The Endocrine System: Essential for A High-Quality Life

Our body has thousands of internal control systems essential for control of biochemical reactions occurring at the cellular level and other system activities that are essential for life. The endocrine system consists of eight major endocrine glands that secrete chemical substances called hormones. Hormones are transported throughout the body in the fluid outside of the cells. The function of these hormones is to assist in regulating cellular function. An example of such a hormone function is thyroid hormone which increases the rates of the chemical reactions within cells resulting in an increase in cellular metabolism, increasing energy production produced within the cell. The energy produced by the cell is necessary for the cell to be able to do its function (pump blood or move the body around if it is a muscle cell, filter blood if it is a kidney or liver cell, carry nerve impulses if it is a nerve cell, etc.). Another example is insulin which controls the burning of glucose for energy. An additional example are the hormones from the adrenal gland which control sodium and potassium and protein metabolism, and the parathyroid hormone situated above the kidneys which controls bone, calcium and phosphate. Endocrine hormone function is complimentary to the nervous system's ability to control body systems. The nervous system regulates primarily muscle function and the secretion of substances within the body while the hormonal system regulates primarily metabolic (cellular energy) functions. It could be said then that the endocrine system provides chemical messengers that travel throughout the body, taking information and stimulating chemical reactions, therefore essential for having a healthy body and leading a happy, productive life.

Let us look at some specific hormones and their unique significances. Starting with the thyroid, the thyroid hormones are essential in controlling metabolism, cellular energy production. Since our body is made of cells, the ability for the cell to produce energy is directly related to its ability to function normally and to protect itself from damage from the environment. There is ample clinical evidence of below-average thyroid function even though standard thyroid hormone blood tests are within normal range. Functioning thyroid hormone levels are essential and testing hormone status appropriately is also essential to determine whether or not the thyroid supplementation is necessary. Iodine, essential for the thyroid hormones to function properly, is not measured with a standard thyroid hormone blood test. If thyroid dysfunction is suspected, either clinically or from an appropriate temperature test, then evaluating iodine levels would be an appropriate next step. An easy and inexpensive iodine evaluation combined with a temperature test to determine thyroid function yields the most accurate data.

We are all familiar with the role of the sex hormones in contributing to the sexual characteristics of the male and female. The amount of the hormone determines which sexual characteristic you will develop and contributes to the genetic expression of our sex. It may not be well-known, however, that males and females have all of the hormones, including all three estrogen, progesterone and testosterone.

Testosterone, in particular, is of interest in both males and females because of its role in muscle strength and muscle function. The heart is essentially all muscle. There is also muscle in walls of arteries. Adequate testosterone levels are important in a circulatory system's normal function and it is not uncommon to prescribe testosterone for men and women when indicated to enhance vascular function. Testosterone deficiencies can also contribute to loss of sex drive (libido) in both men and women. There is a general consensus that aging and decline in testosterone are definitely connected. There is such a thing as male menopause. The signs and symptoms of male menopause vary from patient to patient but can include flushes, erectile dysfunction, reduced erectile quality, diminished night erections, increase in abdominal fat tissue and waist size, joint/muscle aches, and decreased body hair. Physical symptoms that can occur with testosterone deficiency include decreased vigor, decreased strength, reduced muscle mass, a reduction of bone density. The testosterone deficient male can also experience decreased libido, weakness of ejaculation, limited quality of orgasm, and also mood changes, impaired concentration, diminished motivation, reduced memory and depression.

The proper use of estrogens, either one, two or three of them, depending upon the individual patient's needs, and progesterone can be very helpful in retarding the aging process and improved life quality issues primarily for the female. While it is true that as we age our production of hormones decreases, a normal activity, the proper use of bio-identical hormones (hormones that are identical to what the body produces) in proper minimal doses, individualized for each patient, can be very helpful in enhancing life quality.

DHEA stands for dehydroepiandrosterone. DHEA is produced by the adrenal gland and the body makes testosterone and one of the three estrogens from DHEA. DHEA deficiencies can contribute to testosterone, and to some degree, estrogen deficiencies. As more study is done on hormones, we are finding that DHEA can have independent beneficial effects on the aging process.

Estrogens promote growth and development of female reproductive system, including breast and female secondary sexual characteristics. Progesterone stimulates the uterus to retain the fertilized egg and promote growth of the fetus. Estrogens and progesterones again when properly applied in bio-identical form can have a significant impact on the aging process in conjunction with other nutrients and other therapeutic modalities that might be indicated for each individual patient.

There are other hormones with additional varying roles to play but these are the more common endocrine hormones and their levels can be improved with appropriate bio-identical hormone replacement therapy.

Dr Conrad Maulfair, Osteopathic Physician

Contamination Brings Early Aging

Dreams and goals are unattainable if you are ill. Have you noticed your interest in your personal activities actually increases in your forties and fifties? All of sudden you start thinking about the things you have put off. If you are taking care of aging parents they bring home to you the message of the importance of health.

Health and energy are the foundation for a happy life and you need to pay attention to ways in which they are robbed from you before you realize it. Aging starts earlier than people recognize. You can have the beginnings of heart disease in your twenties and as it slowly progresses over the course of your life you naturally have less energy, feel slightly ill all the time and enjoy your life less as you are approaching the problems in life with less enthusiasm. Some of joy of life leaves because you sleep poorly, you have less energy so you do less and you find yourself thinking you are not going to make a difference anyway. The quality of your life degenerates and many people accept this as a normal part of growing old.

I disagree. Years of helping people regain their vitality gives me the certainty that many, many people can be helped and their energy can be restored and so their contribution to life around them. Active, healthy people benefit society and we all gain something when one of us is doing well in the last decades of our lives.

The contamination of the human body is ignored in the practice of mainstream, corporate medicine. In fact, the treatments involve in standard care increase the level of chemicals in the body instead of reducing them. Any drug, even helpful drugs of which there are few, give your body a new problem. Not only is it still suffering from some underlying cause of your symptoms it is now burdened with decontaminating this chemical and trying to eliminate it without causing tissue damage. Can't be done. Once you swallow something you commit your body to doing something about it. Notice the warning of liver damage in most drug commercials on television; go to your pharmacy and get the side effects of drugs you take for various ailments. AND...we have not yet addressed the environmental chemicals you pick up from the food and water you drink and the air you breathe.

Little know facts I want my patients to know include the scientific fact that tiny amounts of lead in your body drive up blood pressure. When your doctor determines you have high blood pressure does he/she ever mention you should be checked for a toxic lead overload and if present you should have a course of intravenous chelation therapy to reduce the body burden of lead? Does he/she mention that intravenous chelation therapy is approved by the FDA for heavy metal toxicity? No? Well, why not?

If you have used street drugs in the past or heavy medical drugs and you crave them from time to time have you had the recommendation to reduce the body burden of these chemicals with sauna detoxification? It works. These residues cause health problems. Pesticides have been linked to the development of cancer.

If you are tired all the time and yet cannot sleep are your hormone and thyroid levels checked? No? Well it is time to find out what else you could be doing to help yourself. Find a physician who can help you without pharmaceuticals. Try icimed.com

Susanne Somers is doing a great job of describing the vast array of medical choices you actually have. Find and read her books.

Healthy aging is possible. Give us a call and we will help any way we can.

Dr Conrad Maulfair, Osteopathic Physician

Chemical Preservative Found in 18 of 20 Breast Cancer Tumor Tissues Sampled

We have known for some time, with the evidence continuing to mount, that many man-made chemicals found in our environment are also found in our bodies. Many of these chemicals are carcinogenic. The unknowns include how much chemical accumulation will cause cancer and what is the effect of small amounts of hundreds of chemicals accumulating in our body. It is also very difficult to "prove" direct cause of effect, i.e.; chemical = a specific cancer in a person. The reference for the study mentioned above appeared in the Journal of Applied Toxicology vol.24, p.5. It referenced the presence of preservatives used in personal care products, cosmetics and some foods in the tumor tissue itself. Did this chemical preservative cause the cancer? That cannot be determined with scientific certainty but there are several points to be made. What other toxic chemicals may have been present providing additional carcinogenic effects? Only one chemical was tested for in the tumor tissue. From my viewpoint we would all be less likely to develop cancer if we had fewer toxins in our bodies.

The human body as well as the bodies of animals, fish and fowl deposit toxins, as a protective mechanism, in adipose tissue, that is to say fat tissue. The breast is primarily adipose tissue. The nursing infant will ingest chemicals from his/her mother during lactation and these chemicals, including pesticides, have been shown in animal studies to damage endocrine, reproductive and nervous systems.

Texas Tech University researchers found the rocket fuel perchlorate in samples of breast milk nationwide. The Environmental Working Group found traces of 287 chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of 10 infants they tested. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) in a study of 2,500 Americans in 2003 found all of the 116 man-made pollutants being investigated in the blood of these volunteers.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical found in many plastic products including baby bottles and other bottles in wide use and in personal care products. BPA disrupts hormone function. One in five American four year olds is obese. Overweight girls had significantly higher levels of phthalates (BPA type chemicals) in their body compared to the general population of children.

Metabolic syndrome, low testosterone levels in men, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, neuro-developmental problems, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and many more chronic health problems are tied to the presence of these chemicals in the bodies of victims of these diseases. We sincerely hope more physicians will start to address these problems in their medical practices and offices. There are treatment programs to help reduce the levels in the body and your lifestyle choices can insure you reduce exposure. It is an urgent health issue.

Cholesterol: The Real Story

Contrary to popular belief cholesterol is not fat. Cholesterol is a waxy substance that is produced by the liver and also ingested through foods we eat. It often has fatty acids contained in it and therefore it is considered to be fat, but it is not fat in and of itself.

Up to 80% of cholesterol is used to make cholic acid which is essential in bile salts that are, themselves, necessary for digestion and absorption of fat from the diet. Additionally, cholesterol is used to make the hormones progesterone, estrogen and testosterone.

There is a significant amount of cholesterol in the skin that helps the skin to resist water absorption and water evaporation. The presence of cholesterol in the skin also helps to decrease the penetration of toxic agents such as solvents etc.

Perhaps one of the most important roles of cholesterol is in the formation and maintenance of cellular function through the integrity of cell membranes as well as many of the membranes of the other structures within the cell including the organelles that produce energy. Membrane integrity is essential for life and for health and the prevention of disease. A breakdown in cell membrane integrity will lead to ill health and disease. In addition to cholesterol benefit in our skin as a protective agent there is scientific evidence that cholesterol protects cell membranes from oxidative/free radical damage. The significance of cell membrane function is covered extensively at our chelation seminars.

Here is a substance that is, in fact, a health enhancing life necessity but purported to be life threatening. Cholesterol has gotten a bad rap.

We are told that we eat too much cholesterol in our diet and that elevated levels in the blood cause hardening of the arteries that, in turn, cause heart attacks and strokes. We are told that lowering cholesterol is essential to decrease the aforementioned disease process and its sequela. Low fat diets are prescribed and if that isn't effective, cholesterol lowering drug therapy is prescribed. This philosophy has been touted for so long as scientific fact that it is accepted without question by the majority of physicians and patients, in spite of the fact that there are thousands and thousands of people who have low cholesterol levels in their blood and have blocked arteries all over their bodies, and those who have elevated cholesterol levels without any problems.

The rest of the cholesterol story explains why these exceptions occur, why cholesterol is a problem for some and not for others. With this additional data you can think for yourself and decide for yourself.

As we stated at the outset, cholesterol is not fat. Cholesterol often has fatty acids, the basic building block of fat, attached to it. Cholesterol/fatty acids are carried from one area to another through the blood stream by a substance called lipoprotein. This is a form of protein that acts as a carrier, a basket if you will, which carries fat around to the cells for use as a source of energy. The two primary lipoproteins are low density lipoprotein (LDL) and high density lipoprotein (HDL). The LDL principally carries fat to the cells and the HDL carries the fat away from the cell. LDL is considered bad and the HDL is considered good. Herein lies another bit of misinformation. LDL and HDL are not cholesterol at all but simply the carriers that carry the substances of cholesterol and fatty acids to the cells and away from the cells. The good and bad terms are derived from the fact that the HDL is considered good because it carries fat away from the cell decreasing the potential of the fat being deposited, whereas the LDL carries the fat to the cell increasing the potential for it to be deposited. But there is more to this story.

In recent times the terms free radicals, free radical damage and antioxidants have become familiar jargon. Taking antioxidants has become popular but few people understand the importance of free radicals and the damage they create and the antioxidant's potential to prevent that damage. Those of you who have attended one of our chelation therapy seminars have a good understanding of what all of this means.

It is very important as far as cholesterol is concerned to understand that the LDL structure (fatty acids with protein) is the primary source of plague in hardening of the arteries. The HDL form of lipoprotein (protein with fat attached) is not the type of lipoprotein which contributes to plague build up and as we said earlier, actually helps to lower the fat in the area by carrying it away from tissues. It is important to note that LDL, even though considered bad, is an essential part of the body's mechanism for handling fat and as such, is necessary and beneficial. The reason that it could be considered bad is not because of its mere presence, but rather because of changes that take place which alter its natural or beneficial form to an aberrated, detrimental form. The process that alters the natural LDL is called oxidation, caused by free radicals. This damage can be prevented by utilizing anti- oxidants.

To summarize, LDL cholesterol/ fatty acid is normal in the body and has a function. When it becomes altered by free radical damage it is transformed into a detrimental form. The native or normal LDL can pass freely through tissues such as the lining of arteries. The damaged LDL cannot and gets stuck in the artery wall. The scientific evidence of this has been known for years and continues to proliferate.

An article that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1989 entitled "Beyond Cholesterol" spoke directly about this. The article reviewed numerous studies over many years including studies back to the 70s and early 80s.

Blood flow through an artery can be impaired by another major mechanism apart from a blockage of the blood flow from plague. Arteries can go in spasm decreasing blood flow, often significantly. This process is often a cause of angina. A study that appeared in 1990 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, detailed evidence that coronary artery contractions can be caused by oxidative LDL. Evidence also exists that oxidized LDL, not normal LDL, impairs the function of the cells lining arteries that function to initiate blood vessel dilation.

We have previously discussed one of the benefits of HDL is that it carries lipids away from tissues. Numerous research projects are identifying an enzyme associated with HDL that inhibits the oxidation damage of LDL. In other words, this may be a major way the HDL is protective and the so-called "good guy."

The Journal of the American Medical Association published an interesting article in the December 8, 1999 issue entitled "Smoking and Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease in Men with Low Levels of Serum Cholesterol". The study showed, not surprisingly, that smoking was a risk factor for atherosclerotic vascular disease and also that "a low cholesterol level confers no protective benefit against smoking related ASVD". How does smoking damage the body? Primarily from free radical damage. Cholesterol is not a problem unless it is damaged; smoking damages it and it becomes a problem whether the level in the blood is high or low. Lowering the cholesterol in the blood does not decrease its potential to damage. The article is proof of what some of us have been saying for years and is proof of the known science on the cholesterol subject.

The most important factor is not the amount of cholesterol, or even the type, but whether it is clean or dirty, normal or damaged.

Conrad G Maulfair, Jr DO