I’m not anti-vaccination, in principle, as you know. I’ve written a dozen times over the years that I’m glad to live in a world where there is a rabies vaccine, thanks to Louis Pasteur. It’s a horrible illness and the vaccine is about 99% effective, if given in time.

BUT THE RABIES VACCINE IS NOT WITHOUT RISKS! I have never claimed that. In fact it’s pretty unpleasant stuff. There are no recorded deaths from the modern vaccine, though it carries a high rate of mild, temporary reactions. Because rabies is virtually 100% fatal once symptoms appear, the benefits of the vaccine drastically outweigh the risks of any complication.

That’s safe AND effective. 

But take Hep A and B. The hepatitis A vaccine is recommended for “high-risk” children and adults, while the hepatitis B vaccine is recommended for all adults under 60 years. All infants in the USA are given Hep B on their first day of life. Yet in a recent study, published in JAMA, researchers estimated that only 40% of U.S. adults had immunity to hepatitis A and only 27% were immune to hepatitis B virus.

They described that as “suboptimal”. I would be tempted to use the word “crap”.

What about, say, measles? The measles vaccine, as you probably know, has been touted as one of the greatest advances in modern medicine that “saved” us all from a deadly fatal disease. Surely that is “safe and effective”? No, that’s nonsense. To begin with, measles had all but vanished as a problem by the same time that the vaccine was introduced. (see chart)

Before measles vaccine was ever invented, the deaths due to measles had dropped from all-time highs of 10,000s per year to 100 per year. Some of this we know had a lot to do with better hygiene, sanitation, electricity, transportation of food, refrigeration, labor laws, and nutrition.

But there is another factor, rarely mentioned, but which I consider likely crucial. Vitamin A dosing.

You will know that I personally choose vit A as the “antibiotic vitamin”, not D as some try to maintain. In the 40s and 50s kids in the Western world were widely dosed with cod-liver oil, which contains lots of vitamins A and D.

Did you know that high-dose vitamin A is the RECOMMENDED treatment for serious measles cases, listed on the CDC website?¹

Secondly, measles was never a scary threat in the way that scaremongers try to make it out today. In 1962 the disease was described by Alexander D. Langmuir, then Chief Epidemiologist at the U.S. Communicable Disease Center (the forerunner of today’s CDC), as being “a self-limiting infection of short duration, moderate severity, and low fatality…”²

Yet today, with all the fear mongering, you would think that measles is about to carry off all our young children!

Measles is, of course, a real disease, and while it can have serious complications, it is largely determined by an individual’s immune status. Before widespread vaccination campaigns, measles was a common childhood illness that conferred lifelong immunity. Now, due to waning vaccine-induced immunity, adults—who are at higher risk for complications—are increasingly affected by outbreaks.

It’s not working! But they disguise this by counting “don’t knows” as unvaxxed, where it’s a fact that over 85% of the population are technically vaxxed. They boast that.

Additionally, while the measles vaccine is heavily promoted as safe, a growing body of evidence reveals dozens of serious adverse events associated with the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine. 

Some of you know I was probably the first MD in the world (1983) to point out that youngsters tended to develop autism disorders after receiving the MMR (I mean within days, not months or years. After you’ve seen a dozen cases in a month, all with the same story, you don’t need researchers and “investigators” (read shills) looking for clusters and “proving” there is no connection.

You KNOW it is a pattern.

The connection with autism remains controversial and is clouded by arguments as to whether mercury (thimerosal) is the problem, which it appears not to be.

But there are many other complications of this tricky-treacherous vaccine, which is thus neither safe nor effective.

These well-documented risks raise critical questions about the one-size-fits-all vaccination policy being enforced through mandates. The notion that every child must be vaccinated without consideration for individual risk factors ignores the reality that vaccines—like any medical intervention—carry risks that must be weighed against their benefits, not just weighed against loss of profits.

Take another one; good old flu!

There are, in fact, over 200 viruses (and even some bacteria) that cause influenza and influenza-like illness (ILI), all producing the same or similar symptoms (fever, headache, aches and pains, cough and runny noses). Without laboratory tests, doctors cannot tell real flu from ILI. Both last for days and only rarely lead to death or serious illness. At best, vaccines might be effective against only Influenza A and B, which represent only about 10% of all circulating viruses.

Unfortunately, flu shots are just about worthless. Oh sure, they can trot out reams of spun figures to show how crucial it is to get your annual jab. But does it really do any good? And is it really as safe as they claim; that even children and babies should get “harmless” flu shots?

I’ll start by addressing the second question first:

“… the swine-flu vaccination program was one of the CDC’s greatest blunders…In 1976 health officials launched a 100-million dollar program to immunize every American. But the expected epidemic never materialized, and the vaccine led to partial paralysis in 532 people. There were 32 deaths.”³

So much for the continuous chant that vaccines are “safe”. So what about “effective”? 

Based on U.S. surveillance network data from September 2025 to February 2026, estimated vaccine effectiveness (VE) rates against influenza A- and influenza B-related outpatient visits for adults ranged from 22% to 34%, which is absolutely dismal, and 30% to 41% for those ages 65 and older. That’s the group they claim that the vaccine is most needed for and does the most good! 30 – 40% effective? Nah. I don’t think so.

Among children and adolescents ages 6 months to 17 years, VE rates against outpatient visits ranged from 38% to 41%, hardly impressive. “These findings support CDC’s recommendation for annual influenza vaccination,” they concluded.⁴

No they absolutely do NOT! 22-30% protection? That’s not effective in my book.

Did you know that science says that it takes 71 people to be vaccinated against flu, to prevent even one case and 29 healthy adults need to be vaccinated to prevent one of them experiencing an ILI? No, I suppose not, since the medical industry doesn’t WANT you to know!

Add this… Last year.

In adults ages 65 and older, with standard-dose inactivated influenza vaccines, the effectiveness was just 16%. And that’s the age group they claim it does the most good!

Unfortunately, lying and deceit seem to be the normal business protocols in the pharmaceutical industry. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones to stay informed.

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Alternative Doctor

References:

1. https://www.cdc.gov/measles/media/pdfs/2026/05/measles-prevention-and-treatment-overview.pdf
2. Langmuir AD. Medical Importance of Measles. American Journal of Diseases of Children. 1962;103(3):224–226. doi:10.1001/archpedi.1962.02080020236005
3. U.S. News and World Report, Joseph Carey, October 14, 1985, p. 70, “How Medical Sleuths Track Killer Diseases.”
4. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/75/wr/mm7509a2.htm

A particularly telling case was published in 2009 because the victim happened to be wearing a continuous heart-rate monitor, giving the investigators unusually good timing data.

A healthy 48-year-old Norwegian man capsized while kayaking in 3.5°C seawater. He remained conscious for some time as he cooled. Eventually he became unconscious, submerged completely and went into cardiac arrest. His personal heart monitor enabled the physicians to reconstruct the sequence unusually accurately.

Their estimate was: about 31 minutes from cardiac arrest/head submersion until CPR began.

During that interval there was therefore no effective circulation and, to all practical purposes, no breathing or ventilation whatsoever. 

And it gets stranger. He then remained in cardiac arrest while being resuscitated for hours. Cardiopulmonary bypass was established 121 minutes after cardiac arrest, and sustained spontaneous circulation was not restored until 207 minutes — 3 hours 27 minutes — after arrest. 

Yet his neurological examination eventually showed no focal brain damage. Formal neuropsychological testing one year later showed cognitive function at or above population averages, and he returned to his work as an engineer and resumed kayaking.¹

They think that one case which follows their pattern “proves” their story. I say JUST ONE case the contradicts orthodox beliefs proves there is much to learn about the process of physical death.

Then there is an astonishing 83-minute case.

In 2015, Romlin and colleagues reported a 7-year-old girl submerged in icy seawater for an estimated at least 83 minutes.

When recovered she was in cardiac arrest, with ice actually present in her upper airway. Yikes! Her first documented nasopharyngeal temperature was only 13.8°C (normal is 37°C). She was rewarmed and made what the authors explicitly called an “excellent” and “exceptional” recovery, although treatment and rehabilitation were prolonged. 

This case is important because 83 minutes is a documented submersion duration, unable to breathe atmospheric air, not 83 minutes of CPR.

Here’s another…

In 1986, 2½-year-old Michelle Funk was completely submerged in an icy Utah stream for at least 66 minutes. When recovered she was without breath and pulseless. Her core temperature eventually measured about 19°C.

After prolonged CPR and extracorporeal rewarming she appeared to make an extraordinary neurological recovery. The original JAMA report described it as a “good neurologic recovery.”²

And Now The New World Record: At Least 147 Minutes!

This one is extraordinary and was only published in 2025.

An 8-year-old boy in Pennsylvania fell through pond ice and remained submerged for at least 147 minutes; the estimated range was approximately 147–177 minutes. His peripheral temperature on recovery was measured at an extraordinary 7°C (45°F). He had no heartbeat (asystolic). CPR was continued during transport and he was placed on VA-ECMO (an intensive, temporary life-support system that takes over the functions of both the heart and the lungs) and rewarmed. 

The authors explicitly describe this as the longest documented submersion survival in the medical literature.³

But — and this is a large BUT — he did not recover totally without adverse effects.

MRI showed early hypoxic-ischaemic changes. At six months he could stand unsupported, ride a tricycle, eat soft foods and obey simple commands, but he was still relearning basic tasks and recovering from neuromuscular weakness. The paper authors used the expression “meaningful neurological recovery”.

So we can say this: There is no precise instant at which cessation of breathing becomes death. Breathing can cease, circulation can cease and every ordinary outward sign of life can disappear, yet under exceptional conditions the process may still be reversible. Documented cases include apparently complete neurological recovery after more than half an hour without spontaneous respiration or circulation, and exceptional neurological recovery after more than 80 minutes of cold-water submersion. Human beings have survived documented submersion for at least 147 minutes, although the most extreme survivor sustained some neurological injury and had to re-learn basic tasks.

Medicine is incautious by pronouncing that circulation has “permanently” ceased or that the brain has “permanently” lost its capacity to function. It cannot point to cessation of breathing or even the first flat ECG and say, in every circumstance, “There. That was the moment the person ceased to exist.”

Indeed, these cases rather demolish that idea.

Many of these recovery cases have no “memory” of what took place while they were deeply unconscious. But some do.

The largest prospective study is the AWARE Study, led by Sam Parnia, with Peter Fenwick. Among more than 2,000 cardiac arrests, survivors reported a spectrum of experiences. About 9% described experiences meeting accepted criteria for a near-death experience, while about 2% reported explicit awareness of actual events occurring during resuscitation. One patient gave a verifiable account of events, meaning he was aware of what was happening around him, during a period when cerebral function would not normally have been expected to support conscious awareness.⁴

There are also numerous other published case reports.

One review from India described three patients surviving severe illness or trauma. All three reported classic features:

• an out-of-body experience,

• heightened awareness,

• vivid perception,

• and lasting psychological change after recovery. 

Interestingly, the authors noted that some details faded with time, suggesting that these memories may behave differently from ordinary autobiographical memories.⁵

From the medical literature over the past 40 years, certain features recur with surprising consistency:

• a sense of leaving the body,

• unusually clear or “more real than real” consciousness,

• encounters with deceased relatives or beings,

• overwhelming peace or unconditional love,

• panoramic life review,

• reluctance to return,

• profound and lasting changes in personality and values.

Whether these experiences arise entirely from brain physiology or represent consciousness continuing under extraordinary conditions remains an open question. The experiences themselves are well documented; the interpretation remains debated.

No matter: very often what happens is the person have a vivid and typically joyful experience which seems to liberate him or her. After “dying” and then coming back the individual seems develop a powerful sense of personal existence that cannot be shaken by mere death.

Some survivors begin preaching, others running courses, some write a book, on what it really means to be alive.

Meantime let me remind you of the words of that beautiful song “The Rose” (verse 2):

It’s the heart, afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It’s the dream, afraid of waking
That never takes the chance

It’s the one who won’t be taking
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul, afraid of dying
That never learns to live

We all get nearer the final exit, every day a step nearer. But it is nothing to fear. Remember, we cannot UN-be. That just can’t happen.

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Alternative Doctor

References:

1. Heart rate monitored hypothermia and drowning in a 48-year-old man. survival without sequelae: a case report. Cases J. 2009 Aug 18;2:6204. doi: 10.4076/1757-1626-2-6204
2. Bolte, Robert G.; Black, Philip G.; Bowers, Robert S.; Thorne, J. Kent; Corneli, Howard M. “The Use of Extracorporeal Rewarming in a Child Submerged for 66 Minutes.” JAMA. 1988;260(3):377–379. doi:10.1001/jama.1988.03410030093036
3. Bartoli, Carlo R.; Wong, Ronald; Mazandi, Vanessa M.; Fairman, Alexander S.; Maffei, Frank A. “Ice Water Drowning Survival After 147-Minute Submersion and 7 °C Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest.” JACC: Case Reports. 2025;30(25):104885. doi:10.1016/j.jaccas.2025.104885
4. Near death experiences, cognitive function and psychological outcomes of surviving cardiac arrest. Resuscitation. Volume 74, Issue 2, August 2007, Pages 215-221
5. Purkayastha M, Mukherjee KK. Three cases of near death experience: Is it physiology, physics or philosophy? Ann Neurosci. 2012 Jul;19(3):104-6. doi: 10.5214/ans.0972.7531.190303. PMID: 25205979; PMCID: PMC4117086

For this newsletter I’m side-stepping eliminating the bad (avoiding what I call “Bandit Foods”), which are inflammatory, and just looking at the positive qualities of a range of foods which help protect against cancer—or which will help fight it, if you have already been unlucky enough to contract cancer.

Don’t forget my “3 Pillars of Healing” in this context:

1. Good nutrition, including avoidance what your body doesn’t tolerate

2. Chemical clean up of your personal environment

3. Psychological detox (this is the one which is usually omitted, often with disastrous consequences)

As for cancer-beating foods, remember the FDA, CDC, ACS and AMA do not admit such a concept. But then, their management of cancer is a disaster in the extreme.

Instead, we can turn to Loma Linda University, in California, for direct information concerning which foods might keep you safe. 

Loma Linda University, if you don’t know, is a Seventh Day Adventists institution. These are the people who live exceptionally long and healthy lives, which they attribute to vegetarianism and alcohol avoidance. Great for some but certainly not for everyone.

Research shows certain plant foods contain powerful compounds — called phytochemicals — that can help fight cancer and reduce the risk of its development. These specific foods may hold a key to prevent the growth of cancer cells in the body, writes Andrew Woodward, an oncology nutritionist at Loma Linda University Cancer Center. 

[https://news.llu.edu/patient-care/7-foods-fight-cancer-heart-disease-and-enhance-health]

Thing is, it’s now well-known that inflammation has been shown to promote cancer cells to grow and spread. It so happens that foods are the worst and commonest sources of inflammation within the body, particularly manufactured foods, vitiated grains and processed seed oils.

But it gets tricky because few “experts” seem to know what I learned 40 years ago: every individual is different and everyone has their own inflammatory or “Bandit Foods.” You can’t generalize and say “these foods are good,” although you can say certain foods are “bad” but some good foods are bad for certain individuals. (my mother and sister, for example, get really sick if they accidentally eat anything from the lily family (onions, garlic, leeks, etc.)

But there is some common ground. Just don’t go supposing that one overall rule applies to everyone; for every “healthy” food you can name, I had dozens or scores of individuals who were made ill by it (Yes, even different spring waters)!

The Linda Loma University website focuses on certain food groups and calls them all functional, although I do not, for reasons just explained. But they are well worth including in your diet, if you fully tolerate them.

So much so that I have put a selection of these foods in my “Liquid Gold” reborn mix! (not that I am suggesting this is the same as eating a proper portion of each of the foods).

These are:

Berries — including acai, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, chokeberry, mangosteen, blackcurrant (packed with vitamin C), bilberries and lots of pomegranate. They taste sweet but technically are low in sugar (low glycemic index).

The darker berries (blueberry and blackberry, for example) contain blue-purple antioxidants called anthocyanins, that reduce inflammation and protect the brain from oxidation. These are king among antioxidants.

Berries also contain ellagic acid, which neutralizes carcinogens and has anti-tumor benefits. Blueberries contain pterostilbene — a powerful antioxidant and can reduce inflammation. 

Cruciferous vegetables — Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, bok choy, cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens and kale are all considered cruciferous vegetables. These vegetables contain indole-3 carbinol (I3C), which reduces hormone-sensitive cancers; sulforaphane, which deactivates carcinogens; and fiber, which is a humble cancer preventive. 

Garlic and onions — The National Cancer Institute suggests garlic and onions may reduce the risk of stomach, colon, esophageal and breast cancer. Garlic is famous, of course, for its measurable anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-inflammatory benefits, as well as cancer-fighting properties. Cancer prevention comes from many sulfur-containing substances, including allicin and diallyl sulfide (DAS), which appear to deactivate carcinogens and prevent DNA mutations. Onions offer many of the same benefits, providing quercetin and sulfur-containing molecules that block some carcinogens and induce apoptosis, a process that kills cancer-trending cells.

Hericium erinaceous (lion’s mane mushroom) is delicious, eaten raw!

Turmeric — Turmeric (active ingredient curcumin) is a golden-yellow colored seasoning used in many Indian dishes, curries and mustards. There have been more than 6,000 studies of Turmeric. Its anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antioxidant properties help fight cancer. Curcumin appears to reduce tumor reproduction, reduce blood vessel formation, reduce invasion and induce tumor cell death.

It’s not very bioavailable but, hey, just eat LOTS of it!

Spinach and other green leafy vegetables — Spinach is a powerhouse of nutrients whether eating raw, juiced or lightly cooked. Spinach is loaded with: vitamin K, which promotes blood clotting; carotenoids, which supports eye health and antioxidants; fiber; folate, which aids DNA formation and repair; and other phytochemicals. Several studies suggest that phytochemicals glycoglycerolipids and carotenoids fight cancer; especially prostate, breast and stomach types. 

You’ll read “Google experts” whining about oxalates in spinach, as if that was going to kill you! Baby spinach has less oxalate, so the absorption of calcium and iron is greater. Spinach and arugula also contain plant nitrates that produce nitric oxide and nourish the endothelium (inner lining) of blood vessels.

Ginger and other seasonings — Certain compounds found in ginger make it a powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant food to reduce oxidative stress that your body has to fight on a daily basis. Ginger is also useful to calm the stomach and reduce nausea. Other seasonings such as basil, oregano, dill, cinnamon, clove and many others to flavor foods may well reduce inflammation. Using these in their dry form maintains their shelf life for about two years, while also preserving them in a concentrated form. Adding seasonings to recipes also reduces the need for excess salt, adding more antioxidants and add flavor.

Woodward also commends mushrooms, as I do. But there are none in my multi-formula. Mushrooms, in addition to adding flavor to foods, have an assortment of immune modulation substances called betaglucans. Other noteworthy benefits include antioxidants, reducing hormone-related tumors and reducing excess inflammation. These benefits can have the most impact when eating mushrooms that are fresh, cooked, powdered or dried.

Many other plant foods have cancer-fighting properties and health-enhancing benefits. “Add variety to a healthy diet with beets, carrots, chili peppers, citrus fruits, seaweed, tomatoes, etc,” Andrew Woodward says. “The more colors on your plate, the better.” I second that.

However, other factors are also important for cancer-prevention, such as exercising, avoiding toxin exposure, not smoking or consuming too much alcohol, sleeping well and controlling stress.

Talk with your healthcare provider if you have questions about cancer. 

For a simple nutrient-dense formula for health and longevity, take my Liquid Gold vitamin and minerals formula. It tastes delicious (fruity with jut a whiff of passion fruit (maracuja) and provides abundant quantities of key nutrients. I completely reworked it recently, from a white-label version to my own unique and brilliant—much needed—all in one!

One shot glass a day is all it takes to be safe from deficiencies (see why it is called Liquid Gold!)

Learn more here.

To Your Good Health,Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

What sense does it make to say you are happy and healthy if you live in a society where you could be imprisoned at any moment, on just a whim or the accusation of being, simply, different? Obviously that touched a raw nerve for the Russians.

But what has always lingered with me was the question of level 9: past lives and karma.

Whether one believes in reincarnation or not is almost beside the point. My purpose was never to persuade anyone of a particular doctrine but to encourage people to think more deeply about why illness occurs and what healing actually means. As healers, we are often so intent on removing disease that we rarely stop to ask whether there is a larger story unfolding in a person’s life.

This raises an uncomfortable question.

If suffering has meaning, and if a person’s life follows a path that includes lessons we cannot fully understand, is it right for doctors to always intervene? Could there ever be circumstances in which illness is not simply an enemy to be defeated but part of a journey that ultimately serves the individual?

Authors Ruediger Dahlke and Thorwald Dethlefsen think so. Together they wrote a marvelous book (1983) with what has to be the most intriguing title ever: The Healing Power of Disease.

Most doctors are understandably reluctant even to entertain such thoughts. We are trained to diagnose, to treat and, whenever possible, to cure. Yet anyone who has practised medicine for many years knows that healing and curing are not always the same thing. Patients sometimes die healed in spirit, while others survive physically but remain profoundly wounded. The longer one practises, the less tidy the relationship between disease and healing appears.

If karma exists, and if some people have accumulated an abundance of what we might call “good karma”, is it not allowable for them to share it with others less fortunate? I have always held that glorious, if slightly arrogant view, that I have abundant “good karma” and have been allowed to pass it on to others as a world-class healer and teacher. 

Then suddenly, perhaps due to the publication of my best-selling book New God New World, I have begun to frame the same question around a different aspect of Being: grace.

Could a person with abundant grace not share it with others around them?

The remarkable Russian saint Seraphim of Sarov believes so and expressed the idea beautifully:

“Acquire the Spirit of Peace, and thousands around you will be saved.”

Notice that he did not say, “Teach thousands.” He did not even say, “Heal thousands.” He spoke of becoming something, not merely doing something.

Perhaps this is the deepest form of healing.

Seraphim of Sarov (from OrthodoxWiki)

Modern psychology, interestingly, points in a similar direction. Researchers have demonstrated that emotions are contagious. Kindness encourages kindness. Hope spreads. Calmness influences those around us. One person’s inner state quietly shapes the emotional climate of an entire family, workplace, or community.

Science describes the phenomenon. Grace may explain its deepest source.

According to that sublime authoress Simone Weil (1909 – 1943), grace, “is the divine intervention that allows for spiritual uplift and liberation.

So am I on to something here? Let me point out that there is an important difference between grace and karma. Karma, in many traditions, concerns justice. We reap what we sow. Grace belongs to an entirely different realm. Grace is not earned. It is received. It is gift rather than reward, generosity rather than accounting.

But it can be shared, surely?

As I reflected on this, I realized that I had known people whose presence changed the atmosphere of a room before they had spoken a single word. We have all met individuals like this. They are not necessarily famous. They may never have written a book or held high office. Yet when they enter a room, people somehow relax. Conversations become kinder. Hope quietly returns. Nothing dramatic has happened, and yet something has undeniably changed.

The older I become, the more conscious I am that I have indeed been greatly blessed. Not because I imagine myself wiser than others, but because life has repeatedly granted me unexpected insights, extraordinary teachers, remarkable patients and learning experiences that have shaped the way I see the world. These have never felt like achievements to boast about. They have always felt like gifts to be grateful for.

Perhaps none of us possesses grace. Perhaps we simply become more or less open to it. Perhaps our task is not to manufacture blessing but to allow blessing to flow through us.

In the words of that wonderful writer Simone Weil, “Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it.”

Simone Weil, author of Gravity and Grace (La Pesanteur et la Grâce)

As doctors we often focus, quite rightly, on acquiring knowledge and technical skill. We should. Lives depend upon it. But after decades of practice I have come to believe that patients receive far more than our nostrums, remedies and prescriptions. They experience our presence. They sense whether we are hurried or attentive, anxious or calm, judgmental or accepting. They notice whether we see a diagnosis or a fellow human being.

In that sense, every consultation becomes much more than an exchange of information. It becomes an encounter between two people, each bringing something invisible into the room.

Could that invisible quality itself be therapeutic?

This idea resonates with something I have gradually learned over the years. Presence is not a technique. It cannot be faked. It arises naturally when we ourselves have become more peaceful, more compassionate and more accepting. Patients recognize authenticity with astonishing accuracy.

Perhaps this explains why some healers accomplish far more than their technical abilities alone would predict. Their knowledge matters, of course, but it is accompanied by something less easily measured. Their very presence reassures. Their confidence steadies frightened minds. Their compassion eases suffering that no drug can reach.

Looking back, I wonder whether grace may indeed be an Eleventh Level of Healing?

If that is true, then the greatest calling of a healer is not merely to become more knowledgeable, although knowledge remains essential. It is not merely to become more skillful, although skill saves lives. It is to become the kind of person whose presence itself carries hope.

When patients leave our consulting rooms, they may remember very little of the technical explanation we gave them. They are much more likely to remember how we made them feel. Did they feel heard? Did they feel valued? Did they leave with a little more courage than they brought with them?

Perhaps that, too, is healing.

And perhaps grace, unlike almost everything else in this world, does not diminish when it is shared. Like the flame of a candle lighting another candle, nothing is lost. Instead, there is simply more light.

If so, then every encounter with another human being becomes an opportunity. Not necessarily to solve every problem or remove every pain, but to leave that person carrying a little more hope, a little more joy and a little more sense of their own worth than when they first arrived.

From C. S. Lewis: “Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”

From Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: “Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.”

And from Mother Teresa: “Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.”

For me, that is an inspiring thought. It also places a gentle responsibility upon all of us who seek to heal. Our greatest contribution may ultimately be not only what we know, but who we have become.

In the end, perhaps healing is not simply something we do. It is something we become. And if, by God’s grace, our own lives have become a little more peaceful, a little more joyful and a little more loving, then perhaps those who meet us may leave carrying something of that blessing with them. 

That, I believe, is healing by grace.

To your good health,Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

PS Level 10, if you are intrigued, is DEATH. That great humanitarian Bernie Siegel described death for suffering cancer patients as “a form of healing”.

A balance of ultra-processed foods? Refined flour? Added sugars? Artificial flavourings? Seed oils heated to destruction? Fruit and vegetables grown in mineral-depleted soils? Meals eaten in five hurried minutes while staring at a mobile phone? Aw, come on! 

If that’s balance, I’d rather be gloriously unbalanced.

Taking supplements they claim is a waste of time and only leads to “expensive pee”. Well my reply to that has been consistent over the decades: not nearly as expensive as getting sick without supplements! Besides, statins lead to very expensive pee (and no earthly good), anti-depressants lead to expensive pee and little else of good. Oh sure, antidepressants kill ALL emotion, including depression, but is that really what we want? It’s so much easier to get rid of inflammation in the body, which solves all but the most extreme cases of depression (such as that based on life disasters). 

The trouble is with doctors (some doctors) is that nutritional deficiency has to be really gross before they can see it. Beri-beri or Pellagra they can remember from text books. But the common degrees of malnutrition you see everywhere in the streets and homes of London, New York, Paris, or anywhere in the Western world escapes them. Apparently the person is not “unhealthy” until they just about drop dead.

That’s not what we should be pursuing. We want vibrant, toned, supple, healthy bodies that are a joy to occupy and sing our lives with. Good health isn’t “not malfunctioning” but is “the best we can get”… and for longer.

Even if the dopes don’t accept that 98% is healthy but that 88% is unhealthy, there’s another important angle on this that all who tend the sick must know. Cells cannot manufacture what they do not possess. Nature is wonderfully forgiving—but she refuses to perform miracles without building materials. And those materials are nutrients.

As I say constantly in my public lectures: you cannot heal anybody of anything if there is a deficiency of the basic nutritional buildings block. I’m sorry if this offends people, even alternative practitioners, but it’s all a waste of time doing Reiki, reflexology, Chi Gung, micro-current therapy (MCT), massage, homeopathy or anything else if the body hasn’t got the basic necessary materials for health!

I’m not talking about gross malnourishment—famine or starvation. That’s a problem for the Third World and unless you are working in that environment, the malnutrition you will meet is lack of enough of the basic health vitamins, key minerals, enzymes, co-factors and all the other stuff. 

Medicine has become remarkably good at diagnosing catastrophic deficiency. Mention beriberi, pellagra, rickets or scurvy and every medical student remembers the textbook photographs.

What medicine is far less comfortable discussing is suboptimal nutrition.

Millions of people are not starving; they are simply running on less than they need. They look reasonably well. They go to work. They pay their taxes. They raise families.

Yet they wake tired, suffer frequent infections, heal slowly, battle aching joints, lose concentration, experience poor sleep, low mood, thinning hair, brittle nails and endless “minor” complaints that are never quite serious enough to deserve attention.

The laboratory may say “normal.” The patient knows something is missing. Normal is not the same as optimal. That distinction has shaped my entire professional life.

What Do Veterinarians Know Thats Doctors Don’t?

The best people at nutrition, surprisingly, are the veterinary experts. They would not dream of letting an animal go to stud in the pathetic nutritionally compromised state of most humans. 

Veterinarians learned long ago that the right balance of nutrients is essential for vitality and longevity in anything from a cockatoo to a pedigree horse. Why is it that what is good for animals is unimportant for humans? It’s just another case of specialist isolation; knowledge from one field is ignored completely in another. 

If you think I’m overstating it, take a look at a can of pet food. Lynne McTaggart did some 20 years ago. She found that dog food contained the equivalent of 8000 IU of vitamin A, 464 mgm of vitamin E and 812 mgm of vitamin D (Source: What Doctors Don’t Tell You, Vol 13 no 9, Dec 2002). 

That’s way over the recommended daily allowance for humans (for adults, the dietary intake level for alpha-tocopherol is set at 13 mg/day for men and 11 mg/day for women. For children, far less). That’s according to the European Food Safety Authority, the “scientific arm of the European Union: What — dogs deserve better than voters? It doesn’t even make political sense, does it?

[https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4149]

In the USA, that’s just 15 mgm.

You’ll have to educate yourself about nutrition, there’s really no choice. Fight for your own health. Don’t expect any help from the medical profession or government advisors. Ignorance in doctors can kill you. For example vitamin A is known to protect against cancerous changes in cells (hundreds of studies support this), yet standard medical advice is now to severely limit the intake of vitamin A. Why? Because it can be toxic if you take it at idiot levels. Well aspirin at idiot levels will kill you for sure, but we don’t hear any calls for its removal.

A Rolls-Royce that Crawls?

Don’t think of health as merely the absence of disease. That is an extraordinarily low ambition. Imagine buying a magnificent grand piano and celebrating because only half the keys are broken. Imagine owning a Rolls-Royce that only reaches thirty miles an hour and declaring yourself delighted because technically it still drives.

We should expect far more from the human body. Our goal should be vibrant health. Energy that lasts all day. Not just energy is needed but clear, lively thinking. Strong muscles. Supple joints. Resilient immunity. Excellent sleep.

A body that feels like a joy to inhabit rather than a burden to drag through life. Otherwise you are not truly healthy!

And there is an answer. Take a good nutritional formula and… by good luck, I’ve got one! In fact it’s coming back on stream next week. It’s called Liquid Gold.

This is an awesome health and longevity formula. Let’s just say I did all the thinking and research. You just have to drink it: one ounce of a delicious beverage every day and you’re done!

You’ll be hearing more next week. Look out for the messages and grab some while you can (extra discounts for the re-launch).

Meantime, there are lots of books to advize you and thousands of websites to supply you through your letter box, even without the FDA’s consent! Live healthy, live long! It’s your right!

It starts with knowledge.

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

While folks today are congratulating themselves with their smart skills and up-to-dateness, I had been on it for years or sometimes, as in this case, for DECADES before the rest of the pack.

Influencers often portray themselves as very savvy and switched on… but then forget to mention earlier sources they’d copied from! I’ve lived with it for years and it no longer aggravates me; I’m just amused.

Take “earthing”, the idea of grounding your body electrically, to discharge static build up. You would suppose this idea was “discovered” by Clint Ober or the late Stephen Sinatra, according to your sources, but was actually published by me as long ago as 1988, in a little book called The Allergy Handbook (no longer  in print).

Me and friend, the late Stephen Sinatra MD

So what is it this time?

Well, let me start with a story in the press. It concerns a man in his late 50s, who was training to be a Catholic Deacon.¹

He was repeatedly found in a stupor, over quite a number of years. Coupled with this was unsteadiness. He would sometimes stumble and fall. It looked to onlookers as if he was drunk! In truth he drank a little and occasionally, but nowhere near enough to be inebriated.

What was happening?

On one occasion the wife came home to find her husband on the front steps in a stupor. 

On another night, when he returned from walking their dog, he seemed unsteady and in a “trancelike state,” the wife said. He told her he had fallen because his shoes were too big.

These zombielike spells became more frequent, coming on suddenly and usually in the evening. The wife began wondering if he was developing dementia; very unusual at his age but by no means unheard of. She saw a therapist to learn how to cope.

He went to his doctor, who attributed the problem to dehydration! Later, after he drove the wrong way down a local parkway, his wife insisted he seek additional medical care. A neurologist suspected seizures, but tests didn’t pinpoint a cause.

It was only after stumbling and hit his head on a coffee table that a trip to the emergency room started the process of real discovery.

At the ER, a blood test yielded a startling result: the patient’s ethanol level was 363 milligrams per deciliter, equivalent to a blood alcohol content of .363%, more than four times the legal limit for driving. But he hadn’t been drinking at all! Scheduled to have prostate-reduction surgery in a few days, in preparation, he hadn’t had even a drop of alcohol.

Of course the usual response in this situation is “Ah, a drinker in denial. We know you’ve been boozing. We have the scientific proof. It’s no use you lying!”

But he was telling the truth: this was a case of so-called auto-brewery syndrome or as I christened it decades ago, an “on-board brewery”. In this condition, Candida albicans (a kind of yeast), food yeasts or intestinal microbes break down food sugars and carbs to produce unusually high levels of ethanol in the gut, leaving people in a drunken state.

They essentially brew their own alcohol right in the gut.

I was once asked (around 1988, I seem to recall) to act as expert witness in defence of a man who had this condition quite obviously. I proved it by giving him a loading dose of sugar and taking repeat bloods. The man’s blood alcohol went up and up and up, while sitting in front of me and drinking nothing but water.

Unfortunately, the court wouldn’t listen and followed the police line: he was drunk while in charge of a vehicle, with an illegal blood alcohol level, obviously due to imbibition. His protests he had not been drinking were simply ignored because the charge was simply “illegal blood alcohol level”, without any emphasis on where it came from.

That was the state of the science then, and even now. It’s rare to encounter a doctor or health worker who know about this condition, much less understands the mechanism.

However, today we have a nonprofit, Auto-Brewery Syndrome Advocacy and Research. The Deacon and his wife were connected with Bernd Schnabl, a gastroenterologist at the University of California at San Diego, who was conducting a study of people with signs of this condition. He enrolled.

He met with Prasanna Wickremesinghe, a gastroenterologist at Richmond University Medical Center in New York City, who with colleagues published a case study in 2019 about auto-brewery syndrome.² 

To determine whether this was the problem, “Dr. Wick,” as patients call him, conducted a glucose challenge test, exactly as I had done nearly 40 years ago. Then, Wickremesinghe collected samples from the patient’s digestive tract and found a massive overgrowth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or “brewer’s yeast”.

Wickremesinghe prescribed Nystatin, an antifungal medication which I used routinely in my office at the time, and recommended a reduced intake of carbohydrates and alcohol. For several months, the episodes went away.

But the episodes kept recurring. “It’s like flipping a switch,” the patient said. “You’re perfectly normal one minute, and the next minute you’re toast.”

He was put on another antifungal, fluconazole (Diflucan). It seemed to help, but there were still periodic events. It was very worrying. Due to concerns, he was forced to take a leave from his deacon duties, fearing he would zone out while conducting a baptism or wedding. They bought a $1 million liability insurance policy in case his unpredictable behavior left someone injured. He tried acupuncture, coffee enemas and sessions in a sauna. He saw a naturopathic doctor, who prescribed a special probiotic pill for which the Andersons paid $1,500 a month. It didn’t stop the spells.

Fecal Transplant

In this procedure, microbes from the processed feces of screened healthy donors are consumed in oral capsules, which can restore a healthy microbial ecosystem in the recipient’s gut (needs FDA approval, case by case).

Elizabeth Hohmann, an infectious-disease specialist at Mass General Brigham medical center in Boston was contacted. Hohmann had administered hundreds of fecal transplants, mostly to patients with infections of bacteria known as Clostridioides difficile (C. diff). In research studies, she also gave them to people with obesity, liver disease and conditions requiring bone marrow transplants.

However, even she was skeptical of the Deacon’s case. But agreed to talk to Schnabl, the gastroenterologist in San Diego. She learned that when glucose was added to stool samples (out of the body) from this patient and other study participants in a lab bioreactor, ethanol levels in the samples shot up.

No arguing with that. So Hohmann instituted the treatment. It took some time but ultimately the result was a Wow!

I diagnosed Candida for this a lot in the 80s and 90s, because I was looking for it. I did also mention yeasts or Saccharomyces species in my writings of the time. But it has subsequently emerged that other bacteria, including Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae, are capable of fermentation reaction too.

The Deacon had taken at least 18 courses of ciprofloxacin and other antibiotics over the years, mostly for prostate inflammation. That’s the usual cause: messing with the patient’s homeostasis. The results aren’t always so horrible but doctors go on blithely prescribing these drugs, as if there were never any consequences. No follow-ups after a certain minimum time on complex antibiotics!

For this patient, the story ended well. But I know from bitter experience that for most unlucky individuals, they are trapped in a personal hell, because of doctors and “experts” who are too stuck in their ways to consider anything out of the ordinary!

Well, I told ‘em!

Prof.

References: 

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/07/11/years-hed-be-found-stupor-until-fall-led-surprising-diagnosis/
2. Malik F, Wickremesinghe P, Saverimuttu J. Case report and literature review of auto-brewery syndrome: probably an underdiagnosed medical condition. BMJ Open Gastroenterology. 2019;6(1):e000325. doi: 10.1136/bmjgast-2019-000325. PMID: 31423320. PMCID: PMC6688673

But in my unique position I know of lots of individuals who should have been OK (all the positive lifestyle factors in place) yet were not. It means there is still a lot to be learned.

Now, couple that with recent studies which purportedly showed that getting a shingles vaccination was partially protective against Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Do we care? What is it telling us? Are we impressed even?

Shingles you probably know is an extension of childhood chickenpox, caused by the varicella-zoster virus (aka. Herpes zoster). It becomes re-activated in later life as a burning, itchy sometimes painful, rash, which can usually be seen lying along the pathway of nerves. Not surprising, since the virus hangs out for years in the peripheral nerves.

One very painful outcome is a condition called post-herpetic neuralgia. Treatment for that has at times reached desperate measures, including repeatedly hitting the painful part with mallets when I was at med school! Personally, I always found that homeopathic Ranunculus did the job of clearing it very well.

Obviously then, because it’s unpleasant, shingles became a natural target for a vaccine. Eventually in 2017 we got Shingrix, from Glaxo-Smith-Kline. It is claimed to reduce the incidence of shingles in adults by over 90%.¹

So far, so good. Lots of profits for us and less pain and trouble for the patients!

Understand, these reductions are not massive (2-5% range) but it does indicate something is going on. But what?

Certainly the focus is on brain tissue. The varicella-zoster virus hangs out in the nervous system, as I said. Logically if there is a commotion of inflammation due to a latent virus, brain harm becomes a very real possibility. Blocking that virus from causing inflammation, as with a vaccine, makes sense.

Thus a study published June 16, 2026 in the Annals of Internal Medicine indicates 1 in 17 dementia cases could possibly be prevented by shingles vaccination. Patients in nursing facilities who had received at least one dose of the shingles vaccine within a year of admission had a 5.8% lower risk of developing dementia over the next four years, according to health records of more than 509,000 people, ages 66 and older, who had been admitted to U.S. nursing facilities from 2017 through 2022.²

A study of more than 282,000 older adults in Wales, published in Nature in 2025, found shingles vaccination was associated with a 3.5% reduction in dementia risk.³

Other studies have yielded comparable results. 

In reverse, a study published last year in the Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease found that older adults in Italy, hospitalized with severe shingles, had a 13% higher risk of dementia compared to the general population!

Any Old Vaccine?

But here’s the thing. It doesn’t need to be a Herpes zoster vaccine. A startling recent study showed that having the BCG (anti-TB) vaccine also gave some protection against dementia!

It is known that BCG (and probably other vaccines) bolster what is known as “innate” immunity, that is the body’s anti-infection protection measures that do not depend on an antibody response. This very important mechanism is, of course, ignored by Big Pharma and vaccine manufacturers. It doesn’t fit their profit model.

They apply for approval based on tests which show that their vaccine induces antibodies. They don’t have to show it protects against any disease, as indeed is the case with measles, only that it produces antibodies. It’s a joke really. We can’t say how much good antibodies do but we can say YOU DON’T NEED THEM! Individuals with a condition called agammaglobulinemia, who are essentially void of B cells and so cannot produce any antibodies, nevertheless acquire normal antigen-specific memory T-cell responses, proving  that antibodies are not the sole basis of long-term immune memory.⁴

This demonstrates conclusively to me that innate or cellular immunity is far more powerful than “acquired” or antibody-based immunity. Yet doctors continually play down innate immunity.

BCG is known to induce “trained immunity,” a form of long-lasting reprogramming of innate immune responses of the non-antibody type. That’s slightly different from the memory of acquired immunity, as I say.

A pilot study provided evidence that BCG vaccination can alter immune activity not only in the blood, but also in immune cells found in the cerebrospinal fluid, the fluid which surrounds and bathes the brain and spinal cord.

“This study was not designed to show that BCG prevents or treats Alzheimer’s disease,” the lead author pointed out. “It was small, open-label, and designed to look at safety and biological mechanisms. But it gives us a biologically grounded rationale for testing whether immune training with BCG could be useful as an early prevention strategy for Alzheimer’s disease.”⁵

Beyond Plaques and Tau Proteins

The media—and you would think 90% of the medical profession—appear to be fixated on amyloid plaque and tau proteins as the “cause” of Alzheimer’s, which is nonsense.

In fact the abnormalities are likely the body’s own fight-back response and are therefore a good thing.

Alzheimer’s research suggests that the disease is really about immune aging, impaired clearance mechanisms, and chronic neuroinflammatory dysfunction. The role vaccines play in these processes is unclear, but a growing body of literature supports protective associations between vaccines targeting pathogens like influenza, pneumonia, or herpes zoster (shingles) and Alzheimer’s risk.

Yes, to cap it all, it is now emerging that the flu vaccine may give some protection against AD. One wonders where this is going to end!

In one particular study, they chose 65+ years individuals from 2009 to 2019 with a median follow up of 46 months. There were 935,887 matched pairs; 47,889 in the vaccinated group and 79,630 in the unvaccinated group. 5.1% of the vaccinated group developed AD and 8.5% in the unvaccinated group, showing a clear benefit for flu vaccination.

You could argue that was a 40% reduction of risk, which drug companies usually do. But really it is only a reduction of 3.4% overall.

It means we’d have to vaccinate 29 people to save one patient. Not so impressive.

But I’m bringing all this up about vaccines for a reason. A few years ago I raised the question: Is dementia something you “catch”; like a viral illness maybe? 

In 2016 I wrote about a series of fascinating studies highly suggestive of the fact that Herpes simplex #1 (HSV1) virus might be a contagious cause of AD. The work was done by Ruth Itzhaki, professor emeritus of molecular neurobiology at Britain’s University of Manchester (where I qualified in medicine!), and her figures were pretty persuasive. 

In March 2016, Itzhaki and a world-wide group of researchers published an editorial in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, asking the scientific community to consider a proposed link between Alzheimer’s and certain microbes, notably herpes simplex virus Type 1 (HSV-1), Chlamydia pneumoniae and spirochetes.⁶

Big Pharma wanted the research stifled because it was contrary to their amyloid plaque reduction drugs approach and resultant enormous profits.

Prof. Ruth Itzhaki made it to the prestigious Status List of leaders for 2025. I’ve been championing her work for over a decade. 

So although Itzhaki and her lab published their first paper in 1991 finding a clear HSV-1 link to Alzheimer’s and there have been over 100 published studies since then, from her lab and elsewhere, the research has gone nowhere.

Out of the $589 million allocated to Alzheimer’s research by the National Institutes of Health in 2015, exactly zero appeared to be spent on studying the proposed HSV-1 connection.

So they can go on saying “there’s no scientific proof” because there isn’t any; they are making sure of that.

Nearly all of us carry the Herpes simplex virus 1 or HSV-1 (the one that causes cold sores), our peripheral nervous system serves as its dormant nesting ground. From there, HSV-1 can reactivate and occasionally cause mild flare-ups of disease, typically when our immune system is overwhelmed due to stress or other infections. Itzhaki’s lab, however, found that by the time we reach our golden years, the virus often migrates to the brain, where it remains capable of resurrecting itself and wreaking a new sort of havoc when opportunity presents, such as when our immune system wavers in old age.

Itzhaki’s team has discovered the presence of HSV-1 in the telltale amyloid plaques used to diagnose Alzheimer’s, so I think she’s onto something here. 

It’s probably not a case of a straightforward viral presenting symptom but rather that viral and/or bacterial infections are just one ingredient in a soup of risk factors. But for Alzheimer’s, HSV-1 could be especially significant. Itzhaki has found that elderly people who carried both HSV-1 in the brain and the e-4 subtype of the APOE gene (responsible for creating a protein that helps transport cholesterol throughout the body) were 12 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than people without either. 

In a 1997 paper in The Lancet, Itzhaki’s group concluded that HSV-1 infection, in conjunction with APOE-e4, could account for about 60 percent of the Alzheimer’s cases they studied. Due to limited funds, however, her group was able to study only a relatively low number of cases.⁷

“If more funding had been available, more information would probably have been obtained, providing even more supportive data,” she says.

So, circling back to the vaccine benefit issue, I ask: is it possible that the vaccine brings on a more general immune response which leads to a reduction or slowing inflammation caused by other viruses, such as HSV-1?

In the case of the shingles vaccine, and if Itzhaki is right, then would it not make sense that giving an anti-Herpes shot could maybe calm or hold back inflammation due to a latent colony of the same family? And that vaccines aimed at other organisms, if they were effective via the cellular memory mechanism, could also, logically, bring about a certain degree of relief!

I think so. I hope so because, for all their clumsiness and stupid man-made additional dangers, vaccines essentially play to nature’s own skills!

Stay sharp!

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

References:

1. https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/vaccines/index.html
2. dos Reis S, et al “Reduced risk of dementia with recombinant zoster vaccine in US adults age 65 or older” Alzheimer’s Dement 2026; DOI: 10.1002/alz.71407. Please note this study was financed by GSK and had their people in key positions in the study.
3. Nature 641, 438–446 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08800-x
4. Plebani A, et al. (1997). T cell activity and cytokine production in X-linked agammaglobulinemia. Clinical and Experimental Immunology. 109(2): 234–238
5. Weinberg MS, et al. “Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) immunotherapy reprograms CNS immunity and alters Alzheimer’s biomarkers: results from two open-label clinical trials” Commun Med 2026; DOI: 10.1038/s43856-026-01691-7
6. Microbes and Alzheimer’s Disease. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 51(4), 979–984. https://doi.org/10.3233/JAD-160152
7. The Lancet, 349(9047), 241–244. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(96)10149-5

As a result of the searing heat in France, there have been terrible fatalities. The mortuaries of Paris were full! There are so many deceased, the system was overwhelmed. They had to send corpses to faraway cities, like Chartres, 50 miles away, for storage.

Nobody knows what the final figures of excess death will be (it will take weeks, maybe even months, to investigate and calculate). But it’s already apparent that the toll exacted by the intense, unrelenting extreme temperatures was terrible, chiefly among over-65s who died at home and alone.

Public Health France said there were more than 1,200 deaths last Wednesday, when France registered its hottest day EVER, breaking a record that had been set only the previous day! By way of comparison, the pre-heat wave death rate in April and May was around 900 to 1,000 per day, it said.

But there is another sad aspect to this situation. In 2003 France had a similar scorching episode, with record temperature highs and 15,000 resultant deaths, provoking a national reckoning about care of older people, who were particularly hard-hit. 

What happened is that the people (not the government bureaucrats, of course) rallied together and responded. It was a kind of “movement” in which everyday folks began to think about their neighbors, to check on them regularly, to see they were drinking enough water and being looked after.

Sweet!

But the lessons have been forgotten, apparently. According to Véronique Bertrand, a Paris funeral director, “With the passing years, we’ve perhaps forgotten that it could happen again and that things would even perhaps be worse.” 

“I think people absolutely need to wake up, that solidarity needs to come back… with people thinking about their neighbors, of those around them who live alone,” she said.

Since the 2003 event, France has introduced one of the world’s most sophisticated heat-alert systems, with early warnings, public cooling centers, welfare checks on vulnerable people and mandatory heat plans for care homes. These measures have undoubtedly saved lives, but heat remains a major public-health threat. Between 2014 and 2023, researchers estimated 37,825 heat-related deaths in France alone, Europe’s largest country.

Overall, France’s experience demonstrates that heat is now among our deadliest natural hazards. Even with improved emergency planning, rising temperatures continue to produce thousands of preventable deaths, particularly among the elderly.

Low Salt Diets

Those of you who have been with me for years will know I write from time to time about the very obvious association between low-salt diets and heat deaths. Salt restriction may be an overlooked vulnerability in extreme heat, especially among older adults, diuretic users, and people drinking large volumes of plain water. It leads to hyponatremia, meaning low blood sodium, which you would think from medical rantings about salt was a good thing. Not!

Hyponatremia occurs because high temperatures induce sweating, which depletes sodium, while concurrent excessive intake of plain water dilutes the remaining sodium in the blood.

Low salt diets are dangerous and are handed out indiscriminately, without adequate advice. [Ooops, sorry. Did it look like I was implying most doctors are gravely ignorant of nutritional issues?]

In 2022, a Swedish nationwide study, found hospitalization for hyponatremia rose sharply with temperature; future warming was predicted to increase cases further.¹

A newer JAMA Network Open 2024 paper found urban heat was associated with increased hyponatremia burden, especially in older people and women.²

There is also a 2006 direct experimental paper: “Heat stress responses in men after ingestion of a low-sodium diet,” using only 580 mg sodium/day, showing low-sodium intake changes physiological response to heat stress. There is English on the page, promise!³

I soon noticed, after moving to Las Vegas, that in the extreme heat episodes of the south-western deserts, people on low-salt diets were dropping like flies. I still seem to be the only person making a fuss about this! The honest answer is: the physiology is well-supported, the heat–hyponatremia association has been published. Everyone needs to be on guard, given the current fad for salt restriction.

Don’t just drink water, you need electrolytes too!

What About Vivien and Me? Did We Fry?

Thankfully not. We went to England, about 500 miles to the north! Definitely cooler. We visited family, which was nice, and ultimately found ourselves in the ancient medieval city of Lincoln, which was really nice! All the Mumbys come from within 30 miles of the city, including the hordes in my Dad’s family!

We toiled up the well-named Steep Hill to the cathedral, past ancient buildings, like the “Jew’s House” of 1170 (now a restaurant), to the cathedral, with its warm honey-colors stone. High up on a hill, it was preserved from some of the worst of acid-rain erosion which characterizes most medieval European buildings, and I thought it looked glorious.

For over 237 years Lincoln cathedral was the tallest building in the world, when its timber and lead central spire reached 525 ft (160 metres). It was the first edifice to surpass the Great Pyramid of Giza, which had held the record for nearly 4,000 years! 

Sadly, when the great spire was blown down in a storm in 1548, it lost the title.

Model of Lincoln Cathedral as it once was, with spires

But what interested me most was the Magna Carta. You probably know the historical importance of this document which was drafted by King John and his barons, at Runnymede island, on the River Thames, in 1215. It limited the powers of the king and established the important principle that even the king is not above the law, which is universal, even today.

The most celebrated is Clause 39, which states:

“No free man shall be seized or imprisoned… except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.”

This was revolutionary because it declared that even the king could not imprison people arbitrarily.

Closely related is Clause 40:

“To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay, right or justice.”

Together, these principles established what later became known as due process of law.

Several copies of the 1215 document were made, sealed with the king’s seal, and sent to various cities in England, including Lincoln. The only surviving copies of this great charter are now the one in Lincoln castle, one in Salisbury cathedral and the British Library (2 copies). 

The Magna Carta near is unreadable but I don’t speak Latin anyway!

It was awesome to behold this ancient manuscript, from just a few inches away, even though hermetically sealed behind glass in a darkened room!

Well, that’s all from Europe. I hope to be back in Vegas in just a few weeks.

Meantime, stay positive and stay healthy (don’t go near doctors!)

To Your Good Health,

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

Source Article:

https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/environmentalhealth/121970

References:

1. 1. Current and Future Burdens of Heat-Related Hyponatremia: A Nationwide Register-Based Study. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2022 May 17;107(6):e2388-e2393. doi: 10.1210/clinem/dgac103
   2. Prpic M, Hoffmann C, Bauer W, Hoffmann P, Kappert K. Urban Heat and Burden of Hyponatremia. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7(12):e2450280. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.50280
   3. https://www.czytelniamedyczna.pl/822%2Cheat-stress-responses-in-men-after-ingestion-of-a-lowsodium-diet.html

The real marker of ageing may not be your face at all. It may be your muscles.

That might sound surprising. We tend to think of muscles simply as the machinery that moves us about. They help us climb stairs, lift shopping bags and get out of a chair. Useful, certainly—but hardly exciting.

Yet this old view has been turned upside down.

Today, muscle is increasingly recognized as one of the body’s most important organs. In fact, many researchers now describe skeletal muscle as an endocrine organ—a tissue that manufactures and releases hundreds of powerful messenger molecules known as myokines. These tiny chemical signals travel throughout the body, influencing inflammation, blood sugar control, immunity, bone strength, heart health and even the function of the brain.

Your muscles aren’t simply carrying you through life. They’re talking to every organ you possess. That’s extraordinary.

Even more extraordinary is what happens when we begin losing them.

Most people begin to lose muscle mass surprisingly early. The process can start in the thirties, gathering pace after fifty and accelerating still further after sixty. Doctors call this gradual decline sarcopenia, but you don’t need to remember the name.

Just remember the consequences.

Less muscle means poorer balance. Greater frailty. Slower recovery from illness. Increased risk of diabetes. More falls. More fractures. More dependency. Even maybe a shorter lifespan.

It isn’t simply that weak muscles make us old. Weak muscles seem to help make us ill. I bet you never read that before!

One of the simplest tests of future health isn’t a complicated blood analysis or an expensive body scan.

It’s grip strength.

Again and again, studies have shown that people with stronger handgrip tend to live longer, recover better from illness and enjoy greater independence well into old age. Grip strength predicts future disability so consistently that many geriatricians now regard it as one of the most useful indicators of biological ageing. Now you can understand why this is so!

A handshake may reveal more about your future than your wrinkles ever could. Think about that.

The story becomes even more fascinating when we look inside the muscles themselves.

Every time you contract a muscle—whether walking briskly, lifting weights, digging the garden or climbing a hill—it begins producing myokines. These remarkable substances help dampen excessive inflammation, improve insulin sensitivity, stimulate repair mechanisms and encourage healthy communication between organs.

Scientists have even nicknamed one of these molecules “exercise in a pill” because of the extraordinary benefits it appears to deliver.

Of course, there is no pill. The muscle has to do the work.

Perhaps the most exciting discovery concerns the brain. For decades we believed that exercise helped memory simply because it improved blood flow. Now we know much more.

Active muscles release substances that encourage the brain to produce new nerve connections and protect existing brain cells. Exercise also increases production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), often called “fertilizer for the brain.” This helps support learning, memory and resilience.

In other words, your muscles help feed your mind. Perhaps this explains why physically active people have lower rates of dementia than those who remain sedentary. The muscles and brain are in constant conversation.

Here is another surprise. Muscle is one of the largest consumers of blood sugar in the entire body. Healthy muscle acts like a huge sponge, soaking glucose out of the bloodstream without demanding excessive insulin. In other words, counter-diabetes.

Lose muscle and the sponge shrinks. Blood sugar begins rising. Insulin resistance develops. Type 2 diabetes follows ever more easily. This may explain why resistance training has become one of the most effective non-drug approaches to improving blood sugar control.

The medicine isn’t sitting inside a bottle. It’s attached to your skeleton. Haha!

Your bones benefit too. For years we’ve been told to think about calcium. Calcium certainly matters but as my friend Tom Levy points out, calcium is DEATH, literally. We don’t want too much calcium. It causes crusting and aging of joints. It slowly infiltrates and damages heart circulation too (coronary artery calcification tests predict aging and death).

Vitamin D matters for bone.

Vitamin K2 matters.

Magnesium. Boron.

But none of these works particularly well if the bones are never challenged. Bones respond to pull. When muscles contract, they tug against bone. This mechanical stress tells the skeleton to remain dense and strong. Without that message, bone quietly dissolves away.

Muscles literally tell bones to stay alive.

Perhaps the greatest misconception is that muscle belongs only to athletes or bodybuilders. Nothing could be further from the truth. You don’t need enormous biceps. You don’t need six-pack abs (uuggh!)

You don’t need to join a gym if you dislike gyms. The goal is not bodybuilding. The goal is preserving the engine that keeps every other system functioning.

Fortunately, muscles remain astonishingly adaptable.

Even people in their seventies, eighties and nineties can increase muscle strength significantly. Numerous clinical trials have shown that resistance exercise performed just two or three times each week improves balance, walking speed, confidence and independence.

The body never completely forgets how to rebuild itself. You simply have to ask.

So how do we protect this hidden organ?

First, use it.

Here’s me building some muscle on Waikiki beach

Walking is wonderful for the heart and circulation, but muscle particularly responds to resistance. That resistance may come from weights, resistance bands, gardening, climbing stairs, swimming, rowing, carrying shopping, yoga or simply repeatedly standing up from a chair.

Challenge creates adaptation.

Second, feed it. Many older adults simply do not consume enough protein. Good-quality protein provides the amino acids required for muscle repair and growth. Fish, eggs, meat, dairy products, beans, lentils and other protein-rich foods all have a role.

Third, don’t fear ageing itself. One of the saddest myths is that losing strength is inevitable. It isn’t. Some decline occurs naturally, certainly. But much of what we call aging is really disuse.

See, we’re typically taught that we are weaker because we are older. But it’s the wrong way round. We are older because we let ourselves get weaker!

The body is astonishingly economical. If we stop asking muscles to work, they conclude they are no longer required. So they quietly disappear.

The good news is that they are surprisingly willing to come back.

Perhaps we should stop asking, “How old are you?” Instead, we should ask, “How much useful muscle have you kept?” That answer may tell us far more.

As medicine advances, we are beginning to realize something deeply encouraging: Health is not merely the absence of disease. It is the presence of reserve.

• Reserve in the heart.

• Reserve in the lungs.

• Reserve in the immune system.

• Reserve in the mind.

• And reserve in the muscles.

Your muscles are far more than motors.

• They are chemical factories.

• Sugar regulators.

• Anti-inflammatory pharmacies.

• Bone builders.

• Brain boosters.

• Perhaps even guardians of longevity.

So if you’re looking for one of the best anti-ageing investments you can make this year, don’t think in terms of yet another expensive cream or another miracle supplement. Start with the remarkable organ you’ve been carrying around all your life. It has been waiting patiently for your attention.

And the wonderful thing is this: It is never too late to answer the call.

Get up, get about, walk, cycle, swim or play sports. You’ll be glad you did!

Now, where’s my tennis racket…

To your good health,Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

The Lake District (aka. The Lakes or county Cumbria) is inspiringly beautiful, written about by poets and painted by numerous artists over the centuries. So imagine the widespread dismay when the UK government decided to site a nuclear power plant on the coast, just a few miles away! Originally Windscale, it is now called Sellafield.

Little Langdale Valley, Lake District, UK

But it’s worse! In 1978 the government decided that Britain would accept nuclear waste from other countries for reprocessing at Sellafield. It’s beyond stupid. Not only endangering the British people, who they were sworn to serve, but setting Britain up for massive, almost insurmountable costs, which continue to increase every year.

Sellafield now has the dubious notoriety of being the most toxic and dangerous place on planet Earth! It justifies a massive (and costly) independent police force called the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), fully armed and trained, to protect the plant in case of the unthinkable: a terrorist attack.

Highly radioactive waste in slowly corroding tanks at Sellafield. It will remain hazardous for 100,000 years!

Well, I could write a lot more about Sellafield but the point I want to make is that the young TV presenter was required to wear a “dosimeter” while he was shooting on site. Worn close to the heart, it tells how much gamma radiation he received on his visit to the plant. As a matter of fact doctors, nurses and radiologists also wear something similar, to measure their exposure to radiation (x-rays, MRI scans, etc.)

What Is A Toximeter?

The program set me thinking: why not a “toximeter” for us all to wear in our daily lives?

I imagine it would be difficult to create one but nothing is totally impossible (Elon, ya listening?) I assure you it would shock you to Hell and back. We are overwhelmed by what I have christened the “chemical blizzard” – urban atmospheric pollution, pesticides, solvents, PCBs, PFAs (polyfluoroalkyl substances) and other “forever chemicals”, detergents, cosmetics, flame retardants, dyes and preservatives… the list goes on and on.

But in addition, we have EMFs that have a profound biological effect, whatever governments and commercial interests claim to the contrary.

A typical dosimeter for radiation exposure. Could we develop a similar device for chemical and EMF exposures?

Wearing one of these chemical meters you would be driven crazy by the continuous alarm warnings!

Meanwhile, until we get such protection, is there anything we can do?

The master pioneer in this field was my old mentor Theron “Ted” Randolph who wrote one of the most important textbooks in medicine (totally ignored by all doctors): Human Ecology and Susceptibility to the Chemical Environment (1962)

He in turn influenced British psychiatrist Dr. Richard Mackarness, who wrote Chemical Victims (1980). Not only ignored but fought furiously by ignorant Pharma lackeys. Critics argued that his ideas “lacked sufficient scientific backing and were not widely accepted in the medical community.”

Just like anesthetics, antisepsis, handwashing and nutrition then! Not widely accepted by the medical community of the time. Haha!

It is surprising to most people to learn that indoor chemical pollution is often many times the allowed safety limits allowed at work. A 5-year-study carried out by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that peak concentrations of 20 toxic compounds monitored were many times higher indoors than outdoors.

[https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/11/10/EPA-study-Air-pollution-often-worse-indoors-than-outdoors/6028015559141/]

Various laws have been enacted to protect the work force. However, to pretend this system is working efficiently and protecting workers properly is to be foolish and gullible in the extreme. Only a very small percentage of workers—those employed in larger factories and offices—effectively come under this sort of umbrella. Although the laws supposedly cover all offices, factories and places of work, in actual fact it is impossible to monitor the countless small businesses that this represents. Only if the individual workers complain is any action likely to be taken in the event of a hazard and many workers are reluctant to report breaches of the codes for fear of losing their jobs, either as retribution or indirectly because the works are closed down due to not being able to afford all the safety procedures required.

What To Do

In 1986 I came up with what I called a “nose survey”. True, some chemicals are odorless. But not many. So I would have patient’s going through their home sniffing!

SCOTT-MUMBY’S RULE OF THE NOSE. if there is enough substance present to cause an odor, there is enough to cause symptoms. 

Most chemical sensitive individuals have a very acute sense of smell; others have none and will need to enlist the help of someone else with a good “nose”! 

Most of the chemicals we encounter are derived, ultimately, from petroleum and the whole group we call “hydrocarbons” from their chemical structure. 

It makes good sense to clear your environment of as many of these unnecessary chemicals as possible. This will reduce your overall environmental burden. We choose the home for this because it is something you can control to a great extent. You can’t do much about what is at work or beyond your doors and windows (except move if you are down-wind from a factory or such) but, unless you have a particularly unsympathetic and selfish family, you should be able to effect enough changes indoors to produce a worthwhile improvement. 

Some substances you will be able to replace with safer substitutes. Many you will be able to dispense with altogether. Some you will need and no substitutes can be found. The answer is to recognize the danger, use them as infrequently as possible, preferably get someone else to carry out the task involved and store these substances outside the house, for instance in the garage

I usually get patients to comb the whole house, room by room, cupboard by cupboard and shelf by shelf, listing all the chemicals found. Sometimes, the list itself is a shock and this is salutary. To pinpoint all potential trouble, I insist that what can be smelled is added to what can be seen. 

As an interim measure, I would suggest that everything suspect list is put into a completely airtight plastic bag and sealed, then put outside the house, in a shed or the garage for instance.

Wait 2 – 3 weeks. If you feel better, the message is clear and I’m sure I don’t need me to tell you what to do from that point!

In my 1988 Allergy Handbook, I wrote:

This problem can be so bad that we have begun to pinpoint what is called the Sick Building or Tight Building Syndrome. Some modern buildings have such a high internal accumulation of these obnoxious substances, that almost everyone feels ill to some degree. Headaches, sore eyes and runny nose, fatigue and inability to concentrate are almost the norm. The effect on work efficiency is disastrous and absenteeism runs sky-high.

Since it is costing industry profits in lost man-hours, you may be sure (especially if you are cynical, like me) that a lot of money is now being spent on researching this problem.

In the meantime, the answer is simple. Open the windows! The problem is made far worse by the modem craze for energy efficiency. For chemical sensitives at least, draughts are good news. They help to circulate air and keep down internal pollution. This applies in the home also – double glazing and draught-proofing may be disastrous to those who suffer within the home environment.

The list below gives pointers towards chemical sensitivity in the work environment.

• Some places or rooms have a definite effect

• Potent odors (see “nose survey” above)

• The presence of any known hazards (eg. Toluene diisocyanate, formaldehyde, cellulose paints)

• You feel better at weekends

• Symptoms clear up on holidays

• Co-workers affected 

• Reaction started when you started your present employment

• Worst on Monday and Tuesday, clears up as you grow accustomed later in the week

NB. Keep in mind potential physical factors eg. VDU’s and back or eye-strain (not necessarily an allergy)

Well, of course, environmental hazards is an enormous topic and would take a book to deal with, not just a newsletter. But awareness is the great accelerator and if you KNOW what’s out there, you can do your best to safeguard against it.

I wish you “a clean local environment”, which is something you can personally create. We have to leave it up to governments and industry cartels to solve the general society-wide problem. Just don’t hold your breath!

To your good health,Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

A personal note on nuclear power: I think it’s the best idea we have for the future. No fossil fuels! The PROBLEM is:

• Cutting corners

• Skimping on safety (to create more profits)

• Lying and incompetence (overpaid idiots in charge)

• The insistence on secrecy and cover ups, whenever there is a problem

One might just add UNBELIEVABLE IDIOT STUPIDITY, such as bringing the world’s nuclear waste to a tiny island nation or siting a nuclear plant on a geological danger zone (Fukushima