January 2015 Newsletter
Happy New Year! We are bringing in the new year with a special deal for the month of January. If you bring a new patient with you on your next visit, you get both visits combined for only $50.00!
CoQ10 Benefits…Research continues to show Co Enzyme Q 10 also called Ubiquinone helps heart attack survivors but also reduces statin side effects of muscle pain and weakness and perhaps wasting. Doctors from Slovakia used 100 mg of coenzyme Q 10 (Co Q 10) twice daily to treat 60 people with statin associated myopathy. The supplements lowered the muscle pain and weakness by about half. It also helped muscle cramps reducing them by about one third. There was a placebo group that did not improve at all. The addition of selenium did not enhance the benefits of CoQ10. (Gazette Sun Nov 23rd page 3)
Vitamin/hormone ‘D’…Sunlight helps bones, fights cancer, and eases asthma.
This month’s cancer prevention advice is about getting 30 minutes of sunshine every day. I want to remind readers that our bodies make vitamin D. The physiology is quite unique. While in the presence of sun light, ultra violet light on the skin converts a form of cholesterol that is in the skin through a photo chemical reaction to a pre-form of vitamin D [D- OH]. The D -OH gets bound to a protein and transported to the liver. The liver metabolizes it to 25-OH. It is further ‘metabolized’ to activate it by other tissues and then delivered to the main target organs: the kidney, small intestines and bones. Plants use sunlight to make chlorophyll and people use sunlight on their skin to start to make vitamin D. You do need some cholesterol in your skin for this process to occur. Your next question could be, “Does sunscreen have any effect on this process?” The answer is yes. Even back in 1998 the dean of Harvard Dermatology Medical University wrote a report that questioned the excessive use of sunscreen. He noted research that showed our children were getting rickets from lack of vitamin D. The dean of Harvard medical university lost his job over this information because a main contributor to the dermatology school was a manufacturer of sunscreen.
The dean was only remaking a very old nutritional connection. Sunshine and bone formation were connected as early as 1858 by zoo keepers observations of animals. In Germany doctors noted that babies born in the fall who died in the spring had rickets, but babies born in the spring who died in the fall did not. Missionary Theobald Palm traveled to Japan in 1890 and was struck by the absence of rickets among the Japanese. He too deduced it had something to do with confinement, especially lack of sunlight. This became the prevalent focus. In 1919 a Berlin physician used the light from a mercury-vapor Quartz lamp and ‘experimented’ with light exposure on four children with advanced cases of rickets. These lamps emitted ultraviolet wavelengths. The four children were completely cured in two months. Researchers in 1924 found that linseed oil, cottonseed oil or yeast radiated with ultraviolet wave lengths and then ingested cured rickets. It became increasingly clear that there was a relationship between rickets and exposure to sunlight or the lack of it. In 1919 Sir Edward Mellanby showed cod liver oil ingested could cure rickets in dogs. He postulated that there was a ‘vitamine’ in the oil. That began the idea that rickets was a nutritional deficiency disease. Symptoms of rickets in children include enlarged head, joints and rib cage, a deformed pelvis and bowed legs. Rickets in adults is renamed since the bones are ‘formed’ to osteomalacia or soft bones. It can cause fractures in the hip, spine, other bones.
There is a caution with calling ‘D’ a vitamin because it is also a hormone. Since your body should be able to make it, the medical crowd that is negative to nutritional supplements will tell you, “You don’t have to eat it. As little as 15 minutes of skin exposure on the face and arms every day is enough.” This advice was found on page 358 of my old nutrition text book circa 1993. (Dark skinned people need more). This same text insists that taking more than 1000 IU or 25 micrograms a day should only be done in the scrutiny of a physician. These days I am hearing of people taking doses in the 4000-6000 IU a day range. That said let me tell you what to look out for. Toxicity or over dosing on vitamin D has the potential problem of leading to over absorption of calcium and eventual calcium deposits in the kidneys and other organs which can cause local cell death. Over absorption of calcium causes hypercalcemia which has symptoms of weakness, loss of appetite, diarrhea, vomiting, mental confusion and increased urine output. Hypercalcemia can lead to excessive muscle tightness (tetany) and if that should happen in your heart you’re in big trouble.
Up until the last 25 years vitamin D was given little attention except to deal with how it affected bones. In the meantime zealous attention has been concerned about skin cancer and over exposure to the sun. The pendulum now swings back as we realize that there is a healthy balance to find between too little and too much sun exposure. The spf standards have reached absolute blocking potential. To add to the craziness 35 spf and above actually have now been shown to have ingredients that cause another kind of cancer. Common sense sun exposure would be 30 minutes a day before 10:30 or after 2pm. Apply the sunscreen after you’ve had this exposure. We need to adopt common sense approaches to sun exposure not only for our bones but other health benefits that we are learning vitamin D has to offer. Here are some of the latest in the news. Vitamin D helps fight cancer. It was noted in the 1990’s that vitamin D had a larger role in the body than just calcium regulation. The D hormone seems to control differentiation of all cells within its range of target tissues. That would mean as a cell matures to the point of a final and specific function within a tissue hormone D is involved. Cancer is often a disease where the cells dysfunction at this point. There’s a transcription factor c-MYC which activates genes involved in the proliferation of cancer. Vitamin D suppresses the activity of c-MYC and at the same time boosts the activity of MXD1 which helps control C-MYC. These are preliminary findings but give us a compelling mechanism to explain the role of ‘D’ in cancer prevention.
Vitamin D may ease Asthma symptoms. In Mainz University Hospital, Germany 280 adults who had asthma were studied. Two thirds of the study subjects had vitamin D deficiencies. Those with severely uncontrolled asthma symptoms were almost twice as likely to have vitamin D deficiencies. In poorly controlled asthma sufferers 60% were deficient in vitamin D. In people with intermittent asthma only 5% were found to be vitamin D deficient. This research merely notes correlation; it doesn’t determine why or how or give any recommendations for asthmatics.
Another benefit of vitamin D is that it has been shown to help people with the MS diagnosis. The prevalence of MS is notably higher in the colder states compared to the sunshine states. It has been reported to help RA. It seems to calm the nervous system and balances activity of the immune system.
Cinnamon and RA…Here’s a new idea for helping with inflammation and pain from Rheumatoid Arthritis. According to “Know the Cause”, found at www.knowthecause.com cinnamon can be a powerful inflammation reducer. Consume two teaspoons of cinnamon in the morning and two teaspoons in the evening for 2 weeks. Then lower the dose to two teaspoons once a day for two weeks. Then for maintenance, consume two teaspoons of cinnamon morning and evening but only once a week. If you have a tender stomach you might not be able to eat that much cinnamon at a time. If you decide to try this regimen, pay attention to how it affects your stomach and reduce the amount of cinnamon if necessary.
CoQ10 Benefits…Research continues to show Co Enzyme Q 10 also called Ubiquinone helps heart attack survivors but also reduces statin side effects of muscle pain and weakness and perhaps wasting. Doctors from Slovakia used 100 mg of coenzyme Q 10 (Co Q 10) twice daily to treat 60 people with statin associated myopathy. The supplements lowered the muscle pain and weakness by about half. It also helped muscle cramps reducing them by about one third. There was a placebo group that did not improve at all. The addition of selenium did not enhance the benefits of CoQ10. (Gazette Sun Nov 23rd page 3)
Vitamin/hormone ‘D’…Sunlight helps bones, fights cancer, and eases asthma.
This month’s cancer prevention advice is about getting 30 minutes of sunshine every day. I want to remind readers that our bodies make vitamin D. The physiology is quite unique. While in the presence of sun light, ultra violet light on the skin converts a form of cholesterol that is in the skin through a photo chemical reaction to a pre-form of vitamin D [D- OH]. The D -OH gets bound to a protein and transported to the liver. The liver metabolizes it to 25-OH. It is further ‘metabolized’ to activate it by other tissues and then delivered to the main target organs: the kidney, small intestines and bones. Plants use sunlight to make chlorophyll and people use sunlight on their skin to start to make vitamin D. You do need some cholesterol in your skin for this process to occur. Your next question could be, “Does sunscreen have any effect on this process?” The answer is yes. Even back in 1998 the dean of Harvard Dermatology Medical University wrote a report that questioned the excessive use of sunscreen. He noted research that showed our children were getting rickets from lack of vitamin D. The dean of Harvard medical university lost his job over this information because a main contributor to the dermatology school was a manufacturer of sunscreen.
The dean was only remaking a very old nutritional connection. Sunshine and bone formation were connected as early as 1858 by zoo keepers observations of animals. In Germany doctors noted that babies born in the fall who died in the spring had rickets, but babies born in the spring who died in the fall did not. Missionary Theobald Palm traveled to Japan in 1890 and was struck by the absence of rickets among the Japanese. He too deduced it had something to do with confinement, especially lack of sunlight. This became the prevalent focus. In 1919 a Berlin physician used the light from a mercury-vapor Quartz lamp and ‘experimented’ with light exposure on four children with advanced cases of rickets. These lamps emitted ultraviolet wavelengths. The four children were completely cured in two months. Researchers in 1924 found that linseed oil, cottonseed oil or yeast radiated with ultraviolet wave lengths and then ingested cured rickets. It became increasingly clear that there was a relationship between rickets and exposure to sunlight or the lack of it. In 1919 Sir Edward Mellanby showed cod liver oil ingested could cure rickets in dogs. He postulated that there was a ‘vitamine’ in the oil. That began the idea that rickets was a nutritional deficiency disease. Symptoms of rickets in children include enlarged head, joints and rib cage, a deformed pelvis and bowed legs. Rickets in adults is renamed since the bones are ‘formed’ to osteomalacia or soft bones. It can cause fractures in the hip, spine, other bones.
There is a caution with calling ‘D’ a vitamin because it is also a hormone. Since your body should be able to make it, the medical crowd that is negative to nutritional supplements will tell you, “You don’t have to eat it. As little as 15 minutes of skin exposure on the face and arms every day is enough.” This advice was found on page 358 of my old nutrition text book circa 1993. (Dark skinned people need more). This same text insists that taking more than 1000 IU or 25 micrograms a day should only be done in the scrutiny of a physician. These days I am hearing of people taking doses in the 4000-6000 IU a day range. That said let me tell you what to look out for. Toxicity or over dosing on vitamin D has the potential problem of leading to over absorption of calcium and eventual calcium deposits in the kidneys and other organs which can cause local cell death. Over absorption of calcium causes hypercalcemia which has symptoms of weakness, loss of appetite, diarrhea, vomiting, mental confusion and increased urine output. Hypercalcemia can lead to excessive muscle tightness (tetany) and if that should happen in your heart you’re in big trouble.
Up until the last 25 years vitamin D was given little attention except to deal with how it affected bones. In the meantime zealous attention has been concerned about skin cancer and over exposure to the sun. The pendulum now swings back as we realize that there is a healthy balance to find between too little and too much sun exposure. The spf standards have reached absolute blocking potential. To add to the craziness 35 spf and above actually have now been shown to have ingredients that cause another kind of cancer. Common sense sun exposure would be 30 minutes a day before 10:30 or after 2pm. Apply the sunscreen after you’ve had this exposure. We need to adopt common sense approaches to sun exposure not only for our bones but other health benefits that we are learning vitamin D has to offer. Here are some of the latest in the news. Vitamin D helps fight cancer. It was noted in the 1990’s that vitamin D had a larger role in the body than just calcium regulation. The D hormone seems to control differentiation of all cells within its range of target tissues. That would mean as a cell matures to the point of a final and specific function within a tissue hormone D is involved. Cancer is often a disease where the cells dysfunction at this point. There’s a transcription factor c-MYC which activates genes involved in the proliferation of cancer. Vitamin D suppresses the activity of c-MYC and at the same time boosts the activity of MXD1 which helps control C-MYC. These are preliminary findings but give us a compelling mechanism to explain the role of ‘D’ in cancer prevention.
Vitamin D may ease Asthma symptoms. In Mainz University Hospital, Germany 280 adults who had asthma were studied. Two thirds of the study subjects had vitamin D deficiencies. Those with severely uncontrolled asthma symptoms were almost twice as likely to have vitamin D deficiencies. In poorly controlled asthma sufferers 60% were deficient in vitamin D. In people with intermittent asthma only 5% were found to be vitamin D deficient. This research merely notes correlation; it doesn’t determine why or how or give any recommendations for asthmatics.
Another benefit of vitamin D is that it has been shown to help people with the MS diagnosis. The prevalence of MS is notably higher in the colder states compared to the sunshine states. It has been reported to help RA. It seems to calm the nervous system and balances activity of the immune system.
Cinnamon and RA…Here’s a new idea for helping with inflammation and pain from Rheumatoid Arthritis. According to “Know the Cause”, found at www.knowthecause.com cinnamon can be a powerful inflammation reducer. Consume two teaspoons of cinnamon in the morning and two teaspoons in the evening for 2 weeks. Then lower the dose to two teaspoons once a day for two weeks. Then for maintenance, consume two teaspoons of cinnamon morning and evening but only once a week. If you have a tender stomach you might not be able to eat that much cinnamon at a time. If you decide to try this regimen, pay attention to how it affects your stomach and reduce the amount of cinnamon if necessary.
