We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong.  So, here it is.  I freely admit to being wrong.  As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.

I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labeled “opinion makers.”  Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.

The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake.  The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease.  Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.

It Is Not Working!

These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible.  The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.

The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.

Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.

Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.

Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes.  Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended.  It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.

Inflammation is not complicated — it is quite simply your body’s natural defense to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus.  The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders.  However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process, a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.

What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body?  Well, smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.

The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels.  This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity.  Let me repeat that. The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet that has been recommended for years by mainstream medicine.

What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.

In Part 2 of this two-part article, I’ll discuss which foods cause inflammation, how those foods trigger the inflammatory process, and the foods to eat that will cure inflammation.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital, Mesa, AZ.  His private practice, Cardiac Care Center was in Mesa, AZ.  Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the nutritional treatment of heart disease.  He is the founder of Healthy Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness. He is the author of The Cure For Heart Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie. Click here now to learn more.

 

Neuropathy, why the pain, the tingling and the numbness?

Neuropathy has many symptoms. It may start with a tingling feeling and end up with numbness. It can be a pricking, or burning sensation, loss of reflexes and muscle shrinkage, abnormal sensations, or sensitivity to touch. Its worse symptom is pain, sometimes so excruciating that a person would amputate rather than continue the pain.  

It is called many names such as paresthesia, neuritis, neuralgia, dysesthensia, hypoesthesia, hypesthesia, hypalgesia, hypealgesia and hyperesthesia due to its many different kinds of symptoms. 

But, what underlies all these symptoms?

They are created by a specific type of nerve damage. This nerve damage can come from too much sugar in the blood (the reason it is a side effect of diabetes). It can be caused by exposure to chemicals such as cancer treatments, poisons, alcoholism, or a side effect of some medications. It can be the result of kidney or liver failure, infectious disease or nutritional deficiencies especially B vitamins. The reasons are many; the damage they produce is the same.

What creates the problem is damage done to the outer lining of the nerve cell.  Cells have coverings much like an electrical wire has an insulation of plastic. Have you ever seen a wire whose insulation is damaged – the electrical current doesn’t flow correctly. It can send electricity out from the area where it is damaged, it can stop the flow of electricity or it can damage what it's supposed to be supplying electricity to.

A damaged nerve covering does the same thing. It can send out “sparks” that cause tingling, it can stop the flow resulting in numbness. It can create feelings of hot or cold or sensitivity due to crossed signals. It can definitely cause pain especially as the damage gets worse.

The idea is to fix this outer covering. This is called the myelin sheath. What is needed are specific B vitamins. The only question is how to get these B vitamins in sufficient amounts so that the body can actually build healthy nerves. Isolated B vitamins that are sold at the health food stores or local drug stores get washed out of the system too quickly to fix the damage. It would be hard to take enough of this type of nutrients to make a difference. You can’t get it from vitamins made in a laboratory.

What is needed is a whole food supplement with methylcobalamine and benfotiamine and other B vitamins that the body can use to build healthy nerve cells. That is one of the functions of the body, to build health. But it does need specific nutrients to do its job.  

Nutrients are what a body runs on. A car runs on gas. If you drive the car down the road, it uses up a steady amount of that gas. If you take that same car and speed down the freeway, you will use up a lot of gas. When you take a body “out on the freeway”, or put it under physical stress, it uses up a lot more nutrients. Thus, getting the right supplements in the right amount is important.

Just as a car won’t drive without giving it gas a body can’t or function correctly or build health without the proper nutrients it needs to “drive”. In the case of neuropathy, it needs these B vitamins.

Neuropathy can be a side effect of many things.  Although most often it is caused by too much sugar in the blood - Diabetes - there are many factors. Chemotherapy and some drugs have neuropathy as a side effect and it can be caused by surgery damaging the nerves - there are others.

For more information about neuropathy.

Success in Handling the Nerve Damage of Neuropathy

We got lots of different people who got nerve damage from many different reasons who have written up what happened to them.

Go here for their stories   

Read about getting relief by building healthy nerves.

Warning: Never Swallow Regular Toothpaste, by Dr. Mercola, Nutritionist

Fluoride, one of the most consumed drugs in the United States, is deliberately added to about two-thirds of U.S. public water supplies, theoretically to reduce tooth decay, even though there’s no scientifically-valid evidence proving either safety or effectiveness. 

In this video, Dr. Bill Osmunson, general and cosmetic dentist for 30 years, talks about how he came to change his mind about water fluoridation, which he promoted aggressively for the first 25 years of his practice. He thought he saw the benefits, but it wasn’t until he actually reviewed the information for himself that he began to realize that fluoridation is a serious problem.

Why Does Toothpaste Carry a Warning But Fluoridated Water Does Not?

One of the first things he did was look at a tube of toothpaste, which clearly carries the warning: “Do not swallow,” and “in case of accidental ingestion, contact the poison control center.”

The amount of fluoride they’re talking about is a quarter milligram of fluoride, contained in a pea size amount of toothpaste.

But here is the kicker, This is the same amount of fluoride you find in 8 oz of water. Yet toothpaste carries a “Do not swallow” warning, whereas you’re typically told to drink eight 8oz glasses of water each day, without any concern for the amount of fluoride you will ingest.

One of Dr. Osmunson’s main concerns is water fluoridation for infants. The American Dental Association (ADA) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommend that infants NOT receive fluoridated water for drinking, nor for making their formula, as fluoridated water contains 250 times more fluoride than mother’s milk.

“We shouldn’t fluoridate water and harm our most vulnerable,” he says.

Personally, I also strongly advise you do not give your children fluoridated water.

Unfortunately, the only way to ensure your water is pure enough to drink is by installing a good water filtration system in your house, such as a reverse osmosis filter that can filter out fluoride and other dangerous water contaminants like disinfection byproducts (DBPs). Bottled water also typically contains fluoride, even though it’s not stated on the label.

Dental Fluorosis – A Clear Sign of Excessive Fluoride Intake

The next thing Dr. Osmunson looked at was dental fluorosis. These are the white and brown spots on your teeth. The only thing that causes dental fluorosis is fluoride – typically due to ingesting too much fluoride during your developing years, from birth to about 8 years of age. According to the CDC, about one third of children and adolescents 6 to 19 years have enamel fluorosis on their teeth.

When dental fluorosis occurs, it can be an indication that the rest of your body has been exposed to too much fluoride also, such as your bones and the rest of your organs, including your brain.

So, are there actual benefits of water fluoridation?

Depending on the source, water fluoridation has been said to reduce tooth decay by anywhere from 20 to 80 percent. But when you compare the statistics between different countries, you see that no matter whether they fluoridate their water or not, tooth decay has steadily been reduced by the same amount.

Likewise, when you compare states in the U.S., you find that increased amounts of fluoride in the drinking water make no difference. We have the same amount of good healthy teeth, regardless of water fluoridation.

So, if there’s no benefit, WHY are we fluoridating?

Why Do We Fluoridate Drinking Water if It’s Not Healthy? 

The evidence points to it being little more than a well-orchestrated PR stunt to aid an industry in trouble – a fascinating story in and of itself, as described so well in Christopher Bryson’s book The Fluoride Deception and in one of the best web sites on this topic, Fluoride Action Network (FAN).

Other pro-fluoride advocates go so far as to try to make you believe that fluoride is a nutrient that naturally helps build strong teeth and bones. One such example is the Directive 2002/46/EC of the European Parliament and the Council, which lists “fluoride” as one of only 28 vitamins and minerals permissible for sale for human consumption within the European Union. 

But let’s make this point clear: fluoride is NOT an essential nutrient. The fluoride added to your drinking water is in fact a chemical waste product! It is NOT something you should use as a supplement to your diet.

There are plenty of studies showing the dangers of fluoride to your health, such as:

See Dr. Mercola's website for the Interview with dentist Bill Osmunson and his concern about Fluoride. 

Dr. Marcola - http://naturalhealthcenter.mercola.com/