This is part 2 of the article on the diabetes epidemic.
Diabetes Epidemic and Treatment

Preventing or Reversing Diabetes in Six Simple Steps

Here are my top six actions to take for increasing your insulin and leptin sensitivity, thus reducing your chances for developing diabetes—or reversing it if you already have the disease:

1. Exercise
Exercise is an absolutely essential factor, and without it, you’re unlikely to get this devastating disease under control. It is one of the fastest and most powerful ways to lower your insulin and leptin resistance.

If you’re unsure of how to get started, I recommend reviewing my exercise program for tips and guidelines. It is also critical to work your way up to include some Peak 8 exercises.

2. Eliminate Grains and Sugars, Especially Fructose
A large reason for the failure of conventional diabetes treatment over the last 50 years has to do with seriously flawed dietary recommendations. Fructose and grains are largely responsible for your body’s adverse insulin reactions.

You will want to eliminate ALL sugars and grains—even “healthful” grains such as whole, organic or sprouted ones. This means avoiding all breads, pasta, cereals, rice, potatoes, and corn (which is in fact a grain).

You might even need to avoid fruits until your blood sugar is under control.

3. Eat Right for Your Nutritional Type
Exercising and avoiding grains and sugars might not be enough unless you balance your protein, carbohydrate and fat ratios for your specific genetic biochemistry. The first step is finding out your nutritional type, which then gives you information about your optimal protein/carbohydrate/fat ratio. I now offer the full nutritional typing program for FREE, so you can get started today!

4. Monitor Your Fasting Insulin Level
This is every bit as important as your fasting blood sugar. You’ll want your fasting insulin level to be between 2 and 4. The higher your level, the worse your insulin sensitivity is.

5. Optimize Your Vitamin D
Interestingly, optimizing your vitamin D levels not only treats type 2 diabetes but as already mentioned, can virtually eliminate your children’s risk for type 1 diabetes if you are pregnant. It’s also vital for infants to receive the appropriate amounts of vitamin D in their early years for the same reason.

Ideally, you’ll want to do this by exposing a large amount of your skin to appropriate amounts of sunshine (or a safe tanning bed) on a regular basis, year-round. Your body can safely create up to 20,000 units of vitamin D a day by direct UV exposure. If you are not getting regular sun exposure on large amounts of your skin you may need anywhere from 5 to 20,000 units of oral vitamin D3 per day.

However, if neither of these options is available, you may want to use an oral vitamin D3 supplement. But remember, if you choose to take an oral supplement, it’s essential that you get your level tested regularly by a proficient lab to make sure it’s in the therapeutic range, which is 60 to 80 ng/ml.

6. Probiotics
Your gut is a living ecosystem, full of both good bacteria and bad.

Multiple studies have shown that obese people have different intestinal bacteria than lean people. The more good bacteria you have, the stronger your immune system will be and the better your body will function overall.

Fortunately, optimizing your gut flora is relatively easy. You can reseed your body with good bacteria by eating fermented foods (like natto, raw organic cheese, miso, and cultured vegetables) or by taking a high quality probiotic supplement.

For MANY more articles and information click here.

Technorati Tags: reversing diabetes naturally, preventing diabetes naturally, diabetes, exercise, fructose, vitamin D, probiotics

First the epidemic and what is causing it… hmmmm! Could fructose be involved?? My next blog will be the treatment. I have written about this before (what Dr. Oz had to say) but it is so important that I am showing you what Dr. Mercola has to say. Read on…….

Diabetes Epidemic and Treatment

We are in the Midst of a Diabetes Epidemic

The latest statistics indicate the U.S. now has up to 24 million people with diagnosed diabetes, which is 8 percent of our total population. However, the picture is even grimmer when it comes to the prevalence of pre-diabetes (impaired fasting glucose).

Almost 26 percent of U.S. adults over the age of 20 and more than 35 percent of seniors (age 60 and older) are pre-diabetics. In total, that’s 57 million Americans walking around with pre-diabetes, in addition to the 24 million who have already crossed the line.

That means more than one in four Americans has either pre-diabetes or the full-blown disease!

Not only is type 2 diabetes completely preventable, it is usually curable if you are willing to make some simple, inexpensive lifestyle adjustments that will restore your insulin and leptin sensitivity.

Diabetes, Type 1 and Type 2: What’s the Difference?

Diabetes (also known as diabetes mellitus) is a chronic condition traditionally marked by high levels of glucose in your blood (high blood sugar).

Type 1 is called insulin-dependent diabetes (also known as juvenile onset diabetes), and Type 2 is called non-insulin-dependent diabetes (or adult onset diabetes).

Type 1: “Insulin Dependent” Diabetes

In Type 1 diabetes, your body’s own immune system destroys the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas, resulting in a complete deficiency of the hormone insulin. This deficiency of insulin is why Type 1 is called “insulin-dependent”—because more often than not, Type 1 Diabetics must give themselves supplemental insulin.

Type 1 is relatively uncommon, affecting only about 1 in 250 Americans. It usually occurs in people before the age of 20. There is no known cure.

However, recent research has shown that our preoccupation with sun avoidance may play a major role in the development of type 1 diabetes. The further you move away from the equator, the greater your risk for this disease.

Women can help reduce their children’s risk of type 1 diabetes by optimizing their vitamin D levels prior to, and during their pregnancy as vitamin D has been shown to suppress certain cells of the immune system that may play a role in the development of the disorder.

Type 2: “Non-Insulin-Dependent Diabetes”

Type 2 diabetes is by far the more common form of the disease, affecting 90 to 95 percent of diabetics, and is completely preventable and nearly 100 percent curable.

If you have type 2, your body is producing some insulin but is unable to recognize insulin and use it properly. This is an advanced stage of insulin-resistance.

Since your insulin is inadequate, sugar can’t get into your cells and instead builds up in your blood, causing a variety of problems. This is why diabetics have elevated blood sugar levels.

Symptoms of type 2 diabetes include:

Excessive thirst Extreme hunger (even after eating)
Nausea and possible vomiting Unusual weight gain or loss
Increased fatigue Irritability
Blurred vision Slow healing of wounds
Frequent infections (skin, urinary, vaginal) Numbness or tingling in hands and/or feet

Medications and supplements are NOT the answer for type 2 diabetes; restoring your sensitivity to insulin and leptin is what’s needed.

Diabetes is NOT a Disease of Blood Sugar

Diabetes is a disease of insulin and leptin signaling, not a disease of blood sugar, which is why the medical community’s approach to its treatment is not getting us anywhere.

In addition to diabetes, elevated insulin levels are associated with a number of diseases, including:

* Heart disease
* Peripheral vascular disease
* Stroke
* High blood pressure
* Cancer
* Obesity

Diabetes, like all chronic disease, results from cellular miscommunication.

Leptin: Is It the Missing Link Between Obesity and Diabetes?

Leptin is a hormone produced in your fat cells.

One of leptin’s primary roles is regulating your appetite and body weight. It tells your brain when to eat, how much to eat, and most importantly, when to stop eating. And leptin tells your brain what to do with the energy it has. Leptin is largely responsible for the accuracy of insulin signaling and whether or not you become insulin resistant.

The only known way to reestablish proper leptin (and insulin) signaling is through proper diet.

When your blood sugar becomes elevated, insulin is released to direct the extra energy into storage. A small amount is stored as a starch called glycogen, but the majority is stored as your main energy supply—fat.

Therefore, insulin’s major role is not to lower your blood sugar, but rather to store the extra energy for future times of need. Insulin’s effect of lowering your blood sugar is merely a “side effect” of this energy storage process.

This is why diabetes treatments concentrating merely on lowering blood sugar can actually worsen, rather than remedy the actual problem of metabolic miscommunication.

Taking insulin is one of the WORST things you can do for type 2 diabetes, since it will actually worsen your insulin and leptin resistance over time.

Fructose—One of the Major Culprits in Obesity and Diabetes

The presence of massive amounts of fructose in today’s Western diet is a driving force behind our diabetes epidemic.

Regular table sugar is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose, and the two are metabolized very differently. Nearly every cell in your body was designed to use glucose for energy—especially your brain cells—but fructose breaks down into a variety of toxins that can have devastating effects on your health.

Fructose has the following adverse metabolic effects:

• Fructose does not stimulate a rise in leptin, so your satiety signals are suppressed.
• Fructose raises your insulin and your triglycerides, which effectively reduces the amount of leptin crossing your blood-brain barrier. This interferes with the communication between leptin and your hypothalamus. Your brain senses starvation and prompts you to eat more.
• Fructose does not suppress ghrelin like glucose does. Ghrelin is the “hunger hormone,” making you want more food.

All of this also sets the stage for overindulgence and hence overweight, placing you on the path toward diabetes.

I strongly advise keeping your total fructose consumption below 25 grams per day.

However, it would be wise for most people to limit fructose to 15 grams or less as it is virtually guaranteed you will be getting “hidden” sources of fructose from just about any processed food you eat.

This includes fruits, which also need to be carefully measured to make certain that you’re not inadvertently going over the fructose limit. For a helpful chart listing the fructose content of several common fruits, please see this previous article.

Diabetes Drugs Miss the Mark, and are Dangerous

Regardless of what you may have heard, you cannot successfully treat the underlying cause of diabetes with drugs.

For example, consider Avandia.

Avandia works by making diabetes patients more sensitive to their own insulin, helping to control blood sugar levels. In fact, most conventional treatments for type 2 diabetes utilize drugs that either raise insulin or lower blood sugar. Avandia, for example, reduces your blood sugar by increasing the sensitivity of your liver, fat and muscle cells to insulin.

The problem is, diabetes is not a blood sugar disease, as I have already explained. So, drugs that focus on the symptom of elevated blood sugar, rather than addressing the underlying cause, are doomed to fail in most cases.

Not only that, but drugs like Avandia have dangerous side effects, including causing extensive heart problems that have killed literally thousands of people. In fact, Avandia has been linked to a 43 percent increased risk of heart attack and a 64 percent higher risk of cardiovascular death compared to patients treated with other methods!

The good news?

Nearly 100 percent of type 2 diabetics can be successfully cured without medications.

Technorati Tags: diabetes, type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, diabetes symptoms, heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, stroke, high blood pressure, cancer, obesity, leptin, fructose

I love the simple life and this is simple. Imagine something as small and easy to get as broccoli sprouts and not have to take drugs! Read on……

Skirt Ulcers with This Salad Topper – Health Tip – RealAge

There’s a crazy-nutritious salad-bar topper that may have the power to thwart ulcer-causing bacteria: We’re talking about broccoli sprouts.

In a study of people infected with the stomach bug H. pylori — the bacteria linked to ulcers — those who ate broccoli sprouts daily for 8 weeks had fewer signs of the bug and less stomach inflammation compared with another group who were given alfalfa sprouts.

Inflammation Fighter
Researchers credit the sulforaphane in broccoli sprouts for the impressive study results. Sulforaphane is a powerful plant compound with innate antibacterial properties. And broccoli sprouts may help protect stomachs in yet another way: by ramping up protective enzymes in stomach cells that help defend against damage. (Add an olive-oil-based dressing to your salad for even more H. pylori protection. Here’s why it works.)

A Little Does a Lot
The group didn’t have to go overboard on the sprouts to reap benefits, either. Just 1/3 cup daily did the trick. Probably because broccoli sprouts are so packed with sulforaphane. One-third of a cup of broccoli sprouts boasts the same amount of sulforaphane that’s in two to three servings of broccoli. That’s one potent little sprout! (Not all bugs are bad. Find out what foods have beneficial bacteria.)

Technorati Tags: ulcers, broccoli sprouts, H. pylori, inflammation fighter, sulforaphane, eating for health

This is the second part of how our government and big corporations are wreaking havoc with us. Read here about much safer options to mammograms!

Cancer Society Has Financial Ties to Mammography

Is There a Safer Screening Option?

The revised U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations discourage doctors from teaching breast self-examination (BSE), even though they have long been recommended as a simple way for women to keep track of anything unusual in their breasts.

While BSEs are certainly not inherently harmful, the problem they pose is that it typically forces women into a conventional, and potentially dangerous, diagnostic model, as if you do find something unusual, you will typically be brought in for a mammogram for further screening.

There is a safer option for breast screening, however, that you may not have heard of because it is not financially tied to ACS or other public health agencies.

It’s called thermographic breast screening, and works by measuring the radiation of infrared heat from your body and translating this information into anatomical images. Thermography uses no mechanical pressure or ionizing radiation, and can detect signs of breast cancer as much as 10 years earlier than either mammography or a physical exam!

Whereas mammography cannot detect a tumor until after it has been growing for years and reaches a certain size, thermography is able to detect the possibility of breast cancer much earlier.

It can even detect the potential for cancer before any tumors have formed because it can image the early stages of angiogenesis — the formation of a direct supply of blood to cancer cells, which is a necessary step before they can grow into tumors of size.

More men’s lives could also be spared from the disease as mammography is not frequently used on men, which leads to most men with breast cancer being diagnosed at a very late stage.

Breast Cancer Prevention Tips

It’s sad to note that while the American Cancer Society widely encourages women to get mammograms, they do not do nearly enough to spread the word about the many ways women can help prevent breast cancer in the first place.

A healthy diet, regular physical exercise, and an effective way to manage your emotional health are the cornerstones of just about any cancer prevention program, including breast cancer.

But for breast cancer, specifically, you can take it a step further by also watching out for excessive iron levels. This is actually very common once women stop menstruating. The extra iron actually works as a powerful oxidant, increasing free radicals and raising your risk of cancer.

So if you are a post-menopausal woman or have breast cancer you will certainly want to have your Ferritin level drawn. Ferritin is the iron transport protein and should not be above 80. If it is elevated you can simply donate your blood to reduce it.

The following lifestyle strategies will also help to further lower your risk:

* Optimize your vitamin D level. Ideally it should be over 50 ng/ml, but levels from 60-80 ng/ml will radically reduce your cancer risk. Safe sun exposure is the least expensive and most effective way to increase your levels, followed by safe tanning beds and then oral vitamin D3 supplementation.
* Improve Your Insulin Receptor Sensitivity. The best way to do this is make sure you have an optimized exercise program. Most people need about five to eight hours of exercise every week to optimize their insulin receptors, but make sure you just don’t do cardio. A varied program that includes the Peak Fitness exercises will give you the most benefits.
* Maintain a healthy body weight. This will come naturally when you begin eating right for your nutritional type and exercising. It’s important to lose excess weight because estrogen, a hormone produced in fat tissue, may trigger breast cancer.
* Get plenty of high quality animal-based omega-3 fats, such as those from krill oil. Omega-3 deficiency is a common underlying factor for cancer.
* Avoid drinking alcohol, or limit your drinks to one a day for women.
* Breastfeed exclusively for up to six months. Research shows this will reduce your breast cancer risk.

Technorati Tags: mammograms, breast cancer, breast cancer prevention, breast self-examination, thermographic breast screening, American Cancer Society, Vitamin D, breastfeeding, onega-3 fats, healthy body weight, exercise

I am so sick of corporations and governments making money by making us sick!!! This is horrific!! This time it is The American Cancer Society. Imagine, this so called good deeder, using us to make more money! “There is a safer option for breast screening, however, that you may not have heard of because it is not financially tied to ACS or other public health agencies.” It’s called thermographic breast screening. Please DON”T have mammograms!! This is the first part. As it is so important to read the whole thing, that I will put the alternatives in a new blog.

Cancer Society Has Financial Ties to Mammography.

Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, warns that the American Cancer Society has close financial ties to the makers of mammography equipment. Five radiologists have served as presidents of the American Cancer Society (ACS).

In its every move, the ACS promotes the interests of the major manufacturers of mammogram machines and films, including Siemens, DuPont, General Electric, Eastman Kodak, and Piker.

This bias hypes mammography, which Dr. Epstein and Dr. Rosalie Bertell emphasize is an avoidable cause of breast cancer itself.

According to World Wire:

“Routine mammography delivers an unrecognized high dose of radiation, warn Drs. Epstein and Bertell. If a woman follows the current guidelines for premenopausal screening, over a 10 year period she would receive a total dosage of about 5 rads. This approximates the level of exposure to radiation of a Japanese woman one mile from the epicenter of atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.”

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

There is no solid evidence that mammograms save lives. In fact, research demonstrates that adding an annual mammogram to a careful physical examination of the breasts does not improve breast cancer survival rates over getting the examination alone.

Yet, most physicians recommend mammograms to women as the go-to method of breast cancer screening, and the American Cancer Society advises women age 40 and older to have a screening mammogram every year, and continue to do so for as long as they are in good health.

This is a recommendation they kept, despite updated guidelines set forth by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which state that women in their 40s should NOT get routine mammograms for early detection of breast cancer!

So why is ACS so gung-ho on mammograms, despite a lack of strong evidence to back up their use?

American Cancer Society Has Financial Interests in Mammography

Dr. Epstein, M.D., professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health, and chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, has been speaking out about the risks of mammography since at least 1992. As for how these misguided mammography guidelines came about, Epstein says:

“They were conscious, chosen, politically expedient acts by a small group of people for the sake of their own power, prestige and financial gain, resulting in suffering and death for millions of women. They fit the classification of “crimes against humanity.””

And what better spokesperson to tout mammography’s benefits than the American Cancer Society itself, an agency that is supposed to be devoted to preventing and curing cancer for the American public? But as Dr. Epstein points out, ACS’ role in the promotion of mammography is far from altruistic, as the Society has numerous ties to the mammography industry itself:

• Five radiologists have served as presidents of ACS
• ACS commonly promotes the interests of mammogram machine and film manufacturers, including Siemens, DuPont, General Electric, Eastman Kodak and Piker

Dr. Epstein and Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D. of the International Physicians for Humanitarian Medicine stated:

“The mammography industry conducts research for the ACS and its grantees, serves on its advisory boards, and donates considerable funds.

DuPont also is a substantial backer of the ACS Breast Health Awareness Program; sponsors television shows and other media productions touting ACS literature for hospitals, clinics, medical organization, and doctors; produces educational films; and aggressively lobbies Congress for legislation promoting the nationwide availability of mammography services.”

The close ties also help explain why ACS commonly runs advertisements urging women to get mammograms, even going so far in one ad as to promise that early detection leads to a cure “nearly 100 percent of the time.”

But as World-Wire reported, an ACS communications director even admitted that the statement was not based on science, but marketing potential. She said:

“The ad isn’t based on a study. When you make an advertisement, you just say what you can to get women in the door. You exaggerate a point … Mammography today is a lucrative [and] highly competitive business.”

Unfortunately, what the American Cancer Society is not making clear in their heavy mammography marketing material are the risks involved, some of which may actually raise a woman’s risk of breast cancer.

Mammogram Risks You Probably Haven’t Heard Of …

A mammogram uses ionizing radiation at a relatively high dose, which in and of itself can contribute to the development of breast cancer. Mammograms expose your body to radiation that can be 1,000 times greater than that from a chest x-ray, which we know poses a cancer risk.

According to Epstein and Bertell in World-Wire:

“If a woman follows the current guidelines for premenopausal screening, over a 10 year period she would receive a total dosage of about 5 rads. This approximates the level of exposure to radiation of a Japanese woman one mile from the epicenter of atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.”

Interestingly, in a study by Dr. Robert M. Kaplan, the chairman of the department of health services at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues, they found 22 percent more invasive breast tumors in the group who had mammograms every two years compared to the group who had just one mammogram over a six-year period.

Could it be that the mammograms themselves contributed to these results?

I would certainly not discount it, or the fact that mammography also compresses your breasts tightly, which could lead to a dangerous spread of cancerous cells, should they exist.

False Positives Alarmingly Common

Mammograms carry a first-time false positive rate of up to 6 percent. False positives can lead to expensive repeat screenings, exposing you to even more radiation, and may result in unnecessary invasive procedures including biopsies, unnecessary surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and more.

Should you end up getting a breast biopsy, that too can have detrimental consequences.

Needle biopsies, which are widely used, may accidentally cause malignant cells to break away from a tumor, allowing it to spread to other areas of your body. And according to a study from the John Wayne Cancer Institute, it appears that a needle biopsy may increase the spread of cancer by 50 percent compared to patients who received excisional biopsies, also known as lumpectomies.

So a false positive on a mammogram, or worse, a false diagnosis, can really be damaging.

Technorati Tags: mammograms, breast self-examination, thermographic breast screening, American Cancer Society, breast cancer, breast cancer causes, breast cancer prevention

This is the second part about the dispersants they are using and how it will affect our health as well as what we can all do about it. Please take the time to sign the petition. Read on……

Next Major Toxic Hazard that Can Ruin You and Your Children’s Health

Toxic Dispersants: The Oil Spill Tragedy You Probably Haven’t Heard About

BP is using two dispersants: Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527A.

Corexit is on the EPA’s list of approved chemical dispersants, and BP could have chosen any one from the list. Instead, they chose Corexit, which is among the most toxic and least effective options.

As it turns out, BP has financial ties with Nalco, which explains why they have now poured more than 1 million gallons of it into the Gulf. Because of these industry ties, Corexit is the only dispersant available in the massive quantities “needed” for an oil spill of this size.

In fact, they used up all exiting stockpiles of Corexit 9527A, the older and more dangerous formula, and Nalco states it will be discontinued, now that it has been used up.

Of all 18 dispersants tested, Corexit 9500 and 9527A are the LEAST effective, further confirming that BP’s preferential use of these products is motivated by profit, rather than their proclaimed intention to “clean up the mess.”

Toxic for Humans and Marine Life

Corexit products were removed from a list of approved treatments for oil spills in the UK more than a decade ago after the agents were linked with human health problems including:

* Respiratory
* Neurological
* Liver
* Kidney
* Blood disorders

Further, according to Carys Mitchelmore, a researcher at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the detergent-like brew of solvents, surfactants and other compounds are known to cause a variety of health problems in animals, including:

* Death
* Reduced growth
* Reproductive problems
* Cardiac dysfunction
* Immune suppression
* Altered behavior
* Carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic effects

As Sayer Ji, founder of InformationToInspireChange.com, stated:

“Dispersing the oil into the water column accelerates the poisoning of all marine life, deep throughout the water column and seabed. Ultimately it results in “covering-up” the extent of the disaster on the surface, while amplifying the damage within our oceans.

Also, when the dispersants mix with the crude oil, a third far more toxic product is produced called “dispersed oil.” Dispersed oil has been shown to be more toxic than the sum of its parts.

Dispersing simply keeps the oil deeper in the water column so that it will not surface, into the light of public scrutiny.”

The chemical dispersants, by the way, are not a silver bullet to miraculously make oil disappear. Oil spill dispersants only alter the chemical and physical properties of the oil, making it more likely to mix with seawater than deposit on the shoreline.

So what the dispersants do is re-direct the oil, making its impact perhaps less so on birds and shore-dwelling animals, but more so on fish, coral reefs, oysters and other marine life that live in the deeper waters. It essentially “hides” the oil out of view, below the surface where news cameras can’t see it.

Sadly, the oil and dispersant mix is so toxic that I strongly caution you to STAY OUT of the Gulf of Mexico. In my opinion, it’s simply not safe to swim there.

Remember also that children are far more prone to experiencing health problems from this type of toxic exposure than adults. So please, keep your children safe. Do not allow your children to swim or play on the Gulf coast beaches.

Is There Any Way to Help?

Only time will tell what the true environmental and human health impacts of the 2010 BP oil spill will be, but this is for certain: we need our oceans, our coral reefs and our marine life to survive.

Coral reefs are already disappearing faster than rainforests, and dispersed oil is particularly deadly to coral reefs.

According to Charlie Veron, an Australian marine biologist regarded as the world’s foremost authority on coral reefs:

“The future is horrific. There is no hope of reefs surviving to even mid-century in any form that we now recognize. If, and when, they go, they will take with them about one-third of the world’s marine biodiversity. Then there is a domino effect, as reefs fail, so will other ecosystems. This is the path of a mass extinction event, when most life, especially tropical marine life, goes extinct.”

You may feel helpless right now to make a difference in the Gulf, but there are some steps you can take to help. First, you can join the movement to stop the use of dispersants by signing this petition.

I also urge you to take action now, without delay, pressing your representatives to hold BP accountable for this massive environmental tragedy.

Technorati Tags: dispersants, toxic hazard, bp, bp oil spill, oil spill, cerexit, petition

And the government said it was mostly gone! This is the first of a 2 part article. Read on for your health and well being….

Next Major Toxic Hazard that Can Ruin You and Your Children’s Health

The BP oil leak has reportedly been plugged, but the devastation caused by the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that poured into the Gulf, coupled with a reckless use of toxic dispersants to “clean it up,” is just beginning.

And the sad truth is, even highly trained toxicologists can only guess what the full extent of the damage will be. This is, by far, the worst oil spill in human history. The Exxon Valdez disaster spilled “only” 12 million gallons of oil — and even that ended up taking a much more complex environmental toll than toxicologists initially predicted.

There’s no doubt in my mind this disaster will take DECADES to clean up, if it’s at all possible, and the worst-case scenario is pointing to major devastation on all levels of marine life, from coral reefs and plankton to fish and air-breathing mammals.

Where Did the Massive Oil Slicks Go?

Since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, thousands of square miles in the Gulf were covered with immense patches of oil.

Media images showing the extent of the destruction have been scarce — draconian measures have been implemented to limit media access and reporting on the disaster, and CNN recently reported on a new rule that prevents anyone, including reporters and photographers, from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms anywhere on the water or on beaches — but the oil was there, coating expansive stretches of ocean, nonetheless.

Now, fast-forward to early August and the New York Times reported that the oil patches are “largely gone,” and “Radar images suggest that the few remaining patches are quickly breaking down in the warm surface waters of the gulf.” They went on to report, “The slick appeared to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected.”

Two days earlier, a government report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey similarly implied that the oil in the Gulf was quickly disappearing and that environmental effects were well under control.

Government Report Implies Oil is Mostly Gone!

For starters, the report estimated that only 4.9 million barrels of oil were released from the BP Deepwater Horizon well, when at the height of the spill estimates revealed that 4.2 million gallons of oil were likely still spilling into the Gulf of Mexico daily.

Next the report goes on to explain that:

“It is estimated that burning, skimming and direct recovery from the wellhead removed one quarter (25%) of the oil released from the wellhead. One quarter (25%) of the total oil naturally evaporated or dissolved, and just less than one quarter (24%) was dispersed (either naturally or as a result of operations) as microscopic droplets into Gulf waters.

The residual amount — just over one quarter (26%) — is either on or just below the surface as light sheen and weathered tar balls, has washed ashore or been collected from the shore, or is buried in sand and sediments.”

The remaining “residual” oil, along with the oil that has been chemically and naturally dispersed are “currently being degraded naturally,” according to the government report.

With a glowing report like this one, it makes you wonder if the U.S. government is in collusion with BP. Already the report is drawing criticism that it is deliberately trying to play down the real impacts of the spill.

As Samantha Joye, a marine scientist at the University of Georgia who has conducted important research regarding the spill, told the New York Times:

“A lot of this is based on modeling and extrapolation and very generous assumptions. If an academic scientist put something like this out there, it would get torpedoed into a billion pieces.”

You can also listen to this shocking interview with top EPA official Hugh Kaufman, which reveals that the NOAA and the EPA are covering up the lethal effects of dispersants and lying about Gulf Oil Spill water samples to save BP billions of dollars in fines.

At the very least, it appears the government has completely overlooked the toxic effects of the dispersants used to “remove” much of the oil. Massive oil slicks don’t just “disappear” from the ocean. Instead, many were treated with harsh chemical solvents that simply transferred the oil from the ocean’s surface to the delicate waters below.

Technorati Tags: oil spill, toxic hazard, BP, BP oil leak, dispersants, health and wellness

It seems we cannot get away from all the things that cause cancer. Back to the futon!

A Cancer-Causing Radiation Antenna You Wouldn’t Know

The rate of breast cancer in Western countries is 10 percent higher in the left breast than in the right. This also is true for the skin cancer melanoma.

Researchers have suggested a surprising explanation for this — and for the dramatic increase in rates of breast cancer and melanoma over the past three decades.

In Japan, there is no correlation between the rates of melanoma and breast cancer, and there is no left-side prevalence for either disease. The rate of breast cancer in Japan is also significantly lower than in the West.

This may be due to differences in sleeping habits in Japan and Western countries. Previous research has shown that people prefer to sleep on their right sides, possibly as a way of reducing weight stress on the heart.

This is most likely the same in both the East and the West, but the futons used for sleeping in Japan are mattresses placed directly on the bedroom floor, in contrast to the elevated box springs and mattress of beds used in the West.

According to Scientific American:

“… [A] 2007 study in Sweden conducted between 1989 and 1993 … revealed a strong link between the incidence of melanoma and the number of FM and TV transmission towers covering the area where the individuals lived …

Consider, however, that even a TV set cannot respond to broadcast transmissions unless the weak electromagnetic waves are captured and amplified by an appropriately designed antenna. Antennas are simply metal objects of appropriate length sized to match the wavelength of a specific frequency of electromagnetic radiation.”

In the U.S., bed frames and box springs are made of metal, and the length of a bed is exactly half the wavelength of FM and TV transmissions. The maximum strength of the field develops 75 centimeters above the mattress, so when sleeping on your right side, your left side will be exposed to the highest field strength.

Technorati Tags: cancer causes, cancer, futons, box springs, mattresses, beds, melanoma, breast cancer, FM and TV transmission towers

And the last, most important part of this article – Ways to help your child achieve optimal health and body weight without drugs! This is a must read!! If you TRULY love your child you will do the following!

The Hidden Truth: Why Government Wants Your Kids on Cholesterol Drugs…

Top 10 Ways to Help Your Child Achieve Optimal Health and Body Weight — Without Drugs

While prescription of a cholesterol-lowering medication may be warranted in a few rare cases, 99 times out of 100, hyperlipidemia and hypercholesterolemia can be corrected with some simple lifestyle changes.

Here are my top 10 recommendations:

* Eliminate all sodas and fruit juices.
* If your child is already overweight or obese it is particularly important to lower their total fructose intake, INCLUDING fruit, until their weight normalizes. It would also be helpful to severely limit grains, even apparently healthy ones like whole organic grains, until their weight normalizes.
* Help your child get regular exercise.
* Prepare the right foods for your child’s nutritional type. I now offer the full nutritional typing program free of charge.
* Encourage your child to eat a good portion of her food raw.
* Make sure your child is getting plenty of high-quality, animal-based omega3-fats. My favorite is krill oil.
* Introduce your child to a variety of heart-healthy foods such as olive oil, coconut and coconut oil, organic raw dairy products and eggs, avocados, raw nuts and seeds, and organic grass-fed meats that fit within her nutritional type guidelines.
* Introduce your child to strategies that help her address emotional challenges, such as EFT.
* Make sure your child gets plenty of restorative sleep.
* Finally, make sure your child’s vitamin D levels are within therapeutic levels.
* Vitamin D is not “just a vitamin,” but rather the only known substrate for a potent, pleiotropic (meaning it produces multiple effects), repair- and maintenance hormone that serves multiple gene-regulatory functions in your child’s body.

Low levels of vitamin D are associated with an increased risk of heart disease.

About 70 percent of U.S. children have inadequate levels of vitamin D, so this should be one of the first issues you address to keep your child’s heart healthy.

A Call to Action for the Sake of ALL Children

The Alliance for Natural Health has an on-line “action alert” letter you can send to your Congressional representatives about repealing the law that allows drug companies to extend their patents by testing drugs on children.

It is quick and easy to do! Just click here.

If you care about this issue, I encourage you to take a moment to let your rep’s know how you feel.

Technorati Tags: optimal health and body weight, hyperlipidemia, hypercholesterolemia, lifestyle changes, nutritional type, omega 3 fats, heart healthy foods, vitamin D

This is part 3 of this article. Read what the side effects are if children are given statin drugs for children with high cholesterol! SCARY!!!

The Hidden Truth: Why Government Wants Your Kids on Cholesterol Drugs…

Cholesterol is NOT the Villain in Childhood Obesity

Cholesterol has been terribly vilified, when in reality it is essential for a wide variety of vital functions in your child’s growing body, including:

* Maintaining healthy cell membranes
* Producing a variety of hormones, including estrogen, testosterone and vitamin D
* Producing bile acids, which aid in fat digestion
* Cholesterol also helps your child’s brain form memories and is vital to her overall neurological function.

On the flip side, there is strong evidence that having too little cholesterol increases your risk for cancer, memory loss, Parkinson’s disease, hormonal imbalances, stroke, depression, suicide, and violent behavior.

Before 2004, a 130 LDL cholesterol level was considered perfect. But now, many physicians are recommending levels of less than 100, or even less than 70 for patients at very high risk. In order to achieve these outrageous and dangerously low targets, you typically need to take multiple cholesterol-lowering drugs!

So, the guidelines have progressively widened the pharmaceutical market. If children are subjected to universal cholesterol screening, the drug companies increase their target market that much more.

Statin Side Effects: Keep Out of the Reach of Children!

In 2007, the American Heart Association first recommended the use of statin drugs for children with high cholesterol. Then, in 2008 the American Academy of Pediatrics followed suit, recommending cholesterol-lowering drugs for children as young as age 8.

Now they are concocting ways to place more and more children on statins, in spite of the overwhelming evidence for serious side effects — nearly 900 studies point to the damaging effects of these drugs.

The list of statin-related health problems includes the following:

* Muscle damage (potentially permanent), mostly related to CoQ10 depletion
* Heart damage, heart failure and strokes
* Neuropathy
* Immune system suppression
* Pancreatic dysfunction
* Hepatic dysfunction
* Increased cancer risk
* Cognitive impairment
* Depression

In addition to these risks, there are also risks from insufficient CoQ10 levels, which directly relate to the use of statins:

* Impaired white blood cell activity
* Reduced muscle strength contraction — especially for the heart muscle
* Impaired liver function
* Decreased cell growth and division
* Decreased ability to neutralize free radicals

And now, it would appear, they are pushing a massive kiddie-statin campaign, disguised as “preventative medicine.”

Pfizer has been in legal trouble a number of times over fraudulent claims about the “health benefits” of Lipitor. Lipitor is particularly damaging if you are diabetic, doubling your risk for stroke. And with childhood diabetes rates increasing by leaps and bounds, prescribing Lipitor would be extremely risky to these diabetic or pre-diabetic kids.

According to an excellent report in 2008 in the New England Journal of Medicine, long-term data about the safety of statins for children is completely lacking. Ferranti and Ludwig write:

“At 8 years of age, a child’s brain and other organ systems remain in dynamic stages of growth and development, raising concern that long-term pharmacotherapy initiated at this age may adversely affect the central nervous system, immune function, hormones, energy metabolism, or other systems in unanticipated ways.”

It is one thing to medicate the child who has a rare genetic defect in cholesterol metabolism, but quite another to treat masses of at-risk children whose symptoms reflect easily modifiable lifestyle factors.

As the article says, “Once this door has been opened, the pharmaceutical industry will happily walk through it.”

Technorati Tags: cholesterol, childhood obesity, obesity, statin drugs, statin-related health problems, CoQ10, kiddie statin campaign, Pfizer, Lipitor