The Answer (Addendums)

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THE ANSWER- to “Why is the Plane of Our Nation’s Health in a Death Spiral?”

By Dogtor J.
©2001 DogtorJ.com

15.0 ADDENDUM………………………………………………….35

16.0 REVISIONS AND ADDITIONS……………..………….36

ADDENDUM

The original intent of this paper has been altered over the course of its development. During the discovery period, information was being uncovered on almost daily basis that determined the content of the piece. The molding of the subject matter into a recognizable shape was influenced by many factors, both in and out of my control. I have been forced to limit my factual findings to a relatively small percentage of what I have discovered. Equally, I have limited the number of illustrations and personal vignettes to a fraction of those that are applicable. This has been done for a number of reasons.

This subject has had my full attention for over a year. The research has been incredibly self- perpetuating in that one discovery led to another which led to yet another. The mounting evidence and factual data became overwhelming in size and scope. To footnote this article and make it suitable for publication became a logistical impossibility with my existing time constraints. The medical truths stated are easily traceable by those who care to do so. The historical data is a matter of record. Anyone of like motivation can find the factual information in medical libraries, public bookstores, and on the Internet. The latter proved to be an invaluable source for both proven medical data and lay information.

Then the day that eclipsed all others in infamy occurred. The holocaust in New York City unexpectedly altered all of us in ways that we still do not recognize. An incredible urgency to release this letter came over me and the result was to do so before I had originally intended. The work should be able to stand on its current merits. For those who require more, there is more…much more. The book will be much more detailed.

Dogtor J.

©2001 DogtorJ.com

Revisions and Additions

The Answer was last revised on October 13, 2001. I added a number of thoughts and paragraphs throughout the text of the paper. From this point on, I will attempt to place any additions in this section for easy access and printing.

Dogtor J.

Diabetes update

A recent article on Dr. Mercola’s site really got my attention. He and others estimate that 3/4 of the adult population in this country are in what they term a pre-diabetic state. This should really stagger us. However, after what I have learned over the past 2 years, I am not that surprised, especially in light of the pathophysiology behind the two forms of diabetes, both of which are skyrocketing.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that we don’t have a better grasp of the cause-and-effect concept in medicine. By this, I mean the accurate distinction between causes, triggers, and coexisting conditions in relation to the primary medical condition under discussion. Diabetes is a classic example. Most people, especially those with diabetes, are aware of the other medical conditions that often follow a diagnosis of diabetes, especially type 1 (the immune-mediated type). I talk to many of these people in the exam room every day who feel that they are automatically doomed to have many of those conditions once they have been diagnosed with their primary condition of diabetes. Fortunately, this is only partially true, if that.

Diabetes itself does not cause as many of the subsequent problems experienced by sufferers as many think. The fact is that they are prone to other immune-meditated conditions by having type-1 diabetes because the same thing that causes the diabetes also causes the other immune-related conditions. Hypothyroidism (Hashimoto’s disease), hyperthyroidism (Graves disease), MS, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis are immune-mediated diseases. There are also a slew of other liver, kidney, lung, muscle, skin, neurologic, and blood conditions that are immune-mediated diseases. Even the number one killer of Americans, atherosclerosis (the underlying condition in heart attacks and strokes) has an immune-mediated component. You are just now starting to hear about this on the news with the “new” inflammatory marker being used to test for the condition. We have known that there is inflammation in the wall of these arteries for years and years. It has been how to interpret this finding that has held up the release of this information to the public, just as it took years to tell you that type-1 diabetes is caused by an autoimmune attack on your pancreas that ultimately wipes out the cells that produce insulin. Many of my diabetic clients still don’t understand this. I believe the rationale behind not telling them is that understanding medicine is beyond their capability. I disagree in many cases. But, if the diabetic doesn’t understand why the condition occurs, there is not hope for a successful recovery is there? Plus, there is not much of a chance that they can avoid the “inevitable” complications of this degenerative condition. It’s like telling someone that they have to keep driving down the interstate once a blindfold has been placed over their eyes. What are the chances that you won’t “crash”?

As you have read in The Answer (www.dogtorj.com), there are many theories as to why the immune system
starts attacking the host cells. But, I can assure you that it is not because of a “malfunctioning” immune system. The immune system is working perfectly and doing it’s job. The sufferer just doesn’t understand what it is trying to accomplish and why?

The fact is that there is something in those target tissues that the immune system doesn’t like. The pancreas, liver, thyroid glands, myelin sheaths of the nerves, etc .etc. have become infiltrated with something (invariably a foreign protein of some source, like dietary, inhalant, viral, bacterial, etc. origin) that the immune system feels shouldn’t be there. Once the level of that “invader” reaches a critical level, the immune system responds, assaulting the area to clear it all out. It is a “cleansing” process. How many times have you heard that? Not many, I’m sure, BUT it is the reality.
Fortunately, the immune system is “crisis” oriented. It only goes to war for a good reason. This is in keeping with how the rest of the body operates. You can live on 1/2 of one kidney, about 1/4 of your liver, incredible reduced lung function, numerous nearly-occluded coronary vessels, and serious reductions in all of your nutrient reserves. Like the Timex watch, we are meant to “take a licking and keep on ticking”. So, like our military, our immune system doesn’t respond to every little threat with a major reaction. But, once things get serious enough, watch out! Over time, we accumulate increasing levels of these threatening substances until, finally, we exceed our threshold. This may be different for each and every one of us. We are individuals but there are averages, aren’t there? 40 years is a pretty good average, isn’t it? “The wall”, “over- the-hill”, etc. etc. Guess what. It is more than a time to give your best friend Polident,Tums, and black balloons as a reminder of how old they are. It is a real typical time for things to start going wrong, isn’t it?

Or it used to be. Now, there are people in their 20′s and 30′s having things that used to be restricted to the 40-50 year age group. High blood pressure, diabetes, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and much more are afflicting the young adult. We have 33 year old baseball players at the pinnacle of their career with a perfect physique dropping dead of heart attacks. We have a staggering number of people coming down with Parkinson’s before age 40. We have had a 500% increase in autism. Diabetes has skyrocketed. How can that be? The threshold is being exceeded earlier and earlier, isn’t it?

How does the body react when the threshold it exceeded? It usually has provided us with plenty of warning signs like allergies, fatigue, pain, digestive upset, fevers, etc. before it lowers the boom. But, when we haven’t paid attention or misinterpreted these signs (“Oh, it is a malfunctioning immune system that one day we will be able to correct by extracting a gene”  Yeah, right! Grrr…), then we get to suffer the consequences of a a full-out assault on the offenders. The immune system takes things in to it’s own hands. WE have let it down by not listening, so it has to do the job itself. Do you see that? The assault on the “polluted” tissue, whether it be nerves in MS or the pancreas in type-1 diabetes, helps to get rid of these offending agents or complexes. It is a search and destroy mission. Unfortunately, just as in war, there are “civilian” casualties. Normal cells get affected, just as in chemotherapy for cancer. But, the immune system has carefully weighed the benefits of starting this war against the problems of doing nothing or too little.

Yes, there are undesirable side effects of this “cleansing” but the old saying of “taking the bad with the good” or “no pain, no gain” apply here. Take MS as the example. “Something” is building up along the myelin sheaths of nerves. The odds-on favorites are viruses, dietary, and inhalant proteins. Again, The Answer outlines my ideas on the subject. Once a threshold level is attained, the immune system is triggered into action. The attack causes symptoms associated with dysfunction of the target nerve, from tingling of the fingers to blindness (optic neuritis) to facial and trigeminal neuralgia to paralysis. Thankfully, this often occurs unilaterally. Why only one eye or one side of the face at one time? For that, there is no explanation except “grace”. It just happens that way and we should be grateful that this is how it occurs.

But, the remitting and relapsing pattern experienced in many of the autoimmune disorders like lupus (the “wolf”) and MS is totally explainable. The damage from the cleansing is temporary…at least in the early attacks. The attack “takes out the garbage” and the tissue heals…until it all builds back up again. Then, the attack occurs again, but this time the symptoms may be worse or more prolonged. Why is that? Well, the immune response gets stronger as time goes by. Any allergy sufferer will attest to that and this is also explainable. But, the tissue is getting weaker with each attack as well. Remember, we take that licking and keep ticking but the clock is running and someday, the clock will run out if we don’t get to the root of the problem. In fact, I am thoroughly convinced that we experience the first attacks without our knowledge in many cases, especially when it comes to veterinary medicine. By the time we are outwardly sick, we are pretty far down the road in many cases, aren’t we? Coronary artery disease and some forms of cancer are “good” examples, aren’t they? My dad had six arteries severely occluded when he felt a “little something” in his chest he didn’t like. Man, we’re almost made too well, aren’t we?

So, what we then have to understand are the factors that push us over the edge once we are on the precipice of an immunological disaster. What are the triggers?? Well, they are likely to be our taking in more of the offender that’s there or anything that stimulates the immune system into retaliatory action or anything that severely compromises the immune systems ability to handle offending organisms in your body, like viruses and bacteria. That’s why my latent virus-food protein complex “theory” makes so much sense, at least to me. I have been on medical sites that discuss research done on the viral theories of MS and on others that relate foods to MS, neither of which seem to be able to explain the situation adequately. The blending of the two is the key, I believe. Also, the viral component would help to explain why immunosuppressant factors can be triggers of immune-mediated diseases. If the immune-system gets “hand-cuffed” by an overwhelming challenge or is subjected to immune-suppressing drugs and substances like chemicals and pollutants, then the latent viruses involved have a chance to get out from under the controlling thumb of that immune system and flare up, causing symptoms. Again, the classic example is the varicella virus that causes chicken pox early in life but then later causes shingles 20-60 years later. He’s been there all along, under the thumb of the immune system. But, once that system is compromised, that virus takes full advantage and mounts an attack on the nerves where he has been hiding all of those years. It is that simple.

This IS what happens. This is not a theory. The bad news is that we are a “virus hotel” of sorts. How many of these “critters” we have in us is probably undeterminable. But, we know about many, including Epstein-Barr which has now been associated with two forms of leukemia and a form of lymphoma. 50% of our kids have this virus in their body by age 5 and the vast majority of us pick it up after that, especially during the teenage years. I’m certain that this is just one of many.

How has that happened, you might ask? For one, we have invited them in by doing such foolish things as taking aspirin for fevers caused by viruses. Everyone should be able to see how crazy that is once they stop and think for a moment about it. The fever is there to drive the virus out. By artificially reducing that protective fever, we become totally reliant on the cellular part of our immunity to get rid of the invaders. I hate to say it folks, but we have become way too unhealthy over the recent years to do something stupid like lessen our ability to fight viruses. The recent West Nile outbreak is a classic example of that. Is this truly a new virus or one that has been around for a while? I do know one thing. We have become way too unhealthy to handle this guy anymore. The medical records of the afflicted victims say it all.

So, back to the pre-diabetic state. It may seem that I took a major detour for no reason, but you will understand. Remember that diabetes has two forms. Type-1 is immune-mediated and type-2 is not. Type-2 diabetes is due to insulin resistance. Your body cannot handle too much insulin being released for very long so it goes into a protection mode that makes the cells less susceptible to the effects of insulin. Why is that? Yes, insulin is critical for the use of blood sugar. Without it, we would all have diabetes. BUT, too much insulin in the blood has some very ugly side effects. These are the things associated with type 2 diabetes, such as liver disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and much more. For a more complete explanation of the negative effects of insulin, go onto Dr. Mercola’s main site (www.mercola.com)  and put “insulin” in his search engine and read about it. It is actually very interesting to understand how and why the body protects itself from too much of this vital hormone.

The reader will also then see what is driving the insulin levels up to unhealthy levels in a staggering number of people in this country. It will become clear why there has been a 70% increase in this condition in the age group of 9-19 years in that past 5-10 years. Wow!!

In a word…yep…DIET!!! Between the love affair Americans have with complex carbohydrates and the criminal amounts of hydrogenated oils in foods, you don’t have to look much farther. Insulin is released when the blood sugar rises. Complex carbs make the blood sugar rise. Sometimes 1+1 does equal two. (Other times, it equals 3, but that’s a whole ‘nother sermon.) For a complete explanation of the role of hydrogenated oils, you should go onto David Dewey’s site (www.dldewey.com/hydroil.htm) . You really should print out and read his Hydrogenated oils- The Silent Killers and Aspartame paper. Understanding the damaging effects of hydrogenated oils is critical to everyone’s health. Over 90% of the prepared foods we eat contain these oils. Many authorities now agree that there is NO such thing as safe levels of trans fats in food. The sooner we wake up to this harsh reality the better. Oh…and reducing the amount of these deadly oils in certain french fries is like going from a 3 pack of cigarettes a day to a 2 pack a day habit….unlikely to make a dent in the problem. (But, it sure sounds good and will boost their sales phenomenally, won’t it?)

So, in a nutshell, how can 3 out of 4 Americans be in a pre-diabetic state? I think you now have a good idea. We have set ourselves up phenomenally for both types, haven’t we? We have loaded ourselves up on viruses, “foreign” proteins (particularly food and inhalant allergens), complex carbohydrates, and hydrogenated oils. We have unknowingly opened our doors to the involved viruses and proteins by squashing the symptoms our body produces in an attempt to isolate the offending items. I wrote extensively about this in The Answer and will again in my next paper Warning Signs- How you should have known what you have now was coming based on what you had before. Catchy title, huh? Warning signs: Allergies, heartburn, fatigue, insomnia, irritable bowel, colitis, headaches, fever, pain syndromes like fibromyalgia, muscle weakness, memory loss, balance problems and on and on and on. Yes, some of these are associated with very severe disease processes, but I had a degree of ALL of these things and they are all gone now that I have been dairy, wheat, and hydrogenated oil free for 2 years. No more drugs, either. Wow! Amazing…. but explainable. Miraculous…. but an explainable miracle.

I am not unique, except maybe in the degree of my understanding of this coupled with the fact that I am living this life I have described to you. There are plenty of people who know all of this. There are less who have experienced it all, applied the knowledge, and recovered. But there are multitudes of people out there who haven’t a clue about what is written on these pages and on Dr. Mercola’s and my sites. That makes me angry as it should you. I understand how that happens, but it doesn’t lessen my reaction by much on most days.

Dogtor J