BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, 1948: an excellent drama that shows behind the scenes how institutional bureaucracies exert diabolical control upon their hired staff.

The movie, Behind Closed Doors, 1948, starring Lucille Bremer and Richard Carlson is an excellent drama that shows behind the scenes how institutional bureaucracies exert diabolical control upon their hired staff.  What did Hannah Arendt say about Nazis?  "The banality of evil." As a friend of mine says of managers overseeing other employees, "People with $.69 worth of power are used to control and degrade their underlings."  The movie is a rare, brilliant piece.  Steven Torrey in the comments below the show notes writes "A taut drama in sixty-one minutes." It is an excellent look into the ghoulish jailers who control patients with drugs, bullying violence, and locked wards.  Wow, that almost describes to a tee the kind of control that local administrators exert on high school students in your own backyard.  Schools enjoy the unique privilege of being appointed the purported centers for higher education.  They are not.  That "higher education" has always been a joke, at least an inside joke.  But it is Salman Khan and the home-school movement who are undoing the liberal control on schools.  This is revolutionary, a peaceful regeneration of society toward peace, prosperity, and individual freedom.  It's happening now.  

The movie was released in 1948, three years after WWII.  So the audience for sure was primed by stories of Nazi atrocities while told how virtuous the communist state of the Soviet Union was.   I particularly enjoyed hearing, in the movie, the doctors offended by having their reputation impugned as if it were gold.  Fool's gold maybe.

Some folks might be incredulous. But recall the classic books in the field of psychiatry, a "science" that has effectively been declared a farce by some of the most brilliant minds in psychiatry, like Dr. Thomas Szasz.  See also this list of his articles.

There is Mass Murderers in White Coats: Psychiatric Genocide in Nazi Germany and the United States, Lenny Lapon, 1986. 

There is Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl, 1942. 

Dr. Ray Sahelian seems like a health-conscious, ethically-centered physician who does a pretty good job of assessing the true effects of supplements.  I like his site because his language is thoughtfully circumspect.  If he doesn't know the benefits of a particular supplement, he'll state as much.  And his recommendations seem cautious or at least contingent upon specifics.  That is rare for the internet.  Below is a sample question and answer on the supplement Benfotiamine.

QUESTION

Vitamin Supplement Little More Than 'Snake Oil,' Researcher Claims. Science Daily (2008)  — A popular vitamin supplement is being advertised with claims that are demonstrably untrue, as revealed by research published in the open access journal BMC Pharmacology. Benfotiamine is a synthetic derivative of thiamine (vitamin B1). It is marketed heavily as a dietary supplement using a selection of unsubstantiated, 'not-quite-medical' claims that tend to characterize this field. A large part of this campaign has been built around the belief that benfotiamine is lipid-soluble and, therefore, more physiologically active. Scientific research led by Dr Lucien Bettendorff of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology at the University of Liège, Belgium, has entirely disproved these claims. According to Lucien Bettendorff, "We suspect that those companies selling benfotiamine have poisoned much of the recent literature in an attempt to bestow it with properties that it does not have". Benfotiamine has been previously shown to prevent several diabetic complications in experimental animal models. The researchers carried out experiments in mice in which it was administered using several different techniques and the resulting levels of thiamine were measured in various parts of the body. Contrary to other claims about its solubility, the results show that it is only sparingly soluble in water under physiological conditions and cannot be dissolved in octanol or oils. As Lucien Bettendorff explains, "Benfotiamine is very often considered a 'lipid-soluble' thiamine precursor from the disulfide derivative family though it is neither lipid-soluble, nor a disulfide. Sometimes, it is considered to have more biological activity than thiamine disulfides, but our study shows that it does not even penetrate cell membranes, except in those cells containing an ecto-alkaline phosphatase. There is no evidence that benfotiamine would be more effective than other precursors as a therapeutic agent for complications of diabetes." Journal reference: Marie-Laure Volvert, Sandrine Seyen, Marie Piette, Brigitte Evrard, Marjorie Gangolf, Jean-Christophe Plumier and Lucien Bettendorff. Benfotiamine, a synthetic S-acyl thiamine derivative, has different mechanisms of action and a different pharmacological profile than lipid-soluble thiamine disulfide derivatives. BMC Pharmacology, 2008.     

ANSWER

As with many supplements or medications, it often takes many years of research from various centers to finally have a good understanding of whether the supplement or medication works or whether is is ineffective. We happen to be in the early stages in terms of benfotiamine research and it is not easy for me to predict the outcome.

Reverse Fatty Liver

The liver has 500 functions?  Never heard that before. 

It makes protein.  Controls blood sugars.  Controls detoxification.  It stores fat-soluble vitamins.  It makes certain hormones, growth hormone and Igf, and others.  It's a hub of health.  Thyroid uses the liver to convert T3 to convert to T4.

Folks with protruding guts have a fatty liver.  

How to heal it?  Consume bitter vegetables. You like spinach? That's bitter: eat spinach.

You like parsley? That's bitter: eat parsley too.

By the way, the same approach to reversing a fatty liver is the same for cleansing the liver--eat bitter green vegetables.  Radishes are good too.  I used to eat a lot of these as a kid.  Didn't like them so much then, but we'd add salt and that would make us happier.  

Ketone Bodies Protect the Brain

Fascinating interview on the value of living in high altitudes. Denver and Reno are two cities with high altitude. What are the benefits? Weight loss. Better recovery from injury.

Show notes:

Sustained exposure to hypobaric hypoxia results in cachexia. Muscle breakdown releases amino acids, whilst hepatic ketogenesis converts fatty acids and some amino acids into ketone bodies. These act as metabolic substrates, but also as metabolic modulators eliciting protective effects against hypoxic injury. In this video, Andrew J. Murray and Hugh E. Montgomery explain their hypothesis and propose that hypoxia-induced cachexia is protective.

Read the article here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10...

" . . . 95% of all tooth extractions result in a pathologic [bone] cavitation."

So, one, don't have your wisdom teeth extracted.  And two, don't get braces: orthodontists extract perfectly good teeth!!  Don't let them.  You need them for overall health. 

from Dr. Paul Genung's Holistic Dentistry in Seattle.

A cavitation is an unhealed hole in the jawbone caused by an extracted tooth. Since wisdom teeth are the most commonly extracted teeth, cavitations are most frequently found in the wisdom tooth sites. Please see the graphic and photo at the right to get a glimpse of what may be in your mouth and the effects it is having. The photo and diagram demonstrate the destructive and pathologic consequence of a routine tooth extraction. Dentists are taught in dental school that once they pull a tooth, the patient’s body heals the resulting hole in the jawbone. However, approximately 95% of all tooth extractions result in a pathologic defect called a cavitation. The tooth is attached to the jawbone by a periodontal ligament which is comprised of “jillions” of microscopic fibers. One end of each fiber is attached to the jawbone and the other end of the fiber is attached to the tooth root. When a tooth is extracted, the fibers break midway between the root and the bone. This leaves the socket (the area where the root was anchored in the bone) coated with periodontal ligament fibers. There are specialized cells in the bone called osteoblasts. Osteoblasts make new bone. The word “osteoblast” means bone former. They are active during growth, repair and maintenance. However, the periodontal ligament prevents the osteoblasts from filling in the tooth socket with bone since the periodontal ligament fibers lining the socket act as a barrier beyond which the osteoblasts cannot form bone. In other words, an osteoblast “sees” a tooth when it “sees” periodontal ligament fibers. Since there are billions of bacteria in the mouth, they easily get into the open tooth socket. Since the bone is unable to fill in the defect of the socket, the newly formed “cavitation” is now infected. Since there is no blood supply to the “cavitation” it is called “ischemic” or “avascular” (without a blood supply). This results in necrosis (tissue death). Hence we call a cavitation an unhealed, chronically infected, avascular, necrotic hole in the bone. The defect acts to an acupuncture meridian the same way a dead tooth (or root canal tooth) acts. It causes an interference field on the meridian which can impair the function and health of other tissues, organs and structures on the meridian. Significantly, the bacteria in the cavitation also produce the same deadly toxins that are produced by the bacteria in root canals (see Root Canals). These toxins are thio-ethers (most toxic organic substance known to man), thio-ethanols, and mercaptans. They have been found in the tumors in women with breast cancer.

VITAMIN C: YOUR INVISIBLE TOOTHBRUSH

Dr. Emmanuel Cheraskin presents evidence that serum vitamin C levels are just as important as brushing for the prevention of tooth decay.

NATURAL VERSUS SYNTHETIC VITAMIN C

By Thomas Cowan, MD

This is remarkable:

It is common these days to use the terms vitamin C interchangeably with ascorbic acid. In fact, there are numerous differences between these two very distinct biological entities. Vitamin C, found in numerous plant and animal foods, is a necessary nutrient for humans in that we make none of our own vitamin C. Natural vitamin C is a complex mixture of at least 9 or 10 distinct molecular entities. These include ascorbic acid (the preservative part of the complex), tyrosinase (an enzyme), rutin, bioflavenoids, copper, manganese, and other enzymes and minerals. Each of these compounds has a synergistic effect with the other substances, the end result being a potent and complicated compound that has far-reaching biological effects. Some of these effects include reducing capillary fragility (thus reducing the tendency to bruising or bleeding), improving the integrity of the collagen fibers, binding and thereby neutralizing histamine (lessening allergies), and many other vital functions. Ascorbic acid has only one effect, that is anti-oxidation. While many nutritionists and physicians sing the praises of anti-oxidants in our diet, the fact is that excessive anti-oxidation inhibits our cellular mechanisms from digesting and disposing of unwanted tissue. This is perhaps why the latest studies on excessive use of ascorbic acid show that it may contribute to the development of coronary artery disease. This situation would never arise from the use of the whole vitamin C complex as found in natural foods.  

 You might find this list fascinating.