Cancer Victors News

October 28, 2009

Curcumin inhibits cancers of the head and neck

NaturalNews) The yellowish orange Indian spice turmeric, used to flavor curries, contains a remarkable phytochemical known as curcumin -- and this natural substance is the target of feverish research across a spectrum of medical disciplines. The reason? Curcumin has shown remarkable promise in helping the human body in a wide variety of ways. For example, as NaturalNews has previously reported, it may prevent Alzheimer's Disease (http://www.naturalnews.com/026861_c...) and type 2 diabetes (http://www.naturalnews.com/024644.html) as well as fight breast and colorectal malignancies (http://www.naturalnews.com/020527_c...). Now research just released at the 2009 American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) annual meeting in San Diego shows curcumin may block nicotine-induced head and neck cancers, even in people who smoke.

According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the majority of head and neck cancers start in cells that line the mucosal surfaces such as the mouth, nose, and throat. Normal mucosal cells viewed through a microscope look like scales (squamous), so head and neck cancers of this type are labeled head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC). However, some head and neck cancers begin in other types of cells; adenocarcinomas, for example, originate in glandular cells. In all, the NCI web site states, head and neck cancers account for three to five percent of cancers in the US, with about 40,000 new cases diagnosed each year. The vast majority, approximately 85 percent of these cancers, are linked to tobacco use.

In a study presented at the AAO-HNSF meeting, researchers pointed out that HNSCC is a serious problem, taking the lives of about 13,000 Americans annually. What's more, even if the cancers are successfully treated initially, they often recur because many people continue to smoke. While nicotine itself has not been shown to directly cause cancer, the scientists noted it can trigger the process that turns normal cells into cancerous ones. So the researchers looked for a safe food compound that could be used as a bioactive agent to both prevent cancer and to also block the harmful effects of nicotine.

They investigated the effects of curcumin on malignant growths by using a variety of head and neck cancer cell lines. The HNSCC cells were pre-treated with curcumin in the laboratory and then exposed to nicotine. The results showed the curcumin stopped nicotine from activating cancer-causing cells.

Additional curcumin research is also in the news. Scientists from the Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biologicas in Mexico City published a review in the journal Liver International recently pointing out that along with documented anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-cancer properties, curcumin also appears to have the ability to heal liver injuries. And researchers at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta just reported in the journal Breast Cancer that curcumin "could provide a novel, non-toxic therapy, which could lead to improved survival for patients with triple negative breast cancer." Currently, this type of breast cancer is only treated by traditional western medicine with cytotoxic chemotherapy -- and when this treatment fails, as it often does, no other mainstream therapy is available.


Posted 10/28/2009 11:11:00 AM

October 28, 2009

Swine flu peaks out before vaccines..............

Swine flu peaks out before vaccines even make it into widespread distribution

(NaturalNews) Swine flu infections have peaked out in the USA, even before drug companies could get their vaccines injected into everyone. According to CDC findings announced recently in Atlanta, one in five U.S. children have already experienced the flu this month, and most of those were likely H1N1 swine flu cases, the CDC says.

This comes from a survey of over 10,000 U.S. households conducted by the CDC.

Meanwhile, flu vaccine shipments are way behind schedule. There have been supply problems from the start, and as of right now, relatively few Americans have yet been injected with the swine flu vaccine. (Many have stood in line for hours trying to be injected, but were told to go home with the vaccine ran out.)

Out of nearly 14,000 suspected flu cases tested during the week ending on October 10, 2009, 99.6% of those were influenza A, and the vast majority of those were H1N1 swine flu infections. (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/) This is a very strong indication that swine flu infections have peaked during October, 2009.

Further supporting that notion, researchers from Purdue University just published a paper in the October 15 issue of Eurosurveillance (a science journal about communicable disease) in which researchers stated that the H1N1 swine flu epidemic would peak during "week 42" (the end of October). Week 42 just passed. It's over.

The AJC is also reporting this week that swine flu is "retreating" in Georgia, where hospital visits from the flu are markedly down (http://www.ajc.com/health/swine-flu...) and fewer illnesses are being reported in schools, too.

Even the WHO is reporting a downward trend in many areas, saying, "In tropical areas of the world, rates of illness are generally declining, with a few exceptions. ...In tropical Asia, of the countries that are reporting this week, all report decreases in respiratory disease activity." (http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_10_...)

Meanwhile, even as the swine flu infection peaks out, the shortage of swine flu vaccines means few people have yet been vaccinated. The shortage is causing "chaos" in clinics across the country, news reports say, and flu vaccination events have been cancelled due to the non-arrival of expected vaccines.

And what, exactly, is causing this shortage of vaccines? According to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, they're being caused by "production failures" at the drug manufacturing facilities.

Too little, too late

Is she serious? People are lining up to be injected with chemicals made by companies that are suffering "production failures?" If these companies can't meet the production targets they already promised, how can we expect them to meet the safety targets they promised?

The bigger point, though, is that by the time vaccines are available for everyone, most people will have already been exposed to the H1N1 virus and therefore won't even need a vaccine. There's also evidence that previous exposure to seasonal flu may confer some natural immunity to H1N1, meaning that vaccines may be redundant from the start (http://www.naturalnews.com/027337_H...).

Delivering vaccines to the public after the pandemic peaks and wanes is sort of like putting on your seatbelt after a head-on collision. (This metaphor assumes, just for the moment, that swine flu vaccines actually work. Even though they don't.)

Through the coming holiday season, we'll all get to watch the CDC, the FDA and drug companies desperately try to push vaccines onto people, most of whom are already immune to H1N1 because they were exposed during the peak of the pandemic. This will be quite entertaining to observe because you'll get to watch health authorities in action, attempting to fabricate an emergency when the pandemic threat has already faded. To maximize vaccinations (and therefore Big Pharma revenues), they'll need to keep pushing the pandemic fears through the winter months while hoping that no one notices the H1N1 pandemic has evaporated.

Predictably, the big push at that point will be based on the following logic: "Even if you were already exposed to H1N1, getting a vaccine shot can't hurt. Might as well get one!"

The CDC, which once promised 150 million vaccines by mid-October has pushed its prediction to year's end. Unless some new H1N1 mutation is released into the population by some bioterrorist group, it's fairly obvious that the swine flu will have fizzled out by the time Christmas rolls around.

How to dispose of a hundred million doses of a useless vaccine...

So what will all these clinics do with all the millions of doses of vaccines that nobody really needs at that point? It might seem prudent to dump them down the river, except for the fact that their chemical additives and preservatives make many vaccines qualify as "hazardous waste" according to EPA regulations. It's illegal to toss them into rivers or even dump them down the drain... it's perfectly legal, though, to inject them into the body of a six-year-old.

Why don't they just save the vaccines for next year? They'll be useless, of course, but no more useless than they already are this year. Just save up all the vials and unleash another swine flu scare next fall to get rid of the inventory! (Don't laugh. These people might actually take the idea seriously...)

You gotta love the pharmaceutical industry. After forty years of research into cancer (and tens of billions of dollars spent on it), they have yet to find a cure for any cancer at all. And with the swine flu fiasco, they almost managed to come up with a vaccine, but the human immune system -- combined with a nation full of sneezers and spreaders -- beat them to it.

It must really be depressing to wake up one day as a pharmaceutical company executive and realize you're irrelevant... and that your "lifesaving" products are obsolete before they even hit the streets. Of course, the ridiculously high pay might make up for some of that, and if you get really depressed, you can always take your own company's pills if you're willing to brave the suicide risk. But in the end, the simple fact is that human beings would be better off of the drug companies didn't exist.

The fact that H1N1 swine flu has already peaked out before the bulk of the vaccine shipments have even arrived proves, once again, how utterly pathetic and medically useless flu vaccines are in the first place. There is nothing a flu vaccine can do that simple vitamin D can't do better, and the sad truth is that the entire flu vaccine industry is built on medical quackery and marketing propaganda.


Posted 10/28/2009 11:04:00 AM

October 9, 2009

Urgent lawsuit filed against FDA to halt swine flu vaccines;

NaturalNews) Health freedom attorney Jim Turner is filing a lawsuit in Washington D.C. mid-day Friday in an urgent effort to halt the distribution of the swine flu vaccine in America. On behalf of plaintiffs Dr. Gary Null and other licensed health care workers of New York State, the lawsuit charges that the FDA violated the law in its hasty approval of four swine flu vaccines by failing to scientifically determine neither the safety nor efficacy of the vaccines.

"The suit will seek an injunction against the FDA from approving the vaccine," attorney Jim Turner told NaturalNews on Thursday evening's Natural News Talk Hour show. "And the core of the argument is that they have not done the proper safety and efficacy tests on the vaccine to allow it to be release at this time."

The suit seeks to not only nullify the FDA's unlawful "approval" of the four H1N1 influenza vaccines, but to also ask the court to issue an injunction that would halt any mandatory vaccination requirements.

"The FDA is required by law to establish that a vaccine is safe and effective before it can be given to the public," said Turner. "We are arguing that they did not establish that the vaccine was effective, and did not establish that it was safe. They are trying to get it on the market by a waiver."

Vaccine / adjuvant combination has never been properly tested

The vaccine / adjuvant combination being referred to as the "swine flu vaccine" has apparently never been safety tested or approved by the FDA. In fact, in many cases the vaccine is being sent to clinics, pharmacies and other health establishments separately from the adjuvant chemical, leaving it up to each local vaccine retailer to properly mix the vaccine with the adjuvant, according to information provided by Turner. With hundreds of millions of Americans potentially being targeted with this vaccine, the potential for improper mixing, improper dosages, and human error is alarming.

If the charges described in the lawsuit are true, it means the FDA has blatantly abandoned medical science and violated its own regulations in approving not only these four vaccines, but the potentially deadly adjuvant chemicals as well. To date, the FDA has produced absolutely no scientific evidence documenting safety tests for any of these swine flu vaccines. There are no published studies, no records of any clinical trials, and no publicly-available paper trail demonstrating that any safety testing was done whatsoever. There is no researcher who has publicly put their name on the record declaring the vaccines to be safe, and no FDA official has ever stated that scientifically-valid safety testing has ever been conducted on the vaccine / adjuvant combinations now being distributed across America.

Normally, when a pharmaceutical achieves "FDA approved" status, there is a considerable paper trail of scientific scrutiny, peer review, clinical trials and other supporting evidence. To our knowledge, no such documents exist for the swine flu vaccines. The FDA's approval of these vaccines appears to be based entirely on a whim.

"What has been tested?" asked attorney Jim turner. "Where has it been tested? Who reviewed the test? Who looked at the test and said yes they proved safety and efficacy? There is no record that we can find that shows these things have been done."

By approving the four vaccines in the absence of such safety testing, the FDA itself stands in direct violation of federal law. "There is a law that they're supposed to follow and they are not following it," Turner added.

Billions of dollars are at stake

Why, then, did the FDA apparently violate the law and push these vaccines into full public distribution without securing the safety testing required by law? Turner suspects a profit motive may be involved: "They're charging $24.95 to get a vaccine. Multiplied by 100 million people, that's a lot of money. If you do the whole society, you're talking about several billion dollars."

In fact, the U.S. vaccination push could ultimately target over 200 million Americans, generating nearly $5 billion in vaccine-related revenues. Cashing in on those revenues, however, requires three things:

1) Spreading fear about H1N1 swine flu by exaggerating its dangers.

2) Quickly making a vaccine available for sale, even if it has never been thoroughly tested for safety and efficacy.

3) Aggressively marketing the vaccines before the H1N1 swine flu fizzles out and can no longer be hyped up as "highly virulent."

All three of these conditions are now being pushed aggressively in the U.S. by pharma-influenced health authorities at both the state and federal level. There is a mad, cult-like rush under way to vaccinate American citizens with an unproven, untested chemical that was thrust into distribution in apparent violation of federal law. And if this vaccine is not stopped, the price that may ultimately be paid in terms of lost lives could be quite dire.

It all harkens back to 1976 when a previous formulation of the swine flu vaccine paralyzed and killed thousands of Americans. Turner was one of the attorneys instrumental in halting that vaccine, and he fears a repeat situation could potentially recur today. He told NaturalNews, "[In 1976] they were intending to inoculate 200 million people. We stopped them... and somewhere between 40 and 50 million people were vaccinated. What ultimately brought it down is that a substantial number of people got 'French Polio' [Guillain-Barre syndrome], a paralysis that goes... through the body, and if it goes far enough you die."

About health freedom attorney Jim Turner

Jim Turner, with Citizens for Health (www.Citizens.org), is one of the most accomplished and respected health freedom attorneys practicing today. His firm, Swankin & Turner, represents businesses and individuals on a variety of regulatory issues relating to foods, drugs and health.

Donations to support this swine flu vaccine lawsuit are greatly welcomed. You can donate to Citizens.org on this page: http://www.citizens.org/?page_id=20

A special fund specifically focused on the swine flu vaccine lawsuit will be announced here on NaturalNews. Watch this story for an update.


Posted 10/9/2009 12:35:00 PM

October 6, 2009

Autism rates double in children as vaccines poison an entire

Autism rates double in children as vaccines poison an entire generation

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) According to a U.S. government survey just published, rates of autism in children have doubled since 2003. Today, an estimated 1 in 91 children are being diagnosed with autism, making this the highest rate in any population in the history of human civilization. Meanwhile, the vaccination push in America continues, specifically targeting children with not just seasonal flu vaccines (which may contain thimerosal), but also the H1N1 swine flu vaccine.

It all begs the question: Is there a link between vaccines and autism?

In defending vaccines, many doctors have blamed autism on a genetic cause. But if it's genetic, why are rates skyrocketing so quickly? The gene pool obviously isn't changing that dramatically. There's no such thing as a "genetic epidemic." If genes caused autism, the rate of autism diagnosis should be holding steady year after year. Clearly, something else is at work, causing the sharp increase in autism.

Autism is a neurological disorder. If you're looking for the cause of autism, it only makes sense to look at causes involving environmental factors that expose children to chemicals linked to neurological disorders. Vaccines immediately come to mind, not only because they contain thimerosal -- a preservative made with methyl mercury that's extremely toxic to the nervous system -- but also because they contain chemical adjuvants like squalene, which directly cause inflammation of the nervous system.

So what happens when a nutrient-deficient child is exposed to more than one hundred vaccines injected with thimerosal, squalene and other chemicals? It's not unreasonable to suspect that vaccines -- which inject these chemicals directly into the body -- might be one of the more obvious causes.

The pharmaceutical industry (which thrives on vaccines) claims there is absolutely no link between vaccines and autism. Well of course they do! The entire future of pharmaceutical profit-making depends on the continued propagandizing of the myth that chemical intervention improves human health. They're no more likely to find fault with their own vaccines than a cigarette company is to admit cigarettes cause cancer.

"Asking the pharmaceutical industry to investigate the safety of vaccines is like asking Big Tobacco to investigate the safety of cigarettes.

What's clear is that rates have autism have paralleled the rise in children's vaccines. Each year we get more vaccines pushed onto children, and each year we see increases in autism. Given that many vaccines contain a neurotoxic heavy metal (mercury) and neurotoxic adjuvants, it only seems reasonable to start looking at vaccines as one of the important contributing factors (if not the main cause) of autism.

Other factors for autism

There are likely other factors involved, and their danger potentially gets multiplied in the presence of methyl mercury from vaccines. Monosodium glutamate (MSG), for example, is a neurotoxin, too, and kids today are eating more and more foods laced with MSG as flavor enhancers. (It's found in canned soups, gravy mixes, salad dressings, snack dips, and virtually all "instant" microwaveable meals.) Look for "yeast extract" on food labels: It's a covert source of MSG that manufacturers use to avoid having to place "MSG" on the ingredients label.

There's also aspartame and diet sodas. Aspartame is a potent neurotoxin that could be making the nervous system especially vulnerable to damage from vaccines. Beyond chemical food ingredients, the human nervous system can also be compromised by pain drugs administered during childbirth, antidepressant drugs or diabetes drugs given to expectant mothers, or even the highly toxic chemicals commonly found in "baby care" products used in hospitals around the world.

Even before they're born, most first-world babies are exposed to a toxic stew of synthetic chemicals. The chemical invasion of a vaccine injection might be the one final blow that sends the nervous system in a downward spiral of destruction.

The facts cannot be denied: Our children are being neurologically poisoned by chemicals, and vaccines are one of the most worrisome sources of chemical suspects. In my opinion, any parent subjecting their child to vaccines today is directly putting their child in harm's way. They are risking their child's life in order to comply with a highly unethical, profit-focused vaccine push that has but one objective: To sell more dangerous pharmaceutical chemicals to children who don't need them.

There will be a day in the future, I'm sure, when injecting a child with a neurotic chemical will be considered a felony crime, punishable by years in prison. Until that day comes, this same criminal act is innocuously called "administering a vaccine."


Posted 10/6/2009 2:40:00 PM

October 5, 2009

Scientists Document How Manuka Honey Fights Superbugs

Scientists Document How Manuka Honey Fights Superbugs

by S. L. Baker, features writer

(NaturalNews) When infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, also known as superbugs, are in the mainstream news there's usually a sense of panic connected to the story. After all, this type of infection is spreading and can be life-threatening. For example, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a strain of staph that's become resistant to broad-spectrum antibiotics. MRSA can cause everything from swollen, painful boils to pneumonia, bloodstream infections and surgical wound infections that are lethal. And standard Western medicine has mostly run out of antibiotics to treat these potentially deadly health woes.

However, a natural way to beat an enormous array of health-threatening germs has been around for thousands of years -- honey. And now scientists are zeroing in on just how a specific type known as manuka honey (http://www.naturalnews.com/023670_h...), made from the flowers of the New Zealand manuka bush, is able to stop superbugs in their tracks while standard antibiotic therapy is useless.

Breakthrough research into the honey's remarkable disease-fighting abilities was announced this week (September 7 through 10) at the Society for General Microbiology's international meeting held at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. Dr Rowena Jenkins and her investigative team from the University of Wales Institute-Cardiff in the United Kingdom presented results of their study showing that manuka honey appears to wipe out superbugs by destroying key bacterial proteins.

"Manuka and other honeys have been known to have wound healing and anti-bacterial properties for some time," Dr Jenkins said in a statement to the media. "But the way in which they act is still not known. If we can discover exactly how manuka honey inhibits MRSA it could be used more frequently as a first-line treatment for infections with bacteria that are resistant to many currently available antibiotics."

Dr. Jenkins and colleagues are closing in on that important discovery. For their latest research, MRSA was grown in their laboratory and treated with and without manuka honey for four hours. As a control, the experiment was repeated using a honey sugar syrup to document whether any anti-superbug effects seen were due to the sugar content in honey alone. Next, the cells of the bacteria were broken open so cell proteins could be isolated and separated on a system that documented and displayed each protein individually.

The results showed manuka honey's anti-bacterial properties were not due to the sugars in the honey. When MRSA infected cells were treated with the entire manuka honey, instead of just the honey sugar syrup, they appeared to lose many proteins. One in particular, dubbed FabI, was totally missing.

This is a critical finding because FabI is a protein necessary for the superbug's fatty acid biosynthesis, a process which supplies the bacteria with precursors they need to grow, thrive and continue infecting cells. So the scientists believe manuka honey is effective in killing MRSA because it wrecks the superbug's ability to keep proteins it needs to thrive.

This latest research follows another manuka honey study published in Otolaryngology, the official journal of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, last July. Scientists from the University of Ottawa's Department of Otolaryngology tested both manuka honey and sidr honey, which comes from the sidr tree in Yemen and has been used for its infection-stopping ability for countless centuries, on Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) and Staphylococcus aureus (SA) -- including the MRSA type.

The researchers worked with the infections growing in biofilms -- thin, slimy layers formed by bacteria that are especially resistant to antibiotics. But the PA and SA bacteria were no match for the manuka and sidr honey. In their conclusion, the scientists wrote: "Honey, which is a natural, nontoxic, and inexpensive product, is effective in killing SA and PA bacterial biofilms. This intriguing observation may have important clinical implications and could lead to a new approach for treating refractory CRS chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS)."

For more information:

http://www.sgm.ac.uk/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/mr...
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/ar_M...


Posted 10/5/2009 4:50:00 PM

October 2, 2009

Vitamin D Deficiency

The more we have departed from the life of our ancestors, the bigger price we have paid biologically.

We evolved as a species that spent its days hunting and gathering in the great outdoors, getting plenty of exercise, excitement, camaraderie, fresh air and sun. Those were the good old days when the best things in life were free.

It is disheartening to discover that so many have become deficient in a vitamin that is really free for the asking. Yet that is what study after study is finding.

Here are some figures from studies done within the last ten years:  84% of elderly subjects found deficient in vitamin D; 30% of adolescents found deficient; 70-80% of people over the age of 50 found deficient; 32% of adults under the age of 30 found deficient!

Pediatricians are even seeing an increasing number of cases of rickets in children, a disease of the bones that doesn't occur except under severe vitamin D deficiency conditions.
Immunity and Vitamin D
 . . . the winter flu season may result from our reduced exposure to sunlight and consequent lack of vitamin D

As more scientific research is done, we continue to discover the many important roles vitamin D plays in the human body, and the dire consequences of D deficiencies.

What we currently know about the many roles of vitamin D may still be the tip of the iceberg, but we know enough to state with confidence that D deficiency is a major contributor to our current epidemic of chronic disease. Vitamin D deficiency is a factor in all of the following: arthritis, cancer, heart disease, depression, diabetes, inflammation, musculoskeletal disorders, neurological problems, women's health issues, and weak immunity. 
 
A research review in the December 2006 issue of Epidemiology and Infection suggested that winter flu season may be the result of our reduced exposure to sunlight and consequent lack of vitamin D. Since then, more research has shown the effectiveness of vitamin D supplementation in the prevention of infections. We are also beginning to learn how it may work. Apart from being an immune system modulator that prevents over-production of immune cells while sharpening the immune system's attack on specific targets, it seems that vitamin D stimulates immune cells to produce cathelicidin, a powerful chemical that kills invading bacteria, fungi and viruses.
 
John Cannell, a prominent vitamin D researcher, reported a hospital experience where every ward around his fell victim to a virulent influenza epidemic, while the vitamin-D supplemented patients in his ward did not. (Take note, all those who are concerned about getting Swine Flu.)
 
Correcting Vitamin D deficiencies has provided symptom relief for the immune system diseases Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia.
 
Low levels of vitamin D have been linked with autoimmune diseases lupus, multiple sclerosis, Sjogren's Syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, thyroiditis and Crohn's disease.

A weak immune system can lead to cancer. Vitamin D helps to prevent 77% of all cancers. Cancer rates increase the further you live from the equator (and the less sunlight you get); they have also gone up along with the use of sunblock.   
Am I Vitamin D Deficient?
 . . .  many factors involved
The only way to know for sure if you are vitamin D deficient is with a test called the 25(OH)D test, which measures blood concentration of 25-hydroxyvitamin D. A level below 20ng/ml is considered deficient, although I believe you should aim for a "high normal" level, generally around 50ng/ml. 
 
Make sure you get the 25(OH)D test rather than an older test, which is not as useful, called 1,25(OH)D.
 
Here are some factors that can lead to deficiency:

In order for your skin to make vitamin D from the sun, the UV Index must be over 3. If you live in a tropical climate, this occurs daily. However in most of the United States it doesn't occur during the fall, winter and early spring -- hence the valuable tradition of taking vitamin D-rich cod liver oil during these months.

The lighter your skin shade, the more readily you absorb and convert UVB rays from the sun into vitamin D. The converse is true if you are dark-skinned, and in fact vitamin D deficiency is much more prevalent among African Americans than Caucasians.

Obese people tend to store vitamin D, a fat-soluble vitamin, in their fat stores where it is inaccessible, so they need more.

Over the age of 50 or so, we start becoming less efficient at making vitamin D from the sun. This, combined with the fact that elderly people spend most of their time indoors, makes deficiency a particular problem in these populations.

Many people today have malabsorption problems in their gut, and these people can be low on D even if they are supplementing. Beyond Health's new liquid D3 is perfect for these people as it can be absorbed directly in the mouth.
 
Pregnant women need more D, and unless they supplement at very high doses (4,000 IU/day), their breast milk will not be an adequate source of vitamin D for their infant child. For this reason the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends supplementation of 400 IU to all children from birth.
 
Toxins, for example lead, will impede the formation of the active form of vitamin D.

For the body to make the conversion of UVB rays from the sun into useable vitamin D, a number of chemical processes need to occur. If you're not healthy -- in other words if you are nutrient-deficient and/or toxic, you will be hampered in making this conversion.  

Other conditions like chronic renal failure, gastric bypass surgery and taking steroid drugs necessitate taking additional vitamin D.
 
Certain drugs interfere with vitamin D absorption and metabolism, including Dilantin, phenobarbital, laxatives, and cholestyramine or any other drug that binds fats.
Should I Supplement with Vitamin D?
  . . . most now need supplementation

Given all the different factors involved, it is impossible to determine a single amount of vitamin D that will be right for everyone. I recommend getting tested once a year with the 25(OH)D test and modifying your supplement program to achieve "high normal" levels.

However, you can't go wrong taking 1,000 to 2,000 IU per day. If you are taking our multi, you are getting 400 IU of top of the line D3. Our Bone Mineral Formula provides another 400 IU of the same D3, and a tablespoon of cod liver oil supplies another 1,200 IU per tablespoon.

Many experts are now recommending up to 5,000 IU a day and even more for particular situations, for example, correcting a long-standing deficiency. At these levels, testing with the 25(OH)D is mandatory. For those who need or want additional supplementation, we now have a new liquid D3 formula. It provides 500 IU per drop, and is ideal for those with malabsorption problems since it's absorbed directly in the mouth. 

Food is not a significant source of vitamin D. I don't approve of orange juice, breakfast cereals or milk, which have all been fortified with vitamin D.  They're not appropriate foods and most use a form of vitamin D, D2, that is not very biologically active.

An egg yolk will provide 20 IU, 3.5 ounces of salmon 360 IU. Sardines and herring are quite good sources, if you like them: 3 ounces of sardines provides 500 IU; 3 ounces of herring, 1,400 IU. Other foods provide only trace amounts of vitamin D.
 
If you have sarcoidosis, TB, lymphoma or parathyroidism, or take Coumadin or Warfarin, use supplemental vitamin D only under a doctor's supervision.
 
When supplementing with vitamin D, it is also important to be taking in enough vitamin K and bone-supporting minerals like magnesium. Nutrients act as a team. Vitamin D increases the amount of calcium in the blood. Vitamin K and minerals make sure this calcium is directed to bones, where you want it, rather than to arteries or soft tissue, where you don't. If you are eating a healthy diet and taking our multi and Bone Mineral Formula, your vitamin K and mineral needs should be well taken care of.   
A Note on Vitamin A to Vitamin D Ratio

. . . don't take too much A

We've received some questions from customers who've read the article on vitamin D in our website Article Archives. This article was written by William Grant, Ph.D., a well-known vitamin D researcher. In it, he says, "Try to avoid supplements with vitamin A, as it is antagonistic with vitamin D."
 
This recommendation needs to be put into context. Vitamin A becomes a D antagonist only in large amounts relative to D.
 
For example, such vitamin A heavy ratios can be found in many cod liver oils on the market today. It was even worse back when I began researching cod liver oils to find one I wanted to carry. I knew back then what has increasingly come to light -- you need to take A and D in the right ratio. Our cod liver oil provides a desirable ratio.
 
This is another example of why you should buy from us. I do my homework, and bring to my research a unique and in-depth understanding of the chemistry involved.
 
The highest quality, the utmost in purity, absolute safety and unparalleled effectiveness -- these are what you can expect from Beyond Health.
We are always looking for your feedback on how we can help you improve your health or if you'd like to see something special in our newsclips.  If you would be so kind as to let us know how we can help you reach your Ultimate Health goals, send an email to us at mail@beyondhealth.com.
 
Sincerely,
Ray Signature
Raymond Francis
Beyond Health


Posted 10/2/2009 12:40:00 PM

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