A Vitamin B12 Story: Extraordinary Healing—and Institutional Resistance This is a good-news/bad-news story. The Good News As reported by investigative journalist Lynne McTaggart in The Optimist, a physician in England—originally from India—has spent more than forty years quietly achieving what most consider impossible. Joseph Chandy became widely known for reversing severe depression in hundreds of patients—and, remarkably, for producing dramatic improvements in patients with multiple sclerosis and chronic fatigue syndrome. In a 2006 BBC segment, former MS patients described standing up from wheelchairs after treatment. His “miraculous” therapy? Vitamin B12 injections. Why This Worked Dr. Chandy recognized something foundational early in his career:one of the two true causes of disease is nutrient deficiency. As Raymond Francis wrote as far back as 2003: Proper nutrition is the single most important factor in preventing and reversing depression. F…

Calcium: From “Magic Bullet” to Scapegoat—and Back to Science Once celebrated as the superstar solution for osteoporosis, calcium has recently fallen from grace. It’s now routinely criticized—or outright vilified—by both conventional and alternative health commentators. Vitamin C researcher Thomas E. Levy, MD, even titled a book Death by Calcium! So how did one of the most essential minerals in human physiology—and one that most Americans, especially the elderly, are deficient in—end up with such a bad reputation? How Calcium Lost Its Halo The calcium controversy began when it was promoted as a standalone “magic bullet” for osteoporosis. The logic was simple: Weak bones? Take more calcium. When that approach didn’t deliver the expected results, experts added vitamin D: Take calcium with vitamin D. This worked slightly better—but still not well enough. Why? Because calcium never works alone. Calcium Is a Team…

Vitamin C: The Molecule That Changed Everything Ever since it saved his life, Raymond Francis has regarded vitamin C—when it’s the right kind—as the most powerful and indispensable nutrient for human health. Long before Beyond Health existed, Raymond wasn’t planning for the future. In truth, he wasn’t sure he had one. He was gravely ill—near death—when he called his brother Bernie, who flew across the country expecting the worst. What Bernie found was alarming. Raymond was emaciated, barely conscious, and drifting in and out of awareness. What happened next would change everything. Bernie had brought a book he’d recently heard about: Anatomy of an Illness by Norman Cousins. Cousins is best known for using laughter to help reverse a supposedly incurable disease—but less well known is that high-dose vitamin C, administered intravenously, was a cornerstone of his recovery. Too weak and discouraged to laugh, Raymond was willing to try w…

Getting enough magnesium is a problem for most people in industrial societies, where soil depletion and food processing have stripped minerals, especially magnesium, from our food; and magnesium deficiency is showing up in all kinds of health problems, from heart disease to neurological and emotional problems, from chronic fatigue to diabetes, and more. But taking too much magnesium—or more specifically, taking more magnesium than you can absorb—can be a problem too. Magnesium that the body can’t absorb causes an osmotic pressure in the bowel that stimulates bowel movement, decreasing “transit time” (the time it takes food to travel from the mouth out through the anus) and causing loose stools and/or diarrhea. When food is rushed through the gut in this way, there isn’t enough time for the intestines to absorb nutrients adequately.  Such was the case for a chemistry professor who consulted renowned alternative health doctor Dr. Jonathan V. W…