Free Health Advice

The Free Health Advice Center

ALLOPATHIC MEDICINE
(Click on the article that you want to read)

Statistics Prove Prescription Drugs Are 16,400% More Deadly Than Terrorists (This article discusses the following issues: Death by Medicine; medical mistakes; Vioxx; our faulty system of medical treatment; drug ads educational? conflicts of interest; ethics; corruption in the pharmaceutical industry.) GANGSTERS IN MEDICINE (This article discusses the following issues: JAMA finds traditional medicine the 3rd leading cause of death; statistics on adverse reactions; death toll equivalent to the crash of two fully loaded 747 aircraft daily; pharmaceuticals are not intended to cure; unnecessary surgeries and costs; poor US ranking in world health care; economics of medicine; results of cardiac surgery; history of the AMA; treatment instead of cure; insurance fraud; government coercion; what to do?)
The American Medical System is Broken (This article discusses the following issues: Medicare bankrupt; Death by Medicine leading cause of death and injury in the US; statistics, adverse drug reactions-ADR's, number one cause of unnecessary death in the US; costs; FDA for the people? the war between health and medicine; covert government operations; the government and the pharmaceutical industries do NOT want the problem fixed; what to do?)
SOME SHOCKING FACTS ABOUT HEALTH IN AMERICA (This article discusses the following issues: we are sick and dying unnecessarily and it is getting worse; ABC Nightline story; managing symptoms with drugs has failed miserably; disease is malnutrition.)
Ritalin Research Fraud (This article discusses the following issues: Research on Ritalin never done.)
Drug Marketing Scheme Hits Nation's School System (This article discusses the following issues: TeenScreen-drug marketing screen; influence of big pharma blatantly obvious; pharmaceutical money has directly funded TeenScreen; taxpayers now footing the bill; one in every 145 adult subjects who entered trials for the antipsychotics Zyprexa, Risperdal, Seroquel, and Serdolect died; of children tested all experienced adverse effects, none were helped, the study was terminated less than 6 weeks after it began; every one of the so-called "wonder drugs," is now required to carry a black box warning listing the serious and often deadly adverse reactions experienced by both children and adults.)
Vioxx Took a Deadly Toll (This article discusses the following issues: Death toll of Vioxx - a drug from Merek Pharmaceutical; Vioxx raised a person's risk of coronary heart disease by 34 per cent; data was analyzed 1.4 million people between the ages of 18 and 84 in California; Dr. Graham of the FDA said his supervisors discouraged him from presenting his findings to a drug-safety meeting and threatened him with severe consequences if he went forward.)
Merck, Vaccines and the Vioxx Link (This article discusses the following issues: growing distrust of drug companies; thimerosal; Merck press release - 1999 re thimersol in vaccines; Merck memo of 1991; Merck and Vioxx; more on mercury and toxicity.)
The Marketing of Drugs (This article discusses the following issues: The most heavily promoted drugs; promotional expenditures; rise in drug costs.)
Drug Sales Bring Huge Profits, and Scrutiny, to Cancer Doctors (This article discusses the following issues: the chemotherapy concession; the finances of the cancer industry; chemotherapy and non-responsive cancers; oncologists are busy; insurance reaction.)
How Drug Companies Brainwash Doctors so Doctors Brainwash You with Drugs (This article discusses the following issues: free samples, pharmaceutical advertising expenditures; the perks start in medical school; marketing vs. research; big pharma is intricately involved in every aspect of medical education and clinical practice; Doctors are too willing to provide expensive, heavily advertised drugs for very minor conditions; we are an overmedicated society.)
THE MYTH OF MEDICINE (This article discusses the following issues: the cancer racket; people with cancer submitting to traditional treatments live an average of 3 years, those who refuse treatment live an average of 12.6 years.)

Statistics Prove Prescription Drugs
Are 16,400% More Deadly Than Terrorists
By Jessica Fraser
From: http://www.newstarget.com/009278.html
July 5, 2005

America was rudely awakened to a new kind of danger on September 11, 2001: Terrorism. The attacks that day left 2,996 people dead, including the passengers on the four commercial airliners that were used as weapons. Many feel it was the most tragic day in U.S. history. Four commercial jets crashed that day.

But what if six jumbo jets crashed every day in the United States, claiming the lives of 783,936 people every year? That would certainly qualify as a massive tragedy, wouldn't it? Well, forget "what if." The tragedy is happening right now. Over 750,000 people actually do die in the United States every year, although not from plane crashes. They die from something far more common and rarely perceived by the public as dangerous: modern medicine.

According to the groundbreaking 2003 medical report Death by Medicine, by Drs. Gary Null, Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio and Dorothy Smith, 783,936 people in the United States die every year from conventional medicine mistakes. That's the equivalent of six jumbo jet crashes a day for an entire year. But where is the media attention for this tragedy? Where is the government support for stopping these medical mistakes before they happen?

After 9/11, the White House gave rise to the Department of Homeland Security, designed to prevent terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Since its inception, billions of dollars have been poured into it. The 2006 budget allots $34.2 billion to the DHS, a number that has come down slightly from the $37.7 billion budget of 2003.

According to the study led by Null, which involved a painstaking review of thousands of medical records, the United States spends $282 billion annually on deaths due to medical mistakes, or iatrogenic deaths. And that's a conservative estimate; only a fraction of medical errors are reported, according to the study. Actual medical mistakes are likely to be 20 times higher than the reported number because doctors fear retaliation for those mistakes. The American public heads to the doctor's office or the hospital time and again, oblivious of the alarming danger they're heading into.

The public knows that medical errors occur, but they assume that errors are unusual, isolated events. Unfortunately, by accepting conventional medicine, patients voluntarily continue to walk into the leading cause of death in America.

According to a 1995 U.S. iatrogenic report, "Over a million patients are injured in U.S. hospitals each year, and approximately 280,000 die annually as a result of these injuries. Therefore, the iatrogenic death rate dwarfs the annual automobile accident mortality rate of 45,000 and accounts for more deaths than all other accidents combined." This report was issued 10 years ago, when America had 34 million fewer citizens and drug company scandals like the Vioxx recall were yet to occur.

Today, health care comprises 15.5 percent of the United States' gross national product, with spending reaching $1.4 trillion in 2004. Since Americans spend so much money on health care, they should be getting a high quality of care, right? Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Of the 783,936 annual deaths due to conventional medical mistakes, about 106,000 are from prescription drugs, according to Death by Medicine. That also is a conservative number. Some experts estimate it should be more like 200,000 because of underreported cases of adverse drug reactions. Americans today are used to fixing problems the quick way - even when it comes to their health. Thus, they rely heavily on prescription drugs to fix their diseases.

For every conceivable ailment - real or not - chances are there's a pricey prescription drug to "treat" it. Chances are even better that their drug of choice comes chock full of side effects. The problem is, prescription drugs don't treat diseases; they merely cover the symptoms. U.S. physicians provide allopathic health care - that is, they care for disease, not health. So, the over-prescription of drugs and medications is designed to treat disease instead of preventing it. And because there are so many drugs available, unforeseen adverse drug reactions are all too common, which leads to the highly conservative annual prescription drug death rate of 106,000.

Keep in mind that these numbers came before the Vioxx scandal, and Cox-2 inhibitor drugs could ultimately end up killing tens of thousands more. American medical patients are getting the short end of a rather raw deal when it comes to prescription drugs.

Medicine is a high-dollar, highly competitive business. But it shouldn't be. Null's report cites the five most important aspects of health that modern medicine ignores in favor of the almighty dollar: Stress, lack of exercise, high calorie intake, highly processed foods and environmental toxin exposure.

All these things are putting Americans in such poor health that they run to the doctor for treatment. But instead of doctors treating the causes of their poor health, such as putting them on a strict diet and exercise regimen, they stuff them full of prescription drugs to cover their symptoms. Using this inherently faulty system of medical treatment, it's no wonder so many Americans die from prescription drugs. They're not getting better; they're just popping drugs to make their symptoms temporarily go away.

But not all doctors subscribe to this method of "treatment." In fact, many doctors are just as angry as the public should be, charging that scientific medicine is "for sale" to the highest bidder - which, more often than not, end up being pharmaceutical companies. The pharmaceutical industry is a multi-trillion dollar business.

Companies spend billions on advertising and promotions for prescription drugs. Who can remember the last time they watched television and weren't bombarded with ads for pills treating everything from erectile dysfunction to sleeplessness?

And who has ever been to a doctor's office or hospital and not seen every pen, notepad and post-it bearing the logo of some prescription drug? Medical experts claim that patients' requests for certain drugs have no effect on the number of prescriptions written for that drug. Pharmaceutical companies claim their drug ads are "educational" to the public.

The public believes the FDA reviews all the ads and only allows the safest and most effective drug ads to reach the public. It's a clever system: Pharmaceutical companies influence the public to ask for prescription drugs, the public asks their physicians to prescribe them certain drugs, and doctors acquiesce to their patients' requests. Everyone's happy, right? Not quite, since the prescription drug death toll continues to rise.

The public seems to genuinely believe that drugs advertised on TV are safe, in spite of the plethora of side effects listed by the commercial's narrator, ranging from diarrhea to death. Patients feel justified in asking their physicians to prescribe them a particular drug they've seen on TV, since it surely must be safe or it wouldn't have been advertised. Remember all those TV ads heralding the wonders of Vioxx? One might wonder how many lives could have been spared if patients didn't see the ad on TV and request a prescription from their doctors.

But advertising isn't the only tool the pharmaceutical industry uses to influence medicine. Null's study cites an ABC report that said pharmaceutical companies spend over $2 billion sending doctors to more than 314,000 events every year.

While doctors are riding the dollar of pharmaceutical companies, enjoying all the many perks of these "events," how likely are they to question the validity of drug companies or their products? Admittedly, not all doctors reside in the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies. Some are downright angry at the situation, and angry on behalf of an unaware public.

Major conflicts of interest exist between the American public, the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry. And although the public suffers the most from this conflict, it is the least informed. The public gets the short end of the stick and they don't even know it. That is why the pharmaceutical industry remains a multi-trillion dollar business.

Prescription drugs are only a part of the U.S. healthcare system's miserable failings. In fact, outpatient deaths, bedsore deaths and malnutrition deaths each account for higher death rates than adverse drug reactions. The problems run deep and cannot be remedied without drastic, widespread change in the system's money and ethics.

The first issue - money - is the main reason the medical industry cannot seem to change. Prescribing more drugs and recommending more surgeries means more profits. Getting more drugs approved by the FDA, regardless of their safety, means more money for the pharmaceutical industry.

As the healthcare system stands today, physicians and drug companies can't seem to pass up earning loads of money, even if a few hundred thousand people lose their lives in the process. Even in drastic cases of deadly drugs, everyone involved has a scapegoat: Drug companies can blame the FDA for approving their product and the doctors for over-prescribing it, and doctors can blame the patients for wanting it and not properly weighing the risks.

What ultimately arises is a question of ethics. In layman's terms, ethics are the rules or moral guidelines that govern the conduct of people or professions. Some ethics are ingrained from childhood, but some are specifically set forth.

For example, nearly all medical schools have their new doctors take a modern form of the Hippocratic Oath. While few versions are identical, none include setting aside proper medical care in favor of money-making practices.

On the research side of the issue, "Death by Medicine" cites an ABC report that says clinical trials funded by pharmaceutical companies show a 90 percent chance that a drug will be perceived as effective, whereas clinical trials not funded by drug companies show only a 50 percent chance that a drug will be perceived as effective. "It appears that money can't buy you love, but it can buy you any 'scientific' result you want," writes Null and his team of researchers.

The government spends upwards of $30 billion a year on homeland security. Such spending seems important. Since 2001, 2,996 people in the United States have died from terrorism - all as a result of the 9/11 attacks. In that same period of time, 490,000 people have died from prescription drugs, not counting the Vioxx scandal. That means that prescription drugs in this country are at least 16,400 percent deadlier than terrorism. Again, those are the conservative numbers. A more realistic number, which would include deaths from over-the-counter drugs, makes drug consumption 32,000 percent deadlier than terrorism.

But the scope of "Death by Medicine" is even wider. Conventional medicine, including unnecessary surgeries, bedsores and medical errors, is 104,700 percent deadlier than terrorism. Yet, our government's attention and money is not put into reforming health care.

Couldn't a little chunk of the homeland security money be better spent on overhauling the corrupt U.S. healthcare system, the leading cause of death in America? Couldn't we forfeit the color-coded threat system in favor of stricter guidelines on medical research and prescription drugs?

No one is attempting to say that terrorism in the world is not a problem, especially for a high-profile country like the United States. No one is saying that the people who died on 9/11 didn't matter or weren't horribly wronged by the terrorists that day. But there are more dangerous things in the United States being falsely represented as safe and healthy, when, in reality, they are deadly.

The corruption in the pharmaceutical industry and in America's healthcare system poses a far greater threat to the health, safety and welfare of Americans today than terrorism. If the Bush Administration really wants to save lives -- a lot of lives -- it needs look no further than the chemical war has been declared on Americans by Big Pharma.

GANGSTERS IN MEDICINE
By Thomas Smith December 23, 2002 NewsWithViews.com
(This is a fabulous article that unfortunately still holds true today)

The Journal of the American Medical Association recently reported that as many as 106,000 deaths occur annually in US hospitals due to adverse reactions to prescription drugs that are properly prescribed by physicians that use them as directed by the drug companies.

Even worse, the National Council for Patient Information and Education reported that an additional 125,000 deaths occur annually due to adverse reactions to drugs that the physician never should have prescribed. In these deaths the doctor did not follow the instructions on proper administration of the drugs.

For example, Glucophage, a diabetic oral hypoglycemic, should never be prescribed for patients with kidney disease or congestive heart failure because it can cause fatal lactic acidosis in these patients. A warning label is prominently placed on the medication container to warn of this potential misuse. However, JAMA reported that almost 1/4 of the patients who had been prescribed Glucophage had Kidney damage or Congestive Heart failure or both.

The annual death toll from synthetic prescription drugs, both from the correctly prescribed and the incorrectly prescribed, amounts to about 231,000 deaths every year.

To put this into perspective, this is the equivalent of a world trade center disaster every week for over a year and a half or the crash of two fully loaded 747 aircraft every day of the year.

No information was reported on the number of outpatient and doctor's office deaths caused by these very same drugs when prescribed by these very same doctors. The reported figures alone, however, make drug deaths caused by physicians the third leading cause of death in the US. It is far ahead of accidents, drunk driving, homicides, airline accidents, as well as all other disease with the sole exceptions of cancer and heart disease.

Many of these drugs responsible for the death statistics cited are diabetic drugs.
None of these drugs cure or even were intended to cure diabetes.

During the time a patient is on the drugs his body is suffering great damage due to the uncontrolled progress of the disease. This is in addition to the risk and damage caused by the drug itself. According to Dr. Mendelsohn, author of "Confessions of a Medical Heretic", 2.4 million unnecessary operations are performed every year and they cost over 12,000 lives. When the records of six New York hospitals were examined it was found that 43% of the Hysterectomies that were performed were medically unnecessary.

No one should ever submit to any surgical procedure without first obtaining several unrelated medical opinions, at least not here in the United States. Women are particularly vulnerable to this type of victimization.

Disease in America

According to the World Health Report 2000 the United States ranks twelfth, that is second from the bottom, in their thirteen country survey of sixteen available health indicators. We are dead last for low birth weight and neonatal and infant mortality. We rank between ninth and twelfth for all life expectancy categories between one year and 40 years. Another study ranked the United States as fifteenth in the twenty-five industrialized countries studied.

Diabetes, Hypoglycemia, Hyperinsulinemia are so widespread in the United States that it is estimated that over half the population exhibits one or more symptoms of these life-destroying diseases. Symptoms of Adult onset diabetes are now being routinely noted in six-year-old children. Obesity and it's related Endocrine dysfunctions are commonly observed in teenagers. Heart Failure, a symptom of advanced Type II Diabetes, remains in the top three killer diseases in the Westernized countries.

Although the cause and cure for Type II Diabetes and related endocrine failure has been increasingly well understood in the scientific community for the last forty years, this disease is not being cured by todays orthodox treatment regimens. In order to find a cure it is necessary to seek alternative medical approaches to this disease.

The Economics of Medicine

A large part of this medical disaster that the United States currently experiences is due to the way our medical community is organized. Basically it is not organized to heal and to cure disease; the medical community, particularly at its upper levels, is a commercial venture organized to make money for its practitioners.

Although the record of the United States Medical community in the cure of disease is deplorable, the same cannot be said for its ability to produce income and profit. For example, for the top fifteen pharmaceutical companies, including such names as Abbot, Wyeth, Hoffman-La Roche, Merck and others, the second quarter revenue for 2002 was reported as $63,520.6 million and the corresponding reported income was 11,731.8 million respectively. This is second only to the defense industry in the United States.

In 1997, the latest year for which we have the figures, the earnings of physicians were reported by Broad as averaging around $200,000 per year. The lowest reporting specialty, Rheumatology reported $158,500 and the highest, cardiovascular surgeon, reported $363,300. When examining the numbers, we noted that the high salaries seemed to be concentrated in members of the AMA. Those belonging to less powerful trade unions did not fare nearly so well even though they did most of the actual patient care work.

For example, the median staff salary of registered nurses was $35,256. The Cardiac surgeon, for example, does nothing whatsoever to cure cardiac disease. Three to five percent of the heart surgery patients die on the operating table.

Cardiac surgery provides no better three year survival rate
than no treatment at all.

A Harvard survival study of 200,000 patients revealed that the long term survival rate of patients subjected to surgery was no better than the survival rate of those that had no surgery.

Of course, your cardiac surgeon will not tell you this when you need to make a decision on whether or not to elect cardiac surgery. Never in history have so many accumulated so much wealth for providing their customers or clients or patients with so little real benefit.

Exceptions to the Rule

Many doctors of integrity are as much victims of the system as are their patients. Todays doctor is not free to treat disease as his conscience dictates. He is forced to administer approved protocols whether they are known to work or not. To deviate from these approved protocols invites law suits, peer criticism and censure from State medical licensing boards.

This writer knows of two local doctors who tried to buck the establishment and really help their patients. Both lost their license to practice medicine. One is currently working as an administrator in a California hospital and the other has started a nutritional clinic.

Takeover of the American Medical Association

This sad state of affairs is directly traceable to the takeover of the American Medical Association by the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations in the early part of the twentieth century.

At the turn of the century the medical community was in a sad state of disrepair. There were no qualifications to become a doctor. If one wanted to be a doctor it was only necessary to hang out a shingle and start the practice of medicine. Medical schools were poorly financed, often taught contradictory medical philosophies and had little impact on the practice of medicine.

In 1910 the American Medical Association, todays AMA, was on the verge of bankruptcy. Few doctors belonged to it and even fewer paid any attention to it. Quackery of all kinds was rampant. The market was flooded with fake cancer cures and 80 proof liver tonic. It was in this environment that Rockefeller and Carnegie moved in and bought the AMA and then used it to take control of the entire United States medical establishment.

In 1910, Henry Prichard president of the Carnegie foundation, bought control of the AMA for the sum of $10,000. He then financed the publication of the Flexner report, as it was then called, to gain popular support for the changes that were to be made in the medical community. With public backing secured by the publication of the Flexner report, Carnegie and Rockefeller commenced a major upgrade in medical education by financing only those medical schools that taught what they wanted taught. Predictably, those schools that had the financing churned out the better doctors. In return for the financing, the schools were required to teach course material that was exclusively drug oriented. That is why today our doctors are so heavily biased toward synthetic drug therapy and know little or nothing about nutrition. Dr. David Edsall, former dean of Harvard medical school, said "I was, for a period, a professor of Therapeutics and Pharmacology, [at Harvard] and I knew from experience that students were obliged then by me and by others to learn about an interminable number of drugs, many of which were valueless, many of them useless, some probably even harmful...."

For a time, these changes actually improved the practice of medicine in the United States. Then, as the distorted medical curriculum began to churn out doctors whose only concern was prescribing synthetic drugs, things began to deteriorate into what we see today. Today the average medical doctor receives 3 hours or less training on nutrition despite the fact that our bodies are constructed entirely of what we eat and drink.

Today's doctor receives much of his ongoing education from detail men. The detail man is the drug company salesman whose job it is to teach the doctor how to use the latest drugs.

Treatment Instead of Cure

Even with all of this history the medical doctor retained a great deal of his autonomy through the 1930's and into the late 1940's. In 1949 another major change took place in the medical community that set the stage for the disaster we see today. It was in 1949 that the medical community reorganized itself into the competing medical specialty groups we see today.

Prior to 1949 a doctor was a doctor; he dealt with all disease and injury. After 1949 this was not so. The reorganization established many of the specialties that we know today. It was then that the Cardiac Specialist, the Endocrinologist, the Hepatic and Biliary Specialist and many other professional specialty groups were formed.

The symptoms of the then raging epidemic of Type II Diabetes were divided among the specialty groups so that each group had their own set of proprietary symptoms. The story given out for the reorganization was that it would help to focus more attention on the then current Diabetes epidemic. However, in practice it caused the entire medical community to treat their own proprietary symptom set and nobody focused on curing the disease anymore. This was the origin of the "treat the symptom" and "ignore the cause" philosophy that now dominates the entire medical community. This was the turning point event that led to the removal of the word "cure" from the medical vocabulary. Today, if you mention the "c" word around your doctor he will usually glaze over and pretend not to hear you. He only responds to the word "treatment".

Under the Rockefeller and Carnegie influence their pharmaceutical firms started to pour out the vast array of synthetic drugs that the doctors trained to their medical school standards now prescribed almost to the exclusion of any other remedies. Among the first drugs to be marketed this way were the oral hypoglycemic agents. They were deliberately designed to treat the symptom while not curing the disease.

Insurance Fraud

Since the name of the medical game was money, a means had to be devised to provide the patient with money that could only be used to pay for approved medical treatment. Enter the insurance company concept.

Today employees have, as an important part of their remuneration for their work, a health insurance policy. This health insurance policy does not pay for all health related needs; it only pays for those health related services that are approved. These, of course, are the synthetic drug therapies that are known to work poorly, if at all.

In order to secure effective medical treatment from the alternative sector of the economy the patient must pay for it himself; insurance companies specifically exclude virtually all alternative treatment. One wonders why so many continue to pay for an insurance program that cannot, even in principle, be of any real benefit to them.

Government Coercion in Medical Practice

In the ordinary course of events, good medicine would eventually drive out bad medicine. As more and more people discover ways to maintain and improve their health, without drug therapy, they will simply abandon bad medicine and resort to alternative therapies. Indeed, this is happening.

Also happening is a concerted government effort to discredit and declare unlawful those effective therapies that represent the greatest threat to orthodox medicine. In the last fifty years many effective cures have been developed for many of the major killer diseases that we have. In each instance the developer has been branded a quack, his business has been ruined and in some cases he has been sent to jail.

Even with outright governmental attacks on those that would promote effective therapies in America, the tide is turning. More and more Americans are waking up to the reality of our medical community. More and more they are finding it to be a fraud and they are turning to less conventional treatments and modalities.

Informed Americans that require effective medical treatment for anything more serious than a head cold are turning away from orthodox drug quackery in droves. The medical community is trying hard to make it illegal to refuse their treatment.

A major effort is currently underway (Codex) to severely restrict the availability of nutritional supplements to those that use them throughout the world. Our government is seriously considering mandatory vaccination programs.

Many believe that our Food and Drug Administration, FDA, represents the American people and that the FDA acts to insure that our food and drugs are safe and effective. Nothing could be further from the truth. The FDA acts entirely to restrain and manage competition between and among those that manufacture our food and drugs. They do this only for the purpose of minimizing competition in business.

Rockefeller is famous for proclaiming the only sin is competition. Willy Ley, a former head of the FDA, said it best when he said "What the Food and Drug Administration does and what the public thinks that it does are a different as night and day".

Today in America the practice of medicine is not free. It is one of the most tightly controlled commercial enterprises in the world. That is why it produces such extraordinary income for it's favored and such misery, disease and death for its victims.

What to do!

Given the growth of the medical monster that ate the United States, what can we who live here do to effectively manage our own health? Perhaps the single most important thing that we all must do is to recognize that our health is our most important possession. We have no choice but to accept total responsibility for our own health. To leave such an important consideration to someone who clearly has much to gain by lying to us just does not make sense.

Typically, we buy our cars and houses with a great deal more wisdom than we bring to the doctor's office when we go there. The modern orthodox medical community treats symptoms; they do not cure disease. When you visit the doctor, it is perfectly in order for you to ask bluntly whether or not the treatment he wants to give you will cure the disease you have.

Some years ago, when I had a serious case of Type II Diabetes, I asked my doctor that question about the treatment he offered me. First he pretended he did not hear me. When I persisted and made eye contact and repeated the question he replied, "this is the prescribed treatment".

Such an evasive answer to such a direct question sent me to the library where I did the research to get a better answer. I quickly discovered that the drug he offered me would not only not cure the disease, but that it was guaranteed to put me on the road to becoming an invalid long before my time.

Fortunately I rejected his treatment. I went on to search the scientific literature where I quickly found what I needed. It had nothing to do with synthetic drugs. It took me about 3 1/2 months to fully reverse my diabetes. That was seven years ago. The disease remains in full remission to this day.

There is one important caveat that must be mentioned at this point. If you are currently under a doctor's care and are dissatisfied with the results you are getting, do not just stop taking the prescribed medication. Get your doctor, or another doctor if yours will not cooperate, to help wean you off prescription drugs and to help you to devise a workable alternative therapy. Many of these synthetic drugs will produce serious side effects if they are abruptly discontinued. When I had the problem I had not yet taken prescription medication.

After accepting full responsibility for your own health, the second most important consideration is to do your homework and learn about the disease or disability that you have. Buy books, attend seminars, subscribe to newsletters, search the internet, learn about what it takes to actually reverse the disease that afflicts you.

Investigate Alternative Medical Practitioners

Many Naturopaths and Chiropractors can be of great help in actually curing disease. Do not fall for the idea that only doctors are smart enough to understand these things. Look for that unusual doctor that will risk really trying to help you; and, realize that he is taking a substantial risk when he does so. In other words, do the best you can to find something better for yourself than what your doctor offers.

Help Each Other

If you discover something important, don't be afraid to share the information.
Be vocal when government organizations attempt to restrict or deny your access to natural nutritional supplements. If you are fortunate to find a doctor with this kind of integrity, understand the importance of what you have found and give him all of the support that you can give.

There is a medical doctor in California, we will call him Doctor Q, that refused to compromise his integrity in his practice of medicine. He ended up in jail, put there by his fellow doctors. His patients got together, got him out of jail and had a special bill passed in the State legislature to protect his practice of medicine. Today he still runs a flourishing practice where he ministers to patients from all over this country. He is actually curing disease not just treating it.

Third, after accepting responsibility for your own health and becoming informed, recognize that medicine is a business. Your doctor is a paid consultant just like your electrician or plumber and he is listed in the same yellow pages. You have every right to get the information for which you are paying. When your doctor retreats into arrogance and refuses to provide direct answers to direct questions, consider getting another doctor. There really are many safe and effective therapies that go far beyond drugs. However, we must demand them on the firing line, in the doctor's office, when we need them.

RETURN

The American Medical System is Broken...
Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen Thursday, May 27th, 2004

Everybody knows that the US MEDICARE System will go belly-up in the year 2011. It's going to be, at that point, so costly that the United States simply won't be able to afford it anymore. Foreign owned "Big Pharma" is bleeding us to death. American corporations, right this moment, are cutting back their health care offerings. No one can afford the skyrocketing costs. Health Insurance companies are desperately trying to reduce provider expenditure - and because of that, Americans are being offered a poorer, and poorer, quality of health care. Everything NEW is being banned. Foreign owned "Big Pharma" is bleeding us to death. But, more shocking, is that the system itself is a deadly rip-off of gigantic proportion.

A new study, a compilation of most recent studies, called "Death by Medicine," says: "It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States.

The total number of iatrogenic deaths shown is 783,936,
The 2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697;
the annual cancer death rate, 553,251."
The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million.

Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million.
Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics.

The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million."

And that's only the "deaths."

The Lazarou study on Hospital ADR also showed that, besides the 106,000 "deaths," twenty times that number of people had health problems caused by that same hospital Adverse Drug Reaction. There were an additional 2,200,000 health problems caused by Adverse Drug Reaction to drugs in hospitals. It would be reasonable to assume, then, that that factor of twenty times the number of deaths could be applied to all of the death statistics - meaning that in addition to the total 783,936 deaths there were 15,678,720 serious health problems caused by the American Medical System.

Shocked? It gets worse... Wait until you read how slovenly our system actually operates. The top three causes of Unnecessary Deaths in the United States are related to our health care system... The number one cause of unnecessary death in the United States, called Iatrogenic deaths (783,986) is shown in the table below, re-printed by permission of the authors:

Condition ........................Deaths ........ ......Cost ..........................Author

Hospital ADR ..................106,000 deaths ....$12 billion .............Lazarou1 Suh49

Medical error ...................98,000 ................$2 billion ..............IOM6

Bedsores ........................115,000 ..............$55 billion ..............Xakellis7 Barczak8

Infection ..........................88,000 ................$5 billion ..............Weinstein9 MMWR10

Malnutrition ...................108,800 -------- ..................................Nurses Coalition11

Outpatient ADR .............199,000 ........... ..$77 billion ...............Starfield12 Weingart112

Unnecessary Procedures .37,136 ...... .....$122 billion ................HCUP3,13

Surgery-Related ..............32,000 ........ .......$9 billion ...............AHRQ85

TOTAL:........................... 783,936 ...........$282 billion

The number two cause of unnecessary death in the United States is Heart Disease. Statistics show "The 2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697."

The number three cause of unnecessary death in the United States is Cancer. Statistics show "the annual cancer death rate, 553,251."

The total number of known unnecessary deaths, per year, directly due to the American Medical System is 2,036,884.

The government regulatory systems "we the people" put into place to make sure this didn't happen have been compromised...

Does anybody, for a minute, believe that the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is working for "we the people?" Don't be absurd. The FDA is managed, completely, by "Big Pharma." Doubt that? Then you aren't watching the drug pricing scam, where prescriptions drugs are marketed in the United States from 2 to 20 times their cost in other countries - and the FDA, literally, is with guns-drawn, raiding companies attempting to import those SAME prescriptions from Canada, Mexico, etc.

Does anybody, for a minute, believe that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is working for "we the people?" Don't be absurd. The FTC is manipulated, completely, by "Big Pharma." Doubt that? Then why has the FTC manufactured a different standard for "health claims" for supplements, herbals, electro-medicine devices, etc - those things that compete with drugs in the health market?

And, how is it that the covert FTC "Operation Cure-All" exists at all?

Congress never authorized the FTC to run covert operations - only the CIA, and other "intelligence" groups can do that. So, how is it that "Operation Cure-All," which I believe is actually run out of a New York ad agency, and has no offices, phone numbers, directors, employees, accountability, etc., is allowed to use the FTC name?

State Licensing Boards have been given the responsibility for regulating health care in America, State by State. Do they do anything to solve the problems listed above? NO, they do not. There is NOT ONE STATE in the United States that has a program to do something about the problems described as the number one killer of Americans - Iatrogenic deaths (783,986). Not one State has a program to put a stop to, or even look at, the problems of Hospital Adverse Drug Reactions (106,000 deaths), medical errors (98,000 deaths), bedsores (105,000 deaths), infections (88,000 deaths), malnutrition (108,800 deaths), outpatient Adverse Drug Reactions (199,000 deaths), unnecessary procedures (37,136 deaths), surgery related (32,000 deaths).

And, what about those 15,678,720 serious health problems caused by the American Medical System? Those numbers INCREASE every year because our State regulatory agencies ignore their responsibilities. The "Support System" has been compromised...

What's the common thread that wends its way through the American Cancer Society, the AIDS network, the local "Run-For-Whatever?" Drug money. All of those above are primarily funded, directly, or indirectly, by "Big Pharma." So the so-called "War on Cancer," the "War on AIDS," the "War on whatever." is ONLY about promoting new expensive drugs - NOTHING ELSE.

But, Worst of All... Worst of all is that the American Medical System KNOWS it's broken, and is taking steps, not to fix its problems, but to destroy those trying to make changes for the better, those trying to make, and keep, people healthy, those focusing on finding cures for Cancer, AIDS, heart disease, etc.. It is trying to maintain the "status quo."

Not only have the agencies "we the people" put in place intentionally ignored the problems in health care, but they have been carefully re-focused to attack solutions that compete with the drugs-surgery paradigm.

There is a real war, with large stakes, going on in North America. It's way bigger than the "war on terrorism." I call it "the war between health and medicine." The FDA, the FTC, some of the State Regulatory Agencies, and a large part of the "Support System" have knowingly, or unknowingly, joined ranks against solutions to the problems.

The FDA, as we know, raids supplement manufacturers, electro-medicine installations, using battering rams, automatic weapons, asset seizure - all the tricks to stop competition against their "big pharma" masters.

The FTC runs the covert "Operation Cure-All," targeting American citizen's attempts to communicate new ideas in health care. But, that isn't all. There's more. For instance, the "Quackbusters," we know, are a subversive organization formed, and funded by twenty-six drug companies, after the American Medical Association (AMA) was ordered by the Federal Court to cease its covert operation against the Chiropractic profession. Their job is to harass market competitors to the drug treatment paradigm. I believe they are run out of a New York ad agency.

The "bible" for the quackbusters, the place where all the "quackbusters" send their unsuspecting victims for allegedly "good information," is the website "quackwatch.com," run by a de-licensed, failed MD out of his basement in Allentown. Pennsylvania.

The quackbuster "flagship," the so-called National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) is currently being run out of the office of its current president, a hair removal and ear-piercing specialist in Braintree, Massachusetts.

The biggest "quackbuster" success was in 1996 when they took over the Federation of Medical Board (FSMB)'s conference in Chicago, and used that meeting to re-focus all of the State Medical Boards away from the Federal Government's definition of "health fraud," (overbilling, un-bundling, etc.). There, they were able to insert their own definition - that "alternatives" to the drug/surgery paradigm was "health fraud."

The FSMB, for all of it's high sounding goals, has NEVER addressed the issue of its individual State members coming down hard on the number one cause of deaths (783,986) - Iatrogenic deaths - in the United States. In fact - they have NEVER brought up the issue at all - and obviously have no intention of doing so. Certainly, they have NO INTENTION of suggesting that their members DO SOMETHING about the problem.

The State of Wisconsin, where I'm working on a problem with the State's Department of Regulation & Licensing (DRL), for instance, has a population of 5,461,710. Extrapolating that to the US population of 284,000,000 we find that Wisconsin has 1/52 of the US population. Dividing 52 into the total number of deaths (2,036,884), and the 15,678,513 health problems, shows that Wisconsin's share was 39,170 total deaths, and 301,513 health problems. And, Wisconsin's DRL prosecutors, I've found, won't prosecute anything BUT alternative practitioners. The over-druggers, the bad surgeons, the bedsore ignorers, the malnutrition deliverers, etc. are perfectly safe in the cheese State.

For years the staff of the California med board, like most other State health regulatory agencies, focused their attacks on "good" doctors - those that stepped out of the drugs, drugs, and more drugs paradigm to find newer and better solutions for their patient problems - and conspicuously ignored the activities of the "bad "doctors - those that were responsible, of late, for making "organized medicine" that number one killer of Americans.

It was, and is, commonly believed that California med board enforcement teams made decisions to spend limited enforcement dollars prosecuting doctors not on the seriousness of their actions, but on their potential to NOT be able to afford a defense. In other words - they went for the "easy hit."

The California based Union of American Physicians & Dentists (UAPD) once told me that about 55% of all California MDs were "solo practitioners," working in small, individual offices - but that 95% of the prosecutions by the med board were filed against those same "solo" practitioners. Why? four reasons, I think.

(1) Because doctors working for hospitals, HMOs, etc., had the protection of HUGE legal defense budgets, and the services of lawyers that could wipe the floor with anything the med board could face them with.

(2) Hospitals will not report MD problems to the Medical Board - hiding from the board their activities - to protect their defective doctors.

(3) State investigators and prosecutors had been focused on prosecuting "good" doctors through alleged "training" (propaganda) provided, I think, by the Federation of State Medical Board (FSMB), and other "quackbuster" influenced, or controlled, groups.

(4) Investigators and prosecutors are, simply, poorly trained in the issues, and functionally incapable, of even understanding the complex issues of health care enforcement.

The California Medical Board recently heard the FINAL report of the "Enforcement Monitor," thrust on them, at our request, by the California legislature. The Board, and the board staff, have already adopted, and put in place, fifty (50) of the sixty-five (65) recommendations in the FINAL report. Within that report is a significant change in focus - and the setting up of the apparatus, including the legislation, and the additional funding necessary, to go after "bad" doctors - with a vengeance.

California, to its credit, has become the first State to proactively address the horrifying fact that "organized medicine" is the number one killer of Americans - and do something about it.

I applaud the members of the California Legislature and the Medical Board for this LANDMARK action. The report, frankly a model for every State, addresses seven basic issues of enforcement - in detail. The report, upwards of two hundred (200) pages outlines how an enforcement agency actually works, and makes recommendations on how to improve it.

So, what do we do with this? This report will be officially presented by delegates of the California Medical Board to the Federation of States Medical Board (FSMB) in April of 2006 - and I have no doubt that the New York ad agency that controls the "quackbuster" operation will conduct a campaign to stop this process from going nationwide. However, the powerful North American Health Freedom Movement has groups in every State.

I urge all of you to consider formally presenting California's actions, and report, to each State's Medical Board - and very nicely, but insistently, demand that they do exactly the same thing - and if they don't - go immediately to the State Capitol, and sit down with the Chairman of the Senate and the House of Representative's Health Committee - and lay the cards on the table...

In summary - we started out to simply get the staff off the backs of cutting edge MDs, and other practitioners in California - and we changed the practice of California medicine forever.

Take a look at the numbers in the graph above - won't it be nice to reduce those numbers to near zero? Yes, this is the biggest victory in the history of health freedom battles EVER. For years we've been fending off attacks from the very people that were massively killing Americans - we've turned the tables. In California we have more to do. "Victory" just makes us work harder.

Foreign owned "Big Pharma" is bleeding us to death. Can We Do Something About It?

Of course we can. And, we are…….Stay tuned... Tim Bolen - Consumer Advocate! This "Millions of Health Freedom Fighters - Newsletter" is about the battle between "Health and Medicine" on Planet Earth. Tim Bolen is an op/ed writer with extensive knowledge of the activities of a subversive organization calling itself the "quackbusters," and that organization's attempts to suppress, and discredit, any, and all health modalities that compete with the allopathic (MD) paradigm for the consumer health dollars.

The focus of the newsletter is on the ongoing activities, battles, politics, and the victories won by members of the "Health Freedom Movement" against the "quackbusters". It details "who the quackbusters are, what they are, where they are operating, when they appear, and how they operate - and how easy it is to beat them..."

For background information on the "Battle between Health and Medicine" go to: http://www.savedrclark.net/by_whom2.htm. A copy of THIS newsletter, and older ones, are viewable at the website http://www.quackpotwatch.org/default.htm. (There is an especially good article there that talks about Chiropractic and the 1978 federal trial findings against the American Medical Association called "The Last Days of the Quackbusters". For EVEN MORE interesting and related articles go to http://www.bolenreport.com.

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SOME SHOCKING FACTS ABOUT HEALTH IN AMERICA

We lead the developed world in deaths from:
* Heart disease
* Prostate cancer
* Breast cancer
* Colorectal cancer
* Diabetes
* Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under age 10.

And even though we spend over 100 billion dollars a year on cancer treatment and research, the overall survival rate for cancer patients is
NO BETTER than it was 50 years ago.

Every 45 seconds someone in the U.S. dies of cancer. That's over 500,000 deaths per year - and most of them are long drawn-out, painful deaths. AND IT'S GETTING WORSE!!

Chronic fatigue, Immune diseases, constipation, PMS, joint pain, hemorrhoids, high cholesterol, premature aging, heart disease, obesity, malnutrition, and breathing difficulties are all on the rise.

The incidence of diabetes in the United States has DOUBLED in just the LAST 5 YEARS!!

50 years ago, diverticular disease (herniations of the colon) was virtually unknown (affecting less than 10% of the American Population.) Today, according to the Merck Manual, 100% of all Americans will have many - if they live long enough.

30 years ago, colorectal cancer was virtually unknown. Today it is the single most prevalent cancer among men and women combined.

The number of Americans who suffer from asthma, according to the Centers for Disease Control, has risen by an astounding 75% in just the last 20 years.

An article in the March 2002 issue of the British Medical Journal found that physicians would rather continue using therapies that are unsafe and ineffective than admit they were wrong to the patients they were seeing.

Breast cancer rates are up 30% in just the last 15 years. And now it's official. In the February 9, 1994 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the "War on Cancer" was declared a failure. "In all age groups, the incidence of cancer is increasing…Few new, effective treatments have been devised for the most common cancers." · 3 billion prescriptions are written yearly for drugs that treat only symptoms.

AND THE MOST SHOCKING FACT OF ALL: The April 15, 1998 Journal of the American Medical Association reported that there are more than 2,000,000 drug "reactions" annually in the United States, more than 100,000 of those reactions are fatal. This makes prescription drugs the third leading cause of death in America.

But the reality is actually far worse. The number of individuals killed from poor medical judgment, medical malpractice, etc was estimated to be 250,000/yr. Those numbers only count drugs that are prescribed correctly and at the right dose. Not included are patients who are given the wrong drugs, or who are given those drugs at the wrong dosage or in the wrong combination. And these numbers do not include the patients who have fatal reactions to the drugs, but whose deaths are mistakenly attributed to other causes. Nor do these numbers include the patients whose cause of death is deliberately obscured to protect the physicians and hospitals involved. Add in these numbers, and you will find that deaths from adverse reactions to drugs may number as high as 700,000 a year. (Actually the FDA estimates that only 1% of all adverse reactions are reported - which if true, would make 700,000 a very conservative estimate.)

On an ABC News Nightline program, the Harvard School of Public Health found that approximately 1.3 million people a year suffer some kind of injury because of hospital treatment, and 180,000 of those people die. A study by a group of French doctors actually makes that 1% estimate seem wildly optimistic. The study found that only about 1 out of every 24,000 adverse reactions is actually reported by doctors to the appropriate monitoring agency.). Finally if you combine that 700,000 with the numbers of people who die from misdiagnosis, inappropriate treatment, or secondary infections received in hospitals, or just plain physician error, and the startling fact you're left with is: the modern medical paradigm, despite all of its accomplishments, is arguably the single leading cause of death in the United States.

At this point in time (2006), it has been well established that medical doctors are the leading cause of death in America. Please understand, this is NOT an attack on medical doctors - the vast majority are extremely competent, highly dedicated, and (as I mentioned earlier) often even heroic.

Nevertheless, it is important to realize that when it comes to the major diseases of our time, the modern medical paradigm of searching for "magic bullets" and managing symptoms with drugs has failed miserably.

REMEMBER: YOUR GOOD HEALTH IS EASIER TO MAINTAIN THAN IT IS TO REGAIN, DISEASE CAN BE PREVENTED AND MOST CAN BE REVERSED.

There is only one disease and that is deficiency. Deficiency creates cellular malfunction, which creates the groundwork for toxicity. Whether you call it a cold or heart disease, the cause is the same: deficiency.

1) You can take control of your health by monitoring what you eat.
2) Every time you sit down to eat YOU CHOOSE what you put in your body.
3) The daily choices you make influence the length and quality of your life.

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Ritalin Research Fraud

The use of the drug Ritalin, commonly given to hyperactive children, is again under scrutiny. Dr. Stephen Breuning, the psychologist who first researched the medication, pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court (9/89) to falsifying his findings.

A National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) investigation showed that Breuning, who was responsible for one-third of the literature on drug therapy for hyperactive children during his research years, "knowingly, willfully and repeatedly engaged in misleading and deceptive practices in reporting results of research," (Ginsburg, S. Baltimore [UPI], November 11, 1989).

Accordingly, the research was never done as described in the grant application to the NIMH, and the results Breuning claimed were never attained. It was the first federal conviction of a researcher for falsifying results. Breuning was sentenced to 60 days in prison, ordered to pay $11,352 in restitution to the University of Pittsburgh (where Breuning worked), and was placed on five years probation by U.S. District Judge Frank Kaufman, who said the former researcher "will pay dearly for the rest of his life." The use of Ritalin is still controversial and has resulted in numerous court battles between schools and parents.

Some doctors say the benefits - increased attention span and performance-outweigh the side affects which may include twitching, depression, violence and sometimes suicidal tendencies. Other doctors feel that most hyperactive children can be treated using more conservative measures. While many of those using A.K. (Applied Kinesiology) have experienced excellent results with these children, further studies are needed to provide a better understanding of this complex problem.

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Drug Marketing Scheme Hits Nation's School System

January 26, 2006.
By Evelyn Pringle

TeenScreen, the elaborate drug marketing scheme concocted by the pharmaceutical industry and a front group operating out of Columbia University, is being promoted by the Bush administration's recommendation to screen the nation's school population for mental illness.

The Bush appointed New Freedoms Commission on Mental Health issued a report in July 2003 urging the screening of students in all 50 states and recommended TeenScreen as the model program for the job.

Although touted as a suicide prevention tool, TeenScreen backers also claim it can diagnose a host of mental health disorders in students with the completion of the 10-minute survey. On March 2, 2004, the program's Executive Director, Laurie Flynn, testified at a congressional hearing and said that in the screening process, "youth complete a 10-minute self-administered questionnaire that screens for social phobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicidality."

Warnings against the mass screening of children are coming from every segment of society, including parents, medical professionals, investigative journalists, and human rights groups, in large part, because the influence of pharma in TeenScreen is so blatantly obvious.

For example, prior to joining TeenScreen, Flynn served as the executive director of National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) for 16 years. NAMI calls itself as "a grassroots organization of individuals with brain disorders and their family members."

But in reality, NAMI is pharma's number one front group, dedicated to promoting the sale of as many "legal" drugs as possible. Which means prior to her promotion to the position with TeenScreen, Flynn was the number one "legal" pusher for 16 years.

While employed by NAMI, Pharma paid Flynn's salary. Internal NAMI documents obtained by Mother Jones Magazine, for the period between 1996 and mid-1999, show that 18 drug companies gave NAMI a total of $11.72 million. The firms include Janssen ($2.08 million), Novartis ($1.87 million), Pfizer ($1.3 million), Abbott Laboratories ($1.24 million), Wyeth-Ayerst ($658,000), and Bristol-Myers Squibb ($613,505). The group's top donor during that period was Eli Lilly with total contributions of $2.87 million.

Flynn even wrote an article titled, "Before Their Time: Preventing Teen Suicide," which said: "The TeenScreen Program developed 10 years ago by Columbia University and offered in partnership with the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill helps communities across the nation identify teens with mental illness who might be at risk for suicide."

Now NAMI can hardly dispute the charge that it serves as a funnel for drug money when its web site lists "Corporate Partners, Grants, and Foundations," as Abbott, AstraZoneca, Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, Eli Lilly, Forest Lab, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Jannsen, McNeil, Pfizer, and Wyeth.

So if TeenScreen is "offered in partnership," with the NAMI, its logically safe to assume that drug money is involved in the development of the program.

Pharma constantly funnels money through groups like NAMI, which in turn become conduits for the promotion of industry marketing schemes. According to psychiatrist, Dr Peter Breggin, founder of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, "these groups hold national meetings that bring together drug advocates to talk directly to consumers. They also put out newsletters and other information that praise medications. Sometimes they actively suppress viewpoints that are critical of drugs - for example, by discouraging the media from airing opposing viewpoints."

In some states, pharma money funded TeenScreen openly. On June, 2002 the Update Newsletter published by the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, reported that 170 Nashville students had completed a TeenScreen survey conducted by the NAMI and Columbia University and according to newsletter, the survey was funded by grants from AdvoCare and Eli Lilly.

The TeenScreen program is actually a brilliant idea from a marketing standpoint. The promotional talking points include the mantra that the program is free and TeenScreen receives no government funding. Those assertions are false with a capital F.

Tax payers are funding this recruitment scheme from start to finish. Tax dollars are being used to set up TeenScreen in schools all over the country and tax dollars are being used to pay for the resulting treatment and prescription drugs for children.

For instance, on November 17, 2004, officials at the University of South Florida announced receiving $98,641 in funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to expand the TeenScreen Program in the Tampa Bay area.

In Ohio, the implementation of TeenScreen sites in five counties was funded through a grant of $15,000 from the Department of Mental Health for each of five mental health boards who participated in the pilot program.

According to a July 11, 2005, Peoria Illinois Journal Star, in Brimfield Illinois, "organizing the system and employing a part-time counselor specifically for the program is estimated to cost about $100 per student." Overall, the "Brimfield High School program alone will cost around $20,000 for the first semester," the Journal wrote.

During Flynn's testimony to Congress, she said, "close to 750,000 teens are depressed at any one time, and an estimated 7-12 million youth suffer from mental illness." So this means pharma has its eye on capturing 7-12 million new customers from the nation's 52 million students.

Dr Jane Orient, Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, had a few comments to offer on the topic of school screening. "Teams of experts are awaiting an infusion of cash," she said, "they'll be ensconced in your child's school before you even know it."

And an added "bonus," Orient says, "is that your little darlings will probably give them quite a bit of information about you also, and then you can receive therapy you didn't know you needed."

There are already too many people using the expensive and dangerous drugs TeenScreen is pushing. On January 13, 2005 WebMD Medical News reported a government study that showed more Americans than ever are being treated for substance abuse, depression, and other mental health disorders, and that the treatment they are getting is increasingly limited to prescription drugs alone.

The study reviewed changing patterns in the treatment of mental illnesses from the mid-1990s to 2001, and determined that the cost of mental health drugs rose 20% each year.

According to Economist Samuel H Zuvekas, PhD, who conducted the analysis, about 80% of the growth can be explained by the increase in the use of SSRIs and other antidepressants, and high-priced schizophrenia drugs called "atypical antipsychotics," like Risperdal, Zyprexa, and Geodon.

Tax payers are already unwittingly footing the bill for the mass drugging of children. For instance, an investigation by the Columbus Dispatch, found that nearly 40,000 Ohio children on Medicaid were taking drugs for anxiety, depression, delusions, hyperactivity and violent behavior as of July 2004, and that overall, Ohio spent over $65 million on mental-health drugs for children in 2004. The investigation also revealed that doctors in Ohio had prescribed sedatives and mood-altering medications for nearly 700 babies and toddlers who were on Medicaid in 2004.

Robert Whitaker, author of the best-selling book, Mad in America, tracked the profits of the new so-called wonder drugs since 1987, and reviewed government data that showed not only an huge increase in the use of the drugs, but a tremendous rise in the cost to taxpayers.

According to Whitaker, in 1987, psychotropic drug expenditures were approximately $1 billion, but by 2002 the price tag to tax payers had risen to $23 billion.

The May 8, 2005 issue of Lab Business Week, reported on an analysis by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that revealed that Medicaid is now the largest payer of mental health services, exceeding private insurance, Medicare, or other state and local spending. The report also noted that one out of every $5 spent on mental health care now goes for psychotropic drugs.

The increase in the use of these psychiatric drugs with children has already lead to tragic results. For example, the SSRI, Paxil, was said to be a wonder drugs when it was prescribed to children while relatively untested. The drug has since been linked to deadly side effects. Lawsuits have now identified Paxil as the culprit in cases of murder, suicide, debilitating disease and school shootings. In June of 2003, the FDA issued a warning that Paxil should not be prescribed to patients under 18 due to a large number of reports of suicides by children on the drug.

In his book, Robert Whitaker, reported that one in every 145 subjects who entered the trials for the atypical antipsychotics Zyprexa, Risperdal, Seroquel, and Serdolect had died. Despite these known effects, children between 6 to 11 were recruited for a clinical trial at the University of California Los Angeles soon after Zyprexa was approved for adults.

The children were not schizophrenic, but were diagnosed with other disorders. According to the published report on the study, all of the children experienced adverse effects and none were helped. The study was terminated less than 6 weeks after it began, Whitaker reported.

Yet to this day, doctors continue to prescribe atypicals to children even though they have never been FDA approved for the treatment of any illness with children. In fact, every one of the so-called "wonder drugs," is now required to carry a black box warning listing the serious and often deadly adverse reactions experienced by both children and adults.

TeenScreen swears that it always obtains parental consent before screening students and that it does not provide students with a diagnosis.

However, an Indiana family disputes both of those claims. Michael and Teresa Rhoades say the TeenScreen survey was administered to their daughter without their consent.

In December 2004, their daughter came home from school and informed her parents that she had been diagnosed with an obsessive compulsive disorder and a social anxiety disorder, after she completed the TeenScreen survey.

When things go according to plan, at this point, parents are supposed to head to the nearest pharmacy. However, Michael and Teresa were outraged, and things did not go according to the plan.

Instead, they filed the nation's first lawsuit charging that their daughter had been tested, diagnosed, and labeled mentally ill in a public school without their consent.

And no doubt many more lawsuits will be filed as TeenScreen continues to spread out across the country inflicting life-long damage on children by labeling them mentally ill for the sole purpose of getting them hooked on expensive but lethal drugs.

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Vioxx Took a Deadly Toll

Vioxx, the blockbuster arthritis and pain medication pulled off the market last September, could have killed more than 40,000 people in the United States, according to an FDA scientist who has said his employer silenced his earlier warnings about the drug's safety. David Graham, associate director of science for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Office of Drug Safety and lead author of a study published on-line by The Lancet yesterday, found that Vioxx raised a person's risk of coronary heart disease by 34 per cent, compared with other anti-inflammatory drugs, including Celebrex, its onetime rival in the class of drugs known as cox-2 inhibitors. (Celebrex has also been linked to heart attacks at high doses).

Dr. Graham and colleagues estimate that during the five years Vioxx was sold in the United States, it caused between 88,000 and 140,000 excess cases of serious heart disease. Based on national statistics of heart disease and deaths, the researchers estimate that close to half of those cases, or 44 per cent, would have resulted in fatalities. This means anywhere from 39,000 to 61,000 deaths in the United States could be linked to Vioxx.

"It's a huge number," said Dr. Graham, now widely known as a whistle-blower scientist. "In the future, when trials show that a new treatment confers a greater risk of a serious adverse effect than a standard treatment, we must be much more careful about allowing its unrestrained use."

Dr. Graham said in an interview that it was fair to extrapolate the U.S. numbers to Canada. According to IMS Health, a private company that tracks prescription-drug sales, pharmacies in Canada dispensed more than 15 million prescriptions for Vioxx after it hit the market in 1999. "The population of Canada is about an eighth, or ninth, in terms of the size. And the level of use, or exposure to, Vioxx in Canada was the same, if not greater, than in the U.S.," Dr. Graham said. Such an extrapolation would suggest Vioxx could be associated with as many as 4,000 to 7,000 deaths in Canada.

But Muhammad Mamdani, a senior scientist with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto who has studied Vioxx and other cox-2 inhibitor drugs in its class, cautioned that those numbers "seem a bit more like back-of-the envelope calculations." "Do I believe those numbers? Not really," he said. "They could be higher or they could be lower. It's dangerous to extrapolate a number from the data."

Certain factors might skew the information, Dr. Mamdani said. For example, he noted most of the heart problems uncovered were linked to patients taking Vioxx at doses higher than 25 milligrams a day. As well, he said, people taking Vioxx in the study may have been at higher risk of coronary disease: "People who use traditional NSAIDS [non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen] are typically healthier." He said if Vioxx had such a dramatic effect on heart attack rates, researchers here would have detected a spike. Instead, he said, none was apparent. Still, Dr. Mamdani added: "I think David Graham's work should be commended. It shows in a reasonably convincing manner that there's a problem there."

No one from Health Canada would comment on Dr. Graham's study. But spokeswoman Jirina Vlk said Health Canada officials are combing through "volumes" of safety information to assess the cardiovascular and other problems Vioxx caused here before Merck & Co. pulled its drug off markets worldwide on Sept. 30, 2005. That move followed evidence that Vioxx doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes in a clinical trial studying whether the drug could prevent colon cancer.

Other studies have suggested that the drug, which blocks an enzyme linked to pain and swelling, contributes to blood clotting and hypertension. But the cancer study was not the first to point to the heart risks of taking Vioxx. Dr. Graham decided to lead a Vioxx study after a large trial intended to highlight the gastrointestinal safety of the drug instead suggested it carried five times the risk of heart problems compared with naproxen, an older anti-inflammatory and pain-killing medication. At the time, Merck officials suggested naproxen actually protected the heart, which made it appear as though Vioxx was having a damaging effect.

Dr. Graham decided to investigate further. He and colleagues analyzed data from 1.4 million people between the ages of 18 and 84 in California who were treated between January of 1999 and December of 2001 with one of the new cox-2 drugs and those taking the older NSAIDS. Not only did they find that naproxen did not protect against serious heart disease, they uncovered the risk that Vioxx posed. But Dr. Graham said that his supervisors at the FDA discouraged him from presenting his findings to a drug-safety meeting last summer. As well, he said, "They tried to block it from being published." "I was threatened with severe consequences if I went forward. I took that to mean I would be fired," said Dr. Graham, who testified at a U.S. Senate committee hearing last fall that he felt the FDA fumbled its duties on the Vioxx file. FDA officials deny Dr. Graham's allegations and say they feel Dr. Graham's study required further review before it could be submitted. © Copyright The Globe and Mail

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The Marketing of Drugs

Do drug companies hire distinguished doctors to push drugs at professional seminars, disguised as educational symposiums? Are doctors the targets of other slick ad campaigns by drug companies? Apparently so, says an article in the February 1992 issue of Consumer Reports. The article calls it inefficient medicine and a major contributor to soaring health care costs.

One incident involved paid T.V. time where doctors were urged to use a drug (Actigall) for gallstones, despite conflicting with standard medical recommendations. The FDA declared the program false and misleading. The most heavily promoted drugs are those for arthritis, high blood pressure, ulcers, high cholesterol, and respiratory infections.

The Consumer Reports article suggested patients ask their doctor if non-drug therapies could be used. According to Consumer Reports, the 63 billion dollar-a-year pharmaceutical industry spends about five billion dollars annually on promotions. It seems to be paying dividends: the top 10 U.S. drug companies averaged 16% profit on sales in 1990, more than triple the average Fortune 500 company.

Between 1980 and 1990, while health care rose 117% and general inflation rose 58%, the cost of drugs rose 152%.

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Drug Sales Bring Huge Profits,
and Scrutiny, to Cancer Doctors
THE NEW YORK TIMES January 26, 2003 By REED ABELSON

Among cancer doctors, it is called the chemotherapy concession. At a time when overall spending on prescription drugs is soaring, cancer specialists are pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars each year by selling drugs to patients - a practice that almost no other doctors follow.

The cancer specialists can make huge sums - often the majority of their practice revenue - from the difference between what they pay for the drugs and what they charge insurers and government programs. But some private health insurers are now studying ways to reduce these profits, and the issue is getting close attention in Congress.

Typically, doctors give patients prescriptions for drugs that are then filled at pharmacies. But cancer doctors, known as oncologists, buy the chemotherapy drugs themselves, often at prices discounted by drug manufacturers trying to sell more of their products, and then administer them intravenously to patients in their offices. The practice also creates a potential conflict of interest for these doctors, who must help patients decide whether to undergo or continue chemotherapy if it is not proving to be effective, and which drugs to use.

Cancer specialists have successfully resisted most government efforts to take the drug concession away, arguing that they need the payments to offset high costs in the rest of their practices. An attempt by the Clinton administration to change reimbursement practices was strongly opposed by doctors, and by George W. Bush, who was then governor of Texas, among others. But support for change is growing, and some changes are beginning to take place. "This has gotten out of hand," said Dr. William C. Popik, the chief medical officer for Aetna, which is exploring different approaches to the concession, including taking it away in some regions.

Health insurers say they can buy these drugs much less expensively themselves and have the drugs shipped directly to doctors' offices. Some also want to keep better track of how the drugs are used. Critics say the money these doctors make from selling medicine is contributing to the nation's high health care bills and adding to the waste and inefficiency in the health care system.

Medicare, which does not cover most prescription drugs, does pay doctors about $6.5 billion a year for drugs they personally administer, largely cancer drugs. Under the current system of determining what the appropriate prices for these drugs are, the government is paying, by some estimates, more than $1 billion over what the drugs actually cost. Many private insurers say they are also overpaying for these drugs.

In some cases, patients may even be paying a much larger CO-payment for the drug than a cancer doctor is paying to buy it. Some patients paid about $150 out of pocket for Toposar, a cancer drug, for example, while doctors appear to have paid closer to $60 after various discounts from Pharmacia, the manufacturer, according to the Minnesota attorney general, who is suing Pharmacia, accusing it of pricing fraud.

The General Accounting Office, which studied federal payments for cancer drugs in late 2001, discovered that doctors, on average, were able to get discounts as high as 86 percent on some drugs. Doctors paid less than $3 for a single dose of leucovorin, for example, while patients paid them around $3.50 out of a total reimbursement of about $17.50.

"We think it's a bad system that creates bad incentives that creates bad medicine," said Robert M. Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a consumer group, who testified before Congress last fall on the issue. Dr. Thomas J. Smith, an associate professor of oncology at the Medical College of Virginia Commonwealth University, has estimated that oncologists in private practice typically make two-thirds of their practice revenue from the chemotherapy concession.

The concession echoes the system in Japan, where doctors make money by dispensing drugs. Drug spending per capita in Japan is among the highest in the world, higher than in the United States. "This is our little corner of Japan," said Joseph P. Newhouse, a health policy professor at Harvard, who has been asked by the government to look into how the Medicare reimbursement system may affect how doctors prescribe chemotherapy. The concession may also lead some doctors to recommend chemotherapy when patients may not benefit.

In a 2001 study of cancer patients in Massachusetts, conducted by a team of researchers led by Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel of the National Institutes of Health, the authors found that a third of those patients received chemotherapy in the last six months of their lives, even when their cancers were considered unresponsive to chemotherapy. Those findings strongly suggested overuse of chemotherapy at the end of life. "We know there is not all appropriate use," said Dr. John Gillespie, medical director of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Western New York. But oncologists say they are only trying to respond to their patients' wishes. And they say they need the profits from the drugs to make up for high costs in the rest of their operations. They say they spend enormous sums to have the facilities and employees that enable patients to receive chemotherapy outside a hospital, under close supervision.

"It seems to be a wash right now," said Dr. Larry Norton, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and a former president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He and his colleagues argue that oncologists treat patients who demand more care and therefore have higher expenses. "We're just trying to break even," Dr. Norton said. Oncologists also argue that patients may suffer if doctors do not buy chemotherapy drugs directly. They point to a case in Kansas City, Mo., in which a pharmacist was sentenced in December to 30 years in prison for diluting chemotherapy drugs he then sold to doctors who administered the drugs in their offices.

Dr. Norton argued that the case illustrated why he and his colleagues were worried. "Some potential problems could arise," he said. The health plans, and some of the specialty pharmacies that sell to both doctors and insurers, say this concern is unfounded. Earlier this month, Representative Pete Stark, Democrat of California, introduced legislation that would slightly increase what Medicare pays oncologists for their services but pay doctors closer to what the drugs actually cost.

The government is also looking into how the concession is affecting prescribing patterns. Oncologists began selling drugs directly more than a decade ago, after they persuaded insurers that it would be less expensive to administer the drugs in their offices than in hospitals. This was part of a trend of doctors' being paid much more to perform services and treatments in their offices than in hospitals. (Some other specialists, like urologists, also profit from chemotherapy drugs, but they administer them only to some of their patients.)

Over the course of the 1990's, oncologists have been able to rely on the sale of chemotherapy drugs as an important source of revenue. They are now among the best-paid doctors, surpassing obstetricians and general surgeons, according to data from the Medical Group Management Association.

In 2001, the median compensation for an oncologist in a large practice was $274,000. While compensation for specialists has increased 19 percent, on average, since 1997, oncologists' compensation has risen slightly more than 40 percent. Dr. Norton dismisses the notion that cancer doctors' compensation has risen faster because of income from chemotherapy drugs.

"Oncologists are extremely busy," he said, because more people have cancer and more treatments are available. But the idea that these doctors make money from the drugs worries some. "All the evidence suggests that doctors do respond to money," said Dr. Susan D. Goold, an associate professor at the University of Michigan Medical School. Some oncologists acknowledge that the current system creates a perverse incentive.

The potential for conflicts of interest "is troubling," said Dr. Edward L. Braud, the president of the Association of Community Cancer Centers, whose members treat more than half of the nation's cancer patients.

In several prominent cases, drug companies have also been accused of using discounts to influence doctors. For example, in the Minnesota lawsuit, brought last year, Pharmacia is accused of having "induced physicians to purchase its drugs, rather than 'competitors' drugs, by persuading them that the wider 'spread' on the defendant's drugs would allow the physicians to receive more money, and make more of a profit, at the expense of the Medicaid program and Medicare beneficiaries."

Pharmacia said it could not comment because the matter was still in litigation. But others say doctors are solely motivated by what their patients want - a chance, no matter how slim, of living longer or suffering less. Dr. Norton, for one, dismissed the idea that oncologists would be motivated to give too much care or the wrong kind, and said under treatment is a much greater risk. Some insurers are getting oncologists to forgo profits from chemotherapy drugs, often by paying the doctors more for administering them.

While oncologists may not make as much under the new system, and some have objected vehemently, it is "palatable," said Dr. Abraham Rosenberg, an oncologist in South Florida, where the new system is prevalent.

Last year, inspired by Florida's example, the Blue Cross Blue Shield plan in western New York began negotiating new contracts with oncologists. The United Health Group is also in discussions with doctors in New York and expects to begin a pilot program this year. It plans to give oncologists a choice: they can allow United Health to buy the drugs at a lower price and pay the doctors for administering chemotherapy, or they can accept a lower payment for the drugs if they continue to buy them. The plan is also talking with doctors in cities including Cleveland and Dallas.

Aetna is trying different approaches. In the Northeast, the insurer wants to reimburse doctors at prices that are much closer to what the doctors are actually paying, while in the Southeast and Southwest, it is looking to buy the drugs directly. Richard H. Friedman, the chief executive of the MIM Corporation, which operates a specialty pharmacy that supplies chemotherapy drugs to doctors, predicted that the chemotherapy concession may not last. The health plans, he said, "are all starting to take a much harder look."

RETURN

How Drug Companies Brainwash Doctors
so Doctors Brainwash You with Drugs
by SixWise.com

If you've ever received a free sample of a prescription drug from your doctor, chances are you were happy to get it. It saved you money and the time of going to a pharmacy, at least for the short-term. But did you ever wonder why your doctor had a free sample to give you in the first place? Was it truly the best option available? That free prescription drug sample is just the tip of the iceberg.

Drug companies spend $12 billion to $18 billion each year marketing directly to physicians and residents. And they start even before students even enter medical school.

What's influencing your doctor's decision on which drug to prescribe? "This contact with drug companies begins in the weeks and months after students graduate from college. By the third year of medical school, they are being saturated with this," said Dr. Frederick S. Sierles, a professor of medicine at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, in North Chicago, Ill, who conducted a study on the topic.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that by the third year of medical school, students get, on average, one gift or attend one activity sponsored by a drug company each week.

It also found, via a survey sent out to 1,143 third-year medical students at eight medical schools, that:

--93.2 percent of the students were asked or required by a physician to attend at least one lunch sponsored by a drug company.
--68.8 percent of the students did not think the gifts would influence their practices.
--57.7 percent believed the gifts would not affect colleagues' practices.
-- Students tended to feel that their peers were more likely to be influenced than they were.
--80.3 percent of the students believed they were entitled to gifts.

"Basically, we have medical students exposed to marketing. We know the marketing is biased in favor of the products. We know the students don't think they are being influenced. So they're being set up to be influenced without knowing it, and to prescribe in a way that is going to be bad for their patients," Sierles said.

Not Just Free Lunches

Every year, pharmaceutical representatives make 60 million visits to doctors to inform them about their products. And, says Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and author of "The Truth About Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It," the top U.S. drug makers spend 2.5 times as much on marketing and administration as they do on research.

So just how do these drug representatives work their magic to "teach" doctors about the newest and most expensive drugs on the market? They visit hospitals and private practices, bringing with them bagels and cream cheese, pens, pads of paper and other trinkets emblazoned with their company's logo. They sponsor extravagant lunches and take doctors on all-expenses paid trips to luxury resorts. Said one former drug rep, "[Gifts] buy you time with a doc, time that might change his mind … Money is the big resource. The pads and pens are great for access, but the dinners and what costs money -- CDs, handheld computers, everything given in the name of research -- this is what's thrown at docs to get them to change their minds." But if a free dinner or pad of paper wouldn't change your mind, maybe a check -- a five- or six-figure one -- would. Free lunches, trips, and other gifts may be influencing which drug you're prescribed.

According to the New York Times, drug maker Schering-Plough sent six liver-disease specialists checks for $10,000, along with a letter explaining the check was for consulting services that were explained on the attached "Schedule A."

As it turns out, "Schedule A" was nothing more than a blank sheet of paper with "Schedule A" printed at the top. Another doctor also received a $10,000 check from the company, this one as payment for a consulting agreement that required only that the doctor commit to prescribing the company's drugs.

Other doctors have reported receiving six-figure checks from other companies under similar circumstances. The Gifts Work The drug companies wouldn't be spending money on free lunches, computers and trips if it didn't pay off in the end.

In one study, the prescribing habits of two groups of 10 doctors were tracked before and after they went on a free luxury vacation from separate drug companies (and attended several hours of drug seminars each day).

Doctors in the first group, whose trip was sponsored by the makers of an intravenous antibiotic, prescribed 81 units of the drug before the trip -- and 272 units afterward.

The trip for the second group of doctors was sponsored by the makers of an intravenous heart medication. Before the trip, doctors prescribed an average of 34 units. After the trip, it rose to 87 units.

What is perhaps most disturbing is that none of the doctors believed they were influenced. "Maybe I was indirectly influenced by important scientific information that I might not otherwise have heard, but nothing else would influence me," said one. Clearly, though, doctors are being influenced, often without their even realizing it. "They [doctors and residents] are more likely to prescribe the marketed products than prescribe what they should be prescribing. That's a big danger," said Sierles.

Protect Yourself

Going back to that free sample from your doctor, it's typically the newest, most expensive drugs that the drug reps give out. But, once your free sample runs out, guess who will foot the bill for those pills, that may be two to three times more expensive than an older or generic (but just as effective) drug? You. So in the long run, those free samples aren't really free.

"We think that big pharma has gotten intricately involved in every aspect of medical education and clinical practice," said Leana Wen, president of the American Medical Student Association and a medical student at Washington University in St. Louis. "Medical schools really have a duty to educate students about the proper ways to interact with drug companies." Until that happens, though, it's up to you to protect yourself. The best way to do this?

Rather than just accepting whatever prescription your doctor gives you (free sample or otherwise), talk to him or her about all the options available, why this brand is better than others, and whether there's a less expensive alternative on the market.

And, says Dr. Angell: "… Doctors are too willing to provide drugs for very minor conditions. Those drugs are too often the very most expensive, heavily advertised, me-too drugs. I think that patients have to get a little savvier about that. Instead of just grabbing that sample and thinking they've gotten something for free, they ought to think about what it means."

"Nearly every drug has side effects."
"I do think that we are an overmedicated society."

THE MYTH OF MEDICINE

The failure of medicine is glaringly evident. In every direction we see the pitiful results of misguided treatments. That is one thing! To force-by coercion, threats and court action-these deadly absurdities on those who not choose to undergo them is a blow to our health freedom. In the Life Science publication, The Myth of Medicine, we read: "The cancer racket of the present is one of the most gigantic rackets of all time."

Dr. Hardin B. Jones of the University of California, Department of Medical Physics, stated: "People with cancer who submit to medical treatment live an average of three years. Those who develop cancer and refuse treatment live an average of 12.6 years." This truthful and courageous statement along with multitudinous evidence that cancer is not as deadly as we believe, should make any individual realize that it is the traditional methods of combatting this condition that are deadly.

The bottom line is this: Millions of sufferers grow progressively worse under orthodox medical treatment. It's time for public indignation to put health freedom above medical dictatorial tactics!

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The Free Health Advice Center

SUGAR AND OTHER COUNTERFEIT FOODS

Drink More Diet Soda, Gain More Weight?
Splenda - Do you really want to drink that?
Look Who's Joined in the Splenda Fight!
Killer Sugar! Suicide With A Spoon
Red bull
That Ice Cream Fix
Getting Your Fast Food Fix
Fast Food Facts (From the office of the Minnesota Attorney General)
Liquid Candy
Soda is not your Friend
CONFESSIONS OF A SOFT DRINK
Is Pasteurization a Health Risk or a Safety Benefit?
Food as Healer, Food as Slayer
CAFFEINE
Side effects of Caffeine
CERTS - Cleaning Your Breath?

DRINK MORE SODA, GAIN MORE WEIGHT?

Overweight Risk Soars 41% With Each Daily Can of Diet Soft Drink
By Daniel DeNoon, WebMD Medical News
Reviewed By Charlotte Grayson, MD
Monday, June 13, 2005 June 13, 2005 --

People who drink diet soft drinks don't lose weight. In fact, they gain weight, a new study shows. The findings come from eight years of data collected by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio. Fowler reported the data at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego. "What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity," Fowler tells WebMD. "What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher."

In fact, when the researchers took a closer look at their data, they found that nearly all the obesity risk from soft drinks came from diet sodas. "There was a 41% increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day," Fowler says.

More Diet Drinks, More Weight Gain

Fowler's team looked at seven to eight years of data on 1,550 Mexican-American and non-Hispanic white Americans aged 25 to 64. Of the 622 study participants who were of normal weight at the beginning of the study, about a third became overweight or obese.

For regular soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:
· 26% for up to 1/2 can each day
· 30.4% for 1/2 to one can each day
· 32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day
· 47.2% for more than 2 cans each day.

For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:
· 36.5% for up to 1/2 can each day
· 37.5% for 1/2 to one can each day
· 54.5% for 1 to 2 cans each day
· 57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.

For each can of diet soft drink consumed each day, a person's risk of obesity went up 41%.

Diet Soda - No Smoking Gun

Fowler is quick to note that a study of this kind does not prove that diet soda causes obesity. More likely, she says, it shows that something linked to diet soda drinking is also linked to obesity. "One possible part of the explanation is that people who see they are beginning to gain weight may be more likely to switch from regular to diet soda," Fowler suggests. "But despite their switching, their weight may continue to grow for other reasons. So diet soft-drink use is a marker for overweight and obesity." Why? Nutrition expert Leslie Bonci, MPH, RD, puts it in a nutshell. "You have to look at what's on your plate, not just what's in your glass," Bonci tells WebMD. People often mistake diet drinks for diets, says Bonci, director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and nutrition consultant to college and professional sports teams and to the Pittsburgh Ballet. "A lot of people say, 'I am drinking a diet soft drink because that is better for me. But soft drinks by themselves are not the root of America's obesity problem," she says. "You can't go into a fast-food restaurant and say, 'Oh, it's OK because I had diet soda.' If you don't do anything else but switch to a diet soft drink, you are not going to lose weight."

The Mad Hatter Theory "Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. "I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more." "You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: "It's very easy to take more than nothing."

Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

There is actually a way that diet drinks could contribute to weight gain, Fowler suggests. She remembers being struck by the scene in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in which Alice is offended because she is offered tea but is given none -- even though she hadn't asked for tea in the first place. So she helps herself to tea and bread and butter. That may be just what happens when we offer our bodies the sweet taste of diet drinks, but give them no calories.

Fowler points to a recent study in which feeding artificial sweeteners to rat pups made them crave more calories than animals fed real sugar. "If you offer your body something that tastes like a lot of calories, but it isn't there, your body is alerted to the possibility that there is something there and it will search for the calories promised but not delivered,"

Fowler says. Perhaps, Bonci says, our bodies are smarter than we think. "People think they can just fool the body. But maybe the body isn't fooled," she says. "If you are not giving your body those calories you promised it, maybe your body will retaliate by wanting more calories. Some soft drink studies do suggest that diet drinks stimulate appetite."

SOURCES: Fowler, S.P. 65th Annual Scientific Sessions, American Diabetes Association, San Diego, June 10-14, 2005; Abstract 1058-P. Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, University of Texas Health Science Center School of Medicine, San Antonio. Leslie Bonci, MPH, RD, director, sports nutrition, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. WebMD News: "Artificial Sweeteners May Damage Diet Efforts.""Artificial Sweeteners May Damage Diet Efforts." Davidson, T.L. International Journal of Obesity, July 2004; vol 28: pp 933-955.

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SPLENDA -
DO YOU REALLY WANT TO USE THAT?

This information was on Fox News...and in the Sunday July 24 Edition of USA WEEKEND which comes in the Sunday Paper! DIET SODAS ARE SWEETENED WITH EITHER ASPARATAME (NUTRASWEET) OR SPLENDA. BOTH DANGEROUS! I have something safe to offer that is actually beneficial:
!FORTUNE DELIGHT with SUNNY DEW!
!WOW!

FICTION: Splenda is natural sugar without calories.
FICTION: Splenda is safe to eat, even for children.
FICTION: Splenda has been thoroughly tested.
FICTION: Products made with Splenda do not need warning labels.
FICTION: Once eaten, Splenda simply passes through the body.
FICTION: The chlorine found in Splenda is similar to that found in other foods we eat. FICTION: Consumers have every reason to believe what they see and hear in Splenda's advertisements.
FICTION: Splenda is natural sugar without calories.
FACT: Johnson & Johnson claims that "Splenda is made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar". Johnson & Johnson wants consumers to think that it is natural sugar without calories. The truth is that Splenda is not natural and does not taste like sugar. The sweetness of Splenda derives from a chlorocarbon chemical that contains three atoms of chlorine in every one of its molecules. The manufacturer of this chlorinated compound named it sucralose. The improper use of "ose" in the name creates the illusion that sucralose is natural like sucrose which is the precise name for table sugar.

Johnson & Johnson wants consumers to believe that the taste of Splenda is due solely to natural sugar, that is, due to sucrose. However, the manufacturer has patented several chemical processes for making the chlorinated chemical compound it calls sucralose.

The patent literature illustrates that sucralose can be chemically manufactured from starting materials that do not require natural sugar. In one patent, for example, the manufacturer constructs sucralose from raffinose by substituting atoms of chlorine for hydroxyl groups in raffinose.

Raffinose is a molecule found naturally in beans, and onions and other plants, but unlike natural sucrose, it has very little taste. In another patented process three atoms of chlorine are substituted for three hydroxyl groups in sucrose. The end product of both of these manufacturing processes is an entirely new chlorocarbon chemical called sucralose. Each molecule of sucralose contains three atoms of chlorine which makes it 600 times sweeter than a natural molecule of sugar which contains no chlorine.

Splenda has it's own artificial taste which is due to this chlorinated compound.

Fiction: Splenda is safe to eat, even for children.
Fact: There are no conclusive tests that support this statement. Again, there have been no long-term human studies conducted to determine the potential health effects of Splenda on humans, including children. Until long-term human studies are conducted, no one will know for sure whether Splenda is really safe or unsafe for humans to eat.

Fiction: Splenda has been thoroughly tested.
Fact: There has not been a single long-term human study to determine the potential health effects of Splenda on people. The FDA relied on a few short-term tests when it reviewed the safety of Splenda for human consumption. Worse, these human tests were all conducted by the manufacturer of Splenda, hardly an unbiased source. The vast majority of tests reviewed by the FDA to determine whether Splenda was safe for human consumption were conducted on animals, including rats and rabbits.

Fiction: Products made with Splenda do not need warning labels.
Fact: Splenda is found in nearly 3,500 food products and amazingly, not all of these products list Splenda as an ingredient, and none of them say the product contains chlorine. Furthermore, none of the regulatory agencies or scientific review bodies that have confirmed the safety of sucralose require any warning information to be placed on the labels of products sweetened with sucralose. Consumers have a right to know exactly what is contained in the food products they buy for themselves and, particularly, for their children. Consumers should be provided with information that allows them to make educated choices about the food products they include in their diets. This is especially true for products that contain Splenda, a chemical substance made with chlorine that has not been the subject of any long-term human studies to determine its health effects on the human body.

Fiction: Once eaten, Splenda simply passes through the body. Fact: This is what the manufacturer of Splenda claims, and consumers who realize they are actually eating chlorine may hope it is true, but the FDA determined that as much as 27% of sucralose can be absorbed by the body. This is particularly alarming for a chemical substance containing chlorine. Clearly the makers of Splenda are not being entirely forthcoming about their product's influence in the body.

Fiction: The chlorine found in Splenda is similar to that found in other foods we eat. Fact: The manufacturer of Splenda claims that chlorine is naturally present in such foods as lettuce, mushrooms and table salt, but they never directly state that eating Splenda is the same as eating these foods. Remember, Splenda is not a natural substance, it is an artificial chemical sweetener manufactured by adding three chlorine atoms to a sugar molecule. And again, because there have been no long-term human studies on Splenda to determine the potential health effects on people, no one can say with certainty that the substance is safe to eat.

Fiction: Consumers have every reason to believe what they see and hear in Splenda's advertisements. Fact: In an effort to convince consumers that "Splenda is made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar" and to encourage them to "Think sugar, say Splenda", the giant drug manufacturer Johnson & Johnson is running a multi-million dollar advertising campaign encouraging the misperception that their artificial sweetener is equivalent to all-natural sugar. Splenda is not sugar and is not natural.

Splenda's advertisements that read "The Dance of the Splenda Plum Fairy," "Splenda and Spice and Everything Nice," and "Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Splenda is Sweet and So Are You" have been characterized by one marketing ethics reporter as nothing but "sleight-of-hand marketing."

Despite all the slick Madison Avenue advertising, the fact remains that Splenda is actually a chemical compound that contains chlorine. The more chlorine atoms, the sweeter the taste.

Consumers deserve to know the truth about the food products they are purchasing for themselves and their families.

Do you feel the Splenda advertising slogan "Made from Sugar, so it tastes like Sugar" is misleading? Click here to get involved. Splenda Resources Read FAQ's about Splenda, and quotes from medical experts. Find out why Whole Foods Markets won't carry Splenda or products containing Splenda. Or be linked straight to the source - read the Food and Drug Administration's Final Rule on Sucralose, correctly identifying it as a chlorine compound. Click here to read more. © 2004 The Truth About Splenda.

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Look Who's Joined in the Splenda Fight!

American sugar cane and beet farmers have developed a new Web site devoted to spreading the "Truth About Splenda." The site will post comments from Americans who feel misled by Splenda advertisements and will provide a forum for people to share their experiences with the chlorinated artificial sweetener.

The Web site, www.truthaboutsplenda.com, was launched in 2005 in response to Splenda's marketing campaign that incorrectly touted Splenda as natural.

Thousands Have Already Posted Comments

Since its launch, thousands of people have submitted comments to the site. Some have spoken of Splenda's marketing campaign as being misleading and immoral, while others commented on health consequences of eating the artificial sweetener, how it reacts in baked goods and how it tastes.

The Web site's goal is to help better educate Americans about Splenda, so that the public becomes aware that it is, in fact, a chlorinated artificial sweetener. The site welcomes all comments and hopes to become a useful educational resource for all. U.S. Newswire December 15, 2005

Comment: Though I am not a fan of sugar (whether from beets, sugar cane or otherwise), if I had to choose between sugar or Splenda (or any other artificial sweetener, for that matter), sugar would win, hands down.That's why I must applaud the American sugar cane and beet farmers who have aligned their views with my own -- at least when it comes to getting the word out about the potential dangers and misleading advertising of Splenda.

Of course, the sugar farmers surely have their own agenda for spreading this message, but I have none -- other than protecting you and your family from this artificial sweetener that bears more chemical similarity to DDT than it does to sugar.

Splenda's manufacturers have gone to great lengths to suggest that Splenda is natural and safe by using the slogan, "made from sugar so it tastes like sugar." But after the sugar has been treated with chemicals like trityl chloride, acetic anhydride, and thionyl chloride in the presence of dimethylformamide, 4-methylmorpholine, and methyl isobutyl ketone, it is anything but a sugar molecule.

By the end of the chemical processing Splenda goes through, it resembles nothing found in nature. This product is not natural, nor is it a real sugar. It isn't even close. And, if you haven't yet heard, the long-term safety of Splenda has never been established. In fact:· There have only been six human trials to date · The longest trial lasted three months.

At LEAST 15 percent of Splenda is not excreted from your body in a timely manner

In the meantime, since there is a complete absence of any useful long-term human studies, I've been researching effects of Splenda based upon information collected from various individual case studies.

The following symptoms have been noticed within a 24-hour period following consumption of Splenda products:·

Skin -- Redness, itching, swelling, blistering, weeping, crusting, rash, eruptions, or hives (itchy bumps or welts). This is the most common allergic symptom that people have.
Lungs -- Wheezing, tightness, cough, or shortness of breath.
Head -- Swelling of the face, eyelids, lips, tongue, or throat; headaches and migraines (severe headaches).
Nose -- Stuffy nose, runny nose (clear, thin discharge), sneezing.
Eyes -- Red (bloodshot), itchy, swollen, or watery.
Stomach -- Bloating, gas, pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or bloody diarrhea.
Heart -- Palpitations or fluttering.
Joints -- Joint pains or aches.
Neurological -- Anxiety, dizziness, spaced-out sensation, depression.

In a nutshell, Splenda is simply not as perfectly safe as the manufacturers would have you believe. If you are still using Splenda, I urge you to take a look through the Web site above, and then check out the pages of testimonials from our own readers who feel they have been harmed by Splenda -- then decide if using this largely experimental product is really worth the risk.

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Killer Sugar! Suicide With A Spoon
by Bill Misner, Ph.D.

Sugar, an aldehyde or ketone derivative of polyhydric alcohol, mostly shows up as either disaccarhides(C12H22O11), or monosaccharides(C6H12O6) found in foods such as candy, fruit, salt, peanut butter, canned vegetables, bouillon cubes, medicines, toothpaste, vitamins, and almost all processed "fat-free" products.

The health dangers ingested sugar creates when habitually imposed upon human physiology are certain. Simple sugars have been observed to aggravate asthma, muster mental illness, move mood swings, provoke personality changes, nourish nervous disorders, hurry heart disease, deliver diabetes, grow gallstones, hasten hypertension, add arthritis, and on top of all of that...It will kill you!

Certain harmful refined dietary sugars (which are specifically discussed below) almost always turn directly into fat! Glucose, Fructose, Sucrose, Galactose, Maltose, and Lactose are digested and absorbed with such speed that the body must convert them into saturated fats. Saturated Fatty Acids are "sticky" by nature, and, when introduced into the vascular system, clog arteries, increase the chance of stroke, diabetes, and definitively decrease athletic performance.

High Sugar Intake Corrupts Muscle Performance And Impedes Strength Development Dramatically!

Muscle mitochondrial cells (internal energy cell units that produce muscle movement) breakdown 6-carbon glucose molecules for all muscle energy. One of the byproducts of the energy cycle is a 2-carbon acetate, vinegar.

Acetates form the building blocks for cholesterol. If Acetates are produced faster than they can be burned, enzymatic reactions within our cells "Join" Acetates end-to-end to make excess cholesterol and saturated fat, which makes red blood cells sluggish, sticky, and inefficient, deposits excess saturated fatty acids around organs and in subcutaneous skinfolds, or, deposits clogs of cholesterol within the vascular system, impeding blood transport of vital nutrients and oxygen to peripheral muscle cells.

Unfortunately for those of us who enjoy the moment of sweet taste, this process tends to go one way, i.e. sugar transforms to fat; but fat tenaciously tends to remain as fat deposits, and only severe starvation or extreme caloric expenditures will mobilize it as a burnable fuel source.

Most of our organs burn off fat for their fuel needs, which is why master´s aged athletes store more fat around organs than do younger athletes, simply from the passing of time and the nature of human physiology.

The brain, as an organ, commands a pre-eminent role in the sugar equation. Human survival and efficient maximal performance depends upon this organ´s need for specific fuels such as glucose, glutamic acid, or ketones to be constantly supplied. If glucose is absent, low from a dietary insufficiency, or perhaps from high caloric expenditure during intense muscular exercise, the body must harvest or convert it from two tissue stores: amino acids found in lean muscle mass, or chemistry from the adrenal glands (activity/secretion) initiates a conversion process which transforms liver and/or muscle glycogen stores into glucose.

A diet high in refined carbohydrates stimulates an abnormal pancreatic insulin response in order to moderate blood sugar levels, while high sugar intake may also increase adrenal cortisone and cholesterol levels fourfold. Constant high intake of simple dietary sugar over-stimulates or "burns out" normal, healthy pancreas and adrenal function.

Sub-normal or lackluster performance of these two important endocrine glands leads directly to adult-onset diabetes, cardiovascular complications, hypoglycemia, and chronic fatigue. The direct result of high sugar intake is a significant increase in blood serum saturated fatty acids, which depresses the oxygen transport system dramatically during athletic performance.

Red blood cells stick together and move slower, delaying delivery of much needed oxygen to muscle cells. Cellular hypoxia is the constant companion of numerous degenerative diseases previously mentioned.

Because refined dietary sugars lack vitamins and minerals, they must draw upon the body tissue micronutrient stores in order to be metabolized into the system. When these storehouses are depleted, metabolization of fatty acid and cholesterol are impeded, contributing to higher blood serum triglycerides, cholesterol, promoting obesity due to higher fatty acid storage around organs and in subcutaneous tissue folds.

Increased obesity contributes to increased cholesterol levels by lowering resting metabolism. A lower resting metabolic rate has been implicated directly to feelings of fatigue or lack of energy, increased rate of aging, arthritis, and coronary heart disease. Athletes need a high metabolic rate for a minimal body fat percentage and explosive energy expenditure upon demand.

Little Sugar Can Cause All Of That?

Dietary sugars feed harmful intestinal yeasts, fungi, toxic organisms, and all forms of cellular cancer. Sugar and Vitamin C utilize the same transport system, but not at the same time! If Vitamin C is disabled from reaching tissue folds where it is needed to control or eradicate the virus, fungi, or cancerous organisms that feast on sugar, they will multiply exponentially.

It is very important that the first four steps during the hydrolysis process of Vitamin C are allowed transportation in maximum dose for tissue antioxidation and restoration of cells damaged by intense workouts or accumulated daily stress. Dietary sugars have been observed to cross-link proteins, which leads to increased skin fold wrinkles and general aging of our largest vital organ, the skin.

Because sugar is devoid of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and has such a deteriorating effect on the endocrine system, major researchers and major health organizations (American Dietetic Association and American Diabetic Association) agree that sugar consumption in America is one of the three major causes of degenerative disease.

In the last 20 years, we have increased sugar consumption in the USA 26 pounds to 135 lbs. of sugar per person per year! Prior to the turn of this century (1887-1890), the average consumption was only 5 lbs. per person per year! Cardiovascular disease and cancer was virtually unknown in the early 1900´s. When one compares the rates of degenerative diseases to the rates of total fat consumption, sugar consumption and altered fat consumption during the past 100 years, altered fat is #1, sugar is #2, and total fat is #3.

Where It Comes From And How Dangerous It Is

There are 5 classes of simple sugars which are regarded by most nutritionists as "Harmful" to ideal health and optimal athletic performance when prolonged consumption in amounts above 15% of the carbohydrate calories are ingested. Sucrose, fructose, honey, and malts are the classes reviewed in order of the real and present dangers they impose on our health and therefore physical performance.

Sucrose Class: Public Enemy #1!

Sucrose is found in almost all processed foods such as plain table sugar, dextrose, raw natural sugar, blackstrap molasses, maple syrup, or sorghum molasses. Taken from sugar beets or sugar cane, this disaccharide is composed of glucose and fructose. Because it contains NO vitamins or minerals it must rob them from the body in which it is assimilated, (like a parasite leaching the "life" from its victim).

Dextrose, D-glucose monohydrate, is a monosaccharide known as glucose, and comes from the hydrolysis of cornstarch, and is found as a prime ingredient in many processed foods. Dextrose is mentioned in the Sucrose Class because it acts very much like the vitamin-mineral parasite, sucrose; in order to be assimilated after digestion, it must rob the body of its valuable micronutrient stores.

Raw or Natural Sugar is a white sugar that is also mostly sucrose. While it costs more than sucrose, raw/natural sugar is 96% less-processed sucrose, as compared to the purified/bleached table sugar´s 99% sucrose content. The empty calories from this so-called natural product perform exactly the same as sucrose.

Blackstrap Molasses is made from the "liquid leftovers" of processed table sugar (sucrose). It does contain small amounts of iron, calcium and B vitamins, but this token "good" is offset with 65% sucrose content. An extraction process performed on sorghum stalks makes sorghum Molasses. Unless this molasses produce is enzyme treated and heated, it will ferment very rapidly. However, this process "kills" the small amount of vitamins and minerals which pass through the initial extraction process, allowing only a small amount of dietary iron and pesticide spray to as a companions to its "sweet" 65% sucrose solution.

Maple Sugar or Syrup also contains 65% sucrose content. Several processing techniques cause lead contaminates: such as boiling the maple sap in lead buckets, which allows lead to leach into the syrup or sugar-finished product for market. Formaldehyde pellets placed in the sap holes in maple trees to keep the sap flowing often leach into the sap and the final product. Other "nasties" found in maple syrup/sugar products are chemical anti-foaming agents, polishing chemicals, and animal fats. Add cooking the sap over oil fires in lead buckets and your final product becomes a delectable sweet-tasting yummy laced with poisons!

Fructose Class: A Not-So-Distant #2...

Fructose is "natural" only when found in fresh fruits that contain all the enzymes, vitamins, and minerals to effectively assimilate it as a rich nutrient for human consumption. About 20 times sweeter than table sugar, processed fructose is used as an additive to sweeten all sorts of packaged foods.

Without enzymes, vitamins, and minerals, it, like the sucrose class, robs the body of its micronutrient treasures in order to assimilate itself for physiological use. As a sweetener additive, enzymes are added to corn syrup starch, which produces "High Fructose Corn Syrup"(always check ingredient lists on all labels).

Fructose does not raise blood sugars significantly, but does raise blood serum triglycerides significantly! As a left-handed sugar, fructose digestion is very low. For complete internal conversion of fructose into glucose and acetates, it must rob ATP energy stores from the liver.

Processed, metabolized, and converted to small glycogen stores (by the liver for itself and the muscles) digestion is hindered, blood serum triglycerides are raised, body stores of vitamins, enzymes, minerals, and liver stores of ATP are scavenged from the body so that the "eater" my enjoy a moment of sweet taste.

Honey Class: A Surprise #3 Even "Natural Honey" May Only Befriend The Bees!

It is no wonder that the honey bear is the only animal found in nature with a problem with tooth decay (Honey decays teeth faster than table sugar)!

Honey has the highest calorie content of all sugars with 65 calories per tablespoon, compared to the 48 calories found in table sugar! The increased calories are bound to manifest increased blood serum fatty acids, and weight gain, on top of the likelihood of more cavities.

Pesticides (carcinogens) used on farm crops and residential flowers have been found in commercial honey. Honey can be fatal to an infant whose immature digestive tracts are unable to deal effectively with Botulinum Spore growth.

What enzymes or nutrients raw honey contains are destroyed by manufacturers who heat it in order to give it a clear appearance for enhancing $ale$. Some beekeepers feed their bees sugar water for enhanced production and flavor, while others add sugar syrup to the product for the same ridiculous reason.

The Three "Tols": Xyli, Sorbi, & Manni, #4.

Xylitol is extracted from birch cellulose and is considered to be a carbohydrate alcohol. While it has the same amount of calories as sucrose, it metabolizes in a dissimilar manner and may be used safely for diabetics and hypoglycemics. Bacterial salivary organisms do not feed, grow or ferment on xylitol as they do on other simple aforementioned sugars.

"Sugar-Free" chewing gum contains xylitol because it does not produce the bacterial support for increase of cavity causing acids. Studies show that prolonged use or large intake may produce the following side effects: weight gain similar to that associated with high/prolonged sucrose intake, diarrhea, tumor growth, and liver/kidney/brain dysfunction. Many manufacturers have withdrawn xylitol from their product formulation!

Sorbitol and Mannitol are industrial sweet alcohols made from hydrogen and commercial glucose, extracted from corn sugar. Slow absorption makes them attractive for use in "sugar-free" gums and candies. Both are known to nourish and increase the count of mouth bacteria, namely Streptococcus Mutans that tend to stick to the teeth.

When other sugars are eaten, these bacteria proliferate, manifesting the perfect chemistry for increasing the rate of tooth decay beyond the normal rate. While research has not documented this conjecture, some believe that carcinogenic or mutagenic properties may be consistent with the behavior of this altered nutrient.

Perhaps the stomach has already testified to this: gastric distress, diarrhea, or laxative effects, as each 1-2-3 will result with prolonged or high dietary intake.

Malt Syrup Class: Last And Least, #5.

Most Malt Syrups added for sweetening flavor do elevate blood sugar/triglycerides response. Many rice syrups, rice honey, and other malt sugars have significant amounts of glucose, maltose, and corn syrup ADDED to heighten their sweetness index.

Unfortunately, such formulation creates a blood serum response similar to sucrose and "robs" vital enzymes, minerals, and vitamins from the body for digestive assimilation. Only 100% Barley Malt Syrup has a minimal effect on internal healthy physiology, but its expense may be prohibitive for most at just under $1.00 per ounce!

Simple sugars in reasonably lenient amounts are safe sugars IF they have enough fiber, enzymes, and vitamins/minerals to moderate their effect on absorption, blood chemistry, and viable assimilation into the energy cycle in order to support both health and dynamic muscular development.

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RED BULL
Ever wondered what's in a can of Red Bull Energy drink?

The small print on the can lists a host of ingredients and among them is glucuronolactone, an artificially manufactured stimulant developed in the early 60's by the American Government.

Glucuronolactone was first used in the Vietnam conflict to boost morale amongst GIs who were suffering from stress and fatigue, but was banned after a few years following several deaths and hundreds of cases involving anything from severe migraines to brain tumors in personnel prescribed the stimulant. That was in 1973 and Glucuronolactone is still banned for commercial consumption in America to this day. The bad news is that the substance never found its way to Europe in the early days and was therefore never banned by the EU community.

An article in this month's edition of the British Medical Journal has highlighted a growing number of cases reported by Doctors and Surgeons involving the very same side effects from the 70's. All of the patients examined were regular drinkers of Red Bull and it is believed that the safety of Glucuronolactone is currently under review in at least three major European countries.

Please pass this on to any Red Bull drinkers you know, and next time you get a headache after drinking the stuff, you'll know why!

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THAT ICE CREAM FIX

Ice cream is as American as apple pie and mom. Every year, in the United States, 770 million gallons of ice cream and a total of over one billion, two hundred million gallons of ice cream and related products are produced per year--that's approximately 23.7 quarts of ice cream for each person in the country!

(The following report from NATURE'S PATH (1958) magazine appeared in the cookbook TEN TALENTS put out by the Seventh Day Adventist Church.)

"HOLD IT! Health Hazard: ICE CREAM"

In the olden days when ice cream was made of whole eggs, cream, milk and sugar laboriously cranked in the old farm freezer. A serving of ice cream was only an occasional family "treat" which didn't do much harm.

Today, in this mass-producing, synthetic age, it is another matter entirely. Today you may be "treating" your family to poison. Ice cream manufacturers are NOT required by law to list the additives used in the manufacture of their product. Consequently, today most ice creams are synthetic from start to finish. Analysis has shown the following: Diethyl glucol, a cheap chemical is used as an emulsifier instead of eggs. Diethyl glucol is the same chemical used in anti-freeze and in paint removers. Piperonal is used in place of vanilla. This is a chemical used to kill lice. Aldehyde C 17 is used to flavor cherry ice cream. It is an inflammable liquid that is also used in anilene dyes, plastic and rubber. Ethyl acetate is used to give ice cream a pineapple flavor. It is also used as a cleaner for leather and textiles and its vapors have been known to cause chronic lung, liver and heart damage. Butyraldehyde is used in nut-flavored ice cream. It's one of the ingredients of rubber cement. Amyl acetate is used for its banana flavor. It is also used as an oil paint solvent. Benzyl acetate is used for its strawberry flavor. It's a nitrate solvent.

The next time you're tempted by a luscious looking banana split sundae, think of it as a mixture of anti-freeze, oil paint and nitrate solvent and lice-killer and you won't find it so appetizing. " (Hurd & Hurd, 1968, pp. 124-125) Even in the light of all the evidence against the use of ice cream, we still have a country full of ice cream addicts.

Many a birthday party, parlor party, family reunion, or wedding would be considered quite incomplete were it not for the ice cream and cake served to pacify the participants of the ritual. Many children are persuaded to accept the surgical removal of the tail end of their congested lymphatic systems (their tonsils) by being promised all the ice cream they can eat to anesthetize their pain after the surgeon has finished practicing his primitive medicine on them.

Hundreds of thousands of children have been conditioned to salivate at the ring of the good humor man's bell. Many little tykes are lured away from a temper tantrum with a milk nickel or eskimo pie. The Eskimo Pie was invented in 1921. The lyric below is taken from an old folksong written in the 1920's about a hardened cotton mill boss and ice cream addict, Tom Watson. It's from the "Windsborough Cottonmill Blues": "Old man Watson sitting at his desk The old fool won't give us a rest. He'd take the nickels off a dead man's eyes Just to buy Coca Cola and Eskimo Pies. . . So much for the history of ice cream addiction.

Let's talk for a moment on the relation of ice cream to childhood diseases such as polio and other diseases of malnutrition. We have established that the sugar in ice cream leaches the calcium from the nerve sheaths. This phenomenon combined with the toxic waste and mucus accumulated in the child's body especially during the summer months when "ice cream" is rather heavily consumed easily contributes to the dreaded disease.

Children with other nervous disorders could be helped if they were given wholesome treats such as fruit instead of as one lady put it, "tasty calcium killers." And, as we noted in a previous publication, chocolate found in much of ice cream, contains caffeine. Dr. Ellis gives an excellent discussion in the Health View Newsletter on the evils of milk and dairy products. These contain a substance that attacks the arteries, weakening them for such disorders as heart disease and stroke. We will reprint his discussion in our forthcoming publication, The Regenerative Diet. Dr. Ellis also points out that the calcium obtained in milk, cheese, etc., is not the type of calcium that the body can utilize. The growth hormones in cow's milk are very different from those found in human milk; they were computerized by the Creator for the calf.

As an alternative to ice cream, we suggest bananas and other fruits blended or put through a champion juicer and then frozen and served with sugarless fruit topping.

When I was just a small child, I soon learned that there was an especially good reason for being good--the reward, candy or an ice cream cone! And in those days, ice cream cones were a rarity. It was an exciting experience to walk a few blocks with papa to one of those rare (in those days) ice cream parlors. Ice cream as a dessert always fascinated me as a child because it was usually served only in warm or hot weather. I remember well a neighbor of ours who once did an unusual thing for her daughter's wedding reception at their farmhouse. They made special arrangements for ice cream to be served at the party even though it was early in the spring. This was such an unheard of, or unusual thing, that the ladies borrowed winter coats to wear in the house so they would not catch colds while eating their ice cream! How I wished then, that we were rich enough to serve this wonderful dessert often at our house. As time passed by, I as a teenager, saw more and more of these parlors open, and ice cream bars and soft ice cream also, flooded the country. As the sales of these products skyrocketed, something else also hit a new peak, polio.

A number of doctor groups started informing people that there was a close connection between polio and the sale of soda pop, candies, and ice cream that children begged for during hot weather. Some areas outlawed, for a short period of time, the sale of pop like cold drinks and ice cream during the hot summer periods called the "polio seasons". Of course, with the pressure from money interests in those products, the experiment did not last long even though it was found that when the use of these "high carbohydrate" foods and drink were tapered off, polio also decreased.

The principle of refined sugars leaching calcium out of the system is a well-known fact, but we just keep it in the back of our minds. After all, our own "taste buds" must be pampered.

The leaching of calcium, weakens the veins and arteries, as well as the muscles which soon deteriorate without organic assailable calcium. Another principle that is unknown to many and often ignored by some of those who do know it is regarding the use of cow's milk. As a baby nurses at the breast, the milk is the "food" that nature intended to give proper nourishment. This milk will supply the materials, (minerals, etc.,) for teeth, bones, brain, muscle and organs to the body of the child. This milk (food) will continue to be in an alkaline form until the baby cuts its "eye teeth" (#4 and #5) and the stomach teeth (#4 and #5). When these teeth are cut, this same milk causes a different chemical reaction. The gastric juices (which the child did not have before weaning) start flowing as soon as these four teeth are cut.

Now the baby can digest proteins and starches, but the sad part is that these acid juices mixed with other foods and milk causes the milk to react as a mucus-forming agent. It will cause clogged sinuses and acid and mucus laden veins. As it was said in the scriptures, "milk is for the baby". This is true throughout animal life, for how many adults in the animal kingdom drinks milk after weaning unless they are given it by members of the "oh so wise" human race.

Ice cream does not only increase our sugar intake, but adds insult to injury by adding milk to clog the system and to slow down assimilation. Our education has been such that ice cream is a reward or a pacifier in most any situation. The little lost child is offered an ice cream cone when found by friendly policemen. Tonsils are cut out with the promise, after removing, "you can eat all the ice cream you want because it melts and slips down the poor sore throat so easily!" Also at the hospital, poor little and poor big people can have ice cream for the same reason and because of the milk, "its good for you." Yes, this is the education we have been absorbing for many years.

There are so many delicious desserts that are good for the body if we will just look for them. Many fresh fruits as well as whole grain baked goods, etc., that health minded people describe in recipe books, so it is a shame to "bow to the cow".

You can make your own ice cream! It is fun and it is delicious. When I make m own, I start with a base of raw unpasturized organic milk. You can substitute coconut milk, soymilk, nut milk, etc. I use fresh fruit, the best stevia in the world or raw unheated honey as a sweetener.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Arbuckle, W. S., Ph.D. ICE CREAM, Second Edition, Westport Conn.: The Avi Publishing Company, Inc., 1972. Hurd, Frank D. D., Rosalie, B. S., TEN TALENTS, Collegedale, Tenn; College Press, 1968. Used by permission - Dr. Christopher's Newsletters, Volume 2 Number 7. Finally, we wish to caution you that the information on this web site is for educational purposes only. Always consult with a qualified health practitioner before deciding on any course of treatment, especially for serious or life-threatening illnesses.

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Getting Your Fast Food Fix
by Rita Kennen

It's inevitable; sooner or later you'll drive through the Golden Arches searching for a quick meal. Can you eat at a fast-food restaurant without jacking up your cholesterol? You bet! Most fast-food restaurants offer healthy dining choices. Learning a few food substitutions is one way of eating healthier fast food. After eating a fast-food lunch, go easy on the fat at dinner time. Most fast food restaurants offer choices for the health-conscious diner. Making a few substitutes is another simple way to cut down on the fat.

Here's a guide for quick and healthy eating at some of your favorite fast-food establishments:

McDonald's: The grilled chicken deluxe is a low-fat choice. Leaving off the mayonnaise saves you 80 calories and 9 grams of fat. Add a garden salad with light dressing, you've got yourself a fairly healthy lunch. But if a hamburger is what you're craving, consider passing by the Big Macs and going for the plain burger. You save 51 grams of fat, 10 of which you can trade in later on a small bag of fries.

Taco Bell: The grilled chicken taco is the lowest in fat, weighing in at 7 grams. Other good choices include the light chicken burrito, light chicken soft taco or the light chicken burrito supreme. All of them are fewer than 430 calories and contain fewer than 13 grams of fat.

Burger King: Hamburgers reign supreme at Burger King. The winner here is the Whopper junior at 15 grams of fat, without the mayo. Adding mayonnaise raises it to 23 grams of fat.

Jack in the Box: The chicken teriyaki bowl is a terrific low-fat option at 670 calories and 4 grams of fat. Stay away from the bacon ultimate cheeseburger. It's loaded with 71 grams of artery-clogging fat.

Pizza Hut: Kids love pizza. Many families count on it one night a week as a quick and easy meal. At Pizza Hut, the kids can have pepperoni, while you order the Veggie Lover's pie. Each slice of the vegetarian pie has 216 calories and 6 grams of fat.

A last bit of advice: A good strategy for healthy eating at fast-food restaurants is downsizing. If you know you'll be eating lunch at a fast food restaurant, reduce your fat intake at breakfast and dinner.

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Fast Food Facts
(From the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General)

Did you know there are more than 300,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S?.
Why is fast food so popular? It is convenient, predictable, and fast. (Let me turn you on to a simple, nutrient-dense, fast food that will build you up rather than tear you down.)

Fast food has become a part of the busy American lifestyle. But, as nutrition experts point out, fast food is often high in calories, sodium, fat and cholesterol. This does not mean fast food is bad. But it does mean you should fit fast food into a balanced, healthy diet.

To help you make fast food choices and be an informed consumer, the Minnesota Attorney General's Office has developed the guide Fast Food Facts, which this article is derived from. Included are the calorie, fat, sodium and cholesterol counts of menu items from popular fast food restaurants, based on the companies' own nutritional analyses.

Below are some basic facts to help you make nutritional comparisons with this guide.

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Calories
On the average, to maintain desirable weight, men need about 2,700 calories per day and women need about 2,000 calories per day. It is not well understood why some people can eat much more than others and still maintain a desirable weight. However, one thing is certain -- to lose weight, you must take in fewer calories than you burn. This means that you must either choose foods with fewer calories, or you must increase your physical activity, preferably both.

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Fat
Research shows that eating too many high-fat foods contributes to high blood cholesterol levels. This can cause hardening of the arteries, coronary heart disease and stroke. High-fat diets may also contribute to a greater risk for some types of cancer (cancers of the breast and colon). Most Americans get more than 40% of their daily calories from fat. Much of this fat is highly heated vegetable oils. or trans-fats, partially hydrogenated fats - all of which are linked to the major disease processes so prevalent in the United States. The American Heart Association recommends limiting fat to less than 30% of daily calories. This means limiting the fats you consume to 50-80 grams per day

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Percent of Calories from Fat
The category in this guide "% of Calories from Fat" is calculated by multiplying the grams of fat by nine (there are nine calories per gram of fat), then dividing the calories of fat by the total number of calories in the food

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Cholesterol
The American Heart Association recommends eating no more than 300 milligrams of cholesterol per day. But don't just look at the cholesterol contained in a food item. A product high in total fat or saturated fat can be an even bigger contributor to high blood cholesterol levels. Sugar and foods that turn to sugar (high carbohydrate foods) are also huge contributors to high cholesterol, high triglyceride, and high insulin levels. For example, "cholesterol free" potato chips may be high in fat and may contribute to raising your cholesterol level, because many high-fat foods cause the formation of cholesterol in the body, even if the food itself contains no cholesterol.

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Salt
Everyone needs some sodium in the diet to replace routine losses. The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council has estimated that an "adequate and safe" intake of sodium for healthy adults is 1,100 to 3,300 milligrams a day, the equivalent of approximately 1/2 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. Americans, on average, consume at least twice that amount -- 2,300 to 6,900 milligrams of sodium daily, according to estimates by the Food and Nutrition Board. For some people, consuming high amounts of sodium can cause high blood pressure.

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Fast Food Meals
Fast food meals can be high in calories, fat, sodium, and cholesterol.

See how easily these red-flag items can add up:

1. Burger Quarter-Pound Cheeseburger, Large Fries, 16 oz. soda (McDonald's) This meal - Recommended daily intake:

This meal:
1,166 calories - RDA is 2,000-2,700 calories,
51 grams of fat, - RDA is no more than 50-80 grams of fat,
95 mg of cholesterol, - RDA is no more than 300 mg of cholesterol,
1,450 mg sodium, - RDA is no more than 1,100-3,300 mg

2. Pizza
4 slices Sausage and Mushroom Pizza, 16 oz. soda (Domino's)
This meal - Recommended daily intake:

This meal:
1,000 calories - RDA is 2,000-2,700 calories
28 g fat - RDA is no more than 50-80 g
62 mg cholesterol - RDA is no more than 300 mg
2,302 mg sodium - RDA is no more than 1,100-3,300 mg

3. Chicken
2 pieces Fried Chicken (Breast and Wing), Buttermilk Biscuit, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Corn-on-the-Cob, 16 oz. soda (KFC)
This meal - Recommended daily intake:

This meal:
1,232 calories - RDA is 2,000-2,700 calories
57 g fat - RDA is no more than 50-80 g
157 mg cholesterol - RDA is no more than 300 mg
2,276 mg sodium - RDA is no more than 1,100-3,300 mg

4. Taco
Taco Salad, 16 oz. soda (Taco Bell)
This meal - Recommended daily intake:

This meal:
1,057 calories - RDA is 2,000-2,700 calories
55 g fat - RDA is no more than 50-80 g
80 mg cholesterol - RDA is no more than 300 mg
1,620 mg sodium - RDA is no more than 1,100-3,300 mg

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Liquid Candy

The Rise of Soft Drinks in America according to this Los Angeles Times article, the push to get sodas out of schools is growing stronger. Anti-soda measures are currently under consideration in many states and school districts.

The American Beverage Association has already made some policy changes in response, including resolving to remove sodas entirely from elementary schools, allow middle-school kids access to full-calorie sodas only after school hours, and make sure that, at most, only 50 percent of the vending machine beverages in high schools are soft drinks.

All Sugary Drinks are a Problem Soft drinks are currently the primary source of added sugars, and studies connect them to obesity and nutrient deficits. Along with sodas, juice drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, coffee, and even fruit juice can also cause weight and health problems if drunk excessively.

The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that children drink no more than 8 to 12 ounces of fruit juice daily. More Than 46 Gallons of Soda a Year! In 1976, soft drink sales surpassed those of milk. Soda consumption has doubled since 1971, from 25.5 gallons per person per year to over 46 gallons in 2003. At the same time, other sugary drinks have gained popularity, including sweetened teas, energy drinks, and sports drinks. Your Body Simply Can't Handle It.

Some scientists worry that calories from sugary drinks may not be adequately controlled by the body's appetite regulation system; it does not reduce your hunger like solid food does, so the total calorie intake is even higher. Others are concerned by the fact that U.S. soft drinks are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, which is processed differently in the body than other sugars, and may turn into fat more easily.

The article also revealed that:
*Carbonated drinks and juices were the leading source of calories in the diet of the average teenager, ranging from 12-13 percent
* People who consume high amounts of added sugars are more likely to be deficient in calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium, as well as various vitamins
* Each added 8-ounce daily serving of soft drink a child consumes increases their chance of being obese by 60 percent

Los Angeles Times September 15, 2005

This is a great article, making a number of excellent points about why soft drinks are the single most important factor in the epidemic of childhood obesity that is sweeping America. The article also covers the dangers of all sugary beverages, including energy drinks and, yes, fruit juice, which are often wrongly considered "healthy." To truly be healthy, you will want to seriously consider reducing or eliminating all sugars from your diet. That being said, soft drinks are probably the worst and most dangerous culprit, and there are certainly many good reasons to keep kids away from them. The 46 gallons a year number quoted in the article is two years old -- in that brief interval, consumption has skyrocketed to roughly 56 gallons per person per year. Earlier this year it was documented that sodas became the number one source of calories in America.

Some conditions related to soft drink intake include:
* Osteoporosis
* Attention deficit disorder (ADD)
* Insomnia
* Kidney stones
* Tooth decay
The worst of all, however, may be obesity.

Your risk for obesity increases by a whopping 60 percent for each can of soda you drink a day, and that obesity may actually lower the average age of death in the United States to a point so low that your children will be dying at a younger age than you do for the first time in history.

Mounting pressures on the American Beverage Association are forcing the group to recommend limiting the availability of soft drinks in schools. Eliminating temptations during the school day doesn't solve the problem if parents make a quick side trip for a Big Gulp on the way home. Children learn to eat from their parents by imitating what their parents do. Are you proud of what you are teaching your children?

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Soda is NOT your Friend

The major diet advice I give everyone is to eliminate soda from your diet. Get it out of the house! One 'Coke' will negate several days of aggressive supplementation with calcium, magnesium or silica. We can't afford that waste!

This arrived via the internet, and of course we know everything we receive is true. I have a trucker friend who drove loads of 'Coke' syrup...he personally experienced the hazardous signage requirement. With that caveat, and understanding this is part humor, you will want to look at this.

WATER

1) 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (Likely applies to half of the world population)
2) In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger.
3) Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 3%.
4) One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a U-Washington study.
5) Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.
6) Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day would significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80%of sufferers.
7) A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.
8) Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.

Are you drinking the amount of water you should every day?

SODA (Humor, or is it?)

1) In many states (in the USA) the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the truck to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
2) You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of coke and it will be gone in two days.
3) To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and let the "real thing" sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china.
4) To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.
5) To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.
6) To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
7) To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before the ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.
8) To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.
9) The distributors of coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years!
10) To carry Coca-Cola syrup (the concentrate) the commercial truck must use the Hazardous material place cards reserved for Highly corrosive materials.Now the question is, would you like a glass of water or coke (click on this link & I'll send a small humorous computer program)?

THE COKE PIECE IS HUMOR FOLKS. It's been passed around the internet for years. Coke is very sweet, acidic and DOES negate the calciumin your body that you need to use to buffer the acids. However, the numbered soda items are HUMOR. (See urban legends www.snopes.com).

For Your Info: 1) An active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its ph is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about 4 days in it's pure, concentrated form. In a more dilute form such as soda, it will dissolve a tooth in a week or two. Phosphoric acid also leaches the calcium from bones, and is a major contributor to rising increases in osteoporosis.

At least 70 million Americans are obese, including more than a third of adults and one in five children, experts says. Obesity causes 300,000 premature deaths in the United States a year. Experts blame a lifestyle that includes too many fatty and sugary foods and too little exercise. Obesity increases the risk of illness and death due to diabetes, stroke, coronary artery disease, and kidney and gallbladder disorders. Diabetes, the seventh-leading cause of death among Americans, rose 33 percent from 1990 and 1998.

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CONFESSIONS OF A SOFT DRINK

Hello.
I am a humble, effervescent liquid.
Humble? Well, that is debatable.
Actually, I am quite proud of myself.
Allow me to brag just a bit.

I HAVE MUCH HIDDEN POWER!
I fizz, sparkle and bubble my way into thousands of people all over the world every single day. I cause masses of humanity to rush to snack dispensers in plush, high-rise buildings. I stir men, women, and teenagers to dash into their cars late at night and speed to their nearest 24-hour convenience store. I motivate others to root through their purses for their last pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, with which they will gladly part in exchange for me.

Make no mistake.
The best thing about me is:
I AM ADDICTING!

I am responsible for giving thousands of addicts their daily "fixes".
This is because I sometimes contain a substance called "caffeine".
Caffeine is a stimulant.
It makes their hearts beat very fast and makes their nervous system work like crazy.
They feel as though they could take on the world.

I tell you,
I HAVE OVERWHELMING PERSONAL MAGNETISM.

I'm a sneaky double agent too.
I pretend to give people all the good they need because caffeine gives them a "lift".
A few hours later, they come crashing "down", they get shaky and they need me AGAIN - for another pseudo charge. This plays havoc with their hearts, their adrenals and their nerves; but they still look to me for relief.

I feel very, very smug because
I CALL THE SHOTS!!

To give me an appetizing brown tint, I contain "Carmel coloring", which has genetic effects and is a cancer causing suspect. I sometimes have polyethylene glycol as one of my ingredients. Glycol is used as anti-freeze in automobiles; it is also used as a solvent.

The bubbles and fizz, with which I potently burn human insides, is caused by my phosphoric acid and carbon dioxide. The phosphorus in the acid upsets the body's calcium-phosphorous ratio and dissolves calcium right out of the bones. This can eventually result in OSTEOPOROSIS, a weakening of the skeletal structure, which can make one susceptible to broken bones. Also the phosphorus fights with the hydrochloric acid in human stomachs and renders it ineffective. This promotes indigestion, bloating and gasiness in many individuals. Carbon dioxide is a waste product exhaled by humans, but they ingest it when they drink me.

Am I HUMBLE?
Well, look at everything I can do!!

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Is Pasteurization a Health Risk or a Safety Benefit?

We're taught as early as elementary school about the French chemist Louis Pasteur and his famous invention: pasteurization. This is the process of heating food to kill bacteria, viruses, mold, yeasts and other potentially harmful organisms.

The first pasteurization test was performed back in 1862, after Pasteur noticed that microorganisms could contaminate beverages (he later extended this to the theory that microorganisms could contaminate humans and animals as well.). But pasteurization did not immediately become the gold standard for milk production in the United States.

In fact, at the end of the 19th century "swill dairies," in which cows were raised in horrible conditions and reportedly fed swill from liquor distilleries, were a major problem. The milk from these dairies was of such poor quality that it was thought to be contributing to the high death rate of urban infants at the time (the yearly death rate of U.S. infants in cities was about half of the yearly birth rate).

Thus, a crusade began for certified raw (unpasteurized) milk, which would ensure certain purity levels of milk and regular inspections of dairies. "Though more and more milk was being pasteurized, pasteurization was seen by many as a stopgap measure that would no longer be needed once the production and distribution of milk was more carefully regulated. Certified milk was the model for the production of better milk everywhere," said Ron Schmid, ND, author of The Untold Story of Milk.

Yet by the early 20th century, milk supplies were still of poor quality, and thought to be involved in many disease outbreaks, leading authorities to push for mandatory pasteurization of all milk except certified raw milk. "Not until the 1930s did commercial dairy interests, segments of the medical community, politicians and public health agency officials and their allies in the media begin a campaign first to smear all raw milk and then to eliminate its availability and sale," Schmid said.

Thus began the compulsory pasteurization of milk and the great debate that has spanned centuries: Is pasteurization one of the greatest discoveries, or greatest setbacks, of our time? The Case for Pasteurization "[Drinking raw milk is] like playing Russian roulette with your health," says John Sheehan, director of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Division of Dairy and Egg Safety. "We see a number of cases of food-borne illness every year related to the consumption of raw milk."

According to the FDA, raw milk may contain any number of disease-causing organisms, including campylobacter, escherichia, listeria, salmonella, yersinia and brucella. Aside from causing acute diarrhea, stomach cramps, vomiting and fever, these organisms may also cause more serious conditions, particularly among the elderly, pregnant women, children or those with weakened immune systems.

The FDA says pasteurization helps prevent:
· Tuberculosis
· Diphtheria
· Polio
· Salmonellosis
· Strep throat
· Scarlet fever
· Typhoid fever

Milk can be contaminated from a sick or dirty animal, as well as by dirty living environments. "Think about how many times a cow lays down in a field or the barn," says Tom Szalkucki, assistant director of the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Even if the barn is cleaned thoroughly and regularly, it's not steamed. Contamination can take place because it's not a sterile environment." Pasteurization, says the FDA, kills any dangerous bacteria while also destroying bacteria that can cause milk to spoil, thereby extending shelf life.

One of the biggest controversies over pasteurized milk is whether or not the milk is able to retain its nutritional value after the high temperatures it is exposed to. Proponents of pasteurization say the process has little effect on the milk's nutritional value or flavor. "Milk is a good source of the vitamins thiamine, folate, B-12, and riboflavin, and pasteurization results in losses of anywhere from zero to 10 percent for each of these, which most would consider only a marginal reduction," says Sheehan. Further, "Pasteurization will destroy some enzymes," says Barbara Ingham, Ph.D., associate professor and extension food scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "But the enzymes that are naturally present in milk are bovine enzymes. Our bodies don't use animal enzymes to help metabolize calcium and other nutrients."

The Case for Raw Milk

On the other side of the fence are those who say pasteurization is unnecessary if cows are raised in clean environments, and radically changes the structure of the milk, resulting in an entirely different, and potentially harmful, food.

According to the Weston A. Price Foundation: "Pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamins C, B12 and B6, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer.

Calves fed pasteurized milk do poorly and many die before maturity. Raw milk sours naturally but pasteurized milk turns putrid; processors must remove slime and pus from pasteurized milk by a process of centrifugal clarification."

Raw milk, proponents say, is an outstanding source of beneficial bacteria such as lactobacillus acidolphilus, vitamins, enzmes and calcium. Further, they say that sickness resulting from raw milk is rare--instead, it is pasteurized milk that is often implicated in outbreaks of food-borne illness.

According to Mark McAfee, founder of Organic Pastures Dairy, which produces a full line of raw organic dairy products for retail sale, "During the period 2000 through 2004 there were several listeria-related food recalls in California associated with pasteurized milk products and ice cream. During this same period more than 12 million servings of Organic Pastures products were consumed and not one person complained of illness and not one pathogen was ever found either by the state, FDA or Organic Pastures." Organic Pastures then hired a laboratory to perform an experiment. The lab added 10 million counts of pathogens to one-milliliter samples of organic raw milk and found that the pathogens not only would not grow but they also died off. The lab concluded: " … Organic raw milk and colostrum do not appear to support the growth of pathogens …"

As it stands, the sale of raw milk across state lines is illegal. However, sales of raw milk, either in retail stores or directly from the farm, are legal within 28 U.S. states. In other states, raw milk may be available through cow "leasing" programs in which members purchase shares of a cow and can then use the milk how they choose.

by www.SixWise.com

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Food as Healer, Food as Slayer
By Mark Hyman, M.D.

Nowhere in medicine is there more controversy, superstition, confusion and religious fervor than there is surrounding the subject of food allergy and illness.

Conventional allergists and immunologists generally confine all interactions between food and the immune system to the Type 1 hypersensitivity, IgE-mediated response.

Practitioners of integrative and alternative medicine have long recognized the limitations of this point of view, yet have failed to produce a viable alternative clinical model with which to test and assess interventions based on complex dietary manipulations.

However, an increasing body of literature illuminates the potential for more subtle interactions between the gut, food and illness. (1,2,3) Despite the limitations of the assessment tools (electrodermal screening) and the lack of a control group, the small sample size, the lack of a standard, validated assessment tool for measuring outcomes, Taylor, et. al, break ground in this pilot study. (4) While cognizant of the limitations of their methodology, the authors demonstrate that alteration of the diet to reduce its antigenic load is correlated with a reduction in symptom severity in a condition that has no known conventional treatment (multiple chemical sensitivity).

Certainly conventional medicine has recognized that food can harm. Doctors have recommended avoiding certain foods to treat common conditions. Low-fat diets for the prevention of cardiovascular disease, bland diets to treat ulcers, low-salt diets to treat hypertension, once medical dogma, now are relegated to the pile of unnecessary or harmful advice. Yet while medicine embraced these ideas, it has resisted the concept that changes in diet can not only prevent disease, but can be used as a therapeutic tool, often where no other exists.

The need to critically assess the role of diet as a therapeutic tool in disease cannot be overstated. The need for a healthy diet is well recognized in the prevention of chronic illness such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer.

The Healing Power of Food: Largely Unexplored

The use of nutritional therapy in illness stops there. Using food as a therapeutic tool in illness is a vast unexplored area of medical science. The power of food as medicine lies in the exact domain where current medical practice is weakest--in the chronic immune, endocrine and degenerative diseases that afflict modern civilization. However, the emerging science of nutrigenomics highlights the complex role of macronutrients, micronutrients and phytochemicals in altering endocrine, immune and metabolic responses that regulate the subtle balance between health and illness.

The mechanisms whereby food acts to alter patterns of gene expression, regulate complex immunological signals and shift endocrine responses are being clarified. The old idea that food is simply a vehicle for delivering energy in the form of calories is giving way to a new model of food--food as information. Our evolutionary adaptation to a particular diet has perhaps set the conditions that alter gene expression patterns to trigger illness, rather than support health in the context of an unfamiliar landscape of fast nutrient-poor food, increasing sedentary behavior and incessant stress. (5)

R.D. Laing said that, "Insanity is a sane response to an insane world." (6) Perhaps, the disease is a normal response to a diseased world (and a toxic diet). As a species, we once ate a complex unrefined wild diet consisting of a wide variety of plant and animal foods rich in phytonutrients, fiber and omega-3 fatty acids. Now, our monotonous diet triggers different and diseased patterns of gene expression.

The USDA reports that the top nine foods eaten by Americans are:

* Whole cow's milk
* 2 percent milk
* Processed American cheese
* White bread
* White flour
* White rolls
* Refined sugar
* Colas
* Ground beef

All of these foods are foreign to our genome that evolved on a Paleolithic diet. This mono diet creates altered patterns of gene expression that lead to disease, including food allergy or sensitivity. (7)

Dairy and gluten are two generally well accepted food antigens responsible for an array of complex disorders including autoimmune diseases, digestive disorders, endocrine disturbances and neurologic and behavioral disorders. (8,9)

These data must be the wedge into a new framework for thinking about the relation of food, illness and health. While many hurdles remain in the designing, funding and the interpretation of research on the interaction between food and health, it must be an area of highest research priority.

Food is our greatest ally in helping to prevent and treat illness, and to help our patients to create health. We must separate religion from science and assess the role of food as medicine, particularly in chronic illness where current pharmacologic approaches fall short.

Clinical experience treating chronic conditions such as IBS, IBD, migraines, autoimmune diseases, CFIDS, FMS, MCS, psoriasis, eczema, urticaria, arthritis, and respiratory illness, enuresis and cystitis with elimination diets must be translated into research protocols that illuminate individual differences in response to dietary antigens and their relation to diseases. This research will yield critical new insights into the role of food as slayer and food as healer.

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CAFFEINE

In case you hadn't noticed: Caffeine is a drug and it is everywhere. Caffeine can cause insomnia, heart problems, and nausea. How much caffeine is there in [drink/food/pill] your diet?

Good review of caffeine statistics. As always, I have my 2 cents to add and here it is if you do drink coffee, regular tea or chocolate.

Americans consume 160 billion cups of coffee per year and about 120 million pounds of tea - or approximately 36 million pounds of caffeine. 85% of persons 18 years or older are consuming caffeine with a mean intake of 186 mg. caffeine per day (2.2 cups of coffee).

Of the 120 brands of coffee, cocktails and cola beverages nearly every one of the 60 million sodas consumed has caffeine - but with children and youth being the greater consumers and so oblivious to the health hazards hidden within these innocent looking cans - they may as well be smoking.

Caffeine, like chocolate, is a close cousin to nicotine.

While trying to quit smoking, one cup of caffeinated coffee or tea and even flesh foods - will trigger the demand for a cigarette.

Detrimental Effects?

While books have been written about this, suffice to say that the throat, stomach, heart, brain and its nervous system suffer the most. The chief problems are the lack of quality sleep (though one may have the eyes closed!) and muscular tremors.

Decaffeinated coffee is worse - like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. If methylene chloride is still used in the extracting process (which most extractors have given up - I think!) or even the more popular "water process"; Caffeol (the oil which gives coffee its flavor and which is used in tanning leather!) is a concentrated astringent and irritates all the mucous membranes, the liver, kidneys and bladder. Often the result of heavy caffeol doses in the bladder (urine) gives rise to bladder cancer. I can always tell by the mucous irritation whether one is drinking caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee.

Weight for weight, the kola nut contains more caffeine than the coffee bean and leaves the brain even more fatigued.

Caffeine is an alkaloid - a vegetable poison - and causes all the problems associated with alkalosis, including allergies, sensitivities and a predisposition to arteriosclerosis and gout. It causes a compensatory depression, increases pressure in glaucoma, destroys stomach pepsin, high blood pressure and increases the heart rate.

Not Containing One Atom of Nourishment!

Caffeine can only whip an already tired horse and force the system to borrow from tomorrow's reserves - with interest. Caffeine interferes with the recharging process. Proof of this is the morning "hangover" headache - tell tale of the state of exhaustion in the nerve centers.

In the old days - just before an auction - horses were frequently injected with a small amount of caffeine to stimulate them and to keep their heads high and their actions spry. When the next day the horse's head was down low again the owner realized he'd been duped.

Both the theobromine of chocolate and the caffeine of coffee and tea stimulate, excite and quicken the living machinery and force one to feel strong, active and quick-witted. Unfortunately it also helps produce lumpy cysts and fibroids in the reproductive machinery. The responsible chemicals for this are purine, uric acid, xanthines, caffeine and theobromine.

Purine is also found in all dead flesh and is chemically almost identical to that found coffee, tea, chocolate and cocoa. Uric acid is C3/H4/N4/O3, Caffeine is C8/H10/N4/O2 and Theobomine of cocoa is C7/H8/H4/Os.

To reduce breast, uterine or ovarian lumps (solid nodules - like the pearl) complete abstinence from the xanthines, purines and uric acids is essential. And abstinence will also help people with hypoglycemia. Time to clear the cupboards and make a resolution to eliminate one more bad habit.

Good luck!
Warmly,
Dr. Van Beveren, Ph.D.CNS, CNC.

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Side effects of Caffeine
Quotes from Elson M. Haas, M.D.

*excess nervousness, irritability, insomnia, restless legs, dizziness and subsequent fatigue to name a few

*An acid irritant to the GI tract and liver, caffeine directly increases hydrochloric acid production, so it is clearly bad for people who are prone to ulcers or gastritis.

*Caffeine's diuretic effect causes loss of pottasium, magnesium, zinc and other minerals, and B vitamins, especially thiamine B1. Caffeine also washes out Vitamin C. Therefore, all these nutrients can be deficient unless obtained from foods in increased amounts or taken as Whole Food Supplements.

* Caffeine, and particularly coffee, reduce absorption of iron and calcium especially when drunk around mealtime. These minerals are particularly important for women. Osteoporosis and anemia are thus more common with regular coffee use. Also in children and adolescents, caffeinated drinks interfere with these essential minerals needed

* Diarrhea can also occur with increase amounts of caffeine, which relaxes the smooth muscle of the colon. The laxative effect can also create a dependency.

*A number of negative cardiovascular effects are caused by caffeine.

1. It raises Blood pressure
2. Hypertension is a risk factor in arteriosclerosis and heart disease.
3. Caffeine increases cholesterol and triglyceride blood levels, also risk factors in cardiovascular disease.
4. Heart rhythm disturbances, arrythmias, though mild, occur with caffeine.
5. Caffeine increases norepinephrine secretion, which causes vasoconstiction- that is, restricted blood flow.
6. Fibrocystic breast disease (FBD) may also be the consequence of caffeine use.
7. Birth defects have been noted with higher levels of caffeine use during pregnancy. Spontaneous abortions are also more frequent with coffee drinking early in pregnancy
8. The incidence of certain cancers is increased with caffeine use. Bladder cancer may result, probably also from a nicotine and caffeine combination. Ovarian cancer is increased in women with an association of long-term coffee intake. Pancreatic cancer, has also been in question as occuring more frequently with increased coffee use (more than 3 cups a day).
9. Caffeine may also be correlated with kidney stones, possibly as a result of the diuretic and chemical effects. The fluoride mineral that is found in coffee and tea can also cause problems when consumed in excess. In addition, caffeine use may increase fevers, both by a mild direct effect and by counteracting the effects of aspirin.
10. The adrenal exhaustion/ stress/ fatigue/ hypoglycemia syndrome is tied to caffeine use as well. Caffeine has an overall effect of increasing blood sugar (especially when sweetened), as it stimulates the adrenals. Both stress and sugar use tend to pressure and weaken the adrenal function. Recovery from the resulting fatigue requires rest, stress reduction, and sugar avoidance, but caffeine can overide this fatigue and restimulate the adrenals. This process can eventually lead to chronic fatigue, adrenal exhaustion, and a subsequent inability to handle stress and sugar intake. Caffeine will then be of little help.

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CERTS - Cleaning Your Breath?

Have you ever read the ingredients in the common breath mint Certs? Sugar, corn syrup, artificial and natural flavoring, actuated partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil (Retsyn), magnesium stearate, copper gluconate, and artificial colors (including FD&C yellow no. 5)

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The Free Health Advice Center

DIET AND HEALTH

YOUR MOTHER WAS RIGHT!!
Happy Sprouting
THE OILING OF AMERICA
FOLIC ACID AND YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE

YOUR MOTHER WAS RIGHT!!

When we buy an electronic product, it comes with a schematic. People however don't. To understand our wiring we must look back through civilization towards ancient man. We were developed to pull apples and figs off trees, pick berries, nuts, and greens and eat an occasional antelope or buffalo that we chase down.

I tell people: "The closer to "GOD" we eat, the healthier we become". When man messes with food it is for shelf life, texture, taste, temptation, etc. Man's intervention with food has little to do with health, only corporate wealth. I also tell people: "If you have to cook it, don't eat it". This doesn't mean you need to eat everything raw, it means our ancient wiring system was not designed to eat so many foods that must be cooked. Grains fall in this category.

Many make the mistake of thinking whole grains are healthy, while refined grains represent a problem. This is incorrect. Grains, in general, are problematic. Grains and bread contain excessive pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids; gluten, (to which many are sensitive); and lectins that inflame the gut, the joints and promote systemic disease. Grains are deficient in key nutrients such as vitamins A, C, B12 and beta-carotene. The pH of digested grain is acidic. Our bones, cells, organs and muscles degenerate due to tissue acidity. We are healthier when our tissues are more alkaline. When we are more alkaline, our tissues hold more oxygen (an enemy of disease). Truly, we are alkaline by design and acid by function. Many metabolic reactions produce acids that must be buffered. The best alkaline buffers come from fruit and vegetables. If we are not eating these, the alkaline buffers must come from our bones. Acidic end products that must be buffered come from meat, grain, soda, coffee, smoking and stress.

A small amount of grain is not a problem, but we have gone "a rye". We eat copious amounts: bread, corn chips, potato chips, pasta, cereal, pretzels, bagels, muffins, and dessert. The "USDA food pyramid" (which is under scrutiny), suggests 6-11 servings of grain/day. Since we have embraced this ethic, we have become the fattest and sickest country in the world. Most of us would do much better if we would replace the "AI" in grains with "EE" as in greens.

Grains have many problematic substances. I just want to focus on the omega-6 fatty acids. We are genetically accustomed to a 1:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratio. A ratio of under 4:1 is acceptable. As the ratio increases, cellular inflammation increases. (Inflammation = pain, discomfort, irritability, arthritis, etc.) The average American's dietary ratio is from 10:1 to 30:1 omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids - a huge aberration for our body to deal with. This aberration creates a chronic, sub-clinical inflammatory state in the body. This is the same inflammation that drives arteriosclerosis BUT it is not limited to the coronary vessels. Depending on one's genetic predisposition, some develop cancer; others get arteriosclerosis, Alzheimer's or osteoporosis. Some may just suffer with back pain, general aches and pains, fatigue, arthritis, diabetes, obesity, depression, headaches, or a sensitive gut just to name a few.

Consider oatmeal, a common breakfast food. In one quarter of a cup of rolled oats, we get a 21:1 ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids. White bread provides a 21:1 ratio; whole wheat contains a 27:1 ratio (doesn't that surprise you?!) Potato chips have a 60:1 ratio; corn chips provide a 12:1 ratio. I suggest throwing away all these foods. Avoid consuming grains, such as those in bread, for at least three months. Thereafter, have one small serving a day if you wish.

What about vegetables? Broccoli provides an impressive 1:3 ratio of omega 6 to omega 3's; kale offers a 1:1 ratio; most lettuces give a 1:2 ratio. The ratio of omega 6 to omega 3's in fruits generally ranges from 2:1 to 1:1. Wild ocean caught fish ranges from 1:1 to 1:7; it is a significant source of omega 3 fatty acids. This is NOT the packaged (farmed) fish found in the frozen food section of the store or deep-fried at your local fast-food restaurant.

The mainstay of our diet should be vegetables, fruit and open ocean caught wild fish. You can buy special omega 3 rich eggs, but open range grass fed beef may be more challenging to find even in your health food store. (Ask.)

Consider - game animals eat foliage, fruit or smaller animals that feed on foliage and/or fruit. We feed grain to our cattle and farm animals; we raise fish in farms where they are fed grain. These grains affect the fatty acid balance in their tissues as well. The ratio of grain fed beef is about 20:1, the ratio of grass fed beef is about 3:1. When we eat these grain fed animals, this fatty acid imbalance affects our tissues.

Many stores advertise grass-fed beef when it really isn't. They do this as ALL cattle are grass fed, but the key is what they are fed the months prior to being processed. Most all cattle are shipped to giant feed lots and fed corn to fatten them up. You need to call the person who actually grew the beef, NOT the store manager, to find out the truth. The least expensive way to obtain authentic grass fed beef would be to find a farmer who is growing the beef who you can trust and buy a half a side of beef from him. This way you save the shipping and also receive a reduced rate on the meat. An inexpensive, yet effective way to determine if the meat is really from a grass fed animal is to purchase the ground beef. Slowly cook the beef till done and drain and collect all the fat. Grass fed beef is very high in omega-3 fats and will be relatively thin compared to traditionally prepared ground beef. It will also be a liquid at room temperature as it has very few saturated fats which are mostly solid at room temperature.

I strongly suggest beginning a lifelong supplementation program involving omega 3 fatty acids, particularly EPA and DHA. The standard fish oil capsule contains 180 mg of EPA and 120 mg of DHA - a total of 300 mg of omega 3 fatty acids - an amount that reflects what is normally found in fish. I recommend fish oil which comes from the body of the fish rather than cod liver oil which comes from the liver of the fish and is very high in vitamin A. It is not known exactly how much EPA or DHA we should take. Experts suggest 1 - 3 grams daily, which amounts to 3-12 capsules/day. When I suggest fish oil capsules to my patients, I suggest one capsule for every ten pounds of body weight, preferably in two divided doses. If you weigh 160 pounds, you would take 8 capsules twice a day. If you have problems belching them up, consider taking them on an empty stomach. Work with your health care professional to decide the dosage best for you based on your size, diet, history and overall condition.

I also suggest taking ground flax and flaxseed oil, which contains alpha linolenic acid, another essential fatty acid. Each flaxseed oil capsule contains 500 mg of ALA. The standard recommendation is two grams/day, a total of four capsules or 2-6 tbsp. of flax oil daily. Flax oil goes rancid very quickly so I like ground flax much better. You can grind flax in a coffee grinder and sprinkle it on salads, eggs, cottage cheese, vegetables. Store your flax in the freezer and grind it fresh. Flax seed is very heart protective. It will raise your HDL's (your good cholesterol). It is also very high in fiber, a dieters delight! It helps fill up up with some wonderful health building nutrition. I recommend 1-3 tablespoons ground daily. The body turns ALA found in flaxseed oil into EPA. However conversion is limited and researchers have found that you have to take up to ten times as much ALA as EPA to receive similar benefits to that of fish. For example 7.2 grams of flaxseed oil should equal 1 gram of fish oil.

These fatty acids do not represent pharmacological amounts. They are designed to provide a level we would normally get in the pre-grain period of history. They are without side effects.

There are a select handful of people who need to be careful with omega 3 supplements. People with clotting disorders, diabetes, asthma or gall bladder disease need to work with a health care professional.

Fortunately, it is relatively easy to shift the balance of the body back to normal. The goal is to avoid the bread family, which loads our cells with inflammatory omega 6 fatty acids. We need to consume liberal amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables, with focus on the green leafies. Even the USDA suggests four to five cups daily.

Try to eat fresh, wild, unfarmed fish as often as possible, and make sure to take at least one gram of EPA or DHA and two grams of LNA per day. It is not uncommon to see a significant reduction in pain complaints within one to two weeks.

One patient comes to mind whom, within 10 days of following this suggestion lost five pounds and 50 percent of his chronic arthritic pain. This is quite common. It often works with chronic back pain, foot pain, and headaches by resolving them within a month.

An interesting side note: When aspirin or Motrin relieves your pain or headache, it is usually an indication that your fatty acid cascade is out of balance.

I hope you have found this article interesting and informative and remember:
Your mother was right, eat your vegetables!!

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Happy Sprouting

Sprouting Seeds are the core of life containing generative power for growth and self-protection. Sprouted seeds have a higher biological efficiency ration than whole seeds, raw or cooked because a sprout is a living chemistry lab. It accelerates the use of nutrition, energy, and fuel to the body by its own chemical changes.

Sprouts are living food, offering us abundant nutrients, (minerals, vitamins, simple sugars, amino acids and enzymes) in easily digestible form.

Almost any bean, seed, or legume will sprout. The best ones for cleansing are alfalfa, fenugreek, lentil, and mung.

Techniques for sprouting

Seed-----------Amount/qt jar--approximate soak time ----harvest summer/winter
Alfalfa --------1 tbsp. -------------12-28 hours --------------------4-7 days
Fenugreek --1/3 cup -------------12-24 hours --------------------1-2 days
Lentils --------¾ cup ---------------8-12 hours --------------------1-2 days
Mungs --------½ cup --------------12-24 hours --------------------3-4 days

You can use a 1 quart mason jar with a piece of nylon screen or a nylon stocking attached with a rubber bank. Wash seeds and put in clean soak water for the indicated time. Drain them and rinse then twice daily.

Rinsing cleanses and nourishes them. Do not over water them, as they need to breathe. (Keep them moist, but not wet.) Cover them with a dishtowel to shut out the light. Alfalfa sprouts like light the last day or two of sprouting.

They are living food and can be stored in the refrigerator for about a week. Rinse them daily and drain them well. When traveling you can sprout them in a plastic bag, just be sure to let them breathe while they are sprouting.

Happy sprouting!

THE OILING OF AMERICA

by: Fallon, Sally, M.A.
(Sally Fallon is a nutrition journalist and food historian. She is the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, a full spectrum nutritional cookbook which documents the politics behind the cholesterol theory of heart disease, and contains a detailed description of what fats and oils are good for us and why, with supporting scientific documentation. Sally is the editor of the Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Health Journal, and is a regular contributor to a number of alternative health publications.)

OILING OF AMERICA

What we have had in the last 80 years is the oiling of America. We have had a big decline in the use of animal fats. People don't use lard any more. We have had a huge increase in the use of vegetable oils, either shortening, margarine or the liquid vegetable oils. Butter consumption has fallen dramatically, but the increase in heart disease and cancer is continuing to rise. It doesn't take a statistician to realize that butter consumption is not the cause of heart disease and cancer. You may have heard of the French paradox. They have one quarter the heart disease that we have, one of the lowest coronary heart disease rates of all western countries, yet they consume a lot more dairy fat than we do, and more animal fats, but their consumption of vegetable oil and hydrogenated fats is much lower.

GOOD FATS AND OILS

A good fat is a traditional fat like butter and other animal fats, and the cold-pressed traditional oils like olive, flax and sesame. These are oils that have been used for thousands of years. They are easy to get out of the seeds. We cannot extract the modern oils without technology. Traditional oils are rich in anti-oxidants. The tropical oils such as palm and coconut oils which have nourished people throughout the globe are very healthy oils. Osteoporosis does not exist in countries that use coconut oil.

BUTTER

Weston Price who studied primitive peoples in the 1930's found many healthy people who nourished themselves on butter fat, and they actually considered butter a sacred food, especially when the cows were eating rapidly growing green grass. Butter is an excellent source of the fat soluble vitamins.

OLIVE OIL

The type of fat which is in the adipose tissue is mostly monounsaturated. That is the kind of fat which is found in olive oil. Olive oil if it is properly processed, if it is extra virgin, is full of anti-oxidants. It is a traditional fat that has nourished people for thousands and thousands of years. It is the safest oil you can use, but it does promote weight gain, and in the Mediterranean countries the women do tend to gain weight in middle age.

FLAX SEED OIL

We do recommend supplementation with flax seed oil with its high omega-3 content. Flax oil is very unsaturated. The more unsaturated something is, the more susceptible it is to rancidity when heated. When you heat it, it forms free radicals and these are very cancer promoting. Flax oil should always be kept refrigerated, and never heated.

SATURATED OILS

Palm, palm kernel and coconut oils contain 80 to 90% saturated fats with small amounts of oleic acid and linoleic acid. Part of the saturated fat content is lauric acid which has strong antifungal and antimicrobial properties. These oils protect tropical populations from bacteria and fungus so prevalent in their food supply. They are extremely stable and can be kept at room temperature for many months without becoming rancid, and can be used for cooking and baking. Unfortunately they have received bad publicity from the lobbying of the vegetable oil industry and these safe and healthy oils have been abandoned in favour of artificially saturated hydrogenated soybean, corn and cottonseed oils, the waste products of America's three biggest crops.

BAD FATS AND OILS

The bad fats are the partially hydrogenated fats and the new vegetable oils and the animal fats that have been heated over and over again. There are many health problems associated with the consumption of polyunsaturated oils such as soy, corn, canola, safflower, sunflower, soybean and cottonseed oils. Use of all these oils should be strictly limited. They should never be consumed after they have been heated as in cooking, frying, baking, etc. These oils are new to the diet; you do not find these kinds of oils in the traditional diet. You get your essential fatty acids from traditional foods like nuts and seeds and green vegetables. Animal fats also provide essential fatty acids. You do not need to supplement them with vegetable oils. The only exception to that is flax seed oil. Canola oil has attracted the attention of nutritionists because of its high oleic acid content, but canola oil presents dangers of its own. It is a new oil which comes from the rapeseed, and the rapeseed oil is highly toxic. It is very high in sulphur which can cause a lot of problems. Canola oil is not a traditional oil and it should be avoided completely. All the salad oils, the pre-mixed salad dressings and the Wesson oils were not in our diet at the turn of the century. People cooked in lard, butter, goose fat, duck fat and beef tallow.

MARGARINE AND HYDROGENATED FATS

Margarine is made with vegetable oil which itself is new to the human diet. It is probably already rancid because of the way the oils are extracted. Almost all of these oils contain hexane which is used as a solvent to get out all of the oil from the seeds. The oils are then steam cleaned and mixed with nickle catalyst; then they are hydrogenated by high pressure and high temperature reactions. This process rearranges the molecular structure so that the oil can become solid at room temperature. The hydrogen atoms have been moved around, and a molecule is created that does not exist in nature. Soap-like emulsifiers are mixed in and then it is steam cleaned because it smells horrible and is a lovely gray colour. They bleach it and add artificial flavours and synthetic vitamins. It is packaged in tubs and promoted as a health food. Some of the diseases that are caused or exacerbated by hydrogenated fats are atherosclerosis, heart disease, auto-immune diseases, cancer, degeneration of the joints and tendons, diabetes (hydrogenated fats interfere with insulin receptors), failure to grow and learning disabilities. Mothers who eat a lot of hydrogenated fats seem to have low birth weight babies and have reduced fat content in mother's milk, so they are not as successful in nursing their babies who are not getting all the fat they need. Hydrogenated fats are also found in chips, cookies, crackers, and fast food french fries.

POWDERED MILK AND EGGS

Oxidized cholesterol in powdered milk and powdered eggs and animal fats used for deep frying initiates the build up of pathogenic plaque. Powdered milk which contains this oxidized cholesterol is added to 1% and 2% milk.

CHOLESTEROL

Cholesterol is a large sterol molecule, and it is manufactured by almost every cell in the body. It is nature's repair substance. It repairs wounds and tears in the arteries. It gives structural integrity or stiffness to the cells. It is the precursor for vitamin D and bile salts. It is the precursor to the sex hormones. It is a powerful antioxidant which protects us against free radicals. That is why people with low cholesterol levels tend to get cancer, and that is why as you age, your cholesterol levels should naturally go up because it is there to protect you. Finally it is essential for the development and function of the brain and nervous system. You need cholesterol for the proper functioning of the seratonin receptors in the brain. So if it's not cholesterol, what causes heart disease? There are a number of studies and many theories which suggest a diet of fabricated, processed, refined foods.

CHOLESTEROL LOWERING DRUGS do not lower the risk of coronary heart disease but in study after study have been shown to increase the risk of cancer, intestinal diseases, depression, suicide and violent behaviour.

SUGAR AND HEART DISEASE

Most fat in our bodies and in the food we eat is in the form of triglycerides (three fatty acid chains attached to a glycerol molecule). Elevated triglycerides in the blood have been positively linked to proneness to heart disease but these triglycerides do not come directly from dietary fats: they are made in the liver from any excess sugars that have not been completely burned. The source of these excess sugars is any food containing carbohydrates, but particularly refined sugar and processed carbohydrates.

Refined sugar and other refined products were virtually unknown in the human diet before 1600 and never used in great quantities before the present century. In 1821 the average sugar intake in America was 10 pounds per person per year; today it is 170 pounds per person per year. As the consumption of sugar has increased so have all civilized diseases. We need foods that are whole, not skeletonized and denatured. Sugar, especially sucrose and fructose has been shown to shorten life in numerous animal experiments.

Excessive use of sugar is associated with a rise in blood cholesterol, rise in triglycerides, increase in adhesiveness of the blood platelets, increase in blood insulin levels, etc. Numerous studies have positively correlated sugar consumption with heart disease. These results are far more positive than any of the studies linking heart disease and saturated fats. Moderate use of natural sweeteners is found in many traditional societies. We therefore recommended you satisfy your sweet tooth by eating fully ripened fruit in season and a limited use of natural sweeteners high in vitamins and minerals such as raw honey, stevia, dehydrated cane sugar juice (Sucanat) and maple syrup. Avoid all refined sugars including table sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, fructose and large amounts of fruit juice.

PESTICIDES, TOXINS AND CONTAMINANTS

We all need to be very concerned about pesticides, toxins and contaminants, not just in our animal foods but in all of our foods. If we start demanding organically grown milk, butter and vegetables, that will promote a small scale yeoman-type farming economy. There are really only two types of economies in the world: the type where millions and millions of people make a decent living and the type where a few people make millions and millions of dollars. We want to reverse the trend and gradually go back to the kind of economy where we have a prosperous healthy farming community and real foods and naturally raised foods.

BACKGROUND POLITICS: THE MOVE FROM SATURATED FATS TO UNSATURATED OILS

I have a little cookbook called The Baptist Ladies' Cookbook published in 1895 - it's 100 years old. This collection of recipes is very interesting because it contradicts our present day dietary principles which are based upon the theory that the increase of cancer and heart disease today compared to a century ago is caused by our consumption of more saturated fat from animal products.

Today we are being told that saturated fats from animal sources and saturated oils are the cause of cancer, heart disease and obesity. Vegetable oils are being used as a substitute in everything from baked goods to baby food. There is hardly a recipe in this book that does not contain plenty of butter, cream, eggs or lard, but cancer and heart disease were extremely rare before the turn of the century. People were strong and sturdy, and gross obesity was not a problem.

The history of how this came into being, how a whole continent traded animal fats for vegetable oils on the premise that vegetable oils are better for our health is an interesting story. The rate of heart disease began to climb in the 1930's. By 1950, it was apparent that there was a huge increase in heart disease, particularly myocardial infarctions. The American Heart Association was formed, and in their original statement, they singled out the trans fatty acids found in hydrogenated oils as the probable source of heart disease. Hydrogenated fats are made from vegetable oils that are artificially hardened. However, Dr. Fred Matson who worked for Proctor and Gamble (who makes hydrogenation equipment and hydrogenated fats) was on the American Heart Association Advisory Board, and he was able to persuade them to drop all reference to trans fatty acids in hydrogenated oils, and instead they laid the blame for this great increase in heart disease on saturated fats from animal products. These altered documents actually encouraged the consumption of the very hydrogenated oils that were the prime suspect.

The edible oil industry has a lobby called the Institute for Shortening and Edible Oils which supervised what was happening at the American Heart Association. The result was that dieticians were trained to promote processed foods. Finally in the 70's and 80's this same Dr. Fred Matson held two controlling positions in the Lipid Research Clinical Trials that led to the National Cholesterol Education Program.

By the early 70's, the American Heart Association stated that Americans had elevated levels of cholesterol in their blood and it was necessary to lower these cholesterol levels in order to avoid heart disease. All Americans in the "at risk" category were encouraged to substitute polyunsaturated vegetable oils for all saturated fats. The people behind this advice were the Institute for Shortening and Edible Oils. But they were pushing this lipid (fat) hypothesis without really having any evidence that there was any truth to it. In the early 70's, research was coming in from all over the world and some of it supported the lipid hypothesis, but much of it did not. The dissenting testimony was ignored. Their final report claimed that animal fats caused cancer and heart disease, and vegetable oils prevented them.

VEGETABLE OILS, HEART DISEASE AND CANCER

My co-author, Mary Ennig from the University of Maryland, who is considered the foremost authority on lipids in America reviewed the data and noticed that people consuming a lot of vegetable oils had more cancer and heart disease, and people eating traditional foods with the animal fats had less cancer and heart disease.

She published a report about her conclusions in a scientific journal, and subsequently received a surprise visit from a delegation from the edible oil industry and the margarine industry who advised her that her department wouldn't get any more funding if she continued to follow this line of research. Subsequently, when she applied for funding for her research, she was refused.

The Framingham study was supposed to support the theory that if you had high levels of cholesterol in your blood, you were more prone to heart attacks. If you evaluate their graph honestly, it shows that the difference in the heart attack rate is fairly constant, from 200 all the way up to 1,000. So what is all the fuss over cholesterol about? The truth about the Framingham study came out in 1972 in an article in the Archives of Internal Medicine in which William Castelli, the director of the Framingham study stated that the more saturated fat, the more cholesterol, the more calories one ate, the lower the peoples' serum cholesterol was. They also found that people who ate the most cholesterol and the most saturated fats weighed the least and were the most physically active.

LOW CHOLESTEROL LINKED TO INCREASED RATES OF CANCER

The next study was called the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial, done on 362,000 men, testing their cholesterol levels related to heart disease. They found a very trivial increase in the rate of deaths from coronary heart disease as the rate of serum cholesterol went up. They also found the same thing which had been found in many other studies, that when your cholesterol levels are too low, the rate of death from other diseases, particularly cancer, goes way up. With cholesterol levels below 160, there was a greater rate of death from cancer, intestinal diseases, violence, suicide, increased depression. So it isn't a very fair trade off.

The final major study that is used to justify the lipid hypothesis was the Lipid Research Clinics Trial. Once again, Fred Matson from Proctor and Gamble held two very important positions in designing this research and the way it was presented to the public. These studies didn't study whether a low cholesterol, low fat diet would help you. All the subjects were on a low cholesterol, low saturated fat diet. One was given a cholesterol lowering drug and one was given a placebo. Researchers claimed that the group taking the drug had a 17% reduction in the rate of coronary heart disease. But independent researchers including Mary Ennig at the University of Maryland found no difference in coronary heart disease between the drug group and the placebo group. Once again they found that those who had lowered their cholesterol by using the drugs had an increase in deaths from cancer, stroke, violence and suicide. Nevertheless, this study was presented in the media as the long sought proof that animal fat was the cause of heart disease, though it proved nothing of the sort.

In 1984, we had the Cholesterol Consensus Conference. In their report they defined all Americans with cholesterol between 200 and 300 as "at risk". As we saw earlier, there is no increase in coronary heart disease between these two levels. There is no difference in risk or rate or anything else. But they defined 200 as this magic point where you are at risk.

They called for mass cholesterol screening and recommended a diet low in saturated fats and cholesterol for at risk Americans. One very specific suggestion in this report was that Americans replace butter with margarine. Don't forget that Fred Matson of Proctor and Gamble who makes hydrogenation equipment and hydrogenated fats was behind all of this work.

FAT FOR CHILDREN

One of the most serious things to come out of this program was the recommendation that the low cholesterol diet be given to all Americans above the age of two. But children need a lot of fat in their diet. Mother's milk is 55% fat and it is mostly saturated fat. It is extremely high in cholesterol, and it has a special enzyme that helps the baby absorb the cholesterol. That is how important cholesterol is for the growing child. Studies of children put on this low fat, low cholesterol diet show failure to thrive. They do not grow the way they are supposed to on this low fat diet.

Children need more fat than adults right through their growing years, right up to the age of 18 or 20 because fat and cholesterol are very important for the development of the brain and nervous system. Basically, the experts disagree with the lipid hypothesis.

George Mann who worked in the Framingham study said the public is being deceived by the greatest health scam of the century. Here is what has caused the health care crisis: The ingredients are greed, cunning, ignorance, lies, envy, extortion, manipulation and fraud. The agenda is that you conspire to convince the populace that natural whole foods that have nourished mankind for thousands and thousands of years are dangerous and unhealthy, and that they cause heart disease and cancer so that the populace will buy the new fabricated foods which you are selling. Then you train the medical profession to advocate antibiotics, vaccinations, fluoride and fabricated foods as scientifically proven methods for preventing illness.

You ignore and suppress healing methods that have worked for centuries, you claim that real diseases have no cure, and you define normal human conditions such as menopause and average cholesterol levels as illness that must be treated with expensive drugs which create serious side effects.

Sally Fallon's book Nourishing Traditions is one of the most important books you can read. Go to recommended reading and hit the Amazon banner!

Lower Blood Pressure Another Benefit of Folic Acid

Previously recommended to women as a prevention to birth defects, researchers have discovered that folic acid also plays an important role in reducing the risk of high blood pressure in some women.

Folic acid can abundantly be found in:
Citrus fruits
Tomatoes
Leafy green vegetables, including asparagus, spinach and romaine lettuce
Beans, including pinto, navy, lentil and kidney

Researchers conducted a study that involved more than 150,000 women divided into two age groups. The purpose of the study was to find out if there was a connection between high blood pressure risk and folate intake.

The first group, women ages 26-46, consumed more than 800 micrograms of folate daily. These women experienced the most dramatic decrease in the risk of high blood pressure. The second group, women ages 43-70, who consumed the most folate daily, also reduced their risk of hypertension, though at a more modest 13 percent compared to the first group.

The key to the success of folic acid consumption centers on taking the proper amount, as too little as well as too much folate can pose a problem.The suggested target amount of one's daily intake of folate should be around 800 micrograms, according to experts. Compared to women who take only 200 micrograms a day, those who took the target amount lowered their risk of blood pressure by almost a third.

Because most women find it challenging to consume 800 micrograms a day from their diet alone, they also take a daily multivitamin containing 400 micrograms amount of folic acid, in order to make up the difference. Caution: Consuming too much folic acid can be dangerous. Vitamin B12 deficiency can produce similar blood count results -- elevated MCVs. If your MCV is normal no need to worry about folic acid as it is a very safe supplement. However if it is elevated you will want to check for vitamin B12 deficiency as if you correct the MCV with folic acid the vitamin B12 deficiency will go untreated and this can cause serious neurological complications.

This is typically only a problem in vegans and the elderly as vegans ingest very little B12 and the elderly frequently have vitamin B12 absorption problems.

Chicago Sun-Times October 12, 2004

Folic acid possesses a myriad of benefits:
Decreasing one's risk of colon cancer.
Lowering homocysteine levels associated with high risk of heart disease and stroke.
Affecting mood and the ability to think.
Building stronger bones.

We can now add reduction of blood pressure to the already extensive list of health benefits of folic acid. The value you get from consuming folic acid is determined from where you get it from. This nutrient is best obtained through organic, fresh uncooked whole vegetables. Yep, it's those green vegetables calling to you again.

RETURN

The Free Health Advice Center

DISEASE AND ILLNESS

Curing the Common Cold and Flu
VITAMIN C STORY: IT'S PAST USE AND ITS CURRENT ACTIVE SUPPRESSION
CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME aka Adrenal hypo-function
CONSIDER THIS!
EMPTY FOODS
Tired of Feeling Tired?
Found - The Cure for Depression and Schizophrenia
Lower Blood Pressure Another Benefit of Folic Acid
A Healthy Diet Can Reduce Violence, Rudeness, and Increase Your Child's IQ
BREATHE IN HEALING NEGATIVE IONS

Cold and Flu Season is Upon Us
or How to Cure the Common Cold or Flu
(This works 80% of the time)

We are in the middle of the cold/flu season. Our most successful remedy cures often works within 12-24 hours and costs around a dollar at your drugstore.

It is the best-kept medical secret in the world but people in the know have been attacking the influenza virus and common cold where they begin their breeding process, not where they have already spread to and that's the inner-ear.

In 1928 Richard Simmons, M.D. hypothesized that the cold and flu virus entered through the ear canal. The medical community dismissed his findings. According to Dr. Simmons, contrary to what you may think or have been taught about how you catch the flu or the cold, there is only one way that you can catch the two and that's via the ear canal, not through the eyes or nose or mouth as most have believed.

What is it?

Hydrogen peroxide.

In 1938 German researchers had great success using hydrogen peroxide in dealing with colds and the flu. Their data has been ignored (maybe surpressed) for over 60 years.

How do you use it?

It is important to begin treatment as soon as symptoms appear. I have seen remarkable results in curing the flu and cold within 12 to 14 hours when administering a few drops of 3% hydrogen peroxide into each infected ear, (sometimes only one ear is infected).

Keeping your fingers out of your ears will greatly reduce your chances of catching them, but then again these two are microscopic and can be air-born and may land on or even in your ear. Once they have entered the inner-ear (middle-ear) there they begin their breeding process, and from there they have access to every avenue throughout our body to travel to and to infect and make us sick.

On the first sign of a cold or flu lay on your side and put 15 to 20 drops of 3% hydrogen peroxide in your ear. The 3% hydrogen peroxide starts working within 2 to 3 minutes in killing the flu or cold. There will be some bubbling and in some cases mild stinging occurs. Wait until the bubbling & stinging subside (usually 5 to 10 min) then drain onto tissue and repeat other ear. A bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide in 3% solution is available at any drug store for a couple of dollars.

I have recently begun adding some extract of Echinacea and Goldenseal to the 3% hydrogen peroxide solution. The anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, anti bacterial action of these herbs is well documented in clinical literature. This combination has worked for some who failed using only the hydrogen peroxide.

To cure the flu you will need to repeat this process two or more times at one or two hour intervals until there is no more bubbling when putting 3% hydrogen peroxide in the ears. You will need to do it for several days. It works at keeping a cold or flu at bay. You get 2 benefits. The process cleans out some of that nasty sludge that has been lurking in your ear canals and your cold improves. Help the process along by staying away from sweets and processed carbohydrates for a while.

Although this method is perfectly safe for infant/children to use, the loud bubbling and stinging frightens them, they'll need someone they trust to put the hydrogen peroxide in their ears. (Don't get hydrogen peroxide in the eyes- if you do, flush with water immediately.)

IODINE and a COLD

Something you can also try for a stuffy clogged nose is Iodine. You can paint it in your skin. I don't recommend the type from the drug stores because it is loaded with some nasty preservatives although it does work quite well. At the office I have an iodine available called IOPLY. It is organic and devoid of chemicals.

Iodine is known to thin out that gunk clogging up that nose of yours. It is awful when you can't breathe. I have mothers paint it on the feet of an infant with a stuffy nose. It works within minutes. Many of the children in my practice go straight to the medicine cabinet for IOPLY when they have a stuffy nose and paint it on their arms, hands, feet or their stomach.

Aspirin, acetaminophen may prolong the flu
December 06, 2000, NEW YORK (Reuters Health)

Anti-fever drugs such as aspirin and acetaminophen may prolong symptoms of the flu, Baltimore researchers report. In a review of several studies, flu sufferers who took one of the anti-fever medications were sick an average of 3.5 days longer than people who did not take either of the drugs. However, more study is needed to confirm the findings, because sicker patients were more likely to be given anti-fever drugs--and may have been ill longer because they were more ill in the first place.

Avoid OTC remedies

51 studies of various remedies show that they don't have any effect of flu viruses. They might temporarily ease your symptoms, but they don't shorten the duration of illness, they actually lengthen it because they interfere with your body's overall immune function.

Antibiotics are not the answer either

They only kill bacteria, they have no effect against viruses. Their excessive use creates new bacteria that can resist those antibiotics and this is becoming a problem.

At the beginning of each new flu season I try to have on hand a homeopathic flu remedy that is specifically made for the varieties that are expected to hit. A homeopathic remedy is much safer than the more traditional flu shot.

During the flu season I always up my intake of something called Alpha 20 C and Quinery. It seems to keep me healthy even when I am seeing lots of sick children. If you want to know more about that, ask me next time you come see me.

If you do by chance come down with the flu, there are many other things you can do. Often hourly doses of Echinacea and goldenseal can be of some help. You will also want add some zinc of some type. Zinc is necessary for proper immune function and is one of the most common mineral deficiencies I see. There are also some wonderful homeopathic remedies out there that will help as well. Many are available in more traditional places like Rite Aid.

If all else fails, call your trusted Doctor of Chiropractic or better yet, make an appointment. As with anything, it is best to start with prevention at the beginning of the season than to wait until you are in the middle of the ravages of illness.

Hope to see you soon.

Another use for Hydrogen Peroxide

I recently received this in an email from a friend. My guarden loves the stuff. I haven't tried the nasal pump yet but I plan to the next time I go to the drugstore:

I have been working with hydrogen peroxide for over 5 years. It is the most overlooked and safest chemical on earth. It will do more for less.

One morning while having coffee at the local coffee shop a friend of mine came in with some new books. As I looked them over I found he had a book called oxygen therapies. I looked at it and ask if I could take it home and read it. He said he just got it. I said, I know that but I will bringing it back in a in day or two. I read the book thoroughly and a few days later I took it back to him. That started me on hydrogen peroxide. From then on it was just one success after another.

I found hydrogen peroxide is good for more than just health. For four years I have used it almost exclusively in both my vegetable and flower gardens. I liked it because it is non petrochemical.

I found the three ways of taking hydrogen peroxide to be very cumbersome sometimes, and expensive. I set out to find an easy, inexpensive, quick and, convenient way to use it. I came to the conclusion that if it could be sprayed into my throat it would go directly to my lungs and instantaneously into my bloodstream. Then into the muscles. At that time I was 69 years old. To get out of bed I would have to lay on my stomach.

I used a nasal pump. As I inhaled I would squeeze the pump one time. I did this four times, four times a day. For about a month. From then on I spray my throat as many times as I could in 1 deep inhale. I inhale two times, three times a day. I used three percent right out of the bottle from the drugstore. I don't have any that mixing or measuring to do. I have found that I no longer have aching muscles, my muscles are now very flexible, bursitis, sore gums, sore throat is relieved quickly, and many other things that I haven't thought of are gone. I am 76 years old and people judge me to be 60 to 65. Since I've been using peroxide I haven't been puffing for air as I work. I have many friends who experienced great things from taking peroxide this way.

Thank you for your time.
Bill Munro land@landrights.com

And then there is the
VITAMIN C STORY: IT'S PAST USE AND ITS CURRENT ACTIVE SUPPRESSION
by Gary Wade, Physicist, May 1997
(A great article. Please share this with anyone you care about; the information in it could save your life. At least it could make this incarnation a little easier!)

Almost all animals on earth synthesize their own vitamin C ( ascorbic acid ) from their blood sugar glucose and do not need it in their diet. The few exceptions are humans, other primates, guinea pigs, the red-vented bulbul, the Indian fruit eating bat, the rainbow trout and the Coho salmon. It is interesting to note that humans are missing just one of the enzymes in the sequence of enzymes required to transform blood glucose into vitamin C Perhaps we still posses the genetic code for this missing enzyme, but we are unable to access it. Judging from the amount of vitamin C synthesized per day by common animals the average person is grossly under-supplied in their daily vitamin C intake. For example when vitamin C needs are given in mg / kg / day we have Goat (32 to 190 mg/kg/day), Cow (15 to 18), Sheep (25), Rat (39 to198), Mouse (33 to 275), Squirrel (28), Gerbil (25), Rabbit (22 to 226), Cat (5 to 40), Dog (5 to 40), and Pig (8). Compare this to the recommended daily allowance ( RDA ) of 0.9 mg / kg / day allotted for humans by the federal government medical professionals. Less you might think that primates are exceptional in their vitamin C needs note that wild baboons have blood levels of vitamin C consistent with 10 mg /kg/day and wild vervet monkeys have blood levels consistent with 3 to 8 mg /kg/day.

At this point your common sense should be telling you that the human RDA of 0.9 mg/kg/ day is absurd, ridiculous, and some people in government need to leave government. For example the subcommittee on Laboratory Animal Nutrition of the National Research Council has recommended that most primates be fed vitamin C supplements ranging from 1.75 to 3.5 grams a day. Now what about the primate man?

There are over three hundred known enzyme systems for which vitamin C is essential for healthy functioning. Vitamin C is a powerful free radical getter and chelating agent for heavy metals, i.e. lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury. As if all this was not enough it is also a powerful anti- viral and anti-bacterial agent. As a matter of fact it should be the "drug" of choice of an enlightened medical profession. Instead it has been maligned, persecuted and suppressed by what passes in America as good competent medical professionals, as exemplified by AMA doctors. To prove my above stated claims of vitamin C being a anti-viral and anti-bacterial agent par excellent we need look no further than the work of Dr. Fred R. Klenner, M.D., former chief of staff at Memorial Hospital in Reidsville, North Carolina.

Below is a partial listing of Dr. Klenner's professional publications. Please note that the most recent publication is approximately 40 years ago. I am going to quote from these publications. I believe you will find Dr. Klenner's work astounding and it will beg the questions:

1) Why have AMA doctors ignored Dr. Klenner's work?,
2) Why have so called medical researchers present and past not reproduced Dr. Klenner's work?,
3) Why does the AMA and the NIH bad mouth the use of large doses of vitamin C as a anti-viral and anti-bacterial agent?

The answer to these questions is that the allopathic medical establishment wants control of your illness care at maximized profit to them! Remember, the AMA is a monopolistic trade association, not a kind, benevolent, caring association of doctors looking to bring health and well being to humanity at minimal cost. No, quite to the contrary. The more doctor office visits, the more tests, and the more "needed" prescriptions, the greater the cash flow to the doctor. Heaven forbid that the doctor use a cheap, quick, safe and effective vitamin like vitamin C to cure a mariad of bacterial and viral illnesses and diseases. For, who knows, the patient with more than half a brain might catch on how to take care of most of their health problem themselves cheaply, quickly, safely, and effectively, without the need for a AMA doctor.

List of Dr. Klenner's professional publications in the Tri-State Medical Journal:
1) Poliomyelitis - Case Histories, September 1956
2) A New Office Procedure for the Determination of Plasma Levels for Ascorbic Acid, February 1956:
3) Poliomyelitis Vaccine - The Authorities Speak, March 1956
4) The Role of Ascorbic Acid on Therapeutics, November 1956
5) Poliomyelitis Vaccine - Brodie vs. Salk, July 1955
6) A Critical Analysis of the Francis report Concerning the 1954 Poliomyelitis Vaccine Program; June 1955: 7) A letter to the editor, News About Diabetes Mellitus, May 1955
8) A Treatment of Trichinosis with massive doses of Vitamin C and Para Aminobenzoic Acid, April 1954: 9) Recent discoveries in the Treatment of Lockjaw with Vitamin C and Tolserol, 1954
10) An "Insidious" Virus, June 1957

List of Dr. Klenner's professional publications in the Journal of Applied Nutrition:
1) The Use of Vitamin C as an Antibiotic, 1953; Southern Medicine and Surgery, Charlotte, Vol. 114, #. 8
2) The Vitamin and Massage Treatment for Acute Poliomyelitis August 1952
3) Paper presented in the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Tri - State Medical Association of the Carolinas and Virginia, held at Columbia, Feb. 19th and 20, 1951- Massive Doses of Vitamin C and the Virus Diseases, Southern Medicine and Surgery, Charlotte, N.C., Vol. 111, No. 7
4) The Treatment of Poliomyelitis and Other Virus Diseases with Vitamin C, July 1949
5) Fatigue - Normal and Pathological, with special consideration of Myasthenia Gravia and Multiple sclerosis, Vol. 111, No. 9, September 1949, Charlotte, N.C.

Polio treated with vitamin C

Here are the details as to how Dr. Klenner handled the 60 cases of polio when it was epidemic in Dr. Klenner's home state. ... "These patients presented all or almost all of these signs and symptoms: fever of 101 to 104.6 degrees F., headache, pain at the back of the eyes, conjunctivitis, scarlet throat; pain between the shoulders, the back of the neck, one or more extremity, the lumbar back; nausea, vomiting and constipation." "The treatment employed was vitamin C in massive doses. The initial dose was 1000 to 2000 milligrams ( 1 to 2 grams ) depending on age. Children up to four years received the injections intramuscularly . . . the temperature curve was adopted as the guide for additional medication. Temperature response after the second hour was taken to indicate the second one or two gram injection. If there was a drop in fever after two hours, two more hours was allowed before the second dose. This schedule was followed for 24 hours. After this time the fever was consistently down, so the drug was given 1 to 2 grams every six hours for the next 48 hours. All patients were clinically well after 72 hours. After three patients had a relapse the drug was continued for at least 48 hours longer, one to two grams every eight to twelve hours." "Where spinal taps were performed, it was the rule to find a reversion of the fluid to normal after the second day of treatment." ( Note: No paralysis developed in any of the 60 cases. )

Vitamin C as a anti - viral "drug"
(Taken from a report in the 1953 Journal of Applied Nutrition. The title : "The Use of Vitamin C as an Antibiotic.")

"Our interest with vitamin C against the virus organism began ten years ago in a modest rural home. Here a patient who was receiving symptomatic treatment for virus pneumonia had suddenly developed cynosis. ( The skin turns blue, due to the lack of oxygen. ) He refused hospitalization for supportive oxygen therapy. X - ray had not been considered because of its dubious value and because the nearest department to give such treatment was 69 miles distant. Two grams of vitamin C was given intramuscularly with the hope that the anaerobic condition existing in the tissues would be relieved by the catalytic action of vitamin C, acting as a gas transport aiding cellular respiration. This was an old idea; the important factor being that it worked. Within 30 minutes after giving the drug ( which was carried in my medical bag for the treatment of diarrhea in children. ) the characteristics breathing and slate - like color had cleared."

"Returning six hours later, at eight in the evening, the patient was found sitting over the edge of his bed enjoying a late dinner. Strangely enough his fever was three degrees less than it was at 2 P.M. that same afternoon. This sudden change in the condition of the patient led us to suspect that vitamin C was playing a role of far greater significance than that of a simple respiratory catalyst. A second injection of one gram of vitamin C was administered by the same route, on this visit and then subsequently at six hour intervals for the next three days. This patient was clinically well after 36 hours of chemotherapy. From this casual observation we have been able to assemble sufficient clinical evidence to prove unequivocally that vitamin C is the antibiotic of choice in the handling of all types of virus diseases. Furthermore it is a major adjuvant (helper) in the treatment of all other infectious diseases."

First experiment on measles

"This experimental "strike" on vitamin C as an antibiotic opened a new avenue of approach to the problem of dealing with the virus bodies. With a great deal of enthusiasm, we decided to try its effectiveness with all of the childhood diseases. Measles was singled out more than the others because of the knowledge, that it is a small virus like the one causing poliomyelitis. It was reasonable to assume that if measles could be controlled then Poliomyelitis, too, would have a drug that could prevent as well as cure the disease."

"The use of vitamin C in measles proved to be a medical curiosity. For the first time a virus infection could be handled as if it were a dog on a leash. In the spring of 1948 measles was running in epidemic proportions in this section of the country. Our first act then, was to have our own little daughters play with children known to be in the "contagious phase". When the syndrome of fever, redness of the eyes and throat, catarrh, spasmodic bronchial cough and Koplik spots had developed and the children were obviously sick, vitamin C was started."

"In this experiment it was found that 1000 mg. every four hours, by mouth would modify the attack. Smaller doses allowed the disease to progress. When 1000 mg. was given every two hours all evidence of the infection cleared in 48 hours. If the drug was then discontinued for a similar period ( 48 ) the above syndrome returned. We observed this off and on picture for thirty days at which time the drug ( vitamin C ) was given 1000 mg. every two hours around the clock for four days. This time the picture cleared and did not return. These little girls did not develop the measles rash during the above experiment and although exposed many times since still maintain this immunity."

"Later cases were given the vitamin by needle. The results proved to be even more dramatic. Given by injection the same complete control of the measles syndrome was in evidence at 24 and 36 hour periods, depending entirely on the amount employed and the frequency of the administration. Aborting of these cases before the development of the rash apparently gives no interference to the development of immunity."

"Unless the virus is completely destroyed, as demonstrated in the experiments with the virus causing measles, the infection will again manifest itself after a short incubation period. small, single daily doses do not even modify the course of the infection. From a review of the literature one can safely state that in all instances of experimental work with ascorbic acid on the virus organism, in experimental animals, the amount of virus used was far beyond the range of the administered dose of this vitamin. It is timely to note here that all of our research with vitamin C on the virus was done, using MAN as the experimental animal. This makes an important difference. For example the signs of acute and chronic vitamin C deficiencies in the monkey are distinctly DIFFERENT than in man."

Viral Encephalitis

"The next case was that of a colored woman aged 28 with history - given by relative - of chills and fever and chest and head cold for 14 days, severe headache for 3 days. In stupor when first seen, eye lids closed, a white foam at the mouth which she periodically tried to spit out. Temperature by axilla 106.8 (axilla means armpit). Dehydration was much in evidence, breath sounds diminished to absent, tactile (by touching) fremitis (palpable vibration) increase over the entire right. The sulfa drugs, penicillin and streptomycin with supportive treatment had been exhausted. Four grams of vitamin C was given intravenously along with 1000 cc. of 5% dextrose in saline solution. Temperature dropped to 100 (ax.) within 11 hours. Four hours later vitamin C was resumed - every two or three hours - in dosage of 2 to 4 grams depending upon the response. After 72 hours the patient was awake, sitting up in bed and taking fluids freely by mouth. There was no fever at the hospital. Vitamin C was continued for a period of two weeks; the frequency was cut to every 12 hours, two grams at a dose. An interesting complication was deafness; her speech gave a loud, monotonous, bell-sound effect. It was debated whether this was the result of the streptomycin or to the encephalitis. Prostigmin 1:2000, 1cc. and vitamin B1, 200 mgms. were given 1M twice daily. On the tenth day of treatment the hearing suddenly returned to normal."

"The x - ray picture of the right lung was one of almost complete consolidation. Although the patient was clinically well of her pneumonia after 72 hours, the x - ray picture was not completely clear until 90 days later."

"This phenomenon of Nature clearing the debris after killing out the virus organism was observed in five other cases. The time required was in direct proportion to the degree of pulmonary involvement. There is nothing new about this procedure; Nature merely duplicating a stage in the metamorphosis of the frog in getting rid of its tall."

Shingles

"In herpes zoster (shingles) two to three grams of vitamin C was given every twelve hours, this supplemented by 1 gram in fruit juice by mouth every two hours. Eight cases were treated in this manner, all adults. Seven experienced cessation of pain, within two hours of the first injection and remained so without the use of any other analgesic medication. Seven of these cases showed drying of the vesicles within 24 hours and were clear of lesions within 72 hours. They received from five to seven injections. In herpes simplex it is important to continue the treatment for at least 72 hours."

Chickenpox

"Chicken - pox gave equally good response, the vesicles responding in the same manner as did those of herpes. These vesicles were crusted in 24 hours, and the patient well in three to four days. We interpreted this similarity of response in these three diseases to suggest that the viruses responsible were closely related to one another."

Influenza

"Many cases of influenza were treated with vitamin C. The size of the dose and the number of injections required were in direct proportion to the fever curve and to the duration of the illness. Forcing of fruit juice was also recommended, because of the frequency and ease of re infection during certain periods of the year."

Virus Encephalitis

"The response of virus encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) to ascorbic acid therapy was dramatic. Six cases of virus encephalitis were treated and cured with vitamin C injections. Two cases were associated with virus pneumonia; one measles and a combination of measles and mumps."

"In the case that followed the measles - mumps complex, definite evidence was found to confirm the belief that massive, frequent injections are necessary in treating virus infections with vitamin C. This lad was first seen with a temperature of 104 degrees. He was lethargic, very irritable when molested. His mother said he had developed his present clinical picture over the preceding four or five days. His first symptom was anorexia (without appetite) which became complete 36 hours before his first examination. He next became stuporous. Although very athletic and active, he voluntarily took to his bed. He was given 2 grams of vitamin C intravenously and allowed to return home, because there was no available hospital accommodations. His mother was asked to make an hourly memorandum of his conduct until his visit set for the following day. Seen 18 hours after the initial injection of vitamin C, the memorandum revealed a quick response to the antibiotic - after two hours he asked for food and ate a hearty supper. Then played about the house as usual, and then for several hours he appeared to have completely recovered. Six hours following the initial injection, he began to revert to the condition of his first visit. When seen the second time temperature was 101.6 degrees, he was sleepy but he would respond to questions. The rude irritability shown prior to the first injection was strikingly absent."

"A second injection of 2 grams of vitamin C was given intravenously and 1 gram of C was prescribed every two hours by mouth. The next day he was fever and symptom - free. As a precautionary measure a third 2 gram injection of vitamin C was given with direction to continue the drug by mouth for at least 48 hours. He has remained well since."

Epidemic keratoconjuctivitis

"I will make the flat assertion that in no established case of a virus ailment has ascorbic acid failed to effect a fast, safe cure in my immediate family and in my own case, for example, my wife had a diagnosed virus eye trouble epidemic keratoconjunctivitis. Established medical practice states "no treatment useful as far as I know, of virus origin, let it run its course, which will take about eight months." We effected a cure which was confirmed by a lengthy one - and - a -half - hour test in three days by the use of one gram of liquid vitamin C with each meal in the form of sodium ascorbate (injectable) taken in orange or fruit juice."

Third degree burns and arthritis

"Ascorbic acid has a fantastic effect on the human frame which is making me wonder about it. For example I know of a child who sustained an extremely severe 3rd degree burn, and was brought into a local hospital. While there she was given vitamin C by mouth on an hourly basis. No other treatment employed as a test. The theory was that vitamin C tends to restore the integrity of the capillary body structure. One of the dangers of burns is fluid leakage and normal medical practice is not to stop the fluid leakage as such because no accepted method is generally known, but to restore fluid to the blood stream through proper fluid solution injection. The child in question stopped losing fluid in the third hour."

"She was discharged from the hospital in five days. The doctors who viewed the records considered this a fantastic recovery and suggested the report be sent out for publication. Of course this is only one burn case. I know of another case of a microscopist working for a very large plant in Chicago. Her problem was stiffening of the fingers making her work almost impossible to continue. Her record was one of constant colds."

"Liquid vitamin C was suggested until a Benedict test showed spillover in the urine. She took 100,000 milligrams the first day. Tests showed no spillover. Repeated the second day. Spillover showed the third day when 50,000 mgs had been administered or a total of 250,000 milligrams ascorbic acid in 3 days. The stiffness left her fingers on the fourth day. The question I ask of course is this, is there a relationship between rheumatism or arthritis and vitamin C? What became of that 250,000 mgs. of ascorbic acid before her body began throwing it off? Where does the daily minimum requirement of 75 milligrams of vitamin C stand in the light of this professionally supervised case?"

Dr. Klenner's Conclusions
( Taken from a paper presented at an AAN Convention, May 1953, Pasadena, California by Frederick R. Klenner, M.D.. )

"In using vitamin C as an antibiotic no factor of toxicity need be considered. Vitamin C possesses abilities which antagonize many of the . . . effects of histamines. It should be employed with the anti - histamine drugs in all the allergic states. It is because of this factor that it serves so well in the treatment of acute rheumatic fever. It is a specific for snake bite, except the coral and cobra. It is directly concerned with the antibody formation and this in turn leads to an increase in the gamma globulin of the blood stream. It joins with the virus and its toxins to form a new compound which is destroyed by oxidation of the blood stream. It makes all cells more permeable which allows the entrance of immune factors otherwise denied. It prevents or lessens tissue damage. It serves as a hydrogen transport in cellular respiration. It functions as a dehydrator and diuretic. It is the key to good health. Don't lose this key for it might lock or unlock your life."

To fully begin to understand how corrupt and incompetent the administrative leadership of the allopathic medical establishment is, it is useful to see a specific example of how legitimate vitamin C research has been maligned and how attempts have been made to discredit such research both in the public mind as well as in the professional medical community at large where there are large numbers of honest though misinformed doctors. As a specific example consider the 1976 test clinical trial carried out by Dr. Ewan Cameron, M.D.. This clinical trial of vitamin C therapy for terminal cancer is discussed in detail in the book Cancer and Vitamin C, by Dr. Cameron and Dr. Linus Pauling, Ph. D..

A dosage of 10 grams a day of vitamin C was given to 100 terminally ill ("untreatable") cancer patients. A control group of 1,000 terminal cancer patients matched for sex, age and type of cancer received no vitamin C. The results of this study were rather significant. The average survival rate of the vitamin C patients, at the time of the reporting of the study in 1978, was 4.2 times larger than that of the control group. Moreover, the degree of subjective pain was much less and quality of life much greater for the vitamin C treated patients. Perhaps most striking was the fact that 16 of the 100 vitamin C treated patients were still alive in 1980, all of the 1,000 controls had died.

After the publishing of the Cameron - Pauling cancer study in 1978 the allopathic medical community generally criticized the results on ostensibly methodological grounds ( It was not a double blind test as though the placebo effect could give the cures found. ), though it was clear that researchers did not believe vitamin C could have a significant effect in the treatment of cancer. In other words the non - nutritionally trained allopathic medical doctors believed their own erroneous medical school training as to the non - significance of nutrition in disease occurrence and disease out come. In an effort to discredit the results of the Cameron - Pauling study the corrupt administrative leadership at the National Institutes of Health funded two studies carried out by the Mayo Clinic. No effect upon the survival rates of terminal cancer patients receiving vitamin C was found in the first Mayo Clinic study. However, this study was severely publicly criticized by Cameron supporters because the study subjects had all previously gone through devastating chemotherapy, suppressing their immune systems to the point where vitamin C could be of little benefit. And the study / trail was certainly not comparable to the Cameron - Pauling study.

Due to the non - validity of the first Mayo Clinic study, the Mayo Clinic carried out a second study. This study was even more discrediting to the Mayo Clinic's competence and integrity. In the second study (a double blind study) the placebo was easily identifiable, and the control patients were not monitored regularly to determine whether they were taking vitamin C on their own. Only six of the 50 control patients were tested only once, for urine levels of vitamin C. Five of the six control patients had levels of around 500 mg vitamin C in the urine per day. The sixth control patient had 1,200 mg of vitamin C in their urine. Since unsupplemented cancer patients normally have less than 10 mg vitamin C in their urine per day it is a safe bet that the control patients were taking significant to large amounts of vitamin C on their own. The fact that the Mayo Clinic "doctors" did nothing about this situation showed a great lack of integrity on their part. In fact the Mayo Clinic doctors tried to falsely maintain that the vitamin C levels in the urine of the tested control patients was "negligible" . It perhaps should be no wonder that the survival rate of the vitamin C group and the control group were about the same sense both groups were apparently taking comparable amounts of vitamin C. To further compound the inadequacy of the Mayo Clinic's second study the researchers stopped giving vitamin C to its test patients after only two and a half months. Where as Cameron continued his patients on vitamin C indefinitely.

One tangential result of the second study which the Mayo Clinic researchers did not want to focus on was that a group of cancer patients who refused to take part in the study had only about half the survival rate of both the vitamin C and control groups, even though the study lasted only a pathetic two and a half months.

In March of 1985, in front of the House Sciences and Technology Committee Cameron called for an authoritative, competent, and honest test of the efficacy of vitamin C cancer therapy: "Whether vitamin C is of any help to cancer patients is still uncertain. I sincerely believe that the National Cancer Institute has a duty to the American public to fund a properly designed trial to answer this question once and for all. Such a trial must not be carried out by vitamin C enthusiasts nor by bigots, but by fair - mined skeptics, and conducted not in secrecy but in open cooperation using a mutually agreed protocol with particular attention given to ensuring that the controls are not also taking vitamin C."

"If such a competently run trial failed to show any benefit from vitamin C, I would be prepared to be a co-author and repudiate all my previous statements to the contrary. However, if such a competently run trial demonstrated beyond doubt that vitamin C had therapeutic value, as I am convinced it would, a new, simple and very safe form of treatment would be available for all cancer patients world - wide as a supportive measure alongside other forms of cancer treatment of proven value. Such a finding would also brand the Mayo Clinic performance as the medical scandal of the decade, if not the century."

I personally believe that Dr. Cameron was far to kind to the Mayo Clinic and by inference the National Institutes of Health. Also, I believe the medical scandal of the decade, the century, and the millennium must be reserved for the U.S.C. Medical School Special Medical Research Committee for their damnable suppression of Dr. Royal Raymond Rife's discoveries and accomplishments.

Please note that since that 1985 House Science and Technology Committee testimony of Cameron, that the National Institutes of Health has still not supported or carried out "a competently run trial" on the use of vitamin C for cancer therapy or any other disease, such as those demonstrated by Dr. Klenner's work to be curable by large doses of vitamin C. The simple truth is, that the corrupt administrators at the National Institutes of Health do not dare to carry out "a competently run trial". To do that would be to risk a revolution in allopathic medicine. For example, after "a competently run trial" people might wonder if the survival rate of cancer patients might go far beyond the sixteen out of a hundred , which Cameron experienced for "terminal" patients, if the treatment were started early on. Some might even think to go to much higher treatment levels than 10 grams of vitamin C a day. My god, who knows what and where "a competently run trial" might lead to. It is a chance the corrupt administrators at the National Institutes of Health can not , dare not take. There is far to much illness, misery, and death money at stake. My god, what would happen to the allopathic medical establishment if we the people stop putting approximately one seventh of our economy through their pockets? We could easily cut that amount in half by implementing Rife's technology, not to mention by the use of good nutrition implementation.

Before closing, we should look at vitamin C's successful use in controlling / halting and reversing the coarse of the disease known as AIDS. In this we have another monumental example of the corruption of the administrators of the National Institutes of Health. These administrators have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to those researchers and allopathic medical doctors who have found a way to stop AIDS. For example in the book The AIDS Fighters, by Peter Fitzgerald and Dr. Ian Brighthope, M.D., and published by Keats Publishing Inc., they describe the successful use of 30 to 100 grams per day of vitamin C being given to AIDS patients for several weeks by Dr. Brighthope in his practice in Milbourne, Australia. Dr. Brighthope has continually been able to return patients with a clinical AIDS diagnosis back to only a HIV positive status by the use of massive intravenous vitamin C dosages and a combination of other vitamins, minerals, and herbal supplements.

Dr. Joan Priestly, M.D. in Hollywood California had approximately 900 AIDS patients in her practice. A couple of years ago when I last checked, only a hand full of her patients had died in the preceeding two year period. Similarly, to Dr. Brighthope, Dr. Priestly has her patients use large amounts of vitamin C and other vitamins, minerals, herbs, and other supplements. But strangely enough no matter how hard Dr. Priestly and others have tried to get the NIH / CDC to pay attention to their success story, they will not hear, they will not see. There is far to much research, illness and death money to be made on AIDS by the allopathic medical establishment. The pharmaceutical company Burroughs- Wellcome grosses well over $650 million on its sales of AZT per year. AZT is a drug that will kill / totally disable the average HIV negative person in approximately two to three years of usage at the dosage level given to AIDS patients. And this formally healthy HIV negative person will die of exactly the clinical symptoms of AIDS. Do not believe me, go read it for yourself in The Physicians Desk Reference under the name azidothymidine. Azidothymidine is marketed under the names Zidovudine or Retrovir, which is AZT. AZT was developed in the early 60's as an anti leukemia chemotherapy drug, however it was not used because it was far to toxic. And that is really saying something when you consider just how toxic and deadly the drugs that are used are. It should also be mentioned that the AZT test trails which were conduced for AZT approval by the FDA were full of fraud and falsified data. The only reason the AIDS patients receiving AZT survived marginally longer than the control patients was that the AZT patients received six times more blood transfusions to keep them alive. The NIH / CDC is a cesspool of administrative medical corruption and criminal behavior. We must dismantle and reorganize the National Institutes of Health and put the FDA under a commission that can undue / veto any directive / administrative law that a corrupt FDA administrator might make.

Conclusion: Vitamin C is the first "drug " of choice in both viral and bacterial infections. It is cheap, completely safe and effective, with no dangerous "side" effects. We need to light a fire under allophatic medicine's corrupt, ignorant, and complacent ass to get them to implement vitamin C treatment as standard treatment.

Note: When taking vitamin C in large doses ( 2 or more grams ) to fight off infections, the powder forms of vitamin C are best to use. Make sure to take adequate fluid/water with the vitamin C so as to eliminate potential stomach irritation and diarrhea problems. There are non-acidic forms of powdered vitamin C available. You should take at least six ounces of water/fluid with every grams of vitamin C. If cancer is involved, do not use a buffered vitamin C that has calcium.

References:
1) New Concepts in the Biology and Biochemistry of Ascorbic Acid, Mark Levine, New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 314, No. 14; p. 898.
2) Recommended Daily Allowance for Vitamin C, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 70:969-972.

Adrenal Hypo-Function
a.k.a. BURNOUT or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

This is very common in today's stressful world. In fact this is one of the most commonly misdiagnosed, or overlooked conditions today.

Many of us live our lives as if we are being chased by Grizzly bears and the first system in the body to be taxed is the Adrenal system. Our ancient adrenals were there for us if we came across a saber tooth tiger and had to quickly climb up a tree. They were not designed to deal with the constant stress of our lives in today's modern world. Emotional stress, dietary stress, physical stress, chemical stress and environmental stress all take a huge toll on us asking more from our adrenals than they were ever meant to do.

We continually tax our adrenals and eventually they "run out of gas." Their function is at a low ebb. The problem is that it is often not low enough to affect blood pictures or a traditional medical exam.

People with adrenal hypo function never really feel well. They are typically chronically tired and or have recurrent sub acute illness, allergies, arthritis, colds, skin problems, digestive problems, viruses, and they are often achy. They also commonly report symptoms of hypoglycemia, since the adrenals are responsible for the release of stored blood sugar from the liver. They usually have poor stamina and often report that they don't handle stress well. Bright light will often bother their eyes. Often their blood pressure is low. Their adrenals haven't the energy to keep blood around the brain. They will get a "head rush" if the bend down to tie their shoes and get up too quickly. Sometimes they will have a dry patch of "eczema" by the sides of their nose and into the marionette lines that go out from the nose to the corners of the mouth. These are often the people who will flare up or get sore from a chiropractic adjustment. The excess cortisol produced by the adrenals weakens and irritates the muscles, ligaments and tendons. Stress also creates lactic acid which causes achiness.

Adrenal hyper-vigilance interferes with our sleep often leading to chronic fatigue. Of the four stages of sleep, people in this state will often enter only the first stage or the lightest. Psychological stress causes physiological stress when we don't sleep deeply enough to detoxify our bodies and repair our cells.

Because the adrenals are part of the endocrine system they affect all of the other endocrine organs. The thyroid will begin to atrophy under the excessive adrenal activity, leading to an under active thyroid. Medically the thyroid is treated. However, if the thyroid is hypoactive due to excessive adrenal activity treating the thyroid will do very little to correct the problem.

When stressed, the body produces a hormone called cortisol. Increased cortisol causes the body to store fat! The high levels of cortisol the adrenals produce from the stress depress the immune system and raise insulin levels to keep the body ready for fight or flight. This increased cortisol and increased insulin also causes the body to collect and store abdominal fat! So, even if you are watching your diet, stress can cause you to gain weight!

It becomes highly discouraging, you can "exercise your butt off" and it will not come off!. We will often crave wheat or sugar to feed the insulin beast. Wheat causes binging behavior and sugar increases triglycerides which stimulates the release of more cortisol which blocks progesterone and accelerates aging, especially in the brain and the eyes. It all turns into a horrible viscious cycle!

These higher levels of cortisol are also toxic to the liver. This creates a liver imbalance that will often wake the person between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. Bowel habits will change because it is impossible to properly digest your food when you are in a sympathetically active state. Constipation will often occur occasionally altering with bouts of diarrhea. Your morning pulse rate, which should be your lowest pulse rate, will stay elevated. This type of body physiology over a long period of time will lead to physical and mental exhaustion, degenerative disease and a quality of life that is in the gutter.

Basic Healing Techniques

Health is a balance between total stress and your body's resources. Your body's resources are enhanced by your lifestyle. The food you eat, the thoughts you think, the amount and quality of the water you drink, rest and exercise, all will either contribute to your body's resources or detract from them.

Relaxation is one of the most important keys to good health. It can help lower cortisol levels, and is one of the most effective ways to reduce stress. Stop and stretch often during the day. It gets your lymph moving a little.

Start hydrating your body by drinking good quality water. Get a water filter for your tap water or purchase an effective but inexpensive filtration system. Sip your water throughout the day do not guzzle it. Your body is like a sponge it can only absorb so much at one time. One patient I know puts 8 pennies on her desk and moves a penny each time she finishes a big glass of water.

Throw your Sugar and Artificial Sweeteners Away!

Replace sugar and artificial sweeteners with a good grade stevia. You want a pure, whole leaf extract of stevia. My favorite is called SunnyDew. Another available form is called Sunectar. This product has been available here in America for over 20 years. It has been reported to be effective when applied to acne, seborrhea, dermatitis, eczema, etc. Placed directly in cuts and wounds, more rapid healing, without scarring, is observed. (This treatment may sting for a few seconds, but this is followed by a significant lowering of pain.) Smoother skin, softer to the touch is claimed to result from the frequent appllication of stevia poultices and extracts.

Stevia is a green leafy plant that tastes very sweet. It has been used for thousands of years throughout the world. At present it is widely used in Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Israel, Uraguay, and Brazil. We here in America have heard little about it.

The best stevia in the world comes from Paraguay where it is called the "honey leaf". In the United States, the leaf is not allowed to be labeled as a sweetener. Stevia and stevia extract are considered foods. Sweeteners are not foods, but food additives. Therefore, stevia cannot be called a sweetener. This, of course, restricts a manufacturer's ability to "get the word out" on stevia's use as a sweetening agent for teas or cooking or whatever. Producers must exercise great caution in their labeling practices to avoid FDA involvement.

In practice, as long as the stevia industry poses no significant threat to the U.S. sugar or sugar substitute industries, the FDA will probably not be pressured to concern itself with what goes on with stevia labelling or use. Any perceived threat at all, however, could tip the scales the opposite way, and all forms of stevia could be banned once again in the United States. (Stevia was banned years ago, coincidentally just before aspartame was released. It took years, many letters and millions of dollars to bring stevia back to the American market.)

Stevia is 300 times sweeter than sugar, it is nutrient rich and has been said to nourish the pancreas. It will not cause huge stimulation of the adrenal system or a hypoglycemic response. It contains a variety of health building constituents besides the steviosides, rebaudiosides, sterols, triterpenes, flavonoids, tannins, monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes. I recommend it to my diabetic patients. People with acute sugar metabolism dysfunction should see an alternative doctor well versed in ART and TBM to have the appropriate corrective procedure and a two-week therapeutic diet and some nutrition to help the pancreas heal itself.

Lie Down and Rest

Even five minutes of lying down can be refreshing. Rest, not just in bed but rest during the day as well. Even if it's just to close your eyes for five minutes and touch base with that inner part of you that is you. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to wake up 10 or 20 minutes earlier and sit quietly with your eyes closed. I have my patients lay on the floor with their butt up to the wall and their legs up the wall. This shunts blood into the trunk of the body and feeds the organs. Relax and quiet your mind. Repeat this same process at night before retiring to bed, it will enhance the quality of your sleep considerably.

See your chiropractor for balancing the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Balance of these systems is vital for your health.

Nutritional supplementation is usually necessary for the hypo-adrenal patient. The supplements are specific for the nourishment of the adrenal system to rebuild and support normal system function.

Finally BREATHE, and breathe deeply. Most people tend to be very shallow breathers and they breathe high in the chest. This is actually very stimulating to the sympathetic system (the fight or flight response). It does very little for the parasympathetic nervous system or the oxygenation of your cells and tissues. If you find it difficult to take a deep breath or if you feel "air hunger," please phone our office. You may have a torquing of the rib cage or a diaphramatic spasm which is restricting your ability to breath deeply. This deep breathing is enhanced greatly through aerobic exercise as well as breathing exercises. (Read the article on Breathe.)

The quality of your life is a composition of your choices. The purpose of my web site is to give you information you can use to help you make more informed choices so you can enhance your health and improve your quality of health.

I invite you to call for a free consultation, take a few moments to fill our our online questionnaire on toxicity and e-mail me a request for my Health Appraisal Questionnaire, a very comprehensive questionnaire that looks at every organ system in your body. Send me the results and your contact information so I can contact you in the near future with the information so we can begin to work together on your personal wellness program so you can rebuild your health!

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CONSIDER THIS!

Some Facts To Consider: over 36% of all hospital patient admittance are due to iatrogenic causes.
Between 1981-1987, over 3 million people died as a direct result of medical treatment. In the same period, only 39,000 people died of AIDS.

Every day 80% of the adults in the U.S. & the U.K. use a prescription drug.

Every year 100,000 people die from infections acquired while in the hospital, and as a direct result of antibiotic use.

From 1962-1988 there was a 300% increase in drug addiction as a direct result of the use of medical prescription. In the same period, drugs from Columbia accounted for only a 30% increase.

Each year the average American adult consumes:

100 lbs of refined sugar
55 lbs of fats and oils
300 cans of soda pop
200 sticks of chewing gum
5 lbs of potato chips 7 lbs of pretzels, corn chips, and popcorn
18 lbs of candy
20 gallons of ice cream
50 lbs of cakes and cookies
63 dozen donuts
36% of adults continue to smoke (that's 1 in 3)
7% of adults are active alcoholics (that's 1 in 14)

In 1900 the risk of cancer was 1 person in 30.
In 1980 the risk of cancer was 1 person in 5.
In 1990 the risk of cancer was 1 person in 4.
In 1995 the risk of cancer was 1 person in 3.
In 2000 the risk was 1 in 2.

The average American will live to age 75…..the average M.D. to age 58. (With those statistics, why would you even go there for HEALTH information?)

The U.S. spends $14 million per minute on "healthcare" (AKA disease-care),
more per capita than any nation on earth.

EMPTY FOODS

The quality of agricultural land has declined at an alarming rate over the past century. Artificial fertilizer is thought to be the main culprit. This chemical mixture of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium may ensure crops grow quickly, but it diminishes vital nutrients in the soil.

Even organic food production, done without artificial fertilizer, cannot guarantee that the soil is rich in minerals. It cannot always replace the missing minerals depleted by earlier applications of synthetic fertilizer and habits of over growing..

The United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has concluded that artificial fertilizer is contributing to a "serious shortage" of minerals. Other studies show a 60-percent fall in the level of vitamins and minerals in beans since 1985, a 70-percent drop in potatoes, apples now contain 80 percent fewer vitamins and minerals.

In 1900, wheat was 90-percent protein; it is currently only nine-percent protein. This means at this point in time, you would have to eat 10 slices of bread to get the same nutrients you once got from one slice.

When the nutrients are not in the soil they are not in the food. Your cells cannot get the nutrition they need to be healthy and thrive. Your liver cannot do its job of detoxication because it cannot get the minerals it needs to function properly. Our cells become overloaded with toxins and they cannot work properly. We have intense cravings and we are always hugry because our cells are telling us that they are starving. Over time disease sets in because our cells cannot do their job, we are full of toxins and we are starving to death on a cellular level.

Make everything you eat and drink count.

Tired of Feeling Tired?
GOT NO PEP? NO ENERGY? NO Drive?
What's stealing your get up and go???

Antibiotic usage
Excessive sugar consumption
Excessive consumption of refined packaged foods
Stress
Drinking Chlorinated Water
Poor mix of Acid and Alkaline Foods

Your intestinal flora: Guards your body against harmful bacteria, yeast and viruses
Stimulates the function of your entire digestive system
Produces essential vitamins and regulates their levels in your body
Maintains your body's chemical and hormonal balance
Performs a vast number of essential tasks for maintaining high energy levels proper immune function and for counteracting cancer causing compounds in the colon.

5 POWERFUL THINGS YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW FOR INDIGESTION RELIEF (WITHOUT DRUGS!)

1. EAT PROTEIN FIRST! Protein foods need lots of hydrochloric acid for proper digestion. If the stomach is first filled with carbohydrate foods, which do not require hydrochloric acid for digestion, the protein will remain undigested. (Eat salads and breads with the meal or last, never first.)
2. EAT SMALL MEALS, eat slowly and chew well.
3. AVOID eating raw vegetables and fruit at the same meal. They require a different set of enzymes to digest.
4. EAT yogurt and other lactic acid foods with every meal including sauerkraut, real sourdough bread, cottage cheese, kefir, garlic and tofu. They will help your digestion and prevent intestinal putrefaction.
5. KEEP your pH in balance and USE a potent friendly flora.

Found - The Cure for Depression and Schizophrenia
By Robert Sealey

Abram Hoffer, PhD, MD, FRCP(C), became a pioneering psychiatrist over 50 years ago. In the 1950's, he applied the life science of biochemistry to the art of psychiatry. Not content with helping many patients recover from schizophrenia, he cooperated with colleagues to research and to develop biological treatments, linking diagnosis to medical care based on nutritional status and biochemical individuality.

As his clinical work progressed, Dr. Hoffer discovered a new dimension of restorative care. Over the span of his long and distinguished career, Dr. Hoffer inspired a paradigm shift: leading by example, he resolved patients' episodes, even psychoses, and restored their mental health. His innovative and important work correcting brain chemistry was welcomed by grateful patients but frowned upon by skeptical psychiatrists.

After years of sharing his research and reporting positive progress in medical journals, Dr. Hoffer realized that most doctors either ignored or dismissed his ideas -- without trying them. Believing that millions of mental patients deserved better quality care, Dr. Hoffer embarked on a campaign to educate the public using books, articles, meetings and conferences.

What made Dr. Hoffer study schizophrenia so carefully? What did he think when his patients heard voices? What motivated him to research, develop and foster the concept of orthomolecular medicine? What intrigues him so much that, at age 88, he still practices psychiatry and medicine, he still researches and he still writes? Hoffer's scientific memoirs share the fascinating story of his life's work and his medical adventures.

Advances in medicine don't appear overnight. Years of clinical observations and outcome analyses can lead to flashes of insight that reveal possible solutions to age-old health problems. A pioneering doctor trusts his instincts, investigates the probabilities and perseveres until he finds better ways to practice medicine. This takes well-above-average intelligence, inspiration, dedication and determination. Paradigm shifts require even more exceptional capabilities, not to mention serendipity, opportunity and a network of colleagues.

As it turned out, Abram Hoffer had the essentials: the necessary smarts, a kind heart, a quick wit, stick-to-itiveness, a supportive family and a knack for making friends, even with patients. Abram Hoffer attended one-room schools in Saskatchewan, obtained his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Minnesota and studied for his MD medical degree at the University of Toronto.

Rather than take quick and easy short cuts as a keen young research psychiatrist in the 1950s, Abram Hoffer wondered what could cause the human brain to hallucinate and what could stabilize brain chemistry. No one told Dr. Hoffer that most doctors believed: "There is no cure for schizophrenia " The practice guidelines of psychiatry encourage physicians to differentiate the root cause(s) of each patient's symptoms before recommending effective treatment(s). True to the guidelines, Dr. Hoffer and his co-workers researched how to diagnose psychosis and restore brain chemistry by prescribing nutritional supplements - in therapeutic doses - and by improving patients' diets. A surprising number of patients recovered and kept well, as long as they continued their treatment regimens.

What prompted Dr. Hoffer to prescribe supplements? How could nutrients restore mental health? Hoffer's memoirs explain that, according to the Hoffer-Osmond adrenochrome hypothesis, the dysfunctional metabolism of adrenalin can cause psychosis.

Vulnerable patients metabolize adrenalin (a healthy brain chemical) to adrenochrome, and then adrenolutin: indole hallucinogens. Dr. Hoffer and Dr. Osmond believed that unbalanced brain chemistry could be restored.

By means of the first double-blind clinical trials ever done in psychiatry, they tested two vital amines: divided doses of either niacin or niacinamide (vitamin B3 - a methyl acceptor) with ascorbic acid (vitamin C - an antioxidant). For decades, their double-barreled treatment has worked better than antipsychotic medications alone, tranquilizers, insulin comas and metrazole therapies. If nutrient-based therapies sound unscientific, remember that Dr. Hoffer earned a PhD degree in biochemistry before he became a physician.

Practicing with medical integrity, Hoffer and his team respected each patient's biochemical individuality by customizing regimens of medical nutrients: vitamins (or vital amines), trace minerals, amino acids, antioxidants, methyl acceptors and sources, energy and enzyme cofactors, essential fatty acids and precursors. Thousands of patients got well enough to resume their educations, continue their careers and realize their dreams.

Conventional doctors scoffed at the idea that mere vitamins could resolve episodes of schizophrenia, a serious mental illness. However, after world-renowned, Nobel-Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling, PhD, read Hoffer and Osmond's 1966 book, How to Live With Schizophrenia, Pauling wrote that "orthomolecular therapy," using vitamins and other essential nutrilites as treatments, could help many patients by "the provision of the optimum molecular concentrations of substances normally present in the human body". Pauling's word "orthomolecular" explains the ortho-care concept of medicine: restore patients to good health by prescribing healthy molecules.

Linus Pauling came out of retirement to research vitamin biochemistry and champion orthomolecular medicine. Linus Pauling's "orthomolecular" concept and Dr. Hoffer's success treating schizophrenia with orthomolecular regimens encouraged open-minded health professionals to verify his findings, then cooperate to develop restorative treatments for a range of mental and physical illnesses. However, the majority of psychiatrists, while following their tradition of nihilism, dismissed Dr. Hoffer's work and kept their minds closed to the reality that their medications and talk therapies, however well-intentioned and useful, do not restore sick brains to normal.

Just as thousands of sailors suffered for centuries before the British admiralty provisioned vessels with citrus fruits to prevent scurvy, legions of trusting mental patients have suffered while most psychiatrists refuse to review Dr. Hoffer's orthomolecular research or test his complimentary clinical regimens.

Unwilling to let skeptics discredit his life's work, Dr. Hoffer continued his research and reported his progress by publishing the case reports of recovered patients in medical books and journals, for over 50 years. His memoirs tell the whole story.

Dr. Hoffer had many clinical adventures as he determined the optimum doses of smart nutrients for his patients and encouraged colleagues to apply his methods, worldwide. In order to share research results and educate caregivers, Dr. Hoffer started and edited the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine - http://www.doctoryourself.com/hoffer_JOM.html He wrote many articles, editorials and books. (http://www.doctoryourself.com/biblio_hoffer.html ). In addition, Dr. Hoffer helped to establish, direct and maintain ISOM (the International Society of Orthomolecular Medicine) and ISF (the International Schizophrenia Foundation).

Since 1971, 34 annual conferences, called Nutritional Medicine Today, have shared orthomolecular information, medical research, progress reports and success stories with patients, families, caregivers and health professionals from around the world. The Orthomolecular Hall of Fame recognizes outstanding achievements by medical professionals. ( http://www.orthomed.org )

Thousands of grateful patients owe their recoveries and their restored destinies to Dr. Abram Hoffer. Thanks to his original work, vision, integrity and leadership in researching and developing restorative orthomolecular medicine, patients no longer need to suffer for decades with symptoms of schizophrenia, psychosis, depression, bipolar disorder, attention deficit disorder or autism.

If you or someone you love has a mental illness, you will enjoy reading The Scientific Memoirs of Dr. Abram Hoffer and getting inspired by his wonderful Adventures in Psychiatry. (Guest reviewer Robert Sealey is the author of "Finding Care for Depression, Mental Episodes & Brain Disorders," "Depression Survivor's Kit - A Layman's Guide," and the "90-Day Plan for Finding Quality Care" http://www.searpubl.ca )

Lower Blood Pressure Another Benefit of Folic Acid

Previously recommended to women as a prevention to birth defects, researchers have discovered that folic acid also plays an important role in reducing the risk of high blood pressure in some women.

Folic acid can abundantly be found in:
· Citrus fruits
· Tomatoes
· Leafy green vegetables, including spinach and romaine lettuce
· Beans, including pinto, navy, lentil and kidney

Researchers conducted a study that involved more than 150,000 women divided into two age groups. The purpose of the study was to find out if there was a connection between high blood pressure risk and folate intake.

The first group, women ages 26-46, consumed more than 800 micrograms of folate daily. These women experienced the most dramatic decrease in the risk of high blood pressure. The second group, women ages 43-70, who consumed the most folate daily, also reduced their risk of hypertension, though at a more modest 13 percent compared to the first group.

The key to the success of folic acid consumption centers on taking the proper amount, as too little as well as too much folate can pose a problem. The suggested target amount of one's daily intake of folate should be around 800 micrograms, according to experts. Compared to women who take only 200 micrograms a day, those who took the target amount lowered their risk of blood pressure by almost a third.

Because most women find it challenging to consume 800 micrograms a day from their diet alone, they also take a daily multivitamin containing 400 micrograms amount of folic acid, in order to make up the difference.

Caution: Consuming too much folic acid can be dangerous. Vitamin B12 deficiency can produce similar blood count results -- elevated MCVs. If your MCV is normal no need to worry about folic acid as it is a very safe supplement. However if it is elevated you will want to check for vitamin B12 deficiency as if you correct the MCV with folic acid the vitamin B12 deficiency will go untreated and this can cause serious neurological complications. Vitamin B 12 deficiency is a very common problem. This is typically only a problem in vegans and the elderly as vegans ingest very little B12 and the elderly frequently have vitamin B12 absorption problems.
Chicago Sun-Times October 12, 2004

Folic acid possesses a myriad of benefits:
· Decreasing one's risk of colon cancer.
· Lowering homocysteine levels associated with an increased risk of heart disease and strokes.
· Affecting mood and the ability to think.
· Building stronger bones.

Now we can add reduction of blood pressure to the already extensive list of health benefits.There's no denying folic acid is good for you, however, the value you get from consuming folic acid is determined in where you get it from.

For example, this nutrient is best obtained through organic, fresh uncooked whole vegetables. Ideally, you would get your nutrients from fresh, whole foods, but if you are concerned that an element is missing from your diet, the nutrient dense foods I use in my practice are a good choice to ensure your body gets all of the nutrients it needs.

A Healthy Diet Can Reduce Violence and Rudeness, and Increase Your Child's IQ
by SixWise.com

Like a taunting teenager, a nosy mother-in-law or a meddling neighbor, food messes with our emotions. A bowl of ice cream can make you happy. An entire carton of ice cream can make you sad. Just the smell of a home-cooked meal when you can't have one can make you lonesome and a bowl of chicken noodle soup can make you feel better. It's no stretch, then, to think that food can also influence our behaviors -- and it does.

According to cutting-edge research, eating a healthy diet affects much more than your weight and health. It's been linked to decreases in violence, rudeness and antisocial behavior and increases in IQs, test scores and grades among students.

From Student Terrors to the Head of the Class Healthy school lunches translate to calmer, more behaved, smarter kids.

Prior to 1997, the Central Alternative High School in Appleton, Wisconsin used to be filled with troublemakers, kids carrying weapons and police officers patrolling the halls. School counselor Greg Bretthauer turned down a job there, saying, "I found the students to be rude, obnoxious and ill-mannered." The school then implemented a healthy food program, one that added fresh fruits and vegetables, a salad bar and whole-grain bread to the cafeteria in lieu of hamburgers and fries, and replaced vending machines with water coolers.

By 2002, one teacher, Mary Bruyette, said, "I don't have to deal with daily discipline issues ... I don't have disruptions in class or the difficulties with student behavior I experienced before we started the food program. One student asserted, 'Now that I can concentrate I think it's easier to get along with people.'"

Since 1997, the school has reported no drop-outs, expelled students, students with drugs or weapons and no student suicides. The school's principal, LuAnn Coenen, was understandably impressed: "I can't buy the argument that it's too costly for schools to provide good nutrition for their students. I have found that one cost will reduce another. I don't have the vandalism. I don't have the litter. I don't have the need for high security."

Bad Diets Equal Bad Behavior

A study by University of Southern California researchers, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, found similar results. After studying more than 1,000 children for 14 years, they found that children who had a poor diet, one that lacked zinc, iron, vitamin B and protein, during their first three years of life were more likely to become aggressive and anti-social.

By the age of 8, the poorly fed children were more irritable and picked more fights than the healthy children. By age 11, they cheated and got into fights and by age 17 they stole, took drugs and were bullies. Said Adrian Raine, co-author of the study, "Poor nutrition leads to low IQ, which leads to later anti-social behavior. At a societal level, should parents be thinking more about what kids are eating? There's more to anti-social behavior than nutrition, but we argue that it is an important missing link."

Other research by Stephen Schoenthaler, a criminal-justice professor at California State University in Stanislaus, echoed these findings. After 803 New York City schools in low-income neighborhoods were provided better meals, the number of students who received passing scores on final exams increased 16 percent. And violations of house rules at one youth detention center fell by 37 percent after fresh fruits and vegetables were added to the cafeteria. Says Schoenthaler, "Having a bad diet right now is a better predictor of future violence than past violent behavior."

Adults, This Applies to You, Too

Kids aren't the only ones affected. In one prison in England, 231 inmates between the ages of 18 and 21 were divided into two groups. One group received nutrition supplements with their meals while the other group got placebos. After four months, here's what happened:

* Prisoners given supplements committed, on average, 26 percent fewer violations, and 37 percent fewer violent violations, compared to the preceding period.
* No behavioral change occurred in those given placebos.

Said the study's researcher Bernard Gesch, physiologist at the University of Oxford: "Most criminal-justice systems assume that criminal behavior is entirely a matter of free will. But how exactly can you exercise free will without involving your brain? How exactly can the brain function without an adequate nutrient supply? Nutrition in fact could be a major player and, for sure, we have seriously underestimated its importance. I think nutrition may actually be one of the most straightforward factors to change antisocial behavior. And we know that it's not only highly effective, it's also cheap and humane."

Only purchase healthy foods at the supermarket, and you'll have an easier time getting your family to eat healthy. And, according to Food and Behavior Research, a charitable organization trying to advance scientific research into the links between nutrition and human behavior, diet can play a role in preventing and managing the following conditions:

* Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
* Dyslexia
* Dyspraxia
* Autistic spectrum disorders
* Anxiety
* Depression
* Bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder
* Schizophrenia

If you're interested in trying some simple dietary changes of your own to see if you notice any changes in mood or behavior, here are some tips to try out for you and your family.

* Sit down to a regular, family mealtime everyday (or as often as possible).
* Make an effort to eat lots of different fruits and vegetables.
* Opt for fresh whole foods over processed and packaged ones.
* Drink water as your primary beverage.

BREATHE IN HEALING NEGATIVE IONS
My Salt Lamps Supply Healing Negative Ions

An environment rich in negative ions has a wonderfully positive effect on your physical, emotional, mental, and even spiritual health.

People are becoming increasingly concerned about the poor quality of air that they breathe within office buildings, motor vehicles, and even their own homes.

In fact, the EPA notes that levels of air pollutants indoors are typically many times that of outside air, even in smoggy cities. We are exposed to toxic fumes produced by synthetic carpets and paints, and a sizable portion of the air molecules are positively charged (meaning that they lack an electron). These so-called "positive ions" take a great toll on our health and have been shown to cause stress, headaches, lethargy, and temporary depression. When we have pain or an injury in our body, we have an over abundance of positive ions.

As chemical opposites -- "negative ions" -- neutralize positive ions, and thus help to clean the air and reduce those health problems. Frequent exposure to the negative ions can dramatically increase an individual's energy, mental alertness, and overall sense of well-being.

For many years, people suffering from asthma and other symptoms have gained tremendous relief from underground asthma treatment in salt mines, where negative ions are plentiful.

The most convenient and environmentally friendly way to add these healthy ions to your own environment, is to use our natural salt lamps which generate even more negative ions as a result of the light and heat exposure.

Not only do people find the light of natural salt lamps to be very soothing, but the negative ions given off by the lamps are the same wonderful ions we smell in the air after a thunderstorm. These ions have a refreshing and energizing effect. They help to purify the air and thereby benefit the people and pets breathing that air.

Natural Salt Rock Crystal Lamps are being used worldwide in holistic spas and medical treatment centers. The most common types of disorders treated are breathing problems, such as asthma, emphysema, bronchitis, and various allergies. There are salt caves in parts of Europe and Turkey that people come to from all over the world for health purposes.

These natural salt lamps and candle holders are mined in an ecologically responsible manner, and crafted by dedicated artisans into attractive and safe lamps that can be used indefinitely. These lamps have been tested and verified to release ions, even when not lit. They produce the same wonderful ions that we feel after a thunderstorm and when standing close to a natural waterfall. Even though the crystal salts and ions themselves are odorless, people can really feel the difference breathing the energized air.

How Salt Crystal Works...

Salt is a primal element, like water and air and its natural minerals and trace element have unique biophysical and biochemical characteristics. Salt is neutral, chemically as well as physically, without its own polarity, always balancing and neutralizing. The emission of ionization is primarily caused by the alternating actions of the salt's ability to first absorb water, and then evaporate it. As the small low watt lamp heats the salt crystal, it attracts the water molecules from the ambient air to its surface. The salt goes into a solution as it mixes with the water molecules. Sodium, as the positively charged ion, and chloride, as a negatively charged ion, becomes neutral and are emitted back into the environment.

The uniqueness of this ion emission interrelation is only possible with the mineral salt, since salt possesses this transformation ability with water due to its electrically neutral atomic structure. Depending upon size and surface area of the salt crystal used for the lamp, the ambient air surrounding it is measurably cleaned by the transformation cycle of hydrogen and oxygen, as well as sodium and chloride ions.

Where can I use a Natural Salt Lamp?

A natural salt lamp can be used in your whole house and work environment safety. It is great for smoky areas, pet areas, bedrooms, around computers, TVs and electrical equipment to counteract the positive (unhealthy ions) given off, great against pollen, mold. Yoga centers, spas and massage centers love our lamps and candle holders in their treatment rooms for beautiful light and energy.

Is there a difference in Salt Crystal available?

Yes, there is a difference in quality & integrity. The manufacturer I buy from daily processes tons of salt, only 10% is shipped as high quality crystal salt lamps and wellness products. They are hand washed and no explosives are used for their removal. They are certified by the Natural Resources Government in Pakistan that insures that no child labor is used and employees are paid a living wage.

Salt Lamps and Candle Holders

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