Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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Long Overdue FDA Action on Agricultural Antibiotics Still Unlikely to Protect Your Health...
January 07, 2014 | 114,687 views
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By Dr. Mercola

Antibiotic-resistant disease is a major threat to public health, and the primary cause for this man-made epidemic is the widespread misuse of antibiotics—primarily in agriculture.

In fact, while the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) focuses its attention on minor aspects of the problem, such as the use of antibacterial soaps, it continues to ignore the elephant in the room, namely factory farming practices where antibiotics are routinely fed to animals to promote growth.

Animals such as cattle and chickens are often fed antibiotics at low doses for disease prevention and growth promotion, and those antibiotics are transferred to you via meat, and even via the manure used as crop fertilizer. Agricultural uses of antibiotics actually account for about 80 percent of all antibiotic use in the US,1 so it's undoubtedly a major source of human antibiotic consumption.

CAFOs Promote Antibiotic-Resistant Disease

Chicken confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) took root in the 1950s, followed by cattle and hog CAFOs in the 1970s and ‘80s respectively. Today, CAFOs dominate all livestock and poultry production in the US.

The intensive animal farming methods of today were developed to increase food production while pushing down prices. And while successful in that respect, it has given rise to a number of significant problems that probably were not considered at the outset—drug-resistant disease being one of them.

Experts have been warning about the implications of antibiotic resistance for years, but never before have their warnings been as emphatic as they are now. Dr. Arjun Srinivasan, associate director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently told PBS Frontline:2

“For a long time, there have been newspaper stories and magazine articles that asked 'The end of antibiotics?’ Well, now I would say you can change the title to 'The end of antibiotics, period.'"

FDA’s Action on Agricultural Antibiotics Does Little to Protect Human Health

As reported by Scientific American,3 the FDA issued its long-awaited guidance on agricultural antibiotics on December 11, 2013. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to have a major impact in terms of protecting your health.

If you can possibly imagine this, the agency is asking drug companies to voluntarily restrict the use of antibiotics that are important in human medicine by excluding growth promotion in animals as a listed use on the drug label.4 This would prevent farmers from legally using antibiotics such as tetracyclines, penicillins,and azithromycin for growth promotion purposes.

Still there are plenty of loopholes. Farmers would still be allowed to use antibiotics for therapeutic purposes, which would allow them plenty of wiggle room to continue feeding their animals antibiotics for growth promotion without actually admitting that’s the reason for doing so. As reported by the featured article:5

“[T]he success of the FDA’s new program depends on how many companies volunteer to change their labels over the next 90 days in alignment with the FDA cutoff period. (Companies that do change their labels will have three years to phase in the changes.) And then there are myriad questions about how this would be enforced on the farm.”

Another proposed amendment to the FDA’s animal drug regulations (the veterinary feed directive)6 would require farmers to obtain a veterinary prescription before using antibiotics in animal feed for any reason.

If this amendment makes it through the comment period intact, it might have a far greater impact. Comments on the proposed rule are being accepted until March 12, 2014. (For instructions on submitting comments, please see the Federal Register page7.)

Non-Human Uses of Antibiotics Have Little to No Value

In related news, a group of researchers propose implementing a user fee on non-human uses of antibiotics as a way to curtail their misuse.8 The paper, titled “Preserving Antibiotics, Rationally,” was published in the New England Journal of Medicine9 on December 26, 2013. According to lead author Aidan Hollis, PhD:10

“Modern medicine relies on antibiotics to kill off bacterial infections. This is incredibly important. Without effective antibiotics, any surgery – even minor ones – will become extremely risky... Ordinary infections will kill otherwise healthy people. Bacteria that can effectively resist antibiotics will thrive, reproducing rapidly and spreading in various ways...

If you become infected with resistant bacteria, antibiotics won't provide any relief. While the vast majority of antibiotic use has gone towards increasing productivity in agriculture, Hollis asserts that most of these applications are of ‘low value.’

"It's about increasing the efficiency of food so you can reduce the amount of grain you feed the cattle. It's about giving antibiotics to baby chicks because it reduces the likelihood that they're going to get sick when you cram them together in unsanitary conditions. These methods are obviously profitable to the farmers, but that doesn't mean it's generating a huge benefit. In fact, the profitability is usually quite marginal. The real value of antibiotics is saving people from dying. Everything else is trivial." [Emphasis mine]

23,000 Americans Die from Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs Each Year

According to a landmark “Antibiotic Resistance Threat Report” published by the CDC11 in October 2013, two million American adults and children become infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year, and at least 23,000 of them die as a direct result of those infections. Even more die from complications. The resulting cost to the US health care system? A staggering $17-26 billion annually.

According to the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), just one organism—methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, better known as MRSA—kills more Americans each year than the combined total of emphysema, HIV/AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, and homicide.12 This death toll is really just an estimate, and the real number is likely much higher. The true extent of superbug infections remains unknown because no one is tracking them—at least not in the US.

Hospitals here are not required to report outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, unlike in the EU where they are at least making efforts to track them. The US is in desperate need of a surveillance program for reporting and tracking this growing threat.13 But what we’re seeing is the evolution of bacteria. Basically, microorganisms have learned to teach each other how to outsmart the best pharmaceutical drugs we have to offer, and they are winning the battle.

The Price You Pay for Cheap Chicken...

Consumer Reports14 also issued a December 2013 report on this issue, revealing that a whopping 97 percent of all chicken sampled across the US harbored serious disease-causing bacteria, many of which are resistant to antibiotics. According to the article:

“It’s unrealistic to expect that the uncooked chicken you buy won’t contain any potentially harmful bacteria. That’s one reason we advise you to prevent raw chicken or its juices from touching any other food and to cook it to at least 165˚ F...Yet some bacteria are more worrisome than others—and our latest tests produced troubling findings. More than half of the samples contained fecal contaminants. And about half of them harbored at least one bacterium that was resistant to three or more commonly prescribed antibiotics.”[Emphasis mine}

Last October, a nationwide salmonella outbreak15 occurred, courtesy of infected chicken originating from Foster Farms. The antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella, known as Heidelberg, sickened close to 300 people in 17 states. Of those infected, 40 percent required hospitalization—twice as many people as typically require hospitalization due to regular salmonella. So what can you do to protect yourself and your family from this scourge? According to Consumer Reports:

“’Our tests did not find brands or types of chicken breasts that had less bacteria than the rest. At the moment, the only way to protect yourself from becoming sick is to remain vigilant about safe handling and cooking... Still, there are good reasons for selecting chickens raised without the use of antibiotics. Buying those products supports farmers who keep their chickens off unnecessary drugs, and that’s good for your health and preserves the effectiveness of antibiotics. Chickens without antibiotic resistance to salmonella and other dangerous pathogens can’t pass antibiotic-resistant bugs on to you,’ says Robert Lawrence, M.D., the Center for a Livable Future Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.”

Beware: Antibacterial Soaps Also Do More Harm Than Good

As I have warned for many years, antibacterial wipes, creams, and soaps are frequently promoted as the answer to preventing the spread of potentially harmful bacteria. Two of the most widely used antibacterial compounds, triclosan and triclocarban, have been added to countless products, from chopping boards to mattresses, in an attempt to halt the spread of microbes. Unfortunately, such products are actually part of the problem, as they too promote antibiotic-resistance.

Triclosan, for example, does kill weaker bacteria but actually favors more tolerant species. It also tends to promote the growth of lineages of bacteria that are already resistant to the oral antibiotics used in hospitals, thereby strengthening their resistance. What’s more, studies show that these antibiotic chemicals are no more likely than regular soap to prevent illness,16 so using them is likely to do far more harm than good. In fact, for chronically sick patients, antibiotic soaps have been found to be associated with increases in the frequencies of fevers, runny noses, and coughs.

The CDC began warning against the widespread use of triclosan over a decade ago.17 In a presentation at the 2000 Emerging Infectious Diseases Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Stuart B. Levy from Tufts University School of Medicine stated:

“The antibacterial substances added to diverse household cleaning products are similar to antibiotics in many ways. When used correctly, they inhibit bacterial growth. However, their purpose is not to cure disease but to prevent transmission of disease-causing microorganisms to non-infected persons. Like antibiotics, these products can select resistant strains and, therefore, overuse in the home can be expected to propagate resistant microbial variants.

How to Properly Wash Your Hands to Stop Spread of Infection

Getting back to basics is often the best advice, and that definitely applies here. Good old-fashioned hand washing with plain soap and water is one of the oldest and most powerful antibacterial treatments there is; no harsh disinfectants or microbial soaps required. What you do need, however, is proper hand washing technique. To make sure you’re actually removing the germs when you wash your hands, follow these guidelines:

Use lukewarm water. (Hot water doesn’t kill bacteria better than cooler water when it comes to handwashing, but wastes exorbitant amounts of energy. According to one recent study,18 the energy Americans waste each year simply by washing their hands in hot water is equivalent to the total annual fuel use of Barbados.)
Use a mild soap
Work up a good lather, all the way up to your wrists, for at least 10 or 15 seconds
Make sure you cover all surfaces, including the backs of your hands, wrists, between your fingers, and around and below your fingernails
Rinse thoroughly under running water
In public places, use a paper towel to open the door as a protection from germs that the handles may harbor
Also remember that your skin itself is actually your primary defense against bacteria--not the soap. So there’s no need to become obsessive about washing your hands. Washing too vigorously or too frequently can actually extract many of the protective oils in your skin. This can cause your skin to crack and potentially even bleed, providing germs a point of entry into your body where they can do more harm.

Help Stop the Spread of Antibiotic-Resistant Disease

There are a number of ways you can help curtail the growth and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This includes:

Using antibiotics only when absolutely necessary
Avoiding antibacterial household products
Properly washing your hands to stop the spread of infection
Purchasing organic, antibiotic-free meats and other foods
Reducing the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a significant reason for making sure you're only eating grass-fed, organically-raised meats and animal products. Besides growing and raising your own, buying your food from responsible, high-quality, sustainable sources is your best bet, and I strongly encourage you to support the small family farms in your area. While the problem of antibiotic-resistance really needs to be stemmed through public policy on a nationwide level, the more people who get involved on a personal level to stop unnecessary antibiotic use, the better.

So please, remember that not every bacterial infection needs to be treated with a drug. First, as an all-around preventive measure, you’ll want to make sure your vitamin D level is optimized year-round, especially during pregnancy, along with vitamin K2. A number of other natural compounds can also help boost your immune system function to help rid you of an infection, including:

Oregano (oil of oregano)
Garlic
Echinacea
Manuka honey (for topical application)

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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Another alt-medicine MD, like Dr Mercola, Is Dr Robert Rowen.
Example:
January 10, 2014
Conventional medicine admits vitamin C kills cancer - if you take it the right way
Years ago, Linus Pauling touted vitamin C for cancer. Researchers rushed to conduct studies on its effectiveness against the disease. But the studies failed. So vitamin C doesn't work for cancer, right? Wrong!
The integrative docs could have told you why the studies failed. The studies used oral vitamin C, not intravenous. There is a limit to the amount of oral vitamin C you can take. Too much will cause diarrhea.

However, 10,000 mg taken through IV produces blood concentrations 25 times greater than if you were to take it by mouth. Now the pundits who said vitamin C doesn't work have to eat their words, thanks to a new study.

Respected members of the National Institutes of Health itself conducted this study. According to the study, which appeared in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vitamin C led to the formation of hydrogen peroxide, a chemical that can kill cells. This suggests a potential mechanism for therapy, said lead researcher Dr. Mark Levine. I can't believe it! The NIH actually used the "hydrogen peroxide" words.

Alternative doctors have used massive doses of IV-C for years to treat cancer. Dr. Hugh Riordan reported several cures of cancer. IV-C may stimulate apoptosis (programmed cell death) of cancer cells, while leaving alone normal cells, which have resistance to oxidants. While vitamin C is an antioxidant, in high doses it acts more like an oxidant. And you know my penchant for oxidation therapy.

New Video Reveals

"The only type of CoQ10
you should be taking now"

This Japanese breakthrough helps you achieve higher levels in your bloodstream, more energy and even better antioxidant protection.

Watch The Video Now
Hydrogen peroxide is a miracle cure that conventional medicine has bad mouthed for years. They've denied you access by deliberately telling you falsehoods in the interest of the drug companies. The hydrogen peroxide molecule is a chemical mediator for a variety of essential chemical reactions in all of your cells. Intravenous administration of peroxide is the least expensive way to go. But if unavailable, due to corrupt medical politics, high dose IV-C could be your best friend for infections and even cancer. Most any complementary physician can provide IV-C for you.
I'm grateful for the open mindedness of these few researchers at the ivory towers. The tragedy in this story is that you can be sure that your oncologist won't try IV-C even if you are sure to die. You see, it's just not proper medicine to try to save your life with something that won't hurt you and that might theoretically help. So take this information to your integrative physician. Your life, and not medical dogma, comes first to him.

Yours for better health and medical freedom,
Also -- calcium + magnesium for weight loss:
http://robert-rowen-md.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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QUOTE
By Dr. Mercola

Your gastrointestinal tract houses some 100 trillion bacteria—about two to three pounds worth. In all, the bacteria outnumber your body's cells by about 10 to 1.

Your intestinal bacteria are part of your immune system, and researchers are discovering that microbes of all kinds play instrumental roles in countless areas of your health. For example, beneficial bacteria, also known as probiotics, have been shown to:

Modulate your immune response and reduce inflammation
Produce vitamins, absorb minerals, and eliminate toxins
Control asthma and reduce risk of allergies
Benefit your mood and mental health
Boost weight loss
Beneficial bacteria also control the growth of disease-causing bacteria by competing for nutrition and attachment sites in your colon. This is of immense importance, as pathogenic bacteria and other less beneficial microbes can wreak havoc with your health if they gain the upper hand. It can also affect your weight, as you'll see below.

For all of these reasons, and more, I always recommend a diet rich in whole, unprocessed foods along with cultured or fermented foods. A high-quality probiotic supplement can also be a helpful ally to restore healthful balance to your microbiotia—especially when taking antibiotics.

The Diet-Bacteria-Weight Connection

Bacterial imbalance in your gut can be made worse by processed foods and foods that have been pasteurized or sterilized. Other factors affecting your gut flora include where you live, your age, your stress level, and any health issues you may have. Like processed foods, sugar also promotes the growth of disease-causing yeasts and fungi.

Symptoms of a yeast (candida) overgrowth include fatigue, depression, irritability, headaches, problems concentrating, muscle weakness, recurrent vaginal and urinary tract infections, athlete's foot, jock itch, persistent heartburn, indigestion, constipation, swollen joints, nasal congestion, and sore throat.1

In case you don't have reason enough yet to re-evaluate your sugar and fructose intake, here's another twist in the sugar-obesity connection: researchers have discovered a difference in gut bacteria between the overweight and those of normal weight.2

In the obese, a bacterial strain known as firmicutes is found in much greater abundance than in leaner individuals. In those of normal weight, the bacteroidetes strain is in greater supply.

The firmicutes bacteria appear to be much better than the bacteroidetes strain at turning calories from complex sugars into fat. As those who are overweight begin to slim down, the bacterial balance shifts from predominantly firmicutes to predominantly bacteroidetes. Research published last year discovered that as much as 20 percent of the substantial weight loss achieved from gastric bypass, a popular weight loss surgery, is actually due to shifts in the balance of bacteria in your digestive tract.3

Bacteria Can Affect Your Food Cravings, and Weight Loss Success

According to the most recent study, a strain of friendly bacteria called Lactobacillus rhamnosus also appears to be quite helpful for weight loss in women.4 As reported in the featured article:

"The controlled clinical trial was set up so that the first 12 weeks women were guided to eat less food and some were additionally given the Lactobacillus rhamnosus. After 12 weeks the amount of weight loss was greater in the group receiving the friendly flora supplement.

Over the next 12 weeks the dietary restrictions were lifted, and the friendly flora was continued. Those women not taking Lactobacillus rhamnosus now gained weight, whereas the friendly flora group continued to lose weight. The weight loss benefit was linked to measurements of the bacterial profile of the digestive tract. This study is the latest to show that the balance of power in the digestive tract is a metabolic variable of high importance and nothing to ignore as part of a long-term successful weight loss plan."

As it relates to weight management, one hypothesis states that your gut bacteria may in fact be in control of your appetite. Recent research5 suggests there's a positive-feedback loop between the foods you crave and the composition of the microbiota in your gut that depend on those nutrients for their survival. Microbes that thrive on sugar, for example, can signal your brain to eat more sweets. Other studies6,7 have shown that certain bacteria found in your gut can produce insulin resistance and weight gain by triggering chronic low-grade inflammation in your body. Three such culprits include:

Endotoxin-producing Enterobacter8
Staphylococcus aureus9 (an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria)
The human adenovirus-36 (a cause of respiratory infections and pinkeye)
Yet another recent study revealed that a breath test of the gases given off by your gut bacteria might actually be able to predict your likelihood of becoming obese. The study found that people with high levels of hydrogen and methane in their breath are more likely to have a higher body-mass index (BMI) and proportion of body fat.10 This, the researchers believe, may be because the related gut bacteria influence your body's ability to extract calories from food, leading to weight gain.

Diets, Not Borders, Dictate Gut Bacteria

It's important to understand that while your gut microbes may have a tremendous say in you bodily processes, YOU are ultimately in control of your intestinal microflora—through the foods you eat. Science News11 recently ran an article about how local diets dictate the bacterial balance found in residents. For example, despite living on opposite ends of the Earth, people in Malawi and the Guahibo of Venezuela have similar microbial makeup, courtesy of the similarities between their native diets.

"Americans, on the other hand, have a distinctive microbiome with about 25 percent less diversity than indigenous Venezuelans," the article states.

One of the primary differences between the diets is meat consumption. Malawian and Guahibo diets are high in corn and cassava, with an occasional piece of meat. Americans, on the other hand, are far more carnivorous, and also eat far more bread, lettuce and tomatoes, potatoes, pasta, milk and dairy products. The microbial makeup of the three groups reveals these dietary differences. Needless to say, altering your diet has a direct impact on the microbial community residing in your gut—for better or worse. According to Science News:12

"A more recent study found that major diet shifts can change the mix of gut microbes noticeably in just a day. Omnivores switching to a diet of all animal products saw the biggest change, as some bacteria boomed and others declined. Microbes settled back to their previous profiles a day or two after subjects returned to their usual diets..." [Emphasis mine]

A More Complete Understanding of the Gut Could Change Modern Medicine...

There are three major collaborative efforts underway that help deepen our understanding of the human microbiome:

The International Human Microbiome Consortium13
The US National Institute of Health's Human Microbiome Project14
The American Gut Project
So far, the NIH's Human Microbiome Project alone has produced 190 scientific papers, along with a repository of resources that scientists can access to explore the relationships between human gut bacteria and disease. The American Gut Project decided to take it a step further by allowing the American public to participate.15 All the gathered information from this project will eventually be made public. It's an extremely ambitious project seeking to identify the parameters for the ideal gut flora, and how your diet affects it.

What's particularly exciting about the American Gut Project is the fact that it will allow us to really evaluate and compare the effects of a very diverse conglomeration of lifestyles. Scientific studies almost always focus on carefully chosen groups of people who are studied for a specific purpose, typically to confirm or debunk a hypothesis. This project, on the other hand, will crack the lid open on the effects on gut flora of a myriad of lifestyle choices, by people of all ethnicities and ages.

If we can better understand how diet and lifestyle—whether by choice or necessity—affect your microbial makeup, doctors may eventually be able to precisely address health problems and disease through dietary prescriptions known to shift the microbial population in one direction or another.

Diet and Lifestyle Dos and Don'ts

Granted, I don't see any point in waiting for such confirmations. The fundamentals are already quite well understood, and include a rather concise list of dos and don'ts. When it comes to diet, you want to eat mostly whole, fresh, unadulterated foods, taking pains to avoid sugars and processed/pasteurized and genetically engineered foods of all kinds. Add to that a healthy amount of traditionally fermented foods each day and you're off to a good start.

A strong case can be made for eating organic to protect your gut flora as agricultural chemicals take a heavy toll on beneficial microbes—both in the soil in which the food is grown, and in your body. Glyphosate (Roundup), used in particularly hefty amounts on genetically engineered crops, appears to be among the worst of the most widely used chemicals in food production. As for general lifestyle advice, you'll want to avoid well-known culprits that kill beneficial bacteria, such as:

Antibiotics (also note that most store-bought beef typically comes from cattle raised with antibiotics. To avoid getting a low dose of antibiotics in every piece of meat you eat, make sure your meat is grass-fed and finished)
Chlorinated water
Antibacterial soap
Pollution
Foods 'for Life'

In contrast to the pesticide effect of processed foods and sugar on the state of your health, fermented foods act as natural fertilizers, if you will—providing nutrients and promoting growth of healthy bacteria in your digestive tract. For ages, humans have used fermented foods to improve intestinal health. As an added boon, fermented foods are also some of the best chelators and detox agents available, meaning they can help rid your body of a wide variety of toxins, including heavy metals and pesticides. Examples of healthy fermented foods include:

Sauerkraut, pickles, and other fermented vegetables
Fermented dairy products, such as yoghurt and kefir made from raw (unpasteurized) dairy
Miso
Tempeh
Olives
To Be 'Alive,' the Food Must Be Unprocessed and Not Pasteurized...

It is important to note that traditionally fermented foods are not the equivalent of the same foods, commercially processed and pasteurized.16 Fortunately, preparing your own fermented foods at home is quite easy, and very cost effective. For instructions, please see my previous interview with Caroline Barringer, a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (NTP), and an expert in the preparation of the gut-nourishing foods prescribed in Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride's Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) Nutritional Program.

Caroline recommends eating about a quarter to half a cup (2 to 4 oz) of fermented vegetables or other cultured food, such as raw yoghurt, with one to three meals per day. Bear in mind that since cultured foods are efficient detoxifiers, you may experience detox symptoms if you introduce too many at once. So start with very small servings—as little as a teaspoon of fermented vegetables, for example, or even just a spoon or two of the juice—and slowly work your way up to the quarter to half cup serving size. This way your intestinal microbiota has the chance to adjust.

For Optimal Health, Pay Attention to Your Gut

Two things are clear:

Sufficient amounts of friendly bacteria are fundamental to your good health. It's impossible to be optimally healthy if your gut's bacterial balance is out of whack.
Your lifestyle –your diet, medications, the antibacterial cleansers you use, and other factors outside your control – are working together to compromise the number of lifesaving friendly bacteria in your digestive system.
Maintaining a good balance of gut bacteria through diet is one of the most important things you can do to increase your chances of remaining healthy and vital for a lifetime. Remember, a gut-healthy diet is one that is rich in whole, unprocessed, unsweetened foods, along with traditionally fermented or cultured foods. And, although I'm not a major proponent of taking many supplements (as I believe the majority of your nutrients need to come from food), probiotics is an exception if you don't eat fermented foods on a regular basis.

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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By Dr. Mercola

Many exercise systems often sound great at first, but in reality simply will not make a good fit for your life.

Thankfully, there is something else you can try called bodyweight exercising, which is so flexible that it answers every possible concern you might have, including time constraints, prohibitive cost, and location issues.

Bodyweight exercise got its name because your own body provides all the resistance needed to help you get fit... and it does so at your own pace, without requiring a personal trainer to design the perfect system for your lifestyle and fitness level.

You likely already know that exercise is necessary to achieve high level health and a long life. What is not always clear is how you should go about it. There are countless different plans and theories about how to exercise.

Only you can choose a regimen that will fit into your personal lifestyle, in terms of time, equipment, travel to a gym or not, indoors versus outdoors, etc. Bodyweight exercises are some of the most flexible, since all you need is your own body.

You can do them anywhere, anytime, at your own pace and level, alone or with a friend—even if you and your friend are at different levels. It doesn't cost a single penny. The method is not only effective, allowing you to train every muscle in your body, but it's simple and allows you to work out at your own pace.

Because of the convenience factor, bodyweight exercises have been catching on—but many folks are performing them incorrectly. This is a real concern, because exercising incorrectly is an ineffective waste of time and may set the stage for a serious injury.

Health Benefits of Bodyweight Exercise

In the Huffington Post, Dave Smith discusses some of the greatest benefits of bodyweight exercise:1

Workouts are highly efficient. As Dave points out, the goal is fitness, not to look like "Arnold circa 1977." No equipment means that there's minimal time transitioning from one exercise in your self-defined set to the next, so your heart rate is boosted quickly and keeps pumping.
You get both cardiovascular and strength training. It is not necessary to do two separate workouts to achieve both types of fitness. Simply alternating exercise sets from cardiovascular to strength training keeps your pulse up.
Your core strength is improved. The Mayo Clinic tells us that 29 muscle pairs located in the pelvis, abdomen and lower back form the core that's needed to support your body and maintain balance.2 Your athletic ability, posture, and all the little things you do every day—like just plain sitting or doing the laundry—will be improved when your core is strengthened and stabilized.
You'll be more flexible. Increased strength without improved flexibility won't do you much good. Good posture and athletic performance require good flexibility. Inability to stretch and bend is related to lack of flexibility.
Your balance will improve. As you progress into more difficult variations of exercises, your ability to balance is trained. Better balance helps you achieve better body control. Since age and infirmity do not usually hinder performance of bodyweight exercises, they may be a great way for the elderly to maintain and improve balance.
With Bodyweight Exercising, You Are Your Own Personal Trainer!

Bodyweight exercise can be done by just about anyone. One study found benefits for stroke patients.3 If bodyweight exercise can help someone who's suffered a major stroke and has difficulty walking, it would seem that nearly anyone could benefit.

Adaptability is what makes this system so good: it's adjustable to almost anyone, from the least fit to the professional athlete. Just learn the basics and try different approaches until you find what works best for you. Just be sure you are performing the exercises correctly! There are five exercises that tend to be performed wrong, as this article in Men's Health4 discusses. Let's walk through each of them, and perhaps there are some modifications you'll want to implement, in order to maximize your workouts.

1. Trade in Your Triceps Dip for a Plank-to-Triceps Extension

Unfortunately, the popular triceps dip is one of the worst moves for building fuller, stronger arms, because it places your shoulder joints in an unstable position and overloads the small muscles of your rotator cuff, which raises your risk for injury. Instead, substitute the plank-to-triceps extension in the following manner:

"Start to get into a pushup position, but bend your elbows and rest your weight on your forearms instead of on your hands. Your body should form a straight line from your shoulders to your ankles. Without allowing your lower back posture to change, contract your triceps, press your palms into the floor, and lift your elbows off the floor until your arms are completely straight. You should now be in a pushup position. Slowly lower to the start position. Do 15 to 20 repetitions with perfect form."

2. Slow Down, Mountain Man

Doing mountain climber quickly invariably results in sloppy form, unless you are one of the strongest elite athletes. Putting this type of strain on your spine increases your risk of a back injury. But if you slow it down, the exercise will be safer and far more effective.

"Start in a pushup position with your arms completely straight. Brace your abs, and hold them that way for the entire movement. Without changing your lower-back posture, lift your right foot off the floor and raise your knee as close to your chest as you can. Touch the floor with your right foot, and then return to the starting position. Repeat with your left leg. Alternate back and forth for 30 reps total.

If you perform a cross-body mountain climber, raise your right knee toward your left elbow, lower, and then raise your left knee to your right elbow. Minimize the rotation in your lower back as you alternate back and forth."

3. Squat Like a Prisoner



Squats are one of the best functional exercises out there, promoting mobility and balance, and helping you complete real-world activities with ease. Squats also help you to burn more fat, because they build so much muscle. Squats have sometimes been criticized for being destructive to your knees, but research shows that when done properly, squats actually improve knee stability and strengthen connective tissue. With just a slight modification, you can use squats to work your back, arms, and posture—all at the same time!

In this "Prisoner Squat" variation, instead of holding your hands out in front of your body as you squat, place your fingers on the back of your head and hold your elbows out (as if you're being arrested). Stick your chest out, pull your elbows and shoulders back, and keep your back muscles contracted hard throughout the entire squat. When you return to standing, squeeze your shoulder blades together to create maximum tension.

For added challenge and variety, try modifications such as split squats, sissy squats, pistol squats, and goblet squats. But before getting fancy, however, make sure you can perform a basic, perfect squat, as Darin Steen demonstrates in the video above. And for the ultimate, try super-slow squats. By slowing down your movement and focusing on control, you're actually turning your regular old squats into a high-intensity exercise, which science is proving provides greater benefits than low-intensity workouts.

4. Think You Have Pushups Down? Think Again



Just as with triceps dips, there have been many torn or strained rotator cuffs from performing pushups incorrectly. Even done correctly, standard pushups will start to lose effectiveness over time if you don't add in new challenges. Make sure you can master the perfect pushup before you begin modifying it.

During a pushup, many people allow their elbows to flare out, which causes immense stress on their shoulders. The idea is to keep your elbows at a 45-degree angle from your body—and close to your body—when you're in the bottom position. This also reduces the amount of work your pecs have to do. You can make the exercise more challenging with the following modification:

"To make your chest work harder, use this rest and pause technique. Perform as many pushups as you can, and then rest for 20 seconds. Repeat once more. Finally, finish with one last round of pushups to failure. The result: a pumped-up chest and healthy shoulders."

5. Stepping Outside Your Box

Box jumps have become quite popular with the advent of CrossFit, but they are associated with a fair number of injuries, especially from jumping backward off a box. When jumping off backward, you tend to land with your weight forward for balance. This can produce an abrupt stretch of your Achilles tendons—and the last thing you want is a torn Achilles! Therefore, instead of jumping backward off the box, simply step down. This will slow down the pace, which makes the exercise more controlled, safer and more effective. Men's Health also suggests some total body extensions:

"Stand with your feet slightly wider than hip-width apart, toes forward. Push your hips back as if you're about to sit in a chair, and lower your body. Let your arms hang by your hips with your palms facing behind you. In one swift motion, swing your arms straight overhead, and explosively stand up by thrusting your hips forward and rising up on your toes. Immediately return to the start position. Continue to do as many reps as you can for one minute."

Exercising Properly Reaps Countless Rewards

Bodyweight exercise is effective and frees you from the expenses and restrictions of many other exercise programs. However, it's critical to understand that you shouldn't just go flinging your body around or acting as if you're immune to injury. If you focus on proper form, you will gain the most benefit and minimize your injury risk.

Every person is different, so there are many "correct" ways to exercise. Because we're all different, what works for one person may do little for another. Experiment a little! If you can tolerate a bit of "fumbling around" until you find the exercise routine that works best for you, the benefits to your mental and physical health will be immeasurable!

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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QUOTE
Fish Oil Cited in Dramatic Healing After Severe Brain Trauma
February 09, 2014 | 41,280 views


By Dr. Mercola

Omega-3 rich fish oil is one of the most well-researched nutrients on the market. Its wide ranging health benefits have been repeatedly proven, and animal-based omega-3 fats are one of the few supplements I recommend for virtually everyone to improve overall health.

It's particularly critical for your brain health, and as the featured article and my interview with JJ Virgin shows, it may even help heal and restore brain function after a traumatic brain injury. Recent research also suggests that fish oil can help slow down age-related brain atrophy.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), some 1.7 million traumatic brain injuries occur in the US each year, making the prospect of utilizing fish oil very exciting. It's inexpensive, and although it does act as a blood thinner, which could be contraindicated in some instances, its side effects are virtually all beneficial.

According to leading omega-3 expert Dr. Barry Sears, there are currently seven cases in the medical literature describing the use of fish oil for traumatic brain injury—each one of them successfully so.

16-Year-Old Defies Death Following Fish Oil Treatment

The featured CNN article describes the tragedy and triumph of 16-year-old Grant Virgin, who suffered a wide range of injuries in a hit-and-run car accident. His injuries included skull fractures, spinal fractures, and bleeding throughout his brain. Doctors didn't give his parents any hope for recovery. Instead of shrugging their shoulders in acceptance, his parents were indignant.

"It's like, how dare you not fight for my son's life?' said JJ Virgin.

'It really took us... getting very aggressive and assertive to save our son's life, because they weren't going to do it... They told us to let him go,'" his mother told CNN.1

From that moment forward -- time and time again -- they would go against doctor's orders. That included trying unconventional, untested therapies -- anything that might help Grant. One in particular involved giving him high doses of omega-3 fatty acids (found in fish oil). Fish oil is what the Virgin family believes ultimately -- dramatically -- altered his life course, and healed his brain.

The Virgin family learned about fish oil from friends who had caught a previous CNN report about fish oil being used in cases of severe brain trauma. Grant's mother, JJ Virgin, tracked down Dr. Barry Sears who, in 2006, consulted on the case of Randal McCloy—a miner who had suffered brain injuries from carbon monoxide.

In that case, which was the first time fish oil entered the medical literature as a treatment for brain trauma, it was McCloy's neurosurgeon who called on Dr. Sears' expertise in a last-ditch effort to rescue his patient. As reported in the featured article:

"'There is no known solution, there's no known drug, there's nothing that we have really to offer these sorts of patients,' said Bailes, co-director of NorthShore Neurological Institute in Evanston, Illinois, during a previous interview...

The theory behind fish oil as a therapeutic intervention for traumatic brain injury is at once simple and complex. Simply stated, the brain's cell wall is, in part, composed of omega-3 fatty acids.

'If you have a brick wall and it gets damaged, wouldn't you want to use bricks to repair it?' said Dr. Michael Lewis, founder of the Brain Health Education and Research Institute. 'By supplementing using (omega-3 fatty acids) in substantial doses, you provide the foundation for the brain to repair itself.'"

Fish Oil—A Potent Anti-Inflammatory

Omega-3 fats, which help fight inflammation throughout your body, also helps quell inflammation in your brain. After a traumatic injury, the brain inflammation that occurs can continue for long periods of time unless, as Dr. Sears states, "there's a second response that turns it off."

Fish oil, it appears, can help do just that, when given in sufficiently high doses. After spending nine weeks in acute care, Grant was transferred into a rehabilitation hospital where he began receiving 20 grams of fish oil a day. (His parents had reportedly been sneaking fish oil to him while he was still in emergency care, but not at that high a dosage). Two days later, his mother received a late-night phone call from her son.

"Forty-eight hours after receiving high-dose fish oil, Grant Virgin asked a nurse for a cell phone to call his mother, and proceeded to have a conversation with her. 'Unbelievable,' she said. 'Unbelievable.' Unbelievable, especially considering that was only two months after Grant Virgin's parents had been told to 'let him go,'" CNN writes.



Today, 16 months after the accident, Grant continues to make progress. According to the Virgin family, none of this would be possible had they blindly accepted what conventional medicine had to offer—which was basically nothing... except waiting for their son to die. Grant's recovery has prompted Drs. Sears and Bailes to study omega-3's benefits for brain trauma more intently. According to CNN, Dr. Bailes receives research funding from fish oil manufacturers. As reported by CNN:

"They are on the cusp of beginning a broader study to find out if omega-3 can be a useful intervention for some people after traumatic brain injury. The Virgin family, based on their own dramatic experience, is sure that omega-3 will do for others what it did for their son. 'OK, what if it didn't do anything?' said John Virgin. 'It certainly couldn't hurt, but what if you have this kind of result?'"

A 2011 study published in the journal Military Medicine2 also showed the neuroprotective effects of fish oil, concluding that: "Given the safety profile, availability, and affordability of n-3 FA [omega-3 fatty acids], Generally Recognized As Safe amounts of eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid (up to 3,000 mg daily) should be considered for the athlete and soldier, not only for its general health benefits, but particularly also for those at risk or high exposure to brain impacts." Grant was given two to five grams of fish oil per day, averaging about 3 grams (3,000 mg), making this research particularly applicable.

Omega-3 Helps Protect the Elderly Brain

In related news,3 a recently published study in the journal Neurology4 reports that "older women with the highest levels of omega-3 fats, found in fish oil, had better preservation of their brain as they aged than those with the lowest levels, which might mean they would maintain better brain function for an extra year or two."

The researchers assessed the omega-3 fat levels in the red blood cells of more than 1,100 participants in the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study. The average age of the participants was 70. Eight years later, their brain volumes were measured using an MRI scan. The women whose omega-3 levels were the highest—7.5 percent—at the outset of the study, had 0.7 percent larger brain volume eight years later. Their hippocampus, which plays an important role in memory formation, was also 2.7 percent larger.

The researchers summarized their findings stating that "we did not find an association between RBC DHA + EPA levels and age-associated cognitive decline in a cohort of older, dementia-free women." However, their findings do suggest that omega-3 can be helpful in slowing down age-related brain atrophy. Brain shrinkage tends to be accelerated in those with Alzheimer's, making preserving your brain a key facet of Alzheimer's prevention. According to Bloomberg:5

"...more studies are needed to look at what that means for memory, said James Pottala, the lead study author. 'Omega-3s are building blocks for brain cell membranes' said Pottala... If achieving certain omega-3 levels 'can prevent or delay dementia, that would have huge mental health benefits, especially since levels can be safely and inexpensively raised through diet and supplementation.'"

Professor Pottala also indicated that previous studies have shown that eating non-fried oily fish twice a week and taking fish oil supplements, can raise your mean red blood cell level of EPA and DHA to 7.5 percent—the same level as the women with the highest omega-3 levels had in this study.

How Omega-3 Affects Brain Function

Previous research6 has also confirmed the beneficial effect of omega-3 fat on brain function in youngsters, concluding that DHA intake is a "robust modulator of functional cortical activity." Another shorter chain omega-3 fat, ALA (alpha-linolenic acid), has also been affirmed as important for the normal brain development of children up to the age of 18.

The study included 33 healthy boys between the ages of eight and 10, who were randomly assigned to receive a daily dose of either 400 mg of DHA, 1,200 mg of DHA, or a placebo, for two months. They then measured the boys' brain activation patterns using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), while the boys were playing video games.

In the group receiving the highest daily dose, the DHA levels in the membrane of red blood cells (erythrocytes) increased by a whopping 70 percent. The lower dose group saw an increase of 47 percent, while the placebo group had an 11 percent reduction in DHA levels while performing this type of sustained attention task.

The fMRI data indicate that there were significant increases in the activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex part of the brain in the groups receiving supplemental DHA. This is an area of your brain that is associated with working memory. They also noticed changes in other parts of the brain, including the occipital cortex (the visual processing centre) and the cerebellar cortex (which plays a role in motor control). The researchers noted:

"These findings suggest that this imaging paradigm could be useful for elucidating neurobiological mechanisms underlying deficits in cortical activity in psychiatric disorders associated with DHA deficiencies, including ADHD and major depression."

Krill Oil vs. Fish Oil: What's the Better Source?

From my perspective, based on medical experience and overwhelming scientific evidence, making sure you're getting enough omega-3 in your diet, either from wild salmon or a high quality omega-3 supplement like krill oil, is absolutely crucial for your optimal health. While a helpful form of omega-3 can be found in flaxseed, chia, hemp, and a few other foods, the most beneficial form of omega-3 -- containing two fatty acids, DHA and EPA, which are essential to fighting and preventing both physical and mental disease -- can only be found in fish and krill.7

Unfortunately, nearly all fish, from most all sources, are now severely contaminated with toxic mercury, which is why I have amended my previous recommendations to consume fish on a routine basis. It's simply not advisable for most people any longer. About the only exception to this rule is wild-caught Alaskan salmon. This is really the ONLY fish I'll eat on a regular basis, and the only one I feel comfortable recommending as a good source of healthful fats. It is regularly tested and found to have no significant level of Fukushima radiation.

I strongly recommend avoiding farmed salmon, as they contain only about half of the omega-3 levels of wild salmon. Farmed salmon may also contain a range of harmful contaminants, including environmental toxins, synthetic astaxanthin, and genetically engineered organisms from the grain feed they're given.

My favorite recommendation though for a source of high-quality omega-3 fats is krill oil. The omega-3 in krill is attached to phospholipids that increase its absorption, which means you need less of it, and it won't cause belching or burping like many other fish oil products. Additionally, it contains almost 50 times more astaxanthin, a potent antioxidant, than fish oil. This prevents the highly perishable omega-3 fats from oxidizing before you are able to integrate them into your cellular tissue. In laboratory tests, krill oil remained undamaged after being exposed to a steady flow of oxygen for 190 hours. Compare that to fish oil, which went rancid after just one hour. That makes krill oil nearly 200 times more resistant to oxidative damage compared to fish oil!

When purchasing krill oil, you'll want to read the label and check the amount of astaxanthin it contains. The more the better, but anything above 0.2 mg per gram of krill oil will protect it from rancidity. To learn more about the benefits of krill oil versus fish oil, please see my interview with Dr. Rudi Moerck, a drug industry insider and an expert on omega-3 fats.

Omega-3: One of the Most Important Supplements You Can Take

As a general rule, I'm not a fan of taking many supplements. Not because there's question about their safety—dietary supplements are among THE safest products on the market; a whopping 62,000 times safer than prescription drugs—and provided you're using a high-quality product, they can be very effective in helping ameliorate a vast range of ailments rooted in nutritional deficiencies. That said, I firmly believe optimal health comes from optimal nutrition—which requires whole foods. You can't fool your body by taking handfuls of supplements while still eating a junk food diet.

Krill oil, however, is one of my exceptions because most Americans are seriously deficient in omega-3 fats. In fact, omega-3 deficiency is likely the sixth biggest killer of Americans. Low concentrations of EPA and DHA have been shown to result in an increased risk of death from all causes and accelerate cognitive decline. Those suffering from depression have also been found to have lower levels of omega-3 in their blood than non-depressed individuals.

Complicating matters further, most people consume far too many damaged omega-6 fats from processed foods. And, unfortunately, the ideal food source, fish, has been sorely compromised by pollution, which makes supplementation with a high-quality animal-based omega-3 fat like krill all the more important.

Pregnant women need to pay particular heed to this advice, as most women have major deficiencies of this fat, and that can spell trouble for your child. It's important to realize that your body cannot form omega-3 fats, so a fetus must obtain all of its omega-3 fats from his mother's diet. Hence, a mother's dietary intake and plasma concentrations of DHA directly influence the DHA status of the developing fetus, which can impact your child's brain development.

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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Best source of quality fish oil made in the US that I am aware of -

http://www.greenpasture.org/public/Home/index.cfm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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Legion wrote:Best source of quality fish oil made in the US that I am aware of -

http://www.greenpasture.org/public/Home/index.cfm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Thanks, Legion. Appears they are well aware of the NWO also.

Do you recommend the cod liver oil - or the blend with butter oil? (or other?)

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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Its fairly expensive just like any non-synthetic stuff that is good for you. Wasn't the article promoting Krill oil more so than a fish oil? What about a good source to get your krill oil? He doesn't seem to be a big fan of fish and oils unless its very high quality. Why not just purchase mercola's salmon oil which is way cheaper than his krill oil and to my knowledge it does the same thing? To quote him to answer my own question here is a quote to the link >>>>> http://products.mercola.com/salmon-oil/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Top 5 Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is Virgin Salmon Oil tested for heavy metal contamination? Should I be concerned about mercury?

A: Mercury and heavy metal contamination is always a concern with any fish oil. In my opinion, it should be the first question you ask any supplier.

Fish oil derived from farmed or commercially raised salmon can contain far more PCBs, dioxins, pesticide residues, and even mercury than oil from wild salmon from unpolluted waters.

Our manufacturer has a high-quality purification process in place for detecting and filtering out common fish toxins. Additionally, an independent lab tests each batch of fish oil for mercury, PCBs, pesticides, dioxins, and other heavy metals.
Q: Is Virgin Salmon Oil from wild or farmed salmon?

A: My Virgin Salmon Oil is sourced only from wild-caught Alaskan Sockeye Salmon.
Q: How does Virgin Salmon Oil differ from Krill Oil?

A: Both Virgin Salmon Oil and Krill Oil are excellent sources of animal-based omega-3 essential fatty acids.

Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon have one of the highest concentrations of omega-3s of any other fish. My Salmon Oil provides up to 240 mg each of two of the most important omega-3s – DHA and EPA.

Krill are small, sustainable shrimp-like creatures harvested from the frigid Antarctic waters. Although the amount of actual DHA and EPA provided by Krill may be less than salmon oil, the bioavailability is much greater, thanks to a unique phospholipid binding that allows the omega-3s to cross cell membranes.* And krill oil contains an added bonus – astaxanthin, to help protect the krill oil from going rancid.*

Whether your choice is my Virgin Salmon Oil or Pure Krill Oil, you know you're receiving a pure source of omega-3 essential fatty acids.
Q: There appear to be extra benefits with krill oil. Why might I want to take salmon oil instead of krill oil?

A: Some people prefer taking fish oil instead of krill oil. Other individuals prefer fish or salmon oil because they are allergic to shellfish like krill.

So the question I want answered, which one then? Is the Krill that much better to be worth the cost or is it fine with the Salmon oil?

Q: How do I know that this source isn't contaminated with genetically engineered salmon?

A: As of this writing, thankfully, genetically engineered salmon has not yet been approved, so there are no contamination issues at this time.

Whether or not it turns out to be true, the company developing the genetically engineered salmon claims all of their fish will be grown as sterile, all-female populations in “escape-proof” land-based facilities so as to pose no threat to wild salmon.

Even More information about Krill oil vs Fish oil.

There is no question that you can benefit from taking a high-quality fish oil. However, Pure Krill Oil offers clear advantages to fish oil in a number of important ways.

You get all the same multi-system health benefits of omega-3-rich fish oil,* including crucial EPA and DHA ...

But Pure Krill Oil also offers:
Krill Oil benefits
Your brain is a huge "consumer" of DHA. Antarctic Pure Krill
Oil is made from krill with health-promoting DHA and choline,
which are absolutely essential not only for adults, but
also for normal fetal and infant brain development!*

MUCH Better Absorption Than Fish Oil*

This means you can take 1/5 the dose – two small capsules rather than 10 large ones. The phospholipid binding increases the bioavailability of the omega-3s, improves the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio and supports healthy cell membrane functioning.*
Superb Antioxidant Protection*

Unique antioxidants – including astaxanthin and a novel marine flavonoid – may protect you from damaging free radicals.*
Pollution-Free

Krill are at the bottom of the food chain and collected far from pollution in the pristine seas surrounding Antarctica. So you don't have to worry about unsafe accumulations of mercury, PCBs, heavy metals or other toxins that low-quality fish oil products may contain.
Ongoing Supply

Krill are a highly renewable source. They are the largest biomass in the ocean and there is simply no risk of causing them to perish from over-harvesting.
Stability

Antarctic Pure Krill Oil is more stable and more resistant to rancidity than conventional fish oils.* This means it will last longer. It will last for TWO years at room temperature. (Please do not refrigerate.)
No Fishy Aftertaste, Reflux Or Other Side Effects

Although fish oil consumption commonly leads to side effects of fishy aftertaste, reflux or belching of fish flavors, this has not occurred with Antarctic Pure Krill Oil. No adverse effects have been noted even at high dosages.
Renewable Food Source

Krill represent a renewable, sustainable and environmentally positive nutrition source. http://krilloil.mercola.com/krill-oil.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Last edited by firebaptismglory on February 16th, 2014, 9:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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DrJones wrote:
Legion wrote:Best source of quality fish oil made in the US that I am aware of -

http://www.greenpasture.org/public/Home/index.cfm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Thanks, Legion. Appears they are well aware of the NWO also.

Do you recommend the cod liver oil - or the blend with butter oil? (or other?)
I've used cod liver oil and skate liver oil for 2 years now...in small doses when I get the courage. Must be good for you based on how bad it tastes. Haven't had very much courage over the past year.

They are also the best source of cold pressed coconut oil that I am aware. I've probably purchased about 15 gallons of that stuff over the past 3 years. Anyways in the last shipment of coconut oil they had a cold liver oil sample using their new blend of coconut oil....that by far tasted better than any of the previous stuff I used. Not completely pleasant...but something I could take on a daily basis without being completely repulsed.

I haven't purchased a bottle yet since I've got to use up the last shipment of coconut oil in order to maximize my bang for buck in shipping.

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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Thanks, Legion.
Next this from Dr Mercola:
New Analysis Claims Vitamin D Supplements Are Useless -- Here’s Why It’s Wrong
February 17, 2014 | 36,019 views

By Dr. Mercola

Last November, researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research1 declared that vitamin supplements are probably useless when it comes to preventing heart disease and/or cancer.

Their seriously flawed analysis (which, sadly, is being used by the US Preventive Services Task Force to update its recommendations on supplement use) was widely reported by the media.2

Now, the attack against vitamin supplements has heated up yet again—this time they're trying to quell the idea that vitamin D, specifically, has any useful purpose for the average person.

Numerous media sources3, 4 have trumpeted the findings of a recent meta-analysis,5 which claims that vitamin D supplements are not only useless against heart disease, stroke and cancer, but may do more harm than good, and that further investigation into vitamin D would likely be "pointless"! According to the authors of the study:

"Available evidence does not lend support to vitamin D supplementation and it is very unlikely that the results of a future6 single randomized clinical trial will materially alter the results from current meta-analyses."

What's more, they also found that people taking vitamin D supplements had an increased risk for hip fracture, which prompted Professor Karl Michaëlsson, a researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden, to publish a call for stricter labeling on vitamin D supplements. In his editorial,7 which accompanied the featured analysis, he writes:

"Without stringent indications -- i.e. supplementing those without true vitamin D insufficiency -- there is a legitimate fear that vitamin D supplementation might actually cause net harm."

It should be noted that the dose given to the women in the study with increased fracture rates was 500,000 IU, all in one dose. This is an intake the body cannot absorb and process properly and the toxicity of the dose itself was not a surprise to the vitamin D researchers. The increased fractures were seen shortly after the huge dose but the rate declined in later months.

Research Shows Vitamin D Sufficiency Is Critical for Good Health

Meanwhile, a robust and rapidly growing body of research clearly shows that vitamin D is absolutely critical for good health and disease prevention, in part due to the fact that it influences about 10 percent of all your genes.

Just one example of an important gene that vitamin D up-regulates is your ability to fight infections and chronic inflammation. It also produces over 200 anti-microbial peptides, the most important of which is cathelicidin, a naturally occurring broad-spectrum antibiotic.

Since the early 2000s, scientific investigations into the effects of vitamin D have ballooned. By the end of 2012, there were nearly 34,000 published studies on the effects of vitamin D, and there are well over 800 references in the medical literature showing vitamin D's effectiveness against cancer alone. According to Carole Baggerly, founder of GrassrootsHealth, as much as 90 percent of ordinary breast cancer may in fact be related to vitamin D deficiency.

Granted, the featured review is rebuking vitamin D supplements only. They're not trying to claim that vitamin D deficiency doesn't have any repercussions for your health. On the contrary, it supports the notion that sun exposure is your best source of vitamin D, as your skin naturally creates it in response to UV radiation.

However, many people, especially those living in northern latitudes, are simply unable to get the necessary sun exposure needed to maintain clinically relevant vitamin D levels of 50-70 ng/ml year-round.

Vitamin D Synthesis is Unlikely During Winter Months...

The US map below shows the likelihood of vitamin D synthesis during February. My Vitamin D Resource page also contains maps showing vitamin D synthesis in various US states for the rest of the year. As you'll see, even if you live in the southernmost states, optimal vitamin D synthesis will not occur until June!



I firmly believe that UVB exposure is a far healthier way to optimize your vitamin D levels, but if you can't use the sun or a safe tanning bed then it is best to use an oral supplement, but please recognize that it's an inferior choice.

Vitamin D supplements are also among the least expensive, and the health impact of deficiency is so broad and detrimental that it simply makes little sense to scare people away from vitamin D supplements—unless you've got some ulterior reason for doing so.

As I will discuss below, you DO benefit from taking other nutrient ratios into account when you use a vitamin D supplement though, which makes supplementation a bit more complex, compared to raising your levels through sun exposure.

Vitamin D Supplements Under Fire

The analysis, published in the journal Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology,8 looked at 40 previously published randomized controlled trials of vitamin D supplements, with or without calcium, concluding that vitamin D supplements do not reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes, cancers, or bone fractures in the general population by more than 15 percent.

What's more, the researchers claim the effects of vitamin D supplementation are below a "futility threshold," (not a surprise when the average dose was 400-800 IU/day, already demonstrated to be ineffective) effectively rendering further investigations unnecessary. Attacks have been repeatedly made against nutritional supplements and the value of nutrition for disease prevention in general, but we may have reached a new low. WebProNews.com even went so far as to say that:

"Further studies show unborn babies do not get any benefits from the vitamin when taken by pregnant women."

The studies were not referenced so it is impossible to understand what led them to this mistake, but I'm firmly convinced that this is incorrect and may lead many mothers completely astray. Your baby will be born with approximately 60-70 percent of whatever your (the mother's) vitamin D level is.

According to Dr. David Ayoub, who has testified in hundreds of cases of infantile rickets misdiagnosed as child abuse, mothers who are deficient in vitamin D, with levels around 18-19 ng/ml, have a significantly greater risk of having children with infantile rickets.

Make no mistake about it: optimizing your vitamin D levels during pregnancy is absolutely CRITICAL for your baby's development. Granted, your best bet is to make sure you're getting plenty of sun exposure. Unfortunately, women in general are heavily indoctrinated to fear sun exposure, which has led to a virtual epidemic of vitamin D deficiency.

Another study9 by the same New Zealand research team, published in October of last year, concluded that people with vitamin D deficiency and evidence of bone loss are the only ones that should be taking vitamin D. This too flies in the face of mounting research from premier vitamin D research organizations such as GrassrootsHealth.10


The Vitamin D Controversy Heats Up

In the featured video at the top of this article, Carole Baggerly interviews Dr. Cedric Garland of UCSD Moores Cancer Center about this latest meta-review.11 Another prominent vitamin D expert and researcher, Dr. Michael F. Holick, M.D., PhD., author of The Vitamin D Solution, has also dismissed the analysis, calling it flawed and "silly." (Incidentally, Dr. Holick is the person responsible for identifying the major circulating form of vitamin D—25-hydroxyvitamin D3—which is the form of vitamin D doctors typically measure now to assess vitamin D status.) According to Dr. Garland:

"This meta-analysis is nothing new and is already obsolete, since it is mainly based on old papers that used too little vitamin D to expect any effect. A New Zealand study saying we should only supplement people with vitamin D deficiency and evidence of bone loss is equally wrong. Virtually everyone in New Zealand, and most adults in the US, are vitamin D deficient by modern criteria, being below 32 ng/ml.

The reality is that we now know that they are deficient with regard to extraskeletal effects of 25(OH)D if their serum level is below 40 ng/ml. These papers should be disregarded as obsolete work. We are moving into a new era of using vitamin D3 in doses no less that 4,000 IU/day for people aged 9 years and older... Studies using less than 4,000 IU/day are on the verge of obsolescence."

Why the Latest Vitamin D Analysis Is Meritless

Drs. Holick and Garland both point out the futility of looking at studies using subclinical doses of vitamin D—they're not going to show results, and for very obvious reasons. Robust evidence shows that 400 IUs of vitamin D per day is nowhere near enough. That's only about one-tenth of the effective dose! The authors of the analysis also did not include any epidemiological research, and completely ignored the most truly relevant randomized controlled trial on vitamin D and cancer.

Research published in 2007 by Lappe et.al.12 showed that after four years of follow up, there was a 77% cancer risk reduction in women who received 1,100 IUs of vitamin D and 1,450 mg calcium per day, and, achieved a serum level of approximately 40 ng/ml. The serum level is the marker we are aiming for. The serum level of those who received either a placebo or calcium by itself was approximately 30 ng/ml. If a 77 percent risk reduction is not relevant, I don't know what is.

"The Lappe et al. study and the many supportive epidemiological studies that preceded and followed it should prove to even the most ill-informed skeptic that vitamin D prevents most cancer," Dr. Garland says. "It is incredible that the authors of this review virtually disregarded all of the relevant epidemiology this randomized controlled clinical trial.

Further, according to Dr. Leo Baggerly, Sr. Research Scientist at GrassrootsHealth, "the authors of this review 'reanalyzed' the results of the Lappe study in a completely invalid manner and included their 'corrected' results in their summary, while virtually disregarding the actual study results."

The analysis' conclusion on vitamin D is in stark contrast to an ever growing number of studies showing that vitamin D (with or without calcium) has tremendous protective effect against cancer specifically. For example, another 2007 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine13 concluded that a serum 25(OH)D level of more than 33 ng/mL was associated with a 50 percent lower risk of colorectal cancer.

A recent Cochrane meta-review14 published in January of this year also concluded that even low dose vitamin D supplementation appears to reduce cancer mortality by almost 15 percent. Theories linking vitamin D deficiency to cancer have been tested and confirmed in more than 200 epidemiological studies, and understanding of its physiological basis stems from more than 2,500 laboratory studies. So, in a nutshell, there are two significant issues that render the featured analysis without merit:

The studies included used vitamin D supplements in doses that are not clinically relevant. Adults need anywhere from 10-20 times the amount used in the studies to protect against heart disease and cancer—4,000 to 8,000 IUs a day, compared to the 400-800 IUs used in the studies
The studies have mistakenly been shooting for vitamin D levels in the 20-30 ng/ml range, which vitamin D experts today believe is HALF of what you really need for disease prevention. Ideally, you'll want a vitamin D level above 50 ng/ml, but a bare minimum of 40 ng/ml is recommended15
As noted Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council, the authors excluded no less than one dozen randomized controlled trials, the majority of which were positive.

"The authors argued that more trials of vitamin D are a waste of money and resources and will be negative," Dr. Cannell writes. "Luckily researchers at Harvard do not agree, as we all wait for their VITAL study results expected around 2017. It is a study of 20,000 healthy Americans, half of which will take an extra 2,000 IU/day compared to a group of 10,000 subjects getting a vitamin D placebo.

The study will measure vitamin D blood levels in all subjects, so we will know if any of the placebo group started taking vitamin D. It will give us specific results for those subjects who obtained blood levels of > 40 ng/ml. The VITAL study will measure dozens of clinical endpoints with cancer and cardiovascular disease being the primary end points. I will be shocked if 2,000 IU/day has no effect on any clinical endpoint."

The study that we are supporting, the D*action study run by GrassrootsHealth, is the only prospective study that actually has 1000's of subjects in the 40-60 ng/ml range. They are tracking many health outcomes such as breast cancer, pain, diabetes, as well as reporting on the dose response information. Initial publications have already been made with kidney stones (no increased risk) and a dose response relationship showing that to get approximately 97% of the population to 40 ng/ml, it will take 10,000 IU/day to achieve that. New papers are to be released soon on a very significant prevention effect with diabetes and pain levels. There is no need to wait to track your own health outcomes and achieve the benefits of the appropriate serum levels.

Are You Vitamin D Deficient?

Some news sources, such as the Star Tribune,16 have noted that high-risk groups such as babies, pregnant women, and the elderly are still advised to take vitamin D supplements. The thing is, a majority of people, regardless of age, sex, or nationality, are in fact low or deficient in vitamin D, and stand to benefit from raising their levels into the clinically significant levels, which is higher than the recommended "normal." (For more information, see the next section below.) Before the year 2000, very few doctors ever considered the possibility that you might be vitamin D deficient. But as the technology to measure vitamin D became inexpensive and widely available, more and more studies were done, and it became increasingly clear that vitamin D deficiency was absolutely rampant. For example:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 32 percent of children and adults throughout the US were vitamin D deficient
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that 50 percent of children aged one to five years old, and 70 percent of children between the ages of six and 11, are deficient or insufficient in vitamin D
Researchers such as Dr. Holick estimate that 50 percent of the general population is at risk of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency
Make Sure Your Levels Are in a Clinically Relevant Range

When it comes to vitamin D, you don't want to be in the "average" or "normal" range, you want to be in the "optimal" range. The reason for this is that as the years have gone by, researchers have progressively moved that range upward. At present, based on the evaluation of healthy populations that get plenty of natural sun exposure, the optimal range for general health appears to be somewhere between 50 and 70 ng/ml. As previously explained by Dr. Holick:

" Both the IOM (Institute of Medicine) and the Endocrine Society acknowledge in treatment guidelines that 10,000 IU/day is considered the No Observed Adverse Effect Level (NOAEL). Most treatments to get serum levels in the 40-60 ng/ml range are likely to be below that level.

GrassrootsHealth has also been looking at this issue and also recommends 40 to 60 nanograms per milliliter as the ideal level (see above)... A study was done in Maasai warriors who are outside every day. That really gives us an insight where we should all be with our blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D. They were found to be around 50 nanograms per milliliter."


Sources

Now Is a Great Time to Test Your Vitamin D Levels

The month of February is typically when you have the least amount of sun exposure, so right now is an ideal time to test your vitamin D levels to get an idea of what your levels are at their lowest. If you're low, take proactive measures to raise your levels, and then retest in mid-summer.

The D*Action Project by GrassrootsHealth is a very cost effective solution. To participate, simply purchase the D*Action Measurement Kit and follow the registration instructions included. (Please note that 100 percent of the proceeds from the kits go to fund the research project. I do not charge a single dime as a distributor of the test kits.)

As a participant, you agree to test your vitamin D levels twice a year during a five-year study, and share your health status to demonstrate the public health impact of this nutrient. There is a $65 fee every six months for your sponsorship of this research project, which includes a test kit to be used at home, and electronic reports on your ongoing progress. You will get a follow up email every six months reminding you "it's time for your next test and health survey."





As for HOW to optimize your vitamin D levels, I firmly believe that appropriate sun exposure is the best way. In fact, I personally have not taken a vitamin D supplement for three or four years, yet my levels are in the 70 ng/ml range. There's a handy smartphone app called DMinder (dminder.info) that will tell you how much UV radiation you're getting and how many IUs of vitamin D you're making based on your local weather conditions (reported from the weather service) and other individual parameters such as your skin tone and age. It will also tell you when to get out of the sun, to protect yourself from sunburn.

If you can't get enough sunshine, then a safe tanning bed would be your next best option. Most tanning equipment use magnetic ballasts to generate light. These magnetic ballasts are well-known sources of EMF fields that can contribute to cancer. If you hear a loud buzzing noise while in a tanning bed, it has a magnetic ballast system. I strongly recommend you avoid these types of beds and restrict your use of tanning beds to those that use electronic ballasts.

If your circumstances don't allow you to access the sun or a safe tanning bed, then you really only have one option if you want to raise your vitamin D, and that is to take a vitamin D supplement. GrassrootsHealth has a helpful chart showing the average adult dose required to reach healthy vitamin D levels based upon your measured starting point. Many experts agree that 35 IUs of vitamin D per pound of body weight could be used as an estimate for your ideal dose.

If you Opt for Oral Vitamin D, Remember Vitamin K2

Last but not least, if you do opt for a vitamin D supplement, you also need to take vitamin K2. The biological role of vitamin K2 is to help move calcium into the proper areas in your body, such as your bones and teeth. It also helps remove calcium from areas where it shouldn't be, such as in your arteries and soft tissues.

Vitamin K2 deficiency is actually what produces the consequences similar to vitamin D toxicity, which includes inappropriate calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries. The reason for this is because when you take vitamin D, your body creates more vitamin K2-dependent proteins that move calcium around in your body. Without vitamin K2, those proteins remain inactivated, so the benefits of those proteins remain unrealized. So remember, if you take supplemental vitamin D, you're creating an increased demand for K2. Together, these two nutrients help strengthen your bones and improve your heart health.

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

Post by BroJones »

Email from Dr Mercola:

By Barbara Loe Fisher

The public flogging of veteran broadcast journalist Katie Couric began on December 4, 2013, immediately after a 17-minute report on HPV and Gardasil vaccine was broadcast on her TV talk show "Katie."1 It was kick-started by a west coast business writer, who administered the first lash with a bizarre take-down of freedom of the press:

"The real punch of the show was its portrayal of HPV vaccination as "controversial," he charged. "Merely to ask questions is to validate them."

He ended with a sucker punch:

"Katie Couric established her credibility as a spokeswoman for preventive medicine more than a decade ago... now she'll be known for promoting junk medicine instead."2

'Is Katie Couric the Next Jenny McCarthy?'

Then, like piranhas in a fish tank full of fresh chum, an online clique of mean girls and bully boys let Katie have it right between the eyes.

"Is Katie Couric the next Jenny McCarthy?" sneered a headline for an article in which a cub reporter sharpened her claws on Couric's credibility by hissing "The damage a former Playboy Bunny has been able to do is bad enough. But Couric's misdeeds are all the worse given that she's taken much more seriously than Jenny McCarthy."3

Continuing with that lame theme, an entertainment writer stuck it to Katie when she suggested that:

"To some, Couric's behavior is even more problematic than McCarthy's, given her stature as a respected journalist and former network news anchor, as well as her previous efforts to educate the public about the fight against cancer."4

One headline screamed "Katie Couric Hands Over Her Show to Anti-Vaccine Alarmists"5 and another one gasped "Why Is Katie Couric Promoting Vaccine Skeptics?" followed by an article written by a photojournalist sniping that "Couric needs to review her priorities."6

Katie Couric: Presenting HPV Information and Perspective

Katie's unforgiveable transgression? On her afternoon talk show, she gave two mothers, who had witnessed their daughters' health suddenly deteriorate after Gardasil shots, an opportunity to speak about what happened.7, 8

She gave an international HPV infection expert,9 who participated in Gardasil vaccine clinical trial research, an opportunity to comment about the effectiveness of Gardasil vaccine and the need for all girls – whether they get vaccinated or not – to get regular pap screening.10

She gave a pediatrician an opportunity to encourage parents to vaccinate their 11-year-old boys and girls because "HPV vaccine does not seem to be any risker than any of the other vaccines we routinely use;"11, 12 and Katie gave a mother and her daughter an opportunity to enthusiastically endorse the vaccine.13

Katie Couric presented information and a range of perspectives about a current topic being discussed by millions of parents and young women in homes and doctors' offices across the country. She did it because she is an intellectually honest journalist, a compassionate mother, and a cancer prevention pioneer.

Fourteen years ago, Katie Couric almost singlehandedly put a human face on the importance of colonoscopy screening, especially for those at high risk when she publicly witnessed about the tragedy of losing her husband and the father of her children to colon cancer.14 After a long and successful career in broadcast journalism, in 2006 she became the first woman to anchor the evening news on a major US TV network.15

An Orchestrated Campaign of Intimidation

The shaming of Katie Couric for caring and daring to ask questions about Gardasil vaccine was a well-orchestrated campaign of intimidation. It was a warning delivered to all journalists that – no matter who you are – your character will be assassinated if you step out of line and question the safety or effectiveness of a government recommended vaccine.

The cyber lynch mob16-22 presenting opinion as unassailable fact delighted in quoting each other and did not reserve their vitriol for Katie. Two mothers on the show were ridiculed for describing their daughters' Gardasil vaccine reaction symptoms, which are similar to those reported by many, many others in the US and around the world.23-43

The credentialed Gardasil vaccine researcher44 on the show was attacked for stating that regular pap tests are the most reliable way of detecting and preventing cervical cancer regardless of vaccination, a position held by cancer prevention experts.45-47

Katie Couric Encourages Informed Vaccine Decision Making

Two days after the public flogging began, Katie interviewed the Assistant Surgeon General48 before authoring an article for The Huffington Post responding to the firestorm with unapologetic professionalism.49 She acknowledged her report could have spent more time putting the statistical risk of suffering a vaccine reaction into greater perspective but she defended the inclusion of mothers reporting Gardasil reactions:

"Some people say their children have suffered from a variety of medical problems after the HPV vaccination, and there have even been a few reports of death," she said. "As a journalist, I felt that we couldn't simply ignore these reports."

Katie reinforced a call for regular pap screening:

"There's been troubling research out of Australia that indicates some women are skipping their Pap tests because they have been vaccinated. That's a terrible idea.

While the vaccine protects against some of the HPV strains that cause cervical cancers, it doesn't protect against all of them and regular Pap smears are essential for life-saving diagnoses," she said.

Katie concluded her statement by encouraging critical thinking and informed vaccine decision-making:

"I had my own two daughters vaccinated against HPV. I hope that other parents will look at the research and the facts, and make a reasoned decision on the HPV vaccine and what is best for their children," she said.

"Not Enough," He Says

However, Katie's clarification prompted one bully to bring out the whip one more time. Under a headline complaining that "Katie Couric Backs Off from Her Anti-Vaccine Show But Not Enough," he snarled:

"The video depictions of mothers and daughters in tears will stay with thousands of Couric's loyal viewers. Her written mea culpa, not so much."50

Perhaps he wanted her to walk across cut glass on her knees and whimper a little on camera so he could be convinced that she would be a good girl from now on and never, ever step out of line again.

Mothers Will Not Stop Witnessing

One thing is as clear today as it was 32 years ago when mothers publicly witnessed how they watched their children suffer brain inflammation or die after being injected with the old, crude, and toxic DPT vaccine.51-64 Clearly, when mothers stand up in the public square today and describe how Gardasil vaccine risks for their daughters turned out to be 100 percent, deniers of vaccine risks get really, really emotional. They get angry and defensive. They gather together in a pack, take out the rope, and start cyber-lynching.

Mothers around the world, who give birth to babies they are responsible for nurturing through infancy and childhood, are not going to stop talking about what happened to their children after vaccination. Mothers are not going to shut up and sit down like good little girls after they witness the bodies and brains of the children they love be destroyed when Gardasil shots go wrong.

Mothers Will Not Stop Thinking Critically

They are not going to stop reading the medical literature and thinking critically about the science65-71 used to justify giving every child the most expensive federally recommended pediatric vaccine on the US market72 to prevent an infection that is cleared by more than 90 percent of people without a problem:73,74

A vaccine developed by NIH researchers75 using GMO technology that was sold by NIH to Merck76 and fast-tracked to licensure using questionable surrogate markers for efficacy77, 78
A vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease that was tested in fewer than 1,200 children under the age of 1679 using a bioactive aluminum "placebo" as a bogus control in clinical trials80-84
A vaccine that was only tested in 1,000 adolescent girls and boys in combination with the federally recommended Tdap and meningococcal vaccines85
A vaccine given by pediatricians shielded from legal accountability for vaccine injuries and deaths, just like vaccine manufacturers are shielded from civil liability in US courts86
A vaccine that by December 13, 2013 had generated nearly 30,000 adverse reaction reports to the US government, including 140 deaths87 - which is only a fraction of the numbers of Gardasil reactions, injuries, and deaths that have actually occurred because most doctors either do not report to the government or make reports directly to Merck.88-90
Federal Awards, Lawsuits, Gardasil Recommendation Withdrawal

Yes, it is illogical to assume that every single one of the reported Gardasil reaction reports and deaths are caused by the vaccine, but it is just as illogical to assume that none of them are caused by the vaccine. But logic has nothing to do with one-size-fits-all vaccine policies that sacrifice individuals, who are biologically or environmentally at high risk for suffering vaccine harm,91 while no research is being done to identify who they are to spare their lives.

Informed mothers know that among the $3 billion in federal compensation that has been awarded to vaccine victims in the US are awards for Gardasil vaccine injuries.92 They know Gardasil vaccine injured girls are suing vaccine manufacturers in France, where citizens can still file product liability lawsuits.93 They know that public health officials in Japan no longer recommend Gardasil vaccine because Japan's government is not writing off every death and case of brain inflammation and autoimmunity following Gardasil shots as just a "coincidence."94

HPV Vaccination Made a Top Public Health Priority in US

In what may or may not be a coincidence, at the end of December, the Centers for Disease Control made HPV vaccination one of the top five "public health priorities" for 2014. In one media article,95 the HPV vaccination rate of 30 percent in the US was compared to the 85 percent vaccination rate in Rwanda, an impoverished, war-torn country where women have been dying in great numbers from cervical cancer because there has been no routine pap screening available to them. In 2011, Merck created a school-based vaccination program for all sixth graders in Rwanda to be injected with three doses of Gardasil vaccine.96

But the United States is not Rwanda. In America, cervical cancer has declined more than 70 percent after pap screening became a routine part of women's health care in the 1960s and, by 2006, pap tests had driven down the numbers of new cases of cervical cancer to 9,700 per year with about 3,700 deaths97 in a US population of more than 300 million people. In the US, the 14,000 annual deaths from six cancers associated with HPV98-104 represent less than three percent of the more than 550,000 cancer deaths that occur every year.

Many Other Public Health Emergencies in US Deserve Priority Status

There are many public health emergencies in our country that cause far more deaths and disabilities but do not receive a fair share of the hundreds of billions of dollars appropriated by Congress to health agencies every year.105 For example:

Between 210,000 and 440,000 hospitalized patients each year suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death106
The US has the worst infant mortality107 and maternal mortality108,109 rates of all developed nations, with 28,000 babies dying before their first birthday110
Millions of children are becoming disabled or dying in the unexplained chronic illness epidemic111 that costs trillions of dollars to treat: one child in six in America is learning disabled;112 one in nine suffers from asthma;113 one in 10 has ADHD;114 1 in 50 develops autism115 and 1 in 450 becomes diabetic.116
Millions more are suffering from mental health problems. One adolescent in five in the US experiences significant symptoms of emotional distress, and one in 10 is emotionally impaired.117
Bigger Market for Merck and HPV Vaccine Mandates?

Perhaps the CDC is simply boosting the congressionally approved, lucrative public-private partnership with Big Pharma118-124 by securing a bigger market for Merck's new 9-strain version of Gardasil scheduled to be licensed in the fall of 2014.125 Or perhaps the Merck-Government-Medical Trade lobby is planning another multi-state roll-out of HPV vaccine mandates for all sixth grade children in the US just like they did in 2007.126-128

Roll Up Your Sleeve - No Questions Asked

Whatever the reasons that government officials made HPV vaccination a top public health priority in the US, the cyber-lynching of Katie Couric and mothers reporting Gardasil vaccine reactions is a warning to parents everywhere. Do not forget that the cruel, dogmatic position of vaccine risk denialism is: roll up your sleeve - no questions asked - and "may the odds be ever in your favor."129, 130

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

Post by BroJones »

My wife makes a great raw cauliflower + peanut salad... yum!

By Dr. Mercola

Cauliflower is a member of the cruciferous family of vegetables, often overshadowed by its green cousin broccoli. This is one vegetable that deserves a regular rotation in your diet, however, as it contains an impressive array of nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other phytochemicals.

Adding to cauliflower's appeal is its extreme versatility. You can eat it raw, add it to salads, or use it in your cooking. Cauliflower can even be seasoned and mashed for a healthier version of "mashed potatoes."

8 Top Health Benefits of Cauliflower

Because of its beneficial effects on numerous aspects of health, cauliflower can easily be described as a superfood. Ten of its most impressive benefits follow:

1. Fight Cancer

Cauliflower contains sulforaphane, a sulfur compound that has also been shown to kill cancer stem cells, thereby slowing tumor growth. Some researchers believe eliminating cancer stem cells may be key to controlling cancer.

For instance, research has shown that combining cauliflower with curcumin (the active compound in the spice turmeric) may help prevent and treat prostate cancer.1

A study published in Carcinogenesis also found sulforaphane may reduce the incidence and rate of chemically induced mammary tumors in animals.2 It also inhibits the growth of cultured human breast cancer cells, leading to cell death.

Other compounds in cauliflower also show anti-cancer effects. According to the National Cancer Institute:3

"Indoles and isothiocyanates have been found to inhibit the development of cancer in several organs in rats and mice, including the bladder, breast, colon, liver, lung, and stomach."

2. Boost Heart Health

Sulforaphane in cauliflower and other cruciferous vegetables has been found to significantly improve blood pressure and kidney function.4 Scientists believe sulforaphane's benefits are related to improved DNA methylation, which is crucial for normal cellular function and proper gene expression, especially in the easily damaged inner lining of the arteries known as the endothelium.

3. It's Anti-Inflammatory

You need some level of inflammation in your body to stay healthy. However, it's also possible, and increasingly common, for the inflammatory response to get out of hand.

If your immune system mistakenly triggers an inflammatory response when no threat is present, it can lead to significant inflammation-related damage to the body, a condition linked to cancer and other diseases, depending on which organs the inflammation is impacting.

Cauliflower contains a wealth of anti-inflammatory nutrients to help keep inflammation in check, including indole-3-carbinol or I3C, an anti-inflammatory compound that may operate at the genetic level to help prevent the inflammatory responses at its foundational level.5

4. It's Rich in Vitamins and Minerals

Most Americans are seriously lacking in nutrients their body needs to function. Eating cauliflower regularly is a simple way to get these much-needed nutrients into your body. For instance, one serving of cauliflower contains 77 percent of the recommended daily value of vitamin C. It's also a good source of vitamin K, protein, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, fiber, vitamin B6, folate, pantothenic acid, potassium, and manganese.

5. Boost Your Brain Health

Cauliflower is a good source of choline, a B vitamin known for its role in brain development. Choline intake during pregnancy "super-charged" the brain activity of animals in utero, indicating that it may boost cognitive function, and improve learning and memory. It may even diminish age-related memory decline and your brain's vulnerability to toxins during childhood, as well as conferring protection later in life.6

6. Detoxification Support

Cauliflower helps your body's ability to detoxify in multiple ways. It contains antioxidants that support Phase 1 detoxification along with sulfur-containing nutrients important for Phase 2 detox activities. The glucosinolates in cauliflower also activate detoxification enzymes.7

7. Digestive Benefits

Cauliflower is an important source of dietary fiber for digestive health. But that's not all. According to the World's Healthiest Foods:8

"Researchers have determined that the sulforaphane made from a glucosinolate in cauliflower (glucoraphanin) can help protect the lining of your stomach. Sulforaphane provides you with this health benefit by preventing bacterial overgrowth of Helicobacter pylori in your stomach or too much clinging by this bacterium to your stomach wall."

8. Antioxidants and Phytonutrients Galore

Eating cauliflower is like winning the antioxidant and phytonutrient lottery. It's packed with vitamin C, beta-carotene, kaempferol, quercetin, rutin, cinnamic acid, and much more. Antioxidants are nature's way of providing your cells with adequate defense against attack by reactive oxygen species (ROS).

As long as you have these important micronutrients, your body will be able to resist aging caused by your everyday exposure to pollutants, chronic stress, and more. If you don't have an adequate supply of antioxidants to help squelch free radicals, then you can be at risk of oxidative stress, which leads to accelerated tissue and organ damage.

Cauliflower Is Only One Type of Cruciferous Veggie

If cauliflower isn't your favorite vegetable, don't worry. You can get many of these same benefits by eating other members of the cruciferous vegetable family. Broccoli is one of them, but there are others too, including:
Turnips Brussels sprouts
Cabbage Bok choy Chinese cabbage
Arugula Collard greens Horseradish
Kale Kohlrabi Radishes
Mustard greens Rutabaga Wasabi
Daikon Watercress



The more vegetables you eat from this list the better, as each offers unique and wonderful benefits to your health. For instance, just one cup of kale contains over 10,000 IUs of vitamin A, the equivalent of over 200% of the daily value. Cabbage, meanwhile, is rich in vitamin K1 and B vitamins, which many are deficient in, and has been shown to help heal stomach ulcers and offers benefits to digestion. Additionally:9

100 calories' worth of cruciferous vegetables can provide you with up to 40 percent of your daily fiber requirement
Cruciferous vegetables contain protein, as much as 25 percent of the daily value in three cups
Cruciferous vegetables, especially kale and collard greens, provide high amounts of vitamin K, which may have benefits for fighting cancer and inflammation

However, don't underestimate the nutritive value of cauliflower. If it's been a while since you've given it a try, make it a point to give it another chance soon. When picking out a head of cauliflower, look for a firm feel with no brown or soft yellow spots. If it's surrounded by green leaves it's likely to be especially fresh. If you want to know even more about cauliflower, be sure to read "What Is Cauliflower Good For?"

5-Minute Cauliflower with Turmeric

Considering the research showing that cauliflower sprinkled with turmeric (which contains the powerful golden-hued polyphenol curcumin) may be especially powerful in fighting cancer, I wanted to share this quick recipe with you, from the World's Healthiest Foods.10 This anti-inflammatory, antioxidant-rich dish cooks up in just five minutes, making it perfect for lunch, dinner or even a quick snack. Impressively, one serving of this dish provides 181% of the daily value for vitamin C, 46% for vitamin K, and 33% for folate!

Healthy Cauliflower with Turmeric

Ingredients:

1 lb cauliflower
5 tbs low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
1 tsp turmeric

Mediterranean Dressing

3 tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp lemon juice
2 medium cloves garlic, pressed or chopped
Sea salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Cut cauliflower florets into quarters and let sit for 5 minutes to bring out their hidden health benefits.
Press or chop garlic and let sit for 5 minutes.
Heat 5 tbs broth in a stainless steel skillet on medium heat.
When broth begins to steam, add cauliflower and turmeric and cover. For al dente cauliflower, cook for no more than 5 minutes.
Transfer to a bowl. For more flavor, toss cauliflower with the remaining ingredients while it is still hot. (Mediterranean Dressing does not need to be made separately.)

Serves 2

Visit Our Food Facts Library for Empowering Nutrition Information

If you want to learn even more about what's in the food you're eating, visit our Food Facts library. Most people are not aware of the wealth of nutrients available in healthful foods, particularly organic fruits and vegetables. By getting to know your food, you can make informed decisions about how to eat healthier and thereby boost your brain function, lower your risk of chronic disease, lose weight, and much more.

Food Facts is a directory of the most highly recommended health foods to add to your wholesome diet. Its purpose is to provide you with valuable information about various types of foods including recipes to help you maximize these benefits. You'll learn about nutrition facts, scientific studies, and even interesting trivia about each food in the Food Facts library. Remember, knowing what's in your food is the first step to choosing and preparing nutritious meals each and every day. So visit Mercola Food Facts today to get started.

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

Post by keep the faith »

We substitute mashed potatoes with some cooked cauliflower mashed with chicken broth. It is surprisingly good and much better for you than those idaho spuds.

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Jason
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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

Post by Jason »

DrJones wrote:My wife makes a great raw cauliflower + peanut salad... yum!

By Dr. Mercola

Cauliflower is a member of the cruciferous family of vegetables, often overshadowed by its green cousin broccoli. This is one vegetable that deserves a regular rotation in your diet, however, as it contains an impressive array of nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other phytochemicals.

Adding to cauliflower's appeal is its extreme versatility. You can eat it raw, add it to salads, or use it in your cooking. Cauliflower can even be seasoned and mashed for a healthier version of "mashed potatoes."

8 Top Health Benefits of Cauliflower

Because of its beneficial effects on numerous aspects of health, cauliflower can easily be described as a superfood. Ten of its most impressive benefits follow:

1. Fight Cancer

Cauliflower contains sulforaphane, a sulfur compound that has also been shown to kill cancer stem cells, thereby slowing tumor growth. Some researchers believe eliminating cancer stem cells may be key to controlling cancer.

For instance, research has shown that combining cauliflower with curcumin (the active compound in the spice turmeric) may help prevent and treat prostate cancer.1

A study published in Carcinogenesis also found sulforaphane may reduce the incidence and rate of chemically induced mammary tumors in animals.2 It also inhibits the growth of cultured human breast cancer cells, leading to cell death.

Other compounds in cauliflower also show anti-cancer effects. According to the National Cancer Institute:3

"Indoles and isothiocyanates have been found to inhibit the development of cancer in several organs in rats and mice, including the bladder, breast, colon, liver, lung, and stomach."

2. Boost Heart Health

Sulforaphane in cauliflower and other cruciferous vegetables has been found to significantly improve blood pressure and kidney function.4 Scientists believe sulforaphane's benefits are related to improved DNA methylation, which is crucial for normal cellular function and proper gene expression, especially in the easily damaged inner lining of the arteries known as the endothelium.

3. It's Anti-Inflammatory

You need some level of inflammation in your body to stay healthy. However, it's also possible, and increasingly common, for the inflammatory response to get out of hand.

If your immune system mistakenly triggers an inflammatory response when no threat is present, it can lead to significant inflammation-related damage to the body, a condition linked to cancer and other diseases, depending on which organs the inflammation is impacting.

Cauliflower contains a wealth of anti-inflammatory nutrients to help keep inflammation in check, including indole-3-carbinol or I3C, an anti-inflammatory compound that may operate at the genetic level to help prevent the inflammatory responses at its foundational level.5

4. It's Rich in Vitamins and Minerals

Most Americans are seriously lacking in nutrients their body needs to function. Eating cauliflower regularly is a simple way to get these much-needed nutrients into your body. For instance, one serving of cauliflower contains 77 percent of the recommended daily value of vitamin C. It's also a good source of vitamin K, protein, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, fiber, vitamin B6, folate, pantothenic acid, potassium, and manganese.

5. Boost Your Brain Health

Cauliflower is a good source of choline, a B vitamin known for its role in brain development. Choline intake during pregnancy "super-charged" the brain activity of animals in utero, indicating that it may boost cognitive function, and improve learning and memory. It may even diminish age-related memory decline and your brain's vulnerability to toxins during childhood, as well as conferring protection later in life.6

6. Detoxification Support

Cauliflower helps your body's ability to detoxify in multiple ways. It contains antioxidants that support Phase 1 detoxification along with sulfur-containing nutrients important for Phase 2 detox activities. The glucosinolates in cauliflower also activate detoxification enzymes.7

7. Digestive Benefits

Cauliflower is an important source of dietary fiber for digestive health. But that's not all. According to the World's Healthiest Foods:8

"Researchers have determined that the sulforaphane made from a glucosinolate in cauliflower (glucoraphanin) can help protect the lining of your stomach. Sulforaphane provides you with this health benefit by preventing bacterial overgrowth of Helicobacter pylori in your stomach or too much clinging by this bacterium to your stomach wall."

8. Antioxidants and Phytonutrients Galore

Eating cauliflower is like winning the antioxidant and phytonutrient lottery. It's packed with vitamin C, beta-carotene, kaempferol, quercetin, rutin, cinnamic acid, and much more. Antioxidants are nature's way of providing your cells with adequate defense against attack by reactive oxygen species (ROS).

As long as you have these important micronutrients, your body will be able to resist aging caused by your everyday exposure to pollutants, chronic stress, and more. If you don't have an adequate supply of antioxidants to help squelch free radicals, then you can be at risk of oxidative stress, which leads to accelerated tissue and organ damage.

Cauliflower Is Only One Type of Cruciferous Veggie

If cauliflower isn't your favorite vegetable, don't worry. You can get many of these same benefits by eating other members of the cruciferous vegetable family. Broccoli is one of them, but there are others too, including:
Turnips Brussels sprouts
Cabbage Bok choy Chinese cabbage
Arugula Collard greens Horseradish
Kale Kohlrabi Radishes
Mustard greens Rutabaga Wasabi
Daikon Watercress



The more vegetables you eat from this list the better, as each offers unique and wonderful benefits to your health. For instance, just one cup of kale contains over 10,000 IUs of vitamin A, the equivalent of over 200% of the daily value. Cabbage, meanwhile, is rich in vitamin K1 and B vitamins, which many are deficient in, and has been shown to help heal stomach ulcers and offers benefits to digestion. Additionally:9

100 calories' worth of cruciferous vegetables can provide you with up to 40 percent of your daily fiber requirement
Cruciferous vegetables contain protein, as much as 25 percent of the daily value in three cups
Cruciferous vegetables, especially kale and collard greens, provide high amounts of vitamin K, which may have benefits for fighting cancer and inflammation

However, don't underestimate the nutritive value of cauliflower. If it's been a while since you've given it a try, make it a point to give it another chance soon. When picking out a head of cauliflower, look for a firm feel with no brown or soft yellow spots. If it's surrounded by green leaves it's likely to be especially fresh. If you want to know even more about cauliflower, be sure to read "What Is Cauliflower Good For?"

5-Minute Cauliflower with Turmeric

Considering the research showing that cauliflower sprinkled with turmeric (which contains the powerful golden-hued polyphenol curcumin) may be especially powerful in fighting cancer, I wanted to share this quick recipe with you, from the World's Healthiest Foods.10 This anti-inflammatory, antioxidant-rich dish cooks up in just five minutes, making it perfect for lunch, dinner or even a quick snack. Impressively, one serving of this dish provides 181% of the daily value for vitamin C, 46% for vitamin K, and 33% for folate!

Healthy Cauliflower with Turmeric

Ingredients:

1 lb cauliflower
5 tbs low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
1 tsp turmeric

Mediterranean Dressing

3 tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp lemon juice
2 medium cloves garlic, pressed or chopped
Sea salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Cut cauliflower florets into quarters and let sit for 5 minutes to bring out their hidden health benefits.
Press or chop garlic and let sit for 5 minutes.
Heat 5 tbs broth in a stainless steel skillet on medium heat.
When broth begins to steam, add cauliflower and turmeric and cover. For al dente cauliflower, cook for no more than 5 minutes.
Transfer to a bowl. For more flavor, toss cauliflower with the remaining ingredients while it is still hot. (Mediterranean Dressing does not need to be made separately.)

Serves 2

Visit Our Food Facts Library for Empowering Nutrition Information

If you want to learn even more about what's in the food you're eating, visit our Food Facts library. Most people are not aware of the wealth of nutrients available in healthful foods, particularly organic fruits and vegetables. By getting to know your food, you can make informed decisions about how to eat healthier and thereby boost your brain function, lower your risk of chronic disease, lose weight, and much more.

Food Facts is a directory of the most highly recommended health foods to add to your wholesome diet. Its purpose is to provide you with valuable information about various types of foods including recipes to help you maximize these benefits. You'll learn about nutrition facts, scientific studies, and even interesting trivia about each food in the Food Facts library. Remember, knowing what's in your food is the first step to choosing and preparing nutritious meals each and every day. So visit Mercola Food Facts today to get started.
Wife makes cauliflower crust pizza....that rocks!

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

Post by Jason »

keep the faith wrote:We substitute mashed potatoes with some cooked cauliflower mashed with chicken broth. It is surprisingly good and much better for you than those idaho spuds.
Now don't be knockin' Idaho spuds...I was sprouted and matured on those babies!

When you are putting in a physical hard days work those babies are like sweet nectar....but yeah when you're sedimentary (desk jockey) and on the low carb side of life (diabetic) then cauliflower is a sweet substitute!

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

Post by BroJones »

I thought "Idaho Spuds" were these delicious candy bars that.... :p

Now this
(NaturalNews) Although armed with good intentions, most preppers and survivalists are making critical errors -- perhaps fatal errors -- in their food preparedness strategies.

This article is designed to help you identify and correct those errors as quickly as possible so that you're in good shape before the food collapse arrives. When will that be, exactly? It depends on whom you believe: geologists say the world's primary irrigation aquifers have maybe 20 - 30 years of water remaining, after which the global food supply collapses. Some environmentalists say radical weather, droughts, floods and heat waves have already started wreaking havoc on the food supply (just look at California right now). People concerned about GMOs and genetic pollution point out that runaway crop diseases could strike at any time and devastate global crop production. Finally, those who are more concerned about government tyranny correctly point out that the federal government has already asserted executive order control over all food, farms and livestock.

Only the wildly ignorant don't store extra food for emergency preparedness. Even the federal government's Ready.gov program urges people to "have a plan" and make a disaster supplies kit which contains, "at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food" -- just enough to keep you alive until FEMA arrives and screws everything up.

The problem is that even well-meaning Americans who are trying to prepare for the worst (while hoping for the best) are often going about it all wrong.

Here are the top 12 mistakes you might be making right now with storable foods:

#1) You're buying storable foods that are loaded with GMOs and MSG

Although a very small number of non-GMO storable food sources do exist, most mainstream storable food is loaded with GMOs and MSG. Most of the popular brands of long-term storable food, if you dare to check the labels, contain "hydrolyzed" proteins or "autolyzed" proteins, almost all of which are derived from genetically modified soy or corn. At the same time, these prepper foods are typically loaded with "yeast extract," a hidden form of MSG.

There are going to be a massive number of preppers and survivalists who will be damn shocked one day to discover they've stored thousands of dollars worth of toxic foods, some of which was peddled to them under the false promise that it was all "non-GMO!"

The mere act of "storing food" is useless unless you store the kind of foods that can truly support your health during times of extremely high stress. Although eating stored foods laced with MSG and GMOs probably won't kill you outright, it will stress your health and nervous system, vastly reducing your alertness and stress adaptation abilities precisely when you need them most.

#2) You're likely miscalculating the number of meals you have stored

Most storable food companies fudge more than a little on the number of meals their kits provide. A large collection of buckets or boxes emblazoned with the claim, "557 meals!" sounds a lot better than "335" meals, even if it's the same number of calories.

So storable food companies have long been in the habit of shrinking the definition of "meals" in order to make their products appear larger than they really are. Always check the actual number of calories delivered per day, not merely the number of "meals" you're buying. You may come to find that you've stored 557 children's meals, not adult meals!

Another important consideration is to get realistic about your caloric needs. Most Americans are fairly large people who consume far more than the 1,500- 2,000 calories a day which is often considered the "standard" for survival planning. If you're living on 3,000 calories a day right now but you've only stored food based on 1,500 calories per day meal plans, you're either going to run out of food in half the time you anticipated or you'll force yourself onto a calorie restriction diet (which may not be a terrible thing, if you're like most Americans).

#3) You're not rotating your stored foods by eating what you store

If you're not eating what you store and rotating your food on a FIFO bases (First In First Out), then you're really just sitting on a rapidly-aging stockpile of questionable food which may or may not be usable when the day comes that you really need it.

All the really experienced preppers eat the food they store, and they write dates on incoming food products so they know how old each item is. They also check their stored foods from time to time for rodent infestation or damage. Yes, mice and rats really can chew through thick plastic buckets if given enough time.

#4) You're not developing skills and experience in growing your own food

Stored food sooner or later runs out. If you really want to survive an extended crisis, you'll eventually need to grow your own.

But when it comes to growing your own food, many people make the common mistake of thinking all they need to do is "buy a bunch of heirloom seeds!"

Unfortunately, survival gardening involves considerably more than tossing seeds into the dirt and waiting for a bountiful harvest to magically appear.

Just like any acquired skill, gardening requires deliberate skill development, and I very much doubt you want to be trying to figure out those skills for the first time in the middle of a regional or global food crisis.

That's why buying heirloom seeds is never sufficient all by itself. You need to learn how to transform seeds into edible food while doing so at a net calorie profit.

In other words, if your gardening skills are so inefficient that you expend more calories trying to grow the food than you receive from harvesting them, you will starve to death. I fully realize the thought of running a calorie deficit almost never crosses our minds in this modern age of Golden Corral buffets with all-you-can-eat pig slop for humans, yet this is a concept you need to take to heart if you want to live sustainably. (Hint: Growing simple potatoes gives you a huge caloric reward for the required effort, vastly out-pacing the caloric gains for growing vegetables.)

#5) You don't have a clean source of trace minerals to feed to your plants

Conventional, popular foods are intentionally stripped of nearly all beneficial minerals in order to cause widespread disease, impaired cognitive function and premature death. The easiest way to restore your mineral balance is to grow your own sprouts in a water solution that you've spiked with clean liquid minerals.

I use the EasySprouter system to sprout alfalfa seeds, spiking the water holding container with liquid minerals combined with dietary fulvic acid to keep the pH slightly acidic (which sprouts love).

What liquid minerals do I use? I happen to operate ICP-MS instrumentation in the Natural News Forensic Food Lab, so I've had the luxury of testing all the popular mineral supplement sold on the market today.

In my testing, the Liquid Light product from SunWarrior, Colloidal Minerals from NOW Foods and ColloidaLife from Source Naturals all had zero lead concentrations, zero mercury and near-zero cadmium. In fact, here are my atomic spectroscopy lab results for the NOW Foods product:

Aluminum: 39 ppm
Copper: 0 ppm
Zinc: 0.2 ppm
Arsenic: 0 ppm
Cadmium: 0 ppm
Mercury: 0 ppm
Lead: 0 ppm

Green PolkaDot Box sells the Liquid Light product from SunWarrior, or you can find any of these on Amazon.com. In fact, you can get a 4-pack of the NOW Foods Colloidal Minerals for about $42 at this link on Amazon.

My advice is to stockpile sprouting seeds and CLEAN liquid mineral supplements, thereby giving you the ingredients you need to make your own fresh, sprouted, mineral-rich, raw living superfoods almost instantly. If you're also growing some fruits or nuts in a small orchard for food sustainability, these liquid minerals will help keep those trees alive while vastly enhancing the mineral concentrations of the fruits and nuts they produce.

If the EasyGreen Sprouter is too expensive for you, seeds can also be sprouted in these dirt-cheap sprout bags.

#6) You're not building relationships with local farmers and food producers

If you want local farms to continue to exist, you need to support them with your business. But this is more than an economic principle: you also need to build relationships with local food producers so that they know and trust you.

When Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, hundreds of thousands of refugees streamed into Central Texas looking for food. They slammed the local CSAs, hoping to buy up the food that was being grown there. But the CSAs already had contractual obligations to deliver that food to their regular customers, and that's exactly what they did.

If you're a regular customer of a farm or a local CSA, you're going to receive preferential status compared to someone that farm has never met. In a food crisis, this can quite literally mean the difference between having a meal on your plate versus going hungry. That's why I say build relationships now by supporting your local farmers, egg producers, raw milk producers, local cheese producers and anyone else who produces food for local markets.

#7) You're storing the wrong barter items that few people will trade for food

The subject of barter is old hat to preppers, so I'm not going to dwell on this point. But what is worth pointing out is that you need to think of what items a farmer needs rather than merely what items you think hold value in a general sense.

As a concrete example, I doubt many farmers are going to have much use for your gold coins in the middle of a food crisis. They probably have far greater need for varmint ammo, which has been extremely difficult to come by since December of 2012.

Almost every farmer I know could use a whole lot more 22 LR ammo or other varmint rounds. In this case, lead is far more valuable than gold because gold can't protect the crops in the field.

So think strategically about what *farmers* will need in a barter situation, not merely what you think holds value in a general economic sense. When Japan occupied Taiwan during World War II, the only thing that could get you a roof over your head was food for barter. Gold was considered absolutely worthless because possessing gold was considered a crime punishable by death. So nobody wanted it.

Other ideas for barter items that farmers value:

As someone who raises chickens and has worked around cattle operations, I can assure you that one of the most in-demand items for farms is, believe it or not, sanitizing solutions. Keeping chicken houses in a clean, sanitary condition requires real effort, and every farmer knows that dirty conditions equal disease and animals deaths. So stocking up on germicides and disinfectants is actually a very smart barter strategy.

Such items also have medical uses for humans, too, not just ranch animals. And if you've ever studied economic collapse scenarios, you know that sanitizing solutions very quickly run out, leaving people with the very real risk of dying from simple infections.

This gallon container of providone iodine from Amazon.com is a pretty good value, and its real-world value is almost priceless on a farm or ranch when supply lines are cut off.

#8) You don't have any way to prepare cooked food or acquire clean water

Most of your stored food is probably worthless without clean water and a way to cook it, yet many preppers have no real way to acquire a steady supply of clean water, and they have no experience cooking foods without city-provided electricity and natural gas.

Perhaps it's only because prepping has become so popular these days that more and more urban dwellers now fancy themselves to be "prepared" even though they've never boiled a pot of water on a camp stove. Nevertheless, I've met plenty of people who have a large supply of GMO-based food powders and MSG "meals" socked away in a closet with nary a thought of how they might actually turn such substances into edible meals in the middle of a serious crisis.

#9) You don't have any practical way to defend your food or hide it

Looters love preppers because preppers do all the shopping for them in advance. The literal game plan for many people in a survival crisis is to "use my gun to get what I need." Those people are, of course, criminal-minded looters. Those of us who are real preppers and real Americans call them "targets of opportunity."

If you aren't prepared to defend your food -- or hide it really, really well -- then you almost might as well not bother storing it. And by "defend your food" the implication is that you may have to do so with force. Pleading, "please don't take my food" probably won't get you much traction in a crisis. People who think all the normal social rules of politeness and lawful action will still be upheld in a crisis are stupid or naive.

Here's a tip: Every looter makes a risk / reward calculation as they attempt to acquire food and other supplies. Your job as a prepper is to make the RISK so high for any would-be looter that they feel incredibly compelled to look for food elsewhere.

How is high risk communicated to would-be looters? Not by showing yourself and waving a gun around, I hope you realize. It would be far better to keep your location a secret while simultaneously demonstrating to the looters that they going to meet determined resistance to property theft and lawlessness. When in doubt, give them some of your rifle ammo, one round at a time, at 1850 fps.

#10) You don't have a way to grow food that's protected from radioactive fallout

The worsening Fukushima situation is, by any rational standard, one of the most pressing concerns of our time. The failed nuclear facility remains just one earthquake or tidal wave away from total collapse followed by fuel rod meltdown that contaminates the entire Northern Hemisphere with radioactive fallout.

Any food grown outdoors during a radioactive fallout scenario will of course absorb radioactive isotopes that fall onto the soils. These isotopes include cesium-137, which has a half-life of about 30 years and just happens to be the isotope that still renders the lands around Chernobyl uninhabitable.

The best defense against atmospheric fallout affecting your crops is to grow your food in a greenhouse that's protected from atmospheric fallout. Relatively few people have a greenhouse structure suitable for growing any significant portion of their food supply, and almost no one has a greenhouse running HEPA dust filtration which would remove radioactive particles from the air.

#11) You don't have any defense against eating radioactive isotopes in your food

As food absorbs radioactive isotopes, it becomes radioactive itself, and any who eat it risk integrating radioactive isotopes into their body's cells. Cesium-137, the most insidious isotope in terms of agricultural implications, mimics potassium in human biology and so goes everywhere in your body that potassium goes.

Fortunately, a solution on this particular point is now at hand. I recently finalized research and development on a cesium-blocking dietary substance which will be available in April of this year. This was developed in our atomic spectroscopy laboratory and achieved by testing over 1,000 substances for their natural cesium binding capabilities.

The efficacy of this particular formula is 96%, meaning it can bind with and capture up to 96% of cesium-134 and cesium-137 atoms during digestion, in the gastrointestinal tract. This parallels the function of Prussian Blue, a painter's pigment chemical which was approved by the FDA as a defense against radiological terrorism. It was also embraced by the CDC for its ability to block radioactive cesium during digestion.

If you'd like to be kept informed of the release date of this cesium-blocking dietary substance, just join the email announcement list at the end of this article.

#12) You are still living in a "death trap" city that you cannot reasonably escape in a real crisis

Yes, I know, your plan to leave the city is still imminent. But the pay is too good, and city living is really, really convenient, right? You'll move out to the country "one of these days" and hope nothing bad happens until then.

It's a great plan until the day it isn't.

Every prepper who has read anything by James Wesley Rawles knows that urban areas are death traps in the middle of a real crisis. They also tend to be places where federal authorities go house to house, either imprisoning people in their own homes (as we saw after the Boston Marathon bombings) or confiscating their self defense weapons, leaving honest citizens vulnerable to looters.

Any plan to leave a large city by road during a serious crisis isn't actually a plan: it's a fairy tale. The only ways to successfully leave a city during a real crisis are by plane, boat, on foot or in a casket. In all these scenarios, you usually can't take much with you, so all the food you've stored in your city house or apartment is useless.

Summary: Natural News and the Health Ranger have a lot more to share on scientifically-validated food preparedness

For those who are new to Natural News, I'm a health food advocate and a food researcher who runs an ICP-MS laboratory (atomic spectroscopy instrumentation).

Throughout 2014, I'll be testing stored food products, heirloom seeds and water filters using heavy metals analysis instrumentation and publishing those results at Labs.NaturalNews.com

To stay informed, subscribe to my email list, below, and watch your email for announcements. The email newsletter is free, and as a subscriber, you'll learn:

- Exactly which water filters are best at removing heavy metals like lead, cadmium and arsenic

- Which popular brands of stored foods are cleanest in terms of toxic heavy metals

- Which sprouting seeds have the lowest heavy metals and are therefore the safest for sprouting and eating

- Breaking news on my laboratory-validated solution for blocking radioactive cesium-137 during digestion, allowing you to more safely consume foods in a post-fallout scenario

Subscribe here to be kept informed:

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

Post by BroJones »

By Dr. Mercola

Good oral hygiene is even more important than previously thought. Pathogenic microorganisms and their toxins can harm more than just your mouth when they circulate through your bloodstream—they can potentially cause secondary infections and chronic inflammation throughout your body.

The fact that oral pathogens can make their way to distant parts of your anatomy and cause serious problems has been known for many years.

Even dentists would agree that bacteria can pass from your gums into your bloodstream and on to your heart, which is why some still prescribe oral antibiotics to a few select patients with a particularly high risk for endocarditis, particularly if they have gingivitis.1

But it appears that the rare case of endocarditis is only the tip of the iceberg. Several studies now show that these oral pathogens—viruses as well as bacteria—may be linked to certain cancers, making it even more important to do take every step possible to ensure your teeth and gums stay healthy.

Poor Oral Health Is a Risk Factor for Oropharyngeal Cancers

The human papillomavirus (HPV),2 some strains of which are associated with cervical cancer if left untreated for long periods of time, has similarly been linked to vaginal, vulvar, penile, anal, and oropharyngeal cancers (cancers of the throat, tonsils, and base of tongue).

Hence the ridiculous recommendation to vaccinate boys with the notorious HPV vaccine, Gardasil, which is riddled with dangerous side effects and other problems. A new study published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research reports:3

"Poor oral health, which includes dental problems and gum disease, is an independent risk factor for oral HPV infection, and by extension, could also contribute to oral cancers."

In this study, participants with poor oral health had a 56 percent higher rate of HPV infection than those with healthy mouths. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that about 60 percent of oropharyngeal cancers are related to HPV,4 but according to the latest study, it could be as high as 80 percent.

The researchers speculate that good oral hygiene could help prevent HPV infection, thereby lowing your risk for oropharyngeal and other cancers. Human papillomavirus is actually a group of more than 100 viruses. Of those 100, about 40 are sexually transmitted, and 15 of those are the types most often associated with cervical cancers and genital warts.5

It is important to note that more than 90 percent of women infected with HPV clear the infection naturally within two years, at which point their cervical cells return to normal. It is only when the HPV virus lingers for many years (that is, becomes chronic) that abnormal cervical cells could turn into cancer.

This is why regularly scheduled PAP smears prevent cervical cancer deaths far more effectively than the HPV vaccine ever will, because they allow a sufficient amount of time to find and treat any cervical abnormalities.

Viruses Cause 15 to 20 Percent of All Cancers

It is interesting to note that HPV isn't the only virus linked to cancer—in fact, it is estimated that 15 to 20 percent of all cancers are caused by viruses!6 Many viruses trigger cancer by suppressing your immune system and/or altering your genes. The following viruses are known to play a major role in certain types of cancer:7

EBV (Epstein-Barr virus) increases your risk for nasopharyngeal cancer, certain lymphomas and stomach cancer
Hepatitis B and C are linked to liver cancer
HIV is associated with invasive cervical cancer, lymphoma, lung cancer, liver cancer, anal cancer, oropharyngeal cancer, skin cancer and Kaposi's sarcoma; Herpes virus 8 is also thought to be involved with almost all cases of Kaposi's sarcoma
Three New Studies Prove Oral Bacteria Can Cause Colorectal Cancer

There is one bacterium that has been causing a great deal of trouble with people's health: Fusobacterium nucleatum, a spindle-shaped anaerobic bacterium commonly found in dental plaque. F. nucleatum is abundant in your mouth and able to coaggregate with other species.8 Three recent studies have linked F. nucleatum with serious health problems:

Case Western Reserve University researchers found that some malignant colorectal tumors are caused by F. nucleatum9
Harvard researchers also established a link between F. nucleatum and the initiation of colorectal tumors10
A study in Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that oral F. nucleatum can lead to intrauterine infection and even stillbirth11
The first two studies establish an actual causal link between this bacteria and colorectal cancer. The bacteria trigger inflammation and also activate the cancer growth genes and the signals required for angiogenesis to occur (a tumor's blood supply). Normally, F. nucleatum is not prevalent in your gut, but if your microbial balance is off—which can happen in your mouth, as well as in your gut—then it's able to invade and colonize. F. nucleatum has been found in gut mucosal biopsies that show inflammation and in biopsies of colorectal tumors.12

The third study discusses an unusual case of a mother losing her baby to stillbirth due to an intrauterine infection, directly resulting from gingivitis. The bacteria moved from her mouth to her uterus because her immune system was weakened by a respiratory infection. Other studies have shown these bacteria to cause stillbirths in mice, but this was the first documented human case.13

All of these studies unequivocally show that bacterial imbalances and dysbiosis can contribute to inflammation in your body and activate cancer genes. Therefore, the bacteria in your mouth deserve as much care and attention as the ones in your gut. Not surprisingly, they're interrelated, and as you improve your gut flora, the flora in your mouth improves accordingly. I experienced this myself. When I started consuming fermented vegetables, it only took a few months before I was able to reduce the frequency of my visits to my dental hygienist for a persistent plaque problem.

Another Danger: A Mouthful of Mercury

Besides oral hygiene, which I'll be discussing shortly, there are two other dental-related concerns you may need to address: mercury amalgams and fluoride. The average American has eight mercury amalgams (fillings), falsely described as "silver" fillings. This misleading label has been purposely used to keep you in the dark about the exact composition of the fillings, which are actually about 50 percent mercury. Mercury is a toxic heavy metal that can poison your brain, central nervous system and kidneys. Children and fetuses, whose brains are still developing, are most at risk—but anyone can be adversely impacted.

Mercury is such a potent toxin that just one drop in a lake would poison the lake to the extent that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would ban fishing in it. Yet, they claim that carrying around a mouthful of mercury fillings has no harmful effects. If you have mercury amalgams, it would be advisable to consult a holistic, mercury-free dentist.

Steer Clear of Fluoride in Any Form

If you are using fluoridated toothpaste, you may want to consider tossing it out and replacing it it with a safe one. In the mornings, you could use toothpaste containing calcium and phosphate salts, or even hydroxyapatite, which can help remineralize your teeth. Baking soda will help promote beneficial bacteria in your mouth by neutralizing the acid that pathogenic bacteria thrive in. I use an oral irrigator with baking soda twice a day and follow with coconut oil pulling for 20 minutes.

Fluoride is of little or no benefit to your teeth and poses serious health risks, including immune dysfunction, endocrine disruption, increased risk of fractures, arthritis, infertility, and many more.

Toothpaste isn't the only source of fluoride—it is present in growing numbers of non-organic foods from pesticide residue (including iceberg lettuce). And fluoride continues to be added to many municipal water supplies in the United States. Water fluoridation has come under increasing scrutiny as health concerns, lack of efficacy in preventing tooth decay and ethical issues of administering chemicals via the water supply have surfaced. For more information on fluoride, please watch the presentation by Michael Connett, an attorney with the Fluoride Action Network in this previous article.

Four Strategies for Improving Your Oral Health

The latest research uncovering the connection between the microorganisms in your mouth and cancer make it extraordinarily clear that oral hygiene is a necessary prerequisite if you want to be healthy. Major problems can result from the overgrowth of opportunistic oral pathogens, including oropharyngeal cancers, colorectal cancer, and if you're an expectant mother, even the tragedy of stillbirth. In addition to avoiding fluoride and mercury fillings, my top four recommendations for optimizing your oral health are as follows:

Consume a traditional diet: fresh fruits and vegetables, grass-pastured meats, poultry, eggs, and dairy; nuts and seeds; minimal consumption of sugar and processed food
Add in some naturally fermented foods, such as sauerkraut, pickles, kimchee, yogurt, kefir
Proper brushing and flossing
Oil pulling
A traditional diet will help balance both your oral and gastrointestinal flora, but it may not be enough to guarantee perfect oral health. I've struggled with plaque for years, and it wasn't until I added fermented foods and oil pulling that I began to make progress with the problem. The addition of fermented foods decreased my plaque by 50 percent and made it much softer, and the oil pulling has improved it further.

Oil Pulling Is Like Giving Your Teeth an 'Oil Change'



Oil pulling is an ancient Ayurvedic practice dating back thousands of years. When it harnesses the antimicrobial power of coconut oil, you have one very powerful tool! The high lauric content of coconut oil makes it a strong inhibitor of a wide range of pathogenic organisms, from viruses to bacteria to protozoa. Researchers in Ireland found that coconut oil treated with enzymes, in a process similar to digestion, strongly inhibits Streptococcus bacteria, which are common oral residents that can lead to plaque buildup, cavities, and gum disease.

Oil pulling can lessen your toxic load by pulling out pathogens and preventing their spread to other areas of your body. When done correctly, oil pulling has a significant cleansing, detoxifying and healing effect. Oil pullers have reported rapid relief from systemic health problems such as arthritis, diabetes and heart disease. Sesame oil is traditionally recommended, but it has a relatively high concentration of omega-6 oils. Therefore, I believe coconut oil is far superior, and to me it tastes better. But from a mechanical and biophysical perspective, both oils likely work.

Oil pulling is simple. Basically, it involves rinsing your mouth with about a tablespoon of coconut oil, much like you would using a mouthwash. The oil is "worked" around your mouth by pushing, pulling, and drawing it through your teeth for a period of about 15 minutes. If you are obsessive like me, you can go for 30-45 minutes. This process allows the oil to neutralize and "pull out" bacteria, viruses, fungi and other debris. After working the oil around for 15 minutes, spit it out and rinse your mouth with water. Do NOT swallow the oil as it's loaded with bacteria and toxins. Naturopathic physician and coconut oil expert Bruce Fife compares the benefits of oil pulling to changing the oil in your car:14

"It acts much like the oil you put in your car engine. The oil picks up dirt and grime. When you drain the oil, it pulls out the dirt and grime with it, leaving the engine relatively clean. Consequently, the engine runs smoother and lasts longer. Likewise, when we expel harmful substances from our bodies our health is improved and we run smoother and last longer."

Your Diet Is Key to Reducing Chronic Inflammation

The running thread linking a wide variety of common health problems, including cancer, is chronic inflammation in your body – regardless of whether it originates in your mouth or not. Clearly, addressing your oral health is an important step, but it really all starts with your diet.

Your diet can make or break your teeth, as it were, and has a profound effect on your overall level of inflammation. Therefore, to optimize your health and prevent many of the diseases listed above, you'll want to evaluate your lifestyle to ensure you're doing everything you can to prevent chronic inflammation from occurring. To reduce or prevent inflammation in your body, you'll want to avoid the following dietary culprits:

Sugar/fructose and grains
Oxidized cholesterol (cholesterol that has gone rancid, such as that from overcooked, scrambled eggs)
Foods cooked at high temperatures
Trans fats
Beyond that, brushing with baking soda and using oil pulling can help address the bacterial balance in your mouth. The most important factor, however, is to regularly reseed your gut with beneficial bacteria, i.e. probiotics.
Fermented vegetables and other traditionally fermented foods are an ideal source, but if you don't eat fermented foods, then a high-quality probiotic is certainly recommended.
:ymhug:

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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Magnesium May Help Prevent Hip Fractures
March 03, 2014
By Dr. Mercola

Magnesium is a crucially important mineral for optimal health, performing a wide array of biological functions, including playing an important role in bone health. In fact, of the 25 grams of magnesium found in an average adult, up to 60 percent of it is found in your bones.1

Multiple studies have shown that higher magnesium intake is associated with a higher bone mineral density in both men and women,2 and recent research from Norway has even found an association between magnesium in drinking water and risk of hip fractures.

Magnesium May Lower Your Risk of Hip Fractures

Norway, like the US, has a high rate of hip fractures, but the researchers noted that its incidence varies by region, with those living in urban areas more likely to have hip fractures than those in rural locales. They suggested this could be due to naturally varying levels of minerals like magnesium in the drinking water, although this didn't turn out to be the case.

What they did find, however, was that while concentrations of magnesium (and calcium) in drinking water were generally low, there was an inverse association between concentration of magnesium and risk of hip fracture in both men and women.3 The researchers concluded:

"Magnesium in drinking water may have a protective role against hip fractures."

The finding is significant considering how debilitating a hip fracture can be, especially among the elderly. A broken hip carries a great risk of complications and usually requires prolonged specialized care for recovery. It's estimated that 25 percent of elderly people suffering a hip fracture die as a direct result.4

Magnesium Is Involved in Bone Formation and Health

It's estimated that 80 percent of Americans are deficient in magnesium, which could have a dramatic influence on bone health. Magnesium influences activities of both osteoblasts (cells responsible for bone formation) and osteoclasts (the cells that break down your bone).

Magnesium is thought to play a role in preventing and fighting osteoporosis. According to the National Office of Dietary Supplements:5

"Magnesium also affects the concentrations of both parathyroid hormone and the active form of vitamin D, which are major regulators of bone homeostasis…

Research has found that women with osteoporosis have lower serum magnesium levels than women with osteopenia and those who do not have osteoporosis or osteopenia. These and other findings indicate that magnesium deficiency might be a risk factor for osteoporosis."

In fact, one study found that postmenopausal women with osteoporosis were able to suppress bone turnover (which suggests bone loss decreased) just by taking 290 mg/day of magnesium for 30 days.6

Your Calcium-Magnesium Ratio: Are You Taking Too Much Calcium?

Over the past 30 years, women have been told to take supplemental calcium to avoid osteoporosis. Many foods have also been fortified with extra calcium to prevent calcium deficiency among the general population.

Despite such measures, osteoporosis has continued to climb, and this could be, in part, because of an imbalanced calcium-magnesium ratio. According to Carolyn Dean, a medical and naturopathic doctor:

"I've heard statistics like a 700 percent rise in osteoporosis in a 10-year period, even while taking all this calcium. The myth that's been created about calcium is that we need twice as much calcium as we do magnesium. Most of the supplements reflect this. We've got a situation where people are taking 1,200 to 1,500 milligrams of calcium and maybe a few hundred milligrams of magnesium.

The 2:1 ratio—that was a mistake; a mistaken translation from French researcher Jean Durlach, who said never ever go beyond two parts calcium to one part magnesium in your food, water, or supplement intake combined."

This was misinterpreted as meaning a 2:1 ratio was an appropriate ratio, which it's not. A more appropriate ratio of calcium to magnesium is 1:1. This may not only pose a risk to your bones but also to your heart. If you have too much calcium and not enough magnesium, your muscles will tend to go into spasm.

So excessive amounts of calcium without the counterbalance of magnesium can lead to a heart attack and sudden death. Quite simply, with insufficient amounts of magnesium, your heart simply cannot function properly.

For Optimal Bone and Heart Health, You've Got to Balance Magnesium with Vitamins K2 and D

When balancing calcium and magnesium also keep in mind that these must be balanced with vitamins K2 and D. These four nutrients perform an intricate dance together, with one supporting the other. Lack of balance between these nutrients is why calcium supplements have become associated with increased risk of heart attacks and stroke, and why some people experience vitamin D toxicity.

Part of the explanation for these adverse side effects is that vitamin K2 keeps calcium in its appropriate place. If you're K2 deficient, added calcium can cause more problems than it solves, by accumulating in the wrong places, like soft tissue.

Similarly, if you opt for oral vitamin D, you need to also consume it in your food or take supplemental vitamin K2 and more magnesium. Taking mega doses of vitamin D supplements without sufficient amounts of K2 and magnesium can lead to vitamin D toxicity and magnesium deficiency symptoms, which include inappropriate calcification that may damage your heart.

Magnesium and vitamin K2 complement each other, as magnesium helps lower blood pressure, which is an important component of heart disease. So, all in all, anytime you're taking any of the following: magnesium, calcium, vitamin D3, or vitamin K2, you need to take all the others into consideration as well, since these all work synergistically with one another.

What Else Is Magnesium Good For?

It would be misleading to simply classify magnesium as a mineral for your bones or your heart. Researchers have now detected 3,751 magnesium-binding sites on human proteins, indicating that its role in human health and disease may have been vastly underestimated.7 Magnesium is also found in more than 300 different enzymes in your body and plays a role in your body's detoxification processes, making it important for helping to prevent damage from environmental chemicals, heavy metals, and other toxins. Even glutathione, your body's most powerful antioxidant that has even been called "the master antioxidant," requires magnesium for its synthesis. Recent research also showed that higher intakes of dietary magnesium were associated with a lower risk of colorectal tumors.8 To date more than 100 health benefits of magnesium have been identified so far, including therapeutic benefits for:9

Fibromyalgia Atrial fibrillation Type 2 diabetes Premenstrual syndrome
Cardiovascular disease Migraine Aging Mortality
Watching Out for Symptoms of Magnesium Deficiency

There's no lab test that will give you a truly accurate reading of the magnesium status in your tissues. Only one percent of the magnesium in your body is distributed in your blood, making a simple sample of magnesium from a blood test highly inaccurate. Some specialty labs do provide an RBC magnesium test, which is reasonably accurate, and other tests that your doctor can use to evaluate your magnesium status include a 24-hour urine test or a sublingual epithelial test. Still, these can only give you an estimation of your levels, and doctors typically need to evaluate them in conjunction with the symptoms you exhibit.

If you suspect you're not getting enough magnesium, you should keep a watchful eye out for symptoms of deficiency. If you eat a poor diet, including one that's mostly processed foods, this could apply to you. Further, if any of these conditions below apply to you, you may want to take extra precautions to make sure you're getting a sufficient amount of magnesium in your diet, or, if needed, from a magnesium supplement, in order to avoid magnesium deficiency.>

An unhealthy digestive system, which impairs your body's ability to absorb magnesium (Crohn's disease, leaky gut, etc.) Alcoholism -- up to 60 percent of alcoholics have low blood levels of magnesium10
Unhealthy kidneys, which contribute to excessive loss of magnesium in urine Age -- older adults are more likely to be magnesium deficient because absorption decreases with age and the elderly are more likely to take medications that can interfere with absorption
Diabetes, especially if it's poorly controlled, may lead to increased magnesium loss in urine Certain medications -- diuretics, antibiotics, and medications used to treat cancer can all result in magnesium deficiency


In her book, The Magnesium Miracle, Dr. Dean lists 100 factors that will help you decide whether or not you might be deficient. Early signs of magnesium deficiency to watch out for include loss of appetite, headache, nausea, fatigue, and weakness. An ongoing magnesium deficiency can lead to more serious symptoms, including:

Numbness and tingling Muscle contractions and cramps Seizures
Personality changes Abnormal heart rhythms Coronary spasms
What Are the Best Dietary Sources of Magnesium?

Many people are low in magnesium. In order to ensure you're getting enough, you first need to be sure you're eating a varied, whole-food diet like the one described in my nutrition plan. Green leafy vegetables like spinach and Swiss chard are excellent sources of magnesium, as are some beans, nuts, and seeds, like almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds. Avocados are also a good source. Juicing your vegetables is an excellent option to ensure you're getting enough of them in your diet.

One important point to mention, though, is that the levels of magnesium in your food are dependent on the levels of magnesium in the soil where they're grown. Organic foods may have more magnesium, as most fertilizer used on conventional farms relies heavily on nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium instead of magnesium. Another one of the major benefits of getting your nutrients from a varied whole-food diet is that you're far less likely to end up with too much of one nutrient at the expense of others. Foods in general contain all the cofactors and needed co-nutrients in the proper amounts for optimal health, which takes out the guesswork. When you're using supplements, you need to become a bit savvier about how nutrients influence and synergistically affect each other.

In case you're interested, another way to improve your magnesium status is to take regular Epsom salt baths or foot baths. Epsom salt is a magnesium sulfate that can be absorbed into your body directly through your skin. Magnesium oil (from magnesium chloride) can also be used for topical application and absorption.

The 8 Forms of Magnesium Supplements: What Type Is Best?

If you opt for a magnesium supplement, be aware that there are several different forms of magnesium. The reason for the wide variety of magnesium supplements on the market is because the magnesium must be bound to another substance. There's no such thing as a 100% magnesium compound supplement (except pico-ionic magnesium). The substance used in any given supplement compound can affect the absorption and bioavailability of the magnesium, and may provide slightly different, or targeted, health benefits. Following is a general guide to help you sort through the eight different formulas you're likely to come across:

Magnesium glycinate is a chelated form of magnesium that tends to provide the highest levels of absorption and bioavailability and is typically considered ideal for those who are trying to correct a deficiency Magnesium threonate is a newer, emerging type of magnesium supplement that appears promising, primarily due to its superior ability to penetrate the mitochondrial membrane
Magnesium chloride / magnesium lactate contain only 12 percent magnesium, but has better absorption than others, such as magnesium oxide, which contains five times more magnesium Magnesium sulfate / magnesium hydroxide (milk of magnesia) are typically used as a laxative. Be aware that it's easy to overdose on these, so ONLY take as directed
Magnesium carbonate, which has antacid properties, contains 45 percent magnesium Magnesium taurate contains a combination of magnesium and taurine, an amino acid. Together, they tend to provide a calming effect on your body and mind
Magnesium citrate is magnesium with citric acid, which has laxative properties. Magnesium oxide is a non-chelated type of magnesium, bound to negatively charged oxygen (oxide). It contains 60 percent magnesium and has stool-softening properties


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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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"Stand Up Every 15 Minutes. While not intuitively obvious, emerging evidence clearly shows that even highly fit people who exceed the expert exercise recommendations are headed for premature death if they sit for long periods of time."

[quote] By Dr. Mercola

Obesity is associated with cognitive decline, at least in part because it results in an inflammatory state in your body.1 Obesity increases levels of inflammatory chemicals known as cytokines, which are strongly damaging to brain function.

In fact, elevated cytokines are seen in such devastating conditions as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and even autism.


Writing in The Journal of Neuroscience,2 researchers have suggested that your body may regard excess fat as an invader, which causes levels of cytokines to stay elevated, posing risks to your health. They also revealed a remarkably simple way to lower levels of inflammatory cytokines and thereby protect your brain function from damage.

Exercise Reverses Cognitive Decline in Obese Mice

When obese mice ran three to six miles a week for three months, they not only lost weight but also had reduced levels of interleukin-1 beta, an inflammatory cytokine. If left unchecked, interleukin-1 beta triggers a process that "eats up" neuronal synapses that are crucial for brain cells to communicate.

As the levels of interleukin-1 beta dropped, the synaptic function in the mice was repaired, thereby reversing cognitive decline.3 The same results were gained by surgically removing 15-20 percent of the mice's body weight – although if you're thinking of trying this option, it's probably not a good choice.

The researchers pointed out that the mice had "significantly more" belly fat removed than even a liposuction procedure would accomplish, and stressed that exercise is the best option.

In short, obesity (along with its increased risk of type 2 diabetes) will likely speed up the rate at which your brain function declines. If you want to keep your brain cells communicating effectively as you age, losing weight via exercise is the answer.

Exercise Helps You Grow New Brain Cells

Size does matter when it comes to our brain function. Declines in thinking and memory have been linked to actual brain shrinkage (atrophy). However, a study published in the journal Neurology found that physical exercise protects against age-related brain changes. People who engaged in the most physical exercise showed the least amount of brain shrinkage.

In fact, exercise actually causes your brain to grow. For example, Kirk I. Erickson, PhD of the University of Pittsburgh found that adults aged 60 to 80 walking moderately (just 30 to 45 minutes, three days per week for one year) showed a two percent increase in the volume of their hippocampus.4 The hippocampus is a region of your brain important for memory.

The growth correlated with changes in the participants' blood levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF is part of a cascade of proteins produced in your brain that promote neuron growth and prevent neuron death. Erickson also found higher fitness levels associated with a larger prefrontal cortex. He called exercise "one of the most promising nonpharmaceutical treatments to improve brain health."

Interestingly enough, BDNF also expresses itself in the neuro-muscular system where it protects neuromotors from degradation. (The neuromotor is the most critical element in your muscle. Without the neuromotor, your muscle is like an engine without ignition. Neuromotor degradation is part of the process that explains age-related muscle atrophy.)

So BDNF is actively involved in both your muscles and your brain, and this cross-connection, if you will, appears to be a major part of the explanation for why a physical workout can have such a beneficial impact on your brain tissue. It, quite literally, helps prevent, and even reverse, brain decay as much as it prevents and reverses age-related muscle decay.

We're Only Beginning to Uncover the Many Roles Exercise Plays in Your Brain Health

Exercise boosts your brain health through multiple pathways, including improving your hormone levels, increasing blood flow to your brain, reducing stress, and many others likely yet to be discovered. For instance, it's known that exercise:

Jump-starts neurogenesis — the creation of new brain cells. Neurogenesis is thought to be especially prevalent in your hippocampus. As you age, the stem cells in your brain tend to become less active and you produce fewer new cells, which may slow your brain function.5
Encourages new brain cells to join the existing neural network, instead of "rattling around aimlessly in the brain before dying." Exercise helps the new brain cells learn how to "multitask."
Upregulates production of brain chemicals and growth factors, like BDNF, which is key in maintaining memory, skilled task performance, and overall cognitive function.
Lifts your mood and helps neutralize the harmful effects of stress by boosting neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, and may even protect your brain cells against the effects of stress hormones.
Increases insulin sensitivity and may even help you make better food choices.

Additionally, according to John J. Ratey, a psychiatrist who wrote the book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, there's overwhelming evidence that exercise produces large cognitive gains and helps fight dementia. In addition to the benefits above, exercise also protects your brain by:

Increasing production of nerve-protecting compounds
Improving and increasing blood flow to your brain
Improving development and survival of neurons
Altering the way damaging proteins reside inside your brain, which appears to slow the development of Alzheimer's disease. In animal studies, significantly fewer damaging plaques and fewer bits of beta-amyloid peptides, associated with Alzheimer's, were found in mice that exercised
Your Brain Craves Regular Activity

If you work out religiously for three months, then suddenly stop for an extended period, your muscle tone will definitely suffer – but so, too, will your brain. Two studies presented at the 2012 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience revealed just how quickly the brain benefits of exercise fade if your exercise program stops.6

In the first study, active rats that had a week of inactivity were pitted against completely inactive rats while performing memory tests. The previously active rats completed the tests much faster and had at least twice as many new neurons in the hippocampus region of their brains. But remember, this was after just one week of inactivity. At three weeks of inactivity, their new neurons began to decrease, as did their performance on the memory test.

After six weeks of no activity, the neurons declined even more, as did their memory test scores, leading the study authors to suggest the "exercise-induced benefits may be transient." In the second study, rats that were active for 10 weeks, followed by three weeks of inactivity, had brains that were nearly identical to those of rats that had been completely inactive. The bottom line is that your brain needs regular, ongoing physical activity, not just a brief stint here and there. The good news is that while the benefits may fade fast, they're felt rather quickly too, providing ample motivation to keep going.

What Does a Brain-Boosting Exercise Regimen Entail?

The type of exercise program that will benefit your brain is one and the same as the one that will benefit the rest of your body. Ideally, to get the most benefits from your exercise, you need to incorporate workouts that push your body hard enough for a challenge while allowing adequate time for recovery and repair to take place. One of the best ways to accomplish this is with HIIT, or high-intensity interval training, which consists of short bursts of high-intensity exercise, as opposed to extended episodes of vigorous or moderate exertion. This is a core part of my Peak Fitness program.

HIIT maximizes your secretion of human growth hormone (HGH), optimizes your metabolism, and helps regulate your insulin and blood sugar. And nothing beats it in terms of efficiency. You can complete an entire Peak Fitness workout in 20 minutes or less. For detailed instructions and a demonstration, please see my previous article, "High Intensity Interval Training 101." In addition to HIIT, I also recommend incorporating the following:

Stand Up Every 15 Minutes. While not intuitively obvious, emerging evidence clearly shows that even highly fit people who exceed the expert exercise recommendations are headed for premature death if they sit for long periods of time. My interview with NASA scientist Dr. Joan Vernikos goes into great detail why this is so, and what you can do about it.
Strength Training: Rounding out your exercise program with a one-set strength training routine will ensure that you're really optimizing the possible health benefits of a regular exercise program. You can also "up" the intensity by slowing it down. For more information about using super slow weight training as a form of high-intensity interval exercise, please see my interview with Dr. Doug McGuff.
Core Exercises: Your body has 29 core muscles located mostly in your back, abdomen, and pelvis. This group of muscles provides the foundation for movement throughout your entire body, and strengthening them can help protect and support your back, make your spine and body less prone to injury, and help you gain greater balance and stability.
Foundation Training, created by Dr. Eric Goodman, is an integral first step of a larger program he calls "Modern Moveology," which consists of a catalog of exercises. Postural exercises such as those taught in Foundation Training are critical not just for properly supporting your frame during daily activities; they also retrain your body so you can safely perform high-intensity exercises without risking injury. Exercise programs like Pilates and yoga, as well as bodyweight exercises, are also great for strengthening your core muscles, as are specific exercises you can learn from a personal trainer.

Stretching: My favorite type of stretching is active isolated stretches. With Active Isolated Stretching, you hold each stretch for only two seconds, which works with your body's natural physiological makeup to improve circulation and increase the elasticity of muscle joints. This technique also allows your body to repair itself and prepare for daily activity. You can also use devices like the Power Plate to help you stretch.
A Secret Weapon for Your Brain: Intermittent Fasting and Exercise

Growing evidence indicates that fasting and exercise trigger similar genes and growth factors that recycle and rejuvenate both your brain and muscle tissues. These growth factors include BDNF, as previously mentioned, as well as muscle regulatory factors, or MRFs. These growth factors signal brain stem cells and muscle satellite cells to convert into new neurons and new muscle cells respectively.

Even better, exercise while fasting can help keep your brain, neuromotors, and muscle fibers biologically young.
For more information on how to incorporate intermittent fasting into your exercise routine for maximum benefits, please see this previous article./quote]

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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By Dr. Mercola

Medical injustices are becoming more routine and children seem to be the most vulnerable to such actions. You may have heard about the case of 15-year-old Justina Pelletier, who was removed from her parents' custody by Massachusetts child protection officials after the Boston Children's Hospital filed a "medical child abuse" complaint against them, following a dispute over Justina's medical diagnosis.

The state kept the teen hospitalized for close to a year, and wanted to place her in private foster care. According to the Pelletier's, Justina suffers from a genetic mitochondrial disorder, causing her gut, brain, and muscle problems. She received treatment for this condition at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. In February 2013, Justina was brought to the Boston Children's Hospital, where doctors disagreed with the diagnosis, claiming her eating and walking difficulties were psychological. As reported by The Boston Globe:1

"Justina stayed at Children's, for much of the time in a locked psychiatric ward, until last month, when she was moved to Wayside Youth and Family Support Network in Framingham. The case has exposed the often fuzzy line between psychiatric and physical illnesses and highlighted the growing use of the term medical child abuse, which can be attached to parents seen to be pushing for unnecessary and potentially harmful interventions for their children."

Justice for Justina

The Pelletier's have fought to have Justina returned to Tufts, and finally, after public protests, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) has agreed to let her return to Tufts for medical treatment.2 Not every case ends this well, as Ric Schiff's article attests. I recently also published an interview with Dr. David Ayoub, discussing how infantile rickets is being misdiagnosed as child abuse, placing innocent parents in jail. Then there's the issue of parents being forced to submit their children to toxic cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation, against the family's wishes,3 or risk losing custody.

All of this is in addition to the situation discussed by Ric above, where the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is condemning children to death by refusing to allow them access to experimental treatments, even though the agency has the authority to grant such access to terminal patients who have not responded to conventional treatment.

Ric lost one of his young daughters to cancer. She underwent chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation, which had no impact on her condition. Her brain tumor went into complete remission after receiving a gene-targeted therapy that included cancer-fighting peptides called antineoplastons. She died, cancer-free, from the side effects caused by the initial rounds of chemotherapy... I applaud Ric for his efforts to advocate for terminal patients who are now being refused access to antineoplastons by the FDA. I hope you will offer your help and support as well.

Parents Choice for Terminal Kids

There's something horribly wrong about a system that prevents parents from seeking medical treatments they deem to be in the best interest of their own child. Most conventional cancer treatments tend to add insult to injury by doing more harm than good -- a fact that has been largely swept under the rug by the medical industry.

Worse yet, the cancer industry has become a massive for-profit business that is doing everything in its power to maintain the status quo. It is, quite simply, not interested in truly reducing cancer rates; it's interested in treating cancer, using treatments that provide the greatest profits. ANP does not fit comfortably into this for-profit model.

It's incomprehensible to me that some parents are forced to treat their children with chemotherapy and radiation, even when such therapies are KNOWN to be ineffective for a particular type of tumor. Where is the humanity in that? And then when such therapies fail, as they often do, other treatment options are blocked out of industry fears that these alternative treatments may prove effective! Where is the compassion and respect for LIFE? Just as we need to stand up for our right to choose when it comes to vaccines, we need to become engaged in these issues and demand Parents Choice for terminal kids. Getting involved with the ANP Coalition (ANPC) is one way to get this ball rolling.
Guest Commentary by Ric Schiff

It is often argued that the most heinous crimes that can be committed in our society are those committed against children. Defenseless children, who rely on the greater values and morality of society to provide for their safety, their growth and development.

But what happens when the government stands between parents and the possible cure for their child's terminal illness? Take the following case for example. (The full story of Braiden Norton can be found on his Website, http://www.BraidenNorton.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.)

"Six years ago, 10-year-old Braiden was enrolled in a clinical trial for his incurable brain tumor. The 'experimental' drug Antineoplaston (ANP) was the sole treating agent. Braiden had been in full remission for the last two years and had suffered no toxic side effects.

Last December, an MRI revealed that Braiden has a reoccurrence of the tumor. Reoccurrence of aggressive brain tumors after treatment is very common; it is the reaction of the FDA that was unexpected!

The FDA is refusing to allow Braiden to go back on ANP even though the treatment has already proven its efficacy through his previous remission. The FDA has no legitimate rationale for sentencing Braiden to die. The FDA's response to his father, who asked to place his son back on ANP, was to recommend that Braiden receive experimental radiation and chemo treatments. Both are known to be ineffective for Braiden's type of tumor."

FDA Denies Hope for Dying Children

The FDA is the sole federal agency charged with the authority to grant compassionate use or "expanded access" for the terminally ill to experimental and as-of-yet unapproved drugs. This emergency access is meant to provide terminal patients like Braiden some possibility of hope when conventional treatments offer no curative possibilities.

The reality is that the FDA couldn't care less about your welfare or last chance at hope. The FDA's decision-making process is designed to be a regulatory bureaucratic nightmare that is virtually impossible to understand or successfully navigate through, especially when every minute wasted allows an aggressive tumor more time to grow. Clearly preventing Braiden from receiving a treatment that has already shown to be effective is not in the child's best medical interest… so why is the FDA making this decision?

There is an FDA Compassionate Use process that should enable patients immediate access to potentially lifesaving medications, but the FDA is blocking any avenue that these children have to ANP. The FDA's compassionate expanded access process, while meant to look reasonable, is nothing short of a nightmare when parents try to use it.

The story of ANP brings to light some very interesting anomalies with respect to how cancer is dealt with in the US, both medically (called "standard of care"), and with respect to the FDA's new drug approval process. ANP is a self-infused anticancer agent that can be dispensed on an out-patient basis.

When it is successful, the patient can continue to live a fairly normal life as side effects tend to be relatively benign and short term. This makes the treatment much more desirable over conventional treatments, which would certainly lead to economic misfortune for the cancer industry if patients knew and understood the difference between these two types of treatments. Instead of fast-tracking ANP for the good of all, the FDA seems bent on curtailing its use whenever possible.

Lives Are Hanging in the Balance...

In addition to Braiden, there are eight other patients who have failed to achieve results through conventional treatments and are in immediate need of ANP. Each of these patients never had a chance of remission using their initial toxic modalities; it was simply all that was offered!

What is even more shocking is that these initial treatments were actually experimental and proven to have no curative response in advanced brain tumors. In most cases, patients are actually forced by the FDA to subject themselves or their children to these treatments in spite of the fact that the FDA, and treating physicians, knows that they are not curative.

ANP offers a significant probability of survival to these patients and the FDA is well aware of that fact. Recently concluded ANP clinical trials showed ANP had greater efficacy for the treatment of brain tumors than all other clinical trials ever completed put together! But the FDA is demanding more.

Under a compassionate request, it is established that there is no other treatment option. It is by definition a last ditch Hail Mary pass meant to save a life using an experimental (unapproved) treatment. There is virtually no legitimate argument for preventing these patients from receiving ANP because there is nothing that can be lost. They're already dying.

Please Stand Up for These Children's Right to Compassionate Care

The only available remedy that could possibly act in time to save these children is a political response to the indifference of the FDA. A nonprofit has been formed for this purpose, called the ANP Coalition (ANPC), a nonprofit 501c4. ANPC has organized the parents of these children to launch a political campaign to force the FDA to allow these children and other patients access to ANP.

ANPC is an organization made up of unpaid volunteers from all walks of life; decorated police officers, firefighters, nurses, house wives, and professionals. You can visit their Website at http://www.ANPcoalition.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; to learn more about the patients being denied treatment, and what you can do to help. It is the obligation of science to make a better world for us all, but it is our obligation to deny special interests the opportunity to subvert that world! Examples of actions you can take to make a difference include:

Make a donation to help further the goals of the ANPC
Subscribe to the ANPC Website to receive the latest updates and action items
Help spread the word about ANPC by sharing this information
Respond to periodic requests for support, and/or contact ANPC to volunteer your time, skills or other resources, all of which are extremely valuable to us
Contact your State Representative and both Senators. Demand their leadership in making ANP available to everyone!
Who Are We Fighting For?

The ANPC represent the following nine patients, all of whom suffer from terminal cancer that has not responded to conventional treatments, and have been denied access to ANP.

Six-Year-Old Luis

"Our six-year-old son Luis started to complain about headaches. We noticed that they were becoming more frequent and that Motrin wasn't providing any relief so we took him to our doctor. Luis was diagnosed with a strep throat. Two days later, Luis became sick at school. We took Luis to the emergency room where MRIs revealed an inoperable brain tumor.

Doctors gave Luis a month to live without treatment. He has received radiation, but the tumor is now progressing. This was so hard for us to take, but then we realized that the only one that can decide how long Luis will live is God. We have put our son in his hands and we believe that he has listened to our prayers by putting antineoplastons (ANP) in our lives. Even though doctors have said Luis has only a few months to live after the radiation treatment that he received, I believe our miracle is here! Please help our children!"

Sadly, time ran out for Luis. He passed away March 11. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his grieving family members.



Three-Year-Old Rose

"Rose is our beautiful three-year-old daughter. She loves to sing and dance and make up her own jokes. She can light up a room and put a big smile on anyone's face when she walks through the door. At two months old, Rose was diagnosed with brain cancer. Because the tumor surrounds her optic nerves, it has caused Rose to become blind.

The tumors are still growing and they not only threaten what little is left of her eyesight, but they also threaten her life. Rose's body rejected chemotherapy. Chemotherapy would have killed Rose before her tumors if she had continued the regimen originally prescribed by her doctors. We are petitioning the government to get Antineoplaston (ANP) treatment to save Rose's life and give her the best chance to recover sight."



Ten-Year-Old Braiden

"My son Braiden was diagnosed with a JPA low grade tumor when he was just one-year-old. I took him to the Burzynski Clinic where he was accepted to be in a phase 2 clinical trial using Antineoplastons (ANP). Braiden was on this treatment for four years from the ages of 2-6. During treatment his tumor shrunk and became inactive. From the beginning of treatment up until this very day, Braiden lives a healthy lifestyle, with no debilitating side effects. Braiden has been off any treatment and without any medications for the past two years. Unfortunately, his last MRI showed tumor growth to a degree where every physician involved unilaterally agrees that action must be taken.

Because my son has been off ANP treatment for the past two years, the FDA puts him in a 'new patient' category and refuses to allow Braiden to receive ANP! We cannot afford to let a bureaucratic FDA make medical decisions for my son based on their own political agenda! Clearly my son deserves the best treatment possible; the same treatment that has given him a happy and healthy life up until this point. Please add your voice to ours and help us fight this insanity! " Learn more on Braiden Website.



Liza, Age 46

"Liza lives in California where she is a former attorney and entrepreneur. She is seeking Antineoplastons for a DIPG tumor and has created a government petition on Change.org. Her husband, David, is the drummer in the Sammy Hagar band and they had a concert for Liza on February 12th in the San Francisco Bay Area." To learn more, please visit Liza's Website.





Seven-Year-Old Laura

"Laura, age seven, in Canada is seeking Antineoplastons for a DIPG tumor. This beautiful girl enjoys swimming, soccer, reading, playing with animals, and spending time with family and friends." For more information, please visit Laura's Website. Laura also has a government petition that you can sign.



Five-Year-Old Isaac

"Isaac is five years old and has a stage IV tumor on the thalamus, a Glioblastoma Mutiforme. He's been given six months to live, and it is now two months into that diagnosis. His mother has received seven different opinions from oncologists, neurosurgeons, neurologists, and pathologists and has chosen some alternative therapies instead of toxins because chemo would only add on a few weeks and cause suffering and pain." Please see Isaac's GoFundMe page to make a donation, or connect on Facebook.



Twelve-Year-Old McKenzie

"McKenzie, age 12, lives in New Hampshire. Her family is asking for the use of Antineoplastons for her DIPG tumor. Please sign her petition to be granted Compassionate Use of ANP. This beautiful girl loves all animals and hopes to be a veterinarian someday."





About the Author:

Ric Schiff, a police sergeant with the San Francisco Police Department, lost one of his young daughters to side effects of chemotherapy. She died, cancer-free, after ANP had eliminated her brain tumors. The autopsy confirmed her death was a result of the chemotherapy and radiation she'd endured prior to receiving ANP. His story was previously published in the article, "May Alleviate Cancer Without Chemo, But It's Forbidden."

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... =473178148" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They darn well better know how to cook a steak medium rare!
Good thing I've got five acres of pasture!

Bob

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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Thanks for the heads up Bobby! Now I know where to go to get some steak after the Federal Death Administrations new rules take effect. :D

United States to Ban Raw Meat Sales, Following Joint Agency Decision
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... sales.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pre-masticated Soylent Green pre-loaded with life saving antibiotics anybody? Mmmmnnn, YUMY!!!! :ymsick:

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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By Dr. Mercola

In 1950, the number of starving individuals on Earth was estimated to be around 700 million. At the time, obesity affected approximately 100 million people around the globe, primarily in rich countries.

These statistics have changed dramatically over the past six decades. As stated in today’s featured documentary, Globesity: Fat's New Frontier, no low- to middle-income country has successfully managed to reduce hunger without shifting over into obesity, and very rapidly at that.

By 2010, the world’s hungry had marginally grown to 800 million, while the number of obese citizens of the world had ballooned to 500 million. The rate of "extreme obesity" (people with a BMI above 40) rose by 350 percent over the past few years alone in the US.

Estimates suggest that by 2030, more than one billion people, worldwide, will fall into the obese category. As stated on the Top Documentary Films’ site:1

“In India, it's anticipated that 100 million people will have diabetes in the near future and in Mexico, the largest consumer of carbonated beverage in the world, where diabetes is already a headline killer and where the weight problem is so acute, special programs have been made available offering free fitness classes and bariatric surgery.

If you thought obesity was just an issue in the first world economies, like the US, UK, and Australia, this documentary will set you straight.”

Carb-rich highly processed foods, along with rarely ever fasting, are primary drivers of these statistics. Wherever a highly processed food diet becomes the norm, obesity inevitably follows.

In the 1950s, the food available was mostly fresh and grown locally. Today, the majority of foods consumed—even in the developing world—are highly processed foods, filled with sugars, harmful processed fats, and chemical additives.

Perhaps one of the strongest links can be seen with soda consumption. As sweetened beverages have become more common in developing countries, obesity rates have started climbing right along with beverage sales.

This is likely why Mexico has become so obese. They consume enormous quantities of soda, which is largely a result of lack of access to clean and inexpensive water alternatives that will not get them sick.

Obesity as a Harbinger of Death

Along with excess body weight come a wide range of other health problems. In the US, eight obesity-related diseases account for a staggering 75 percent of healthcare costs. These diseases include:

Type 2 diabetes Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
Hypertension Polycystic ovarian syndrome
Lipid problems Cancer (especially breast, endometrial, colon, gallbladder, prostate and kidney2)
Heart disease Alzheimer's disease


According to research published last year, one in five American deaths is now associated with obesity.3 And while the effect varies somewhat by your gender, race, and age, the younger you are, the greater obesity's influence on your mortality.

Considering the dramatic rise in childhood obesity (one-third of American children aged two to 19 are now overweight or obese), these facts spell serious trouble for the future of our health care system, not to mention the overall quality of life for vast numbers of people.

As previously reported in the Guardian Express,4 kids are 40 percent heavier today compared to just 25 years ago, and a growing number of studies have linked rising childhood obesity rates to increased consumption of sugary beverages (including those sweetened with no- or low-cal sweeteners).

Most parents go to great lengths to keep their children safe from physical dangers. Yet, the majority of parents feed their children harmful foods without a thought for future consequences. It's not the occasional treat here and there that I'm referring to.

It's the fact that many children around the world are raised on processed foods, pizza, French fries, and fast-food hamburgers these days. And the outcome is identical regardless of which nation you live in.

As stated in the featured film, processed food products are just as dangerous to your health as tobacco and alcohol. Data collected from over 60,000 Canadians has confirmed this, showing that obesity now surpasses smoking in terms of creating ill health.

To Normalize Your Weight, You MUST Address Your Diet

Leading a common-sense, healthy lifestyle is your best bet to achieve health and longevity, and it really starts with your food choices. For a comprehensive guide on which foods to eat and which to avoid, please see my nutrition plan. Generally speaking, you should be looking to focus your diet on whole, ideally organic, unprocessed foods. For the best nutrition and health benefits, eat a good portion of your food raw.

I believe the two primary keys for successful weight management are severely restricting carbohydrates (sugars, fructose, and grains) in your diet, and increasing healthy fat consumption. This will optimize your insulin and leptin levels, which is key for maintaining a healthy weight and optimal health. The other part of the equation that is rarely addressed is the amount of protein consumed.

When it comes to meat, two key factors that will determine the healthfulness of your diet are the quality of the meat and the amount. Many eat too much protein, especially poor-quality, factory-farmed meats. Nutrition experts like Dr. Ron Rosedale believe most adults need about one gram of protein per kilogram of lean body mass, or one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body weight per day. (To calculate this, if your body fat mass is 20 percent, then your lean mass is 80 percent of your total body weight.)

There are a number of reasons why I believe it's best to limit your protein intake. The first is that if you eat large amounts of protein your body doesn't need, it will convert most of the excess calories to sugar. Additionally, it will need to remove the nitrogen waste products from your blood, which stresses your kidneys. Excessive protein can also have a stimulatory effect on mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)—a pathway that seems to be largely responsible for the pathology seen in cancer growth. When you reduce protein to just what your body needs, mTOR remains inhibited, which helps minimize your chances of cancer growth.

Last but not least, mankind also needs to return to traditional fare such as fermented foods. Virtually every country has a history of fermenting or culturing foods, and these are critical for gut health.

About 80 percent of your immune system resides in your gut, and research is stacking up showing that probiotics—beneficial bacteria—affect your health in a myriad of ways; it can even influence your ability to lose weight. A healthy diet is the ideal way to maintain a healthy gut, and regularly consuming traditionally fermented foods is the easiest, most cost effective way to ensure optimal gut flora. As for beverages, clean, pure water is your best bet. It’s really the only liquid your body truly needs.

The Importance of Exercise and Intermittently Fasting

Getting sufficient amounts of exercise is also critical. Even if you're eating right, you still need to exercise to reach the highest levels of health, and you need to be exercising effectively, which means including high-intensity activities into your rotation.

High-intensity interval-type training boosts human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential for optimal health, strength, and vigor. HGH also helps boost weight loss. So along with core-strengthening exercises, strength training, and stretching, I highly recommend that twice a week you do Peak Fitness exercises, which raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a 90-second recovery period.

Additionally, a growing body of evidence shows that intermittent fasting is really effective for losing weight, improving your insulin and leptin receptor sensitivity, and can go a long way toward improving your overall health. This makes logical sense when you consider that our ancestors never had access to food 24/7. Our bodies are indeed “programmed” to not eat for periods of time.

One of the mechanisms that make intermittent fasting so effective for weight loss is the fact that it provokes the natural secretion of human growth hormone (HGH), which is a fat-burning hormone. Fasting also increases catecholamines, which increases resting energy expenditure, while decreasing insulin levels, which allows stored fat to be burned for fuel.


Together, these and other factors will turn you into an effective fat-burning machine. Hence, if like many tens of millions of people, your goal is to shed excess fat, fasting can be both effective and beneficial for improving many disease markers. To learn more about the ins and outs of intermittent fasting, or scheduled eating, please see my previous article, “What the Science Says About Intermittent Fasting.”

Take Control of Your Health

It’s important to realize that sugar is a primary dietary factor driving obesity and chronic disease development.5 Many also eat far too little healthy fat, and the combination of too much sugar and too little fat is driving disease rates through the roof. Understanding this formula puts you in the driver’s seat when it comes to prevention.

Again, a diet that promotes health is high in healthful fats and very, very low in sugar and non-vegetable carbohydrates, with a moderate amount of high-quality (organic, pastured) protein.

If you and your kids are hooked on fast food and other processed foods, you may need some help to kick the junk-food lifestyle. My optimized nutrition plan offers a step-by-step guide to feed your family right, and I encourage you to read through it now. You can find even more help in the book I wrote on the subject, called Generation XL: Raising Healthy, Intelligent Kids in a High-Tech, Junk-Food World.

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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By Dr. Mercola

Your ancestors and other life forms developed organs that took advantage of the Earth’s environmental cues. We developed a biological clock governed by Earth’s cycles of light and darkness.

Even though in the modern day artificial light at night, and dimly lit indoor environments during the day, threaten to throw this carefully orchestrated rhythm completely off balance – with far-reaching effects on your health.

Your circadian rhythm -- the 24-hour cycles known as your internal body clock -- needs bright light to reset itself after a night’s sleep. This is why getting 30 minutes of morning sunlight is a habit I urge virtually everyone to get into, as it will send a strong message to your internal clock that day has arrived.

This is important for many reasons, including, as new research has highlighted, maintaining a healthy weight (and even losing weight).

Morning Light May Help You to Shed Pounds

A recent study published by Northwestern University researchers found that people who had exposure to light in the morning were most likely to have a lower body mass index (BMI), regardless of how many calories they consumed, activity levels, or how long they slept.1

The benefit was most pronounced in early morning hours. BMI rose by 1.28 points for every hour that light exposure was delayed. The researchers recommended that people should strive to get light exposure between 8 a.m. and noon, for about 20 to 30 minutes.


As for intensity, BMI benefits were noted at 500 lux, which is the intensity of a brightly lit indoor environment. This is an easy level to reach outdoors, where full daylight measures at more than 10,000 lux, and even on an overcast day the light will be over 1,000 lux. The researchers noted:2

“…light is a powerful biological signal and appropriate timing, intensity and duration of exposure may represent a potentially modifiable risk factor for the prevention and management of obesity in modern societies.”

BMI Is a Flawed Measure, But Other Research Also Supports Light Exposure for Weight Management

There’s no doubt that light exposure, and keeping your internal clock in tune with the natural light-dark cycle, is important for optimal health and weight. However, the featured study used BMI as a measure of weight loss, which is not the best indicator. Ultimately, BMI is seeking to indirectly measure your body fat percentage, but it really doesn’t succeed very well.

BMI is arrived at by dividing your weight in kilograms by the square of your height in meters. This fails to differentiate between muscle and fat tissue, and it also doesn't take into account the distribution of body fat on your physical frame (which can greatly impact your risk of chronic diseases, including heart disease).

A better measure of body composition would be waist-to-hip ratio, and it would be interesting to determine how this correlates to morning light exposure. That being said, there is other research to support the researchers’ notion that light exposure influences your weight quite significantly:

Sleep-deprived subjects who were exposed to light for two hours upon waking had improvements to their disrupted levels of the hormones leptin and ghrelin.3
When you are sleep deprived, your body decreases production of leptin, the hormone that tells your brain there is no need for more food. At the same time, it increases levels of ghrelin, a hormone that triggers hunger. Light exposure helped to remedy this hormonal recipe for weight gain.
Obese women exposed to bright light for at least 45 minutes early in the morning had reductions in body weight and appetite, leading researchers to conclude that morning bright light treatment may be included in weight-control programs.4
Adding bright light treatment to a moderate exercise program helped to significantly reduce body fat among overweight and obese individuals.5

Exposure to Light at Night May Also Wreak Havoc with Your Weight


If exposure to light when your body needs it (i.e. in the morning and during the day) helps to regulate weight, then it would make sense that exposure to light at the wrong times may do the opposite – and this is just what research suggests. In one study, mice that were exposed to dim light during the night gained 50 percent more weight over an eight-week period than mice kept in complete darkness at night.6

They also had increased levels of glucose intolerance, a marker for pre-diabetes. The weight gain occurred even though the mice were fed the same amount of food and had similar activity levels, and the researchers believe the findings may hold true for humans as well.

When you turn on a light at night, you immediately send your brain misinformation about the light-dark cycle. The only thing your brain interprets light to be is day. Believing daytime has arrived, your biological clock instructs your pineal gland to immediately cease its production of the hormone melatonin.

Whether you have the light on for an hour or for just a second, the effect is the same — and your melatonin pump doesn't turn back on when you flip the light back off. Melatonin appears to improve weight control by increasing “beige” fat, which is a heat-generating type of fat that helps your body to burn calories rather than store them. If you’re regularly exposed to light at night, you’re missing out on this fat-burning potential.

Since humans evolved in the glow of firelight, yellow, orange, and red wavelengths don't suppress melatonin production the way white and blue wavelengths do. In fact, the range of light that inhibits melatonin is fairly narrow — 460 to 480 nm. If you want to protect your melatonin, when the sun goes down you would shift to a low-wattage bulb with yellow, orange or red light. Dr. Russel Reiter suggests using a salt lamp illuminated by a 5-watt bulb in this color range.

Morning light contains more wavelengths of blue light, which are known to have the strongest effect on the circadian system, according to the authors of the featured Northwestern study. This, they believe, may explain why morning light had the strongest association with lower BMI.

On the other hand, televisions, computers, and other electronic devices also emit blue light, which tricks your brain into thinking it’s daytime if you use them at night. This is why I recommend avoiding watching TV or using a computer or tablet at least an hour or so before going to bed. An alternative is a free computer program called f.lux (see justgetflux.com), which alters the color temperature of your computer screen as the day goes on, pulling out the blue wavelengths as it gets later.

Light Exposure Is Intricately Connected to Your Sleep Patterns

Maintaining a natural rhythm of exposure to daylight, and darkness at night, is an essential component of sleeping well. And getting quality sleep is crucial to maintaining a healthful weight. This is yet another way that light exposure may ultimately make or break your weight-loss goals. The reason why light is important is because it serves as the major synchronizer of something called your master clock. This master clock is a group of cells in your brain called the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN).

As a group, these nuclei synchronize to the light-dark cycle of your environment when light enters the eye. You also have other biological clocks throughout your body, and those clocks subsequently synchronize to your master clock. Now with the advent of the light bulb, artificial light, high-definition televisions, and any number of lighted electronic gadgets, we're exposed to a lot more light over a 24-hour period, and a lot less darkness. There are significant consequences to this. Shift workers, for example, are known to have higher rates of obesity and diabetes. But you may not have to be a classic shift worker to increase your risk for obesity and other health conditions. As explained by researcher Dan Pardi:

"There's a new type of shift work, where people go to work in the morning, they come home, they spend a little bit of time with their families, and then on some nights they go back to work on their computers until late at night... This is a pattern that many people in the modern workplace maintain. Again, this new type of shift work significantly alters our internal rhythms because on some nights you’re getting light exposure for hours later than the day before. This variability in light instructs your rhythm-setting centers to constantly change body rhythms to try to catch up to the new pattern."

Exposure to Outdoor Light During the Day Is a Key to Optimal Health

Most people in Western societies spend the larger portion of each day indoors, which essentially puts you in a state of "light deficiency." In terms of light intensity, outdoor light is far more intense than indoor light, which is why, if you want to have properly aligned circadian rhythms, strive to maintain natural and proper light rhythms.

This includes exposing yourself to intense light (aka daylight) for at least half an hour or more each day. A gadget that can be helpful in instances when you, for some reason, cannot get outside during the day is a blue-light emitter. Philips makes one called goLITE BLU. (You can find it on Amazon for less than $150.) It's a small light therapy device you can keep on your desk. It's especially useful during the winter when it's harder to get outside (i.e., less daylight hours and less light intensity during daytime). Use it twice a day for about 15 minutes to help you anchor your circadian rhythm if going outdoors is challenging.

Then, in the evening, you want to dim environmental lights and avoid the blue light wavelength. Use blue-blocking light bulbs, dim your lights with dimmer switches and turn off unneeded lights. If using a computer, install blue light-blocking software like f.lux.7 Last but not least, when it's time to go to sleep, make sure your bedroom is very dark, with not even the glow from your clock radio to disturb you. And remember, no clocks with green or blue lights in your bedroom, only amber or red.

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Re: Dr. MERCOLA --> alternative health and fitness

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Lower back pain -o- is a real pain...
By Dr. Mercola

It's estimated that, globally, one out of every 10 people suffer from lower back pain. The problem appears to be particularly prevalent in the US. According to earlier estimates, as many as eight out of 10 Americans struggle with back pain.

In the US, it accounts for 10 percent of all primary care doctors visits each year, costing Americans as much as $86 billion annually,1 but according to recent findings, back pain is also the number one cause of job disability worldwide.

Clearly, it's a universal problem of extreme proportions. The study, published in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases,2 found that out of 291 health conditions included in the Global Burden of Disease 2010 Study, low-back pain ranked at the very top in terms of disability. According to the authors:

"Lower back pain (LBP) causes more global disability than any other condition. With the ageing population, there is an urgent need for further research to better understand LBP across different settings."

Back Pain—A Driving Force Behind A Growing Drug Problem

A related concern, which was not addressed in the featured study, is the fact that lower back pain is also one of the primary reasons why people get hooked on prescription painkillers.

Deaths caused by overdosing on painkillers now surpass murders and fatal car accidents in the US, and over the past five years, heroin deaths have increased by 45 percent3 --an increase that officials blame on the rise of addictive prescription drugs such as Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet, codeine, and Fentora, all of which are opioids (derivatives of opium). Heroin is simply a cheaper option to these prescription medications.

Still, prescription painkillers claim far more lives than illegal street drugs like heroin. According to Gil Kerlikowske, director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy,4 prescription painkillers were responsible for 16,600 deaths in 2010—well over five times more than those caused by heroin.

US officials have recently gone on the offensive, stating that narcotic painkillers are a driving force in the rise of substance abuse and lethal overdoses, and that both patients and doctors need to become better informed about their risks.

Back pain, in turn, is a driving force behind opioid drug use, which makes it a central focus not just for decreasing disability claims and improving health and quality of life for millions of people, but also for tackling a rapidly growing problem of legal drug abuse and the associated death toll.

What Commonly Causes Back Pain?

Accidents and sports injuries are the most common causes of chronic back pain, but there are also a number of other factors that can increase your risk, including:

Poor posture Poor physical conditioning facilitated by inactivity Internal disease, such as kidney stones, infections, and blood clots
Obesity - According to a study posted in the Journal of American Epidemiology, overweight and obese people had a higher prevalence of low back pain than non-overweight individuals5 Psychological/emotional stress Osteoporosis or bone loss (as measured by the Z-score and not the young adult-based T-score)
Beware: The Worst Treatment Options for Back Pain Are Also the Most Commonly Prescribed

Despite it being so common, few people—including specialists—have a clear understanding of how to treat back pain. Typically, chronic back pain will result in a prescription for a painkiller. Surgery is another overused and largely ineffective strategy that rarely leads to full recovery. On the contrary, it's usually the quickest route to a life of permanent disability.

If you have low back pain and see different specialists, you will get different tests: rheumatologists will order blood tests, neurologists will order nerve impulse tests, and surgeons will order MRIs and CT scans.

But no matter what tests you get, you'll probably end up with a spinal fusion because it's one of the "more lucrative procedures in medicine," according to Shannon Brownlee, author of the book, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer. This despite the fact that the best success rate for spinal fusions is a mere 25 percent!

According to one 2011 review,6 more than 17 percent of patients told they needed spinal surgery actually showed no abnormal neurological or radiographic findings that would necessitate surgery.

Chiropractic Care May Relieve Pain Better Than Drugs

Seeing a qualified chiropractor or a doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO) is another wise option if you suffer from any type of chronic pain, including back pain. One study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine7 revealed that chiropractic care oftentimes provides greater relief than medication.

After following more than 270 neck-pain patients for 12 weeks, researchers found that those who used a chiropractor or exercised were more than twice as likely to be pain-free compared to those who took medication. Although this study involved neck pain rather than back pain, it's likely the results apply to back pain as well. The results showed:

32 percent who received chiropractic care became pain-free
30 percent of those who exercised became pain-free
13 percent of those treated with medication became pain-free
I am an avid believer in the chiropractic philosophy, which places a strong emphasis on your body's innate healing wisdom and far less reliance on Band-Aid solutions like drugs and surgery. Chiropractic, osteopathic, and naturopathic physicians receive extensive training in the management of musculoskeletal disorders during their course of graduate healthcare training, which typically lasts anywhere from four to six years.

Due to their comprehensive training in musculoskeletal management, numerous sources of evidence have shown that chiropractic management is much safer and often more effective than allopathic medical treatments, particularly for back and neck pain. In addition, researchers have also found that chiropractic adjustments affect our bodies on a deep cellular level.

This means that chiropractic care may affect basic physiological processes that influence oxidative stress and DNA repair, so in addition to addressing any immediate spinal misalignment that might cause pain, it may also address deeper dysfunction in your body. Acupuncture can be another useful approach, although in my experience requires a bit more time to achieve results.

The Importance of Proper Posture, Both When Sitting and Standing

Addressing your posture is another critical element of self-care that, in many cases, can even help eliminate chronic back pain altogether. Spending most of your day slouched behind a desk or on the couch is a surefire way to develop back pain. Sitting is also an independent risk factor of everything from diabetes to heart disease, and can even take years off your life—even if you exercise regularly!

If you spend the majority of your day sitting like I do, then I could not encourage you more strongly to review last week's article on sitting and intermittent movement, which provides dozens of different mini exercises you can do to interrupt your sitting. Even though I have always been very fit, I believe my chronic sitting caused me back pain, and these intermittent movement exercises have eliminated it.

Proper posture is truly foundational for health and most who live in industrialized cultures have far from ideal posture. By understanding the functional biomechanics of your body, you can learn to optimize the way you move at all times. This in turn effectively prevents aches and pains from developing.

Two effective methods to relearn proper posture are Foundation Training, developed by chiropractor Dr. Eric Goodman to address his own chronic back pain, and the Gokhale Method, created by Esther Gokhale. Her method teaches you to return to what she calls "primal posture," which is the way your body was designed to stand, sit, and move. For a more complete discussion and demonstrations of her techniques, please review my previous article, "The Gokhale Method: Banish Pain by Relearning Proper Posture."

Another important factor is to simply stand up at regular intervals, as this will help counteract the ill effects of sitting. I've found that every 15 minutes seems to be the "sweet spot" for me. I simply set a timer to go off at 15-minute intervals, at which time I stand up and do a few jump squats, one-legged squats, or a wide variety of different hip and chest stretches.

PLEASE Read This Recommendation BEFORE You Ever Consider Back Surgery

Personally, I strongly advise you to AVOID going under the knife until or unless you've exhausted all other treatment options, which include but is not necessarily limited to chiropractic treatments, massage, acupuncture, exercise, yoga, and perhaps most importantly, K-Laser treatment. Truly, I cannot stress this enough; it's one of my most important recommendations: Please avoid surgery until you've tried K-Laser — it's just that good. You have virtually nothing to lose except some time and a relatively minor investment in the treatment, and everything to gain.

K-Laser therapy is typically a tiny fraction of the cost of surgery and has virtually no detrimental side effects, unlike surgery, where just about anything can go wrong. Not to mention the risk of contracting a potentially deadly hospital-acquired infection—a problem that kills more than 205 Americans each and every day. Class 4 laser therapy can also be effectively combined with a number of other treatment modalities, including various soft tissue mobilization techniques. Ideally, your doctor would do the K-Laser treatment before they do those soft tissue techniques.

The Benefits of K-Laser Class 4 Laser Therapy

Several beneficial things happen during K-Laser treatment. First, infrared laser therapy treatment helps reduce pain, reduce inflammation, and enhance tissue healing—both in hard and soft tissues, including muscles, ligaments, or even bones. These benefits are the result of enhanced microcirculation, as the treatment stimulates red blood cell flow in the treatment area. Venous and lymphatic return is also enhanced, as is oxygenation of those tissues.

Finally, the treatment stimulates the cytochrome oxidase enzyme in your cells' mitochondria. This is really one of the key discoveries in the whole science of laser therapy. Specifically, injured cells are targeted because damaged cells are more readily accepting of photons of light, whereas healthy cells don't need this extra energy. As explained by Dr. Phil Harrington, who is an expert on the use of K-Laser therapy:

"By stimulating the cytochrome oxidase enzyme, we are utilizing that oxygen in the respiratory chain inside of the mitochondria, producing more ATP for that cell. So regardless of what kind of cell it is, it's going to function at a higher level."

The three infrared wavelengths of the K-Laser target water, hemoglobin and the enzyme to most efficiently stimulate cellular metabolism. The K-Laser is unique in that it is the only Class 4 therapy laser that utilizes three infrared wavelengths that penetrate deep into the body to reach areas such as your spine and hip. For more information about this groundbreaking technology, and how it can help heal chronic pain, please listen to my previous interview with Dr. Harrington.



Download Interview Transcript

Additional Solutions for Pain Relief

Considering the risks, I strongly recommend exhausting your options before resorting to a narcotic pain reliever or surgery. I believe there are better and much safer alternatives, including intermittent movement, postural training, chiropractic, osteopathic, naturopathic, acupuncture, and K-Laser treatment. Neither drugs nor surgery address the underlying cause of your pain, and both come with the risk of serious side effects. The following options can also provide pain relief. So if you're in pain, try these first, before even thinking about prescription painkillers of any kind.

Eliminate or radically reduce processed foods, grains, and processed sugars from your diet. Avoiding grains and processed sugars will lower your insulin and leptin levels and decrease insulin and leptin resistance, which is one of the most important reasons why inflammatory prostaglandins are produced. That is why stopping sugar and sweets is so important to controlling your pain and other types of chronic illnesses.
Start taking high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat. My personal favorite is krill oil. Omega-3 fats are precursors to mediators of inflammation called prostaglandins. (In fact, that is how anti-inflammatory painkillers work, they manipulate prostaglandins.)
Optimize your production of vitamin D by getting regular, appropriate sun or safe tanning bed exposure, which will work through a variety of different mechanisms to reduce your pain.
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is a drug-free approach for pain management of all kinds. EFT borrows from the principles of acupuncture, in that it helps you balance out your subtle energy system. It helps resolve underlying, often subconscious, negative emotions that may be exacerbating your physical pain. By stimulating (tapping) well-established acupuncture points with your fingertips, you rebalance your energy system, which tends to dissipate pain.
Astaxanthin is one of the most effective fat-soluble antioxidants known. It has very potent anti-inflammatory properties and in many cases works far more effectively than anti-inflammatory drugs. Higher doses are typically required and one may need 8 mg or more per day to achieve this benefit.
Ginger: This herb has potent anti-inflammatory activity and offers pain relief and stomach-settling properties. Fresh ginger works well steeped in boiling water as a tea or grated into vegetable juice.
Curcumin: In a study of osteoarthritis patients, those who added 200 mg of curcumin a day to their treatment plan had reduced pain and increased mobility.8 A past study also found that a turmeric extract composed of curcuminoids blocked inflammatory pathways, effectively preventing the overproduction of a protein that triggers swelling and pain.9
Boswellia: Also known as boswellin or "Indian frankincense," this herb contains specific active anti-inflammatory ingredients. This is one of my personal favorites as I have seen it work well with many rheumatoid arthritis patients.
Bromelain: This enzyme, found in pineapples, is a natural anti-inflammatory. It can be taken in supplement form but eating fresh pineapple, including some of the bromelain-rich stem, may also be helpful.
Cetyl Myristoleate (CMO): This oil, found in fish and dairy butter, acts as a "joint lubricant" and an anti-inflammatory. I have used this for myself to relieve ganglion cysts and a mild annoying carpal tunnel syndrome that pops up when I type too much on non-ergonomic keyboards. I used a topical preparation for this.
Evening primrose, black currant and borage oils: These contain the essential fatty acid gamma linolenic acid (GLA), which is useful for treating arthritic pain.
Cayenne cream: Also called capsaicin cream, this spice comes from dried hot peppers. It alleviates pain by depleting the body's supply of substance P, a chemical component of nerve cells that transmits pain signals to your brain.

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