I mentioned that I started a nutrition company, Garden of Life. Many people far more expert in the business of natural health than I tell me Garden of Life is the fastest-growing nutrition company in the world today. If so, I believe that this is because everything we are doing now at Garden of Life is different than how it is being done currently and was done in the past in the field of nutritional supplements. That is because our theories of health are different than those of anyone else. For us, isolated vitamins and minerals are passé. We recognize their role in supplementing the diet, but they’re so limited. Let me tell you, Nature has far more nutritional treasures than what have been isolated in the laboratory. The real goal ought to be to concentrate Nature’s nutritional treasures as our Creator intended. (Besides, since almost everyone else is already manufacturing isolated, fractionated, and synthesized vitamin and mineral formulas, it is clear that the last thing the world needs now is another vitamin and mineral manufacturer.) Nor does the consumer need more formulas from marketers who try to create a big splash for the “latest and greatest” with flashy advertising that will “push” their products on the public. What is needed is something solid—supplements so nutritionally valuable that if the consumer were stranded on a deserted island, he or she could actually live off of them—supplements so thoroughly clinically validated that the results consumers and patients can expect are expertly detailed in published studies—supplements crafted from a modern day Garden of Eden and that are as Nature intended—free from pesticides, grown organically, unadulterated—yet, proven through rigorous science.

 

For us, the center of health is the gut—the body’s gastrointestinal tract. And that’s why our whole food concentrates are always targeted, in one respect or another, to aiding gastrointestinal health. One of our mottos surely is that, “you are not what you eat, but what you assimilate.”

 

But the gut is more than the second brain; it is also the seat of the body’s defenses, the center of immune function. In addition to the lymphoid tissue concentrated within the lymph nodes and spleen and immune cells circulating in our bloodstream, lymphoid tissue and immune cells are also found at other sites, most notably the gastrointestinal tract, respiratory tract and urogenital tract. Such lymphoid tissue is termed MALT or mucosal-associated lymphoid tissue. In the gastrointestinal tract, however, it’s called the GALT or gut-associated lymphoid tissue. Our gut produces about 75 percent of our body’s total immune system cells. So when we want to boost immunity, we must also look at improving gastrointestinal health.

 

Studies show that over 40 percent of patients visit their doctors for gastrointestinal problems, with complaints ranging from irritable bowel syndrome, abdominal bloating, and diarrhea to constipation. Often there are no answers to these problems because of a lack of diagnosed anatomical or chemical defects. Doctors tell patients that their gut problems are imaginary, emotional, or all in their heads, attributing their problems to brain malfunction. Needless to say, the quality of life for these patients will not be ideal until their problems are understood and a method to enhance the body’s healing response is found. An understanding of the enteric nervous system and the importance of the gut to overall well-being should help to provide cures for many conditions well beyond those that center on the gastrointestinal tract. After all, the gut is the center of our own happiness and well-being.

 

There’s a good reason why Primal Defense™ with Homeostatic Soil Organisms (HSOs) has become our flagship formula at Garden of Life. ( We call them homeostatic soil organisms because science now shows us clearly that these organisms return the body to a state of dynamic homeostasis.)  Every idea that we have put into action has come from the premise of this formula and the lessons it has spawned. A lot of diseases, we now realize, result from living too far removed from our microscopic allies, the beneficial bacteria in our environment.

 

Let’s look more closely at these ancient soil organisms.* In the Townsend Letter, Dr. Morton Walker reports on their discovery and the implications of this discovery: 4

 

There are relatively few areas of the world today whose natural ecology has been untainted by modern man. While hiking through a remote area on another continent in 1978, an American scientist discovered some mounds on the ground that he recognized as homeostatic soil organisms of an unusual nature. He brought a small quantity of the HSOs to the United States for use in experimentation. Because these bacteria are not regularly found on the North American continent, the scientist had to create a new culture for research purposes. Over the next three years his research team performed studies on the unknown homeostatic soil organisms. These researchers: (1) identified exactly what the various strains were; (2) determined toxicity or pathogenicity of the bacteria for humans or animals; (3) ascertained if the HSOs are beneficial for animals or humans and found they were useful to both. In vivo tests on rodents and other animals proved that nothing toxic came from the bacteria. Botany studies conducted indicated the HSOs were beneficial to plants and soil. Next, at U.S. and Mexican institutions, human beings—including the biochemist himself—underwent clinical tests with the bacteria by applying them topically to open wounds. Then the organisms were ingested. No toxicity reactions or side effects were observed; in fact, the HSOs offered no adverse responses in the test subjects even with greater amounts consumed….

 

Over time, the scientist and his co-workers perfected a process for selectively breeding superior strains of the microorganisms until they produced cultures that furnished good, positive body reactions such as more normal bowel movements, improved sleep patterns, fewer colds and flu, and greater amounts of energy. During the breeding experiments, the scientist brought his HSOs to university laboratories in California for experiments. He collaborated with professors and utilized the universities’ computer data banks.

 

Dr. Walker reported that neither the scientist nor his collaborators ever made any changes to the bacteria by mutation or other means. These homeostatic soil organisms appear to be as old as the Earth.

 

I mentioned that once my story became public through the Townsend Letter demand for these homeostatic soil organisms was incredible. I became the “hub” for anyone in the world with a gastrointestinal problem who couldn’t get better and soon I began receiving thousands of phone calls. Eventually, I had to create a formula containing these organisms. I called the product Primal Defense, because I believed that what we were doing was original and primitive, closely approximating one of the truly important, beneficial influences upon our Earth’s first inhabitants.

 

I chose a name for the company—Garden of Life—to exemplify my belief that our Creator gave us everything we need within His creation to have abundant and healthy lives.

 

Once I began Garden of Life, there were many things I wanted to accomplish. I went full speed ahead with my own medical education at the Peoples University of the Americas School of Natural Medicine and in so doing began to develop the concepts and ideas that would form the basis for the way we do things at Garden of Life. I also began studying the nutritional supplement industry to learn what companies were doing, both right and wrong. I found a lot more that was being done wrong than right.

 

Most companies start out trying to create a market. They ride that pony until it is all ridden out. Then, they go onto the next fresh horse and ride that one until it is broken down too. Their major source of research is all too frequently the Xerox copier. Borrowed science is the norm for the nutritional product industry. Few companies invest significant sums of money into research. Most copy products from their competitors. This is sad because one day, for most of these companies, their reliance on knock-off products will become the knock-out punch of their businesses and much of the nutritional product industry.

 

We were lucky. Garden of Life was created not to find a market, but by the force of a huge consumer demand. Believe me, people suffering from severe digestive disorders are not very patient—and there are a lot of such folks throughout the industrialized nations, especially in the United States where fast-food is king and almost everything is disinfected with powerful bacteriocides.

 

Among the most critical areas for the nutritional products industry are sourcing raw materials and their handling, all the way from soil to store shelf. You probably don’t know this, but most herbs today are fumigated and irradiated in order to kill all microorganisms. Not very natural, if you ask me. We wanted all organic ingredients, if possible, which is very rare even in the natural products industry. To ensure potency and that our formulas embodied the physics of healing we would employ low-temperature processing.  We also found that vegetables and herbs are better absorbed when they are predigested through lactic acid fermentation, and that these herbs are more potent when grown in certain areas of the world. Thus, our unique Poten-Zyme™ fermentation process encourages populations of beneficial microorganisms that make our whole foods and herbs so much more available even to disease-weakened bodies. (To learn more about Poten-Zyme, see Chapter 4.) Our whole food and herbal ingredients are grown especially for Garden of Life in Australia, California, Arizona, Japan, France, Spain, and even regions of the former Soviet Union, and, of course, on our own certified organic farm, including a full-scale fermentation and drying facility located in southern Utah.

 

These were just some of the issues we met head-on here at Garden of Life. Also, we have invested almost one million dollars to date in primary research, including laboratory and clinical studies to scientifically validate not only our cornerstone formulations, Primal Defense, RM-10™ and FYI™ (For Your Inflammation™), but our new formulas.

 

Asthma. Allergies. Irritable bowel syndrome. Rheumatoid arthritis. Lupus Crohn’s disease. Chronic fatigue syndrome. Immune disorders. All are reaching epidemic proportions.

 

To protect yourself from these disorders and insure long-term super health—as well as to aid your body’s healing quest in the case of these and other related disorders—may I respectfully suggest you eat some dirt?

 

Do not be surprised by what I say. Dirt—or to be more specific, the Earth’s soil—is one of your body’s best friends.

 

Dirt or soil is so essential to health that if you or a loved one is suffering from any of the above conditions, this may be due to a lost connection with Earth.

 

When we were back in the era of primitive man, we got dirty. We were exposed to all sorts of microscopic bugs. Our food was dirty. But was this all bad? Not really, and it’s a shame that today words like dirt or soil are such a negative concept.

 

Even today as children, we are meant to make mud pies, to play in the mud, to get dirty. It is as necessary to our long-term health as almost anything. Our immune systems need this kind of exposure to learn how to react later on in life to real or not so real threats to our health. You see, without early exposures to all sorts of organisms in the soil, later in life when our immune system is exposed to various benign intruders, it may overreact. Hence, we develop autoimmune diseases, some types of asthma, and allergies. And that’s just one of the consequences of our lost connection to Earth. Our immune system may never truly reach its full zenith of defensive powers against disease-causing organisms or chemical toxins without reestablishing this lost connection to the Earth.

 

So while modern civilization proceeds full speed ahead with technology, we must not allow ourselves to become apart from Nature. It is in our best interest to maintain contact with the good Earth. Most of us don’t.

 

Therefore one premise—one guiding light for Garden of Life—is that most of us will benefit by returning to our bodies these missing microorganisms.

 

I know what I’m saying may strike some readers as crazy, and they may wonder where I’m coming from. Yet, prestigious health experts at our most respected medical and scientific institutions worldwide have come to these same conclusions.

 

In fact, society’s growing separation from dirt and germs may well be the cause of the growing incidence of a wide range of maladies, says epidemiologist David Strachan, who first advanced the over-cleanliness theory in 1989 when he was at Britain’s London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.5

 

At that time, Dr. Strachan noticed that children belonging to large families were much less likely to develop asthma, hay fever or eczema. Dr. Strachan theorized older children coming home dirty with all sorts of resident soil microorganisms were actually protecting their younger brothers and sisters.

 

We need dirt, says Dr. Strachan. He may be onto something.

 

Throughout the world, scientists are carrying spoons and sandwich bags no matter where they go, in search of ever-exotic sources of such soil organisms. They are seeking out new and unique soil organisms in bat caves, hot springs, undersea volcanoes, and even from mummies. Each exotic locale may yield a completely new discovery. Indeed, these vast resources have not even begun to be tapped. Even the National Cancer Institute is getting in on the action and funding research on soil organisms. It is thought by some of our leading government officials and scientists that in our soil we may find a treatment for AIDS, cancer, and other deadly diseases. Consider these discoveries:

 

• While vacationing in Norway, an employee at Sandoz Pharmaceutical took home a mold found in soil that later led to development of the anti-rejection transplant drug cyclosporin.

 

• A scientist scouring the soil of an Indonesian temple discovered microbes that can turn starch into sugar.

 

• In Japan, a scientist picked up a clump of soil from a golf course that is now used to cure parasitic infections plaguing livestock.

 

• Most current antibiotics come from microbes in the soil, including streptomycin, the first treatment for tuberculosis, and vancomycin, currently the drug of last resort for the toughest infections.6

 

And consider this: unknown organisms make up 99.9 percent of all the microbes in the soil. One gram of soil—the weight of a little packet of sugar—can contain as many as 10,000 species unknown to science, notes Jo Handelsman, a professor of plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin. As Business Week online notes, “Now, for the first time, she and her colleagues, along with several other research groups working independently, are learning to extract the DNA of these mysterious creatures and clone it. They are finding that the microbes differ so profoundly from known bacteria that they could represent entirely new kingdoms of life—as different from other bacteria as animals are from plants. That means that the proteins produced by these creatures could have properties unlike any other such substances known.” Already, Handelsman says, several new antibiotics have been identified from such soil microbes.

 

But here’s the clincher, from the same article on Business Week online—there is a great explanation as to why the HSOs helped turn around my health problems and why anyone with Crohn’s or any other disease might well benefit from them:

 

Even human intestines—an environment most people consider pretty familiar—are home to perhaps 10,000 kinds of microbes…. Indeed, one of the surprises in the decoding of the human genome was that it contains more than 200 genes that come from bacteria. Microbes not only keep us alive; in some small part, we are made of them.

 

[Researchers are] now looking at how these largely unknown microbes might play a role in Crohn’s disease, an inflammation of the small intestine. [They have] found that the makeup of the mixed “community” of microbes in the intestines changes in people with the disease. A similar thing might happen with tuberculosis…leading [researchers] to wonder whether some diseases might be caused not by a single dangerous microbe but by a change in the microbial community—an ecological imbalance inside the human body.

 

So there you have it. Our soil is home to countless numbers of microorganisms and our gut is also populated with far more microbes than we have ever known. Inside and out we are at one with the Earth. At least we should be. After all, the Bible says that man was made from the dust of the Earth. That is a bit of wisdom that we can’t even yet begin to understand or comprehend.

 

HOW DIRT IMPROVES HEALTH

 

The idea that dirt is good for our health is paradoxically due to our exposure to both protective and infectious microorganisms found in soil. According to a recent report in the New Scientist, researchers have discovered the microorganisms found in dirt influence maturation of the immune system so that it is either functional or dysfunctional.7 The organisms to which we are exposed “condition” our immune system so that it intuitively knows when to produce and activate T-helper (Th) cells.

 

Among the cells of the immature immune system are so-called non-differentiated T-helper cells (Th cells), which are primarily produced by the thymus gland. These Th cells control the initiation or suppression of the body’s immune reactions and regulate many other immune cells. Among the TH cells are two types that develop as we mature: Th1 and Th2 helper cells.

 

The quality of an individual’s immune system can be evaluated through the balance of cytokines it is producing. This increasingly popular classification method is referred to as the Th1/Th2 balance.

 

Interleukins and interferons are called “cytokines” which can be grouped into those secreted by Th1 type cells and those secreted by Th2 type cells. Th1 cells promote specialized cell-mediated immunity, while Th2 cells induce humoral immunity (this refers to immunity to infection created by proteins termed antibodies, specialized proteins secreted by “B” cells or B lymphocytes).

 

Th1 cells are the quintessential cop who does his job of defending your body very efficiently—with little wasted effort. The body’s Th1 cells produce only as many germ-zapping antibodies as necessary to stop an invader. The message here is economy of action.

 

But on the other hand, Th2 cells are the armed forces of the body and when they go out to do battle it is like sending in the army, navy, marines and air force. The Th2 cells are “total response” defenders.

 

These two different methods by which the body fights infections exist side by side. While cellular immunity (Th1) directs natural killer T-cells and macrophages to attack abnormal cells and microorganisms at sites of infection inside the cells, humoral immunity (Th2) results in the production of antibodies used to neutralize foreign invaders and substances outside of the cells. Imagine the skies over Baghdad during the Gulf War and you get a sense of the mayhem created by Th2 cells when they are in overdrive, overproducing germ-zapping antibodies.

 

In many cases, an infection is fought with both arms of the immune system. At other times, predominantly one is needed to control an infection. A healthy immune system is both balanced and dynamic: it should be balanced between Th1 and Th2 activity, switching back and forth between the two as needed. This allows for a quick eradication of a threat and then a return to balance before responding to the next threat. The inability to respond adequately with a Th1 response can result in chronic infection, chronic fatigue syndrome and cancer; an overactive, yet paradoxically ineffective, Th2 response can contribute to allergies and various syndromes, and play a role in autoimmune disease.

 

A failure of the Th1 arm of the immune system and an overactive yet ineffective Th2 arm are implicated in a wide variety of chronic illnesses. These include AIDS, chronic fatigue syndrome, candidiasis, multiple allergies, multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), viral hepatitis, Gulf War syndrome, cancer, lupus, and many other illnesses. If these two arms of the immune system could be balanced by stimulating Th1 cells and decreasing Th2 cells, then many of the symptoms associated with these chronic illnesses would diminish or disappear and we would have found the answer to immune restoration and balance, or come darn close to the equivalent of a cure.

 

ARE TODAY’S CHILDREN TOO CLEAN?

 

When we are children, if we are exposed to an adequate amount of viruses and bacteria and other microorganisms—if we are allowed to play in the dirt, put our fingers in our mouths and make mud pies—our Th cells will mature in the proper proportion into desirable Th1 cells. But without adequate internal exposure to soil microbes, our immune cells have a tendency towards overreactions and they are more likely to mature into Th2 cells. We have failed in our immune system’s educational processes.

 

Too many children, today and in the last fifty years, have been denied this much- needed exposure to soil microorganisms. In other words, we’re living in too clean an environment. The immune systems of children and even adults are no longer being properly educated.

 

Perhaps a sense of balance is required, and we have overemphasized elimination of microorganisms from our environment. This, coupled with the fact that most of the country has become so urbanized that kids are hardly ever found playing in the garden or walking on country roads, shows us that we have lost contact with our bacterially rich Earth.

 

Today, more than ever, we oversterilize everything. We have disinfectant dishwashing soap and disinfectant body lotions and skin bars with disinfectants like triclosan—and even disinfectant produce washes when, in fact, we need the beneficial organisms in our food supply.

 

We sterilize our agricultural soil with pesticides and herbicides, destroying beneficial and harmful bacteria alike, even harming plants’ natural immune systems. Our food used to have loads of bacterial organisms which became part of the plant and which we consumed. Now, our soil is sterile; our foods are sterile; (and, in a sense, for too many, our own lives are sterile). Pesticides and herbicides do pretty much to the soil what overuse of medical antibiotics has done to the human gut—eliminate not only the bad but also the good guys. And that’s not good.

 

Oh, sure, we are exposed to some of these microorganisms on a limited basis, but leading researchers say that on a daily basis, most people are no longer exposed to large enough quantities of microorganisms from our soil, dust, air, water and foods to achieve optimal health. With an overly sterile environment, our relationship to Earth has been severed. We live in air-conditioned offices and homes and pass from one to the other walking upon concrete or traveling in cars on polluted highways. Our foods are irradiated to further kill the microorganisms. We use antibacterial preservatives. The idea of fermented foods is almost foreign to Americans. With our modern, high-tech processing methods, food manufacturers remove and destroy many of our food’s most important life-giving nutrients. Our children stay indoors watching TV and playing video games instead of playing outside. It is ironic that, even though our parents yelled at us for eating mud pies, perhaps it was the best thing we could have been doing for ourselves.

 

From thousands of years up to about half-a-century ago, the American agricultural system raised fruits and vegetables in soil exceedingly rich in bacteria and other organisms. After World War II, however, these homeostatic soil organisms were displaced as a result of chemical farming and pesticide usage by big agricultural business.

 

In their quest to reduce unwanted disease-causing pathogens, agribusiness groups sterilized the soil and water (chlorination), thereby eliminating the beneficial bacteria as well as the harmful ones. We now even give antibiotics, hormones, and other drugs to chickens and cattle—so much so that all of the European Common Market refuses to import livestock from American farms.

 

Even if we don’t take antibiotics, we almost certainly consume them in animal products. Over 35 million pounds of antibiotics are produced in the U.S. each year, and animals are given the vast bulk of them. Cattle, pigs and poultry are routinely given big helpings of antibiotics to prevent infections from spreading in their stressful, crowded quarters. In Western Europe, giving antibiotics to cattle is outlawed, as is the importation of American beef; this is, in part, due to all the antibiotics fed to U.S. cattle. Researchers estimate that by consuming just one glass of commercial milk we are unknowingly ingesting the residues of up to 100 different antiobiotics. This constant exposure to low-dose antibiotics is leading to an increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria.

 

A healthy intestine in both children and adults contains billions of bacteria—including up to 10,000 different species. Optimally, the body’s beneficial or benign bacteria should outnumber the cells of the body by approximately one hundred fold! But this is no longer the case.

 

These friendly bacteria are our first line of immune defense. They displace and fight off unfriendly bacteria and internal fungi that can set the stage for both adult and childhood illness. They even increase the body’s levels of interferon, a mighty immune-boosting chemical. They are as essential to health as water and food.

 

This is all very critical to our health. If harmful bacteria propagate and gain the upper hand, we will not only be prone to infectious disease but our bodies will produce toxic, carcinogenic substances. We will also suffer digestive problems including constipation and diarrhea.

 

But here’s the problem that adults—and children especially—face as they grow up in a toxic world. Stress, medications and poor diet reduce friendly bacteria even further, leaving them even more vulnerable to disease. Antibiotics can be the biggest culprits in destroying our friendly bacteria. At high dosages, they wipe out all bacteria inside your child’s body, the good along with the bad.

 

Once that happens, the race is on as to which microorganisms, the good guys or the bad guys, set up shop in that empty real estate inside your or your child’s gut.

 

This is why we must be extra careful to replenish and stabilize friendly bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. In essence, with the HSOs in Primal Defense, we have positioned on our side a massive army of health defenders in our intestines that is ever on guard to protect our health as well as maintain a balanced immune system, reacting only as needed, never over- or under-reacting.

 

We can support balanced immune function with soil organisms. These produce proteins that the body interprets as antigens (a protein from a foreign substance or microorganism that is capable of stimulating an immune response). The immune system reacts to these proteins. The way that HSOs stimulate the immune system’s Th cells will also influence other immune cells, especially B lymphocytes that are manufactured in the bone marrow and produce nonspecific or un-programmed antibodies. These un-programmed antibodies have the ability to take a fresh, new look at newly introduced bodily invaders. They have not been preprogrammed to overreact and are freely available to travel where and when needed. It is as if we are sending our immune cells back to school to learn their jobs all over again so that they can perform them even better.

 

The beauty of it all is that this huge reservoir of extra antibodies is always on hand for the immune system to utilize as long as the individual is taking the HSOs regularly. Without them, this reservoir of extra antibodies is unavailable. Thus, by ingesting homeostatic soil organisms on a regular basis, the effectiveness of one’s immune system becomes vastly enhanced.

 

The HSOs help to accomplish the educational process that was earlier disturbed when the link between beneficial soil organisms and the human body was broken. They help to educate the body’s Th cells as they may never have been during childhood; the process might be more aptly called building immune “tolerance” or “maturation.”

 

Through constant exposure to the lost HSOs, the body’s Th cells become re- educated and “tolerant” and mount only necessary, not excessive, immune responses. In a sense, this formula gives the immune system the workout it missed when the patient was young, due to living in our modern, highly sanitized world. But that is only part of what HSOs do. Like any other great advance in healing, the science is there in abundance to back up the positive clinical outcomes complementary physicians are seeing with their patients.

 

In the natural environment, HSOs help plants to digest inorganic substances, protect root systems from parasites, yeast, and fungi, and provide growth factors and different hormones. They do the same for human health and the gastrointestinal tract. We are, after all, part of Nature. William C. Bryce, M.D., Ph.D., of Huntington Beach, California, notes: “Just as HSOs destroy molds, yeasts, fungi, and viruses in the soil of the organic garden, they perform the same function with pathological organisms present in the gut, which greatly enhances the body’s immune system.”

 

UNBALANCED GASTROINTESTINAL ECOLOGY

 

Scientists and doctors are prone to use fancy words that leave the average person wondering what the heck they’re jabbering about. This imbalance, when pathogenic microorganisms outnumber beneficial bacterial species, is referred to as dysbiosis. Put simply, dysbiosis is one of those fancy words for a condition that occurs when the population of organisms residing within the gastrointestinal tract becomes imbalanced, often resulting in acute or chronic sickness.

 

Normally, populations of pathogenic organisms are kept in balance by competition from good bacteria and because of symbiosis, which is the mutually interdependent relationship among the hundreds of intestinal microbial species. According to Gershon, “One reason that the bacteria in the lumen of the colon do not break out and infect the body is that they are at war with one another. No one kind of germ gains ascendancy and takes uncontested possession of colonic turf. The constant competition between otherwise nasty germs helps to keep the bacterial population under control.” The problem is that, after antibiotics have wiped out all or much of the entire gastrointestinal landscape, the bad bacteria have the upper hand because they love the types of foods that we typically consume in our diet, especially the carbohydrates found in bread, pasta, milk, candy, baked goods and soft drinks. So, when the balance of good and bad bacteria is disturbed by antibiotics, it’s the bad bacteria that get the head start in repopulating the barren property within your gastrointestinal tract. And especially consider this: the kind of food people who are sick or have been sick love to eat is what we call comfort food—you know, milk shakes, breads, pastas, cookies, fries—the very kind of food that promotes the growth of disease-causing bacteria.

 

Dysbiosis results in abnormal fermentation in the small intestine.8 In the large intestine, some fermentation is desirable because it produces butyrate and other short-chain fatty acids that nourish the cells of the intestinal wall.9 In the small intestine, however, growth of yeast, fungi and/or fermenting pathogenic bacteria can result in damage to the gut lining, absorption of toxic by-products, and impaired absorption of nutrients.10

 

Repeated use of broad-spectrum antibiotics, oral contraceptives and steroid medications can set up conditions for opportunistic overgrowth of organisms that are not affected by the drugs or that are able to re-colonize rapidly once treatment has ended. This is particularly true of yeast and fungal organisms. Their metabolic products appearing in urine are the strongest physical evidence of intestinal overgrowth of these organisms. “As an internist, I can’t tell you how often we have seen patients treated with antibiotics, especially our women patients, whose bodies are overrun by candida,” notes Dr. Loes. “For men, such treatment often results in residual urinary tract bacteria, resulting in urinary tract infections and prostatitis (bacterial inflammation of the prostate gland).”

 

So, dysbiosis is a fancy word for the imbalance of microorganisms in your gastrointestinal tract. But what we need to keep in mind is that persistent dysbiosis can have serious health consequences.

 

It surely causes gastrointestinal problems, but it can also lead to a weakened immune system. As the body loses its ability to cope with the offending infections and pathogens, a host of chronic conditions appear that, on the surface, seem to have little to do with gastrointestinal disturbances.

 

This means that gastrointestinal health has far-reaching implications for general health, much more so than is commonly recognized. Indeed, doctors may have to do quite a bit of medical sleuthing to track down patients’ complaints finally to attribute them to dysbiosis or an imbalance of their gastrointestinal bacteria. But once we do so and then take appropriate pathways to enhance the healing response, patients often respond far more favorably than anticipated.

 

When the friendly bacteria are decimated by antibiotics, other harmful bacteria, yeast and fungi already living in the body, which were held in strict check by the friendly bacteria, begin to multiply profusely. The overgrowth of one especially potent yeast-like fungus, Candida albicans, leads to a potentially serious condition called candidiasis. Depending on its locale of action, candidiasis can inflame the tongue, mouth or rectum. It can also cause vaginitis and may be instrumental in triggering a range of mental and emotional symptoms, including irritability, anxiety and even depression. Many allergies that manifest themselves as digestive disorders, such as bloating, heartburn, constipation and diarrhea also have been causally linked to candida yeast overgrowth.

 

Knowing how to use antibiotics in a safe and effective manner is critically important to doctors, pharmacists, and consumers alike. But it starts with our children. The American Academy of Pediatrics recently observed that 95 percent of children in the United States will have been treated with antibiotics for a middle ear infection by the age of five. Some children will be fine—but others won’t be; their systems might become ravaged by the antibiotics, their populations of beneficial bacteria decimated.

 

Not surprisingly, dysbiosis or dysbacteriosis and its prevention or treatment are among the most topical and challenging problems doctors face today.11 In dysbiosis—when protective friendly bacterial species are reduced in population—even organisms traditionally thought to have little ability to cause disease, including usually benign bacteria, yeasts, and some parasites, can induce illness by altering our nutritional status or immune response. The consequences of intestinal dysbiosis extend beyond the immediately obvious gastrointestinal distress. Studies have implicated intestinal bacterial imbalances as a basis for conditions ranging from recurrent infections and immune breakdown to chronic fatigue. In today’s world, when we’re looking to maximize our health, dysbiosis may leave us predisposed to a host of common ailments including diarrhea, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, colon cancer, allergies, vaginitis, increased susceptibility to infection, food cravings, lack of mental clarity, hypoglycemia symptoms and many more conditions that doctors rarely connect to the bacterial populations of the gastrointestinal tract. Equally important, however, are the effects on tissues far from the intestinal site, such as the brain, joints and muscles, as well as on the immune system. Effects can be as diverse as headaches, learning disorders, insomnia, immune dysfunction, behavioral disorders, chronic fatigue, joint pain and nutritional deficiencies. More familiar to many patients are conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia, leaky gut syndrome, wasting disease, diverticulitis, hemorrhoids, and breast and colon cancer—all of which may have their genesis in an upset in the gastrointestinal tract’s bacterial population. Abnormal bacterial populations which lead to dysfunctional gut fermentation have adverse effects on nutrient assimilation and production, especially the B vitamins, and absorption of calcium, magnesium and zinc.12 These nutritional deficits explain how abnormal bacterial gut populations may cause many other significant adverse effects on health. As for breast cancer, who would’ve thought the bacteria in our gut are responsible for detoxification of potentially toxic metabolites of hormones such as estrogen?

 

COSTLY NATIONAL CONCERN

 

Today, we know that digestive diseases and other conditions related to unhealthy imbalances of intestinal flora have an enormous impact on our health. They are also extremely costly to the nation.

 

• Digestive diseases, which often are caused in part by or result in dysbiosis, cost nearly $107 billion in direct health care expenditures in 1992.13 Digestive diseases result in nearly 200 million sick days, 50 million visits to physicians, 16.9 million days lost from school, 10 million hospitalizations, and nearly 200,000 deaths per year.

 

• The most costly digestive diseases are gastrointestinal disorders such as diarrheal infections ($4.7 billion); gallbladder disease ($4.5 billion); colorectal cancer ($4.5 billion); liver disease ($3.2 billion); and peptic ulcer disease ($2.5 billion).

 

• Cancers of the digestive tract, which includes the colon, the gallbladder, and the stomach, are responsible for 117,000 deaths yearly. Non-cancerous digestive diseases cause 74,000 deaths a year, with 36 percent caused by chronic liver disease and cirrhosis.

 

• Of the 440 million acute non-cancerous medical conditions reported in the United States annually, more than 22 million are for acute digestive conditions, with 11 million from gastroenteritis and 6 million from indigestion, nausea, and vomiting.

 

Digestive diseases have an enormous impact on the health care system in the United States. New technologies and new drugs have revolutionized the understanding and treatment of peptic ulcer disease and gastrointestinal esophageal reflux disease (GERD). Successful outcomes of future research will hopefully continue to reduce the economic and health care costs related to diagnosing and treating digestive diseases. But no matter what new medicines we come up with the bottom line remains: your body desperately requires healthy intestinal flora, while many environmental and dietary conditions threaten this balance. We should be handing out HSOs to everyone.

 

So where did it all start? Where did our fastidiousness become a case of widespread social germ phobia? As the practice of soil and water sterilization increased over the years, the beneficial bacteria in American’s bodies decreased correspondingly. Normally, we should have a balance of 85 percent “good” bacteria to 15 percent “bad” bacteria in the intestinal tract. But today, most of us show the reverse ratio; therefore, it’s no coincidence that the incidences of chronic and degenerative diseases have multiplied dramatically since World War II.

 

Sophisticated lifestyles among Western industrialized countries contribute greatly to critical gastrointestinal disruption among the populations. Antibiotic usage, excessive stress, consumption of excess sugar and alcohol, the regular drinking of carbonated beverages, and frequent consumption of over-the-counter drugs alter the acid/alkaline balance of the intestinal tract, creating the perfect environment for pathogenic microbial activity.

 

How Do You Know if You Have Dysbiosis?

 

The most common symptoms of intestinal dysbiosis are bloating, abdominal cramping, constipation and diarrhea. In other words, chronic indigestion is a surefire sign of dysbiosis. Lactose intolerance, increased gut permeability, food allergies and intolerances, fatigue and immune suppression frequently accompany intestinal dysbiosis.

 

Common Symptoms of Intestinal Imbalances

 

• Abdominal pain or cramps

• Colon cancer

• Constipation or diarrhea

• Distention/bloating

• Fatigue

• Fatigue after eating

• Flatulence

• Bad breath

• Body odor

• Food allergy

• Hypoglycemia

• Inability to lose weight

• Irregular bowel movements

• Irritable bowel syndrome

• Itchy anus

• Leaky gut syndrome

• Poor complexion

• Poor digestion

• Rheumatoid arthritis

• Spastic colon

 

Major Causes of Dysbiosis

 

• Decreased immune function

• Decreased intestinal motility (constipation)

• Drugs—especially antibiotics, oral contraceptives

and cortisone-like medications

• Intestinal infection

• Maldigestion and malabsorption

• Poor diet—excessive carbohydrates,

sugar and trans fats

• Stress—including long-term

emotional stress

 

Nutritional researchers are now convinced that as much as 90 percent of known systemic diseases may be caused or exacerbated by gastrointestinal imbalances. My case of Crohn’s disease is a severe example of what can occur from gut bacterial imbalances.

 

When toxins are dispersed through the bloodstream, a precondition of “intestinal toxemia” (i.e., poisoning by harmful gut bacteria) occurs. “It is now universally conceded that autointoxication is the underlying cause of an exceptionally large group of symptom complexes,” said H.H. Boeker, D.C., as far back as 1928.

 

Take another case in point: our drinking water. Once, drinking water teemed with mycobacteria. Now, I’ll be the first to tell you, some of these pathogens were deadly, and the fact that today our water supplies are disinfected and so much safer than a century ago is no doubt important to public health and reduced morbidity and mortality. On the other hand, I should also point out the fact that populations in countries with low rates of asthma still drink water with billions of mycobacteria per liter. The chlorination process used to disinfect water also disinfects the human body, again eliminating both good and bad microorganisms.

 

In order to restore health, many people need to restore their connection to the soil. While obviously not everyone can go out and start making mud pies, do a little gardening or hike in the mountains, there is another way of doing so: our HSOs seem to be the healing link between our soil and our bodies.

 

By reintroducing HSOs to the human body, persons in pain—and who are suffering from immune disorders including food allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and Crohn’s disease, and many other conditions—finally have the missing link their bodies require to enhance the healing response.

 

Board-certified gastroenterologist Joseph Brasco, M.D., of Indianapolis, Indiana, and I met in 1999 when I attended a Designs for Health nutritional seminar. I was there both to speak and because I was researching more about the principles of the ancestral diet. Dr. Brasco was there too, investigating new options for his patients with gastrointestinal disorders. When it came time for my talk, Dr. Brasco was there in the front row. “Wow, so you’re the guy whose miraculous recovery I read about in the Townsend Letter,” he said after the talk.

 

We went to lunch and we’ve been close friends and colleagues ever since, though I have to admit that I was highly impressed by the fact that Dr. Brasco was willing to ask the advice of a brash 23-year-old (my age at the time).

 

“I’m intrigued,” he told me at lunch. “All of this just makes great sense—your inclusion of kefir and other fermented foods, and the use of the Primal Defense. I’ve already been prescribing these supplements to patients. In my own practice, however, I’m taking things one step further. You see, my idea is that we can take the healing of patients through diet and universalize it not just to an individual but to a whole group of people—all our patients.”

 

Eventually, our partnership resulted in Restoring Your Digestive Health (Kensington Health Books 2003).

 

Recently, when we spoke, Dr. Brasco told me why he is such a fan of HSOs when it comes to his patients’ health problems and for maintaining their health. Again, our theme returns to our oversterilized environment. He is also very keen on the inclusion of fermented foods in our diet and the role they can play in the healing process. Indeed, HSOs and fermented foods—especially our Poten-Zyme process—naturally fit well together.

 

Keep in mind Dr. Brasco is a board-certified gastroenterologist. Here’s what he says about the value of HSOs in his own practice and why he thinks they are so essential to our health and well-being:

 

Eating vegetables directly out of the soil as part of food was good for primitive man. The organisms living in that soil caused primal man to thrive. But today it’s different! Given the paranoia that modern men and women in western society feel against ingesting soil of any kind, these ancient soil-based organisms no longer are part of our food supply. Yes, times do change! It used to be that a pioneering farmer working his fields, the so-called ‘sod-buster,’ who became hungry simply dug into the ground, pulled up some carrots, brushed off the dirt, and chomped away on vegetables containing the residual dirt and all. The farmer kept his gastrointestinal tract functioning well by ingesting these extracurricular homeostatic soil organisms. But that’s not the way it is anymore. So fastidious are residents of Western industrialized nations that too much cleanliness has become somewhat detrimental to one’s gastrointestinal tract. We have to eat dirt once in awhile.

 

But, in fact, the reestablishment of the HSO-body link yields far more benefits than simply aiding in cases of autoimmune disease. Overall bodily functions and immunity are greatly improved. Cholesterol levels are naturally reduced; energy levels are increased; and resistance to disease-causing organisms is enhanced. We have even seen increases in serum enzymes and normalization of serum albumin, indicating improved lymphatic flow and removal of lymphatic blockages.

 

With soil organisms, I was able to enhance my own body’s healing response. Upon ingesting them, the soil organisms maintain a healthy balance of intestinal flora by also producing organic compounds such as lactic acid, hydrogen peroxide, and acetic acid, which increase the acidity of the intestine and inhibits the reproduction of massive amounts of harmful microorganisms. These soil organisms also produce substances called bacteriocins, which act as natural antibiotics to kill almost any kind of pathological bacteria and to fend off threats they themselves face from pathogenic microorganisms.

 

Two of the soil organisms in Primal Defense are Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus lichenformis. In studies conducted in Germany at the University of Berlin’s Max-Volmer Institute, both were shown to inactivate human immunodeficiency, herpes simplex (HSV-1 and HSV-2), simian immunodeficiency, feline calicivirus, murine encephalomyocarditis, and other lipid envelope viruses—along with mycoplasmas, fungi and bacteria. They do so by producing a potent chemical called surfactin, a detergent-like substance that dissolves the lipid membranes of lipid envelope viruses, thereby rendering them completely inactivated.

 

The soil organisms provide even more important health benefits. They establish colonies in the entire digestive system, starting in the esophagus and ending in the colon, by attaching themselves to the walls of these organs. Burrowing behind the putrefaction, which lines the intestinal walls, they eat and destroy unfriendly microorganisms. The decay is then dislodged and flushed out of the body in the normal evacuation process. This aids in detoxification of the intestinal tract, increases the body’s ability to absorb nutrients, and, again, makes the immune system super-strong by removing mucoid plaque that covers the gutassociated lymphoid tissues, especially aiding the body’s ability to fight off infectious viruses and bacteria.

 

HSOs are extremely aggressive against all pathological molds, yeasts, fungi, and viruses and they help the body to efficiently eliminate such pathogens. Moreover, protozoa, worms, and other parasites are eliminated as well by the aggressive action of the HSOs, both within the intestines and throughout the other organs and tissues. Candida albicans, other yeasts, and molds are obliterated.

 

Among the health benefits we receive from ingestion of the soil organisms are the following:

 

• HSOs Pool New RNA/DNA in the Cells HSOs are rich sources of DNA and RNA, the naturally coded instructions for the cells to reactivate their own repair. Working in a symbiotic relationship with bodily tissues, HSOs create a pool of extra DNA/RNA raw materials that are immediately available when needed, accelerating healing of wounds and other tissue disturbances including burns, surgical incisions, and infections.

 

• HSOs Quench Free Radicals by Creating SOD HSOs produce the free radical-quencher, superoxide dismutase (SOD), a powerful antioxidant. Unless extinguished at once, free radicals attack any physiological molecule, causing cancers and other tissue damage. SOD, working enzymatically, is a first-line defense against free radicals before they can cause organ damage.

 

• HSOs Stimulate Alpha Interferon Production HSOs stimulate the production of a key immune system regulator, the polypeptide alpha interferon (a molecular protein). The scientific community has long known about the virus-fighting ability of alpha interferon and sought to enhance the body’s production to aid the healing response when faced with certain health maladies. Research documents over 50 immune-regulating effects. Alpha interferon has been synthesized and used for a variety of illnesses, notably cancer, but the recombinantly derived version is extremely costly, inefficient, and has many adverse side effects. Researchers at the State Academy of Medicine in Apodaca, Mexico, report that the HSO formula, “when consumed at the recommended dosage, stimulates the body’s endogenous alpha interferon production. The product itself does not contain any alpha interferon but comprises a singularly efficient set of nutrients that seem to increase specifically and most effectively the body’s natural alpha interferon production.” Working on human patients with various immune dysfunctions, the research team demonstrated the human body requires only small daily quantities of alpha interferon to maintain a lively and effective immune response. Scientists note that even small increases in the body’s production of this therapeutic substance, produced by the immune system in reaction to soil organisms, can become an effective neutralizer of the toxic effects of pathogenic viruses that cause herpes, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, influenza, and other potentially life-threatening illnesses.

 

• HSOs Stimulate the Production of Human Lactoferrin Present in the homeostatic soil organisms themselves is a certain substance that stimulates the formation of human lactoferrin, a member of the family of iron-carrying proteins. Lactoferrin is found in the specific granules of neutrophils where it exerts antimicrobial activity by withholding iron from ingested pathogenic bacteria and fungi. For this reason, HSOs exhibit characteristics akin to fungicides, virucides, bactericides, and parasiticides. Iron carried by lactoferrin is extremely bioavailable—greater than 95 percent—yet it will not be delivered to noxious microbes.

 

So wide-ranging is the impact of our gut on human health that each of the following conditions may be caused by intestinal toxemia and can be aided by soil organisms:14

 

• Allergies. William Lintz, M.D., reported in 1939 in Gastrointestinal Allergy, The Review of Gastroenterology that he successfully treated 474 patients suffering allergies by elimination of pathogenic bacteria and their toxins.

 

• Asthma. Dr. Allan Eustis, an instructor at Tulane University of Medicine in the early twentieth century, noted that eliminating intestinal toxemia relieved 121 cases of bronchial asthma.

 

• Arthritis. Dr. Anthony Bassler treated some 344 arthritic patients by relieving intestinal toxemia.

 

• Cardiac Arrhythmias. Dr. D.J. Beary, a professor of physiology at Queens College, Cork, England, noted in 1916 that: “There seems to be little doubt that substances that have a deleterious action on the heart musculature and nerves are formed both in the small and large intestine, even under apparently normal circumstances.”

 

• Ear, Nose and Throat Problems. J.A. Stucky, M.D., noted, “In several hundreds of cases of diseases of the nasal accessory sinuses, middle and internal ear…I have found unmistakable and marked evidence of toxemia of intestinal origin as evidenced by excessive indican in the urine, and when the condition causing this was removed there was marked amelioration or entire relief of the disease.”

 

• Eclampsia. Dr. R.C. Brown, an obstetrical surgeon in England in 1930, linked intestinal toxemia with eclampsia.

 

• Eye Problems. C.W. Hawley, M.D., treated many causes of eyestrain and disease with success by relieving intestinal toxemia.

 

• Thyroid Gland Disease. W.S. Revano, M.D. theoretically linked goiter to “a toxic process in the intestinal tract.”

 

The science of soil organisms is exploding, and what we are learning is essential to good health. The newly recognized ability of soil organisms to aid our quest for healing and maintaining good health is one of the most exciting breakthroughs in modern health. Of course, the irony is that we are talking about soil organisms as old as the Earth. I would urge anyone with intractable autoimmune conditions, allergies, low energy, inability to gain weight, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome to take advantage of HSOs. Parents of children with chronic middle ear infections would do well by their child to get him or her on HSOs. Even our beloved pets, who today are suffering from the same diseases as humans, can benefit from the inclusion of HSOs in their diet. Many veterinarians are currently using HSOs to treat animals with intractable digestive and immune system disorders.

 

“I believe that Primal Defense is applicable as a food supplement for everyone, whether a person is sick or not,” notes Dr. Brasco. “The probiotic microorganisms found in this formula are proven to be helpful for the enhancement of health and prolongation of life. Such proof has been shown ever since mankind inhabited the Earth. Primitive man absorbed the product’s soil-based organisms from the environment in different ways; for instance, he buried meat and other food in the ground as a form of preservation. Such meat would combine with soil-based bacteria and be eaten to become a part of the human physiology, thus changing into what science now identifies as body-based organisms. Such friendly microorganisms, having established themselves in the human gut, create an environment for optimizing human nutrition.

 

“Where Primal Defense kicks in is that its microorganisms are unlike other probiotics or beneficial gut bacteria. Rather, they are quite unique. Their homeostatic soil organisms maintain intrepid health for modern men and women the way primitive man experienced it. Where people specifically find advantage in using Primal Defense is in situations involving chronic disease of gut origin. Since my expertise lies in the area of gastrointestinal disorders, this product is a primary therapy that I utilize on a routine basis. Certainly with my seeing patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease, it is one of the main tools I employ for treatment. I use this probiotic, which combines predigested plant nutrients from cereal grass juices and micro algaes in a formulation that is ever being improved, exactly as the manufacturer dictates. I give everyone a trial on Primal Defense. My standard procedure is to work up a patient to his or her optimal dosage and then maintain that dose as long as it’s effective. So, I use it both preventively and therapeutically because the product’s homeostatic soil organisms have definitely been part of the human diet for many thousands of years. Only, the HSOs have been lost as a result of our modern food processing methods. People with arthritis, chronic constipation, Crohn’s disease, colitis, and other gut-linked systemic conditions improve by supplementing with the Primal Defense whole food ingredients.

 

“Allow me to offer an illustrating case history. About sixteen months ago, Marion Frome, an eighteen-year-old manicurist from a nearby Illinois town, consulted me for the treatment of Crohn’s disease. She arrived after many forms of therapy had failed her. It was only after I prescribed Primal Defense that her diarrhea came under control, abdominal cramping stopped, malabsorption corrected itself, and fistulae around the anus healed. She had an exceedingly positive response, and my perception has been that this is standard procedure for Primal Defense. My medical associate has had similar experiences with the product, too.”

 

“Based upon Dr. Brasco’s excitement with Primal Defense, I became interested in the product approximately two years ago,” confirms family medicine specialist Joseph M. Mercola, D.O., who worked with Dr. Brasco at the Optimal Wellness Center in Schaumburg, Illinois. (Visit Dr. Mercola’s excellent health website at www.mercola.com.)  “Today, this probiotic has become the A-number-one nutritional supplement that we use in our Optimal Wellness Center. From its possessing at least fifteen different strains of beneficial bacteria efficacious for the gut, we are getting marvelous results with Primal Defense. I have literally put thousands of people on it, which is incorporated into a full detoxification program by me. The product is an incredibly potent and effective agent for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease [IBD], and most especially for this condition’s subset, Crohn’s disease. I recommend all of my IBD patients to take it.

 

“If I see any reduction in results from a person’s daily usage of Primal Defense, I switch my patient off the product and onto something else. I use only what is working for the individual. That has been my rule in this medical center during the entire length of its operation for the past fifteen years,” says Dr. Mercola. “And successful case histories are easy to come by; for instance, a couple of years ago I was visited by Mrs. Sarah Haimes, a thirty-eight-year-old homemaker being treated with various steroids and antibiotics for the control of symptoms related to irritable bowel syndrome. She suffered with recurrent abdominal pain accompanied by spastic colon, functional diarrhea, a great deal of psychological stress, and emotional conflicts, all of which are characteristic of IBS. Mrs. Haimes was desirous of having a child, too, but the constant discomfort of her symptoms prevented conception.

 

“But then the situation changed for this patient. After she took Primal Defense for a period of six weeks, all of her health problems had become better. In fact, some months later Sarah reported that she had improved so much, she was able to become pregnant. Today, I’m happy to advise that mother and baby are doing very well.”

 

In Lake Charles, Louisiana, John Moreno, Ph.D., conducts the successful multifaceted Lake Charles Advanced Medical Diagnostic Center, with two physician partners and other staff members. It is the largest practice of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the state of Louisiana. In fact, Dr. Moreno is the only practitioner of CAM in Louisiana who has been granted hospital privileges.

 

“If a patient has any form of gastrointestinal problem, I start that person off with Primal Defense, because the product first stabilizes and then corrects GI problems,” says Dr. Moreno. “It is the one therapeutic item that I make use of routinely. The first improvement I normally see is an increase in the patient’s energy level, and that’s good because this individual is then able to recognize how well the product is working. Furthermore, within the first few weeks both constipation and diarrhea clear up. They just correct themselves. So the patient observes himself or herself getting better. Such an experience is important for winning a person’s confidence.”

 

To illustrate the benefits of Primal Defense, a fifty-year-old Caucasian woman, Ms. Kate Robarts, the city’s most popular church organist, consulted Dr. Moreno because of her constant feeling of fatigue, muscle pain, short-term memory difficulties, and a sense that, in her words, “I think I’m dying.”

 

Although she did not exhibit any overt gastrointestinal problems, Dr. Moreno is a deep believer that intestinal toxemia may be the root cause of diverse human disease conditions. He started her on Primal Defense, which corrects intestinal toxemia—perhaps one of the most under appreciated chronic maladies in modern medicine. “Her improvement started with a vast elevation in energy,” notes Dr. Moreno. “Songs she had seemingly forgotten on the organ keyboard came back to her mind, and the music she sent forth was reflected as sounds of great joy. Everyone hearing her play knew that Kate Robarts was feeling better.

 

“With her happiness restored, the lady has referred at least three dozen new patients to me,” continues Dr. Moreno. “The music alone caused people to recognize that I had something going that was valuable treatment. Kate Robarts’ case is the closest I’ve ever seen that could be described as a miracle response to a remedy I had prescribed.”

 

Besides the Brasco, Mercola and Moreno reports, we have many such cases where HSOs have initiated powerful healing processes in sick persons. Having practiced chiropractic manipulation and nutritional therapy in Indiana, the late Phyllis Wilson Confer, D.C., revealed her experiences to Donald Boys, Ph.D., of Indianapolis, former member of the Indiana House of Representatives and columnist for USA Today. At the time of her interview, Dr. Confer told Dr. Boys she had 50 patients taking HSOs.

 

“One of my patients had exceedingly elevated blood triglycerides at 305 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl),” she told Boys. “Six weeks later, after taking [soil organisms], her triglycerides dropped to a mere 151 mg/dl. I’m excited about the product. There are so many positive experiences associated with it.

 

“For instance, I had another patient with an enlarged prostate [benign prostatic hyperplasia] who was scheduled for surgery [transurethral resection of the prostate gland],” she continued. “Some weeks before his calendar date to undergo the operation, I put this man on those same [soil organisms] as an immune system booster so that he might heal faster. As a result of his taking the food supplement, his prostate gland shrank and the surgery was canceled. My patient had made no alteration in his usual lifestyle except to take capsules of the soil organisms as a food supplement.”

 

Maxine Murray, N.D., C.N.H.P., M.A., treated patient Maria Strang, infected with Lyme disease, with soil organisms. After 10 days of taking 10 capsules per day of the soil organisms, she had her strength and vitality completely restored.

 

Murray also treated Manfred Rechsheim, a twenty-eight-year-old construction worker. He suffered from red-hot, open, bleeding sores all over his body and on his face. He felt emotionally depressed, had been fired from his job for absences caused by the skin lesions, and offered a long history of taking therapies. Operating on the theory that the skin is a reflection of the state of health of the gastrointestinal tract, she gave him soil organisms. “He took twenty capsules a day for six weeks until the skin lesions were entirely gone,” says Dr. Murray. “They just disappeared. Frankly, I was amazed at the result. Today he takes five a day as a preventive measure, with his skin remaining smooth, clear, and flawless.”

 

PUBLISHED STUDIES

 

Although they have been a part of the diet for centuries, product-specific studies on Primal Defense’s soil organisms have only been recently conducted.

 

These studies have been accepted for publication in a special supplement of the peer-reviewed Progress in Nutrition.15 Following are summaries of the studies from the journal.

 

In 1993, three single-blind, placebo-controlled studies on soil organisms were conducted at the Dispensario Medico, Partido de la Revolucion Democratica, a medical dispensary in Irapuato, Mexico. The researchers wanted to find out whether the soil organisms in Primal Defense could help people with high cholesterol and leukemia, as well as see if they made healthy test subjects feel more energetic and improved memory and concentration. Here are summaries of the results of the three studies:

 

• High cholesterol: Seventy patients with blood cholesterol counts higher than 300 milligrams per deciliter were given soil organisms or a placebo. Every subject given the soil organisms saw their total blood cholesterol count drop by 25 percent or more; the placebo subjects showed no change.

 

• Energy levels, memory and concentration: Seventy patients with no known pathologies were given soil organisms or a placebo. Of the 35 subjects given soil organisms, 33 reported feeling more energetic; vital hemoglobin (HGB) levels and red blood cell counts increased moderately in 33 subjects. In the placebo group, no subjects reported an increase in energy or vitality levels. Further, in the placebo group, only two subjects out of 33 (two subjects dropped out of the study) saw their HGB levels increase. In only one subject did the red blood cell count increase. Conspicuous increases in memory and concentration were seen in 28 out of 35 test patients, with only one patient improving in the placebo group.

 

• Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia stage II: Thirty-five subjects with chronic lymphocytic leukemia were given soil organisms. The director of research reported that the soil organisms “attenuated the symptoms of approximately 80 percent of the treated patients.” In 80 percent of subjects, white blood cell counts improved.

 

Here are results from additional studies:

 

• In a study conducted at Bio Inova Life Sciences Laboratories under the direction of Pierre Braquet, Ph.D., and Jean Michel Mencia-Juerta, Ph.D., researchers attempted to identify the antimicrobial properties of Primal Defense’s soil organisms. The soil organisms were found to be effective in inhibiting various pathogenic microorganisms, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a rare but life-threatening infectious agent.16

 

• Another study conducted at Bio Inova Life Sciences Laboratories evaluated the effectiveness of soil organisms on the immune system. In this study, researchers looked at macrophage function and the production of cytokines, such as interleukins, and tumor necrosis factor. Macrophages are large white blood cells that also serve the immune system by killing foreign invaders. In the study, soil organisms were found to boost the immune system by enhancing macrophage function.17

 

• In another study at Bio Inova Life Sciences Laboratories, soil organisms were examined for inhibition of cancer cell lines. These were shown to inhibit the proliferation of cancer cell lines of the breast, liver and lung (see also Chapter 4 for our anticancer research).18

 

• Also at Bio Inova Life Sciences Laboratories, soil organisms were shown to enhance the production of healthy cells and tissue regeneration in the colon; this may positively affect those suffering from severe digestive disorders and oxidative stress.19

 

In an open-label, 120-day clinical pilot study conducted at the Diabetes Resource Center by Dr. Ernesto Perez, M.D., researchers determined whether the soil organisms could help control blood sugar levels and decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease in people with type 2 diabetes. Specifically, the researchers wanted to see if soil organisms could aid in controlling blood sugar levels and lowering cholesterol and triglyceride levels. The study showed that using soil organisms and following the diet and lifestyle recommendations of the American Diabetes Association lowers blood glucose levels, lowers HbA1C (a long-term indicator of blood sugar control), lowers total cholesterol, and decreases triglycerides. Overall, the subjects using soil organisms in the study lowered their risk of cardiovascular heart disease.

 

While the use of soil organisms did result in improved blood sugar balance, the real standout results were in the reduction of high cholesterol and triglyceride levels. The most dramatic results occurred among a subgroup of patients having the highest cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

 

These patients received two Primal Defense caplets, three times daily during week one; three caplets, three times daily, during week two; and four caplets, three times daily throughout the rest of the study. Here are some of the study highlights:

 

• One woman patient with a starting total cholesterol count of 356 mg/dl experienced a 56 percent drop to 224 mg/dl, while her triglycerides went from 1106 mg/dl to 205 mg/dl, an 81 percent drop. Her coronary heart disease risk factors dropped 44 percent from 10.7 to 6.0.

 

• In another case, a woman patient’s total cholesterol went from 248 mg/dl to 181 mg/dl, a 27 percent drop, while her triglycerides went from 1,350 mg/dl to 167 mg/dl, an 88 percent drop. Her coronary heart disease risk factor rating also dropped 53 percent from 9.5 to 4.5.

 

• A male with cholesterol levels of 313 mg/dl experienced a 30 percent decline to 219 mg/dl, while his triglyceride levels went from 436 mg/dl to 253 mg/dl for a 42 percent decline. His coronary heart disease risk factor rating went down 16 percent (from 9.7 to 8.1).

 

• Another male with a cholesterol level of 179 mg/dl experienced a 12 percent decline to 157 mg/dl and a 20 percent decline in triglycerides from 172 mg/dl to 138 mg/dl. His coronary heart disease risk factor rating declined 14 percent from 4.2 to 3.6.

 

• Another male had a cholesterol reading of 199 mg/dl, which declined 27 percent to 145 mg/dl, while his triglycerides went down 44 percent (from 217 mg/dl to 121 mg/dl). His coronary heart disease risk factor rating went down 23 percent from 5.3 to 4.1.

 

• Finally, a woman with cholesterol levels of 194 mg/dl experienced a 10 percent decline to 174 mg/dl and an 11 percent decline in triglycerides from 413 mg/dl to 369 mg/dl. Her coronary heart disease risk factor rating declined 14 percent from 5.1 to 4.4

 

In an open-label, 120-day clinical pilot study conducted by Paul A. Goldberg, M.P.H, D.C., at the Goldberg Clinic in Marietta, Georgia, 17 individuals suffering from complex digestive and immune-system disorders were given Primal Defense HSOs for 120 days. The subjects’ gastrointestinal and immune system disorders had been resistant to conventional and complimentary treatments. They had a variety of chronic diseases that were unresponsive to medical intervention for a minimum of three years. The subjects ranged in age from 20 to 65. No dietary or lifestyle changes were made. Of the 16 subjects, 15 reported clinical improvements in their overall health. They had partial to full relief from troublesome bowel problems, decreases in asthmatic symptoms, increases in energy levels, improvements in skin conditions, improvement in chronic sinus infection, and general improvement in overall well-being. No subjects reported a worsening of their symptoms.

 

Eight of eight subjects with elevated yeast levels as verified by stool and/or blood tests had a significant reduction in candida yeast growth. Three subjects with asthma had a 50 percent or greater reduction in usage of inhalant medications and asthma symptoms.

 

Moreover, three subjects who suffered from long-term chronic constipation and had laxative dependency were able to move their bowels daily without the use of laxatives.

 

Three subjects with chronic IBS showed between 25 and 100 percent improvement.

 

Four patients with chronic fatigue syndrome were completely free of symptoms by the end of the 120-day period. Before and after, blood tests and physical examinations showed that no subject experienced a worsening of conditions or exhibited any evidence of toxicity. Because this was not a placebo-controlled study, the results should be considered investigative and not scientific, but they deserve further research.

 

Let’s look at the results for some individual patients:

 

Subject 1 A 53-year old male with a 27-year medical history of progressive psoriatic arthritis and ulcerative colitis experienced symptomatic improvement during the first three weeks with improvements in bowel function and arthritic pains followed by an exacerbation with increases in joint inflammation and bloody diarrhea. His Primal Defense dosage was reduced from 18 to two caplets, two times per day, with a reduction of symptoms. The patient increased his dosage over the next several days, returning to 18 caplets per day, completing the 120-day protocol. He reported that his bowel function improved 25 percent by the end of the study with occasional days of “near normal stools,” which had not occurred for over five years. Improvements were also noted with less visible blood in his stool, better formed stools, and reduced incidence of cramping. There was no improvement in overall stiffness/joint discomforts. His sedimentation rate fluctuated, but, at the end of the study, remained close to what it had been at the start (55mm/hr). A follow up of the stool microbiology showed a significant reduction in the stool yeast count.

 

Subject 2 A 42-year-old female radiologist with a five-year history of chronic fungal infection of the lungs also had significant (approximately 25 percent loss of lung function. She had chronic chest pain upon breathing. Long-term use of the anti-fungal drug Sporonox® had not resolved the problem or allowed for any significant improvement. She also had chronic asthma and a significantly elevated serum yeast titer. At completion of the study, the subject reported feeling significant improvement. Her asthma symptomatology had improved by 70 percent, as rated by subject. She reported greater ease in breathing, improved bowel function, and more energy. She had a reduction in chest pain and significant improvement in spirometer testing by her medical pulmonologist in January 2002. Yeast serum antibody testing performed on this subject at the completion of the study showed a marked drop in the titer from 900 to 438 U/ml. Therefore, it would appear that her infectious state had greatly improved, leading to improved lung function.

 

Subject 3 A 36-year-old male with chronic psoriasis widespread over his scalp, elbows, face, torso and legs improved with approx. 25 percent of the psoriatic lesions clearing and a lightening of the remaining affected areas.

 

Subject 4 A 46-year-old male, with chronic irritable bowel syndrome since childhood that interfered with social and work activities, reported at end of the protocol a reduction in symptoms of cramping / diarrhea/ irritable bowel of approximately 25 to 30 percent.

 

Subject 5 A 35-year-old female, with chronic constipation of seven years duration and bowel movements that occurred once every three to four days, reported in the third week of the protocol that her constipation had abated entirely with bowel movements occurring every one to two days. She reported an enhanced sense of well-being.

 

Subject 6 A 43-year-old female, with chronic fatigue, constipation with laxative dependency, and depression, reported significant improvement in energy levels, reduction of depression, and complete relief from chronic constipation of five plus year’s duration with her laxative dependency ended. (Prior to protocol, this patient reported having a bowel movement once every three days. After the protocol, the patient reported a daily bowel movement without laxative usage.)

 

A 90-day, 70-patient, blind placebo-controlled clinical study, also published in Progress in Nutrition, evaluated the effectiveness of Primal Defense HSOs as a primary treatment for chronic digestive disorder and malabsorption syndrome. Thirty-one patients in the study group and 14 patients in the placebo group completed the study. Some 52 percent of those taking Primal Defense achieved full remission of symptoms; 32 percent of the participants achieved greater than 60 percent; and the remaining 16 percent achieved a greater than 40 percent improvement of symptoms; no subjects had zero improvement or a worsening of symptoms.

 

According to the director of the study, Primal Defense’s soil organisms qualify as an accomplished specific therapy with “significant efficacy” for treating chronic digestive disorders and malabsorption syndrome. “It is evident that the preparation triggers regulatory neuro-immune reactions, inducing healing processes of the herein indicated pathological conditions,” note the researchers.

 

Additional studies conducted on Primal Defense showed the following results:

 

1) Individuals consuming Primal Defense had a marked increase in blood levels of several key enzymes:

 

Enzyme	Before HSOs	After HSOs	Change	Reference Range
Amylase	6.8 DU/mm	16.25	+139%	20-110 U/mm
Lipase	4.6 FCCLU/mm	20.0	+335%	7-60 U/mm
Protease 6.0	18.2 HUT/cu.mm	38.2	+110%	30-90 HUT/cu.mm
Protease 4.5	6.9 HUT/cu.mm	15.8	+129%	12-40 HUT/cu.mm
Protease 3.0	4.6 HUT/cu.mm	10.9	+137%	8-16 HUT/cu.mm

                                                                                                                                               

                                                           

2) Individuals with low blood protein levels at the beginning of the study, after consuming Primal Defense, had an increase in blood protein levels. This signifies improved absorption and utilization of protein from the diet.

 

Marker	Before HSOs	After HSOs	Change	Reference Range
Total Protein	3.86	7.03	+82%	6.4-8.4 g/dL

 

3) Individuals consuming Primal Defense had a marked improvement in symptoms of anemia and the use of the product seemed to have a “blood-building” effect.

 

Marker	Before HSOs	After HSOs	Change	Reference Range
RBC	3.5	4.4	+26%	4.5-5.6 Mios/cmm
Hemoglobin	9.3	12.9	+39%	12-16 G/dL

                                                                                               

 

4) Individuals consuming Primal Defense had a marked improvement in blood levels of key minerals.

 

Marker	Before HSOs	After HSOs	Change	Reference Range
Iron	25.2	43.5	+73%	(40-80) ug/dL
Calcium	6.4	9.2	+44%	(8.5-10.6) mg/dL
Phosphorus	1.5	2.9	+93%	(2.5-4.6) mg/dL
Potassium	2.7	3.9	+44%	(3.5-5.3) mg/L

                                                                                                           

                                                                                               

 

5) Individuals with abnormal immune markers showed a trend towards a modulation of the immune system as evidenced by a decrease in white blood cells; an increase in neutrophils; normalization of lymphocytes; and a decrease in elevated monocytes, eosinophils and basophils.

 

Marker	Before HSOs	After HSOs	Change	Reference Range
WBC (31)	11.2	8.6	-30%	(4.5-9.5) Th/cmm
Low Neutrop (18)	45.3	55.3	+22%	(50-72) %
High Lymph (4)	44.75	33	-26%	(26-40) %
Low Lymph (16)	20	31	+55%	(26-40) %
High Monocytes (27)	13.4	6.9	-49%	(0-8) %
High Eos (6)	6.7	5.7	-15%	(0-4) %
High Bas (21)	10.3	2	-81%	(0-5) %

                                                                                                                                                                                               

In addition, a significant number of beneficial observations were made in the course of the study which, due to the fact that they were beyond the scope of the established protocol, regrettably could not be incorporated in the official reports published in Progress in Nutrition. Thus these are presented here in an independent compilation:

 

• Fourteen patients (nine females, five males) reported remarkable increases in their energy levels beginning toward the end of the second month and continuing through the third month of treatment.

 

• Three female patients having suffered from chronic, recurrent migraine headaches, reported total remission from their headaches by the end of the respective studies.

 

• Six patients (five females, one male) having suffered from varied grades of chronic skin rash, reported total remission of these symptoms.

 

• Six patients (4 females, 2 males) reported significant vanishing of some of their facial wrinkles by the end of the study.

 

CASE REPORT #1

 

We Get Letters

 

Anthony C. was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. Here is his HSO-healing story, in his own words in a letter to Garden of Life.

 

Dear Jordan,

 

I would sincerely like to take this opportunity and time to convey my personal experience with the usage of your product—Primal Defense HSO Immune Formula. To this date, words alone cannot express enough how immensely pleased and satisfied I am with achieving some positive benefits and significant improvements in my health.

In December of 1996, after complaints of finding traces of blood in my formed stools, I was diagnosed with proctitis, an inflammatory bowel disease primarily confined to the sigmoid of the lower rectum. Subsequently, as the year and months progressed my symptoms grew worse—left side bloating and pain of the left side, inflammation, rectal bleeding, blood mucus, uncontrollable bowel movements, up to five to seven times per day and weight loss. Obviously the condition had been deteriorating over time and the last colonoscopy had revealed that there was inflammation, sores, and ulceration now along the entire descending colon along the left side of the large intestine. The doctor’s prognosis was ulcerative colitis.

 

In the course of the last four years I have seen no fewer than four gastroenterologist specialists and consulted with numerous alternative health care providers ranging from holistic doctors, Traditional Chinese doctors, homeopathic doctors, certified herbalists, naturopaths, Tibetan doctors and so forth. I had been prescribed and experimented with all known traditional herbs, supplements, and endless remedies documented to aid and/or alleviate and treat bowel diseases, but to no avail.

 

Then in late April of 2000 with hope dwindling, I came across one empathetic individual by the name of Jerry Zeifman. He encouraged me to try…Primal Defense…I was reluctant at first, but after reading some literature and one specific booklet called Beyond Probiotics, I resigned myself to giving it a go. I followed the protocol outlined in the booklet and after several weeks I started to notice some positive benefits in my condition. Going forward, the improvement gradually continued to a point where today I can report that I have no pain or discomfort on the left side, no bloating, no visible sign of blood or mucus from the rectum or in the stools, one to two formed bowel movements a day, and my weight has increased by seventeen pounds. I have to thank the Lord God Jesus for that encounter with Jerry who introduced me to…Primal Defense…or it was truly a blessing that has had a profound impact not only on my health but also on my life.

 

Yours truly, Anthony C.

 

CASE REPORT #2

 

Mike M. from Arlington, Texas, was suffering myriad symptoms: sinus headaches, severe vertigo, lethargy, irregular sleeping patterns, frequent colds and flu, food allergies, lactose intolerance, pain deep in the bowels, white fuzzy tongue, bloating and gas, blood and mucus in the stools, chronic diarrhea, inability to digest fruit and vegetables, and terrible low back pain. He was losing a pound a day on a 4,000 calorie daily diet.

 

Mike began taking one caplet per day of Primal Defense, increasing the dosage by one caplet every three days until he was taking eight per day.

 

After two weeks he began to cough up massive amounts of phlegm as his body began detoxifying. But by early April, he was feeling much more energetic.

 

“Although my gas and bloody stools continued, I knew Primal Defense was working,” Mike writes. By late May, around day 80 of his use of the formula, his gas problems were history. Around day 90, his stools were no longer bloody.

 

“I would have never guessed back pain could be related to intestinal disease,” Mike says. “But the pain slowly subsided and is now minimal. After 100 days of treatment with Primal Defense and Perfect Food, I have gained 15 pounds and feel tremendous renewal in my life. It is a terrible tragedy that millions of people today are suffering from digestive illnesses and other chronic problems due to intestinal toxemia [which may be a result of acidosis] simply because they are unaware of the solution.”

 

If my experience can help one person, that’s a blessing. Fortunately, as our files filled with letters indicate, many people have been able to overcome their own health challenges with the help of soil organisms combined with adherence to the Maker’s Diet. And that makes what I went through worthwhile.

 

However, after getting well, I had to face another major health challenge. My grandmother Rose Menlowe, who was often my caretaker during my illness, was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. I’ll tell you about that next.