MONITORING SUPPLEMENTATION

Even when intelligently chosen, a given regimen of supplementa­tion should not be undertaken and continued for life without any change, unless that regimen consistently results in a good clinical status and normal follow-up laboratory blood and hair testing. Be sure to work with a health care practitioner who will follow you closely and properly interpret your test results.

The primary rule of supplementation is never to ignore the clini­cal picture. If chronic symptoms of illness are lessening or even dis­appearing, you are on the right track. I never try to convince anyone to alter their regimen if they are objectively better clinically and staying that way. However, I do make them aware that continuing the same regimen indefinitely may not always be the best choice, es­pecially after significant nutrient depletions have been restored. Continuing large doses of supplements after depletions have been resolved can "flip-flop" the patient into a gradually worsening state of "oversupplementation" toxicity.

A further consideration is especially important when the patient is detoxifying rapidly, as often occurs after dental toxicity has been removed. Sometimes the very minerals that restore clinical health

The Importance of Proper Supplementation 155

also increase the rate at which cells can release their stored toxins. Such a detoxification also involves retoxification, since all released toxins do not get completely excreted. Some of them are redeposited into new cells, producing a new toxic effect in those cells. This pos­sibility should always be considered when there is a return of symptomatology in a patient who initially responded very well. Detoxification must always proceed at a relatively slow, controlled rate, so that any retoxification will be adequately neutralized by an immune system well supported with optimal nutrition and optimal supplementation, such as megadose vitamin С

When you are feeling well on a regimen of vitamins, minerals, and other supplements, you still should consider having some me­thodical follow-up by a well-qualified health care practitioner, uti­lizing routine blood, hair, and urine testing. Generally, if things are getting gradually out of balance, such testing can warn you before any clinical decline takes place. Clinical decline does not usually take place overnight, and a thorough review of regularly obtained tests will usually reveal a gradual deterioration of blood, hair, and urine chemistries before new symptoms develop or old symptoms recur. Practice preventive medicine. Having regular follow-ups is one of the best ways to maintain your good health. Many people are frightened at how quickly a friend or family member can be "struck down" while in seemingly good health. This type of follow-up could prevent many of these tragedies, since telltale signs usually appear well before this sudden loss of health.

As a general rule, blood chemistries for adults should be within the ranges listed in table 1. Dr. Huggins and I developed these ranges over time, as patients who underwent Total Dental Revision and followed good diets were retested. These were also the ranges that emerged most commonly in the patients who showed clinical improvement in their various disease processes. The ranges in parentheses are those commonly seen in most hospital laboratories and claimed to be the real approximate normal ranges of those

156 Optimal Nutrition for Optimal Health

laboratory tests in man. These ranges are much wider than the recommended ranges that are not enclosed by parentheses. This extra width allows for most of the population to register as normal. However, since most of the population is dealing with a lot of toxic-ity, their blood work does not contract into the narrower, healthier ranges until that toxicity has been neutralized or properly elimi­nated. Neither the public nor the medical profession would settle for a range of normalcy that excluded a majority of patients.

	Table 1.
Optimal	Blood Chemistry Ranges
Laboratory Test	Optimal Range	Usual Range
Calcium	9.4-9.7 mg/dL	(8.3-10.9)
Phosphorus	3.6-4.1 mg/dL	(2.5-4.9)
Glucose	75-85 mg/dL	(65-110)
Cholesterol	160-240 mg/dL	(125-275)
Triglycerides	<100 mg/dL	(20-200)
Uric add	<5.0 mg/dL	(4.5-8.0)
Total protein	6.6-7.4 g/dL	(6.4-8.3)
Albumin	4.4-4.8 g/dL	(3.5-5.0)
Globulin	2.2-2.6 g/dL	(2.9-3.3)
BUN	13-17 mg/dL	(7-22)
Total bilirubin	<1.0 mg/dL	(0.2-1.5)
SGOT	<25U/L	(10-42)
Hemoglobin	13-16 g/dL	(11.7-17.7)
Platelets	225-250 x 103/uL	(150-400)
White blood cells	5,000-6,000/uL	(3,500-11,000)
Lymphocytes	2,100-2,400/uL	(1,000-2,400)

The Importance of Proper Supplementation 157

If you compare these blood chemistry ranges with your own results, you may find that many or even most of your results fall within the ranges given in parentheses, but not within the more restrictive ranges before them. In fact, the huge assault of toxicity, led by the dental toxins that most people face, will keep these tests out of the narrower, optimal ranges.

A laboratory result of special concern is a low lymphocyte count. Generally speaking, the lower this count is, the less fighting power remains in the immune system. Dr. Huggins and I found that the sickest and most toxic patients consistently had the lowest lympho­cyte counts. And when this level dipped below 1,000, it became less and less likely that the patient's immune system and the lympho­cyte count would completely rebound even with the removal of dental toxicity and the support of optimal nutrition.

This observation recently received inadvertent support in the sci­entific literature. Qmmen et al. found that the long-term survival of patients with congestive heart failure was significantly and inde­pendently related to lymphocyte count.²⁴ Although these re­searchers were looking only at the survival of heart failure patients, it is not hard to appreciate that the survival of any chronically dis­eased population would directly correlate with a test that indicates general immune system compromise from toxicity, such as low lymphocyte count.

It should also be noted that the natural response of white blood cells is to increase in the face of toxicity. A low white blood cell count, combined with a low lymphocyte count, is generally correlated with a long-term immune system exposure to toxicity, with the low cell counts representing somewhat of a "burned out" immune re­sponse to the unrelenting toxicity.

When toxins are properly removed and eliminated, the narrower laboratory ranges in the preceding chart are the ranges that are con­sistently seen to gradually appear. Many of your tests may never get in these tighter ranges, but these ranges should still be your targets,

158 Optimal Nutrition for Optimal Health

and you should attempt to get your chemistries to move toward this level of normalcy rather than away from it. These tests are espe­cially important for the monitoring of proper detoxification after significant toxins such as dental toxins have been removed or min­imized, since the detoxification process can get you just as sick as the primary exposure. The blood chemistries can rapidly deterio­rate to where they were before toxins were ever removed if the rapid detoxification rate goes unchecked and unrecognized. Fur­thermore, this can occur even after years of good health if an ill-advised change in nutrition and supplementation again "kicks up" an excessive detoxification rate. Following these laboratory test re­sults closely can prevent days, weeks, and even months of illness that will occur when they finally deteriorate to the point when im­mune compromise and clinical illness results.

The hair analysis is also very useful, although it is a little under­stood test. The levels of the elements that are reported on such a test reflect ONLY what was circulating in the blood while those hairs tested were actually growing. If you have large body stores of a toxic element, but your new exposure was minimal during the months when the tested hair was growing, your test result could be normal or even LOW. Conversely, if you had a recent high acute ex­posure to a toxic element, but your total body stores were low, the hair level could be very high.

Hair analysis is most useful in guiding supplementation and monitoring body levels of toxins when multiple tests taken over the course of many months or years are viewed together. Levels can shoot up and later drop down, usually indicating the bodily stores have been mobilized and excreted. High levels can drop down and then come back up to lower baseline levels, usually indicating that a storage of a nonbioavailable form of a mineral element, such as calcium or magnesium, has been excreted, allowing the reaccumu-lation of bioavailable forms. It's not too useful to run sequential hair analysis tests less than four to six months apart, since the changes

The Importance of Proper Supplementation 159

that these tests measure move slowly. Blood testing is always more immediately useful, but the addition of hair analysis can help you to fine-tune your supplementation over the long term.

Urine testing for a heavy metal such as mercury can also serve to indicate how fast detoxification is proceeding. Since this detoxifica­tion rate is generally very critical to how healthy one is at the mo­ment, such a test can be very useful as well. When a baseline urinary mercury level suddenly doubles or triples, increased exposure to mercury must be presumed, and this must come either from new outside sources or from within, due to an increased rate of detoxifi­cation. Furthermore, if the higher urine mercury level is indicating an increased rate of detoxification, it is not usually important to check other urinary heavy metals, since the levels of mercury in the urine will generally track the release rates of other heavy metals and toxins from their internal storage sites.