Most of us think, curiously and perhaps even enviously, “how in the world were they able to bring their dog with them on the plane?”

It’s easier than you might think…

Welcome to the era of the Emotional Support Animal, or ESA. An ESA is a domesticated pet who provides comfort and emotional support to a person.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, ESAs as “trained or untrained animals that do work, perform tasks, provide assistance, and/or provide therapeutic emotional support for individuals with disabilities.”

So unlike service animals, ESAs do not have specific training or tasks they accomplish for that person. By just like service animals, ESAs can serve important functions for their owners: they provide distraction from physical or emotional pain, they help calm worries and frazzled nerves and they can even serve as companions for a sense of connection and support.

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Strong evidence that pets are good medicine

From a natural health perspective, there is strong evidence to suggest various benefits to a person’s mental and physical health from interacting with a pet, and there is even a name for it — Zooeyia. The term is a combination of the Greek root words for animal (zoion) and health (Hygeia). It was coined in 2011 (Hodgson and Darling). This study found a significant reduction in stress among cardiac patients when compared to non-pet owning cardiac patients with similar conditions. Further, it found that pet owners reported non-judgmental social support which may act as a buffer against pathogenic responses to stress.

The Center for Disease Control lists multiple positive health effects of pet ownership including decreased blood pressure, decreased cholesterol, fewer feelings of loneliness and increased opportunities for exercise and outdoor activities. And with the onset of COVID-19 and the rise of social distancing recommendations, it is likely that many people are experiencing an increase in feelings of loneliness.

In fact, former Surgeon General of the United States (and currently a Distinguished Policy Scholar in Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins University) Vivek Murthy has dedicated his work toward ending loneliness. He stated in a 2017 interview that “The greatest gift of animals is they remind us we can love and be loved” and encouraged interaction between people and animals.

Mental health: Changing attitudes, coping strategies and the role of pets

Over the past few decades, our national attitudes toward mental health have been changing — in a very positive way. The younger generations feel more comfortable and confident in talking openly about aspects of their mental health which were once considered taboo. It’s much more common nowadays to have conversations with your friends about experiences with depression or anxiety, conversations that have facilitated the sharing of resources and adaptive coping strategies between peers. With this increased discourse has come a recognition of the many different facets of life which can play a role — helpfully or adversely — in our overall mental health and emotional fitness. And thus, with the proliferation of various animal-assisted mental health therapies, the concept of the ESA was born. So while many folks may not become pet owners with the expressed intent of relieving distress or bolstering their mental health, we’re now better able to recognize just how crucial a role pets often play in guarding the well-being of their owners.

Pets have long been recognized for the health benefits they give to their owners. But more recently, federal law helped establish this linkage by determining that landlords (Federal Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988) and airlines (Air Carrier Access Act of 1986) cannot discriminate against individuals who have a documented ESA. What this means is that ESAs are allowed to travel with their owners on most airlines (without incurring additional fees) as well as able to reside in housing which might otherwise prohibit pets (also without charging a pet deposit or fee).

But just how do get your pet documented as an ESA? Well, any licensed medical professional — including primary care physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers — can validate your pet as an ESA, and all you really need from a legal standpoint is a letter from them stating you have a mental condition that your ESA helps alleviate.

Many of these medical and mental health professionals will now provide this service remotely, saving you an in-office visit (and bill) and improving timely access to this service. The benefits of pursuing the online evaluation option is that you don’t have to wait weeks for an in-person office visit, you won’t incur additional office co-pays or insurance fees and you get a letter that meets all the legal requirements and is written by medical professionals experienced in conducting these evaluations — something not all general medical practitioners are accustomed to doing.

So, if you’re someone who struggles with an emotional issue or mental disorder and your pet helps provide you with relief, wouldn’t it be great to be able to take them with you everywhere you go?

The post The natural health benefits of an emotional support animal appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

It’s not our fault we’ve been duped. After all, look at the shocking lengths they’ve gone to just to convince us…

• As of March 31, 2018, 887 deaths have been attributed to side effects of Nuplazid, a drug for Parkinson’s disease. It turns our Acadia Pharmaceuticals was paying doctors to prescribe their deadly drug.
• Pharmaceutical giant Merck hired ghostwriters to write favorable papers on the deadly painkiller Vioxx, and paid doctors to say they had authored the papers

Where are we now?

“In many cases, people may be placing their trust and money in therapies that may bring little to no benefit in combating serious ailments, or worse — that may cause serious and even irreparable harm because the products are poorly manufactured or contain active ingredients that aren’t adequately tested or disclosed to patients.”

That statement was made in December 2017 by FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who’s scheduled to leave his post soon.

But here’s the thing… Commissioner Gottlieb wasn’t talking about Big Pharma’s dangerous drugs…

No, sir. He was talking about dietary supplements. The ones Big Pharma can’t make any money from. The ones they’re still trying to drive off the market.

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A little history

Before Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) in 1994, vitamins and other supplements were almost regulated out of existence.

DSHEA protected supplement companies by distinguishing between “food additives,” which were, and are, highly regulated by the FDA, and dietary supplements, which were not.

The only exception was any ingredient considered a “new dietary ingredient,” or NDI. These are ingredients that weren’t marketed in the United States before DSHEA came into being.

Related: Seniors beware: They’re coming for your supplements

According to the Act, a company must submit safety data on any NDI 75 days before marketing it. The FDA gets to decide if it is a safe ingredient or not.

For some reason, the FDA waited 17 years before enforcing this. When they did, it was with a vengeance.

Squeezing dietary supplements off the market

Two separate FDA “guidance documents,” in 2011 and again in 2016, continued to strangle the supplement industry by narrowing the definition of just what is considered an NDI.

Consider this:

• If a supplement includes more of an ingredient than was used prior to 1994 (when DSHEA was passed) — even something like Vitamin C — it’s new.
• If an ingredient uses a different extraction process — like baking or fermentation — it’s new.
• If a supplement uses an ingredient at a different “life stage” — such as using ripe rather than non-ripe apples — it’s new.
• If a probiotic formula includes a strain of bacteria that wasn’t found in yogurt 17 years ago, it’s new.

And they’re not done yet.

Revisiting DSHEA

Earlier this month, FDA Commissioner Gottlieb issued a press release expressing his concern that “changes in the supplement market may have outpaced the evolution of our own policies and our capacity to manage emerging risks.”

Translation: The supplement industry is growing bigger and healthier, and Big Pharma can’t get its hands on the profits.

He notes that “what was once a $4 billion industry comprised of about 4,000 unique products, is now an industry worth more than $40 billion, with more than 50,000 — and possibly as many as 80,000 or even more — different products available to consumers.”

One step he’s already been taken is to form the Botanical Safety Consortium, a “public-private partnership that will gather leading scientific minds from industry, academia and government to promote scientific advances in evaluating the safety of botanical ingredients and mixtures in dietary supplements.”

Makes you wonder why Nuplazid and Vioxx didn’t come under the same microscopic level of scrutiny before they killed all those people.

Stay tuned to see what else the FDA has in store. In the meantime, here are a few ways you can do your due diligence before taking any new medication.

And, here’s even more insight into how the FDA and Big Pharma work together at your expense.

Sources:

1. FDA commissioner announces plan to modernize regulation of dietary supplements — Natural Products INSIDER
2. DSHEA – 20 Years Later – The Good, The Bad And The Ugly — CCBJ
3. FDA Issues Long-Awaited Revised Dietary Supplement NDI Draft Guidance — FDA Law Blog
4. Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on the agency’s new efforts to strengthen regulation of dietary supplements by modernizing and reforming FDA’s oversight — U.S. Food and Drug Administration
5. Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues: Guidance for Industry — U.S. Food and Drug Administration
6. The FDA’s Efforts To Regulate Dietary Supplements, Then And Now — CCBJ

The post The FDA isn’t done trying to take away your supplements appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

This was considered a breakthrough that would change the face of medicine. Over the next hundred years, science would learn more and more about chromosomes, genes, and what they can tell us about our health.

Today, genetic testing is considered the standard for predicting our likelihood of developing cancer, diabetes, coronary artery disease, and other illnesses.

But soon, if a Colorado biochemist has anything to say about it, there will be a far more precise and easy way to tell who’s at risk and to keep people alive.

Proteins as predictors

The proteome is the total of all the different proteins contained within the cell of a particular organism. The human proteome contains about 20,000 different proteins. According to Dr. Larry Gold, those proteins are the future of predicting and preventing disease.

His company, SomaLogic, is busy mapping the human proteome, much like the human genome was mapped 100 years ago.

While information about protein has been used for years to diagnose strep throat, flu, and even HIV, a more complex disease like cancer has been impossible to diagnose because it’s impossible to see the large number of proteins needed to identify it.

Using human DNA, Dr. Gold developed a patented method for identifying huge numbers of proteins at once, known as a SOMAscan. It can isolate 5000 proteins from a single drop of blood.

A “false positive”

Michael Behar was on a camping trip with his wife and two children when he found out his mother had died. A local police officer found him and delivered the sad news.

Michael was stunned. His 73-year-old mother was active, positive and the picture of health. Just a few years ago she’d had a coronary calcium scan that uses X-ray to look for plaque in the arteries. Her odds of having a heart attack or stroke were 7 percent over ten years… hardly anything to be worried about.

Still, she had succumbed to a classic “widow-maker” heart attack. She had felt slightly nauseous and clammy and then died.

With two young children and a wife, Michael knew it was time to re-visit his odds of heart disease. But this time, instead of ordering a coronary scan, Michael’s doctor sent him to SOMAlogic for a protein workup.

A coronary scan shows only hard plaque, not whether it’s softening and getting ready to rupture and clog an artery. A CT scan can detect soft plaque, but it’s an expensive procedure that’s seldom done.

Michael’s protein scan showed that he had an 11 percent chance of a cardiac event within five years – more than three times higher than his calcium scan had indicated.

What to do while you’re waiting

Genes can only tell us about our odds. A protein “fingerprint” can tell us if an illness is underway, even before we feel sick, and help us know what the progress of the illness may look like.

Dr. Gold foresees that SOMAscan will eventually evolve into something he calls a “wellness chip.” He hopes this do-it-all protein test will replace annual physicals, which studies indicate are often not the best predictors of health.

In the meantime, being proactive with diet, exercise and lifestyle choices will still lower your odds of a heart attack — and many other illnesses. Consider:

• A whole-food, vegetable-based, fiber-rich diet like the Mediterranean diet will help prevent metabolic syndrome
• Getting up and moving at least twice a day, through exercise, walking, or housework
• Minimizing the effect of toxins in your home and your life
• No smoking!

Sources:

1. Proteomics Might Have Saved My Mother’s Life. And It May Yet Save Mine. — The New York Times
2. What is Proteomics? — News-Medical.Net

The post A better way to predict heart attacks, diabetes and cancer appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Since that time, my condition has been 100 percent under control. I credit CBD oil with making that happen. After all, it is a known neuroprotective agent, and has been proven to alleviate the pain of Lyme disease.

But if the FDA and Big Pharma have their way, my year’s supply of CBD oil, which now costs me about $100, will soon cost about $32,000.

Yes, you read that correctly: $32,000.

We’ve made no secret here about the fact that Big Pharma is only interested in big money, and suppresses information about natural cures, all the while publishing half-truths about the effectiveness of various drugs.

It’s also no secret that the FDA has an “unholy alliance” with major drug companies, and has helped bring to market drugs that are not only ineffective but deadly.

But did you know that there’s a secret “back door” to the FDA that is allowing drug companies to remove safe, natural supplements from the market, one by one, until all that’s left are drugs?

Here’s a case study of how this is already happening…

The case of pyridoxamine

Vitamin B6 is essential for brain development and function. It helps the body manufacture the neurotransmitter serotonin, which regulates our moods, and it is crucial for a healthy immune system.

As with most vitamins, the natural form of Vitamin B6 is most readily broken down by the body. It’s called pyridoxamine, and is found in salmon, chicken, sweet potatoes, bananas and pistachios.

Pyridoxamine also came in supplement form. A bottle would have cost you anywhere from $10 to $20.

That is, when you could still buy it.

You see, this bio-available form of B-6 was removed from the supplement market in 2008. A drug company filed an IND (investigational new drug) application with the FDA so that they could “own” pyridoxamine for use in their own drug formulation. You see, they found it effective at slowing the progression of diabetic neuropathy in trial studies, and it became the active ingredient in the drug known as Pyridorin.

If you have a supplement bottle of B6 or B complex, take a look at it. You might find B6 as pyridoxine hydrochloride or pyridoxal, but not pyridoxamine.

How could this happen, you ask?  Through the “back door” being held open wide by the FDA.

Drug or supplement: a decision based on greed

Most nutritional supplements, like pyridoxamine, are also found naturally in food. If the FDA chooses to classify a supplement as an “old dietary ingredient” (ODI), then it can’t be banned. But, in order to make it easy for drug companies, the FDA can choose not to do this.

As long as any drug company submits an “investigational new drug” (IND) application, and is actively investigating a nutrient such as pyridoxamine for possible use in a prescription drug, the FDA makes it illegal to sell that nutrient in supplement form.

In 2017, pharmaceutical company BioStratum withdrew its IND application for pyridoxamine and stopped testing it as a drug that could prevent diabetic neuropathy.

A citizens’ petition was immediately filed, asking the FDA to reinstate the nutrient as a legitimate dietary supplement.

But another drug company, PHD Biosciences, stepped forward to say that they are now testing pyridoxamine.

And, the game goes on, while we wait and see if an important nutritional supplement will become a drug.

Cannabis and l-glutamine may soon be “drugs” as well

Similar fates await both CBD oil and l-glutamine.

L-glutamine is an essential amino acid that supports a healthy balance of bacteria in the gut, which we know is crucial to just about every aspect of our health. L-glutamine also supports brain health and helps regulate blood sugar.

The FDA recently approved Endari, a prescription drug for sickle cell anemia. Its contents: glutamine powder.

If Emmaus Medical can prove that l-glutamine was not sold as a supplement before 1994, they can “own” it. The FDA will guarantee Emmaus’s ownership of l-glutamine by making its sale as a supplement illegal. Permanently.

Stay tuned.

The post How the FDA is sneaking your vitamins out the ‘back door’ for drug profits appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

He’s spending the time he has left trying to save other people from what’s happened to him.

Johnson is a groundskeeper at a California school district. He developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a deadly blood cancer, as a result of working with the weed killer Roundup, manufactured by chemical manufacturing giant Monsanto.

In a recent landmark legal decision, Monsanto was ordered to pay $289 million in damages to Lee Johnson for causing his cancer.

In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate, the main chemical in Roundup, as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Yet even as Johnson’s lawsuit has opened the floodgates, and 8,000 more lawsuits are pending against Monsanto, the company insists Roundup and glyphosate are safe.

This despite study after study since the 1980s showing that glyphosate causes cancer in both animals and humans. And, despite the fact that glyphosate has been banned in 25 countries, including Canada.

Are we surprised, then, to find out that glyphosate is also harmful to honeybees, the creatures whose pollination is responsible for about three-fourths of the world’s food crops?

Not only is Monsanto killing people, it’s killing off our food supply.

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Healthy honeybee gut destroyed by glyphosate

It’s now well-known that our “gut,” the soup of bacteria living in our digestive system, controls our overall health. An imbalance or disruption to the gut microbiome can cause cancer, diabetes, and other devastating illnesses.

As it turns out, bees also have a sensitive gut microbiome, containing eight different healthy bacteria including Lactobacillus. Honeybees need a balanced gut in order to grow and protect themselves from disease.

In 2015, a study at the University of Texas showed that exposure to the glyphosate in Roundup kills off the healthy bacteria in the honeybee gut. Some of those bacteria have a big red bullseye painted on them: an enzyme that actually attracts the deadly chemical.

Around the same time, German and Argentinian scientists showed that when adult bees are exposed to glyphosate at levels commonly found in agriculture, it “impairs the cognitive capacities needed for a successful return to the hive.”

Monsanto covers up the truth

Monsanto has long insisted that its “independent research” found no reason to believe that Roundup was a carcinogen. Yet, court documents show that this research and its results were heavily edited by Monsanto employees.

In the landmark trial that gave Lee Johnson a bittersweet victory over the company, evidence revealed Monsanto’s deceit and manipulation of data that has been going on since the 1980s.

In 1984, as the result of a study with mice, an EPA toxicologist found glyphosate to be “oncogenic” (cancer-causing).

Monsanto hired Dr. Marvin Kushcner, a noted pathologist, to conduct an “independent review” of the data. But a memo written even before this review took place reveals Monsanto’s true intent:

“Kuschner will review kidney sections and present his evaluation of them to EPA in an effort to persuade the agency that the observed tumors are not related to glyphosate.”

Dr. Kuschner wasn’t hired to do research; he was hired to keep glyphosate on the market.

How you can protect yourself

Glyphosate is still a danger to you and your family. It is showing up in at least five brands of orange juice as well as in oat cereals and granola bars. (The Environmental Working Group provides a list of these products.)

Buying organic food whenever possible, particularly produce and meats, is another way to protect yourself. Organic farmers are under strict regulations regarding the use of chemicals. Always wash and peel your fruits and vegetables.

It may seem like a full-time job to protect yourself, but it can save your life.

The post Weed killer’s killing spree shows no signs of stopping appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

The oath binds doctors to do no harm, to respect patient privacy and to admit when they do not have all the answers.

A line from the modern-day version of the oath reads, “I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required…”

Today, those “measures” might put your doctor in an uncomfortable position… one that requires lies and deception to help you get the tests and treatment you might need…

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“You are not my peer”

Despite the push to get more Americans covered by health insurance, there’s a growing divide between the care you need and what your insurance company will approve and pay for.

Because of this, doctors are often forced to go to bat for their patients against insurance companies.

That means your doctor may be jumping through a series of hoops that includes denials, re-requests, and medical record reviews … all of which could delay treatment for weeks or even months.

When you’re sick, can you stand to wait to relieve your symptoms? Or stop the progression of a dangerous, potentially deadly, but preventable disease?

It could happen. So, what can be done if your doctor is not able to convince your insurance company to approve treatment?

Your case would have to face the final step… a “peer-to-peer” review.

Particularly for patients with cancer, the peer-to-peer review is their last chance at life-saving treatment. That’s because the exorbitant costs of chemo and other procedures make a denial of coverage essentially a denial of service.

And, according to Dr. Rick Boulay, a gynecological oncologist in Allentown, Pennsylvania, this process is often a fruitless farce…

Dr. Boulay reports that most insurance company physicians he speaks with are, at best, family medicine practitioners. None are trained in oncology and are unable to understand the nuanced choices that cancer patients have to make. So, the idea of “peer to peer” is basically thrown out the window.

He relates one conversation in which he described a patient’s aggressive cancer and the likelihood of recurrence. After lengthy explanation that the patient’s recurrence of tumors was only detected by a PET scan, the insurer still insisted that, since she was in remission, there was no need for coverage of the scan.

They’re not even looking

As if all of this weren’t horrible enough, something else that most of us would probably take for granted has finally come out of the shadows. To say that the implications for your health are disturbing would be a gross understatement…

In February of this year, former medical officer for Aetna of Southern California Dr. Jay Ken Iinuma testified in court that he never once looked at a patient’s medical records when making decisions on whether to approve or deny coverage.

That’s right. Company policy only required that he consult with the nurses who were making those calls. But even that wasn’t happening.

When asked how many times he might call a nurse to consult on a decision over the course of a month, he responded, “zero to one.”

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Why are doctors asking permission to treat patients?

In order to save money, health insurance companies are getting away with overriding doctors’ orders. It’s costing us our health, sometimes even our lives.

A recent survey from the Doctor-Patient Rights Project (DPRP) reports that “health insurers denied coverage for nearly a quarter of the Americans (surveyed) with chronic conditions or persistent illnesses. In a third of the cases, these patients, all of whom had insurance coverage, said their conditions worsened after being rejected.”

Insurance companies now can require your doctor, who spent years in medical school, to ask a non-medical office worker for permission to prescribe a medication or procedure. It’s called prior authorization.

From the DPRP report: “While no insurer has the authority to bar a patient from receiving care, they can refuse coverage, which, for most Americans, effectively blocks access to treatment and turns the insurance provider into the final authority on treatment decisions.

And that’s where lying comes into play.

Getting around the system

In order to uphold their oath and give the best treatment available to their patients, more and more doctors are becoming willing to help patients fabricate symptoms that will earn them the right to the treatment both they and their doctor know they need.

One study showed that the majority of physicians were willing to use deception in order to get patients the best treatment when it involved coronary bypass surgery, arterial revascularization (restoring blood supply to an injured area through blood vessel grafting), and almost half said they’d lie to get a patient a mammography.

Is this right or wrong? You decide. But before you judge, put yourself in the shoes of the woman who needed the PET scan to save her life.

With medical care like that, it’s no wonder that more and more American are seeking alternative medicine. According to the 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), an annual in-person survey of Americans regarding their health- and illness-related experiences, 38 percent of adults seek out and use complementary and alternative medicine.

With any luck, you’ll never be in a position where you and your doctor are faced with a choice between your health and the truth, but don’t wait to find out.

The post Why doctors lie about the healthcare you need appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Unbelievable, I know. But Kenneth had the answer, even while he was dying.

“Once they find out you have a mental illness, it’s like the lights go out.”

Medicine has a massive blind spot when it comes to treating people with mental illness. Research and anecdotal records point to several factors that contribute to this.

The bottom line, though, is that Americans with mental illness die 13 to 42 years earlier than the general population. And we’re not talking about suicide here.

This is a phenomenon that’s been described for decades. Take schizophrenia as an example.

In the 1970s, persons of any age who had schizophrenia were 1.8 times more likely to die than people without mental illness. By the early 2000s, that number had increased to 3.7.

In other words, if you have schizophrenia, you have almost four times the chance of dying from causes not related to your mental illness than people without schizophrenia. But it’s not far-fetched to think the same life-threatening bias could plague you following an anxiety or depression diagnosis.

What’s behind this troubling statistic? Or, as Dr. Dhruv Khullar of New York-Presbyterian Hospital calls it, “the largest health disparity we don’t talk about”?

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Doctor bias plays a role

Doctors get trapped in two types of bias that can prevent them from adequately addressing the medical needs of patients diagnosed as mentally ill:

Therapeutic pessimism.
Dr. Lisa Rosenbaum of Brigham and Women’s Hospital describes this as an internalized directive to order a test or procedure only if “there’s something you can do about it.”

The pessimistic view of mental illness often justifies doing nothing, says Dr. Rosenbaum. “Why biopsy a breast mass if the patient will surely refuse mastectomy or chemotherapy?”

Diagnostic overshadowing.
A patient’s physical symptoms are often attributed to their mental illness when in fact they are purely physical. This was the case with Kenneth.

His paralysis was blamed on psychotropic medications and later on the “psychomotor retardation” of depression. The real cause was severe spinal cord compression, the result of progressive deterioration following the car accident that first got him admitted for psychiatric treatment.

Fear of legal issues also interferes with proper treatment

Doctors also fear being sued and are often caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Nicholas Bagley, a health law professor at the University of Michigan, points out that doctors can be sued for negligence if they fail to provide necessary treatment to someone who did not actively refuse care.

But they can just as easily face accusations of battery if they override the wishes of a patient because they mistakenly thought the person lacked the ability to make that decision for themselves.

This double-edged sword gives doctors pause when it comes to treating mentally ill patients for medical conditions they present.

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Beginning to address the problem

Kelly Irwin, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, piloted a program aimed at improving cancer care for seriously mentally ill patients. Most of these patients receive cancer diagnoses much later than average.

Dr. Irwin offers several pointers for helping people with mental illness access the medical system:

Make it concrete.
Those with mental illness often need to see concrete evidence of the need for treatment. Showing them their chest x-ray, for example, can convince them to cooperate more readily than just telling them they need surgery.

Don’t overwhelm.
Present information in small chunks, rather than trying to explain everything at once to the distressed person. Respect their need to cope in the way that works for them.

One step at a time.
Don’t fail to take the first step with someone who’s sick just because you don’t know if they’ll follow through or cooperate with treatment. Talk to them and take one step at a time.

More psychiatry education.
Dr. Rosenbaum makes the point that psychiatry should be a bigger part of medical education, and not just theory, but practical application with people who have mental illness.

The post The diagnosis that makes you invisible to doctors appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

It is the most widely used herbicide in the world, and new evidence reveals that it is even more prevalent and dangerous than previously reported…

As if glyphosate’s effects were not worrisome enough on its own, more recent research has revealed glyphosate-based herbicides expose us to five hormone-disrupting heavy metals — of which arsenic is one. More on that in just a minute, but first let’s revisit how this herbicide harms…

Glyphosate: The herbicide worth remembering

It was introduced in the 1970’s to kill weeds and increase crop yields, but interferes in our health in three important ways:

1. It targets enzymes required to synthesize three amino acids (tyrosine, tryptophan, and phenylalanine) that are important not only in plants, but in humans too.
2. It inhibits enzymes of many bacteria too—disturbing our healthy gut bacteria.
3. It depletes the micronutrient content of our food too.

Here’s how it works. When crops such as wheat, oats, sugar cane, lentils, peas, potatoes, sunflowers, and cantaloupe are almost ready to harvest, farmers spray glyphosate on the plant so it will dry up, thus allowing for a quicker harvest. Therefore, glyphosate gets not only on our food, but also over the years in our rain, rivers, streams and groundwater we can eventually drink.  Yep — a 2014 U.S Geological survey showed that glyphosate was present in more than 50% of the rivers, streams, groundwater, and soil samples that were tested in 38 states!

There is a difference between commercial glyphosate formulations (which can have as much as a 41% concentration) and domestic use Roundup (around 1%). Therefore, your chances of being exposed to glyphosate is super high. Should we be concerned?

Ubiquitous — and bio-accumulating

University of California San Francisco (UCSF) reported the first ever testing of glyphosate in the American general public in 2016 and found that 93% of all those tested were positive for glyphosate residues. The companies that produce and promote glyphosate will tell you not to worry. There are some real problems with their claims as you will soon discover.

First off, short term studies don’t reveal the effects of bioaccumulation. Glyphosate seeps into our organ tissues and accumulates in our body fat — over years. Worse, glyphosate is also now combined with other toxic chemicals in order to improve its effectiveness, which are even more likely the reason it is linked to birth defects and neurological disorders in children…fertility problems in young adults…and cancer in aging people.

Don Huber is a glyphosate expert, plant physiologist for more than 40 years, senior scientist on USDA’s National Plant Disease Recovery System, and lead researcher of more than 100 peer-reviewed glyphosate articles. He reports that glyphosate causes “endocrine disruption, DNA damage, reproductive and developmental toxicities, neurotoxicity, cancer, and birth defects.” Other researchers report that it causes liver and kidney adverse effects, autism, and contributes to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s dementia, Parkinson’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and much more.

Herbicide producers and commercial users (Monsanto) don’t want you to know about the “Statement of Concern” issued in 2016 by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, who summarized by reporting that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

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New study reveals arsenic

A shocking new study from French researchers tells us that the current regulatory assessments for herbicides are incorrect, and that they contain several harmful ingredients. This, while the pesticide industry declares their products only contain inert (harmless and not bio-active) ingredients.

They studied pesticide samples mainly from the European Union and North America.

The researchers studied the effects of glyphosate alone and 14 of its formulations.

• Glyphosate-based herbicides contain heavy metals that are normally banned due to their toxicity and were not being declared by the manufacturing companies. These heavy metals include arsenic, chromium, cobalt, lead and nickel, which are known endocrine disruptors.
• Glyphosate formulations with petroleum residues have an endocrine-disruptive effect and are even more toxic than glyphosate alone when tested on humans.

The lead researcher stated, “These results show that the declarations of glyphosate as the active principle for toxicity are scientifically wrong, and that the toxicity assessment is also erroneous: glyphosate is tested alone for long-term health effects at the regulatory level but the formulants – which are composed of toxic petroleum residues and arsenic – are not tested over the long term. We call for the immediate, transparent and public release of the formulations and above all of any health tests conducted on them. The acceptable levels of glyphosate residues in foods should be divided immediately by a factor of at least 1,000 because of these hidden poisons. Glyphosate-based herbicides should be banned.”

In my next article I’ll tell you how to treat and cleanse yourself from glyphosate exposure… before it causes chronic illness.

To a clean environment and feeling good,

Michael Cutler, M.D.

The post Why the glyphosate danger keeps getting worse appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Nothing wrong with that, right?

But what if you’re selling cures for life-threatening diseases? Then you have a bit of a dilemma…

Because the more product you sell, the fewer customers you have.

But that’s also good, right?

Not according to investment banking giant Goldman Sachs. In fact, they’re advising their biotech company clients to think twice about curing people too quickly, if at all.

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Goldman Sachs cautions clients: Cures are bad for business

In an April 10 report entitled “The Genome Revolution”, analysts at Goldman Sachs baldly posed this question to their clients: “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?”

In case you’re reading that again to figure out what it really means, let me help you with a translation: “Will curing people hurt your cash flow?”

Now, this question may very well have been on the minds of Big Pharma executives for a long time. But they’d never ask it aloud. It would be far too insensitive to state outright that keeping people as sick as possible for as long as possible was great for business.

Now, Goldman Sachs has brought that skeleton right out of the closet.

Their report cautions clients that “while this proposition [developing cures] carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.”

As an example, they cite the case of Gilead Sciences and Hepatitis C.

A deadly disease that’s no longer profitable

Hepatitis C is a viral infection of the liver caused by coming into contact with infected body fluids. At least 3.5 million people in the U.S. live with chronic Hepatitis C, which can lead to cirrhosis, liver failure, cancer and death.

Gilead Sciences is a company that markets treatments for Hepatitis C with cure rates of over 90%. In 2015, their profits from these drugs peaked at $12.5 million, then began to decline as more and more people were cured.

In reference to this ‘problem’ of falling revenues resulting from curing people, Goldman Sachs’s’ report states: “In the case of infectious diseases such as Hepatitis C, curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients … “

What?! So it’s good if Hepatitis C spreads to more people?

Dr. Milton Packer, an internationally recognized clinical investigator and pioneer in cardiovascular research, said it best:

“When the most important investment banking enterprise in the world wonders whether it is a good idea to support companies that want to develop cures, we truly have reached rock bottom.”

Who really suffers?

You may be wondering how all this affects you if you are, thankfully, not in need of any of these new treatments for things like Hepatitis C or cancer.

Since innovative companies that develop cures have trouble finding financial backing (after all, the drug isn’t going to be profitable), they turn to charging exorbitant prices as a solution.

Most new drugs for cancer and rare diseases are being priced above $400,000 a year per patient. To cover these costs for even a small number of people, insurance companies spend less in other therapeutic areas.

When your insurance company refuses to pay for a high-quality treatment for, say, diabetes, or for the drug you need because the lower-tier drug makes you ill, chances are they’re covering their costs for those skyrocketing prices.

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Is there anything you can do?

Clearly, we don’t have influence over large pharmaceutical companies. The one thing you can do to protect yourself from all this is to have good communication with your own doctor. That way, if you have trouble getting covered for a high-quality medication, your doctor may be more willing to go to bat for you.

You might also consider the advice of my colleague, Margaret Cantwell, who suggests, “The next time you read one of those self-righteous articles or news stories telling you nothing good comes from taking supplements, consider the source — and question their motives and the research. Keeping you sick and coming back for more keeps big pharma in business. Preventing illness yourself will put them out of business. And that’s what they are afraid of. And exactly why more and more people are choosing an alternative healthcare plan.”

Sources:

1. “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” Goldman Sachs analysts ask — Ars Technica
2. It’s Official! Curing Patients Is Bad for Business — MedPage Today

The post Analysts admit the greed behind the machine: Cures are bad business appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Answer: Massive public exposure to toxic chemicals, often without public knowledge.

Hurricane Harvey may have faded into memory for many of us in the United States. But it’s still vivid for people like Bret Simmons, whose legs erupted in blisters, burns and lesions as he pushed his wife Phyllis on a motorcycle through the hurricane’s poisonous floodwaters.

Six months after the fact, Houston area residents like Simmons still have unanswered questions about the long-term health consequences of this catastrophic event.

And don’t think this has nothing to do with you. What’s happening in Houston is happening in other parts of the country, and is just one sign of a larger, more insidious problem.

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Hushing up the toxic truth

When Hurricane Harvey slammed into Houston, it ripped through a corridor of 500 chemical plants, ten refineries and 6,670 miles of oil, gas and chemical pipelines.

Almost half a billion gallons of contaminated waste water was released into floodwaters around Houston from just one of these chemical plants. This included known carcinogens such as benzene and vinyl chloride.

Yet EPA regulators alerted the public to only two of these spill sites, both already well-known Superfund cleanup sites. (A Superfund site is any land in the U.S. that has been identified by the EPA for cleanup due to contamination by hazardous waste).

Residents are still in the dark about the damage done by dozens of other chemical plants, many long-time polluters that have spewed gallons of poisonous waste into the area’s waterways already.

Chemicals before people

Where, you might ask, is the Environmental Protection Agency while all this is happening? Are they down there testing water, soil and air, and holding chemical companies accountable for the toxic spillout?

While reporters were on the ground, on foot and in boats, inspecting the devastation, the EPA claimed they were unable to reach many of the sites.

We’ve already seen how the EPA has failed to protect us from poisons in our drinking water. In the aftermath of Harvey, it’s become even more clear that agency head Scott Pruitt has missed the point of the EPA’s mission statement, “to protect human health and the environment.”

• In January, Pruitt rescinded the 2015 Waters of the U.S. Law, which would have limited the use of chemical fertilizers and other pollutants that could run off into small streams.
• In March, he issued an order that stripped the authority of local, on-the-ground EPA administrators to veto decisions made by the Army Corps of Engineers, who lay oil pipelines that could pollute local waterways.

Pruitt has stalled changes to the EPA’s Risk Management Plan that would require companies like Arkema, whose chemical plant exploded and burned during Harvey, to disclose basic information to local communities and first responders. Information like:

• the inventory of chemicals contained in their plants
• a 5-year accident history
• safety data sheets
• evacuation information

Denying climate change

While scientists consistently point the finger at human activity as the source of global warming, Scott Pruitt denies it exists. But, if it does… maybe it’s good for us?

Says Pruitt, “We know humans have most flourished during times of warming trends. There are assumptions made that because the climate is warming that necessarily is a bad thing.”

Assumptions?

Christina Whitman, Pruitt’s predecessor under President George W. Bush, puts it this way:

“A broad consensus of scientists … warn of the influence of the warming climate on extreme weather events. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma … are potent reminders of the cost of ignoring climate science.”

For now, you shouldn’t count on the EPA to apply common knowledge in order to “protect human health.” It’s time to learn what you can do to protect yourself.

Protecting yourself from toxic waste

Nearly half of the U.S. population lives within ten miles of a Superfund site. Chances are good that you’re among them.

Know your Superfund site danger. Use this link to locate Federal Superfund cleanup sites in your state. I was shocked to learn that in the state of Maine there are sixteen of them, several just a 30-minute drive from my home.

If you live in a coastal area, be extra vigilant about the possibilities of flooding. For example, a recent article in my local paper warns that several local Supersites are at increased flood risk from sea level rise.

Eat detoxifying foods. Here is a list of naturally cleansing foods to include in your diet.

EDTA chelation. EDTA chelation is a safe and readily available method for detoxifying your body since you can get it in supplement form, now. Previously, it was only administered by IV. Since odds are you’ve already been exposed to toxic waste in some form, chelation is something you should look into today. In fact, you can read more about it here, including its use for heart health you hear very little about.

The post The ‘unnatural’ danger that follows a natural disaster appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Science has brought us a long way. It’s sent men to the moon and diseases into oblivion.

And for the most part we are living longer healthier lives, thanks in large part to brilliant scientific discoveries.

As great as science is though, it’s not completely infallible. But people who go against the scientific grain are treated like blasphemers.

So why is it ok to question most things in life, but not science?

A higher standard

Scientific proof, or at least those intellectual superstars of scientific research — scientists — have always been held to a high standard.

After all, these are people who dedicate their entire lives to the betterment of humankind. They’ll spend decades in schools, internships and fellowships, followed by careers in laboratory studies, hypothesizing, proselytizing and experimenting… all to prove or disprove — in the name scientific research.

These are people with exceptional intelligence, to whom the truth matters. Because what better truth is there than a proven, indisputable fact? A fact can have but one true result… it is what it is. It works or it doesn’t. The line is hard.

Or is it?

Science is coming under fire. Its flaw? Scientists are human.

The pressure to publish

No one wants to spend years on a project, no matter what sort of project, full of anticipation only to reach a dud at the end. It’s anticlimactic. And it doesn’t do much to further your career.

Having your successes published is the huge pat on the back for scientists and the padding in their pockets. It’s how you catch the eye of those big pharmaceutical giants who run their own expensive for-profit labs and pay their researchers the big bucks.

But with those big bucks come industry-funded studies, conflicts of interest and immense pressure to please. And this is where hard line facts can get muddled…

Facts speak for themselves

Or do they? Obfuscation isn’t quite lying. It isn’t quite telling the truth either. It’s a way to present some facts or partial facts or manipulate data as relative or absolute numbers in a confusing, unclear and difficult to understand way.

And obfuscation is a big enough problem in scientific research that researchers at Stanford are trying to design a computer program to recognize it. According to lead researcher Jeff Hancock, “Science fraud is of increasing concern in academia, and automatic tools for identifying fraud might be useful.”

I wish them luck, because, quite often, these papers even make it past a review of peers who fail to pick up on these mistakes or outright lies. Recently a research paper was submitted to the prestigious British Medical Journal containing eight major errors. But not one of the 221 scientists who reviewed the paper caught all of the errors.

This type of thing isn’t a rare occurrence. According to an article in the Waking Times:

• A recent review of 67 pharmaceutical research findings published in prestigious journals found that three-fourths of them weren’t right.
• In more than 75 percent of their drug trials, drug giant Bayer simply couldn’t replicate findings that were published.
• Another study of cancer research found that only 11 percent of preclinical cancer research could be reproduced.

It’s all relative

If you search the Urban Dictionary for the meaning of the phrase “it’s all relative,” you’ll find it means: Everything is quantifiable in terms of individual perception.

Unfortunately when it comes to a lot of the research surrounding blockbuster drugs, the aim is to mold the results to fit a preferred theory or outcome. And the ultimate outcome is income.

My colleague Dr. Michael Cutler writes in his book, Surviving Cancer — A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding the Causes, Treatments and Big Business Behind Medicine’s Most Frightening Diagnosis…

“If you or a loved one has breast cancer, doctors may recommend the drug Tamoxifen. You’ll likely hear that it reduces the chances of breast cancer recurring by an impressive 49 percent — based on “relative” numbers. But the truth is, based on absolute numbers, Tamoxifen reduces the risk of breast cancer returning by 1.6 percent — 30 times less than advertised.”

The big drug companies love relative numbers. Relative numbers can be manipulated in many ways. And Big Pharma has a way of making sure they are manipulated in a way that makes for a fat bottom-line profit — regardless of how ineffective the medicine truly is.

Hippocratic or hypocritical

The really big problem I have with this is the hypocrisy. Science doesn’t hold all the answers. But the scientific community and its supporters are among the very first to rally against anyone else that might offer an alternative solution — even though a climbing number of their own studies are being proven to be nothing more than hocum.

Take natural medicine. Despite the failings of their flawed studies and lackluster results that are the backbone of conventional medicine, the mainstream seems to get some sort of empowerment out of convincing the public that the use of vitamins, minerals, supplements, exercise and diet — as means to prevent or alleviate disease — is pure hocus pocus and conjecture.

Perhaps they just can’t accept the fact that natural, and what are now considered alternative methods of medicine but could be considered the precursors to modern medicine, have been time- and people-tested for millennia.

And in recent times, they’ve been lab-tested too. Take echinacea for example…

A review of 14 clinical trials determined that taking echinacea reduces your odds of developing a cold by 58 percent and cuts down the length of your cold by one to four days.

Of course, there was a 2014 scientific review that suggested the evidence for echinacea’s effectiveness was weak. But even in that review, researchers admitted that it is at least somewhat effective.  They determined that certain echinacea preparations can reduce your risk of catching a cold by 10 to 20 percent.

So the next time you read one of those self-righteous articles or news stories telling you nothing good comes from taking vitamins, consider the source — and question their motives and the research. Keeping you sick and coming back for more keeps them in business. Preventing illness yourself will put them out of business. And that’s what they are afraid of. More and more people are choosing an alternative healthcare plan that leaves them in the cold.

The post Is your medical treatment based on hocum? appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

You may have even brushed those feelings aside, thinking it was just your imagination.

But just like that annoying pain that won’t go away, it wasn’t all in your head — even though you’ve been systematically conditioned by mainstream medicine’s doctors to believe most of your health problems are.

Gender bias is a huge problem in healthcare. Its roots go back as far as the advent of modern medicine and maybe even further…

In fact, women are needlessly suffering more often than men, living with undiagnosed conditions more often than men and dying from life-threatening diseases because male-centric health research has left them out in the cold… all because of a sexist myth.

Not so hysterical hysteria

Hysteria, as it’s known today, is an actual disease — a delusional disorder associated with depression and schizophrenia and with some conditions such as epilepsy, Asperger’s syndrome, learning problems and so forth.

The current dictionary definition of hysterical is: “affected by or deriving from wildly uncontrolled emotion.”

And in the early days of medicine, doctors believed that not only was “wildly uncontrolled emotion” an affliction unique to women, but that is was the underlying cause of most of their health problems.

After all, that kind of sexist thinking about women’s health is the reason for the very word itself… in Latin and Greek, hystericus and hystera, respectively, both translate to “of the womb.”

Gender bias is also the reason that women’s healthcare has lagged grossly behind men’s.

The danger of health discrimination

According to Dr. Jennifer Wilder, a nationally renowned women’s health expert and the spokeswoman for the Society for Women’s Health Research, women are still facing health discrimination today based on sexist misconceptions.

In modern medical scenarios, regardless of gender, doctors:

• Under treat female patients, leaving more female patients to have to make multiple visits to finally get treated.
• Take longer to administer medications to women in emergency rooms.
• Have incorrectly labelled women to have a natural capacity to endure more pain.
• Are less likely to administer opioids when female patients are dealing with extreme pain. A 2001 study showed that women’s pain is more likely to be perceived as psychogenic.
• Undermine women’s experiences, often chalking concerns up to stress and anxiety.
• Grossly under treat hormonal-related pain.
• Take women’s health complaints/symptoms less seriously than men presenting with the same complaints/symptoms.

Without a doubt, women have been subordinate to men throughout history… and by the accounts listed above, which are based on scientific research, women are still being treated as if their health complaints are based in emotional rather than biological factors… to a large degree.

Dying of discrimination

The problem stretches much further than your doctor’s office…

When diagnosing  a woman, not only are physicians choosing to skip over biological factors and leap directly to emotional causes, but research seems to place less importance on women’s health and women’s biological differences that may affect disease prevention and treatment — and it’s apparent in their research practices.

A review of surgical studies demonstrates that surgical researchers rarely even use female lab animals or even cells from females in their papers that appear in medical journals.

“Women make up half the population, but in surgical literature, 80 percent of the studies only use males,” says researcher Melina R. Kibbe, M.D., a vascular surgeon at Northwestern Medicine.

And it’s causing women harm…

Consider heart disease — which actually takes the lives of more women than men on an annual basis. Many people still find this shocking, but gender bias in health research may be partially to blame…

Heart attack symptoms are different between the sexes. While men often feel a crushing pain in the chest, women may feel pain along the jawline. The factors that lead to heart disease in women may also be different, but we can’t be sure. That’s because a study performed as recently as 2010 revealed that guidelines on preventing cardiovascular disease in women were determined from trials in which only 34 percent of the study participants were women!

And when it comes to sexual health, women’s needs are definitely ignored for the same reasons. Though 90 percent of women have experienced the pain of premenstrual syndrome, five times more research has been put into a condition affecting only 19 percent of men: erectile dysfunction.

Use your voice to get the healthcare you deserve

Though we’re no longer labelled hysterics, women are obviously still facing a strong undercurrent of ignorance that has become deeply embedded in mainstream medicine.

And though there is nothing fair about it, it appears to be a matter of fact that women have to push harder to get the care we deserve. Women are natural advocates for those we love. It’s time to turn around and be your own advocate.

Just follow a few tips when doing so:

#1 Realize your doctor is not omnipotent. Yes, he or she went to medical school and should have the knowledge to treat you. But you have the right to be heard and question your doctor about tests, medicines, diagnosis — anything to do with your health.

#2 You know your body better than anyone. If your concerns fall on deaf ears, there are plenty of other doctors to see.

#3 Be prepared for your office visit. Write notes if necessary. That way you won’t be caught off guard, and if you take the effort to list the why and what of what’s bothering you, your doctor may realize the seriousness of the issue.

Sources: Marthe, E. (2017, February 12). Your pain is not real: How doctors discriminate against women. Retrieved February 21, 2017, from https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/your-pain-is-not-real-how-doctors-discriminate-against-women

The post The warped reason doctors ‘treat’ women differently appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

It was during a period of my life where I was experiencing quite a lot of stress, and it was long before I turned my health around through natural means.

My doctor prescribed what he said was a mild sleep aid. Everyone was using it and it should do me some good, he thought. I didn’t realize then, as much as I do now, that “everyone” doesn’t react to the same drug in the same way — and that Big Pharma’s concern for our safety lags far behind their profit margins.

I want to share my experience with you because, since then, I have uncovered the truth about numerous drugs, some you likely have in your medicine cabinet right now, and that you may be shocked to learn can cause amnesia.

A night I’ll never remember

That first evening, when I took my prescribed sleep-aid an hour before my normal bedtime, as directed, I experienced amnesia.

Thankfully it was temporary, but extremely frightening nonetheless. Not just for me, but for my family who witnessed my odd behavior — that I have absolutely no recollection of.

My first memory following the event was waking up, and slowly realizing my family surrounded my bed. I didn’t understand why they were asking if I was ok. And I didn’t remember the evening before. I threw the pill bottle out that very day and never had it refilled.

Odds are you may not have the same reaction to Ambien that I did… but the scary thing is, more drugs than most of us are aware of have been found to do this very thing. Even drugs you may have taken for years thinking they’re safe may be slowly robbing you of memories, hurting your cognitive abilities, and lying in wait to spring an episode of amnesia on you.

It’s certainly something to think about — and a reason to evaluate the necessity of any medicines you may be taking regularly, especially if any of these are in your medicine cabinet…

Medicines that steal memories

After my experience and years of hearing from others with similar or worse stories, I began to investigate just how widespread the problem of memory-stealing prescription medications is.

At first, it was hard to find anything. After all, this is the kind of thing that most mainstream doctors and the pharmaceutical industry would prefer to keep quiet.

Now, the effects of memory-stealing drugs can strike anyone. But those of us who are on the mature side, have the most to lose.

You may be doing all the right things to keep your mind strong — like taking your brain-boosting B vitamins, vitamin D and krill oil to clean out your brain. So in spite of your best efforts, if you’re experiencing mild or worsening memory issues, any of these prescription medicines could be to blame…

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Antianxiety drugs

Antianxiety drugs are benzodiazepines, a class of drugs that directly affect activity in the brain involved in the transfer of short-term events to your long-term memory.

Ambien, the sleeping drug that gave me a night of amnesia is a nonbenzodiazepine (brands also include Lunesta and Sonata).  At the molecular level, the sleep aids are different from antianxiety drugs, but they are both “Z” drugs that interfere with messaging in the brain and have been tied to dangerous or strange behavior and amnesia.

A few examples of benzodiazepine antianxiety drugs include Xanax, Librium, Klonopin, Ativan, Valium, Dalmane, Doral, Restoril, Halcion, and Versed — which, according to Dr. Armon B. Neel, Jr. on the AARP site, “has particularly marked amnesic properties.”

Some of them are added to anesthesia to ensure a patient has no unpleasant memories following a procedure. They’re slow to leave your system and they build up in your organs. That’s why they’ve been associated with not just memory loss, but delirium, falls, and car accidents.

I’ve had intermittent issues with anxiety and sleep at different times in my life, and found significant relief when an integrative doctor suggested I boost my B vitamins and try melatonin. He has a full list of nutrients and natural treatments for anxiety you should consider if any of these benzodiazepines or nonbenzodiazepines are in your medicine cabinet now.

Cholesterol-lowering drugs

Cholesterol is brain fuel. Your brain needs cholesterol to grow new nerve cells and for these nerve cells to work properly.

But large numbers of people are artificially lowering their cholesterol with statin drugs—like Lipitor, Lescol, Mevacor, Crestor and Zocar — even though according to Dr. Cutler, “When we look at all the data, we find cholesterol itself is not even a real cause of heart disease.”

Conversely, the data shows three out of four people using statins do experience cognitive problems that stop — at least for 90 percent of them — when they go off statin therapy.

If you’re uncomfortable about going against your doctor and ditching your statins, Dr. Neel suggests asking your healthcare provider about instead taking a combination of sublingual vitamin B12 (1,000 mcg daily), folic acid (800 mcg daily) and vitamin B6 (200 mg daily). You can also boost your HDL cholesterol by following suggestions that include adding omega-3s, flaxseeds, avocado, high fiber foods and olive oil to your diet.

Narcotic painkillers

There are many frightening things about narcotic painkillers. Addiction and drug abuse are near the top. These drugs — like fentanyl — in the spotlight for being the drug linked to Prince’s death, in my opinion, are overly prescribed. Again, mainstream medicine applies Band-Aids that often do more harm than good.

And now a CBS story online has reported that a hospital in Massachusetts has been seeing a strange pattern of amnesia presenting in 14 opioid users. Their MRI scans revealed a significant reduction in blood flow to the hippocampus, the part of the brain that makes your memories. Several of these folks were left with short-term memory problems for months, and one woman was still having memory problems a year later.

If pain relief can be found without drugs, it is by far a safer option. And when it comes to natural pain relief, you can discover how to stop the pain and start living. Consider this 3-step plan for sustained pain relief.

Natural techniques may require more of a commitment on your part, but considering that even Tylenol is a popular painkiller that can turn you into a mindless zombie by killing your emotions, your good judgment and your empathy, they’re more than worth considering.

Hypertension drugs

When I read about how beta blockers interfere with your memory, it reminded me of what I’d read about statins. Beta-blockers block messaging in the brain — and that can interfere with your memory.

Besides hypertension, they can be prescribed for migraines and tremors. You may recognize some of these: Lopressor, Toprol, Inderal, Betapace or Timoptic.

My research shows that benzothiazepine calcium channel blockers are safer, but if you can control your blood pressure without prescription medication, think long and hard on it — and read about how I gave up one food and my BP vanished…

I didn’t give up grains and go on the paleo diet for my heart health. I did it in an effort to improve my memory and deal with digestive issues. But it resulted in heart benefits I didn’t expect.

As I was losing weight, enjoying clearer skin, experiencing less arthritis in my hands and losing about 20 pounds over two years, my high blood pressure went away.

My doctor’s non-explanation explanation for my hypertension was that it was due to genetics. In his view, there was nothing that could be done for it except to take prescription medication, which I did: ACE inhibitors, calcium channel blockers, beta-blockers. I’m proof he was wrong.

Unfortunately, this is not a comprehensive list. There are more drugs out that are more than capable of stealing your memories, possibly more. Just remember you won’t always get a full spectrum of advice in your doctor’s office. That’s partly because pharmaceutical studies on drug efficacy don’t always tell the whole truth. Those pills don’t always work… and more often than we realize, they hurt.

The post Is your medicine a prescription for amnesia? appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

These researchers found that people with asthma who ate processed meat frequently had more severe symptoms than people who ate less processed meat.

Over the ten-year study period, people who ate the most processed meat, for example, were 76 percent more likely to experience worsening asthma symptoms than people who ate the least processed meat. Those symptoms included difficulty breathing, chest tightness and shortness of breath.

Surprised? Just think of processed meat as the cat burglar of your health and vitality, stealthily stealing it away while you’re busy doing other things… like eating a hot dog, a bologna sandwich, bacon or corned beef.

Processed meat causes cancer

But even if you don’t have asthma, there are plenty of compelling reasons to pass on that salami sandwich. Like the fact that processed meat causes cancer…

In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified processed meat as a definite carcinogen. To reach this conclusion, they reviewed over 800 scientific studies.

One of the most alarming findings from this review was that eating 50 grams of processed meat daily increases your risk of colon cancer by a whopping 18 percent. If you’re eating a hot dog or BLT (with four strips of bacon) every day, this statistic applies to you.  And in other studies, processed meat has been linked to an increased risk of early death from all causes.

So, what is it exactly that makes processed meat so bad for you?

The answer is nitrates. Now, many foods contain natural nitrates, like spinach, beets, celery, parsley, green beans and carrots. These nitrates can be beneficial to your health. They can even improve your muscle strength and stamina.

But processed meat contains an added chemical nitrate called sodium nitrite. Once you put this chemical nitrate in your body, it turns into N-nitroso compounds, which have been linked to cancer. Cooking processed meat at high temperatures — especially when you’re barbecuing or grilling — can also increase the levels of these cancer-causing N-nitroso compounds in your meat. So, keep that in mind once summer rolls around. (And hold on to this marinade recipe that can decrease the cancer risk).

Limiting processed meat

Of course, if you want to eat processed meat on occasion (like during the holidays), it won’t kill you. Everything in moderation, right? But the less you eat it, the better.

And when you do eat it, do your best to find nitrate-free meat. It’s available at most natural grocery stores and even some conventional ones. There’s nitrate-free bacon, ham, lunch meat — pretty much any meat you can think of.

Or, if you’re a person who can take or leave processed meat, you might as well just avoid it altogether. There are already enough carcinogens hiding in our homes, air, water, etc. Why willingly ingest more and put extra strain on your body?

Whenever you do choose to eat meat (processed or otherwise), make sure it comes from a high-quality source. Do your research on your meat supplier. Is their meat organic? Grass-fed? Local? These factors are generally the litmus test for whether your meat is healthy… or whether it’s slowly sending you to an early grave.

Sources:

1. Li, et al. “Cured meat intake is associated with worsening asthma symptoms.” British Medical Journal, 2016.
2. “World Health Organization Says Processed Meat Causes Cancer.” American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org. Retrieved December 22, 2016.
3. “Processed meat and cancer – what you need to know.” Cancer Research UK. http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org. Retrieved December 22, 2016.
4. Rohrmann, et al. “Meat consumption and mortality – results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.” BMC Medicine, 2013; 11 (1): 63.

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If you are going to imbibe, there are a few things to think about to make sure your evening is fun and safe — and your long-term health is not compromised…

1. Plan to have a safe ride home. Dedicate a driver who is sober to drive the drinkers home.
2. Eat while you drink. Nuts (with healthy fats and protein) are a good complement to the high carb content of alcohol. Plan to follow the alcohol within 20 minutes by protein and fat if possible, if not consumed together.
3. Plan your limit before you arrive. Based on driving arrangements you should know if you have to abstain or not. If not, set a limit and stick to it. Your brain cells and liver will thank you.

Kinds of alcohol

Though even wine can’t be considered a health food because of its alcohol content, it does have some redeeming qualities. When choosing what alcoholic beverage to consume, different qualities may appeal to you depending upon your health goals or conditions you may have.

Beer, for example, brewed from a combination of barley and/or other grains, yeast and hops, yields a drink with an interesting seven calories per gram. Even though barley, yeast and hops have nutrient and gut biome value, this calorie-heavy carb makes for one of the worst ways to gain weight, while also jeopardizing heart health, increasing insulin resistance, risk of type 2 diabetes, and throwing the triglyceride and cholesterol balance way out of sync. A dark ale, on the other hand, drank in moderation, may be a healthier choice.

Distilled alcohol, like vodka, gin, baijiu, tequila, rum, whisky, brandy, Singani and soju, provide none of the  nutritional value that actually exist in brewed beer such as hops, yeast and grains.

Mixed drinks, are sky high in sugar content. If you’re watching your waistline or have blood sugar problems, definitely avoid these. Mixing with diet soda isn’t a good idea either, as that has been shown to make you more inebriated and keep you drunk longer.

Wine, has been studied extensively over many years with impressive findings suggesting that, when consumed in moderation, it may promote a longer lifespan, protect against certain cancers, improve mental health, and provide heart-health benefits. It is also the safest bet for you if you experience gluten intolerance.

How much to drink

How much wine you can drink in one sitting before the health benefits turn into dangers depends on many factors… including your size, age, sex, body stature and general state of health — as well as whether it is being consumed with food or on an empty stomach.

Women absorb alcohol more rapidly than men because of their lower body water content and different levels of stomach enzymes. Therefore, “moderate” wine consumption will be a lower amount for women than for men.

Moderate: According to “Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010,” two drinks per day for men, one for women is considered moderate. This is the equivalent of about one can of beer (12 oz) per drink; or 8 to 11 oz per day for men and 4 to 5.5 oz per day for women of wine. Hard liquor is not advisable, but the equivalent is less than an ounce per day and half that for women.

Excessive: Heavy or high-risk drinking is the consumption of more than three drinks on any day or more than seven per week for women and more than  four drinks on any day or more than 14 per week for men.

Binge: Binge drinking is the consumption within two hours of four or more drinks for women and five or more drinks for men.

Moderate drinking vs. Excessive or Binge drinking

Moderate: Strong evidence from observational studies has shown that moderate alcohol consumption, done responsibly, is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Moderate alcohol consumption also is associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality among middle-aged and older adults and may help to keep cognitive function intact with age.

However, on the down-side, moderate alcohol intake is also associated with increased risk of several cancers, including oropharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colon, rectum and breast cancer. Not to mention violence, drowning, and injuries from falls and motor vehicle crashes.

Excessive: Excessive (i.e., heavy, high-risk, or binge) drinking has no benefits, and the hazards of heavy alcohol intake are well known. Excessive drinking increases the risk of:

• Whole body problems: Blackout, dizziness, shakiness, craving, sweating, recurrent fatigue
• Behavioral problems: Aggression, agitation, compulsive behavior, self-destructive behavior, or lack of restraint, violence
• Mood disorders: Anxiety, euphoria, general discontent, guilt or loneliness
• Gastrointestinal conditions: Nausea or vomiting, cancer — upper gastrointestinal tract and colon; mouth diseases, cough, stomach lining deterioration, pancreas inflammation and pain, malnutrition
• Psychological problems: Delirium or fear, addiction
• Detox and Immune System conditions: Liver cirrhosis
• Brain problems: Coordination, tremor, slurred speech, blackouts, hallucinations, shrinking frontal lobes, loss of cognitive function
• Kidney conditions: Increased urinary frequency
• Reproductive disorders: Infertility (erectile dysfunction), birth defects
• Musculoskeletal conditions: Osteoporosis, muscle pains and cramps
• Cardiovascular complications: Heart disease and stroke risk, insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity
• Erectile dysfunction: ED is a common side effect of alcohol abuse in men. It can also inhibit hormone production, affect testicular function, and cause infertility
• Reproduction problems: Excessive drinking can cause women to stop menstruating, become infertile, and increase risk of miscarriage, premature delivery and stillbirth. Alcohol has a huge effect on fetal development which include physical abnormalities, learning difficulties and emotional problems, which can last a lifetime on children born from these circumstances.

Excessive alcohol consumption is responsible for an average of 79,000 deaths in the United States each year. More than half (>40,000) of these deaths are due to binge drinking. And when you binge drink , you run an increased risk of insulin resistance and that ups your chances of type 2 diabetes.

For the growing percentage of the population with elevated blood pressure, reducing alcohol intake can effectively lower blood pressure, although this is most effective when paired with changes in diet and physical activity patterns. This is the main premise of functional medicine.

Wine: Health Benefits and Health Risks

When it comes to the consuming wine for health benefits, have one and be done, according to research Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Consumed in moderation, wine may:

•  Reduce depression
• Reduce risk of colon cancer (by 50%)
• Promote anti-aging (Resveratrol and SIRT1 gene and Procyanidins)
• Prevent breast cancer (lowers estrogen and raises testosterone in premenopausal women)
• Prevent (or reverse) dementia (23% lower risk)
• Enhance gut microbiome to prevent heart disease
• Protects from severe sunburn
• Prevent blindness
• Prevent stroke damage
• Prevents lung cancer and improves lung function
• Raise omega-3 fatty acid levels
• Prevent liver disease
• Prevent prostate cancer (cutting the risk rate in half with four to seven glasses per week)
• Prevent type 2 diabetes (lowering risk of insulin resistance)

As you spend time with friends and family over the holidays, remember that peer pressure can extend to adulthood. Know your limits ahead of time and stick to them. Be alert to appreciate the fun and kindness of others in your circle of friends. Keep your mind clear and safely enjoy the holidays — and many more to come.

Sources:

1. https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2010/dietaryguidelines2010.pdf

2. http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/alcohol/Pages/alcohol-units.aspx

3. https://niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/moderate-binge-drinking

4. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/253718.php

5. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/57852.php

6. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/240065.php

7. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232992.php

8. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/308669.php

9. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232059.php

10. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/categories/nutrition-diet

11. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/186248.php

12. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/124463.php

13. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/242724.php

14. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/131969.php

15. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/108001.php

16. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/71647.php

17. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/84439.php

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After years in the making, the FDA has recently given the go-ahead to AquaBounty Technologies to unleash the first ever approved “GM animal”— a salmon that grows to market size in half the time the unadulterated natural fish normally would — thanks to a growth hormone gene that has been spliced into the fish’s DNA.

The government says it’s safe, but isn’t it reasonable to be concerned that either they — or us after we eat them — might be vulnerable to existing or even new strains of bacteria, allergens, and toxins that might evolve along with the new fish?

Now that these fish will be out there, they can’t be “recalled” like other foods. That’s it. They’re unleashed on the world — though quite a lot of people, including more than 300 environmental , consumer, health and animal welfare organizations , as well as and the Center for Food Safety (CFS), were vehemently opposed to the idea of it making its way onto your table.

But not the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

And the worst part? You don’t even have the right to know whether you are eating it or not. That’s because, like GMO foods already available in your supermarket and hidden in most processed foods, sellers of GE salmon won’t be required to add labeling to help you avoid it.

Bigger animals, bigger profits, bigger risks

The use of growth hormones in animals is nothing new. Nor are the concerns over their effects on our health.

As early as the 1930s scientists were working with the food industry, first using hormones to make cows produce more milk. Then on into the 1950s, hormones helped make bigger cows and chickens to feed more people on the cheap.

Though studies so far do not provide solid evidence to state that the addition of hormones in meat or dairy products cause any human health effects, according to information found at envirocancer.cornell.edu, many researchers feel there is a strong connection.

For starters, girls have been entering puberty at a much earlier age in the last couple of decades. This is especially concerning because early puberty in girls has been found to be associated with a higher risk for breast cancer. ^[1]

Dr. Stanley Korneman, an endocrinologist at the University of California, Los Angeles says that environmental exposure to estrogens in plastics, chemicals — and foods — has been going up and that estrogens stimulate breast development. This could be the link to early onset of puberty, and breast enlargement in young boys as well.

While GE salmon are not injected with hormones, as has been the usual mode of delivery for farm animals, there’s no way to know that the genetically-engineered growth hormone won’t present the same potential for harm. Especially depending on the amount of IGF-1 that may be present in the salmon.

IGF-1 is a protein known as insulin-dependent growth factor-1. People who have elevated levels appear to have a higher risk for cancers.

Higher levels of IGF-1 in blood have been found in women with breast cancer compared to women without breast cancer in the Harvard-based Nurses’ Health Study.  GE salmon were tested for IGF-1 levels, but there are claims that the developer used ‘insensitive’ testing methods that may have been faulty.

Dr. Michael Hansen, Senior Scientist at Consumers Union US, says, “The FDA is relying on woefully inadequate data. There is sloppy science, small sample sizes, and questionable practices.” ^[2]

And he’s not the only one concerned. Jeffrey Smith, Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, shared in an interview with Sputniknews.com that scientists worldwide have rejected the safety testing protocols used by AquaBounty Technologies as superficial and reckless.

“The risk of allergies, hormonal disruption, novel proteins and other serious issues, known and unknown, exist in these fast growing, gene-altered salmon,” Smith said.

Obviously getting GE salmon to market quicker is going to be a big money maker for an industry that has proven it cares little about the effects of GE food on your health or the environment.

Bigger fish, less nutrition

The bottom line here, I believe, is to follow your good sense. Even among health practitioners of different modalities, most agree that processed and GM foods carry risks. A fish that’s been engineered certainly can’t be considered a natural whole food — the best kind of food for your health.

Whole foods are nutrient-rich. Wild sockeye salmon is high in essential nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids. It’s been reported that GE salmon have lower levels of omega-3s and B12, but higher levels of contamination like other farm-raised fish. ^[3]

Environmental activist have raised alarms about the possible danger to natural fish populations. Though AquaBounty Technologies claim GE salmon to be sterile, the FDA has forbidden the breeding of AquAdvantage salmon on US territory, saying that it can only be raised in hatchery tanks located either in Canada or Panama.

With a caveat like that, it sounds like there could be some doubt even at the FDA. Perhaps they’ve read the research ^[4] by Canadian scientists who discovered that GE Atlantic salmon can cross-breed with wild brown trout, and pass on the extra genes for quick growth to the offspring. Would this result in wild populations of large, less nutritious mutant salmon?

Who’s to say. There are too many things we just don’t know about the world’s first ever GE animal as a food source. But while we may not have control over its possible environmental impact, you can try to avoid letting it sneak onto your dinner table.

One thing you can do is follow sustainable fishing advice, and opt for wild Alaskan Salmon. Also consider shopping at stores that have pledged not to sell GE salmon, like Costco, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Target and Kroger.

By approving GE salmon, the FDA has taken our growing concerns over the known dangers of GMO crops — which include cancer, Autism and more — and upped the ante by approving for our consumption, an animal whose DNA has been altered. What’s next?

[1] http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/factsheet/diet/fs37.hormones.cfm
[2] http://www.seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-food/FDA-might-approve-frankenfish-by-2014-health-risks-of-GMO-salmon.php
[3] http://www.seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-food/FDA-might-approve-frankenfish-by-2014-health-risks-of-GMO-salmon.php
[4] http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1763/20131047.full.pdf+html

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They cause neck problems, headaches, eye strain and promote a sedentary lifestyle — all of which take a toll on your health and quality of life over the long-term. But there’s another technology-related health risk that may be even more serious…

Your cell phone, tablet and possibly other technological devices are emitting toxic fumes. In fact, your favorite technological device could be releasing deadly gases like carbon monoxide. That means the device you keep close-at-hand all daylong could be slowly poisoning you. But where are these toxic gases coming from?

Well, they’re coming from a small but highly important component of most electronic devices — the battery.

The low-down on lithium-ion batteries

Cell phones and many other electronic devices use lithium-ion batteries. In fact, these batteries are used in two billion consumer devices every year. The only problem is they could be emitting as many as 100 toxic gases at any given time.

Researchers from the Institute of NBC Defence and Tsinghua University in China heated 20,000 lithium ion batteries to the point of explosion. While doing this, they found that as these devices heated up, they began emitting gases like butane, ethyl cyanide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide. At best, these gases can severely irritate your eyes, skin and nasal passages. At worst, some of these gases can kill you.

“Such dangerous substances, in particular carbon monoxide, have the potential to cause serious harm within a short period of time if they leak inside a small, sealed environment, such as the interior of a car or an airplane compartment,” said Dr. Jie Sun, lead author of the study and professor at the Institute of NBC Defence.

Overheating is one way to release fumes from lithium ion batteries, but there are others. Researchers say it can also happen when the battery is damaged or you use a disreputable charger. And those are just the ways researchers have identified so far. There’s still a lot they don’t know about when, why and how these fumes are released.

You also have to worry about these batteries exploding. You may have heard a thing or two about this happening with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 earlier this year. This happens when lithium-ion batteries overheat too. In the case of the Galaxy Note 7, the overheating was caused by a malfunction within the battery itself. But even if your phone has a perfectly functioning lithium ion battery, your phone can overheat easier than you’d expect. It can even overheat from being in a hot car, sitting out in the sun, being covered in a case that doesn’t allow enough ventilation or even from using it too much.

Safety tips for cell phones and other devices

The fact is, you’re probably not going to give up your cell phone anytime soon. So what can you do to make your favorite electronic devices a little bit safer? Researchers say you can reduce the risk of toxic fume exposure and explosion by:

• Not charging your battery fully. A fully charged battery releases more toxic gases than a battery that’s 50 percent charged.
• Not exposing your cell phone (or other devices powered by lithium ion batteries) to extreme temperatures. That means no leaving your phone in the car… especially not in the summer.
• Only using the charger that came with your phone, tablet, laptop, etc. Or if you get a replacement charger, making sure it comes from a reputable company.
• Replacing your device if you damage the battery in any way. This includes water damage.
• Replacing the battery or buying a new phone if you notice your phone becomes hot-to-the-touch too quickly. This is a sign your battery is on its way to overheating.

Sources:

1. Sun, et al. “Toxicity, a serious concern of thermal runaway from commercial Li-ion battery.” Nano Energy, 2016; 27: 313.

2. “Why Are Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 Phones Exploding?” Forbes. http://www.forbes.com. Retrieved November 11, 2016.

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Research in England shows that sitting can set you up for kidney problems down the road.

“While this study confirms the growing body of literature that supports a link between lifestyle factors and the development of chronic kidney disease, it also adds to the evidence that simply sitting less may have important health benefits,” says researcher Thomas Yates, M.D., of the University of Leicester.

In the study published in the American Journal of Kidney Disease, researchers examined 5,650 people aged 40 to 75 to determine if there was a link between sitting around and kidney complications.

Interestingly, they found males and females were affected differently and that the types of exercises to help both sexes differed as well…

They found that women who spent only three hours a day sitting had a 30 percent lower risk of developing kidney complications than their peers who sat around for eight hours in a chair or on a couch.

Likewise, men cut their risk by 15 percent by decreasing sitting time from eight to three hours and also were able to help their kidney health substantially by exercising.

Yates said that this research indicates that exercises like brisk walking, jogging or running on the treadmill may be important for men’s kidney health — but women? Simply getting to their feet seems to provide significant kidney benefits for women.

Additionally, anyone looking to decrease the harms of sitting, in addition to standing, walking or running, could benefit from these 8 great tips, from Dr. Eliaz as well.

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Are you giving up meat now that experts are telling you it causes cancer? To be fair, the report by the World Health Organization (WHO) classified processed meat as a carcinogen and red meat as a probable carcinogen, so one may be worse than the other, but who’s keeping score? The “c” word is all it took to shake everybody up.

I’ve heard many people swear off meat in the last few weeks since that announcement. I’m not saying I disagree with them at all. But something else is really puzzling me about people’s reactions to the news…

And it surrounds glyphosate.

Glyphosate is the main active ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide, RoundUp^®. Maybe you’re not spraying the weeds around your house with it, but you can bet that, unless you are diligent about only eating organic produce (canned, frozen or fresh—of these foods especially), glyphosate is making its way into your body where it can do some pretty nasty things.

GMO seeds were designed to make crops in the field better able to survive massive amounts of herbicide. And the custom-made herbicide that goes hand in hand with GMO seeds is glyphosate. GMO foods are doused with it, and it’s been raising alarms all over the world. But in the U.S., bigwigs in the agriculture industry would prefer to keep that under wraps.

This isn’t new news. Environmental warriors have taken to their soapboxes and have been warning us all that the sky is falling for a few years now. But their stories and the research about cancer and other diseases associated with GMOs and glyphosate don’t seem to have sounded the alarm as loudly as the meat announcement.

Try these cold hard facts on for size, rounded up by members of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School’s Department of Nutrition:

1) 17 experts from 11 countries assessed the carcinogenicity of five pesticides including glyphosate at the International Agency for Research on Cancer. A summary of the final evaluations was published in The Lancet Oncology. ^[1]

• In this report, glyphosate was classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans” (Group 2A) for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, indicating there was limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in animals. Specifically, increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma was consistent across case-control studies of occupational exposure in the USA, Canada, and Sweden. However, no evidence of increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma was observed in the large Agricultural Health Study cohort (AHS).
• The evidence of other cancer sites (skin tumors, renal tubule carcinoma, haemangiosarcoma, and pancreatic islet-cell adenoma) was limited to animal studies.
• Evidence suggested the potential mechanisms for cancer were primarily through two pathways: First, the chemicals damaged DNA, which caused mutations or alterations in their gene codes. Second, glyphosate could induce oxidative stress. Oxidative stress happens when highly reactive chemicals overwhelm the capacity of cells to deactivate them.

2) An experimental study published in Environmental Health ^[2] showed that chronic exposure to an ultra-low dose of glyphosate resulted in liver and kidney damage in rats.

• In this study, researchers administered 2-year minute doses (0.1ppb) of Roundup via drinking water, which was representative of what could be found in contaminated tap water.
• First, the authors observed the signs of pathological and biochemical changes in the liver and kidneys of the exposed rats.
• Then, they analyzed the changes in gene expression of these organs. Compared to the control group, more than 4000 gene transcript clusters in the liver and kidneys showed alterations in the exposed rats.
• The findings demonstrated that chronic exposure to glyphosate at an environmental level resulted in liver and kidney damage in an animal toxicity model, which may potentially have health implications for both animal and human populations.

In addition to avoiding GMO foods, you might consider specific natural therapies that protect against abnormal cellular formation that you can read about here, at the end of this post by Dr. Isaac Eliaz.

Whether it’s meat, fruits or vegetables, it’s a sad shame you have to be overly cautious about the food you put into your body. But it’s the world we live in. If you want to live in it longer, watch what you eat.

[1] 1) Guyton KZ, Loomis D, Grosse Y, et al. (2015) Carcinogenicity of tetrachlorvinphos, parathion, malathion, diazinon, and glyphosate. The Lancet Oncology 16(5): 490-1.
[2] Mesnage R, Arno M, Costanzo M, et al. (2015) Transcriptome profile analysis reflects rat liver and kidney damage following chronic ultra-low dose Roundup exposure. Environmental Health 14(1): 70.

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If you want to see for yourself, you can be tested. Or you can go straight for healing your body…

The first step in preventing further glyphosate exposure is by consuming an organic diet and using a charcoal water filter. We know that eating organic foods significantly lowers your exposure to glyphosate and subsequently, urinary concentrations of glyphosate. This could also detox you from it over a period of weeks. These are things I’ve shared with you recently.

Now it’s time to discuss what your liver and intestinal health have to do with glyphosate, and more aggressive ways to eliminate glyphosate from your body.

Your liver, gut bacteria, and glyphosate

There are specific methods to help you more efficiently remove glyphosate. Remember that your liver is your main detoxification organ. After your liver has generated waste molecules, these become bile, which eventually enter your intestinal tract for elimination. This, along with your other organs of elimination (lungs, kidneys and skin), is how glyphosate gets out of your body tissue. This will be important to understand as I discuss ways to detoxify and eliminate glyphosate later in this article.

Your liver has three phases of detoxification.  Research is revealing links between glyphosate and impaired liver detoxification across all three phases.  Glyphosate apparently inhibits the important enzyme pathways of detoxification by your liver—more specifically, the cytochrome P450 enzymes, which are the ones responsible to break down and destroy organic substances—including xenobiotics. Xenobiotics are chemical compounds that come from our environment that can mimic and disrupt hormone function. Therefore, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical and environmental chemical toxins in your body. It is a gradual damage to your cellular systems throughout your body.

In addition to this impaired liver detoxification, glyphosate is known to disrupt the formation (by gut bacteria) of the key sulfur-containing amino acids methionine, cysteine, homocysteine, and taurine. Therefore, glyphosate’s inhibition of cytochrome P450 enzymes and suppression of amino acid biosynthesis by the healthy gut bacteria create a clear pathway to modern diseases. These include most of the diseases and conditions associated with a western diet, including Alzheimer’s disease, autism, cancer, depression, diabetes, gastrointestinal disorders, heart disease, infertility, obesity, and low thyroid function.

You’ll soon discover the important of your liver detoxification, healthy intestinal flora, and key nutrient supplements in addition to optimal nutrition from organic sources. Let’s now look at the best ways to detoxify glyphosate.

Charcoal water filter

We know that increasing water sources are being tested and found to have glyphosate residues. The Environmental Protection Agency recommends granular activated carbon (GAC) filtering as a way to prevent glyphosate ingestion from water.

Intestinal cleansing first

Before increasing liver detoxification using herbs you will want to “pre-detox” by cleansing your gastrointestinal system. This means a nutrient-rich diet low in refined, processed, “chemicalized” foods. Some would recommend a coffee enema, thought to “jump start” your liver bile production and bile elimination. I recommend simply getting your bowel movements to a liquid stool state for 2 days using over-the-counter Miralax® (polyethylene glycol) at 2 to 3 times the usual dose if needed to achieve loose but not watery stool.  Bentonite clay has been used, but is more for mercury, lead, arsenic, aluminum, and cadmium heavy metal detoxification.

Sauna

Glyphosate is not an all-lipid (fat)-soluble molecule. However, it is known to bio-accumulate somehow, by the fact that 3 out of 10 breastfeeding women who were tested recently, were found to have glyphosate in high levels. Sweating in a sauna is a sure-fire way to enhance glyphosate elimination.

Far infra-red saunas are the superior sauna method for detoxification. This form of light therapy penetrates your body up to three inches deep. The infrared radiant heat penetrates into your muscle, fat, and even internal organs without heating the surrounding air.  Somehow, this infrared radiant heat causes your body to perspire approximately 80-85% water and 15-20% waste including toxic chemicals, while traditional dry and steam saunas produce perspiration containing 95-97% water and only 3-5% toxins, Thus, infrared saunas are considered to be three to seven times more effective at detoxification than traditional saunas, and even more effective if combined with DMPS (chelating agent) for heavy metal detoxification.

Herbs and supplements to enhance liver detoxification

Here are supplements that can rev up your liver detoxification and enhance chemical waste elimination:

Vitamin B12 in the form of L-5-methyltetrahydrofolate, a.k.a. L-5-MTHF (not cyanocobalamin or folic acid, which is used in cheaper supplements and also to fortify processed foods) helps improve Phase II detoxification in your liver.

Green algae (Chlorella) is a single-cell green algae superfood shown in animal studies to improve liver function in patients with fatty liver disease. Chlorella supplementation improved measurable biomarkers of liver inflammation in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus infection. Authors propose xenobiotic detoxification as one important mechanism of action. Chlorella is considered a superfood that can enhance detoxification of the liver.

Milk Thistle, a.k.a. silymarin (Silybum marianum) is a weed that is well-known in scientific studies to protect the liver from various dangerous chemicals and aid in liver detoxification. You will find milk thistle in most liver detox herbs at your health food store and online.

Dandelion Leaf (Taraxacum officinale) has been used as a diuretic to enhance kidney function and increase urine elimination of water-soluble chemical waste. More recently, rat studies also find this herb commonly found in “detox tea” to have liver protective effects too.

Ginkgo Leaf (Ginkgo biloba): Gingko biloba has been studied in mice for glyphosate detoxification.

Indian Gooseberry (Phyllanthus emblica), a.k.a. “Emblica” or “Amla” is a fruit with potent antioxidant properties for many health benefits. It is found to significantly reduce the severity of liver damage by caustic chemicals and improve liver function. It is very safe, and dosing is suggested at 1 to 3 grams of dried fruit powder daily for a month or 300 mg tablets (50% amla extract) 3 times daily for a month, repeating as desired.

Pomegranate (Punica granatum) bark has detoxification effects according to several scientific studies.

Cilantro (a.k.a. Coriander) possesses liver protective activity from toxic chemicals in rat studies and is thought to do the same in humans.

Wolfberry (Lycium barbarum) protects your liver from injuries due to toxic chemicals and other insults.

Alginates (seaweed): your liver transports toxins into bile that is dumped into your small intestines. Alginate is a natural polysaccharide (healthy sugar) found in the cell walls of algae, known to bind up and carry away toxins in your intestinal tract. As they bind toxic chemicals they reduce inflammation to your gut lining and help build up healthy gut microbiome. They even enhance liver detoxification. Edible seaweed is algae you can eat in various forms as you will find in Asian cuisine. It is also rich in calcium, magnesium, and iodine. You can learn how to incorporate brown and green algae in your diet or consume alginate as a supplement for detoxification. Moreover, alginate is known to help you lose weight.

Detox formulas

You will find various supplements marketed as “detox formulas” with ingredients of various nutrient categories, such as:

• sulfur-containing amino acids
• folic acid (Vitamin B9) and Vitamin B6
• zinc, magnesium, selenium, and molybdenum
• amino acids Methylsulfonylmethane (MSM), N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC), Alpha Lipoic Acid, or L-Cysteine
• botanical extracts such as astragalus, Chinese rhizomes and other herbs with liver protective properties.

Remember to get re-tested for glyphosate after 2 months to see if the combination of detoxification methods you have undertaken has shown measurable results.

To clean living and feeling good,
Michael Cutler, M.D.

Sources:

1. http://detoxproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ehp0114-000260.pdf

2. http://detoxproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-organophosphorus-pesticides-in-children-organic.pdf

3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16702333

4. https://www.cornucopia.org/entropy-15-01416_Glyphosate.pdf

5. http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/roundup-the-nontoxic-chemical-that-may-be-destroying-our-health/

6. https://www.cornucopia.org/entropy-15-01416_Glyphosate.pdf

7. http://sawilsons.com/library/basic-coffee-enema-procedure-and-recipe/

8. http://www.momsacrossamerica.com/glyphosate_testing_results

9. http://www.naturalnews.com/042620_infrared_sauna_detoxification_environmental_toxins.html

10. http://www.sunlighten.com/pdfs/manuals/solo-test-results.pdf

11. Ebrahimi-Mameghani M, Sadeghi Z, Abbasalizad Farhangi M, Vaghef-Mehrabany E, Aliashrafi S. Glucose homeostasis, insulin resistance and inflammatory biomarkers in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: Beneficial effects of supplementation with microalgae Chlorella vulgaris: A double-blind placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial. Clin Nutr. 2016 Jul 19. Find online at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27475283

12. Azocar J, Diaz A. Efficacy and safety of Chlorella supplementation in adults with chronic hepatitis C virus infection. World J Gastroenterol. 2013 Feb 21;19(7):1085-90. Find online at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23467073

13. Singh A, Singh SP, Bamezai R. Inhibitory potential of Chlorella vulgaris (E-25) on mouse skin papillomagenesis and xenobiotic detoxication system. Anticancer Res. 1999 May-Jun;19(3A):1887-91. Find online at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10470132

14. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21466434

15. Hfaiedh M, Brahmi D, Zourgui L. Hepatoprotective effect of Taraxacum officinale leaf extract on sodium dichromate-induced liver injury in rats. Environ Toxicol. 2016 Mar;31(3):339-49. Find online at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25270677

16. http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jmf.2010.0202

17. https://www.drugs.com/npp/emblica.html

18. Tasduq SA, Mondhe DM, Gupta DK, Baleshwar M, Johri RK. Reversal of fibrogenic events in the liver by Emblica officinalis (fruit), an Indian natural drug. Biol Pharm Bull. 2005 Jul;28(7):1304-6.

19. https://www.banyanbotanicals.com/info/ayurvedic-living/living-ayurveda/herbs/amalaki-amla/

20. Zahin M, Ahmad I, Gupta RC, Aqil F. Punicalagin and ellagic acid demonstrate antimutagenic activity and inhibition of benzo[a]pyrene induced DNA adducts. Biomed Res Int. 2014;2014:467465. Find online at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24949451

21. Moustafa AH, Ali EM, Moselhey SS, Tousson E, El-Said KS. Effect of coriander on thioacetamide-induced hepatotoxicity in rats. Toxicol Ind Health. 2014 Aug;30(7):621-9. Find online at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23042592

22. Cheng J, Zhou ZW, Sheng HP, He LJ, Fan XW, He ZX, Sun T, Zhang X, Zhao RJ, Gu L, Cao C, Zhou SF. An evidence-based update on the pharmacological activities and possible molecular targets of Lycium barbarum polysaccharides. Drug Des Devel Ther. 2014 Dec 17;9:33-78.  Find online at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25552899

23. http://www.liversupport.com/did-you-know-seaweed-and-detoxification/

24. Hehemann, Jan-Hendrik; Correc, Gaëlle; Barbeyron, Tristan; Helbert, William; Czjzek, Mirjam; Michel, Gurvan (8 April 2010). Transfer of carbohydrate-active enzymes from marine bacteria to Japanese gut microbiota. Nature. 464 (7290): 908–912.

25. Wang R, Paul VJ, Luesch H. Seaweed extracts and unsaturated fatty acid constituents from the green alga Ulva lactuca as activators of the cytoprotective Nrf2-ARE pathway. Free Radic Biol Med. 2013 Apr;57:141-53. Found line at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=seaweed+detoxification+benefits

26. http://www.integrativenutrition.com/blog/2015/11/7-ways-to-eat-more-seaweed-and-why-you-should

27. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/96/1/5.full

28. https://www.econugenics.com/ecodetox

29. Zhou Y, Tong X, Ren S, Wang X, Chen J, Mu Y, Sun M, Chen G, Zhang H, Liu P. Synergistic anti-liver fibrosis actions of total astragalus saponins and glycyrrhizic acid via TGF-β1/Smads signaling pathway modulation. J Ethnopharmacol. 2016 Aug 22;190:83-90. Find online at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27282665

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Monsanto does much of its own research regarding the safety of its products, and it continuously denies evidence in other studies that find their products to be unsafe.

The Norwegian organization Genok Center for Biosafety recently challenged the research Monsanto submitted to Brazil regarding its RoundUp^®-Ready GM soybeans, claiming the data was manipulated to favor a specific outcome.

Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified glyphosate — the main ingredient in RoundUp^® — as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Monsanto, of course, denied these claims and continues to stand firmly by its assertion that glyphosate is safe for human exposure.

Though WHO updated its stance on the carcinogenic properties of glyphosate, farmers from across America are bringing forward claims that their cancer was caused by the use of RoundUp^®.

One of these lawsuits was filed in Los Angeles on September 22 by 58-year-old Enrique Rubio, a former farm worker in California, Texas, and Oregon. One of his main duties included spraying fields with RoundUp^® and other herbicides. Mr. Rubio maintained these tasks until he was diagnosed with bone cancer in 1995, the lawsuit states.

A separate lawsuit was filed in New York by 63-year-old Judy Fitzgerald, also on September 22. Fitzgerald made similar claims that her cancer was caused by exposure to RoundUp^® when she worked in a horticulture company during the 1990s. Judy Fitzgerald was diagnosed with leukemia in 2012.

Attorney Robin Greenwald, a representative in the Enrique Rubio case, says she believes additional lawsuits will emerge because RoundUp^® is the most widely-used herbicide and the WHO statements support ongoing concerns surrounding glyphosate.

Fitzgerald’s suit states that Roundup^® is a “defective” product and “unreasonably dangerous” to consumers, and that Monsanto knew or should have known glyphosate could cause cancer and other illnesses and injuries. Monsanto is accused of failing to properly warn users of the risks.

50-year-old Paul Francois won a lawsuit against Monsanto in 2012 for poisonous exposure to one of their chemical herbicides. The victim experienced neurological damage after inhaling Monsanto’s Lasso weed killer in 2004.

The lawsuit also claims the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) changed its initial statement that glyphosate is “possibly carcinogenic to humans” to “evidence of non-carcinogenicity in humans” after being pressured by Monsanto.

If the claims are true, the fact that an organization such as the EPA — tasked with protecting both environmental and human health — could totally change its standpoint to the opposite of its original position is nothing short of disturbing.

As reported by Reuters, Monsanto spokeswoman Charla Lord said the claims were without merit and that glyphosate is safe for humans when used as the label indicates. Monsanto also says several studies conducted by the WHO that concluded glyphosate is carcinogenic are wrong.

The definitive truth about the safety of these products can’t come any sooner. Many more lives are potentially at risk due to products like RoundUp^® — and because of Monsanto’s attempts to suppress scientific research.

Originally published by Jonathan Schoenfeld on theAntiMedia.org.

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Most experts say you should eat at least two servings a week. But even if you are committed to eating more fish for your health, there’s something fishy working against you. In fact, it’s downright fraudulent.

A recent report released by the ocean conservation advocacy group Oceana revealed that fish fraud is a global epidemic. One in five fish samples they tested was mislabeled. Which means, just because you’re buying healthy, low-mercury fish, doesn’t mean that’s what you’re getting.

Here are some alarming facts that will make you think twice the next time you buy or order fish:

• If you’re ordering red snapper or halibut, you’re probably getting tilefish — a fish that contains so much mercury, it’s on the “Do Not Eat” list for pregnant women.
• 43 percent of the “wild” salmon sold in Chicago restaurants is farm-raised salmon.
• 100 percent of sushi restaurants serve some type of mislabeled fish.
• In California, two sushi chefs were found serving whale meat as tuna.
• In the U.S., 28 percent of the fish sold is mislabeled, and close to 60 percent of that fish is actually a high-mercury species that could harm your health.

Food fraud is nothing new.  Food companies are constantly trying to pull the wool over your eyes. They want you to pay more money even if the food is poor quality, because that inflates their bottom line.

Sometimes their deception is subtle, like when they use vague terms like “natural” and “healthy” on the packages of foods that are anything but.

Other times they’re committing full-on food fraud by lying to you about what you’re buying — as is the case we’re seeing with fish.

And this is the worst kind of fraud because it’s robbing you of specific health benefits. Fortunately, you can avoid becoming a victim of fish fraud. Just these five tips to be a careful — and healthier — consumer:

1. Steer clear of the top three most mislabeled fish: red snapper, grouper and halibut. In restaurants the fish least likely to be mislabeled are mahi-mahi, flounder and tilapia
2. Go straight to the source. If you can buy your fish directly from a fisherman, either at the pier or at a farmer’s market, you’re chances are much better of getting what you paid for. Plus it’s a whole lot fresher and healthier too.
3. If you can’t live without your tuna, try canned tuna. It’s less likely to be mislabeled because it’s gone through fewer hands before it makes its way to the grocery store.
4. See if you’re fish is traceable. Grocery stores like Whole Foods and Wegmans and certain restaurants sell traceable fish. When you purchase your fish, it comes with an ID number that allows you trace its source. Trace Register and Trace and Trust are two companies that provide tracing services to businesses. Check out their websites for more information.
5. When in doubt, look for endorsements from the Marine Stewardship Council and the Global Aquaculture Alliance. They certify sustainable fisheries and keep a close eye on their operations.

Sources:

1. “Deceptive Dishes: Seafood Swaps Found Worldwide.” Oceana. http://usa.oceana.org. Retrieved September 8, 2016.

2. “Fish Fraud Is Absolutely Rampant: New Report.” Time. http://time.com. Retrieved September 8, 2016.

3. “Your Fridge Might Be Full of Fake Food.” Time. http://time.com. Retrieved September 8, 2016.

4. “Is Something Fishy in the Seafood Aisle?” ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com. Retrieved September 8, 2016.

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Because there’s a very good chance you’re getting more than a sip of cancer-causing chemicals with every swig you take…

Back in 2009, the nonprofit environmental research organization — The Environmental Working Group — released a report showing that U.S. tap water contains 316 contaminants, including industrial solvents, arsenic, weed killers, refrigerants and a chemical used to make rocket fuel known as perchlorate.

Mmmm. A nice tall glass of ice-cold rocket fuel and weed killer. Sounds refreshing, huh?

But that’s not even the worst of it. A study released jointly by Harvard’s School of Public Health and its School of Engineering just this month found that 6 million Americans are drinking tap water containing unsafe levels of two more toxic chemicals that have been linked to cancer.

The cancer-causing culprits are polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances. These chemicals have been used for over 60 years to create everyday items like food wrappers, clothing, furniture, mattresses, pots and pans.

The only problem is, they’ve also been linked to serious health problems like hormone disruption, high cholesterol, obesity and (of course) cancer.

The good news is that, because of their impact on human health, a lot of major manufacturers have stopped using these chemicals. But, unfortunately, they’ve stuck around in the environment. Now people are primarily exposed to them through drinking water. A lot of people.

Like I said earlier, at least 6 million Americans have tap water that contains unsafe levels of these chemicals. But that’s a conservative estimate considering there is no government data available on the levels of these chemicals in the tap water of 100 million more Americans.

Regardless of how widespread the contamination is, one thing is for sure… high levels of these chemicals in your water are not doing your cancer-risk any favors. They’ve been linked to an increased risk of kidney and testicular cancer in humans, and have been shown to lead to the development of testicular, pancreatic and liver cancers in animals. That’s why the EPA has set a limit for their safe consumption.

For two of these chemicals, perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), the EPA’s safety limit is 70 parts per trillion (ng/L). But Harvard researchers found that in some places, the levels of these chemicals in drinking water were significantly higher — like the 349 ng/L levels of PFOA in Warminster, Pennsylvania’s drinking water and the 1,800 ng/L levels of PFOS in Newark, Delaware’s drinking water.

If you call either of those places home, those levels are a tough pill to swallow (especially without clean drinking water). But even if you’re not from Pennsylvania or Delaware, your tap water’s not exactly in the clear…

These chemicals were found at unsafe levels in the drinking water of 33 states total. But 13 states were more likely to have them in their water than others: California, New Jersey, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Georgia, Minnesota, Arizona, Massachusetts and Illinois.

The highest levels of these chemicals were found in water supplies that were near industrial sites, military bases and wastewater treatment plants.

So if you’re from any of these high-risk states or if you live near one of the chemical-prone water supplies listed above, it’s high time to invest in a water filter. Activated carbon adsorption, ion exchange and high pressure membrane filtration systems are currently considered the most effective when it comes to filtering out polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances. They’re not cheap. But they’re a worthy investment if they keep you healthy and cancer-free.

Cleansing is also good practice to help rid your body of toxins that have accumulated over time. To get started anyone of these five internal cleanses. Of course for the water cleanse, steer clear of tap water.

Sources:

1. “Over 300 Pollutants in U.S. Tap Water.” The Environmental Working Group. http://www.ewg.org. Retrieved August 9, 2016.

2. “Unsafe levels of toxic chemicals found in drinking water for 6 million Americans.” EurekaAlert! http://www.eurekalert.org. Retrieved August 9, 2016.

3. “Basic Information about Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs).” The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. https://www.epa.gov. Retrieved August 9, 2016.

4. F. Rahman, S. Peldszus, W.B. Anderson. “Behaviour and fate of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in drinking water treatment: a review.” Water Research, 2014 Mar 1;50:318-40.

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We must reverse these trends. To do that, we must shift from a focus on healthcare to health.  Creating more health is the most effective way to reduce health care costs, maintain a robust workforce, and reduce the disease-related drag on our economy.

Choices kill or heal

I am a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Iowa and I see patients in a clinic that was created specifically for complex chronic diseases. When patients first come to me, they are often on more than 20 medications: pills for pain, mood, blood pressure, diabetes, and/or potent immune-suppression, costing many thousands of dollars a month.

We often blame our illness on our genes, and think there is nothing we can do besides taking more pills. However, Dr. Walter Willett reported in Science that 70% to 90% of your risk of developing high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, which are the top causes of death and disability in America, is due to just three things: diet quality, physical activity level, and smoking status.

Our diet and lifestyle choices have far more power in determining our health than our DNA does, but changing public policies around commodity and food supports to improve the quality of what we eat would be a slow and contentious process. U.S. Dietary Guidelines, published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, require approval from the Dietary Advisory Committee, which is stacked with individuals who have financial connections to the pharmaceutical and food industries. There is plenty of science documenting that diets that emphasize sugar and white flour over vegetables and berries damage health. But the sugar, wheat, and corn industries (with a huge financial stake in high fructose corn syrup) will resist any policy change.

But we do not have to wait for public policy to change to make a difference in our individual health or the health of our children. That is because every day, we choose what we eat and do. These choices speak to our genes, turning genes “on” and “off,” changing how your cells run the chemistry of life. Your grandmother was right: you are what you eat. Poor choices shift what should have been a healthy, disease-resistant body into an inflamed, sickly, disease-prone one.

Creating health

Disease begins with broken biochemistry, and for most Americans their broken biochemistry begins with a diet filled with sugar and white flour and relatively devoid of vegetables. If you eat the 150 pounds of sugar and 130 pounds of white flour that the average American eats each year, you activate the disease-promoting genes. And if you eat few vegetables, you silence the health-promoting genes and declining health is the result.

During World War II, Americans self-provisioned their food with “victory gardens” so our industries could focus on the war. Stuart Kallen, author of The War at Home, reports that up to one third of all American vegetables produced during that time came from such gardens. We need victory gardens once again, this time to defeat the epidemic of chronic disease. We should replace urban blight with urban farms as they have in Detroit, Atlanta, and Oakland—all of which are among the top ten worst “food deserts” in the United States, areas with poor access to fruits and vegetables.

If we returned to cooking meals at home, replacing sugar and white flour with vegetables, our health as individuals, families and as a nation would improve dramatically. That is because, in bodies fed this way, cells start conducting the chemistry of life more correctly, repairing the body and restoring and our ability to resist and even reverse disease.

This is not theoretical. I have seen it over and over in my clinics: when my patients drop the sugar and white flour and instead eat six to nine cups of vegetables a day, their blood pressures and blood sugars normalize, pain fades away, brain fog dissipates, and mood improves. I see people who look and feel ten years younger than when they first came to see me. Even autoimmune symptoms fade away.  Many are eventually able to stop taking medication after medication, including their immune-suppression drugs. They begin thriving again.

In short, when people adopt a diet and lifestyle designed specifically for optimal function of their cells, their health steadily improves – and their health care costs steadily decline.  I do support policy changes to improve access to healthcare. However the top causes of death and disability are driven by diet quality, smoking status and physical activity level.  We must create more health.

This is the real solution to the real healthcare crisis in this country: changing our individual (and collective) behavior so that our health (and our country’s health) steadily improves leading to less need for drugs, procedures, and time away from work.  I am teaching my medical students, resident physicians, patients, and anybody else who will listen. Washington may not be listening, but I hope you are.

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We eat for many reasons: We’re hungry, we desire a certain food or we want to cheer ourselves up. But we don’t often think about eating therapeutically. Despite truisms like “you are what you eat,” many people have a disconnect between what they eat and how that food might be affecting their bodies. The heart disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity epidemics all testify to that disconnect.

Scientists have also been slow to embrace the relationship between food and health, but that is changing. An article in Pharmacognosy Review highlights the new discipline of Functional Food Science: the study of foods that have a positive influence on our bodies.

In the article, researchers from the Department of Pharmacology at the Shri Ram Institute of Technology in India look at the many biological advantages of mushrooms. Specifically, they note how medicinal mushrooms, which have been used for thousands of years, can modulate the immune system, neutralize oxidizing molecules and even fight cancer.

The paper cites multiple examples of mushrooms’ medicinal properties. For example, Ganoderma lucidum offers an excellent source of potent antioxidants. Lentinus edodes has been shown to exhibit both antimicrobial and anti-cancer properties. Grifola frondosa has also shown antitumor activity. Biomedical research is confirming what many cultures have known for thousands of years: Medicinal mushrooms do the body good.

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A Health Resource

The paper concludes that medicinal mushrooms are a relatively untapped health resource. They’re easy to grow, contain many beneficial compounds and are easily metabolized.

For those seeking to incorporate more functional foods into their diet, specific formulas containing a variety of mushroom species offer an excellent way to supplement the diet. Combining medicinal mushrooms into a synergistic formula can work to maximize mushrooms’ natural immune-enhancing qualities and provide long-term immune system support.

In addition to the Ganoderma lucidum (Reishi), Lentinus edodes and Grifola frondosa varieties noted in the study, a number of other scientifically researched mushrooms have long been known for their medicinal qualities. Hericium erinaceus, also known as Lion’s Mane or Monkey’s Head, supports good digestion. Cordyceps sinensis (caterpillar mushroom) supports internal organs like the liver and kidneys. Tremella fuciformis supports healthy blood sugar. Ganoderma lucidum also protects against the damaging effects of radiation.

Medicinal mushrooms may top the list of powerful therapeutic foods, but they are certainly not alone. Other top-functioning superfoods include:

Cruciferous Vegetables

Cruciferous vegetables, such as bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, are excellent for your cells and for overall health. In addition to an abundance of diverse phytonutrients and antioxidants, these vegetables contain a compound called brassinin that helps support healthy cell growth. They also contain the precursors of the active compound DIM (diindolylmethane). Studies have shown that DIM supports healthy hormonal balance in part by promoting the excretion of harmful xenoestrogens, which are “bad estrogens” we encounter through toxins and pollution.

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Berries

A number of dark-colored berries, including acai, blackberry, blueberry, black raspberry and others, have been well-researched for their powerful health-promoting properties. They are high in antioxidants and other phytonutrient compounds shown to prevent abnormal cell growth, support immunity and reduce inflammation, among other important benefits.

Fermented Foods

Yogurt, sauerkraut and other fermented or cultured foods have been a traditional staple in many areas of the world for millennia. These foods offer an important source of beneficial bacteria (probiotics) that work to fight off harmful pathogens in the intestines and other areas of the body. Beneficial bacteria such as those in the lactobacillus family and others have been shown to promote immune health, fight pathogens, improve nutrient assimilation, prevent abnormal cellular growth and even benefit our mental and emotional health. Fermented foods offer some of the best sources of viable friendly flora.

There are obvious advantages to becoming more mindful of the food we eat, including seeking out organic, locally-grown produce. However, in today’s world, we need to take a more specific approach and emphasize those foods known to provide powerful support for optimal health. These are just a few great examples of what will assuredly become a long list of functional, healing foods. For more practical health and wellness information, visit www.dreliaz.org.

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In doing so, we’ve looked to many sources including Traditional Chinese Medicine, and try for ourselves every treatment, supplement or method that comes across as valid and potentially helpful.

After all the recent changes regarding use of medicinal marijuana, we decided to seriously research the facts about cannabis’ health claims.  The decision was an intense process for me. I grew up very skeptical of what I was raised to believe was a drug for “losers.” You can read more about how I decided to pursue this research in last week’s article.

There are two main ingredients found in the marijuana plant: Cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Medicinally speaking, CBD is preferred for medical use because it does not have the psychoactive components that THC does. In other words, CBD won’t get you high. So with that in mind, we set off…

Denver bound

We decided to call a number of cannabis dispensaries in Colorado with specific questions, like “What is the best ratio of CBD to THC for inflammation and pain?” With all this new information and hope firmly I place, we travelled to Denver.

We visited three different dispensaries, all part of the same franchise, but each having different products. That was odd but the huge posters of Snoop Dog endorsing his products were a fun touch.

At each location, we had to be buzzed into the building, which was manned by an armed guard. Then someone behind thick glass took your ID and copied it and gave you a number. Then you waited to be allowed entrance into the main shop. Once in the shop you could see all the products and speak with the salespeople, who all were self-proclaimed experts on the subject — even though all of their information was different from shop to shop.

They informed us that without a prescription, they could not sell us medical grade, high quality CBD products. They could only sell us THC heavy recreational products, which we didn’t want, or CBD products with THC in them. This, of course, makes no sense. But we followed suit and purchased some 10:1 (CBD:THC) sublingual drops, some patches, and some liquid that is akin to cough syrup in consistency and use.

The not so great results

Back at the hotel, we tried these products with less than stellar results. For my partner, her pain did not decrease as anticipated, and her fatigue increased. Our purpose was to see if she could reduce medication which makes her too tired each day, while also reducing pain to wean off the prescriptions. Well, there was insufficient pain relief and the products made her just as tired.

For me, I was just curious to see if these products could reduce a migraine as I had read; and luckily the bad weather and other factors contributed to me having an onset. But my reaction was rather negative all around.

After a few minutes I noticed a pain in my throat, like a polyp suddenly showed up. It was difficult to swallow. After a few hours I experienced severe joint pain. After a second dose before bed, I again experienced the throat sensation and on waking in the morning several of my finger joints were so red, swollen and painful, I could not move them. I did not take more cannabis that day and the symptoms disappeared. I tried one more dose the following morning, and they came back again.

I suppose I am allergic to cannabis, but nowhere in the literature or when speaking to the salespeople was there any mention of such side effects. All the popular rhetoric these days, written and spoken, seems to be about the amazing cure-all effects of cannabis, with little if any mention of side effects or a non-event.

Back at home

We found that you can order CBD products via the internet, while we await PA to have the infrastructure to implement the medicinal use of cannabis. My partner ordered more products and is hopeful and says she is indeed feeling a bit better. It seems the CBD makes her tired and helps her sleep via a mechanism that also helps relax her muscle spasms in her legs. So part of the improved sleep is from the tiredness effect and part because her pain decreases through reduction in spams, which keeps her from waking up as frequently.

We found a local supplement shop that now carries hemp-derived CBD products. They raved about it, espoused the same panacea rhetoric as the show and the other shop users do. They offered a sample teaspoon of their high CBD liquid. We tried it. No change for my partner. For me, within a few minutes I felt the swell of a migraine coming on. And within 5 minutes it was full blown and we had to leave the shop; my day ruined.

Reflections

Reflecting back, I suppose one has to smoke it and that perhaps it is the THC that is helping. Or maybe, like with some other natural plants and herbs, you cannot isolate its components and expect them to work without the overall synergistic effect of all the phytonutrients that are in its original form.

Studies confirm that taking a vitamin C supplement does not affect you in the same way as getting vitamin C from eating an orange, for example. Extracting a singular component, as is the practice of the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries, simply does not provide the same health effects as getting the component as part of the whole source from which is comes.

A lot more research needs to be done, for sure. Anecdotal information just is not enough. Colorado has certainly laid the foundation for what is possible in growing, manufacturing and selling cannabis in a legal way that is neither seedy nor off putting. But without real clinical trials, it’s all trial and error for each person to see how cannabis can help them… or not.

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Growing up I saw movies like “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke.” These shaped my views of who pot smokers were. My cousin smoked in the car with windows up so she wouldn’t get caught, and she drove me places. I never saw her — or people I would later meet in college who also smoked — moving forward in life. And the smoke gave me headaches, so why would someone do the stuff?

What a wasted life, I surmised. From my subjective viewpoint marijuana was connected with, well, losers. And I didn’t want to be a loser so I disassociated myself from those friends and that drug. For sure, I was a “square” in this regard.

The new rhetoric

Over the past decade, and especially the past few of years, the rhetoric around marijuana use has changed. The pot-smoking camp has turned and pushed toward cannabis as panacea. I can’t tell you have many Facebook posts find their way into my newsfeed about cannabis curing this and that, and how the government — “The Man” — is arresting innocent people who are only smoking to improve their lives.

And of course proponents of medical marijuana who claim cannabis cures everything from cancer to migraines, from multiple sclerosis to crone’s disease, will tell you that the NIH and FDA, in the pockets of Big Pharma, are keeping it illegal so they and they alone can extract its essence, patent it and sell it as a prescription drug.

Conspiracy theory or truth? A little of both, perhaps.

My changing view

Those of you who read my articles here may know that I have suffered chronic pain and migraine headaches most of my life. And my partner got MS after receiving a flu shot about a decade ago. We both focus our life choices on how to improve our wellness and quality of life. We look to many areas and try for ourselves every treatment, supplement, method that comes across as valid and potentially helpful. Well, we started researching the facts about cannabis claims.

There are tons of articles out there on cannabis for health and wellness. Unfortunately, because it is still classified as a schedule 1 drug, there are very few clinical trials available. We came across a show on Viceland network, called “Weediquette.”

On the show, host Krishna Andavolu explores all the aspects of cannabis — from growing it, to selling, using, and legalities and introduces viewers to “the people whose lives hang in the balance of our new pot paradigm.”

Some of the episodes focus on “stoned kids” (kids who are given cannabis by their parents to help their diseases), and “the war on weed” (exploring the laws in different states and countries), and “marijuana migrants” (entrepreneurs who moved to legal locations to grow, manufacture and sell pot legally).

The many perspectives on this show started changing my mind about cannabis and its potential wellness uses. Several doctors showed before-and-after scans of brains and intestines of patients who were debilitated and now, after cannabis use, are disease free and clear.

I then read an article on marijuana and migraine headache that quoted a study from the journal Pharmacotherapy:

“It turns out some patients diagnosed with migraine headaches saw a significant drop in their frequency when treated with medical marijuana. On average, the number of migraines dropped from 10.4 to 4.6 headaches per month—a number considered statistically and clinically significant for migraine sufferers… Scientists say marijuana has anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties. It also triggers the release of serotonin and dopamine—neurotransmitters that cause feelings of happiness. These characteristics make it an ideal way to combat migraine headaches.”

I became intrigued at the potential.

Becoming legal, somewhat

A bit more research showed that state by state marijuana is becoming increasingly more legal. In some places only the medicinal CBD components are legal, but only if you are a legal resident of the given state and have a prescription from your doctor. In other places the recreational THC aspects are legal. A good website giving a broad overview about laws, legality and a video of President Obama discussing cannabis, is found here.

Currently, four states have legalized the recreational use of marijuana: Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and the District of Columbia. However, 24 states have made legal the medicinal use of cannabis: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

But I live in Pennsylvania. Just this past April 2016 PA passed legislation legalizing medical marijuana. The catch, however, is that there is no infrastructure in place to implement this.

According to the MDs I’ve talked to, only MDs can write prescriptions, and only after they complete a medical marijuana course telling them what it all is and how to do it. This makes sense. But then, there needs to be places where people can grow and manufacture the tinctures, sprays, pain patches, edibles and pills. Estimates indicate Pennsylvania is about 18 months away from having all this in place.

So for my partner and me to put all the hype about marijuana’s health-boosting properties to the test, we’d have to take a road trip… and that’s just what we did.

Did the claims hold up? Tune in next week to find out…

Read: The cannabis cure part II: A doctor’s experience

The post The cannabis cure: A doctor’s pursuit appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Unless you give up your blind trust in hospitals and doctors. That’s because Johns Hopkins’ researchers have revealed that the third leading cause of death in your United States of American is medical errors.

That puts it just behind heart disease and cancer, which each took approximately 600,000 lives in 2014, and in front of respiratory disease, which caused about 150,000 deaths.

Plain and simple: Mistakes by those in the medical industry are more likely to kill you than accidents, stroke, diabetes or pneumonia according to the CDC’s current list. ¹ But you won’t see ‘Death by Doctor/Hospital Mistake’ on the list — because the cover-up within the medical industry itself is a huge part of the problem.

Nearly two decades ago a report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found that deadly medical mistakes were rampant in health care.  At that time the IOM estimated that 44,000 to 98,000 people were dying in U.S. hospitals annually as a result of those mistakes. ² Turns out those numbers are just a drop in the bucket…

Based on this most recent assessment appearing in the British Medical Journal — which included prior research (because, again, this is not ‘new’ news) — the Johns Hopkins study estimates that more than 250,000 Americans die each year from medical errors.

The cover-up

The problem begins with how deaths are classified. The CDC’s published mortality statistics, only account for the “underlying cause of death.” That’s defined as the condition for which a person sought medical treatment.  As a result, even if a doctor does list medical errors on a death certificate, they aren’t included in the published totals.

That means you — or someone you care about — could be admitted for a routine appendectomy and pass away from ‘aspiration pneumonia.’ The cascade of mistakes that led to your untimely demise — made by surgeons or attending staff — may exist only as a very small side note who knows where.

So, while the potential for human error may never be fully eradicated, if the medical industry continues to bury their collective heads in the sand by burying the truth — steps can never be taken to cut down on the number of lives needlessly lost year after year.

All the while, millions of people continue to undergo even the most elective of procedures and surgeries without the slightest clue as to how close they come to never leaving the hospital alive.

Staying alive

Unless something changes (don’t hold your breath), you should be aware of how you can avoid accidental death at the hands of a doctor, nurse, medical technician and maybe even faulty equipment or dangerous drug.

#1 Avoid unnecessary medications, procedures and hospitalizations. Americans are notorious for running to the doctor at the first sign of a cold. Even antibiotic overuse can lead to death. Numerous unnecessary medications and procedures are recommended to patients by overzealous doctors. Do your homework and weigh your options. A second opinion? How about a third or fourth? And by all means talk to a health practitioner outside of conventional medicine if you want an unbiased opinion.

#2 Be a patient advocate — and have your own. If you or someone you care about is hospitalized or undergoing even a ‘one day’ procedure, have an advocate. An advocate’s job to understand the care you are being provided, to be your ‘voice’ and ensure staff is paying adequate attention to you and the situation, and to ask questions or demand immediate medical attention when necessary.

Family members, like a spouse, parent, brother or sister — even a close friend — make the best advocates. Don’t be admitted without one.

#3 Wake up to the truth about the medical establishment. Doctors and hospitals have been made out to be unquestionable authority figures. These people in their white coats are human beings, as are the nurses and technicians. But they do wield enough power to have kept these mistakes under wraps for a long, long time. And remember, there is a lot of money to be made in medicine.

#4 This may be last, but it’s definitely not least… Recognize your ability to actively participate in your own health. Follow your instincts and make choices that promote your well-being. That can be as simple as listening to your body, being conscious of the power of nutrition in maintaining your health, and being open to natural alternatives and remedies.

Source: http://hub.jhu.edu/2016/05/03/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death
[1] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
[2] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/418841

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There is a concerted effort by the medical establishment to convince you that anything other than their side effect-ridden, chemical-laden prescriptions and often unnecessary medical procedures are dangerous. And what’s especially heinous about their latest attempts is that they are vilifying something as natural as breastfeeding to convince you of this.

In their efforts to wholly discredit anything natural or alternative, they’re desperately trying to poison your perception of the pure and simple act of a mother nourishing her own child in the way God and nature intended. If that’s not a huge warning sign pointing to the drastic measures conventional medicine will take to discredit alternative and natural health options — I don’t know what is.

Apparently a couple of doctoral researchers out of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania felt so strongly that positive reinforcement for breastfeeding could derail parents’ good sense in making healthcare choices for their children — and likely themselves — that they issued a warning that was printed in Pediatrics…

In the April issue, Jessica Martucci, PhD, and Anne Barnhill, PhD, Medical Ethics and Health Policy researchers at Penn Medicine, warn that “[t]his messaging plays into a powerful perspective that ‘natural’ approaches to health are better.”

Implying that natural is better really has these two riled up. They are so afraid (very afraid I’d say to make such a ridiculous statement) that you may realize natural is better, that they are recommending the word “natural” not be used to promote breastfeeding — or anything else for that matter…

A natural fallacy

They especially took aim at some public health campaigns, such as the US Department of Health and Human Services’ “It’s only natural” breastfeeding promotion, the American Academy of Pediatrics labeling of breast milk as “the best and most natural food for infants,” and a New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene poster describing breastfeeding as “Mom-made” as compared with formula feeding, labeled with a red circle that reads “Factory-made.”

Both Martucci and Barnhill write that while public health authorities and medical experts widely agree that breastfeeding is beneficial for both infants and mothers, there has been little discussion about the potentially harmful consequences of promoting breastfeeding as “natural.” They both concluded that, “We should think twice before referencing the ‘natural’ in breastfeeding promotion, even if it motivates women to breastfeed.”

Talk about shameful. They’d rather moms get a watered down message about the positive effects of breastfeeding, and risk fewer children receiving the resulting lifelong, immune-boosting “natural” health benefits.

But their true underlying goal is obvious. It’s to keep you from veering from the money and disease-making machine called conventional medicine. And breastfeeding isn’t all they want to steer you away from…

The authors cite other examples of what they call the “natural is automatically better” fallacy, including the rejection of genetically modified foods, preferring organic over conventionally grown foods, as well as longstanding concerns over water fluoridation (even though Harvard acknowledges fluoride dangers).

Let me ask you… what harm will eating an organic apple do you? None. What about a pesticide-laden apple? Lots — but even if the jury is still out on just how much damage those pesticides can do you — there is still the potential for harm. And Martucci and Barnhill would have you choose the potential for harm over natural any day. Don’t be fooled by their message.

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Since news of widespread lead contamination in Flint broke, there’s been a renewed nationwide focus on the safety of the nation’s 53,000 community water systems.

And for all the publicity it is getting, people taking a closer look at water safety are quickly realizing that the Flint debacle isn’t an isolated case. Nor is it the first time unacceptable lead levels have been observed in U.S. drinking supplies.

• Last summer, residents in Sebring, Ohio, learned that they likely unwittingly drank lead contaminated tap water for no fewer than five months.
• For three years after Washington D.C. changed its water treatment practices in 2001, many of the city’s residents were exposed to lead levels 20 times higher than federally approved maximums.
• It took officials in Jackson, Mississippi, six months to inform residents about unacceptable lead levels in their water last July.

Lead contamination is a story we hear over and over. But once the headlines quiet down, most folks go back to giving very little thought about the quality of the water they sip at their kitchen sinks.

And that’s not surprising, considering that the U.S. is said to have one of the safest water supplies in the entire world.

But “safe” is a relative term in an age where everything seems to be getting contaminated by the growing number of chemicals people and industries use on a daily basis.

Back in 2009, the Environmental Working Group released the results of a three-year study of the nation’s water systems, finding that more than 200 chemicals not regulated by the EPA exist in the tap water of almost every U.S. state.

That means there are chemicals in the water that the regulators responsible for evaluating water safety aren’t even interested in tallying. Those include pesticides, commercial chemicals, disinfection byproducts and even pharmaceutical contaminants.

In 2013, an Associated Press investigation dug deeper into the pharmaceutical contamination, revealing: “A vast array of pharmaceuticals including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans…”

The AP reported: “In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

“Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public ‘doesn’t know how to interpret the information’ and might be unduly alarmed.”

That’s right… regulators don’t feel the need to alert the public because this contamination is totally acceptable by their clean water standards and, thereby, legal.

There is also the issue of fluoride, a poison that most municipal water providers deliberately pump into water supplies.

In other words, you are the only one who can ensure that the water you put into your body is completely safe to drink.

In recent years, there’s been a big push by environmental fanatics to demonize bottled water producers as unnecessary polluters who make a killing by charging premium prices for water that is virtually free from the tap.

But for all their anti-pollution arguments, they’re mostly wrong.

If you’re looking for truly pure bottled water, steer clear of brands like PepsiCo’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani— both of those actually are made of bottled tap water. Granted, a secondary filtration process does likely help filter out some of the contaminants missed by municipal water treatment facilities.

Instead, opt for bottled water brands that state their source as an artesian well.

According to geology.com: “Artesian water is water produced from an artesian well. To be an artesian well the water in the aquifer (a subsurface rock unit that holds and transmits water) must be under enough pressure to force it up the well to a level that is higher than the top of the aquifer.”

Because the source of this water originates between two layers of rock deep in the earth, it is far less likely to be compromised by bacteria and other environmental contaminants. This water also contains natural minerals, including calcium, bicarbonate and silica which help keep body chemistry in balance.

Some widely-available options include: Voss, Fiji, Indigo H2O, Nakd, 1907 New Zealand, Eternal, Jana and Lauquen Artes.

Many of these brands, including Jana and 1907 New Zealand, have the added benefit of alkalinity levels comparable to the body’s natural pH levels. More on why that’s important here.

You’ll also notice that each of these options comes packaged in either a glass or BPH-free plastic container to avoid chemical contamination after bottling.

Another option for protecting your health by making sure you only drink the cleanest water possible is by purchasing a quality in-home water filtration system. There are many quality water-filtration systems available that use activated carbon to remove chemicals and organic compounds. Other systems use reverse osmosis to filter water by applying pressurized force to push it through a selective membrane, effectively removing a large amount of contaminants. When drinking distilled or reverse osmosis water, however, include a few drops of essential mineral concentrates to each gallon to replace the essential minerals lost during the purification process.

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