Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and Dementia are preventable by eating a whole foods plant based diet. Lou Gehrig's disease is known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This article is about preventing degenerative neurotoxic diseases by not consuming neurotoxins through food comsumption. Neurotoxins can also enter the body through vaccinations, causing degenerative neurotoxic diseases, the link immunity exposes this.
His mother, Christina, was continually cooking for him, frying the fish and eels he catches. Lou caught so many eels that his mother pickled them. Some New York Yankees believed that pickled eels helped their hitting. "Why should Lou eat eels?” one teammate said. “He always hits good, doesn’t he?" Nobody thought it mattered much and when he got sick with ALS, no connection between the eels and the disease was made. Now research shows connection between the habit and the disease.
Researchers have isolated an amino acid known as BMAA (β-methylamino-ʟ-alanine) that is known to cause certain proteins to fold improperly when it is used by our cells instead of the normal amino acids our body uses to make protein.
BMAA is a newly identified neurotoxin.
BMAA tricks the body into thinking it is l-glutamic acid in which it gets transported
across the blood-brain barrier.
It goes into the glutamate receptors on the cell this causes a folding and kills the cell.
BMAA is made by blue-green algae species.
The blue-green algae are called cyanobacteria.
Cyanobacteria are sometimes considered algae, but they are actually bacteria, They also derive their energy through photosynthesis, but lack a nucleus or membrane bound organelles, like chloroplasts.
These bacteria are present at varying levels in most standing water and in certain areas of the ocean, and when animals live in these areas, the food they eat is almost always contaminated with BMAA.
Amounts of BMAA in certain foods can vary widely, but reported levels are found to be very high in eels, crabs and other crustaceans and certain fish. Besides its association to ALS, BMAA has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
ALS can be induced in monkeys by giving them BMAA in a lab.
BMAA killing motor neurons are demonstrated in labs.
ALS is more common than generally recognized, an incidence rate now close to that of multiple sclerosis. Fifty years ago scientists found that the rate of ALS among the indigenous peoples on the island of Guam was 100 times that found in the rest of the world, potentially offering a clue into the cause of the disease. So instead of 1 in 400, in some villages in Guam, 1 in 3 adults died of the disease.
Cycad trees were suspected, since the powdered seeds were a dietary staple of the natives and there were reports of livestock showing neurological disease after eating them. And indeed, a new neurotoxin was found in the seeds, called BMAA. Maybe that’s what was causing such high levels of ALS, but the amount of BMAA in the seeds people ate was so small that it was calculated that people would have to eat 1,000 kilograms a day to get a toxic dose.
But then famed neurologist Oliver Sachs and a colleague had an idea. Cycad seeds were not all the natives ate. They also ate fruit bats as a delicacy stewed in coconut milk.
This story starts in Guam, where the Chamorro people were eating bats called the flying fox. The flying fox’s favorite fruit is from trees whose watery roots concentrate a toxin produced by the cyanobacteria. The result was that the Chamorro started dying of a disease.
They had signs of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, so they called it amyotrophic lateral sclerosis parkinsonism dementia complex.
These flying foxes ate cycad tree seeds as a case of biomagnification up the food chain. BMAA was building up in the flesh of flying foxes. And the natives also ate other animals that foraged on the seeds.
This was confirmed when autopsies found high levels of BMAA in the brains of six out of six native victims of the disease, but not in control brains of healthy people who died.
When the researchers were choosing a comparison group of control brains, they threw in two cases of Alzheimer’s disease. And they had BMAA in their brains too. But these were Alzheimer’s victims in Canada, on the opposite side of the globe. So they ran more autopsies. No BMAA in the control brains, but BMAA was detected in all the Canadian Alzheimer’s victims tested.
The cyanobacteria that grows in the roots of the cycad trees makes the BMAA that gets into the seeds, that gets into the bats, that gets into the people.
The cyanobacteria are ubiquitous throughout the world. They are found in many lakes, ponds, and reservoirs
producing this neurotoxin, BMAA. BMAA may be a cause of progressive neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS, worldwide.
Researchers in Miami found BMAA in the brains of Floridians who died from sporadic Alzheimer’s disease and ALS, but not in the brains of those who died from a different neurodegenerative disease, called Huntington’s, which is caused by a genetic mutation.
BMAA is present in Florida seafood. All over the place, in freshwater fish and shellfish, like oysters and bass, and out in the bay. In fact some of the fish, shrimp, and crabs had levels of BMAA comparable to those found in the fruit bats of Guam.
A study
from Florida found astonishing levels of
BMAA in various species.
Just looking at
fish in random rivers in Florida they
had the same level of BMAA as those
flying foxes.
High concentrations of BMAA are present in shark fins. Because BMAA is a neurotoxin, consumption of shark fin soup and cartilage pills may therefore pose a health risk.
Some shrimp had the same level as those
flying foxes from Guam.
BMAA
levels of blue crab vary but going back
to that Florida study they found some
Florida blue crab with twice the level of BMAA
as the flying foxes of Guam.
These data on BMAA neurotoxin concentrations in animals in Florida waters
indicate that the situation in Guam is not unique.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasts Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) in the Gulf of Mexico
The concentric circles indicate contaminated shellfish.
The Florida Governor Scott state government has loosened restrictions on dumping pollution.
This resulted in recent high cyanobacteria blooms. Manatees, fish and other marine life, as well as sea grass and other plant life, are endangered by these blooms, which alter the food chain and deplete oxygen, leading to massive dead zones.
Last year’s outbreak has so thoroughly spread through delicate estuaries on both coasts that Florida officials declared a state of emergency in four counties. Toxic sludge has killed fish, shellfish, and at least one manatee and has sickened people who have touched it.
BMAA neurotoxins from cyanobacteria causes neurological diseases. The incidence rate of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are increasing.
The ALS epidemic in Guam had been triggered by their acquisition of guns in 1920. But now, the epidemic appears to be over, thanks to near extinction of the fruit bats due to over-hunting. While the rates decline in Guam, neurodegenerative diseases like ALS around the rest of the world are on the rise.
Looks like BMAA could be found in high concentrations in aquatic animals in many areas of the world.
Outside of Guam the measure of BMAA in the hair of people with ALS have
higher level of BMAA than healthy people.
These bacteria can multiply a lot in the summer, which causes extensive growths called blooms.
There is a general consensus that harmful cyanobacteria blooms are increasing worldwide thanks in part to industrialized agriculture. More people means more sewage, fertilizer, and manure, which may mean more cyanobacteria, which may mean more exposure to this neurotoxin, leading to a possible increased incidence of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS. BMAA is a strong contender as the cause of, or at least a major contributor to the cause, of both endemic and sporadic ALS and Alzheimer’s disease, and possibly conferring risk for Parkinson’s disease as well.
Over a third of the global sea haul is fed to pigs, chickens and cows.
The sea haul is ground into fish meal as part of cattle feed because it
increases milk production as compared to soybean meal.
This seafood is somewhat contaminated with BMAA. BMAA also accumulates in animals that eat it. So when these livestock are eating this seafood, the levels in the livestock may be much higher than they are in the seafood to begin with. Nobody has yet investigated BMAA levels in our meat supply.
Significant levels of BMAA were found in 49 out of 50 samples from 12 Alzheimer’s patients and 13 ALS patients. The results shown here for American Alzheimer’s and ALS patients from the Atlantic southeast, compared with Canadian Alzheimer’s patients from the Pacific Northwest, suggest that exposure to BMAA may be widespread. The same thing was then found in the brains of those dying from Parkinson’s disease. And you can even pick up more BMAA in the hair of live ALS patients compared to controls.
This could explain ALS clustering around lakes in New Hampshire: up to 25 times the expected rate of ALS with some families eating fish several times a week. Or in New Hampshire, where the most significant ALS risk factor was the past consumption of fish out of Lake Michigan. Or clustering in Finland’s Lakeland district, or maybe seafood eaters in France, or around the Baltic Sea, building up particularly in fish, mussels and oysters.
The Chesapeake Bay gets choked by cyanobacteria bloom in part due to the poultry industry pollution. And indeed there exist recent reports linking BMAA exposure to ALS in Maryland. The ALS victims living within a half mile of each other raised some eyebrows at the Hopkins ALS center, all of whom ate Chesapeake Bay blue crabs every week. Two out of three crabs tested positive for BMAA, indicating that the neurotoxin is present in the aquatic food chain of the Chesapeake Bay.
ALS clusters
which seemed to appear around lakes and
other bodies of water that have 10 to 25
times the normal rate of ALS.
It's mostly caused by the
seafood what people tend to eat around
bodies of water.
this study illustrates
that idea with three ALS patients from
Maryland that all lived on the same
street within half a mile of each other.
They
also all eight blue crab from the
Chesapeake Bay on a weekly basis.
ALS cluster in Wisconsin they found
that the most significant risk factor
was the consumption of fish from Lake
Michigan.
Future ALS levels are rising and the
cyanobacteria bloom levels are rising.
The dead
zones are increasing and this is largely
caused by nitrogen
fertilizer runoff from grain farming in which
over fifty percent of the grain grown is
fed to livestock.
Animal feeding operations which even the
smaller ones create the waste of 400,000
people without any wastewater treatment
facilities.
The watershed gets in the water supply and
causes those cyanobacteria blooms the sign of
cyanobacteria blooms which just increases the
levels of BMAA worldwide.
The environmental neurotoxin BMAA are produced from cyanobacteria, the cyanobacteria that live in soil, lakes, and oceans. Cyanobacteria are consumed by fish and other aquatic creatures. Recent studies have found BMAA in seafood, suggesting that certain diets and locations may put people at particular risk. More worrisome, blooms of cyanobacteria are becoming increasingly common, fueling fears that their toxic by-product may be quietly fomenting an upsurge in ALS and possibly other neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s.
Stop eating fish and
other animal products that
contribute to these blooms.
We know that the presence of BMAA in aquatic food chains could be a significant human health hazard. There may even be a synergistic toxicity between mercury and BMAA, making certain fish even riskier.
BMAA is certainly not the only cause of ALS but it seems to be
the most well-documented well studied driver of ALS
Occupational exposure to extremely low-frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MFs) could trigger ALS, a Dutch study shows. The study, “Occupational exposure and ALS in a prospective cohort,” appeared in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine.
Given that only 5 to 10 percent of ALS cases are hereditary, scientists have looked to other possible factors that may cause the incurable illness, including exposure to electric shocks, solvents, metals pesticides and ELF-MFs of frequencies lower than 300 Hz.
Roel Vermeulen PhD, an associate professor at Utrecht University’s Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, and his research team analyzed occupational risk factors on ALS mortality.
The scientists analyzed a random group of 2,092 men and 2,074 women from the Netherlands Cohort Study. They obtained data on participants’ smoking habits, level of education, physical activity and body mass index They followed up for 17 years to assess ALS mortality.
Smoking speeds progression of ALS according to a new collaborative study from Italian universities and research institutes.
ALS is often divided into two different types, sporadic and familial. Familial ALS, which means the disease in genetically inherited, accounts for 5-10 percent of all cases in the U.S., according to the ALS Association.
Researchers at the University of California conducted a study on the molecular and genetic characteristics of two identical female twins, one only with ALS, and found that environmental factors may be at the root of genetic modifications that cause the disease.
In the study case, the ALS twin had some epigenetic changes in a suspected related genome. Epigenetic changes refer to modifications that do not involve the DNA sequence itself but alter the way cells “read” genes. Sometimes naturally occurring, the changes can also be influenced by factors that include age, lifestyle, and disease state.
In the ALS twin, researchers found higher levels of macrophages. Macrophanges are immune cells, a type of white blood cell that engulfs and digests cellular debris, foreign substances, microbes, cancer cells, and anything else that does not have the types of proteins specific to healthy body cells on its surface. Researchers also found unusually high IL-6 production.
Both macrophages and IL-6 production are due to epigenetic changes and increased neurotoxic cytokines.
Cytokines are small secreted proteins released by cells have a specific effect on the interactions and communications between cells.
ALS occurs when factors and patterns in a person’s life come together in such a way as to create the problem. What this means is that if factors and patterns in a person’s life do not come together in an ALS creating way, the person will not experience ALS.
So to prevent ALS, what you have to do is make sure that you don’t live in an ALS creating way. Instead, you use wellness creating approaches to handling things and live in a wellness creating way.
A key idea underlying ALS prevention is that what is called ALS is really just poor nerve health characterized by progressive degeneration of the nervous system. In preventing ALS is how choices are made would affect the health, especially the health of the nerves.
Another thing to realize is when genes are involved in the creation of health problems, there are reasons why the genes are doing what they are doing. Genes can express or not express, basically be turned on or off. So ALS prevention involves living in healthy ways to create a health creating gene expression situation.
Stress is a factor that commonly contributes to the creation of ALS.
One creates stress and system imbalances that end up wrecking one’s nervous system. This partly explains why seemingly healthy people suddenly and seemingly randomly experience the neurodegeneration ALS.
The most common form of ALS is called Sporadic ALS. In the United States, this form of ALS represents up to 90 to 95 percent of all cases.
Diet has a significant influence on a person’s health status because it determines which nutrients are available for the body to function properly. Depending on the balance between diet and energy, body mass index (BMI) is also significantly influential to an individual’s health. Since the effects of diet on developing ALS, specifically the intake of naturally antioxidant foods, are largely unknown, a group of researchers from the Netherlands conducted a study that looked at premorbid nutrient intake and the risk of developing sporadic ALS.
The questionnaire gave the researchers insight on foods the patients consumed and the nutritional supplements they were taking before they were diagnosed with ALS. Looking at the results, the researchers were able to calculate a disease risk based on correlation constants and nutrient consumption.
Breaking down the participants diets, the researchers noted that a higher consumption of vegetables, polysaccharides, fibers, and flavonoids led to a lower risk of ALS, and a higher consumption of total fat, saturated fat, trans-fat, and cholesterol led to a higher risk of ALS.
The ALS
Association are aware of the BMAA connection
but they are more motivated to collect millions of dollars to find that cure.
Their CEO makes over three hundred and forty thousand dollars a year.
Eating a whole foods plant based diet brings no fear in having ALS. There are many people who were diagnosed with ALS and have even reversed it. Something that conventional medicine says is impossible.
The immediate first step treatment for
ALS is to stop eating
seafood.
We live in an extremely polluted environment, and not only our air, water and soil, but also in our food. We have been ingesting chemicals for our entire lives. Even those who only eat organic cannot escape the assault of chemicals their body is under on a daily basis. Oxidative stress contributes to the development of ALS.
Animal agriculture has not only
exacerbate dead zones and destroy the
environment.
They are also the
way you get ninety-five percent of PCBs,
mercury, and other persistent
pollutants.
Plants contain more than 100,000 phytonutrients.
Phytonutrients repair the human body.
Thus federal guidelines recommend nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
Eating healthy is extremely important in all circumstances in life, especially if the health is affected.
Dr. Ornish published an editorial in the American Journal of Cardiology describing a growing convergence of scientific evidence that an optimal diet is mostly plant-based.
Most patients aren’t even given the plant-based option, because of the patronizing belief among doctors that no one will actually do it.
And the diet doesn’t just help the cholesterol. Unlike the drugs, a plant-based diet can also prevent and treat diabetes, hypertension, obesity, prostate cancer, breast cancer, etc. Pills can’t do all that. And instead of being on a list of medications—one drug for this; one or two drugs for that; there’s not one diet for heart disease, another one for diabetes, a plant-based diet covers all the bases. Because plant-based foods contain more than 100,000 different disease-preventing nutrients. These phytonutrients are only found in plants.
Phytonutrients found in fruit and vegetables have a protective affect against Alzheimer’s. Phenolic phytonutrients of purple grapes gives the protection against Alzheimer’s.
Blueberries have the anthocyanins for memory.
Ellagic acid is considered one of the key phytonutrients in berries. It prevents age related cognitive decline.
A polyphenols called catechins are the antioxidant compounds found in tea that gives the ability of arteries to relax and expand, increasing blood flow.
The risk of glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness, appears to be dramatically reduced by kale or collard greens consumption due to the phytonutrient pigments lutein and zeaxanthin. Lutein and zeaxanthin have also been shown to be beneficial in protecting against cataracts and macular degeneration.
The phytonutrients in cacao appear to be helpful in relieving the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome.
The phytonutrients of concord grapes blocks breast cell DNA damage by blocking the binding of carcinogens. The phytonutrients of almonds and Brussels sprouts protect against DNA damage by boosting our DNA repair mechanisms.
Tomatoes are rich in the red pigment lycopene, which targets heart disease and cancer. Ginger’s got gingerols for hypertension. Pomegranates have some totally different phytonutrients. The list goes on and on.
In consistent observations from many population based studies, the habitual consumption of diets high in fruits and vegetables helps to reduce the risk of development of degenerative diseases, including many types of cancers.
Fruits and vegetables are not just vehicles for antioxidants. They contain innumerable phytonutrients that can boost our detoxification enzymes, modulate gene expression, and repair DNA.
As we age and have oxidative stress, we accumulate breaks in our DNA, actual physical breaks in our chromosomes. Eating plants protects DNA and eating animals damages it.
Slovakian researchers led by a Dr Krajcovicova measured the number of DNA breaks in vegetarians compared to meat eaters. They counted DNA breaks in both meat eaters and vegetarians at 25 years of age through 65.
Meat eaters has a sharper rise in DNA breakage as they aged through adulthood and middle age. The vegetarians slope much more gradual. They had less DNA breakage as they aged. Vegetarians at age 65 seem to have the DNA of a 25 year old.
Researches now know
that functions of DNA repair were affected by nutrition. In studies of identical and fraternal twins, about a half of DNA repair function is determined by nutritional control.
It is estimated that, on average, there are 800 incidents of DNA damage in our bodies per hour. That’s 19,000 hits to our DNA every day. And that DNA damage can cause mutations that can give rise to cancer if not repaired.
The regulation of DNA repair may be added to the list of biological processes that are influenced by many plant based foods preventive effects.
Several fruits and vegetables were tested for DNA repair. They found that lemons, persimmons, strawberries, apples, broccoli, and celery each conferred DNA protection at very low doses.
Lemons for example cut DNA damage by about a third. Removing the vitamin C from the lemon extract did not remove the protective effect. However, after boiling the lemon for 30 minutes, the effect was lost.
Can’t just take these phytonutrients in a pill. Beta carotene pills may actually increase cancer risk, as opposed to the whole carrot, which may lower the risk. Swallowing a hundred thousand pills a day is not practical.
Living and eating healthy actually changes on a genetic level, upregulating disease preventing genes, and downregulating genes that promote breast cancer, prostate cancer, inflammation, and oxidative stress. Drugs can’t do that.
People tend to think of breakthroughs in medicine as new drugs, lasers, high-tech surgery but they have a hard time believing that simple choices can be more powerful then drugs.
Eating bright colored foods, especially those that are yellow, orange, and red, may prevent or slow the onset of ALS.
The study, published in the journal Annals of Neurology, confirmed that colorful carotenoids prevented the onset of ALS.
Carotenoids are what make fruits and vegetables a bright red, orange, or yellow color, and are a dietary source of Vitamin A. Other research has shown that having a high antioxidant intake decreases the risk of ALS.
Avoid dairy for it is loaded with neurotoxins. Cow's milk is an unhealthy fluid from diseased animals that contains a wide range of dangerous and disease causing substances that have a cumulative negative effect on all who consume it. Pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and dioxins are other examples of contaminants found in milk. Dairy products contribute to one-fourth to one-half of the dietary intake of total dioxins. All of these toxins do not readily leave the body and can eventually build to harmful levels that may affect the immune, reproductive, and the central nervous systems. Moreover, PCBs and dioxins have also been linked to cancer.
The highest natural levels of aluminum are found in shellfish, but the highest level overall is in cheese. Like the poultry industry adds arsenic to chicken, the dairy industry adds aluminum to cheese, the number one source of aluminum in the diet.
They do this to produce a smooth, uniform film around each fat droplet to prevent something called fat “bleeding,” and to give the cheese a softer texture, and desirable slicing properties.
Every grilled cheese sandwich a parent gives to his kids is like injecting them with a dozen aluminum containing vaccines.
Also dairy has nutrient blocking effect.
Dairy blocks the absorption of the phytonutrients.
Dairy blocks the beneficial effects of tea, berries, chocolate, and coffee.
When adding cream to tea or berries, the milk protein, casein, binds the phytonutrients making them unavailable to the body.
Medicinally and nutritionally, sprouts have a long history. It has been written that the Ancient Chinese physicians recognized and prescribed sprouts for curing many disorders over 5,000 years ago. Sprouts have continued to be a main staple in the diets of Americans of Oriental descent. Although accounts of sprouting appear in the Bible in the Book of Daniel, it took centuries for the West to fully realize its nutrition merits.
A group of Russian scientists recently published a database of the antioxidant content of more than a thousand foods—including, for the first time, an impressive array of before-and-after shots of what happens to seeds when you sprout them. As you can see, the antioxidant content goes up across the board.
So, sprouted lentils, for example, have twice the antioxidant content as unsprouted; chickpeas, five times more; wheat and rye, ten times more; and, amaranth started out as the piddly underdog, but went up twenty-fold.
Sprouts are very nutritious, as they contain all the elements that a plant needs for life and growth. The simple process of sprouting brings out many enzymes in germinated seeds, legumes, and grains, making them easier to digest. It also increases the amounts and bioavailability of protein, vitamins and minerals, transforming them into nutrition powerhouses. Overall, sprouts provide excellent quality nutrients and, by weight, are the rich sources of an array of vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants.
The role of heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, and industrial wastes are responsible for a wide variety of adverse health effects. These accumulating toxins are insidious and prevalent agents capable of interfering with physiologic functions of all human systems. There are more than 3,800 chemicals in daily use, many of which make their way into our drinking water.
Chemicals and metals are stored in the soft tissues and organs of the body, such as the liver and brain, in the central nervous system, the endocrine system, and in every other major organ, as well as in the body at large. As toxins build up, the liver cannot properly excrete them, and they get stored in various parts of the body.
To detoxify the bodies is to boost our liver’s own detoxifying enzymes.
Two popular green herbs, rich in vitamins and minerals, exhibit powerful detoxifying properties. When used together as part of a healthy cleanse, parsley and cilantro rid the body of heavy metals as well as accumulated salt and waste products.
A parsley and cilantro detox protects against the accumulation of heavy metals in the bloodstream and organs. Heavy metals have synergy effects with BMAA effecting ALS.
Studies have shown that cilantro binds to heavy metals in the bloodstream, thereby purifying tissues, organs, and blood. Cilantro is able to attach to metals due to its biochemical content, including citric acid, phytic acid, and amphoteric electrolytes.
Parsley contains all the chelating vitamins and minerals essential for detox. These are vitamin C, beta-carotene, chlorophyll, vitamin K, and folate. Parsley also boosts levels of the master antioxidant glutathione, which prevents chronic diseases like cancer, ALS, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. A natural blood sugar balancer, parsley protects against insulin resistance and also acts as a natural diuretic without lowering potassium levels. As part of a detox cleanse, parsley helps eliminate salt that has built up in the kidneys, thereby purging the body of accumulated poisons like mercury, cadmium, and lead.
Other top detoxing foods are beats, garlic, and kale.
Both French green and Bentonite clay are beneficial in detoxing the body of toxins. These clays have a natural negative electrical charge which attracts positively charged toxins from the bloodstream and tissue cells through the intestine and out of the body as waste.
The unique rectangular shape of the clay particles keep it in maximum potency. The rectangular shape allows it to cover more surface area. For example; if the particles were round not much energy would be retained or passed on. Round molecules are not able to retain or pass on energy. The angular shape of the particles allows a constant interplay of energy in the give and take process. The existing radioactivity makes the play between negative and positive pole of the particles very potent.
Mix one teaspoons of clay to an 8 ounce glass of properly filtered water. Do this for three days and after the third day, refrain from using it for four days. On the fifth day, resume taking it for four days, discontinuing use the following three days. This schedule can be continued during the acclimation process which may take up to four weeks.
It is best to take the clay on an empty stomach at least one hour before a meal or before taking supplements and herbs to keep it from interfering with the absorption of nutrients and beneficial items. Drink at least eight glasses of water throughout the day in order to help prevent constipation. The reason clay may lead to constipation is because of its ability to absorb many times its weight in pathogens and toxins. Degenerative conditions in the digestive tract can also lead to constipation.
The glutathione diet for detoxing includes the foods needed to boost bodies glutathione levels. These essentially work as immune boosting foods.
The list includes sulfur rich foods. This makes up the flypaper component of glutathione. Being sticky, it will attract and hold on to the toxins and heavy metals in our bodies. It also holds the two cysteine molecules together making them cysteine. This is the hardest to get of the three building blocks of glutathione.
Cysteine are found in plant sources like red peppers, garlic, onions, broccoli, Brussels sprout, oats, granola, wheat germ, and sprouted lentils.
Cysteine are found in seeds and nuts like
sunflower seeds, watermelon seeds, sesame seeds, chia seeds, pistachio nuts, flaxseeds, pumpkin seeds, brazil nuts, and pine nuts.
To benefit, most needed to be eaten mostly raw. For example bell peppers should be eaten raw. Its polynutrients are destroyed when cooked. Cysteine is a very fragile molecule and it is easily destroyed when heated. Cooking and high speed blending can destroy the cysteine.
Some foods can be heated to temperatures less than 300 degrees and not lose nutritional value. For example the polynutrients of tomatoes are increased when cooked.
Raw foods have enzymes that aid in digestion. Heating foods can destroy these enzymes. This results in a need for the body to produce enzymes to digest the cooked foods. As we age, the body ability to make enzymes decreases.
One of the best ways to eat the raw food diet involves green smoothies using a high speed blender. The smoothies should include several groups of ingredients. They are leafy greens are strong in minerals and protein, berries are strong in antioxidants, flax seeds are strong in omega-3s, nuts are strong in healthy fats, bananas and dates are the best sweeteners, spices have antioxidants and gives flavor,
and water.
Eating raw organic foods may eliminate the chemicals used as preservatives and the risk of additives that could be harmful. Avoid foods from other countries that may use pesticides that are outlawed here.
Due to over farming the land, many foods are depleted of various minerals that are essential to heath.
Minerals and vitamins should be taken in the raw and in their natural state, not as a pill.
Most vitamins as pills are synthetic and may be more harmful.
For example, Vitaminc C as absorbic acid is an empty shell synthesized from corn.
Besides Cysteine,
Alpha lipolic acid,
the B complex,
Milk Thistle, and iron
helps the body produce more glutathione.
Selenium is important for glutathione production increase. Two or thee Brazil nuts daily meets selenium needs.
B12 suppliments are essential. Suppliments that may work are those called raw from food and non synthisized.
One of the natural ways to increase glutathione is through the methalation process. By eating foods that have methionine, it is possible to make more glutathione. The kind of glutathione made is especially helpful for knee, shoulder and arthritis pain. Best source is beets. Eat them shredded in a carrot raison raw beet salad.
Spices such as turmeric, cinnamon and cardamom are a way to increase glutathione production.
Curcumin is poorly absorbed and using Cura-Med may give better results.
Broccoli is an exceptional source of sulforaphane, but at the same time, there’s none actually in the vegetable until you bite it.
Broccoli has one part of the cell, an enzyme called myrosinase, and in another part called glucoraphanin. There is no sulforaphane, until the cells get crushed. The enzyme mixes with the glucoraphanin and sulforaphane is born.
Cooking broccoli whole does not allow sulforaphane creation.
To eat cooked broccoli, chop or blend the broccoli first raw, wait 40 minutes for the enzyme to do its business. Then you can cook it, because the enzyme’s job is already done. To make broccoli soup, put it in the blender raw, blend, wait, then cook.
A study on DNA repair was done on smokers. For a total of ten days, a group of smokers were asked to eat a single stalk of broccoli each day. This is six times more broccoli than the average American consumes.
Compared to smokers not eating broccoli, those who did suffered about 30% less DNA damage over those ten days. The broccoli boosted the detoxifying enzymes in their livers, and so the carcinogens never made it to their DNA.
The DNA of broccoli-eaters suffered significantly less damage. The DNA of those eating broccoli appears intrinsically more resistant at a subcellular level.
In conclusion, the intake of broccoli seems protective against DNA damage in smokers who are exposed to oxidative stress.
Sulfur Containing Foods boost glutathione naturally.
These include garlic,
kale,
onions,
broccoli,
water cress,
cabbage,
asparagus,
cauliflower, and
Brussels sprouts.
These sulfur containing foods also to some extent contain cysteine.
Hydration is essential for health and for glutathion production.
Glutathione has a high affinity for water.
Fluid like salted water and electrolyte balance is important.
Pure water with electrolytes found in unprocessed salt can increase the glutathione dramatically.
The protocol to drink pure water is by first dissolving little unrefined seasalt in the mouth, there is a faster uptake so that the salt gets into the blood faster. Once in the blood, the water is more easily absorbed and shared with the rest of the body.
Drinking water inhibits the secretion of vasopressin, antidiuretic hormone (ADH), that shrinks small blood vessels. ADH purpose is to keep the water in when lacking water.
To calculate how many ounces of water you should be drinking daily is to divide the body weight by two but no more than 100 ounces.
Not all fluids are hydrating. Many are dehydrating. These are called diuretics. Common diuretics include coffee, some teas, soda, and juice.
Never drink fruit juices. The sugar is dangerous without the fiber which holds the antioxidants.
Sports drinks are also not recommended.
Intermittent fasting is a dieting pattern. Intermittent fasting means eating calories during a specific window of the day, and choosing not to eat food during the rest.
Fast for 14 (women) to 16 (men) hours each day, and then “feed” for the remaining eight to 10 hours. During the fasting period, consume no calories. It is easiest to fast through the night and into the morning, breaking the fast roughly several hours after waking up. Maintaining a consistent feeding window time is important for hormones purposes.
During the fasted state, the glucose in the blood stream or glycogen in the muscles/liver gets depleted. Then the body is forced to adapt and pull from the only source of energy available the fat stored in the cells.
Intermittent fasting benefits the body and brain. The cells initiate cellular repair processes and change which genes they express.
Intermittent fasting induces profound neuronal autophagy. Autophagy or self-eating is the process by which cells recycle waste material, downregulate wasteful processes, and repair themselves. Brain health is highly dependent on neuronal autophagy.
Fasting Increases Levels of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)
BDNF deficiency has been implicated in depression and various other brain problems.
Epinephrine and norepinephrine (adrenaline/noradrenaline) sharpens the mind and makes us want to move around.
BDNF is a protein that interacts with neurons in the hippocampus, cortex, and basal forebrain. It helps existing neurons survive while spurring the growth of new neurons and the development of synapses. Low levels of BDNF are linked to Alzheimer’s, and supplementary BDNF prevents neuronal death, memory loss, and cognitive impairment in an animal model of Alzheimer’s disease.
There are beneficial changes in several genes and molecules related to longevity and protection against disease.
Animal studies suggest that intermittent fasting helps prevent cancer .
Studies showed that fasted rats live as much as 36-83% longer.
The body becomes more sensitive to insulin following a period of fasting and will consume food more efficiently which can help lead to weight loss and muscle creation.
Growth hormone is increased during fasted state as much as five fold.
Lower insulin levels, higher growth hormone levels and increased amounts of norepinephrine (noradrenaline) all increase the breakdown of body fat and facilitate its use for energy. For this reason, short-term fasting actually increases the metabolic rate by 3.6-14%, helping you burn even more calories. It boosts the metabolic rate and reduces the amount of food you eat.
Several studies show that intermittent fasting may enhance the body’s resistance to oxidative stress.
Intermittent fasting has been shown to improve numerous different risk factors, including blood pressure, total and LDL cholesterol, blood triglycerides, inflammatory markers and blood sugar levels.
Studies show that intermittent fasting can improve numerous risk factors for heart disease such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, triglycerides and inflammatory markers.
Several studies in rats have shown that intermittent fasting may increase the growth of new nerve cells, which should have benefits for brain function.
In a series of case reports, a lifestyle intervention that included daily short-term fasts was able to significantly improve Alzheimer’s symptoms in 9 out of 10 patients.
The cellular and molecular mechanisms by which intermittent fasting improves health and counteracts disease processes involve activation of adaptive cellular stress response signaling pathways that enhance mitochondrial health, DNA repair and autophagy. Periodic fasting also promotes stem cell-based regeneration as well as long-lasting metabolic effects.
While alternate day fasting is beneficial in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease, it has been reported not to be beneficial and, instead exacerbates motor dysfunction in a transgenic mouse model of ALS in which the mice overexpress a mutant form of Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase that causes familial ALS in humans. One potential reason for the lack of benefit in the ALS model is that the neurons affected in familial ALS are unable to respond adaptively to the bioenergetics challenge of fasting.
Fasting increases production of ketones placing the body into a ketogenic diet state.
Many practicing neurologist use the ketogenic diet in treating ALS.
The Ketogenic Diet prevents further damage to the nervous system by limiting carbs. This diet slows the ALS progression.
In this diet the metabolism is in a ketogenic state in which burning fat replaces burning carbohydrates to make energy.
The researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York was the first to show a substantial benefit in the treatment of ALS.
ALS researchers explored the effectiveness of a ketogenic in the treatment of the mouse model of ALS.
In ALS mitochondrial dysfunction play an important role. Ketones promote mitochondrial energy production and membrane stabilization.
Transgenic ALS mice were fed a ketogenic diet based on known formulations for humans. Because mitochondrial dysfunction plays a central role in neuronal cell death in ALS, the use of ketones bodies to promote ATP synthesis and bypass the normal mitochondrial respiratory chain.
ALS ketogenic diet study
These blue-green algae suppliments are cyanobacteria suppliments.
Pure spirulina and chlorella are 100% safe. The two species sold in dietary supplements produce absolutely no BMAA whatsoever. The potentially dangerous side effects are not coming from these superfoods, but rather other types of cyanobacteria which may be growing alongside them in the same water.
As for the 2015 study which reported 14 out of 39 samples being contaminated. Those 39 samples were purchased off the shelf in stores.
Historically, the concern has been about a neurotoxin called BMAA. We need continue to avoid blue-green algae.
We used to think neurotoxins were limited to rare exotic algae, but now we know otherwise. We now know that they are cyanobacteria that produce neurotoxins, BMAA.
Previously, the only two places you could find that neurotoxin was in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, and on the health food store shelf, in the form of blue-green algae supplements.
But now, it’s been found a third place, in the brains of those dying from ALS.
Avoid blue-green algae suppliments, also avoid contaminated spirulina and chlorella suppliments.
β-Methylamino-L-alanine, or BMAA, is a non-proteinogenic amino acid produced by cyanobacteria. BMAA is a neurotoxin and its potential role in various neurodegenerative disorders is the subject of scientific research.
BMAA is a derivative of the amino acidalanine with a methylamino group on the side chain. This non-proteinogenic amino acid is classified as a polar base.
BMAA is produced by cyanobacteria in marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments. In cultured non-nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria, BMAA production increases in nitrogen depleted medium. BMAA has been found in aquatic organisms and in plants with cyanobacterial symbionts such as certain lichens, the floating fern Azolla, the leaf petioles of the tropical flowering plant Gunnera, cycads as well as in animals that eat the fleshy covering of cycad seeds, including flying foxes.
The toxin can be detected via several laboratory methods, including liquid chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, amino acid analyzer, capillary electrophoresis and NMR spectroscopy.
BMAA can cross the blood–brain barrier in rats. It takes longer to get into the brain than into other organs, but once there, it is trapped in proteins, forming a reservoir for slow release over time.
Although the mechanisms by which BMAA causes motor neuron dysfunction and death are not entirely understood, current research suggests that there are multiple mechanisms of action. Acutely, BMAA can act as an excitotoxin on glutamate receptors such as NMDA, calcium dependent AMPA and kainate receptors. The activation of the metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 is believed to induce oxidative stress in the neuron by depletion of glutathione.
BMAA can be misincorporated into nascent proteins in place of L-serine, possibly causing protein misfolding and aggregation, both hallmarks of tangle diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, ALS, progressive supranuclear palsy, and Lewy body disease. In vitro research has shown that protein association of BMAA can be inhibited in presence of excess L-serine.
Scientists have also found that newborn rats treated with BMAA show a progressive neurodegeneration in the hippocampus, including intracellular fibrillar inclusions, and impaired learning and memory as adults. In addition BMAA has been reported to be excreted into rodent breast milk, and subsequently transferred to the suckling offspring, suggesting mothers and cows milk might be other possible exposure routes.
Familial ALS is another form of ALS and it means that the disease is inherited. In cases of families that have ALS in their genetic and medical history, there is up to a 50 percent chance each offspring will inherit the gene mutation and may develop the disease.
Researchers have been able to identify
the gene related to some cases of
familial ALS and are trying to develop a
treatment.
A mutation, causing an inherited type of ALS, kills motor neurons by giving the protein it produces toxic properties. This protein, which normally binds to RNA, disrupts all RNA processing in the neurons to effectively take away their ability to survive.
Many patients with familial forms of ALS carry mutations in genes coding for proteins that bind RNA. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine homed in on a protein called hnRNP A2/B1.
As environmental factors likely contribute to the development of ALS in people who have an increased genetic risk, researchers also investigated the double impact of hnRNP A2/B1 and environmental stress.
Though much is known about the genetics of familial ALS, only a handful of genes have been definitively linked to sporadic ALS, which accounts for about 90 percent of all ALS cases. The newly associated gene, called TBK1, plays a key role at the intersection of two essential cellular pathways inflammation and autophagy, a cellular process involved in the removal of damaged cellular components.
Protein and RNA aggregates are a hallmark of ALS pathology and are thought to contribute to ALS by impairing axonal transport. Mutations in several genes known to contribute to ALS result in deposition of their protein products as aggregates. These include TARDBP, C9ORF72, and SOD1. In motor neurons, this can disrupt transport of mitochondria to areas of metabolic need, resulting in damage to cells. Independent human genetics studies have uncovered a link between TANK-binding kinase 1 (TBK1) mutations and ALS. TBK1 is an inducer of type-1 interferons and has a major role in autophagy and mitophagy.
SOD1 ia a mutated protein superoxide dismutase that normally protects cells from free radical damage.
Julian Whitelegge and colleagues Joan S. Valentine and David Borchelt used mass spectrometry to uncover the components of these aggregates and discovered that they were composed almost entirely of SOD1.
The gene expression is not the largest determining factor for getting ALS. Increasing study into the area of epigenetics is revealing the overwhelming influence of environmental factors in the proliferation of disease. Toxic exposure and toxic lifestyle choices, including stress, may account for as much as 95 percent of the factors associated with disease of all kinds.
Those having ALS with a familial
connection should also cut
out seafood as a precautionary measure
and other animal
products as well.
The medical professional hasn’t found a cure. There have been no proven methods to slow the progression of ALS. Their approach is to study the genes and create a pharmaceutical drugs that is expensive to use. Natural cures do exist but they can not be patented. There are holistic and medical doctors who no longer deny that natural therapies do make a difference. The body can heal itself if given a chance. For example being medicated does not cure type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and depression. They are curable by diet change.
There has been a potential breakthrough in the treatment of ALS by copying one of the bodies healing methods.
In the study, stem cells were collected from a patient's own bone marrow and then injected into spinal fluid.
This new treatment may help some patients regain movement and function.
Researchers followed 26 patients for the past four years and 90 percent of patients experienced improvements in walking, talking and hand movement within a month of treatment and the results lasted for several months. The disease completely stopped progressing and he had a significant improvement in many of his functions including his ability to speak and his motor functions of the hands. Similar studies are underway at the Mayo Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston University.
When Ted was diagnosed in 2010 by Jonathan Glass, a doctor at the Emory ALS Center, he was deteriorating quickly. He could walk only short distances with the help of a cane. Simple tasks, such as getting the mail or walking up the stairs to put his kids to bed, had become impossible for him.
But two years later, on Oct. 20, 2012, Ted completed Atlanta’s two-and-a-half-mile Walk to Defeat ALS with no difficulty. In fact, Ted completed the ALS walk four years in a row. He ditched his cane and was able once again to play with his kids in the pool and walk up the stairs to tuck them in for bed.
What saved Ted was an experimental ALS treatment pioneered by doctors at the Emory ALS Center, in which doctors opened his spinal cord and injected neural stem cells directly into diseased areas, where the pools of motor neurons affected by ALS are found. The hope was that the surgically implanted cells would fix or replace the damaged ones and that this would slow or stop the degeneration of the motor neurons.
Before surgery, Ted was told the treatment would not help him. He was part of a Phase I safety trial, whose sole purpose was to prove the procedure would not kill him. But to his doctors’ surprise, not only did the procedure not kill him, it also reversed his ALS symptoms.
The results were so shocking, so unprecedented, that Glass actually went back to reconfirm that Ted even had ALS. He did. Ted recalled for me the moment when Glass sat him down and said: “You’re the first ALS patient I ever told this to, but right now you are not dying from ALS; you are living with it.”
One thing that is highlighted by Stephen's course is that this is an incredibly variable disorder. On average people live two to three years after diagnosis. But that means that half the people live longer, and there are some who live very long time.
Juvenile-onset is diagnosed in the teenage years, which is something that progresses very slowly. There exist patients
that were diagnosed in their teens and are still alive in their 60s.
These cases of very slow-progressing forms of ALS
occur less than a few percent.
Detailed BMAA Discovery What is ALS?
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