"The fellow who has not had any experience is so dumb he doesn't know a thing can't be done, and he goes ahead and does it." (Charles F. Kettering)

The DOCTOR YOURSELF NEWSLETTER  Vol 2, No 11   April 10, 2002 "Free of charge, free of advertising, and free of the A.M.A." Written by Andrew Saul, PhD. of http://www.doctoryourself.com , a free online library of over 350 natural healing articles with nearly 4,000 scientific references.

VITAMIN SUPPLEMENTS BANNED ALL ACROSS EUROPE

Now that medical evidence repeatedly proves the effectiveness of vitamin supplements, you may no longer get a chance to use them.

Over-the-counter high-potency vitamins are no longer obtainable throughout an entire continent, reports CBN News (March 14, 2002). Lawmakers across Europe, including the United Kingdom, have decided among themselves to hand the pharmaceutical industry a medical monopoly that drastically restricts access to nutritional supplements. The new law means you can only buy nutrients tableted at or near RDA levels, and nothing of higher potency, unless you have a doctor's prescription. CBN's editorial opinion was that pharmaceutical companies and governments are conspiring together to take megavitamins away from the people, because megavitamins work so well against disease that people are not using pharmaceutical drugs.

This carefully calculated, profit-driven maneuver is known as the "CODEX," a multi-national attempt to "harmonize" food laws among all nations.  The problem is that the "harmonization" has resulted in LOWERING every nation's legal supplement potency limits to the ridiculously low levels in countries such as Germany. Germany is home to some of the largest, most powerful pharmaceutical companies on earth.

The United States is the next target for "harmonization," and make no mistake about it.

"FDA" STANDS FOR "FAVORS DRUGS ALWAYS."

The US Food and Drug Administration certainly isn't worried about any of this, since the FDA itself has a well-established history of seeking drastic regulations to limit your access to vitamins and other nutritional supplements. When asked, FDA just pats your head and sweetly says that "CODEX is not going to take vitamins away from ANY American."

You can tell FDA that we've heard it all before. It took the Proxmire Amendment to stop the FDA from making supplements prescription in 1976.   It took all of Congress to pass federal legislation, the Dietary Supplement Education Act, to stop FDA from making supplements prescription in 1994.

Now, it will take YOU to stop CODEX. Why? Because the pharmaceutical cartel' s strategy is to go over the heads of the Congress of the United States, by way of international lawmaking.

You don't think that can be done?  But that's exactly what DID just happen to Britain.  I suspect that the British people did not want to give up their supplements.  But they are gone, none the less.

We must not lose the freedoms that we value so much, and this includes the freedom to get well. Congress CAN pass legislation that specifically prohibits  oppressive international law from governing the United States. Please speak out now, while you can: write to your representative, your senator, and your local newspaper. With the Internet, it is easier than ever.  Visit either  http://congress.org/elecmail.html or  http://www.talktogov.com/ to email Congress. Use any 'net search engine to find your newspaper's email address. At http://doctoryourself.com/write_now.html

you will find my famous "three-sentence letter" writing hints.

What would it be like to live in a country where handguns are legal and a bottle of 1,000 mg vitamin C tablets isn't? CODEX's prescription for your vitamins will let you find out.

For a lot more information on fighting CODEX, contact John Hammell, of International Advocates for Health Freedom,  http://www.iahf.com   Telephone 1-800-333-2553

CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME

Nancy Watson Dean of Rochester, NY writes:

"I have just experienced such an amazing relief from this condition, which came upon me about a year ago, in the shape of hands tingling and hurting more often as time went on. I presently realized it was carpal tunnel, when shooting pains hit both hands.

"I knew Vitamin B-6 would help, and it did, but only a little. So remembering a paper by the Texas doctor, John Marion Ellis, M.D., who said that large amounts didn't seem to bother him in any way, I pulled out all the stops and increased it to 200 milligrams 4 times daily. I also stopped eating salt. The carpal tunnel disappeared.

"I am thrilled, out of pain, and the hands are growing stronger by the hour.

"This is a very widespread ailment. Perhaps the maintenance and attacks of the condition are entirely individual: just find the amount that 'cures' you. Wouldn't the medics hate that idea!"

PREGNANCY AND MEGA-VITAMINS

Many women only begin to eat right and take necessary vitamin supplements once they know they are pregnant. This is weeks or even months too late. The first few weeks of pregnancy are especially crucial to the embryo. Nutrition needs rise during pregnancy, of course. Even the RDA's are higher. This may be obvious to you, but many women eat poor diets in general. They then tend to eat MORE of that SAME LOUSY FOOD in an attempt to "eat for two" and "to get all the nutrition they need from a balanced diet." Overweight and undernutrition is the frequent result. This is a genuine tragedy, from which the medical and dietetic professions cannot easily be excused.

What to do?

VITAMIN A can be safely increased by using beta-carotene (eg. carrot juice, winter squash, sweet potatoes). Preformed (fish oil) vitamin A toxicity under 25,000 IU is possible, but vitamin A deficiency during pregnancy is a far greater risk. For a really bone-chilling summary of the consequences of vitamin deficiency during pregnancy, read the papers by Howard H. Hillemann, PhD,  listed at the bottom of http://www.doctoryourself.com/pregnancy.html

LET'S TALK POLAR BEARS, SHALL WE?

Since three-quarters of a pound of polar bear liver contains 7 or 8 MILLION units of preformed vitamin A, this food is rightly forbidden by traditional Eskimo religion. If it is of any satisfaction to you, polar bears themselves are at risk for vitamin A overdose since they routinely eat entire seals at a sitting. Seals, as we all know, are a very good source of vitamin A, yielding 30 to 100 MILLION units each.

Believe it or not, 6,000,000 units of "A" have been taken by humans at once... in fact, five times in a row... without fatality (Bicknell and Prescott, The Vitamins In Medicine, p 82). Naturally, this is idiotic, and especially so during pregnancy.

Very large prenatal doses of vitamin A can produce birth defects. Deficiency of vitamin A will too, and is much more likely. Hypervitaminotic A rats bear normal young with very high liver stores of the vitamin. Human fetuses and newborn infants generally have LOW stores of vitamin A (Bicknell and Prescott, p 19 and 59). The AMA approved 25,000 IU doses in 1946 (Adelle Davis, Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit, 1970, p. 61), but in the PDR you will find cautions beginning at 6,000 IU during pregnancy (p. 1736-1737, 1980). Somewhat larger doses are probably very safe during pregnancy, bearing in mind that a 3-ounce serving of liver contains over 50,000 IU of vitamin A, and there is no pregnancy warning on supermarket packages of liver. However: eating carotene-rich green and orange vegetables, or vegetable juices, provides a vastly larger margin for error.

VITAMIN C

Because it is water-soluble, "C" is very safe at all times, including pregnancy. Frederick R. Klenner, M.D. gave large doses of ascorbic acid to over 300 pregnant women and reported virtually no complications in any of the pregnancies or deliveries (Irwin Stone, The Healing Factor, Chapter 28). Indeed, the hospital nurses around Reidsville, N.C. noted that the infants who were healthiest and happiest were the "Vitamin C babies." Other physicians have similarly reported that they have observed a complete absence of birth defects in babies born to vitamin-C taking mothers-to-be.

Specifically, Dr. Klenner gave:

(1)  4,000 mg each day during the first trimester (first three months of pregnancy)

(2)  6,000 mg each day during the second trimester

(3)  10,000 mg each day during the third trimester

Some women got 15,000 mg daily during the third trimester.

Results? There were NO miscarriages in this entire group of 300 women. Klenner gave "booster" injections of vitamin C to 80% of the women upon admission to the hospital for childbirth.

The results? Wonderful, indeed:

First, labor was shorter and less painful. (My children's mother, with her 2:45 and 1:45 labor times, can confirm this.)

Second, stretch marks were seldom to be seen.

Third, there were NO postpartum hemorrhages at all. And, there were no toxic manifestations and no cardiac distress (Stone, p. 191).

Among Klenner's patients were the Fultz quintuplets, which at the time were the only quints in the southeastern U.S. to have survived. These were each given 50 mg of "C" daily at birth.

This is an important point: if the Mom is taking vitamin C, it also has to be continued for BOTH mother and baby afterwards as well. Failure to do this will result in the well-publicized "rebound effect." Therefore, don't stop a good thing. If "C" is important enough for the woman to take before giving birth, then it is important enough for the baby to get AFTER it has been born.

Klenner had children take their age in vitamin C each day. That is, a gram (1,000 milligrams) of "C" per year of age, leveling off at the age of ten at 10 grams (10,000 mg) when in good health.

CHRONIC SINUS PROBLEMS

J. L writes:

"Six weeks ago I was pretty much at the end of my rope with sinus problems. After 2 sinus surgeries, 2 years of allergy shots, and enough cortisone sprays, antihistimines, decongestants, and antibiotics to sink a battleship, I was facing the prospect of trying yet another surgery or spending half of my life on antibiotics. I had also tried about a million different alternative therapies with no real success. Then I found your website. I had successfully used Vitamin C powder many years ago when I had a pesky recurring bladder infection, so I launched this new attack with great hope. The payoff has been nothing short of spectacular and I feel like I have my life back. This is the first time in about 10 years that my sinuses have felt perfectly normal."

GO AHEAD, BLAME BERNAR MACFADDEN and Norman W. Walker. It's all their fault that I like to start the day with a quart and a half of carrot juice. It is carrot-and-zucchini in the summer, or carrot-and-apple in autumn. Off season, I am more likely to have a breakfast concoction I lovingly call "slurry." It, as my great-uncle would say, is "good for what ails you."

Recipe for "Saul's Sunrise Super Slurry" (trademark!):

One pint fruit juice (Orange juice from frozen concentrate works fine and is frequently on sale. Be sure to try pineapple juice if you can afford it. Buy "unsweetened," bearing in mind that they are all naturally, intensely sweet. And that's just as well, given what you're going to put into it.)

Three (or more) rounded tablespoons lecithin granules

One teaspoon vitamin C crystals (approximately 4,500 mg)

Mix together in a spacious stein, and chug-a-lug!

And, because so many people have asked, I also take SUPPLEMENTS along with the Super Slurry, consisting of:

600 IU (International Units) vitamin E (as natural mixed tocopherols, containing 80% d-alpha tocopherol)

Niacin, 100 mg (more if I don't "flush"; less if I do)

Three calcium-magnesium tablets (each supplying about 200 milligrams calcium and 100 mg magnesium, for a total of 600 mg calcium and 300 mg magnesium)

10,000 IU vitamin A as fish oil

Five or ten multiple digestive enzyme tablets. (Pancreatin will do, although it is not vegetarian. Vegetarian enzyme sources, which usually include papaya and other fruits, cost more.

And, one high-potency multivitamin (I also take one at lunch or dinner.)

And, after I scarf all this down, I enjoy a "chaser" cupful of un-doctored fruit juice. I must express a debt of gratitude to Dr. Jacobus Rinse, whose famous Rinse Formula is the basis for my modification presented above. http://www.doctoryourself.com/dr_rinse.html

There are strictly practical reasons for my revisions. The multiple vitamin provides ample amounts of B-vitamins; rather few people are willing to consume nutritional or brewers' yeast first thing in the morning. Calcium powder is often hard to obtain, and most American diets are magnesium deficient. I consider lecithin to contain sufficient oils, including some monounsaturated fatty acids and plenty of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids, such that trying to drink a mixture containing olive or flax seed oil is not necessary. Again, few people would tolerate this early in the day (or perhaps any other time). The enzyme tablets help your tummy to more easily handle the lecithin. If you reach "bowel tolerance" saturation of vitamin C with the full teaspoonful, just cut back until your personal comfort level is reached.

Additional note: I am well acquainted with the various brands of nutritional supplements on the market. Please do not conclude that I need an education in the merits of any particular company's products simply because I decline to make brand recommendations. Just take what works.

FATIGUE AND VITAMIN C

George writes:

"I discovered the power of vitamin C early last year. I went to my family doctor in summer 1999 complaining of increasing drowsiness at work. His only answer was that I was just "getting old." I was 48.

"I started taking 3,000 mg/day of vitamin C, and other supplements. One day, After another 1 1/2 years of increasing frequency and level of this drowsiness (falling asleep at my desk almost daily), as well as declining cognitive ability (unable to concentrate more than 30 minutes at a time) and severe memory loss (could not remember names of 30-year neighbors), I felt a cold coming on, so I took 1,000 mg/hour of C.

"Next day - BAM! My energy level was back to my pre-teen level or better. I had that "spring" in my step that I had heard about, but had never experienced. I worked like a beaver for a full 8 hours, then studied on the computer at home for another 4 hours, and wasn't sleepy or tired then. Since then (spring 2001) I have only had minor drowsiness maybe a half dozen times."

YET ANOTHER REASON TO UNSUBSCRIBE TO THIS NEWSLETTER:

A man walked into his doctor's office with a squash growing out of his ear. The doctor said, "That's pretty strange."  The guy answered, "Sure is. I planted carrots."

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