Re: RLS: cell salts, laugh?

[Guest guest]

Jill Gunzel wrote:

>

> Dr. Levin...I appreciated your suggestion to look up cell salts on a search

> engine. I did look them up, but I didn't get a good laugh, as you

> suggested. I found it very interesting. What I enjoyed, from my reading,

> was NOT the promises that the cell salts will cure all things, but that

> they may help turn around a state of deficiency in your body, so your body

> can help to heal itself. I just wish it were easier to determine just

> what deficiencies each of us had and what the best way to supplement them

> would be.

> Thanks again for the referral to further research cell salts.

Jill

Obviously and not surprisingly, we find different things humorous. Let

me quote from one of the firms selling " Cell Salts. "

" According to the Biochemic Theory of Dr. W. H. Schuessler (a physicist)

there are a dozen mineral compounds (or salts) which are required in

minute Homeopathic amounts by specific cells in various parts of the

body. They are known as Cell Salts and most of them are compounds of

minerals which, in other forms, are used by the body in much larger

amounts every day. For example, the body needs a great deal of iron to

keep going, but it needs only a minute amount of Iron Phosphate (Ferrum

Phosphoricum). Certain cells can't use just any iron, they have to have

Ferrum Phosphoricum. They need only a tiny amount but no other iron will

do. "

This sounds great. However, when you ingest an iron salt, it goes into

solution in the stomach and intestine. In solution, it exists as an

" ion " of iron and an " ion " of the other element, e.g. iron sulfate, iron

phosphate, etc. The iron is absorbed by the intestinal mucosa by

attaching to proteins specific for the iron " ion. " The other part of the

compound stays in the intestinal tract lumen to be eliminated by the

body. The body cannot differentiate between iron that you take as iron

sulfate or iron phosphate or iron anything. It is only interested in the

iron " ion " . So what is this hogwash that you must give " Ferrum

Phosphoricum " to nourish this particular type of cell? The phosphate

part ends up in the toilet not in your body.

The dose of the salt is another matter. The salts are described in

strengths of 3x, 6x, 12x,etc. The actual dose is not given, but the 3x

is 1/1000th of the " usual daily need " . The 6x is 1/1,000,000th of the

usual daily need and so on. These doses are in keeping with the

homeopathic theory that " infinitesimal " doses of an offending substance

counteract the huge amounts of the offending substance that are causing

symptoms. As a one-time pharmacist, my mind boggles over accurately

dispensing one millionth of a tablet of anything. As a physician, this

theory is absurd on its face.

When I read something this ludicrous, I laugh.

Dr. Levin