From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Orthopathy and disease
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 09:55:30 -0700

DRCEEPHD wrote in message <20010622020731.04022.00000473@ng-mc1.aol.com>...
>>Subject: Re: Orthopathy and disease
>>
>>Do you have any idea what would happen to you if you had no Ca or Mg in
>>your blood?
>>
>>
>I think I do.
>
>Tell us where the minerals in calcified arteries come from and why they
>are there.  Also, explain the mineral deposits in the joints of
>arthritics like I had ).


Calcifications in joints are secondary manifestations of inflammation,
quite often. But since they differ between differing kinds of arthritis,
that's not the whole story. For example, in gouty arthritis, which is one
of the better-understood forms of arthritis, the process which starts off
the inflammation is crystals of uric acid, which the body is either
overproducing or underexcreting. Fix the urate problems and you prevent
the gout (though it takes some time). That isn't true of other kinds of
arthritis, which is why we have different names for them.  The idea that
there is just one kind of arthritis is about as childish as the idea that
there is only one kind of headache or back pain or anemia or jaundice.
Arthritis is symptom complex-- it's like a swollen ankle. It's
nonspecific.

The calcium in calcified arteries or calcified joints (or calcified
necrotic tumor centers for that matter), all obviously comes from calcium
in the blood. However, calcium levels in the blood are tightly controlled
and have little to do with what you eat.  If you burn your hand you're
going to get a blister, and the water for that comes from your blood
also. Can you treat it by drinking less?  Well, the calcification
associated with tissue damage in the body is much the same kind of thing.
Most of the time it's a diversion, in fact. The worst calcified arteries
which look like lead-pipes on X-ray are not in general nearly as
dangerous as a big local atheroma, which may or may not be calcified, and
may be only mildly calcified if it is.

None of this has anything to do with magnesium, which in many ways is an
antagonist to calcium, and (in some animal models) calcification, and is
not quite so tightly regulated.

>And of special interest, why is potassium, a positive cation, found at the
>positive electrode when fractionating physiological fluids in a half-cell
>reactor?


All cations are positive by definition. Potassium goes where the rest of
cations go in a mechanical apparatus. The body fractionates potassium and
sodium by the use of special protein ion pumps which opperate on them
oppositely. You cannot duplicate this by any gross lab mechanism which
doesn't contain ionic pumps and pore sizes which differentiate the two
ions (solvated potassium is actually smaller than sodium, when sphere of
hydration is taken into account). I know what a half-cell is; what's a
"half-cell reactor"? Are you using a standard name?  Give me a reference.

SBH