(Please excuse my reposting of this...but I wanted to put
a more
appropriate subject header so those interested would see it.)
I ran across this article....would some of you please comment on
this? It seems to call into question the "success" of our
liver/gallbladder flushes.
(Taken from
http://www.pathguy.com/altermed.htm The website belongs to Ed
Friedlander "the pathology guy", an MD board certified in anatomic and
clinical pathology.)
------------------------------------>
People who have gallstones, or think they
have gallstones, are
invited to "flush" them out by swallowing a concoction of 1/2 cup of
olive oil, a big grapefruit, 4 tablespoons of Epsom salts, and
three cups of water.
It was a nice idea, and interesting things
will appear
in the toilet bowl soon after.
But
I'm afraid that they're not your gallstones. Here's why:
Real gallstones are faceted polyhedra, like the ones in the
picture on the
links below, or else shaped like mulberries. What you'll get from the
recipe are spheres. One
of my correspondents describes a friend who saved the spheres and
displayed them to his friends.
Real gallstones hurt bad when they pass through the cystic
and
common bile ducts.
Real gallstones sink in water. (As an autopsy pathologist,
I'm very familiar with this.)
The "gallstones" you'll produce from this recipe will float, as
the "alternative thinkers" themselves point out. (They claim that
real gallstones float, too. Liars.)
If you
know a little basic chemistry, you'll realize what is happening.
The Epsom salts are magnesium sulfate, and the grapefruit contains
some complex carbohydrates. When these slosh around in the stomach and
small intestine, they'll form a tough film which will encase drops of
olive oil.
This will produce some yellowish balls which will float in the toilet.
Hulda
Regehr Clark, the author of "The Cure for all Cancers" and "The Cure
For
HIV/AIDS" promotes this. Since she claims to have both a doctorate
in naturopathy and a Ph.D. in something (the latter implying having
done substantial original lab research), one would think she would have
made an experiment with a real gallstone and discovered
that it sinks. There's a nice photo which
she took from my friend, pathologist Ed Klatt.
She calls them "such small stones" though they're obviously
7-10 mm across. She thinks the stones
she displayed formed in the liver and "rolled" into the gallbladder,
which is silly. You see many more stones in the gallbladder because
that's
where bile is concentrated and stored; if they all "rolled" there from
the liver,
we'd see much more biliary colic.
She says gallstones "can be of any color" which
is a hoot. She also claims that the major cause of
gallstones is wearing shoes.
If you want to believe these people, that is
your business.
If you try the purge, please chew your grapefruit up thoroughly.
Otherwise, you're asking for a gastic bezoar and a trip to the
endoscopist to remove the obstruction.
Gallstone
Flush
from Hulda Regehr Clark. Much of the material on these sites is
identical though it's not clear who has borrowed from who.
Follow-up: April 2003. My notes on the
gallstone flush have generated
considerable "controversy". I look forward to a real surgeon taking
these people on a visit to the surgical ward to see whether it's really
true
that 99% of people who pass a gallstone have no pain, or whether most
gallstones
sink or float in water. (The impurities make them heavy. They sink.
If you have any doubts about who is massively
ignorant, go ask any
general surgeon or pathologist.) There are also
photos, some of which appear to be real smooth faceted
gallstones, and others showing shaggy
surfaces which are obviously not gallstones. Instead of continuing to
sling mud
at me, these people should take somebody with
ultrasonographically-proven
gallstones, administer the "flush", and repeat the ultrasonogram. If
there
are now no gallstones, publish the finding in a non-refereed junk
journal.
The fact that nobody's done this invites the obvious conclusion. If you
are presented
with the physical results of a "gallstone flush", cut it in half. Real
gallstones
have concentric
layers of colors often varying from pale yellow through black,
sometimes with a
center of radiating crystals.