Fw: [] Is it Hepatitis C or Iron Toxicity?

[Guest guest]

I thought this was interesting to this list because of the phytic acid/ Ip-6

issue. I thought phytic acid was bad for you? Isn't phytic acid one of the bad

things in grains?

Donna

[] Is it Hepatitis C or Iron Toxicity?

http://mercola.com/2003/apr/2/iron.htm

Is it Hepatitis C or Iron Toxicity?

E-mail to a friend

By ph Mercola, D.O.

I recently had a patient visit me from Ohio with a remarkable story that

needs to be shared, as it will likely save a number of peopleâ?Ts lives.

This person is a 53-year-old healthy male who had absolutely no symptoms. He

was the picture of health and from looking at him you would never believe he

had any health problems. However, later we wound find out that he was rusting

on the inside and had massive amounts of free radical damage.

Through a routine physical examination, his local traditional doctor found

that he had elevated liver enzymes. So a hepatitis panel was drawn and he was

found to have hepatitis C. He was not content with the traditional

recommendations of going on Interferon as a treatment, so he visited my Web

site and learned that high iron levels are frequently a major factor in most

cases of hepatitis. This is where the story gets interesting.

He asked the doctors to check his iron level, but they basically laughed at

him and refused until he persisted. The doctors ran a serum iron level and

that came back only on the high side of normal. However, he had read my

article on how to properly diagnose iron overload so he further insisted that

they run the correct test to screen for iron overload, which was a serum

ferritin level. This came back elevated, but they still refused to consider

that this was contributing to his problem.

Itâ?Ts not bad enough to be ignorant, which the vast majority of traditional

medical doctors are, but they donâ?Tt have a clue about the real cause of

disease. Instead, they focus their energy on diagnosing symptoms and then

learning all about Band-Aid drug and surgical solutions.

The factor that annoys me more and more is that most of them compound their

ignorance with arrogance. This is a potentially lethal combination for the

patient. The doctors refuse to consider any other options outside of those

their limited perspective allows them to see.

That is exactly what happened here, and if this person had relied on and

trusted their recommendations he would likely be dead in a few short years

with the â?oconvenientâ?? diagnosis of hepatitis C, rather than the correct

diagnosis of death due to doctor ignorance.

Doctors are the leading cause of death in this country because of their

documented mistakes, but believe me, that is only the tiniest tip of the

iceberg. They are responsible for far more deaths from their ignorance of

basic concepts. Iron overload is certainly one of them, but a lack of

appreciation of the influence of insulin on health is another.

When I finally drew this manâ?Ts ferritin level in my office it was 1000--the

second highest I have ever seen. A good number is 50. Anything above 100

should be treated, and anything above 300 to 400 is normally considered to be

a problem by traditional doctors. So let me provide further expansion on the

relationship between hepatitis C and iron toxicity.

First it is important to gain some perspective on hepatitis C. One study on

the costs of hepatitis C provides a proper perspective, which I list below.

You can also review the CDCâ?Ts hepatitis C information for further information.

Cost & Incidence of Hepatitis C Infection

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) cost the United States about $5.46 billion in 1997.

The estimate puts the cost of HCV on par with the national costs of asthma

and rheumatoid arthritis, two other chronic disorders.

The hepatitis C virus causes inflammation of the liver and is the most common

chronic blood-borne infection in the United States. The virus can be spread

by sex with an infected person, transfusion of infected blood or contaminated

needles. HCV is the most common cause of liver transplantation in the United

States, the study notes.

The investigators, from the University of California at Medical Center

in Sacramento, believe that the cost of HCV infection justifies requests for

increased funding to expand efforts directed at prevention, screening,

treatment and research.

Although HCV infection is not as costly as HIV infection, which in 1992 was

estimated to cost $30 billion, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

estimates that:

HCV-related mortality could triple within the next 10 to 20 years.

According to the report, HCV infection that results in chronic liver disease

accounts for about 92 percent of the costs while infection that leads to

primary liver cancer accounts for the remaining eight percent of costs.

How to Properly Diagnose Iron Overload

Iron overload, or hemochromatosis, is actually the most common inherited

disease. You can find out all the technical details from reading my article

on how to diagnose iron overload.

Iron has been known to be associated with infection for 30 years.[1] [2] [3]

It appears that iron chelators have great potential to become an important

tool for fighting bacterial and viral infections.[4] When excess iron is

present, the bodyâ?Ts normal antibacterial mechanisms become severely

compromised.[5] [6] [7]

I am certain that high iron levels are what contributed to this person coming

down with hepatitis C. Was the solution for him interferon? Absolutely not.

The interferon itself may have killed him. It in no way, shape or form

addressed the problem of excess iron, which was causing severe damage in his

liver and creating massive amounts of free radicals.

Treatment for Iron Toxicity

If you were to listen to traditional medicine the only solution for iron

overload is to donate a pint of blood every two weeks. This is not a very

effective solution and may require many years before it works as up to 50

therapeutic phlebotomies may be necessary.

Measuring iron levels is a very important part of optimizing your health.

However, simply measuring serum iron, as I said earlier, is a poor way to do

this. Frequently the serum iron will be normal. The most useful of the

indirect measures of iron status in the body is through a measure of the

serum ferritin level in conjunction with a total iron binding level.

If you find elevated serum ferritin levels, you do not have to perform

therapeutic phlebotomies. A simple extract from rice bran called phytic acid,

or IP6, can serve as a very effective form of iron chelation that is

non-toxic, inexpensive and can be done without a prescription.

Tsuno Food & Rice Company of Wakayama, Japan is the only manufacturer of IP6

in the world; any brand you purchase would come from this company. Since it

is all the same product, the least expensive brand is probably the best one

to choose, and Jarrow seems to have the best prices.

Iron chelators have also been used in the treatment of one of the most common

infections in the world, malaria.[8] Over 200 million people are infected

every year with the malaria parasite, and over 1 million die from the

infection. IP6 was used over 15 years ago to treat malaria,[9] but there is a

lack of recent trials on its use. This may be because IP6 only became

commercially available in 1998.

[Guest guest]

On Thu, 3 Apr 2003, CountryGirl wrote:

> I thought this was interesting to this list because of the phytic acid/ Ip-6

issue. I

> thought phytic acid was bad for you? Isn't phytic acid one of the bad things

in grains?

>

> Donna

That certainly was an interesting article. My understanding was that we

avoid phytic acid because it binds with various minerals and makes them

unavailable to us. Obviously in this case, binding with iron would be a

helpful way of reducing its availability, but my question is what about

the other minerals it affects? In the process of reducing excess iron

levels, wouldn't one also risk deficiencies in zinc, etc? I worry about

excess iron a lot, because it's just everywhere and so many

nutrient-dense foods have a Fe/Zn ratio over 1. Some foods with a Fe/Zn

ratio less than 1 are oysters, eel, squid, some types of fish, muscle meats

of most livestock: beef, chicken, lamb, veal, goat, pork, and deer (depending

on the cut?), various milks (except that the levels of Fe an Zn are too

small to be relevant), and others I don't know about. Among the dozens of plant

foods

I've looked up USDA data for, the only ones I've ever found a Fe/Zn ratio of

less than 1 for are brazil nuts, pecans, and rye. Does anybody know of

any other plant foods that favor Zn? Among animal foods, it seems that there's

a fairly

even split between those less than and greater than 1, with most between .5 and

2,

and only a few dramatic imbalances (oysters, beef spleen, pork liver, pork

spleen,

veal spleen, etc). I've often wondered if the Fe/Zn ratios in plant foods

constitute

one of the better arguments for eating animal foods. It seems pretty easy to

have healthy Zn and Fe levels eating a varied diet of ordinary foods

with a decent amount of meat, but on the other hand it seems pretty

difficult to get enough Zn eating only plant foods.

Mike