Vickie Barker

A headache and "good" medical insurance

   In 1991 I was a 35-year-old district manager for the State Department of Human Resources. I had good medical insurance, so I went to see a doctor about headaches that were really only a minor annoyance.

The doctor prescribed pain pills for my headache. The headache went away but other problems began to surface.

During the next 12 months I was diagnosed with TMJ, sinusitis and even depression. I was given more pills for those symptoms as well. The next year, my doctor told me that I now suffered from "chronic fatigue" and prescribed more pills.

By 1993 another term was added to my list of ailments-something called "fibromyalgia." Now I had a name for the new pains I'd begun to feel all over my body. What a relief it was when I was prescribed more pills for fibromyalgia.

1994 brought a new round of symptoms and extensive testing with nuclear medicine, injections, magnetic waves and, of course, new prescriptions for more drugs. The term "multiple sclerosis" was added to my vocabulary and my doctor told me I had three to five years left to live.

I had five young children and there had to be a better solution than three to five years of more suffering and an early death. It occurred to me that I may be suffering from the adverse effects of prescribed drugs.

I began researching and discovered how the human body works. I also discovered a wonderful mentor: Barney Folger.

We began to realize that all diseases are merely different levels or degrees of degeneration of the body caused by elemental deficiencies which compromise the body's ability to repair and regenerate at the cellular level.

We knew we were on the right track as our efforts to teach people about how their bodies work have been rewarded every step of the way: When we needed a source for certain substances, we found them; when we needed people with specific skills and training, they appeared; when we needed more information, it came; when we needed proof that orthomolecular nutrition works, another person would report that their chronic symptoms had reversed.

The last several years of study and experience have proven to the founders and members of ASH that God created for us a perfect body. All it requires to be healthy are a few vitamins and minerals.

I am thankful to the scientific community, particularly to doctors Warburg, Brewer, Pauling and Klenner. They have provided us with the indisputable facts of how our bodies work, what causes them to get sick and how to help them heal.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" ~Hosea 4:6

I suspect that excellent health insurance, coupled with ignorance of how the body works, is the number one killer of Americans. That combination nearly killed me-but it didn't-and now my life is dedicated to showing others how to heal themselves easily and inexpensively through orthomolecular nutrition.

Perfect Balance and Applied Logic

 Perfect Balance and Applied Logic

Perfect balance and applied logic In the beginning, the earth's atmosphere was 37% oxygen and humans manufactured their own supply of ascorbates. Now the atmosphere is 20% oxygen and, through a genetic fluke sometime in history, humans quit producing ascorbates.

Ascorbates introduce oxygen into the body which increases its alkalinity.
Oxygen is essential to metabolize food and create high energy; it is also impossible for cancer to exist in an alkaline, oxygen-rich environment.

Ascorbates are essential to keep the skin smooth and pliable. Similarly, ascorbates keep the artery walls smooth and pliable making it nearly impossible for heart disease to develop.

Scientists have simply shown us how to:

1) Supply the body with natural buffered mineral ascorbates to prevent and reverse cardiovascular disease.
2) Raise the body's alkalinity level to increase oxygen at the cellular level and eliminate cancer.
3) Correct hormonal imbalances to regulate blood sugar levels and reverse diabetes. As a result, energy and stamina are restored and weight loss becomes effortless.

As more people learn how to apply these three elemental principles to their daily healthcare regimens, chronic autoimmune diseases such as cancer, heart disease, MS, lupus and Parkinsons will no longer plague our society. Orthomolecular nutrition is the logical and safe way of returning the body to its original state of health-no cutting, no burning, no radiation and no drugs.

FREE GLUTAMIC ACID (MSG): SOURCES AND DANGERS

Why is free glutamic acid added in vast amounts to processed foods? Our large profit-driven food companies have found that manufactured free glutamic acid, in the form of monosodium glutamate (MSG), hydrolyzed vegetable proteins, etc., etc., when added to our processed foods, masks off flavors and makes the blandest and cheapest foods taste wonderful. 

The story is fascinating. For thousands of years kombu and other seaweeds have been added to foods in Japan to enhance flavor. In 1908 a Japanese scientist discovered that the active ingredient in kombu is glutamic acid and then the use of its sodium salt, monosodium glutamate, began in Japan. 

During the Second World War American quartermasters realized that Japanese army rations tasted great. Following the war, they introduced monosodium glutamate, the flavor enhancing ingredient in the Japanese rations, to the food industry; and the world-wide use of processed free glutamic acid began to explode.

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Since free glutamic acid is cheap and since its neurotoxic nerve stimulation enhances so wonderfully the flavor of basically bland and tasteless foods, such as many low-fat and vegetarian foods, manufacturers are eager to go on using it and do not want the public to realize any of the problems.

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An excellent NOHA lecture on the dangers and hidden sources of processed free glutamic acid was given at Evanston’s Whole Foods Market on February 14, 2000, by NOHA Board Member Jack Samuels. He is president of the Truth in Labeling Campaign. 

Glutamic acid is a neurotransmitter that excites our neurons (not just in our tongues). This electrical charging of neurons is what makes foods with added free glutamic acid taste so good. Unfortunately, the free glutamic acid can cause problems in many people. Actually, our brains have many receptors for glutamic acid and some areas, such as the hypothalamus,1 do not have an impermeable blood-brain barrier, so free glutamic acid from food sources can get into the brain, injuring and sometimes killing neurons. At least 25 per cent of the U.S. population react to free glutamic acid from food sources. Today, we recognize that those reactions range from mild and transitory to debilitating and life threatening. Please see Table 1.

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. . . free glutamic acid from food sources can get into the brain, injuring and sometimes killing neurons

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Glutamic acid is widely distributed in proteins. When we eat it bound as part of whole, unprocessed proteins, it helps nourish us as it has for millennia. Glutamic acid bound as part of whole, unprocessed protein does not cause problems in people who react to the free glutamic acid in manufactured food, where it is hidden in ingredients with about 40 different names. Please see Table 2. 

Monosodium glutamate and other forms of free glutamic acid can be manufactured cheaply and sometimes it is even just a byproduct of other food processes. For example, the brewer’s yeast from the brewing industry contains free glutamic acid. Since free glutamic acid is cheap and since its neurotoxic nerve stimulation enhances so wonderfully the flavor of basically bland and tasteless foods, such as many low-fat and vegetarian foods, manufacturers are eager to go on using it and do not want the public to realize any of the problems.

 

 In 1999 in an article in a peer-reviewed journal, NOHA Board Member Adrienne Samuels, PhD, wrote a history of the many deceptions used by those manufacturers, "The Toxicity/Safety of Processed Free Glutamic Acid (MSG): A Study in Suppression of Information."² 

 

She points out "how easily truth can be hidden and how seemingly isolated incidents actually can be badly flawed research, direct suppression of information, and dissemination of biased information orchestrated by one group or industry." 

According to Dr. Samuels, the evidence of toxicity is overwhelming. Exposed laboratory animals suffer brain lesions and neuroendocrine disorders. Scientists studying retinal degeneration in mice treated with free glutamic acid have noted that these mice also became grotesquely obese following administration of free glutamic acid. 

 

The vulnerable hypothalamus in our brains regulates weight control, as well as other endocrine functions. When the brain is deluged with more free glutamic acid than it can handle, scientists know that problems and diseases can develop. 

 

For example, they know that a diverse number of disease conditions such as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive degeneration of neurons and motor cells of the brain), Alzheimer’s disease, seizures, and stroke are associated with the glutamate cascade.