What Supplements Might be Missing from your Health Regimen?

[onawah]

Are your “organic” supplements clean?
From:Nick Pineault np@theemfguy.com
6/24/22
https://supplementsrevealed.com/eboo...a_bid=4ab8460a

(This looks time consuming, but will probably have some good info. Sometimes they will offer transcripts with these docuseries, so that you can skim through to find what you want, instead of having to watch the videos from start to finish. In any case, the booklet is free if you sign up for the free docuseries. And they aren't selling any brand of supplements.)

"Download your FREE copy of
Vitamin Buying Guide: What Every Multivitamin User Needs to Know...
Do you know the most important supplements you should be taking?
Or how about the problem with many “vegetarian” or “organic” supplements?
Get the answer to these questions and much more in your free copy today…

ADDITIONAL BONUS: You have qualified for a special FREE airing of the new Supplements Revealed 2022 docuseries presented by Health Answers. Get your free guide book AND access this groundbreaking series now…"
Sigh up here: https://supplementsrevealed.com/eboo...a_bid=4ab8460a

If you just want the free ebook it's here: https://supplementsrevealed.com/wp-c...Guide-2022.pdf

[mojo]

I just ordered a food blender and planning on making smoothies. I have never made them before and know Im behind the curve... But you can teach an old dog new tricks!

[onawah]

The ads for this docuseries stated they were not not selling a brand of supplements, but the very first speaker is touting the brand that he created. It's probably a relatively good one (though probably quite expensive too) but still...
That episode is airing today for free here: https://supplementsrevealed.com/e1-akg/
Over 2 hours of this doctor (with a huge ego) going on and on (lots about himself), but you have to buy the whole series to get the time-saving transcripts.
Very frustrating to me that these kinds of docuseries usually have some good info, but their chief motive is obviously profit.

Posted by onawah (here)
Are your “organic” supplements clean?
From:Nick Pineault np@theemfguy.com
6/24/22
https://supplementsrevealed.com/eboo...a_bid=4ab8460a

(This looks time consuming, but will probably have some good info. Sometimes they will offer transcripts with these docuseries, so that you can skim through to find what you want, instead of having to watch the videos from start to finish. In any case, the booklet is free if you sign up for the free docuseries. And they aren't selling any brand of supplements.)

"Download your FREE copy of
Vitamin Buying Guide: What Every Multivitamin User Needs to Know...
Do you know the most important supplements you should be taking?
Or how about the problem with many “vegetarian” or “organic” supplements?
Get the answer to these questions and much more in your free copy today…

ADDITIONAL BONUS: You have qualified for a special FREE airing of the new Supplements Revealed 2022 docuseries presented by Health Answers. Get your free guide book AND access this groundbreaking series now…"
Sigh up here: https://supplementsrevealed.com/eboo...a_bid=4ab8460a

If you just want the free ebook it's here: https://supplementsrevealed.com/wp-c...Guide-2022.pdf

(If I was going to recommend a brand of supplements, I would recommend Dr. Mercola's. He goes to great lengths and at risk to himself to get the truth out about supplements, health, and other vital information, which is why he is often censored. I trust his integrity. )

[mojo]

Made my first smoothie today. Put carrots in and made if very pulpy, but at least getting lots of fiber. Also past the 16 week cardio regimen and was sweating considerably over a liter and never realized people usually lack Potassium after sweating a lot and of course salt as well, but we usually get plenty of salt in our diets but not so Potassium.

[onawah]

It's hard to get all the nutrients you need if you are ingesting a lot of pulp.
I recommend the Omega Masticating Juicers. They start as low as $150.
The motors in these things are awsome. I had my first one for 10 years and I used it twice daily, fruit juice on the am, vegie in the pm.
I'm on my seond one now, and still using some of the parts from the first one.

See: https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/sto...black/5483645?
skuId=69533103&enginename=bing&mcid=PS_bing_nonbrand_kitchenelectrics_Online&product_id=69533103&adt ype=&product_channel=Online&adpos=&creative=&device=c&matchtype=e&network=o&msclkid=8579ed07d2a41c1e 111c8fbc6cb4f06c&wmSkipPwa=true

Posted by mojo (here)
Made my first smoothie today. Put carrots in and made if very pulpy, but at least getting lots of fiber. Also past the 16 week cardio regimen and was sweating considerably over a liter and never realized people usually lack Potassium after sweating a lot and of course salt as well, but we usually get plenty of salt in our diets but not so Potassium.

[onawah]

Big Pharma Wants to Put an End to Vitamins and Supplements
by Dr. Joseph Mercola
July 19, 2022
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...rid=1552669987

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1LAXE_kN4pU

"STORY AT-A-GLANCE
One of the latest attempts to thwart your ability to access nutritional supplements comes in the form of draft legislation that would require premarket approval for dietary supplements.
In short, it would require supplements — which are food — to undergo the same approval process as drugs
In the past, the drug industry and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has tried to ban certain supplements, including vitamin B6 and N-acetylcysteine (NAC), by reclassifying them as new drugs
Another strategy the drug industry has been using to gain a monopoly over the supplement industry is to buy up supplement brands.
Just 14 mega corporations — many of them drug companies — now own more than 100 of the most popular supplement brands on the market
This monopoly over the supplement industry gives drug companies enormous regulatory influence, and that’s a way by which they could eliminate independent supplement makers who can’t afford to put their products through the drug approval process.
Indeed, it seems that’s what the Durbin-Braun premarket approval proposal is trying to accomplish
Take action to protect widespread access to dietary supplements.
Contact your Senators and urge them to oppose the Dietary Supplement Listing Act of 2022, and its inclusion in the FDA Safety Landmark Advancements Act

In the video above Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director for the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), interviews Gretchen DuBeau, the executive and legal director for the Alliance for Natural Health, who in addition to being a lawyer also has a master's degree in applied healing arts, talk about Big Pharma's efforts to eliminate one of its greatest competitors, namely nutritional supplements.

One of the latest attempts to thwart your ability to access nutritional supplements comes in the form of draft legislation that would require premarket approval for dietary supplements. In short, it would require supplements to undergo the same approval process as drugs.

The Durbin-Braun Premarket Approval Proposal
A discussion draft of the legislation was released by the United States Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) in mid-May 2022. As reported by Vitamin Retailer:1

"On May 17 [2022], the United States Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) released a discussion draft of its legislation to reauthorize FDA user fees for drugs, biologics and medical devices package, which includes the controversial and divisive Durbin-Braun premarket approval concept and more that would be damaging to the industry, according to the Natural Products Association (NPA).2

'The NPA is significantly concerned with Chair Murray and Republican Leader Burr who failed to reject the radical and dangerous legislation from Senators Durbin and Braun that would require premarket approval for dietary supplements and weaken key privacy protections of the Bioterrorism Act, which protects the dietary supplement supply chain,' said Daniel Fabricant, Ph.D. president and CEO of the NPA.

'Last time I checked, dietary supplements are not drugs, biologics or medical devices, so why Congress or anyone supporting nongermane legislation that will only add costs to consumers who are doing all they can to stay healthy is extremely troubling.

Groups who [sic] have supported this legislation, have stated there are protections for technical disagreements with the FDA like those with hemp, CBD, NAC, and several other products. However, if this legislation were to pass, it is abundantly clear these products would be eliminated from the market.'"

For years, the drug industry, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's support, has tried to get nutritional supplements off the market. One of the most often used tactics has been to try to reclassify them as drugs.

Usually, they would target specific nutrients that stood in their way of profits, but legislation such as the Durbin-Braun premarket proposal would allow the drug industry to monopolize the market in one fell swoop.

Big Pharma Tried to Ban Vitamin B6
The fight over vitamin B6 (pyroxidine) is one example of how Big Pharma tried to eliminate a natural substance that stood in the way of a drug patent. In 2007, Medicure Pharma submitted a citizen's petition to the FDA in which it argued that any dietary supplement containing pyridoxal 5'-phosphate — vitamin B6 — were "adulterated" under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, article 402(f).3

In essence, Medicure wanted all vitamin B6 products banned, because they undermined the company's incentive to continue development of it's drug version of B6.

Medicure had gotten wise to vitamin B6's effectiveness against ischemia (inadequate blood flow), and decided to make a drug out of it by simply renaming the vitamin "MC-1." They entered it into the drug bank and then argued that B6 supplements contained "their" MC-1. The drug bank even admits the renamed vitamin B6, i.e., MC-1, is:4

"... a biologically active natural product which can be regarded as a chemical entity that has been evolutionarily selected and validated for binding to particular protein domains."

The main reason why drug companies engage in this kind of sleight of hand is because once a substance is classified as a drug, you can jack up the price by 1,000% over the supplement's typical retail.5

FDA Cracking Down on NAC
Perhaps the most recent example of the FDA trying to shut down easy access to nutritional supplements was its 2020 attack on N-acetylcysteine (NAC). NAC has been a widely-used dietary supplement for six decades, yet the FDA suddenly decided to crack down on it in late July 2020 — right after it was discovered how useful it was for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.6

According to the FDA, NAC was excluded from the definition of a dietary supplement because it had been approved as a new drug in 1963.7 But if that was the case, why did they wait until 2020 to take action?

As reported by NPI at the time,8 there were more than 1,170 NAC-containing products in the National Institutes of Health's Dietary Supplement Label Database when the FDA started sending out warning letters9 to companies that marketed NAC as a remedy for hangovers.

Members of the Council for Responsible Nutrition also worried the FDA might start to target NAC more widely. So far, that hasn't happened, but Amazon immediately stopped selling all NAC products after those warning letters went out, whether the sellers marketed it as a hangover remedy or not.

Also, the selection of "hangover" for those warning letters seemed arbitrary at best. The fact is that several scientists had called attention to NAC's benefits against COVID, and shortly afterward, the FDA came up with this ridiculous excuse to limit the availability of it. It just smacked of conflict of interest.

Another Way Big Pharma Is Seeking to Take Over
Another strategy the drug industry has been using to gain a monopoly over the supplement industry is by simply buying up supplement brands. Nestlé Health Science, for example, has acquired Garden of Life, Vital Proteins, Nuun, Pure Encapsulations, Wobenzym, Douglas Laboratories, Persona Nutrition, Genestra, Orthica, Minami, AOV, Klean Athlete and Bountiful.10

Bountiful, in turn, owns brands like Solgar, Osteo Bi-Flex, Puritan's Pride, Ester-C and Sundown, all of which are now under Nestlé's control. The Bountiful brands alone generated net sales of $1.87 billion in the 12 months ending March 31, 2021, so the $5.75 billion agreement to acquire a majority stake, signed in August 2021, didn't necessarily burn a big hole in Nestlé's pocket. According to J.P. Morgan analyst Celine Pannuti, quoted by Natural Products Insider:11

"Through the acquisition of The Bountiful Co., Nestlé can build a 'leading position' in the 'fragmented category' for vitamins, minerals and supplements, which 'has delivered the highest and most consistent growth in consumer health care over the past 10 years.'"

The 'Free Market Competition' Lie
In all, a mere 14 mega corporations — many of them drug companies — now own more than 100 of the most popular supplement brands on the market. The graphic below is from Neal Smoller, PharmD, the holistic pharmacist's website.12

It doesn't show the ownership of all available brands, but it gives you an idea of just how small the ownership circle has become. As noted by Smoller, many competing brands are even owned by the same corporation, rendering the notion of free market competition null and void.



Importantly, owning the lion's share of supplement companies puts the drug industry in a unique position to get rid of them whenever they so desire. They could intentionally make the company tank simply by cutting advertising, for example. Cutting quality could have a similar effect, while simultaneously cheating customers who rely on dietary supplements for optimal nutrition and health.

Most important of all, however, this monopoly over the supplement industry gives drug companies enormous regulatory influence, and that's a way by which they could eliminate independent supplement makers who can't compete financially. Indeed, that seems to be what the Durbin-Braun proposal is all about.

Supplements Have Phenomenal Safety Profiles
This new proposed legislation would technically ban most supplements, as few supplement makers have the financial resources required to meet drug approval requirements. The only ones with pockets deep enough to do that would be the mega-corporations.

Putting vitamins and nutrients through the drug evaluation and approval process would automatically eliminate many supplements from the market and result in higher retail prices for whatever remains. It would also allow drug companies to rename basic nutrients, label them drugs, and jack up the price even further.

We cannot let this happen. Dietary supplements are FOOD, plain and simple. They should not be treated as drugs, which must undergo rigorous testing to evaluate effects and safety. Supplements have a long history of near-spotless safety and don't need drug-style testing.

Supplements Are the Safest Foodstuffs Available
Deaths associated with use of dietary supplements are extremely rare compared to the death toll from prescription drugs, yet supplements are routinely singled out as being potentially dangerous,13,14 either due to lack of testing, lack of regulation or both. The thing is, supplements don't need safety testing, as they are food, and they are, in fact, fully regulated.

In 2015, CBC News published a Marketplace report15 in which they claimed a number of supplement makers had ripped off customers by failing to live up to the claims on their labels. Two months later, they had to retract the report,16 when it was proven their tests were inaccurate. That's just one example of how the pharma-owned media tries to give supplements a bad rap.

Nutritional supplements are the safest foodstuffs available; adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs are 62,000 times more likely to kill you than nutritional supplements.
Meanwhile, in the real world, not a single death has ever been reported as a direct result of taking a supplement. On the contrary, data provided in a 2012 report by the UK-based Alliance for Natural Health International (ANHI), showed nutritional supplements are the safest foodstuffs available.

Your risk of dying from an herbal product or dietary supplement is less than 1 in 10 million, comparable to your risk of being killed by lighting. ANHI also calculated that adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs are 62,000 times more likely to kill you than nutritional supplements.17

So, the one thing that can be conclusively said about supplements is that they may be the safest category of any consumable product. On the whole, junk food and drugs are FAR more likely to harm or kill you.

What's more, lack of human trials does not mean supplements are unregulated. They're regulated by both the FDA18 and the Federal Trade Commission19 (FTC). The FDA regulates the finished product and individual ingredients, while the FTC regulates the advertising of supplements. So, while not regulated as drugs, but rather as a food, they are fully regulated.

Take Action NOW to Protect Your Supplements From Disappearing
As noted by NPA president and CEO, Daniel Fabricant:20

"The war is far from over. We need America's health and wellness advocates to continue writing their members of Congress through the NPA Action Center. Grassroots involvement over the coming weeks is absolutely critical to defeating this radical and dangerous proposal."

I join Fabricant in urging you to contact your senators and urge them to oppose the Dietary Supplement Listing Act of 2022, and its inclusion in the FDA Safety Landmark Advancements Act. A list of contact numbers can be found here. https://www.npanational.org/senator-contact-list/
On that same page, the NPA also has a sample script with key talking points.

If you take supplements and you want to continue the freedom to take them in the future, it is VITAL that if you live in the U.S. that you let you representatives know. Not only would I email them in the link below (be sure to customize it and change it) but I would also call your representatives! It worked previously and will work now, but you need to be involved.
https://anh-usa.org/action-center/

Alternatively, you can take action by sending an email. The Alliance for Natural Health makes it easy on SaveSupplements.com. Phone calls are more effective, but if for some reason you don't want to call, Alliance for Natural Health has created a prewritten email that will be automatically sent to the U.S. president, senators and representatives.

- Sources and References
1, 20 Vitamin Retailer May 23, 2022
2 NPA National May 17, 2022
3, 5 Online Holistic Health January 5, 2012
4 Drug Bank MC-1
6 Researchgate, April 2020 [Preprint]
7 New Hope Network April 27, 2022
8 Natural Products Insider August 11, 2020
9 FDA.gov July 29, 2020
10, 11 Natural Products Insider August 9, 2021
12 Dr. Neal Smoller March 30, 2018
13 Alliance for Natural Health October 15, 2015
14 NewHope360 January 20, 2016
15 CBC News Marketplace Report November 20, 2015
16 CBC January 21, 2016
17 Nutraingredients July 11, 2012
18 FDA Regulation of Dietary Supplements
19 Federal Trade Commission, Dietary Supplements: An Advertising Guide for Industry

[mojo]

Really appreciate this thread.... was reading about exercise and sweating and found out that, not only is Sodium released in our sweat but a good amount of Potassium. This is another nutrient that our bodies are needing that's in short supply even more than you get in things like bananas. Bananas are high in Potassium but they only supply 10% of bodily needs. I also added Spirulina to my smoothie. I wonder if Spirulina powder is active/alive as the container says keep out of sun or heat.

[onawah]

They say “Multivitamins are a waste of money”—REALLY??
By ANH-USA Alliance for Natural Health
07/12/20220
https://anh-usa.org/they-say-multivi...7iuZ_5158eaF74

"Multivitamins containing most of the essential vitamins and minerals at doses that provide greater than 100% of the RDA are the most commonly used dietary supplements; approximately 1/3 of US adults takes one or another formulation.

But the bloom is off the rose with major press outlets declaring:

“Multivitamins are a waste of money for most people”—Study Finds
“Multivitamins continue to disappoint”—Sydney Morning Herald
“Multivitamins and Supplements—Benign Prevention or Potentially Harmful Distraction?”—JAMA
One of their themes is that gullible people will take multivitamins as a bulwark against all misfortune while engaging in unhealthy diet and lifestyle practices. The emphasis, the experts intone, should be on diet and exercise.

This is one of the shibboleths that I’ve been battling for my entire career. The overwhelming majority of my patients and audience take multivitamins not as a substitute for, but rather as an accouterment of, a concerted effort to eat healthily and maximize physical fitness. I can count on one hand the number of patients I’ve encountered in a 30-plus year career who continue to smoke, gourmandize, and skip workouts because they were under the erroneous impression that supplements could shield them from their habits’ toll.

Let’s take a closer look at the studies that have lately called into question the efficacy of multis."

Read the full article: https://drhoffman.com/article/they-s...-money-really/

They say “Multivitamins are a waste of money”—REALLY??
July 8, 2022 | By Dr. Ronald Hoffman

(Many hyperlinks in the article that are not embedded here)

"Multivitamins containing most of the essential vitamins and minerals at doses that provide greater than 100% of the RDA are the most commonly used dietary supplements; approximately 1/3 of US adults takes one or another formulation.

But the bloom is off the rose with major press outlets declaring:

“Multivitamins are a waste of money for most people”—Study Finds
“Multivitamins continue to disappoint”—Sydney Morning Herald
“Multivitamins and Supplements—Benign Prevention or Potentially Harmful Distraction?”—JAMA
One of their themes is that gullible people will take multivitamins as a bulwark against all misfortune while engaging in unhealthy diet and lifestyle practices. The emphasis, the experts intone, should be on diet and exercise.

This is one of the shibboleths that I’ve been battling for my entire career. The overwhelming majority of my patients and audience take multivitamins not as a substitute for, but rather as an accouterment of, a concerted effort to eat healthilyvitamins and maximize physical fitness. I can count on one hand the number of patients I’ve encountered in a 30-plus year career who continue to smoke, gourmandize, and skip workouts because they were under the erroneous impression that supplements could shield them from their habits’ toll.

Let’s take a closer look at the studies that have lately called into question the efficacy of multis.

One is the COSMOS trial that evaluated the impact of either of two interventions: taking a multi vs. taking a cocoa flavanol supplement. Interestingly, the cocoa arm of the study obtained a significant reduction in major cardiovascular events. It curbed cardiovascular death by 27%!

The multivitamin takers did not fare as well. There was no overall effect on cancer incidence (which in some ways is reassuring because some previous trials hinted that beta carotene and alpha tocopherol and perhaps folic acid could increase risk of certain cancers); there was a small signal that the multi was protective against lung cancer. The good news, however, is that the multivitamins showed no tendency to hasten cancer recurrence in previous survivors of cancer, which had been a concern, albeit theoretical.

When it came to cardiovascular disease prevention, the multis struck out. This is notwithstanding a 2018 review that recently showed B vitamins could reduce the risk of stroke—but only in a subpopulation with elevated homocysteine. But the COSMOS trial showed no benefit of multivitamins overall.

A closer look may explain the “meh” results of multivitamin supplementation. The research was sponsored in part by Pfizer Consumer Care, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline, who supplied the Centrum Silver®️ used as a multi. I’m not a fan!

Except for B12, which delivers over 10 times the RDA, most of its nutrients are pretty paltry. For example, there’s only 60 mg of vitamin C; 3 mg of vitamin B6; 50 mg of magnesium; and 19 mcg of selenium.

Also the quality of the ingredients is suboptimal: Vitamin A is provided as beta carotene instead of broad spectrum carotenoids; vitamin E as synthetic DL-alpha Tocopheryl Acetate instead of mixed tocopherols and tocotrienols; folic acid instead of more bioavailable l-methyl folate; and magnesium as cheap, poorly absorbed magnesium oxide.

Contrast that with a more comprehensive, potent multi like Alpha Base from Ortho Molecular with premium delivery forms of critical nutrients.

It might also be noted that the study duration was just 3 1/2 years, which might not be enough time to capture the long-term benefits of supplementation.

The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) was quick to issue an opinion that:

“The USPSTF concludes that the evidence is insufficient to determine the balance of benefits and harms of supplementation with multivitamins for the prevention of cardiovascular disease or cancer.”

But the USPTF has recently drawn fire for concluding that prostate screening for asymptomatic men over 70–the mainstay of many cancer prevention campaigns—is unwarranted. They’re equal opportunity skeptics about any clinical intervention, even concluding that statins for high cholesterol in healthy adults over 75 aren’t justified.

And remember, we’re talking about a narrow category of nutritional supplements—multivitamins. They’re less likely to be beneficial at low doses for a relatively healthy population not suffering from malnutrition. Studies like COSMOS have little to say about targeted supplementation according to specific needs with higher amounts of, for example, vitamin D, magnesium, fish oil, or nutraceuticals like CoQ10, curcumin, or probiotics.

Unfortunately, for vast swaths of the public, multivitamins are conflated with anything you take in pill form as a supplement; on a recent TV ad, for example, I saw a folksy testimonial from someone who said that the fruit and veggie pills they were taking were their favorite “vitamin”.

Of course, there’s systemic bias in the media against supplements. A great 2019 paper by Vasquez and Pizzorno entitled “Concerns about the integrity of the scientific research process—focus on the negative publications regarding nutrition, multivitamins, fish oil and cardiovascular disease” nails it:

“A major and serious problem arises when unskilled and invalid research is published by authors (including nonphysician journalists) in major journals which mischaracterizes the validity of nutrition interventions (e.g. essentially always concluding that nutritional interventions are inefficacious or potentially hazardous) and then such research is used politically and in the media to disparage, restrict and regulate practitioners and the nutrition supplement industry to the detriment of human health.”

In this context, it’s worthwhile to note that there continues to be a concerted campaign to rein in the supplement industry and limit consumer choices. A chorus of voices within the FDA, Congress, academic medicine, the pharmaceutical industry and their enablers in the press want more restrictions. Is the current negative publicity about multivitamins a coincidence—or is it furthering a narrative?

Check out our SOS (Save Our Supplements) campaign here: https://drhoffman.com/anh/
...and let your voice be heard.

(See also my previous articles: “16 Reasons Why Most Studies Are Wrong”, “‘Don’t take your vitamins’? So not!”, and “The New York Times has a bias problem (No, it’s not what you think)”)

Congress is seeking to enlarge the FDA’s purview over supplements. It’s truly an “all-hands-on-deck” moment, and I’m personally committed to doing everything I can to preserve your access to potent, innovative supplements of your choosing.

For a limited time, I’ll be matching all donations made by my audience to ANH, up to a total of $5000. Simply click: https://drhoffman.com/anh/ to support ANH’s important work!"

[onawah]

I use and recommend this brand of spirulina: http://bioluminaspirulina.com/
Phoenix Rising company was started by some people who originally worked with the late Dr. Christopher Hills, who introduced Spirulina to the Western market.
Spirulina is freeze dried, and it can be reactivated when water and light are added and that's why it's advisable to keep it protected from light and water.
This company sells a black mison jar for $30 to store the powder in, which keeps it dry and potent,
I've been using Spirulina for years and when I run out (which doesn't happen often) I really feel the lack.

Posted by mojo (here)
Really appreciate this thread.... was reading about exercise and sweating and found out that, not only is Sodium released in our sweat but a good amount of Potassium. This is another nutrient that our bodies are needing that's in short supply even more than you get in things like bananas. Bananas are high in Potassium but they only supply 10% of bodily needs. I also added Spirulina to my smoothie. I wonder if Spirulina powder is active/alive as the container says keep out of sun or heat.

[mojo]

onawah just found this channel and he sounds pretty good, covering the vitamins and liver function. I was super happy to hear his solution with Kale, Blueberries and Kiefer??? Kiefer looked like cheese but thats a new one on me. Thanks for helping and making some lifestyle changes especially in nutrition & health. I hope to never go back, but my type 2 Diabetes is still not solved perhaps there is no cure?

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4YcYAVAyk9E

[onawah]

Dr. Gabriel Cousens reveals method for reversing diabetes with raw living foods in exclusive interview
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
https://diabetestalk.net/diabetes/dr...usens-diabetes
PODCAST: https://www.naturalnews.com/podcasts...el-Cousens.mp3

"(NaturalNews) This is a "must listen" interview for anyone suffering from diabetes, obesity or blood sugar disorders. It's commercial-free and it's a free download of an MP3 file that will play on any computer or MP3 player. What you'll hear in this interview will absolutely astound you -- it rocks the world of conventional medicine and its failed diabetes treatments.

This is an interview with Dr. Gabriel Cousens, founder of the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, Arizona (www.TreeofLife.nu). In this audio interview, you'll hear Dr. Cousens describe why and how consuming raw foods really works to initiate dramatic reductions in fasting blood sugar levels, effectively reversing diabetes in a matter of just a few weeks.

This is essentially a cure for diabetes. Not coincidentally, Dr. Cousens is the author of the book There Is A Cure for Diabetes. The book documents the successes of eleven people who went on a raw foods diet and experienced rapid and remarkable improvements in physiology, including:

• Curing of both type-1 and type-2 diabetes.
• Rapid loss of body fat
• Rapid stabilization of blood sugar
• Remarkable improvements in cognitive function

Listen to the full interview here:
https://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Podcasts.ht...

This is a must-listen interview for anyone suffering from diabetes or blood sugar disorders.

For type-2 diabetes, the process described by Dr. Cousens in the interview boasts a 90% - 95% cure rate. This is truly astounding. Nothing from the world of conventional medicine can offer even a 1% cure rate for diabetes.

Diabetes is "incurable?"
Conventional medicine (and the American Diabetes Association) continues to insist that diabetes in incurable. The approach of conventional medicine, based on extremely toxic chemical medications and processed dead foods, simply does not work. It's actually quite toxic to patients rather than healing. Diabetes medications are well known to cause severe liver damage, for example.

But the conscious consumption of raw living foods turns on the body's innate healing processes. This creates a rapid healing response that allows the body to reverse many of the physiological degeneration processes that created disease in the first place. That's why juicing and juice feasting have become such popular self-healing therapies for weight loss, diabetes reversal and enhanced longevity.

Conventional medicine remains utterly ignorant of the healing power of raw living foods, preferring instead to rely on patented chemical medications that simply don't work to heal anyone or anything. No person suffering from diabetes has ever been cured of diabetes through pharmaceutical medications. It has never happened in the history of medicine. And yet type-2 diabetes can be cured at a rate of 90% - 95% with a raw living foods diet.

At the Tree of Life, Dr. Cousens offers a 21-day rejuvenation experience based on living foods. Learn more about the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center at www.TreeofLife.nu

Dr. Cousens' book There Is A Cure for Diabetes is available at booksellers everywhere, including Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/There-Cure-Diabetes-21...

Download the full audio interview right here:
https://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Podcasts.ht...

By the way, the best new juicing machine for making your own raw living juices in your own kitchen is the Hurom Slow Juicer. It's a truly revolutionary machine that juices fruits, vegetables and grasses. It also makes fresh raw almond milk, pumpkin seed milk, sesame milk and other nut milks. Read my review here: https://www.naturalnews.com/028128_Hurom_slow...

Enjoy this amazing audio interview with Dr. Gabriel Cousens!"

Posted by mojo (here)
onawah just found this channel and he sounds pretty good, covering the vitamins and liver function. I was super happy to hear his solution with Kale, Blueberries and Kiefer??? Kiefer looked like cheese but thats a new one on me. Thanks for helping and making some lifestyle changes especially in nutrition & health. I hope to never go back, but my type 2 Diabetes is still not solved perhaps there is no cure?

[mojo]

wow... Guess I have some homework...thank you.

[onawah]

It's not just living foods, but sprouted, fermented and cultured foods which are very healing and rejuvenating.
You can find lots of info online and in various books about that and design your own program using the foods that appeal to you most.
When we reach a certain age our bodies stop producing enzymes; we need enzymes to reverse aging, and that's what such a program can provide.
Legumes, grains, seeds and nuts can all be sprouted and when eaten in that form are full of enzymes and easily absorbed vitamins and minerals which are extremely healing and energizing.
Jaffe Brothers is a good organic source of these, and they are guaranteed to sprout.
See: https://organicfruitsandnuts.com/organicseeds.html
Also see: https://www.trueleafmarket.com/colle...term=sprouting
(Sometimes even such foods that you buy at a health food store are no longer viable enough to sprout, so sources like the two above are preferable.)
There is a Facebook support group here with info about fermenting and culturing foods: https://www.facebook.com/groups/387476208103299

Posted by mojo (here)
wow... Guess I have some homework...thank you.

[onawah]

What You Need to Know About Melatonin
by Dr. Joseph Mercola
July 31, 2022
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...rid=1563589708

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

"Melatonin is one of the most important antioxidant molecules and certainly the most ancient, as it has been part of biological life for over 3 billion years.
It's present in prokaryotes, which are bacteria, and even in plantsIn the human body melatonin not only has independent direct antioxidant effects on its own, but it also stimulates the synthesis of glutathione and other important antioxidants like superoxide dismutase and catalase
Mitochondrial melatonin production is one of the reasons why regular sun exposure is so crucial.
The near-infrared spectrum, when hitting the skin, trigger the generation of melatonin in your mitochondria
Considering melatonin’s function within the mitochondria, and the fact that mitochondrial dysfunction is a hallmark of most chronic disease, it makes sense that melatonin would be helpful against a number of different diseases, including the two most common — heart disease and cancer
Melatonin and methylene blue belong in every emergency medical kit.
In cases of an acute heart attack or stroke, melatonin can help limit the damage, while methylene blue augments cytochromes to allow the continued production of ATP even without the use of oxygen, which also helps minimize cell death and tissue damage

https://www.bitchute.com/video/mKzPPm0jwqcD/
Source: https://www.bitchute.com/video/mKzPPm0jwqcD/


In this interview, Russel Reiter, Ph.D. — a world-class expert on melatonin — discusses some of the biological activities and health benefits of this important molecule. With some 1,600 papers to his credit, as well as three honorary doctor of medicine1 degrees, he’s published more studies on melatonin than anyone else alive.

Melatonin 101
Melatonin is one of the most important antioxidant molecules and certainly the most ancient, as it has been part of biological life for over 3 billion years. It's present in prokaryotes, which are bacteria, and even in plants. In the human body — aside from having direct antioxidant effects — it also stimulates the synthesis of glutathione and other important antioxidants like superoxide dismutase and catalase. Reiter continues:

“Melatonin has been here forever ... and its functions have evolved. It has learned to work successfully with other molecules during this three-billion-year evolution. One of the molecules with which it collaborates is glutathione ... But the antioxidant activity of melatonin is extremely diverse.

It in fact is a very good radical scavenger. There are other radical scavengers — vitamin C, vitamin E and so forth — but melatonin is superior to those. But beyond that, it stimulates antioxidative enzymes, especially in mitochondria. Mitochondria are small organelles in the cell that generate the bulk of the free radicals.

So, it's very important to have a good antioxidant at the level of the mitochondria and melatonin happens to be located and is, in fact, synthesized in the mitochondria. Melatonin scavenges radicals that are generated, but it also stimulates something called sirtuin-3, which activates or deacetylates super oxide dismutase (SOD), which is a very important antioxidative enzyme.

It also removes free radicals and prevents the degeneration of the mitochondria, and why this is so important is because mitochondria are really the center of the action within a cell. In other words, there's strong evidence that aging, frailty of aging, senescence of cells as we age, relate to molecular damage at the level of the mitochondria, and melatonin seems to be very efficient at protecting mitochondria from that damage.”

Melatonin increases glutathione through a genomic effect on the enzyme that regulates the synthesis of gamma glutamylcysteine synthase, the rate limiting enzyme in glutathione synthesis. Melatonin activates that enzyme.

Glutathione tends to be found in high concentrations in cells, although some is also found, to a lesser degree, in the extracellular space and the mitochondria. Meanwhile, 95% of the melatonin in your body is concentrated within the mitochondria inside the cells.

Its antioxidant effects are quite diverse, but include preventing free radical generation by enhancing the efficiency of the electron transport chain so fewer electrons leach onto oxygen molecules to generate super oxide antiradical.

How Mitochondrial Melatonin Is Generated
Mitochondrial melatonin production is one of the reasons why regular sun exposure is so crucial. Most people understand that sun exposure on bare skin generates vitamin D, courtesy of UVB (ultraviolet B radiation). Few, however, understand that the near-infrared spectrum, when hitting your skin, triggers the generation of melatonin in your mitochondria. Reiter explains:

“Near-infrared radiation penetrates relatively easily the skin and subcutaneous tissues. Every one of those cells contains mitochondria and it appears that near-infrared radiation that is detected in fact induces melatonin production. That is important, because we now think that melatonin within mitochondria is inducible under a lot of stressful conditions.

That is not definitively proven, but it appears that under stress, all cells may upregulate their ability to produce melatonin because it's so highly productive. And typically, under stress, free radicals are generated. That is emphasized by the [fact] that in plants ... that happens.

In other words, if you expose plants to drought, heat, cold, to metal toxicity, the first thing they do is upregulate their melatonin, because all of those situations generate free radicals. And we suspect, although that has not yet been definitely proven, in animal cells as well, including human [cells].”

Identifying the specific wavelengths that trigger melatonin production can be tricky, but generally speaking, it’s likely to be the range between 800 to 1,000 nanometers (nm). This range of near-infrared is invisible, and has the ability to penetrate tissue. Visible wavelengths generally do not penetrate the skin, and therefore cannot stimulate your mitochondria.

Anytime your skin is exposed to natural sunlight, however, you can be sure you’re receiving the necessary wavelengths of near-infrared to generate melatonin in your mitochondria. Conversely, when indoors under artificial lighting, you can be certain you’re not getting any. This is because most window glass is low-e and filters out a good portion of the near-infrared, so even sitting near a window is not going to provide you with this benefit.

To compensate for time spent indoors, I use a 250-watt Photo Beam near-infrared bulb from SaunaSpace in my office. I keep it lit when I'm in my office and have my shirt off. Considering most people spend most of their days indoors, mitochondrial melatonin deficiency is likely rampant. And, since many also do not get enough sleep, they also have a deficiency in the melatonin synthesized in the pineal gland in response to darkness.

The Two Types of Melatonin
As hinted at above, there are two types of melatonin in your body: The melatonin produced in your pineal gland, which traverses into your blood, and subcellular melatonin produced inside your mitochondria.

Importantly, the melatonin that your mitochondria produces does not escape your mitochondria. It doesn't go into your blood. So, you're not going to directly increase your blood or serum level of melatonin by sun exposure. But, bright sun exposure around solar noon will indirectly help your pineal gland to produce melatonin during the night.

It is important to understand that your blood level of melatonin is indicative of the melatonin produced in your pineal gland, and/or oral supplementation. Conversely, the melatonin produced by your pineal gland cannot enter into the mitochondria, which is why it is so important to get regular sun exposure. Reiter explains:

“In other words, if you surgically remove the pineal gland from an animal or human, blood levels of melatonin are essentially zero. Not totally zero — I think what happens is that the mitochondria in other cells continue to produce melatonin and some of that leaks out into the blood and gives you a residual — but you have no circadian rhythm.

Melatonin production in the pineal gland is highly rhythmic, depending on the light-dark cycle. This is not true for melatonin in mitochondria. It's not cyclic. It's not impacted by the light dark environment. It may be affected by certain wavelengths of energy, but it's not affected by the light dark environment.

So, blood levels are derived from the pineal gland, and this rhythm is very important for setting circadian rhythms. In other words, the function of that melatonin is quite different from the function of the mitochondrial produced melatonin. It sets the rhythm. Of course, there's always some scavenging by that melatonin as well, but the real scavenging s involved with mitochondrial-produced melatonin.”

Oral Supplementation Neutralizes Free Radicals
Oral supplementation, however, can enter your cells and mitochondria. This is a detail I was wrong about before, and which Reiter clarifies in this interview:

“If you supplement with melatonin, it can also enter cells and get into the mitochondria as well. And that is also very important ... As you age, mitochondrial melatonin diminishes. If you supplement with melatonin, it will get into your mitochondria and, in fact, do what melatonin does — neutralize free radicals and protect the mitochondria's function.”

Melatonin Is Vital to Heart Attack and Stroke Recovery
Considering melatonin’s function within your mitochondria, and the fact that mitochondrial dysfunction is a hallmark of most chronic disease, it makes sense that melatonin would be helpful against a number of different diseases, including the two most common — heart disease and cancer.

As explained by Reiter, one of the situations that is most devastating for the heart and brain is temporary interruption of the blood supply as a result of a cardiac arrest or stroke. This deprives the tissues of oxygen, and without oxygen, they rapidly deteriorate.

When the blood vessel reopens, which is called reperfusion, and oxygen flows back into those oxygen-deprived cells, this tends to be the time of maximum damage, as loads of free radicals are generated once the blood starts flowing again.

“There's a large host of studies, including some in humans, where if you give melatonin to induced heart attack in animals or an accidental heart attack in humans, you can preserve or reduce the amount of cardiac infarct, the amount of damage that occurs in the heart,” Reiter says.

“There's a very famous cardiologist in the Canary Islands, professor Dominguez-Rodriguez, whom I worked with. And we, about three years ago, published a paper where we infused melatonin directly into the heart after the vessel was opened. That reduced cardiac damage by roughly 40%.

The other thing that happens in a heart attack is that cardiac cells do not regenerate. Once you lose a cardiac cell, they're done ... and are replaced by fibrous tissue. Of course, fibrous tissue is not contractile, so you get heart failure.

We just published a paper, again with this same cardiologist, showing that if people who are potentially suffering with heart failure because of a damaged heart, they survive better and longer if they are given melatonin on a regular basis. It's a small study ... but I think that would be a worthwhile field to exploit.”

Dosage Suggestions for Acute Heart Attack
In terms of dosage, it’s difficult to translate doses used in animal studies onto human subjects. In animals, doses between 5 to 10 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight are used. In humans, however, the dose is calculated on the basis of surface area rather than on body size, and that significantly reduces the amount of melatonin that you have to give.

That said, Reiter stresses that melatonin has no known toxic threshold, so even though we don’t know what the ideal dose is, we do know it’s safe even at high doses. Additionally, the timing of the dose will be important. The first dose should be taken immediately, but subsequent melatonin dosing should follow circadian biology, so around 10 a.m., 4 p.m., and before bed.

“If I had a heart attack and I had melatonin on my person, I would take melatonin,” Reiter says. “The question is how much? ... This is not a recommendation to any of your patients, but I would not be hesitant about taking 50 milligrams at the time, and some subsequently for the next 24 hours, even during the day. Because you don't want to lose any more heart cells than is absolutely necessary ...

I have suggested this a number of times. In other words, an emergency medical technician goes out, picks up a patient who has clearly a heart attack. I think on site, immediately, melatonin should be given intravenously rather than orally. It'd be difficult to give it orally. That would be my recommendation.”

Emergency Medical Kit for Acute Heart Attack or Stroke
In cases of an acute heart attack or stroke (which have virtually identical tissue damage mechanisms, just one affects the heart and the other your brain), I would also add methylene blue. Methylene blue is well-documented to be highly beneficial for reperfusion injuries,2 especially if you do it right at the beginning of the event, because it augments cytochromes to allow the continued production of ATP even without the use of oxygen.

Melatonin and methylene blue belong in every emergency medical kit. In cases of an acute heart attack or stroke, melatonin can help limit the damage, while methylene blue augments cytochromes to allow the continued production of ATP even without the use of oxygen, which also helps minimize cell death and tissue damage.
So, together, methylene blue and melatonin could act as a one-two punch if you've got a stroke or heart attack. They really should be part of every emergency kit.

As an interesting side note, melatonin can also be useful in people with Type 2 diabetes. Reiter notes he has diabetic colleagues who take 1 gram of melatonin daily to counteract the free radical damage caused by hyperglycemia. Keep in mind that melatonin does not treat the cause of the diabetes. It only helps to counteract the damage being caused.

Half Life and Bioavailability of Melatonin
The half life of melatonin in the blood is only about 40 minutes. Within cells, the half life varies according to the level of oxidative stress present. If oxidative stress is high, the melatonin is destroyed much faster, and oxidative stress is low, it remains within the cell much longer.

Reiter also notes that in addition to being a free radical scavenger, all of melatonin’s metabolic kin — its active metabolites, such as N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine — are also excellent scavengers. While quickly used up in the presence of high oxidative stress, melatonin is also rapidly taken up when used orally, hence the suggestion to take multiple doses spread out.

Ideally, you’d want to use sublingual or intravenous melatonin, because it’ll enter your bloodstream much faster. Another option is to make your own rectal suppositories. If you swallow it, it needs to pass through and be metabolized by your liver.

Melatonin Is Also a Potent Antiviral
In addition to its antioxidant potency, melatonin also has antiviral capacity. These two features combined is thought to be why it’s been so useful against COVID-19.

“I'm going to give you a very specific example,” Reiter says. “Here's a local physician, Dr. Richard Neil, whom I have known for a number of years. When COVID-19 became common, he called me, we discussed it, he started giving 1 mg per kilogram of body weight (once a day) for about five days, at the time of diagnosis. He has now treated more than 2,000 patients, very successfully, with melatonin.

The importance of melatonin in reference to COVID is that it is not specifically for [the original Wuhan strain]. The variants, Delta, Omicron, they're viruses we think will respond. We currently have a paper in press where we showed that in animals, Zika virus toxicity is also prevented by melatonin, and we've checked four different coronaviruses in pigs.

That paper also shows that melatonin prevents the damage — the consequence — of those viruses. I think [melatonin] is generally a quite good antiviral agent and should be considered as useful. When President Trump was hospitalized with COVID, one of the molecules he was given was melatonin. Obviously, the physicians treating him knew this literature.”

So, to summarize, if you have symptoms of COVID, you could consider taking oral or sublingual melatonin 30 to 45 minutes before bedtime, first thing in the morning, at 10 a.m. and again at 4 p.m. You clearly want to avoid it a few hours before and after solar noon, as taking supplementation during that time will likely impair pineal nighttime melatonin secretion.

Reiter points out that slow-release melatonin has not been widely studied, and he generally doesn’t recommend it for that reason.

Melatonin for Cancer
Melatonin can also be useful in the prevention and treatment of cancer. Reiter explains:

“Cancer cells are clever. They do everything they can to permit their continued survival. It seems counterintuitive, but what they do is they prevent pyruvate from entering the mitochondria, and that reduces ATP production. But as a consequence of doing that, they accelerate something called glycolysis and that's very inefficient in producing ATP, but it does it very rapidly. So, then they have sufficient energy.

The importance of preventing pyruvate from entering the mitochondria, we now think is the fact that pyruvate is a precursor to something called acetyl coenzyme A. Acetyl coenzyme A is a cofactor for the enzyme that regulates melatonin production in the mitochondria.

So, by eliminating or preventing pyruvate from getting into the mitochondria, [the cancer cells] prevent or reduce melatonin production, because they don't allow the necessary cofactor to be produced. In other words, we predicted about four years ago that, in fact, the mitochondria of cancer cells would produce less melatonin.

We have subsequently shown that in two studies, both uterine cancers. Clearly, melatonin levels and the activity of the enzymes in the mitochondria of these types of cancer cells are at least about half what they would normally be. The prevention of pyruvate into the mitochondria, that's Warburg type metabolism.

The other thing is the pyruvate is metabolized into lactic acid. It escapes the cell and produces an acidic environment for the cancer cell, and cancer cells like that acidic environment. So, if you can reduce the Warburg type metabolism, you may be able to limit the growth of cancer cells and perhaps also the metastasis ...

Some cancer cells may only be part-time cancerous because [during nighttime] when they have high melatonin, then they avoid Warburg type metabolism. The interesting thing about Warburg type metabolism [is that] ... many pathological cells, inflammatory cells, cells that are affected by amyloid beta in the brain, exhibit this specific type metabolism ...

And we know that inflammatory cells — M2 and M1 inflammatory cells — can be converted back and forth by melatonin. The inflammatory cells can be prevented by giving them melatonin [because of] its effect on Warburg type metabolism. So, Warburg type metabolism is common in many, many pathological cells.”

The Link Between Metabolic Flexibility, Melatonin and Cancer
One of the reasons for why cancer is so prevalent likely has to do with the fact that 93% of Americans are metabolically inflexible and cannot seamlessly transition between burning carbs and fats for fuel.3 Glucose (sugar) is one of the primary fuels that most people have. Glucose has six carbons and is metabolized into pyruvate, which is a three-carbon molecule. Pyruvate, in turn, is metabolized in the mitochondria to acetyl-CoA.

The reason the Warburg Effect works is b pecauseyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK) inhibits the inflow of pyruvate into the mitochondria so it cannot be converted into acetyl-CoA, and acetyl-CoA is not only needed in the production of melatonin, but is also used to efficiently produce ATP in the mitochondria and is how glucose is used in the mitochondria.

Another source of acetyl-CoA is beta oxidation of fats, which breaks down the fat to the two carbon molecule acetyl-CoA, which enters the mitochondria an active transport molecule, courtesy of MCT (mono carboxylase transporter). My point here is that when you are metabolically inflexible, the Warburg Effect becomes massive. But if you're cardiometabolically healthy and can burn fat, you can effectively bypass that defect.

Prior to my interview with Reiter, I certainly knew that limiting carbs and preventing the Warburg effect was important in cancer treatment, but I hadn’t realized that one of the metabolic byproducts of acetyl-CoA was needed to produce melatonin. So, being metabolically flexible not only impairs the Warburg effect, but also supplies melatonin to combat the excessive oxidative stress in cancer.

This is why I would strongly encourage each and every one of you to regularly engage in two activities the rest of your life. First, expose as much of your skin as you can to an hour of sunshine a day around solar noon.

Second, you have to eliminate all seed oils from your diet, as excess seed oils are the primary reason why most people are metabolically inflexible. While the average person’s consumption of these oils is around 25% to 30% of total daily calories, it should only be about 1% to 2% (mine is 1.5%)."

[onawah]

New Bill to Remove FDA Control Over Supplements
By ANH-USA Alliance for Natural Health
08/02/2022
https://anh-usa.org/new-bill-to-remo...r-supplements/

"The new bill, introduced by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Rep. Rose DeLauro (D-CT), moves all of the FDA’s food safety authorities, which include dietary supplements, to a newly-created Food Safety Administration.
This would be a very positive move, as we’ve long argued that the FDA has a massive conflict of interest in regulating drugs and supplements, which are competitors, while FDA receives substantial funding from the drug industry.
With some important caveats, we should support this important bill.

The stated purpose for this bill is that the FDA has failed to adequately ensure the safety of the American food supply.
To address this failing, these authorities will be transferred to a new agency, the Food Safety Administration, single-mindedly focused on regulating food and curbing preventable foodborne illnesses. According to the law, moving foods to a new agency means that agency will also be responsible for regulating dietary supplements, which are defined as food in the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
The FDA would be renamed the “Federal Drug Administration.”

ANH-USA has long advocated for an independent agency to regulate supplements, separate from both food and drugs.
However, moving supplements into this new food safety agency would be a much better option than keeping them under the FDA’s jurisdiction.
At the FDA they are seen as competition for drugs, and it is drugs that pay the FDA’s bills. In other words, FDA supervision of supplements involves a massive conflict of interest.

Just look at the numbers: the FDA receives 45% of its operating budget directly from drug companies in the form of “user fees” (used for the approval of new drugs, biologics and devices), but 65% of the funding for human drug regulatory activities are derived from user fees. In our view, this is the main reason the agency has so consistently attacked and undermined dietary supplements.

There are some causes for concern, though.
According to our allies, Sen. Durbin, confirmed prior to the bill’s introduction that supplements would be kept under the Federal Drug Administration’s authority.
To do so, however, would have required many changes to current law, since supplements are defined as food.
This would make the bill harder to pass.
We know Sen. Durbin’s endgame is to install drug-like pre-approval requirements on supplements because he has pursued these regulations in the past and is still doing so currently.
The bill that has been introduced does keep supplements with food in the new Food Safety Administration, but the bill could be changed at any point moving forward.
For example, the USDA has some food safety responsibilities, but this new bill does not transfer those authorities to the new Food Safety Administration.
This means that the bill could be viewed as incomplete and require multiple revisions, so at any point supplements could be carved out of the “food” definition and placed back under the FDA as we think Sen. Durbin intends.

The point is this: if what Senator Durbin is planning is consistent with his previous legislative efforts, it will have the intended effect of removing supplements from the shelves or making them too expensive for anyone but the rich to buy.
He may be taking an incremental approach to this goal with this new bill, so we have to keep a sharp eye on these developments.

This isn’t the first time this bill has been introduced. In fact, Sen. Durbin and Rep. DeLauro have been introducing versions of this bill for the last several years. Previous versions of the bill also took food safety responsibilities from the USDA and placed them under the new Food Safety Administration.
None of these previous iterations of the bill picked up any steam in Congress.

For these reasons, we are cautiously optimistic about this bill.
We have to be on the lookout for changes to the language that undermine supplement access, but moving supplements out from under the FDA’s thumb would be a huge step in advancing their wider use throughout American healthcare and society.

Action Alert! Write to Congress, telling them you support the Food Safety Administration Act of 2022 ONLY if dietary supplements are regulated along with other food at the Food Safety Administration. Please send your message immediately.
Send message here: https://anh-usa.org/new-bill-to-remo...r-supplements/

[onawah]

The Benefits of Vitamin C in Cancer Treatment                                                                                                                                                                             
by Dr. Joseph Mercola
August 07, 2022
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...rid=1570106984


Source: https://www.bitchute.com/video/tLFoK7w6GNIK/


"STORY AT-A-GLANCEExamples of holistic therapies used for cancer include vitamin C alone and in combination with Artesunate (a malaria medication) and/or hyperthermia, curcumin, melatonin and mistletoe
One key point to be made about holistic oncology is that the earlier you start this kind of treatment, the better. Most patients who seek alternative strategies have already done tremendous damage to their bodies with one or more rounds of chemo, which makes natural remedies less capable of achieving complete healing
Whole food vitamin C and IV vitamin C serve two different functions.
Whole food vitamin C is not suitable for the treatment of cancer, but does wonders for general health support, whereas high-dose vitamin C with sodium ascorbate has powerful drug-like effects suitable for acute and severe infections and cancers
Vitamin C has a wide variety of precision effects, which can be generally classified into genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and immunomodulatomic effects
Vitamin C is typically thought of as an antioxidant, which is true orally and at lower doses, but in high doses, it becomes a pro-oxidant, and that’s actually what allows it to kill cancer cells and gives it its significant antiviral and antibacterial properties

IIn this interview, Dr. Nathan Goodyear discusses the benefits of vitamin C in cancer treatment. We are both scheduled speakers at the Vitamin C International Consortium Institute’s annual conference in Tampa, Florida, September 9 and 10, 2022.

Goodyear started out as a gynecologist and pelvic floor surgeon. Once out of residency, however, he noticed that a lot of what he’d been taught in medical school didn’t work. Then, in 2006, he developed pheochromocytoma, a rare type of tumor that develops in the adrenal gland, causing it to excrete high amounts of norepinephrine, which in turn causes extremely high blood pressure and heart rate.

Holistic Oncology
That experience pushed him to make the transition into the field of cancer. The last five and a half years, he’s been working with Brio-Medical, a holistic cancer clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, of which the last six months he has served as medical director. He works with four other physicians — two medical doctors and two naturopathic physicians.

“The conventional approach seems to follow the logic ‘destroy to heal,’ and I just don't know where that really occurs in nature outside conventional cancer treatment. Healing has to be your focus and goal to achieve healing. You have to heal to heal. Our healing strategy focus in cancer is to tap into the body’s designed capacity to heal itself through the targeting of the root causes,” Goodyear says.

“When you look at holistic natural therapies, there's this assumption by many, including conventional medicine, that we are just throwing darts up on the wall and hope they stick.

But in actuality, we're following the science of genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics and immunomodulomics. This is the future of medicine that's here now, and we're being incredibly specific and targeted for the dysfunction within the cancer, but with natural holistic or integrated therapy.”

Examples of Holistic Therapies for Cancer
Examples of holistic therapies used for cancer include vitamin C in combination with artemisinin or artesunate (a primary malaria medication). This combo is very good for prostate and breast cancer in particular. Curcumin and melatonin both also have significant anticancer effects. Goodyear likes to combine hyperthermia with high-dose vitamin C and curcumin.

“Studies have shown that when you give vitamin C with whole body hyperthermia, you actually achieve a higher plasma ascorbic acid concentration. So that's going to impact the fight against cancer more,” he explains.

Mistletoe is another excellent cancer treatment. I’ve previously interviewed Dr. Nasha Winters about the use of mistletoe in oncology, so for more in-depth information, see that interview.

One key point to be made about holistic oncology is that the earlier you start this kind of treatment, the better. Unfortunately, most patient who seek alternative strategies have already done tremendous damage to their bodies, particularly the immune system, with one, two or even three rounds of chemo, which really impairs your body’s ability to heal naturally.

“If we can get them earlier in the process ... before they get conventional chemo and/or radiation, the impact is huge,” Goodyear says.

“Before you destroy the immune system, one can actually heal with the immune system. I can't tell you how many ladies with breast cancer have been able to preserve their breasts with this cancer healing strategy. You can actually heal the body, not destroy it. That is a novel concept because when you destroy the immune system through conventional therapy, you're going to see cancer recur and spread.”

How Cancer Kills
Typically, it’s not the initial cancer that kills you. What kills is when the cancer spreads (metastasizes) to other areas of your body. Also, most cancer patients don’t actually die from the cancer, but from the treatment that conventional oncologists use to treat the cancer.

“The literature is very clear — especially in the last five to 10 years — that 90% of morbidity and mortality associated with cancer is when it spreads,” Goodyear says. “Thankfully, research has provide a good understanding of how this chemotherapy and radiation-induced metastasis process occurs.

So, let's look at maximum tolerated chemotherapy. The literature is very clear on this and ... shows the mechanisms in how it [contributes to death]. Maximum tolerated chemotherapy actually induces the mechanisms to spread the cancer. In breast cancer, maximum to tolerated chemotherapy will reduce the primary tumor, yet at the same time, cause it to spread to distant locations in the body.

Thus, that leads to 90% of morbidity and mortality associated with cancer. So, the very treatment being used in conventional oncology to treat the tumor is actually resulting in 90% of morbidity and mortality associated with cancer ... That is in unforced error.

A lot of people that come to us, they're so surprised. They ask, ‘Why didn't I know about this? Why didn't I know that surgery can cause metastasis? Why didn't I know chemotherapy and radiation can cause metastasis?’”

Vitamin C Basics
The story of vitamin C demonstrates that the devil’s in the details. Roughly 50 years ago, Linus Pauling demonstrated that intravenous vitamin C (10 grams a day for 10 days) improved cancer survival. Later, researchers at the Mayo Clinic tried to reproduce the results, but didn’t use IV vitamin C. They instead gave 10 grams orally, and found no benefit.

In the academic battle that followed, Mayo won and for the next several decades, the conventional thought was that vitamin C doesn’t work. That began to change around 2000, when Dr. Ping Chen, a conventional oncologist started looking into vitamin C and publishing papers on its pharmacokinetics.

Since then, there’s been a combination of pushback against the idea that vitamin C works on the one hand, and on the other, growing research that points to vitamin C’s effects as powerful as any drug.

Vitamin C Is Natural but Has Drug-Like Effects
Vitamin C does have drug-like effects, and I like to refer to it as a pharmaco-mimetic, but it’s still a natural biological molecule that cannot be patented, and hence cannot be a drug. Also, to be clear, there are distinct differences between whole food vitamin C and ascorbic acid.

They really have two very different purposes. Whole food vitamin C is not suitable for the treatment of cancer, but does wonders for general health support, as it interacts favorably with copper and iron in your cells and mitochondria. I only recommend and use high-dose IV vitamin C in cases of acute infection or illness, as it does have very potent “drug-like” effects. Goodyear adds:

“It's actually inducing metabolic changes and epigenetics. That's the great thing about natural therapies. Conventional medicine will take an approach to kind of throw a monkey wrench in to the body’s physiology to shut everything down ... without a holistic perspective of how that affects the whole body. It's a very compartmentalized approach.

A holistic approach is like a pebble thrown into a calm pool in the morning. Its effects ripple throughout the physiology of the body. That is the beauty of natural therapies.

Now in cancer and sepsis ... when we're dealing with the major dysfunction found in cancer, where things have metabolically, genetically, immunologically gone off the rails, we have to come in and really work to turn the tide. That's where the intravenous vitamin C delivery is required. That's where the sodium ascorbate comes in, because that's the only way we're going to be able to change that tide.”

Oral Versus IV Vitamin C
When treating cancer, IV needs to be used because you simply cannot take the high dosages required orally. Doses over 10 to 20 grams of ascorbic acid will cause loose stools when taken orally, but IV administration bypasses the limitation of the gut. It also allows the vitamin C to get directly into the blood to the extracellular fluid, into the tumor microenvironment, to penetrate the tumor and saturate the entirety of the tumor.

Now, if you feel like you’re coming down with an infection, such as a flu or cold, oral vitamin C is plenty adequate. Oral dosing of vitamin C, using a nonliposomal product, can double your blood level of vitamin C, and using liposomal vitamin C — which is what I’ve been recommending for years — can increase it three- to fivefold — up to about 300 micromolar. So, liposomal vitamin C can make a big difference.

However, when you’re dealing with cancer, you need a minimum 1,000 micromolar, or 1 millimolar, in the extracellular fluid to kill cancer cells, which is why you really need to use IV. In the case of large tumors, or significant cancer spread, much higher plasma concentrations are required.

While the dosage is highly individual to each patient, as a general benchmark, Goodyear typically starts at 1.5 grams per kilogram, which for the average person would be somewhere between 100 and 200 grams per dose, three times a week.

So, to be clear, I do not advise taking ascorbic acid for daily vitamin C requirements. I strongly suggest you use whole food vitamin C which is far superior as a daily supplement.

Actions of Vitamin C
Vitamin C has a wide variety of effects, which can be generally classified into the following: genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and immunomodulatomic.

“The point here is that vitamin C is not just directly killing cancer cells, what we would call cytotoxic effects. Vitamin C is actually working to change the metabolism of the cancer.

What that means is, it creates an energy crisis. It actually depletes the body of certain intermediates that make it so this cancer, which is addicted to sugar, cannot use [the sugar] efficiently to make energy (ATP), so it ... dies. It also depletes [the cancer] of its ability to detoxify.

So, to be specific, research shows that vitamin C depletes the cancer of reduced glutathione. And getting rid of that glutathione in that cancer eliminates its ability to handle the high oxidative stress that this pro-oxidative vitamin C therapy induces, which kills the cancer cell.

It also disrupts how cancer makes energy. And it's fascinating because everybody looks at this and they ask, ‘Well, how will this affect my healthy cells?’ This is the paradigm changer with vitamin C.

The environment — as much as the dose, as much as the delivery, as much as the tumor saturation — the environment encountered by that vitamin C dictates the result as much as the dose itself. So, you can induce a pro-oxidative effect, a detoxification crisis, an energy crisis, in cancer cells, and healthy cells do just fine.”

Using Pro-Oxidation to Kill Cancer Cells
When you think of vitamin C, you’re probably thinking it’s an antioxidant, which is true, but in high doses only available through IV, it actually becomes a pro-oxidant, and that’s what allows it to kill cancer cells and gives it its antiviral and antibacterial properties. Goodyear explains:

“Everybody's familiar with the buffer system related to acid and base. When you look at redox — reduction oxidation — that's really just the flow of electrons. It's a buffer system, very similar to that acid base balance. So, in oral doses, even in a lower dose, in an environment that allows it, vitamin C is antioxidative.

And there's plenty benefits of that. That's why it's so helpful in viral and bacterial infections. It's countering that cytotoxic burst found in infection. It's donating an electron and becomes oxidized [which neutralizes oxygen] ... That's why vitamin C ... can help people with sepsis, including COVID sepsis, and the associated COVID cytokine storm that causes most of the lung damage and the associated increase in mortality.

But in the higher doses — again, its different effects are dictated by the different environments — it can become pro-oxidative. It's very different in that it's delivering the oxidative stress to the tumor and creating it through hydroxyl free radicals, hydrogen peroxide, superoxide anions.”

Melatonin for Cancer
Goodyear also uses melatonin for cancer, and monitors patients’ melatonin levels to ensure proper dosage. Typically, patients will start off with IV melatonin at a dose of 10 to 20 milligrams daily for two weeks, to get the level up as quickly as possible, while simultaneously taking oral melatonin at a dose of about 60 mg per day. The oral dose is then titrated upward, based on bodyweight and other parameters.

“Ideally, your blood level is supposed to peak at around midnight. So, with that in mind, if you're going to do the oral dose, you want to take the highest dose right before bed, maybe 45 minutes before, and then right before bed.

The other doses, if you're going to do it three times a day, would be maybe 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. You really want to keep it away from solar noon. Otherwise you're going to [impair your] chronobiology.

When patients go home, we do work more toward a more appropriate circadian rhythm of the delivery of melatonin. But when patients come to us, so many of them are in an advanced stage, so, in that acute setting, we have to use these therapies in combination and sequence, together, to really turn the tide against the cancer.”

What Kind of Results Can You Expect From Holistic Oncology?
Goodyear and I cover a lot more ground in this interview than I’ve summarized here, so I encourage you to listen to the full interview. In closing, what kind of results might you get using a holistic approach to cancer treatment? Goodyear says:

“I'd say probably 90% of our patients are metastatic and [have had] prior treatment. In those patients, in a six-week or maybe eight-week cycle, we can see a significant reduction in tumor burden. What I tell them is, ‘When you come into our clinic, my goal is [for you to have] no evidence of disease when you leave.’

They ask, ‘Is that possible?’ Well, as that one case study I mentioned, it was achieved. Now, she ended up being with us for nine weeks, but the point is she came in a wheelchair, she walked out, her PET-CT scan [showed no sign of disease], and her tumor markers [were] normal upon discharge.

Our goal is no evidence of disease, but we're going to typically see — in most of our patients, well over 50% — a significant reduction in that tumor burden while they're here with us. The after-care, is very important to continue that process. What we're talking about here is at least a 50% reduction in the tumor that you can see clinically, through labs and through imaging.

And so, many of our patients will come in where the breast is a whole tumor, [or] their spine lights up like a Christmas tree. So, it's not like we have a patient coming in and they have a small little nodule, OK? These are patients that have failed chemotherapy twice or more, [have had] surgery, radiation [and the cancer] recurred, not just once, but often two or even more times.

It's a tough spot to be in, but if we can set a goal of ‘no evidence of disease’ and see a 50% reduction in these patients, hey, that's something that we can work with, because we're not destroying the body; actually we're working to heal the body.”

As mentioned earlier, most of the patients have destroyed much of their bodies’ innate healing ability through repeated toxic treatments, which makes holistic treatment far less effective. Once chemotherapy damages your immune system it becomes extraordinarily difficult to treat it.

I know how panic-stricken one can get when given a cancer diagnosis, but if you’re in the early to mid-stages, you have virtually nothing to lose by going holistic FIRST. Your chances of total remission will be far greater than waiting until all other treatments fail, and you may be able to save your breasts and other parts of your body that would otherwise be cut out.

A Case History
To make his point, Goodyear offers the case history of a woman with bilateral breast cancer who’d been told she needed a bilateral mastectomy, bilateral radiation with chemo, and lymph node dissection — six to 12 months of brutal and toxic treatments that would have left her disfigured.

“When I was talking to her before she came, I said, ‘Let me tell you my approach. Since you've not had any treatment, if we take this in a healing perspective and through a holistic integrative approach, you may just save your breasts, and you may negate the need for any of those other harmful therapies.’

And in fact, now she's over two years out — cancer-free, no breasts removed, no lymph nodes removed. So, here is a person who was headed down that road that would be life changing in a negative way. We hit the pause button.

She took a chance to think, she took a chance to read. And then she said, ‘You know what? I want a different approach.’ We addressed it with a holistic evidence-based, integrative approach ... and now she has both breasts and she's living cancer-free.

She even had COVID and did great ... When the immune system is not destroyed, things work so much better, and full-dose chemo destroys the immune system.”

More Information
If you’d like to book an appointment, schedule a free phone consultation, or simply get more information, you can do that through his website, Brio-Medical.com.

[onawah]

The Poorly Understood Role of Copper in Anemia
by Dr. Joseph Mercola
September 11, 2022
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...bid=1601411117


Source: https://www.bitchute.com/video/eNYSzLSGEduu/


"STORY AT-A-GLANCE
Iron and copper are highly interdependent and need to be considered together.
If you don’t have enough copper in your diet, hemoglobin production becomes impaired, along with many other aspects of iron metabolism
Being anemic does not automatically mean that you’re iron deficient.
'Anemia typically relates to impaired iron recycling, not deficiency, and impaired iron recycling is caused by copper and retinol deficiency
The best way to lower excess iron is to donate blood, one to four times a year.
Most adult men and postmenopausal women have high iron and could benefit from regular blood donation, as high iron is extremely toxic and destroys health.
An even better strategy is to remove smaller amounts of blood every month
To raise your copper level, you could use a copper supplement, but foods like grass-fed beef liver, bee pollen and whole food vitamin C are better
If you’re a farmer or grow your own food, the best way to put copper back into the soil, to get it into the food, is to add copper sulfate. Before you plant, simply spray the soil with copper sulfate, 10 to 15 pounds per acre, or use a copper sulfate foliage spray

Morley Robbins, MBA, CHC,1 a repeat guest, is the founder of the Magnesium Advocacy Group. He’s best known as the Magnesium Man, and is the author of “Cu-RE Your Fatigue: The Root Cause and How to Fix It on Your Own,” in which he explains the roles of magnesium, copper, iron, vitamins A and D and other essential nutrients.

His Root Cause Protocol2 is the implementation of that information. We’re currently planning to write a book together, which will focus on the little-understood importance of copper and its interaction with iron.

As explained by Robbins, if copper is lacking in your diet, iron will build up in your liver, which changes its physiology and immunoproperties. Liver metabolism is highly dependent on copper and retinol, and there's not a lot of awareness of that.

“It's a very sophisticated process of interaction between copper and iron, and if that interaction doesn't go well, iron is going to start to accumulate in the tissues. It's going to start in the liver, but it's going to go elsewhere too,” he says.

“I think that is kind of the takeaway of these conversations — to make sure people know that iron does accumulate, and that iron can be reduced through blood donations. Especially as you get into your 50s, 60s, 70s, it needs to be a regular part of your health routine.”

Three Ways to Measure Iron Status
The clinical term for excess iron in the liver is hemosiderosis, and it’s so pervasive as to be near-universal. But where does the excess iron actually come from? And why is it that many with high iron stores have low serum ferritin?

As Robbins explains, oftentimes, low serum ferritin is not at all a sign of iron deficiency, but rather a deficiency in copper and retinol. The deficiency in copper basically locks iron in the liver and prevents it from being recycled as it should:

“It's important for practitioners to not measure iron status with just one marker. I think a lot of practitioners are falling into that trap of just using serum ferritin. There are three key ways to measure iron status: Hemoglobin, serum iron and serum ferritin.

The biggest concentration of iron in the body is in our hemoglobin; 70% of the iron is in our red blood cells ... Hemoglobin is essential to understand what is going on with the biggest bulk of iron.

The second marker that I really focus on is called serum iron. It's less than 1% of the iron, but it's a very important measure of iron because it's really getting at the iron recycling program. Every second of every day, we have to turn over 2.5 million red blood cells. That's a lot of activity. In the course of 24 hours it's 200 billion red blood cells that need to be turned over.

But what's a surprise is to learn that only 25 milligrams (mg) of iron are needed to support that 24-hour cycle, but 24 of those 25 milligrams, 95% of the iron, is coming from this recycling program. So, it’s a very significant understanding that the serum iron only represents a small percent, but it represents the efficiency of the iron recycling.”

Ideally, hemoglobin should be between 12.5 and 13.5 for women, 14.5 to 15.5 for men. Serum iron should ideally be about 100 for women and 120 for men. The closer serum iron is to these, the more efficient your recycling is.

What You Need to Know About Serum Ferritin
The third iron measure is serum ferritin. There are four different types of ferritin in your body, broadly categorized as heavy chain and light chain. Heavy chain ferritin refers to ferritin protein inside cells and mitochondria that require copper to work properly. Serum ferritin refers to ferritin in your plasma, is outside the cell — and also outside the red blood cells, the hemoglobin.

“What is not well-known is that this ferritin that shows up in the blood is very iron-poor. It doesn't have iron in it. The iron has been discharged in the liver and then the protein gets secreted out ... So, serum ferritin is not representative of iron per se. The iron was discharged in the liver ...

I would never use ferritin only as an indication of iron status. You need to see hemoglobin, serum iron, and serum ferritin. You need to see them in relationship to each other ...

[When] serum ferritin starts to get high, it's highly correlated with inflammation or an infection. And again, it makes sense. The liver is taking it on the chin. Iron is not being metabolized properly. Pathogens might be involved. And so, the body starts to secrete the ferritin in a more significant way ...

Serum ferritin should be between 20 and 50. That seems to be a nice sweet spot for people. When the serum ferritin begins to get up in the hundreds, there's a significant likelihood that there's pathology in the liver that's causing that ...

For women, the serum ferritin red flag goes up at 150. For men, the red flag goes up at 300. It can go up into the 5,000s and even higher, with severe chronic disease and inflammation ...

Low ferritin is an indication of metabolic breakdown in the spleen ... it's some kind of parasitic dynamic that's affecting protein production. The ferritin protein is not getting transcribed properly ...

So, low ferritin ... means low recycling. Something in the iron recycling system is out of balance and needs attention. I would argue that, almost without exception, it's a lack of bioavailable copper. The spleen organ is intensely copper dependent. The liver intensely copper dependent. That's not well known in clinical circles.”

So, to summarize, one of the most common errors doctors will make is to prescribe iron pills when serum ferritin is low. More than likely, what’s needed is copper, retinol and other factors to support iron recycling. Unfortunately, articles and textbooks on iron metabolism rarely if ever mention the copper side, even though copper plays a far more important role in the recycling of iron.

Why Blood Donation Is so Important
Most all men and non-menstruating women have excess iron. The reason for this is because many foods are fortified with iron, and your body has no excretory system for iron besides blood loss. So, it accumulates, and if the recycling mechanism doesn’t work properly, the iron gets lodged in tissues.

This is why regular blood donations are so important. Less iron means less oxidative stress, which is going to create less metabolic dysfunction, which results in fewer health problems and less tissue damage.

Every day you’re alive, your body accumulates about 1 mg of iron. Add up 1 mg of iron for every day of your life, and you’ll realize you won’t be able to eliminate all of it even if you tried. When you take out one unit of blood (500 cc), you remove about 250 mg of iron.

If donating a full pint (half a liter, 500 ml or about 8 ounces) of blood three to four times a year is problematic, you can remove blood in smaller amounts once a month on the schedule listed below.

Men

150 ml

Postmenopausal Women

100 ml

Premenopausal Women

50 ml

If you have congestive heart failure or severe COPD, you should discuss this with your doctor, but otherwise this is a fairly appropriate recommendation for most. I personally remove 60 cc or 2 ounces of blood once a week, which is about 7 pints per year. This is a large amount but because it is done slowly it is far better tolerated. Robbins adds:

“I think what's amazing is the sheer simplicity of doing a blood donation, and what it does to revitalize the body. When you have that blood loss, it trips a wire for erythropoietin, a very important hormone that triggers the production of new red blood cells.

And the beauty is it actually has two signals. The second signal is, let go of the iron in the tissue. It has a very powerful effect of releasing the iron to get it back down to the bone marrow, where it's needed to make the new red blood cells.”

Hepcidin and Hemosiderin
To fully understand iron metabolism, you also need to understand the roles of hepcidin and hemosiderin. A ferritin protein can hold as many as 4,500 atoms of iron. Each iron atom has four unpaired electrons, which causes oxidative stress. Hemosiderin, an iron-storage complex composed of partially digested ferritin and lysosomes, can hold 10 times more iron than ferritin.

This also means it holds 10 times more unpaired electrons. When hemosiderin builds up in your tissue, that's when you start having serious issues with iron regulation.

“What's wildly confusing is hepcidin, [which is encoded by] the HAMP gene,” Robbins says. “Hepcidin is an antimicrobial peptide. So, it's got some connection to pathogens. And what's it trying to do? Hepcidin is trying to get iron out of the circulation, to get it away from the pathogens. But it's a bit of a slippery fish because it reacts to iron status. It reacts to inflammation status. It reacts to hormonal status.

Estrogen and testosterone have significant influence over hepcidin. It's reacting to copper status ... Elevated levels of active hormone D [vitamin D] can suppress hepcidin. Retinol deficiency can increase hepcidin ...

The key is understanding that this constant recycling system of the red blood cells, the iron doorway, is being opened by a copper doorman. And if copper isn't doing its job, we're going to have a problem. And what is hepcidin's job?

Hepcidin shuts down the iron doorway. So, we have this significant dynamic between this very important iron egress that needs bioavailable copper, and if bioavailable copper's not there, this hepcidin protein is going to shut it down.

That's where a lot of the confusion is because the true anemia that exists on the planet isn't one of iron deficiency. It's one of copper deficiency not allowing for proper iron recycling. That's a very important nuance.

And the misunderstanding is that iron may look low in the blood, ferritin looks low or hemoglobin looks low, serum iron looks low, but it's high in the tissue. There's no blood test that measures iron status in the tissue.”

Excess Iron Can Cause Dysfunction in Many Organs
A colleague of Robbins in Miami, Florida, has developed a way to measure iron in the liver and brain using a Tesla 2 MRI and a novel scoring technique. This technique was catalyzed by my previous interview with Robbins, because the doctor in question was initially skeptical, but after measuring his own liver iron, he was shocked at the amount stored in there.

But iron is also stored in other organs, including your heart, which can have serious consequences. Robbins explains:

“Jerry Sullivan, a pathologist — his real focus was on cardiology — developed what became known as the iron heart hypothesis. It's not a very popular thesis with cardiologists, but he was able to prove that it was accumulation of iron in the heart muscle cells that were causing the wide spectrum of all the issues, whether it's atrial fibrillation, enlarged heart, any kind of myocardial infarct.

He was able to link it back to the accumulation of iron, and what that was doing to kill energy production in that incredibly important organ in our body. So, the accumulation of iron in our organs is very significant, because these organs are supposed to be producing energy to do their function ...

Too much iron syncs up with the symptoms that are laid out in the Merck Manual. You can trace just almost every one of them back to this iron-copper dysregulation, because copper's supposed to be regulating the iron. And when it doesn't do that, it starts to accumulate ... and then cause dysfunction and dysregulation in the body.”

Food Supply Nearly Devoid of Copper
As mentioned, iron recycling depends on copper and retinol, both of which are lacking in our food supply, thanks to depleted soils. Copper is further eliminated through processing and refining. Making matters worse, our food supply is chockful of iron, sugar and seed oils (which are loaded with linoleic acid) and this triad suppresses copper and retinol function.

For these reasons, copper supplementation can be a good idea, especially if you’re anemic, in addition, of course, to reducing or eliminating iron, sugar and seed oils.

“My new phrase, and I don't know whether it's going to get traction or not, but I'm coming to the opinion that sugar is white iron,” Robbins says. “People don't realize how glucose metabolism influences iron metabolism, especially accumulation of iron, and it's absolutely staggering when you get into it.

So, I think it's important for people to just be aware that sugar isn't just bad, it's really bad. And I think the coupling with the linoleic acid, it's out of control.”

Facts About Retinol
Retinol is vitamin A, which is not the same as beta carotene. They are two different distinct molecules, not to be confused, although nutrition labels get away with conflating beta carotene with vitamin A. Vitamin A also should not be confused with retinyl palmitate.

What people believe is “vitamin A toxicity” is actually a sign of iron toxicity in the liver, caused by copper deficiency. What happens is, when you get vitamin A from your diet, be it cod liver oil, beef liver or free range eggs, the retinol is turned into retinyl palmitate and gets stored in the stellate cells in your liver.

To function properly, the retinyl palmitate then needs to be turned back into retinol, so it can be transported on the transthyretin (TTR) protein, composed of T4 and retinol. Without the retinol, TTR becomes destructive. While Robbins cannot prove it yet, he’s convinced that copper is required for the conversion of retinyl palmitate to retinol.

“And while we're talking about retinol, it's probably important for people to know [that] retinol as a key component of the movement of electrons from complex 3 to complex 4. The electron actually rides the back of the retinol structure. That alone is mind blowing to think about that.

If retinol is not in our diet, then it's not in our electron transport chain, then it's not able to support the optimal generation of energy. So think of retinol as an energy-focused nutrient. It's very unusual, because most of its [known benefits are] around immune system or vision.”

Retinol is best obtained through whole foods, such as cod liver oil, beef liver, free range egg yolks (the deeper orange the yolk, the more retinol it contains), cacao and hot cocoa, and organic grass fed butter, ghee and heavy cream.

More on Copper
Copper also plays an interesting role in energy production. Your mitochondria produce melatonin in response to natural sunlight, and melatonin in turn catalyzes and upregulates glutathione, which is important for energy production, antioxidant protection against free radical damage and more.

As explained by Robbins, glutathione is also the “greeter” of copper in the cell’s cytoplasm. There are two metabolic steps to make glutathione, and one of the steps involve cysteine, which has a very tight relationship with copper.

Furthermore, a copper-dependent enzyme is required to convert serotonin into melatonin. Copper is also instrumental in regulating immune function. All of these functions are yet more reasons to make sure your copper level is optimal.

How to Optimize Your Copper Level
As for raising your copper intake, it’s best to get your copper from food and not a supplement. Good sources include bee pollen, grass fed beef liver and other organ meats. You also want plenty of saturated fats in your diet, as copper is a fat-soluble mineral. If you don't have fat in your diet, your ability to absorb copper plummets.

If you do opt for an oral supplement, Robbins suggests 3 to 4 mg of copper bisglycinate per day, taken with a fatty food (as it’s a fat-soluble mineral). The upper tolerable limit is 10 mg. This is so good because it has no charge on the molecule and readily penetrates cell membranes.

If you’re a farmer or grow your own food, you can put copper back into the soil, to get it into the food, by adding copper sulfate. Before you plant, simply spray the soil with copper sulfate, 10 to 15 pounds per acre. Alternatively, use a copper sulfate foliar spray, which is what I do.

Most farmers merely use NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium) fertilizer and NPK actually blocks copper uptake in the plants, which was highlighted by Andre Voisin, Ph.D., in his 1957 classic (which, sadly, is now out of print): “Soil, Grass & Cancer.”

Vitamin C Can Help Augment Copper Level
Whole food vitamin C can also boost your copper level, as vitamin C contains an enzyme called tyrosinase, which has 2 atoms of copper in it. Acerola cherry is one excellent source. A single acerola cherry contains about 80 mg of whole food vitamin C. Ascorbic acid is prooxidant, while vitamin C complex is actually an antioxidant. Anything that has copper is going to be antioxidant.

Do not make the mistake of taking ascorbic acid, however, as it is NOT the same as whole food vitamin C. If you were to compare the two to a car, vitamin C would be the whole car, fully functional, and the engine is an enzyme called tyrosinase, while ascorbic acid is the car frame, with no moving parts.

Importantly, ascorbic acid chelates copper out of tyrosinase, which is exactly what proton pump inhibitors do. It's my view that ascorbic acid is a “pharmacomimetic.” While it’s a natural molecule, it has drug-like effects. It acts differently from vitamin C because it’s been taken out of the vitamin C complex. For example, ascorbic acid does not prevent or treat scurvy. Only whole food vitamin C does.

Ascorbic acid was identified by two scientists who also discovered ceruloplasmin, the major copper-carrying protein in your blood, and ascorbic acid can affect the structure and the copper composition of this crucial copper protein too.

The ideal ratio of copper to ceruloplasmin is copper around 100, and ceruloplasmin at 30, giving us a ratio of 3.33. If that ratio starts to rise or fall, then you likely have some kind of pathology going on.

A ratio in the fours and fives is often indicative of inflammation or an infection of some sort. When it starts to drop precipitously, it's a clear sign that there isn't adequate copper to fuel the function of ceruloplasma protein. So, to summarize the key take-home, if you’re going to take vitamin C, use whole food vitamin C, not ascorbic acid.

More Information
If you missed our last interview, where we went deep into iron metabolism and recycling, you can find it here. https://takecontrol.substack.com/p/iron-copper
You can also learn more on Robbins’ website, RCP123.org, which stands for Root Cause Protocol.https://therootcauseprotocol.com/?source=rcp123

“We have an RCP community that you can join, where every other week we have Q&As. https://therootcauseprotocol.com/rcp-institute/ People get to ask questions and we do our best to answer them. And then we offer training through the RCP Institute. We're about halfway through the class now. Historically, we've had 20 or 30 students in each class.

It started to creep up, and this class is 220 students. So, word is getting out. And it's a very switched on group of people. I'm absolutely blown away by the caliber. But we have intakes and the classes are in the beginning of the year and then the second half of the year, for 16 weeks.”

[Anu Raman]

Vitamin C with organic folate/folic acid.

You guys always talk about other supplements, but never about real organic folate. Wonder why?

You got synthetic folic acid in your blood... some of it unmetabolized.

Think what that synthetic folic acid will do to you when you get a virus which is reliant upon furin enzyme.

[onawah]

Dr. Mercola has written a lot about folate/folic acid.
Unfortunately, due to heavy censoring, most of his articles are behind a paywall now.

Posted by Anu Raman (here)
Vitamin C with organic folate/folic acid.

You guys always talk about other supplements, but never about real organic folate. Wonder why?

You got synthetic folic acid in your blood... some of it unmetabolized.

Think what that synthetic folic acid will do to you when you get a virus which is reliant upon furin enzyme.

[mojo]

Just recovering from a bout of food poisoning. Im about 70 percent back after 4 days. Thought to take a probiotic since whatever caused it went through my body and probably destroyed my natural biota. Felt illness in my head & achiness in the bones... What do others recommend for coming back 100%?