STRESS
A lecturer when explaining stress management to an audience,
Raised a glass of water and asked;
‘How heavy is this glass of water?’
Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.
The lecturer replied, ‘The absolute weight doesn’t matter.
It depends on how long you try to hold it.
If I hold it for a minute, that’s not a problem.
If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm.
If I hold it for a day, you’ll have to call an ambulance.
In each case, it’s the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.’
He continued,
‘And that’s the way it is with stress management.
If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later,
As the burden becomes increasingly heavy,
We won’t be able to carry on. ‘
‘As with the glass of water,
You have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again.
When we’re refreshed, we can carry on with the burden.’
‘So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don’t carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow.
Whatever burdens you’re carrying now,
Let them down for a moment if you can.’
So, my friend, Put down anything that may be a burden to you right now. Don’t pick it up again until after you’ve rested a while.
Here are some great ways of dealing with the burdens of life:
* Accept that some days you’re the pigeon,
And some days you’re the statue.
* Always keep your words soft and sweet,
Just in case you have to eat them.
* Always wear stuff that will make you look good
If you die in the middle of it.
* Drive carefully. It’s not only cars that can be
“Recalled” by their maker.
* If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again,
It was probably worth it.
* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to be kind to others.
* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time,
Because then you won’t have a leg to stand on.
* Nobody cares if you can’t dance well.
Just get up and dance.
* When everything’s coming your way,
You’re in the wrong lane.
* Birthdays are good for you.
The more you have, the longer you live.
* You may be only one person in the world,
But you may also be the world to one person.
* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
* We could learn a lot from crayons… Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
*A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery
Have an awesome day and know that someone has thought about you today…I did :
Are You an Emotional Eater?
“Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.” ~ Robert Gary Lee Many who struggle with weight are sabotaged by emotional eating. They eat when they are happy, they eat when they are sad, and sometimes they just eat because eating feels good. It can be terribly difficult to break this habit because it is usually quite deep rooted. It goes back to childhood when eating “fun” food was associated with birthday parties, holidays and family get-to-gethers. In happy families, mealtimes had positive associations; mom and dad were there and the time may have included humor and affection. These are not, however, the main things that cause emotional eating to persist. The real culprit is food that was used to comfort an upset child. If you hurt yourself, you got a treat. If someone was mean to you and you were upset, it was into the kitchen for a treat. Why does this result in adult emotional eating? It is because food was used to distract the child from the pain, and the pain itself was never dealt with. As a result, the child never learned how to think about or process painful events. Where parents took the time to really explore the child’s feelings about what happened, they could help the child re-frame the event, learn not to take it personally, and know how to deal with similar events in the future. It is comforting for the child to hear these things, and over time they learn to think things through this way. They learn to self-comfort. The adult who never learned this then distracts her/himself with food, and simply buries the pain. Over the years the well of pain becomes deeper and deeper. Every painful experience brings forth the vulnerable child who does not know what to do, so the automatic, often unconscious response is to reach for comfort food. How does one get past this? It is important to first recognize our pattern, and to re-visit the painful experiences of childhood. This can be difficult, which is why it is often done with a trusted therapist. The adult must learn to nurture and support the painful inner child, and then how to process the adult experiences which trigger the old pattern. It can be a complex process, but it has taken a lifetime to develop and take hold. Healing the pain of the past is an essential step in moving forward. Gwen Randall-Young is an author and award-winning Psychotherapist. For permission to reprint this article, or to obtain books or cds, visit http://www.gwen.ca |
Giving Your Child Real, Life-long Survival Skills: Verbal First Aid
OpEdNews
The Magic of Mental Mastery
By Judith Acosta
Part 1 in a 2-Part Series
According to military advisors, survival is a matter of thinking. It’s not just a positive “attitude.” It’s precisely what we say to ourselves that can make the difference between health and illness, life and death.
One true story demonstrates just how much our minds matter:
Lt. Costello (Name and location changed) sat behind a large, conspicuously clean desk at a small Westchester, NY police station. He was cool, composed, and seemed as uncluttered mentally as he was physically. The awards on his book cases and certificates on the wall attested to a long, successful career. “I paid my dues,” he smiled as he scanned the room and the work it all represented. As he saw it, however, his career really started in Vietnam when he was only a teenager serving in the U.S. Army. It was there, assigned to an armored car division sent deep into the jungle, that he learned what it took to survive physically, mentally, and emotionally.
He was on a mission in the Delta, it was summer and the temperature outside had reached upwards of 115 degrees before noon. Inside the tank it was at best unbearable under normal conditions. On one particular day he still remembers with stunning clarity, it was life-threatening.
“It must have been 130 or more inside. It was hot in a way I had never experienced before. I couldn’t stop sweating, couldn’t drink enough, couldn’t just get up and go to the bathroom. I was burning up. I don’t mean that metaphorically. I was literally burning up and I had to lower my body temperature somehow or I was going to die.
“Funny how it didn’t scare me. It was just as clear to me as the coffee in front of me now. It was a fact. I had no air conditioning. I couldn’t get out of the tank. There was nowhere to go except a POW camp, if I was lucky enough to get caught and not killed right away. I remember thinking that I should have been panicking. Instead, I was utterly, crystal clear. It was in the space of such a small moment that I realized it was completely up to me. Whether I survived or not was between me and my own mind.” The lieutenant sat forward, his body compressed with the intensity of the experience, still vivid in him.
“For some reason, I remembered something about monks in the Himalayas going outside in sub-zero temperatures to meditate without getting frostbite. They raised their own thermostats. And I figured if they could do it that way, I could lower it. To this day I don’t know exactly what I did or how I did it, but I imagined cool water inside me and around me, like I was dunking myself into a cooler filled with ice or skinny dipping in the lake back home. And hell if it didn’t work. I’m here. I never forgot that,” he sat back. “This,” he pointed to his head, “was my greatest weapon of all. And it has served me ever since, no matter what or where the battle.”
The good news for parents is that those survival skills may be learned in early childhood and can be taught with a very simple protocol. Anyone, anywhere can help children utilize their own minds to stay calm and change their biochemistry.
The Magical Mental Abilities of Children
Children have an even more extraordinary capacity for mental mastery–when they are shown how to do it. Compared to adults, they have superior imaginative abilities, are more naturally dissociative or internally focused, and are far more likely to suspend disbelief. Unlike adults, they have not learned how to dismiss “possibilities” as unrealistic.
I know of one young person, who, despite life-threatening injuries, recovered because she kept calm and saw herself as being bathed in Angel Light. She was not in denial. She knew the situation was grave. She saw her parents fret and weep outside her hospital room door, thinking she couldn’t see or hear them. But she assured them, “The Angel’s light is moving through me. It’s going to be okay.”
Another woman whose child was receiving chemotherapy, told her repeatedly that the medicine was “pure love and it will fill you like happiness fills a room.” They put signs all over the room and on the IV bags: “Love.” She went into remission.
What happens when we change our thoughts? We change our chemistry. What we feel determines how we heal.
Best-selling author, Dr. Larry Dossey, has written, “Images create bodily changes–just as if the experience were really happening. For example, if you imagine yourself lying on a beach in the sun, you become relaxed, your peripheral blood vessels dilate, and your hands become warm, as in the real thing.”
If this is even partially true, it is an astonishing statement.
The case to definitively establish the link between mind and body was opened almost 1,500 years ago when Hippocrates wrote that a person might yet recover from his or her belief in the goodness of the physician. It was continued in 1912 when one doctor reported that tuberculosis patients who had previously been on the mend, when given bad news (e.g., that a relative had passed away) took sudden turns for the worse and died. And today the data supporting the connection between thoughts and health, indeed between mental images and survival, are mounting.
Brain scans have shown that when we imagine an event, our thoughts “light up” the areas of the brain that are triggered during the actual event. Sports psychologists conducted one study in which skiers were wired to EMG machines and monitored for electrical impulses sent to the muscles as they mentally rehearsed their downhill runs. The skiers’ brains sent the same instructions to their bodies whether they were doing a jump or just thinking about it.
What does this mean for a child who’s just fallen off a swing or burned himself on a hot stove or woken from a nightmare in terror?
Verbal First Aid in Real Life
Asthma is unfortunately more and more common in children around the world. And though we are fortunate enough to have inhalers in emergencies, there are times we find ourselves on our own. The following is a typical situation handled with Verbal First Aid so that a crisis is handled and a life is saved.
Sam and his son, Jared, went to play in the park. Sam was sure Jared had packed his inhaler. Jared was sure his dad had packed it. When they had played about a half-hour, Jared was straining for breath. When they realized they’d forgotten it, Sam was smart enough to take a deep breath himself so that when he turned to his son he was calm, focused, and sure-footed.
Sam:Jared, I can see you’re breathing but that it’s a little tight?
Jared:(Nods, but can’t speak.)
Sam:Sit with me here and lean forward like this. Put your head forward like this so your bronchial tubes can open and smooth out. [At this point, Sam’s voice drops in pitch and slows down so that it’s soothing and controlled. He “paces” his son’s breath with his own, carefully so as not to hyperventilate, just enough so that there is a joint rhythm. As he speaks to his son, his breathing slows down just a little bit at a time, “leading” his son back to normal breathing.) And as you do, you can remember very clearly how your inhaler feels when you take a puff on it, a little cool, a little tingly and how it opens you up pretty quickly, you can remember how it feels when it’s working “a little more open now” a little more open, a little cooler, until you can get a really good deep, slow, even breath”.
With his father’s steady guidance and well-chosen imagery, Jared’s breathing returned to a more normal rate and they were able to get home safely. Even more than averting a respiratory catastrophe, Jared came away from the experience with a body memory, a knowing that he could change the way he thought, felt, and healed. Although the crisis lasted a few minutes, that learning would last a lifetime.
This article will be continued with another demonstration tomorrow.
Author’s Website: http://www.wordsaremedicine.com/verbal-first-aid
Author’s Bio: Judith Acosta is a licensed psychotherapist, author, and speaker. She is also a classical homeopath based in New Mexico. She is the co-author of The Worst is Over (2002), the newly released Verbal First Aid (Penguin, 2010) and the author of numerous articles on mental health and cultural issues. She specializes in the treatment of trauma, anxiety, and grief, working with people all over the country. She has her practice in New Mexico with her canine therapeutic assistants. She has worked with trauma, anxiety and fear in patients for twenty five years. She has watched it, felt it, wrote about it, and helped heal people from it. As a result, she has learned a few things about fear, particularly that growing epidemic she calls VIRAL FEAR.
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Giving-Your-Child-Real-Li-by-Judith-Acosta-100713-70.html
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Stimulating fingers, lips and face could prevent strokes
| A good massage, listening to a song or otherwise stimulating the right nerve endings could prevent strokes, if a discovery in rats could be translated in humans, revealed a study by UC Irvine researchers.The study found that stimulating a single whisker could prevent the most common type of stroke in rats.
And researchers claim that the findings could be translated to humans, and stubble is not required, as we have sensitive body parts wired to the same area of the brain as rodents’ fine-tuned whiskers. In people, “stimulating the fingers, lips or face in general could all have a similar effect,” said UCI doctoral student Melissa Davis, co-author of the study, “It’s gender-neutral,” added co-author Ron Frostig, professor of neurobiology and behavior. He warned that the research is a first step, albeit an important one. “This is just the beginning of the whole story, with the potential for maybe doing things before a victim even reaches the emergency room,” he said. A stroke usually happens when a main artery bringing oxygen and nutrients to the brain either ruptures or is blocked by a clot, causing partial brain death. The key to preventing strokes in rats whose main cerebral artery has been obstructed, UCI researchers found, is to stimulate the blood-starved brain area. The team discovered that mechanically stroking just one whisker for four minutes within the first two hours of the blockage caused the blood to quickly flow to other arteries – like cars exiting a gridlocked freeway to find detours. But unlike freeway off-ramps, which can quickly clog, the alternate arteries expanded beyond their normal size, opening wide to allow critical blood flow to the brain. The technique was 100 percent effective in preventing strokes in rats with arterial obstruction. People believed to be suffering a stroke are currently told to lie still and stay calm in a quiet environment. And Frostig said that a good massage, listening to a song or otherwise stimulating the right nerve endings might work better. Kleinfeld cautions that the rodent findings might not be relevant to humans. But with such clear evidence that strokes in rats were prevented. “It would be criminal not to try” controlled human studies, he said. The study appears in the June issue of PLoS One. (ANI) Big News Network.com (ANI) Wednesday 14th July, 2010 |
Ticket to a Mercury-Free Body
The Age of Toxicity
Heavy metals aren’t music to anyone’s ears. Frequent headaches, dizziness, brain fog, and nausea are just a few of the symptoms that tell us that mercury and other neuro-toxic heavy metals are increasingly evident in our air, food, water, and even the medicines we take, causing many members of the medical community to call the 21st Century “The Age of Toxicity”.
These deadly substances kill neurons in our brains and throughout our nervous systems, progressively wreaking havoc with our delicate biological processes. However, one “super hero” in the wings may just be mercury’s kryptonite. It’s a little green algae called chlorella.
Peculiarly, as medicine advances, we find that it’s often wisest to reach back into the past to find natural alternative remedies that work with our bodies, instead of beating our bodies into submission with synthetic pharmaceuticals. Although chlorella was first identified in the late 19th century, this tiny algae has been around since the beginning of time.
What is Chlorella?
Through its 2.5 billion year existence, chlorella has generated specific detoxifying proteins and peptides that combat every existing toxic metal. A single-celled plant, chlorella’s fibrous, indigestible outer shell (the cell wall must be broken before it can be of benefit to us) is packed with vitamins, minerals, proteins, and amino acids.
Chlorella is a fresh-water green algae. Green algae contains some of the highest sources of chlorophyll in the world. Of all green algae, chlorella is the highest source or chlorophyll, ranging from 3% to 5% pure. In fact, because of its purity and high nutritional value, chlorella was initially researched as a food source.
Chlorella was first identified late in the 19th Century and cultivated soon after in Holland. In the early 1900s, European, and especially German scientists sought to take advantage of the 60% protein composition of the fast-multiplying plant and began researching chlorella as a food source.
Although researchers were enthusiastic about this potential new food source, World Wars I and II interrupted studies until 1948 when Stanford Research Institute successfully grew chlorella in a pilot study. However, research was again tabled due to financial constraints until the 1950s when the Carnegie Institute completed the study and concluded that chlorella could be grown on a commercial scale.
Japan, with a serious postwar food shortage, partnered with the Rockefeller Foundation, co-sponsoring Dr. Hiroshi Tamiya’s study at the Tokugawa Biological Institute. Dr. Tamiya developed the technology to grow, harvest, and process chlorella on a commercial scale. Several other Japanese organizations were established to continue research and development of chlorella growth. However, the high costs of growing chlorella as a food source proved to be poor competitors against the ready availabilities of rice and wheat and most research was discontinued.
However, in the early 1960s, Japanese researchers began concentrating on the medicinal and dietary values of chlorella and chlorella took its place as a popular dietary supplement in Japan.
Making War on Mercury
Detoxification is currently a hot topic. Health spas expound the virtues of body wraps, soaks, steam baths, and saunas. Yet, heavy metals, like Mercury, attach themselves to our internal tissues and organs (including the brain) and aren’t easily eliminated. If we are serious about detoxification, we need to consider ways to free these heavy metals from our tissues to help our body put them in their place – on the outside!
Chlorella is just one of our many natural weapons in helping our bodies both mobilize and eliminate Mercury and other heavy metals.
Chlorella assists our body’s removal of Mercury through a process called chelation. It’s fibrous outer shell latches onto Mercury before it attaches to our tissues. The chlorella binds with the Mercury, enabling our bodies to eliminate it naturally.
A leading detoxification scientist, Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt says, “The body is constantly trying to eliminate neurotoxins via the available exit routes. However because of the lipophilic/neurotropic nature of the neuro-toxins, most are reabsorbed by the abundant nerve endings of the enteric nervous system (ENS) in the intestinal wall.”
Klinghardt, also one of the founding fathers of chelation therapy, clearly asserts that mobilization is different than, and necessary to detoxification. Mobilization means ferreting mercury out of its hiding places. Dr. Klinghardt says, “Mobilization may lead to excretion. It also may lead to redistribution. Detoxifying or detoxing means mobilizing AND moving it out of the body.”
If mercury is not excreted, the body reabsorbs it. This is a critical factor that determines the success, or as in the case of most conventional treatments, the failure of chelation therapy.
Ninety percent of Mercury elimination takes place through fecal excretion. The binding action of chlorella facilitates fecal excretion of Mercury. In addition, chlorella stimulates, regulates, and helps clean the bowel, enabling our bodies to mobilize attached Mercury into the bowel where chlorella effectively continues the elimination process.
How Safe is Chlorella?
While the trend today is towards oral or intravenous chelation methods, synthetic chelation therapies such as DMSA, DMPS, and high dose EDTA, mobilize mercury and other heavy metals but do not necessarily carry them out of the body. It is for this very reason, that many of these treatments can cause disastrous side effects due to reabsorbtion in the intestinal tract.
Several factors influence the safety of a chelating substance in Mercury elimination:
Can you both metabolize and eliminate the drug with or without mercury?
Does the drug adversely affect other minerals and nutrients in your body?
Will the drug mobilize mercury, yet redistribute it instead of eliminate it?
Will the drug too rapidly pull mercury from body tissues not allowing it to effectively control elimination?
A major benefit of chlorella is that it isn’t a drug. Chlorella is a whole food. Not only does it allow natural elimination of Mercury as well as other heavy metals and toxins, it provides your body with nutrients to improve your overall health and well-being. Moreover, because chlorella is a food and not a drug, overdosing is nearly impossible.
Chlorella also improves elimination in all four major elimination channels, which is key to detoxification of the body.
Detoxifying with Chlorella
Chlorella is available in tablets, liquid extracts, and powder. Powders can be baked into breads, cakes, and cookies and liquids can be blended with fruit and vegetable drinks.
The general recommendation for chlorella in tablet form is to begin with one gram of chlorella taken three times daily, about 30 minutes before mealtimes. After determining its effect on your bowel, you may gradually increase dosage up to ten grams for very active detoxification. After a couple of weeks, decrease the dosage again to one gram again for maintenance. However, do follow container directions and indications for the specific application of chlorella you choose.
Side effects are most often those from the mobilization of toxic metals. You can avoid most side effects by increasing your chlorella dosage. Small dosages mobilize more metals without binding them, while larger doses bind more of the toxins and speed detoxification and elimination.
There are many producers of chlorella, with all of them not necessarily producing clean product. Be sure to do your research on the company you purchase from. What do we recommend? Yaeyama chlorella is by far the freshest, purest, and most readily attainable chlorella on the market. Many manufacturers repackage the yaeyama product under their own brand name, so it shouldn’t be difficult to find.
by Chuck W.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Calcium D-glucarate: A Novel Way to Eliminate Toxins
By Suzy Cohen, RPh on 07/01/2010
Dear Pharmacist,
I have fibromyalgia, uterine fibroids, fibrocystic breasts and endometriosis. I fired my old doctor, because I wasn’t getting any better. My new doctor prescribed bio-identical hormones, iodine tablets, and a strong multi-vitamin. I’m eating ground flax seeds thanks to your recent column. Am I missing something? I’m still uncomfortable.
–E.W. Sacramento, California
Answer: You’re doing great and healing is in progress. You have a lot of symptoms tied to “estrogen dominance” (also called progesterone deficiency). I sent you my e-book as a gift for submitting this excellent question, which speaks to so many people. There is a dietary supplement called Calcium D-glucarate which studies show can help all of your symptoms. Despite the name, it’s not used for bone building.
D-Glucaric acid is a natural substance found in fruits and veggies. We make small amounts in the body during a process called “glucuronidation” which is how our body scrubs itself clean. Too bad we don’t make more. Calcium D-Glucarate or “glucarate” is the calcium salt of D-glucaric acid and this patented supplement helps our body keep toxins ‘packaged’ tightly so the bound up garbage can go through the digestive tract and get excreted.
Without enough glucarate, our neatly packaged poisons come unravelled and re-enter our circulation, like a thug breaking in twice! Some of you need physician’s approval for OTC supplements in which case explain that “America’s Pharmacist Suzy Cohen told you glucarate blocks the enzyme beta-glucuronidase and this supports glucuronic acid conjugation.” Glucarate is an affordable way to bolt the door from thugs. Consider it great insurance for a major detoxification pathway in the human body.
Glucarate has no known major side effects and is safely taken in combination with antioxidants, protein shakes or medications. Dosages vary from 500mg – 3,000mg total per day. Calcium D-glucarate may also help:
Estrogen removal: Many toxic chemicals in our home and garage increase xenoestrogens which are estrogen-like chemicals. These disrupt hormone balance in men and women Glucarate facilitate estrogen removal, and improves estrogen by-product formation so it may ease prostate conditions, PMS and other hormonal concerns.
Bodybuilders: Glucarate improves physique by reducing total estrogen load; means it can lessen fluid retention and reverse gynecomastia (a.k.a. man boobs).
Cholesterol lowering: Preliminary results in humans show that glucarate can significantly reduce total cholesterol, LDL and triglycerides.
Cancer prevention: Animal studies suggest glucarate not only reduces risk, but may prevent tumor growth in the skin, breast, liver, colon and lung. Women with estrogen-dependent tumors (and men with prostate cancer) should absolutely ask about taking glucarate since it can reduce total estrogen load and improve estrogen metabolite ratios.
Detoxification problems: People riddled with heavy metals/plasticizers and those with multiple chemical sensitivity, auto-immune disorders or fibromyalgia- the detoxifying effect of glucarate offers great housekeeping and by reducing total toxin burden. Glucarate helps us properly eliminate used up medications.
Did You Know?
Cooking with grape seed oil (rather than olive oil) allows you to use medium-high temperatures, without losing all the antioxidant benefits.
I’m a graduate of the University of Florida and have been a licensed pharmacist for nearly 20 years. People call me “America’s Most Trusted Pharmacist” because I’ve spent the last 10 years writing a syndicated column on health which reaches millions of people each week.
Read more from Suzy at http://www.dearpharmacist.com
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Speaking out Against Dairy
By Ian Robinson on 07/07/2010
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends three glasses of milk a day. Why? Because milk will build strong bones and combats osteoporosis. Well that’s what the government tells us. But I’m telling you that milk breaks bones and may even be linked to cancer. And I’ve got significant studies, leading research, and Harvard University experts to prove it.
Pyramid Power
Milk is considered one of nature’s great building blocks. That’s because it’s enjoyed great promotion for many years. Much of that promotion comes from the USDA Food Guide Pyramid. But several of the “experts” who ‘built’ the pyramid are dairy industry insiders. The pyramid protects industry interests, not what’s best for your health. That’s according to Dr. Mark Hyman. Hyman practices family medicine in Lenox, Mass. He’s also on the Board of Advisors and faculty of Georgetown University School of Medicine’s Food as Medicine training program.
The Milk Myth
The government tells us that milk is good for us because it:
- Builds strong bones
- Combats osteoporosis
- Rebuilds muscle
Here’s the government argument for you. Milk is rich in calcium. Calcium builds strong bones and teeth. Dairy will strengthen your bones.
However, there are many significant studies – and leading experts – that hotly refute this. In fact, they conclude that it simply isn’t true.
Two studies conducted by leading Harvard University researcher Dr. Walter Willet provided proof that this is not the case.
The first study revealed that eating dairy does not reduce the risk of fracture. The extensive 12-year Harvard study reviewed 78,000 women. It concluded that dairy may actually increase the risk of fractures by 50 percent.
“Milk is a primary source of calcium and vitamin D and therefore might be expected to decrease osteoporotic bone loss and fracture risk, yet research has not generally supported this assumption,” concluded the study.
The follow-up study, also led by Dr. Willet, was published six years later in 2003 (iv). It showed that milk consumption “conferred a weak, non-significant reduction in fracture risk.” Even worse, the study found that with “higher daily intakes of milk, there was still no evidence of a protective effect.”
The studies are not alone in damning diary. Leading authorities are also daring to speak out against milk products. They link the over promotion of diary – its benefits and worth – to big business.
“The myth that osteoporosis is caused by calcium deficiency was created to sell dairy products,” said Dr. John McDougall. Dr. McDougall operates a health and medical center in Santa Rosa, California “There’s no truth to it. American women are among the biggest consumers of calcium in the world, and they still have one of the highest levels of osteoporosis in the world. And eating even more dairy products and calcium supplements is not going to change that fact.”
Vitamin D More Effective than Calcium for Preventing Fractures?
Further research found that Africa and Asia had the lowest rates of osteoporosis. Those countries also consumed the lowest rates of dairy and calcium consumption. The conclusion: dairy does not defend against osteoporosis, weak bones, or fractures.
Instead, the Harvard studies suggested that Vitamin D was more effective than calcium in preventing fractures.
“An adequate vitamin D intake is associated with a lower risk of osteoporotic hip fractures in postmenopausal women. Neither milk nor a high-calcium diet appears to reduce risk.”
The study suggested dark fish as a good source of vitamin D.
Credible Link Between Calcium and Cancer?
Believe it or not, there’s even been links between calcium and cancer. A national health and nutrition study reviewed links between dairy and prostate cancer. It concluded that calcium may indeed raise the risk of cancer. Research suggested that the more dairy a man consumed, the more it raised his risk of cancer by up to 50 percent. Further, dairy consumption increases the body’s level of insulin-like growth factor-1 — another red flag for calcium causing cancer.
Digesting Dairy
Then there are the more commonly recognized problems with diary. It’s reported that approximately 75 percent of the world’s population is lactose intolerance. The report concluded that the root of lactose intolerance lies in our origins: we are genetically unable to digest milk and other dairy products.
This plays back into primal diets and eating only what our caveman ancestors did. Milk is not a natural food for human beings. We didn’t domesticate animals until about 10,000 years ago. That means we certainly weren’t milking them before that. Ten thousand years is an evolutionary blink of the eye. Our bodies haven’t evolved to match our diets.
Further to this: humans tend to stop producing significant amounts of lactase – the enzyme needed to properly metabolize lactose, the sugar in milk – during infancy. It usually happens between the ages of two and five. Simple conclusion: we weren’t meant to digest milk on a regular basis.
Migraine-Milk Connection
Intolerance to milk and diary can manifest itself in many different ways. Milk became a real migraine for one concerned mother… who we’ll call Sarah.
“When my son started kindergarten he developed what looked like acne around his mouth,” explained Sarah. “We discovered it was caused by the milk he was drinking at school. We never gave him milk at home because our family has a history of lactose intolerance. We started giving him a lactose pill everyday so he could have all the dairy he wanted at school….we didn’t want him to feel left out on ice cream day. He started having headaches that became more and more severe as he got older. They eventually turned into migraines that were so bad he could hardly function and was getting them about every five days…”
When the doctor couldn’t provide either answers or solutions, “Sarah” took to researching the migraine-milk link for herself. She looked beyond traditional medical advice to discover an alternative explanation. She began researching newspaper articles, holistic web sites… anywhere and everywhere to discover the truth about diary.
“I discovered that dairy can cause migraines in people who are allergic to milk. My doctor apparently was unaware of this… We immediately put my son on a dairy-free diet and the migraines disappeared. He is now a very different little boy…no migraines, doesn’t miss school, and is happier.”
Campaign Claims Not Backed by Science
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently requested that the UDSA back up the “milk mustache” campaign claims with science. The panel of scientists concluded the following:
- There was no compelling proof that dairy builds strong bones.
- Dairy causes digestive problems for the 75 percent of people with lactose intolerance.
- Dairy aggravates irritable bowel syndrome.
- Milk doesn’t offer sports benefits. It does not improve athletic performance.
- Dairy may be linked to prostate cancer.
Being Smart about Dairy
Given all the findings about dairy, you’d be better getting your vitamin D, potassium, protein, and fats from other food sources. Lean red meats, vegetables, and fruits offer balanced benefits.
Keep this in mind when dealing with diary:
- Dairy Doesn’t Build Strong Bones. Instead, look for other minerals to do this. Build strong bones through exercise and supplement your diet with 2,000 IU of vitamin D daily.
- Eliminate Milk. Try to eliminate dairy from your diet. Gradually phase out milk, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream over the course of a week. Try going one month completely diary-free. And see how you feel at the end of that month. You should be smiling: your sinuses should be clearer; your headaches should be less regular; your weight should be less; and your energy increased.
- Need Dairy. If you can’t get by without dairy, try opting for healthier versions such as unsweetened yogurt.
Other Options for Calcium, Protein
Our primal diets evolved over the course of two-and-a-half million years. That perfectly balanced natural diet contained all the health benefits we needed. It was based largely on meat, fruit, seeds, nuts, and vegetables.
Dairy was not a significant part of that diet. So, you don’t need to worry about losing essential sources of minerals. For example, dairy is only one source for calcium and protein. There are many alternative and natural sources available.
If you’re looking to boost calcium, stick with non-dairy options. These can include fish such as salmon (but buy natural Alaskan-waters fish) and green leafy vegetables like spinach.
Protein Power
Protein is an essential macronutrient. It is an important component of every cell in your body. It’s composed of 20 amino acids. For great health, you must consume eight of these essential amino acids every day. But you don’t have to get them from dairy.
Four great alternative protein-rich options include:
Meat: Simply put, a great option for protein is meat. Animal-derived foods deliver those essential amino acids. White meat or red is fine. But be careful about the type of meat you select. Avoid grain-fed cuts and stick to grass-fed meat. The most heart-healthy meat comes from animals that were grass-fed, not grain-fed. So when you buy red meat, select meat that is labeled “grass-fed”. Also, avoid processed meat such as hot dogs, deli, and sausages. If buying fowl, stick with “free-farmed” labeled cuts.
Eggs: Eggs are rich in protein. They also contain those essential amino acids in exactly the ratios your body needs. They’re low in calories and contain no “bad” trans fats. They’re also brimming with vitamins and minerals.
Beans: Beans are another decent source for protein. Consider this as an additional source: you should not rely on them as your primary protein source.
Interested in getting more info about protein? We’ll be investigating the truth behind protein and dispelling “meat myths” in our ongoing primal diet series.
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Ian Robinson is the managing editor of the Total Health Breakthroughs natural health newsletter. The newsletter scouts the world for the most advanced, cutting-edge discoveries from the foremost scientific researchers in natural and alternative medicine. Originally developed from a series of private research briefs prepared for a reclusive millionaire, our publication challenges longstanding beliefs and evaluates new ideas in order to dispel mainstream myths about diet, exercise, nutrition, health and healing, aging, pain relief, and more. Right now you can get a free special report “Cancer Defeated: How to “Cancer Proof Your Body with 5 All-Natural Solutions” that shows you step-by-step how to identify, protect, and strengthen your “Cancer-Fighting Troops” – and help make your body practically “cancer proof.” Click here to sign up.
Email this ArticleHealth care reform bill dooms America to Pharma-dominated sickness and suffering
(NaturalNews) Today the medical mafia struck another devastating blow to the health and freedom of all Americans. With the support of an inarguably corrupt Congress that has simply abandoned the real needs of the American people, the sick-care industry has locked in a high-profit scheme of disease and monopoly-priced pharmaceuticals in a nation that can ill afford either one.
And this Pharma-funded betrayal, it turns out, was led by the Democrats. Passed on a 219-212 vote that was only accomplished thanks to closed-door, last-minute secret meetings among the last holdouts, this new legislation puts America under the stranglehold of the medical mafia while doing absolutely nothing to address real health care reform. There is no mention in the bill, for example, of vitamin D for preventing cancer, or orthomolecular medicine for preventing degenerative disease. There’s not even a word about protecting health freedom or ending the century of oppression that has been waged against naturopathic practitioners by the AMA, FDA and FTC.
The new legislation does, however, lock in billions of dollars in monopoly profits for the pharmaceutical companies — the same companies who spent millions of dollars pushing for its passage and who depend on the continuation of sickness and disease for their future profits.
There’s only one problem with this health care reform bill: It doesn’t reform health care. It has almost nothing to do with health care at all, in fact: It’s really more of an effort to expand a broken sick-care system. When faced with the problem that our sick-care system doesn’t work, Congress somehow decided that fixing the problem merely involved expanding the failures to include everyone!
And you don’t even get a choice in the matter, either. All Americans are now required to pay into a sick-care system of monopolized, pharmaceutical medicine even if they reject that failed system of medicine. So the healthy people who actually take responsibility for their health are financially penalized and forced to subsidize profits for drug companies!
Watch my recent video called Healthy Without Health Insurance in America. It’s on YouTube right now at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWuX…
Has America gone mad?
I love America. Or, more accurately, I love what America is supposed to stand for: Freedom, opportunity, abundance, free choice, diversity…
But I’m increasingly noticing that America’s leaders don’t believe in those ideals at all. They are betraying the American people by selling out our futures to the corporate monopolists. They are turning America into a corporatocracy, and the passage of this monopoly sick-care system is yet another perfect example of just how easily our own lawmakers will sell out the People just to appease the powerful chemical industrialists who dominate medicine today.
They have sold out our futures to keep themselves in power, and isn’t that the worst kind of betrayal of all? People’s live are on the line here. While people like myself and many other health freedom champions are fighting for health freedom and an end to human suffering among our fellow brothers and sisters, we’ve got our national leaders essentially aiming the artillery at our own people and yelling “Fire!” Through their actions with this health care reform bill, they are forcing people into circumstances that are going to cost countless lives and many trillions of dollars in wasted expenditures and lost economic productivity.
Our Congress has betrayed us (yet again). I believe that with perhaps the exception of Rep. Ron Paul, every single Senator and House Representative should be thrown out of office at the next election, stripped of their power and sent home to face their home-district families that they have now doomed to a lifetime of sickness, disease and pharmaceutical toxicity. Our national leaders claim to be voting on Health Care but what they really delivered was Hell Care, because dying of cancer while on chemotherapy while no doctor can legally tell you that vitamin D prevents 4 out of 5 cancers is, indeed, a living hell (or dying hell, in this case).
And speaking of Hell, the dark energies that have been provoked and called upon in this battle for pharmaceutical dominance over the “disease management” of the American population almost seems downright demonic, as if some evil power from other world had been summoned into Washington D.C. to ensure the passage of this legislation that practically guarantees another generation of pain and suffering at the hands of conventional medicine.
All the health solutions that really work — nutritional medicine, orthomolecular therapies, chiropractic medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine and so on — have been locked out of the system while those therapies that promote a lifetime of disease have been locked in. And in this way, our Congress has now made certain that America as we know it today will not survive another generation — because no nation can achieve greatness when its people are drowning in toxic chemicals and degenerative disease.
We’ve got to save the America we love
America doesn’t need more drugs, more chemotherapy, more mammograms, more vaccines and more nutritionally-ignorant doctors pushing more poison pills onto more uninformed patients. What this country needs is a grassroots health revolution that throws out the broken, failed system of pharma-medicine that doesn’t work and replaces it with a new system of healing, nutrition, patient education and personal health responsibility that would slash our health care costs and set our nation on a new path of health and prosperity.
This goal can never be accomplished when the people writing our laws are determined to protect the financial interests of the very industry that depends on sickness and disease for its profits. When it came down to a choice between the People and the corporations, our U.S. Congress chose the corporations!
I love America, and I’d love to see its health restored. But more importantly, I would love to see the American people rise up against their betrayers in Washington, peacefully sweep them out of office at the next election and make a real effort to restore the rights and freedoms that are outlined in the United States Constitution — a document that seems to have been written off by the Washington jackals who, themselves, are suffering from degenerative mental disorders and psychotropic drug side effects.
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Watch my video to see more commentary on why our current health insurance system doesn’t work and why I don’t even carry health insurance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWuX…
Sources for this story include:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_healt…
Health care reform bill dooms America to Pharma-dominated sickness and suffering.
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