MSM – a Breakthrough Nutrient
For more than
fifteen years, 70-year-old veteran actor James Coburn suffered from
crippling rheumatoid arthritis. He explored lifestyle, food allergy
elimination diets, deep tissue massage, electro-magnetic energy, homeopathy
and even the laying on of hands. The pain and stiffness remained with
small improvements with each new therapy. Then he was introduced to
MSM (methylsulfonylmethane).
“It was like a miracle”, he says. “The pain
stopped. In three days I started to swing a golf club.” After six months
of MSM the actor says that he has virtually no pain.
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Background to MSM
The old name for sulphur is brimstone –
its foul smell associated with demons and the fires of Hades. But sulphur
is one of the minerals most crucial to life, and an organic form of
it, known as MSM, has many remarkable therapeutic properties, from nourishing
hair and nails to fighting parasites, clearing up allergies, dealing
with digestive problems and relieving the pain of arthritis.
Earl Mindell, author of the Vitamin Bible says this:
“The sulphur our bodies need is available in animal protein foods such
as meats, fish, poultry, eggs and milk. Grains, legumes and fresh, unprocessed
vegetables like onions, garlic, cabbage, Brussel sprouts and broccoli
contribute lesser amounts of this important mineral. Consequently, vegetarians
and other people who may have inadequate intake of protein or those
with a higher protein need (growing children, for example) may also
lack sufficient sulphur to meet the body’s needs.
MSM is neither a medicine nor a drug. It is a member of the sulphur
family but should never be confused with sulfa drugs, to which some
people are allergic. MSM has been used as a dietary supplement for more
than ten years, with no reports of intolerance or allergic reaction.
Short, medium and longer-term studies indicate that MSM exhibits very
low toxicity no matter how it is administered. How low? Its profile
is similar to that of water! Within limits, you cannot overdose with
MSM because the body will take and use whatever it needs, and after
a 12-hour period, will flush any excess amounts from the body.
Sulphur is highly important. Approximately half of the total body sulphur
is concentrated in the muscles, skin and bones. It is present in keratin,
the tough substance in the skin, nails and hair. Sulphur is necessary
for making collagen, the primary constituent of cartilage and connective
tissue.
In conjunction with vitamins and amino acids, MSM provides the body
with the necessary raw materials to create healthy new cells. Optimal
health is dependent on maintaining the process for producing healthy
and flexible cells. It’s a 24-hour-a-day job because the body never
stops producing new cells. Without proper nutrition, however, the body
can run short of the materials it needs. Lacking sufficient MSM, the
body is a compromised system, deficient in its ability to repair or
replace damaged tissue and organs. The inability of the body to do its
work causes it to produce dysfunctional cells which can lead to illness
and disease..
The nerves that sense pain are located mainly in the soft tissues of
our bodies. Many types of pain can be attributed to pressure differential
involving the cells that make up tissue. When outside pressure drops,
cells inflate and become inflamed. Nerves register the inflammation
and we experience pain symptoms. Did you ever hear of anyone predicting
weather changes because of pain they feel in their joints? Often, what
contributes to the pain is the lack of flexibility and permeability
in the fibrous tissue cells. Use of MSM has been shown to add flexibility
to cell walls while allowing fluids to pass through the tissue more
easily. This softens the tissue and helps to equalize pressure thereby
reducing if not totally eliminating the cause of the pain. This extraordinary
property of MSM can help treat a wide variety of conditions that afflict
millions of people every day.
It is important to recall that we lose a great deal of MSM in the normal
preparation of food, and as a result may be denying our body a critical
nutritional tool it needs.”
MSM is a close chemical
cousin to DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide), a topical analgesic that became
popular in the 1970s. Stanley Jacob, M.D. of Oregon Health Sciences
University, Portland discovered DMSO’s pain-relieving properties. By
the late 1970s he became interested in MSM, the major metabolite of
DMSO, and Jacob began treating patients with it.
He says he has used MSM successfully to treat more than 18,000 patients
with a variety of autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis.
Here’s a look at some of the conditions that benefit from MSM:
Aches and Pains
MSM may help relieve symptoms of many types of musculoskeletal pain
and inflammation, including rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis,
says Jacob. In one unpublished study, Ronald M Lawrence, MD, PhD, as
assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California,
Los Angeles, and co-author with Jacob of
The Miracle
of MSM asked 16 arthritic patients, ages 55 to 78 years,
to take either 2250 mg of MSM or a placebo daily. After four months,
patients taking MSM reported an overall 82% reduction in pain (compared
with an 18% reduction for those taking placebos). Another unpublished
study by Lawrence found that MSM reduced pain and other symptoms associated
with athletic injuries. MSM’s mode of action was partly elucidated in
an animal study, which found that MSM reduced joint inflammation and
prevented the breakdown of cartilage.
Food and pollen allergies
Although the mechanism isn’t clear, Jacob
believes that MSM can often relieve symptoms of food and pollen allergies
among patients. According to Jacob, the dosage varies from person to
person – 2 to 8 gm daily, divided into two doses – but not everyone
with allergies improves.
Skin healing
Sulphur is vital for skin, collagen and
other ‘connective tissue’ because it is essential for the flexible bonds
between the molecules that make up these cells. This is why taking MSM,
an organic source of sulphur, can enhance the skin’s elasticity and
help restore damaged skin.
Doctors with experience of MSM report that scars may fade or
disappear, and that burns, bruises, cuts and scrapes are repaired more
quickly. Nails, too, become stronger and more flexible and hair is strengthened.
Dermatitis
A beautician from Burlington, Ontario, Liz
Miners – Dr Jacob reports – recommends taking MSM internally to feed
the skin from the inside. She takes 5 grams with water each day. “You
can use the cream on your face, arms, feet and hands,” she states. “It
has healing benefits wherever you put it. One of my customers is a woman
with dermatitis. Her face and neck would always look slightly scalded.
She has been using cortisone creams for many years and they don’t seem
to be doing much for her anymore. Now she’s taking about 5 grams of
MSM crystals with MSM cream. After five weeks her skin has almost totally
cleared up.”
Another of her customers used MSM cream on her heels, which were always
leathery and cracking. After three to four weeks her heels became much
softer. But when she stopped using MSM the condition returned. Now she
uses it continually and her heels are better again.
Sleep Apnea
Obstructive sleep apnea, characterised by
episodic halts in breathing and sleep-disruptive snoring, is associated
with an increased risk of heart disease. In one study yet to be published,
Israeli researchers found that 15 of 22 sleep apnea patients improved
after MSM administration, and seven of them had significant improvements
in snoring and sleep quality. “Short of surgery or some device that
lessens your ability to sleep comfortably, MSM is the best thing,” says
Jacob.
Pain beneath the skin
Applying MSM to the skin may also be a way
of reaching any painful joints and tissues underneath. From time immemorial,
arthritis sufferers have sought relief in hot mineral springs, rich
in sulphur. Can hot sulphur springs actually benefit arthritis? Yes,
believes a scientific study reported in the German medical journal Praxis.
After 10 baths, 61% of the patients showed improvement, including less
pain and increased mobility of stiffened joints.
The participants also drank the sulphur-rich water. MSM, a natural source
of sulphur, is, of course, widely used by arthritis sufferers in the
form of tablets and capsules, but these results suggest that it may
also be worth applying MSM in a cream form over painful joints and tissues.
Sports Injuries
Athletes, bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts
also frequently use MSM tablets or capsules to reduce the pain, soreness
and inflammation associated with injuries, strains, cramped muscles
and over-extended joints. Muscle soreness after a workout is a common
problem, which MSM may be able to help.
At the International Preventive Medicine Clinic in Sao Paolo, Brazil,
Efrain Olszewer, MD and his staff treat many sports-related sprains
and tendinitis.
“Usually we have treated these injuries with DMSO (a precursor of MSM),
which has always worked very well, but we find we get just as good results
with MSM, which works without the DMSO odour (DMSO has an unpleasant
sulfurous smell, while MSM has no odour at all”. Dr Oslzewer often gives
his patients an MSM ointment to apply to the affected area.
“Sprained ankles, elbows, shoulders, tendon injuries and muscle soreness
all respond excellently” he reported to Dr Jacob.
These results from the field of sport also suggest that applying MSM
to the skin may be helpful for pain and swelling from arthritis and
other medical conditions. Although it would always be advisable to take
MSM by mouth as well, applying to the skin in addition may help the
mineral reach the intended site more quickly.
Stress
Earl Mindell says this about MSM and stress:
“While stress is often considered either a mental or psychological problem,
it has very real physical effects. You’ve heard people attribute stress-related
symptoms to “nerves”, and there’s no doubt stress usually affects parts
of the body that are related to the nervous system, particularly through
the digestive organs. As we learned earlier, use of MSM can be beneficial
in many digestive disorders.
“I have a fish story to tell you. One stress study quoted in the literature
for MSM involves 50 goldfish in a large aquarium. Half of them were
removed and placed in a small aquarium (designated A) and the other
25 were placed in an identical aquarium (designated B). The fish in
A were fed regular goldfish food and those in aquarium B received the
same food treated with MSM. The fish in both aquariums were then stressed
equally by manipulation of their confinement, movement, and temperature
range. By day then, 11 fish died in aquarium A but only one went belly-up
in the MSM-treated tank.”
Mental health
He has this to say about mental normalcy:
“Mental normalcy in humans is demonstrated by alertness and an inner
calmness that is not subject to sharp mood swings. What literature exists
suggests that individuals on MSM generally report increased alertness,
a plateau of mood changes, and very infrequent depression. A few subjects
taking depression medication observed that MSM relieved their depression
within hours rather than days, as had been their prior experience with
the antidepression medication. Students report that while on MSM their
ability to concentrate is enhanced. The most useful application for
MSM seen to date in the field of mental normalizing is as an aid to
the terminally ill to relieve anxiety and depression. Try up to 9,000mg
per day to start, then taper down to 3,000mg.”
MSM is available as 1000mg tablets and as a joint and muscle balm. It’s
also available as a face cream.
To buy MSM, Click here
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