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- Ben Fuchs
The body is always talking to us. We may not listen, but it’s always reporting back about what’s going on with it, how it’s responding to our actions and what we’re doing wrong and right. If you have a problem dairy, your intestine will signal its distress with cramping, bloating and other digestive symptoms. These symptoms can be correlated to eating things like cheese, gluten, strawberries eggs and any other foods that initiate intolerance or allergies. Drink too much alcohol, the next day’s hangover can be a communication so clear and impactful you may never imbibe again. On the other hand, sometimes a burst of happiness or a hit of energy or just some plain old peace of mind, can let you know that you’re on the right track, doing something your body really needs, wants and likes. For instance soaking in hot tubs, a brisk workout or playing with babies and puppies come to mind.
While digestion, immunity, skin and respiration are all exquisitely sensitive to their environments, no part of the body is more responsive than the heart and circulatory system. Considering something on order of one out of every two or three Americans have some sort of circulatory health challenges, that’s good news. That’s because, once we recognize our complicity in our vascular health challenges, we’ll be able to address them for real. This can be done without doctors, devices, diagnostics or drugs and their associated side effects.
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- Ben Fuchs
So now it’s official. According to CNN’s medical model shill Dr. Sanjay Gupta, vitamins improve the lot of breast cancer survivors - surprise, surprise! Yet despite the exciting headline, we still have journalist/M.D. throwing cold water on what should be an important and exciting corroboration of what alternative practitioners have known for years.
Sure scientific skepticism can be a good thing, but in the face of common sense as well as voluminous research supporting the use of vitamin supplements (just do a search pubmed.com for “vitamins and cancer” and you’ll get over 30,000 articles, many of them touting the benefits of supplemental and food vitamins for improving health and healing of cancer patients as well as preventing carcinogenesis in the first place), Dr. Gupta’s ambivalence seems unwarranted. The good doctor concludes his article, which should be exciting and reassuring for cancer patients, on a somewhat negative note by writing “cautious interpretation is needed” especially for “concurrent use during chemotherapy and radiation therapy”, repeating the tired old medical mythology about vitamins and other essential nutrient (EN) supplementation possibly blocking the effectiveness of pharmaceutical intervention. The unwarranted and dogmatic implication being that somehow using vitamins as dietary supplements can cause anything other than improvements in the overall health and wellness of a cancer-stricken body.
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- Ben Fuchs
One of the most interesting aspects of the cells that make up the surface of the skin is their multi-functionality. While mostly known for their protective barrier properties, the living beings colloquially known as “skin cells” (and more technically as “keratinocytes” in honor of their most prolific extrusion, the fingernail like protein called keratin) are much more than a cellular shield. “Skin cells” are biochemical dynamos, each one producing, secreting and becoming ultimately a wide range of very functional chemicals.
“Skin cells” make vitamin D, they produce prodigious quantities of skin fats (lipids), and they are also the source of many hormone chemicals. Some, like cortisol, are involved in obvious skin functions like protection. Others, like the nervous system's serotonin and dopamine, make the skin a type of brain appendage. Not to forget pheromones, which are involved in less obvious skin functions, like signaling, sexual attraction and fertility.
