Arthritis, lupus, bursitis and gout are some excellent examples of diseases caused by eating and drinking junk and becoming increasingly ill because of it.
 
    The incidence of  arthritis, diabetes, cancer, Crohn’s disease, sickle cell disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and cardiovascular problems has steadily risen over the years, resulting in a greater need for Health Care, Medicare, Medicaid, and, of course, taxes to pay for them.
     I propose a method of reducing the number of cases of these diseases. Following my ABC DIET and Exercise would result in reduced taxes and more disposable income for everyone.               
    You and I can bring about changes for the better. How?  By educating the entire public to choose a healthier lifestyle and reject products which causes it to develop premature ill health.
    A law should be passed that food stamps cannot pay for any of the items in the “A” list of the ABC Diet: coffee; tea; soft drinks and “energy” drinks; tobacco; alcohol; chocolate; fluorides, as in toothpaste or mouthwash; sugar; white flour; artificial food coloring, flavoring, preserving, as in sodium or potassium benzoate, nitrates and nitrites; sulfites; and sweetening agents, such as Sweet’N Low™, Equal™, or Nutrasweet™. This would be a step in the right direction toward making the public aware of what good food is and what is harmful junk.
 
1. What causes Arthritis? We have just mentioned the bad chemicals that bring on the symptoms, so now we will discuss what happens to the body. As a result of caffeine consumption,( and the other antinutrient items to a lesser extent as well) the adrenal medulla, the inner part of the adrenal gland located just above the kidneys, is stimulated to make catecholamines, epinephrine and nor-epinephrine, on a very frequent basis.
     When this happens, the cardiovascular system becomes damaged by the epinephrine, causing elevated cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure; hardening of the arteries and reduced circulation in the heart, brain, kidneys and all over the rest of the body.
    The endocrine gland system is damaged, causing diminished or no outflow of the hypothalamic, pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, pancreatic, gonads and 45 adrenocortical hormones that normally keep the body in good condition. (There is a cardinal rule in physiology: when the adrenal cortex functions, the adrenal medulla doesn’t; when the medulla functions, the cortex doesn’t.)
     Very few people realize that the adrenal cortex puts out hormones, all manufactured from cholesterol, which control fluid and mineral balance, insulin and proteolytic enzymes, gonad hormones, growth, and thousands of other functions in the body. You can readily see why havoc occurs when caffeine cuts off the adrenocortical hormones by stimulating the production of the adrenal medulla catecholamines! Coffee and other caffeine-containing items in the diet cause increasingly rapid physical and mental destruction of the body slowly, one day at a time, and nobody realizes that’s the reason  
 
2. How do people with arthritis know how really sick they are? There is a blood test that can be performed, but presently isn’t, called the pantothenic acid blood analysis, which indicates the state of our well-being. The higher the pantothenic acid (Vitamin B5) blood serum level is, the greater the chance of not suffering from arthritis and the other “auto-immune” diseases. The reverse is also true. For example, a reading of 35 to 45 mcg. % would show bedridden patients with gnarled joints, unable to feed themselves or perform bodily functions.
A reading of 135 mcg.% would show a patient with no pain or swelling.  It seems that 95mcg.% is the dividing line between beginning symptoms and no symptoms at all.  
     All the items in the “A” list of the ABC Diet tend to lower the pantothenic acid level of the blood, insuring that if arthritis runs in the family, one is bound to show symptoms depending on the quantity of items on the “A” consumed. The present-day tendency is to show symptoms of these diseases at an earlier age than our ancestors did.  
     [For a complete explanation of the role of the pantothenic acid blood analysis, Royal Jelly in Honey, Vitamin C and Arthritis, make a donation of ten dollars or more to help maintain this website, and you will receive a postage-paid, free copy of my book, “Nutrition—the Case of Misplaced Emphasis.”]
3. Why is the nutrition worse than it was years ago. We have become a generation sold on the use of chemicals. The typical American diet has a lot more junk food in it than the diet which our parents and grandparents followed. Chemicals such as aspartame, BHA and BHT (no longer sold in this country) and “sport drinks” (Gatorade, Kool-Aid and others) hadn’t been invented yet; artificial food dyes, flavoring agents, preserving agents and bleached, highly refined white flour were not used to the extent that they are now; fluorides may have occurred naturally in some locations, but they were definitely not found in almost every tooth paste, mouthwash and dental treatment.
 
4. What does all this have to do with a person’s arthritic pain somewhere in the body? One of the adrenocortical hormones is called cortisol. In a healthy patient, it migrates to joints all over the body and prevents pain, swelling and deterioration from occurring.  When the cortisol, along with the other 44 hormones, has stopped being manufactured as a result of frequent caffeine consumption, there is no longer any cortisol in the joints; hip and knee joint replacements are needed, and, in the majority of those who suffer from arthritis, some amount of pain is consistent.
     To mask the pain, drug manufacturers invented, about 1955,  cortisone, then prednisone,  artificial “replacements” for the normally naturally-produced cortisol, but it has lots of side effects, including moon-faced feature, edematous soft-tissue swelling, increased blood pressure, interference with the entire hormone system, and so on. Cortisone is too toxic to be given for an extended period of time.  Drugs are constantly being developed to take the place of cortisone but which don’t have as many side effects. 
     Potent drugs used in cancer chemotherapy are often prescribed for arthritis, although, in my opinion, they are too toxic even for the treatment of cancer. I look for the day when physicians treat their patients with the ABC Diet and fewer, less toxic drugs.
     Drugs were most certainly not used to the extent they are today. Aspirin was the chief moderate pain reliever until the mid 1950s; it was mixed with phenacetin and caffeine during the Second World War “to enhance its effectiveness.”  Phenacetin was banned in 1983 because of its toxicity to the kidneys and as a carcinogen. Illegal drugs, for the greater part of the population, were unavailable “on the street;” today they are.  Prescription drugs are used to treat diabetes, arthritis, pain, cardiovascular disease, mental illness, cancer and practically every other disease, including acute diseases, far too often.    
     All of these drugs mentioned must be metabolized by the liver to detoxify them. In ISSUE 5, I described the difficulty that liver enzymes have in detoxifying various foods and chemicals, especially in the presence of an over-abundance of animal protein and fat, which is typical of the average American diet.    
 
5.  Now, if eliminating the “A” items in the ABC Diet will help raise the pantothenic acid blood level to over 95 mcg. %, and by introducing Royal Jelly in Honey and Vitamin C, can the symptoms of Arthritis be reversed, reduced or eliminated?  My experience shows that it can, but only up to the point of altered body structures. 
      Take the case of my mother who passed away some years ago at the age of 98.  When she was 75 years old, she had suffered for some time from the symptoms of arthritis, so badly that she had to take an anti-inflammatory agent and a pain reliever. She continued to suffer despite taking them regularly. 
     It was then that I heard Mr. Woodrow Whidden’s lecture about royal jelly and its effect on mitigating arthritis.  I immediately advised her to take Whidden’s Royal Jelly in Honey and other supplements, eliminate all caffeine and reduce animal protein intake.  Within 3 to 6 months, she no longer needed either drug for the rest of her life. The Herbeden’s nodes on her finger joints became greatly reduced in size. Her two brothers and two sisters all had died in their 70s of arthritis, cancer and heart disease; she lived 23 years longer, in great measure by following the ABC Diet. Her mind (and memory) remained keen to the very end. I visited her several months before her death and played Scrabble with her– she outplayed me, fair and square! She kept the score and there was no cheating.
     I invite those who have arthritis or other “auto-immune” diseases to follow, under their physicians’ supervision, what I have described, The ABC Diet with Royal Jelly and Honey and do stretch/calorie-burning exercise daily.  
  
Now to discuss Juvenile Arthritis, Lupus, Bursitis and Gout. 
        JUVENILE ARTHRITIS is a type of arthritis in infants and children. About 1980, when I heard Mr. Woodrow Whidden’s lecture on Royal Jelly and Arthritis, he related the case of an 18-month child who presented symptoms of many different diseases to various physicians, and none could come up with a definite diagnosis. Finally, a friend of the family suggested that they give the tot Royal Jelly in Honey. Within several months, all symptoms went into remission. According to the family, the child remained symptom-free the rest of his life.
    I contacted the American Arthritis Foundation and told them about this case. They completely ignored it, and I never heard from them again. The common method of medical treatment is cortisone injections or other toxic chemotherapies. This is like treating a local war with Agent Orange, the effects of which have remained many years after the Vietnamese War. Royal Jelly is completely non-toxic.  
     LUPUS, short for systemic lupus erythematosus (S.L.E.) is an inflammatory condition causing reddening and swelling in the connective tissues, sensitivity to the sun, sometimes a butterfly-shaped redness above the nose, and many other symptoms elsewhere in the body. This is one of those diseases where complete, constant monitoring by the physician is necessary while A-E is followed. The patient must never discontinue prescribed medication without the physician’s approval.
       BURSITIS, usually not hereditary. It usually affects the muscles and joints in the upper arm and shoulder area. It can be helped by following A-E, taking DOC, Vitamin E 200 I.U. with butter at breakfast, and one Vitamin C1000 Complex tablet with each meal. One should never take cortisone or its derivatives unless pain is overly severe, and it should be discontinued as soon as possible because it interferes with nutritional healing.
         GOUT, or gouty arthritis, affecting mainly the digits, usually the big toe. Gout occurs after the kidneys have been sufficiently damaged by improper nutrition to cause uric acid buildup in these areas. Unless gout has been chronic, it is relatively easy to treat successfully. It can result from drinking alcoholic beverages. Within a short time after the alcohol has been discontinued, the gout symptoms disappear, only to return when alcohol consumption has been resumed.                    Therefore, the person should follow A-E and take DOC. Usually, in gout, Vitamin B6 and magnesium are deficient in the diet, as a result of the alcohol excreting them, faster than in water, and most other vitamins and minerals, from the body. Therefore, DOC and CalMag are necessary to help replace them. (see ISSUE 2).      
       Biochemically speaking, Vitamin B6 is necessary for the breakdown of uric acid to urea, which is excreted in the urine.
      Magnesium is needed to make enzymes in the digestive tract which control the vital tasks of life itself—heart-beating, lung-breathing, brain-thinking and speaking, kidney-excretion, muscle-movement, and so on. Also, magnesium is necessary for proper heartbeat, to prevent auricular and ventricular arrhythmias. (see ISSUES 4, 9 and 12.)   One can readily see, just from the example of gout, how actions interplay: junk food and chemicals damage the body, and no junk food and chemicals, or, at least as few as possible, improves health.