I think there is far too much emphasis in the health world, alternative and mainstream, on remedies.
You know when a remedy is necessary?
When someone doesn't know how to restore proper functioning.
A remedy is something that alleviates symptoms, but doesn't restore what the body needs to function.
For instance, it's fine to drink cranberry juice for your kidney stones, but you need to eat enough magnesium-rich foods so your body can utilize the calcium properly before it crystalizes.
It's fine to take ginkgo biloba for poor memory, but if you're deficienct in choline and/or cobalt-amine (b12) required to build well-functioning brain tissue, you're still just putting another band-aid over the issue.
I'm going to end it here for now, but I think a series on the innumerable, damaging health fads needs to be done. I'll probably do it tonight after I get a little drunk and party-hard downtown; maybe I'll sound less vindictive than I feel at the moment.
The Next Morning:
Okay I'm feeling slightly less vindictive.
Nah not really. So here goes.
Colon cleansing:
Whether it's with herbs like senna or cascara sagrada, or magnesium oxide (milk of magnesia) repackaged as fancy "oxygen cleansing," they all do 1 thing: give you diarrhea.
That's all colon cleansing is. Diarrhea. If that upsets your little belief system, tough. Deal with it and grow up.
Now that's not to say that diarrhea doesn't cleanse out your colon; it absolutely does. That's why your body has that function there.
The problem is that colon cleansing is dangerous. Any paramedic will tell you that dehydration is the most common thing they get called out for. This isn't as simple as not having enough water, this is about electrolyte imbalances and deficiencies. This is why diarrhea and dehydration kill thousands of children in the third world every day.
However, this goes far beyond electrolyte imbalances (which I will address in another post). The organ with the highest concentration of trace and rare minerals is your pancreas. This is because your pancreas is responsible for producing the largest amount of enzymes in your body, and minerals are the catalysts for their creation.
Every time a meal is digested by enzymes and bile from the pancreas and liver, around 95% of the enzymatic material is reabsorbed by the small intestine. However when one triggers diarrhea with a colon cleanser, this causes the food to move out of the small intestine before proper absorption can occur. This is why diarrhea burns; it is literally the enzymes eating away at your large intestine and colon. This is also why it is useful for literally digesting compacted fecal matter and unfriendly bacteria farther down the bowels than these enzymes normally reach.
However, every time this happens, those trace minerals and enzymes leave your body with your stool instead of being reabsorbed. Over time if done enough, this may result in total shutdown of the digestive system; a condition known as pancreatic insufficiency. This is not the only cause of that, but that is one result.
In fact, If you are considering colon cleansing because some douchebag on the internet told you it would cure your disease (unless your disease is caused by too strong a digestive system, it won't), I challenge you to look up and down google at all of the people talking about "spots" appearing in their stool shortly after beginning cleansing. Then look at all the people who went farther talking about their stool eventually being totally made up of these lightly colored "spots." Then read about those people whose digestion stopped altogether.
Those spots are where the bile could not reach because the person had already hemmorhaged out enough of their vital life juices to cause an inability to even digest food properly.
This is the essence of the issue:
YOU ARE NOT DIRTY. YOUR BODY IS NOT DIRTY. YOUR BODILY FLUIDS ARE NOT DIRTY. YOUR BODY IS NOT YOUR ENEMY. LEAVE IT THE F*&$K ALONE AND GIVE IT WHAT IT NEEDS. STOP TRYING TO "CLEAN" IT. IT'S NOT THE KITCHEN SINK.
For all those countless people who have been hurt by colon cleansing, I will do a series on how to replace your enzymatic function, but only if enough people explicitly ask for it because it's a lot of work.
Anyway, lather rinse repeat, apply to every fad out there.
I'll probably get the shitstorm of religious fad addicts for this one. Hey, do me a favor and project your daddy complex onto your boyfriend, not your doctor.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Beans beans...
"Beans beans they're good for your heart-
the more you eat, the more you fart!"
I think this jingle alone may be responsible for thousands of unneccesary deaths, and I will show you why.
One of the widely repeated mantras of the health world is that "fiber is good for your heart by reducing cholesterol.
There are two assumptions happening here.
So what could be among the other properties of beans and legumes that may account for this seemingly cavernous gap in efficacy?
The current mantra of the health world is "Eat only raw, organic fruits, vegetables, and ZOMG OMEGA THRE33ZZW~!111!!EOONELEVEN!!1!"
First of all, I do not believe in vegetarianism, or any "ism" for that matter except under ideal conditions, for reasons I will discuss in another article, and it goes far beyond "b12," although I do agree that a vegan diet is possible; just not in the way most are doing it. Second of all, this reductionist mentality without the work and research required leads to a lot of holes in nutrition.
Anyway, I'm getting off topic. One of the most important and seldom mentioned food groups is legumes.
As you can see above, one cup of black beans has 172% the daily value of molybdenum. Personally, I think the DV should be much higher, and adequate levels of molybdenum in organic soil should be mandatory, but we'll work with what we got. So what exactly does molybdenum do in the body?
Well, molybdenum is involved in the creation of some of the most vital enzymes in the body including nitrate reductase, xanthine oxidase, and sulphite oxidase.
We are only going to discuss suphite oxidase for the reasons shown below in this chart.
Besides cholesterol levels, a biomarker that is an even more accurate predictor of the risk of cardiovascular disease acknowledged by the medical community; homocysteine. The way that homocysteine is "reduced," or regenerated to beneficial methionine, is through a processes known as methylation.
The current approach of the "cutting edge" of science is to simply throw methyl donors at it such as Trimethylglycine (betaine hcl), b6 (pyrodamine or pyroxidal-5-phosphate), or b12 (methylcobalamin; cyanocobalamin actually steals methyl groups). As you can see, this process also requires the presence of magnesium, which everyone and their grandmother knows is a widespread deficiency in the Standard American Diet.
Any good nutritionist, and there aren't many, understands that every mineral in the body must be balanced in a specific ratio. For calcium, the main balancing mineral required for it's use and/or excretion is magnesium. However, most foods with significant magnesium content such as grains and leafy green vegetables have significantly more calcium than magnesium, which is not useful when there is already excess calcium. However, there is one food group that does:
Beans. Or rather legumes in general.
Many thanks to George Mateljan for the great work he's done in making this nutrient database available for us all. Anyway moving on,
The second process involved is actually relation to the creation of homocysteine; sulfation.
As you can see here, severe deficiency of molybdenum results in an inability to properly utilize methionine, resulting in ahomocysteinemia, along with excessive levels of sulfite and S-sulfocysteine. This is where things get extremely enlightening.
The way that the body breaks down lipids and lipoprotiens is with an enzyme called lipase. Now this next information is so valuable that I feel almost a little pissed that I'm not getting paid for all the research I did to find this, especially since not one other health site on the internet has this information.
The minerals responsible for catalyzing the production of lipase are zinc, and more importantly sulfur.
Now contrary to popular belief, the body's main sources of sulfur are not garlic and onions, but the amino acids Cysteine and Methionine, which are sulfur containing amino acids found in every type of meat. However, to utilize the sulfur from these amino acids as I have previously demonstrated, a necessary co-factor is needed: molybdenum. Not only that, but to regenerate sulfur after it has been changed to toxic sulfite, a specific enzyme called sulfite oxidase, produced by molybdenum is needed.
Are you getting a picture of what's happening here?
Let's say someone eats lots of high-cholesterol high-protien meat and eggs every day, and eventually their stores of molybdenum run low.
1. The body loses the ability to utilize the sulfur from protien properly
2. The body loses its sulfur stores necessary to create lipase
3. Lipids and lipoprotiens collect in the arteries, waiting on enzymatic reactions that cannot happen due to sulfur deficiency
4. Toxic sulfite builds up and the homocysteine redux cycle stagnates
And one last invaluable piece of information you won't find on any other health site: molybdenum is also responsible for proper utizilation and reduction of nitric oxide.
The two enzymes responsible for this are nitrogenase and nitrate reductase, both of which are made with molybdenum, as shown in the last article. Nitric oxide is responsible for the proper dilation and tone of blood vessels, which is why many sports supplements attempt to boost its production in order to increase blood flow to the muscles. However, there are two types of nitric oxide: Inos, or Inducible Nitric Oxide, and Enos, or Endothelial nitric oxide. Inducible nitric oxide is associated with an inability to properly regulate nitric oxide function, and damages blood vessels by oxidative stress. Endothelial nitric oxide is associated with cardioprotection, and its production is mediated by guess who: molybdenum.
So you have:
5. Blood vessels damaged by oxidative stress without the ability to utilize endothelial nitric oxide for proper tone and dilation, which then use cholestrol plaque as a scab to repair the damage, without the ability to clear it afterwards.
Is it any wonder then that molybdenum rich beans and soybeans have been found to reduce the incidence of heart disease to such a ridicidulous extent?
Find out how many other pathologies are related to an inability to properly regulate nitric oxide, sulfation, lipids, or vasodilation. In fact, try looking for everything that comes from an inability to create a biological material that ends with "sulfate." Have fun with it at pubmed. I think I've said just about all I'm legally allowed to say.
If you have been looking everywhere for this information, as I was, and appreciate finally finding something that isn't the same quasi-scientific, obscure, regurgitated crap on every goddamn health site, I humbly ask for any donations possible as this information came as the result of incalculable tears, pain, and months of research. Also, I have nearly endless more information I would like to distribute as widely as possible, and so I humbly ask your help to make it possible. Together we can bring excellence to an industry so dominated by mediocrity and belief systems.
Thank you.
the more you eat, the more you fart!"
I think this jingle alone may be responsible for thousands of unneccesary deaths, and I will show you why.
One of the widely repeated mantras of the health world is that "fiber is good for your heart by reducing cholesterol.
There are two assumptions happening here.
- Fiber reduces cholesterol
- Reducing cholesterol is good for your heart
Now the first is true, because when your liver synthesizes bile it uses large amounts of cholesterol. This is why herbs such as artichoke and guggul (myrrh bark) reduce cholesterol; by increasing bile synthesis.
From there, insoluble fiber can combine with the bile, reducing its reabsorption.
For this reason, the heart-disease preventing effects of beans and legumes has often been attributed to their fiber content. However, this alone cannot nearly account for the large discrepancy between the effects of legumes and other forms of fiber (psyllium, whole wheat fiber, etc) on the reduction of heart disease.
Regular intake of whole grains has been found to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by between 20%-40%.
However, in a broad survey of international dietary habits, legumes alone were found to be associated with a whopping reduction of 82%! That is quite a discrepancy!
So what could be among the other properties of beans and legumes that may account for this seemingly cavernous gap in efficacy?
This requires me to get into an area of knowledge that most people (especially in the "alternative" health community) have no true understanding of, although the word is thrown around so often: enzymes.
When looking for stand out characteristics of beans, one can't help but notice one nutrient standing arms and legs above the rest:
How often have you heard the alternative health media talk about molybdenum? Probably not very much.
The current mantra of the health world is "Eat only raw, organic fruits, vegetables, and ZOMG OMEGA THRE33ZZW~!111!!EOONELEVEN!!1!"
First of all, I do not believe in vegetarianism, or any "ism" for that matter except under ideal conditions, for reasons I will discuss in another article, and it goes far beyond "b12," although I do agree that a vegan diet is possible; just not in the way most are doing it. Second of all, this reductionist mentality without the work and research required leads to a lot of holes in nutrition.
Anyway, I'm getting off topic. One of the most important and seldom mentioned food groups is legumes.
As you can see above, one cup of black beans has 172% the daily value of molybdenum. Personally, I think the DV should be much higher, and adequate levels of molybdenum in organic soil should be mandatory, but we'll work with what we got. So what exactly does molybdenum do in the body?
Well, molybdenum is involved in the creation of some of the most vital enzymes in the body including nitrate reductase, xanthine oxidase, and sulphite oxidase.
We are only going to discuss suphite oxidase for the reasons shown below in this chart.
Besides cholesterol levels, a biomarker that is an even more accurate predictor of the risk of cardiovascular disease acknowledged by the medical community; homocysteine. The way that homocysteine is "reduced," or regenerated to beneficial methionine, is through a processes known as methylation.
The current approach of the "cutting edge" of science is to simply throw methyl donors at it such as Trimethylglycine (betaine hcl), b6 (pyrodamine or pyroxidal-5-phosphate), or b12 (methylcobalamin; cyanocobalamin actually steals methyl groups). As you can see, this process also requires the presence of magnesium, which everyone and their grandmother knows is a widespread deficiency in the Standard American Diet.
Any good nutritionist, and there aren't many, understands that every mineral in the body must be balanced in a specific ratio. For calcium, the main balancing mineral required for it's use and/or excretion is magnesium. However, most foods with significant magnesium content such as grains and leafy green vegetables have significantly more calcium than magnesium, which is not useful when there is already excess calcium. However, there is one food group that does:
Beans. Or rather legumes in general.
Many thanks to George Mateljan for the great work he's done in making this nutrient database available for us all. Anyway moving on,
The second process involved is actually relation to the creation of homocysteine; sulfation.
As you can see here, severe deficiency of molybdenum results in an inability to properly utilize methionine, resulting in ahomocysteinemia, along with excessive levels of sulfite and S-sulfocysteine. This is where things get extremely enlightening.
The way that the body breaks down lipids and lipoprotiens is with an enzyme called lipase. Now this next information is so valuable that I feel almost a little pissed that I'm not getting paid for all the research I did to find this, especially since not one other health site on the internet has this information.
The minerals responsible for catalyzing the production of lipase are zinc, and more importantly sulfur.
Now contrary to popular belief, the body's main sources of sulfur are not garlic and onions, but the amino acids Cysteine and Methionine, which are sulfur containing amino acids found in every type of meat. However, to utilize the sulfur from these amino acids as I have previously demonstrated, a necessary co-factor is needed: molybdenum. Not only that, but to regenerate sulfur after it has been changed to toxic sulfite, a specific enzyme called sulfite oxidase, produced by molybdenum is needed.
Are you getting a picture of what's happening here?
Let's say someone eats lots of high-cholesterol high-protien meat and eggs every day, and eventually their stores of molybdenum run low.
1. The body loses the ability to utilize the sulfur from protien properly
2. The body loses its sulfur stores necessary to create lipase
3. Lipids and lipoprotiens collect in the arteries, waiting on enzymatic reactions that cannot happen due to sulfur deficiency
4. Toxic sulfite builds up and the homocysteine redux cycle stagnates
And one last invaluable piece of information you won't find on any other health site: molybdenum is also responsible for proper utizilation and reduction of nitric oxide.
The two enzymes responsible for this are nitrogenase and nitrate reductase, both of which are made with molybdenum, as shown in the last article. Nitric oxide is responsible for the proper dilation and tone of blood vessels, which is why many sports supplements attempt to boost its production in order to increase blood flow to the muscles. However, there are two types of nitric oxide: Inos, or Inducible Nitric Oxide, and Enos, or Endothelial nitric oxide. Inducible nitric oxide is associated with an inability to properly regulate nitric oxide function, and damages blood vessels by oxidative stress. Endothelial nitric oxide is associated with cardioprotection, and its production is mediated by guess who: molybdenum.
So you have:
5. Blood vessels damaged by oxidative stress without the ability to utilize endothelial nitric oxide for proper tone and dilation, which then use cholestrol plaque as a scab to repair the damage, without the ability to clear it afterwards.
Is it any wonder then that molybdenum rich beans and soybeans have been found to reduce the incidence of heart disease to such a ridicidulous extent?
Find out how many other pathologies are related to an inability to properly regulate nitric oxide, sulfation, lipids, or vasodilation. In fact, try looking for everything that comes from an inability to create a biological material that ends with "sulfate." Have fun with it at pubmed. I think I've said just about all I'm legally allowed to say.
If you have been looking everywhere for this information, as I was, and appreciate finally finding something that isn't the same quasi-scientific, obscure, regurgitated crap on every goddamn health site, I humbly ask for any donations possible as this information came as the result of incalculable tears, pain, and months of research. Also, I have nearly endless more information I would like to distribute as widely as possible, and so I humbly ask your help to make it possible. Together we can bring excellence to an industry so dominated by mediocrity and belief systems.
Thank you.
Let's start with some sun
I'm not sure how I should begin this, so I'm going to just jump right in and address the collective neurosis that may manifest later, if it does.
There are two types of vitamin D: vegetable Ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) and animal Cholecalciferol, or vitamin D3. I am only going to address vitamin D3 here.
Your body makes Vitamin D from sunlight. After only 10-20 minutes in the sun, your body has already manufactured tens of thousands of I.U. of Cholecalciferol, by irradiation of the cholesterol in your skin with ultraviolet light. Sunscreen blocks this from happening.
From there, it travels to the liver where it is coverted to Calcidiol, or 25-hydroxycholecalciferol. This is not yet "active" vitamin D.
From there, a limited amount is converted in the kidneys into active Calcitriol, or 1,25-hydroxycholecalciferol.
Vitamin D has been found to have a profound impact on bone health, which is largely because of it's role in calcium metabolism, which also impacts its role in hormone production. Subsequently, doctors have begun recommending large doses of vitamin D for both. However, there is a great mystery in this.
Many people with osteoporosis and hormonal issues may have high levels of Calcidiol (inactive), but low levels of Calcitriol (active). The discrepancy between Calcidiol and Calcitriol (active) levels has been a source of great contention in the medical community for some time now. The essence of the question at the moment for medical researchers has been;
"What is the rate limiter for creation of active vitamin D?"
Well, seek and ye shall find.
Another element that has been found to greatly influence bone mineralization and hormone production has been Boron.
Boron has also been found to have one other profound effect:
Boron has been found to increase the conversion of Calcidiol (inactive) to Calcitriol (active).
Coincidence? I think not.
Could boron be the missing key in a large number of calcium metabolism-related disorders?
Well, we already know that vitamin D is intimately involved with certain autoimmune disorders...
One of the richest sources of boron is raisins.
There are two types of vitamin D: vegetable Ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) and animal Cholecalciferol, or vitamin D3. I am only going to address vitamin D3 here.
Your body makes Vitamin D from sunlight. After only 10-20 minutes in the sun, your body has already manufactured tens of thousands of I.U. of Cholecalciferol, by irradiation of the cholesterol in your skin with ultraviolet light. Sunscreen blocks this from happening.
From there, it travels to the liver where it is coverted to Calcidiol, or 25-hydroxycholecalciferol. This is not yet "active" vitamin D.
From there, a limited amount is converted in the kidneys into active Calcitriol, or 1,25-hydroxycholecalciferol.
Vitamin D has been found to have a profound impact on bone health, which is largely because of it's role in calcium metabolism, which also impacts its role in hormone production. Subsequently, doctors have begun recommending large doses of vitamin D for both. However, there is a great mystery in this.
Many people with osteoporosis and hormonal issues may have high levels of Calcidiol (inactive), but low levels of Calcitriol (active). The discrepancy between Calcidiol and Calcitriol (active) levels has been a source of great contention in the medical community for some time now. The essence of the question at the moment for medical researchers has been;
"What is the rate limiter for creation of active vitamin D?"
Well, seek and ye shall find.
Another element that has been found to greatly influence bone mineralization and hormone production has been Boron.
Boron has also been found to have one other profound effect:
Boron has been found to increase the conversion of Calcidiol (inactive) to Calcitriol (active).
Coincidence? I think not.
Could boron be the missing key in a large number of calcium metabolism-related disorders?
Well, we already know that vitamin D is intimately involved with certain autoimmune disorders...
One of the richest sources of boron is raisins.
... and so it begins.
Your body is trying to heal. In order for that to happen, you need to give it what it needs. I'm going to try to explain the ways this happens as best as I can.
I'm going to take this first post to explain my mentality. We live in a society of band-aids and patch-ups. We continually push on, repeating the same patterns over and over, never stopping to question how they began in the first place. Bringing these things to light, I think, is the essence of healing.
I'm tired of people going around, pretending they know they're talking about, but never doing the work required to do so. I have done so to the best of my ability, and I am going to share it with you all.
I'm going to start this by explaining a portion of my journey. I nearly died about a year ago. My pancreas shut down, my liver failed, and my brain swelled into my spinal cord. I had an enteric infection that caused me to have diarrhea until my gut literally lost the ability to make digestive enzymes, bile, or even to contract enough to push crap out. My hair and nails began to fall out, my skin peeled off, my lips dried up and literally fell off, and my consciousness lowered into a haze that I can only describe as the worst living hell imaginable. Not a single doctor could help me, nor could any acupuncturist, herbalist, or any so-called healer.
Several months in, I could only stay awake for about 30 minutes every 36 hours. It was at this point that I was confronted with a choice: either let go and die, or decide to live like I've never lived before.
I decided to live.
From here, the story is more than I can transpose to words on this site. I can only hope to convey what I have learned in a way that can inspire and inform others to do what I have done; healed myself.
My body is nearly back to where it was before the illness, however it has reorganized itself into a different form than before. I am thinner, taller, and I am going to say "more harmonious."
This is the essence of what I have learned; give the body what it needs, take away what it doesn't, open yourself to the experiences required along the way, and you shall heal.
With that, so begins the project of this website. I can only imagine what this will grow into. Part of that will be up to all of you that read this. I only ask that you all support me in this effort as I attempt to bring out the information that is so direly needed by so many of us. Let's do it for the greatest good of us all.
I'm going to take this first post to explain my mentality. We live in a society of band-aids and patch-ups. We continually push on, repeating the same patterns over and over, never stopping to question how they began in the first place. Bringing these things to light, I think, is the essence of healing.
I'm tired of people going around, pretending they know they're talking about, but never doing the work required to do so. I have done so to the best of my ability, and I am going to share it with you all.
I'm going to start this by explaining a portion of my journey. I nearly died about a year ago. My pancreas shut down, my liver failed, and my brain swelled into my spinal cord. I had an enteric infection that caused me to have diarrhea until my gut literally lost the ability to make digestive enzymes, bile, or even to contract enough to push crap out. My hair and nails began to fall out, my skin peeled off, my lips dried up and literally fell off, and my consciousness lowered into a haze that I can only describe as the worst living hell imaginable. Not a single doctor could help me, nor could any acupuncturist, herbalist, or any so-called healer.
Several months in, I could only stay awake for about 30 minutes every 36 hours. It was at this point that I was confronted with a choice: either let go and die, or decide to live like I've never lived before.
I decided to live.
From here, the story is more than I can transpose to words on this site. I can only hope to convey what I have learned in a way that can inspire and inform others to do what I have done; healed myself.
My body is nearly back to where it was before the illness, however it has reorganized itself into a different form than before. I am thinner, taller, and I am going to say "more harmonious."
This is the essence of what I have learned; give the body what it needs, take away what it doesn't, open yourself to the experiences required along the way, and you shall heal.
With that, so begins the project of this website. I can only imagine what this will grow into. Part of that will be up to all of you that read this. I only ask that you all support me in this effort as I attempt to bring out the information that is so direly needed by so many of us. Let's do it for the greatest good of us all.
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