Pat Sullivan Blog

Excitotoxins and Dr. Blaylock

One of my readers just asked if I had read "Excitotoxins - The Taste That Kills" by Russell L. Blaylock MD.  I realized that I have not really talked about this here on this site. 

I am a big fan of Dr. Blaylock's.  I had the privilege to have had dinner with him a month or so ago.  He is as nice as he is smart.  He is a neurosurgeon who has been "into" using nutrition for his entire career.  He shared a number of amazing stories about how he used nutrition in surgical and traumatic instances.  He said that his first step was always to fill the patient up with as much Magnesium as he could.  Magnesium is a tremendous neuroprotective agent.

He is at the forefront of warning people against the use of mercury, aspartame, msg and other common toxins we are exposed to.  Here is his website where you can get his newsletter and his past reports.  Great stuff.

I highly recommend his book

CT Scans cause cancer?

I have heard this before but have never seen it admitted in a fairly prestigious magazine.  In this case, Medscape Today from WebMD.

This especially grabbed me :

"CT scans use multiple x-rays to create three-dimensional images that are diagnostically useful but expose people to far more radiation than conventional x-rays. In fact, one CT scan exposes a patient to the lower range of radiation received by some Nagasaki bombing survivors."

You catch that?  One scan equals the amount some Nagasaki survivors were exposed to?  Truly amazing.  Do doctors TELL you this information?  NOPE!!!  The article continues:

"Up to one in a thousand patients will develop cancer from this exposure.^[2] Sixty million CT scans a year will thus cause cancer in thousands of people. Yet most consent forms are silent about this."

You would think they would at least tell us!  The issue is that the doctors probably are not aware of this themselves.  They will tell you, "Oh, it has been proven to be perfectly safe."  They say the same thing about mercury amalgams and vaccines.  They just don't know.  And who wants to admit that they could actually be making you sick?

Vitamin P Show

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

My podcasting career begins.  Check out my contribution to the Health Hacks Podcast.

Then go visit VitaminPshow.com.

The "conservative therapy" for osteoarthritis

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

I happened across this A.D.A.M illustration of a knee with osteoarthritis.

The most common cause of knee damage requiring knee replacement is osteoarthritis, which is a degenerative disease of the bones of the knee which cause the surfaces of the knee joint to become irregular and rough, preventing smooth painless motion of the knee joint.

Knee joint replacement may be recommended for:

• knee osteoarthritis or arthritis, which causes knee pain that has failed to respond to conservative therapy (NSAID medication for 6 months or more) [emphasis mine]
• decreased knee function caused by arthritis
• inability to work because of knee pain
• inability to sleep through the night because of knee pain
• inability to walk more than 3 blocks because of knee pain
• loose knee prosthesis
• some knee fractures

So "conservative therapy" is pain management through NSAIDs for 6 months?  How is pain management supposed to make the problem better? 

What about taking some calcium and magnesium?  What about trying glucosamine sulfate?  Fish oil?  Systemic enzymes?  All of these have plenty of clinical studies.

And didn't anyone read the study from last year that each dose of NSAID increases the risk for high blood pressure?  Well, not to worry there is since there are plenty of blood pressure prescription medications.

Healthline.com won a Webby this year for being the best health website on the net.  Not surprisingly, it has history and ties to pharma giant Merck.  I've looked at Helathline.com several times in the last 6 months.  As far as I can tell, Healthline is garbage. 

Of course I'm biased, but if you want to research natural and alternative cures, go to the database at JigsawHealth.com.

The End of Mercury Fillings?

Here is a great post at the Huffington Post entitled "The Beginning of the End of Mercury in Dentistry."

I applaud Rep. Diane Watson (D) for her courageous and longtime stance against the ADA and FDA and their insistence that this incredibly stupid and untested use of mercury in humans was safe.  It is NOT safe.  At least it has never been proven safe by either the ADA or the FDA. 

Someday the use of mercury in dentistry will end just like the use of Asbestos ended.  Imagine though if the same approach used for Asbestos was applied to Mercury Fillings.  Laws were passed making it necessary to remove Asbestos from the buildings that contained it.  Yikes!! 

Removing amalgams from the mouths of over 70% of the entire population of America (200+ million people)  would be quite a task.  Especially if dentists have to do it right.  (You can't just drill the damn stuff out!!  You will make tens of millions even more poisoned and sick.)  And WHO is going to pay for it??  The ADA?  The US taxpayers?

Would it improve the health of America?  Absolutely!!  Even with the small sample group that Jigsaw Foundation has, we are seeing that getting mercury amalgams can dramatically effect the health of many.   If you can, please donate to the Foundation so that we can help more very sick people get started on the road to health by removing this terrible poison!

Cancer: The Big C

I was talking with a friend this weekend about a former classmate who was dying of cancer after many courses of chemo, radiation and surgery.   She was asking me if I knew of anything that might help her friend.  I have read quite a bit about cancer in the past and wrote about it a bit in my book, Wellness Piece by Piece. 

Basically, I think the chemo and radiation approach is a dead end, literally.  At best, the standard chemo treatment is one where the docs hope they kill the cancer before they kill you.  If I got cancer I don't believe I would ever go the chemo route except in a few exceptions.  I might not beat the cancer but when you look at the stats for chemo therapy,  chances are I would be dead anyway.  The difference is that my quality of life going the chemo route would be much worse.  I don't want to be fighting both the cancer AND the negative effects of the chemo.

So with this in mind, I happened across this interesting article on Dr. Mercola's website regarding cancer and a PhD researcher named Ralph Moss.  Dr. Moss is likely the leading authority on alternative cancer treatments.  His website is here.  An interview with him is here.

Basically what we have is a $100 Billion plus, cancer industry that has a vested interest in the status quo.  Think about this.  If they actually WON "the war on cancer" how many people would be out of work and how many businesses would close.  Am I being cynical?  Is it possible that this industry does not want a cure for cancer?  Did the buggy industry enjoy the fact that the car industry wiped it out?  Is it possible that real cures for cancer actually exist but are repressed?  I really hate the idea that there could be a conspiracy.  I like to think us humans were better than that.  But how often do people work against there own best interests?  After all, it is what makes our economy work.

Recently, I had the experience of coming across something that had potential as a cardiovascular treatment.  I talked with a venture capital friend of mine.  His number one question was, "would it negatively effect the income of doctors who made their living off current cardiovascular treatments."  He had learned NOT to invest in things where it threatened the status quo.  How many cancer treatments are out there that cannot get any funding for study because of this type of thinking prevalent in the VC community?  I bet there are a LOT!!  Here is one.

At Jigsaw, we have deliberately chosen to stay away from anything to do with the C word.  Any supplement company that has gone down that path has been crucified.  No thanks.

Thoughts on Iraq

Iraq is now like Vietnam or the Tet offensive according the press and it seems even the Bush admin is buying into that thinking.  Interesting.

Quickly, for what it is worth (probably not much), here is what I think.

1.)  Regardless of the messiness of the Iraq situation it is a VERY good thing that we have managed to attract most of the crazy Islamists to Iraq to fight us there instead of allowing them to spread out and fight us everywhere else, especially here on our soil.  There is no question in my mind that one of the reasons we have not been attacked again here, is that we are there.  They have come to fight us there.  That is a very positive thing.  They are going to fight us somewhere and it is far better for us that it is there, not NY or LA or wherever in the US.

2.)  Over the years I have talked to many soldiers who were on the ground in Vietnam and all were sooo frustrated that they were never allowed to really fight to win!  Political issues prevented them from kicking North Vietnam's ass.  They could have.  They should have.  If we are going to go to the trouble to fight a war, we ought to fight to win or stay the hell out of it.  War is never won with a half assed, politically correct approach.  Either commit all out, no holds barred or surrender.  The French at least learned to surrender early!

3.) Bush needs to fire some Generals and get someone new to run this thing.  At the end of the day, if there is blame for what happens on the ground it is the generals who call the shots.  Not Bush.  Unless of course he or Rumsfield (who I don't care much for for many reasons) is not listening to his Generals.  It appears to me that he is listening to them.  I think they have run a crummy clean up operation.  The initial war was run brilliantly.  The aftermath has proven to be a disaster.  He needs a new general in charge.  Fire somebody W!!  Fire em today!!  Get pissed and win the damn war!!  As my dad used to say, "stop pussyfooting around."

4.) Commit totally to overwhelm the terrorists even if you have to put a million troops on the ground.  Kill every terrorist you can find everywhere they are in Iraq.  Secure it and then turn it over to the Iraqi government and military.  Then get the hell out of there.  You have done the best you can do.  If they then lose what we have given them, it is not our fault.  If they are crazy enough (and they likely are) to continue to kill each other because of all the religious factions there then let em.  But get the job done.  Do it with all the force required to bring peace and then get out in a rational, planned manner.

5.)  Realize that it is soo easy to be a Monday morning quarterback.  When you are a leader you NEVER have enough information.  You do the best you can to make a decision and then you go all out to win, making adjustments as you go.  I have never been involved in a planned business startup where things went as planned.  You just cannot know beforehand what the situation is really going to be like or what your competitors will do to respond to your campaign.  All of this carping in the press and from politicians is just a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacks who don't have a clue what leadership is.  For all his faults Bush has led and done many things right.  Now he needs to lead all the way and win the damn war, not just contain the people who want to kill us.  He needs to win this no matter the cost.  We must win.  To lose would cost us way too much. 

And that is all I have to say about that.

Don't tell your doctor!!

Actually I don't need to tell you because you are already NOT telling your doctor that you are taking vitamins and other supplements.  69% of people taking both supplements and prescription meds did NOT tell their docs that they were doing that.

Is that a good idea?  Well, probably not but the problem is that docs generally have no clue about supplements so they will generally simply tell you to stop out of ignorance.  People pretty much know this so they just don't bother to tell their doctors everything that they are taking. 

In a way, I like this a lot because it means that more and more people are taking responsibility for their own health.  They often are NOT getting the help they want or need from their doc so they do the research themselves and try alternatives.  I think this a good thing.  Could it be dangerous?  Yes,  it could and it is why you should do a little more research and learn if there any known interactions between your supplements and your Rx meds. 

It is one of the reasons the Jigsaw Health almost always talks about how Rx meds can effect your body.  We are not against Rx meds at all since we think you should use the best of both the traditional and the alternative medical worlds.

Fish Oil and Alzheimer's

This study found that patients diagnosed with mild Alzheimer's had no further progression of the disease when they took therapeutic levels of fish oil (1.7 grams of DHA and .6 grams of EFA).  People with more advanced Alzheimer's received no benefit however.

While the study does not say it, one might surmise from this that using Fish Oil could be a great preventative measure.  American's are sorely deficient in Omega 3 oils due to our overuse of vegetable oils and we simply don't eat enough Omega 3's.  There are many great fish oils out there to take and Jigsaw Health has a good one here.

Celiac and the Brain

Here is an interesting finding by the Mayo Clinic where they found that patients with Celiac Disease often also had cognitive issues develop. 

I find it interesting because it is an observation that I (a non-doctor) have made and have written about in Wellness Piece by Piece.  The difficulty for many people with chronic conditions is that their symptoms are often so varied.  Many systems of the body are affected.  That often makes it very difficult to diagnose.  It makes it very difficult to uncover the underlying cause of the condition.  My stomach hurts, I have bowel problems, rashes, anxiety, headaches and I can't remember my PIN number when I need money.  Do I go see a GI doc?  A Dermatologist? A Neurologist?  A Psychiatrist? 

All of these docs mean well, but they are not trained to treat the WHOLE body.  It is why I always say that the major symptom of someone with a chronic condition is that they have seen a LOT of doctors.