Health & Fitness

Researchers from Cleveland Clinic in Ohio reviewed health records of more than 570,000 people from four large studies and found, as compared to those who rarely or never ate chili peppers, that those who ate them on a regular basis reduced their risk of death from heart-related sources by 26%, from cancer by 23% and from all-cause mortality by 25%.¹

This reduction in the potential risk of death is significant and could make an impact on the number of people with heart disease and cancer. An American Heart Association report released in January 2019 found 48%, or 121.5 million, adults in America had cardiovascular disease.²

The 2020 statistical update showed cardiovascular disease continues to be the No. 1 cause of death, accounting for 859,125 deaths in 2017 and claiming more lives every year than chronic lower respiratory disease and all forms of cancer combined.³

According to the National Cancer Institute, there will be an estimated 1.8 million people diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. and an estimated 606,520 people will die in 2020.⁴ The sheer number of people who may experience an impact on their longevity by making simple changes to their nutritional intake is overwhelming.

While chili peppers are not the answer for everyone, it is important to note that scientific evidence continues to mount supporting the hypothesis that you can take control of your health by making consistent changes in your lifestyle choices.

Chili Peppers May Extend Your Life

You may find chili peppers in your favorite Tex-Mex foods or Indian curry. Preliminary data presented at the American Heart Association virtual conference titled “Scientific Sessions 2020”⁵ suggest that those who regularly eat chili peppers could have a longer life.⁶

The researchers hypothesize this is a result of the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer and blood glucose mediating properties known to be present in chili peppers. Each of these factors may play a role in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease or cancer.

To reach this determination, the team analyzed 4,729 studies and included four large studies with health outcomes from China, the U.S., Iran and Italy. They were surprised that past published studies demonstrated that regularly eating chili peppers could reduce the overall risk of all-cause mortality.

Senior author Dr. Bo Xu commented, “It highlights that dietary factors may play an important role in overall health.”⁷ Xu, a cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic, went on to say in a press release:⁸

“We were surprised to find that in these previously published studies, regular consumption of chili pepper was associated with an overall risk-reduction of all-cause, CVD (cardiovascular disease) and cancer mortality. The exact reasons and mechanisms that might explain our findings, though, are currently unknown.

Therefore, it is impossible to conclusively say that eating more chili pepper can prolong life and reduce deaths, especially from cardiovascular factors or cancer. More research, especially evidence from randomized controlled studies, is needed to confirm these preliminary findings.”

Xu cautioned there were several limitations, including that the four studies only had limited information on health data and confounding factors that may have influenced the results. He also noted the amounts and types of chili pepper the participants ate during the studies were also different.⁹ The researchers are continuing to analyze the data and plan to publish the literature review.¹⁰

What’s the Secret Ingredient?

Capsaicin is the bioactive compound in chili peppers responsible for the hot and spicy kick,¹¹ and the likely compound researchers named as a potential explanation for the benefits they found.¹²

Chili pepper is a fruit pod belonging to the nightshade (Solanaceae) family. Other members of the Solanaceae family include tomato, potato, eggplant, cayenne pepper and paprika.¹³ The plant is a perennial shrub that grows up to 1 meter (3.2 feet) in height and is native to Central America.¹⁴

Capsaicin is concentrated in the seeds and the inner white membrane found when you cut the pod open. The plant produces capsaicin as a protection against fungal attack.¹⁵ Peppers with more capsaicin are spicier and hotter. While it's colorless and odorless, it tricks your brain into perceiving heat where it touches your body.

This burning sensation is what you experience when you eat the peppers, as it is not a taste. Instead, the compound stimulates nerves that send two messages to the brain of warmth and intense stimulation. The burning sensation is a combination of these two messages.¹⁶

Although the benefits of foods that contain capsaicin are plentiful, as I discuss below, eating chili peppers is not a cure-all and some people cannot tolerate the compound or the flavor. As with many other things, too much of a good thing is not always a better thing. Eating too much capsaicin can trigger nausea and vomiting, diarrhea and a burning sensation in your gastrointestinal tract.¹⁷

The Capsaicin Connection

Many of the health benefits from chili peppers come from the compound capsaicin. There are hundreds of varieties of peppers that come in different shapes, sizes, colors and degrees of hotness. How the heat is measured is based on the work of Wilbur Scoville in 1912. He developed a test to measure chili peppers’ pungency and heat that is now called Scoville heat units.¹⁸

Different factors can affect the perception of heat and the units are used to measure anything that's made from chili peppers. Scoville’s first tests depended on a panel of taste testers and the units were based on how dilute the pepper mixture must be before it lost the sensation of heat.

The test now uses high-performance liquid chromatography and measures the concentration of capsaicin in the product. The scale ranges from zero to 2.2 million. For example, the common bell pepper has zero Scoville heat units (SHU). Popular banana peppers range from zero to 500 SHU and Anaheim peppers can go as high as 2,500 SHU. Jalapeno peppers range from 2,500 to 8,000 SHU and serrano peppers top out at 23,000 SHU.

If you're looking for more heat, Komodo dragon peppers range from 1.4 million to 2.2 million SHU and the supreme hot chili pepper, the Carolina Reaper, is measured at 2.2 million plus SHU. When scientists measure pure capsaicin, they find it contains 16 million SHU.

Capsaicin is the active ingredient used in self-defense pepper spray. The spray burns the skin on contact and has an SHU ranging from 2 million to 5.3 million, depending upon the brand. Yet, it’s this same compound chili makers use to create their spicy concoctions that has health benefits for those who partake regularly.

In the 1980s Paul Rozin, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, studied chili and the people who ate it, describing a form of “benign masochism.”¹⁹ The term was used to describe how some people enjoy negative emotions when there is no real threat to their safety, like riding a roller coaster or watching a scary movie.

Later, another team of researchers from Penn State set out to discover if there were personality traits that drew some people to love spicy foods and found those who liked the burn weren’t as sensitive to the heat.²⁰

“They don’t rate it as intense. And again we’re not sure if that means that biologically they’re not getting as much of a response, or if they’re desensitized, or if they are the type of person who went skydiving the day before, so the burn of capsaicin in relation to the rush of adrenalin doesn’t rate that high.

We expected the sensation-seekers to rate spicy meals higher, for example, and they did. But there was variation in their responses depending on the type of spicy meal. Some people like Asian cooking — which may include capsaicin but has other chemesthetic ingredients, too, like ginger and Wasabi — yet they don’t like chili barbecue. Why do they like one type of spicy and not another?”

Adding Ginger Boosts Anticancer Activity

Capsaicin has been studied extensively and it may surprise you how many health benefits have been associated with the compound. For instance, capsaicin may help promote long-term heart health. In one animal study involving rodents with high blood pressure, the animals experienced relief after eating food mixed with capsaicin.²¹

The researchers suggested the compound activated the transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1), which contributes to vasorelaxation and lowered blood pressure. Capsaicin may also help promote healthy functioning of the digestive tract.

In one study researchers suggested capsaicin could be a gastroprotective agent in those with Helicobacter pylori mucosal damage or who use nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).²² Capsaicin may participate in the fight against cancer by attacking cancer cell growth.²³

The results of one study presented at the 2019 Experimental Biology meeting in Orlando, Florida, showed capsaicin could reduce metastasis in lung adenocarcinoma, which is the majority of all non-small cell lung cancers.²⁴

While it can act on its own, in combination with 6-gingerol, a compound found in raw ginger root, evidence shows it has greater potential. In one animal study using mice prone to lung cancer, researchers found that when fed a combination of capsaicin and 6-gingerol, they had a reduced risk of lung cancer.²⁵

While under observation, all the mice that received capsaicin developed lung tumors; half the mice that received 6-gingerol developed lung tumors, but only 20% of the mice given the combination developed cancer.

Capsaicin Plays a Role in Pain Relief and Weight Loss

Capsaicin plays a role in pain relief, in part by depleting your body’s supply of substance P. This is a chemical component of nerve cells involved in transmitting pain signals to your brain. Capsaicin also works by desensitizing sensory receptors in your skin.²⁶

That's why capsaicin is used in topical creams and patches, which deliver an intense burning sensation that ultimately relieves pain. In one case study, scientists acknowledged that capsaicin was most often analyzed for relieving postherpetic neuralgia after shingles and in HIV-associated neuropathy.²⁷

In an effort to determine if it had efficacy in other forms of neuropathic pain, capsaicin was used in a man who had persistent wound pain after a bomb explosion. He experienced an 80% reduction in symptoms after using a capsaicin patch.

The compound also may play a role in weight loss when added to your diet. In a study published in the Journal of Nutritional Science and Vitaminology, participants were given 10 grams of red pepper during a meal.²⁸

After eating, the researchers monitored the participants' energy expenditure and learned that chili peppers increased carbohydrate oxidation for as much as 150 minutes after the meal. Scientists found your body can burn an extra 50 calories per day when you consume capsaicin regularly and:²⁹

“… would produce clinically significant levels of weight loss in 1-2 years. While capsaicinoids are not a magic bullet for weight loss, the evidence is that they could play a beneficial role, as part of a weight management program.”

Several studies have demonstrated that capsaicin may help reduce hunger as well.^30,31 According to a study published in the European Journal of Nutrition, including capsaicin during the meal had no effect on satiety but did reduce the production of ghrelin, the hormone responsible for triggering hunger, within 15 minutes after the meal.³²

In another study, after 12 weeks of supplementation, participants were found to eat less and had a reduction in their waist-to-hip ratio.³³ While not a magic bullet, chili peppers may be one weapon you can add to your arsenal of healthy food and lifestyle choices that help you take control of your health.

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Enzymes catalyze many biological reactions in your body. They regulate the rate of these chemical reactions, speeding them up so necessary functions like digestion, muscle contractions and other aspects of cellular metabolism can occur.¹

Enzymes are also emerging as key players in COVID-19, as studies suggest damage to the endothelium, which are cells covering blood vessels, is contributing to the development of blood clots, or thrombosis, in the blood vessels of severely ill COVID-19 patients.² Enzymes may turn out to be the missing link in helping to break up clusters of clotting proteins involved in this dangerous thrombosis.

Endothelium Damage Found in Critically Ill COVID-19 Cases

After noticing blackened fingers and toes — signs of what appeared to be microvascular thrombosis, or tiny blood clots in small blood vessels — in COVID-19 patients in advanced stages of the disease, physicians at the Yale School of Medicine began running clotting tests on their patients.³

Levels of Von Willebrand factor (VWF), a clotting protein released by endothelial cells, were found to be significantly elevated, which suggested to hematologist Alfred Lee that damaged endothelial cells may be releasing large quantities of VWF, leading to clots.⁴ This prompted the team to screen for additional markers of endothelial cell and platelet activation in critically and noncritically ill COVID-19 patients.

The study, which was conducted in April 2020, included 68 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and 13 asymptomatic controls. VWF antigen was significantly elevated in COVID-19 patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) compared to non-ICU COVID-19 patients,⁵ as was soluble platelet selectin (sP-selectin), which is sometimes used as a biomarker for infection and mortality.⁶

Specifically, mean VWF was 565% among ICU patients and 278% among non-ICU patients while soluble P-selectin was 15.9 ng/mL compared to 11.2 ng/mL.⁷ "Our findings show that endotheliopathy is present in COVID-19 and is likely to be associated with critical illness and death. Early identification of endotheliopathy and strategies to mitigate its progression might improve outcomes in COVID-19," the researchers concluded.⁸

Likely not coincidentally, endothelial dysfunction is also associated with insulin resistance and plays a role in the vascular complications of diabetes,⁹ as well as being involved in obesity and high blood pressure,¹⁰ conditions that raise the risk of severe COVID19.

Even mild obesity may raise the risk of COVID-19 severity — COVID-19 patients with mild obesity had a 2.5 times greater risk of respiratory failure and a five times greater risk of being admitted to an ICU compared to nonobese patients. Those with a BMI of 35 and over were also 12 times more likely to die from COVID-19.¹¹

Another study looking into the impact of coexisting health conditions like high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes on COVID-19 outcomes found they're linked to "poorer clinical outcomes," such as admission to an intensive care unit, a need for invasive ventilation or death.¹²

It's possible that the endothelial damage in all of these conditions plays a role in worsening COVID-19 outcomes, but it's unclear which comes first — endothelial damage or COVID-19.

Endothelial Cells Are the 'Main Target' of SARS-CoV-2

Imperial College London cardiologist Thomas Lüscher told The Scientist that the endothelium is the main target of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.¹³ Under healthy conditions, blood cells can pass through the endothelium lining blood vessels, but when exposed to viral infections and other inflammatory agents, the endothelium becomes sticky and releases VWF.

The end result is a cascade of clotting and inflammation, both characteristics of severe COVID-19. According to a case report published April 8, 2020, "A hallmark of severe COVID-19 is coagulopathy, with 71.4% of patients who die of COVID-19 meeting … criteria for disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) while only 0.6% of patients who survive meet these criteria."¹⁴

Writing in the European Heart Journal, Lüscher argues, "COVID-19, particularly in the later complicated stages, represents an endothelial disease,"¹⁵ which may help explain why multiple organ systems, including the lungs, heart, brain, kidney and vasculature, may be affected.

An additional study by Canadian researchers, published in Critical Care Explorations in September 2020, also revealed elevated VWF and soluble P-selectin levels in COVID-19 patients, along with higher glycocalyx-degradation products,¹⁶ a sign of damage to the glycocalyx, which envelops the endothelium.¹⁷ This can also be a sign of sepsis. Taken together, the research suggests that therapies targeting the endothelium may be useful for COVID-19, which is where enzymes come in.

Enzymes Used to Treat COVID-19

With the role of coagulopathy in severe COVID-19 becoming clearer, researchers have experimented with enzymes in the treatment of the disease. Fibrinolytic therapy, which uses drugs or enzymes to break up blood clots, has been used in a Phase 1 clinical trial that showed the treatment reduced mortality and led to improvements in oxygenation.¹⁸ Further, researchers wrote in the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis:¹⁹

"There is evidence in both animals and humans that fibrinolytic therapy in acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) improves survival, which also points to fibrin deposition in the pulmonary microvasculature as a contributory cause of ARDS.

This would be expected to be seen in patients with ARDS and concomitant diagnoses of DIC on their laboratory values such as what is observed in more than 70% of those who die of COVID‐19."

The researchers reported three case studies of patients with severe COVID‐19 respiratory failure who were treated with tissue plasminogen activator (TPA), a serine protease enzyme found on endothelial cells that's involved in fibrinolysis, or the breakdown of blood clots.²⁰

All three patients benefited from the treatment, with partial pressure of oxygen/FiO2 (P/F) ratios, a measure of lung function, improving from 38% to 100%.²¹ While it should be noted that several of the authors have patents pending related to both coagulation/fibrinolysis diagnostics and therapeutics, the results suggest such treatments deserve further evaluation in certain COVID-19 patients.

An evaluation of organ tissues from people who died from COVID-19 also revealed extensive lung damage, including clotting, and long-term persistence of virus cells in pneumocytes and endothelial cells.²²

The findings indicate that virus-infected cells may persist for long periods inside the lungs, contributing to scar tissue. In an interview with Reuters, study co-author Mauro Giacca, a professor at King's College London, described "really vast destruction of the architecture of the lungs," with healthy tissue "almost completely substituted by scar tissue,"²³ which could be responsible for cases of "long COVID," in which symptoms persist for months.

"It could very well be envisaged that one of the reasons why there are cases of long COVID is because there is vast destruction of lung (tissue)," he told Reuters. "Even if someone recovers from COVID, the damage that is done could be massive."²⁴ Dissolving scar tissue is another area where enzymes, particularly proteolytic enzymes, may be useful.

Three Top Enzymes Act as Natural Anticoagulants

Holistic prophylactic alternatives that might be beneficial against blood clots include proteolytic enzymes such as lumbrokinase, serrapeptase and nattokinase, all of which act as natural anticoagulants by breaking down the fibrin that forms the blood clot. Fibrin is a clotting material that restricts blood flow, found both in your bloodstream and connective tissue such as your muscles. Fibrin accumulation is also responsible for scar tissue.

It is important to understand that when using these enzymes for fibrinolytic therapy they need to be taken on an empty stomach, at least one hour before or two hours after meals. Otherwise these enzymes will be wasted in the digestion of your food and will be unable to serve their fibrinolytic purpose.

As noted in Scientific Reports, some of the key mechanisms by which proteolytic enzymes exert their anticoagulant effect include "defibrinogenation, inhibition of platelet aggregation, and/or interference with components of the blood coagulation cascade."²⁵ Here's a closer look at these important enzymes, all of which are available in supplement form or, in the case of nattokinase, via the food natto.

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Rebel Wilson has revealed she’s finally reached her goal weight of 75kg with one months to spare.

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As NSW and Victoria record close to a month of no locally-acquired COVID cases, the WA Premier is not rushing into any easing of his state's borders. 

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In this interview, we review some of the remarkable benefits of low-dose naltrexone (LDN), including the surprising benefits of microdosed LDN. The two experts featured in this interview are Linda Elsegood, a Briton who founded the LDN Research Trust¹ in 2004, and Dr. Sarah Zielsdorf, who has a medical practice in the Chicago area in the U.S.

Elsegood, who was diagnosed with MS in 2000, has been involved in LDN research and public education for 16 years. LDN is a powerful, safe and effective treatment for many autoimmune diseases, yet few, including most health care professionals, know anything about it. Remarkably, LDN may even be helpful in the fight against COVID-19, as it acts to normalize your immune system.²

Elsegood recently published a book on LDN called "The LDN Book, Volume Two: The Latest Research on How Low Dose Naltrexone Could Revolutionize Treatment for PTSD, Pain, IBD, Lyme Disease, Dermatologic Conditions and More." Each chapter is written by a medical professional with clinical knowledge of the drug’s use. Zielsdorf is one of the contributing authors. Elsegood also hosts a radio show called The LDN Radio Show.³

In the interview, she tells the story of how she discovered LDN and the dramatic benefits she has experienced from it. In summary, beneficial effects became apparent after about three weeks on the drug and, after 18 months, her condition had significantly improved.

Zielsdorf — who has an undergraduate degree in microbiology and a master's degree in public health microbiology and emerging infectious disease — also has a personal health story that brought her to LDN. She was diagnosed with hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) in 2003. Ten years later, she was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune disorder that affects the thyroid.

"I learned about functional nutrition and triggers for autoimmunity, and started to do all of the things I needed to do to optimize my biomarkers, remove systemic inflammation, and was able to return to my [medical] training. I had been told that I could never have children and surprisingly became pregnant and had a daughter in my second year of training.

After having her, I [had a flareup]. It was then, in 2014, that a doctor put me on LDN. It changed my life … Once I graduated from residency, I started treating patients with a variety of issues with LDN. I've treated thousands of patients with LDN."

Naltrexone — A Rare Gem of a Drug

Naltrexone in low or even microdoses is one of the few pharmaceutical drugs I wholeheartedly endorse. Not only is it remarkably safe, it’s also a profound adjunctive therapy for a wide variety of conditions. As explained by Zielsdorf:

"Naltrexone is one of the few things that actually enables our own bodies, our own immune systems, to be able to function better and really restore function.

After World War II, they were looking for more opioid medications. By accident, scientists figured out how to block the opioid receptor. They did the exact opposite of what they were supposed to do, which is to find morphine analogs for soldiers.

[In] the 1960s, they were able to synthesize naloxone and naltrexone … FDA approved it in the 1980s for opioid addiction at a dose of 50 to 100 milligrams, and then in the 1990s for alcohol dependence.

But it was Dr. Bernard Bihari and Dr. Ian Zagon in the 1970s that had this amazing idea that if you took a very small dose of naltrexone, compounding it in a clean way [down] to a few milligrams, if would briefly block the opioid receptor in the central nervous system — very briefly kissing that receptor and then unblocking it.

This upregulates the body's immune system by increasing the opioid receptor's own production of beta-endorphin and met-enkephalins. Beta-endorphins help with mood, pain, sleep and the immune system, and met-enkephalins are also known as opioid-derived growth factor, and there are receptors for these on many different tissues, including the thyroid.

We now use it for nearly all autoimmune conditions, as an adjunct for cancer, and as a treatment for chronic pain. We also use ultra-low dose [microdosed] naltrexone, which I wrote about, to help potentiate pain relief for people who are on opioids and help them to be less dependent on opioid medications.

I've actually been able to get patients off of fentanyl patches and get them off chronic oxycodone or Norco use where their pain specialists said, 'You will never ever get off these pain medications.' It's been an incredible journey and I'm a huge advocate of it."

Naloxone Versus Naltrexone

Naloxone (Narcan) is what is carried on ambulances and used in ERs and trauma bays as an antidote to an opioid overdose. When given at a high enough dose, naloxone or Narcan acts as a complete opioid blocker, which is why it's used acutely when someone has taken too high a dose of an opioid.

Naltrexone blocks the opioid receptor only briefly, and by a different mechanism. When used in low dosages as LDN, the chief benefit is actually in the rebound effect, after the opioid receptor has been briefly blocked.

Foundational Treatment Strategies for Autoimmune Diseases

With regard to autoimmune diseases, it's important to realize there are other, equally important, foundational strategies that will benefit most patients with a dysfunctional immune system. These include optimizing your vitamin D level and omega-3 index, for example.

It's also important to eliminate potential triggers. The reason why people have an autoimmune disease is because they're exposed to something in the environment which serves as an antigen that their body recognizes as a foreign invader, and as a result attacks it. If you can avoid those antigens, you can often suppress and frequently eliminate symptoms without anything, because you've removed the stimulus.

One common autoimmune trigger is lectins, found in many otherwise healthy vegetables. Zielsdorf will typically place her autoimmune patients on a Mediterranean-style paleo diet or an oligoantigenic elimination diet to optimize detoxification, liver and kidney function, and the microbiome.

Others may be placed on a nose-to-tail carnivore diet. As noted by Zielsdorf, it’s “a way of offloading and simplifying what antigens the body is seeing.” Other helpful diets in this respect include the autoimmune paleo diet and the low-histamine or low FODMAP diet.

"I am a microbiologist and I do a ton of advanced testing, and then we start looking deeper at triggers," she says. "I used to put everybody on LDN first, but now we know that certain patients will flair because their immune system is so suppressed due to co-infections.

We see it most with Lyme disease and with yeast overgrowth. If I suspect or I have tests confirming that a patient has one of these things, or their immune system is super suppressed … I'll work on their microbiome before I start LDN …

I test everybody's gut, and what I see universally is you get this hyper intense intestinal permeability in these cases … What's so interesting is a leaky gut equals a leaky brain, and we overwhelm our immune system. I do see this. The first step is getting them off the most common triggers, and sometimes I'll be testing for lectins too.

Universally, for all of my autoimmune patients, is that they can't eat wheat. There are over 150 antigens in wheat that you can be sensitive to … It is also desiccated with Roundup, glyphosate, right before processing, so we get that extra toxicity. I test my patients for their environmental toxic load, and I see a lot of patients with glyphosate toxicity.

The wheat that we used to eat 10,000 years ago at the beginning of agriculture is not the wheat [we now eat]. It's not even the same chromosome number as what our bodies ate in small amounts as hunter gatherers."

Why You Should Avoid Monogastric Animal Meats

As mentioned by Zielsdorf, a nose-to-tail carnivore diet can be an excellent intervention in some cases, especially for those whose immune function is severely suppressed. However, you should avoid monogastric animals, meaning animals that have only one stomach.

Whereas cows have two, chickens and pigs have only one. The reason for this recommendation is because conventionally factory farmed chicken and pork will be very high in the omega-6 fat linoleic acid. This is because they are typically fed corn, which is high in this type of fat. And a high linolenic acid diet can metabolically devastate your health. So, a diet high in chicken and bacon is not doing your body any favors.

Animals with two stomachs are able to fully process omega-6-rich grains and other foods, as they are equipped with gut bacteria that can break it down into a healthier fat. Aside from cows and steer, this includes buffalo, beef and lamb.

What Can LDN Treat?

Aside from autoimmune diseases, LDN is also used in the treatment of the following conditions. Bear in mind this is not a complete list. Some of these conditions have been featured in various documentaries⁴ produced by the LDN Research Trust. You can find links to those documentaries in the references.

Cancer5 — Research by professor Angus George Dalgleish and his colleague Dr. Wei Lou showed LDN could bring cancer cells into remission using pulse dosing.6 LDN also works synergistically with cannabidiol (CBD), and works well for cancer, autoimmunity and pain conditions

Opioid addiction, dependence and recovery7 — Using microdoses of 0.001 milligrams (1 microgram), long-term users of opioids who have developed a tolerance to the drug are able to, over time, lower their opioid dose and avoid withdrawal symptoms as the LDN makes the opioid more effective. For opioid dependence, the typical starting dose is 1 microgram twice a day, which will allow them to lower their opioid dose by about 60%. When the opioid is taken for pain, the LDN must be taken four to six hours apart from the opioid in order to not displace the opioid's effects

Lyme disease and its coinfections8

Fibromyalgia

Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO)

Restless leg syndrome

Depression

Dermatological issues

Infertility

General Dosing Guidelines

Dosing will, of course, depend on the condition being treated, but there are some general guidelines that can be helpful. Downloadable guides can be found on the LDN Research Trust site, and are available in several languages. Keep in mind that LDN is a drug, not something you can buy over the counter, and you need to work with a knowledgeable physician who can prescribe it and monitor your health.

"With a general pain condition, we may use 1.5 to 3 or 4.5 mg. With Hashimoto's, we start lower and slower because patients with Hashimoto's may actually have to reduce their thyroid hormone medication if they're on it because they get reduction of that inflammation and they can produce more of their own thyroid hormone. So, we usually start at 0.5 mg.

For patients with mood conditions … 0.5 to 1 mg. There was an important paper that came out showing LDN is an important agent for depression, for patients who fail those meds or as an adjunct to antidepressants. PTSD patients may have to go higher. There are all sorts of strategies and you just need to find a doctor who's well-versed in that condition."

More Information

The LDN Research Trust's website is an excellent resource for all things LDN. It has a variety of resources to guide patients, prescribing doctors and pharmacists alike. It also has a page where you can find LDN-literate prescribers around the world.

Of course, to learn more, be sure to pick up a copy of "The LDN Book, Volume Two: The Latest Research on How Low Dose Naltrexone Could Revolutionize Treatment for PTSD, Pain, IBD, Lyme Disease, Dermatologic Conditions and More," and/or "The LDN Book: How a Little-Known Generic Drug ― Low Dose Naltrexone ― Could Revolutionize Treatment for Autoimmune Diseases, Cancer, Autism, Depression and More," which is the first of the two volumes.

Both books are also available on the LDN Research Trust website, along with videos featuring all of the doctors that contributed chapters to the books. You can also check out The LDN Radio Show.⁹ Last but not least, LDN Research Trust is a nonprofit that depends on public donations, so if you would like to contribute to the Trust's LDN research and education efforts, please make a donation.

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On the eve of their 26th wedding anniversary, there’s no sign of the spark waning between TV host Larry Emdur and his wife Sylvie, who after navigating the highs of lows of an often shallow industry while raising two children have somehow emerged as besotted as ever.

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