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chronic fatigue

  • Moducare® is a patented blend of plant sterols and sterolins, and the only sterol/sterolin product clinically proven to be effective in immune modulation. Moducare can be considered an adjunct to help shift immune responses to a more balanced state. It enhances the activity of various immune cells and increases the killing ability of specialized cells, called Natural Killer cells, responsible for immune surveillance. Moducare also has anti-inflammatory properties and helps reduce the effects of stress on the immune system by managing the release of cortisol, a stress hormone. Moducare is well-tolerated, with no known interactions with either prescribed medications or natural supplements. Plus, long-term studies have found that it has no significant negative side effects.

    Human Research Proves Plant Sterols Action
    We call sterols the forgotten nutrient because although thousands of research studies have been preformed on this nutrient, it has not been given the recognition it deserves.

    Over 4,000 published studies to date have examined phytosterols and 140 of these studies are double-blind, placebo-controlled human trials. Rheumatoid arthritis, cervical cancer, diabetes, immune function, prostate problems, HI V, herpes, hepatitis C, allergies, stress-induced immune suppression, chronic fatigue, tuberculosis, breast cancer, and high cholesterol are only some of the diseases where sterols and sterolins have been shown to be extremely effective.

    Plant sterols and sterolins are essential for modulating (balancing) the immune system, enhancing it if it is under active, and reducing it when it is over stimulated. They perform the balancing act very effectively. Patrick J.D. Bouic, Ph.D., has shown in his research that plant sterols and sterolins are effective in enhancing an under active immune system and/or decreasing an overactive one. This happens without the side effects associated with pharmaceutical substances such as interferon, prednisone or methotrexate. Sterols and sterolins have been evaluated in a 25,000-person safety study and found to have no side effects, no drug interactions, and no toxicity. It is safe for children, as well as pregnant and nursing mothers. Only those who have had an organ transplant cannot take plant sterols because they may stimulate rejection.

    Plant sterols and sterolins also increase the number and action of natural killer cells (our cancer fighters) and increase our DHE A levels naturally. They are also able to reduce the stress hormone cortisol and the proinflammatory immune factor, interleukin-6, and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TN F-a). Interleukin-6 and (TN F-a) are increased in autoimmune disorders, osteoporosis, over exercising, fibromyalgia, and osteoarthritis. Reduction of this inflammatory agent is the key to halting symptoms and pain. This is exactly what plant sterols and sterolins do.

    Sterols—Great Stress Busters
    Chronic stress is so negative that it can promote and exacerbate most disease. Numerous studies have linked our ability to deal with stress to our susceptibility to the common cold as well as more serious diseases such as cancer. Adults who have recently lost a loved one or have been divorced or separated tend to have the highest cancer rates. Unrelieved stress gradually weakens and suppresses our immune system, causing disease. Stressful situations promote the release of cortisol, the stress hormone which in turn causes the secretion of a negative immune factor interleukin-6. Abnormal levels of IL-6 are associated with osteoporosis, autoimmune disease, asthma, inflammatory diseases including arthritis, and more. We know that phytosterols are effective in reducing IL-6, cortisol and other negative immune factors. They also improve DHEA, a hormone known to help fight the effects of stress.

    An overview follows of a few of the outstanding studies published.

    Sterols Lower Cholesterol
    The rapid cholesterol-lowering effects of phytosterols have been reported in over 400 studies. Beta-sitosterol is very similar in structure to cholesterol except that it has an extra ethyl group on the side chain. Due to this similarity, it interferes with the absorption of the cholesterol found in our foods as well as the cholesterol produced by the body. By including phytosterol-rich foods or supplements containing sterols, we can normalize cholesterol much faster than with the common cholesterol-lowering drugs.

    Sterols Halt Hepatitis C
    Hepatitis C is now occurring in epidemic proportions. Over four million North Americans are infected with hepatitis C. Liver specialists are overwhelmed as they struggle to deal with the increase in the incidence of this disease. Hepatitis C is the leading cause of liver transplants in North America. Physicians using sterols and sterolins to treat hepatitis C have already shown that with 90 days of the sterols and sterolins treatment liver enzymes and viral load normalize.

    Sterols, Heart Disease and DHEA
    A team of Canadian researchers discovered that an error in the regulation of certain immune cells that fight bacterial infections may be implicated in heart attacks and strokes. In a study published in the International Journal of Immunopharmacology, plant sterols and sterolins are shown to improve the ability of the immune system to fight bacterial infections. Sterols and sterolins, not antibiotics, may be the way to treat bacterial-induced heart disease.

    Prostate Problems Eliminated
    Urologists in Germany have been using plant sterols and sterolins for over two decades for the treatment of enlarged prostate. In one double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 200 patients with an average age of 65 and with BPH, subjects were given sterols and sterolins for six months. The treatment group showed a rapid reduction of the symptoms mentioned above and an increase in peak urinary flow and a decrease in inflammation. When does a health food product become mainstream? Do 4,000 medical studies constitute good scientific evidence of a nutrient’s effectiveness? We believe plant sterols and sterolins will change the way we treat disease in the future. Instead of treating symptoms, we will get directly to the source of the symptoms and repair the cause of the disease.

  • An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study of chemicals found in human body fat through biopsy showed the wide array of toxic chemicals that each of us carries within. The “toxic load,” also known as “total body burden” or “bio-accumulation” occurs when the body exceeds the capacity of the organs of detoxification to reduce or neutralize toxins. Since the end of the Second World War, our planet has been experiencing a dramatic chemical revolution. Our existence, at the cost of our health and quality of life, now depends upon thousands of synthetic chemicals that are used to create virtually everything we associate with modern life—agriculture, health care, energy production, food supply, household and personal care products, and manufacturing all pumping tons of chemicals—most sold to consumers or dumped into the environment. A portion of these foreign chemicals, referred to as xenobiotics (foreign to the body), end up within the human body.

    “The contamination of our world is not alone a matter of mass chemical spraying. Indeed, for most of us this is of less importance than the innumerable small-scale exposures to which we are subjected day by day, year after year. Like the constant dripping of water that in turn wear away the hardest stone, this birth-to-death contact with dangerous chemicals may in the end prove disastrous. Each of these recurrent exposures, no matter how slight, contributes to the progressive buildup of chemicals in our bodies and so to cumulative poisoning…Lulled by the soft sell and the hidden persuader, the average citizen is seldom aware of the deadly materials with which he is surrounding himself; indeed, he may not realize he is using them at all.”
    Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

    INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY
    With over 75,000 chemicals currently registered with the Environmental Protection Agency, only very small fractions are assessed for their toxicity in humans. In fact, only about 25 percent of commonly used chemicals have undergone even the most basic toxicity testing— even fewer are tested for their effects on the developing fetus, brain or the immune system. Chemicals, like criminals, are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately, because of our lax environmental laws, most of these toxic offenders never go on trial and are presumed safe until widespread harm occurs or the public demands accountability.

    The use of mercury in dental amalgam fillings is a perfect example of toxic chemical “grandfathers” that remain in widespread use without any adequate safety testing required of the manufacturers. I worked in dentistry for many years prior to embarking on my career in natural health. I am one of those victims of heavy metal poisoning as a result of not only handling mercury in the course of dentistry, but also as a result of a mouthful of mercury amalgam fillings from age seven to eighteen. The only way we can preserve or repair our health from these toxic saboteurs is through education and finding safe alternatives.

    Most of these untested chemicals make their way into natural ecosystems and end up in the human body. Because of this, we are unknowing victims in a giant, uncontrolled experiment with billions of humans functioning as the experimental animals. It’s making millions very sick. As a result of this toxic exposure and buildup, we’re developing “invisible illnesses” like fibromyalgia, arthritic disorders, chronic fatigue, lupus, scleroderma, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Gulf War syndrome, multiple skin disorders, a myriad of chemically-induced immune system disorders, and yes, even cancer.

    Future generations may look back upon this era with contempt for the indiscriminate way we’ve allowed toxic chemicals to pollute our world, erode our quality of life, and in general cause disease and death.

    A PHYSICIAN’S PERSPECTIVE
    Dr. Claudia Miller, Department of Family Practice, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, believes we are on the threshold of a new theory of disease— one that recognizes the impact of toxic chemicals. In a paper discussing chemical intolerance in Annals of New York Academy of Sciences, Miller wrote:

    “In the late 1800’s, physicians observed that certain illnesses spread from sick, feverish individuals to those contacting them, paving the way for the germ theory of disease. The germ theory served as a crude but elegant formulation that explained dozens of seemingly unrelated illnesses affecting literally every organ system.

    “Today, we are witnessing another medical anomaly—a unique pattern of illness involving chemically exposed people who subsequently report multi-system and new-onset chemical and food intolerances. These intolerances may be the hallmark for a new disease process, just as fever is a hallmark for infection.”

    Miller and other prominent scientists believe this new disease process is the key to the emergence of a totally new type of chemically related disorders and undiagnosed diseases. Disorders such as Gulf War syndrome, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, lupus, environmental illness, chemical sensitivities and multiple allergic response syndromes (MARS), are now believed to have a common denominator, toxic overload.

    POISONS WITHIN
    Toxic stress comes from more than the absorption of environmental chemicals. A wide range of potentially toxic substances are generated from processes at work within our body. When the natural mechanisms of detoxification malfunction, or when internally generated toxins are produced in excessive amounts faster than the ability of the organs to detoxify and neutralize, significant health disorders and disease result.

    For example, if a person does not have sufficient intake of vitamin B6, B12, or folic acid to meet their body’s specific demands, their cells are unable to properly metabolize and excrete the amino acid methionine—an important nutritional substance derived from protein digestion. When this occurs, a normally harmless amino acid is broken down into toxic homocysteine, a waste material that damages arteries and causes atherosclerosis.

    Even the processes within cells that generate energy from food molecules and oxygen result in the release of toxic free radicals — unstable molecules that have to be snuffed out by a complex system of dietary and internally generated antioxidants. If these complex antioxidant systems fail to perform properly, accelerated aging, disease and eventually death occurs.

    Toxins are also continuously generated from microbial activity in the digestive tract. Everything we eat is either absorbed into the body or it ends up in the colon where it is fermented by over 400 different species of bacteria and several kinds of yeast. Some of the fermentation by-products are harmless substances like lactic acid, but a wide variety of more toxic substances are also produced; ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, methane, butane, cadaverine, and putrescine—a few of the many microbial toxins generated in our own gut. Most of these toxic by-products remain in the gut and those that are absorbed are quickly neutralized by the liver. However, if unfriendly gut microbes overgrow, or if liver function is compromised, serious health problems occur.

    Many individuals living with chronic health problems suffer, in part, because of the condition commonly known as “leaky gut syndrome,” in other words, autointoxication, meaning they are being poisoned by the toxic substances within their body—the condition does not have to be acute for the person to manifest symptoms.

    This condition, technically known as increased intestinal permeability, occurs when the normally leak-proof lining of the small intestine becomes inflamed or damaged and tiny gaps open up between intestinal cells. In this condition, large molecules from partially digested food and microbes pass through the leaky gut and into the surrounding blood and lymph.

    When a person has leaky gut, every meal places an unhealthy load on their immune system, particularly their liver, resulting in an increase in overall body burden—often escalating into multiple allergic response syndromes (MARS™). Once this occurs, the allergic responses to food and the environment can escalate to multiple chemical sensitivities and even anaphylactic shock. As a recovered victim of leaky gut syndrome and MARS, I can attest to the life-threatening and life-altering challenges that a victim of these disorders endures. In order to achieve full recovery, complete life-style changes must be implemented. The best insurance against these disorders is knowledge. However, knowledge without action is just as deadly as no knowledge.

    BODY BURDEN—The Chemical Assault
    The human race is now contaminated with hundreds of synthetic chemicals, which were not found in our ancestors. Exposure in the womb to these contaminants can cause birth defects and affect our children’s future ability to reproduce and their susceptibility to diseases, including cancer. In some cases, developmental problems can result and affected children may never reach their full potential. Put simply, the integrity of the next generation is at stake. Protecting our children from the legacy of these chemicals is a major challenge and responsibility of modern society.

    CHEMICAL TRESPASS?— Pesticides in Our Bodies
    Many U.S. residents carry toxic pesticides in their bodies above government assessed “acceptable” levels. “Chemical Trespass: Pesticides in Our Bodies and Corporate Accountability,” makes public for the first time an analysis of pesticide-related data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a study of levels of chemicals in 9,282 people nationwide (2,644 of whom were tested for pesticides).

    Many of the pesticides found in the test subjects are linked to serious short- and long-term health effects including infertility, birth defects, learning disorders, childhood and adult cancers. Chemical Trespass finds that children, women and Mexican Americans shoulder the heaviest “pesticide body burden.” For example, children—the population most vulnerable to pesticides—are exposed to the highest levels of nerve-damaging organophosphorous (OP) pesticides. CDC data shows the average six year-old sampled is exposed to the OP pesticide chlorpyrifos (commonly known by the product name Dursban) at four times the level the EPA considers “acceptable” for a long-term exposure.

    Future articles will discuss specific challenges and the modifications necessary to live healthy in a toxic world through nutrition-based medicine employing pluralistic health principles, naturally.