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Do you have Cardiomyopathies (Keshan's disease)?

If you do, you may be deficient in SELENIUM 

Keshan's disease is a type of heart disease called cardiomyopathy that affects young women and children in a selenium deficient region of China. Keshan's disease is closely associated with very low dietary intakes of selenium. Selenium supplements has been found to protect people from developing Keshan disease but cannot reverse heart muscle damage once it occurs. 

Despite the strong evidence that selenium deficiency is a fundamental factor in Keshan's disease, it is seasonal and the cause is a virus that produces inflammation of the heart. The same happens to selenium deficient mice.  

HIV patients and hepatitis sufferers are also usually deficient in selenium, so it appears that low selenium causes a risk of viral infections. Maybe this suggests the route to a prevention and cure for the common cold. 

Some researchers claim that instead of the billions spent on viral drugs, a few pennies  would be better spent on providing selenium in the diet of viral infection sufferers.

Bird Flu from China
It may be no coincidence that the regular new flu viruses come from China/Hong Kong as there is a well-known vast area in China that is selenium deficient. The same area produced Keshan's cardiomyopathy and the pandemic of oesophageal and gastric cancer until the villagers were instructed to take extra selenium, after which both illnesses abated. It is an established fact that viruses readily mutate in selenium deficient hosts as well as being more virulant, as shown in Selenium- deficient mice where respiratory viruses caused greater morbidity and mortality.

I doubt that man is any different. Another area also comes to mind, namely, the Congo and Ebola, and the rest of Africa with its pandemic of HIV and AIDS, currently running at over 30-40% of the various indigent populations. These populations are also selenium deficient. However, Senegal, a little country on the west African coast, apparently has an HIV incidence of about 1%. The population has the same sexual habits as its neighbours. The only difference is that Senegal lies on top of an old seabed and the soil has a very high mineral content including selenium. I understand that the Senegalese have some of the highest blood selenium levels in the world. Maybe it could be worthwhile if everyone took some extra selenium.

In New Zealand, where selenium daily intake is less than 40mcg, and where both cancer, heart disease and virus infections are rampant, it would seem appropriate to increase the intake to over 200mcg/day. Our farmers and horse breeders make sure that their animals get selenium but their animals have to be healthy to be commercially valuable. Notably, the opposite is true for the human carcass where patented expensive drugs are used to treat diseases and prevention is not just ignored but actively opposed when seen as a commercial threat. This fact is now all too obvious with the orchestrated world-wide anti-supplement campaign.

Recent research is increasingly indicating that the SARS virus not only originated from China but is either a lab mistake where a mutant feline corona virus was able to be transfered from human->cat->human or was a genetically engineered mutant virus that escaped from a research laboratory. If this is so, it is quite likely that an innocent wild civet cat will be made the scapegoat to protect interfering man. However, for those who have become aware, protection appears to be both simple and inexpensive. As the renown 19th century French physiologist Claude Bernard stated, and even Pasteur apparently eventually acknowledged: " Le terrain c'est tout et le microbe n'est rien." i.e. the answer lies in the internal environment or the host and the microbe is nothing!

Are Statins a good idea?

People are becoming increasingly aware of raised cholesterol levels because they have been brainwashed by the pharmaceutical companies into believing that this is a serious risk factor for arterial disease. The reason behind pharmaceutical thinking is that they can sell expensive drugs in order to lower cholesterol levels. 

The main class of drugs currently used are the statins, but they have problems which are not generally voiced by the drug companies for obvious reasons. The first is that whilst statins reduce mortality from cardiovascular disease, they do not reduce overall mortality - that is to say, more people die for other reasons, such as cancer, suicide and accidents. 

The second point is that statins have never been trialed in women. 

The third point is that statins work by inhibiting the enzyme that creates cholesterol, but it also incidentally inhibits the enzyme responsible for creation of selenium proteins. Selenium proteins are essential as glutathione peroxidase (a major antioxidant which protects against cancer), for muscle function (selenium deficiency in sheep causes white muscle disease), and for heart function (selenium deficiency in humans causes Keshan's disease - a type of cardiomyopathy). 

Many statin takers have died as a result of the muscle damage induced by statins and they are absolutely contraindicated in any patient with a history of muscle disorders, which includes sufferers with chronic fatigue syndrome. Statins are particularly bad for CFS sufferers because of their malign effects on muscle metabolism.

A raised cholesterol is a bio-chemical symptom. That is it is indicative of a problem elsewhere in the body. 80% of cholesterol in the blood is manufactured in the liver, only 20% comes from diet, so it is difficult to affect levels simply through eating cholesterol.

The second point is that there are good cholesterols and bad cholesterols and it is a case of getting the right balance between the two. Every laboratory has their own normal range, but for a true reading you need to know your levels of HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

However, if it has been ascertained that your cholesterol is unacceptably high (and for me that is 7 or above) with a low HDL, then this is symptomatic of something else going wrong. The common causes of raised cholesterol are as follows:

1. Borderline hypothyroidism. Indeed, thirty years ago a raised cholesterol was almost routinely treated with thyroid hormones.

2. Vitamin D3 deficiency. Cholesterol is the raw material, which through the action of sunshine on the skin, is converted into vitamin D. If the body perceives a deficiency in D3 and this is almost universal in our sunless climate, then the liver pushes out more cholesterol so that when ultraviolet radiation does land upon the skin, there is plenty of substrate for vitamin D3 to be made. Vitamin D3 deficiency itself is a major risk factor for arterial disease.

3. Vitamin B3 deficiency. A small study of six patients with chronic fatigue syndrome have shown them all to be deficient in vitamin B3 (niacinamide) and it may well be that this deficiency is widespread in the general population. Indeed, before the advent of statins vitamin B3 was widely used for the treatment of high cholesterol and indeed, is available on NHS prescription specifically for the treatment of high cholesterol. There are various forms of vitamin B3 and some, such as nicotinic acid, cause flushing. This was an unacceptable side effect for some sufferers and so its use went out of fashion. However, niacinamide 500mg does not cause flushing, is extremely helpful for some patients with fatigue syndromes and certainly lowers cholesterol.

4. Copper deficiency. There is an inverse relationship between cholesterol levels and copper - so the higher the copper level in the blood, the lower the level of cholesterol and vice versa. The Myhill's Magic Minerals contains a good dose of copper, but it is best absorbed in the morning. Furthermore, copper absorption is inhibited by zinc. Indeed, I am considering re-formulating the Myhill's Magic Minerals because different minerals are best absorbed at different times of day and although this leads to a slightly more complicated dosing regime, the results may be worthwhile in the longer term. This is another project I am working on. Actually, the best test of copper status (and also zinc and manganese) is to measure levels of superoxide dismutase. This is one of the most important antioxidant enzymes. The cost of this test is

5. Vanadium may be implicated in a raised cholesterol, but again this is unproven.

There is some evidence that high dose of vitamin C also reduces cholesterol levels, but again this is unproven.

Several websites advise that all the above mechanisms should be carefully explored before considering anti-cholesterol drugs, which have potentially serious side effects.

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