Category Archives: Bone remodeling

by

“Osteoporosis and Hormones: The Whole Story”

My Chorale Pic

Laying down my pen

I am laying down my pen after twenty-seven years publishing Health-Light Newsletter.  I’ve left quite a legacy of print in my fifty-years of service as a health care provider and healer. I will continue posting articles from previous issues. I hope you will enjoy this one. Thank you for following me and sharing my blog articles with others. I bid you adieu with best wishes for your health and happiness.

The following article is from the Summer-Fall 2002 issue of Health Light. I first published it in my monthly column entitled “Your Body Knows Best” in the Lake Charles American Press.  I think you will find it quite informative. Enjoy!

Osteoporosis and Hormones: The Whole Story

In light of recent developments in medicine relative to hormone replacement therapy, exposing further the limitations of the medical model of health care, I thought it would be timely to write a series of articles exploring the alternative health care model and what it has to offer in this troubled area of hormonal balance and osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis is a condition of bone loss orchestrated by the body’s innate wisdom which has determined that some of the calcium in bones is needed elsewhere in the body, primarily to buffer rising acid in body fluids. The pH (potential of Hydrogen) of body fluids, in which all cells live, ideally is 7.2, which is practically neutral and slightly alkaline.

One of the largest determining factors of body fluid pH is the residue of digestion. Proteins and grains leave an acid-ash residue, because they require hydrochloric acid to digest them. Fruits and vegetables, for the most part, leave an alkaline-ash residue. (A chart is available at the center.)

Acid-ash has to be neutralized in the duodenum before it can be sent through the intestines. For this process, bile from the liver, stored in the gall bladder, and copious amounts of alkaline juices from the pancreas, are secreted into the duodenum as the stomach contents are emptied into it to emulsify the fats and neutralize the digestive acids.

The pancreas and liver make their alkaline juices from alkalizing minerals, such as sodium, which are stored in the body. These come from vegetables rich in organic minerals, which commercially-grown vegetables sorely lack. They are quickly used up keeping body fluids neutral for cell comfort and optimal function.

These sodium reserves become depleted in two ways: by over-consumption of proteins and grains and under-consumption of mineral-rich vegetation. When this reserve runs out, the body, in its wisdom, turns to the fluids and starts recycling sodium, such as is found in bile. When too much sodium is pulled out, causing calcium to precipitate out of solution and crystalize (contributing to stone formation), the body turns to the bones and starts re-absorbing calcium, the next mineral in line for neutralizing acids. The body’s time clock and survival mechanism kicks in and basically says, ”I can live with stones and osteoporosis, but I can’t live with my cells dying in these acidulous fluids.” Emergency measures are then taken in order to sustain and prolong life, the basic drive in all living organisms.

In his article on the subject in the July 4th issue of the American Press, syndicated medical columnist, Dr. Allen Douma recommends more calcium and protein in the diet. New evidence warrants caution in this area so that we do not consume too much acid-ash food and we balance that with lots of organically grown dark-green leafy and subsoil vegetables, such as lettuce, celery, spinach, radishes
and carrots, which are high in alkalizing minerals. Supplementation with organic minerals and barley green is an excellent safeguard measure as well.

Caution must also be taken to avoid “elemental” or inorganic calcium and other minerals (carbonates) which cannot be absorbed into the body. It’s only via the vegetable kingdom that we can receive the elements of the mineral kingdom. The vegetables chelate and arrange them in proportions we can use.

Milk is a high-protein food that takes sodium and calcium out of the body to buffer the acid it produces during digestion. All the calcium of a glass of milk is used up in this process, leaving not a single milligram for your bones.

For supplementation, calcium lactate or citrate can be safely taken. Cal-Ma-Plus, by Standard Process, what I use, is by far the best choice formula for increasing calcium levels in the bones.

Understanding Hormones and Drugs

With all the hoopla in the news lately about hormone replacement therapy (HRT), it might do us all well to review the process by which bone is replaced in the body. Over a seven-year cycle, every bone is replaced in your body cell by cell. Just how this happens is a story worth telling.

Bone replacement is done by osteoblasts, cells that generate bone tissue. Bone resorption is done by osteoclasts, which break out old bone tissue, thus making room for new. Both are essential to healthy bones. For example, if the old bone is not broken out, new bone cannot be brought in to replace it. The result is bone collapse from within, especially the long bones and spinal segments.

The hormone estrogen activates osteoblasts to produce new bone, just as it activates new tissue growth throughout the body. Progesterone, its partner, activates osteoclasts to break out old bone and stops the proliferation of issues. This is how estrogen is responsible for the production of neoplasm which forms tumors, and how progesterone helps stop and reverse tumor growth.

According to the literature that comes with them, Fosamax (alendronate) and Actonel (risedronate), two popular drugs given to “fight” osteoporosis, do so by inhibiting progesterone from activating osteoclasts. Old bone does not get taken out. New bone cells lay down on top of this chemical, now coating the bones, and form a veneer of calcium on the surface of the bones. This looks good on your x-rays and bone-density tests but is very misleading, because underneath this veneer is old bone now not being replaced by new. The result is hollow bones that will crumble under stress due to lack of internal structure and substance. The spinal segments are often the first to go in these cases where drug therapy is used. Women on Fosamax are known to have stress fractures in the spine.

This is one of many classic examples of the failure of the medical model of health care to honor the innate wisdom of the body. (For documented research on how medical prescriptions of estrogen without progesterone gave American women their breast cancer, read Dr John Lee’s book, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You about Menopause.)

Dr. Lee, a medical physician, is doing the apologies for the rest of his profession and is busy reversing breast cancer in thousands of women, mainly by applying progesterone cream. Call the office for his video, which every woman should view, and for more details on how you can replace your HRT with natural hormonal support using herbs and nutritional therapy.

Estrogen and progesterone are made elsewhere in the body than the ovaries. Natural estrogen and progesterone can also be administered through the skin by a cream to control hot flashes. Natural Woman is the formula we use, recommended by Dr.
John Lee ($25 for a month’s supply).

Bone Production

We now know which came first . . . the chicken!  Why? Because only the chicken can make the calcium that forms the eggshell. Listen up. Chickens that lay a calcium rich egg every day, eat grains and seeds that contain very little calcium. Yet the droppings of chickens and other bird species contain substantial amounts of calcium. But why?!

A cow produces 1-3 gallons of calcium rich milk every day, yet the cow’s diet is low in calcium. Grasses are approximately .001 % calcium. But how?!

The truth of the matter is that animals and birds naturally produce up to 20 times more calcium than they ingest If a calcium block or calcium pellets are put out for animals and birds, they will not eat it Why not?!

Conditions such as osteoporosis, PMS, hypertension, depression and many others are, in part, a result of calcium deficiency. Why don’t cows and chickens have these diseases?!

Because they eat grass and whole grains, which are surprisingly low in calcium but very high in silica and other enzyme producing micro-elements. They produce the calcium they need from silica, just as we do, and it’s done by an alchemical process called
biological transmutation.

We actually manufacture bone tissue from silica and a number of other trace minerals, such as zinc, copper, manganese, fluoride and boron, along with many other trace minerals and organic minerals, which include, of course, calcium, magnesium and
phosphorus.

Dr. Louis Krevran discovered that animals and birds eat foods rich in minerals that actually biologically transmute into other minerals required for metabolic processes. Bone growth and strengthening is one of these ongoing processes. Seeds, grains, herbs and grasses are rich in organic silica. Silica is 26% of the earth’s crust. Studies have proven that animals and birds produce calcium as a terminal waste product.

Now here’s the important piece of the puzzle. Humans cannot assimilate a waste product such as synthesized calcium (carbonate) because the body does not know how to metabolize it That’s also why chickens and cows won’t eat it In fact, ingesting synthesized calcium causes the parathyroid gland to function inefficiently.

Other Dietary Considerations

Osteoporosis was relatively uncommon among the ancients of Egypt, Rome and Greece, and is also unknown among the Indians of Hunsa, Peru, Equador, Brazil and New Guinea. Their diets of herbs and botanicals, such as Equisetum and Alfalfa, were rich in enzymes, silica, iron, copper, chromium, vanadium, boron, tin, rhodium and other minerals not found in modem vegetable diets.
Equisetum is a plant containing the richest source of safe silica known to man.

Studies have proven that silica from plants can prevent osteoporosis and calcium deficiency diseases, or reverse them.

Green and garbanzo beans, leeks, strawberry, nettle, bamboo shoots, seeds, and whole grains such as brown rice, are all rich in organic silica and other micro-minerals. The Japanese have strong, dense bones because of the amount of rice they eat daily. Such whole plants and other nutrients are in the formula Bone Plants by Total Health Solutions (available at my office).

Exercise Unavoidable

As much as we would like, simply popping pills to correct osteoporosis is not enough. Changing diet and lifestyle is unavoidable, as is exercise. But how does exercise help bone growth and density ? The answer is quite fascinating. Let’s explore.

In physiology we learned that when a crystal structure of bone bends or is placed under pressure, an electrical current is generated. This current triggers the movement of electrons, which sets up small, measurable vibrations. The current, or perhaps the resulting vibrations, also stimulate cell growth and mineral deposition. Without these vibrations of electrical currents, bones begin to weaken, as we learned in outer space. Astronauts lost bone mass quickly without gravity to place needed stress on weight-bearing bones.

Exercise is essential to bone growth and strength, as it is to all the tissues of the body. Incorporate a spirit of enjoyment into your exercise program and you have creative activity that can only lead to health and strength throughout your entire body.

And now you know the whole story! Remember, your body knows best and never does anything without a good reason. Trust it. Listen to it. Honor it’s wisdom and help it with sound nutrition and natural, holistic health care.

You body already knows what it needs to restore its health. All you have to do is ask it. I can help you do that through my services. Sound nutrition and whole food supplementation go a long way in helping to release the innate healing power of the body by supporting the healing and restorative processes. Call for a courtesy consultation today.

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

(337) 802-5510

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for more inspired reading. Current theme is Human Relationships: The Law Of Balance

by

An Alternative to Drugs: A Change in Perception and Consciousness, Part 2

YOU ARE MORE THAN YOUR DISEASE 

Being a holistic physician, I notice how sick people often identify with their disease. They will say “I am an alcoholic” or “I am a diabetic” or “I am a drug addict” or “I am depressed.”  Some even say they are a chocoholic.  But they are none of these things.  They are human beings . . . with some limitations, yes, but they are human beings.  

I no longer wonder because I know first hand how a change in perception of oneself might turn a person around and lead him or her to a permanent “cure” of one’s disease.  One could simply say, for example, “I am a human being and I have a limitation of addiction to alcohol, or drugs, or chocolate.  Or “I have a limitation in processing sugar” in a case of diabetes.  I recall the day I quit smoking many years ago.  While choosing my seat on an airplane, I had to choose between “smoker” and “non-smoker” sections.  The way the question was put was “Are you a smoker or a non-smoker. I chose to be a “non-smoker” and it felt so good changing my “identity” at that level of my addiction to tobacco.  

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS

So, let’s look at how we perceive ourselves.  We can perceive ourselves as one acting or one being acted upon, depending on our state of consciousness and self-awareness.  Since consciousness is where everything first takes place in our lives, even before external events happen, what I perceive myself to be in consciousness, who I imagine myself to be, will determine how I behave in any given external event or circumstance. Some say that external events are not real but are creations of our consciousness.  I believe that external events are real in that they are reflections of our reality, created by us through our capacity of consciousness – one of its many aspects and levels of function being imagination.    

Imagination is at the heart of creation.  Our whole world arises out of our imagination.  We act upon our worlds from out of our imagination, literally where images of things and events we want to create are formed. First there is an image in consciousness, or what is sometimes called “the heaven,” and then a form appears in the earth from out of the mist of imagination. The heaven and the earth are one, and in consciousness is where these two come together and interact, the earth being shaped by the image in the heaven.  Imagination, and ultimately consciousness, can be conditioned by perception, and vice versa. Perception can be “jaded” by imagination.  

For example, I can imagine horrible things are going on, especially when there’s chronic pain in my body or a state of depression in my mind. The big bad “C” is feared by most and held suspect, as is “mental illness,” and if I hold that image of cancer or of mental illness in my consciousness, I am setting myself up for creating that condition in my body-mind out of fear.  Fear has been defined as faith in evil, belief that the worst is going to happen.  So, be careful what you fear as it may well come upon you. Some people have an “evil eye.” They are always looking for what’s wrong, and they’ll usually find it . . . or perhaps create it as “wrong” in their consciousness.

Or, I can imagine wonderful things are going on through a bright and cheerful outlook, and they seemingly appear from out of nowhere.  Some people have a natural knack for always seeing things “on the bright side,” as we say.  It all depends on one’s state of consciousness which conditions perception. In this sense, we do create our world out of our consciousness, and in this sense alone it isn’t real but just the way we’re looking at it. Perhaps accurate is the better word to use.  We rarely see things as they actually are.  Makes one ask, “What’s real anyway?”

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR IDENTITY

We live and function out of an identity, an ego, which is either true or false, authentic or fabricated. We are either a creator, our authentic Self, or a creature, our fabricated self.  We perceive ourselves as acting or as being acted upon, depending on whom we perceive ourselves to be, creators or creatures.  

I believe that all disease, physical, mental and emotional, is a symptom of an identity crisis disrupting the status quo so that a process of transformation can take place. I’ve heard prominent health authors express the same conviction.  (These words are mine.)  

In truth, we are creators, and we create our own reality out of our imagination and consciousness.  You could say that consciousness is where Reality meets and interacts with form in the factual world.  As said earlier, heaven and earth are one in our consciousness . . . or, they are separate, if we want to see them that way.  It depends, again, on our state of consciousness.  And, let’s be honest, all of us have been conditioned to see things as separate entities by the beliefs implanted in our subconscious minds during our so-called “education,” which was actually programming. In this sense, we live in an illusory world where things appear to be separate. In the real world, all things are connected and whole. 

Young children naturally see things as whole and connected.  They see an apple as a delicious fruit before they are taught to spell the word with separate letters, a-p-p-l-e, or dissect it into Vitamins A, B, C, and over a hundred other nutrients vital to our health. They don’t even have a concept of God, the devil, or good and evil. In their fluid state of freedom they are too busy knowing God. To them the world is one beautiful and wonderful place to be and in which to live and play. To them it is all good and whole.

THERE’S ONLY ONE ADDICTION

We are taught to separate things into isolated parts, as though such dissection would lead to understanding.   To use a Biblical reference, we are taught to “eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” to judge what is good and condemn what is “evil.”  Mental judgement is an addiction that is hard for anyone to break who is identified as a creature.  It is the only addiction.  All other outbreaks of addiction stem from this one addiction to judgement of good and evil.  The irony of this is that what we judge to be “good” often turns out to be “bad” for us.        

If we see ourselves as creatures, we are always being acted upon by external forces. If it’s not the economy, it’s the weather.  If not the Republicans then it’s the Democrats. If it’s not a virus or a flu bug, it’s an ulcer or cancer. Something’s always trying to “do us in.”  Our genes are wrongly blamed for many of our diseases and even our behavior, when all they do is determine the shape of our bodies and the color of our eyes and hair.  All else is learned behavior — our habits and lifestyles, what we eat and drink, whether we use tobacco and alcohol, how to medicate our bodies and minds when they feel sick and tired — all these things we inherit, not in our genes but through our perception that shapes our consciousness of who we are and how life is lived.  

And you know what? We are all disillusioned . . . if we are lucky. And if we’re not lucky, we believe the illusion and live out our lives in quiet desperation drugged by the opiates of mind-altering chemicals . . . and/or religion, in the hopes of having a better life in heaven. But we don’t enter the kingdom of heaven as creatures, only as creators.  Heaven is within us and all around us.  We destroy it or create it in our consciousness, and, depending on which we do, we either perceive it or we don’t.  The fact that we don’t perceive heaven “at hand” doesn’t mean that it isn’t present. The instruction was to “repent” — literally turn around and see it, change your perception in other words so that you can see that you are truly in heaven and that heaven is within you . . . a place where “firm control and awful power eternally abide” to call on a line from one of my favorite poems, Thus It Is by Martin Cecil.

LIVING OUT OF YOUR REAL IDENTITY 

On the other hand, when we see ourselves as creators, we are always leading forth with positive and creative force — and that need not be something loud and contrived or imposing. It can be as simply and easy as being thankful and appreciative.  These are positive forces.  If the economy is poor, rather than being stressed out we simply adjust our spending so we can continue being creative, being thankful for what means we have and creative in finding ways to live within them.   If a virus or flu bug has gotten past our immune system, rather than thinking the worst we simply appreciate our immune system, perhaps support it with Echinacea and Vitamins A and C, and/or take measures to cleanse the blood and lymphatic system with garlic, herbs and lots of fluids . . .and movement. Yes, movement helps circulate the lymph and blood that carry out the toxins.  Unless a dangerous fever comes on, it’s best to keep moving during a cold or flu.  If you feel you have to see a doctor, then go to one you can easily believe in.  Your belief alone will see you through the crisis.  

If our minds become confused trying to understand the complexities of life in this world, we turn to God within and pray for understanding, and we focus on what’s right at hand that we do understand.  If our hearts are broken and saddened by disappointment, we turn to love and find wisdom in releasing what’s hurtful through forgiveness rather than thrashing out in anger to hurt the one(s) who hurt us, or fall victim to self-pity.  If we fall, we get up and walk again, because we are creators acting and never victims being acted upon.   

ALL THINGS HAVE DESIGN AND SERVE ONE PURPOSE

I am trying my best to keep this as simple as possible, because the truth is really simple and easy. There is design and purpose to everything under the sun, and everything under the sun serves one purpose: the creation of life and beauty on earth. Outside this design and purpose things have no meaning and value, and life gets complicated, painful and hard.   

Take our most personal possessions, our human capacities.  They serve only two purposes (which are actually one), and that is our incarnation as spirit beings and our creative activities in the material world with others.  That’s it.  Any activities outside of this have no meaning or value to these capacities, and when these capacities of body-mind and heart are not serving their purpose, what they are designed to do, they become bored and confused, at best.  At worse, they become incoherent and eventually malfunction, get sick and start falling apart.  That’s what physical, mental and emotional illness is: a confused, incoherent falling apart of our capacities due to abuse, our failure to use them according to their design and for the purpose they were created to serve.  It’s that simple.  

The cure is just as simple as restoring them to their intended purpose and nourishing them with love and appreciation, wholesome food and fresh water, along with plenty of rest and exercise.  Health is not complicated.  It’s simple because it is the truth of life, and the truth makes us free.  That’s why we’re always looking for it.  We want to be free from disease and from the drugging of our capacities.  Well, here it is, right at hand!  Embrace it and relinquish any and all dependence on drugs of every kind, and that includes tobacco and alcohol. We can do it because we have the power as creators to re-create ourselves and our worlds in our consciousness. See yourself and your world as whole and it will be so for you.  

NOURISHING THE SPIRIT

In that remarkable movie “Awakenings,” Dr. Malcolm Sayer  (played by Robin Williams) — after his futile attempt to permanently awaken Leonard Lowe (played in a stunning performance by Robert Di Nero), and a number of other patients who were damaged in their childhood years by encephalitis, with an experimental mega-dosing of Dopamine — concludes his compassionate and hopeful project, turned failure by an onslaught of adverse reactions to the drug, with these insightful words:

The Human spirit is more powerful than any drug — and that’s what we need to nourish . . . with kindness, compassion, friendship — things as simple as that.

I felt his pain of frustration, limited as he was by orthodox medicine in finding a cure for his client’s mental illness, with the only thing between his determination to find a cure and his patient was a drug that offered only promise with adverse side-effects — not at all unlike modern medical doctors today. I felt his ache of heart as Leonard, speaking through his facial tic and spastic limbs, cried out to him “Don’t give up on me!”  That brought me to tears, because I know first hand what compassion mixed with frustration can do to a doctor’s heart.  

Thankfully, we have natural solutions to modern day ills today — not that modern medicine has embraced them.  The business of masking symptoms and managing diseases is too profitable.  Breaking the addiction to drugs is the largest hurdle patients have to face when their medical doctor won’t cooperate with them, at best, or expresses anger at them for not wanting to take their medicine, at worse, even threatening them with discharge for non-compliance.  Our healthcare system is broke at this level alone.  Forget the economical issues.  We doctors can turn this system around simply by putting the patient first . . . and patients can break the cycle by embracing Mother Nature’s cornucopia of natural solutions back to health.       _____________________________________________________________

In my next blog post we will take each of our capacities and see them in a new light, individually and as a functional whole.  Thank you for joining me in this vital consideration.  Until we’re together again, I pray good health and happiness for you.

Dr. Anthony Palombo

email: tpal70@gmail.com

Visit my other blog Healing Tonesfor a deeper understanding of your body temple as an energetic symphony of sound and light.   

  

by

An Alternative to Drugs: A Change in Perception and Consciousness, Part 1

My wife, who is a master’s level professional counselor,  just brought to my attention an interview in the current issue of The SUN magazine by Arnie Cooper of Christopher Lane, “Side Effects May Include – On What’s Wrong With Modern Psychiatry.” In the interview, Lane, an English professor specializing in Victorian literature and intellectual history, exposes the hard facts about how mental “diseases” are reportedly multiplying. Apparently new disorders are being added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) every year.  

In his tenacious endeavor to find answers as to why so many of his own students were on anti-anxiety and anti-depressant drugs, and as to the emergence in 1980 of dozens of new mental disorders in the third edition of the DSM — such “curious-sounding” diagnoses as “‘social phobia'” and “‘avoidance personality disorder'” — and especially as to “how and why those new disorders had been approved for inclusion [in the DSM] and whether they were really bona fide illnesses,” Lane found, to his dismay but not surprise, an active involvement of Pharmacia & Upjohn, the drug company who makes the anti-anxiety drug Xanax, “especially in the promotion of ‘panic disorder.'”  He also found evidence of sloppy research and “dismissal of nonmedical approaches to psychiatric problems, and a degree of inventiveness with terms and symptoms that struck him as playing fast and loose with the facts.”

When asked “Are we getting sicker, or is something else at play?” Lane’s answer reminded me of the phenomenal growth in size of the Physicians Desk Reference (PDR) over the last 50 years I’ve been in practice.  I used to be able to hold the book in one hand and turn the pages with the other.  Now, I have to place it on a table or desk to even handle it. It grew in thickness from about two inches to six, and much of that growth is due to the increase in new drugs that treat the side effects of drugs, what are called “iatrogenic (doctor-caused) diseases.”  Are we getting sicker or have we become a drug-addicted and drug-damaged society?  Lane’s answer is worth excepting from the interview:

The way psychiatrists define mental illness has itself changed radically.  The first two editions of the DSM focused on observable traits and behaviors in patients, which were often described as “reactions” to particular incidents or stressors.  When the third edition came out in 1980, it defined virtually everything as a “disorder,” which connotes an innate, lifelong malfunctioning of the brain rather than a moment of psychological distress that might be due to a brief change in circumstance.  This new method of defining mental disease has completely transformed the way mental-health professionals and the general public think about it.

When asked again if it is possible that we are in fact getting sicker, he responded with alarming words about how the industry is viewing our children: 

I think it’s difficult to gauge that accurately. If you follow the APA’s line [American Psychiatric Association], then most definitely we’re seeing epidemic rates of social anxiety disorder and bipolar disorder, with the latter expanding by an eye-popping 4,000 percent.  But how did that massive increase come about? It’s due almost entirely to the fact that the DSM-IV formalized bipolar as a mental disorder among children.  Before that, bipolar disorder was understood to be exclusively an adult phenomenon. Psychiatrists like to revise everything backward, to rewrite the past in terms of their current terminology.  Doing so makes their new terminology seem natural, even inevitable. There are more than a hundred more mental disorders in the DSM today than we had in 1968, including incredible new ones such as “sibling-relational problem” and even “partner-relational problem.”  But I’m not convinced that the introduction of new illnesses means that more people are actually sicker.

Lane then goes on to say this about the quality of the APA’s trials in determining the criteria for mental illness:

I have extensively researched the APA archives and can attest that their judgments were often flimsy and their rationale for including new disorders questionable, based as they were on anecdotal evidence, ambiguous clinical research, and highly inconclusive trials.  One of the consultants for the DSM-III, Theodore Millon, admitted to The New Yorker in 2005 that there was little systemic research; much of it, he said, was inconsistent and hodgepodge.  He was an active participant on the DSM committee.

Lane’s research seeded and spurred the authoring of his book in 2007, Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness, in which he shares his observations of the evolution of the understanding of mental disorders which gradually began to include normal reactions to one’s environment and upbringing.  Such normal behavior began to be seen as “innate conditions of brain chemistry, resulting from problematic levels of neurotransmitters, especially serotonin.”  Under the expanded guidelines of the DSM, anyone who is shy stands the risk of being diagnosed as mentally ill.

GOOD NEWS TO THE DRUG INDUSTRY 

“The new disorders were obviously music to the ears of drug companies,” he says, “insofar as they massively increased the market for their products, which the media greeted with incredible enthusiasm.” Of course the media would be enthused. In 2000 alone GlaxoSmithKline spent $92 million on direct-to-consumer advertising on a single drug, Paxil, a drug that has so many side effects and such dubious results that the company seriously considered shelving it only to turn around and make a blockbuster out of it with an annual revenue surpassing $1 billion. As Lane points out, they have to create and sell the disease to the public before they sell the drug.  The expectation is that we will self-diagnose and hurry to our local pharmacy to buy their new product.

Are we going to continue allowing the drug industry to invent diseases and determine what behaviors and symptoms are to be included in the DSM as illnesses based on what new drugs they’ve developed that need a disease to treat and a shelf to fill in the drugstore?

“EMOTIONAL BLUNTING” A SIDE EFFECT  

One of the side effects of all this massive consumption of antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs is described as “emotional blunting,” a widely noted and studied phenomenon where people on these drugs may show little if any strong emotion in the face of catastrophes and environmental crises, such as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, or sensitive enough moral and ethical judgement that allowed space for risky bank practices and real estate speculation. Lane decries the lack of resistance on the part of Americans to Bush’s $4 trillion illegal and ill justified Iraq war, an economic setback that conservatives among us appear to have conveniently forgotten as they blame our present economic crisis on our Democratic President.  Are we as a nation over-drugged to the point of emotional numbness where we can’t think clearly or feel compassion and consideration anymore?

IS THERE A RISK TO PUBLIC HEALTH?  TO OUR CHILDREN? 

Traces of Lithium are showing up in municipal drinking water, not to mention the homeopathic coding of our drinking water by the mere presence of these traces of antidepressants, antibiotics and other prescription drugs in the water.  Mass medication is taking place without public awareness, much less outcry. There’s no public outcry either against the forced drugging of our children with amphetamines (Adderall and Ritalin – read my blog on this) instead of giving them a healthier alternative to sugar and caffeine laden soft drinks and refined carbohydrate snacks, although there is finally some movement in that direction by our school system.

Lane says that undergraduates are taking “neuroenhancers” . . . in large numbers . . . apparently not recognizing the difference between caffeine and what is essentially refined amphetamines.  To the extent that real learning and deep efforts in creativity are being replaced by adjustments in brain chemistry — potentially involving tens of thousands of students across the country — I would consider that a risk to public health, to say nothing of a phenomenon that should raise concerns about academic integrity and cheating  

A CHANGE IN PERCEPTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS NEEDED

I’ve cited this interview as an example in the healthcare industry of how the field of professional medical providers will gladly accommodate our demand for drugs to alleviate our pain, be it physical pain or mental anxiety and depression.  That demand arises largely out of the way we perceive ourselves, our pain and mental anxiety, and the state of consciousness in which we form our perceptions, most of which are based on beliefs we’ve held since childhood.

 An example that readily comes to mind is the automatic assumption, when pain arises, that something is wrong and a doctor is needed to tell us what’s wrong and give us something for the pain, preferable find and correct the cause of the pain so that we won’t need the pain killer — which is what I do as a holistic physician and people respond favorably to that kind of rationale.

NOTHING IS WRONG! EVERYTHING MATTERS!

My approach to pain and illness is that nothing is wrong but the symptoms do matter. The symptoms of pain and anxiety are important messages from the body that a change is needed in the way I’m living life.  They matter, in other words, and we are not wise in our rush to turn off the symptoms with drugs, or high potency vitamins and herbs, for that matter, and thereby miss the message.  For unless the message is properly perceived and duly heeded, the symptoms will return, only next time louder and more attention grabbing, for which the doctor will prescribe yet stronger medicine and/or more invasive procedures.  So, while dealing with the pain for relief, let’s discover what the pain alarm is about so we can address the underlying cause.

A typical example of what I’m saying occurs in my practice on a regular basis. The patient presents with a chronic back pain for which various doctors, including chiropractors, were consulted and treatments rendered with no lasting results.  Being a chiropractor, I naturally look for a structural problem, such as a hip or spinal vertebra out of alignment irritating a nerve root.  But that’s already been done, so I listen more deeply and broaden my perception while tracing the symptoms back to uncover a deeper and perhaps more obscure and subtle cause. Invariably, upon muscle testing and a comprehensive investigation into the patient’s case history and life style habits, a bladder infection more often than not reveals itself.  So we treat the bladder infection for a period of time with herbs and nutritional protocols and the chronic back pain goes away for good.  

Another example is the chronic neck ache, the crick in the neck that just won’t go away, even with chiropractic adjustments.  So we listen and look deeper for less obvious causes and invariably a lymphatic congestion reveals itself as the cause, resulting in lymph node swelling and tenderness in the neck  So, we treat the lymphatics with herbs and homeopathic solutions and the crick in the neck, as well as the recurring or lingering headache, clear up.  An adjustment wasn’t needed after all . . . nor muscle relaxers.  

Often a stiff neck is simply a physiological response to emotional stress, the body asking for deeper issues to be dealt with and resolved. Here is where true counseling is needed.  I offer BioEnergetic Synchronization Technique (BEST) as a non-invasive treatment for emotional and mental stress issues.  Basically it’s a way of desensitizing emotional “buttons” that are being pushed by triggers in one’s environment and social setting. 

We will continue with this theme next blog post with a consideration of some alternative approaches to depression and mental illness, as well as a look at how we can go about changing our perception and consciousness around health issues in general. Until then, consider a drug-free life style.  

To your health and healing,

Dr. Tony Palombo

Visit me on the Web at www.healingandattunementl.com and visit my Healing Tones blog for inspirational reading. We are considering the significance of the Pineal Gland and Galactic Orientation as we travel through space on our planet.

Reference: The SUN, March 2012 – Issue 435

 

by

The Purple Pill Fallacy

I never dreamed I’d see the day when a drug company would actually come out and expose the sheer ignorance and stupidity of medical science and its so-called “doctors” the way one has recently.  Yes, I said “so-called doctors” because if gastrointerologists actually believe what the company that manufactures Nexium is “teaching” (the real meaning of the word doctor) the public about how to handle and avoid “acid-indigestion,” then they have stopped being doctors and have become drug technicians.  

Believe it or not, however, there it was on my television screen a few days ago, before God and everyone, blatantly proclaiming their ignorance, all the while taking us for fools.  The “Purple Pill” ad shouted out: “BLOCK THE ACID . . . FROM THE START!”  or something to that effect.  I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears.  Was I actually hearing correctly.  Did he say “Block the acid” to avoid “acid-indigestion?!”  OMG!  It’s come to that!  I wonder how many people saw through the fallacy of that ad, and how many of those expensive purple capsules this ad sells on a daily basis.  And we wonder why we have so much colon cancer!  (I’ll explain.) I have a close relative who actually raves about the wonders of this drug that “shuts off acid pumps” in the stomach.  Now the makers of Prilosec are touting the same message. 


NOW, LET’S PUT ON OUR THINKING CAPS

How does the stomach digest meat, dairy, eggs, nuts, and grains?  Right!  With digestive acid — betaine hydrochloride to be exact.  Where does this acid come from?  Right again! The stomach — the parietal cells lining the stomach wall, to be exact. What causes so-called “acid indigestion?”  If you answered “too much acid,” as the ad leads one to believe, you’d be wrong!   It’s not too much stomach acid.  It’s not enough stomach acid.  That’s right.  So-called “acid indigestion” is actually “lack-of-acid indigestion.”   

The essential condition of indigestion is a failure of the food to digest due to a lack of digestive juices.  Now, what happens when the food stops digesting? It ferments.  What does fermentation produce?  GAS — hot, acidic gas, the kind that makes you burp fire so hot that it burns the stomach and the cardiac valve, making them so limp that the valve can’t close tightly.  The result?  You guessed it!  GERD — Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease.  

Of course, as medicine will do, they’ve made a “disease” out of this condition so they can treat it with a drug.  That’s what they do.  They’re drug dealers.  They deal in drugs.  They don’t teach us, as doctors are supposed to do, how to eat properly so that the food digests as it is designed to do in a stomach that was made to withstand its own secretions of digestive juices – which, by the way, include hydrochloric acid.  If fact, they tell you to go ahead and eat what and how you want because you can just block the production of digestive acids with the Purple Pill.  Horror of horrors! It doesn’t get any more deplorable than that!  It’s a slap to the face of the Creator Himself who made the stomach to produce acid . . . and it’s an insult to our common sense and intelligence. 

THE CURE OF INDIGESTION IS . . . DIGESTION!

Now, let’s think this through.  The cure for in-digestion is digestion. Isn’t that logical?  If the food you ate stops digesting, you need to start up the digestive process again, get it going in the right direction so that the food doesn’t ferment . . . and, to the purpose of eating at all, so that your body can get the nutrients it needs to be healthy.   And just how shall you accomplish that?  Well, if the food you ate needs hydrochloric acid to digest it, you’re going to have to add more hydrochloric acid to the contents of your stomach. You obviously do not want to block the stomach from making its own betaine hydrochloride — nor neutralize the acid with antacids.  Oh, Tums and Rolaids will buffer the acids of fermentation, but they also neutralize the hydrochloric acid needed to digest the meat.  So, instead of antacids, you can take some betaine hydrochloride.  

I use ZYPAN by Standard Process Labs ($13/90 tabs).  It works every time.  Actually, I take it with every meal simply because after 45 we make less betaine hydrochloride.  And if you’re under stress, you make none at all.    People who have chronic stress do not digest their food very well and are usually popping antacids after meals.  

Watch this short video clip:

The body isn’t interested in nourishment when it’s geared up to fight or flee from a threat.  As Dr. Bruce Lipton points out,  we’re either in growth or protection and defense mode.  We can’t be in both at the same time.

WHAT ARE SOME  CAUSES OF INDIGESTION?

  1. Eating “fast food” on the run and under the duress of a deadline you have to meet or a tight schedule.  Being totally present with your meals, savoring the taste and enjoying the brief break away from your job or routine go a long way toward healthy digestion. 
  2. Combining foods that don’t digest well together.  A typical example is meat and potatoes, a protein and a starch.  They require opposite chemistry to digest – meats need acid and starches need alkaline digestive juices.  Acids and alkalines neutralize one another.  The result is that neither digest but sit in the stomach and ferment causing “acid indigestion” and “heart burn.”  (It’s not the heart that actually burns but the area of the stomach and esophagus that’s close to the heart.) The rule of thumb for compatible food combining  is eat meats with vegetables and fruit with starches. Meats and sweets don’t digest well together.
  3. Drinking cokes and other sweet beverages with meals.  Again, the chemistry doesn’t mix.  Drink water with a squeeze of lemon.   
  4. Ulcers.  The body is wise.  It won’t secrete hydrochloric acid into the stomach when it’s ulcerated.  That’s why a bland diet is required.  So, you don’t want to take ZYPAN if you have ulcers. First, heal up the ulcer.  That can be done in three days with chlorophyll and okra pepsin.  CHLOROPHYLL COMPLEX PERLES  and GASTREX by Standard Process Labs (SPL) are what I use with my clients.  Drop me an email and I’ll send you a   bottle of each, which is all you’ll need . . . provided you start eating properly. If you have a duodenal ulcer, you likely have gallbladder trouble, which requires attention and a different nutritional protocol.  If you have GERD or a hiatal hernia, you’ll need to supplement with manganese to tone up the valve and herniated tissues.  I use LIGAPLEX II (SPL) (150 caps/$25), a wholefood formula with high concentrations of food-based manganese and other synergistic factors for proper utilization in toning up weak ligaments. Write me for guidance and help with these conditions.  They can all be corrected with nutrition. 
  5. Eating too fast.  Chewing allows activating enzymes of pepsin and ptyalin to mix in with the food.  Without these enzymes the digestive juices cannot be activated.  Chew your food well before  swallowing it . . . and don’t wash it down with coke or sweet beverages.  Water with a little ice and lemon juice is the only fluid one needs to clear out the mouth and esophagus.

Notes:

  • Pepsin is the powerful enzyme in gastric juice that activates hydrochloric acid to digest proteins such as those in meat, eggs, grains and seeds, or dairy products.
  • Ptyalin is a form of amylase in the saliva of humans and some animals that catalyzes the hydrolysis of starch into maltose and dextrin. 

COLON CANCER ALERT

When undigested meat gets into the bowels where nutrients and water are taken up into the blood stream, it gets putrid and rots, creating conditions in which cancer can develop.  When undigested fats get into the lower bowels they go rancid.  Rotting meat and rancid fats irritate the lining of the intestines causing inflammation that leads to colitis (IBS), diverticulitis, leaky gut syndrome (the underlying cause of many food allergies), crohns disease, even cancer.   Safeguard your digestive tract.  Eat sensibly.  Take digestive enzymes, especially if you’re not eating enough enzyme-rich raw vegetables. 

For personal consultation, drop me an email to set up an appointment for a private telephone consultation.  If you want the products mentioned in this article, simply drop me an email with your order.  (Gastrex is $21 for 90 capsules and Chlorophyll Complex $23 for 60 perles.)  I’ll give you a phone number to call with your credit card information.  Postage will be added to all orders.  Consultation fees are $45 for a half-hour and $65 for an hour.  I also offer health coaching for a reasonable fee.  

Until my next post, here’s to your health and healing!

Dr. Tony Palombo

Email address: tpal70@gmail.com 

For inspired writing and inspiring reading, visit my Healing Tones blog. 

Visit me on the Wed at www.healingandattunement.com.

 

 

by

Supporting Bone Remodeling

In my last post we considered the process of bone remodeling.  We saw how old bone is literally nibbled away by osteoclasts  preparing the way for osteoblasts to come behind and lay down a collagen matrix  for new bone with a fresh supply of calcium.  We also saw how estrogen regulates this process by helping osteoclasts die (apoptosis)  as they complete their jobs of resorption, thereby maintaining the ratio between these two bone workhorse cells. We looked at the roles Vitamin D and the Parathyroid hormones play in stimulating osteoclast activity and the release of calcium and phosphorus from the bones into the blood, and how they facilitate calcium resorption in the kidneys.

 So, there’s a whole lot of activity in the bone remodeling process going on daily in your body completing a cycle in 100-day, yet taking seven years to completely rebuild every bone in your skeletal system.  Basically, we have a new frame and muscular system every seven years, which is quite amazing!  I’ve now been through nine bodies and starting on my tenth one.  

We also looked at how osteopenia and osteoporosis occur when the net rate of bone resorption exceeds the rate of bone formation, resulting in a decrease in bone mass, and the role that estrogen and testosterone deficiencies play in this degenerative process.  Then we reviewed the medical approach to this condition with drug intervention. Fosamax (alendronate) is the drug of choice.  However, its mechanism of action is deceiving, to say the least, and debilitating at worst, often causing brittle bones that fracture and jaw bone necrosis in the long run. Hormone replacement therapy is also popular, but not without some risks.  

A MORE NATURAL APPROACH

This brings us to the subject of this article: Supporting Bone Remodeling.  As we saw is a previous article, bones are made up of a lot more than just calcium.  They’re made of vitamins, minerals, trace minerals and protein.  Taking calcium tablets alone, then, is not enough to feed your bones, especially if you’re taking calcium carbonate, the cheapest and most useless form of calcium on the market.  

By the way, there’s plenty of calcium in the blood stream just from the process of bone resorption, if you stop to think about it.  The key is to get it out of the blood and into the tissues and bones. We’ll talk about that shortly.  What isn’t used up as muscle fuel is recycled back into the bones.  What cannot be used at all is thrown out through the hair and nails giving them their white color. As we age the hair turns white with calcium as bone resorption is accelerated faster than the calcium can be used, as well as other reason related to mineral ratios and balance. I talk about this ratio in an earlier blog post. But I’ll cover the subject again in a future article.

Borrowing from a previous post to refresh our memories and to show that bone building is not all about calcium . . .

Minerals present in bone are: calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, manganese, silica, iron, zinc, selenium, baron, sulphur, chromium, and dozens of others.  In order for bones to absorb the minerals Vitamin D must be present.  Collagen is also part of the bone and provides a matrix for bone formation.

MY RECOMMENDATION FOR BONE REMODELING SUPPORT:

1.) First, stop the leaks. Then start getting calcium into the bones. I use Biost by Standard Process Labs (SPL). Biost is a bone protomorphogen (nucleic protein molecule of bone cells).  It supplies the enzyme phosphatase which the body needs in order to metabolize the raw materials that compose bony tissue.  Phosphatase also transports calcium from the blood into the bones.  

Note: For men with enlarged prostates, (prostate hypertrophy), I use Prost-X because it contains phosphatase which also gets calcium into the prostate gland as well as the bones.  The prostate will enlarge if it lacks calcium.

2.) Feed your bones.  And what better to feed them with than raw bone meal . . . not dead and cooked commercial grade bone meal which is calcium carbonate  (good for your lily bulbs but not for your bones).  Raw bone meal has all the ingredients for bone remodeling.  I use Calcifood Wafers (SPL) when I want immediate support of raw material in severe cases of osteoporosis. Note: Dentists have used Calcifood and Biost for loose teeth with fine results because they rebuild the bone around the teeth.   

3.) A simple and daily supply of nutrient-rich whole foods that have the vitamins and minerals needed to build bones, especially dark green leafy vegetables like fresh raw spinach. This would include vegetables organically grown in mineral-rich soil.  You can tell that if they’re sweet.  It also includes at least 15 – 20 minutes of sunshine on the skin daily for Vitamin D, along with plenty of essential poly-unsaturated fatty acids (EFA’s) in the skin to give the sunshine something with which to make Vitamin D and carry calcium into the tissues. For those who don’t get enough sunshine, you can supplement with Cataplex D (SPL).

To supplement I use SPL’s multiple wholefood formulations of Catalyn, Organic Bound Minerals, Trace Minerals B12, and SUPER-EFF, a converted form of essential polyunsaturated fatty acids essential to the transportation of calcium from the blood into the tissues.

Note: EFA’s need to be converted in the liver to arachidonic acid to be of benefit. A person with a degenerative disease has a bad liver or else he wouldn’t have a degenerative disease.  So he can’t convert EFA’s to arachidonic acid.  SUPER-EFF fills the need here. 

For severe degenerative conditions in all tissues, including nerve degeneration in multiple sclerosis, muscle degeneration in muscular dystrophy,  and bone degeneration in rheumatoid arthritis, even in cancer,  SUPER-EFF is a converted form of polyunsaturated fatty acids and therefore readily useful in rebuilding these tissues. 

4.) Support for the four major endocrine players in female and male hormonal chemistry.  They are the pituitary gland, the thyroid and parathyroid glands, the adrenal glands, and, last but not least, the gonadal glands (ovaries and testes).  I use Symplex F and Symplex M  by SP with superb results. 

5.) Probably of utmost importance these days is support for the stress-response system’s central regulator, the hypothalamus.  I use Hypothalmex  (SPL) for support.   More about this below.

6.) Support the Thyroid and Parathyroid glands with iodine from organic minerals and Cal-Ma-Plus (SPL) which has parathyroid desiccate to enhance the absorption of calcium.  (Note: Soy products slow down the thyroid.)

7.) If you’re over 45 years of age, you would be wise to supplement with Betaine Hydrochloride tablets (SP).  We seem to produce less of it as we age.  Hydrochloric acid, besides being necessary for digestion of proteins in the stomach,  is essential in the assimilation and absorption of calcium, which needs a more acidic condition in the colon for proper absorption.  Betaine Hydrochloride provides that pH factor for calcium.  If you’re having “acid indigestion” take 2 Zypan (SPL) with meals and take care of those “heart burns” after meals while getting your Betaine Hydrochloride at the same time. 

8.) Herbal support for remodeling ageing bones, particularly in mature women.  I use Bone Complex by Medi-Herb (SPL subsidiary). 

9.) Weight bearing exercise to stimulate bone cell growth and calcium absorption into the bones.  Exercise at least 4 days each week.

Watch this short video clip:

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE HYPOTHALAMUS AND ADRENALS IN STRESS MANAGEMENT

Situated beneath the brain, the hypothalamus regulates the homeostatic relationship between you and your environment, starting with the most immediate environment, your physical body with its myriad organic functions and complex chemistry that changes with every emotional upset, mental stress and physical activity.  This critical connection between your central nervous system and your hormonal glands is crucial to homeostasis, and I am deeply concerned that this singular link between environmental stress and our ability to adapt is being overlooked in our healthcare.  

Thanks to our ability to “talk” with the body through kinesiology (muscle testing), the functional health of the hypothalamus can be easily monitored.  Interestingly enough (I notice these things), since the bombing of the World Trade Center and the subsequent activation of our Homeland Security Alert system, I have noticed an increase in the incidence of hypothalamus issues in my practice.  There’s good reason for this.  It’s a consequence of chronic stress.

Fear of terrorist attacks has been hanging over our heads for ten years and we’ve become frozen in a chronic fight or flight stress response.  In chronic stress, the hypothalamus becomes frustrated confused and the adrenal glands exhausted.  Basically, we have a stress factor that won’t go away.  The hypothalamus tells the adrenal glands to pump adrenaline into the blood stream so we can fight the threat and eliminate it or else run away from it.  When we can’t personally do either, the system becomes frustrated and the glands overworked to the point of exhaustion.  Our blood stream becomes saturated with cortisol, the stress hormone, throwing our hormonal system out of balance.  When hormone chemistry becomes imbalanced, nothing is going to function normally in the body because every cell of every organ and tissue in the body depends on adrenalin. Malnutrition and severe vitamin and mineral deficiencies themselves can trigger and maintain a stress response.

What to do?

Well, there is something we can do.  First we can put a filter on our perception of the world through the eyes of the media.  Next find your centering in love and be at Home in your skin.  Home is safe.  No one can touch you there.  Even if your body got blown up you would remain safe at Home.  Home is within you, not around you.  That’s your house. 

Finally, increase your production of oxytocin, the feel-good “hormone of love,” produced in the hypothalamus with hugging, laughter and other pleasurable experiences such as listening to beautiful music and toning the vowel sound “AH,” touching and being touched by another, giving and receiving a massage, spinal adjustments and manipulation of the joints by a chiropractor or osteopath, erotic play and sexual orgasm, breast feeding if you’ve just delivered a newborn – which itself produces oxytocin and makes childbirth a pleasurable, even orgasmic, experience. Oxytocin turns off the flight or fight stress response to calm you down.  Oxytocin spray is also available, but read about its side effects online first. It appears to increase one’s trust in people, but not everyone, just those in your clan.  ” Psychologists trying to specify its role have now concluded it is the agent of ethnocentrism.” Too much of anything good seems to always have a dark side.  Less is more in most cases. 

CONSULT FOR DOSAGES AND HEALTH COACHING

One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to nutritional supplementation, so I highly recommend professional guidance.  I am available by phone or email for a modest coaching fee.  My cell phone is (337) 802-5510 and my email address is tpal70@gmail.com.  Call or email me.  I’ll even supply you with supplements tailored to fit your needs – and if you are a subscriber you’ll enjoy a 10% discount on supplements. Let’s get your bones back to health and keep them dense and strong.

To your health and healing, 

Dr. Tony Palombo

Visit my other blog for inspired reading about the Significance of the Pineal Gland.