Vitamin B12 - From illegal substance to "hero"

I received this email from Dr. Jonathan V. Wright's Nutrition and Healing Health e-Tips on Thursday morning:

One frightening morning in 1991, Dr. Wright's Tahoma Clinic was violently raided. Two dozen heavily armed thugs blew past the patient peacefully waiting in her wheelchair and kicked down the door.

In a nightmare scenario straight out of an action movie, clinic staff members were held at gunpoint for two hours before being ejected from the building. The gang then went on to destroy medical equipment and ransack the clinic.

These thugs weren't criminals getting their kicks. The situation was far worse. They were sent by the FDA to harass Dr. Wright, all because he was giving his patients access to...not illegal drugs, not phony prescriptions. Oh no--his clinic was attacked because he was prescribing preservative-free B vitamins!

Now, twenty years later, the mainstream press is breathlessly celebrating the very substance that was the target of the 1991 raid!

Unbelievable? Well...probably not. I mean, we are talking about the FDA here.

Late last month, The New York Times broke the story that vitamin B12--one of those very vitamins that was at the root of Dr. Wright's receptionist having a gun put to her face--is good for your brain. Imagine that!

In the article, they detail the story of a woman who, at the age of 85, started becoming more and more confused. She was diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease, and was prescribed Aricept. Her daughter says the drug made things worse, and no wonder--Aricept's (donepezil) potential side effects include depression, nervousness, changes in behavior, and...confusion (yeah, that's a head-scratcher for me, too).

Thankfully, someone thought to test her B12 levels. They found they were quite low, and her doctor started her on weekly injections. Her daughter was thrilled at how quickly her mother's condition started improving. But she had to wonder--why aren't B12 levels checked more regularly?

Excellent question! I'm sure the answer has nothing to do with Aricept being a cash cow and B12 being a lowly vitamin that isn't covered in dollar signs. No, nothing at all.

As we age, our bodies just can't absorb B12 from food as effectively as they once could. And the symptoms of B12 deficiency can easily be misdiagnosed or written off as a normal part of aging (muscle weakness, incontinence, low blood pressure, cognitive problems, and so on).

This is far from the first time I've told you about the cognitive protection offered by B-vitamins. But we certainly haven't seen such coverage in the mainstream--and of course they're acting like it's a breakthrough discovery--despite the fact that, 20 years ago, it was all pitchforks and torches for a doctor who dared prescribe B to his patients. Sheesh.

Of course, it's nice to see people spreading the word about potent natural healers, but the fact that it took so long for such a powerful vitamin to get some recognition makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

I mean, just imagine how many more people could have put the brakes on their cognitive decline without the dangerous side effects of "miracle" drugs if the mainstream would have been just a little more open to what Nature has to offer.

Instead, we've been handed dangerous drugs--or the excuse that memory loss is just a sad fact of aging--for years. Meanwhile, doctors who know the truth about Nature's healers--doctors like our own Dr. Wright--are forced into nightmarish scenarios that put their livelihood, and perhaps even their very lives, at risk.

It's not too late to harness the power of B12 and the other B-vitamins. Injections are often the best way to correct a B12 deficiency. Dr. Wright has also recommended taking a good quality "B- complex 50" or "B-complex 100" supplement (which also includes B12 in addition to the other important members of the "B" family) each day. Of course, before starting any vitamin or supplement regimen, you should consult a doctor skilled in natural medicine.

Yours in good health,

Christine O'Brien

P.S. Vitamin B12 is just one of the many natural secrets to living younger. Become one of the few "in the know," and you'll be on the fast track to looking, thinking, and feeling better than you have in YEARS. Click here to learn more.

Health insurance? Or disease and accident insurance?

A couple of months ago, Dr. Jonathan V. Wright featured a couple of articles in his newsletter that spoke to some of the issues that I've been slowly discovering through experience and sorting through in my mind.

In his lead article, Wright suggests we need to take a different approach to health insurance.

[W]hat's generally called "health insurance" really isn't about being healthy at all. It's about being able to pay for doctors, hospitals, and patent medicines--all of which are very expensive--just in case we get sick, or are in an accident. A more accurate term for this kind of insurance is "disease and accident insurance."

Real health insurance helps insure that we stay healthy! Real health insurance isn't cheap, but it's a lot less expensive than "disease and accident insurance." Real health insurance includes an excellent diet, appropriate exercise, a positive mental attitude, getting enough sleep, and avoidance of toxins, including tobacco and other addictive substances, and no more than a little alcohol.

But the most commonly consumed toxins--herbicides, pesticides, other agricultural and food chemicals, as well as artificial flavorings and preservatives--are somehow regarded as too costly to avoid.

Wright continues with a powerful argument for (doing what Sarita and I have begun to do in the last several months) avoiding conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables and eating organic instead. (See The Organic Center's report about the Nutritional Superiority of Plant-Based Organic Foods (19.5MB PDF) or, at least, the Executive Summary (1.8MB PDF).)

Are organics expensive? Oh, yes! But are they as expensive as the kinds of issues that the SAD (Standard American Diet) is creating in so many of us, the problems associated with obesity and inflammation and heart disease and diabetes? I don't think so.

On the other hand, as numerous people have pointed out, the federal government of these United States subsidizes the lousy foods (with our tax money) and then makes us pay full boat for the good stuff. (More about that subject in a later post.)

Wright concludes his article with the words,

While it's very important for optimal health to avoid as many herbicides, pesticides, and other agricultural chemicals, it's also now well established that organically grown foods have not only higher levels of many important nutrients, but a wider, more diverse set of nutrients than conventionally grown foods.

Now that's really "health insurance"! Why not buy it for your family?

A couple of pages later, Wright then quotes a letter he received from a doctor (MD) who has been moving more and more toward a "natural" or "naturopathic" approach to medicine.

He wrote to Wright with the following story about "what I see in practice much too often."

I thought, "Good grief! This is my experience!"

"Dear Dr. Wright," he began,

Sometimes it is a curse to have generous health insurance.

Last week, I saw a 55-year-old woman who is very, very sick due to insurance-covered treatment with patent medicines.

Ten years ago she had her gallbladder removed. She never was told about needing to take bile salts with oily meals from then on so she'd absorb lipid-soluble vitamins and other nutrients. [I have to ask my daughter, who just had her gallbladder removed, whether she has been told any such thing. --JAH]

Eight years ago she was said to have "gastro-esophageal reflux disease" (GERD) and has taken a proton pump inhibitor ever since to suppress her stomach acid. Nobody ever told her that stomach acid helps break minerals from their matrix (for absorption), helps break down proteins into amino acids, and keeps the stomach free of intestinal bacteria. [Yeah. No one mentioned that when my doctor casually prescribed Famotidine for my gastric reflux. Oh, yes! It gave me almost immediate relief from a number of problems for which I had not realized I could enjoy relief. Wonderful! . . . Until I started reading about the downsides of this approach to acid reflux. --JAH]

Seven years ago she was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes mellitus (AODM), hypertension, and hyperlipidemia and was put onto an insulin pump (her condition was too brittle for anything else), a statin to lower cholesterol, and strong anti-hypertensive drugs. She started to get muscle aches, cramps, and very poor endurance. Nobody told her that statins interfere with the body's ability to make Co-Enzyme Q₁₀, nor did they put her on a healthy daily dose of Co-Enzyme Q₁₀. [Gee! Is this surprising? I had the same experience. "You've got elevated cholesterol. Let's put you on a statin." --Now that particular doctor also put me on CoQ₁₀, but he never explained that the two were related, nor that it might be possible to lower overall cholesterol and rebalance it through non-pharmaceutical means. --JAH]

Five years ago she started to get peripheral neuropathy (pain with numbness) and skin lesions, which she was told were of unknown cause. ("You have dry skin. Here, rub on this emollient cream.") More drugs for neuropathic pain.

Three years ago she was diagnosed with monoclonal gammopathy of unknown significance ("MGUS"; overproduction of gamma-globulin from a single line of blood cells). Old Human tactic: if you don't know what it is, put a name on it to make it less scary.

Two years ago she was diagnosed with severe anxiety, so she was given Xanax and other psychotropics. . . .

Naturally, with all of this, her liver enzymes are up, and so is her creatinine (indicating early kidney failure)!

She is postmenopausal, but never has been tested, never been put on bio-identical hormone replacement. She can't sleep, of course, so there goes another patent medicine into the mix. . . .

Incredibly, the list of ailments and failed (and failing) pharmaceutical "fixes" continues!

Wright says this is a good description of "what 'great insurance coverage' can do to good health. It's a tragic description of how 'health insurance' can do exactly the opposite, actually insuring a more rapid progression of illness, as well as allowing disease to proceed because patent medicines never, ever address causes, but just cover up symptoms for a variable period of time."

How do you get off the conveyor belt of declining health? Wright suggests eating healthy foods and pursuing naturopathically oriented doctors like those you'll find through the American College for Advancement in Medicine, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, or the International College of Integrative Medicine. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to read a well-researched and heavily referenced newsletter like the one Wright publishes.