"Orthomolecular" is not the answer to any questions posed in medical school.”
(Hugh D. Riordan, M.D., in Medical Mavericks, Volume III.)		 

The DOCTOR YOURSELF NEWSLETTER  (Vol. 5, No. 12 for September, 2005)
"Free of charge, free of advertising, and free of the A.M.A."

Copyright 2005 by Andrew W. Saul of http://www.doctoryourself.com , which welcomes over 1.5 million visitors annually. Commercial use of the website or the contents of this Newsletter is strictly prohibited.

IN THIS ISSUE:
1) ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE ON THE INTERNET
2) VITAMIN D: SAFETY AND THERAPEUTIC USES 
3) Book Review: THE ALZHEIMER’S PREVENTION PLAN 
4) CODEX NEWS: FOOD SUPPLEMENT BANS AVOIDED IN EUROPE – BUT FOR HOW  LONG?
5) ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES FOR 2005: Presentation Speeches
			
DR. ABRAM HOFFER writes:
 “The Doctor Yourself Newsletter contains exceedingly important information. Each newsletter has enough subject matter to provide professors of medicine with many hours of lectures. Your great editorial (below) reports on one of the most massive assaults on medical honesty and truth I have ever come across. I always knew it was there, but was not aware how insidious and widespread it was. Your research is meticulous.”
A. Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.

ORTHOMOLECULAR  MEDICINE ON THE INTERNET
by Andrew W. Saul

Hundreds of millions of people daily search the Internet for health information. What, exactly, are they getting? A 0.12 second Google search of over 4 billion webpages with the keyword "health" gets you over 200,000,000 results. The United States government holds the number one and number two spots, http://www.healthfinder.gov and http://www.nih.gov . Both are US Department of Health and Human Services websites. 

At Healthfinder, self-described as "your guide to reliable health information," it says:

"Our Web site is built on a selection process that begins by evaluating the reliability of organizations as providers of health information.  Only after we carefully review an organization do we choose information from its Web site for our health library." There follows a directory of what they consider "reliable." Try a search for "orthomolecular." You will find nothing at all. But with a site search for "supplement," Healthfinder's number two listed link will then take you directly to the Food and Drug Administration's Adverse Event Reporting webpage where you get the following bold-faced, large-print offer: "Report an Illness or Injury Associated with a Dietary Supplement" with this accompanying text:
 
"FDA can be contacted to report general complaints or concerns about food products, including dietary supplements. You may telephone or write to FDA. If you think you have suffered a serious harmful effect or illness from a dietary supplement, your health care provider can report this by calling FDA's MedWatch hotline at 1-800-FDA-1088. . . Consumers may also report an adverse event or illness they believe to be related to the use of a dietary supplement by calling FDA . . . FDA would like to know when a product causes a problem even if you are unsure the product caused the problem or even if you do not visit a doctor or clinic." (1)

With supplements, perhaps anecdotal evidence is of value after all, provided the anecdotal reports are negative.

CENSORSHIP BY SELECTION 
What does "reliable" or "carefully selected" or "the best" really mean? On the medical Internet, it seems to mean selection that purposefully excludes orthomolecular medicine. The power of selection might seem similar to censorship. Is their a medical blacklist, and if so, is orthomolecular medicine is on it? Consider this. One major referral site (number 5 out of 200,000,000 health websites retrieved by Google) is http://www.healthweb.org/  This is a more or less non-governmental resource. "HealthWeb is a collaborative project of the health sciences libraries of . . . over twenty actively participating member libraries. This project is supported by the National Library of Medicine."  

That means taxpayer money pays for it. 
"The HealthWeb project was conceived in 1994, with the following expressed goals (one of which is) to develop an interface which will provide organized access to evaluated non-commercial, health-related, Internet-accessible resources. . .The interface will integrate educational information so the user has a one-stop entry point to learn skills and use material relevant to their discipline." (2)

I call your attention to the words "non-commercial" and "one-stop." 

At this site, a search for "orthomolecular" brings up nothing. So I tried a search for "vitamin." The response? May I quote: "Sorry, your search retrieved no results." So I tried it again, several times, just to be sure. Zero.

Without a single response for "vitamin," it is difficult to accept this website's prominently displayed assertion that it is "Linking you to the best in health information." Surely, somewhere on this planet's electronically searchable Internet, information about vitamins is rightly to be considered to be a part of health. 

Or so one would think.

So I tried one of HealthWeb's displayed "nutrition" links and here is the "non-commercial" website it sent me to: http://www.ific.org./  Would you like to know a bit more about who that is? 
"About the International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation (April 25, 2004)

"IFIC's mission is to communicate science-based information on food safety and nutrition to health and nutrition professionals, educators, journalists, government officials and others providing information to consumers. IFIC is supported primarily by the broad-based food, beverage and agricultural industries . . . to help translate research into understandable and useful information for opinion leaders and ultimately, consumers." (3)

This, in my opinion, indicates that the Washington, DC based IFIC is essentially a lobbyist organization. It claims "partnerships" with such groups as the Food Marketing Institute and the Institute of Food Technologists. A glance at their page for journalists confirms this. (4)

“The best," “reliable” and “carefully selected” are all indications of editing. When the entire discipline of orthomolecular medicine is excluded, it is censorship by selection.

WHO WILL DECIDE WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE?
Now back to Google, where there is no evidence of editorial restriction. A Google search for "nutrition" will bring 21,000,000 responses in 0.14 seconds. "Vitamin" will get a Google response of 9,200,000 in 0.13 seconds. A search for "orthomolecular" will bring up 45,000, but bear in mind that many of the sites found are anti-orthomolecular. 

Pharmaceutical medicine's presence on the internet is very strong, although less dominant that its presence on TV and in the print media. At the largest and most frequented "health" websites, information about orthomolecular medicine is entirely absent. Therefore, when the layman searches for nutritional therapy, they often get false or misleading information from pharmaphilic (drug-loving) internet sources. Of course, the conventional medical sites say this very same thing about alternative sites. The public is understandably confused, and seeks answers with every internet search. Based on my website's 25,000 hits a day, and the attendant email correspondence I receive, I think the public is earnestly looking for clarification of contradictory nutritional research. 

People have heard many a mega-nutrient factoid, myth or outright falsehood from their friends, their doctors, or the media. It is truly odd that the public has been warned off the very thing that can help the most: nutritional supplementation. As Ward Cleaver once said to his son, Beaver: "A lot of people go through life trying to prove that the things that are good for them are wrong.” 

Let's turn to the official website of the American Dietetic Association, www.eatright.org . Here is what the "world's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals" (5) currently states about supplements:

"Dietary supplements cannot make up for poor food choices. They have not been proven to boost energy or prevent or cure diseases." (6) Such a statement is remarkable indeed. Cure and especially prevention of disease by vitamins is thoroughly established and repeatedly demonstrated by decades of well-controlled studies, literally numbering in the thousands. At its website, the American Dietetic Association also states, "If you need a multivitamin/mineral supplement, be sure to check the "Supplement Facts" panel and select a product that provides no more than 100 percent of the Daily Value for vitamins and minerals. (7) 
So the American Dietetic Association's published stance remains that, with precious few exceptions, 100% of the government standard is all that people need to take in a supplement, if they even need a supplement at all, which they probably don't. 

This cannot help but confuse any web surfer who has ever heard the name "Linus Pauling."

ACCENTUATING THE NEGATIVE 
Negative reporting sells newspapers and pulls in the web traffic. The old editors' adage is “If it bleeds, it leads.” Pharmaceutical companies lobby government and feed the media to get the “wonder drug” positive spin. They have been remarkably successful in so doing, in spite of the 106,000 patients killed annually by their products when properly prescribed and taken as directed. (8) 

Here's one way for anyone to quickly see how safe vitamin therapy is. Invite an internet or Medline search for “vitamin death.” What will be found is information on how vitamins prevent death. The Merck Manual states there have been two fatalities from vitamin A overdose. (9) This grand total of two spans many decades of use. There has been a total of one single death from vitamin D overdose. That death was due to side effects of medication. (10) There have been zero deaths from any other vitamin.

Non-fatal "vitamin danger" allegations are almost entirely without scientific foundation. For example, "Harmful effects have been mistakenly attributed to vitamin C, including hypoglycemia, rebound scurvy, infertility, mutagenesis, and destruction of vitamin B-12. Health professionals should recognize that vitamin C does not produce these effects." (11) 

Since vitamin myths persist, the facts of orthomolecular medicine must be presented in straightforward, memorable terms, such as: 

“The number one side effect of vitamins is failure to take enough of them.” 

"Negative vitamin studies use low doses. Positive vitamin studies use high doses."

"There is not even one death per year from vitamins." (12)
 
I think that all orthomolecular medicine websites would do well to have a section entitled, “If you have been told that vitamins are harmful, please read this.” However, it is best to avoid being bogged down in refutation, for as Abram Hoffer, M.D., says,  “All attacks on supplement safety are really attacks on supplement efficacy.” Instead, remembering that patients’ needs come first, accentuate the positive by repeatedly citing successful orthomolecular studies.

TWO MORE NEEDS 
Because people's primary concerns are with their own illness, or that of a family member, when they search on the internet, they also frequently have two additional purposes. 

First, people seek dosage information. Outside of the patient-doctor relationship, the only prudent practitioner response to such Internet inquiries consists of suggested references to the scientific literature, or to well-written, interpretive books and articles. There is much to be said for free public access to orthomolecular medical papers. Although many are now posted on the internet, more need to be made available electronically.

Second, people also commonly seek a practitioner. It is not easy for the public to locate an orthomolecular physician. One of my most common emails is a request for "a natural health practitioner near where I live." It is practical and expedient for every orthomolecular practitioner to have his or her own website. Individual practitioner websites make location searches easier. Practitioner websites are easy, economical, effective, educational, and essential. 

EVERY PRACTITIONER A PUBLISHER 
Rather than merely introduce a private practice, a practitioner website can post informative, practical articles for free reading. When asked, many authors and publishers will allow your website use of their work with attribution. Sources not granting permission may still be linked to. This means you refer your readers to existing articles at the source's own website via a clickable hyperlink. When you write and post your own work, other websites can and will link to you. This increases website traffic and readership. Journals reach many thousands; the Internet reaches hundreds of millions.

Before committing to writing an original article, it make sense to see what is already out there, and link to it. If you find yourself saying the same thing to everybody, there is your first article. Then, try to limit your idea to one page. As Strunk puts it in The Elements of Style: “Omit needless words.” There are few speeches, movies or monographs that would not benefit from being shorter. President Calvin Coolidge is remembered not for his presidency but for his brevity. Then, if your article requires another page or two, go ahead.

If you do not yet have a literary style, good. Just keep it short and to the point. That alone is good style. When Will Rogers began his career as a columnist, his terrible spelling and grammar became his style. He was also brief and to the point. An American president delivered his Gettysburg Address in three minutes; the speaker before him spoke for two hours. Which speaker's name do you remember? 

The general reader needs simplification and clarification. Therefore, never use a big twenty-dollar word when a short word will do. There is a hidden benefit here. The shorter your word, and the shorter your sentences, the less education the reader has to have to understand you. (13) One in five Americans is  functionally illiterate. (14) 

Effective writing can be aptly summarized by the “KISS” rule: Keep it Simple and Short. Write about something you know well. When in doubt, use case histories. Make the idea stick. Let your personality and humor come through. Use short, succinct sentences. Select nontechnical, simple words. Remember: everybody wants brevity; everybody needs references; everybody loves anecdotes. Use the problem-based approach; in other words, What's the matter? Put yourself in the reader's place. The best formula may be as simple as Case histories + References = Understanding.

Don't be afraid of simplification. Anyone can take a plain idea and make it complicated; just look at government. It takes real talent to take a complex idea and make it simple. It is a gift for the writer, and a relief to the reader. Always go for the bottom line. When in doubt, summarize. The trick is to “sum it up” without “dumbing it down.” 

ARTICLES MADE BETTER
Here's the crux of what I learned as an educator: Get their attention. Tell them what you are going to say. Say it with examples. Finally, tell them what you said. Behaviorist B.F. Skinner said that all learning is the mastery of a very large number of very small steps. SUNY biology Professor John I. Mosher, whom I studied with for over two decades, reminded me a long time ago to put myself in the student's seat and deliver the kind of presentation that I myself would want to listen to. When you write your articles, put yourself in the reader's position and keep asking yourself what is most important. Then put that down on paper. 

Cite your sources. Literature citations substantially contribute to an article's academic credibility. Professor Mosher chose to describe this in terms of baboons. Sometimes a potential rival challenges the leadership of a baboon troop's dominant male. The issue is generally decided by a form of majority vote. If most of the baboons stand behind the challenger, he takes over. If most stand behind the current leader, he remains in charge. Dr. Mosher said it is about the same with bibliographical references: try to get as many as you can to back you up. 

Proof read and edit your work. How I love word processors. In the old days, we had to paint over mistakes with whiteout, physically cut and paste paragraphs, or else redo entire pages. Now that corrections are so easy on a computer, they are all the more essential. Re-read your work for style and flow, not just for typos. Have your family read your articles. Go out of your way to have your kids read your articles. If they get the point, you made your point. What the public needs is nontechnical translation and interpretation. To demystify medicine is to gain a grateful patient. A problem-centered focus on the illness, not the theory, will immediately engage and help motivate the reader. The key to health communication may be problem-based articles.

WEBSITES MADE BETTER 
Most health websites have a product presence. This is surely one excuse used by orthodox medicine to dismiss the rest of a website's content. The first thing critics seek to do is to discredit a practitioner or writer via his or her product affiliation. A non-commercial stance builds both web traffic and credibility. The public and the critical media can spot a vested interest a mile away. Avoid financial conflicts of interest. Omit product names. Use a clear disclaimer: “I have no financial connection to the supplement or health products industry.” Or, if you do, say so and say why. An educational, non-commercial stance is the most respectable. Again, always put yourself in the reader's place: what kind of website would you yourself trust? Then, strive to present exactly such a website.

Some specific recommendations for orthomolecular websites include:

Model your website on other practitioners’ sites. An Internet search (with Google, Lycos, Yahoo, or other search engine) will provide many excellent examples, with more being added all the time.

Include links to important articles at other websites. This is a good way to begin if you have not done a website before.

Post papers you have authored, or chapters from a book you have written. 

Periodically send out a free email newsletter that is also free of any advertising.

Provide a recommended reading list, with annotations as to why each book is especially worthwhile.

I think this approach is sound. My orthomolecular website, www.DoctorYourself.com , was begun in 1999 and averaged about 30 hits a day. In 2004, the site received 25,000 hits a day. 
 
WHAT REMAINS TO BE DONE 
An increased orthomolecular medicine presence on the Internet, and in media reporting, requires action. “Feeding” the press is practiced by all professions. Put the media on your email newsletter mailing list. As practitioners need technical journals, so the press and the public need non-technical orthomolecular information.

I think an Orthomolecular News Service, like AP, Reuters or UPI, would be a good idea. It could furnish practitioners, the public and the media with headlines, abstracts, reviews, commentary, and journal-quality articles, all keyed directly to the layman. This is already being done by the pharmaceutical-surgical branches of healthcare. It is time for orthomolecular medicine to make itself heard. 

(Note: The Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is now up and running. OMNS regularly sends out positive vitamins-cure-disease press releases to over 3,000 reporters, TV stations, and newspapers worldwide. It is peer-reviewed, and subscriptions are free. Please go to http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml  to sign up, and to read any previous OMNS press release.)

References:

1. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ds-rept.html  , emphasis added. 

2. http://www.healthweb.org/aboutus.cfm 

3. http://www.ific.org./about/index.cfm  

4. http://www.ific.org./newsroom/index.cfm 

5. Press release, January 3, 2000.

6. Dietary supplements: Do you know all the facts? March 24, 2004. 
http://www.eatright.org/Public/NutritionInformation/index_19201.cfm , emphasis added.

7. http://www.eatright.org/Public/NutritionInformation/92_11826.cfm , emphasis added.

8. Lazarou J et al. Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospital patients. JAMA. 1998, Apr 15;279(15):1200-5. See also: Leape LL. Institute of Medicine medical error figures are not exaggerated. JAMA. 2000 Jul 5;284(1):95-7, and Leape LL. Error in medicine. JAMA. 1994 Dec 21;272(23):1851-7. 

9. The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy. Vitamin deficiency, dependency, and toxicity. Section 1, Chap 3. http://www.merck.com/mrkshared/mmanual/section1/chapter3/3a.jsp 

10. Tarpey v. Crescent Ridge Dairy, Inc., 47 Mass. App. Ct. 380.

11. Levine M et al, JAMA, April 21, 1999.  281:15, p 1419.

12. American Association of Poison Control Centers' Toxic Exposure Surveillance System, cited by Rosenbloom M. Vitamin toxicity. http://www.eMedicine.com , updated August 3, 2004.

13. Fry readability graph, Journal of Reading, December 1977, p. 249.

14. http://www.broometiogaliteracy.com/facts.htm  and http://www.plsinfo.org/healthysmc/202/social_human_serv_20.html  

(Reprinted with permission from the J. Orthomolecular Med. 2005, Vol 20, No 2, p 70-74) 

VITAMIN D: SAFETY AND THERAPEUTIC USES 
by John Cannell, M.D. 
Atascadero, CA 

I recently swallowed an entire bottle (100 capsules) of vitamin D (40,000 units) in front of a skeptical audience to convince them that vitamin D is safer than water.  Here’s why.  Eight glasses of water a day is fine for healthy adults.  Ten times that amount, eighty glasses of water, will make you sick from water intoxication. Humans need about 4,000 units of vitamin D a day (from all sources).(J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2005 Jul 15; Epub ahead of print) Ten times that amount, 40,000 units, is very safe in a single dose, as I demonstrated to the audience.  Therefore, vitamin D has a safer therapeutic index than water.  

Taking the entire bottle certainly got the audience’s attention.  I think they were paying close attention to see if I would drop dead.  By the way, if you were to take 40,000 units every day for months you would get vitamin D toxicity, after years of such doses you would probably die.  After taking 40,000 units at one time - equivalent to two days at the beach - I simply stayed out of the sun for several days.

Why do we need vitamin D?  Within the last several months, scientists published impressive new evidence that vitamin D is involved in a staggering array of diseases: age related cognitive decline, heart disease, breast cancer, tuberculosis, Parkinson’s disease, prostate cancer, chronic pain, fractured hips, premenstrual syndrome and diabetes.  

Good time for a quiz. 

1.  Vitamin D reverses inflammatory changes associated with age-related memory impairment.
True.  Researchers from Ireland were the first to demonstrate that vitamin D3 acts as an anti-inflammatory agent and turns old brains into young brains - at least as far as inflammatory cytokines are concerned.  This research suggests vitamin D may prevent, or even treat, age-related cognitive decline. (Biochem Soc Trans. 2005 Aug;33(Pt 4):573-7.)	

2. Your blood sugar is closely associated with your vitamin D level.

 True.  Researchers in Australia added to the growing evidence that sun avoidance may have caused the epidemic of type 2 diabetes.  The Australians’ findings were straightforward and powerful.  The higher your vitamin D level, the lower your blood glucose. (Clin Endocrinol (Oxf).  2005 Jun;62(6):738-41.)
		
3. In July, a group from Minnesota found that 100% of elderly patients admitted for fragility fractures were vitamin D deficient despite the fact that half of them were taking vitamin D supplements.

True.  The authors found that women taking supplemental vitamin D had average levels of 16.4 ng/ml while women not taking supplements had levels of 11.9.ng/ml, both dangerously low.  None of the 82 women got enough sun or took enough vitamin D to obtain a level of 40 ng/ml.  These were fragility fractures, not fractures caused by unusual trauma.  That is, their bones just sort of fell apart. (Curr Med Res Opin. 2005 Jul;21(7):1069-74.)
					
 4. Women with the lowest vitamin D levels had five times higher risk for breast cancer.

True.  Women with 25(OH)-vitamin D blood levels less than 20 ng/ml were more than five times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than were women with levels above 60 ng/ml.  That is five, repeat five, times less likely! (Eur J Cancer. 2005 May;41(8):1164-9. Epub 2005 Apr 14.)

5.  Avoiding the sun doubles the risk of prostate cancer.   
 True.  Again, the risk of avoiding the sun is clear, this time in another study with prostate cancer.  However, the authors pointed out that sun exposure increases the risk of skin cancer and believed that proper vitamin D supplementation ”may be the safest solution to achieve an adequate vitamin D status.” (Cancer Res. 2005 Jun 15;65(12):5470-9.)

I also believe supplementation is the only way to go for many people.  African Americans are simply unable spend adequate time in the sun.  In addition, the sun ages the skin and that fact alone will keep many Americans out of the sun.  That said, I go into the sun whenever I can

6. South Korean researchers associated vitamin D deficiency with Parkinson’s Disease.  

True.  Actually, they showed that certain genetic malformations (VDR polymorphisms) are more likely in-patients with Parkinson’s Disease, implying an association with vitamin D and Parkinsonism. (J Korean Med Sci. 2005 Jun;20(3):495-8).

7. Researchers in England discovered that patients with chronic pain have phenomenally low vitamin D levels.
	
True.  The authors added to the evidence that severe vitamin D deficiency is associated with chronic pain.  They found that 88% of their patients with chronic pain had levels less than 10 ng/ml.  If they treated their patients, they did not report it.  However, Swiss researchers recently treated chronic pain patients with vitamin D and reported the pain “disappeared” within one to three months in most of their patients.  This is the second open study that showed adequate doses of vitamin D dramatically improve chronic pain. (Ann Rheum Dis. 2005 Aug;64(8):1217-9. Also: BMJ. 2004 Jul 17;329(7458):156-7. Also: 
Spine. 2003 Jan 15;28(2):177-9.)

 8. Severe vitamin D deficiency is common in TB patients.  

True. (J Infect. 2005 Jun;50(5):432-7.) First, the authors reviewed the impressive animal evidence that vitamin D can help treat TB.  Then they reported that most of their immigrant TB patients had undetectable vitamin D levels.  Then they reported the normal range for their lab was between 5 to 47 ng/ml but “normal” was any level greater than 9 ng/ml.  Finally, the researchers reported they treated their patients with “normal daily doses” of vitamin D, without reporting how much they gave.  Apparently, they gave just enough to get patients above 9 ng/ml.  The doctors should have treated their patients with 4,000 units a day.  They should also watch for evidence of vitamin D hypersensitivity, which can occur when treating tuberculosis patients for vitamin D deficiency.	 
9. a.) Virtually all nephrologists give renal failure patients a vitamin D-like drug. b) Virtually all renal failure patients are severely vitamin D deficient.		

Both are true.  Finally, the truth about renal failure patients: most of them are vitamin D deficient despite taking vitamin D analogs!  Most nephrologists prescribe activated vitamin D (calcitriol) or vitamin D analogs but not vitamin D.  Calcitriol and vitamin D analogs do nothing to prevent vitamin D deficiency.  Renal failure patients need both vitamin D and a calcitriol-like drug.  Moreover, 400 units a day of vitamin D will not correct their deficiencies. They need up to 4,000.
(Am J Kidney Dis. 2005 Jun;45(6):1026-33.)
			
Some of us, especially African Americans, will need to take 3,000 to 4,000 units every day to maintain healthy 25(OH)-vitamin D blood levels. (Heaney R. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2005 Jul 15.)

Professor Reinhold Vieth came up with dozens of overlooked studies.  These studies conclusively showed 2,000 units a day could not be toxic.  Furthermore, Vieth found the literature published before 1997 clearly showed 10,000 units a day was unlikely to be toxic.  Vitamin D toxicity probably starts around 20,000 units a day, and then only if taken for months or even years. (Am J Clin Nutr. 1999 May;69(5):842-56.)

 (Editor’s note: Our thanks to Dr. Cannell and the Vitamin D Council for this excellent article, excerpted from The Vitamin D Newsletter, Aug 20, 2005. I most highly recommend Dr. Cannell’s work. TO SUBSCRIBE to his newsletter FOR FREE, go to http://cholecalciferol-council.com/ 
		 
THE ALZHEIMER’S PREVENTION PLAN 
by Patrick Holford 
(London: Piatkus, 1999. Softcover, 256 pages with references. ISBN: 0749925140.)

A review by Doctor Yourself volunteer Michael Jolliffe, UK

The rise in Alzheimer’s disease is an urgent international crisis. By 2050 an estimated 114 million people will suffer from dementia. As well as being one of the most costly illnesses to the state it is also, more importantly, one of the most frightening and frustrating for sufferers and their families. But all is far from being lost. Now is the time for us to wake up ‘to the fact that Alzheimer’s is a preventable disease, not an inevitable part of ageing’. That is the opinion of no less than Professor David Smith, the Deputy Head of the Medical Sciences Division at Oxford University. 

We are very fortunate that Patrick Holford has stepped into the breach and delivered that wake-up call. Of the twenty books he has written on health and nutrition in the last 10 years this may well be one of his most timely and important. The author, however, doesn’t need to convince the most important thinkers in medicine of the value of his work because they are already on his  side. A student of Drs Abram Hoffer and Linus Pauling, Holford wrote this book in correspondence with the top researchers in Alzheimer’s and age-related cognitive decline such as Smith and Professor Helga Refsum of Bergen University in Norway. 

The Alzheimer’s Prevention Plan neatly demonstrates how, with the correct nutrition, we can treat ourselves for Alzheimer’s disease long before we suffer from it. The book begins with a very readable discussion of basic brain physiology and the physical process by which the brain can degenerate into senility. Part 1 includes a break-down list of every nutrient needed for keeping mind and memory in order, anti-nutrients to avoid, such as cadmium and mercury and an explaination of the process of methylation, through which the body uses those nutrients to keep brain chemistry in balance. The origins of Alzheimer’s receives some attention (although for a more in depth review try the unique geological perspective of Harold D. Foster in What Really Causes Alzheimer’s Disease [1]). 

It is the second section, however, where the book really excels, taking the nutritional necessaries already mentioned and showing us how to run with them. For example, a comprehensive checklist of symptoms related to deficiencies of each of the four most important neurotransmitters is included (p. 44-47), along with steps to take to improve intake of them. For example, should I have a poor attention span, difficulty thinking quickly enough, and cravings or addictions to caffeine or cocaine, I can suspect that my dopamine levels are low and follow Holford’s advice based on habits to avoid (in this case, among others, coffee and excessive exercise), habits to embrace (such as a routine, regular meals and morning exercise) as well as specific nutritional supplements to correct the imbalance (for example B-vitamins, vitamin C and the amino acid tyrosine). 

The remainder of the section goes on to cover, in equal detail, how to use vitamins to improve our body’s methylation process, as well as the relationship between dementia and sugar, alcohol, fats and stress. We are guided through the latest research on these subjects as well as on herbs and medication. Measuring and removing heavy metals from the body is perhaps the one subject covered only adequately in an otherwise excellent presentation. The advice here to eat vitamin C-rich fruit appears out of step with the higher doses of supplemental nutrients recommended in the preceding sections. 

Each chapter ends with reader-friendly bullet point summaries of steps we can take towards creating our own personalized Alzheimer’s preventative diet and dietary supplement program, as well as how to incorporate light, exercise, breathing and meditation into our lives. The book provides a total of 14 useful assessments, including memory checks, risk factors checks, and a full cognitive assessment questionnaire containing a series of mental exercises, through which the reader can measure their progress on the program. 

Very few authors are more accomplished than Patrick Holford at turning new scientific research into a step-by-step action plan for better health. This particular plan is a valuable addition to the rapidly expanding 21st century catalogue of orthomolecular and nutritional work. My advice is that you buy the book, practice what it preaches and look forward to years and decades ahead free of senility and dementia. 

[1] Reviewed at www.doctoryourself.com/news/v5n6.txt 

(Editor’s note: Thanks to Doctor Yourself reader Michael Jolliffe for this very fine book review. If you have a favorite health book that you would like to tell other Doctor Yourself Newsletter readers about, please drop me a line a drsaul@doctoryourself.com .)
		
FOOD SUPPLEMENT BANS AVOIDED IN EUROPE – BUT FOR HOW  LONG?

On 1 August, as many as 5,000 vitamin and mineral products were expected to be banned from health store shelves in the UK alone, especially those containing food-form vitamins and minerals, with further products being banned in other EU countries such as Ireland and Sweden.

But, following the legal challenge to this ban implicit in the EU Food Supplements Directive, mounted in 2003 by the Alliance for Natural Health and, in parallel by two UK trade associations, the National Association of Health Stores and the Health Food Manufacturers Association, mutual cooperation between the health industry and government authorities has seen the wide-scale ban circumvented for the time being.

The ban would have affected products containing over 200 vitamin and mineral ingredients which had not been subject to extensive safety evaluation by the European Food Safety Authority, but nevertheless had been consumed safely as part of the normal diet for thousands of years. In the minds of many consumers and practitioners, the forms that were going to be banned were not only the safest forms, but also those that are most beneficial.

Dr Robert Verkerk, executive director of the pan-European Alliance for Natural Health said: “Without positive pressure from our legal challenge, and increasing amounts of cooperation between industry and government authorities, thousands of products containing nutrients which are increasingly difficult to find in our normal diet, but known to be of great importance to our health and wellbeing, could have been removed from our food supply as of 1 August. We cannot afford to sit back, as future provisions in the Directive set to limit maximum potencies of food supplements could have devastating consequences at least equal to those caused by the originally proposed food supplement ingredients ban.” 

THE EUROPEAN COURT RULING and its ‘silver lining’

The European Court of Justice handed down its ruling on the legal challenge to the Food Supplements Directive on 12 July. Although the Directive was upheld, the ruling itself contained a ‘silver lining’ in the form of clarification and reduced scope which actually resolved many of the fundamental problems that were raised by the Alliance for Natural Health challenge.

In particular the ruling will make it much easier to access the ‘positive list’ of allowed ingredients, a process previously described by a senior advisor to the Court, Advocate General Leendert Geelhoed in his 5 April Opinion, as having the “transparency of a black box”.

The Directive provided a derogation system which would allow ingredients present on the market prior to 2003 to be used at least to the end of 2009, on the condition that technical dossiers were submitted to governmental authorities, for subsequent consideration by the European Food Safety Authority. The dossier requirements were seen as excessive and pressure from the industry, facilitated by the legal challenge, led the UK government to agree simplified dossier criteria. 

Accordingly, some 505 dossiers for vitamin and mineral ingredients were submitted in the UK alone by 12 July, the official deadline for derogation dossier submissions. To facilitate the process further, the UK’s Food Standard Agency also extended the dossier deadline until 1 August. All products containing ingredients subject to dossiers will remain on the market to at least the end of 2009 unless they are given an unfavorable review by the European Food Safety Authority, on the grounds of risks to public health.

In the meantime, onus is on the food supplement industry to make submissions to the limited ‘‘positive list’’, which currently contains just 112 vitamin and mineral forms, as compared with over 400 used by the industry. As a result of the European Court ruling, exemption for certain natural forms of vitamins and minerals, clarified and simplified requirements for access to the ‘positive list’, and placement of the primary burden of proof of safety on government authorities rather than industry, the Alliance for Natural Health is confident that the ‘positive list’ will no longer act as a major barrier to getting products on to the EU’s ‘positive list’ of ingredients allowed in food supplements.

EU PLANS TO LIMIT DOSAGES COULD BE CATASTROPHIC 

The next phase of the EU Food Supplements Directive will focus on setting maximum dosages for vitamin and mineral products. These are in the process of being finalized by the European Commission and the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which is developing international guidelines for food supplement potencies modeled very closely on the EU Directive. The Alliance for Natural Health has argued, with the support of scientists around the world, that the scientific method being considered to set maximum potencies is flawed. 

“We must now move from a legal battle to a scientific battle,” adds Verkerk. “The risk assessment framework that is being considered by the authorities has been borrowed from those systems assessing intrinsically toxic substances such as drugs and pesticides, and have no place for use with nutrients that are essential to life. A new paradigm for safety/benefit analysis is needed specifically for nutrients, and we have commissioned the Netherlands-based HAN Foundation to come up with a new framework that could be used EU-wide and internationally through Codex.”

UNITED STATES IS NOT IMMUNE from the EU framework for dietary supplements and Codex

Codex Alimentarius guidelines provide regulators around the world with the vehicle to export the EU regulatory framework for supplements worldwide. Although the Dietary Supplement & Health Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994 currently allows a great diversity of effective dietary supplements to be marketed in the US, this law is far from secure in the longer-term. The development of free trade areas affecting the US (e.g. CAFTA, NAFTA, FTAA) is one of the most direct ways in which Codex could become the harmonization ‘standard’, but pressure via a challenge through the World Trade Organization is also a real possibility. With the world bowing to Codex levels and further misrepresented bad press on higher dose supplements, even American consumers will feel increasingly pressured to consume low-dose products. 

Now is the time to stem the tide at the source of the problem – and without doubt the greatest regulatory problems emanate from Europe, from where they are at risk of being exported globally.

(For further information about the Alliance for Natural Health, refer to www.alliance-natural-health.org . The Alliance for Natural Health is a non-profit campaign organisation that relies exclusively on donations. If you would like to donate, please do so via the website, or send checks to ANH Campaign Fund, Unit 5, Forge End, St Albans, Hertfordshire AL2 3EQ, United Kingdom.)

2005 SECOND ANNUAL ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE HALL OF FAME INDUCTION 
Presentation speech by Andrew W. Saul, Master of Ceremonies 
(The Fairmont Chateau Lauier, Ottawa, Canada, May 14, 2005)

INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the 2nd Annual Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame induction banquet, the "Orthomolecular Oscars."
A 159-year-old man was being interviewed on TV and was asked a predictable question: "How did you manage to live for so long?"

He answered, "I never, ever, argue with anyone."

The interviewer did not believe this, and pressed him about it. "Surely there was something else that you did: lifestyle, diet, exercise, or vitamins!"

The old man listened, and then said, "Maybe you're right."

Abram Hoffer writes, "The history of medicine is a history of conflict. We should be making awards for infamy, but the list would be too long and thus no one would stand out."

Tonight we honor the mavericks of medicine. We have here tonight a confluence of two schools of orthomolecular medicine: the megavitamin approach and the dietary approach. They both work, they are both orthomolecular, and together form a unified field of nutritional medicine.

MAX GERSON, M.D.
When Max Gerson, M.D., testified before the U.S. Senate on July 1, 2, and 3, 1946, he likely had high hopes of acceptance of his nutritional protocol for cancer. No such luck. In 1958, he published all the how-to-do-it details in A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases. He died the next year. All of Max Gerson's brothers and sisters had died in the Holocaust.

Dr. Gerson's daughter Charlotte, here with us tonight, is a strikingly healthy octogenarian who practices what her father preached. "I cancelled my health insurance when I was 34 years old," she says. "I'm always telling women: 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if you never had to worry about finding a lump in your breast?' But if you eat healthy, that's what happens. Living in this manner, you don't risk cancer."

She is in a position to know, having seen her father's work at close range for so many years. I asked Charlotte about this, and she told me, "My earliest childhood memories of helping my father go back to my playing in our sandbox when I was about five years old. My father's medical office was in the same house where we lived and patients would come to see him there in Bielefeld (Westphalia), Germany. The farmers who consulted my father could hardly believe that one could survive in good health without meat and animal proteins. So my father would send for me, a little dirty and full of sand, to show me off. I was sturdy, tall for my age, healthy and rosy-cheeked and presented a good picture of the effectiveness of vegetarian nutrition."

Possibly the most moving Gerson testimonial comes from a child, named Stephanie, who was diagnosed with widespread cancer in the kidney, lungs, and heart before she was even six years old. After conventional treatment had been tried and had failed, she (and her parents as well) embarked on the Gerson program. Asked what she thought of the diet, the girl responded quite frankly: "The food? At first I thought it was kind of weird. But after, like, a week, it started tasting better." Stephanie, who had been given six months to live, was very much alive over two years later and shown horseback riding, "on the road to recovery" to the point that her doctors were "astounded."" 
Dr. Gerson saved lives and his methods still do. To say that such a message is somewhat controversial is understatement akin to saying that the Beatles somewhat influenced popular music, or that Citizen Kane was a pretty good movie. 

Many years ago, I watched a video tape of a Gerson patients’ “reunion.”  On stage were people from all walks of life, and most were advanced in age.  One after the other they spoke of the cancer they were diagnosed with three, ten, or twenty years ago.  All were recovered.  Dr. Gerson was the reason.  You cannot watch such an event and fail to be moved.

JOSEF M. ISSELS
A quotation from www.Issels.com : 

"Josef M. Issels, MD, has become internationally known for his remarkable rate of complete long-term remissions of "incurable cancers" in patients who had exhausted all standard treatments . . . After completion of the Issels Treatment, these patients remained cancer free for up to 50 years, leading normal healthy lives. The Issels Treatment also significantly reduced the incidence of recurrent cancer after surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, thereby considerably improving cure rates. . . In 1951 Dr. Issels founded the first hospital in Europe for comprehensive immunotherapy of cancer. In 1970 the hospital was enlarged from 80 to 120 patient beds. Ninety percent of the patients treated at the hospital had exhausted standard cancer treatment. . . From 1981 until 1987, Dr. Issels served as an expert member of, and advisor to, the Commission of the German Federal Government in the Fight Against Cancer.

"The Issels Treatment is based on the concept that malignant tumors do not develop in a healthy body with intact defense and repair functions. They present in a specific internal environment which promotes their growth. This environment develops over a period of time due to multiple causes and conditions which persist and remain chronically active even after removal of the tumor (by surgery, radiation, and/or chemotherapy). Treating the tumor alone is not treating the condition that is producing it: the underlying cancer disease. Consequently, there is a high rate of relapse. . . cancer is considered a systemic disease from the onset and the tumor as its late stage symptom. . . Even in an advanced state of malignant disease an immune reaction with complete tumor remission can be reached.

"Dr. Issels reported in "Immunotherapy in Progressive Metastatic Cancer, A Fifteen Year Survival Follow-up" Clinical Trials Journal (London) 1970. 7, No. 3, pp. 357-366) that of 370 patients with various cancers who were given the Issels Treatment shortly after surgery or irradiation, 322 (87%) were alive and well after five years without relapse or detectable metastases."

It has been said that more people live off cancer than die from it. The Issels Therapy can help put a stop to this travesty. Thanks to the pioneering work of Dr. Issels 91-year life, this knowledge is readily available for all who need it.

CORNELIS MOERMAN
For over sixty years, cancer treatment and research has been almost entirely restricted to cut, zap and drug: surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Billions and billions of dollars have been expended investigating every cure BUT a nutritional one.
Where is the real incentive to cure the disease, anyway? Business is good. It is now pretty much an open secret that more people live off cancer than die from it. The big money is to be made in disease, not in health. Dr. Moerman guaranteed his own ostracism when he dedicated his life to find out why patients lived, and what could be done to be sure they did. Then he went and did it.

It is said that we are known by our enemies. If that is so, Dr Moerman has been honored above all.

The Dutch Union Against Quackery at an antiquackery symposium in Utrecht on October 14th, 2000 claimed that Dr Moerman "heads the list of the twenty biggest quacks of the twentieth century."

Here is what they appear to be so upset about: 

"The Moerman diet consisted of fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, non-refined cereals, leguminous plants and dairy-products. Moerman also recommended supplemental vitamins and minerals. 
Moerman, a doctor who practiced nearly 50 years, organized support in the parliament. The late Linus Pauling praised him.

"Moerman received 30 out of a maximum 37 points in the scoring system used for rating quackiness."

One anti-orthomolecular website decries Dr. Moerman's dietary treatment for cancer in part because it is a lactovegetarian diet, with supplements of vitamins A, B, C, D, and E, iodine, and and selenium, and which prohibited all meats, alcohol, artificial colorings, cheeses with high fat and salt content, margarine, hydrogenated oils, sugar, salt, white flour, and tobacco.

Good heavens! We can't have people eating like that, now can we!

EMANUEL CHERASKIN
 “Health is the fastest growing failing business in western civilization.”  
(Emanuel Cheraskin, M.D., D.M.D. in Human Health and Homeostasis)

Emanuel Cheraskin, M.D., D.M.D., devoted more than 50 years of his life to natural health practice, research, and education. In doing so, he has greatly elevated all the healing professions. It is because of Dr. Cheraskin's speeches, scientific papers, and books that so many, many people have been encouraged to learn about and take vitamins, and improve their diet, and thereby improve their lives. We will always be indebted to this great man.

I recently spoke with Mrs. Carol Cheraskin, who so very much wanted to attend this awards banquet. Carol described to me how Dr. Cheraskin was so generous with his time. "He would spend forty-five minutes or more on the phone with a person that he knew he'd likely never hear from again, just to teach them what they needed to know." She also spoke, not only of Dr. Cheraskin's work, but of her 50-year love affair with her husband. She, in her eighties, sounded to me just like a head-over-heels-in-love teenager.

I think the best remembrance we can offer Dr. Cheraskin is to personally read his work and then redouble our efforts to share his knowledge with a public that so sorely needs it. I am custodian of the Cheraskin Archive for that express purpose.

"If you ask different questions," said Dr. Cheraskin, "you'll get different answers." Spoken like a true maverick, doctor.

FREDERICK R. KLENNER, M.D.
I raised my kids all the way into college without either of them ever having a single dose of an antibiotic, not even once.

I have Dr. Frederick R. Klenner to thank for it. 

A student came up to me one day after lecture and placed a slim paperback into my hands, saying “You have to read this!”  The little book was Lendon Smith’s "Clinical Guide to the Use of Vitamin C: The Clinical Experiences of Frederick R. Klenner, M.D." It is a digest of Dr. Klenner’s 27 published and unpublished medical papers, some dating from the 1940’s. Since much of Klenner’s work was published in regional medical journals, his articles previously had been hard to come by. Consequently, the antibiotic and antiviral effects of megadoses of vitamin C have been largely unknown to the health professions.  Dr. Klenner’s 40 years of experience successfully treating pneumonia, herpes, mononucleosis, hepatitis, multiple sclerosis, childhood illnesses, fevers, encephalitis, polio, and over 20 other diseases... all with vitamin C... is even less well known to the general public.  Patients and orthodox physicians typically are amazed when they learn that Klenner employed 350 to 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C per day, per kilogram patient body weight. One can only speculate how much suffering might have been avoided if doctors in the 1950's had listened to this man.

Dr. Frederick R. Klenner gave large doses to over 300 pregnant women and reported virtually no complications in any of the pregnancies or deliveries (Irwin Stone, The Healing Factor, chapter 28).  Indeed, hospital nurses around Reidsville, North Carolina, the region where Dr. Klenner practiced, noted that the infants who were healthiest and happiest were in Klenner's care.  The hospital staff dubbed them the "Vitamin C Babies." 

 Specifically, Klenner gave: 4,000 milligrams during the first trimester, 6,000 mg during the second, and 10,000 milligrams of vitamin C a day - or even 15,000 mg - throughout their third trimester.  This was his routine prescription for healthy women.  He would respond to any sickness with daily vitamin C injections totaling many times that. 

And this, in the late 1940's!

 Over a nearly 40 year practice, Klenner (and previous animal studies) rigorously ascertained the safety and effectiveness of vitamin C during pregnancy.   Specifically, there were no miscarriages in this entire group of 300 women.  There were no postpartum hemorrhages at all.  There was no cardiac distress and there were no toxic manifestations (Stone, The Healing Factor, p. 191).  Among Klenner's patients were the Fultz quintuplets,  who, at the time, were the only quints in the southeastern U.S. to survive.  Upon admission to the hospital for childbirth, Klenner gave all mothers-to-be "booster" injections of vitamin C.  (http://www.doctoryourself.com/vitaminc2.html )

Dr. Frederick Robert Klenner said, "If you want results, use adequate ascorbic acid.  Don't send a boy to do a man's job."  
			
ALBERT SZENT-GYORGI
Dr Hoffer has said that Albert Szent-Gyorgi "was a good friend of Linus Pauling's. They got alone really well, and he supported orthomolecular concepts." Dr Hoffer praised Dr Szent Gyorgi in a Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine paper (Hoffer A:  The discovery of vitamin C:  Albert Szent-Gyorgi, M.D. Ph.D. 1893-1986.  JOM 4:24-26, 1989.)

And with good reason. Albert Szent Gyorgi won the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion processes, with special reference to vitamin C."

But I cannot possibly top the Nobel presentation lecture:

Excerpts from The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1937 Presentation Speech by Professor E. Hammarsten, the Royal Caroline Institute, on December 10, 1937.

"Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen.

"The magnificent series of Szent-Györgyi's discoveries commenced in 1933. They were carried out and pursued with extraordinary rapidity and precision. His clear vision for essentials" (aided him in) his isolation of ascorbic acid and of his identification of it with the so-termed vitamin C - a feat that was justly hailed with enthusiasm. . . (Vitamins) cooperate in the oxidation chain and are catalysts, illustrating the way in which these vitamins act in the organism (along with) other enzymes, and oxidizable and reducible substances: Szent-Györgyi's flavonoles, termed vitamin P.

"Professor Albert von Szent-Györgyi: You never swerved from your unyielding purpose to study the primary and fundamental processes of biological oxidation. . . The pace set by you and your co-workers was astonishing, and your results were fundamentally new and highly important. In the midst of fervent research work with most promising aspects you are the discoverer and idealist to the mind of Alfred Nobel."

(Excerpted from Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1922-1941, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1965.)

DAVID HORROBIN
Patricia Kane writes, in the Townsend Letter (http://www.townsendletter.com/ ) July, 2003: "Dr. David Horrobin was an Oxford scholar, with two medical degrees and also a doctorate in neuroscience. David was a fellow of Magdalen College where he taught medicine to students alongside the father of the field of essential fatty acids, Dr. Hugh Sinclair. After further research on EFA's at the University of Newcastle and the University of Montreal, he became increasingly fascinated in lipid biochemistry and its application to human disease. Over the course of 18 years, Dr. Horrobin's innovative approach to research led to the discovery of many lipid products for the treatment of disease. His research on the medical benefits of gamma linolenic acid opened a doorway into the profound influence of lipids towards health, sparking a minor revolution of lipid studies and research around the world. David was the founder and editor of two medical journals: Medical Hypothesis, and Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids. David wrote and edited numerous books and hundreds of scientific publications. . . He had a unique combination of enthusiasm and tenacity; humility and friendliness with remarkable creativity; a huge depth of knowledge and striking analytical power."
 
Peter Lapinskas ( http://www.lapinskas.com/  ) writes: "David Horrobin was a prolific research scientist whose work was wide-ranging but was primarily concerned with the use of fatty acids in the treatment of disease. He had 939 publications, with a further 114 patents in which he is a named inventor, bringing the grand total to 1053. From his first publication in 1964 through to his death, this is equivalent of one publication every two weeks for 39 years - a prodigious achievement."

Dr. Abram Hoffer writes: "Orthomolecular Pioneers are men and women of vision who are not happy with the results they have seen when they used all the standard methods of treatment they had been taught when in medical school. And, they have the initiative to try to remedy the situation. David Horrobin was that kind of a person. Luckily for schizophrenic patients, he became dissatisfied with the results of treatment that modern psychiatry provides. I first heard him when, as a young scientist at a meeting of the Canadian Schizophrenia Foundation in Montreal, he asked me a question from the floor concerning the observation I had made that schizophrenic patients given niacin did not as a rule flush as severely as did patients who were not schizophrenic. No one else had ever referred to that observation. 

"A few years later I learned that he was very interested in the role of the essential fatty acids. He wrote one of the major pioneer books on this topic. And because of his interest and drive, he persuaded many universities to test out his ideas that these fatty acids are indeed helpful. But unlike so many mono-idea scientists, he realized that more than one biochemical system was involved. His interests were wide ranging. He also was very frustrated by the slow pace of research and by the exclusive use of the double-blind method. He was very critical of multimillion treatment trials, pointing out that these were needed when the compound being tested had very little efficacy. As a result, the BMJ wrote very unpleasant and critical obituary of him.  BMJ was immediately besieged by many letters of protest from his colleagues all over the world. We need more scientists like David."

Here, here!

HUGH D. RIORDAN, M.D.
Hugh wrote the NY Times May 1, 2003: "Based upon its own data, our government and a responsible publication like the New York Times should be screaming that then nutrient intake of American is so low in so many that it a nation scandal and a public health menace.”
                     
I was talking with Hugh on what would be the final morning of his life. He telephoned me, and my answering machine initially picked up the call saying, "No one is available to take your call. Please leave a message." Hugh said, "I'd like to speak to No One, since No One is available to take my call!" I picked up and said, "Hi, Hugh; This is No One," and we laughed.

He then said that he'd just that morning finished his new book, Medical Mavericks III, and he wanted me to take a look at it. We also discussed our new Orthomolecular Medicine News Service (now in full operation: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml ), in which he'd taken a personal and guiding interest. 

I told Hugh I was lately remembering his lighthearted, inspirational words from the close of the 2003 Toronto Nutritional Medicine Today conference, which were, "Roses are red; Violets are blue; Orthomolecular is good for you." I said to Hugh, "I think I have a sequel for you, doctor: 

“Roses are red;
You’ve all heard it said; 
Orthomolecular's for you; 
You heard that from Hugh!”

We laughed some more. He then mentioned that he wrote limericks in high school, but "They were," he said with a grin I could detect even over the phone, "Not for publication."

But what Hugh did publish was his anti-cancer, high-dose, intravenous vitamin C research, an indelible contribution to medicine that will stand for all time.

For more information on Dr. Riordan’s use of IV vitamin C as chemotherapy, please look at 
http://www.doctoryourself.com/riordan1.html
http://www.doctoryourself.com/riordan2.html
http://www.doctoryourself.com/biblio_riordan.html

(Reprinted with permission from the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine 2005, Second Quarter, Vol 20, No 2, p 113-117. Photos on p 118. )
			
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