Magnetico sleep pad and oral DMSA
If you have a cardiovascular disorder or suffer from an adult neurological disorder that impairs brain function, a reasonable approach is to sleep on a Magnetico negative field mattress pad (Dr. Roberts does) and take oral DMSA - here's why:
HEAVY METALS
Heavy metals - Lead, Cadmium, Arsenic, and especially Mercury, bind irreversibly to sulfhydryl (-SH) groups contained within the enzymes, DNA, and proteins that provide function and structure to our cells. The significance of heavy metal poisoning is discussed elsewhere in this site and in our lecture series (which we have taped), but suffice it to say that heavy metal overload has been linked to dysfunction and disease of the heart and nervous system. Heavy metal overload is likely playing a role in the health condition that brings you to MME - it might even be the primary cause.
Our body is not very good at expelling these toxins (the half-life of Mercury in your brain is 10-20 years), basically because it was not designed to do so. Primitive man simply was not exposed to heavy metals, so evolution was never called upon to provide us with a means of dealing with them - so we don't. Ageing in the US is thus associated with a progressive accumulation of toxic heavy metals within our cells. When we are young, we can tuck these metals aside or neutralize them with antioxidants, but over time, our intracellular garbage dumps overflow and/or we run out of detoxifying antioxidants. Then we get sick, sick with many of the disease states that we are treating with MME (Patients with decompensated coronary disease have 5 times as much Mercury within their heart cells as do normal individuals; patients with decompensated cardiomyopathy have 22,000 times as much. Kids with a blood Lead level of 10 mcg/dl, still "within normal limits" have an IQ, on average, 7.5 points below classmates with blood Lead levels in the 0-1 range.). To rid the body of heavy metals, Mother Nature needs our help, help which we are happy to provide.
CHELATION THERAPY
Chelation therapy is the generic term used to describe the various forms of physician-supervised heavy metal detoxification in common use. Chelation comes form "chele" Greek for crab, in that chelating agents form multiple chemical bonds with toxic heavy metals, just as a crab will use all its pincers to clasp its target. Chelating agents do not remain within your body; administered chelating agents bind to a target toxic metal, and then ferry it out of the body, via the kidneys or GI tract. Different chelating agents bind more or less avidly to different toxic metals. EDTA is used to clear Lead and Cadmium, Desferoxamine to remove Iron and Aluminum, while DMPS is the primary IV chelating agents used to mobilize and excrete Mercury. DMSA, an oral chelating agent, classically used to treat Lead overload in children, binds to Lead, Cadmium. We feel that DMSA and other chelators and negative magnetic field sleep pad synergize in our efforts to remove toxic metals from your body. Dr. Bonlie (the inventor of the negative field only sleep pad) coined the term " Magnetic Chelation" - how does this work?
MAGNETIC CHELATION
I am not going to be definitive in my explanation of Magnetic Chelation, as my explanation is based primarily on theory and experience, but applying this explanation is proving to be of value to our patients. I have been trained in chelation therapy, and have experience with all of the chelating agents outlined above. My colleagues and I have noted that "it is difficult to chelate sick people". In diagnosing the presence of heavy metal overload, we give you a defined dose of a chelating agent, and then measure how much toxic metal you excrete in a timed urine sample. Reasonably healthy and vital individuals with heavy metal overload typically "spill" a large quantity of toxic metal. Other individuals, those with chronic illnesses, even though they may bear a significant toxic metal load, spill very little metal following their initial, diagnostic, chelation challenge. After we treat them, first nutritionally, and then with further metal detoxification, we find that the quantity of metal in their post-chelation urine sample is increased. Why? During the time interval of treatment, they did not become more metal toxic. No, over the time interval of treatment, their health status improved enough to allow the detoxification process to proceed. To deal with a heavy metal burden, you need an open detoxification pathway, and you need chemical energy (ATP) within your cells. If the enzyme systems governing detoxification are poisoned, then quite simply you cannot clear the poisons that you have been exposed to. Keep in mind that it is not the heavy metals that you have been exposed to that make you sick, it is the heavy metals that you cannot clear from your cells that lead to chronic illness (remember what I said about heart cell Mercury levels in coronary and cardiomyopathy patients - these levels didn't build up overnight). As a general rule, chelation therapy becomes more efficient and effective as it proceeds. Otherwise stated, as we de-poison you, it becomes easier to de-poison you; the real hard part is getting started, and here is where negative field magnetic energy comes in to help us.
ENERGY DEFICIENCY ® CALCIUM OVERLOAD
It takes energy, intracellular ATP energy, to man the pumps that clear positively charged metal ions, such as Calcium (Ca+2), from your cells. This is one of the reasons that dysfunctional or diseased organs or body regions demonstrate abnormal calcification (healthy arteries do not calcify, only diseased arteries, healthy joints don't calcify, only dysfunctional ones). There is another reason that dysfunctional organs, actually the dysfunctional cells that make up the dysfunctional organ, calcify. Dr. Bonlie feels (Dr. Bonlie invented MME) that intracellular calcium accumulation is actually a short-term adaptation to energy failure, a price that the dysfunctional cell is willing to pay to prolong its survival. Here's how this works:
The Bonlie theory proposes that calcium accumulation is an adaptation the sick cell makes to allow it to utilize oxygen. Please consider the rule of charge equilibration - to remain in charge balance with its environment, the cells needs within its membrane an equal number of positively and negatively charged particles. If it has more positive than negative charge, then it must expend energy pumping out the positively charged particles. Now, Calcium (Ca+2) has a positive charge (as do Lead - Pb+2, Cadmium - Cd+2, and Mercury - Hg+2), while Oxygen (-2), has a negative charge. A brain cell needs Oxygen if it is to burn carbohydrate to generate energy, just as a heart cell needs oxygen if it is to convert the energy stored in fat into ATP, the only intracellular energy source that it can use to generate muscle contraction and relaxation.
ATP ® Work Done + ADP ADP + Caloric Energy ® ATP
A heart cell deprived of oxygen (blocked coronary artery), or one whose energy generating enzyme systems are dysfunctional (Mercury and other heavy metals), is going to have trouble generating ATP energy. Our cells use the chemical energy derived from burning sugar and fat to add a high energy Phosphate group to ADP (Adenosine Diphosphate) to form ATP (Adenosine Trisphosphate). When the cell needs energy to carry out work, it gets it by splitting the high energy bond between the 2nd and 3rd Phosphates of ATP, leaving behind ADP. The ADP is then rapidly recycled to ATP, utilizing energy derived by burning more fat and sugar - each ATP molecule in the heart is recycled 10 million times each day.
ATP PROVIDES ENERGY AND POSITIVE CHARGE
ATP has a positive charge, and along with serving as the cell's energy source, it also contributes to the positive charge pool of the cell. If the dysfunctional cell cannot generate sufficient ATP, then it cannot generate sufficient positive charge, and then it is going to have trouble admitting into the cell the negatively charged Oxygen that is still available in its environment. The situation is thus getting worse - the oxygen starved or energy starved heart cell is having more and more trouble getting the (negatively charged) Oxygen that it needs into the cell. OK - Mother Nature says, my short term problem is that I cannot get enough negatively charged Oxygen into the cell because I do not have enough positively charged particles in the cell, and I cannot make new positively charged ATP particles without more of this precious, negatively charged Oxygen. Well, I have tons of positively charged Calcium ions in the fluid surrounding the cell - why not let them in? Mother Nature, thinking short-term survival (a good way to think if you are a cell), opens up the Calcium gates in the membrane that surrounds the cell, allowing positively charged Calcium to flow in. Soon there are enough positively charged particles within the cell to allow sufficient negatively charged Oxygen to get in. The cell can then burn fat in the presence of this Oxygen to generate ATP energy, and the heart cell can continue to contract and relax. Yes, it can continue to contract and relax, and the brain cell can continue to help you think, but as this Ca+2 rescue process is repeated over and over, the cell begins to overfill with calcium. Intracellular Calcium overload doesn't kill you quickly, as does energy deficiency, or lack of intracellular Oxygen, but kill you nonetheless it does. As the cell slowly overloads itself with Calcium, its normal processes begin to slow down. The cell stops working properly, as does the organ that contains these now Calcium overloaded cells. Think of Calcium overload as a form of biochemical scarring - we only see it in energy insufficient or biochemically damaged regions of the body. My coronary artery CT Calcium score was zero; Calcium has not accumulated within the cells of my heart because they are energetically normal. If you have coronary artery disease, Calcium will be present in your arteries, reflecting prior and/or current energy insufficiency (there are other theories and explanations for Calcium overload, discussed elsewhere on this site, but for now we will consider Calcium overload to be due to energy insufficiency).
Calcium overload would be bad enough, and in theory could occur in primitive man, but in modern man the plot thickens, all for the worse. The fluid surrounding the cells of modern man contains not just positively charged Calcium (Ca+2), but positively charged Lead (Pb+2), Cadmium (Cd+2), and Mercury (Hg+2) - guess what I'm going to say next - Mother Nature, who gave us a physiology that utilizes Calcium, but totally naive to the likes of (Pb+2), (Cd+2), and (Hg+2) - remember, we were not designed to deal with these toxins - confuses the positively charged toxic metals with positively charged Calcium and allows these toxic metals to cross into the sick, energy starved cell that does not have sufficient intracellular positive charge. Now, intracellular Calcium overload is bad for us, and kills us slowly, but intracellular Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury overload is terrible for us, damaging us essentially on the spot. The situation is thus much worse. These heavy metals poison the enzyme systems that just might be able to pump the metals out of the cell, and they poison the enzyme systems involved with intracellular energy generation. The result is a progressive deterioration in energy production, less positive charge, more metal is allowed into the cell, thus more metal overload - a vicious cycle develops leading inevitable to cell death, organ dysfunction, and then your exit from this world much earlier that Mother Nature had intended.
OK - I've digressed a little, but if you are thinking of spending $1,000 for a magnetic mattress pad (of course, heart transplantation costs a little more), then you deserve a thorough explanation. So how is a magnetic mattress pad and a pill you take at nighttime going to save us from the above describe biochemical oblivion? That's easy to explain, if you are Dr. Bonlie;. I'm not, but I'll do my best. I'll start with the easy part, explaining how a negative magnetic field assists in metal detoxification and energy generation, then I'll move on to the hard part and try to convince you that energy generation in the heart is dependent on the energy level in the brain.
Your spouse or significant other may make the Earth move under
your feet, and we can't do that, but with application of a static magnetic
field, we can accelerate your electron
spin. The inventor, Dr. Dean Bonlie, stayed awake during high
school science, and as a research clinician, discovered a therapeutic solution to
the Larmor formula. Recall that the enzymes, DNA, and other structures
within your cells are composed of molecules, which in turn are made up of atoms,
which in turn are comprised of a dense nucleus, made up of protons and neutrons,
about which electrons orbit in various layers, termed orbitals. Molecular
reactions are triggered when the valence electrons, the outer orbital electrons, of one atom collide with and then
combine with the valence electrons of another atom. Two Hydrogen atoms
don't just stick to one Oxygen to produce H2O; it is their valence
electrons that collide and bind together. The more rapidly the
valence electrons orbit around the nucleus of an atom, the more likely they are
to collide with and bind to valence electrons orbiting the nucleus of other
atoms, the more likely is the given atom to
participate in molecular reactions. If the valence electrons of many atoms
within a cell are spinning more rapidly, molecular, and then biochemical,
reactions are more likely to occur within that cell. Energy producing reactions will speed
up, and the cell can use this energy to rebuild itself or to carry out biochemical
work.
Larmor formula: wL = e B / 2 m
Now back to the Larmor formula. You don't need to fully understand this equation, but do note that wL refers to the velocity of electron spin, something that we want to increase, and B refers to the magnetic field in which the electron exists. Dr. Bonlie invented MME (Magnetic Molecular Energizer), essentially a 10,000 lb. electromagnet. During MME, B, the magnetic field in which the electron exists, is increased, leading to, in the valence electrons moving in the same direction as is the magnetic field, an exponential increase in their orbital velocity. Some of these electrons will be bumped into a higher energy state. This increase in velocity of some, but not all (those orbiting in the direction opposite to that of the magnetic field will not speed up) of the valence electrons leads to a phenomena called wobble, which also increases the energy available for chemical reactions. Remember, electron transfer is the basis for all useful chemical reactions in the body, and electron transfer is increased during MME.
MME, with its 5,000 Gauss negative magnetic field, increases electron spin something fierce, leading to increased ATP energy production within the cells of the body region being treated. The ATP so generated has a positive charge, and remember that the sick cell has a lack of positive charge, which is why it allowed Calcium and its molecular mimics, Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury, across its cell membrane in the first place. The cell treated with a negative magnetic field, no longer lacking in positive charge, will no longer allow itself to be over-calcified and metal poisoned. The ATP generated by MME can also be used to man the enzyme systems that pump Calcium out of the cell and assist in heavy metal detoxification. A negative magnetic field thus "gets the Lead out" of the cell, and also the Calcium, Cadmium, Mercury, and any other metal toxin, out of the cells of the organ being treated. MME does this something fierce, especially if we combine it with a biochemical chelating agent such as DMSA (which we do), but with MME we can treat only one organ or body region at a time. We utilized Dr. Bonlie's invention, the MME machine, for 13 years, to help patients in whom no other therapies were effective, We helped most (including two family members with health challenges that could not be addressed with standard methodologies), and we hurt none. The FDA then banned MME, not because it posed a danger, but rather due to a paperwork issue (one not under my personal control). My family members got better. It's a shame that this wonderful therapy will not be available for yours. You can make use, as I do, of Dr. Bonlie's negative file donly magnetic sleep pad.
THE MAGNETICO SLEEP PAD
The Magnetico sleep pad, designed by Dr. Bonlie, provides a 10 to 20 Gauss negative magnetic field. This lower strength magnetic field provides quantitatively less, but qualitatively the same, beneficial effects as does MME, but while the MME field is working only during active MME, the negative magnetic field of the sleep pad is working every night for the rest of your life (the magnetic charge lasts for 60 years, so mine shouldn't wear out until I am 110, at which time I will buy a new one). Every night, while you are catching Zs, the magnetic field emitted by the sleep pad will be spinning your electrons, providing a low-grade but still beneficial MME-like effect. My wife and I both enjoy good health, but we both noticed changes, subtle at first, with the sleep pad. We sleep well, but my wife sleeps a little less - she's getting up an hour earlier; she feels well rested and just doesn't need as much sleep. I'm not getting up any earlier, but I may need more sleep than she does, as I enjoy running, 30-40 miles per week. At my age, that means sore muscles, or it meant sore muscles, as with the sleep pad I just don't ache as much.
Needing less sleep and experiencing less muscle soreness is fine for us, but the importance of the Magnetico negative magnetic field sleep pad is what it does for patients. Patients suffer from insufficient energy production, a deficiency of positive charge within the cell, and consequent intracellular Calcium accumulation and heavy metal overload. The negative field sleep pad should help here in a slow but steady fashion, every night, for the rest of your life. Dr. Bonlie measured toxic metal excretion patterns in patients following overnight sleep on their usual mattress, their usual mattress with the Magnetico sleep pad, and then on the sleep pad with DMSA, 500 mg at bedtime. More metal came out on the sleep pad, and the most metal came out on the sleep pad plus DMSA. As one of the goals of MME is to remove as much toxic metal as we can from the organ system being treated, it makes sense to prepare for MME by sleeping on the Magnetico negative field sleep pad for two months pre-MME, and to augment the negative magnetic field-induced metal detoxification process with DMSA, an oral heavy metal binding agent. Dr. Bonlie's protocol calls for you to take DMSA, 500 mg at bedtime, in an 11 night on - 11 night off, repetitive format, to "set the biochemical stage" for MME. Dr. Bonlie has observed that patients with cardiovascular and neurological problems respond to MME more rapidly and more completely if they have been pre-treated in this manner, and so far I'm seeing the same thing. The Magnetico negative field sleep pad is obtained from Magnetico (800-265-1119). The pad is placed between the box springs and your mattress. Most of the magnetic sleep pads in common use emit positive and negative fields. Positive fields may certainly produce a short term benefit, but prolonged application of a positive field can lead to long-term detrimental effects. A positive field serves as an irritant, sort of like acupuncture, drawing energy from the brain and elsewhere in the body. While this drawn in energy helps to heal the area under treatment, its a little like robbing Peter to pay Paul. If we are constantly draining the body's energy reserve to treat a focal area, eventually we are going to experience a breakdown elsewhere. This is why the acupuncturist doesn't treat you in the same spot every day, over and over. This is why people buy standard magnetic sleep pads may rave about them for 12 months, and then throw them out - long-term they just don't feel that good. Dr. Bonlie devised a process whereby the magnets in the Magnetico sleep pad are placed close together, and the pad is designed to be placed beneath your regular mattress, so that there is a 6 inch separation between you and the sleep pad. In this fashion, your body will be enveloped in a purely negative magnetic field (the positive field goes out the side, so don't sit for long periods on the floor close to your bed). You thus get the benefits of negative field magnetic energy, without the down-side of long-term positive field exposure.
VITALITY
Another reason to sleep on the Magnetico pad, and one that is a little difficult for me to understand, is that the sleep pad, in theory, will promote cardiac decalcification by shoring up the energy charge of the brain. It's hard to explain and maybe impossible to prove, but I'll ask you to accept the concept that there is a vital energy within us. Chinese medicine refers to this as Chi. Other disciplines refer to it as the Life Force, while Dr. Bonlie's term for this sustaining energy is Vitality. Dr. Bonlie explained to me that Vitality resides within the glial cells of the brain. The glial cells are not neurons; rather they are the cells that surround the neurons. I was taught that the glial cells do not function as neurons; they don't mediate thought, motion, or sensation, and that their only role was to support and nourish the real neurons. This concept is incorrect and has been replaced. It has been shown that the glial cells comprise a secondary, or "para-nervous" system, a nervous system that utilizes a magnetic signal to transmit information. It is the para-nervous system that effected the information contained in your DNA into your physical structure. You grew fingers from your knuckles because a magnetic field directed the knuckle cells to migrate into the fingers. It is the glial para-nervous system that houses and maintains our vitality, and we only have so much. Disease or dysfunction in one body region draws vitality from the glial cells of the brain, eventually depleting our Vitality, placing us at risk for disease elsewhere (you may call this a "common sense" explanation but I call it physics and biochemistry). Vitality also determines our energy level. When we are young and vital, not only can we run and jump higher that we can at middle-age, but when our Vitality is up the cells of our heart and the cells of our brain do a much better job generating the positively charged ATP energy.
INSUFFICIENT GLIAL VITALITY ® INSUFFICIENT CARDIAC VITALITY Þ INSUFFICIENT CARDIAC ATP PRODUCTION
If glial Vitality is low, due to aging or one or more disease states, Vitality will be low in the heart, the heart will not generate enough ATP, and via the mechanisms described above, the cells of the heart will begin to calcify. Within the Bonlie theory, either or both heart cell dysfunction (oxygen deficiency and/or metal toxicity) and low Vitality in the brain, may lead to cardiac calcification and dysfunction. Within the Bonlie theory, treating only your heart, while ignoring the brain, may not be optimal. During MME to the heart, there is a scatter of negative field magnetic energy to the brain, approximately 300 Gauss, while the 5000 Gauss field is directed towards the heart, providing about 3000 Gauss at the level of the heart. However, if you sleep on the Magnetico sleep pad (and take DMSA) in preparation for MME, the negative field of the sleep pad will begin to restore Vitality within the glial cells of your brain, and will begin to remove toxic metals from your brain, also lifting the Vitality level. With greater brain Vitality comes greater cardiac Vitality, and that leads to greater ATP energy production within the heart cells, and likely a better outcome with MME. This is why Dr. Bonlie recommends pre-treatment with the sleep pad and DMSA before beginning MME for cardiac disease states (the same principle applies when MME is directed at a neurological impairment involving the brain - sleep pad with DMSA pre-treatment seems to improve patient outcome with MME to the brain). Now, this is a theoretical construct, but it seems to work in practice - patients do better with magnetic sleep pad pre-treatment. An idea that Dr. Bonlie and I have discussed would be to treat the brain along with the heart during cardiac MME, in a ratio of one hour to the brain for every ten hours to the heart. If the patient was not pre-treated with the sleep pad, the ratio would be two hours to the brain for every ten hours to the heart. This is a concept that we will work on and refine over time. Remember, MME therapy is consider to be an experimental therapy. It's safety is not in question, but the best means of applying it to solve a given patient's problem is. Right now I have more experience with cardiac MME than does anyone else in the world (of course, I'm the only cardiologist in the world with a MME machine), and I have more questions than answers. Of course, that was the situation seven years ago when we brought EECP to town, and began to help patients with recurrent or inoperable coronary artery disease. We had questions then, and answered most of them, at the same time helping hundreds of people who otherwise were out of options. We will answer our MME questions in like fashion, and history will repeat itself in seven more years, when the next breakthrough therapy for difficult to impossible to treat disease states is introduced.
James Roberts MD FACC FAARFM, last modified 1/1/20