News from the Clinic:

Many, many thanks to those who responded to our request last week for donations to start translating some of Earth Clinic's pages into Mandarin and Spanish. We received enough to start the ball rolling in Mandarin on our most popular page - apple cider vinegar! We will let you know when that translation goes live on the site. As you might imagine, there will be a few challenges in handling feedback on the site in languages other than English, but we look forward to sharing your amazing remedies with the rest of the world.

--------------------------------------------------------

New from our Worldwide Reader Community:

Below are a handful of posts from the past week that we believe you will find quite interesting. However, since Earth Clinic receives several hundred posts a week from our readers, we suggest you read EC's Latest Posts page each day for many more exciting remedies and cures!

H2O2 INHALATION FEEDBACK

06/16/2008: Lynn from Texas, Texas writes: "I tried the H2O2 inhalation method with great success, but had to use this with a nebulizer and had GREAT, IMMEDIATE RESULTS. I too knew this was the answer but was very scared of this method. I had already tried drinking it without great success and too much trouble. After reading all of the amazing testimony on earthclinic, I knew I had to give this a shot.

With the spray method, I didn't get the huge, immediate, great success that everyone else had described. It often caused me to cough as it just wasn't a fine enough mist for me to inhale. I stuck with it for several months determined that I would eventually get these results that everyone else was seeing. I have been suffering for years from extreme fatigue, depression, back pain, insomnia, muscle and body aches all over, weight gain, allergies symptoms, and the older I get more symptoms arise. You name it, I am probably dealing with it. I was desperate to find some relief to just feel normal again. I had given up on medical doctors as they only wanted to prescribe antidepressants or just consider me a hypochondriac.

After months of only slight improvement in energy and relief of a few other symptoms, I borrowed a nebulizer from a friend and saw INSTANT RELIEF. I wasn't sure of the dosage, so I just sprayed 6-10 sprays in the medicine cup as I would have done in my throat. At this time, I had a headache, congestion, and just wasn't feeling well. I was going to take some Tylenol and a nap but wanted to try this first. It only took about 3 minutes to complete with the nebulizer and WOW!!! My headache was instantly gone. The brain fog that I thought had cleared before with the spray method had cleared even more. Everything was bright and clear. I didn't have to lay down, I was outside working for the rest of the day. Slept better than I ever had that night. I woke up feeling GREAT, which NEVER happens. I usually ache all over in the mornings and I wasn't hurting a bit that morning, OR SINCE. Backaches are gone, muscle aches are gone. Congestion cleared immediately. I still have drainage from allergies but not the congestion. I was having problems with my contacts with the eye doctor stating that my eyes were just not getting enough oxygen due to my contacts and years of wearing contacts. I was to the point that I could no longer get my contacts in. I am now wearing them without steroid drops or any drops of any kind and without irritation.

I did have some detoxing effects early on with the spray method. It felt like the flu only without fever and other symptoms. I have been told that I have a yeast overgrowth in my system and was told after later that this was probably yeast die off or just normal detoxing symptom.

My husband was having back pains with trouble standing upright one day, so I convinced him to try it. Reluctantly and with much urging, he did try the breathing treatment. He could stand upright immediately and all back pain was gone. He admitted he felt better with more energy.

Now, I get up feeling great and grab the nebulizer instead of a cup of coffee. I am up and going all day without the lulls and sinking feelings. I am so happy that I didn't give up. The only down fall, which after the benefits doesn't even seem like a downfall at all, is that there is a very slight burning/irritation felling in the back of my throat. One drink of water afterward or during treatment and it is gone. I thought this could be reduced by diluting the solution more if it was too much for other people. There is room in the medicine cup of the nebulizer for more water as it only uses about 1/4 of the allowed amount at the medication line. Also, if you begin to feel a little lightheaded, then you would want to stop as you have enough oxygen at that point and cut the number of sprays back by one or two. Just see how much is left in the medicine cup when you got the lightheaded feeling. I have now purchased a small portable nebulizer on the internet with a car adapter for less than $70. Others are even less than that $30-$40.

My family has been suffering the affects of mold in our house long after remediation and now with the treat of Bird Flu, I felt that we didn't stand a chance. After watching a program on the Bird Flu, my son approached me and stated that he doesn't have a chance. He has such a weakened immune system. Now, I truly feel that not only will we make it, but will be healthier than we have ever been.

Thank you so much Bill for all of your help in guiding me through this. He was so much help. I emailed him questions, and he gave me a call and talked me through it all. He is such a wonderful person to go out of his way for everyone the way that he does, and he is so happy to do it."

CAYENNE PEPPER FEEDBACK

06/10/2008: Gabi from Toronto, Canada writes: "When I red about cayenne at Earth Clinic first time I run to the kitchen to try it. I had wonderful experience! It was almost nirvana like. I was rested and full of energy. Since then I take it usually before bed time. I wake up in the morning without awful bags under my eyes and my feet aren't swollen at all. I told about cayenne paper one of my clients who is over 2 years on chemotherapy. She decided to try it. Most difficult for that lady are mornings (blood pressure is about 50/80!). Guess what happened? After 20 min we checked and her blood pressure was 127/73! We didn't check again but for the next couple hrs which are usually most difficult to get through during the day, she was OK! I got this idea from information to use cayenne paper as a first aid in a case of heart attack. Thank you Earth Clinic. If it didn't save a life it made it possible to live!"

OIL PULLING FEEDBACK

06/12/2008: Mike from Seguin, TX writes: "I have been oil pulling for 4 days. I used to smoke two packs a day and drink so much coffee I ended up in the hospital with caffiene intoxication. My teeth look so much cleaner and are starting to get white. They had been terribly stained. I work nights, 12 hour shifts, and always have big black bags surrounding my eyes. These bags are almost completely gone and my skin looks so clear. I also starting drinking 2 tablespoons of ACV in 8 oz of water before each meal. My skin is really starting to glow. My energy is reaching levels I have not felt in years. I am in my mid forties. I am really starting to look younger. This upsets my wife very much. She is upset that I am being stared at now by others whenever we are out together. She sees the differences in my appearance and energy but for some reason will still not try oil pulling or ACV. I am going to start keeping a journal and track the changes in my appearance and energy. I am so pleased with the results and it has only been four days!!!! I am enjoying being "noticed" so much more when I go out. It always nice to know that others find you attractive. I FEEL GREAT!!!!!!!!! I will continue with both of these practices for the remainder of my life. It is so cheap and yet the rewards are so tremendous."


GARLIC FOR COLDS

06/13/2008: Toni from Toledo, Ohio writes: "I take 2 cloves of raw garlic a day and have not been sick in over a year. I hate the taste of garlic, so I put a little bit of pudding or apple sauce on a spoon then I put 1 clove of finely minced raw garlic on top and then cover that with more pudding or applesauce, then just swallow it down. Do this twice a day. This is the easiest way to ever take raw garlic. Remember to get the full benefits of garlic it must be raw."


CASTOR OIL FOR PAIN

06/13/2008: Al from Collinsville, IL writes: "Castor Oil & Pain: Call it what you wish, Voodoo, Witchcraft, "BS", whatever, but it DID work for me. Having recently torn the cartilage in my left knee, simultaneously diagnosed "with a little arthritis" in the same, and swelling behind the knee. My Sport's Ortho said that the swelling was common with the torn cartilage but should go down in time. I began searching on the Web for a magical pain relief remedy (other than my already supplementation of Glucosamine Sulfate, Chondrotin, Taurine, Collagen, HA, Cats Claw, Bromelain, MSM, etc., etc., etc - .all of which I have been taking for years due to 27 yrs of cycling but at almost 68yo, something had to give). One subject that kept surfacing on the Searches was an old time remedy of Castor Oil. I'm not in terrible pain, but it is a 24/7 aggravation, as anyone who has similar discomforts can attest to. I decided to give it a try; purchased a package of ladies' cosmetic, cleansing pads (~3"x4") and a small bottle of Castor Oil (CO), I placed a pad on a saucer, saturated the pad with CO (not dripping) and popped it into the microwave for about 35 secs. I then placed the (105F) warm pad on my knee; wrapped my knee-pad with plastic wrap (to keep the CO from staining the heating pad) and then applied a heating pad, set to Med. heat.

I left it on for about 1 hour and when I removed everything, I did a "test walk" -not only was my knee not stiff, and the swelling was 95% GONE!! I could walk with 100% less discomfort and this was 10x more effective than the Cortisone or three Hydraluronic Acid injections I had received in a two months period. The other nice thing, is that you don't have to throw the saturated pad away; place in a Ziploc bag for the next application and just add a little more CO.

I generally apply this treatment daily, each time the knee feels better - I know it's not going to remedy the situation 100%, but has made my life much better..

http://www.diagnose-me.com/treat/T350155.html
http://www.edgarcayce.org/th/tharchiv/therapies/castor1.html"



PICKLE JUICE FOR MENSTRUAL CRAMPS

06/15/2008: Jessica from Los Angeles, CA writes: "In desperate need of relief from menstrual cramps I looked up your website answers. Scared as I was to down to pickle juice, I am ecstatic to report IMMEDIATE RELIEF! Menstruation is the loss of the muscle wall of the uterus, so it made perfect sense to give this remedy a try. So glad for the advice, thanks to all who voted yea!"

--------------------------------------------------------

KIDNEY CANCER Q&A

06/14/2008: Barbara from Louisville, KY writes: "I have kidney cancer and would like to know what I could do to help kill the cancer. The cancer is 2.3 cm and has not grown in 2yr.

I am taking:

* 1 tsp baking soda Daily with 8oz. water.
* I am eating 8 bitter mellon seeds daily for my diabetic condition which works but wonder are they safe.
* I use 2 tsp of apple cider vingar in 80z. water 2 time daily.
* I take 1/2 cup organic cottage cheese w/3 tsp of flaxoil w/ high lugines blended. My diet has been cleaned up,less meat more freah organic vegi. I use sealt,most herbs in food,olive oil,stevia sweetener,
* I also use lemon tea and green tea 1x day.some times have candy,cookies soda or cheese cake with sugar alcohols or splenda.Im not sure if these are harming me?

Appreciate your advice. I feel my body is trying but needs more help.
Thank you"

06/16/2008: Ted from Bangkok, Thailand writes: "If you know about fungus growing on cement walls, those are calcium carbonates which are alkaline in nature. It appears that the blood calcium is very high in the case where the body responds favorably to apple cider vinegar to remove calcium buildup in the body and thus reducing the candida that way. Candida usually grows well in calcium rich blood where blood calcium is high. In most cases people respond to baking soda alone high because of acidity in the blood.

Apple cider vinegar often causes urinary pH to be acid in most people with normal blood calcium and below normal bicarbonates, which is often the physiological parameter of most people. However, in some people, which can exist where blood calcium is high, bicarbonates is high, causing the effect of ACV to be slightly acid at 6.8. The interesting thing is to consider ACV is good is a relativistic term. Continued taking long term of ACV can backfire, by lowering bicarbonates level and calcium levels, resulting again in an acid urine below 6.

The optimum pH can be anywhere from 6.5 to 7.0, but usually it is 7.0, because people's demand for alkalinity tend to be in that region needed fight the sickness. However, another criteria I used is some people will feel well at certain urinary pH, but the single most important issue is probably not the ACV or the baking soda.

The most IMPORTANT issue was the salivary pH was not considered. This is because the alkalinity of the body is determined by two factors, the pH of the urine and the pH of the saliva. The urinary pH is governed by the sodium bicarbonate and the salivary pH is governed by the potassium bicarbonate or potassium citrate. The single most important issue where ACV has responded well is that the potassium level is low to begin with and the salivary pH was acid, that was below 7 and hence, candida.

Now a candida can exist in various parts of the body depending on the sodium and potassium balance. A lack of potassium bicarbonate (or a better potassium citrate) causing acid saliva will promote candida growth along the mouth, throat and esophagus region. A candida growth in other areas such as gut, urinary tract, are usually governed by the sodium bicarbonate.

Therefore in event the baking soda and ACV was non responsive, but ACV had better result, it means the person was taking a low sea salt diet and drinking too much water which resulted in UTI. Therefore 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt should be added per one liter of drinking water. While another remedy of alkalizing is used, in which case, a candida in the mouth and esophagus region, where salivary pH is acid, is as follows:

14 teaspoon of potassium citrate plus 1/4 teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate in 1/2 glass of water twice a day.

or a stronger remedy:

1/2 teaspoon potassium citrate plus 1/8 teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate in 1/2 glass of water twice a day. Plus 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt in 1 liter of drinking water throughout the day.

It's difficult to cover all the nuances of a candida issue, however, one important guideline is always measure the urinary and salivary pH, if possible. But in most instance, while it is true that baking soda will usually work, certain dietary issues comes to play, such as high fruit consumption, which contains fructose and worsen the candida issues, drinking water and low sodium diet, potassium deficiency from doctor's med, which can also play into the equation.

Ted"


06/17/2008: Joyce from Joelton, TN replies: "Hello Barbara, Glad to hear that you have cleaned up your diet but I think you should stop all carbonated beverages and the Splenda. On carbonated beverages, I have seen three children with 2 - 3 - 4+ proteinuria (spilling protein in urine) and no cause for it found with urine test and urine culture. Upon learning that all 3 drank a lot of pops, I asked the mother's to stop all carbonated beverages, allowing them to drink water, fruit juice or milk and return in 1 week. One week later 2 of the 3 were negative for protein and the third one was down to trace (mother said she cheated and drank one on the way to the clinic. Spilling protein in the urine comes from the kidneys, not the bladder.

When something keeps tubules in the kidneys swollen so much that it lets the proteins leak through to be excreted in the urine, it is definitely not doing your kidneys any good. Why not use the stevia sweetener in your tea instead of the splenda? Google Splenda & see if you think you should continue using it.

It is hard for us to wrap our minds around the concepts entertained, dreamed of, by people like the Rockefellers. We simply need to be aware of their agendas - this is about the only defense we have against their power and money. When we are aware of their agenda, we understand many otherwise mysterious things they do, like genetically modifying food that makes people very sick and will probably kill them eventually.

We just need to be aware.

Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
Review of F. William Engdahl's book published by Global Research

By Arun Shrivastava

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9379

Global Research, June 19, 2008

Last three or four years have seen a number of books, documentaries and articles on the dangers of Genetically Modified (GM) seeds. Majority has focused on adverse health and environmental impact; almost none on the geo-politics of GM seeds, and particularly seeds as a weapon of mass destruction. Engdahl has addressed this issue but the crop seed is one of the many "Seeds of Destruction" in this book.

Engdahl carefully documents how the intellectual foundations of 'eugenics,' mass culling of the sick, coloured, and otherwise disposable races, were actually first established, and even legally approved, in the United States. Eugenics research was financially supported by the Rockefeller and other elite families and first tested on Jews under Nazi Germany.

It is purely by chance that world's poorest nations also happen to be best endowed with natural resources. These regions are also the ones with growing population. The fear among European ruling families, increasingly, integrating with economic and military might of the United States, was that if the poor nations became developed, the abundant natural resources, especially oil, gas, and strategic minerals and metals, may become scarcer for the white population. That situation was unacceptable to the white ruling elite.

The central question that dominated the minds of the ruling clique was population reduction in resource rich countries but the question was how to engineer mass culling all over the world without generating powerful backlash as it was bound to happen. When the US oil reserves peaked in 1972 and it became a net oil importer, the situation became alarming and the agenda took the centre stage.

Kissinger, one of the key strategists of Nixon, nurtured by the Rockefellers, prepared what is known as National Security Study Memo (NSSM#200), in which he elaborated his plan for population reduction. In this Memo he specifically targets thirteen countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, Thailand, and The Phillipines.

The weapon to be used was food; even if there was a famine food would be used to leverage population reduction. Kissinger is on record for stating, "Control oil, you control nations; control food and you control the people." How a small group of key people transformed the elitist philosophy, of controlling food to control people, into realistic operational possibility within a short time is the backdrop of Engdahl's book, the central theme running from the beginning till the end with the Rockefellers and Kissinger, among others, as the key dramatis personae.

He describes how the Rockefellers guided the US agriculture policy, used their powerful tax-free foundations worldwide to train an army of bright young scientists in hitherto unknown field of microbiology. He traces how the field of Eugenics was renamed "genetics" to make it more acceptable and also to hide the real purpose.

Through incremental strategic adjustments within a handful of chemical, food and seed corporations, ably supported by the key persons in key departments of the US Government, behemoths were created that could re-write the regulatory framework in nearly every country. And these seeds of destruction of carefully constructed regulatory framework- to protect the environment and human health- were sown back in the 1920s.

Pause to think: a normal healthy person can at the most go without food for perhaps seven days but it takes a full season, say around four months, for a seed to grow into food crop. Just five agri-biz corporations, all US based (Cargill, Bunge, Archer Daniels, et al), control global grain trade, and just five control global trade in seeds. Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, DuPont, and Dow Chemicals control genetically engineered seeds.

While these powerful oligopolies were being knocked into place, anti-trust laws were diluted to exempt these firms. Engdahl writes, "It was not surprising that the Pentagon's National Defense University, on the eve of the 2003 Iraq War, issued a paper declaring: 'Agribiz is to the United States what oil is to the Middle East.' Agribusiness had become a strategic weapon in the arsenal of the world's only superpower." (page 143)

The "Green Revolution" was part of the Rockefeller agenda to destroy seed diversity and push oil and gas based agriculture inputs in which Rockefeller's had main interest. Destruction of seed diversity and dependence on proprietary hybrids was the first step in food control. (See my notes, Box 1)

It is true that initially Green Revolution technologies led to spurt in farm productivity but at a huge cost of destruction of farmlands, bio-diversity, poisoned aquifers and progressively poor health of the people and was the true agenda of 'the proponents of Green Revolution.'

The real impetus came with the technological possibility of gene splicing and insertion of specific traits into unrelated species. Life forms could be altered. But until 1979, the US Government had steadfastly refused to grant patent on life form. That was changed [my comment: helped much by a favorable judgment in the US Supreme Court granting patent protection to oil eating bacteria developed by Dr Ananda Chakraborty]. Life forms could now be patented.

To ensure that the world surrendered to the patent regime of the seeds corporations, the World Trade Organization was knocked into shape. How it conducted business was nobody's business, but it forced the world to accept intellectual property right of these corporations. There is opposition but these firms are too determined as Engdahl describes.

"The clear strategy of Monsanto, Dow, DuPont and the Washington Government backing them was to introduce the GMO seeds in every corner of the globe, with priority on defenceless ..African and developing countries," write Engdahl (page 270).

However, Engdahl also describes how US and Canadian farmlands came under GMOs. It was suspected that GMO could pose serious threat to human and animal health and the environment, yet efforts at independent biosafety assessment were discontinued. Scientists carrying out honest studies were vilified. Reputed scientific establishments were silenced or made to toe the line that was supportive of the Rockefeller's food control and mass culling agenda. The destruction of the credibility of scientific institution is yet another seed of destruction in Engdahl's book.

Engdahl cites the example of a German farmer Gottfried Glockner's experience with GM corn. Glockner planted Bt176 event of Syngenta essentially as feed for his cows. Being a scientist, he started with 10% GM feed and gradually increased the proportion, carefully noting milk yield and any side effects.

Nothing much happened in the first three years but when he increased the feed to 100% GM feed, his animals "were having gluey-white feaces and violent diarrhea" and "milk contained blood." Eventually all his seventy cows died. Prof Angelika Hilbeck of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology found from Glockner's Bt 176 corn samples Bt toxins were present "in active form and extremely stable." The cows died of high dose of toxins. Not if, but when human food is 100% contaminated should be a sobering thought.

In the US unlabelled GM foods were introduced in 1993 and that 70% of the supermarket foods contain GMOs in varying proportions in what should rightly be called world's largest biological experiment on humans. While Engdahl has clearly stated that the thrust of US Government and the agi-biz is control over food especially in the third world, he has left it to the readers to deduce that American and European citizens are also target of that grand agenda.

And there are more lethal weapons in the arsenal: Terminator seeds, Traitor seeds, and the ability to destroy small independent farmers at will in any part of the world, and these are powerfully presented in the book. Engdahl provides hard evidences for these seeds of final destruction and utter decimation of world civilizations as we have known.

It is a complex but highly readable book. It is divided into five parts, each containing two to four short chapters. The first part deals with the political maneuverings to ensure support to Seed and Agri-biz firms, the second deals with what should be widely known as 'The Rockefeller Plan', the third deals with how vertically integrated giants were readied for Washington's silent wars on planet earth, the fourth part deals with how GM seeds were unleashed on unsuspecting farmers, and the final part deals with how the elites is going on destroying food, farmers that would eventually cause mass culling of population.

He does not offer any solution; he can't because it is up to the rest of the world, including Europeans and Americans, to wake up and take on these criminals head on. An essential read for anyone who eats and thinks.

Compliments of NDERF

© Nanci L. Danison 2007 All rights reserved.

BACKWARDS: Returning to Our Source for Answers by Nanci Danison, JD You can read an abbreviated version of her NDE on NDERF Nanci D's NDE. "BACKWARDS relates the author's personal encounter with the being/entity we call God, even to the point of merging into its energy field. That degree of intimacy revealed that we are not separate individuals at all--our experience as such is an illusion and wonderful gift--but rather we are literally part of God's own self-awareness. That truth removes all doubt about the outcome of life and how it should be lived." This is amazing and a must-have book! Click her for more information on Nanci's book.

My near-death experience was unlike any I have ever read about. It was far more intellectual: filled with “knowings”, understandings about the “truths” of the universe, and insights. And I delved deeper into life after death than I had thought possible in an NDE, ultimately evolving through higher levels of existence beyond anything I had ever dreamed possible.

My body’s death on March 14, 1994, was occasioned by some type of reaction to a needle-localization procedure designed to show my surgeon where to cut to remove three potentially cancerous lesions in my breast.

The procedure had taken much longer than expected, and had to be repeated in order to get the wire marker deep enough into the breast tissue. It was painful, and emotionally traumatic for my body. I was alone when I died, because the radiologist and radiology technician both left me to perform other tasks, including getting their eighth set of mammography films developed.

The early stages of the NDE were fairly standard: I left my body, went into the Light, experienced overwhelming unconditional love, peace, joy, and acceptance, met Beings of Light, and had a life review. What was dramatically different about my NDE was what I learned during these stages, as well as what happened to me during and after the life review.

When I first entered the Light I saw nothing but Light, heard nothing, and smelled nothing. I was alone with my own thoughts. Those thoughts, however, were dramatic revelations. Chief among them was the realization that I am not a human being; that what I had been calling my soul is in fact who I really am.

And who I really am is not human, but rather a separately existing spiritual being who only inhabited a human animal’s body. Moreover, the human animal I had inhabited has her own life, thoughts, emotions, and personality, and is perfectly capable of living out the rest of her lifetime without me inside.

Many more “knowings” invaded my mind while I was in the Light, filling me instantly not only with knowledge in the academic sense, but also with the deep understanding that only personal experience can give. I “experienced” these truths as deeply as though I had lived them. One of the topics deposited into my mind was about how time does not exist in the universe at large, but only for beings that mark time, like humans do, by measuring intervals of experience.

At one point I observed my body, still sitting in the chair in the radiology department mammography suite, at a distance below and behind me. I saw it out of the back of where a head would be on a human body (like having eyes in the back of my head). Seeing it, and feeling no attachment whatsoever to it, made me question for the first time whether I had died.

To myself I said: “Nah, I can’t be dead. I didn’t go through a tunnel into the Light, and I’m definitely in the Light.” Immediately I was surrounded by an earthen works tunnel in vivid, vibrant color and detail, with the proverbial light at the end. Though the tunnel was just as real as anything I have experienced on Earth, I knew for a fact that I was not in a tunnel.

So I wasn’t fooled by its appearance. Upon realizing that I wasn’t “fooled,” a flood of “knowings” about manifesting reality inundated my mind. I realized that we all constantly manifest what we call physical reality just by virtue of our thoughts, and that the only reason we are fooled into believing it is real is because of the limitations of human senses.

You can imagine how flabbergasted I was by this information, and why I was not inclined to believe it. So I experimented with consciously manifesting some more to test its truth. I proved to myself that we do indeed have the ability to manifest what humans perceive to be physical reality by focusing our attention and intention on doing so.

After I realized I was dead, I looked outward again for the Light, for at this point I was back to the belief that we must go into the Light to enter the afterlife. I had forgotten that I was already in the Light because the strength of my belief system overpowered my sense of where I was. I then saw five Lights of different hues in the distance. I thought to myself: “Oh this figures, I’m supposed to go into the Light and I get five of them and have to choose the right one.”

A voice not my own entered my mind with the words: “Just pick one and follow it.” I instantly understood that they all led to the same destination—the Source of our universe. As I looked again at the Lights, five Beings of Light appeared to have come forward from within them. I recognized these Light Beings as my most cherished and beloved friends and soul mates, and knew for certain that I too am a Being of Light, and that I was HOME.

These friends communicated with me by mental telepathy, and primarily in emotions. Their emotions could be interpreted into English as: “Welcome home.” “We ran ahead of the ‘rest of us’ because we couldn’t wait to see you.” “Tell us everything [about human life].” And, of course, they communicated intense unconditional love, joy at seeing me, and acceptance of and curiosity about my adventure into human life.

My sense was that they were extremely anxious to observe my life as Nanci. In response, I replayed every single second of Nanci’s life events and sensory input all at once for them, not for myself. These Light Beings actually entered into my life events, as me or others around me, and lived those events as though they were actually me doing it. I thought it odd at the time, but later learned how normal this is at higher evolutionary stages.

While my friends enjoyed my life review, memories of my eternal life filled my mind. They included hundreds of physical lifetimes, in humans and other species, as well as thousands of what we would call years spent living in what I was calling “Light Being society,” and what might also be called “life between lives.”

I was astounded that I could possibly have forgotten all of it. “Knowing” informed me that when a Light Being like me enters into a human as its soul, only part of its total Energy does so. The rest of the Being’s Energy stays in the Light and continues to evolve as it observes the soul part’s experiences. The reintegration of my memories as an eternal being with those of my just passed human life completed my transformation back into my natural state as a Being of Light.

Soon, I realized that I had access to all of the knowledge of the universe (what I call Universal Knowledge) just by focusing my attention and intention on what I wanted to know. My thought processing was accelerated so greatly that I was able to absorb phenomenal amounts of information instantly. I wanted to know the answers to all my most pressing spiritual questions. So I searched Universal Knowledge for the answers to: what is Source/God? What am I? How was the universe created? Why?

What is the purpose of life? Of life as a human? What does source expect of me while in human form? Where is heaven? Hell? What is the correct religion? The answers fill my first book, Backwards: Returning to Our Source for Answers. Upon receiving “knowing” on all these topics I was very upset that no one had told me before how simple life and death are. I wanted to know why religion had failed me in this regard.

In response, a “documentary” of the development of religion among humans over the course of three Earth epochs, the third of which constitutes mankind’s future, played out in my mind. My manuscript entitled Backwards Beliefs sets forth what I remember of this documentary.

After receiving my fill from Universal Knowledge, I realized that I could enter into my Light Being friends and live their eternal lives as they had just done my life as Nanci. So I merged my Energy into theirs as we formed a collective being of six. I could at one and the same time experience myself as the personality I had always known as “myself,” as well as experiencing one of my friend’s lives as though I were my friend. Or I could experience what it was like to be a collective being.

I understood at the time that living in this manner was an evolutionary stage beyond that of Light Beings, whose lives we would perceive to be as discrete, individual beings with spiritual bodies. At this stage of awareness there was no “beingness”—only a mental or conscious existence.

Ultimately, my soul mates and I decided as a collective being to rejoin “the rest of us.” I understood this English term to mean the Source of creation, the entity humans call “God.” For the first time during the NDE I experienced movement similar to how we feel it as humans.

Up until this point everything seemed to transpire within my own mind. But now our merged entity of six seemed to move forward deeper and deeper into the Light to rejoin Source’s core. As we neared it I understood more and more about the universe and our place within it, as well as my own nature as part of Source. It became excruciatingly clear to me that the whole of our universe transpires exclusively within the mind of Source. There is only one being in our universe—Source.

All things that we perceive as physical reality are really thoughts manifested by Source within its own Energy field. And, most importantly, none of it ever leaves the Source. So, I intimately experienced the “knowing” that I am literally part of Source’s thoughts, and the illusion that I am separate from it is a gift from Source to itself in order that Source might fully explore its own personality and creativity.

Sometime during this process I decided that I “could do it better.” I could live Nanci’s life better and give back to the experience more than I had before I died. And, I passionately wanted to share with my fellow Light Beings in soul form the truth of who we really are, and the simplicity of life as part of Source. These emotions apparently impelled my return to the body in a traumatic process of leaving the Light. But as I whirl winded back into human flesh I did my best to remember as much as I could so that I might share it with others in my books.

1. Was the experience difficult to express in words?

The greatest gift I have been given by this experience is the ability to express much of it in words, often through analogies. I believe one of the reasons I personally had this experience is because I am an attorney, and have used words to communicate difficult concepts and emotions as part of my work.

2. At the time of this experience, was there an associated life-threatening event?

Yes. I had either a severe vaso-vagal response or an anaphylactic reaction to a local anesthetic.

3. At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness?

I have to answer that in two parts. First, my level of alertness did not change after it expanded dramatically once I was thoroughly infused with the Light. Second, my level of consciousness continued to evolve through higher and more expansive levels until I was about to fully merge into Source/God. At that point, I felt as though I had the same level of consciousness as Source/God, which is the level of awareness/vibration necessary in order to merge directly into it.

4. How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal every day consciousness and alertness?

My normal alertness level while in the body feels like I’m stuffed into a too-tight wetsuit made of cold, hard, clay, in comparison to that experienced during my NDE. I feel dull of intellect and slow in thinking and responding. As we used to say when I was a kid: “I couldn’t think my way out of a paper bag” with this level of alertness.

My normal level of consciousness while awake, not including meditation states, is one tiny little slice of the consciousness I experienced during the NDE. It feels like I have forgotten who I really am. More importantly, the level of consciousness we experience while in the body operates at such a slow vibration that we actually perceive human life as reality, which I now understand is an illusion.

5. If your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience was different from your normal every day consciousness and alertness, please explain:

See above answers to 3 and 4.

6. Did your vision differ in any way from your normal, everyday vision (in any aspect, such as clarity, field of vision, colors, brightness, depth perception of degree of solidness/transparency of objects, etc.)?

When I first entered the Light I did a medical “review of systems” (review of the status of all human physical parameters) to try to diagnose what had happened to me (e.g., did I faint, hallucinate, etc.). At that time I had the sensation that I could “see,” as we do in human form, in a 360-degree field of vision. Later, when I met Beings of Light, I could still perceive colors, brightness, and depth as I did while in human form, but the intensity was dramatically enhanced as compared to human vision. After I completed the transformation into a Being of Light myself, the human perception of sight dissolved. As I understand it, the sensation of vision is part of the human experience, the effects of which wear off once you make the transition to higher levels of consciousness in the Light.

7. Did your hearing differ in any way from your normal, everyday hearing (in any aspect, such as clarity, ability to recognize source of sound, pitch, loudness, etc.)?

I only experienced “hearing,” in the human sense, once during my NDE. That was when I was consciously manifesting physical Earthly environments. At those times I could hear what I would expect to hear in human form. There were no other audible sounds during the rest of my NDE.

8. Did you experience a separation of your consciousness from your body?

Yes. I was aware of standing right in front of my sitting human body, realizing that I was out-of-body, yet fully conscious, and saying to myself: “Wow, this is so cool!”

9. What emotions did you feel during the experience?

I experienced the full range of human emotions—except fear. In fact, I was surprised by the fact that I could still feel anger, disappointment, indignation, and other so-called “negative” emotions. I had always assumed they would not be possible in the afterlife.

10. Did you pass into or through a tunnel or enclosure?

No, not to get into the Light. However, I must have been aware of the tunnel concept before I died, because I actually thought to myself, after I saw my body at some distance away from and below me: “Wait a minute! I can’t be dead ‘cause I didn’t go through a tunnel into the Light and I’m definitely in the Light.” That thought alone was sufficient to “manifest” the Earthly environment of a tunnel with me inside it. The tunnel felt as real as anything on Earth, but I was not fooled into believing it was real because I knew for a fact that I was not in a tunnel. “Manifesting” is the word that popped into my mind as the explanation for the phenomenon of creating what humans perceive as physical reality just by thinking it. I subsequently manifested other Earthly environments to test the validity of that “knowing.”

11. Did you see a light?

Saw it. Felt it. Was completely infused with it and the love, acceptance, joy, and peace that come with it. And, I lived in the Light for a long while as I evolved into higher and higher forms of existence.

12. Did you meet or see any other beings?

I met five beings that I mentally called Beings of Energy, or Beings of Light, as they are more frequently called. I recognized these Beings of Light as my closest, dearest, most beloved friends—my soul mates. I knew none of them during this human lifetime. They were my eternal closest friends.

13. Did you experience a review of past events in your life?

I did have a life review of this human lifetime, but it was apparently conducted more for the entertainment of my Being of Light friends than for my own benefit. I also recaptured all my memories of all the hundreds of other physical lifetimes I had enjoyed, as well as life in the Light between physical lives.

14. Did you observe or hear anything regarding people or events during your experience that could be verified later?

Some of the future events I observed have come to pass and have been reported in the newspapers. For example, during my 1994 NDE I saw that humans would discover a ”tenth” planet. That discovery was made a few years ago, and has been supplanted by subsequent discoveries of other planet-like bodies.

15. Did you see or visit any beautiful or otherwise distinctive locations, levels or dimensions?

The only “locations,” in the physical sense, that I visited were those I consciously manifested myself. I did, however, evolve through numerous “levels” of awareness/consciousness/beingness until I was no longer a being at all. Nothing was identified to me as a “dimension.”

16. Did you have any sense of altered space or time?

Shortly after I entered the Light I was bombarded with “knowings” on all sorts of topics. One of them was about the human concept of time and how it does not actually exist outside the human experience of it. As I understand it, once we resume our natural state as a spiritual being, time and space no longer exist. I did note that huge amounts of what we would call “time” transpired during my NDE—far exceeding the amount of Earth time that I was dead. In other words, the length of time a person is absent from the body has no correlation to how much can happen in the “afterlife.”

17. Did you have a sense of knowing special knowledge, universal order and/or purpose?

All the above. It was my understanding that I had total access to the universal database I call Universal Knowledge. In addition, once I began merging into Source/God, I was imbued with a complete understanding of the universe and the purpose of life. Most of my first book is devoted to this information.

18. Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure?

No. I chose to come back in order to tell as many people as will listen the truth about life and death as I understand it. That’s why I wrote my books. It was my understanding during the NDE that it was indeed my time to die. The only boundary I encountered was my own emotional need to return to human life to fulfill my mission.

19. Did you become aware of future events?

Yes. I was so surprised that my experience was nothing like what my religious training had led me to expect that I accessed Universal Knowledge on the subject. What I got was sort of like a documentary of the development of religion on Earth, which documentary included the future. I only remember a few things about the future because I didn’t care—I wasn’t coming back here! It was later that I decided to return to human life. Then I desperately tried to remember as much of the future as I could while I was being sucked back into the body.

20. Did you have any psychic, paranormal or other special gifts following the experience you did not have prior to the experience?

Yes. One gift is the ability to write books in words given to me while I sleep (and which I have to type out before I’m awake enough to loose them). There are others as well.

21. Have you shared this experience with others?

Yes—IANDS groups and at two Universal Light Expos. Also it appears in Part III of my first book, Backwards: Returning to Source for Answers.

22. Did you have any knowledge of near-death experiences (NDEs) prior to your experience? No.

23. How did you view the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened?

I was convinced that it was real—more real than anything I had ever experienced in the body. But my doctors told me I had hallucinated it all. I wrote the first draft of my NDE story in 1994 to show to my doctors to try to get some understanding of what had happened.

24. Were there one or several parts of the experience especially meaningful or significant to you?

It was all so incredibly significant and meaningful. It literally changed my life, both here on Earth and in my eternal evolution. The part that still makes me cry after 13 years is having been on the verge of total merger back into Source/God, and understanding fully that I do not exist as a being separate and apart from Source, and being allowed to make the decision to stop the process and return to Earth in order to share what I could remember with others, who, like me, have been struggling with understanding life. The depth of Source’s love, and understanding, and willingness to allow me to continue the illusion of separation, astounds me.

25. How do you currently view the reality of your experience?

It is my understanding that what transpired during my NDE is the “real” reality. Life as a human is more like a dream, role in a play, virtual reality game, character in a drama, etc. though these words fall far short of actual explanation. It is further my understanding that all Beings of Light who are serving as souls to human animals will have some or all of the same experiences I did when the human dies, depending upon the individual’s evolutionary level.

26. Have your relationships changed specifically as a result of your experience?

Yes. I left my law firm specifically because of the changes in me attributable to the NDE. And, I now have more NDEr friends because they are the only ones who truly understand me and what I have been through.

27. Have your religious beliefs/practices changed specifically as a result of your experience?

Yes. As a result of viewing the history of religion on Earth, and accessing Universal Knowledge about life and death, I can no longer subscribe to any religion’s tenets.

28. Following the experience, have you had any other events in your life, medications or substances which reproduced any part of the experience?

I have had spontaneous memories of individual events from the NDE, a second life review, two meetings with my council of Light Being advisors, and snippets of memories of other lives. I do not use mind-altering medication or substances. In fact, like many NDErs, I do not tolerate chemicals, especially drugs, very well.

29. Is there anything else you would like to add concerning the experience?

There is far too much to cover here. I suggest that anyone who is interested in more detail should read my books, the first one of which will be published in October 2007 and the other three over the next 3 years.

30. Did the questions asked and information you provided so far accurately and comprehensively describe your experience?

No. They barely brushed the surface. But then my NDE delved far deeper into the transformation process after death than NDE researchers have reported on.

31. Are there any other questions we could ask to help you communicate your experience?

While I understand that the mechanics of an NDE are of interest to scientists, I believe the “knowings” NDErs gain are far more important for a non-scientist. I would hope that in the future you would include questions to elicit what NDErs learned about the purpose of life, who God is, who we are, how the universe was created, etc.

Now those Christians who would like to literally kill gays will have to find another group to hate with all their HEARTS!

Compliments of BBC

Scans see 'gay brain differences'

The brains of gay men and women look like those found in straight people of the opposite sex, research suggests.

The Swedish study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, compared the size of the brain's halves in 90 adults.

Gay men and straight women had halves of a similar size, while the right side was bigger in lesbian women and straight men.

A UK scientist said this was evidence sexual preference was set in the womb.
As far as I'm concerned there is no argument any more - if you are gay, you are born gay
Dr Qazi Rahman
Queen Mary, University of London

Scientists have noticed for some time that homosexual people of both sexes have differences in certain cognitive abilities, suggesting there may be subtle differences in their brain structure.

This is the first time, however, that scientists have used brain scanners to try to look for the source of those differences.

A group of 90 healthy gay and straight adults, men and women, were scanned by the Karolinska Institute scientists to measure the volume of both sides, or hemispheres, of their brain.

When these results were collected, it was found that lesbian women and straight men shared a particular "asymmetry" in their hemisphere size, while straight women and gay men had no difference between the size of the different halves of their brain.

In other words, structurally, at least, gay men were more like straight women, and gay women more like straight men.

A further experiment found that in one particular area of the brain, the amygdala, there were other significant differences.

In heterosexual men and lesbian women, there were more nerve "connections" in the right side of the amygdala, compared with the left.

The reverse, with more neural connections in the left amygdala, was the case in homosexual men and straight women.

The Karolinska team said that these differences could not be mainly explained by "learned" effects, but needed another mechanism to set them, either before or after birth.

'Fight, flight or mate'

Dr Qazi Rahman, a lecturer in cognitive biology at Queen Mary, University of London, said that he believed that these brain differences were laid down early in foetal development.

"As far as I'm concerned there is no argument any more - if you are gay, you are born gay," he said.

The amygdala, he said, was important because of its role in "orientating", or directing, the rest of the brain in response to an emotional stimulus - be it during the "fight or flight" response, or the presence of a potential mate.

"In other words, the brain network which determines what sexual orientation actually 'orients' towards is similar between gay men and straight women, and between lesbian women and straight men.

"This makes sense given that gay men have a sexual preference which is like that of women in general, that is, preferring men, and vice versa for lesbian women."
Story from BBC NEWS

© 2007

The International Society of Dermatology International Journal of Dermatology


Abstract Background

Androgenetic alopecia (AGA) is a common problem in men of all ages, affecting
approximately 50% at 50 years of age. The underlying cause is an androgen-dependent
miniaturization of genetically predetermined hair follicles. Here, the hair organ culture model was used to investigate the effects of testosterone and caffeine; the latter being a promising candidate for hair growth stimulation.

Methods
Hair follicles from 14 biopsies, taken from the vertex areas from male AGA patients,
were cultivated for 120–192 h in vitro with normal William’s E medium (control) or William’s E medium containing different concentrations of testosterone and/or caffeine. Hair shaft elongation was measured daily and at the end of cultivation, cryosections of follicles were stained with Ki-67 to evaluate the degree and localization of keratinocyte proliferation.

Results

Significant growth suppression was found in hair follicles treated with 5 g/ml
testosterone. This was counteracted by caffeine in concentrations of 0.001% and 0.005%.
Moreover, caffeine alone led to a significant stimulation of hair follicle growth. These results were
confirmed immunohistochemically by Ki-67 staining.

Conclusions

Androgen-dependent growth inhibition of

ex vivo

hair follicles from patients
suffering from AGA was present in the human hair organ culture model, a constellation which
may serve for future studies to screen new substances against androgen-dependent hair loss.
Caffeine was identified as a stimulator of human hair growth

in vitro

; a fact which may have
important clinical impact in the management of AGA.

Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.Oxford, UKIJDInternational Journal of Dermatology1365-4632Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 200645

Report

Caffeine and testosterone

Fischer

et al

.

REPORT

Effect of caffeine and testosterone on the proliferation of human
hair follicles

in vitro

T. W. Fischer,

MD

, U. C. Hipler,

PhD

, and P. Elsner,

MD

From the Department of Dermatology and
Allergology, Friedrich-Schiller-University,
Jena, Germany, Department of Dermatology,
University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein,
University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany

Correspondence

Tobias W. Fischer,

MD

Department of Dermatology and Allergology
Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena
Erfurter Str. 35
07740 Jena
Germany
E-mail: tobias.fischer@derma.uni-jena.de

Introduction

Androgenetic alopecia (AGA) is a common problem in men
of all ages, commonly beginning at 20 years of age with a
prevalence of approximately 50% at the age of 50 years.

1,2

The development of AGA is predominantly androgen-
dependent and modulated via the testosterone metabolite
dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and the expression of hair follicle-
related androgen receptor (AR).

3,4

DHT, a metabolite of
circulating testosterone, is produced systemically and by
intrafollicular conversion of testosterone to DHT by 5alpha-
reductase within the hair follicle of genetically predisposed
men.

5–7

The DHT is the effector hormone causing a continuous
shortening of hair growth (anagen) cycles in favor of longer
telogen phases, followed by miniaturization of the hair follicle
and finally visible cessation of hair growth in genetically
predetermined areas in the frontal-temporal and vertex
regions.

2,5,8,9

To date, only two FDA-approved drugs (oral finasteride
and topical minoxidil) are available for treatment of AGA.

10,11

However, 20–30% of AGA patients receiving these drugs
are nonresponders – a fact that encourages a search for alter-
native substances for the treatment of AGA. Such substances
may either exert a complementary effect by targeting alterna-
tive nonandrogen related mechanisms of AGA or act syner-
gistically with the established antiandrogenic drugs.
Caffeine is a well-known substance, yet little is known about
its effect on human hair follicle growth. As a phosphodiesterase-
inhibitor, caffeine increases cAMP levels in cells and therefore
promotes proliferation by stimulating cell metabolism; a
mechanism which would counteract testosterone/DHT-induced
miniaturization of the hair follicle.

12

In a male skin organ
culture model (MSOCM), caffeine was shown to reverse the
inhibiting effect of testosterone on keratinocyte prolifera-
tion.

13

The hair organ culture model (HOCM) is a suitable
model for investigating the inhibitory and/or stimulatory
effect of various substances on human hair follicles which are
extracted

in toto

and cultivated for up to 10 days.
Whether the results from the MSOCM would be transfer-
able to the hair follicle model was the aim of the present study.
Hence, we cultivated

ex vivo

human hair follicles derived
from scalp biopsies from affected vertex areas from male AGA

International Journal of Dermatology

2007,

46

, 27–35 © 2007

The International Society of Dermatology

28 Report

Caffeine and testosterone

Fischer

et al.

patients

in vitro

and aimed to identify the maximal inhibitory
concentration of testosterone and at what concentration this
inhibitory effect would be reversed by caffeine.

Materials and Methods

Scalp biopsies

Human hair follicles were taken from scalp biopsies (0.5

?

1.5 cm)
under local anesthesia from the vertex region in the border area
of the dense to the shedding area of 14 male patients (aged
20–45 years) suffering from androgenetic alopecia in middle-
stage showing slight to moderate shedding of the vertex area
(stage III vertex and IV Norwood-Hamilton classification

1

).
The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the
Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena and written informed consent
was obtained from the patients in accordance with the “Helsinki
declaration”.

Hair follicle extraction and cultivation

Scalp skin biopsies were transferred directly after excision into
physiologic 0.9% sodium-chloride solution in which they were kept
at maximum 1 h until further processing. Single hair follicles were
prepared by first horizontally cutting the biopsy with a scalpel at the
dermo–subcutaneous fat interface and transferring the
subcutaneous part containing intact anagen hair follicles to
Petri dishes containing Earl’s balanced salt solution (1/3) and
Dulbecco’s phosphate-buffered saline with Ca

2+

and Mg

2+

(2/3)
(Sigma, St. Louis, MO). Then, intact anagen hair follicles were
carefully micro-dissected with their root sheaths from
subcutaneous fat by softly grasping the follicle by the outer root
sheath with watchmaker’s forceps and pulling with slight traction;
the extracting procedure was carried out under the sight of a
binocular and cold-light source. After extraction, single hair follicles
were transferred to 24-well-plates, one follicle per well containing
500

?

l William’s E culture medium (PromoCell, Heidelberg,
Germany). The culture medium was supplemented with

L

-glutamin
(200 mM), insulin from lyophilized and irradiated bovine pancreas
(10

?

g/ml), hydrocortison (10 ng/ml) and antibiotic solution
(penicilline/streptomycine 100 IE/ml). Cultivation was carried out
at 37

°

C and 5% CO

2

over 120–192 h and hair shaft elongation
was measured each day by using a scaled microscopic eyepiece.
The William’s E medium with the above mentioned supplements
was used as normal cell medium (control) and treatment medium
was defined as supplemented William’s E medium containing
different concentrations of caffeine and/or testosterone (see
Table 1). Control and treatment media were changed every
other day.

Ki-67 immunohistochemistry

At the end of the cultivation period, hair follicles were carefully
removed from the wells with micro-tweezers and transferred to
micro-boxes made of aluminum foil. The boxes, 1

?

1

?

1 cm in
size, had a longitudinal hollow on the bottom in which the hair
follicle was exactly placed to ensure stable horizontal position
during the freezing process. This process was induced by pouring
freezing-gel (Tissue-Tek, O.T.C.; Miles Diagnostics, Elkhart, IN)
onto the hair follicle, followed by immediate deep freezing in liquid
nitrogen. Frozen sections with 3–5-

?

m thickness were performed
with a kryotom (Frigocut 2800E; Leica, Nussloch, Germany) and
6–12 cryosections from each follicle were placed on mounted
slides (SuperFrost Plus; Menzel, Braunschweig, Germany) and
dried overnight at 37

°

C. After fixation, sections were incubated
with Ki-67 antibody (DAKO, Glostrup, Denmark), and detection-kit
AEC was used in conjunction with the staining device Nexes (both
of Ventana Instruments, Illkirch, France). Evaluation of Ki-67-
positive cells was performed after assessment of staining intensity
for each follicle and quantification of Ki-67 positive keratinocytes.
For this purpose, a semiquantitative score with values from 0–3
was developed. This score separately quantified the number and
distribution of positive matrix keratinocytes in different layers
above the hair papilla and positive keratinocytes in the basal,
middle and upper outer root sheath. Score values were subdivided
by ranking numbers from 5–40 for sub-specification, which is
described in Table 2.
William’s E medium
Additional combination
of active ingredients used
Testosterone 5 ng/ml* Testosterone 5, 10, and 50 ng/ml + caffeine 0.15%*
Testosterone 10 ng/ml* Testosterone 50 ng/ml + caffeine 0.01%*
Testosterone 50 ng/ml* Testosterone 50 ng/ml + caffeine 0.005%*
Testosterone 0.5 ?g/ml* Testosterone 50 ng/ml + caffeine 0.001%*
Testosterone 1 ?g/ml* Testosterone 5 ?g/ml + caffeine 0.01%*
Testosterone 5 ?g/ml* Testosterone 5 ?g/ml + caffeine 0.005%*
Caffeine 0.15%* Testosterone 5 ?g/ml + caffeine 0.001%*
Caffeine 0.05%*
Caffeine 0.01%*
Caffeine 0.005%*
Caffeine 0.001%*
*In William’s E medium.
Table 1Indicated concentrations of
testosterone and caffeine alone and in
combination were used for the
experiments

© 2007

The International Society of Dermatology International Journal of Dermatology

2007,

46

, 27–35

29

Fischer

et al. Caffeine and testosterone

Report

Statistical analysis

The mean values of hair shaft elongation measurements were
calculated from all follicles (

n

= 6–8) for each treatment condition
per biopsy and the minimum of three biopsies were taken for each
experimental setting showing effect of testosterone alone, caffeine
alone and a combination of both substances. Repeated measures

ANOVA

with appropriate post hoc testing was performed with
GraphPad Prism ver.4.0 (GraphPad Software Inc., San Diego,
CA). Differences were considered significant when

P

< 0.05. For
statistical analysis of Ki-67 staining, the mean values of ranking
numbers were collected from 6–8 follicles per single treatment
condition and Student’s

t

-test checked for unpaired observation.

Results

Hair shaft length measurements

Inter-individual variability of number of extracted hair
follicles per biopsy caused a situation that not all substances
could be included in every experiment, resulting in differences
in the number of used concentrations of testosterone and
caffeine per experiment.
First, a suppressive effect of testosterone was shown in 11
of 14 experiments after 120 h of hair follicle growth in cul-
ture: in follicles of the first two scalp biopsies, testosterone
concentrations of 5, 10 and 50 ng/ml were used; 50 ng/ml
being the most suppressive. The mean hair shaft length under
50 ng/ml testosterone, applied in six experiments, was 94.3%
compared with control. Higher concentrations of 0.5

?

g/ml
and 5

?

g/ml showed hair shaft length of 78.6% and 78.9%
vs. control, respectively (Fig. 1). The suppression was signifi-
cant at a concentration of 5

?

g/ml, which was therefore
chosen for further experiments.
Caffeine was tested in parallel with testosterone, either in
combination or alone. In the first three experiments, caffeine
at the concentration of 0.15% was used in combination with
testosterone which resulted in stronger suppression than
testosterone alone. Also, the lower concentration of 0.05%
showed a suppression (data not shown). As a consequence of
the observed inhibitory effects in high concentrations of
caffeine, lower concentrations of 0.005% and 0.001% were
used in further experiments. In the majority of the experi-
ments with these low concentrations, a stimulatory effect was
noted, but some experiments showed neutral or slightly
inhibitory effects. However, statistically significant differences
compared with control were only observed in experiments in
which caffeine showed stimulation of hair follicle growth.
The cumulative significant effect in these experiments after
Score-
value Definition Staining grade
Ranking-
value
Dermal papilla
0 0–3 cells Ki-67 positive 5
1 Ki-67-positive cells in basal layer of
supra-papillary matrix kerationocytes
a) Single cells 10
b) 50% cells stained 15
c) 100% cells stained 20
2 Ki-67-positive cells in basal and
2–4 higher layers
a) Single areas < 50% 25
b) Almost full area with
50–75% staining
30
c) continuous staining 35
(maximum 2–3 gaps)
3 Ki-67-positive cells in > 5 layers 40
Outer root sheath
0 0–3 cells Ki-67 positive 10
1 > 3 cells, but single 20
2 Chain-like stringing together of cells (single) 30
3 Continuous chain-like stringing of cells in 2–3 rows 40
Table 2Scores with ranking-values for the
assessment of the number and distribution
of Ki-67 positive keratinocytes indicating
cell proliferation in cryosections from hair
follicles
Figure 1Testosterone at concentrations of 50 ng/ml, 0.5 ?g/ml
and 5 ?g/ml suppressed hair follicle growth assessed at 120-h
cultivation time to 94.3%, 78.6% and 78.9% vs. control,
respectively. Significant suppression was observed under
5 ?g/ml. Data from six independent experiments are shown with
mean ± SEM, *P = 0.0234

International Journal of Dermatology

2007,

46

, 27–35 © 2007

The International Society of Dermatology

30 Report

Caffeine and testosterone

Fischer

et al.

120 h in culture was an increase of 33% and 39.4% for
incubation with caffeine at concentrations of 0.005% and
0.001%, respectively (Fig. 2).
To evaluate the effects of caffeine on prolongation of sig-
nificant follicle growth in culture compared with caffeine-free
control, the study investigated hair follicle growth during an
extended cultivation time of 192 h. The growth-rate per 24 h
observed in the follicles treated with William’s E medium
displayed a significance level of only

P

< 0.05 after a 96-h
cultivation period and no significant hair growth per 24 h
after 144 h. In contrast, hair follicles treated with caffeine
0.001% and 0.005% showed a highly significant (

P <

0.001)
24-h growth-rate until 144 h, and still further significant
hair growth (significance level of

P

< 0.01) until the end of the
cultivation period of 192 h. Potent stimulation was also observed
in absolute hair shaft length measurements. The differences
in growth under caffeine at the concentration of 0.005%
compared with the control reached a level of significance of

P

< 0.05 after 72 h, of

P

< 0.01 after 96 h and of

P

< 0.001
between 120–192 h. Even more potent stimulation was observed
in hair follicles treated with 0.001% caffeine. The difference
compared with the control reached a significance level of

P

< 0.01
after only 72 h and of

P

< 0.001 between 96–192 h (Fig. 3).
After evaluation of the biologic effects of the substances
alone, showing suppression of hair follicle growth by testo-
sterone and stimulation by caffeine, combinations of both
substances were used. The suppressive effect of testosterone
(5

?

g/ml) was counteracted by caffeine at the concentration of
0.005% showing a normal growth curve as under William’s
E medium alone, and caffeine at 0.001% led to a slight stim-
ulation compared with control (Fig. 4).

Ki-67 immunohistochemistry

The immunohistological staining with Ki-67 confirmed the
results obtained by hair shaft elongation measurements.
Higher ranking values indicated stronger keratinocyte pro-
liferation which was reached in the dermal papilla under
treatment with caffeine 0.001% and 0.005% (Fig. 5a,b). The
ranking-value was significantly different versus the control,
exclusively under treatment with 0.005% caffeine, but there
was also a clear tendency of stronger Ki-67 staining at 0.001%
concentration. Also suppression of Ki-67 was observed in
parallel to inhibition of hair shaft elongation by the treatment
of testosterone (5

?

g/ml) which was counteracted by caffeine
0.005% and 0.001% concentrations (Fig. 6a,b). In the outer
root sheath, Ki-67 staining was also positive and more strongly
expressed under caffeine than under control (Fig. 5b).

Discussion

The objective of the present study was to investigate if the
suppressive effect of testosterone on keratinocyte prolifera-
tion, found in the MSOCM,

13

also applies to the HOCM
using whole human androgen sensitive hair follicles

14,15

from
male patients with AGA. These follicles were taken

ex vivo

and cultivated

in vitro

for a period of 120 h and 192 h. The
Figure 2Caffeine led to significantly
higher hair shaft elongation at 120 h
cultivation time in concentrations of
0.005% and 0.001% compared with
caffeine-free control. The effect at this
time-point was 33% and 39.4% increase,
respectively. Values represent
means ± SEM from two representative
experiments; a* = caffeine vs control,
P = 0.038; b* = caffeine 0.005%, P = 0.044;
and c* = caffeine 0.001%, P= 0.0275.

© 2007

The International Society of Dermatology International Journal of Dermatology

2007,

46

, 27–35

31

Fischer

et al. Caffeine and testosterone

Report

experiments with testosterone alone in the HOCM confirmed
its suppressive effects observed in the MSOCM. The most
suppressive effect of testosterone was found at concentrations
of 0.5

?

g/ml and 5

?

g/ml, which were higher than physiolog-
ical ones found in human plasma (9 ng/ml) and the ones used
in the above-mentioned skin model (5 ng/ml).

13

Men with
AGA usually show normal levels of testosterone, and the
androgenetic hair loss is caused by increased levels and/or
activity of the converting enzyme 5alpha-reductase in the
predisposed hair follicle

3,16

. Higher levels of testosterone were
necessary in the hair organ culture model owing to the fact
that vascular nutrition was missing and therefore testosterone
had to reach the papilla by diffusion through outer and inner
hair root sheath requiring higher concentrations. It may be
criticized that testosterone is not the inducer of AGA. Testo-
sterone, however, is the “prerequisite” of AGA and absence
of testosterone leads to absence of male-pattern baldness as
shown in castrated men.

17

The DHT is the effector substance
in AGA, and local DHT levels in the scalp/hair follicle result
from systemic and local conversion of testosterone to
Figure 3Hair follicle growth per 24 h under William’s E medium was significant until 144 h of cultivation (a), whereas caffeine at
concentrations of 0.005% (b) and 0.001% (c) showed significant 24 h growth-rate to 192 h. Absolute hair shaft length was
significantly different under both concentrations of caffeine compared with control at 72 h of cultivation

International Journal of Dermatology

2007,

46

, 27–35 © 2007

The International Society of Dermatology

32 Report

Caffeine and testosterone

Fischer

et al.

DHT.

18

In extracted hair follicles from patients with AGA,
local testosterone metabolism with production of DHT was
significantly higher than in hair follicles isolated from occipital
(nonbalding) scalp regions owing to increased 5alpha-reductase
activity.

7,19

In the present

in vitro

study, the situation with
“systemic” testosterone delivered to the hair follicle within
the media fluid is imitated and in both systems (

in vivo

and

in vitro

) testosterone is then converted to DHT by the follicle
itself via the intrafollicular enzyme 5alpha-reductase.

4,5,7

For caffeine, dose-response experiments showed that a
concentration of 0.15% was stimulatory in the MSOCM,

13

but suppressive in the hair follicle model. Also concentrations
of 0.05% and 0.01% showed suppression. These high
concentrations were regarded as nonphysiologic or toxic,
an effect which can be observed in many substances. High
concentrations may cause an over-stimulation of hair follicle
metabolism resulting in extensive consumption of energy
reserves, exhaustion of the proliferation capability and finally
lack of hair shaft elongation. To date, it is not known which
mechanism is relevant for the stimulatory effects of caffeine
on hair follicle growth. Different mechanisms of caffeine
observed in other models might be responsible: In alveolar
macrophages caffeine exerted an antiapoptotic effect at low
concentrations while showing proapoptotic effects at high
concentrations. The antiapoptotic effect was accompanied
by reduced production of super-oxide dismutase.

20,21

Other
mechanisms are the arrest of cell growth (G0/1-arrest),

22

increase of prostaglandin levels or suppression of Cdc2 kinase
and MAP kinases.

12

The stimulatory effect of caffeine in
lower concentrations (0.001% and 0.005%) may be explained
by the classic phosphodiesterase inhibition

12

and by a direct
effect against apoptosis, which is induced in AGA.

23

Ki-67 is a marker to detect positive nuclei in matrix keratino-
cytes indicative for proliferation of anagen hair follicles.

24–27

Although Ki-67 ranking-values were only significant for
0.005% caffeine, there was a clear tendency for high Ki-67
ranking-values also for 0.001%. This slight discrepancy to
hair shaft elongation may be explained by variances of Ki-67
staining caused by factors of cryosection processing, staining
procedure and affinity of Ki-67 antibody. Similar to other
studies, the authors also found Ki-67 staining in outer root
sheath cells which may contribute to proliferation and nutri-
tion of the hair follicle.

28

Variability in the response to caffeine as well as to testos-
terone were most probably owing to inter-individual differences
in the sensitivity of hair follicles from different individuals
and even in the variability of follicles from the same biopsy.
Dermal papillae

in vitro

express considerable activity of
Figure 4Significant suppression of hair follicle growth by testosterone (T) alone (5 ?g/ml) was observed after 72 h of cultivation in
comparison with the hair follicles cultivated with pure William’s E medium (control). Addition of caffeine at the concentration of
0.005% to the culture medium containing testosterone reverses the testosterone-induced suppression of follicle growth. The addition
of caffeine 0.001% to testosterone containing medium even stimulated hair growth to levels above the normal growth level under
standard culture conditions (William’s E medium without active substances except standard supplements). Where, T is 5 ?g/ml
testosterone and C is caffeine: (a) ***P < 0.001, caffeine 0.001% + testosterone 5 ?g/ml vs. testosterone 5 ?g/ml alone;
(b) ***/**P < 0.001/0.01, caffeine 0.005% + testosterone 5 ?g/ml vs. testosterone 5 ?g/ml alone; and (c) ***P < 0.001: Testosterone
5 ?g/m vs. control (William’s E medium). Asterisks in inset represent significance between T + C compared with T alone
© 2007 The International Society of Dermatology International Journal of Dermatology 2007, 46, 27–35
33Fischer et al. Caffeine and testosterone Report
5alpha-reductase, although with great interfollicular variabil-
ity.29 Different responsiveness from different patients may be
explained by varying stages of disease activity, duration and
clinical expression of AGA. The general variability of follicles
to grow in vitro is another factor, as growth conditions in
culture differ generally from natural hair growth in vivo or
in skin equivalents:30 Blood circulation with supply of oxy-
gen, vitamins and minerals is missing as well as important
regulatory structures (pilo-sebaceous bulb-unit, perifollicular
connective tissue sheath, and epidermis). However, the
advantages of the HOCM are the cultivation of human hair
follicles as an entire organ to screen for stimulatory and/or
inhibitory effects of substances which has successfully been
shown for TGF-beta, EGF, IGF-1, minoxidil and 17alpha-
estradiol.14,15,31 The novel concept of this study is to take
androgen-sensitive follicles selectively from patients with spe-
cific diagnosis of AGA and directly from the location where
hair shedding is clinically observed, a procedure which would
guarantee a high transferability from laboratory findings to
the clinical situation of men with AGA in vivo.
In conclusion, male androgenetic alopecia is characterized
by shortening of the anagen phase of genetically predisposed
hair follicles induced by extra-follicular testosterone which is
metabolized to DHT by intrafollicular 5alpha-reductase.
This constellation was reproduced in the HOCM and the sup-
pressive effect of testosterone was reversed by 0.001% and
0.005% caffeine. The results obtained in vitro constitute the
basis for possible clinical effects of topically applied caffeine
in the management of androgenetic alopecia.
Acknowledgment
This study was kindly supported by Dr Kurt Wolff GmbH,
Bielefeld, Germany.
Figure 5(a,b) Histologic ranking-values of Ki-67 positivity in dermal papilla matrix keratinocytes under caffeine 0.005% (n = 6) and
0.001% (n = 6) showed increase of proliferation compared with control (n = 8) which was significant for 0.005% (a).
Immunohistochemistry of follicles treated with caffeine showed Ki-67 positive matrix keratinocytes in 2–4 layers above the dermal
papilla with only a few gaps (blue arrows) while control follicles revealed only positivity in the angles of the basal region and bigger
gaps in the latero-apical region (blue arrows). The outer root sheath showed chain-like staining in caffeine treated follicles compared
with single positive cells in controls (black arrows). Ki-67 staining with AEC detection-kit and magnification ?20 (b)
International Journal of Dermatology 2007, 46, 27–35 © 2007 The International Society of Dermatology
34 Report Caffeine and testosterone Fischer et al.
Figure 6(a,b) Testosterone treated follicles (n = 6) showed a lower Ki-67 score-value than control (n = 8), whereas follicles incubated
with testosterone and caffeine (n = 6) showed significantly higher values than testosterone alone (a). The immunohistochemical
staining under testosterone showed positivity in 2–3 layers above the dermal papilla (black arrows) with lack of staining in the apical
pole (blue arrows), whereas treatment with caffeine led to positivity in 2–4 layers (black arrows) and a tendency of closing the gap on
the apical pole (blue arrows) compared with the testosterone treated follicles (b). T is 5 ?g/ml testosterone, C is caffeine; Ki-67 staining
with AEC detection-kit and magnification ?20
© 2007 The International Society of Dermatology International Journal of Dermatology 2007, 46, 27–35
35Fischer et al. Caffeine and testosterone Report