Prolotherapy Treats Low Back Pain

 A little about Dr. Thomas Dorman, MD.

Thomas Dorman, M.D., of the Paracelsus Clinic in Federal Way, Washington, died unexpectedly on March 10, 2009, my birthday. He was 72. A most articulate individualist and patriot, Tom was born in British Kenya, where his father was a coffee merchant and during WWII helped supply travel documents for Jews escaping the Nazis. When communist Jomo Kenyatta came to power, the family moved to Israel, where Tom attended high school and later served in a parachute regiment during the 1967 war. Tom went to college in Liverpool and medical school in Edinburgh, and practiced in Canada before moving to America.

He had a newsletter, called Fact, Fiction and Fraud in Modern Medicine.  Unable to find his newsletters archived except for one or two.  Here's one on colonics.   

What follows are my notes from the interview below: 

1837, the idea of provoking scarring to strengthen tissue arose from a famous Parisian surgeon named Valpo.  This was taken over to America in the 1920s and 1930s.  The first article on prolotherapy, then called sclero -therapy, was published in 1936 by Earl Gedney of Philadelphia.  Learned by the Osteopaths.  Came into the medical arena in the 1950s by George Hacket who coined prolotherapy: Growth and treatment, a positive concept.   

h/t Lew Rockwell

He knew how to treat musculoskeletal conditions.  He learned too that

It has to do with nutrition.  His practice is entirely holistic.  He uses nutrition and prolotherapy.  

Who is a candidate?  He doesn't like the word candidate.  The people who benefit are people who've not benefitted from chiropractors.  He loves chiropractors.  Shocking that the medical industry isn't interested in this. 

Ask a physician what a pelvis does and the typical answer is that it's a birth canal and it's a device for hanging on muscles and ligaments.  That's a wrong answer.  

The right answer is the pelvis is a mechanical transducer of the forces of locomotion.  The human being when healthy is more efficient than any other creature, much more efficient than a horse or a dog or . . . .  We learned from the mechanics of he pelvis why it is that people are subject to this.  Typical scenario is a person who has a fall sometime later his back goes out by which he means his sudden accession/ascension pain from an unexpected movement he's very often deformed in posture and in severe pain that can be corrected manually.  But when it keep recurring, the ligaments are weakened and by prolotherapy we provoke restrengthening.  This is how these people are cured.  People can be turned around so that people's back won't go out anymore?  Absolutely. 

Cure back pain?  That's what he means.  9 out of 10 people when diagnosed are either cured or 70% improved.  These numbers are confirmed time and again.  Functionally back to normal with nominal pain.  

Typical

8 treatments cure a very large man after 2 months.  He'd been a delivery man and he was able to go back to work.  The guy was big and gave Dr. Dorman a very big hug.  It was embarrassing.  The man, filled with gratitude, was crying.

UPDATE:  There was a follow-up to Lew's post from Dr. Gary North here:

Writes Gary North:

Lew:

I sent my wife to Dornam in 2000. She was having terrible hip pain. He cured her through one weekly injection for ten weeks.

The same injections were used by another physician in 1983 to help her with her almost immobile arm.  They also helped me with my lower back pain 30 years ago.

The simple treatment was developed by Dr. Milne Ongley of Australia, who also treated my wife in 1983.  The AMA did not approve.  No more back surgeries! He is still treating patients In Mexico.

I find this stuff fascinating. 

VITAMIN B3, NIACIN

"One of the most potent forms of vitamin B3 stops the aging process of organs"

Having grown up active and sport-minded, looking to drugs or medicines to enhance one's ability was the greatest offense to tenacity and talent I'd ever known. And though into middle age, I can still bring a game of basketball even to youngsters; I am grateful, however, to the value of restorative medicine that comes in a pill, er, capsule.  Vitamin E is remarkable for wound healing.  I witnessed this first-hand with a cut on the back of my hand.  I cut open the E capsule and squeezed its contents onto my hand and in two days the wound had almost healed.  Incredible.  Truly.  

Then I learned of E's internal benefits.  It improves circulation and heals vessels and organs internally.  To what degree, how much is needed, whether it repairs all organs and vessels is hard to know . . . at least for me since I am no doctor. 

Then I leaned of B17's anti-cancer effects.  

Then I learned of zinc's ability to regrow the Thymus, the master gland of our immunity that sits right behind the heart.  You can learn all sorts of things on the internet!

Now I read about the power of B3.  What can it do?  Stop organs from aging.  Seriously.  What doses, what form of B3 is required has yet to be known, but I would definitely give this a try at least. 

HealthySustainableLiving has this to say: 

One of the most potent forms of vitamin B3 stops the aging process of organs and can only be described as restorative. Nicotinamide riboside is naturally produced in our bodies and studies continue to validate its effectiveness in preventing disease and regenerating cells.

When I read that I thought, okay, prove it.  I've heard terrific things about Nitric Oxide too as well as Benfotiamine.  Anytime distinctions are made concerning prevailing wisdom, either to debunk or illuminate I am all for. HealthySustainableLiving offers this in its review of the study.   

B3 is one of eight B vitamins. It is also known as niacin (nicotinic acid) and has 2 other forms, niacinamide (nicotinamide) and inositol hexanicotinate, which have different effects from niacin.

B Vitamins are good for us.  We all know this.  But what forms of B do we get on a daily basis through our food or supplement industry?  Do you know?  Not everyone does.  

An earlier study reviewed at Cell.com involved researchers at Harvard University and the University of NSW, Sydney. Published in the scientific journal Cell, the landmark paper was one of the first to provide valuable insights into Nicotinamide's brain performance and anti-aging.

Okay, now that's promising.  Nicotinamide provides enhanced brain function as well as anti-aging abilities.  Nicotinamide riboside is a chemical precursor to B3.  

Nicotinamide riboside is naturally produced in our bodies. It’s a chemical compound which acts as a precursor to vitamin B3.

WHY THE FUSS OVER NICOTINAMIDE RIBOSIDE?

Here's why.  

Nicotinamide riboside has been linked to a number of surprising and powerful benefits. Foods high in Nicotinamide include Brewer's Yeast, Sunflower Seeds, Raw Peanuts and Beets. Interestingly Beet Juice & Yeast have been shown to have remarkable cancer killing attributes. Possibly due to the sugars in the beets causing a beneficial form of fermentation to occur with the B vitamins in the Brewer's Yeast.

Read the rest of the article below.

Now a team of researchers at EPFL's Laboratory of Integrated Systems Physiology (LISP), headed by Johan Auwerx, has unveiled even more of its secrets. An article written by Hongbo Zhang, a PhD student on the team, published in Science and describes the positive effects of NR on the functioning of stem cells. These effects can only be described as restorative.

As mice, like all mammals, age, the regenerative capacity of certain organs (such as the liver and kidneys) and muscles (including the heart) diminishes. Their ability to repair them following an injury is also affected. This leads to many of the disorders typical of aging.

Mitochondria: also useful in stem cells

Hongbo Zhang wanted to understand how the regeneration process deteriorated with age. To do so, he teamed up with colleagues from ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and universities in Canada and Brazil. Through the use of several markers, he was able to identify the molecular chain that regulates how mitochondria -- the "powerhouse" of the cell -- function and how they change with age. The role that mitochondria play in metabolism has already been amply demonstrated, "but we were able to show for the first time that their ability to function properly was important for stem cells," said Auwerx.

Under normal conditions, these stem cells, reacting to signals sent by the body, regenerate damaged organs by producing new specific cells. At least in young bodies. "We demonstrated that fatigue in stem cells was one of the main causes of poor regeneration or even degeneration in certain tissues or organs," said Hongbo Zhang.

This is why the researchers wanted to "revitalize" stem cells in the muscles of elderly mice. And they did so by precisely targeting the molecules that help the mitochondria to function properly. "We gave nicotinamide riboside to 2-year-old mice, which is an advanced age for them," said the researcher. "This substance, which is close to vitamin B3, is a precursor of NAD+, a molecule that plays a key role in mitochondrial activity. And our results are extremely promising: muscular regeneration is much better in mice that received NR, and they lived longer than the mice that didn't get it."

Scientists have long used NAD+ as a powerful anti-aging tool. While trying to find a cure for aging, scientists increased the levels of NAD+ within the mitochondria. The mitochondria responded by increasing their performance and energy, which effectively neutralizes the effects of aging.

Specifically, nicotinamide riboside effectively delays early- and late-stage disease progression, by robustly inducing mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle and brown adipose tissue, preventing mitochondrial ultrastructure abnormalities and [mitochondrial DNA] deletion formation.

A breakthrough for regenerative medicine

Parallel studies have revealed a comparable effect on stem cells of the brain and skin. "This work could have very important implications in the field of regenerative medicine," said Auwerx. "We are not talking about introducing foreign substances into the body but rather restoring the body's ability to repair itself with a product that can be taken with food." This work on the aging process also has potential for treating diseases that can affect--and be fatal--in young people, like muscular dystrophy (myopathy).

So far, no negative side effects have been observed following the use of NR, even at high doses. But caution remains the byword when it comes to this elixir of youth: it appears to boost the functioning of all cells, which could include pathological ones. Further in-depth studies are required.

Further reading here and here.

"The free market is a system of cost-cutting through mass production."

from Gary North . . .

 

The free market is a system of cost-cutting through mass production. Profits rise as costs fall and prices fall. The difference is volume.

The most famous model is Henry Ford's auto assembly system. Now it has come to medicine a century after it came to auto manufacturing.

A friend of mine had knee replacement surgery three years ago. 

The physician said it would take 81 minutes. It did . . . exactly. That means that the operation was capable of being mass produced. One man did five a day.

[One doctor completed five gall bladder surgeries a day.] Each surgery cost the patients many thousands of dollars.

Anything this routine can be routinized even more.

This is coming to a hospital near you. Medicare will force it by cutting payments to physicians for routine surgery. Heart bypass surgery is routine.

After about 20 years of assembly line surgery will come the next step: robots--just like in the auto industry. It may not take that long.

New Facial Bones In 12 Weeks
What this means it's hard to tell, but it looks like jaw, nose, and facial bones can be created from your fat tissue.  Promising I suppose.    

Ora Burger is a representative with the Israeli firm, Bonus BioGroup. This is essentially a press release on their new findings.  No word on when it will be available, to whom, at what price, or at what levels of efficiency. Their experimental trials show that their product can regenerate facial bones.  Does that mean all bones of the face? Good question.  That certainly was an implication, but we'll have to wait and see.  The raw material for the bone is extracted from a patient's fat tissue.  A full, whole bone is created in 12 weeks after embedding the fat tissue into a solution, a bone that is strong and hard and functional.  A longer study into extremity bones is now planned.  So there's hope.  Always a long ways off I guess for people who could benefit.

Apples Keep Tumors Away

Apples have quercetin in them.  Onions have more quercetin and fewer sugars, which might make onions a better food.  But hold on. Check out this Bill Sardi brief on the health benefits of apples.  

Yes, an apple a day keeps the tumors away, so says a recent study.  [Daily Mail UK Sept 28, 2016; Public Health Nutrition Oct 2016]  And the health benefits of apples don’t stop there.  Apple peel provide indigestible components in the upper digestive tract that reach the large intestine intact and are then converted by gut bacteria to active compounds that reduce risk for chronic diseases.  [Nutrients May 2015] Apple extracts have been demonstrated to promote endogenous stem cell regeneration. [Nutrition Research Sept 2016] Apple peel polyphenols are therapeutic for inflammatory bowel disease. [Clinical Science Sept 14, 2016]  Apple pectin, available as a dietary supplement, produces a profound healthy effect upon obese lab rats. [Biomedical Pharmacotherapy Aug 23, 2016]  Apple peel powder has been shown to improve joint function in a human study. [Journal Medicinal Food Nov 2014]

My favorite apples are probably Fuji Apples, but I also like Granny Smith Apples.  Any apple with fewer sugars are the ones I like.  I once had a fantastic apple from Oak Glen in the hills over Yucaipa.