Dr. Forrest of Forrest Health Online discusses the causes, diagnosis and holistic treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder using natural nutrients, herbs & homeopathic remedies.
Thursday, September 20, 2007 by: Bradley R. Chappell
Printable version Key concepts: red yeast rice, the FDA and Baycol.
On August 9th the FDA issued a warning to the public against buying or consuming three red yeast rice products sold on the internet. The FDA stated as their primary reasons for this action; “The products may contain an unauthorized drug that could be harmful to health. The products are promoted as dietary supplements for treating high cholesterol.”
The FDA goes on to list the “potentially harmful products” and the companies involved; Swanson Healthcare, Nature’s Value, Kabco and Sunburst Biorganics. The letter states, “FDA testing revealed the products contain lovastatin, the active pharmaceutical ingredient in Mevacor, a prescription drug approved for marketing in the United States as a treatment for high cholesterol.” It goes on to say,” “This risk is even more serious because consumers may not know the side effects associated with lovastatin and the fact that it can adversely interact with other medications,” said Steven Galson, M.D., M.P.H., director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. These red yeast rice products are a threat to health because the possibility exists that lovastatin can cause severe muscle problems leading to kidney impairment.”
In keeping with FDA policy warning letters were sent to Swanson and Sunburst Biorganics advising them to halt promotion and sales of the products at the risk of further legal action.
At face value this would seem to be nothing more than a caring, compassionate act of a Government organization, intent on your safety and health. But is there more to it than this?
An uneasy alliance
In a News Target article by Jessica Fraser she states, “Red yeast rice has been used for over 1,000 years in China to improve circulation and treat indigestion and diarrhea. It is made from rice fermented by a red yeast known as Monascus purpureus and is frequently used as a food preservative and food color, as well as a spice and a component of rice wine.”.
According to research on PubMed red yeast rice consists of 14 monacolin compounds such as monacolin K, a natural lovastatin. Some scientists believe that these other monacolins, along with its naturally occurring unsaturated fatty acids and anti-oxidants, may work together favorably with lovastatin to enhance its cholesterol-lowering effects, as well as its ability to lower triglycerides and increase HDL cholesterol. This is red yeast rice in its natural state of which the average daily consumption in Asia is 14 to 55 grams per person.
Enter, the FDA policies. According to FDA, Swanson’s products, if taken as advertised on the company’s website, provide more than 5 mg of lovastatin daily, or half the lowest-recommended daily dose of FDA-approved formulations of the drug.
FDA stated that Sunburst’s product, Cholestrix, is advertised as containing “1.35% of naturally occurring lovastatin,” with two tablets daily providing 10 mg of the drug. Sunburst’s website featured an image of the Cholestrix bottle with the label clearly stating that the product is “Standardized to Contain 1.35% Lovastatin.”
FDA contends that traditional red yeast rice contains, at the most, trace levels of lovastatin and described the purported supplements as unapproved drugs that have been “enhanced” with lovastatin, which has been regulated as a drug since 1987. Since none of the other companies that manufacture red yeast rice have concentrated their product through standardization they have been able to fly under the FDA radar. Most have a recommended dosage of 600 to 1200mg a day, which is about 10% of what they consume on a daily basis in Asia.
The second issue addresed by the FDA was the companies’ websites making claims that the red yeast products are intended for the diagnosis, cure, prevention or treatment of diseases. Supplement makers and distributors are prohibited under the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act from making such claims for their products; unless you manufacture Traditional Chinese Medicine evidently. There is a concentrated red yeast rice formulation called Xuezhikang which, according to research, “could readjust human blood-fat levels and long term use could lower the occurrence rate of the disease by over 45 percent and the recurrence rate of non-fatal myocardial infarctions by some 60 percent.” Yet as of this date they are free to advertise their claims freely on the internet.
A statin by any other name
The primary issue for the FDA seems to be the danger of accidental abuse of the very dangerous drug, lovastatin, even though a person would have to take twice as much to equal one dose of Mevacor. Aside from which, people use alternative methods of healing to get away from pharmaceuticals, not as an adjunct, therefore it is unlikely health conscious people would be using Mevacor and the red yeast rice together.
The FDA is correct; there is a definite proven danger to using statin drugs. In an article by Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD we are told, “The most common side effect (of statin drugs) is muscle pain and weakness, a condition called rhabdomyolysis, most likely due to the depletion of Co-Q10, a nutrient that supports muscle function.” Rhabdomyalysis is a common, many times lethal, tearing down of the muscle tissue which is then distributed into the bloodstream. The article goes on to say, “Dr. Beatrice Golomb of San Diego, California is currently conducting a series of studies on statin side effects. The industry insists that only 2-3 percent of patients get muscle aches and cramps but in one study, Golomb found that 98 percent of patients taking Lipitor and one-third of the patients taking Mevachor (a lower-dose statin) suffered from muscle problems.” When your doctor says, “Let me know if you have any discomfort in your calves or back so we can adjust your dosage”, this is what he is watching out for.
Many times the side effects take time to manifest. Here is one case Fallon and Enig relate concerning Mevacor (lovastatin); “ John Altrocchi took Mevacor for three years without side effects; then he developed calf pain so severe he could hardly walk. He also experienced episodes of temporary memory loss.”
More often, however, the debilitating side effects of statin drugs are much quicker to manifest as in the case of Bayer’s short lived contribution to the market Baycol, which was approved in 1997 and voluntarily pulled from the market a short 4 years later. (Take note of the fact that Bayer chose to withdraw this drug after 60 rhabdomyolysis related deaths and not at the prompting of the FDA).
The headlines of a news release dated August 8, 2001 read “BAYER VOLUNTARILY WITHDRAWS BAYCOL” which claimed, ”FDA today announced that Bayer Pharmaceutical Division is voluntarily withdrawing Baycol (cerivastatin) from the U.S. market because of reports of sometimes fatal rhabdomyolysis, a severe muscle adverse reaction from this cholesterol-lowering (lipid-lowering) product. The FDA agrees with and supports this decision.”
Duane Graveline MD MPH Former USAF Flight Surgeon, Former NASA Astronaut and Retired Family Doctor states, “In August 2001 the statin drug, Baycol, was removed from the market after causing at least 60 deaths. As a result, the safety of all statin drugs has subsequently come into question”. (For a complete history of Baycol from pre-market strategies, through FDA complicity and into the post-withdrawal litigation read the Journal of Medical Marketing (2007) article by Reinhard Angelmar)
In my research I was unable to find even one case of red yeast rice related death or debility but as a health consultant I would advise anyone considering using RYR to ere on the side of caution and seek professional advice.
To sum up, the FDA may have had a legitimate reason to come down on these companies for making claims that only the FDA approved drug companies can legally make but it is up to you to decide if the FDA was actually safeguarding our health or simply guarding their own fiscal interests.
After recent endorsements from PTO Today and the FDA, I’d been wondering what’s up Tate & Lyle’s sleeve next for sucralose, its harmful “anything-but-a-sugar” product better known around the world as Splenda. Look no further than the cereal aisle in your grocery store…
Tate & Lyle announced the launch of two “cereal ingredient solution sets” — ENRICH 701 and ENRICH 702 — during last week’s meeting of the American Association of Cereal Chemists in Orlando. According to the press release, both “solution sets” contain 100 calories and “deliver good bowl life and a well-rounded base flavor profile complimentary of cereal grains.”
Just reading the words solution sets when it comes to something you eat doesn’t sound like anything you’d want to put in your mouth, does it?
Both products were formulated with an eye for the latest interest in whole grain products. Fact is, no matter what metabolic type your body falls into, your health would improve greatly by avoiding all grains, and even whole grains.
That doesn’t take into account the array of health problems associated with consuming products containing sucralose. If you’re at all skeptical about health issues surrounding this unnatural product, I strongly urge you to review the growing number of testimonials I’ve posted on my site.
Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.
Confucius
Is it a crime to be human? We give ourselves so little room to make mistakes, and they are a part of learning. The crime is not learning from your mistakes and growing as a person!
Daniel - admin
Barry Bittman M.D.
It’s time to emerge from the doldrums.
In fact, you don’t have any time to waste - especially if you want to add quality years to your life. Mayo Clinic researchers finally gave us the proof we need to kick our negative friends and loved-ones where it hurts the most - right in the attitude!
According to a recent article in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, the actual difference between optimists and pessimists just might amount to about 12 years of life. The Mayo team began by examining personality tests performed in the early and mid ’60s. They proceeded to look well into future to see how things turned out. Actually they followed their subjects (about 30 years), to scientifically measure the relationship between attitude and longevity. Simply stated, they’ve shown what many have known all along - the mind and body are an inseparable team!
Dr. Toshihiko Maruta, the study’s chief investigator stated, “The important thing is that we’ve proven the relationship scientifically, and made a correlation between how people see the world when they’re young and how they turn out 30 years later.”
You might be thinking that optimism vs. pessimism depends on one’s environment, circumstances and stressors. While I’m certainly not doubting these factors play a role, I recognize that people, even under the worst conditions, have the innate capacity to be positive and hopeful.
Ultimately, it’s not the stress that kills us. Rather, it’s our perception of stress that makes the difference.
Perception seems to determine whether that pink slip on Friday heralds doomsday or a new chance for realizing our dreams. It has also been shown to determine the killing capacity of specific cells in our body that fight cancer. The scratch on your car door can only destroy your day if you allow it to do so. Yes, we do have a choice!
In fact, we have the capacity to change and to adopt a new belief system whenever the opportunity arises. We also have the ability to create that opportunity. I suppose that’s one of the perks of being human.
And when it comes to change, we should all be experts by now. For nothing really stands still in life. As Tony DeFail and I noted in our book, Maze of Life, “three things in life are certain: death, taxes and change.”
Yet what changes and what needs to change are often quite different. Some people simply don’t know where to begin. I often suggest finding a role model and discovering their formula for succeeding. The one thing I can assure you is that no pessimist ever built a steady stream of successes. Why not consider these basic observations:
While we;ve heard these statements over and over again, did you ever realize that the common denominator is “belief.” The good news is that beliefs are changeable. We can learn to cope and to de-stress ourselves. The capacity to develop a positive attitude is within us.
The problem, however, is that attitudinal change requires work and determination. Unfortunately, it’s easier to sulk than to discover something positive. It’s far simpler to sink into despair that it is to rise above a situation. It requires far less effort to wage war than to recreate peace.
Begin with a healthy dose of determination, add willingness to develop a positive belief system and sprinkle in a comforting sense of hope. Find a role model, take a class, sit in the park, watch children play and imagine how wonderful the next moment can be. For stringing together a series of wonderful moments is all it takes to create the future of our dreams.
You’ll soon discover that when positive change begins within, everything seems to magically change around us. The glass that was once half empty is now the one that’s half full. The obstacle we counted on (the one preventing us from moving ahead) is now seen as an opportunity in disguise. The life we failed to appreciate suddenly yields 12 more years of incredible moments. All it takes is a kick in the attitude - Mind Over Matter!
© 2000 Barry Bittman, MD all rights reserved
Tuesday, September 18, 2007 by: David Gutierrez
Printable version Key concepts: Vitamin D, pregnancy and vitamin D deficiency.
The vast majority of pregnant women tested in a study published this year in the Journal of Nutrition were found to be deficient in vitamin D, as were their infants. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh found widespread vitamin D deficiency, even though more than 90 percent of the women tested were taking vitamin supplements during pregnancy.
• Researchers evaluated blood tests on 200 black women and 200 white women who had been studied between 1997 and 2001. Blood samples taken from their infants at birth were also studied.
• More than 80 percent of black women and almost 50 percent of white women tested vitamin D deficient at pregnancy. The levels were even higher among infants; 92.4 percent of black babies and 66.1 percent of white babies were vitamin D deficient at birth.
• Vitamin D deficiency in infants can cause rickets, a softening of the bones that can lead to deformity and other complications. Low levels of vitamin D have also been linked to increased risk for asthma, Type 1 diabetes and schizophrenia.
• Vitamin D concentrations among both black and white women were highest in the summer and lowest in the winter and spring. Among black women, however, summer levels were closer to the lower winter levels than among white women.
• The safest way to obtain vitamin D is by exposure to sunshine. For most people, 25 minutes of sun on the face and hands can cause the body to synthesize sufficient vitamin D. For lighter-skinned people, 10-15 minutes will suffice.
• Quote: “By the end of pregnancy, 90 percent of all women were taking prenatal vitamins and yet deficiency was still common.” — Marjorie L. McCullough, senior epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society
Free report: The Healing Power of Sunlight and Vitamin D features an exclusive interview with Dr. Michael Holick, plus a list of 15 facts you never knew about vitamin D! (Must read report for all health consumers.)
• In spite of widespread use of supplements, vitamin D deficiency is incredibly common during pregnancy, and the vast majority of children being born today are vitamin D deficient.
Rawdawg Rory makes raw energy bars using dates, seeds, nuts, raisins, and dried cranberries.
Monday, September 17, 2007 by: Mike Adams
Printable version Key concepts: water, farmers and pesticides.
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These days, it seems increasingly difficult to know what to shop for at the grocery store. Is organic always better than conventional? What if it’s an “organic” product that’s been flown half-way around the world, burning up fossil fuels that contribute to global warming? How do you decide what’s better: A conventional apple grown locally with chemical pesticides, or an organic apple from another continent?
This is a common conundrum among consumers: How do you decide which grocery products are best for not just your own personal health, but also the health of the planet? It’s a more complex decision than it might first seem. For one thing, much of the information necessary to make an informed decision simply isn’t available to consumers. There is not determined enforcement of the rule, for example, that foods are accurately labeled with their country of origin. Nor is there any requirement to disclose which foods were grown with pesticides, herbicides or other chemicals banned in the United States (and U.K.) but still legal in other places like Central and South America.
If that last sentence surprises you, it should: not one in a hundred American consumers are aware that it is perfectly legal for U.S. chemical companies to export dangerous chemical pesticides (like DDT) that have been banned for use on crops in the United States. Those pesticides are sold to countries with lower environmental and health standards which turn around and use them on crops that are exported right back to the USA. So U.S. consumers end up eating produce grown with the very same pesticides banned in the United States, and it’s all perfectly legal and openly accepted by the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In the U.S., there’s also the issue of so-called “illegal immigrants” (which I believe to be a strange term, since in my opinion there’s no such thing as an “illegal” human being). On one hand, U.S. consumers demand cheap produce that can only be grown and harvested with the help of illegal immigrant labor. On the other hand, Americans grumble about too many Mexicans migrating into California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, claiming they are stealing jobs and bankruptcing cities and states. And yet, not surprisingly, when most consumers have a choice between a $3 apple grown on a farm that pays legal wages to U.S. workers and a $1 apple grown on a farm that pays “illegal” wages to an undocumented worker from Mexico, most Americans will choose the $1 apple (and in doing so, they are in fact continuing to vote for the very illegal immigration they claim to oppose).
Making an informed produce purchasing decision at the grocery store, it turns out, is nearly impossible these days. There’s no way to know where the food came from, what soils it was grown in, the immigration status of those who harvested it, and which chemicals were used on it. And to make matters worse, powerful food corporations are constantly trying to water down the definition of “organic” to include the agricultural use of obscene substances such as raw human sewage. (Fortunately, that was not ultimately allowed under the “organic” label, but the food companies tried to sneak it in!)
The only way to truly know where your food comes from is to know your local farmers. When you know the people growing your food, and you can meet them face to face, then you know what you’re getting. That’s why I’m a huge supporter of CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), farmers’ markets, backyard gardening and local food co-ops. Through organizations like these, consumers can maintain close relationships with the people who grow their food, and farmers are able to exercise far greater control over what they grow, how they grow it, and how much they get paid for it.
Large commercial food companies like ADM would prefer that farmers remain isolated from consumers. They want all the food processing to go through them first, where they set the prices and conditions that farmers are forced to accept. Other corporations have used intellectual property control over genetically modified seeds to threaten farmers who are refusing to adopt their pesticide-ready crop varieties. It’s all part of a plan to control the global food supply — an endeavor that inevitably destroys local farming as well as agricultural biodiversity (which leaves crops susceptible to future wipeouts from infectious disease).
Sure, these companies can produce a nice, round, shiny apple at the grocery store for an unbelievably low price, but at what cost to the world? The existence of that apple is based on numerous inputs that may be highly detrimental to the health of the planet as a whole: The burning of fossil fuels for farming and transportation, the use of chemical pesticides that wash downstream and poison aquatic ecosystems, the use of artificial fertilizers that lack real soil nutrition, the destruction of microbial life in agricultural soils, the loss of biodiversity and the subsequent decline in wildlife populations, and so on.
When you look at an apple, you’re really looking at an historical account of everything that happened to bring you that apple. The whole story is written into that apple. There’s the intention of the people involved with producing that apple, the health of the soils, the use of chemicals (or not) on the apple, the impact on the environment, and much more.
An organic, locally-farmed apple from a small family farm tells a very different story: Respect for nature, positive intention, healthful soils, humility in nature, connection with plants and animals, biodiversity, minimal use of fossil fuels, and so on. This is the kind of apple I’d like to eat… how about you?
Now here’s the real kicker in all this: When you eat an apple, you absorb and assimilate the story that went into creating that apple! So eating an organic, locally-grown, consciously-harvested apple gives you not only nourishment and biochemical nutrition, it also gives you the positive energy of abundance, humility, harmony and happiness. A conventionally-grown apple, on the other hand, is more likely to give you the story of greed, desperation, depletion, fear and disease. Is that the energy you want circulating in your veins?
An apple, you see, is made of much more than its chemical constituents. All fruits and vegetables have water, and water stores emotional energy, passing it on to those who consume the water. Since an apple is probably something like 75% water by volume, eating an apple is actually an exercise in chewing mostly on water.
Aren’t you curious to know what kind of energy and intention is in that water? You should be. Because beyond the vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients in the apple, the water impacts your body, mind and spirit more than anything else. And one of the reasons we see so much obesity in America today is because people are eating empty, lifeless food products that provide only calories but no energetic nourishment. The food is mostly an empty shell, lifeless and devoid of positive vibration (and then they cook it, irradiate it and process it even more to give it shelf life!).
For the most part, the food isn’t being grown, harvested and sold at a high enough vibration to end the cravings human beings have for nourishment at all levels: physical, emotional and spiritual. The food being sold today is missing something, and if you want complete food that’s nourishing at all levels, I strongly recommend you grow it yourself or work with local farmers who you know are passionate about cooperating with nature to maximize abundance for themselves and those around them.
Luci Lock from www.mercola.com Cooking for Total Health explains how to make healthy cup cakes from all natural ingredients
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