Over time, I will try to collect past posts on these topics and collect them here. I’ll try to get the original posters and dates, although some are missing in this first post.
JIN SHIN JYUTSU POSTS BY REBS (formerly Roger)
Roger – At 87 I do Qigong, 8 brocades, Yang 10, 24, 48, 42, and old frame Chen, 24 sword and a bit of others about every other day. Also take walks (only about a mile per day). I give and receive hands on hour sessions in Jin Shin Jyutsu, a hands-on therapy using Asian medical system on a daily basis. Also do some breath work.
—————-
In Jin Shin Jyutsu, a Japanese branch of traditional Chinese medicine, there is a simple way to alleviate migraines within minutes.
In JSJ migraines are recognized as being frontal headaches on one side of the head or the other.
For a right migraine, place a hand on the space between the outside right ankle and the Achilles’ tendon. (Actually one slides a finger or thumb lateral side of the Achilles’ tendon behind the external malleolus.) That place will be sore and painful when there is a migraine. The migraine will be relieved in a few minutes. I believe the theory is that the bladder and gall bladder energy flows go from the right side of the head to the space between the ankle and Achilles’ tendon. It is thought that because these flows make a right angle, there can be an impeding of the energy, and dissipating the swelling with energy can restore the path and end the pressure on the head. This treatment can be applied by one’s self as well as by others.
I admit that this treatment may make no sense in Western medicine, but I have noted that you are open minded (for example your acknowledgment of Sister Kenny and the unexplained benefits of hands-on therapy.)
I have done this twice and rapidly ended migraines.
For a left migraine, the corresponding spot is held on the exterior left space between ankle and Achilles’ tendon.
———–
I thought that when Nixon went to China we learned that Chinese Medicine could be useful. Chinese medicine attempts to get the body in harmony so that it can heal itself. I don’t personally like to be stuck with needles, but I have seen good results from acupuncture. Similarly, Jin Shin Jyutsu, that attempts similar treatment by moving energy past blocks seems effective. My wife was at a party when a cardiologist had a heart attack. As a Jin Shin Jyutsu teacher and practitioner, she grabbed the little and ring fingers in a scissor with her fingers. By the time the ambulance arrived, the Dr. was feeling well enough that he decided to stay at the party instead of going with the ambulance. It makes sense to me that since heart pain can travel through the left arm down to the little finger, that holding the little finger may send a message to the heart. Two major hospitals are now using Jin Shin Jyutsu to alleviate pain and find that patients who receive it after surgery are able to return home sooner.
Anyway, just as much of Western medicine relies on a placebo effect, Eastern medicine should be equally able to create a good placebo effect.
Please do not think I am suggesting that infants shouldn’t receive the normal vaccinations; I am not.
I do think it criminal when a child dies needing a transfusion, for example, because its parents prefer a religious alternative. Obviously, Western medicine is needful and nothing herein suggests that it be sidelined. Of course it is criminal to leave a child or dog in a car with windows closed in the heat of summer.
———–
There are pro and con research about whether religious prayers and secular wishes for healing are effective. Because of the Gummune’s, I hope they are but remain skeptical. I will tell you what I have learned as a layman about health over my 87 years.
This is not particularly a just world, and every day we hear of children, women, and men being killed, maimed, or subjected to slavery through war, collateral damage, left over mines and armament, and psychopaths. “Nobody gets out of life alive” (from Edna Ferber’s So Big). If there is a glorious afterlife, so be it. If there is nothing, so be it also. I don’t subscribe to the idea of everlasting burning in hell for not following any particular beliefs; conversely, I don’t expect that Christian baptism or Islamic martyrdom of themselves will get me into heaven. I had a heart stoppage from an attack caused by atrial arrhythmia and was resuscitated–unfortunately there was no bright light.
The most important thing is meeting whatever is happening with courage and humor. Besides the lives of Socrates, Jesus, Job, and various religious and medical martyrs, we have a couple modern writings: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom and When Bad Things happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner, Rabbi that are helpful.
The greatest source of spiritual strength comes from meditation, either religious or secular. By spiritual strength, I mean the ability to accept whatever fate brings. People close to the earth used drumming and dancing as meditation aids. Some orders of Sufis used the same as well as whirling to great effect to allow the mind and body to cure. Tai Chi, Qigong, and Yoga can also offer meditation. Repetition of sounds, such as OM or ONE or a mantra or a name of a god, or repeating prayers of mystical significance of every religion are popular effective meditative tools.
Hands on therapy, such as massage, Jin Shin Jyutsu, Reiki, acupressure and acupuncture can be wonderful healing aids and useful in pain relief, dealing with the aftermath of chemotherapy, giving comfort and shortening healing time. There are many wonderful, selfless, hardworking erudite physicians. But medicine is not pure science, it is an art, and medical judgments are made by human beings, who even with the best intentions, may be incorrect.
One must keep the faith and take responsibility for his own health and the health of his children, and meditate, exercise, maintain appropriate weight, fast some of the time, avoid sugar, and eat largely a vegetarian diet with probiotic food included, and enjoy meat as a condiment and take Vitamin D3 and magnesium. Remember, as Dr. KSS tells us, it wasn’t till recent times that Dr. Semmelweiss fought the medical profession in having Drs. wash their hands between surgeries and birthings. Early in American history doctors probably were responsible for the death of many who could ill afford to part with the blood from the common bloodletting treatment. Finally, it is really important to find a really good doctor.
—————–
Dr., you probably are tired of my suggesting Asian medicinal techniques; however, I sit on my hands with little fingers on the ischial protuberances for 20 minutes a day and meditate by following my breathing or mentally chanting a mantra, prayer, or whatever. My weight at 87 is what it was in high school despite stresses in life and an enjoyment of good food with a glass of wine or beer. I have seen this technique work wonders with weight reduction groups who sit on their hands together, and I taught it to Tai Chi, Qigong groups on shipboard cruises (an avocation). It is a technique of Jin Shin Jyutsu, a hands-on Asian harmonizing art. In Asian therapy, one doesn’t heal, one sets the systems of the body in harmony so that the body can heal and regenerate itself.
——————-
fenlin, Curcumin and cumin are not related; however, curcumin (tumeric) as well as cumin would go well in your chili.
After distressing muscle pains following the use of statins, I discontinued them and started using Costco curcumin. My cholesterol levels are maintained at a satisfactory level although the ratio between LDL and HDL is not as favorable. But, although it makes physicians pleased, it remains to be seen whether maintaining a substantial ratio between LDL and HDL improves longevity or the quality of life.
I mention Costco as my source because I read in a recent expose of bogus supplements that Costco was one of the few that came out as advertised rather than filled with garlic powder and other harmless ingredients.
I am 86 and had sextuple by-pass surgery about 25 years ago. I had both ventricular and atrial arrhythmia and elected not to use coumadin but use natto-kinase instead. I have had no arrhythmia episodes in the last year. My physician is not usually very happy with me, but I enjoy good health and mobility considering my age. I do take prescribed drugs to control blood pressure and maintain a good level. It probably helps that I am retired from a high pressure occupation and have a good caring wife.
I also do Tai Chi, Qigong, meditation, and self help Jin Shin Jyutsu (eastern hands on therapy somewhat related to acupuncture) daily.
—————–
Since treatment of hemorrhoids has ben mentioned: In Jin Shin Jyutsu, (Asian energy medicine) hemorrhoids are treated (successfully in my experience) by placing one hand halfway between the ischial tuberosity and the anus on the side where the hemorrhoid is, and placing the other hand on the external knee, or the junction of fibula and tibia. I have held hand position for 20 minutes at night and the hemorrhoid discomfort was relieved the next morning.
———————-
In my 86th year, I find I am lonesome for all my contemporaries who smoked, since almost without exception they are dead. I smoked pipes in college and cigars until I was 30.
Smoking is like being in combat, everyone assumes that he will survive and only other guys will be dead.
I quit because I when I finally realized that it was a precursor to cancer, heart disease, hypertension and diabetes, I wanted to be around to help my loved ones.
I did see a picture of a man smoking a pipe in China, who was purportedly over 100 years old. He did Tai Chi several times a day. I do Tai Chi, Qi Gong meditation, and self help Jin Shin Jyutsu, (Asian massage akin to acupuncture without needles) every day. I have natural hypertension and heart disease and a family of short livers. I lived a high stress life as a trial lawyer. I doubt I would be alive without my routine, and moderation in diet and alcohol consumption. I look younger than my age and am reasonably active and vigorous.
Alan, I wish only longevity, health, and good things for you.
Orpheusrog.
————————
I have heard of bone spurs dissolved. If the body can accumulate; it can also dissolve. I speak of Jin Shin Jyutsu a Japanese art based on Traditional Chinese Medicine. My wife is an RN and a JSJ practitioner and teacher, who has taught all over the world for over thirty years. Spurs in the back or knee can be dissolved by appropriate hands on therapy with greater success and a fraction of the cost of surgery. At any rate, there is very little to lose from giving JSJ a chance to dissolve bone spurs.
I suspect that the success of the surgeries is largely dependent on the efforts of the patient afterwards.
I would guess that there are Chinese therapies that work as well.
———————-
Using Asian medicine, Jin Shin Jyutsu, for acid reflux hold the right hand on the right side below the margin at the base of the skull and the left hand under the left mid clavicle. It takes about 3 minutes to clear the bile in the bronchial tube and settle the stomach. It works for me; besides what do you have to lose?
—————————–
The discussion of the approach to medicine of treating something with pills that give some benefits but create greater problems, which one then treat with other pills causing more problems –and so ad infinitum–is fascinating.
All of us are apt to reject great ideas because they are proposed by people who are uncredentialed. Sister Kenny is a great example of the rejection of a great approach by someone outside of the fraternity.
Some suggest that George Washington was bled to death by medical treatment. The difficulty that Semmelweiss had in trying to convince obstetricians to wash their hands before delivering babies stands out as an example of the arrogance of some physicians in the rejection of common sense. (I’m not suggesting that the fault is unique to doctors.)
I realize that this is not a column regarding personal experience, testimonials or heath anecdotes but I cannot resist mentioning that, while I like and respect my family doctor, at age 85, I am willing to take my chances with some alternate medicine. I quit using statin drugs after bad muscular problems and substituted curcumin, which seems as effective in keeping cholesterol in comparable reduction. I rejected the suggestion of using coumadin and aspirin following a few episodes of atrial arrhythmia and have been using nattokinase. Having suffered hormonal imbalance from the use of one diuretic and gout from another, I am cautious about prescribed medicines.
I think the best health activities I do are aerobic exercises and daily Tai Chi the maintenance of moderate weight and some Asian hands-on therapy called Jin Shin Jyutsu, which is now being adopted in some hospitals where it is found effective in reducing pain and the time of hospital stay. I don’t know if the benefit is from the Traditional Chinese Medicine health approach or merely that humans thrive from personal touch, but anyway it seems to work well.
—————
On getting old. Am 85 with family of heart disease, diabetes and short lives. Do Tai Chi classes 3 xs per week and do a bit every day. Get hands-on therapy from Jin Shin Jyutsu daily. Take curcumin (tumeric) instead of statins, which caused muscle problems. Take natto-kinase instead of coumadin for avoiding strokes from very occasional atrial arrhythmia episodes. Take amiodarone. Retired lawyer who taught Tai Chi on shipboard in return for our traveling from age 70 to 81. Getting out of the high stress lawyering was best thing I ever did. Happy to have discovered Dr. KSS and the Dim Sum String comradery. Twice widowed and twice divorced. Happily married to someone I love and respect. Life is good, except for losing all of the people I grew up with. Have children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, love them, but have emancipated myself from supporting people over 65.
—————————–
Author: Roger
Comment:
I would be happy to officiate or just participate in an over 70’s discussion group and offer self help hands on remedies using Jin Shin Jyutsu. For example I have a quick and simple daily immune flow and as a result of using it have had no colds for 3 years. Formerly I had frequent colds and even pneumonia. If there is an interest, we could approach Lynn and Travis.
—————-
Reposting club house to here because it didn’t come through there:
Health Note from an 87 lively octogenarian: Most of the ills in America come from overeating and bad diet. We are omnivores, and most of us can tolerate a broad range of food, but cannot tolerate too much meat or shellfish. Avoid sugar and pure starch. It’s not hard to get along without sugar or sugar substitutes, but xylitol (birch sugar) having only a 5-carbon ring can be used when some added sweetness is felt necessary. Keep regular; I find that a couple of cups of coffee, magnesium, and a stool softener are sufficient to insure daily evacuation. Regularly exercise the stomach (I do crunches and stomach muscle rolls) and avoid getting a prominent gut. Keep the belt length below 40″ at the waist and preferably at high school size. Try to maintain weight comparable to high school days. Avoid one sided exercises (i.e. tennis, fencing because they distort the body). Many illnesses and health problems can be helped by a water-fast for one to three days, and I fast when necessary. The trick is to do so joyously without dolor. Do push ups and cobras leaning from 45 degrees against a table or wall, and half squats holding onto something. Do raises on you toes. Avoid elective surgery, and if you have to have it, go to the best hospital you can find, get a second opinion, and get an experienced surgeon. Stay out of hospitals and emergency rooms in general. Get out of the hospital as soon as possible even if the medications per os are more expensive than per drips or shots. Learn to meditate; do consciousness breathing. Sit on your hands to regulate hunger craving (per one of my earlier letters). Learn simple self-help hands on techniques (I use Jin Shin Jyutsu) to avoid colds, evacuate kidney and gall stones, ameliorate headaches and migraines, emergency angina or heart attacks when digitalis or whiskey are unavailable (after calling 911 or whoever), alleviate morning back pain, stop superficial bleeding, burns, avoid stitches, alleviate or avoid paralysis after a stroke, retrain neural pathways, dissolve bone spurs and tissue accumulations, among other things. Do modest aerobic and strength exercises. Do TaiChi/Qigong, or Yoga regularly and take walks. Limit alcohol to 1 oz per day. No smoking! Love someone and be loved. Happy sexual activity is desirable. Use your mind as much as possible and if you find memory not as acute, that’s what computers are for. Read. Spend time doing real things and not being involved in spectator sports, television, etc. unless you are supporting athletes and actors whom you know. Accept challenge but avoid stress you can’t handle. For example, Lou Gehrig had an incredibly stressful life and challenge. That means don’t measure your success against your neighbors’, don’t try to impress anybody, have no serious regrets nor expectations, and don’t take risks that keep you awake at night. (I keep 15% to 40% of my brokerage account in cash and would never mortgage myself by margin.) Don’t buy on credit (except a home). Don’t borrow and worry about payments and margin calls. Pay at least enough income tax to keep from being audited if possible. Smell the roses. Make life beautiful! It’s all simple and common sense; but it takes knowledge and practice to do it all graciously, joyously and without any resentment, and unfortunately will power may not be enough. My kids always shrug it off with: Who wants to live so long? Some people may be born with such knowledge; whatever I have was dearly paid for after many mistakes and ills.
——–
Author: Roger
Comment:
A few have commented that you like Jin Shin Jyutsu hands-on tips. If there is a demand, I would post one per day to the clubhouse. For example, for angina or heart attack if one has forgotten his nitro and has no alcoholic drink to dilate blood vessels, after calling 911, if appropriate, hold the left little finger and ring finger with the right hand palms facing, by inserting right index finger between left little and ring finger and scissoring left little and ring fingers with right thumb and middle finger. Hold till angina or heart attack stops. Can be done for self or another. It works. If there is someone else present, he can hold the victim’s big toes at the base. At one party my wife attended, when the victim had a heart attack, this technique was used and by the time the ambulance arrived, the victim had recovered and decided to stay and enjoy the party. Please use thumbs up or down to indicate whether these kind of tips would be interesting. (Never had a thumbs down, but if I did, I would take it as a learning experience of what others wanted and harbor no animus nor sense of rejection.)
——————
Immune flow: Prevents and helps conditions like colds, sore throats and many more:
Hold each position for about 60 heart beats or a minute.
1. Rt. hand on L (shoulder next to neck and back) and Lft hand (same side) back above the hip bone and below the lowest rib.
2. Lft hand top of L thigh at origin of quadricepts muscle.
3. Rt hand on sole of left foot. (I usually sit up to do this flow and bend my left foot under my right leg so that it is possible to reach the sole of the left foot.
Do same for other shoulder and leg. Note that you are working with same side of body and leg in each of these flows.
Used to have colds and flu often, but do this little flow every day and have had none for about four years.
——————————
JSJ Note: For sciatic discomfort there are various involved flows a practitioner may use, but there is a simple self-help remedy that can be effective. When people told me they would like to take my TaiChi class but had sciatic pain (used to be described as lumbago) I have suggested they take 10 minutes doing the self help and have then had people feeling good enough to take the class. I. For left side sciatic pain, 1) place the right hand on the inner part of the left knee at the place the femur and tibia meet. 2) Place the left hand over the hurting place at the sciatica. 3) After about five minutes, leaving the left hand on the sciatica, move the right hand to hold the left shoulder next to the neck as far down the back as possible. Repeat if necessary. In Jin Shin Jyutsu, the inner knee is called the Safety Energy Lock #1, the sciatic at the crest of the hip is called the Safety Energy Lock #2, and the place below the shoulder on the back is called the Safety Energy Lock #3. For right side sciatic discomfort reverse hands and side.
——————-
The self help 1, 2, 3 might work at least temporarily to provide some relief if done on both sides. I don’t know where you live, but you can call Terry at the Jin Shin Jyutsu, Inc. office in Scottsdale at 480-998-9331 and get the names of any qualified practitioners in your area. You could write me through Lynn if I can be of any help. I don’t think anybody-even a fine physician-can diagnose and treat without a full history and without examining the client.
Dave, the only thing I charge for is legal advice, and I would feel that any commercial activity by anyone through discussions on the Gumshoe network would be a betrayal of Travis and Dr. KSS. Besides some things a man should do for money but the rest he should do for love and keep the difference between them straight.
I write of my experiences, but only a complete fool or charlatan would offer the little 1,2,3 self help as a panacea for all back pain. I have studied Jin Shin Jyutsu for many years now, but I have never been a professional practitioner, never wanted to be. Any hands on I do is without compensation.
I know all of us commiserate; back pain is no fun. Although I, like most of us, have had back pain with age, I have been lucky and mine responded to hand’s on treatment.
———————–
Posted self help for sciatic pain on Clubhouse. Tomorrow and Monday I will give adventures with Fingers and Toes and helping someone with brain or neural damage and how it is done. Thereafter I plan methods of avoiding jet lag, repeat of dealing quickly with migraines, dealing with other headaches, staunching bleeding in wounds, dealing with minor burns, weight management made easy, sore throats, dental pain, facilitating elimination and more so long as you like them. If not, let me know, and my feelings can handle it. It’s more wanting to give something back rather than generate accolades.
———————————
Opposite fingers and toes are a simple technique that helps almost everything and can be done by friends and family members for daily maintenance, for helping with illness, and for helping neural pathways. During my later 70s, I was teaching Tai Chi and Qigong on shipboard in return for free passage for my wife and me. We went on a four month plus trip, circumnavigating South America, visiting Antarctica, South Georgia Island, the Falklands, a couple of islands in the Caribbean, and stopping at various Italian, Greek, Spanish, French ports on the Mediterranean and Aegean, and Turkish ports as well as some ports on the Black Sea. My wife and I both got nor virus or something comparable, and hers was bad enough so that the ship’s physicians felt she needed to go off ship for management, especially since we were headed South along the South American coastal and then through the Straits of Magellan–where medical facilities would be more primitive. We went by ambulance to a clinic in Valparaiso, Chile, and I set up a bed in her room. The physician was good, some of the nurses were dedicated, and she got continuous IVs and antibiotics. I did nursing, encouraging, and being a patient’s advocate. She was so sick that the only Jin Shin Jyutsu she could tolerate was opposite fingers and toes (full description about that in the next letter.) I got her out of the clinic as soon as she was able to walk, almost a week and a half later. We took a taxi to the Santiago Airport, and the next morning I half carried her to the weekly plane which flew to Punta Arenas at the most southern tip of Chile, where we waited a couple of days until our ship arrived. The passengers and staff hugged us almost to death. Later when I was a student in some of the 5 days Jin Shin Jyutsu classes my wife taught in Europe and the USA, she said that “opposite fingers and toes” was very powerful, and she believed that I had saved her life doing it.
——————–
Author: Roger
Comment:
This is the second promised letter about fingers and toes. For about 40 years I represented a former successful mid-western farmer who had emigrated to my City, in business and property acquisition, estate planning, and even a successful criminal defense of a black sheep son.. He came to me as a friend advising that his childhood bride, who had borne him nine children, was about to be discharged from a rehabilitation center because the center felt there was no further progress going to happen. She had been admitted after a stroke and hospitalization and was now about a year post stroke. She was still bedridden. My wife and I went to see her in the rehabilitation center in City about an hour away. Her daughters were present too. My wife performed and showed the daughters how to do opposite fingers and toes. The daughters then arranged to do it twice a day. The client’s wife made health progress, lived another couple of years and was ambulatory and rational. when we visited both of them in a nursing home. The client wanted to compensate us, but I pointed out that the only services for which I charged money was the practice of law, and my wife, who was volunteering at my request, felt she could not morally accept anything.
Holding opposite fingers and toes is performed as follows: A friend or spouse holds simultaneously for about one minute each: Left little toe and right thumb, left ring toe and right index finger, left middle toe and right middle finger, left index toe and right ring finger, left big toe and right little finger. Then right little toe and left thumb, right ring toe and left index finger, right middle toe and left middle finger, right index toe and left ring finger, and finally right big toe and left little finger. Altogether it takes about ten minutes. There is no objection to holding each finger and toe for a couple of minutes for that matter and the order of hands and feet and is not important, so long as the correct finger and opposite toe on the opposite foot are held simultaneously. I do it in the same order each time so that I will remember.
I leave to you physicians and neurologists the contemplation of why this practice may be effective. I have various theories, but how it works is not as important as that it does frequently make a difference.
Tomorrow about sitting on hands.
———————
John I really am inadequate and have no special medical training, but I will change my planned post for tomorrow for a position of flow that is purported to prevent permanent injury if done immediately after a stroke and to ameliorate it otherwise. Unfortunately when I was around those who had strokes, I did not know Jin Shin Jyutsu and the only help I could give was recognizing the problem and getting an immediate ambulance, and I felt so inadequate. There is one flow for each side, but more of that later. I will pass the information on but do not want to give anyone any false hopes. None the less, I think the hands on position is useful. Opposite fingers and toes really is best done by another for you; the flow I will describe can be done for yourself when you are again in possession of your faculties. In any event, I cannot see how the flow can cause any damage. I would be concerned that all JSJ is placebo except that I have seen big changes in babies and animals who probably don’t have any expectations of being helped. By the way, if you are present when someone is getting a stroke the first thing to do is get an ambulance there immediately.
————-
For a possible stroke victim, call immediately for emergency help, usually an ambulance with a medical tech, and a race to the emergency room (911 in the United States). It is important not to wait until you are sure the victim is having a stroke; if there is a possible stroke, call immediately because for blood clot stroke victims there is a short opportunity to administer medication to dissolve the clot and avoid greater permanent damage. While waiting for the ambulance to arrive, you may do what is the first step of a Jin Shin Jyutsu flow. Left hemispheric stroke is more common and perhaps more serious.
For left hemisphere brain injury or cerebral vascular accident, which will be generally accompanied by right side paralysis, you hold the victim’s Left Safety Energy Lock 16 and the Left little toe. A chart of the Safety Energy Locks was posted above by SoGiAm, copied from a good book”The Touch of Healing”, but if you go on line and ask for charts of Jin Shin Jyutsu Safety Energy Locks, you will find several larger good ones. (I hesitate to print any because I do not want to create any risk of copyright violation for Stock Gumshoe.) The left Safety Energy Lock 16 lies between the outer left ankle bone and the Achilles tendon. For right hemisphere brain problems resulting in left side paralysis, do the same thing on the Rt. foot. If possible, the technique should be continued as long as it does not interfere with medical care.
The opposite fingers and toes I posted yesterday are more commonly used for older stoke injuries. The left 16 left little toe flow is more for immediate application after stroke. These are adjuncts and not substitutes for appropriate immediate emergency medical care! At the risk of being repetitive: if a stroke is suspected, one should not wait to call for an ambulance. It is many times worse not to get emergency help for a possible stroke immediately when it is needed than to be mistaken and call for it when it turns out not to be needed.
——————
Sitting on the hands is done for weight harmonization and will help one achieve his ideal weight . It also considered a rejuvenation flow in Jin Shin Jyutsu. I find it has other mood benefits, but I do not want to make extravagant claims based on personal experience. It is usually done for weight reduction but I was taught that it could result in weight gain for those who needed it.
Several years ago my wife at the request of a corpulent lady discussed sitting on hands. The lady established a group that would sit together on their hands regularly.
When my wife saw the same lady a year later, now svelte and attractive, she asked if she had been on a diet. She said, ”Are you kidding, I’m Italian. We all had big meals on Christmas and New Years and for the holidays. All I did was sit on my hands.” In fact the whole club benefited.
Sitting on the hands for weight harmonization and regulation are done as follows simultaneously on both sides: With palms up place the little finger on the ischium or sitzbone, the middle finger on the crease between the back of the thigh and rump, the second finger forward on the back of the thigh, and hold the thumb at right angles to the palm vertically on the thigh. Sit for twenty minutes. If someone cannot sit with palms up, sitting with palms down is the next best thing.
I personally do it when I wake up at night, as old men tend to do. I sit on my hands in bed leaning against the backboard and do various forms of meditation . I now wear size 36 pants. My weight has over a few years come down to what it was during my high school and college years, although admittedly more of it was youthful muscle then. Sitting on my hands worked for me.
———————
I haven’t offered more Jin Shin Jyutsu self help aids because I am getting the feeling that nobody really cares much about it. However, I will offer one more. To avoid jet-lag, hold each finger at the base for one minute as you go through each new time zone. I consider that each finger is composed of a tip, a middle, and a base (where it is attached to the hand). My wife and I have gone half way around the world by flight and have avoided jet-lag by this technique. Next tip will be what to do for acid reflux if there is no bicarb or other base medicine in the house.
—————
Not Jin Shin Jyutsu but Qigong: To keep the typanic membranes soft, flexible, and responsive, insert forefingers in each ear and withdraw quickly (making a pressure change).
—————
Are you sitting on a soft surface when you sit on your hands. Palms up and middle finger on the crease between the behind and thigh? I suppose it could be painful if you do it on rocks or plywood, but if you are sitting in bed with your back against the backboard or upon an upholstered cushioned chair, I can’t imagine anything that can cause pain. It’s so simple, I can’t imagine a diagram. Sounds as if your weight is pretty harmonious. It should also quietly rejuvenate. If you advise what city you live in and what borough or county, I can give you the name of someone who could show you, if you still have difficulty. We do have lots of friends in many places.
———————-
Holding your high ones (inner thighs half way up leg) can be used in two ways and can be self administered or done by a third party:
1. It will cause you to cough up anything stuck in the throat or breathing and can be used as an alternative to a Heimlich maneuver if there is no one to apply it or if subject has ribs that would be hurt. Works well.
2. It will help with stimulating elimination. You may have to hold it for a few minutes.
———————–
Author: REBS
Comment:
To stimulate thyroid and hyperthyroid, tap to each side of the adam’s apple 1en times per day. Roger
——————–
Author: REBS
Comment:
John, I too wear hearing aids. I think that once the cilia are gone, they’re gone. Keep the wax our with olive oil or hydrogen peroxide in appropriate strength. Don’t injure the drums with q-tips or other objects. So far all the cures I have read are scams. Of course, good nutrition and health may help prevent further damage. Do balance exercises to retain inner ear balance. I use Hi Innovations from my medicare. I have used expensive aids, and it didn’t seem to make much difference in so far as crowds and bumper noise loud music in restaurants were concerned. Have you found any hearing aids that really are superior?
——————
Author: REBS
Comment:
Thanks John. I had heard about hopes to grow ciliae but had’n’t heard of much development. I bought Hi Innovations, under $1000 through my Medicare. I checked with Costco and the audiologist didn’t think the Costco hearing aids would do any better than the ones I had. The Hi Innovations worked as well as my $6,000 Widex ones. I will try to get Costco to let me try some out. By the way, keeping the tympanic membrane flexible by suction is important and my Dr. of Audiology was impressed by mine or 87 years of age. If you hear of something better let me know. Sometimes people who love you are kind when you can’t understand, but sometimes not. People don’t understand that it is not loudness that helps, just careful diction. Companies keep bragging of special directional selection, but I have yet to notice anything that really cuts out loud restaurant acoustics.
————–
Jin Shin Jyutsu aid to passing kidney stones: Place left hand on right shoulder between neck and shoulder point (in JSJ diagram on your Safety Energy Lock 11), and place your right hand on the line between rump and thigh (in JSJ diagram on your right Safety Energy Lock 25). Hold until stone passes (I’ve heard that it sometimes takes 20 minutes or an hour). Google for diagrams of JSJ safety energy locks. In the anecdote I heard, a practitioner was holding client’s safety energy locks. My sympathy, I’ve heard it’s very painful. My doctor friend used demerol to help him. If I’m being presumptuous in mentioning it, my apologies.
————–
Author: REBS
Comment:
I have tips here and in last few regular threads. When I had to put clients with emotional problems or personality disorders on the stand, I would run the stairs with them and then sit down and do deep breathing together before going to court. More than once in domestic matters they were cross examined about whether they had taken any calming drugs before testimony. If there are any particular projects you have, I will try to respond with any Jin Shin Jyutsu help I know of. JSJ like most Asian medicine, seeks to establish harmony so that the body can heal itself. I remember talking to a fine ER doctor who said that what he learned about skin in medical school was that if it protruded you cut it off, if it was indented you pulled it out, if it was wet, you dried it, and if was dry, you wet it. JSJ would look to stomach flow primarily for skin problems and spleen flow for infection and bring appropriate energy
—————–
SOME OTHER POSTS:
Author: ed_walker
Comment:
If your doctor agrees, try less invasive options first. A simple one that has helped some avoid knee replacement surgery is simply consuming gelatin. This was first mentioned to me by my friend, a neurosurgeon very familiar with joint issues. After researching I found some interesting info. Here’s a review from Amazon:
12/21/2010: Ken from Henderson, NV, Usa: ”My experience.. Back around
1985 my knees had to be replaced. The cartilage had worn away, and jagged bone was scraping on bone. Best known Dr. in Boston, MA took xrays. (BRUINS & CELTICS DR. ) both I and my wife saw the xrays. Got a 2nd opinion from specialist in Lowell, MA. Same diagnosis same xrays.
Looked very bad.
I COULD HARDLY WALK UP STAIRS AT all, Knees hurt so bad. No tennis, racketball, waterskiing, skating, no nothing. Bone against bone in both knees. Went home and on line found a study being done at Harvard Univ. They gave ground up chicken cartilage to patients about to get knee replacements. They reported amazing reversal of knee problems.
It took about 2 months for some pain to go away… I started taking 4 packets of KNOX GELATIN in orange juice every day. After 60 days I saw improvement starting. At six months I could climb stairs and run around with a frisbee with my kids. At one year I felt back to normal. About ten years ago I fell on my shoulder and it was xrayed in Winchester, MA. I told the doctor about my knee problem, he asked if he could xray my knees, and he did. HE POINTED OUT TO ME ALL THE WHITE CARTILEDGE IN MY KNEE JOINTS. He stated emphatically that I never had a knee problem in my knees.
I am now almost 70 and my knees are perfect. I know people who suffered with knee pain and Knox gelatin made their pain go away. I still take one packet every week or two. I actually told Knox about how it affected my knees, but they weren’t interested. (I know there is a lot of money made with knee surgery today. ) So basic it’s hard to believe. If I can help one person I’ll be very happy….. Please try it. It is practically free (the Knox is so cheap at the food store). I am no doctor, but I have great knees. Also if you have used Knox let me know how it worked for you. MAYBE WE CAN HELP SOME OTHERS……. KEN” I am now 71, and my knees are still perfect. many have done this world-wide .
————————–
Author: boldlygo
Comment:
Tom: Had stem cell injection in right knee about 15 months ago. Am very pleased with result. I had tried cortisone, hyaluronic acid, acupuncture, then considered knee replacement. Researched and tried stem cell shot (am a gambler). Cartilage growth is about 1 mm at best, but some unknown mechanism is at play, it appears. I walk about 2 miles each day; if not, I experience mild ”discomfort” in the knee.
My doc in SLC (am in CO) harvested stem cells from hip bone marrow and fat (had plenty enough), plus platelets. Insurance did not cover (experimental procedure), but Dr. KSS’s biotech $$ did.
My doc also advised using testosterone cream during recovery, and you being a young pup may find it stimulating as well.
—————–
Author: arch1
Comment:
Joe I get mine at a farm supply store. You might check the horse/tack section.
Link shows the stuff i get from a different supplier. Very pure and has less undesirable taste and odor. I use very little after thorough skin rinse. If it works for you , more does not seem to make better.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/dmso-16-fl-oz
Amazon has several options at higher price Google brings up lots for sale
I boil chicken bones or use pressure cooker to extract gelatin/collagen as it seems there is something else in that you don’t get with beef {Knox} gelatin. Always use in conjunction with citric acid/orange juice,calcium Citracal has both citric and calcium, and magnesium for max effect. Gelatin by itself does not work for me. Maybe Grandma was right about chicken soup.
🙂 May all be placebo but horses heal faster from acute stage of injury when used
—
Author: fstelson
Comment:
I first was exposed to the use of alpha hydroxyproline, a special amino acid found in gelatin, to help with osteoarthritis of the hip 30 years ago by the German orthopedist who first diagnosed this for me. My left hip is extremely malformed, and likely has been so since early childhood, but did not give me much pain despite high activity levels and really enormous burdens placed on it lifting weights. The alpha hydroxy proline seemed helpful as did other cartilage derivatives. When I returned to the US I could not then find such products. I came up with the idea of consuming unnflavored gelatin in large amounts, usuall a package a day dissolved in coffee , which I have now done most of the time for 30 years. I have recommended this to some patients with osteoarthritis as an inexpensive and benign therapy and have had some good reports. I have developed the plausiblee hypothesis that somethIng in gelatine/cartilage, perhaps this amino acid unique to cartilage, inhibits chondroclasts, the cells which destroy cartilage in cartilage remodeling. This would be a kind of negative feedback control which normally would inhibit overactivity of these cells by giving the ”message” that too much cartilage had already been destroyed. The equilibrium would then favor the relative activity of chondroblasts, which form new cartillage. Probably consuming gelatin also assures that the nutritive elements needed for new cartilage synthesis are also likely to be available. Anyway, if it is a placebo, it is usually harmless.
——–
This is a discussion topic or guest posting submitted by a Stock Gumshoe reader. The content has not been edited or reviewed by Stock Gumshoe, and any opinions expressed are those of the author alone.
11/30/14
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Nutrients curing disease? Let’s see….OK, vitamin C fixes scurvy, vitamin D fixes rickets. And beyond that, the whole edifice breaks down. Nutrients that prevent cancer? Please. Vitamin B12, vitamin A and vitamin E are all known to favor cancer development strongly, and vitamin B6 is now under suspicion. Selenium causes diabetes. All these people who have read Jordan Rubin’s “The Maker’s Diet” and have somehow been left in a state of babbling febrile incoherence from it. Don’t be seduced by ideology. Don’t believe in belief. There’s what you can prove, and what you can’t. Bee pollen and goat colostrum and green coffee enemas and Dr. Oz’s next little known berry that prevents Alzheimer disease and old age do nothing but separate people from what they work hard for. I erupt in hilarity at the US Department of Agriculture making preachments about ANY issue of health, related to cancer or not. These people are not your friends. If they were, they’d have banned antibiotics in livestock feed 40 years ago and would halt the addition of high fructose corn syrup to cattle feed. Our agricultural practices are appalling. Welcome to one of only 2-3 countries on earth where cracking a raw egg in your kitchen can actually be fatal. Nice work USDA!
————–
arch1
Dr. May I be in your amen corner? You have never tasted mayonnaise until you have had it made from raw egg freshly laid by free range, grass fed chickens, freshly squeezed lemon juice and a peppery green new pressed olive oil. I fondly remember when you could trust an egg with an uncracked shell to be safe. Agri-Industrial-Govt.-complex? Food is cheap, especially in quality in our new USA
—————-
Dr. KSS MD PhD
I was in Tokyo to give a talk and went down for breakfast and saw people cracking raw eggs over bowls of steamed rice. MMMmmmm, looked good. I did that too. Delicious. Safe. Could never do that here! Couldn’t agree more Frank.
————-
sandiegojp
add a few cloves of garlic in a blender and you have the most amazing aioli. Spread on a fresh crispy baguette, oven backed potatoes, fish, meat… well, just about anything really.
11/30/14
Dr. KSS MD PhD
http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g6979
Exposure to antibiotics either in utero or in early life predisposes children to asthma.
It’s the same thing with our GI tracts. People who have parasites in their GI tracts almost never get inflammatory bowel disease.
The immune system is like a puppy that must have something to chew on to keep it distracted. Make things too clean, too sterile, too ideal, and your immune system attacks you.
11/30/14
sandiegojp
Re: $NBY
I’d like to report on a personal experience with NBY’s iLid. I live real close to Eyedoc and I have a 14-yr old Weimeraner (Mr. Beaujangles) who has some sort of growth on his upper left eyelid. Because of his age, it was recommended that I do not remove it as it would require that he be put under. While it doesn’t seem to cause him much distressed (I’m probably more worried about it than he is), this eye is irritated, red and I have to clean out green “goo” that oozes out. Eyedoc was kind enough to let me have a bottle of iLid to test on Beau’s eye. Within the first use (one spritz), the redness has disappeared and no more green “goo” has formed (I spray him twice a day) in the last 3 days I’ve been using iLid. Also, Beau has a skin infection at the base of his butt. Eyedoc mentioned that iLid would be excellent to clear that. It is now 90% gone!
Thanks Eyedoc and thank you NovaBay!
———————
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Yes, likely fungal and likely susceptible to hypochlorous acid. That’s Najafi’s whole shtick: why do we need expensive antimicrobials when inexpensive chemicals often work as well or better? He should think about that….about animals.
I do wonder what the eye lesion is. A mastocytoma?
——————–
eyedoc
Interesting looking thing. Cylindrical mass, about 4 mm in diam and 7 mm long. Same color as skin, even covering of keratin without ulcers, solid without fluctuance, attached to upper eyelid at the gray line by a delicate and long (4-5 mm) bridge of tissue. No discharge or tenderness. Could be a wart as JP suggested/adenoma of meibomian gland origin/ foreign body reaction or other chronic inflammatory reactions. I have never seen anything like this on a human eyelid. If I did, a little anesthesia and a single snip with a Westcott scissor and away to the pathologist.
http://www.organic-pet-digest.com/dog-eye-warts.html
———————-
arch1
In a previous thread I mentioned that solution was roughly the same as a long time home remedy. I used it on myself and on various farm animals and found it very effective on skin lesions including bovine warts,,,not like a regular wart as are often an inch or more wide but in color and etc wartlike.,,, sore eyes in kittens, hotspots etc. I fully expected it to work and am amused as how “old is new again”,,,except of course consistent stable product,,,home remedy had to be made up fresh for each application. There was once a book printed, I think was named “One for a man Two for a horse” that covered things like this.
——————–
In honor of John’s fine job, I offer another brief Jin Shin Jyutsu tip. There are other good self help remedies for sea sickness. But holding the middle of wrist top and bottom (or front and back) simultaneously is as good as any. From a alternative health consideration, ginger is an excellent medication for sea sickness or a queasy stomach. I often brew some ginger tea. When we were on shipboard, the steward wait staff young people and those taking my Tai Chi class, who were suffering from mal de mer, were shown the holding front and back of the wrist around the joint to good effect. Caution, just as in Western medicine, nothing works for everybody 100% of the time, but the remedy is helpful.
4/27/15
Dr. KSS MD PhD
GE’s throwing some money into a hat for private start-up Neuronetics is worth watching….I’d like to be in on Neuronetics when they go public. They will be mass producing devices for transcranial magnetic therapy, and everyone will want one. These are the vanguard of therapy for depression in adults, and they will be invoked with very low threshold because I think few people regard agents like Prozac and Paxil as doing anything but creating a huge underclass of walking wounded who stay on those drugs forever and never get well. Transcranial magnetic therapy genuinely works (I have reviewed the literature), and the benefit is not placebo, and it has no side effects. Would you rather go on a drug that alters your personality (or may) and your sexuality (if you are female), or would you rather get well?
The day is coming when transcranial magnetic units for personal/home use will be available and I say bring it on.
—————-
cpr777
First, I’ve only recently joined gummie world, right before your recent hiatus, and have enjoyed your articles. I’m looking forward to reading more. Second, Thanks for this little tidbit. I’ve spent over 10 yrs on Paxil and it was extremely difficult to get off of it. I’ve been med free for a year now. It did help me, although I always told my Dr. I only like it from the neck up (for reasons you know about….). However, now being off any meds for a year, I’m disappointed. I guess I was hoping that years of living in the light and not being bogged down with anxiety and depression might have given me a new pattern from which to live the rest of my life. But, alas, it doesn’t appear to be the case. I have not heard of this treatment before, and as a person who has dealt with recurrent episodes all my life, I will look up on this treatment. Thank you Dr KSS
——————
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Hi Caroline: I admire your gumption for being open, and you have friends here. I predict that at least 40 percent of readers here have been on an antidepressant at one time or another, and depression is a vexing persistent problem for many, and should incur no shame. Paxil, as you may know, carries with it a kind of SSRI withdrawal syndrome that makes it among the most tetchy of psychiatric drugs to stop taking.
I often suggest to patients that they consider trying themselves on fish oil supplements as good data suggest that these can be every bit as effective against major depression as SSRI’s are, and with no downsides. Others often find their mental health markedly buffed up by achieving therapeutic levels of vitamin D3, in which most Europeans and Americans are woefully deficient. Consider a trial of vitamin D3 5000 to 10000 IU each morning, although do so recognizing that it will recruit Mg into bone and you will need a magnesium supplement, preferably with Mg glycinate. I note these adding that I am not a fan of vitamins or supplements and not a believer in “nutrient interventions” as a rule because data don’t support such thinking.
There is no theoretical reason that home cranial magnetization units that one plugs in cannot be made, and affordably so, and the approach has no downside and is highly effective. I cannot see a reason for using it only in resistant cases. Why not use it frontline?
Thanks for posting and welcome to our ever thinking and usually irreverent brood. Give us a chance and we’ll make you happy and be your best pals.
————-
Dan
Dr. KSS,
Thank you for your insightful suggestions on Paxil and on Magnesium, especially Mg with glycinate. May I suggest “Doctor’s Best 100% Chelated Mg. Glycinate” from iHerb.com. It’s cheap but still a high-quality product. I started my mother-in-law on it last year and her night-time leg cramps disappeared.
Speaking of insightful suggestions, I am benefiting from your Trazodone recommendation a while back so thank you for that as well!
———–
geoffb
If taking 5000 IU Vitamin D daily, what is ideal daily dose of Mg (Glycinate, of course!).
———–
Dan
Yen,
Regarding the “Doctor’s Best” Magnesium from iHerb, it looks to be 100mg per tablet and I get the large bottle– 240 tablets.
And Kenny, I bet yours is 100 mg too, not 200mg. It shows 200mg “per serving” which is two tablets.
————————
Dr. KSS MD PhD
To GeoffB….others on vitamin D3 should also read.
(1) We usually recommend people to take Mg glycinate because it is the one preparation that for absolute certain will not have a laxative effect
(2) people in renal insufficiency or who use Mg-based laxatives should not take Mg supplements
(3) Mg supplementation can have dramatic pulse slowing and blood pressure lowering effects. A personal story I am a little reluctant to tell. Some time back, I got into serious trouble with really high blood pressure. I won’t say here how high it was…..it was a genuinely shocking number. The antihypertensives were piled on and it was still poorly controlled.
Meanwhile, over the course of time, I began having really major problems with muscle cramping, particularly in my toes, whose supporting muscles would go into tetany many times a day. Without having other symptoms of prostate enlargement, I was being awakened with an urgent need to void 7 or more times a night. I was become quite tachycardic all the time, but was euthyroid. And the extreme hypertension remained, as did the side effects from all the drugs to control it.
I reasoned that I just had to be Mg deficient, the one thing that would tie all symptoms together. Mg deficiency is often mistaken for overactive bladder. I began heavily supplementing. I was reluctant to run things by a medical colleague, because we doctors are really bad about judging people, and I knew I would be suspected of alcoholism (alcohol abuse causes profound wasting of magnesium via urine). I am not a teetotaller; however, it would be really exceptional for me ever to consume more than one drink every 10 days.
About two weeks into heavy supplementing, something happened. I am in an odd house, built more vertically than horizontally. The upstairs is public, the downstairs, where I sleep, private. I was ascending the staircase first thing one morning and fainted. I took my BP: systolic was 85! And my pulse was slower than it had been in years. All the excessive running off to void had ended, and by that time the toe cramping had abated by 85 percent.
Today I am on no BP medicines. I take Mg glycinate 200 mg/day for maintenance. As to what my Mg level tends to the low, I may well have some sub rosa mutations in a cellular protein that acts on Mg and causes me not to hold on to it. No big deal really. We are all of us, everyone reading this, harboring several mutations.
If you think you are genuinely Mg deficient, I might consider 1-2 months of loading doses of 600 mg/day. You can, of course, do Mg levels, but I place little stock in them. 90 percent of body Mg is inside cells, a compartment not reflected by a blood test value. You could have low serum Mg but not be deficient. You could have normal serum Mg and still be very deficient.
Admittedly, my case of lowering BP as much as Mg did is not the norm, but I am proof it can happen. I take my BP about 3x/week, and as long as I don’t miss that Mg, my systolic is never above 135.
————————
dunnydame
Just have to add that after Dr KSS first mentioned some weeks back about using the Mg Glycinate (I was already taking Mg Citrate), I found a supply – Vitamin Cottage/Natural Grocers – Solaray brand – like others have noted – 100mg per capsule. I now take that in the morning and the Mg Citrate in the evening (I’m too cheap to discard a perfectly useful supplement).
AND at most recent doctor’s appt , family dr noted pattern of lower BP and halved the Triamterene-HCTZ part of my blood pressure meds. I was surprised – and happy.
Anectodal, yes, but thanks anyway for your advice, Dr KSS.
Penny
PS Drs appt was for wart removal advice for a recurring wart probably acquired from kissing too many frogs.
—————-
3/26/17
clipssu
Good morning Doc~ and Gummies while this isn’t BIO investing related I was fascinated by this.
$NoTicker but this is an article on treating Sepsis with Steroids and Vitamin C instead of an antibiotic.
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/03/23/521096488/doctor-turns-up-possible-treatment-for-deadly-sepsis
This hit home for me because my dad just had a battle with Sepsis after his knee replacement got infected 10 days after surgery. Almost cost him his life~
——————
adadfarm
Also long PTLA -For whatever it is worth – I was on warfarin for a number of years after an a-fib incident. Continual monitoring and adjustments to keep the INR figure within range as well as having to avoid vitamin k foods and beverages as well as salads and cruciferous veggies was a major annoyance, never mind the long term effect-prospects of warfarin. After a second a-fib incident, I was switched to Xarelto. Within several months, I found myself urinating blood for 24 hours and immediately stopping Xarelto. A PT scan found no bladder problems and I was switched to Eloquis which I am taking at half the prescribed dosage, unbenownst to my PCP, just because I”m not comfortable with the prospect of another bleeding incident. (Also cuts the cost in half, but that is irrelevant to me.) In the meantime I am enjoying salads and veggies and vitamin k consumables. – Curt
———————
3/15/17
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Because of our recent discussion about happiness, I wanted to mention the new coffee mug designed and being sold by my friend the absurdly talented Sheila Amir. http://www.nutritionsheila.com/store/p40/Happy_Coffee_Mug.html
Sheila is a popular writer and blogger about nutrition, and you might consider following her on twitter @nutritionsheila. Sheila tells me, by the way, that her life and health were literally transformed by vitamin D3.
———————–
finventurer
testing for D3 levels by routine should be mandatory here in Nordics. Some believe that for especially elderly people have chronic D3 deficiency causing numerous problems beginning with osteoporosis to extends of conginitve distortion in the long run. usually there’s not enough sun light for skin to synthesize D3 so quite many young people take 2000-4000 IU (or 50-100mikrograms) and actually feel themselves a lot better and resistant to seasonal flu etc. Placebo? Unlikely but i don’t have any data to prove any of this. Keywords here are chronic and deficiency. I’ll dig up the name of the study if i’m able to.
Even if knowledge of D3 is spreading like wildfire, still the officials here in Finland are poised to push their own agenda and keep telling people 100-200 IU/daily is enough. Official health recommendations in Finland are stuck in 60’s or 70’s and the cholesterol-thesis lives strong even today and recommendations for vitamins and minerals are “killing” us. for example omega fatty acid-balance or sugar causing vascular inflammation are entirely unknown concepts to them and they are reluctant to adjust their views – because the big pharma got them between their fingers. just recently there was an article covering the connections between MDs and pharma in biggest daily newspaper and quite many of those MDs also had a position in certain major offices of government if i recall correctly.
Getting people in better shape by only adjusting diets is gaining traction even if those MDs get scolded and even blackmailed by officials. There’s couple of clinics dedicated in getting people healthier and i have to admit i admire their work and publishing, they are doing a big service and favor for so many.
————–
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Personally I take 5000 IU/day each am. I would definitely consider running that by your personal MD…I don’t want you to, for example, get renal stones and blame me. But the likelihood of stones happening is low. What concerns me is that I feel most MD’s aren’t current on the data. In fact, that concerns me about ALL matters in medicine. Our current practice model of 7 minute visits, extreme throughput, discounted office visit fees, and a need to expend 2 minutes documenting for every minute of face time because of the stupidness of EMR means that MD’s don’t know anything any more. Hyperbole, yes, but an element of truth. When would they have time to keep current? They’ll draw a level, which is wrong (you are 97 percent likely to have a low level, thus it’s dumb to check and pay the doctor to “go over your result with you,”) and then chase the level, which is wrong too because levels take a long time to respond….loooooong time. The most simple, clear and cost-effective way to do things is to dose daily and forget about it. There is NO vitamin D toxicity state. Unfortunately the doctor has been brainwashed by the system to find a way to charge you for what you can do for yourself, and then to take credit for the success that you yourself have brought about. I am not knocking all MD’s….I am one, and we’ve got some stunners here too—-Casey, eyedoc, DBMD, Dr Bonz, others—but even they’ll admit they deal with a lot of practitioners doing a lot of stuff that, um, don’t make no sense. For the record, I’d let the 4 I named treat me any time.
—————
Dr. KSS MD PhD
I’ve always wondered whether eclampsia bore any relationship with vitamin D. An interesting new study says it does: https://www. vitamin dcouncil.org/preeclampsia-associated-with-impaired-placental- vitamin -d-metabolism/
I encourage readers interested in nutrition to subscribe to this free newsletter.
—————-
eyedoc
Possible adverse effects of high dose Vitamin D observed in women planning to conceive (although birth complications are less frequent).
http://www.medpagetoday.com/OBGYN/Pregnancy/58076
———-
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Vitamin D3 is really GOOD4U. Really.
http://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.i6583
Table pounded. Wouldn’t think of going without it myself.
——————-
JohnM
Doc – I think it is fascinating that there is so much disagreement among scientists and doctors about so many things – statin use, climate change, vitamin D. Dr. David Eifrig was on Wall Street for 10 years, then went to medical school and practiced for 10 years, then went to Stansberry Research to write Retirement Millionaire. He is strongly against vitamin D use over 800 IU/day.
http://retirementmillionairedaily.com/the-dangers-of-fat-soluble- vitamin s/
Long KSS and 10,000IU of D3 a day
—————-
Dr. KSS MD PhD
His assertions about vitamin A are old and false and have been disproven again and again. His claims of cancer, and other problems, being caused by vitamin D are ridiculous and not found in NEJM. As I’ve said many times, vitamin E intake is highly linked with rise in all-cause mortality, but excess vitamin K does not harm anyone and anyway, vitamin K is minimally fat soluble….you store at most 1 mg in your body. The fat soluble vs water soluble thing is very very dated and antiquated and is bogus science. For example, he’ll claim that vitamin B12 is water-soluble. But most clinical studies show the body stores over a year’s supply of vitamin B12.
———————-
3/26/17
REBS
Lulu. Google Pure Encapsulations re Mg. I trust this company and am cautious about others. For Magnesium Threonate see Pure Encapsulations discussion: when Googling. They have a cognitive pill containing it. (I have no financial interest in Pure Encapsulations).
—————
Dr. KSS MD PhD
They’re the most credible and competent company in the vitamin and supplement industry. I have dealt with them for years.
3/26/17
bellesmom
For those having gi problems when supplementing with magnesium, magnesium oil can be applied to/rubbed onto the skin to be absorbed transdermally and avoid the laxative effects. Also, most vitamin E supplements do not contain the whole array of vit. E compounds. Many only contain tocopherols – no tocotrienols! The imbalances may be a major problem in the outcome of studies.
——–
Dr. KSS MD PhD
In my opinion, there is no role for vitamin E supplementation in anyone. It’s linked in many studies to higher any/all-cause mortality. We don’t understand exactly why yet. However, as regards its antioxidant properties, a preponderance of data now suggest that antioxidant users die younger, and of two things: infections and cancer. The immune system relies on its on-demand oxidative voodoo to protect us against infections and cancer.
A good friend of mine was a major investigator in the vitamin E/selenium prostate cancer study, and I do have high regard for its results. They make biological sense if you really know what all that excess vitamin E does in your body.
—————-
rusty15
Tried Albion “magnesium bisglycinate chelate buffered” from Swanson. I assume that’s the same thing. Couldn’t tolerate that either. Will look up threonate. Wouldn’t bother running anything food/supplement by my gp or urologist. They look at me as if I have three eyes when I do! Kind of amazed they even test for Vit D, but I guess that’s a hot topic in medicine these days. Long as we’re on vitamin s, you believe correlation between E and increase in prostate cancer, or were those studies flawed? Most health sites say men should avoid E.
—————-
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Yes, and I should have added that at higher D3 doses, the vitamin drives a lot of uptake of Mg by bone. And so most people would do well to supp with Mg…..though Mg does not help with D3 absorption. Certain Mg preparations are rough on the GI tract, but NOT Mg glycinate or the newer Mg threonate, which is typically a little more expensive. Mg is a dynamic electrolyte and good for you, and yes I take Mg glycinate too. A legitimate physician has recently proposed that Carrie Fisher’s death’s root cause was Mg deficiency, and it’s highly plausible. Mr raises the threshold for cardiac arrhythmia sharply, as it’s soothing to the heart electrically. Again, run it by your personal MD, don’t take Mg if you’re in kidney failure, etc.
————
biotechlong (btl)
Re: Vitamin D
New research in mice at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis corroborates the wise counsel that Dr. KSS has recently shared with us regarding the risks of Vitamin D deficiency. The study, which was published March 19 in the journal Cell Reports, suggests vitamin D plays a major role in preventing the inflammation that leads to type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis. Further, the way key immune cells behave without adequate vitamin D may provide scientists with new therapeutic targets for patients with those disorders.
http://tinyurl.com/ldzefra
————-
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Agree. Unless you live near the equator and worship the sun, you need to be on vitamin D3. And it has nothing to do with calcium or your bones. Every cell in your body has hundreds of thousands of D receptors and D regulates inflammation and many processes. It upregulates beneficial inflammation that fights pathogens and tumor and downregulates inflammation that fights self.
Do yourself a big favor and take D3 daily, and please take a Mg glycinate supplement with it. You will feel better and live longer. No other vitamin can claim this.
————-
gummydave
On the same subject, this study indicates recommended daily intake is too low… http://www.newswise.com/articles/scientists-confirm-institute-of-medicine-recommendation-for- vitamin -d-intake-was-miscalculated-and-is-far-too-low
————–
hedy1234
DR. KSS- I see that there is a new long term study of vitamin D that says there is little positive benefit for lowering blood pressure. Vitamin D is touted as having multiple benefits and I thought I recalled you saying you take D3 and C. Or am I miss remembering?
—————
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Yes, I take D3 but not C. I just can’t see a role for C supplements. The BP news is a non-event because credible people never thought it affected BP at all. That was a myth started by the alternative crowd, and was not even worth studying. There is no scientific mechanism by which vit D could lower BP.
D’s virtues are that it ramps up immune patrolling against viruses, cancers and bacteria. And even though it does that, it also dampens immune responses that are inappropriate such as in MS and other autoimmune diseases. A growing body of data links vitamin D3 use to better mental health.
The key thing those taking vitamin D3 need to remember is that because of its ability to recruit magnesium to bone, it can make one quite hypomagnesemic. I supp with magnesium glycinate and if I forget I will get severe toe cramping, foot cramping, and even symptoms similar to overactive bladder…all typical of running low on Mag.
——–
Dr. KSS MD PhD
It is possible, but difficult, to take too much magnesium. Many of the prescription forms of it, like Mag SR, cause diarrhea in most people, which actually leads to Mg loss.
I take 10,000 IU of D3 per day in the am, and part of my reason for doing so is that I am a sun avoider. I have pasty white skin and always have and burn within minutes in full sun. At that dose, I take 200 mg of magnesium glycinate. I really don’t think any other form is advisable….I would avoid Mg oxide specifically….except a chelate like glycinate (from the amino acid glycine). For a person really Mg-depleted and spasming, I might have them take 600 mg Mg glycinate total daily for about 2 weeks to get loaded up on it…and then convert to a maintenance dose of 200 mg/day.
In many people, Mg will really ease hypertension. i am borderline hypertensive, and yet when I remember that Mg every day, my BP is stone cold normal.
Bear in mind that none of this applies for patients with kidney insufficiency, and also, if you have ever passed a renal stone, talk to your doctor before supplementing with vitamin D. Even so, a shocking 97 percent of Americans are vitamin D deficient.
4/13/14
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Greenfire: the key thing about vitamin D is that it MAY do something and clearly above all else is not harmful in high doses (very different in this way to many vitamins). I think there is clear cause and effect data that vitamin D intake cuts colorectal cancer risk. But if a mere 800 IU/day prevents falls in the elderly, why does anyone need a “supercharged” “exceptional” vitamin D like Rayaldy? They don’t. Biopharma and biotech have many lesser-tier players doing this, trying to take vitamins or natural products, nominally modify them in some way, and sell them as way more expensive things supposedly way more effective. Sirtris is trying this with resveratrol. Lovaza is such a product…”enhanced” “brand name” fish oil. Edison Pharmaceuticals is trying to play around with vitamin E just enough that they can claim superiority for a preparation (while vitamin E leads to much higher all-cause mortality, it is rather helpful for several of the mitochondrial cytopathies, but there is no evidence Edison’s agent is better than plain old vitamin E). Meanwhile, many of the really depraved companies that absolutely thrive on unverifiable claims, such as Shaklee and Life Extension, constantly take vitamins, do the most nugatory of modifications or reformulations, and make sweeping claims theirs is superior. I genuinely pray that the FDA will subject these companies to the same regulatory scrutiny as pharma, with a need to verify their claims with randomized controlled trials. Dollar for dollar, Americans spend as much on complimentary/alternative/natural remedies as they do legitimate pharmaceuticals. Because these companies have duped the manipulable with wild claims interspersed with random elements of truth. It appalls me constantly because it is a belief system, like religion is, and is impervious to data. The stronger the data that vitamins are nonsense, the more feverishly the adherents cling.
——————–
4/11/2014
Dr. KSS MD PhD
As regards the bone discussion, keep in mind that in either gender, that gender’s sex hormones tend to have anti-bone loss effects. And this underlies part of the surge in interest in testosterone supplements, as men get osteopenia too.
Adequate childhood calcium and vitamin D intake are critical for making your bones as thick as possible. Bone tends to be accretive in density up til about one’s mid20s, and then from there on through life, bone thins. After the age of 30, supplements and vitamins do not thicken bone at all, but merely attenuate the rate of loss (and often not by very much).
Why treat osteopenia? Does it matter? The main reason for treating it is to prevent vertebral compression fractures which are quite painful, can leave you bed bound in pain, and often require procedures like kyphoplasty to fix. I have aging female patients with cirrhosis (and cirrhosis incurs a serious hepatic dysosteogenesis) that I warn against activities such as sweeping leaves that involve lots of axial rotation, as this can snap vertebrae, not in a way that would paralyze, but can cause agony.
The bisphosphonates treat osteopenia, and for a long time it was thought that they deposit in bone and provide matrix for the deposition of calcium. But think of bones as soil occupied by earthworms. In your bones are two migrating kinds of cells, osteoblasts that lay down new bone and osteoclasts that eat up old bone. Bisphosphonates are ingested by osteoclasts, and this kills those cells.
The reason for bisphosphonates fading from favor is that because they summon calcium to deposit in bone, they lower serum calcium, That lowering activates one’s “calciumostat,” so to speak. Blood cries out that it is bereft of calcium, and so the parathyroid glands get activated and their hormone instructs bone to free up calcium. So there is finite extent, an asymptotic horizon, to how much a bisphosphonate can thicken bone. The more potent it is the more bone-softening hyperparathyroidism it induces.
This led to Amgen developing denosumab, an osteoclast killing monoclonal. It may lead to slightly fewer femoral fractures. The reason either category causes such fractures, though, is not bone necrosis but rather that the femur is a bone with very very high axial stress. As a result it has more micro-cracks in it than any bone. Microcracks summon osteoclasts and osteoblasts, and if you kill the former, you perturb bone remodelling at the cracks. So, rarely, the femur breaks. It is rare….risk is profoundly outweighed by benefit.
————————-
Dr. KSS MD PhD
To James Lizzle: vitamin D won’t harm you but I suspect it will not in any way help you with thrombocytopenia. But then, neither, really, will steroids. Are you and your doctors totally 100 per cent sure you do not have portal hypertension? Meanwhile, you can be perfectly fine with a platelet count of 50,000, and that does not require treatment. You are not at risk for bleeding at that level, and would have to go quite a lot lower to be in harm’s way. Are you being managed by a US physician? Without knowing all the particulars, I often take patients in this situation, vaccinate them for Haemophilus influenzae, meningococcus and Pneumococcus, and then subject them to splenic artery embolization to trim spleen size. It is less an ordeal and with far fewer downsides than splenectomy. It usually requires in house iv narcotics for pain control for a couple of days. Sorry you have that. Not a rare problem, unfortunately, but really corticosteroids don’t do much for it.
—————-
Dr. KSS MD PhD
A few musings about vitamin D. Our CEO may wring my neck for getting off-topic but I am doing this because it could prove to be eerily on topic.
I do take vitamin D daily. The deficiency rate in Americans is enormous, profligate. Science has actually had a pretty good idea since about 1910 that vitamin D does far more than potentiate calcium uptake. There are no downsides to taking it, and in fact overdosing is so difficult to do as to be functionally impossible. There are instances in which wayward children have swallowed entire bottles of capsules of it, and been found to have absolutely not-of-this-earth vitamin D blood levels, and no harm occurs.
The reasons vitamin D warrants a look have to do with its ability to enhance immune system surveillance against bacteria, viruses, and some kinds of cancer. It also appears that having adequate vitamin D is associated with a less wayward immune system. to wit, one that does not exhibit autoimmune behavior. There are molecular reasons for this….this interleukin boosted, that one suppressed, cytotoxicT cell activity rises, defensin augmentation.
There is still only weak cause effect data for vitamin D however. It may be that low vitamin D levels are a marker of bad health. Certainly I know of many second-tier physicians who are chasing vitamin D levels in people, and I worry that they are leading patients over a cliff with these. And high doses can cause ventricular premature contractions as well as significant issues with insomnia if taken after noon. It becomes a rather perfect excuse for a practitioner to generate revenue from lots of needless visits as achieving a sufficient state can take years. Vitamin D sufficiency is 30 ng/mL, and I know of one person who has chased his to 60 ng/mL, and feels proud of that, but cannot define a single way in which he is better, and seems oblivious to the fact that during that chase interval, he had to go on 3 new prescription drugs. Vitamin D is not a panacea. It may be merely quixotic to chase a level.
I feel the next 24 months, on the basis of several large RCT’s going on about vitamin D, will finally settle the issue of whether there is cause effect with vitamin D, or whether adequate levels are a non-specific marker of health and insufficient levels an indicator of compromised health. In such cases, there may be no role for supplementation. What is needed is proof that steady dosing raises level and is also correlated highly with some improved outcome. And it needs a control, placebo arm. Such studies are going on now, finally.
If it proves to work. expect any of several pharmaceutical companies to develop vitamin D receptor agonists. Vitamin D receptors abound throughout the entirety of the immune system. An agonist could work straightaway to abate certain chronic infectious or autoimmune illnesses whilst the vitamin itself takes a long time to accumulate.
—————–
Dr. KSS MD PhD
I am happy to debate, to have a Yojimbo-style smackdown with the alternative/vitamin/natural/supplement mongers any time and any where, but here is not the place for it. Also, in order to debate, anyone in a contest with me must agree to the ground rules that what matters is DATA, randomized control trials and those amazing but pesky thing the Arabs invented, numbers. The altie crowd will not agree to this because theirs is a belief system, subject to Draconian paranoid ideologic retrenchment when data deconstruct and debunk their notions. I have at my disposal an absolutely massive database of RCT’s on this issue. Meanwhile, vitamin E puts you in an early grave from many causes and also causes prostate cancer in men. The data are clear. Vitamin A puts you in an early grave. The data on it are clear. Vitamin B12 predisposes you to esophagus cancer and….do I need to go on? I may be going waaaaay out on a limb here, but I kinda bet Myron hasn’t ever performed a liver biopsy on anyone, found evidence of toxicity and had to confront patients with the fact that the stuff they aren’t telling the doctor they’re taking, but reluctantly admit to when confronted with the data, that it is trashing them. I don’t think he has written on this subject for Encyclopedia Britannica, which is deeply choosy about who writes for it and insists on lots and lots of data and citations. I have. And I don’t think he has ever had to break the news to families that their loved one is going to die because of the natural remedies with which they have irremediably harmed themselves. I have. And I tire of it and am sickened by it. This is a belief system that KILLS. My colleagues and me, the FDA, Big Pharma, yaaaaah….all in collusion to be sure you get cancer, deprive you of cures and be sure your health suffers. Anybody who really believes that just doesn’t need to be here.
————–
4/9/17
robertvince
Would love to see a debate between the good doctor KSS and Ray Kurzweil, who takes 150 supplements a day:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2467514/Ray-Kurzweil-shares-plans-immortality.html
Kurzweil is also a pretty smart guy with access to some of the best medical minds in the world.
———————–
Dr. KSS MD PhD
A proposition for everyone reading this thread: as you know, I am an opponent of junk science, and I feel that a great many of the arguments advanced by the herbal/vitamin/alternative/natural crowd are junk science.
Here is a recent study. Read it. Think about it. Mull it. Analyze it. Is this compelling science? Or is it junk science? Would you invest in curcumin? Why or why not? Ponder it and let’s discuss this evening. This is a good exercise in learning how to think about studies.
Curcumin Equals Fluoxetine for Major Depression
Sunday, 02 March 2014 16:23 By Janet Gulland – Vol. 15, No. 1. Spring, 2014
In a head to head comparison trial, a standardized form of curcumin—a bioactive compound found in the spice, Turmeric–proved as effective as fluoxetine in reducing signs and symptoms of major depression.
curcumin-depression-picTurmeric (Curcuma longa), a staple ingredient in Indian cooking, has generated considerable research attention over the last decade, partly in response to the growth of interest in Ayurveda and other forms of Asian medicine. A large body of clinical research describes the anti-inflammatory properties of curcumin when used as a food, and also when taken as a dietary supplement.
According to Ajay Goel, MD, of Baylor University Medical Center’s Sammons Cancer Center, the new finding that curcumin can reduce depression is in line with the increasing evidence linking depression with chronic, systemic inflammation.
Dr Goel, Director of Epigenetics & Cancer Prevention at Baylor, is at the forefront of clinical research into the potential therapeutic effects of turmeric and other common medicinal herbs. On the current study, he and his team worked in partnership with researchers at the Sir Takhatsinhji General Hospital, Gujarat, India.
They randomized 60 patients with longstanding major depression as defined by Hamilton Depression Rating Scores (HAM-D17), to treatment with fluoxetine (20 mg/d), curcumin 1,000 mg/d (as twice daily doses of 500 mg), or a combination of the drug and the herb together. The form of curcumin used in the trial was the BCM-95 standardized extract produced by Arjuna Natural Extracts, and containing 88% curcuminoids.
The patients, who had a mean age of 34 years and a mean baseline HAM-D score of 21, were evaluated at 2, 4 and 6 weeks after starting treatment by clinicians who were blinded to the assigned treatments.
Therapeutic Equivalence
Remissions were defined as HAM-D17 scores less than 7; treatment responses were defined as 50% or better reductions in HAM-D17 scores. A total of 9 patients abandoned their assigned treatments or were lost to follow-up, leaving 51 in the evaluable cohort.
The strongest response was in the group receiving combination therapy, with 77.8% of these patients showing a 50% or better reduction in symptom scores.
As monotherapies, fluoxetine and curcumin were more or less equivalent, with 50% score reductions obtained in 64.5% and 62.5% respectively. Dr. Goel noted that the difference between the two was not statistically significant.
At six weeks, curcumin alone gave a mean HAM-D score reduction of -12.6 points (-15.8 to -9.5 points); fluoxetine gave a mean change of -14 points (-18.2 to -9.8 points). The combination gave a mean score reduction of -14.8 points (-17.6 to -12 points).
Overall, there were full remissions of depression in 53% of the fluoxetine patients, 38% of the curcumin patients, and 56% of those taking the drug and herb in combination (Sanmukhani J, et al. Phytother Research 2013).
There were no differences in incidence of treatment-related adverse effects between the three groups. The most common complaint associated with curcumin was gastritis, reported by 6% of those in the monotherapy group, and 17% of those in the curcumin-fluoxetine group.
Exceeding Expectations
Dr. Goel noted that the curcumin dose in this study was fairly small, adding that he was pleasantly surprised by the antidepressant effect. “We knew that curcumin was a very strong anti-inflammatory, so we expected it to work, but we never expected it to work as well as prozac.”
This study followed closely on the heels of a trial by Joseph Bergman and colleagues at the Tirat Carmel Mental Health Center, Israel, who compared curcumin 500 mg/day versus placebo as add-ons to standard drug treatment (escitalopram or venlafaxine).
The Israeli team found that both the curcumin and the placebo gave additional benefit over pharmaceutical treatment alone in terms of reducing HAM-D scores and Clinical Global Impressions ratings (Bergman J, et al. Clin Neuropharmacol. 2013; 36(3): 73-7) Though there was no significant difference, they reported that “patients in the curcumin group demonstrated a trend toward more rapid relief of depressive symptoms.”
Dr. Goel believes curcumin represents a meaningful option for people with depression who are reluctant to use pharmaceutical antidepressants or for whom these drugs prove ineffective or problematic due to adverse effects.
He added that curcumin is readily obtainable for those who love Indian cuisine.
“If you can eat turmeric in your food every day, 3 meals a day, as is common in many parts of India, where I am originally from, you could potentially get enough curcumin to experience an antidepressant effect. Living here, most people are not eating 3 meals containing turmeric, so they’ll probably have to get it from supplements.”
In 2012, Dr. Goel’s team showed that BCM-95 curcumin, at a dose of 500 mg twice daily, was equivalent to Diclofenac, 50 mg, twice daily, in reducing the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (visit http://www.holisticprimarycare.net and read, Healing the NSAID Nation: Finding Safer Alternatives for Chronic Inflammation.)
His group has also shown that curcumin is helpful in prevention of colon, breast, and prostate cancer. “It is proven over and over. And all these effects are due to the fact that curcumin is a very, very strong anti-inflammatory compound. Inflammation is the root cause of most chronic diseases. If we can reduce inflammation, we can reduce all of these things. Curcumin provides an effective natural way of doing this with very low risk of adverse effects.”
The BCM-95 standardized curcumin is available commercially in the US from EuroPharma (www.EuroMedicaUSA.com)
————–
eyedoc
I believe that it takes 6-8 weeks for prozac to act. To compare cucumin with or without
prozac with measurements at 2, 4 and 6 weeks meaningless, especially without the presence of a placebo control group.
Dr KSS, have you any conclusions about the research done on Resveratrol as a supplement?
Dr. Whittaker combines it with a patented and more”bio-available’ form of tumeric as well
as a “dash” of aloe vera extract. It would be nice to know if I should just sip on a glass of cabernet sauvignon or munch on a couple of supplements.
Thanks!
—————
eyedoc
I meant compare curcumin by itself to Prozac by itself and Prozac plus curcumin.
————-
David B.
Where’s the control group? Where’s the replication? The sample size is too small. Nice advertisement for standardized curcumin from a specific company makes me very suspicious. But I do love Indian Food–it makes me happy! –there we are–it works!
————–
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Excellent critical thinking among those of you who read the curcumin study blurb.
My first big point Gary Reiter correctly anticipated. When there is a comparator arm in a study, is it worthy or a deliberate dud? Fluoxetine, Prozac, is the worst drug they could have chosen. Why? Prozac has a half life of 7 days. As a rule of thumb, it takes 4-5 drug half-lives fro the drug to achieve steady state and begin exerting an effect. So, by 6 weeks, the end of the study, Prozac barely had time to kick in.
Second, as Jer Vic pointed out, where is the control arm? There is not one. All studies must have a control arm. Because for any intervention, placebo accounts for at least 30 per cent of the benefit. People here that and think I am saying certain agents do nothing. Placebo is not nothing. It is very real. But it is an effect exerted because the recipient believes it will help. In psychiatry trials, placebo effects can be very high indeed.
Accupuncture is a process where ALL benefit is placebo. ALL of it. Careful randomized controlled trials show that for any acupuncture indication, if you prep the patient, get touchy-feely, do a little ritual, do a bit of moxibustion, the outcome is identical whether you jab a needle into a supposed chi channel or just barely prick the skin. Some critics say, well, I have seen dogs get better with acupuncture. How can a placebo effect work on a dog? Easy. Dogs are intensely attuned to owner behavior and expectation. Since the owner thinks the acupuncture helps, the dog responds to that and acts better. Which is why acupuncture does not work on non-owner-attuned pets like cats and horses. Acupuncture is pure placebo effect.
A third lethal criticism I have is that the study hypothesizes that curcumin helps inflammation. What is inflammation? Is there a working definition of that and how to measure it? No. Is there any evidence inflammation causes depression? No. Any reason 34- year-olds should have inflammation? No. What we do know is that whatever inflammation is, it is ameliorated by prednisone and by NSAIDS such as ibuprofen. Neither of which have any effect on depression.
Notice the disingenuous slide in the study….that something natural is better than a chemical. Why would that be? In what way is something natural better than a purified, crystallized, single isomer, chromatographically pure chemical proven to not cause cancer and proven to work? it isn’t. Among the alty crowd there is this bogus idea that labs are evil and nature is good. How is it that nature is good? What do these people somehow think nature wants you to be healthy and live longer? I do not see that in nature. For me, nature is about chaos, entropy, accidents, haphazards. As Baruch Spinoza wrote, We know that nature does NOT work with the end in view. I would argue that when we heal, it may be in spite of nature, or as a result of knowing its weaknesses and wooing it. But I find nothing scientific or plausible or reasonable in some idea that submitting yourself to nature is a good, wise, or rational thing.
Finally, the trial nowhere accounts for physician assessment of a patient. Patients often succumb to expectations, and so depression scale scores may improve. Clinicians assess by different methods: eye contact, psychomotor animation, vocal tone, thought content, comportment, behavior. Scoring systems for depression completed by patients cannot ever be the whole story in a depression trial, and other studies have shown that relying on these alone is not an accurate assessment.
Shame on Baylor for publicizing this trial, and shame on peer reviewers at the journal that published it. Junk science.
3/2/14
timmuggs
I take 2 supplements: Amla, from the berry of a tree in the Himalaya foothills, and Anatabloc, which is derived from tobacco, or a synthetic version of a tobacco derivative. Folks have said I am experiencing placebo effect. I say, great, gimme some more of those placebos.
I started taking amla because I had a problem with dry mouth, my mouth would get a nasty sour taste and breath would stink. I looked for info on the web, and some guy in Thailand described similar symptoms and said he fixed it by taking amla in pill form (it is commonly brewed as tea in India). I bought a bottle of 60 pills for about $9 and tried it. It had an immediate effect. I have since found that if I do not drink coffee or eat chocolate or drink wine at all, the symptoms recede anyway but do not disappear. But I’d rather have an espresso or vino and not get the nasty effects, so I take amla, two pills daily. If I stop taking it, the symptoms return. If I take it again, they go away. Am I being a fool? Should I convince myself it is all mental and will it away? For the price, forget it, I’ll take amla. It has a lot of vitamin C, and also a lot of tannins, but just taking vitamin C will not give me the same relief. BTW, the Indian info on amla is that it stimulates hair growth, among other things. I have a full head of hair, and now I have to get haircuts more often since taking amla. Maybe it’s my imagination but my barber sees me more often anyway.
I also take Anatabloc, 4 pills daily. It costs more than amla. It is a powerful anti-inflammatory. The reason I take it is because I exercise a lot, and I get soreness in muscles and joints. Anatabloc reduces the soreness, its effect is immediate (less than a day). Last week I did not take it on Thursday after a session with personal trainer, and for a couple of days after. I was sore, it was difficult walking up stairs. I took Anatabloc again, and the soreness goes away – I still feel the effects of exercise, but it is just enough to know I exercised, rather than my body saying to slow down. I know there are other anti-inflammatories, and maybe I should try them – maybe curcumin? I’ll give it a try sometime, it would probably save $$.
Some background FYI:
I am 71 years old, not obese, fit aerobically & otherwise from years of running, then walking after knees were hurting, then biking a lot. I have low blood pressure, low cholesterol LDLs & high HDLs, I take no prescription drugs. I get the occasional cold, but otherwise I’m very healthy. I started taking vitamin D in January after Dr KSS gave it a vote of confidence, and have not had a cold since – I hope I have not jinxed that by mentioning it.
Here is a question I posed to Dr. KSS and his answer re placebos.
Author: REBS
Dr.,Regarding the placebo effect, I have noticed and observed what appear to be remarkable healings or further development of things which should have happened in utero, in newborns, foals, race horses and dogs. I would guess that good results from hands on therapy per Asian medicine would not differ from acupuncture; but do you think the placebo effect can make significant developmental changes in newborns and premature babies? This is not meant as argument but as an earnest inquiry of your opinion. Roger
Author: Dr. KSS MD PhD
Comment:
I’d see no reason that an array of environmental effects could not be subsu=
med within placebo effect. Winston Churchill famously said that we design o=
ur buildings and that they redesign us by how their spaces and lines affect=
our thinking, mood and perception. Touch is extremely powerful, and holist=
ic minded teaching physicians encourage medical students compulsively to do=
the laying on of hands daily even when it seems redundant and mere exercis=
e because of how it seems to affect patients. Many people have unusual powe=
r over animals; when I was 16, by voice and hand cues I lured a feral horse=
to me, one long owned by a farmer who said the horse had ever-shunned all =
human interaction; he said this as the horse was eating grass from my hand.=
Newborns and premies may not have fully developed cognition, but they are =
hotbeds of intense perception and intently notice and respond to the world.=
Touch is vital for babies to be normal. Many psychologists believe that Te=
d Kuczynski’s (the Unabomber) sociopathy developed because as a very young =
child he had some or another infectious illness that resulting in weeks of =
no human contact except at great distance, and no touch. The death rate for=
orphan foals (infant horses) is essentially 100 percent, and nearly all ho=
rse scientists believe it is the impalpable sustenance of being in constant=
contact with the mother mare that causes the foal to survive. Traveling in=
Tanzania, I was deeply moved by how mothers lash babies onto their chests =
in a bundle for constant contact, regarded as necessary for the child to ac=
quire an eventual sense of safe independence.
9/22/12
Cleveland
“I have been on Anatabloc for two months and it has changed my life completely.”
Microblog post https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2012/09/microblog-anatabloc-at-gnc-star-scientific/
7/24/15
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Fundamentally, Kenny, your objection is the correct one. Most of the vitamin D literature is purely associational, and such studies are of only soft value, and there mainly to prompt the initiation of randomized controlled trials.
The things that have shifted the balance in favor of daily vitamin D use:
(1) latter year recognition of a stunning number of cellular events that take place when the vitamin D receptor is stimulated. In other words, bones and calcium are a minor facet.
(2) while some have argued correctly that the chronically ill may have low vitamin D as a marker of poor health, in fact how to explain it as merely that proves difficult. It was surmised that low vitamin D explained the fact that African-ancestry people often have poorer health than other races, but that proved to be spurious, as most blacks have high levels of a vitamin D-binding protein and so their net sum levels are fine. Studies of Africans in Africa do suggest strongly that hypertension begins in blacks at an early age, and that this event has nothing to do with living in the first world.
(3) vitamin D randomized controlled trials are hard to do because, first there is little money to be made from their outcome, and two, because people in them are absolutely notorious for exogenously adding vitamin D to their intake regardless of the arm to which they are randomized. What I am trying to say is that for most people when it’s low it’s because it’s actually low, and not some esoteric handwaving evidence of globally poor health.
(4) still randomized controlled trials are going on, and they do show a marked trend toward lower incidences of breast, colon and prostate cancer, fewer viral infections, and markedly fewer bacterial infections.
(5) the fact that no harm can accrue from being on vitamin D. Once in a while, someone will initiate and get a kidney stone, I admit, but such stones are anyway mostly prevented by good hydration. I personally have never had a patient on it get a kidney stone. I have observed those patients, each an anecdote I admit, stop getting sick, stop getting routine infectious illnesses.
(6) because the brain literally abounds in vitamin D receptors, I have to believe those are there for some purpose.
3/1/15
Dr. KSS MD PhD
The telomerase argument is intellectually vapid and very flawed. I have explained on 5-6 occasions in the last year in the threads why this is so. I may have time to revisit it after dinner or in the morning.
Telomerase potentiating vitamin s like tocotrienol rich fractions and vitamin E basically set you up for cancer. My blood boils that snake oil potions are sold and that people harm themselves. I seem to preach here once a month about this and still mostly no one listens.
I would not invest in $GERN. It wallows.
2/22/15
Dr. KSS, MD, PhD
They’re extremely useful for the following clinical effects
(1) expensive urine
(2) skinny wallets
(3) placebo sense of wellbeing
(4) drug-induced liver injury, which 30 percent of supplement takers have
A supplement may have trace quantities of a useful substance , but that in no way legitimates supplements which are utterly pointless, harmful or both. Many many supplements increase cancer and infectious disease risk. Vitamin E shortens lives radically. Selenium leads to DM-II. Vitamin A leads to lung cancer. Vitamin B12 promotes esophagus cancer and vitamin B6 gastric cancer. Good luck with those supplements!
2/21/15
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Yes, and I stand by that. Data are strong and getting stronger. I do it myself. And I feel strongly that doing “levels” is nonsense. No one has established the meaning of levels. No one has established that chasing levels accomplishes anything. In this nation your chance of being deficient is 90 percent. Vitamin D overdose and toxicity may be impossible…certainly it would take daily doses of 500,000 IU for a long time to feel ill from that, though some data dispute that being made ill by it can even happen. Colon breast and prostate cancer risk nosedive in those who take it.
9/7/16
Dr. KSS MD PhD
Interesting musing in today’s NYY about vitamin B12 and the brain.
Vitamin B12 as Protection for the Aging Brain
Personal Health
By JANE E. BRODY SEPT. 6, 2016
As a woman of a certain age who consumes a well-balanced diet of all the usual food groups, including reasonable amounts of animal protein, I tend to dismiss advice to take a multivitamin supplement. I’ve been told repeatedly by nutrition experts that the overuse of dietary supplements for “nutritional insurance” has given Americans the most expensive urine in the world.
I do take a daily supplement of vitamin D, based on considerable evidence of its multiple health benefits, especially for older people. However, based on advice from the National Academy of Medicine and an examination of accumulating research, I’m prompted to consider also taking a vitamin B12 supplement in hopes of protecting my aging brain.
Animal protein foods — meat, fish, milk, cheese and eggs — are the only reliable natural dietary sources of B12, and I do get ample amounts of several in my regular diet. But now at age 75, I wonder whether I’m still able to reap the full benefit of what I ingest.
You see, the ability to absorb B12 naturally present in foods depends on the presence of adequate stomach acid, the enzyme pepsin and a gastric protein called intrinsic factor to release the vitamin from the food protein it is attached to. Only then can the vitamin be absorbed by the small intestine. As people age, acid-producing cells in the stomach may gradually cease to function, a condition called atrophic gastritis.
A century ago, researchers discovered that some people — most likely including Mary Todd Lincoln — had a condition called pernicious anemia, a deficiency of red blood cells ultimately identified as an autoimmune disease that causes a loss of stomach cells needed for B12 absorption. Mrs. Lincoln was known to behave erratically and was ultimately committed to a mental hospital.
“Depression, dementia and mental impairment are often associated with” a deficiency of B12 and its companion B vitamin folate, “especially in the elderly,” Dr. Rajaprabhakaran Rajarethinam, a psychiatrist at Wayne State University School of Medicine, has written.
He described a 66-year-old woman hospitalized with severe depression, psychosis and a loss of energy and interest in life who had extremely low blood levels of B12 and whose symptoms were almost entirely reversed by injections of the vitamin.
European researchers have also shown that giving B12 to people deficient in the vitamin helped protect many of the areas of the brain damaged by Alzheimer’s disease. In a two-year study at the University of Oxford of 270 people older than 70 with mild cognitive impairment and low B12 levels, Dr. Helga Refsum, a professor of nutrition at the University of Oslo, found reduced cerebral atrophy in those treated with high doses of the vitamin.
“A B12 vitamin deficiency as a cause of cognitive issues is more common than we think, especially among the elderly who live alone and don’t eat properly,” Dr. Rajarethinam said.
The academy estimates that between 10 percent and 30 percent of people older than 50 produce too little stomach acid to release B12 from its carrier protein in foods, and as the years advance, the percentage of low-acid producers rises.
But many people do not know they produce inadequate amounts of stomach acid. In fact, evidence from a study of young adults called the Framingham Offspring Study suggests that insufficient absorption of B12 from foods may even be common among adults aged 26 to 49, so the following advice may pertain to them as well.
The academy recommends that adults older than 50 get most of their daily requirement of B12 — 2.4 micrograms for people 14 and older, slightly more for women who are pregnant or nursing — from a synthetic form of the vitamin found in foods fortified with B12 or in a multivitamin supplement. Synthetic B12 is not attached to protein and thus bypasses the need for stomach acid. Given that I eat very few fortified foods, a supplement with B12 is likely to be my best option.
Certain groups besides older people are also at risk of a B12 deficiency. They include vegetarians and vegans who consume little or no animal foods; people with disorders of the stomach and small intestine like celiac disease and Crohn’s disease; chronic users of proton-pump inhibitors to control acid reflux; and people whose digestive systems were surgically reduced for weight-loss or treatment for cancer or ulcerative colitis.
Among those most likely to be B12 deficient are the older patients in nursing homes whose diets are limited, and this deficiency may account in part for the symptoms of cognitive dysfunction so common among nursing home residents.
While a B12 deficiency can take years to develop, encroaching symptoms can be distressing and eventually devastating. It can also be challenging to link such symptoms to a nutrient deficiency.
In an online posting in July, David G. Schardt, the senior nutritionist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, noted that symptoms of B12 deficiency include fatigue, tingling and numbness in the hands and feet, muscle weakness and loss of reflexes, which may progress to confusion, depression, memory loss and dementia as the deficiency grows more severe.
Early symptoms can be reversed by treatment with high doses of B12, usually given by injection. But symptoms related to nerve damage and dementia are more likely to be permanent. Thus, it is especially important for people at risk of a B12 deficiency to have their blood tested for it periodically. For example, experts at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., suggest that chronic users of proton-pump inhibitors should have their B12 level tested every two years.
62
COMMENTS
Vegetarians and vegans need not despair. In addition to B12 supplements, various commercially prepared plant-based foods, like some breakfast cereals, nondairy milks and soy products and one type of nutritional yeast, are fortified with synthetic B12. The Vegan Society recommends eating two to three servings a day of fortified foods to get at least three micrograms of B12.
However, Dr. Ralph Carmel, a retired hematologist now affiliated with New York University who studied the effects of B12 for decades, cautions against taking megadoses of the vitamin. He said in an interview that too often, “People who really need B12 don’t get it, and those who don’t need it, like athletes, often take huge doses — 2,000 or 5,000 micrograms a day. We don’t know what such doses can do in the long run. If an older person has low-ish B12 levels, I don’t object to taking 500 or 1,000 micrograms a day, but 5,000 is ridiculous.”