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Preventive Medicine Associates, PLLC

JUNE 2020 TABLEHOPPING ARTICLE

Hopefully, things will be approaching some semblance of normalcy soon. Many of you have skipped doctors visits of all sorts or tried the telemedicine visit. Oh , don’t go feeling sorry for us healthcare professionals. I’m not writing this column to drum up business. As long as you insist on eating at McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King etc etc etc healthcare is never going to be wanting for business. As long as you continue to follow the current published dietary guidelines I will be busy for the foreseeable future. So will all the surgeons and other doctors. So when you do, in fact, go back and have an in-person visit let me walk you through what you should really be focused on.

Of course you should talk about your overall health and that has to involve some conversation about your national status. You can look at this in three broad categories of intake ; proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Protein is very easy to measure both total protein and albumin in a simple and inexpensive blood test . But to measure the individual amino acids is much more expensive and complex so it’s the cheapest component to test for but it’s almost always normal so unless it’s out of range it doesn’t tell you much.

Moving now to measuring how you’re doing in terms of your carbohydrate intake is the test for insulin and sugar. A simple mathematical calculation provides your level of insulin resistance. Insulin resistance equals metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome equals increased risk of heart attack, cancer, stroke, early death, obesity, dementia, arthritis etc have I left anyone out? By measuring your insulin resistance you will get a sense of how your body is handling sugar / carbohydrates. This blood sample needs to be drawn fasting. But, it can be done over and over again to assess your response to changes in your diet. This gives you yet another independent, reliable, and validated tool to tell us, like, Hemoglobin A1c etc of how you are doing in your management of sugar. The insulin level is going to be abnormal long before the hemoglobin A1c and blood sugar tests are abnormal. Your doctor or healthcare provider hasn’t ordered it because they have focused on the sugar but your sugar’s will be in a normal range for years while your insulin is elevated. It’s not an expensive test. It’s very very simple to interpret ….the lower the number the better.

Finally it comes to measuring the fats in your diet and your fat management. It’s easy for your doctor to measure your cholesterol and of course the minute they do they focus on the number and if the number’s over 200 you’re on a statin. Unfortunately, the cholesterol hypothesis has been demonstrated to be false. The article referenced below is just one of many …. an up-to-date review of 19 different studies which, when examined ,showed an inverse relationship between your bad cholesterol (the LDL) and all-cause mortality meaning the higher your bad cholesterol the longer you lived. It’s painful for me as a 30-year healthcare provider to have to admit that what I’ve been promoting for years is just, in fact ,not true. So when I order your cholesterol panel I’m not concerned at all about your cholesterol unless it’s too low but I am worried about your triglyceride to HDL relationship because this, I think, really reflects your metabolic state. The higher the triglyceride to HDL ratio the worst your metabolic state. you are probably not focusing on this when you review your labs with your provider. This concept is really not new and it is part of the very definition for metabolic syndrome. Here’s the link to the article regarding the relationship between LDL cholesterol and mortality.

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/6/e010401

But wait, there’s more to explore in the world of fats and your diet. You must work with your doctor to measure your omega-6 and Omega-3 ratio. The omega-6 is the anti-inflammatory essential fatty acid and the omega-6 is the inflammatory essential fatty acid. Examples of the major Omega-3s include EPA and DHA. These are found in fish oil, fish etc, Examples of the Omega-6 fatty acid would be arachidonic acid which along with cholesterol EPA and DHA makeup vital fats for your brain. It’s important though that they’re balanced and for most of us we are way out of balance due of course to the diet. The optimum Omega 6 and 3 ratio is 1:1 but most people have a 5 : 1 or 10 : 1 ratio which means that every cell in their body is affected by this distortion. This ratio is easy to measure and is actionable. Cut down the corn oil, the canola oil, the vegetable oils and cut down the fried foods. That will lower your omega-6 as you raise Omega-3s by either having more fish nuts Etc in your diet or by supplementing and, of course, I recommend cod liver oil just like Grandma used to do.

So now I’ve given you the information and the rationale to go to your doctors and have a proactive visit about what’s really important; these basic elemental markers of your nutritional status. If you’re not measuring your insulin resistance and you’re not measuring the Omega 6:3 ratio and you’re not measuring the triglyceride HDL ratio you’re flying in the dark with your health. Better fasten your seatbelt. Better yet… fast ! Luckily, all of those measures are completely controlled by you and your diet. These are simple inexpensive tests you can have repeated over time to measure your success in other than just the inches on your waist. These tests are reliable , usually covered by insurance , and give you a way to keep yourself honest. Now go get what you need! Until next month, get well and stay well.

JT BARRY MD

Dr. Sherry Rogers’ Total Wellness

Dear folks,

Do you want to know how to survive the Corona virus? In the 30th year of this newsletter, I don’t want you to merely survive, I want you to thrive during this deadly pandemic. Sounds impossible? I’ll let you be the judge when you see the facts. For even if the virus wanes in the summer, it will come back with a vengeance in the fall. And remember I’m no smarter than any doctor, I was just sicker. I had to learn how to overcome over two dozen “incurable” maladies. As a result at 77 I have no symptoms, no medications and play tennis daily. I don’t even have gray hair.

But it hasn’t been an easy journey. I ended up with four specialties. And whenever I took recertification exams for any of the specialties, I had to take a week off to memorize the wrong answers. For if I had answered that we had cured atrial fibrillation, heart failure, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, asthma, migraines, memory loss, IBS, allergies, depression, MS, MCS, IBS, CFS, early Alzheimer’s, etc. as we did every day in the office, I would have failed. The only acceptable answers were that you must use specific drugs that are in the practice guidelines. And you’ve seen the evidence in previous TW how the practice guidelines are influenced by the pharmaceutical industry.

But remember from your years of TW there are only two causes for all disease. It doesn’t matter what the label or title of the disease is. What matters is what caused it, and the causes are simple. (1) The nutrient levels go down and (2) the toxicity levels go up. However, in all the practice guidelines of United States medical specialties, there is no mention of finding the cause and cure by assaying the nutrients and toxins. Instead every disease becomes the deficiency of a drug. When drugs fail there are devices and surgery. That’s another reason why I insist on having everything that I say to have been referenced some place in our 30 years of this monthly newsletter TW and 15 books. I am definitely an incurable reference junkie. I must have the scientific evidence for everything I say.

For you this month

  • What makes the coronavirus so deadly?
  • How does this virus get into our cells?
  • How to close the Corona virus gates
  • Medicines that make you Corona-bait
  • American medicine specialists work blindly, but you do not need to
  • America needs an oil change
  • Mineral magic can make or break your success
  • Simple test shows if you are in danger

What makes the coronavirus different?

First let’s take a quick trip down memory lane regarding some of the facts regarding the unprecedented Corona virus also known as Covid-19, Wuhan flu, Covir-19, plus names associated with SARS and MERS. For just like 9-11, it has changed the course of the world. According to the South China Morning Post, within less than two months of the outbreak, there was an unprecedented lockdown of over 80 million people quarantined to an area about five times the area of London and containing over three times the population of LA.

The level 4 biosafety super laboratory in Wuhan was the only one in China studying coronavirus along with HIV and Ebola viruses. Six types of Corona virus have been studied for over a decade by multiple labs around the world. But the new variety, the 7th, is the only one that contains remnants of amino acids from genes resembling HIV and Ebola. This new Corona is so pathogenic that as soon as the infection erupted, within days two HIV drugs (Kaletra, contains two protease inhibitors) and inhaled alpha interferon were the very immediate, potent and very expensive treatments used by the Chinese. This use of highly toxic drugs and the speed with which the treatments were implemented is unprecedented in medical history.

Yet when researchers in other countries meticulously documented the genetics of the new Covid-19, I saw the nasty politics of medicine rear its ugly head once again. Don’t forget in my 50 years of practice and lecturing around the globe, I’ve lectured with some of the most brilliant people (who have proven how we should be changing the course of medicine and actually healing people), from Linus Pauling, Jacques Benveniste, Robert Becker, Hal Huggins, Theodore Randolph, William Rea, etc. to Heimlich, Burzynski, etc. I have seen enough attack article withdrawls and faked denigrations, totally unsubstantiated by real science.

This is surpassed only by the flagrant ignorance of God’s miraculous biochemistry of healing that has been documented repeatedly in the last few years of the Journal the American Medical Association (evidence in TW). So enough of that. My mission is not to re-expose the well-documented nasty unscientific politics of medicine, but to focus on how to show you how to get healthier, and actually thrive during the Corona crisis.

Meanwhile, the Corona virus deaths literally doubled within weeks and days in many countries. The rest is history as the rapid spread in less than 3 months throughout the planet disrupted everything. Yet in monitoring not only our CDC recommendations, as well those from the WHO and other countries, social isolation and personal hygiene in the form of handwashing and masks were all that were recommended. The “authorities” are absolutely clueless about the real causes and cures of disease. So you need to know how to protect yourselves for the next event. For there will be many more and they will be even more devastating.

Toxic Tips

Nutrients in commercial foods are continually dropping

Even 2 decades ago studies showed that over the last 40 years there has been more than a 20% drop in calcium, magnesium, iron and other nutrients in foods.

This is due to the fake fertilizers, toxic weedkillers, recycled human sewage used as cheap fertilizers also containing heavy metals and Rx drug residues, processing, GMOs, radiation, inferior storage and shipping, and more. The time, energy, and money spent seeking out more organic and local foods pays for the time, money, and longevity you would have lost in physicians’ waiting rooms. But added to our unprecedented chemical exposures, this explains why some will never be well until they stop working blindly and assay where they are now. You can’t repair deficiencies, leaky gut, warning crystal ball tests, deficiencies, and toxicities that you don’t know are there (much more information in TW 2015-20, prestigepublishing.com).

How does this virus get into our cells?

First, you need to know that the virus is merely a hunk of genetic material (RNA) wrapped up in a clever sugar protein coating (glycoprotein). Because it is not a complete cell, it needs to burrow its way into our cells in order to hijack our chemistry. Viruses need our internal cellular chemistry in order to survive and replicate, because they don’t have a complete chemistry for replication of their own. When the virus does make new “baby viruses”, these then leave the cell to infect all of our other cells.

So wouldn’t it be cool if we actually knew what the cellular gateway for the virus was? Well scientists have known this for over a decade (Zhou, Nature, 2020; Wan Y, Journal of Virology 2020; Qiao T, JAMA Internal Medicine, 2020 etc.). It’s a specific receptor called ACE2 (angiotensin converting enzyme receptor 2). Remember those spikes you saw projecting off the virus in the photomicrographs? The coronavirus actually inserts these spikes into very specific receptors on our human cell membranes, via the ACE2, to inject its viral RNA into us.

The neat thing is we know many ways to make these receptors resistant to the virus and will begin with just a few of them in this month’s issue. I will go through many others in future issues, because as always I want to make you too smart to fail. And even though you may not like science, remember your life depends on this because I know of no other place where you can get this much life-saving detail. In fact every time I discover “new” findings that look promising, I end up saying to myself, “They are so far behind that they think they are first.”

So back to our cellular gateway that determines whether or not the Corona virus gets into your cells. In normal healthy cells, there is very little of this ACE2 doorway for viruses. But in cell membranes that have abnormal chemistry, these receptors increase proportionately. In other words, the more disease labels you have, the more symptoms, or the more medications you have or the more damage to your cell membranes, the greater number of ACE2 receptors there are on the cell membranes. And the greater the number of ACE2 receptors on the cell membrane, the greater the number of doorways which enable the virus to insert itself right into these receptors and hijack your cells. The more ACE2 receptors you have the more susceptible you are. You are Corona bait. And those of you who have caught up with the 7M know that the 7M multipy the doorways or gates for viruses to enter your cells (details in 2019 TW, prestigepublishing.com).

Dr. Sherry Rogers’ Total Wellness™ (ISN: 1522-8282) is published monthly by Prestige Publishing, 3160 Erie Boulevard East, DeWitt, NY, 13214; website: prestigepublishing.com, telephone: 1-800-846-6687. Annual subscription rate $72.00 for hard copy, and $48.00 for e-version and back years $36.00. Sherry A. Rogers, M.D. is an internationally recognized expert in environmental medicine. Board Certified in Environmental Medicine as well as Board Certified in Family Practice, and a Fellow of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, and a Fellow of the American College of Nutrition, she is the author of over 17 books on environmental illness and finding the cause and cure of diseases, she has published over 20 scientific papers, as well as written for many of the current periodicals, text book chapters, served on medical journal editorial boards, as well as Academy Board of Directors, and given over 100 lectures to physicians at Oxford and in six countries, and more in her over 50 years of medical practice.

Editor: Sherry A. Rogers, M.D., Editorial Assistant: Mary Austin
© Copyright 1998, Prestige Publishing. Orders fulfilled by Natural Dispensary: orders@naturaldispensary.com. Photocopying or reproduction is strictly prohibited by the publisher. The goal of Total Wellness™ is not to treat, but to inform the public about health related issues based on Dr. Rogers’ over 50 years of expertise in the field of Environmental Medicine. It is further her goal to provide relevant and timely information, enabling individuals to help themselves live healthier lives. As always, each individual’s ultimate health decision should be a joint effort between himself and his/her personal health care providers. While every attempt has been made to provide accurate information, the author and publisher cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. All health decisions should be made by you and your chosen physician.

How to close the Corona virus gates

Before you can repair these receptors and reduce their numbers, you must understand the many forces behind their creation. Clearly folks with the most ACE 2 receptors are serious Corona bait. They have many more times the gates for entry of the virus in their bodies than the healthy person does. So absolutely #1 you must know this: you can never reduce the number of ACE2 gateways without stopping the 7M. There are many reasons but I’ll just give you a sampling. If you have forgotten what the 7M are, you should definitely review them in 2019 TW, for they are the basis of all disease and make us leaders of the world in chronic diseases.

For one, the FDA-approved 7M have actually created new humans in the last 50 years. In other words, humans now don’t have the same internal chemistry of humans 50 years ago. The ratio of the most important fatty acids (for docs, n-6:n-3) in human cell membranes that make up these ACE2 virus receptors or gates has been changed from 1:4 to an unprecedented 20:1. In other words we have created humans with an abnormal new chemistry. This change in the cellular chemistry of humans is partly why we have the #1 most expensive healthcare system on the planet, but we are not #1, 2 or 3 in health. We are an abysmal #43 in world health. Forty-two other counties have better health (JAMA).

The United States actually leads the world in chronic diseases. And that’s another reason that even though the US was late to the show, it more than made up for its ability to double deaths within days, compared with the predecessor countries. For remember, even though it was deadly in Italy, France, Spain, China, and Japan, these countries are in the top 10 of healthy countries. The U.S. is way down at #43. I have forecasted on several radio shows weeks before it finally hit the U.S., it emerged with an unprecedented vigor.

Another reason we knew that it would hit the US with more force is that when laboratories around the world want to create animals with chronic diseases for their experiments, they use our FDA-approved standard American diet to create these diseased animals. Researchers around the world use the words “Western diet” in their research journals rather than “American” so that they won’t hurt our feelings and let us know how stupid they think we are. Remember from previous TW that when scientists need 500 rats with cataracts, for example for experimental surgery, they give them give them Tylenol. Or to create rats with diabetes, they use the statins. Or if they need 500 rats with diabetes or fatty liver, or cancers they merely give them various doses of the phthalates. These are the same chemicals that leach from our plastic water bottles (how to get rid of them is in Detoxify Or Die).

So clearly (1) folks who continue ingesting the 7M, are among the most vulnerable for these new viruses. They must know and memorize what they are in order to stop them. And of course next (2) folks who are not playing with a full deck of nutrients are extremely vulnerable. They are the first folks to get sick. For remember, there only two causes for all disease: the nutrient levels are abnormally low and the toxicity levels are elevated. And as people get more symptoms, disease labels, and medications, I will show you some of the ways that the body tries to compensate by multiplying the ACE2 membrane viral gates or receptors. In other words the viral gateways vastly increase the sicker you get. So let’s see how we get rid of some of these viral gateways.

American medicine specialists work blindly

Did you ever ask your doctor how he’s going to cure your high blood pressure, angina or atrial fibrillation or diabetes? He will tell you it’s not possible, but you can certainly help your odds with the latest drugs. They are absolutely clueless of the fact that there only two causes for all disease. But none of the practice guidelines in the United States tell doctors to look for the causes and cures. The recipes for all specialists begin with drugs. But since when is high blood pressure or cancer or memory loss a deficiency of some drug?

Obviously the best remedy would be for each person to know their own biochemical deficiencies. For we don’t all just look different, we are different biochemically. As one example, if you have 100 people with atrial fibrillation, one is cured with magnesium, another with selenium, another with Phosphatidyl Choline Powder or the membrane repair, or another with gut repair or detox, etc. (for details start with The High Blood Pressure Hoax then go to Is Your Cardiologist Killing You?). But unfortunately medicine wants to treat A-fib first with a beta blocker, then a calcium channel blocker, and then another anti-arrhythmia drug before jumping in to destroy the heart’s nerve connections, called an ablation. But this is merely hiring your doctor to give you a heart attack. These cardiovascular ablation “specialists” are called electrophysiologists.

The sad thing is that over 50 years ago no selfrespecting electrophysiologists would ever dream of permanently destroying humans’ heart nerves, muscle fibers and blood vessels without knowing (and correcting) the levels of all the minerals. Yet in interviewing many cardiologists in the last decade, I can confirm that they are utterly clueless about the molecular biochemistry of healing the heart. They don’t even know what a tocotrienol is! If you think they’re smart, just give them the test in 2019 TW. So far I have not found more than one physician who can pass it. They don’t know any chemistry of healing. They are merely highly trained drug dispensers, whose guidelines mantra is “drugs, devices and surgery”.

And remember I was no smarter than any other doc. It’s just that I have read many hours of molecular biochemistry every day for the last 15 years. In addition, I also have had the advantage of seeing the chemistry of our readers in many countries on a variety of diets, medications, environmental exposures, medical treatments, and more for over 3 decades, during phone consults. In fact, I get to see the records also from the most high profile clinics such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Cleveland, Mayo, etc. And I can emphatically say that all US medical specialties work absolutely blindly. They do not assay for cause and cure, but merely are handcuffed by their practice guidelines which dictate the use of drugs, devices and surgery. And that’s because of the pharmaceutical hold on American medicine that you have seen evidenced in TW.

So having said that, from 50 years in medicine the 80-20 rule can be pretty powerful. In other words, 80% of the people can be helped with 20% of what you have to offer. So having helped our readers in two dozen countries interpret their individualized 11 page assay to determine their nutrient deficiencies, there are certain deficiencies that prevail and keep recurring. We have detailed the most common deficiencies with not only the nutrients but their sources, websites and 800 numbers in How To Cure Diabetes. So let’s take a quantum leap now to see how many people we can improve by just showing them how to resurrect some of the most common deficiencies in the cell membranes that house the ACE2 virus receptors or gateways.

Timely Tips

Medicines that make you Corona bait

Obviously if you have too many ACE2 receptors, you are Corona bait. You have far too many gateways that are inviting the virus into your body cells. One way you know you have way too many ACE receptors is if your doctor actually has you on medication categories called ACE inhibitors or ARBs (angiotensin receptor blockers). These include such generic and trade names as: Lisinopril (Prinivil®, Zestril®), enalapril (Vasotec®), benazepril (Lotensin®), quinapril (Accupril®), captopril (Capoten®), fosinopril (Monopril®), moexipril (Univasc®), ramipril (Altace®), other brands include Aceon, Mavik and many more. And of course we can’t forget candesartan (Atacand®), irbesartan (Avapro®), losartan (Cozaar®), olmesartan (Benicar®), telmisartan (Micardis®), valsartan (Diovan®). There are many more drug names, these are just some of the most commonly prescribed.

If you have had a heart attack, high blood pressure or cardiac arrhythmia, most likely you’re already on one of these. This makes you absolute Corona bait. You have so many ACE 2 receptors that the only thing a physician who knows nothing about the molecular biochemistry of healing can do is poison those extra receptors. Will these medications make you more virus resistant? Absolutely not, for the many reasons that we have detailed in previous TW. First of all, all medications steal detoxification nutrients from your body that you could have used to fight off the virus.

What should you do? Start with The High Blood Pressure Hoax and Is Your Cardiologist Killing You?, and learn how to get off these and cure your condition.

If that doesn’t motivate you, at least realize that being on an ACE inhibitor or ARB also increases your vulnerability for Alzheimer’s. It does so by robbing your brain of other chemistries that are needed to degrade or get rid of the Alzheimer’s protein, amyloid. You recall amyloid is a special protein that acts like a glue in your brain. It literally clogs and glues down brain nerves, bringing the creation of new memory to a halt. That’s why it’s a mistake to think that people who can remember things from the past don’t have Alzheimer’s. They merely had good chemistry back then to make those memories. It’s the new memories they can’t make.

America needs an oil change

For starters you must repair the chemistry of the human cell membrane to reduce the number the ACE2 gateways or receptors on the cell membranes. America clearly needs an oil change. Folks need to repair their chemistry. In fact it’s hard to even go to any less industrialized country without being greeted with our fast food industry’s franchised presence. I’ve been extremely blessed in being able to look at the chemistry of our readers over the last 30 years. It’s easy to verify the 7M pattern of 20fold cellular destruction that permeates our culture.

For starters, most folks have cell membranes that are literally starving for the right fatty acids and choked with the wrong ones. And these membrane fatty acids are key elements for producing not just the electricity of the body that we call “life”. The appropriate balance of the 34 membrane fatty acids determines the number of ACE2 gates on our cells. Clearly, in order to close the virus gates you must repair the cell membranes’ unbalanced over 34 different types of fats. I have been interpreting the test since it was created, a quarter of a century ago. Consequently, I have amassed an enormous amount of data affirming what scientists throughout the world have piecemeal discovered. That is, most Americans are extremely deficient in the Omega-3 oils. Yet if you ask your doctor how many fatty acids he has examined in your blood, it will be none, much less 34. So that repair would begin with the best form of omega-3 oil that I’ve found which is Lemon-Flavored Cod Liver Oil in glass, not in capsules.

In fact if you choose another form, one of the most popular forms was proven in the February 2019 Journal Nutritional Biochemistry to become esterified and useless. All the reasons and evidence for these recommendations versus others are in past TW. For the cell membrane’s ACE2 gates, electricity, hormone and other receptors, plus cytokines that fight cancers as well as the other duties of the cell membrane are highly dependent upon the best Omega-3 fatty acids you can put in your body and you want your level over 200.

One of the reasons for the right balance of fatty acids in cell membranes is that they in part determine the flexibility of the red blood cell. Why is this important? Because the capillaries (tiniest blood vessels that supply all of your organs like your lungs, brain, heart, liver, kidneys, etc.) have a diameter that is twice as small as the size of the red blood cell. In other words, if the red blood cells does not have the right fatty acids in its membrane, it cannot squeeze itself into capillaries that are half its size. Therefore, you get damage in that particular organ (heart disease, memory loss, shortness of breath, etc.). The organ just can’t get the oxygen and nutrients that it needs. But medicine attributes the preceding “fatigue” to aging!

Yet there’s always more to the story. For the cod liver oil also must have the anchor which is phosphatidyl choline, my favored form being PC Powder. And the cell membrane must have its guard dogs to protect it from invaders which includes the 8 forms of vitamin E as found in one daily E Gems Elite, one Gamma E Gems, and two Tocotrienols. Recall the unbelievably ignorant study in the Journal the American Medical Association that denigrated vitamin E, saying that it was not only worthless but promoted prostate cancer. As you saw in TW, the ignorance of these researchers actually created the cancers. For example, using only one of the eight forms of vitamin E, alpha-tocopherol, was as ignorant as going to the car dealer and saying you want to buy a new car, but you can only afford one out of every eight parts. But you expect the car to work! As well they underdosed the nutrient, used it for too short a time, and as always used it as a solo act as though it were a drug. They unknowingly broadcasted their incredible biochemical ignorance to the rest of the world. For nutrients are part of an orchestration. They are not a solo act like a drug, which is designed to merely poison an already damaged pathway. That’s why there are so many drug categories of blockers, inhibitors, anti-inflammatories, etc. They poison.

Mineral magic can make or break your success

Too bad repair wouldn’t be as simple as the above. For you definitely also need some crucial minerals to pull this protection off. In fact remember from 2019 TW how just being low in zinc can produce any symptom or any disease. And we only looked half a dozen of the 200 enzymes to show you how devastating this common deficiency is.

Furthermore, scores of scientific studies document the serious Corona virus-fighting capacity of zinc. For you really can’t fight any virus without adequate zinc levels. You need a daily Chelated Zinc. Clearly your physician should measure your RBC zinc (not serum or plasma), and the RBC level should be in the 5th quintile (top of normal). If he is unwilling, you can always order your own, as we have repeatedly shown.

Frankly I don’t see how any of the “specialists” that you heard repeatedly on television could be so ignorant about the importance of even recommending a simple mineral like zinc for fighting off the coronavirus. For this has been known for over two decades:

te Velthuis AJ, et al, Zinc (2+) inhibits coronavirus and artrivirus RNA polymerase, PLoS One Pathog, 6 (11) e 1001176, 2010

Berg K, et al, Zinc potentiates antiviral activity of human interferon-alpha tenfold, Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research, 21; 7:471-4, 2001

Read SA, et al, The role of zinc in anti-viral immunity, Oxford University Press, Advances in Nutrition 10; 4:696-710, 2019

Hamming I, et al, Journal of Pathology 203; 2:631-7, 2004, and so many more

As you saw in 2019 TW, there are multiple mechanisms for zinc’s over 200 enzymes. These include the zinc fingers which are proteins dependent on zinc for the transfer of messages from the cell membrane to genes. As well, RNA polymerase controls gene structures, superoxide dismutase sops up damaging free radicals, detoxifying glutathione peroxidase is crucial for reversing disease (see Detoxify Or Die), carbonic anhydrase is important for keeping you alkaline since viruses love and thrive in an acidic pH, and so much more. Unfortunately many people are zinc deficient. And if they go by the “norms”, remember they were determined on bloods from sick people decades ago. You want to be in the top half of “normal”, preferably the very top.

Meanwhile, I’ll have to save other crucial nutrients for future issues. For example, scientists have known for years exactly what vitamin controls the ACE2 receptor. And scientists have acknowledged that the majority of people have dangerously low sub-therapeutic levels of this vitamin for a variety of reasons. And of course there are any other minerals, fatty acids, amino acids, and vitamins that are crucial for bringing the human chemistry back to pre-7M levels.

Medicines that make you Corona bait

Obviously if you have too many ACE2 receptors, you are Corona bait. You have far too many gateways that are inviting the virus into your body cells. See the medications in this month’s Timely tips box. For not only do you want to get off those because they make you Corona bait, but they also as you saw make you more vulnerable for developing Alzheimer’s. Unfortunately, ACE inhibitors and ARBs are not the only medications that increase your ACE 2 receptors

Meanwhile, the journal Military Medicine Research (Guo Y, et al, March 2020) showed there are 20 times more ACE receptors in humans binding for the Corona virus compared with the SARS virus. And you recall how devastating that was. ACE 2 receptors are especially prevalent in the lung and gut, which is one reason why people severely infected with Corona virus die from lung failure which is really “leaky lung”, which is often preceded by asymptomatic leaky gut (much more on that in past and future TW). Even though the incubation in this study was 1-14 days, folks were still contagious as asymptomatic latency subjects for over a month. Plus fever was only in 88% of severely infected folks. But this was used as a solo criterion in many places. As well, cough was present in only 68%, while fatigue was in 38%. And you couldn’t even qualify for the death statistics unless you had had a test proving that you had Corona. And these are just tiny examples of the many holes in the diverse state-directed and public health recommendations. For example, if they had been exposed to confirmed cases but were asymptomatic, they could go to work.

Stay away from statins

Where do we go from here? In TW, we will go through many more ways to empower yourselves. But always remember that even though we may be talking about another problem like sepsis or ICU or kidney damage or something else that you don’t think relates to you, you’re wrong. The more you learn about every one of these things, the more you will understand God’s miraculous biochemistry of healing built into every body. Meanwhile, drugs merely poison pathways that are already broken. That’s why they are all called inhibitors, blockers, anti-inflammatory, anti-histamine, anti-this, anti-that. They merely poison an enzyme that’s already malfunctioning or trying to compensate for your nutrient deficiencies and toxins. For example, as you saw in The High Cholesterol Hoax, cholesterol is merely a messenger or a Band-Aid. It is meant to patch up holes that nasty chemicals are drilling in our cells which then deteriorate and morph into various diseases. Cholesterol is one of nature’s many ways of compensating and protecting.

But back to our cell membrane, you’ve learned about a few nutrients that are absolutely crucial for its repair. But what’s in the center or the core of the cell membrane? It’s cholesterol. That’s why when you take a statin (Lipitor, Crestor, Vytorin, etc.) to lower your cholesterol, you also are vastly increasing your risk of sudden amnesia (which leads to unusual unexplainable accidents and then self-corrects within a few hours), as well as increasing your risk of Alzheimer’s, cancers and much more. For you cannot poison the very center of your cell membranes, which is cholesterol, without serious consequences, one of which is increasing your ACE2 receptors. Never forget that the Cod Liver Oil, PC powder, and the eight forms of E that you just learned about wrap around one of the most crucial chemical components of the cell membrane, cholesterol.

So how did we get such a love affair with destroying cholesterol? It happened over 50 years ago when doctors saw that people dying of heart attacks had plugged arteries. So they looked at what the plugs were made out of. It was cholesterol. So that started the war on cholesterol with recommending a lowfat diet and vegetable oils, instead of lard and butter. Unfortunately the vegetable oils went rancid very fast, so food processors discovered the chemical process of hydrogenation which completely changed the oil chemistry. When the resulting trans fatty acids (Crisco, Mazzola, margarines, corn oil, soybean oil, safflower, etc.) were inserted into the core of the body’s cell membranes, it dramatically damaged their function.

In fact one of the biochemical side effects of the trans fatty acids (from the hydrogenated oils) in cell membranes was that they actually created high cholesterol. But no worries. Now the drug industry came to the rescue with the billion-dollar industry of statins. And you saw in TW the evidence for how the FDA has permitted verbiage so that a food package can say “no trans fats” when the average consumption possesses levels dangerous to your future health.

One major underappreciated problem was that by incriminating cholesterol and fat as the cause of cardiovascular disease these policymakers violated basic rules of science. They made the unscientific assumption that association means cause. Following that ridiculous logic (upon which the last 50 years of medicine’s fat fear has been based), it must mean police are the cause of all crimes since they are always found at crime scenes. And firemen must be the cause of all fires since they are found at conflagrations. It is my belief that statins will go down in history as one of the most dangerous mistakes medicine has made in this century (as well as the 7M which have made us world leaders in chronic diseases).

But our faithful readers have seen the proof of all this in the books and newsletters that we’ve written in the past 40 years. They already know how to make themselves Corona-proof. In TW we’ve given you the proof that the high carbohydrate diet, especially sugars, induce insulin. Extra insulin creates storage of body fat which causes obesity which becomes a powerful hormone that actually creates inflammation, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, arteriosclerosis, mitochondrial dysfunction, fatty liver, prediabetes, and a host of other current diagnostic labels. Unfortunately most practitioners are unaware of the interrelatedness of all of these conditions and how to actually cure them. For many folks it comes down to insulin resistance.

Just the last couple of decades of merely two journals, the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry and the government’s leading toxicology journal Environmental Health Perspectives, contain enormous evidence for all of this and the fact that insulin resistance is really behind most pathology. In fact it makes us leaders of the world in heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. Do you have insulin resistance?. All you have to do is see if your triglycerides divided by the HDL is greater than 1.2 and that’s insulin resistance. These values are on every standard blood test, but their relevance to insulin resistance is ignored by most physicians. Check your own out values from the blood tests taken at your last physical.

Meanwhile if you want to speed your progress along, start with at least 2019-2020 TW, and How To Cure Diabetes. In fact during quarantine, it’s a perfect time to use electronic ordering of TW (Total Wellness, prestigepublishing.com, 1-800-846-6687) and then of course you can read it electronically at home. So there’s no contamination. If you need to have more evidence or convince your friends, have them go to thepowerhour.com, scroll down to “listen”, you need to put in “Dr. Rogers”, and then select to hear the archived broadcasts on April 3, 10, 17, & 24, 2020 (and March 13, 20, 27). It’s an easy way to get smarter while you are jogging or exercising.

For those who want much more information I would then read as many other years of TW and the books as you can. For we never leave anyone out when we write a book or newsletter. Just because you don’t have what’s in the book title, just bear in mind that all the information still applies to you. It’s God’s chemistry. We just all carry a different load of deficiencies and toxicities, genetics, environments, etc. You need to know as much as you can about every disease in order to cure any disease and make yourselves disease-proof. It’s my way of sending you to the medical school of (hopefully) the future. For indeed I hope that medicine will eventually morph into acknowledging and embracing the proven causes and cures of chronic diseases, while properly reigning in the pharmaceutical industry which certainly has its undeniable merits.

So there you have it. I have purposely abandoned our normal format to bring you this timely information. Unfortunately very few people will take the bull by the horns and make themselves healthier. They’re waiting for some doctor, some insurance company, some government agency, or some easy quick solo treatment. Or they are waiting for a magic viral drug or vaccine. And then on the flipside you have those who will empower themselves, read, take control and get well. It’s Biblical. The choice is always yours.

Because this is such an important issue, you have my permission to copy and send this May 2020 TW newsletter issue to anyone you wish.

Dear folks,
Total Wellness™
3160 Erie Blvd. East
DeWitt, NY 13214

If you do have a fever and cough, definitely have a D-dimer and LDH (lactic acid dehydrogenase) drawn. Just tell the doctor that the recent Journal the American Medical Association showed that folks who were in need of ICU, many of whom died, had actually doubled their D-dimer and LDH levels. If yours are elevated you need ICU regardless of whether your ER has Corona virus tests available, as many do not (reference pg 8). Also buy an oximeter to make sure your oxygen doesn’t dip below 97%, another danger sign.

Sources of this month’s recommendations:
Item Supplier 800#

Chelated Zinc, E Gems Elite, Gamma E Gems, Tocotrienols,
Lemon-Flavored Cod Liver Oil in glass, Vitamin D3, 10,000 IU
……………………Carlsonlabs.com ……………….323-4141
PC Powder, Natural Calm Magnesium ……..
……………………happybodies.com ……………..1-800-happybo
All TW and books…prestigepublishing.com…1-800-846-6687
For personal phone consults.. …………………..315-488-2856
Remember in these trying times, there may be huge deficiencies of these priceless nutrients. So check out needs.com (1-800-634-1380), happybodies.com, thepowerhour.com for their Power Mall, or alternativemedecinesolution.com (1-877-676-1615), your local health food stores, Amazon, etc. to find any remaining stock of nutrients, for availability may be limited indefinitely.

References:

  • Hemming MI, et al, Amyloid beta protein is degradation by cellular angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) and elevated by an ACE inhibitor, J Biol Chem 280; 45:37644-50, 2005
  • Despres JP, et al, Hyperinsulinemia as an independent risk factor for ischemic heart disease, New England Journal Medicine 334:952-7, 1996
  • Landsberg L, et al, Hypertension and associated metabolic abnormalities—the role of insulin resistance in the sympathoadrenal system, New England Journal of Medicine 334:374-81, 1996
  • Teicholz N, The Big Fat Surprise, Simon & Schuster, 2014
  • Enig M, Know Your Fats, Bethesda Press, 2000
  • Cohen S, Drug Muggers, Rodale, New York, 2011
  • Lustig RH, Fat Chance, Avery, New York 2012
  • Wang D, et al, Clinical characteristics of 138 hospitalized patients with 2019 novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia in Wuhan China, Journal the American Medical Association 323; 11:1061-9, Mar. 17, 2020
  • Del Rio C, et al, 2019 Novel coronavirus—important information for clinicians, JAMA 323; 11:1039-40, March 17, 2020

3 Difficult But Necessary Financial Questions to Ask After a Terminal Cancer Diagnosis

The emotions involved with a terminal cancer diagnosis can be enormous, but the costs can be overwhelming as well. With that being said, if you?ve just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and are still reeling with emotions, you may want to stop and save this article for a later date. If you think you?re ready to face this difficult time head on and are ready to answer some difficult questions, know that doing so can relieve a great deal of stress for you, and added financial pressures for your family members.

Will Your Family Be Able to Afford Your Funeral?
Thinking about aspects of your own death is never pleasant. Considering your financial options now, though, can ensure that your loved ones are not left struggling financially. With burial insurance, your loved ones will get help with paying for funeral and other end-of-life expenses. The benefits can also be used to pay outstanding bills and loans. It?s wise to have this sort of burial or final expense coverage, especially since funeral costs can exceed $10,000. Another way to ease this immense financial burden during an already emotionally strenuous time for your family is to take the time to plan your funeral. By laying these plans out ahead of time, you can save your family the stress of making hard choices during their time of bereavement, and you can lessen the chance for disagreements among surviving members. Planning your funeral may also be a useful step in helping you and your family come to terms with what may happen in the future.

Will Your Loved Ones Be Able to Pay for Palliative Care?
Funeral costs are not the only expense that should be part of financial planning for the terminally ill. It?s also important to understand hospice care, and the role that these palliative and supportive services will play in the time ahead. While you may currently be planning on using chemotherapy and other treatments to prolong your life, know that planning for hospice care before you need it is a smart choice. The levels of hospice care provided will determine the costs in many cases, so you should spend some time familiarizing yourself with each. For instance, if you are able to receive care in your home, continuous care may come with more expense than routine care. These designations are most important for those covered by Medicare, since Medicare benefits can pay for hospice in most cases. If you are not enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid or insurance can offset care costs as well.

Will Your Family Be Responsible for Any Leftover Debts?
Right now, your primary focus should be to make the most of whatever time you have left with your loved ones. It stands to reason, however, that enjoying that time may be tainted if you?re worried about leaving behind massive debts, such as mortgages, medical bills, or student loans. How these leftover debts impact your family depends on several factors, including your link to loved ones and which lenders you owe. For instance, student loan debt may be completely forgiven after your death if the lender is provided with acceptable proof of death. The collection rules around other types of debt can vary, so your best bet is to speak with each lender or to consult a financial expert, so that you can have the peace of mind of knowing that grieving loved ones won?t be left paying these debts alone.

Being prepared for the costs of your diagnosis is equally as important as being prepared for the emotions that come with the diagnosis. So do your best to take care of the financial planning steps mentioned in this article, but also make sure you get the best care possible during this difficult time. That includes the care you give yourself. As difficult as it may be to think about, preparing for death can provide a sense of peace and calm.

How to Make the Switch to a Plant-Based Diet: (3 Simple Tips)

 

Preventive Medicine Associates, PLLC

 

While fad diets have circulated for decades, one meal plan that’s never lost traction is plant-based eating. By adding more plants to our daily meals, we can lower the risk of heart disease and diabetes. Additionally, we’re also helping to reduce some of the harmful effects of climate change. Less meat, healthier living? Yes, please. Here are some practical tips for adopting a plant-based diet for your health (and the planet).

Stay Away from Convenience Foods

An influx of “fake meat” has recently inundated the plant-based food market. However, are these packaged food items better for us than fresh produce and other closer-to-nature menu items? As multiple health experts told the Guardian, not necessarily. Like other packaged foods, faux meats can pack a lot of extra “stuff” onto their ingredient lists. Excess sodium and fillers, for example, are common in these products.

Plus, the more you rely on convenience foods, the less likely you are to consume the healthiest plant-based foods: actual plants. Sticking with nutrient-dense plant foods such as legumes, seeds, leafy greens, and enriched grains is optimal. Of course, fortified plant milks and soybean foods also make the list of healthy vegan menu items.

Expand Your Menu

When embarking on a new nutritional path, it can be challenging to figure out what to eat. You might find that by going plant-based, you’re severely limiting your diet to several staples you know you like. The problem with this is it makes plant-based eating feel like a diet. Experts have confirmed that fad diets don’t work, and it’s because they’re too strict to stick with long-term.

Fortunately, eating less meat and dairy doesn’t mean you have to eat from a boring menu — vegetarian and vegan dishes can be just as delicious as any other meal. In short, the secret to eating more plants is including a range of colors with each meal.

And it’s not just dieticians who want you to expand your palate. As CBS News reports, experts say to consume 10 or more servings of fruits and veggies per day. You’ll find more antioxidants, vitamins, potassium, and tons of other nutrients in darker fruit and vegetables.

Keep Things Simple

Unless you’re a budding chef, there’s no reason to get overly complicated with your meals. There are plenty of complex recipes out there for those turning toward more plants and less animal-based foods. However, when it comes down to it, you only need a balance of nutrients — protein, carbohydrates, vitamins — to keep your body moving.

Cooking simply — and avoiding additives, preservatives, and excess sodium and oil — is accessible and healthy for us all. As a bonus, you’ll get more creative with the flavors in your meals without additional prep steps. Remembering that fresh food itself has plenty of flavor can help you avoid additives in your kitchen. For example, Medline Plus recommends using natural flavoring for your meals to skip the salt, such as:

  • Lemon or another citrus fruit
  • Fresh or powdered garlic and onion
  • Any variety of pepper (black, green, white, red)
  • Vinegar (rice wine, balsamic, etc.)
  • Toasted sesame oil
  • Dry mustard
  • Fresh hot peppers
  • Paprika, cayenne, etc.

Seniors and Plant-Based Diets

Although they’ve recently become trendy, plant-based diets aren’t just for younger generations. A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and healthy grains can offer benefits for people of all ages. Concentrating on eating better is an essential first step toward longevity.

Of course, just because you improve your diet doesn’t mean you can abandon regular exercise. Exercising regularly well into your golden years is still crucial. And if you have Medicare Advantage, you may be eligible for the SilverSneakers program. Participants in the program receive access to over 13,000 participating fitness centers across the nation. SilverSneakers provides better access to fitness facilities — all through your existing healthcare plan. Furthermore, to take advantage of SilverSneakers, you also need to be 65 or older (or qualify for Medicare due to a disability) and a citizen of the United States.

Eating more plants is a simple way to get on track toward a healthier future. And regardless of your age or fitness level, consuming healthy foods is an excellent means of improving your lifestyle. Fortunately, what’s good for your body is also great for the planet.

Photo via Pixabay

Tips for Overcoming Systemic Inflammation and Living Your Best Life

There are two types of inflammation in the body. The first is natural inflammation that is welcome as a part of healing. The second is unwelcome and can have damaging effects on your body. If you struggle with the second type of inflammation and learn to manage it well, you can live a long, healthy, and thriving life.

Preventive Medicine Associates, PLLC

What Is Inflammation?

Inflammation is a natural part of the body’s immune system response. If you experience an injury or infection, your body naturally responds with inflammation as the first step to the healing process. Signs of inflammation include pain, redness, inability to move the region of the body that is inflamed, swelling, and heat. As inflammation decreases, the symptoms will dissipate.

Sometimes, inflammation goes away, which is a cause for concern. Prolonged inflammation results in whole-body impact. Essentially, your body’s immune system is consistently attempting to recover. When you’re in this state, acute inflammation is referred to as systemic inflammation.

What Is Systemic Inflammation?

Systemic inflammation reveals itself in various forms, and the resulting symptoms are different for everyone. Systemic Inflammation results in inflammation throughout the body and can either be caused by disease (such as type II diabetes, Lyme disease, cardiovascular disease, and many cancers) and auto-immune disorders or can cause disease, sepsis, and organ failure. Inflammation becomes chronic when the immune system is working on overdrive to combat an infection, it becomes confused and attacks parts of the body that resembles infection or injury, or it senses a problem but mistakes the remedy and sends white blood cells to attack healthy tissue or organs.Systemic inflammation can be worsened by some of the following:

  • Obesity
  • Food allergies
  • Diet
  • Aging
  • Auto-immune disease
  • Lack of physical activity
  • Stress
  • Lack of sleep

How Does Systemic Inflammation Affect the Body?

Many people suffer from inflammation and do not know about it. If you’re experiencing the swelling that comes with a broken bone, bruising, or heat to the touch, it’s evident you have inflammation; but with systemic inflammation, the symptoms are not as obvious.Systemic inflammation can result in or exacerbate the following:

  • Body pain/aches
  • Rashes
  • Congestion
  • Low energy/fatigue
  • Bloating
  • Arthritis
  • Cancer
  • Heart disease
  • Diabetes
  • Asthma
  • Alzheimer’s
  • Dementia
  • Depression
  • Obesity
  • Brain fog
  • Gum disease

How Do You Treat Systemic Inflammation?

The first step you should take is to consult with your healthcare provider and rule out inflammation being the symptom of a disease or other serious underlying issue. You may consider getting a blood test and allergy test done to rule out foods or a lack of the right vitamins being the source of the problem. Check with your doctor and do research to determine if CBD oil is right got you. CBD oil has been shown to reduce pain and inflammation. Look at different CBD products and review their pros and cons to help determine which one fits your specific needs.

Many have found a change in diet to be beneficial to reduce or eliminate inflammation. Ketogenic diets, which are low in carbohydrates, may prove to reduce the pain associated with inflammation or inflammation itself. Reducing or eliminating dairy, sugars, gluten, and salt intake — while adding fruits, vegetables, dark leafy greens, fiber, healthy oils, and foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids — have shown to help many in managing inflammation. Improving the health of your gut can also help fight inflammation. You can improve the state of your gut by eating foods such as yogurt, apple cider vinegar, or sauerkraut or by taking 1MD probiotics. By trying to take control and treat the root problem of your symptoms, you will feel great, experience fewer illnesses, sleep better, lose weight, and have better skin.

If you struggle with systemic inflammation, you can reverse the effect by taking control of your lifestyle. By changing your diet, exercising, getting enough sleep, finding methods that relax your body, reducing your exposure to harmful toxins, and proactively alleviating pain through alternative options (such as CBD oil), you could experience a total transformation. Be proactive and you can begin to take your life back today.

MAY 2020 TABLE HOPPING

I was hoping to be able to write about something other than coronavirus this month hoping that the situation would be substantially behind us but as I prepare this column that’s clearly not the case. Of course I have recommended vitamin d and vitamin C and zinc and those are pretty obvious, generally available, extraordinarily safe supplements you can take to try and minimize your likelihood of infection and or minimize the degree of infection if you get it.

Hopefully, by the time this article is published we will have the antibody testing available for everyone who wants it. We will finally start to get a handle on who had a trivial infection and have a better sense of the real death rate etc. I sent a reference to a video in an email to all of my private patients but I feel it’s important enough to share with you as well. This video was one done by dr. Paul Masson and it’s entitled “How to Survive The Coronavirus The Effect Of Diet Part 1”. The link is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lJPjsuftmQ . I have on my way radio show talked about the possible role of high dose intravenous vitamin C the role of ultraviolet light and the role of ozone in the treatment of viral infections but this is something that requires medical intervention you can’t do any of these on your own. Doctor Mason’s video is about what you can do to improve your health and immune system. Of course he focuses on the diet and that’s music to my ears. As he elaborates diabetes, obesity , hypertension and heart disease all increase your risk of ending up in the ICU. Age is a risk factor but seems to be really related to the underlying illness not just the age. Healthy old people have less risk than sick young people or so the data shows so far. Dr Mason reviews the issues of metabolic syndrome…high waist circumference, hypertension, high triglycerides, low hdl cholesterol and fasting glucose over 100. Statistically speaking only 12% of adults in America have none of the risk factors for metabolic syndrome. Insulin resistance , a hallmark of metabolic syndrome, clearly impairs the immune system in multiple ways. Even the cytokine storm is related to insulin resistance. Of course you can be insulin resistant for years before your blood glucose goes up so your doctor must check your insulin not your blood glucose to find out if you are insulin resistant. Most doctors just dont run this test. It’s cheap, easy to order and it’s easy to interpret.

Luckily you can change your insulin resistance very rapidly by changing your diet and removing the bulk of carbohydrates in your diet. Lose the sugar and regain your health. Yes, I know you are addicted to sugar…we all are. But study after study shows low carb diets improve health…resolve insulin resistance…promote weight loss etc.

Dr Mason also reviews cholesterol and how high cholesterol is protective against infection. That’s right high hdl cholesterol makes you less likely to get infection and less likely to become septic if you do get infected. In his video he reviews major papers that completely disprove the cholesterol hypothesis that your cardiologist clings to… Cholesterol bad…must lower the number. Dr Mason uses important published research to completely shred the idea that it’s good to lower your cholesterol and saturated fats are bad for you. Bring this article to your doctor, your cardiologist and ask them to watch it and refute anything he is saying and they will be unable to. Of course most of them will not even watch it because they have been trained to believe cholesterol is evil and that’s that. Again , high cholesterol is protective against infection, sepsis and all cause mortality and the evidence is real , convincing and overwhelming if you just look at the research. Need another reference? Try Dr Malcolm Kendricks great book The Cholesterol Con.

So we are giving seniors the flu shot which demonstrably does not work to prevent death and hospitalization and according to published research this year increases the risk of getting ill with the coronavirus. On top of that we are giving statins to every senior we can convince to take them so it’s not surprising that this group has the highest rate of mortality with infections. My profession has much to answer for and it disturbs me that so many of my colleagues see this research and just shrug it off and can’t open their minds to the idea we have been making the wrong recommendations regarding your health.

Dr Masons video is a must see. He talks about treating patients on the ventilator. Often , because we were taught it was important, if patients are on the vent for any length of time , we feed them with tube feeds. This is a bad idea. The typical tube feeds are not healthy for you…I know ,I know they have been approved by the nutritionists / dieticians / intensivists etc but they contain unhealthy oils and sugars that do not , in any way, promote health and recovery. It has been demonstrated decades ago that starvation and fasting stimulate the immune system. High fat low carb feedings have been shown to cut down time on the ventilator. So what are the local hospitals using?

Next , Dr Mason takes on hypertension as the last component of the metabolic syndrome. Hypertension is associated with increased mortality in coronavirus infection. He shows that hypertension is not a problem of eating too much salt..it’s due to too much insulin and its effects on the kidney. Lower your insulin and lower your blood pressure. Table salt is not the problem. Stop looking for low sodium foods and get off the high carb diet. Dr Mason recommends you get a continuous glucose monitor even if you are not an obvious diabetic and once you keep your sugars down your pressure should follow. Now Dr Mason eschews all oils, including my beloved olive oil , and he might be right but I don’t see lard making a comeback in the near future. Finally , Dr Mason goes over the extensive data that reviewed saturated fat and diet and how saturated fat is good for you …the opposite of what you are being told today but the evidence is overwhelming.

Unfortunately, health professionals today are way too organ focused..This doctor takes care of your bones, this one takes care of your heart, this one your kidney etc..What every doctor has learned in medical school but quickly forgot because we focus on pills and procedures is that we are all bags of electrochemical activity and if the individual cells of any organ are happy the organ will be happy. What you fuel your body with will determine your health. Stop the cereal, stop the soda, ask your doctor to measure your insulin and you can begin today to improve your health and your immune system. Until next month….spread the love not the virus.

JT BARRY MD

MARCH 2020 TABLEHOPPING

No one wants to really talk about it but the biggest healthcare issue in America today is dementia. Sure cancer is a terrible thing but many people are cured of cancer. Dementia, at least today, is relentlessly progressive and besides profoundly affecting the patient it has a massive effect on the caregivers as well. Just as everyone knows someone with cancer likewise everyone know someone with dementia. Unfortunately, the currently available treatments for dementia are very limited. The toll on caregivers is massive. Dr. Dale Breseden proposes a treatment plan that includes addressing your diet, your exercise,your sleep and your stress as well as removing toxins and some supplements. In his book the End of Alzheimer’s, he documents multiple cases of people that were dramatically improved in memory and whose brain scans actually show regrowth of brain. A 2 year study in Finland called the Finger study demonstrated a significant beneficial intervention effect on overall cognitive performance was seen in a group of people who receive dietary guidance for physical activity cognitive training and intensive monitoring and management of metabolic and vascular risk factors.

So dementia is not inevitable and you can have a significant impact on your risk of dementia and your degree of dementia based on your lifestyle. As you know from my prior writings many people consider dementia a type of diabetes, so called diabetes type 3. This is one more reason to go to your doctor and ask for a fasting insulin level and a measurement of insulin resistance. Ask your doctor for a fasting insulin test and a HOMA score which is a way of measuring insulin resistance.. Your doctor is likely to say that your sugars have been fine so there is no need to measure insulin but you must remind them that sugars will be normal for years as insulin rises and the only way to know this is to measure insulin and if they are going to measure your insulin you might as well do a thorough test by checking the sugar at the same time and learn about your insulin resistance. I believe, after 33 years in medicine, that Dr Breseden is right in that diet plays a crucial role in preventing dementia. Minimizing sugar in all of its forms and maximizing basic simple whole foods I think is your best defense against this mental scourge.

Do you remember where you your car keys? Did you forget where the car is in the parking lot? Do you ever go down into the basement and wonder what you went down looking for? Is at the beginning of dementia or is it just benign forgetfulness of being older? Do you cover up for your loved one in the doctor’s office when they started asking memory questions? Is your doctor or even testing your memory? If you’re in Medicare you are supposed to have a memory test at your annual wellness visit. This is happening?

Well, if you worry about memory loss you do not have to rely in your doctor. Everyone and anyone who has an interest in dementia, who worries about dementia, who has a loved one with memory loss now has access to testing and treatment regardless of the ability to pay. There is a company called Clarity Clinical Research which is located at 6700 Kirkville Rd., Suite 107 East Syracuse New York. The phone number is 315-706-5905. You do not need a referral from your doctor. You do not need a referral from your neurologist. All you need to do is call this number to have yourself tested or your loved one tested. They will establish a baseline and if it is appropriate, offer you the option of being enrolled in a clinical trial. Given that the currently available medicines for dementia do not have a real impact on the disease, having a trial available is possibly a game changer for you and your loved one. . I understand from my conversations with the experts at this facility that it does not matter whether you have a little memory loss or whether you have advanced dementia they will evaluate you and try and find a trial for you. Clinical trials are the way medicine advances. Clinical trials are not new to Central New York . Many people that get chemotherapy are involved in clinical trials.. The testing and treatment available at Clarity Clinical Research are simply not available anywhere else in the area. They have access to scans that are not available outside of research settings. Again, all testing and treatment including the scans etc are free. No charge whatsoever whether you have insurance or not. Furthermore you don’t need approval from your insurance company or medical provider to get tested and treated. So if you really worry about your memory or your loved ones memory you are a phone call away from the most thorough and aggressive testing available anywhere. Of course,I urge you to improve your lifestyle as the primary approach to prevent memory loss and that’s outlined in books like Dr Breseden or Dr Perlmutter’s book Grain Brain. Naturally , I suggest you do both…investigate the lifestyle changes and avail yourself of the most advanced testing and treatment available by calling Clarity Clinical Research. Call today before you forget about it !

National Healthcare Guideline

Here I go again, taking on another major important national healthcare guideline. … Both the United States Preventive Task Force and the American Academy of Family Practitioners recommend AGAINST using the PSA as a screening test. The American Cancer Society recommends that men only be offered PSA testing after a discussion of the risks and harms. Who is spending that much time with their doctor?

Preventive Medicine Associates, PLLCDirectly from the American Society of Clinical Oncology comes the following information: “Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men, except for skin cancer. This year, an estimated 174,650 men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Around 60% of cases are diagnosed in men over 65. The average age of diagnosis is 66 years. The disease rarely occurs before age 40. Most prostate cancers (90%) are found when the disease is in only the prostate and nearby organs. This is referred to as the local or regional stage.

The 5-year survival rate tells you what percent of men live at least 5 years after the cancer is found. Percent means how many out of 100. The 5-year survival rate for most men with local or regional prostate cancer is nearly 100%. For men diagnosed with prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, the 5-year survival rate is 30%. Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States. It is estimated that 31,620 deaths from this disease will occur this year.”

Interestingly enough, Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) —which means a protein that is specific to prostate tissue— was first used by the police starting in 1966 when it was identified in semen and came to be used in cases of sexual assault. Then in 1979 it was discovered that this protein could be found in low amounts in the blood stream of men. PSA was first used in diagnosing prostate cancer in 1987 and was approved by the FDA for this purpose 7 years later.

For years the PSA was done at your annual physical and if it was elevated you were sent for a biopsy to see if you have cancer. If you did test positive you are offered a choice between watching, radiation, surgery or hormonal treatment. Not everyone with an elevated PSA will have a positive biopsy. PSA levels rise as you age and bike riding, rectal probing, prostate irritation or infection can also raise the PSA. We have established a cutoff of 4.0 as the upper limit of normal but some people age normalize the number so as you get older up to 6.0 is considered normal. I have personally had patients with a PSA of 3 who had cancer (their prior PSA was less than 1 so the level of 3 was quite a jump) and patients with a level of 30 who did not have cancer. (They had a biopsy and it was just due to a very enlarged prostate.) So, your doctor CAN do a PSA test at your annual physical but some doctors, blindly following the guidelines, have abandoned this practice. Why? Because some researchers believe that the PSA does more harm than good because:

  1. Some prostate cancers are slow growing and should be left alone.
  1. There will be many people who have an elevated PSA who have biopsies that come back normal and they have been put through psychological stress needlessly. There are dangers of biopsy as well including infection, etc.
  1. Some people will be overly aggressive about treating slow growing cancers and have operations or treatments that leave them with incontinence and sexual dysfunction.

Preventive Medicine Associates, PLLCNone of these are, to me, important enough to stop checking PSA. As noted above, prostate cancer is the most common serious cancer men get. … About 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with cancer and it’s still obviously a common cause of death. ANY test that can help diagnose cancer is worth considering. Once you have the diagnosis it’s up to the individual patient as to how aggressive to be. That’s a completely different problem than diagnosing the cancer in the first place. Once you know, you are in the driver’s seat and can get all the consultations and opinions you want. But until you know, and the PSA test is the first stage of discovery, you have no idea what fate awaits your prostate and you. The blood test is cheap, reproducible and reliable and still covered by most insurances. I know I would have a hard time explaining to some widow that her husband’s prostate cancer death could have been prevented or at least delayed by a simple readily available blood test that I did not do because some guidelines said it was no longer appropriate.

There have been 2 large scale studies looking at the benefits of PSA testing. Roughly 75,000 men were tested with PSA starting in 1993 and there was no benefit in overall mortality between the group who got tested with PSA and the group that did not, although there were 22% more cancers found in the PSA testing group.

Preventive Medicine Associates, PLLCA second, larger study, was done in Europe … the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer began in the early 1990s. A total of 162,000 men between the ages of 55 and 69 were recruited. Quoting directly from the Harvard Medical School article: “After about nine years of observation, 214 men in the PSA screening group had died from prostate cancer, while 326 men in the comparison group had died from the disease. That means screening reduced the risk of dying from prostate cancer by 20%.”

The PSA is a screening test just like colonoscopy and mammogram and when you look at these tests from a population-based standpoint none of these tests —I repeat none of these tests— have been shown to cut down more mortality at the population level. That said, every physician I know has seen people whose lives were saved by a colonoscopy a mammogram or a PSA test. The PSA test is far cheaper than a colonoscopy or mammogram and for a disease that is going to affect one in 6 men I think that ongoing screening is appropriate and I will continue to do it. Yes, it is true that many more men will die WITH prostate cancer than FROM prostate cancer but on my watch I want to find any cancer as early as possible. The PSA is a test that does just that. I urge you to have this discussion with your own personal physician.

Until next month … Get well … Stay well.

(ed. Readers can listen to Dr. Joe Barry’s radio show “Your Health Matters” airing Sunday afternoons at 12:00pm on WSYR 570)

January Table Hopping Article 2020

I am not going to start the year with an exhortation for exercise and changing your diet. Been there…done that. Rather, we start the new year together with an education regarding how to detoxify yourself from all of the foul chemicals you insist on slathering on yourself and ingesting. There is actually a national data bank that maintains fat tissue samples from patient’s all across the United States and based on an analysis of these fat tissue samples ( because that is where a lot of the poisons are stored… in your fat ) shows that 100% of Americans… that is every single sample that they tested , from all across America , tested positive for multiple contaminants/poisons.That is correct, 100% of the samples tested positive for stylene (a breakdown product of Styrofoam) 100% tested positive for xylene , 100% tested positive for ethyl phenol. Chloroform was found in 76% and benzene was found in 96% of samples.. That is not sick people, that is the average joe and jane, that is you and me. If the fish that lived for 4 or 5 years in the fairly clean waters here in Upstate NY have so many chemicals in them that the DEC warns you not to eat more than one a month, how likely is is that you, having lived much longer, would be free of contaminants? The answer is, based on the science available to us today, zero. We all have multiple toxins in us no matter what you want to think about how to clean your air and water are. The air in your house..yes, your house, is significantly more toxic than the air outside your house and most of you leave your house as little as possible. So it is fairly straightforward that we all have contaminants/pollutants in our fat stores. Thousands of chemicals are used in and found in all the processed foods we ingest daily as well as exposure to chemicals in your house, water etc. Don’t think because you are a vegetarian or eat organic that you are safe…most assuredly you are not.

Having all these strange chemicals in your body simply cannot be a good thing for you no matter how much you store them in your fat or otherwise. These chemicals; the heavy metals, the plastic derivatives etc affect the cell membranes, they affect energy transport, they increase cancer risk etc . All these risks are well documented in the scientific literature. Now what can we do about them?

Well, there are natural detoxification pathways in the body and detoxification is broken up into three phases. Phase one is where the chemicals are converted from fat soluble to water soluble thereby allowing them to be processed and transported easier for removal from the body. This involves oxidation, reduction, hydrolysis and epoxidation. This usually involves the cytochrome P450 system in your liver . This can be dangerous because you’re taking these compounds out of the fat and actually making them more available to the body and to possibly have more of a toxic effect so you have to move on to phase two. Phase two is where the compounds and molecules are made even more hydrophilic that is water-loving to again facilitate transport out of the body. This is done by glysine, glutamine and glutathione, acetylation sulfation and thiosulfation. Lastly , phase three is the process of transporting these chemicals to the sites of excretion primarily the bile tract and urine. Another way to look at it is to say that phase one is transformation phase two is conjugation and phase three is transportation.

This isn’t the time or place for a deep dive into the chemical details but it’s simple chemistry. And like all chemical reactions detoxification is very dependent on having the right chemicals and enzymes , vitamins and minerals like zinc, selenium, copper, etc. If you have a deficiency in these chemicals you are not going to be able to clean these poisons out of your body. How are you going to maintain the proper nutrient balance and minerals and vitamins with your McDonalds and Pizza Hut addiction, your donut and pancake habit, your soda and juice dependence? If you want the best chemical reactions to occur in that vast electrochemical bath that is your body you must provide the best chemicals and reagents. These pathways are very well known and so are the chemicals that compose them including glycine, certain B vitamins, glutathione, vitamin C , methionine, and cysteine to name just a few. You can get them from food and / or supplements. It’s still a wild wild world in the supplement market. Since everyone has toxins in them why shouldn’t we all be working on some detoxification on a regular basis.

Now, I am not talking about coffee enemas or the more aggressive detoxification using chemicals like EDTA and captomere…thats way above your pay grade but I am talking about eating health foods like garlic, artichoke, black and green tea, coffee, milk thistle and the whole broccoli family. If you want to maintain the most important pathways of detoxification I have been recommending a daily dose of Vitamin C, R Lipoic acid and Glutathione but many people also recommend N Acetyl Cysteine and Acetyl L Carnitine as well. Of course I am not going to give you doses etc…you have to do your own research or ask your own health care provider what they know about the toxics ever present in your body and how to detoxify yourself. Of course an excellent primer on this subject is Dr Sherry Rogers book Detoxify or DIe ! Maybe it’s too late for Christmas but it still makes a great birthday present. Of course I didn’t invent the term but “the solution to pollution is dilution” so keep the water intake up. Another great detox program is any multi-day fast. I know multi day fasting and cold water immersion are supposed to be very very healthy and I have seen study after study that supports both practices but I find the sauna and skipping breakfast so much more palatable.

I will be talking about other unfamiliar topics in the columns to come. My research into the very basic molecular nature of cellular function has me investigating the effects of light , electriciy and vibration and will be bringing you some interesting insights that modern medicine is ignoring because there is no big pharma behind it. Until then , eat your brocoli.

Monitoring Your Sugar Intake

Preventive Medicine Associates, PLLCI was going to write this month about detoxing and I think it is a very important topic. However, I think there is something that is probably just as important and easier for you to discuss with your doctor. That is – measuring your sugar. Not just pricking your finger but checking your glucose level whenever you want … especially after meals so you can see for yourself immediately the effect of the food you have just eaten on your glucose level. I am talking about CGM (continuous glucose monitoring). If you think you have a good diet, if you think you are taking care of yourself, why not prove it to yourself and your health care provider by applying a monitor that can, for 2 weeks: check your blood sugar whenever you want; as often as you want; without having to prick your finger. I don’t think this is just for diabetics either although obviously this is very important for them to really understand the relationship between what they eat and their bodies response. This isn’t the same as checking your insulin level but it is very readily available and easy to understand. If you are diabetic or have metabolic syndrome or are overweight or just wonder about the interaction between the food you eat and your sugar it is finally easy to have this monitored. I am currently recommending this monitoring to every one of my diabetic patients. I also recommend the monitoring to anyone who is curious about their diet and its effects on their health. Do you really think that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are healthy? Check your sugar afterwards and see for yourself. Do you really think that ice cream is an innocent treat? See for yourself. If you really think those sodas are not harmful check your sugars after a can and actually measure your own bodies response.

There is a continuous glucose monitor called the Freestyle Libre which is inexpensive and often covered by insurance. You apply the sensor to your upper arm and use a monitor to be able to measure your glucose level anytime. The tiny needle in the sensor really is not painful and its much better than pricking your finger. The sensor is pretty durable and can handle showering, etc.

Now we have been talking for some time about the so-called closed-loop system where diabetics could have their sugar monitored by this device and then have insulin administered to keep their sugar levels normal. I think this is going to be a disaster. People will eat whatever they want knowing that this system will handle their sugars but it will result in them getting much more insulin and, as you know, I believe that excess insulin leads to heart disease, dementia, generalized inflammation, arthritis, increasing cancer risk, etc. So I do not think treating your elevated sugar with insulin is the best option. Of course here I am talking about type II diabetics type. Type I diabetics are dependent on insulin. They are much less common and this is not the article for them although obviously monitoring their sugars are very very important for them and this sensor will apply to them as well.

Preventive Medicine Associates, PLLCI have just ordered the system for myself because I am curious as to what really happens when I have my pork fried rice for lunch and whether my late night pretzel snacking is raising my sugars or not. Also I am curious as to how low my sugar will go during the long periods when I do not eat. What effect will sauna use have on my sugars? What effect will strenuous exercise have on my levels? All of these questions I will soon have an answer to … once I get past my insurance company. For me this is just intellectual curiosity but for you, if you are diabetic or prediabetic, it may affect how you eat, what you eat, the dosing of your medications, etc. If you are overweight and you wonder whether your current diet is really the best for you you can measure your sugar levels. You can have instantaneous reliable and reproducible answers. This is not magic. This is nothing particularly new. This device has been around for months now and every primary care doctor should be familiar with it and be recommending it. I never understand why more patients do not ask me for this device. It’s your health … you should be and can be in the driver’s seat in terms of monitoring your health and this is one more device to assist you. Go – partner with your health care provider to improve your health one measurement at a time!

Until next month … Get well … Stay well.

P.S. Don’t forget about the Desantis Orchestra at the Palace theater on Sunday December 8th and the Solstice at the Cathedral December 5th, 6th, and 7th at St. Paul’s downtown. If you like seasonal live local music in great settings both of these shows are for you. -See you there!

(ed. Readers can listen to Dr. Joe Barry’s radio show “Your Health Matters” airing Sunday afternoons at 12:00pm on WSYR 570)