Free the Animal

Triglycerides: 93.5% Reduction in Three Weeks - 3,100 to 202

So there you have it: the punchline, right there in the title.

But who did it, and how? That would be none other than Dr. William Davis, cardiologist. So then, what sort of medical procedure did he perform? What sorts of pharmaceuticals did he prescribe? To what level did he admonish his patient, Daniel, to cut the arterycloggingsaturatedfat and to eat lots more servings of hearthealthywholegrians?

Of course, anyone who actually reads and thinks for themselves -- rather than swallowing the cloistered expert-&-authority-protectionism of conventional "wisdom" -- should know, he did none of those things; which, given the other successes he's blogged about -- some of which I've highlighted here -- exposes most if not all of the "lipid establishment" (i.e., cloistered expert-&-authority-protection racket) as con men: most physicians in that role, all the drug companies, and our beloved (not!) FDA.

Got it? Good, so let's move on.

Since most of you who should know, know, what then, dear supplicant to cloistered expert-&-authority-protection rackets, did Dr. Davis do? I'm glad you asked! It's actually simple: step one is that he "prescribed" 3,600 mg of over-the-counter omega-3 fatty acids per day, i.e., plain ol' fish oil caps. Depending on concentration, that could be anywhere from 5 to 10 1g caps per day, guesstimating. After 10 days, Trigs had dropped from 3,100 to 1,100. Step two was to continue on the OTC fish oil and eliminate wheat, corn starch, and sugar from the diet (in other words: less hearthealthywholegrains, more arterycloggingsaturatedfat). This took him from 1,100 to 202 in another 10 days.

Daniel, a sufferer of what's known as familial hypertriglyceridemia, now has lower Trigs than whole bunches of people walking about without such a genetic disorder. For those who don't know, triglycerides are fat circulating in your blood. The more hearthealthwholegrains and sugar you eat, the higher will be your triglyceride levels. The more arterycloggingsaturatedfat you eat, the less will be your levels. Almost all paleo and low-carb eaters have levels less than 100, and most of us hang out in a range of 40-60. I believe the average in the US is around 150 or so, and climbing (all while the cloistered expert-&-authority-protection racket claps and cheers over irrelevant, non-associated lower LDL levels). Lots of people are walking around at 400 and higher. But, hey, they lowered their LDL by eating lots of hearthealthywholegrains, and thus helping out Big Agra, who, in gracious turn, helps the cloistered expert-&-authority-protection racket. It's all quite cozy, incestuous...and insanely profitable.

High triglycerides are bad, very bad, and in my opinion, far worse than "elevated" serum cholesterol (lipoproteins). High triglycerides are well associated with death from heart disease, while half of those who die from heart disease have low cholesterol and half have high cholesterol.

Well, that about sums up the story (but not the rant), so the rest is devoted to Dr. Davis himself, who tells the brief story here and here.

I am continually surprised at the number of people with high triglycerides who are still treated with a fibrate drug, like Tricor, or a statin drug, when fish oil -- widely available, essentially free of side-effects, with a proven cardiovascular risk-reducing track record --should clearly be the first choice by a long stretch.

Could Dr. Davis be referring to his own colleagues in the medical profession -- most, probably?

Uh, yep:

Unfortunately, most of my colleagues, if they even think to use omega-3s, choose to use the prescription form, Lovaza. Indeed, several representatives from AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical outfit now distributing this miserably overpriced product, frequently barge their way into my office poking fun at our use of nutritional supplements instead of the prescription Lovaza. "But insurance covers it in most cases!" they plead. "And your patients will know that they're getting the real product, not some fake. And they'll have to take fewer capsules!"

Dr. Davis has previously blogged about the Lovaza rip off; punchline: $3,600 per year vs. $150 per year (all while so many in America clamor to have everyone pay for everyone else's "health" care...).

He says further:

I never use Lovaza to reduce triglycerides, even in familial hypertriglyceridemia -- the FDA-approved indication for Lovaza -- and have not yet seen any failures, only successes.

Good for Daniel, and good for the heroic Dr. Davis, who gives a great prognosis.

He's got just a little further to go to achieve the biologically ideal level of less than 60 mg/dl. You can see that it is not really that difficult--provided someone didn't load you down with nonsense about "cutting your fat," or statin or fibrate drugs.

And guess what, on a related topic? I just heard from a very well respected health blogger in email that a guy who'd contacted him about fatty liver disease got his enzymes back to normal in a single month. This, after 9 whole years of a fatty liver. What advice did this health blogger give him? Drop the sugar, vegetable oils, and take fish oil.

Let's be clear who the enemies are in all this: many of Dr. Davis' colleagues, all pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, and the whores in the mainstream media who can't wait to bend over for each and every one of the foregoing as often as they possibly can.

You didn't hear that here first, but you'll hear it often.

Vitamin K1 vs. Vitamin K2

I've written a healthy bit on the enormous benefits of vitamin K2 (MK-4) Menatetrenone. To access those posts, click here.

Via Dr. Eades' excellent Twitter feed, I just got wind of this study on K1 (Phylloquinone) and its ability to modestly slow the progression of coronary artery calcium ("CAC" - 6% less progression than the control).

Conclusions: Phylloquinone supplementation slows the progression of CAC in healthy older adults with preexisting CAC, independent of its effect on total MGP concentrations.

There's also a media writeup on the affair. Let's probe.

Speaking to NutraIngredients.com at the recent Vitafoods show in Geneva, vitamin K expert Professor Cees Vermeer from VitaK at the University of Maastricht explained that matrix Gla protein (MGP) in the vessel walls is a hot topic.

“It is the most powerful inhibitor of soft tissue calcification presently known, and it definitely needs the vitamin K to be active in that way. So, vessel walls have only MGP to defend themselves against calcification,” he said.

So, what's "MGP," or, matrix gla protein? Lets close the loop, and Wikipedia will do just fine.

Matrix gla protein (MGP) is a protein found in numerous body tissues that requires vitamin K for its optimum function. It is present in bone (together with the related vitamin K-dependent protein osteocalcin), as well as in heart, kidney and lung. In bone, its production is increased by vitamin D.

Ah, vitamin D, again, eh (click here for my many posts)? So, what, all the experts be dammed, and get your unblocked sunshine and eat plenty of leafy green vegetables? Uh, no problem, but it's not my approach -- although I eat plenty of leafy greens. Let's continue with the article.

Overall, no significant differences in the groups were observed. However, in people with pre-existing CAC who took at least 85 per cent of the assigned supplements experienced a retardation of CAC progression of 6 per cent, compared to the control group. Such decreases occurred independently of changes in serum MGP, said Booth and her co-workers.

“Vitamin K supplementation reduced the progression of existing CAC in asymptomatic older men and women when taken with recommended amounts of calcium and vitamin D. The mechanisms by which vitamin K conferred a protective role are still uncertain,” wrote the researchers.

So, is it really the K1, the vitamin D, or could it perhaps be that just an added bit of K helped the K and D work in better sync (something that happens naturally on a paleo diet with plenty of sunshine, BTW)?

But so now let me get to the far bigger news, something I've blogged on before. Though there are no studies in humans I'm aware of, yet, it is well known that in rats, high-dose K2 (MK-4 - Menatetrenone) doesn't just slow the progression of CAC, it actually reverses it and does so significantly. Stephan at Whole Health Source tracked that down some time ago. This is a must read post, folks. A couple of things to highlight.

In the group fed high K1 but no warfarin, there was about three times more K2 MK-4 in the aortas than K1, suggesting that they had converted it effectively and that vascular tissue selectively accumulates K2 MK-4. A high K1 intake was required for this effect, however, since the normal K1 diet did not reverse calcification. The rats fed high K2 MK-4 had only K2 MK-4 in their aortas, as expected.

[emphasis added]

I just had a brief email exchange with Stephan about this and speculated that emphasized bit before even looking up his posts (that's not to say he agrees, but he may post on this too, and we'll know). Essentially, since we're so bad at converting K1 to K2, perhaps a big enough dose of K1 helps.

But why not just go for the K2, as that's where the benefit really is? Well, then, instead of recommending people eat leafy greens, you've got to recommend they eat things like bone marrow, liver, meat, animal fat, eggs, fish eggs, foie gras and such. Can't do that, because those things clog arteries; uh, right? So we're in a sort of bizarre estoppel situation, where they're now finding important nutritional benefits for preventing and reversing heart disease, and these super nutrients are found primarily in the things we've been told will give us heart disease. A perfect storm of modern ignorance.

Now, stop and consider that for a second. Everything ads up, here. The Japanese have been hot on the trail of K2 and its ability to halt and reverse osteoporosis for years. Then there's the vitamin D. Huh, pretty paleo: sunshine, meat, animal fat, & eggs. Sound a lot like what primitive people experienced and ate for eons. Here's Stephan from the same post, again.

K2 MK-4 (and perhaps other menaquinones like MK-7) may turn out to be an effective treatment for arterial calcification and cardiovascular disease in general. It's extremely effective at preventing osteoporosis-related fractures in humans. That's a highly significant fact. Osteoporosis and arterial calcification often come hand-in-hand. Thus, they are not a result of insufficient or excessive calcium, but of a failure to use the available calcium effectively. In the warfarin-treated rats described above, the serum (blood) calcium concentration was the same in all groups. Osteoporosis and arterial calcification are two sides of the same coin, and the fact that one can be addressed with K2 MK-4 means that the other may be as well. 

In the end, it's gratifying to see daily confirmation of stuff I've blogged over the last couple of years. For me, it's pretty easy and straightforward: follow the paleo principle.

The burden of proof is on the others, and more and more, it's becoming very clear that we have been duped by government, big agra, and big pharma -- all bedfellows in a money-making scheme that has already maimed and killed millions unnecessarily.

Later: Uh, that last characteristically inflammatory bit may be a little overstated. While there's no doubt to me that the state, big agra and big pharma constitute a perfect storm of harm, whereby nutritional and health problems that didn't exist have been created, with the same villains rushing in to "solve" them, for a price (both individually and societally), it is nonetheless a fact that billions of people -- individuals -- exist because of agriculture. Wishing that away would be to wish away all those lives, and I can't do that. Equally, the pharmaceutical industry has presided over miracles.

Vitamin D and Soap

I've had this one hanging around for days and since I'm on a roll just now, and just got a question about D, here goes. I'm not going to dig up the many past posts, but you can find most of them here, or simply search vitamin d to the right.

The short version is that vitamin D is crucial for a host of processes and modern life has come to the point of shielding humans from receiving the vitamin as nature and evolution intended. The things we already know about are clothing, shelter, working indoors and sunscreen that keep us from the D we need. But here's another: soap. Yep, all you clean freaks: you're washing your vitamin D off before it gets absorbed.

It was an interesting discovery for me, as it has been a very long time since I've put soap to anything but hair, face, armpits and groin. I never use lotions or creams and I have wonderfully soft skin. Maybe that's one reason for my high levels of D, along with supplementation, of course (now 4k IU per day instead of 6, since I get sun about 4 times per week).

So, here's Dr. Mercola to explain, with a video and a write up.

I must say that I disagree with his hierarchy of the most preferred way to get D. I think you need to get tested and that your 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels ought to be above 60 ng/ml. Unless you're living at a low latitude, I don't see how you're going to get that from sun exposure, at least year round. Tanning panels or beds are very expensive, and they strike me as rather like the treadmill in terms of eventual boring drudgery and something that ends up sitting in your house just taking up space. Supplementation is inexpensive, takes no time, is safe, and in the gelcap form is proven to get levels of D where they ought to be.

New Research Shows Vitamin D Reduces Risk of Cancer

I've been blogging about vitamin D for quite some time and it's always good to see the evidence piling up that it's a real health issue for many, if not most people. According to the D-Action project at Grassrootshealth, about 51% of people they've tested are below normal, which they consider to be above 40 ng/ml (I think you should be above 60, and I try to keep mine above 80). But, consider, these are the results of people who are concerned about their levels. I shudder to think what it must be for those unaware, using sunscreen and clothing to avoid sun exposure, and relying on fortified milk.

Another piece of the puzzle hit the newsstands, today.

A new study on nutrition and health shows vitamin D can significantly reduce the risk of several types of cancer.

William B. Grant, director of the Sunlight, Nutrition and Health Research Center in San Francisco, reviewed and summarized the ecological studies of solar ultraviolet B (UVB), vitamin D and cancer since 2000. The strongest associations between vitamin D from the sun and cancer were found with colon and breast cancers, but links have also been found with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, ovarian cancer and kidney cancer.

The findings provide strong evidence that vitamin D status plays an important role in controlling the outcome of cancer. Grant believes the support for UVB-vitamin D-cancer theory is scientifically strong enough to warrant use of vitamin D as a component of treatment in cancer prevention.

Back to Grasstrootshealth, there's more. This is a 5-minute video interview of Cedric Garland, Dr. P.H., who has just published a paper in the Annals of Epidemiology essentially showing the same thing. Unfortunately, there's no abstract for the paper, and no ability to purchase as it's for print subscribers only, which seems like the dumbest thing in the world, but whatever...

I have featured the work of Dr. Garland and others previously, the most notable being these three posts on the epidemiology of cancer and type 1 diabetes, with lots of charts and figures, so be sure to review those if you haven't seen them before.

Vitamin D Deficiency and All Cancer

Melanoma, Sun, and Its Synthetic Defeat (Sunscreen)

Vitamin D Deficiency and Type 1 Diabetes

For those wondering about supplementation, see part 4 of my series on vitamin supplementation. And for more posts on vitamin D in general, see here.

Vitamin Supplements - Part Four

In this final post on supplementation (vitamin and others), I'm going to put out the exceptions to my general stance -- that's not necessarily strictly against it, per se -- that most of it is probably unnecessary. But first, a quick review.

In part one, I laid out the general position, which is that supplementation ought to be the exception, not the rule, and there ought to be clear reasons for supplementing. Study after study seems to have failed to find measurable benefit. In part two, I diverge into a criticism of what I'll call Neolithic Authoritarianism, and most particularly, the tendency of people to submit themselves to the will and authority of others; to, in essence, default on their responsibilities as rational animals. Finally, in part three, I demonstrate very clearly that a diet consisting of natural animal fats, meat, fowl, fish, vegetables, fruits, and nuts to the exclusion of all grains, rice, legumes, heavy starches, vegetable oils -- and most particularly, all the 'frankenfood' derived therefrom -- literally knocks the average ADA, AHA or any other alphabet soup agency's "eat-more-whole-grains" recommended diets out of the water in terms of nutritional content. In some cases, the nutrition is 300% higher and more.

So, to summarize, it ought to be the position of Paleolithic eaters to source whole, real food, eat it, and enjoy the superior nutritional benefits. Finally, there's one case in which I do advocate heavy supplementation (you name it): if you're eating the crap grain-based diet most people eat. It's probably not going to do you any good, but what the hell.

- By far, the most necessary supplement is vitamin D, and it should be in the D3 form and not the plant-derived D2 form. I have posted a lot on vitamin D, so I'll not rehash. You can click here to access most, if not all of my past posts. The epidemiology is pretty clear: you need a 25 (OH) D level of 50 ng/ml to get to the point of real (associated) protection from cancer and a host of other bad things. Take it in gel cap form only, and the most consistent recommendation is in the area of 5,000 IU per day (you can take the whole thing weekly, too). But get tested after about three months and adjust as needed. I'm shooting for a level of 80. I take 6,000 IU per day, and I use the Carlson mini gel caps.

Why supplement with D? Most people are severely deficient, and even more so the darker their skin and the father away from the equator. To make matters worse, we're indoors most of the time, now, and as you age, your skin's ability to synthesize the hormone (it's not actually a vitamin) diminishes.

- Next on the list of important supplements is omega 3 fatty acids. The reason for this is that a natural, Paleolithic diet would have a ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 at anywhere from about .5/1 to 4/1. The typical American diet with its processed foods, most particularly high n-6 vegetable oils lies in a completely perverse range of 15/1 to 30/1. I have not blogged a lot about this, but here's a post that addresses some of the problems, and be sure to read the reference links.

So, because of the difficulty of ingesting too much omega 6, I want to get some omega 3 in my diet to atone for my sins. Probably the chief way I get too much omega 6 is that I don't always buy free range beef and eggs. Animals fed grains have a different fatty acid profile. The other thing is that though I've been eating a lot of fish lately (good source), it's not always that way. So, I take about 5 grams per day of fish oil, 3 as Norwegian salmon, and 2 as cod liver oil. I use these two Carlson products, here and here. On a final note, be careful with CLO. Some products have way too much vitamin A (like 10k IU per gram and more). The product I use has 2,000 units, so my daily dose is only 4,000 of A (note: I don't take this for either the A or D, but for the n-3). There have been some concerns lately about vitamin A toxicity, and there may be, but what it is is really vitamin D deficiency. Stephan explains completely.

- The last of the essential supplements is vitamin K2, menatetrenone (MK-4). This is one I've also blogged a lot about, so for the reasons why, click here to access most or all of my posts. There is now another issue regarding K2 that has just recently come to light, and that has to do with the potential benefits of the longer chain menaquinones -7, -8, and -9. These are forms created by bacteria during fermentation, for things such as (real) cheese. The -4 subform is the kind made by animals (from K1) for other animals (like us). It's interesting to note that the richest natural sources of MK-4 are to be found in eggs and mammalian milk (including humans).

So, though I think that -4 is the one to take, in the interest of full disclosure, here's the latest news I blogged about last week. And, be sure to read Stephan's review of the study full text as well. Here's the thing to keep in mind about K2. It works to activate vitamins A and D, and helps to ensure that calcium and other salts go everyplace they should (bones and teeth), and no place they shouldn't (arteries). Note in some of my posts that atherosclerosis has been reversed in rats through K2 (MK-4) supplementation. This is also the stuff Weston Price used to use, in combo with A and D to recalcify dental carries (cavities) back in the 1930s.

I used to take the very thing Weston Price used, butter oil, from grass fed cows. The butter fat is clarified and then centrifuged, and it's only a certain portion that has the K2. This is the Green Pastures product I used up until just a few weeks ago. The "Activator X" is the K2, as explained by Chris Masterjohn. The problem is that I don't know the dose, and nobody seems to, so I've gone to a synthetic, by Thorne Research. Each drop is 1 mg. I was taking one, but I've gone to two as I found that two made my skin baby soft overnight. That's quite a bit more than you would get from diet unless you eat a lot of foie gras (huge content), but I'm just going with that, for now. I do have a small bit of calcification in one of my coronary arteries, according to a recent heart scan, so I'm taking this as a therapeutic measure. In another six months I'll have another scan. If you want to simulate how you might get it from diet and don't want to eat a lot of fish eggs and beef (or venison) liver, then you could put a drop of the Thorne product in something that you consume over 3-4 days.

- There's one non-essential supplement I use, and that's whey powder. I posted about it back here. Because a Paleolithic diet leaves one in a state of rarely being very hungy, the whey gives me a chance to get protein in a very light meal a couple of times per week. I typically have it the morning after a workout day, and I always mix it with one or two eggs and plenty of fat in the fom of heavy cream and coconut oil. It's a fully nutritious meal, just not bulky and filling.

~~~

On a final note, I am open to other suggestions for essential supplementation. Drop 'em in the comments. Moreover, I fully recognize that there is a whole science to supplementation in the pursuit of life extension. Any information on that score is welcome too. I consider that far different than what I'm doing here, which is bare nuts and bolts, and most people can understand why they would and should take these supplements.

However, some of the regimes of the life extension folks are pretty extensive, including dozens of various supplements. My opinion is that nobody should undertake such a regime without knowing as much as can be known about every single supplement they take and why they're taking it.

Hot Off The Presses: Stephan (The Great One) on K2

Well, I can't recall a blog post ever getting so much attention, both off blog and on. For the on-blog activity, just read the comments. For the off-blog goings on, see Robert M's comment that sparked off a whirlwind.

Let me back up. I had emailed Stephan even before publishing that entry (an entire day before, actually). Even though he's a PhD candidate in neurobiology and has lots of access to the full texts of studies via his academic institution, he didn't have access to this one (he mentioned it was published in a rinky dink journal), but clearly Robert M did. So, after a few back & forths with Stephan, mostly speculation, Robert's comment goes up and then the mad dash to get Stephan the full text. Thanks, Robert (who also maintains -- at a glance or two -- a very fine blog).

Let me make something clear before I continue. When I mention that Stephan and I have been emailing back & fort, this is not to imply in any way that we're peers or that I have much to offer Stephan beyond a "hey; heads up, mate." My style is slash & burn; hit & run. But, I also like being right. I'm willing to take risks because though I will tout my biases without end, I'll fess up when I've fucked up. So, I bug Stephan -- apart from liking the guy a lot -- as a bit of an insurance policy. I only deal with honest people and Stephan will always be gentlemanly enough to tell me when I'm being an idiot. I count on that -- from him, as well as all of you intelligent readers out there.

Stephan sent me the full text last night, which I read today (I can grok about 70% or so, but it used to be 20%). Gladly, I don't think any of my speculations were contradicted, which is good. Bottom line: those who ate the most cheese, butter, milk, meat, saturated fat, etc.,  had the least coronary events.

Now, go ahead and see how Stephan has interpreted the study. His approach is necessarily academic, and he can't afford to take the risks I do. Someday, I'm going to commit a really big idiocy, it's just a matter of time. He can't afford that, as his career depends on careful deliberation of published facts. The good news is that he counts his integrity far above his ability to eventually command huge grants for studies. I don't see that ever changing, so please read his blog with frequency and give him the moral support he has certainly earned.

Vitamin K2 and Massive Reduction in Heart Disease: Leading Edge

I had wanted to do another installment of held over questions from readers this morning (sorry, folks), but I just have to get this out now. Actually, I caught wind of this a few weeks back, set it aside, forgot about it, and reader Ankit brought it to my attention in email last night.

Before I get into it, let's address something. This applies to my blog and a number of others out there. This is leading edge stuff. That is, you are learning of strong associations with resultant likely benefits now, all the while most of your friends, family, and acquaintances will scoff, dismiss, or otherwise ignore you if you bring it up; and yet, in 3-5 year's time they will think they've made a big discovery once the material is distilled and dumbed down sufficiently that the regurgitators in the news media can even begin to get it right.

Vitamin D is an example. Exploding in the news, but as yet, woefully mis-reported most of the time. I've shown through a lot of posts on D over the months that it's about the level of 25 (OH) D in ng/ml in your blood that counts, and it's not so much about sunshine or foods you eat. Yet, while the news is awash in study after study, the ignoramuses continue to talk about 200-400 IU supplementation per day, drinking your fortified milk, and getting that "15 minutes in the sun." It's useless garbage, and it's giving people false hope and security. Listen: if your level of 25 (OH) D is under 30 ng/ml, as it is for about a third of people, then you are at twice the risk of cancer as a smoker. Moreover, to really achieve benefits, you need to be over 60 ng/ml (only about 7.5% of people are) and it's very unlikely you're going to get there without significant supplementation >2,000 IU per day, minimum (I take 6k; so does my dad, and his level just came back at 73 -- sweet spot).

It is a different world, folks. I have no qualms saying it: you get far better, more accurate, more cutting edge health and fitness information here (and other blogs -- see the left sidebar) than you can get in every single mainstream news outlet in the word: put together. Let me be frank: they are useless, ignorant, know-nothings and the few exceptions that exist are attributable exclusively to individuals (Gary Taubes, as the world's best science journalist, for example).

If you are relying on the local paper, Newsweek, the local and national network news, or Oprah, for valid health and fitness information, you might as well just go read Mother Goose. It is that bad. What's the difference? Well, for one, I and my fellow bloggers resect your intelligence. Second, we actually dig up the actual studies, read them, interpret them, know bullshit manipulation of statistics when we see it, know conflicts of interest when we see them, can track related things coming together, synergies, integrations, and we can distill it all for our intelligent individual readers because we don't consider them to be collective herds of stupid cattle and sheep, as the mainstream does.

Finally, compare the results of the people who email results that I highlight here, and who comment (many of them highly educated; some PhDs, MDs, and so on), and compare that to the explosion of diabetes and obesity in America and worldwide. That's because those people are getting their information from the health / fitness veridic equivalent of Dr. Seuss.

[/soapbox]

So, here's the deal: A high menaquinone intake reduces the incidence of coronary heart disease. (Press releases here, here, here). Well, there are significant questions, but the bottom line?

For every increase of 10 micrograms in the amount of vitamin K2 consumed daily, the risk of developing coronary heart disease (CHD) drops by 9 percent. This somewhat stunning statistic was noted as a result of a recent cohort study from the Netherlands evaluating the dietary vitamin K intakes of 16,057 post-menopausal women and their association with the incidence of CHD.

The chief question stems from the finding that it was the longer chain menaquinones (K2; MK-n) 7, 8, and 9 that provided the benefit. Readers know that I've been blogging about menatetrenone (K2; MK-4) for quite a while. However, it should be noted that this was a study that gaged the coronary heart disease incidence of women over eight years while analyzing their diets specifically for K2 content, coming up with the finding that more K2 was associated with (not caused -- that must be determined by intervention study where K2 supplementation is set up against placebo) less coronary heart disease. In other words, this is plenty to justify more research -- like an intervention trial -- but it does not tell us whether other variables may have been in play, i.e., the same people who eat lots of stuff high in K2 also tend to do x, y, and z, and it turns out that those are the more causal factors. Unlikely, in my view, but that's how science is done.

Now, with reference to the soapbox I just stepped down from, let me show you a real world example of the crap reporting that goes on, and even by means of quotes from lead authors of studies. This, my dear readers, is a perfect storm of illogic. Go ahead and test yourself and read it before continuing. Let's see if you catch it.

Did you? Well, here, let me give you a hint: other than natto -- which I doubt is consumed by post-menopausal Dutch women in great quantity, if at all -- the chief dietary source of the longer chain K2 vitamins is hard & soft fermented cheeses (high in "artery clogging" saturated fats). Now do you get it? These researchers may have unwittingly done us a big favor, because if it turns out that long-chain K2s are actually causal for massive (9% per 10 micrograms) reduction coronary heart disease, then they will have shown that those who eat the most "artery clogging" cheese have less clogged arteries.

So, how did the article put it?

“Our findings may have important practical implications on CVD prevention, it is important to mention that in order to increase the intake of vitamin K2, increasing the portion vitamin K2 rich foods in daily life might not be a good idea,” wrote lead author Gerrie-Cor Gast from the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care at the University Medical Center Utrecht.

“Vitamin K2 might be, for instance more relevant in the form of a supplement or in low-fat dairy.”

As Dr. Eades would say, "Jesus wept." So, what that idiotic quote means is that, while K2 intake was largely a function of cheese intake (you don't get it much place else, except natto, as noted), and while those who ate the most cheese had the least coronary heart disease, don't eat the stuff. It should also be noted that the K2 they are talking about, every microgram of it, is contained in the fat. So, of course, get it from low-fat dairy. Unbelievable.

Yea, well, here's what the study did do, and you can take it to the bank: it once again falsified the hypothesis that saturated fats have anything to do with heart disease. Even better: it likely showed (I'm guessing, as I don't know the diets of those who had more heart disease, but it's safe to assume that people with high saturated fat intake get lots of it from cheese) that the more saturated fat, the less heart disease. Another thought: they may have actually discovered the real source of "The French Paradox." I lived in France. Gorged on the world's best cheeses daily. So did lots of people.

Here's why I suspect this is exactly the case: they made no mention in general of macronutrient ratios or saturated fat in particular (at least in the press releases) and, even more compelling: had the protective benefit come from a low fat & low saturated-fat diet, it would have been screamed across every newspaper headline in the world.

Alright, so what about MK-4, the stuff I supplement with? Well, I suspect (guessing again, as we don't have the text of the study) that there was simply not enough MK-4 in the makeup of their diets to claim any statistical significance. It's tough to get Mk-4. There's a bit in egg yolks and trace in meats, but most is to be found in organ meats, marrow, brain, and fish eggs. It's also in the butter fat of ruminators, but only when grass fed. These are all foods that have gone out of vogue for modern industrial populations.

But there are clues. Read my post from back in November where I called attention to Stephan's work concerning the prevention of cardiovascular disease. But that's not all. MK-4 has also been found to reverse cardiovascular disease in rats.

So, my personal approach would be to supplement with MK-4 (unless you eat a lot of organ meats or have good sources for grass fed butter and trust it) and to get in some good French cheeses now and then. MK-4 doesn't hang around in your blood very long, but the longer chains do.

Later: Stephan now has a review of the full text up, which is naturally essential reading.

D Cold and D Flu

I got this abstract from the Archives of Internal Medicine, courtesy of several readers last week (along with related articles), so thanks to one and all.

~~~

Background Recent studies suggest a role for vitamin D in innate immunity, including the prevention of respiratory tract infections (RTIs). We hypothesize that serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) levels are inversely associated with self-reported recent upper RTI (URTI).

Methods We performed a secondary analysis of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a probability survey of the US population conducted between 1988 and 1994. We examined the association between 25(OH)D level and recent URTI in 18 883 participants 12 years and older. The analysis adjusted for demographics and clinical factors (season, body mass index, smoking history, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).

Results The median serum 25(OH)D level was 29 ng/mL (to convert to nanomoles per liter, multiply by 2.496) (interquartile range, 21-37 ng/mL), and 19% (95% confidence interval [CI], 18%-20%) of participants reported a recent URTI. Recent URTI was reported by 24% of participants with 25(OH)D levels less than 10 ng/mL, by 20% with levels of 10 to less than 30 ng/mL, and by 17% with levels of 30 ng/mL or more (P < .001). Even after adjusting for demographic and clinical characteristics, lower 25(OH)D levels were independently associated with recent URTI (compared with 25[OH]D levels of 30 ng/mL: odds ratio [OR], 1.36; 95% CI, 1.01-1.84 for <10 ng/mL and 1.24; 1.07-1.43 for 10 to <30 ng/mL). The association between 25(OH)D level and URTI seemed to be stronger in individuals with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (OR, 5.67 and 2.26, respectively).

Conclusions Serum 25(OH)D levels are inversely associated with recent URTI. This association may be stronger in those with respiratory tract diseases. Randomized controlled trials are warranted to explore the effects of vitamin D supplementation on RTI.

~~~

In simpler terms, the higher the vitamin D level, the less cold and flu. Second, the association is looking more and more like an independent one; that is, regardless of your other risk factors, adequate vitamin D levels appear to be generally protective (this is what they mean when they say they "adjust" for age, gender, and other risk factors, etc.). In fact, the strongest association was found in those with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

It's important to understand what was done here, and the importance of data collection and storage over the long term. Basically, they were able to go back and query the database for those who had reported recent colds and flu (almost 19,000 records), and then compare those answers with the patients' vitamin D levels, also in the database.

This is decent epidemiological science; but it is, of course, only a precursor to gold-standard science: actual intervention by means of double-blind, randomized, placebo control. That means that the researchers intervene by supplementing half of a group with D and the other half with a placebo, with the spit between the group being random, and neither the researchers nor the subjects know who's getting the real thing and who's getting placebo. In this fashion, when done correctly and with statistically significant results, actual cause and effect can be established.

Here's an example of decent vitamin D science, a randomized controlled trial that demonstrated a 60% reduced risk for all cancer with supplementation of only 1,000 IU per day. As reported:

A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking the vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn't take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error.

There's other "good science," too, only not in the way it was intended. These researchers determined that there was no noticeable benefit to supplementation at twice the USRDA of 200 IU per day (400 IU).

There's an old saying: "every experiment is a success." Get it?

And keep in mind: Getting plenty of sun may not be enough. Your ability to synthesize D diminishes with age, dark skin is less efficient, and latitude and time of year play a roll (father away from the equator, the less absorption, the less time per year the sun is high enough, and the less time per day when it is). The best way is to get tested and supplement until your level is 60 or better.

Grassroots Health D Action

Thanks to commenter Dave, who alerted me to a great vitamin D study and service at GrassrootsHealth.

It's called D Action, and for $30 you can get a your vitamin D levels checked. You can do it once, participate for a year for two tests, or every six months for five years.

I just signed up for a year's participation.

Vitamin D and Muscle Power

One hopes it doesn't only apply to adolescent girls.

For this study, researchers followed 99 adolescent girls between the ages of 12 and 14 years. Ward and her colleagues took blood samples to measure the girls' serum levels of vitamin D. Many of these girls were found to have low levels of vitamin D despite not presenting any symptoms.

Researchers used a novel outcome measure called jumping mechanography to measure muscle power and force. Jumping mechanography derives power and force measurements from a subject's performance in a series of jumping activities. Ward says this method of testing is ideal as the muscles required to jump are those most often affected in subjects with vitamin D deficiency. Girls without vitamin D deficiency performed significantly better in these tests.

"Vitamin D affects the various ways muscles work and we've seen from this study that there may be no visible symptoms of vitamin D deficiency," said Ward. "Further studies are needed to address this problem and determine the necessary levels of vitamin D for a healthy muscle system."

Study: Vitamin D tied to muscle power in adolescent girls

Just Go Ahead And Wait For "Public Policy"

I had to laugh.

The National Institutes of Health awarded Creighton University $4 million to continue its landmark study linking vitamin D to a reduction in cancer risk. The study’s findings, reported in June 2007, showed for the first time in a clinical trial that postmenopausal women consuming optimal amounts of calcium supplements, as well as vitamin D3 supplements at nearly three times U.S. government recommended levels, could reduce their risk of cancer by 60 to 77 percent.

“The vitamin D3 finding was a secondary goal in the original study,” said Creighton researcher Joan Lappe, Ph.D. “We must now confirm these findings with a clinical trial specifically designed to look at calcium, vitamin D and cancer. Confirmation is necessary in order to have evidence solid enough to change public policy regarding intake levels for vitamin D.” [...]

A total of 2,300 women will be recruited and followed for four years with half of the participants randomly assigned to take daily supplements containing 2,000 IU of vitamin D3 and 1,200 mg of calcium; the second group will receive placebos. (emphasis added)

There you go. Something that's intuitively pretty obvious (that most plants and animals need sunlight for various metabolic and biochemical processes) needs to wait four years so that greater exposure to natural, life giving sun (and/or vitamin D supplementation at sufficient levels) can receive the blessings of the "authorities" -- you know, like the people that have been advocating low fat, high carbohydrate diets for the last two decades as obesity and diabetes skyrocket; those kinda guys.

Moreover, I'm not hopeful by any means that even when they do get around to revising recommended daily intake upwards that it will be anywhere near what would be needed to get someone's 25(OH)D levels into the 60-80 ng/ml range. Why 60-80? See here.

Then this, from a recent email newsletter from Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has quietly announced composition of the next vitamin D Food and Nutrition Board (FNB), a committee that will set recommendations for both adequate intake and upper limits well into the next decade. [...]

Unfortunately, the scientists who have led the vitamin D revolution for the last ten years are all excluded. The debarred include, but are not limited to, Drs. Vieth, Giovannucci, Garland, Hollis, Heaney, Wagner, Norman, Hankinson, Whitting, Hanley, etc.. For example, Dr Hollis actually wrote and received an FDA Investigational New Drug (IND) for vitamin D in 2003 that has allowed both him and many other investigators to perform vitamin D studies with doses well above the current upper limits. Why is he not on the committee? Dr. Vieth has performed many of the recent upper limit pharmacological dosing studies in humans. Why did the IOM exclude Dr. Vieth?

Then, of course, there's the utter embarrassment they call the American Academy of Dermatology and their recent ridiculous Position Statement on Vitamin D, which, to my gimlet eye, looks to be more of a position on full and continued employment for researchers and dermatologists.

The American Academy of Dermatology recommends that an adequate amount of vitamin D should be obtained from a healthy diet that includes foods naturally rich in vitamin D, foods/beverages fortified with vitamin D, and/or vitamin D supplements; it should not be obtained from unprotected exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

What astounding modern arrogance driven by ignorance.

How about this: in lieu of publicly pelting the BoD of the Academy with rotten tomatoes, how about they explain why melanomas are rare in poor, equatorial countries where people don't use sunscreen and work out in the sun a lot, verses higher rates the farther north you go in the northern hemisphere, or south you go in the southern hemisphere, where there's inadequate sunlight, countries are richer, people work indoors, and everyone can afford to be duped into buying and slathering sunscreen?

In the meantime, I'll keep taking my daily dose of 6,000 units of vitamin D, 15 times the levels recommended by "the authorities."

Vitamin D and All-Cause Mortality

This is from August, but I just stumbled on it. Here's a study published in Archives of Internal Medicine.

25-Hydroxyvitamin D Levels and the Risk of Mortality in the General Population

Conclusion: The lowest quartile of 25(OH)D level (<17.8 ng/mL) is independently associated with all-cause mortality in the general population.

I like this kind of science because, duh, why trade risk of one disease for another? That's the big blind spot with so much of the research surrounding obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. They associate one disease with one thing (like high cholesterol with heart disease -- but not really), only to find out that "the fix" increases risk for another disease, or worse, as in the case of low cholesterol, increases risk of...death. That's right, particularly for an elderly person. If you're patting yourself on the back over low cholesterol, studies repeatedly show that low cholesterol is associated with higher rates of dying. In other words, on average, people with high cholesterol simply live longer. So, go ahead and undertake questionable dietary habits and take questionable drugs in the pursuit of a questionable association, only to die earlier -- only not of a heart attack. Yay; you win!

Skeptical? After all, you probably didn't hear about this one on the evening news, didj'a (it would have been in conflict with the Lipitor commercials)? So here:

Cholesterol and all-cause mortality in elderly people. "Only the group with low cholesterol concentration at both examinations had a significant association with mortality."

Low Cholesterol Levels Associated with Increased Mortality

Yet Another Study Shows Low Cholesterol Increases Risk Of Early Death!

That was just a sloppy and quick Googling. I could give you dozens more.

So, anyway, now that we understand the importance of looking at all-cause mortality over cherry picking various diseases independently of risk factors for others, let's tun back to vitamin D and mortality. ScienceDaily did a good writeup on it. They quote co-lead investigator Erin Michos, M.D., M.H.S.

Our results make it much more clear that all men and women concerned about their overall health should more closely monitor their blood levels of vitamin D, and make sure they have enough...

We think we have additional evidence to consider adding vitamin D deficiency as a distinct and separate risk factor for death from cardiovascular disease, putting it alongside much better known and understood risk factors, such as age, gender, family history, smoking, high blood cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, lack of exercise, obesity and diabetes...

Careful Out There

Here's an example of how one needs to be careful about interpreting studies.

Vitamin D Status and Its Relationship to Body Fat, Final Height, and Peak Bone Mass in Young Women

Context: Vitamin D insufficiency has now reached epidemic proportions and has been linked to low bone mineral density, increased risk of fracture, and obesity in adults. However, this relationship has not been well characterized in young adults.

Objective: The objective of the study was to examine the relationship between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD), anthropometric measures, body fat (BF), and bone structure at the time of peak bone mass.

Design: This was a cross-sectional study.

Outcome Measures and Subjects: Anthropometric measures, serum 25OHD radioimmunoassay values, and computed tomography and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry values of BF and bone structure in 90 postpubertal females, aged 16–22 yr, residing in California were measured.

Results: Approximately 59% of subjects were 25OHD insufficient (29 ng/ml), and 41% were sufficient (30 ng/ml). Strong negative relationships were present between serum 25OHD and computed tomography measures of visceral and sc fat and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry values of BF. In addition, weight, body mass, and imaging measures of adiposity at all sites were significantly lower in women with normal serum 25OHD concentrations than women with insufficient levels. In contrast, no relationship was observed between circulating 25OHD concentrations and measures of bone mineral density at any site. Unexpectedly, there was a positive correlation between 25OHD levels and height.

Conclusions: We found that vitamin D insufficiency is associated with increased BF and decreased height but not changes in peak bone mass.

While it's tempting to jump on such news -- there's already plenty of well-established reasons to get vitamin D levels up anyway -- studies like this don't do much for me.

Note where the study was done: [sunny] California, which, I might add, has been breaking temperature records lately -- high 70s in mid-January in San Jose. I'm in the mountains right now, 4,500 feet, and it's a beautiful bright & sunny 55 outside. And, when was the study done, summer, winter, spring or fall? Doesn't say.

So, is it the higher D levels causing lower body fat and increased height, or is it just more likely that tall slender girls (16-22) go to the beach and other places to bare their skin and model their bodies more often than short fat girls?

Vitamin Supplements - Part Three

Part One

Part Two

Part Four

In part three of what will now most assuredly be four parts total, I'm going to show why, if following a Paleo diet, you probably don't require supplementation (with a few exceptions). Whereas, if you eat bread, pasta, sugary foods, rice, cereals, corn products, processed foods and such, you very likely have numerous vitamin deficiencies under the surface. In your case, supplementation might be a good idea indeed.

Now, unless you're a Paleo eater who has already seen this sort of thing, prepare to be shocked. You grain eaters: prepare for great chagrin, because you are about to see in living color how nutritionally bankrupt your diet is; you know, the one based on "lots of servings of 'healthy' whole grains." But the honest truth and hard reality is that if you eat grains, beans, rice, breads, cereals and so on as daily staples, you are getting awful nutrition. That's a fact; not an opinion. Let me go a step further: if you give any of your kids this crap as daily staple, it's tantamount to starving them. I'm serious.

In Loren Cordain's book, The Paleo Diet, he has a slightly flawed but fabulous illustration of how radically awful and crappy the "Standard American Diet" (SAD) is in terms of nutritional content, contrasted with how radically amazing the Paleo diet is. Again: this is fact, people, not speculation. Grain eaters, and even vegetarians and vegans who eat processed veggie foods: your guys' diets suck batsh*t off cave walls in comparison to the Paleo diet. Vary the ingredients if you like, then verify nutrients at the USDA's own nutrient database. You're going to come out with the same answer. If you eat an average diet you are eating a woefully nutrient deficient diet.

I shall begin by Quoting Dr. Cordain from chapter 2, from the section The Paleo Diet: A Nutritional Bonanza.

Many registered dietitians and knowledgeable nutritionists would predict that any diet that excludes all cereal grains, dairy products, and legumes would lack many important nutrients and would require extremely careful planning to make it work. Just the opposite is true with the Paleo Diet -- which confirms yet again that this is exactly the type of diet humans were meant to thrive on, as they have for all but the last 10,000 years.

The Paleo Diet provides 100 percent of our nutrient requirements. My research team has analyzed the nutrient composition of hundreds of varying combinations of the Paleo Diet, in which we've altered the percentage as well as the types of plant and animal foods it contains. In virtually every dietary permutation, the levels of vitamins and minerals exceed governmental recommended daily allowances (RDAs). The Paleo Diet even surpasses modern cereal and dairy-based diets in many nutritional elements that protect against heart disease and cancer... [...]

In fact, the Paleo Diet is packed with much higher levels of many nutrients that are deficient in both vegetarian and average American diets, such as iron, zinc, vitamin B1, B2, B6 and omega 3 fats.

He goes on to outline a typical day on a Paleo diet vs. a typical day on the SAD, both at 2200 calories. First, the Paleo day.

For breakfast, she eats half a cantaloupe and a 12-ounce portion of broiled Atlantic salmon. Lunch is a shrimp, spinach / vegetable salad (seven large boiled shrimp, three cups of raw spinach leaves, one shredded carrot, one sliced cucumber, two diced tomatoes, lemon juice / olive oil / spice dressing). For dinner, she has two lean pork chops, two cups of steamed broccoli, and a tossed green salad (two cups of romaine lettuce, a half-cup of diced tomatoes, a quarter-cup of sliced purple onions, half an avocado, lemon juice dressing). She tops it all off with a half-cup of fresh or frozen blueberries and a quarter-cup of slivered almonds. For a snack, she has a quarter-cup of slivered almonds and a cold pork chop.

Now, the first thing that might strike you is what an amazing amount of food that sounds like, and for only 2,200 calories, pretty much an average daily intake for lots of people. However, this is where I think there's a bit of a flaw. This day contains 190 grams of protein, 142 of carbohydrate, and 108 of fat (which actually comes to 2,300 kcals). This comes out to 33% of calories as protein (25% for carbs and 42% for fat) which I don't think is realistic on a daily basis. The underlying reasons are beyond the scope of this, but a more appropriate ratio would be 25p / 25c / 50f and I would certainly be happy with another 10% from fat and 10% less from carbs.

Now heres a day of SAD.

Now let's take a look at this same 2,200 calorie diet for our sample twenty-five-year-old woman -- but let's replace most of the real foods (lean meats and fruits and vegetables) with processed foods, cereal grains, and dairy products. Remember, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Pyramid encourages you to eat six to eleven servings of grains every day. The nutrient breakdown depicted below closely resembles that of the average American diet. This is the same diet that has produced a nation in which 63 percent of all American men over age twenty-five and 55 percent of women over age twenty-five are either overweight or obese.

For breakfast, our twenty-five-year-old woman eats a Danish pastry and two cups of cornflakes with 8 ounces of whole milk, topped off with a teaspoon of sugar, and drinks a cup of coffee with a tablespoon of cream and a teaspoon of sugar. Because of the large amounts of refined carbohydrates consumed for breakfast, her blood sugar level soon plummets and she is hungry again by midmorning, so she eats a glazed doughnut and another cup of coffee with cream and sugar. By noon, she's hungry again. She goes to the McDonald's near her office and orders a Quarter Pounder, a small portion of French fries, and a 12-ounce cola drink. For dinner, she eats two slices of cheese pizza and a small iceberg lettuce salad with half a tomato, covered with two tablespoons of Thousand Island dressing. She washes it all down with 12 ounces of lemon-lime soda.

Now, you are welcome to try it. Go ahead and replace the danish and donut with, say, "nice" whole grain bread and butter. It's not going to make much nutritional difference because the foundation (grains) is pure crap. Do you know why so much of it is "fortified" with this and that? Because it's crap and would be even worse crap if not "fortified." The breakdown is 62 grams of protein, 309 carb, and 83 fat (2,231 kcals). So, in terms of percentage: 11p / 55c / 34f. This doesn't even qualify as a "healthy low-fat" diet (<20% from fat), and you know what? If getting low fat meant buying a bunch of "low-fat" processed foods that line the supermarket shelves, it's going to make the already disastrous nutritional picture you are about to see even worse.

So, how do they compare in terms of essential vitamins and minerals? For the Paleo diet, every single nutrient from A to Zinc, except D, comes in at a minimum of 150% of the RDA to as much as 1000%+ in excess of the RDA. No supplements required.

For the SAD, the picture is dismal, and BTW, I for years ate a diet quite similar: bagel & cream cheese for breakfast, some sort of fast food or deli sandwich for lunch, and crap like fast, processed food, or pizza for dinner at least 2-3 times per week.

This diet typifies everything that's wrong with the way most of us eat today -- the modern, processed food-based diet. It violates all of the Seven Keys of the Paleo Diet -- the ones we're genetically programmed to follow. Except for calcium and phosphorus, every nutrient falls below the RDA. The protein intake on the standard American diet is a paltry 62 grams (57 percent of the RDA) compared to that of the Paleo Diet (a mighty 190 grams, or 379 percent of the RDA). Remember, protein is your ally in weight loss and good health. It lowers your cholesterol, improves your insulin sensitivity, speeds up your metabolism, satisfies your appetite, and helps you lose weight.

It's very true what he says about protein, and this is, in the end, a battle over hunger. Nothing satiates like protein and I've tested that even on a low carb AND low fat, 95% protein diet of 220 g of protein per day, 900ish calories. By day three or four, I could no longer keep up the protein intake. 900 calories per day for a 210 pounder at the time, and I couldn't eat it all. Protein is king, but I think about 30% of energy is probably going to be an average upper limit for most people. 25% is going to be even more fine and dandy.

Frankly, I'm shocked at how little meat so many people eat nowadays.

So, to wrap it up, since this is about supplementation, you simply don't need to concern yourself with it if you are eating Paleo (with exceptions in Part Four), and after all, we should all agree that getting our nutrients integrated with our food is the optimal method. But if you eat the SAD, then if you're not willing to change to the world's most nutritious, natural diet, then you better start popping the pills. This brings to mind one common objection to Paleo eating: expense. Well, if you want to meet or exceed nutritional requirements, what's going to be better: the added expense of real food or the added expense of pills?

In Part Four, I'll cover the exceptions that call for supplementation, why, and I'll cover what I take and where I get it. In the meantime, I'll have to get up a post for reference on the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio issue.

Go to Part Four

What You're Up Against

Dr. Mercola isn't one I follow intensely, yet he gets far too much right to ignore. My preference for other sources is probably mostly that I have to wade through far less commercial advertising, or none at all, so you're forewarned.

At any rate, this article about WebMD's 12 top cancer advances for 2008 caught my eye. Wanna guess?

1. Erbitux for Lung Cancer
2. Gemzar for Pancreatic Cancer
3. Treanda for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)
4. Avastin for Metastatic Breast Cancer
5. Long-Term Hormone Therapy for Breast Cancer
6. Zometa for Breast Cancer
7. Pegylated Interferon for Melanoma
8. Targeted Erbitux for Colon Cancer
9. The Pill Cuts Ovarian-Cancer Risk
10. HPV Vaccine May Cut Oral Cancers
11. Oncologist Shortage Looms
12. Caring for Childhood Cancer Survivors

Two of these are not like the others didn't escape Dr. Mercola's notice.

Is it any wonder that 10 of the 12 “major cancer advances” named by the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) involve drugs of some sort? Not at all. Most oncologists are completely intertwined with the conventional route of cancer treatment, which almost always involves using powerful drugs, radiation or surgery, and as I mentioned above, WebMD funding is primarily from the drug companies.

Note: not a single mention of vitamin D, yet if you were to create a Google alert for it, you'd get inundated with news articles worldwide each day, as I do. Of course, you can fully supplement vitamin D for under $10 per month per person. No money in that for the pharmaceutical companies, nor, by extension, WebMD.

In the article linked, Dr. Mercola lists his own best cancer advances for 2008.