Pico de Orizaba

Pico de Orizaba
Taken from Huatusco, Veracruz, the closest town to Margarita's family's ranch.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

"Disposable People; statistics without organic individuality" response to my mother's letter and the concepts of "Destiny" and "Control"

Ross I understand that you are feeling very frightened. After all this incredible event occurred and you haven't a clue as to why. Nor do you know what you should do to prevent another heart attack. You must feel that you haven't any control regarding your destiny. Well I think if truth be told I really don't think any of us have control and we just fool ourselves into thinking we do. Just look at what happened to uncle Henry. He did all the right things and than he got hit by a truck!

Well I hope you succeed in uncovering some information that will provide you with some peace. But I also hope that you can balance your quest for information with some pleasurable activities that provides you with some relief from your fears. I realize that your definition of your self has changed. Before your heart attack you were a man who was pursuing a healthier lifestyle through exercise and diet. Now I guess you see yourself as a post cardiac patient. Well both things are true and over time I hope you will be able to balance out both identities.

Love,, mom

As for Frightened... I don't use that word...  

When I turned 40... or around that time... I had two goals that I kept pretty much in perspective... One was to be showing my paintings by the time I turned 50... Now, I've basically lost the reasoning behind that endeavor with my passion towards understanding the human body and finally truly conquering my health issues during the past 1.5 years.

The second goal was to become a middle-aged man in perfect health.  My mental model was Uncle Henry... And I had my goal set for the age of 50.  Truthfully, I saw that age as being magical for me and not connected with the question of being "over the hill."  Before the heart attack, I saw myself way ahead of schedule... while not yet there 4.5 years before reaching 50, much less than 4.5 years from achieving that goal...  So, with the heart attack, it's not a question of becoming that "super man" I strived towards, although within reason, but a question of understanding truly what is going on... It's a shock.  An incredible disappointment... although in this life I've learned repeatedly that when I expect something... as if I see it as being "in the bag", the game suddenly becomes greatly changed... I should be very weary of what I expect, since, at that moment is when things are about to change greatly.  This is the theme of my life from the age of 4... Think about it: what toddler in a stable household expects to suddenly lose one of their parents... that stable household being thrown into an unimaginable dystopia, chaos?  I've gotta be very careful about what I expect from Margarita, since we've had a very increasingly healthy and productive, constructive relationship for 12 years now... but, for the moment, maybe it is enough that I'm the heavy variable or probability of change in this situation... That, although our relationship continous very strong and healthy, our future has been thrown "up in the air."  

But back to my relationship with my heart attack:

Following the "doctor's orders" for preventing another cardiac "event" and not considering any other form of responding to the situation is overly passive, and makes me think of a premature elderly man or a hospital patient struggling down the hall with a hospital gown and a rolling I.V. poll he's pushing alongside himself...  One second running 4-7 miles per day, the next second...  But, the problem is that there is something wrong with the equation... and it seems that I'm the only one actually interested in understanding the discrepancy... and no, this isn't prime-time television or Hollywood...  Truthfully, no one really gives a damn if there is something "tragically" interesting here... or "unjustly" amiss.  I have those words in parenthesis because I don't actually believe that there is anything tragic or unjust here...  But that most typical Americans would consider this tragic or unjust.  Regardless of this argument, the issue is with how I respond to the situation... Part of the situation are your comments or the comments of others or the lack of response by the cardiologist or the nutritionist... not that they haven't responded to my emails. But, they don't assist in the questions regarding the bio-chemical/physiological issue/concern at hand, my theories or the information I've come across, the new factors within the equation as shown by the blood tests. So, generally, I feel that I'm just talking to myself about what I've come upon or I'm the only one giving myself a pat on the back for having come across a possibly important piece of the puzzle... I see my history as a very interesting and very complex case study.  But, I'm the only sociologist or social worker actually interested in the history... And in the end, my story won't help anyone but myself... to understand.  But, truthfully, has anyone ever truly adequately answered the question, "for what are we here on this planet, in this life? What are we here for to do?"  And, no, I don't believe it is to pro-create/reproduce the human species... since we work equally hard at destroying ourselves and our human  community...  But, equally, as you know, I've never bought into your perspective that "we only live one life."  Yes, we don't have concrete proof of past lives or future lives or afterlives...  But something has very strongly hinted to me that we are so much more than this current life... As if there was something we are here to do... with other people... and the loss of people and how we lost them or how they shaped us when we were together is very important towards understanding... especially if you see the connection between them and you and your offspring or how your presenting them to others influenced the "others'" lives... especially if those people influenced were not blood relatives, like my father's relationship with Uncle Henry...  

Truthfully, how important was Uncle Henry as a person... as a doctor?  I would imagine we could say that he greatly influenced many people.  But, if we weigh his accomplishments against that of my father's, we could naively believe that my father accomplished nothing more than make you a young widow and make 3 young children "orphans"... giving two of them his illness and making the three of them live miserably for long periods of time or for many intervals over a long period of time...  

And, yes, that would be a belief based upon ignorance and naivity.  But it wouldn't be the ignorant naive person's fault if they didn't hear Uncle Henry explain how it was my father who inspired him to become a doctor, study sciences and go to medical school one day...  What my father did for your impressionable little brother (ten years his junior) was give him an incredibly important role model, a hero, which turns out to be such a modern-day miracle...  Both men were "tragically" cut down.  But, not before both had shared their powers with an other or others...  

Bad knews about your theory about Uncle Henry... based upon what I read over a month ago on "ghost bikes" or "transportation alternatives"... He wasn't wearing a helmut, which would have saved his life...  But, for some reason or another, he had to leave the story.  

And, some how, some where, this is where I pick up the story, because it was exactly 6 months after Uncle Henry's death that I started looking at my health and my illnesses alternatively, when I decided to take a proactive interest in my health and started researching alternatives and learning about nutrition and the importance of fruits, vegetables, cow's liver, herbs, seeds, spices, nuts, legumes etc for health and healing... but, at first, mainly for nutrition and for creating a certain internal balance...  

I know it leans towards wishful thinking, but I can't help thinking that Uncle Henry and my father are spiritually connected with me in my pursuit of true health or some basic truths about the human body... that we may have become out of touch with due to modern consumerism that includes how we shop, eat, and confront ailments and illnesses... 

It's easier to buy an energy drink or take some prescription medicine than it is to understand why we lack energy (beyond what we consider normal) or why we have become ill...  Life has become a convenience store, a take-out restaurant, a microwave dinner, a disposable cup (you don't have to spend/waste 30 seconds washing it)...  We believe we have no time.. and then, suddenly we see that we've run out of time... and that, maybe we didn't spend the time for possibly creating more time...  we didn't invest quality energy for creating quality time.. and now we suddenly realize that we are the disposable person...

And that's how I see the doctors' relationship with our ailments... and, moreso, the pharmaceutical companies' disregard towards how their drugs truly affect our health and our future, since what they are regarding much more than health concerns is the stock report's bottom line... and how they fair against the competitor and if the public still believes in them or their product...  Instead of being a patient with a problem that the doctor must solve which translates in the concept of "cure", we are just statistics without organic individuality, meaning that our illnesses or ailments may have a different cause and a different remedy than the others... 

Did you notice last year that Noah Gordons Epic book "the Doctor" of the Doctor Cole trilogy became a movie?  The story is about a suddenly orphaned English boy is taken under a "Barber's" custody and is shown how to sell elixers and entertain people in fairs 1,000 years ago...  However, the boy was born with a gift of sensing the health of the patient brought to the Barber (Barbers were actually healers--barbaric healers--and doctors were actually blood letters back then... "the dark ages" controlled by the Church, that intentionally ignored the science of the Greeks and the Arabs.  In mid-evil Europe, it was more likely that you would be killed by the more prestigous Doctor than by a barber.  But, the barber wasn't practicing medicine either...) when he grabbed their hand... Actually, he was sent a jolt of what was about to happen to the person if they were about to die of some sort of illness...  During the barbers rounds around the British Isles, he was presented to a Jewish doctor, much different from the Christian doctors, who had lots of medical transcripts and a basic understanding of curing certain popular ailments.  The boy asked the Jewish doctor how he came across the transcripts and how he learned to cure, since the boy needed to work with his "gift" that scared the hell out of him... And the Jewish doctor explained that he would have to travel to Isfahan (the former Persian capital of present time Iran) and study under the great Persian Doctor/Professor Ibn Sina, otherwise known in world scientific and medical history as Avicena... but that it would be impossible for him, since the great medical schools of the middle east only accepted Muslims and Jews...  In the end, the boy turned young man disguises himself as a Jew and makes the 3 year journey from England to Persia; in the end studying under Ibn Sina (Avicena).  Aside from this being an incredible story and a look into modern plagues and how doctors (and governments) of the middle ages responded to plagues... and how appendicitis was possibly the most prevalent killer of non-plague time, mainly because the church prohibited exploratory surgeries (you could amputate, but you couldn't open the person's body to heal or understand them, although you can mutilate hundreds of thousands of people in constant religious or political wars or in your prisons or Cathedral basements) and prohibited autopsies/dissection of human cadavers...; at the time, common belief was that the internal human body was the same as that of a pig's.  So, to understand human appendicitis, human disease, the doctors dissected pigs... which was a fruitless endeavor for curing people.

The greatest lesson Ibn Sina (Avicena) taught the young man was, "in order to cure a person, you must first learn to truly listen to them with all of your senses..."

I am certain that is what Uncle Henry believed.  

So, if the doctors don't want to truly listen to me... then I've gotta pay a lot of attention to myself... while I still have the senses to do so...  And if all of this is just talking to myself... well.. at the very least, I've become a very good listener and I've learned over the years to highly respect myself.  You have no idea...

Think about it...  The winter that Anya was in Kiev, Ukraine, I was placed on anti-depresants again... and again, I had a "psychotic episode" where I tried killing myself... I downed a ton of the anti-depresants with a lot of Rum and I didn't awaken for about 2 days...  This was living in my last apartment on Ocean Avenue between Kings Highway and Avenue O...  A wonderful apartment or lair...  I claimed that it was an existential game I was playing with God...  "Truthfully, if you created me to die 'before my time', then let's play a bit of Russian Roulette... and see truly what are the stakes..."  But, call it what I did... as the "intellectual" I was, there was only one bottom line: I was tired of being left, every since dad died... you emotionally left...  But, there may have been a problem with never breast feeding..., which also is an icy and immediate intentional distancing of the mother towards the baby...  But, not only could I not handle being left, although I also did the periodically leaving... (Leaving for Mexico was my grand achievement towards the illusion of leveling the playing field...  There's a point in the toddler's life when they try "punishing" the parent [or the sibling or the cat or the dog] in a way they feel they were "punished".. and they start repeating the same responses to their parent [or the others] in very seemingly "adult" ways...  You would call it "role playing"...  But, I believe that it is a way of trying to seize control of their emotional world...  If they could be like their parent, they could stop feeling so needy or helpless...  Often you can see how a husband treats the wife by how the toddler talks to his mother... at least here in Mexico...  I am certain that he learned that way of relating to her by his father!  Where else would he have learned that inconsiderate, hurtful or disrespectful adult behavior?)... there was another bottom line: I hadn't yet developed a stable self-image of myself that would continuously place me in positions of vulnerability...  But, the development of that stable self-image truly must be formed in a healthy and stable home/school/neighborhood environment during the person's formative years of childhood and adolescence... Not to have begun the developmental process in College and later on... especially not in New York City...  But, as you always said, "City kids are SO MUCH more sophistocated than suburban kids..."  So, I imagine I had much more to learn in NYC than I would have learned in suburbia...  It was either "make it or break it..." And I left for Mexico...

And I truly learned who I am and learned to greatly appreciate and respect myself...  I overcame so many obstacles you can't imagine.  And I developed a true and healthy identity and helped develop the identities of others here... Maybe I won't "give Margarita a house..."  But, I truly believe that I gave her an incredible experience and a wonderful oportunity.  The problem is that I think a premature ending to my life would cause a horrible and incredibly heavy sadness in hers... Believe it or not, I believe that there is an injustice of sharing so much with her or introducing her to what no one else would have introduced her to... If I exit prematurely.  And that is the great emptiness I would leave her... 

And that's a problem for me.  

You don't believe me... Or you believe I'm exaggerating... Or you think this is very egoistic... or that I'm full of myself.  However, let me tell you about egoism:

The most wonderful part of my life with Margarita was when I stopped painting and could dedicate much more time and energy to her needs and our relationship, when we could truly apreciate the "fruits of our labor", for what we truly had struggled so many hours for so many years...  When I stopped thinking about the time I needed for finishing a painting or, upon returning from the fairs, when would I start painting again... Or if she wanted to do something with me (like physically bonding at night when I was painting until possibly wee hours of the morning) or taking a walk or going to the movies or any form of truly quality time together... I found myself battling between her needs and my needs, "weighing the consequences"...  And then the wonderful experience of being able to plan a vacation she wanted in December and visiting Enrique and Ivette in Mexico City and visiting Tepotzlan, Morelos with them (Do you see Margarita's wonderful happiness to the left way above Tepotzlan?) and then visiting her parents in Veracruz and then travelling with her to Tabasco and visiting Villahermosa (and its parks and museums; that I NEVER wanted to do in Xalapa) and the cacao plantations and then returning to her parents' ranch for New Years... and not once having anything I could imagine better to do... and truly enjoying time with her...  And that was my life with Margarita the year before my heart attack, losing weight and truly spending quality time together... that made my painting so obsolete...  

Yes, I know what a "premature" death would do to Margarita... Because I've always known just how important our relationship was for us... and what inspired me the day I met her in Las Cañadas and why I strove those first 5 months to prove to her why we must make a life together... I lost connection with that during the incredibly stress and difficulties of my life in Mexico between 2003 and 2010... A lot of resentment built up... But, we learned to overcome that.  Margarita's birthday week in Sayulita was "the icing on the cake" of our relationship... at least for me.... which is what makes the heart attack "12" hours after returning from the coast that much more frustrating...  

Would you believe that I believe her experience with me in the hospital (her first true "hospital experience") was very important/meaningful for her and the both of us...  She had heard so much of our family's hospital experiences and my hospital experiences.  But, she had never truly been there... had your experience or that of Tracy or Esta or...  I know it sounds a bit "morbid" or twisted.  But, we can both say that she was by my side while I was "on the table" and the whole night long...  and was as strong and "level headed" as can be hoped for...  and adapted very well alongside the nurses...  

So now we have that under our belt...  

what next?

If Pfizer could patent oxygen in a pill, maybe my cardiologist would pay attention to the other side of the story... and "getting on with my life"...

My passing days without writing on this blog doesn't mean that there aren't new developments in my investigation into what caused the enigma of March 12th's heart attack.  Probably the main reason I haven't written on the blog is because I've been spending so many hours per day researching into the situation and writing to my mother and other people, such as the nutritionist and the cardiologist... amongst my mundane daily responsibilities... and when I'm through with everything that I'm currently doing, I'm too exhausted or stressed to write on the blog...

All of the blood tests I've requested since March 12th, were not suggested by any doctor...  

With the blood tests I realized that the Beta Blockers caused a massive rise in Triglycerides and VLDL cholesterol... that my homocysteine level was normal and dropping... that I do not have any heart disease or cardiovascular disease markers in my blood...  But, I also realized yesterday that my fasting insulin levels are too high, that I am anaemic and have a deficiency of globulins...  Along with that finding yesterday, my immunologlobulin M continues being too low... What does that have to do with anaemia and low globulins?  

And it's not just about low iron... It's about low percentage saturation of iron, leading to the great possibility of a Vitamin B12 deficiency (typical of J-Pouchers, IBD sufferers and people with Celiac Disease), which means that I am not producing enough red blood cells for transporting oxygen to the rest of my body, which greatly increases cardiac risk, amongst problems with the central nervous system, the liver and the kidneys...  Low Iron caused by low B12 is called Pernicious Anaemia...  "Pernicious" is Greek for deadly...  So, today I had blood drawn for checking my B12 and Folic Acid levels (both are connected or separate causes of different types of anaemia... Folic Acid deficiency is also prevalent amongst J-Pouchers).  

Do you remember what I wrote about oxygen, stress, breathing, asthma, allergies, altitude and heart attacks?  I'm certain I've written much about this over the past week or so.  But I also wrote about this over two years ago about hypertension being caused by a "sudden" altitude change.  Did you know that many people have died of heart attacks on vacations to the mountains?

I had my heart attack less than 12 hours after returning to Guadalajara from Sayulita (the region of Puerto Vallarta).  Margarita and I were on the Pacific coast for 7 days.  Guadalajara resides 5,138 feet above sea level...  In the Journal "High Altitude Medicine and Biology" is was stated, "CHD patients should avoid travel to elevations above 4500 m owing to severe hypoxia at these altitudes. The risk assessment of CHD patients at altitude should always consider a possible absence of medical support and that cardiovascular events may turn into disaster."  At the moment of returning from the coast to the city I wasn't considering myself a CHD patient... But I was very aware of my bout of high blood pressure living in Mexico 12 years and the effect upon my BP of increasing my altitude.  For instance, Aguascalientes is 6,194ft above sea level (1,000 feet higher than Guadalajara).  Our next job is in San Luis Potosi, also 1,000 feet higher than Guadalajara.  For 4 years we worked the fair of Zacatecas, which is 8,000 feet above sea level.  Can you imagine what that fair did to my blood pressure?  

In response to my comment that since the heart attack, none of my blood tests have come back with markers for coronary heart disease, heart attack, cardiovascular disease or atherosclerois... not the Homocysteine, or the Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH), or the C-Reactive Protein or Aspartate Transaminase (AST), my mother exclaimed 

That is great Ross but I guess it does leave you scraping your head asking why?  

And then sent me another email suggesting:

Well maybe you will never have an answer and you should just get on with your life and continue eating a healthy diet and exercising!

To which I responded:

Oxygen or lack there of...  

As for getting on with my life...  I was getting on with my life eating a very healthy diet and exercising, when I had the heart attack on March 12th.  And I haven't discontinued my very healthy diet and exercising.  However, I do have this problem that I have two stents in my heart arteries and one (the medicated one) puts me at great risk of another heart attack... believe it or not...  Plus, since medicated stents are very new to the cardiology market, there are no outcome studies or long-term risk studies done... Meaning that they do not actually know how long the patient must be under observation and medicated for preventing blockage (that the same stents were designed to prevent or to improve upon the bare metal mesh stents that are safe without anti-platelet agregation meds a month after the angioplasty)...  

And what if I have the reasoning regarding lack of oxygen (due to lack of hemoglobin and deficiency of Vitamin B12, Folate and Vitamin D)?  I have yet to get the results back from today's B12/Folic Acid tests...  And if it says that one or both are too low, that means that I am anaemic... meaning that I must continue with responding to the situation.

But, I could have "just gotten on with my life" and just followed the "doctor's orders" and I wouldn't have taken NOT ONE blood test (not even for homocysteine) during the 3 months after the heart attack (we're at 9 weeks) and I wouldn't have known that my continued fatigue is related to anaemia... And no one would be asking why.

And one more thing:  If it's a question of Vitamin B12 deficiency, unattended pernicious anaemia results in permanent organ damage.  Who suggested I ask for the tests and who worried about them and who will respond to the findings?  

Do you truly believe I should rest and ignore this stuff?  

It sounds pretty irresponsible, doesn't it?  Especially coming from you, the person who battled to beat the idea of being responsible into my brain.

And I'll continue speaking about you as a teacher:  I hated your harping on coping skills in the 1980s...  However, you may understand that these investigations are truly the only way I've been able to keep my head on straight within the situation.  Do you have any idea how it feels understanding that at any given time my heart could stop... and without any adequately explained reason?

We have money for buying land and building a house.  But, at this moment I find that extremely illogical a focus or endeavor...  That requires the desire to focus upon a semi-near future.  My battle over the past 9 weeks, and it is an incredible battle, is for trying to continue being progressive.  If the cardiologists are locked into a pharmaceutical box that limits their perspective or causes them to ignore other possibilities, then they are not being progressive but recessive.  It's to say, they are treating the end point... and supposedly protecting the patient from a sudden cardiac death.  But, what they aren't doing is bringing the patient back to a healthier state... And that's my question or doubt: is there a healthier state, or is this a permanent change for the negative--the end point...?

It seems to me that the "slightest move" is imminent death...  And, maybe that was the case for a long time now... and why the heart attack came as a surprise.  But, there may actually be a logical explanation.  And the person who comes upon the logical explanation may also be able to answer the utmost important question:  "What does my future look like?  Is it logical to plan for a future now?"

You have no idea what goes through my mind as I'm reading these wonderful books or reading what I find on the internet, along with in the NIH/US National Library of Medicine... "At the very least, before this ends, you will have become significantly informed about what killed you and what has killed so many other people, that maybe could have been prevented..."  That is what fills me these days... filling my mind and developing understanding...  This is called, "Getting on with my life."

Coping skills...

And remember, "breathe Ross, breathe... 

You are holding your breath as you've always done... I know, it's part of concentrating... But, what good will concentrating be for you buried 6 feet below the earth?

Breathe

In through the mouth, 5 seconds, out through the nose, 5 seconds... 6 deep breaths per minute... all the way to your stomach... 

Breathe"

Monday, May 18, 2015

The enigma of Diabetes revisited and some other considerations...

Oh, by the way... I forgot to mention:  I've never had a problem with bruising...  Never.  But, in Aguascalientes Margarita started pointing out various bruises on my body... One, that was very surprising was on the inside of my right ankle... And, to the day, it slightly hurts if I touch the vein that passes alongside the knob of the inner ankle where the bruise was...  Although I consume very few refined carbs... it makes me worry about "diabetic foot"... While I can't be diagnosed with Diabetes II as long as I'm ingesting so few refined carbs, I firmly believe that I was entering Diabetes probably since 2006...  One of my plans upon returning to Guadalajara was to check my insulin levels...  Since we had planned upon going to Mexico City for looking at the cargo van, those plans were put on hold... But, now that those plans have changed, I will be trying to return to the prior plans...  Diabetes II isn't true diabetes and it is reversable... Likewise, it begins up to 10 years before the glucose diagnostic criteria...  The process of Alzheimers is 30 years before the actual diagnosis and greatly related to refined carb consumption... along with healthy fat intake...  So...  

Imagine this:  

1: those writing about the effects of the dramatic increase of refined carbs in the "American" diet, write about the epidemic of Alzheimers Disease that's appearing or about to appear and how that will totally deplete the American Social Security system...

2: those writing about the effects of psychotropic medication (and the hundreds if not thousands of psychiatrists around the world) on the physiological structure of the human brain, mention greatly how anti-depressants and anti-psychotics cause dementia praecox in their patients...  and how many Americans are currently taking anti-depressants and anti-psychotics and benzodiazepines...  

But one group doesn't write about the percentage of Americans taking psychotropic medication and the effect upon the body (especially the brain) and upon the social security system.  And the other group doesn't write about the extremely elevated consumption of refined carbs in the same period of 40 years mentioned about the dramatic rise of Americans on disability for mental illness.  And I am amazed that no one has made the connection...  Robert Whitaker mentions the birth of modern Bi-Polar disorder in the 90s (although I knew of it in the 80s... in Carrier) and he mentions briefly the connection with "illicit" drugs (The U.S. is the world leader in purchase of and consumption of Cocaine, Heroin, Meta-Amphetamines, Marijuana) before focussing greatly on the SSRI cause-effect of that birth... And, he believes that Bi-Polarity is greatly a misdiagnosis and a trajedy caused by prescribing SSRIs.  But, I am incredibly surprised that he (and the rest of the international psychiatrists) wouldn't connect the vastly elevated consumption of refined carbs during the same period with the misdiagnosis of bi-polarity, since high glucose levels or hyperglycemia causes the same bi-polar symptoms...  

And then you have the neuro-scientists who claim that wheat gluten in the genetically modified wheat products invented in Mexico after WWII are to blame for alzheimers and other neuronal changes in the human brain...  Although one can say, "how do you know if it was caused by one or the other or by a combination of the 4?", one can show that the drastic changes in human health (the various "epidemics" of modern chronic disease) occured at the exact same time period as the modern technological/commercial changes related to pharmocology, agriculture and food marketing/food preparation--design...

Friday, May 15, 2015

Alcoholism and Parkinsons... under-methylation, liver detoxification... Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease...

We have a friend (Manuel 80-years-old) who was a heavy drinker and now is a "recovered alcoholic"... how many years?  Today he suffers from Parkinsons...  I've read lately the risk of Parkinson's Disease and the over-consumption of sugars... or the Risk of Parkinson's Disease and the under-consumption of saturated fat and the underproduction of cholesterol by the Liver...  Now, thinking about how alcoholism affects the liver... I wonder how it may affect the metabolism of fats and sugars and the production of cholesterol...

Today I read that Parkinson's Disease is marked by very low levels of Dopamine... and that Schizophrenia is the opposite and is marked by too high levels of Dopamine... That in the past, Dopamine lowering drugs put schizophrenics in great risk of developing Parkinson's Disease...  

I also just read that caffeine consumption and cigarette smoking are related to a lowered incidence of Parkinson's Disease...  which makes me wonder about the tendency of schizophrenics towards being heavy smokers and heavy caffeine consumers...  Could it be their innate response to the affects of anti-psychotic medications affects upon their dopamine levels?  It is said that the reason for schizophrenia is very high dopamine levels making the schizophrenic overly-active...  The person suffering from Parkinson's Disease may be considered trapped in a neurological cage of under-activity...  I say, "trapped in a neurological cage" because they have no control over their ability to move more energetically...  The center of motor control in their brain called the Basal Ganglia has levels too low of dopamine for adequately sending the messages to the skeletal muscle for agile movement...  When this part of the brain becomes too low in dopamin, the neurons responsible for sending motor response messages die...  

I've also read that many psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia and anti-social disorders are directly related to what is called Histadelia or Under-methylation... meaning that the person has difficulty metabolizing the amino acid histamine, has difficulty converting homocystein to cystein, has difficulty creating methyl groups and subsequently has difficulty producing glutathione from cystein that is virtually non-existent...  All of these processes are very dependent upon sulfur... Bringing up the question of the possibility of too low levels of sulfur in the person's diet.  The main sources of sulfur are from onions, garlic, brocolli, cauliflower and cabbage.  Now, if your sulfur levels are too low and you are not methylizing sufficiently, you are also not able to convert sulfites to sulfates...  The person who has problems with metabolizing histamines and sulfites will find that their immune system reacts regularly to sulfites in the diet (sulfites are used to slow down the Formation of molds in wine, cider, dried fruits, nuts and salad bar items).  Hence a regular allergic reaction.  

When I first stumbled across the idea of Under-Methylation and Histadelia I read that the person suffering that problem lacked certain enzymes in the digestive tract for metabolizing histamines...  My question is, "how may abnormal levels of stress affect the production of enzymes? and where are the enzymes produced?"  Many enzymes for detoxifying the blood are produced in the liver just as the enzymes for producing cholesterol are produced in the liver...  Supposedly, when a person experiences prolonged periods of abnormal stress, their liver produces higher levels of cholesterol and their gallbladder dumps more bile into the duodenum part of the small intestine... In Mexico, bile is called "bilis" and the people with the tendency towards "losing their cool" are generally said "to have 'bilis'"...  Not because they have bile.  But because they are angry people... And in Mexico it is believed that angry people have the tendency towards producing too much bile.  Margarita claimed that in adolescence and earlier childhood she had the tendency towards becoming very angry... so angry that she would find herself vomiting bile...  

Now, some may say that if you produce too much cholesterol and too much bile (bile is formed from cholesterol), you will eventually suffer from gallstones... That said, it has been shown that people who suffer from gallstones lack the amino acid/anti-oxidant Glutathione in their gallbladders (just as people who suffer from cateracts lack glutathione in the sclera and cornea of the eye; also directly related to AGEs created by too much glucose in the blood stream).  When there is too little sulfur in the person's diet or the methyl cycle is interrupted preventing the conversion of homocystein to cystein and subsequently preventing the formation of glutathione (the body's #1 anti-oxidant produced within the human body and not obtained from the diet) various problems may occur: gallstones, cataracts, hardening of the arteries, demencia or neurological disorders...  Alzheimer's Disease has been directly connected to lack of glutathione in the brain just as it has been directly connected to over-consumption of refined carbohydrates (alcohol is processed directly from sugars and starches).  Diabetics have at least a two-fold risk for both heart disease and alzheimers, just as alcoholics have extreme levels of risk for both diabetes and neurological disorders and periferal neuropathies...  

So I ask, "where does all the this methylation take place? where does the production of glutathione take place?"  Did you know that glutathione is one of the most important catelysts for detoxifying the liver?  Do you understand the importance of detoxifying the liver?  I'm almost certain that you have never once thought about detoxifying your liver...  But you do know what causes the greatest risks of damage to your liver: elevated consumption of alcohol and certain toxic chemicals including pharmaceuticals.  Cirosis of the Liver and Hepatitis... But you may not know that there is a process that leads to Cirosis of the Liver and that is really what is at issue for damaging the liver, not the Cirosis.  Cirosis only signifies "scaring".  But, has anyone ever explained what causes the scarring?  And why the scarring is problematic...  You've heard of Alcoholic Fatty Liver disease... It's when the liver has converted so much of the alcohol sugar to fat that it couldn't ship all of that fat out of the liver and the fat ended up taking up space within the liver tissue, interfering in the liver processes and causing scarring...  Two much scaring causes parts of the liver to die called liver disease...  The scarring is called Cirosis.  What you may not have heard of is Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver.  You heard correctly; fatty liver disease not related to alcohol... Probably discovered in non-drinking-aged children... Why?  or How?  It is caused by too much fructose in the liver.  Where did all of that fructose come from?  Commercial Juices and Soft Drinks... "High Fructose Corn Syrup" that actually has less fructose than table sugar.  But, it is easier to down 100 grams of sugar in fruit juices and sodas than it is to down it in cupcakes and bananas... every how many hours... in certain families...  So, what you find is young children and adolescents with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver... the 8-year-olds with "beer bellies"...  The liver is inflamed and juts out just below the rib cage, causing 40-year-old men and 8-year-old boys to look pregnant or as if they swallowed a bowling ball or a watermelon...  

Oh and one more thing... Basically the only "nutrients"/materials absorbed by the stomach are water (limited), aspirin, alcohol and fructose.  Alcohol and Fructose (unlike glucose) don't need transport agents or the breaking down by enzymes for passing through the gastric tissues for entering the blood stream and travel directly to the liver.  Glucose on the other hand must be transported by insulin, Protein must be broken down by enzymes produced by the pancreas and dumped into the Duodenum (so if  you kill your pancreas... not only will you not be able to metabolize glucose, you won't be able to metabolize protein) and Fat must be broken down by bile (formed by cholesterol in the Gallbladder) dumped into the same exact place in the duodenum that the Pancrease dumps the protein digestive enzymes in order to enter the blood stream...  Likewise the fat soluable vitamins A, E, D and K must attach themselves to fat molecules in order to pass into the blood stream; another reason to avoid lowfat diets. So, most digestion is a slower process than that of absorption of alcohol and fructose that takes place beyond the stomach.  Every time you drink alcohol, sodas or fruit juices you are causing an immediate reaction in your liver...  I imagine that would be fine, if what you were ingesting was equally important for you health as those nutrients that pass through the slower, more difficult process of digestion.  But, we all know that Alcohol and Sodas are not health requirements and, in fact, only hinder us...  And, yes, I understand the studies about resveratrol in red wine and certain benefits of certain amounts of liquor on the brain.  But, considering the fact that one can obtain the same benefits from other nutrients typical in the human diet, why take the risk of damaging the liver through the consumption of alcohol?  The risks greatly outweigh the benefits.  

If the fatty liver causes scaring of the liver tissue and hence causes the liver to malfunction and produce too little of certain enzymes and too much of other enzymes (such as ALT and AST) one must ask, what other processes does too much sugar in the diet or fatty liver disease interfer with?

But back to the liver and glutathione or the question, "where is glutathione produced?" and here is the quick response I found on Wikipedia:  "While all cells in the human body are capable of synthesizing glutathione, liver glutathione synthesis has been shown to be essential."  So, if you are in the constant process of damaging your liver, you are constantly placing yourself at risk of damaging essential processes necessary for protecting the health of the rest of your body.  

If you are thinking that I wrote very little about Parkinson's... this was intended as a brief draft of a larger idea.  But, within the writing of the first draft that was not yet intended for posting on my blog, the piece expanded and became adequately "complete" for stimulating thought responses.  Plus, most of my drafts become greatly buried... I very rarely return to what I began as a draft or what I posted on my blog.  I'm constantly moving on... although it is clear that I enter periods where I jump back into my distant past and revisit childhood traumas... probably to your diress or for your entertainment...  But, it is all connected... As I will show you later on why lack of breastfeeding or my mother's diet when she was pregnant with me, my father's illness and sudden death and my subsequent major surgeries at the age of 13 along with household violence/abuse and bullying in school point to a destiny where I wouldn't become a father... and a destiny possibly without cancer; instead with sudden death by heart failure or other vascular issues...  Hormone production, Abnormal Stress and over production of cortisol or stress hormones... Stress or trauma causing chronic childhood insomnia also causing the over production of cortisol or stress hormones (that increase heart rates and blood pressure ultimately damaging the endothelial lining of the arteries causing the production of plaques), major surgeries at the age of 13 halting the growth process.  Prolonged extreme stress affecting breathing patterns (short anxious breaths instead of long relaxed breathing) causing oxygen deficiencies that also increases both heart rate and blood pressure and leads to the damaging of the endothelial lining of the arteries...  Oxygen deficiencies also negatively affect cell metabolism which may be linked to lower methionine and glutathione levels and higher histamine levels also causing inflamation in the lungs (asthma)... Lack of glutathione also leads to decreased detoxification of the liver and the blood that leads to the accumulation of histamines and subsequent allergic reactions (seasonal allergies are also considered asthma) and the impaired breathing due to inflamed respiratory passages such as the nostrils and the lungs... hence, another cause of limited oxygen and the subsequent increase in BP and heart rate...  

Is it a surprise that people diagnosed with hypertension tend towards being tense and having difficulty sleeping and probably being over-achievers... but they also tend to die from heart attacks...  or tend to be on blood pressure medication.  But, for some reason or another the cardiologists don't focus on the true cause of their elevated blood pressure or heart rate... and only focus upon prescribing medications... that blunt certain symptoms causing other symptoms and ignoring the true issue at hand...  Rest, relaxation, sleep and oxygen...

What is the first thing administered to a heart attack "victim" when in the ambulance rushing to the emergency room of a hospital?  Oxygen.  Why?  Because the person stopped breathing? No.  Because, often the oxygen administered stops the heart attack.  Why?

After passing 2 days of not sleeping at all at the San Marcos Fair in Aguascalientes and the stress of having my inlaws with us (they came to help me for 2 weeks due to the heart attack, although I continued performing all my plethora of duties required for managing the business and feeding everyone adequately) I found my BP rise from 125/85 to at least 170/115 (for a few hours and remain around 140/100 for a day... But how did I manage to bring it back to 121/88 a day later?  Blood Pressure medications? Beta Blockers? Statins?  No!  Adequate sleep caused by high doses of Vitamin C and Magnesium along with breathing exercises... You can see a dramatic decline in heart rate within a few minutes of intentional deep breathing using an electronic blood pressure gauge.  So, as you should notice, stress and lack of sleep cause sudden increases in blood pressure and heart rate... not so much diet... it doesn't have to have so much to do with something long term.  Long-term is the hardening of arteries and the formation of arterial plaques.  But, if your heart rate and your blood pressure suddenly rise greatly and if you can drop them equally suddenly without the use of medication, then it is clearly not a case of arterial plaques, hardened arteries, excess cholesterol or saturated fats but something much more natural and curable naturally...  I was amazed that during 25 days of intense stress and responsibility and sleeping an average of 4-5 hours per night (3 hours Thursday, Friday and Saturday), I was able to maintain my systolic blood pressure below (if not well below) that of hypertension.  Diastolic blood pressure has been virtually disqualified as a marker for heart disease...,  although I continued paying great attention to that number being around the 90 mark...  What I haven't been able to relieve myself of concern is with heart rate... since the stats continue mentioning that heart rates above 60 show gradual increases in risk of heart attack, although normal heart rates are considered between 60 and 100 beats per minute.  During the fair my heart rate was generally between 78 and 90... with some dips (in the morning) and some rises (in the afternoon or evening).  

While I haven't been able to change my breathing style, I have become aware of when I'm halting my breath (holding my breath) and I consciously practice deep breathing... while working in the frappe machines, while walking to and from the parking garage or to or from the stand...  Writing on the computer usually increases my blood pressure and tension level.  At the moment, my BP is 121/89 with a heart rate of 86.