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General Nutritional Measures

            With MME you will be healing old cells and generating new ones.  These new cells will be built from molecules salvaged from old cells and molecules that you take in, from your diet and from supplements.  If you want healthy new cells, it only makes sense for you to provide them with the proper building blocks.  My general recommendations for cardiac patients and for individuals who do not want to become cardiac patients applies, in general, to MME patients, and I'll expand on these recommendations below:

Proper diet:

A.  Drink plenty of water, preferably bottled water, around 8 glasses a day.  Tap water contains chlorine and who knows what else, so if you drink tap water run it through a filtering device, such as a Brita water filter.

B.  In your diet, minimize sugar and processed carbohydrates such as white bread, white rice, and starches.  Minimize saturated fat, avoid like the plague trans-fats (margarine and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils) and emphasize unsaturated vegetable oils.  Butter isn't as evil as we made it out to be, but a better choice would be to use olive oil as a butter substitute.  Wash all your produce and be picky about what you buy.  Grocery store foods may be loaded with pesticides, heavy metals, and animal hormones; whenever possible buy certified organic meats and produce.  It's a little more expensive but your health is worth it.

C. Alcohol in moderation is actually of benefit to the patient with heart disease, and red wine is the best source (the pigments in purple grapes contain bioflavonoids, potent antioxidants).  Alcohol intake is probably not a good idea while you are undergoing MME.  With MME we are stimulating stem cells to proliferate and then migrate.  Stem cells are delicate; they are "new to the world" and don't have built in immunity or acquired tolerance to toxins to which you may have been exposed.  Think of them as fetal cells.  Alcohol in moderation is OK for a 25 year old woman, but not when she is carrying a baby, and we understand why.  The fetal brain cells are developing rapidly and can be irreversibly harmed by alcohol, or any other toxin for that matter.  The stem cells generated by MME probably share these "fetal" sensitivity to alcohol.  We recommend that individuals undergoing MME for neurological disease states involving the brain abstain from alcohol during their MME treatment period and for 4 weeks after they finish.  Dr. Bonlie described to me the sad story of a patient with Parkinson's Disease who did well with MME, only to slide backwards after celebrating his success with too much alcohol.  Patients with heart disease are advised to avoid alcohol during their MME treatment, but they may resume alcohol intake after they finish their course of treatment. 

D. Antioxidants are critical to good health and a program of antioxidants can only improve your outcome with MME.  Free radicals don't just cause cardiovascular and neurological disease, they also destroy stem cells and nitric oxide.  I recommend a 6 tablet-a-day vitamin and mineral supplement to every adult living in the US, and that includes you.

E. Unhealthy cell membranes are rich in cholesterol and trans-fats.  Healthy cell membranes contain essential fatty acids and phosphatidylcholine.  We recommend supplementation of omega-3 fatty acids in the form of fish oil or cod liver oil, 2-3 tsps/day (this equates to 8-12 gelcaps, which are a lot more expensive) and for omega-6 supplementation 300 mg/day of Gammalinolenic Acid, obtained from Evening Primrose or Borage Seed Oil.  Many of my cardiac patients are receiving phosphatidylcholine in the form of LipoPhosEDTA; phosphatidylcholine can also be administered IV or taken orally in liposomal form as LipoPhos Forte.

F.  Vitamin D and Vitamin K appear to be important in cell signaling; they have no appreciable toxicity, multiple benefits outside of MME, and we suggest that you supplement with both.  Vitamin D levels can be obtained and are covered by your insurer.  Approximately 80% of my personal patients, (most of whom have been on a multi containing 400 IU of Vitamin D) have demonstrated low Vitamin D levels, and require 2-4,000 IU/day of Vitamin D to obtain a mid-range level.  We cannot readily measure your Vitamin K status but I recommend 50 mcg/day of Vitamin K2 as a general preventive against calcific cardiovascular disease.