Dr. Arturo M. Volpe

A recent study analyzed tissue samples taken by dart gun from 1,000 whales living in remote areas of the globe. Results showed dangerously elevated levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury, and titanium, all of them toxic metals. Though chromium is a nutrient humans (and presumably whales) need, the amount found in the whales was excessive and therefore toxic.

Tissue samples are the ultimate proof when it comes to identifying toxic metals. However, obtaining them is a surgical procedure that is not performed routinely in humans. Blood and urine tests are not reliable because toxins are stored in tissues, not in body fluids. Because of these limitations I often recommend hair analysis; it’s not as good as tissue but better than blood.

Very often children’s hair reports show a buildup of the very same metals found in the whales. Some parents are surprised and wonder where these toxins could be coming from. The reality is that they are everywhere and they are causing the very problems for which parents take their children to see me, including ADHD, mood problems, and so on. A solution is to start a sensible detoxification program. It’s not going to produce immediate results, but can help your child heal over time.

To read more about the study go here: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=11003954. To find out about detoxification programs read the new Far Infrared Sauna and QRS pages on my website and other articles I have written on the topic which can be found in my newsletter archives.

Tags: Chemicals & Environmental Issues, Detoxification
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Robert F. Cathcart, MD, of Los Altos (CA), has treated CFIDS since the illness was first identified in the 1970’s. He believes that the condition is a result of mitochondrial dysfunction caused by viruses, toxins, genetic susceptibility, or a combination of the above. Mitochondria is the cell component in which energy is produced. Today it is theorized that varying degrees of mitochondrial dysfunction can also be involved in causing autism, some cases of ADHD, and possibly many other modern-day chronic illnesses, including allergies.

Dr. Cathcart points out that when the mitochoindria is damaged it is not able to recycle vitamin C as it normally would. This means that even large doses of vitamin C are rapidly wasted leaving the body deficient in this vitamin and vulnerable to free radical damage.  His solution is to slowly build up the dose of vitamin C until people take the highest amount they can tolerate before developing diarrhea, which is what too much vitamin C will cause. This is called taking vitamin C to “bowel tolerance”.

Dr. Cathcart comments that high-dose vitamin C is not a cure for CFIDS but that it helps ameliorate the condition more than other treatments, including drugs costing thousands of dollars (http://www.orthomed.com/titrate.htm).

Tags: Chronic Fatigue
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According to a newly released study pregnant women taking 4,000 units of vitamin D daily cut their risk of preterm labor, preterm delivery, and infections by more than half. This dose of vitamin D is ten times greater what was recommended previously. Most prenatal multivitamins only contain 400 units of vitamin D, a dose now understood to be insufficient.

Prior to this study, higher doses of vitamin D had already been shown to lower the risk of infection, strengthen the immune system, reduce the risk of several types of cancer, and promote healthy nervous system development in fetuses.

When selecting the type of vitamin D you take I recommend that you choose vitamin D3, which is the natural form of this vitamin, and avoid the synthetic vitamin D2.

Because the body makes most of its vitamin D from the sun, nutritional needs of this vitamin vary depending on how much time we spend in the sun, what latitude we live in, the color of our skin and, most importantly, whether we use sunscreen, which inhibits vitamin D formation.

Recent research has shown that with regular sun exposure blood levels of vitamin D stabilize around 70-100 ng/ml, a level now considered optimal. For the majority of Americans blood levels of vitamin D are 30 or lower. If you’d like to find out where your levels stand and you are my patient let me know, as this can be found through a simple blood test.  If you are not my patient you can ask your doctor to run a simple and inexpensive blood test called 25-hydroxy-vitamin D, which is the correct way to assess vitamin D levels.

Read more about the study here: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/health/Vitamin%20halves%20risk%20preterm%20delivery%20study/2974828/story.html

Tags: Pregnancy, Vitamin D
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The first of these studies shows a link between ADHD and exposure to organophosphate pesticides (OPP). It measured levels of OPP in the urine of more than 1,000 children. Results showed that the higher the concentration of OPP, the more likely it was for children to have a diagnosis of ADHD. Exposure to organophosphate pesticides is common in the US and it is likely that these chemicals interact with genes to trigger ADHD in some children and not in others (Pediatrics, 2010;125:e1270-e1277).

The second and third studies give us clues as to what we can do to help children with ADHD without resorting to drugs. As researchers in one of the studies put it “the short-term efficacy of stimulant medications is well-established… however, mood becomes unstable at higher doses”. In my experience higher doses of these drugs are inevitable as these medications become progressively less effective over periods of several years.

One study followed a group of children for a full year, something rarely done in medication research. It was a randomized, double-blind multi-center study performed in several European countries. It concluded that the natural amino acid Acetyl-l-carnitine at a dose of 20-50 mg per Kg of body weight per day “represents a safe alternative to the use of stimulant drugs for the treatment of ADHD” (Am J Med Genet A, 2008 Apr 1;146(7):803-12).

The other study found that children diagnosed with ADHD taking the natural herbal supplement Ginkgo biloba “improved significantly overall and in hyperactivity, inattention, and immaturity factors” (Phytother Res. 2010 Jan;23(1):26-27).

Tags: ADD/ADHD
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Even suggesting this would have seemed outrageous until just recently, although many of us had noticed that as the use of sunscreens spread rates of skin cancer were going up, not down.

A recent study is now suggesting that a common ingredient in sunscreen could be responsible for higher skin cancer rates. The ingredient is retinyl palmitate, a synthetic form of vitamin A included in most sunscreens as an antioxidant that slows skin aging. However, it now seems that when exposed to sunrays this chemical accelerates the formation of cancerous tumors in the skin.

In addition, other ingredients in sunscreens raise concerns and require more study. One of these is the chemical oxybenzone because it has been shown to penetrate the skin and enter the bloodstream where even at very low concentrations it disrupts hormone function.

Read about the study here: http://www.aolnews.com/health/article/study-many-sunscreens-may-be-accelerating-cancer/19488158.

Tags: Sunscreens
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A series of studies performed at the Eppley institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases in 2008 shed new light on the possible causes of breast cancer and what can be done to lower the risk of developing this disease.

It is known that estrogen, whether produced in the body or taken as a supplement, is carried through the bloodstream to the liver where it is gradually broken down and eventually eliminated. In this process, the liver releases a variety of estrogen breakdown products, some of which are harmless or even protective of good health, and others that are highly toxic and can cause cancer.

Although genetics also play a part in this, exposure to a variety of chemicals triggers the liver to overproduce toxic forms of estrogen. One of the studies showed that these toxic estrogen breakdown products are found in significantly higher concentrations in women who have breast cancer or who are at high risk of developing it (Int J Cancer, 2008 May 1;122(9):1949-57).

Two other studies show that the antioxidants N-Acetylcysteine (NAC) and Resveratrol (RES) have a balancing effect on liver function, and that this results in an improved ratio of healthy forms of estrogen to cancer-causing ones (J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol, 2008 Mar;109(1-2):22-30, Free Radic Biol Med, 2008 Apr 8).

Both NAC and RES have been shown to increase the liver’s production of glutathione, a protein the liver needs to eliminate toxins from the body. In today’s environment liver stores of glutathione can become depleted leaving us at greater risk for a variety of adverse health events, not just breast cancer. Therefore I feel that NAC or RES (or both) should be a part of everybody’s “survival kit” in this day and age.

Tags: Cancer, Hormone Replacement Therapy
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