DOCTOR YOURSELF Newsletter (Vol 2, No 22) September 20, 2002

[Guest guest]

" Andrew W. Saul, PhD " wrote:(To UN:

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To for free: update- )

 

" Learn and live. If you don't, you won't. " (WWII U.S. Army training film)

 

The DOCTOR YOURSELF NEWSLETTER (Vol 2, No 22) September 20, 2002

 

" 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 over 350 natural healing articles with nearly 4,000

scientific references.

 

CHARITABLE VITAMIN DISPENSARIES AND HOW TO OPEN ONE

 

It all started 20 years ago at a soup kitchen. I was volunteering a small

bit of time at St.. Joseph's house of Hospitality in inner-city Rochester,

NY. St.. Joe's, as it is locally known, feeds about a hundred poor people

daily. Not everyone who comes in for the free lunch is starving, but some

are. At the beginning of the first sitting, I happened to see one little

boy, about 6 years old or so, who really seemed to be looking forward to his

meal that day. I saw what he had set in front of him: an enormous helping of

a simple type of goulash (macaroni, hamburger, tomato sauce).

 

" Are you really going to eat all that? " I asked him, smiling.

 

" Yes I am, " he answered, with a far bigger smile.

 

And he was right, too. Did that kid ever eat. He finished his first plateful

so fast he must have inhaled it. He had seconds, and thirds, and quite

possibly fourths that I wasn't fast enough to see. I had never witnessed a

child eat that much before, and my own kids had hefty appetites of their

own, let me tell you.

 

The impression this made on me was pretty strong. It occurred to me, yummy

and filling though goulash might be, that this child's overall nutritional

needs probably were not being met. He, and every other person off the

street, needed a daily vitamin supplement as well as their daily bread.

 

The staff at St.. Joe's unhesitatingly agreed, and with the help of

donations, I raised enough money to provide a high-potency multivitamin to

each person who wanted one, served right along with their free meal.

 

This program was successful and expanded. In an interview with The Mother

Earth News (Jan-Feb 1984, Issue 85,

http://www.doctoryourself.com/motherearth.html ), I told of additional

benefits of vitamins for transients:

 

" Simple, easily available vitamins can actually fight drug addiction. I've

written to (then First Lady) Nancy Reagan and expressed my support for her

fight against drug abuse in children. And I told her of our work with our

vitamin dispensary that serves the poor in Rochester. We have seen substance

abuse trail off when individuals get adequate vitamin supplements. . .

especially B vitamins and vitamin C in substantial quantities. I suggested

to Mrs. Reagan that she help develop a national vitamin supplementation

program. Naturally, all I got in reply was a polite letter from her press

secretary. Yet I've talked to street people who were so drunk they couldn't

stand up without my holding them. We get such alcoholics on vitamin C and B

complex, though, and those individuals can get off the booze. And that means

a lot. "

 

Though funding eventually became a problem, we have recently decided to

re-open the dispensary. As you read this, St. Joe's is not only feeding the

hungry but is also helping each person to better health with free

nutritional supplementation.

 

WHAT DOES IT COST: When money is tight, I get the cheapest, most basic

" Centrum " -like generic multivitamin that I can find, which is about three

cents per tablet at Wal-Mart. However, I greatly prefer to provide a

high-potency multivitamin that has significantly larger amounts of the

B-complex and vitamin C. This supplement costs about seven cents per tablet

when I order it wholesale in quantity. (No, you cannot get it at Wal-Mart,

and requests sent to me as to where to buy this or any other supplement will

be answered with a form letter. My readers know I simply will not get

involved in commercial issues.)

 

Seven cents per tablet for one hundred people is seven dollars a day, or

approximately $200 each month. It is actually a little cheaper than that,

since not every person chooses to take a vitamin.

 

IF YOU WANT TO HELP: This time, we want this program to continue

uninterrupted. The best part of it is that it is very cost-efficient. This

is an all-volunteer effort. Every cent we receive in donations goes to

purchase vitamins for the poor. There is no overhead. Any donations we may

receive are not tax-deductible. My address is at the bottom of this

Newsletter if you would like to assist.

 

We have a waiting list of charities in other towns that would like free

vitamins provided to them. There is no limit to how far this idea can go.

For instance, you might want to start such a program where you live. Here's

how:

 

GUIDELINES FOR CREATING A VITAMIN DISPENSARY IN YOUR COMMUNITY

 

I personally follow the " Ready, Fire, Aim " approach: Just do it. There are

no doubt other, more dignified ways to proceed, but this is how I would (and

did) go about it.

 

1) Do not reinvent the wheel. Find the service organization(s) that already

are feeding the poor. These may include public free-food shelves, civic

groups, fraternal societies, clubs, community centers, outreach programs and

churches. Call them up, find who is in charge, and pitch the idea. My

experience is that either they will immediately like it, or they won't. It

has never taken me more than five minutes to sell the idea or know that I

can't.

 

2) Line up your sources. Ask health food stores, doctors' offices,

retailers, vitamin distributors, and vitamin manufacturers to give you

bottles of multivitamin tablets. Samples or nearly outdated supplements

might be especially easy to get. If you do not get product donations, maybe

you can at least get a special price. Ask. Comparison shop. Search the 'Net.

 

3) Keep it free and keep it volunteer. This is the secret to simplicity,

efficiency, credibility, and legality. If all money raised is spent on

vitamins for the poor, complications are very unlikely. Keep a simple record

of cash donations received and save receipts for all supplements purchased.

I am not a financial or legal authority; when in doubt, look up the law with

the help of your public librarian.

 

4) Ask friends and family to help. Remember too that this is a newsworthy

project. Most local newspapers and TV news programs run a special

Thanksgiving feature on what the homeless are doing for their holiday

dinner. Here is the perfect match up for such human interest pieces.

 

BOOK REVIEW:

 

Syndrome X: The Complete Nutritional Program to Prevent and Reverse Insulin

Resistance, by Jack Challem, Burton Berkson, M.D., and Melissa Diane Smith

(NY: Wiley, 2000. Paperback, 250 pages plus appendices and index)

 

I have math anxiety, and you can thank the " New Math " for that. In

elementary school, we were taught a completely different system of

arithmetic every single year. As an innocent product of this confusion, I

was still counting on my fingers in sixth grade. Sure, the class brainiacs

could do problems in base seven, and took pride in doing homework that

parents (and even older brothers) could not comprehend. The flip side was

that the rest of us did not know even our basic multiplication tables, or

what hillbilly scholar Jethro Clampett called " ciphering. " I probably had

more ability with imaginary numbers than with the real ones. I understood

the binary system and Venn diagrams, yet routinely bungled even simple long

division. That's the " New Math " for you. As musical satirist (and former

Harvard math professor) Tom Lehrer says, " The important thing is to

understand what you are doing rather than to get the right answer. "

 

So we ended up with a lot of fairly useless knowledge and virtually no

practical ability in getting the job done.

 

This closely resembles modern medicine.

 

In math, " X " generally indicates an unknown quantity. But there is nothing

unknown about the quantity of Americans that die annually due to diseases

discussed in Syndrome X: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and

cancer. The total is astounding: over 1.6 million dead. Per year. This

actually exceeds the number of all American soldiers killed in all the wars

we have ever fought, put together.

 

Pharmacological medicine has failed to stem this grim tide. What's worse,

drug medicine has become a major killer in its own right. Syndrome X makes

no bones about it, citing a 1998 JAMA study reporting that " 106,000

hospitalized patients die annually because of adverse drug reactions and

2,216,000 other hospitalized patients have serious but nonfatal drug

reactions. . . (A)dverse drug reactions could rank as the fourth leading

cause of death, after heart disease, cancer, and stroke. " (p. 55)

 

The extent to which physicians doggedly employ pharmaceuticals indicates the

extent to which they are unfamiliar with a safe and effective alternative

already right at hand: preventive and therapeutic nutrition. When their

ever-sick patients trustingly line up for still more drug prescriptions,

surely the blind have been led by the blind.

 

I value Syndrome X's appropriate and unhesitating criticism of drug-and-cut

medicine. However, the book's outstanding feature is its straightforward

what-you-can-do-about-it approach, complete with both preventive and

therapeutic diet plans. I like practical, do-it-yourself advice that is

clearly presented, well organized, and reference-filled. And I especially

like books that recommend high doses of vitamins and low doses of sugar.

 

Syndrome X is such a book. It is based to a considerable degree on the

pioneering work of Surgeon-Captain Thomas L. Cleave of the British Royal

Navy. Half a century ago, Dr. Cleave stood virtually alone as he made one of

the first strong scientific cases showing that sugar causes diabetes and a

variety of other serious diseases. His classic book, The Saccharine Disease

(all about sugar, not the artificial sweetener, and reviewed at

 

http://www.doctoryourself.com/morebooks.html ) was among the first to

rigorously condemn modern man's gross over consumption of refined

carbohydrates. While dietitians (with the full support of the food

processing industry) have relentlessly denied any such connection, time and

research have proven Cleave right.

 

Syndrome X is written for those fed up with chronic illness. It wastes no

words, promptly zeroing in on insulin resistance as a major cause of

life-wrecking obesity, fatigue, and adult-onset (Type II) diabetes. Heart

disease, still our number one killer, is presented by the authors for what

it truly is: a nutritional disease that must be prevented with nutrition and

cured by nutrition. And although it is by no means the book's emphasis,

cancer's roots in malnutrition are also presented.

 

Everybody knows that reducing their intake of dietary fat is a good idea.

Syndrome X presses further, urging people to cut down on, or better yet cut

out, refined carbohydrates. To the extent that this means sugar and

processed, useless white flour, I could not agree more. But Syndrome X also

promotes the somewhat controversial Robert C. Atkins dietary ideal of a

relatively high intake animal protein. Animal rights issues aside, I think

this is not necessary, nor even a good idea. American diets are already

high-protein, many of us eating three or more times the amount of protein we

actually require. Long term heavy protein use overloads the kidneys and is a

contributes to early membership in the dialysis-for-lunch bunch.

 

This may not have been a worry for high-risk, short-lived cave men. These

original eaters of the Paleolithic Diet that (along with the Mediterranean

and Atkins diets) forms the basis of the book's " Anti-X " diet, probably had

enough trouble finding anything to eat. Certainly their diet was very low in

sugar. It was probably low in all carbohydrates. For that matter, it was

probably low in everything. Ancient hunters were not awash in meat. They

were opportunistic and ate what they could get and were lucky to get it.

Ever notice how skinny cheetahs are? Nine out of ten cheetah attacks fail to

bring down a gazelle. I doubt if humans fared all that much better than

could a 50-mile-per-hour sprinting set of claws.

 

As written, Syndrome X is not pleasant bedtime reading for vegetarians.

Since my sympathy has been in the meatless camp for so long now (my

now-adult children were raised vegetarian), I think a virtually-vegetarian

version of the book might be a particularly good idea. It is also quite

possible that the reader can make the necessary veggie adjustments. For

instance, nuts and especially seeds are encouraged in the " Anti-X " diet, and

they are very good protein sources indeed as long as they are well-chewed.

The authors also correctly point out the special value of omega-3 " fish

oils " which may, to many people's surprise, be obtained from green leafy

vegetables and even walnuts (p. 94). For near-vegetarians, the book's

support of eggs and low-fat dairy should go down easy. But I must say that,

as a big fan of oriental cuisine, the how-to-eat-at-restaurants (Chapter 8)

recommendation of having Chinese food with no rice was, for me at least,

approaching the impossible.

 

Lest the wrong impression endure, I wish to praise Syndrome X's relentless

sugar-bashing. THOSE carbos should go, and without a farewell kiss. But I

remain a complex-carbo kind of guy, and I have something of an

organic-brown-rice macrobiotic streak in me. Whole grains, oatmeal, sweet

potatoes and especially legumes (lentils and beans) are high on my list but

middle-to-low on the Anti-X diet plan (p.86). Yet the book's constant stress

on whole, high-fiber, unprocessed foods is in general excellent. It is the

protein-carbohydrate issue where I disagree.

 

And now for some unequivocal praise. Chapters 12 through 15 are superb

discussions of the value of vitamins E, C, minerals, and other important

nutrients, respectively. Recommendations of 400 to 800 International Units

(IU) of vitamin E and 2,000 to 4000 milligrams of vitamin C are right after

my own heart (and very good for yours). I have never seen a better guide to

purchasing vitamin E than will be found on pages 181-183. Chromium (up to

1,000 micrograms) and magnesium, zinc, selenium, manganese and even newcomer

vanadium are all discussed, and discussed well. Coenzyme Q-10, the vitamin

C-helping flavinoids, and a number of herbs are considered in brief. Alpha

lipoic acid supplementation is singled out for detailed consideration in

Chapter 11, a chapter that taught me a great deal. Exercise suggestions,

recipes, resources, and guidelines for customizing the diet for your

particular needs round out the book.

 

Syndrome X has a personal " talking to you " style that I enjoy very much. It

is easy to read and nonetheless backed up with over 100 scientific studies.

It is well designed and user friendly, with many summaries and boxes to

highlight key information.

 

I may still have some residual math anxiety, but I have no hesitation in

recommending Syndrome X. No, I am not going to stop advocating

near-vegetarianism, because I do believe it to be the very best of diets.

But, unlike the proponents of the New Math, I do not care a fig as to

exactly how you get the right result as long as you do in fact get it.

Syndrome X's essential message is close enough for me: improve your diet and

you will improve your life.

 

That's an answer we can all agree on.

 

(Principal author Jack Challem responds: )

 

" I'll explain some of my/our thinking. The diet plan is not really an

Atkins' style plan. Ours is protein rich, not high protein. Considerable

anthropological evidence (papers by Cordain, Eaton) indicates that there

have been no fully vegetarian societies. The majority of Paleo and modern

Stone Age societies were animal protein dominant, a few were vegetarian

dominant, and a few were pretty evenly divided. I think the Paleo

hunter-gatherer diet is our evolutionary and genetic baseline, which

orthomolecular health should build upon. Grains and legumes provide large

amounts of carbs, and (a personal observation) many vegetarians don't eat

much in the way of vegetables -- they're hooked on breads and pastas and

muffins. Two new books that explore the health hazards of grains are Going

Against the Grain, by Melissa Diane Smith (who actually conceived our

" Anti-X " diet plan) and Dangerous Grains, by James Braly.

 

" I have had other vegetarians ask me about an " Anti-X " diet plan geared to

vegetarians. Apparently, there are a number of vegetarians with insulin

resistance. My feeling is this: if a particular diet is making someone sick,

that is not the right diet plan for them. Again, the problem may be

vegetarians who aren't really very smart. I think a vegetarian could

construct a good diet high in veggies and low in grain-based carbs. But as

many vegetarians simply avoid animal products, and that does not ensure a

good diet.

 

" I certainly agree that cutting out the junk may be the most important step;

once that's done and adhered to, it almost doesn't matter what " good " foods

a person eats. The bottom line is simple: you know the type of diet that

makes you feel your best. Likewise for me. It's a testament to biochemical

individuality. "

 

(Jack Chellem, aka " The Nutrition Reporter, " publishes an excellent print

newsletter of the same name. His website is

http://www.thenutritionreporter.com )

 

READERS SAY

 

'ALLO, 'ALLO, ALOE! "

You forgot to include aloe vera, squeezed fresh from the

plant, among your burn remedies listed in the last issue (Doctor Yourself

Newsletter, Vol. 2, No 21 http://www.doctoryourself.com/news/v2n21.txt ). I

have used it for years and it works very well. "

 

" You may wish to add aloe aera to your list of helps for esophagitis.

Drinking some aloe juice really helps soothe and heal the esophagus. "

 

Right you both are. Thank you for keeping me honest.

 

BE PREPARED

 

How will you get your vitamins should CODEX restrictions become the law of

the land? By eating lots of megadose munchies: the foods of the true health

nut.

 

FOODS THAT ARE THEMSELVES SUPPLEMENTS

* NUTRITIONAL or BREWER'S YEAST (Vitamin B-12, other B-vitamins, Chromium,

Selenium) Like most foods, these won't fit into tablets. Try hiding the

flavor in pineapple juice. You may prefer the taste of primary-grown

nutritional yeast, as it is not a byproduct of beer making. Debittered

brewers' yeast also offers a taste improvement.

 

* WHEAT GERM (Vitamin E, magnesium, B-vitamins, protein) If vacuum packed,

one of the very best foods in the supermarket. Only buy very fresh,

refrigerated wheat germ at the health food store. The nose knows: smell to

tell if it is fresh.

 

* SPROUTED GRAINS, SPROUTED BEANS (complete protein, all vitamins and

minerals, fiber) Eat raw and often. The best food at the salad bar. Probably

the most complete food you'll find. Low calorie and cheap to grow at home.

If I had only one food to recommend, it would be this.

 

* FRESH, RAW VEGETABLE JUICE (carotene, minerals and vitamins in general,

fiber) Tastes great and is better for you than any beverage on Earth. Get a

juicer, and use it! No bottled vitamins can compare to an uncooked,

concentrated extract of veggies. Drink some daily.

 

* WHEATGRASS JUICE (Large quantities of vitamin C, vitamins and minerals in

general, chlorophyll) Wheat is cheap. Sprout it in your kitchen! On a flat

tray or two, under a bit of soil, you can have an indoor sprout farm. When

several inches high, harvest with regular scissors. Add a bit of water while

putting the wheatgrass through the juicer.

 

* YOGURT (calcium, phosphorus, beneficial acidophilus bacteria, protein,

B-vitamins) About the easiest dairy food to digest and absorb. Dilute with

water as an alternative to milk. Ever notice that over one-third of most

" fruited " yogurts is sugar-laden jam? Buy plain and sweeten it yourself.

 

* LECITHIN Granules by the tablespoon beat those horse pills that contain

only 1.2 grams of the stuff. Cheapest, best source of choline, linolenic

acid, phospholipids and inositol. Totally vegetarian. Start small and

gradually increase your daily lecithin.

 

* WHOLE WHEAT, BARLEY, OATS, BROWN RICE (fiber, vitamins and minerals,

protein, complex carbohydrates) Who needs extra bran or laxatives when you

can just eat the fiber-rich whole grain in the first place?

 

* NUTS are rich in magnesium and protein. They are not fattening unless they

are salted and oiled such that you overeat and under-chew them. Slow down,

eat them in their natural state, and consider them a meat-replacing main

course.

 

* MOLASSES (iron, and more) Avoid bitter-tasting blackstrap and select a

" primary " or sweet molasses as an alternative to junk-food snacks.

 

* FRESH FRUIT AND RAW VEGETABLES are loaded with fiber, potassium, and

bioflavinoids, in addition to their well-known, if modest, quantities of

vitamins and minerals. So eat a lot of them. My kids would, literally, make

eight trips per meal to any all-you-can-eat salad bar that was fool enough

to let us in. I was right behind them. So if you cannot megadose with

tablets, megadose with low-calorie raw foods.

 

Do I eat this way? Sure do. Do I expect you to? Well, that depends. But if

you do not like the idea of losing your options, let your demand for free

access to high-potency vitamin supplements be heard immediately

 

( http://www.doctoryourself.com/write_now.html ).

 

READERS ASK ABOUT COUGHING

 

" Now that school has started, how about some information on natural cough

remedies before the cold-and-flu season? "

 

COLTSFOOT herb (Tussilago farfara) leaves made into a tea remains one of the

best cough medicines I know of. You can buy dried coltsfoot at any herb

store and at many health food stores. It is not expensive and has a low

likelihood of side effects with occasional use. (Not for use during

pregnancy or nursing. I recommend a library or internet search for

" coltsfoot herb toxicity. "

 

http://www.healthwell.com/healthnotes/Herb/Coltsfoot.cfm

 

and http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/faqs/medi-3-12-cough.html are especially

well-balanced resources.) As an alternative to even riskier patent or

prescription cough medicines, herbal remedies deserve fair consideration.

 

Use a tablespoon or two of herb to each mug of hot water. For an adult,

several mugs full can even stop the cough of pneumonia. I know, because I

had pneumonia and was sick as a dog... a constantly coughing dog, that is.

Prescription cough medicine WITH CODEINE did not touch it. Three mugs of

coltsfoot tea eliminated coughing for hours. It is the only cough remedy we

ever needed in our house.

 

Cough is generally a symptom of some other problem in the body. It is wise

to " pull the rug out from under " the cough by helping the rest of the body

get well. Vegetable juicing does that better than anything I know.

 

( http://www.doctoryourself.com/juicefast.html and

 

http://www.doctoryourself.com/juicing_2.html ) Healthy bodies do not cough.

 

Whether it is a cold, flu, or pneumonia, strengthening one's immune system

with extra vitamin can only help. I've written elsewhere about how to treat

viral illness with vitamin C

 

( http://www.doctoryourself.com/colds.html ,

 

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

 

and http://www.doctoryourself.com/vitaminc2.html ). A simple reminder: " Take

enough C to be symptom free, whatever the amount might be. " That is usually

just under the amount that would result in loose bowels.

 

When my daughter was four years old, she had a bad cough. We endured it for

two nights while doing everything doctors suggest. Yes, she had strict bed

rest. Yes, she even had codeine cough syrup. Yes, she still was coughing

after 48 hours of this and yes, I'd had enough. While my wife escaped to go

bowling, I was sufficiently sick of sickness to start my daughter on a

teaspoon (about 4,000 milligrams) of vitamin C crystals in juice every hour.

When my wife returned, the cough was gone. We continued to give this little

girl vitamin C for the rest of the day, and she remained quiet and

comfortable. She had a total of 36,000 mg of " C " since about 1 PM.

 

During the night the cough came back. We got up, gave her a teaspoon of

Vitamin C, and everyone was shortly asleep once again. The next morning, the

cough was back again, and we met it with vitamin C every hour. We kept that

cough down by keeping her " C " up. It worked.

 

I tell you this to let you know that I've been there too. Those all-night

battles for a sick child are really tough. Vitamin C and coltsfoot are

tough, too. When you really need them, they really work.

 

And everybody sleeps much better.

 

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AN IMPORTANT NOTE: This newsletter is not in any way offered as

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physical condition. Any form of self-treatment or alternative health program

necessarily must involve an individual's acceptance of some risk, and no one

should assume otherwise. Persons needing medical care should obtain it from

a physician. Consult your doctor before making any health decision.

 

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