Newsletter - April 14, 2009

Medical Frontier's News
Grossman Wellness E-News
April 14, 2009

In this Issue

You Grew Older Today.....
by Terry Grossman, M.D.
Be the First to Get the New Book by Dr Grossman and Ray Kurzweil
Update on Autism: Safe, Effective Help IS Available!
by Michael Catalano, M.D.
The Health Hazards of Excessive Red Meat Consumption
by Terry Grossman, M.D.
Bias in Vitamin C Study
by Terry Grossman, MD
What To Do When You've Hit a Weight Loss Plateau
by Diane Henry, Fitness Director
The Irony of Fish
by Karen Kurtak, Dipl.Ac.
Multivitamins Lengthen Telomeres (in Women)
by Terry Grossman, MD

You Grew Older Today.....
by Terry Grossman, M.D.

You grew older today, but did you age as well? If you drank a few cups of green tea, had five servings of fruits and vegetables, exercised for at least 30 minutes at your target heart rate, took nutritional supplements optimized for your age and health situation, spent quality time with close friends and loved ones, consumed a glass of red wine, had a romantic (and sensual!) time with your spouse or significant other, and got eight hours of quality sleep, then you probably aged very little if at all.

Read more... Order TRANSCEND Today !

Update on Autism: Safe, Effective Help IS Available!
by Michael Catalano, M.D.

The CDC reports that as of 2002, 1 in every 150 US children was autistic, usually before age 4, with 3 to 6 times as many boys as girls. Similar numbers are reported in Europe and Scandinavia.

Autism affects whole families as they grapple with the tantrums, repetitive behaviors, inability to say or understand words, failure to socialize and rigid rituals of their autistic children. Conventional medicine tells them that autism is an incurable genetic disorder that impairs brain development, leading to the typical symptoms. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends social and occupational therapy to provide autistic children with structure and direction. Often these children are prescribed stimulant, sedative, and anti-psychotic drugs to control their disruptive behaviors.

But much, much more can be done to help these children. As Jenny McCarthy describes in her book, Mother Warriors: A Nation of Parents Healing Autism Against All Odds, many autistic children respond to a comprehensive biomedical approach called the DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) method, developed and taught since 1995 by the physicians and researchers of the Autism Research Institute. DAN! doctors are trained to understand autism as a comprehensive disorder of digestion, colon microbe balance, metabolism, oxidant overload and toxin exposure. Autistic children are the “canaries in the coal mine” of our modern world, especially vulnerable to eating high-dairy/high-wheat/chemically-altered foods, breathing and drinking unclean air and water, and receiving excessive antibiotics. DAN! doctors are trained to work with families to improve-significantly-their autistic children by reducing their harmful exposures and supplementing their deficient metabolic and detoxification mechanisms.

Dr Michael Catalano at the Frontier Medical Institute is a currently DAN!-trained physician. He and Dr Terry Grossman, FMI director, have had great success with the DAN! treatment method for our autistic patients. Please contact us to learn more.

The Health Hazards of Excessive Red Meat Consumption
by Terry Grossman, M.D.

A recent National Institutes of Health study was performed to look at the association between higher intakes of either red or processed meats in the risk of mortality. Red meat included beef and pork, while processed meats also included poultry (such as chicken sausage or turkey bacon) as well. This study involved over 500,000 people who were members of AARP (the American Association of Retired Persons) and were between 50 to 71 years of age at the start of the study. Red and processed meat consumption was estimated from food frequency questionnaires.

During the 10 years of the study there were approximately 48,000 male deaths and 24,000 female deaths. Men in the highest 20th percentile of red meat consumption had 31% increased risk of death while women in this group experienced a 36% increase. Mortality in men and women in highest 20% of processed meats had increased mortality of 16% and 25% respectively. Breaking the numbers down into causes of death revealed cancer mortality for red meat increased 21% and for processed meat 12%. Cardiovascular disease death was elevated for men 27% and for women 50% for red meat and 9% for men and 38% for women for processed meat.

Consumption of unprocessed white meat (poultry and fish), on the other hand, significantly decreased the risk of both total and cancer-related mortality. The researchers concluded that thousands of deaths could be prevented if people ate less red and processed meat. Overall, they felt that 11% of deaths in men and 16% of deaths in women could be prevented if people in the highest 20th percentile reduce their consumption of meat to that of those in the lowest 20th percentile.

Bias in Vitamin C Study
by Terry Grossman, MD

A large number of studies are being performed these days attempting to evaluate the benefits and/ or risks of nutritional supplements. Most of the studies you hear about report that this vitamin did not help this disease or that another antioxidant did not help that disease. You would think that the evidence is beginning to weigh strongly against taking nutritional supplements. There are problems with believing this.

Firstly, and most important of all, many of these studies are strongly biased from the beginning and you have to wonder whether or not the goal of the study was simply to prove that nutritional supplementation does not work. For example a recent study was published in Cancer Research volume 68, pages 8031-8038 which concluded that high doses of vitamin C should be avoided because it appeared to make chemotherapy drugs ineffective. However a rebuttal article in Alternative and Complementary Therapies Medical Journal Watch points out that the researchers in the Cancer Research study did not actually use vitamin C itself (scientific name ascorbic acid). Instead, the researchers used oxidized vitamin C known as dehydro-ascorbic acid, which is not used as a dietary supplement in humans. Making matters worse, the researchers also gave the study subjects toxic doses of dehydro-ascorbic acid.

This study did a grave disservice by leading physicians to believe erroneously that high doses of vitamin C could harm cancer patients. In our experience at Frontier Medical Institute, we often use high doses of intravenous vitamin C as an adjunct to help cancer patients and have found it to be of value. Our research arm, Health Innovations, is currently performing a study in association with the University of Kansas Medical School evaluating the use of high-dose intravenous vitamin C in the treatment of hepatitis C. We are actively soliciting funds to proceed with another study looking at the use of high-dose vitamin C in the treatment of various cancers.

Jack Challem author of the rebuttal study added that "considerable positive research … has shown striking benefits from high-dose vitamin C and cancer cells in animals -- in actual human beings. The ideal therapeutic approach would be to tailor individual treatment, including IV vitamin C, from a menu of options.” Unfortunately, conventional doctors including oncologists will read the Cancer Research article but not the one in Alternative and Complementary Therapies Medical Journal Watch.

What To Do When You've Hit a Weight Loss Plateau
by Diane Henry, Fitness Director

You’ve been dieting and exercising and successfully losing weight. Then, after a while, the scale stops showing any weight loss resulting in frustration. Does this sound familiar? You have likely hit a weight loss plateau. That could mean one of several things:

1. You need to eat – Weight loss requires taking in fewer calories. Uunfortunately, many people go to extremes and eat too few calories, which causes the body to go into survival mode and hang on to every calorie it gets. When there is only a small amount of calories to function for the day, your body only has two options for survival: either use fat for fuel or use muscle (protein) for fuel. From a survival standpoint, your body can live more than twice as long if it holds on to the fat and uses protein for fuel. The problem is, that when you lose protein (or muscle) your metabolism drops. This means you can’t eat as much without gaining.

2. You need to move - You cannot expect continued weight loss and long term success in keeping it off if you don’t exercise. You also need to realize that when you exercise, your body will need more calories. By this I mean “Good Calories” as this is not a license to eat whatever you want because you have burned up a considerable amount of calories. It means that you should eat to keep your metabolism revved. This goes back to the idea above - if you don’t eat, you don’t lose.

3. You need muscle - Many people mistakenly believe that they should focus on cardio exercise in order to lose weight. While cardio is important, resistance training is critically important in helping your metabolism increase your muscle tone and definition. The only way to have a long term impact on increasing your metabolism is to build muscle, and you can only do that through weight bearing exercise. Also, you need to shake up your routine and constantly challenge yourself. When things start to get easy, you need to bring it up a notch, maybe add another day to your workout regime.

4. Consider other measurements besides the scale – If you are eating enough of the right kinds of food, are exercising and including weight bearing exercise, but are still not losing weight, it’s time to think differently. As you gain muscle, your weight may increase, but your body fat may decrease. In addition, your clothes will likely be looser as you lose inches which is what you need to pay attention to. If you have reached your goal for size, fitness and health, but the scale does not agree, remember, you may have gained more muscle and lost more fat. So before you get frustrated and decide you want to quit, consider if what you are using to measure your success is appropriate. Good luck, and be good to yourself.

The Irony of Fish
by Karen Kurtak, Dipl.Ac.

The irony! Fish is one of our most precious and abundant sources of health-giving, brain-building, essential omega-3 fats. These fats are not only helpful, but necessary, for optimal brain development in fetuses, infants and children. Now fish is also one of the primary sources of mercury, a contaminant which can destroy brain neurons within a few minutes.

The short video link below from the University of Calgary shows the effects of mercury on neurons. It’s only a few minutes and is truly mind-blowing! How Mercury Causes Brain Neuron Degeneration

The primary source of the mercury in our Earth’s marine life comes from coal. In 2009 when we flick on a light switch most of the electricity provided for this comes from coal. When coal is burned, mercury is one of the byproducts released into the air. As it settles to the ground, rain and snowmelt wash it into in our streams, rivers, lakes and oceans. On the floor of a lake or an ocean, bacteria take up the mercury and convert it into the biologically active form, methylmercury. This is then taken up by various aquatic plants and animals. As it makes its way up the food chain, it becomes more concentrated in a process called bioaccumulation.

For a more in-depth explanation of this process click on the EPA’s link below: Human Exposure

Because everything in nature’s ecological web is so efficiently recycled most of the mercury that makes its way into the food web will become a permanent part of it. As the contamination continues, more and more methylmercury is incorporated into the food web. Over time the levels become higher and higher until the tipping point is reached and we are faced with our current contamination of the species which provide our sustenance.

Like most metals, mercury is a lipophobic (fat-fearing) and so tends to be incorporated into tissues like muscle, liver and heart cells and not so much into fat. For this reason, fish oil usually contains very little mercury.

Being participants in the food chain, we have to consider that what is happening to the fish is also happening to us. If we choose fish or seafood closer to the top of the food chain, we consume animals with more mercury contamination. The contamination has become so bad that in 2004 the NIH released new recommendations that pregnant women, nursing mothers and small children avoid fish and seafood that is known to have high levels of methylmercury. These included shark, swordfish, King Mackerel and tilefish. Newer additions to the list include virtually all tuna, farm-raised salmon, orange roughy, marlin, grouper, Chilean and striped bass.

We should also be asking ourselves if eating fish is good for the fish?

Overharvesting, poor farming techniques, and pH changes from increased CO2 in the atmosphere are all contributing to declines in the populations of many of our fish species. There are more on the list every year. As a consumer, you can help contribute to re-growth of some of these fish populations by not buying them.

Here is a partial list of fish to avoid and fish that is healthy and sustainable.

shark, swordfish, King Mackerel and tilefish tuna, farm-raised salmon, orange roughy, marlin, grouper, Chilean and striped bass.

Pacific cod, tilapia, US Mahi Mahi, Black Sea Bass, Pacific flounder and sole, California halibut.

For a complete and current list of the most ecological seafood choices and contaminated seafood, go to Seafood Watch by clicking on the link below

Seafood Watch 2009 Culinary Chart

GOT HOPE?

If the information shared in this article made you feel helpless or just disturbed don’t worry.

If you think we are never going to liberate ourselves from some of the practices, like burning coal, which are damaging us as much as our planet, fret not. There are incredibly smart and creative people out there who are coming up with truly effective, clean, safe energy alternatives. The link below to a Ted lecture provides an inspiring example that is just the tip of the iceberg.