Boning Up On Calcium Supplements

Calcium is the most abundant mineral in our body. We all know that it is important for the health our bones but did you know it is essential for the function of the immune system, muscle contraction, cell signaling, blood clotting, activating certain enzymes, and nerve function?  As an electrolyte, calcium helps maintain a regular heartbeat and balances our pH.

Today, we will focus on Grandma's bones as she has just been diagnosed with osteoporosis. The doctor wants her to take a calcium supplement. There are seemingly endless forms of calcium available in the stores: Citrate, carbonate, oyster shell, lactate, gluconate, phosphate, coral calcium, dolomite, and bone meal, to name a few. Which do you pick? How can you choose? Aren't they all the same?

Let's start by first stating that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Living a healthy lifestyle complete with a nutritious diet rich in organic greens fresh from the garden is one of the best ways to fill our bodies with calcium and maintain our defenses in preventing chronic or "aging" diseases like osteoporosis.

Humans get their energy (and all their spare parts) from whole food. This is, after all, the purpose of eating. Supplements of any kind must also originate from a whole food source. Only food complete with co-factors, enzymes and bursting in infinite complexities, can supply us with the building blocks of life. Synthetic vitamins, those made in a laboratory, are lifeless inert molecules and because they are not imbued with the "essence of life" they cannot feed, heal, sustain, or repair our bodies. Synthetic chemicals are no different than a pharmaceutical drug. They can only alter body chemistry so that we perceive a different sensation.

That being said, in terms of supplements, eliminating chemicals and fillers that have nothing to do with Grandma’s bone formation or health in general becomes our next focus. We must read the label. I would not buy any supplement that lists polyethylene glycol, polyvinyl alcohol, talc, Sorbitol, MSG, soybean or corn oil (most assuredly filled with GMOs), titanium dioxide, or artificial colors. None of these items promotes health. They are included on the label as fillers, binders, excipients, and marketing gimmicks. Basically, if the ingredient looks and sounds like a chemical, don't use it.  Magnesium stearate, parabens, microcrystalline cellulose, and artificial flavors are a few more to shy away from.

Fractionalized vitamins have food as its original source (and are therefore not considered a synthetic vitamin) but the extraction process has eliminated all of the synergistic co-factors leaving only the pure organic nutrient. You may see this printed on the front label as vitamin C from Rose Hips but the ingredients list says Vitamin C as ascorbic acid. The motivation behind this is to concentrate the organic nutrient and thus increase the milligram levels for marketing purposes. The problem with this type of vitamin is that they are only of value to the body if all the associated synergistic micronutrients are intact. Only then will it become bioavailable to the cells of the body.

What about the source of calcium itself? What should we look for there? The most common form of calcium used in supplements is calcium carbonate. This form of calcium is limestone, chalk dust. It is taken from the earth. Natural Law (basic physiology) says that we humans are not designed to eat dirt so this form of calcium is a poor choice. Our bodies need high concentrations of stomach acid to break down this mineralized rock.  The irony here is that calcium carbonate is an antacid. It DECREASES stomach acid. This is the form found in TUMS. 

Calcium lactate is calcium carbonate treated with lactic acid. This makes the calcium digest easier as it is in a sense “pre-digested” or already broken down. However, Calcium carbonate, whether in its original form or as lactate, is still rock dust. Humans are not meant to eat rocks. 

We need to exercised common sense when it comes to eating rocks, egg shells, coral, or sea shells. Hard, indigestible forms of calcium can result in serious adverse health effects. If the calcium is not bioavailable, if the body cannot use the calcium, it will be forced to store it in the tissues. This build up can lead to kidney stones, hardening of the arteries, gallstones, bone spurs, dental plaque, cataracts, cysts, and tumors.

Now that Grandma has made her choice in supplements and has picked a whole food form, we must also educate her on the reality of bone health. Calcium is a soft mineral. Though it makes up the mass of bone, it is not necessarily responsible for its hardness. That role is delegated to trace minerals such as boron, zinc, copper, silica, manganese, and chromium. Phosphorus, potassium, essential fatty acids, vitamins K, D, A, and C also play roles in directing calcium to its destination. If Grandma is taking a calcium supplement without the addition of these co-factors, she will not improve her bone density. 

I am proud to recommend http://www.phporder.com/?ID=ntaveras.

Tell Nicky that Dr. Mark sent you.

The Science (?) Behind Vaccines

In this age of social media, I cannot sit at my computer without seeing post after post concerning the safety, efficacy, and the general need for vaccines. The raging debate is front page news; whooping cough, Ebola, and now measles but the controversy is as old as vaccines themselves beginning with Edward Jenner’s smallpox claim. 

One of the more common comebacks from the pro-vaccine side is, “I don’t get my vaccine information from stay at home moms, Jenny McCarthy, Google, or a quack chiropractor. I’ll get my data from real scientists and doctors, thank you.” 

Let’s take a look at some recent news concerning the “science” behind vaccines.

Merck, a vaccine manufacturer, was exposed by two Merck virologists. They proved the company faked mumps vaccine efficacy results since the 1990s. Merck added animal antibodies to blood samples to achieve more favorable test results even though they knew that the human immune system would never produce such antibodies. Merck then used the falsified trial results to swindle the U.S. government out of hundreds of millions of dollars for a vaccine that does not provide adequate immunization. They used its false claims of "95% effectiveness" to monopolize the vaccine market and eliminate possible competitors. This entire fraud took place with the knowledge, authority, and approval of Merck's senior management.

Dr. Gregory Poland, the editor-in-chief of the medical journal Vaccine, professor of medicine and founder and leader of Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group confessed in 2012, “measles in highly immunized societies occurs primarily among those previously immunized." And herd immunity will never work because, "…eradication…of measles is unlikely as modeling studies suggest that herd immunity of approximately 95% or greater is required to eliminate persisting measles endemicity. However, even with two documented doses of measles vaccine, our laboratory demonstrated that 8.9% of 763 healthy children immunized a mean of 7.4 years earlier lacked protective levels of circulating measles-specific neutralizing antibodies, suggesting that even two doses of the current vaccine may be insufficient at the population level."

Here is the recent CDC whistle blower, Dr. William Thompson, who came forward and confessed to publishing fraudulent data to obfuscate the link between vaccines and autism. He wrote:

I am a Senior Scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where I have worked since 1998. I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.

Package inserts for various flu vaccines (Flulaval for example) state “that there are no adequate and well controlled studies in pregnant women,” yet pregnant women are urged to receive the flu shot. And, “Flulaval has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential.” And then there is, "Safety and effectiveness of Flulaval in pediatric patients have not been established."

And here is the granddaddy of them all: “there have been no controlled trials adequately demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccination with Flulaval. How’s that for science?

The Journal of Infectious Disease told us in May 8, 2013 that vaccines simply do not confer the same kind of long lasting immunity that is obtained from experiencing and recovering from the natural disease because vaccine antibodies are different from naturally acquired measles antibodies.

Dr Hilleman, was the developer of Merck’s vaccine program, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Philosophical Society. In a video that can be found on the internet, Dr. Hilleman admits Merck’s responsibility in releasing the polio vaccine contaminated with a cancer causing monkey virus. He also alludes to the fact that AIDS originated the same way.

The underlying ethical foundation of these giant pharmaceutical companies is built on fraud, lies, greed, and political maneuvering. As they continue to promote vaccines through deceit instead of science, they apply the same tactics with their entire menu of drugs. Remember, it is the same science that brought us Accutane, Baycol, Fen-Phen, Thalidomide, DES, Seldane, Actos, Depokate, Fosamax, Bextra, Vioxx, Rezulin, Posicor, PPA, Adderall, Lexapro, Topamax, Micturin, Propulsid, Zelnorm, Pradaxa, Yaz, Avandia, Paxill, Cylert, Darvon/Darvocet, Meridia, etc., etc., etc.

A Chinese court imposed a fine of nearly $500 million on GlaxoSmithKline for bribing hospitals and doctors, and channeling illicit kickbacks through travel agencies — a scheme that brought the company higher drug prices and illegal revenue of more than $150 million.

Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Abbott Laboratories were all fined billions of dollars for violating the False Claims Act using “off label promotions.” Many other pharmaceutical companies have paid hundreds of millions for the same crime. 

GlaxoSmithKline is a top 3 global vaccine manufacturer. They were fined $88,000 for the killing of 14 babies during illegal lab vaccine trials conducted between 2007 and 2008. Glaxo is now paying a criminal fine of $3 billion for misreporting efficacy data, failing to report adverse safety data, and defrauding Medicare and Medicaid out of billions of dollars. 

Hoffmann-La Roche, A Swiss pharmaceutical giant plead guilty and paid a record $500 million fine for leading a worldwide conspiracy to raise and fix prices and allocate market shares for certain vitamins sold in the United States.

And on and on and on…You see, the problem with information from governmental health agencies and pharmaceutical companies is that it is highly biased and frequently misleading. You will have to search well beyond these sources that aggressively promote vaccinations. And that may include stay at home moms, Jenny McCarthy, Google, and quack chiropractors.

The Dos and Don’ts of Fish Oil

As a young boy, I remember watching an episode of The Three Stooges in which Moe slapped Shemp in the head with a big fish. Larry chimed in and said, “Fish is great brain food.” Needless to say, science has been slow in keeping up with the wisdom of the folk medicine from my grandparent’s generation. Only recently has fish oil taken center stage. These Omega 3 fats are currently the darling of alternative medicine. Big Pharma has even created a prescription version (because real fish wasn’t good enough?) called Lovaza which, as all drugs do, comes complete with a list of side effects. 

Omega 3 fats are important structural elements of human anatomy as the cell walls are comprised of these fats. Larry was right; they are found in abundance and densely rich in the brain. As such, they help decrease the symptoms of depression and anxiety. Omega 3 oils help with brain fog and memory. Fish oil is also “heart healthy” as these oils reduce the likelihood of heart attack and stroke, lower blood pressure, reduce triglycerides, and slow the development of plaque in the arteries. Omega 3 oils reduce inflammation and can help with arthritis pain. They help heal psoriasis. The king of fish oils, cod liver oil, (more about this later) has vitamins A, D, E, and K which are vital to the immune system and bone health. 

It’s recommended that you eat oily fish such as herring, salmon, mackerel, sardines and fresh tuna at least twice a week. Are you following those guidelines? If so, is your fish cooked or in a raw state such as sushi? Omega 3-fish oil is a very heat and oxygen sensitive. Canned tuna is too processed and the nutritive quality of the oils has been destroyed. Using excessive heat to cook or to extract the oil for supplements creates denatures the oil and free radicals. Humans are the only animal on earth that cooks its food. Bears, seals, sharks, and other wildlife eat fish raw. So what’s a person to do? My best recommendation is to eat more sushi. If you are going to cook your fish, I recommend baking it to a medium rare. 

Omega 3s can be found in plant/vegan sources such walnuts, organic canola oil (conventional canola oil is tainted with GMOs), pumpkin, chia and flax seeds, But these oils are called ALA. It is the DHA/EPA oils found exclusively in oily fish and marine algae that have been shown to produce the health benefits listed above. Our body can convert ALA to DHA, however, research clearly indicates that the conversion is extremely limited.

Another option worth investigating is taking a supplement. Here I highly recommend fermented cod liver oil from www.greenpasture.org over a standard fish oil supplement. You will be hard pressed to find a fish oil or another cod liver oil supplement that has not been heated, polished, deodorized, bleached, filtered, genetically altered, separated with caustic lye, and basically processed to the nth degree. If there are vitamins added to these products, they are certainly fractionalized, isolated, lifeless, inert molecules and not naturally occurring whole vitamin complexes. These synthetic vitamins come with their own list of health warnings and have been noted to create toxicity. MSG can be in some brands of fish oil but secretly hidden on the ingredient label under “natural flavors.” 

Green Pasture uses cold processing and fermentation to protect the naturally occurring healthy fats in their cod liver oil products. This oil is much more nutrient dense than industrialized fish oil. Fermented CLO contains the naturally occurring fat-soluble vitamins: A, D, E and K2 that are so scarce in modern diets. CoQ10 and various quinones (known for anti-tumor, anti-microbial, and anti-cardiovascular disease properties) are found in Green Pasture CLO as well. 

Green Pasture fermented cod liver oil comes in liquid, capsule, and gel. My family uses the liquid Oslo Orange flavor. For my 10 and 6 year old children, I mix 1 ml of the fermented CLO with 6 ounces of Odwalla Smoothie Juice (mango). This thick juice holds the oil in suspension and hides the taste of the oil nearly completely. This is a very doable method to get small children to comply with their daily dose of cod liver oil.  I recommend 2 ml for teenagers, 3 ml for adults, and 5 ml for adults who need therapeutic dosages. 

No matter how much marketing the salesman does, he/she cannot escape the fact that the fish oils from other companies are over-processed and denatured. This includes the more popular brand names. I can easily discern which supplement companies are worthy of my dollar. I look at their multivitamin ingredients list on the label. If I see synthetic vitamins listed instead of whole food sources, then I can conclude that all their other products are guilty by association; this company does not understand the basic concept of nutrition and therefor does not use the utmost care in processing their product.  They most assuredly will be guilty of some of the processing tactics mentioned above.

So what are you waiting for? Get yourself some Cod Liver Oil from Green Pasture and give your body what it needs to keep you healthy!