Animal Cruelty

Diabetes

A Possible Cure for Diabetes Ignored by Big Pharma

Twelve years ago, Professor Irving Weissman discovered a treatment that could have saved the lives of thousands of women with advanced breast cancer. Pharmaceutical companies weren’t interested in developing the therapy at the time.

Though interest in his methods are finally being ignited, Weissman regrets the wasted time. In a set of lectures, Weissman repeatedly expressed frustration that while many of his discoveries in the field of stem cell research seemed to hold remarkable potential for life-saving treatments, commercial or regulatory hurdles have prevented his scientific findings from benefiting patients.

One example is Weissman’s research on type I diabetes, in which he demonstrated the ability to fully cure type I diabetes in mice using stem cells. But even though his experiments avoided political controversy by using adult stem cells, which do not come from embryos, Weissman ran into a road block when pharmaceutical companies refused to sponsor clinical trials.

Weissman believes that the pharmaceutical companies put profit over principle, preferring to keep diabetes sufferers dependent on costly insulin than to cure them once and for all.

Sources:

Columbia Spectator January 23, 2009

Type 1 diabetes, or insulin dependent diabetes, is a really sad chronic condition. This is in stark contrast to

type 2, which is caused by insulin resistance and faulty leptin signaling, due to inappropriate diet and lack of exercise – an entirely preventable, and nearly 100 percent reversible condition through lifestyle modifications.

Type 1 diabetics, however, do not produce insulin and must therefore inject insulin several times a day. The disease tends to progress rather quickly and therefore needs to be diagnosed early, as it can result in serious long-term complications including blindness, kidney failure, heart disease and stroke.

Tragically those with type 1 diabetes can have the healthiest lifestyle possible yet still suffer many diseases, as current technology is a poor substitute for a fully functioning pancreas. The sad thing about type 1 diabetes is that it now appears nearly completely preventable. New research suggests if a pregnant woman has optimal vitamin D levels during her pregnancy and then maintains them in her baby once delivered, this should radically reduce if not virtually eliminate type 1 diabetes.

Obviously finding out this information after a person has had their pancreatic islet cells destroyed and is insulin dependent doesn’t help much, but the good news is that within your lifetime we will have developed the ability to safely replace these cells, most likely with similar approaches to the one described in the article above.

If this sounds farfetched, you should know that Dr. Weissman is not the only scientist to lay claim to the power of stem cells to cure type 1 diabetes.

In 2007 the British Times Online reported on the first clinical evidence for the efficacy of Hematopoietic stem cells (stem cells derived from bone marrow) in type 1 diabetes.

The Brazilian study, published in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that treatment-related toxicity was low, with zero mortality. All but two of the volunteers (93 percent) in the trial did not require daily insulin injections for up to three years after the end of their treatment, as the therapy allowed their bodies to start producing the hormone naturally again.

The main drawback with the particular therapy used in that study, from my standpoint, is that drugs were used to first suppress the patients’ immune system before receiving transfusions of stem cells drawn from their own blood. Suppression of your immune system could lead to all types of health problems – after all, your immune system is your primary line of defense – however, the theory of using stem cells to reactivate natural insulin production is an intriguing and hopeful one.

Does Big Pharma Want to Find a Cure for Diabetes?

It certainly would not make financial sense, and I think it’s fairly safe to say that pharmaceutical companies are in business these days to make money – not to actually cure disease. So, when Dr. Weissman implies that he was unable to entice pharmaceutical sponsors because they prefer to keep diabetes sufferers dependent on costly insulin, he’s probably not far off.

There are numerous examples of well-educated, innovative doctors and scientists who have created alternative medical treatments that far supersede conventional drug treatments, and yet they are more frequently than not shunned, persecuted, or even prosecuted for their efforts.

At least Dr. Weissman did not suffer a fate similar to any of these doctors:

• Gaston Naessens – Dr. Naessens cancer treatment is based on the theory that cancer is caused by a friendly microorganism called somatids ("little bodies") -- which are present in all cells -- that becomes unfriendly. His formula, 714X, provides nitrogen to the cancer cells, thus causing this microorganism to cease excreting their toxic compounds, and mobilize your immune system to kill the cancer cells. He was subsequently put on trial for his cancer discoveries.
• Stanislaw Burzynski -- Dr. Burzynski, founder of the Houston-based Burzynski Institute, treats cancer patients with substances called antineoplastons. He was indicted by a grand jury in 1995 for his use of antineoplastons– his second trial that year. He was acquitted.
• Ryke Geerd Hamer – Dr. Hamer’s “German New Medicine” (GNM), operates under the premise that every disease originates from an unexpected shock experience, and that all disease can be cured by resolving these underlying emotional traumas. Despite a 95 percent success rate, Dr. Hamer has spent time in prison for refusing to disavow his medical findings and stop treating his patients with his unorthodox techniques, and is currently living in exile, seeking asylum from persecution.

Adult Stem Cell Treatments are the Wave of the Future

I believe therapies using adult stem cells – as opposed to embryonic stem cells which are at the heart of the stem cell controversy – is and will continue to be a major, exciting part of the future of medicine.

There’s little risk of rejection when using your own adult stem cells, so you’re less likely to need dangerous immunosuppressive drugs. And besides certain ethical issues and regulatory barriers to embryonic stem cell therapy, adult stem cells may hold several technical advantages. For one, they may be more viable.

It’s a little known fact that only about 30 percent of conceptions advance to term. In other words, about 70 percent of embryos may be so defective that they naturally abort.

In addition to eventually helping restore internal organs, immune systems and more, adult stem cell therapies also hold the promise of restoring old skin and bald scalps. I am personally beta testing a new product for regrowing hair that has adult stem cell factors (primarily peptides, no DNA) and have been favorably impressed with the results to date.

One major player in the field is The Maximum Life Foundation. They have discovered an emerging technology that could fine tune stem cell treatments and make every adult stem cell therapy in the world much more safe and effective.

As you age, your stem cells diminish in quality and quantity, so just when you require strong stem cells the most, you’re becoming deficient. Hence your organs and tissues eventually wear out and need to be restored or replaced.

Cells become randomly damaged or mutated over time, but a small percentage may incur relatively little damage—or may escape damage altogether. So some of your stem cells may be as pristine as those that you enjoyed as a teenager, or even as an infant.

The technology discovered by The Maximum Life Foundation identifies, isolates, and amplifies those “pristine” stem cells from your own population for therapies. This selection process could supercharge stem cell treatments by using these “best of breed” cells instead of old cells.

Stem Cell Treatments Have Been Proven to Work

As a bridge to human therapies, a San Diego company has already given us a peek into the future with their horse and dog treatments. Vet-Stem provides a quick-turnaround laboratory service that lets veterinarians to use regenerative cells in animals.

The veterinarian simply collects a small fat sample from the patient and ships it overnight to the Vet-Stem laboratory. Then, Vet-Stem processes the sample, concentrates the cells which are shipped in ready-to-inject syringes. Finally, the veterinarian injects the cells directly into the injured site.

With more than 3,000 horses treated and multiple studies demonstrating the success and safety of their regenerative medicine, Vet-Stem currently helps horses and dogs with fractures, joint disease, or tendon or ligament injuries return to their full level of ability.

Just imagine what the prospects for aged humans might be if similar treatments used pristine human stem cells. Type 1 diabetes wouldn’t be the only chronic disease that could be effectively wiped out.

However, despite Dr. Weissman’s negative experiences in trying to bring his findings to the fore, it’s not completely out of the question yet. In an accompanying editorial in JAMA titled “Cellular therapy for type 1 diabetes: has the time come?” Dr Jay Skyler of the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami, wrote:

“Research in this field is likely to explode in the next few years and should include randomized controlled trials, as well as mechanistic studies."

Mercury Poisoning

Mercury Found in High Fructose Corn Syrup

Mercury was detected in nine of twenty samples of high fructose corn syrup analyzed as part of a pilot study conducted by researchers across the United States and published in the Journal of Environmental Health, issue, January 28th, 2009.

High fructose corn syrup is often used in processed food products to enhance shelf life. This syrup and many other products including citric acid and sodium benzoate are often produced at manufacturing plants that use mercury as part of the manufacturing process. Most often mercury is used as a negative electrode or cathode that aids in using electricity to process raw materials. Given the toxicity of mercury and its dangerous association with birth defects, mental retardation, and problems during pregnancy, use of mercury in food processing has raised questions about safety and about the possibility of mercury being deposited into food products.

In order to investigate these questions and concerns, a Environmental Health Officer (EHO) at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gathered twenty samples of high fructose syrup produced at three different manufacturing plants. The samples were found to contain levels of mercury ranging from below a detection limit of 0.005 to 0.570 micrograms mercury per gram of high fructose corn syrup with nearly one out of every two samples containing mercury.

Given that the average daily consumption of high fructose corn syrup from a variety of processed foods is about 50 grams per person in the United States, these researchers position that "it may be necessary to account for this source of mercury (exposure) in the diet of children and sensitive populations".

see article on my website on Mercury Poisoning and protocol

Growing Tomatoes Upside-Down

At first glance, this might look like an unusual way to grow tomatoes. But Jim Appleby from Iowa has discovered several benefits to hanging his tomatoes in buckets. First, the air can circulate better so the plants have almost no disease problems. Second, the fruit doesn’t rot as quickly as that on the ground. And finally, some critters that eat tomatoes have trouble getting to the ripening fruit.

To make the upside-down containers, Jim used 5-gallon buckets with tight-fitting lids. He recycled his from a restaurant, but says you can find them many places, such as paint or hardware stores.

Jim scrubs each bucket out with soapy water and makes sure the handle is attached securely. He cuts a 2-inch or larger diameter hole in the center of the lid and one in the bottom of the bucket. To make the holes, he uses a drill with a hole saw bit (an attachment for cutting a door to install the doorknob).

With the bucket standing upright and the lid off, Jim covers the hole in the bottom with a coffee filter or scrap of fabric. That way the soil won’t fall out when he turns the bucket over. He fills the bucket full of a lightweight potting mix, shaking it to settle the soil.

2 in. or larger diameter hole cut in bucket lid for both drainage and watering	Established tomato seedling ready to hang

Before he puts the lid back on, Jim lays another coffee filter over the soil where the hole will be. Next, he puts the lid on and turns the bucket upside down.
Jim cuts a slit through the filter in the hole and plants a tomato seedling. To give the tomato a fast start, he strips off the lower leaves and plants the seedling deeply so roots can form along the stem. He places the planted bucket in a sunny location and keeps it well-watered for the next few weeks.

When the plant is about a foot tall, Jim’s ready to hang it up. The bucket needs a solid support to hold the weight. A clothesline pole is ideal. If you hang the bucket from a building, make sure it won’t bang into a window or the siding on a windy day.

This part is easier with two people — one to lift and hold the bucket and one to fasten the chain. Jim drapes a chain over the clothesline post while a friend lifts the bucket. He pulls the chain through the handle of the bucket and fastens the ends together. You can buy chain loops made specifically for fastening or use a piece of heavy wire and twist it to hold the chain together. Either way, Jim finds he can raise and lower the height to harvest his tomatoes


Thanks to Charles for this piece!

Go to my site...

Raised bed organic gardening How to Set Up an Organic Soil-Bed Garden You want to have a great gardening experience growing a high-production sustainable garden of healthy vegetables - and you're about to find out exactly HOW to do it! First off, you MUST have direct sunlight all day long for vegetables to thrive. Therefore, use only the space that has no shade. And don't worry if it seems small! You'll grow twice the food in one fourth the space others are using, so just do it right in the space you have. And actually, starting small is a good idea anyway! It's easier, more fun, and won't wear you out! Level ground, or something with a slight Southern slope is best, in order to catch the sun's strongest rays, and to avoid rapid water run-off that will wash out your soil, seeds, and seedlings. Begin by clearing your ground of EVERYTHING! No weeds, rocks, or anything else is allowed. "Cleanliness is next to godliness" certainly applies here, and you surely want your garden to be a thing of beauty, as well as being productive! Measure and stake the perimeter of your garden. This gives you an important starting point for figuring out how many soil-beds you can have, and then placing them properly. Let's use 25' X 35' as an example of what your garden area might be. It doesn't really matter what direction your beds face, so far as sun exposure is concerned. What does matter, though, is that the beds be level, and that you plant taller plants to the North or East of shorter plants. This is to assure that taller plants don't shade shorter plants, and rob them of essential sunlight. So, align your beds to maximize those factors as much as possible. I'll assume we are able to run the beds lengthwise along the 35' dimension. Your soil-beds should be 18" wide and any length you choose. When you become experienced in this method of growing, and want to specialize in growing certain crops all the time, you may want to begin using 4'-wide beds, but let's stick to the best family garden layout for now. The ideal size for aisles is 3 ½', and since we have 25' width in our example garden, this will give us 5 - 18" beds with 3 ½' aisles. If you have only 23' you could get by with aisles a little narrower. But don't squeeze those aisles! You will be growing plants that need all of that space, and reducing the aisle space only leads to problems of not enough light and air for your growing plants! We'll make our beds 30' long. This leaves us 2 ½' on each end of the garden for walking, and 30' is a good length, because it makes caring for the garden easy. More about that later. Using 18"-long stakes, stake your 5 - 18" X 30' beds, with 4 stakes per bed. Apply 32 ounces of the Mittleider Pre-Plant Mix, and 16 ounces of Weekly Feed Mix to the soil under your strings. This amounts to about 1 ounce and ½ ounce per running foot of those VERY important natural mineral nutrients. Dig or till the soil of your soil-bed to a depth of at least 8". Then, using nylon string, tie strings between the stakes, to outline your soil-beds. Begin making raised, ridged beds by pulling about 2+ inches of dirt from the aisles into the 18"-wide bed area under your strings. Smooth and level that dirt, and then check the level of your bed area. It must be level to make watering easy and efficient, so don't ignore this step! Move dirt from the high spots in your bed to the low spots, until your bed is no more than one inch higher at the water-source end than the other end. Make 4"-high ridges all around your bed by pulling soil from the center of the bed to just beneath the strings. When you're finished you should have a planting area that is about 12" wide and between 1 and 2" above the level of the aisles, with 4" ridges, the top of which are 18" apart. Re-check the level of your planting area, and move soil as necessary to keep the bed level from end to end. Your Mittleider "Best of Organic" garden is now ready to plant!

This Post is Dedicated To Jimmy Arrington

As it takes years for our soil to be depleted of nutrients, so does it take years for our bodies to be depleted of nutrients, to keep us sick. At a time of crisis, extreme measures are taken, and they will take us out of crisis, but we must, follow up with the rebuilding so to speak, the renourishing to survive those extreme drugs that have taken us out of crisis. Look at what our so loving mother earth has given us to provide us with those answers.

The Austrian word for sick, is "what are you missing".

I support you in your life saving actions and I love you, Kate

photo by G.A. Jarrell

First Step in Organic Gardening

A simple effective thing that you can do today:

Begin a compost heap. Find an out of the way place in your garden and make a pile of leaves and grass. Save your coffee grounds and filters, fruit peels, tea bags,fruit cores in a milk carton and mix them with the leaves. Throw a handful of dirt on top of the pile and stir it with a shovel. Nature will do the rest.

Each day I will give step by step instructions on how to have an organic garden to feed you and your loved ones.