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Are you familiar with Dr Burt Berkson?

There's a doctor in New Mexico named Burt Berkson who claims to have had some success using Alpha Lipoic Acid, Selenium, and Milk Thistle in halting liver disease.

Now there's not really enough info on the guy to know if he's a snake oil salesmen or what, but there are members of the medhelp community and others who have failed standard care, and claim that what he's doing has helped them in the way their pharmaceutical anti-virals haven't.

There's a few guys in the Hep-C forum who have gone to him, and one guy who goes by the name UpBeat in the past couple weeks over the winter holidays, and he's had his LFT numbers drop to the normal range for the first time ever since being diagnosed.  

mhudnall also has had some success using a similar procedure to the Berkson one, but he's doing it with a different doctor.  However, he uses alot of other alternative therapies, so it's tougher to gauge what is or isn't helping him.

mhudnall is part of a yahoo Hepatitis Alternative Treatment group whose founder is a woman named Joyce, who dropped viral load to undetecable and e-seroconverted her daughter using an old drug called LDN, another product occasionally used by Berkson.  However, she didn't know about Berkson at that time, and was recommended the drug by her nurse to boost her daughter's immune system a month before her doctor's Baraclude trial was to begin.

Within a month, their viral load dropped so much, her daughter no longer qualified for Baraclude.  Joyce collects case studies of people who self-volunteer to try LDN and other alternative treatments.  LDN is an opioid antagonist.  It tricks your body into thinking it's deprived of endorphins, which elevates your endorphin levels.  I'm not sure the exact effect of high endrophin levels, but I think it increases NK cells and promotes apoptosis of cancerous cells.

In the US, you need a prescription for LDN, but it's for off-label use.
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Avatar universal
In case you're interested in learning more, it's the Hepatitis Children & CAM Alternatives Yahoo Group.  Joyce is the founder, but there are a few others who regular run it.

Here's an example of what LDN (which costs anywhere from $1 to $2 per day) is doing for mhudnall who emailed the group last night:

"I increased my dosage of LDN from 3mg to 4.5mg and just got my VL lab report:
Present vital load: 2770 - less than three thousand!  
Previous high: 7 million  
Before LDN: 1.6 million  
Before bumping my LDN dose from 3mg to 4.5mg: 300 thousand.  
Previous low: three months after beginning LDN - 57 thousand  

What's equally great, in my whole very extensive lab report not one test was out of range except viral load.  Joyce I will update my labs for the last year soon."
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Avatar universal
No, I am not familiar with LDN or Dr. Burt Berkson, but this is very interesting.

Thank you for the info.
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