Apr
14
2018

Where Does Fat Go With Weight loss?

By | Anti-aging medicine, Cardiovascular disease, diet, exercise, Fitness, food, Nutrition, Obesity, Processed food, stem cells, telomeres, Weight loss

People often wonder where does fat go with weight loss? This question recently came up in a CNN conversation.  The answer was originally researched by Dr. Ruben Meerman and Professor Andrew Brown.

Dr. Meerman is an assistant scientist at the University of New South Wales and author of “Big Fat Myths: When You Lose Weight, Where Does the Fat Go?” Professor Brown is the head of the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at the same university.

When you lose 1 kilogram of fat, where does fat go with weight loss?

The interesting answer to this question is that fat gets metabolized. Dr, Meerman and Prof. Brown pointed out that originally Leifson et al. answered this question who used heavy oxygen and found out that this was metabolized into heavy water.

Technically these experiments are fairly complex, but they allow the researchers to see exactly where the body incorporates these chemicals and where they end up with breakdown of fat. The BMJ paper describes that the breakdown of 1 kg of fat follows the following pattern: It breaks down into 0.84 kg of CO2 (carbon dioxide) and 0.16 kg of H2O (water). In other words, the lungs are the primary organs that get rid of fat and the kidneys excrete the water. There is a bit of extra energy in this chemical reaction as well, which dissipates through the skin and through exhaled air.

What did health professionals think where the fat would go?

The health professionals were doctors, dieticians and personal trainers. About 65% of them thought fat would evaporate into energy/heat. About 10% thought fat would end up in the feces. 5% thought fat would turn into muscle. Another 5% thought fat would turn into sweat or urine. 8% were correct that fat would become CO2 and H2O. 7% said they did not know.

The chemistry of fat deposits and metabolizing fat

The body deposited triglycerides from the liver metabolism of sugar and fatty acids into fat cells and stored them as oleate (C18H34O2), palmitate (C16H32O2), and linoleate (C18H32O2). Part of this are many chemical reactions, including a number of enzymes. These fatty acids form esters and turn into gigantic molecules with this chemical formula: C55H104O6. The BMJ paper further says that an overall chemical description of metabolized fat would look like this:

C55H104O6+78O2→55CO2+52H2O+energy. In plain English it means that 1 molecule of fat ester (from fat storage) is metabolized together with 78 molecules of oxygen. This results in 55 molecules of carbon dioxide, 52 molecules of water and energy.

Fat turns into carbon dioxide and water

Based on this chemical reaction a calculation of the breakdown of fat into carbon dioxide and water was possible. The surprising result is that 84% of fat becomes carbon dioxide and only 16% of fat becomes water. We exhale the carbon dioxide from our lungs and it is mostly the kidneys that excrete the water. People who lose weight are aware that they have to urinate more often. But they do not notice that they get rid of a lot of carbon dioxide, as this is a subtle process.

Some observations from the fasting mimicking diet

The fasting mimicking diet (FMD) was at the center of the most recent anti-aging conference in Las Vegas I attended. This was the 25th Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine in Las Vegas, Dec. 14-16, 2017. Late in December 2017 I started 5 days of FMD and have just completed my 4th round of it (FMD is done 5 days out of each month). My main interest in doing this is to prevent heart attacks and strokes and I like the idea of stimulating telomeres for anti-aging and increasing stem cell production. See more details under this link.

Personal experience of fasting mimicking diet

I keep meticulous records of my body measurements using daily body composition scales, which I record in a booklet. Between March 23, 2018 and March 28 I lost 1.5 kg from 64.8 kg to 63.3 kg. Fat composition was reduced from 14.1% to 12.2%. Visceral fat was reduced from 6% to 5%. My muscle percentage rose from 38.1% to 39.1%. The basic metabolic rate was 1471 Calories on March 23 and went down to 1449 Calories on March 28. My body mass index went from 22.0 to 21.5.

I definitely noticed the frequent urination, something I had noticed in the past in 2001 when I lost 50 pounds over 3 months. Of course it is understandable when you reduce your daily calorie intake to 600 Calories per day that you will lose this amount of weight. People have different metabolisms. It may be that you won’t lose as much as I did.

What causes mainly weight loss?

There are many people who think that extra exercise would help you lose weight. But a publication has established that only about 8% of weight loss is due to exercising. 92% of weight loss is due to dieting.

Regular exercise is important for conditioning of your lungs, heart, muscles and joints. But to keep things in balance a reasonable diet, like a Mediterranean diet, should also be part of the regimen.

Sugar overconsumption

The obesity wave in the US started to take off between 1976 and 1980. 40 years later it is still rising. It is interesting to note that both wheat flour and sugar consumption in the US were increasing parallel to the rising obesity figures. In the 70’s the old-fashioned wheat has changed into the force hybridized Clearfield wheat, which is now 100% of the commercially available wheat. Clearfield wheat contains 7-fold higher gluten amounts than the old-fashioned wheat that your grandparents consumed. Gluten stimulates your appetite, so you crave more wheat and you crave more sugar. This becomes a vicious cycle.

Excess calories are stored as fat

The liver metabolizes sugar from regular food and from processed food into triglycerides and LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol that plugs up arteries). As I mentioned above, the body stores any excess triglycerides as fat and deposits the excess into fatty cells. You see from this that essentially sugar and wheat end up as fat deposits. I suggest you change your food intake into eating sensible food with fewer calories. Start by eliminating most of your sugar, wheat and processed food intake. This will help you to melt fat away as I showed with an example of my 5 day FMD.

Where Does Fat Go With Weight loss?

Where Does Fat Go With Weight loss?

Conclusion

I reviewed facts about the chemistry of melting fat away. The question is where does fat go with weight loss? In the process of weight loss fat breaks down into carbon dioxide and water. I also documented how you can lose fat in just 5 days (1.1 kilogram) on a 600-calorie diet and reduce the body mass index from 22.0 to 21.5.

Most people do not recognize the importance of watching their diet to achieve weight loss. 92% of weight loss occurs as a result of dieting. Wheat and sugar consumption have a direct connection to the obesity wave that started between 1976 and 1980. I have cut out all wheat, all sugar and all processed food in 2001. This allowed me to lose 50 pounds then and my body mass index today is 21.5. It can be done, even if you are 73 years old.

Feb
03
2018

Drugs Are Not An Escape

By | addiction, alcohol, Arthritis, Drugs, Pain, stem cells, Substance abuse

We have a drug epidemic, but drugs are not an escape. Along with this epidemic there have been thousands of lethal overdoses. I like to review why so many people use street drugs or prescription pain pills. It started years ago with heroin injections had become more popular. But then heroin was getting a bad name, it became illegal, and prescription pain pills replaced heroin. Percocet, OxyContin and morphine prescriptions took off. Together with it the number of people with addiction increased drastically. The latest fashion craze is Fentanyl.  Fentanyl works faster than morphine, but also wears off faster. One of the deadly side effects is respiratory depression. This  means that a person cannot breathe and as a result will die. This is what is happening right now and what creates the news headlines.

Pain receptors

There are pain receptors all over the body, in muscles, organs and the skin. They are called nociceptors. Many medical conditions lead to pain in various parts of the body. For instance, with end stage degenerative arthritis bone rubs on bone. This causes a lot of pain in joints like the knees or the hips. Physicians often prescribe narcotics like OxyContin to control the pain. It may help for some time. But after a few weeks patients complain that the strength of OxyContin has worn off. The same dosage that gave them relief from the pain initially just does not give them relief any more. This observation is crucial. It is exactly what people who use OxyContin as illicit street drug found as well. The drug wears off, because the opioid receptors are getting weaker.

Pain receptor resistance

Nociceptors or opioid receptors are pain receptors. These receptors report pain to the body, and they have connections through the spinal cord to the brain. When an opioid is interacting with the pain receptor it inhibits acute pain to a large extent. But when the pain becomes chronic, the pain receptor is not working as well. More and more of the pain medication is necessary to achieve pain relief.  Eventually the opioid medication is not working to relieve pain any more. The name for this phenomenon is “pain receptor resistance”. Scientific work behind why pain receptors get lazy in responding to opioids is still ongoing. In the meantime it simply is an observation. This is the reason why drug addicts are tending to increase the dosage of OxyContin or of Fentanyl. The toxic threshold of Fentanyl that is exceeded in the process is the reason for the deaths.

Insulin resistance

You may have heard of insulin resistance in diabetics. This is a very similar problem. With insulin resistance the diabetic no longer has a 100% response to insulin. This means that blood sugar is not going through cell membranes effectively as it should when the insulin receptor is working. The blood sugar values stay high and make the diabetes worse.

With pain receptor resistance the opioid is not giving the relief from pain it used to give. No wonder that the patient is feeling frustrated that the pain medication is no longer working properly.

Therapeutic index

The layperson does not normally know that there is a dosage for any drug where it becomes toxic. There is also a lower dosage where the drug is becoming effective. The difference between the two dosages is the “therapeutic window” or the “therapeutic index”.

Morphine has a therapeutic index of 70:1. Compare that to alcohol with a therapeutic index of only 10:1. Fentanyl has a therapeutic index of 300:1.

The danger of Fentanyl

One would think that Fentanyl should be safer than morphine, because the therapeutic index is larger. But the onset of Fentanyl is much faster than that of morphine and by the time drug users take Fentanyl they often are desperate for the drug to take their pain away and they overdose, which causes respiratory depression. If they are not intubated by an anesthetist and connected to artificial respiration, they die very quickly. Janssen Pharmaceutica first developed Fentanyl in 1959. Fentanyl was strictly part of the pre-anesthetic medicine for patients before going into surgery requiring a general anesthetic. The anesthetist was right there and would intubate the patient. That’s why we never heard of deaths from Fentanyl in the past.

If a person gets no pain relief from any opioid because of receptor resistance, the tendency is to increase the dosage. But this is what pushes the person into toxic ranges and this is what causes death from inadvertently suppressing the ability to breathe. People can get into trouble with alcohol overdoses, but the ordinary person usually knows how to handle alcohol. Fentanyl is a lot different due to the fact that respiratory depression (not being able to breathe) is one of the early symptoms that hits you suddenly.

What drugs do to your brain

Dr. Daniel Amen, a psychiatrist and brain researcher has used SPECT brain scans to produce images of different clinical conditions. This link shows the effect of a stroke, of Alzheimer’s disease and of drug abuse on the brain. Dr. Amen says that a brain can be rehabilitated. He has other SPECT images showing the images of an addicted brain and that of a rehabilitated brain. Spect scans are expensive.  But they may be worth it, to impress a drug addict to stop the drugs and get rehabilitated.

Big Pharma and opioid drugs

In 1995 the FDA approved the use of OxyContin for chronic pain. Perdue Pharma, the drug company that had developed this opioid convinced the FDA that OxyContin stayed in the blood for 12 hours and they claimed that by being active longer than other opioids this would lead to better pain control and less addiction. It turns out that this was a slick sales pitch, however it was not true. Pain receptor resistance is as much a problem with OxyContin as with any other opioid. And the drug is as addictive as all the others. But the problem is that the FDA had approved OxyContin. What’s more, Purdue Pharma sent aggressive drug representatives to all the practicing physicians misleading them as well as the FDA that OxyContin would not be as addictive as other opioids.

Penalty for misrepresentation of OxyContin

In 2007 Purdue Pharma had to pay a fine of 634 million $ for misrepresenting the addiction potential of OxyContin. But the drug company was allowed to continue to market OxyContin. Since 2015 Purdue Pharma has been cashing in 2.4 billion $ annually from the sales of opioids including OxyContin. In the meantime Fentanyl, despite its danger of suppressing the ability to breathe, has taken off with regard to sales. Fentanyl also has taken over in terms of causing deaths across the US and other countries.

Alternative treatment of pain

According to Ref. 1 chances are that 70% of patients with back pain will get better with a few visits to an acupuncturist. In 1972 Dr. Ulett’s laboratory at the University of Missouri succeeded in getting the first NIH research grant for the study of acupuncture in the US. During these studies they found remarkable facts, the most important perhaps that electrical stimulation of acupuncture needles resulted in a doubling of the effectiveness of traditional Chinese acupuncture. After extensive research Dr. Ulett stated: ”The ancient practice of traditional Chinese acupuncture is now obsolete” (Ref.1). in the meantime the more effective electro-acupuncture has replaced acupuncture needles with the use of electrical skin pads.”

Other applications for electroacupuncture

Beside pain relief many other applications exist for electro-acupuncture. Addiction medicine makes use of electro-acupuncture in weaning people from morphine or heroine etc. It is effective to treat psychiatric illness, particularly depression. It is useful in relieving nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy with cancer treatments or associated with pregnancy without affecting the pregnancy.

Prolotherapy

Prolotherapy has been successful for the treatment of back and neck pain, for arthritic pain and pain from chronic muscle spasm. When prolotherapy is done by itself 12.5% Dextrose is injected into the area of injury. Dr. Fields said that the reason it works is that there is activation of local stem cells in the injured area in the area of the Dextrose injection site. These stem cells will do the healing (details explained in an interview with Dr. Reeves). Further improvement of this technique and better results are possible by injecting a small amount of platelet rich plasma (PRP) very focally to an area of ligament rupture. PRP is obtained by centrifuging blood from the patient’s vein. The red blood cells are not necessary, but the platelet fraction and some of the plasma are part of the the PRP preparation.

It is often striking how much pain control occurs after only one or two prolotherapy treatments.

Stem cell therapy with PRP and low-dose laser therapy

This is a more direct way to get stem cells where the doctor wants them to do their work. Stem cell therapy with PRP and low-dose laser activation is the latest in terms of controlling pain. At the 22nd Annual Anti-Aging Conference in Las Vegas (Dec.10 to 14, 2014) Dr. Purita gave an overview of this method of pain control. He discussed the importance of the proper harvesting of PRP. He explained that apart from white blood cells (WBC) and platelets an important component of PRP are very small embryonic like stem cells (VSELs). They are visible through the microscope. The missing link has been the observation that white blood cells produce inflammatory substances, which have been detrimental in stem cell injections with PRP in the past. There was a poor survival rate of stem cells.

Low dose laser activation of stem cells and PRP

Photo-activation of the PRP before injection leads to anti-inflammatory behavior of the WBC in PRP. Dr. Purita calls this “light activated PRP”, which leads to the best results with stem cell/PRP injections.

Soft laser stimulation with red, green and blue soft lasers have also been effective to improve tissue healing significantly when stem cells and PRP are used together with light activation. The main sources for good stem cells are the fat tissue (from the “love handles”) and the bone marrow (obtained from pelvic bone). The stem cells mesenchymal stem cells (from fatty tissue) and bone marrow stem cells. The mix of all of this can mend osteoarthritic joints, degenerative disc of the spine, in short all musculoskeletal injuries that may be painful. The hallmark of healing with stem cells is that chronic pain disappears.

Curative treatment versus symptomatic treatment

It is one thing to treat a patient for pain symptomatically by prescribing OxyContin or other opioids. It is a completely other thing when the physician cures the pain by one of these alternative methods. Let us assume that a patient has a fall of a few step from a ladder and sustains a contusion of the lower back. This can be painful and may require a few pain pills. But if it does not improve within one week and diagnostic tests show that there is no fracture, electroacupuncture may be the solution to treat the pain rather than the use of an opioid. If this does not help, consider the combination stem cell/PRP/low-dose laser therapy. Chances are better than 80% that this will help. The patient will no longer suffer of pain. With healing life can go on: no pain pills. No addiction. No death.

Drugs Are Not An Escape

Drugs Are Not An Escape

Conclusion

Conventional medicine treats pain symptomatically instead of treating the cause. It gets the physician to prescribe opioids, which can be the beginning of a series of tragic events. It can lead to drug addiction, dose acceleration, toxic effects of opioids including possible death through asphyxiation from no longer being able to breathe.

Stem cell therapy

The physician who concentrates on treating causes will use alternative methods to treat pain. The most effective of these methods is stem cell therapy. It is a mixture of adipose mesenchymal stem cells with bone marrow stem cells that are part of the therapy. The addition of platelet rich plasma is another part of the mix, and the final step is activation of stem cells with low-dose laser therapy. The cell mix is injected in the critical area. The end result is that the patient’s pain disappears, and it leads to a cure. The only situation where short-term opioids are justifiable is following surgical procedures. But even in these cases the narcotics should only be necessary for a few days to avoid serious side effects.

Reference 1: George A. Ulett, M.D., Ph.D. and SongPing Han, B.M., Ph.D.: “The Biology of Acupuncture”, copyright 2002, Warren H. Green Inc., Saint Louis, Missouri, 63132 USA

More info about electroacupuncture: https://www.askdrray.com/electro-acupuncture-twice-as-effective-as-conventional-acupuncture/

More about prolotherapy stem cell therapy: https://www.askdrray.com/prolotherapy-and-stem-cell-therapy/

Jul
08
2017

Stem Cells For Osteoarthritis

By | Arthritis, low back pain, osteoarthritis, Pain, stem cells

Many clinicians have used stem cells for osteoarthritis of the knee or other joints for some time. However, objective publications about the effectiveness of stem cells are only coming out now. Both stem cell types, derived from fat or stem cells from the bone marrow, are effective. Most doctors are using stem cells from fat (mesenchymal stem cells), because they are so much easier to harvest.

CNN reported about a man, Bill Marlette who had lost one of his arms in the past. He ended up overusing the other arm and as a result developed end-stage osteoarthritis in his wrist. He could not find relief with conventional methods of anti-inflammatories and pain pills. Next he went to a stem cell expert in Munich, Germany who treated him with mesenchymal stem cells from his fatty tissue. Only one treatment took away his chronic pain and helped him regain his wrist mobility.

Approval of stem cell therapy in Germany

Prof. Dr. Eckhard Alt, an expert in regenerative medicine has previously treated patients with end stage osteoarthritis and had good clinical outcomes with it. As a result the German regulatory agency has approved his treatment protocol.

Dr. David Pearce, executive vice president for research at Sanford Health in South Dakota said that Prof. Dr. Eckhard Alt was the first one to use fat cells as a source of mesenchymal stem cells to treat osteoarthritis. He went on to say: ”Those stem cells don’t have to be programmed in any way, but if you put them in the right environment, they will naturally turn into what the cell type around them is.” The physician harvests the stem cells through liposuction. An enzyme mixture is necessary to separate the stem cells from fat cells, oil and connective tissue. A cell separator can also help separating the stem cells from the rest of the cells and tissue.

A case of wrist osteoarthritis

As I mentioned before only one injection was necessary to relieve the chronic pain of Bill Marlette’s wrist. Since his return the doctors in the US have followed Bill closely. They took MRI scans and noted that the bony cysts associated with the severe arthritis have disappeared. His wrist and hand strength have returned to normal. The pain almost disappeared. There were no side effects whatsoever. Because the stem cells are of the same tissue type as all his other cells of his body, one would not expect any tissue rejection by the immune system. Bill Marlette did not need any pain pills following the procedure in August 2016. And he says: “I have more range of motion with my wrist, shaking hands didn’t hurt anymore,” he said. “My wrist seems to continue to improve, and there’s less and less pain all the time.”

Past experiences treating osteoarthritis with mesenchymal stem cells

A 2014 clinical trial from Korea involved 18 patients with osteoarthritis of the knee where adipose mesenchymal stem cells were injected. The high dose group did best. After 6 months there was significant improvement, also confirmed by arthroscopy. The previous cartilage defect in the femoral and tibial condyles had decreased in size. Range of motion in the knee joints and pain had also improved. There were no adverse effects from the treatment.

Chinese study

Mesenchymal progenitor cells have the propensity to develop into cartilage. At the Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University Shanghai, China the following experiment took place in 2015. The researchers grew human adipose mesenchymal cells in vitro. Later they injected these mesenchymal progenitor cells into the knees of rabbits with experimentally produced osteoarthritis. Despite doing xenotransplants (human cartilage to rabbits) with known HLA differences the cartilage grew and cured the osteoarthritis of the rabbits. The new cartilage had human HLA markers while the rabbit cartilage underneath had rabbit HLA markers. At 16 weeks the researchers examined the tissues under the microscope and another exam involved the HLA marker testing.

Tehran study

A study from Tehran, Iran was carried out on 18 patients with ankle, knee and hip osteoarthritis in 2015. Physicians injected stem cells from the bone marrow into the osteoarthritic joint. The doctors followed the patients and ordered occasional MRI scans for 30 months. All of the patients had improved significantly with regard to their joint function and pain. The MRI scans also showed thickening of the joint surfaces from new cartilage production.

French/German study

In a 2016 joint French/German study 18 patients with end stage knee osteoarthritis were treated with stem cells. The stem cells came from adipose tissue that went through a cell separator. Physicians injected the mesenchymal stem cell fraction into the osteoarthritic knees. This was a phase I study to rule out any adverse reactions, but none were evident. It also established that there were significant positive improvements in pain and mobility with regard to the affected knees.

General remarks about how stem cells heal osteoarthritis

The example above with end stage osteoarthritis of the wrist was just one example of where osteoarthritis can strike. Perhaps the more common other locations are hips, knees and the facet joints of the lower lumbar spine (causing chronic lower back pain).

The same treatment procedure, which Bill Marlette’s wrist benefitted from is useful for all these other locations. The common factor in osteoarthritis is that the cartilage is getting thinner and thinner until bone rubs on bone causing excruciating pain. It is here where mesenchymal cells can come to the rescue. The stem cells will assess what requires a repair after injection into an affected joint. They recognize that there is a lack of cartilage. Then they transform themselves into chondrocytes, which are cartilage-forming cells. How can stem cells do that? They come with a program to replace missing cells, particularly cartilage and bone cells. But if they are within fatty tissue, they cannot act within a joint that has osteoarthritis. The doctor has to transport the mesenchymal cells into the joint where they can then begin their healing function.

Other methods to treat osteoarthritis

Stem cells are only one of several regenerative treatment modalities for osteoarthritis. Another method are platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections. Platelets have a lot of anti-inflammatory substances in them and also growth factors that can stimulate stem cells contained in the synovial membrane, the lining of any joint. To get PRP plasma, it is necessary to spin down blood and harvest the PRP fraction with a syringe. After three PRP injections were given into the knees of 90 patients with end stage osteoarthritis these patients were followed for two years.

In the beginning before treatment 100% of the patients had symptoms. After one year following the treatment with PRP their knee functions were normal in 67% of them. After two years only 59% had normal knee function. The investigators pointed out that this treatment modality initially helped to a certain point, but then the effects were slowly fading away.

Stem cell treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee

The literature on either bone stem cells or fat stem cell use for osteoarthritis of the knee in man is still sparse. Nobody has done larger clinical trials. Part of the reasons could be that total knee and total hip replacement in orthopedics is very lucrative. We are still in a symptomatic treatment mode. Physicians treat osteoarthritis conservatively with anti-inflammatories and pain pills. When bone rubs on bone, there can be excruciating pain. The physician refers the patient to an orthopedic surgeon who likely will do invasive surgical procedures. My own impression in general practice in the past is that these procedures do not always turn out the way they are supposed to work. Following total hip or knee replacement joint swelling often remains; pain issues are still there. There can be unequal height issues, balancing problems and so on.

Here is a review of mesenchymal stem cell therapy for osteoarthritis.  This publication is very conventional medicine. An attitude change by conventional medicine would be useful to catch up with what is happening in real life. Some patients will travel abroad to Munich as Bill Marlette did. But others may travel to other places like India, Mexico or wherever medical tourism takes you. Regenerative medicine is there to stay.

Stem Cells For Osteoarthritis

Stem Cells For Osteoarthritis

Conclusion

We have learnt about a case of severe osteoarthritis of the wrist that has been cured in Germany with one injection of mesenchymal stem cells. More common than wrist osteoarthritis is osteoarthritis of the hips, knees and the facet joints of the lower lumbar spine. The same stem cell therapy can be given for osteoarthritis in these locations. I find it very strange that progress in stem cell treatments is so slow in the US. The FDA has decided to be open to clinical trials with stem cell treatments, but progress seems to be much slower than in other countries. Why? We may never know. In the meantime, patients may seek treatments in other countries where such treatments are offered. In real estate sales there is a saying: “Buyer beware”.

Be cautious, if you get treated abroad

The same goes for stem cell treatments in another country. Should you contemplate doing this, do your homework; ask about the qualification of the treating physician, about safety records and whether the local authorities have approved this procedure. In the case of Bill Marlette’s osteoarthritis of the wrist the procedure in Munich, Germany had been accepted by the European equivalent of the FDA, the European Medicines Agency. Safety is top priority, effectiveness is next.

Apr
02
2016

Women Win Turning Older

By | Anti-aging medicine, Cancer, Diabetes, fiber, Fitness, heart attack, Nutrition, Smoking, stem cells, telomeres

Supercentenarians may teach us something about the question “Why do women win turning older”? Supercentenarians are people who are 110 years or older. Presently there are 53 of them distributed over the world, 51 are females and two are males. According to Ben Dulken and Anne Brunet this is not by chance: in other mammal species females often live longer than their male counterparts. They theorize that stem cells live longer under the influence of estrogen and this may be the explanation for the difference. They wanted to answer the burning question: “Is life expectancy linked to gender and stem cells”?

Observations regarding why women win turning older

Ben Dulken and Anne Brunet describe that several pieces of evidence are important to note.

Human eunuchs live longer than average males

Castrated males, called eunuchs, live on average 14 years longer than the average male.

Treatment of male mice with estrogen caused longevity

Experiments with male mice treated with estrogen increased their lifespan compared to untreated male controls.

Estrogen receptors on some stem cells in women

Neural stem cells (NSCs) and hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) have estrogen receptors in females. This leads to extra stimuli during pregnancy, but also during the menstrual cycle in women or the estrus cycle in female mammals.

Faster wound healing in women may be from extra X-chromosome

It gets more complicated: There are non-estrogen regulated stem cell niches in the liver, skin and subcutaneous tissue (important for wound healing and resident muscle stem cells, called satellite cells (SCs). For some reason liver regeneration and wound healing, but also healing of muscle injuries in women and female mammals occurs at a faster pace. Scientists still do not have an answer for this. Theories are that perhaps women with their two X-chromosomes are at an advantage in comparison to males (only one X-chromosome) with respect to certain wound repair mechanisms.

Longevity and self-repair capacity may be related

There is the question whether longevity and self-repair capacity would be related, either through stem cell populations (NSCs, HSCs, SCs), other repair mechanisms or tissue proliferation.

Telomere length in older persons longer in females than in males

There are gender differences in aging patterns of stem cells. For instance studies in dizygotic twins showed that telomere length of blood cells in the female twin was much longer than in the male twin. Genetic factors appear to be the dominant factor to explain this phenomenon rather than hormones. But again this was favoring the female.

Comparison between muscles in older men and younger men

A study in males showed that there is an accumulation of damaged DNA in SC’s of muscle tissue with older age that leads to muscle senescence. In older men there is a delayed response to a specific exercise stimulus with regard to the satellite cell division (SC) when compared to the response in young men.

Women’s telomeres in stem cells grow longer

In females estrogen stimulates telomere growth of stem cells (NSCs and HSCs), which prevents premature stem cell exhaustion.

Effects of diet and exercise on life expectancy

The Potsdam study analyzed 4 healthy behaviors in 23,153 German participants aged 35 to 65 years over 7.8 years. They looked for the development of cancer, heart attacks, strokes and cancer as end points. The 4 healthy behaviors were: to be a lifelong non-smoker , having a body mass index lower than 30, performing 3.5 h/week or more of physical activity, and adhering to healthy dietary principles (high intake of fruits, vegetables, whole-grain bread and low meat consumption).

Those who had adopted all 4 healthy lifestyles reduced the development of serious disease by up to 80%. Dr. David Katz delivered a keynote address at the 22nd Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine in Las Vegas Dec. 10-14, 2014 entitled “Integrative Medicine: A Bridge Over Healthcare’s Troubled Waters”. He mentioned the Potsdam study. And he mentioned what the new logic of a healthy lifestyle is: a healthy lifestyle causes healthy telomeres of somatic cells and of stem cells; this causes health until a ripe old age.

Life Expectancy Linked To Gender And Stem Cells

Life Expectancy Linked To Gender And Stem Cells

Conclusion why women win turning older

It seems that women and female mammals are more protected by nature than males. The previously called ”weak sex” is in fact a lot stronger! This may be the reason that among supercentenarians there are only a few males remaining. But we don’t know how many males take the lifestyle factors of the Potsdam study serious. Males who want to age gracefully have to pay more attention to healthy lifestyles. This leads to longer telomeres and this allows for stem cell and somatic cell renewal. There are still many unanswered questions, but life expectancy is definitely related to how well we preserve stem cells throughout our body. This in turn depends very much on our lifestyle patterns.

Mar
19
2016

Book Review: “Healing Gone Wrong – Healing Done Right”, By Ray Schilling, MD

By | alcohol, Alzheimer’s disease, andropause, Angina, Anti-aging medicine, Arthritis, Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes, Fitness, fractures, Health, heart attack, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Hormones, Inflammation, laser therapy, lifestyle, Menopause, mitochondria, Mortality, Nutrition, Obesity, organic food, Orthopedics, Osteoporosis, Other neurological conditions, Prevention, Processed food, Radiation Protection, Sleeep, stem cells, Stress management, Stroke, sugar, telomeres, thyroid disease, Vitamins and supplements

This book entitled “Healing Gone Wrong – Healing Done Right” (Amazon, March 18, 2016) is dealing with the practice of medicine then and now. Medical errors, false diagnoses and wrong treatments are nothing new in the history of medicine. It happened in the past, and it is happening now. My first book was about anti-aging. The title was “A Survivor’s Guide to Successful Aging” (Amazon 2014).

Book overview

Chapter 1

Here I describe describe that famous people like President Kennedy, Elvis Presley, Churchill, Beethoven or more recently Michael Jackson have something in common: all of them suffered the consequences of blatant medical mistakes. In Beethoven’s time lead containing salves to plug the drainage holes from removing fluid from his abdomen caused lead poisoning. In this chapter I review also how doctors treated the illnesses of the above-mentioned celebrities, but then ask the question: “What better treatments have offered to prevent some of the disastrous treatment outcomes?”

Chapter 2

Modern drugs seem to come and go. We learn that twenty-first century medications that are supposed to be the latest therapeutic agents are having their potentially deadly consequences too: COX-2 inhibitors, the second generation arthritis drugs cause strokes and heart attacks! Your doctor may still prescribe some of these dangerous drugs for arthritis now.

Chapter 3

This chapter deals with the fact that medical treatments for people’s diseases may be inappropriate when the doctor treats only symptoms, but the doctor does nothing about the causes of their illnesses. This is a scary thought.

Chapter 4

What does it take to prevent these poor health outcomes, so that we will be able to prevent any disastrous outcomes pertaining to our own health care in the present and future? As we will see, the problem today is still the same as it was in the past, namely that many physicians still like to treat symptoms instead of the underlying cause of an illness. Big Pharma has the seducing concept of a pill for every ill, but it is not always in your best interest, when these medications have a slew of side effects. “Gastric reflux” means a mouthful of stomach acid. Big Pharma simply offers the patient with the symptom of gastric reflux a multitude of medications to suppress this symptom. But it is more important to dig deeper to find the reason for the illness and treat the underlying cause.

Chapter 5

We all need our brain to function. This chapter concentrates on the brain and how we can keep our brains functioning optimally until a ripe old age. This review spans from prevention of head concussions to avoiding type 3 diabetes (insulin sensitivity from overconsumption of sugar). It manifests itself in Alzheimer’s disease. It is a form of diabetes of the brain that leads to deposits of a gooey substance. Prevention of this condition is also reviewed .

Chapter 6

This chapter reviews what we now know about how to keep a healthy heart. Certain ingredients are necessary such as regular exercise, a healthy Mediterranean diet, supplements etc. The good part is that what is good for the heart is also good for the brain. You are preventing two problems (brain and heart disease) at the same time.

Chapter 7

What should we eat? And why does healthy food intake matter? Without the right ingredients of our body fuel, the body machinery will not work properly. The Mediterranean diet is an anti-inflammatory diet that is particularly useful.

Chapter 8

We need healthy limbs, bones and joints. We are meant to stay active in our eighties and nineties and beyond. No osteoporosis, no joint replacements, no balance problems that result in falls! Learn about how to deal with problems like these in this chapter.

Chapter 9

This chapter deals with detoxification. What do we do as we are confronted with pollution, with radiation in the environment and poisons in our daily food? A combination of organic foods, intravenous chelation treatments and taking supplements can help us in that regard.

Chapter 10

I am dealing here about reducing the impact of cancer in our lives. A lot of facts have come out in the past 10 years telling us that reduction of sugar and starchy food intake reduces cancer. Curcumin, resveratrol and vitamin D3 supplements also reduce cancer rates as does exercise and stress management. All of this is reviewed here.

Chapter 11

This chapter tells you all you need to know about your hormone status. Women need to avoid estrogen dominance; both sexes need to replace the hormones that are missing. By paying attention to your hormonal status and replacing the missing natural hormones with bioidentical ones, most people can add 10 to 15 years of useful, active life!

Chapter 12

Here you will learn more about anti-aging. You will learn about the importance to keep your mitochondrial DNA healthy. Apart from that there are ways how to keep your telomeres longer; certain supplements that are reviewed will help. Also your lifestyle does make a big difference in how old you can turn.

Chapter 13

This chapter investigates the limits of supplements. Many supplements are useful, but you do not want to overdo it and get into toxic levels. More is not necessarily better!

Chapter 14

Here is a review of an alternative approach to treating ADHD. Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder has been over diagnosed, has been neglected and has been over treated with dangerous drugs. An alternative treatment plan is discussed, which includes a combination of therapeutic steps.

Chapter 15

This gives you a brief summary of the book.

Kirkus Review

Kirkus Reviews reviewed the book on March 17, 2016: “A retired physician details how various preventative measures can fend off disease and disability in this consumer health guide. Schilling (A Survivor’s Guide to Successful Aging, 2014) had a family medicine practice in Canada for many years before retiring. Although Schilling ventures into some controversial territory in his latest book, it’s generally an engaging, helpful synthesis of ideas that draws on reputable research from the Mayo Clinic and other sources. Overall, it serves as an intensely detailed wake-up call to the importance of preventative health. He largely brings an accessible and even-tempered tone to his narrative, warning readers, for example, that preventative health measures can only aid in “a delay of aging, not ‘eternal living.’ ” A thought-provoking, impassioned plea to be proactive about one’s health.”

Healing Gone Wrong – Healing Done Right

Healing Gone Wrong – Healing Done Right

Conclusion

In this book it becomes evident that it is better to prevent an illness whenever possible rather than to wait for illness to set in and cause disabilities or death. You heard this before: “Prevention is better than a cure” or “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure”. I will give an explanation, based on scientific data that there is indeed evidence to support these notions on a cellular level.

Mitochondria, the energy packages within our cells

The mitochondria, the energy packages within our cells, are the driving force that keep people vibrantly healthy well into their nineties. All this can only happen when the mitochondria function properly. If toxins poison the mitochondria and as a result they malfunction, we are not looking at a person with vibrant health. Instead sixty or seventy year-olds may use a wheelchair. If you want a life without disabilities, a life without major illnesses and enjoy good health to a ripe old age, you are reading the right book.

The book is written in American English.

Available in the US: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1523700904

In Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/Healing-Gone-Wrong-Done-Right/dp/1523700904/  

In other countries the book is available through the local Amazon websites.

Feb
27
2016

Orthopedics Without A Knife

By | Arthritis, Orthopedics, Pain, regenerative medicine, scar tissue, stem cells, wound healing

Dr. Fields gave a talk in Las Vegas about orthopedics without a knife. His talk took place at the 23rd Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine on Dec. 12, 2015 in Las Vegas. Dr. Fields gave a talk entitled “Regenerative orthopedics – non-surgical repair with stem cells/PRP/prolotherapy”. In essence the talk was about alternative treatments to surgeries in orthopedic medicine.

Dr. Peter Fields, MD, DC is a board certified medical physician and chiropractor. He is also the director of the Pacific Prolotherapy & Medical Wellness Center in Santa Monica, CA.

Introduction

Joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments and joint capsules control the movements in joints. Due to injuries and wear and tear these body parts can have a lack of function, which will lead to pain and disorders. The result can be weak, torn or damaged ligaments and tendons, arthritic changes, excessive joint motion, increased pressure, and a decrease in range of motion.

This is the common treatment cycle in medicine

Joint pain prompts you to see the doctor. You are told it is arthritis, and you get non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAID’s). You come back with more pain, and you’ll get a stronger NSAID prescription. Eventually a cortisone injection is given, which helps for a few months, but then the pain reoccurs. The doctor arranges for an MRI scan. A referral to an orthopedic surgeon is likely to be the next step, and an arthroscopy (pinhole surgery) is arranged. In that case, if this does not resolve the pain, surgery like a knee replacement or hip replacement is suggested.

Common sayings when traditional medicine has nothing to offer

You may have heard some of these common sayings before. “Nothing more we can do about it!” -“I suggest you learn to live with it”- “You should never play that sport again!”- “Take these pain medications” and “The only alternative is surgery!”

The problem is, that none of these pieces of advice are really helpful. This type of approach does not treat the cause; it is directed against symptoms.

How to treat the cause?

Prolotherapy

Prolotherapy is a natural, non-surgical method to assist the body to heal torn soft tissues. It works in cases like torn ligaments, damaged tendons, cartilage, menisci or a torn labrum in the shoulder. Hyperosmolar dextrose solution is injected into the injured area. This stimulates the body’s healing forces and the body repairs what is damaged. More information is found here. In essence, prolotherapy fixes the cause, not just the effect; it heals, and it is permanent. Prolotherapy strengthens tissues, relieves pain and increases the range of motion in joints. There is 80 to 85% full pain relief and more than 80% improvement in range of motion. Prolotherapy promotes the healing of torn or damaged ligaments and tendons.

Conditions suitable for treatment with prolotherapy

Suitable conditions for treatment with prolotherapy are sports injuries, muscle tears, arthritis, tendinitis, bursitis, sciatica, TMJ problems, and fibromyalgia. Common areas treated with prolotherapy are the hip, knee, shoulder, ankle, neck, lower back and elbow. Dr. Fields showed MRI scans before and after prolotherapy treatments of ligament injuries within the knee and of shoulder ligament tears before and after treatment. Normally the physician expected these injuries to require surgery. But all that was done was one or two injections (prolotherapy treatments) with reactivation of the affected joint. There were astonishing results shown with MRI’s before and after herniated disc injuries and how they healed in a relatively short time following prolotherapy.

PRP prolotherapy

Platelet rich plasma (PRP) is a tool from regenerative medicine to amplify the healing response in connection with stem cell therapies .  The lab technician takes blood from the patient and subsequently spins it down in a centrifuge. The platelet rich fraction (PRP) contains all of the growth factors, which have the healing power of the blood. The physicians combines this with prolotherapy to make healing even more successful. This is particularly useful for labral tears in shoulders, meniscus tears in knees and other localized injuries.

Stem cell prolotherapy

Stem cell therapy has been the gold standard for repairing more serious problems. Dr. Fields combines stem cell therapy with prolotherapy to treat more serious injuries like end stage arthritis.  This is the case when bone rubs on bone, where conventional orthopedic medicine would offer a joint replacement in the hip or knee. Stem cell prolotherapy can repair any joint that has cartilage damage. A severe meniscus tear in a knee or a severe labrum tear in a shoulder would also be situations where stem cell prolotherapy is superior to surgery or to just using prolotherapy alone.

Here is a description of the procedure

Before the patient’s procedure the physician first harvests bone marrow stem cells by way of a pelvic bone aspirate; secondly the physician obtains mesenchymal stem cells from fatty tissue by aspiration of abdominal fat. A cell separator provides the stem cell fractions. The physician combines both types of stem cells, the bone marrow stem cells and the mesenchymal stem cells from fat as each one has its own strengths. These two stem cell types are more effective in combination to repair whatever tissue needs repair. Thirdly, the lab technician will draw blood from the patient to obtain PRP, which contains the growth factors needed to activate the stem cells to do their job of healing. The last step is that the physician now combines hyperosmolar dextrose (the prolotherapy part) with the stem cell preparation and mixed in PRP and injects this mixture into the injured area.

Conditions that respond to stem cell prolotherapy

This procedure has superior healing power. Before and after MRI scans of all of the major body regions showed impressive results. Several video recorded testimonials  complemented the MRI scans. It is surprising how quickly and completely fairly severe injuries can heal using stem cell prolotherapy. One particularly nasty condition is osteonecrosis of the hip, which can occur as a side effect of chronic cortisone treatment for arthritis, asthma or chronic obstructive lung disease. One or two stem cell prolotherapy treatments will heal this condition because the stem cells build up brand new bone and get rid of the old necrotic bone from the osteonecrosis. Conventional medicine has no answer for this condition. Regenerative orthopedics is successful by using stem cell prolotherapy.

What are the advantages of regenerative orthopedics?

Regenerative orthopedics reduces pain very quickly and it improves function rapidly. Healing occurs naturally, and it strengthens the tissues involved. Particularly complicated lower back pains or lower neck pains (due to degenerative disc disease, facet joint osteoarthritis, spondylolisthesis and significant foraminal stenosis) respond really well to stem cell prolotherapy, getting rid of chronic pain. The speaker showed before and after MRI scans. He also shared testimonials from patients about the various procedures.

End result following stem cell prolotherapy versus conventional surgery

This is quite in contrast to what conventional orthopedics has to offer: discectomy with fusion surgery, where the patient often has scar pain later. With a laminectomy to treat a foraminal stenosis the patient may have limited improvement of the chronic back pain for a couple of months, only to experience new back pain from a subsequent spinal stenosis as a late complication from the prior surgery. The end result with conventional orthopedics is disability, pain and suffering; the end result with regenerative orthopedics is a patient that is well, active, pain free and thankful.

Orthopedics Without A Knife

Orthopedics Without A Knife

Conclusion

There is a form of orthopedics without a knife: regenerative orthopedics. The tools are prolotherapy for minor musculoskeletal problems. Some very conservatively minded physicians still scoff at this, but wrongly so. PRP prolotherapy is suitable for more severe injuries that require more healing power. Stem cell prolotherapy is what the physician uses for the severe cases. All of the healing power (minus the knife) is put to use. Two types of stem cells initiate healing where there is a need for it. The stem cells transform into the cell types that do the repair.

Two types of stem cells needed sometimes

Research has shown in the past that the mesenchymal stem cells alone will not heal cartilage of joints very well, but in combination with bone marrow derived stem cells this heals quite well and efficiently. Healing osteonecrosis and complicated lower neck and lower back problems borders to miraculous healing. Regenerative orthopedics is definitely something to remember should you get into trouble down the road. There are alternatives to the knife!

Jan
23
2016

Life Extended By Several Decades

By | alcohol, Anti-aging medicine, Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes, Fitness, Health, heart attack, High Blood Pressure, Hormones, Inflammation, Nutrition, Pain, Prevention, regenerative medicine, Smoking, stem cells, Stress management, Stroke, Vitamins and supplements

Have you ever thought about the possibility to prolong your “Freshness Date”? At the 23rd Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine on Dec. 13, 2015 in Las Vegas the endocrinologist, Dr. Thierry Hertoghe from Belgium gave a talk about “How to extend the human lifespan by 40 years”. Dr. Hertoghe explained that it is possible to extend life by paying attention to the factors that prolong life and combining them as an anti-aging type lifestyle. He made a distinction between

  1. normal aging: up to age 82
  2. healthy aging: up to age 100
  3. anti-aging medicine: up to age 122
  4. reversing aging medicine: much more than 122, perhaps to age 150 or more.

Normal aging (up to age 82)

Life expectancy is on average about 82 years. From the age of 50 to 60 onwards you may encounter problems with increased cholesterol, high blood pressure leading to heart attacks and strokes. Coronary artery by-pass surgery may extend an individual’s life by 10 to 15 years. But hardening of the arteries in the general circulation will eventually cut down the blood supply to vital organs leading to premature death that could have been avoided.

Around the mid 60’s to mid 70’s 12.4% of African Americans or 2.9% Caucasians get Alzheimer’s disease. These figures worsen rapidly with further aging: in their mid 70’s to mid 80’s 32.5 % of African Americans and 9.8% of Caucasians suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. At the age of 85+ years 54% of African Americans and 27% of Caucasians have Alzheimer’s disease. With normal aging Alzheimer’s has already increased, and this trend likely is continuing.

Loss of memory, depression and musculoskeletal pain

Memory loss also leads to a shortened survival curve; people with memory loss live two years less on average than compared to a group with no memory loss.

Add to this loss of life because of depression, common in older age. Compared to a non-depressed group over 2 years of older people the depressed group lived 30% shorter.

Musculoskeletal pain in younger age (18-44) was 38%; the next demographic group aged 45-64 reported 61% of musculoskeletal pains; seniors between 65 and 74 had 68% of musculoskeletal pain, and in the demographic group of 75 and up 71% of persons suffered of musculoskeletal pain. As we will learn later there may be hormone deficiencies behind these neck and back pains. If the patient does not seek treatment, this can lead to falls, fractured hips and premature loss of life. Those who survive accidents often become wheel chair bound and end up in nursing homes.

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis and patients with other disabilities have a lower life expectancy

One specific subgroup of patients with musculoskeletal pain are rheumatoid arthritis sufferers. After 10 years of having rheumatoid arthritis patients will have a survival of only about 50%. With involvement of more than 30 joints  (more severe form of the disease) only about 40% will survive. In other words, rheumatoid arthritis is an important factor for lowering people’s life expectancy.

At an age of 65 to 74 men have 23% of disabilities, while woman have 27.5% disabilities. This increases between the ages of 75 or older to 40% for men and 44.5% for women. At the age of 65 disabled men have a 3.5% higher death rate than the average population; disabled women’s death rate is 2.5% higher than the normal population. In other words, disability kills.

Obesity, and heart disease

Urinary urgency and incontinence leads to a 3.13-fold higher mortality rate than a control group of men who do not have these symptoms.

65% of men and 85% of women above the age of 50 have abdominal obesity. This is not just a harmless condition. There is an association between increased triglyceride levels and increased mortality due to cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

By the age of 65-74 heart disease has a frequency of 32% in men and 23% in women. At the age of 75 years and older this jumps to 44% in men and 32% in women. Once the doctor diagnoses heart disease, it causes a lot of premature deaths: an average person with heart disease lives 10 years shorter than those who do not have heart disease!

Healthy aging (up to age 100)

Improving lifestyle factors increases life expectancy

If we look at normal aging, we realize that all these diseases and disabilities we discussed are eventually killing us. In order to live longer we have to take steps that are known to interfere with some of these factors. For instance, quitting smoking will prevent heart disease, several cancers and chronic obstructive lung disease (emphysema). Positive thinking, social support and transcendental meditation will increase survival by preventing mental illness and depression, which in turn will prevent suicides. A healthy diet such as the Mediterranean diet or the Pegan diet will avoid cardiovascular disease and cut down cancer rates.

Live longer with better diet

One dietary change is called the “polymeal”. It consists of fish, fruit, vegetables, garlic, almonds, a moderate amount of wine and dark chocolate. Compared to the Standard American diet this type of diet would add 9 years for men and 8.1 years for women regarding their life expectancy. For instance, prostate cancer showed a 7-fold increase in a group of men who ate a lot of pickled vegetables, fermented soy products, salted fish and preserved meats, when compared to a control group who did not include these foods. In a group of women who had their meat well done and ate three servings of beef per week, breast cancer risk was 4.62-fold higher compared to women who ate meat done rare or medium rare. Overall cancer and cardiovascular mortality dropped by 35% in a study where 5 or more servings of fruit and vegetables were eaten per day.

Regular exercise and supplements of vitamin C and omega-3

A regular exercise program will strengthen the heart and lungs, keep your weight stable, reduce heart attacks and strokes and reduce the probability to develop cancer. A group of men between 61 and 81 were observed over 12 years and divided into those who did not exercise versus those who walked more than 2 miles per day. The exercising men had 19% less mortality compared to the sessile men. Vitamin C from fruit and vegetables or from taking supplements reduces global mortality from all causes by 46% compared to controls that did not. Similarly taking omega-3 fatty acid supplements (fish oil) daily reduced all cause mortality by 20%.

Dr. Hertoghe calls this “healthy aging” and this would allow you to be able to reach an age of about 100 years.

Anti-aging medicine (up to age 122)

Low thyroid hormones

Dr. Hertoghe told the audience that further attention to anti-aging factors could reduce mortality even further. He found over the years that paying attention to correcting hormonal weaknesses would have profound effects on how old a person becomes. Thyroid hormone replacement has been one of the steps that has helped people to feel more energetic, have less muscle pain, less falls, less fractures and complications. It also translates into longer lives.

One slide showed that a low free T3 level (low thyroid) was associated with a 3.6-fold higher death rate. A low free T3 level is an accurate predictor of cumulative death rate in cardiac patients.

T3 is also important for the maintenance of the immune system, which shows in patients with tuberculosis: the one-year mortality rate from TB in thyroid deficient patients was 75%, while patients with a normal thyroid had a mortality from TB of only 7%.

Replacement of missing sex hormones

Secondly, replacing missing sex hormones can add more life because cardiovascular disease is postponed (less heart attacks, less strokes), there is less cancer and better cancer survival, if a person comes down with cancer. Many statistics were quoted.

One interesting slide showed the longitudinal survival follow-up of congenital dwarfs in comparison with their normal brothers or sisters. Untreated male dwarfs turned only 56 years on average, while their unaffected normal brothers turned 75 years on average (19 years longer). With female dwarfs the difference is even more striking: untreated females dwarfs turned 46 years on average, while their normal sisters turned 80 years on average (a difference of 34 years).

Bioidentical hormone treatment prolongs life, lowers heart attack rates and lowers cancer rates

Another publication showed that the heart attack risk was 3.8-fold higher in a group of patients with hypopituitarism (under function of the pituitary gland), but the treatment group (treated with GH) had a normal rate of heart attacks.

11606 men aged 40 to 79 years were followed for between 6 and 10 years. The group who had the top 25% range of testosterone had a 19% lower mortality rates from heart attacks or cancer.

Older women, particularly aged 100 in Okinawa had 2.3-fold higher testosterone levels than women in the US at age 70. On the other hand 70-year old Okinawan women had 2.7-fold higher estrogen levels than US women.

Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) prior to developing breast cancer showed a 27% longer survival among 984 breast cancer patients in Sweden compared to those without prior hormone treatment.

Lower mortality rates for bioidentical hormone replacement therapy of breast cancer patients

In another group of breast cancer patients (2755 patients) aged 35 to 74 who were treated with bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) after their breast cancer diagnosis, 50% had a lower recurrence rate (compared to no-BHRT treatment) and there was a reduction of 66% of mortality from breast cancer compared to controls without BHRT treatment. Another study showed that breast cancer patients would have a mortality rate of 33.3% without hormone treatment. After non-estrogen hormone treatment the mortality rate dropped to 12.5% and to 6% after estrogen/progesterone use. This shows the healing results of the various natural hormones.

Treating the cause rather than the symptoms

A group of 280 men and women around the age of 50 were treated with anti-aging hormone replacement for 2 or more years. In the beginning there were 34% of women and 15% of men with coronary artery disease. There were also 36.4% of women and 34.1% of men with high blood pressure. After replacing all of the missing hormones with bioidentical hormones for more than 2 years, coronary artery disease had dropped to 1.6% of the women and 1.08% of the men; high blood pressure had dropped to 2% of the women and 3% of the men. No drugs, just hormones! Of course, initially the doctors prescribed drugs to stabilize their condition, but they could gradually drop them safely. The reason was that the doctors treated the underlying hormone deficiency. The doctors were treating the cause of the cardiovascular disease rather than only the symptoms.

Low mortality of women on bioidentical hormone replacement

Dr. Hertoghe presented data of 6.38-year follow-up of 286 consecutive patients using anti-aging medicine (replacement of missing hormones with bioidentical hormones). These patients had an overall cancer rate of 2.1%, which compared very favorably to the 3.2% cancer rate among US women. The overall cancer rate was  3.1% in French women and 3.1% in Belgium women on no hormones. This is the type of information that is needed following the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) that scared women into the false belief that hormones would be “poisonous”.

Synthetic hormone do not fit the hormone receptor

In the WHI synthetic hormones caused cancer and heart attacks; the reason for this was that synthetic hormones are not the identical shape as the natural hormones. But hormones and hormone receptors have to fit like a key into a lock; otherwise they are not effective or even block the natural life prolonging action of the natural hormone. This is why in the WHI study the outcomes were poor. Using bioidentical hormones the doctor can prevent heart attacks and strokes and they are also cancer-protective.

Reversing aging medicine (much more than 122, perhaps to age 150 or more)

General medicine has the goal to make patients as healthy as possible. With reversing aging medicine the goal is to make patients as young as possible. They are at their healthiest and feel younger again.

With anti-aging medicine using a healthy diet, exercise and bioidentical hormone replacement therapy the patients can add 15 years of good life. Add to these organ transplants, if necessary, telomerase activators and stem cell therapy. This can add another 25 years of life expectancy to a total of 40 years.

Growth hormone deficiency

Growth hormone deficiency is the one factor that has been underestimated. The discussion of dwarfs in comparison to their healthy brothers and sisters showed us the following. Growth hormone production can add between 19 and 34 years (average 26.5 years) of life. Dr. Hertoghe has done blood tests (IGF-1) and lately also 24-hour urine metabolite tests of growth hormone on aging patients and found that many are deficient with regard to GH production. These were patients where Dr. Hertoghe already replaced their thyroid hormones, if abnormal and replaced their sex hormones when they were low. But they lost hair, developed old looking faces with wrinkles. In addition, a loss of subcutaneous fatty tissue is giving the face a hollow appearance. They also had muscle and joint pains and thin skin, particularly over the back of their hands.

Replacement of growth hormone

He replaced their missing GH using daily GH self-injection with a tiny needle (similar to diabetes injections). Within 1.5 to 3 years the wrinkles disappeared, the faces started to look younger and patients did feel younger. Their muscle and joint pains had disappeared and their hair grew back. The dosage range is between 0.1mg and 0.3mg, a tiny amount of GH daily. This is not inexpensive, but some health care plans pay for this, as a lack of GH is a true hormone deficiency.

About organ transplants

Often it is a single limiting organ that determines when we die, typically the heart, lungs, brain, liver, kidneys, small bowel, pancreas or bone marrow. Organ transplants can add years of life, but it can be cumbersome to find a suitable donor. One study showed that only 40% to 60% of organ transplants are surviving 8 years after the surgery.

Stem cell therapies are other ways to prolong life. More research will perfect this, but essentially stem cells can provide 220 different cell types for in-vitro organ culture. This can probably be of use in the future to replace malfunctioning organs.

Life Extended By Several Decades

Life Extended By Several Decades

Conclusion

The dream of staying younger for longer can be a reality today. You just need to be willing to discipline yourself and watch what you are eating (Mediterranean type diet). Also, exercise regularly and have a positive psychological attitude. If the outdoor air is poor where you live, you may want to consider moving. Move to a place with good air quality. Sleep well for 7 ½ hours every night and retire not later than 10 to 11PM. You need to be asleep between midnight and 3AM as the growth hormone peak occurs at that time.

Take supplements

Take supplements that contain longevity micronutrients (magnesium, vitamins A, C, D, E, B6, B12, Co-Q-10, selenium, zinc, iron in premenopausal women etc.). Replace all missing hormones with bioidentical ones, like thyroid hormones (T3 and T4), sex hormones, DHEA and GH. Stem cell therapy and telomerase activators for cell rejuvenation will also have more of a place in the future.

Even, if you do only part of this reversing aging program you will slow down aging.

Apr
25
2015

Rejuvenate With Stem Cells

By | Arthritis, Diabetes, heart attack, laser therapy, Multiple sclerosis, Orthopedics, Parkinson’s disease, stem cells, Stroke, telomeres

We all age; but can we rejuvenate with stem cells? There is a limit to detoxification, to eating organic food, to exercising, to the effects of vitamins and supplements and even to the effect of bioidentical hormone replacements. The limit comes from our telomeres and from stem cells that get depleted in our body as we age. Some researchers report that in regions where we suffer from a disease stem cells are even more depleted than in the rest of the body.

We do not have all the answers yet. We would like to know why our stem cells in the fatty tissue or in the bone marrow do not migrate on their own into an aching back or a sore shoulder. There are all the aches and pains associated with old age. So, why do our own stem cells not help us? They seem to be locked away in fatty tissue and in bone marrow.

At the 22nd Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine in Las Vegas (Dec. 10-14, 2014) I learnt that there is a group of stem cell experts in California with affiliates all over the US. They simply take stem cells from the fatty tissue and sometimes also from the bone marrow, isolate the stem cells through a stem cell separator and infuse the stem cell rich fraction (minus fatty and connective tissue) in a bit of saline solution back into the vein of the patient. When the stem cells are in the blood stream, they get activated by the growth factors that are present in blood and can now find where they are needed and start the healing process.

Studies have shown that when stem cells are in circulation in the blood, they are very sensitive to signals from tissues that indicate that there is an inflammatory process. This is why stem cells will repair arthritic changes. The can repair a torn meniscus, a rotator cuff tear in the shoulder or repair a weak immune system. The interesting observation is that stem cells from fatty tissue, also termed mesenchymal stem cells, are pluripotent. This means they can develop into cartilage building cells (chondrocytes) and build up cartilage; this is badly needed in a person with severe osteoarthritis. But stem cells are flexible: they can turn into meniscus cells in a knee with a torn meniscus. They also can repair the damage and relief the patient of the chronic pain. In a shoulder with a rotator cuff tear they can turn into a tough ligamentous material mending the tear.

Some data even indicates that circulating stem cells can repair vital organs like the brain, heart, liver, kidneys and bone marrow; these latter observations were mostly done in animal experiments, but human data is starting to be published in the medical literature.

So, let’s examine what has been found useful with regard to stem cells that are taken from your fatty tissue or your bone marrow and injected into one of your veins.

Here is a website from Arizona that I am only showing as a typical example (I have no conflict of interest and no commercial connections to this group) of what I described above.

With websites like this it is also important to read the disclaimer: “Even though our treatments are done using autologous cells, our Stem Cell Therapies are not approved by the FDA. Stem Cell Treatments are not a cure for any condition, disease or injury, nor a substitute for proper medical diagnosis and care…” Another website from La Quinta, CA describes the use of mesenchymal stem cells for regenerative therapies.

Stem cell treatments are in flux. There is a large body of knowledge that has accumulated showing that with proper technique and aseptic conditions it is a safe procedure. The FBA has been watching this. There are publications regarding the safety of procedures with adipose mesenchymal stem cells; here is one example.

The next step is to show in clinical trials that a certain procedure with stem cells is effective in treating a certain condition.

Below I did a literature review, which are only a few examples, but does not claim to be complete; it highlights some of the problems with stem cell treatments.

Stroke treatment with intravenous administration of bone marrow mononuclear stem cells

This study from India showed no statistical difference of stroke patients treated intravenously with bone marrow derived mononuclear stem cells (the experimental group) and the control group that did not receive such treatment. The investigators examined both groups with functional brain tests and performed PET scans to look at the healing of the brain lesions. Unfortunately the tests showed no statistical difference, but did show that the stem cell procedures were safe. It may be that the wrong stem cells were used (mononuclear bone marrow stem cells) when adipose derived mesenchymal stem cells may have done better. In stark contrast to the study from India is the stem cell treatment for a severe stroke in the former hockey player, Gordie Howe that has gone through the media recently. His procedure was done in Mexico. The stem cells were administered via a lumbar puncture approach as well as intravenously. As you can see from this case, stem cell treatment is even possible in patients who are in their mid 80’s with impressive results.

Parkinson’s disease

Here is a feasibility study from March 2014. A 71-year-old Asian man with progressive supranuclear palsy, an aggressive form of Parkinson’s disease was treated with adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells that were administered intravenously and intrathecally (to get stem cells into the cerebrospinal fluid that bathes the brain). A remarkable functional recovery took place.

Possible side-effects

This is a report of pulmonary embolism after administering intravenous adipose tissue-derived stem cell therapy. The blood clots in the lungs were treated with anticoagulant therapy. Repeat CT scans of his lungs showed later that the emboli were dissolved spontaneously. It is not clear whether this was a case where familial clotting problems pre-existed as a relative of this patient experienced a similar occurrence after stem cell therapy as well.

A case of chronic autoimmune thrombocytopenic purpura

A rare form of autoimmune disease exists where the body forms antibodies against platelets that help your blood to clot. Here is a paper from June 2009 that describes how a man with this disease was cured using adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells that were injected intravenously.

Renal transplant survival in type 1 diabetes patient

This case report from India shows that adipose tissue derived mesenchymal stem cells that were given at the time of a kidney transplant to treat end stage kidney disease. The treatment stabilized the condition of this patient after a kidney transplant. At the same time some of the mesenchymal stem cells differentiated into insulin producing cells, which made it much easier to control this patient’s diabetes. In this case stem cells were providing stability following an organ transplant (kidney) and some stem cells turned into insulin producing pancreatic cells.

Osteonecrosis of hip treated with adipose tissue derived MSC

In this study from South Korea dated January 2012 two cases of osteonecrosis of the hip, where the hipbone died (osteonecrosis) are described. The following stem cell protocol helped: The fraction that contained the stem cells (called stromal vascular fraction) was mixed with platelet rich plasma and hyaluronic acid. Using a long needle this mixture was injected into the affected hip joint. Conventional medicine has nothing to offer except a total hip replacement. But here are two cases that showed complete resolution of their pain, regained hip function completely, and healing could be documented with the help of MRI scans.

Treating heart attack patients with stem cells

Here is a paper from The Netherlands, published in June 2014 that describes the problems with stem cell treatment in humans. It points out that much has been learnt from animal experiments. The problem following a heart attack is that there is a massive inflammatory response in the infarcted heart muscle, which makes it difficult for stem cells to establish themselves in the injured heart muscle. However, stem cells have been shown to prevent the development of cardiomyopathy that follows a massive heart attack and often is the cause of death. More refinements are needed for successful treatments, such as the ideal timing of stem cell injections in relationship to the time of the heart attack, the best treatment approach and what number of stem cells to inject are all questions that still need to be answered.

MS model in mice shows promise with adipose mesenchymal stem cells

Experimental encephalitis in mice is used as a model for MS in humans. It helps to preselect potentially effective treatments for MS in humans. In this 2013 paper from Australia researchers used mesenchymal stem cells from adipose tissue and injected them intravenously. To their surprise the mesenchymal stem cells were able to penetrate the blood/brain barrier and end up in the myelin lesions inside the brain. In contrast, bone marrow derived stem cells were unable to do that. The researchers stated that adipose mesenchymal stem cells should be considered “as a cell therapeutic that may be used to treat MS patients”.

A group from Iran published this paper in February 2015 further emphasizes that mesenchymal stem cells would be a logical way to treat MS in humans.

Immunosenescence

As we get older the immune systems weakens because of a process called immunosenescence.

A research group from Austria published a paper in December 2011 that is typical for the thinking that mesenchymal stem cells from fatty tissue have properties that help the immune system to get stimulated. Based on this human data it should be possible to stimulate the immune system by giving stem cells from the fatty tissue to the same person intravenously. This publication shows that this process, which would benefit people above the age of 50 or 60 when the immune system gets weaker, will indeed stimulate the immune system. However, at this point we do not have the data of large clinical trials where this would have been done with measurements of the immune function before and on several occasions after stem cell injection to get a feeling for how long the effect would last. We also do not know whether this procedure is associated with longevity.

Rejuvenate With Stem Cells

Rejuvenate With Stem Cells

Conclusion

Stem cell therapy is definitely coming and many applications are already established as I discussed in a prior blog. It is only recently that physicians are no longer worried about creating tumors with stem cell transfer. Now we are in a phase where various stem cell transfer methods (intravenous, intrathecal, interstitial) are being tested as a treatment for various illnesses. It looks like stem cells from fatty tissue may soon be used intravenously, but I have not seen any such trials when checked on PubMed. The activation of stem cells by laser light has only been mentioned sparingly in the literature. This combination (laser activated, intravenous mesenchymal injection) has the potential for being useful for a multitude of chronic illnesses like fibromyalgia, MS, generalized arthritis, just to mention a few. Mesenchymal stem cells are anti-inflammatory, and they can mend defects without leaving scars.

Apr
04
2015

Stop Suffering From Arthritis

By | alcohol, Arthritis, Autism, Cancer, Diabetes, Gastrointestinal Disease, Heart Disease, Infectious Disease, kidney disease, laser therapy, lifestyle, Nutrition, Pain, stem cells, Vitamins and supplements

This article shows you how to stop suffering from arthritis. Arthritis is an illness of the joints, mostly in older people (osteoarthritis or degenerative arthritis). However, a subgroup of younger patients can also develop a severe form of arthritis, called rheumatoid arthritis where autoimmune antibodies play more of a role.

In the 1950’s Dan Dale Alexander wrote a book called “Arthritis and common sense”. The medical establishment did not accept that simple remedy and Dan Dale Alexander was classified as a “quack”. However, Dr. Mirkin describes a study from Berlin that later confirmed that Dan Dale Alexander’s observation was correct: an emulsion made by shaking orange juice with cod liver oil and taken three times per day on an empty stomach would indeed improve osteoarthritis.

Dan Dale Alexander’s emulsion of orange juice and cod liver oil

In 1966, when I was still a medical student, I suggested to my future mother-in-law to give Dan Dale Alexander’s book about arthritis a try. Despite the well-established osteoarthritic condition in her left knee the arthritis vanished within 6 months and stayed controlled. I could not explain to her why this remedy was effective, as researchers had not yet described higher doses of omega-3 fatty acids and higher doses of vitamin C to be of value for arthritis.

This all changed with the advent of orthomolecular medicine (Ref.1). On page 76 of this book Dr. Frederick Klenner describes that ascorbic acid (vitamin C) at mega doses of at least 10,000 mg daily, but better even between 15,000 and 25,000 mg daily does have healing effects for arthritis. He stated further that repair of collagenous tissue (the joint surfaces) would require adequate ascorbic acid. On page 240 of Ref.1 Dr. Abram Hoffer, the founder of modern orthomolecular medicine reviewed the history of the use of vitamins in higher doses, particularly the use of vitamin B3 (niacin). He also mentioned that Dr. William Kaufman had used mega doses of vitamin B3 for arthritis as far back as 1950.

Overview of arthritis

Dr. Hoffer explains in Ref.2 that arthritis belongs into a group of diseases that are related to faulty nutrition, which in turn lead to vitamin and mineral deficiencies and a pandeficiency disease. Other diseases that belong to that group are cardiovascular disease, multiple sclerosis, cancer, diabetes, schizophrenia, mood disorders, alcoholism and autism. Contributing factors can be poor diets with overemphasis on refined and processed foods and consumption of sugar, allergies, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract and viral infections. Arthritis belongs into this group of illnesses as well. Researchers found that niacin, vitamin B6 and zinc were useful to treat arthritis, but other vitamins and minerals are also necessary. Here is a list of what Dr. Hoffer would suggest to use (Ref. 2):

  1. Vitamin B3

Vitamin B3 from 100 mg to several thousand mg three times daily following meals. With niacin there can be skin flushing, which often goes away after the body gets used to the higher doses; but niacinamide could be used instead by those who are bothered by the flushing.

  1. B complex

B complex: this contains each of the major B vitamins including vitamin B6 (pyridoxine). Take 100 mg once per day with a meal. The dose for vitamin B6 is up to 500 mg per day or more.

  1. Vitamin C

The dosage for vitamin C is between 500 mg and several thousand mg three times per day after meals.

  1. Vitamin D3

To get adequate vitamin D3 levels the patient has to take 4000 IU per day in the summer months. In the winter months particularly populations who live far north require 6000 IU per day.

  1. Vitamin B1 (thiamine)

Vitamin B1 (thiamine): alcoholics and very high sugar consumers need thiamine at 100 to 500 mg three times per day.

  1. Folic acid at mega doses

Folic acid at mega doses (prescription needed) works as an antidepressant, which requires 25 to 50 mg. To lower homocysteine levels lower doses of folic acid are sufficient.

  1. Vitamin E

Vitamin E: usually 400 IU to 800 per day. Muscle wasting diseases, Huntington’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) require much higher doses up to 4000 IU per day.

  1. Essential fatty acids (omega-3)

Essential fatty acids (omega-3): It is strongly recommended to use a molecularly distilled product, which is free of mercury and PBC’s at 1000 mg three times daily following meals.

  1. Selenium

Selenium: The required dosage is 200 to 600 micrograms once daily (with any meal). In areas where selenium is deficient, this is particularly important.

  1. Zinc

Zinc: 50 mg of zinc citrate or 220 mg of zinc sulfate once per day with a meal.

  1. Calcium and magnesium

Calcium and magnesium: Dr. Hoffer suggested 1000 mg of calcium with 500 mg of magnesium, although many experts now say that 1000 mg of calcium with 1000 mg of magnesium may be better.

Dr. Hoffer pointed out that this program is compatible with any medication and is non-toxic.

Thoughts on treating arthritis

 

 1. Conventional methods

The conventional approach to treatment of arthritis consists of anti-inflammatory medications like ANSAIDs. Unfortunately they have side effects like causing kidney damage after several years of use. Also, NSAIDs can lead to gastric bleeding from gastric erosions, which may require blood transfusions. Physiotherapy with reactivation and swimming have been found to be useful. Electro acupuncture can help for pain control.

2. Diet changes, multivitamins and minerals

As arthritis occurs mostly in civilized nations, physicians have long suspected dietary factors to be of importance. Dr. Hoffer pointed out that arthritis is a pandeficiency disease meaning that overconsumption of sugar and processed foods has lead to multiple vitamin and mineral deficits that interfere with the cartilage metabolism leading to premature breakdown of cartilage and causing inflammation. It is not good enough to just take the supplements listed above; this needs to be combined with a fundamental change in diet. Cut out sugar and starchy foods. Return to homemade foods. Keep it simple with lots of vegetables, salads and organic meats. Now that you are starting to turn around your metabolism by a sensible diet the supplements listed above have a chance to work.

You will notice that Dan Dale Alexander’s idea of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin C (from the freshly pressed orange juice) is contained in the list of supplements above. Dr. Klenner’s mega doses of vitamin C are also listed and Dr. Kaufman’s mega doses of vitamin B3 is contained in this list as well.

This list may not have been formally researched with controlled clinical trials, because the food industry and the makers of NSAIDs (Big Pharma) have no interest in this. But thousands of patients have been empirically treated with this regimen and a network of orthomolecular physicians has established that this regimen works to control the inflammation of arthritis and at the same time has no toxic side-effects.

 3. Laser, platelet rich plasma (PRP) and stem cells

Blue and green lasers have anti-inflammatory properties and are suitable for interstitial and intra articular laser treatments of arthritis. Dr. Weber has extensive experience with this treatment modality in Germany. I have discussed this in another blog.

However, prolotherapy, PRP and stem cell treatments are also an option for more severe cases of arthritis, particularly in arthritis of the knees, which can avoid total knee replacement surgery.

Stop Suffering From Arthritis

Stop Suffering From Arthritis

Conclusion

I met Dr. Hoffer in the early 1980’s during a meeting in Vancouver, BC when he wanted to establish a local orthomolecular division for British Columbia. Although I found the ideas fascinating, I felt that the College of Physicians and Surgeons (the regulatory body for physicians in BC) would scrutinize the practice of any orthomolecular member. At that time I would risk losing my license to practice medicine, which I just had received in 1978. So I decided not to join. Interestingly enough later in the 1980’s a member of the orthomolecular society of BC lost his license because of the use of mega doses of intravenous vitamin C. At this time the College considered these infusions useless or hazardous. Nowadays, any naturopathic and orthomolecular physician uses these intravenous vitamin C treatments as standard therapies. It shows how times have changed.

Lifestyle issues important with causation of arthritis

What has not changed is the food industry that undermines our health every day with hidden sugar contained in processed foods. In social functions it is customary to have a drink or two, if not more, which uses up our thiamine faster than we can replace it. Pan deficiency disease is alive and well as it was many years ago. It is in front of our eyes, but can we see it? Depending on what your eating habits are, do you need to make changes in your diet and perhaps take some or all of the ingredients of the multivitamin and mineral list above? Start by adopting a Mediterranean type diet, then add some of the supplements listed above. It is time to take a thorough look at natural treatment modalities against arthritis in the interest of preserving your health!

References

Ref. 1: Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D.: “The Orthomolecular Treatment of Chronic Disease. 65 Experts on Therapeutic and Preventative Nutrition”, Basic Health Publications, Laguna Beach, CA, 2014.

Ref. 2: Chapter in Ref. 1 by Dr. Hoffer: “Pandeficiency Disease”, pages 24-30 (2014).

Feb
14
2015

Laser Therapy Going Beyond Skin Deep

By | Anti-aging medicine, Arthritis, Cancer, Diabetes, Heart Disease, laser therapy, lifestyle, Medical Condition, Multiple sclerosis, stem cells

There was an interesting workshop alongside of the A4M conference mid December 2014 organized by Jonathan Schwartz who gave an overview of the use of low-dose laser therapy for various clinical applications. It involved the use of the Dr. Michael Weber low-dose laser machine, which has a lot of versatility.

  1. First there are 5 laser light frequencies in the rainbow colors (infrared, red, yellow, green, blue) and the colors have very special characteristics as will be explained further below.
  2. There are a multitude of applicators like skin acupressure point applicators, a shower for hair loss applications, a head adapter, which looks like a crown. With this device red light will penetrate into the brain through the skull bone. There is also a mouth shower and various lengths needle applicators that can be used to access the body intravenously or interstitially (direct tissue approach). At the center of the equipment is the Weberneedle Compactlaser, which can be attached to the various applicators.

Laser characteristics

The blue laser penetrates about 1 cm (0.39 inch) under the skin, a green laser penetrates only 0.5 cm (0.19 inch); like the blue laser the yellow laser penetrates through the skin with a depth of 1 cm (0.39 inch). The red laser has a penetration depth of 2-3 cm (a bit more or less than 1 inch) and the infrared laser penetrates 5-7 cm (2 to 2 1/2 inches).

In addition the various lasers have different inherent qualities: The red laser is good for tissue regeneration, which lends itself for chronic pain. Green and blue lasers have anti-inflammatory effects, which helps in acute pain. The yellow laser can be used for detoxification, has antidepressant qualities and photosensitizes hypericin, a substance derived from St. John’s wort, which is known to have antidepressant qualities. The various types of laser mentioned can be used interstitially, intravenously and just on the skin surface over acupuncture points. Dr. Weber explained that detailed research has revealed that the low-dose energy beam sends out energy that is taken up by the surrounding tissues and cells. The mitochondria of the cells get activated to produce more ATP, which the cells use to heal themselves.

Meeting in Placentia

Forward to a meeting in Placentia, CA on Feb. 7, 2015 where Dr. Michael Weber and several other speakers gave presentations on the use of the Dr. Weber laser system. A number of local doctors who had an interest in learning more about the low-dose laser system were there as well. It was a daylong mini conference.

Three volunteers were used to demonstrate the use of the system. I was volunteering about a chronic left lower back pain that various chiropractors had problems adjusting in the past year. I have a strong family history of arthritis on my mother’s side and my maternal grandmother’s side as well. The health professionals thought that I likely have developed arthritis in the left sacro-iliac joint. Dr. Weber used the interstitial needle, which is 4 cm (1.57 inches) long. The skin was injected with a local anesthetic first, and then the needle was inserted, which I could hardly feel. Now he injected 5 cc of normal saline. This was used, so that the laser light would spreads more into the surrounding area. Dr. Weber explained that he was very close to the SI joint with the tip of the needle on the left. He attached a blue laser to it for 20 minutes and switched it to a green laser for another 20 minutes.

In the meantime the other two volunteers were treated.

One was a physician in the group who had a chronic planter’s fasciitis. He was treated with an intravenous laser application. First a special butterfly was inserted, through which a sterile laser probe could be threaded and then attached. He received a red laser.

The third volunteer had a chronic right knee problem from congenital Osgood Schlatter disease. In him Dr. Weber used an approach of intraarticular injection and he attached a blue laser for 20 minutes, followed by a yellow laser for another 20 minutes. A physician with a California license supervised all of these procedures.

I woke up the following day with no pain in my left lower back, but at the same time the lesser right lower back pain had also disappeared. I figure that due to the fact that my back mobility is back the untreated right side must have normalized as well. It is now 7 days following the procedure and I still have no back pain. Yesterday I saw my local chiropractor in Southern California and he confirmed that my back was much easier to adjust than the month before (Update April 12, 2015: my lower back is still pain free!).

Normally a case like mine would require 5 to 6 weekly treatments before the problem is resolved. Dr. Weber explained that more complicated problems like fibromyalgia would take 15 to 20 treatments in succession or more. The principal is always that you treat where the symptoms are; in the follow-up visit the healthcare practitioner treats the remaining symptoms until all of the symptoms have resolved.

The intriguing fact is that low-dose laser therapy seems to fit right into gap where conventional medicine has failed.

Clinical cases that respond to laser therapy

Dr. Weber has collected clinical cases that improve with laser treatments, such as diabetes, chronic liver diseases, chronic pain syndromes, rheumatoid arthritis, polyneuropathy, chronic inflammatory disease, cancer (with photodynamic therapy), fibromyalgia, high blood pressure, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), macular degeneration, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease, allergies and eczema. This, however, is just a partial list.

Photodynamic cancer therapy is made possible by the fact that certain substances have absorption spectra that are activated by different wavelength. This amplifies the effect of the natural substance that is used by several folds. For instance Chlorin E6 absorbs a red laser (around 660 nm). A blue laser activates Curcumin. A yellow laser activates Hypericin. Here is a website that explains the principle of phototherapy.

Various cancers can be treated where conventional medicine has so far failed. Examples are lymph metastases from breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, and bladder cancer. I have blogged regarding a combination treatment for breast cancer before, where phototherapy with lasers and immunostimulation were combined. Esophageal cancer is treated through esophagoscopy combined with a laser that activates curcumin, which had been taken orally well before the procedure. Not all of the cases are successful, but the majority of them are.

Otherwise routine low-dose laser applications are used for tendinitis, tennis elbow, sprains and soft tissue injures.

Laser-Therapy-Going-Beyond-Skin-Deep

Laser-Therapy-Going-Beyond-Skin-Deep

You can combine the laser system with prolotherapy. Prolotherapy is done first by injecting hyperosmolar dextrose solution, which is a strong stimulator of stem cells. Using the same needle, but attaching the Weber low-level laser therapy will activate the stem cells and protect them from dying off.

Conclusion

Low dose laser therapy using the Weber Medical technology is a new treatment modality available to the interested physician. I think that it will cause a revolution within medicine. It is scientifically sound and it fits right into the difficult to treat patients; the patients that otherwise would be unlikely to respond. However, they will respond well to these new treatment modalities. Apart from musculoskeletal problems, various cancers will also respond to this. The Mayo clinic is starting a study on treating cancer using phototherapy and the Dr. Weber low-dose laser system.