The Health Blog

ARTHRITIS AND CORTISONE: THE DISCOVERY OF CORTISONEIt all started at the Mayo Clinic as recently as 1949. In that year, Dr. P. Hench and Dr. E. Kendall—with their associates Dr. C. Slocumb and Dr. H. Polley—startled the entire field of medicine with their discoveries on the uses of “man-made” cortisone.When the announcement of their important findings was made, I immediately boarded a plane and flew out to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I could not imagine or believe that a synthetic substance could perform “miracles” for arthritic bodies.By making this trip to Minnesota, I was present at the Seventh International Congress on Rheumatic Diseases held at the Mayo Foundation. After hearing testimony on cortisone, I still did not believe that this drug was the complete answer to arthritis. It is not a permanent cure, and the past few years have proved that I was right.It is true that in certain kinds of arthritis, cortisone can turn off the pain within hours. But the relief is often temporary. Another advantage of taking cortisone is the fact that some chronic rheumatoid arthritics were then able to do exercises. By using their muscles, they were able to prevent wasting away and minimise crippling. Again, this gain was frequently nullified by relapses.Cortisone, taken orally or by injection, does have an anti-inflammatory effect. For some rheumatoid arthritics it does lessen their joint stiffness, heat and swelling. But reports now indicate that some 85 per cent, of the cases later suffer relapses. And cortisone manufactured commercially has little or no effect whatsoever on osteo-arthritis.Any person or any chemical bringing even temporary relief deserves our thanks. Congratulations are in order to the doctors who developed cortisone and its uses. The only unfortunate fact is that cortisone does not bring lasting recovery.And we must add a definite warning that taking cortisone by prescription can cause a number of harmful reactions throughout your body. It may help arthritis, but irritate other tissues and organs.*52\146\2*

Of all the various therapeutic measures employed by biological medicine in treatment of arthritis fasting is, perhaps, singularly the most important one.

Fasting has been used in treating arthritis for centuries, mostly in Europe, but also on this continent. The big difference is that in the United States the majority of doctors who employ fasting in their practice usually advocate a complete or water fast, while European, biologically oriented doctors employ mostly juice fasts.

Although fasting is without a doubt one of the safest therapeutic agents known to medicine,1 in the minds of the uninitiated and uninformed it is often associated with fear of the possibility of doing harm to the body. This is quite understandable, considering that the average man has the impression that complete abstinence from food just for a couple of weeks would result in death. The truth is that man can live without food for months. In fact, man can kill himself by overeating in a shorter time than by fasting.2 There are recorded cases of fasting up to 90 days on water and up to 249 days on juices and liquids. In recent tests at Stobhill General Hospital, in Glasgow, Scotland, a 54-year-old woman was put on a liquid fast and lost 74 of her 262 pounds along with a painful arthritic knee condition, during a fast of 249 daysl2 Although therapeutic fasting usually is of no longer duration than 40 days, the great majority of fasts in European clinics are ten to 20 days long.

Although liquid fasting is not a dangerous measure and could be safely undertaken without supervision at home, I would advise that the average patient, who does not have a thorough understanding and insight into all the details and various phases of fasting, should not undertake it on his own, but only under expert supervision. This will assure him of peace of mind which is imperative for the successful outcome of any therapeutic measure.

In Sweden, fasting is a national sport. Thousands of healthy young and old, men and women members of the national health organization, Halsoframjandet (Health-promotion, Inc.), fast for a week or two every year. Regular short fasts are considered an effective way to cleanse the body of wastes, build up resistance and physical stamina, and prevent diseases. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t get weakened or depleted by fasting. On the contrary, fasting will strengthen the body in many ways. The stomach and digestive tract will receive a rest and will be strengthened by fasting. Actually, the total regeneration and rejuvenation of all functions of the body is the objective which induces thousands of Swedes to fast. These fasts are done on

their own. in their own homes, without supervision of doctors. But then again, these Swedes are experts in fasting; they are well informed and acquainted with the mechanics and philosophy of fasting.

Just to show you how safe fasting actually is, I like to refer to two famous fast-hikes, which were performed in Sweden in recent years under the direction of Dr. Lennart Edr6n, world famous authority on fasting. First, 11 Swedish health enthusiasts walked from Gothenburg to Stockholm (over 300 miles) in ten days. During that time they fasted—did not consume any foods at all, only plain water. A couple of years later about 20 persons repeated the hike under tight scientific control. During the whole hike, and for an extended period after it, various medical tests of their condition were made: blood count, blood sugar tests, heart tests, pulse, physical endurance tests, etc. All tests showed that in spite of the unusual stress of the combined fasting and strenuous hike, all participants were in perfect health and did not suffer any damage of any kind. However, quite the contrary was later found to be true because of the discovery that some of the participants were freed from various ailments they suffered before the fast-hike began.

At the time of my last visit to Sweden in July of 1966, Dr. Edr6n himself had already fasted a total of 45 days so far that year. At 50 he is a picture of youthful vitality and health, and he is regularly fasting to keep his superior health condition at an optimum level.

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We’ve had the joy of knowing that over 100,000 arthritis sufferers have substantially benefited by taking certified CMO in its various approved formulations. CMO is often combined with other nutritional substances that contribute additional benefits to its healing effects, such as sea cucumber, DL-phenylalanine, and glucosamine sulphate.

First of all, the success rates of curing arthritis and other disorders using CMO continue to be astonishing. One authorized distributor of certified CMO reports a 96% customer satisfaction rate. This high level of customer satisfaction duplicates the success rate of the original study conducted by the San Diego Clinic (now renamed San Diego International Immunological Center after considerable expansion of its research efforts). Since the purpose of the original study was to determine the beneficial health effects of CMO only on arthritis, subjects with only arthritis as their sole medical complaint were accepted for the study. Additionally, individuals who had been or were currently taking potent immunosuppressants, including high doses of steroids, were also deemed to be unsuitable as subjects. This pre-selection is normal practice in medical trials. No one expected the success rates of CMO formulations for the general public use to be more than about 70%, especially as people would be taking CMO without the benefit of clinical supervision. Yet, remarkably, success rates in the field have almost always exceeded our expectation.

The clinic’s research and the practical experiences of working with thousands of patients has revealed a great deal more about arthritis and other autoimmune diseases than was previously known. We have also discovered much about the arthritic and autoimmune processes from our own continuing research, as well as the research of my colleagues. This new knowledge has prompted expansion of some of my approaches to CMO treatment programs.

When we began our CMO research, we did so with the intent of attaining remission against the autoimmune processes of arthritis. That was our focus. However it was not long after CMO was being utilized by physicians and other medical professionals in their practices, that I began receiving reports of various benefits for many other autoimmune and chronic inflammatory conditions. It was only then that I realized that CMO was a universal-autoimmune immunomodulator. That is what launched new research that led to a more complete understanding of memory T-cell function and how the autoimmune processes cause a variety of degenerative diseases. (See Chapter 1 for information on memory T-cell function.)

Although CMO routinely succeeds in affecting a person’s entire memory T-cell population, and halting the destructive autoimmune disease process, I still found a number of patients whose symptoms began to return after some length of time. Sometimes it was just a matter of a few weeks or a few months, and sometimes it took a year or more.

The excepts from the following letter illustrate these types of recurrences:

Dear Dr. Sands,

Thanks so much for the articles and testimonials. I am a true believer myself because it worked so well for me. I can’t thank you enough for agreeing to make this injectable [CMO] for me and my friend. It means a lot.

Again thank you from the bottom of my heart. CMO has really saved my life. I didn’t think I could ever live free of pain, but CMO changed all that and more. I don’t take Prozac any longer, nor do I take Advil [up to 10 a day before]…

I think your other research is really fascinating. I used to think I had Parkinson’s or MS or something because I would shake so much, but Prozac fixed that. And CMO fixed whatever it was permanently so I don’t need Prozac.

I do need tune-ups, about every 3-4 months or when I go through a stressful period. But CMO takes care of whatever is wrong. I can’t say enough about how great it is, and I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to pursue CMO to a point where it’s available to all people.

Thanks again. May God bless you in every way,

Micky C, Colorado

My new research and understanding of how easily and frequently autoimmune processes are started, lead me to the explanation of these recurrences. Virtually any infection, trauma, disease, or environmental factor can trigger an autoimmune response. We are faced with these exposure events nearly every day. Often the body deals with these events in an effective manner that does not trigger a destructive autoimmune process. Sometimes a new autoimmune response is triggered and simply withers away. Sometimes it lingers and goes unnoticed, but then it almost always develops into a troublesome or crippling ailment. This process may happen quickly or it may take months or years before it develops tormenting symptoms.

These autoimmune hiccups abound in our modern environment so often that it has prompted me to develop what I consider to be a very valuable maintenance and preventive treatment program. Since CMO has now proved to be a universal-immunomodulator, this new program should prove effective against a very large number of ailments with autoimmune factors. Such ailments include fibromyalgia, lupus, sarcoidosis, scleroderma, multiple sclerosis, emphysema, asthma, some allergies, prostatitis, juvenile diabetes, diabetes, psoriasis, macular degeneration, tendinitis, sciatica, and others – as well as all forms of arthritis.

But before I explain this new CMO preventive/maintenance program, let’s have a look at some of the substances involved. I have found sea cucumber, DLPA, and glucosamine to be particularly beneficial and completely compatible with using CMO.

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