For this issue, and for general purposes, we need to define some words/terms.

Organic: As a noun, this is a fertilizer that is derived from animal or vegetable matter. As an adjective, it is one of the following: 1) (in chemistry) relating or belonging to the class of chemical compounds having a carbon basis, or 2) of or relating to or derived from living organisms, 3) being or relating to or derived from or having properties characteristic of living organisms, 4) (in pathology) involving or affecting physiology or bodily organs, or 5) constitutional in the structure of something (especially your physical makeup). No where in the dictionary is the definition currently in use by grocery store veggie departments or health food stores. When those people say “organic,” they are trying to say “grown naturally with no pesticides or growth hormone sprays.” In my mind, that’s a total misuse of the word, but that’s the way it is. Sigh…

What’s a germ?

This is a generalization, meaning a minute life form (especially a disease-causing bacterium); the term is not in technical use. That is, any person who does not know specifically what microscopic life form they are talking about will use this word.

OK, so what’s a parasite?

That’s even more general. It is an animal or plant that lives in or on a host (another animal or plant); the parasite obtains nourishment from the host without benefiting or killing the host. Ah, at least we have a clarifier here. It, by itself (assumption that it might have a will) does not intend to kill its host, but while it feeds on its host, it gives that host no benefit. This word, then, is a definition of some action(s) and is not specific as to what the creature is. This means that bad bacteria are parasites, but good bacteria are not. The dust mites in your bed that are portrayed as evil microscopic monsters by the Kerby vacuum commercials probably fell off your body and stay in the mattress because there are dead skin particles there that they can feed on. Are they parasites? Well, they give you no benefit, so yes, but they also are not living on your body at the moment, so the answer is no. What about the ones still on your body? Nope, not parasites, even though the commercial wants you to believe they are evil. Like the good bacteria, those mites are in a symbiotic relationship with you and you really shouldn’t want to kill them (not all of them anyway); they help you keep your follicles and glands clear (for those who don’t shower a couple times a day). Some people (according to websites I have been visiting lately) seem to believe that anything microscopic that is on or in your body is a parasite. Not true. You need to be more specific when discussing the various microscopic lifeforms. Oh, and bugs you can see with your naked eye… forget it. Swat that skeeter, fly, or flea and don’t call it a parasite because while it might feed on you, it doesn’t live on/in you.

Pharmaceutical-grade: This is actually a good compound adjective. J I might pick on the pharmaceutical corporations relentlessly, but they do have one saving grace: they test their pills to rigid specifications with high grade quality control to ensure that the pill has in it exactly what they say it has in it. Now, the fact that the stuff that is in it might kill you is beside the point for this definition. A pharmaceutical-grade vitamin C tablet, for example, is guaranteed to be not only vitamin C, but high quality vitamin C – the kind that will be readily absorbed and utilized by your body. Does that make sense to you? This definition will be used on the next page somewhere, so I wanted you to know that it is good, not bad.

OK. The following is borrowed from Death by Medicine as our opener today. Emphases in these paragraphs are mine.

How Do We Know if Drugs Are Safe?

An aspect of scientific medicine that the public takes for granted is the testing of new drugs. Drugs generally are tested on individuals who are fairly healthy and not on other medications that could interfere with findings. But when these new drugs are declared “safe” and enter the drug prescription books, they are naturally going to be used by people who are on a variety of other medications and have a lot of other health problems. Then a new phase of drug testing called “post-approval” comes into play, which is the documentation of side effects once drugs hit the market. In one very telling report, the federal government's General Accounting Office “found that of the 198 drugs approved by the FDA between 1976 and 1985... 102 (or 51.5%) had serious post-approval risks... the serious post-approval risks (included) heart failure, myocardial infarction, anaphylaxis, respiratory depression and arrest, seizures, kidney and liver failure, severe blood disorders, birth defects and fetal toxicity, and blindness.”(47)

NBC Television's investigative show “Dateline” wondered if your doctor is moonlighting as a drug company representative. After a yearlong investigation, NBC reported that because doctors can legally prescribe any drug to any patient for any condition, drug companies heavily promote “off label” and frequently inappropriate and untested uses of these medications, even though these drugs are approved only for the specific indications for which they have been tested.

The leading causes of adverse drug reactions are antibiotics (17%), cardiovascular drugs (17%), chemotherapy (15%), and analgesics and anti-inflammatory agents (15%). Such as Aleve (Naproxen Sodium) or ibuprofen? Don’t we all take these occasionally?

The testing they are talking about here, clearly is the testing for efficacy of the drug, not the testing to verify that the pill contains what it is supposed to contain. OK, so you are primed, right? Pharmaceutical companies do a damn fine job of testing their pills for content and quality, but they do not test them very well for how they affect you after you take them, and they are never tested in combination with other drugs you might be taking to see if that combination might kill you.

Now, what I’d like to address is the testing of OTC drugs, specifically those referred to as supplements. We all take a vitamin now and then, right? But most of us, health conscious consumers that we are, fail to understand the importance of using pharmaceutical-grade supplements.

For example, many discount products use low-grade vitamin C imported from China that contain traces of toxic arsenic, lead, and iron. Because the FDA does not believe anyone should take more than 100 mg per day of vitamin C, that agency permits the importation of this contaminated vitamin C (hey, a tiny bit of arsenic won’t hurt them bozos). They control the importation of this stuff, but not the quality of it. Anyway, really health-conscious people often take 2,000 to 10,000 mg (that’s totally paranoid!) per day of vitamin C, every day, so it is crucial that they use a pharmaceutical-grade vitamin C that has gone through all the purification steps to remove all possible contaminants (otherwise, given the bad crap in your unregulated vitamins, you gonna die baby! Killed by the product you thought was going to make you healthy.).

If you are one of those people who take high doses of any nutritional supplement over an extended period of time, it is critical that the nutrients contained in these supplements be of the highest purity. Consistent purity can only be obtained by mandating that the nutrients contained in the supplement are manufactured to meet pharmaceutical standards. But the FDA does not regulate dietary supplement manufacturing.

In April 1999, an independent lab analyzed seven different brands of SAMe (S-adenosyl-methionine – an amino acid derivative normally synthesized in the body, but used in larger doses as a non-prescription antidepressant). The results showed that two of the seven had no SAMe present whatsoever. One brand used the wrong form of SAMe, while two other brands had less than 100% potency. Only two brands (Life Extension and Nature's Made products) had 100% of the right form of SAMe. Many consumers who trusted the reputations of some very well known companies were clearly not getting what they paid for.

Now you just made a visit to the local health food store. You walk out with six or eight bottles of supplements, but you had to leave a $100 bill on the counter to get them. How do you know that what you just paid all that money for is really what is in those bottles? You don’t. You can’t, because there is no regulatory agency (like the FDA, Heaven forbid) that requires each manufacturer to test their product to standardized specifications for content, quality, and no harmful materials.

You are totally at the mercy of the manufacturer. Seriously now, do you really think they are any more honest or any less money hungry than any other capitalist business? There are a few out there, but how do we find who’s who? Well, without plugging any specific companies, do some research. Did they buy their ingredients from China or India? (“These chickens came all the way from Alabama and they is froze harder than a brick!”) Don’t buy it! Do they claim it is organically grown, but can’t even tell you where it was grown? Don’t buy it! Do they grow their own ingredients with strict quality control measures, no chemical additives or sprays? Do they pay for testing at independent labs? Then it probably contains what they say it does.

You spins the wheel and you takes yer chances…

Kidney Stones

What Would I Do?

by Le Anne Amber

What are kidney stones, anyway? And why do some people get them and others don't?

Here's what one respected medical tome (the PDR Online guide to diseases), has to say about kidney stones: “These hard masses appear when certain chemicals in the urine form crystals that stick together.” That's it. They don't say what chemicals stick together. So how are you supposed to know what to do about them? Well, if you do a little more looking, you can find that most kidney stones are composed of something called calcium oxalate, which is a fancy term for calcium that has bonded to oxalic acid. Not surprisingly, oxalic acid is a fungal mycotoxin. One of calcium's jobs is to bind to toxins in the bloodstream, rendering them inert. They then pass through the filtering organ (the kidney) and are excreted in the urine.

My own personal opinion is that probably everyone has kidney stones, but some become larger than others. Their size can range from that of a grain of sand to a golf ball (OUCH!). Most are small, though, and pass through the kidney with no noticeable effect. When they are large enough to get stuck in the ureter, or bang around inside the kidney causing irritation of the mucous membrane, then you know you have them. If they damage the interior lining of the kidney, you might see blood in your urine and experience some mild to moderate pain. If they get stuck in a ureter, look out! Rich can tell you how much that hurts!

The treatment for a lodged kidney stone is usually laser-blasting it into smaller pieces that can be passed normally. This produces a few side effects of its own. First of all, the catheter almost always irritates the urethra and ureter, causing pain and subsequent bleeding. Secondly, the laser-blasting technique “bruises” the kidney, causing swelling and pain. The swelling necessitates something called a “stent” (a tube running all the way into your kidney so you can still pee) being installed in you for anywhere from a week to three weeks, depending on the severity of the swelling. The stent pokes the inside of your kidney every time you bend over, causing superficial damage and bleeding, and possibly even an infection. Not very fun. And let's not forget that until they get that stone blasted, you are in absolutely indescribable pain. For which they'll probably give you a few nice shots of morphine or some other narcotic. You all know how bad those are, so I won't bother listing all the nasty side effects here.

So how can you prevent kidney stones in the first place? Well, most people say to drink lots of water, and that's a good idea. It keeps everything moving and stones don't get a chance to get very big. But some people just can't drink four quarts of water every day. Because the calcium oxalate is formed by calcium binding to oxalic acid, how can we reduce the amount of oxalic acid in our blood? Hmmm... it's a fungal mycotoxin, right? So it follows that if we reduce our fungal intake, we'll have less oxalic acid floating around to cause trouble.

And here we get back to the anti-fungal diet idea. Grains, bread, potatoes, wine, beer, popcorn, Doritos, potato chips, peanuts, etc. (refer to the Healthy Diet issue) are all contaminated with fungal mycotoxins. Eliminate or severely curtail the intake of these types of foods and you'll significantly reduce your chance of getting kidney stones. Also, be sure to eat anti-fungal foods such as garlic, carrots, broccoli, beets, etc., and take an anti-fungal supplement if you can.

What about cranberry juice? That's supposed to be a preventative, too. Most berries (including cranberries) are anti-fungal, so yes, cranberry juice is a good idea as well. Cranberries also have a diuretic effect, helping to keep the urine volume flowing, so that's why people recommend cranberries over raspberries or blueberries, but they're all anti-fungal. Just be sure that if you buy cranberry juice, there's actually cranberry juice in the bottle. Read those labels!

Oh, and you know those irritating little “bone spurs” that you get in your finger joints sometimes? Those are actually kidney stones that didn't make it to the kidneys. Your doctor will tell you they're caused by either a) consuming too much calcium, or b) inefficient calcium absorption. They're wrong. It's simply calcium binding to the oxalic acid in your bloodstream and getting stuck in your extremities before making it to the kidneys. In fact, one of Rich's previous doctors supposed that (are you sitting down?) his “bone spurs” were caused by pieces of bone coming off his vertebrae and settling in his fingers! Talk about grasping at straws! He had absolutely no idea what was causing those bumps, but he knew Rich's vertebrae were damaged, so he leaped to that ridiculous conclusion. Heaven forbid a doctor should have to say “I don't know.”

So now you know what kidney stones are and how they can be prevented. Sure, there are herbs (wild cherry bark is one) that can facilitate passing kidney stones, but I would advise against them because if the stones are too large, they can become blocked in the ureter. Far better would be something that will dissolve the stones gradually, such as Joe Pye Weed or Cleavers. Unless they're already causing considerable pain, in which case you should get to a doctor and have them blasted. But the best medicine is prevention. Eat good antifungal foods, drink lots of water, and exercise to keep your system in optimum operating condition.