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Hormonal Birth Control Plus Poor Diet Is a Recipe for Disaster

by CB

Published on August 14, 2023

2065 views

I am a 29 year old female who began experiencing a decline in my health at 25 years old. This was in 2020. At that point, I had been on hormonal birth control for nearly 10 years. I suspected the birth control was contributing to my ill-health but my doctor disagreed and continued to prescribe different forms to alleviate my symptoms. That did not work and only made things worse. When Depo-Provera was added, I completely crashed and have not recovered, nearly two years later.

When I first began to experience extreme fatigue, abdominal bloating, irritability, restlessness, and massive amounts of hair falling out, I went to my primary care doctor who could find no reason for it on basic bloodwork, except for a low vitamin D level (27mg/mL). They checked CBC, CMP, autoimmune markers, B12, a complete thyroid panel, Lyme titers, mono titers, and iron levels. Since everything was basically normal, my primary care doctor blamed it on my stressful job. At the time, I was working in the emergency room on the night shift. I was not getting the best sleep, and not eating that well either. I was lucky to eat one meal a day and then maybe a snack especially on my busy shifts. On my days off, I was so exhausted that I would eat maybe twice a day. My diet consisted of easy meals like grilled chicken, salads, granola bars, processed cereals, pizza, chicken nuggets, chips, bananas here and there, and overall not a lot of fruits or vegetables.

Enter Depo-Provera

Fast forward to the fall of 2021, after these symptoms persisted, my doctor decided to switch my birth control to the Depo-Provera shot. After taking this shot, havoc was wreaked on my body and brought me down to a level of non-functioning that I never knew existed. Over the next couple months and after taking only one depo shot, I began to experience debilitating symptoms of headaches, fatigue, achy joints/all over body pain that eventually progressed into episodes of heart-racing anytime I would change position. I also experienced shortness of breath, chest pain, difficulty swallowing, a complete loss of appetite, GI issues, brain fog, severely decreased ability to concentrate, severe restless leg syndrome, insomnia, and neurological symptoms so extreme it felt like my brain was “short circuiting” for lack of a better word.

One side of my body would become extremely numb, tingly, and feel weak without any clear deficits. I experienced severe muscle weakness, where it would feel like my body was doing everything it possibly could to keep me upright and breathing. It was so bad, I felt as though I couldn’t even grip my phone and just talking on the phone to family felt like I was dying. I could barely concentrate. I developed severe visual issues, a condition called visual snow syndrome, and still am dealing with it with no improvement. I also developed tinnitus and have a constant high pitched ringing in my ear. I am unable to handle any type of stress, multi-tasking, or any emotional upset without truly feeling like my body is dying from severe neurological symptoms. I became scared to leave the house alone because of these debilitating symptoms. I lost over 30 pounds from feeling so awful and a complete loss of any desire to eat. I would have to force myself to put in fluids or food.

Over the course of many months, I saw multiple neurologists, neuro-ophthalmologist, cardiologist, electrophysiologist, primary care doctor, ENT, TMJ specialist, otologist, binocular vision specialist, rheumatologist, had numerous ER visits, two hospital admissions. I even participated in vestibular/neurological physical therapy over the course of several months. I had multiple head MRIs and CTs of my head and neck, MRIs of my spine, and so much bloodwork looking for autoimmune causes. I had a colonoscopy, a camera down my nose to look at my throat, an audiogram, a sleep study, a tilt table test, an echocardiogram, a stress-echocardiogram, and they even attempted a lumbar puncture on me as well. Conditions such as blood clots, multiple sclerosis, any type of cancer or tumor, etc., were ruled out and the only thing they came up with was a diagnosis of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), a suspicion for “some type of migraine variant” and a deficiency in vitamin D and phosphorus on my bloodwork.

Could This Be Thiamine Deficiency?

Fed up and worsening, I paid out of pocket to go to a natural medicine doctor who did heavy metal and mold testing on me along with hormone testing. Nothing really turned up there and so I took it upon myself to order a full vitamin and mineral panel paying over a grand out of pocket. This panel revealed that my serum thiamine was one point away from being flagged as low (8 nmol/L). I then returned to my primary care and two different neurologists to ask if a thiamine deficiency could be the problem or at least part of it, especially after my own research and the known research that birth control depletes many B vitamins. All of the doctors told me that there was no possible way I could have a thiamine deficiency since it is added to so many foods in the United States. They also told me that I could just take a B complex vitamin if I was worried. Even after I told them I was hardly eating because I felt so sick and that when I was eating it was mostly foods like processed toast, frozen chicken nuggets, cans of soup, and other things of that nature, they still dismissed the idea of thiamine deficiency.

May-Thurner Syndrome

On top of all of the debilitating POTS and neurological symptoms, throughout my time on birth control I had complained to my GYN about persistent left sided pelvic pain. It felt like my labia was swollen and at times like something was bulging into my pelvic area. In 2019, I had a CT scan of my abdomen and pelvis done due to some GI symptoms I was having. An incidental finding on it was suspicion for pelvic congestion syndrome (PCS). The report stated that I had very prominent peri-uterine vessels and a dilated left gonadal vein. I took these results to my GYN at the time who clearly stated “PCS is a fake diagnosis and you don’t need to do anything with that.” Since I was young, in my early 20s, I didn’t take it too seriously. Again as time went on, I continued to have the pain and over the years my GYN kept changing my birth control and mentioned endometriosis and small ovarian cysts as possible causes. The birth control would help a little bit for a while but then I would have irregular bleeding and the pain would always come back. It wasn’t until after I took the Depo shot and came off of the hormones that things became worse.

I began to have severe left pelvic pain that persisted for months. I had transvaginal ultrasounds every 6 to 8 weeks to monitor recurring small cysts that they swore were not the cause of my pain. I was tested for PCOS and was negative for that too. It wasn’t until the end of 2022, that I had another transvaginal ultrasound and this one read as having a hydro-salpinx. I had a new GYN at the time who referred me to get an MRI done of my pelvis. This MRI came back as also showing “likely hydro-salpinx” on the left. Since I was having such severe pain, I was referred to a GYN surgeon who said in extremely painful cases it is recommended to take out the tube and it was pretty much nonfunctional when it was as swollen as mine. I elected to proceed with the surgery, as the pain was so extreme. Funny enough, after the surgery when the pathology came back there was no hydro-salpinx and my surgeon said he did not see any endometriosis when he performed the laparoscopy. He said he believed my MRI may have been misread since he did not see any indication of hydro-salpinx during the procedure.

As if that wasn’t enough, after the procedure I had a severe neurological reaction to the scopolamine patch they put on me during the procedure. I had so much testing for this. I was even in the hospital for 5 days with what they thought was “scopolamine patch withdrawal” even though I only had the patch on for 3 days like they told me to wear it.

Fed up and still in pain, I let it go for a few more months thinking it was just “scar tissue” from the surgery or some other easy explanation. It wasn’t until my POTS doctor recommended me to wear an abdominal binder/compression device around my stomach that things worsened so much that I was forced to figure this out. I began having severe left pelvic, hip, and leg pain after wearing this device for only 3 days. I went to the ER because the pain was so bad, but they could only find a small ovarian cyst on my left ovary. They didn’t even consider doing any other work-up. I was then sent to an orthopedic to look at my hip and back to my GYN. Neither could really give an explanation for this pain. Finally enough was enough, I went to a vascular doctor on my own accord to get this PCS, which no one seemed to take seriously, looked at.

At the vascular surgeon’s office, they did a vascular scan of my pelvis and abdomen and were quickly shocked to find that my left iliac vein was almost completely compressed causing my peri-uterine vessels to get almost no blood flow. They diagnosed me with something called May-Thurner Syndrome and said that they usually only see severe cases like mine in women who have had “5 or 6 babies.” I was 28 at the time with one previous ectopic pregnancy many years ago. They quickly scheduled me to get a stent of my left iliac vein placed, as my left leg had begun swelling bigger than my right due to the limited blood flow.

On the day of surgery, my left leg was 2 inches bigger than the right and I was in severe pain. They did a venogram with internal ultrasound and were able to tell me my left iliac vein was 85% compressed. So basically, I was getting no flow through it and hardly any return through that vein up to my heart. They also informed me that the birth control was probably masking the problem but also could have been worsening it when I was on estrogen-containing birth control. They said I was extremely lucky that I did not develop a blood clot, especially when I had taken Beyaz for several years. Now, I am on blood thinners for several months post stent, while waiting to see if this helps with my POTS symptoms at all. So far, I have not seen any improvement except that my leg is no longer swollen.

Still Seeking Answers

I don’t know if thiamine deficiency could be causing my issues, but I have not received any answers other than POTS and my recently discovered May-Thurner Syndrome. I have seen so many doctors and spent so much money with no improvement in my health. This all severely worsened after I took the Depo shot. I have been unable to work for months, was bed bound for a long time, and was completely unable to eat during the worst of my symptoms. Now, I am at least able to move around more than I was and leave the house for doctor appointments, but I am still not working and I am still searching for answers. I would like to feel better and get back to some type of semi-normal life.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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The Winnowing of the Western Diet: Reconsidering Food Sensitivities

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on May 3, 2022

6163 views

A few weeks ago, I posted some articles on Facebook regarding the need for protein in one’s diet (here, here). I believe that the lack of protein in the modern diet and the subsequent substitution with processed carbohydrates is one of the leading contributors to metabolic disease. Over the last 50 years or so, we have become increasingly afraid of eating protein and fat. Convinced by industry-sponsored advertising and ill-conceived medical science postulating that only calories matter and that eating fat makes one fat, we avoided the higher calorie foods like meat and shifted our diets towards lab manipulated but lower calorie and lower fat, ultra-processed carbohydrates. This has left much of the population starved for both macro (protein, fats, and plant-based carbohydrates) and micro (vitamins and minerals) nutrients. Ironically, the push to avoid high-calorie foods has resulted in higher calorie intakes in those who regularly consume ‘low-calorie’ foods than those who consume the higher calorie whole foods.

Similarly ironic, a corresponding form of malnutrition develops as a result of the low nutrient content in these industrial foods – this despite nutrient fortification. We have labeled this type of malnutrition as high calorie malnutrition. It is a metabolic starvation of sorts that develops concurrently with obesity, but also, with many disease processes including, I would suspect, food sensitivities. With the choice of highly processed foods, excessive calories must be consumed to meet the minimum nutrient requirements. Sugar is metabolically easy energy. So too is fat. Protein, by comparison, is not. Unfortunately, sugar, though technically energy-rich, is nutrition poor, and therein lies much of the problem. Worse yet, the fats used in most processed foods are hydrogenated, and thus, provide few health benefits but carry many risks.

When I bring up the notion of eating more protein, fat, or simply eating more nutrient-dense foods in general, I am met with resistance, sometimes philosophical, but oftentimes, based upon long-entrenched food sensitivities that develop over time, eventually winnowing the number of non-triggering foods down to almost nothing. Over the last several years, the breadth and depth of individual food sensitivities has exploded. Sensitivities to protein and fats, in particular, seem to be growing, but also to fruits and vegetables and, of course, grains. These are not allergies in the traditional sense, though there may be an altered histamine response involved. Rather, they may represent a complicated response to a lack of particular nutrients that results in the inability to digest or metabolize certain foods.

In response to the aforementioned posts on protein, a reader asked:

Chandler Marrs, what about the inability to absorb protein? …About 17 years prior to my husband’s death, he started eating all kinds of junk food (carbs). Every piece of crap he could pick up at Dollar General…he had never had a sweet tooth or liked junk food till then. Visiting with his neurosurgeon after my husband’s death…on diet and progression of his issues, he told me that when [my husband] went to junk food it was for energy, that he was no longer able to absorb protein. He told me that my husband was doing what his body dictated he do, the only thing he could do for energy…

I don’t know the history behind this gentleman’s illness, nor any of the details beyond what was posted above, but I would not be surprised if cancer were involved, perhaps in the brain, either originally or one that metastasized. The reason behind my suspicions is that cancer involves a switch in energy metabolism, wherein sugars are no longer used effectively in the manufacture of ATP – cellular energy – creating a sense of starvation, particularly when other fuels are absent and/or the machinery used to convert the other fuels to energy is deranged. Even if cancer was not part of this gentleman’s illness, the craving for sugars and the suspected inability to absorb or utilize proteins and fats for energy production points to a common metabolic adaptation to a longstanding nutrient-poor diet. It is a chemical conditioning of sorts, much like a drug addiction, that nets cravings for the foods/fuels that maintain the new normal, whatever that state may be.

What is often missed in the discussions of food sensitivities is that to digest and metabolize foods and convert them into usable and beneficial substrates for health, the machinery responsible requires nutrient co-factors e.g. vitamins and minerals. Absent those co-factors, food cannot be processed into ATP in the mitochondria. And absent ATP, none of the other processes in the body work. Since those co-factors come from the foods themselves, it is a reciprocating process. Nutrient dense foods provide the cofactors to process more micro-and macronutrients while effectively producing the requisite ATP. In contrast, nutrient poor foods provide an excess of sugars – potential energy – that can never fully be converted to actual energy or ATP because the machinery responsible for processing those foods is starving for nutrients, and thus, does not work very well. When one is not able to convert the food to energy nor to derive what few nutrients may come with these foods, cascades of ill-health begin. One of those cascades involves storing the excess as fat. To the extent one is able to store this fat, though unsightly, I imagine is a highly adaptive response, as individuals with similarly poor diets who do not or cannot store fat, risk a comparatively higher rate of all-cause mortality.

Returning to the question of food sensitivities, or more appropriately, the inability to digest and metabolize particular foods, I suspect that longstanding dietary factors, along with genetic and/or environmentally induced epigenetic variables, create and then maintain nutrient deficiencies that inhibit one’s ability to ‘eat’ certain foods. Across time and as those foods are avoided, nutrient availability continues to decline. Mitochondrial function is perturbed but adapts to the new environment, resulting in chemical reactions that induce inflammation and the other patterns so common with metabolic disturbances. This may include intense cravings for certain foods that are metabolically more accessible, like sugars. Admittedly, sugars are exactly what a body in this state does not need, but much like the cravings for drugs in an addiction model, I suspect the body has adapted to having this substance present in high concentrations. It has re-regulated itself accordingly, and because of this, both the absence of the substance and the addition of other, metabolically less well-adapted substances, cause great distress chemically. These changes are then experienced symptomatically.

We know from addiction models, that when a substance is present continuously and in high concentrations, the body adapts so that it can maintain some sort of homeostasis and survive. Receptors, transporters, enzymes, and the like, are reregulated. Some upregulate, others downregulate. As this reregulation occurs, the body becomes chemically conditioned to its new state, seeking to maintain it at whatever cost. When what is in excess carries no nutritional value, as it so often does, we have the bonus of starving the enzymes that make metabolism possible, further imperiling health. At the root of much of this reregulation is nutrition or lack thereof. Every enzyme in the body requires nutrient co-factors to function. Absent these nutrients, metabolism falters; not just the metabolism of foods to energy but the metabolism of drugs, the metabolism of neurotransmitters, hormones, and the like. Absent nutrients, we have widespread changes in the totality of our biochemistry. How those changes manifest is dependent upon the individual’s genetic makeup and environment, but make no mistake, they are occurring.

While it is clear that one can avoid many of these problems by eating a nutrient-dense diet, it is not as clear how one recovers these functions once they are lost. Do we simply feed the offending substance until tolerance develops? Or do we tackle the enzyme issues first, supplying the requisite nutrients in the form of supplements so that they function more effectively and then re-introduce the offending foods? I don’t know the answer, but my instincts tell me that enzyme issues have to be addressed first and the vitamin and mineral deficiencies corrected before the offending foods can be reintroduced. What I do know, however, is that something must be done. Human beings cannot live well or for very long without protein and fat. Those are requisite substrates for health.

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, and like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Image credit: Free public domain CC0 photo.
ID : 5962536

This article was first published on June 20, 2019.

I’ll Sleep When I Am Dead: Connections Between Diet, Sleep, and Health

by Lisa Hazelgrove

Published on January 10, 2022

4476 views

My journey into discovering what it means to be well began over 60 years ago, when Coca Cola’s popularity burst on the scene back in the late 60’s early 70’s, when a McDonald’s big Mac could be purchased for 49 cents, and Wonder Bread’s claim to fame was “Helps build strong bodies 12 ways.” Instead of eating a nutritious lunch, we were snookered into believing that bologna, whose first name was Oscar and was sandwiched between two slices of white bread, a Tab soda, and a bag of Charles chips was considered a healthy meal. It was anything but healthy and it left us feeling empty, with grumbling stomachs and an unsteady blood sugar level. I lived on these types of foods for decades as my health declined. I did not learn until I was 44 years old that my poor food choices were not only affecting my health but my capacity to sleep. I never slept. When I cleaned up my diet, sleep improved. Unfortunately, the improvements were short-lived because my thyroid became overactive with onset of Graves’ disease. This too, I largely resolved with diet, supplements, and alternative therapies, as conventional medicine seemed to make me worse and all that was offered were drugs and/or surgery. Although I am not yet recovered, I am much better than I was. This is my story.

Early Childhood: Skinny, Unattractive, and Sickly

As a child, I was very thin and clumsy. Nowadays, I probably would have been considered anorexic. I did not have an appetite due to the postnasal drip running down the back of my throat like a sieve. All I could eat on our weekly trip to McDonald’s was half of a regular size hamburger with no condiments. I remember picking through my food with my fork to dig a hole, hoping somehow the food would fall into the hole and disappear, or wishing the dog was inside so that I could hand off my vegetables to him.

The food I consumed came from what is considered a SAD diet (Standard American diet). It originated from the fast-food industry, had no nutritional value whatsoever, and laid a poor foundation for what I believe was my general unwellness. I was never well as child or young adult. As a result of my poor eating habits, allergies, buck teeth, breathing problems, and fitful sleep were my constant companions. I was labeled skinny, unattractive, and sickly. The Weston A. Price Foundation would have had a field day reviewing my overall health relationships. From inadequate nutrition to underdeveloped and overcrowded dental health which then led to poor physical health. I looked like a raccoon with dark circles under my eyes. I was a mess – (spoken with a thick southern accent.)

My mother did her best by encouraging me, providing what she considered to be a balanced diet, general health, and sleep basics, but over time, my body developed poorly, and I suffered miserable allergies to everything. Allergy shots were the recommendation for all of my environmental conflicts. I was left battered and bruised and they did not even work. Eventually, to combat the allergies, they removed my tonsils. This is a barbaric answer to solving a health issue, just remove the organ. I found out much later that the tonsils are an important part of our immune system.

Young Adulthood: Bone Demineralization and Costochondritis

I managed to make it through high school unscathed except for mononucleosis and skin irritations that could be traced back to a poor diet. College brought about new challenges when it came time to eat. This was solved by the plethora of quick meals that provided little to no vitamins or minerals, and of course, my sleep habits continued to decline.

At age 27, I was diagnosed with costochondritis. This was brought about by a rigorous exercise routine at the gym, in the name of getting healthy. “Let’s Get Physical” was the song that sent everyone running to the clubs to get fit and trim, but my lack of essential nutrients caused extreme damage to my ribs. Looking back, I find it hard to believe that I had two relatively healthy children, but then, they received most of the nutrients that were being ingested and I was left with zero. I was eating healthy salads, but I had no clue that my bones were breaking down.

By the time I reached age 39, I could now add osteopenia, depression, sleep deprivation and menopause to my list of infirmities. Nine medications and 75 pounds later, I would also be able to add obesity to my list. It was almost as if this deterioration had catapulted me into a rapid aging process. This makes sense, as Matthew Walker sleep expert, author, and professor at UC Berkley says, ‘the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life’.

Connecting Poor Diet to Poor Sleep and Everything Else In Between

While I was struggling with my own health issues, my son developed his own. At age 12, he confessed to me and my husband that he wasn’t sure he wanted to live anymore. Around the same time, my mother died. This was enough to send anyone over the edge, but my son needed me, so it was time to put my big girl panties on and get answers to why this was happening. I began connecting the dots. We both had depression, allergies or asthma, symptoms of ADD and the “piece-de-resistance” we didn’t sleep! Upon further investigation, I learned that we were both anxious all the time. Could the poor diet and sleep deprivation be behind our illnesses? Turns out they were.

From that point forward, I cleaned up our diet. My husband came home one day to find me chucking all the processed food into the garbage. We began drinking water instead of soda or other flavored drinks and I began to research sleep, nutrition, and energy medicine. This was now my passion. I was determined to not only repair the damage I had caused with the decades long poor diet, but to give my son the gift of healing and create a reason for him to live.

Polypharmacy Induced Vertigo: Enough is Enough

In 2003, I would unlearn everything I thought I knew about wellness. It began with trip to the ER to investigate vertigo. I was sent home with no information as to why I had vertigo other then they could do an MRI if needed. Could the very medications I was taking (9 prescriptions) be behind this malady? My nurse practitioner helped me to slowly detox from the medication I was taking for depression, and this is when I began seeing a nutritionist and using something called magnet therapy. I had read a study on Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) that showed promise as a novel antidepressant treatment. It was in 1831 that Michael Faraday discovered that electrical currents can be converted into magnetic fields and vice versa. How fortuitous I was introduced to a company that was utilizing magnets as wellness tools.

The nutritionist performed what is called microscopy. His assessment was dead on. He said, ‘I bet you’re tired all the time’. He also asked if I was on a statin, to which I replied ‘yes, but that I was trying to find a better alternative’. He suggested a liver/gallbladder cleanse and whole food supplements that would support these organs. If it were not for his intervention, I doubt that I would have my gallbladder today. I’m honored and humbled to have known Ted Aloisio and learn about how “Blood Never Lies” his book and his teachings that forever changed the quality of my life.

Thyroid Storm

Another pivotal time for me was September 2017. I wound up in the emergency room. My heart felt like it was about to be launched like a projectile right out of my chest. It was skipping beats too. I had lost a lot of weight with my new focus on nutrition. I thought I was just shedding the old me that was full of emotional discord, bad nutritional habits, and unearthing the real me that was hiding inside. I was in denial. In reality, I had not been feeling well for over a year. My sleep was horrible. I was lucky if I got 5 hours a night and there was a lump on my neck which scared the living hell out of me.

Here, I was a teacher of wellness, and yet was the poster child for being unhealthy. Surprise, surprise you have a problem with your thyroid Ms. Hazelgrove. The official diagnosis was thyrotoxicosis with nodule. My heart was reacting to a hyperactive thyroid, which was being fueled by an autoimmune condition called Graves’ disease. I was immediately put on propranolol for my heart. I asked if it was going to interfere with my sleep and was told that it would not. He lied. I was already having issues the very first night with melatonin production due to the influence of this particular beta-blocker. Beta blockers reduce melatonin release.

I was getting only 2 hours of sleep, so I started Hemp oil two days later. I was not about to go back into the depths of depression because of sleep deprivation. My visit to my primary physician 21 days later was short and sweet. After reviewing my blood lab results and the ultrasound, he had his office manager call me to tell me I was toxic and needed to find an endocrinologists immediately. My T3 was 13, which was extremely high. I agreed to go on methimazole in the meantime so I could look at options, but according to the endocrinologist, I had only the one option. “What am I going to do now?’ I thought to myself. My head was spinning. I knew I had to get away and think. ‘Can’t I just heal it by eating better, sleeping more, and eliminating stress?’

I am truly blessed to have such amazing friends and one in particular had offered to let me stay at her cottage for a weekend. This was about a month into my engorged thyroid, which was now causing me dreadful bouts of diarrhea. I had to wear a diaper on my trip down there, as my bowels were now in charge of my life. I got there and unpacked. This was not an easy task because my body was running “Mach 2 with my Hair on Fire.” Since the thyroid controls metabolism and mine was hyperactive, it felt like I was exercising 24/7. Maintaining energy was a continuous struggle, like a rollercoaster going up and down multiple times a day. I was in the fight or flight mode continuously and my body was in a constant state of catabolism, in order to fuel the persistently heightened metabolism.

Limited Options from Conventional Medicine

My visits with the endocrinologists started out cordial but didn’t end well. I stayed on methimazole for three months, to see if the numbers could be brought down – which they did eventually lower, but the liver enzymes went up and the level 10 pain was unbearable. The only option I was given was nuclear medicine, which meant using radioactive iodine to destroy my thyroid and test the nodule to see if it was cancer. I was told a needle biopsy would not be accurate. I didn’t like the side effects of radioactive iodine and the fact that it increased my chances of breast cancer, which was already an inherited trait in my family. The endocrinologist didn’t want to perform any tests or protocol to see if the nodule was cancerous until these numbers were in a more manageable range and scheduled a second appointment for 5 months later – 5 months!

This was not acceptable to me and so in the meantime, I began researching, and implementing other strategies. I had a friend who owned a wellness center, and I began using sound and infrared sauna therapy. I met with a colleague who recommended a liver cleanse and supplements to help with the healing process. When I had my lab tests done in January, all the numbers looked good, but the liver enzymes were still elevated. I remember the doctor telling me that I shouldn’t stay on the methimazole very long. When I questioned if the medicine had caused the increase in the liver enzymes, she became defensive and said that she didn’t think it was the medicine. Somehow, it was my fault that I didn’t want her to perform a test using radioactive iodine to see if I had cancer, which could inevitably cause cancer down the road.

When I saw her again in February, she asked about the methimazole. I told her that because my liver enzymes were high and so, I had stopped taking it and started taking Iodoral, a high potassium-based iodine supplement. There is much research on this form of treatment. She was not happy. She said that if the nodule was cancer, then it could have now spread to my liver and that could be the reason for the high liver enzymes. She continued to deny that the liver enzymes were elevated because of the methimazole. It was at this point, I mentioned that the nodule had receded. Her response was that nodules just doesn’t disappear. She then grabbed my throat with such force that it hurt. Needless to say, she was fired.

In March, I began seeing a practitioner that specialized in thyroid issues. He recommended running blood tests to see if there were any other autoimmune issues. Sure enough, I also had the Epstein-Barr Virus. I visited another practitioner that did thermographic imaging. The tests did not show any inflammation in the breasts or the thyroid area. March, I went back to my PCP and my blood tests looked good but continued with the propranolol because my heart rate was still elevated. It was also recommended that I keep a close watch on my eyes, so my eye doctor was enlisted to get his perspective on the pressure and strain the Graves’ disease can have on the eyes. In July, I went back to the PCP. He said that I shouldn’t do so much research into nutrition, that knowledge can be dangerous and referenced the Garden of Eden.

Discovering Energy Work

While all of this was going on, I finished my certification for the Emotion Code Technique (link to a reference The Emotion Code | Energy Healing Method | Discover Healing). In August, I started to learn how to meditate and in September started breast milk protocol (Milk Therapy: Unexpected Uses for Human Breast Milk (nih.gov)) to see if I could address a mitochondrial energy reboot and the autoimmune issue. I was gifted about a month’s supply of frozen milk from someone who owned an organic farm. Since breast milk has stem cells and T cells, maybe it could help increase neutrophils and help reverse the autoimmune disease. I read a blog by the medical medium that had talked about pregnancy and thyroid issues. It begged the question, what if my last pregnancy could have been the final straw to being so nutritiously energetically depleted that there was now collateral damage. Interestingly enough, my mom wasn’t able to breast feed me. So maybe this was another missing piece to my poor health.

January 2019, I had to go back on propranolol. I continued with sound and infrared sauna therapy each week. I am forever grateful to my friend who offered this treatment. Some weeks were just hard to rally around with energy to do even the simplest of tasks. Mind you I’m still running my Wellness teaching and coaching business but on a much smaller scale. February through April I concentrated on being a grandmother, you never know how much time we have with family. Easter Sunday, I met with a practitioner to experienced Pranic healing for the first time. This was definitely the icing on the cake as far as energy work is concerned. I went home feeling better that I had felt in years, but this too was short lived. In June, I was able to get away to the beach, which always rejuvenated me. Meditation continued to also give me some peace in between the thyroid revolution I was enduring, and it gave me a chance to learn different approaches to this incredible way to connect to our inner spirit. In September, I began to learn how to incorporate medicinal cooking and more about Ayurveda herbs. In November, my friend closed her wellness center and I had to teach my class at the University of Richmond from a chair again. My daughter came through with some more of her frozen breast milk, which seemed to help somewhat, but again, I would plateau.

Searching For Healing Amid a Pandemic

The pandemic brought us all a year we will never forget. It started with a high note but then April we would all experience dare I say it the new normal. The best thing I can say about 2020 is I continued to search for healing. I figured I had tried all I could to modulate the physical, so now I would elevate the spiritual side of me. We are after all spirit mind and body why not explore how this can facilitate and streamline the healing process? I began to learn all I could about Pranic healing. Each day I would incorporate my spiritual practice of meditation and cleansing of dirty energy. This worked well with my emotion code technique of taking out the trash of old emotional baggage that doesn’t serve us and can even cause illness. I was still teaching my class and now doing online podcast educating others how to create wellness. I began doing a lot of blogging about my journey of healing encouraging others and planting seeds of hope. Being at home gave me the opportunity to also do research and take classes to learn what I could about healing the whole self; a time windfall that otherwise wouldn’t have presented itself if it weren’t for the pandemic.

Discovering Thiamine

In April of this year, the eye doctor noticed an increase in eye pressure, which he wasn’t sure if it was due to the Graves or if it could be glaucoma. When I went back in July and it was still there, I was referred to an eye specialist to investigate further. I am now seeing more cross-eyed, and it appeared to be worsening. In October, I learned about thiamine – vitamin B1 and began taking 500-1,000 mg a day. Wow, immediately my neck felt cooler, and the headaches I had been suffering from subsided. When I saw the doctor again in November and questioned whether or not the eye problems could be related to a thiamine deficiency, he got agitated and said he was not a nutritionist. He wanted to know if I had been tested to see if I was deficient in the first place. I guess physical improvement is not a sign of progress or healing.

It was around the same time that I also learned about pyrroloquinoline quinone and added that to what I was already taking. This is what I am currently taking: Kenzen Mega Daily 4® , Kenzen Omegagreen plus DHA®, Kenzen Immunity® (14 medicinal mushrooms), Jade GreenZymes® (Gluten Free barely grass which has SOD/Superoxide dismutase an antioxidant), Kenzen Vital Balance shake®,(® from Nikken), Lithium, Iordoral, Bilberry, Ginkgo Biloba, Resveratrol, L Carnitine, N Acetylcysteine, Siberian ginseng, Boswellia – Frankincense, Vitamin B1, Cal-mag-zinc, D3 & K2, Ubiquinol + Pyrroloquinoline quinone, Astragalus tincture, oil of oregano, tincture, Bugleweed tincture, Sarsaparilla tincture, Artichoke tincture and cod liver oil. I drink a tea everyday with elderberry, Chamomile, fennel, hibiscus, and green tea because of ECGC (epigallocatechin gallate); which inhibits cellular oxidation and prevents free radical damage to cells.

While I am not fully recovered, I am doing much better, in part because of dietary changes that have allowed me to sleep longer, and more soundly which has enabled me to achieve a parasympathetic or healing response. I am hopeful that 2022 will bring to light some interesting answers. I have an appointment with a doctor of Chinese Medicine soon and looking forward to improved health. Stay tuned to find out what happens next on my journey navigating the road less traveled.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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A Rant About Diet and Responsibility

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on June 1, 2021

5178 views

The American diet is atrocious and largely responsible for the growing epidemics of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity, not just in America, but worldwide. The highly processed, high calorie, high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fat, and high chemical additive products that line grocery stores are products of American ingenuity; products that we have exported internationally, and sadly, products that are responsible for the declining metabolic health worldwide. This is a fact that many of us are reticent to accept. We are poisoning ourselves and everyone else around us by the products we make and consume.

A recent study found that fully 80% of metabolic disease can be attributed to lifestyle, e.g. poor diet and a lack exercise. Eighty percent. That is a staggering finding especially when one considers that 476 million people worldwide have diabetes, most of them Type 2 (T2). This represents a 129% increase since 1990, when the number stood 211.2 million. During the same time frame, the rates of cardiovascular disease have increased from 271 million to 523 million. Underlying a significant percentage of these conditions is the obesity epidemic, with 13% of the world’s population considered obese and 39% considered overweight and heading towards obesity.

In the US, the situation is quite dire, only 12-20% of the population, depending upon the criteria utilized, are considered metabolically healthy. Clearly, our approach to metabolic health is not working and yet, much of the focus in health research remains centered on either identifying that one medication or combination of medications that resolve all of our bad choices or an overly simplistic approach to health represented by balancing the calories in/calories out equation. As evidenced by the exploding numbers of metabolic disease, neither of these perspectives seems particularly useful.

While both personal choice and calories play a role in these epidemics, the problem is much broader. The food ecosystem has been decimated and in its place, we have non-nutritive chemical-toxicant food-like products that were designed to be highly addictive. When consumed, these products fundamentally change the metabolism of the individual who consumes them, and not for the better. Every bite of a chemically processed food is one step closer to metabolic disease. Beyond that however, the choice to allow industry to create, utilize, and ultimately dump these chemicals into food, other products, and into the environment, rests on us as well. Those are choices too; choices that affect the metabolic health of communities, and more broadly, the world.

We tend to think of industry and the pollution they create as amorphous, self-propelling and promoting agents of doom, forgetting of course, that each and every one of these organizations is made of people; people like you and me who make decisions to produce and promote these chemical poisons; people who choose to put poisons in foods under the auspices of the pathetically weak and ineffective GRAS guidelines. People make these choices. We do not get forever chemicals that fundamentally disrupt all aspects of metabolism without people who chose to create them, others who chose to use them in common products (and deny any and all risk), and all of us who relish in the novelty of these products. We do not get 80,000 synthetic chemical entities currently on the market without people putting them there. We do not get 1.8 billion pounds of glyphosate used every year, enough for every person on the planet to consume 4lbs annually without people that made choices to produce, use, and not regulate this chemical. We are the problem. We made these choices. We are the ones who are destroying our health and the health of others by the choices we make.

So when we look at the skyrocketing numbers of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity, it is not enough to say ‘eat better and eat less’. We need to clean house, top to bottom. We need to stop producing the garbage food that pollutes our bodies and the environment. We need to take responsibility for all of the choices that lead us to the point where only 12-20% of the population can be considered metabolically healthy.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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Nutrigenomics, Diet and Human Health

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on March 9, 2021

8933 views

Perhaps for the first time in human history our children face a decline in life expectancy compared to previous generations. Much of the research suggests the increase in obesity and the co-morbid chronic health issues such as diabetes, heart disease, liver disease, and cancers are to blame. Pointing the finger at the modern diet is easy. A surface level examination suggests modern man eats little more than processed foods that are high in carbohydrates but not much else. Here caloric intake is high while nutrient intake is low. Presumably, flipping the ratio of calorie to nutrient would improve health outcomes tremendously. And in many cases it does, but for many other individuals obesity and the associated health problems persist. How is that possible?

Diminishing Biodiversity in the Modern Diet

The composition of one’s diet influences health radically. It is well known, though often ignored, that dietary nutrients provide the building blocks for cell functioning and survival in every tissue of the body. Without those nutrients a myriad of health problems arise. What we eat plays a huge role in human health. What we eat has changed radically in recent decades. Beyond simply evolving from hunter-gatherer type diets to more processed and carbohydrate dense diets, the biodiversity of the plants and animals we eat has diminished dramatically as well. Indeed, 70% of the world’s diet comes from only 15 crops (sugarcane, maize, wheat, rice, potatoes, sugar beet, soybeans, cassava, palm kernel, barley, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, watermelons, bananas, brassicas). That alone should give one pause, but when one considers that these crops have been domesticated significantly with much of the genetic diversity among the different types of plants bred out, we can begin to see how limited the modern diet really is.

Some research suggests that in only a few generations, modern farming has cultivated out 95% of the genetic variation among staple crops. Sit with that for a while. We’ve cultivated out 95% of the genetic variation from the plant based foods we eat – genetic variation that took many millennia to evolve. With 95% of the over 200,000 plant metabolites that provide nutritional sustenance critical for human health (and animal health) removed from the food chain, human health is facing a serious crisis that will require more than just a return to fruits and vegetables. We need a wholesale change in modern agriculture.

Diet-Disease Relationships: Nutrigenomics and the Evolving Microbiome

What happens when the foods we eat have limited genetic diversity? We lose critical dietary nutrients and disease develops – a boon for the supplement industry, a bust for human health. From an evolutionary standpoint, shifts in human diet evoke changes in metabolic capacities emanating from gastrointestinal microbiota. Evolutionarily, the microbiome has evolved for optimal absorption and metabolism of essential nutrients. As diet has changed, gut microbiota have changed too. As the genetic variation in food sources declines (and as we increasingly overuse antibiotics and other medicines) parallel declines in microbiome diversity have been observed leading many to suggest a connection between gut health and overall health. What can we do?

Obesity and Illness Persist Despite Dietary Changes

When obesity and chronic illness persist despite dietary changes that include increased plant based foods, consider the possibility that those foods have been nutrient depleted through commercial farming practices. And while eating plant based whole foods is certainly better than eating highly processed carbohydrate dense foods, that may not be enough to restore gut microbiota and health. It is likely that we have to return to eating an organic, heirloom diet, that is highly diverse, more genetically variable and nutrient dense. It may also be necessary to include nutrient supplements when dietary diversity is not possible.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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Chemistry Versus Philosophy: Where Rubber Meets Road in Diet Debates

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on July 31, 2019

5278 views

At least once a week, I have a conversation involving all the reasons why someone cannot/does not/will not consider changes to their diet a necessary step to health. Sometimes the conversation is more about the difficulties of overcoming lifelong bad habits. For those folks, change is difficult but not impossible. Sometimes the conversation involves appreciating that diet and nutrients actually matter. For these folks, change is possible but considerably more difficult. It often does not occur until their health hits rock bottom and they have nothing else to lose by addressing diet. This, of course, makes healing that much more arduous.

Inevitably, however, there are folks for whom eating a particular way is a deeply entrenched philosophical decision. There, I am of no help. Nothing I say and no research I provide will convince them that their body chemistry does not care about their food philosophy. Maintaining that philosophical fortitude is all that matters, health be damned and it often is, sometimes quite severely. These are the conversations that simultaneously infuriate me and break my heart. To watch someone’s health degenerate, knowing all-the-while it does not have to, is perhaps one of the more painful aspects of my work.

It seems that food is no longer valued for its nourishment potential. Instead, it has become a religion of sorts, one that is wrapped tightly in emotion. It is our reason for pleasure and pain, stress, and in many cases, though we don’t like to admit it, no small amount of self-loathing. It seems no matter what we eat, we feel guilt and then, as if to bury that guilt, we give ourselves a reason to eat more of the very foods we know we should not eat. It is a vicious cycle. With all of these emotional tags to food, it is difficult to acknowledge that food, or good food rather, is a necessary component of health. What is even more difficult to acknowledge is that unhealthy foods or even just the wrong foods, can induce disease.

Food, Mitochondria and Energy

A fundamental, though unrecognized, component of health is mitochondrial functioning. As the producers of cellular energy and regulators of a host of other important functions, mitochondria determine how well our bodies respond to stressors. And let’s face it, everything in life is a stressor requiring some amount of energy to resolve. Living itself requires energy. Living in a toxic, ramped up world is a big stressor, requiring more energy. Illness is a stressor, chronic illness even more so. The medications used to treat most illnesses are stressors, damaging the mitochondria by a myriad of mechanisms including depleting vital nutrients. Those nutrients have to come from food, real food, not the processed, sugary, food-like substances we crave. Sometimes, the extra energy needed to fight illness requires supplements, at pharmacological doses, but, and this is important, supplements will never compensate for a bad diet. Ever.

A Healthier Way to Think about Food

What we ingest and how well we metabolize those foods determines to what degree and whether the mitochondria function. In that regard, food is the very foundation of health or disease. It can heal us or harm us based upon its chemistry and ours. For all the complexity of nutrition, it is really quite simple: does the chemistry of the food you eat match the needs of your chemistry? If it does not match, no matter what else you do to improve your health, there will always be something lacking. This is a critical point that is frequently ignored in modern medicine.

Folks often ask me what they should eat and while I cannot recommend a particular diet, here are three questions to evaluate the ‘healthiness’ your diet. Is the inherent chemistry of the food you eat well-suited to your body’s chemistry? Does what you eat provide your body with the necessary macro- and micronutrients it needs to function efficiently? Does what you eat reduce or induce stress in your the body?

How do you know the answers to these questions? Simple. Ask yourself, are you healthy? Are you doing all that you want to do without pain and without medications? Do you have what you consider an appropriate amount of energy? If the answer is yes to each of these questions, then congratulations, you are among the healthy and maybe there is no need to look at diet. For most folks, however, the answer is no to one or all of these questions. In fact, for most of the folks I interact with, energy levels are suboptimal, pain and other issues are present, and medications are used chronically to subsist. This is where diet matters most, and sadly, this is also where dietary changes are often the most difficult.

If one is chronically ill, using multiple medications, chances are the chemistry of the food consumed does not match the nutritional demands. Sometimes the diet is too toxic – e.g. conventionally grown, raised or processed foods. Other times, the diet simply does not provide sufficient macronutrients (protein and fat) and/or micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) to meet the body’s energetic demands. This effectively starves the mitochondria, evoking the reactions involved in chronic disease: inflammation, immune and metabolic dysfunction. Reactions, that no amount of medication can resolve.

Still Don’t Believe Diet Impacts Health?

Perhaps one of the clearest examples of the effects of diet on health can be seen below. Dr. Wahls was essentially chair/bedridden, crippled by multiple sclerosis until she addressed her diet. Sadly, none of her physicians suggested addressing diet. She, like so many others, had to come to this recognition on her own and figure out what her body needed to heal.

If you have not seen this, take 20 minutes to watch it.

And while the Wahls’ diet may not work for everyone, the point it makes is clear. Diet and nutrients matter. Chemistry matters. One’s philosophical or emotional ties to food do not.

If you are suffering from a complex or chronic condition, consider how what you are eating affects your health. Put aside your philosophical views on food and just look at the chemistry.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

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This article was published originally on March 7, 2018.

Aspartame: A History of Controversy, but is it Safe?

by Lisbeth Prifogle, MFA

Published on May 17, 2017

4157 views

Pink, Yellow or Blue? Which Low-Calorie Sweetener are You?!

I’m sure somewhere in a women’s magazine there is a quiz that associates the reader’s personality, or the type of man she should date, or some other unassociated trait with random questions playing up on the fact that women have been trained like Pavlov’s dogs to diet. In recent years, beverage companies have started rolling out campaigns that appeal to the other 50% of the population. Most notably, Dr. Pepper Ten is advertised as the “manliest low-calorie soda in the history of mankind.” This soda is also advertised as “not for women.”

Yet, in spite of million dollar marketing campaigns, consumers are making better choices. According to Beverage Digest, the sales volume for Coke fell 1% last year, but Diet Coke sales dropped by 3%. Similarly, Pepsi fell by 3.4% and Diet Pepsi fell by 6.2%. Diet sports beverages also dropped in sales compared to their regular product.

Due to these declines, Coca-Cola is rolling out a set of advertisements about the safety of aspartame, a low-calorie sweetener with a controversial history. There is as much “evidence” that this artificial food additive is safe as there is evidence that it causes health problems including brain tumors, seizures, blindness, the auto-immune disease Lupus, and much more. I’ll let the history of this product speak for itself on the controversy of consumer safety, but first what is it?

Aspartame Ingredients

Aspartame is a man-made chemical that is approximately 50% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid, and 10% methanol. Today, it is made using genetically modified bacteria developed by none other than Monsanto, of course. The ingredients occur naturally, so they are safe, right?

Phenylalanine is a neurotoxin and can build up in the blood due to the high levels in aspartame. Phenylalanine causes serotonin levels to decrease leading to depression. It can also cause behavioral symptoms in kids including ADD and ADHD. Individuals who have the genetic disorder Phenylketonuric (PKU) cannot metabolize phenylalanine and the high levels in aspartame can cause death (overtime the chemicals in aspartame can build up in the body and cause death even if an individual does not have PKU).

Aspartic Acid is an excito-toxin, which means it over stimulates certain neurons in the body until they die. When aspartic acid is in its free form, or unbound to proteins (as it occurs naturally in food), it leads to a high level of neurotransmitters in certain areas of the brain which kills neurons and leads to numerous neurological disorders including, but not limited to: multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, hypoglycemia, memory loss, hormonal problems, epilepsy, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and more.

The argument that phenylalanine and aspartic acid are safe is based on the fact that they are amino acids, the building blocks of protein that both occur in regular foods. In nature, however, these amino acids are consumed in more natural quantities and different combinations (oh, and they aren’t made in a lab).

Methanol – this is wood alcohol and when ingested becomes formaldehyde or embalming fluid. While there is naturally occurring methanol in fruits, it binds with the pectin in fruit, which the body cannot digest, and is excreted through the body’s natural waste process without doing damage. We do not digest high levels of methanol when eating organic, whole foods. Methanol is a neurotoxin and known carcinogen. The EPA recommends limiting consumption of methanol to 7.8 milligrams per day. One liter of an aspartame-sweetened beverage contains over 50 mg of methanol.

A Long History of Controversy

The history of getting FDA approval of this product is rich in corruption and deceit.

1965 – James Schlatter, a chemist at G. D. Searle was researching an ulcer drug and accidentally discovers a zero calorie sweetener that is 180 times sweeter than sugar.
1967 – G. D. Searle starts conducting tests on the new potential product. These are tests required by the FDA. In the first test conducted on 7 monkeys, 1 died and 5 suffer from grand mal seizures.
1971 – Neuroscientist Dr. John Olney conducts a study and discovers that aspartame causes brain tumors. Previously Dr. Olney conducted safety tests on MSG and successfully had the food additive removed from baby food. He concludes that aspartic acid, one of the key ingredients of aspartame, causes holes in the brains of infant mice. One of Searle’s scientists makes the same conclusion during his testing.
February 1973 – After spending tens of millions of dollars testing the safety of aspartame, G. D. Searle submits over 100 studies to the FDA requesting approval for consumer consumption.
March 1973 – One of the first FDA scientists to review the aspartame safety data states that “the information provided (by Searle) is inadequate to permit an evaluation of the potential toxicity of aspartame”. Notes in her report that further clinical tests are needed.
July 1974 – FDA approves use of aspartame in dry food products.
August 1974 – Attorney Jim Turner, consumer advocate who worked helped get the previous reigning artificial sweetener, Cyclamate, off the market for its links to cancer, and Dr. Olney file objections of the approval of aspartame in dry foods.
1976 – An investigation reveals that the required studies conducted by the G. D. Searle company and reported to the FDA were not conducted or reported properly. The investigators report they “had never seen anything as bad as Searle’s testing.”
January 1977 – The FDA requests the US Attorney’s Office to begin grand jury proceedings to investigate whether indictments should be filed against G. D. Searle for submitting false test results on the product. This is the first time the FDA requested a criminal investigation on a manufacturer.
March 1977 – G. D. Searle hires Donald Rumsfield as CEO. Donald Rumsfield hires numerous former politicians in order to save the company.
July 1977 – Samuel Skinner resigns from his position in the US Attorney’s Office to take a job with G. D. Searle’s representing law firm, Sidley & Austin. Skinner was the US Attorney in charge of the investigation. Due to Skinner’s resignation the grand jury investigation is postponed and it reaches its statute of limitations and the case is dropped.
August 1977 – The FDA releases the Bressler Report. The report finds that 98 of the 196 animals died during one of Searle’s studies weren’t autopsied until later dates, in some cases over one year after death. The report released many more inconsistencies. You can read the FDA’s findings here.
1980 – The Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) voted unanimously to reject the use of aspartame until further studies could be conducted. They were concerned with the high rate of brain tumors in animals used in studies.
January 1981 – The day after his inauguration, Ronald Reagan appoints Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes as FDA commissioner. His advisor for this decision was Donald Rumsfield, CEO of G. D. Searle, at that time.
March 1981 – Hayes establishes a commissioner’s panel to review issues brought up by the PBOI. During this review, three of the six FDA scientists reviewing the data on brain tumors advise against the approval of aspartame due to the unreliability of G. D. Searle’s tests.
July 1981 – Hayes overrules the PBOI, ignoring the recommendation of his appointed FDA Commissioner’s panel.
1982 – Searle files a petition that aspartame be approved in beverages.
July 1983 – The National Soft Drink Association drafts an objection to the final ruling to permit the use of aspartame in beverages due to its questionable safety.
September 1983 – FDA Commissioner Hayes resigns and accepts a position as a senior scientific consultant at Burson-Marsteller, Searle’s public relation firm.
Fall 1983 – First beverages using aspartame as ingredient are sold.
1985 – Monsanto buys G. D. Searle in spite of the controversy over aspartame.

For a more detailed timeline, click here for “How Aspartame Became Legal – the Timeline” on Rense.com.

Fast Forward Twenty Five Years to 2013

Today we are more aware and skeptical than ever about the politics and bribery involved in getting a product approved by the FDA, yet aspartame is in over 6,000 consumer products. Our diet obsessed culture has overlooked the corruption and dangers of this chemical food additive and let it poison our own bodies and our children. According to the Aspartame Information Center, “aspartame is consumed by over 200 million people around the world and is found in more than 6,000 products including carbonated soft drinks, powdered soft drinks, chewing gum, confections, gelatins, dessert mixes, puddings and fillings, frozen desserts, yogurt, tabletop sweeteners, and some pharmaceuticals such as vitamins and sugar-free cough drops.” Most consumers associate this food additive to diet drinks and products, but it is now added to most processed foods including those marketed for children. It is marketed as “safe” but as you can see in the history of the product, there have never been any properly conducted studies that conclude that this product is safe.

With the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes on the rise, especially in children, we are looking for easy ways to cut calories. It’s much easier to reach for something labeled and advertised as “calorie-free” instead of eating healthy, whole foods low in sugar and free of chemical enhancements. However, this well marketed shortcut is not the solution to our nation’s health problems and is actually causing a rise in numerous health issues. Aspartame leads to behavioral disorders, seizures, brain tumors, auto-immune diseases, various neurological disorders, and it also causes weight gain and sugar cravings (which lead to obesity and type 2 diabetes which is what promoters argue it helps fight).

So, pink, yellow or blue? Pick your poison. Or ditch the women’s magazines’ various yo-yo DIEts and create a healthy LIFEstyle for yourself and your family so you can figuratively have your cake and eat it too.

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This article was published originally on Hormones Matter on August 20, 2013.

A Question of Responsibility in Health and Disease

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on December 7, 2016

2889 views

Self-responsibility is much needed in the quixotic culture that surrounds us today. It should begin to be acquired even in infancy as we learn to navigate life. The difficult job of parenthood, perhaps the most important one of all, has to be undertaken without previous experience or training. In former years the wisdom of grandparents was sought avidly when families tended to remain in the same locality. Geographic separation has caused them to be largely discarded.

This post states that there is no more important example of self-responsibility than in maintenance of health. When we are struck down by disease, we have been taught that it is purely an act of nature: that it has nothing to do with our own actions. It is regarded as bad luck or an inevitable effect of genetic predisposition. We have also been taught that when we get sick, whatever the cause may be, that the wonders of modern medicine will take care of it. We accept a prescription as a birthright, often without seeking why it is being prescribed or how it is expected to cure us. Is that really how we want to live?

Self-Responsibility is Critical to Health

When I emphasize dietary indiscretion as the harbinger of ill health, some readers will say, “oh yes, we’ve heard all that stuff before. It is so boring”, not even bothering to read further. So let us use an analogy that I have used before in posts on this website. You have bought a car and the owner’s manual tells you that the engine uses regular gas. However, a friend has told you that high octane gas increases acceleration and makes the car livelier. You have decided that the feel of the car with high octane gas appeals to you, even though you have also been told that it increases the wear-and-tear on the engine, possibly leading to an eventual breakdown. With that knowledge, you are faced with a choice. If your decision is to continue using a fuel for which the engine has not been designed, it might be referred to as indiscretion, or even lack of self-responsibility. When the forecast of breakdown becomes a reality you might even blame the car maker. Cursing the necessary expenditure, you might expect a skilled mechanic to repair the damage, even forgetting that it may have been your own fault. Could this be compared with dietary indiscretion? Of course, you need to have the knowledge of how and why the “wrong choices” do, in fact, result in health breakdown. If you persist in making those “wrong choices”, are you in fact exercising self-responsibility towards your own health?

Natural Sugars versus Sugary Sweets

However we arrived on the face of the earth, we could not have survived if the fuel had not been available to us. Anthropologists tell us that our ancestors were “hunter gatherers”. The food (fuel) was provided by Mother Nature in the form of nuts, seeds, roots, leaves and fruits. In particular, there was no such thing as sugar in a free state. It was locked up in the fruit and leaves. There are at least 40 or more nutrients in natural food that are mandatory to the maintenance of health and many may not even have been discovered yet. None of them are contained in the highly processed, heavily sweetened substances we call food.

Where did we go wrong? Believe it or not, sugar is the villain. We can now go on the Internet and are told repeatedly that it is more addictive than cocaine and yet 80% of the artificial foods on the shelves of a groceries store contain sugar. In fact, these “foods” would not sell unless they were sweet to the taste. People are so bored with hearing this that it is virtually ignored. Because the characteristic symptoms develop slowly and do not produce abnormal conventional laboratory studies, the connection is almost invariably lost. When symptoms do emerge, they are often mistakenly diagnosed as psychosomatic, for which the standard treatment is a prescription for one of the many tranquilizer pills. Self-indulgence as the cause is never considered by patient or physician.

Of Different Fuels

Let’s try to keep it simple by turning once again to analogy. Gasoline in a car engine has to be ignited. The explosion that occurs represents a union of gasoline with oxygen. The resultant energy has to be captured in a cylinder in order to drive a piston. This connects with a flywheel that transmits the energy to the wheels through a transmission. Our bodies have exactly the same problems but the mechanisms are widely different. Glucose, derived from simple sugars, is the primary fuel of our cells, particularly in the brain. It is “ignited” by uniting it with oxygen and this is done by means of an enzyme. In order to function properly, this enzyme requires the presence of vitamin B1 (thiamine) and magnesium. You could say that thiamine and magnesium “ignite the glucose”, releasing energy in the form of electrons. The energy from electrons synthesizes a kind of energy currency known as ATP. This works a little like a battery. Chemical energy derived from “burning” (oxidizing) glucose must be transduced to electric energy for physical or mental function. If those nutrients are not present, the sugars remain unprocessed, free to evoke the host of modern disease processes that fall under the rubric of Type 2 diabetes.

Returning to our engine analogy, many car owners will remember that they had to use a mechanism called a choke when starting the cold engine. This resulted in a temporary high concentration of gas. Perhaps it will be remembered that if and when the choke was not released or discontinued when the engine had warmed up, the engine would run distinctly badly and black smoke would emerge from the exhaust pipe. The black smoke represents inefficient combustion of the gasoline. Therefore, there should be a much lower ratio of gasoline to oxygen when the engine has warmed.

Cellular Engines Need Fuel

Each of all our cells have “engines” called mitochondria that generate energy. They work constantly, do not have to be started like a car engine and are always warm. They do not need a choke. When we take an excess of calories that do not contain the necessary vitamins and minerals, it is exactly like choking our mitochondria, creating inefficiency of energy production. This is particularly true of sugar that overwhelms the ability of vitamin B1 to “ignite” it. Inefficient combustion (oxidation) gives rise to organic acids that are the equivalent of black smoke in the car exhaust and they can be found in the urine. This inefficiency of energy production affects the part of the brain that is responsible for our ability to adjust ourselves (adapt) to the changes that occur in our environment. We develop functional changes such as “brain fog”, palpitations of the heart, unusual or excessive sweating and “goosebumps” may appear on the skin. We may have a drop in blood pressure, associated with a fainting attack. Because the standard laboratory tests are normal, it is concluded that the symptoms are psychosomatic.

I remember the case of an adolescent whose diet contained a lot of “junk foods”. He climbed a rope in the gymnasium, entailing the consumption of energy. When he came down he passed out and was removed to the nearest hospital. Without knowing that he had vitamin B1 deficiency, they gave him intravenous fluids containing glucose. He had eleven bloodstained bowel movements and died. Giving sugar to somebody who is deficient in vitamin B1 is extremely dangerous and the trouble is that ingestion of sugar leads to vitamin B1 deficiency. There is considerable evidence that dietary indiscretion of this nature, continued over years, may eventually give rise to a brain disease that is given a name. Alzheimer’s, senile dementia, Parkinson’s disease and other well-known scourges may well be the legacy in your later years.

What We Eat and Drink Matters

In light of this discussion, who is responsible for the current health crisis? While it is tempting to blame others, and certainly the food and pharmaceutical industries benefit greatly from our incessant need to indulge, the blame ultimately must reside with each of us. We have abdicated our responsibility to manage our own health. Like the car owner who ‘likes the feel’ he gets from his car with high octane gas, we like the feel we get from when we eat sweets and other junk foods. Ultimately though, without the correct fuel, engines clog and sputter. Whether those engines reside in our vehicles or in our bodies, absent the correct fuel, damage accrues. It is a relatively simple equation, but one that requires a modicum of self-awareness and responsibility. Unfortunately, I am afraid self-responsibility seems to have disappeared from modern concepts of health and disease. I suspect that until it is found and embraced again as core human value, diseases of consumption and indulgence will continue to flourish.

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