Most of my readers are aware of the evils of coffee, and probably all of them have given up this habit. However, I often meet raw foodists or vegetarians who, otherwise following a healthy lifestyle, still drink coffee. It’s their guilty pleasure they say. Others still have an occasional cup of green tea, maté, guarana, or other caffeinated beverages. Some may even think that these beverages are healthy. For many, it’s chocolate, which gives the same strange “pleasure” as the beverages.

The effects of caffeine on the body are well researched, but you never hear about it in your newspaper. You never hear about it anywhere because the whole nation, if not the whole world, is addicted to caffeine. Doctors, journalists, scientists, writers, everyone drinks coffee. Those whose job is to inform us are usually heavy coffee drinkers. And few of them ever rise up to speak against this popular drug. But one did, his name is Stephen Cherniske, and he’s a scientist who spent 10 years of his life researching the effects of caffeine on the body and compiling them in a shocking document, “Caffeine Blues.”

On the first page of this book we can read: “Caffeine can’t provide energy, only chemical stimulation and induced emergency state that can lead to irritability, mood swings, and panic attacks. Caffeine’s ultimate mood effect can be letdown, which can lead to depression and chronic fatigue. Caffeine gives the illusion of heightened alertness by dilating pupils, quickening heart rate, and raising blood pressure. In fact, caffeine does not increase overall mental activity.”

I have read “Caffeine Blues” and selected the most relevant information and quotes out of it for this article. The Great Caffeine Hoax You may have read somewhere, or have been told in school, that as long as caffeine was consumed in “moderate” quantities, it did not pose any threat to health. You were reassured. Once in a while, you may even read somewhere in the newspaper about the “benefits” of drinking coffee. So far, so good. Who could ever say anything against coffee? Mr. Cherniske responds: “I had been told only that caffeine was a mild stimulant and its association with health disorders was unproven. I was also told that caffeine is not addictive. Since I knew from my own painful experience that the opposite was true, I reasoned that perhaps I had been snowed on the whole topic.”

“What I quickly learned was that everyone has been snowed - researchers, doctors, journalists, and especially the public. The deception has been well coordinated by an industry whose goal is quite simple: to get as much caffeine into our bodies as possible. The caffeine industry knows caffeine saps your natural sense of vitality, leaving you dependent on their products to get through the day. They know that you actually crave their products and, more importantly, that you suffer when you don’t consume them. “It’s a marketing dream, and it’s legal. No wonder more and more companies are jumping on the caffeine bandwagon, churning out products from specialized coffees and teas to ‘herbal’ caffeinated energy pills, caffeinelaced fruit beverages, ’supercharged’ soft drinks, caffeinated beer, and even caffeinated bottled water.” (Caffeine Blues, page 4)

The Caffeine Stimulation: Not Energy, Caffeine is a poison.

The body has absolutely no use for it as it is a danger to its living function. It must detoxify it through the liver and reject it with great effort. The “stimulation” we feel after drinking coffee is nothing more than the expended effort in eliminating this poison. The Law of Excitation Herbert Shelton clearly explained the delusion of stimulation in his classic book, “Orthobionomics.” “Whenever any irritating substance or influence is brought to bear upon the living organism this occasions vital resistance and excitation manifested by increased and impaired action, which, always necessarily diminishes the power of action and does so in precisely the degree to which it accelerates action; the increased action is caused by the extra expenditure of vital power called out, not supplied, by the compulsory process, and therefore the available supply of power is diminished by this amount…” “Under all circumstances, vitality or energy of any character whatever is invariably manifested or noticed by us, as energy, in its expenditure, never in its accumulation.” In other words, what appears to give us energy is draining our energies. The stimulation people get from drinking coffee is an expenditure of vital forces, not real energy which can only come from rest.

Cherniske who well understands this, wrote: “Caffeine does not provide energy - only chemical stimulation. The perceived energy comes from the body’s struggle to adapt to increased blood levels of stress hormones… Using coffee for mood enhancement is a short-term blessing and a long-term curse. While the initial adrenal stimulation may provide a transient anti-fatigue ‘lift,’ caffeine’s ultimate mood effect is a letdown, either subtle or profound. Advertisers and coffee ‘institutes’ have kept this side of caffeine from public view… “While caffeine users may feel more alert, the experience is simply one of increased sensory and motor activity (dilated pupils, increased heart rate, and higher blood pressure). The quality of thought and recall is improved no more than the quality of music is improved when played at a higher volume or speed.” The energy we get from caffeine is similar to the “energy” a horse gets when whipped. It is not energy gained but power spent responding to an injury.

Tolerance

About tolerance to caffeine, he says: “What is tolerable for one person may be excessive for another. Moreover, what is tolerable caffeine intake at some point in your life may actually cause health problems just a few years later.” (Caffeine Blues, page We often hear that caffeine is only bad when consumed in excess, but when taken in small quantities it is not dangerous, and could even be beneficial, raising “mental alertness.” But since when can a poison be good for you? “… of all the thousands of research papers that have been published on caffeine, none have concluded that caffeine is good for you.”

The truth is that the moderate coffee drinker is a rare gem, because coffee is so addictive that most consumers eventually end up drinking quite a bit. And the “average person” is a myth anyway. This person described by scientists in their research papers when they statistically analyze caffeine consumption simply does not exist. Not everyone reacts to a poison the same way, not everyone can detoxify it at the same rate, and not everyone consumes the same dose. Those who are purified by, for example, a raw vegan diet, will react more strongly to caffeine than the average person. Children are more affected too, because their organism is purer. So the same dose of caffeine will have different effect on different people. So we can see the fallacy of recommending “moderation” - because it doesn’t mean anything. Moderation can only concern the healthy factors of life, not those that are damaging to it. Moderation in them is impossible. Any quantity will be an excess.

But how did we come to drink coffee? It seems that coffee beans were used as a drug long before they were used as a food. The practice of giving toxic substances to the sick has been in vogue for a long time and has not changed much today. A large percentage of today’s pharmaceutical drugs contain caffeine as one of their “active ingredients.” “It was not until the thirteenth century that Arab monks made a revolutionary discovery. Roasted coffee beans could be made into a drink. No more falling asleep at prayers! The news spread from monastery to monastery, then hit the streets in the world’s finest coffeehouses.” (Caffeine Blues, page 14)

“When coffee was first brought to European cities in the seventeenth century, people were repelled by its color and taste. They complained that it smelled and looked like roofing tar. But after they experienced its stimulating effect, the beverage was quickly proclaimed to be one of nature’s miracles. Historians record this phenomenon without noticing the irony of what they are writing. Caffeine is, after all, a psychoactive drug, and human beings tend to crave substances that alter their states among them caffeine, morphine, nicotine, and cocaine. Indeed, all of these alkaloids are chemically related and, while they produce widely different effects, all are poisonous.” (Caffeine Blues, page 17)

Now coffee has conquered the world to the point where almost everyone drinks coffee, if not tea, if not another type of caffeinated beverage, such as coca-cola. Americans are the largest coffee drinkers in the world - with a dazzling record of 420 million cups drunk every single day.

Toxicity of Coffee

Coffee is not a food, it is not a drink - it’s a poison. It’s a “mild” drug containing a whole array of toxic substances. In addition to caffeine, coffee contains hundreds of volatile substances including more than 200 acids. These the body must reject by a great expense of energy, which is the strange stimulation perceived as “energy.” “Caffeine is a biological poison used by plants as a pesticide. The caffeine gives seeds and leaves a bitter taste, which discourages their consumption by insects and animals. If predators persist in eating a caffeine-containing plant, the caffeine can cause central nervous system disruptions and even lethal side effects. Most pests soon learn to leave the plant alone.” (Caffeine Blues, page 17) But humans have fooled their instincts and tastes bud and transformed coffee into a drinkable beverage, often mixed with milk and sugar. The same holds true for chocolate. No one would ever think of eating cocoa beans, because of their horrible taste. So we mix it with sugar and fat and call it chocolate. But our sense of taste was right in detecting that poison - used by the plant as a pesticide to repel insects.

Caffeine, like theobromine (found in chocolate), has to be detoxified by the liver, and injures it overtime. Caffeine is a poison for the liver. But caffeine is not the only toxic substance in coffee. “Remember that coffee contains a host of chemicals, not just caffeine, among them a group of extremely toxic compounds known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). You might remember them as the cancer-causing agents isolated from barbecued meat.” (Caffeine Blues, page 53)

Chocolate

Chocolate contains a small amount of caffeine, but also contains a good amount of another substance called theobromine. This is an substance analogous to caffeine, producing similar physiological effects. When you combine the caffeine and the theobromine contained in a one-ounce piece of chocolate, you end up with the stimulating power of 40 milligrams of caffeine!

But everyone drinks coffee!

“When it comes to coffee, the most common reaction I hear is, ‘How can it be bad for you? People have been drinking coffee for centuries.’ “To a scientist, this observation is meaningless. History is filled with cases where millions of people made serious mistakes. There are herbs in China, for example, that have been used medicinally for thousands of years, and are still being used to treat sinus congestion. But repeated use of these herbs over time can cause cancer of the nose and throat. Epidemiologists (scientists studying the distribution of disease in populations) have estimated that this habit has caused premature and painful death for millions of Chinese people. Clearly, great numbers of people can be wrong, especially when they don’t know the facts.” (Caffeine Blues, page 49)

I have a saying: A lot of what popular wisdom holds true is wrong. With so much misinformation spread today, I rarely say this line inappropriately. “You should also question the sanity of common statements that we hear from friends, celebrities, and co-workers. In the movie Shadow of a Doubt, Joseph Cotten’s famous line was, ‘I can’t face the world in the morning. I must have coffee before I can speak.’ Now, substitute for the word coffee any other drug, say amphetamines. If a person said he or she can’t face the world without amphetamines, we’d call him or her an addict. We’d whisk the person off to rehab and maybe even throw him in jail. But because coffee is a drug we consume ourselves, we wink and nod and say, ‘Yeah, ain’t it the truth!’” (Caffeine Blues, page 50)

Caffeine and Impaired Digestion

“Impaired digestion is more of a problem than most people realize - and it gets worse with caffeine. That jumbo 32-ounce soft drink or the double espresso we have with meals is a major contributor to the bloating, pain, and gas that roughly 50 percent of American adults experience after they eat. And these symptoms are only the physical signs of indigestion. Unseen are the harmful by-products of fermentation and putrefaction. Some of these by-products are absorbed back into the bloodstream, and the toxins that stay in the gut increase your risk of gastrointestinal disease.” (Caffeine Blues, page 60)

Caffeine and Sleep Disturbance

“There is a popular notion that coffee before 3 P.M. can’t disturb your sleep. In fact, caffeine at any time of the day can cause sleep problems, especially if you are under stress.” It seems that caffeine disturbs the most important phase of sleep, the deep-sleep phase. It’s a vicious circle: caffeine intake leads to decreased sleep quantity, which leads to increased caffeine intake, which leads to decreased sleep quality, which leads to disease and fatigue, which leads to increased caffeine intake, and so on.

“We also tend to think that caffeine-related problems are mostly experienced by people in the workforce. In reality, those hardest hit appear to be the elderly. Oven though seniors tend to cut back on coffee, the caffeine they do ingest is detoxified much more slowly and their nervous systems are much more sensitive than those of younger people. Research is now showing that sleep disturbance among the elderly is a major factor not only in age-related physical degeneration but in mental degeneration as well.” (Caffeine Blues, page 85)

Caffeine & Malnutrition

Coffee also causes many nutritional deficiencies. Poisons in tea and coffee, including caffeine, cause an increased loss of B vitamins in the urine. There is also a loss of calcium. “Research just published in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism found that caffeine increased potassium loss by nearly one-third. To make matters worse, such mineral loss appears to be accelerated when caffeine is mixed with sugar. Studies show that the mechanism behind this mineral-wasting phenomenon may have to do with the fact that caffeine impairs the kidney’s ability to hold on to calcium, magnesium, and other minerals. Most recently, zinc was added to the list of nutrients depleted by caffeine.” (Caffeine Blues, page 90) To add to this list, iron absorption is also impaired when caffeine is taken.

Caffeine and Mental Illness

I have known for a long time that even a moderate caffeine intake may cause a small depression, the “blues.” I have noticed this on myself a couple years ago when I started drinking green tea, thinking that this beverage only had a tiny amount of caffeine in it. I couldn’t fall asleep before 2 a.m. and started to experience a mild depression. As soon as I discarded the green tea, it went away. How many people feel depressed and tired for no apparent reason? And how many of them drink coffee or tea and can’t give it up? “If a person were injected with 500 milligrams of caffeine, within an hour he or she would exhibit symptoms of severe mental illness, among them, hallucinations, paranoia, panic, mania, and depression. But the same amount of caffeine administered over the course of a day only produces the milder forms of insanity for which we take tranquilizers and antidepressants.” (Caffeine Blues, page 124)

Coffee and Constipation

“… many people claim that caffeine helps them maintain normal bowel regularity, but that is the same as relying on laxatives. Either way, you’re using a drug to induce bowel movements, and ultimately many coffee drinkers become dependent on this laxative action. Without the caffeine stimulation, they experience what is known as ‘rebound constipation.’ (page 173)

Caffeine and Headaches

“Forty-five million Americans suffer from chronic headaches. Seventeen million are migraine sufferers.” “The person with a headache doesn’t know that it was caused or triggered by caffeine, so he or she looks for a painkiller (analgesic). Studies show that in 95 percent of cases, the analgesic drug contains caffeine. Such painkillers work, especially if the headaches was caused by caffeine withdrawal, but the caffeine ultimately triggers another headache. Ultimately, the hapless sufferer becomes dependent on the painkiller for even a modicum of relief, but the headaches increase in frequency and intensity. This may go on for many years, creating a cycle of pain and depression that destroys the quality of life.” (Caffeine Blues, page 185)

“A caffeine deprivation (withdrawal) headache results from the normal opening (dilation) of blood vessels that are constricted by caffeine. In other words, habitual caffeine intake keeps blood vessels in the brain constricted. When caffeine is not consumed, these blood vessels return to their normal blood-flow potential, and it is this increased circulation in the brain that causes the throbbing agony of a caffeine withdrawal headache.” - (Caffeine Blues, page 186)

Adrenal Exhaustion

“Caffeine contributes to adrenal exhaustion, wherein a raft of important hormones are depleted. The destruction is not silent. You’ll feel it every day in many ways as you simply can no longer command the vitality necessary for what were once everyday tasks.” (Caffeine Blues, page 197)

Caffeine and Women

“Compared to men, research shows that caffeine is much more damaging to women, producing adverse effects at lower intake. The effects are even more far-reaching when you consider the harm caffeine does to fetuses and nursing babies.” (Caffeine Blues, page 225) Here are other facts about caffeine concerning women: caffeine causes iron deficiency; increases calcium loss and risk of osteoporosis; caffeine produces short-term mood elevation, but contributes to rebound depression.

Ecology: pesticides, rain forest destruction and land use issues.

Coffee is the most important crop in the world. More than wheat, rice, corn, or livestock. More than fruit, more than vegetables, or any other staple crop - coffee is number one. More than cars, more than steel, more than everything, only third next to petroleum and some metals used to make weapons. The reason: coffee is a drug, nearly everyone is addicted to it, and it’s part of the culture. Coffee also happens to be one of the most heavily sprayed agricultural crops. In the countries where it is grown, there are few restrictions concerning pesticide use, where there are fewer laws to protect workers and the environment.

“Coffee plantations use huge amounts of pesticides that pollute the land, rivers, and destroy plant and animal life around them. The beans go off to market, but what happens to coffee pulp and the processing water? This water, now laden with pesticides, fungicides, and nitrogenous waste, goes directly into local streams, rivers, and lakes. With no filtration or reconditioning, the water pollution harms aquatic life as well as the health of people who live alongside those same bodies of water. And the coffee pulp? It sits in huge, rotting piles, leaching out its high nitrogen discharge into the groundwater and eventually into the same polluted waterways.” (Caffeine Blues, page 276) Cherniske also mentions in his book how coffee plantations have probably contributed to the destruction of Rain Forests more than any other crop in the world, since large portions of the forest are destroyed every year to make room for the coffee plantations. Coffee culture is labor-intensive and requires large portions of land and resources.

These are astronomical numbers once you get your calculator out and consider that the world demand for coffee is 13 billion pounds a year. Since the average plant produces one to two pounds of roasted coffee a year, this will require 7 billion trees. Judging from what the average farmer can get from one acre, it ends up that 70 million acres are devoted to grow this non-food, this drug, this poison that contributes to human suffering and ruins the health of the millions without their being aware of it. 70 million acres devoted to the culture of coffee. Let’s ponder that for a moment. 70 million acres… If we add to that the land devoted to cacao culture (for the making of chocolate), tea leaves culture, sugar cane (for the making of sugar), and grape culture (for the making of wine), we would arrive at frighteningly high numbers. Hundreds of millions of acres of the most fertile land in the world exclusively devoted to the culture of non-foods and beverages that contribute to the suffering of humanity. Why talk about a lack of food? We’re simply cultivating the wrong plants for the wrong purposes!

The corruption of the health food industry

“Until the 1990’s, caffeine was one of the no-nos of the health-food industry, like sugar and white flour. Caffeine-free herbal teas got their start in the health-food industry, where caffeine-free products have traditionally been the hallmark of natural food choices. Now those same stores have huge display bins full of coffee beans and many have coffee bars serving pumped-up caffeine concoction. How did this happen? (Caffeine Blues, page 266) “The face of the industry changed as the original visionaries sold out to conglomerates for whom profit superseded health principles. The proliferation of organic coffee bins in natural food stores took off, and before you knew it, manufacturers of health food products discovered what the food and beverage industry has known for decades: Caffeine sells.” (Caffeine Blues, page 267)

Coffee replacement and giving up coffee

We know it: giving up coffee is rarely easy, especially for those who have been drinking a few cups a day for many years. The detoxification symptoms can include headaches, depression, tiredness, and many more discomforts. Cherniske mentions a plan where one can give up coffee with little discomforts, by gradually replacing coffee with herbal replacements until no more coffee is drunk. However, this process seems a bit long, and I personally would recommend a more radical method, but people will go with what they think they can do best. It takes 60 days for your body to eliminate all the caffeine and really see the results. But this could be accelerated by a short fast, or a raw food, eliminating diet, such as a strict raw fruits and vegetables diet. There are coffee replacements that can be used to give up coffee.

Health food stores now offer a wide range of products, usually made from roasted cereals, that have a similar taste to coffee. However, you have to make sure that you buy genuine, caffeine free replacements. Items such as guarana, kola nut, green tea, maté tea, and ephedra are just other plant sources of caffeine and other stimulant drugs. They impair the body’s functions just like coffee does. There is also a new product called “Teeccino” that brews like regular coffee but does not contain any caffeine or any coffee beans. It is made from dates, figs, carob, barley, etc. It can be found in many health food stores or ordered from: Teeccino Caffé, Inc P.O. Box 42259, Santa Barbara, CA 93105, 800-498-3434, www.teeccino.com; Email: teeccino@aol.com

In February, 2007, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced the results of two surveys of autism spectrum disorders covering 22 states. Using the newly funded Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (ADDM), CDC researchers found an average rate of 1 in 150 children with an autism spectrum disorder, with New Jersey at the top, with a rate of approximately 1 in 100. On the surface, these figures suggest an epidemic.

When scientists respond that there has been no true rise in autism, that we are diagnosing autism more, and counting it better, believers in an autism epidemic - mostly parent advocates, philanthropists, and politicians - argue triumphantly that if there is no epidemic, then 1 of every 150 adults in the United States must, in fact, have autism. Along with journalists, they repeatedly ask, “Show me where the one in 150 autistic adults are. We can’t find them.”

Just where might those 1 in 150 adults with autism be?

As surprising as it may seem, they are living and working among us.

Some live at home with their aging parents or siblings. Some live in group homes, or in institutions. Some have jobs and live independently. Many have the diagnoses given to them when they were children, such as mental retardation, seizure disorder, or schizophrenia. Recently, one of us met a severely autistic 60 year old woman in eastern Tennessee, who we’ll call Donna. Donna’s internist diagnosed her with autism ten years ago, when she was 50. Her mother said that Donna’s first label, in 1950, was “mentally retarded with emotional block and obsessive compulsive traits.” Today, for the purposes of public assistance, she is classified as mentally retarded.

There is no record anywhere to suggest that Donna is “autistic.”

Now, imagine another, more mildly autistic adult, who has a job with minimal social demands (filing medical records, perhaps), has poor eye contact, and some anxiety. Perhaps he is even married. After all, as they get older, many people with autism, like the well-known writer, Temple Grandin, make significant advances. First, he may not seek treatment or even think he has problems. Second, even if he did, he may not go to a psychiatrist, but rather to an internist who could treat his anxiety. Third, even if he did go to a psychiatrist, it is not likely the psychiatrist would diagnose an adult with autism, especially if the psychiatrist had no clinical data on his early childhood (autism is still a developmental disorder diagnosed in childhood, and the tools for diagnosing autism in adults are not nearly as valid or reliable as those for children).

So, unless such mildly autistic adults had been diagnosed as children, and unless there were good baseline data on these people as children, we would have a hard time going back in time and trying to predict whether they would have qualified for an autism diagnosis. Even in the old days when we had rates for autism of 5 in 10,000 children, epidemiologists would have been hard pressed to find the corresponding adults, unless they knocked on people’s doors looking for autism. And even then, most of these people would not consider themselves to be “autistic.”

As an analogy, consider Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), which occurs in about 1 in 500 children. Because FAS only became a diagnosis after the mid-1970s, there are virtually no adults with this diagnosis over the age of 30. (And yet no one would suggest that pregnant women only started to drink alcohol in the 1970s). To locate an adult with FAS you would have to have evidence of fetal alcohol exposure, plus childhood onset of the symptoms of FAS.

Another example would be speech and language disorders, very common in the general population, easily countable among children. It would be nearly impossible to ascertain the prevalence of speech and language disorders among adults, as many adapt to their problems (a lisp, a stutter), do not seek therapy, and do not carry a diagnosis of speech and language disorder into adulthood

Recently, a senior epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control told us that she is unaware of anyone conducting a prevalence study of autism in adults, and that this is understandable given how difficult it would be to carry out. Last year, the CDC issued a call for proposals to conduct such a study but they received only one submission that, unfortunately, was too weak to warrant funding. We will likely continue to hear some journalists and some autism advocates say “We can’t find autistic adults.” But the reality is that they are not looking. And for good reason.

Children with autism are, of course, much easier to count than adults, because they are in schools, but they were once as invisible as many autistic adults are today. Indeed, Thomas Insel, the Director of the National Institutes of Mental Health, told Newsweek in November 2006 that during his psychiatric training in the 1970s he saw “not one child with autism.” It’s not just because he wasn’t looking, or because Insel was not trained in child psychiatry. It’s because they were misdiagnosed, institutionalized, and treated by neurologists (if at all). In the 1970s, psychiatrists seldom saw children and there were only a few hundred child psychiatrists in the entire country. One of our spouses, who did her residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in the 1980s, never saw a case of autism because the hospital had no child psychiatry or developmental program at that time.

By the 1990s, child psychiatry had blossomed. Membership in the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry had increased from several hundred in the 1970s to several thousand physicians. And in 1992, public schools had begun to use autism as a classification for children who received special services. Autism awareness soared. Today, there are better diagnostic tools, and therefore better records that scientists can use to estimate prevalence. The CDC’s recently announced results are yet another example of how changes in our understanding of childhood developmental disorders have helped us count autism cases more accurately.

But just because we cannot count adults with autism does not mean that they do not exist; nor does it mean that the prevalence rate for autism in adults must be lower than it is in children. Adults with autism are, in fact, becoming increasingly visible as autism awareness continues to rise and as more and more adults begin to identify themselves as autistic, and speak and write about their experiences of growing up and living with autism. Their invisibility is not a sign that autism is a childhood epidemic, but rather of how different our knowledge of autism is today.

So it isn’t surprising when Donna’s mother, now eighty-two, looks at parents like us with envy. “I wish my child had been born today,” she said. “She would get a proper diagnosis, have different therapies we could try, and we wouldn’t be so isolated as a family.”

We hope Donna’s mother is right, that we really are in a better place today, and that when our children become adults they will not be invisible.

For more information about the 3rd Annual Lake Norman Turkey Trot visit this link.  If you are interested in volunteering for this event, please contact us at info@drbuttar.com.

As a side note, a challenge for many people who wished to attend this past Wednesday but were unable to do so, was the issue of needing someone to watch their children. As a response, during our evening seminar sessions, we will provide a place for “story time” for children 2 to 8 in the room right across the conference room for anyone requiring this service.  There will be a $5.00 fee per child to defray the cost of providing this service for the entire evening.

Those attending are to be commended for stepping out of the box of darkness and into the light of all the possibilities, rather than remaining in the false comfort and disillusion that marks much of society today.  You are the “Heros” because you will carry the message and provide information and direction for those who don’t know the truth yet.

Mark your calendars for 6pm on November 19th for Dr. Buttar’s next lecture:  The Role of Energy in Healing! And if we may be of service, do not hesitate to contact us at 704-895-WELL (9355).

The Centers for Disease Control is now recommending all children 6 months to 18-years old get flu shots.

A CDC panel this year looked at the overall child vaccination rates and say they have greatly declined. The group also looked at the flu vaccination rates with infants to toddler years and say it showed that when children 6-months to 24 months were fully vaccinated it reduced their trips to the hospital by 75%.

The number of children receiving vaccinations has greatly declined for a couple of reasons. Doctors say some families have lost confidence in the vaccination, they think it doesn’t work well. Others believe a mercury-containing preservative called thimerosal may trigger some cases of autism. Many doctors, including one at the Arizona Department Health Services, debunk this myth.

“Every single scientific study shows there’s no link, in fact, in Denmark, when they took out the thimerosal, autism just skyrocketed, there’s absolutely no link there,” Dr. Karen Lewis says.

Lewis acknowledges that many parents still believe there is a link. She says many doctors carry the flu vaccine without thimerosal, it’s just a matter of asking your physician for it. Maricopa County health clinics also carry thimerosal-free flu vaccines.

“People who ate a lot of wild game tended to have higher lead levels than those who ate little or none,” Dr. Stephen Pickard, epidemiologist for the North Dakota Department of Health, said Wednesday.

The study also showed that the more recent the consumption of wild game killed with lead bullets, the higher the level of lead in the blood.

The blood lead levels of those tested were considered low, but even low levels can have adverse health effects, especially for children and pregnant women.

Officials recommended that pregnant women and children under 6 not eat any venison from deer killed with lead bullets — the same recommendation made last month by the Minnesota Health Department.

“Children under 6 are particularly vulnerable because their brains are still developing,” Pickard said. “It causes permanent brain damage even in very small quantities. There is no safe exposure level for small children. We see children with permanent lower intelligence and changes in behavior.”

Lead can increase the risk that a pregnant woman could lose her baby or deliver it prematurely, Pickard said. In adults, lead can cause high blood pressure, hearing loss and infertility, though usually with higher lead levels.

The study, done by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the North Dakota Department of Health, appears to add to the evidence that using lead bullets can pose potential health problems for hunters and their families. A Minnesota study last summer showed lead bullets fired from high-powered rifles scatter lead fragments — many too small to see or feel — up to 18 inches from the wound.

The North Dakota blood samples were taken in May and June, and the study results were released just days before deer seasons open in North Dakota and Minnesota. Some 500,000 people are expected to hunt deer in Minnesota this fall. The study was conducted after lead particles were found in venison donated to food shelves last spring. Venison in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin also was found to contain lead. North Dakota is limiting venison donations this year to deer shot by archers.

The study was limited in scope. It didn’t determine if careful butchering practices would reduce lead levels and didn’t examine whether people were having adverse health effects from the lead.

The lead levels ranged from virtually none to 9.82 micrograms per deciliter. Health officials consider 10 micrograms per deciliter in a child to be the level when “intervention” should occur. That “intervention” level for an adult is 25 micrograms per deciliter.

“But any level of lead in children below age 6 is of concern,” said John Stine of the Minnesota Department of Health.

After ingesting lead, a person will slowly get rid of it. Pickard noted the blood samples were taken last spring, months after the North Dakota hunting season. Had they been taken during or shortly after the hunting season, he suspects the blood levels would have been higher.

North Dakota also recommended that older children and other adults should take steps to minimize their potential exposure to lead.

“There is reason to be concerned,” Pickard said. “And if you’re concerned, there is one sure way to avoid having lead contamination: Use non-lead bullets.”
The North Dakota blood samples were taken in May and June, and the study results were released just days before deer seasons open in North Dakota and Minnesota. Some 500,000 people are expected to hunt deer in Minnesota this fall. The study was conducted after lead particles were found in venison donated to food shelves last spring. Venison in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin also was found to contain lead. North Dakota is limiting venison donations this year to deer shot by archers.

The study was limited in scope. It didn’t determine if careful butchering practices would reduce lead levels and didn’t examine whether people were having adverse health effects from the lead.

The lead levels ranged from virtually none to 9.82 micrograms per deciliter. Health officials consider 10 micrograms per deciliter in a child to be the level when “intervention” should occur. That “intervention” level for an adult is 25 micrograms per deciliter.

“But any level of lead in children below age 6 is of concern,” said John Stine of the Minnesota Department of Health.

After ingesting lead, a person will slowly get rid of it. Pickard noted the blood samples were taken last spring, months after the North Dakota hunting season. Had they been taken during or shortly after the hunting season, he suspects the blood levels would have been higher.

North Dakota also recommended that older children and other adults should take steps to minimize their potential exposure to lead.

“There is reason to be concerned,” Pickard said. “And if you’re concerned, there is one sure way to avoid having lead contamination: Use non-lead bullets.”

The Food and Drug Administration received nearly 21,000 reports of serious drug reactions, including more than 4,800 deaths, said an analysis of federal data by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, known as ISMP.

Two drugs accounted for a large share of the latest reports. One was heparin, the tainted blood thinner from China that caused an international safety scandal. The other was Chantix, a new kind of anti-smoking drug from Pfizer.

Chantix, which had the most reports of any medication, works directly in a smoker’s brain to ease withdrawal symptoms. It also blocks the pleasurable effects of nicotine if the patient is tempted to light up again. Earlier this year, the FDA warned that Chantix may be linked to psychiatric problems, including suicidal behavior and vivid dreams. Pfizer said Wednesday it stands by Chantix, and that the volume of reports might be linked to publicity about the side effects.

“The FDA is aware of the increasing number of reports, and we take them seriously,” said spokesman Christopher DiFrancesco. But officials are not sure whether reports are up because problems are getting worse, or simply due to greater awareness about drug safety issues.

Clearinghouse for information
The watchdog group that prepared the analysis has served hospitals and pharmacists for years as a clearinghouse for information on medication errors. Known as ISMP, the organization is now trying to reach consumers with regular reports on drug safety trends.

“We believe that one of the most important tools to promote is to monitor trends on a regular basis,” said Thomas J. Moore, a senior scientist with ISMP. “Knowing which drugs are causing injuries and how many people are being hurt is the raw material we need to fashion sound measures to promote patient safety.”

The FDA defines serious drug reactions as ones that cause hospitalization, require medical intervention, or place a life in jeopardy. The agency’s monitoring system relies on voluntary reports from doctors and is only believed to capture a fraction of overall problems.

The 20,745 cases reported from January through March was 38 percent higher than the average for the previous four calendar quarters, and the highest for any quarter, the report said.

The number of deaths, 4,824, was a nearly threefold increase from the last calendar quarter of 2007. The FDA said heparin was largely to blame.

Previous ISMP research has shown that reports of serious drug safety problems had increased markedly since the late 1990s.

The FDA case reports provide a signal of possible problems with a drug, but a cause-and-effect connection can only be established through painstaking investigation. If the FDA were a police agency, the reports would indicate “probable cause,” but not necessarily “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

‘Significant drug safety problem’
The ISMP study found that heparin accounted for 779 reports of serious problems, including 102 deaths. The FDA, using data that covers a longer time period, has reported 238 deaths possibly linked to heparin.

Heparin “illustrates an example of a significant drug safety problem that was promptly and effectively resolved by the drug manufacturers and the FDA once the issue was detected and understood,” the report said.

Not so with Chantix, it concluded.

The FDA should forcefully warn patients taking Chantix that they may have blackouts that could lead to accidents, the report said. Current warnings say patients may be too impaired to drive or operate heavy machinery, but such language is standard for many medications. The government has banned the drug for pilots.

The report found 15 cases of Chantix patients who appeared to have been involved in traffic accidents, and 52 additional cases involving blackouts or loss of consciousness. The FDA said it taking a second look at the Chantix warnings.

The agency received 1,001 reports of serious injuries linked to Chantix, more than for the 10 best-selling brand name drugs combined.
Chantix “continued to provide a striking signal of safety issues that require investigation and action,” the report said. The authors acknowledged Pfizer’s concern that publicity may be driving up the number of reports, but concluded there’s enough evidence to warrant stronger FDA action.

Pfizer said the total sum of its Chantix data, including results from clinical trials, show the drug’s benefits clearly outweigh its risks.

“We stand by the efficacy and safety profile of Chantix,” the company said in a statement. “There are few things that provide greater health benefits than quitting smoking. Pfizer is committed to reducing the prevalence of smoking globally. As part of that mission, we want to increase peoples’ understanding of the dangers of smoking and the benefits of quitting.”

Sleep disorders may be even more common in children with autism. Researchers estimate that between 40% and 80% of children with autism have difficulty sleeping. The biggest sleep problems among these children include:

• difficulty falling asleep
• inconsistent sleep routines
• restlessness or poor sleep quality
• waking early

A lack of a good night’s sleep can affect not only the child, but everyone in his or her family. If you’re bleary-eyed from night after night of waking up with your child, there are a number of lifestyle interventions and sleep aids that can help.

What causes sleep disorders in children with autism?

Researchers don’t know for sure why autistic children have problems with sleep, but they have several theories. The first has to do with social cues. People know when it’s time to go to sleep at night thanks to the normal cycles of light and dark and the body’s circadian rhythms. But they also use social cues. For example, children may see their siblings getting ready for bed. Children with autism, who often have difficulty communicating, may misinterpret or fail to understand these cues.

Another theory has to do with the hormone melatonin, which normally helps regulate sleep-wake cycles. To make melatonin, the body needs an amino acid called tryptophan, which research has found to be either higher or lower than normal in children with autism. Typically, melatonin levels rise in response to darkness (at night) and dip during the daylight hours. Studies have shown that some children with autism don’t release melatonin at the correct times of day. Instead, they have high levels of melatonin during the daytime and lower levels at night.

Another reason children with autism may have trouble falling asleep or awaken in the middle of the night could be an increased sensitivity to outside stimuli, such as touch or sound. While most kids continue to sleep soundly while their mother opens the bedroom door or tucks in the covers, a child with autism might wake up abruptly.

Anxiety is another possible condition that could adversely affect sleep. Children with autism tend to test higher than other children for anxiety.

What kind of effects do sleep problems have?

Not getting a good night’s sleep can have a serious impact on a child’s life. Research has shown that, in children with autism, there is a connection between lack of sleep and the following characteristics:

• aggression
• depression
• hyperactivity
• increased behavioral problems
• irritability
• poor learning and cognitive performance

But your child isn’t the only person affected. If he or she isn’t sleeping, there’s a good chance you aren’t either. One study shows that the parents of autistic children sleep less, have poorer sleep quality, and wake up earlier than parents of non-autistic children.

How do I know whether my child has a sleep disorder?

Every child needs a slightly different amount of sleep. In general, these are the amounts of sleep children require, by age:

• Ages 1-3: 12-14 hours of sleep per day
• Ages 3-6: 10-12 hours of sleep per day
• Ages 7-12: 10-11 hours of sleep per day

If your child regularly has difficulty falling asleep or wakes up repeatedly throughout the night, it might be a sign of a sleep problem. To know for sure, make an appointment with your child’s pediatrician. The doctor may refer you to a sleep specialist.

It can help to keep a sleep diary for a week to track how much and when your child is sleeping. You can share this diary with your child’s doctor and any specialist involved in treatment.

How can I help my child sleep better?

Sleep medications are used only as a last resort with children. There are a number of lifestyle changes and natural sleep aids that can improve sleep time and quality in kids with autism:

• Avoid giving your child stimulants such as caffeine and sugar before bed.
• Establish a nighttime routine: give your child a bath, read a story, and put him or her to bed at the same time every night.
• Help your child relax before bed by reading a book, giving a gentle back massage, or turning on soft music. Avoid television, video games, and other stimulating activities just before bedtime.
• To prevent sensory distractions during the night, put heavy curtains on your child’s windows to block out the light, install thick carpeting, and make sure the door doesn’t creak.
• Ask your pediatrician about giving your child melatonin just before bedtime. This dietary supplement is often used as a sleep aid to help people get over jet lag. It may help normalize sleep-wake cycles in autistic children who have sleeping issues, and research done so far finds that it’s safe and effective.
• Try bright-light therapy. Exposing the child to periods of bright light in the morning may help regulate the body’s release of melatonin.

The ads, part of a $20 million advertising blitz by the Corn Refiners Association (CRA), are meant to revamp the image of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which has received a bad rap in recent years thanks to its links to obesity and weight gain. But now, the CRA says HFCS is a sweet choice when it comes to food, with no more impact on obesity than sugar or honey.

 
Though it’s prevalent in popular products like sodas, cereals, and even some breads, HFCS has lost its luster among most Americans. In fact, its use has declined over the past 10 years, with many people favoring sugar or artificial sweeteners like Splenda.

But with their new ad campaign, the CRA takes issue with these claims, expressing that HFCS does not contribute to obesity any more than sugar or other caloric sweeteners. The American Medical Association (AMA) supports this stance, further stating that “there is insufficient evidence to restrict the use of high fructose corn syrup or label products that contain it with a warning.”

Is high-fructose corn syrup a “natural” choice?
The CRA also says that HFCS is a natural product because it is derived from corn. Though this seems like an attempt to jump on the natural foods bandwagon, the CRA gained some clout in July when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that that since no synthetic fixing agents are used to create the sweet syrup, it can indeed be considered natural. (This coming after a prior statement discrediting the all-natural label). Still, skeptics shun the “natural” idea, citing that HFCS cannot be considered natural, as it’s so heavily processed. The debate roars on.
Moderation is the key to all sweetener consumption
If HFCS isn’t so bad for you, how much of the sweet stuff should you consume? Like any sweetener, moderation in key as too much can lead to a host of health problems including dental cavities, osteoporosis, vitamin and mineral deficiencies and, of course, weight gain. Experts recommend limiting your “added sugar” intake to less than 12 daily teaspoons. And keep in mind that a single can of soda alone contains about 13 teaspoons.

To avoid a sugar or HFCS overload, try satisfying your sweet tooth with fresh fruit or fruit canned in its own juices as opposed to heavy syrup. And instead of soda, add a spritz of lemon or lime juice to your seltzer water, or opt for 100 percent fruit juice over fruit-flavored drinks.