Year-Round Breast Health

Dr. Isaac Eliaz | Nov 01, 2013


This October marked the 25^th year of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a remembrance intended to raise visibility about the increasing incidence of breast cancer and emphasize the importance of early detection. These are critical messages. But I’m always struck by what I don’t hear: practical advice on how to keep your breasts protected and healthy all year.

Breast tissue is particularly vulnerable to environmental toxins as well as dietary habits. This is partly because breasts are primarily fatty tissue that stores toxins. Breast tissue is also highly sensitive to hormonal signals, many of which come from environmental pollutants.

Breast cells are some of the more rapidly dividing cells in the body, putting them at a higher risk for mutations, particularly in the presence of DNA-damaging toxins.

Toxic Soup

Many environmental toxins are not very water-soluble. Instead, they like to dissolve in lipids, so they tend to store in fatty tissues throughout the body. Breast tissue has a high fat content: Breasts are composed of ducts and glands surrounded by fatty tissue. As women age and sex hormones such as estrogen and progesterone decrease, the glandular tissue diminishes and there is a corresponding increase in fatty tissue.

Pesticides and other chemicals, as well as heavy metals, tend to gravitate toward these fatty tissues. Numerous studies have found high levels of toxins in both breast tissue and breast milk. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has an excellent article that details the results of numerous studies and also provides information on individual toxins and their risks here.

Interestingly, countries that have banned specific chemicals such as DDT and other dangerous pesticides have seen a corresponding drop in breast milk concentrations. Even with the ban, however, many of these chemicals, known as “POPs” (Persistent Organic Pollutants), remain in the environment for a long time and continue to bio-accumulate up the food chain. Decreasing their levels takes time.

The NRDC states that there are more than 85,000 chemicals registered for use in the U.S., and very few of them have actually been tracked or studied for their health effects.

We have seen a reduction of certain chemicals in breast milk samples, but have also seen an alarming rise in other chemicals such as brominated flame retardants, known as PBDEs. Bromine is a near relative of the essential nutrient iodine. When bromine steps in and blocks thyroid iodine receptors, thyroid function suffers. Bromine is also used commonly in commercial flour and baked goods and numerous other packaged food products, as well as in pool chemicals.

Hormone Imposters

In addition to the direct toxic effects of these chemicals, there is a group of chemicals with another dangerous trait. Known as endocrine disruptors, environmental estrogens or xenoestrogens, this group of chemicals mimics estrogen and other hormones and tricks the body into using them.
These estrogen mimics produce excessive stimulation to hormone-sensitive tissues. In order to understand how this works, we need to look at how hormones communicate with their target tissues.

Cells comprising specific hormone-sensitive tissues, such as breast, uterine and testicular tissue, have receptor sites on their cell surface for particular hormones. These receptors have a definite shape, and function similarly to a lock and key mechanism. The hormone fits snugly into the receptor which “opens the door,” allowing a signal to enter the cell and give instructions to the cell nucleus. Often, the message is to grow, grow, grow. However, the shape of environmental estrogen mimics is similar enough to the native hormone that the toxin can fit into the receptor and activate the cell, often producing excessive growth and disrupting the body’s complex communication network. Studies in animals from contaminated lakes and streams have seen reproductive changes that seriously hamper normal reproduction, producing offspring with feminizing organ development and other serious developmental issues.

Top Offenders

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has just published a list of the top chemicals found to be endocrine disruptors. To read about these chemicals and where they are most commonly found, here.

A Different Kind Of Breast Support

First on the list for any health program is educating yourself about the toxins in your surroundings, including food and water supply as well as household products, body products, etc. This is particularly critical for breast health. Using a water filter, eating organic whole food, and buying natural home and body products is an excellent start.

Next on the list, add foods and supplements that help remove chemicals and heavy metals. The plant kingdom is a great ally in our efforts to keep breasts toxin-free. Sulphur-containing foods such as broccoli, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, onions and garlic all contain compounds that aid in detoxification. Modified citrus pectin, derived from the pith of citrus peels, easily enters the circulation and has been shown in human studies to safely remove heavy metals such as mercury, cadmium, lead and arsenic from the blood.

I also recommend a researched combination of botanical compounds including DIM (diindolylmethane from cruciferous vegetables), curcumin, quercetin, astragalus and medicinal mushrooms. This formula provides powerful support for healthy breast cell behavior, immune function and hormone balance.

As always, a proactive, multifaceted, integrative approach is the best way to support long-term health. And for the men reading this article, this applies to you as well! I encourage you take steps this year to protect and enhance the health of your breasts and other hormone-sensitive tissues. For more information, download a free copy of my Breast Health Guide.

http://easyhealthoptions.com/alternative-medicine/year-round-breast-health/

Budwig Protocol - for Breast Cancer

One of the best write-ups I have come across on Dr Johanna Budwig and her protocol ...


 Medical Breakthrough: Is This Simple Recipe Really the Cure for 
Breast Cancer?

Danica Collins 

Even Cancer Doctors are Amazed at How Well This Medical Breakthrough Cancer Cure Works — Even on the Most Advanced Cancers!

Who among your family members, friends and acquaintances suffer from — or have died of — breast cancer? If you’re like most people, chances are … more than a few. (Check all that apply.)

Your mother	Your sister	Your grandmother
Your friend	Your daughter	Your cousin
Your aunt	Your neighbor	Your co-worker

 


What if you could give each one of them a simple “recipe” that requires only 2 food items … and if they took small amounts of those 2 inexpensive food items in exactly the right proportions every day … their breast cancer could be cured?

The following special report from Medical Research Associates features the revolutionary “recipe” that has been scientifically proven to cure not just breast cancer — but all types of cancer. This is an excerpt from the popular, doctor-recommended Encyclopedia of Medical Breakthroughs and Forbidden Treatments.

 

Dr. Johanna Budwig’s 
Flax Oil & Sulphur-Based Protein Therapy

German-born biochemist Johanna Budwig (1908-2003) was acknowledged as perhaps the world’s leading expert on lipid biochemistry — the field of study dealing with fats (lipids that are solid at room temperature) and oils (lipids that are liquid at room temperature), and their activity within biological systems.



She held a Ph.D. in Natural Science, with emphasis in chemistry and physics, and was also formally trained as a physician, botanist, and biologist. On seven different occasions she was nominated by her peers to receive a Nobel Prize. 



Dr. Budwig was familiar with the work of 1931 Nobel laureate Otto Warburg who demonstrated that, unlike normal cells which receive their energy from oxygen gas, the energy that maintains cancer cells is derived principally from the fermentation of glucose. In Warburg’s words:

“Cancer, above all other diseases, has countless secondary causes. But, even for cancer, there is only one prime cause. Summarized in a few words, the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar [glucose] … all cancer cells without exception must ferment, and no normal growing cell ought to exist that ferments in the body.” 78

Warburg’s work never fully postulated the cause(s) of this reversion of cancer cells to the more primitive anaerobic state. He did, however, theorize that he could raise the oxygen levels in anaerobic cells through the consumption of saturated fats. Pursuing this reasoning, he unsuccessfully attempted to increase oxygen transfer into cancer cells using the saturated fat butyric acid (which Budwig later determined was not sufficiently energetic to effect oxygen transport).



Building on Warburg’s work, 1937 Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi demonstrated that essential fatty acids (EFAs), combined with sulphur-rich proteins, are able to increase cellular oxygenation.79

Budwig understood that cancer cells revert to the more primitive fermentation of glucose because they are deprived of oxygen to the extent they must find another source of energy in order to survive.

One of her greatest contributions is the discovery of the reason this oxygen deprivation and subsequent reversion occurs. Simply stated, the anaerobic environment that spawns the proliferation of cancer is caused by the lack of sufficient omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids in the diet, as well as the overconsumption of modern foods containing unhealthy forms of fats and oils, according to Budwig.



Essential fatty acids are so labeled because they are essential for life and cannot be manufactured by the body. Consequently, they must be supplied through the diet. If these health-providing fatty acids aren’t consumed in sufficient amounts, physical processes within the cells degrade to the more primitive form of energy production — fermentation of glucose within a poorly oxygenated environment. Also, and equally important, is the fact that the modern-day overconsumption of unhealthy forms of fats and oils so prevalent in today’s processed foods, competes with the uptake and use of healthy EFAs, further limiting their availability. 



Although this is a simplified explanation of the physical/chemical processes involved, a more detailed explanation can be found in the references listed below.



Based on her own extensive research over many decades, as well as probable knowledge of Szent-Györgyi’s findings regarding the use of essential fatty acids combined with sulphur-rich proteins to raise cellular energy levels, Dr. Budwig pioneered a protocol for cancer prevention and treatment based on the use of small amounts of flaxseed (linseed) oil combined with a rich supply of sulphur-based proteins. She recommended the products Quark® (a German cottage cheeselike dairy product), and more commonly cottage cheese, as the best sources of sulphur-based protein.



Flax oil is one of the richest sources of the EFAs omega-3s and -6s, and cottage cheese is perhaps the most convenient, richest source of sulphur-based protein.



 Budwig found that neither ingredient alone is effective in either the prevention or treatment of disease. The flax oil must be “activated” by thoroughly mixing it with the cottage cheese in an electric blender at a ratio ranging from 1 tablespoon flaxseed oil per ¼ cup of (preferably organic) lowfat cottage cheese, to 3-4 tablespoons flax oil per ½ cup cottage cheese, depending on the severity of illness — taken on a daily basis. Other ingredients such as fruit and honey may be added to taste.



For those who are lactose intolerant or simply want to avoid animal-derived foods, alternatives to cottage cheese can be found in the references below. One possibility is the product Companion Nutrients® by Nature’s Distributors (800-624-7114), an Arizona-based company that claims one capsule of the dried, sulphurated protein in Companion Nutrients can activate the EFAs in one tablespoon of flaxseed oil. 



 Because the precise treatment of cancer is so critical, Companion Nutrients might best be used in addition to but not as a substitute for cottage cheese.



As amazing as it may sound to some — especially to oncologists who practice traditional forms of cancer therapy, not to mention the unsuspecting and naive public who have observed for decades the many twists and turns of the War On Cancer — the use of these two inexpensive (and unpatentable) food substances provides a powerful and effective means of treating even the most advanced cancers.

According to Dr. Budwig, “… 99% of the sick that come to see me … are cancer patients who have had operations and radiation sessions, and were diagnosed as being far too advanced for another operation to be of any help. Even in these cases health can be restored, usually within a few months, I would say in 90% of cases.”80



Writing in the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients in 1990, cancer researcher and physician Dan C. Roehm, M.D., F.A.C.P., states that, “What she [Dr. Budwig] has demonstrated to my initial disbelief but lately, to my complete satisfaction in my practice, is: CANCER IS EASILY CURABLE; the treatment is dietary/lifestyle, the response is immediate: the cancer cell is weak and vulnerable; the precise biochemical breakdown point was identified by her in 1951 and is specifically correctable …” 81



According to Robert E. Willner, M.D., Ph.D., writing in his book The Cancer Solution, “Numerous independent clinical studies published in major medical journals worldwide confirm Dr. Budwig’s findings … Over 40 years ago Dr. Budwig presented clear and convincing evidence, which has been confirmed by hundreds of other related scientific research papers since, that the essential fatty acids are at the core of the answer to the cancer problem.” You will come to your own conclusions as to why this simple, effective prevention and therapy has not only been ignored — it has been suppressed! 82



Dr. Budwig recommended the Flaxseed Oil & Cottage Cheese treatment protocol be followed precisely, according to her explicit directions. The caveat to this is that many people have successfully used only the flax oil and cottage cheese, without adhering to the other detailed food recommendations her works suggest.



78. Warburg, Otto. “The Prime Cause and Prevention of Cancer” (Revised Lindau Lecture), www/ whale.to/a/warburg.html

79.www/cancertutor.com/Cancer/Budwig.html

80. Budwig, J., “Der Tod des Tumors, Band II” (“The Death of Tumors, Vol. II”), Transcribed interview, broadcast Sept. 11, 1967 by SüddeutscherRundfunk Stuttgart (Germany).

81. Roehm, D.C., “The Bio Electron, Re-Examining the Work of Johanna Budwig”, Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, July 1990, p. 480.

82. Willner, R.E., The Cancer Solution, Peltec Publications: Boca Raton, FL, 1994.

 

The preceding special report is an excerpt from the popular, doctor-recommended Encyclopedia of Medical Breakthroughs and Forbidden Treatments. The content of this report is copyrighted material — © Copyright 2010 Medical Research Associates — but you may disseminate it freely with the following condition: The report must be forwarded to others in its entirety, including the copyright information and all the links embedded in this document.

Dr. Johanna Budwig’s flax oil & sulphur-based protein therapy is just one of 12 scientifically validated cures for cancer featured in The Encyclopedia of Medical Breakthroughs and Forbidden Treatments.



The Encyclopedia of Medical Breakthroughs and Forbidden Treatments is a 380-page book (also available as an e-book) containing a definitive, never-before-published compilation of alternative medicine discoveries. It features cutting-edge, state-of-the-art health information, alternative treatment options and effective solutions for virtually any disease or health problem you or your loved ones might have.

Further Related Reading:

• The Amazing Science of Auriculotherapy
• Encyclopedia of Medical Breakthroughs and Discoveries
• The Truth Behind “The Secret”…
Why Do People Who Practice the 
Law of Attraction Rarely Manifest 
Their Desires?

 https://undergroundhealthreporter.com/medical-breakthroughs-and-forbidden-treatments

Statins Speeds your Aging and Chills Your Sex Drive...

This Common Medical Mistake Speeds Your Aging and Chills Your Sex Drive

Posted By Dr. Mercola | February 11 2012 | 47,693 views



Download Interview Transcript
Visit the Mercola Video Library

Story at-a-glance

• Statin drugs are classified as pregnancy Category X medications, meaning they cause serious birth defects and should NEVER be used by a pregnant woman, or women planning a pregnancy. Shockingly, many physicians are still unaware of this serious risk and continue prescribing statin drugs to pregnant patients
• Statin drugs are one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the US. One in four Americans over the age of 45 is now taking a statin drug, and few are properly warned about the related health risks, which include diabetes, premature aging, and heart failure
• A recent meta-analysis of 72 trials, which involved a total of close to 160,000 patients, revealed that statin treatments significantly increased the rate of diabetes and liver damage
• Statin drugs interfere with a number of biological functions, including a central pathway for steroid management, which negatively affects all of your sterols, sex hormones, cortisone, and Coenzyme Q10, which is critical to the energy generation in every cell of your body
• If you’re taking a statin drug, it is absolutely CRITICAL that you also take a CoQ10 supplement, to limit the damage of the drug. Ubiquinol, the reduced form of CoQ10, is ideal if you’re over 25

By Dr. Mercola

Dr. Stephanie Seneff is a senior scientist at MIT where she's conducted research for over three decades, and has published hundreds of papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

She also has an undergraduate degree in biology from MIT, and a minor in food and nutrition.

I've previously published two articles detailing Dr. Seneff's groundbreaking views on sulfur and cholesterol—both of which are important in relation to the discussion in this segment about statin drugs.

If you missed the previous two segments, I highly recommend reviewing them now in order to get a more complete picture of how vitamin D, dietary cholesterol, and statin drugs work in tandem to affect your health, for better or worse.

What makes Dr. Seneff uniquely qualified to talk about statins is not clinical experience but rather her expertise in mining and evaluating the available research to reach conclusions about health.

Why it's So Difficult to Learn the Truth about Statin Drugs...

One of the papers Dr. Seneff wrote was on the detrimental impact of low cholesterol and statin drugs on Alzheimer's disease.

"I was very interested in the connection between Alzheimer's and low cholesterol... and statins in particular because they lower cholesterol, [which is] going to make that problem worse," she says.

Her paper was summarily rejected.

"Part of the grounds of rejection had to do with the mention of statins," Dr. Seneff explains. "So we took out all the mentions of statins and resubmitted the paper to a different journal, and then it got accepted. You can read this paper in the European Journal of Internal Medicine."

This is a classic example of what's wrong with the current paradigm. The pharmaceutical industry effectively controls the entire health care system, from research to publication to education.

"I think many people are aware that they cannot get their paper published in one of the high end journals if it mentions something negative about statins," Dr. Seneff says. "It's extremely difficult to get such papers accepted by these journals because of the influence of the statin industry on the journal. I think that's a very serious problem."

Many Doctors are Shockingly Ill- or Misinformed about Statin Risks

Shockingly, one in four Americans over the age of 45 is now taking these drugs, and few are properly warned about the related health risks. Part of the problem is that many doctors are not even aware of all the risks. Needless to say, this is not entirely surprising when you consider how difficult it is for any researcher to publish negative findings about this class of drugs!

A study published last spring highlighted this dilemma.

Most disturbingly, the researchers found that physicians were lacking in awareness of the teratogenic risksⁱ (ability to cause fetal malformations) of statins and other cardiovascular drugs they prescribed for their pregnant patients. The study followed an earlier reportⁱⁱ, which had concluded statins should be avoided in early pregnancy due to their teratogenic capability. An even earlier 2003 studyⁱⁱⁱ had already established that cholesterol plays an essential role in embryonic development, and that statins could play a part in embryonic mutations or even death... 

Indeed, it's difficult to look at these facts and not reach the conclusion that the pharmaceutical industry is quite willing to sacrifice human lives for profit. Statins are in fact classified as a "pregnancy Category X medication"^iv; meaning, it causes serious birth defects, and should NEVER be used by a woman who is pregnant or planning a pregnancy.

"It disturbs me greatly that they are prescribing statins to women in their reproductive years and the doctor doesn't even bother to tell the woman that statins are class X for pregnancy, just like thalidomide," Dr. Seneff says.

"[Statin drugs] cause severe damage to the neural tube in the embryo—likely leading to a miscarriage if you're lucky, because otherwise you'll have an extremely disabled child. I don't understand why they're not making this clear to women!"

Cholesterol is Essential for a Healthy Pregnancy

Besides the direct harm caused by the drug, it's also important to understand that cholesterol sulfate is essential for babies in utero, and this is one of the reasons Dr. Seneff states that you do not want your cholesterol levels to be too low.

A woman has about 1.5 units of cholesterol sulfate normally in her blood. When she gets pregnant, her blood levels of cholesterol sulfate steadily rise, and it also begins to accumulate in the villi in the placenta—which is where nutrients are transferred from the placenta to the baby. At the end of pregnancy the cholesterol sulfate in the villi rises to levels of about 24 units—a dramatic rise! This is also why it's especially important to get plenty of sun exposure before and during pregnancy, to make sure you're optimizing not only your vitamin D levels, but also your sulfur levels, as the two are connected.

Did You Know? Statins Can Also Cause Diabetes and Heart Failure...

Another discovery is that statins can cause diabetes. One of the most recent pieces of evidence for this came from a meta-analysis published in September last year.^v The analysis looked at 72 trials which together involved close to 160,000 patients. It found that statin treatments significantly increased the rate of diabetes and liver damage.

But that's not all. Dr. Seneff also points out that statins make you age faster in general, causing muscle weakness, arthritis, mental decline, and even heart failure. It's worth noting that "heart failure" is a different disease category from "cardiovascular disease," despite the fact that both involve your heart.

"That's why I think they keep talking about cardiovascular disease," Dr. Seneff says. "They're careful to use that term… which is very convenient because then people don't realize it's the statins that are causing the heart failure!"

Indeed. Few would assume that a drug taken to prevent cardiovascular disease would be a major cause of heart failure, but that's exactly what appears to be happening. Considering the fact that conventional medicine has been telling us that heart disease is due to elevated cholesterol and recommends lowering cholesterol levels as much as possible, Dr. Seneff's claims may come as a complete shock:

"Heart disease, I think, is a cholesterol deficiency problem, and in particular a cholesterol sulfate deficiency problem," she says.

Heart Disease More Likely Caused by Cholesterol Deficiency Rather than Excess!

Through her research, Dr. Seneff has developed a theory in which the mechanism we call "cardiovascular disease" (of which arterial plaque is a hallmark) is actually your body's way to compensate for not having enough cholesterol sulfate. To understand how this works, you have to understand the interrelated workings of cholesterol, sulfur, and vitamin D from sun exposure.

Cholesterol sulfate is produced in large amounts in your skin when it is exposed to sunshine. When you are deficient in cholesterol sulfate from lack of sun exposure, your body employs another mechanism to increase it, as it is essential for optimal heart- and brain function. It does this by taking damaged LDL and turning it into plaque. Within the plaque, your blood platelets separate out the beneficial HDL cholesterol, and through a process involving homocysteine as a source of sulfate, the platelets go on to produce the cholesterol sulfate your heart and brain needs. However, this plaque also causes the unfortunate side effect of increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease.

So how do you get out of this detrimental cycle?

Dr. Seneff believes that high serum cholesterol and low serum cholesterol sulfate go hand-in-hand, and that the ideal way to bring down your LDL (so-called "bad" cholesterol, which is associated with cardiovascular disease) is to get appropriate amounts of sunlight exposure on your skin.

She explains:

"In this way, your skin will produce cholesterol sulfate, which will then flow freely through the blood—not packaged up inside LDL—and therefore your liver doesn't have to make so much LDL. So the LDL goes down. In fact... there is a complete inverse relationship between sunlight and cardiovascular disease – the more sunlight, the less cardiovascular disease."

What this also means is that when you artificially lower your cholesterol with a statin drug, which effectively reduces the bioavailability of cholesterol to that plaque but doesn't address the root problem, your body is not able to create the cholesterol sulfate your heart needs anymore, and as a result you end up with acute heart failure...Backing up this theory is the fact that in the first decade statin drugs were on the market, from 1980 to 1990, the incidence of heart failure doubled. And heart failure keeps going up right along with the increased use of statins...

"It is very clear to me that statins are causing heart failure," Dr. Seneff says.

Statins Impair Numerous Biological Functions

Statin drugs also interfere with other biological functions, including an early step in the mevalonate pathway, which is the central pathway for the steroid management in your body. Products of this pathway that are negatively affected by statins include:

• All sterols, including cholesterol and vitamin D (which is similar to cholesterol and is produced from cholesterol in your skin)
• All your sex hormones
• Cortisone
• The dolichols, which are involved in keeping the membranes inside your cells healthy
• Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), which is critical to the energy generation in the Krebs cycle in the cell

Why You MUST Take a CoQ10 Supplement if You're on Statin Therapy

The depletion of CoQ10 is particularly troublesome, and may be one of the primary driving mechanisms behind many of the more horrific side effects of statins. CoQ10 is used by every cell in your body, but especially your heart cells. Cardiac muscle cells have up to 200 times more mitochondria, and hence 200 times higher CoQ10 requirements, than skeletal muscle. So if you take a statin drug, taking a CoQ10 or ubiquinol (the reduced version) supplement is absolutely imperative in order to limit the damage. As mentioned by Dr. Seneff, premature aging is a side effect of statin drugs, and it's also a primary side effect of having too little CoQ10. Deficiency in this nutrient also accelerates DNA damage, and because CoQ10 is beneficial to heart health and muscle function this depletion leads to fatigue, muscle weakness, soreness and, again, heart failure.

As for dosage, Dr. Graveline, a family doctor and former astronaut, made the following recommendation in a previous interview on statins and CoQ10:

• If you have symptoms of statin damage such as muscle pain, take anywhere from 200 to 500 mg
• If you just want to use it preventively, 200 mg or less should be sufficient

In my view it is medical malpractice to prescribe a statin drug without recommending one take CoQ10, or better yet ubiquinol. Unfortunately, many doctors fail to inform their patients of this fact.

If You're Over 25, the Reduced Form of CoQ10 May be Better

If you're under 25 years old your body is capable of converting CoQ10 from the oxidized to the reduced form. However, as you age, your body becomes more and more challenged to convert the oxidized CoQ10 to ubiquinol. Aside from aging, numerous other factors can also impact this conversion process, including:

Increased metabolic demand	Oxidative stress	Insufficient dietary CoQ10 intake
Deficiency of factors required for biosynthesis and ubiquinol conversion	Potential effects from illness and disease	Age-related changes in your genes

If you're over 40, I would highly recommend taking the reduced form of coenzyme Q10 because it's far more effectively absorbed by your body. Some reports say your CoQ10 level decline becomes apparent as early as your 20's, however, so I generally recommend it from age 25 and beyond. If you're younger than 25, your body should absorb regular CoQ10 just fine.

References:

---

• ⁱ Teratogen Use in Women of Childbearing Potential: An Intervention Study, Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, May to June 2011: 24(3); 262-71, K. A. Morrical-Kline, et al.
• ⁱⁱ Defects in Cholesterol Synthesis Genes in Mouse and in Humans: Lessons for Drug Development and Safer Treatments, Drug Metabolism Reviews, February 2011: 43(1); 69-90, S. Horvat, et al.
• ⁱⁱⁱ Early Embryonic Lethality Caused by Targeted Disruption of the 3-Hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA Reductase Gene, The Journal of Biological Chemistry, October 31, 2003: 278; 42936-42941, Ken Ohashi, et al.
• ^iv Statins and Pregnancy, eMed TV.
• ^v Adverse Events Associated with Individual Statin Treatments for Cardiovascular Disease: An Indirect Comparison Meta-Analysis, QJM, February 2012: 105(2); 145-57, M. Alberton, et al.

Source: Video Transcript

Related Links:

Dr. Stephanie Seneff on Sulfur

Dr. Stephanie Seneff on Cholesterol

The Dark Truth About the "Wonder Drug" Millions Swear By

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/02/11/dr-stephanie-seneff-interview-on-statins.aspx

New non-GMO 'super' broccoli contains extra cancer-fighting nutrients, ...

... but less vital sulfur

Saturday, December 24, 2011 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer


(NaturalNews) British scientists have developed a new variety of broccoli that contains up to three times more of a powerful heart-health nutrient than conventional varieties -- and they did so without the use of genetic modification (GM). However, the "super" broccoli, known as "Beneforte," also contains less vital sulfur than conventional varieties.

By cross-breeding traditional British broccoli with wild, bitter Sicilian broccoli, researchers from the Institute for Food Research and the John Innes Centre, both in Norwich, England, were able to produce the Beneforte variety, which contains up to three times the normal amount of glucoraphanin (GRP).

GRP is a precursor to sulforaphane (SF), which is the actual nutrient responsible for providing anticancer, anti-diabetic, and antimicrobial benefits. GRP in its standalone form provides little, if any, health benefits, and must come into contact with myrosinase (MYR), another enzyme naturally present in broccoli, in order to become metabolized into beneficial SF.

The Beneforte scientists, however, claim the extra GRP in their broccoli helps to improve the breakdown down of fat in the body, and prevent it from building up in arteries and causing heart disease. They also say that eating Beneforte helps to reduce cholesterol levels, and are currently conducting human studies to verify these claims.

"There's a lot of circumstantial evidence that points to (glucoraphanin and related compounds) as the most important preventive agents for (heart attacks) and certain cancers," Lars Ove Dragsted, a professor at the University of Copenhagen's department of human nutrition, is quoted as saying by USA Today

Since it is not GM, Beneforte is unlikely to have any negative side effects. After all, many non-GM fruits and vegetables sold in stores today are hybridized. However, unless there is extra MYR in Beneforte along with the extra GRP, it is unclear whether this so-called "super" variety of broccoli is any more beneficial to health than standard varieties.

Beneforte was introduced in the UK last month, and has been available in select stores in California and Texas for roughly the past year. And within the next couple of weeks, it is set to be introduced in stores across the US.

Sources for this article include:

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/fitnes...

Articles Related to This Article:

• Study: Combining broccoli with broccoli sprouts doubles anti-cancer effect

• Boost anti-cancer properties of broccoli by spicing it up

• Daily Dose of Broccoli Halts Ulcers and Cancer

• Broccoli Juice Proven to Protect Skin Better than Sunscreen

• Half-a-Dozen Healthy Reasons for Eating More of the Green Stuff

• Extract of Broccoli Sprouts May Protect Against Bladder Cancer

http://www.naturalnews.com

The Best "Drug" for Slashing Your Risk of Cancer?

Posted By Dr. Mercola | December 19 2011 | 36,541 views

Story at-a-glance

• Cancer prevention strategies that need to become mainstream include: optimizing your vitamin D levels, normalizing your insulin levels, and exercise. Research shows you can likely cut your cancer-risk in half simply by optimizing your vitamin D levels with sun exposure. And if you are being treated for cancer it is likely that higher blood levels—probably around 70-100 ng/ml—would be beneficial
• Cancer rates are projected to rise by 45 percent in the UK over the next 20 years due to population growth and an aging population.
• Global cost of cancer is estimated at $286 billion annually in medical expenses and lost productivity. According to a new report from a panel of 37 experts, the rate of increase in expenditure on cancer within health-care systems is unsustainable.
• Ignoring the fact that cancer is likely a man-made disease caused primarily by toxic overload is at the heart of our rising cancer rates, yet most of the cancer research is directed towards expensive drugs that target late stages of the disease and greatly enrich the drug companies but simply do not prevent cancer.
• Overlooked contributing factors to cancer include: chemical exposures, pharmaceutical drugs, processed and artificial foods, EMF and dirty electricity, radiation exposure, obesity, stress, poor sleeping habits, and lack of sunshine exposure.

 

By Dr. Mercola

Research in the UK suggests that the number of new cancer cases could rise 45 percent by 2030.

Cancer Research UK, which funded the study, says that the National Health Service must act immediately to avoid being "overwhelmed".

The research looked at 23 different types of cancer, and found an expected cancer increase of 55 percent for men and 35 percent for women.

BBC News reports:

"The rate of breast cancer is projected to fall by 7 percent.
The authors attribute this to a recent reduction in the use of hormone replacement therapy, which is a risk factor for the disease.
However the rates of malignant melanoma and kidney cancer are forecast to rise sharply in men and women."

The primary reason for the rise in cancer cases is attributed to population growth in the UK and an increased ageing population.

Interestingly, while paying lip service to the necessity to create stronger initiatives for smoking, drinking, and obesity reduction.

England's Department of Health is planning to invest more than £750 million over the next four years to promote earlier cancer diagnosis and "better access to the latest treatments."

So in essence, they're going to throw millions of pounds into an already broken system—the Cut, Poison, Burn paradigm—that does nothing to actually prevent cancer...

No wonder cancer rates are projected to rise by 45 percent in the UK over the next 20 years!

New Study—Cost of Cancer Rapidly Becoming Unsustainable

Cancer now surpasses heart disease as the number one killer of Americans between the ages of 45 to 74. The odds are quite high that you or someone you know has cancer, is dying or has already died from it.

While life cannot be measured in dollars and cents, the financial burden of cancer is truly staggering. Currently, 12 million people worldwide are diagnosed with cancer each year, costing $286 billion annually in medical costs and lost productivity. By 2030, that number could increase to 22 million people each year, with a similar rise in costs.

According to a new report from a panel of 37 experts, the cost of cancer is rapidly becoming unsustainable in many developed countries. The report was published in the journal Lancet Oncology in September, and was covered in Time Magazine that same month.

According to the authors of the report:

"The burden of cancer is growing rapidly… This is not simply due to an increase in absolute numbers or need for optimized treatments, rather it relates to the unsustainable rate of increase in expenditure on cancer within health-care systems.

What are the drivers and solutions to the so-called cancer-cost curve in developed countries? How are we going to afford to deliver high-quality and equitable care? In this Commission and the linked Comments, expert opinion from health-care professionals, policy makers, and cancer survivors has been gathered to address the barriers and solutions to delivering affordable cancer-care in high-income countries."

The report wisely questions the value of expensive new therapies that prolong patients' lives by mere months. Some cancer drugs, such as Avastin, for example, can cost upwards of $100,000 per year. At that price, even with insurance coverage, your co-payments can easily run as high as $20,000 a year. This despite the fact that studies show the drug prolongs life by just a few months at best, and more recent studies have suggested the drug might be less effective against cancer than the FDA believed when it was approved. It also has potentially lethal side effects that might speed up your ultimate demise.

When the Treatment is Worse than the Disease...

Perhaps more importantly, most conventional cancer treatments tend to add insult to injury by doing more harm than good -- a fact that has been largely swept under the rug by the medical industry.

Meanwhile, the real culprits—the underlying causes—are completely ignored, and that is, I believe, the root of the problem. The cancer industry has become a massive for-profit business that is doing everything in its power to maintain the status quo. It is, quite simply, not interested in truly reducing cancer rates; it's interested in treating cancer. From that perspective, the more cancer cases the better...

This sordid reality has been well-documented in films such as Cut, Poison, Burn, and Burzynski: The Movie. 

Burzynski: Cancer Is Serious Business from BurzynskiMovie on Vimeo.

Getting to the Root of the Problem

Ignoring the fact that cancer is for the most part a disease triggered primarily by exposure to industrial toxins, the now well-trod path of the Cut-Poison-Burn model is taking us ever further AWAY from the solution. The pharmaceutical researchers would like you to believe they're doing everything they can to come up with a solution. Yet most of the cancer research is directed towards expensive drugs that target late stages of the disease and greatly enrich the drug companies but simply do not prevent cancer.

Clearly they're not digging close enough to the root of the problem, because if they did, they'd touch on some of the lifestyle issues I'll review below.

If ever there was an area in which an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure it is cancer. I firmly believe that if you're able to work your way up to the advanced health plan, that you will virtually eliminate the risk of most cancers.

From my perspective, you ignore lifestyle factors at your own peril, as environmental- and lifestyle factors are increasingly being pinpointed as the primary culprits fueling our cancer epidemic. An exhaustive list of contributing factors would be exceedingly long, but some of the more obvious ones are listed below. For more information about each, follow the hyperlinks provided, and for specifics on consumer products implicated as contributors to cancer, take a look at the Cancer Prevention Coalition's "Dirty Dozen" list.

Pesticide- and other chemical exposures	Processed and artificial foods (plus the chemicals in the packaging)	Wireless technologies, dirty electricity, and medical diagnostic radiation exposure
Pharmaceutical drugs	Obesity, stress, and poor sleeping habits	Lack of sunshine exposure and use of sunscreens

In the last 30 years the global cancer burden has doubled, and as predicted in the featured study, we're looking at further dramatic increases—unless people begin to take cancer prevention seriously. I believe we can turn this trend around, but to do so the medical community must stop overlooking the methods that can actually have a very real and significant impact.

Three cancer advancements in particular merit special mention, and I will summarize them below. These advancements have not yet been accepted by conventional medicine, and they must be.

Vitamin D Plays a Crucial Role in Cancer Development

There's overwhelming evidence indicating that vitamin D deficiency plays a crucial role in cancer development. Research has identified a number of vitamin D's protective mechanisms against cancer, including:

• Regulating genetic expression
• Increasing the self-destruction of mutated cells (which, if allowed to replicate, could lead to cancer)
• Reducing the spread and reproduction of cancer cells
• Causing cells to become differentiated (cancer cells often lack differentiation)
• Reducing the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones, which is a step in the transition of dormant tumors turning cancerous

Researchers within this field have estimated that about 30 percent of cancer deaths could be prevented annually simply by optimizing the vitamin D levels in the general population. On a personal level, you can decrease your risk of cancer by MORE THAN HALF simply by optimizing your vitamin D levels with sun exposure. And if you are being treated for cancer it is likely that higher blood levels—probably around 70-100 ng/ml—would be beneficial.

If the notion that sun exposure actually prevents cancer is still new to you, I highly recommend you watch my one-hour vitamin D lecture to clear up any confusion. It's important to understand that the risk of skin cancer from the sun comes only from excessive exposure. Meanwhile, countless people around the world have an increased risk of cancer because their vitamin D levels are too low due to utter lack of sun exposure.

Why We Need to Re-Embrace Sun Exposure

I strongly recommend optimizing your vitamin D levels with appropriate amounts of sun exposure because when your skin is exposed to the sun, in addition to creating vitamin D3 it also synthesizes high amounts of vitamin D sulfate and cholesterol sulfate—both of which are very important for heart- and cardiovascular health. In fact, research by Dr. Stephanie Seneff suggests that heart disease may be a symptom of cholesterol sulfate deficiency, and healthy cholesterol and sulfur levels are both highly dependent on your vitamin D levels...

Vitamin D sulfate is a water soluble form of sulfur that can travel freely in your blood stream, making it readily available, while oral vitamin D3 is unsulfated, and therefore needs LDL (the so-called "bad" cholesterol) as a vehicle of transport. Dr. Seneff's suspicion is that the simple oral non-sulfated form of vitamin D may not provide as much of the same heart-healthy benefits as the vitamin D created in your skin from sun exposure, because it cannot be converted to vitamin D sulfate, and therefore will not improve your sulfur status.

Furthermore, sulfur deficiency also promotes obesity and related health problems like diabetes, so all in all, the importance of getting regular sun exposure simply cannot be overstated.

If you can't get enough sun exposure during certain parts of the year, I advise using a safe tanning bed to allow your body to produce vitamin D naturally. Safe tanning beds have electronic ballasts and produce less UVA than sunshine.

A third option is taking a high-quality vitamin D supplement. According to the most recent findings by Carole Baggerly, founder of GrassrootsHealth, her research of nearly 10,000 people shows the ideal adult dose appears to be 8,000 IU's a day to get most into the healthy range. Just remember to get your vitamin D levels tested regularly if you take an oral supplement.




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World's First Breast Cancer Prevention Study Underway!

While virtually all cancer organizations ignore cancer prevention, focusing primarily on early detection instead, Grassroots Health is now in the process of initiating the world's first breast cancer prevention project and study, to investigate and evaluate vitamin D as a preventive strategy for breast cancer.

If you would like to sign up as a participant in this groundbreaking study, or make a donation to support this project, you can do so here. This project is only for women who are:

1. 60 years of age and older
2. have no current cancer
3. are not currently being treated for cancer

Your Insulin Levels have a Direct Bearing on Your Cancer Risk

The second cancer prevention strategy that everyone needs to be aware of is the importance of normalizing your insulin levels. Aside from optimizing your vitamin D levels, normalizing your insulin levels is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to lower your risk of cancer. Unfortunately, very few oncologists appreciate or apply this knowledge today. The Cancer Centers of America is one of the few exceptions, where strict dietary measures are included in their cancer treatment program.

High levels of insulin can cause major damage to your body. The most recognized of these is diabetes, but cancer is another common side effect. The good news is that controlling your insulin levels is relatively straightforward:

1. First and foremost, limit your intake of processed foods, grains and sugars/fructose as much as possible, and
2. Exercise regularly especially Peak Fitness exercises

Exercise is Slowly Becoming More Recognized for its Cancer Prevention Potential

While exercise might not be at the top of most people's lists of cancer prevention or treatment strategies, there is actually compelling evidence suggesting that exercise can indeed slash your cancer risk and improve recovery.

For example, physically active adults experience about half the incidence of colon cancer as their sedentary counterparts, and women who exercise regularly can reduce their breast cancer risk by 20 to 30 percent compared to those who are inactive. Furthermore, Harvard Medical School researchers found that breast cancer patients who exercise moderately -- 3-5 hours a week -- reduce their odds of dying by about half as compared to sedentary women. In fact, any amount of weekly exercise increased a patient's odds of surviving breast cancer.

One of the primary ways exercise lowers your cancer risk is by reducing elevated insulin levels, which creates a low sugar environment that discourages the growth and spread of cancer cells. Additionally, exercise improves the circulation of immune cells in your blood, which is your first line of defense against all disease, including cancer.
The trick though is understanding how to use exercise as a precise tool. It can be helpful to view exercise like a drug that needs to be carefully prescribed to achieve its maximum benefit.

You'll want to include a large variety of techniques in your exercise routine, such as:

• High-intensity, burst-type exercise, such as Peak 8. (Peak 8 are exercises performed three times a week, in which you raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, and then you recover for 90 seconds)
• Strength training
• Aerobics
• Core-building activities
• Stretching

Other Cancer-Prevention Strategies

Please understand that you can do a lot, right now, to significantly decrease your cancer risk. Even the conservative American Cancer Society states that one-third of cancer deaths are linked to poor diet, physical inactivity, and carrying excess weight. So making the following healthy lifestyle changes can go a very long way toward ending the failure-streak and becoming one less statistic in this war against cancer:

1. Focus on fresh, whole organic foods, forgoing as many processed foods as possible. Aim to consume at least one-third of your food raw. Only 25 percent of people eat enough vegetables, so by all means eat as many vegetables as you are comfortable with. Cruciferous vegetables in particular have been identified as having potent anti-cancer properties.
2. When eating meat, make sure it's grass-fed. Avoid CAFO beef and ALL processed meats, which have been clearly linked to increased cancer risk.
3. Get appropriate amounts of animal-based omega-3 fats.
4. Have a tool to permanently erase the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. My particular favorite tool for this purpose, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique.
5. Maintain an ideal body weight. For my top 10 guidelines for normalizing your weight, please see this previous article.
6. Get enough high-quality sleep.
7. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, conventional personal care products, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.
8. Reduce your use of cell phones and other wireless technologies, and implement as many safety strategies as possible if/when you cannot avoid their use.
9. Boil, poach or steam your foods, rather than frying or charbroiling them.

Source: BBC News October 27, 2011

Source: The British Journal of Cancer 27 October 2011 [Epub ahead of print]

Source: Time Magazine September 26, 2011

Source: The Lancet September 26, 2011

Related Links:

The Great Cancer Hoax: The Brilliant Cure the FDA Tried Their Best to Shut Down...

The Root Cause of Cancer Almost Universally Ignored by Doctors...

Slash Your Breast Cancer Risk: Remove the Real Cause

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/12/19/why-are-cancer-cases-rising-by-nearly-50-in-the-next-20-years.aspx

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Dr. Stephanie Seneff on Cholesterol and Sulfur - MUST WATCH !

Could THIS Be the Hidden Factor Behind Obesity, Heart Disease, and Chronic Fatigue?   

Posted By Dr. Mercola | September 17 2011 | 229,274views

Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Stephanie Seneff (Part 1 of 7)

Uploaded by mercola on Sep 8, 2011
- hard to get too much cholesterol in the American diet
- eggs are a marvellous food; a crime that people throw away the yolk
- 25% of cholesterol in the body is in the brain.
- she didn't get caught up in law fat diet; takes butter not margarine;


Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Stephanie Seneff (Part 2 of 7)



Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Stephanie Seneff (Part 3 of 7)



Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Stephanie Seneff (Part 4 of 7)



Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Stephanie Seneff (Part 5 of 7)



Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Stephanie Seneff (Part 6 of 7)



Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Stephanie Seneff (Part 7 of 7)


Excellent and very fascinating interview! (7 videos) Dr. Stephanie Seneff covers several topics (food allergies, food sensitivities, autism, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and others) that tie in with her theories on sulphur deficiency and cholesterol. She is on to something that definitely needs to be shared with doctors, scientists, and laypersons interested in taking responsibility for their own health. Google for her MIT homepage for more info.   healthyjoyfulable 1 month ago


Total Video Length: 1:29:57
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Story at-a-glance

Sulfur deficiency is common, and may be a contributing factor in obesity, heart disease, Alzheimer's and other chronic health conditions Sulfur, cholesterol, and vitamin D produced in your skin as a result of sun exposure, are all intricately connected and necessary for optimal health, particularly heart health When exposed to sunshine, your skin produces two types of sulfur: cholesterol sulfate, and vitamin D3 sulfate. It is believed that vitamin D3 from oral supplements, which is unsulfated, cannot be converted to D3 sulfate, and may therefore not have the identical health benefits as the vitamin D your skin synthesizes

By Dr. Mercola

Dr. Stephanie Seneff is a senior scientist at MIT and has been conducting research there for over three decades. However, she also has an undergraduate degree in biology from MIT, and a minor in food and nutrition. She's affiliated with the Weston A. Price Foundation and will be speaking at their November Dallas conference, and so will I. Dr. Seneff has a wealth of information in an area that many are not very knowledgeable about, and that is the importance of sulfur.

Sulfur deficiency is pervasive, and may be a contributing factor in:

• Obesity
• Heart disease
• Alzheimer's disease
• Chronic fatigue
• And more

She also believes conventional medicine is seriously confused about cholesterol, which is closely interrelated with sulfur. Furthermore, healthy cholesterol and sulfur levels are also highly dependent on your vitamin D levels! Here, she discusses the importance and the intricate relationships among these three factors.

Heart Disease May be a Cholesterol Deficiency Problem...

Considering the fact that conventional medicine has been telling us that heart disease is due to elevated cholesterol and recommends lowering cholesterol levels as much as possible, Dr. Seneff's claims may come as a complete shock:

"Heart disease, I think, is a cholesterol deficiency problem, and in particular a cholesterol sulfate deficiency problem..."

She points out that all of this information is available in the research literature, but it requires putting all the pieces together to see the full picture. Through her research, she believes that the mechanism we call "cardiovascular disease," of which arterial plaque is a hallmark, is actually your body's way to compensate for not having enough cholesterol sulfate.

She explains:

"The macrophages in the plaque take up LDL, the small dense LDL particles that have been damaged by sugar... The liver cannot take them back because the receptor can't receive them, because they are gummed with sugar basically. So they're stuck floating in your body... Those macrophages in the plaque do a heroic job in taking that gummed up LDL out of the blood circulation, carefully extracting the cholesterol from it to save it – the cholesterol is important – and then exporting the cholesterol into HDL – HDL A1 in particular... That's the good guy, HDL.

The platelets in the plaque take in HDL A1 cholesterol and they won't take anything else... They take in sulfate, and they produce cholesterol sulfate in the plaque.

The sulfate actually comes from homocysteine. Elevated homocysteine is another risk factor for heart disease. Homocysteine is a source of sulfate. It also involves hemoglobin. You have to consume energy to produce a sulfate from homocysteine, and the red blood cells actually supply the ATP to the plaque.

So everything is there and the intent is to produce cholesterol sulfate and it's done in the arteries feeding the heart, because it's the heart that needs the cholesterol sulfate. If [cholesterol sulfate is not produced]... you end up with heart failure."

So, in a nutshell, high LDL appears to be a sign of cholesterol sulfate deficiency—it's your body's way of trying to maintain the correct balance by taking damaged LDL and turning it into plaque, within which the blood platelets produce the cholesterol sulfate your heart and brain needs for optimal function... What this also means is that when you artificially lower your cholesterol with a statin drug, which effectively reduces that plaque but doesn't address the root problem, your body is not able to compensate any longer, and as a result of lack of cholesterol sulfate you may end up with heart failure.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: How Sun Exposure Impacts Your Sulfur Status

According to the conventional view, high LDL is correlated with heart disease, so the idea is that you can take a statin drug to artificially reduce the LDL and you'll be fine. However, as Dr. Seneff explains, if you have high LDL, it's because your body probably needs it to produce cholesterol sulfate, which your heart requires for optimal function.  

Hence, when you simply remove the LDL, you also remove your body's "backup" mechanism to keep your heart as healthy as possible, and as a result you get heart failure.
But high LDL is correlated with cardiovascular disease (please note that cardiovascular disease is an entirely different disease category from heart failure, which explains a lot of the confusion on this issue), so how can your body produce cholesterol sulfate without the harmful LDL?

How is it produced under normal, healthy conditions?

This is where sun exposure enters the picture. When you expose your skin to sunshine, your skin synthesizes vitamin D3 sulfate. This form of vitamin D is water soluble, unlike oral vitamin D3 supplements, which is unsulfated. The water soluble form can travel freely in your blood stream, whereas the unsulfated form needs LDL (the so-called "bad" cholesterol) as a vehicle of transport.

Her suspicion is that the simple oral non-sulfated form of vitamin D likely will not provide the same benefits as the vitamin D created in your skin from sun exposure, because it cannot be converted to vitamin D sulfate. This is yet another reason to really make a concerted effort to get ALL your vitamin D requirements from exposure to sunshine!

"[S]ulfate actually inactivates vitamin D," Dr. Seneff says. "The sulfated form of vitamin D does not work for calcium transport, which I find very intriguing. And in fact, I think it's the sulfated form for vitamin D that offers the protection from cancer. It strengthens your immune system. It protects you from cardiovascular disease. It's good for your brain. It helps depression. I think all of those effects of vitamin D are effects of vitamin D sulfate."

For those who are still under the mistaken impression that sun exposure is the primary cause of skin cancer, the following explanation may be of great help. In a Weston A. Price article on sulfur,
Dr. Seneff states that:

"Both cholesterol and sulfur afford protection in the skin from radiation damage to the cell's DNA, the kind of damage that can lead to skin cancer. Cholesterol and sulfur become oxidized upon exposure to the high frequency rays in sunlight, thus acting as antioxidants to "take the heat," so to speak. Oxidation of cholesterol is the first step in the process by which cholesterol transforms itself into vitamin D3."

As I've stated before, your body was designed to be exposed to the rays of the sun, and your skin contains all the necessary mechanisms to extract or produce beneficial nutrients from it while simultaneously shielding itself from harm. When you circumvent this natural process, either by using sunblock or staying out of the sun entirely, you lose all the health benefits, and give a variety of disease processes free reign.

Cholesterol Sulfate—The Link Between Obesity and Lack of Sun Exposure?

Furthermore, your skin also produces huge amounts of cholesterol sulfate, which is also water soluble and provides a healthy barrier against bacteria and other potentially disease-causing pathogens that might otherwise enter your body through your skin. And, due to its polarity, it can enter both fat cells and muscle cells with equal ease. Dr. Seneff proposes that, because of this, cholesterol sulfate may be able to protect fat and muscle cells from glucose and oxygen damage.

She also argues that when you're deficient in cholesterol sulfate, your muscle and fat cells become more prone to damage, which subsequently can lead to glucose intolerance; a condition where your muscles cannot process glucose as a fuel. As a result, your fat cells have to store more fat in order to supply fuel to your muscles, and excess fat accumulates as damage increases.

Sulfur also plays an important role in glucose metabolism. She hypothesizes that if sufficient amounts of sulfur is available, it will act as a decoy to glucose, effectively diverting it to reduce the sulfur rather than glycating and causing damage. This would have the beneficial effect of reducing inflammation, as sugar (glucose) is highly inflammatory and wreaks havoc in your body.

The Many Roles of Sulfur

Overall, sulfate appears to be a highly underestimated molecule with vast health implications. Dr. Seneff discusses her findings in great detail, but offers the following analogy:

"[I]f you breakdown the sulfate you will release energy, which means that the sulfate is actually absorbing the energy from light... I think of the skin as a battery – or solar panel you might say – taking in the sun's energy and saving it in the form of the sulfate molecule storing the energy in the sun."

It seems logical that humans would have some capacity to absorb energy from the sun directly, but this is the first time I've heard of a molecular explanation for this capacity!

"I have a lot of thoughts about what sulfate does," Dr. Seneff says. "One thing I'm quite sure of is that cholesterol sulfate is highly protective against bacterial and virus invasions. That's why sun exposure protects you from infection. It strengthens your immune system. That cholesterol sulfate is incredibly important to immunity."

Sulfur also plays a vital role in the structure and biological activity of both proteins and enzymes. If you don't have sufficient amounts of sulfur in your body, this deficiency can cascade into a number of health problems as it will affect bones, joints, connective tissues, metabolic processes, and more.

Other areas where sulfur plays an important role include:

• Your body's electron transport system, as part of iron/sulfur proteins in mitochondria, the energy factories of your cells
• Vitamin-B thiamine (B1) and biotin conversion, which in turn are essential for converting carbohydrates into energy
• Synthesizing important metabolic intermediates, such as glutathione
• Proper insulin function. The insulin molecule consists of two amino acid chains connected to each other by sulfur bridges, without which the insulin cannot perform its biological activity
• Detoxification

Sulfate—Essential for Babies

Cholesterol sulfate is also essential for babies in utero. A woman has about 1.5 units of cholesterol sulfate normally in her blood. When she gets pregnant, her blood levels of cholesterol sulfate steadily rise, and it also begins to accumulate in the villi in the placenta—which is where nutrients are transferred from the placenta to the baby. At the end of pregnancy the cholesterol sulfate in the villi rises to levels of about 24 units!

Colostrum also contains high levels of sulfur, even more than the breast milk itself. So clearly, nature seeks to provide the baby with plenty of both sulfur and cholesterol at the time of birth. Interestingly enough, when a mother has high serum cholesterol, the baby's levels are typically low.
Why?
Dr. Seneff explains:

"[Because] it can't get through. The mother has high serum cholesterol I think because she has low serum cholesterol sulfate. I think the two go together. The way to bring down your LDL in a healthy way is to get sunlight exposure on your skin. Your skin will produce cholesterol sulfate, which will then flow freely to the blood—not packaged up inside LDL—and therefore your liver doesn't have to make so much LDL. So the LDL goes down.

In fact... there is a complete inverse relationship between sunlight and cardiovascular disease – the more sunlight, the less cardiovascular disease."

Now, when a baby is born of a mother who has high cholesterol and low cholesterol sulfate, the baby's cholesterol will be low, but will also have fatty deposits in its arteries...despite the fact that fatty deposits are supposed to be associated with high cholesterol.

"The deposits are there, I think, to start this cholesterol sulfate program that's replacing the one that isn't happening..." Dr. Senneff explains. "Children who have adequate cholesterol sulfate delivered from their mother do not have fatty deposits... It's bizarre, but the high cholesterol associated with fatty deposits in the adult (that's causing heart disease) is a solution, not a cause."

This is a complete turnaround in thinking compared to the conventional paradigm!
Furthermore:

"The worst thing you can do is to clobber the LDL... because you're going to end up with heart failure," Dr. Seneff says..

Dietary Sources of Sulfur

Sulfur is derived almost exclusively from dietary protein, such as fish and high-quality (organic and/or grass-fed/pastured) beef and poultry. Meat and fish are considered "complete" as they contain all the sulfur-containing amino acids you need to produce new protein. Needless to say, those who abstain from animal protein are placing themselves at far greater risk of sulfur deficiency.

Coconut oil and olive oil also contain sulfur (and are ideal sources of healthful saturated fats too). Other dietary sources that contain small amounts of sulfur IF the food was grown in soil that contains adequate amounts of sulfur, include:

Organic pastured eggs	Legumes	Garlic	Onion
Brussel sprouts	Asparagus	Kale	Wheat germ

Any diet high in grains and processed foods is likely to be deficient in sulfur, because once whole foods are processed, sulfur is lost. Additionally, soils around the world are becoming increasingly sulfur-depleted, resulting in less sulfur-rich foods overall. Hard water also tends to contain more sulfur than soft water, which, according to Dr. Seneff, may be why people who drink soft water are at greater risk of developing heart disease.

In addition to making sure you're getting high amounts of sulfur-rich foods in your diet, Dr. Seneff recommends soaking your body in magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt) baths to compensate and counteract sulfur deficiency. She uses about ¼ cup in a tub of water, twice a week. It's particularly useful if you have joint problems or arthritis.

As for supplements, methylsulfonylmethane, commonly known by its acronym, MSM, is an option. MSM is an organic form of sulfur and a potent antioxidant, naturally found in many plants.

Source: Video Transcript

Related Links:

The Third Abundant Mineral in Your Body-Are You Getting Enough?

The Hidden Diabetes Link No One is Telling You About...

Do YOU Take Any of These 11 Dangerous Cholesterol Drugs?

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/09/17/stephanie-seneff-on-sulfur.aspx
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