in part through the production of a pathogen killer, cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide. The issue has always been, since Niels Finson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1903 for healing lupus vulgaris with UV light, the side effect of toxicity. The effective treatment of using UV irradiation of serious infections has been phased out. Comments at the Vitamin D Council on sepsis and a history of treating infections with UV irradiation from The Guyer Institute. This history of treating infections is a very important read. Through the use of antibiotics, we have regressed over the last 110 years since the Niels Finson discovery of what nature has given us with the sun.

So what could happen at high levels of vitamin D from UV light without the toxicity – the action of vitamin D without having to worry about your serum calcium getting too high? What if you could keep your vitamin D really active without having to worry about toxicity? We suspect that it would be very effective in treating disease. It appears a unique symphony of action occurs when Metadichol® is introduced.  Here, the sun has provided us with two routes of health, vitamin D and a plant derivative, policosanol. A safe nutraceutical that has been consumed since ancient times. Who is this man that came up with a formulation to allow policosanol to be so effective? – Dr. P.R. Raghavan.

Brief Bio: Dr P. R. Raghavan CEO of Nanorx Inc. has a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Oregon State University, USA (1979) and a M.S in Chemistry (1972) from I.I.T Mumbai, India. . He has worked on drug discovery for over 25 years at Columbia University, Max-Planck Institute, Germany, Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis) and Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals. His fields of specialization are CNS, Inflammation, AIDS and ACE inhibitors. His experience in drug research includes Chiral synthesis, process, scale up and clinical research. He has been working for the last 12 years in the area of Nutraceuticals and developing environmentally cost effective solutions for Bio-Diesel production.

As with all great leaps in science, it seems that one person has the vision and makes the jump in paradigm. It is never our huge institutions who make this leap. Institutions develop tunnel vision through the weighing down of institutional armor. Armor allows only a narrow view of life through a very small opening. In conversation with Dr. Raghavan, he believes that nature always gives us robustness and duplication in critical needs of life. For example, he states that we have two eyes, two kidneys, and two lungs. There are many examples in biology that have a second pathway, which depends on what our environment has given us. Dr. Raghavan states that his goal is to give the world a cost effective way to health for everyone.

Dr. Raghavan has licensed marketing companies in India, Asia, and soon the Middle East. This represents about sixty percent of the world’s population. He is presently looking for marketing companies for the rest of the world. His plan is to provide no one with an exclusive. Here is a link to the company licensed in Thailand, Polilex and a link to a store front page that is loaded with information.  

It is that evening before the big event. Life with a method of healing disease that is extraordinary. No longer do you have to cry at the loss of someone close because a serious disease has disrupted life. Only love, joy, and peace fill you. I am so excited – Pandemic Survivor.