I am on the road for the next couple of weeks; I am traveling to Taiwan, Hong Kong and rural Thailand. My itinerary doesn’t leave much opportunity for blogging so I hope that you enjoy the wonderful month of September, one of my favorites.
May you love life and live it to the fullest, in happiness and health.

All through the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, the only effective treatment for tuberculosis was spending long periods of rest in sunny locales, such as in alpine or seaside resorts. There the daily regimen included plenty of fresh air and hours of rest in a specially constructed room with lots of windows, called a solarium. There the patients would soak up the sun, even though, in Victorian times, they were usually completely clothed in public. Only the well-to-do could afford “the sunshine cure,” but the survival rate of tuberculosis patients was double that of those who did not receive such treatment, so these resorts were usually full, with a long waiting list.
At the time, no one knew how the “sunshine cure” worked. Until early in the 20th we didn’t even know there were such things as vitamins, let alone understand that vitamin D produced by exposure of the skin was a major factor in recovery from tuberculosis. But today, thanks to advances in molecular biology, we have new clues to understanding the power of vitamin D in protecting the body from infectious diseases.
The form of vitamin D that is active in the body (called 1,25D) functions as a switch that can turn genes “on” or “off” in virtually any tissue in the body. Among the many genes in human cells that respond to 1,25D are two that encode for two separate antimicrobial proteins, cathelicidin and defensin beta 2 (interesting names, don’t you think?). These compounds act as natural antibiotics, effective against a wide spectrum of bacteria, viruses and fungi. And cathelicidin produced by human immune cells treated with 1,25D was found to be especially destructive to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. Thus we learned that boosting vitmin D production by good sun exposure gave immune cells the material needed to generate a natural antibiotic to kill off the TB bacteria.
After World War II, when medical therapy shifted almost exclusively to pharmaceuticals and surgery, use of the sun cure faded away. But after 50 years of drugs and surgery, we are learning that often the tried-and-true natural ways of preventing and curing disease are often better than pharmaceutical chemicals. That’s true for a wide variety of degenerative diseases as well as infectious diseases. Right now we are learning more about the benefits of vitamin D than perhaps any other nutrient, so I’ll be talking more about this wonderful cross of hormone and vitamin.

   Several people have asked me if USANA nutritional and personal care products are used at Sanoviv Medical Institute. There are two answers: a short one and a longer one. The short answer is that USANA products are indeed used at Sanoviv.
 The more complete answer is that not only are USANA products used there, but the success of the concept of optimal nutrition with the Essentials and other USANA nutritionals inspired me to create Sanoviv. With all of the amazing health testimonials I was hearing from our USANA family, people who saw their health improve significantly by just using USANA products, I thought: What if I could combine the benefits of optimal supplementation with a superior plant-based diet in a nontoxic clean environment?
   My success in culturing billions of human cells in the laboratory came from controlling the environment of those cells, as well as from providing them with optimal nutrition. That’s why I wanted to see how much health improvement we might see in people who consumed organic food as well as the finest quality of nutritional supplements. Who also lived in toxin-free surroundings, avoiding EMFs (electro-smog) and chemical toxics, in beautiful seaside lodgings, where even their mental and spiritual environment was life-supporting. We are getting the answers every day at Sanoviv, and they are positive.
 USANA nutrition is the foundation of the Sanoviv concept, giving your body the best possible chance of healing itself if you are ill and promoting optimal health maintenance if you are not. However, the needs of Sanoviv patients are often above and beyond what we can offer in USANA products. Depending on their medical condition, they may need a nutritional regimen that requires medical supervision. In addition, Sanoviv practices Orthomolecular Nutritional Medicine, originated by Dr. Linus Pauling, which incorporates high therapeutic doses of specific micronutrients. Certain specific, individualized nutrients administered in oral or IV form must be obtained from other high-quality suppliers.