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In This Issue:
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- What one person can do!!
- Intuniv - what is it anyway?
- Lazy Larry brownies - not for kids
- What is Thiamine Mononitrate?
- MS & Additives
- Hungary plows under 1000 acres
- Forum for Australians
- DDR: Coming events
- Cookbook II is here
- Ant attack?
- Red 40 - ready for the
prescription pad?
- No shots, no school? Not really
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For Australians
I have been asked to create a Message Board/Forum for people in other countries - our International Members. Since the person requesting it was in Australia, that is the first one I have prepared. If you live "down under," see your new forum by signing in to the International Section (if you forgot your password, just register again - it's easy).
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It's here!
Volume II is hot off the press!! All of you who made advance orders will be receiving yours shortly, and if you waited, now is a good time to order. See you in the Shopping Cart!
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Ant attack?
Tiny "sugar" ants can ruin your day when they invade your kitchen, your bathroom, or wherever.
Here is an easy relatively non-toxic (to us) way to get rid of them.
Make a solution of 1 tsp boric acid (Roach Prufe from Ace Hardware), and 10 tsp table sugar in 2 cups of lukewarm water. Then, put a piece of folded-up paper towel or a cotton ball in an empty tea light candle base (shown in the foreground) or any other little jar lid. Add enough of the solution to soak the towel or cotton ball, and place the container on the path the little critters made. Make sure that you prepare the area so that other animals or children will not have access to the solution - hopefully your ants have been considerate enough to make their path out of reach of little hands.
Within a day, ants will be crawling all over the solution, having a party. Leave them be! They haul the poison back home and in another day they all became invisible. Not a trace. Actually, the recipe above will probably give you enough solution to treat the entire neighborhood, so feel free to adjust the recipe to a smaller total amount.
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Another dye ready for the prescription pad?
We have talked about Blue #1 and its use to prevent paralysis in spinal damage (See August 2009 eNews in the archives).
Now, you are the first to hear about a brand new possible use for Red 40: as a treatment for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is as nasty an infection as anyone can get.
Recently posted on a MRSA discussion forum, an adult woman drinking soda containing Red 40 found that she had more energy and felt better throughout the day. Rather than hyper, she reported feeling calm, less jittery, and better able to concentrate. After drinking a cup or two of the red soda every day for almost a week, she reported the infections themselves actually showed signs of healing, as well.
She wishes a scientist would study Red 40 as a treatment for MRSA; she would love to have a better idea of how much to take, how often, etc.
We would be happy, too, to find a proper use for Red 40. Dr. Feingold always did say that these FD&C dyes were chemically similar to drugs, not foods.
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Exemption Forms
No shots, no school?
Not really
It is back to school time and, once again, schools and the media are talking about school vaccine requirements.
The Feingold Association believes you have the right to receive accurate information about all things relating to your children, and shots are no exception. Whether you choose to vaccinate your children, and with what, should be your decision, based on your family history, health, beliefs, and experience, just like any other medical decision.
You are asked for your written permission for even the most minor surgical procedure, and you are duly informed of all possible side effects and risks of any treatment or test - except for shots, where things are different. In fact, it is backwards - and if you don't agree, you have to do the legwork to find exemption forms.
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) has sent me the AAP information for doctors, with a suggested form for parents to sign. The paper allows doctors to change the wording, and I have personally seen forms from two local doctors, in which the parent is asked to admit being a "negligent parent." This looks risky, and the NVIC says parents have sometimes reported that child protective services were called after they had signed such a paper.
One parent showed me a form on which he had crossed out the offending words, writing in "All current and future decisions about vaccinations for my child will be made with my child's best interests in mind."
Actually, you are not legally required to sign it at all, although you may find yourself looking for another pediatrician.
Moreover, the doctor's form is not a legal exemption, and you still have to find and sign a proper exemption form for school.
The NVIC has compiled information about each state's requirements. There, if you click on your own state, you will see the rules and be able to download proper exemption forms as needed.
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Time to
Renew?
If you have not
been receiving Pure Facts, you may have let your subscription lapse.
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If your family has
benefited from the Feingold Program, please remember us when it's time to give
to
charity.
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What one person can do!!
When a Feingold mom gets started, miracles can happen!
Lori Cornell recently started working as a part time marketing consultant for the Labyrinth Press Company, a restaurant/coffeehouse in downtown Jamestown, NY. She tells us that the fabulous owner, Jeff James, has always taken pains to make sure what he serves his customers is what he would want for his own family. With Lori's help, he decided to ensure that his entire menu (minus a few adult coffee drinks) is completely Feingold-friendly. This restaurant is now a great option for Feingold families in the Jamestown area!
See article to share with friends, post on your Facebook, etc.
Intuniv - what is it anyway?
You've seen it advertised all over the place as a treatment for ADHD - either instead of or in addition to stimulant medications. Is it safe? Does it really work? And how does it work?
In your brain and all over your body, nerves have little spots called receptors which wait for chemicals called neurotransmitters to come along. The receptors can be either activated or blocked by the chemicals that attach to them.
| The Feingold Association believes that parents should be given complete, accurate information about all of the options available for treating ADHD.
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Intuniv (guanfacine) is in a class of medications called "centrally acting alpha2A-adrenergic receptor agonists." Basically, Intuniv activates alpha-2A norepinephrine receptors in certain parts of the prefrontal cortex of the brain, and this improves attention abilities. It also activates the same receptors in other parts of the central nervous system as well, lowering blood pressure. (When used for blood pressure, it is called Tenex.)
Used with stimulant medications, Intuniv may counteract the tendency of stimulants to raise blood pressure. Used at night, it may help the child sleep (again, difficulty sleeping may be a side effect of stimulants). Because it has a very long (17 hours) half-life, it seems useful in preventing nightmares as well.
There is some controversy over its usefulness in treating tics, but it is often used for ADHD instead of stimulants in an effort to prevent tics. It can also be used for treating anxiety or panic disorders, where stimulants are generally not appropriate.
Intuniv may thus possibly be a helpful "bandaid" treatment for children who do not quickly respond to the Feingold diet because of elevated heavy metals, elevated yeast, unusual nutritional imbalance, or other medical problems which take some time to uncover.
 Ingredients:
Intuniv has a list of ingredients not immediately recognizable by the layman:
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Active ingredient: guanfacine hydrochloride
- Inactive ingredients: hypromellose, methacrylic acid copolymer,
lactose, povidone, crospovidone, microcrystalline cellulose, fumaric
acid, and glycerol behenate.
In addition, the 3mg and 4mg tablets also
contain green pigment blend PB-1763.
Hidden dyes:
I called Shire, who makes this drug, and asked what green pigment blend PB-1763 is. The very nice man I spoke with didn't know, but promised to find out. He called me back the next day to let me know that this color blend contains FD&C Blue 2 aluminum lake and yellow iron oxide. The iron oxide would not be a problem for a Feingolder, but the Blue 2 would be. The 1 mg and 2 mg pills are colored beige from the hypromellose, which is a chemical used in foods instead of gelatin. In Europe, it is called E-464. See more . . . So, if you must use Intuniv, ask for the 1 mg or 2 mg and adjust the doses as needed by combining them rather than using the larger synthetically-colored pills.
Safety & Efficacy:
The safety of this drug has not been studied in children under six. There have only been two (2) studies on Intuniv alone and one (1) study on its use with psychostimulant drugs in children aged 6 to 17. No patients who weighed less than 55 pounds were included in any of the studies, and no studies were longer than 9 weeks. In fact, since it took several weeks to raise the dose and several more to taper it off at the end, the children were maintained at the full dose for only a few weeks in each study, so one cannot really say that they were "on the drug" for the full 9 weeks.
No controlled studies of this drug have ever been done for longer than nine (9) weeks. See the details at Section 14 of the prescribing information which Shire provides to physicians. Patient counseling information is provided in Section 17 at the end.
Side effects:
From the ads, one would think this is a very safe drug, but remember who writes the ads.
Common side effects: Dizziness, drowsiness, headache, depression, constipation, gas pains, stomach pain, diarrhea, loss of appetite, fatigue, nasal congestion.
Rare side effects: Chest pain, shortness of breath, skin rash, swelling of the hands or feet, blurred vision, yellowing of the eyes or skin (jaundice).
Others: Mental or mood changes, tingling of the hands or feet, dry mouth, impotence, decreased sexual desire, vision changes, taste changes, ringing in the ears, leg cramps.
Cardiovascular (heart) effects: Low blood pressure upon standing up (don't jump up), dizziness, palpitations, tachycardia (heart beating too fast), bradycardia (heart beating too slow).
If you have any of the side effects listed above, tell your doctor. Rebound high blood pressure may happen if you stop taking this medicine quickly, so Shire recommends stopping it only by gradually tapering it off under the guidance of a physician.
Lazy Larry brownies
- "not for kids"
I have memories from some 60 years ago, of my old Uncle Arthur who used to take "uppers" and "downers" trying to regulate his energy and fatigue, who would end up in such a fog he usually had no idea what was going on around him. I never knew exactly what killed him ... he just sort of faded out of my life.
These old memories came back when I read the recent issue of the Food Navigator newsletter, which reports that the market for energy drinks is booming even in our current economy - but these energy-drink-fueled people sometimes need to relax. The solution: Brownies laced with melatonin, a neurohormone (hormone produced and released by neurons) involved in the daily sleep cycle.
Now, we have nothing specific against the proper use of melatonin, and some of us are of the same 1960's generation that used to wind down with brownies containing marijuana (not me, of course) ... but the idea of an energy drink with a melatonin-brownie chaser just doesn't sit well with your editor. Apparently, it doesn't sit so well with the FDA, either, and on July 28, 2011, they sent the brownie makers a warning letter that these brownies cannot be marketed as "conventional foods" while containing ingredients (melatonin, valerian root and passion flower) not approved as food additives. The manufacturer is sure that with a little packaging manipulation, by changing the name from "Lazy Cakes" to "Lazy Larry," and by encouraging stores to place them next to the energy drink "supplements," they will satisfy the FDA. They have already sold over 2,000,000 boxes of the stuff in the past six months. See the August 2 article in the Dallas Morning News, and the August 4 article in the Food Navigator. And don't miss the Lazy Larry website itself ... its authors are so very lazy that they have at least five spelling and grammar errors in the three little paragraphs on their home page. Their claim that "A dozen of these individually wrapped chocolate brownies and you should be good to go for 2 weeks of relaxation and pleasant times" brings to mind the soma of Brave New World fame.
Poor Uncle Arthur ... you used to spend your time swallowing pills, when you could have had so much more fun guzzling caffeine drinks and eating brownies!!
What is Thiamine Mononitrate?
One of our moms wrote in asking about the "Thiamine Mononitrate" that appears on many products, as well as in multivitamins, etc. Her child is sensitive to nitrates, and they already avoid items marked in the Foodlist with an "N" for nitrites/nitrates. But this chemical had newly appeared on the ingredient list of a product the child used to tolerate - and now she reacts to it. Could this be a problem?
Actually, Thiamine Mononitrate is a version of Vitamin B1 and is an important vitamin which is often added to flour (especially since the natural B-vitamins are removed when wheat is processed into white flour). It is not usually a problem. However, it does have the "nitrate" word in it, so I sent the question on to one of our volunteers who also has a degree in chemistry. Here is his answer:
"Thiamine Mononitrate is, from what I've been able to gather, a synthetic form of thiamine used in vitamin supplements, flour, etc. It seems that its widespread use is due to its stability and low cost relative to the more biologically active form, Thiamine Pyrophosphate. I have found various articles claiming that Thiamine Mononitrate is less useful and more dangerous than Thiamine Pyrophosphate, but I don't know how reliable they are.
If you suspect a problem with thiamine mononitrate, avoid products with the additive for awhile and see if you notice a difference.
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"Nothing I found on the Internet indicates that Thiamine Mononitrate decomposes into Nitrosamines, but nothing says it doesn't, either, and chemical reactions don't always follow what you'd expect from how the compound is named or even what it's made out of.
"That said, I don't see how it wouldn't break down into Nitrosamines since it's the Nitrate part of the salt of other Nitrates that breaks down into Nitrite and then becomes Nitrosamine. So while I can't tell you definitively either way, it would appear that Thiamine Mononitrate can (theoretically) cause the same problems as Sodium Nitrate. How much is present in the product may make a difference, of course. Here is the most reliable resource I found on Thiamine Mononitrate."
MS & Additives
Myelin is a fatty substance surrounding the axons of neurons (nerves) that insulates the nervous system and protects it from damage. Multiple sclerosis is caused by a misfiring immune system that attacks the myelin of the spinal cord and the brain. The disease was first described in 1869, and some believed from the beginning that it is related to increasing toxins in the environment.
Because of its inflammatory nature, however, scientists have been looking for a micro-organism - a bacterium or a virus - but they have never found it. Moreover, an inflammation caused by a micro-organism is usually accompanied by an elevated sedimentation rate, an increase of white blood cells, etc., but such blood changes have never been found in MS. Nevertheless, some websites continue to say there is a virus in there somewhere, possibly interacting with a genetic predisposition.
Cytochrome P450
According to Dr. Anne G. Maas, MD, and neurologist L.A.H. Hogenhuis, MD, there is evidence that the activity of cytochrome P450 (a family of enzymes) is abnormal in MS. They have found that if MS patients do not consume substances that are normally metabolised with the aid of P450, the MS will remain stable. They have devised a diet which you can see here. It is remarkably similar to the Stage One Feingold Program. Besides foods or additives that require P450, a number of toxins directly disrupt the system and should be avoided by everybody, but especially by those already ill: Caffeine, alcohol, dioxin, saturated fats, organophosphorus pesticides, paint fumes, sulfonamides, exhaust fumes, cigarette smoke, and barbiturates.
Several studies seem to support their findings, although comparative diet studies cannot easily be done.
Sulfation
In a 1996 article on sulfation in degenerative disease, Dr. Stephen McFadden said there are genetic differences in the way different people handle sulfation of foreign chemicals such as additives. He said that impaired sulfation may be related to degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, motor neuron disease, rheumatoid arthritis, delayed food sensitivity, multiple chemical sensitivity, and diet responsive autism. He concluded that it "may be a factor in the success of the Feingold diet." (McFadden 1996)
Would we recommend that people with MS, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's go on the Feingold diet? We don't know if it will help, or how much it might help - but it wouldn't hurt. If you have any illness related to neurological damage, it certainly makes sense to avoid additives we already know are expected to damage neurons (see the Lau 2006 study).
I can't let the subject go by without mentioning a 2010 study in Iran showing that Vitamins E and D3 both appear to repair the myelin in rats (Goudarzvant 2010). The authors suggest these vitamins be given to people with demyelinating diseases such as MS. However, the amount of Vitamins E and D3 used on the rats is reported in "mg/kg" rather than "IU," so a doctor or pharmacist should be consulted on how to convert these to human dosage.
Hungary plows under 1,000 acres!
In March, Hungary decided not to use genetically modified (GMO) crops; nevertheless, some GMO corn seeds made it to farmers and got planted before being discovered. How the seeds got there was not discussed in the article, but Hungary destroyed 1,000 acres of the corn, plowing it under before the pollen could be spread.
It seems very drastic, considering that most American corn is GMO, and we are all more or less okay. Aren't we?
Dr. Mercola speculates on why GMO seeds are banned in Hungary, as well as several other European countries, such as Germany and Ireland, and why Monsanto isn't happy about it.
See article . . .
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From the Mailbox
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From an old member in IN -
Dr Rupp identified our daughters sensitivity to Red 40 and then we found Feingold online. This "discovery" has helped us to empower our daughter (now 8 yrs old) so that we can make better choices.
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Renewing from AR -
Our first renewal and worth every penny. After finding this program right at the beginning of the last school year, our son has had major improvements in his behavior. Thanks so much!
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Renewing from FL -
It is absolutely amazing to have my life back and I owe much of it to the Feingold Program! Please include shopping books for FL, HI and CT.
Thank you!
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Renewing from NY -
I completely LOVE the Feingold program!!! It has saved our family! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!!
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Renewing from Canada -
We find the Feingold Program to be very effective for our three boys.
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Renewing from NY -
Renewing but first read about your program in Jenny McCarthy's book on Autism. I tell everyone I know about it. Can't believe so few people are aware!
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Coming in the September 2011 PURE FACTS:
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A new approach for teachers and parents. One professional (who was a very difficult child) has discovered a remarkable way to reach the most challenging kids.
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So you think your cosmetics don't have synthetic dyes? Think again!
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The hot school lunch -- it's not so hot after all.
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How to locate Feingold-friendly foods, and save money too!
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Coming Attraction!!
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 The Holiday Gift Baskets will
be available again this year, and for the first time we will be offering a choice of Stage One only, or Stage One-and-Two, baskets!
We have many new donations
and will begin to take orders
on November 1st. More details
coming soon.
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Developmental Delay Resources - Coming Events
