Author Archives: Mark Pegram

Playing in the Sun – Skin Cancer Awareness Month

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It has started again with the promotion of sunscreen over health.  Do you think that CBS would have published this article if it wasn’t for all the advertising given to them by Merck Pharmaceutical, owner of Coppertone – “Study: Increased Risk for Young People and Skin Cancer.”  Coppertone was formerly owned by Schering-Plough.  Consider this short story of a couple of baby boomers –

Jack and Mary were teenage sweethearts in the mid sixties.  They continued to be in love and got married.  They had two children, Alice and Frank, and life was great as they both decided to become computer programmers and lived a life of abundance of wealth.   Their favorite pass time was to go to the beach to spend lots of time in the sun.  They even made many trips to the Caribbean during the winter as they had the means.  It was great fun and relaxation from all the time that they spent in front of the computer.

The many warnings by her dermatologist and by Disney and Schering-Plough through the Sun Safety Alliance with the slogan ‘block the sun not the fun’ concerned Mary greatly as she did not want to get skin cancer or have her skin wrinkle with age.  She really enjoyed spending time on the beach and going to amusement parks where she could spend lots of time in the sun.  She decided to use the sun screen that was recommended by her dermatologist.  Mary was rigorous to keep it on the kids to be sure that they did not get burned.

Jack was a free spirit and really did not like to have ‘some old lotion’ put on his body.  He would spend time in the sun but when it was apparent that he was getting too much, he would seek shade.  He got a lot of grief about not wanting to go into the sun except when it felt good.  He would always seek shelter under a beach umbrella or in the shade at the amusement parks so as to not cause too much unrest in his family.  Frank was just like his dad and wanted to do everything that his father did in just the same way.  Mary tried to keep sunscreen on him but he would refuse until she gave up.  She figured it was okay as long as he wanted to stay in the shade with his dad.

Alice was just like her mother.  She thought that it was great that she could use the lotion to save her skin and spend lots of time in the sun instead of like her stupid brother that had to go the shade as he started to turn red.

Life was great for a while until Alice started to develop asthma.  It was constant trips to the emergency room as she just could not breathe.  She did not react well to the steroids that she was being given but eventually she seemed to get the asthma under control with ‘designer pharmaceuticals’.  During her college years she had a herniated disc that was resolved with an operation on her lumbar region.  Later as she had just graduated from college it was discovered that she had MS and within a month lung cancer.  At about this same time Mary was diagnosed with a severe form of melanoma.  They both died within a year of each other.

Jack and Frank did not understand why life had dealt them such a hardship.  They had tried to live a healthy life.  How could it have happen to them in this way?

Don’t be like Alice and Mary.  Educate yourself before you throw on all that sunscreen.  If you watch Dr. Gorham’s video to figure out why Mary died from melanoma, you most likely will never wear sunscreen again.  Skin Cancer/Sunscreen – the Dilemma,  “Time for the Sun” posted June, 2012:

By the late nineties, the scientific evidence was clear that sunscreen and sun-block were not preventing skin cancer.  The UVA rays were not being stopped from penetrating the skin was a skin cancer issue.  Also the many claims by the pharma’s that their products would stop skin cancer were not confirmed so the FDA asked for label changes to drop the cancer prevention claims.  There is no scientific evidence that sunscreen stops melanoma.  The FDA’s request failed in the courts in 2000 as John Roberts, present Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, ruled that the FDA could not stop the manufacturers from making the outrageous claims about cancer prevention.  This ruling was in direct violation of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994 about no substance can claim it will prevent, cure, or treat disease without it being called a drug and following all the rules for drugs.

Move forward another decade, the FDA has been able to get the sunscreen industry to make label changes.  You may view the detail of the changes and even watch some video shorts of their reasons for making the changes at the FDA website.  The videos deal with the two types of frequencies and how the sunscreens will now be required to reduce the UVA rays as well.  Also the word ‘sun-block’ will no longer be allowed for use on the label because this is a complete exaggeration, or if you prefer – lie.  Also the word waterproof will no longer be allowed because all lotion will eventually lose its integrity.  The words ‘Broad Spectrum’ in addition to the SPF number will be required to show that the sunscreen slows UVA rays as well UVB.  These changes took place in June of 2012.

Dr. Gorham in his video that we have been referring to, Skin Cancer/Sunscreen – the Dilemma, shows that the chemicals used to slow UVA only works in the frequency range that is closer to the UVB.  It does not work in the more intense energy frequency range of UVA that is closer to the violet spectrum of visible light. This means that the slowing of the UVA energy by new ‘Broad Spectrum’ sunscreen may not be adequate to prevent skin cancer.  The visible spectrum then continues into the color ranges of indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red.  To remember the light spectrum you may use the mnemonic name Roy G. Biv.  Of course going in shorter wavelength of spectrum you have UVA, UVB, UVC, x-rays, and gamma radiation.

My question is what happens to the energy of the UVA that is being slowed by the chemicals.  Does it re-radiate into the longer UVA wavelengths.  It is my belief that the only way the sunscreens will ever protect us is to have a lotion that will radiate the UV energy into the visible spectrum.  This would be a really ‘cool’ product as well as you could see the person glow in violet and indigo as they are exposed to UV radiation.  The kids would love this.  Let’s see how long before this suggestion finds its way onto the shelves.  Of course there are sunscreens that reflect the UV radiation with products that have either titanium dioxide or zinc oxide.  These typically look white on the skin and are not consider pleasing to the eye.  However, they may be even more effective than dark pigmented skin in preventing melanoma.  All UV reduction products prevent the formation of vitamin D!

Go play in the sun this summer and have great fun.  But please educate yourself to what sunscreen can do to you if you don’t know about how to use it.  You would be much better to be like Jack and Frank and never use it.  – Pandemic Survivor

Surviving Cancer with Vitamin D

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My brother ran into his friend ‘Ann’ a couple of weeks ago.   If you recall, she was the focus of a post that I did in June 2009 – “A Tale of Two Women.”   Ann had ovarian cancer that was discovered in 2006.  She had been given two years to live because the cancer had been so aggressive.  Ann’s medical insurance had run out.  Ann had gone to bed to die with severe symptoms when my brother contacted me.  She started taking large amounts of vitamin D and other nutrients in which she was deficient.

She has now completely recovered and has got control of her children back from her former husband.  She has also found full time employment and seems to be doing well – symptom free.  Can we say definitively that she survive totally because of the nutrients that she took? – No.  However, why would you want to die nutrient deficient?  I do believe the main cause of her recovery was because of the prayer that was started by her mother for her recovery.  Whether it is dipping seven times into the water to heal leprosy or taking 50,000 IU of vitamin D3 per day for ninety days, God has a plan for all of us.

If you think about the recent announcement by Stanford University – an antibody that counters the antibody cancer cells put off to stop our immune systems from destroying cancer- why you not consider large amounts of vitamin D and large amounts of all the other nutrients to give our biology a chance?  The reason this has never been researched is there is no opportunity to patent a drug.  Why you would spend a bunch of money on research that was not going to result in a large profit.  Of course, that is what government funded research is supposed to do.  However, what institution would allow a project to go through research where the person was getting a combination of nutrients that was 5 to 10 times more that what was required per day?  “This is not medicine,” the institution would claim.

DO NOT DIE FROM ANY DISEASE WHILE BEING NUTRIENT DEFICIENT!  Food is medicine and so is modern science without the manipulation.  – Pandemic Survivor

”The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood.”  – John 1:5 NIV

The Full Spectrum of Light for Health

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After thinking deeply about light, it has become apparent that we need the full spectrum of what the sun has to offer to be healthy.  Also we should avoid the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that are biologically dangerous.  What is the color of infrared and ultraviolet light?  The correct answer is that it does not have color because light in these parts of the spectrum is not visible.  Ultraviolet below 380 nanometers and infrared above 750 nanometers is not visible.

It can sometimes be difficult to understand electromagnetic radiation.  The spectrum is so broad in its order of magnitude.  Of course frequency and wavelength are proportional.  Shorter waves have higher frequencies.  From gamma rays at less than 0.01 nanometers in length or more than 10EHz to radio waves that are as much as 100,000 km long and only 3 Hz.  If you consider the electricity that you use every day as electromagnetic energy, then at 60 Hz you would have a wavelength of about 3,100 miles or about 5570 km.  At about 1mm in length or where infrared ends you have the energy used for microwave cooking or the military’s new 1mm weapon, ADS or active denial system.  To think that we now have a device that can target an individual in a crowd and heat you up from 500 yards away is amazing and scary.  At very short wavelengths, the gamma rays generated by the sun (thankfully these rays are absorbed by our atmosphere and deflected by our earth’s magnetic field) or the decay of radioactive materials, causes severe biological effects by disrupting regular biological processes.  Studies have shown that cell phone frequency is very close to the same frequency that resonates from our DNA.  And of course, electricity will cause a disruption of our heart and result in death.

We thrive in the warmth of infrared whether it is the heat radiated by a fire, another person, the warmth from our stoves, or the sun giving us life.  Infrared has a significant biological effect on our cellular processes because of its interaction with water.  I reread John N. Ott’s book this week – “Health and Light.”  You know Ott from his innovation in slow motion photography of plant growth for Walt Disney that was popular TV material of the 50’s and 60’s.  In this book, he describes the many effects he observed from light on both animals and plants.  He described how his photo light arrays were impacting the plant growth and the difference in plants depending on how much light and what type of light was received.   He also spent a significant amount of time in his book about the resistance of science to his observations.  Plants move toward beneficial light and so do our cells according to Gerald Pollack.

Gerald Pollack’s quote is most enlightening:  “Photons from ordinary sunlight, then, may have an unexpectedly powerful effect that goes beyond mere heating. It may be that solar energy builds order and separates charge between the near-surface exclusion zone and the bulk water beyond -.”  Pollack’s work on describing changes in water as it is exposed to infrared light is bold and amazing.  The science world of the middle twentieth century would have destroyed his career.  I am sure today that ‘elite thinkers’ still regard his work the same as the measure of energy observed by a shrimp on a treadmill.  If Pollack’s descriptions of the action of light on our biology is not true then why do plants grow toward the light and why do our cells ‘crawl’ toward light.  It is our biology seeking health.

Whether it is light entering our eyes and simulating brain functions of our pineal gland or our pituitary gland, setting our circadian rhythms, generating vitamin D in our skin, charge separation in our cells, plant growth from photosynthesis, or just making us feel good from the warmth, light is extremely significant.  Be sure that you get the full spectrum of the sun and avoid other types of radiation as much as possible.  Our medical professionals warnings of the last fifty years have had this in reverse.  As described in the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto, other than light our emotions of love and gratitude have the most beneficial effect on water.  Pray over food before you eat, walk humbly in love and gratitude and the light and truth will fill you.  – Pandemic Survivor.

The Value of Spending Time in the Sun

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There are pundits out there claiming that making vitamin D in the sun is better than taking it orally because you will make more vitamin D3 sulfate which is very active in transforming health and not just in moving calcium around.  In particular are the statements of Dr. Mercola in making this claim.  He has made a leap in logic where there are no logical pathways.   My contention is if cholesterol can be turn into cholesterol sulfate by replacing an OH group with a SO4 group then the same can occur with vitamin D3 through normal biological processes.

Sulfation (adding a sulfate) occurs with many different molecules.  Some of the more common ones are the glycans that are responsible for giving you healthy joints.  Another is keratin sulfate that gives you healthy skin.  It seems that for some reason Dr. Mercola has reached the conclusion that the only way that you make vitamin D3 sulfate is from cholesterol sulfate in the skin with UVB incident light.  It is my belief that you have more vitamin D3 sulfate when you have an adequate intake of sulfate.  After all, the hypothesis of Stephanie Seneff was there are lower heart disease and other chronic diseases in countries with higher natural sulfur.

I believe the benefit from getting your vitamin D3 from sunning is more about forming water boundaries.  Dr. Gerald Pollack, University of Washington bioengineering professor, discovered that water forms structured boundaries when exposed to infrared light (benefit of exposing our bodies to the sun?).  There is a sixty minute you tube video where he presents his findings – “Water, Energy, and Life: Fresh Views from the Water’s Edge”.  I believe these boundaries form when hydrogen in the boundary region has different bond angles in the water molecule.  This higher energy level of water requires you to spend time in infrared light for the bond angles to form.  Also you may consider that one of the practices of chiropractors is to treat people in infrared light to improve health.  There are a number of infrared light therapy products on the market now for treating primarily pain.

I believe the benefit of getting vitamin D from the sun is no greater than taking it orally.  The benefit of going into the sun is to help make healthy membranes so that our biological processes work the best.  Of course I am referring to the separation of sodium/potassium which drives our whole neurological processes.  Also the action of calcium and magnesium may be controlled to a degree by the difference in boundary potentials.

I know that this may sound odd, but infrared light is just as important to health as ultraviolet light.  Be sure you are getting enough inorganic sulfates and spend time in the sun as it is very beneficial to you.  What could be better than soaking in an Epsom salts bath while in the sun?  – Pandemic Survivor

The Mystery of Vitamin D3 Sulfate

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When I first heard about vitamin D3 sulfate from the work of Stephanie Seneff,  I was not sure what to think of her proposals.  Vitamin D3 sulfate does the real work in our biological systems to fight off chronic disease.  However, from a strictly chemical biological basis, it did seem to make sense.  The distinction between vitamin D2 and D3 is extremely important and the distinction between vitamin D2 and D3 sulfate is even more important she writes.

Consider this abstract from the 1980 paper: “Synthesis and Biological Activity of Vitamin D3-Sulfate” (pdf)  by Reeve, DeLuca, and Schones  – University of Wisconsin.

Vitamin D­3-3Bsulfate has been synthesized using pyridine sulfur trioxide as the sulfate donor.  It has been shown to be pure by high performance liquid chromatography and spectral methods. Unlike previous reports, the product has been identified unambiguously as the 3B-sulfate ester of vitamin D3 by its ultraviolet, nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared, and mass spectra.  The biological activity of vitamin D3-sulfate was then determined in vitamin D-deficient rats. Vitamin D3-sulfate has less than 5% of the activity of vitamin D3 to mobilize calcium from bone and approximately 1% of the ability of vitamin D3 to stimulate calcium transport, elevate serum phosphorus, or support bone calcification.  These results disprove previous claims that vitamin D3-sulfate has potent biological activity, and they further do not support the contention that vitamin D-sulfate represents a potent water-soluble form of vitamin D in milk.

Here you have the world renowned research of DeLuca at the University of Wisconsin, the bastion of vitamin D research, saying that vitamin D3 sulfate is not potent biologically.  This is in direct opposition to what is stated by Stephanie Seneff.  I believe that Seneff is correct and in this case DeLuca is just wrong.  He is wrong because of his assumption vitamin D3 sulfate does not move calcium around that it is not biological active.  After all, isn’t this the thing we are after to fight chronic disease? – A form of active vitamin D that does not spike serum calcium.

What has happened?  At one point DeLuca stated that the University of Wisconsin had not published beneficial results for vitamin D so that others would not beat them in the race to develop marketable vitamin D analogs.  Is that what is going on?  Or is this just scientific ineptness?  Could vitamin D3 sulfate be the natural molecule that fights heart disease through building muscle strength, fights off kidney disease, allows the immune system activity in fighting cancer to not be stopped by enzymatic action, stimulates the beta cells in the pancreas to fight type I and II diabetes, and fights brain disease by breaking up amyloid plaques – all of this without disturbing the delicate balance of serum calcium?

Only when the research institutions have the best interest of the tax payers and other contributors of funding in mind instead of maintaining a highly profitable institution will research breakthroughs occur to allow leaps in medical technology.  Until this is resolved, the best thing that you can do for your health is to be sure that your body is getting enough of the proper nutrients so that chronic disease does not find a home in your biological systems.  – Pandemic Survivor

Open Letter to Mothers

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This post was originally a note to my medically inspired daughters and mother of my grandchildren and loves of my life:

The art of medicine has now been overcome with the snake oil salesmen of the early twentieth century taking over the industry through manipulation of published papers, lobbying efforts in congress to make obscene regulations, manipulation of  all the government authorities under HHS, and egregious greed.  This has become apparent by looking at the fact that we spend 2.4 trillion on health care and 1.5 trillion on food.  A complete reversal of how health should be considered.  We spend twice as much per capita for health care as other industrialize countries in the world thus totally upsetting the ratio of food to health care.  In the words of Dr. Randy Jirtle, an extraordinary pioneer in epigentics and genomics imprinting in his work at Duke University, “Food is medicine.”

Medicine has gone out of it way to diminish the effects of nutrients on our health for the sole reason of maintaining a large medical economy to enrich the pockets of the greedy.  The only way that this large segment of the economy can be maintained is to have a large unhealthy population.  We have the best medical system in the world when it comes to acute illness.  When it comes to chronic disease, we rank about fifty in the world’s health care systems.  The manipulation of medicine and food is atrocious.  We continually wonder and worry about why the rate of chronic disease continues to rise and the health of our children degrades.  GMO foods, the use of sugar and other compounds to drive our appetites, and drugs instead of nutrition have lead us down a road of much pain in our society.

There are many nutrients you must be concern about for the health of your families and the success of your medical practices.  The most important are (not in order of significance): Vitamin A – not beta-carotene, vitamin D3, vitamin C, magnesium, iodine, sulfate.  Understanding how these nutrients interact with the nutrients from our diet is important as well.

I believe that the onslaught of disease in our children, in particular mental degradation with ADD, ADHD, and autism, is cause not by any one nutrient deficiency, but the combination of deficiencies.  If we consider autism, I believe this is a response to the reduction of vitamin D3, iodine, magnesium, and sulfate.  With iodine being the leading cause of mental retardation according to WHO, it is a must that you and your children get enough.  Iodine does not act alone.  It is in combination with vitamin D3, vitamin A, and iodine that cellular differentiation works at the optimum levels.

Your grandfather and grandmother assured that we got enough of these nutrients in eating liver, consuming cod liver oil, spending time in the sun, and sulfured black strap molasses(loaded with minerals as the grass is cooked down).  This practice has fallen out of favor as being just ‘old wives tales.’  It is very difficult in today’s world with its peer pressure to reach a reasonable compliance in these nutrients.  You are very creative women and I know that you will develop your own procedures to reach a nutritionally rich diet for your families.  Disease in our family can be traced directly to your grandmother’s concern for over exposure of her children to the sun.

I appreciate in how you women have developed your love of God, your success with beautiful families, and success in your medical practices.  Live your life in pursuit of love, joy, and peace and all of your desires will be met.  The light, the truth, and the way of God will find you.

Love,  Dad  -Pandemic Survivor

 

Sulfate Combats High Blood Pressure

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In the journey of discovery of how nutrients, in various forms, affect our bodies, I have been really amazed at the importance of sulfur for our health.  I guess this should not have surprised me as you think about many of the health remedies that have a sulfur connection.  All mud baths and mineral waters have sulfur, usually as sulfate, in their make-up.  Garlic has always been associated with its many curative properties.  Garlic, even in low sulfur soils, will find a way to reach high sulfur content.  There are over thirty sulfur compounds to be found in garlic.  When soaking in Epsom salts baths, it has typically been thought that the magnesium was the curative ingredient in the magnesium sulfate.

As I discovered that vitamin D3 controls the transporters for sulfate in various organs, I now wonder if this is not part of the curative effect of vitamin D3.  Vitamin D3 improves the ability of our bodies in how we handle sulfur.  As you already know from my earlier post, sulfur is extremely important in many biological functions.

I have some issue with high blood pressure, but not high enough to where I needed a med.  Although at times, my blood pressure has been much higher than it should have been.  It was not unusual to see numbers of 130/90.  This is caller pre-hypertension.  As I begin to supplement with vitamin D3 and then magnesium, my blood pressure became normal reading typically around 125/80.  As I added sulfate to my diet through additional cruciferous vegetables and alliums and mineral water, my blood pressure has dropped again.  It now typically runs at 115/70.  This is a significant indicator of improving health.

It seems that our medical professional in the US have not considered sulfate when trying to reduce high blood pressure.  It seems that they have always thought it was the magnesium in magnesium sulfate that was effective.  Consider this article from Livestrong.  The article starts by quoting a physician saying that magnesium sulfate is the only treatment for high blood pressure and then proceeds to discuss magnesium.  The assumption has always been that we have an excess of sulfate available to us.

Intravenous magnesium sulfate has always been the choice in reducing high blood pressure issues like pre-eclampsia and pulmonary hypertension.  Why have we not considered that it was the sulfate as the primary actor and not the magnesium?  The Chinese seem to be ahead of us in their approach to discovering methods to combat hypertension with sulfate.  Consider these two journal papers:  Effects of sulfur dioxide on hypoxic pulmonary vascular structure remodeling, Sun, et.al. and Endogenously generated sulfur dioxide and its vasorelaxant effect in rats, Shu-xu Du, et. Al.

Sulfur dioxide, a toxic gas usually associated with acid rain, is the effective form of sulfur for hypertension.  Sulfur dioxide is not to be confused with hydrogen sulfide, the toxic gas found in sewers.  It seems that sulfur dioxide works in synergy with nitric oxide in this relaxation effect in our blood vessels.  It is interesting to understand this because one of the catalysts for the production of acid rain from sulfur dioxide is also nitric oxide.  How odd.  Certainly the body cannot generate the sulfur dioxide as needed if we do not have enough sulfur in our bodies.

The intake of sulfur compounds most be made on a daily basis.  As we have discussed before, sulfate in the body acts as our waste removal system.  This constantly depletes the sulfur stores in our bodies.  Nature has made sulfur as sulfate readily available to us through high mineral content water.  However, we have consistently removed the minerals from our water because of issues like hardness and plugging water piping.

Eat your vegetables, drink your mineral water, and soak in an Epsom salts bath while being replete in vitamin D.  Imagine yourself soaking in a mineral spring in the summer sun – ah, the curative effect.  – Pandemic Survivor

Small People’s Longevity

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The amount of nutrients required for biological health is dependent on size of the person.  However, it seems that our nutritional professionals continue to make the same mistake over and over.  It has become part of the culture that one size fits all.  A case in point is the release of vitamin D and calcium requirements.  It seems in the grand wisdom of the examiners that a small one year old child needs for vitamin D are the same as a sixty year old two hundred fifty pound man – 800IU per day.  It has become clear that our professionals have assumed we are so inept that we cannot do a bit of math.

The idea that one size fits all is even the case for most pharmaceutical drugs.  It is not unusual for a two hundred fifty pound man be given the same amount of antibiotic to heal a strep throat as a one hundred thirty pound woman.  How could this be?  You see it on ibuprofen labels about the maximum amount that you should take in a day or the suggested dosage.  Imagine the difference in a large person taking two, two hundred milligrams tablets versus a small person taking the same.  It is apparent that the view of our institutional professionals is that the population is just stupid and not able to calculate amounts based on size.

If you take all of the nutrient requirements for vitamins and minerals as in a multiple vitamin, a small persons needs may be met but a large person will not have their needs met at all.  If you can find a multiple vitamin that is dependent on the size of the person let me know.  Of course there are children’s vitamins versus adults but the distinction stops there.

It seems that small people tend to live longer than large people.  It has always been assumed that obesity plays some factor in how this plays out in health.  However, given ideal body weights it appears there does not seem to be a large statistical difference in small people versus large people.  However, if you think about the aged we know, it is apparent that there is some advantage to being small.  Could this advantage be as simple as the stated requirements and guidelines for health favor small people?  I suspect that this is somewhat the case.

If we look at vitamin D, even our friends at Grass Roots Health have fallen into the trap that one size fits all in the suggestion about how much is required to move your serum level.  You see it nowhere in the institutional literature about the typical amount of a nutrient per pound of body weight.  Only in some nutritionist guidelines will you find it.  Of course the statement about the need to maintain the correct serum level of vitamin D and not the amount of vitamin D that you take is correct.  However, the confusion over how much you need as you cannot test everyday as practical matter is a significant need in the population. This is true for vitamins and minerals.

In the government guidelines for nutrients you find this confusion of one size fits all in their information on the daily required intake: Dietary Fact Sheets  If the government is giving you absolute minimums, you would think that a small person would have somewhat of an advantage over a large person.  If the information is based on a one hundred forty pound person, a two hundred fifty pound person does not have a chance of meeting their daily requirements.

Rule of thumb for vitamin D: Forty IU of D3 per pound of body weight per day and then test to maintain a serum level of 25(OH)D between 40 to 80 ng/ml.  Does anyone really believe that they are the average of the population?  – Pandemic Survivor

Here are a couple of links if you are interested:

Height, body size, and longevity: is smaller better for the human body?

Advantages of Shorter Height

Paleo Diet? How did the Inuit Thrive

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It was interesting in Sunday morning conversations about nutrition at the coffee shop, two different people asked me, “If the nine cups of vegetables, fruits, and nuts, for the paleo diet is so great, how did the northern native populations thrive.”  This is a really good question and shows how well the human body is capable of adapting as long as there are enough of critical nutrients available.  A different way to ask the question is, “If I don’t get the critical nutrients from plants, how can I survive on a meat only diet.”

The answer is relatively simple.  The Inuit survived the cold winters and lived long healthy lives by eating like the wolf.  That is they ate the entire animal including the organ meats.  This is true of all carnivorous animals and these carnivores are capable of surviving by eating only meats.  Don’t get me wrong, a diet too high in protein will kill you.  It is called protein poisoning or rabbit starvation or mal de caribou.  Caribou and rabbit in late winter are very low in fat.  If your diet is more than thirty five to forty percent protein then your liver and kidneys become overloaded.  This is more than 285 grams of protein for an eighty kilogram person.  To get enough calories the rest of your diet at high latitudes would need to be made up of fat and any available carbohydrates.  The primary source of fat for the northern natives is seal and whale.

Here are two articles that will give you a feel for how cold weather native’s diets work:  Discovery Magazine, 2004 – The Inuit Paradox and from Wikipedia – Inuit Diet.

In both of these articles you will notice there are the several nutrient requirements in which most of modern diets are deficient- vitamin D, vitamin A, and vitamin C.  The articles describe how each of these is obtained.  The one thing neither article mentions is the fact this diet has no grains and is very low in sugar.  Typically the only source of sugar is in the berries, a delight for children, which are picked in the summertime. The other three nutrients of deficiency suggested in my last post are magnesium, iodine, and sulfate.  This would not be a problem for populations living near a coast as sea live is rich in magnesium and iodine.  Being close to the coast also will guarantee a high incidence of sulfate in the water as well as food from animals in a high sulfate environment.

The human body is biologically robust and adaptive to whatever the environment has to offer as long as the biological necessities are met.  Eat paleo or eat like the wolf and the body will adapt and thrive as long as you are getting enough of the essential nutrients and there is low toxicity from things like too much sugar in your diet.  – Pandemic Survivor

Understanding Vitamin D with other Nutrients

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When the understanding that cod liver oil would help to prevent and heal rickets was made, there was no understanding as to the mechanisms of action of the components of cod liver oil.  All that was known was that if you used cod liver oil, rickets and some other diseases were prevented and cured.  When modern medical research began to decide mechanisms of action to predict the correct amount of vitamin D in combination with vitamin A, confusion has issued.  There is currently a battle about the correct amounts of vitamin D and vitamin A between the Vitamin D Council and the Weston Price Foundation.   Vitamin D Council on the ratio for vitamin D and A (please note the other articles in the left hand column on Vitamin A and CLO);  Weston Price discussion;  and update

I believe that the confusion arises from trying to extrapolate useful information from a nutritional or medical study considering one or two nutrients that is being evaluated using analysis of the variance -ANOV.  Human biology is much more complicated as the interaction of many nutrients gives us health or disease.  After decades of making the same error, manufacturing has been able to overcome this confusion by using analysis of the means.  ANOM gives not only the outcome of the principle inputs but also the interaction of the various inputs.  Until better methods are adopted by medical/nutritional research, we are just left with the best guess interpretation of the ‘experts.’

So where does that leave us?  I believe it is about what gives you health or disease.  I have been supplementing with the nutrients in which we are deficient for eight years now.  The interaction and the amounts of daily intake of vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin C, sulfate, iodine, and magnesium are critical.  When I have started to feel bad or had other less than desirable symptoms, I have found that I have to change the balance of one of these deficiencies.

After much trial and error this is where I am now in units per pound of body weight per day:

Vitamin D3    40 IU
Vitamin A from fish liver Oil             20 IU
Vitamin C       20mg
Sulfate             40mg
Magnesium      4.5 mg
Iodine                 0.05mg  (example 150 lb weight –  7.5mg)

This of course says nothing of the other nutrients from diet and supplementation that are essential to health.  However, the ones listed above are typically difficult if not impossible to get from the American diet.

These amounts and the sources that you derive the nutrients from may be different for you as our bodies do not all process a given nutrient the same way.  This is due to the fact that we may be deficient or have an over abundance of other nutrients in our bodies to say nothing of our state of health.  Let’s examine an example and you can see what I mean.

Suppose you have low energy and feel cranky.  Knowing that magnesium is responsible for the action of over 300 enzymes you may decide that you need to increase magnesium.  However, there are several other things that may be the problem even if you are getting enough of the above nutrients.  It may be that you are not absorbing enough vitamin B12 because of your age.  Or, it could be that you are not getting enough of the correct types of fats and proteins.  Or, it may simply be that you are eating too much sugar and you blood sugar spikes are the issue, etc.

Eating a great diet of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and meats while supplementing with the nutrients in which you are deficient will give you optimum health.  It is only through your record keeping of how you feel, trial and error of amounts, and types of foods that are consumed can you reach this desire.  There is no magic formula.   There is magic for health when the balance of nutrients is correct     -Pandemic Survivor