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A report from Reuters Tue Sep 18, 2007 stated that the FDA has warned Hain Celestial Group Inc. by calling the natural herbal sweetener that they add to some of their teas “an unsafe food additive.”

Stevia, derived from a South American herb is 300 times sweeter than sugar but with no calories, is approved as a dietary supplement, but not as a food additive in the U.S.

This should not be surprise as the FDA and Health Canada both regard stevia as an herb but not as a food additive. As Wikipedia points out:

“In 1991, at the request of an anonymous complaint, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeled stevia as an “unsafe food additive” and restricted its import. The FDA’s stated reason was “toxicological information on stevia is inadequate to demonstrate its safety.”[31] This ruling was controversial, as stevia proponents pointed out that this designation violated the FDA’s own guidelines under which any natural substance used prior to 1958 with no reported adverse effects should be generally recognized as safe (GRAS).”

Gee, I wonder who this anonymous complaint came from. An interesting comment on a blog at Dr. Mercola’s web site is insiteful:
“I’m far too stupid to wonder why it’s fine (stevia) when called one thing, yet potentially a destructive, nation-flattening weapon when used as a cheap, abundant sweetener that would coincidentally compete with the safe-as-mother’s-milk health chemicals like Splenda and Aspartame. ”

Agriculture Canada Wants to Grow Stevia

If stevia is so unsafe then why did the Canadian Brodacasting Corporation (CBC) state on it’s Market Place television program in February of 2000 that:

“Agriculture Canada is growing stevia. “We want to turn it into a crop, a viable crop for farmers in southwestern Ontario,” says Jim Brandle, a plant breeding specialist with Agriculture Canada.

…It has been embraced in Japan, where it’s used in soy sauce, sweet pickles and soft drinks. In Japan, Diet Coke has been sweetened with stevia. ”

The article points out that Linda Bonvie a New Jersey-based investigative journalist who’s written a book on stevia that on its cover asks ‘Is the FDA suppressing an ideal herbal sweetener?’

“I think there’s a lot at stake here … and when there’s big money at stake, strange things happen.” She stated, and “There’s been no consumer complaints or reports of ill effects due to stevia,” she says. “Not in health journals, not in government statistics, and not by consumers.

Stevia- Health Benefits

Wikipedia Balanced Report also states:

“…while newer studies find no safety issues…Other studies have shown stevia improves insulin sensitivity in ratsand may even promote additional insulin production, helping to reverse diabetes and metabolic syndrome. ”

To sum up this herbal product that’s been used for decades with no reported toxicity is not allowed to compete on a level playing field with the big boys that make chemical sweeteners with known toxicity. Can you imagine what would happen if the general public was aware of safety and benefits of stevia compared to Nutrasweet/Equal (Aspartame) and Splenda.

There is faint hope but not complete because Coca Cola and Cargill are working on scientifically establishing the safety of the herb. You can bet though that it will not be the pure total herb from the plant but will be a patentable derivative. At least with heavyweight corporations like these they will be able to pay off the FDA because Coke is desperate for an alternative to expensive Nurtasweet.

Just think in the near future your local health food store will no longer be raided for their dangerous stevia because their will be a ‘patent FDA approved for your protection brand’ with higher prices. Then the sour view of the FDA on stevia will miraculously turn sweet.
http://www.steviainfo.com/

For more information on Stevia go to these sites-

Stevia: Nature’s Perfect Sweetener
The Sweet Secret of Stevia

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Dennis Cutforth is a researcher and writer with over 35 years experience in health-care sales, marketing and research in pharmaceuticals and natural health. Dennis will cut through all the propaganda and give you the real facts about what really works to make you healthier and happier. Visit his Blog at Better Life Blog.

In the spring my 11 year old grandson wanted to watch his and my favorite television show with me, House on the Fox television network. I asked him why he liked the show so much. He said that Dr. House reminded him of me.

When I asked why, he said because I know so much about health; except, when I wasn’t able to diagnose his burning foot. I said that I asked him if his foot was burning and he had said yes, and I said therefore you have burning foot syndrome. He didn’t think that that was a very good diagnosis, but I said it was true because he had a burning foot.

He said his mother (my daughter) doesn’t like Dr. House because he reminds her of me, because I think I know so much, plus House is impossible as am I. Different generation, different perspective I’d say.

On thinking of this little exchange with number one grandson I also thought of the reasons he felt that I knew a lot about health. It may have been that since he was a baby I have had a big say about his health.

When he was 2 he had projectile vomiting so his mother (my daughter) asked a Pediatric specialist if it could be a food allergy. The doctor assured her it couldn’t possibly be the cause. I had her take him off milk and voila! no more projectile vomiting.

Subsequently he began to have fits of anger and once again she was assured by the specialist that it couldn’t be food allergy. I asked his mother (my daughter) what his favorite food was. She said that he loves eggs and wants them every day. I said take him off eggs and voila! once again the temper tantrums subsided. These food allergy/intolerances are in the Scientific Literature from over 50 years ago but are ignored by Conventional/Orthodox Medicine (to be written about in a future post).

As my grandson got older and he would twist his knee I would press a trigger point above his knee on the thigh for seven seconds and voila! the knee pain would be gone. He would say that he knew that it was going to hurt, for those few seconds, but it was worth it because his knee pain would be gone and wouldn’t hurt when walked.

Conventional/Orthodox Medicine Missteps

This is a long preamble to point out some shortcomings of Conventional/ Orthodox Medicine. Medical doctors are the absolute best at diagnosing patients of many illnesses and as the House show points out that a brilliant physician can discover the underlying cause of the most obscure illnesses.

Fortunately most of us don’t need the services of such a medical detective. Unfortunately many of us need the services of a physician that can diagnose and offer a treatment for the most simple of things. Simple, (unexciting for a TV show) things, like fatigue, pain, sleep problems, depression etc. In other words we need simple non-invasive treatments for non-life threatening chronic illnesses, everyday things that affect millions of patients’ quality of life.

So this brings me to the point of an illness that was pooh-poohed by Dr. House and dismissed as one patient’s problem. The show toed the company line of the Conventional/Orthodox Medical bureaucracy which states that Gulf War Syndrome does not exist. Well the Flat Earth Society still believes the earth is flat despite the overwhelming evidence that the earth is as round as a ball, check out their web-site.
The overwhelming evidence is that the Gulf War caused an alarming amount of debilitation among veterans and the Medical bureaucracy worked from their long held position that it was all in their heads. This gave the Psychiatrists a field day and prevented compensation from the Veterans Administration who listened to these so-called ‘Medical Experts’.

The so-called experts ignored the evidence for over twenty years that h-pylori infections caused duodenal ulcers for which two physicians from Australia received a Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Over ten years ago when I almost died from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (while in pharmaceutical sales) all the experts that I sought out said my lab tests were just fine therefore there was nothing wrong with me.

At least I knew the fallibility of medical tests but how did the Gulf Veterans cope without the knowledge that I posses. A lot like ulcer patients who had previously been told that stress or a myriad other things but not a bacterial infection caused their ulcer.

The Wrong ‘House’ (doctor) Due to the Wrong Paradigm*

Interestingly as reported in Time magazine shortly after the Gulf War a Professor of Medicine, Dr. Garth Nichols didn’t accept that his step-daughter was depressed or suffering from a psychological illness and he discovered a bacterial infection, mycoplasma hiding as a stealth bug in her red blood cells that was a major cause of her symptoms, and undetectable by conventional blood tests.

The mycoplasma bug didn’t affect every soldier just as any infection only hits immune depleted individuals. What contributed to the depression of the immune system in some soldiers was the high number of vaccinations they received and exposure to toxic chemicals.

If an open minded individual looked at the data they would find some interesting facts, such as a higher incidence of Gulf War Veterans with this Syndrome whose spouses and children came down with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, thus suggesting an infectious component. (Wikipedia has an excellent article on Gulf War Syndrome.)

For physicians to get on their high horse and use the copout standard line of psychological illnesses for legitimate disorders like Gulf War Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome based on 19th century thinking just shows how out of touch they are with reality and unbiased scientific research.

This is a very short diatribe for which I could go to great lengths to provide references and reams of information. It should be said that physicians who don’t believe could call on their colleagues to pontificate and back up their position with reams of data as well. They could impress the lay person with all this information however, having been an insider in medicine and knowing their paradigm* is wrong (see their previous paradigm on the cause of ulcers) I’m not buying their pitch.

It’s best to seek out a physician who understands the new paradigm of Integrative Medicine if you suffer from one of these illnesses because they can help you. That would be a better thing than talking to a non-believing Conventional/Orthodox physician because in this case it would be a good thing that the doctor is not in the ‘House’.

*Paradigm- “the generally accepted perspective of a particular discipline at a given time; “he framed the problem within the psychoanalytic paradigm”. Dictionary.com

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Dennis Cutforth is a researcher and writer with over 35 years experience in health-care sales, marketing and research in pharmaceuticals and natural health. Dennis will cut through all the propaganda and give you the real facts about what really works to make you healthier and happier. Visit his Blog at Better Life Blog.