Never Be Sick Again (40 page)

Hormones are part of the body's cell-to-cell communications system, helping the body to regulate. For instance, hormones are used to regulate blood sugar, which normally stays within narrow limits to keep the body, and especially the brain, supplied with the correct amount. If blood sugar is too high, the pancreas secretes insulin, which signals the cells to take up glucose, thus lowering blood sugar and returning to normal. If blood sugar drops too low, the pancreas secretes glucagon, which signals the liver to break down glycogen into glucose to raise blood sugar. In this way, different hormones act in pairs like a thermostat, turning systems on and off. This chemistry presents a delicate balancing act. All the hormones interact with each other in ways modern science is only beginning to understand. In blood-sugar regulation alone, at least six hormones are involved.

Steroid hormones are being prescribed almost as frequently as antibiotics, for allergic reactions, asthma, eczema, arthritis, ulcerative colitis, and for all types of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Often steroids are given to babies and children to alleviate inflammations of all kinds. Steroids can cause permanent and devastating damage, even after a single dose; once the body is thrown out of its natural self-regulatory mode, it sometimes never “gets back.” Steroids' beneficial effects appear to decline in time, leaving patients in worse condition than before they started.

Steroids appear to be a “miracle cure” for asthma or arthritis; however, they merely suppress the symptoms of these conditions. They may make people feel better, but this feeling comes at a high price. The medical journals are filled with steroid-inflicted horror stories, such as osteoporosis, retarded child growth and vision loss:

• The
Annals of Internal Medicine
in November 1993 reported that after just four months of use, oral steroids can cause osteoporosis, with an 8 percent reduction in bone mass.

• The
British Medical Journal
in August 1994 reported that extensive eye damage and visual loss can be caused by using topical, over-the-counter, 1 percent hydrocortisone ointment for two weeks.

•
Lancet
has reported that after only six weeks of use, inhaled steroids prescribed for asthma retard growth in children.

Alternative approaches to steroids include, for example, vitamin C and quercitin. These two natural anti-inflammatories accomplish similar results, but without the side effects. Whether one takes steroids orally, inhales them or rubs them on the skin doesn't matter; damage can be caused quickly and irreversibly. Rubbing a little cortisone ointment on the skin affects the chemistry of the entire body. Steroids taken during pregnancy can cause a child to suffer from autism and impaired cognitive performance. Topical and inhaled steroids can cause glaucoma and cataracts. Other reported problems include fluid retention, thinning skin, slowness in healing, headaches, muscle weakness, immune suppression, angina, hair loss and depression.

Over-the-counter hormones such as melatonin and DHEA are special problems, partly because they are so easy to obtain. Daily doses of 50 milligrams of DHEA have been linked to acne, oily skin, excessive facial hair growth in women and mood changes such as irritability and aggressiveness. DHEA is a steroid hormone with a molecular structure quite similar to cortisone. (Cortisone, too, was once thought to be a wonder drug, until we found it was maiming and killing people.) In a 1997 study conducted at Northwestern University, sixteen rats fed DHEA for eighteen months experienced color changes in their livers from pink to brown. Fourteen developed liver cancer.

Neurologists and other sleep specialists have warned against taking melatonin supplements. In September 1996, the National Institutes of Health sponsored a meeting in Bethesda, Maryland, where researchers reported that we do not have sufficient knowledge about how melatonin works to predict all its potential adverse effects, especially at the high doses in over-the-counter preparations. The data showed melatonin could cause nausea, headaches, nightmares, worsening of existing depression or a drop in body temperature, which increases the risk of developing viral infections. Richard J. Wurtman, M.D., professor of neuroscience and director of the clinical research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, described widespread use of over-the-counter melatonin as “scary.”

The original experiments with mice, suggesting that melatonin prolonged life, used genetically selected mice that were unable to produce melatonin. When given some melatonin, they did measurably better than having none. However, repeated experiments with normal mice resulted in shortened life span, because they developed tumors of the reproductive tract. (Of course, the public hears only of the “benefits.”)

Taking hormones on a regular basis, such as the numerous women on birth control pills and others on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), imbalances the hormone system. Millions of women are put on HRT, presumably to help prevent heart attack and osteoporosis. Little reliable evidence exists that HRT prevents either; in fact evidence shows that it promotes these conditions.

Want to prevent hormone disruption in your body? Avoiding certain toxins is critical. More than fifty different chemicals are known to disrupt the normal communication jobs of hormones, including pesticides, PCBs and dioxins, phthalates leached from PVC and other plastics, and bisphenol-A (from polycarbonate water bottles and the plastics used to coat the interior of cans used to contain food). Dietary considerations are important, because most of our exposure to these hormone-disrupting chemicals comes from eating meat and dairy products. Sugar and white flour disrupt hormone balances, so minimize consumption. Rest and exercise help balance hormone levels; moderate exercise doubles or even quadruples beneficial growth hormone levels. Most critically, our society must stop such constant and widespread use of hormone drugs. As John Mills, M.D., chief of infectious diseases at San Francisco General Hospital said, steroid hormones are “probably the most sleazy of modern-day medications.”

Digestive Destruction

As you know, one way in which drugs cause disease is by interfering with the digestion of food and absorption of nutrients. By damaging gut tissue, killing off beneficial bacteria, and creating an environment that inhibits the growth of normal, beneficial gut bacteria, we lose our ability to digest food and absorb nutrients properly. This condition creates both deficiency and toxicity, the two causes of cellular malfunction and disease.

Three classes of drugs are responsible for much of this damage: NSAIDs, antibiotics and hormones. NSAIDs physically damage gut tissue and destabilize the normal composition of bacteria living in the gut, especially if combined with antibiotics. Antibiotics kill friendly bacteria essential to health and result in a variety of intestinal infections. Hormones, such as birth control pills, create chemical imbalances in the gut, thus promoting yeast infections such as candida. Once yeasts change the environment in the digestive system, a long chain of events damage health and cause disease.

Gut tissue that is damaged becomes more permeable (“leaky”) to large molecules of undigested food and to microorganisms that enter the bloodstream and circulate throughout the body. This occurrence provokes chronic immune responses manifested as food allergies and other inflammatory conditions, and such inflammatory conditions may be the basis of all chronic disease.

These immune responses sometimes create antibodies that match certain body tissues and attack them, resulting in autoimmune diseases such as lupus or arthritis. A person who has a damaged gut may eat an excellent diet but still suffer malnutrition because of nutrient malabsorption.

Adding malabsorption to an already deficient diet is catastrophic to long-term health. Excessive immune reactions produce much debris, called immune complexes, which can overburden the kidneys and cause kidney disease. In fact, allergic reactions may be the leading cause of kidney disease. Major and uncorrected maldigestion can lead to extreme weight loss and greater susceptibility to opportunistic infections, commonly experienced in people with AIDS.

Vaccinations

Popular opinion regards vaccinations as one of modern medicine's greatest achievements, preventing more suffering and saving more lives than any other medical procedure. Nothing could be further from the truth. Any risks or “side effects” from vaccinations supposedly far outweigh the inherent benefits. However, finding benefits is difficult and finding risks is easy.

You have a better chance of being healthy if your cells are healthy; vaccinations damage your cells. In fact, modern medicine's practice of mass vaccinations may be a blunder that ranks with X rays and antibiotics for damage done to health. No reliable safety study has ever been performed on any vaccine, and evidence suggests that they are both ineffective and harmful. Yet, individuals are forced, without consent, to risk injury or even death.

In October 2000, at the annual meeting of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a resolution called for an end to all government-mandated vaccinations. Even more astounding, the resolution passed without a single dissenting vote. Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the AAPS, said, “Our children face the possibility of death or serious long-term adverse effects from mandated vaccines that aren't necessary or that have limited benefits.” The AAPS's resolution read that “mass vaccination is equivalent to human experimentation and subject to the Nuremberg Code, which re-quires voluntary informed consent.” By failing to inform us of the dangers, and taking away our power to choose otherwise, mandated vaccinations become a crime against humanity.

The dramatic decline of infectious diseases, such as smallpox, diphtheria and polio, often is cited (inaccurately) as proof of vaccinations' effectiveness. The incidence of infectious disease dramatically decreased
before
the introduction of vaccines; in other words, vaccines get credit for something they did not do. In 1950, the polio epidemic was at its height in Great Britain. By the time polio vaccine was introduced in 1956, polio had already declined by 82 percent. Similarly, tuberculosis was a persistent killer throughout the 1800s and by 1945 had already declined by 97 percent. Other infectious diseases that already were in decline before the introduction of their vaccines include pneumonia, influenza, whooping cough and measles. Continuing decline merely followed the existing trend.
Countries that did not vaccinate against specific diseases
experienced similar declines as countries that did.

A strong argument for the decline of infectious diseases can be made for a variety of factors, including better sanitation, less crowded living conditions and the absence of hunger. In addition, diseases tend to have their own evolutionary cycles; they go away as the population gains “herd” immunity. Diseases like bubonic plague and scarlet fever experienced declines similar to other infectious diseases; they disappeared without any immunization programs.

Finding any studies that prove vaccines' effectiveness is difficult. To prove efficacy, we must analyze studies of vaccinated groups versus unvaccinated ones. Very few of such studies ever have been conducted; the few that have been indicate that the vaccines are ineffective. Recent worldwide outbreaks of virulent forms of TB have demonstrated that alleged “protection” by TB vaccine has little to do with whether or not anyone contracts the disease.

Not only ineffective, vaccines can also be harmful. Viera Scheibner, Ph.D., a world authority on immunizations and author of the 1993 book
Vaccination,
wrote: “Immunizations . . . not only did not prevent any infectious diseases, they caused more suffering and more deaths than any other human activity in the entire history of medical intervention.” Having assembled and researched the world's largest collection of data on immunizations, Dr. Scheibner concludes that “there is no evidence whatsoever that vaccines of any kind— but especially those against childhood diseases—are effective in preventing the infectious diseases they are supposed to prevent. . . . One hundred years of orthodox research shows that vaccines represent a medical assault on the immune system.”

Each generation is subjected to more vaccinations and, as a result, is experiencing more immune dysfunction diseases. Many children have as many as twenty-two vaccinations before they go to the first grade, and as more vaccines become available, the number keeps increasing. At an international conference in 1997, Terry Phillips, Ph.D., D.Sc., professor of medicine at George Washington University Medical Center, reported that the foreign proteins in virtually all vaccines wreak havoc on the human immune system. Vaccines are toxic mixtures loaded with various substances that never should be injected into a human body—including foreign proteins and dangerous viruses from chickens, guinea pigs, calves and monkeys. Some researchers believe these viruses put a permanent burden on our immune systems and do continuous damage both to the immune and nervous systems. Vaccines also contain toxic chemicals, like mercury (a neurotoxin), ethylene glycol (antifreeze), formaldehyde (a carcinogen), aluminum (a carcinogen and also associated with Alzheimer's), plus antibiotics like Streptomycin (which can cause allergic reactions). Even the FDA has called for cessation of mercury in vaccines because our children are being exposed to unsafe amounts of it.

Dr. Harris Coulter, in his various writings on vaccinations, says that the allergic response initiated with an injected vaccine is capable of causing encephalitis (an inflammation of the brain). Encephalitis can cause permanent brain damage and lead to lifelong problems of autism, dyslexia, learning disabilities, behavioral disorders and antisocial syndromes. Dr. Coulter estimates that 50 percent of the children who experience a fever after vaccination actually are suffering from encephalitis; he blames vaccines for the “new morbidity” of learning disabilities and behavioral disorders.