Category Archives: heavy metals

Fighting the Good fight

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Turtle Talk has a link up to this story.  I’m glad that the judge gave a nod that the lawsuit has merit–I hope that they pursue it at the state level.

Along those lines, I’ve posted before, but it bears repeating, that I don’t believe that it is a character issue, but that alcoholism is a chemical imbalance of some sort.

In the great book, Potatoes Not Prozac, Kathleen Desmaisons wrote about her experience in counseling alcoholics.  (It’s been awhile since I read the book, so I’m going on memory)  In it, she describes counseling people who really wanted to quit drinking, but were unable to.  She began asking them about diet, and discovered that they reacted to sugar much more so than the average person.  They would get spikes in their blood levels after eating sugar–a high with it. That is, when they saw a plate of cookies warm out of the oven, they wanted to devour the entire plate, whereas most folks would be able to stop at a few.   When she developed a diet that was low glycemic (slow rises in blood sugar levels), her patients began to get their drinking under control–they no longer had the sugar highs that made it difficult to give up the drink highs, too.
Additionally, I wonder about the connection with zinc.  I first read about the connection between zinc and anorexia in the book Food, Mood, Body Connection by Gary Null.  He quotes a doctor who was treating anorexic patients and discovered that those that took liquid zinc were helped in an amazing four days’ time.  They characteristically had difficulty digesting zinc in any other form.  The disgusting part was when this doctor made a presentation to hospital staff about his findings, the bean counters let the person (who invited him) know that this would cut into their profits.  The hospital had a clinic for eating disorders…and the ole’ morality versus profits question came up….and you can guess what happened—morality lost.  The information was withheld from patients so they could profit off of their condition.

I’ve wondered about this and cravings–whether it be alcohol, chocolate, cigarettes, etc.–because of my own experience of having the chocolate cravings go down when I started taking a supplement with zinc glycinate.

I found this link on how alcoholics are low in zinc–just as anorexics and mercury poisoned folks are—so now it seems there would be a connection?  Hmmm…

More sauerkraut adventures…

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I’ve joined yet another support group–for GAPS diet (Gut and Psychology Syndrome).

One of the members also has a blog and posted this.  I thought I’d pass it along for anyone also following this diet.  It kind of tickles me that the Pickl-It jars are a lot like the jars I’m using for making my own sauerkraut.  I think I might try the longer method of fermentation–cabbage itself is known to irritate the thyroid, which is what I suspect is going on with this lady’s child.  I’ve noticed the “red neck” rash on my neck after eating sauerkraut, even though it has benefited my gut in other ways…so, yeah, longer fermentation with kefir whey seems to be the ticket.

(A side note~ I didn’t get a migraine last month–just a bad headache…saying this with fingers crossed so not to jinx myself.)

 

The coal debate

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I about fell off my chair when I heard the radio ad that Barack Obama “approves this message”.  I thought it sounded too much like an Onion spoof…but, alas…

The message?  He approves of coal…and fracking as viable energy sources.  Well, not that it’s a surprise that he *still* supports “clean coal”…but I thought that he at least had sense not to endorse fracking…I was apparently wrong.

Story here:  http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2012/09/obama_campaign_says_romney_not.html

Look at the faces of the miners–blackened with coal dust that contains mercury, lead, arsenic, and on...

91% of those children had respiratory problems–what more does it take?!  A 100%??

From the article:

But according to Stephen Lester, science director of the Virginia-based Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, the air quality tests done at Marsh Fork were “extremely limited” and “provide meaningless information” since they did not test specifically for heavy metals like nickel, lead, arsenic, and mercury found in coal dust.  Rather, they conducted standard state tests for mold, air flow, and air filter upkeep

What a joke.  See, if you don’t acknowledge there’s a problem…then they don’t have to do something about it.  And the chemical industry/coal industry/nuclear industry…and on…can continue doing what they do without being held accountable.

A miner’s viewpoint here.

Environmental Working group has this from 2004.  And this from 2001:  the revolving door phenomenon.

This woman is a walking toxic dump.   Good Grief.  This a testament to our body’s ability to withstand a toxic beating and still try to correct the situation…but even the miracle of one’s body has its limits.

The problem with the situation is that as the above article states, scientists are testing folks for toxins in their systems, but they don’t know what it means–it doesn’t mean the presence of disease, but also doesn’t mean there’s no damage done.

From the article:

“Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’s going to hurt you,” says Bruce Caswell, senior manager of environmental health and safety with the Canadian Chemical Producers Association. But it doesn’t mean it’s not hurting you either. We experience a constant barrage of synthetic stuff, even in the womb. Doses differ as do genetic and physiological vulnerabilities. “None of this belongs in our bodies. Period,” says Riina Bray, a family physician at Women’s College Hospital’s Environmental Health Clinic. Researchers suspect these toxic chemicals have links to a number of cancers, including breast, testicular and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, not to mention reproductive disorders and learning disabilities.

I wonder about the toxin drift as highlighted in this article with David Masty testing positive.  I think the bizarre actions of folks in the last decade or so are related to how toxic our environment is–that we’ve reached our limits of how much our bodies can take before we crash–and the result isn’t always physical, but mental.  This was one of the most surprising aspects of toxic poisoning that I’ve learned on this odyssey I’m on–I had no idea that toxins affected one’s mental abilities.  The medical profession has always treated mental issues as if they were exclusively a problem with the brain–not a likely result of toxic exposure.

And the children being born polluted…it should be enough to make every adult sit up and take notice….

Related to this is the EWG filing suit after Cuomo refuses to release all requested documents.

In my case, although there are numerous red flags, the FDA refuses to recognize that dental amalgams poison people–even though most folks on the mercury support group became sick within a year of amalgam placement.  And I know that living near a coal-burning power plant in the 70s also contributed to my mercury/lead/arsenic load.  Truly, it was when I first had mercury symptoms–only they were minor annoyances that would be misdiagnosed or ignored.

And the USDA is still recommending a diet that is heavily grain based, even though this may mean it is opening the door for mercury/heavy metal poisoning for Celiacs.

…and then the poor sap that falls ill will be met with the “you don’t have a right to food or shelter…”

Whales attacked by seagulls

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Michael Warren of the AP has this up on a disturbing story of whales being attacked by seagulls.

I’m concerned that the seagulls, since they are feeding on fish, perhaps are exhibiting such bizarre behavior because of mercury.  It’s a big clue that this has only been happening the last eight years.  This leads me to be skeptical that the open trash containers and fish refuse thrown by fisherman is the cause…trash has been around for a few decades and the fishermen have most likely always discarded the unwanted fish parts…so why now?

I found this. Interesting–but not really surprising because mercury is a known neurotoxin, so it is conceivable that it would affect that part of the brain that sexual desire is located.  It is fairly well known among the mercury group that desire is affected.  I don’t think this subject has been broached, probably because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Here’s a paper on mercury’s devastating effects on humans, fish, birds, et al.  If you look on page 7, there is a table with an astonishing number of over 4 billion tons of mercury in the ocean water.

From the paper:

There is a strong relation between the food of birds from Minamata and the Hg content in feathers; the content is highest in fish-eating seabirds and lowest in herbivorous waterfowl (Doi et al. 1984; Table 4). This same relation held in birds collected from China and Korea, although concentrations were significantly lower (Doi et al. 1984). There are close correlations between Hg contents of zooplankton and suspended particulate matter, and of sediments and fish muscle, suggesting a pathway from sediment to fish by way of suspended matter and zooplankton. The conversion from inorganic Hg to methylmercury is believed to have occurred primarily in zooplankton (Nishimura and Kumagai 1983).

page 13:

An elevated concentration of mercury (i.e., >1.0 mg/kg fresh weight), usually as methylmercury, in any biological sample is often associated with proximity to human use of mercury. The elimination of Hg point-source discharges has usually been successful in improving environmental quality. However, elevated levels of mercury in biota may persist in contaminated areas long after the source of pollution has been discontinued (Rada et al. 1986). For example, Hg remains elevated today in resident biota of Lahontan Reservoir, Nevada, which received about 7,500 tons of mercury as a result of gold and silver mining operations during the period 1865 to 1895 (Cooper 1983). It is noteworthy that some groups of organisms with consistently elevated Hg residues may have acquired these concentrations as a result of natural processes, rather than from anthropogenic activities. These groups include older specimens of long-lived predatory fishes, marine mammals (especially pinnipeds), and organisms living near natural Hg-ore-cinnabar deposits.

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If you look down a bit, they list the Bald Eagle egg as increasing its mercury contamination from .35 in 1974 to .84 in 1979–doubled.

Further down, it lists a cat that ate fish below a chloralkali plant–look at the fur:  121 mg mercury /kg

The harbor seal in California: 269 mg/kg

The striped dolphin in Japan: 205 mg (in the liver)

The sea lion in California: from 73.0 to 1,026 mg/kg

The paper goes on to summarize that mercury in birds was highest by those that ate fish and other birds.

More from the paper:

The most probable source of recent elevated Hg residues in feathers of the Finnish sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) was from consumption of avian granivores that had become contaminated as a result of eating seeds treated withorganomercury compounds; in 1981, 5.6 tons of methoxyethylmercury compounds were used in Finnish agriculture for protection of seeds against fungi (Solonen and Lodenius 1984).

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Another reason to push for sustainable farming practices…birds being contaminated by mercury application (as a fungicide) by farmers.

This is an understatement:

Mercury is a known mutagen, teratogen, and carcinogen. At comparatively low concentrations in birds and mammals, it adversely affects reproduction, growth and development, behavior, blood and serum chemistry, motor coordination, vision, hearing, histology, and metabolism. It has a high potential for bioaccumulation and biomagnification, and is slow to depurate.

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Mutagens change your DNA.  Teratogen is a fancy word for birth defects.  And of course, carcinogen is cancer causing.  Note that this states low concentrations affect behavior–hence my concern about the seagulls attacking the whale is not normal behavior and that’s why I suspect mercury (or other toxins).

This also applies to we mammals by the way:

MAMMALS
Mercury has no known physiological function (EPA 1985). In humans and other mammals, it causes teratogenic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic effects; the fetus is the most sensitive life stage (NAS 1978; Chang 1979; Khera 1979; EPA 1980, 1985; Elhassani 1983; Greener and Kochen 1983; Clarkson et al. 1984). Methylmercury irreversibly destroys the neurons of the central nervous system. Frequently, a substantial latent period intervenes between the cessation of exposure to Hg and the onset of signs and symptoms; this interval is usually measured in weeks or months, but sometimes in years (Clarkson et al. 1984). At high sublethal doses in man, mercury causes cerebral palsy, gross motor and mental impairment, speech disturbances, blindness, deafness, microcephaly, intestinal disturbances, tremors, and tissue pathology (Chang 1979; EPA 1980, 1985; Elhassani 1983; Clarkson et al. 1984). Pathological and other effects of Hg may vary from organ to organ, depending on factors such as the effective toxic dose in the organ, the compound involved and its metabolism within the organ, the duration of exposure, and the other contaminants to which the animal is concurrently exposed (Chang 1979). Many compounds–especially salts of selenium–protect humans and other animals against mercury toxicity, although their mode of action is not clear (NAS 1978; Chang 1979; EPA 1980, 1985; Eisler 1985).

 

“Baffling new disease…”

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AP has this up on a yet another disease that implicates a destroyed immune system.

Let’s break this down, shall we?

She was from Vietnam, and came here after the war, in 1975.  Although the article doesn’t state that, she most likely was exposed to Agent Orange–exposure to Agent Orange can cause immune system deficiency.

I also wonder about Celiac.  When doing my research on it, I had read that Asians don’t get it–it’s just unheard of in that population…but knowing how the medical profession likes to make pronouncements of entire classes of people with a small sampling, I’m suspicious that she might have it and not be diagnosed nor tested.  I didn’t have any overt symptoms–it was only because of my Irish-German heritage that I put the puzzle together.  And it’s interesting that I have become more sensitive as I have adopted the GAPS diet–allowing my gut to heal.

There isn’t any mention of her diet, nor of the doctor asking her about diet….so one is left to wonder if she’s adopted the Western diet and is suffering because of it.  I think the age thing is a big clue–our bodies are miracles that can take a lot of abuse before the cells break down and start to wreak havoc.  This is something I’ve noticed on the mercury poisoning support group–some folks will have good health up ’til the time they reach 40, and then things start happening.

There’s also no discussion on toxin exposure.  She lives in Tennessee, ranked 11th in toxic exposure.  (What? Indiana is *only* ranked 4th? …we must be slipping in polluting our environment./snark)   Note the assertion of the article that the EPA is right on top of things… the reporter apparently didn’t get the memo of the corporate polluters who worked to get those regulations repealed.

From the article:

The NRDC also framed its report in a political context, indicating that Sen. Lamar Alexander voted against an attempt by Sen. James Inhofe, R.-Okla., to repeal the Mercury and Air Toxics standard. Sen. Bob Corker supported it.“For too long, Americans have had no choice but to breathe toxic air pollution. Thanks to the EPA, the air is getting cleaner,” said Franz Matzner, NRDC associate director of Government Affairs. “But we need lawmakers who will help clean up the air we all breathe — not lawmakers who do the bidding of big polluters trying to repeal safeguards that protect children’s health. This and future Congresses should let the EPA do its job so all Americans can breathe easier.”

Here’s another article on the toxic junk in Tennessee by Kelly Hearn ( The Nation).  Pay attention to the date–I think it could be significant to this woman because she began getting ill in 2009.  Holy Crap.  Mysterious disease…my arse.

Here’s another discussion on it (same blog).  A good discussion on Celiac reaching across several populations that the medical profession has refused to acknowledge. Good Grief.  The misery and diseases they have caused by their ignorance.

 

 

Numbers of importance

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(Okay, feeling a little more lucid today…back to business…)

People who starve in America per given year.

More statistics on the world here.

More debate about the *cough* non-issue here.  Repeat after me:  “If you don’t acknowledge there’s a problem, then there’s no problem.”

Deaths from prescription drugs here--a whopping 100,000 people die every year from prescription drugs and 2 million are seriously injured…but you wouldn’t know that by the lack of attention it receives.  I’m sure that the drug companies buying advertising on the TV networks has *nothing* to do with the lack of sunlight on the issue.  /snark

But those same TV nooz stations will begin (if they haven’t already, since I’m cable-less, I don’t know and I don’t have time to search the web to find out) their onslaught of dire warnings to the American public on the upcoming flu season and how they better get on the stick and get those poisonous vaccines shot into their already beleaguered bodies.  The radio stations here are doing their best to get the hype going on West Nile again…today they announced that horses have died of West Nile, so owners are being urged to get their horses vaccinated.  Wanna know how many horses have died?  Three.  Yep.  I wonder if those horses die from the vaccine if it will be duly noted and reported to authorities? Nah, we can’t have that.  That would be responsible and accurate.

Other deaths by pharmaceutical companies here.  Keep the kleenex handy.  A story of a mother’s heartbreak over the belief she was doing what a good mother does…

More on vaccine deaths here.    Note the similar blanket excuse of SIDS. Here’s a site that blames the parents (mother) for SIDS…oldest trick in the book–that way, she’ll feel guilty for being a poor parent instead of questioning the vaccines the child received. More blaming here…by National Polite Republican.

More parents’ stories here.  But the public is going to be urged to put this poison into their children…and then be blamed if their child dies as a result.  This is criminal.  I can’t even read them all because it’s just too hard.

I’m struggling with this issue with my own kids now–they’ve been brainwashed to believe vaccines are okay and I’m being an alarmist.  I’ve seen how they have affected a sibling’s grandkids and how the child changed dramatically after receiving these horrible shots.  I can’t convince my kids that there is a connection.  I don’t have grandchildren yet, but I’m trying to prevent a tragedy.

And thanks to Senator Frist, you can’t touch Big Pharma.   Profit$ without penalty nor accountability. More here.

…let’s not forget Frist killing kittens for “medical research”.   Paragraph here:  http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/bill-frist/

And more here.

And speaking of cruelty to animals, the FW radio stations were reporting this morning that allegedly a man had tied a firecracker to a kitten’s tail, and it appears that he allegedly threw the kitten into a fire.  The story went on to say that the man’s girlfriend owned the cat and she was quoted as saying that the boyfriend was complaining that the “cat was always around.”    Sounds like a great guy. /snark

 

Population, Resources and Environment

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…is the name of the book I found at the library.  Authors:  Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich (1970, revised 1972)

As promised, this is the text concerning nuclear disaster–specifically, they were concerned with nuclear war (as were we all) but I think with all of the nuclear reactors out there, their theory could be applied:

[…] The entire climate of the Earth would soon be altered.  In many areas, where the supply of combustible materials was sufficient, huge fire-storms would be generated, some of them covering hundreds of square miles in heavily forested or metropolitan areas.  We know something about such storms from experience during the Second World War.  On the night of July 27, 1943, Lancaster and Halifax heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force dropped 2.417 tons of incendiary and high-explosive bombs on the city of Hamburg.  Thousands of individual fires coalesced into a fire storm about 6 square miles in area.  Flames reached 15,000 feet into the atmosphere, and smoke and gases rose to 40,000 feet.  Winds, created by huge updrafts and blowing in toward the center of the fire, reached a velocity of more than 150 miles per hour.  The temperature in the fire exceeded 1,450 degrees F, high enough to melt aluminum and lead.  Air in underground shelters was heated to the point where, when they were opened and oxygen was admitted, flammable materials and even corpses burst into flames.  These shelters had to be permitted to cool 120 days to two weeks before rescuers could enter.  [the authors make note of the book The Night Hamburg Died by Martin Caiden].

[…]

In many areas the removal of all vegetation would no be the only effect;  the soil might be partly or completely sterilized as well.  There would be no plant communities nearby to effect rapid repopulation and rains would wash away the topsoil.  Picture defoliated California hills during the winter rains, and then imagine the vast loads of silt and radioactive debris being washed from northern continents into offshore waters, the site of most of the ocean’s productivity.  Consider the fate of aquatic life, which is especially sensitive to the turbidity of the waer, and think of the many offshore oil wells that would be destroyed by blast in the vicinity of large cities and left to pour their loads of crude oil into the ocean with no way of shutting them off. [BP oil spill, anyone?]

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So…if there were a disaster such as Japan’s here, it would affect the entire area in much the same way.  Not as catastrophic as the above, but nevertheless, it would affect the area in much the same say, just on a smaller scale.  And what kind of domino effect would there be?  Because we all know that what happened in Japan didn’t stay in Japan–it migrated here, causing fish to become radioactive.  I found a more in-depth article here with the same researcher–puts a different light on it with him saying, in so many words, “it’s not that bad.”  Pfft.  What kills me is that they only measured fifteen fish, and ALL of them had it.  Yeah, nothing to see here, folks…move along….

Incidentally, the researcher mentions that funding for the project came from Noah.  I think that was the writer’s error, and he was actually saying NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

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Onto the next topic:  Synthetic Insecticides (same book)

Chlorinated Hydrocarbons

This group includes DDT, benzen hexachloride (BHC), dieldrin, endrin, aldrin, chlordane, lindane, isodrin, toxaphene, and similar compounds designed to kill insects.  DDT is the most thoroughly studied of the chlorinated hydrocarbons, and much of the following discussion is based on it.  Its behavior is more or less typical of the group, although other chlorinated hydrocarbons are more soluble in water, more toxic, less persistent, etc.   In insects and other animals these compounds act primarily on the central nervous system in ways that are not well understood, but the effects range from hypersexcitability to death following convulsions and paralysis.  Chronic effects on vertebrates include fatty infiltration of the heart, and fatty degeneration of the liver which is often fatal.  Fishes and other aquatic animals seem to be especially sensitive to chlorinated hydrocarbons.  Oxygen uptake is somehow blocked at the gills, causing death from suffocation.  That chlorinated hydrocarbons apparently can influence the production of enzymes may account for their wide range effects.

1.  Chlorinated hydrocarbons have a wide range of biological activity; they are broad-spectrum poisons, affecting many different organisms in many different ways.  They are toxic to essentially all animals including many vertebrates. 

2.  They have great stability.  It is not clear, for instance, ho long DDT persists in ecosystems.  Fifty percent of the DDT sprayed in a single treatment may still be found in a field 10 years later.  This does not mean, however, that the other 50 percent has been degraded to biologically inactive molecules;  it may only have gone somewhere else. […]

3.  Chlorinated hydrocarbons are very mobile.  For example, the chemical properties of DDT cause it to adhere to dust particles and thus get blown around the world.  Four different chlorinated hydrocarbons have been detected in dust filtered from the air over Barbados; frog populations in unsprayed areas high in the Sierra Nevada of California are polluted with DDT.  Furthermore, DDT codistills with water; when water evaporates and enters the atmosphere, DDT goes with it.  Chlorinated hydrocarbons thus travel in the air and surface waters.

(I found this reference, but was sorely disappointed at the statement that chlorinated hydrocarbons have only been used for the last ten years. Good Grief, a research paper that doesn’t have historical data.)

4. Finally, chlorinated hydrocarbons become concentrated in the fats of organisms.  If you think of the world as being partitioned into nonliving and living parts, then these pesticides may be thought of as moving continually from the physical environment into living systems.  To attempt to monitor DDT levels merely by testing water (as has been frequently done) is ridiculous.  Water is saturated with DDT –that is, can dissolve no more–when it has dissolved 1.2 parts per billion.  Besides, the chemical does not remain for long in water, it is quickly removed by any organisms that live in water. 

It is these four properties –extreme range of biological activity, stability, mobility, and affinity for living systems –that cause biologist’s fears that DDT and its relatives are degrading the life-support system of our planet.  If any one of these properties were lacking, the situation would be much less serious, but in combination they pose a deadly threat.

Organophosphates

This group includes parathion, malathion, Asodrin, diazinon, TEPP, phosdrin, and several others.  These poisons are descendatns of the nerve gas Tabun (disopropyl-flurophosphate), developed in Nazi Germany during WWII.  All of them are cholinesterase inhibitors; they inactivate the enzyme responsible for breaking down a nerve “transmitter substance,” acetylcholine.  The result is, in a acute cases of poisoning, a hyperactivity of the nervous system; the animal dies twitching and out of control. 

Unlike chlorinated hydrocarbons, organosphospates are unstable and non-persistent; thus, they tend not to produce chronic effects in ecosystems or to accumulate in food chains.

Organophosphates inhibit other enzymes as well as cholinesterase.  Indeed, some of those that show relatively high insect toxicity and low mammalian toxicity do so because they poison an esterase that is more critical to the functioning of insect rater than of mammalian nervous systems.  Malathion, which is violently poisonous to insects, is relatively nontoxic to mammals because the mammalian systems contain an enzyme, carboxy-estrase, that destroys malathion.  But toxic effects on mammals can occur when malathion is used in combination with other organophosphates, which apparently inhibit the carboxy-esterase enzyme. 

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I was trying to find something written about the effects of the pesticides on enzymes–much is talked about them in health circles–the general consensus is that with the advent of the chemical age, enzymes have been diminished.   They advocate raw foods, non-microwaved foods, and organic foods to increase enzyme activity.  Enzymes are even more reduced in toxic people like myself, so taking a supplement of enzymes is needed.

I’ve looked at photos of our parents and grandparents when they were our age, and they don’t look as old as the Boomer generation does at that same age.  Our skin doesn’t look as healthy, either–it doesn’t have that glow.    I have to think it’s from unhealthy food coupled with the toxins in the atmosphere.    FW has had many “Ozone days” this summer due to the stupid, unrelenting heat.  I didn’t think it affected me that much until I went out for a jog last week on an Ozone day.  I felt pretty good jogging, but when I was going up the stairs to my apartment, I started to wheeze.  Well now that was not good.  So now, when I could be jogging outdoors, I have to do aerobics inside.  Not that I mind aerobics, because it’s fun, but I’d rather be outside jogging.

Anyway, I’m concerned about the long term exposure of the chlorinated hydrocarbons–we’ve all been exposed.  How much?  How long a period?  How has our DNA been affected?  And just because at the writing of this book the organosphosphates were not of big concern, it was written decades ago–what new information has been uncovered?  And is it information that was researched without $$ from chemical companies or those with an agenda?

H.Pylori and Migraines

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I picked up a mag that one of the residents had left in the lobby the other day and was surprised by a blip on migraines being connected to H. Pylori, a bacteria that is linked to ulcers. Unfortunately, this article recommended antibiotics to rid the stomach of the bacteria.  Arrrrgh!!

I had just read in the GAPS diet book that H. Pylori was connected to low stomach acid, a condition that is, typically, undiagnosed.  We’ve discussed low stomach acid on the mercury support group, as well, but like this article states, I didn’t think I had a problem because of the acid reflux and other stuff.  Dr. Campbell-McBride recommends taking a bit of sauerkraut juice before meals and also recommends Betaine HCL with pepsin to help the stomach make enough acid.  She says that one wouldn’t have to continue with the Betaine HCL, only until the gut is healed enough that the stomach is able to make enough acid on its own.

Just thought I’d pass this along in case anyone is having issues in that area…

Materials for tooth fillings

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A member of the support group I belong to posted this link for safe tooth filling materials.  I’ve had concerns about the plastic composites for the reasons listed on this website, but hadn’t come across something that wasn’t very expensive or had its own toxins.

I don’t know about this, because I haven’t tried it, but I thought I’d pass along the information.  Happy chewing. 🙂