The 2002 annual ANMA convention is about to begin. We are anticipating an excellent turn out and hope you have made the decision to attend. As the largest naturopathic organization representing the interests of thousands, ANMA encourages you to show your support by attending the once a year learning convention. For many years ANMA has been effective in getting our natural health message across to various political officials. Not only did ANMA slow down the push for state licensing by an opposing group, but successfully stopped exclusive licensing by the medical wannabees since 1995. It has been necessary to defeat these physician type bills many times.

In 1990 and 1999, ANMA was successful in convincing the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Integrity and Credibility of the United States Department of Education to recommend the Secretary of Education deny Council on Naturopathic Medical Education (CNME) recognition due to practices which border on fraud. In October 2000 the Department of Education officially posted that CNME was not an approved accrediting agency and in January 2001, the Secretary of the United States Department of Education signed a proclamation which eliminated them from being considered as an accepted accrediting agency by the United States government.

In an effort to establish and maintain high standards in the naturopathic profession, ANMA sponsored the American Naturopathic Certification Board (ANCB). This certification has been widely accepted, and effective in gaining legal rights for those who become certified.

On May 3, 2001, a graduate of an ANCB approved school asked the State of Connecticut whether other schools were eligible to be considered for naturopathic licensure in that State. On June 21, 2002, the Department of Health of the State of Connecticut said yes. This is the first time in recent memory that any State limiting the practice of naturopathy to graduates of CNME schools, had formally recognized another school.

On May 31, 2002, the Governor of Kansas signed a bill that he had previously indicated he would veto. However, the bill was a registration act which only allowed privileges comparable to a dietitian. ANMA will attempt to make changes to this act in the next legislative session.

In early 2002, ANMA worked to retain your rights to be registered as naturopaths in the Federal District of Columbia. This same group is trying to get an exclusionary bill passed. We will keep you updated on this situation.

ANMA is proud of these successes, and will continue to work hard to not only protect our rights to practice, but to expand them to all the States. We are constantly working in your best interests, and ask for your support to help us win even more battles to protect your rights. Show your pride in ANMA by attending this exciting, always new, annual convention and seminar.

E-mail: DrDRobbins@aol.com Website: www.DennisRobbins.com

Dennis A. Robbins Ph.D., MPH is a well-known health care innovator with over twenty-five years of experience in health care and health care ethics. His Ph.D. from Boston College is complemented by postdoctoral MPH training in ethics and health law at Harvard as a National Fund for Medical Education Fellow in the Kennedy Interfaculty Program in Medical Ethics. He is a strong proponent of integrative Medicine. He has had ample opportunity to experience both the highs and the lows of "natural medicine," ranging from having the honor of working closely with Native American Healers to having endured a short stint at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine where he served as President. He is well known managed care circles as an innovator and was recently honored as among the top ten keenest thinkers in Managed Care by Managed Health care Executive Magazine.

Dr. Robbins has held academic appointments at, Loyola Stritch School of Medicine The Chicago Medical School Wayne Sate Medical School, Salve Regina College, University of Mississippi Wayne State University Medical Center, and a Research Fellow in Medical Ethics at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His highest rank held was at the Professor level. He has received several fellowships in health care ethics and policy.

He is uniquely positioned to address many of the thorny issues in American Health care. His training as an ethicist is complemented and infused with practical problem-solving solutions and strategies. He has worked extensively with decision theorists, economists, and finance specialists as well as closely with physicians and surgeons.

Dr. Robbins has authored eight books and over 250 articles chapters and reviews in healthcare. His books are: Weaving Wellness and Alternative Medicine into the Mainstream: Ethics, Controversy, and Accountability. (In press), Putting Healthcare Promises into Practice: Strategies and Innovations for Managing Care (Delmar Thomson) Managed Care On Trial: Recapturing Trust, Integrity and Accountability in Healthcare (McGraw Hill), Integrating Managed Care and Ethics: Transforming Challenges Into Positive Outcomes (McGraw Hill), Ethical and Legal Issues in Home Health and Long Term Care: Challenges and Solutions (Aspen Publishers), Legal and Ethical Issues in Cancer Care, (Charles Thomas) and Ethical Dimensions of Clinical Medicine ( ed.), (Charles Thomas). He also serves (ed) on editorial boards/columnist/editorial advisor for such national journals Managed Healthcare, editorial board member and columnist of legal and ethical issues, The Journal of Emergency Nursing, Time Inc, Home Health Management and Practice, Kentucky Hospitals, and Continuing Care.

Luncheon Session
Emerging Ethical and Accountability in CAM

There is increasing enthusiasm about the promise of Alternative Medicine and or CAM with over 40% of Americans using some form of CAM and billions spent each month out of pocket. We are beginning to explore new horizons and expand options and in so doing we can and will enhance the art and scope of Medicine and reinfuse balance and harmony into our practices. The advances associated with Genomic research add other exiting dimensions to this domain. Yet good intentions and unbridled enthusiasm are not enough. This center stage presence is accompanied by a host of caveats that are exacerbated by turf issues and new age baggage. Even more concerning are those who lay claim to being the vanguards and torch bearers of best weaving wellness into the mainstream often with precious little regard for evidence, ethics and accountability. This session will discuss these issues in an interactive format.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Heart Disease and Diabetes
Facts About Coronary Heart Disease

By: Mark A. Brudnak, B.S., Ph.D., N.D.
President of Healthy Living Naturally, LLC
From the forthcoming book: The Probiotic Solution

Some 7 million Americans suffer from coronary heart disease (CHD), the most common form of heart disease. This type of heart disease is caused by a narrowing of the coronary arteries that feed the heart.

CHD is the number one killer of both men and women in the U.S. Each year, more than 500,000 Americans die of heart attacks caused by CHD.

Many of these deaths could be prevented because CHD is related to certain aspects of lifestyle. Risk factors for CHD include high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity—all of which can be controlled. Although medical treatments for heart disease have come a long way, controlling risk factors remains the key to preventing illness and death from CHD.

Who is at risk for CHD?

Risk factors are conditions that increase your risk of developing heart disease. Some can be changed and some cannot. Although these factors each increase the risk of CHD, they do not describe all the causes of coronary heart disease; even with none of these risk factors, you might still develop CHD.

Controllable:

• High blood pressure

• High blood cholesterol

• Smoking

• Obesity

• Physical inactivity

• Diabetes

• Stress

Uncontrollable:

• Gender

• Heredity (family history of CHD)

• Age

What is CHD?

Like any muscle, the heart needs a constant supply of oxygen and nutrients that are carried to it by the blood in the coronary arteries. When the coronary arteries become narrowed or clogged and cannot supply enough blood to the heart, the result is CHD. If not enough oxygen-carrying blood reaches the heart, the heart may respond with pain called angina. The pain is usually felt in the chest or sometimes in the left arm and shoulder. (However, the same inadequate blood supply may cause no symptoms, a condition called silent angina.)

When the blood supply is cut off completely, the result is a heart attack. The part of the heart that does not receive oxygen begins to die, and some of the heart muscle may be permanently damaged.

What causes CHD?

CHD is caused by a thickening of the inside walls of the coronary arteries. This thickening, called atherosclerosis, narrows the space through which blood can flow, decreasing and sometimes completely cutting off the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the heart.

Atherosclerosis usually occurs when a person has high levels of cholesterol, a fat-like substance, in the blood. Cholesterol and fat, circulating in the blood, build up on the walls of the arteries. The buildup narrows the arteries and can slow or block the flow of blood. When the level of cholesterol in the blood is high, there is a greater chance that it will be deposited onto the artery walls. This process begins in most people during childhood and the teenage years, and worsens as they get older.

In addition to high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure and smoking also contribute to CHD. On the average, each of these doubles your chance of developing heart disease. Therefore, a person who has all three risk factors is eight times more likely to develop heart disease than someone who has none. Obesity and physical inactivity are other factors that can lead to CHD. Overweight increases the likelihood of developing high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure, and physical inactivity increases the risk of heart attack. Regular exercise, good nutrition, and smoking cessation are key to controlling the risk factors for CHD.

What are the symptoms of CHD?

Chest pain (angina) or shortness of breath may be the earliest signs of CHD. A person may feel heaviness, tightness, pain, burning, pressure, or squeezing, usually behind the breastbone but sometimes also in the arms, neck, or jaws. These signs usually bring the patient to a doctor for the first time. Nevertheless, some people have heart attacks without ever having any of these symptoms.

It is important to know that there is a wide range of severity for CHD. Some people have no symptoms at all, some have mild intermittent chest pain, and some have more pronounced and steady pain. Still others have CHD that is severe enough to make normal everyday activities difficult.

How is CHD treated?

CHD is treated in a number of ways, depending on the seriousness of the disease. For many people, CHD is managed with lifestyle changes and medications. Others with severe CHD may need surgery. In any case, once CHD develops, it requires lifelong management.

Although great advances have been made in treating CHD, changing one’s habits remains the single most effective way to stop the disease from progressing. If you know that you have CHD, changing your diet to one low in fat, especially saturated fat, and cholesterol will help reduce high blood cholesterol, a primary cause of atherosclerosis. In fact, it is even more important to keep your cholesterol low after a heart attack to help lower your risk of having another one. Eating less fat should also help you lose weight. If you are overweight, losing weight can help lower blood cholesterol and is the most effective lifestyle way to reduce high blood pressure, another risk factor for atherosclerosis and heart disease.

People with CHD can also benefit from exercise. Recent research has shown that even moderate amounts of physical activity are associated with lower death rates from CHD. However, people with severe CHD may have to restrict their exercise somewhat. If you have CHD, check with your doctor to find out what kinds of exercise are best for you.

Smoking is one of the three major risk factors for CHD. Quitting smoking dramatically lowers the risk of a heart attack and also reduces the risk of a second heart attack in people who have already had one.

Medications are prescribed according to the nature of the patient’s CHD and other problems. The symptoms of angina can generally be controlled by "beta-blocker" drugs that decrease the workload on the heart, by nitroglycerine and other "nitrates" and by "calcium-channel blockers" that relax the arteries, and by other classes of drugs. The tendency to form clots is reduced by aspirin or by other platelet inhibitory and anticoagulant drugs. Beta-blockers are given to decrease the recurrence of heart attack. For those with elevated blood cholesterol that is unresponsive to dietary and weight loss measures, cholesterol-lowering drugs may be prescribed, such as lovastatin, colestipol, cholestyramine, gemfibrozil, and niacin. Impaired pumping function of the heart may be treated with digitalis drugs or ACE inhibitors. If there is high blood pressure or fluid retention, these conditions are also treated.

Ask your doctor which medication you are taking, what it does, and whether there are any side effects. Knowing more about this will help you stick to the schedule that has been prescribed for you.

What types of surgery are used to treat CHD?

Many patients can control CHD with lifestyle changes and medication. Surgery may be recommended for patients who continue to have frequent or disabling angina despite the use of medications, or people who are found to have severe blockages in their coronary arteries.

Coronary angioplasty or balloon angioplasty begins with a procedure similar to that described under angiography. However, the catheter positioned in the narrowed coronary artery has a tiny balloon at its tip. The balloon is inflated and deflated to stretch or break open the narrowing and improve the passage for blood flow. The balloon-tipped catheter is then removed.

Strictly speaking, angioplasty is not surgery. It is done while the patient is awake and may last 1 to 2 hours. If angioplasty does not widen the artery or if complications occur, bypass surgery may be needed.

In a coronary artery bypass operation, a blood vessel, usually taken from the leg or chest, is grafted onto the blocked artery, bypassing the blocked area. If more than one artery is blocked, a bypass can be done on each. The blood can then go around the obstruction to supply the heart with enough blood to relieve chest pain.

Bypass surgery relieves symptoms of heart disease but does not cure it. Usually you will need to make a number of changes in your lifestyle after the operation. If your normal lifestyle includes smoking, a high-fat diet, or no exercise, changes are advised.

Probiotics, Heart Disease, and Diabetes

Now what we need to talk about is the relationship between probiotics, Heart Disease (HD), and cholesterol. HD is the leading cause of death in Western countries. One of the major contributing factors to that is a high serum cholesterol level. What is cholesterol? Cholesterol, simply put is nothing more than a molecule that the body uses as a building block to produce other types of compounds. Granted, that definition holds true for a lot of things but it is sufficient for our discussions. You should just consider it to be a building block and in fact, picturing it as a block or a Legoä will assist our discussions.

We hear a lot of talk about the different types of cholesterols and there are a lot of abbreviations thrown around such as "high density lipoprotein or HDL, low density lipoprotein or LDL and HDL/LDL, which is simply the ratio of the two. This is all a lot easier than it first looks. What is important to remember is that the HDL are the good cholesterol and the LDL are the bad cholesterol. The bad ones are the ones that will clog up the arteries, harden them, stiffen, narrow and constrict them. That is really the crux of the problem. Once flexibility is lost in the arteries, the blood pressure goes up and the optimal level of blood and other nutrients is not being supplied to various parts of the body, including the hardest working muscle of the body, the heart.

What has traditionally been done for bad or high cholesterol is diet modification. Now, of course there are some medications, but usually people are also instructed to reduce their cholesterol intake. We will talk about the drugs in a moment. Does diet take care of it? If it did, then the drugs would never be used. It has been found that while diet can be an important contributor, it doesn’t always take care of the situation. The body has the ability to produce its own cholesterol and do that in rather high amounts when needed. This is a problem if one is trying to control their cholesterol level by diet modification alone.

To address the issue of cholesterol production, scientists have said "what is going on here and how can we change it?" It is a simple question and most scientist like to keep things as simple as possible. So what is going on here? Or more directly, how can we modify the body’s ability to produce cholesterol? That seems like the obvious next step. This has been address by a class of drugs known as "statins" there are various types of statins but in general they address cholesterol synthesis by attacking the pathway somewhere. The statins tend to be a meat-clever in that they knock out cholesterol production without regard for what type of cholesterol or taking into account that the body does need some. Without some cholesterol, you would die.

For instance, one type of statin called Lovastatin™ knocks out a crucial enzyme that is necessary for the production of cholesterol. This enzyme, HMG-CoA reductase is essential for cholesterol production. This is a pharmaceutical drug and there are others that do similar sort of things. The problem is the are indiscriminant and also carry unwanted side-effects.

There are also natural products that are sold OTC, mainly in health-food stores but I have actually seen them in Wal-Mart as well, that are very similar to the pharmaceutical cholesterol controlling drugs. Once such example is Red Rice Yeast (RRY). RRY naturally contains high levels of the exact same compound that is found in some of the pharmaceutical drugs to control cholesterol. RRY has been used for thousands of years in Traditional Chinese Medicine for this exact purpose and Western science is now beginning to catch up.

What has been done recently, is that people have also looked at probiotics as a means of controlling cholesterol. Why in the world would this be done? There has been anecdotal evidence for many years that there is a correlation between probiotic intake and lower cholesterol levels. Fermented foods such as yogurt and even plain probiotics can help lower cholesterol so of course the scientists want to know why and set out to study that.

What was found in the probiotic studies on cholesterol is that when very high doses were used, well over 100 billion live organisms per dose, was that yes, there was a reduction in serum cholesterol. That is good. What is more important is that an increase in the ratio of HDL to LDL was observed. That the ratio of HDL to LDL is just simply the HDL number divided by the LDL number. The higher the HDL compared to the LDL, the higher the ratio. A high ratio is a good thing!

Why is that important? If the LDL’s are clogging things up as we said earlier, you can think of the HDLs as coming in and cleaning things out. That is not completely accurate but it is close enough for what we need to talk about. The way I like to think about it is that the LDL’s are like the little Legos™ we talked about. They plop down in the arteries and build on one another slowly clogging things up. The HDL’s are like Legos™ without the little ridges that allow multiple cholesterol molecules to bind to each other. Also, since the HDL’s can’t bind to other things, they kind of have a bowling ball effect and knock out the LDLs from where they are sitting or grouping. So, if there are a whole bunch of HDL’s around in comparison to the LDL’s then there are not as many LDL’s around to be building up, since it is the HDL’s AND the LDL’s that combine (numerically, not physically) to form the number that we call "total cholesterol". It is all rather simple. Statistically, there wont be as many LDL’s around to be clogging things up.

Now, I said that probiotics have been looked at and used in high concentration. I said strains such as LA have been used in tens to hundreds of billions per dose and a reduction in total serum cholesterol is observed. More recently, some of the specific strains have been looked at for the LA and others such as L. reuteri (LR). LR is very important and interesting because what they found that in contrast to some of the other probiotics is that very low levels of LR can be used to achieve very significant levels of cholesterol reduction. That is big news! Bear in mind specific strains have been used for these studies. This will be discussed in more detail below but for now it is important to remember you want to find a strain that has scientific backing on how it is chosen for production.

One of the things that is thought to have to happen in order for the probiotics to function well in cholesterol reduction is that they need to survive ingestion into the intestine. Now why is that? Well, first what happens when we ingest these? We have talked at length about this, but when you eat probiotics then enter the stomach and if they are not resistant to the acid, they will get blown apart by the acid. The vast majority will be killed. Then, when they reach the intestine, which is where they come in contact with another very harsh substance called the bile they can also "take a hit." That is to say, the harsh bile kill a large percentage of any probiotics lucky enough to survive the stomach acid, will then. Among its other functions, bile also serves as an antimicrobial substance. So, if the probiotics are not resistant to acid or bile, then they will not survive long enough to be of benefit.

Now, those that survive, how are they producing a beneficial effect? What is going on? As I said, the body normally produces its own cholesterol. It doesn’t get it just from the diet. This is why I said that dietary modification was not always successful and when it was, the success was marginal at best. The body produces cholesterol and does a number of things with that. Again, think of cholesterol as a building block, a Lego.™ One of the things the body builds with cholesterol is bile. Bile is stored in the gall bladder and secreted into the intestines to assist with digestion.

The primary job of bile is to emulsify fat. That is a fancy way of saying it assist in the digestion of fat. After that, it gets reabsorbed in the intestines and finds its way back to the gallbladder where it is stored until it is needed again. The body has evolved to be very efficient and doesn’t like to waste energy. Keep in mind, it takes energy to make compounds such as cholesterol and bile from scratch. It is much easier to just reabsorb what you have already made. The body does this with enzymes, water, bile, etc. The body likes to recycle as much as it can. It is the ultimate conservationist. I am tempted to make a political joke but will leave that to your imagination.

Now, the explanation for the what all is happening is rather complex but as with most things, we can boil it all down to its essence. Bile can suffer two fates when it reaches the intestines as a result of secretion from the gallbladder. One, it can either go on to do its job as we just said. That is to assist in the degradation of fat. Or, second, what can happen is that a process called deconjugation can break it down. How this happens is not important. What is important is that the gastrointestinal microflora can have an effect on the deconjugation of bile. Now, if it is deconjugated, what happens then is that there is a greater chance it will be flushed out of the body with the feces. There will still be some reabsorption but it will be minimal.

If the bile gets excreted, it is not being reabsorbed and recycled back to the gallbladder. The gallbladder needs to maintain a certain level of bile. It will do whatever it has to, or whatever it can, to maintain this level. As I said earlier, bile is produced in the liver from cholesterol. Now if the bile level drops, because of lack of circulation back into the gallbladder, which in turn is a result of probiotics acting on the bile in the intestines, then the body has to produce more. It has to! The liver senses the level of bile as having dropped and says "wow! I need to make more bile. I need to grab as much cholesterol from wherever I can find it and start cranking out bile baby!" As a result, more bile gets made.

The net result of this is that the body then starts drawing on its cholesterol reserves in order to make more bile. The body starts feeding on itself and, at least in this case, this is a good thing. Cholesterol is literally pulled out of the serum and used by the liver to produce bile. This has a very pronounced and measurable effect.

We see a good result when high doses of probiotics are used. We also see an effect when low doses of some of the more acid and bile resistant organisms are used. LR has been shown to be very acid and bile resistant. LR can survive into the intestine where it can live and start pumping away on the bile and deconjugating it, resulting in the excretion of the bile.

Now, what has been noticed with LR is that it can have a 38% decrease in total serum cholesterol. That is stunning! Why is it so stunning? Well, because of the "one to two rule." What in the world is that? That is a rule-of-thumb that states that a 1% reduction of serum cholesterol, and remember we have a 35% reduction here causes a 2% lower risk of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD). Wow and yes! I am telling you that probiotics can give you at least a 76% lower risk of CHD. That is major. You want to take probiotcs. I WANT TO TAKE PROBIOITICS! Anyone who is concerned about HD wants to take probiotics even if they don’t care about all the other ailments I discussed in the other chapters my book. Everyone should be taking these.

These beneficial effects can be achieved by taking high levels of probiotics and also by taking lower levels of some select strains. There are probably many different variants for each strain, each more or less acid and bile tolerant. What you should be looking for are products that use strains selected by the best technology available such as DNA finger printing, cell-wall structure analysis, etc.

There are companies out there that do have high quality selection criteria. The MAKtech™ are one such line and I am sure there are others. I know the MAKTech™ have actually taken this step further and isolated components of probiotics that are beneficial. In the case of cholesterol reduction, there is an enzyme called a hydrolase that is responsible for the deconjugation of the bile. The MAKTech™ line offers that enzyme for those that don’t want to take probiotics for whatever reason. Some people are allergic or whatever and this sort of product offers them all the advantages and some extra choices.

REFERENCES

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

New Benefits For ANMA Members

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Thinking Outside The Empirical Box
The Challenge Of A Free-Spirited Scientific Community

By: Asad Shahsavari, N.M.D., Ph.D., M.D.M.A.

It may be considered that controversy, criticism and confrontation are the centerpiece of both destructive and constructive action: the literal "yin and yang", so to speak, of our reasoning options. In today’s society, science is demanding more rigorous clinical testing and more highly advanced technology. In the critical areas of human health, we have achieved tremendous mechanical breakthroughs. We can transplant a damaged heart, but have great difficulty transforming it from being damaged or preventing the problem in the first place. We can clone a sheep but have trouble falling asleep without counting them or taking a drug to zone us into unconsciousness.

We are grossly overfed and sadly undernourished as a civilized society and still believe we have extended the life spans of humans, forgetting the plethora of drugs we are dependent on to make our hearts keep beating, our stomachs stop growling, our sinuses stop dripping and our intestines start moving. There are time-honored philosophies and isolated cultures that remind us of remarkable health possibilities without these chemical crutches, such as the Hunza of the Himalayas and their exceptional history of longevity or the yogis with their ancient wisdom of the art of breathing, posturing and enlightened consciousness. Aside from the elegant marketing of the pharmaceutical industry and statistical propaganda, we are still suffering as a humankind from the same old death traps of dysfunctional disease. Could it be we are at odds with the truth rather than those who dare to speak it?

Every medical and scientific journal is laden with articles of clinical studies, footnoted with the validations of endless authorities. It is as if we are afraid to make logical, common sense or original thought statements without a legion of experts to stamp their approval on our idea. We are helplessly bound to some unwritten code that says we must not venture beyond what others have already given us permission to believe. We dare not allow the paradigm to shift or we may fall off the edge of the world. It is refreshing to know that someone had the presence of mind to acknowledge that a glove has no edges.

Thankfully, Galileo, de Vinci, the Wright brothers, Einstein, Planck, Tesla, Kirlian, Pauling, Ornish and a litany of others throughout scientific history, were brave enough to be free thinkers. They gave us insight on the truth that the earth is not the center of the universe, humans can fly, what goes up may not always come down and a diseased heart may indeed be repaired without the surgeon or the pharmacist. Empirical thought has always been at the heart of the scientific process, assuming the position that what may be duplicated in a laboratory setting is evidence of irrefutable fact. All too often we find, however, that science is the plagiarizer of nature’s original designs and that amazing scientific "discoveries", though quite stimulating and inspiring, are nevertheless simply uncovered aspects of natural order.

The human curiosity instinct is delightful and certainly has given us an edge on evolution, yet, there is a tad bit more ego invested than necessary. Much like the adolescent who is experiencing a burst of individuality becomes an instant authority on everything from running the household to running the world, science is constantly finding its much needed wisdom in the bigger picture. It is such a dichotomy that presents itself to us today in the areas of health and well-being. In an age where we believe ourselves to be beyond our ancestors, what lessons do we still need to learn regarding survival, health and well-being?

As an example, an article appeared in the ANMA Monitor in December of 2001 titled High Protein Diets – Are You Losing More Than Weight? Authored by Monique Gilbert. There was a subsequent rebuttal article in the March, 2002 issue of the ANMA Monitor titled High Protein Diets, Separating Fact From Fiction by Stephen Byrnes. In Byrnes’ article, he mentioned that Gilbert’s writings were "unreferenced." He also points out several areas regarding high protein diets and low carbohydrate diets, including comments on the vegetarian dietary issue, as well as soy products. Byrnes’ rebuttal reflects the common attitude among scientists about the need for validating one’s statements and findings. This is to be commended on many levels, but should not stand in the way of vindicating the truth.

There are several aspects of Byrnes’ rebuttal which need a more expanded awareness of qualified reference. For example, Gilbert was quoted, "Excessive protein consumption, particularly animal protein, can result in heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis and kidney stones." Byrnes contrasted this with "It is excessive carbohydrate intake, not animal or protein intake, that can result in heart disease and cancer." This was referenced from the AMJ Clin Nutr, 1997: 65:1027-1033. Out of curiosity, as to the validity of both Gilbert’s and Byrnes’ statements, I ventured into the available literature in the medical indices accessible through the National Library of Medicine’s online service, better known as pubmed. Millions of current and recently published articles are available from worldwide researchers in countless areas of interest. Oddly enough, there are clinical studies to support both contentions.

However, I searched for specific areas on vegetarianism and meat consumption in relationship to health and disease and found 107 published articles on vegetarianism and cancer, 402 articles on soy and cancer and 547 articles on meat consumption and disease. Due to the economy of time, I was unable to detail my review to each and every individual disease category. Fortunately, the articles covered a broad base of disorders, including the majors: heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

Reviewing several of the abstracts from the selected titles, I found two major long-term studies which were conducted specifically in Germany and the UK which clearly nullified the well known California 7th Day Adventists study cited by Byrnes which quotes "no significant association between breast cancer and a high consumption of animal fats or animal products in general was noted." The study also found that although the largely vegetarian population was found to have slightly lower rates for some cancers, other cancers were indicated as being higher than the general population. Byrnes cites that the study noted that meat consumption was not associated with a higher cancer risk. According to the studies I found some of which involved thousands of subjects in long-term studies of 11-17 years follow-up, quite the opposite was noted regarding vegetarianism and meat consumption, especially relating to heart disease and cancer.

Here are some specifics on a few of these studies: BMJ 1996 Sep 28; 313(7060): 775-9 titled: Dietary habits and mortality in 11,000 vegetarians and health-conscious people: results of a 17-yr. follow-up. This study was conducted in the UK with 4336 men and 6435 women. The published results in the abstract stated: "Overall, the cohort had a mortality about half that of the general population." Another study titled: The Oxford Vegetarian Study: An overview, Am J Clin Nutr 1999 Sep; 70 (3 Suppl.): 525S-531S, involved 6000 vegetarians and 5000 non-vegetarians. After 12 years of follow-up, "all cause mortality in the whole cohort was roughly one half that in the population of England and Whales…deaths were lower in non-meat-eaters than in meat eaters for each of the endpoints studied for all causes of death, for ischemic heart disease and for all malignant neoplasms."

Another impressive study conducted in the UK, US, and Germany, titled Mortality in vegetarians and non-vegetarians: a collaborative analysis of 8300 deaths among 76,000 men and women in five prospective studies (Public Health Nutr 1998 Mar: 1(1):33-41) states "Vegetarians had a 24% reduction in mortality from ischemic heart disease." Yet another study published in Prev Med 2002 Apr: 34 (4): 436-44 is titled: Lung cancer risk among Czech women in case-control study. In this study, 269 female lung patients were compared with 1079 controls. The findings concluded: " Excess risk associated with the consumption of red meat an poultry. Protective effects associated with intake of vegetables." A recently published study in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers Prevention 2002 Jan; 11 (1): 43-9 is titled: Phytoestrogens and thyroid cancer risk: the San Francisco Bay Area thyroid cancer study which states "The consumption of traditional and non-traditional soy-based products and alfalfa sprouts were associated with reduced risk of thyroid cancer."

Lastly, of the sample articles out of the hundreds presented was a perspective not usually mentioned in the medical circle regarding meat consumption; that of the global effects on the welfare of the environment, which dramatically influence the future of the ecosystem and the planet’s evolution. The article appeared in Am J Clin Nutr 1994 May, 59 (5 Suppl.): 1099S-1102S titled An opinion on the global impact of meat consumption by Stephen Lewis Associates based in Toronto, Canada. An excerpt from the abstract regarding cattle grazing reads: "these practices have resulted in less available land for the production of food, global warming because of the practices of deforestation, exhaustion of the worlds water supply and the adverse effects on the health of the world."

These articles are only a slight sampling of the many thousands of studies conducted worldwide on the validation of vegetarian lifestyles and human health. Granted, there may be isolated studies which may show an inverse relationship regarding certain elements, such as Vitamin B12 deficiency or calcium absorption with certain processed or genetically engineered soy products, and in a select grouping of subjects, but review of the more extensive body of literature, both ancient and contemporary, regarding vegetarianism and improved health, is overwhelming to the long-term advantages of vegetarianism versus meat consumption.

Even the traditionally-derived animal by-products, such as coenzyme Q10, so essential for heart function, is abundant in vegetable sources such as bran, nuts, spinach, broccoli, soybeans, and sesame oil without the toxic effects of meat. Vitamin A, commonly derived from fish liver oil, is found in the non-toxic pre-cursor beta carotene form in carrots, lemon grass, and all yellow and orange vegetable sources; again, without the toxicity associated with meat-eating.

Of particular concern with meat eating is the epidemic of parasitic and fungal infestations in the human organism derived directly from the ingestion of raw or undercooked meat and fish. According to Phillip Goscienski, MD with the Infectious Disease Branch of Pediatrics at the Navel Regional Center in San Diego, CA, 240 infectious diseases are transmitted by animals to humans. The most commonly known infestations transmitted to humans through meat and fish eating include trichinosis from pork, beef tapeworm, fish tapeworm, anisakine larvae and flukes, particularly found in salmon, herring and cod, eustrongylides worm from sushi, liver and lung flukes from raw fish, sheep liver flukes, intestinal flukes, dog and cat roundworm, causing visceral larva migrans in children, and dog heartworm along with seven other species of filariae, causing several serious pathogenic disorders such as lymph node infection, fever, elephantiasis and blindness. And we would need a separate article to mention the horrors of Mad Cow disease.

There are entire societies and cultures, which have been predominantly vegetarian for thousands of years. They boast of high levels of fertility and longevity, as well as reduced incidences in their populations of cancer, heart disease and diabetes. This is fully substantiated by numerous international studies. India and China, alone, numbering in the billions, are deeply rooted with vegetarian and vegan cultural instincts among specific populations. One study posted on the walls of the University of California at San Francisco Hospital detailed a recent study of vegetarian societies and osteoporosis. The conclusions were that osteoporosis was significantly higher among meat-eating populations and that vegetarians tended to have less osteoporatic developments, more bone density and quicker recovery from fractures.

As mentioned earlier, the health habits of the Hunza of the Himalayas, bordered by China, Pakistan and Afghanistan, are documented in several major publications. The Hunza eat a 99% vegetarian diet of fruits, vegetables and whole grains, eating meat only on an occasional holiday, if at all. Their diet is approximately 10% fat, 10% protein and 80% carbohydrate.

The distinguishing factor in this type of diet, however, is not the mere ratios, but more the quality of the foods they eat, totally organically grown, rich in minerals and fed by glacier streams of pure water. Nestled in the mountains, the Hunza area is blessed with a pristine airflow cleansed with abundant amounts of natural ozone. They enjoy a social structure virtually free of crime, strong family bonds and a deep respect for natural order. Hunza people are known to live quite commonly to over 100, 120, even 140 years of age. The remarkable aspect is that they do so without doctors, drugs, hospitals or medical insurance. In other words, they have validated the truth of biogenic living by their own cultural experience. Can we in American or European cultures even dare to begin to compare health statistics?

If we are to challenge one diet over another, one thought over another or one authority over another, then we become involved in an endless semantics war, pointing proverbial fingers and choosing our empirical weapons. Even though we will always be able to find something to support our own personal or professional view on whatever we choose, life itself becomes the final judge and jury.

In respect to meat consumption, the ingesting of flesh has significant social, medical and spiritual ramifications. Several major religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, among others, require complete or partial abstinence from flesh foods. Sacred scriptures are filled with recommendations regarding abstaining from meat eating and the ingestion of blood. Meat consumption is directly related to cannibalism, in that the human animal has been hunted and utilized for food by both other animals and other humans, the same as other animals prey upon each other.

This is regarded as the hierarchy of the food chain. Cannibalism was outlawed by civilizations that found it a violation against codes of health and morality. There was something unsettling about the savagery of eating another human being. Not to mention the horrific health implications, which have been found to cause genetic mutations and disorders. Why, then, is it so difficult to understand that the eating of any animal carries with it similar serious health issues?

To support this theory on a scientific level, the mere fact that the flesh of an animal begins a putrefaction process only moments after the death of the animal, causing the bacteria count to rise into the billions, is reason enough to suspect the deleterious effects of eating such a substance. True carnivores are equipped with an intestinal tract one-third the length of a human’s, allowing for rapid transport of the waste products through the system before putrefaction can take hold. Carnivores often begin their meal by eating the prey while it is still alive. Living flesh and blood possess certain enzymes which help to detoxify the tissues. Dead bodies are unable to synthesize these metabolites and the bacteria multiply profusely to commence the catabolism of the flesh.

Modern day commercial meat packing is notorious for the use of noxious chemicals, solvents and detergents which are used to help detoxify the meat in preparation for the consumer. From the inhumane growing of cattle and fowl to the slaughter practices to the packing processes, meat consumption must be held accountable for needless wasting of farm lands for grazing rather than growing, harmful antibiotics and growth hormones, and the excess of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides present in the animal feed. There is strong suspicion linking these injected substances with rising hormonal disturbances among both women and men, creating a more vulnerable metabolism toward breast, uterine and prostate cancers.

Reducing our dietary habits to mere percentages of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates is eliminating the tremendous importance of the quality of the foods themselves. The forms of these elements supersede the amounts. There are certain qualities of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates that are better assimilated and more biochemically adaptable to the human system. A leading exponent on fats and human metabolism, Dr. Johanna Budwig, seven times nominated for the Nobel Prize, sates in her book Flax Oil As A True Aid Against Arthritis, Heart Infarction, Cancer And Other Diseases that "with regard to the preservation of structure in the living body, the dipolarity of the electrical field between fat and protein is of fundamental importance. If this dipolarity between highly unsaturated fats and the sulfur containing protein substance is destroyed, for example, due to the fats having been solidified before being ingested, that means their electrical charge is removed so that the counter polarity is missing for the maintenance of a voltage field. In short, the battery is empty." She also mentions a statement, long before the advent of high-protein diets, alluding to protein, that the root for protein is the word "proteos" meaning "I come first."

The introduction of the high-protein diet seems to parallel such a position in our social standards. The "I come first" principle is evident in the lack of morality in business tactics with the environment being sacrificed for higher profit margins as well as human health put up on the chopping block to service a medical and pharmaceutical conglomerate. Road rage is clearly a statement on "I come first" regardless of the violence it evokes. The animal does not consider the feelings of its prey. Rather, it feeds upon it psychologically, sensing fear and weakness as a green light for attack. As consciously evolving entities, it is time we review the old practices in light of their true nature and consequences.

The vegetable kingdom is evidenced to have older origins than animals and is the direct link to solar and universal energy fields through photosynthetic process and life-sustaining electromagnetic properties. The practice of eating animals has continued to keep us bonded to the animal nature of territorial rights. We feel justified in killing other life forms in order to sustain our own, regardless of the pain, suffering and destruction it may cause, even to ourselves. We are victimized by conditioned appetites rather than freed by our higher instincts toward an ethical shared existence.

Perhaps it is time we look past the necessity to defend the slaughterhouses and begin learning the valuable lessons that nature has provided us with in terms of health, well-being, longevity and even, immortality. According to the statistics gathered by Marvin L. Jones, registrar of the Zoological Society of San Diego, CA, some of the shortest-lived animals on the planet are carnivores. An average lion lives 25 years, a Bengali tiger – 26 years, a timber wolf – 19 years, a spotted hyena – 36 years. In contrast, the Asian elephant lives 69 years, a horse – 46 years, river hippopotamus – 54 years, Sumatran orangutan – 59 years, and the African black rhinoceros – 45 years.

Countless authorities have come to forefront in the past 50 years to acknowledge the dangers of meat eating diets. One of the more outstanding discoveries was by Dr. Virginia Livingston-Wheeler, author of The Conquest of Cancer and primary researcher on the progenitor cryptocides microbe, shown clinically to cause cancer in 100% of the animals tested. Livingston-wheeler surmised that all chickens grown for consumption in the United States are carriers of the pathogenic form of the PC microbe, capable of generating tumors and malignant growths. In contrast, researchers at University of Alabama in Birmingham found soybeans significantly slowed the spread of breast cancer in rats. This coincides with the common knowledge that Asian women rank lowest among breast cancer patients when ingesting their traditional diet, rich in substances which mimic the milder form of human estrogen known as estradiol.

Another major breakthrough in cancer prevention and phytochemical treatment is the rice-derived IP-6, developed over 15 years of research by Dr. Shamsuddin of the School of Medicine with Maryland University in Baltimore, MD. The non-toxic therapy was initially developed with research on colon cancer and now is being used with various forms of cancer including lung, prostate and breast. Results have shown reductions in existing tumors of between 40-90 % of and animal studies showing significant to complete resistance to induced carcinogenesis.

Such work is exemplary and leads us to a better understanding of the inherent healing properties of the vegetable kingdom. Of recent note is Dr. Dean Ornish’s groundbreaking work in cardiovascular research. His best-selling book on reversing heart disease without drugs or surgery prompted a clinical trial which clearly proved that heart disease was reversible by diet and lifestyle changes. Ornish recommends a predominantly vegetarian diet, low in fat, and advises his patients to include meditation and social reconnections in meaningful relationships. Over 40 major insurance companies now underwrite his protocol. Ornish’s research may be found in JAMA 1998 Sec. 16; 280(23): 2001-7.

Herbs, flowers, vegetables, grains, fruits, nuts and seeds are being tested by several world health organizations for their cancer-inhibiting effects and therapeutic properties. The wisdom of such research echoes the sages of our past. In closing, may I encourage all inquisitive minds to investigate the bigger picture of health and well-being from all aspects: personal, professional, social and universal. There is a movement toward vegetarianism, recycling, alternative forms of energy beyond fossil fuel and nuclear power, enlightened leadership, natural childbirth and shared parenting. All of these indicate an evolutionary rise of humanity away from the colonilizing, warrior mentalities of our ancestors toward a kinder more compassionate co-existence.

It is true that one may create a seemingly powerful body and intense energy from the ingestion of animal flesh, but it is a short-lived as the carnivore’s life itself. Our potential as humankind needs the enduring and endearing properties of the vegetable kingdom. Poets, prophets and philosophers alike have spoken of it for ages. They tell of the tree of life, the garden of paradise, the sacred lotus… an existence that does not take another life to make its own, but which draws from the wellspring of inter-dimensional energy, whether named as solar, tachyonic, magnetic, or left undefined. The word for "war" has its etiology in the Indo-Germanic word meaning "the desire for more cows." In an effort to foster some semblance of world peace, there may be hope in taking personal accountability for ending the slaughter and celebrating the harvest at the dinner table.

Asad Shahsavari, NMD, PhD, MDMA
BIOMED Holistic Health Center, Director
916-990-0505 or 408-374-6133
Email: docashah@yahoo.com
Website: www.urt.org

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