However, these breast cancer walks are bull. Women have walked the globe 10 times and no advancement. Why? Cancer is a business - a $105 billion business. It employs hundreds of thousands of people.

Gina Kolata got it right. The Cancer Project and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) do have it right. Diet, nutrition, no meat, no chemicals on the lady will do more to prevent cancer than any information out of the $105 billion spent. The Cancer Project and PCRM do not get the publicity they deserve, because it will put the $105 billion cancer research out of business.

Visit www.infinitehealthresources.com to learn more about the healthy lifestyle and view the thousands of articles by The Cancer Project, PCRM, Organic Consumers Association and many, many more.

Thomas Affatato
Infinite Health Resources

Please Read On

Playing It Safe in Cancer Research

Among the recent research grants awarded by the National Cancer Institute is one for a study asking whether people who are especially responsive to good-tasting food have the most difficulty staying on a diet. Another study will assess a Web-based program that encourages families to choose more healthful foods.

Many other grants involve biological research unlikely to break new ground. For example, one project asks whether a laboratory discovery involving colon cancer also applies to breast cancer. But even if it does apply, there is no treatment yet that exploits it.

The cancer institute has spent $105 billion since President Richard M. Nixon declared war on the disease in 1971. The American Cancer Society, the largest private financer of cancer research, has spent about $3.4 billion on research grants since 1946.

Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped, with only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.

One major impediment, scientists agree, is the grant system itself. It has become a sort of jobs program, a way to keep research laboratories going year after year with the understanding that the focus will be on small projects unlikely to take significant steps toward curing cancer.

&ldquo These grants are not silly, but they are only likely to produce incremental progress,&rdquo said Dr. Robert C. Young, chancellor at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia and chairman of the Board of Scientific Advisors, an independent group that makes recommendations to the cancer institute.

The institute's reviewers choose such projects because, with too little money to finance most proposals, they are timid about taking chances on ones that might not succeed. The problem, Dr. Young and others say, is that projects that could make a major difference in cancer prevention and treatment are all too often crowded out because they are too uncertain. In fact, it has become lore among cancer researchers that some game-changing discoveries involved projects deemed too unlikely to succeed and were therefore denied federal grants, forcing researchers to struggle mightily to continue.

Take one transformative drug, for breast cancer. It was based on a discovery by Dr. Dennis Slamon of the University of California, Los Angeles, that very aggressive breast cancers often have multiple copies of a particular protein, HER-2. That led to the development of herceptin, which blocks HER-2.

Now women with excess HER-2 proteins, who once had the worst breast cancer prognoses, have prognoses that are among the best. But when Dr. Slamon wanted to start this research, his grant was turned down. He succeeded only after the grateful wife of a patient helped him get money from Revlon, the cosmetics company.

Yet studies like the one on tasty food are financed. That study, which received a grant of $200,000 over two years, is based on the idea that since obesity is associated with an increased risk of cancer, understanding why people have trouble losing weight could lead to better weight control methods, which could lead to less obesity, which could lead to less cancer.

&ldquo It was the first grant I ever submitted, and it was funded on the first try,&rdquo said the principal investigator, Bradley M. Appelhans, an assistant professor of basic medical sciences and psychology at the University of Arizona. Dr. Appelhans said he realized it would hardly cure cancer, but hoped that &ldquo it will provide knowledge that will incrementally contribute to more effective cancer prevention strategies.&rdquo

Even top federal cancer officials say the system needs to be changed.

&ldquo We have a system that works over all pretty well, and is very good at ruling out bad things &mdash we don't fund bad research,&rdquo said Dr. Raynard S. Kington, acting director of the National Institutes of Health, which includes the cancer institute. &ldquo But given that, we also recognize that the system probably provides disincentives to funding really transformative research.&rdquo

The private American Cancer Society follows a similarly cautious path. Last year, it awarded $124 million in new research grants, with some money coming from large donors but most from events like walkathons and memorial donations.

Dr. Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer at the cancer society, said the whole cancer research effort remained too cautious.

&ldquo The problem in science is that the way you get ahead is by staying within narrow parameters and doing what other people are doing,&rdquo Dr. Brawley said. &ldquo No one wants to fund wild new ideas.&rdquo

He added that the problem of getting money for imaginative but chancy proposals had worsened in recent years. There are more scientists seeking grants &mdash they surged into the field in the 1990s when the National Institutes of Health budget doubled before plunging again.

That makes many researchers, who need grants not just to run their labs but also sometimes to keep their faculty positions, even more cautious in the grant proposals they submit. And grant review committees become more wary about giving scarce money to speculative proposals.

Philanthropies, which helped some researchers try outside-the-box ideas, are now having financial problems. And advances in technology have made research more expensive.

&ldquo Scientists don't like talking about it publicly,&rdquo because they worry that their remarks will be viewed as lashing out at the health institutes, which supports them, said Dr. Richard D. Klausner, a former director of the National Cancer Institute.

But, Dr. Klausner added: &ldquo There is no conversation that I have ever had about the grant system that doesn't have an incredible sense of consensus that it is not working. That is a terrible wasted opportunity for the scientists, patients, the nation and the world.&rdquo

A Big Idea without a Backer

For 25 years, Eileen K. Jaffe received federal grants to run her lab. As a senior scientist at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, with a long list of published papers in prestigious journals, she is a respected, established researcher.

Then Dr. Jaffe stumbled upon results that went against textbook explanations, suggesting that it might be possible to find an entirely new class of drugs that could disable proteins that fuel cancer cells. Now she wants to find chemicals that might be developed into such drugs.

But her grant proposal was rejected out of hand by the institutes of health, not even discussed by a review panel. She had no preliminary data showing that the idea was likely to work, something reviewers always want to see, and the idea was just too unprecedented.

Dr. Jaffe epitomizes the scientist who realizes that if she were to single-mindedly pursue her unorthodox idea, her &ldquo career may be ruined in the process,&rdquo in the words of Dr. Brawley of the American Cancer Society.

Dr. Jaffe is just conceiving her project it is much too soon to know whether it will result in a revolutionary drug. And even if she does find potential new drugs, it is not clear that they will be effective. Most new ideas are difficult to prove, and most potential new drugs fail.

So Dr. Jaffe was not entirely surprised when her grant application to look for such cancer drugs was summarily rejected.

&ldquo They said I don't have preliminary results,&rdquo she said. &ldquo Of course I don't. I need the grant money to get them.&rdquo

Dr. Young, chancellor at Fox Chase, said Dr. Jaffe's situation showed why people with bold new ideas often just give up.

&ldquo You can't prove it will work in advance,&rdquo he said. &ldquo If you could, it wouldn't be a high-risk idea.&rdquo

It is a long haul, Dr. Jaffe knows. And she has already had to downsize her lab. But, she said, she will persist.

Angels outside Government

At the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Dr. Ewa T. Sicinska knew she would have a similar problem with her research. She wanted to grow human cancers in mice. Unlike Dr. Jaffe, though, Dr. Sicinska did not even apply for government money.

It is not that the project was unimportant.

&ldquo Rather than have to start a human clinical trial to test new drugs, we want to test them first in mice with real human tumors,&rdquo said Dr. George D. Demetri, who leads the research group supporting Dr. Sicinska.

Researchers have studied mouse cancers but, they acknowledge, they are just not the same as human cancers &mdash they are much easier to treat, and drugs that cure mice often do nothing in people. So, over the years, scientists have tried to implant human cancer cells in mice, but with little success.

&ldquo Everyone told us that if you take tumors out of patients and put them in mice, they don't grow,&rdquo Dr. Demetri said. The tumor cells usually were put in a plastic dish before being implanted in mice. &ldquo We said &mdash wait a minute. The cells are not growing in the plastic dish. They probably are dying. What if we bypass the dish?'&rdquo

With that idea in mind, Dr. Demetri, convinced it was too speculative to get federal money, tapped an unusual source, the Ludwig Fund. Endowed by Daniel K. Ludwig, one of the world's richest men in the 1960s and 1970s, the fund supports unfettered cancer research at six medical centers in the United States, including Dana-Farber, to be used at the institutes' discretion. That put Dr. Sicinska in a very different position from that of Dr. Jaffe. She could try something chancy without a grant.

Dr. Sicinska used a quarter of a million dollars of Ludwig money for this project, buying mice without immune systems, which meant they could not reject human tumors, and housing them in a germ-free basement lab. She spent months learning to implant tumors in the mice and enlisted geneticists to study the implanted tumors, making sure they did not mutate beyond recognition.

She spends her days in the lab, using a miniature ultrasound machine to scan the mice, hairless creatures with prominent ears. Four types of sarcomas &mdash cancers of fat, muscle or bone &mdash are growing in them and look genetically identical to the tumors removed from patients.

Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, former director of the National Institutes of Health, said he was not sure that a grant for the project would have been turned down. The N.I.H., he said, does finance research on mouse models for human cancer.

But Dr. Demetri said he did not apply &ldquo because we have lots of experience in what's fundable.&rdquo His mouse work, he said, is exploratory, and he cannot predict what he will find or when. He certainly could not lay out a road map of what he would do and promise results in a few years.

Studies with a Different Goal

Researchers like Dr. Appelhans, who is studying weight control and tasty foods, do not expect to change the outlook for cancer patients anytime soon. But, they say, that does not mean their work is unimportant.

Dr. Appelhans will study 85 overweight or obese women, measuring how much the tastes and textures of food drive their eating. Then they will be given a weight loss diet and nutritional counseling. Dr. Appelhans will ask whether those who are most tempted by the tastes and textures also have the most trouble following the diet.

As for the grant to assess a Web-based program to improve food choices, it is predicated on studies indicating that what people eat in childhood and adolescence may have an impact on cancer risk in middle and old age, said the grant recipient, Karen Weber Cullen, associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. Some studies have found that people who reported having eaten fruits and vegetables when they were younger and maintaining a healthy weight were less likely to have cancer.

Of course, it would not be feasible to follow participants for 30 or 40 years to see if their cancer risk was altered, Dr. Cullen noted. But, she added, &ldquo We try to achieve improvements in diet and physical activity behaviors that become permanent and will make a difference in later years.&rdquo

In the study asking whether a molecular pathway that spurs the growth of colon cancer cells also encourages the growth of breast cancer cells, the principal investigator ultimately wants to find a safe drug to prevent breast cancer. She received a typical-size grant of a little more than $1 million for the five-year study.

The plan, said the investigator, Louise R. Howe, an associate research professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, is first to confirm her hypothesis about the pathway in breast cancer cells. But even if it is correct, the much harder research would lie ahead because no drugs exist to block the pathway, and even if they did, there are no assurances that they would be safe.

Dr. Howe said she hoped that she would find such drugs, or that companies would. Then she wants to develop a way to selectively deliver the drugs to precancerous breast cells. If it all works and the treatment is safe, women with precancerous conditions could avoid developing cancer.

Dr. Howe has reviewed grants for the cancer institute herself, she said, and realizes that, among other things, those that get financed must have &ldquo a novel hypothesis that is credible based on what we know already.&rdquo

Trying to Change the System

The National Institutes of Health has started &ldquo pilot experiments&rdquo to see if there is a better way of getting financing for innovative projects, its acting director, Dr. Kington, said.

They include &ldquo pioneer awards,&rdquo begun in 2004 for &ldquo ideas that have the potential for high impact but may be too novel, span too diverse a range of disciplines or be at a stage too early to fare well in the traditional peer review process.&rdquo But only 3 percent to 5 percent of the applicants get funded. Now the institutes have decided to set aside up to $25 million for &ldquo transformative R01 grants,&rdquo described as &ldquo proposing exceptionally innovative, high risk, original and/or unconventional research with the potential to create or overturn fundamental paradigms.&rdquo

About 700 proposals have come in, but only a small number are expected to be financed, according to Dr. Keith R. Yamamoto, a molecular biologist and executive vice dean of the school of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and co-chairman of the committee that reviewed the proposals last week.

&ldquo From reading the applications so far, there are really some fantastic things,&rdquo Dr. Yamamoto said.

There also is new money from the federal economic stimulus package passed by Congress, which gives the National Institutes of Health $200 million for &ldquo challenge grants&rdquo lasting two years or less.

But the N.I.H. has received about 21,000 applications for 200 challenge grants, and researchers who have applied concede there is not much hope.

&ldquo I did submit one of these challenge grants recently, like the rest of the lemmings,&rdquo said Dr. Chi Dang, professor of medicine, cell biology, oncology and pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. But, he added, &ldquo There are many, many more applications than slots.&rdquo

Some experienced scientists have found a way to offset the problem somewhat. They do chancy experiments by siphoning money from their grants.

&ldquo In a way, the system is encrypted,&rdquo Dr. Yamamoto said, allowing those in the know to wink and do their own thing on the side.

Great discoveries have been made with N.I.H. financing without manipulating the system, Dr. Klausner said.

&ldquo But,&rdquo he added, &ldquo I actually believe that by and large it is despite, rather than because of, the review system.&rdquo

Consumers should immediately stop taking a popular cold medication because it damages the sense of smell, federal regulators said yesterday.

The FDA issued the warning against intranasal Zicam cold products, telling people to discard or return them.

The agency also ordered the manufacturer, Matrixx Initiatives, to stop marketing them.

The loss of smell can be &ldquo life threatening,&rdquo said the FDA's Deborah Autor, noting that people with impaired smell cannot detect leaking gas or smoke or tell if food has spoiled.

The products are Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Gel, Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Swabs, and Zicam Cold Remedy Swabs, Kids Size.

Mary Engle Pennington knew that seeing was believing.

To convince Philadelphia's ice cream vendors of the early 1900s that their equipment was crawling with contagions, the chemist showed them slides of specimens from sterilized and unsterilized ice cream buckets.

Microscopic bugs on the latter spurred those street vendors to change their ways.

Pennington's quiet victories saved untold lives at a time when unsanitary practices and food-borne illnesses were rampant.

The first woman on the U.S. Department of Agriculture payroll, she taught dairy and egg farmers how to get their products to market safely and developed hygienic techniques for handling chicken.

Mixing facts with finesse, the personable chemist swayed food manufacturers to clean up their act.

Nicknamed the Ice Lady for her push to keep food cold, Pennington perfected the refrigerated box car for railroads and furthered refrigeration technologies for home and industrial uses.

She even invented a precursor to the ubiquitous egg carton.

" Because of her innovations, the whole (food) industry was able to keep moving forward," said Kate Hertzog, author of " More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Pennsylvania Women."

" She didn't want glory. She just really cared that people got food that did not make them sick," Hertzog told IBD. " She truly cared about science."

It all started with a library book.

Northward

Pennington's parents, Henry and Sarah, moved from Nashville, Tenn., to Philadelphia shortly after her birth in 1872. There the curious adolescent spent hours in the family garden observing nature.

Pennington was 12 when she cracked open a chemistry book and discovered atoms and molecules.

" Like a flash of light in a dark place, I got the idea of the realness of the invisible world," she said in " American Women of Science."

Overflowing with questions, she walked four blocks from her home to the University of Pennsylvania.

Pennington's inquisitiveness impressed chemistry professors, who told the plucky youngster to come back when she was older -- even though the university didn't award degrees to women at that time.

Fortunately for her, Henry, a label manufacturer, backed his daughter's desire to attend college. And Sarah gave up dreams of Mary's debut into Philadelphia's social life to stand behind the studious girl.

For Pennington it was beakers, not ballrooms.

It was also a certificate, not a degree. On her graduation in 1892, the University of Pennsylvania stated that she had completed equivalent class work, but it stopped short of awarding her a bachelor's in chemistry.

The rules were different for doctoral degrees, curiously enough, and she was able to earn a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Penn in 1895.

Besides teaching, which Pennington did at a women's college, professional opportunities for female chemists were rare.

So she formulated her own.

After surveying local doctors on their needs, she opened the Philadelphia Clinical Laboratory in 1898 and earned a reputation for excellence.

When the city needed someone to run its new Health Department laboratory, Pennington was the name on everyone's tongue.

Her first order of business in 1904 was milk. Too many people were getting sick from drinking it. So Pennington went straight to dairy farms for field research.

By working alongside milk producers, she earned their trust and respect. When she called for regulations that would change their procedures, those farmers supported her.

The standards she developed gained nationwide acceptance. They also drew the attention of Harvey Wiley, chief chemist at the USDA and a force behind the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act.

He needed people who could tackle problems on both a human and a scientific level. Take the civil service exam so you can apply to the USDA, Wiley urged Pennington, but use the initials M.E. instead of Mary. That bit of subterfuge made her the first woman at the USDA.

By 1908, Wiley had promoted her to chief of a key facility. In short order, Pennington expanded the Food Research Laboratory from two to 55 employees.

When asked if she kept using M.E. to hide her gender, she applied levity rather than righteousness.

" If you had to sign as many government documents as I had to sign, you would wish your name had fewer letters than the name Pennington," she told a magazine.

In that 1932 article, Pennington described arriving for a meeting with a railroad executive and being told Mr. Railroader was not available because he was expecting an important government official shortly.

" I thought this rather queer," she said. " Then it suddenly dawned on me." The exec was expecting a man.

Instead of taking offense, Pennington broke the ice. " Tell your boss my name, that I've traveled a long way and request another appointment," she instructed the assistant.

Soon her identity was established, and the meeting was on. " Mr. Railroader and I had many a good laugh about it afterward," she said.

A pragmatist to the core, she faced failure by changing her methods.

Take the 1911 libel suit the USDA lost against an egg firm it had accused of using unsafe practices.

In a classic work-around, Pennington approached three competing egg plants. " Use my sanitation and refrigeration techniques," she told them, " and you'll gain consumer trust and a competitive edge."

The companies that cooperated were soon overwhelmed with orders. Egg firms realized they had to conform to survive.

With World War I straining the country's food resources, the War Shipping Administration tapped Pennington to evaluate its 40,000 refrigerated train cars food often spoiled en route.

Pennington rode the rails for thousands of miles, checking thermometers and sensors strategically placed on the cars. By the end, she reported that only 3,000 were fit to use.

First of all, the refrigerator cars lacked sufficient insulation. " That's why she called them camouflaged box cars," said John Bromley, director of historic projects for the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Iowa.

Cool Stuff

To ensure consistent cooling, those railroad cars needed better structure, circulation and drainage -- investments Pennington insisted would pay off in the long run.

" The idea of refrigeration really opened up markets, particularly in California," Bromley told IBD. " The refrigerator cars are the most expensive freight cars in the system. But without those improvements, the business never would have gotten as far as it did."

U.S. Food Administration chief Herbert Hoover awarded Pennington a Notable Service Award in 1919. The standards she established would endure for decades.

To further her work in refrigeration, Pennington left the USDA soon after World War I for a position with American Balsa Co., a refrigerator insulation manufacturer.

After three years, Pennington decided she could make a bigger splash as a consultant. She opened an office in New York City's prestigious Woolworth Building.

Pennington was working with the American Institute of Refrigeration when she died of a heart attack in 1952 at age 80.

The Journal recently has had several articles and web casts on the subject geoengineering or otherwise known as chemtrails.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is nothing more than an introduction to the human race to accept the use of government seeding or chemtrailing your skies.

This chemtrail/geoengineering is already taking place and has been for over 13 years.

Visit our website for some very real time dated photos, video and other great facts.

The Discovery channel in April 2007 had a one form documentary on chemtrails. Although you can purchase many of their shows on DVD, this one is not available.

Chemtrails are dangerous and harmful to our health. Emergency room respiratory admittance skyrockets when heavy chemtrailing or geoengineering occurs.

Please read on:

It's Time to Cool the Planet

If we're going to avoid climate disaster, we're going to have start getting a lot more direct. We're going to have to think about cooling the planet.

The concept is called geoengineering, and in the past few years, it has gone from being dismissed as a fringe idea to the subject of intense debates in the halls of power. Many of us who have been watching this subject closely have gone from being skeptics to advocates. Very reluctant advocates, to be sure, but advocates nonetheless.

What has changed? Quite simply, as the effects of global warming have worsened, policy makers have failed to meet the challenge. As a result, if we want to avoid an unprecedented global catastrophe, we may have no other choice but to reduce the impact of global warning, alongside focusing on the factors that are causing it in the first place. That is, while we continue to work aggressively to reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, we also need to consider lowering the temperature of the Earth itself.

To be clear, geoengineering won't solve global warming. It's not a &ldquo techno-fix.&rdquo It would be enormously risky and almost certainly lead to troubling unforeseen consequences. And without a doubt, the deployment of geoengineering would lead to international tension. Who decides what the ideal temperature would be? Russia? India? The U.S.? Who's to blame if Country A's geoengineering efforts cause a drought in Country B?

Also let's be clear about one other thing: We will still have to radically reduce carbon emissions, and do so quickly. We will still have to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, and adopt substantially more sustainable agricultural methods. We will still have to deal with the effects of ecosystems damaged by carbon overload.

But what geoengineering can do is slow the increase in temperatures, delay potentially catastrophic &ldquo tipping point&rdquo events&mdash such as a disastrous melting of the Arctic permafrost&mdash and give us time to make the changes to our economies and our societies necessary to end the climate disaster.

Geoengineering, in other words, is simply a temporary &ldquo stay of execution.&rdquo We will still have to work for a pardon.

Nothing New
Altering the Earth's temperature, of course, is hardly anything new. Human civilization has been changing the Earth's environment for millennia, often to our detriment. Dams, deforestation and urbanization can alter water cycles and wind patterns, occasionally triggering droughts or even creating deserts. On a global scale, industrial activity for the past 150 years or so has changed the Earth's atmosphere, threatening to raise average world temperatures to catastrophic levels, even if we were able to stop releasing carbon into the atmosphere immediately.

What we're talking about with geoengineering, however, is something new. It's a more deliberate manipulation of the environment, rather than a byproduct of other activities. And while we know more than we did just a few years ago about how it might work, there are still plenty of unknowns.

Geoengineering mainly takes two forms: temperature management, which moderates heat by blocking or reflecting a small portion of the sunlight hitting the Earth and carbon management, which gradually removes large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere (as opposed to simply reducing the amount of additional carbon we're releasing into the atmosphere). Temperature management is the more likely course of action, as it has the advantage of potentially quick results, while carbon-management techniques that would have a global impact might take decades or centuries to show results.

Sun Block
Temperature-management proposals boil down to increasing how much sunlight the Earth reflects, rather than absorbs. (Increasing the planet's reflectivity by 2% could counter the warming effects of a doubling of CO2 emissions.) While a variety of techniques have been suggested, some don't pass the plausibility test, either due to cost, clear drawbacks, or both.

For instance, one proposal would place thousands of square miles of reflective sheets in the desert to reflect sunlight&mdash an interesting plan, until you realize that this would effectively destroy desert ecosystems. Another proposal calls for launching millions of tiny mirrors into orbit, where they would block some sunlight from reaching the atmosphere. But one study of the orbiting-mirror plan concluded that, to keep pace with the continual warming, we'd need to launch one square mile of sunshade into orbit every hour.

Two approaches hold the most promise: injecting tons of sulfates&mdash essentially solid particles of sulfur dioxide&mdash into the stratosphere, and pumping seawater into the lower atmosphere to create clouds. A recent report in the journal Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry Discussions identified these two approaches as having a high likelihood of being able to counter global temperature increases, and to do so in a reasonably short amount of time.

The sulfate-injection plan, which has received the most study, is explicitly modeled on the effects of massive volcanic eruptions, such as Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in the months after the 1991 eruption, global temperatures dropped by half a degree Celsius.

To trigger a drop in global temperatures, we'd need to loft between two million and 10 million tons of sulfur dioxide (which combines with oxygen to form sulfate particles) into the lower stratosphere, or at about 33,000 feet. The tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere act like a haze, reflecting a significant amount of sunlight&mdash though not enough to notice at ground level (except for some superb sunsets).

While this seems like a large amount, several studies have shown it could be done using some combination of high-altitude balloons, dispersal in jet-aircraft exhaust, and even more exotic platforms such as artillery shells. As with volcanic sulfates, the particles would eventually cycle out of the atmosphere, so we'd have to refresh that two to 10 megatons of sulfur dioxide roughly every year.

Stratospheric sulfate injection appeals to many geoengineering proponents for a few reasons. It doesn't require a massive leap in technology to carry out successfully arguably, we could start doing it this year, if we needed to. It's relatively cheap, probably costing just a few billion dollars a year. And because stratospheric sulfate injection emulates an effect of volcanic eruptions, we already have some idea of what to expect from it&mdash for better and worse. We know, for example, that the cooling effect could start within weeks of the injection process.

We also know that stratospheric sulfates will likely damage the ozone layer (as happened after Mount Pinatubo erupted), potentially resulting in more skin cancer and damage to plants and animals. In addition, the scattering of sunlight will reduce the efficiency of some kinds of solar power, and some studies have suggested that it could disrupt monsoonal rain cycles.

A Higher Chance of Clouds
The other high-impact proposal, cloud brightening, increases the amount of reflected sunlight by making more clouds and thickening existing ones. One idea is to use ships to propel seawater thousands of feet in the air, where it would form or increase cloud cover.

The technique has both advantages and disadvantages compared with the sulfate-injection method. Lofting seawater into the air to seed cloud formation would have fewer environmental side effects than the sulfates, and may allow for targeted use to counter droughts. Because it would be relatively low altitude, it wouldn't have the same scattering effect on sunlight as sulfate injection.

But increasing the extent and thickness of cloud cover could also have at least as powerful an effect on rainfall patterns as sulfate injection, increasing downpours in one area or contributing to unexpected droughts in others. Finally, the technologies required for cloud brightening are still experimental, though initial proposals look to be markedly more environmentally benign than those used for sulfate injection.

Both solutions could present a more dramatic problem if the geoengineering was to stop abruptly. According to some studies, global temperatures would spike once the geoengineering steps were ended, actually exceeding for a short time where they would have been without any geoengineering. Afterward, the temperature increase would continue as if nothing had been done to slow it. While this doesn't mean we'd have to undertake geoengineering indefinitely, it underscores why geoengineering must be accompanied by carbon cuts.

Also, neither would do anything to solve other problems that arise from excessive levels of carbon dioxide, such as oceans becoming more acidic from increased carbon loading.

The Political Impact
Any kind of geoengineering would also face other issues. Most prominent are the political concerns. Since geoengineering is global in its effects, who determines whether or not it's used, which technologies to deploy, and what the target temperatures will be? Who decides which unexpected side effects are bad enough to warrant ending the process? Because the expense and expertise required would be low enough for a single country, what happens when a desperate &ldquo rogue nation&rdquo attempts geoengineering against the wishes of other states? And because the benefits and possible harm from geoengineering attempts would be unevenly distributed around the planet, would it be possible to use this technology for strategic or military purposes? That last one may sound a bit paranoid, but it's clear that any technology with the potential for strategic use will be at the very least considered by any rational international actor.

There are also more mundane questions of liability. If, for example, South Asia experiences an unusual drought during cyclone season after geoengineering begins, who gets blamed? Who gets sued? Would all &ldquo odd&rdquo weather patterns be ascribed to the geoengineering effort? If so, would the issue of what would have happened absent geoengineering be considered relevant?

Consider the Alternative
With all of these drawbacks, why would I consider myself an advocate of geoengineering, no matter how reluctant? Because I believe the alternative would be worse.

The global institutions we rely on to deal with a problem like climate change seem unable to look past short-term roadblocks and regional interests. At the same time, climate scientists are shouting louder than ever about the speed and intensity of environmental changes coming from global warming.

In short, although we know what to do to stop global warming, we're running out of time to do it and show no interest in moving faster. So here's where geoengineering steps in: It gives us time to act.

That's if it's done wisely. It's imperative that we increase funding for geoengineering research, building the kinds of models and simulations necessary to allow us to weed out the approaches with dangerous, surprising consequences.

Fortunately, the deployment of geoengineering need not be all or nothing. Though it would have the greatest impact if done globally, some models have shown that intervention just in the Polar Regions would be enough to hold off the most critical tipping-point events, including ice-cap collapse and a massive methane release.

Polar-only geoengineering strikes me as a plausible compromise position. It could be scaled up if the situation becomes direr and could be easily shut down with minimal temperature spikes if there were unacceptable side effects.

Still, we can't forget: Geoengineering is not a solution for global warming. It would simply hold temperatures down temporarily, doing nothing about the causes of climate change, let alone ocean acidification and other symptoms of a carbon overdose. We can't let ourselves slip back into business-as-usual complacency, because we'd simply be setting ourselves up for a far greater disaster down the road.

Our overall goal must remain the reduction and then elimination of greenhouse-gas emissions as swiftly as humanly possible. This will require feats of political will and courage around the world. What geoengineering offers us is the time to make it happen.

Visit our web links:
Chemtrails
WSJ Video

The Journal recently has had several articles and web casts on the subject geoengineering or otherwise known as chemtrails.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is nothing more than an introduction to the human race to accept the use of government seeding or chemtrailing your skies.

This chemtrail/geoengineering is already taking place and has been for over 13 years.

Visit our website for some very real time dated photos, video and other great facts.

The Discovery channel in April 2007 had a one form documentary on chemtrails. Although you can purchase many of their shows on DVD, this one is not available.

Chemtrails are dangerous and harmful to our health. Emergency room respiratory admittance skyrockets when heavy chemtrailing or geoengineering occurs.

Please read on:

It's Time to Cool the Planet

If we're going to avoid climate disaster, we're going to have start getting a lot more direct. We're going to have to think about cooling the planet.

The concept is called geoengineering, and in the past few years, it has gone from being dismissed as a fringe idea to the subject of intense debates in the halls of power. Many of us who have been watching this subject closely have gone from being skeptics to advocates. Very reluctant advocates, to be sure, but advocates nonetheless.

What has changed? Quite simply, as the effects of global warming have worsened, policy makers have failed to meet the challenge. As a result, if we want to avoid an unprecedented global catastrophe, we may have no other choice but to reduce the impact of global warning, alongside focusing on the factors that are causing it in the first place. That is, while we continue to work aggressively to reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, we also need to consider lowering the temperature of the Earth itself.

To be clear, geoengineering won't solve global warming. It's not a &ldquo techno-fix.&rdquo It would be enormously risky and almost certainly lead to troubling unforeseen consequences. And without a doubt, the deployment of geoengineering would lead to international tension. Who decides what the ideal temperature would be? Russia? India? The U.S.? Who's to blame if Country A's geoengineering efforts cause a drought in Country B?

Also let's be clear about one other thing: We will still have to radically reduce carbon emissions, and do so quickly. We will still have to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, and adopt substantially more sustainable agricultural methods. We will still have to deal with the effects of ecosystems damaged by carbon overload.

But what geoengineering can do is slow the increase in temperatures, delay potentially catastrophic &ldquo tipping point&rdquo events&mdash such as a disastrous melting of the Arctic permafrost&mdash and give us time to make the changes to our economies and our societies necessary to end the climate disaster.

Geoengineering, in other words, is simply a temporary &ldquo stay of execution.&rdquo We will still have to work for a pardon.

Nothing New
Altering the Earth's temperature, of course, is hardly anything new. Human civilization has been changing the Earth's environment for millennia, often to our detriment. Dams, deforestation and urbanization can alter water cycles and wind patterns, occasionally triggering droughts or even creating deserts. On a global scale, industrial activity for the past 150 years or so has changed the Earth's atmosphere, threatening to raise average world temperatures to catastrophic levels, even if we were able to stop releasing carbon into the atmosphere immediately.

What we're talking about with geoengineering, however, is something new. It's a more deliberate manipulation of the environment, rather than a byproduct of other activities. And while we know more than we did just a few years ago about how it might work, there are still plenty of unknowns.

Geoengineering mainly takes two forms: temperature management, which moderates heat by blocking or reflecting a small portion of the sunlight hitting the Earth and carbon management, which gradually removes large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere (as opposed to simply reducing the amount of additional carbon we're releasing into the atmosphere). Temperature management is the more likely course of action, as it has the advantage of potentially quick results, while carbon-management techniques that would have a global impact might take decades or centuries to show results.

Sun Block
Temperature-management proposals boil down to increasing how much sunlight the Earth reflects, rather than absorbs. (Increasing the planet's reflectivity by 2% could counter the warming effects of a doubling of CO2 emissions.) While a variety of techniques have been suggested, some don't pass the plausibility test, either due to cost, clear drawbacks, or both.

For instance, one proposal would place thousands of square miles of reflective sheets in the desert to reflect sunlight&mdash an interesting plan, until you realize that this would effectively destroy desert ecosystems. Another proposal calls for launching millions of tiny mirrors into orbit, where they would block some sunlight from reaching the atmosphere. But one study of the orbiting-mirror plan concluded that, to keep pace with the continual warming, we'd need to launch one square mile of sunshade into orbit every hour.

Two approaches hold the most promise: injecting tons of sulfates&mdash essentially solid particles of sulfur dioxide&mdash into the stratosphere, and pumping seawater into the lower atmosphere to create clouds. A recent report in the journal Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry Discussions identified these two approaches as having a high likelihood of being able to counter global temperature increases, and to do so in a reasonably short amount of time.

The sulfate-injection plan, which has received the most study, is explicitly modeled on the effects of massive volcanic eruptions, such as Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in the months after the 1991 eruption, global temperatures dropped by half a degree Celsius.

To trigger a drop in global temperatures, we'd need to loft between two million and 10 million tons of sulfur dioxide (which combines with oxygen to form sulfate particles) into the lower stratosphere, or at about 33,000 feet. The tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere act like a haze, reflecting a significant amount of sunlight&mdash though not enough to notice at ground level (except for some superb sunsets).

While this seems like a large amount, several studies have shown it could be done using some combination of high-altitude balloons, dispersal in jet-aircraft exhaust, and even more exotic platforms such as artillery shells. As with volcanic sulfates, the particles would eventually cycle out of the atmosphere, so we'd have to refresh that two to 10 megatons of sulfur dioxide roughly every year.

Stratospheric sulfate injection appeals to many geoengineering proponents for a few reasons. It doesn't require a massive leap in technology to carry out successfully arguably, we could start doing it this year, if we needed to. It's relatively cheap, probably costing just a few billion dollars a year. And because stratospheric sulfate injection emulates an effect of volcanic eruptions, we already have some idea of what to expect from it&mdash for better and worse. We know, for example, that the cooling effect could start within weeks of the injection process.

We also know that stratospheric sulfates will likely damage the ozone layer (as happened after Mount Pinatubo erupted), potentially resulting in more skin cancer and damage to plants and animals. In addition, the scattering of sunlight will reduce the efficiency of some kinds of solar power, and some studies have suggested that it could disrupt monsoonal rain cycles.

A Higher Chance of Clouds
The other high-impact proposal, cloud brightening, increases the amount of reflected sunlight by making more clouds and thickening existing ones. One idea is to use ships to propel seawater thousands of feet in the air, where it would form or increase cloud cover.

The technique has both advantages and disadvantages compared with the sulfate-injection method. Lofting seawater into the air to seed cloud formation would have fewer environmental side effects than the sulfates, and may allow for targeted use to counter droughts. Because it would be relatively low altitude, it wouldn't have the same scattering effect on sunlight as sulfate injection.

But increasing the extent and thickness of cloud cover could also have at least as powerful an effect on rainfall patterns as sulfate injection, increasing downpours in one area or contributing to unexpected droughts in others. Finally, the technologies required for cloud brightening are still experimental, though initial proposals look to be markedly more environmentally benign than those used for sulfate injection.

Both solutions could present a more dramatic problem if the geoengineering was to stop abruptly. According to some studies, global temperatures would spike once the geoengineering steps were ended, actually exceeding for a short time where they would have been without any geoengineering. Afterward, the temperature increase would continue as if nothing had been done to slow it. While this doesn't mean we'd have to undertake geoengineering indefinitely, it underscores why geoengineering must be accompanied by carbon cuts.

Also, neither would do anything to solve other problems that arise from excessive levels of carbon dioxide, such as oceans becoming more acidic from increased carbon loading.

The Political Impact
Any kind of geoengineering would also face other issues. Most prominent are the political concerns. Since geoengineering is global in its effects, who determines whether or not it's used, which technologies to deploy, and what the target temperatures will be? Who decides which unexpected side effects are bad enough to warrant ending the process? Because the expense and expertise required would be low enough for a single country, what happens when a desperate &ldquo rogue nation&rdquo attempts geoengineering against the wishes of other states? And because the benefits and possible harm from geoengineering attempts would be unevenly distributed around the planet, would it be possible to use this technology for strategic or military purposes? That last one may sound a bit paranoid, but it's clear that any technology with the potential for strategic use will be at the very least considered by any rational international actor.

There are also more mundane questions of liability. If, for example, South Asia experiences an unusual drought during cyclone season after geoengineering begins, who gets blamed? Who gets sued? Would all &ldquo odd&rdquo weather patterns be ascribed to the geoengineering effort? If so, would the issue of what would have happened absent geoengineering be considered relevant?

Consider the Alternative
With all of these drawbacks, why would I consider myself an advocate of geoengineering, no matter how reluctant? Because I believe the alternative would be worse.

The global institutions we rely on to deal with a problem like climate change seem unable to look past short-term roadblocks and regional interests. At the same time, climate scientists are shouting louder than ever about the speed and intensity of environmental changes coming from global warming.

In short, although we know what to do to stop global warming, we're running out of time to do it and show no interest in moving faster. So here's where geoengineering steps in: It gives us time to act.

That's if it's done wisely. It's imperative that we increase funding for geoengineering research, building the kinds of models and simulations necessary to allow us to weed out the approaches with dangerous, surprising consequences.

Fortunately, the deployment of geoengineering need not be all or nothing. Though it would have the greatest impact if done globally, some models have shown that intervention just in the Polar Regions would be enough to hold off the most critical tipping-point events, including ice-cap collapse and a massive methane release.

Polar-only geoengineering strikes me as a plausible compromise position. It could be scaled up if the situation becomes direr and could be easily shut down with minimal temperature spikes if there were unacceptable side effects.

Still, we can't forget: Geoengineering is not a solution for global warming. It would simply hold temperatures down temporarily, doing nothing about the causes of climate change, let alone ocean acidification and other symptoms of a carbon overdose. We can't let ourselves slip back into business-as-usual complacency, because we'd simply be setting ourselves up for a far greater disaster down the road.

Our overall goal must remain the reduction and then elimination of greenhouse-gas emissions as swiftly as humanly possible. This will require feats of political will and courage around the world. What geoengineering offers us is the time to make it happen.

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Exciting scientific research has discovered the power of collagen for supporting optimal bone tensile strength. New data suggest that a unique, patent-pending nutritional supplement consisting of collagen chelated to calcium, along with a new plum extract can help support strong, resilient bones.

The Osteoporosis Epidemic
Too often, osteoporosis is diagnosed late in its progression resulting in rapidly declining bone integrity that leads not only to disfigurement but also painful and potentially lethal fractures. Today's epidemic of osteoporosis causes up to half of all women over age 50 and one in four men in the United States to suffer disabling bone fractures.1 When an elderly person slips or loses their balance, it could mean the end of their life, since up to 20% of those who sustain a hip fracture die within one year.2 Since an estimated 250,000 Americans suffer a hip fracture annually, broken hips may lead to 50,000 deaths per year in the US alone.2

Sadly, very few doctors focus on preventing this silent disease through lifestyle adjustment such as weight-bearing exercise, bioidentical hormone replacement (if indicated), and broad-spectrum nutritional supplementation to feed and nurture healthy bone. Instead, pharmaceutical companies push bisphosphonate drugs (such as Fosamax® and Actonel® ) as a one-stop solution. These drugs work by reducing bone resorption, not by building new bone directly. Of interest, evidence suggests these medicines are associated with potentially serious side effects.3-5 Few doctors understand that even when these drugs are used to reduce the risk of fracture secondary to breast or prostate cancer metastasis to bone,6 it is critical that patients also take a full complement of bone-building minerals along with these medications for optimal benefit.

What You Need to Know: Optimizing Bone Strength
Osteoporosis is a widespread condition associated with reduced bone mineral density (BMD) and strength leading to bone fractures.
Risk factors for osteoporosis include female sex, postmenopausal status, advanced age, Caucasian or Asian race, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, slim stature (underweight), sedentary lifestyle, and cigarette smoking.
Bisphosphonate drugs are widely prescribed for osteoporosis, but they may be associated with serious side effects including osteonecrosis (bone decay) of the jaw and atrial fibrillation (an irregular heart rhythm associated with stroke).3-5
Optimal bone health requires not only preservation of bone mineral density, but also of bone strength, which results from the dynamic structure of bone involving a matrix of collagen fibers reinforced with calcium, phosphorus, and other minerals.
Collagen calcium chelate has been shown in experimental studies to support bone strength.
Dried plum extract has been shown in experimental studies and in clinical studies to improve bone structure and function, even in situations in which bone loss was thought to be irreversible.

The Power of Collagen

Recent advances in understanding normal bone structure and function have revolutionized the nutritional approach to optimizing bone health. Researchers are now discovering the vital importance of collagen for achieving optimal bone tensile strength.

Most people will be very surprised to know that collagen, a resilient type of protein molecule, makes up most of the structure of bone.7 The spongy matrix of collagen fibers and crystalline salts within bone is crucial to absorbing compression forces to resist stress fractures,8 much as the tensile supports of steel bridges provide flexibility so that the bridge can withstand gale force winds and heavy traffic.

Amazingly, the compressional strength of bone is even greater than that of reinforced concrete.9 Many fractures, however, result from twisting or torsional forces, and neither bone nor concrete has a very high degree of torsional strength. However, the dynamic collagen matrix within healthy bone allows it to better redistribute and deflect a variety of forces, thereby reducing fracture risk.

Like suspension cables on a bridge that sway to absorb forces that might otherwise disrupt the main structure, collagen fibrils within bone are made up of strings of alternating collagen molecules and hydroxyapatite crystals that are connected by weak chemical bonds within the strings and between them.10

Force applied to collagen fibrils in bone causes some of these weak bonds to break. This is actually a beneficial action because by allowing stretching within the collagen matrix to spread the pressure over a broader area, the result is a protective effect on stronger bonds within the collagen molecule itself.7,10 Without both collagen and minerals, bone becomes brittle and can be easily fractured, much as a bridge with a missing cable could snap under the weight of one too many cars.

Understanding Bone Anatomy
Depending on their location within the skeleton and their function, bones can be classified as long (e.g. arm and leg bones), short (e.g. small wrist and ankle bones), flat (e.g. ribs, skull), or irregular (e.g. spinal vertebrae). A long bone has an expanded portion at each end called an epiphysis, which forms a joint with another bone, and a bone shaft, or diaphysis, between the epiphyses. Articular cartilage covers the ends of each epiphysis to form the joint surface, and the rest of the bone is completely encased in a tough covering called the periosteum.

The solid, strong, bony layer within the periosteum is called compact bone, which is resistant to bending. The compact bone in the diaphysis forms a rigid tube with bone marrow filling the hollow chamber, known as the medullary cavity, within the tube. Because the epiphyses are subjected to the greatest forces of compression during weight-bearing activities, the epiphyses are made mostly from spongy or cancellous bone offering elastic strength.

A New Type of Calcium
As we have seen above, bone strength and resilience depends on collagen fibers, as well as calcium, several trace minerals, and vitamins D and K2, which act together to generate a strong, complex matrix structure. Most bone supplements recommended by doctors contain only calcium, an inadequate nutritional strategy for optimal bone health.

Recently, scientists have developed a new form of calcium that molecularly binds collagen. Named KoAct&trade , this unique form of collagen calcium chelate is designed to enhance collagen support and turnover while increasing bone mineral density and bone strength.11

Scientists at the prestigious Tokyo University found that supplementation with collagen calcium chelate improved bone strength to a greater extent than the same amounts of calcium and collagen either given separately or together but in a non-chelated form. Specific improvements with collagen calcium chelate were seen not only in bone mineral density but just as importantly in femur (thigh bone) weight, bone collagen production, and bone flexibility and strength.11

In an experimental model of osteoporosis, the test group received a low-calcium diet for one week. In addition to their low-calcium diet, some of the test group consumed a high-dose collagen calcium chelate. The cohort receiving high-dose collagen calcium chelate had an increase in femur bone weight by an impressive 9.6%, compared with the group given the same amount of calcium in non-chelated form. The test group receiving the collagen calcium chelate had dose-dependent increases in bone mineral density, which were 3.5% to 11.1% higher than those seen in the group receiving the same amount of non-chelated calcium. The investigators concluded that collagen calcium chelate had an additive effect on bone mineral density, better than that of calcium alone or of a simple calcium and collagen mixture.12

Collagen calcium chelate was also associated with increases in femur bone strength, by about 9.9% to 25%, compared with the group receiving the same amount of calcium.12 Remarkably, the benefits of collagen calcium chelate were evident after only eight weeks of supplementation! Given these encouraging results, a large clinical study is planned for next year, in collaboration with the US Army, to look at the effect of collagen calcium chelate on bone fractures in hard-training recruits.

Determining Bone Fracture Risk
For ease and efficiency of movement, bone must be lightweight, yet strong enough to support far more than its own weight. Although BMD (bone mineral density) is important, so is bone strength and resilience. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently concluded that BMD, as measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, is not the single best predictor of fracture risk, because it misses a significant proportion of individuals who have clinical or epidemiological risk factors for osteoporosis.19,20

Various clinical factors associated with bone strength must also be considered when deciding who is at risk for fracture and could benefit from preventive supplementation and/or treatment.19-21 Prescribing bisphosphonates to younger postmenopausal women based on BMD alone may therefore unnecessarily or prematurely expose them to the risks associated with these drugs.

To predict the 10-year risk of sustaining a major osteoporotic fracture, the WHO has developed a clinical assessment tool known as FRAX (fracture risk assessment), using composite scores that rely both on BMD and on validated clinical risk factors for fracture.19,20 The test uses easily determined clinical features, such as age, race, weight, and smoking history, to go above and beyond BMD and to evaluate bone strength.

FRAX allows doctors to enter clinical information online, so that a computer program can calculate the 10-year probability of hip fracture and the 10-year probability of a major osteoporotic fracture (clinical spine, forearm, hip, or shoulder fracture) for any given individual, based on information collected from large population samples in Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia.19,20

Plum Extract Supports Bone Health
New research has shown that plum extract can be an important component of an intelligent bone health program. In a study of 58 postmenopausal women,13 those who were randomly assigned to receive 100 grams of a concentrated plum product in their daily diet for three months were shown to have positive effects on bone. These women showed significantly increased serum levels of biological markers that reflected greater rates of bone formation.13

Laboratory studies also demonstrated that concentrated plum polyphenols down-regulate (decrease) cellular signals that cause bone resorption.14,15

Plum polyphenols promote bone deposition by increasing osteoblast (bone-building cell) activity and function via their effects on increasing certain cell-signaling compounds and by enhancing expression of an enzyme that is involved in collagen cross-linking.16

In an experimental model of bone loss caused by surgical removal of the testicles, adding dried plum extract to the diet had similar effects to parathyroid hormone (PTH), which is involved in bone metabolism.17 The test group given concentrated plum extract had an 11% increase in vertebral (spine) and femoral (thigh bone) bone mineral density compared with controls, whereas those receiving PTH had increased bone mineral density by 20.7% at the vertebrae and 17.9% at the femur. Other changes in bone volume and structure seen with concentrated plum extract relative to controls were similar to those seen with PTH.15,17

Even more compelling, experimental studies18 suggest that bone changes previously thought to be irreversible can, to a great extent, be improved by dried plum extract. In an experimental model of postmenopausal osteoporosis, the test group that already had deterioration of bone structure had improvements, relative to controls, after two months of a diet containing dried plum extract. Femoral and tibial bone densities were restored and lumbar bone density was increased. Improved bone quality also resulted in a 6.9% improvement in overall yield and a 6.0% improvement in ultimate force. The architectural microstructure of trabecular bone was also significantly improved in rats receiving dried plum extract compared with controls.18

Standardized plum extracts provide a convenient way to obtain plum's beneficial bone-supportive properties&mdash without the concentrated calories and sugar content.

Adverse Effects of Bisphosphonates
Bisphosphonate drugs such as Fosamax® (alendronate), Actonel® (risendronate), Zometa® (zoledronic acid), and others are a mainstay of osteoporosis treatment. More than one-third of outpatients seen for osteoporosis at > 60 years of age are treated with bisphosphonates.22

Unfortunately, these drugs are often poorly tolerated. Gastrointestinal symptoms are common, and bone and joint pain occur often.3

Bisphosphonates also have potentially serious adverse effects.3 Osteonecrosis of the jaw (death and decay of the jaw bone) is a serious, potentially disfiguring complication in women taking bisphosphonates who have a tooth extraction.5 A study at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles found that use of alendronate pills for one year or more increased the risk for jaw osteonecrosis after a tooth extraction or was associated with denture-related ulcers. Of 208 patients who had taken alendronate, 70 mg once per week for one to 10 years, 9 (4%) developed jaw bone osteonecrosis. None of more than 13,500 dental patients who had not taken alendronate developed jaw bone osteonecrosis.

Additionally, people treated with alendronate or zoledronic acid may have double the risk of serious atrial fibrillation, or irregular heart rhythm causing the heart to pump blood less efficiently, potentially resulting in pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs), congestive heart failure, stroke, or death. A study showed that 2.5-3% of patients taking bisphosphonates developed atrial fibrillation and 1-2% developed serious atrial fibrillation, with complications including hospitalization or death.4

Because bisphosphonate treatment may facilitate management of bone metastases, patients with breast or prostate cancer should consider treatment in consultation with their physician.6 Individuals who use bisphosphonate medications under a physician's guidance can help reduce their risk of osteonecrosis of the jaw by receiving a dental examination and undergoing any necessary dental procedures such as tooth extractions before initiating drug therapy.23 Additionally, individuals using bisphosphonate therapy are advised to practice good dental hygiene, stop smoking, limit alcohol consumption, and avoid jaw trauma.23,24

If possible, individuals should avoid undergoing dental surgery during bisphosphonate treatment.23

Clinical Considerations for Bone Health
Collagen calcium chelate, magnesium, silicon, boron, dried plum extract, and vitamins D and K2 work to synergistically support bone health. Individuals who may derive particular benefit from supplementation with these nutrients include those at risk of threats to bone strength, such as those with a family history of osteoporosis and advanced age.

For optimal bone strength, a comprehensive approach using a variety of nutrients is essential. Collagen calcium chelate and concentrated plum extract are two powerful additions for men and women focused on having healthy bones that last a lifetime!

If you have any questions on the scientific content of this article, please call a Life Extension Health Advisor at 1-800-226-2370.

References
1. Available at: http://bones.nof.org/site/PageServer?pagename=NOF_25th_Anniversary_Bone_Facts. Accessed January 27, 2009.

2. Available at: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/825363-overview. Accessed February 11, 2009.

3. Arum SM. New developments surrounding the safety of bisphosphonates. Curr Opin Endocrinol Diabetes Obes. 2008 Dec 15(6):508-13.

4. Miranda J. Osteoporosis drugs increase risk for serious heart arrhythmia problems. Presentation Oct. 28, 2008 at CHEST 2008.

5. Sedghizadeh PP, Stanley K, Caligiuri M, et al. Oral bisphosphonate use and the prevalence of osteonecrosis of the jaw: an institutional inquiry. J Am Dent Assoc. 2009 Jan 140(1):61-6.

6. Coleman RE. Risks and benefits of bisphosphonates. Br J Cancer. 2008 Jun 3 98(11):1736-40.

7. Available at: http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0957-4484/18/29/295102. Accessed February 6, 2009.

8. Gupta HS, Seto J, Wagermaier W, et al. Cooperative deformation of mineral and collagen in bone at the nanoscale. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2006 Nov 21 103(47):17741-6.

9. Available at: http://www.nsbri.org/HumanPhysSpace/focus6/ep_development.html. Accessed February 9, 2009.

10. Buehler MJ, Ackbarow T. Nanomechanical strength mechanisms of hierarchical biological materials and tissues. Comput Methods Biomech Biomed Engin. 2008 Dec 11(6):595-607.

11. Available at: http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/smartlead/view/226058/4/Bone-Strength-is-Critical. Accessed February 6, 2009.

12. AIDP, Inc., unpublished data.

13. Arjmandi BH, Khalil DA, Lucas EA, et al. Dried plums improve indices of bone formation in postmenopausal women. J Womens Health Gend Based Med. 2002 Jan 11(1):61-8.

14. Bu SY, Lerner M, Stoecker BJ, et al. Dried plum polyphenols inhibit osteoclastogenesis by downregulating NFATc1 and inflammatory mediators. Calcif Tissue Int. 2008 Jun 82(6):475-88.

15. Franklin M, Bu SY, Lerner MR, et al. Dried plum prevents bone loss in a male osteoporosis model via IGF-I and the RANK pathway. Bone. 2006 Dec 39(6):1331-42.

16. Bu SY, Hunt TS, Smith BJ. Dried plum polyphenols attenuate the detrimental effects of TNF-alpha on osteoblast function coincident with up-regulation of Runx2, Osterix and IGF-I. J Nutr Biochem. 2009 Jan 20(1):35-44.

17. Bu SY, Lucas EA, Franklin M, et al. Comparison of dried plum supplementation and intermittent PTH in restoring bone in osteopenic orchidectomized rats. Osteoporos Int. 2007 Jul 18(7):931-42.

18. Deyhim F, Stoecker BJ, Brusewitz GH, Devareddy L, Arjmandi BH. Dried plum reverses bone loss in an osteopenic rat model of osteoporosis. Menopause. 2005 Nov 12(6):755-62.

19. Fardellone P. Predicting the fracture risk in 2008. Joint Bone Spine. 2008 Dec 75(6):661-4.

20. Kanis JA, McCloskey EV, Johansson H, Strom O, Borgstrom F, Oden A National Osteoporosis Guideline Group. Case finding for the management of osteoporosis with FRAX&mdash assessment and intervention thresholds for the UK. Osteoporos Int. 2008 Oct 19(10):1395-408.

21. Lewiecki EM, Watts NB. New Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Osteoporosis. South Med J. 2009 Jan 9.

22. Teschemaker A, Lee E, Xue Z, Wutoh AK. Osteoporosis pharmacotherapy and counseling services in US ambulatory care clinics: Opportunities for multidisciplinary interventions. Am J Geriatr Pharmacother. 2008 Dec 6(5):240-8.

23. Weitzman R, Sauter N, Eriksen EF, et al. Critical review: updated recommendations for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of osteonecrosis of the jaw in cancer patients&mdash May 2006. Crit Rev Oncol Hematol. 2007 May 62(2):148-52.

24. Khan AA, Sandor GK, Dore E, et al. Canadian consensus practice guidelines for bisphosphonate associated osteonecrosis of the jaw. J Rheumatol. 2008 Jul 35(7):1391-7.

Fortunately, health-conscious adults are discovering the benefits of a combination of nutrients that can help them get the most from an active lifestyle as they get older. In order to help offset the age-related loss in muscle, whey protein offers a rich source of essential amino acids that are rapidly absorbed and utilized, helping to maintain healthy muscle. Utilizing whey protein as a meal replacement provides critical proteins without the carbohydrates and fats that may contribute to unwanted weight gain.

Two other nutrients complement the muscle-building effects of whey: creatine supports muscle strength and prevents muscle wasting with aging, while the amino acid glutamine helps preserve lean tissue mass and supports immune system health.

Together, these nutrients in combination powerfully support aging muscles, functional strength, and the aging immune system, all of which are critical factors for an active, independent life.

Whey Protein
Whey is a protein complex derived from milk with a diverse range of health benefits.1,2 Whey protein has long been a staple supplement for athletes, and is now gaining popularity among a wider population of health-conscious adults, and for good reason: it is a great protein with a wide variety of benefits, ranging from promoting muscle health to immune modulation to protection against cardiovascular disease and cancer.1,2

Whey protein is a rich source of the essential amino acids in higher concentrations compared with vegetable sources such as soy. Compared with other protein sources, whey contains a high concentration of branched-chain amino acids, which are important for tissue growth and repair. Additionally, whey is rich in the sulfur-containing amino acids, which enhance the body's antioxidant protection through intracellular conversion to glutathione.2 Other constituents of whey include beta-lactoglobulin, lactoferrin, and immunoglobulins, which hold important benefits for immune support.1

Whey's amino acids are rapidly absorbed and utilized, quickly elevating plasma amino acids and thus contributing to the preservation of muscle mass. Studies show that whey protein helps augment the effects of resistance exercise training, particularly when it is consumed shortly before or after exercise training.3 In one study, 36 men followed a weight-training program for 12 weeks while supplementing with whey protein, a multi-ingredient whey protein supplement, or maltodextrin placebo. At the study's end, men who supplemented with whey in combination with resistance training showed improvements in one or more measures of muscle strength as well as lean tissue mass, compared to placebo recipients.4

Whey's benefits for skeletal muscle go beyond those provided by its essential amino acid content, promoting greater muscle accrual than that which occurs from ingesting the essential amino acids alone. As a rule, higher biological value proteins such as whey are superior for maintaining muscle mass compared with lower-quality proteins, which may be of particular importance to older individuals. In fact, data suggest &ldquo fast&rdquo digesting proteins such as whey may be superior to other proteins for preserving lean body mass in older individuals.5 This suggests that whey holds practical applications in supporting muscle anabolism (tissue-building) in older individuals.6

One of whey's major effects is its ability to raise levels of glutathione,1 a powerful intracellular antioxidant. The importance of glutathione for good health cannot be overstated. Glutathione is arguably the most important water-soluble antioxidant found in the body, participating in crucial detoxification reactions in the liver. Glutathione is known to be essential to immunity, body antioxidative capacity, and general well-being, and decreased levels of glutathione are associated with a long list of ailments such as neurodegenerative disease, cirrhosis, and the aging process itself.7 Boosting glutathione levels through whey supplementation may thus be beneficial for aging populations looking to avert disease and stay healthy and active.

A growing body of research suggests that whey protein may offer protection against some of the most prevalent diseases afflicting older adults. In animal and human studies, whey protein shows promise in the prevention and management of cancer.1,2 Whey may offer benefits for cardiovascular health by modulating blood pressure and promoting healthy blood lipid profiles.2 Supplementing with whey protein may be particularly important for those with immune health concerns as studies point to its ability to help fight numerous bacterial infections as well as provide support for individuals fighting hepatitis C and HIV infections. Finally, human research has found that whey protein improves cognitive ability and helps improve coping ability in highly stressed individuals, possibly by providing tryptophan, the precursor to serotonin.1

Whey's benefits thus extend far beyond healthy muscles to overall effects in promoting a healthy body and mind.

Creatine Complements Whey's Effects
The scientific and medical communities have recently been devoting significant attention to creatine, and they are discovering that it not only offers benefits for active and athletic populations&mdash but it may be particularly helpful for preserving muscle mass and strength in aging populations.

Creatine monohydrate has longed been used by athletes for its ability to increase muscular force and power, reduce fatigue, and help increase muscle mass.8 Creatine supplementation works by increasing intramuscular and intracerebral stores of creatine and phosphocreatine, which helps prevent ATP depletion, stimulate protein synthesis, and reduce protein breakdown.

Research suggests that whey and creatine may offer synergistic benefits for enhancing the effects of resistance training. One study compared the effects of whey alone with whey plus creatine or placebo (maltodextrin) in combination with a resistance exercise training program. Men who supplemented with whey and creatine demonstrated greater gains in lean tissue mass and bench press strength, compared with men who supplemented with whey alone or with placebo.4

As adults grow older they become increasingly susceptible to muscular atrophy and loss of strength, a condition known as sarcopenia. This devastating decline in muscle mass and function can slowly rob aging individuals of the ability to perform tasks of daily living, while placing them at risk of falls and other potentially dangerous injuries. Creatine supplementation may hold important applications in preserving muscle mass and strength in aging adults.

The muscle atrophy that commonly occurs in older adults comes predominantly from a loss of fast-twitch muscle fibers that are recruited during high-intensity movements like weight-lifting and sprinting. These are the muscle fibers most dramatically affected by creatine supplementation.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that creatine supplementation increases strength and lean body mass in older adults who are participating in resistance exercise training.9-11 One group concluded, &ldquo creatine supplementation may be a useful therapeutic strategy for older adults to attenuate loss in muscle strength and performance of functional living tasks.&rdquo 10 This may have important implications for helping aging adults maintain functionality in performing everyday tasks.

One recent study found creatine may improve the functional strength of older women. Thirty women between 58 and 71 years old women performed a variety of tests to assess their baseline strength and endurance. The participants then received either placebo or creatine monohydrate (300 mg/kilogram of body mass) and were retested seven days later. The group receiving the creatine monohydrate had significant improvements over the placebo group in measures of strength, lower body functional tests, and fat-free body mass, leading the researchers to conclude, &ldquo short-term creatine supplementation resulted in an increase in strength, power, and lower-body motor functional performance in older women without any adverse side effects.&rdquo 12

A growing body of research has shown creatine (in the form of creatine monohydrate) may benefit individuals with conditions affecting the neuromuscular system, such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.8 Other conditions that may benefit from creatine supplementation include chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia.13,14 Additionally, creatine supplementation may enhance the release of growth hormone following exercise, helping individuals capture the benefits of youthful growth hormone levels.15

Creatine monohydrate thus has a wide range of potential benefits to aging populations, athletes, and those with various medical conditions. Its benefits may be enhanced by combination with whey protein as well as another nutrient&mdash the amino acid glutamine.

What You Need to Know: Whey, Creatine, and Glutamine
Staying active and healthy with aging requires strong, healthy muscles. Unfortunately, aging adults are increasingly susceptible to losing muscle mass as they grow older.
Whey protein helps enhance the muscle-building effects of exercise while boosting levels of the antioxidant glutathione.
Creatine helps increase strength and lean tissue mass in aging adults.
Glutamine helps preserve lean tissue mass while boosting growth hormone levels and supporting immune system health.
Together, whey protein, creatine, and glutamine combine with exercise to help support the strong, healthy muscles needed for an active lifestyle.

Glutamine Supports Muscle Maintenance
Glutamine is required for countless functions in the human body, including maintaining muscle tissue and supporting immune system function.16 Glutamine is a conditionally essential amino acid, meaning that the body requires dietary or supplemental glutamine during stressful circumstances such as prolonged exercise, surgery, or infectious disease.17 Compelling evidence suggests that glutamine may be especially important for adults seeking to preserve lean tissue mass.

Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the body, and is highly concentrated in the skeletal muscles that make movement possible. Maintaining healthy skeletal muscle is essential to overall good health and mobility. Important research shows that glutamine can help maintain healthy muscle mass in people who are susceptible to loss of lean body mass, such as those undergoing surgery. One study showed that supplementing individuals who had major surgery with glutamine prevented the decline in muscle glutamine levels and muscle protein synthesis that can occur following such a procedure. These findings strongly suggest that glutamine can prevent the loss of muscle tissue during recovery from surgery and have important implications for all those seeking to preserve lean muscle mass.18

Glutamine may offer benefits for muscle health by increasing growth hormone levels. Since youthful levels of growth hormone are associated with tissue building and repair, nutritional scientists have long sought methods of naturally enhancing growth hormone levels. In one study, scientists administered 2,000 mg of glutamine dissolved in a beverage to nine healthy adult subjects. Eight out of the nine subjects responded to the oral glutamine intake with a four-fold increase in growth hormone output.19 These results bode well for athletes and active aging populations seeking to optimize their growth hormone levels.

Glutamine may hold important benefits for individuals who participate in exercise training programs. Evidence suggests that glutamine may help replenish muscle glycogen stores after intense exercise.20 Glycogen serves as a readily available form of fuel to power muscle action and, as most athletes know, optimizing glycogen levels is important when you want to perform well.

Scientists administered glutamine to six healthy volunteers who had just completed 90 minutes of intense exercise. Such vigorous activity depletes muscle glycogen stores. Glutamine administration increased muscle glutamine stores and increased glycogen storage after the intense bout of exercise. While scientists are continuing to explore glutamine's mechanism of action in increasing glycogen stores, this might just be one more benefit of this amino acid for athletes and aging populations who wish to remain active and healthy.

In addition to its benefits for muscle wellness, glutamine is also crucial for immune health, and may be especially crucial in those who exercise vigorously. Intense exercise is known to reduce glutamine stores, making less glutamine available for supporting healthy immune system function and leaving individuals susceptible to infections.21 Scientists have proposed that supplementing with glutamine may help prevent the depression of immune function that can occur in those who participate in vigorous exercise programs.21-25

Glutamine thus holds important benefits for preserving muscle mass with aging, supporting healthy growth hormone levels, optimizing muscle glycogen levels, and preventing exercise-induced immune suppression. These effects have important applications for athletes and aging populations who realize muscle is essential for healthy living and long-term functionality with advancing age.

Conclusion
The combination of whey, creatine, and glutamine powerfully supports aging muscles, functional strength, and the aging immune system, all of which are critical factors for an active, independent life. Utilizing whey protein as a meal replacement provides critical proteins without the carbohydrates and fats that may contribute to unwanted weight gain.

If you have any questions on the scientific content of this article, please call a Life Extension Health Advisor at 1-800-226-2370

Long known for its anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic effects,2,3 recent scientific breakthroughs reveal that quercetin may help promote longevity by mimicking the effects of caloric restriction.4,5 Furthermore, this powerful antioxidant demonstrates multifaceted protective effects against cardio-vascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and even cancer.2,3

While quercetin can be obtained through red wine and other dietary sources such as apples, onions, grapefruit, tea, green vegetables, and beans,6 highly purified supplements make it possible to acquire the bio-logically meaningful doses that have shown promise in tightly controlled studies. In the words of the German nutrition expert Professor Stephan C.

Bischoff, &ldquo Quercetin is a most promising compound for disease prevention and therapy.&rdquo 7 Let's take a look at some of the compelling evidence that has accumulated over the past few years for quercetin's role in health management and disease prevention.

Anti-Inflammatory and Anti-Allergy Effects
At the core of most of quercetin's remarkable properties is its ability to modulate inflammation. Since we now understand that inflammation is involved in virtually every chronic human disease and many acute ones&mdash having an inflammatory modulator like quercetin in our armamentarium is likely to prove very useful indeed.

Korean researchers in 2007 showed how quercetin inhibits the production of inflammatory cytokines by blocking the effects of the powerful cellular mediator NF-kappaB, long associated with both cancer and chronic inflammatory conditions.8

Quercetin's anti-inflammatory effects may arise in part from its inhibitory effects on the inflammation-producing enzymes cyclooxygenase (COX) and lipo-oxygenase (LOX). This in turn leads to a decrease in inflammatory mediators such as prostaglandins and leukotrienes.2,9 Pharmaceutical agents that block the COX enzymes are often used in the management of painful conditions like arthritis, while LOX inhibitors are employed in the management of asthma.

Additionally, quercetin exerts anti-allergy and anti-inflammatory effects by helping prevent the release of histamine from mast cells and basophils, thus acting as a natural antihistamine.2 This is similar to the mechanism of action of the drug cromolyn, which is used to manage allergy-related asthma.

Researchers in both Brazil10 and Korea11 protected animals from fatal allergic reactions to common food allergens by pre-treating them with quercetin in oral or inhaled forms.

Quercetin's ability to prevent allergic effects has tremendous implications for the treatment and prevention of asthma and bronchitis, conditions for which quercetin-rich foods have had long traditional roles.12 Several studies since 2007 have shown that animals pre-treated with quercetin or related compounds have dramatically reduced reactions to chemicals that trigger asthma attacks.13-15 In a dramatic, eye-opening study in 2008, Korean researcher Hee Moon compared inhaled quercetin head-to-head with prescription asthma drugs in guinea-pigs.16 Remarkably, the nutrient-derived quercetin treatment reduced airway resistance (difficulty breathing) more than the adrenaline-like drug albuterol, and had equivalent effects to the anti-inflammatory cromolyn as well as the potent steroid dexamethasone.

In a form of epidemiological detective work, nutrition scientists from Michigan State University explored the impact of dietary flavonoids such as quercetin in their more general roles as systemic anti-inflammatory agents.17 Basing their work on knowledge that intake of certain foods can lower levels of the inflammatory risk factor C-reactive protein (CRP), they went looking for the most potent food components, studying more than 8,000 adults. They found that higher flavonoid intake was associated with lower CRP levels&mdash and quercetin headed the list of specific flavonoid compounds that had the strongest protective effect. Since elevated CRP levels are associated with numerous disease states such as obesity, heart disease, and lupus, this provides compelling reason to explore quercetin's potential for preventing death and disability from a host of major killers.

Immune-Modulating Effects
Quercetin is one of nearly 200 beneficial compounds found in garlic,18 which has been used for millennia in treating and preventing infectious disease such as viral syndromes.19 Indeed, modern science confirms quercetin's benefits in helping fight off viral invaders.

In laboratory studies, quercetin has been found to reduce the replication and infectivity of numerous viruses, including respiratory syncytial virus (a common cause of children's upper respiratory infection) and parainfluenza virus type 3.2

Italian researchers just last year showed that they could use a quercetin-rich extract to up-regulate the antiviral immune response in cells infected with herpes viruses.20 Additionally, an animal study last year showed that supplementation with quercetin helped protect mice against influenza infection following exercise-induced stress.21 These findings make quercetin an intriguing candidate for preventing and managing viral infections in susceptible individuals.

Obesity
The rampant rise of overweight and obesity poses one of the greatest global health threats today. Scientists are now eagerly exploring quercetin's potential as a means of controlling fat accumulation.

Fat, long considered to be an inert, biologically uninteresting tissue, is now known to be a virtual beehive of metabolic and endocrine activity, producing myriad hormones, inflammatory cytokines, and other molecules that influence health for better or for worse.22 Fat tissue mass is essentially the product of new fat cells, their accumulation of fat triglycerides, and their programmed death by the process of apoptosis.23 Each of these processes can be affected by various natural dietary components, and as University of Georgia nutritionist Srujana Rayalam recently observed, &ldquo Therapy employing compounds that target different stages of the adipocyte [fat cell] life cycle might prove beneficial for decreasing adipose tissue volume by inducing apoptosis or by inhibiting adipogenesis [fat accumulation] or both.&rdquo 23 What is so exciting about quercetin is recent evidence that this flavonoid, alone or in combination with resveratrol and genistein, is capable of exerting just such multiple effects directly on fat tissue!

Quercetin inhibits fat accumulation in maturing human fat cells in culture, for example, while also suppressing the maturation of new fat cells and simultaneously triggering apoptosis (programmed destruction) in existing fat cells.24,25 Quercetin actually blocks the uptake of glucose from the blood, depriving fat cells of the raw material they need to manufacture and accumulate fat molecules.26 In remarkable work published in mid-2008, the University of Georgia group found that while they could block fat cell production and enhance fat cell death dramatically using either quercetin or resveratrol (another powerful flavonoid) alone, when they used the two in combination they decreased lipid accumulation in cultured fat cells by nearly 70%, while increasing fat apoptosis by a whopping 310%!27

Just a few months later, the same research team found that resveratrol and genistein synergize with quercetin to decrease lipid accumulation in human fat cells. While genistein, quercetin, and resveratrol decreased lipid accumulation in fat cells by 17%, 20%, and 17%, respectively, the combination of all three agents decreased lipid accumulation by an impressive 80%.25

Studies in animals lend support to the potential anti-obesity effects of quercetin. In mice fed a high-fat diet, quercetin produced a transient increase in energy expenditure,28 while another study showed that high-dose quercetin supplementation was associated with reduced body weight gain in obese, insulin-resistant mice.3

It's no surprise then that quercetin&mdash alone or in combination with other nutraceuticals&mdash is drawing the attention of researchers searching for novel strategies for fighting obesity via numerous mechanisms.

What You Need to Know: Quercetin
Despite being the most common and best studied of the polyphenols, quercetin has been largely neglected in the public eye until recently, as new research has revealed its astonishing potential as a health-promoting, disease-preventing supplement.
Quercetin's powerful antioxidant effects directly reduce tissue damage and have now been shown to prevent diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Independent effects of quercetin directly reduce fat tissue growth and development, and even reduce the bulk of body fat stores, promoting health through weight reduction.
Quercetin shows promise in fighting the numerous components of the metabolic syndrome, including hypertension, insulin resistance, and adverse lipid profiles.
Quercetin's antioxidant effects lead to anti-inflammatory and anti-allergy effects, augmenting its role in chronic disease prevention and treatment.
Quercetin directly extends the life span of laboratory organisms, in part by mimicking the beneficial effects of caloric restriction, and opening the door to a new approach to life extension itself.
Health care practitioners recommend quercetin in doses ranging from 50 mg to 500 mg, one to three times daily.2,55

Cardiovascular Disease

Increased dietary intake of flavonoids&mdash particularly from quercetin-rich foods&mdash has been linked with decreased heart disease mortality and decreased stroke incidence.2 In 2000, Spanish scientists showed that red wine, laden with quercetin and related antioxidants, prevented activity of inflammation-promoting NF-kappaB in human volunteers, providing a big part of the explanation of how red wine reduces cardiovascular mortality.29

In 2004, British researchers demonstrated that humans who took quercetin supplements had substantially reduced platelet aggregation, suggesting that another of quercetin's cardiovascular health benefits was related to a reduced risk of clotting.30 These researchers later showed that dietary ingestion of quercetin from onion soup also helped inhibit platelet aggregation.31 And in a study of 30 men who already had coronary heart disease, Greek cardiologists showed that a red grape polyphenol extract rich in quercetin caused an increase in flow-mediated dilation of major arteries, a potent indicator of improved endothelial health.32

The natural next step was to study quercetin supplements alone and their effect on blood pressure, a study undertaken at the University of Utah in 2007.33 They studied 19 patients with pre-hypertension and 22 with stage 1 (early) hypertension, supplementing them with placebo or 730 mg quercetin/day for 28 days. There was no effect on the pre-hypertensive patients, but the hypertensive group enjoyed reductions in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure (average 7 mmHg and 5 mmHg reductions, respectively)&mdash meaningful changes that lower vascular disease risk.

In 2008, a randomized, placebo-controlled crossover trial in 12 healthy men showed biochemical evidence of improved endothelial function (such as augmentation of nitric oxide status) with as little as 200 mg/day of quercetin.34

Together, these effects point to an important role for quercetin in protecting cardiovascular health.

Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes
Chinese folk medicine has long used a quercetin-rich plant called Euonymus alatus to treat type 2 diabetes.35 Not surprisingly, modern research is finding that quercetin may hold applications in managing metabolic syndrome&mdash a cluster of risk factors that is associated with an elevated risk of diabetes.

Spanish researchers publishing in the journal Obesity showed in 2008 that quercetin given to obese, insulin-resistant rats produced a reduction in systolic blood pressure, plasma lipids, and insulin levels, while improving the over-aggressive inflammatory status these rats develop.3 The higher of two experimental quercetin doses also led to increased expression of endothelial nitric oxide synthase&mdash the enzyme that generates blood vessel-protective nitric oxide. These findings suggest that quercetin may protect against numerous components of the common and deadly metabolic syndrome.

Cancer
Quercetin's ability to suppress cell proliferation, to promote programmed cell death, and to minimize DNA damage has made it of natural interest as a cancer-preventive nutrient as well,36,37 and epidemiologic studies strongly suggest that quercetin and other flavonoid intake is correlated with a reduced risk of certain cancers.38-43 Researchers have demonstrated quercetin's ability to prevent or slow tumor development in experiments involving cancers of the brain, liver, colon, and other tissues.44-47

Clinical evidence of quercetin's usefulness in cancer prevention and therapy is rapidly accumulating. An early Phase I clinical trial of quercetin in patients with various cancer types demonstrated a decrease in activity of enzymes required for tumor growth in nine of 11 patients studied.48 Two patients with advanced cancers that had failed to respond to standard chemotherapy experienced significant drops in chemical tumor markers during the study.

More recently, Cleveland Clinic oncologists investigated quercetin in patients who had familial adenomatous polyposis, an inherited condition producing hundreds of colonic polyps that ultimately turn to cancer.49 They combined the quercetin with curcumin, another nutrient with known anti-inflammatory and tumor-blocking potential, in five patients, treating and following them for six months. All patients had a reduction in both size (60%) and number of polyps (51%) over the course of treatment, with minimal adverse effects and no evidence of laboratory abnormalities. The researchers strongly encouraged larger controlled trials to further explore the supplements' potential cancer-fighting abilities.

Longevity

The diverse and multiple effects of quercetin on specific disease processes are overwhelming, and are certain to have an effect on longevity simply by reducing the impact of chronic illness. But there seems to be something else going on with this surprising polyphenol&mdash something independent of its disease-preventing activity. Hard as it may be to believe, there is actually evidence that quercetin has a direct effect on prolonging life span, at least in simple laboratory organisms. For example, a Portuguese biochemistry research group has shown that, by increasing resistance to oxidative stress, quercetin supplements prolong the life span of laboratory yeast cells in culture by 60%!4

Biologists at Humboldt University in Berlin took these findings several steps further in their work on a simple roundworm C. elegans, demonstrating that feeding the tiny worms flavonoid-rich diets improved overall health and longevity.50 Digging deeper, the same group traced this powerful effect to the quercetin content of the supplement&mdash they've even identified a set of four specific genes that seem to be activated by quercetin, pinpointing the precision with which this nutrient acts.50,51 Other scientists have found evidence that quercetin may mimic many beneficial biological effects of caloric restriction, which extends life span in animals and possibly in humans.5,52,53 The immediate impact on humans has also been shown by neuroscientists in Kentucky, who discovered that they could protect brain cells from the devastating effects of the toxic protein found in Alzheimer's disease, beta-amyloid, by pre-treating the cells with quercetin, apparently through reduction in free radical damage caused by the deadly protein.54

Dosage and Safety
Health care practitioners recommend quercetin in doses ranging from 50 mg to 500 mg, one to three times daily.2,55

Quercetin is generally considered safe and well tolerated. Pregnant or nursing women should speak with a physician before using quercetin.2

Summary
Quercetin, a ubiquitous polyphenol found especially in apples, onions, and red grapes has been ignored for years while other members of its class took the limelight. In just the past two years, however, a virtual explosion of information has emerged about this versatile molecule. We now understand that it can fundamentally affect disease processes as different as obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and asthma, through its powerful antioxidant effects that reduce inflammation throughout the body. Even more astonishingly, it is now clear that quercetin may have a direct and independent effect on prolonging life itself, through mechanisms that are becoming less mysterious as scientists focus their attention deep inside cellular processes.

If you have any questions on the scientific content of this article, please call a Life Extension Health Advisor at 1-800-226-2370.

The study also concluded that diabetic subjects who consumed the greatest number of eggs per week were twice as likely to die of cardiovascular disease as diabetic subjects who consumed the fewest eggs.1 A related report concluded that daily egg consumption significantly increases a person's risk of becoming diabetic.2

Interestingly, the last definitive study to address the subject of eggs and heart disease, published nearly a decade ago, failed to find a significant link between egg consumption and cardiovascular disease. But even that study identified an increased risk of coronary heart disease among egg-eating diabetics.3

The authors fed rats for nine months with a regular diet or a diet supplemented with vitamin E, strawberry extract, or spinach extract. The antioxidant diets prevented several chemical processes involved in oxidative stress and improved spatial memory and learning ability.

In other experiments, aged rats showed significant reversal of age-related cognitive declines and increase in motor performance after eight weeks of supplementation with spinach, strawberry, and especially blueberry extracts. Strawberry and blueberry supplementation even protected against radiation damage.

The authors conclude that &ldquo nutritional interventions containing polyphenolics, such as berry fruits, may prove to be a valuable asset in strengthening the brain against the ravages of time as they could retard or prevent the development of age-related neurodegenerative diseases&hellip such as Alzheimer's disease, because they can reduce oxidative stress and inflammation.&rdquo

Testosterone suppression (&ldquo medical castration&rdquo ) is a major treatment strategy in advanced prostate cancer. Degarelix works by binding with and blocking the receptor for gonadotropin-releasing hormone in the pituitary gland, an action that suppresses the release of gonadotropins and testosterone. This mechanism of action differs from that of current drugs such as leuprolide.

In a pivotal clinical study, men with prostate cancer were randomly assigned to standard doses of degarelix (207 men) or leuprolide (201 men).2 The study objective was to reduce testosterone levels below 50 ng/dL over 12 months. Degarelix was just as effective as leuprolide but had a faster onset of action. After three days of treatment, 96% of men taking degarelix had reduced levels of testosterone, compared with 0% with leuprolide respective rates were 99% and 18% at day 14 and 100% for both agents by day 28. Testosterone remained suppressed at one year in both groups. Levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), an indicator of tumor activity and progression, were 64% lower after two weeks of degarelix and 95% lower after three months, and remained low throughout one year of treatment.

Degarelix was generally safe and most adverse reactions were mild-to-moderate in severity.

Hidden Cause of Heart Attack and Stroke
Even when all conventional risk factors are controlled, the progressive decline of nitric oxide in the arterial wall (the endothelium) too often leads to coronary heart attack and stroke.68-75
Seven years ago, Life Extension researchers identified a critical compound (tetrahydrobiopterin) that is an essential cofactor for the enzyme that synthesizes nitric oxide in the endothelium.76 We spent several hundred thousand dollars trying to develop an affordable way to manufacture this compound as it offered tremendous promise for eradicating atherosclerosis.
We failed to find an affordable way to make tetrahydrobiopterin. The good news is that nutrients that suppress peroxynitrite (like gamma tocopherol and pomegranate) increase endothelial nitric oxide by blocking the oxidation of tetrahydrobiopterin.77,78
Indeed, clinical studies show that supplemental gamma tocopherol enhances platelet endothelial nitric oxide synthase activity.52,53 Furthermore, a diet high in gamma tocopherol-rich walnuts improves endothelium-dependent vasodilation in those with high cholesterol.63
By administering only alpha tocopherol as was done in the flawed study, one would expect gamma tocopherol to be suppressed, peroxynitrite levels to increase, and precious tetrahydrobiopterin to be oxidized, thus depriving the endothelium of the nitric oxide it needs to protect against heart attack and stroke. Is it any wonder that this study failed to show vascular disease reduction in those given only alpha (but not gamma) tocopherol?
Failing to Account For All Vascular Risk Factors
Numerous independent risk factors are associated with the development of atherosclerosis and subsequent heart attack and stroke risk. A major flaw in this study was expecting low-dose vitamin C and/or E to somehow overcome all of these underlying causes of artery disease.
We know it is impossible for vitamins C and E to overcome these many risk factors, but this did not stop the media from recommending that Americans discard their supplements.
The following represents a succinct list of documented vascular disease risk factors:
Low testosterone (in men)
Excess fibrinogen
Low HDL
Excess LDL and total cholesterol
Excess glucose
Excess C-reactive protein
Excess homocysteine
Hypertension
Low blood EPA/DHA
Excess triglycerides
Excess insulin
Excess estrogen (in men)
Oxidized LDL
Excess platelet activity
Nitric oxide deficit (endothelial dysfunction)
Insufficient vitamin D
Insufficient vitamin K2
The basis for doing this study, as outlined by the study's authors, was to use vitamins C and/or E to:
Trap organic free radicals&hellip deactivate excited oxygen molecules&hellip inhibit LDL oxidation
Modify vascular reactivity&hellip prevent tissue damage
Modify platelet activity and thus reduce thrombotic potential.
As one can clearly see on the previous page, there are 17 documented cardiovascular risk factors. Yet only three of these risk factors are what formed the basis for conducting this low-dose vitamin C and/or E clinical trial. The three most important risk factors the authors of the flawed study expected to favorably influence with vitamins C and E were:
LDL oxidation
Platelet activity and thrombotic potential
Vascular reactivity (another term for endothelial dysfunction).
For every one mechanism the study's authors proposed might enable low-dose vitamin C and/or synthetic vitamin E to work, there are five additional risk factors that would not be corrected. For instance, vitamins C and E in these low doses are not going to reduce C-reactive protein,86 homocysteine, fibrinogen, or glucose.87 Vitamins C and E in any dose are not going to increase testosterone, decrease estrogen, or provide cardioprotective EPA/DHA and vitamin D.
On the contrary, as we have already shown, by giving only alpha but not gamma tocopherol, one might expect increased LDL oxidation and impaired endothelial function. That's because alpha tocopherol displaces gamma tocopherol in the body. Gamma tocopherol suppresses the peroxynitrite radical that oxidizes both LDL protein and the tetrahydrobiopterin that is needed to produce endothelial nitric oxide.
As far as platelet activity and thrombotic potential (abnormal clotting inside a blood vessel) are concerned, gamma tocopherol is significantly more potent than alpha tocopherol in inhibiting platelet aggregation that can lead to a heart attack or stroke.52,53 By displacing gamma tocopherol, the alpha tocopherol used alone in this study may have increased abnormal platelet aggregation risk.
From everything we know today, this study was designed to fail. Not only did it not correct for the major causes of vascular disease, but it may have exacerbated some of the more dangerous ones.
None of What I Wrote So Far May Really Matter
You have just learned why low-dose vitamin C and/or E supplementation would not be expected to reduce heart attack and stroke risk.
I have saved the biggest shocker for last. It turns out that a significant number of the study subjects (who were all medical doctors) who were supposed to take the vitamin C and/or E supplements did not take their pills. Yet when the calculations for heart attack or stroke incidence were made, those who took as little as 66% of their low-dose vitamin C and/or E supplements were counted as having taken the entire dose.
At the end of the study, 28% of the study subjects admitted they had not even taken 66% of their low-dose vitamin C and/or E supplements.
Even more troubling is the method used to track who was really taking their supplements. Participants were asked to remember and track supplement usage for over eight years' time without any verification of actual pill counts, compliance by plasma antioxidant analysis, or in vivo surrogate markers of oxidative stress. Relying upon participants' memory and recollection over a lengthy time period of many years is a rather pathetic way of ensuring adherence, and renders the authors' so-called &ldquo sensitivity analysis&rdquo meaningless.
The lack of adherence, i.e., the fact that a significant percentage of the study participants were not even taking their vitamins, may be the most significant flaw to this study. No one in the mainstream media bothered to report this, or any of the other flaws that jumped out at us.
Instead, the media's message was don't waste your money on vitamin C or E pills. Many supplement users who are taking the right form and dose of their vitamin C and E nutrients may believe the media's biased reporting.

Shocking Deficiencies of Vitamin E
The media used this horrific-ally flawed study as a basis to steer Americans away from vitamin C and E supplements. It's as if all of the previous positive published studies disappeared overnight.
What was omitted is the fact that 92% of American men and 98% of American women do not consume the recommended dietary allowance of vitamin E in their diet. The federal government says Americans need 15 milligrams per day of vitamin E, yet even this minute amount is not found in the diets of the vast majority of people.88
This means that most Americans require a vitamin E supplement to avoid a chronic deficiency, but this important fact was conveniently left out of the news stories.
Conventional medicine says that severe vitamin E deficiency results mainly in neuro-logical symptoms such as impaired balance and coordination and muscle weakness. These neurological symptoms do not develop for 10-20 years, as it takes time for free radicals to inflict nerve damage in the absence of sufficient vitamin E. The reality is that chronic vitamin E deficiency adversely impacts virtually every cell of the body.89-94

DOES DRUG MONEY INFLUENCE HOW MEDICAL JOURNALS REPORT ON DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS?
A group of statistical researchers investigated the relationship between pharmaceutical advertising and articles regarding dietary supplements in medical journals.99 The analysis revealed that:
Journals with the most pharmaceutical ads published significantly fewer major articles about dietary supplements per issue than journals with the fewest pharmaceutical ads (P < 0.001).
The percentage of major articles concluding that dietary supplements were unsafe was 4% in journals with the fewest pharmaceutical ads and 67% among those with the most pharmaceutical ads (P < 0.005).
The percentage of articles concluding that dietary supplements were ineffective was almost twice as high (50%) among journals with more pharmaceutical ads than among those with fewer pharmaceutical ads (27%).
The researchers concluded that increased pharmaceutical advertising is associated with the publication of fewer articles about dietary supplements and more articles with conclusions that dietary supplements are unsafe.99
A major reason why many conventional doctors are biased against dietary supplements is that the journals they read seldom publish the favorable studies. Dietary supplements compete directly against prescription drugs in many disease categories. When dietary supplements are properly used to prevent disease, demand for expensive pharmaceutical agents is diminished. It is thus in the financial interest of pharmaceutical companies to encourage negative studies to be published in influential medical journals.
It seems more than a coincidence that mainstream medical journals publish negative editorials against dietary supplements at times of the year that garner the most media coverage. Life Extension has long argued that the billions of advertising dollars spent by pharmaceutical companies influences media bias against dietary supplements. This latest study reveals that drug money may also be corrupting medical journals that have a significant impact on professional and public opinion.

A Media Coup for Pharmaceutical Companies
The optimal moment of the year to get your message to the masses is the second week of November. This is a time in between holidays, when winter is setting in, and few people are on vacation. The television networks consider this their most important &ldquo sweeps week&rdquo as it provides the most accurate measurement of their ratings.
The timing of the release of this horrendously flawed vitamin C and E study could not have been more perfect for pharmaceutical interests. It came out less than one week after the November elections, when the media was primed to sensationalize any story that would attract viewers for their all important &ldquo sweeps week.&rdquo
On the very same day the media launched its attack on vitamins C and E, the same news sources reported that very high doses of the statin drug Crestor® reduced heart attack rates by 54% in healthy people who had high C-reactive protein levels.95 Just think, uneducated consumers read on the same day that vitamins C and E are worthless and an expensive statin drug performs miracles.
Financial analysts predict a windfall for the makers of Crestor® based on this widely distributed report. In retrospect, conducting a study only on people with high C-reactive protein (but not particularly high LDL) was a brilliant marketing strategy. It had a high probability of a successful outcome, and if the study failed, Crestor® was never approved to lower C-reactive protein or be used in this population group, so the pharmaceutical company had nothing to lose.
We at Life Extension have long warned about the vascular dangers of elevated C-reactive protein and even recommended statin drugs if natural approaches fail to reduce C-reactive protein. We don't believe most people have to purchase expensive brand name drugs like Crestor® , as generic simvastatin (name brand Zocor® ) or pravastatin (name brand Pravachol® ) can provide similar benefit at a fraction of the price.

Media Also Attacks Vitamin D
Not content to bash only vitamins C and E, the media the very next day in November 2008 ran a headline story stating that &ldquo Supplements don't reduce breast cancer risk.&rdquo This story was based on a study of women who received only 400 IU a day of supplemental vitamin D.96
As has been reported for years in this and other health publications, 400 IU a day of vitamin D is clearly inadequate.97 To reduce breast cancer risk by around 50%, a daily dose of 1,000 IU and higher is required. The major flaw in this study is that participants in the active and placebo group were allowed to take vitamin D outside the study, which rendered the findings meaningless even if the proper dose had been given.
The fact that the media made this study headline news is regrettable because only about 20% of the study population achieved a 25-hydroxyvitamin D blood result at the minimum level required to prevent breast cancer (approximately 30 ng/mL or higher). In other words, most participants in the active or placebo group failed to achieve even the minimal blood concentrations of vitamin D that other studies document are needed to protect against breast cancer.98 So all this study did was help confirm what vitamin D experts have been saying for over five years now, i.e., a minimum of 800 IU to 1,000 IU of vitamin D a day is required&hellip not the 400 IU used in this study.

Don't Be a Victim of This Flawed Propaganda
It is in the economic interests of drug companies to steer Americans away from healthier lifestyles and dietary supplements. As more Americans fall ill to degenerative disease, drug company profits increase exponentially.
Enormous amounts of pharmaceutical dollars are spent influencing Congress, the FDA, and other federal agencies. The result is the promulgation of policies that cause Americans to be deprived of effective, low-cost means of protecting themselves against age-related disease.
As a member of the Life Extension Foundation, you gain access to scientific information that is interpreted in the context of what health-conscious people are really doing to protect themselves against age-related diseases. You also learn how this information is distorted by the government, drug companies, and the media to discourage the public from following healthier lifestyles.
References
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Seashells may provide a cheap way to get toxic metals out of drinking water, says a Discovery Channel report. Researchers at Austria's Graz Univ. of Technology have found that pouring water over crushed shells removes metals like cadmium, zinc, lead and iron. The innovation may be an important breakthrough because many developing nations like Vietnam lack expensive water filtration plants, but they have lots of coastal areas where seashells are abundant.

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Many college graduates won't be getting that customary handshake as they receive their diplomas this month because of concerns about spreading the swine flu. The Univ. of Mich.'s business school, the Univ. of Ill. at Chicago and Purdue Univ. are among the institutions that have said they won't have handshakes at their commencement events. Loyola Univ. Chicago will have handshakes, but plans to pass out hand sanitizer. Just 5% of Americans use Twitter, although the microblogging service has attracted a lot of media attention, a Harris Interactive poll found. Only 8% of people aged 18- 34 and 7% of those 35-44 have used Twitter, it said, while only 1% of those 55 and over have tried it.