Nuts and Bolts

Mainstream health knowledge and medical practices are generated not just from human physiology and natural processes, but also from pharmacological expediency. What role can drugs play in disease? Hospitals are designed to survive on fees charged, especially for surgical operations. These concepts develop biases. Once you know these facts, it is easier to accept that there could be less expensive natural alternatives that also assist the body to maintain a healthy state or provide prevention support to eliminate diseases in the first place, or at least slow down their progression.

EXAMPLE: Check this current article that pretty much sums up this concept. 

If hospitals and doctors were paid a monthly fee only while you were healthy, they would quickly adopt methods of prevention to keep you healthy rather than mostly just rely on disease care.

Editorial: REALITY of HEALTH CARE CRISIS

There is a severe crisis brewing in health care. Health care workers are exhausted and burnt out after the pandemic. Many are leaving the profession creating massive shortages in hospitals. Attempts to improve health care availability have inadvertently exhausted payments from Government programs forcing payout amount reductions leaving many hospitals without enough working capital. Care is being rationed out whether this situation is admitted or not. Insurance companies are selfishly paying out more and have to constantly raise premiums and deductions to maintain profits. The paperwork burdens of the ACA bill are further squeezing hospital and Doctor office staff time. Health standards as a result are falling. This is not going to end well, pun intended.

Self-care and prevention are going to play a much larger role in the near future. Since vital self-care criteria is mainly absent from mainstream resources, this alternative website strand to life.

Prelude to a new Vitamin Criteria

Fundamental questions need to be addressed before any vitamin criteria can have value.

QUESTIONS:

1. Are all physiological vitamin functions known for total health?
2. Do diseases have a vitamin connection?
3. Has science researched and established all these connections?
4. Are synthetic and natural vitamins the same for all vitamins?
5. Have the proper vitamin forms and dosages been matched with optimal health?

This author has found quite exciting novel answers to these questions. Some even challenging mainstream nutritional views long accepted and presented as facts. The same nutrient may have benefits at one dose while adverse effects at another. Often this depends upon conditions in the body, such as relationships to other nutrients or possible changes in hereditary gene patterns. The short answer to the above 5 questions is one yes and four no.

It is beyond the scope of this website to deal efficiently with gene differences other than to note some important findings. Scientists will have to settle these issues in the future. Now to give some supportive answers for these 5 questions:

ANSWERS: 

1. Answer: NO.  There are many vital missing links in vitamin knowledge. Antioxidant load balance is rarely mentioned although appears to be a factor in diabetes, and also for the immune system fighting off viruses.  And pH balance between acid and alkaline rarely gets mentioned except in university science textbooks. Calcium gets stored in bones just so it will be available if the body runs out of it's preferred acid buffer, the mineral potassium. 
2. Answer:  YES, many do. But it is not always the obvious one. The vitamin C cancer connection showing HIF-1 influence to stop or slow down tumor growth has just been discovered. Here are a number of connections: Beriberi and vitamin B1, Scurvy and vitamin C, Pellagra and niacin, iron and anemia, calcium and bones, vitamin D on infection and cancer protection, vitamin K on vessel integrity, vitamin E and C protecting vessels from effects of high fat meal, fish oil omega 3 limiting inflammation, broccoli element on estrogen balance and cell detoxification, the list could go on and on.......
3. Answer: NOT enough! Very little research funds have been directed to vitamins and supplements compared to drugs, BUT there is enough to make some pretty good educated deductions.  Have to be careful though interpreting studies as many are funded by food or drug companies with conflicts of interest, either positively or adversely. The most notable concept coming out of vitamin research is that there appears to be a lot of controversy. First positive results, than negative, and later non significant. Finding a common thread is quite a challenge and the really exciting part of this website.
4. Answer:  No, there are some differences.  Some vitamins are not even close while others are almost or exactly the same. Any health professional who regurgitates the "statement" that they are the same is only exposing a grave ignorance on the subject. Some of these differences will be explained in other articles. And yes, there are profound influences on health between natural and synthetic vitamin E. ref
5. Answer:  Unfortunately, a Major NO.   Not only has Science failed to address these issues, they have held on to antiquated theories for vitamin forms and dosages for over 60 years. If the basic vitamin premise is faulty before the research studies even start, how can they be expected to arrive at valid and healthy results. Government and Science picked just one out of 8 related vitamin E family members in nature to call and even carry a vitamin E label in the 1940's. Most if not all the research has to be conducted again with the natural complete E factors to find nature's correct answers. And Folic Acid, fortified in all refined grain flours and white rice, coupled with the amounts in multiple supplements has the potential for adverse effects in certain age groups. Seniors might have a folic acid link with dementia. ref   Available Vitamin D dosages have recently increased over 25 times with very little long term studies in support. Some adverse events are developing along with the benefits of increasing vitamin D levels. ARE HUMANS about to suffer the guinea pig syndrome again?

Health Conditions and Vitamins

What health conditions have a dietary component?

Research has conducted many studies to search for answers. This section is simply a record of their progress and findings to date. Do not use this information without the guidance of a medical professional if you have a life threatening disease. There are no guarantees in living healthy.

CANCER  Most Researchers hold that 35% of cancers have a dietary factor, but could be higher. Up to 80% of cancers may have factors that are controlled by lifestyle and dietary influences. ref (<type in "cancer and vitamins") ref  ref  ref 

Here is the American Cancer Society's view; reference  Very conservative approach, and missing some vital connections. They can't ignore vitamin D anymore. And they are missing some recent updates that they surely are cautiously watching, such as for using the whole family of vitamin E and not just isolated alpha tocopherol, or that synthetic beta carotene is only one of three forms found in vegetables and there are many other carotenoid family members also found in foods, or that there are benefits versus risks to consider with synthetic folic acid and beta carotene. The vitamin criteria link addresses many of these new findings and connects the dots for logical explanations.

Of interest for B Vitamins and Cancer

Cancer cells have large appetites and quickly use up available B vitamins creating a shortage for normal body functions. One of these functions is to aid digestion and assimilation of nutrients such as B vitamins from foods. Thus, with cancer, absorbing food nutrients is compromised. A certain amount of Synthetic B vitamins can be useful here. But, correct dosages are still necessary as evidenced by excess B1 article and the synthetic form of folate, folic acid article, on promoting or feeding tumor growth rates. 

There are many other articles on this website that mention a vitamin or nutrient connection with a disease, such as CoQ10 on Parkinson's and breast cancer, or NADH on Parkinson's,  or SGS on cancer, or B6 on nerves, or Probiotics on digestion and diarrhea, or Mastic Gum on ulcers, or Vitamin K2 on vascular calcification, Vitamin D and Cholesterol on fighting off infections, or Omega 3 and 6 balance on controlling inflammation, plus CoQ10, Omega 3 fish oils, and Acetyl L-Carnitine on early Macular Degeneration, etc.

There are almost to many to mention them all. Some connections are weak and some stronger. Mainstream science has trouble connecting the dots here since the Pharmaceutical Industry has such a strong presence in directing the FDA investigative machinery. Rather than having mainstream medicine and alternative medicine at complete odds with each other, they should be combined to max Public health.

Update on Friday, April 9, 2010 at 9:43AM by Team RightWay

Basics of Vitamins on Health

The premise or definition of health often gets muddied. Simply, it is a state when a living organism achieves optimal positive activities from all the elements it needs to satisfy life requirements in an efficient manner.  It is of course possible to survive often quite long periods with less than optimal nutrient amounts due to compensatory body actions. Indeed that is the design and function of the body. But, these compensatory processes eventually get the better of the organism and disease develops.

The cell is the basic unit of life. Everything happens at this level. Breaking apart the needs of the cell begins to show how nutrients and processes coordinate for health. 

• Cell membranes contain and protect the inner cell functions. These membranes are made up of fats with cholesterol.
• Fish oils EPA and DHA and nut and seed oils provide the fats the body uses to build phospholipids that along with cholesterol make up healthy cell membranes
• Trans fats can occupy the cell membrane but the resulting effects are damaging to the cell.
• Trans fats hinder proper entry and exit through the cell membrane of needed nutrients and waste products by the influence of their structural shape.
• Rather than the normal curved shape, they are straight like straws and get packed together so close, normal cell membrane transport malfunctions.
• Greater amounts of trans fats measured in the body are now associated with increased breast cancer rates.

Energy production paramount to body vitality

• Scientists are now of the opinion that many degenerative diseases have as one of their primary causes, mitochondrial disfunction.
• Mitrochondria are the power plants of the cell. They produce all the energy the body needs to function correctly.
• Here calories are converted to energy by the action of certain nutrients in a process called the Krebs cycle making energy as ATP.
• CoQ10 is involved to ferry in electons and L-carnitine brings fats into the mitrochondia to be used for energy production. Sugar as glucose is also burned, especially in the ribose form.
• Many special diets and supplement formulas are designed to increase the amount of fat that is burned compared to sugar so body fat weight is reduced. A special article will deal this this issue later.

How is energy used by cells

• Over half of energy produced in the cell is used by cell membranes
• Nutrient pumps on the membrane use energy to move mostly minerals into or out of the cell. This creates an energy potential (like a battery) to allow muscles to work and nerves to send messages.
• For muscles, calcium needs to be pumped into cells in large amounts before muscles can fire. Then the calcium will freely rush out of the cell after the muscle contracts in order for the muscle to relax. Magnesium is moved in the opposite direction by these pumps.
• You can see that this pocess has to happen very fast, since you can open and close your hand quite rapidly. But you will eventually get to a point of exhaustion of available fuel to make the needed energy or run low on minerals and have to rest and recover by restoring energy and mineral reserves. (Ribose)

The Problem

• As bodies age, both the number of mitochondia and their energy producing efficiency decreases.
• This reduced energy production hinders the ability of the body to function at a healthy level if demands are not reduced or efficiency increased.
• Efforts to support mitochondrial numbers and energy output levels have proved somewhat successful is slowing down mitochondrial disfunction and resulting degenerative diseases.

Feeding Mitochondria

• Exercise increases mitochondria numbers and output. 
• Food supplies calories that can go into the blood stream for immediate energy production, or be stored in muscles for later that day or the next, and finally when these storage areas are filled, as fat for future use. 
• This is why you must use muscles to earn space for meal calories to fill up rather then just go into more fat storage.   
• Ribose, one of the primary forms of glucose that is involved in ATP energy production is helping athletes and seniors rapidly recover form previous exerecise induced muscle fuel debt.
• Glucose is slowly converted to ribose, and this appears to be a rate limiting factor in the ability to sustain muscle action, and the reason for recovery peiods.
• Luckily, the heart muscle has special processes to protect its fuel sources for a very long time.