found this article surfing a couple of days ago
========================
A theory that Crohn's disease may be caused by swallowing toothpa
first proposed about forty years ago, continues to surface from time to tim
We became aware of this hypothesis when a doctor on a health news se
television mentioned it. We learned later that he was referring to an
article which had appeared in Lancet.
<p>
The reasoning behind the thesis is that abrasive substances found in
tooth pastes or powders, particularly silica, have produced enteric lesions
in rats and dogs given these crystalline products in food or by injection.
These experiments had been done because the strikingly increased thickn
the affected bowel wall and adjacent mesentery and lymph nodes sugges
lymphatic blockage. Similar blockage was known to occur in the lymph no
the lungs of silicosis sufferers. It was known, also, that the lesions or
granulomas in the intestinal tracts of Crohn's patients are the same as tho
in silicosis-afflicted lungs.
<p>
But--swallowing toothpaste? Children, especially, do ingest it, and
perhaps everyone does, to a certain extent, in small quantities. However,
what researchers seem not to know is there's a much larger source of sil
much more widespread.
<p>
It's in the water. Some occurs naturally from streams passing over
rock, some is added purposefully to reduce corrosivity. But the largest
amount comes from fluosilicates used in modern water fluoridation progra
This is the most dangerous source, for the fluoride part reacts with gastri
secretions to form hydrofluoric acid, the only acid able to dissolve silica.
<p>
The combination of hydrofluoric acid and silica produces silicic
acid, highly destructive to tissues and known to be the kind which causes
lesions in the lungs when silicon dust is inhaled. Sixty-two per cent of the
population of the United States drinks fluoridated water, most of it
containing either hydrofluosilicic acid or sodium silicofluoride. They eat
foods and consume beverages prepared or processed with the water. Th
would contain more concentrated amounts of the substance. The rest of
it from foods and beverages processed in fluoridated regions and exported
other places, even to other countries. In addition, thirty-five nations in
total have fluoridated their water supplies. To some extent, at least.
<p>
Silica has a trait that makes it hazardous if it stays in the system
over time. Protein binds to it, making abnormal lesions and growths. This
in turn, can cause the immune system to react. It was known in 1963 tha
antibodies were being created against unidentified antigens in regional
enteritis. Scientists today have found that antibodies are produced when
silicone breast implants leak. (Silicone, like silica, is a compound of
silicon.) It has also been found that children with silicone tubes
implanted
in their ears to drain fluids have developed antibodies against silicone in
some cases.
<p>
Crohn's disease was relatively obscure--not recognized as a separa
disease entity from other inflammatory bowel problems--before the 1930's
Water systems weren't being fluoridated then--not officially. But
hydrofluosilicic acid, a by-product of the phosphate fertilizer industry,
was
routinely dumped into the water before it became illegal to do so. Phosph
fertilizer was actually first made in 1868 but it didn't come into wide
usage
until after World War I. That could account for the noted rise of this
intestinal disease in the 1930's. After water fluoridation became an
accepted public health measure, hydrofluosilicic acid was often the fluorid
product of choice because it was already in solution, cheaper and easier t
use than sodium fluoride. Apparently, no one thought of the possibility tha
the silica content could prove to be a health risk, made so by the fluoride
connection.
<p>
The pinpointing of the major source of silica should lead to a more
scientific basis for the view that it's implicated in Crohn's disease.
Knowing that it's not toothpaste could provide a more productive explanat
of the cause, prevention, and possible cure of this distressing condition.
<p>
So why doesn't everyone have it, with silica being so prevalent? It
may be genetic. The National Crohn's and Colitis Foundation has announ
researchers have pinpointed Chromosome 6 as the "home" of gene mark
Crohn's and ulcerative colitis. Dr. Jerome Rotter, a geneticist at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the leader of the team, says that about 3
billion pairs of genes are duplicated in every cell in the human body. To
find unique genetic variations is "like looking at the Earth from a
satellite
and trying to zero in on a particular house. We've found the
neighborhood...Now we're conducting a block-to-block search to find the
specific markers."
<p>
We suggest that finding them won't lead to anything useful if
scientists continue to ignore the substance to which Crohn's victims may
genetically indisposed. A good many genetic diseases need such "trigger
and without them wouldn't be led to serious consequences. For Wilson's
disease, for example, it's copper; for PKU disease it's inability to handle
certain proteins in the first year of life (but avoiding them prevents
disastrous results); for Alzheimer's--though it hasn't been admitted
yet!--it's likely to be aluminum, particularly in the form of aluminum
fluoride. The point is, preventing contact with the offending substance is
more important, in terms of a cure, than finding a particular "house" in a
particular "neighborhood" as researchers spend their time doing.
<p>
Sincerely,<br>
Frances Frech<br>
<A HREF="mailto:fransfrech at aol.com">fransfrech at aol.com</A>
<p>
<p>
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>Is there anything I could do? Could I take some other medicine. My doctors
keep
>telling me that I don't need anything else. What about herbs? or
vitamins(my
>vitamin tests were all normal). What I need to travel abroad to get any
further
>medical treatment? Where?
>>Thank you very much.
>>> Mark
>>New Jersey,USA
>Please respond to this newsgroup or my private address
>us011939 at interramp.com(stated also above)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>mark
>
