A Simple, Inexpensive Trick to Cure a Cold

Posted on May 17, 2012 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Each year Americans catch more than one billion colds, making the cold virus the most common infectious disease in the United States.

It accounts for more school absences and missed work than any other illness, and it’s the number one reason people visit their physicians — even though most physicians have little to offer in the form of treatment.

It’s a widespread misconception that colds are caused by bacteria. Colds are actually triggered by a virus, which means if your physician prescribes you an antibiotic, it will be absolutely useless.

More on this shortly, but before I delve into simple prevention and treatment strategies it’s important you know how colds are contracted in the first place.

How Do You Catch a Cold?

The most common way cold viruses are spread is not from being around coughing or sneezing, or walking barefoot in the rain, but rather from hand-to-hand contact. For instance, someone with a cold blows their nose then shakes your hand or touches surfaces that you also touch.

Cold viruses can live on pens, computer keyboards, coffee mugs and other objects for hours, so it’s easy to come into contact with such viruses during daily life.

However, the key to remember is that just being exposed to a cold virus does not have to mean that you’ll catch a cold. If your immune system is operating at its peak, it should actually be quite easy for you to fend off the virus without ever getting sick.

If your immune system is impaired, on the other hand, it’s akin to having an open-door policy for viruses; they’ll easily take hold in your body. So the simple and short answer is, you catch a cold due to impairment in your immune system. There are many ways this can result, but the more common contributing factors are:

Eating too much sugar and too many grains
Not getting enough rest
Using insufficient strategies to address emotional stressors in your life
Vitamin D deficiency, as discussed below
Any combination of the above

Vitamin D Deficiency: Another Reason You May “Catch” a Cold

It’s estimated that the average U.S. adult typically has two to four colds each year, while children may have up to 12! One reason for the widespread prevalence may be that vitamin D deficiency is incredibly common in the United States, especially during the winter months when cold (and flu) viruses are at their peak.

Research has confirmed that “catching” colds and flu may actually be a symptom of an underlying vitamin D deficiency. Less than optimal vitamin D levels will significantly impair your immune response and make you far more susceptible to contracting colds, influenza, and other respiratory infections.

In the largest and most nationally representative study of its kind to date, involving about 19,000 Americans, people with the lowest vitamin D levels reported having significantly more recent colds or cases of the flu – and the risk was even greater for those with chronic respiratory disorders like asthma.

At least five additional studies also show an inverse association between lower respiratory tract infections and vitamin D levels, and you can read about them in detail here. But the research is very clear, the higher your vitamin D level, the lower your risk of contracting colds, flu, and other respiratory tract infections.

It’s not surprising, then, that the average American gets so many colds each year, as current guidelines for optimal intake and normal vitamin D levels are far too low — and since most people do not get adequate sun exposure on a daily basis (which is what produces vitamin D in your skin) many are deficient. I strongly believe you could avoid colds and influenza entirely by maintaining your vitamin D level in the optimal range.

How Long Do Colds Last … and How Can You Make Your Cold Go Away Faster?

Most uncomplicated colds last between eight and nine days, but about 25 percent last two weeks, and 5-10 percent last three weeks. Even the most stubborn colds will typically resolve in a few weeks’ time; this is actually one of the ways you can distinguish a cold from allergies.

A cold will last, at most, a few weeks, but allergy symptoms can last all season.

How quickly you bounce back is typically defined by you and your collective lifestyle habits — and this does not mean popping over-the-counter cough and cold remedies or fever reducers. In fact, as long as your temperature remains below 102 degrees Fahrenheit (38.9 degrees Celsius) there is no need to lower it.

Cold viruses do not reproduce at higher body temperatures, so a slight fever should help you get rid of the virus quicker and help you to feel better much sooner.

You should avoid taking over-the-counter pain-relief medications as well, as a study showed that people who take aspirin and Tylenol (acetaminophen) suppress their body’s ability to produce antibodies to destroy the cold virus. Aspirin has even been linked to lung complications including pulmonary edema, an abnormal build up of fluid in your lungs, when taken in excess.

You should only use these medications when absolutely necessary, such as if you have a temperature greater than 105 degrees F (40.5 degrees C), severe muscle aches or weakness.

Hydrogen Peroxide: A Simple Trick to Beat a Cold

I don’t advise over-the-counter medications, but one simple treatment you can try that is surprisingly effective against upper respiratory infections is hydrogen peroxide.

Many patients at my Natural Health Center have had remarkable results in curing colds and flu within 12 to 14 hours when administering a few drops of 3 percent hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into each ear. You will hear some bubbling, which is completely normal, and possibly feel a slight stinging sensation.

Wait until the bubbling and stinging subside (usually 5 to 10 minutes), then drain onto a tissue and repeat with the other ear. A bottle of hydrogen peroxide in 3 percent solution is available at any drug store for a couple of dollars or less. It is simply amazing how many people respond to this simple, inexpensive treatment.

So What Else Can You do to Recover From a Cold, Quicker … and Prevent One in the First Place?

As I said above, the number one way to conquer a cold (or flu) is vitamin D. Vitamin D is an amazingly effective antimicrobial agent, producing 200 to 300 different antimicrobial peptides in your body that kill bacteria, viruses and fungi. So optimizing your levels will not only help send a cold virus packing … it will help ward off cold viruses in the first place.

The best source for vitamin D is direct sun exposure. But for many of us, this just isn’t practical during the winter. The next best option to sunlight is the use of a safe indoor tanning device. If neither natural nor artificial sunlight is an option, then using oral vitamin D3 supplements is your best bet.

Based on the latest research, many experts now agree you need about 35 IU’s of vitamin D per pound of body weight. This recommendation also includes children, the elderly and pregnant women.

However, keep in mind that vitamin D requirements are highly individual, as your vitamin D status is dependent on numerous factors, such as the color of your skin, your location, and how much sunshine you’re exposed to on a regular basis. So, although these recommendations may put you closer to the ballpark of what most people likely need, it is simply impossible to make a blanket recommendation that will cover everyone’s needs.

The only way to determine your optimal dose is to get your blood tested. Ideally, you’ll want to maintain a vitamin D level of 50-65 ng/ml year-round.

For an in-depth explanation of everything you need to know before you get tested, please read my latest updates in Test Values and Treatment for Vitamin D Deficiency.

Dietary Strategies to Kick a Cold

If you feel yourself coming down with a cold or flu, this is NOT the time to be eating ANY sugar, artificial sweeteners or processed foods. Sugar is particularly damaging to your immune system — which needs to be ramped up, not suppressed, in order to combat an emerging infection.

So if you are fighting a cold, you’ll want to avoid all sugar like the plague, and this includes sugar in the form of fruit juice and even grains (which break down as sugar in your body).

Ideally, you must address nutrition, sleep, exercise and stress issues the moment you first feel yourself getting a bug. This is when immune-enhancing strategies will be most effective.

So when you’re coming down with a cold, it’s time to address ALL of the contributing factors immediately, which includes tweaking your diet in favor of foods that will strengthen your immune response. Good choices include:

Raw, grass-fed organic milk, and/or high-quality whey protein
Fermented foods such as raw kefir, kimchee, miso, pickles, sauerkraut, etc, which are rich in probiotics, or good bacteria. Scientific research shows that 80 percent of your immune system resides inside your digestive tract, so eating probiotic-rich foods, or taking a high-quality probiotic, will help support your immune system health.
Raw, organic eggs from free-ranging, preferably local, chickens
Grass-fed beef
Coconuts and coconut oil
Animal-based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil
Locally grown fruits and vegetables, appropriate for your nutritional type
Mushrooms, especially Reishi, Shiitake, and Maitake, which contain beta glucans (which have immune-enhancing properties)
Garlic, a potent antimicrobial that kills bacteria, viruses and fungi. Ideally this should be in fresh form, eaten raw and crushed with a spoon just before eating.
Herbs and spices with high ORAC scores: Turmeric, oregano, cinnamon, cloves (for more on ORAC, visit www.oracvalues.com)
Make sure you are drinking plenty of fresh, pure water. Water is essential for the optimal function of every system in your body and will help with nose stuffiness and loosening secretions. You should drink enough water so that your urine is a light, pale yellow.

And what about the old wives’ tale of chicken soup for your cold?

Chicken soup can help reduce your symptoms. Chicken contains a natural amino acid called cysteine, which can thin the mucus in your lungs and make it less sticky so you can expel it more easily.

Processed, canned soups won’t work as well as the homemade version, however.

For best results, make up a fresh batch yourself (or ask a friend or family member to do so) and make the soup hot and spicy with plenty of pepper. The spices will trigger a sudden release of watery fluids in your mouth, throat, and lungs, which will help thin down the respiratory mucus so it’s easier to cough up and expel.

Three Cold-Busting Lifestyle Strategies

Vitamin D, check! Hydrogen peroxide, check! Healthy diet, check! We’ve covered several of the primary “weapons” you should have in your cold-fighting arsenal, but there are others, too.

High-Quality Sleep, and Plenty of It Pay attention to how you are sleeping. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, or enough restorative sleep, you’ll be at increased risk for a hostile viral takeover. Your immune system is also the most effective when you’re not sleep-deprived, so the more rested you are the quicker you’ll recover. You can find 33 secrets for a good night’s sleep here.
Regular Exercise Regular exercise is a crucial strategy for increasing your resistance to illness. There is evidence that regular, moderate exercise can reduce your risk for respiratory illness by boosting your immune system. In fact, one study found that people who exercised regularly (five or more days a week) cut their risk of having a cold by close to 50 percent. And, in the event they did catch a cold, their symptoms were much less severe than among those who did not exercise.Exercise likely cuts your risk of colds so significantly because it triggers a rise in immune system cells that can attack any potential invaders. Each time you exercise you can benefit from this boost to your immune system.Ideally, establish a regular fitness program, such as Peak Fitness, now, to help you ward off colds and other illness.However, if you’re already feeling sick don’t overdo it. Over-exercising can actually place more stress on your body, which can suppress your immune system — and you don’t want that either. You might just go for a walk if you are coming down with a cold, or simply tone down your regular workout.Any rise in body temperature will be an unwelcome climate for a viral invader, though, so some exercise is likely to be beneficial.
Address Your Emotional Stress Emotional stressors can also predispose you to an infection while making cold symptoms worse. Finding ways to manage daily stress as well as your reactions to circumstances beyond your control will contribute to a strong and resilient immune system.My favorite tool for this is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a system that helps balance your body’s subtle energies and repair emotional “short-circuits.” EFT may even help you overcome cold symptoms.

Supplements That Send Pathogens Packin’

Supplements can be beneficial for colds, but they should be used only as an adjunct to the lifestyle measures already discussed.

Some of the more helpful options for cold (and flu) — above and beyond vitamin D — are:

Vitamin C: A very potent antioxidant; use a natural form such as acerola, which contains associated micronutrients. You can take several grams every hour till you are better unless you start developing loose stools
Oregano Oil: The higher the carvacrol concentration, the more effective it is. Carvacrol is the most active antimicrobial agent in oregano oil.
Propolis: A bee resin and one of the most broad-spectrum antimicrobial compounds in the world; propolis is also the richest source of caffeic acid and apigenin, two very important compounds that aid in immune response and even fight cancer.
A tea made from a combination of elderflower, yarrow, boneset, linden, peppermint and ginger; drink it hot and often for combating a cold or flu. It causes you to sweat, which is helpful for eradicating a virus from your system.
Olive leaf extract: Ancient Egyptians and Mediterranean cultures used it for a variety of health-promoting uses and it is widely known as a natural, non-toxic immune system builder.

Remember This Tip: Wash Your Hands Sensibly

Washing your hands frequently is one of the easiest ways to wipe out germs and viruses and reduce your chances of becoming sickened by them. Thorough hand-washing truly is an important step, as you are at far greater risk of passing on an infection by shaking someone’s hand than even by sharing a kiss.

One report even found that regular hand washing may be more effective than drugs in preventing the spread of respiratory viruses such as influenza.

When you wash up, plain soap and water will do. Do not make the mistake of using antibacterial cleansers, as their widespread use is leading to strains of resistant bacteria, or “superbugs,” which cause the ingredients to lose effectiveness for the times when they really are needed, such as for surgeons prior to surgery.

Further, the active ingredient in most antibacterial products is triclosan, an antibacterial agent that kills bacteria and inhibits bacterial growth. But not only does triclosan kill bacteria, it also has been shown to kill human cells.

Antibacterial soaps are also no more effective than regular soaps. One study found people who used antibacterial soaps and cleansersdeveloped a cough, runny nose, sore throat, fever, vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms just as often as people who used products that did not contain antibacterial ingredients. So please avoid making the mistake of using antibacterial liquids and soaps.

Too Much Hand-Washing Can Backfire …

There is another important caveat to remember, and that is your skin is actually your primary defense against bacteria — not the soap.

So resist the urge to become obsessive about washing your hands. If you wash them too frequently you can actually extract many of the protective oils in your skin, which can cause your skin to crack and bleed.

It is rare for a germ on your skin to cause a problem — it is typically only an issue when you transfer that to your nose, mouth or an open wound like cracked skin. So obsessive-compulsive washing can actually increase your risk of getting sick by providing an entryway for potentially dangerous pathogens.

So mild to moderate washing is wise, but excessive washing, especially with harsh soaps, will actually be highly counterproductive.

Avoid the Antibiotics!

More than 300 different viruses can cause colds, so each time you have a cold it is caused by a distinct virus (i.e. adenovirus, rhinovirus, parainfluenza virus, coronavirus). A virus is much smaller than a bacteria; it is a tiny cluster of genetic material surrounded by a protein wrapper.

There are currently NO drugs available that can kill these viruses. Antibiotics, including penicillin, do not have any effect on viruses, but unfortunately have been vastly over-prescribed for this very (useless) purpose. That, coupled with the excessive use of antibiotics in agriculture, has contributed to a steep rise in antibiotic-resistant diseases.

Antibiotic-resistant infections now claim more lives each year than the “modern plague” of AIDS, and cost the American health care system some $20 billion a year!

Further, according to one meta-analysis, the health risk from over-use of antibiotics is also a very personal one, as opposed to simply raising the occurrence of antibiotic resistance in the general population over time.

Whenever you use an antibiotic, you’re increasing your susceptibility to developing infections with resistance to that antibiotic — and you can become the carrier of this resistant bug, and spread it to others.

So please, if you have a simple cold remember that an antibiotic will do far more harm than good.

When Should You Call Your Physician?

Sinus, ear and lung infections (bronchitis and pneumonia) are examples of bacterial infections that do respond to antibiotics. If you develop any of the following symptoms, these are signs you may be suffering from a bacterial infection rather than a cold virus, and you should call your physician’s office:

Fever over 102 degrees Fahrenheit (38.9 degrees Celsius)
Ear pain
Pain around your eyes, especially with a green nasal discharge
Shortness of breath or a persistent uncontrollable cough
Persistently coughing up green and yellow sputum

Generally speaking, however, if you have a cold medical care is not necessary. Rest and attention to the lifestyle factors noted above will help you to recover quickly and, if you stick to them, will significantly reduce your chances of catching another one anytime soon.

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The Toxin So Dangerous It’s Causing Catastrophic Birth Defects

Posted on May 16, 2012 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Roundup Ready soy is now being cultivated on a massive scale across the globe, along with the exponentially increasing use of the herbicide Roundup. Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” soy beans are genetically modified to survive otherwise lethal doses of glyphosate, the active ingredient in the company’s herbicide Roundup.

It’s a win-win for Monsanto. But it’s a loss for just about everyone else.

One of the countries most affected by genetically engineered soy is Argentina, whose population is being sickened by massive spraying of herbicides across the country’s Pampas (the country’s “fertile plain”).

Argentina’s Pampas used to be dotted with dairy and vegetable farms, but now, large-scale soybean monoculture blankets most of their cultivated land, making them especially susceptible to the damaging effects of genetically engineered soy. The impact can be better appreciated by considering the following statistics:

Soy is the main income source for landowners and the state—soybeans are considered a “gold mine” by Argentinians; soy exports generate 16,000 million dollars a year
The area cultivated with soy has reached 19 million hectares, representing 56 percent of Argentina’s cultivated land
98 percent of Argentina’s soybean production is genetically modified.
190 million liters of glyphosate (the active agent in Roundup) are sprayed in Argentina annually, which is leading to not only illness among the population but to widespread deforestation, as trees are among the victims these herbicides leave in their wake of destruction.

Soya burgers are a staple of today’s Argentinian diet. Argentinian children were consuming so much genetically engineered soy that they began developing breasts from the estrogenic effects, before authorities stepped in with warnings. Studies also strongly suggest that the glyphosate that these crops are doused with can cause cancer and birth deformities; both of which are occurring at increasing rates in areas where spraying is done. Sterility and miscarriages are also increasing. Experts warn that in 10 to 15 years, rates of cancer, infertility and endocrine dysfunction could reach catastrophic levels in Argentina. But few people are listening.

“It’s Food for Today, Hunger and Cancer for Tomorrow”

The immediate symptoms are always the same for Argentinian bystanders in the spray zone: dizziness, allergic reactions and itching, mouth swelling, and general malaise that’s similar to the feeling of coming down with the flu. People are warned to stay inside when spraying is underway, but they report getting sick in spite of this confinement.

When those affected visit their physicians, they’re told it’s “all in their heads.” Authorities also turn a deaf ear—as does the government when it’s presented with scientific evidence of the dangerous effects of Monsanto’s products for their people and environment. Fortunately, increasing numbers of scientists are now starting to speak out. For example, the engineers’ school in Santiago del Estero announced that chemicals are causing 100 babies to be born with deformities every year. One of the most influential studies was conducted by one of Argentina’s leading scientists, Andres Carrasco, who works in Argentina’s Ministry of Science.

Andrés Carrasco Attacked for Exposing the Truth

Embryonic specialist Andres Carrasco decided to investigate the health effects of glyphosate for himself after hearing so many reports by desperate peasant and indigenous communities who were suffering from exposure to toxic herbicides. According to Dr. Carrasco, his studies show glyphosate exposure can cause defects in the brain, intestines, and hearts of amphibian fetuses, and these results can be applied to humans. Moreover, the amount of Roundup used on genetically engineered soy fields was as much as 1,500 times greater than that which created the defects.

According to an article in Grain, the biotech industry “mounted an unprecedented attack on Carrasco, ridiculing his research and even issuing personal threats.” In addition, four men arrived unannounced at his laboratory and were extremely aggressive, attempting to interrogate Carrasco and obtain details of his study.

“It was a violent, disproportionate, dirty reaction,” he said. “I hadn’t even discovered anything new, only confirmed conclusions that others had reached.”

The conclusions to which Carrasco is referring are those from independent researchers who have found strong evidence glyphosatecauses the following:

Carrasco’s and others’ work point to the fact that the public, in Argentina and elsewhere, is being subject to a massive biological experiment involving the effects of genetic manipulation of the food supply. Genetically engineered food products have NEVER been tested for safety—so the long-term effects are largely unknown. The warnings science has provided demand a thorough investigation into just how much glyphosate human beings and animals can safely ingest. At present, no such investigation has taken place, and most regulatory agencies choose instead to rely in industry studies claiming glyphosate is safe.

Roundup has been shown to be lethal to amphibians. Are we next? Where is the tipping point for the human race? How much more can we tolerate in the adulteration of our food supply?

Why We MUST Insist on Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods

Labeling may be the only way to stop the proliferation of genetically engineered foods in the U.S., but simple petitions will likely fail. We strongly support state initiatives, such as California’s ballot initiative to require labeling for genetically engineered foods sold in their state.

Many don’t fully appreciate the strategy of seeking to have genetically engineered foods labeled in California. The belief is that large food companies would refuse to have dual labeling; one for California and another for the rest of the country. It would be very expensive, not to mention a logistical nightmare. To avoid the dual labeling, many would likely opt to not use genetically engineered ingredients in their product, especially if the new label would be the equivalent of a skull and crossbones. This is why we are so committed to this initiative, as victory here will likely eliminate most genetically engineered foods from the US.

Powerful confirmation of this belief occurred in early 2012 when both Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo Inc. chose to alter one of their soda ingredients as a result of California’s labeling requirements for carcinogens:

“Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. are changing the way they make the caramel coloring used in their sodas as a result of a California law that mandates drinks containing a certain level of carcinogens bear a cancer warning label. The companies said the changes will be expanded nationally to streamline their manufacturing processes. They’ve already been made for drinks sold in California.”

This is a PERFECT example of the national impact a California labeling law can, and no doubt WILL, have. While California is the only state requiring the label to state that the product contains the offending ingredient, these companies are switching their formula for the entire US market, rather than have two different labels. According to USA Today:

“A representative for Coca-Cola, Diana Garza Ciarlante, said the company directed its caramel suppliers to modify their manufacturing processes to reduce the levels of the chemical 4-methylimidazole, which can be formed during the cooking process and as a result may be found in trace amounts in many foods. “While we believe that there is no public health risk that justifies any such change, we did ask our caramel suppliers to take this step so that our products would not be subject to the requirement of a scientifically unfounded warning,” Garza-Giarlante said in an email.”

Learn More about Genetically Engineered Foods

Due to lack of labeling, many Americans are still unfamiliar with what genetically engineered foods are. We have a plan to change that, and I urge you to participate and to continue learning more about genetically engineered foods and helping your friends and family do the same.

To start, please print out and use the Non-GMO Shopping Guide, created by the Institute for Responsible Technology. Share it with your friends and family, and post it to your social networks. You can also download a free iPhone application, available in the iTunes store. You can find it by searching for ShopNoGMO in the applications.

Your BEST strategy, however, is to simply buy USDA 100% Organic products whenever possible, (as these do not permit genetically engineered ingredients) or buy whole fresh produce and meat from local farmers. The majority of the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) you’re exposed to are via processed foods, so by cooking from scratch with whole foods, you can be sure you’re not inadvertently consuming something laced with altered ingredients. When you do purchase processed food, avoid products containing anything related to corn or soy that are not 100 percent organic, as any foods containing these two non-organic ingredients are virtuallyguaranteed to contain genetically engineered ingredients, as well as toxic herbicide residues.

To learn more about genetically engineered foods, I highly recommend the following films and lectures:

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Correction of This Vitamin Deficiency Shown to Improve Seizure Control in Epilepsy

Posted on May 13, 2012 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Nearly half of people with epilepsy are also vitamin D deficient, but despite this well-known association, only a single study has been published on the effect of vitamin D for seizure control in the last 40 years.

That study revealed that treating epileptic patients with vitamin D2 – the far inferior type of synthetic vitamin D – reduced the number of seizures, and in 1974 researchers concluded that “the results may support the concept that epileptics should be treated prophylactically with vitamin D.“

Now, nearly four decades later researchers have again revealed that “the normalization of serum vitamin 25(OH)D [vitamin D] level has an anticonvulsant [anti-seizure] effect.“

Improving Vitamin D Levels Reduces Seizures by 40%

In the latest study, researchers administered a one-time 40,000-200,000 IU dose of vitamin D3 to patients with epilepsy in order to bring their vitamin D levels out of a deficiency state.

The participants, who ranged in age from 10-42, had vitamin D levels ranging from 4 ng/ml to 34 ng/ml, with a median level of 11.8. This is an absolutely dangerously low level. As you can see in the chart below, anything below 50 ng/ml is a deficiency state.

vitamin d levels

After the treatment dose of vitamin D, the participants’ vitamin D levels did improve to a range of 23-45 ng/ml, with a median of 38 ng/ml. It’s important to note that this is still low according to the latest science … but the improvement still resulted in a decrease in their number of seizures. If their levels were optimized further, it’s likely the results would improve even more.

After increasing their vitamin D levels, the results showed:

10 of the 13 subjects had a decrease in number of seizures
Overall, there was a median seizure number reduction of 40%
A seizure reduction of greater than 50% was experienced in five patients

The most revealing result, however, occurred among the person whose vitamin D was a dangerously low 4 ng/ml at the start of the study. This person had 450 seizures in a three-month period, but after raising vitamin D level to 43.1 ng/ml, the seizures dropped to 30 in three months! The study did have some limitations, namely the small number of subjects and the lack of a placebo to compare to, but it still highlighted the importance of correcting vitamin D deficiency in epilepsy patients.

Epilepsy Patients are at Increased Risk of Vitamin D Deficiency

The findings are even more important given that people with epilepsy face an even greater risk of vitamin D deficiency than the general population (and even the general population is vastly vitamin D deficient). The reasons are two-fold, with the first being that having frequent seizures may interfere with your ability to get outdoors and stay active.

If you spend most of your time inside, you’ll miss out on regular sun exposure, which is key for the natural production of vitamin D. Even exposing your skin to sunlight through a windowpane will prevent the entry of the UVB rays, which are the specific wavelength that produces vitamin D in your skin. So, it is crucial that you get outside and experience direct skin contact with the sunlight instead of sunning in a sunroom, for instance.

Second, anti-epileptic drugs that are often given to epilepsy patients can interfere with vitamin D metabolism, leading to deficiency. If you take these drugs, it is especially crucial that you actively monitor your vitamin D levels to avoid this side effect.

Why might vitamin D have such a significant impact on epileptic seizures? Epilepsy is a disorder of the central nervous system, particularly your brain. Vitamin D is not “just” a vitamin; it’s actually a neuroregulatory steroidal hormone that influences nearly 3,000 different genes in your body. Vitamin D receptors can be found in your brain, spinal cord, and central nervous system, and may enhance the amount of important chemicals in your brain needed to protect brain cells, for starters.

The Study Used Supplements, But Sunshine is Better

Researchers used a one-time large dose of vitamin D3 to boost the participants’ vitamin D levels. If you’re going to supplement, vitamin D3 is certainly far superior to the vitamin D2 researchers used back in the 1970s.

Today, however, vitamin D2 is still the form typically prescribed by doctors, so be aware of this if you’re taking this nutrient in prescription form. A meta-analysis of 50 clinical trials looking at mortality rates for “doctor recommended” synthetic vitamin D2 supplements versus natural vitamin D3 shows a 6 percent risk reduction among those who used D3, compared to a 2 percent increased risk among those who used D2.

Research also shows vitamin D3 is approximately 87 percent more potent in raising and maintaining vitamin D concentrations and produces 2- to 3-fold greater storage of vitamin D than does D2. D3 is also converted into its active form 500 percent faster. So by all means use vitamin D3 if you’re going to supplement, not D2 – but even better, simply get out in the sun, or use a safe tanning bed.

The IDEAL way to optimize your vitamin D levels is through appropriate sun or safe tanning bed exposure. While your skin does create vitamin D3 in response to sunlight, which is theoretically the same as the D3 you get from an oral supplement, there’s cause to believe that the vitamin D created from sun exposure may have additional health benefits. Plus, you cannot overdose when getting your vitamin D from sun exposure, as your body has the ability to self-regulate and only make what it needs. You do, however, need to be cautious and avoid burning.

If you cannot get your vitamin D requirements from sun exposure, I recommend using a safe tanning bed (one with electronic ballasts rather than magnetic ballasts, to avoid unnecessary exposure to EMF fields). Safe tanning beds also have less of the dangerous UVA than sunlight, while unsafe ones have more UVA than sunlight. If neither of these are feasible options, then you should take an oral vitamin D3 supplement. It will certainly be better than no vitamin D at all, but you will need to monitor your levels via blood testing to ensure you stay within the therapeutic range.

You can learn more about maximizing your vitamin D from safe sun exposure in the video below. If you have epilepsy, it’s possible that doing so could help you decrease seizure drugs (a very good thing, since all seizure drugs can increase your risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and some of these drugs can make you lose your memory and your hair).

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One man creates 1,360 acre forest

Posted on May 12, 2012 by andreas m

By: Jordan and Kyla
Source: NaturalNews.com

Have you ever heard the saying “you have the power to make a difference”? Well, the following demonstrates how one person has proven this. Over 30 years ago, a young teenager by the name of Jadav “Molai” Payeng had an idea to turn a barren sandbar into a thriving oasis. With this vision in mind, he began planting seeds in this very same sandbar near his birth place of Assam, India. Soon thereafter, Payeng moved to the area in pursuit of fulfilling his dream of one day creating a forest out of land that was left for waste.

Fostering a dream

Over the next several years, Payeng spent many of his hours planting seeds, tending to the land and nurturing the growth. After 30 years of dedication, his hard work had finally been rewarded. Not only has Payeng successfully transformed an area that was once considered by many, including the forest department, to be unsuited for planting, but he actually created a 1,360 acre forest. Can you imagine that!

How it all began

The Times India recently sat down with Payeng to discover how his lifelong project had all started.

“It all started way back in 1979 when floods washed a large number of snakes ashore on the sandbar. One day, after the waters had receded, Payeng, only 16 then, found the place dotted with the dead reptiles. That was the turning point of his life.”

“The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. It was carnage. I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there. They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo. It was painful, but I did it. There was nobody to help me. Nobody was interested,” says Payeng, now 47.

Creating an ecosystem

Guided by instincts, and convinced by will and reason to pursue his goal, Payeng had created not only a forest, but an ecosystem covered with lush greenery which now houses several animal species, including numerous birds, deers, rhinos, tigers, and elephants. The once deserted sandbars of Assam India are now a thriving ecosystem all thanks to the selfless efforts of a young man.

The area known today as the Molai woods is an example of compassion and dedication to all living things. Jadav “Molai” Payeng is considered by many today as a hero, even by the local forestry officials.

“We’re amazed at Payeng,” says Assistant Conservator of Forests, Gunin Saikia. “He has been at it for 30 years. Had he been in any other country, he would have been made a hero.”

Our goals may not be accomplished immediately, but if we allow time to nurture our actions, they have the potential to grow, and even flourish into beautiful manifestations. Always remember that our actions, no matter how small they may appear, make a difference in the world. Never cease believing in yourself and one another

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Vegan Centenarian at 100+ Years Old

Posted on May 3, 2012 by andreas m

Source: Centenarian Vegan Longevity & the truth

VEGAN CENTENARIAN at 100+ YEARS OLD Credits her Healthy Vegetarian Diet for her Great Longevity

Centenarian Vegan Alive & Well at 108 credits her Vegan Diet for her long healthy life.

A Vegan woman Loreen Dinwiddie is celebrating her 108th Birthday as the oldest in Multnomah County, and may even be the oldest in her entire state.

A centenarian is a person who has accomplished living to over 100+ years old. A SuperCentenarian is the rarest of all, and is a person whose longevity has reached 110 years of age.

Strong and fit, her skin glows and due to her plant-based vegan diet she has hardly any of the wrinkles that you would expect for a person of her age. She eats no meat. And enjoys the wonderful tastes of fresh fruits, nuts, vegetables, and plant-based seasonings and spices.

As yet another documented Vegan Centenarian, she attributes her youthfulness and good health to her balanced vegan diet and says it has been instrumental at keeping her feeling youthful and wonderful all these years.

And another woman who stays young because of living on only plants foods:

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Fibroids – What We Can Do About Healing Them

Posted on April 29, 2012 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

Hi, this is a question with regard to fibroids, what causes fibroids and what we can do about them.

Fibroids basically are deposits or accumulation of dead proteins and I wholeheartedly recommend that we avoid eating cadaver foods that, if they are not properly digested, can lead to accumulation of proteins in various parts of the body.

What happens if you eat a cadaver like a chicken, fish or meat, what happens is that we cannot digest the entire piece of meat, chicken or fish, only a fraction of it and the reason for that is because the amount of hydrochloric acid in our stomach is not concentrated enough to digest the entire piece.

So if you eat a steak, you may digest only 15 to 20 % of that piece of meat, and the rest of it will remain undigested and the heating of the meat, whatever method you use, will denature the proteins, that means rip apart the molecular structure that bonds the amino acids to form those proteins together, and it destroys the three dimensional structure of proteins.

So here you have a huge number of dismembered protein chains that are bits and pieces of protein fragments that somehow make their way into the bloodstream, they are absorbed, and there is some research to show that normally only amino acids can be absorbed, but these denatured proteins they also get absorbed, and that is a major problem for the body, because you cannot really utilize them.

One way to deal with them is to assimilate or accumulate these protein fragments in what is known as the basal membranes of the blood reservoir. And the basal membrane has the capacity to accumulate up to eight times its normal thickness and gather or collect these proteins there, and this stiffens the blood vessels, it makes it dead almost, and it becomes like fibroids tissue.

If that happens in the uterus, for example, you can develop fibroid tissue there, if it happens in the spleen you can develop fibroid tissue, if it happens in the liver then the liver is gathering fibroid tissue. So it doesn’t matter where it is, it could be in the breast, it could be even in the brain.

So wherever these protein fragments make their way through into the system, that when you start collecting dead proteins in the blood vessel wall, and then eventually in other parts as well. Once there is a saturation point reached in the blood vessels, it will also accumulate in the fluid that surrounds the cells and then it can spread almost like wildfire.

So, I suggest avoiding those kinds of foods that can trigger that, and also there is another effect that happens with these kinds of foods, the undigested proteins that are 90 % or 80 % of the meat, chicken, fish that have not been digested will be broken down into waste matter. It’s called putrefaction and the toxins that these bacteria produce will be absorbed by the lymphatic system particularly the part of the lymph system in the belly button area called Cisterna chyli and that will eventually create a blockage, congestion, in that part of the lymph system and that Cisterna chyli vessel has like little roots that go down into the uterus, ovaries, the legs ,and they are responsible for taking up any metabolic waste products and dead cell material that is part of the natural turnover of cells.

You have to understand that the body is turning over thirty billion cells per day and that’s a huge amount of dead proteins that has to be removed on a day-to-day basis. If your lymph vessel is getting congested in the belly button area, in the Cisterna chyli vessel – you will find an illustration in my book “Timeless Secrets Of Health And Rejuvenation” – once that congestion has been there for a considerable amount of time, we are talking about weeks or months or years, then the ability of the uterus, for example, to get rid of the turned over cells will not be there any more and these dead cell materials will accumulate, and so your body will start developing extra tissues in order to accommodate these waste products.

So when these things have occurred, I definitely recommend to change your diet, lifestyle, eating habits, so that your digestive functions are improving.

Liver flushes will of course help to reduce the lymph congestion simply by allowing your body to digest food more effectively and you make less waste products which could once again cause lymph congestion. So by taking care of these basic things, your problems – fibroids – should diminish over time.

The body uses proteolytic enzymes to do that. Once the congestion has subsided then, the body can, once again, digest these dead protein structures fibroids and remove them naturally. If you want to support the body in doing that, sometimes it helps to take a proteolytic enzyme like Seaprose, which is known to be one of the most effective proteolytic enzymes to deal with fibroids and other problems.

But I am always on the caution, I am always in favor of allowing the body to do the job itself, rather than we doing the job for it, because there is a very fine delicate balance called homeostasis and you don’t want to introduce something into the body too long or too much, because then the body will produce less of the same substance, or in this case enzyme, proteolytic enzyme. It’s always best to stimulate the body’s own enzymes rather than just replacing them with supplementation.

So hope this gives you some ideas about fibroid tissues and what you can do about them.

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Benefits of Using Ionized Stones

Posted on April 29, 2012 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

Hi, this is Andreas Moritz, and today I would like to discuss the implications of using an ionized stone such as this one, and these ionized stones they are created by myself. Every ionized stone is handled, selected, and handled by myself and they are shipped throughout the world through my website – ‘Ener-chi.com’

And these ionized stones have particular benefits that help with a number of issues, a person who wants to enhance the healing abilities, I recommend that they put one of these ionized stones right at the middle part of the spinal column. When you bend down and you find that one of the vertebrates is sticking out more than the other, I would put that ionized stone and allow it to touch that particular vertebra or two or three vertebra in that area, and when you do that, within about 40 seconds or so, it will balance all the chakras or energy centers in the body, and that will help with energizing the organs and systems in the body and will allow the energy – the chi or life force – to flow through the body more easily.

In addition to that, I recommend to attach one of these ionized stones to the electrical box or fuse box as it’s called in Europe. Use any stone that is more flat and that somehow neatly fits into that, tape it to the electric box. It doesn’t have to be in a certain area, just around that or external to the electrical box. This will prevent the harmful radiation of the electromagnetic filed in the electric system in the house in the home or office to affect the human body and diminish our own electromagnetic field.

So I found that this has helped me for the last 12 years or so ever since I came across or created these ionized stones. I have always had one stone attached to the electrical box to any or every home that I have lived in, and this allowed me to work on the computer, and I have worked many hours on the computer without ever getting tired doing so. And any kind of electric appliance or being close to an electric lamp, which can interfere with our body’s electromagnetic field, that this no longer happens when you have attached one of those stones to the electric box.

If you don’t have access to such a box you may attach one of the stones to the electric cable that supplies an electric appliance or computer or an electric lamp. Doesn’t have to be a very big stone, it can be like smaller than an inch, even this one is about two inches, so it doesn’t matter… the size… it will work. You can also put one of those in front of the computer, the computer screen, or lay it on top of the computer box wherever there is an electric device that would be suitable, but the best and most effective way would be to attach a stone to the electrical box.

Also you can ionize or activate or energize the plates that you eat in, if they are ceramic or any other natural material. You can ionize, activate, all natural material. Plastic wouldn’t work. So it could be wood, stone, ceramic, glasses that you drink from. When you allow a glass to be held against one of those ionized stones for about 40 seconds, then that glass, whenever you put water in, it will energize the water and make it beneficial for you. It will make the blood thinner more quickly and allow the food to be absorbed more readily, or beverages to be absorbed more readily.

If you are you are into detoxifying the body through using foot baths, I would put an ionized stone into the foot bath, and it will draw toxins out more quickly. It would enhance basically any healing therapy, whatever you choose to use. Some of the stones can be used for massage therapy and that will also benefit.

Many people report back to me by putting an ionized stone on a part of the body that suffers from a illness, like a person who has kidney stones or heart problems or liver problems… just putting the ionized stone over the area, ideally allowing the stone to touch the skin, then some people have reported the stone actually becomes black and dark. This doesn’t mean that the stone becomes destroyed, just that it draws the toxins out and discolors it and sometimes the color reverts back to normal.

You can never, ever, destroy an ionized stone once it has been ionized or activated, then that charge can never be reduced or diminished in any way unless you turn the stone into powder.

The stones can also be used in conjunction with the ener-chi art that I have created about 12 years ago. These are Ener-chi Art Paintings, paintings made in oil. You can find them on my website ‘Ener-chi.com’ and you can view them there, and these are stones… when you hold the stone to a particular area of the body for which there is a particular ener-chi art painting such as for the heart, so holding the stone to the heart while you are looking or viewing the ener-chi art picture for the heart then this will enhance the benefit of the ener-chi art painting.

You can also use the stones for enhancing the growth of plants. Any plant that has, like, an ionized stone close to it, ideally just put a small stone or couple of stones into the pot of the plant, and it will start growing more easily, more beautifully, and its more healthy, requires less water, so there are quite a few benefits for the plants as well.

You can also attach one of those stones to the water pipe that comes into the house and that will also activate and energize the water that you drink.

There are many other benefits that people have reported back to me. There are literally hundreds of applications. So be creative, just think of what else it can help with, and there are some more benefits explained on my website on the ionized stone page.

Ionized stones, maybe ionized, the word ionized may not be the right word. Ionization in physics means that there will be an extra electron charge, which has got ions created, which then creates a temporary unstable condition, which allows that particular atom to react with other atoms. So in this case I am not sure if this can be measured. The word ionization here relates to a higher energy where the stone is actually coming to life. Where the stone becomes conscious. Typically we refer to stones or rocks as being inert, that they don’t have any life or life force in them, but by ionizing them or activating them, through a simple process that was gifted to me after I created the ener-chi art paintings, where one of the paintings for the skeleton system was used to infuse the stones or the regular river stones or stones from the earth where these particular light rays that were contained in the painting, the skeleton system painting, and these energy rays went into the stones and created, basically brought them to life. If you hold one of those stones in the palm of your hands, you find… many people find… that there is a heartbeat to it that can actually be felt, that there is a vibration to the stone. So that it’s actually alive

So these ionized stones have become very useful for me, for a lot of other people, and once you have one, you can ionize any number of stones yourself. What you do is you simply hold one of these stones or the stone that you have received, and hold them together basically together like this for about 40 seconds, and that will allow the original stone to ionize the new stone that you may have. You can also put the original stone that you get from my website and ionize dozens of other stones as long as they touch one another, you can create any number of stones yourself.

When I travel, I usually take one of those stones with me and if I come across any rock formation, boulders, or anywhere in nature, I put them there for about 40 seconds and it will ionize these rocks and activate them, bring these rocks and boulders to life, which makes you feel quite good because they radiate back to you, it’s almost like they speak to you.

It’s not something I can prove. I usually am a very down-to-earth person. This is not something I came across, this was channeled to me, and I just followed directions and created this, and it’s basically a gift that I received and I am happy to pass it on.

Thank you.

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Over 60 Billion Doses a Year and Not ONE Death, But Still Not Safe?

Posted on April 29, 2012 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements have a tremendously safe track record, yet they are often singled out as being potentially dangerous by government agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

This – the notion that dietary supplements are unsafe — is the premise behind the FDA’s Draft Guidance on New Dietary Ingredients, which would require the supplement industry to prove the safety of natural ingredients that, in many cases, have been on the market and used safely for decades.

As new research from the American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System reveals, there were zero deaths linked to nutritional supplements in 2010, the most current data available.

Zero Deaths Linked to Vitamin Supplements

However, in the FDA’s new Draft Guidance, the FDA is essentially claiming that dietary supplements are unsafe, and implying that in order to “protect consumers” the agency must place a stranglehold on the dietary supplement industry by requesting exorbitant safety testing.

These ludicrous safety thresholds are in excess of those required by pharmaceutical drugs — despite extensive toxicological data showing supplements are far safer than drugs.

The most recent data comes from the U.S. National Poison Data System’s annual report, which tracked data from 57 U.S. poison centers and showed vitamin and mineral supplements caused zero deaths in 2010.

As noted by Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, Americans easily take more than 60 billion doses of nutritional supplements every year, and with zero related deaths this is an outstanding safety record:

“Well over half of the U.S. population takes daily nutritional supplements. Even if each of those people took only one single tablet daily, that makes 165,000,000 individual doses per day, for a total of over 60 billion doses annually. Since many persons take far more than just one single vitamin or mineral tablet, actual consumption is considerably higher, and the safety of nutritional supplements is all the more remarkable.

Over 60 billion doses of vitamin and mineral supplements per year in the USA, and not a single fatality. Not one. If vitamin and mineral supplements are allegedly so “dangerous,” as the FDA and news media so often claim, then where are the bodies?”

In striking contrast, drugs are known to cause well over 125,000 deaths per year when taken correctly as prescribed – yet the FDA allows “fast-track” approvals and countless new additions to the marketplace. So why are dietary supplements on the chopping block?

Why is the FDA Attacking Dietary Supplements That Have Been Used Safely for Decades?

Back in the early 1990s, the FDA threatened the availability of dietary supplements to the point that consumers staged a massive revolt, which resulted in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA).

The law specifically protects your access to dietary supplements by classifying them as foods, not food additives or drugs, and it grand-fathered in dietary supplements that were already in use as of 1994. Only novel ingredients introduced after October 15, 1994 are required to seek FDA approval.

The FDA’s new proposed mandates directly contradict what DSHEA sought to prevent, and the FDA is using its authority in direct violation of Congressional intent. As explained in an article by Alliance for Natural Health, the proposed regulations turn what was clearly supposed to be a pre-market notification system into a pre-approval system, just like that of drugs.

As a result, dietary supplements that have been freely available for nearly two decades can now be forced off the market until they receive New Dietary Ingredient (NDI) approval. And the NDI approval process is a lengthy affair that may take months or years to complete, and cost a small fortune. Bringing a drug from the pre-clinical (or discovery phase) all the way to market can easily take more than a decade and cost significantly more than $1 billion! This despite the fact that contrary to drugs, fatalities from vitamins and other supplements are minuscule.

According to the 2001 report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC), of the substances implicated in fatal poisonings in 2001, 84.6 percent were pharmaceutical drugs, with analgesics being implicated as the primary cause of death in 32 percent of fatalities or 341 deaths. This compares with 0.8 percent for all dietary supplements combined, even including substances such as dinitrophenol, a dangerous (and illegal) substance banned in 1938, as well as the central nervous system stimulant Ma Huang (Ephedra). Interestingly, the anti-asthma drug theophylline alone was responsible for 15 deaths, 66 percent more than all the available dietary supplements combined.

What might make an “old” ingredient “new,” under the new regulation?

The methods of production and extraction, for example … As bizarre as that sounds, the mere fact that a product is being extracted or produced by improved means compared to methods used in the past, could reclassify any grandfathered nutrient as an NDI that would now have to undergo the same type of safety testing and approval process as a drug.

FDA Seeking Outrageous Safety Studies from Tried and True Supplements

In some cases, the FDA will require manufacturers to conduct outrageously expensive studies using absurdly high doses, in some situations multiplied by a “safety factor” up to 2,000-times the recommended dosage on a per product basis. Further, the FDA proposes that new dietary supplement ingredients should adhere to aggressive safety margins, which are typically reserved for chemical compounds known to be dangerous in all but the most miniscule concentrations.

Since food additives or preservatives such as aspartame, monosodium glutamate, and sodium nitrate are known to cause cancer or other severe health problems, the FDA has implemented safety guidelines that limit allowable concentrations of these food additives to levels that are supposed to be physiologically inert.

The fact that the FDA is trying to impose the same limits upon dietary supplements seems to be arbitrary and completely unfounded. In fact, when someone takes a dietary supplement, their intent is to positively affect the structure or function of their bodies in some way — limiting dosages of dietary supplements to physiologically inert levels defeats the entire purpose of supplementation with health-sustaining nutrients.

And, since supplements are not patented drugs, virtually no supplement manufacturers will be able to afford these “safety” studies, which means that many of the nutrients you now purchase at low prices will convert into high-priced drugs, or simply disappear from the market entirely.

The Drug Industry is the Real Safety Threat

While the U.S. National Poison Data System’s annual report showed zero deaths from nutritional supplements, this was not the case for prescription and over-the-counter drugs. The top categories associated with the largest number of fatalities were ALL medications, including:

Analgesics, sedatives, hypnotics, and antipsychotics
Cardiovascular drugs
Opioids
Acetaminophen combinations
Antidepressants

Slightly lower down on the list were more drugs, including muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatory drugs, hormones, antacids, anticoagulants, antihistamines and more. Out of a total 1,366 reported fatalities, pharmaceuticals were involved in over 1,100 of these deaths (again, compared to zero for supplements). Keep in mind that this is not an estimate of all the deaths attributed to pharmaceuticals in the U.S., only those reported to 57 poison control centers. The total figure is closer to 125,000 deaths from pharmaceuticals per year.

If you extrapolate this number out over 30 years this is well in excess of 3 million people who died from taking appropriately prescribed legal drugs. It is simply incomprehensible that any rational approach would seek to vilify supplements over drugs when the data in no way, shape or form supports it. The most likely motive for this position is financial greed that can put your life in jeopardy.

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The Beverage that is Even WORSE than High Fructose Corn Syrup Soda

Posted on April 29, 2012 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

When a new beverage comes out advertising “60% less sugar—drink it to believe it”—the challenge is on. Same taste; fewer calories to your waist? Sounds good, doesn’t it?

But before you throw that Pepsi Next into your grocery cart, Fooducate.comsuggests you complete the challenge by reading the ingredient label.

There you’ll find that, indeed, the sugar content has been reduced.

But it’s still the second ingredient after water—four teaspoons of it, in fact, in the form of high fructose corn syrup. The secret to keeping this beverage sweet-tasting, however, comes further on down, in the form of aspartame, acesulfame potassium, and sucralose.

So, really, all that’s changed with this new beverage is that 6 teaspoons of sugar have been substituted with three sweeteners that are even worse. Yes, although I strongly recommend avoiding all soda, you would be far better off with the strictly high fructose corn syrup sweetened version.

Artificial Sweeteners have No Place in a Healthful Diet…

Artificial sweeteners are frequently recommended as a practical way of replacing sugar found in the modern diet. But the research on nonnutritive sweeteners such as these three shows they’re far from healthful alternatives to sugar. (A recent article on HealthyFellow.com lists a few of them as a hand reference.First of all, contrary to popular belief, research has shown that artificial sweeteners can:

Stimulate your appetite
Increase carbohydrate cravings
Stimulate fat storage and weight gain. In fact, diet sodas, which are well-known sources of artificial sweeteners, may actually double your risk of obesity!

So much for being a dieter’s best friend… Furthermore, aspartame (rebranded AminoSweet two years ago)—best known under the names of Nutrasweet and Equal—is believed to be carcinogenic and accounts for more reports of adverse reactions than all other foods and food additives combined.

The artificial sweetener acesulfame potassium (Acesulfame-K) has been linked to kidney problems, and sucralose—best known as Splenda—has been found to wreak havoc with the healthful bacteria in your gut… All in all, I believe ALL artificial sweeteners are bad news for your health.

Why Aspartame is FAR Worse than Sugar

While many of the artificial sweeteners have reportedly similar side effects, aspartame accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. Many of these reactions are very serious, including seizures and death. About 90 different adverse effects have been linked to aspartame, including:

Recent research also suggests diet sodas may increase stroke risk, and according to researchers and physicians studying the adverse effects of aspartame, the following chronic illnesses can be triggered or worsened by ingesting of aspartame:

Aspartame—”A Chemical Poison”?

The book “Prescription for Nutritional Healing” by James and Phyllis Balch lists aspartame under the category of “chemical poison.” While many still refuse to believe that toxic or otherwise health-harming ingredients would be allowed to be used in food manufacturing, the evidence against aspartame and other artificial sweeteners is, in my opinion, overwhelming…

Aspartame is made up of three chemicals:

Phenylalanine (50 percent)—Phenylalanine is an amino acid normally found in your brain. Persons with the genetic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU) cannot metabolize phenylalanine and must avoid it at all costs to prevent the accumulation of phenylalanine in their brain, which can be lethal. It has been shown that ingesting aspartame, especially along with carbohydrates, can lead to excess levels of phenylalanine in the brain even in persons who do not have PKU. Excessive levels of phenylalanine in your brain can decrease your serotonin levels, which in turn can provoke emotional disorders such as depression.
Aspartic acid (40 percent)—According to the work of Dr. Russell L. Blaylock, a professor of neurosurgery at the Medical University of Mississippi, there are about 500 scientific references showing that excess free excitatory amino acids such as aspartic acid and glutamic acid (about 99 percent of monosodium glutamate (MSG) is glutamic acid) in our food supply are causing serious chronic neurological disorders and a myriad of other acute symptoms.

Aspartate and glutamate act as neurotransmitters in your brain by facilitating the transmission of information from neuron to neuron. Excess aspartate or glutamate in your brain can kill off neurons by allowing the influx of too much calcium into your cells. This influx triggers excessive amounts of free radicals, which kill the cells. The neural cell damage that can be caused by excessive aspartate and glutamate is why they are referred to as “excitotoxins.” They literally “excite” or stimulate your neural cells to death. It is important not to confuse this with the amino acid glutamic acid, which is a normal part of foods and an important nutrient.

Methanol (10 percent)—Methanol, also known as wood alcohol, is a deadly poison. It is gradually released in your small intestine once the methyl group of aspartame encounters the digestive enzyme chymotrypsin. Inside your body, methanol breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde, the latter of which is another lethal neurotoxin and a known carcinogen, which passes freely through your blood brain barrier to cause brain damage.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), methanol is considered “a cumulative poison due to the low rate of excretion once it is absorbed. In the body, methanol is oxidized to formaldehyde and formic acid; both of these metabolites are toxic.” The EPA recommends limiting consumption of methanol to 7.8 mg/day. A one-liter (approx. 1 quart) aspartame-sweetened beverage contains about 56 mg of methanol. Heavy users of aspartame-containing products can consume as much as 250 mg of methanol daily, or 32 times the EPA limit. Signs and symptoms of methanol poisoning include:

Do Your Own Research, and Know what Side Effects to Look for…

Those who defend aspartame argue that phenylalanine and aspartic acid are a harmless and natural part of your diet. Indeed, both of these amino acids can be found in most of the protein foods you eat. However, phenylalanine and aspartic acid can only be considered natural and harmless when they are consumed in combination with other amino acids in the correct ratios—NOT when consumed as isolated amino acids… When they’re consumed as free amino acids not part of food, they enter your central nervous system in abnormally high concentrations that can cause your neurons to fire excessively, and potentially lead to cell death as explained above.

Unfortunately, adverse effects are severely under-reported, which makes it far more difficult to get dangerous ingredients like aspartame off the market. When it comes to side effects from drugs and vaccines, a mere 1 to 4 percent of all adverse events are ever reported, which leads me to believe that adverse reactions from other FDA-regulated products, such as aspartame, is likely even lower…

It’s important to realize that in order to truly alert the FDA to a problem with a product they’ve approved, they must be notified by as many people who experience a problem as possible. I strongly recommend learning everything you can about the potential side effects of artificial sweeteners and keep a watchful eye out for adverse signs and symptoms (if you consume them). And if you experience side effects from aspartame or any other artificial sweetener, report it to the FDA.

The FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator page lists the phone number for each state where you can report adverse reactions to any FDA-regulated product.

The following video will familiarize you with some of the side-effects you could encounter if you consume products containing this artificial sweetener. For more in-depth information about the chemical makeup of aspartame and its adverse health effects, please see this previous special report on aspartame. I also highly recommend Cori Brackett’s documentary film Sweet Misery.

How Sucralose Can Decimate Your Health

Sucralose (Splenda) is associated with many of the same adverse effects as aspartame, including:

This site also contains a long list of personal testimonials from readers who have suffered side effects from Splenda. In fact, we have more people on our site that have reported adverse reactions to Splenda than were formally studied in the research submitted for FDA approval! Additionally, and most notably, research published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health in 2008found that Splenda:

reduces the amount of good bacteria in your intestines by 50 percent
increases the pH level in your intestines
affects a glycoprotein in your body that can have crucial health effects, particularly if you’re on certain medications as it can cause the rejection of drugs such as chemotherapy, AIDS treatments, and treatments for heart conditions
is absorbed by fat (contrary to previous claims)

It’s really a toss-up as to which artificial sweetener might be better or worse than the other, but the fact that sucralose can destroy up to HALF of your beneficial gut flora is truly alarming, as these bacteria are a vital part of your immune system and help support your general health—both physical and mental. Many people are already deficient in healthy bacteria due to excessive consumption of highly processed foods (which is why a high quality probiotic is one of the few supplements I recommend for nearly everyone), so just imagine the overall harm that can be inflicted by consuming an artificial sweetener that decimates your gut flora at such a high rate!

Are Your Health Problems Related to Artificial Sweeteners?

Many people belatedly realize they’ve been suffering reactions to one artificial sweetener or another. If you suspect an artificial sweetener might be to blame for a symptom you’re having, a good way to help you weed out the culprit is to do an elimination challenge. It’s easy to do, but you must read the ingredient labels for everything you put in your mouth to make sure you’re avoiding ALL artificial sweeteners.

To determine if you’re having a reaction to artificial sweeteners, take the following steps:

Eliminate all artificial sweeteners from your diet for two weeks.
After two weeks of being artificial sweetener-free, reintroduce your artificial sweetener of choice in a significant quantity (about three servings daily). Avoid other artificial sweeteners during this period.
Do this for one to three days and notice how you feel, especially as compared to when you were consuming no artificial sweeteners.
If you don’t notice a difference in how you feel after re-introducing your primary artificial sweetener for a few days, it’s a safe bet you’re able to tolerate it acutely, meaning your body doesn’t have an immediate, adverse response. However, this doesn’t mean your health won’t be damaged in the long run.
If you’ve been consuming more than one type of artificial sweetener, you can repeat steps 2 through 4 with the next one on your list.

Let me make it abundantly clear that even though you may not show immediate signs of any noticeable reaction after consuming artificial sweeteners, please don’t make the mistake of telling yourself “they must be OK for me”. I strongly urge you to avoid them at all costs. They are toxic to all humans and will not help you in any way shape or form. If you would like to sweeten your food or beverages please use a natural artificial sweetener like stevia, Lo Han or xylitol.

Are there ANY Healthy Alternatives to Sugar?

There is enough evidence showing the dangers of consuming artificial sweeteners to fill an entire book — which is exactly why I wrote Sweet Deception. If you or your loved ones drink diet beverages or eat diet foods, this book will explain how you’ve been deceived about the truth behind artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose — for greed, for profits … at the expense of your health.

While excessive sugar consumption (primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup, which is added to virtually all processed foods these days) is at the root of our skyrocketing obesity and chronic disease rates, swapping sugar/fructose for non-caloric artificial sweeteners is clearly NOT the answer…

So what other alternatives are there? And are any of them safer than sugar/fructose or artificial sweeteners?

One of the best alternatives is stevia; a highly sweet herb derived from the leaf of the South American stevia plant. It is completely safe in its natural form and can be used to sweeten most dishes and drinks. Keep in mind though that if you have insulin issues, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, or if you’re overweight, you’d be best to avoid all sweeteners, including stevia, since any sweetener can decrease your insulin sensitivity. Also avoid stevia-based sweeteners like Truvia and PureVia as they’ve been highly processed and contain only the active ingredient in the stevia plant, which may have unforeseen biochemical ramifications.

Lo han (or luo han guo) is another natural sweetener similar to Stevia. It’s an African sweet herb that can also be used, but it’s a bit more expensive and harder to find.

I do not recommend using agave syrup. This sweetener, which is falsely advertised as “natural,” is typically HIGHLY processed and is usually 80 percent fructose. Likewise, honey is also very high in fructose (about 53 percent fructose), but contrary to agave it is completely natural in its raw form, and has many health benefits when used in moderation.

Another safer alternative to sugar is to use pure glucose. You can buy pure glucose (dextrose) as a sweetener for about $1 a pound. It is only 70 percent as sweet as sucrose, so you’ll end up using a bit more of it for the same amount of sweetness, making it slightly more expensive than sucrose—but still well worth it for your health as it does not contain any fructose whatsoever. Glucose can be used directly by every cell in your body and as such is far safer than the metabolic poison fructose.

Remember, if you struggle with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or extra weight, then you have insulin sensitivity issues and would benefit from avoiding ALL sweeteners. But for everyone else, if you are going to sweeten your foods and beverages anyway, I strongly encourage you to consider using regular Stevia, Lo han, or dextrose (pure glucose), and toss out ALL artificial sweeteners and any products that contain them.

If you’re having trouble weaning yourself off soda, try Turbo Tapping. Turbo Tapping is a clever use of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), specifically designed to resolve many aspects of an addiction in a concentrated period of time.

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Spike in US Autism Rates linked to High-Fructose Corn Syrup Consumption

Posted on April 27, 2012 by andreas m

By: Jonathan Benson
Source: NaturalNews.com

A new study published in the journal Clinical Epigenetics reveals that both the Standard American Diet (SAD) and various toxic environmental factors play a definitive and synergistic role in the development of autism. According to the study, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), mercury in vaccines, and agricultural pesticides are among the many cofactors that contribute to the onset of autism spectrum disorders, all of which deserve more attention from health authorities than they are currently getting.

Renee Dufault from the Food Ingredient and Health Research Institute (FIHRI) and her colleagues examined how various foods and environmental factors affect the neurodevelopment of children, and particularly how these factors inhibit the body’s ability to eliminate disease-causing toxins and heavy metals from the system. Known as “macroepigenetics,” this comprehensive approach to disease research offers unique insight into how the human body responds to multiple inputs from diet, environment, and genetics.

What the team discovered is that HFCS, for instance, which is a highly-processed chemical sweetener used in many processed foods and beverages, depletes the body of the natural mineral zinc. And zinc, of course, is responsible for cleansing the body of heavy metals like mercury, arsenic, and cadmium, as well as aluminum and other toxins that are known to disrupt proper brain development.

“To better address the explosion of autism, it’s critical we consider how unhealthy diets interfere with the body’s ability to eliminate toxic chemicals, and ultimately our risk for developing long-term health problems like autism,” said Dr. David Wallinga, co-author of the study and physician at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy(IATP).

You can view the complete study at the following link:
http://www.clinicalepigeneticsjournal.com

HFCS laden with brain-destroying chemicals, mercury

Back in 2009, it was revealed that HFCS is actually a source of heavy metal poisoning as well. The heavy processing required to produce HFCS involves the use of caustic soda chemicals and mercury, two brain-destroying chemicals that end up in the final product fed to millions of American children.

Ketchup, sodas, juice drinks, breads, crackers, cookies, and many other processed food items are loaded with HFCS, and these items are a staple in many children’s diets, including in the meals fed to them at school. So it is no wonder that children’s bodies are being overwhelmed by mercury and other autism-related toxins, which is only worsened by the onslaught of neurologically damaging vaccines, some of which still contain mercury, most of them received throughout their early childhood developmental years.

Besides affecting zinc levels, HFCS in particular has also been shown to deplete the body of calcium and other important vitamins and minerals as well. Without these and other critical nutrients, the body is unable to effectively protect itself against the myriad of toxic exposures it faces every single day, which include pesticide residues found on conventional produce, for instance, or flame retardant chemicals found in bedding and clothing.

“Rather than being independent sources of risk, factors like nutrition and exposure to toxic chemicals are cumulative and synergistic in their potential to disrupt normal development,” added Dr. Richard Deth, another co-author of the study and Professor of Pharmacology at Northwestern University near Chicago. “These epigenetic effects can also be transmitted across generations. As autism rates continue to climb it is imperative to incorporate this new epigenetic perspective into prevention, diagnosis and treatment strategies.”

Recent research has also pinpointed the artificial sweetener aspartame and other methanol-producing foods and environmental factors as causes of autism. And the ever-increasing childhood vaccination schedule is also directly linked to a significant uptick in autism rates over the years, even when vaccines that do not contain mercury are used.

Parents will want to proactively protect the health of their children by helping them to avoid HFCS and all products that contain it, and teaching them to eat and enjoy organic, pesticide-free produce and other whole foods. Feeding children “superfoods” rich in vitamins and minerals, and supplementing their diets with brain-boosting nutrient foods like omega-3 fatty acids, spirulina, and probiotics will also go a long way in protecting these young ones from the continuous onslaught of dietary and environmental toxins that are constantly at war with their brains.

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The Heart Disease Scam That Generates Billions Every Year… And May Cost You Your Life

Posted on April 27, 2012 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

More than half a million Americans received an angioplasty in 2007 (the most recent year for which data is available).

This invasive procedure involves inflating a thin balloon in a narrowed artery to crush deposits; a stent (a wire mesh tube) is often then left behind to keep the vessel open.

When used during a heart attack, an angioplasty can quickly open a blocked artery to lessen the damage to your heart, and when used in this way can be lifesaving.

However, oftentimes heart disease patients receive angioplasties even though they have not had a heart attack — a decision that goes against the latest medical guidelines and the suggestion of a new study, which found people treated using other less-invasive methods fared just as well as those who also underwent angioplasty with stents.

Angioplasty Offers “No Evidence of Benefit” Compared to Less Invasive Treatment

If you have stable heart disease, research shows that your initial treatment should usually be lifestyle changes. But less than half of heart disease patients are treated using lifestyle changes prior to undergoing angioplasty. According to an analysis of eight clinical trials involving over 7,000 people, angioplasty offers no benefit compared to less invasive treatment of heart disease.

The researchers concluded:

“Initial stent implantation for stable CAD [coronary artery disease] shows no evidence of benefit compared with initial medical therapy for prevention of death, nonfatal MI, unplanned revascularization, or angina.”

As an invasive surgery, angioplasty does come with its fair share of risks, however. Among them:

Because angioplasty does absolutely nothing to address the underlying causes of heart disease, you should know that restenosis, or a re-narrowing of your arteries, is common. This occurs in up to 40 percent of angioplasties without stents, but even with a stent the risk is still around 20 percent (or 10 percent for a drug-eluting stent). And, of course, if your artery becomes re-narrowed the surgery was all for nothing.

Along with saving yourself from the potentially life-threatening risks noted above, avoiding angioplasty will save you a hefty chunk of change. As Consumer Reports noted:

“Angioplasty is also more expensive, the authors report. They said that by following current guidelines, 76 percent of patients with stable heart disease would save approximately $9,450 each in lifetime health-care costs. Other researchers have estimated such a shift would save $6 to $8 billion a year.”

Even Drugs Can Often be Avoided for Heart Disease

The alternative treatment to angioplasty noted in the study was a combination of lifestyle changes and drugs.

” … medical guidelines have for several years said that most people who have symptoms of heart problems, such as angina (chest pain on exertion), but have not had a heart attack, should be treated with lifestyle changes and drugs first. Yet less than half of patients in that situation are treated according to these guidelines before undergoing angioplasty, research suggests,” Consumer Reports states.

This may come as a surprise, but many medications commonly prescribed to heart disease patients can also be avoided. This includes statin drugs, which are taken by millions of Americans. The majority of people who use statin cholesterol-lowering drugs are doing so because they believe lowering their cholesterol will prevent heart attacks and strokes. How many of these people do you think would continue to take them if they knew these very same drugs have been linked to decreased heart muscle function and increased risk of stroke, along with hundreds of other serious side effects?

Not very many, right?

Well, you may want to reconsider your use of statins, as a study in Clinical Cardiology found that heart muscle function was “significantly better” in the control group than in those taking statin drugs! Further, keeping your cholesterol levels higher may actually help you to prevent disease, and is not actually linked to heart disease.

For the vast majority of people, statin drugs are an unnecessary health risk you’re better off avoiding — and you definitely want to avoid the trap of taking them to lower your cholesterol. Other common heart disease medications, like high blood pressure drugs and even aspirin, do absolutely nothing to address the underlying causes of the condition.

It is rare when a drug is appropriate for treatment of a chronic condition like heart disease, but that doesn’t stop pharmaceutical companies from creating more of them. Currently, researchers are working on nearly 300 new medications for heart disease and stroke … but you likely have all the tools you need for prevention and treatment at your disposal right now.

If You Have Stable Heart Disease, Lifestyle Changes Should be Your Go-To Treatment

Most chronic diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, are largely preventable with simple lifestyle changes. Imagine the lowered death toll, not to mention costs to the economy, if more people decided to take control of their health … heart disease and cancer alone accounted for 47 percent of deaths in the United States in 2010, and there are many strategies you can implement to lower your risk of these diseases … and most of the leading causes of death in the United States.

In the case of heart disease, the healthy lifestyle strategies that follow are not only effective as prevention; they’re also useful for treatment. So what does a “healthy lifestyle” entail?

Proper Food Choices For a comprehensive guide on which foods to eat and which to avoid, see my nutrition plan. Generally speaking, you should be looking to focus your diet on whole, unprocessed foods (vegetables, meats, raw dairy, nuts, and so forth) that come from healthy, sustainable, local sources, such as a small organic farm not far from your home.For the best nutrition and health benefits, you will want to eat a good portion of your food raw. Personally, I aim to eat about 80-85 percent of my food raw, including raw eggs and humanely raised organic animal products that have not been raised on a CAFO (confined animal feeding operation). Fermented foods are also important, as they are excellent sources of probiotics and vitamin K2, which is important for preventing arterial plaque buildup and heart disease.Nearly as important as knowing which foods to eat more of is knowing which foods to avoid, and topping the list is fructose. Sugar, and especially fructose, act as toxins in and of themselves, and as such drive multiple disease processes in your body.
Comprehensive Exercise Program, including High-Intensity Exercise like Peak Fitness Even if you’re eating the healthiest diet in the world, you still need to exercise to reach the highest levels of health, and you need to be exercising effectively, which means including not only core-strengthening exercises, strength training, and stretching but also high-intensity activities into your rotation. High-intensity interval-type training like Peak Fitness boosts human growth hormone (HGH) production naturally, which is essential for optimal health, strength and vigor.
Stress Reduction and Positive Thinking You cannot be optimally healthy if you avoid addressing the emotional component of your health and longevity, as your emotional state plays a role in nearly every physical disease — from heart disease and depression, to arthritis and cancer. Effective coping mechanisms are a major longevity-promoting factor in part because stress has a direct impact on inflammation, which in turn underlies many of the chronic diseases that kill people prematurely every day. The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), meditation, prayer, social support and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional and mental equilibrium.
Proper Sun Exposure to Optimize Vitamin D
Vitamin D is essential for your heart and cardiovascular system. Even if you’re considered generally “healthy,” if you’re deficient in vitamin D, your arteries are likely stiffer than they should be, and your blood pressure may run higher than recommended due to your blood vessels being unable to relax.
It’s been repeatedly shown that by increasing your vitamin D levels, you can improve your cardiovascular health and lower your blood pressure. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people are severely deficient in vitamin D. In the United States, the late winter average vitamin D level is only about 15-18 ng/ml, which is considered a very serious deficiency state. Overall, it’s estimated that 85 percent of Americans are deficient, and as much as 95 percent of U.S. senior citizens.
The important factor when it comes to vitamin D is your serum level, which should ideally be between 50-70 ng/ml year-round. Sun exposure or a safe tanning bed is the preferred method for optimizing vitamin D levels, but a vitamin D3 supplement can be used as a last resort. Most adults need about 8,000 IU’s of vitamin D a day to achieve serum levels above 40 ng/ml, which is still just below the minimum recommended serum level of 50 ng/ml.

High Quality Animal-Based Omega-3 Fats

Omega-3 fat like that found in krill oil improves endothelial function, a major factor in promoting the growth of new blood vessels, and has beneficial effects on your heart’s electrical system, preventing potentially life-threatening heart rhythm disorders.

Omega-3 deficiency may actually be a significant underlying factor in up to 96,000 premature deaths each year, including some of those from coronary heart disease and stroke. Even the FDA allows claims for omega-3 for heart disease; it is one of the few food health claims that the FDA allows — and, yes, I view omega-3 fats not as just another supplement, but as an essential foodyou need to include in your diet.

How to Determine Your Heart Disease Risk…

Before deciding on an angioplasty, it’s important to be able to accurately gauge your heart disease risk – and you should know that your total cholesterol level is just about worthless in determining this risk, unless it is close to 340 or higher.

Instead, one of the most important risk factors will be your HDL to cholesterol ratio.

I have seen a number of people with levels over 250 who actually were at low heart disease risk due to their HDL levels. Conversely, I have seen even more who had cholesterol levels under 200 that were at a very high risk of heart disease based on the following additional tests:

HDL/Cholesterol ratio
Triglyceride/HDL ratios

HDL percentage is a very potent heart disease risk factor. Just divide your HDL level by your cholesterol. That percentage should ideally be above 24 percent. Below 10 percent, it’s a significant indicator of risk for heart disease. You can also do the same thing with your triglycerides and HDL ratio. That percentage should be below 2.

If you have type 2 diabetes, you’re automatically at an increased risk so you can move ahead to my recommendations above. In fact, anyone can use the above recommendations because their only “side effects” are improved health! That’s the beauty of it. Together, these steps can drastically lower your heart disease risk and improve heart health — sometimes quite rapidly. If you’re otherwise healthy and your heart disease is stable, only after exhausting these strategies should more invasive options, like drugs and angioplasty, be considered.

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Methanol Toxicity from Aspartame may cause Autism, Spina Bifida, Preterm Delivery And More

Posted on April 22, 2012 by andreas m

By: Jonathan Benson
Source: NaturalNews.com

The issue hardly gets as much attention as it deserves, but the extreme toxicity of the artificial sweetener aspartame is wrecking human health on a massive scale. And in a comprehensive study on methanol, the major alcohol component of aspartame, retired food scientist and Professor Emeritus of Food Science and Nutrition at Arizona State University (ASU) Dr. Woodrow C. Monte explains how methanol toxicity from aspartame and other sources appears responsible for causing autism, spina bifida, preterm delivery, multiple sclerosis, cancer and many other chronic health conditions.

Not tied to the processed food industry or any other corporate player that might taint or bias his findings, Dr. Monte’s interest in the subject of methanol toxicity comes purely from a genuine concern about protecting human health. And his many years of experience studying food ingredients for use in specialized health care food products has afforded him a wealth of knowledge on this important subject that rarely, if ever, gets publicized by the corporately-funded mainstream media.

Methanol, the chemical trojan horse responsible for many modern diseases

In his study entitled Methanol: A chemical Trojan Horse as the root of the Inscrutable U, Dr. Monte evaluates the role that methanol plays in human health. Since methanol is a relatively new addition to the human diet, thanks to processing methods and chemical syntheses that did not exist prior to 1800s, it is vitally important to determine how this chemical substance affects the human body.

What Dr. Monte discovered is that methanol is converted by the body into formaldehyde, a highly toxic substance known to cause cancer in humans. He also uncovered the fact that methanol metabolizes in organs of the body other than just the liver which, based on all available evidence, is directly responsible for causing what Dr. Monte has termed “diseases of civilization” (DOC).

“Methanol is particularly dangerous to humans, more so than any other animal,” says Dr. Woodrow C. Monte on his website WhileScienceSleeps.com. “When humans consume low doses of methanol it is metabolized directly into formaldehyde which is a cancer producing agent of the same level of danger as asbestos and plutonium.”

Where Dr. Monte’s research diverts from the mainstream view of methanol’s toxicity has to do with the way dietary methanol is processed by the body. Rather than dissipate as is widely believed, methanol-induced formaldehyde tends to lodge itself into certain areas of the body that avoid filtering through the liver — and these are the same areas of the body where DOCs tend to appear.

“Once methanol runs the gauntlet of first-pass metabolism, its detoxification is no longer exclusive to the liver,” writes Dr. Monte in his study. “Methanol transports its potential to become formaldehyde past normal biological barriers in the brain and elsewhere that environmental formaldehyde itself cannot usually penetrate … [formaldehyde] can then be produced within the arteries and veins, heart, brain, lungs, breast, bone, and skin.”

Aspartame, a primary source of toxic methanol in the American diet

Where is all this toxic, methanol-induced formaldehyde coming from? It turns out aspartame is one of the primary sources in the American diet today. According to Dr. Monte, every molecule of aspartame, which is also marketed under the names NutraSweet, Equal, Canderel, 951, and AminoSweet, converts into a molecule of methanol when consumed. And in its dry form, aspartame is 11 percent methanol by weight.

This means that people who regularly consume “diet” foods and beverages laced with aspartame are taking in high amounts of a formaldehyde-producing, chemical poison that is drastically increasing their risk of developing chronic illnesses.

“As aspartame eventually became a major source of methanol in the civilized human diet, the incidence of DOC gradually began to rise,” says Dr. Monte’s report. “In addition to aspartame, and canned vegetables, fruits, and their juices, a major source of the methanol entering the modern civilized human body is cigarette smoke, causatively linked to atherosclerosis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, Alzheimer’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and other DOC.”

“It is my belief that diet soda has contributed to the rise of breast cancer and multiple sclerosis that has been preceded by the use of Aspartame as a food ingredient in every country that has allowed its use.”

You can view Dr. Monte’s complete study on methanol at:
http://www.whilesciencesleeps.com/methanol/

Helpful tips for avoiding methanol

Avoiding all “diet” and “low-fat” food and beverage products that contain aspartame or any other artificial sweetener chemical is an absolute must for keeping toxic methanol out of your diet. Cigarette smoke, canned fruits and vegetables, smoked meats, and overly-ripe fruits and vegetables are also major methanol culprits that you will want to avoid

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The Hidden Cause of Unexplained Weight Gain may be Poor Liver Function

Posted on March 27, 2012 by andreas m

By: Derrell Jones
Source: NaturalNews.com

The issue of weight is a prevalent source of discontent especially in western cultures. It seems that we havewoken upand realized that weight control is about much more than keeping up appearances. Obesity rates have skyrocketed along with the associated adverse health conditions. Each year more and more people choose to eat right and exercise but still struggle with weight issues and chronic degenerative conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, heart disease, etc. A seldom-discussed yet extremely important aspect of weight loss is liver function. Traditional diets see-saw between high fat, nutritionally void foods and weight loss gimmicks and products that actually causes people to gain weight in the long run. In the middle of all this is a liver that grows, quite literally, fattier and more sluggish by the day.

The liver has two distinct and highly important functions. First, it is the body’s chief blood detoxifier. Secondly, the liver is the body’s primary fat metabolizer. Once the liver becomes sluggish and fatty it performs neither job well and we begin to pack on the pounds in earnest and have great difficulty losing the weight once it is on.

What are some causes of a fatty liver

A high fat diet (primarily animal fat) will most likely cause the liver to malfunction over time. Animal fats tend to contain toxic materials that were trapped by the animals body. When we ingest these fats the toxins are released in the liver where they have the ability to cause damage, inducing poor liver function.

Another cause of fatty liveris artificial sweetener use. Artificial sweeteners have been touted by industry as a zero calorie marvel that will help consumers reduce calories and lose weight. What is not revealed is that artificial sweeteners generally lead to long term weight gain. How, do you ask? Artificial sweeteners completely bypass the normal digestive stages and are immediately taken into the liver. The liver basically shuts down all other metabolic processes, including metabolizing fat, to contend with the sweetener. The fats in the liver are either released – without being fully metabolized – into the blood stream to be stored as unprocessed material or theyattachthemselves to the liver. Either way,this is bad news for your weight and health.

An additional prevalent culprit behind fatty liveris excessive alcohol use. Before the alcohol causes cirrhosis it makes the liver fatty, which is the beginning of the road to dysfunctional health and weight gain.

Finally, prescription and over-the-counter medications have adverse effects on the liver. Notice that almost all of the pharmaceutical commercials mention the liver and liver function. It is because they know how detrimental their medications areto the liver and the healthdysfunctions, like weight gain, cirrhosis and liver failure that will occur when using their products. Continue taking your prescriptions but seek a holistic health professional who can assist with eliminating the underlying cause(s) of your condition which would eliminate the need for the medication.

How to avoid or reverse a fatty liver

Here are a few helpful tips that can get you started or keep you on the road to healthy liver function.

• Avoid artificial sweetener use
• Restrict or eliminate alcohol consumption
• Nourish the liver with fresh citrus juices, milk thistle, and licorice. A mixture of cayenne and lemon juice or cayenne and vegetable juice is a great liver nutritive
• Detoxify the colon to keep the digestive system flowing which increases metabolism and aids the liver in its proper functioning

It is clear that poor liver function will most likely lead to a malfunctioning and fatty liver, in turnmaking weight gain probable and weight loss unlikely. If you are working diligently at exercising and eating right but still struggle to lose weight have your liver function checked to shed light on this little-known aspect of weight management.

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Fluorescent Lighting is Harmful for the Body

Posted on March 25, 2012 by andreas m

Hi this is a question from Donna about florescent lighting and if a person suffers from environmental sensitivities, if there is any advice I can give?

Florescent lighting is very unnatural for the body; I have written about it extensively in my book “Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation”.

It can cause multiple problems that interfere with the biological functions of our brain and nervous system as well as the immune system. There is no natural florescent lighting in nature, and it can be very confusing for the body.

There are certain rays that are missing that the sunlight provides, and if a person who is constantly sitting in an office most of the day under the influence of florescent light, then that can certainly confuse the body.

It has been shown that fluorescent lighting suppresses the immune system and it can have cardiovascular detrimental effects, and can cause damage to the brain and nervous system because light, natural light, is a nutrient, and so once you develop nutrient deficiency, light deficiency, then that can basically lead to deficiencies in the body and therefore damage of the body, and so I definitely recommend to avoid florescent light if at all possible.

And if there is no chance of being able to avoid that, to at least find ways to get out in the sun during breaks, during the working hours, or on weekends, to replenish the body’s nutrient uptake in terms of light.

There are seven parts to the light, as we know it, even though there are other fragments to light but there are seven colors. So when the white light hits the retina of the eye it gets broken down into seven colors including the red, green, blue, yellow, violet, so there are these colors that need to be absorbed, they actually pass into the pineal gland where they are being processed and chemically encoded, and then they are transferred to all the cells in the body, and some cells need more red light, some need more blue light, some green light in order to produce the various secretions like bile, the green yellowish bile, the red blood, and the other parts of the body. So it’s essential to live off light. We need to have proper light exposure.

If you are exposing plants to fluorescent light on a constant basis and depriving them of natural sunlight, you will not achieve a proper healthy growth. It will become… the immune system of the plant will not be able to develop properly, and it becomes susceptible to insect infestation or other problems, it will not grow as healthily as other plants that are exposed to direct sunlight can. It can also interfere with the reproductive capabilities, the spreading of the plants to other areas, and it will weaken the seed production definitely, according to research. So I definitely encourage you to avoid fluorescent light exposure.

It can also increase chemical sensitivities. People who are already chemically sensitized and are prone to headaches or migraines, they definitely suffer from florescent light. That shows that there is a heightened sensitivity when you expose yourself to fluorescent light on a day-to-day basis and if you already have accumulated chemicals or heavy metals in the body.

Always good to, when you have environmental sensitivities… electromagnetic exposure can heighten that sensitivity. So if you are living in a house or in an office where you have a lot of electromagnetic frequency exposure, I recommend to get an ionized stone from my website “Ener-chi.com” and attach one of these stones to the fuse box or the electrical box, that helps with protecting you against the harmful effects of from electromagnetic frequencies.

The other things is obviously cleaning out the liver to make sure that the body can detoxify itself properly again and doesn’t get forced to accumulate toxins instead of removing them.

And kidney cleansing is also very important to make sure that in case the kidneys have accumulated toxins and waste products, that this gets removed, so that the organs of elimination are clean and open and the body is not accumulating waste matter to a degree that leads to heightened sensitivities and reactions like allergic reactions to substances, chemicals, metals and other environmental pollutants.

Thank you.

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Having Water with Your Meals Impairs Digestion

Posted on March 25, 2012 by andreas m

Hello, this is Andreas Moritz, and today I would like to discuss the importance of not drinking water or other beverages during your meal. And this is something that is extremely important because it will determine whether you are able to digest your food properly or improperly.

Improperly digested food becomes a source of contamination in our intestines and absorption of toxins into your blood and lymph, which can cause multiple problems throughout the body.

So it is a very essential part of our health to not drink large quantities of water or other beverages during the meal for reasons as I will explain now.

One of the principle reasons is that when you drink large amounts of fluid with your meal, you dilute the digestive secretions including hydrochloric acid, the bile. Bile is necessary to digest fats and the bile that is secreted or discharged by your gallbladder is highly concentrated where almost all the water has been withdrawn and it’s a very, very sticky, thick substance that needs to stay that way, otherwise it can… it’s unable to help digest the fats, emulsify the fats, and interfere with the digestion of proteins and other foods. So it is essential that we don’t dilute our digestive secretions during the meal.

What you can do is to make sure that you stay well hydrated before you actually eat your meal and you do that drinking like a glass of water, an eight ounce glass of water, up to 20 minutes or 15 minutes before your meal, ideally about half an hour before your meal and this will ensure that your digestive secretions are plentiful and that also means that you will be able to digest your food properly and efficiently.

Also, when you drink a glass of water that time before, like half an hour or 20 minutes before your meal, then your blood will become enriched with that water and any kind of thickness in the blood will be diminished, and your blood consistence is normal. This allows the uptake of nutrients from your intestines into your blood to be much more effective as well. This means the nutrients applied to the cells of your body will be efficient.

The other reason why it’s good not to drink large amounts of fluids, more than a couple of sips which is absolutely fine during the meal to dilute some of the food that you have eaten, particularly if it’s very dry food like rice and potatoes and beans, you may want to take a couple of sips throughout the meal to help make the food more digestible but drinking a large amount of water will basically flush down the food like in the toilet using water to flush down waste, which is not very conducive to the digestive process but makes it much more difficult for the body to later on properly digest the food and take up nutrients from that food.

So, when you also drink cold beverages, which is very common in this country, the United States, and also throughout Europe, when you use ice-cold water, something else happens. There is a certain temperature environment that is needed for enzymes, digestive enzymes, that are released by the pancreas and by the small intestine to properly and effectively digest the food. Once you change that temperature, you drop it suddenly, when you drink an ice-cold beverage that will immediately change the temperature environment and prevent these enzymes from becoming activated and to act on the food that you have eaten. That means you leave behind a large amount of undigested food.

So drinking large amounts of water and drinking cold beverages during the meal will severely interfere with the digestive process and it also prevents you from properly masticating the food. It’s almost like you wash down the food instead of masticating and mixing the food with digestive enzymes that are secreted from the mouth in the form of salivary enzymes. Salivary enzymes are needed to predigest about 80 % of the carbohydrates that we have eaten, such as in vegetables and grains and other plant-based foods.

So it’s very, very important that we not drink a lot of fluid during the meal. We can drink half an hour before a meal and once again at least wait for one hour after having eaten the meal, particularly a large meal, wait for an hour or one and a half hours before you drink anything.

This is a very simple advice, anyone can do that, but it’s going to make a huge difference for your digestive system and your ability to make use of the food that you have eaten and to help nourish your body in a very efficient manner.

Thank you and have a beautiful next meal.

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Tips for Balancing Altitude Sickness

Posted on March 25, 2012 by andreas m

Hi, this is question from someone who is wondering if I have any recommendations to avoid or to balance altitude sickness. Many people who are going to places like Peru or to higher regions of mountains where the air is thinner, that means it has less oxygen, and henceforth suffer from altitude sickness which can be severe headaches, shortness of breath, can be poor digestion, many of the functions in the body are diminished when there is not enough oxygen going through the system and reaching the cells.

So, there are a number of things that I suggest in countries that are used to high altitudes and in Peru, for example, I have been there, they will offer you the traditional drink, the cocoa tea that is very, very effective in improving the circulation of blood so that enough oxygen is delivered to the cells.

When I traveled to Peru ten years ago I used that myself and within a day I was basically fine, I didn’t have any negative experiences, however, I noticed that those traveler friends of mine, who were eating meat, they took more than a week to recover, and some never recovered from altitude sickness and they only felt better when we went back down to lower altitudes.

I have been a vegetarian for 40 years and I had really no problem of digesting, and my wife the same. We are both vegetarians, so, the advices, and I have given that advice to others who were meat eaters and I told them to stop eating any animal products for at least 4 to 5 days and then they would also rapidly recover from the altitude sickness.

The reason why the meat or heavy foods are so detrimental for the system when you travel to high altitudes is because the digestive system requires most oxygen, besides the brain, than any other part of the body. And in order to digest food, it really uses up a lot of energy and so, so much of oxygen and glucose get used up by the digestive system and there is just not enough around.

If you eat a lot of meat that requires high energy, amount of energy, to process those heavier foods, then there is not much left for other functions in the body. So these people would feel very low in energy and depleted, and it’s not much fun, even if you go to really beautiful places, it is not fun to drag yourself along because you don’t have enough energy, or if you have splitting headaches.

So I wholeheartedly recommend to do that, avoid any animal products, eat lots of vegetables, drink the cocoa tea, some grain foods, some beans are fine, seeds, salads, fruit, these are all wonderful foods to have when you go into high altitude regions and get, if possible, sun exposure that helps to make your transition to more efficient circulation during those months or weeks that you are living in high altitudes.

UV radiation in high altitudes is very beneficial for keeping infection rates low and to make sure that the immune system stays strong and can protect itself from any bacteria that potentially could cause infections. Because infection can be, infection rates are higher when people move into high altitudes and the water doesn’t boil as well, so any germs that might be in the water will not be killed so you have more than usual numbers of bacteria coming into the body. Again, food cannot be cooked as well and as fast as in lower altitudes.

So once again, keeping the immune system strong is your best bet, otherwise you may go through infections, parasitic infections, bacterial infections, in high altitudes

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The Most Unhappy of Pleasures: This Is Your Brain on Sugar

Posted on March 22, 2012 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

You sprinkle it on your cereal. Add it to your morning cup of coffee. Lovingly bake it into your children’s birthday cakes…

And then, of course, it’s a key part of some of our most favorite “treats” and comfort foods — cookies, candy, soda pop, ice cream, all those “yummy” foods meant to be reserved for a special indulgence — but which many consume on a daily basis.

Then it’s hidden in most processed foods—from bologna to pretzels to Worcestershire sauce to cheese spread.

Even most infant formulas contain it.

I’m talking about sugar, of course, and to put it all into perspective, based on USDA estimates the average American consumes 12 teaspoons of sugar a day, which equates to about TWO TONS of sugar during a lifetime.

Why we eat this much sugar is not difficult to understand — it tastes good, and it gives us pleasure by triggering an innate process in your brain via dopamine and opioid signals.

What it is doing to us on both a physical and emotional level is another story entirely, and when you delve beneath the surface even slightly you’ll begin to see that eating sugar may not only be making you unhealthy but also unhappy.

If You Eat Sugar, There’s a Good Chance You’re Addicted to It

When you eat sugar it triggers production of your brain’s natural opioids — a key ingredient in the addiction process. Your brain essentially becomes addicted to stmulating the release of its own opioids as it would to morphine or heroin.

As written by Dr. Robert Lustig, professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, in The Atlantic:

“… the war on drugs has taken a back seat, but not because it has been won. Rather, because a different war has cluttered the headlines — the war on obesity. And a substance even more insidious, I would argue, has supplanted cocaine and heroin. The object of our current affliction is sugar. Who could have imagined that something so innocent, so delicious, so irresistible — just one glucose molecule (not so sweet) plus one fructose molecule (very sweet) — could propel America toward economic deterioration and medical collapse?”

Researchers have speculated that the sweet receptors (two protein receptors located on your tongue), which evolved in ancestral times when the diet was very low in sugar, have not adapted to the seemingly unlimited access to a cheap and omnipresent sugar supply in the modern diet. Therefore, the abnormally high stimulation of these receptors by our sugar-rich diets generates excessive reward signals in your brain, which have the potential to override normal self-control mechanisms, thus leading to addiction.

Dr. Lustig continues:

“The brain’s pleasure center, called the nucleus accumbens, is essential for our survival as a species… Turn off pleasure, and you turn off the will to live… But long-term stimulation of the pleasure center drives the process of addiction… When you consume any substance of abuse, including sugar, the nucleus accumbens receives a dopamine signal, from which you experience pleasure. And so you consume more. The problem is that with prolonged exposure, the signal attenuates, gets weaker. So you have to consume more to get the same effect — tolerance.

And if you pull back on the substance, you go into withdrawal. Tolerance and withdrawal constitute addiction. And make no mistake, sugar is addictive.”

Like many types of addictions, sugar addiction can in fact be deadly. Evidence is mounting that sugar is a primary contributing factor causing not only obesity and diabetes, but other chronic and lethal diseases. There’s really no doubt anymore that sugar is indeed toxic to your body, and it’s only a matter of time before it will be commonly accepted as a causative factor in most cancer, in the same way that now we accept without question that smoking and alcohol abuse are direct causes of lung cancer and cirrhosis of the liver, respectively.

Sugar’s Pleasurable Effect is Only Fleeting…

Sugar may taste good in the moment it is consumed, but its cumulative impact on your health may leave a bad taste in your mouth…

Of all the molecules capable of inflicting damage in your body, sugar molecules are probably the most damaging. Fructose, in particular, is an extremely potent pro-inflammatory agent that creates harmful advanced glycation end products (AGEs) and speeds up the aging process. It also promotes the kind of dangerous growth of fat cells around your vital organs (visceral fat) that are the hallmark of diabetes and heart disease. Sugar/fructose also increases your insulin and leptin levels and decrease the receptor sensitivity for both of these vital hormones, and these hormonal abnormalities are a major factor in premature aging and age-related chronic degenerative diseases such as heart disease.

Keep in mind that while it’s perfectly normal for your blood sugar levels to rise slightly after every meal, it is not natural or healthy when your blood sugar levels become excessively elevated and stay that way — which is exactly what will happen if you’re eating like the typical American, who consumes a staggering 2.5 pounds of sugar a week on average!

And when you add in other low-quality carbohydrate-rich foods such as white bread, sugar, pasta, pastries, cookies, and candy, which also break down to sugar (starch is broken down into glucose) in your body and often contain added sugar as well, it’s not so difficult to see why so many Americans are in such poor health.

This high-sugar (high-carb) diet is what’s driving the obesity epidemic—not diets high in fat, as is commonly assumed. An infographic created by Column Five for Massive Health, based on Why We Get Fat by science writer Gary Taubes, explains why. In short, carbs, like fructose and other sugars, destroy your insulin and leptin sensitivity, which in turn cause your cells to accumulate more fat, and makes it more difficult to get rid of the extra weight as well.

Eating Sugar Really is an “Unhappy Pleasure”

Dr. Lustig was spot on when he called sugar “the most unhappy of pleasures.” Because if eating sugar leads to poor health, and poor health ultimately leads to unhappiness, where will those few short-lived moments of artificial pleasure get you? They won’t get you happiness, that’s for sure. But they will perpetuate the addiction cycle, making you crave more and more sugar, and ultimately (and ironically) speed your journey to potential misery.

So what can you do about all of this? Stop eating sugar, for one. Dr. Lustig writes:

“As we have spent the last 30 years pursuing sugar for pleasure, we have become most decidedly unhappy. Our society has lost sight of the difference. Coca-Cola’s most recent marketing tagline is “Open Happiness.” Couldn’t be further from the truth. As our obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, cancer, and dementia rates continue to skyrocket due to our sugar over-consumption, the idea that a bottle of Coke holds the key to happiness is nothing short of pulp propaganda.”

How to Kick Your Sugar Cravings

I realize that, due to its addictive nature, cutting down can be a real challenge for some, especially if you’re consuming very high amounts. If you’re struggling with sugar addiction, I highly recommend trying an energy psychology technique called Turbo Tapping, which has helped many “soda addicts” kick their sweet habit, and it should work for any type of sweet craving you may have. A couple of other tricks to try to kick your sugar cravings:

Exercise: Anyone who exercises intensely on a regular basis will know that significant amounts of cardiovascular exercise is one of the best “cures” for food cravings. It always amazes me how my appetite, especially for sweets, dramatically decreases after a good workout. I believe the mechanism is related to the dramatic reduction in insulin levels that occurs after exercise.
Organic, black coffee: Coffee is a potent opioid receptor antagonist, and contains compounds such as cafestrol — found plentifully in both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee — which can bind to your opioid receptors, occupy them and essentially block your addiction to other opioid-releasingfoods.¹^,² This may profoundly reduce the addictive power of other substances, such as sugar.

Remember that in order to minimize your sugar intake, you need to avoid most processed foods, as most contain added sugar. Even savory foods like salad dressing, soup, and bread often contain sugar. For optimal health, eat natural whole foods primarily, and limit your fructose consumption to below 25 grams per day.

If you still want to use a sweetener occasionally, the sweet herb stevia makes a good sugar substitute. (Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, which can damage your health even more quickly than sugar.)

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Improve Blood Sugar Within 24 Hours, After Just 1 Session

Posted on March 22, 2012 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Did you know that working out just 20 minutes using interval exercise may provide many of the same benefits of much longer workouts done in conventional “long-duration” style?

A growing body of research shows you may not need to spend as much time exercising as you think — provided that you are willing to truly put in some effort when you do.

Most recently, a Canadian research team recently gathered several groups of volunteers, including sedentary but generally healthy middle-aged men and women, and patients of a similar age who had been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease.

The participants were asked to undertake a program of cycling intervals — repeated short bursts of strenuous activity, divided by rest periods.

According to the New York Times:

“Most of us have heard of intervals, or repeated, short, sharp bursts of strenuous activity, interspersed with rest periods.

Almost all competitive athletes strategically employ a session or two of interval training every week to improve their speed and endurance.

But the Canadian researchers were not asking their volunteers to sprinkle a few interval sessions into exercise routines.

Instead, the researchers wanted the groups to exercise exclusively with intervals.”

After several weeks on the program, both the unfit volunteers and the cardiac patients showed significant improvements in their health and fitness. Most remarkably, the cardiac patients showed “significant improvements” in both heart and blood vessel functioning. And, contrary to what popular belief might dictate, the intense exercises did not cause any heart problems for any of the cardiac patients. The belief is that the brevity of the exercise helps insulate your heart from the intensity.

How Intense is “High Intensity” Training?

The key to make interval training work is intensity. The cycling program developed for the out of shape and ill patients in the featured study was a gentler version of the interval training typically used, when you really go all out to reach your maximum heart rate. In this modified routine, the participants did one minute of strenuous effort, raising their heart rate to about 90 percent of their maximum, followed by one minute of recovery.

These intervals were repeated 10 times for a 20 minute long workout.

Your maximum heart rate can be roughly calculated as 220 minus your age. However, to measure the intensity of your effort, you really need a heart rate monitor. It’s nearly impossible to accurately measure your heart rate manually when it is above 150. And accuracy is important. There’s a big difference between a heart rate of 170 and 174 (or 160 and 164 if you are over 50). Once you reach your maximum heart rate you may feel a bit light headed and, of course, VERY short of breath. But your body catches up quite rapidly and in about 30-60 seconds you will start to feel much better. Most people feel tired but great once they’re done.

For the past couple of years, I’ve heavily promoted high intensity interval training as a key strategy for improving your health, boosting weight loss, promoting human growth hormone (HGH) production, and improving strength and stamina. I’ve been doing it myself since April 2010, after meeting fitness expert Phil Campbell (author of Ready Set Go), so I can also vouch for its effectiveness from personal experience.

Summary of my Interval Training Program

The interval program created by Phil Campbell also takes about 20 minutes, but here you’ll want to push your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold during the exertion portion. The silver lining is that the actual sprinting totals a mere 4 minutes instead of 10! Here’s a summary of what a typical interval routine might look like (for a full demonstration, see the video below):

Warm up for three minutes
Exercise as hard and fast as you can for 30 seconds. You should be gasping for breath and feel like you couldn’t possibly go on another few seconds
Recover for 90 seconds, still moving, but at slower pace and decreased resistance
Repeat the high intensity exercise and recovery 7 more times, for a total of 8 repetitions

By the end of your 30 second period you will want to reach these markers:

It will be relatively hard to breathe and talk because you are in oxygen debt
You will start to sweat. Typically this occurs in the second or third repetition unless you have a thyroid issue and don’t sweat much normally.
Your body temperature will rise
Lactic acid increases and you will feel a muscle “burn”

While you may need to slowly work your way up to this point, ultimately you want to exercise vigorously enough to reach your anaerobic threshold as this is where the “magic” happens that will trigger your growth hormone (HGH) release. HGH, also known as “the fitness hormone,” accounts for many of the health benefits of interval training.

But be mindful of your current fitness level and don’t overdo it when you first start out. Also keep in mind that there’s no “magical” speed here. It’s entirely individual, based on your current level of fitness. Some may reach their anabolic threshold by walking at a quick pace, while others may need to perform a mad-dash to get the same effect.

The Many Health Benefits of High-Intensity Interval Training

Once you engage in these high-int ensity exercises two to three times a week, most people notice the following benefits:

The remarkable effectiveness of interval training makes logical sense when you consider that this type of exertion mimics how our ancestors lived. This is also how animals and young children behave naturally (long-duration exercise really isn’t “natural”). By exercising in short bursts, followed by periods of recovery, you recreate exactly what your body needs for optimum health, and that includes the production of growth hormones, the burning of excess body fat, and improved cardiovascular health and stamina.

More Supporting Evidence

In a 2008 study published in the Journal of Physiology, Canadian researchers compared the effects of steady versus interval cycling. Active but untrained young men and women were divided into two groups:

The interval training group performed four to six repeats of 30-second all-out effort, with 4 ½ minutes of recovery between repeats, three days a week
The conventional cardio group cycled continuously for 40-60 minutes, five days a week

After six weeks, the leg muscles of those in the interval training group exhibited similar physiological changes as seen in those who performed multiple, hour-long sessions each week of steady cycling. The main difference? Those performing interval training spent just 1.5 hours per week in the gym, compared to about 4.5-5 hours for the conventional group.

Researchers have also concluded that interval training has a significantly beneficial impact on insulin sensitivity. In a study published last year, unfit but otherwise healthy middle-aged adults were able to improve their insulin sensitivity and blood sugar regulation after just two weeks of interval training (three sessions per week). A follow-up study of the featured study also found that interval training positively impacted insulin sensitivity. In fact, the study involved people with full-blown type 2 diabetes, and just ONE interval training session was able to improve blood sugar regulation for the next 24 hours.

Interval Training is Part of a Balanced Exercise Routine

Exercise is one of the most important tools that you can implement to gain optimal health, but as great as it is, it’s still important to include a variety of activities. Otherwise, your body will quickly adapt to your program, and whenever exercise becomes easy to complete, it’s a sign you need to work a little harder and give your body a new challenge. So when you’re planning your exercise routine, make sure to incorporates the following types of exercise:

Aerobic: Jogging, using an elliptical machine, and walking fast are all examples of aerobic exercise. As you get your heart pumping, the amount of oxygen in your blood improves, and endorphins, which act as natural painkillers, increase. Meanwhile, aerobic exercise activates your immune system, helps your heart pump blood more efficiently, and increases your stamina over time.
Interval (Anaerobic) Training: Again, this is when you alternate short bursts of high-intensity exercise with gentle recovery periods.
Strength Training: Rounding out your exercise program with a 1-set strength training routine will ensure that you’re really optimizing the possible health benefits of a regular exercise program.

Here you also have the option of including Super Slow Weight Training, which will give you many of the same health benefits as interval training on a recumbent bike, for example. The only difference is you’re doing it with weights. For more information about this, please see my interview with Dr. Doug McGuff. Another benefit of super-slow weight training that makes it ideal for virtually everyone, regardless of age or fitness level, is its safety, as it actively prevents you from accidentally harming your joints or suffering repetitive use injury.

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.

You need enough repetitions to exhaust your muscles. The weight should be heavy enough that this can be done in fewer than 12 repetitions, yet light enough to do a minimum of four repetitions. It is also important NOT to exercise the same muscle groups every day. They need at least two days of rest to recover, repair and rebuild.

Exercise programs like Pilates and yoga are 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 Stretching (AIS) developed by Aaron Mattes. With AIS, 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.

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How Can Sunscreen Cause Alzheimer’s?

Posted on March 17, 2012 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Alzheimer’s disease is currently at epidemic proportions, with 5.4 million Americans — including one in eight people aged 65 and over — living with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2011 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures.

By 2050, this is expected to jump to 16 million, and in the next 20 years it is projected that Alzheimer’s will affect one in four Americans.

You do not, however, have to feel powerless against this disease, as although there is no known cure as of yet, there are simple strategies available to significantly lower your risk.

The Alzheimer’s Risk Factor You Probably Haven’t Heard Of …

Do you heed the advice of public health officials who advise putting on sunscreen every time you go out in the sun?

This could very well be raising your risk of Alzheimer’s disease because it blocks not only your body’s ability to produce vitamin D, but also your production of cholesterol sulfate.

Unfortunately most of you reading this have probably only heard of cholesterol referred to in a negative way, but actually adequate cholesterol is essential for good health.

For example, 25 percent of the cholesterol in your body is in your brain, even though your brain is only 2 percent of your body’s weight. The cholesterol is absolutely essential for neuron transport, which is why lack of cholesterol can negatively affect your brain function. But impaired memory and dementia are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to low cholesterol’s impact on your brain. Having too little of this beneficial compound also:

Increases your risk of depression
Can cause you to commit suicide
May lead to violent behavior and aggression
Increase your risk of cancer and Parkinson’s disease

That’s a bit of background to get you warmed up to the idea that cholesterol is your friend, not your enemy. Now, getting back to sunscreen and Alzheimer’s, using these products will make it virtually impossible for your body to do what it was designed to do, which is produce important, disease-fighting substances like vitamin D and cholesterol sulfate when exposed to the sun. Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a senior scientist at MIT who has a wealth of information about the importance of sulfur, explains:

” … depletion of sulfate supply to the brain is another important contributor to Alzheimer’s, and I further think that sulfate is supplied to the brain principally by sterol sulfates like cholesterol sulfate as well as their derivatives like vitamin D3 sulfate. Both cholesterol sulfate and vitamin D3 sulfate are synthesized in the skin upon exposure to sunlight, and it is theorized that the skin is the major supplier of these nutrients to the body. This is why I believe that excess sunscreen use and excess sun avoidance are another principal causative factor in Alzheimer’s disease.”

Why is Cholesterol Sulfate so Important?

Your skin produces large amounts of cholesterol sulfate, which is water-soluble and provides a healthy barrier against bacteria and other potentially disease-causing pathogens that might otherwise enter your body through your skin. And, due to its polarity, it can enter both fat cells and muscle cells with equal ease. Dr. Seneff proposes that, because of this, cholesterol sulfate may be able to protect fat and muscle cells from glucose and oxygen damage.

She also argues that when you’re deficient in cholesterol sulfate, your muscle and fat cells become more prone to damage, which subsequently can lead to glucose intolerance, a condition where your muscles cannot process glucose as a fuel. As a result, your fat cells have to store more fat in order to supply fuel to your muscles, and excess fat accumulates as damage increases.

Sulfur also plays an important role in glucose metabolism. She hypothesizes that if a sufficient amount of sulfur is available, it will act as a decoy to glucose, effectively diverting it to reduce the sulfur rather than glycating and causing damage. This would have the beneficial effect of reducing inflammation, as sugar (glucose) is highly inflammatory and wreaks havoc in your body.

What does this have to do with your brain? The process applies not only to fat and muscle cells, but also to cells in your brain (and, in fact, to all cells in your body). Dr. Seneff explains:

“Essentially all cells in the body are surrounded by an exterior coat made up of complex molecules called “GAGs” — glycosaminoglycans. These contain sugars, proteins, and a large population of attached ions, particularly sulfate anions. These serve, I believe, an important role in helping to safely break down sugar. Simply stated, the sulfur atom deflects the reducing actions of sugars away from the vulnerable proteins.

The sulfate anions also provide a negative field around the cell, which is very useful for keeping bacteria out, because bacteria are also negatively charged, and hence repelled by the cell’s negative electric field. So cells with lots of surrounding sulfate are afforded protection from invasive bacteria. If a bacterium does get in, the cell will have to release oxidizing agents to kill it, and the cell itself will suffer damage from exposure to its own defense system. The fats in the cell membrane are more vulnerable to oxidative damage when there is insufficient cholesterol to protect them.”

This means that depletion of the sulfate supply to your brain could leave your brain cells more susceptible to damage and may increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Seneff also points out to recent papers that have also linked insufficient cholesterol with Alzheimer’s and mental decline:

Serum levels of cholesterol as well as the ability to synthesize cholesterol are inversely associated with mental decline in the elderly
A study directly comparing Alzheimer’s patients with age-matched controls showed a reduced serum level of LDL in the Alzheimer’s patients, with the more severe cases showing further reduction in LDL

Vitamin D Deficiency Also Increase Alzheimer’s Risk

Sunscreen is a double-edged sword when it comes to your brain health, as aside from blocking your ability to produce cholesterol sulfate, it also blocks your production of vitamin D — and there is no shortage of research linking vitamin D to brain health. One such study was actually launched after family members of Alzheimer’s patients who were treated with large doses of prescription vitamin D reported they were acting and performing better than before.

Strong links between low levels of vitamin D in Alzheimer’s patients and poor outcomes on cognitive tests were revealed. Researchers believe that optimal vitamin D levels may enhance the amount of important chemicals in your brain and protect brain cells. Vitamin D may also exert some of its beneficial effects on Alzheimer’s through its anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting properties. Sufficient vitamin D is imperative for proper functioning of your immune system to combat inflammation that is also associated with Alzheimer’s.

Safe Sun Exposure Without Sunscreen

If you work outdoors all day as part of your job, or if you need to protect sensitive areas of your face, like around your eyes, that are particularly susceptible to photoaging and not large enough a surface to impact vitamin D levels if blocked with sunscreen, certain sunscreens available in most health food stores, and my Healthy Skin Sunscreen, are safe to use when the need arises. However, I personally use and recommend wearing a hat when you are in the sun as this typically can shade the sensitive skin around your eyes.

I would avoid applying sunscreen regularly as most commercial ones have toxic chemicals that you should not be exposed to. If you do use a sunscreen make sure it is safe and natural. Remember once your skin turns the lightest shade of pink (if you’re Caucasian), it’s time to get out of the sun. Past this point of exposure your body will not produce any more vitamin D and you’ll begin to have sun damage. And sunburn anywhere on your body is not good for your health.

If sunshine outdoors is not an option for you because of the winter or your job, you can get many of the same benefits by using a safe tanning bed (one with electronic ballasts rather than magnetic ballasts, to avoid unnecessary exposure to electromagnetic fields). Safe tanning beds also have less of the dangerous UVA than sunlight, while unsafe ones have more UVA than sunlight.

In terms of vitamin D, it’s especially important to get it from sun exposure or a tanning bed, rather than a vitamin D3 supplement if at all possible, because when you expose your skin to sunshine, your body produces vitamin D3 sulfate. This form of vitamin D is water-soluble, unlike oral vitamin D3 supplements, which is unsulfated. The water-soluble form can travel freely in your bloodstream, whereas the unsulfated form needs LDL (the so-called “bad” cholesterol) as a vehicle of transport. Dr. Seneff believes that the oral non-sulfated form of vitamin D may not provide all of the same benefits as the vitamin D created in your skin from sun exposure, because it cannot be converted to vitamin D sulfate.

Coconut Oil Offers Profound Benefits for Your Brain

Coconut oil may help protect you from Alzheimer’s by providing your brain with an additional fuel supply. Your brain actually manufactures its own insulin to convert glucose into the fuel it needs, but recent discoveries indicate that your brain can essentially become “diabetic.” As you may know, diabetes is the condition where your body’s response to insulin is weakened due to “insulin resistance”—your body eventually stops producing the insulin necessary to regulate blood sugar.

Just like with diabetes, your brain can become insulin resistant. If this happens, your brain loses its ability to convert glucose into energy, leading to essentially a starvation state, and this can result in brain atrophy. This is what happens to Alzheimer’s patients—portions of their brain start to atrophy, or starve, leading to impaired functioning and eventual loss of memory, speech, movement and personality. Given this, you can now understand why diabetics have a 65 percent increased risk of also being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease—BOTH conditions are tied to insulin resistance.

This is where coconut oil may help.

Coconut oil provides ketones to your brain, and ketones appear to be the preferred source of brain food in patients with diabetes and/or Alzheimer’s. Coconut oil is a primary source of ketones, since it contains 66 percent medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), a type of fat your body can easily and quickly convert into ketones.

In effect, coconut oil is a fat that acts like a carbohydrate in your body, and carbs are your brain’s favorite food. For more about this, refer to this article, which discusses this in more detail. Therapeutic levels of MCTs can be achieved by taking just over two tablespoons of coconut oil daily (about 35ml or 7 level teaspoons), but I recommend working your way up to 4 tablespoons per day, gradually, beginning with just one teaspoon in the morning, WITH a meal to minimize the risk of stomach upset.

Other Important Tips for Alzheimer’s Prevention

In order to effectively prevent a disease, you must address its underlying causative factors. Although we do not have definitive “proof” of what, specifically, causes Alzheimer’s, a number of factors have been linked to an increased risk of dementia, and we know enough about those to in turn make educated recommendations for preventing this type of brain deterioration. Some of the best strategies for Alzheimer’s prevention, aside from adequate sunlight exposure, include:

Fructose. You simply MUST keep your level below 25 grams per day. This toxic influence is serving as the master regulator of brain toxicity. Since the average person is exceeding this recommendation by 300% this is a pervasive and serious issue. I view this as the MOST important step you can take.Additionally, when your liver is busy processing fructose (which your liver turns into fat), it severely hampers its ability to makecholesterol. This is yet another important facet that explains how and why excessive fructose consumption is so detrimental to your health.
Keep your fasting insulin levels below 3. This is indirectly related to fructose, as it will clearly lead to insulin resistance. However other sugars, grains and lack of exercise are also factors here.
Vitamin B12: According to a small Finnish study recently published in the journal Neurology, people who consume foods rich in B12 may reduce their risk of Alzheimer’s in their later years. For each unit increase in the marker of vitamin B12 (holotranscobalamin) the risk of developing Alzheimer’s was reduced by 2 percent. Very high doses of B vitamins have also been found to treat Alzheimer’s disease and reduce memory loss.
Eat a nutritious diet, rich in folate, such as the one described in my nutrition plan. Strict vegetarian diets have been shown to increase your Alzheimer’s risk, whereas diets high in omega-3′s lower your risk. However, vegetables, without question, are your best form of folate, and we should all eat plenty of fresh raw veggies every day.
High-quality animal based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil. (I recommend avoiding most fish because although fish is naturally high in omega-3, most fish are now severely contaminated with mercury.) High intake of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA helps by preventing cell damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease, thereby slowing down its progression, and lowering your risk of developing the disorder. Researchers have also said DHA “dramatically reduces the impact of the Alzheimer’s gene.”
Avoid and remove mercury from your body. Dental amalgam fillings are one of the major sources of mercury, however you should be healthy prior to having them removed. Once you have adjusted to following the diet described in my optimized nutrition plan, you can follow the mercury detox protocol and then find a biological dentist to have your amalgams removed.
Avoid aluminum, such as antiperspirants, non-stick cookware, vaccine adjuvants, etc.
Exercise regularly. It’s been suggested that exercise can trigger a change in the way the amyloid precursor protein is metabolized, thus, slowing down the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s. Exercise also increases levels of the protein PGC-1alpha. New research has shown that people with Alzheimer’s have less PGC-1alpha in their brains, and cells that contain more of the protein produce less of the toxic amyloid protein associated with Alzheimer’s.I would strongly recommend reviewing the Peak Fitness Technique for my specific recommendations.
Avoid flu vaccinations as most contain both mercury and aluminum!
Eat plenty of blueberries. Wild blueberries, which have high anthocyanin and antioxidant content, are known to guard against Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.
Challenge your mind daily. Mental stimulation, especially learning something new, such as learning to play an instrument or a new language, is associated with a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s. Researchers suspect that mental challenge helps to build up your brain, making it less susceptible to the lesions associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Avoid anticholinergic and statin drugs. Drugs that block acetylcholine, a nervous system neurotransmitter, have been shown to increase your risk of dementia. These drugs include certain night-time pain relievers, antihistamines, sleep aids, certain antidepressants, medications to control incontinence, and certain narcotic pain relievers.A study found that those who took drugs classified as ‘definite anticholinergics’ had a four times higher incidence of cognitive impairment. Regularly taking two of these drugs further increased the risk of cognitive impairment. Statin drugs are particularly problematic because they suppress the synthesis of cholesterol.As Dr. Seneff reports:
“Statin drugs interfere with cholesterol synthesis in the liver, but the lipophilic statin drugs (like lovastatin and simvastatin) also interfere with the synthesis of cholesterol in the brain. This would then directly impact the neurons’ ability to maintain adequate cholesterol in their membranes. Indeed, a population-based study showed that people who had ever taken statins had an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, a hazard ratio of 1.21. More alarmingly, people who used to take statins had a hazard ratio of 2.54 (over two and a half times the risk to Alzheimer’s) compared to people who never took statins.”

For more information, read Dr. Seneff’s essay on statins and Alzheimer’s disease.

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Almost Everyone Eats it, But it’s a “Breeding Ground” for Disease

Posted on March 12, 2012 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Evidence is mounting that sugar is the primary factor causing not just obesity, but also many chronic and lethal diseases.

Dr. Robert Lustig, one of the leading experts on childhood obesity, and arguably the number one enemy of the sugar lobby, has published a well written article in the prestigious scientific journal Nature arguing that sugar is a poison.

He believes that the negative health effects of sugar consumption can no longer be ignored, any more than the health effects of tobacco and alcohol could.

According to Dr. Lustig, via the website Diet Doctor:

“The problem with sugar isn’t just weight gain … A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases.

A little is not a problem, but a lot kills — slowly.”

For the first time in history, “lifestyle” diseases — diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers — are killing more people than communicable diseases. And treating these entirely preventable illnesses costs more than one-seventh of the U.S. GDP. It stands to reason then that simply preventing these diseases could save the US health care system around one trillion dollars a year.

One of the primary, and likely most effective ways of preventing these diseases would be to curb the outrageous over-consumption of sugar.

Dr. Lustig rightfully argues that sugar used to be available to our ancestors only as fruit or honey—and then only for a few months of the year—compared to today, when sugar (primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup) is added to virtually all processed foods and drinks; even items you normally would not think of as being high in sugar. Tragically, many infant formulas even contain more than 50 percent sugar! “Nature made sugar hard to get; man made it easy,” Dr. Lustig says.

Fructose is NOT the Same as Glucose

Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium — and in fact, every living thing on the Earth — uses glucose for energy.

glucose, fructose, sugars

Fructose is not the same molecule. Glucose is a 6-member ring, but fructose is a 5-member ring. Sucrose (table sugar) is 50 percent glucose and 50 percent fructose, and HFCS is 42-55 percent fructose.

If you received your fructose only from vegetables and fruits (where it originates) as most people did a century ago, you’d consume about 15 grams per day. Today the average is 73 grams per day which is nearly 500 percent higher a dose and our bodies simply can’t tolerate that type of biochemical abuse. Furthermore, in vegetables and fruits, the fructose is mixed in with fiber, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and beneficial phytonutrients, all of which help moderate the negative metabolic effects. So it’s not that fructose itself is “poisonous”—it’s the biologically inappropriate doses you’re exposed to that make it hazardous to your health and well-being.

How High Fructose Corn Syrup has Decimated Human Health

We now know, without a doubt, that it’s the excessive sugar content in the modern diet that is taking such a devastating toll on people’s health. According to GreenMedInfo.com, scientific studies have linked fructose to about 78 different diseases and health problems. Select the hyperlinks provided to review how fructose may:

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was invented in Japan in 1966 and introduced to the American market in 1975. Food and beverage manufacturers quickly began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to corn syrup when they discovered that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) could save them a lot of money. Sucrose costs about three times as much as HFCS. HFCS is also about 20 percent sweeter than table sugar, so you need less to achieve the same amount of sweetness.

In the mid 1970s, dietary fats were blamed for heart disease, giving rise to the “low-fat craze,” which resulted in an explosion of processed nonfat and low fat convenience foods—most of which tasted like sawdust unless sugar was added. Fructose was then added to make all these fat-free products more palatable. Yet as the low-fat craze spread, rates of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity skyrocketed…

Clearly, there was a major flaw in the plan, and it’s not difficult to see that trading fat for sugar is not a wise move.

The problem is that excessive fructose consumption leads to insulin resistance, and insulin resistance appears to be the root of many if not most of the diseases listed above. Insulin resistance has even been found to be an underlying factor of cancer.

How Fructose Increases Insulin Secretion and Worsens Your Insulin Sensitivity

Interestingly, recent research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that fructose can activate taste cells found on your pancreas, a reaction that can increase your body’s secretion of insulin. And, while this is of particular concern for people prone to diabetes, if statistics are any indication, this could include virtually everyone.

At present, one in four Americans already have either pre-diabetes or some form of diabetes, and type 2 diabetes is directly linked to your diet, so anyone on a high-fructose diet can be at risk.

In this study, the researchers were able to demonstrate that fructose activates the same proteins in your pancreatic cells that your tongue uses to taste sweets. And when these cells are exposed to both glucose and fructose, they secrete more insulin than they do when exposed to glucose alone. According to Science News:

“Most sugars join the [metabolic assembly line] at a point where a supervisory enzyme can control the flow of goods. But fructose comes in farther down, where it can lead to an overproduction of fat. And because fructose … doesn’t stimulate the same insulin response that glucose does, the hormone isn’t doing the other regulatory things it usually does, like moderating appetite.”

Limiting Sugar is Also Vital for Longevity

By increasing your insulin and leptin levels (and subsequently decreasing receptor sensitivity for both of these vital hormones), excessive sugar/fructose consumption not only increases your risk of type 2 diabetes, it also accelerates aging in general. In fact, limiting sugar in your diet is a well-known key to longevity, because of all the molecules capable of inflicting damage in your body, sugar molecules are probably the most damaging.

Two years ago, the journal Nutrients published an excellent report on the impact of fructose on aging. Fructose is a particularly potent pro-inflammatory agent that creates advanced glycation end products, commonly known as “AGEs.”

AGEs are a complex group of damaging compounds that form when sugar reacts with amino acids. Besides oxidation, glycation and the subsequent formation of AGEs is one of the major molecular mechanisms causing ongoing damage in your body, which leads to disease, (premature) aging and, eventually, death. According to the authors:

“[T]he data are supportive that endogenous AGEs are associated with declining organ functioning. It appears that dietary AGEs may also be related… As of today, restriction of dietary intake of AGEs and exercise has been shown to safely reduce circulating AGEs, with further reduction in oxidative stress and inflammatory markers.”

In short, if you want to live a long healthy life, you need to restrict your consumption of sugar, particularly fructose. As a standard recommendation to limit glycation, I strongly advise keeping your TOTAL fructose consumption below 25 grams per day.

Most people would be wise to limit their fructose to 15 grams or less however, especially if you have elevated uric acid levels, which can be used as a predictor for fructose toxicity. This includes keeping track of your fructose intake from whole fruits. To evaluate the fructose content of many common fruits, please see this helpful fructose chart. I recommend this lower level of 15 grams a day simply because if you consume processed foods or sweet beverages at all, you’re virtually guaranteed to consume “hidden” sources of fructose that can have a major impact on your health.

When I have mentioned this in the past many people have strongly disagreed with me as they believe fruit is fine because it is natural. And it may be ok for some people, especially those doing long and intense exercise sessions. However, there is an easy way for you to find out your risk. If your uric acid is above 5.0 would be wise to follow the rule. The higher above 5.0 your uric acid is, the worse your risk for damage. If your uric acid is between 3.5 and 5 you should be fine. I believe I must have a genetic polymorphism for uric acid as mine is always above 5.5 even with intense exercise and less than five grams of fructose a day, so I nearly always avoid fruit.

The authors of that paper offer an in-depth review of the many health hazards of fructose, due to its pro-inflammatory actions:

“Accumulation of AGEs has been found in healthy aging persons, and this accumulation is higher during high glucose concentrations. Microvascular and macrovascular damage, seen in diabetes, is attributed to the accumulation of AGEs in tissues, but it is also associated with atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, end stage renal disease, rheumatoid arthritis, sarcopenia, cataracts, and other degenerative ophthalmic diseases, Parkinson’s disease, vascular dementia and several other chronic diseases. For instance, Bar et al. have demonstrated differential increases of AGEs products in Alzheimer’s dementia and vascular dementia compared to controls. It has also been suggested that AGEs are involved in the loss of bone density and muscular mass associated with aging.”

How to Tame Your Sugar Cravings

If you’re struggling with sugar addiction, I recommend trying an energy psychology technique called Turbo Tapping, which has helped many “soda addicts” kick their sweet habit. If you still want to use a sweetener occasionally, here’s what I recommend in lieu of sugar:

Use the sweet herb stevia.
Use organic cane sugar in moderation.
Use organic raw honey in moderation.

Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, which can damage your health even more quickly than fructose. Agave syrup has been touted as a healthy alternative by many, but don’t fall for it. It’s a highly processed sap that is almost all fructose, and should therefore be avoided.

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Liver Cleanse for stage four Gallbladder Cancer

Posted on March 4, 2012 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

Hi, this is Andreas Moritz and today I would like to discuss a question from Catherine and she is asking if someone with Stage 4 gallbladder cancer is strong enough to do the liver cleanse, and she is asking if it will help with the cancer or even the side-effects of past chemotherapy treatments.

First of all, I don’t recommend anyone who has been undergoing chemotherapy to begin with the liver cleansing procedure or process unless there are at least six to eight months between the two.

Chemotherapy drugs are extremely toxic and they cause damage to many parts of the body because of inflammation of cells. As you know, chemotherapy only works because it destroys cells so it will destroy lot of cells, healthy cells, in the body just as well as it can destroy cancerous cells.

It also is a leading cause of gallbladder stones – or gallstones in the gallbladder, and gallstones in the intra-hepatic bile ducts – the bile ducts inside the liver, and so this is something we have to be very careful about, because the inflammation can be so strong in the body because of the chemotherapy that the body doesn’t have the strength and the stamina to endure a cleansing process that will eliminate lot of toxic particles that come from the previously experienced poisoning through chemotherapy.

So, a lot of these stones are filled with toxins, and they should at least stay in the liver for six to eight months before coming out so that the toxins, the poisons are properly encoated – coated and enveloped with bile – so that when they come out they don’t cause harm to the gastro-intestinal wall as they come through. So I don’t recommend at this stage then to do liver and gallbladder flushes.

The other thing is that at that late stage there can be all kinds of complications when stones actually pass through or are eliminated from the gallbladder that I don’t recommend when there is an illness an acute or severe illness like that to do the liver and gallbladder flushes.

So it would be best to focus on other things like diet, lifestyle changes, increasing the vitamin D in the body through regular sun exposure, sleeping early before ten o’clock and eating the main meal at lunch time, so whatever food is digested there is a better chance to digest the food more effectively if it’s eaten at lunch time and only have a light evening meal so that there is not a lot of undigested food lingering in the lower intestines which can put a great burden on the liver.

So I would rather focus on these things. You find a lot of information in my book “Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation” which might be helpful for that person.

I have seen Stage 4 gallbladder cancers get reversed. So once she is feeling a lot better, she may intend doing liver and gallbladder flushes, but again, there should be at least six to eight months between doing that and the treatment of chemotherapy.

Thank you so much.

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A Sound Sleep may be a Solid Defense against Memory Loss and Alzheimer’s Disease

Posted on February 21, 2012 by andreas m

By: John Phillip
Source: NaturalNews.com

Alzheimer’s disease presently ranks as the sixth leading cause of death in the US, as the number of new cases is projected to triple by the year 2050 and affect as many as sixteen million people. The result of a new study presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 64th Annual Meeting has found that the level and duration of quality sleep may later affect memory function and the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in later life.

Researchers determined that poor quality sleep is associated with the build-up of neural tangles between synapses that is associated with the loss of ability to form new memories and progression of Alzheimer’s dementia. Making time for seven to nine hours of uninterrupted sleep each night may be a crucial factor to Alzheimer’s risk reduction as we age.

A Good Night’s Sleep Dramatically Lowers Risk of Developing Brain Plaques and Alzheimer’s Disease

The lead study author, Dr. Yo-El Ju from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis noted “Disrupted sleep appears to be associated with the build-up of amyloid plaques, a hallmark marker of Alzheimer’s disease, in the brains of people without memory problems”. In an effort to determine the link between poor sleep habits and cognitive decline, researchers tested the sleep patterns of 100 people between the ages of 45 and 80 who were free of dementia.

Half of the participants tested had a family history of Alzheimer’s disease, while a second control group had no familial history of the disease. A special device used to measure sleep patterns was placed on all participants for a period of two weeks to assess quality and depth of sleep time. Additionally, sleep diaries and questionnaires were employed to further analyze sleep cycles.

The study found that 25% of the subjects tested showed signs of amyloid plaques, a consistent marker of Alzheimer’s disease progression. Although the participant’s averaged 8 hours of sleep each night, this was reduced to 6.5 hours due to sleep disruptions during the night that affected the total sleep time and quality of deep sleep required by the brain to perform repair functions.

Those who did not wake up frequently during the night were 5 times less likely to possess the amyloid plaque build-up compared to those who slept poorly or less than 7 total hours. Participants who did not sleep well were significantly more likely to exhibit the amyloid markers associated with cognitive decline resulting in Alzheimer’s disease.

Although this study did not provide a direct reason for the finding, scientists believe that the amyloid protein clumps and tangles that occur as a normal process of metabolism in the brain are only cleared during quality sleep time and duration of 7 to 9 hours each night. In addition to the myriad of lifestyle and dietary patterns presently known to help prevent most chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s, a good night’s sleep in a totally dark room with no interruptions should now be added to the top of the risk reduction list.

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The Vitamin that has Been Shown to Dramatically Improve Fertility

Posted on February 16, 2012 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Did you know that in northern countries, which have dark, cold winters, couples are less likely to conceive during the winter, whereas conception rates peak in the summer?

There are a number of reasons why this association exists, but new research highlights vitamin D as one of the most important variable.

Vitamin D, a steroid hormone that influences virtually every cell in your body and has been positively linked to health conditions ranging from cancer to heart disease, may significantly boost fertility in both men and women.

If You’re Struggling With Infertility, Get Your Vitamin D Levels Checked

Vitamin D is so crucial to health that I urge everyone to make sure their levels are optimized, but if you’ve been dealing with infertility, this is especially important.

A new report has shown that exposure to sunlight boosts fertility in both men and women by increasing their levels of vitamin D, a benefit that appears to work on multiple levels.

As the researchers reported in the European Journal of Endocrinology:

Among women, vitamin D appears to impact in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcomes, endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the most common female endocrine disorder, as well as boost levels of progesterone and estrogen, which regulate menstrual cycles and improve the likelihood of successful conception
In men, vitamin D is essential for the healthy development of the nucleus of the sperm cell, and helps maintain semen quality and sperm count. Vitamin D also increases levels of testosterone, which may boost libido

The researchers state:

“Given the high prevalence of infertility as well as vitamin D insufficiency in otherwise healthy young women and men and the possible role of vitamin D in human reproduction, research might lead to new therapeutic approaches such as vitamin D supplementation in the treatment of female and male reproductive disorders.”

Low Vitamin D Levels Previously Linked to Infertility

This is not the first time the “sunshine vitamin” has been linked to infertility. In 2008, Australian fertility specialist Dr. Anne Clark found almost one-third of the 800 infertile men included in her study had lower than normal levels of vitamin D, (bear in mind here that “normal” does not equal “optimal” — so by optimal standards, the rate of vitamin D deficiency was likely far higher than one-third) stating that:

“Vitamin D and folate deficiency are known to be associated with infertility in women, but the outcomes of the screening among men in our study group came as a complete surprise. Men in the study group who agreed to make lifestyle changes and take dietary supplements had surprisingly good fertility outcomes.”

In fact, of the 100 men who agreed to make and maintain certain lifestyle changes (quitting smoking, minimizing intake of caffeine and alcohol, weight reduction, along with a course of vitamins and antioxidants) for three months prior to fertility treatment, 11 of them went on to achieve pregnancy naturally, without IVF treatment.

Previous studies, such as one published in The Journal of Nutrition, also found that although vitamin-D-deficient female rats were capable of reproduction, it reduced fertility by an astounding 75 percent, diminished litter sizes by 30 percent, and impaired neonatal growth.

Interestingly, another study published in November 2009 confirmed that human sperm does in fact have a vitamin D receptor. Analysis indicated that vitamin D is produced locally in the sperm, which suggests that vitamin D may be involved in the signaling between cells in the reproductive system. According to the authors, the study revealed “an unexpected significance of this hormone [vitamin D] in the acquisition of fertilizing ability,” and the results imply that vitamin D is involved in a variety of sperm signaling pathways.

What Else Might be Impacting Your Fertility?

An estimated 1 in 6 American couples struggle with getting pregnant each year, and there’s compelling evidence that lifestyle, diet and environmental exposures are largely to blame. Not only are you exposed to hundreds (if not thousands) of toxins each and every day, but some of the most commonly prescribed drugs, poor diet, and common vitamin deficiencies have also been linked to reduced fertility, just to name a few.

As Iva Keene, author of the Natural Fertility Prescription, stated:

“Conventional IVF and other assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatments don’t address root causes of infertility. These root causes include: nutritional deficiencies, toxin exposure, stress, food intolerances, allergies and immune deficiencies. These subtle but critical factors interact synergistically to impact the quality of your eggs and sperm, affecting your ability to conceive and the health of your embryo.

… during the generation and maturation of gamete cells — sperm and ovum — that form an embryo [a period of 120 days], everything that you and your partner ingest, inhale or are exposed to will influence the health of your eggs and sperm for better or worse, and the ultimate quality of the genetic building blocks you pass onto your child. This is why it’s crucial to follow a good preconception plan for a minimum of 4 months before conception. A baby is a 50-50 product of his or her parents — therefore optimizing the quality of eggs and sperm is of paramount importance.”

You can find 10 tips that may help resolve infertility naturally in her past article, but here are a few initial strategies to consider:

Genetically modified food (GM), especially corn and soy, contain significant concentrations of the herbicide glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup), which has been linked to infertility in a number of studies.
Avoid chemicals as much as possible. Bisphenol-A (BPA), phthalates, fluoride (in drinking water), MSG, and many, many others have shown negative impacts on your reproductive health.
Consume a healthy diet, rich in healthy fats and antioxidants, and low in sugar and grains. Insulin resistance is an underlying factor responsible for most chronic disease, and it should come as no surprise that it plays a role in fertility as well. The treatment strategy is to reduce or eliminate grains along with sugars, especially fructose.
Identify potential gluten intolerance. Celiac disease (gluten intolerance) has been linked to fertility problems in both sexes. In men, it’s associated with abnormal sperm, such as lower sperm numbers, altered shape, and reduced function. Men with untreated celiac disease may also have lower testosterone levels.
Be aware of electromagnetic fields, as research suggests cell phones may impact sperm quality as well. One study found men who talked on a cell phone for more than four hours a day had the lowest average sperm counts (50 million per milliliter) and the least healthy sperm.

Are You Ready to Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels?

This is an imperative step for anyone planning a pregnancy, not only for increasing the rate of conception but also for the benefits it offers during pregnancy. Vitamin D deficiency is currently at epidemic proportions in the United States and many other regions around the world, largely because people do not spend enough time in the sun to facilitate this important process of vitamin D production.

So the first step to ensuring you are receiving all the benefits of vitamin D is to find out what your levels are using a 25(OH)D test, also called 25-hydroxyvitamin D.

There are two vitamin D tests — 1,25(OH)D and 25(OH)D — but 25(OH)D is the better marker of overall D status. It is this marker that is most strongly associated with overall health, and it is the one you should ask your physician for.. The point of vitamin D testing is, of course, to be sure you are maintaining a therapeutic level of vitamin D in your blood. A few years back, the recommended level was between 40 to 60 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml), but more recently the optimal vitamin D level has been raised to 50-70 ng/ml.

To get your levels into the healthy range, sun exposure is the BEST way to optimize your vitamin D levels; exposing a large amount of your skin until it turns the lightest shade of pink, as near to solar noon as possible, is typically necessary to achieve adequate vitamin D production. If sun exposure is not an option, a safe tanning bed (with electronic ballasts rather than magnetic ballasts, to avoid unnecessary exposure to EMF fields) can be used.

As a last resort, a vitamin D3 supplement can be taken orally, but research suggests the average adult needs to take 8,000 IU’s of vitamin D per day in order to elevate their levels above 40 ng/ml, which is the absolute minimum for disease prevention.

Infertility can be a challenging condition with multiple contributing factors, but you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by optimizing your vitamin D levels. It is free if you do it via sun exposure, and inexpensive if you use a safe tanning bed or vitamin D3 supplement. It’s a simple step that can have a profound impact on your health, even if trying to conceive naturally is not your primary goal.

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Home Births have Increased by Nearly 30 Percent since 2004

Posted on February 5, 2012 by andreas m

By: Elizabeth Walling
Source: NaturalNews.com

More parents are taking control of their birthing options by choosing home births, says a new study from the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention). Statistics released in late January say home births in the United States have risen by nearly 30 percent between 2004 and 2009.

“A lot of women really like the idea of home birth because they want a lower-intervention birth. A lot of women are worried about higher C-section rates and other types of intervention that happen once you go to the hospital,” said lead author Marian MacDorman from the CDC National Center for Health Statistics.

Statistics from the study show that women with other children are more likely to choose a home birth, as are white women and those age 35 and over.

Why are more women choosing home births?

Just one hundred years ago, home births were the norm across the country. But as we entered an era of new technology, home birth rates decreased rapidly until 99 percent of babies were born in a hospital setting in 1969. At this point most parents believed that modern medicine held all the keys to a safe birth. Unfortunately, this proved to be wrong.

Since then, many have questioned the need for so many medical interventions in what should be considered a completely natural event. As parents have discovered the hospital setting is not necessarily best for mother and baby, home births have been making a comeback.

Done with some careful planning and preparation, a home birth can be quite safe. A knowledgeable birth attendant can help decide if further care is needed during any part of the birth.

In fact, a study in 2009 showed that planned home births with registered midwives were as safe or even safer than hospital births. Home birthing mothers with midwives experienced a lower risk of complications like C-sections, infections and bleeding.

Saraswathi Vedam from the Home Birth Section of the American College of Nurse-Midwives says home birthing can definitely be a safe option for many women.

“Women who are healthy and have a profile of having a good outcome for them and their babies have come to understand that the equipment and personnel a hospital has to offer is not necessary for all women. It’s most appropriate for women and infants who have medical indications that could benefit from what the hospital offers,” she says.

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Breast Cancer and Heart Attacks: A Deadly Side Effect of Calcium Supplements?

Posted on February 3, 2012 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Calcium is one of the most popular dietary supplements on the market, largely because of the widely circulated mantra that mega-doses of this mineral are essential for building and maintaining healthy bones.

As a result, many people believe that taking a calcium supplement is a simple way to prevent bone fractures associated with osteoporosis.

What they have not been told is that while you can force increased bone mineral density with calcium supplements, you cannot be sure that this will result in greater bone strength.

Be Careful In Interpreting Bone Tests Results

Bone density, while an excellent measurement of compressive strength, does not reveal tensile strength, i.e. whether or not your bone will resist breaking from being pulled or stretched, as commonly occurs in a fall or similar trauma.

Moreover, “osteoporosis,” as presently defined by bone scans (DXA scan) using the T-score, inappropriately defines “normal bone density” according to the standard of a 25-year old, young adult.

In other words, if you are 40, 50, or even 100, the T-score-based system says your bones are not normal, or even diseased if they are not as dense as they were when you were a young adult.

If in fact they used the age-appropriate Z-score, most cases of “osteopenia,” and many cases of “osteoporosis,” would suddenly disappear because they were inappropriately classified from the start.

Do Calcium Supplements Predispose You to Breast Cancer?

Ultimately, the “calcium is good for your bones” mantra is yet another example of a good theory gone wrong, and represents how broadly deluded the mainstream medical community is about bone health and the nature of osteoporosis, and its highly fabricated twin condition “osteopenia.”

There are actually a number of studies indicating that mass market calcium supplements increase your risk for cardiovascular incidents and other problems, while offering little benefit to your bones. Only because something can increase your bone density: eating what amounts to chalk or pulverized bone meal, or worse, chemicals like the drugs Fosamax and Evista, does not mean this will translate into improved health for your bones, or any of your other organ systems.

Indeed, before jumping off the lemming-like cliff of conventional medical wisdom, consider there is a solid body of research indicating that higher bone density may actually increase the risk of malignant breast cancer by 300% or more! Considering that close to 1 in 4 women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lives, with breast cancer top on the list, isn’t the neurotic fixation on increasing bone density with calcium supplements misplaced, especially when it may increase the overall risk of dying from cancer and, as we will see, cardiovascular disease (the #1 killer), as well?

Taking Calcium Might Increase Your Heart Attack Risk

Heart attacks may be caused by supplemental calcium from elemental sources, which include limestone, oyster shell, and bone meal, according to two meta-analyses of available research (a meta-analysis is a review and summary of the results of many clinical studies on the same subject).

The first, conducted in 2010 and involving over 8,000 people, showed that taking this kind of inorganic calcium supplement in amounts of 500 mg or more would increase your relative risk of heart attack by 27 percent.

Critics of the study pointed out that it only looked at calcium supplementation without vitamin D administered at the same time (vitamin D helps you absorb and utilize calcium). However, the second analysis showed that even when co-administered with vitamin D, elemental calcium still increased heart attack risk by 24 percent, with researchers concluding:

“Calcium supplements with or without vitamin D modestly increase the risk of cardiovascular events, especially myocardial infarction … A reassessment of the role of calcium supplements in osteoporosis management is warranted.”

In fact, the second analysis was even more disturbing, as it found the calcium supplementation (in addition to vitamin D) increased the composite risk of heart attack and stroke by 15%!

Calcium Can be Beneficial or Deadly Depending on Where it Ends Up in Your Body

Calcium is the most abundant mineral in your body, necessary for not only bone health but also regulating your heartbeat, conducting nerve impulses, clotting blood and stimulating hormone secretions. Your body does not make calcium, and in fact loses calcium daily through your skin, nails, hair, sweat and elimination, which is why you must replace it via your diet.

It has been estimated, however, that your body excretes as little as 100 mg a day, making the current recommendations by the National Osteoporosis Foundation for women over 50 to take 1200 mg a day, a bit troubling. When we compare our calcium-rich diet to the traditional calcium-poor Chinese peasant diet, which was free of cow’s milk and calcium supplements, approximately 250 mg a day of plant-based calcium was all that was needed to fulfill their bodily needs – and this is a culture with no word for “osteoporosis” in its 3,000+ year old language!

Due to the fact that about 99 percent of your body’s calcium is stored in your bones and teeth, if you don’t get enough calcium, your body will take calcium from your bones to perform necessary functions. This is where the idea that supplementing with calcium could prevent calcium loss from your bones comes from — but it is an overly simplified theory that lacks solid evidence to back it up, especially in Western, modernized cultures which consume unprecedentedly large amounts of dairy-derived, fortification-based and supplemental calcium.

For instance, one 2010 article presented evidence for a total lack of support in the research for calcium supplements reducing fracture risk!

Moreover, in the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study, a review tracking 78,000 nurses for 12 years found that the relative risk of hip fracture was 45% higher in those women who drank two or more glasses of milk per day versus those who drank one glass or less. Indeed, in countries where both dairy consumption and overall calcium levels in the diet are the lowest, bone fracture rates are also the lowest; conversely, in cultures like the United States where calcium consumption is among the highest in the world, so too are the fracture rates among the highest (see: The China Study).

The truth is that taking any calcium in excess or isolation, without complementary nutrients like magnesium, vitamin D and vitamin K2, which help keep your body in balance, can have adverse effects, such as calcium building up in coronary arteries and causing heart attacks. Even taking calcium with vitamin D does not appear to be enough to prevent these types of adverse effects.

So when you take a biologically foreign form of calcium (such as limestone, oyster shell, egg shell and bone meal (hydroxylapatite), or when your body’s ability to direct calcium to the right places becomes impaired (as when you are deficient in vitamin K2), calcium may be deposited where it shouldn’t be, which can lead to multiple health problems.

Often, much of the burden of removing the excess calcium falls on the kidneys, which is why it has been proven on numerous occasions that calcium carbonate rapidly calcifies arteries in those with compromised kidney function, especially hemodialysis patients. Calcium deposits are, in fact, major contributors and even causative factors in many conditions, including the following:

Too Much Calcium May Create Mineral Deficiencies that Promote Disease

Robert Thompson, M.D. wrote a book on this subject called The Calcium Lie, which explains that bone is comprised of at least a dozen minerals, and the exclusive focus on calcium supplementation is likely to worsen bone density and actually increase your risk for osteoporosis. Dr. Thompson believes overconsumption of calcium creates other mineral deficiencies and imbalances that will increase your risk of heart disease, kidney stones, gallstones, osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism, obesity and type 2 diabetes.

If your calcium supplement is being turned into “little rocks” that are being deposited in your soft tissues and arteries, you can begin to understand how this could be increasing your risk for a heart attack, stroke or other health condition.

Many believe that arterial plaque is simply a buildup of cholesterol. But in reality, more than 90 percent of these fatty plaques are calcified. Cholesterol is soft and waxy and does not impair the elasticity of your arteries. But calcium deposits are like concrete, “hardening” your arteries and impairing their ability to expand. It is calcium — not cholesterol — that induces arterial stiffness and makes the plaque less stable and more prone to chipping off and subsequently inducing a life-threatening clot.

This is particularly important for postmenopausal women because hormone balance is necessary for proper calcium signaling — directing your body to deposit calcium into your bones. When hormones fall out of balance, this signaling causes calcium to slowly exit your bones and become deposited in your arteries instead. Simply taking a calcium supplement will not solve the problem because if your body cannot direct the calcium to the right spot, it will cause far more harm than good.

Why Vitamin K2 is Crucial if You Take Vitamin D and Calcium …

Vitamin K2 engages in a delicate dance with vitamin D; whereas vitamin D provides improved bone development by helping you absorb calcium, there is new evidence that vitamin K2 directs the calcium to your skeleton, while preventing it from being deposited where you don’t want it — i.e., your organs, joint spaces, and arteries. As mentioned, a large part of arterial plaque consists of calcium deposits (atherosclerosis), hence the term “hardening of the arteries.”

Vitamin K2 has also actually been found to decalcify certain tissues undergoing pathological (also known as ectopic) calcification.

Vitamin K2 activates a protein hormone called osteocalcin, produced by osteoblasts, which is needed to bind calcium into the matrix of your bone. Osteocalcin also appears to help prevent calcium from depositing into your arteries. In other words, without the help of vitamin K2, the calcium that your vitamin D so effectively lets in might be working AGAINST you — by building up your coronary arteries rather than your bones. This is why if you take calcium and vitamin D but are deficient in vitamin K, you could be worse off than if you were not taking those supplements at all.

Food is the Best Source of Calcium

In order for calcium to do your body good, it must be in a bioavailable form and balanced out with vitamins D and K and other important trace minerals, as part of a total nutritional plan.

It’s more likely your body can use calcium correctly if it’s food-based calcium. Good sources include raw milk and cheese from pasture-raised cows (who eat the plants), leafy green vegetables, the pith of citrus fruits, carob, sesame seeds and wheatgrass, to name a few. It’s worth mentioning that the studies done about calcium from dairy products are all done with pasteurized dairy, rather than raw dairy products that have more of their nutrients intact, and this muddies the results of these studies.

Calcium from dietary sources is typically better absorbed and utilized than calcium from supplements, which is why studies involving calcium from natural food sources have shown favorable results, including a 25 percent lower risk of dying from all causes, and a 23 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease.

You also need sources of silica and magnesium, which some researchers say is actually enzymatically “transmuted” by your body into the kind of calcium your bones can use. This theory was first put forth by French scientist Louis Kevran, a Nobel Prize nominee who spent years studying how silica, calcium, magnesium, and other minerals are related and transmutable into one another through low-energy nuclear transformation only found within living systems.

His theory explains how cows and chickens produce far more calcium in their milk and eggs than is found in their diet, or why, workers exposed to extremely high temperatures (130 degrees F) in the Middle East are known to consume salt tablets, which their bodies convert to potassium (as measured by their excreta), resulting in a reduction in their bodily temperature.

Good sources of bone-strengthening silica are cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, and a number of herbs including horsetail, nettles, oat straw, alfalfa, and raw cacao, which is also extremely rich in highly bioavailable magnesium.

Dr. Thompson recommends the use of natural unprocessed salt as a far better alternative to calcium supplements because it provides the trace minerals you simply cannot get from food grown in today’s mineral-depleted soils. My favorite source of trace minerals is pure, unprocessed Himalayan salt, which contains 84 elements needed by your body.

The bottom line is, optimize your vitamin D levels through sun exposure and consume a variety of fresh, local organic whole foods, including vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, organic meats and eggs, unprocessed salt, and raw organic unpasteurized dairy, which will give you the bioavailable calcium your body needs along with the trace minerals and other cofactors it needs to be absorbed and properly utilized by your body.

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Boosts Disruptive Hormone by 1000% in 5 Days – Avoid This Eating Mistake

Posted on December 25, 2011 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Have you stopped carrying plastic water bottles and using plastic utensils and food containers in order to avoid the toxic chemical bisphenol-A (BPA)?

This is a wise decision, but it may not be enough to protect you from this toxin’s ill effects.

This is because BPA is not only found in plastics; it’s also found in the lining of nearly all canned foods and beverages, and it turns out this source of exposure could be increasing your BPA levels by 1,000 percent!

Eating Food from Canned Products Increases BPA Exposure by 1,000 Percent

It’s been more than two years since a series of tests by Consumer Reports revealed that many leading brands of canned foods — from soup and tuna to juice and green beans — contain BPA.

Now new research from the Harvard School of Public Health revealed what impact eating canned goods has on your body’s BPA level.

The study was very straightforward, with one group of participants eating canned soup for five days, and another group eating freshly made soup.

The groups then took a two-day break from canned soup and switched (so each group had a period of eating canned versus fresh soup).

The researchers collected urine samples to determine urinary concentrations of BPA and found that eating canned soup had a significant impact.

Specifically, those eating fresh soup had BPA levels that averaged 1.1 micrograms per liter. The canned soup group, however, had levels of 20.8 mcg per liter, which is an increase of more than 1,000%!

Doctoral student Jenny Carwile, who led the study, noted that given this new finding, canned goods may be an even greater contribution to your BPA levels than plastics.

“We’ve known for a while that drinking beverages that have been stored in certain hard plastics can increase the amount of BPA in your body. This study suggests that canned foods may be an even greater concern, especially given their wide use,” she said.

While the study only included canned soup, it’s likely that other canned goods, including soda, may result in similar exposures.

According to Consumer Reports’ 2009 testing, the levels of BPA can vary greatly from one can to another, but their estimates revealed just a couple of servings of canned food can exceed the safety limits for daily BPA exposure for children. And whether or not a canned good is organic makes no difference (although some manufacturers have begun to come out with BPA-free canned goods).

Cash Register Receipts and Money Also Contain BPA

It’s becoming evident that simply avoiding plastics is not nearly enough to avoid BPA, as this toxic chemical is present in places you would least expect.

For instance, in a study published in Environmental Science and Technology, researchers analyzed paper currencies from 21 countries for the presence of BPA, and the chemical was detected in every sample. They also measured the transfer of BPA from thermal receipt paper to currency by placing the two together in a wallet for 24 hours. This dramatically increased the concentrations of BPA on the money, which suggests that receipts are highly contaminated.

The researchers estimated that you could be absorbing a few nanograms of BPA every day just from handling paper currency! This builds on prior research that also revealed thermal printer paper could be a dangerous source of BPA:

A study in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry found that of 13 thermal printing papers (the type often used for receipts) analyzed, 11 contained BPA. Holding the paper for just 5 seconds was enough to transfer BPA onto a person’s skin, and the amount of BPA transferred increased by about 10 times if the fingers were wet or greasy.
A study commissioned by Environmental Working Group (EWG) detected BPA on 40 percent of receipts they tested from gas stations, supermarkets and other common retail outlets. According to EWG, “the total mass of BPA on a receipt is 250 to 1,000 times greater than the amount of BPA typically found in a can of food or a can of baby formula.”

At this time it’s unclear how much of your body burden of BPA is coming from these paper sources, but it would be wise to seek to limit or avoid carrying receipts in your wallet or purse, as it appears the chemical is transferring onto other surfaces it touches. It would also be wise to wash your hands after handling receipts and currency, and avoid handling them particularly if you’ve just put lotion or have any other greasy substance on your hands, as this may increase your exposure.

BPA-Free Plastic is Not a Guarantee of Safety

Given the concerning health risks associated with BPA, the chemical has been banned from use in baby bottles in Canada and Europe, and many other companies have voluntarily removed it from their plastic products.

The result has been an outpouring of BPA-free plastics, everything from food containers and water bottles to pacifiers and baby toys can now be found in a BPA-free version.

This, however, does not mean you’re protected from BPA!

A study released in 2011 showed that tests on plastics using the BPA-free label have not been conducted under real-world conditions like running the plastics through a dishwasher or heating them in a microwave.

In the “real-world,” 95 percent of all plastic products in the study tested positive for estrogenic activity, meaning they can still disrupt your hormones even if they carry a BPA-free label. Even more disconcerting is the finding that BPA-free plastics in some cases leached more BPA than the non-BPA free plastics.

Does this mean there is no safe plastic when it comes to storing or serving your food or drinks? It appears so. You even should be careful about switching to metal water bottles in lieu of plastic ones, as some may contain epoxy liners that contain BPA.

BPA Health Risks are Well-Established

BPA is an endocrine disrupter, which means it mimics or interferes with your body’s hormones and “disrupts” your endocrine system. The glands of your endocrine system and the hormones they release are instrumental in regulating mood, growth and development, tissue function, metabolism, as well as sexual function and reproductive processes.

Chemicals like BPA can exert their effects by:

Mimicking the biological activity of your hormones by binding to a cellular receptor. This can initiate your cell’s normal response to the naturally occurring hormone at the wrong time or to an excessive extent (agonistic effect).
Binding to transport proteins in your blood, thus altering the amounts of natural hormones that are present in your blood circulation.
Interfering with the metabolic processes in your body, affecting the synthesis or breakdown rates of your natural hormones.

Some of the greatest concern surrounds early-life, in utero exposure to BPA, which can lead to chromosomal errors in your developing fetus, causing spontaneous miscarriages and genetic damage. But evidence is also very strong showing these chemicals are influencing adults and children, too, and leading to decreased sperm quality, early puberty, stimulation of mammary gland development, disrupted reproductive cycles and ovarian dysfunction, cancer and heart disease, among numerous other health problems.

BPA Linked to Obesity and Insulin Resistance

Two studies from 2011 added yet another concerning health impact of BPA exposure: obesity. The first, published in Environmental Research, found that “higher BPA exposure is associated with general and central obesity in the general adult population of the United States.”

The other, published in the Clinical Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, found that BPA is associated not only with generalized and abdominal obesity, but also with insulin resistance, which is an underlying factor in many chronic diseases.

Unfortunately, as one of the world’s highest production-volume chemicals, BPA has been found in 90 percent of all people tested in the United States and is commonly found in the umbilical cords of babies in utero, which means entire populations — and generations — may be suffering from this widespread toxic exposure.

You Can Choose to Avoid BPA

It’s important to realize that you have a choice in which foods and consumer products you buy, and by exercising this choice responsibly you can help influence industry to get BPA out of their products for good, while at the same time helping reduce your, and your family’s, exposure to this dangerous chemical.

At the top of the list of products to boycott would be canned foods and soda cans, along with all BPA-containing plastics.

Other sources of BPA to be aware of include:

Certain tooth sealants
Receipts
Currency
Certain BPA-free plastics (which can contain similar endocrine-disrupting chemicals)

Make an effort to support the companies that have already removed BPA from their products, or those that offer products that never contained it (such as baby toys made from natural fabrics instead of plastic). If enough people refuse to buy BPA-containing goods, companies will have no choice but to follow suit and get this toxin out of their products.

For information on companies that are making efforts to explore BPA-free packaging or have already begun phasing BPA out of their products altogether, see the report Seeking Safer Packaging: Ranking Packaged Food Companies on BPA by the environmentally oriented investment firm Green Century and As You Sow, a non-profit working toward increasing corporate social responsibility.

How You Can Easily Reduce the Damage of BPA Exposure

It is a fascinating fact that we humans have an exceptionally difficult time breaking down BPA, but certain “friendly bacteria” in our gut have evolved the ability to degrade it, as well as reduce the intestinal absorption of it. This is why taking a quality probiotic formula and/or consuming fermented foods like homemade fermented vegetables, raw grass-fed organic kefir, or Kimchi, may make all the difference in protecting you from the adverse effects of unavoidable BPA exposures.

If you have not yet made the transition to fermented foods then you can consume a high-quality probiotic. Also, the website GreenMedInfo.com contains a list of a dozen natural substances, including black tea, royal jelly and the flavonoid quercetin, that may be of value in protecting you against the damaging effects of BPA exposure.

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Are You Poisoning Your Household With this Chore?

Posted on December 25, 2011 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

When most people think of pollution, they think of the outdoors—garbage-choked streams or industrial waste.

But you probably spend a large portion of your time indoors—as much as 80 to 90 percent of your life.

You work, study, eat, drink and sleep in enclosed environments where air circulation may be restricted.

The typical American home contains 3-10 GALLONS of toxic materials—everything from glass and bathroom cleaners to garden pesticides and fertilizers.

Health effects of ingredients in common household products include:

Respiratory problems
Eye irritation
Cancer
Disruption of the endocrine system

As a result of cleaners and other toxic household products, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that the air inside the typical home is 2-5 times more polluted than the air immediately outside—and in extreme cases, 100 times more contaminated.

Did you know that cleaning products are responsible for nearly 10 percent of all toxic exposures reported to U.S. Poison Control Centers?

In one New York medical center, reports of burns, rashes, dizziness and scratchy throats among hospital employees plummeted after the staff switched over to less toxic cleaning products. The number of missed work days due to cleaning product injuries declined from 54 in 2004 to zero in 2009.

Contributors to indoor pollution include the products you use every day in your home, which can come in contact with your skin and lungs. Household products have been found to contain very powerful and often toxic chemicals that you unknowingly expose yourself to in the course of an ordinary day. One of the most common household products is laundry detergent.

Getting Down on Dirty Detergents

The average family washes approximately 80 pounds of laundry per week—or 35 billion loads of laundry per year! This means that 17.5 billion cups of laundry detergent are being used every year in the U.S. alone. Not only can you come in contact with caustic chemicals via your clothing, from having been laundered in them, but you can breathe them into your lungs once they become airborne in the process of doing your laundry.

The detergent you’re using may contain a cocktail of potent cancer-causing chemicals, some of which the manufacturer doesn’t even have to list on the label. This loophole reduces the odds that you’ll ever discover what’s in there.

Four of the worst offenders are:

Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)/sodium laureth sulfate (SLES)
1,4-dioxane
NPE (nonylphenol ethoxylate)
Phosphates

Not only are these chemicals potentially damaging to your health, but they are also contaminating waterways and harming the environment.

According to an article in the Journal of Oleo Science, a laundry detergent concentration of only 2 ppm can cause fish to absorb DOUBLE the amount of chemicals they would ordinarily absorb. The accumulation of these compounds—phosphates and toxic surfactants—in the environment through wastewaters has had a terrible impact on aquatic wildlife. First, let’s take a look at the surfactants, SLS and SES.

Any discussion of SLS/SLES must include a discussion of 1,4 dioxane because the manufacturing process of SLS/SLES results in its being contaminated with 1,4 dioxane—a known carcinogen.

Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS), Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES), and Ammonium Laurel Sulfate (ALS)

Sodium lauryl sulfate is a surfactant, detergent and emulsifier used in thousands of industrial cleaners and cosmetic products. It is present in nearly all shampoos, scalp treatments, hair color and bleaching agents, toothpastes, body washes and cleansers, make-up foundations, liquid hand soaps, and laundry detergents.

Although SLS originates from coconuts, the chemical is anything but natural.

SLS is mixed with sulfur trioxide or chlorosulfuric acid and then neutralized with aqueous sodium hydroxide (lye). SLS is the sodium salt of lauryl sulfate and is classified by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) Cosmetics Database as a “denaturant, surfactant cleansing agent, emulsifier and foamer,” rated “moderate hazard.”

Similar to sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) is sodium laureth sulfate (short for sodium lauryl ether sulfate, or SLES), a yellow detergent with higher foaming ability. SLES is considered to be slightly less irritating than SLS. SLS goes by other names, including:

Sodium dodecyl sulfate
Sulfuric acid, monododecyl ester, sodium salt
Sodium salt sulfuric acid
Monododecyl ester sodium salt sulfuric acid
A13-00356
Akyposal SDS
Aquarex ME
Aquarex methyl

Ammonium lauryl sulfate (ALS) is another variation commonly put into cosmetics and cleansers to make them foam. ALS is similar to SLS, showing similar risks.

Sixteen Thousand Studies Document the Hazards of SLS

According to the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep: Cosmetic Safety Reviews, research studies on SLS have shown links to:

Irritation of the skin and eyes
Organ toxicity
Developmental/reproductive toxicity
Neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption, ecotoxicology, and biochemical or cellular changes
Possible mutations and cancer

If you visit the SLS page on EWG’s website, you will see a very long list of health concerns and associated research studies. In fact, you will also see mention of nearly 16,000 studies in the PubMed science library (as well as their link to that list) about the toxicity of this chemical.

A number of studies report SLS being damaging to oral mucosa and skin. This is not at all surprising since SLS is actually used as a skin irritant during studies where medical treatments for skin irritation require first using an intentionally irritating agent. A study appearing in Exogenous Dermatology confirmed SLS to be a very “corrosive irritant” to the skin—irritation which persisted in research subjects for 3 weeks. SLS exerts its damage by stripping your skin of protective oils and moisture.

SLS has also been linked to nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are potent carcinogens that cause your body to absorb nitrates, also known to be carcinogenic. For more information about SLS/SLES, please refer to my earlier article.

Two-Thirds of Laundry Detergents Contain 1,4 Dioxane

David Steinman, an environmental health consumer advocate with the Green Patriot Working Group (GPWG) and former representative at the National Academy of Sciences, has been on a mission since 2007 to organize product testing for the petrochemical 1,4-dioxane in your personal care and household cleaning products. He forged a partnership between his organization and the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) to get the dirt on dioxane-laden products.

In 2008, the focus was personal care products, and 2010 has brought the spotlight to laundry detergents. In 2008, the findings were shocking.

Many popular brands of shampoos, body washes, lotions, and even baby products—as well as many “natural” and “organic” brands—were found to contain 1,4-dioxane.

Levels of contamination were so high that many companies have come under legal attack for poisoning consumers. Unfortunately, this phase of testing proved no lesser threat. About two-thirds of the laundry detergents tested contained 1,4-dioxane. Results suggest it’s time for these companies to clean up their acts.

It is reassuring, however, that all brands with the USDA organic certification were found to be dioxane-free.

At a press conference in Anaheim, California, on March 12, 2010, Steinman shared the test results from 20 laundry detergents—13 conventional brands and 7 “natural” brands. As you would expect, the natural brands fared better.

The Organic Consumers Association and Green Patriot Working Group have put together a handy printable guide for Personal Care and Cleaning Products that includes everything from dish soap to hand soap to deodorant, and everything in between.

Why You Should be Concerned About 1,4-Dioxane

Don’t confuse 1,4-dioxane with dioxin — they are completely different compounds. Dioxin is not manufactured commercially but is a byproduct of combustion. For example forest fires and the burning of garbage, produces a family of 17 different compounds of varying toxicities. Dioxane (also called 1,4-dioxane) is a byproduct of an industrial process used to make cleaning ingredients, and this is what can contaminate your personal care and cleaning products.

How does 1,4-dioxane get into your products? It’s not added intentionally. As I mentioned earlier, it is a by-product of SLS, which is an extremely common ingredient in detergents.

According to the “1,4-Dioxane Product Safety Watch” website, dioxane is a byproduct of ethoxylation, “a cheap shortcut process companies use to provide mildness to harsh cleaning ingredients.” Ethoxylation involves combining low-sudsing ingredients withethylene oxide (which is a known human carcinogen) to produce softer detergents that produce more suds. The result is diethylene oxide, or 1,4-dioxane, or simply dioxane.

Since it is a byproduct rather than ingredient, it doesn’t have to be listed on product labels. But you really DON’T want to have your skin coming into contact with this stuff, byproduct or not. 1,4-dioxane is considered by the State of California to cause cancer and has been found to be potentially toxic to your brain and central nervous system, kidneys, liver and respiratory system, according to the CDC.According to the Organic Consumers Association’s 1,4-Dioxane Facts Sheet:

The cumulative effects of 1,4-dioxane exposure, even at very low levels (a few parts per billion) resulted in laboratory animals developing cancer.
1,4-dioxane is readily absorbed through the lungs, skin and gastrointestinal tract of mammals.
The U.S. federal regulation systems consider dioxane’s potency to be equivalent to or greater than many pesticides considered dangerous to humans.
Cosmetics (and detergents, presumably) contaminated with 1,4-dioxane may also have traces of other contaminants, including formaldehyde, nitrosamines, and phthalates.
There are many inexpensive and effective alternatives to ethoxylation in the manufacturing of your personal care and cleaning products.

The National Institute of Health (NIH) substance profile sheet confirms that 1,4-dioxane is “reasonably expected to be a human carcinogen” based on the research to date, and even trace amounts bring cause for concern.

Dioxane is a Major Groundwater Contaminant

Dioxane is an increasing threat to waterways across the country and is of growing concern to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Dioxane has fouled the water in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and in several towns in Orange County, California. But it is likely present in many other places that do not routinely test for it. Since it has only recently been identified as a health hazard, it hasn’t been tested for. So no one really knows just how prevalent it is. Water filters can’t remove it—and it isn’t biodegradable.

When you use a laundry detergent contaminated with dioxane, it goes everywhere. It never breaks down. According to a quotationSteinman uses from the March 2008 issue of Chemosphere:

“As a groundwater contaminant, 1,4-dioxane is of considerable concern because of its toxicity, refractory nature to degradation, and rapid migration within an aquifer.”

What we do know is, when it’s tested for, it often shows up—and that fact is of great concern. To be proactive about your own health, you have to learn how to read labels. To avoid 1,4 dioxane, the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) recommends avoiding products with indications of ethoxylation.

Look for the following suffixes in the ingredient list:

“Myreth,” “oleth,” “laureth,” “ceteareth,” any other “eth”
“PEG”
“Polyethylene,” “polyethylene glycol,” or “polyoxyethylene”
“Oxynol”

Remember, sodium laureth sulfate (as well as sodium laurel sulfate) are often contaminated with 1,4-dioxane. But there is more bad news. SLS and SLES are not the only surfactants warranting concern.

NPE (Nonylphenol Ethoxylate)—the “Gender Bender”

Like SLS and SLES, NPE is an inexpensive nonionic surfactant frequently used in laundry detergents. NPE is an endocrine disruptorand estrogen mimicker that can potentially cause hormonal problems, or even cancer. When you absorb NPE, your body can’t tell the difference between NPE and estrogen.

Organisms exposed to NPE show kidney and liver damage, decreased testicular growth and sperm count, disrupted growth and metabolism, and increased mortality.

When rainbow trout are exposed to NPEs, they become part male and part female! According to the Sierra Club, who recently petitioned the EPA to regulate NPE, roughly 270 million pounds of NPE are used in the United States each year—and the majority of this ends up being rinsed down your drain. A U.S. Geological Survey study found metabolites of NPEs in more than 61 percent of tested streams in the U.S. (reported by Sierra Club).

According to a Sierra Club paper, researchers now believe that:

“NPE pollution is likely to be at least partly responsible for a variety of odd gender bending phenomenon now being seen in aquatic species. And while human effects remain unknown, scientists believe it may be affecting people, too.”

NPEs have been banned already in Canada and Europe. Even Wal-Mart has listed NPEs as one of three chemicals they’re asking suppliers to phase out.

Even the most sophisticated water treatment plants are unable to remove NPEs and their toxic metabolites. In fact, according to the Sierra Club report, sewage processing can make NPE metabolites more toxic, more estrogenic, and more persistent than NPE itself.

Look for evidence of NPE on your laundry detergent label—or declaration that it’s not in there. Some detergents contain NPE alternatives such as alcohol ethoxylate, which the Sierra Club suggests is less toxic and can break down naturally. Another enormous threat to your water supply is phosphates.

Phosphates and the Choking of Aquatic Life

Phosphates are the main cleaning ingredient in many detergents and household cleaners because they break down dirt particles and remove stains by softening the water and allowing suds to form, which enhances the cleaning power of the detergent. Some dishwasher tabs are more than 30 percent phosphates!

However, there are human health problems as well as major environmental hazards associated with phosphates. Phosphate residues on items that have been cleaned with phosphate-containing detergents have been known to cause nausea, diarrhea and skin irritations.

The largest concern with phosphates, however, is the environmental hazards they are creating.

Phosphates are difficult to remove from wastewater and often end up in rivers and lakes, where they increase algae growth, choking off waterways and suffocating salmon and other aquatic life, literally starving them of oxygen. Phosphates act like a “fertilizer” in waterways. When the overabundant algae die, they release toxins that deplete the waterways of oxygen. Phosphates remain active even after wastewater treatment.

Phosphate Wars and Water Spots

Detergents are available with or without phosphates—so you have a choice! As of March of 2008, twenty-five states had issued phosphate detergent bans, and the list continues to grow. Fifteen new states joined the cause in July of 2010. These new laws ARE making a difference. In Spokane, officials reported a 10.7 percent decrease in phosphate coming from the city’s sewage treatment plant, which discharges into the Spokane River, after their phosphate limit was put into effect.

You always know you’re making a difference when some serious pushback begins to occur. The transition to phosphate free products is no exception, in terms of bumps in the road.

Some folks report the performance of phosphate-free cleaning products just isn’t up to snuff, particularly with respect to dishwasher tabs. Many people have complained the greener cleaners just don’t do as good a job as the original (but more toxic) cleaners. One representative from Cascade said the conversion to low-phosphate has been “complex, with three or four ingredients needed to match what the phosphates accomplished alone.”

The phosphate war has even sparked a team of angry rebel dish detergent smugglers who, in vehement protest to the phosphate ban in Spokane, drove all the way to Idaho to buy phosphate-based detergents as a means of “sticking it to the environmentalists.”

But seriously, how clean do you REALLY need to be? Are water spots on your glassware worth fouling the precious water filling them?

Get over the water spots. If they bother you, wipe them off with a towel. New products can butt heads with our old cultural concepts of cleanliness. As I see it, we all need to start making some concessions for the good of our planet and our health. Besides the chemicals I’ve already mentioned, are there other agents lurking in your laundry soap, for which you should be on the lookout? Unfortunately, yes.

Pretty Scary Laundry List

Besides surfactants and phosphates, the average detergent has a long list of other chemical ingredients—and most are not good for you or the Earth. Anything in those products can potentially be absorbed through your skin or breathed in through your nose, as well as passed down the drain to our waterways.

Typical chemicals include:

Linear alkyl sodium sulfonates (LAS), a.k.a. anionic surfactants
Petroleum distillates (a.k.a. naphthas), which have been linked to cancer
Phenols, which can cause toxicity throughout the entire body
Optical brighteners, which cause bacterial mutations and allergic reactions, and can be toxic to fish
Sodium hypochlorite (bleach)
EDTA (ethylene-diamino-tetra-acetate)
Artificial fragrances, which have been linked to various toxic effects on fish and animals, as well as allergic reactions in humans

And polysorbate 60 and polysorbate 80 are also often contaminated with 1,4 dioxane, according to Dr. Samuel Epstein. Over time, these toxins can build up in your body and cause a number of unknown, unpredictable effects.

Tips for Greener Laundering

Hopefully, public awareness about dioxane and surfactants will, in time, result in bans similar to those now being implemented for phosphates. The wheels of progress are slow, but at least they are turning.

In the meantime, there are some relatively painless steps you can take to decrease your exposure and shrink your ecological footprint (some of the tips below were incorporated from Planet Green’s How to Go Green Laundry page):

Become a label reader. Look especially for “Does not contain…” because manufacturers are not yet required by law to list what is in the product. However, green companies will proudly display what is NOT in the product if they want to sell their product to environmentally conscious people like you.Look for “phosphate free,” “no bleach,” “SLE free” and “NPE free.” Look for “biodegradable” detergents since those often do not contain the harmful ingredients listed above. Look for plant- and animal-based ingredients, instead of petroleum-based.
Buy concentrated detergents. These have reduced packaging and a smaller carbon footprint (requiring less space and fuel for shipping).
Become a Soap Nut! Soap nuts are the dried fruit of the Chinese Soapberry tree (Sapindus mukorrosi). People have been using these natural soap-releasing berries for thousands of years, and they’ve recently caught on in the U.S.
Wear it more than once. Too often, we just toss our clothing into the hamper after wearing it, out of habit, without regard to whether or not it’s really dirty. Washing less often also extends the life of your clothes.
Wash and rinse in cold water. You will save a bundle on electricity (one estimate is $100 per year) just by doing this, because 90 percent of the energy required for washing lies in heating the water.
Wash only full loads of laundry. It’s more energy efficient.
Hang it out to dry. Put up a clothesline! Become part of the Right to Dry movement.
Try making your own detergent. Here’s one formula costing pennies per load.
Ditch the dry cleaning. Traditional dry cleaning is a very un-green and toxic process using harsh, carcinogenic chemicals, such as perchloroethylene (aka “perc”), which has been linked with a variety of cancers and other problems. Many “dry clean only” products can be safely hand washed. For those that can’t, try to find a greener dry cleaner in your area.

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Fruit and Veggie Based Diets Reduce Stroke Risk

Posted on December 20, 2011 by andreas m

By: Michelle Bosmier
Source: NaturalNews.com

Eating lots of fruits and vegetables helps lower the risk of developing a stroke, a new study shows. The new report comes from a team of scientists at the the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and was published in the “Stroke” journal of the American Heart Association.

Fruits and vegetables help elevate antioxidant levels

Statistically speaking, stroke ranks second among the world leading causes of death, right after heart diseases. The experiments were based on data which shows that diets rich in antioxidant foods reduce the risk factors associated with stroke, by inhibiting the process which causes oxidative stress and inflammation. Oxidative stress is a condition that develops when the human body is unable to counterbalance free radicals or mitigate their damaging effects. It is known to be one of the main causes for various health problems, including diseases of the cardiovascular system.

Fruits and vegetables have a high content of powerful bioactive substances with antioxidant characteristics. Flavonoids, vitamins E and C, as well as carotenoids have free radical scavenging abilities, and will help the body fight elevated levels of oxidants. Moreover, they can also prevent the onset of oxidative stress and related problems.

The research was aimed at investigating the relation between Total Antioxidant Capacity (TAC) and the development of stroke, in both subjects with a history of cardiovascular disease and healthy patients. Total Antioxidant Capacity measures the total free radical reducing abilities of all antioxidant capable substances in the diet. It takes into account not only the levels of antioxidants themselves, but also the effects of the synergistic reactions between them.

The study was conducted on 31035 Swedish women that had no previous cardiovascular issues, and 5680 women who had such complications. The test group was aged 49 to 83 and was based on the Swedish Mammography Cohort, established between 1987 and 1990. The women’s dietary habits were evaluated according to a food frequency questionnaire, which asked the participants to answer how often they consumed certain types of food. Based on TAC levels, the participants were split into 9 groups – 4 groups with a history of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), and 5 groups with no previous heart related issues.

More antioxidants equal lower stroke risk

“Findings suggest that dietary TAC is inversely associated with total stroke among CVD-free women and hemorrhagic stroke among women with CVD history,” the scientists explained. Data showed that in the healthy groups, the risk of stroke was 17% higher for the subjects with low antioxidant levels.

The major contributors to antioxidant levels were fruits and vegetables (50%), whole grains (18%) and tea (16%). For the groups with a history of heart problems, participants with high antioxidant levels had a 46% to 57% lower risk of stroke, when compared to the participants with low antioxidant levels.

The results show that in all cases, the women with low antioxidant levels are more likely to suffer stroke. Including healthier, natural foods in the daily diet, such as fruits, vegetables, teas or whole grains will help prevent the buildup of risk factors leading to stroke. “Eating antioxidant-rich foods may reduce your risk of stroke by inhibiting oxidative stress and inflammation. This means people should eat more fruits and vegetables that contribute to total antioxidant capacity,” concluded the science team.

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Kathy Smith’s Matrix Workout

Posted on December 20, 2011 by andreas m

By: Kathy Smith
Source: Mercola.com

After the age of 30, we all lose one-quarter pound of muscle mass each year if we aren’t strength training.

With less muscle, our metabolism slows and we are more likely to gain fat.

Remember while muscle is metabolically active (each pound of muscle can burn 35 to 50 calories a day), stored fat is not active so it burns far fewer calories.

The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn 24/7, regardless of what you are doing.

There are important differences between strength (or weight) training and aerobic exercise.

Both types of exercises burn calories and build muscle mass but at very different rates.

Aerobic exercise, which refers mainly to cardio work that raises your heart rate for an extended period, burns fat and glucose during exercise.
Strength (or weight) training utilizes fat and glucose for hours (and sometimes days) after exercising, so your metabolism stays slightly elevated for a longer period of time following a strength training session than after an aerobic workout.This is called the afterburn, which is fueled mostly by fat cells. Your body is working hard to re-oxygenate your blood and restore circulatory hormones.

This state of elevated oxygen use means a state of elevated calorie burning. How long the afterburn lasts can vary from a few hours to days, depending on the type of exercise you choose, its intensity, and how your body responds to the exercise.

The Ideal Workout

Your optimal workout, then, should include both strength and cardio training. “Matrix” is the name for my innovative system of exercise moves that employ a three-dimensional space. By performing a series of fluid motions in all directions—such as forward/back, side to side, and rotational—you simultaneously engage multiple muscles, along with joints, ligaments, and tendons, so that your body works as a unit.

The Matrix is one of the most efficient ways to tone the body quickly and completely. It brings back definition to waistlines, sculpts arms and legs, lifts butts, tightens thighs, and more. It is an incredibly powerful method of physical conditioning that results in a body that is longer, leaner, lighter, and most important, able to handle the physical rigors of everyday life.

The Matrix is based on functional training, which was developed by world-renowned physical therapists and professionals who specialize in high-performance exercise physiology and kinesiology. Instead of training one muscle at a time, which used to be the fashion, the Matrix follows the “integration” method of physical training. For example, one Matrix move is called the Chop, and it entails bending, twisting, lifting, reaching, squatting, lunging, and extending, all in one sequence of integrated movements.

It is not that there is anything wrong with isolation muscles and training them as you would in, say, a bicep curl.

But there are limitations with that kind of training. You are not getting the improved function, balance, flexibility, and coordination that come only when you treat the body like an integrated whole.

By contrast integrated movement is natural movement. In daily life muscles work together. When you get on an airplane, for example, you must bend, twist, and stretch in the narrow aisle to hoist your luggage and place it overhead. That twisting, bending, and placing is an example of the compound, integrated movements that occur every day at the grocery store, when taking out the trash, or when putting the kids in the car. The Matrix is a holistic style of training that ultimately protects you against the aches, pains, and risk of injury that accompany age.

Moreover because it draws upon how we move naturally in everyday life, it gives the body what it needs to respond more quickly to signals from the brain, optimize coordination and balance, and gain maximum agility.

The Workouts

Here are a few of my Matrix Method workouts. As you go through them, notice how they engage multiple parts of body. The bending, twisting, and stretching of these moves help strengthen your entire body while giving you a great workout. If you would like to check out all of the workouts, plus much, much more, they are all located in my book, Feed Muscle, Shrink Fat.

Lower Body Workout

1. STEP TOUCH WITH CROSS-BACK LEG AND OPPOSITION ARMS

MOVE: To warm up your body, step side to side tapping your leg diagonally behind you while reaching the opposite arm to the front. Gradually make the movement bigger.

TIPS

Stand erect, shoulders back, chest up, head lifted tall. Pull your abs in.
Stretch your arm front and your leg back in opposition, feeling the mild stretch through the torso.
This move can be done for a longer period of time. It is an effective cardio move that can increase heart rate to your target zone. Adding propulsion can increase the intensity of the move. Propulsion can be added by simply leaping out of the tap into the next step.

2. SQUAT WITH SIDE LIFT AND OVERHEAD PRESS

TARGETS: Quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteals, gluteus medius, shoulders and arms

SETUP: Feet hip width apart, check Postural Points. Hold light weights.

MOVE: Hold the weights at shoulder level, elbows bent. Inhale as you drive your hips back lowering them down. As you exhale and return to standing, lift your right leg, squeezing the muscles around the hip, pressing the weight held by your left arm overhead. Return to the squat, inhaling and sitting back into your heels, chest up. As you return to standing, squeeze the gluteus lifting your left leg, and press the right hand and weight overhead. Repeat a total of 30 times (15 on the right and 15 on the left).

FOCUS: Squats should always be performed in “neutral spine.” This means that the spine will be in the same alignment during the squat as you have when you are standing in perfect posture. As you squat, do not let your ribs collapse down, rounding your spine. Do not let your ribs flare open either, which will cause too much arching of the low back. If done properly, your knees will not drive forward over your toes as you go down, but will be about as far forward as your mid foot.

COMMENTS: If your arms fatigue, finish the leg reps without the overhead press. Similarly, if your legs fatigue and you are able to continue the overhead press with the arms, then do so.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Your weight should never shift into your toes. Sit back into your heels.
Keep your chest up
As your leg lifts squeeze your glute. Rather than focus on lifting your leg high, instead try to increase the squeeze aiming the leg long and low. This will help to avoid hiking up your hip.
As you press the weight overhead, your elbow should look straight, but feel bent.

3. STEP BACK LUNGE WITH CROSS CHOP

TARGETS: Buttocks, thighs, arms, shoulder and core.

SETUP: Check postural points. Feet hip width apart, standing tall. Hold light weights, a small towel, or do the exercise with no added weight.

MOVE: As you inhale, step backwards far enough with the right foot so that as you dip down into the lunge, your left knee is over your left ankle. As you step back with the right foot lift your arms overhead, but over the left shoulder. Look for and notice the stretch in your left shoulder, your left ribs, and you may even feel a stretch in your right quadriceps (the front of your right hip and thigh). Exhale, bringing the right in toward your chest on the left side, moving the arms to your right hipbones. Do 10 stepping back with your right leg, and 10 stepping back with your left leg.

FOCUS: When you step back and land on the right leg, your torso should be completely upright. Do not lean forward or backward. Throughout the exercise your abdominals need to be active so that your low back does not arch as you bring the weights overhead. Be aware of the ribcage popping open—this allows the low back to buckle in, breaking form.

COMMENTS: This exercise can be performed either holding light weights or a small towel, having your hands about 12″-20″ apart. The towel option is a great beginner variation, but more advanced people might also like it since it allows you to work the rotation of the move effectively. If balance is a problem, rather than bringing your knee into your chest balancing on one foot as the arms chop toward your hip; instead bring your foot in, next to your other foot in a light tap.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Step back far enough into the lunge so that the front knee is directly over the front ankle. Keep this alignment in the deepest part of the lunge.
When your arms reach diagonally overhead, do not collapse your core muscles, resulting in arching of the low back.

4. CALF RAISES WITH SIDE LATERAL LIFT

TARGETS: Calves (gastrocnemius, soleus), shoulders (medial deltoid).

SETUP: Stand tall with shoulders pulled back and down, feet hip width apart. Check Postural Points. Hold medium to light weights by your side.

MOVE: As you exhale, lift up onto your toes, lifting the weights laterally to shoulder height. When the weights get to shoulder height, pull your shoulder blades together, stabilizing your upper back and then lower the weights slowly as you go back down from your toes to standing. Do 20 repetitions. If your arms fatigue, continue the calf raises without lifting your arms, or substitute an easier move like a bicep curl.

FOCUS: Be sure to keep the upper body in perfect posture as you lift and lower the weight. Keep your shoulders back and your chest lifted.

COMMENTS: As you get stronger, the calf raises can be performed on a surface like a stair for a bigger range of motion. Place the ball of the foot on the stair, and drop your heels as low as you comfortably can, then lift onto the toes. If the lateral raises bother your shoulders, try turning your palms slightly upward. For some people that slight rotation relieves any shoulder stress.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Keep your shoulders back and chest up. Always work on posture before performing the move.
Choose a weight that you can move slowly with control.

5. LUNGE DIP WITH BICEP CURL

TARGETS: Hips and thighs (quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteals), biceps and shoulder.

SETUP: Start with feet in parallel, hip distance apart, shoulders back, abs in, holding a pair of medium to heavy weights.

MOVE: Step back with your left leg into a lunge. Keeping your back straight, dip straight down and up. Your front right knee can bend to a 90-degree angle, which will bring your hips down about as low as your knee. Do not go deeper than that. As you dip down, bend your elbows, performing a bicep curl. Do 15 reps with the right leg in front. Repeat 15 reps with your left leg in front.

FOCUS: If you dip low enough (close to a ninety-degree bend of the knee) then you will feel this exercise in the glutes and the hamstrings as well as the quadriceps. Keep your elbows directly under your shoulder in the bicep curl (do not let them drift backwards). Squeeze the biceps as you finish the move, and then lower the weights down with control.

COMMENTS: For greater challenge, have your front foot on an unstable surface such as a BOSU or a balance disc.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Step back far enough into the lunge so that the front knee stays over the ankle as you dip down. The front knee should not drift forward over your toes.
Keep your shoulders over your hips—do not lean forward.
Do not let your back round out—keep your spine tall and lifted.
As you bicep curl do not let your elbows drift backward. Keep your elbows directly underneath your shoulders.

6. PENNY IN THE POCKET WITH A ONE-ARM ROW

TARGETS: Gluteals, hamstrings, shoulder, upper back

One Arm Row

SETUP: Stand tall with your right foot forward of your left by about 12 inches. Your right knee will look almost straight, but will feel bent or “soft.” Check Postural Points. Your left foot will either tap the floor for balance (beginner), or hover over the floor (intermediate/advanced). Start with no weights; as you strengthen, advance to a light weight.

One Arm Row MOVE: Using your left arm, pretend there is a penny on the floor that you need to bend over to pick up, and then put it in your pocket. Do 15 with the right leg forward then 15 with the left leg forward.

FOCUS: Your spine should not flex or extend in this move. In other words, keep the spine straight, in perfect postural alignment. Your ribs should not collapse down effectively shrugging your upper body. Instead, hinge at the hips to pick up the penny. As you reach down for the penny, you will probably feel a little tug or stretch on the right hamstring near your glute.

COMMENTS: Beginners should try this move without a weight. Slowly incorporate a light weight.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Keep your spine straight. Do not curve your back by rounding it.
Do not shrug your shoulders forward or let them creep up, even when reaching for the penny.
Keep your weight on your front foot. Try and either very lightly tap the floor with your back foot, or hover it off the floor.
Pull in your abs.

7. ONE LEGGED SQUATTING DEAD LIFT WITH BACK ROWS

TARGETS: Gluteals, quadriceps, hamstrings, upper back

SETUP: Check Postural Points. Put your right foot in front of your left by about 12 inches. Your right knee will be almost completely straight, but will feel bent and soft. Your left foot will have very little weight on it (similar to “Penny in the Pocket). Keep your spine very straight and hinge over at the hips. If you do this properly, your back will have the same amount of curve that it had when you were standing up straight.

Your ribs will not sink down into your abdominals, but will stay lifted. Your chest will stay lifted. Your shoulders will stay back, not shrug forward. You should be able to feel a slight tug or stretch in your right hamstring and glute area. The position you just created is effectively a one-legged dead lift. Hold light to medium weights.

MOVE: With your right leg forward, staying in your dead lift, start to lower your hips toward the floor by bending the right knee more, KEEPING YOUR BODY WEIGHT IN YOUR RIGHT HEEL. Do not let your body weight drift into your right toes. Your body weight stays in your right heel in the lower phase of the exercise when your hips are lower, as well as when the hips return to the starting position.

After the hips return to the starting position, perform a two-armed row by pulling the weights up with your elbows just brushing your waist. Squeeze the upper back at the upper phase of the exercise, and then lower the weights with control. Begin the next repetition. Do 12-15 with the right leg forward, then 12-15 with the left leg forward.

FOCUS: The further down you bend your knee and drop your hips, the more you will activate the hamstrings and gluteus. As you get stronger, try and do this exercise with no weight on the back foot. When you perform the upper back row, finish the move by squeezing the shoulder blades together.

COMMENTS: Beginners may want to begin this exercise with no weights and do the back rows with weights as a separate exercise.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Keep your body weight in the front heel—do not let body weight drift into the front toes at all.
Do not round your spine at all. Keep your back straight
Keep your chest lifted through all phases of the exercise.
Try not to put body weight into the back foot.

8. BRIDGE WITH WEIGHTS ON HIPS

TARGETS: Gluteals, hamstrings, low back muscles, core.

SETUP: Lie on your back with knees bent, feet directly underneath knees. Place a pair of light to medium weights on the hips, right at the crease between the pelvis and the upper leg. Lift your hips off the floor, performing a bridge. Make sure when you do the bridge, that your ribs are not flaring open. Instead, activate your abdominals by slightly closing the ribs up.

Make sure that your hips have gone as high as you can. If you have your rib cage closed, your abdominals pulled in tight and your hips pressed up using your gluteus, you may feel a stretch over the front of the hips and thighs.

MOVE: Lift your right leg off the floor and put the right leg over your hips in the air. Keeping the right leg over the hips, lift and lower the hips 15 times. Then move the right leg down until your right knee is level with your left knee. Lift and lower the hips another 15 times. On this second position, you should feel more activation of the hamstrings, while you should feel more intensity in the glutes in the first position.

You will feel the intensity in the left glute and hamstring when your right foot is in the air. Then complete the exercise with the left leg in the air, 15 repetitions with your left foot over your hips, and 15 repetitions with your left knee next to your right knee.

FOCUS: It is very common for people doing bridging exercises to flare out their ribs, which can create some compression in the lower back. When you use your glutes you will activate the lower back muscles. The activation is good, but activation with compression may bother your back. Make sure that your ribs are not flared out. Knit the ribs in and down to avoid this collapse in form.

COMMENTS: Beginners could try this exercise without any weight on the hips with both feet on the floor (level 1). As you get stronger, add weight on the hips, both feet on the floor (level 2). In level 3 you will remove the weights and start the one-legged option. The final progression (level 4) is to have the weights on the hips, and perform the exercise with one leg at a time.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

When you bridge, your hips will go up so that your thighs, hips, and ribs are in a straight line (don’t have your hips drooping down).
Check that your ribs are knit together–not flaring out.
If the exercise is too difficult, try the progression under “Comments.”
Complete each repetition so that the hips return to the bridge position (straight line between the thighs, hips, and ribs).

9. LUNGE TO 9:00 AND 3:00 REACHING FORWARD

TARGETS: Quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteals, upper back, shoulder, arms, core

SETUP: Check Postural Points. Start with feet in parallel, hip distance apart, holding a light weight.

MOVE: Take a wide step to the right. Step out far enough that when you drop your hips into the lunge bending your knee, your right knee should be over your anklebone, not jutting over your right toes. As you lunge to the right, press the weight in your left hand across your body at shoulder height. As you lunge to the left, press the weight in your right hand across your body at shoulder height. Do 8 repetitions side-to-side. Then do 8 repetitions staying on the right side by lunging right (left arm pressing the weight) and returning to the center, repeating the lunge 8 times. Repeat for 8 repetitions lunging left, using your right arm to press the weight across your body.

FOCUS: As you lunge, make sure that you have a wide enough stance. Your knees should stay over your ankle when you are in the lowest part of the lunge. Keep your body weight in your heels. Your weight should not drift into your toes when lunging. When you press the weight across your body, keep your shoulders back and your chest open. Do not let your shoulders shrug or posture collapse.

COMMENTS: Beginners may want to begin this exercise with no weights in the lunge, and do the arm movement separately.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Make sure your stance is wide enough. Knees should never jut over the foot in a lunge.
As you drop your hips into the lunge, keep your weight in your heel. Do not let your weight shift into your toes.
Keep your chest open and your shoulders down. Do not shrug or collapse your posture.
Keep the exercise under control.

10. SQUAT WITH ROTATING TWIST

TARGETS: Quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteals, abdominal muscles including obliques, shoulders and arms.

SETUP: Check Postural Points. Start with feet in parallel hip distance apart. Hold light weights with your arms at your sides.

MOVE: Drive your hips back, bending your knees, until your knees are bent to about a ninety-degree angle. Sit back into your heels. Keep your chest lifted and your spinal muscles active—do not let the spine collapse or the shoulders shrug forward. As you go into the squat, place the weights near your right ankle.

As you go up, keep the left foot and hip in parallel (do not let it pivot or move sideways) but pivot on the right toe. As you pivot on the right toe, squeeze the right glute hard, turning your hips to face the left, and bring the weights overhead toward your left. Do 12-15 with your right toe pivoting, then 12-15 with your left toe pivoting.

FOCUS: When you squat, focus on keeping your chest up and your spine straight. As you go up into the pivot, feel your hips turn and squeeze your glutes correspondingly.

COMMENTS: Try and get the squat to be deep enough that your knees are at a ninety-degree angle to get the glutes and hamstrings to work more. To keep your knees in the proper position, make sure that you sit back into your heels when you do the squat, and make sure your back stays straight. Do not collapse your ribcage, rounding your spine.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Chest up—do not collapse your spine as you squat. No rounding or shrugging of the shoulders or back.
Sit back into your heels in the squat
As you pivot and twist, squeeze your glute.
As the weights go overhead make sure that you remain under control. Do not let your back arch or round, but keep your core braced.

Upper Body Workout

1. WARM UP MOVE: RHYMIC LUNGE WITH BACKSTROKE

TARGETS: Legs, glutes, core, arms and shoulders.

SETUP: Feet in a wide stance. Check Postural Points.

MOVE: Lean your body weight side to side, keeping your weight toward your heels and mid-foot (do not let your weight go forward into your toes. If your feet are the proper distance, your knees should be directly over your ankles in the deepest part of the lunge. When you lunge to the right, backstroke your arm feeling your shoulder blade initiating the move. Lead with your fifth finger (pinky) as you reach back. As you lunge left, backstroke the left arm.

FOCUS: Feel the ribs open up and the shoulders and shoulder blades move as you make the move bigger and bigger. Try and deepen the lunge as you warm up. Do about 30 total repetitions (15 to the right and 15 to the left).

COMMENTS: Make sure your feet are wide enough so that the lunge can really open up and work your legs.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Feet wide. Do not let your knees jut over your toes in the lunge.
Exaggerate the rib cage as you backstroke the arms to warm the core.
As you exaggerate the rib cage continue to stay under control. Do not let your body collapse through the core, which could be uncomfortable for the low back.

2. SIDE LATERAL DELTOID LIFTS WITH LEG IN ROTATIONAL BALANCE

TARGETS: Medial deltoid (shoulder), quadriceps, abdominals including obliques.

SETUP: Start by standing with feet in parallel. Check Postural Points. Hold light weights.

MOVE: Lift your left leg crossing it over your right leg, pointing it toward the right. Look toward your left to counter-rotate your torso—lift your spine long as you twist. Start with the weights at your side, lift them to shoulder height, and squeeze the shoulder blades together as the weights get to the height of your shoulders. Lower the weights down keeping the shoulder blades active. Do 15 repetitions bringing the weight up, pinching the shoulder blades together, and then lowering down with control.

Repeat standing on your left leg, pointing your right leg toward the left, counter-rotating the torso to the right. Do 15 repetitions.

FOCUS: Keep your shoulders open. Do not shrug your shoulders as you lift the weights.

COMMENTS: If you feel any discomfort in your shoulders, rather than holding the weights palm down, try opening the palms slightly. If the balance aspect is difficult for you, try tapping your toe on the floor rather than hovering it in the air. As you get more confident, lift the foot slightly off the floor, ready to tap it if you start to lose your balance.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Keep your shoulders down as you work them. Do not let them creep up under your ears during the exercise.
Pull the shoulder blades together throughout the exercise, keeping your chest open and maintaining good posture.
Pull your navel toward the spine throughout the exercise.

3. PLIE TO 4:00 AND 8:00 WITH OVERHEAD PRESS

TARGETS: Quadriceps, hamstrings, inner thigh, outer thigh, gluteals, shoulders, arms and core.

SETUP: Check Postural Points. Hold light to medium weights. Check the width of your feet by performing a plié without stepping. When you bend your knees, drop your hips about as low as your knees. If width of the feet is correct, your knees will be over your ankle, not jutting over your toes.

MOVE: Imagine that you are standing in the middle of a clock. Straight in front of you is 12:00 and behind you is 6:00. Step with your right foot, performing a plié, to your right to the 4:00 mark. As you lower down into the plié, press the weights overhead. Bring the weights back to shoulder level as you return to standing in the middle of your “clock.” Alternate stepping to “4:00″ and “8:00″ 12-15 times (24-30 repetitions total).

FOCUS: As the weights press overhead, do not let your back arch or let your core collapse. Keep your spine straight and your abs active. Pull the navel to the spine. Check that your ribs do not flare out, but stay knit together.

COMMENTS: If your arms fatigue, continue to do the plies without the arms, or do half the reps with your arms by doing one arm per plié (for example, as you step to the right lift just the right arm, and as you step left, lift the left one. Beginners should take the plié as low as they can go without breaking form. If your body tips or leans forward, do not go as low. Maintain upright posture throughout the exercise.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Keep your elbows soft as you press the weight overhead. Your elbow will look straight but feel bent.
Work up to dropping the hips as low as the knee in your plié (your thighs will be parallel to the floor). Your hips should not go deeper than that.
Step wide enough that your knees are over the ankle in the deepest part of the plié. The knees should not jut over the toes.
Work on tucking your hips under, so as you go into the plié your body stays very upright.
Pull your shoulders back and keep your chest up.
Pull your belly button/abdominals in tight.

4. HACK SQUAT WEITH BICEP CURLS

TARGETS: Quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteals, biceps

SETUP: Start with feet hip distance apart. Hold medium to heavy weights.

MOVE: Lift your left foot and then drive the heel out, placing it on the floor about 12-18 inches in front of your right foot (if you measured from your left toes to your right toes). The amount of distance between your feet will vary depending on your height, leg length, and the flexibility of your hamstrings). Even though one foot is in front of the other, maintain the distance between the inside of your feet to be about hip distance. Sit back into the Hack Squat by driving your hips behind you, keeping your chest up.

You should feel a stretch in the left hamstring. If you have your left toes up enough, you will also feel a stretch in the left calf. Once you feel the stretch, you know you have gone deep enough into the hack squat. As you come out of the squat, do a bicep curl. When you bend your elbows in the bicep curl, keep your elbows next to your waist. Do not let the elbows drift back behind you. Keep your chest up throughout the exercise. Really sit back into the squat, keeping your weight in your right heel. Do not let your body weight shift into your right toes.

Do 12-15 Hack Squats with the left foot forward (weight stays in your right heel, and you will feel the exercise in your right glute, hamstring, and quad), and then do 12-15 Hack Squats with the right foot forward, keeping your weight in your left heel.

FOCUS: If you slump into poor posture, you will not feel this exercise properly. Keep your chest up and drive your hips back into the hamstring stretch.

COMMENTS: For variety, you could reverse this exercise so that you perform the bicep curl as you go down into the hack squat. Beginners could start with the hack squat only using no weight, and do the bicep curls as a separate exercise, simply standing up with good posture.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Keep the shoulders open—do not let your shoulders slump forward.
Keep your chest up—do not let your chest collapse down.
Really sit back into the back heel—do not let weight drift into your back toes.
As you go down into the squat be aware of finding the stretch in the front leg. That is the stopping point (the end of the range of motion).
Pull the navel toward the spine

5. TRICEP KICKBACKS AND POSTERIOR DELTOID LIFT IN A SQUAT

TARGETS: Triceps, posterior deltoids (the back of the shoulder) quadriceps, gluteals, hamstrings and core.

SETUP: Hold light to medium weights. With feet hip distance, bend your knees, driving your hips back into a squat. Your chest should stay up, keeping your spine straight. Your knees will be over mid foot, but should not jut over the toes.

MOVE: Tuck your elbows into your waist, but aim them high toward the ceiling. As you squat, straighten your elbows, using your triceps. Then lift the straight arm, which will work your posterior deltoid (back of the shoulder). As you bend your elbows back in, return to standing. Try and coordinate the move so that you squat and straighten the elbows at the same time, keep your legs quiet in the squat as you lift the straight arm, then return to standing again. Do 15 repetitions.

FOCUS: Check your Postural Points. Keep your chest lifted so that your spine does not round. As you bend and straighten the elbows, be aware of the shoulder posture. Do not let your shoulders shrug forward. Open your chest instead. Make sure that you sit back into your heels in the squat. Your body weight should not shift forward into your toes.

COMMENTS: Stay under control with the arm movement. As you straighten the elbow, you should be able to stick in the move for a split second—the weights should not swing through space. The same thing applies when you lift the straight arm—the weights should not swing—you should be able to stop momentum and stick in the move for a second.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

In the squat, sit back into your heels.
Control the weights. Do not allow them to have momentum. Do not swing them.
Aim your elbows high in the triceps press.
Keep your shoulders open—do not allow them to slump forward.
Keep your chest up.
Pull your navel toward you spine

6. BACK FLYES WITH BALANCE

TARGETS: Upper back postural muscles, quadriceps, gluteals, and hamstrings.

SETUP: Check Postural Points. Hold light weights. Start with your right foot on the floor with a small tap-balance with the left foot. Notice your alignment. Chest up, abdominals engaged, shoulders back, glutes active. Pivoting on your right foot through your right hip, move your WHOLE BODY from your left toes to the tip if your head as ONE UNIT until your body is parallel to the floor.

If you do this correctly you will continue to be one straight unit from the top of the head through the toes on the left foot, and you will probably feel a little stretch in the right glute/high hamstring area. Hold light weights.

MOVE: Hold this balance move and do 10-15 back flyes with your right foot on the floor. With your hands directly under your body, palms facing each other, lift the weights with a slight bend in the elbow. As you finish the move, squeeze the shoulder blades together. Repeat with the left foot/leg as the balance leg and do another 10-15 back flyes.

FOCUS: The stretch that you feel in the standing leg will begin to turn into fatigue as you continue to hold the position of the exercise. You may also feel some fatigue in the lifted leg. Try and complete every back fly with a squeeze of the shoulder blades toward the spine.

COMMENTS: If you are very tight in the hamstrings, you may not be able to get fully parallel to the floor. Hinge down into the exercise until you feel the stretch/tug at the glute/high hamstring area and work from there. If the light weights are too difficult, or you find you break form too quickly, do the exercise without weights and just use your body weight. If balance is difficult, work up to the exercise by having your foot tap the floor with very little of your body weight.

As you progress hover the foot off the floor. When you feel more confident and steady, start to lift the leg higher for longer periods of time.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Keep your chest lifted as you balance.
Do not collapse your rib cage or let your low back buckle in.
If balance is difficult for you, tap your foot on the floor.
Lift the weights with control. Do not swing. The move can also be done without weights.
Keep your abdominals pulled up and in.

7. CHEST FLYES AND PRESSES ON THE BALL

Chest Flyes and Press

TARGETS: Chest muscles, arms, upper back, gluteals, core.

SETUP: Sit on the ball holding your medium weights and roll out until your shoulder blades touch the ball. Squeeze your glutes, bridging your hips up toward the ceiling. Check that your ribs are not flared out which will compress the low back. Have your abdominals pulled in and your ribs knit together.

Feet open is the easiest position, feet hip distance is a little harder, feet and knees together is even harder, and doing this exercise in a one-foot balance is the most difficult. If you are doing the bridge properly you will probably feel your low back muscles working alongside with the glutes. Hold a medium to heavy weight.

Chest Flyes and Press

MOVE: Do 12-15 chest flyes. Your arms will have a slight bend in the elbows, weights will be over your chest with your hands turned Palm-to-Palm. As the weight goes down into the fly, squeeze your shoulder blades together to avoid the weight from just resting in the shoulder socket. Then do 12-15 chest presses.

To transition from a chest fly to a chest press, turn the weights from Palm-to-Palm to End-to-End. Widen your weights over your chest so there is about 12-18 inches between the weights. Bring the weights down, engaging the shoulder blades, and then press them back up.

FOCUS: When doing the chest flies and presses, be aware of your core muscles and positioning on the ball. Your ribs should not be flaring out, but funneled in and down. Your glutes will be active pressing your hips up. Your abs will be active knitting the ribs together. The weight should never drop down into the joint of the shoulder socket and rest there—the muscles should always be active.

COMMENTS: Chest presses are an easier move so it is usually best to do flyes first, and presses afterwards. If you do not have a stability ball, use something that will lift you a few inches off the floor like a large dense pillow.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Knit your ribs together and pull the navel toward the spine, sinking the abs.
Use your glutes to press your hips up. Don’t let the hips droop.
Stay under control when doing flies and presses. Do not let your weights sink into your shoulder socket. Keep the muscles active.
Squeeze the shoulder blades together to anchor the upper back when the weights are in the lowest position.

8. TRICEP EXTENSIONS ON THE BALL

TARGETS: Triceps, chest and upper back, glutes, core.

SETUP: Your positioning on the ball is the same as in chest flies and presses—the wider your feet are from each other the easier—closer is harder. Have your glutes active in a bridge. Hold medium weights.

MOVE: Bring the weights over your head until the weights just barely tap the ball. With the weights tapping the ball, notice where your elbows are in space over your head. They will probably be right over your forehead. Try and keep your elbows there as you straighten and bend your elbows using your triceps. When your bend your elbows in each repetition, tap the ball. Do 12-15 repetitions.

FOCUS: When your elbows straighten, squeeze the muscle trying to hold the position a split second. Be aware of your core collapsing during the move. Your ribs should be knit down, not flared out. Your navel should be sunk down toward your spine. Your glutes will be active, driving your hips up away from the floor.

COMMENTS: If your shoulders are tight, you may not be able to tap the ball. Go with the range of motion that is comfortable for your body.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Knit the ribs, keeping the core muscles active.
Do not let your back arch. Tuck your pelvis slightly and keep the abdominals active.
Keep your elbows over your forehead. Do not let them move as you do the presses.

9. PUSH UPS

TARGETS: Chest and upper back, core and lower back, legs, arms and shoulders.

SETUP: Start on a plank on feet and hands. Lift your right leg and wrap it around your left leg, squeezing your glutes, inner thighs, and pelvic floor muscles. Keep your abs lifted up toward your spine. If this is too difficult, drop your knees to the floor, modifying the push up. Have your hands slightly pointed inward.

MOVE: Lower yourself down toward the floor trying to achieve about a ninety-degree bend in the elbows. If you can go down from your toes, but cannot push back up, then lower your knees to the floor, and push back up from the modified position. Exhale as you press back up.

FOCUS: If your core is weak, you may need to move to a modified push up, since the pushup from your toes is more difficult not only for your chest, arms and back, but also your core. If your back is collapsing, if your rib cage cannot stay knit together, if you feel any discomfort in your low back, modify the push up by dropping down to your knees.

COMMENTS: Pushups are almost the perfect exercise, since they work so much of the body in just one exercise. They are difficult! Work on maintaining your core positioning first. As the core gets stronger, the pushups will get easier too.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Keep your low back and buttocks suspended—do not let your low back sag toward the floor.
Keep your abdominals contracted. Knitting your rib cage together will keep you from flaring out the ribs. Flaring open the ribs will cause the low back to sag down.
Try to bend your elbows to a ninety-degree angle.
Modify the pushups if your core collapses—even if your chest can keep going.

10. ROLLING PLANK T-STANDS ON FOREARMS

TARGETS: Chest, back, shoulders, arms, legs, core.

SETUP: Start in a modified push-up position with your forearms and feet on the floor. Have your feet about 12 inches apart. Pull the navel toward the spine and keep it there as you breathe in and out, for about 15 seconds.

MOVE: Roll to your right forearm, turning your feet both onto their sides. Your left arm will be in the air. Squeeze the shoulder blades together, opening your chest. Hold this for 15 seconds. Then roll to the left forearm, turning your feet as you go. Your right arm will be in the air. Squeeze the shoulder blades together again and open the chest. Hold this also for 15 seconds.

FOCUS: As you hold the plank, make sure that you pull the navel in—up and away from the floor. When you are on just one forearm, make sure that your hips do not sink down, but your body stays in a straight plank, even though you are sideways.

COMMENTS: If you do this move with your feet close together, as you roll to the side you can stack your feet. Advanced option from here: lift the top leg. This move can also be done from your hands rather than your forearms. Start in a plank on hands and feet. As you roll to the side you can incorporate the other options such as stacking feet and lifting the top leg.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Abdominals knit together, navel toward spine.
Hips stay lifted when rolling to a side.
Pull the shoulder blades together when you lift one arm off the floor.
As you do these moves, try and brace your body to stay stiff in the position as you change where you are in space.

Core Workout

1. CRUNCHES ON THE BALL

TARGETS: Abdominal Muscles (Rectus and Transverse).

SETUP: Start by sitting on the ball. Roll out by walking your feet away from the ball. Your hips will descend slightly on the ball. Place your hands behind your head, supporting the head and neck. If you have your feet wide it is easier than if you move them close together. Touching feet (toes and heels) and knees together is even harder. Lifting one leg off the floor while doing the exercise (very advanced) is the toughest version.

MOVE: Lift your shoulders off the ball by knitting your ribs together and sliding your ribs down toward the top of your pelvis. Finish the move by giving the ribs one last little squeeze in that position. As you go down, do not release the ribs, but slide them back toward their original position with control. During all phases of the movement, pull your belly button toward your spine.

FOCUS: The movement of the ribs is what makes the exercise so effective. Make sure that you squeeze the ribs toward the pelvis to get as much out of the repetition that you can, and as you go down, go with control, pushing through space. You should not collapse your ribcage, flaring the ribs out, as you go back down to the ball.

COMMENTS: If your hips are higher toward the top of the ball, the move is harder. If your hips are closer to the floor, the move is easier. You could use the move as a warm up move, progressively moving the hips a little bit higher toward the top of the ball as your core warms up. For more work into the oblique muscles, try pressing side-to-side, angling the body and shoulder to one side then the other as you lift and lower down. If you do not have a ball, do crunches on the floor or a mat.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS

Knit the ribs together
Squeeze the ribcage down toward the top of the pelvis
Pull the navel toward the spine
Hips higher on the ball is harder; lower on the ball is easier
Stay under control—do not collapse the ribs, flaring them out when you go down.
Feet closer together is a harder move; feet wider apart is an easier move.

2. TUCKS IN PLANK, OPTION SWIVEL UNDER

TARGETS: Arms and shoulders, abdominals, glutes and legs.

SETUP: Go into a plank with hands and feet on the floor. Lift your abdominals away from the floor by pulling them toward your spine. Squeeze your glutes, inner thighs and pelvic floor muscles to help brace your core.

MOVE: Pull the right knee in toward your chest. As you do your spine will flex. Try not to let your hips pop up, but keep them low in the plank position. If your hips pop up, you will notice that your knee will be far above the floor as you tuck, rather than being fairly close to the floor as it pulls in. Lean into your arms as you tuck, which will bring the knee even closer to the arms. Repeat with the left knee, alternating right and left for up to a minute.

For variety, try doing 30 seconds with your knees tucking into your chest, and 30 seconds bringing the knee to the opposite elbow. If you decide to try the swivel, as you pull the right knee into the chest, swivel the left foot, bringing your right knee under you to your left. Tuck your right tucked knee as high toward the ceiling as you can. Finish by re-tucking the knee to your chest, and then place it back on the floor, re-bracing your core. Repeat with the left knee tucked and swiveled under. Work up to 5 or 10 of the swivels.

FOCUS: If your knees are not close to your elbow, then your hips are too high. Lean into your arms and you will feel this exercise much more in your core. When your knee gets close to your chest or elbow, squeeze it into the contraction a little deeper. Do not swing the knee in and out.

COMMENTS: A plank is basically a military pushup position—hands under shoulders, toes on the floor, body in a straight “plank”. Hips should not be higher than the rest of the body. The body should be in a straight line. BEGINNER OPTION: try this exercise on your forearms and knees. Pull the knee in as tight to your chest as you can, hold it there with a squeeze, and then replace the knee on the floor.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Pull the navel toward the spine throughout the exercise
Do not swing the knee toward your chest, but squeeze it in.
Lean into your arms as the knee comes in toward your chest.
When you swivel, squeeze the knee up in a tuck, do not swing it up.
Beginners can work up to this exercise by first mastering the exercise on forearms and knees.

3. SQUAT WITH CROSS CHOP

TARGETS: Quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteals, abdominals (rectus, transverse, and obliques), latissimus dorsi, arms, shoulders.

SETUP: Check Postural Points. Stand with feet hip distance apart. Hold light to medium weights.

MOVE: Drive your hips back into a squat, keeping your chest up and your spine straight. Sit back into your heels. Your hips can go as low as ninety-degree bend in the knee, but should not go lower than that. As you return to standing, bring your right knee up toward your chest on the left side, bringing the weights toward the right hip. Stay under control—avoid the use of momentum. As you lift the knee, be aware of keeping the spine straight. You should not lean backward or collapse the spine or ribs by leaning forward. Do for one minute alternating right and left—about 30 total squat/chops.

FOCUS: The spine stays straight throughout the exercise.

COMMENTS: When performing the chop, check that your right and left knees cross over the same amount. If you notice that one has more flexibility than the other, work the tighter side a little harder working to equalize the flexibility between right and left. For variety you could do 12-15 squat/chops right, then 12-15 squat/chops left.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

When doing the squat, keep your chest up, sit back into your heels, and go to a ninety-degree bend of the knee (no more).
When doing the chop, aim the weights for your hip. You can give this variety by having the chop higher or lower, or aiming slightly behind the hip.
Keep your spine straight. Rotation of the spine is safest when the spine is tall and lifted, minimizing compression.
Stay under control. Use a squeeze rather than momentum to access the movement.

4. DISCUS THROWER

TARGETS: Legs, hips, gluteals, abdominal muscles including obliques, arms, shoulders.

SETUP: Check Postural Points. Start with feet in parallel hip distance apart. Hold light weights with your arms at your sides.

MOVE: The set up for Discus Thrower is the same as Squat with Rotating Twist. Drive your hips back, bending your knees, until your knees are bent to about a ninety-degree angle. Sit back into your heels. Keep your chest lifted and your spinal muscles active—do not let the spine collapse or the shoulders shrug forward. As you go into the squat, place the weights near your right ankle. As you go up, keep the left foot and hip in parallel (do not let it pivot or move sideways) but pivot on the right toe.

As you pivot on the right toe, squeeze the right glute hard, turning your hips to face the left. As you do this sweep the weights in a fluid motion from your feet, up and out, until they are over your head on the left. Do 12-15 with your right toe pivoting, then 12-15 with your left toe pivoting.

FOCUS: When you squat, focus on keeping your chest up and your spine straight. As you go up into the pivot, feel your hips turn and squeeze your glutes correspondingly. Stay under control as you sweep the weights from your right ankle to your left side overhead.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Chest up—do not collapse your spine as you squat. No rounding or shrugging of the shoulders or back.
Sit back into your heels in the squat
As you pivot and twist, squeeze your glute.
As the weights sweep overhead, make sure that you remain under control. Do not let your back arch or round, but keep your core braced.

5. BUMP

TARGETS: Abdominals and back, lateral side of torso, arms, shoulders, hips.

SETUP: Stand tall with feet together. Check Postural Points.

MOVE: Begin my letting your hips rock to the right, keeping your feet together. As you get your rhythm going, step out with the right foot, still bumping your hips out to the right. Progress by adding the right arm overhead as you step away with the leg. Repeat for 12-15 repetitions bumping to the right, and then repeat the move stepping out with the left foot.

FOCUS: As you bump to the side, focus on the muscles on the side of the torso. Make sure that you do not arch your back or slump your spine forward.

COMMENTS: After you are comfortable with the bump, try adding intensity by either holding a light weight, or swaying both arms overhead. Pay special attention to your low back, your form, and your posture as you progress in intensity.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Check Postural Points throughout the move
Keep your abs pulled in—do not let your back arch or slump.
Start the move with no weight in your hands. Progress to a light weight slowly. Both arms overhead is equally as hard as adding a weight, so be sure to use this option when your core has strengthened and is ready for more challenge.

6. STANDING TWISTS/ROTATIONS TO 10:00 AND 2:00.

TARGETS: All abdominal muscles, gluteals, quads, inner thighs, hamstrings, shoulders and arms.

SETUP: Stand tall with feet about 2-3 feet apart. Bend your knees into a plié. Squeeze your glutes and inner thighs to anchor and brace your lower body. Pull your shoulder blades together, pulling your shoulders back. Lift your chest tall, but do not flare out the ribcage. Pull your abdominals in very tight.

MOVE: Keeping your lower body braced and anchored; begin to twist your upper body side to side. If you were standing on the face of a clock in the middle, your torso would rotate to face the 10:00 mark and the 2:00 mark. Put your hands on your shoulders or your head with your elbows shoulder height as you twist. Keep your elbows back, not letting them drift toward the front. All the movement is from the waist and up. Do not let your hips move.

FOCUS: Keep your spine tall and lifted so as you twist you have the vertebrae as lifted from the discs as possible, avoiding compression of the discs. Additionally, it is important to not arch or slump to avoid compression of the discs. Your Postural Points are important guidelines.

COMMENTS: This exercise is done without weights. If you progress and keep the exercise slow and very controlled, light weights can be added after you are stronger. If you add any speed to the exercise, it is safer to avoid using any weights. If you add speed, make the exercise smaller and continue to be under control. The lower you drop the hips, the harder the exercise becomes. Keep your hips very quiet throughout the exercise.

Your hips can go as low as a ninety-degree bend of the knee, which will bring the hips down to about knee level. At this depth, make sure that your feet are wide enough apart that your knees are over your ankles, not jutting over your toes.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Pay close attention to your posture. Keep your shoulders back, your chest lifted, your back in neutral spine not arching or slumping.
For more intensity in the legs, you can drop your hips until they are almost as low as your knees. If you go this low, make sure that your feet are wide enough that your knees are over your ankles, not jutting over your toes.
Twist only as far as you can without moving your lower body. 10:00 and 2:00 are guidelines. If you have to swing your torso with momentum to get to 10:00 and 2:00, then make the movement smaller and stay under control.

7. CRUNCHES IN TABLETOP—STRAIGHT AND SWIVEL

TARGETS: All abdominal muscles (rectus, obliques, transverse)

SETUP: Lie on your back, knees over hips, feet as high as knees.

MOVE: Lift your shoulders by sliding the lowest ribs down toward the top of your pelvis. Finish the move by giving the ribs one last little squeeze down toward the pelvis in that position. As you go down, do not just release the ribs, but feel them slide back toward their original position. Do this with control.

After 30 seconds of this move, add the obliques by moving side to side. Keep your left hand behind your head and as you go up into the move, reach your right hand toward your right ankle, swiveling your knees toward the left. You should be able to see both feet on the right when you swivel. Repeat the move alternating right and left sides for 30 seconds.

FOCUS: When you swivel, the action of the move is centered on the right hip and the lowest part of the right rib cage, then the left hip and the left rib cage. Feel the hip and ribs pull together. The more you swivel the feet, the more you should feel the obliques. Try not to move your knees into a tuck, but stay in tabletop.

COMMENTS: If the move is too hard, let your knees come slightly toward your chest. The more you tuck your knees toward your chest, the easier the move. If you want more intensity, move the knees a little further away from your torso (away from being in a tuck). As your knees move away from the center of your body, as the move gets harder, be very aware of your spine arching off the ground. Keep the low back braced down toward the floor. As you go down under control, the spine should not bow off the floor, nor should the ribs flare out. If either of these things happens, then bring the intensity back down to an easier version of the move.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Use your hands to support your head. Do not pull on your head, creating stress in your neck.
When you swivel, look for your feet. It helps to keep your feet together and swivel the feet and knees as one unit. Feel your ribs slide down right on top of the hips on the side you are working.
If your back arches up when you drop your shoulders down, try a little easier position. Bring your knees a little closer to your chest. As you get stronger, move the knees back out to tabletop position.
For variety, you could do 15-30 seconds of tabletop swivels on one side, then repeat on the other side, rather than alternating side to side.

8. KAYAKING

TARGETS: Abdominals, quadriceps and hip flexors.

SETUP: Sit upright with your knees bent, feet on the floor. Lift your feet off the floor, balancing on your sacrum, tucking your knees into your chest. Keep your chest lifted. If you are a beginner, this may be all you will want to practice for starters.

MOVE: Place your hands on the floor by your hips. If you can keep your back straight and your chest lifted, then start to drop your knees side to side. If you can do this holding form, then try lifting your hands off the floor and move the arms in opposition of the legs—as the knees and legs drop to the right, your hands and elbows will aim at your left hip.

Alternate this move side to side for one minute. If you start to slump (your chest drops, your ribs sink down, your back rounds) then stop the move and rest.

FOCUS: Keep your spine straight. If you do this move with a slumped spine, then the body will be rotating and compressing your spinal discs. Check your Postural Points. Keep your chest lifted. If you grab your shins and can lift your chest back up, then you slumped and lost form. Be aware of this form-break and avoid it.

COMMENTS: Keep your chest lifted and your back straight. Do not let your chest or ribs sink. When your spinal muscles and core are very strong, this move can also be done holding a very light weight. Try this option after you can perform this move for a minute without breaking form.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Keep your chest lifted and your spine straight. Do not slump.
Start the progression with your hands on the floor. As you get stronger, try moving side to side with your hands moving hip to hip.
Try alternating speeds. Do some very slowly, exploring the move, and some faster controlling momentum.

9. DOUBLE LEG STRETCH

TARGETS: Abdominals, quadriceps and hip flexors, gluteals, shoulders and arms.

SETUP: Lie on your back with your knees tucked into your chest, head and shoulders up off the floor, hands reaching beyond your feet. Even though your spine is flexed, try not to shrug your shoulders forward. Nor should you let your shoulders creep up—keep the shoulders down, lengthening your neck. Pull the belly button toward your spine.

MOVE: As you inhale drive your legs out away from your center and reach your arms overhead, keeping your shoulders and head up. If you drive your legs out too low, your back might arch up or your ribs might flare out—it is important to funnel the ribs down and keep the low back pressing toward the floor. Exhale as your return to your tuck position. Repeat for one minute.

FOCUS: Your low back should not arch off the floor when you open out of the tuck. Keep your rib cage pressed down toward the top of your pelvis throughout the exercise. If your ribs slide away from your pelvis, allowing your back to arch, then the move was opened up too much. Keep your navel pressed down toward your spine throughout the exercise.

COMMENTS: Beginners will tuck, and when they open up, their feet will end up right over the hips and the hands will be right over the shoulders. As you get stronger, this move will open more. Your ribs need to stay pressed down; your low back should never arch up. Your head, shoulders and shoulder blades are up off the floor in both phases of the exercise—in the tuck and when you open out. Work up to doing a minute without breaking form.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Your ribs stay pressed down toward the top of your pelvis, activating the abdominals during the whole phase of the exercise. When you are in the tuck, you should have your ribs pulled down, and when you open up, your ribs are still pulled down. If your shoulders or shoulder blades drop during the exercise, except if you are resting, consider that a form break.
If your back arches up during the exercise, you have broken form and need to pull the intensity down. Do this by keeping the arms and legs closer over your body—do not open out so far.
Keep your chest open. Do not let your shoulders shrug forward.
Keep your shoulders down and away from your ears. Press the shoulder blades down deep in the back to keep the neck long.
Pull the belly button toward the spine throughout the exercise.

10. HYPEREXTENSIONS/HOUSE FOR A MOUSE

TARGETS: Transverse abdominus, gluteals, low back, quadriceps, upper back.

HyperExtension

SETUP: Lie on the floor prone—belly down. Feel your ribcage on the floor and your pubic bone on the floor. Keeping the ribs and pubic bone on the floor, attempt to lift the belly button off the floor. It may not go up very far at first, but keep trying.

Another way to try this exercise is to move into it from a hyperextension. Start lying prone with your hands on the floor by your shoulders. Lift your body up just enough so that you have your legs on the floor, pubic bone on the floor, but the rest of the torso is hovering off the floor. Suck the navel toward the spine hard and start to lower your body down.

HyperExtension

Try and have the next thing that touches the floor be your RIBS, not your belly button area—while keeping your pubic bone on the floor. Do not let your pubic bone lift up off the floor at all. This might be a foreign move for you. It’s called a “House for a Mouse.” You are trying to lie on the floor, face down, with your abs activated leaving a little space at the belly button for a “mouse.”

MOVE: Keep your “House for a Mouse” and lift your upper body off the floor for 8-12 repetitions. You will not be able to lift very high, unless you break form. Do 8-12 repetitions lifting only your legs off the floor—keep the pubic bone anchored to the floor, the ribs touching the floor, and the navel up off the floor—or at least trying to lift in that direction. Finish with 30 seconds of both upper and lower body lifting together, always trying to keep the “House for a Mouse.”

FOCUS: This move is to teach you how to activate the transverse abdominus. The floor will give you biofeedback if you are doing it correctly. For some people the pattern is so foreign, it might take a few tries before your body understands it.

COMMENTS: If you end up balancing on your abs, distending them, you will end up lifting your upper and/or lower body quite high. Your rib cage will probably slide open, making it very likely that your low back will feel compression. Additionally arm positioning intensifies this exercise. The easiest version is to have your hands on the floor near your shoulders. If you lift your hands off the floor it gets harder. Moving your hands further out—near your forehead—makes the move harder. Stretching your arms overhead makes the move harder.

SAFETY AND FORM POINTS:

Your pubic bone and lower ribs are your anchors. Your body will rest on these bones, while the muscle in between these bone (the transverse abdominus) activates, pulling the navel toward the spine (away from the floor).
Do not rest on your abs while lifting your body. Pull the navel up and in, away from the floor.
If you pull the abs away from the floor properly, you will not lift your body very high.
As you get stronger move the arms further overhead.
When you lift your legs off the floor, keep the pubic bone down, and stretch the legs straight and long. Squeeze your glutes and your quads. This will make your hipline very straight and your knees very straight. It also should help you to anchor the pubic bone down into the floor.

Stretch

1. CAT/DOG

TARGETS: Low back, abdominals, mid back, chest

Cat-Dog

SETUP: On hands and knees, hips over knees, and shoulders over wrists.

MOVE: Pull the navel toward the spine, knitting the ribs as close together as possible, feeling the stretch in the low back. Press the sternum (breast bone) up too, which will create a stretch in the upper/mid back as well. After doing this move (flexion of the spine), extend the spine by lifting the chest, lifting the tailbone, feeling the back arch into extension. Do not sag into the position, but use your muscles to press into it. Listen to your body. Go to the point of a gentle tug without over-stretching. Hold each stretch about 20-30 seconds. You can also repeat going between these two stretches two or three times holding each stretch 8-10 seconds, if you prefer.

Cat-Dog

FOCUS: Work on feeling a full range of motion of your spine through flexion and extension.

COMMENTS: When you are flexed/arched in the cat stretch, for variety try shrugging the right shoulder up a little to feel more stretch on the right side of your spine (all the way down to the right side of the sacrum, the base of the spine), then repeat on the left side. Using that position, one can also add a latissimus dorsi stretch by reaching the right arm across the body toward the left. In this option you will feel the intensity on the right side over the lats.

SAFETY POINTS:

Stay within the range of motion that feels comfortable for your body. Do not over-stretch.
If either of these stretches bothers your low back, try shortening the range of motion.

2. BRIDGE

TARGETS: Chest, abdominals, thighs, shoulders, neck.

Bridge SETUP: Lie on your back with your knees bent. Pull your feet in until they are directly under your knees. Have your hands by your sides next to your hips.

MOVE: Inhale, expanding your ribs. As you exhale, begin knitting the ribs together, pressing your low back into the floor. As you do, tilt the tailbone off the floor and start to lift your vertebrae off the floor one by one from the tailbone upward, until you are up on your shoulder blades. Bring your arms underneath you, lacing your fingers together.

Rock from side to side a little to reach your hands down further toward your feet, opening the neck and shoulders. Hold the stretch for about 20-30 seconds.

FOCUS: While you hold the stretch, continue to press your feet down into the floor, keeping your hips lifted. Be aware of the rib cage flaring open. Keep the ribs knit together as you press up through the hips, tilting the pelvis. Look for the stretch over the quads as you work through the pose.

COMMENTS: If you feel any compression in your low back, you may be arching your back. Check that your ribs have not flared open, but are knit shut. Try and make it feel like your low back is aiming toward the floor, and in opposition, the glutes are lifting your hips.

SAFETY POINTS:

Keep the ribs knit together, do not let the ribs pop open.
Keep your feet and knees in parallel. For variety you could point the feet and knees open, but this should not be the primary way of performing Bridge.
When you draw the hands under you, with your fingers laced together, open the chest and make the neck feel very long.

3. SPINAL TWIST

TARGETS: Low back, hip, rib cage, shoulders and arms.

SETUP: Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet underneath knees. Stretch your arms to the side at shoulder height. Check that your shoulders are not shrugged up toward your ears, but are pressed down. Rotate your arms so that your palms are up.

MOVE: Move your knees toward your right side, stacking your knees one on top of the other. Keep both shoulder blades down. Your head and neck will be in alignment with your shoulders, facing up. Hold the stretch for 20-30 seconds releasing your low back. To exit the move, draw your knee back up to your chest, let your other leg follow. Give yourself a full breath or two before beginning the stretch on the other side.

FOCUS: As you hold the stretch, use your exhalation to sink down into the stretch, going deeper. Work on keeping your shoulders and shoulder blades flat on the floor.

COMMENTS: Some options to this stretch include tucking your top knee higher, overlapping your bottom knee. You could further encourage this stretch by placing your hand on the top knee, gently pressing it toward the floor. Rather than overlapping the top knee you could also choose to straighten out the top leg and either move it higher up on the floor, or further away from your body, stretching through the hip.

SAFETY POINTS:

Always stay within a comfortable range of motion. You should feel a gentle tug. Avoid over-stretching.
If you notice that one side is tighter than the other, stretch both sides, but stretch the tighter side either longer, or go over that side a second time.
Keep your shoulders, neck, and upper body muscles quiet and relaxed during this stretch.

4. HAMSTRING STRADDLE

TARGETS: Hamstrings (back of the thigh) on the medial side, and inner thigh.

SETUP: Sit on the floor with your feet in front of you. Move your feet into the widest “V” that you can comfortably make. Sit very tall—do not slump your spine forward.

MOVE: Keeping your spine tall and chest lifted, start to lean forward until you feel a tug in the back of the thighs, in your hamstrings. Do not slump your spine or shoulders forward. Keep your back straight. If you have very tight hamstrings and have difficulty sitting tall, put your hands behind your hips and staying tall and lifted, push yourself forward until you feel the stretch. If you are more flexible, place your hands in front of your hips to support yourself as you go forward. Hold the stretch for 20-30 seconds.

FOCUS: If you keep your feet in neutral or pointed, you will feel the intensity of the stretch in your hamstrings. If you flex your feet, pulling the toes back toward your shins, you will feel most of the intensity of the stretch in your calves. It is good to incorporate both options.

COMMENTS: If you feel any discomfort in your low back ease off the stretch and check, your posture. Keep your chest lifted. Do not collapse your back, slumping into the stretch.

SAFETY POINTS:

Keep your chest up. Do not slump your spine while stretching
Stretch to the point of a mild pull. Do not over-stretch.
If you cannot sit up straight before starting the stretch, put your hands behind your hips to help you sit up more upright, rather than having your hands on the floor in front of you.

5. HAMSTRING “X” STRETCH

TARGETS: Hamstrings (back of the thigh) on the lateral side.

SETUP: Sit tall with your feet stretched out in front of you. Keep your right leg on the floor and drape the left leg on top of the right with the knee and calf crossing (not crossing at the thigh). The right leg is the leg that will get the stretch.

MOVE: Sitting as tall as you can, lean forward from the hip (do not round your back). Your legs formed an “X” when they crossed. Aim your hands between your feet over the “X”. You should feel the outside part of your right leg stretching. You may also feel a stretch on the outside (lateral side) of your right calf. Stretch the right side for 20-30 seconds, and then repeat on the left side with the left leg underneath the right leg for 20-30 seconds.

FOCUS: Use your breath as you stretch. Deepen the stretch as you exhale,

COMMENTS: This lateral side of the hamstring tends to be stretched seldom and can be very tight. It may take a while for the muscles to ease up from this tightness. Be patient. The stretch can also be done with a flexed foot. The intensity will be on the outside part of your calf.

SAFETY POINTS:

Stay tall through your spine when stretching hamstrings. Do not round your spine.
Do not cross your legs tightly. Simply drape the top leg on top of the bottom leg.
Make sure that you sit up tall. When your spine rounds, the hamstrings can escape the stretch. Try an experiment: Sit tall, lean forward, feel the stretch. Now holding that position, collapse your spine and slump. Most or all of the stretch will disappear from your hamstrings, and the stretch will move into your low back. This might seem like a good substitution, but the low back is getting a stretch with a collapsed spine, which increases compression of the discs.

Cardio Moves

1. JOG IN PLACE

As you jog, be aware of how your feet strike the floor. You should feel fluid through the feet. The ball of the foot will strike first when jogging in place, and then your heels should drop to the floor in the gait (not stay rigidly up on your toes). After 30 seconds lift your knees high and add “Mountain Climber” arms (arms go very high with the cadence of the feet. Use the same arm as foot that strikes the floor).

2. CROSS COUNTRY SKIING

Land on both feet simultaneously, but have one foot forward and the other backward. As you land, sink into your legs feeling the shock absorption of the knees and hips. This move can be done slowly with the emphasis on shock absorption, or quickly rebounding from right lead to left lead.

3A. ALTERNATING KNEE REPEATER OPPOSITE KNEE CHOP WITH TWIST RIGHT

Bring your right knee toward your chest on the left side of your body. As you do, your arms will chop to the knee, meeting it. Add a little twist by letting your arms go to the outside of the right knee.

To get more intensity from the move, put your weight into your left heel so that you can drop your hips lower, but not have the left knee jut forward. If you brace the left heel well, you will be able to get the hips low enough that the glutes and hamstrings will also fire (if you are standing more upright, you may feel this only in the quads). Rapidly pull the knee in and out, chopping with the arms for one minute.

3B. ALTERNATING KNEE REPEATER OPPOSITE KNEE CHOP WITH TWIST LEFT

Repeat the above exercise pulling the left knee toward the right side of your chest for one minute.

4. SIDE TO SIDE TAP BEHIND WITH LEAP

The basic move here is a Side to Side or Step Touch. Step to the right, tap the floor with your left foot, then step to the left, and tap the floor with your right foot. Move the intensity up by tapping the foot behind the stepping foot. Try and cross your inner thighs as you bring it behind, not just cross your foot behind. Add a leap to the move for more intensity and propulsion. Tap back for 30 seconds and then leap for the final 30 seconds. Try and build up to a full minute of leaping this move.

5. BOXER SHUFFLE WITH THE CLOCK

Imagine you are standing on a clock at 12 NOON. A boxer shuffle is a bouncy move shifting your weight from right foot to left foot. If you are having trouble figuring it out, try jogging in place, slowly making your feet closer and closer to the floor. Widen your feet as you do this small jog and you should end up in a boxer shuffle. For 30 seconds leading with the right leg, take the right foot to 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, and 5:00 moving back up and down the clock. The next 30 seconds lead with your left and go from 11:00 to 10:00 etc., moving back up the clock.

7. POWER DOWNS/STEP TOUCH WITH A STICK

Starting on both feet, laterally leap to the right landing on your right foot absorbing your body weight with your hips and knees. Step back to the left and repeat the leap to the right. As you do the move, twist your torso to the right, reaching out with your arms, sticking the move. Do for 30 seconds leaping right, and then repeat the move to the left for 30 seconds.

8. STEP TOUCH HAM CURL

Step to the right and lift your left foot up toward your glute, then step to the left, lifting the right foot toward the glute. As you lift your foot, pull your elbows toward your waist, squeezing your shoulder blades together—your arms will be a little bit behind you. Keep the chest up and up. Do the move for one minute. Advanced exercisers can add some propulsion—leaping from side to side with a soft landing, or make the move bouncy.

9. HIP HIKES

Balancing on your right leg, lift your left knee toward your left armpit. As your knee goes up, your left elbow and arm will chop down to meet it. Try hiking your left hip as you repeat the move rapidly—bringing the left ribs close to the left hip. Do for 30 seconds then switch to the other side for 30 seconds.

10. JUMP ROPING

This move can be done with or without a jump rope. If you do not have a jump rope, mimic the jump rope move with either a small hop, a small jog, or by “skipping”. Other variations include using your feet in a cross country fashion: one in front of the other as you jump from foot to foot, or double jumps: jumping 2 narrow, 2 wide, or one foot at a time.

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80-Year Olds With 40-Year Old Muscle Mass – What’s Going On?

Posted on December 20, 2011 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Increasing physical frailty as you age is commonly accepted as “a fact of life.”

Until recently, most studies showed that after the age of 40, people typically lose eight percent or more of their muscle mass with each passing decade.

But newer research suggests that this is not a foregone conclusion.

One recent study of 40 competitive runners, cyclists, and swimmers, ranging in age from 40 to 81, found no evidence of deterioration — the athletes in their 70s and 80s had almost as much thigh muscle mass as the athletes in their 40s.

Quoted in the New York Times, Dr. Vonda Wright, who oversaw the study, said: “We think these are very encouraging results…

They suggest strongly that people don’t have to lose muscle mass and function as they grow older.

The changes that we’ve assumed were due to aging and therefore were unstoppable seem actually to be caused by inactivity.

And that can be changed.”

Other recent studies have had similar results. For example, in an animal study from last year, elderly sedentary rats put on a running program developed new satellite cells after 13 weeks. These cells are specialized stem cells known to repair and build muscle tissue.

Lifelong Activity is Best, but it’s Never Too Late to Start

Over the past several years, researchers have discovered that it is indeed possible to restore the ability of old human muscle to repair and rebuild itself. However, the need to keep aging muscles in shape has also been demonstrated, as long periods of atrophy are more challenging to overcome. These findings fall into the category of common sense, along the lines of “use it or lose it.” And as you age, physical exercise becomes an ever more important aspect of optimal health and longevity.

The good news is that it’s really never too late to start an exercise program, even if you’ve been inactive for a long time. Just keep in mind that older muscles do not respond as well to sudden bouts of exercise, so to take precautions and start off slow, to avoid injury.

Making Exercise Safe and Effective as You Age

Safety is always an important aspect of exercise, but becomes crucial if you’re older and just embarking on a regimented exercise program. Unfortunately, many elderly forgo exercise altogether because of a fear of injury or pain, when, in fact, proper exercise will ultimately reduce your risk of injury as well as help to improve pain.

If you’re elderly, it’s advisable to get a workout buddy — a personal trainer or someone who is experienced — to help guide you through your routine. Start off slowly and gradually increase intensity as you grow stronger, avoiding activities that aggravate or cause pain. Just keep in mind that while you need to use caution, you do need to exercise at a level that is challenging to your body.

Otherwise the true benefits will be forfeited.

Ideally your fitness program should be comprehensive, providing the necessary balance-training activities for stability while also improving your strength, flexibility, cardiovascular fitness and fat-burning capabilities with high-intensity “Peak” exercises.

During ‘peak exercises,’ you raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a 90-second recovery period. You repeat this cycle for a total of eight repetitions. Peak exercises are particularly beneficial for aging bodies as this type of interval training triggers the natural production of human growth hormone (HGH), also known as “the fitness hormone.” HGH plays an integral role in maintaining youthfulness and strength. (For an in-depth explanation of my peak fitness regimen, please review this past article.)

While anaerobic Peak exercises may seem too advanced for the elderly, don’t let the intensity dissuade you! Rest assured you can perform Peak exercises at ANY age. The only difference is that the older you are the lower your maximum heart rate will be.

My Latest Findings on Optimal Exercise

I’ve been recommending doing Peak 8 exercises three times a week, but after doing that myself for about a year, I gradually felt that it was too much for me. I cut down to once a week, which seemed to work out well. But after discussing it with Phil Campbell, he made a compelling argument to increase it back to three times a week. Getting growth hormone produced three times instead of just once a week can have profound health benefits, so I bumped it backed up.

I decided to make additional changes after I interviewed Dr. Doug McGuff, who is a strong proponent of Super Slow weight training. That interview will be published on January 6th, so for more information about Super Slow weight training, please open up that newsletter. Dr. McGuff believes that you only need 12 minutes of Super Slow type strength training once a week.

I really enjoyed my interview with him as he helped me appreciate a nagging truth that I hadn’t quite captured yet, and that is the crucial nature of recovery integrated into listening to your body.

The Importance of Recovery

I have known the importance of “Listen to Your Body,” and always advocate this when it comes to selecting foods. But this also applies to exercise and recovery. The epiphany I had with Dr. McGuff is that I wasn’t applying the ‘listen to your body’ principle with respect to my exercise program. When I grilled him on the parameters of how to know if you are recovered from your exercise, he said:

”You would have a restless energy and feel like you have to engage in some type of physical activity. You will spontaneously just want to work out.”

Well that had not happened to me for some time, and I believe I was pushing myself too hard and had not allowed myself enough recovery time. This is probably not a problem for most people who exercise, as they are more than likely not pushing themselves hard enough, but when you go to extremes like in Peak Fitness, this is a serious risk you need to pay careful attention to.

So right now I’m in a massive experimentation phase, and I’m having fun playing around with my exercise program. I will likely be exercising the same length of time, just breaking it up differently, and listening to my body. I suspect that will be more ideal for me and I intend to report on my results so you can learn from it.

The lesson here is that life is an exciting journey, and you’re never “too old.” As you age, you do need to adjust however, and discover through trial and error what works best for you. Learn to listen to your body so it can guide you onto a path that will provide you with the most efficient and effective benefits.

For the Elderly, Exercise Can Quite Literally Save Your Life

As you get older your muscle and bone mass decrease and the senses that guide your balance — vision, touch, proprioception — may all start to deteriorate, and this can make you unsteady on your feet. Needless to say, bone fractures and brain injuries resulting from falls can be life threatening. Exercise is a key to maintaining your balance as you get older, and should really be viewed as a necessity — like eating and sleeping — as it can quite literally save your life.

By taking the time to do balance, strength and other exercises on a regular basis you can keep your sense of balance strong, and even restore what’s already been lost.

In a study published last year, eight weeks of balance training reduced slips and improved the likelihood of recovery from slips among the elderly. Separate research, which noted that “altered balance is the greatest collaborator towards falls in the elderly,” found balance training is effective in improving functional and static balance, mobility and falling frequency in elderly women with osteoporosis.

The ability to balance on one leg is also an important predictor of injury-causing falls, so if you know that you’d be shaky if you tried to stand on one foot, you’re at an increased risk of being hurt in a fall and should start appropriate exercises immediately.

Yes, You Can Exercise at ANY Age

Earlier this fall I posted a couple of videos showing my mother’s exercise routine. She didn’t start working out until she was 74 and now, at the age of 77, she has gained significant improvements in strength, range of motion, balance, bone density and mental clarity.

Exercise Strengthens More than Muscle

Your muscles aren’t the only benefactors of a comprehensive exercise program. While many are misled into thinking toxic drugs are the answer to combat decreasing bone density, the truth is that weight-bearing exercise is one of the most effective remedies against osteoporosis—another common problem related to aging.

Without question, osteoporosis drugs are likely to cause more long-term harm than benefit. Studies have actually linked bisphosphonate bone-strengthening drugs like Fosamax, Actonel, Boniva and Reclast to an increased risk of femur fractures. One of the latest and largest studies to date discovered that women who’ve been on bisphosphonates for more than five years have a nearly three times higher risk of these dangerous fractures…

Your bones are actually very porous and soft, and as you get older, your bones can easily become less dense and hence, more brittle—especially if you are inactive.

Resistance training can combat this effect because as you put more tension on your muscles it puts more pressure on your bones, which then respond by continuously creating fresh, new bone. In addition, muscle is heavier than fat, so as you build more muscle, and make the muscle that you already have stronger, you also put more constant pressure on your bones which automatically helps maintain bone strength.

The Many Health Benefits of Exercise

There’s an overwhelming amount of evidence confirming that exercise is a key player in disease reduction, optimal mental, emotional and physical health, and longevity. After reviewing 40 papers published between 2006 and 2010, researchers found thatexercise reduces the risk of about two dozen health conditions, ranging from cancer and heart disease to type 2 diabetes, stroke, dementia and depression. Exercise also slows down the rate of aging itself, providing perhaps the closest example of a real life fountain of youth as we will ever find.

Ideally, you will have made exercise a regular part of your life long before you reach your “golden” years … but if you haven’t, there’s no better time to start than the present. Research has shown that regular exercise, even initiated late in life, offers profound health benefits. For instance:

Even a small amount of exercise may protect the elderly from long-term memory loss and even help reverse some of the effects of aging.
Moderate exercise among those aged 55-75 may cut the risk of developing metabolic syndrome, which increases heart disease and diabetes risk.
Among those who started exercising at age 50 and continued for 10 years, the rate of premature death declined dramatically, similar to giving up smoking and mirroring the level as seen among people who had been working out their entire lives.

Remember, It’s NEVER Too Late to Improve Your Health

It should be obvious by now that optimal health is dependent on an active lifestyle; eating fresh, whole foods, avoiding as many processed foods as possible, and addressing the stress in your life. Ignoring any of these basic tenets of health will eventually lead to a decline in health and any number of diseases.

Physical exercise is particularly important to maintain a high quality of life, as limited mobility can take a great toll… So start moving, and don’t stop no matter what your age!

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British Town Grows All of its Own Vegetables, Witnesses Improved Civic Life and Reduced Crime as a Result

Posted on December 16, 2011 by andreas m

By: Ethan A. Huff
Source: NaturalNews.com

When the small British mill town of Todmorden, tucked in between Yorkshire and Lancashire, first began installing fruit and vegetable gardens all around the area as part of the Incredible Edible program, it likely had no idea that the novel, yet simple, concept would make the town a foremost inspirational and self-sustaining model of the future.

Fresh herbs, succulent greens, and tasty fruits can be found growing near civic buildings, college campuses, supermarket parking lots, and various other places. Small garden plots, raised planting beds, and even small soil strips in these areas can be found brimming with fresh produce, all of which are free to anyone who want it, and at any time.

It is all part of a program called Incredible Edible, which was founded by Mary Clear, a local grandmother of ten, and Pam Warhurst, former owner of a local restaurant in town known as Bear Cafe. The duo had a shared goal of making Todmorden the first town in the UK to become completely self-sufficient in food — and their endeavors have been successful, at least as far as keeping up with demand for produce from locals who want it.

The program so far utilizes 70 large planting beds located all around the town to plant raspberries, apricots, apples, blackcurrants, redcurrants, strawberries, beans, peas, cherries, mint, rosemary, thyme, fennel, potatoes, kale, carrots, lettuce, onions, vegetables, and herbs. Not only did locals quickly catch on and begin taking the produce, but they also generally respect the system and do not take advantage of it.

“If you take a grass verge that was used as a litter bin and a dog toilet and turn it into a place full of herbs and fruit trees, people won’t vandalize it. I think we are hard-wired not to damage food,” said Warhurst, concerning the notion that offering free fruit and vegetables might lead to abuse or other crimes. She noted, in fact, that quite the opposite has occurred — the Incredible Edible program has improved community relations, and reduced crime by an incrementally higher amount every single year since it first started.

The program has been so successful, in fact, that many other communities both in the UK and abroad are now interested in starting their own public garden programs as well. Besides improving the sense of community and reducing crime, Incredible Edible has renewed a new sense of appreciation for food and how it is grown, as well as renewed interest in actually growing it among the next generation, which is the envy of many progressive communities around the world.

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Are Antibiotics Contributing to Obesity, Diabetes and Stroke?

Posted on December 15, 2011 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Extending the Cure, a non-profit research group, has published a series of maps looking at the major drivers of bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

They reveal a troubling growth in the use of certain antibiotics — along with an even more surprising result.

According to data analyzed by journalist Maryn McKenna for Wired, the states with the highest levels of antibiotic overuse are one in the same as those that have the worst health status in the United States, including the highest rates of obesity, asthma, heart disease, heart attack, diabetes and stroke.

The map graphics are very revealing, and — even though this is purely speculation — it’s hard to ignore the fact that the same areas of the United States that are lit up like Christmas trees are those that have both, the highest rates of antibiotic usage, and chronic diseases.

Is Antibiotic Use Associated With Obesity, Diabetes and Other Diseases?

Antibiotics are among the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States.

In West Virginia, the state with the highest antibiotic use from 1999-2007, there were 1,214 prescriptions written for every 1,000 people, according to Extending the Cure.

Antibiotics can save your life if they’re necessary, such as if you develop a serious bacterial infection, but it’s important to understand that you don’t need antibiotics for every ear, nose, or throat infection you come down with. Remember that antibiotics are useless against the viral infections that cause the common cold and the flu, and when used for this purpose, will only harm your health.

How?

By wiping out the good bacteria in your gut.

Antibiotics, by design, disrupt the balance of good and bad bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract, often killing off both beneficial and harmful microorganisms without distinction. We now know, however, that your health is intricately tied to, and in many ways dependent upon, a healthy balance of bacteria in your gut.

When this balance is disrupted, it paves the way for a number of chronic diseases, including many of those highlighted on the maps in areas with high rates of antibiotic use, such as:

Heart disease
Diabetes
Obesity

Good bacteria (probiotics) are, in fact, so crucial to your health that researchers have compared them to “a newly recognized organ,” and have even suggested we consider ourselves a type of “meta-organism” — in acknowledgment of the fact that we cannot be whole and healthy without the participation of a vast array of friendly bacterial species and strains.

If you want to dig into the research for yourself, check out the Human Microbiome Project (HMP), whose goal is to characterize microbial communities found at multiple human body sites and to look for correlations between changes in the microbiome and human health. There you can find 15 demonstration projects looking into the role of microflora and conditions like psoriasis, Crohn’s disease, obesity, acne and more.

You can also visit Green Med Info, which has assembled an amazing list of more than 200 studies, which together explore more than 180 diseases that may find relief with probiotics.

When taken in this context, it’s easy to understand how antibiotics overuse could predispose you to a number health problems by disrupting your body’s vital bacterial balance.

Can Antibiotics Make You Fat?

Here’s an interesting factoid you may not be aware of: about 70 percent of all the antibiotics produced are used in agriculture — not necessarily to fight disease, but rather to promote weight gain.

Farmers commonly give healthy livestock continuous low-doses of antibiotics because it makes them gain more weight, faster — a phenomenon that likely occurs, as the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs stated, because the antibiotics “change the composition of the gut flora to favor growth.”

If it happens in livestock, there’s reason to believe it happens in humans as well, and research by Dr. Martin Blaser, a professor of microbiology at New York University Langone Medical Center, suggests that antibiotics may permanently alter your gut bacteria and interfere with important hunger hormones secreted by your stomach, leading to increased appetite and body mass index (BMI).

Separate research by Dr. Blaser also found that mice fed antibiotics (in dosages similar to those given to children for throat or ear infections) had significant increases in body fat despite their diets remaining unchanged. Multiple studies have actually shown that obese people have different intestinal bacteria than slim people, and that altering the microbial balance in your gut can influence your weight.

Here are six such studies:

When rats were given lactic acid bacteria while in utero through adulthood, they put on significantly less weight than other rats eating the same high-calorie diet. They also had lower levels of minor inflammation, which has been associated with obesity.
Babies with high numbers of Bifidobacteria and low numbers of Staphylococcus aureus – the latter of which may cause low-grade inflammation in your body, contributing to obesity — appeared to be protected from excess weight gain. This may be one reason why breast-fed babies have a lower risk of obesity, as Bifidobacteria are known to flourish in the guts of breast-fed babies.
Two studies found that obese individuals had about 20 percent more of a family of bacteria known as Firmicutes, and almost 90 percent less of a bacteria called Bacteroidetes than lean people. Firmicutes help your body to extract calories from complex sugars and store those calories as fat. When these microbes were transplanted into normal-weight mice, those mice started to gain twice as much fat.
Obese people were able to reduce their abdominal fat by nearly 5 percent, and their subcutaneous fat by over 3 percent, just be drinking a probiotic-rich fermented milk beverage for 12 weeks.
Probiotics (good bacteria) have been found to benefit metabolic syndrome, which often goes hand-in-hand with obesity.
Probiotics may also be beneficial in helping women lose weight after childbirth when taken from the first trimester through breastfeeding.

Conventional Antibiotics May be Growing Useless

If the potential to upset your body’s natural balance of gut bacteria, paving the way for obesity, diabetes, heart disease and more, doesn’t put the notion of taking antibiotics in a different light, consider this: whenever you use an antibiotic, you’re increasing your susceptibility to developing infections with bacteria that are now resistant to that antibiotic – and as a result, you can become a carrier of this resistant bug, and can spread it to others.

The rise of antibiotic-resistant disease is actually one of the “world’s most pressing public health threats,” as even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledges. There are already numerous bacteria resistant to many commonly prescribed antibiotics, and this is a direct result of the vast overuse of antibiotics in both the medical system and, even more so, conventional livestock farming.

This includes:

In the war of antibiotics versus bacteria, the bacteria are clearly winning -. As much as I stress that antibiotic use needs to be minimized, this is one class of drugs that I would not want to fall off the radar.

When used properly, in the correct contexts and with responsibility, antibiotics can and do save lives that are threatened by bacterial infections. But they will only remain effective if urgent changes are made to curb the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and disease … and this will only happen with a serious reduction in their use now.

Tips for Practical Antibiotics Use

Remember first and foremost that antibiotics are only effective against bacterial infections — not viral infections. Antibiotics do,however, sometimes help relieve perceived/subjective symptoms caused by some viruses, because they address ‘secondary bacterial infections,’ i.e the overgrowth of the always-naturally-present haemophilus influenzae, once the virus compromises and/or overwhelms normal immunosurveillance.

But normally please remember that if you or your child have a viral infection such as a cold, the flu, most sore throats, acute bronchitis and many sinus and ear infections, antibiotics are failing to address the root cause.

They will not help you to feel better faster; they will not cure the infection; and they will not make you less contagious to others. What they may do in this case, however, is increase your chances of having that antibiotic not work as effectively in the event you do need it for a bacterial infection. Not to mention, the CDC notes that, in children, antibiotics are the most common cause of emergency department visits for adverse drug events, so they carry inherent risks as well.

In the event of a viral infection, you can read my full strategies for prevention and treatment of viral infections like colds here.

Keep in mind, also, that the foods you eat are a major source of exposure to antibiotics, so to protect your gut bacteria you should buy primarily antibiotic-free, organically raised meat and produce. Conventionally farmed food is often grown in fertilizer derived from factory-farmed animal waste and human sewage, which may be a source of contamination with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

How to Restore Your Gut Bacteria if You’ve Taken Antibiotics

Because your gut bacteria are vulnerable to your lifestyle choices, including your diet and exposure to pollution, chlorinated water and agricultural chemicals, I recommend that everyone consider the optimization of their gut bacteria as an ongoing process.

Also, if you’ve recently taken antibiotics, it is particularly important to restore bacterial balance as quickly as possible. In this case, a high-quality probiotic supplement can help you restore healthy gut bacteria quickly. Ideally take this in addition to eating non-pasteurized, traditionally fermented foods such as:

Fermented vegetables, we will be providing you with loads of information on this in the coming months with very specific details on how you can make your own
Lassi (an Indian yoghurt drink, traditionally enjoyed before dinner)
Fermented organic grass-fed raw milk, such as kefir
Various pickled fermentations of cabbage, turnips, eggplant, cucumbers, onions, squash and carrots
Natto (fermented soy)

At the same time, it is vital to eliminate sugar, including fructose, from your diet, as it will sabotage any beneficial effects of the fermented foods by feeding the pathogenic yeast, fungi and bacteria that are in your gut.

A high-quality probiotic supplement, along with eating traditionally fermented foods and avoiding sugar, is a good plan for optimizing your gut bacteria at any point and should also work well following a course of treatment with antibiotics.

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Blurred Vision? Eye Doctor Myths Exposed – Learn How to Exercise Your Eye Muscles for Restoring Healthy Vision and Eliminating Prescription Glasses

Posted on December 9, 2011 by andreas m

By: Mike Adams
Source: NaturalNews.com

You’re probably familiar with all sorts of mythologies promoted as “truisms” in modern medicine: Flu vaccines prevent the flu (they actually don’t), CT scans are harmless (they aren’t), chemotherapy works to save lives from cancer (it actually causes cancer), and so on. There are all sorts of falsehoods in dentistry, too: Mercury fillings are safe for you! (They aren’t.) Gum health has nothing to do with nutrition! (It does.) Cavities can only be treated by drilling, filling and billing! (Often just a money-making scam.)

But did you also know that there are lies and mythologies promoted by eye doctors, too?

Here’s a real whopper that’s told to almost everyone: The reason you need glasses when you get older is because — get this — your eyeball changes its shape!

The only way your eyeballs change shape is if your skull gets cracked

This “eyeball changes its shape” con is a clever scam because it convinces tens of millions of people to buy high-priced prescription glasses each year, usually from the very same vision centers that promote this total quackery. If you just ponder it for a moment, you’ll quickly realize how ludicrous the explanation really is. How can your eyeball change its shape when your eye SOCKET is made of bone?

Think about it. For your eyeball to get “longer” as they often tell you, your very skull would have to alter its bone structure. And while that most certainly happens in infants and children, the human skull doesn’t keep shifting around when you’re an adult. Unless you’re run over by a truck or something, anyway, in which case blurred vision should be expected.

No, the real problem with the vision of most people is not that “your eyeball is getting longer” (ridiculous!) but rather that your lens muscles are getting flabby and out of shape!

How your lens muscles gets flabby and out of shape

Your iris is a muscle that controls your pupil, which is like the aperture of a camera lens. Its job is to regulate the amount of light entering the eye. The iris is not our concern here because we’re more interested in the muscles that alter the shape of your lens.

Those muscles are part of what’s called the ciliary body of your eye. The ciliary body contains muscles that, in real time, alter the curvature of your eye lens to achieve the proper focus of whatever scene you are observing. “Proper focus” means altering the curvature of your lens so that the rays of light entering your eye fall on your retina with pinpoint accuracy.

As any photographer well knows, your focus must be altered when viewing something right in front of you (a near object) versus something far away (a far object). In a camera, this change in focus is achieved by altering the distance between two lenses contained in what is commonly called a “camera lens” (it’s actually multiple lenses), but in the human eye, this is achieved by changing the shape of the lens through the contraction or relaxation of the ciliary muscles.

You probably never noticed yourself doing this because you don’t feel your ciliary muscles working, but they achieve this focus for you thousands of times a day, automatically and without any effort on your part.

Some people (like myself) have achieved conscious control over these muscles, and we can consciously choose to alter the focus of our eyes at any moment, regardless of what scene we’re looking at. But for most people, the function is their ciliary muscles is involuntary. (I’m in my 40′s and continue to have perfect vision, never needing contact lenses or glasses. I also boost my vision with nutrition such as astaxanthin, lutein and zeaxanthin supplements.)

How to strengthen your ciliary muscles that control your eye lenses

Like any muscle, the ciliary muscles can become weak. How does a muscle become weak? From lack of exercise, of course. If you want strong legs, you need to walk and run from time to time, right? Well, if you want a strong, functioning ciliary muscle set, you need to alternate your vision between near objects and far objects so that these muscles are challenged to stay strong. This also increases the flexibility (range of motion) of your eye lenses (sort of like yoga for your eyes).

Now here’s the real kicker in all this: Most people in modern society never view anything far away anymore! They don’t live out in the country, in other words, so they’re not looking at something a mile away. No mountains are even visible in most cities, and peoples’ vision is focused entirely on things that are close. So their ciliary muscles are “locked” in a state of constant contraction. This causes these muscles to tighten, just like your leg muscles if you never stretch out from time to time.

This is all made even worse by the television set — or perhaps your computer monitor. Today’s population spends so much time viewing mobile texting devices, cell phones, portable gaming devices and computer monitors that it’s amazing their ciliary muscles have any range of motion at all.

Sooner or later, after a lack of exercise (i.e. focusing on things at various distances), your ciliary muscles get flabby while also losing range of motion and then your eye lenses can’t achieve the focus they’re supposed to. So instead of the light rays striking your retina where they’re supposed to, they may strike a point inside your eyeball a quarter inch in front of your retina instead (as an example, or in other cases it may be some distance behind your retina, which also causes blurred vision). This is where eye doctors get their ridiculous idea that “your eyeballs are too long!”

That’s stupid. Your eyeballs aren’t “too long.” That’s just some mythology dreamed up by vision doctors to sell you more glasses. No, unless you’re a mutant or something, the real problem is that your ciliary muscles are too weak and lack range of motion to alter the curvature of your lenses.

This problem, fortunately, can often be solved with simple exercises.

(By the way, it should also be obvious from this that the very act of wearing contacts or wearing glasses makes your eye problem worse because it allows your ciliary muscles to stop working, relying on the artificial lenses of your glasses to do that work for you. In much the same way that taking insulin makes diabetes worse over the long haul, wearing glasses also makes your vision worse over time…)

How to exercise your eyeballs and help restore healthy vision

So what if there were a way to exercise your eyeballs and restore the strength and range of motion of your ciliary muscles? Would that restore normal vision?

For many people, YES! Not for everyone, of course. There are other causes of poor vision, such as cataracts, neurological damage (aspartame!), cross-linked protein rigidity of the lens itself (poor nutrition) and so on. But in a surprisingly large number of cases, healthy vision can be restored through simple exercises that you can do at home, in just a few minutes a day, using only your eyes and a simple tool.

That simple tool is a pair of pinhole glasses. They’re like exercise machines for your eyes. You simply wear them for a few minutes a day, then walk around and look at stuff.

How pinhole glasses exercise your ciliary muscles and help restore normal vision

Looking through pinhole glasses, as simple as it sounds, causes the ciliary body of your eyes to engage in adaptive exercise that increases the range of motion of your ciliary muscles which control your lenses. This happens because the pinhole glasses are made with hundreds of tiny holes that change the light entering your eyes from an overpowering mass of light rays to a collection of lower-intensity, distinct light rays that effectively give your eyes a more “organized” pattern on which to focus. There’s probably a more technical explanation for all this, of course, but the practical upshot is that all sorts of people who suffer from vision problems — myopia, hyperopia, presbyopia, astigmatism, computer vision syndrome, and so on — often report instantly improved clarity of vision when wearing these pinhole glasses.

It’s not magic, it’s just physics. If you force your eye lens muscles to adapt by challenging them, they will usually respond with improved function over time (just like building leg strength by walking or jogging).

Even better, many people report ongoing improvements in their vision even after taking off these pinhole glasses. Looking through the pinholes, you see,exercises the muscles that control the shape of your lens, and as those muscles become stronger (over a period of several days and weeks), they become more capable of focusing light in the proper place on your retina. This means no more blurry vision.

It’s the same principle as doing pull-ups to get a stronger upper body, or walking up flights of stairs to build stronger leg muscles. Your eye lenses are controlled by muscles, and like any muscle in your body, those muscles need to be challenged in order to stay strong and fully functional — and to restore their full, healthy range of motion.

I find it interesting, by the way, that some people would rather have crutches than restore their normal healthy function. Have you ever seen those people zipping around in electric scooters at the grocery store? Many of those people used to be able to walk just fine! But then they started using the scooters as a convenience, and now — after a few months of that — their leg muscles have atrophied to the point where they can’t walk! Prescription glasses do the same thing to your eyes. Once you start using them, your ciliary muscles atrophy to the point where you need those glasses just to see clearly.

The vision industry, not surprisingly, makes money off consumer ignorance. It’s not in their interests to teach people how to restore your own healthy vision without needing prescription glasses. This is the same way that the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t want you to prevent disease because they make more money when you stay sick!

The safest and most affordable way to improve vision for many

Pinhole glasses are a safe and affordable way to take responsibility for your eye health and potentially avoid costly and inconvenient contact lenses or glasses forever. These pinhole glasses cost about the same as a pair of sunglasses at the grocery store, and they’re not medical devices at all, so they need no prescription. They contain no lenses themselves, either.

Safety note: Do not wear pinhole glasses while driving or operating heavy machinery such as an airplane, a military humvee or a wrecking ball crane. These glasses partially obscure vision and should be used solely as exercise devices in a safe environment like your home.

They don’t work for every case of vision impairment, of course, as there are many causes for blurred vision. But they work remarkably well for most people who try them. And there’s no risk in trying, since you can return them to our store if they don’t work for you, so there’s zero risk in finding out if your own vision problem might be partially or fully resolved by simply exercising your eyes.

We’ve heard countless success stories from people wearing these simple devices. Try them yourself to see how they might help you! And remember, our satisfaction guarantee means there’s no risk in trying these to see how they might help you live with stronger, more flexible eye muscles.

Zero-cost options you can achieve on your own

Another way to approach this is to simply exercise the range of motion of your ciliary muscles by alternating between focusing on close objects versus far away objects (such as the horizon). This is most easily accomplished from inside your home, near a window. Simply look at something on your desk, then look at something outside your window that’s far, far away (ideally, at the horizon). Alternate this process several times, then rest your eyes, and then repeat. Do this daily for a few minutes each day.

With added nutritional support for eye health (lutein, zeaxanthin, astaxanthin and so on), these exercises can, over time, enhance the range of motion of your ciliary muscles and eye lenses. With these exercises, you may discover that you are able to reduce the intensity of your prescription glasses, step by step, until one day you don’t need them at all.

The pinhole glasses may help accelerate this process even more, in much the same way that working out with weights is a faster way to build muscle strength than working out with no weights at all.

The most important point in all this is to realize that blurred vision is not some sort of permanent eye damage but usually just a functional aberration that can often be resolvedthrough training. In much the same way that physical therapy can help people rebuild functional muscle mass in their legs, arms or torso, eye exercises can help rebuild functional strength in your eyes.

It’s the greatest secret of the eyeglasses industry: Many people don’t need eye glasses! Many people don’t need contact lenses! What they need is eye exercise. But don’t expect the for-profit vision industry to tell you about any of that. Like Big Pharma, they only make money when people stay victims and believe they cannot help themselves. Here at NaturalNews, we specialize in teaching people how to restore health by taking responsibility for their own health outcomes, thereby avoiding the outrageous costs (and inhumane suffering) caused by the medical industry.

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For a series of Eye Muscle exercises, see my book IT’S TIME TO COME ALIVE.
To find great, much less expensive, pinhole glasses, check out eBay.

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Doctor Warns: Eat This and You’ll Look 5 Years Older

Posted on December 9, 2011 by andreas m

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

In the early 1990′s, soy and soy products exploded onto the supermarket scene with promises of bountiful health benefits.

This “new miracle food,” soy, was supposed to lower cholesterol, take the heat out of hot flashes, protect against breast and prostate cancer and offer a filling alternative to earth-loving vegetarians.

The problem with these claims?

Most of them are false.

Sadly, most of what you have been led to believe by the media about soy is simply untrue.

The sudden upsurge in the recommendation of soy as a health food has been nothing more than a clever marketing gimmick to further reduce the cost and nutritional content of your food.

For you vegetarians out there staring at the screen in open-mouthed shock, fear not.

There are plenty of other healthy vegetarian alternatives, which I will discuss later in this article.

What was once considered a minor industrial crop back in 1913 now covers over 72 million acres of farmland.

But first, let’s examine the dangers and side effects of soy protein isolate and GMO foods.

Soy Protein Isolate — What is It, and How is it Getting in My Food?

The Soyfoods Association of America has a soy protein “fact sheet” defining soy protein isolate as the following:

“Soy protein isolate is a dry powder food ingredient that has been separated or isolated from the other components of the soybean, making it 90 to 95 percent protein and nearly carbohydrate and fat-free.”

Soy protein isolate can be found in protein bars, meal replacement shakes, bottled fruit drinks, soups and sauces, meat analogs, baked goods, breakfast cereals and some dietary supplements.

Bodybuilders beware: because many weight gainer powders, bars and shakes contain this dangerous ingredient and it can cause troubling side effects such as diminished libido and erectile dysfunction — and this is just the start. You’ll find out more about these disturbing health effects later on in this article.

Even if you are not a vegetarian and do not use soymilk or tofu, it is important to become a label reader. There are so many different names for soy additives, you could be bringing home a genetically modified soy-based product without even realizing it. Dr. Daniel offers a free Special Report, “Where the Soys Are,” on her Web site. It lists the many “aliases” that soy might be hiding under in ingredient lists — words like “boullion,” “natural flavor” and “textured plant protein.”

Here are a few other names soy tends to hide under:

Mono-diglyceride
Soya, Soja or Yuba
TSF (textured soy flour) or TSP (textured soy protein)
TVP (textured vegetable protein)
Lecithin
MSG (monosodium glutamate)

Not all textured vegetable protein is made from soy, but a great deal of it is. Lecithin can be made from soy, eggs, sunflower or corn. Be sure to contact the manufacturer to find out which is in your product if the label doesn’t reveal this information.

GMO — Making Soy Even Worse

One of the worst problems with soy comes from the fact that 90 to 95 percent of soybeans grown in the US are genetically modified (GM), and these are used to create soy protein isolate.

Why the genetic tinkering?

Genetically modified soybeans are designed to be “Roundup ready.” That’s right, they are chemically engineered to withstand heavy doses of herbicides without killing the plant! What does this mean for your health and the health of your unborn or yet-to-be-conceived children? Read on.

GM Soy Can Lead to Hormonal Disruption and Miscarriages

The active ingredient in Roundup herbicide is called glyphosate, which is responsible for the disruption of the delicate hormonal balance of the female reproductive cycle.

“It’s an endocrine buster,” says UK pathologist Stanley Ewen, “that interferes with aromatase, which produces estrogen.”

What’s more, glyphosate is toxic to the placenta, which is responsible for delivering vital nutrients from mother to child, and eliminating waste products. Once the placenta has been damaged or destroyed, the result can be miscarriage. In those children born to mothers who have been exposed to even a small amount of glyphosate, serious birth defects can result.

In an excellent summary of glyphosate-related effects by the Pesticide Action Network, Dr. Andreas Carrasco of the Embryology Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine in Buenos Aires, simply and expertly explains the serious risks for unborn children exposed to Roundup-laden GMO soy products.

Amphibian embryos were exposed to a tiny concentration of glyphosate (diluted 5000 fold) and showed the following effects:

“Effects included reduced head size, genetic alterations in the central nervous system, increased death of cells that help form the skull, deformed cartilage, eye defects, and undeveloped kidneys. Carrasco also stated that the glyphosate was not breaking down in the cells, but was accumulating.

The findings lend weight to claims that abnormally high levels of cancer, birth defects, neonatal mortality, lupus, kidney disease, and skin and respiratory problems in populations near Argentina’s soybean fields may be linked to the aerial spraying of Roundup.”

The long-term effects of the human consumption of genetically modified soy and soy-based products are staggering.

In April 2010, researchers at Russia’s Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Association for Gene Security found that after feeding hamsters GM soy for two years over three generations, by the third generation, most lost the ability to have babies! Now, let’s take a close look at some of the health risks to YOU as a result of eating genetically modified soy.

Infertility in Women

Do you want to start a family? Have you had any trouble conceiving, perhaps due to irregular menstrual cycles or endometriosis? Have you ever experienced a miscarriage?

If so, what you’re about to read will shock you.

A Brazilian study published in 2009 looked at the impact of soy on the reproductive system of female rats. Female rats fed GM soy for 15 months showed significant changes in their uterus and reproductive cycles, compared to rats fed organic soy or no soy.

Extrapolating the findings to people, women who eat genetically modified soy products, such as the soy protein isolate in processed vegetarian fare, may be more likely to experience severe hormonal disruptions, including an overabundance of estrogen, a hair-growth stimulating hormone, and damage to the pituitary gland.

According to Dr. Stanley Ewen, the female rats fed GM soy probably had an increase in progesterone, which could cause an increase in the number of eggs released during each ovulation cycle.

You might think this would lead to an increase in fertility. However, as discussed in an article by Jeffrey Smith, women who consume genetically modified soy products are at increased risk for developing retrograde menstruation (the menstrual cycle backs up into the body instead of outward), causing endometriosis, which can lead to infertility.

The consumption of soy protein isolate and other soy-based products can also lead to abnormally heavy or longer menstrual periods. This is called menorrhagia and, ironically, some commercials have been popping up with a new pill that supposedly offers the “cure” for this “mystery syndrome.”

When in reality the real cure for some women is as simple as removing soy and soy-based products from the diet. The negative effects of soy are not restricted to women, however.

Loss of Libido & Erectile Dysfunction in Men

Guys, do you enjoy protein bars or use a weight gainer shake? If so, be sure to read the label to see if the products you use contain any soy ingredients. Did you know that celibate monks living in monasteries and leading a vegetarian lifestyle find soy foods quite helpful for dampening libido?

Another drawback: Soy has also been linked to erectile dysfunction. The two natural drugs found in soy, genistein and daidzein, mimic estrogen so well that they have been known to cause a variety of alarming side effects in men:

Breast enlargement (gynecomastia)
Decreased facial and body hair growth
Decreased libido
Mood swings and frequent crying jags
Erectile dysfunction
Lowered sperm count

For example, one recent study documented a case of gynecomastia in a 60-year-old man as a result of his soy consumption. Another study showed that juvenile rats exposed to daidzein showed impaired erectile function at maturity.

Men, if you’ve experienced one or any of these symptoms, soy could be the culprit. Remove it from your diet, but be sure to consult a trusted physician if your symptoms do not improve or get worse as this could be a sign of another serious condition.

The Healthy Aspects of Soy: Fermented vs. Unfermented

In order to back up the claim that soy is a health food, privately funded “researchers” have been quick to point out that Asians, who consume a diet high in soy, have less risk of breast, uterine and prostate cancer. Unfortunately, they leave out two very important
points:

Asians, especially the Japanese, while having a decreased risk of the above-mentioned cancers, have a much higher risk of developing cancer of the esophagus, thyroid, stomach, pancreas and liver!
Asians also consume a diet rich in fermented soy, which is the only type of soy to offer health benefits.

The reason Asians have an increased risk for some cancers is the same reason they do not develop others: unfermented soy. The soy marketing and promotion gurus left out this critical piece of information. Would you rather have one cancer over another? Isn’t that like asking whether or not you’d like to be whacked in the head with a two-by-four vs. a wooden stick?

You might be asking yourself what the big difference is between consuming a fermented soy product such as, say, tempeh, vs. tofu or a veggie burger. I’m here to tell you, the difference is night and day.

Unfermented AND fermented soy contains hormonal mimics in the form of isoflavones which can not only disrupt delicate hormone systems in your body, but also act as goitrogens, substances that suppress your thyroid function. When the thyroid is suppressed, a host of health problems result, namely:

Anxiety and mood swings
Insomnia
Difficulty losing weight
Difficulty conceiving children
Digestive problems
Food allergies

And so much more. No wonder soy can lead to thyroid, esophagus and stomach cancer! Unfermented soy is also chock full of phytic acid, an “antinutrient” responsible for leeching vital nutrients from your body. Phytic acid also blocks the uptake of essential minerals such as calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc especially.

Now, fermented soy products do provide health benefits.

As I mentioned in my previous article, some examples of healthful fermented soyproducts are as follows:

Tempeh, a fermented soybean cake with a firm texture and nutty, mushroom-like flavor.
Miso, a fermented soybean paste with a salty, buttery texture (commonly used in miso soup).
Natto, fermented soybeans with a sticky texture and strong, cheese-like flavor.
Soy sauce, which is traditionally made by fermenting soybeans, salt and enzymes; be wary because many varieties on the market today are made artificially using a chemical process.

For those of you who enjoy tofu, I’m sorry to say it didn’t make this list because tofu is an unfermented soy product.

So, What Are The Health Benefits of Fermented Soy Products?

The claim that soy products can prevent osteoporosis, decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease and dementia and protect you from cancer of the prostate, lung and liver is actually true, but ONLY if the soy is fermented.

How?

The process of fermenting soy destroys the above-mentioned dangerous substances, thereby making it fit for consumption. Also, fermented soy products such as those listed above are a rich source of vitamin K2, a vitamin that works in harmony with vitamin D to keep you healthy. Vitamin K regulates your body’s blood clotting ability and helps prevent cancer, osteoporosis and heart disease. And vitamin D is essential to the function of every system in your body.

Warning to Vegetarians about the Risk of Mineral Deficiency

Since phytic acid or phytates sap the nutrients from your body, if you’re eating a vegetarian diet that has replaced meat with mostly unfermented soy such as veggie burgers containing GMO soy protein isolate, you are at risk for severe mineral deficiency.

In addition to this nutrient loss, many processed veggie burgers and the like are packed with harmful artificial flavorings, particularly MSG and textured vegetable protein products to give them their strong “meat” flavor.

What’s even worse is the process soy has to go through to become soy protein isolate. Acid washing in aluminum tanks, which is designed to remove some of the antinutrients (but the results often vary widely), leeches aluminum into the final product. Aluminum can have adverse effects on brain development and cause symptoms such as:

Antisocial behavior
Learning disabilities
Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia

As I mentioned in a previous article about soy, this makes processed vegetarian fare more palatable, but far from nutritious. Vegetarians have plenty of options for well-rounded, nutritious meals without needing to eat soy or soy-based products.

Beans are an inexpensive, protein-rich food that can be eaten alone, added to salads or served as a side dish. Be sure to purchase organic dried beans and cook them at home to avoid the adverse health effects of eating canned food. Ideally is it also best to soak them for at least 12 hours before cooking them.
Nuts are also an excellent source of protein. For optimal health benefits, reach for organic nuts such as almonds or walnuts, instead of overly processed mixed nuts.
Quinoa is a gluten free grain that can be enjoyed as a cereal, side dish or added to homemade vegetable stews as a thickener.
Flaxseed, which is rich in essential omega 3 fats like ALA, is an excellent source of protein. Add it to salads or sprinkle it over yogurt to infuse your meal with vital nutrients. However, it is important to grind flax seeds just prior to eating them because100 percent of commercially ground flaxseeds are rancid. Hemp seeds are also an excellent source of protein.

Hope for the Lactose Intolerant

If you suffer from lactose intolerance and have been replacing milk with soy, you have three more healthful options: Almond milk, and now hemp milk. All are nutritious alternatives to soy, and almond milk has a richer, heartier flavor. Hemp milk is a very creamy, high protein alternative to soymilk, and it’s easy to blend your own by whizzing up hemp seeds and water in a high-speed blender.

Babies — Birth Control in a Bottle

As stated in a number of previous articles, soy formula is one of the most dangerous foods you can feed your baby!

“In 1998, investigators reported that the daily exposure of infants to isoflavones in soy infant formula is 6 to11 times higher on a body-weight basis than the dose that has hormonal effects in adults consuming soy foods. Circulating concentrations of isoflavones in infants fed soy-based formula were 13,000 to 22,000 times higher than plasma estradiol concentrations in infants on cow’s milk formula.”

What does this mean? Feeding your infant soy-based formula can cause a host of health problems including:

Behavioral problems
Food allergies and digestive distress
Early puberty and fertility problems (including the inability to menstruate)
Asthma
Precocious puberty for girls and gynecomastia (man boobs) for boys
Thyroid disease
Cancer

As I concluded in my article on infant formula, babies who are fed exclusively from the breast from birth to six months enjoy health benefits such as:

Lower risk of respiratory tract and middle ear infections
Lower risk of eczema
Lower risk of obesity
Added protection against heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and allergies
Improved brain function and immune system function

Soy formula is also laden with toxic chemicals such as aluminum and manganese, which can cause both physical and mental health problems, learning disabilities, brain damage and behavioral problems. If, for some reason, you are unable to breastfeed or have adopted a baby, look into these recipes for homemade infant formula.

School Lunch — Children’s Nutrition Left Behind

In order to comply with new US Government standards, soy products are now being used to replace whole, nutritious foods in school lunches. Due to the decreased fat content of soy, it is touted as a healthful alternative to the meat and dairy of yesterday’s hot meal.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Soy added to your child’s hot lunch depletes the necessary nutrients needed for healthy growth and has been linked to learning disabilities. I encourage you to watch this sobering video to learn more about the dangers in your child’s school lunch. Do your children a favor and send them to school with a healthy, home-packed meal.

Senior Citizens — Aging Less Gracefully

According to a study done by Dr. Lon White of the Hawaii Center for Health Research, senior citizens who consumed a lot of tofu in mid-life were more likely to experience accelerated brain aging and a more pronounced loss of cognitive function.

“What’s more,” said Dr White, “those who ate a lot of tofu, by the time they were 75 or 80, looked five years older.”

If you’re heading toward your golden years and are looking to avoid soy protein, become a label reader. Meal replacement drinks like Ensure are filled with soy protein and are best avoided. As you can see, unfermented soy is anything but a health food.

Do your own research, try eliminating it from your family’s diet and judge the results for yourself. Remember, an educated consumer is an armed consumer. Big companies can only produce and sell these harmful products as long as you’re buying them.

Vote with your wallet by spending your money on healthier alternatives!

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Aloe Vera – An Ancient Healer

Posted on December 8, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

Throughout the ages, aloe vera has been known as the ‘medicine plant’, ‘burn plant’, ‘first-aid plant’ or ‘miracle plant’. Even today, it is one of the most effective plants for treating burns, healing wounds and relieving aches and pains. It is recommended for psoriasis, where, when used regularly, it reduces scaling and itching and greatly improves appearance.

Aloe vera became very popular for its use in combating the severe burning effects caused by x-rays and nuclear disasters. Radiation burns cause skin ulcerations that had been nearly incurable until physicians began trying the old folk remedy of the aloe leaf.

Today, this plant has gained such great popularity that it is being used in many cosmetics and health products. Aloe vera juice that is taken internally has been found to be effective in almost every illness, including cancer, heart disease and AIDS. In fact, there is hardly any disease or health problem for which this miracle plant has not been proven successful. It is helpful for all kinds of allergies, skin diseases, blood disorders, arthritis, infections, yeast overgrowth, cysts, diabetes, eye problems, digestive disorders, ulcers, liver diseases, hemorrhoids, high blood pressure, kidney stones and stroke, to name a few.

Its use is most beneficial if treatments are applied both internally and externally. It contains over 200 nutrients, including the vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, C, E, Folic acid, iron, calcium, magnesium, zinc, manganese, copper, barium, sulphate, 18 amino acids, important enzymes, glycosides, polysaccharides, etc.

There are an estimated 500 published independent research studies conducted by doctors and scientists on the healing agent found in the aloe vera plant and it’s non-toxic benefits. That is many more studies than one would find on any other natural substance, and hundreds of times the confirmation of safety and effectiveness of any drug available.

A word of caution: watch out for the frauds:

Since the consumer market has created a great demand for aloe vera juice, production is increasing rapidly. Unfortunately, many brands contain inadequate amounts of the plant juice to be effective. According to the law, if you take a 10,000-gallon vat and put 9,999 gallons of water in it and then add one gallon of aloe vera juice, you are allowed to advertise that it contains ’100 percent pure stabilized aloe vera’. You are not required to mention how much extra water has been added to the 100 percent aloe vera juice. Hence many people are disappointed because they do not receive the acclaimed benefits. Before using any brand it is good to check out the exact table of contents as mentioned in a company’s brochure or better ask the company to give you the exact figures of contents.

Also, don’t be tempted to buy the cheapest aloe juice for it is expensive. If you are not getting any benefits from it, you may have chosen the wrong product. Try other brands until you are satisfied. Tests have shown that less than one percent of readily available brands contain acceptable levels of aloe vera to be of any medicinal value. From the over 1,000 brands of aloe vera available on the market today, some hardly have a trace of the plant extract in them. Their labels contain such phrases ‘it tastes like mineral water’ and ‘no additives or preservatives’. Chemical analysis reveals that these ‘products’ contain almost nothing but plain mineral water.

The good news is that more and more people have begun to see through the fraud business; hence, many other companies are now also introducing the real thing.

There is an excellent new aloe vera product in powdered form, which dissolves in water; it is thus more convenient than having to buy the bottled juice. It is completely free of additives.

Please Note: With regular drinking of aloe vera, diabetics may improve the ability of the pancreas to produce more of its own insulin. Since too much insulin is dangerous, diabetics should consult their physician to monitor their need for extra insulin. Many diabetics report a reduction in the amount of insulin required. Also if you experience diarrhea or intestinal cramping for more than two to three days, discontinue. This is due to irritants the plant contains. Instead, you may choose a product that has all irritants removed.

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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page

The Benefits Of Ghee And How To Prepare It

Posted on December 8, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

The Benefits of Ghee

Ghee is clarified butter. Although it is prepared completely from butter, its properties, according to Ayurveda, are very different from butter itself. Once of the most obvious differences is that all of the milk protein has been removed. Ghee is pure fat with none of the impurities that may be found in butter. Unlike butter, ghee contains no bacteria and it is not prone to turning rancid, even after storing it for several months outside the refrigerator.

In many cases, ghee is recommended in the diet. It is particularly useful for the Pitta constitution; it helps to digest and absorb food better and makes food tastier, although not everyone will agree. Its benefit lies in the fact that it stimulates AGNI without upsetting Pitta dosha. Also, Vata and even Kapha types benefit from ghee. Unless you have access to an Indian health food store that sells ghee, you will have to prepare it yourself, using the following recipe.

How To Prepare Ghee at home

Place any amount of unsalted butter in a deep porcelain, Pyrex or stainless steel pan over medium-low heat. (Be sure that the butter does not scorch while melting) Allow complete melting to occur, and then reduce the heat to low.
During the next 30-40 minutes, the water in the butter will boil away. (Approximately 20 percent of butter is composed of water) Milk solids will appear on the surface of the liquid and at the bottom of the pan.
Be alert to remove the liquid from the heat as the milk solids turn golden brown on the bottom of the pan. Otherwise, the ghee may burn. At this point, you may notice that the ghee smells like popcorn, and you can see tiny bubbles rising from the bottom.
Strain it while still hot or warm, pouring it through a cotton cloth into a stainless steel or heavy glass container. At this point it is very hot, so you should always be cautious. Another way of doing this is to let the ghee cool down, and then strain it by pouring it through a cotton cloth or a handkerchief directly into clean glass jars or bowls.
Ghee can be stored at room temperature for several weeks, and it keeps indefinitely when kept in the refrigerator. Put a teaspoonful (per person) into food or on food after cooking it. Ghee can be used in the same way as cooking oil, in place of butter, or as a digestive aid dripped over food.

Note: Caution should always be observed when handling hot liquids. Ghee should never be left unattended during the heating process.

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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page

Exercise Yourself to Health

Posted on December 8, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

The Purpose of Exercising:

Under normal circumstances, exercising one’s body would not be necessary. Man, like every other animal, was meant to live in nature, have plenty of fresh air, and be involved in enough physical activity to keep the body fit and vital. Technological and economic advancements, however, have led to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, which requires physical exercise to keep our bodies healthy and strong.

The purpose of physical exercise is not just to prove to ourselves that we are able to defy the aging process, look good, or prevent a heart attack. Exercise also enhances our capacity to digest food and eliminate physical and emotional impurities. Furthermore, it increases firmness and suppleness, as well as our ability to deal with stressful situations. The lymphatic system, especially, which drains toxic and noxious substances from the connective tissues of the organs and muscles, depends on the daily movement of all the parts of the body. Unlike the blood, which has a heart to circulate it around the body, the lymph fluid has no such direct pumping device to do the same. The lymphatic system heavily relies on the breathing mechanism and how well we use it. When the muscle responsible for the breathing action of the lungs (diaphragm) extends into the abdomen, it exerts great pressure on the intestinal lymph vessels, thereby squeezing their contents. This forces the lymph to move through the lymph ducts, such as the thoracic duct. Thus, each inhalation and exhalation acts as an indirect pump for the lymphatic system. Shallow breathing that results from a sedentary lifestyle (and intestinal congestion) has a detrimental effect on proper lymph drainage. Exercise can greatly improve lymphatic functions and thereby prevent a multitude of diseases.

Physical exercise is a great immune-stimulant if done in moderation, and it also improves neuromuscular integration in all age groups. Its effect of boosting self-confidence and self-esteem stems, to some extent, from the improved oxygen supply to the cells and the resulting well-being in all parts of the body and mind. Exercise is an excellent means of increasing happiness in life, especially if it involves challenges that require creativity.

The conventional approach to exercise promotes the belief that a good workout takes you to the limits of your endurance, leaving you exhausted and tired. This is not true. Exercise that exhausts your body is an indirect act of violence that the body perceives as a kind of punishment for not performing well enough. The pain that shows in people’s faces when they struggle through a tough workout program is an indication that the body is suffering from overexertion. This sort of exercise defeats its purpose. Any form of strong physical exertion upsets Vataand causes the secretion of abnormal amounts of stress hormones such as adrenaline; this leaves the body restless and shaky. The body, thus depleted of energy, is unable to do the repair work that arises from the demanding workout, leaving the cardiovascular system weak and vulnerable to other stress factors.

Post-exercise exhaustion is a serious cause of illness that affects many unsuspecting people who think they are doing themselves a favor by pushing their bodies to the limit. In the excitement of competitive sports, you may not be aware at first how strenuously you are exerting yourself, but once the adrenaline rush is over, the side effects start kicking in. Besides exhaustion and possible injury, professional athletes are more likely to suffer from a deficient immune system, which makes the body prone to infections and other ailments. For this reason, athletes consume a much larger quantity of prescribed drugs than the average person does. The thymus gland, which activates lymphocytes and controls energy supplies, may actually shrink in size and leave the body weak and debilitated as a direct result of over conditioning the body and stressing the mind.

Exercise According to the Doshas:

Exercise is best done according to one’s capacity and psycho-physiological body type.

A Vata type, who has the lowest capacity for exercise, benefits mostly from such easy ways of keeping fit as walking, dancing, bicycling, taking short hikes, balancing and stretching. Vatas generally do well with Yoga, Tai Chi, and Chi Kung. Since Vata types experience energy in bursts, they should be particularly careful not to overexert themselves. When their energy suddenly drops, they can feel depleted for a long time afterward. This often results in depression.

Pitta types, being competitive by nature, are equipped with more drive and energy than Vatas. They generally are not satisfied with the more ordinary forms of working out. To achieve physical satisfaction, they need a more goal-oriented exercise program. However, they also do not have boundless energy and are better off exercising in moderation.Pittas feel challenged by hiking in the mountains, skiing, jogging, swimming, playing tennis or engaging in other sports that generate in them a sense of achievement.

In sports, you can easily recognize the unbalanced Pitta types. They are often bad losers and may get angry if they feel they are ‘not good enough’. Pittas who get angry while performing should look for a less competitive exercise program to increase their level of satisfaction. Since excessive heat is a sign of unbalanced Pitta, swimming, which has a cooling influence, is one of the best forms of exercise for them. A walk in the cool forest is another excellent way to pacify an unbalanced Pitta type.

Kapha types are the ideal candidates for a good or moderately heavy workout. Weight training, running, rowing, some aerobics, long distance bicycling, dancing for a long time, playing football, basketball and tennis are all very suitable for a Kapha. The Kapha type’s steady energy gives him the necessary endurance and stamina to last through long competitive games without feeling tired. Exercise will clear out any excessive Kapha congestion, remove excessive water and fat, and improve general circulation. This will leave him feeling refreshed and buoyant afterward.

Basic Guidelines for Healthy Exercise:

It is best not to exercise at more than 50 percent of your capacity, whatever that means to you. The purpose of exercising is not to prove to others how capable you are, but to derive personal benefit and satisfaction from it. If you are able to run for 30 minutes before you are tired, then make the choice to run for only 15 minutes. Getting tired during exercise defeats its very purpose. Feeling refreshed, revitalized and energetic afterward indicates that the workout has been successful. In due time, your capacity for exercise will naturally increase on its own.

Stop exercising when you feel the need to breathe through the mouth. Once you are forced to breathe through the mouth, rather than through the nose, you have gone beyond the 50 percent threshold of your capacity for exercise at that time. This is a sign that your body has moved into the adrenaline-breathing mode, which uses up your basic energy reserves and depletes cellular oxygen. You have reached your limit when you feel your heart pounding violently, you begin to sweat profusely, or your body shakes. In that case it is good to finish off with a short period of walking and breathing normally. The basic rule is always to breathe through the nose and not through the mouth. Exercise to the point of perspiration once a day.

You need good, strong muscles to meet the typical demands of the day, such as climbing stairs, carrying groceries, picking up young children, cleaning your home, riding horseback, swimming in a lake, going for a hike or bike ride, or performing other natural activities, without being at risk for injury. The best way to increase muscle tone and strength is to quickly raise heart and muscle activity to the point of panting, followed by a period of low activity (called ‘active recovery’). One to two-minute intervals (of activity and rest) are ideal. Doing this for 10-20 minutes per day has more benefits than engaging in hours of strenuous exercise. Besides, it increases muscle tone, lung capacity and heart health. During the panting phases, the body uses up its complex sugar reserves in the muscles. For those who desire weight loss, this method causes you to lose weight after exercising, as the body tries to replenish its lost sugar reserves by breaking down fat deposits while you are resting. Weight loss achieved during strenuous endurance exercise programs, on the other hand, tends to be reversed because the body tries to quickly replenish the lost fat deposits in order to prepare itself for the next energy-depleting round of exercise. The body perceives the strenuous exercise as a threat. Vata and Pitta types are those who are affected most negatively by strenuous exercise. Pure Kapha types are the only people who can benefit from it.

It is best to exercise during daylight hours. The best capacity for exercise is available during the Kapha period in the morning (6:00-10:00 a.m.) and at the end of the Vata period in the afternoon (5:00-6:00 p.m.). The benefits of exercise increase dramatically when it is done in sunlight.

Ayurveda discourages exercising after sundown. Allow the body to slow down in the evening and prepare itself for a restful and rejuvenating sleep. Never exercise just before or after a meal, as this impairs AGNI, the digestive fire, and causes indigestion. However, walking for 15 minutes after meals works as a good digestive aid. Always drink water before and after exercising to prevent the blood from thickening and the cells from becoming dehydrated.

A note of caution about aerobic exercise:

The medical journal, Lancet, reported that aerobic exercise can cause deadly arterial clogging and heart disease in those who had never before had heart trouble. According to The American Journal of Cardiology, jogging has similarly caused some runners to drop dead from heart attacks. Their autopsies show severe coronary artery disease. Any regular, strenuous form of exercise actually does about as much damage to your heart as continuous stress does. The heart literally comes under constant attack via the excessive exercise sessions. Marathon runners are known to lose muscle mass, both in the heart and the rest of the body. Many have dropped dead just after reaching the finishing line. Short distance sprinters, on the other hand, develop healthy muscles and strong hearts.

Vigorous weight training can be equally damaging. It leads to abnormally enlarged, bloated muscle fibers that actually become dysfunctional and prone to injuries. Oversized muscles constantly use up a lot of precious energy (complex sugar reserves), energy that your body requires for its more important activities. Weight training also adds excessive muscle tissue to parts of the body where it was never designed to be, thus hindering natural patterns of movement. Lifting heavy weights can also raise your blood pressure and increase the risk of strokes and aneurysms. By nature, the human body was not made to deal with the additional gravitational force imposed upon it while lifting heavy weights. Frequently stressing the joints, muscles and tendons causes them to age prematurely. Excessive weight training can cause permanent damage to the body.

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Eat Sensible, Stay Healthy

Posted on December 8, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

It is best to avoid heavy, oily and fried food; aged cheeses; yogurt; onion and garlic, especially uncooked; highly processed and refined foods; fizzy drinks, alcohol, coffee, regular tea; artificial sweeteners; and commercial sugar.

Try to include one or two pieces of fresh fruit per day in your diet. If you use fruit juice, make sure it is freshly prepared and not older than one hour (best diluted with water). Packaged fruit juices are pasteurized, which makes them acid-forming, deprives them of natural enzymes, and depletes the body of important minerals and vitamins. Many brands contain artificial sweeteners, which dehydrate the body and may damage the brain, nervous system and immune system. It is preferable to eat one kind of fruit at a time.

Fruit or fruit juices should always be taken on an empty stomach. Since fruit leaves the stomach within 20-40 minutes without requiring any stomach action, it is important not to eat them with other foods; doing so leads to fermentation, bloating, and even diarrhea. The best times to eat fruit are mid-morning and mid-afternoon, or for breakfast with nothing else.

For optimal digestion, fruit should preferably be consumed when it is in season. When picked too early, they have not reached their natural ripening stage and lack most vitamins and important sugars. They may also irritate the intestinal walls due to their high concentration of antibodies (acting as antigens in the body) and enzyme inhibitors (highly toxic). Once fully sun-ripened, the fruits’ toxins become neutralized. If you find that you have trouble digesting fruit, the reason could most often be that the fruit has been harvested too early.

Since they have a cooling influence, you may want to eat fruits more often during the summer months. They are less suitable during the cold season when we need more warming foods.

The best types of fruit are the ones that grow naturally in your environment. To properly digest fruit from another country, we require different digestive enzymes. We can only produce these enzymes if we have lived there for some time and our bodies have adapted to that new environment.

You may eat soaked dried fruit such as sultanas, figs, dates or prunes, either for breakfast (without other foods) or as a snack like other fruit. ‘Muscle test’ which ones are the most suitable for you! Dried fruits contain enzyme inhibitors, which can make them gas-forming and constipating. Soaking them overnight or for at least a few hours breaks down these natural chemicals and makes them more easily digestible.

Eat 8-12 almonds on a daily basis. This provides vital nutrients to the cells of the body, and particularly to the eyes and bones. Remove the skin by placing the almonds in boiled water for 15-20 minutes. The skins will easily slip off. Soaking them overnight increases their digestibility.

Note: The skin contains harmful acids used to protect the nut from insect attack and fungus. These acids may cause some irritation, or even allergies, in some sensitive individuals.

It is best to avoid leftover foods, with the exception of rice and beans, which you may keep for a day or two and then reheat. Research has shown there are more destructive bacteria in Grandma’s reheated soup than on a month-old kitchen sink sponge. With regard to vegetables, the active life force (Prana or Chi energy) and important enzymes and vitamins dissipate after one hour of cooking them. Frozen food is void of the life force, and thus has diminished nutrient-absorption. Fruit should be eaten only fresh. Microwaves used to cook food cause total disintegration of the food’s molecular structure and destroy its life force. Without its life force, food cannot be digested and assimilated properly.

For deep tissue-cleansing, drink hot (ionized) water frequently: Boil water for 15-20 minutes. Keep it in a thermos flask. Every half hour, take 1-2 sips or more according to your thirst. To have a cleansing effect, the water must be boiled this long and be taken as hot as you would take tea. You may put a small piece of fresh ginger in the flask to improve taste. By boiling the water continuously for at least 15 minutes, large numbers of negatively charged oxygen ions are generated. When ingested by taking frequent sips of this water throughout the day, these negatively charged ions systematically begin to cleanse the tissues of the body and help rid them of positively charged ions – those associated with high acidity and toxins. If you have excessive body weight, this cleansing method can help you shed many pounds of body-waste without any major undesirable side effects. It can be used for any health issue related to congestion in any part of the body.

Avoid ice-cold foods or beverages as they can ‘extinguish’ AGNI, the digestive fire, for many hours. They may also damage the nerve endings of the stomach. A hand, held in icy water, becomes numb. Similarly, cold drinks or food items cause the stomach cells to contract and prevent them from secreting the required amounts of digestive juices. They also make the stomach insensitive to potentially harmful foods or beverages, and effectively disrupt its communication and potential warning signals to the brain. In addition, digestive enzymes require a very specific temperature to operate optimally. By cooling down the enzymes’ environment, their digestive and anti-cancer properties begin to diminish, too, predisposing a person to excessive weight gain and even cancer. Also, the sudden cold influence, as caused, for example, by ice cream or iced beverages, forces the body to increase its internal heat generation in order to compensate for the harmful drop in temperature. This response wastes the body’s energy reserves and may make it feel even hotter and thirstier than before, particularly during the summer period. Foods and beverages that are of room temperature or warm are the most suitable and natural ones for the human body.

Use the spices appropriate for your body type generously. You will find them listed in Ayurvedic food charts. Spices not only enhance the flavor of food, but also contain vital nutrients and aromas that help with the digestion and metabolism of food. People who suffer from low metabolism (mainly Kapha types) can speed up their metabolic rate by as much as 30 percent by using warming or heating spices in their food. Chili peppers or chili-containing spice mixes should be avoided, though, as they affect the chest and cause mucus irritation in the stomach and intestines. If you like food to be hot and spicy, cayenne pepper is the best option.

If available, drink 2 to 4 ounces of freshly prepared carrot juice before lunch. Note: Pitta types should do the muscle test for carrot juice before attempting this regimen, since carrots can increase Pitta.

For one day per week or month, you may want try taking only a liquid diet (soups, freshly made juices, water, herbal teas, ionized water, etc.). Then gradually build up to a normal diet again. This may greatly relieve the digestive system of its daily workload and improve its ability to remove any accumulated toxic waste. Women benefit greatly if they have a ‘liquid day’ about one or two days before the onset of menstruation: this can help to make the menstrual period more comfortable and effective.

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Green Tea – A Tea for Life

Posted on December 8, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

For more than thirty years, Western researchers have known that the occurrence of solid tumor cancers is far less in countries where populations consume large amounts of green tea. Cultures that are endowed with a long tea tradition have much to contribute to individual and global health. However, this applies only to green tea. Regular black tea, presently very popular almost everywhere, has not much to do with real tea. Real tea is derived from the tea plant Thea sinensis or Thea asoncica, not to be confused with herb teas such as peppermint, chamomile or fennel.

Both black and green teas originate from the same tea plant, but their methods of processing are different. The breaking of the leaves of the plants and exposing them to the oxygen of the air produces black tea. The resulting natural fermentation process destroys the most important biological ingredients of the tea – the tannins. By contrast, during the production of green tea, the leaves are stabilized through exposure to both humid and dry heat. This eliminates fermentation-producing enzymes and safeguards the nutrients.

Due to fermentation, black tea assumes drug-like qualities. Since tannins and other important nutrients are no longer present in the tea, its caffeine appears in free and unbound form. The stimulating effect of the quickly released caffeine causes the addictive effect of black tea. It triggers a ‘fight or flight’ response in the body. Since the body treats the ingested caffeine as a nerve toxin, the adrenal glands naturally respond by secreting the antidote adrenaline. This defense response by the body has a stimulating and enlivening effect. However, as the effects of the caffeine and adrenaline diminish, the body starts feeling tired and may end up exhausted.

Green tea works in a different way. The large amounts of tannins in green tea make certain that the caffeine is taken to the brain in only small and well-dosed amounts, which actually harmonizes the energies in the body. Unlike black tea, the original green version of the tea makes the body’s own energy-use more efficient. This helps the consumer of green tea improve his vitality and stamina without having to experience the ‘up and down’ effect so often accompanied with the consumption of black tea.

The value of tannin has been studied for centuries all over the world. Besides its ability to bind caffeine, it also has healing properties. Green tea is particularly helpful with intestinal disorders and high blood pressure. It has been shown to be 20 times more effective in slowing the aging process than vitamin E. Studies have demonstrated that the success rate of green tea in reducing oxidants in the body (considered responsible for aging) is 74 percent compared to 4 percent with vitamin E. The vitamin C content of green tea is four times higher than in lemon juice and it contains more B-vitamins than any other known plant. This makes green tea useful for facial skin conditions such as rosacea/acne. Apart from drinking green tea, you may apply it directly to the skin before bedtime and after washing your face in the morning.

Since green tea is highly alkaline it naturally helps combat hyperacidity. People who drink green tea also suffer less from arteriosclerosis. It also keeps the blood thin and prevents coronary heart disease, heart attacks and strokes. Furthermore, researchers from the University of Osaka, Japan, have been able to prove that green tea kills microbes responsible for cholera and tooth decay; it also destroys salmonella germs before they even have the chance to enter the stomach. A substance called ‘EGCG’ has been found to retard tumor growth. The Botikin Hospital in Moscow reported that green tea is more effective against infection than antibiotics, without producing any harmful side effects.

Green tea has over 100 ingredients that have been found useful for a number of conditions, it inhibits cell mutations leading to cancer, reduces blood fats, balances serum cholesterol levels, prevents high blood pressure, increases heart efficiency, improves brain functions, enhances metabolism, improves vision, supports secretion of saliva, increases growth of hair, reduces body fat and weight, stimulates digestion and helps clear urinary tract obstructions.

In a study testing the preventative action of green tea, a team of researchers from the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California (U.S.C.) found that green tea prevented breast cancer in women by 30 percent if they consumed about half a cup per day. If they drank more than that, their risk of developing breast cancer was further reduced. Women who regularly drank black tea, on the other hand, didn’t have a reduction in their breast cancer risk. The good news is that this study revealed that you don’t need to drink buckets full of green tea to benefit from it.

The best green tea comes from the Shizuoka area in Japan; it grows organically and has no additives. People living in this area have a much lower cancer rate than those living in other areas of Japan. A reliable brand is Sencha sold by Kurimoto Trading Co., Japan. With over 130 ingredients, it is the richest of all green teas. Other brands are Ocha or Bancha; you should be able to find at least one of them at a good health food store.

Note: The effectiveness of green tea depends on how you prepare it. Take 1½ teaspoons of green tea for 2 cups of tea. Bring water to a boil and turn the heat off. Put the tea into a pot and pour the boiled water over the tea as soon as the water has stopped bubbling. After no longer than 35-45 seconds, pour the tea through a sieve into a teapot, otherwise the tea loses much of its effectiveness. You may use the same leaves a second time by applying the same procedure.

Does Green Tea Contain Toxins?

Some web sites on the Internet claim that tea is very high in fluoride content. Fluoride in tea is supposedly much higher than the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) set for fluoride in drinking water. Another site confirms that information, adding that the typical cup of tea exceeds one milligram of fluoride, which is well over the recommended amount for fluoridated drinking water. On yet another site, it says that fluorine and its compounds in food are entirely different from chemically-produced sodium fluoride. It states that once an element is extracted from the soil and incorporated into plant life, its properties change greatly. All this can be greatly confusing for those concerned about fluoride poisoning.

Yes, fluoride is found in tea and also in mother’s milk. This applies also to areas where there is no fluoride in the drinking water or air. Numerous plants contain naturally occurring fluorine or fluoride compounds. The hideous version of fluoride that is added to drinking water in so many parts of the world is the poison we ought to protect ourselves against. “Fluoride, once touted as an osteoporosis treatment, is, in fact, toxic to bone cells,” says John R. Lee M.D. Thankfully, the American Dental Association, which has for many years been one of fluoride’s biggest advocates, changed course when it alerted its members in 2006 that parents of infants younger than a year old “should consider using water that has no or low levels of fluoride” when mixing baby formula.

If the naturally occurring fluoride in green tea were even remotely toxic (like the fluoride added to drinking water), it would not have shown to have such a wide range of preventive and curative effects. The body’s immune system would reactively respond to it and become weakened in the process, yet quite the opposite is true. Green tea inhibits cell mutation, stimulates digestion and enhances brain functions. Synthetic fluoride has the exact opposite effects.

The fluoride – or fluorine – that occurs naturally in tea and other foods is so volatile that most of it evaporates in the heating process. The synthetic sodium fluoride added to water, on the other hand, remains stable when heated. So the sodium fluoride in your cup of tea is of much greater concern than the natural fluoride in the tea itself. Excessive fluoride intake can lead to hyperthyroidism. If you have been diagnosed with this disorder you should consult with a doctor of Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine or an ND (doctor of naturopathic medicine) who is knowledgeable about nutrition and its effects on the body’s endocrine glands.

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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page

The Bitter Truth – Sweeteners Cause Obesity, Depression, Brain Damage, Etc

Posted on December 8, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

Sugar is known to ‘improve’ moods for relatively short periods of time. With the help of insulin, sugar increases the secretion of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is the neurotransmitter of happiness. If insulin secretion fails to occur, happiness remains low. The only way to get out of this situation, it seems, is to eat sugar so that the body can secrete insulin again.

You may believe that the fewer calories you eat, the more weight you will lose. But food manufactures know that the more artificially sweetened foods and beverages you consume, the more you will want their normal sugar-containing foods and beverages as well.

Diet foods and diet beverages have not only contributed to a massive increase in sugar consumption and obesity but also led to an epidemic of depression. I have seen numerous depressed people over the years, a large percentage of whom regularly used artificial sweeteners. By cutting out diet foods and ‘light’ products, they have returned to their normal moods, and they have lost excess weight, too.

Apart from causing obesity and depression, sweeteners have been linked to insomnia, headaches, giddiness, loss of memory, nausea, pre-menstrual syndrome, panic attacks, epileptic fits, and even overstimulation of breast glands leading to breast cancer. Aspartame in particular may cause extensive damage to the central nervous system. Once it has entered the intestinal tract, aspartame is converted into two highly excitatory neurotransmitter amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalinine, as well as into methyl alcohol (wood-grain alcohol) and formaldehyde (embalming fluid). Wood alcohol is one of the most dangerous substances that result from eating artificial sweeteners.

It may directly enter the bloodstream and move through the brain barrier into the central nervous system where it can influence the neurotransmitters, alter brain function, and cause brain damage. Wood alcohol can cause blindness and formaldehyde can cause cancer. In some cases, aspartame may suppress appetite and ‘kill’ AGNI, the digestive fire, altogether. Both can lead to quick, excessive weight gain. According toConsumer Reports, aspartame has a shelf life of between two and three months. After that, it begins to break down and pose an increasing danger to the consumer. The same occurs when aspartame or an aspartame-containing food is heated.

Aspartame accounts for more than 75 percent of the total adverse reactions to food reported to the U.S. Federal Drug Administration. Hundreds of airline pilots have reported symptoms of memory loss and confusion, headaches, seizures, visual disturbances and gastrointestinal reactions as a result of consuming sweeteners. If pregnant women consume large quantities of diet sodas to avoid weight gain, their placenta may accumulate methyl alcohol, causing mental retardation in the fetus. They also risk maternal malnutrition because of the gastrointestinal problems and diarrhea associated with sweeteners.

Other sweeteners besides aspartame have similar effects. Added to soft drinks, they are now even linked with testicular damage and other key areas of the body. Stimulating the brain of a child with these ‘pleasure-enhancing’ chemicals in beverages will, in some cases, program their senses to look for and use stronger addictive substances such as hard drugs or large amounts of alcohol later in life. The latest sweetener, acesulfame K, may also be carcinogenic, i.e., cause cancer, according a report published in the British Medical Journal in 1996. To avoid serious health problems, it is best to stick to foods and beverages that come from purely natural sources.

A sugar called tagatose is one of the next sweeteners that will be appearing on products labeled under the pseudo-hygienic appellations of ‘Light’, ‘Lite’, ‘Low Calorie’, ‘Sugar Free’, ‘Sugarless’, ‘Low Fat’, or ‘Low Sodium,’ etc.

Hyperuricemia is an unhealthy and unacceptable result from ingesting tagatose. Some researchers believe hyperuricemia is a risk factor for ischemic heart disease, and it has been associated with lipid abnormalities, hypertension, stroke, and preeclampsia. It is an especially hazardous effect with regards to diabetes because hyperuricemia is damaging to the pancreas as well as possibly causing major harm to other organs and systems in the body. Having too much uric acid in the blood predisposes you to developing gout, a painful joint condition.

If you wish to protect yourself and your family from the dreadful consequences of universal deceit and actually benefit from the foods you eat, start with fruit, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes. And be sure to prepare your foods from scratch.

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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page

Microwave Cooking – The Risks and Hazards

Posted on December 8, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

Microwave cooking technology was originally developed in Nazi Germany in the early 1940s. The motivation for the development related to logistics of the war effort. If food for troops being deployed to distant locations could be cooked easily and quickly with microwave energy, it would eliminate the need to transport fuels needed for conventional ovens.

At the conclusion of the war, both the Russians and the Americans obtained microwave cooking equipment along with data from tests that had been conducted by the Germans. In Russia, extensive testing related to microwave cooking began about 1957. As the tests ensued, the mounting volumes of data related to the negative impact on human health were so disturbing that in 1974 Russia banned the use of microwaves for cooking in that country, and issued an international warning about its dangers. The April 1992 Journal of Pediatrics reported that researchers at the Stanford University Medical Center discovered significant changes in human breast milk that was microwaved just enough to warm it. The changes included the destruction of 98% of its immunogloban-A antibodies and 96% of its liposome activity, which inhibits bacterial infections.

Dr. Lita Lee, of Hawaii, reported in the December 9, 1989 issue of Lancet: “Microwaving baby formulas converted certain trans-amino acids into their synthetic cis-isomers. Synthetic isomers, whether cis-amino acids or trans-fatty acids, are not biologically active. Further, one of the amino acids, L-proline, was converted to its d-isomer, which is known to be neurotoxic (poisonous to the nervous system) and nephrotoxic (poisonous to the kidneys). It’s bad enough that many babies are not nursed, but now they are given fake milk (baby formula) made even more toxic via microwaving.”

In 1991 there was a lawsuit in Oklahoma concerning a woman who had undergone a routine hip surgery. After the surgery, a blood transfusion was administered to her. Blood for transfusions is routinely warmed, but not in microwave ovens. In this particular case however, the nurse, unaware of the risks, did warm the blood in a microwave oven. The patient died 90 minutes after the transfusion. It seems obvious from this case that microwave ovens are doing something to substances other than warming them.

The concerns related to microwave cooking fall into 4 categories:

The effects of microwave radiation on people who are in the vicinity of the microwave oven while it is being used
The potential negative impact on the nutritional value of food that has been cooked in a microwave oven
The potential of carcinogens and other health-endangering agents being created within the food as a result of being bombarded by microwave energy
The effects on human health as a result of eating food that has been cooked in a microwave oven

Microwave Radiation

The dangers of microwave radiation are well known. The hazards first became apparent in conjunction with the development and use of radar, which utilizes bursts of microwave radiation at very high power levels. Until the effects were better understood, and appropriate precautions taken for workers in the vicinity of radar systems, microwave radiation resulted in numerous cases of severe illness and even death.

Although radiation standards have been established for the manufacture of microwave ovens, nobody really knows for certain what levels of radiation can be considered ‘safe’. One thing that is known about the harmful effects of microwave radiation is that they are cumulative. So radiation levels that may be relatively ‘safe’ based on infrequent or occasional use, may not be at all safe for someone who uses a microwave oven on a daily basis. There are special dangers for pregnant women. A U.S. government agency has acknowledged that the human fetus is “probably the most sensitive segment of the population potentially exposed to radiation”. Children represent another sensitive segment of the population.

The intensity of microwave radiation varies exponentially according to the distance from the source. The standard established in the U.S. in 1971 for maximum radiation ‘leakage’ from a microwave oven is 1 milliwatt per square centimeter at a distance of 2 inches from the oven surface for new microwave ovens (prior to sale), and 5 milliwatts per square centimeter thereafter. At the 5 milliwatt level, the radiation would be down to 0.05 milliwatts at a distance of 20 inches, and only 0.005 millawatts at a distance of 5 feet. The message here is simple: NEVER stand close to a microwave oven when it is in operation. This is especially important for children.

Unfortunately, microwave ovens tend to be located in kitchens based on convenience, rather than safety. Oftentimes this means they are located at eye level, resulting in the greatest radiation exposure to the head. This is particularly disconcerting in view of the fact that one of the common effects of excessive microwave radiation reported by the Russians is a degeneration of brain circuitry and increased levels of disturbance in alpha-, delta-, and theta-wave signal patterns.

Obviously, the safest alternative is to not even have a microwave oven in your house!

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This is an excerpt from the book SIMPLE STEPS TO TOTAL HEALTH by Andreas Moritz & John Hornecker

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page

Stimulants Make Strong People Weak

Posted on December 8, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

All stimulants are ‘sweet’ when ingested but ‘bitter’ in their effects. You can become addicted to them without even recognizing your dependency. If you are used to drinking a few cups of coffee a day, try this: Go on a ‘coffee fast’, which means having no coffee for an entire day, and observe how you feel as the day progresses. After a few hours you may notice a dull sensation in your head and a feeling of weakness and lack of energy throughout the body. Some people develop headaches in the afternoon; others yawn and feel downcast.

These effects may seem to be due to the absence of coffee in your diet that particular day, but it actually reveals the weakening impact the coffee has been having on your heart.

You may argue, “But drinking coffee is normal; everyone does it.” Most people in the industrialized nations will also fall seriously ill at some stage in their lives. For example, one in every two people in the U.S. will develop cancer at some stage of his or her life. This is now considered to be an almost ‘normal’ experience, too.

Stimulants, as contained in coffee, tea and cigarettes, seem to be welcome and fast-acting substances for those who feel the need for a boost of energy, to wake up their mind or to feel more buoyant and alive. But since these stimulants have no real energy on their own, where is the energy boost coming from? Obviously, the body provides it. Stimulants are nerve toxins that trigger a powerful defense reaction in the body. When you smoke a cigarette or drink a cup of coffee or power beverage, the resulting boost in energy occurs because of this immune response. Therefore, the experienced increase in physical energy is actually an energy loss for the body.

Many people now drink decaffeinated coffee in the belief this protects them against the addictive effects of caffeine. Consumer Reports recently tested cups of decaf coffee ordered six of the most popular coffee shops in the United States. A regular cup of coffee has from 85 to 100 milligrams of caffeine, while decaf coffee has from 5 to 32 milligrams of caffeine (about the same amount contained in 12 ounces of cola). In addition to still getting a significant amount of caffeine, drinking three cups or more of decaffeinated coffee may cause an increase in harmful LDL cholesterol by increasing a specific type of blood fat linked to the metabolic syndrome, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2005.

Decaffeinated coffee is made from more acidic beans than regular coffee. These strong acids have shown to increase the incidence of heartburn, osteoporosis, Glaucoma and rheumatoid arthritis. Decaf coffee can, in fact, quadruple the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis in three months, compared with people who drink regular caffeinated coffee or tea. In other words, if you feel you cannot do without coffee, it is far better to drink a properly brewed cup of real, unprocessed coffee or better still, healthy organic coffee that is made from real coffee beans and infused with ancient mushrooms, but without unpleasant and harmful side effects of regular coffee. It’s more like a relaxing health drink that boosts immunity.

There are other causes of energy depletion, such as overeating or ingesting unnatural foods. Natural food, although it has a stimulating effect, provides balanced doses of physical energy and helps to support all functions in the body. This kind of natural stimulation maintains physiological balance or homeostasis. Eating too much of any kind of food, on the other hand, causes over-stimulation, and so does regular snacking. Excessive sexual activity, overworking, stress and fear also cause continuous over-stimulation. Thus, the body, in an attempt to deal with the increased demands placed upon it, begins to over-secrete its own stimulants. These are the stress hormones adrenalin, cortisol, epinephrine, cortisone, endorphins, prolactin, etc., which are needed to sustain the body’s most essential activities.

Yet, abusing the stress response day after day and thereby wasting the body’s energy resources take their toll on both the body and the mind. One of the undesirable side effects of excessive adrenalin secretion, for example, is a constriction of important blood vessels, including those that supply the intestines. This greatly diminishes the body’s ability to digest food and eliminate harmful waste products. Consequently, destructive bacteria begin to decompose the waste matter while producing powerful toxins. Many of these toxins enter the lymph and blood. Toxins have a strongly stimulating influence on the body, which may drive a person into a mode of hyperactivity. The body’s energy reserves become depleted further, and a toxicity crisis or acute illness becomes unavoidable. The toxicity crisis can weaken the body to such an extent that it is hardly able to perform. Thus, the body allocates energy only to those functions that are absolutely vital.

Given this condition, feeling faint, nauseous or weak is perfectly natural. This helps the body to preserve energy and use it to break down the toxins and eliminate them from the area of congestion. If the energy-depleting causes are discontinued, the body will regain its balance. But if they are not, the body may enter one crisis after another until the person falls seriously ill. Through constant over-stimulation, even a strong and healthy person may eventually become weak, frail and chronically sick.

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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page

Switch To A Vegetarian Diet For A Longer And Healthier Life

Posted on December 8, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

A major study conducted in California revealed that the cancer rate among Mormons, who are known to eat very little meat, was 50 percent lower than that of the normal population. Researchers in an even more comprehensive, carefully controlled study compared 50,000 vegetarians of the religious group, Seventh Day Adventists, with the same number of non-vegetarians of the same age and gender. This study, known as the Oxford Vegetarian Study, produced similar results. The members of the vegetarian group had an astonishingly low rate of cancer of all types, their life expectancy was notably longer, and they suffered significantly less from cardiovascular disease than those in the control group.

Overall, life expectancy ranking of the United States compared with the rest of the world dropped from position 19 in 1999 to position 42 in 2007. The stark increase of obesity and related vascular diseases can be blamed for this trend. And both these chronic conditions are largely caused by the consumption of animal protein. From a historical perspective, the ‘forced’ vegetarianism of the Danes due to the allied blockage of Denmark during World War I, led to a 17 percent reduction of mortality rates in the first year of meat rationing. Norway experienced a similar positive side effect from meat-rationing during the years of World War II (1940-1945). There was an immediate drop in national mortality rates from circulatory diseases during the period of meat shortage. Mortality rates returned to pre-war levels when the population fully resumed meat consumption.

Studies from the University of Belgium that tested endurance, strength and the rate of recovery from physical exhaustion in vegetarians, clearly showed that vegetarians had far superior scores in all three categories. A study at Yale University proved that vegetarians have nearly twice the stamina of meat eaters. Other findings confirmed that during endurance tests, the vegetarians were able to perform two to three times longer than the meat eaters before reaching a point of complete exhaustion. They also needed only one-fifth the time to recover from fatigue after each test than did their meat-eating counterparts.

The common belief that eating meat makes you strong is unfounded and misleading. The super-strong elephant, gorilla, rhinoceros and horse all sustain their great physical strength and stamina by eating only vegetation. Based on present evidence, there is nothing to suggest that meat is beneficial to our health.

The fact that populations like the Eskimos (Inuits) can survive on a meat diet without suffering heart disease is known. However, the Eskimo’s average life span is still not more than 40 years. An important observation has been made relative to the rapid shortening of the average lifetime by Dr. V. E. Levine and Professor C. W. Bauer, of Creighton University, Nebraska, who reported on October 26, 1934: “Due to susceptibility to tuberculosis and other diseases the average life span of the Eskimo of Alaska is only 20 years and their race is doomed to extinction within a few generations unless modern medical science comes to their aid.”

The Masaitribes of East Africa live on mostly cows’ blood and milk, and meat. Their average life span is 60. A typical 45-year-old man looks about 20 to 30 years older. During my many visits to Masai villages in East Africa between 1983 and 2006, I observed that those Masai tribes who have adapted to grow and include fresh vegetables in their diet, look much healthier and don’t age as quickly.

Another major benefit of the vegetarian diet is that, statistically, vegetarians are thinner and healthier. On the average, vegetarians weigh about 20 pounds less than their meat-eating counterparts. According to the U.S. Worldwatch Institute, 1.1 billion people worldwide are underweight, and another 1.1 billion are overweight. In the U.S., 23 percent of adults are obese and 60 percent are overweight. But obesity besets poor countries, too, from Brazil to China. The traditionally ‘lean’ and mostly vegetarian populations in the world are now quickly following in the footsteps of the typically non-vegetarian populations.

Eating meat is becoming increasingly synonymous with a higher standard of living. The country/subcontinent of India, for example, which traditionally has been vegetarian for thousands of years, is rapidly adopting carnivorous eating habits, much to the benefit of that country’s cardiologists and oncologists. (Ayurveda, the traditional medicine of India, was largely responsible for keeping the Indian population vegetarian.) Harvard research has shown that a vegetarian diet also reduces colds and allergies.

Children especially benefit greatly from meat abstinence. Studies show that vegetarian children have better teeth and are afflicted with fewer children’s diseases than non-vegetarian children. They are also less prone to obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes and heart disease.

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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page

Structure Your Life To Honor Your Body’s Natural Cycles And Enhance Your Health And Well-Being

Posted on December 8, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

The biological processes within our bodies are synchronized to the daily planetary cycles of light and darkness. By understanding the nature of these cycles, and adjusting our daily routines accordingly, we can better support our body’s natural biological functions. The ancient science of Ayurveda divides the daily cycles into six 4-hour segments. Even though there are variations in the ratio of light to darkness as the Earth moves through its annual cycle around the Sun, the timing of the body’s internal activities remains relatively consistent throughout the year.

The Six Daily Biological Cycles

6:00 AM to 10:00 AM

The first cycle begins with the ‘birth’ of a new day. Let’s assume that sunrise occurs at 6 am. About an hour before sunrise, nature starts to awaken, becoming increasingly active as the sun rises to higher positions. Likewise, during this first segment of the day, your body is still a bit slow, but gradually gathers strength and stamina.

At around 6 am, the kidney glands secrete the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline to get your body going, similar to a battery starting an engine. This is also the time when the sex hormones in the body reach their peak levels. And, provided your eyes are open to see the natural light of the day, the brain increases its production of the powerful hormone serotonin, which helps you start your day on a positive note.

10:00 AM to 2:00 PM

By 10 am, the energy of the sun begins to increase, reaching its peak levels by about noon. During this 2-hour period, we are at our most alert and cognitive best. At noontime, the digestive energies reach their peak efficiency, and the digestive juices (bile, hydrochloric acid, enzymes, etc.) are profuse and concentrated. For this reason, it is best to eat your main meal of the day between 12 noon and 1 pm. Provided the food you eat is wholesome and nourishing, the digestive process will provide you with the energy and vitality you need during the remainder of the day.

2:00 PM to 6:00 PM

During this period, digestion of the noon meal continues. This segment of the day is conducive to efficient mental performance due to increased nerve cell activity. This makes it a good time to absorb and retain information. Studies conducted at the University of Wales showed that students who had afternoon or early-evening classes performed better in exams than those who had morning classes.

If there have been ongoing problems of poor intestinal absorption and unbalanced metabolism, they would likely become more pronounced at this time. Such an imbalance may manifest as increased irritability, nervousness and cravings for sugary foods or other stimulants such as tea, coffee, soft drinks, chocolate or cigarettes. Most alcoholics will start looking for their first drink during the latter part of this period.

6:00 PM to 10:00 PM

As the energies from the sun begin to fade, the physiological activities of the body such as digestion and metabolism begin to slow down. Those who are in tune with their body cycles usually feel inclined to take it easy with the arrival of the evening hours. For these reasons, it is best to eat only a light dinner, preferably at around 6 pm. This gives your body enough time to digest your food before bedtime. Research has found that the most important digestive enzymes are no longer produced after 8 pm. Eating a meal later in the evening (after 7 pm) will, therefore, not be properly digested and will decompose while it is still in the stomach.

Most people begin to feel sleepy or drowsy between 9 pm and 10 pm. This sleepiness or drowsiness results from the secretion of a natural tranquillizer that the brain makes when it wants you to go to sleep. According to researchers from Harvard Medical School, most of the brain cells are ‘turned off’ during sleep by some chemical signal sent out by a group of cells located in the hypothalamus, which is considered to be the brain’s brain. This ‘turning off the lights’ assists us in going to sleep.

10:00 PM to 2:00 AM

This is a crucial period of time during which most of the body’s energy is used for cleansing, rebuilding and rejuvenating the body. The liver receives most of the energy and conducts an astonishing range of activities. These include the supply of vital nutrients to all parts of the body, breaking down of noxious substances and keeping the blood clean. In addition, the liver cells produce bile at this time, which is needed to digest food, particularly fats, during the following day. Another important function of the liver during this time is to synthesize proteins, which serve as the main building blocks of cells, hormones and blood constituents.

Why Proper Sleep is So Important for You

The liver requires all the energy it can get to fulfill these and many other responsibilities. This can only happen sufficiently, though, if you sleep during this time period. If you use up the night-time energy for eating or for mental and physical activities, the liver is left with too little energy to do its extremely vital work. The kidneys also need energy during this time period to filter the blood plasma, and keep the body fluids balanced and blood pressure normal.

Although the brain makes up merely 2% of our body mass, it normally contains more than 25% of the body’s entire blood supply. However, during this phase of the night, most of the blood located at the back of the brain moves into the liver for purification. If you are mentally or physically active at this time, the liver does not receive enough blood to work with, so it cannot cleanse the blood sufficiently. This results in the accumulation of toxic material in the blood stream. If toxins keep circulating in the blood, they will settle in the interstitial fluid (connective tissues) of organs and systems, thereby raising acidity and damaging them, including the liver itself. High blood toxicity can lead to secretions of stress hormones, brain fog, and injured capillaries, arteries and heart muscles. Most heart disease is the result of a poorly performing liver that is unable to remove all toxic, noxious substances from the blood on a daily basis. If we do not give the liver the energy it needs to conduct the most basic physiological activities, we sow the seeds of illness throughout the body.

Respiration is an important part of the cleansing and rejuvenation process, with a significant percentage of the body’s waste materials being eliminated through the lungs. This underscores the importance of sleeping in a room with ample ventilation.

Sleep can be divided into two main parts – before midnight and after midnight. For adults, the most important processes of purification and renewal occur during the two hours of sleep before midnight. This period involves deep sleep, often referred to as ‘beauty sleep’. It typically lasts for about an hour, from 11 pm to midnight. During this period, you enter a dreamless state of sleep where oxygen consumption in the body drops considerably. This results in profound physical rest and relaxation. The benefit to your body of this single hour of deep sleep is approximately equivalent to that derived during the three hours following midnight, when the oxygen consumption rises again.

Growth factors, commonly known as growth hormones, are secreted profusely during the hour of deep sleep. These powerful hormones are responsible for cellular growth, repair and rejuvenation. People age faster if they don’t produce enough growth hormones. The latest ‘fashion’ in the beauty market is to consume synthetic growth hormones, which create remarkable rejuvenation results, but which also can have devastating side effects, including heart disease and cancer. On the other hand, if the body makes natural growth hormones at the right time and in the correct amounts, as happens during deep sleep, they can help keep the body vital and youthful.

Deep sleep virtually never occurs after midnight and it usually comes only if you go to sleep at least two hours before midnight. If you routinely miss out on deep sleep, your body and mind tend to become overtired. This triggers abnormal stress responses that initiate secretions of stress hormones such as adrenaline, cortisol or cholesterol (yes, cholesterol is a stress hormone that rises with stress!). Once the body’s energy reserves have been depleted, chronic fatigue results. Fatigue can be considered a major contributing factor in today’s health problems.

Doctors at the University of California at San Diego have found that losing a few hours of sleep not only makes you feel tired during the following day, but also can affect the immune system, possibly impairing the body’s ability to fight infection. Since immunity diminishes with tiredness, your body is unable to defend itself against bacteria, microbes and viruses, and cannot cope with the build-up of harmful substances in the body.

2:00 AM to 6:00 AM

The primary focus of the body during this segment of the daily cycle is on moving the body’s waste products from the liver, cells, intestines and other areas of the body towards the organs and systems of detoxification and elimination. The lymphatic system neutralizes harmful microbes, metabolic wastes, cellular debris, worn out cells and cells damaged by disease. The rectum forms fecal matter, which triggers a bowel movement, and the kidneys pass urine to the bladder, which induces urination. The skin also receives waste products that begin to surface at this time; hence, the importance of washing or showering in the morning.

To be able to fully support efficient waste removal, the body needs to be awake and in a vertical position. Therefore, it is preferable to awaken and be out of bed slightly before sunrise. Young children and early teenagers have a slightly different melatonin cycle, and may require an extra hour of sleep in the evening and again in the morning.

Summary

Structuring our daily lives in a way that honors our body’s natural cycles is one of the most important things we can do to enhance our health and well-being. There are inevitably situations that arise in life that necessitate making exceptions to our normal daily cycle. But the more consistently we maintain a regular pattern of living, the better we are able to support our body’s natural processes of health and regeneration.

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This is an excerpt from the book SIMPLE STEPS TO TOTAL HEALTH by Andreas Moritz & John Hornecker

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page

How to Avoid the Negative Effects of Ley Lines

Posted on December 8, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

If you suffer from unexplainable recurring health problems such as headaches, irritability, depression or any other persistent ailment, you may be working or sleeping on or above a ley line. Such lines are a source of potentially harmful ‘slow’ frequency energy.

Slow frequency energies can easily infiltrate and distort the body’s electromagnetic field. Some of these energies are generated outside our home and others originate from within our home or work environment. These include geographic stress points, ley lines and distorted ground energies.

Sleeping on a ley line can be particularly harmful since such a source of energy can disrupt the body’s biochemical processes and energy systems for as many as 8-10 hours each day. Disharmony in relationships and diseases of body and mind are more likely to occur if you are exposed to such disruptive energies for extended periods of time, such as several years. Genetic weaknesses or latent physical problems can suddenly manifest themselves as migraines, ulcers, varicose veins or cancer. Placing a small mirror that faces the current and direction of a ley line or moving the bed away from such a stress line can lead to sudden recovery. The following are some examples of line problems that were resolved by simply moving the bed:

A 55-year-old widow experienced an unexplainable loss of weight from 154 to 97 pounds within two years. She suffered from severe diarrhea, which became very painful and was accompanied with blood. All medical treatments failed. Her condition became life threatening. A search of ley lines in her house revealed two such lines crossing her bed. The bed was moved by six feet. One week later her intestinal bleeding stopped. After one month all pain ceased and she steadily began to put on weight again.

A young woman had been suffering from severe nightmares and sleeping problems for many years. After moving her bed sideways by 1.5 feet, her nightmares stopped and sleep returned to normal.

A 40-year-old businessman had a chronic heart complaint with heart cramping, panic attacks and circulatory problems. All complaints spontaneously disappeared within two weeks after his bed was moved away from a ley line.

Over the past few years I have visited many homes and offices where these lines have caused physical and psychological problems. In most cases, just placing a small mirror to neutralize the effects of a ley line, or slightly moving the bed or office chair, led to marked improvements of these conditions, and in some cases even to complete recovery.

I consider it important to have one’s home or working place checked for such disturbances as they may not only contribute to ill health but also cause it. There are an increasing number of experts who are able to identify the exact position of such lines, although the method of mirror placement is less known. You may contact your nearest center for alternative therapies; they may be able to put you in touch with a reliable and trustworthy ley line specialist. If in doubt, whether or not a ley line affects your health, you may move your bed and/or desk chair by one to two feet for a few days. If this makes a difference in how you feel, you have given yourself a great gift of health.

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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page

Having Body Odor Is A Good Reason NOT To Use Deodorants

Posted on December 8, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

Most people are not aware of why they perspire. Antiperspirants and perfumes have become so much a part of our lives that we rarely think about why we need them or whether we really need them. It may even be more important to find out if they can be harmful to us.

Deodorants and antiperspirants were invented because more and more people began to perspire excessively and develop body odor. It now appears to be the normal thing to do to give the underarms a spray in the morning and forget about this ‘smelly nuisance’ for the rest of the day. But sweating is not a nuisance; it is the body’s natural way of ridding itself of certain waste products and keeping itself cool. Like the bowels, liver, urinary system and lungs, our sweat glands are also meant to help keep the body clean. Why else would we have them?

To make your body sweat once a day even for a few minutes is a good way to stay healthy. Conversely, clogging up the skin’s pores with chemicals (makeup, beauty creams, sun-blocks, antiperspirants, etc.) harms the skin. Trying to prevent the sweat glands from releasing bodily waste is rather like trying to run a car while blocking its exhaust pipe.

Many people today feel that they need chemical products to control their body odor. This is because other eliminative organs, such as the colon, liver, lungs and kidneys, are badly congested, which coerces the body to dump some of the excess toxic waste into the skin. The chemical products block its excretion of toxins through the skin, which may please the nose, but causes a steady buildup of toxins in the skin and underlying connective tissues; it also increases bacterial development and the risk for skin diseases, even skin cancer.

Body odor is not caused by sweat. Sweat is an odorless fluid consisting of 99 percent water. Normal sweat evaporates from the skin very quickly and leaves no unpleasant odor behind. A slightly unpleasant smell under the armpits or on the skin occurs only when your body needs to employ bacteria to eliminate excessive sweat that could not be removed by fresh air, usually because of wearing synthetic clothes that do not permit proper aeration. There can be as many as half a million bacteria occupying a square inch of skin. In addition, when there are excessive amounts of toxins that need to be digested by bacteria, a strong, putrid smell occurs. Destructive microbes naturally produce bad-smelling gases while digesting waste. The odor on the skin may be a sign of constipation accompanied by poor breath. It also indicates poor performance of liver and kidneys. The body is crying out for help as toxins are ‘bursting at the seams’. But instead of reading the body’s symptoms as a sign of imbalance and taking care of it, most people merely search for ways to shut down the symptoms. If body odor occurs only occasionally, it may be due to indigestion or chemicals in foods.

To combat the bacteria most people use deodorants, and to tackle the excessive underarm wetness, they apply antiperspirants. Deodorants contain germicides that kill the microbes and, as is the case with most of the brands, a synthetic perfume to mask the smell of the germicide. The two most common active ingredients in commercial deodorants/antiperspirants are chlorohydrate or aluminum zirconium chlorohydrate. These chemicals react with the protein contained in the sweat and form a gel that partially blocks the sweat glands’ ability to excrete liquid. These chemicals are easily absorbed by the skin. There is increasing evidence that people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease have large amounts of aluminum in their bodies, which may result from the use of deodorants.

Fruits and vegetables naturally synthesize aluminum. This organic, ionic mineral is not only harmless, but also essential for the human body. By contrast, synthetically derived aluminum is highly toxic. The argument by the industry that aluminum can be found almost everywhere in nature is highly misleading because these two types of aluminum have completely opposite effects on the body. The same applies, of course, to almost all minerals and trace elements, including gold, silver, lead, and even arsenic. In their ionic, angstrom-size state (processed by plants), these substances are essential for our bodies, but when taken in their inorganic, metallic forms they can lead to serious poisoning and numerous disorders. Antiperspirants and deodorants are packed with heavy metals and poisonous chemicals. By applying them to your skin they enter the blood and end up accumulating in the liver, kidneys, breast and brain tissue.

These products may not be as damaging to the brain and other parts of the body if all other causes of metal accumulation were excluded. Typically, a person absorbs between 10 and 100 mg of aluminum each day through use of aluminum cookware, antacids, baking soda, and several other sources. And although the reasons for Alzheimer’s disease are ambiguous, research points to aluminum toxicity that may be one of the primary perpetrators.

A natural deodorant stone costs only about $10 and lasts at least two to five years. It works wonderfully and has no nasty side effects. When you check the ingredient list of a deodorant stone, don’t get alarmed when you see the word ‘alum’ written there. Alum isn’t the same thing as aluminum chlorhydrate. Alum is a natural mineral salt, and is unrelated to aluminum chlorohydrate or aluminum zirconium chlorohydrate. The mineral salts in the deodorant stone don’t block perspiration, they mainly just cover odor.

How to effectively deal with body odor:

· Pitta and Pitta-Vata types are the most prone to develop body odor. Follow the Ayurvedic regimen and cleansing procedures. Remove all gallstones from your liver and cleanse your kidneys. Avoid too many acid-forming foods such animal proteins, fats and starches. The more refined and processed the foods are, the more likely the skin will have to eliminate toxic waste. The digestion of toxins by skin bacteria causes an unpleasant smell of skin. Meat eaters especially have a tendency to develop bad body odor. Stick to fruits, vegetables, and salads as your main source of alkaline-forming foods. They also work as natural cleansers.

· Stop using deodorants and antiperspirants; they only reinforce the problem by blocking off part of your lymphatic system and dispersing the toxins together with the chemicals contained in these products into other parts of your body, including the breasts. This can cause lumps and cancer of the breast!

· Wash the afflicted areas in the morning with a natural soap that contains no harmful chemicals and finish off with a splash of cold water on your underarms.

· Make sure to wear loose-fitting cotton clothes. Synthetics will prevent your skin from breathing and eliminating toxins.

· You may want to make a solution of your most favorite essential oil (one to two drops in an ounce of water; shake well to disperse the oil!) and dab it on your underarms.

· I recommend deodorant stones that are made from non-toxic and natural materials such as potassium sulphate and other colloidal minerals. They are pure and harmless and stop bacteria from spreading if applied right after washing. They are available from most health food stores.

A note on colognes or perfumes:

They can lead to serious allergies, birth defects, and even cancer. A major loophole in U.S. Federal law allows fragrance makers to include potentially hazardous chemicals in their products, including the highly toxic phthalates and artificial musk. Most fragrances contain phthalates. They are added to plastic to soften it. When absorbed by the skin, they act as the most powerful estrogens ever known. And abnormal estrogen levels cause cancer. Synthetically produced musk is linked to skin irritation, hormone disruption, and cancer as well. Natural fragrances emitted from aroma oils are beneficial for the body. Synthetic aromas, on the other hand, disrupt hormonal communication, and they accumulate in your body, building up toxicity.

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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page

Simple Rules for Healthy Eating

Posted on December 7, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

The sense of taste is responsible for our enjoyment of food. Weight problems and other physical imbalances are due to loss of enjoyment from food. If we could truly enjoy food, we would never have a weight problem. The following awareness techniques maximize the enjoyment of food, improve digestion and metabolism, and increase energy and vitality:

Whenever you eat or drink anything, however little it may be, make it a rule to sit down. Food can only be digested properly when we eat in the sitting position. To eat while in the lying position impairs blood and lymph flow throughout the gastrointestinal tract, and eating while walking or standing causes indigestion.

When you eat, don’t do anything else such as listening to the radio, watching television, reading or driving a car. A major reason for having taste buds on the tongue is that the brain can receive signals as to what type and quantity of food is entering the digestive system. This enables the body to produce and release sufficient amounts of various enzymes required for the digestion of the food. If we didn’t have such a facility, our digestive system would secrete enzymes indiscriminately which would be a wasteful action the body cannot afford. When we turn our attention to anything else but the food we are eating, our taste buds cannot make sufficient ‘conscious’ contact with the various foods and their tastes. This restricts the release of the appropriate digestive enzymes for each particular taste and reduces AGNI, the digestive fire. It also confuses the body for it will no longer know when the saturation point for a particular type of taste, such as salty or sweet, has been reached. Hence, foods cravings begin to emerge which are linked with insufficiently digested and absorbed foods, as well as with the lack of pleasure hormones, normally secreted when food is eaten with full attention. Since eating is an act of enjoyment, we might as well do it with an undivided mind. As a golden rule, everything we do with joy and attention is beneficial, and everything we do with displeasure and lack of attention generates problems.

Eat only when the stomach is empty, otherwise you interfere with the enjoyment of food. When the stomach is still full or is in the process of digesting food, the taste buds are desensitized to prevent a person from eating. Natural hunger only occurs when the stomach is empty. On the other hand, false hunger or food cravings emerge when the basic natural rules of eating have been violated for a long time and emotional imbalances exist; both these causes override or suppress the normal signals of satiation coming from the stomach and taste buds. The urge to eat food while the stomach is still digesting, is often connected to occurrence of gallstones in the liver and gallbladder and disappears once they have been removed through a series of liver cleanses.

Do not put food into your mouth till the previous bite has gone into the stomach. The process of eating is a unique opportunity to practice mindfulness and patience. By chewing the food until it has been masticated enough to produce a sweet tasting liquid, greatly enhances the enjoyment of food and keeps your attention on the present moment, which is the key to all happiness. Mahatma Gandhi advised people to ‘drink’ their food and ‘eat’ their drinks. Eating and drinking in this way is one of the most powerful methods of overcoming emotional problems in life.

Do not speak while there is still food in the mouth. When you speak while there is food in your mouth, you tend to swallow before it is properly masticated, and you miss out on enjoying your food. It is better to speak only when there is no food left in the mouth. For your first helping, take about two cupped hands full of food. This will fill up two thirds of your stomach; the rest is empty space that is needed to propel the food and mix it with digestive juices. If you are still hungry, wait for five minutes. If the feeling of hunger has not subsided by this time, you may take some more food. Leaving the table slightly hungry is a good method to increase one’s will power, determination and self-confidence. Completely filling the stomach leads to indigestion, dullness, lethargy and food cravings.

Make certain to have all the six tastes of food at least once a day. This can effectively help to reduce food cravings and prevent nutrient deficiencies. Be careful not to eat more than 3-4 main ingredients in one meal at a time or have more than one type of starch or protein in a meal.

Better Taste

There are two methods to improve the performance of our taste buds and to lubricate and sensitize them for greater enjoyment of food:

When your tongue is coated white or yellow, clean it with a tongue scraper or a tablespoon every morning after awakening and every evening before going to bed. This removes sticky AMA (with billions of bacteria) from your taste buds.

Swish 1 or 2 tablespoons of cold pressed and unrefined sunflower or sesame oil in your mouth cavity for 3-4 minutes every morning, and perhaps also in the evening before bedtime. The oil draws and absorbs toxins and microbes from the throat, tonsils, ears, eyes, blood, chest etc. Then spit it out and rinse your mouth with water. When the tongue is clear and the taste buds are unobstructed, we tend not to overeat because the natural satiety level or satisfaction from food is reached more easily. Those who tend to overeat or smoke cigarettes have dull taste buds. They have a ‘high-flavored’ threshold, which means that they need much stronger and more stimulating foods to be satisfied; this may lead to food cravings and substance addictions.

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This is an excerpt from my book IT’S TIME TO COME ALIVE

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyperlink back to the web page

A Balanced Body Can Achieve True Optimal Body Weight

Posted on December 7, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

The principles of good health can be related specifically to body weight. Remember, the two are inseparable. You cannot achieve your true optimal body weight if you are not healthy.

According to the ancient science of Ayurveda, every human being is a complex experience or interplay of three processes – mind, body and spirit. All these three together are an expression of your life force or dosha or Prana.

Your every waking and resting moment is therefore an expression of your dosha according to your body type and state of physical, mental and spiritual well-being.

The human body is traditionally classified into three body types – ectomorph, mesomorph and endomorph. Ayurveda does not define body type according to musculature. Instead, each of the three body types is a combination of the five elements of the universe – air, fire, water, earth, and space. These body types are Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Each individual’s body type is unique to that individual.

We are all born with some of the characteristics of all three types, but in different proportions. It is therefore important to identify your body type to determine what is good for you and what works for your body.

Good health and happiness is a constant quest for equilibrium. This means that your mind, body and spirit must be in harmony with each other. With time, you will be able to tune in to each of these three aspects of being.

Modern lifestyles, especially in the Western world, have taken us so far from our natural state of good health that we accumulate too much baggage inside.

Stress, processed foods, pill-popping and over-stimulating ourselves have placed a burden on all our body, its organs and systems, and they end up clogged, congested polluted and toxic. The result is a body in distress, struggling in vain to find a sense of balance and equilibrium.

When you contrast this with conventional weight-loss procedures, you will notice that what is good for one person isn’t always good for everyone. That is why judging health by common yardsticks doesn’t work very well.

For instance, a particular food or even medical drug impacts differently on different people. One size does not fit all. Diet plans, exercise regimes and weight-loss programs are tailored to broad classifications. They rarely take into account individual differences.

Also, with their focus on losing weight rather than on health and well-being, they tend to ignore the basic principle – that restoring the body, mind and spirit to its natural equilibrium would result in weight loss and a state of vitality and happiness.

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This is an excerpt from my book FEEL GREAT, LOSE WEIGHT

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyperlink back to the web page

Is Fish Really Good for You?

Posted on December 6, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

I advocate avoiding dead and coagulated protein foods, for tests on both wild and farm-raised fish have revealed that their levels of toxic chemicals and metals are endangering the lives of pregnant mothers, developing fetuses and young children. Does this mean it is acceptable for adults to eat fish? Scientists now say that salmon, for example – long considered to be one of the safest of all fish – should be eaten only once per month. We are exposed to numerous other sources of indoor and outdoor pollution almost all the time, not to mention the chemicals contained in most foods today. Our immune system simply cannot afford such high concentrations of toxins as found in fish without developing a toxemia situation.

Specifically, tests on farmed salmon uncovered high levels of toxins linked to cancer and birth defects. These findings recently triggered a ‘scare-mongering’ row as other experts insisted salmon was safe to eat regularly – and important for a healthy diet. A study released in the journal Environmental Science & Technology found much higher levels of some chemicals in farmed salmon compared with wild salmon. The study, which is being considered the most thorough analysis of farmed and wild salmon to date, found in most cases that consuming more than one serving of farmed salmon per month could pose unacceptable cancer risks.

These standards for determining safe fish consumption levels are according to United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Farmed salmon were found to have up to 10 times higher levels of PCBs and dioxins than wild salmon. Farmed salmon are frequently fed antibiotics, which contribute to the growth of drug-resistant bacteria. In addition, chemicals are often added to their food to color their flesh pink to resemble their wild cousins. Otherwise, they would remain an unappetizing grayish-brown color.

Sales have increased up to 15 percent a year as more people eat oily fish to prevent heart attacks, or so they are made to believe. But when samples from around the world – some from stores in London and Edinburgh – were analyzed, it was discovered that levels of 14 ‘organochlorine’ toxins, the most hazardous of which include PCBs, dioxins, dieldrin and toxaphene, were significantly higher in European and North American farm-raised salmon than in fish caught in the wild. According to U.S. and Canadian scientists and reported by the journal Science, fishmeal was traced as the source of most of these poisons. New research shows dioxins to cause breast cancer.

Not just that poisons in fish can cause cancer, they also can cause diabetes. Korean researchers have recently found evidence that people who consume fish containing high levels of persistent organic pesticides (POPs) are more prone to developing insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. POPs are synthetic chemicals that accumulate in the fatty tissue of animals.

While farm-raised catfish, trout, haddock, salmon, flounder and other fish are unsuitable for consumption due to the toxic additives in fishmeal, deep ocean fish are even more harmful than farmed fish due to their excessively high levels of mercury.

Even if fish consumption were shown to prevent heart attacks (for which there is no proof), would it be justified and wise to propagate it as being a healthy food when it is known to cause other chronic or fatal diseases? Eating food that saves one person but kills another is much like gambling with one’s life. You can never really know whether you will win or lose. As always, the final judge is you, the consumer. If in doubt, I suggest that you use Kinesiology muscle testing to determine whether fish is or is not conducive to your health and well-being. Vegetarian foods such as nuts, seeds, chia, avocado, beans, vegetables, have superior health benefits to fish, which is still a cadaver food. Cadavers, especially when their proteins are destroyed (coagulated) through heat, do very little to provide nourishment for the body.

Mercury gets into water primarily through solid-waste incinerators, mines and power plants. Algae typically absorb the mercury and tiny zooplankton animals eat the algae. In turn, small fish eat the zooplankton, and from there the mercury moves up through the aquatic food chain, with the large, deep-ocean fish at the top of the chain carrying the highest mercury concentration. Even waterways that are far away from any ocean, such as the Elkhorn River in Nebraska or the Colorado River in the Western part of the United States, are known to have mercury-contaminated fish. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) issued the following list of high-mercury fish: swordfish, tuna, king mackerel, halibut, sea bass, tilefish, pike, walleye, largemouth bass, white croaker, marlin, shark, and gulf coast oysters.

There are other environmental concerns related to fish farming. For example, presently, over 85 open net cage fish farms operate in the coastal waters of British Columbia, producing waste that is equivalent in volume to the raw sewage released from a city of 500,000 inhabitants. This excessively ‘wasteful’ usage of precious water resources for few or no health benefits is yet another example of how misinformation and vested interest groups control the eating and living habits of the masses today.

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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyperlink back to the web page

Why Some People Age Much Faster Than Others And Why Some Don’t Seem To Age At All

Posted on December 6, 2011 by andreas m

By Andreas Moritz

Aging is a Choice

We are often confronted with a certain view of reality that other people have upheld and adopted before we did.

One of the best examples of how we create our realityis aging. Biological aging, which should not be confused with chronological aging, is a natural phenomenon that will affect every person at some stage in life; at least this is what we have been led to believe. Since everyone repeatedly tells us the same story, we begin to accept the ‘reality’ (of aging) and reinforce it through our personal experiences. So it must be true! But this does not explain why some people age much faster than others and why some do not seem to age at all.

It would be intriguing to find out what really determines our life span. Some of us may live up to 100 years or more without feeling old whereas others might die from ‘old age’ 50 years earlier. The ancient Indian sage Shankara who displayed extraordinary wisdom from the age of 8 saw the process of aging as being deeply rooted in a person’s own belief system. He said: “The only reason why people age and die is because they see other people age and die.” We all have more or less different viewpoints or opinions about the world as such. This may lead to varied perceptions of reality. What is the ‘truth’ for one person may not be relevant at all for another person, yet with regard to the ideas of aging and illness, we seem to agree with each other for we rarely step out of the main paradigm altogether.

To avoid looking for the real cause of decline with age, we prefer to believe in an invisible force that somehow and gradually programs our life to deteriorate according to a numbering system (from years 1-100…). It seems too far fetched for us to accept the idea that we may be causing the aging process ourselves. Do we perhaps give ourselves the (unconscious) permission to age because this lets us off the hook to take responsibility for our own life and that of other people?

Who Ages, Who Doesn’t?

The mind/body connection is at work as long as we live. This is also true in the case of aging. If you believe that your biological age is 60 today because you have had 60 birthdays and that you are soon ready for your pension, then you are likely to be in the process of adjusting your biological age to your psychological one. This means that your biological organism may soon be as old as you believe it should be. When you become aware of the regular automatic ‘servicing’ that renews your body (each year 98 percent of the atoms of your body are turned over) and you are not afraid of aging either, you will find it difficult to age in the negative sense of the word.

People in poor relationships or those living in social isolation, those who create stress and worry in their lives, whose lifestyle (overeating, alcohol, tobacco, drugs etc.) is unnatural, or who have no purpose in life, age fast. Those who put themselves first in everything are also known to be prone to accelerated aging. People who suddenly lose their purpose in life are known to age and die very quickly.

By contrast, individuals who care about their health, who often think how they can be of help to others and the world, and who are in a secure and loving relationship, are known to halt the aging process and maintain their youthfulness. According to research studies, those who meditate regularly at least twice a day for 15-20 minutes can reduce their biological age by 12-15 years within five years. Similar results have been demonstrated among those practicing other forms of relaxation as well as yoga, Tai Chi, Chi Kung etc.

Locusts, too, have a physical body, yet they can live forever if nobody kills them. Their secret is that they change their bodies once a day. We, too, replace our proteins, which are the building blocks of our cells, within 2-10 days. Why should we age, when our ‘replacements’ are as good as the old ones? Locusts do not suffer from stress in their lives, nor do they smoke, watch television, and eat more than they need or count their years of age. What about redwood trees? They can live from 6,000-10,000 years. Trees have no reason to believe that aging is a necessary part of their life.

We believe, however, that it must be different with us humans. It is true; we are not trees or locusts. Yet there is no rational, scientific reason to show that aging is a natural part of human evolution. Even the science of aging has not yet come up with a consistent theory that could explain why we age. Aging should not be confused with death. Nobody dies from old age but from other reasons such as accidents or illness. Aging is usually equated with a loss of vigor, physical strength and mental abilities. Accordingly, everyone who grows in age should be suffering from such or similar debilities. Yet this defies the reality of thousands of old people around the world who remain in good health throughout their lives.

Most people who live very long lives come from the Himalayas, the state of Georgia in the former Soviet Union, The Hunza mountains, Japan, the high Andes and other regions of the world where our idea of aging has not yet penetrated. One of our ‘rules’ of aging suggests that that it is normal to experience a deterioration of your eyesight after the age of 40 or 45. Yet societies who live in such isolated regions of the world as the Abkhazian Mountains of Southern Russia have completely contrary experiences. They are certainly not less human than we are. Abkhazians have their senses of vision and hearing in perfect condition at almost any age. People a hundred and more years old are seen swimming in ice-cold streams and riding on horseback. The elders (70, 80 or more years old) from certain tribes in Northern Mexico can run up to 60 miles a day without any sign of fatigue or exhaustion; they even show lower heart rates after their marathons than before.

These people rarely die from a disease. When their time has come they know it, and without making much of a fuss they experience the end of their lives with a profound sense of peace, accomplishment and fulfillment. Because their social systems honor old age more than any other ‘achievement’ does, they don’t regard death as a form of punishment. For these people, advanced age is synonymous to maturity, wisdom, a wealth of experience and a good reason to become older faster.

For many women in Western societies, menopause represents a mid-life crisis. In some societies of the Far East menopause is very rare and some women are still fertile at age 70. On the other hand, if it occurs early it must not necessarily indicate a physical imbalance or progressed state of aging. Menopause can signal a new phase of living, when maturity, wisdom and love get a chance to reach unprecedented heights. If a woman is convinced that menopause is bad for her or if she is afraid of the mid-life changes, she may indeed experience it as one of the most difficult periods of her life.

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This is an excerpt from my book IT’S TIME TO COME ALIVE

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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyperlink back to the web page