More on Why You Should Avoid Soy

There is a lot more to this article before and after what I have posted here.  Be sure to checkout the whole thing at the link.

*SNIP*

Marketing The Perfect Food
“Just imagine you could grow the perfect food. This food not only would provide affordable nutrition, but also would be delicious and easy to prepare in a variety of ways. It would be a healthful food, with no saturated fat. In fact, you would be growing a virtual fountain of youth on your back forty.” The author is Dean Houghton, writing for The Furrow, (2) a magazine published in 12 languages by John Deere. “This ideal food would help prevent, and perhaps reverse, some of the world’s most dreaded diseases. You could grow this miracle crop in a variety of soils and climates. Its cultivation would build up, not deplete, the land…this miracle food already exists… It’s called soy.”

Just imagine. Farmers have been imagining – and planting more soy. What was once a minor crop, listed in the 1913 US Department of Agriculture (USDA) handbook not as a food but as an industrial product, now covers 72 million acres of American farmland. Much of this harvest will be used to feed chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows and salmon. Another large fraction will be squeezed to produce oil for margarine, shortenings and salad dressings.

Advances in technology make it possible to produce isolated soy protein from what was once considered a waste product – the defatted, high-protein soy chips – and then transform something that looks and smells terrible into products that can be consumed by human beings. Flavorings, preservatives, sweeteners, emulsifiers and synthetic nutrients have turned soy protein isolate, the food processors’ ugly duckling, into a New Age Cinderella.

The new fairy-tale food has been marketed not so much for her beauty but for her virtues. Early on, products based on soy protein isolate were sold as extenders and meat substitutes – a strategy that failed to produce the requisite consumer demand. The industry changed its approach. “The quickest way to gain product acceptability in the less affluent society,” said an industry spokesman, “is to have the product consumed on its own merit in a more affluent society.”

(3) So soy is now sold to the upscale consumer, not as a cheap, poverty food but as a miracle substance that will prevent heart disease and cancer, whisk away hot flushes, build strong bones and keep us forever young. The competition – meat, milk, cheese, butter and eggs – has been duly demonised by the appropriate government bodies. Soy serves as meat and milk for a new generation of virtuous vegetarians.

Marketing costs money, especially when it needs to be bolstered with “research”, but there’s plenty of funds available. All soybean producers pay a mandatory assessment of one-half to one per cent of the net market price of soybeans. The total – something like US$80 million annually (4) – supports United Soybean’s program to “strengthen the position of soybeans in the marketplace and maintain and expand domestic and foreign markets for uses for soybeans and soybean products”.

State soybean councils from Maryland, Nebraska, Delaware, Arkansas, Virginia, North Dakota and Michigan provide another $2.5 million for “research”. (5) Private companies like Archer Daniels Midland also contribute their share. ADM spent $4.7 million for advertising on Meet the Press and $4.3 million on Face the Nation during the course of a year. (6) Public relations firms help convert research projects into newspaper articles and advertising copy, and law firms lobby for favorable government regulations. IMF money funds soy processing plants in foreign countries, and free trade policies keep soybean abundance flowing to overseas destinations.

The push for more soy has been relentless and global in its reach. Soy protein is now found in most supermarket breads. It is being used to transform “the humble tortilla, Mexico’s corn-based staple food, into a protein-fortified ’super-tortilla’ that would give a nutritional boost to the nearly 20 million Mexicans who live in extreme poverty”.(7) Advertising for a new soy-enriched loaf from Allied Bakeries in Britain targets menopausal women seeking relief from hot flushes. Sales are running at a quarter of a million loaves per week. (8)

The soy industry hired Norman Robert Associates, a public relations firm, to “get more soy products onto school menus”. (9) The USDA responded with a proposal to scrap the 30 per cent limit for soy in school lunches. The NuMenu program would allow unlimited use of soy in student meals. With soy added to hamburgers, tacos and lasagna, dieticians can get the total fat content below 30 per cent of calories, thereby conforming to government dictates. “With the soy-enhanced food items, students are receiving better servings of nutrients and less cholesterol and fat.”

Soy milk has posted the biggest gains, soaring from $2 million in 1980 to $300 million in the US last year. (10) Recent advances in processing have transformed the gray, thin, bitter, beany-tasting Asian beverage into a product that Western consumers will accept – one that tastes like a milkshake, but without the guilt.

Processing miracles, good packaging, massive advertising and a marketing strategy that stresses the products’ possible health benefits account for increasing sales to all age groups. For example, reports that soy helps prevent prostate cancer have made soy milk acceptable to middle-aged men. “You don’t have to twist the arm of a 55- to 60-year-old guy to get him to try soy milk,” says Mark Messina. Michael Milken, former junk bond financier, has helped the industry shed its hippie image with well-publicized efforts to consume 40 grams of soy protein daily.

America today, tomorrow the world. Soy milk sales are rising in Canada, even though soy milk there costs twice as much as cow’s milk. Soybean milk processing plants are sprouting up in places like Kenya.(11) Even China, where soy really is a poverty food and whose people want more meat, not tofu, has opted to build Western-style soy factories rather than develop western grasslands for grazing animals. (12)

Cinderella’s Dark Side
The propaganda that has created the soy sales miracle is all the more remarkable because, only a few decades ago, the soybean was considered unfit to eat – even in Asia. During the Chou Dynasty (1134-246 BC) the soybean was designated one of the five sacred grains, along with barley, wheat, millet and rice. However, the pictograph for the soybean, which dates from earlier times, indicates that it was not first used as a food; for whereas the pictographs for the other four grains show the seed and stem structure of the plant, the pictograph for the soybean emphasizes the root structure.

Agricultural literature of the period speaks frequently of the soybean and its use in crop rotation. Apparently the soy plant was initially used as a method of fixing nitrogen. (13)

The soybean did not serve as a food until the discovery of fermentation techniques, some time during the Chou Dynasty. The first soy foods were fermented products like tempeh, natto, miso and soy sauce. At a later date, possibly in the 2nd century BC, Chinese scientists discovered that a purée of cooked soybeans could be precipitated with calcium sulfate or magnesium sulfate (plaster of Paris or Epsom salts) to make a smooth, pale curd – tofu or bean curd. The use of fermented and precipitated soy products soon spread to other parts of the Orient, notably Japan and Indonesia.

The Chinese did not eat unfermented soybeans as they did other legumes such as lentils because the soybean contains large quantities of natural toxins or “antinutrients”. First among them are potent enzyme inhibitors that block the action of trypsin and other enzymes needed for protein digestion. These inhibitors are large, tightly folded proteins that are not completely deactivated during ordinary cooking. They can produce serious gastric distress, reduced protein digestion and chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake. In test animals, diets high in trypsin inhibitors cause enlargement and pathological conditions of the pancreas, including cancer. (14)

Soybeans also contain haemagglutinin, a clot-promoting substance that causes red blood cells to clump together.

Trypsin inhibitors and haemagglutinin are growth inhibitors. Weanling rats fed soy containing these antinutrients fail to grow normally. Growth-depressant compounds are deactivated during the process of fermentation, so once the Chinese discovered how to ferment the soybean, they began to incorporate soy foods into their diets. In precipitated products, enzyme inhibitors concentrate in the soaking liquid rather than in the curd. Thus, in tofu and bean curd, growth depressants are reduced in quantity but not completely eliminated.

Soy also contains goitrogens – substances that depress thyroid function.

Soybeans are high in phytic acid, present in the bran or hulls of all seeds. It’s a substance that can block the uptake of essential minerals – calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and especially zinc – in the intestinal tract. Although not a household word, phytic acid has been extensively studied; there are literally hundreds of articles on the effects of phytic acid in the current scientific literature. Scientists are in general agreement that grain- and legume-based diets high in phytates contribute to widespread mineral deficiencies in third world countries. (15) Analysis shows that calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc are present in the plant foods eaten in these areas, but the high phytate content of soy- and grain-based diets prevents their absorption.

The soybean has one of the highest phytate levels of any grain or legume that has been studied, (16) and the phytates in soy are highly resistant to normal phytate-reducing techniques such as long, slow cooking.(17) Only a long period of fermentation will significantly reduce the phytate content of soybeans. When precipitated soy products like tofu are consumed with meat, the mineral-blocking effects of the phytates are reduced. (18) The Japanese traditionally eat a small amount of tofu or miso as part of a mineral-rich fish broth, followed by a serving of meat or fish.

Vegetarians who consume tofu and bean curd as a substitute for meat and dairy products risk severe mineral deficiencies. The results of calcium, magnesium and iron deficiency are well known; those of zinc are less so.
Zinc is called the intelligence mineral because it is needed for optimal development and functioning of the brain and nervous system. It plays a role in protein synthesis and collagen formation; it is involved in the blood-sugar control mechanism and thus protects against diabetes; it is needed for a healthy reproductive system. Zinc is a key component in numerous vital enzymes and plays a role in the immune system. Phytates found in soy products interfere with zinc absorption more completely than with other minerals. (19) Zinc deficiency can cause a “spacey” feeling that some vegetarians may mistake for the “high” of spiritual enlightenment.

Milk drinking is given as the reason why second-generation Japanese in America grow taller than their native ancestors. Some investigators postulate that the reduced phytate content of the American diet – whatever may be its other deficiencies – is the true explanation, pointing out that both Asian and Western children who do not get enough meat and fish products to counteract the effects of a high phytate diet, frequently suffer rickets, stunting and other growth problems. (20)

Soy Protein Isolate: Not So Friendly

Soy processors have worked hard to get these antinutrients out of the finished product, particularly soy protein isolate (SPI) which is the key ingredient in most soy foods that imitate meat and dairy products, including baby formulas and some brands of soy milk.

SPI is not something you can make in your own kitchen. Production takes place in industrial factories where a slurry of soy beans is first mixed with an alkaline solution to remove fiber, then precipitated and separated using an acid wash and, finally, neutralized in an alkaline solution. Acid washing in aluminum tanks leaches high levels of aluminum into the final product. The resultant curds are spray- dried at high temperatures to produce a high-protein powder. A final indignity to the original soybean is high-temperature, high-pressure extrusion processing of soy protein isolate to produce textured vegetable protein (TVP).

Much of the trypsin inhibitor content can be removed through high-temperature processing, but not all. Trypsin inhibitor content of soy protein isolate can vary as much as fivefold. (21) (In rats, even low-level trypsin inhibitor SPI feeding results in reduced weight gain compared to controls. (22) But high-temperature processing has the unfortunate side-effect of so denaturing the other proteins in soy that they are rendered largely ineffective. (23) That’s why animals on soy feed need lysine supplements for normal growth.

Nitrites, which are potent carcinogens, are formed during spray-drying, and a toxin called lysinoalanine is formed during alkaline processing. (24) Numerous artificial flavorings, particularly MSG, are added to soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein products to mask their strong “beany” taste and to impart the flavor of meat. (25)

In feeding experiments, the use of SPI increased requirements for vitamins E, K, D and B12 and created deficiency symptoms of calcium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, copper, iron and zinc. (26) Phytic acid remaining in these soy products greatly inhibits zinc and iron absorption; test animals fed SPI develop enlarged organs, particularly the pancreas and thyroid gland, and increased deposition of fatty acids in the liver. (27)

Yet soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein are used extensively in school lunch programs, commercial baked goods, diet beverages and fast food products. They are heavily promoted in third world countries and form the basis of many food giveaway programs.

In spite of poor results in animal feeding trials, the soy industry has sponsored a number of studies designed to show that soy protein products can be used in human diets as a replacement for traditional foods. An example is “Nutritional Quality of Soy Bean Protein Isolates: Studies in Children of Preschool Age”, sponsored by the Ralston Purina Company. (28) A group of Central American children suffering from malnutrition was first stabilized and brought into better health by feeding them native foods, including meat and dairy products. Then, for a two-week period, these traditional foods were replaced by a drink made of soy protein isolate and sugar. All nitrogen taken in and all nitrogen excreted was measured in truly Orwellian fashion: the children were weighed naked every morning, and all excrement and vomit gathered up for analysis. The researchers found that the children retained nitrogen and that their growth was “adequate”, so the experiment was declared a success.

Whether the children were actually healthy on such a diet, or could remain so over a long period, is another matter. The researchers noted that the children vomited “occasionally”, usually after finishing a meal; that over half suffered from periods of moderate diarrhoea; that some had upper respiratory infections; and that others suffered from rash and fever.

It should be noted that the researchers did not dare to use soy products to help the children recover from malnutrition, and were obliged to supplement the soy-sugar mixture with nutrients largely absent in soy products – notably, vitamins A, D and B12, iron, iodine and zinc.
*SNIP*

Much more found here

FDA Approves Gardasil for Boys

Sept. 9, 2009 — An FDA advisory committee voted to recommend approval of the vaccine Gardasil for males ages 9 to 26 to prevent genital warts.
Gardasil targets four strains of human papillomavirus, commonly called HPV. Males can carry HPV and transmit it sexually to their partners.

HPV can cause genital warts and penile and anal cancer in men. Each year, about 200 out of 100,000 males are newly diagnosed with genital warts, according to background information cited by the FDA. Penile cancer and anal cancer are much rarer.

Gardasil already has FDA approval for use in females ages 9 to 26. In females, HPV can cause cervical cancer.

The FDA advisory committee ruled 7 to 0, with one abstaining vote, that Gardasil’s clinical trial data support the vaccine’s effectiveness at preventing genital warts in males ages 9 to 26. And in a 7 to 1 vote, the advisory committee ruled that the data show Gardasil to be safe for males in that age range.

The FDA advisory committeereviewed three studies of Gardasil that together included more than 5,000 males ages 9 to 26 in various countries including the U.S.

Participants got a total of three shots of Gardasil or a placebo spread over six months. They also got checkups and tests to check for HPV infection.
Gardasil was 89% effective in preventing genital warts. The vaccine was less effective in participants who had already been exposed to HPV.
No serious side effects were seen, according to information posted on the FDA’s web site.

The most commonly reported adverse events were fever and headache. Injection site reactions were more common with Gardasil than with the placebo. Most of those reactions were mild to moderate in intensity, Gardasil’s maker, the drug company Merck, states in a document posted on the FDA’s web site.

Gardasil is already licensed for use in males in many countries, and there haven’t been any red flags raised about the vaccine’s safety in the limited number of international safety reports that have been done, FDA documents state. But the FDA says that post-marketing surveillance and studies will be “essential” if Gardasil is approved for males.

There weren’t enough data to assess Gardasil for preventing other conditions, since those conditions were so rare, the FDA notes.

It’s now up to the FDA to decide whether to approve Gardasil to prevent genital warts in boys and young men. The FDA often follows the recommendations of its advisory committees, but it isn’t required to do so.
Gardasil is up for FDA consideration only as a way to prevent genital warts in boys — not to prevent cancer in males or to curb transmission of the HPV virus to women.

found here

Chemo Does Not Cure Cancer

Tony Isaacs
NaturalNews
Tue, 15 Sep 2009

For years now, many of us who advocate natural health and natural approaches to beating cancer have warned against the dangers and the ineffectiveness of chemotherapy. The following report presented at the 27th Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium illustrates how chemo actually spreads cancer cells, as well as points out how little we are being told about the dangers of chemo:

“German investigators from Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, have shown that taxol (the “gold standard of chemo”) causes a massive release of cells into circulation.

“Such a release of cancer cells would result in extensive metastasis months or even years later, long after the chemo would be suspected as the cause of the spread of the cancer. This little known horror of conventional cancer treatment needs to be spread far and wide, but it is not even listed in the side effects of taxol.”

As has oft been stated, chemo does not cure cancer – it merely attempts to eliminate the tumors and cancer cells that are symptoms of the underlying causes of cancer, and does so with little success and great risks. In some instances it may appear to eliminate tumors and cancer cell masses, though most often it merely destroys some of the cancer cells. In the process, it often inflicts a very high price.

Besides spreading cancer cells, chemo inflicts serious and perhaps irreversible damage to the immune system, the body’s natural first line of defense against cancer and other illness – thus paving the way for the remaining cancer cells or future cancers to overwhelm a body that is even less able to beat the cancer that got past the immune system in the first place.

Chemo also frequently results in serious and even fatal damage, and major organs are also damaged, particularly the liver – which as cancer pioneer Max Gerson observed is always impaired to begin in those who get cancer. The heart is also frequently seriously damaged.

The end result is that chemo kills more patients than it “cures”. Most of those deaths are the result of liver or heart failure. Statistically, it has been estimated that the five year success rate from chemo is only about 3% (meaning only about 3% more patients who opted for chemo survived at least five years than did those who opted to not undergo chemo). But even that meager statistic is misleading in two key ways:

First of all, though survival rates are slightly higher for the first couple of years compared to those who opted out of chemo, after the third year the survival rate for those who opted out is greater than those who were treated with chemo and the gap widens significantly every year after that.

Secondly, and perhaps most important of all, the survival rates compare all of those who either undergo chemotherapy or decide against it. That includes the very large number of people who do little or nothing to address their chemo and naturally and merely forego chemo. If chemo survival rates were compared with those of people who not only opted out of chemo, but also chose a non-invasive natural protocol to eliminate the toxins and other causes of cancer, to boost their immune systems and to attack the cancer naturally without inflicting damage to the rest of the body, there would surely be no comparison.

You can bet that it is a comparison the cancer industry never wants to make.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/193405-Chemo-Does-Not-Cure-Often-It-Inflicts-Damage-and-Spreads-Cancer

Ghostwriters Paid to Support Synthetic Hormone Replacement Therapy

Newly unveiled court documents show that ghostwriters paid by a pharmaceutical company played a major role in producing 26 scientific papers backing the use of hormone replacement therapy in women, suggesting that the level of hidden industry influence on medical literature is broader than previously known.

The articles, published in medical journals between 1998 and 2005, emphasized the benefits and de-emphasized the risks of taking hormones to protect against maladies like aging skin, heart disease and dementia. That supposed medical consensus benefited Wyeth, the pharmaceutical company that paid a medical communications firm to draft the papers, as sales of its hormone drugs, called Premarin and Prempro, soared to nearly $2 billion in 2001.

But the seeming consensus fell apart in 2002 when a huge federal study on hormone therapy was stopped after researchers found that menopausal women who took certain hormones had an increased risk of invasive breast cancer, heart disease and stroke. A later study found that hormones increased the risk of dementia in older patients.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/health/research/05ghost.html?_r=2&emc=eta1

Avoid This if You Want to Keep Your Thyroid Healthy

Bromides are a common endocrine disruptor. Because bromide is also a halide, it competes for the same receptors that are used in the thyroid gland (among other places) to capture iodine. This will inhibit thyroid hormone production resulting in a low thyroid state.

Iodine is essential for your body, and is detected in every organ and tissue. There is increasing evidence that low iodine is related to numerous diseases, including cancer.  Various clinicians and researchers have found iodine effective with everything from goiter to constipation.

Bromide can be found in several forms. Methyl Bromide is a pesticide used mainly on strawberries, found predominantly in the California areas. Brominated Vegetable Oil (BVO) is added to citrus drinks to help suspend the flavoring in the liquid.

Potassium Bromate is a dough conditioner found in commercial bakery products and some flours.

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

If you are like most people, you probably haven’t spent much time thinking about how much bromine you’re absorbing from your car upholstery or your Mountain Dew. But bromine toxicity is a definite danger from some surprising sources, and it can wreak havoc on your health.

Bromines All Around You

Bromines are common endocrine disruptors, and are part of the halide family, a group of elements that includes fluorine, chlorine and iodine. What makes it so dangerous is that it competes for the same receptors that are used to capture iodine.

If you are exposed to a lot of bromine, your body will not hold on to the iodine that it needs. And iodine affects every tissue in your body — not just your thyroid.

You are already exposed to far too much chlorine and bromine. Bromine can be found in a number of places in your everyday world, including:

• Pesticides (specifically methyl bromide, used mainly on strawberries, predominantly in California)
• Plastics, like those used to make computers
• Bakery goods and some flours often contain a “dough conditioner” called potassium bromate
• Soft drinks (including Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Sun Drop, Squirt, Fresca and other citrus-flavored sodas), in the form of brominated vegetable oils (BVOs)
• Medications such as Atrovent Inhaler, Atrovent Nasal Spray, Pro-Banthine (for ulcers), and anesthesia agents
• Fire retardants (common one is polybromo diphenyl ethers or PBDEs) used in fabrics, carpets, upholstery, and mattresses
• Bromine-based hot tub and swimming pool treatments

According to van Leeuwen, who has extensively studied the effects of sodium bromide on thyroid function:

“Although the bromide ion is widely distributed in nature, the main route of exposure in humans stems from bromide residues in food commodities as a result of the abundant use of bromide-containing pesticides, like methylbromide and ethylene dibromide, for soil fumigation in intensive horticulture and for postharvest treatment.”

One clinical consequence of overexposure to bromine is suppression of your thyroid, leading to hypothyroidism, which will be discussed shortly. Another is bromide toxicity.

Bromine — The Bully of the Halide Group

When you ingest or absorb bromine, it displaces iodine, and this iodine deficiency leads to an increased risk for cancer of the breast, thyroid gland, ovary and prostate — cancers that we see at alarmingly high rates today. This phenomenon is significant enough to have been given its own name — the Bromide Dominance Theory.

Aside from its effects on your endocrine glands, bromine is toxic in and of itself. Bromide builds up in your central nervous system and results in many problems. It is a central nervous system depressant and can trigger a number of psychological symptoms such as acute paranoia and other psychotic symptoms.

In fact, in an audio interview, physician Jorge Flechas reported that, between 1920 and 1960, at least 20 percent of all hospital admissions for “acute paranoid schizophrenia” were a result of ingesting bromine-containing products.

In addition to psychiatric problems, bromine toxicity can manifest as the following:

• Skin rashes and severe acne
• Loss of appetite and abdominal pain
• Fatigue
• Metallic taste
• Cardiac arrhythmias

Baby Boomers might recall a popular product from the 1950s called Bromo-Seltzer. These effervescent granules, developed by the Emerson Drug Company of Baltimore, were used to treat heartburn, upset stomach, indigestion, headaches and hangovers.

Bromo-Selzer’s original formula contained 3.2 mEq/teaspoon of sodium bromide — hence the name. The sedative effect probably explained its popularity as a hangover remedy. Bromides were withdrawn from the American market in 1975 due to their toxicity.

Bromo-Selzer is still on the market, but no longer contains bromide.

Bromines in Your Bread Box: Potassium Bromate

The ban on bromines have not prevented them from sneaking into your foods and personal care products.

You probably are not aware of this, but nearly every time you eat bread in a restaurant or consume a hamburger or hotdog bun you are consuming bromide, as it is commonly used in flours.

The use of potassium bromate as an additive to commercial breads and baked goods has been a huge contributor to bromide overload in Western cultures.

Bromated flour is “enriched” with potassium bromate. Commercial baking companies claim it makes the dough more elastic and better able to stand up to bread hooks. However, Pepperidge Farm and other successful companies manage to use only unbromated flour without any of these so-called “structural problems.”

Potassium bromate is also found in some toothpastes and mouthwashes, where it’s added as an antiseptic and astringent. It has been found to cause bleeding and inflammation of gums in people using these products.

Sodium Bromate and BMOs

Mountain Dew, one of the worst beverages you can drink, uses brominated vegetable oil as an emulsifier. Not only that, it contains high fructose corn syrup, sodium benzoate, more than 55 mg of caffeine per 12 ounce can, and Yellow Dye #5 (tartrazine, which has been banned in Norway, Austria and Germany.)

A weapon of mass destruction — in a can.

Even drinking water can be a source of bromide. When drinking water containing bromide is exposed to ozone, bromate ions are formed, which are powerful oxidizing agents. Such was the case in 2004 when Coca Cola Company had to recall Dasani bottled water.

Sodium bromate can also be found in personal care products such as permanent waves, hair dyes, and textile dyes. Benzalkonium is used as a preservative in some cosmetics.

Finally, bromine and chlorine were the most common toxic elements reportedly found in automobiles, according to the blog of David Brownstein, MD (March 2007). They showed up in the seats, armrests, door trim, shift knobs and other areas of the car.

Think about how much time you spend enclosed in your outgassing Chevy… windows up with no air circulation.

The United States is quite behind in putting an end to the egregious practice of allowing bromine chemicals in your foods. In 1990, the United Kingdom banned bromate in bread. In 1994, Canada did the same. Brazil recently outlawed bromide in flour products.

What’s taking us so long? Another case of our government protecting big industry — instead of protecting you.

Iodine Levels and Cancer Risk

Iodine levels have significantly dropped due to bromine exposure; declining consumption of iodized salt, eggs, fish, and sea vegetables; and soil depletion. In the U.S. population, there was a 50 percent reduction in urinary iodine excretion between 1970 and 1990.

What’s this doing to our country’s health?

The Japanese consume 89 times more iodine than Americans due to their daily consumption of sea vegetables, and they have reduced rates of many chronic diseases, including the lowest rates of cancer in the world. The RDA for iodine in the U.S. is a meager 150 mcg/day, which pales in comparison with the average daily intake of 13800 mcg/day for the Japanese.

There is a large body of evidence suggesting that low cancer rates in Japan are a result of their substantially higher iodine levels. Iodine has documented antioxidant and anti-proliferative properties.

A strong case can be made that your iodine RDA should be closer to what the Japanese consume daily, if breast cancer rates are any indication. Low iodine can lead to fibrocystic breast disease in women (density, lumps and bumps), hyperplasia, and atypical mammary tissue. Such fibrocystic changes in breast tissue have been shown to reverse in the presence of iodine supplementation after 3-4 months.

If you are interested in being tested for iodine deficiency, the urine iodine challenge test is the best way to assess your iodine level.

Bromine and Your Thyroid

Adding to the negative health effects of bromine, the damage to your thyroid health deserves special mention.

As stated in the first part of this article, bromine exposure depletes your body’s iodine by competing with iodine receptors. Iodine is crucial for thyroid function. Without iodine, your thyroid gland would be completely unable to produce thyroid hormone.

Even the names of the different forms of thyroid hormone reflect the number of iodine molecules attached — T4 has four attached iodine molecules, and T3 (the biologically active form of the hormone) has three–showing what an important part iodine plays in thyroid biochemistry.

Hypothyroidism is far more prevalent than once thought in the U.S. The latest estimates are that 13 million Americans have hypothyroidism, but the actual numbers are probably higher. Some experts claim that 10 to40 percent of Americans have suboptimal thyroid function.

Many of these folks may actually have nothing wrong with their thyroid gland at all — they may just be suffering from iodine deficiency.

Seven Tips for Avoiding Bromine and Optimizing Iodine

Trying to avoid bromine is like trying to avoid air pollution — all you can do is minimize your exposure. That said, here are a few things you can do to minimize your risk:

1. Eat organic as often as possible. Wash all produce thoroughly. This will minimize your pesticide exposure.
2. Avoid eating or drinking from (or storing food and water in) plastic containers. Use glass and safe ceramic vessels.
3. Look for organic whole-grain breads and flour. Grind you own grain, if possible. Look for the “no bromine” or “bromine-free” label on commercial baked goods.
4. Avoid sodas. Drink natural, filtered water instead.
5. If you own a hot tub, look into an ozone purification system. Such systems make it possible to keep the water clean with minimal chemical treatments.
6. Look for personal care products that are as chemical-free as possible. Remember — anything going on you, goes in you.
7. When in a car or a building, open windows as often as possible, preferably on opposing sides of the space for cross ventilation. Utilize fans to circulate the air. Chemical pollutants are much higher inside buildings (and cars) than outside.

Avoid Unfermented Soy

Another major contributor to thyroid dysfunction that I did not discuss above is unfermented soy. Soy isoflavones can wreak havoc on your thyroid.

Kaayla Daniel’s groundbreaking book, The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food is a powerful exposé that reveals the truth about the soy myths that have infiltrated our culture.

It’s ironic that soy has become so accepted as a health food when, as Dr. Daniel states, thousands of studies link soy to malnutrition, digestive distress, immune-system breakdown, thyroid- and hormonal dysfunction, cognitive decline, reproductive disorders and infertility–even cancer and heart disease.

So if you want to keep your thyroid healthy, you’ll definitely want to avoid unfermented soy products of all kinds, including soy milk.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/05/Another-Poison-Hiding-in-Your-Environment.aspx

Sugar and Cancer

 

Originally printed by The Alternative Research Foundation

It puzzles me why the simple concept "sugar feeds cancer" can be so dramatically overlooked as part of a comprehensive cancer treatment plan.

Of the 4 million cancer patients being treated in America today, hardly any are offered any scientifically guided nutrition therapy beyond being told to "just eat good foods." Most patients I work with arrive with a complete lack of nutritional advice.

I believe many cancer patients would have a major improvement in their outcome if they controlled the supply of cancer’s preferred fuel, glucose.

By slowing the cancer’s growth, patients allow their immune systems and medical debulking therapies — chemotherapy, radiation and surgery to reduce the bulk of the tumor mass — to catch up to the disease.

Controlling one’s blood-glucose levels through diet, supplements, exercise, meditation and prescription drugs when necessary can be one of the most crucial components to a cancer recovery program. The sound bite — sugar feeds cancer — is simple. The explanation is a little more complex.

The 1931 Nobel laureate in medicine, German Otto Warburg, Ph.D., first discovered that cancer cells have a fundamentally different energy metabolism compared to healthy cells.

The crux of his Nobel thesis was that malignant tumors frequently exhibit an increase in anaerobic glycolysis — a process whereby glucose is used as a fuel by cancer cells with lactic acid as an anaerobic byproduct — compared to normal tissues.

The large amount of lactic acid produced by this fermentation of glucose from cancer cells is then transported to the liver. This conversion of glucose to lactate generates a lower, more acidic pH in cancerous tissues as well as overall physical fatigue from lactic acid buildup. Thus, larger tumors tend to exhibit a more acidic pH.

This inefficient pathway for energy metabolism yields only 2 moles of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) energy per mole of glucose, compared to 38 moles of ATP in the complete aerobic oxidation of glucose.

By extracting only about 5 percent (2 vs. 38 moles of ATP) of the available energy in the food supply and the body’s calorie stores, the cancer is "wasting" energy, and the patient becomes tired and undernourished. This vicious cycle increases body wasting.

It is one reason why 40 percent of cancer patients die from malnutrition, or cachexia. Hence, cancer therapies should encompass regulating blood-glucose levels via diet, supplements, non-oral solutions for cachectic patients who lose their appetite, medication, exercise, gradual weight loss and stress reduction. Professional guidance and patient self-discipline are crucial at this point in the cancer process. The quest is not to eliminate sugars or carbohydrates from the diet but rather to control blood glucose within a narrow range to help starve the cancer and bolster immune function.

The glycemic index is a measure of how a given food affects blood-glucose levels, with each food assigned a numbered rating. The lower the rating, the slower the digestion and absorption process, which provides a healthier, more gradual infusion of sugars into the bloodstream.

Conversely, a high rating means blood-glucose levels are increased quickly, which stimulates the pancreas to secrete insulin to drop blood-sugar levels. This rapid fluctuation of blood-sugar levels is unhealthy because of the stress it places on the body

Sugar in the Body and Diet

Sugar is a generic term used to identify simple carbohydrates, which includes monosaccharides such as fructose, glucose and galactose; and disaccharides such as maltose and sucrose (white table sugar). Think of these sugars as different-shaped bricks in a wall.

When fructose is the primary monosaccharide brick in the wall, the glycemic index registers as healthier, since this simple sugar is slowly absorbed in the gut, then converted to glucose in the liver. This makes for "time-release foods," which offer a more gradual rise and fall in blood-glucose levels.

If glucose is the primary monosaccharide brick in the wall, the glycemic index will be higher and less healthy for the individual. As the brick wall is torn apart in digestion, the glucose is pumped across the intestinal wall directly into the bloodstream, rapidly raising blood-glucose levels.

In other words, there is a "window of efficacy" for glucose in the blood: levels too low make one feel lethargic and can create clinical hypoglycemia; levels too high start creating the rippling effect of diabetic health problems.

The 1997 American Diabetes Association blood-glucose standards consider 126 mg glucose/dL blood or greater to be diabetic; 111 to 125 mg/dL is impaired glucose tolerance and less than 110 mg/dL is considered normal.

Meanwhile, the Paleolithic diet of our ancestors, which consisted of lean meats, vegetables and small amounts of whole grains, nuts, seeds and fruits, is estimated to have generated blood glucose levels between 60 and 90 mg/dL.

Obviously, today’s high-sugar diets are having unhealthy effects as far as blood-sugar is concerned. Excess blood glucose may initiate yeast overgrowth, blood vessel deterioration, heart disease and other health conditions.

Understanding and using the glycemic index is an important aspect of diet modification for cancer patients. However, there is also evidence that sugars may feed cancer more efficiently than starches (comprised of long chains of simple sugars), making the index slightly misleading. A study of rats fed diets with equal calories from sugars and starches, for example, found the animals on the high-sugar diet developed more cases of breast cancer.

The glycemic index is a useful tool in guiding the cancer patient toward a healthier diet, but it is not infallible. By using the glycemic index alone, one could be led to thinking a cup of white sugar is healthier than a baked potato.

This is because the glycemic index rating of a sugary food may be lower than that of a starchy food. To be safe, I recommend less fruit, more vegetables, and little to no refined sugars in the diet of cancer patients.

What the Literature Says

A mouse model of human breast cancer demonstrated that tumors are sensitive to blood-glucose levels. Sixty-eight mice were injected with an aggressive strain of breast cancer, then fed diets to induce either high blood-sugar (hyperglycemia), normoglycemia or low blood-sugar (hypoglycemia).

There was a dose-dependent response in which the lower the blood glucose, the greater the survival rate. After 70 days, 8 of 24 hyperglycemic mice survived compared to 16 of 24 normoglycemic and 19 of 20 hypoglycemic.

This suggests that regulating sugar intake is key to slowing breast tumor growth.

In a human study, 10 healthy people were assessed for fasting blood-glucose levels and the phagocytic index of neutrophils, which measures immune-cell ability to envelop and destroy invaders such as cancer. Eating 100 g carbohydrates from glucose, sucrose, honey and orange juice all significantly decreased the capacity of neutrophils to engulf bacteria. Starch did not have this effect.

A four-year study at the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection in the Netherlands compared 111 biliary tract cancer patients with 480 controls. Cancer risk associated with the intake of sugars, independent of other energy sources, more than doubled for the cancer patients.

Furthermore, an epidemiological study in 21 modern countries that keep track of morbidity and mortality (Europe, North America, Japan and others) revealed that sugar intake is a strong risk factor that contributes to higher breast cancer rates, particularly in older women.

Limiting sugar consumption may not be the only line of defense. In fact, an interesting botanical extract from the avocado plant (Persea americana) is showing promise as a new cancer adjunct.

When a purified avocado extract called mannoheptulose was added to a number of tumor cell lines tested in vitro by researchers in the Department of Biochemistry at Oxford University in Britain, they found it inhibited tumor cell glucose uptake by 25 to 75 percent, and it inhibited the enzyme glucokinase responsible for glycolysis. It also inhibited the growth rate of the cultured tumor cell lines.

The same researchers gave lab animals a 1.7 mg/g body weight dose of mannoheptulose for five days; it reduced tumors by 65 to 79 percent. Based on these studies, there is good reason to believe that avocado extract could help cancer patients by limiting glucose to the tumor cells.

Since cancer cells derive most of their energy from anaerobic glycolysis, Joseph Gold, M.D., director of the Syracuse (N.Y.) Cancer Research Institute and former U.S. Air Force research physician, surmised that a chemical called hydrazine sulfate, used in rocket fuel, could inhibit the excessive gluconeogenesis (making sugar from amino acids) that occurs in cachectic cancer patients.

Gold’s work demonstrated hydrazine sulfate’s ability to slow and reverse cachexia in advanced cancer patients. A placebo-controlled trial followed 101 cancer patients taking either 6 mg hydrazine sulfate three times/day or placebo. After one month, 83 percent of hydrazine sulfate patients increased their weight, compared to 53 percent on placebo.

A similar study by the same principal researchers, partly funded by the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., followed 65 patients. Those who took hydrazine sulfate and were in good physical condition before the study began lived an average of 17 weeks longer.

The medical establishment may be missing the connection between sugar and its role in tumorigenesis. Consider the million-dollar positive emission tomography device, or PET scan, regarded as one of the ultimate cancer-detection tools. PET scans use radioactively labeled glucose to detect sugar-hungry tumor cells. PET scans are used to plot the progress of cancer patients and to assess whether present protocols are effective.

In Europe, the "sugar feeds cancer" concept is so well accepted that oncologists, or cancer doctors, use the Systemic Cancer Multistep Therapy (SCMT) protocol. Conceived by Manfred von Ardenne in Germany in 1965, SCMT entails injecting patients with glucose to increase blood-glucose concentrations.

This lowers pH values in cancer tissues via lactic acid formation. In turn, this intensifies the thermal sensitivity of the malignant tumors and also induces rapid growth of the cancer. Patients are then given whole-body hyperthermia (42 C core temperature) to further stress the cancer cells, followed by chemotherapy or radiation.

SCMT was tested on 103 patients with metastasized cancer or recurrent primary tumors in a clinical phase-I study at the Von Ardenne Institute of Applied Medical Research in Dresden, Germany. Five-year survival rates in SCMT-treated patients increased by 25 to 50 percent, and the complete rate of tumor regression increased by 30 to 50 percent.

The protocol induces rapid growth of the cancer, then treats the tumor with toxic therapies for a dramatic improvement in outcome.

The irrefutable role of glucose in the growth and metastasis of cancer cells can enhance many therapies. Some of these include diets designed with the glycemic index in mind to regulate increases in blood glucose, hence selectively starving the cancer cells; low-glucose TPN solutions; avocado extract to inhibit glucose uptake in cancer cells; hydrazine sulfate to inhibit gluconeogenesis in cancer cells; and SCMT.

A female patient in her 50s, with lung cancer, came to our clinic, having been given a death sentence by her Florida oncologist. She was cooperative and understood the connection between nutrition and cancer. She changed her diet considerably, leaving out 90 percent of the sugar she used to eat.

She found that wheat bread and oat cereal now had their own wild sweetness, even without added sugar.

With appropriately restrained medical therapy — including high-dose radiation targeted to tumor sites and fractionated chemotherapy, a technique that distributes the normal one large weekly chemo dose into a 60-hour infusion lasting days — a good attitude and an optimal nutrition program which included Sam’s formula nine times/day, she beat her terminal lung cancer.

I saw her last month, five years later and still disease-free, probably looking better than the doctor who told her there was no hope.

Corn is Making the U.S. Unhealthy

Pundit George Will has joined the ranks of those who have noticed that the U.S. government’s treatment of corn is wrecking the health of Americans.
Ever since Nixon, government policy has been to sell large quantities of calories as cheaply as possible — especially calories coming from corn. Now, a quarter of the 45,000 items in the average supermarket contain processed corn, often in the form of high-fructose corn syrup.

The result?

Rates of chronic diseases like cancer and Type 2 diabetes are much higher today than they were in 1900. Type 2 diabetes is a $100 billion a year consequence of, among other things, obesity related to a corn-based diet. Four of the top 10 causes of American deaths — coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer – have well-established links to diet as well.

Making matters worse, by now you may have seen “crystalline fructose” as an ingredient in beverages.

If you’ve been wondering what it was, it turns out that crystalline fructose “is produced by allowing the fructose to crystallize from a fructose-enriched corn syrup.” This information is from the sugar producers themselves. So, it is made from corn syrup, and not only corn syrup, but “fructose enriched” corn syrup. Sounds like another name for high fructose corn syrup.

Fructose and glucose are metabolized differently in the body. Glucose is metabolized in every cell in the body, but all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. When a diet includes a large amount of fructose, then it creates a fatty liver, and even cirrhosis. Crystalline Fructose contains a 99.5 percent minimum of fructose assay, which is an even higher percentage of fructose than regular HFCS!

Another ingredient of crystalline fructose is arsenic. Additional chemical compounds that make up crystalline fructose are heavy metals, lead, and chloride.

Dr. Mercola’s Comments: 

As I’ve stated on numerous occasions already, the number one source of calories in the United States is high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). I find that so amazing, it bears repeating. The average American consumes about 12 teaspoons of it every day, though the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) estimates that teens and other “high consumers” may consume 80 percent more than that.

Most of this is consumed in the form of sodas, but that’s not the only source of HFCS. This dangerous sweetener is also in many processed foods and fruit juices, so to avoid it you really must focus your diet on whole foods and, if you do purchase packaged foods, become an avid label reader. 

And now, you’ll need to put yet another item on your list to look for — a new version for HFCS: crystalline fructose, which is even worse for your health than HFCS. 

I didn’t think it was possible, but they’ve managed to do it.

How High Fructose Can Destroy Your Health 

George Will is absolutely right when he says that high fructose corn syrup is wrecking the health of Americans.

Until the 1970s, most sugar was sucrose derived from sugar beets or sugar cane. But sugar from corn, especially high fructose corn syrup, is now more popular because it is much less expensive to produce.

It also contains nearly twice the fructose of the sugars that came before it.
Research has clearly linked it to the rise in obesity and metabolic syndrome, as it is metabolized to fat in your body far more rapidly than any other sugar. Adding insult to injury, because most fructose is consumed in liquid form, its negative metabolic effects are significantly magnified.

Just like other sugars it disrupts your insulin levels, and elevated insulin levels are going to  increase your risk of nearly every chronic disease known to man, including:

Cancer
Heart disease
Diabetes
Premature aging
Arthritis and osteoporosis

You name it, and you will find elevated insulin levels as a primary factor.
There’s also new evidence that HFCS in particular increases your triglyceride levels and LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. It also harms organs like your liver and pancreas, leading to bone loss, anemia, and heart problems, just to name a few.

Says Dr. Andrew Weil:

“Your body doesn’t handle large amounts of fructose well. You can maintain life with intravenous glucose, but not with intravenous fructose; severe derangement of liver function results. There’s also evidence that a high intake of fructose elevates levels of circulating fats (serum triglycerides), increasing the risk of heart disease. I never use fructose in my home.”

I avoid HFCS like the plague as well, and if you care about your health, so would you.

If you haven’t yet read the amazing scientific analysis on fructose in one of my favorite nutritional journals, I would strongly encourage you to do so as it will open your eyes to some of the major problems with this sweetener.
What Could be Worse than High Fructose Corn Syrup?

Enter “crystalline fructose,” a high-octane variety of HFCS.

Whereas regular HFCS contains 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose, crystalline fructose is at minimum 99 percent fructose, which could only mean that all the health problems associated with fructose may be even more pronounced with this product.

In addition to that, crystalline fructose may also contains arsenic, lead, chloride and heavy metals — a laundry list of things you want to avoid at all cost. Especially if you have children, as all of these contaminants can impact your child’s development and long-term health.

(Regular HFCS has also recently been shown to be widely contaminated with mercury, another heavy metal that carries significant health risks, especially for children. In one study, almost half of tested samples of commercial HFCS contained mercury. It was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient.)

More of the article here

Iodine Fulfillment Therapy

 

IODINE FULFILLMENT THERAPY

From “Health Alert” Newsletter by Dr. Bruce West, December 2005, Volume 22, Issue 12]

To subscribe to “Health Alert” Newsletter: http://www.healthalert.com/

From 1900 to the 1960s almost every single U.S. physician used Lugol (iodine) supplements in his or her practice for both hypo- and hyperthyroid, as well as many, many other conditions-all with excellent results. In fact, iodine was considered a panacea for all human ills. (1) Today a phobia-generated by medical misinformation against iodine therapy-has caused physicians to avoid this powerful treatment like the plague. (2)

By avoiding iodine therapy, you could be missing out on the very link that could get you well. Today we know that total body iodine fulfillment or sufficiency can finally resolve tough, stubborn problems that resist all other treatments. Called orthoiodosupplementation, this treatment employs elemental iodine supplements until the thyroid gland and all other iodine-sensitive sites in the body have reached iodine sufficiency.

The most commonly difficult problems for which this therapy has been called a panacea are fibrocystic breasts, polycystic ovary syndrome, hypo- and hyperthyroid (with or without goiter), brain fog, constipation, obesity, diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), and even some heart problems-most notably irreversible arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation.

Why Iodine is Important

Iodine is detected in every organ and tissue in the body. It is found in high levels in the thyroid gland, liver, lung, heart, and adrenal glands. It is found in the highest concentrations in fat and muscle tissue. It is depleted out of the thyroid gland and other tissues when thyroid hormone medications are prescribed. Iodine has been considered so important that up until 20 years ago, it had been routinely added to bread as a supplement. Now because of politics and fear of iodine, the thyroid-toxin bromine has taken its place as a bread supplement. And in the past 20 years there has been an increased prevalence of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, as well as more thyroid and breast cancers.

According to Guy E. Abraham, MD, perhaps the world’s most knowledgeable expert on iodine and the thyroid, “Medical iodophobia has reached pandemic proportions. It is highly contagious and has wreaked havoc on the practice of medicine and on the U.S. population. More misery and death in the U.S. may have resulted from [medicine's unwarranted fear of iodine] than from both World Wars combined.”

That is quite a statement from a former professor of Endocrinology and a man who pioneered ways to assay iodine and minute quantities of hormones in the body. This man in the past 35 years has received more biochemistry, diagnostics, clinical chemistry, and hormone and iodine research awards than anyone I know of. And he has studied iodine therapy in high doses in over 4,000 people-publishing his findings in a document titled “The Iodine Project.” These findings once and for all dispelled the medical myth and fear of iodine therapy.

Whole Body Iodine Sufficiency

Thyroidologists like Dr. Abraham have learned of the tremendous benefits of what they call whole body iodine sufficiency-when the body is saturated with sufficient iodine to supply all the tissues. Along the way, they have also discovered some amazing things about current thyroid treatment, thyroid drugs, and iodine. The very first thing discovered is that iodine is the treatment of choice for hypo- and hyperthyroid problems-with or without goiter.

Doctors could get as high as a 90% cure rate with hyperthyroid (overactive thyroid) by using what would be considered high doses of iodine daily. Doses of six to 37 mgs daily seemed equally effective in resolving cases of hypothyroid (underactive thyroid). These doses, once considered normal, are now considered high by most people in the medical profession.

Whole body iodine sufficiency is also a critical means to counter the side effects of thyroid hormone medications (Synthroid, etc.). Long-term use of these drugs is associated with depletion of thyroid and tissue iodine levels, as well as increased rates of cancer. Fluorescent scanning of the thyroid clearly shows how drug and other medical thyroid therapies deplete the gland and body of critical iodine.

Therefore, Synthroid or thyroid-destructive therapies should never be taken without iodine therapy-something you will never hear from your endocrinologist. If all Thyroidologists and endocrinologists were forced to fluorescence scan their patients’ thyroid glands, they would then have to fact up to the damages they are causing to these glands and their patients!

In addition to thyroid therapy, all thyroid patients should be on iodine therapy, with the goal to reach a whole body iodine sufficiency. When this state is reached, the following results (gathered using sophisticated lab testing, fluorescence screening, clinical measurements, and a host of other high-tech medical testing procedures) have been observed:

• Goiter is reduced or eliminated.
• Stress on the pituitary gland with resultant high TSH readings is eliminated.
• Increased excretion of thyroid poisons and heavy metals occurs via the kidneys.
• The liver’s detoxification mechanisms are enhanced.
• Obesity is more easily overcome-in fact, iodine therapy may be a critical and unknown factor in obesity.
• Diabetes and high blood pressure are more easily controlled.
• Breast tissue normalizes with decreased occurrences of fibrocystic breast disease.
• Menopausal symptoms are improved.
• Polycystic Ovary Syndrome can be cured.
• Brain function is better, with less brain fog.
• Heart function is better, with reduced arrhythmia problems.
• And cancer rates, especially of the thyroid and breast, are reduced.

Additionally, through the Iodine Project studies, Dr. Abraham discovered that even patients with complete thyroidectomy (removal of the whole gland) benefited from iodine therapy. Therefore it became known that iodine not only improved the thyroid gland, but the other target areas of the body where iodine and thyroid hormone are active.

The doctors in the Project found that patients who achieved iodine sufficiency were often able to resolve diabetes problems without insulin. They could normalize blood pressure without medication. Goiters were resolved. And those taking thyroid hormone medication could greatly reduce or completely eliminate these drugs.

Heart, Arrhythmias, Fibrillation

As you have read over and over in Health Alert, there is an epidemic of cardiac arrhythmias and atrial fibrillation in this country. Expert Thyroidologists like Dr. Abraham are convinced that the medical iodine phobia has a great deal to do with this phenomenon. Adequate stores of iodine are necessary for a smooth heartbeat.

Amazingly, while medicine shuns iodine therapy, their most popular anti-fibrillation drug, Amiodarone, actually is iodine in a toxic, sustained release form. This drug can produce a smooth heartbeat when the body has accumulated about 1.5 grams (1,500 mgs) of iodine. This is exactly the same amount of iodine retained by the human body when iodine sufficiency is achieved by natural iodine supplementation.

The problem with Amiodarone is that this form of iodine (which the medical profession has a penchant for) is extremely toxic. The side effects are most often too great for patients to regain a normal heartbeat. Therefore it only makes sense to try to achieve iodine sufficiency with the natural form of iodine instead. That is why I always recommend iodine (in the form of either Cataplex F and/or Prolamine Iodine from Standard Process) with my arrhythmia and fibrillation patients.

Caution!

If you are about to try to achieve iodine sufficiency with slowly increasing doses of Prolamine Iodine, you must note that this is to be done in place of Amiodarone-not simultaneously with it. So you will need to have your doctor stop the drug therapy when you start the iodine therapy. Therapy usually starts at 1 tablet of Prolamine Iodine daily for a week. If no problem arises, the dose increases slowly (every week to 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 tablets daily). If there are no problems along the way, and especially if your heart begins to function more normally, you would stay at 5 or 6 tablets daily for three to six months. Or you might need three months of 12 Prolamine Iodine tablets per day to achieve full iodine sufficiency levels. This is, of course, in conjunction with your current heart protocol of phytonutrients.

Types of Iodine and Doses

For decades Lugol iodine has been used by expert Thyroidologists. But liquid iodine has problems-it tastes bad, can upset your stomach, and can stain your clothes. There is a Lugol tablet on the market called Iodoral. This is the type of iodine Dr. Abraham uses. It is the inorganic form and each tablet contains 12 mgs of iodine. Iodoral is sold only to physicians, but you may be able to buy it on the Internet by doing a Google search for Iodoral.

We use Prolamine Iodine, which is the organic form. Each tablet contains 3 mgs of iodine. Iodoral is less expensive, and some studies (at least with fibrocystic breast disease) show it to be more effective than Prolamine Iodine. Our results with all conditions show them to be equally effective.

Exactly what dose is best for you is difficult to determine. But we now know that what were formerly considered high doses of the right form of iodine are safe and effective. Some iodine-deficient people only need a tablet or two daily. For people with more serious iodine deficiency problems, iodine sufficiency must be achieved. This is accomplished with a daily dose of around 37 mgs for three months: four Iodoral or 12 Prolamine Iodine tablets daily.

And this dose should be achieved slowly-starting with one Prolamine Iodine tablet daily, increasing one to two tablets daily each week. Without side effects, the dose should be increased weekly until the iodine sufficiency dose of 12 daily is achieved. With Iodoral, start with one tablet daily and increase by one tablet each week until you are taking four tablets daily. Either way, after achieving the full iodine sufficiency dose, it should be maintained for three months.

We now know that it is possible for some people to eliminate their need for medical thyroid drugs after achieving iodine sufficiency. We also now know that anyone taking thyroid drugs like Synthroid should also be on iodine therapy. At the very least, iodine therapy can decrease the need for thyroid hormone drugs.

We are just beginning to discover the amazing curative powers of iodine. While it may not be the panacea that old-timers have claimed, it is indeed critical. It is often the missing factor in “incurable” conditions like obesity, diabetes, breast disease, polycystic ovaries, thyroiditis, hypothyroid, autoimmune thyroid problems, and more.

While some doctors claim that no one is really allergic to iodine, I have seen sensitivities. If you do not know if you are allergic to iodine, then you are not. Those who are truly allergic know it and carefully avoid shellfish, iodized salt, most fish, kelp, and other foods that contain iodine.

The Iodine Test

If you are one of those who would like more proof that your body needs or does not need iodine, let me share a simple test. But a bottle of Tincture of Iodine at the drug store and paint a 2″ square spot on your inner arm. If it disappears in less than eight hours, you desperately need iodine. If it disappears in 24 hours, you also need iodine. If it simply stays on your arm and begins to slowly fade in color after a full 24 hours, you have already reached iodine sufficiency.

You can retest yourself every one to two weeks while on therapy. And you can use the test to help you judge your individual dosage need for iodine. Remember that contrary to current medical opinion, the real thyroid experts have proven that most patients who need iodine therapy require from three to 37 mgs/day. And that means from one to 12 Prolamine Iodine tablets daily. Always start out slowly. Judge your results, monitor your symptoms and any side effects, and use the thyroid patch test to help you along the way.

Proceed Slowly

As discussed, some people are sensitive to the iodine metal. That is why all iodine therapy must be accomplished with a good degree of caution. Use the patch test to help you determine dose. Always start out at a low dose of one Prolamine Iodine tablet daily. Increase your dose slowly-by adding one or two tablets daily each week. If you experience problems or side effects, stop your therapy. If you are like most people and continue to improve, your therapy is effective.

Side effects among sensitive individuals include skin irritation; watery eyes, nose, and saliva; nervousness or headache. Some sensitive people can experience tachycardia (racing heart). While iodine therapy has been shown to be a great aid to those with atrial fibrillation, if you experience a racing heart, you must stop iodine therapy immediately.

So use the patch test, start slowly, increase your dose slowly and only by one tablet a week (some people need only a tablet or two while others require six to 12 tablets daily). Iodine sufficiency (all tissues with adequate iodine) can require 12 Prolamine Iodine tablets daily for three months. After three months reduce your dose to three per day for a month, then one per day. Watch for problems, watch for improvements, and see for yourself if iodine therapy is the missing link in your stubborn health problems.

NOTES

(1)”Iodine in medicine and pharmacy since its discovery-1811-1961,” Proc R Soc Med, 1961:54:831-836.

(2)”Iodine therapy,” Health Alert, Vol. 21, No. 3.

Fungus Causing Cancer

Fungus Causing Cancer — A Novel Approach to the Most Common Form of Death.  Cancer is now the leading cause of death in the United States. This video featuring Doug Kaufman interviewing Italian Oncologist Dr. Tullio Simoncini, details a new theory of cancer that carries the promise of a safe, speedy, and effective cancer cure.   see video here

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

Cancer, which surpassed heart disease as the number one killer in America in 2005, is still considered “a mystery” in conventional medicine. In fact, the term “cancer” is just a generic term that in no way describes its cause.

In this video, Doug Kaufman – a longtime proponent of the influence of fungi in human disease — interviews the Italian oncologist Dr. Tullio Simoncini — author of Cancer is a Fungus — who shares fascinating new information about what he believes is the root of all cancers: fungi, and discusses a radically different path for curing cancer; sometimes in as little as a few days.

Conventional Cancer Treatments – Ineffective and Dangerous “Cures”
Currently, if you are diagnosed with cancer, especially in the U.S., you are given three options:
1. Surgery
2. Chemotherapy
3. Radiation

However, as mentioned in this video, finding actual statistics on the effectiveness of these treatments is very difficult. You’d think if something is the best medicine has to offer, they’d be more than happy to share their level of success.

Most people are given a 50/50 chance of dying from cancer, in general. And conventional treatments are touted as your best shot at surviving.
But is it true?

According to Dr. Simoncini’s website, polls and questionnaires show that a full 75 percent of doctors say they’d refuse chemotherapy if they were struck with cancer due to its ineffectiveness and its devastating side effects.

Many doctors have spoken out about it, yet their voices are still ignored. For example, Dr. Allen Levin, MD, author of The Healing of Cancer, has said, “The majority of the cancer patients in this country die because of chemotherapy, which does not cure breast, colon or lung cancer. This has been documented for over a decade and nevertheless doctors still utilize chemotherapy to fight these tumors.”

Professor Gorge Mathe similarly stated, “If I were to contract cancer, I would never turn to a certain standard for the therapy of this disease. Cancer patients who stay away from these centers have some chance to make it.”
So, how effective is chemotherapy?

There is at least one study that I know of that addresses this very question. Published in the journal Clinical Oncology in December 2004, the results of this study were astounding, showing that chemotherapy has an average 5-year survival success rate of just over 2 percent for all cancers!

In the U.S., chemo was most successful in treating testicular cancer and Hodgkin’s disease, where its success rate fell just below 38 percent and slightly over 40 percent respectively.   Still well below the 50/50 mark…

A review of chemo on 5-year survival rates in Australia garnered almost identical results, with a 2.3 percent success rate, compared to the U.S. 2.1 percent rate of success.

And yet this is the best that conventional medicine has up its sleeve for treating this widespread killer.

What Causes Cancer?

Conventional medicine likes to focus on the impact of genetics as a causative agent in developing cancer, despite the fact that research indicates that genetics is not the main cause of this widespread phenomenon, even though it may play a small role in some people. Unfortunately, little attention is paid to the impact of plain and simple infections.

Dr. Simoncini’s research has led him to believe that something as simple as a fungus, Candida, is the leading cause of cancer; that cancer itself is in fact a fungus. What we refer to as a tumor, is nothing more than your body’s attempt at protecting itself from that fungus.

He brings up an analogy between psoriasis – an “incurable” disease of the skin that many treat as a fungus – and tumors, which are also an “incurable” disease of your body. Several studies have linked the presence of Candida with cancer, showing that anywhere between 79 to 97 percent of all cancer patients also have Candida.

Dr. Simoncini’s explanation for how this phenomenon works – how Candida leads to deadly cancer – is that it’s a consequence of the weakening and exhaustion of your organs, and eventually your entire body, in the following stages:

1. Candida roots itself in your deep connective tissue in various organs

2. As a result, this evokes an organic defensive reaction as the connective tissue of your invaded organ attempts to encyst the fungin colonies through cellular hyper-production, which results in the formation of tumors

3. Growths continue as the fungi spreads, both in your surrounding tissue, and remotely (aka “metastatis”). It is still always the same Candida attacking different tissues, but due to its highly adaptive qualities it is able to mutate to adapt itself to whatever environment it finds itself in, hence the various types of tumors

4. Your body becomes progressively more exhausted, which allows the fungi to spread and take over more rapidly

5. You die from “cancer”

If Cancer is a Fungus, Then What is the Cure?

In the video, Dr. Simoncini shows actual before-and-after footage of both bronchial cancer and colon cancer. Four days after his revolutionary and mind-blowingly simple treatment for bronchial cancer with a sodium bicarbonate and water flush, the tumors are gone…

Sodium bicarbonate, a.k.a baking soda, is the most potent anti-fungal substance there is. The problem with anti-fungal drugs, however, is that fungi are extremely adaptive, and can adapt to a new environment in three to four days. This renders anti-fungal drugs largely ineffective. The fungi do not adapt to the baking soda, but it is far more difficult to use as it needs to be injected directly into the tumor; swallowing the baking soda would not work at all.
Candida yeast is not “one shared element,” so to speak, but rather “social elements,” or colonies, that are highly communicative.

Because of their unique adaptation skills, sodium bicarbonate must be administered directly onto the tumor, and in so doing changing its ph very quickly, from acid to alkaline, which quickly and effectively kills off the yeast before it has time to adapt.

For example, Dr. Simoncini’s experience has shown that 99 percent of breast- and bladder cancer can heal in just six days, entirely without the use of surgery, chemo or radiation, using just a local infiltration device (such as a catheter) to deliver the sodium bicarbonate directly to the infected site in your breast tissue or bladder.

Why the Baking Soda Cancer Cure is Not Available Everywhere
Unfortunately, Dr. Simoncini is yet another brilliant doctor who has been ousted from the medical community due to his revolutionary simple ideas of how to cure profit-making diseases.

So many people refuse to believe that this is true and that it’s happening to good doctors, since “everyone knows” you must be a liability to human life if you’re stripped of your medical license.

But the reason why Dr. Simoncini was kicked out is because as an oncologist – a cancer specialist — he refused to use conventional cancer treatment methods, choosing instead to administer sodium bicarbonate, which is HARMLESS, as opposed to the often lethal use of chemotherapy.
His lawyers have recently started a rehabilitation court trial at the International Court of Justice in Strassburg to have him reinstated.

Preventive Measures – Combating Candida

If the cause of cancer is the Candida fungus, then what is the root cause of the fungi? And how can you tell you might have too much yeast in your body, which might eventually lead to the formation of cancer?

A good sign that Candida is on the loose is feeling “run down” and developing a craving for sugars and carbohydrates, as this is the main fuel for the growing amounts of yeast in your intestine. The more sugar and grains you eat, the more the yeast grows out of control. Eventually, this will weaken your immune system, which in turn can allow it to infiltrate various other organs.

This imbalance in intestinal flora, sometimes called dysbiosis, can also lead to other more common, and less lethal, health problems, such as:

* Vaginitis
* Irritable bowel syndrome
* Weight gain
* Food allergies
* Migraines
* Asthma
* Depression
* Chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia

There are 79 different toxins released by the metabolism and die-off of Candida. This is why people with yeast overgrowth often feel so lousy; the Candida toxins are regularly entering their bloodstream. Two of these toxins, alcohol and acetaldehyde (the breakdown product of alcohol that causes hangovers), are in such high amounts in people with chronic yeast problems that you may actually end up feeling “drunk.”

Acetaldehyde also reacts with the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is why people with yeast overgrowth often experience mental and emotional disturbances such as anxiety, depression, poor concentration, and feeling spaced-out.

How to Cure a Yeast Overgrowth

For more on Candida and holistic treatment options, I recommend you review my previous article, Holistic Treatment for Candida Infection. The highlights of the treatments for yeast overgrowth include:

1. The Right Diet and Exercise — A diet rich in meats, chicken, eggs, seeds and nuts, vegetables, and healthy oils (free range and organic) — while avoiding sugars and carbohydrate-rich foods — will restrict the amount of fuel the yeast in your intestine has available to it. I would add to this to make your diet in tune with your nutritional type. Once you’ve started on the diet, exercising will begin to rebalance the levels of neurotransmitters in your brain and improve your mood. One of the elements of diet that does seem counter intuitive is the absolute restriction of even fruits when one is seeking to eliminate yeast, as even the tiniest amounts of sugar seem to worsen this condition.

2. Getting Plenty of Good Bacteria — You will want to increase your probiotic (good bacteria) intake with a high-quality probiotic supplement or by eating cultured and fermented foods, such as natto. These contain the good bacteria that keep your vagina and gastrointestinal tract healthy and will ultimately replace the Candida.

3. Avoiding Exposure to Chemicals — Paints, household cleaners, perfumes and scents may cause allergic reactions, and chemical sensitivities are very common in people with yeast overgrowth.

4. Addressing Emotional and Psychological Issues — Food cravings, especially those for sweets, often are exacerbated by emotional dependencies. Tools like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) can help you to overcome unhealthy food cravings and other emotional hurdles.

Flax Shown to Be Effective Against Cancers of the Colon and Breast

Flax Shown to Be Effective Against Cancers of the Colon and Breast 

(NaturalNews) Flax oil and flax seeds have been shown to lower blood cholesterol and triglycerides, and to help reduce damage to cell membranes. Flax is also important in the body’s ability to reduce inflammation and prevent the many degenerative diseases associated with it. Studies have shown that women with a high intake of flax oil and flax lignans are at much lower risk of developing breast cancer. Research is now documenting the benefits of flax oil, lignans, and flax meal in preventing and treating cancer in the gastrointestinal tract and colon, and breast cancer metastasis.

Recent studies and results

In a study published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology researchers noted that flax seed oil and flax seed meal are good sources of omega-3 fatty acids. Their objective was to investigate the feeding of flax seed oil and flax meal to groups of rats with induced precursors of colon cancer. These precursors form in the lining of the colon and rectum prior to the appearance of colorectal polyps.

The groups of rats were fed either a controlled diet alone, controlled diet plus soybean oil, controlled diet plus flax oil, or controlled diet plus flax meal. The rats were examined after 17 weeks. Those fed the flax seed oil and the flax seed meal showed reduced incidence of colon cancer precursor by 84% and 87.5% respectively. Glutathione-S-transferase (GST) activity rates were significantly higher in the rats fed flax seed oil and flax seed meal compared to those fed soybean oil. The enzymes in GST play a significant role in the detoxification of such substances as carcinogens, therapeutic drugs, and products of oxidative stress.
In the Journal of Nutrition and Cancer researchers note that fatty acid composition of dietary fat plays a vital role in colon tumor development in animal models. Fats containing omega-3 fatty acids, such as flax oil, and those containing omega-6 fats, such as corn oil, reduced chemically induced colon tumor development in rats. Lignans have also been shown to prevent colon tumor development in animal studies. These researchers investigated the effects of dietary flaxseed meal, a source of both omega-3 fatty acids and lignans, on colon tumor development and compared them with the effects of dietary corn meal.

One group of cancer induced rats ate a controlled diet supplemented with corn meal, while another ate the controlled diet supplemented with flaxseed meal. After 35 weeks, the gastrointestinal tract was isolated, and the site, size, and number of tumors were recorded and the tumors were evaluated. Tumor incidence in the corn meal group was 82.6% vs. 29.4% in the flax meal group. Tumor multiplicity was 1.3 for the corn meal group vs. 0.3 for the flax meal group. And tumor size was 44.4 mm for the corn meal group vs. 5.3 mm for the flax meal group. Researchers attributed these amazing statistics to the increased omega-3 fatty acids levels ingested by the flax meal group.
A third study, from the International Journal of Cancer reports that previous studies have shown dietary flax seed was able to reduce the growth and metastasis of human estrogen receptor negative breast cancer in mice. Researchers for this study sought to determine whether the tumor inhibitory effect of flaxseed was due to its oil, lignan secoisolariciresinol diglycoside (SDG), or both, and whether the effect on tumor growth was related to increased oxidative degradation of lipids.

Rats were injected with estrogen receptor negative breast cancer cells and after 8 weeks were fed either the basal diet, or basal diet supplemented with flax seeds, SDG, flax oil, or a combination.

Compared to the basal diet group, the tumors in all supplemented groups showed decreased cell proliferation and increased apoptosis. These results did not significantly relate to lipid peroxidation. Lung metastasis incidence was reduced by 16 to 70 percent by all treatments, and most significantly in the flax seed, SDG, and flax oil groups. Distant lymph node metastasis was significantly decreased (52%) only in the flax oil group. Total metastasis incidence was lowered significantly (42%) only in the SDG plus flax oil group.

What these studies may mean for you

The studies show both flax oil and flax meal to be highly effective against cancers of the gastrointestinal tract and colon. Flax oil was clearly the most effective at preventing lymph node metastasis, while the impact on total body metastasis was greatest when SDG, the active compound from lignans, was included with flax oil.

It is the omega-3 fatty acids in flax that are the active agents producing these results. Omega-3 fatty acids are electron rich, and are able to enter the cells to provide them with the electrical energy needed for the healthy completion of cellular processes.

Our bodies produce over 500 million new cells daily. When these cells divide, the old cell and the new cell must contain enough electron rich fatty acids to divide off completely from each other. When this process is not completed due to a lack of electron rich highly unsaturated fat, the course of growth and division is altered and the maturing and shedding process is never fully completed. This may lead to the formation of tumors.

Unless you frequently eat omega-3 rich foods such as salmon or walnuts, supplementing your diet with lignan rich flax oil may be one of the best choices for your health that you ever make.

Using flax oil

Flax oil is highly unstable and begins to oxidize quickly after processing. If you are going to use flax oil, you will want only the freshest, best quality organic oil. Fresh flax oil has a nutty taste that is good. Although results from study number three indicate that even when the oil has oxidized it will still do its job in the body, most health experts say that any oil that does not taste good is oil you should not use. Any trace of bitterness means the oil is oxidizing.
Most flax oil on the market is rancid to some degree, particularly the capsules. Taste one and you will be appalled. The maker of the capsules is counting on you swallowing them whole and never tasting the rancid oil that is in them. Oil that is bought from a drugstore, supermarket, or discount center is usually quite oxidized and bitter. Even house brands from online supplement stores are usually oxidized. Just because it’s organic doesn’t mean it isn’t rancid.
There are two brands which produce organic flax oil that is usually fresh and good-tasting. These are Spectrum and Barleans. Spectrum is the more consistent of the two brands. These oils are available at health food stores, and grocery stores that cater to the health conscious. They are sold in the refrigerator section, and should be refrigerated again immediately after purchase.

If you do not have access to these oils where you live, they can be ordered from the online supplement stores. When it’s relatively cold outside, the oil can be shipped to you without a problem. In the warm months or if you live in a place where it is warm all year, you will need to have them shipped in a cold pack. Not all online stores offer cold packs, but several do.
Taste the oil when you bring it home or have it delivered. If it does not taste fresh and good, if you detect bitterness, return it or call the online store and ask for a refund. Retailers seem to be quite used to people returning rancid flax oil, and they will give you a refund or replacement.
The amount of oil you need per day to keep yourself healthy is one tablespoon for each 100 pounds of body weight. If you have had cancer and are trying to prevent a recurrence you may want to double that amount. If you are actively fighting cancer or other serious disease, you will need to take the oil throughout the day, building up to an amount of 8 ounces or more as you are able to tolerate it.

Never heat flax oil. Always shake the bottle before using.

Using flax lignans

Spectrum and Barleans as well as others produce flax oil with lignans added. They usually settle to the bottom requiring you to give the bottle a hard shaking every time you use it.

If you don’t want to take flax oil with lignans but want to get the benefits of lignans, you can get one of the capsule forms on the market containing SDG. The best known of these is Brevail, made by the Barleans company. There are others that are equally as effective.

Learn more about lignans at (http://www.naturalnews.com/022625.html) .

About the author

Barbara is a school psychologist, a published author in the area of personal finance, a breast cancer survivor using “alternative” treatments, a born existentialist, and a student of nature and all things natural.