Everyone is aware that we possess what is called a voluntary nervous system that enables us to carry out actions at will. The control mechanisms are, of course, in the most developed part of the brain. Many people are, however, ignorant of another part of our complex body communication system. This is known as the autonomic nervous system and its controls are in the lower or more primitive part of the brain, the limbic system and brainstem. The sophisticated thinking part of the brain still has many activities that are still unexplained. We do not understand the true nature of thinking or consciousness. Whether it is a computer or not is unknown. The limbic system and brainstem are clearly vital parts of an extremely complex computer. They control our ability to adapt to all the mental and physical sensory input that we experience throughout life. Most people are aware that we have a bunch of glands collectively known as the endocrine system. They release their respective hormones on cue from messages that are sent out automatically by the lower brain control mechanisms. They are really messengers of the brain and as they return to the brain in the blood, their concentration is carefully monitored and controlled by biofeedback. That is why it is virtually impossible to give people hormones that imitate this for we do not know the required concentration of any hormone at any one time in the twenty-four hour cycle
The autonomic system can be compared to two telephone lines, each of which goes to every organ in the body. They are called sympathetic and parasympathetic and they essentially provide messages to the body organs that oppose each other. The sympathetic “telephone line” is the “action system” and it is capable of initiating a number of reflexes that are important to our survival. The best known of these is the fight-or-flight reflex, aimed at “killing the enemy, for example a wild animal, or escaping from it”. It consumes a great deal of cellular energy and is designed for short term action. After the danger, whatever that may be, is over and survival has been accomplished, the sympathetic system is automatically withdrawn and the parasympathetic arm goes into action. Under its guidance, we can “roll a stone over the mouth of our cave” and we can sleep, eat, have sex and do all the things that we can do in a safe environment. Of course, our stress factors have changed dramatically from that encountered by our ancestors. We now have the modern equivalents associated with our civilization. Most modern stress is mental and does not require a physical response as an escape. It is a very different kind of attack and can unfortunately be prolonged, thus exhausting cellular energy. It must be emphasized here that the word “stress” must be used as the “causative physical or mental input”. It is the response that is the important issue. It may explain, for example, why a given child can come out of a parental divorce without harm whereas another child may not, depending on how the stress is handled.
The prefix “dys” means “abnormality of” and so that is how dysautonomia simply means that the system is not functioning as it should. There are genetic factors, as there always are, but the most important cause of this dysfunction (see the prefix again) is inefficient use of oxygen in providing cellular energy. The brain is the organ that is most dependent on a continuous supply of oxygen and its use in oxidation. This particularly apples to the limbic system and brainstem because they compute 24 hours a day and maintain our survival. For example, the brainstem contains vital centers that control automatic breathing. Thus, as we go to sleep, these centers maintain both the speed and strength of heart muscle contraction as well as taking over the control of breathing. An example of this failure is the awful disaster of sudden infant death where the automatic mechanisms in a rapidly developing brainstem have been compromised. The infant stops breathing or his (more common in boys) heart ceases to beat. Published medical literature points to deficiency of magnesium or thiamine as a common underlying cause, even though the positioning of the infant in the crib is now apparently accepted as the only cause. It is well known that SIDS occurs more commonly where there is poverty and where “junk” nutrition is more likely to be a factor.
A condition in adults known as sleep apnea is one way in which abnormal brainstem function is indicated. There is also a lethal condition called "Ondine's Curse" where the automatic life mechanisms fail. Ondine is a mythological "water nymph" who was jilted by her human lover. As a punishment she cursed him by abolishing these normal life controls and hence he died in his sleep. By far the easiest and most common way to produce changes in these vitally necessary mechanism is to take an excess of sugar since its metabolism is tied to a number of essential nutrients, the most important of which are vitamin B1 (thiamine) and magnesium. In a previous post I described the “choked engine syndrome” that used the analogy of a car engine where there is too much gasoline in the cylinder and either insufficient oxygen or a defective spark plug.
Of particular interest, it has long been known that the autonomic nervous system controls the body organs asymmetrically. For example, the message received by the heart from the right side of the sympathetic nerve system is different from that received by the left side. One of the curious things that happens in the early stages of dysautonomia (the prototype for dysautonomia is beriberi, the disease discussed in some detail in an earlier post) is that the reflex control mechanisms in the limbic system and brainstem become much more reactive to perfectly normal mental or physical sensory input. Blood pressures in the two arms become widely different when measured at the same time. Since our emotions are generated in the limbic system automatically by the kind of input it receives, (for example, an insult initiates anger) affected individuals become much more emotional. Anger becomes exaggerated and may explode in violence that would not be perpetrated if the emotional reflex was normal and influenced by the thinking part of the brain. That is why I have suggested that the school shootings and otherwise inexplicable human reactions in this modern era are related to high calorie malnutrition. I have never seen anyone interested in the diet for a "school shooter". It simply does not exist as a question. A recent medical paper from Japan reported 17 adolescents with beriberi, caused by the ingestion of sodas in their social relationships. Dietary mayhem may be an extremely important factor that is largely ignored in this modern era that we refer to as civilization. The more that we forget our biologic orgins and how our diet affects our energy metabolism, the greater the danger of abnormal behavior and loss of control under the influence of stress.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
YIN AND YANG
What did the ancient Chinese philosophers and observers of humanity mean by Yin and Yang and why is it an important philosophical contribution in the modern world? Reading an English translation of Chinese literature, I found no clear definition, although it became obvious that the two words represented extremes on either side of a median, the equivalent of the "bell-shaped curve" which is so popular with statisticians today. Thus, the idea of a “point of balance”, expressed thousands of years ago, is as important today as it was then. It applies to lifestyle and nutrition. If something is good for us, more of it may be better, but an excess is bad. There must always be an optimum state.
It is worth noting the ancient origin of this very important philosophical concept. Genealogies of Chinese dynasties list the Yellow Emperor as the third of China's first five rulers and ascribe to him the period of 2697-2597 BCE. The Age of the Five Rulers is said to have lasted 647 years (2852-2205 BCE) and is called the "Legendary Period". The Yellow Emperor is considered to be the author of NEI CHING SU WEN, the classic treatise on internal medicine, and supposedly the oldest medical book extant. The development of Chinese medical philosophy even predates this and may have been in existence for centuries before the book was written. With our short lives, the wisdom of the ages locked up in books that are rarely read, we have accumulated a vast amount of knowledge that is largely ignored. This is so ingrained that a reference older than about 10 years, provided for a medical article is considered to be “out of date”. We should be building our perpetual gain of knowledge standing on the shoulders of history. But how we access it is extremely difficult, particularly when it is often thought to be the primitive concepts of an age gone by.
The idea of “balance” in the human body is best illustrated by considering the intake of oxygen. We cannot live without it and its excess is lethal, as every diver knows. Another illustration is from the history of selenium, now known to be an essential nutrient. Until 1957, selenium was classified as a poison. Then someone, initially thought to be “crazy”, found that it was essential to life as a nutrient. It is the “dose window” that counts, that amount between too little and too much. We require selenium in a vanishingly small daily dose that is measured in micrograms, one thousandth of a milligram. All the essential nutrients, even water, have their own “dose window”. For example, both oxygen and vitamin C have very large dose windows as do most of the vitamins. Minerals are different and their limited dose windows make it much easier to reach a toxic level. They should always be ingested under the care of a professional who understands the developing art and science of nutritional supplementation.
It is obvious that pharmaceutical drugs all have dose windows and toxicity from their use is disastrous since every person has his/her own tolerance and there are at least one hundred thousand deaths a year in the U.S. in people using such drugs as prescribed according to the published dose “safety” in Physicians Desk Reference (PDR). Nutrient supplements are used therapeutically in doses that exceed the expected daily intake. They are therefore being used as drugs since they influence our physiology. There has never been a report of death from their use in the emerging paradigm of Complementary Alternative Medicine.
I was surprised one day when I found a book that described an animal experiment. The investigators put together a diet that was completely free of lead and they described the difficulty of its preparation. When they fed it to young animals, they failed to grow. When the minute amount of lead was restored, they began to grow. Everyone today knows that lead is poisonous, but the idea of a minute dose being essential, like selenium, is extremely surprising and known by only a few. It may well be that the entire periodic table represents our nutritional requirement. This would make sense of the formula used in the burial service “dust to dust and earth to earth”. Boron has been used clinically to strengthen bones and calcium is known by all as an element of bone. Both are potentially toxic when used improperly. Could it be that even mercury in vanishingly minute doses is essential, like lead? Nobody, to my knowledge, has attempted to find out.
An experiment in mice was published two years ago. Normal mice were overfed and, as expected, they became obese. It was found that a gene for a mechanism in the hypothalamus, the epicenter of the lower brain computer, was silent if nutrition was appropriate. With overfeeding this gene became active and caused obesity and/or inflammation or both. Since the mouse genome is surprisingly close to human, perhaps we can extrapolate from mouse to man. If that is true for us, can we suggest a reason for this apparent anomaly? In times of plenty, it would have been an advantage for our ancestors to become fat so that they could survive on it in a period of food deficiency. It would be a solution that only Mother Nature could invent. Perhaps we have our own solution to the epidemic of gross obesity in America for we know that obese people are more at risk for chronic disease that involves inflammation. Inflammation is a perfectly normal process when it is induced in the body as a defensive mechanism. If we cut ourselves, inflammation brings in the right amount of blood containing the white cells to fight infection and the nutrients and oxygen to provide the energy for healing. But if it gets out of hand and is applied to tissues that do not require it, it becomes a cause of inflammatory disease, the Yin and the Yang of extremism once again. It is an interesting comment on the gross malnutrition that is being experienced in this crazy world. It does no good to say that we should use “this” or “that” diet. I tell all my patients the same thing: eat “God made” food and leave the man made junk alone. The further we go from our biologic origins, the greater the peril. If the food had not been on the Earth when man arrived on it, we could not have survived as a species. It was all natural and all we had to do was to hunt and gather.
Our stewardship of planet Earth has been and continues to be destructive and our source of food containing all the nutrients that we require to remain healthy is compromised. Many people are becoming sick, not so much from 3 meals a day (although that is bad enough) but what they consume between meals in social activities. Sugar is indeed dangerous and the universal accompaniment of high sugar snacks with watching TV is a potent source of trouble for those that are sensitive to its ingestion. The trouble is they have no idea at all that their multiple symptoms are related and keep going to their doctors for medicines that they do not need if they were made acquainted with the real cause. I tell people to stay away from the “hair of the dog that is biting them” and eat only “God made food”. It is well to remember that even some of that is compromised. Cow’s milk was “invented” for calves and is not intended for humans, some of whom get sick from its consumption, a surprise for many when its commercial touting is so common. Unfortunately, proper food has become so expensive that many people are unable to afford it, particularly when they have to trim the budget for a family. I am aware that there will be some that read this that will automatically reject it as nonsense. They will say “If this is so important to our health, why have doctors in general not adopted these simple principles”? Well, even though the inherent dangers of tobacco are now well accepted by all, there are still thousands that still smoke. It would be difficult for them not to know the risks, so why do they continue to commit slow suicide? It is incredibly difficult to pass on wisdom, as illustrated by ignoring the advice capability of elderly people in our modern era. At one time age was respected. Now it is trashed and the young are totally ignorant of what they are missing in their planning for life.
It is worth noting the ancient origin of this very important philosophical concept. Genealogies of Chinese dynasties list the Yellow Emperor as the third of China's first five rulers and ascribe to him the period of 2697-2597 BCE. The Age of the Five Rulers is said to have lasted 647 years (2852-2205 BCE) and is called the "Legendary Period". The Yellow Emperor is considered to be the author of NEI CHING SU WEN, the classic treatise on internal medicine, and supposedly the oldest medical book extant. The development of Chinese medical philosophy even predates this and may have been in existence for centuries before the book was written. With our short lives, the wisdom of the ages locked up in books that are rarely read, we have accumulated a vast amount of knowledge that is largely ignored. This is so ingrained that a reference older than about 10 years, provided for a medical article is considered to be “out of date”. We should be building our perpetual gain of knowledge standing on the shoulders of history. But how we access it is extremely difficult, particularly when it is often thought to be the primitive concepts of an age gone by.
The idea of “balance” in the human body is best illustrated by considering the intake of oxygen. We cannot live without it and its excess is lethal, as every diver knows. Another illustration is from the history of selenium, now known to be an essential nutrient. Until 1957, selenium was classified as a poison. Then someone, initially thought to be “crazy”, found that it was essential to life as a nutrient. It is the “dose window” that counts, that amount between too little and too much. We require selenium in a vanishingly small daily dose that is measured in micrograms, one thousandth of a milligram. All the essential nutrients, even water, have their own “dose window”. For example, both oxygen and vitamin C have very large dose windows as do most of the vitamins. Minerals are different and their limited dose windows make it much easier to reach a toxic level. They should always be ingested under the care of a professional who understands the developing art and science of nutritional supplementation.
It is obvious that pharmaceutical drugs all have dose windows and toxicity from their use is disastrous since every person has his/her own tolerance and there are at least one hundred thousand deaths a year in the U.S. in people using such drugs as prescribed according to the published dose “safety” in Physicians Desk Reference (PDR). Nutrient supplements are used therapeutically in doses that exceed the expected daily intake. They are therefore being used as drugs since they influence our physiology. There has never been a report of death from their use in the emerging paradigm of Complementary Alternative Medicine.
I was surprised one day when I found a book that described an animal experiment. The investigators put together a diet that was completely free of lead and they described the difficulty of its preparation. When they fed it to young animals, they failed to grow. When the minute amount of lead was restored, they began to grow. Everyone today knows that lead is poisonous, but the idea of a minute dose being essential, like selenium, is extremely surprising and known by only a few. It may well be that the entire periodic table represents our nutritional requirement. This would make sense of the formula used in the burial service “dust to dust and earth to earth”. Boron has been used clinically to strengthen bones and calcium is known by all as an element of bone. Both are potentially toxic when used improperly. Could it be that even mercury in vanishingly minute doses is essential, like lead? Nobody, to my knowledge, has attempted to find out.
An experiment in mice was published two years ago. Normal mice were overfed and, as expected, they became obese. It was found that a gene for a mechanism in the hypothalamus, the epicenter of the lower brain computer, was silent if nutrition was appropriate. With overfeeding this gene became active and caused obesity and/or inflammation or both. Since the mouse genome is surprisingly close to human, perhaps we can extrapolate from mouse to man. If that is true for us, can we suggest a reason for this apparent anomaly? In times of plenty, it would have been an advantage for our ancestors to become fat so that they could survive on it in a period of food deficiency. It would be a solution that only Mother Nature could invent. Perhaps we have our own solution to the epidemic of gross obesity in America for we know that obese people are more at risk for chronic disease that involves inflammation. Inflammation is a perfectly normal process when it is induced in the body as a defensive mechanism. If we cut ourselves, inflammation brings in the right amount of blood containing the white cells to fight infection and the nutrients and oxygen to provide the energy for healing. But if it gets out of hand and is applied to tissues that do not require it, it becomes a cause of inflammatory disease, the Yin and the Yang of extremism once again. It is an interesting comment on the gross malnutrition that is being experienced in this crazy world. It does no good to say that we should use “this” or “that” diet. I tell all my patients the same thing: eat “God made” food and leave the man made junk alone. The further we go from our biologic origins, the greater the peril. If the food had not been on the Earth when man arrived on it, we could not have survived as a species. It was all natural and all we had to do was to hunt and gather.
Our stewardship of planet Earth has been and continues to be destructive and our source of food containing all the nutrients that we require to remain healthy is compromised. Many people are becoming sick, not so much from 3 meals a day (although that is bad enough) but what they consume between meals in social activities. Sugar is indeed dangerous and the universal accompaniment of high sugar snacks with watching TV is a potent source of trouble for those that are sensitive to its ingestion. The trouble is they have no idea at all that their multiple symptoms are related and keep going to their doctors for medicines that they do not need if they were made acquainted with the real cause. I tell people to stay away from the “hair of the dog that is biting them” and eat only “God made food”. It is well to remember that even some of that is compromised. Cow’s milk was “invented” for calves and is not intended for humans, some of whom get sick from its consumption, a surprise for many when its commercial touting is so common. Unfortunately, proper food has become so expensive that many people are unable to afford it, particularly when they have to trim the budget for a family. I am aware that there will be some that read this that will automatically reject it as nonsense. They will say “If this is so important to our health, why have doctors in general not adopted these simple principles”? Well, even though the inherent dangers of tobacco are now well accepted by all, there are still thousands that still smoke. It would be difficult for them not to know the risks, so why do they continue to commit slow suicide? It is incredibly difficult to pass on wisdom, as illustrated by ignoring the advice capability of elderly people in our modern era. At one time age was respected. Now it is trashed and the young are totally ignorant of what they are missing in their planning for life.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
A REMARKABLE NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENT
I want to tell you something about one of Mother Nature’s gifts. I am sure that some people taking the trouble to read this blog have tried to get information on garlic. It has been used, of course, in food preparation for centuries. In about the middle of the last century a group of medical researchers in Japan were studying it and they found something that alerted their curiosity. When the inside of a garlic bulb is exposed to air by cutting or crushing it, vitamin B1, also known as thiamine, is worked on by an enzyme that exists in the bulb. It converts thiamine to a disulfide derivative that they called allithiamine. This name was given because they found it in other plants within the allium species that includes garlic. Garlic also contains about twenty sulfur containing compounds called thiols that are important in the normal use of cellular oxygen. Originally the investigators thought that this newly discovered substance had lost the biochemical properties that are known to be initiated by thiamine in animal cells, including humans. Further study in animals showed that it had biologic properties that actually exceeded those exhibited by the original thiamine. In order to understand why this was an important discovery I have to remind you about the action of thiamine in the body.
The human adult body is made up of between 70 and 100 trillion cells. Each has to use oxygen to create the energy that enables it to function, as has been discussed in previous posts. Thiamine is the “spark plug” that “ignites” glucose, the fuel of all our cells and it is particularly important in the brain, heart and nervous system. Its absorption from the foods that contain it, its journey in the blood to the cells that require it and its delivery to those cells, involves complex biochemistry. It has long been thought that the RDA of thiamine is sufficient and that any form of megadose would be of no physiological value. This is because the enzymes that require it cannot be accelerated in their function by introducing an excess of the vitamin. Remember from an earlier post that most vitamins are cofactors to enzymnes. This is essentially correct in healthy people whose diet has remained excellent over the years of life. We know from history that it required months of huge doses of thiamine to cure advanced beriberi and sometimes it was too late since there was permanent damage. The enzymes that require thiamine to function to full capacity begin to deteriorate when there is an overload of glucose and an insufficiency of the vitamin, as discussed in the “Choked Engine Syndrome” in an earlier post. In order to recuperate this efficiency, the enzyme needs to be “hit” with much larger doses of thiamine. The normal physiological mechanisms for absorbing dietary thiamine are inadequate for large doses and that is where allithiamine comes into the picture. Further research showed that this disulfide form of the vitamin did not need the complex biochemistry to absorb it into body cells.
A Vitamin B Research Committee was formed in Japan because of their vested interest in beriberi that was still seen quite commonly in 1965 when they published their work in Tokyo in a book entitled “Thiamine and Beriberi”. I was lucky to receive an English translation from one of the members of the Japanese committee. It has within its pages a cornucopia of information that is of vast importance in our modern era. The discovery of allithiamine sparked a long period of research that led to synthesis of a huge number of thiamine derivatives that can now be separated into a group of disulfides and non disulfides. The most efficient derivative is thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide (TTFD). It is sold as a prescription item in Japan as Alinamin and also known elsewhere as Fursultiamine. The best known of the non disulfides is Benfotiamine. Alinamin is capable of entering the brain whereas it has been shown by a researcher in Belgium that Benfotiamine does not cross the blood brain barrier. This barrier is a normal physiological mechanism.
I want now to concentrate on TTFD since I have been studying its benefits for 38 years and have written many papers in the medical literature. It is not approved by the FDA in the United States in spite of its enormous therapeutic value because it is considered to be a drug. For an American drug company to import it, it would involve the millions of dollars for testing. The present model of disease demands that the drug must be virtually unique in the cure of a specific disease to warrant the expenditure and its recuperation in profits. The trouble with that is that the model itself is outmoded as indicated in an earlier post and the therapeutic properties of TTFD have biochemical implications that do not fit the model. The reason is that it addresses energy metabolism that is the underlying root of many (if not all) diseases and particularly those involving the brain.
We know that depletion of thiamine is the equivalent of oxygen deficiency since they are both essential ingredients of cellular energy production. Published material has shown that thiamine is involved in many brain diseases and that its administration as TTFD has shown some benefit in autism and even in Alzheimer disease. Japanese investigators have shown that it improves muscle function (I have treated Duchenne muscular dystrophy with partial success) and that it shortens the recovery time from post surgical paralysis of bowel function known as “post operative paralytic ileus”. Animal studies have shown that it removes lead and mercury from body tissues and also has anti-inflammatory properties. Amazingly,pretreatment of mice with TTFD partially protects the animal from cyanide death and liver damage from carbon tetrachloride administrations. Beriberi is the prototype of dysautonomia in its early stages and this category of disease is very common in America because of the huge ingestion of sugar as already discussed. It is my view that TTFD could easily be introduced to the United States under GRAS rules (generally regarded as safe) but our bureaucracy is stiffer that the proverbial poker. If there is a substance available in this cruel world that helps so-called untreatable disease, should we not welcome it? Even a 10 percent improvement, achieved cheaply and without toxic risk, is better than the status quo and we should be trying hard to find its full value in medicine. If it has indeed rendered the medical model outmoded, there is nothing more constant than change!
The human adult body is made up of between 70 and 100 trillion cells. Each has to use oxygen to create the energy that enables it to function, as has been discussed in previous posts. Thiamine is the “spark plug” that “ignites” glucose, the fuel of all our cells and it is particularly important in the brain, heart and nervous system. Its absorption from the foods that contain it, its journey in the blood to the cells that require it and its delivery to those cells, involves complex biochemistry. It has long been thought that the RDA of thiamine is sufficient and that any form of megadose would be of no physiological value. This is because the enzymes that require it cannot be accelerated in their function by introducing an excess of the vitamin. Remember from an earlier post that most vitamins are cofactors to enzymnes. This is essentially correct in healthy people whose diet has remained excellent over the years of life. We know from history that it required months of huge doses of thiamine to cure advanced beriberi and sometimes it was too late since there was permanent damage. The enzymes that require thiamine to function to full capacity begin to deteriorate when there is an overload of glucose and an insufficiency of the vitamin, as discussed in the “Choked Engine Syndrome” in an earlier post. In order to recuperate this efficiency, the enzyme needs to be “hit” with much larger doses of thiamine. The normal physiological mechanisms for absorbing dietary thiamine are inadequate for large doses and that is where allithiamine comes into the picture. Further research showed that this disulfide form of the vitamin did not need the complex biochemistry to absorb it into body cells.
A Vitamin B Research Committee was formed in Japan because of their vested interest in beriberi that was still seen quite commonly in 1965 when they published their work in Tokyo in a book entitled “Thiamine and Beriberi”. I was lucky to receive an English translation from one of the members of the Japanese committee. It has within its pages a cornucopia of information that is of vast importance in our modern era. The discovery of allithiamine sparked a long period of research that led to synthesis of a huge number of thiamine derivatives that can now be separated into a group of disulfides and non disulfides. The most efficient derivative is thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide (TTFD). It is sold as a prescription item in Japan as Alinamin and also known elsewhere as Fursultiamine. The best known of the non disulfides is Benfotiamine. Alinamin is capable of entering the brain whereas it has been shown by a researcher in Belgium that Benfotiamine does not cross the blood brain barrier. This barrier is a normal physiological mechanism.
I want now to concentrate on TTFD since I have been studying its benefits for 38 years and have written many papers in the medical literature. It is not approved by the FDA in the United States in spite of its enormous therapeutic value because it is considered to be a drug. For an American drug company to import it, it would involve the millions of dollars for testing. The present model of disease demands that the drug must be virtually unique in the cure of a specific disease to warrant the expenditure and its recuperation in profits. The trouble with that is that the model itself is outmoded as indicated in an earlier post and the therapeutic properties of TTFD have biochemical implications that do not fit the model. The reason is that it addresses energy metabolism that is the underlying root of many (if not all) diseases and particularly those involving the brain.
We know that depletion of thiamine is the equivalent of oxygen deficiency since they are both essential ingredients of cellular energy production. Published material has shown that thiamine is involved in many brain diseases and that its administration as TTFD has shown some benefit in autism and even in Alzheimer disease. Japanese investigators have shown that it improves muscle function (I have treated Duchenne muscular dystrophy with partial success) and that it shortens the recovery time from post surgical paralysis of bowel function known as “post operative paralytic ileus”. Animal studies have shown that it removes lead and mercury from body tissues and also has anti-inflammatory properties. Amazingly,pretreatment of mice with TTFD partially protects the animal from cyanide death and liver damage from carbon tetrachloride administrations. Beriberi is the prototype of dysautonomia in its early stages and this category of disease is very common in America because of the huge ingestion of sugar as already discussed. It is my view that TTFD could easily be introduced to the United States under GRAS rules (generally regarded as safe) but our bureaucracy is stiffer that the proverbial poker. If there is a substance available in this cruel world that helps so-called untreatable disease, should we not welcome it? Even a 10 percent improvement, achieved cheaply and without toxic risk, is better than the status quo and we should be trying hard to find its full value in medicine. If it has indeed rendered the medical model outmoded, there is nothing more constant than change!
Monday, February 28, 2011
A TYPICAL CASE OF THE “CHOKED ENGINE SYNDROME
A choked engine in a car is achieved by an excess of gasoline with insufficient oxygen and/or an inefficient spark plug to ignite the gasoline. The result is loss of engine efficiency and decreased performance. Although the details are different and more complex in our bodies, the result of eating empty calories (“junk food”) is confusion in the brain/body dialogue, resulting in diverse symptoms. Hence the “The Choked Engine Syndrome” is caused by an excess of calories without the vitamins and minerals that enable the calories to be used as cellular fuel to produce energy. I want to describe a typical case and any reader might easily recognize his/her own symptoms.
A 14-year old boy had the major complaint of abdominal pain. It is natural to think that abdominal pain is caused by changes in abdominal organs and we shall see that this can sometimes be misleading. Generally speaking, a physician might focus his attention on the major symptom, thus dictating the investigations that are initiated. This is insufficient and other symptoms are only revealed by direct questioning. He had constipation alternating with diarrhea and the pain occurred after ingesting anything that tasted sweet. He had had suicidal thoughts, suffered frequent headaches and “panic attacks”. He complained of frequent nausea, sometimes accompanied by vomiting. He had been admitted to a hospital for three weeks for depression and seven different drugs had been prescribed. He had noted occasional dizziness, was regarded as emotionally unstable, suffered unusual fatigue and insomnia. He ground his teeth, talked in his sleep and suffered periodic attacks of “pins and needles” in his hands and feet, as well as leg pain while walking. He had noticed an occasional brief pain in the chest and, on questioning he reported that nasal congestion affected his right nostril only. Studies elsewhere reported that he suffered from fructose intolerance and all forms of fresh fruit had been withdrawn from his diet.
His facial appearance was typical of the many children and adolescents that I have seen over the years with this syndrome. There was a zone of pallor around his mouth, together with unusual flushing of the cheeks, producing a “clown-like” imitation. His tongue was badly coated a dirty brown with little red spots on its surface. He had the signs of mitral valve (a heart valve) prolapse by listening to his heart with a stethoscope. His blood pressures in the two arms, when measured at the same time, were widely different. Knee jerks were excessively reactive and a white stripe could be elicited by gently stroking the leg with a finger tip, a phenomenon known as dermographia or “skin writing”. There was a family history of one relative with diabetes.
One of the posts in this blog describes a “two-brain model” that emphasizes that the lower brain, known as the limbic system and brainstem, make up a very obvious computer, organizing our daily adaptation to environmental factors, sensed and data processed by the computer. If this part of the brain is poorly nourished by the ingestion of empty calories, its energy is affected and its loss of efficiency causes it to behave in exactly the same way as it would with a mild to moderate deficiency of oxygen.
The brain computer has a heavy oxygen requirement and a curious thing happens when energy production is mildly to moderately limited. It becomes hyper-reactive in its adaptive response to environmental stimuli, conveyed to it by sensory input. It is not the stomach that causes nausea, it is the brainstem. Vomiting occurs as a result of a signal sent to the stomach from the computer. This boy’s headaches, abdominal cramping and all his abnormal emotional reactions were produced by faulty and unnecessary executive action within the computer and its subsequent messages to body organs. It is the limbic system of the brain where our emotions are initiated. Emotions are reflex and although we are conscious of their action they are not developed from a thought process. Modifying the response to anger, for example, requires dialogue between the upper and lower brains. Road rage is an example of lack of this modifying effect. It was not fructose intolerance that was the defining issue. It was sensitivity to sugar that is extracted from the plant where it is naturally produced. To deny him fresh fruit was unnecessary because that is the natural way that sugar should be ingested. When we extract the active principle from a plant we turn it into a drug. Our taste mechanisms in the brain are programmed to receive permutations and combinations of six stimuli that provide flavor. By tasting sugar as a solitary stimulus it stimulates pleasure perception and it is the root cause of its addictive nature. The fiber in the fruit modifies the way that its sugar content is absorbed and processed and should remain the source of our sugar ingestion.
. Another clue to his sugar sensitivity was a relative with diabetes, a condition that is well known to be related to sugar metabolism. As the “Three Circles of Health” describe in a former post, there is always a genetic influence in the outcome of health and disease. It is the lower, primitive brain that organizes our adaptive mechanisms and panic attacks are nothing more than fragmented fight-or-flight reflexes that were being fired much too easily and unnecessarily. The autonomic nervous system, that is the two channel “telephone line” to all body organs, controls the two halves of the body separately, so this asymmetry is normal. When the brain controls become excitable in the way that I have described here, its asymmetric reflex mechanisms, including the blood pressures, become exaggerated. The nasal congestion confined to the right nostril only was an abnormal representation of this asymmetry, for there is a phenomenon known as the nasal cycle (Yogis have known this for centuries) when the nostrils receive signals from the autonomic nervous system asymmetrically. The periodic chest pain is like “a warning bell ringing in a complex system” and is a common symptom in this syndrome Out of great complexity, it is possible, with our present knowledge of how the human body functions, to distil out a simple solution that does not require seven drugs. All it does require is knowledge of the diet that God intended us to consume. After all, we could not have survived as a species if our food had not been present. All that this boy had to do to get well was to remove all forms of sugar from his diet except in the form of fresh fruit. He also required a few vitamin/mineral supplements to catch up with his normal metabolism.
A 14-year old boy had the major complaint of abdominal pain. It is natural to think that abdominal pain is caused by changes in abdominal organs and we shall see that this can sometimes be misleading. Generally speaking, a physician might focus his attention on the major symptom, thus dictating the investigations that are initiated. This is insufficient and other symptoms are only revealed by direct questioning. He had constipation alternating with diarrhea and the pain occurred after ingesting anything that tasted sweet. He had had suicidal thoughts, suffered frequent headaches and “panic attacks”. He complained of frequent nausea, sometimes accompanied by vomiting. He had been admitted to a hospital for three weeks for depression and seven different drugs had been prescribed. He had noted occasional dizziness, was regarded as emotionally unstable, suffered unusual fatigue and insomnia. He ground his teeth, talked in his sleep and suffered periodic attacks of “pins and needles” in his hands and feet, as well as leg pain while walking. He had noticed an occasional brief pain in the chest and, on questioning he reported that nasal congestion affected his right nostril only. Studies elsewhere reported that he suffered from fructose intolerance and all forms of fresh fruit had been withdrawn from his diet.
His facial appearance was typical of the many children and adolescents that I have seen over the years with this syndrome. There was a zone of pallor around his mouth, together with unusual flushing of the cheeks, producing a “clown-like” imitation. His tongue was badly coated a dirty brown with little red spots on its surface. He had the signs of mitral valve (a heart valve) prolapse by listening to his heart with a stethoscope. His blood pressures in the two arms, when measured at the same time, were widely different. Knee jerks were excessively reactive and a white stripe could be elicited by gently stroking the leg with a finger tip, a phenomenon known as dermographia or “skin writing”. There was a family history of one relative with diabetes.
One of the posts in this blog describes a “two-brain model” that emphasizes that the lower brain, known as the limbic system and brainstem, make up a very obvious computer, organizing our daily adaptation to environmental factors, sensed and data processed by the computer. If this part of the brain is poorly nourished by the ingestion of empty calories, its energy is affected and its loss of efficiency causes it to behave in exactly the same way as it would with a mild to moderate deficiency of oxygen.
The brain computer has a heavy oxygen requirement and a curious thing happens when energy production is mildly to moderately limited. It becomes hyper-reactive in its adaptive response to environmental stimuli, conveyed to it by sensory input. It is not the stomach that causes nausea, it is the brainstem. Vomiting occurs as a result of a signal sent to the stomach from the computer. This boy’s headaches, abdominal cramping and all his abnormal emotional reactions were produced by faulty and unnecessary executive action within the computer and its subsequent messages to body organs. It is the limbic system of the brain where our emotions are initiated. Emotions are reflex and although we are conscious of their action they are not developed from a thought process. Modifying the response to anger, for example, requires dialogue between the upper and lower brains. Road rage is an example of lack of this modifying effect. It was not fructose intolerance that was the defining issue. It was sensitivity to sugar that is extracted from the plant where it is naturally produced. To deny him fresh fruit was unnecessary because that is the natural way that sugar should be ingested. When we extract the active principle from a plant we turn it into a drug. Our taste mechanisms in the brain are programmed to receive permutations and combinations of six stimuli that provide flavor. By tasting sugar as a solitary stimulus it stimulates pleasure perception and it is the root cause of its addictive nature. The fiber in the fruit modifies the way that its sugar content is absorbed and processed and should remain the source of our sugar ingestion.
. Another clue to his sugar sensitivity was a relative with diabetes, a condition that is well known to be related to sugar metabolism. As the “Three Circles of Health” describe in a former post, there is always a genetic influence in the outcome of health and disease. It is the lower, primitive brain that organizes our adaptive mechanisms and panic attacks are nothing more than fragmented fight-or-flight reflexes that were being fired much too easily and unnecessarily. The autonomic nervous system, that is the two channel “telephone line” to all body organs, controls the two halves of the body separately, so this asymmetry is normal. When the brain controls become excitable in the way that I have described here, its asymmetric reflex mechanisms, including the blood pressures, become exaggerated. The nasal congestion confined to the right nostril only was an abnormal representation of this asymmetry, for there is a phenomenon known as the nasal cycle (Yogis have known this for centuries) when the nostrils receive signals from the autonomic nervous system asymmetrically. The periodic chest pain is like “a warning bell ringing in a complex system” and is a common symptom in this syndrome Out of great complexity, it is possible, with our present knowledge of how the human body functions, to distil out a simple solution that does not require seven drugs. All it does require is knowledge of the diet that God intended us to consume. After all, we could not have survived as a species if our food had not been present. All that this boy had to do to get well was to remove all forms of sugar from his diet except in the form of fresh fruit. He also required a few vitamin/mineral supplements to catch up with his normal metabolism.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Chronic Fatigue
Fatigue is one of the most common symptoms in patients that consult me. It is usually the presenting symptom but is invariably associated with many other symptoms, many of which are not volunteered by the patient. Modern clinical visits are usually quite short and focus on the presenting symptom without due consideration of the importance of the whole picture. Thus, it is mindful of the parable of the “blind men and the elephant”. A group of blind men were asked to describe an elephant. One found the ear, another the trunk and so on. Each described the elephant in terms of the small area examined and was certain that he had described the elephant. It led, of course, to accusations of inaccuracy of observation between them. Each was guilty of missing the “big picture”. Diagnosing disease is sometimes like that.
For this reason, when a person seeks an appointment with me through my office, a questionnaire is automatically sent to the ‘would be” patient, who is asked to fill it in and bring it for the office visit. The most important part of the consultation is the history and I begin by asking the patient the main reason for coming. Then, I ask “When were you last quite well”? It is often surprisingly difficult to pinpoint this and I frequently find that the very first symptom experienced goes back many years and even back to childhood.
So let me describe a typical hypothetical case of a person reporting with the major symptom of fatigue. The patient is a 35-year old married woman with two children. On questioning, she states that she cannot remember when her very first symptom appeared but she had a lot of colds and “flu-like” episodes in childhood and received many antibiotic treatments. She had some academic problems through school and missed a lot of school days because of illness. Her fatigue began in high school and became an added problem through college. As the years passed, she gradually accumulated other symptoms and her questionnaire reveals many more.
She has difficulty in getting to sleep and keeps awakening through the night and does not feel rested in the morning. She grinds her teeth, has some nightmares and her husband reports that she talks in her sleep and snores. Occasionally she stops breathing and starts again with a gasp. Her hands and feet are cold and she gets “pins and needles” in them. When getting out of bed or standing up from a chair she becomes “dizzy” and has even blacked out once or twice. She has sensitivity to changes in ambient temperature and barometric pressure and develops a headache with an approaching thunderstorm. She consumes two cups of coffee on awakening and takes one with her in the car on her way to work. She claims that she is so fatigued that she could not get to work without it. She has nasal congestion in the morning and, on questioning, notices nasal congestion in the left nostril when lying on her left side. When she turns over in bed the left nostril clears but the congestion shifts to the right nostril. She also claims that she is allergic to many things, each of which causes her to develop nasal congestion and asthmatic wheezing.
Her menstrual periods are irregular and are associated with emotional instability. She has severe cramps and develops a craving for chocolate and salty food snacks. She also notices abdominal pain on the left side at mid cycle that alternates with the same kind of pain on the right side with the next period. She has what is so often thought of as a disease for the gynecologist, premenstrual syndrome (PMS) that is believed to affect as many as 30 million women in the U.S. alone. In fact, it is so common that many women accept it as normal. The causative factors are always multiple, involving genetic risk and the stresses and strains of contemporary lifestyles. By far the most important aspect is diet. Americans do not damage their physiology with breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is what they do between meals and at social gatherings where their intense desire for sweet tasting substances is assuaged. It goes without saying that smoking is the most dangerous of all. I have also noted that coffee comes into this, perhaps in genetically susceptible people, because of its caffeine content and in spite of its content of antioxidants that has been promoted widely. Previous posts on this blog have tried to outline the danger of sugar. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome, PMS, and Fibromyalgia Syndrome are related in their causative factors and the present medical approach to them is only symptomatically helpful but does not address the underlying cause. I have two sayings that I give to my patients. Eat only “God-made food” and get rid of “the hair from the dog that is biting you”. That refers to the popular things that give us a jolt of pleasure such as sweet and salty things. I once saw a woman that developed her symptoms from just two cups of coffee a day. She thought that I was crazy to suggest that she remove coffee and I told her that she would never know whether I was right unless she tried it. She suffered an agonizing headache that kept her in bed for 48 hours. Then the headache disappeared and her health rapidly improved.
This blog is called “Oxygen, the Spark of Life” and I must again emphasize that the oxygen is useless unless it is consumed in the complex process of oxidation. Yes, it is indeed complex but the human body/brain physiology has evolved and the species has survived as a result of food that was provided by Mother Nature. All we have to do is to obey the rules. Since we know those rules, we are each responsible for our own health unless there is an underlying genetically determined weakness. Even then, the new science of epigenetics tells us that we can indeed manipulate our genes, at least partially, by dietary means and the addition of vital nutritional supplements.
For this reason, when a person seeks an appointment with me through my office, a questionnaire is automatically sent to the ‘would be” patient, who is asked to fill it in and bring it for the office visit. The most important part of the consultation is the history and I begin by asking the patient the main reason for coming. Then, I ask “When were you last quite well”? It is often surprisingly difficult to pinpoint this and I frequently find that the very first symptom experienced goes back many years and even back to childhood.
So let me describe a typical hypothetical case of a person reporting with the major symptom of fatigue. The patient is a 35-year old married woman with two children. On questioning, she states that she cannot remember when her very first symptom appeared but she had a lot of colds and “flu-like” episodes in childhood and received many antibiotic treatments. She had some academic problems through school and missed a lot of school days because of illness. Her fatigue began in high school and became an added problem through college. As the years passed, she gradually accumulated other symptoms and her questionnaire reveals many more.
She has difficulty in getting to sleep and keeps awakening through the night and does not feel rested in the morning. She grinds her teeth, has some nightmares and her husband reports that she talks in her sleep and snores. Occasionally she stops breathing and starts again with a gasp. Her hands and feet are cold and she gets “pins and needles” in them. When getting out of bed or standing up from a chair she becomes “dizzy” and has even blacked out once or twice. She has sensitivity to changes in ambient temperature and barometric pressure and develops a headache with an approaching thunderstorm. She consumes two cups of coffee on awakening and takes one with her in the car on her way to work. She claims that she is so fatigued that she could not get to work without it. She has nasal congestion in the morning and, on questioning, notices nasal congestion in the left nostril when lying on her left side. When she turns over in bed the left nostril clears but the congestion shifts to the right nostril. She also claims that she is allergic to many things, each of which causes her to develop nasal congestion and asthmatic wheezing.
Her menstrual periods are irregular and are associated with emotional instability. She has severe cramps and develops a craving for chocolate and salty food snacks. She also notices abdominal pain on the left side at mid cycle that alternates with the same kind of pain on the right side with the next period. She has what is so often thought of as a disease for the gynecologist, premenstrual syndrome (PMS) that is believed to affect as many as 30 million women in the U.S. alone. In fact, it is so common that many women accept it as normal. The causative factors are always multiple, involving genetic risk and the stresses and strains of contemporary lifestyles. By far the most important aspect is diet. Americans do not damage their physiology with breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is what they do between meals and at social gatherings where their intense desire for sweet tasting substances is assuaged. It goes without saying that smoking is the most dangerous of all. I have also noted that coffee comes into this, perhaps in genetically susceptible people, because of its caffeine content and in spite of its content of antioxidants that has been promoted widely. Previous posts on this blog have tried to outline the danger of sugar. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome, PMS, and Fibromyalgia Syndrome are related in their causative factors and the present medical approach to them is only symptomatically helpful but does not address the underlying cause. I have two sayings that I give to my patients. Eat only “God-made food” and get rid of “the hair from the dog that is biting you”. That refers to the popular things that give us a jolt of pleasure such as sweet and salty things. I once saw a woman that developed her symptoms from just two cups of coffee a day. She thought that I was crazy to suggest that she remove coffee and I told her that she would never know whether I was right unless she tried it. She suffered an agonizing headache that kept her in bed for 48 hours. Then the headache disappeared and her health rapidly improved.
This blog is called “Oxygen, the Spark of Life” and I must again emphasize that the oxygen is useless unless it is consumed in the complex process of oxidation. Yes, it is indeed complex but the human body/brain physiology has evolved and the species has survived as a result of food that was provided by Mother Nature. All we have to do is to obey the rules. Since we know those rules, we are each responsible for our own health unless there is an underlying genetically determined weakness. Even then, the new science of epigenetics tells us that we can indeed manipulate our genes, at least partially, by dietary means and the addition of vital nutritional supplements.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Premenstrual Syndrome
It is estimated that about half of the women in the U.S. capable of giving birth suffer from the scourge of PMS. It is regarded usually as a gynecological disorder and most sufferers wind up with the birth control pill. I want to explain why this condition fits the disease model that I have already described in a previous blog post.
Those that have read it know that the bunch of glands that come under the heading of the endocrine system are activated by the LS (limbic system) that is described as a computer. The LS has within it at least two time clocks. One rotates on a 24-hour basis and is called circadian rhythm. Circadian means “about 24 hours” and it is interesting to note that this rhythm without time cues is actually a 25-hour rhythm. It was proved by shutting a volunteer subject in a room without any clock and depriving him of the day/night cycle. Thus he had no clues as to whether it was night or day. I simply asked myself the question “why”? The intuitive answer is that we were programmed with a 25-hour rhythm and born into a 24-hour world. It strongly suggests that we have to compress that rhythm by adapting to the day/night cycle, an evolutionary phenomenon, perhaps of great importance as we live in this 24-hour world. It is as though Mother Nature has created a system to which we must continuously adapt throughout life. If not, then it gets out of sync and our body systems receive inappropriate signals.
The other known cycle is the menstrual cycle and it is an extremely important one since it is the “procreative mechanism” that prepares a woman for conception. Then, by hormonal control, it presides over the ensuing pregnancy. Its normal rhythm is 28 days, counting from the first day of the “period”. As everyone knows, the first sign of pregnancy is “missing a period”. This cycle has some curious features. For example, it is known that if women are living together in a dormitory, they begin to have their periods at the same time. I have often wondered, as I am sure others have, whether the 28-day moon cycle and the menstrual cycle are the same by coincidence or whether there is actually a cause and effect relationship. It would be curious if men do not have a 28-day cycle but they have nothing to show for it. Perhaps in some men it is responsible for emotional cycles that are considered usually to be “the reason that Dad gets grumpy periodically for no obvious cause”!
This cycle, governed by the LS, controls the release of hormones from the appropriate glands in the endocrine system. During the first half of the cycle estrogen increases and is withdraw at the 14th day when ovulation occurs. In the second half progesterone increases and is withdrawn when the period occurs. Thus, in the week before the period occurs, the LS is “working like a one-armed paper hanger”.
It is compromised function of the LS computer that is the cause of PMS and if a person reading this has become aware of the previous posts it will begin to make sense. The birth control pill shuts off the biofeedback system that is required for the LS to recognize and control the various hormonal changes over which it presides. It does work but is inappropriate to relieving the basic cause. It is as though the hormone is telling the LS that it is “no longer in charge” and it silences its controlling influences.
We can now begin to see that chocolate, sweet and salt craving are very much part of the whole picture because they are causing the problem and MUST be controlled. Why are they causing it? Because they provide inappropriate input signals to the computer as well as producing changes in oxygen use in the cells that are collectively responsible for the computerized program of the cycle.
As I have indicated previously, the computer becomes much more irritable and since the LS is responsible for our emotions, it is not surprising that one of the major symptoms of PMS is emotional lability. Husbands sometimes arrange their golf games during this week because they know that their wives are “difficult” at this time. The ensuing cramps are because of abnormal control signals to the uterus and there is often inflammation of the egg releasing mechanism at mid cycle. So left/right monthly alternating abdominal pain is experienced as the egg pops out of the ovary. This has been called “mittelschmertz”, a German word meaning “middle pain”. The release of an egg is from the left ovary alternating with the right with each successive period. Sometimes the inflammation affects only one side and the patient describes the fact that she gets this pain on that side only and with every other period cycle.
Because the autonomic nervous system is also controlled by the LS there may be associated heart palpitations, or diarrhea because of an irritable bowel. Sometimes there is excessive sweating or major changes in appetite from being voracious or diminished and the sweet craving is very hard to control in some individuals. It is important to understand that ALL the symptoms come from the faulty signals that go to the body organs.
What then is the treatment? The first one that I advise, always with extreme emphasis, is to stop taking the sweets, particularly when the craving occurs. That is often easier said than done but it is entirely useless to take vitamin supplements unless this is done “cold turkey”
Sometimes, just this effort and a hard look at appropriate diet is sufficient but nutrient supplements are usually required and should be chosen by a physician who understands the causative factors. It is well to remember that what I call “God-made” food is the only food that should be ingested. If there had been no naturally occurring food when we arrived on Earth, we could not have survived as a species. It is still the same today and the avoidance of “man-made” food is a necessity, particularly those that are sweet or salty. I always ask a salt-craving PMS patient how she solves it and the answer usually is pretzels. Coffee is also another cause and the number of cups ingested is irrelevant in those that are sensitive to caffeine. It has been suggested (erroneously) that we should all be taking 7 or 8 cups of coffee a day “because of the antioxidants that it contains”. Although this fact is true, it is far outweighed by the undesirable effects of caffeine. Caffeine stimulates brain cells to work and it may cause consumption of energy that the individual can ill afford. It gives us the false impression that it is providing energy because of the sense of stimulation. The reason that so many people drink coffee in the morning is because they are extremely fatigued. They are unfortunately adding to the problem because their fatigue is due to loss of efficiency in the energy required to make their brain cells function properly. They are being misled by the temporary disappearance of their fatigue. Just like any “recreational” drug, stopping it causes withdrawal headache that is assuaged by taking more coffee. It often contributes to the symptoms associated with PMS
Those that have read it know that the bunch of glands that come under the heading of the endocrine system are activated by the LS (limbic system) that is described as a computer. The LS has within it at least two time clocks. One rotates on a 24-hour basis and is called circadian rhythm. Circadian means “about 24 hours” and it is interesting to note that this rhythm without time cues is actually a 25-hour rhythm. It was proved by shutting a volunteer subject in a room without any clock and depriving him of the day/night cycle. Thus he had no clues as to whether it was night or day. I simply asked myself the question “why”? The intuitive answer is that we were programmed with a 25-hour rhythm and born into a 24-hour world. It strongly suggests that we have to compress that rhythm by adapting to the day/night cycle, an evolutionary phenomenon, perhaps of great importance as we live in this 24-hour world. It is as though Mother Nature has created a system to which we must continuously adapt throughout life. If not, then it gets out of sync and our body systems receive inappropriate signals.
The other known cycle is the menstrual cycle and it is an extremely important one since it is the “procreative mechanism” that prepares a woman for conception. Then, by hormonal control, it presides over the ensuing pregnancy. Its normal rhythm is 28 days, counting from the first day of the “period”. As everyone knows, the first sign of pregnancy is “missing a period”. This cycle has some curious features. For example, it is known that if women are living together in a dormitory, they begin to have their periods at the same time. I have often wondered, as I am sure others have, whether the 28-day moon cycle and the menstrual cycle are the same by coincidence or whether there is actually a cause and effect relationship. It would be curious if men do not have a 28-day cycle but they have nothing to show for it. Perhaps in some men it is responsible for emotional cycles that are considered usually to be “the reason that Dad gets grumpy periodically for no obvious cause”!
This cycle, governed by the LS, controls the release of hormones from the appropriate glands in the endocrine system. During the first half of the cycle estrogen increases and is withdraw at the 14th day when ovulation occurs. In the second half progesterone increases and is withdrawn when the period occurs. Thus, in the week before the period occurs, the LS is “working like a one-armed paper hanger”.
It is compromised function of the LS computer that is the cause of PMS and if a person reading this has become aware of the previous posts it will begin to make sense. The birth control pill shuts off the biofeedback system that is required for the LS to recognize and control the various hormonal changes over which it presides. It does work but is inappropriate to relieving the basic cause. It is as though the hormone is telling the LS that it is “no longer in charge” and it silences its controlling influences.
We can now begin to see that chocolate, sweet and salt craving are very much part of the whole picture because they are causing the problem and MUST be controlled. Why are they causing it? Because they provide inappropriate input signals to the computer as well as producing changes in oxygen use in the cells that are collectively responsible for the computerized program of the cycle.
As I have indicated previously, the computer becomes much more irritable and since the LS is responsible for our emotions, it is not surprising that one of the major symptoms of PMS is emotional lability. Husbands sometimes arrange their golf games during this week because they know that their wives are “difficult” at this time. The ensuing cramps are because of abnormal control signals to the uterus and there is often inflammation of the egg releasing mechanism at mid cycle. So left/right monthly alternating abdominal pain is experienced as the egg pops out of the ovary. This has been called “mittelschmertz”, a German word meaning “middle pain”. The release of an egg is from the left ovary alternating with the right with each successive period. Sometimes the inflammation affects only one side and the patient describes the fact that she gets this pain on that side only and with every other period cycle.
Because the autonomic nervous system is also controlled by the LS there may be associated heart palpitations, or diarrhea because of an irritable bowel. Sometimes there is excessive sweating or major changes in appetite from being voracious or diminished and the sweet craving is very hard to control in some individuals. It is important to understand that ALL the symptoms come from the faulty signals that go to the body organs.
What then is the treatment? The first one that I advise, always with extreme emphasis, is to stop taking the sweets, particularly when the craving occurs. That is often easier said than done but it is entirely useless to take vitamin supplements unless this is done “cold turkey”
Sometimes, just this effort and a hard look at appropriate diet is sufficient but nutrient supplements are usually required and should be chosen by a physician who understands the causative factors. It is well to remember that what I call “God-made” food is the only food that should be ingested. If there had been no naturally occurring food when we arrived on Earth, we could not have survived as a species. It is still the same today and the avoidance of “man-made” food is a necessity, particularly those that are sweet or salty. I always ask a salt-craving PMS patient how she solves it and the answer usually is pretzels. Coffee is also another cause and the number of cups ingested is irrelevant in those that are sensitive to caffeine. It has been suggested (erroneously) that we should all be taking 7 or 8 cups of coffee a day “because of the antioxidants that it contains”. Although this fact is true, it is far outweighed by the undesirable effects of caffeine. Caffeine stimulates brain cells to work and it may cause consumption of energy that the individual can ill afford. It gives us the false impression that it is providing energy because of the sense of stimulation. The reason that so many people drink coffee in the morning is because they are extremely fatigued. They are unfortunately adding to the problem because their fatigue is due to loss of efficiency in the energy required to make their brain cells function properly. They are being misled by the temporary disappearance of their fatigue. Just like any “recreational” drug, stopping it causes withdrawal headache that is assuaged by taking more coffee. It often contributes to the symptoms associated with PMS
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