The road to discovery is long and winding. Some of its paths
lead to dead ends, some of its paths curve round and round
until they lead to truth. The paths trod by those seeking
the cause and then a cure for the ills that effect the brain
are no different.
In the search for the root cause of Alzheimer's many degenerative
changes in the brain of its victims have come to light: protein
cross linking short circuiting nerve transmission, aluminum
shards in DNA strands, decrease in neurotransmitters, the
shrinking of the brain due to loss of its fat content (the
brain is 70% cholesterol), but all of these factors are the
results of the condition and not its direct cause. It is
now known that moderate inflammation, not enough to be called
Enchaphilitis, but enough to have been medically detected,
is the root cause of the condition. (1).
With Parkinson’s patients a part of the brain called
the Substancia Nigra dies off. This vital part of the brain
makes a substance called Dopamine. It is dopamine that connects
the brain to the body. As dopamine levels decrease while
the Substancia Nigra dies off, slowly the control the brain
exerts over the body diminishes. So essential is dopamine
that doctors can tell a “pre morbid” (just before
death) condition by monitoring blood levels of dopamine.
Three days after the last drop of dopamine is made by the
brain the person dies! A link between sub clinical brain
inflammation and Parkinson’s has just been found! (2).
What do these two dreaded and deadly conditions have to
do with Chronic Fatigue? Plenty. Chronic Fatigue is actually
a name for what the disease brings. Only in Europe is a true
name for Chronic Fatigue used: Myalgic Enchaphilitis or Brain
Swelling caused Muscle Pain. With CF patients there is a
brain swelling that triggers the rest of the disease. CFS
typically has many things attributed to being the root cause
of the disease from Mononucleosis (Epstein Barr Virus), to
Post Polio Syndrome in those of us that received the live
Sabin polio inoculation. The Mono, initial Polio and Post
Polio all have a brain inflammation associated with the condition.
Autism has been found to be due to a brain inflammation.
(3). The root cause of this inflammation is under heated
debate due to the liability implications involved. Many docs
think it's from the mercury in childhood inoculations, each
shot having 5 times the OSHA stated standard for toxic levels
for mercury. Multiply 5x the toxic levels by the number of
shots administered and you have quite a heavy load of mercury
in an infants brain. (Flu shots for seniors have the same
mercury preservative and some docs have been saying that
any senior taking 5 or more flu shots is sure to get Alzheimer's)!
Other docs think the inflammation stems from the viruses
in the infant vaccines themselves most of which are weakened
(attenuated) versions of a live virus, for example the Sabin
oral polio vaccine is a live vaccine and all virus we are
exposed to will stay in the body for life. Most conventional
docs think Autism just happens. It needs to be remembered
that there was no such thing as Autism or any condition close
to it before childhood inoculations were invented.
A study published in the Oct. 2003 issue of the Townsend
Newsletter for Doctors said that the use of systemic enzymes
could control the process of autism decreasing its behavioral
symptoms and though the study has some erroneous notions
as to the function of systemic enzymes, the test subjects
all did better taking the enzymes. This was due not to what
they attributed the final effects to but to the anti inflammatory
effect of the enzymes.
In all people as we increase in age we increase the chronic
inflammation we carry internally. Medicine has now come to
realize that internal inflammation is the root cause of everything
from heart and vascular disease to diabetes and cancer. Why
does inflammation increase as we age? In our youth part of
the feeling of invincibility we possessed came from our bodies
ability to fight off the natural results of play and effort
and inflammation, with its own unique anti inflammatory substances:
the proteolytic enzymes our pancreas makes. The pancreas
is part of the exocrine system along with our sweat, salivary
and tear glands. It is a gland that makes digestive juices
which contain enzymes as well as the very essential insulin
we need to be able to use sugar for energy.
As we age our production of proteolytic enzymes decreases
(4). There are only two products the body makes finite amounts
of dopamine and proteolytic enzymes. Half of a persons production
of proteolytic enzymes are used up by the age of 25, that’s
part of the reason we feel invincible at that age - our own
enzymes are controlling inflammation. By 27 our bodies figure
out that if we maintain that level of enzyme output we’d
be dead by the time we got to forty. Physiology teaches that
old age begins at 27 and lack of enzymes are the reason why!
So the body begins to dole out the enzymes with an eyedropper
instead of with a tablespoon to stretch out the store of
enzymes for as long as we can and it is the downturn in enzyme
availability that causes an increase in inflammation as proteolytic
enzymes are the bodies first line of defense against inflammation.
(4).
From 27 onward the markers for inflammation C-Reacitve Protein
and Homocystine increase demonstrating an increase in inflammation
inside of the body. Inflammation is a reaction to over work,
stress, over exercise, over use and injury in both micro
trauma and macro trauma. Some nutritional gurus have tried
to lower CRP and Homocystine levels through B vitamin and
amino acid supplementation but all they have managed to do
is tear down the road signs and leave the road. None of the
nutrients used to lower CRP and Homocystine is anti inflammatory
so as a result the markers to warn about inflammation are
gone but the inflammation has stayed. A highway without road
signs still leads to the same place. (5).
Long term use of the standard drugs for fighting inflammation,
i.e. cortico steroids and Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory
Drugs (NSAID’s) are worse than the inflammation they
are trying to stop. Guaranteeing an earlier death. New research
findings have stopped the use of cortico steroids against
brain inflammation in head injury patients due to the fact
that such patients treated with the cortisone die at a faster
rate than those not treated with the drug! (6). Besides,
the long term side effects of steroid use, the water gain,
moon face, thinning/tearing skin, osteoporosis, bursa tissue
death etc. make these drugs unsuitable for daily long term
use. And as to the NSAID drugs these already kill 18,000
to 22,000 a year from their kidney failure, intestinal hemorrhage
and liver failure side effects just from regular use. (7).
The Cox 2 NSAID Vioxx itself killed 39,000 people and gave
another 159,000 heart attacks and strokes! The other Cox
2 drugs have been shown to have the same potential for creating
heart and vascular inflammation, yes inflammation. Imagine
an anti-inflammatory drug that causes inflammation - and
the egg head chemists and MD’s in these drug companies
promised the Cox 2 drugs would be completely side effect
free when the drugs were first introduced. That claim lasted
all of 3 weeks as Celebrx had killed 11 patients from side
effects in it’s first 21 days of use! (8). So the NSAID
drugs are not the way to go either as here again the regular
even low dose use of these drugs can have lift threatening
side effects.
Recently in an effort to broaden the use of the anti cholesterol
drugs, statins have been researched as anti inflammatory
drugs. It must be said that the side effects of the statins
have caused Dr. Graham of the US FDA to call them the next
Vioxx. Statin drugs create liver toxicity, neurological problems
and kidney failure via the horrible disease Rhabdomyosis,
a condition where the muscles literally melt away and clog
the kidneys causing them to fail. Death by kidney failure
is not painless or pretty! The use of statins against inflammation
would definitely be a case of the cure being worse than the
disease, and more life threatening.
The only anti inflammatory substances that are safe to take
long term are systemic enzymes. They completely lack toxicity
as they have no LD-50 and are safe at any level of ingestion.
Systemic enzymes have been used in Germany and Central European
conventional medicine for going on 60 years and in Japan
of 3 decades. there are over 200 peer reviewed studies confirming
not only the absorption of orally ingested enzymes but also
confirming their therapeutic effects. (www.enzymescience.com).
Against inflammation, systemic enzymes act not as cortico
steroids, Cox 1 inhibitors or Cox 2 inhibitors do but they
work on a completely different pathway of action which is
one of the reasons they are side effect free. (See chart
below).
Of systemic enzymes not all are created equal. While preparations
may seem to have the same enzyme components and claims can
be made as to the enzymatic action of particular components,
not all of the same name enzymes have the same action. The
Specialty Enzyme Company of Chino California (Specialty)
and Advanced Enzyme Technologies Ltd. of Mumbai India (Advanced)
are the most advanced enzyme makers on the planet. This company
was started by Dr. ML Rathi, the first chemist to isolate
an enzyme, he single-handedly created the entire enzyme industry.
It has always been said that enzymes are sensitive to heat
and acid and so need to be taken under certain conditions
or enteric coated and even then if conditions in the gut
were unfavorable the enzymes might have been destroyed or
inactivated. Specialty / Advanced have been able through
culturing of their enzymes to create acid resistant and heat
resistant enzymes that have a greater physiological action
due to their superior survivability in the gut.
Enzymes can also be cultured to increase their specific
actions. Most enzyme makers suppose the enzymatic action
of an enzyme to be what it is and to be unchangeable. Specialty
/ Advanced have “tweaked” many of their their
individual cultured enzymes to increase their action milligram
per milligram. There is also an art to the blending of enzymes
to produce particular effects and in this, Specialty has
developed that science into an art form.
Systemic enzymes give people a way to address long term
chronic inflammation in a manner that will not create short
or long term problems, side effects or early death. It does
a patient no good if the method of dealing with a chronic
inflammation shortens the life by it side effects.
PS: After writing this article news releases of new studies
implicating brain inflammation as being involved in mental
depression were released. More fuel for the fire.