How does the extract work in practice and not just under laboratory conditions? If we consider this treatment in relation to human beings suffering from rheumatoid or osteo-arthritis, then, in general, the first signs of a beneficial reaction will be noticed after about three weeks from the time of commencing the treatment. Before we go any further this statement needs some qualification because each case can be different and this assertion refers to the general situation.

Some people respond to this treatment in the first week, whilst others may take as long as fifteen weeks before noting any change in their condition. Another important factor is that the change in condition is not usually dramatic or sudden but is in the form of a slow and progressive improvement. Usually the first change noticed is a decrease in pain and, as the days pass by, this is followed by an improvement in mobility and increased freedom of movement. There is probably also a degree of psychological therapy induced at this stage. So begins a cycle of treatment involving internal medication, through taking the extract, coupled with physical therapy, by using the muscles and joints. Of course, care has to be taken not to overdo things but in general progress is steady and good.

It is only fair to point out that some people may temporarily get worse before getting better. The number of such cases, however, compared with those experiencing direct benefit, is small. The general symptoms described by people who have experienced such a deterioration preceding improvement have been as follows.

At periods ranging from one to four or five weeks after taking the mussel extract capsules, an increase in pain and sometimes also in stiffness occurs. In some cases the pain is very sharp and intense and is accompanied by considerable heat and tenderness in the affected area. Also, in some cases, this effect spreads to other areas of the body. Some people describe these symptoms as being like an attack on all potential sites where arthritis might have set in but has not yet become evident. In any event, this situation can lead to the affected person consuming some form of pain killing preparation (such as aspirin) for the temporary relief of the symptoms.

Usually after such a ‘flare-up’, which tends to last for a few days only, people enjoy a steady and pain-free improvement. The main difficulty which arises in cases like this is to know whether in fact the flare-up is created by the substance and precedes improvement, or whether in fact it is a flare-up due to a change in treatment. Usually, of course, the changes in treatment that would cause this to happen do not take place because most people take the mussel extract capsules in conjunction with their existing treatment until beneficial results become evident. Fortunately, the flare-up condition does not happen frequently and it is usually an indication that the extract is working and that good results will follow.

Neither the age of a person nor the duration of suffering diminishes the help this treatment offers. A person of eighty may respond just as quickly as a baby. Again, a person who has had arthritis for many years may notice improvement just as quickly as someone who has just developed the condition and the overall results may be just as satisfactory. This is not to say that this extract is capable of eliminating deformities or of rendering degenerated bone surfaces wholesome and new again. We are discussing improvement in general terms, and whilst it is perfectly true that some people have seen nodules disappear and deformed fingers become straight, flexible and active again, there are stages of deformity associated with arthritis which only surgery could rectify, and sometimes which are even beyond the help of surgery.

Mussel extract, of course does not work for everyone, but having said that, the success rate is good. Of people undergoing trials on this substance, some of whom were chronic cases who had not responded to any other treatment, more than 60 per cent benefitted. This percentage has also been confirmed by private reports from numerous subjects with varying degrees of affliction. The evidence to date suggests that relief from symptoms of osteo-arthritis can occur in thirty to fifty per cent of cases. The significance of these figures is enhanced by two factors which are of great importance when considering the beneficial aspects of any product – length of time that the results last and the absence of side-effects.

*14/48/5*

Repeated cycles of dieting may actually increase the body’s metabolic efficiency and make it even harder to lose weight. Such cycles may also change the way fat is deposited, with more fat being laid down in the stomach region.

There are certain factors that can modify the set point weight to some degree. Exercise has been shown to lower set point. In other words, regular exercise doesn’t just burn calories; it actually seems to shift the regulation of body weight to a lower level. Similarly, certain drugs can lower set point. Anyone who has stopped smoking cigarettes and subsequently gained weight can attest to the effects of nicotine in keeping set point weight down. What’s more, evidence suggests that long-term response to a high-fat diet can raise set point. Thus, lowering the percentage of fat in your diet may help you lower set point.

The set point model has much to tell us, not just about obesity, but about the eating disorders as well. For the anorexic, self-starvation and severe weight loss cause the metabolism to slow to a crawl. The greater the loss, the more the body fights to return to its preprogrammed level. This explains why a person with this illness feels she must maintain such vigilance against hunger. Her body is fighting for its very life, and will muster all of the available resources to defend its existence.

Although they may have lost as much weight as an anorexic, bulimic women may be at a statistically “normal” weight or above. But the set point model suggests that “normal” can’t be defined by referring to some chart, such as the Metropolitan Life tables of height and weight. Normal weight can be defined only for a particular individual.

In fact, I would throw out the word normal altogether and substitute natural instead. To illustrate: Woman A may be five feet four with a small frame and a set point range of 114 to 120 pounds. Some insurance-company chart somewhere probably says this particular woman is “average.” But woman Â-same height, same frame-may have a set point range of 130 to 136 pounds. She’s above the statistical average, but she is at a good and healthy weight for her. Each of these women has a set point range that reflects her natural weight.

But now Woman  reads an article that says her weight is “above average.” She feels compelled to diet and loses twenty pounds. She now weighs about the same as Woman A, around 116 pounds. No one would consider her emaciated, yet she has lost 15 percent of her body weight-the same percentage required for a diagnosis of anorexia! Although statistically “normal,” her body may be in a state of semistarvation. Because she needs more food than she is eating, she is at risk of developing uncontrollable binge urges, thus trigg ering the vicious cycle of bulimia.

To break the cycle, people may need help. They need a teacher who will show them the way to regain a healthy balance between the mind and the body.

*48/35/5*

Stephanie Caviness wanted to slim down. But the 33-year-old Jersey City, New Jersey, woman had a hard time sticking with an exercise routine. So she turned to her computer for help, and she ended up losing 23 pounds.

For Stephanie, exercise was nothing new. She had tried it several times in the past as a way of getting in shape. “I had been gaining weight ever since I was in college,” she recalls. “I wanted to look better and feel better. But every time I started an exercise program, I’d lose interest. Eventually, I’d abandon my workouts.”

By 1998, Stephanie weighed 173 pounds. “I’m 5 foot 9, so I wasn’t really obese,” she says. “But I was having problems with my heart—it raced and sometimes skipped beats. My doctor attributed those irregularities to the fact that I was in such poor condition aer-obically.”

At last, Stephanie found her motivation to lose weight and get fit. She pursued a variety of activities—step aerobics, aqua-aerobics, running, even salsa dancing. She made some dietary changes, too, eating more fruits and vegetables, watching her fat intake, measuring portions, and drinking lots of water.

Her efforts paid off: Her heart health improved, and as a bonus, her body looked trimmed and toned. She marveled at how the pounds disappeared so quickly, but worried about whether she could continue losing. More and more, exercise seemed like a chore. “Even though I was doing a lot of different things, I felt myself losing interest,” she says. “But I didn’t want to sabotage the progress that I had made.”

Convinced that others must be facing the same problem, Stephanie pondered the idea of forming an exercise support group.

“There’s strength in numbers,” she says. “Staying motivated is a lot i “* easier when you’re working with a group rather than on your own.”

Stephanie decided to post a message on Diet Talk, a Web site that she had been frequenting for information and support since starting her weight-loss program. “I had gotten to know a number of people through the message boards and chat rooms, and I suspected that some of them were struggling with exercise, as I was,” she explains. She was right: About-15 people responded to her message.

In January 1999, Stephanie and her online buddies kicked off their Exercise Challenge. Each person has a goal of exercising at least five times a week. “Everyone’s workout is a little different, based on individual abilities and objectives,” Stephanie explains. “But that doesn’t matter, as long as we’re doing something.” The group members e-mail Stephanie at least every 3 days, and often daily, to report on their activities. Stephanie posts the results online on a monthly basis.

“Every month, 80 to 90 percent of us meet the challenge,” she says. “That’s been really encouraging.”

Even more encouraging is the support that participants give one another. “The group changes in size from month to month, from the core membership of 15 to as many as 40,” Stephanie says. “We’ve become almost like a family. We talk about our weight struggles, but we talk about other areas of our lives as well. And when one of us succeeds, all of us succeed.”

*102\89\8*

A 33-year-old man came to see me because he was depressed, irritable and had many aches and pains. He slept poorly and had little interest in his work, his wife or his hobbies. “Business is terrible,” he told me. “I sit by the phone all day and twiddle my thumbs, waiting for it to ring.”

The physical examination and laboratory tests revealed no medical problems. It was clear, however, that he had a very negative attitude toward himself, his business, his wife and life in general. Since his lack of business seemed to bother him the most, I gave him a success affirmation.

“When you wake up in the morning,” I told him, “I want you to say: ‘I’ve got so much work I can’t handle it! I love my work!’ And I want you to see and feel yourself as having all that work.”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “Listen, Arnold,” he said, “I sit on my hands all day. My tools are getting rusty. I do all my jobs in two hours, then I sit around waiting for the phone to ring.”

“Nevertheless,” I answered, “I want you to say it 50, 60 times a day: I’ve got so much business I can’t handle it all! Say it, see it and feel it.”

He agreed to write the affirmation down on a card, tape the card to his phone and repeat the affirmation 50 times a day. But he didn’t seem to have much faith in the idea. When he left, I wondered if I would ever see him again.

A few months later he came back to my office and said, with a big grin, “Doc, you’ve got to turn it off! I’ve got so much business I can’t handle it. This affirmation stuff really works! Look, when I left here last time I was going to find a real doctor who would give me some real medicine. But I said the affirmation anyway, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t change my attitude. I started saying and visualizing that I had lots of customers and was happy. I guess my good attitude rubbed off on my customers, because they called me more and more and told their friends about me. The more business I got, the better I felt, and the more I affirmed, the more business I got!”

*150\80\8*

Due to our sedentary life-styles, we spend a great deal of time sitting down. This leads to the contraction of leg and back muscles. Stretching helps to prevent the muscles of the back and lower legs from becoming excessively tight. This, in turn, helps to relieve the tension and pain that gathers in these muscles during the day. It’s amazing how good you feel after you stretch out.

There are many good stretching books and programs available. You can stretch almost anywhere. In my office I stand about three feet from a wall, facing the wall. I lean up against the wall, the palms of my hands at about shoulder height, supporting my weight. Then I stretch my calf muscles (in the back of the lower legs) by pushing my heels toward the ground. I like to hold a comfortable (painless) stretch for three minutes, not bouncing back and forth, just holding the position. I also stretch my back muscles by bending over to touch my toes, although I can’t quite reach my toes, and stay in this position for 20 or 30 seconds, several times a day. Finally, I stand with my feet about shoulder-width apart, arms half-way out at my sides, and turn from side to side, twisting at the hips to face to the right, then the left, over and over again, for 20 or 30 seconds. You don’t have to be as flexible as a gymnast or a ballet dancer, but you should be able to twist, turn and move your muscles to meet the demands of everyday life. You’d be surprised at the number of my patients who have difficulty simply bending over to pick something up or turning their heads while driving to see if there’s a car in the next lane! There’s no medical problem making it so difficult for them to move; they’ve simply allowed their muscles to become very tight.

My general philosophy is to stretch whenever you can, which in my case means a few times a day. Again, stretch gently. If you’re having pain, there’s something wrong. Have your physician check it out. And always stretch before and after strenuous exercise.

*108\80\8*

SPINACH LASAGNA

1 lb. whole-wheat lasagna noodles

2 bunches spinach 1 lb. hoop cheese

1 32 oz. can tomato sauce (no salt added) spices to taste

Boil and drain noodles. Wash and chop spinach and mix with hoop cheese. Thinly cover bottom of a large baking dish with the tomato sauce. Place a layer of noodles over the tomato sauce, then a layer of spinach and cheese, then another layer of sauce. Repeat until baking dish is filled. Make sure a layer of sauce is on top. If you like, sprinkle top with diced green peppers and shaved carrots. Bake 30-40 minutes at 350°.

PITA SANDWICH

Fill pita bread with sprouts, diced tomato and cucumber, chopped onions, some garlic and a tablespoon of low-fat cottage cheese.

HERBED VEGETABLE SAUTE

1 celery stalk 1 onion

1 sweet red pepper

1 cup broccoli florets

2 carrots 1/4 lb. mushrooms

1/2 clove garlic, minced

3 cups brown rice, cooked lemon juice spices to taste 1/4 cup sunflower and sesame seeds parsley

Wash all vegetables. Chop celery, onion, red pepper and broccoli, slice carrots and mushrooms. In water, saute garlic, celery, onion, red peppers, carrots, broccoli and mushrooms. Add cooked rice and a little water to skillet; cover and let sit for a few minutes. Season to taste; garnish with parsley. Sprinkle with lemon juice and seeds, and serve.

*65\80\8*

I treated a patient, a 4 5-year-old accountant, who had gone to his physician for a routine physical. Finding that his blood pressure was a little high, the doctor put him on a diuretic called hydrochlorothiazide. This is a medication designed to lower blood pressure by getting rid of excess sodium and water in the body. Unfortunately, the medicine also flushed potassium out of the man’s body, so his doctor had to give him a second medication to bring the potassium level back up. Oh yes: the diuretic also caused his cholesterol level to rise.

Meanwhile, because the man didn’t change his life-style in any way, the original diuretic soon failed, and his blood pressure went back up. Now his doctor had him take a beta-blocking agent as well. This controlled his blood pressure but caused him to develop fatigue, weakness, depression, episodes of vertigo and an inability to perform sexually. These new problems occurred so insidiously that he didn’t connect the symptoms with the medication.

When he went back to see his doctor, lab studies showed that the uric acid in his blood was high. The doctor didn’t realize that this was also due to the diuretic. Soon, the man was back in his doctor’s office with clinical gout and severe pain and swelling of his large right toe. So he was given a new medication, this one to handle the gout. The diuretic also raised his blood sugar, so he was given yet another drug to lower the blood sugar.

By now a year had passed. He still had the high blood pressure, plus gout with gouty arthritis, low potassium, high cholesterol and diabetes. On top of that he was weak, tired, depressed and impotent.

I realized that the medications were as dangerous as the original problem. By carefully discontinuing all the medications and having him adopt the program described in this book, I eventually resolved the man’s medical disorders.

Sometimes it’s easy to treat patients who come to see me with a strange collection of symptoms. Taking them off their many medications clears up the problems. But sometimes it’s not so easy. A study conducted for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology indicated that the deaths of 6 to 12 thousand people a year can be blamed on reactions to drugs prescribed by their physicians.

Don’t look to doctors, drugs and surgeries for your health and happiness. We physicians can help you battle certain diseases. But health is more, much more, than the absence of disease. The glowing, vibrant health you want depends on you making your “doctor within” as strong as possible. That’s where the Immune For Life program can help you.

*21\80\8*

If Dr Darlington is right, then why did a similar trial, carried out three years earlier, produce such different results? This trial was conducted at Northwick Park Hospital in Middlesex, by Dr Michael Denman, Dr Bruce Mitchell and Dr Barbara Ansell. They studied 18 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, putting them on diets which excluded various foods for periods up to six months. In their opinion, the effects of eliminating foods cannot be assessed over shorter time intervals, because rheumatoid arthritis is such a variable disease. (Dr Darlington’s study overcame this problem by using a large group of patients and measuring their symptoms as a whole – in this way, the week-to-week variations in individual patients should cancel each other out.)

Only three of Dr Denman’s patients stuck the course for the full six months. Thirteen dropped out before two months, and the report does not say how long they were on the diet. None of the patients showed any improvement.

One problem with this study was that the diet did not eliminate wheat, which other studies of food intolerance have identified as one of the most common offending foods. The diet also allowed chicken, tea, coffee, and all kinds of vegetables – including commonly eaten ones such as potatoes that are often incriminated by elimination diets. This failure to exclude several suspect foods, combined with the small number of patients involved, could well explain the poor results.

*109\180\8*

Can you get by using one of these less invasive approaches?

THE ANSWER DEPENDS ON SEVERAL FACTORS…

• Condition of the heart. If the heart can pump enough blood despite the blockages, bypass surgery can probably be avoided.

Bypass surgery is preferable if the heart has been weakened by heart attack.

• Location and number of blockages. The more severe and numerous the blockages, the greater the need for bypass surgery.

Bypass is preferable to angioplasty if blockages are “upstream” (close to the point where the arteries branch off of the aorta)…if the patient has one or more blockages of the left main coronary artery… and/or if two or all three coronary vessels are blocked.

• Level of chest pain. If angina isn’t relieved by medication, bypass is probably the best option.

Angioplasty may be more appropriate if the patient has had just one tiny heart attack, with minimal damage to the heart… has just started to experience angina…or is highly motivated to follow a low-fat diet and regular exercise regimen.

If your doctor recommends bypass, consult a bypass surgeon and a cardiologist who specializes in angioplasty.

*88/47/1*

Patients discuss private matters with their doctors with the implicit understanding that the information exchanged is private. In reality, more and more people are gaining access to these confidential medical records and using the information in ways you never intended.

These days, insurance companies, credit bureaus and the like have assembled sophisticated databases that contain loads of private information. Unbeknownst to you, this information may be shared with other insurers, potential employers, marketing firms—and sometimes sold to anyone who will pay for it.

Worst of all, information you divulged to help your doctor help you may be used with just the opposite result, here are

four true horror stories…

A company changes its insurance policy to limit coverage for AIDS-related problems after learning that an employee has tested HIV-positive.

A man is denied life insurance after telling his doctor he was feeling “down” because he feared his company might be the victim of a hostile takeover.

A woman is fired after her employer learns she needs a kidney transplant.

A hospital employee uses a computer to access the phone numbers of teenage female patients, then calls them up and sexually harasses them.

*79/47/1*