New Mexico in Focus; Dr. Burt Berkson and New Mexico Education

You You You You

You You You

My guest is Dr. Bert Berkson and the name of his book is the Alpha Lipoic acid breakthrough breakthrough. Dr. Berkson, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. Well, the front cover of your book says that alpha-lipoic acid breakthrough that is the superb antioxidant that may slow aging, repair liver damage, and reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease and diabetes. My first question was, why haven't I heard about this before it, and other people as well? Well, I think with any scientific discovery, it takes about 30 to 40 years before it's accepted by the medical community in the United States. But in much of the rest of the world, alpha-lipoic acid is a prescribed drug that sells very well. What is alpha-lipoic acid? Well, alpha-lipoic acid is a very simple

molecule that we all produce in our own livers when we're young, when we're children, but as we get older, we produce less and less of it. It's one of the most powerful antioxidants known. So, if that's the case, why aren't we all taking it? Well, I think when you're young, you don't need it. But by the time you're 40 years old, you probably could use alpha-lipoic acid because of all of the free radicals that are building up in your body in all of the toxins and the environment that you're subjected to. How did you become acquainted with the acid? About 22 years ago, when I was a medical resident in Cleveland, Ohio at a large university hospital, I was assigned to people with so-called terminal liver disease. And I was told it was my job to observe these people and watch them go through the processes of dying with this disease.

I went upstairs, looked at the two folks, and they were the sickest people I've ever seen. As a MD, I should have followed orders and just watched them die, but I also have a PhD in cell biology. And we're taught, we're educated, to always look for other answers. So, I called the National Institutes of Health, where I had received research grants before, spoke to Dr. Fred Barter, who was head of one of the internal medicine divisions. And he said in Europe, they were using alpha-light poic acid to stimulate the regeneration of livers. He said they had some in Washington. I picked it up at the Cleveland Airport, injected it into these two people within three days they were getting out of bed. Within two weeks, they had regenerated their livers. And 22 years later, they're still doing well. Well, I read about that in the book and I understand that you were chastised, though, for doing

that. Yes, I think probably if the National Institutes of Health didn't pick up on this and start supporting me, the medical school would have fired me. Goodness. Well, I know that some questions that people want to know are, how are chronic diseases related to free radicals and toxins in the environment you were talking about that earlier? Well, today, among modern cell biologists and academic medical scientists, these people feel that most of the chronic diseases, such as heart disease, blood vessel disease, diabetes, even cancer, are related to these waste products, these toxins that build up in our bloodstream, which are free radicals, which are free radicals, and other toxins too. And these toxins just wear at our organs, wear at our cells and start wearing us out, and eventually, we die. Alpha-Light Poocacid is one of a group of chemicals that

neutralise these free radicals and probably add years to our lives. So that makes it an antioxidant? Yes. In other words, as an antioxidant, these are chemicals that neutralise the products of oxidation. In our bodies, we are always burning fuels, and as a result of these fuels, oxidized products are produced, and these oxidized products build up, and these oxidized products are actually our toxins. And with these products and toxins from the environment, we have to get an awful lot of antioxidants into our bodies to neutralise them. Otherwise, we develop the chronic diseases, and we age prematurely. You just look at a woman, for example, and I'm using a woman because you often see this in women who

are very heavy smokers. Smoking produces trillions of free radicals, these oxidation products that build up in their skin, and they often develop premature wrinkling from the smoking. And I'm sure you've seen this. It doesn't seem to work as quickly as it does in women. So when should someone start taking it, it's taking the Alpha-Light Poocac acid, or should they? I know that you were prescribing it intravenously, and is this something that you can buy off the counter? Well, Alpha-Light Poocac acid, I have the Food and Drug Administration permit for the United States to use it intravenously, and it works very well for many problems intravenously. But over the last 10 years or so, I've been using it orally for people with diabetes mellitus, especially the complications of diabetes,

such as the painful feet, the difficulty in swallowing the problem with ulcers of the legs, and having fantastic luck with it. With the oral stuff, I've been using it for treating my hepatitis C patients. Many of them were told they would die without liver transplants. And almost all of them, if they stay on the Healthy Lifestyle Program, use Alpha-Light Poocac acid in the proper way, they're all doing well. Light Poocac acid can be bought in many of the health food stores right now, as I say, it's a prescription drug in Europe, and it'll probably be a prescription drug here in a few years. But it could be bought in the health food stores, but if you buy this yourself, you have to make sure it's the German product. There are many products out there that may be excellent or may be worthless. It's only the German product that is a prescription grade, and the German product is yellowish,

and it's a very, very tiny capsule or a pill. If we were to get this book, what should be the most important thing that we get out of it? Okay. First of all, you can buy the book at any Barnes and Noble store, or Amazon.com, or Borders Books. It's a national book. I think the most important thing in that book is to show you that you have to be a partner with your doctor. Medicine cannot be a dictatorship anymore. The patient has to educate himself, has to understand what's going on, and be an active participant in this treatment process. So you don't have to take everything at face value. You can question a doctor and say, well, maybe I want to keep my liver and try some other unconventional. I think, first of all, you have to educate yourself. And I think the best way of educating

yourself today, if you're a patient or a doctor, and you want to learn about many of these new approaches that are standard of care medicine in much of the rest of the world, is go to the National Library of Medicine website, which is called Medline, and type in Lipoic acid, or Coenzyme Q10. And you'll see thousands of research articles, medical research articles from all over the world on this, then you might say to your doctor, you know, I'd rather not have a liver transplant first. I'd rather not have some invasive treatment first. Let's try something less invasive. And if that doesn't work, then let's go on to something that's more invasive. Well, Dr. Bert, thank you so much for joining us today. I know that this is a very quick and there's so much more to talk about, but I really do appreciate you coming.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And that's our show for this evening. Next week, a conversation with Mayor Jim Baca, an APS superintendent, Brad Allison. Until then, I'm R.C. Choppa. Thank you for joining us. And you might mention, we talked about when should someone take it? You said 40 years

old or unless, you know, they're sickly. They're sickly. They might take it for a short time. My guest is Dr. Bert Berkson, and the name of his book is the Alpha Lipoic Acid Breakthrough. Dr. Berkson, thank you so much for joining us today. What is Alpha Lipoic Acid? Alpha Lipoic Acid is a very simple molecule. We all produce in our bodies, especially when we're young. And as we grow older, we produce less and less of it. A two-year-old might produce large amounts. They're very active. A 60-year-old man sitting on the couch all worn out. You can't even measure it in his blood.

When do you start losing Alpha Lipoic Acid? At what age should you start seeing, I guess, the debilitating symptoms of age? Well, I think when a person's in their late 30s or early 40s, they often start producing less and less Alpha Lipoic Acid. And they start developing more fatigue, less energy. They just don't produce, they don't burn their fuels as efficiently as they do when they're younger with a lot of Alpha Lipoic Acid available. How long have doctors known about Alpha Lipoic Acid? Well, doctors have known about Alpha Lipoic Acid for about 40 years now. In Europe, it's a prescription drug. It's one of the best-selling prescription drugs. It's used widely for diabetes mellitus and its complications, the neuropathies, the retinopathies in the eye. It's also used for liver disease in Europe.

Now, how did you become acquainted with it? About 22 years ago, I was a medical resident at a large university hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. And I was assigned to patients with what the medical chiefs call terminal liver disease. And I was told, I was ordered to watch them die, to watch the phases they go through. The families were told there was no hope, the patients were told there was no hope. I went upstairs and looked at these very sick people. And I guess as an MD, I should have followed orders. But I also have a PhD in cell biology. And in the education that leads to a PhD, you're taught that you always look for different alternatives. So I called Washington, spoke to the head of internal medicine at the National Institutes of Health, Fred Barter, and asked him if there was any substance in the world that regenerated the liver that he knew of. He said, yes, in Europe, they were using alpha-lipoic acid.

And he could get it to the Cleveland airport within a few hours. I picked it up, injected it into these people. And within two weeks, they had regenerated their livers. And they're still alive today. That is amazing. Yes. Well, were you congratulated? Were you awarded with anything for doing this, for saving their lives? Well, I thought they probably pin a medal on me. But I think the chiefs were angry because I made them look stupid. They thought. But then you went ahead and did it. I read in the book again the following week. Another couple came in with the same poisoned liver. Well, I think that the chiefs did not believe the alpha-lipoic acid helped them. They thought they were, some people, one in a million, just get better spontaneously. And they thought that these people recovered spontaneously. The next week, we had two people who were suffering from liver poisoning from mushrooms, which is one of the worst types of liver damage.

For these two people, there was very little hope. And I was assigned to watch them die. And I saw them. I was a young engineer and his beautiful young wife in her 20s. And once more I called Washington, ordered the lipoic acid, injected it into them. And within two weeks they had regenerated enough liver to go home. And they're still alive and well today. 22 years later. That's amazing. So it's not just liver regeneration, though. Alpha-lipoic acid is an antioxidant for other chronic diseases as well. And please explain what, for people who don't know what an antioxidant is. Well, you know, as we live, we burn fuels, we produce all sorts of toxins. And we have to have these chemicals that neutralize these toxins, these products of oxidation. And they're called antioxidants, or free radical scavengers. A lipoic acid is one of the best.

Most of us, hundreds of years ago, probably got this in our food supply. But our foods today are mostly devoid of large amounts of antioxidants, especially if you don't eat a highly vegetarian diet. So you are looking at this as a possible cure, or at least preventive medicine for cancer, for other chronic diseases as well? Now, take cancer, for example. Many of us have genes to develop certain types of cancer, but not all of us develop this cancer, but many of us do. At the University of California, in the Department of Cell Biology, they're studying how certain antioxidants, like alpha-lipoic acid, can prevent cancer, and possibly even treat cancer. It seems that, for this cancer gene, to turn the cell into a cancerous cell, something

has to happen. A toxin, such as a free radical, or a hormone, has to bind to the surface of the cell, start a series of reactions that go through the cell, and eventually tell that gene to turn the cell into a cancerous cell. Lipoic acid stabilizes these factors that turn on cancer genes. Why hasn't the medical community embraced this? If it is, as Peter Jennings said, I think in world news tonight, alpha-lipoic acid is probably the most potent antioxidant known to man. Why have we really heard about this? Well, I think, like any other profession, medicine is slow to accept new ideas. Somebody was saying, not long ago, I forgot who it was, it usually takes about 40 years from the time of a discovery for it to get into everyday medicine.

Well, it's been about 40 years now, and at many of the large academic medical centers in America, such as University, California, University, Arizona, University of Illinois, and some of the Ivy League schools are doing active lipoic acid research. The Mayo Clinic just received a large multi-million dollar grant to study alpha-lipoic acid for the treatment of diabetics. Every day, I treat people with serious diabetes with alpha-lipoic acid, and we're having some of the most remarkable astounding results imaginable. So can anyone go to the local health food store and get this and start taking it? I think you can, but you have to be sure you buy the German product. There are many different types of alpha-lipoic acid out there. Many of them are from Asia, and some of these products may be good, some may be worthless. The German product is prescription grade and is yellowish in color. But it's very important that if you are very sick, if you have a chronic disease

and you want to be treated for this disease with antioxidants, that you find an MD who knows what he's doing and understands antioxidant pharmacology. What is the future of the lipoic acid? Do you see doctors offering patients that option in the near future? Today, I know for a fact that the German pharmaceutical company that produces it in Europe has moved to New Jersey, and many of the United States pharmaceutical companies are interested in licensing this and they're at this point interested in getting exclusivity for a number of years for marketing it. And when this occurs, it will be a prescription drug in America. But today, you could buy it in a health food store. Would I know how to take it? Can I just buy it and know how to take it where it would be safe for me to use?

I think if you buy the good German product, I think 100 or 200 milligrams a day could not hurt you, it could only help you. If you buy the correct product, I think if you have a chronic disease, I think you should find a medical doctor who understands antioxidants and go on some type of antioxidant therapy and maybe an additional conventional therapy. So I appreciate you coming out here today and letting us know about this. Where can someone find your book and what is the most important thing they should get out of it? The book can be purchased at any Barnes and Noble store, probably at any borders books, Amazon.com, borders.com. And what should they get out of it? Well, I think patients should learn that their relationship with their doctor should be a partnership rather than a dictatorship.

They should educate themselves so they could ask their doctor questions. If the doctor recommends an invasive procedure, possibly there might be some alternative that's less invasive. They should learn about these things. They could do this along with their doctors by going to the computer, going to the National Library of Medicine website, which is called Medline, type in the words, like Poic acid or whatever they want. They'll get thousands of research articles, a recent research articles, some are older, 40 years old, about these products. So in other words, we should educate ourselves and not take everything at face value when we're visiting our doctors. I think learning and education are the secrets of life. Okay. Well, we'll leave it on that. Thank you so much. And that's our report for this evening. I'm Marci Choppa. Thank you for joining us. 57 to 58% of the people want school choice for their kids of some kind. That could be charter

schools and I think we'll probably get a charter schools bill through this time in a bipartisan manner, or it could be a voucher program, which is the governor said is probably an unlikely hit, but the people would like to have more choice. And by the way, they would like to have more local control, less dictate from Santa Fe, whether it's the legislature or the state board of education, let the local school districts decide what they think should be improved in their own areas. Well, let me throw something else into the discussion here that either one of you could address the professional tax study committee, which is a group of tax experts appointed by the legislature four years ago, recently presented a series of recommendations on dropping long-standing gross receipts enjoyed by a number of New Mexico industries. Cutting those exemptions could generate $150 million to $200 million an additional state revenue each year. Is anybody talking about that? Is anybody considering this additional money

that we could get from tax exemptions? I think the best input in Dennis can join into this. My understanding is that the taxation and revenue committee is not planning to bring forward any of these recommendations. I'm not sure about that, but that was my understanding. Now, how much would come forward and get through? It's about $200 to $250 million if you did everything, but it could have some disastrous impact on some industries and some nonprofit organizations if some of these proposals were adopted. Representative Peacrow. The proposal rules are interesting, and I think let's do the premise first. And the premise is if everybody paid taxes, the same gross receipts tax, the same income tax, we could reduce taxes for everybody. So instead of having our 5 percent state gross receipts tax and cities and counties add on to that, we could perhaps have a 4 percent gross receipts tax, maybe even a 3 percent statewide gross receipts tax, if everyone paid. So the premise

was we all pay on everything and we have a very low rate. Over time, that premise has changed. In order to use our tax system for policy, and usually it said economic development. It is not said, oh, let's protect the nonprofits from paying taxes. It's for, they say for economic development, let's use the tax code, and we do that by giving exemptions, rebates, credits, what have you, and that's where most of that $250 million is coming from or much of it. I don't believe anyone is interested in penalizing nonprofits, except when we look at some of these nonprofits, we are seeing major organizations, major economic units who are incorporated as nonprofits so they don't have profit, no, but they have a lot of money coming in, which they can use in various ways. So I think the real sense was making a fair and balanced tax code where it makes sense to do an exemption or credit, leave it, but where it isn't really bringing in the money that was promised. If you give me this tax

cut, we'll bring in this much money because there'll be so much economic development. Look at that again, and if we can then lower the tax rate for everyone, we might be better off. So that was the premise, and I don't think that should be hidden under the tactics of who's now going to pay. Well, we're at a time, and I just want to yes or no answer from either one of you. Is there room for compromise? Are we going to see some kind of resolution or a tax cut? Yes, I think there is. I think there will be. Okay. We need to know the real number, and that'll be next week. Okay. Great. Thank you both for joining us. Thank you very much. Thank you. Glad to be here. All right. Thank you.