MedicalConspiracies- COD LIVER OIL AND ARTHRITIS

COD LIVER OIL AND ARTHRITIS

Gabe Mirkin, M.D.

http://www.drmirkin.com/joints/1239.html

Even the most outrageous quacks sometimes end up as prophets when many
years later, a scientific study supports theories that were previously
scorned. An article from respected researchers in Berlin showed that cod
liver oil helped to relieve pain and suffering in some people with
rheumatoid arthritis. This is the same remedy proposed by Don Dale
Alexander in a best-selling book in the 1950s.

In this study, 43 patients with rheumatoid arthritis took 1 gram of cod
liver oil daily for three months. Fifty-two percent had less morning
stiffness, 42 percent had less pain, and 49 percent had less swelling,
Sixty-five percent felt that the cod liver oil helped relieve their
pain, and 98 percent felt that they could take it in spite of its awful
odor.

In the 1950s, Dr. Don Dale Alexander's book, Arthritis and Common Sense
sold more than a million copies and delighted talk show hosts. He would
tell listeners that his mother had such severe arthritis that she
squeaked when she walked. When a door or wheel squeaks, you oil it. He
claimed that joints are like wheels. He told people with arthritis to
eat huge amounts of oils. He proclaimed that oil passes from intestines,
into the bloodstream, and then into joints to lubricate them and stop
the joints from squeaking and hurting. But the human body doesn't work
that way. Before fatty triglycerides in oils can be absorbed into your
bloodstream, they must be broken down into their building blocks, called
glycerol, fatty acids and monoglycerides. Then these building blocks
circulate in the bloodstream and are reassembled only after they enter
each cell. Oil cannot pass from food into joints.

Another of Dr. Alexander's claims was that people should never drink
water with meals or eat fatty oils with water because oil and water
don't mix. He claimed that water should be taken only when the stomach
is empty so it won't wash the oil from the joints. In September 7, 1956,
the Federal Trade Commission charged that the ads for Alexander's book
were "false, misleading, deceptive." At that hearing, Alexander's
education was exposed for public scrutiny. He attended high school at
Norwich Free Academy and graduated 313th in a class of 353 in 1937. He
went to Trinity College of Hartford Connecticut, but did not complete
even one semester of college. He then wrote his book and introduced
himself as Dr. Don Dale Alexander. He claimed that his PhD was from St.
Andrews Ecumenical University in London. But the FTC said that Alexander
had never been there. He also claimed that he had a Doctor of Arts and
Oratory from Staley College of the Spoken Word in Brookline,
Massachusetts. The FTC said this was an outright purchase since he made
a contribution of $1000 to the college prior to conferment. The hearing
examiner at FTC decided that the Alexander's book "is but a thesis by
Alexander predicated on unsupportable and unprovable postulates. and
amounts to nothing more than a collection and summation of the author's
theories concerning arthritis, rheumatism and related diseases, all of
which are pure theory." This new report in Advances in Therapy shows
that a quack may sometimes be a prophet.

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