Keeping ourselves healthy today is no easy task. Besides the daily stresses of life, our food has become nutrient-deficient and contaminated with pesticides from large-scale, chemical agriculture. During the last 50 years, many billions of pounds of toxic and radioactive chemicals have been released into the environment. There is not a single living thing on earth that does not have residues of these poisons intruding into its cells. Making the earth's inhabitants healthy again will require that we turn away from the use of toxic and radioactive materials, find safe alternatives, and eliminate waste from our industrial and commercial processes.

But for now, we need to find ways to protect ourselves and our families from the intrusion, as best we can. There are ways that we can live healthy lives while we clean up the earth for future generations. The regimen presented below goes a long way in enabling you to live the full human health span - to 100 or more - by preventing heart disease and dramatically reducing the chances of other chronic diseases such as cancer.

Step by Step Introduction to the
Natural Health Maintenance Regimen

When you first look at the array of nutritional supplements that you need to take, it may seem overwhelming. Let’s approach this step by step.

 Buying nutritional supplements

Most of the supplements in the Natural Health Maintenance Regimen are available at most vitamin and health food stores. All of them can be ordered online using the Internet, such as at VitaminShoppe.com.

Look at the regimen carefully. The first section is mandatory for maintaining health. The next section is optional but recommended for optimal health. The third is a short section on reducing allergies. You should decide, based on your budget and the current state of your health, whether you want to purchase all the nutrients or only the mandatory ones. Buy a few weeks’ supply of each nutrient so that you don’t suddenly run out. It is important to take the regimen consistently.

Get a large, sectioned vitamin box so that you have a handy way of getting each supplement without having a large collection of bottles on the table.

For each supplement in the therapy, there is a total daily intake. Divide these up among your meals, and prepare a checklist so you know which ones to take at each meal.

Start slowly and build up. You don’t need to start all at once unless you are currently ill. It will take some getting used to taking this many supplements with your food.

In week 1, you can start by taking 1 gram (1000 milligrams) of vitamin C and 1 gram (1000 mg) of lysine and proline at each meal, a Calcium-Magnesium supplement and a zinc/copper supplement at breakfast and supper, and the multivitamin/multimineral capsule. Be sure to drink at least two quarts of non-caffeinated liquids per day.

In week 2, you can increase the amount of vitamin C and lysine and proline at each meal to 2 grams at each meal and begin taking the rest of the required supplements.

In week 3 you can start taking the optional nutrients you have decided to add, if any.

The Natural Regimen for Maintaining Health

Backdrop: Heart disease is universal

This may come as a shock. In 1997 the largest heart study ever undertaken came up with a startling and inescapable conclusion: by the time we are twelve years old many of us have heart disease, serious enough to see serious plaques in our coronary arteries. How can this be so?

Nutritional deficiencies from birth onwards

The heart researchers in Bogalusa, Louisiana did not have an adequate answer to why this was so. The answer had, unbeknownst to them, been discovered by Matthias Rath and Linus Pauling in 1992. Our bodies need large amounts of vitamin C to continually repair our artery walls. Most animals don’t have a problem with this, because they produce their own. Humans do not. We need to eat it to survive, and unfortunately the government long ago came up with a Minimum Daily Requirement which is just that – just enough to survive (and not get scurvy and bleed to death internally).

It is not enough for the continual maintenance of our arteries, so our body generates internal “band-aids” of a protein called lipoprotein(a) to cover up the places where they needed repair. Since our hearts are constantly moving, the “band-aids” get constantly moved, so new ones form, eventually forming a “plaque” of lipoprotein(a).

A good health maintenance regimen is also a heart disease preventive regimen

The regimen below has the necessary nutrients to prevent lipoprotein(a) plaques from forming in your cardiovascular system, rebuild and repair your arteries naturally and properly and to strengthen your heart.

This regimen also provides your body with the nutrients it needs to build your immune system to fight off colds and flu, protect you from cancer, preserve and enhance nerve and cellular membranes, and maintain eye health. It is based on research from several sources: the Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine (Michael Murray and Joseph Pizzorno), heart disease research from Matthias Rath and Linus Pauling, the viral and cancer research of Matthias Rath, eyesight nutrients from Julian Whitaker, and components for maintaining brain health from Dharma Singh Khalsa.

Please take this regimen in divided doses – 1/3 of the daily dose with each meal,  If you have difficulty swallowing pills and capsules, I suggest purchasing the supplements in capsule form (or powder form, if available) and then emptying the capsules and mixing with a blender into a soy (e.g., Spirutein non-GMO or Naturade organic), whey, or other protein shake, 1/4 cup, mixed in organic soy milk (e.g., White Wave Silk brand).

The regimen is for adult body weight of about 150 lbs. For children, adjust according to their body weight, for instance, for a 50-lb child give 1/3 of the dosages.

I recommend that you obtain your supplements from a reputable online vitamin company such as iherb.com or from Vitamin Shoppe stores. 

a.       Vitamin C - 6 grams (6000 mg) per day, 2000 mg per meal. Follow all doses with food or something that will coat your stomach, such as soy drink. If your stomach is very sensitive, you can use calcium ascorbate, which is 10% calcium, so you can reduce your amount of calcium supplementation below.

b.      Lysine, Proline, and Glycine – 6 grams (6000 mg) each per day, 2000 mg per meal. These amino acids are the primary building blocks of collagen and cartilage. All three are natural protease inhibitors, so they inhibit bacteria and cancer cells from obtaining a foothold. Lysine and proline, when used with vitamin C, are natural cardiovascular chelators – they actually remove plaques from your artery walls. All three are available in powder form, so they can be mixed up with a protein drink.

c.       Calcium/magnesium - 1000-2000 mg calcium, 500-1000 mg magnesium, per day. Most people don’t get enough of these essential minerals. Begin at the lower dosages. If you encounter muscle cramps day or night, increase to the higher dosages. When you have blood work done by your doctor, make sure he or she checks the levels of these minerals, and increase accordingly if deficient.

d.      High-dosage multivitamin/multimineral complex per day. This supplements the amounts you get in food. As mentioned above, much of our food is depleted of these minimum nutrients. Get a supplement mixture that contains 400 IU of vitamin E, such as Nature’s Way Daily Two.

e.       Beta Carotene – 50,000 - 100,000 IU per day, in 2 doses. Your body makes vitamin A from beta carotene, a natural substance extracted from carrots and other yellow and orange vegetables. This is the safest way to obtain vitamin A, since Beta carotene is very safe in extraordinarily large doses, whereas vitamin A oil is toxic in large doses. (A large carrot provides 25,000 IU of beta carotene, if you prefer to get it from its original source. Try to get organically grown carrots.)

f.        Vitamin D3 – 4000 IU per day, unless you are light-skinned and get a half-hour daily of near-full-body sun exposure with no sunscreen (most people don’t do this because of climate, work hours, and/or the skin cancer hazard).

g.       Zinc/Copper – 50 mg/3 mg. Take with soy milk or some food. (Check the zinc and copper content of the multivitamin/multimineral supplement. Take enough to reach about 50 mg/3 mg total.) Zinc is needed for maintaining your immune system, and it must be balanced with copper.

h.       MSM (Methyl Sulfonyl Methane) - 4000-6000 mg per day. MSM is organic sulfur, an essential nutrient that is often depleted from food during cooking. It maintains cell permeability and joint flexibility, and promotes rapid healing. There appears to be no maximum dose, there are anecdotes of doses of 24,000 mg per day taken for healing from injury. Use products marked "Opti-MSM". Please note: if you take MSM and you have amalgam (silver) fillings, you must take chlorella or spirulina, described below. MSM is a powerful mercury chelator.

      Organic Flaxseed oil – 2 tablespoons per day. This provides the correct balance of essential fatty acids for cellular and neural membrane health.

i.         Keep fluid levels high by drinking 2-4 quarts (8 to 16 cups, 2-4 liters) of non-caffeinated fluid per day. This is essential both for the high vitamin intake and also to flush toxins out of the body. Organic green tea is a good drink for maintaining health. Organic green tea is a good drink for this.

j.        If you have amalgam (“silver”) fillings: Chlorella powder - 2000-3000 mg about 20 minutes before every meal. Chlorella safely removes heavy metals from the intestinal tract. (Some people are intolerant to chlorella. If this is the case for you, try using spirulina or one of the many "green food" powders available at health food stores.)

k.      If you do not eat fish or seaweed (such as kombu), add Kelp tablets that provide at least 150 ug (micrograms) of iodine per day, unless your multivitamin/multimineral supplies it.

l.         If you decide to pursue a vegetarian or vegan diet or for other reasons need to supplement your protein intake (you should have 50-70 grams of high quality protein per day) try soy protein drink powder, non-GMO or organic, such as Spirutein non-GMO or Naturade Organic – 1/4 cup with 8 fl. oz. (250 ml) organic soy milk, such as Silk or Whole Foods, 2-3 times daily. iherb.com sells a NOW Foods non-gmo soy protein drink that is about one-half the price of the others, but it has no flavoring, so you will need to add fruit or fruit juice.

m.     For stress, anxiety, and depression: Try 5-HTP, a natural anti-depression and anti-anxiety herb. (Note: Do not use 5-HTP if you are already taking an SSRI anti-depressant drug such as Prozac, Paxil, or Zoloft.) Safe dosages range from 50 mg per day to 900 mg per day, start at 50 mg and increase gradually. Pick up Dr. Michael Murray’s book, “5-HTP”, available at Amazon.com.

Optional components for optimum health as you age:

n.       Aloe gel - drink 1-2 fluid ounces per day to enhance the health of your alimentary canal. Drink 8 fluid ounces per day (2-3 ounces after each meal) if you have stomach or intestinal problems, until they are resolved. This is a safe, inexpensive remedy for “acid reflux.”

o.      Fish Oil capsules or liquid – 2400-3200 mg EPA per day, must be pharmaceutical grade, such as Nordic Naturals, Carlson or Natural Factors, to limit mercury and PCB contamination. Maintains brain health.

p.      Ginkgo Biloba – 120-240 mg per day for increasing and maintaining blood flow in the brain and extremities, to maintain brain health.

q.      Grape seed extract (95% proanthocyanidins): 100-300 mg/day. This antioxidant works with vitamin C to rid your body of free radicals

r.        Lutein – 10-20 mg per day helps to prevent cataracts and eye degeneration.

s.       Bilberry – 300 mg per day helps retain visual acuity.

t.        Lecithin – 2 tablespoons of granules per day. This extract from soybeans provides the raw materials to maintain neural membrane health.

      Pantothenic Acid – 500 mg per day. Taken together with lecithin this nutrient enhances the body’s ability to manufacture acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter involved in memory, thought, and muscle function.

 u.     Niacinamide - 3000 mg per day. Recent studies have shown that this form of vitamin B3 can prevent the onset of Alzheimers Dimentia.

v.       Acetyl-l-carnitine – 1500 mg per day. Another acetylcholine enhancer for optimum brain health, helps the heart muscle as well.

w.     Decaffeinated Green Tea Extract – 2-4 grams (2000-4000 mg) per day. Green tea polyphenols are powerful anti-bacterial and anti-viral agents. It must be decaffeinated, because otherwise green tea extract is 50% caffeine! A good brand is Life Extension Mega Tea Extract, Decaffeinated, available at iherb.com and other online stores. Special Note: pregnant women should not take green tea extract.

If you have allergic symptoms or inflammation:

x.       Ginger: 1000-4000 mg per day with meals.

y.       Turmeric Extract (Curcumin): 1000-4000 mg per day. Must be taken with meals. Curcumin is a natural anti-inflammatory, and also has a powerful anti-cancer and anti-viral effect.

z.       Quercetin: 800 mg three times a day, about 20 minutes before each meal. Quercetin is a natural anti-histamine. It is often sold combined with bromelain, which is an excellent natural anti-inflammatory.

Important Note and Disclaimer

Jonathan Campbell is a health and environment researcher and consultant. He is not a physician, and the information, suggestions, and recommendations that he provides are not prescriptions. When you pursue alternative remedies, you are taking full responsibility for your own health decisions, and it is recommended that you consult with a physician with adequate testing laboratory to perform regular checkups and blood tests. This is especially the case if you currently take pharmaceutical drugs, as your dosage requirements will likely change as your body heals.

Acute Illness Regimen

 No regimen, no matter how perfect, can prevent you from coming in contact with the millions of viruses and bacteria that are everywhere, both in the human population but sometimes also, unfortunately, in our food.

By using a Natural Health Regimen, you are preparing your body to defend itself against these disease carriers, by building up the immune system. There are steps you can take if you do get ill to help your immune system respond very quickly and help you become well again in very little time.

1.      Vitamin C - When you are ill – infected with a virus or bacteria – your immune system is using vitamin C much faster than normal, so you can increase your dosage dramatically. I have personal experience in my bowel tolerance being above 30 grams per day; I was able to take 3 grams every HOUR while I was ill, and the illness (the recent and famous Norwalk flu) lasted less than a day.

2.      If it is a stomach or intestine related virus or bacteria, oregano oil and olive leaf extract are effective antibiotics, at 1000-2000 mg per day (I usually don’t recommend brands, but in this case I recommend GAIA Herbs). I used these to stop the Norwalk flu from having any of its horrible symptoms (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea). Important note: pregnant women should not take oregano oil.

3.      Ginger capsules, or even better, ginger oil capsules such as New Chapter Ginger Force. These are useful when the virus or bacteria causes nausea or diarrhea, since ginger is an anti-inflammatory and relaxant. (Ginger is as effective as pharmaceutical drugs for motion sickness.)

4.      If the virus or bacteria seems to be getting the better of your immune system and you get pneumonia or for some other reason you don’t think your body is responding adequately, you should consider getting one or more vitamin C intravenous infusions of 35-50 grams. Clinics that offer chelation – removal of heavy metals or as a cardiovascular remedy – often also offer intravenous vitamin C infusions. (In the US: in New England, this is offered by the Marino Center in Cambridge, Mass; in California, check with Dr. Robert Cathcart at http://www.orthomed.com; in the Midwest, Dr. Hugh Riordan offers these treatments at http://www.brightspot.org.)

5.      Overcoming an acute illness takes a tremendous amount of energy. Be sure to keep up your healthy food intake (use easily digested protein such as soy shakes) and get lots of rest. This may sound obvious, but there are many people today who attempt to work and go through their daily routine even when they are ill. This is not the way to heal quickly from illness.

Nutritional Recommendations

First and foremost, eat further down on the “food chain.” The bottom of this “food chain” is grains, beans, vegetables, and fruit. At the very top of the food chain are the meat-eating animals such as birds of prey and large fish. Toxic chemicals accumulate and concentrate in the fat of animals and fish in hundreds, thousands, or even millions of times greater concentration than in (or on) the food eaten by these animals.

But if we were to eat mostly beans, grain, fruit, and vegetables, the amount of toxic chemicals that would accumulate in our fat cells over a lifetime would be thousands or millions of times less than if we eat mostly meat, milk and fish. Today, because of chemical contamination in meat, this is important for healthy living. It is best to avoid meat if possible. But if you find that a vegetarian diet isn't for you, focus on naturally-raised chicken and turkey and wild-caught fish for your high-protein meals, and avoid red meat.

Organically-grown foods at the bottom of the food chain have no significant chemical contamination. It is quite possible to obtain all the protein you need - about 50-70 grams of complete protein per day - by eating vegetarian foods and meat substitutes made of grain and beans. The demand for these vegetarian foods has become so great that many of them are quite tasty; no more do you need to figure out what to do with plain tofu to make it palatable.

Soy milk products such as White Wave Silk, Edensoy and Westsoy are quite decent, tasty substitutes for milk. If you like to cook, there are hundreds of excellent vegetarian and vegan (non-dairy vegetarian) cookbooks. Classic Mexican dishes such as tacos and burritos with no meat or cheese, and Chinese and Japanese tofu dishes served with rice are examples of excellent-tasting high-protein vegetarian meals.

Soy protein drinks such as Spirutein and soy vegetarian burgers are ideal for boosting protein intake; choose the non GMO or organic varieties in order to reduce exposure to pesticides. Eat lots of fresh vegetables and fruit. As with soy, buy organic food (if it is within your budget) to reduce pesticide exposure.

As much as possible, avoid ingestion of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals, such as prescribed and over-the-counter pharmaceutical medications (Tylenol, allergy medications, sulfa drugs, etc.), diet drinks containing Aspartame (NutraSweet) or Saccharin. There are natural remedies that substitute for virtually any pharmaceutical medication. If you want to avoid sugar, use Stevia, a safe, natural non-caloric sweetener. (The makers of NutraSweet have prevented this safe product from being used in soft drinks and other products.)

Please do not get vaccinated for influenza or any common disease. Vaccines are ineffective at best and very harmful at worst. They are often preserved with thimerosal, a neurotoxic mercury compound.

Reduce ingestion of recreational or addictive drugs. All psychoactive drugs disrupt cell metabolism, and many of them are immunosuppressive, that is, they suppress or destroy the immune system. (This is especially true of intravenous drugs.)

Reduce smoking and alcohol consumption. Cigarette "tar" (benzopyrene) is a powerful carcinogen and both it and nicotine are cytotoxic. Both smoking and drinking harm the immune system. Alcohol and nicotine damage the nervous system.

Obtain and read other information about natural health, such as the Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine by Michael Murray and Joseph Pizzorno. The human body can heal and maintain itself, given proper nutrition and environment.

Exercise daily – take half an hour each day to get some moderate exercise. (If you are already in good health, aerobic exercise such as bicycling, swimming, or exercise on a cross-training machine is best.)

 Learn gentle yoga and meditation. This is the best way to deal with stress.

The Natural Health Regimen:

Frequently Asked Questions

Who should use this therapy?

This regimen can be used by anyone. If administered to children, the amounts should be scaled down according to their weight: this regimen is designed for someone weighing at least 100 lbs. So if a child weighs 50 lbs, use half the dosage.

If you have a serious chronic illness, you should consider obtaining and using one of the specialized therapies specifically designed for that illness, and use this regimen as your maintenance regimen.

How does this natural health regimen work?

1.      The core cardiovascular nutrients of the regimen – vitamin C, lysine, and proline – help to remove any lipoprotein(a) plaques from your coronary artery and other arteries all over your body, prevent any plaques from forming, and heal the arteries properly. This will prevent cardiovascular disease.

2.      Vitamin C is needed for proper cholesterol recycling. Healthy amounts of vitamin C will naturally balance your cholesterol counts.

3.      The regimen builds and strengthens your immune system by supplying the raw material (vitamin C and zinc) for building healthy white blood cells, which can identify, surround, and destroy viruses and unhealthy cells. This fortifies the body to fight the viruses directly and strengthens the body against infections.

4.      The therapy contains two potent anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer nutrients – green tea catechins (GTCs) and curcumin. There are many studies showing the effectiveness of these natural anti-inflammatories as anti-cancer and anti-viral agents, yet they are completely non-toxic in enormous quantities since they are common food an drink nutrients. Turmeric is the main ingredient in Indian curries, and green tea has been one of the most popular drinks in China and Japan for thousands of years.

5.      The vitamin C in the regimen acts as a toxin sponge mop. Our bodies are constantly being exposed to toxic chemicals in our food, air, and water. Vitamin C neutralizes many of these toxins into harmless chemicals that are then excreted.

6.      The vitamin C and lysine in the regimen allow your body to quickly rebuild and regenerate connective tissue – collagen – so that you will heal faster from injuries.

7.      If you are using pharmaceutical anti-viral or anti-bacterial drugs, the vitamin C in the regimen reduces side effects of these drugs by removing the toxins produced by their action in the body.

8.      The gingko biloba in the regimen increases peripheral circulation, including to neurons in the brain and elsewhere. This helps to reduce or prevent brain aging and maintain sexual libido.

Is this health regimen safe?

The health regimen nutrients are ordinary food nutrients. There are no side effects (other than better health)!

Vitamin C is an essential nutrient needed for dozens of cellular systems – tissue reconstruction and regeneration, cholesterol recycling, and white blood cell creation to name just a few. Most animals produce their own, but humans must get it in food or nutritional supplements in large quantities – much larger than the federal RDA – to remain healthy. (For more information about the safety of vitamin C, see the section entitled “Is vitamin C safe?”)

Beta carotene is derived from carrots or other yellow-orange vegetables. It is proven safe in enormous quantities. Your body makes as much vitamin A as it needs from it; vitamin A is needed for healing and to maintain eye health. Any excess of beta carotene is safely excreted.

Lysine is an ordinary amino acid derived from protein such as soybeans. The concentrations provided by the regimen are higher than in normal food, but consider: the semi-solid part of our bodies – mostly made of collagen – is composed primarily of lysine and proline.

As mentioned earlier, curcumin and green tea are common food and drink nutrients.

Aloe juice has been safely used for many years for gastrointestinal problems.

Gingko biloba has been used for many years for helping middle-aged and elderly people maintain brain health.

Does the health regimen interfere with pharmaceutical drugs?

The regimen does not interfere with drugs; in fact, the vitamin C in the regimen reduces the side effects of these drugs by neutralizing toxins produced by their action in your body.

What about other medications and insulin?

If you are currently taking a drug to reduce cholesterol, you will need to have your physician monitor your cholesterol count carefully and frequently when you start the natural therapy, since the regimen (through a different mechanism) also addresses the symptoms of cardiovascular disease. Having a sufficient blood level of vitamin C will naturally reduce and balance your cholesterol count. Cholesterol levels may drop to healthy levels within a few days of your beginning the regimen. To continue taking the same dosage of cholesterol-reducing drugs may be unnecessary and potentially dangerous. You should consider discussing with your physician the possibility of temporarily stopping the prescription drug altogether as you increase your vitamin C intake.

If you are taking other heart or blood-pressure remedies (e.g., beta blocker, calcium channel blocker), ask your doctor to carefully monitor the symptoms that these drugs are supposed to address, and taper off the dosage as your cardiovascular system becomes healthy again on its own.

If you have diabetes, it is imperative that you monitor blood sugar closely and frequently, as your need for insulin will likely decrease. This is especially true in the case of Type II (age-onset) diabetes.

Why don’t most doctors know about this regimen?

This regimen and other natural regimens for health are not known by most doctors because their primary source of information is the pharmaceutical industry, which has no incentive to publicize non-patentable, inexpensive, natural regimens that keep you healthy. Doctors are literally barraged each day with drug company reports, press releases, and free samples. Meanwhile, we are treated to advertisements for expensive new pharmaceutical “remedies” for every little ailment on television and in virtually every newspaper and magazine in the United States, so that we know just which drugs to ask for from our doctors.

These new pharmaceuticals represent many billions of dollars per year in drug company revenue. Thus cheap, non-patentable natural regimens and cures represent a major threat to these companies. This may sound cynical, but revenue and profit are really what drive drug companies. Health is just not profitable.

Is vitamin C safe?

Vitamin C is probably the safest nutritional supplement. In fact there is no toxic dose. It is proven safe in huge quantities. Intravenously it has been in quantities exceeding 200 grams per day with no side effects. Dr. Ian Brighthope of Australia and Dr. Robert Cathcart in California use 100+ gram vitamin C infusions for their AIDS patients, with no adverse effects. Its only “side effect” is mild diarrhea if you take too much orally. Some AIDS patients have taken enormous quantities orally – upwards of 100 grams per day – for extended periods of time, again with no side effects.

Almost all animals on earth produce their own vitamin C, at concentrations between 30 and 300 times as much as the FDA says we need. Humans, monkeys, guinea pigs, and a few other animals have a genetic defect that prevents them from turning blood sugar into ascorbate – vitamin C. When most animals are under stress – when they are scared or ill or exposed to toxins – their internal vitamin C factories go into overdrive and provide this nutrient in very large quantities.

What about the vitamin C scares?

There have been no documented cases of anyone who has ever had adverse side effects from taking very large doses of vitamin C, other than the diarrhea mentioned above, which is simply the indicator that you have exceeded the dose that your body is using. But for many years, the pharmaceutical industry has gone to great lengths to scare people away from vitamin C. These companies have huge investments in expensive prescription drugs that attempt to treat the symptoms of diseases that would be addressed, cured, or prevented easily and cheaply with the same dosage of vitamin C as is found in the blood of most animals.

The scares have accelerated since 1999. One researcher noted finding vitamin C in a cancer tumor, and then reported that vitamin C might induce cancer or interfere with anti-cancer agents.¹³ If he had understood the action of vitamin C against cancer, he would have realized that the vitamin C that he found was contained in leukocytes — our body's natural immune defense mechanism against cancer — that had collected in the tumor to attempt to destroy it!

A few months later, two researchers reported “thickening of the artery wall” from vitamin C, assuming that the arteries were being blocked.¹⁴ In fact, they did not test for blood flow, and if they, too, had understood the action of vitamin C, they would have realized that the thickening was in fact related not to the blocking of the arteries, but rather to the strengthening of the arteries that was due to proper collagen formation.

Finally, in June of 2001 a researcher at a university that receives large amounts of funding from drug companies reported, with great media attention, a test-tube experiment in which he analyzed the action of vitamin C on “peroxidized lipids” (blood fats that had been made toxic by extreme free radical damage) and reported that the resultant compounds might be carcinogenic.¹⁵ This researcher failed to mention that this test tube reaction has been known for several years and that no such reaction has ever been found in animals or humans. He also failed to mention that peroxidized lipids do not form in the first place in a person who takes adequate vitamin C. Finally, he failed to mention that peroxidized lipids are extremely toxic to the body anyway, so that claiming that they turned into something toxic when exposed to vitamin C is misleading at best. This might be equivalent to saying, “When I applied vitamin C to cyanide I got something poisonous.”

It is interesting to note, as has Dr. Matthias Rath, that the timing of these scares coincides with the meetings of the Codex Alimentarius commission of the United Nations. In his public lectures Dr. Rath has pointed out that this commission is strongly influenced by the major pharmaceutical companies.

Safe Testing Protocols for Health

There are many ways that doctors commonly check your health. Most are relatively safe. Others can be quite harmful.

Blood Tests

Blood tests are totally safe, but the usual blood tests done by doctors for cardiovascular disease screening – to measure cholesterol and trigliceride levels – are not actually very useful in tracking cardiovascular health. The only blood test that is at all valuable for cardiovascular disease is the measure of the level of lipoprotein(a), which is a test that is not normally done – you need to request it.

When you have used the Natural Health Regimen consistently for several months, the amount of lipoprotein(a) in your bloodstream should be very small or undetectable. (If you find that you have a large lipoprotein(a) count, you should consider using the Natural Cardiovascular Therapy.)

Your doctor will probably insist on doing a complete cholesterol/trigliceride analysis. If the insurance company is paying the bill, then let him go ahead. It is just not very useful information, because cholesterol does not cause heart disease – lipoprotein(a) does. But since vitamin C stabilizes cholesterol levels naturally, your doctor should be happy with your results.

You might remember from the explanation of the regimen that your body produced lipoprotein(a) and deposited plaques when you had insufficient vitamin C in your bloodstream. Since the Natural Health Regimen supplies large amounts of vitamin C, your body no longer manufactures it.

Electrocardiogram (EKG)

Electrocardiograms are completely safe, non-invasive tests of the electrical activity of your heart. A doctor or heart specialist can tell from an EKG whether your heart is currently pumping correctly, that is, whether there has been any very obvious physical damage to your heart. However, it is not a good measure of whether there are (still) plaques of lipoprotein(a) in the walls of your coronary artery or your aorta or on your heart valves, until there is so much plaque that its function is impaired. A slight improvement of an ordinary EKG is one taken before and during a treadmill stress test, which checks the functioning of your heart during heavy exercise.

Echocardiogram

This is a safe and accurate visual method for checking the overall health and functioning of your heart and its muscle tissue and valves. An ultrasound measuring device, similar to that used to check the health of a growing fetus in pregnant women, is placed on various parts of your chest, and fairly accurate images of your moving, beating heart are displayed for the cardiologist or technician to record. Muscle and beat irregularities are easily detected.

MRI

MRI is the safest procedure that can be used to cardiovascular plaques or other unusual tissue masses in soft tissue and organs.

Modern MRI equipment is as accurate as Computerized Tomography (CT) but does not expose your body to x-rays, which can cause DNA damage and cancer.

Harmful techniques and procedures:

1.      Angiogram – During this extremely invasive procedure, a catheter (probe) is inserted into an artery and guided directly into your coronary artery. Dyes are then pumped into the artery where the catheter is located and x-rays are taken. The trauma caused by this procedure can have deadly consequences.

2.      Electrocardiology – this invasive procedure is used by heart specialists who believe that arrhythmia and tachycardia (out-of-control beating of the heart) should be solved by cardiac ablation. A catheter is inserted into a leg vein and guided into a chamber of the heart. The electrocardiologist then performs a “study” to determine the “cause” of the irregular heartbeat. A cardiac ablation unit then delivers a high-energy radio frequency burst to destroy a small piece of heart tissue to prevent it from causing a dual or duplicate electrical signal, or to destroy the entire “AV node” that signals the pumping action of your heart and replace it with a pacemaker. This procedure is dangerous and irreversible. In contrast, the Natural Cardiovascular Therapy provides the nutrients necessary for the damaged parts of your heart to heal themselves and restore proper electrical signaling.

3.      PET – Positron Emission Tomography – in this procedure radioactive salt solutions are literally injected into your bloodstream and then the radiation from your body is used to make images of your heart and other organs. Internal radiation is extremely hazardous to your health – it is known to cause cancer: it damages a large amount of DNA because it is internal and the exposure is prolonged.

4.      Technetium-99 Heart Scan – Similar to PET, this procedure involves injecting a radioactive substance called technetium-99 into your bloodstream, and then take moving “pictures” of your heart by detecting the radioactive emissions from it. As mentioned above, this is internal radiation, which is extremely hazardous to your health as it is a known cause of cancer.

As a health and environmental researcher, I am appalled that procedures that inject radioactive substances into the body – and therefore expose the entire body to prolonged radiation damage – have become widespread. Internal radiation injury from nuclear bomb fallout of the 1960’s and radiation leaks from nuclear power plants are one of the larger sources of cancers in the US. I can say unequivocally that these last two techniques – PET and Technetium-99 scanning – should never have come into use.

The EKG and echocardiogram, described above, are the safest methods to keep track of the overall health of your heart muscle and valves. You can have your doctor check your blood lipoprotein(a) levels to find out if the plaques are still being removed from the artery walls. Electron beam tomography is the safest and most accurate method for tracking whether coronary artery plaques have been completely resolved.