Well, those are what we call triggering diseases, where you need to actually be in touch with a trigger. Your body needs to be in contact with that trigger that causes that problem. Migraine triggers include everything from caffeine, chocolate, and certain dairy products. There are all sorts of things that might trigger a migraine headache. Same thing with asthma–certain things like pollen or other things you might be allergic to can trigger that asthma attack. In triggering-type problems, I always recommend that the patient keeps a journal, so over time they can write down what might have caused that action, and so they can avoid potential triggers. But many of these triggers are toxic products, heavily charged compounds that might be removed by the zeolite, and so we’ve seen in many cases, people that experience asthma and migraine headaches that had fewer attacks when they’re taking the product–most likely because we’re removing the trigger.

Now, one of the things that we talk about on a regular basis is that this will balance the pH. How does it do that and what are some of the downstream consequences of that?

Well, this is a real interesting concept. First of all, the body needs to maintain a slightly alkaline pH of about 7.4. Seven is neutral. If you go above 7, it is alkaline. If you go below 7, then it is acidic. The body functions best at a slightly alkaline pH – as I said, about 7.4. The more acidic the pH in the body, the more at risk you are for bacterial infection, for yeast infection, for parasitic infection–and bacteria flourishes in a slightly acidic environment, where the immune system falters or does not function properly in an acidic environment.

Normally, our body buffers the acidity in our system very well. There are several buffering mechanisms that try to stabilize the pH in our body at slightly alkaline, but all sorts of things can knock that out of whack, including our diet and including diabetes. Many diabetics suffer diabetic acidosis where the bloodstream becomes more acidic, and people who are not diabetic suffer acidosis through poor diet. For example, in a low carb diet the body goes through a process where it creates glucose, through a process called gluconeogenesis, and the side products are ketone bodies which cause ketone acidosis and an acidic environment. Those individuals are high risk for something called septicemia, which is blood borne poisoning, bacteria proliferation, parasitic or yeast proliferation, systemic candida, yeast infections, and all this, when the immune system doesn’t function well at a low pH.

So, pH is caused by protons, positively charged free hydrogen. The more protons you have, the more acidity you have. The pH scale is logarithmic, so a pH of 6 has 10 times the protons than a pH of 7. A pH of 5 has 100 times the amount of protons as a pH of 7. So this logarithmic scale is important to know every little bit of pH change is a huge amount of protons. And so what the zeolite tends to do is attract to itself small highly charged particles, so it can attract to itself these hydrogen ions, but the hydrogen ions are so small they will not get trapped in the cage, but they will migrate into the cage based on concentration. So, wherever the zeolite is, if there are a lot of protons around, then those protons will naturally migrate into the cage and be pulled out or sequestered away from the solution, thereby raising the pH of the area.

When it gets to an area that has a low amount of protons, they will migrate out of the cage, so it’s really a site-specific or geographic buffering agent. Now, as the pH becomes more normal, as it becomes more alkaline, you create a better environment for defeating bacterial growth. The immune system stabilizes, bacteria don’t grow, yeast doesn’t grow, parasites don’t function well, and so you can detox your body from all of these in addition to the downstream consequences of stabilizing the pH.

I’ve heard that in order to buffer the over-abundance of acidity in your body, your body will pull calcium out of bones, which can lead to things like osteoporosis.

That’s true as well. There was one paper published on this particular zeolite and its effect on osteoporosis. Partially was because it spared boned from calcium loss through this process and partially because by removing lead (lead mixes with calcium and causes greater calcium loss), so by removing lead from the body you also help protect bone from calcium loss.

I understand that this is an immuno-modulator. Would you explain what that means?

It’s important to understand that in many cases we do not want to stimulate the immune system. Many people suffer from auto-immune diseases, which are diseases where the immune system is itself the culprit. For example, in rheumatoid arthritis the immune system decides, for some reason, that the joints and connective tissue are foreign bodies or enemies, and the immune system attacks the joint and connective tissue.

If you stimulate the immune system, if you affect it where it becomes more active, then the disease becomes worse, and so in many cases with these auto-immune diseases they are treated with immuno-suppressants (agents that suppress the action of the immune system) and so you wind up with other diseases instead of just the autoimmune disease. Auto-immune diseases include multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, myasthenia gravis, type 1 diabetes–there’s really so many of them and sufferers could not take any product that would stimulate the immune system, but Natural Cellular Defense doesn’t seem to stimulate the immune system, it seems to stabilize the immune system, so it works more efficiently, it works more accurately. In such a case, we call that action Immuno–modulation – and so it’s not an immuno-stimulant, it’s an immuno-modulator, and as such it is perfectly safe to be used by people with autoimmune diseases. In many cases they benefit very well from this action, as it stabilizes the immune system. Over time, you’re less likely to have an autoimmune attack because of it.

You mentioned something to do with glucose. How would this relate to, say, arterial plaque or things like that?

That’s two different questions. First of all, glucose carries a slight positive charge, so it can be adsorbed to the outside of the zeolite, not adsorbed into the zeolite, and so the zeolite has been investigated for its effect in helping diabetics. Most of what we’ve seen is it can help stabilize blood sugar levels over a period of time, and this is one of the other reasons that it seems to help in energy levels. By stabilizing blood sugar levels you have more sustained energy throughout the day, instead of spikes after your meals and drops where you feel exhausted after your meals. So this is one of the functions of the zeolite and it shows some benefit in diabetes.

The other question is about arterial plaque and in classic chelation one of the things you’re trying to do is pull calcium out of the plaque because calcium stabilizes soft plaques and makes them into hard plaques. This is called calcification. By removing the calcium over a long period of time and with other therapies, you might (in fact) be able to reduce the size of the existing arteriosclerosis or atherosclerotic plaque–and that’s one of the functions of chelation therapy. The problem with classic chelation, as I said before, is that it removes the calcium from the system. Calcium can migrate into the zeolite and will migrate into the zeolite, but the zeolite has very low affinity for calcium so won’t remove it from the system, especially if there’s something with higher affinity available, like mercury, cadmium or arsenic, nitrosamines, or other highly charged particles. And so by removing the calcium from the plaque, the zeolite can allow the plaque to shrink over time in a safe way because it maintains the stability of the plaque in this way, but it doesn’t remove the calcium from the system. This provides the same cardiovascular benefits as classic chelation without the inherent loss of necessary calcium.

Is there a bacteria element to plaque?

Yes there is. We used to believe that heart disease was a static process where you had fatty blood, high cholesterol, high lipids, high triglycerides that would just start to stick to the walls and form these plaques – sort of a passive process. But now we know that it is a very active process which starts with inflammation, and bacteria can cause this inflammation. In fact, one of the theories is that oral bacteria through bleeding gums migrate from the mouth (where it is pretty safe) into the bloodstream, and that oral bacteria can aid inflammation around the heart and in the coronary arteries. And when inflammation occurs, triglycerides, cholesterol and fatty products can be pulled into the walls of the arteries where they get modified. And modified cholesterol leads to the formation of plaque and in the layering of smooth muscle cells over those plaques to try and stabilize them.

That’s why the plaques seem to form from the outside pushing in to the center of the arterial space, eventually forming an occlusion, and as that plaque ruptures it is thrombolytic and it can form a clot. If that artery leads to the heart there’s a heart attack. If it leads to the brain, you’ve just seen a stroke.