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" I find medicine is the best of all trades because whether you do any

good

or not you still get your money. " (Moliere: " A Physician in Spite of

Himself, " 1664)

 

The DOCTOR YOURSELF (SM) NEWSLETTER Vol 2, No 3

December 5, 2001 " Free of charge, free of advertising, and free of the

A.M.A. "

Written by Andrew Saul, PhD. of http://www.doctoryourself.com , a free

online library of 300 natural healing articles with nearly 4,000

scientific

references.

 

JUNK SCIENCE ON VITAMIN C MEGADOSES EXPOSED

The flashy-titled " C is for Cancer? " article (New Scientist, 22

September

2001, p 20) is a good example of sketchy science carelessly reported.

The

article would have readers uncritically extend the questionable

findings of

a highly artificial, electrical-current-vibrated quartz crystal test

tube

study, and conclude that two thousand milligrams of vitamin C can

(somehow)

do some sort of mischief to fatty acids and human DNA in real life.

 

If two thousand milligrams of vitamin C were harmful, the entire

animal

kingdom would be dead. Our nearest primate relatives all eat well in

excess

of two thousand milligrams of vitamin C each day. And, pound for

pound,

most

animals actually manufacture from two to ten thousand milligrams of

vitamin

C daily, inside their bodies. If such generous quantities of vitamin

C

were

harmful, evolution would have had millions of years to select against

it.

 

As it is, many well designed studies show that large doses of vitamin

C

improve both quality and length of life for cancer patients.

Supportive

megavitamin C therapy also reduces hair loss and nausea from

chemotherapy,

enabling oncologists to give maximum strength treatments.

 

" C is for Cancer Patients! " would be a more accurate title. The public

should not be discouraged from taking generous quantities of

supplemental

vitamin C. Just the opposite. For vitamin C is not a problem; it is a

solution.

 

References:

 

Murata, A., Morishige, F. and Yamaguchi, H. (1982) Prolongation of

survival

times of terminal cancer patients by administration of large doses of

ascorbate. International Journal of Vitamin and Nutrition Research

Suppl.,

23, 1982, p. 103-113. Also in Hanck, A., ed. (1982) Vitamin C: New

Clinical

Applications. Bern: Huber, 103-113.

 

Null, G., Robins, H., Tanenbaum, M., and Jennings, P. (1997) Vitamin C

and

the treatment of cancer: abstracts and commentary from the scientific

literature. The Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients. April/May.

 

Riordan, N. H., et al. (1995) Intravenous ascorbate as a tumor

cytotoxic

chemotherapeutic agent. Medical Hypotheses, 44(3). p 207-213, March.

 

Rivers, J. M. (1987) Safety of high-level vitamin C injestion. In:

Third

Conference on Vitamin C. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Vol.

498.

 

MYTHS ABOUT VITAMINS

(More in a seemingly endless series)

MYTH: " YOU DO NOT NEED TO TAKE VITAMIN E SUPPLEMENTS BECAUSE THERE IS

PLENTY OF IT IN FRESH OILS. "

 

Oh yeah? While I cheerfully admit that vegetable oil contains natural

beneficial cofactors, count the number of IU's of vitamin E in it.

There are

26 mg of vitamin E in a CUP of olive oil. (A milligram is close to an

IU.)

The amount of E that is preventive of cardiovascular disease is at

least 100

IU, probably 400 IU, possibly as much as 800 IU daily. And a CUP of

olive

oil contains less than 30 IU.

http://www.doctoryourself.com/vitamin_e.html

 

MYTH: " IF YOU TAKE TOO MUCH VITAMIN E, IT WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS WITH

PROLONGED CLOTTING TIME. "

 

Vitamin E will prolong clotting time, but beneficially. That's why it

is

such a competitor for Coumadin.

 

http://doctoryourself.com/drugalt.html

 

" Vitamin E is a potent inhibitor of thrombin that does not produce a

hemorrhagic tendency and therefore is a safe prophylactic against

venous

thrombosis. "

 

(Alton Ochsner, M.D., one of the world's leading heart surgeons)

 

MYTH: " VITAMIN C MEGADOSES DESTROY VITAMIN B-12. "

 

Not true.

 

Newmark, H. L. (1976) Stability of vitamin B-12 in the presence of

ascorbic

acid. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 29:6, 645-649.

 

MYTH: YOUR BODY CANNOT ABSORB ENOUGH VITAMIN C TO BE USEFUL AS AN

ANTIBIOTIC

OR ANTIVIRAL

Individual needs for vitamin C vary greatly, especially during

illness.

A

relatively small amount of C is often sufficient for normal health,

whereas

tens of thousands of milligrams may be absorbed during viral or

bacterial

illness, particularly if the dosage is frequently divided during the

day.

When sick, one should take the minimum that gets you well. One can

expect

very high minimums during illness. Doses should be measured in grams,

not

milligrams, up to bowel tolerance (saturation).

 

Reference websites:

http://www.orthomed.com

http://www.vitamincfoundation.org

http://www.cforyourself.com

 

READERS ASK:

" IS THERE A NATURAL CURE FOR STREP THROAT? "

Strep throat (which is far more frequently " diagnosed " by

pediatricians

than

lab tests confirm) is amenable to the vitamin C megadose protocol of

Cathcart, Klenner and Cameron. I've posted their articles at

http://doctoryourself.com/titration.html and

http://doctoryourself.com/klennerpaper.html

It still somewhat mystifies me that their work is not better known,

until I

consider the huge dollar value of antibiotic sales. We're not even

talking

bib diseases here, for it is no longer uncommon for a fully-vaccinated

child

under one year of age to already have had 10 or more courses of

expensive

antibiotics. Many adults fare little better. Antibiotic

overprescription is

rampant quackery.

 

My children were raised (ovolacto) vegetarian, took their kiddie

vitamins,

had their kiddie vegetable juices, and simply did not need the kiddie

doctor. We would have taken them if the need arose, but we first

handled

occasional illness the natural way. This includes very sore throats.

 

POWERFUL SCIENTIFIC SUPPORT FOR MEGAVITAMIN THERAPY

Nobody is interested in vitamins. What people want is to know how to

cure

disease. This goes for preoccupied doctors as much as for desperate

patients. In 25 years of lecturing on natural health care, I have

almost

never had anyone (practitioner or layperson) come up to me afterwards

and

say, " tell me more about the biochemistry of vitamin therapy! "

Rather,

the

ubiquitous follow up question is, " What vitamins should I use for

(such

and

such an illness)? "

 

In righteously answering such a question, the task is to present the

facts

of vitamin therapy accurately and rapidly, without losing sight of the

questioner's specific need. As Ward Cleaver demonstrated, the Beaver

needs

unbiased truth in shortened form, as applies to his specific

situation.

 

It is as hard to provide that in a book as it is in a conversation.

 

The fundamental strength behind Dr. Melvyn Werbach's Textbook of

Nutritional

Medicine is that it fully appreciates the immediate need of the

reader.

This book is not about vitamins; it is about diseases treatable with

vitamins. Should you ever want to put someone to sleep, just start

lecturing on nutrition with the ever-boring " vitamins A through E and

foods

that contain them " approach. I guarantee that heads will be nodding

long

before you finish with the B-complex.

 

Textbook of Nutritional Medicine is that rarity among all health

books:

at

750 large pages, it is still remarkably concise. Almost all of it is

organized by illness, not by nutrient. It is not preachy and it never

overstates the role of nutrition. It takes only seconds to look up any

one

of over 80 diseases that are known to respond to nutritional therapy.

And it

is very heavily referenced.

 

The Textbook is an outgrowth of Dr. Werbach's 1988 Nutritional

Influences on

Illness, which was essentially a topic-by-topic collection of research

abstracts. I liked that a lot, and required it as a textbook when I

taught

graduate clinical nutrition. The current Textbook is more complete in

every

way, and is well worth its $75 hard cover price. It provides far more

direction to the open-minded practitioner or self-care minded general

reader. To have an " alternative " health book written by a medical

doctor

(co-authored with a dentist, Dr. Jeffrey Moss) is very valuable to

patients

who are struggling upstream to convince their pharmophilic (drug

loving)

physicians to at least give vitamin therapy the time of day. There is

nothing quite like pulling out a book like this one to shorten

physicians'

" supplements might hurt you so just eat a good diet " speeches. And

even

the

most ostrich-like orthodox practitioner can not long resist the call

of

the

literally thousands of peer-reviewed journal references that Dr

Werbach

has

read, sorted, and summarized in his book.

 

So trot out the Textbook next time somebody tries to tell you that

more

research is needed before vitamins can be used to treat illness.

 

There is a real possibility that your doctor will recoil when s/he is

presented with all these references. This reaction, true to human

nature,

is nevertheless unscientific. It is embarrassing to doctors when

patients

know more about their case than they do. Yet there is no other

rational

choice. If therapy exists, and is reasonably well-tested and safe, it

is

inexcusable to not try it. Doctors know this, but are so uneducated

in

nutrition that they are usually not in a position to supervise such

therapy.

Hence the embarrassment. The Textbook provides the continuing

education

they

so sorely need.

 

Obviously, you need to read it first, but not all of it. It is a

reference.

Do you read the dictionary cover to cover? (You don't have to,

because,

as

comic Steven Wright says, " The zebra did it. " ) Just look up the

diseases

that are closest to home. You, your family, and your friends all

stand

to

benefit from the hard work that Dr. Werbach has already done for you,

distilling and sorting hundreds of studies into one lap-friendly

volume.

 

Dr. Werbach's objectivity is so carefully maintained that, to a

general

reader, his well-balanced approach might seem like fence sitting. This

is

perhaps most notable in his cautious discussion of vitamin C against

cancer.

I also noticed that, in considering schizophrenia, the Hoffer-Osmond

Adrenochrome Hypothesis was omitted. My personal opinion is that Dr.

Werbach

might have more to say in open support of really high divided doses of

niacin (not just niacinamide in moderation) for anxiety and psychosis.

The

multiple sclerosis section makes no mention of the nutritional

protocol

of

Frederick R. Klenner and Roger J. Williams is not cited in the

otherwise

very good section on alcoholism. Max Gerson is absent from the

chapter

on

cancer. William J. McCormick is not mentioned in connection with

vitamin C

and cerebrovascular disease, and I found no references to Wilfrid or

Evan

Shute's pioneering work with vitamin E and heart disease. This may be

because Dr. Werbach has chosen, perhaps because of limitations of

space, to

focus on more recent research. Additionally, I think chromium

polynicotinate, zinc monomethionine, iron fumarate, and so-called

colloidal

minerals should be added to the section on " Elemental Mineral Content

of

Common Mineral Salts " used as supplements.

 

Lest I appear to be nit-picking, let me assert that any book that

calmly

mentions vitamin E doses of up to 3,200 I.U., and maximum daily

treatment

dosages for vitamin C of 200,000 mg has my immediate and appreciative

attention. Robert F. Cathcart, Ewan Cameron, Garnett Cheney, Ruth

Harrell,

John Ellis, William Kaufman, J.W. Anderson, and many other expert

physicians

and researchers are to be found fairly, and favorably, mentioned in

the

Textbook of Nutritional Medicine. A number of these names are simply

not to

be found in any other nutrition textbook that I have ever seen. It is

a

pleasure to see them included here.

 

I am especially pleased that Dr. Werbach includes a considerable

quantity of

information on megavitamin treatment of AIDS patients. This bold and

much

needed inclusion opens the door for nutritional treatment of all viral

illnesses. I am further delighted to see a section on nutrition and

Down's

syndrome. There are also seldom-mentioned-elsewhere nutritional

approaches

to Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, infertility, rosacea, lupus, and

even

myopia. These sections make interesting reading indeed. Truth to be

told,

ANY section of the book makes for interesting reading. I was somewhat

surprised to fail to find Alzheimer's disease listed in either the

table of

contents or the index. Look under " Dementia " and you will find it;

however,

it should have its own listing.

 

Dr. Werbach's attitude towards and discussion of vitamin side effects

is

excellent. It is also conservative. He does not hesitate to caution

when

caution is due, and yet he clearly states (and proves) that the safety

of

megavitamin therapy is far greater than drug therapy. Information on

lab

nutrition tests, label units and measurements, vitamin deficiencies,

hints

for successful practice of integrative medicine, and the entirely

appropriate personal story of how he came to write his books, are all

included.

 

But the heart of the Textbook is its nearly 700 pages of clinical

recommendations and research summaries. Citations are clearly marked

and

reader-friendly; studies are mentioned within the text by authors'

names in

italics. Frequent and well-placed case histories are boxed in gray.

There

should be an overall author index as well as a topic index. Preparing

such

an index is not a job that I'd want; Dr. Werbach has over 140 full

pages of

references with about 40 citations per page. That makes no fewer than

5,600

references in Textbook of Nutritional Medicine. Yet it is due to this

very

great number that the book requires more thorough indexing.

 

I have relied on Dr. Werbach's work for ten years. When I prepare an

article or lecture, I refer to his writings as a matter of habit.

Before his

books, one had to go back to the Vitamins in Medicine (from the

1950's)

for

a really good single-volume collection of applied therapeutic

nutrition

research summaries. I am grateful for this latest, most impressive,

and

most

practical update on a subject that is so important to us all.

 

TEXTBOOK OF NUTRITIONAL MEDICINE

Melvyn Werbach, M.D., with Jeffrey Moss, D.D.S. (1999)

Tarzana, CA: Third Line Press.

http://www.third-line.com/

740 pages. ISBN 0-9618550-9-6

 

This review is also posted at

http://www.doctoryourself.com/werbach.html

 

SORRY WE MAY HAVE MISSED OUR CHANCE FOR THIS ONE.

Tobacco " spa treatments " that are " guaranteed to relax the mind and

soothe

the body without inhaling " have been introduced at MacArthur Place, a

trendy

San Francisco-area inn. At least in June of this year, you could get a

Tobacco Bath, a Tobacco Salt Scrub, a Tobacco Oil Massage AND a

Tobacco

Moisturizing Treatment to boot. " The Garden Spa is the first spa in

the

U.S.

to offer tobacco-based treatments, " said manager Bill Blum. " This is

the

only inside pubic place you will see tobacco products in use in

California. "

 

Cost of their " Cigar In The Garden " overnight package starts at $475;

the

100-minute treatment can also be purchased a la carte for $197.

 

For more information:

thespa

email: info

Postal Mail: 29 East MacArthur Street, Sonoma, CA 95476

 

(Editor's note: I have no financial connection whatsoever with this or

any

other similar establishment, for reasons that I trust are obvious.)

 

READERS SAY:

" I've just written a mini-book called Shazzie's Detox Delights

( www.shazzie.com/news ) and am very happy to offer your readers these

raw

food recipes. "

 

Dark Dream Smoothie

2 bananas, peeled

1 punnet of blueberries

1 papaya, skinned and de-seeded

2 dates, pitted

Chop the dates. Blend all ingredients and drink.

 

Italian Soup

This is a very simple but really tasty soup. You can add other

flavours

to

it for lots of variation.

1 avocado, peeled and stoned

4 tomatoes

A handful of basil

1/4 of a cup of cold pressed olive oil

Blend all ingredients. If it's too thick add some freshly made tomato

or

cucumber juice.

 

Warm-Feeling-Inside Salad

This salad is such comforting one, it will make you glow!

 

1 bunch of lettuce

1 or 2 fennel bulbs (depending on size)

1 red onion

1 clove of garlic

1 red pepper, de-seeded

1 orange pepper, de-seeded

6 tomatoes

1 cup of pumpkin sprouts or seeds, soaked

4 sticks of celery

2 avocados, peeled and stoned

10 macadamias

1 cup of watercress

4 dates, pitted

 

Prepare the lettuce in your favourite way, chop the fennel, onion,

peppers,

tomatoes, watercress and celery. Finely chop the garlic and dates, and

slice

the avocado. Toss all the ingredients together except the macadamias -

you

need to throw these on top from a very great height.

 

(Editor's note: I especially enjoyed the " Before " and " After " pictures

of

some raw-food enthusiasts which are posted at

http://www.shazzie.com/raw/transformation/ Send in your snapshots,

folks!)

 

 

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Copyright c 2001 and prior years Andrew W. Saul

drsaul

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