Spinach has a high zinc content. |
Maybe there isn't a master mineral. Maybe all essential minerals are masters of health. I recently wrote about the magic of magnesium. But why are minerals in general so important? Is it just general, good maintenance? Maybe. Or is it that minerals are essential in digestion, like breaking down proteins? Maybe it's not the class of nutrients that's so important as how well any single nutrient interacts with our biology to produce desired outcomes.
For example, I recently read Bill Sardi's "Reassessment of Vitamin C Therapy and Cancer," published at his site and picked up by Lew Rockwell. What astonished me wasn't actually the benefits of Vitamin C or the benefits of Vitamin C therapy on cancer. What struck me was the study by Abram Hoffer.
Enter a forgotten investigator in the war against cancer — Abram Hoffer MD, a nutrition-minded psychiatrist based in Canada who was known for his use of high-dose niacin therapy to treat schizophrenia. Vitamin C therapy for cancer could easily be dismissed except for Dr. Hoffer’s strikingly successful use of oral vitamin C (12,000 mgs/day) to achieve prolonged survival times.
So Hoffer produced astounding results in his cancer therapy, but no third party ever tested or examined his results to find out why he was successful. And to show you just how successful he was, check out this chart:
Here is Dr. Hoffer’s 5-year survival data:
Oral Antioxidant Therapy & End-Stage Cancer
Abram Hoffer MD, Journal Orthomolecular Medicine, Volume 15, 2000
No. of patients treated/vitamin C: 441
No. of patients in control group (chemo, radiation): 54
SURVIVAL CONVENTIONAL CANCER TREATMENT [i.e., chemo-therapy]
Year 1: 28%
Year 2: 15%
Year 3: 15%
Year 4: 13%
Year 5: 11%
VITAMIN C TREATMENT*
Year 1: 73%
Year 2: 56%
Year 3: 48%
Year 4: 44%
Year 5: 39%*
Consisted of 12,000 mg oral vitamin C as ascorbic acid, mega-dose niacinamide, beta carotene, zinc.
What is equally astounding is that no one checked his work.
Steven Hickey and Hilary Roberts, researchers from Manchester, England, also report on Abram Hoffer’s exceptional results with oral vitamin C in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. [Journal Orthomolecular Medicine 2013] Reasons for the astounding effect of oral vitamin C were not explored, however.
Dr. Hoffer treated his patients with an array of other nutrients including zinc. Zinc is the key nutrient that primes T-cells in the thymus gland that shrinks with advancing age.
Shrinkage of the thymus gland, located below the chest plate (sternum) is progressive with advancing age. The thymus gland is responsible for activating T-cells that are essential for immune system maintenance. The thymus gland shrinks at a rate of about 3% per year till middle age and then 1% per year thereafter. [Frontiers Immunology 2013] There are no present therapies offered by physicians to regenerate the thymus gland even though they are widely documented and available.
Remarkably, zinc supplied to old mice facilitated a complete recovery of thymus gland function and regrowth of the organ with greater immune efficiency. Researchers conclude that age-related thymus gland shrinkage and immune system dysfunction are not intrinsic and irreversible and largely depend upon zinc adequacy. [International Journal Immunopharmacology 1995]
A recent study is instructive. Vitamin C, aspirin, and zinc were administered to laboratory rats given a chemical to induce colon cancer. Aspirin and vitamin C maintained normal colon cells in 87.5% of the animals whereas zinc showed a 100% reduction in tumor incidence. [Asian Pacific Journal Cancer Prevention 2013]
When vitamin K3 is combined with vitamin C therapy, cancer cells die by autoschizis – that is they are split and utterly destroyed. [Ultrastructural Pathology 2010]
The synergistic use of vitamin E as alpha tocopherol succinate and synthetically made vitamin K3 plus ascorbic acid is also proposed as a further enhancement of vitamin C cancer therapy. [PLoS One 2012]
Not surprisingly, the addition of quercetin to vitamin C + vitamin K was more effective in killing cancer cells than the two vitamins alone in a lab dish study. [Alternative Medicine Reviews 2010; British Journal Cancer 2010]
Zinc orotate is a chelated form of zinc that is more readily absorbed by the body than any other zinc supplement available. Manufacturers of it will usually boast about having this type, because they have good reason to. Zinc orotate passes through the membranes of cells easily, and it pulls the highest amounts of accompanying minerals into the cells, which leads to higher tissue concentrations of zinc and other beneficial nutrients
Given what I read on the internet, Sardi outstrips most in his details and exhaustive research, that exhaustive work to compare stories, and find out what was missed and why. Talk about dedication.
Five percent of your diet typically includes macro minerals and trace minerals. Macro minerals are minerals that you need in quantities greater than 100mg/day and make up about 1 percent of your total body weight. These include sodium, chloride, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and calcium. Trace minerals are elements that are needed is smaller amounts, 1-100mg/day by adults and are less than .01 percent of totalbody weight. These include Copper, Chromium, Fluoride, Iodine, Iron, Molybdenum, Manganese, Selenium, and Zinc. Trace Minerals are inorganic matter that cannot be destroyed by cooking or heat and are essential to the body for a variety of processes.
Researchers at Duke University Medical Center and chemists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology collaborated to study the effects of zinc on brain function. Scientists experimenting with mice used a chemical that binds with zinc to eliminate it from the brain of the test animals. They found that in the absence of the mineral, communications between neurons was significantly diminished and that zinc is vital for controlling the efficiency between nerve cells in the hippocampus.
For more than a half century, scientists have understood that high concentrations of zinc are deposited within nerve cells; called vesicles, they package the transmitters which enable the nerve cells to communicate. The highest concentrations of brain zinc are found among the neurons of the hippocampus that control the high functions of learning and memory.
SUPERIORLY ABSORBED FORMS OF SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRIENTS: VITAMINS, MINERALS, & TRACE MINERALS1. Zinc gluconate: Zinc methionine.
2. Inorganic selenium as selenite, selenite: Organically bound selenium in a natural full array of protein-bound forms (Seleno Excell®).
3. Iron as ferrous sulfate: Iron as carbonyl iron (Ferronyl).
4. Magnesium oxide: Magnesium chloride, carbonate, malate, glycinate, gluconate, threonate, others.
Zinc deficiency is associated with a low sperm count.
Zinc deficiency increases the prevalence of dental caries.
Zinc deficiency in the skin is associated with psoriasis and acne. Patients with these skin conditions are likely to have normal blood serum levels of zinc.
Zinc supplementation is associated with 14% reduction in preterm birth.
Zinc is only recently appreciated as an essential nutrient to prevent age-related bone loss, a.k.a, osteoporosis.
A skin rash condition (acrodermatitis enteropathica) which emanates from an inherited disorder of zinc absorption is resolved by zinc supplementation.Zinc carnosine is a remedy for H. pylori infection and gastritis.
Resolution of a leaky gut! That is news, incredible news.Crohn’s disease results in poor zinc absorption. Researchers successfully used 110 milligrams of zinc sulfate (providing 75 mg of elemental zinc) to quell recurrence of symptoms of Crohn’s disease (10 of 12 patients experienced resolution of their “leaky gut” problem).