From:
Guy R. Schenker, D.C.
August, 1994

Dear Doctor,

You are probably bombarded with more information (or should I say mis-information) about anti-oxidants than about any other nutrition related topic. Virtually all of this mis-information comes from what we at NUTRI-SPEC like to refer to as...

THE HEALTH FOOD INDUSTRY CHARLATANS.

These are the mega buck pill peddlers who make liberal use of non-sequiturs in their promotions. In other words, they take data from scientific studies and quote it out of context, or jump to inaccurate conclusions, to make the use of their product sound so very scientific. In your zeal to find the latest and the greatest nutrition products to better serve your patients, it is easy to have your judgment clouded and be mislead by these charlatans.

Judging from the number of questions the NUTRI-SPEC staff receives about anti-oxidants, it is clear that this is one of your major concerns. The problem is, in looking for an answer from sources outside of NUTRI-SPEC, you have been lead hopelessly astray. This Letter will get you back on track in your thinking about anti-oxidants.

Your question as it comes into our customer service staff goes something like this:

"I LOVE HOW MY NUTRI-SPEC SYSTEM GIVES ME A WAY TO INDIVIDUALIZE EACH OF MY PATIENT'S NUTRITION PROGRAMS WITH COMPLETELY OBJECTIVE, SCIENTIFIC TESTS. BUT – I'VE BEEN READING SO MUCH ABOUT ANTI-OXIDANTS AND HOW THEY ARE SO IMPORTANT IN PROTECTING US FROM DEGENERATIVE DISEASE & PREMATURE AGING ASSOCIATED WITH OXIDATIVE FREE RADICAL DAMAGE. SHOULDN'T I BE GIVING MY PATIENTS A HIGH-POTENCY ANTI-OXIDANT ALONG WITH NUTRI-SPEC?"

I can tell you everything you need to know about anti-oxidant supplementation in a single word:

NOTHING.

"What?" You say. "Everyone knows that anti-oxidants are a major factor in the aging process, and are involved in almost every disease process, even cancer. We must give our patients anti-oxidant supplements."

You are right; and you do. You are right, antioxidants are vitally important in slowing the aging process, in protecting your patients from disease, and in increasing your patients' energy levels. And, you do have the most effective (the only effective) way to use anti-oxidant nutrients. You see,

TREATMENT OF FREE RADICAL OXIDATION WITH ANTI-OXIDANTS
IS ALREADY BUILT IN TO YOUR NUTRI-SPEC SYSTEM.

If you feel an urgent need to give your patients high potency anti-oxidant supplements along with your NUTRI-SPEC metabolic balancing regimen, it is because you don't appreciate just how much you really know about oxidative processes in the body.

NO ONE KNOWS MORE ABOUT NORMAL VERSES ABNORMAL
OXIDATIVE PROCESSES THAN YOU, THE NUTRI-SPEC PRACTITIONER.

NO ONE HAS THE POWER TO PROMOTE NORMAL OXIDATIVE
METABOLISM BETTER THAN YOU HAVE
WITH YOUR NUTRI-SPEC SUPPLEMENTS.

Have you never noticed that the key word in the names of your NUTRI-SPEC supplements is...

"OXYGENIC?"

Has it never occurred to you the significance in the supplements you give your patients being called Oxygenic B, Oxygenic D, Oxygenic D-Plus, Oxygenic K, and so on? The basis of your NUTRI-SPEC system is enabling your patients to maintain metabolic balance through specific nutrition. But -- what is maintaining metabolic balance all about? Probably close to 90% of maintaining metabolic balance has to do with maintaining normal oxidative metabolism. And the ability to correct problems in oxidative metabolism is, I repeat, already built into your NUTRI-SPEC system.

When you run the NUTRI-SPEC test procedures on a patient and find either an anaerobic/dysaerobic imbalance or a glucogenic/ ketogenic imbalance,

WHAT HAVE YOU ACTUALLY FOUND?

You have determined that your patient has some aberration of oxidative metabolic processes. Consider for a moment anaerobic/dysaerobic imbalances. What is the key root word here? "Aerobic." And what does the term aerobic relate to? The use of oxygen in metabolic processes.

The anaerobic/dysaerobic balance system represents the dualistic, diphasic model of oxidative metabolism. With respect to energy production, normal aerobic metabolism has been replaced by abnormal anaerobic metabolism (fermentation) in the lesioned tissues of your anaerobic patients; and, in your dysaerobic patients oxidation is out of control, with the production of oxidative free radicals and peroxides.

AT LEAST 90% OF THE PILL PEDDLER PROPAGANDA
REGARDING ANTI-OXIDANTS IS ACTUALLY A DESCRIPTION OF
YOUR DYSAEROBIC PATIENTS.

The non-sequiturs used by the charlatans to sell you their products are based on legitimate scientific research. Yes, there is such a thing as excessive cellular oxidation which results in rapid cellular aging, with accompanying tissue degeneration, associated with free radical and peroxide damage. But, as we said, that is a description of your dysaerobic patient. What is not appreciated by the pill peddlers, nor even by the physiologists and biochemists doing the basic research, is that there is a diphasic balance system in operation here, and that...

THERE IS A FLIP SIDE TO THE COIN.

In other words, there is just as commonly found an anaerobic imbalance, which represents a decrease in cellular oxidation, prolonged cellular youth, and a tendency for tissues to degenerate not from aging, but from regression to more primitive, non specialized forms. (This decrease in oxidation is what is responsible for most cancers.)

So -- think for a minute -- what about all the Vitamin E and other anti-oxidants being heavily promoted as absolutely essential for all your patients to protect from the ravages of free radical damage? Are they really essential? The answer is yes -- but in nutritional quantities only. In therapeutic quantities they are beneficial only for the dysaerobic patient. To give therapeutic quantities to someone who happens to be anaerobic -- well, you alone as a NUTRI-SPEC practitioner, can appreciate the possible disastrous consequences.

Consider now your glucogenic/ketogenic patients. Finding an imbalance here tells you that your patient has an inability to effectively use oxygen to produce energy. Your glucogenic patient is stuck in a glucogenic oxidation mode and cannot get into the ketogenic oxidative energy production pathway. Your ketogenic patient has the exact opposite problem, an inability to generate energy with oxygen in glucogenic metabolic pathways, with the consequence that ketogenic activity is exaggerated.

In these patients, of course, your objective is to do anything and everything possible to get them to increase their level of oxidative energy production. What role do the so-called "anti-oxidants" have here? They have no place in these patients nutrition regimen what so ever -- except to the extent that certain nutrients that are commonly considered anti-oxidants also have either anti-glucogenic or anti-ketogenic activity.

Again,

THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING WHAT YOUR PATIENT NEEDS
IN THE WAY OF EITHER STIMULATION OR INHIBITION
OF OXYGEN ACTIVITY IS DETERMINED BY
YOUR NUTRI-SPEC TESTING SYSTEM.

Indiscriminate use of anti-oxidants based on the advice of some ignorant vitamin salesman will almost invariably do your patients more harm than good.

The terms "free radical oxidation," "anti-oxidants," and "free radical scavengers," have become such power words in nutrition industry promo that all the pill makers are pushing and shoving each other in a desperate attempt to jump on the bandwagon. The situation has gotten so out of hand that they are calling almost any nutrient you can imagine an "anti-oxidant" just because this has become such an effective buzzword.

If you happen to be a chiropractor you may have read in one of the popular chiropractic commercial journals recently an article entitled "Anti-oxidants and Aging." That article included the most fantastic list of anti-oxidant nutrients I have ever seen. Among the nutrients noted for their anti-oxidant activity were the vitamins A, beta carotene, C, bio-flavenoids, E, D, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B12, biotin, folic acid, inositol, and K. Among the minerals and trace minerals were iron, potassium, calcium, copper, magnesium, molybdenum, silicon, boron, chromium, iodine, manganese, sodium, vanadium, selenium, and zinc. Also promoted as anti-oxidants were the fatty acids and the amino acids including omega-3 fatty acids, cysteine, glutathione, methionine, taurine, and glutamine.

DID YOU EVER SEE SUCH GARBAGE IN PRINT?

This list included virtually every nutrient known. If they are all anti-oxidants, well then the answer to oxidative free radical damage would be simply to take one multi-vitamin / mineral / trace mineral supplement in high potency and you are covered. Of course, the pill peddlers are defeating their own purpose publishing this kind of nonsense since, if it were true, it would prove to you that you don't need all their specialty products -- all you need is one high potency, mega dose multiple.

The claims made in all the promotional literature for anti-oxidants are so absurd as to be comical. My favorite is the promotion done at the beginning of every winter to prepare you and your patients for "cold and flu season." It is insisted that you and your patients should all take mega doses of anti-oxidants at this time of year to protect yourself against the ravages of wee beasties and the free radical damage that results from your body's war against these relentless attackers.

Of course, such promotional literature shows total ignorance of the mechanism by which your body defends itself against infection. As a NUTRI-SPEC practitioner you know that the first phase of the diphasic immune response involves a powerful oxidative attack against the foreign invaders. In other words...

YOUR BODY KILLS OFF THE WEE BEASTIES BY
OXIDIZING THE HECK OUT OF THEM.

If these so-called anti-oxidant supplements did what they claim to be able to do (which, fortunately they do not) they would actually cripple your body's ability to defend itself against infection.

As long as we are laughing at comical absurdities of health food industry literature, check this one out -- Did you notice in the list quoted from the article noted above that calcium was included as an anti-oxidant? Calcium as an anti-oxidant? You've got to be kidding.

If you had to select one nutrient that could in no way be considered an anti-oxidant, it would have to be calcium. Calcium stimulates dysaerobic free radical oxidative catabolism at the cellular level. Calcium stimulates sympathetic catabolic activity at the systemic level. Calcium stimulates excessive ketogenic oxidative energy metabolism, at the expense of glucogenic energy production. In short, calcium accelerates damaging oxidative processes perhaps more than any other nutrient. Consider that carefully the next time you think of prescribing extra calcium for a patient beyond what is indicated by their NUTRI-SPEC test procedures.

And -- before you consider prescribing any so-called "anti-oxidant" to a patient consider what you learned in this letter. All the essential anti-oxidant nutrients are found in nutritional quantities in your Oxygenic B -- and are found in therapeutic quantities in just the right proportions and in the highest biologically active form in your other NUTRI-SPEC supplements.

YOU ARE ALREADY GIVING EACH OF YOUR PATIENTS EXACTLY
THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF ANTI-OXIDANTS THEY NEED.

And -- they cannot find this level of clinical expertise anywhere but in your office.

Sincerely,
Guy R. Schenker, D.C.

 

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