Posts Tagged H1N1 virus

H1N1 vaccine

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1. H1N1 vaccine
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1. H1N1 vaccine
2. Food allergies
   
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4. New Chapter Wholmega
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1. Allergies
   
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4. Russell Blaylock re: H1N1
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1. Guest: Dr. Sherri Tenpenny
   
2. Swine Flu (H1N1)
   
3. Vaccines
4. Supplements for Flu
   
5. Vitamins vs Foods
6. Nutrients for Immune Stimulation
7. COPD, Lung function and medications

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3. Krill Oil
4. Cranial Sacral
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6. Parasites – pinworms
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11. Bowels

In a particular medicine you will find two main components: the active ingredient(s) and the inactive ingredient(s). The active ingredient is the product that is supposed to offer the therapeutic benefit. In the case of the vaccine, it is the dead or partially-dead virus that is used to stimulate the immune system. The inactive ingredients within vaccines are components that are present to maintain the integrity of the product until it is injected into the patient. Some compounds are also added to enhance the immune response to the vaccine.

Unfortunately, as you will see, many of the inactive ingredients hold great potential to cause harm. These are things such as formaldehyde (a neuro-toxin and potential carcinogen), aluminum (which has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease), mercury (linked to everything from neuro-toxicity to cancer), monkey-kidney tissue, and many other hard-to-pronounce compounds that have unknown effects within the body.

To view this list, download it directly from the Center for Disease Control website through the following link:Vaccine Excipients & Media Summary

“Eat your vegetables,” that’s what Grandma used to say. And as time goes on and our medical scientists become more willing to look at how diet effect’s health, we find that Grandma was right. Eating fresh fruits and vegetables clearly can keep you healthy. “An apple a day can indeed keep the doctor away!”

Which parts of the fresh fruits and vegetables are responsible for maintaining good health? Before I answer that, let me ask a different question… why should it matter? Well, it matters to the big drug companies. If someone can discover an ingredient within the food that we eat that may save us from cancer or heart disease, then there is money to be made. The company would have to “alter” the ingredient chemically, so that they would have a “chemical entity” that they can patent and own. Then they can spend the millions of dollars needed to “prove” that it does what they say it does (clinical testing), than they can charge lots of money for the “medicine” and make billions in the process. Does anyone remember the news out of Johns Hopkins a while ago about broccoli sprouts and their reported benefit for protection against cancer? Of course, a company cannot patent broccoli, they can’t own it or stop you from buying it from the supermarket, so the race is on to make the ingredient different so someone can “own” it and profit from it.

Which ingredients have the biological activity may also be important to know because there may be cooking or processing procedures that may render the ingredient inactive, or destroy it completely. An example of this would be the essential fatty acids that were discussed in last month’s column. If one were to cook with flax oil then the omega-3 fatty acids contained therein would be destroyed. The processing of food has been shown to destroy enzymes and different nutritional components.

So… back to the question… what are the important ingredients in fresh fruits and vegetables that are responsible for maintaining good health? Of course, there are the vitamins and minerals… vitamin C, beta-carotene, zinc, selenium, etc. There are the enzymes that help digest food and help give the liver and pancreas a break from the work of digestion. There are the essential fatty acids that come from seeds and nuts. There is the fiber that we get from food.

And there are the “plant fats”, also know as sterols and sterolins. The primary fat that is found in animals is cholesterol, and the plant equivalent of cholesterol is called sterol. Animals cannot make sterols, but they can get them from the plants that they eat.

Animal studies (including humans) have demonstrated that Beta-sitosterol (the major sterol in higher plants) and Beta-sitosterol glycoside (another plant product) exhibit anti-inflammatory, anti-neoplastic, anti-pyretic and immune-modulating activities. These activities may help protect against and reverse such diseases as chronic viral infections, tuberculosis, cancer, allergies, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and various other autoimmune diseases.

The immune system within our bodies is very complex. There are basically two ways that our immune system protects us from disease. The first way is by creating antibodies in response to a particular invader. This is basically how an inoculation works. We inject into the body a part of a virus or bacteria. The body recognizes the invader and creates a specific defense against it, very specific cells that are floating through the body as sentries, waiting for the arrival of the bad guy. They can only fight against that specific bad guy. When someone gets infected with the virus or bacteria then the body is already armed to get rid of it. This is also the primary way that we hand down immunity from generation to generation… antibodies are passed from mother to child through the placenta and through a nutrient called colostrum that comes from breast feeding in the first few days of life.

The second way is through a less specific corps of cells that find invaders and destroys them through various forms of chemical warfare. The natural killer cells that help protect against cancer are among these types of cells. Within these particular cells, the balance between the different components is very important to the body’s ability to effectively fight off disease.

An “auto-immune” disease occurs when, for some reason, the body’s immune system starts fighting against the body itself, or certain parts of the body. In the case of multiple sclerosis, parts of the immune system start attacking the lining of the nerve cells, called the myelin sheath, and cause nerve damage that results in muscle weakness, fatigue and vision problems. It may be that the actual problem has to do with the “balance” between certain parts of the immune system.

Some of the immune cells do the attacking and other cells tell the attacking cells when to stop the assault. Too much of one type and not enough of the other has been observed in people with certain chronic viral and bacteria diseases, and in other chronic conditions, such as allergies and auto-immune disorders. Fixing this imbalance may be the answer to helping people with rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, persistent allergies, psoriasis… even cancer and HIV.

What does all of this have to do with sterols and sterolins… the fats that come from plants? Research has shown that beta-sitosterol and beta-sitosterol glycosides work to help maintain the proper balance within certain parts of the immune system. These plant fats help return the body to normal function, they help “normalize” immune function. Is it any wonder that vegetarians seem to suffer less from all sorts of diseases, including various cancers, heart disease, allergies and auto-immune diseases? Ongoing studies looking into the effect of these plant fats include rheumatoid arthritis, chronic rhinitis and sinusitis, hepatitis C, HIV, and cancer.

So the next question is… which plant foods will provide the most of these healthy plant fats? Almost all plant foods contain some amounts of sterols and sterolins. The following list shows the foods with the highest contents (mg of sterols/sterolins per 100 grams of edible portion).

Nuts and Seeds:
Sesame seeds 443
Sunflower seeds 349
Cashews 130
Almonds 122

Vegetables:
Peas 108
Barley 98
Squash, white 89
Potatoes, white 40
Soybeans 30

Vegetable Oils:
Olive oil 91
Wheat germ 67
Sunflower oil 60
Cocoa butter 59

Fruits:
Figs 27
Oranges, naval 17
Pomegranates 16
Apricots 16

Beans and Legumes:
Peanuts 142
Broad 95
Kidney 91

Spices, dry:
Clove 242
Oregano 177
Thyme 152

As you can see, seeds and nuts contain much larger amounts than do many other foods. However, how these foods are cooked and stored, frozen or processed can affect the amounts of the good fats. For example, freezing releases an enzyme within the food that destroys the phytosterol glycosides. Boiling vegetables causes the plant fats to precipitate into the cooking water, which gets thrown away. The vegetable oils mentioned above actually have the sterol removed, because the “cloudiness” that they cause gives the impression of impurities in the oil.

The sprouts of certain foods, if consumed at the proper time, contain much higher amounts of the plant fats. There are products available at the health food store that take the sprouts, dry them and put them in a capsule to insure a certain amount of sterols and sterolins per capsule.

In conclusion, it seems to make sense that nature has the ability to provide us with all of the nutrition that we need to live long, healthy lives. It is clear that our understanding of just how this works is still in its infancy and that as time goes on we will discover more and more. In the meantime, my recommendation is to eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. Try to eat them in the packages that nature provides them, you never see a “can” of peas growing on a vine. Try to get them as close to the time when they were picked as possible and try to make sure that they were picked ripe, not ripened on a truck on the way to the store. Try to eat foods that are not treated with pesticides and other poisons.

And most importantly, think about what else your Grandma tried to tell you… if she was right about this, she was probably right about all the other things too!

In the past, my stock answer to this sticky question has been, “it depends”. There are many factors that would determine which is right for an individual… genetics, metabolism, blood type, ethnic background, health, personal preferences, etc. If I saw five patients in one day that all asked me that very same question, the conclusion drawn would have been that there is a different answer for each one of them.

Herbivore? Carnivore? Omnivore?

Nope… if we really want the healthiest way of eating… for you, and for the rest or us, how about LOCAVORE!!

Factoid: The New Oxford American Dictionary chose locavore as its word of the year for 2007.

A “locavore” is someone that eats food grown or produced locally or within a certain radius of where they live. The distance considered “local” may vary depending upon your sensibilities, but a generally accepted rule of thumb may be within 100 miles.

This would be taking the question to a whole different level – one that transcends whether you are eating meat or not. And one that eschews the organic vs. non-organic argument. Or, better said, decide to eat locally first – then you can argue about all the rest of it. Vegetarian or carnivore, organic or not – if you are getting your food locally, chances are it will be healthier for you than if it traveled in a truck, boat or plane to make it to your plate. And, just as importantly, it will be healthier for me if you did that too!

The average American meal has traveled at least 1,500 miles to make it to your plate (that is further than the average American family goes for vacation). So what is the true cost of a meal when you consider the fuel costs of transportation and refrigeration, packaging, labor, etc? The cost to the environment and the inflated cost of gasoline (because of supposed scarcity) makes that 99 cent hamburger one heck of a lot more expensive.

Get this – according to Barbara Kingsolver (author of many novels including Poisonwood Bible) and husband Steven Hopp in their book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – if every American citizen would eat just one local and organically grown meal a week, the savings in fuel would amount to 1.1 million barrels of oil every week! How many of us have considered trading in our SUVs for little Hondas? Want to make a real difference, and help yourself in the process… become a locavore… the impact can be tremendous, even if you only partially dedicate yourself to the idea.

Locally grown food makes up less than 1% of the $900-billion food industry. The reasons for this are numerous, including grocery chains & wholesalers and fast-food producers finding it easier and more profitable to buy from huge factory farms. Government subsidies also contribute to the appearance of economies with the large-scale food delivery system.

Imagine what would happen if there were no more local farms in our area. All it would take is one natural disaster between here and the Mid-West, or one ill-timed political decision, or one trucker’s strike to render us helpless.

Here are additional benefits (other than saving gas) that come from encouraging and supporting local farmers…

Eating foods harvested locally also means eating them almost immediately after harvest, which translates into better taste and increased nutritional value, because foods ripen on the vine, not through an artificial process while in a truck.
Keeping local farmers in business helps to control urban sprawl – a family farm going out of business is what leads to the land becoming available to developers.
Eating locally encourages multiple cropping; growing multiple species and a wide variety of crops at the same time and place… this is healthier for the land and also makes the farms less susceptible to the likelihood of an entire crop loss caused by one factor (meaning if all you grow is soy beans and a soy bean virus attacks your crops – you’re done).
Multiple cropping also allows for more efficient use of labor and materials because different plants come in at different times, as opposed to 80% of the work happening in a short period of time.
Local economies are strengthened by protecting local jobs and local suppliers.
You should realize that foods in packages marked as “local” may mean that they were grown locally, shipped abroad for packaging and processing, and then shipped right back to your neighborhood for sale. This would hardly result in the intended outcome or conserving resources, etc. And, it would also mean that too much of the cost of the food would be going to all of the middle-men in that process, not the local farmer. So, when you buy locally, you should be buying from the actual farmer (at a farmer’s market, perhaps) or from a food co-op or local grocer who can certify the source and processing of the goods.

When you go to a farmer’s market to make your purchases, take the time to actually talk to the farmer. First of all, it’s the neighborly thing to do (and he or she IS your neighbor). Also, you can find out about the farming methods used – organic or not – and you can get the opportunity to let your preferences be known. You are the consumer, the customer, after all, and farmers want to grow the things that you are interested in buying.

And don’t forget about restaurants that advertise local foods used in their establishments. Eating at these places has a tremendous trickle down effect in supporting local farmers and encouraging more of them to continue to do their thing.

There are a lot of resources around to help you find local farmers and farmers markets. You can go to www.localharvest.org and click on the map where you live. Bring up www.futureharvestcasa.org for more regional resources and information. Click on www.100milediet.org to read even more about this concept and to get on the road to becoming a locavore yourself.

I really encourage you to think this through very carefully. Think about how simple it would be to make a small change in your habits that could reap huge rewards down the road. One meal a week, that is less than 5% of your total eating activity, can make a huge difference in your health and mine. If you aren’t interested in helping yourself, you could at least do it for me!

By Ray Hinish, Pharm.D., CPT, LWMC www.illnessisoptional.com | 410-356-2169

Ahh, feel that? Spring is in the air. Ahh, the days are getting warmer. Ahh, the flowers are starting to bloom. And, ahh, ahh achoo! It’s allergy season again.

Blame global warming, blame antibiotics in our food, blame the Japan earthquake, but for those of us who suffer from allergies, the symptoms seem to be getting worse for Marylanders statewide. No matter whom you blame, our misery is real and so, by association, is the misery we inflict upon our loved ones who suffer through our suffering.

With most allergy medications now available without a prescription, you would think that we would be able to get through the season with little discomfort. Unfortunately, even with the most powerful drugs many of us continue to suffer through the Spring with puffy eyes, noses that flow like Niagara Falls, and miserable sinus headaches that guarantee that we will not enjoy the beautiful spring weather.

So, if medicqtions can only offer temporary and minor symptom relief, what are we to do?

Being an allergy sufferer myself, I have spent the last decade investigating some of the most powerful anti-allergy compounds available through nature’s laboratory. When you make use of these powerful compounds, you will typically enjoy fewer symptoms and the symptoms that do occur will typically be less severe.

And that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Allergies occur after exposure to some sort of trigger such as pollen, which we call an “allergen”. Once the allergen makes contact with the moist environment of the eyes, sinuses, and/or throat, the body senses the allergen and, being a natural worrier, mistakes the allergen for some sort of bacteria or virus that is trying to enter into the body.

In an attempt to prevent the perceived threat from entering the blood, the body sends out signals that cause mucous flow (to trap and expel the offending organism), sinus swelling (to prevent entry of the organism deeper into the respiratory tract), and watering of eyes (to expel anything that could pose a risk to sight).

As you can see, the body has your best intentions in mind when it mounts an allergy reaction, the problem is, the body is misperceiving a harmless allergen for a potential threat and thus the reaction is exaggerated and unnecessary.

Nature has manufactured many compounds to counteract this exaggerated allergy response. Interestingly, many of these compounds are produced in fruits and vegetables that occur in season with allergy symptoms.

It is almost as if nature was anticipating the allergy reactions and providing the remedy along with the cause. The problem is, we don’t consume these compounds in any volume in our diet any more.

There are many natural compounds that have proven themselves to be powerful allies in the fight against allergy symptoms.

Quercetin – Considered nature’s most powerful anti-histamine, quercetin is a bioflavonoid that is found abundantly in fruits, vegetables, and teas. Sources include apples, onions, parsley, citrus, grapes, dark cherries, and most berries. Quercetin helps to stabilize mast cells, immune cells that are known to leak histamine, the primary cause of most allergies. Most allergy medications work by inhibiting histamine release or by blocking histamine receptors. Quercetin works by a slightly different mechanism, virtually plugging up the holes in the mast cells that leak histamine. Recommended Doses are 1,000 mg to 3,000 mg in divided doses throughout the day.

Stinging Nettle – Stinging nettle is one of the most powerful anti-allergy herbs available and works very well when combined with quercetin. While quercetin works to prevent histamine release, stinging nettle works on other inflammatory compounds that impact allergy symptoms. Recommended dose: 1000 mg – 4,000 mg per day.

Rosemary Extract – This year I have added rosemary extract to my list of recommended supplements for allergy symptoms due to some compelling research that suggests that a natural compound found in rosemary extract, called rosmarinic acid, can actually balance the immune system in such a way that decreases inflammation in the body. The recommended dose is 50 mg of rosemarinic acid twice daily.

Conventional medicine’s model of disease treatment is to find and target one particular compound that is associated with a particular disease. In the case of allergies, the drug companies attempt to decrease histamine while ignoring other important inflammatory compounds and immune cells.

Natural products allow us to approach a health challenge from multiple pathways without risk of side effects. In fact, we have discovered that there is a synergistic effect from the use of multiple natural products. In other words, the benefits accomplished through the use of multiple herbs and nutrients are far greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Product Recommendations

There are many well-balanced natural allergy formulas on the market. For a foundation product containing quercetin, stinging nettle, and other powerful allergy-normalizing compounds, I recommend you try Natural D-Hist by Orthomolecular products (call our office about this product) or Aller-Res-Q by Natura Health Products. The recommended dose is 2 capsules two to three times daily. This year, I am also recommending a product called Butterbur with Standardized Rosemarinic Acid by Life Extension Products 1 softgel twice daily.

A bonus tip is to flush out the allergens. The sinuses are very good at trapping allergens; unfortunately they are not so good at kicking these offending allergens out. To flush them of these offending products, wash the sinuses every morning and evening with a neti pot or Nasaline nasal syringe. These tools are a powerful way to dramatically improve your sinus allergy symptoms. Admittedly, sinus rinsing is uncomfortable at first, however, like many of our patients who are resistant, you too will quickly find yourself addicted to the clean and open feelings that follow this morning and evening ritual.