Tag Archives: chronic disease

A Breakthrough in Health and Extending Life Expectancy

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TelemeresMetadichol® strikes again by improving the quality of life, eliminating disease, and extending life expectancy. This plant-based substance or food has shown many ways that it acts to reduce disease and improve health in general. Now the developer, Dr. P. R. Raghavan of Nanorx, Inc., has shown that it increases telomerase or the enzyme for maintaining and increasing the length of telomeres. From the press release: Aging is a law of nature and unavoidable. Instead of targeting a multitude of diseases that confront us as we age Metadichol® is about correcting the root cause of disease.

Telomeres are proteins that are at the ends of each chromosome to prevent the chromosome from sticking to other chromosomes and to protect the genes inside by keeping the chromosome from unraveling. The best way to think about how telomeres act is to imagine the end of a shoe string. How many times have you had the plastic protector on the end of the shoe string come off, and the shoe string begin to fray and unravel? The telomeres also act, during the duplication process of RNA/DNA, as a shield to prevent mishaps.

It has been shown that there are a limited number of reproduction of cells as each time the reproduction occurs, the length of the telomeres is reduced. In other words, the length of your telomeres is an indication of life expectancy. As you age, the telomeres shorten and allow the opportunity for chronic disease, like cancer. By increasing the amount of telomerase, the enzyme that keeps telomeres healthy, Metadichol® acts to improve health and extend life.

From a recent paper: The Quest for Immortality: Introducing Metadichol®, A Novel Telomerase Activator, Journal of Stem Cell Research and Therapy.
Link to paper: Telomerase-paper

Abstract
Humans are keenly aware of their mortality. Given a limited time what we do with our life is a reflection of knowledge of our mortality. In 2009 the Nobel prize in medicine to Jack W Szostak, Elizabeth Blackburn, and Carol W Greider for their work on Telomerase and scientific research exploded in this area. Telomere protect chromosome ends and the Telomerase enzyme maintains Telomere length. This activity of Telomerase is essential in aging and stem cells and achieving longer life spans.
    Telomerase is expressed in 85% of human cancer cell lines, but its enzymatic activity is not detectable in most human somatic cells which constitute the vast majority of the cells in the human body. There is a need for increased telomerase activity in stem cells for use in the treatment of therapies where there is an active role for telomerase. Umbilical Cord Blood (UCB) provides an attractive source of stem cells for research and therapeutic uses. Work shown here characterizes the gene expression changes from Umbilical cord cells differentiate toward telomerase on treatment with Metadichol®.
     Metadichol® is a nanoemulsion of long-chain alcohols that is nontoxic. It is a mixture of long-chain alcohols derived from food. The work presented here is about the effect of Metadichol® on Telomerase expression profile in Umbilical cord cells. Our results using q-RT-PCR show increases of mRNA telomerase expression by Sixteen-fold at one picogram but down-regulates expression at higher concentrations of 100 pg, 1 ng, 100 ng and one microgram per ml concentration. Western blot studies showed expression of Telomerase protein which is slightly higher than control at one picogram, i.e., Telomerase protein expression continues at replacement level. Since it is devoid of toxic effects, it can be directly tested on humans and is in use today as an immune boosting supplement. Metadichol® increases expression of Klotho an anti-aging gene expression in cancer cell lines by Four to Ten-fold, and Klotho gene has been documented to inhibits the growth of cancer cells. Metadichol® also inhibits TNF, ICAM1, CCL2, and BCAT1 which that is associated with proliferation in yeast and increased metastatic potential in human cancers. It paves the way for safe clinical testing and research and study of Telomerase biology and its use in humans. 

The brilliance of Metadichol is that it is a food and has no known side effects—what a great nutraceutical. –by Mark Pegram

The Fountain of Youth, Metadichol?

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INSERT CLOTHOClotho is one of the three Greek fates that are responsible for the thread of life in Greek mythology. Clotho is known as the spinner of the thread while the others draw out and cut. In our understanding of physiology, we have named the gene responsible for reduced chronic disease—Klotho. The up regulation of klotho appears to significantly reduce chronic disease. A few to consider are cancer, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and coronary artery disease. Have we stumbled unto the gene that is responsible for the fountain of youth?

The klotho gene appears to be regulated by constituents of the vitamin D family, especially the vitamin D nuclear receptor (VDR). In the past, DR. P. R. Raghavan has shown that Metadichol acts to regulate VDR. In the paper, “Metadichol a Novel Agonist of the Anti-aging Klotho Gene in Cancer Cell Lines,” it is shown how Metadichol up regulates klotho in pancreatic cancer cells by as much as ten-fold against controls. Here is the link to the paper: METADIHCOL-KLOTHO

Here is the paper abstract:

Abstract

Klotho is an anti-aging protein that is mostly secreted by the kidneys, the brain, and the thyroid. It plays a significant role in regulating kidney function and vascular health. Klotho gene is named after “the Spinner” (Clotho from Greek mythology), the goddess who spins the thread of life. Klotho is a transmembrane protein known to be a co-receptor for Fibroblast Growth Factor-23. Klotho gene is expressed in a variety of tissues changes in the levels are associated with many diseases. Klotho is a tumor suppressor in breast cancer and its expression is reduced in human pancreatic adenocarcinoma, and treatment with klotho inhibits the growth of pancreatic cancer cells in vitro and in vivo.

Growing evidence suggests that an increase in Klotho (KL) expression may be beneficial for age-related diseases such as arteriosclerosis and diabetes. It remains a challenge today to induce Klotho expression. Herein we show that treating pancreatic cancer cells PANC1, MIAPACA and COLO-205 with Metadichol® a novel food-based lipid emulsion of long chain alcohols at picogram/ml, concentration led to a 4 to10 fold increase in Klotho expression as seen quantitative RT-PCR. These results suggest the use of Metadichol® given its constituents that are present in foods we consume every day is a novel therapeutic intervention for pancreatic cancer and other diseases.

The importance of vitamin D and common food compounds like the long chain alcohol lipids that comprise Metadichol is once again shown. We did not have to spend years in Florida looking for the fountain of youth. I bet Ponce de Leon would be very jealous. –Pandemic Survivor.

Nutrition First and Correct Medical Insurance!

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“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial medical insurance complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”  –Dwight D. Eisenhower

Spending on Security: US Military Spending 3.5% of GDP, US Health Insurance Spending 7.9% GDP (with approximately 11% of Americans still uninsured), Medical Providers and Pharmacy 9.6% GDP

There are thirty countries in the world that have a longer life expectancy than the US.  Most of these countries practice nutrition first.  Our food pyramid is upside down. Here and here.  Medical practice uses drugs and surgery as the first line of defense against disease.  This works very well for acute maladies, but for chronic disease, it is a terrible practice.  Symptoms of chronic disease are treated without the root cause being remedied.

How have we come to an understanding that is not science, but government policy?  “It’s the economy, stupid,” says James Carville.  This desire for a healthy economy has driven us to a population that is ill with chronic disease and obesity.  This is great for the medical economy and health insurance economy, but very bad for the health of the individual.  Government has made policies that support the economy and not the health of the individual.

Who is the primary driver at fault in this car wreck that is crushing our health and economy?  It is the medical insurance industry.  Now, that sounds like a jump, but this institution is wrecking us and government is going along so as not to crash the economy.  The medical economy has led us to a huge national debt and the insurance companies are the primary driver. Why the insurance companies?

In 1928 my mother and father were having their first child.  The doctor rushed to our home as is typical in a country environment; babies were birth at home.  There was no insurance.  My father paid the doctor directly for his services.  He gave the doctor two hams, a twenty-five-pound bag of flour, and twenty dollars.  This translates into about five hundred and forty dollars in today’s currency.  Now we pay the insurance companies and the insurance company pays the bill.  Of course, minus deductibles and co-pays which we still have to pay directly. We do have better healthcare for birthing with prenatal care, postpartum care, and neonatal care.  Adding up all the medical cost surrounding a new baby gives us a cost of about $8,800 today.

Medical Cost 2

My research has found that up to half of medical expenses are administrative fees.  Most of that belongs to the insurance companies. Best approximation is that of every dollar you give to the insurance companies only fifty-five cents comes back to medical providers and pharmacy.  Without the insurance companies’ involvement, the cost of a new baby should be about $5,000 or about ten times the cost of 1928. This is approximately what medical providers actually get. The rest of the money goes to insurance for “health security.” The operation of medical insurance agrees with most business’ theory, that a company has forty percent internal cost, forty percent external cost, and twenty percent gross margin.  After general, selling, and administrative, there is about a five to seven percent profit margin with the government getting as large portion that in taxes.

As with any company, the growth of market size is critical to the health of the company.  As the disease state of Americans goes up, the medical spending increases and the cost of insurance increases proportionately.  Now hospitals are struggling as insurance companies drive up the cost of insurance to employees and play games with reimbursements for managed care. As the prices of pharmaceuticals and managed care increase, so does the cost of insurance.  This never ending loop of increases is rushing us forward into economic doom where we will no longer be able to support our national debt.  Hospitals have merged so as to have better leverage on the insurance companies, and this has only led to less competition in the market place.  This is to say nothing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) which does not fully kick in until 2017.  Now we see many insurance companies already opting out of the ACA. It is not our fault scream the medical insurance companies.  In effect, it truly is the problem of government policy corruption. 

I remember well March 2010 when President Obama was in the process of signing the ACA.   I had gone home for lunch and flipped on the TV not knowing that it would cause me indigestion.  There on CSPAN was a reporter that stuck the microphone into the face of the new Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.  Charles Rangel had just stepped down after being charged with corruption and Sander Levin was the acting chair.

“Has the committee consider single payer healthcare insurance?” the reporter asked.  There wasn’t even a pause.

“I don’t think the country could stand the loss of five million jobs in the present economy,” Levin responded.  He snapped around in a military square and marched off before any follow-up questions could be asked. This began my research into medical cost that arrived at the above conclusions. I quickly imagined the median salary for medical insurance employees at about $70.000/yr.   The annual loss of $350 billion dollars in jobs to the economy would be hard road to follow.  If you used the same method as was used in accounting for the ACA, that would be a ten-year loss of 3.5 trillion to the economy.  After all, the industrial segment of the economy had been decimated, the housing market was a disaster, and we had just bailed out the banks. We certainly would not want to damage the economy with a change in medical insurance.

Government policy in the healthcare market segment has driven us to disastrous results. Don’t get me wrong.  I am a capitalist and don’t believe in the government taking over general business. However, when you combine giving the medical insurance companies state monopolies, when government practices poor policy for food, when you guarantee increased market size with the ACA, and when the HHS practices markets before mandates (your health suffers so that the economy can be sustained), you end up with a large ill-health market that the general population cannot afford.   Now that the Supreme Court has declared penalties for not having insurance as a tax, it is not too great a leap to declare all medical insurance as a tax.  That would make our taxes-well-just stupidly high.

I now believe that the ACA was a mechanism to ward off the insurance companies lobby in the hopes that medical insurance would collapse into single payer like the rest of economically similar countries.  We currently have one of the highest tax rates in the world.  If we look at Canada where healthcare is taken from their taxes, why is our healthcare cost almost double that of Canada.  When you add in health insurance as a tax, it truly is an unappealing number with a tax rate that is about double the rest of the world.  Whatever happened to common sense?

And then there is the suffering of chronic disease that is extremely high in the US.  Consider heart disease in Japan and Greece that is five times less than the rest of the world.  You know our scientist are smart enough to figure out why (sulfur deficiency and vitamin D).  Japan, Greece, and Iceland all have very low heart disease rates believed to be from the abundance of sulfur in the soil as each sits on volcanic riffs.

Markets before mandates is killing us both physically and from an economic perspective.  If we don’t start practicing nutrition first and correct medical insurance, the US is doomed. What happened to the days when you paid the doctor directly with a couple of hams, a bag of flour, and a few bucks?  Bring on medical insurance that is national and not a state monopoly, and give the population medical bank accounts that pass through from generation to generation without taxes.  Expand Medicaid for the less fortunate as it already has under the ACA. Medicare should not be handled by a third party (more government corruption), the insurance companies.  Of most importance is to get the science right for chronic disease in the practice of medicine.  It might be a short term correction for the medical industry, but let the markets decide without government interference. Certainly I would not have suffered for three decades with pain from chronic disease. Decades of pain brought on by bad government policy and greedy insurers that require me to give up health freedom for security or else. Collectively, we have arrived at Ben Franklin and Dwight Eisenhower’s warnings.  –Pandemic Survivor

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”  –Benjamin Franklin

Vitamin D–Conspiracy Theory or True Conspiracy

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In the current political campaigns, there is much rhetoric about the far left and the far right and how each is promoting conspiracy theories about the actions of government.  This is all to shame each candidate’s position and all about winning the election.  How do we separate truth from fiction?  I have been personally attacked purposely with ridicule, told to stop talking about vitamin D at my major source of social activity, and scorned with humor in my declaring that the practice of medicine has been taken over for the sake of the economy.

Conspiracy

In the words of James Carville to President Clinton, “It’s the economy, stupid.”  The history of vitamin D has been filled with cover-up for the benefits of vitamin D for profit. There were seventeen multinationals named in a lawsuit by the US Government for conspiracy for vitamin D at the height of WWII: Charles Bowman for General Mills Corporation, E. I. du Pont de Nemours, Quaker Oats, Standard Brands, Gelatin Products Corp., Borden Co., Carnation Co., Nestle Milk Products, Inc., Vitamins Inc., Abbott Laboratories, Meade Johnson & Co., William S. Merrill Co., Parke-Davis Co., R. Squibb & Sons, Winthrop Chemical Co.  “General Mills Corp. was named as a co-conspirator, but will not be a defendant in the action.”  This of course is when the government still had a conscious for individuals.  I am sure that you recognize many of these companies.

The medical profession corrected many of the errors by recommending the use of cod liver oil, CLO, to prevent and cure rickets and improve general health.  The use of CLO continued until a well-known pediatrician made the statement that Vitamin D could cause birth defects. The use of CLO was abandoned over this fear.  This was in the middle of the 60s when the thalidomide scare for birth defects was at its height. Then in the 70s, a well-known pharmaceutical took over a sun screen company and heavily promoted “sun fear” for the sake of profits of their chronic disease drugs, which accounted for over eighty percent of their sales.  The dermatologists were captured and used as agents to continue to promote sun fear because of skin cancer.  (45-minute video Skin Cancer/Sunscreen the Dilemma) This video was made in 2009 and there have been advances in sunscreen that blocks both UVA and UVB.

Sun fear continued well into the 2000s, even when thousands of peer reviewed papers were published about the benefits of vitamin D.  The FDA even tried to sue the sunscreen companies for inappropriate labels but were defeated in court, thus ignoring the science–there is no science that sunscreen prevents melanoma.  The court action was defeated by lawyers of the sunscreen industry led by John Roberts, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  I guess he was just doing his job as a great attorney.

I had thought that the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Food and Nutrition Board would get it right based on the science.  Their findings were published in December of 2010.  The finding was that only 600 IU of vitamin D was required from all sources whether you were a ten-pound baby or a three-hundred-pound person.  They tried to cover themselves by stating that the study was only about bone health.  There were many problems with this board for ethics.  The studies they chose were provided by the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality a division of US Health and Human Resources and not independently selected.  They treated studies with vitamin D2 as equal to vitamin D3. There were many conflicts of interest on the board; a direct violation of ethics policy for the National Academy of Science of which the IOM is a division.

But the real issue of the IOM’s finding came when a professor at the University of Alberta took the same data that the IOM used and found a statistical error.  The real finding should have been 10 plus times the recommended amount by the IOM.  This error was later confirmed by the scientist at Grassroots Health and two universities, Creighton University and the University of California San Diego.  The real amount of vitamin D from all sources should have been at least 7000 IU per day to achieve the goal of 99.5% of the population with a serum level at or above 20 ng/ml of 25(OH)D.

It has now been almost two years and no action has been taken by the US Government to correct the error.   Why has our Government ignored the error?  “It’s about the economy, stupid.”  There is much evidence to show that low vitamin D levels cause disease.  Think of the many deaths and more importantly the pain caused by this error in the general population.  By raising the serum level of vitamin D in the general population to over 45 ng/ml 25(OH)D, the medical economy could shrink by as much as fifty percent–ouch!  Watch this short video (at 4:30, Does Less Sun Mean More Disease) about vitamin D and the doctor’s practice that reduced office visits from four per patient per year to one visit per patient per year.  This was great for the patients, but what about the financial health of the doctor’s practice?

If we translate this effort of one practice to the general population, what would happen to a medical economy that represents almost twenty percent of GDP.   This practice not only used vitamin D; in addition, they gave their patients additional magnesium, vitamin C, B12, and zinc.  The correction of one vitamin is not all that is required to bring the population to a greater health.  If you were a Congressman or the President, which decision would you make–the health of the individuals in the population or the financial health of our institutions?  Which would cause more harm?  The government has chosen the general principle for Health and Human Services as “markets before mandates.”  (Secretary Michael Leavitt–Principles lower right) A general conspiracy or a policy that protects national economic security?

You just cannot make this stuff up out of whole cloth.  As an individual, you should follow the science as described by Grassroots Health.  I know it will take some time to read through this article and the links, but your health or your money? Beliefs change regularly as we have new experiences.  That happened to me when I discovered I was deficient in vitamin D (not D2), vitamin C, magnesium (in an absorbable form), zinc, correct proteins, iodine, vitamin A (not beta carotene), B12, and folate (not folic acid). I avoided more back surgery and healed from chronic pain and sleep apnea.  I arrived at my conclusions through faith in a being greater than us and by applying engineering principles to my health with an MS in engineering, forty years of engineering practice, and more than 9,000 hours of reading about vitamins and minerals.  –Pandemic Survivor

©2016 Mark Pegram

Pain, Pain Meds, and Disability

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Americans are dying from pain meds and suffering more pain because of pain meds.  We not just talking about illegal drugs like: heroin, methamphetamines, cocaine, marijuana, etc. We can add to that prescription pain meds, in particular, the opiate meds.  We can also add to that over-the-counter pain meds, NSAIDS.  Why are we using so many pain meds?  It is because of the pain created by the food we eat, the lack of nutrition, and the choices we have made in medicine.  This leads to an extremely high incidence of chronic illness and thus, PAIN.

pain

Around the beginning of the 20th Century, money was funded away from nutritional medicine and toward patent medicine.  This created a population of chronically ill.  To resolve the pain of chronic illness, the population has turned to pain meds to treat symptoms and not the actual disease.  This has created many types of social problems as well as created an economic nightmare for healthcare.  Dr. Mercola Article on how this happened.

A lot of the pain comes from deteriorated cartilage.  But the meds that are used to treat pain, prevent the repair of cartilage.  Baby boomers have taken large amounts of NSAIDS that have caused deterioration of cartilage, and the need for joint and back surgeries.

“In human studies, NSAIDs have been shown to accelerate the radiographic progression of OA of the knee and hip. For those using NSAIDs compared to the patients who do not use them, joint replacements occur earlier and more quickly and frequently. The author notes that massive NSAID use in osteoarthritic patients since their introduction over the past forty years is one of the main causes of the rapid rise in the need for hip and knee replacements, both now and in the future.” – See more at Journal of Prolotherapy.

This of course is to say nothing of the number of deaths, kidney failures, heart failures, bleeding of the stomach and gut, and liver failures from over-the-counter meds.  All caused by taken more and more meds to prevent pain.  We have the greatest medical system in the world when it comes to treating acute illness.  But with chronic pain, we fail miserably.  Add to this the use of prescription meds and illegal meds and the social and economic issues continue.  I feel your pain and experienced pain for three decades before researching to find that it was just nutritional issues.

When it comes to nutrition, it seems that we are left to our own resources to find cures.  Without the use of the internet and the many professionals that reported on the issues, I would most likely be dead.  I am only one out of ten Americans over sixty that is not on a prescription med.  Begin your research into nutritional healing.  The most of it has to do with not getting enough vitamins and minerals.

This issue cannot be resolved simply by eliminating the use of pain meds with more guidelines for doctors.  The only way that we as a society can overcome this issue is for our institutions to reach a higher level of moral standards.  By that, I mean institutions should adopt standards (yes, specifically Health and Human Services) and educate the population on the research that has already been done to relieve chronic illness and pain with nutrition.  It is not our genome that is at fault.  It is the nutritionally and emotionally stimulated epigenome that needs repair.

Breast Cancer Survivor Takes on the Issues

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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: banner_ad_long5company postingVideo of how to do the test:  bscvideothumbnailv3web

Methylfolate Deficiency Disease and Testing

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We have established that folic acid was developed in the laboratory in the 1940’s.  It is a man made and not a natural substance – the oxidized form of folate.  It has been fortified in our foods to reduce neural tube defects starting in 1998.  Suggested disease increase from folic acid fortification: – autism, depression, breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer (why didn’t our scientist and doctors recognize this as an issue before fortification of our foods?).  A large percentage of the population has genetic mutations which slows the conversion of food folates and folic acid to the needed form of the folate – methylfolate.  The mutation:  MTHFR or methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (confused yet? – yes it’s difficult).  Free folic acid circulating in our blood suppresses the immune system.  The free folic acid in combination of not enough methylfolate to complete the methylation cycle for genetic expression can result in many diseases: pulmonary embolisms, addictions, fibromyalgia, miscarriages, schizophrenia, severe depression, cancer, diarrhea and digestive disorders, and autism to name a few.

What should you do?

Avoid foods that have been fortified with folic acid.  Avoid supplements that have folic acid and not methylfolate.  Do not allow your medical professional to confuse folic acid with methylfolate – they are not equals!  If you decide to supplement, the amount required is less than 800 micrograms per day.  I suspect that with your food, 400 micrograms of methylfolate is adequate (other names metafolin or L-methylfolate – do not supplement with other folates they may not be biologically active or worse cause unnatural biology that may be toxic).

In having discussions with your doctor about what you suspect may be the cause of your illness may require you to challenge your doctor for the test of MTHFR mutations.  How do you determine if the test is required?  First your doctor is skeptical.  Second – if you have had chronic disease, particularly the ones listed above, and you have supplemented with the other nutrients in which you are deficient and tried all the prescriptions your doctor has described without relief, this may be the problem.  Third – As much as seventy percent of the population has some form of mutation and it is severe in ten percent of the population.  Remember, the practice of medicine is an art by definition.  Great art is only created after much study, trial, and error.  Of course you could just start supplementing with methylfolate and other methyl donors like betaine (trimethylglycine or TMG ) to see if you find relief.  In my research I have found the price for the test to range from $56 dollars to over $600 dollars.  I suspect the actual cost to the laboratory at $15 dollars – the rest is fully absorbed cost and mark-up for sampling and consultation.  One hundred to two hundred dollars should be the expected price to you.

The test for normal vitamin panels will just say folate.  In discussions with two different laboratory specialists, I could not get a definition of what folate was being tested in the blood.  Was it folic acid, methylfolate, or a total of all forms?  This sounds a lot like the confusion of what to test for with vitamin D and its many forms.  With something as critical as methyl donors for RNA/DNA expression, you would think there would be more clarity – art claiming to be science once again.

Here is a comment from one of my readers, Dr. Ros, and her experience with MTHFR:  “I asked my doctor to test me for MTHFR deficiency, an enzyme responsible for converting food folates to methylfolate, the form the body actually uses. (The body cannot convert folic acid to methylfolate with the mutation either) This enzyme is also required to detoxify the body.  I tested positive for two copies, mutations, homozygous. I am now taking methylfolate and I can tell this is something I needed. As I age, I was noticing that I had trouble healing from a cold and subsequent sinus infection (DNA and RNA replications issues) and even had surgery in an attempt to ameliorate my sinus issues. Vitamins and herbs have most important in my healing. Vitamin D and glycine have been essential. The genome project was responsible for bringing this issue to the light of day but many doctors are not informed. I am lucky I was educated enough to ask for the test. My family history was an indicator there was probable cause to test.”

Again, it is never just one nutrient or vitamin.  It is the combination of all nutrition, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes that give us health from a food source and environment that has not been compromised by poor science and distasteful art.   Practice life with great love, peace, and joy – do not get this confused with art and science.  – Pandemic Survivor

Health is an ONOFF Issue

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At one point in my career, I had responsibility for many engineers, forty mechanics, and associated support staff in a large industrial plant.  When a major maintenance issue would arrive and there was difficulty in trying to find a solution, I would try to release the tension by saying it was an ONOFF problem.  Of course I would spell out the letters very quickly.  There would be moments of silence as the mechanic raced through his mind trying figure out which control or mechanical part I was referring.  Then a slow smile would cross the face as the knowing became realization.  Every situation with equipment is whether the equipment or some component is on or off – ONOFF – especially true with computers.  This is the case with human biology as medicine turns to gene switches for disease cures.  This has become commonly referred to as epigenetic.

Foods that are available for consumption routinely turn off and on genetic switches.  This is because there are many “parallel” systems in the body for the major biological processes to occur depending on what the environment presents.  This type of robustness in our physiology has allowed us to survive in many different environmental conditions.  Stress, temperature, food, and even how you think, all act to turn on and off our genes.  Modern science is now using this understanding to make drugs to cure disease.  Unfortunately, the focus has been on drugs and not on optimizing nutrients for gene switching to prevent disease.  I guess the old saying, ‘you are what you eat,’ has now been given more significance.

Just in the last decade, the gene map was completed.  It was much smaller than originally thought with less than about 30,000 genes for the human body.  Interestingly enough the rest of the genetic material, about eighty percent, are switches that are use to either express the gene or make it go silent.  The largest question for health professionals at this point should be; what turns the switches on or off?

Methyl groups seem to be the primary players in this epigenetic switching maze.  How simple that a carbon atom and three hydrogen atoms grouped together can determine your health and well being.  Of course many methyl groups combined with other compounds is an organic molecule.  What controls the use and availability of the methyl groups is another matter.  We have long known that certain materials are essential to health.  These items have been reduced to the following: water, air, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals.

First it was the major groups of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates we considered for health.  Think of the 1910 Antarctic expedition by Captain Scott where the food was too low in fat.  The members of the group started to get sick and starved to death because they did not have fat to consume.  The Inuit people know that whale blubber and seal fat are the staples of life in the cold for its energy and nutrients.  The recent emphasis on fats (omega-3 good, trans-fat bad) is critical to health.  I suspect we have made the similar errors in protein and carbohydrates (too many carbs –especially wheat, not enough protein) that are yet to be discovered.  Then throw in genetically modified foods – ouch!

We are now in the trial and error stage of understanding where to use micronutrients versus the use of drugs to heal disease.  The money of course is in the drugs and this is where the focus will continue to be for our large research organizations.  However, all government research funded projects for genetic switching should solve the problem of optimum nutrition (GMO foods, nutrient switching) before any money is spent on drugs for healing, curing, diagnosing, and preventing disease.  After all, it is our money.  Sustaining large organizations without empathy for the individuals it serves is just plain evil.  If the money is first spent on researching micronutrients for epigenetic healing, the need for research of drugs will be significantly diminished because of less disease.  Of course we are where we are; a nation ailing with large amounts of chronic disease.  How ironic that our economy is suffering from so much chronic disease when the major motto of Health and Human Services is ‘markets before mandates’ with the belief of a strong medical economy is more important that the health of the individual.

We know that the sun through the production of vitamin D3 is very significant.  Close to ten percent of the genome is controlled by vitamin D and its co-factors.  I don’t know how large the percentage of the genes is controlled by methyl groups, but I am sure that it is significant and most likely larger than the group for vitamin D.  Since all organic molecules are a combination of methyl groups, then all genes have some switches controlled by methyl groups in combination with cofactors (I never was much for logic, I am more of a links and connections kind of guy).  The complete control of genetic switching is made by all the proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, environment (light, temperature, air, and water), and yes your state of mind.  Could it be that methyl folate from spinach and betaine from beets is all we need for the methyl donors for health?  Life in all its complexities is really just a matter of ONOFF.

Don’t worry, be happy, eat your beets and spinach, and spend lots of time in the sun.  – Pandemic Survivor

All Chronic Disease is from Poor Nutrition

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I was given several tape cassettes on this subject some years ago by a friend.  The fact that it was a cassette should tell you that it was in the eighties.  I listened to the speaker as I drove to displace the boredom.  He was all about the fact that all chronic disease was created by poor nutrition.  At the time I thought that he was just trying to sell supplements and he was. Now after several decades of dealing with the philosophy of medicine, it has become apparent that our medical industry is more interested in selling their product than they are with your healing.  Supplement seller or medical industry – who has your wellness in mind?

Last week my work took me into seven pharmaceutical plants.  Some of the plants made prescription meds, some made over the counter meds, and others made supplements.  The purpose of meds versus supplements was stark when considering chronic disease.  I have no problem with the meds made to heal infections, pain, or other quick onset diseases.  However, when treating chronic disease, supplements are far superior for resolving the illness.

One of the most disquieting statistics that I have come across in my research is the number of prescription meds used by people on Medicare and Medicaid.  People over sixty-five on the government plans average over seventeen prescription meds.  The thought of the side effects that are generated is frightening.  Several of the meds are to treat symptoms of chronic disease, but the rest of the meds are to treat the side effects caused by the meds.

The use of supplements to make up for poor nutritional value in our food is a necessity.  Processed and genetically modified foods are most of what we consume.  With the new approach to creating large agricultural yields and drugs that are genetic switches, I suspect we don’t have a clue to what we are doing to our health.  But, you say that our life expectancy has increased and that is true.

It is my belief that the thought of making money instead of wellness, otherwise known as having a strong medical economy by our government, has moved from snake oil salesmen into the medical industry.  Science is available to show proper nutrition is far superior to using drugs for treating chronic disease.  However, no one is willing to pay for the studies that are necessary to overcome the laws created to sustain the FDA and other agencies of Health and Human Services.  This is the responsibility of HHS, but that does not get politicians elected.

If you are suffering from chronic disease, it is time for you to do your own research.  There are a few excellent practitioners out there with your wellness in mind and know how to treat, cure, heal, and diagnose disease by being sure that you are getting proper nutrition.  How do you determine if that person has your wellness in mind?   – Pandemic Survivor

Higher Vitamin D Intake Drastically Reduces Disease

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A new study of serum levels of vitamin D shows that 4000 to 8000 IU per day are required to keep your serum level in a range that will reduce the incidence of disease. This includes cancer, type 1 diabetes, and multiple sclerosis.  Dr. Cedric Garland says that the incidence of many diseases could be reduced by half.

Here is the news article in Business Week: “Higher Vitamin D Level Could Cut Cancer Risk”

As I have described in many post, the amount of vitamin D required is different for each individual.  The only way to know that you are getting enough is to have your serum 25(OH)D level tested.  Serum levels should be maintained above 40 ng/ml, and for best results the level should be maintained between 60 to 80 ng/ml year round.  You should only supplement with Vitamin D3.

For a better understanding of the science, here is the journal article that was published in Anticancer Research, International Journal of Cancer Research and Treatment, made available in its entirety by Grass Roots Health.

Vitamin D Supplement Doses and Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D in the Range Associated with Cancer Prevention

CEDRIC F. GARLAND, CHRISTINE B. FRENCH, , LEO L. BAGGERLY, and ROBERT P. HEANEY (here is the url in case you cannot go there from the above link  http://www.grassrootshealth.net/garland02-11)

“This paper provides a long awaited insight into a dose-response relationship between orally administered vitamin D3 and the resulting levels of serum 25(OH)D in over 3600 citizens. The results will allow new definition of high vitamin D dose safety and reduce concerns about toxicity. This is a landmark contribution in the vitamin D nutrition field!”

– Pandemic Survivor