Sharing some good nutritional information

[William]

I wanted to share some information from a newsletter that my wife’s doctor sends out. There is a lot to read. I hope this will be helpful to you all.

My patients with fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue have much more oxidative stress than the normal person. To bring this oxidative stress under control, my patients need to add what I refer to as “enhancers” to their cellular nutrition.
Enhancer
Grape Seed Extract
Enhancers are added to this cellular nutrition to create more effective synergy and allow an even better chance of controlling oxidative stress. The first enhancer I always recommend to my fibromyalgia patients is grape seed extract. This is probably the most potent antioxidant available today. It is 50 times more potent than vitamin E and 20 times more potent than vitamin C when taken with cellular nutrition. If it is just taken by itself, it is only 7 or 8 times more potent than vitamin E and 3 to 4 times more potent than vitamin C. This positive difference is because of the synergistic effect of using grape seed extract with all of these supporting nutrients.
Grape seed extract is not only a great antioxidant, but also it is a great anti-inflammatory and anti-allergen. Most of my patients with fibromyalgia suffer from allergies and too much inflammation in their bodies. Grape seed extract also readily crosses the blood-brain barrier in the brain. This is important because one of the major problems these patients report is what I refer to as a “mental fogginess.”

I initially start my patients on 300 mg to even 400 mg of grape seed extract daily. I previously recommended only 100 mg daily; however, I found over time that only about 20 to 25% had a positive response. When my patients started with the higher doses of grape seed extract, I found that nearly 70% of my fibromyalgia patients had a positive response after they had been on this aggressive nutritional support for over 6 months.
Coenzyme Q10
Coenzyme Q10 is one of the most important nutrients that is required for the cell to create energy. Since a major aspect of fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue is fatigue, I have found that supplementing with this important nutrient gives my patients a much better chance for a positive response. CoQ10 is also one of the most potent boosters for our immune system. Most of my patients with fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue have a depleted immune system, and I recommend that they supplement their diet with 200 mg of powder form CoQ10 or 60 mg of gel form. The gel form of CoQ10 is absorbed about three to three and one-half times greater than the powder form. Again, it takes a minimum of 6 months to restore the body’s natural immune system and to achieve the optimal levels of CoQ10.
Calcium/Magnesium/Vitamin D
Fibromyalgia patients suffer from tight muscle bands throughout their body, but especially in their neck and shoulders. These taut muscles can be partly the result of a magnesium deficiency. By supplementing their diet with additional calcium and magnesium along with higher doses of vitamin D, patients can experience significant improvement. This is why I always recommend that my fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue patients also take an additional 600 to 800 mg of calcium, 500 to 600 mg of magnesium, and 400 IU of vitamin D. This is in addition to the amount they receive with their cellular nutrition.
Essential Fatty Acids
I always want my patients with fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue to also take either a filtered fish oil capsule or cold-pressed flax seed oil to get the additional essential fatty acids our bodies so desperately need. I prefer the filtered fish oil capsule. These essential fatty acids or omega-3 fatty acids quickly produce our body’s own natural anti-inflammatories and can give fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue patients some significant improvements.
A 6-Month Trial Is Critical
When I first began working nutritionally with my fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue patients, many would try my recommendations for only a month or two. During the next office visit, they would tell me that they did not note any improvement and that they had quit taking them. I quickly learned that I did not want my patients to even begin with my recommendations unless they were committed to trying them for a minimum of 6 months.
Nutritional medicine is much different than traditional Western medicine which relies on drug therapy. It takes a minimum of 6 months to replenish a nutritional deficiency and restore all the other nutrients to their optimal levels.. This is also the length of time needed to optimize the body’s natural defense system. Since there is only symptomatic treatment available for fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue in traditional medicine, I felt sorry for my patients who did not give this aggressive nutritional approach adequate time. When they would try this for only a month or two and then quit, they all felt that it just didn’t work for them. They needed to try this nutritional approach longer to know if they would be in the 70% category that had experienced a positive response. Now if my patients tell me that they would be willing to try this approach for only a month or two, I tell them not to start at all. They should wait until they are willing to try it for at least 6 months

There is so much more information in this newsletter, I will share more later.

[Kate Lawrence]

Thanks a bunch for this info, looking forward to your next post!