Latent Tissue Acidosis or Sympathetic Over-Acidity From Cigarette Smoking

Latent tissue acidosis or sympathetic overactivity seems, in our point of view (1), to be the key factor in cigarette smoking as responsible for the development and progression of atherosclerosis.

Cigarette smoking increases latent tissue acidosis and efferent sympathetic nerve traffic acutely, as well norepinephrine and epinephrine release. The adverse effects of cigarette smoking are related to the mixture of chemicals, including nicotine that has been largely accused for many of the adverse effects of smoking on the cardiovascular system, including autonomic imbalance, endothelial dysfunction and coronary blood flow dysregulation. The acute sympathoexcitatory effects of smoking on the cardiovascular system are partially mediated by catecholamine release, muscle sympathetic nerve excitation and peripheral chemoreceptor sensitivity increase, consecutive to nicotinic receptor stimulation in the autonomic nervous system (2).

Both active smoking and exposure to enviromental tobacco smoke are associated with the progression of atherosclerosis as indexed by intimal-medial thickness of the carotid artery assessed by ultrasound. (7)

It is interesting to notice about the results from a study published in 2006 revealing that sublingual administration of a 4-mg tablet of Nicotine Replacement Therapy exerts acute deleterious cardiovascular effects and sympathetic activation (3).

Also interesting is the high sugar or acid content (up to 20% - including high fructose corn syrup - a toxic acid) of the popular brands of cigarettes (4,5).

Acidic sugars and other high-carbohydrate diets, particularly in the form of high-glycemic index carbohydrate, may also contribute for keeping the sympathetic nervous system overactive. (6)

1. Carlos ETB Monteiro, Acidic environment evoked by chronic stress: A novel mechanism to explain atherogenesis. Available from Infarct Combat Project, January 28, 2008 at http://www.infarctcombat.org/AcidityTheory.pdf

2. Adamopoulus D, van de Borne P and Argacha JF, New insights into the sympathetic, endothelial and coronary effects of nicotine. Clin Exp Pharmacol Physiol 2008; 35(4): 458-63

3. Najem B et al. Acute cardiovascular and sympathetic effects of nicotine replacement therapy. Hypertension 2006; 47:1162-67 Full free text at http://hyper.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/47/6/1162

4. Elson LA, Betts TE, Passey RD, The sugar content and the pH of the smoke of cigarette, cigar, and pipe tobbacos in relation to lung cancer. International Journal of Cancer, V 9, I 3; 666-675, 1972

5. Stavanja et al. Safety assessment of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as an ingredient added to cigarette tobacco. Exp Toxicol Pathol, 57(4): 267-81, 2006

6. Koop W. Chronically increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system: our diet-related “evolutionary” inheritance. The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging Volume 13, Number 1, 2009

7. Howard G et al, Cigarette smoking and progression of atherosclerosis: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study. JAMA, 1998 Jan 14;279(2):119-24. Full free text at http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/279/2/119.pdf

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Minger Responds to Campbell

Hot off the presses: Dr. Colin Campbell's response to Denise Minger's China Study posts, and Minger's retort:

A Challenge and Response to the China Study

The China Study: My Response to Campbell

This is required reading for anyone who wants to evaluate Dr. Campbell's claims about the China Study data. Denise points out that Dr. Campbell's claims rest mostly on uncorrected associations, which is exactly what he was accusing Minger, Chris Masterjohn and Anthony Colpo of doing. He also appears to have selectively reported data that support his philosophy, and ignored data that didn't, even when the latter were stronger. This is true both in Dr. Campbell's book, and in his peer-reviewed papers. This type of thing is actually pretty common in the diet-health literature.

I respect everyone's food choices, whether they're omnivores, carnivores, or raw vegans, as long as they're doing it in a way that's thoughtful toward other people, animals and the environment. I'm sure there are plenty of vegans out there who are doing it gracefully, not spamming non-vegan blogs with arrogant comments.

As human beings, we're blessed and cursed with an ego, which is basically a self-esteem and self-image reinforcement machine. Since being wrong hurts our self-esteem and self-image, the ego makes us think we're right about more than we actually are. That can take the form of elaborate justifications, and the more intelligent the person, the more elaborate the justifications. An economic policy that makes you richer becomes the best way to improve everyone's bottom line. A dietary philosophy that was embraced for humane reasons becomes the path to optimum health... such is the human mind. Science is basically an attempt to remove as much of this psychic distortion as possible from an investigation. Ultimately, the scientific method requires rigorous and vigilant stewardship to achieve what it was designed to do.

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Lactic and Hydrochloric Acid Causes Atherosclerotic Lesions, and Plaque Leading To Hypertension and Heart Disease

Old experiments with rabbits and dogs provide powerful evidence for the Acidity Theory of Atherosclerosis (1)

Follows a summary about 2 studies from the beginning of the last century showing that acid-fed rabbits and dogs may develop atherosclerotic lesions:

1) Experiments from Oswald Loeb, a well-known professor in pharmacology and scientist from the University of Gottingen - Germany, have demonstrated in study published in 1913, that lactic acid-fed rabbits and dogs have resulted in atherosclerotic lesions in these animals (2). The book “Arteriosclerosis and hypertension, with chapters on blood pressure" (3), by Louis M Warfield, M. D. (Johns Hopkins), showed the following commentary about the experiments from Oswald Loeb:“Oswald Loeb produced changes in the arteries of rabbits by feeding them sodium lactate (lactic acid). His controls fed on other acids became cachectic, but showed no arterial changes. He further found that in 100 gm. of human blood there was normally from 15 to 30 mg. of lactic acid. After heavy work, he found as much as 150 gm. He considers that after adrenalin or nicotin injections, the function of the liver is so disturbed that lactic acid is not bound. The arteriosclerosis is actually due to the presence of free lactic acid in the circulation. He succeeded, also, in producing lesions of the intima in a dog fed for a long time on protein poor diet, plus lactic acid and sodium lactate.”

2) I. Adler, M.D., from the Laboratories of the New York Board of Health, told in his paper entitled “Studies on Experimental Atherosclerosis” (4), published in 1913, that a casual remark by Dr. P. A. Levene have suggested the simple procedure of adding dilute hydrochloric acid to the dog's food and thus producing a chronic hyperacidity. This led Adler to include acid-fed dogs in his experiments. He told in his paper that though only two dogs have thus far been fed with hydrochloric acid, presenting sclerotic affections, the possibility can not be denied, especially in view of the numerous negative results with other methods, that these positive results are not mere coincidences, but are probably due to the hydrochloric acid. Referring at the end of his paper about the acid-fed dogs presenting atherosclerotic lesions he stated “that the work is being continued, and definite conclusions would at this stage be premature; but perhaps it may be permitted, even now, to venture the statement that in all probability the theory which bases atherosclerosis on a purely mechanical etiology will not prove tenable. Whether mechanical factors come into play at all, and if so, to what extent, remains to be seen. It seems almost certain, at least in our present state of knowledge, influences, subject possibly to more or less nerve control, are dominant factors in the etiology of atherosclerosis. Perhaps it may be discovered also that cholesterin and its various modifications and combinations, while undoubtedly an element of importance in atherosclerosis of the rabbit and human beings, may not be the sole predominant etiological factor. “He finished telling that “If it should turn out that so simple a procedure as adding a certain proportion of hydrochloric acid to the food of dogs is sufficient to produce lesions of the blood vessels closely analogous, if not wholly identical with human atherosclerosis, a revision of our present theories will become necessary."

Carlos Monteiro

1. Carlos ETB Monteiro, Acidic environment evoked by chronic stress: A novel mechanism to explain atherogenesis. Available from Infarct Combat Project, January 28, 2008 at http://www.infarctcombat.org/AcidityTheory.pdf

2. Loeb, O., Ueber experimentelle Arterienveraender ungen mit besonderer Beruecksichtigung der Wirkung der Milchsaeure auf Grund eigener Versuche, Deutsch. med. Wchnschr., 1913, xxxix, I819

3. Louis M Warfield, M. D., Third Edition, C. V. Mosby Company, 1920, with full free text at http://www.archive.org/stream/arteriosclerosis00warfuoft/arteriosclerosis00warfuoft_djvu.txt.

4. I. Adler, ‘Studies in Experimental atherosclerosis - A preliminary report’, The Journal of Experimental Medicine, 1913. Free full text at http://jem.rupress.org/content/20/2/93.full.pdf

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Acids Associated With Atherosclerosis

Studies around the world have consistently shown that both short and long term exposures to Particulate Matter (PM) air pollution are associated with a host of cardiovascular diseases, including myocardial ischemia and infarctions, heart failure, arrhythmias, strokes and increased cardiovascular mortality.

Very recently it was published a study in humans confirming the association of the exposure to ambient air pollution and atherosclerosis through the progression of carotid artery intima-media thickness (1).

In an interesting recent paper by Robert Brook (2) he states that there are three putative ‘general’ pathways to explain the biological mechanisms whereby PM exposure may be capable of mediating cardiovascular events: 1) autonomic mechanisms: parasympathetic nervous system withdraw and/or sympathetic nervous system activation; 2) the release of circulating pro-oxidative and/or pro-inflammatory mediators from the lungs (e. g. cytokines and activated immune cells) into the systemic circulation following PM inhalation that, in turn, indirectly mediate CV responses; and; 3) nano-scale particles and/or soluble PM constituents translocating into the systemic circulation after inhalation that then directly interact with the CV system.

According to Robert Brook, chronic actions of PM and the enhancement of atherosclerosis, are most likely to be induced by the generation of a chronic pro-inflammatory state (pathway 2).

Taking in view the results of studies in humans showing that particulate air pollutants continuous exposition decreases the heart rate variability (3,4) and may lead to an impaired autonomic control with potential acceleration in the progression of atherosclerosis (5,6,7), with the due respect, I feel obliged to differ from Brook’s opinion regarding the biological mechanism related to chronic PM exposure and atherosclerosis. In our view the sympathetic over activity may start the whole process of atherosclerosis which ends in the inflammatory state as hypothesized in the acidity theory of atherosclerosis (8) and discussed in our last article in this blog (9)Carlos Monteiro

1. Nino Kunzli, Michael Jerrett, Raquel Garcia-Esteban, Xavier Basagana, Bernardo Beckermann, Frank Gilliland, Merce Medina, John Peters, Howard N. Hodis, Wendy J. Mack. "Ambient Air Pollution and the Progression of Atherosclerosis in Adults." PloS ONE 5(2): e9096. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009096, February 8, 2010. Full free text at http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009096

2. Brook RD, Cardiovascular effects of air pollution. Clinical Science (2008) 115, (175–187) Full free text at http://www.clinsci.org/cs/115/0175/1150175.pdf

3. Duanping Liao, Yinkang Duan, Eric A. Whitsel, Zhi-jie Zheng, Gerardo Heiss, Vernon M. Chinchilli, and Hung-Mo Lin. Association of Higher Levels of Ambient Criteria Pollutants with Impaired Cardiac Autonomic Control: A Population-based Study, Am J Epidemiol 2004;159:768–777

4. C. Arden Pope III, Matthew L. Hansen, Russell W. Long, Karen R. Nielsen, Norman L. Eatough, William E. Wilson, and Delbert J. Eatough. Ambient Particulate Air Pollution, Heart Rate Variability, and Blood Markers of Inflammation in a Panel of Elderly Subjects. Environmental Health Perspectives, V 112; N 3: March 2004

5. Heikki V. Huikuri; Vesa Jokinen; Mikko Syvänne; Markku S. Nieminen; K. E. Juhani et al, Heart Rate Variability and Progression of Coronary Atherosclerosis. Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. 1999;19:1979-1985.

6. Anders Gottsäter , Åsa Rydén Ahlgren, Soumia Taimour and Göran Sundkvist, Decreased heart rate variability may predict the progression of carotid atherosclerosis in type 2 diabetes Clinical Autonomic Research Volume 16, Number 3 / June, 2006

7. J. C. Longenecker, M. Zubaid, K.V. Johny, A.I. Attia, J. Ali, W. Rashed, C.G. Suresh, M. Omar. Association of low heart rate variability with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in hemodialysis patients. Med Princ Pract 2009;18:85-92

8. Carlos ETB Monteiro, Acidic environment evoked by chronic stress: A novel mechanism to explain atherogenesis. Available from Infarct Combat Project, January 28, 2008 at http://www.infarctcombat.org/AcidityTheory.pdf

9. Sympathetic predominance: a primary factor in the cascade of events leading to the atherogenic spiraling, Carlos Monteiro, Monday, February 22, 2010 at http://aciditytheory.blogspot.com/2010/02/sympathetic-predominance-primary-factor.html

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Hey All You Alkalarians!

Hey All you Alkalarians! Summer is here in a BIG WAY and it’s time to think about those great Barbeques, Parades, Parties, and Picnics.

First of all think of your skin and the protection you’ll need during those hours out in the scorching July sun. Staying hydrated with your four liters of Doc Broc Power Plants Greens and pHour Salts will do wonders to prevent parched dry skin. Also it’s paramount that you include plenty of good oils in your diet like our pH Miracle Avocado Oil which comes in 3 flavors, garlic, lime and plain. Also all veggies that are high in silica like bell peppers and cucumbers are natural skin fortifiers so munch away! Remember beautiful skin, like good health, is created from the inside out.

Next, always protect your skin on the outside with our great skin care products like:

our cleanser: pHresh and Clean
our toner: re-pHresh
our moisturizer: sopH skin
our sunscreen: Young pHorever Sun pHilter
our skin masks: Doc Broc Power Plants Greens make a great refreshing skin beauty treatment. Just pour ¼ to ½ cup into a bowl and add water until it is a good poltice consistency. Spread on face liberally and let sit until almost dry. Rinse off and cleanse with pHresh and Clean. Terra pHirma is also a great skin mask but more for extracting skin impurities and acids from the skin. Make the same politce and spread on skin liberally. Let sit until almost dry and rinse. Both masks help with exfoliating dead skin cells will leave your skin porcelain smooth.

Find all these products and more on our website www.pHmiracleliving.com

Now let’s talk about your summertime FEASTS! It’s time to celebrate our country’s birthday by staying in tip-top alkaline shape by keeping close to the pH Miracle diet and lifestyle. That doesn’t mean you have to give up good flavor, it means you give up highly acidic food choices in turn for the best, delicious Alkaline feast you can imagine. Here are some great and easy recipe suggestions to keep you HEALTHY, WEALTHY and WISE this Summer.

Bon Appetite!

All page numbers for recipes are from our newly
Revised and Updated
The pH Miracle Book

For a Summer Brunch:
Serve: Seed Pancakes with Coconut Whipped Topping page 356
Or if it’s really hot and you just want something cool and refreshing:
Serve: The Limey Love Shake page 267

For that Barbeque, Family Party, or Pic-Nic:

Serve: Very Veggie Barley Burgers spiced with The Zip from Spice Hunter Spices page 325

OR place some oily fish on the barbeque like salmon fillets spiced with lemon, salt and The Zip (get all your Spice Hunter Spices direct from The pH Miracle Center www.pHMiracleliving.com)

Rainbow Salad (with fireworks colors of shredded veggies) page 286
topped with Spicy Pecan Croutons page 374 and
Sesame Soy Dressing page 299

and for sides serve:
Sweet Carrot Butter page 314
Sprinkled with
Dehydrated Red Bell Pepper Powder page 317
with veggie crudités

for dessert:
Shelley’s Soy Pudding page 377
(do ginger/lime variation)

Bon Appetite!

From all of us at the pH Miracle Center,
Have a happy, healthy and safe Summer!!!

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Will Cell Phones Become The Next Cigarette

The great cosmic joke would be to find out definitively that the advances we thought were blessings — from the hormones women pump into their bodies all their lives to the fancy phones people wait in line for all night — are really time bombs.

Just as parents now tell their kids that, believe it or not, there was a time when nobody knew that cigarettes and tanning were bad for you, those kids may grow up to tell their kids that, believe it or not, there was a time when nobody knew how dangerous it was to hold your phone right next to your head and chat away for hours.

We don’t yet really know the physical and psychological impact of being slaves to technology. We just know that technology is a narcotic. We’re living in the cloud, in a force field, so afraid of being disconnected and plunged into a world of silence and stillness that even if scientists told us our computers would make our arms fall off, we’d probably keep typing.

San Francisco just became the first city in the country to pass legislation making cellphone retailers display radiation levels. The city’s Board of Supervisors voted 10 to 1 in favor. The one against, the Democrat Sean Elsbernd, said afterward: “It’s a slippery slope. I can go on Google right now and find you a study that says there’s a problem with the Starbucks you’re drinking.”

Different phone models emit anywhere from 0.2 watts per kilogram of body tissue to 1.6 watts, the legal limit. The amount of radio frequency energy seeping into the body and brain is measured by a unit called the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR).

“You see all these kids literally glued to their phones,” Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, told me. “And candidly, my wife was pregnant and on her cellphone nonstop. So I dusted off some studies and started doing research.

“That’s when I discovered that companies who make cellphones are already required to disclose that information to the federal government, and that it exists but somewhere on someone’s Web page on the 88th page.” Why not underscore it, he thought, by alerting consumers at the store, putting the SAR level in the same font as the phone price?

His alarmed advisers, accustomed to seeing the sleek Newsom diving into bold stands without calculating the potential blowback — as with gay marriage — told him to focus on jobs and the economy.

“They said: ‘There you go again. They’re going to mock you. It’s going to be another sideshow,’ ” he recalled. But stroking his baby daughter’s soft head and reading new studies on the vulnerability of children’s thinner skulls to radiation, he persevered.

One Swedish study that followed young people who began using cells as teenagers for 10 years calculated a 400 percent increase in brain tumors. But as Nathaniel Rich recently pointed out in Harper’s, studies about cellphones’ carcinogenic potential all contradict one another, including those involving children.

When Newsom proposed the bill, telecommunications lobbyists went to the mattresses, as did hoteliers, who feared losing convention business.

He said that lobbyists from Washington made it clear that they would invoke “the nuclear option” and come down “like a ton of bricks.”

“This is tobacco money, oil money,” he said. “But these guys from D.C. do not know me because that has exactly the opposite effect. Shame on them, to threaten the city. It’s about as shortsighted as one could get in terms of a brand.”

Months before the bill passed, he read me part of a letter that Marriott sent him: “CTIA — The Wireless Association, which is scheduled to hold a major convention here in October 2010, has already contacted us about canceling their event if the legislation moves forward. They also have told us that they are in contact with Apple, Cisco, Oracle and others who are heavily involved in the industry, as you know, about not holding future events in your city for the same reason.”

Sure enough, when the bill passed Tuesday, CTIA issued a petulant statement that after 2010, it would relocate its annual three-day fall exhibition, with 68,000 exhibitors and attendees and “$80 million” in business, away from San Francisco.

“Since our bill is relatively benign,” Newsom said, “it begs the question, why did they work so hard and spend so much money to kill it? I’ve become more fearful, not less, because of their reaction. It’s like BP. Shouldn’t they be doing whatever it takes to protect their global shareholders?”

So now we have Exhibit No. 1,085 illustrating the brazenness of Big Business.

They should be sending Mayor Newsom a bottle of good California wine for caring about whether kids’ brains get fried, not leaving him worried about whether they’ll avenge themselves in his campaign for lieutenant governor.

He’s resigned to that possibility, just as he is to his own addiction. “I love my iPhone,” he said cheerfully.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/opinion/27dowd.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

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Is The Radiation From Cell Phones Killing Honey Bees

A recent study has found that radiation from cell phones may be killing the honey bee population.
In a recent report in the journal Current Science, scientists are claiming that mobile phones are behind the disappearance of honey bees in Europe and North America.

They say radiation from cell phones is getting in the way of honey bees' navigation senses, making them so confused they lose their way home.

This new research may explain why the bee population has declined for years in what's being called Colony Collapse Disorder.

NBC 25 talked with Gary Briggs, a local beekeeper who says something needs to be done about this, because it's becoming harder and harder to keep his bees alive.

"If we keep losing bees, pretty soon we are going to lose our food supply. So it's a serious deal, and the sooner they can find out what's causing it or what culmination of affects, is what I think we need to get to," said Beekeeper Gary Briggs.

Biologists are saying that the signal coming from cell phones and their towers can be modified so that it doesn't produce the frequency that disrupts a bees’ navigation.

And while Briggs says cell phone radiation may play a role, he's convinced an increased use of insecticides is also contributing.

http://www.connectmidmichigan.com/news/story.aspx?id=478411

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