Supplements are useless if you want to die!

Posted on June 22, 2014 by Mark Pegram

Don’t take vitamins and minerals as they are a waste of time and money. You get enough nutrients through the food that you eat. This is repeated over and over again by the powers that control our health. Food is much more important to your health than medicine and yet we spend almost 77% more on health than we do on food (1.264 trillion for food and 2.237 trillion for healthcare). When you are trying to determine the purpose and paths that are placed on us, often the statement, “follow the money,” arises.

We find that we are last in the twenty wealthiest countries of the world in life expectancy and spend much more than any other country on health. If the numbers for spending on healthcare and food were reversed, then we might have a chance for a much longer life expectancy.

I am often asked what I take to prevent illness. When I tell them, there is much concern about taking so many tablets. In the mind of the average American is the issue that this many ‘pills’ could have very serious side effects and might make them sick. This is what has been perpetrated on the American public. Vitamins and minerals are not good for you and like pharmaceuticals should be pharmaceuticals are not good for you like vitamins and minerals. However, vitamins and minerals do not have serious side effects like pharmaceuticals. But if it is in the form of a pharmaceutical then we make assumptions that are not correct about the side effects. Please note that I have said vitamins and minerals. When you start to take herbs then this is no different than taking a pharmaceutical. Most pharmaceuticals have some basis in herbal origins.

The issue is how we process foods and change the characteristics of the nutrients. In many cases nutrients are not only changed, they are completely stripped from the food through processing. The major forms of processes that destroy food are over-heating and mechanical shear like homogenization and size reduction. A change in the characteristics of enzymes, protein, and fat affects the ability of the body to absorb the proper nutrients. We have now arrived at the point that we must take supplements in addition to the food that we eat to be healthy. Of course this says nothing about the synthetic vitamins that are put into our foods or pesticide and herbicide toxins affect on health.

Here are the additional nutrients I take on a daily basis. Compliance by most in taking the additional nutrients is difficult because it is not a fast food burger or a bowel of ice cream. Also, the form looks like pharmaceuticals and we fear side effects.

This looks like pharmaceuticals when in fact; it is just food that has to be made up from our loss in modern processes. Nutrient deficiency is the number one cause of poor health and reduced life expectancy in the US. There are not any harmful side effects. There is only health from food. For the powers to tell you otherwise is about the money made from your poor health. – Pandemic Survivor

Breast Cancer Survivor Takes on the Issues

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Mark Pegram

Carole Baggerly had her own experience with breast cancer. She then started to research the reason why. Her discovery; scientists have expressed the understanding that breast cancer is a deficiency disease. That is over her life time, her intake of vitamin D was not adequate. She was so upset and concerned about the issues that she started GrassrootsHealth. This is a consortium of more than forty scientists and doctors that are experts in vitamin D and nutrition. She discovered that it was not only breast cancer, but a host of chronic illness related to deficiencies. Take the time and watch her explain the issues in the first thirty minutes of this video presentation. Carole Baggerly and Dr. Heaney, September, 2012 Presentation to Direct-MS Canada.

If you are concerned about the health of your children, yourself, your parents, the next hour is Dr. Heaney who has contributed significantly to the understanding of vitamin D. He talks about the longevity issues and decline with chronic disease because of nutritional deficiencies. There are many diseases that have now been linked to deficiencies that number into the hundreds. This is particularly pointed to vitamin D deficiency.

This discussion is fairly non-technical and is understandable by the average person. Dr. Heaney expresses the understanding that “things go better with vitamin D”. That is that vitamin D deficiency may not be the cause of a disease like TB, but not having enough vitamin D will prevent your body from properly healing. However, this understanding falls into the logic of the chicken versus the egg. In other words, if you had enough vitamin D would you have gotten TB in the first place? Dr. Heaney discusses everything from diabetes, heart disease, MS, pregnancy, and cancer to infectious diseases like TB. I give the video presentation six stars out of a five star rating system for understanding of chronic disease and the effect of vitamin D. Presentation to Direct-MS Canada.

Your take away from this, is you, your friends, and your family should not suffer from vitamin D deficiency. Standards within the medical industry have long been 20 ng/ml to 100 ng/ml. There have not been any cases of toxicity below 200 ng/ml or 500 nmol/l. There does not appear to be any downside at this level of vitamin D. Some laboratories have decreased the upper number, 100 ng/ml, to whatever they are measuring the population. Best health for you can be reached with a vitamin D serum level, 25(OH)D between 40 ng/ml to 80 ng/ml; note this is still within the normal range as defined by medicine. It is not how much you take; it is where you maintain your serum level. Everyone responds differently to their intake from all sources of vitamin D. The only way to know is to test. Dr. Heaney says to maintain a level above 40ng/ml will require an intake from all sources of 5000 IU or more of vitamin D3 per day.

Please note this presentation is in Canada. The measurements used are in nanamoles per liter or nmol/l. To convert ng/ml to nmol/l multiply ng/ml by 2.5. So the normal range of 20 to 100 ng/ml is 50 to 250 nmol/l. Get your serum level tested to give your body a chance to thrive. If you choose to do it through GrassrootsHealth, you become part of the study that will help to advance health in the population. – Pandemic Survivor

Test by GrassrootsHealth: Video of how to do the test:

FDA’s New Supplement Label Rules

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Mark Pegram

It is amazing to me that the FDA can routinely decide that it will change the daily amount of vitamins and minerals and how they are described with just a wave of the hand. With their new rules on labeling, they have effectively changed the amounts of vitamins and minerals that are suggested as needed for health. Of course these numbers did not mean much anyway because they are typically stated as what is required for an average weight person to prevent certain diseases while ignoring other possibility of disease. However, it is very confusing to the average consumer as well as me and I suspect the FDA. Proposed labeling changes:

Vitamins and Minerals of concern as reported by the Alliance for Natural Health are:

Vitamin B9 or folate: The FDA wants to stop the use of folate and only allow folic acid. Folic acid is a manmade molecule that was manufactured in the laboratory in the mid 1940’s. Folate is very significant in how the methylation cycle occurs. Methylation has been shown to be responsible for how your blueprint of DNA is read and new proteins duplicated. Diseases that are impacted are everything from neural tube defects, oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, mental disorders, and arthritis to colon, breast, and prostate cancer.

Vitamin A: The FDA’s suggested change is from IU to milligrams of RAE or retinol activity equivalents. This is suggesting that beta carotene is equivalent to all the other isomers of vitamin A and ignoring the value of the pro-vitamin A and other carotenoids. Depending an individual’s enzyme profile, not all beta carotene is converted equally. It also depends on whether the beta carotene is delivered as a supplement or from natural sources.

Vitamin E: Only alpha tocopherol is recognized as the active form totally ignoring the other seven isomers of vitamin E with gamma and delta being the most important. They also ignore the value of tocotrienols for neurodegenerative disease.

Changing the DV’s or daily value has impacted the following vitamins and minerals: Reducing the amounts: Vitamin B12, zinc, vitamin B6, riboflavin, selenium, copper, zinc, and pantothenic acid or B5. Slightly higher DV’s: Vitamin C, vitamin D, and calcium. These changes could have significant impact on health because of misstating the amount of needed nutrient.

The above is a brief summary from the article at Alliance for Natural Health. I highly recommend that you read the original article: FDA Needs a Lesson in Supplement Science – Pandemic Survivor

Assault on the Nervous Systems by Anti-Cognitive Chemicals

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Mark Pegram

What do chloramines, fluoridation, lead corrosion, vitamin D deficiency, bromine, mineral sulfate removal, and iodine deficiency have in common? They should all be classified as anti-cognitive biological chemical processes. We can be our own worst enemy. We have been highly successful in our use of chemicals for technological advancement. We try to protect ourselves from toxic substances and pathogens, while creating health problems through unintended consequences. This has been the case for increases in Alzheimer’s, ADD, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorders, and other general cognitive impairment. Halogen (iodine, bromine, fluorine, etc.) physiology along with mineral deficiencies needs to be significantly reviewed in the US and the use of halogens in our food supplies and water sources need to be adjusted accordingly.

Consider in the late 1990’s that the EPA decided it would be a really great thing to reduce the amount of chloromethane created from the chlorination of water. They did this by forcing the use of ammonia added to water at the treatment plants creating chemicals in the water called chloramines. Chloramines formed in water are so toxic that fish cannot live in it. However, it is a longer lasting water disinfectant and it does not seem to generate as much chloromethane, a carcinogen. However, the other toxic disinfectant byproducts (DBP’s) that are created and unregulated are of concern. One of these may be halogen acetic acids. HAA’s have a stated standard with standards for chloro-acetic acid and iodo-acetic acid, but no standard for fluoro-acetic acid.

Chloraminated water is much more corrosive, most likely from the created HAA’s. This causes the leaching of lead from water pipes in supply and distribution systems (my city has thousands of miles of iron pipe held together at the joints with lead like must municipalities) and home potable water systems that are joined with solder lead joints. There have been several studies showing an increase in lead content in water after the start of chloramination or the use of chloramines.

Fluoride has been shown to aid the build-up of the concentration of lead in the human body. So by fluoridation of water to supposedly improve our dental health along with the use of chloramines, we have inadvertently created higher amounts of lead. This is of major concern for the developing brains of our children and the aging brains of elderly.

The US is the only country in the world that allows the use of bromine in baking and in cloudy citrus drinks. This iodine mimic causes significantly physiological malfunction in the thyroid as well as other functional biological iodine processes. Consider that children have a ten to fifteen times higher uptake of iodine versus adults and consider the damage. Bromine is not used in other countries because it is a carcinogen.

Add to this vitamin and mineral deficiency. Vitamin D is responsible for mineral balance in the body, in particular the sodium-sulfate co-transporter. Adequate sulfate is necessary for the formation of cerebroside sulfate that is necessary for proper neuron development. Also consider that iodine deficiency is considered by the World Health Organization as the number one cause of mental illness in the world. Sulfate also is the body’s best defense against toxins as it removes them through water soluble sulfate esters. Cities remove the sulfate minerals from the water because it is stinky and plugs the pipes. Iodine, D3, and sulfate deficiencies combine as a disaster for mental function.

Take away iodine, vitamin D3, sulfate and add neuro-toxins and iodine mimics and you have the perfect conditions necessary for cognitive impairment. Well the cause is idiopathic the experts claim. Is Dr. M. Scott Peck accurate in his description of group evil through specialization? One thing is certain, idiots and unintended consequences always seem to find each other. In the case of water disinfection and vitamin and mineral deficiencies, you might say that this meeting of idiots and unintended consequences has created epicentric waves of causation for cognitive impairment. For now, your cognizant commenter – Pandemic Survivor

Worshiping at the Vitamin Church

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Mark Pegram

An Open Letter to Margaret Wente; from her profile: “Margaret Wente is one of Canada’s leading columnists. As a writer for The Globe and Mail, she provokes heated debate with her views on health care, education, and social issues. She is winner of the National Newspaper Award for column-writing.”

Re: Why I’m Leaving the Vitamin Church – Globe and Mail, Canada

Dearest Margaret,

I am extremely sorry for your demise. I assume you’re writing from the grave. Anyone taking 1000 mg of vitamin D (forty million IU per day for years?) for as long as you suggest would certainly be dead. At your autopsy, your death was stated to be idiopathic. In plain English that means the idiots did not know the cause.

The study from the Lancet that you refer to suggested that vitamin D does not improve bone density. If you had read the abstract closely, you would have noted that they did not use more than 800 IU of vitamin D. Simple logic would suggest that the study was devised to keep researchers employed as everyone knows that two minutes of mid day summer sun, the equivalent of 800 IU of vitamin D, would not improve bone density.

What are worse than flawed science research papers are extremely flawed opinion articles by renowned authors. You used the weight of your public face to express an opinion that really means nothing even though it is beautifully written. At some point the realization that process and content are both important must infuse your vitamin deprived soul. The cutback in advertising for your publication must have got the technical editor. Or worse, maybe your publication was given more advertising for the writing of this article by the pharmaceutical/medical insurance industry.

A simple interview with anyone that has recovered from serious disease by the use of nutrition would have rendered your heart so that out of love you would not have written such an error riddle article. Without knowing it, you may have caused the deaths of thousands of people. You should heed the words of the nutrition evangelist, Dr. Randy Jirtle, renowned genomic researcher and Time Magazine Person of the Year 2007; “Food is Medicine”.

Judging from your photo showing your ashy white pallor, I suspect you are already starting to get your first cold of the season. Given the half life of vitamin D is only three weeks, you should expect to get your second cold or the flu about Christmas since you have stopped taking vitamin D. If you had truly been keeping up with the vitamin D science, you would know that it is not how much you take, but how high your serum level of 25(OH)D.

Worshiping at any church other than a church of God is nothing more than idolatry. I really am glad that you have decided to give up the vitamin church and free yourself of this evil. Perhaps you should help others in this effort.

To your good health,
Pandemic Survivor

Deficiency Disease in a Modern World – Part II Minerals

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Mark Pegram

We don’t usually think about minerals having a significant effect on disease the way we do with vitamins. However, minerals are crucial to life. I remember a professor that I had second semester of my freshman year for chemistry labs. He is a brilliant man with a perfect memory. He suggested that organic chemistry was going out of fashion. The study of minerals was going to be the future of organic chemistry. Well, he did not calculate man’s desire for wealth at the cost of health. He was always optimistic; I believe the correct attitude.

Consider that iodine deficiency is the number one cause of brain damage throughout the world. Given this and the understanding that children that don’t get enough iodine will have a significant reduction in IQ; it makes you wonder why our required daily intake is as low as specified by the government. The suggestion that 150 mcg is adequate does not allow for mass balance according to WHO (World Health Organization). That is unless you are small enough to where you don’t generate two liters of urine a day. WHO says that sufficiency occurs when your urine iodine level is measured at 100 mcg per liter. I am large enough to where two liters or about two quarts is not an unusual amount of urine in twenty-four hours. That would require at least 200 mcg of iodine per day for sufficiency. Is this just ineptness on the part of the medical community?

If you take iodine deficiency to its furthest extreme during pregnancy, you end up with cretinism. Cretinism is a very serious life threatening disease with both physical and mental malformation. Goiter is another very serious disease caused by iodine deficiency. What happens is the area around the thyroid in your neck enlarges to trap as much iodine as possible to prevent you from dying. Most likely the causes of several of the mental dysfunctions have their roots in iodine deficiency. Then consider the thyroid makes T4, but it is each cell with an adequate amount of iodine that produces T3. T3 is four to ten times as powerful in cellular differentiation as T4. With each cell making its own T3, it reminds you of the way vitamin D3 works for genetic expression where each cell makes the active form as needed. Of course the T3 will not be made in each cell if there is not an adequate amount of iodine and selenium. Yes, selenium is needed as a catalyst for the production of T3. Notice I said catalyst. It is more correct to say enzyme with selenium as its cation.

So what other diseases arise from mineral deficiency? The list is long.

Boron: Consider this abstract

Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 43(2):219–231 (2003)

The Physiological Effects of Dietary Boron
Tara A. Devirian and Stella L. Volpe*
Department of Nutrition, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Referee: Dr. Susan Meacham, Associate Professor and Department Head, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, College of Health Sciences, Room 329, Rod Lee Bigelow Building, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154-3019

ABSTRACT: Boron may be an essential nutrient for animals and humans. Dietary boron influences the activity of many metabolic enzymes, as well as the metabolism of steroid hormones and several micronutrients, including calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D. Boron supplementation in rats and chicks has been shown to increase bone strength. Boron may also play a role in improving arthritis, plasma lipid profiles, and brain function. Additional research is necessary to further clarify boron’s influence in human and animal physiology, as well as determine a dietary requirement for humans.

An adequate intake has not been established, but most multiple vitamins have 3 mg. Without boron in each cell, it is likely that vitamin D as 25(OH)D will not adequately be converted to the steroid as needed in each cell. Symptoms of boron deficiency mimic symptoms of vitamin D deficiency and we know how severe a disease state that will create.

Calcium: The body very tightly controls serum calcium levels. The calcium acts almost like a steroid in cell signaling and is necessary for neural transmitters to be released as the voltage gated calcium channel opens to allow the flow of transmitters at the end of the action potential in neurons. Deficiency (low serum levels) usually only occurs when you have parathyroid malfunction (caused by vitamin D deficiency or renal failure) because of the large reserve in the bones. Deficiency includes diseases: osteomalacia and osteoporosis as the body destroys the bones to have adequate calcium for biological functions. Low serum calcium or hypocalcemia will result in muscle cramps and fatigue. Very low levels will result in seizure as neurons are not properly firing.

Chromium: Deficiency of this mineral will result in abnormal glucose utilization and increased insulin requirements. This may lead to type II diabetes. Of course the body uses chromium III and chromium VI or hexavalent is recognized as a carcinogen.

Magnesium: This mineral is absolutely necessary as it is involved in over 300 essential metabolic reactions. The most critical is through its choice as the cation for the energy cycle of ATP/ADP which keeps potassium, sodium, and calcium in balance. Deficiency symptoms are a long list and may be clinically associated with the following: ADD/ADHD, Alzheimer’s, Angina, Anxiety disorders, Arrhythmia, Arthritis- Rheumatoid and Osteoarthritis, Asthma, Autism, Auto immune disorders- all types, Cavities, Cerebral Palsy- in children from magnesium deficient mothers, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Congestive Heart Disease, Constipation, Crooked teeth- narrow jaw- in children from magnesium deficient mothers, Depression, Diabetes- Type I and II, Eating disorders- Bulimia, Anorexia, Fibromyalgia, Gut disorders- including peptic ulcer, Crohn’s disease, colitis, food allergy, Heart Disease- Arteriosclerosis, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, Heart Disease- in infants born to magnesium deficient mothers, High Blood Pressure, Hypoglycemia, Impaired athletic performance, Infantile Seizure- in children from magnesium deficient mothers, Insomnia, Kidney Stones, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, Migraines- including cluster type, Mitral Valve Prolapse, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscle cramps, Muscle weakness, fatigue, Myopia- in children from magnesium deficient mothers, Obesity- especially obesity associated with high carbohydrate diets, Osteoporosis- just adding magnesium reversed bone loss, Parkinson’s Disease, PMS- including menstrual pain and irregularities, PPH- Primary Pulmonary Hypertension, Raynaud’s, SIDS- Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Stroke, Syndrome X- insulin resistance, Thyroid disorders- low, high and auto-immune; low magnesium reduces T4.

Manganese: The primary importance of manganese is its necessity for the conversion of the water soluble sulfate ester that is your body’s primary waste remover. Without proper waste removal, many diseases may result. I suspect the manganese sulfate chemistry malfunction to be a cause of ALS. Manganese can be toxic at relatively low levels. Most multiple vitamin supplements provide an adequate amount. Adequate intake for adults is 1.8 to 2.3 mg/day with the tolerable intake at 9 mg/day.

Molybdenum is a necessary for life as a co-factor in many enzymes that catalyze global transformation of the carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur cycles. Adequate intake is 45 mcg/day and tolerable intake is 2 mg/day. Deficiency may result in cancer of the esophagus. There is an area in China where the soils are deplete in molybdenum with an incidence 100 times higher than in the US of this particular type of cancer. The deplete soils cause a higher exposure to nitrosamines because the molybdenum is necessary for conversion of nitrates to amino acids in plants.

Potassium: Deficiency results in stroke, heart failure, fatigue, muscle weakness and cramps, and intestinal paralysis, which may lead to bloating, constipation, and abdominal pain. Of course it depends on the degree of deficiency. I know that after a hard workout, a class of low sodium V-8 juice (about one gram of potassium) makes the cramps disappear in minutes.

Zinc: Severe deficiency as reported by the Linus Pauling institute results as follows: “The symptoms of severe zinc deficiency include the slowing or cessation of growth and development, delayed sexual maturation, characteristic skin rashes, chronic and severe diarrhea, immune system deficiencies, impaired wound healing, diminished appetite, impaired taste sensation, night blindness, swelling and clouding of the corneas, and behavioral disturbances. “ The main concern with mild deficiency is reduced immune system response.

Sulfate: It is interesting to note that no one considers sulfate deficiency as an issue. However, without adequate vitamin D3 the sodium sulfate co-transporters do not work as required. Consider the following sulfate requirements of the human body:

Both organic sulfur from amino acids and from sulfur compounds in the cruciferous (cabbage, broccoli, etc.) and allium (garlic, onions, etc.) vegetables and inorganic sulfur from sulfates in foods and our water supply are critical to human physiology.
Sulfate is needed for the formation of glycosaminoglycans (GAGS i.e. glucosamine sulfate, chondroitin sulfate, etc.) or amino acids necessary for joints, skin, connective tissues, and joint lubrication through synovial fluid.
Sulfate is needed to start the cascade of digestive enzymes.
Sulfate is necessary to line the gut wall with mucin proteins.
Sulfate is needed for the formation of neurons where neurons are laid down on a platform of sulfated carbohydrates.
Sulfation is a major pathway in detoxifying from drugs, environmental toxins especially in the brain (aluminum), liver (i.e., acetaminophen), and removing waste from cells after the mitochondrial processes.
Sulfur is most abundant element (approximately one half percent by weight) in our body after calcium and phosphorus and is the fourth most abundant anion in our plasma. It helps to maintain the balance of anions (bicarbonate, chloride, and phosphate) to effectively carry oxygen to the cells. Interestingly enough, sulfates are not normally measured in serum analysis.

Wow, so here we are with a list of deficiency diseases and symptoms that is much longer than the one for vitamins. When I used to take my minerals in the morning before going to the gym, I would tell my gym partner that I had eaten my bucket of dirt for the day. We get our minerals from many sources but primarily from food. If you choose to eat a bucket of dirt (supplements) be sure that you supplement with the correct amount. Not enough and you have diseases and too much will result in toxicity. – Pandemic Survivor

Deficiency Disease in a Modern World – Part 1 Vitamins

Posted on June 30, 2013 by Mark Pegram

The suggested vitamins are not meant to treat, cure, diagnose, prevent, or mitigate disease. If the substance is so stated by a doctor, then it must be considered a drug and follow all the rules for drugs by the FDA. Have you ever known a doctor to prescribe a vitamin to treat your disease symptoms? I do believe this is a significant mistake by the medical community. Please consider the following diseases and the associated cause. If you had one of these, would you not want your doctor to tell you how to overcome them without prescribing a drug?

Pellagra: cause vitamin B3 niacin deficiency and tryptophan deficiency

Blindness and night blindness: vitamin A deficiency

Beriberi: vitamin B deficiency or thiamin B1

Scurvy: vitamin C deficiency

Rickets: vitamin D deficiency

Anemia: iron deficiency

Goiter: and interesting disease caused by iodine deficiency

Malnutrition: deficiency in fats and proteins

If we look at all of the vitamins and take deficiency to the worst case then we can find the following deficiency diseases and the use of vitamins for treatment of disease.

Biotin – a B complex vitamin: Hair loss, brittle nails, and scaly red rash, neurologic symptoms of depression, lethargy, hallucination, and numbness – birth defects of abnormal development of the embryo known as teratogenesis

Folic Acid – B complex vitamin: megablastic anemia or fewer large red blood cells reducing oxygen carrying resulting in fatigue weakness and shortness of breath – during pregnancy because of rapidly dividing cells folic acid deficiency leads to neural tube defects that result in spina bifida or anencephaly, both are devastating and sometimes fatal – Other birth defects that are prevented is certain types of heart defects and limb malformations. Important roles in DNA and RNA synthesis

Niacin: B3 or nicotinic acid has already been mention for pellagra – symptoms of pellagra include dementia, diarrhea, dermatitis, and death. In the skin thick, scaly dark pigmented rashes.

Pantothenic acid or B5: Numbness and painful burning in the feet. Use of a pantothenol ointment has shown accelerated wound closure

Riboflavin or B2: Deficiency may impair iron absorption – redness and swelling of the lips and mouth, sore throat, cracks and sores outside the lips and may include formation of blood vessels over the eyes or vascularization of the cornea – other associated diseases include – cataracts and migraine headaches

Thiamin or B1: Beriberi affects the cardiovascular, nervous, muscular, and gastrointestinal systems.

Vitamin A: Deficiency in vitamin A is the leading cause of blindness in children in developing countries. Immune system impairment resulting in a higher incidence of infectious diseases Implicated in disease prevention of cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer – used medically to treat retinitus pigmentosa acute promyelocytic leukemia, and various skin disorders.

Vitamin B6: severe vitamin B₆ deficiency include irritability, depression, and confusion; additional symptoms include inflammation of the tongue, sores or ulcers of the mouth, and ulcers of the skin at the corners of the mouth

Vitamin B12: Deficiency symptoms include tingling of the arms and legs, difficulty walking, memory loss, disorientation, dementia with or without mood changes.

Vitamin C: prevents Scurvy, and to some degree cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, gout, lead toxicity, and plays a role in immunity. Has been used to treat vasodilatation, hypertension, cancer, diabetes mellitus, common cold,

Vitamin D: Deficiency can best be described by saying that vitamin D controls in some part over 2700 genes. Whether they are off or on can significantly impair your health in disease states that have many descriptions. Muscle weakness, immunity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, bone growth, cartilage growth and cellular differentiation.

Vitamin E: including impaired balance and coordination (ataxia), injury to the sensory nerves (peripheral neuropathy), muscle weakness (myopathy), and damage to the retina of the eye (pigmented retinopathy). Has been used to prevent clots and too high dosage may result in hemorrhage.

Vitamin K: Deficiency results in poor bone mineralization and impaired blood clotting. Symptoms include, nose bleeds, bruising, bloody stools, and life threatening intracranial bleeding or another form of stroke. Used to treat osteoporosis (Japan monitors serum levels for this purpose)

So the next time you go see your doctor with tingling feet and neuropathy, would it be better for your doctor to suggest that you get an adequate amount of B vitamins in particular B12, B6, and B5 first before prescribing a calcium channel blocker to relieve the pain? Has the snake oil salesmen of the early twentieth century put on pharmaceutical cloths and are now protected by the government’s FDA? Why is it necessary for senior citizens to have an average of seventeen prescriptions to treat symptoms without first being sure they are getting an adequate amount of vitamins to treat the disease?

And this is just the vitamins. What about diseases from mineral deficiencies? – Pandemic Survivor

REF: Most of the info on deficiencies were taken from the Linus Pauling Institute Oregon State University

For more information on vitamin D deficiency and hair loss, click here.

Small People’s Longevity

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Mark Pegram

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

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Mark Pegram

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

Medicine versus Nutrition – The Fight for Life

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Mark Pegram

Enter the FDA which has responsibility for both food and medical products including drugs. The FDA was originally formed in 1906 to prohibit mislabeled and adulterated drugs in interstate commerce to stop the snake oil salesmen. Please note that the Sixteenth Amendment to allow income tax was ratified in 1913. Fast forward to 1994; the Dietary and Supplement Health and Education Act provided anything that healed, cured, treated, or diagnosed a disease be processed to market as a drug. Food them became something that was only required for wellness but could not be used to treat illness as medicine. Why have I bothered you with this bit of disturbing information that you most likely knew already?

On the evening of the fourth, I was skipping through TV channels waiting for the fireworks to begin. I stumbled onto the Nightly Business Report on public TV. They were showcasing a restaurant that did not follow the normal rules of business for a restaurant and yet survived. Then as an aside, they gave the total grocery sales in the US and then total restaurant sales. In round numbers there is 600 billion in grocery sales and 800 billion in restaurant sales. It hit me like a rock. The total cost of food in the US is about half of what it cost to provide health care. Health care per capita comes in at about $8,000 and using the above numbers food per capita comes in at about $4,500. Interesting! That’s 2.4 trillion for medicine and 1.4 trillion for food. Certainly brings up lots of questions like – do we value medicine more than food? Sure looks like giving up freedom for security has odd ways of confounding our lives.

In 1960, I suspect as percentage of GDP, these numbers were reversed. I know that health care was approximately five percent of GDP. I suspect that food was close to fifteen percent instead of the ten percent that it is now. Lots of cheap food and the need to get the largest segment of our economy healthy (play on words intended) has lead to a mass of feeble-freeloading-fat people. You know if we made food as expensive as health care then maybe we could solve the obesity problem. To do that we would just need to follow the business plan of the medical industrial complex (again play on words intended). The only thing we would need to do is to allow insurance companies a monopoly by state to insure food. Then we could guarantee that food would be delivered everyday to everyone as this is a right given by the government. We would then force people into buying the food insurance by taxing them severely if they did not.

Given John Roberts recent ruling this is very doable. You can bet the “BIG BOY INSURANCE” food and medical industrial complex are discussing it. After all, Health and Human Resources has the principles that ‘markets are before mandates’ and ‘to value life’ is last on their agenda. The economy is more important than your health for the survival of the financial, insurance, medial, food industrial complex. President Dwight Eisenhower left us with these words as he was leaving office in January 1961: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” We have not heeded his message with the military industrial complex and now the “Robber Barons Snake Oil Salesmen” have, since 1960, confounded our food and medicine to meet their desires. It is time for a food and medicine evolution. We cannot make it a revolution which the “Barons” depend on because of fear of our lives. The sudden shift in financial centers for food versus medicine would cause chaos.

Have the ‘big boys’ already started – NY Times, Opinion by Michael Pollen, 2009 Michael has it almost right, but is just enough wrong to get you to participate in the greater scheme of deciding what you should eat for profit. As long as the government can force you to participate in both industries, food and medicine, you are fodder for the mill. The more sick people there are the larger the insurancemedicalfoodindustrial complex will become along with more misplaced power. Michael says the insurance companies would be trying to help fix the food system because it would reduce the number of sick people and medical cost. It is just the opposite. More sales grow the economy and insurance profits. Everybody is happy except for the citizens to whom no empathy is being shown.

How do you evolve and kick the ‘big boy’ bullies in the knee? Get well! Michael Pollen restates the fact that seventy five percent of health care is from chronic disease. The chronic disease state comes from being overfeed while starving to death from poor nutrition along with being scared out of the sun for the last fifty years. The medical system is being manipulated to maintain snake oil for health as drugs. Real health, healing, preventing, curing, and treating disease come from good nutrition. Be sure to get enough of the things that are making you hungry and are missing from your diet. In what are we deficient: Vitamin D3, vitamin C, vitamin A (it’s a lie that carotene turns into all the A complexes we need), saturated fat, potassium, magnesium, raw vegetables that have not had the enzymes processed out, iodine, and sulfur. Eliminate from your diet the things that have been added to make you sick: genetically modified food (in particular wheat, corn, and soy beans), fluorine in the water and toothpaste (vitamin D will give you teeth that are strong enough to crunch ice without breaking), bromine (the US is the only country in the world to allow bromine in food because it is a carcinogen), artificial sweeteners, and sugar. Maintain an optimistic attitude and forgive the people in our systems for what has happened to us as our main goal is love not violence. America is a great nation and let’s keep it that way. Your efforts will first be noted in the reduction of flu and colds, and then, in the reduction in the number of cancer deaths. If everyone participated, we could see a fifty percent reduction in chronic disease or about a thirty five percent reduction in the requirement for health care cost. You can bet the ‘big boys’ will not stand still and let this happen. Do not allow yourself to be treated as herd animals.

Do you value medicine more than food as a means of security? Your dollars say that this is a fact and the managers of the economy depend on you to remain in fear. I suspect if you had the freedom to choose, you would give up medicine before nutrition. Too much time on my hands? I am sure there are other explanations, but where is the truth? Your life, wellness, and joy depend on you knowing the truth. – Pandemic Survivor

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Category Archives: Nutrient Deficiency