Health
February 13, 2006
Another reason you can't depend on governmental agencies to protect your health: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials recently overturned a recommendation to retest a Texas animal suspected of Bovine Spongiform Encepholopathy (BSE), better known as mad cow disease.
USDA officials, according a report, failed to pull the trigger on additional testing based on their fear a positive result would call further attention to their testing procedures. No need to worry about more tainted meat hitting your corner grocery store, however. A sample of the same animal sent for a different battery of tests confirmed the mad cow diagnosis.
Even worse, the USDA couldn't confirm if American slaughterhouses were following federal rules governing mad cow disease, based on inadequate records kept at nine of 12 manufacturing facilities that were checked.
All the more evidence you should be seeking out healthier alternatives such as grass-fed beef, with higher amounts of higher conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a natural and potent cancer-fighting chemical.
If the question I poised in the headline rings a bell, it should. The satirical film, The Road to Wellville, was very, very loosely based the lives of the Kellogg brothers who eventually invented sugar-laden, flaked breakfast cereals. One of the giants in processed foods as well as the leader in cereals worldwide, Kellogg celebrates its centennial anniversary this week.
Fact is, the Kellogg brothers' invention of breakfast cereal was a complete accident and intended as a replacement for the bread served to inmates at the Battle Creek (Mich.) Sanatorium.
On a less humorous note, this piece caught my attention for another health-harming reason: Kellogg now uses an oil in some of its crackers and snacks made from genetically modified soybeans -- a Monsanto product named Vistive -- that contains no trans fats or saturated fats. Superficially, it'll sound like a good move to most people, but it won't do anything for your health, much like Kellogg adding DHA to their cereals.
Remember, grains -- whole or otherwise -- aren't good for your health at all. In fact, patients, especially those who have high insulin and leptin levels, would benefit greatly from avoiding grains altogether.
If you send e-mail replies to your work colleagues regularly or ever posted a comment on a public message board, your chances are no better than 50-50 of it being interpreted correctly, even though the writer believes he or she has correctly ascertained the tone of the e-mails or comments to which they are responding 80 percent of the time.
Researchers derived those percentages based on a study of e-mail responses from 30 pairs of college students who were given a list of statements about a variety of subjects. Then, one student would send an e-mail based on the list, written in a sarcastic or serious tone. Then, the sender and recipient would guess which tone was intended and estimate how confident they were that the e-mails were properly interpreted.
Not surprisingly, senders felt their e-mail recipients would correctly predict the tone of their intentions about 80 percent of the time, but match the reaction of recipients only about half as often. The random factor, scientists say, that makes the difference on either side -- sending or receiving e-mails -- is egocentrism, the inability to understand how something like an e-mail or a conversation can be misinterpreted.
This occurs, researchers say, because many of us fail to take into account that we're hearing the tone of the ongoing e-mail conversation in our heads as we write it. Perhaps, the best way to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings and confrontations -- especially when the ongoing written conversation gets heated -- would be to take a short empathy break to get some perspective via the Emotional Freedom Technique, the safe and effective energy psychology tool I use in my practice, before continuing.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 89, No. 6, December 2005: 925-936
One of the many astute readers of my Web site called my attention to an interesting, yet little-known study in which getting rid of the bacteria associated with H. pylori improves the physical abilities of patients stricken with Parkinson's disease.
Based on a finding that many Parkinson's patients had been diagnosed with peptic ulcers, scientists studied the link between the two by comparing the physical condition of seven Parkinson's patients who received active treatment for H. pylori against 11 patients who took a placebo.
Patients who received active treatment experienced reduced muscle rigidity in their forearms and greater improvement in walking based on stride length.
This study certainly makes sense from a natural health standpoint, considering better nutrition reverses the early signs of Parkinson's. A safe and healthy way to eradicate H. pylori, also a factor for many who may have heartburn: Eat one or two cloves of raw garlic daily.
About a year ago, I told you about a big problem with mortality rates stemming from prescription errors spiking 25 percent higher at the beginning of each month due to mistakes made at your local pharmacy. A recent settlement involving the CVS drug store chain in Massachusetts underscores all the concerns raised by that study.
The state investigated CVS, which operates 28 percent of the pharmacies in the state, for 62 verified incidents of prescription errors reported by consumers over the past four years.
Although none of the errors were fatal ones, the Massachusetts Board of Registration found some patients never received the right medication or dosages, causing serious and unnecessary side effects. Among the problems identified by the state board:
- Drug inventories were improperly labeled.
- Pharmacists didn't explain how medications worked as well as their side effects.
- Sometimes, the ratio of pharmacists to assistants was too low.
Rather than target individual pharmacies, however, the state board required CVS to undergo safety reviews by the Institute of Safe Medicine Practices at more than 300 pharmacies for two years. Here's another factoid from the institute that won't make you feel any safer about taking prescriptions drugs: The typical error rate for pharmacies is 3 percent, which can range from misspelling a name on a bottle to dispensing the wrong medication.
One more reason, America leads the world in medical errors, a very dubious distinction.
If you want to learn the health and wellness secrets that can change your life, circle April 6-8 on your calendar and act now to join me in Chicago at my 2006 Total Health & Prosperity 3-Day Conference in Chicago this spring.
During the conference, you'll learn the essentials about the most effective tools I use daily in my clinic to help you achieve higher levels of physical and emotional health and reverse crippling, chronic disease. Those tools, many of which I touch on briefly here on the blog, would be a bargain all by themselves.
What makes this conference really compelling, however, are the keys to total prosperity which will help you manage what you've learned so you can make a positive, permanent impact on your life and achieve your goals. Honestly, the tools I've learned and developed over the past three decades are nothing short of amazing, and you'll learn how to use them during the conference.
Because space is very limited to the first 500 registrants, I strongly urge you to consider attending my 2006 Total Health & Prosperity 3-Day Conference today. No doubt, it is an inexpensive investment that will pay dividends for the rest of your life.
2006 Total Health and Prosperity 3-Day Conference April 6-8, 2006
February 10, 2006
Perhaps, the FDA's black-box verdict on Strattera last fall had an impact on a FDA advisory panel's ruling, adding more attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs Focalin, Adderall, Methylin, Ritalin, Metadate and Concerta to that lethal list yesterday.
By a razor-thin 8-7 margin, the panel approved the black box warning based on reports of cardiovascular problems and, in particular, the sudden deaths of 25 adults and children who took ADHD drugs between 1999-2003.
FYI, Adderall already comes with a warning that abusing it could cause heart attack, stroke or sudden death, and it was pulled for a while in by Health Canada, the Canadian equivalent to America's FDA, before being reinstated
Unfortunately, unless patients pay attention -- many experts believe they don't -- those black box warnings will have little effect. Just know that there are a number of measures you can take to treat ADHD naturally and safely:
- Rebalance your intake of omega-3 fats by taking a high quality fish or cod liver oil daily.
- Reduce, with the plan of eliminating, grains and sugars from your diet.
- Replace sugary sweet drinks with clean water.
With the Olympics starting up again -- albeit the winter ones -- and my passion for science, I ran across this interesting and humorous study comparing the speed at which one swims through corn syrup versus pool water.
If you think you already know which substance slows down swimmers more, you may be in for a surprise, but I won't spoil it for you... But I can reveal, the fun part of the study was the bizarre nature of it, requiring researchers to jump through many hoops just to get permission to conduct their experiment.
It's probably a good time to remind you chlorinated pool water can cause major disruptions to your biochemistry. Moreover, your body absorbs more chlorine after swimming in a pool for a hour than from drinking unfiltered municipal tap water
Ever wonder how blind many consumers really are to the chemical origins of sugar substitutes, sucralose, aspartame and saccharine? An interesting study conducted by Shape Up America!, a non-profit obesity awareness group founded by former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, shows just how deep their ignorance runs.
A big caveat right up front: One of the site's sponsors is Sweet'N Low, thus part this organization's intent with this study is to debunk safety issues regarding high intensity, unnatural sweeteners. Also, a portion of the release is devoted to reminding consumers that saccharin doesn't carry a warning label although 30 percent of Americans still believe it does. (Nevertheless, the lack of a warning label doesn't make saccharin any safer or more natural.)
The numbers, however, tell the real story:
- 77 percent were blissfully unaware there is a safety warning on Equal packets.
- In a testament to how well Splenda has been covertly and falsely marketed, 27 percent believe it to be a natural product.
- Once consumers were told how sucralose is made, 43 percent of them changed their minds about it, toward the negative.
For the rest of you who may still doubt how health-harming substances like Splenda can truly be, I urge you to read my extensive list of testimonials from readers like you.
Considering mercury pollution has made the fish you find in most grocery stores unsafe to eat, it's no surprise scientists have found fish oil to be a safer, healthier alternative and the best way to right-size your intake of omega-3 fats too.
Besides mercury, many fish contain polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides, environmental toxins that negate the cardiovascular benefits of fish, scientists said.
In fact, researchers estimate the regular consumption of fish, from the Great Lakes alone, exposes patients to at least 70 times more PCBs and 120 times more organochlorine pesticides.
The trick about fish oil: Which brand will do you the most good? You can do extensive homework on your own, or you can use my favorite, Carlson's brand of fish and cod liver oil.
Medscape January 27, 2006 Registration Required
February 9, 2006
The healthy reputation of broccoli, among other vegetables, as a cancer fighter is growing by leaps and bounds, thanks to its ability to jump-start the repair of DNA within cells.
New research has uncovered a chemical compound called I3C -- found in broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage -- that boosts a patient's level of BRCA proteins that prevent faulty genetic information to be passed on to future generations of cells. On the flip side, the presence of faulty BRCA signaling heightens one's risk of some cancers, including prostate, breast and ovarian.
One important caveat: Scientists also identified genistein, the chemical found in soybeans as being just as beneficial as those in broccoli and cauliflower. Unfortunately, that could cause even bigger problems if the soy you typically eat is processed, rather than the fermented kind.
And, if you're a young woman trying to conceive, consuming fermented soy products create problems for you too.
Getting back to vegetables, please pay attention to which ones you eat. Although this food group is among the healthiest on the planet, be aware of your body's unique metabolic type when selecting the right veggies to eat.
British Journal of Cancer, Vol. 94, No. 3, February 13, 2006: 407-426 Free Full Text Study
I've devoted a good deal of space on my Web site to articles showing you how to end the plague of obesity in your home before it has a chance to obliterate your child's health. If you still haven't taken any steps to monitor your child's TV time or get him or her off the couch and onto the nearest playground, be prepared to deal with the likelihood of obesity along with diabetes.
Based on an analysis of data from the National Survey of Children's Health, a third of the children who had diabetes were also obese. In fact, obese school-age children were more than twice as likely to have diabetes than their lighter peers, according to the lead researcher.
So grave were the findings, scientists spoke in terms of an obesity epidemic and how all that extra weight creates short- and long-term strains on our health care system, conventional and fatally flawed as it is.
One link between diabetes and obesity that's also getting more well deserved attention from scientists these days: The function of leptin.
Considering scientists created a titanium dioxide coating for windows so they never need cleaning, it was only a matter of time before someone would test that very same substance on toilets.
Australian researchers are ironing out the process right now, but there's one big obstacle standing in the way: The absence of a source for ultraviolet sunlight that activates the nanoparticle compound so it will work on a toilet.
To the good, researchers have been able to kill common bathroom germs on glass in a bathroom with the titanium being activated by an indoor lamp.
Despite all the time and energy saved by such conveniences, I remain cautiously optimistic because this substance could turn out to be just one more form of pollution that could do more harm than good.
One of the interesting facts uncovered in the Center for Science in the Public Interest's recent probe of health-harming hospital food: McDonald's French fries are still the fattest by a long shot.
Based on the nutritional content now placed voluntarily by fast-food chains on their food packaging, McDonald's French fries jumped from six to eight grams of trans fat and total fats from 25 to 30. McDonald's posted these increases on their Web site a month ago, explaining the new numbers as improvements in their nutritional testing process to make them more accurate.
Interestingly, McDonald's cooks French fries in other countries without partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, largely because they've been reluctant to change the way they taste in America. More evidence, the promise McDonald's made to find a safer oil to rid its foods of trans fats has been long forgotten.
From a nutritional standpoint, all the chemicals contained in a single French fry may be more harmful to you than smoking a cigarette, which is why fries made my list of the five worst foods you could possibly consume.
If you've been wanting to make healthy lifestyle choices but don't know where to begin, consider my Total Health Program, a book that's guaranteed to make a difference. And, it's the very same program, filled with important health information you need to know and delicious recipes, that's helped thousands of patients at my Optimal Wellness Center.
Visualize all the sci-fi movies of your youth that brought secluded and imaginary places filled with animals long extinct to life, at least for two hours... You don't have to imagine any more, thanks to a wildlife expedition (funded in part by the National Geographic Society) that uncovered a treasure trove of animal species never documented before in the Foja Mountains on the island of New Guinea in Indonesia.
Among the "lost" species researchers discovered (pictured here) is the golden-mantled tree kangaroo, the rarest of its kind, and found in only one other place on Earth.
Just shows you don't have to go to a movie or outer space to find wonderful, beautiful and new living things.
February 8, 2006
What happens to ex-FDA officials and Congressmen after they run away from the debatable scrutiny of the federal government? More often than not, they become lobbyists, which is exactly what happened to Lester Crawford, who spent less than three months last year as FDA commissioner.
Crawford recently joined Policy Directions Inc., a lobbying company specializing in -- no big surprise -- food and drug issues. You may be familiar with some of the rogues gallery in their client list if you read my blog often:
- Merck and Co.
- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America
- Altria Group (formally Philip Morris USA)
- Nestle USA
Although federal rules bar Crawford from contacting his former colleagues at the FDA, he can still lobby Congressmen and give his company's clients advice on how get around any obstacles that may allow them to introduce even more health-harming products.
Although cancer recently dethroned heart disease as the leading killer of Americans, the latter still remains a terrible and silent problem, especially among women.
Among the 12 million American women who may have heart disease, as many as 25 percent of them may not know it because the clogged arteries that could be the problem may be smaller than ones detected in standardized tests, including a misleading angiogram, according to a new study.
That smaller group of women may have coronary microvascular syndrome, a condition in which plaque coats very small arteries evenly instead of forming more obvious obstructions in larger ones. This syndrome also signals problems with the lining of the artery's inner wall, preventing blood vessels from dilating the way they're supposed to in response to stress, researchers said.
Why the mystery? The lead scientist on the project summed it up well: It appears to be primarily a woman's problem, (only 20 percent of men are afflicted with microvascular syndrome) which is probably why we've missed it all these years... we didn't bother to study women.
Another sad reminder, the sorry state of conventional health care isn't equipped to treat patients as anything more than symptoms looking for prescribed "cures." Some natural and safe ways to prevent heart disease from harming you:
- Get started on an exercise program today.
- Retool your eating habits based on your body's unique metabolic type.
- Take a high quality fish or cod liver oil daily.
- Get the right amount of vitamin K by eating ample quantities of green leafy vegetables.
- Resolve the emotional problems that harm your health naturally by learning the Emotional Freedom Technique.
Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Vol. 47, February 2006: 4-20
Conventional medicine is so focused on treating medical conditions with a pill -- often at the expense of a patient's health and pocketbook -- physicians overlook simpler, safer and more effective treatments that get to the root cause of the problem faster.
The latest example of this obsession: Canadian and Harvard researchers are testing propranolol, a drug that could lessen the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Small studies have shown propranolol does work in preventing the symptoms that accompany PTSD.
However, some experts, including me, don't share that one-pill-cure sentiment, especially when a safer and more effective tool like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) will do the job. In fact, 12 of 15 patients treated with EFT at the Naval Medical Center San Diego two years ago found relief from their PTSD symptoms, including one soldier who witnessed a young Marine committing suicide. And, my friend and colleague Gary Craig enjoyed similar success, using EFT to help six Vietnam War veterans more than a decade ago.
If you're having problems coping with traumatic events in your life, please stay away from health-harming antidepressants that don't work anyway and review my free online manual that describes how this effective energy psychology tool works to optimize your emotional health.
It's no big surprise, two "important" antiviral drugs -- Tamiflu and Relenza -- don't work to prevent the flu. An interesting report issued late last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) revealed the adamantane class of drugs, considered by the "experts" the leading treatment for the flu, is just as ineffective.
For years, rimantadine and amantadine have been used by the medical establishment to fight influenza A as well as stockpiled by the government in the event of a flu pandemic, like the Avian flu crisis that never came.
The CDC issued a health alert last month when they found 91 percent of the 120 influenza virus A samples were resistant to rimantadine and amantadine. The updated JAMA report, in which more than 200 virus samples (including those tested before) were analyzed, found 92 percent were immune to both drugs.
If you're a regular reader of my daily blog, you probably weren't as blindsided by those findings as the CDC was and you're well aware how to strengthen your immune system and prevent the flu safely and naturally too.
Journal of the American Medical Association February 2, 2006 Free Full Text Article
Last month, I told you about pet food contaminated with aflatoxin, a naturally occurring toxic chemical coming from a fungus on grains, that had killed more than 75 dogs in America. With the toxic food produced by Diamond being exported overseas, who knows how many pets have been harmed or killed.
Unlike the recent Vioxx debacle in which drugmaker Merck tried to hide just how lethal their painkiller really is, Diamond representatives took their lumps in public last week, acknowledging workers at their South Carolina manufacturing facility failed to follow safety procedures.
The admission came after the FDA revealed Diamond had no records of test results on corn for September and October, apparently when the toxic grain was shipped to the plant. As a result, the company has changed its testing procedures and has added a test of the final product before shipping to stores.
Since the first report, Diamond has narrowed the varieties of pet foods tainted by aflatoxin to two: Diamond Maintenance Dog and Diamond Premium Adult Dog with "Best By" dates of April 3, 4, 5 and 11, 2007.
Just one more reason, you should consider optimizing your pet's diet with more natural foods.
