When opportunity knocks, it usually doesn't beat down the door. It knocks gently. If we . hear it, we can choose to ignore it or put our shoes on and go meet it. However, after its gentle knock, if there is no' answer, opportunity = moves down the street to try another door. ', The dawning of the new millennium has been heralded not just by a changing of the calendar, but by an awakening of the public to the validity of natural healing and disease prevention, as opposed to the old sick-care mentality of the previous century. We are all aware of this movement, and it requires no further embellishment; but, the gentle knock of opportunity has recently been heard at the door of chiropractic. It came in the form of a news release in the Wall Street Journal, dated August 2, 2000. under the title, "Arthritis Research May Lead Scientists to Rethink How the Disease Is Treated". I think it is time for the leaders of this profession, as well as chiropractors individually, to decide whether we should put on our shoes and meet the opportunity being presented, or to stay on the couch and let it (and our future) pass us by. The article described a study conducted at Mayo Clinic by a team of researchers. Their findings proposed not only a dramatic shift, but a complete reversal in how medicine treats rheumatoid arthritis. This chronic degenerative disease has long been considered to be an autoimmune disease; that is, the body's own immune system is supposedly destroying healthy tissue , due to some genetic j quirk. I have always believed that this concept was a pharmaceutical model that should not be I applied in natural heal- [ ing. A much more accu- | rate and scientifically I acceptable explanation is j that the body's cells are i releasing enzymes contained within their lysosomes to destroy foreign material that has flocculated on the cell surface. Every cell contains pockets (lysosomes) of enzymes that can be used to hydrolyze (digest) foreign material. When toxins flocculate on the cell surface, they can be taken into the cell (via the process of invagination), or enzymes can be released from the cell onto its surface, as is the case for bone cells, which cannot invaginate. This process is known as pinocytosis and is the body's last line of immune defense. The immune system is actually an enzyme system, which guards entry of foreign material into the body, beginning in the mucosal lining of the digestive tract and continuing in the reticuloendothelial system, which is composed of the liver and spleen as well as mobile white blood cells. Thus, rheumatoid arthritis is actually a condition characterized by foreign material flocculating on joint surfaces. The body's immune system responds by releasing lysosomal enzymes from the bone cells. The material is hydrolyzed and rendered harmless, but the smooth articular surface becomes pitted. As the process continues day after day, month after month, and year after year, the damage finally becomes obvious. A diagnosis of arthritis or degenerative joint disease is finally made and treatment can begin. Since medicine has considered the condition to be a self-inflicted disease, "correct" therapy has been to suppress the immune system with drugs to prevent the body's own natural defenses from destroying itself. Inflammation is a natural defensive response to foreign matter in the extracellular fluid. As we all know, this approach has never yielded satisfactory results and, in fact, has a deleterious effect on the body. No doubt, you have experienced the disastrous effects that steroid drugs, such as prednisone, have had on your patients. Dr. Cornelia Weyand, a rheumatol-ogist who headed the research team at Mayo Clinic, stated: "While this practice has offered symptomatic relief, it has also put the patients at higher risk for infections and cardiovascular disease, the two leading causes of death among these patients." The study compared the immune systems of 51 patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis with 47 people of similar ages, who did not have the condition. They found fewer T-cells in the arthritic patients and also noted exhaustion of the T-cells that were found in the RA patients. Those patients between the ages of 20 and 30 had T-cells that compared with those found in people 50-to-60 years of age. The study reported that the chromosomes in the stricken patients were worn and frayed. What this means is that patients with rheumatoid arthritis actually have suppressed immune systems, and conventional pharmaceutical treatments are not only ineffective, they are contraindicated. Dr. Weyand reported, "What this study has shown, for the first time, is that patients with rheumatoid arthritis have prematurely aged immune systems." The concept of a prematurely aged immune system denies that the body's defenses have been exhausted by stress—in this case a nutritional or chemical stress. I believe the purpose of this phrasing is to leave the door open for pharmaceutical or, even, genetic intervention, thus keeping the condition classified as a disease, and close the door on possible nutritional and detoxification procedures to relieve and prevent "wear and tear" on the immune system. What is seldom appreciated is that chromosomes (like all cellular components) must have adequate nourishment delivered, and waste products effectively removed. The wear and tear shown on these cell components suggests inadequate delivery of nutrients to the cell (to meet increased stress) and inadequate removal of cellular waste produced during increased metabolic states (to meet increased stress). The study could not determine which came first, the exhausted immune system or the rheumatoid arthritis. "Further research will be needed to determine if regenerating the immune system will have a beneficial effect on the occurrence and treatment of the disease," Weyand stated. This leaves us to wonder how an immune system is "regenerated". Again, notice the careful phrasing so that patients (mostly women) suffering from the symptoms of fatigue and general malaise accompanied by pain, swelling, stiffness and loss of joint function (aberrant motion), and occasional fever will not be lost by the drug companies ($$$) to more conservative treatment modalities. By the way, these symptoms sound very much like a generalized inflammatory condition, don't they? How can a completely natural defensive response by the body be classified as a disease anyway? Many of you know that my position on chronic degenerative diseases was adopted from Dr. Edward Howell, who believed that they are caused by food enzyme deficiencies. This position is enhanced by the Surgeon General's Report of 1988, which stated that the evidence was overwhelming that chronic degenerative diseases must be prevented by dietary modification. Since the naturally occurring enzymes are constantly being removed from food to extend shelf-life, what better way to supplement the diet than with enzymes? After all, science has finally decided that processing food removes vitamins and minerals, and they should be replaced as food additives. Why not the enzymes? Reinforcement for advocating the use of food enzymes to prevent chronic degenerative problems comes from medicine's very poor track record in treating chronic degenerative diseases. Suppressing the body's natural defens- es hardly seems prudent in this or any other situation. Simply removing dietary stress, properly nourishing the cells, and adequately removing their waste products is the logical solution. But that would not fit comfortably within a pharmaceutical paradigm. An Important Correlation According to a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition (April 2000), rheumatoid arthritis can develop in susceptible people due to changes in the structure of the gut by the consumption of cereal grains and legumes. The cereal grains wheat, rye, barley, oats, and corn were mentioned, as well as legumes such as beans and peas. Loren Cordain. PhD, states that the connection between gut inflammation and joint inflammation has been known for years. It may have been known, but it has also been ignored by the pharmaceutical community. Since 1985,1 have presented material in my seminars that link bowel toxicity (so-called leaky gut) to many chronic degenerative disorders. Medicine turned its back on this condition before World War II, when they realized that surgical removal of any inflamed section of the bowel (known in the literature as the Closed Bowel Syndrome) only caused the inflammation to occur elsewhere, without altering the course of the problem. Cordain states that the disease develops in those individuals predisposed to the condition by their genetic make-up. He continues, "We are not saying that everyone with this genetic makeup would develop the disease, but if. the circumstances were right, they would." According to Cordain, the right circumstances would include eating foods high in lectins. They can also cause changes in the gut wall and allow some of the material to leak into the body. This causes the body's own immune system to attack its healthy joints, causing rheumatoid arthritis! Lectins are found in seeds, grains, and legumes and can cause blood cells in specific blood types to clump together. These changes in the gut wall are caused by putrefaction of food material, which causes an inflammatory response in the mucosal lining of the gut. Obviously, if the food had been properly digested, this process could not occur. Allow me to say the same thing only differently: Leaky gut or bowel toxicity is caused by enzyme deficiencies, enzymes that can be supplemented in the diet! I have written and lectured on this subject extensively for the past twenty years and won't belabor the point here. I would just add that health care is changing dramatically and the sick-care model presently in place will not last. In the coming years, will chiropractic be leading the way toward a more scientific model of health care which is based on maintenance of normal body functions? Will it join and, therefore, be following some other philosophical model of natural healing? Or will it just stay on the couch? Continued on Page 53 DIS-EASE ...from page 15 Howard F. Looinis, Jr., DC, president of Enzyme Formulations, Inc., has an extensive background in enzymes and enzyme formulations. As president of 27st Century Nutrition, Inc., for fifteen years, lie has forged a remarkable career as an educator, having conducted over 400 seminars to date, in the United States, Canada, Germany, and Australia, on tlie diagnosis and treatment of enzyme deficiency syndromes. Call 21st Century Nutrition at 1-800-662-2630 for more information. *
