Newsletter - August 16, 2005

August 16, 2005 - In this Issue

Good News About Ulcerative Colitis, Bad News About Echinacea: Which Did You Hear?
Costco - Great Prices, and a Conscience
Vitamin C Proven to Lower Uric Acid - Can Help Gout
by Huang HY, Appel LJ et al
Dark Chocolate Lowers Blood Pressure
by Ivanhoe Newswire
Longevity Evaluations Available at Frontier Medical Institute
Green Tea Shown to Reduce Markers of Heart Disease
Embryonic Stem Cells Help Spinal Cord Injured Rats Walk Again
Nanotech for Cancer - May be Only 5-10 Years Away
by Howard Lovy – Wired News
Free Nicotine Patches Help Thousands Quit Smoking in NYC
Codex Alimentarius Update
A Chocolate Shake That Tastes Good and Is Good For You (and your kids)
Dr. Grossman on Energy Medicine-Today! Thursday

Good News About Ulcerative Colitis, Bad News About Echinacea: Which Did You Hear?

The most common cell type in the body is the bacteria that live in your colon. A new study has shown that a mixture of eight “good” bacteria or probiotics can reverse or improve the symptoms of ulcerative colitis. Ulcerative colitis is one of the “inflammatory bowel diseases” that affects the large intestine and can cause severe stomach pain, bloody diarrhea, fever, and fatigue.

Researchers found 53 percent of ulcerative colitis patientstreated with probiotics experienced a remission of their disease while 24 percent more had a significant decrease in their symptoms. The probiotics were not associated with any significant side effects.

Dr. Grossman's Comments:
I have a feeling you didn’t see the results of this study, which is a very significant breakthrough for many people who suffer ulcerative colitis or "UC". It is significant that the results of this study were published the same day as a large study that suggested that the herb Echinacea did not help treat cold symptoms.

The Echinacea study (which used a lower dose of Echinacea than many people feel is necessary to treat cold symptoms by the way) made the front pages of newspapers around the country and was also a lead story on the national nightly news. The ulcerative colitis story received no significant publicity.

This is typical of reporting when it comes to nutritional treatment of diseases: any time a study suggests a natural treatment dos not help a condition, it is treated as BIG news (see the vitamin C/ uric acid story below). Anytime the opposite occurs and a natural treatment is shown to help something, the results are largely ignored.

This type of biased reporting is typical of the media: GOOD news is much less interesting than bad news.

Read more... Fox News - July 27, 2005

Costco - Great Prices, and a Conscience

Costco is now the nation's leading warehouse retailer with sales of $47 billion. Sam’s Club is number two, and is part of WalMart empire, which has sales of $288 billion and dwarfs Costco's sales.

The bare, cement-floor retail space is by no means luxurious, but the real advantage of Costco isn’t the ambience – it’s the prices. Shoppers pay a membership fee to choose from a limited number of products in large quantities at deep discounts. Costco has nearly 45 million members, with households paying $45 a year and small businesses paying $100. It appeals to people of all economic backgrounds, but the average household income of Costco customers is $74,000, with 31 percent earning more than $100,000.

It is good to see large corporations doing “the right thing.” Costco doesn’t just treat its customers well; the company is very generous to its employees. Costco's average employee makes $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than Sam's Club. Their health benefits are also excellent. This may be why some people think Costco has a better “feel” than WalMart or Sam’s Club.

The Costco philosophy is to sell items as inexpensively as possible, not to make as much money as possible. Therefore, the CEO of Costco only draws a salary of $350,000 (last year's bonus only $200,000), far less than the usual salary for the CEO of a large multinational company.

Vitamin C Proven to Lower Uric Acid - Can Help Gout
by Huang HY, Appel LJ et al

This study was designed to establish the effects of vitamin C supplementation on uric acid levels in the blood, which is often associated with the painful condition of gout. 184 nonsmokers, took either placebo or vitamin C supplements (500 mg/day) for 2 months. At the end of the study period, uric acid levels were significantly reduced in the vitamin C group but not in the placebo group. The study authors concluded “vitamin C might be beneficial in the prevention and management of gout and other urate-related diseases.”

Dr. Grossman's Comments:
Current treatment options for the reduction of uric acid and prevention of gout include the prescription drugs colchicine and allopurinol, although both often cause significant side effects.This study showed that fairly low doses of vitamin C can significantly reduce uric acid levels in the body, reducing the risk of gout attacks.

Every time vitamin C is supposedly “proven” not to work for something (although the results of these studies are often misinterpreted), it makes the front pages of every newspaper in the country.

Yet whenever a vitamin or natural supplement is shown to work, it rarely receives much press. Did you hear about this study on gout (or a similar story about probiotics and ulcerative colitis above)? If you have gout or an elevated uric acid level, you might want to be sure to take extra vitamin C.

I wonder how much more reduction in uric acid the authors of this study might have achieved if they would have increased the dosage to 2000 – 3000 mg pre day, or more.

Dark Chocolate Lowers Blood Pressure
by Ivanhoe Newswire

An article in the Journal of the American Heart Organization (July 13, 2005) suggests that people who eat dark chocolate can lower their blood pressure asd much as 13 points systolic and 9 points diastolic. These effects were only found when people ate dark chocolate, not milk chocolate or white chocolate.

Dr. Grossman's Comments:
In her book, "Eat Your Colors," my friend and colleague Marcia Zimmerman points out that colorful plant foods often contain healthful bioflavinoids. It appears that dark chocolate and cocoa (the plant from which chocolate is derived) is no exception.

But, these benefits are largely negated when the cocoa is mixed with large amounts of sugar and saturated fat (cocoa butter) to make candy or sugar and heavy cream to make ice cream. Some studies have shown that eating dark chocolate candy will lower blood pressure as demonstrated in this article, butwhat they don’t show is that in time it will also lead to weight gain and increased risk of atherosclerosis.

To obtain the health benefits of dark chocolate (cocoa) without the detriments of the saturated fat and sugar, which often accompanies it, you need to make proper food choices. Mixing cocoa powder with unsweetened soy milk and adding stevia to sweeten is a healthful example. Another example is Ray & Terry’s Deep Chocolate Meal Replacement Shake (please refer to the last article in this newletter).

Read more... Chocolate for Your Health

Longevity Evaluations Available at Frontier Medical Institute

We are entering a new frontier of medicine wherein you can now take control of your health, discover your genetic tendencies, and make INDIVIDUALIZED lifestyle choices that will extend your life. Dr. Grossman, our medical director, developed our longevity program after working with thousands of patients from all over the world during the past 10 years.

By undergoing one of our Longevity Evaluations, you will join individuals who have come to visit us from all parts of the U.S. and around the world to gain the knowledge and tools to live longer, healthier, and younger lives. You will accomplish this by undergoing a comprehensive series of the latest medical tests available.

Green Tea Shown to Reduce Markers of Heart Disease

This study looked at the effects of green tea ingestion over four weeks on markers of atherosclerotic heart disease. 12 healthy male volunteers drank 20 ounces of green tea each day for 4 weeks. Lipid profile, oxidized low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), C-reactive protein (CRP) and soluble cell adhesion molecules were measured at baseline and after two and four weeks ingestion of green tea. Oxidized LDL and soluble cell adhesion molecules were significantly decreased at the end of 4 weeks.

Dr. Grossman's Comments:
Ray Kurzweil and I felt so strongly about the benefits of green tea that we placed it at the base of the R&T Food Pyramid.

We recommend that most people consider drinking several cups of green tea daily. In addition to its anti-cancer effects, green tea also promotes weight loss and is known to reduce cardiovascular risk. This small study provides an explanation for how this works.

Embryonic Stem Cells Help Spinal Cord Injured Rats Walk Again

Genetically engineered stem cells were shown capable of causing the severed spinal cords of rats to grow back together. In this article from the Journal of Neuroscience, the rats were able to move their legs again even though their spinal cords had been completely severed. The study required embryonic stem cells in order to work.

Dr. Grossman's Comments:
Spinal cord maladies are ususally the result of accidents and affect 250,000 people a year in the United States alone, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders. Many of these spinal cord injuries occur to other wise young and healthy individuals.

The key ito the success of this experiment was using the correct stem cells and then stimulating them correctly with the appropriate growth factors so that they could turn into the proper type of cells to heal the spinal cord.

Two-thirds of the rats studied demonstrated some degree of leg recovery and this offers a very tantalizing ray of hope for paralyzed people. According to Dr Michael Selzer, a professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Centre in Philadelphia, "These findings suggest the possibility that transplantation therapy using a subset of neural stem cells and neurotrophic factors might improve functional recovery in human spinal cord injury.”

Nanotech for Cancer - May be Only 5-10 Years Away
by Howard Lovy – Wired News

The National Cancer plans to spend $144.3 million over the next five years using nanotechnology to help administer chemotherapy drugs. Dr. James Baker has joined forces with former Dow chemist Donald Tomalia, who is the inventor of the “dendrimer,” a nano sized particle that can be used for targeted drug delivery. Together they hope to be able to delivery precise doses of chemotherapy directly to tumors.

Dr. Grossman's Comments:
In Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, we discussed the possibility of using a Trojan Horse approach to attacking cancer: placing chemotherapy drugs inside of tiny, nanoscale carriers which would be able to enter a tumor undetected and then release their payload of cancer-killing drugs. Dendrimers may serve as a perfect Trojan Horse. By targeting the chemotherapy drugs directly at the tumor, much smaller doses could be used, both increasing the specificity of the drugs for the tumors and reducing the systemic toxicity to the body. This nanotechnology may be available within the next few years and patients may not have to wait 25 years for the full unfolding of Bridge Three nanotech therapies.