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The Tin Man

An understanding of cellular function based on the Energy and Information cells need, which we get from food and relationships, inevitably leads to “combustion;” much like any engine, which also obey thermodynamic principles, our cells generate Free Radicals, or Oxidants. They need to be eliminated, or neutralized, or else, “Free Radicals Can Kill You: Lavoisier’s Oxygen Revolution.”[1] If we don’t get an optimal amount of Antioxidants in our diet we may end up like the Tin Man.

Every cell in the body will then be affected. Given genetic tendencies and exposure, some cells (organs) may be affected more than others. For example, living in a polluted environment [2] and having “Reduced Circulating Antioxidant Defenses are Associated with Airway Hyper-responsiveness, Poor control and Severe Disease Pattern in Asthma.”[3] In other words, asthma, or any other disease is rooted in poor neutralization of Oxidants, which damage the cell’s organelles, like the brain-like cell membrane and its gonads, the DNA.

The use of energy and information is called “metabolism.” A major breakthrough in modern medicine is the realization that practically all diseases are metabolic problems, including obesity. Overweight people are more oxidized and have higher markers of inflammation, which is virtually the same process as oxidation:

Multiple inflammatory markers are strongly and positively associated with increasing weight status in children, and this relationship starts as young as age 3. Elevated inflammatory markers in very young obese children are particularly concerning, because inflammation may cause long-term, cumulative vascular damage.[4]

Naturally, “An anti-inflammatory Dietary Mix Modulates Inflammation and Oxidative and Metabolic Stress in Overweight Men: a nutrigenomics approach.”[5] Nutrigenomics means that even our DNA needs proper energy and information to replicate normally, a topic we have covered many times in this webstite. The above study documented that resveratrol, green tea extract, {alpha}-tocopherol, vitamin C, n–3 (omega-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids, and tomato extract were helpful in mitigating the metabolic problems obese people encounter.

Will our society adopt these simple principles of health, or will it continue to listen to “the man behind the curtain” disparaging this nutritional approach by claiming that “there is no evidence for ‘alternative medicine?’” Will we see the wizard’s pharmaceutical tricks for what they are, that is, shortcuts that only treat the symptoms of toxicity, oxidation, inflammation and dysmetabolism?


[1] FASEB J. 2010;24: 649

[2] “Exposures to Particulate Matter and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Oxidative Stress in Schoolchildren,” J. Environmental Health Perspectives 2010;118:579

[3] British Journal of Nutrition 2010;103:735

[4] “Multiple Markers of Inflammation and Weight Status: Cross-sectional Analyses Throughout Childhood,” J. Pediatrics 2010;125:e801

[5] American J. Clinical Nutrition 2010; 91:1044

Breast Cancer? Take an Aspirin and Call Me in the Morning

I know; a little callous, but an article just came out showing that aspirin reduces the rate of relapse of breast cancer by 50%.[1] If you have not been reading cutting edge medical literature this may seem odd.

Well, you may find this other report even more perplexing: women taking antibiotics for 500 days over a 17 year period double their risk of breast cancer. The authors correctly postulate that antibiotics destroy intestinal flora, where 60% of our immune system is found; this may lead to a chronic inflammatory state in the patient, which has been associated with cancer.[2]

I believe the real callous thing to do is to be satisfied with the present “standard of care” when it comes to breast cancer. To tell women that “prevention” is a mammogram and that treatment is mutilation surgery, radiation and toxic chemotherapy, while beneficial in many cases, is not preventive enough.

Mammograms are “secondary” prevention; they don’t pick up the problem until cancer has developed. It would be far more productive, cheaper, satisfying and humane to strive for primary prevention, that is, find a “tendency” to cancer before it has created a lump in the breast.

The two studies above are pointing in the right direction.

Here are two more articles to complete the picture: The cover issue of the journal Nature, March 4th 2010 and the current issue of TIME magazine, April 12th 2010, page 44. The former tells us that the MICROGENOME, or the genes of our intestinal bacteria, which outnumber our own genes 150:1, has a powerful influence on our own DNA. Mutations of DNA leading to cancer are more likely if we don’t have a healthy gut flora. The new field of NUTRIGENOMICS adds to this concept: food itself, and how it is processed in the intestines, affects genetic expression.

You say breast cancer is a genetic issue? No, it is not. Out of 8 women with breast cancer, only one has a family history. And get this: the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to the work that showed that the longer the tale of the chromosome, the telomere, the longer we live, the less chronic diseases and the less cancer we have. And what makes the telomere longer? Antioxidants in food,[3] and exercise.[4]

TIME tells us that chemicals, particularly those in plastics (BPA, phthalates) are triggering breast, uterine, ovarian, cervical, and prostate cancer. If our gut flora is not functioning optimally (antibiotics, acid-blocking pills, chlorinated water, lack of fiber, too much sugar, genetic factors, etc,) we cannot detoxify those ESTROGEN DISRUPTORS as well.

With bad food, toxins and poor relationships, we begin to brew INFLAMMATION in the intestines.[5] Another Nobel Prize award, back in 1908, showed that said inflammation is a defense mechanism from the innate immune system in the gut, which comprises 2/3 of the total immune system we have in our body.

Eventually inflammation leaks out of the gut to disrupt practically every cell in the body, including breast cells.[6] This is why aspirin is helping. Would it not be better to treat the inflammation by reversing the factors that lead to it?

Besides aspirin, fiber, probiotics, or friendly bacteria should be the “standard of care.” Interestingly, it has been predicted that the next wave of pharmaceuticals is “probiotaceuticals.”[7] I have already patented “buggutexx.” Fiber and probiotics help us metabolize and also detoxify. But, the key is to give up processed foods and eat as organic and wholesome as possible (pesticides are also estrogen disruptors.) And don’t forget to eat a lot of cruciferous veggies; they are high in micronutrients (indole-3-carbinol and sulpharanes)[8] that fuel detoxification of those chemicals in the liver.

Do we continue to ignore these basic principles?

Let us take to heart the fact that “One Third of Breast Cancer is Avoidable.”[9]

[1] J. Clinical Oncology 2010;28:1467
[2] J. of the American Medical Association 2004;291:827, 880
[3] “Multivitamin Use and Telomere Length in Women,” Am J. Clinical Nutrition 2009;89:1857 & 2009;90:1402
[4] “Physical Exercise Prevents Cellular Senescence in Circulating Leukocytes and in the Vessel Wall,” J. Circulation. 2009;120:2438
[5] J. Cancer Research 2009;69:4827
[6] “Conmensal Gut Bacteria: mechanisms of immune modulation,” J. Trends in Immunology 2005;26:327
[7] “Gut Microbes: From Bugs to Drugs,” American J. Gastroenterology 2010;105: 275
[8] J. Current Medical Chemistry 1998;5:469
[9] European Breast Cancer Conference, Barcelona, March 2010

Health Care Reform

I am not in the 20% of Americans who feel they will be benefitted.[1]

Before you jump to conclusions, allow me to explain: I was a republican in school, democrat as a rebellious young man and now, as a middle aged integrative doctor, naturally, I am an independent.

A year ago I felt we desperately needed health care reform, specifically, a Public Option. I never bought the argument that insurance companies would go out business with a government-run alternative. After all, the Post Office is not doing well competing against FedEx and UPS. Public schools are not putting private schools out of business, either.

The reform passed will do NOTHING to implement cutting-edge science that is consistently showing that a focus on nutrition, environmental detoxification and Mind-Body issues are the best way to care for public health. On the contrary, it will send more dollars after those who sell sickness, namely, Big Pharma and insurance companies:

“There is a lot of money to be made from telling people they are ill… The social construction of illness is being replaced by the corporate construction of illness… Some forms of medicalization may be described as disease mongering, extending the boundaries of treatable illness to expand market for new products…

“Alliances of pharmaceuticals, doctors and disease groups use the media and expert witnesses to frame conditions as being widespread and severe… Disease mongering can include turning ordinary ailments into medical problems, seeing mild symptoms as serious, treating personal problems as medical problems, seeing risks as diseases and framing prevalence estimates to maximize potential markets... Corporate funding information should be replaced by independent information.”[2]

No wonder the health industry spent a lot of money lobbying for passage of present health care reform. The most disappointing issue for me was to learn that President Obama, no doubt trying to compromise, promised insurance companies and Big Pharma that their profits would not suffer. Sure, the industry will make some concessions; they are smart enough to throw us a bone. That is how they avoided the threat of the Public Option, arguing that they could not have competed with a government-subsidized program (See above.)

But, doesn’t capitalism thrive on competition?

No, it doesn’t; corporations and robber barons have always conspired behind closed doors to avoid competition against each other, in order to squeeze as much money as they may from the public.[3] This has happened time and time again in practically all societies, even in the United States. Rockefeller notoriously stated “I would rather have regulation and control rather than free competition.”[4] That is exactly what the health care industry just got handed on a silver platter: a smattering of token regulations to avoid… the Public Option.

I don’t want to be forced to buy into a sick system that does not teach people Health at the Speed of Light (The title of my next book.) Arguing that nobody should be forced to do buy insurance for purely libertarian principles, Attorney Generals from 13 states have already announced their plans to oppose such mandate; they feel it is unconstitutional. But, they are likely to be defeated; I guess I will be paying the fine for not getting insurance in 2014.

I will continue to put my eggs into living healthy and not be driven by fear of disease, Sure, accidents do happen; get catastrophic insurance for emergencies. Motivated by health, you will minimize the risk of disease.

Doctors who maintain that insurance encourages prevention are only partially correct: insured patients, if “prevention” is covered, may find out about a disease as it is getting started; they are dealing with secondary and tertiary prevention. Those who choose Health at the Speed of Light choose primary prevention, or the avoidance of disease before it gets started at the cellular level.

Health Care reform could have been better had we followed the recommendations of the National Institute of Health in 2001:

“Implementation of contemporary quality improvement results remain far from ideal in daily medical practice. [There are] multiple studies over the past five decades documenting simultaneous overuse of ineffective treatment and underuse of beneficial care… How is it possible that modern medicine still does not provide care of known benefit sufficiently and correctly? ...due to inadequacies of organization, delivery and financial systems...as reported by the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Costs of Medical Care in the late 20's…

“The patchwork approach has served us ill, as we run from crisis to crisis, allowing the fear of cost to drive all attempts to define and solve the problem. Such an approach is doomed to promise much and deliver little…

“The problem is worse than we thought, and delaying implementation [of solutions] may lead to catastrophe...The enormous body of evidence to support the analysis and recommendations are difficult to refute. There is prodigious evidence to warrant wholesale internal system changes of clinical practice and delivery of care.... Developing a new medical care quality system is a scientific enterprise; implementing it is a political one.”

“‘Crossing the Quality Chasm’ is the state of the art report on redesigning our health care system. It is required reading for all of us in health care. If we implement the committee’s recommendations, we will truly have created a health care system revolution. Even with partial implementation, change would be profound.”

“The American Health Care system is in need of fundamental change. Many patients, doctors, nurses, and health care leaders are concerned that the care delivered is not the care we should receive. The frustration levels have never been higher. Yet the problems remain. Health care today harms too frequently and routinely fails to deliver its potential benefits. Between the health care we have and the care we could have lays not a gap, but a chasm…

“The burden of harm is staggering. It requires urgent attention. Meeting this challenge demands a readiness to think in radically new ways about how to improve quality. Our present efforts resemble a team of engineers trying to break the sound barrier with a model T Ford.”[5]

That is what we are getting; the promise of better access to over-prized Model T technology. Ironically, better health care (prevention, nutrition, etc.,) is cheaper, more successful and more sustainable.

[1] CBS News, March 22nd 2010

[2] “Selling Sickness: the pharmaceutical industry and disease mongering,” British Medical J. 2002;2:339

[3] Book “The Wealth of Nations,” Adam Smith, 1776

[4] Book “The Creature from Jekyll Island,” G. Edward Griffin; American Media, 1994

[5] Book review on NIH report “Crossing the Quality Chasm: a new health system for the 21st century,” J. of the American Medical Association 2002;287:646

20-20 Vision Staring 2010

As we start a new decade, let us see what “2020 vision” may have in store for us, according to a landmark issue in the Journal of the American Medical Association:

“As a result of rigorous scientific investigation, several therapeutic and preventive modalities currently deemed elements of complementary and alternative medicine will have proven effective. Therefore, by 2020, these interventions will have been incorporated into conventional medical education and practice, and the term ‘complementary and alternative medicine’ will be superseded by the concept of “Integrative Medicine…”

“[By 2020] most human diseases will be understood at the fundamental level of molecules; knowledge about genetic control of CELLULAR FUNCTIONS will underpin future strategies to PREVENT or TREAT diseases”.[1]

The only correction I would make is the term “Complementary and Alternative Medicine”. It is a pejorative word;[2] in my opinion, it has been coined by Big Pharma followers who view anything outside their narrow view of the world as an alternative. When all is said and done, any advancement in any field that is well researched, practical and affordable should be used as “medicine”, regardless of its source:

“Ultimately, there is only one medicine, those therapies that help patients... if it is good for medicine... it should be taught with respect and inquisitiveness and should be give an open-minded but rigorous approach”.[3]


[1] “2020 Vision: NIH Heads Foresee the Future”, Journal of the American Medical Association 1999;282:2287, 2288

[2] J. Family Practice, June 1999

[3] Institute of Medicine, 2004 report

On Sports and Movement

Hopefully you have already seen the movie “Invictus”. I cannot do justice to the many messages it had for all of us. Suffice it to say that the poem “invictus” sustained me in my youth. As I got older, I came to see it as a bit arrogant but a necessary part of development; after being beaten up by life, I feel more comfortable saying that the invisible forces that guide my heart are now the captain of my soul.

Other than that, the movie’s wonderful example of the power of sports to unite people and promote health at so many levels resonated loudly in my heart. I played soccer in college and I still spend a lot of time watching the Utah Jazz, Real Salt Lake, and the Yankees (I used to live in NYC). I also exercise daily.

Let me share an article I wrote that got published in a Utah newspaper while I was an Intern in Houston, Texas; I wrote it in the throes of youthful exhilaration, a few days before my Alma Matter’s Football team won the National Championship in 1984:

“My name is not important. I am an ordinary Cougar fan who finds himself far away from Provo in very unfavorable circumstances. Right now it is 3 AM, a few hours after BYU beat Michigan in the Holiday Bowl. I can’t sleep for two reasons: one, my mind is filled with excitement and gratitude over BYU’s football team. Two, my old body doesn’t know when to sleep because of my work schedule.

You see, I am an intern at Baylor in Houston, a very hard working medical program. I am now rotating through the busiest Emergency Room in the nation. Since it was impossible to get the day off to watch the game (I would have had to work 72 hours straight) I told my boss I had to have the day off “for church reasons”.

I have been able to watch other games via satellite at church. Sometimes trading with other interns was necessary, which required working back to back nights. Why such fanatism? Because BYU football has been one of the few things I’ve had to keep my sanity since I began Pre Medicine in 1975.

While in Texas I have gotten in many heated arguments with the locals who feel there is no football outside their state; I even called a local radio show. Some Texans know about BYUs quarterback genealogy and that BYU does well on the gridiron when playing their teams.

The point I now wish to make is simple:

As an MD, I work trying to heal people. I have become aware of the futility of it in most cases. However, I am convinced that some things have a considerable impact on people’s wellbeing. One of them is sports. Not only active participation to build a strong body and character; but, also watching “your team” play. Both are excellent ways to grow; they also serve as a momentary break from daily obligations.

I am reminded of a colleague’s sad indictment on his knowledge of the human condition; he considered sports as much a waste of time as children’s games. How sad coming from a physician.

You see, sports and entertainment in general are very powerful activities in keeping a society health, happy and out of trouble. People from all walks of life find much relief from sometimes overwhelming environments through recreation—some through sports, others through all other forms of entertainment.

BYU football is an example of this in my own life. Think of the millions of workers who toil daily in honest but often poorly compensated drudgery. To them, watching their favorite team play is their major, if not the only outlet from it all. Sports not only release bottled up pressures, but, in some cases keeps a few from misdirecting those forces against themselves or against society.

Finally, I would like to thank all the players and coaches for a wonderful Christmas present which will hopefully lead to the National Championship. To coach Edwards, whom I admire immensely because of his leadership and perspective of the game, I would like to say that working as a coach he does more, much more in preventing disease and providing relief from sometimes brutal reality, than I will ever hope to do in a lifetime of work as a physician.

To the BYU players I say that they should never underestimate all the good things they do in pursuing excellence in their athletic endeavors. I have the utmost respect for what you do. Thank you very much”.

As 2010 comes your way, I hope you commit to exercising more often. If your work demands do not allow you to do it, consider walking with friends at lunch, or a neighborhood course in Yoga or Tai Chi; after learning you can do it on your own.

For those who live in Salt Lake City, consider taking my daughter Danielle’s Yoga class, starting January 6th at my clinic in Draper (Shameless plug). She is certified to teach Yoga after trotting the world over (Nepal, Indian, Patagonia, etc). Call her @ 801- 694-2489.

Doctors Weigh in on Health Care Reform

Dermatologists feel reform is a rash decision
Gastroenterologists are getting heartburn over it
Internists feel it is a bitter pill to swallow
Gynecologists feel it is a bloody issue
Obstetricians expect changes to be delivered
Plastic surgeons want a new face on it
Surgeons wash their hands of it
Anesthesiologists think it is a gas
Pediatricians feel legislators need to grow up
Psychiatrists feel they are crazy in D.C.
And Proctologists think the A******* in D.C. are messing the whole thing up.


I am a Family Practitioner, but I agree with the Proctologists.

It is shameful how the outcome of health care reform seems to be shaping up as predicted: the big winners are the AMA, Big Pharma and Insurance companies. After all, they each spent over $10 million in lobbying.

Forget the public. Our Republic has descended into FASCISM, or the alliance of government and corporations.

If you have not started to look into self-sufficiency, community connections and food storage, you need to get going.