From: Guy R. Schenker, D.C. September, 1998 Dear Doctor, This month you are getting the completion of what could be called your "NUTRI-SPEC SEMINAR LETTERS." In the last 19 issues of this letter, beginning in March of last year, we have presented all the information that we like to present in the second day of a NUTRI-SPEC seminar. Here is how the NUTRI-SPEC seminars have been set up: During the first half day we cover Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of "An Analytical System Of Clinical Nutrition." That explains all the key concepts of NUTRI-SPEC ... - Objectivity in clinical testing - Biological Individuality - A patient-specific as opposed to a disease-specific approach to clinical nutrition - The specific metabolic effects of each nutrient. The second half of day one is spent learning to perform the test procedures, and then how to use the Quick Reference Guide (QRG) protocol to determine your patient's metabolic imbalances and the specific individualized supplementation and dietary recommendations needed. Day two of the seminar opens up with how to use your QRG protocol to monitor your patients' progress visit to visit and make the essential changes in their NUTRI-SPEC regimen as per your objective findings. That leaves the remainder of day two to explain each of the five fundamental metabolic balance systems -- the physiology and biochemistry behind each, what each means in terms of your patients' health, what symptoms are likely to be associated, and how your NUTRI-SPEC supplementation and dietary recommendation will correct that imbalance. - 2 - We then like to go beyond the general discussion of the NUTRI-SPEC imbalances and cover important clinical topics that are relevant to your daily practice such as: - chronic fatigue syndrome - asthma - diabetes - cardio vascular disease - high cholesterol - depression and anxiety - various gastro intestinal symptoms - pain control These are the prime movers of your practice. In other words, these are the conditions that bring people into your office. These are also conditions that respond effectively and, over the long term, only with an individualized patient- specific approach to each of these conditions. With NUTRI- SPEC you find that any one of these symptoms or conditions may be expressed identically in two different people and yet have entirely different and even opposite causes. That's what NUTRI-SPEC is all about -- finding the fundamental metabolic imbalance(s) in each patient that is causative in their symptom or condition. We make an attempt to cover all of this in the second day of a seminar -- and guess what? We never give any where near as much material as we would like to. It is with that in mind that we did these last 19 issues of The NUTRI-SPEC Letter. You have been given in these last 19 months a nice over- view of each of the 10 metabolic imbalances. You have been given a review of how to find each imbalance and how to fix it. You have been given case histories illustrating the tremendous impact you can have on biochemistry with the high biological activity NUTRI-SPEC supplements at your disposal. Along with an over-view of each of the imbalances we have gone into some depth discussing the symptoms and conditions in which you are most interested. If you keep these last 19 Letters together as a package they make a convenient review and a nice supplement to your NUTRI-SPEC manual. [If you would like us to send you this package of Letters to review, we'll be happy to do so for only the 10 bucks it costs us to put them together and ship them to you. Or -- we'll be happy to send them at no charge with your next order of $200 or more.] - 3 - We will complete the "seminar presentation" in this letter by wrapping up some odds and ends. The last three Letters emphasized the essentiality of the NUTRI-SPEC Fundamental Diet and gave an in-depth explanation of how, with nothing more than this diet and Oxy B, you can eliminate the cause of the vast majority of health problems. This is achieved by the capacity of these simple dietary recommendations to a) help each patient maintain glycemic control, and to b) minimize free radical oxidation, while at the same time c) providing all the macro and micro nutrients needed to maintain health. You had it hammered into your head that loss of glycemic control and excessive free radical oxidation are the causes of premature aging and virtually all degenerative diseases. What tremendous power you have to help people with nothing more than these few simple dietary recommendations. There is one vital component of The NUTRI-SPEC Fundamental Diet, however, that we omitted. Can you think what it might be? SUNLIGHT. We closed last month's Letter by saying that as long as your patient has not achieved glycemic control, nothing is going to work. We further said that as long as your patient is eating polyunsaturated oils, nothing is going to restore vitality. Similarly, it can be said that as long as your patient does not obtain the benefits of natural light in the eyes, health will never be regained and maintained. Do you have any patients suffering from depression or anxiety? Chances are, inadequate light intake is a part of the problem. Do you have any patients with osteoporosis? They undoubtedly need more sunlight on their skin for vitamin D, but even more importantly in their eyes to regulate the hormonal and biochemical systems it controls -- related to mineral metabolism in general and osteoblastic activity in particular. Do you have any patients suffering from chronic fatigue? Adequate sunlight can be an important part of increasing their vitality. Do you know of any children (or adults) with attention deficit disorder? This condition is strongly correlated with unnatural light entering the eyes. You see, when the light hits the optic nerve it is carried to other parts of the brain in addition to the vision centers. Particularly it is carried to the hypothalamus where it is an essential nutrient to regulate hormone balance and autonomic nerve balance. - 4 - It has been shown beyond all doubt that the depression and lethargy associated with seasonal affective disorder is nothing more than inadequate natural light and/or excess unnatural light. I think it is reasonable to conclude that virtually all cases of depression and lethargy include some element of "seasonal affective disorder." Think of the millions of poor souls that are dependent upon Prozac and other feel-good drugs just to make life tolerable. How many of these people spend at least 22 out of 24 hours either in darkness or in un-natural indoor lighting (not to mention the hours spent in front of the TV or computer monitor)? Suppose you get these people on the NUTRI-SPEC Fundamental Diet to restore glycemic control. Are you going to have an impact on their depression, anxiety, and lethargy? You betcha. Now, suppose you also get this person to take their eyeballs for a walk in the sunlight for a couple hours a day? You will have lifted the dark cloud that surrounds them and distorts their view of life. One modern American sociological problem that particularly irks me is that nearly three million children in American public schools are now being given Ritalin, an amphetamine, for a condition called Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). It seems that ADD can mean whatever you want it to mean. In other words, any child who does not perform up to either teacher or parental expectations (in other words is not a perfectly model American socialist robot) is tagged with this label and drugged into submission. (I find it amusing to ponder how many of my elementary school teachers would have wanted to put me on Ritalin, had it been available.) Most of these children and their parents are never informed that fully 25% of the children tagged ADD soon develop the symptoms of manic depression, which requires additional medication. Neither are they told that the very common long-term side effect of Ritalin is bed wetting that persists through the teen years and on into early adulthood, many years after going off the drug. Many of these children do have real problems. But consider this -- how many of these children begin their day by filling their belly with sugar, artificial flavors and artificial colors? How many of them proceed to spend their entire day under fluorescent lights or in front of a TV or a computer monitor? Upon NUTRI-SPEC testing the majority of these children test as glucogenic with a strong sympathetic compensatory response. What is happening here? They are all in a hypo- glycemic crisis with a valiant attempt by their over- stimulated sympathetic nervous system to maintain blood and - 5 - brain sugar levels. These kids are therefore continuously dealing with the neurological effects of crashing brain sugar accompanied by the neurological effects of excess catecholamines. Is it any wonder they cannot focus? How is it that so many NUTRI-SPEC practitioners achieve such success with ADD children? They do so only when they can get parental compliance on the NUTRI-SPEC Fundamental Diet, and, when they can get the parents to turn off the TV and kick the kids out the door where they can get some sunlight. Here is just one interesting study to illustrate the amazing metabolic effects of natural light. This study was done on hamsters and was concerned with the effect of a high sugar diet on tooth decay. The experiment was done in two phases. Phase one divided the hamsters into two groups. One group was given their normal diet; the other group was given a high sugar diet. Guess what happened? The high sugar hamsters developed a lot of rotten teeth. No surprise. In the second phase of the experiment they divided hamsters into two groups and gave both groups the high sugar diet. The difference was they put one group in natural light and the other group in fluorescent lighting. Guess what happened? The hamsters in the unnatural light developed five times as many caries as the sugar eating hamsters in natural light. So -- let me ask you, is sunlight an essential part of the NUTRI-SPEC Fundamental Diet? Absolutely. Advise your patients accordingly. There is one other component of your NUTRI-SPEC Fundamental Diet that it seems requires further elaboration. That is the proper place for meat in the diet. We talk repeatedly about the importance of meat, fish, poultry, eggs and so forth in the NUTRI-SPEC Fundamental Diet. We talk about it so much that many of you have concluded that NUTRI-SPEC recommends a "high protein diet." Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the amount of animal protein we recommend is probably less than a lot of your patients are presently eating. Furthermore, The NUTRI-SPEC Fundamental Diet -- as the foundation from which your specific dietary recommendations are put together for each patient -- allows flexibility in the amount of animal foods eaten. The requisite 3 ounces of meat, fish, or poultry can be considered a minimum for your glucogenic and parasympathetic patients, and a maximum for your ketogenic and sympathetic patients. That is about the level at which experience shows that everyone can maintain glycemic control. - 6 - You also know that it is not the protein in the meat so much as it is the saturated fat that is important. Yes, the protein is important for reversing excess catabolic effects in the body. It is also essential because of its specific dynamic effect by which it accelerates metabolism 30% compared to the same number of calories consumed as carbohydrate. Nevertheless, it is the saturated fats in the meat, fish, poultry, and especially eggs that are so critical -- for all the reasons discussed in the last few Letters. Furthermore, meat is a very high nutrient density food and the only source of trace minerals in our diet since livestock is supplemented with trace minerals that have been depleted from our soils and therefore are not obtained from any vegetable source foods. So -- if meat is a high nutrient density food that helps us maintain glycemic control and prevents excess catabolism in our body as well as giving us the saturated fats we need to maintain youthful vitality of our brain, skin, and other tissues -- are there any problems with eating meat? The answer is yes and no. THERE IS NO PROBLEM WITH EATING MEAT, BUT THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH THE MEAT WE EAT. There are three potential sources of problems when eating meat: 1. The meat is over-cooked. 2. The meat is processed and thus contains nitrites, monosodium glutamate and all manner of other chemical garbage. 3. The meat contains polyunsaturated fat. A brief explanation of each of these three points: First, cooking meat de-natures the proteins. The temperatures used in cooking (and microwaving) cause the nitrogen to be split off from the protein, thus totally destroying the amino acid. The essential amino acid methionine is particularly heat labile. Two other important amino acids which are largely destroyed at cooking temperatures are glutamine and taurine. These amino acids are critical to so many metabolic processes. The bad news associated with cooking does not stop with protein destruction. The other thing that happens when you cook meat is that the fatty acids are split off into free fatty acids. The fatty acids are then further de-natured by undergoing cys trans isomerism, such that the natural cys - 7 - isomer of the fatty acid is converted into the unnatural deadly trans isomer. This change in the fatty acid structure of the meat creates a tremendous amount of free radical oxidative tissue destruction in the body. You must advise your patients to decrease the cooking time of their meat. The second potential problem that comes from meat is that a lot of meat has been adulterated by the food processing industry and includes particularly the toxic nitrites and monosodium glutamate. These could be a discussion that would take up an entire Letter. Suffice it to say for now that everyone is better off to minimize the amount of sausage, bacon, luncheon meats, and canned meats that they eat. Stick to fresh, natural meat. The third and final consideration with respect to meat has to do with the type of fat in meat. The common wisdom of our day (which we all know is a lot of bunk) would have us avoid meat because it is high in saturated fat. We at NUTRI- SPEC know that quite the opposite is true. That is the number one reason why we should eat meat. It is saturated fats that are healthful and polyunsaturated fats that are deadly. It turns out, however, that the fat in meat is a problem precisely because so much of it is polyunsaturated. Polyunsaturated fats in meat? Yes. As you probably know, Agri Business raises meat, fish and poultry by force feeding animals to fatten them in a hurry. And, their feed consists largely of soy and corn. Soy and corn are loaded with soy oil and corn oil. So as a result, much of the fat in meat and poultry (as much as 30% or more) consists of rotten deadly polyunsaturated corn and soy oil -- precisely the oils that we have made such a point to avoid. So, what do you do when a patient begins the NUTRI-SPEC Fundamental Diet and claims they do not feel well eating "so much meat?" As long as the patient is eating the amount of meat, fish and poultry recommended in the NUTRI-SPEC Fundamental Diet (including the additional quantitative considerations associated with any Glucogenic/Ketogenic or Sympathetic/Parasympathetic tendency they have), the reason for not thriving on the indicated quantity of meat almost certainly relates to the three problems described above. Since we are limited in what we can do about the excess polyunsaturated fats in our meat, all we can do is be certain that our patients minimize the amount of cooking time and minimize the quantity of processed meats. This will eliminate most patient reactions that may appear to be a reaction to - 8 - meat per se but which are actually a reaction to the adulteration of meat by cooking or processing. You now know everything you need know to maximize the dietary component of healthful living for yourself, your family, and all your patients. Add to that the knowledge from the total over-view in the last 19 months of your NUTRI-SPEC patient-specific objective approach to clinical nutrition -- and there is no symptom or condition whose nutritional component you cannot correct. Sincerely, Guy R. Schenker, D.C.