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The West Coast Organic Sulfur Study
The West Coast Organic Sulfur Project, in Vancouver, Canada, was originally associated with a project that began in the US in 1999. It was, in its early form, called the Live Blood and Cellular Matrix Study, or just the Cellular Matrix Study. Here's a very brief history…
In 1860, I.G. Farben first produced chemical fertilizers from coal tar. This resulted (in 1938) in Nelson Rockefeller and Prescott Bush contracting with I.G. Farben to develop and aggressively market ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate as chemical fertilizers. This process requires heat and naturally occurring sulfur is one of the most temperature-sensitive of all the elements. When I.G. Farben began its chemical fertilizer production from coal tar and crude oil, temperatures 100 degrees over the vaporization point of sulfur were necessary to produce these chemical fertilizers. Sulfur evaporated in the process. The chemists ignored the elimination of this elemental food.
In 1954 chemical fertilizers, which lack bio-available sulfur, were mandated by the government. This appears to have contributed to the decline of our health and mental acuity and our quality of life. Since the mandating of chemical fertilizers all disease rates in the US have gone up approximately 4,000%. We believe when this study has completed its work it will clearly demonstrate the connection between the lack of sulfur (from the use of chemical fertilizers), the inability of body cells to regenerate in a healthy manner, and the related increase in diseases.
The original project, formerly called the Live Blood and Cellular Matrix Study, was organized by the director of the Body Human Project in 1999. That study was inspired by a fatal type of breast cancer which had been reported to respond to organic sulfur. While researching this cancer it appeared that bio-available sulfur played an important role in the health and regeneration of body cells. That early study led us to believe that the use of chemical fertilizers (which do not contain bio-available sulfur) had effectively broken the environmental sulfur cycle in those countries which use chemical fertilizers.
Diseases we haven't even heard of have become typical; cancer, auto-immune illnesses, diabetes, heart conditions, asthmas, etc., have grown at an unprecedented rate; and the quality of our food has been greatly diminished. MDs, Ph.D.s, NDs, and other medical professionals, when asked about sulfur, stated as if reading a cue card: “We get all the sulfur we need from the food we eat.” That may have been true until governments decided to change the way we grow our food and legalized the 100% use of chemical fertilizers (which began in earnest in 1954).
Finland was one of several countries that authorized the use of chemical fertilizers in the early 1950s. In the early 1980s, alarmed over the increasing disease rate of its population, and fearing the levels of cadmium, Finland took a hard look at chemical fertilizers and banned all of them. At that time, the US and Finland were at the same per-capita marked disease levels. Finland was not aware of the connection of bio-available sulfur to health, its absence in chemical fertilizers, or the Krebbs cycle (chemical reactions in organisms that are part of the process of aerobic cell metabolism). Since 1985, after banning chemical fertilizers, Finland has become a leading supplier of “bio-friendly” completely organic foods. Their disease rates have dropped to one tenth (10%) of the 1985 levels. Finland's disease rates continue to slowly drop. North America's disease rates continue to rise and we continue to use chemical fertilizers.
If you are trapped in a cage of turmoil and illness,
the door to healing always opens from the inside.
It appears that countries using chemical fertilizers have an increase in disease while those that use organically-based fertilizing methods do not. And, it appears from the West Coast Organic Sulfur Study, those who regularly take this Organic Sulfur (over the long term) become quite healthy and those who don't, stay sick, or get worse, and prematurely age.
Originally, the participants were using various brands of retail MSM. What was observed in participants did not coincide with what the research literature reported about MSM. Except for some limited gastrointestinal improvements, our initial group had little improvement elsewhere. We soon found an article about the sixteen “deadly” additives—the anti-caking additives that are found in retail MSM products, sometimes called flow agents. We realized the early participants were not reporting health improvements because these additives contaminate our bodies, block the body's use sulfur, render MSM less effecient, and benefit only the packaging industry—our health is secondary to profit. (Which is why the much cheaper chemical fertilizers are still in use.)
The actual chemical manufacturers of MSM are few and the number of re-packaging resellers are very numerous. Sulfur is very interactive and easily forms sulfates, sulfites and sulfides with most of the other elements and molecular compounds. Retail MSM is most often manufactured, processed and packaged with anti-caking ingredients and this effectively blocks the bio-availability of sulfur to the body's cells—the sulfur is contaminated. We at the Cellular Matrix Study believe sulfur products are contaminated by the additives of packaging, just as our foods have been contaminated by processing and chemical additives.
For MSM retail products, anti-caking agents are necessary for the production of capsules and pills. These additives, and the pulverizing of the sulfur flakes into powder, seriously interferes with the body's uptake of the sulfur. At the West Coast Organic Sulfur Study we believe most, and possibly all MSM that is commercially available does not contain more than 34% sulfur, the sulfur it does contain is probably contaminated with additives, and by observation some MSM products contain no bio-available sulfur at all. Like the fertilizers that have broken the sulfur cycle, packaging and processing contaminates MSM and blocks its bio-availability to our body cells.
Our study had to find a bio-available source of sulfur, meaning natural organic sulfur that was not “processed” for the retail market. Due to production difficulties that have since been resolved, on two occasions several years ago the study had to ship "powder" rather than organic sulfur flakes. When the study members used the powder the effectiveness was noticeably reduced. Many of our study members had been taking retail MSM prior to joining the Study, and reported the least effective is MSM in pill or capsule forms. The purity of the sulfur is a factor. Our study is now based on organic sulfur that's not processed and is 100% biologically available to the body.
The West Coast Organic Sulfur Study believes that the absence of Organic Sulfur is the mineral deficiency which may be responsible for the greatest increase in disease in North America. Nutrients remain unavailable, amino acid and cellular function is greatly reduced, healthy gas-balances are not maintained (oxygen-nitrogen-carbon dioxide), and toxins remain embedded in the body's cells. Healthy body cellular metabolism is the basis for cellular regeneration of all of our cells. Without organic sulfur to enable the intracellular oxygen transfer and maintain the efficacy of amino acids, we begin to degenerate and age long before our biologic clock runs out.
It is important to remember:
ORGANIC SULFUR IS FOOD, NOT A VITAMIN OR A DRUG
West Coast Organic Sulfur is not the yellow dirt from mining.
It is not related to the sulfa drugs that some people are allergic to.
This is not the less effective MSM that is available in retail stores.
Our organic sulfur comes as a white flake, precipitated from DMSO. No fillers, anti-caking agents, or preservatives are added. This is a pure, uncontaminated form of methylsulfonylmethane which is “fresh” from the precipitator and has no further processing. This is NOT the organic sulfur (MSM) that is purchased in retail outlets. Only pure organic sulfur is supplied to participants.
In Canada, Richard Clark began the West Coast Organic Sulfur Study in 2005.
The West Coast Organic Sulfur Study is always interested in attracting new participants. Since 1999, in all studies, there have been over 1500 members. Not everyone who agreed to participate has continued with the study, nor have all the participants persisted in taking organic sulfur as we recommend. The study is based upon and supported only by its participants and we are guided by their feedback. We encourage long-term participation and commitment and have observed many remarkable health improvements. It is important to persist and be diligent about taking the recommended amount of Organic Sulfur and to drink close to the recommended amount or non-chlorine water. If you would like to improve your health and become a participant, please contact Richard Clark.
Please remember, this is a research study. The health improvements are reports from our participants and may seem unbelievable, but they have been consistently reported. Rates and degree of success vary and are dependent upon regular, long-term use of Organic Sulfur according to the guidelines we have established over the years of studying the benefits of Organic Sulfur.
Photographs for Personal Affirmation
Photographs for your own personal evaluation have become a very important aspect of the West Coast Organic Sulfur Study. Our faces (upper throat to top of the head) provide an excellent mirror for our over-all state of health. Follow your own progress with photographs of your face (for your own comparison and analysis). The questionnaire (link at the end of this page), or personal telephone interviews (always confidential), provide us the with the reports we provide (always confidential).
The photograph guidelines are: On the day you start taking organic sulfur, take two well-lit, close up, full resolution digital photographs of your face. Have a clear view of your eyes, face, cheekbones, etc.
- 2 pictures when you begin and then 2 more in five months
- 3 mega-pixel or greater digital camera; use full resolution (3 mega pixels or more)
- close up of face—from upper throat to top of head—a close-up full-face shot
- use flash and in good light; eyes open
- hair brushed off of forehead; no glasses, no makeup, no contact lenses
Retain these photos on your computer. Take the sulfur as prescribed. Wait five months and take two more photos. Crop the same small area of a before and after photo, about two inches by two inches. enlarge these area of your face and compare before and after. You will be able to notice a difference in your skin condition and eyes. Skin pores, wrinkles, red capillaries in eyes, skin color, will all have improved.
You don't need to smile or look glamorous; it's for your own research.
If you enhance the photos you will see cellular regeneration and good skin health in your face. You will notice subtle but definite improvement within two or three months (but it takes up to seven years to regenerate all of our cells). Sulfur is known as the “beauty mineral”. The skin is more beautiful—healthier with a fine tone and fewer wrinkles and blemishes if its cells are allowed to regenerate. Facial scar tissue and liver spots have been reported to slowly resolve which is an example of cellular regeneration in cells that have been unable to regenerate.