Rather Be Healthy

By Dr. Mercola

I recently learned of Dr. Eric Goodman’s work through his TED presentation and was excited about the simplicity and elegance of his approach to exercise — an innovative method called Foundation Training, which he developed while in school to become a chiropractor to treat his own chronic low back pain.

He now teaches classes and seminars on this method — co-created with Peter Park, a world-class professional athlete trainer. Foundation Training exercises are designed to help your body be the strongest it can be and move the way nature intended. Many professional and Olympic athletes use and are big fans of his work.

Exercise has been one of my passions for almost 45 years now. It’s one of the reasons why I wanted to go to medical school in the first place, as I intended to use exercise as a therapeutic modality to improve people’s health. I eventually shifted more toward the nutritional component, because I realized nutrition is really crucial. But you really cannot be optimally healthy without exercise.

What is Foundation Training?

Foundation Training was birthed through necessity, as Dr. Goodman began suffering repetitive back problems while still in his mid-20’s.

“I had a blown out L4-L5 and L5-S1, and was told at 25 years old, ‘Eric, you need to get surgery’… It just wasn’t an option,” he says. “I was in chiropractic school. I really understood the body well. I decided that this is going to become an obsession. I’m going to figure this out. I can’t become a doctor, have patients come to me that are asking for my advice on an injury that I have that I can’t fix. It’s not okay.

So, over the course of about four years, I did that. I became very obsessed. I used my anatomy knowledge. I used my understanding of exercise. I was a personal trainer actually long before a chiropractor. Foundation Training is what I came up with. It’s what I do for myself every single day, and it’s what I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate to teach to thousands of people at this point.”

Foundation Training is all about your core. As Dr. Goodman explains, your core is anything that connects to your pelvis, whether above or below it, and this includes your hamstrings, glutes, and adductor muscles. Foundation Training teaches all those muscles to work together through integrated chains of movement, which is how you’re structurally designed to move, as opposed to compartmentalized movements like crunches.

Key Basic Exercise: “The Founder”

“My primary exercise – the Founder – the one that everybody has to learn… is an integrated movement. We take your entire posterior chain of muscles and we pull them together,” Dr. Goodman explains.

“Every exercise in Foundation Training adds as many muscles into a given movement as possible, dispersing more force throughout your body, taking friction away from your joints and putting that tension into your muscles instead. It’s basically the answer to a very plaguing question for people, which is, ‘I sit all day long. I drive my car all day long. I look at my phone all day long. I watch TV.’ Your shoulders are just continuously going further [forward]. Your head is falling further forward. Your hip flexors and your abdomen are shortening.

Every exercise that I teach lengthens the front of your body, the over-tightened, over-shortened muscles in your body; strengthens and lengthens the back of your body; puts it to its effective lengths; stands you tall; and allows your body to move as a human animal is designed to move – very powerfully, very gracefully, and with a lot of flexibility.”

“The Founder” helps reinforce proper movement while strengthening the entire back of your body by dispersing your weight through the posterior chains. As a result, your weight shifts back toward your heels and “untucks” your pelvis. By doing so, you lengthen your hip flexors, gaining length at the front of your body.

“In doing that, you teach your hips to hinge properly with a nice, long and strong front; you’re keeping the sternum high, keeping the chest high,” he says. “The place to start is learning how to hinge effectively. Learning how your hamstrings, lower back, and glutes are designed to stretch together. Once that part is in place, you can then advance to all the exercises that build upon that foundation, that build upon that first exercise.”

The Founder is an excellent exercise that can help reverse the effects of frequent and prolonged sitting. While sitting down is not the only thing that can cause trouble (adopting any particular posture for long periods of time can slow down your circulatory system), sitting is one of the most pervasive postures in modern civilizations.

Relearning Proper Posture is Essential for Virtually Everyone

According to Dr. Goodman, the more frequently you do The Founder exercise, the easier it will be for you to get into the progressive positions that follow.

“The only reason that I’ve focused so heavily on the posterior chain is our modern lifestyles,” Dr. Goodman says. “It’s not that these are more important muscles. It’s that our modern lifestyles have pulled us out of [proper alignment and movement]. Our glutes, hamstrings, and lower back, they don’t work as they’re designed to anymore. They’re a team… [but] we’ve separated them, and… they’re not able to function properly until they connect again. So we teach basic, postural, support, strength – all of these things beginning at the posterior chain, beginning with those integrative muscles.”

The following exercise: “Adductor Assisted Back Extension,” is another exercise that will teach you how to properly extend your spine.

Breathing Also Affects Your Posture

Breathing is another important tool that is unfortunately ignored by most people. In the interview, Dr. Goodman demonstrates structural breathing, which will help improve your posture, especially while seated. He also demonstrates how to do this in his TED talk below. Here’s a summary:
•Sitting down, place your thumbs at the base of your rib cage, pinkies at your waist. Think of the space between your fingers as a measuring stick
•Pull your chin back and take three deep breaths
•As you breathe in, the distance between your thumbs and pinkies should increase
•As you breathe out, tighten your abdominal muscles to prevent your core from collapsing back down

When done properly, your breath will help lengthen your hip flexors, and then support your core using your transverse abdominal muscles. This will strengthen your back and keep your chest high and open. Do this exercise for 30 seconds or so, then go back to your normal seated position. With time, those muscles will get stronger, and your seated posture will gradually improve.

To Improve Your Core, Strengthen these Muscles

According to Dr. Goodman, “When it comes to your core, ‘It’s all in the hips, baby.’”

Every muscle that directly connects to your pelvis should be considered a piece of your core. Your athletic ability, flexibility, balance and strength are all dependent on powerful hips. To accomplish that, Dr. Goodman recommends strengthening the following muscles using the Foundation Training Program:
1. Glutes: These are the powerhouses of your body. They do not work alone.
2. Adductors (Inner thigh muscles) are your built in traction system. When the adductor group of muscles remains strong you have increased in hip stability, stronger arches in the feet, and a pelvic brace using a couple of the strongest muscles in your body.
3. Your deep lower back muscles facilitate the proper integration of the Posterior Chain of Muscles. Simply put, a weak lower back changes every aspect of your movement patterns for the worse.
4. Your abdomen and hip flexors: Think of the front of your body as a window that shows what is happening at the spine and pelvis. If the front is always too tight, the back is not working properly.
5. The Transverse Abdominal muscle: A built in bracing system. When the transverse abdominus is tightened against the other muscles among this core group, the entire system becomes stronger

More Information

The basic Foundation Training program takes about 20 minutes, and is ideally done daily.

“If you have an existing program, just put it aside for two weeks and see what happens when you do this one for 20 minutes. Then go into the intermediate, which is about 35 minutes… You’re still doing the basic five exercises, and then we add two more into it.”

You can purchase the Foundation Training DVD from my online store. FoundationTraining.com also offers free videos you can peruse, and the companion book available called: Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence.

“It’s a really good book, as far as understanding why you have back pain, and applying 10 exercises to fix it, just going through that process,” Dr. Goodman says. “Even some of the feedback we’ve gotten from a lot of people who even just reading the aspect of why they have back pain stops them from doing the things that cause it, which in amount itself is enough to stop back pain in many, many people.”

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Cleansing is important. It is so important that there are several organs that are responsible for keeping the body cleansed. Chief among these organs is the liver. Responsible for the regulation of our metabolism and purifying our blood, the liver plays a key role in our overall health. It is for this reason that we must strive to keep our livers in proper working order. Some of the ways to accomplish this is through drinking plenty of fresh, clean water, abstaining or moderating alcohol consumption, abstain from consuming products that slow liver function (e.g. artificial sweeteners) and cleansing the liver at least twice a year.

How to cleanse

Master herbalist and acupuncturist Dr. Christopher Hobbs provides additional insight into the liver cleansing process. Dr. Hobbs states that flushing the liver allows for the elimination of waste while stimulating the production of bile. Cleansing also has a cooling effect on the liver which increases high functioning and necessary repairs. Follow these instructions from Dr. Hobbs for a homemade cleanse:

Ingredients

• Lemons or limes
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Olive oil

Directions

Squeeze one cup of fresh citrus juice (lemon and/or lime; grapefruit juice can be blended to help with taste). Mix the juice of one or two cloves of garlic and raw ginger juice into the citrus juice. Add one tablespoon of high quality, organic olive oil. A small amount of spring water can be added but the more sour the mix, the more helpful it will be for your liver. Do this for 10 days followed by three days off and then another 10 days for two cycles (will total 20 days of cleansing total). This cleanse should be completed twice a year once in the spring and once in the fall.

Consuming three to eight ounces of the juice for each serving should prove very beneficial. In addition, drink a cup of a cleansing tea such as Polari tea or any other high quality organic liver detoxification tea one hour after consuming the juice. No food should be consumed in the hour between consuming the juice and drinking the tea.

Whether you make your own liver detoxifying juices or follow a different preparation, make sure it is of the highest quality possible to assist in proper assimilation of the nutrients so you can achieve the desired results. If you have any questions about quality preparations or if you are currently experiencing chronic liver dysfunction please consult with a trusted professional healthcare provider with knowledge of holistic practices and be sure to ask all the questions you desire.

Sources for this article include:

Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide / Edition 2 by Larry Trivieri, John W. Anderson p. 175-176

http://www.liversupport.com

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/96849.php

About the author:
Derrell is a Holistic Health Practitioner and Nutritional Consultant. His mission is to assist as many people as possible during a time when great health is stolen instead of fostered. Follow Derrell at thoughtfulhealth.blogspot.com or email him at [email protected]. If you are interested in toxin free nutritional and personal care products please visit thoughtfulhealth.mysiselpro.com.

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Taking vitamin D while still young may be good for the body in the long run. Results from a study conducted by the University of Zurich have confirmed that sufficient amounts of vitamin D taken consistently are necessary to maintain bone health.

Many people believe that maintaining healthy eating habits is enough, but only few foods naturally contain significant levels of vitamin D. According to Dr. Heike A. Bischoff-Ferrari, a faculty of UZH, in order to get adequate levels of vitamin D through diet alone, two servings of fatty fish like salmon or mackerel would have to be consumed every day. It is thus necessary to increase vitamin D levels in the body through sufficient sun exposure and supplementation in order to use the sunshine vitamin’s full potential for maintaining proper body functioning.

This misconception about maintaining D levels through diet does have a degree of ground since vitamin D is not a stand alone vitamin. To perform many functions, vitamin D works in cooperation with other vitamins like magnesium, which can be found in leafy green vegetables such as spinach. This unique characteristic of vitamin D has contributed to the management of many chronic illnesses.

The many faces of vitamin D
Decades ago, health care professionals thought vitamin D was only good for keeping healthy bones and teeth. Recent advances in science, however, have put this vitamin in the spotlight by revealing its multifaceted role in the proper functioning of the human body and its ability to lower the risk of illnesses not formerly associated with it.

Despite the recent revelations about the potential of vitamin D, it appears that not everyone appreciates this discovery. The current lifestyle of working indoors has contributed to the growing number of vitamin D deficiency cases worldwide. This is compounded by the fact that not everyone is aware that he or she may be vitamin D deficient.

Am I vitamin D deficient?
The best way to discover vitamin D deficiency is to take a blood test that will measure the level of the vitamin in your blood. You can either ask your doctor to administer the test or buy a home test kit do the test yourself. However, you are certainly vitamin D deficient if you have any of the following ailments, and you need to consult with your doctor regarding your preventive, as well as curative, options as soon as possible.

1.) The flu – In a study published in the Cambridge Journals, it was discovered that vitamin D deficiency predisposes children to respiratory diseases. An intervention study conducted showed that vitamin D reduces the incidence of respiratory infections in children.

2.) Muscle weakness – According to Michael F. Holick, a leading vitamin D expert, muscle weakness is usually caused by vitamin D deficiency because for skeletal muscles to function properly, their vitamin D receptors must be sustained by vitamin D.

3.) Psoriasis – In a study published by the UK PubMed central, it was discovered that synthetic vitamin D analogues were found useful in the treatment of psoriasis.

4.) Chronic kidney disease – According to Holick, patients with advanced chronic kidney diseases (especially those requiring dialysis) are unable to make the active form of vitamin D. These individuals need to take 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 or one of its calcemic analogues to support calcium metabolism, decrease the risk of renal bone disease and regulate parathyroid hormone levels.

5.) Diabetes – A study conducted in Finland was featured in Lancet.com in which 10,366 children were given 2000 international units (IU)/day of vitamin D3 per day during their first day of life. The children were monitored for 31 years and in all of them, the risk of type 1 diabetes was reduced by 80 percent.

6.) Asthma – Vitamin D may reduce the severity of asthma attacks. Research conducted in Japan revealed that asthma attacks in school children were significantly lowered in those subjects taking a daily vitamin D supplement of 1200 IU a day.

7.) Periodontal disease – Those suffering from this chronic gum disease that causes swelling and bleeding gums should consider raising their vitamin D levels to produce defensins and cathelicidin, compounds that contain microbial properties and lower the number of bacteria in the mouth.

8.) Cardiovascular disease – Congestive heart failure is associated with vitamin D deficiency. Research conducted at Harvard University among nurses found that women with low vitamin D levels (17 ng/m [42 nmol/L]) had a 67 percent increased risk of developing hypertension.

9.) Schizophrenia and Depression – These disorders have been linked to vitamin D deficiency. In a study, it was discovered that maintaining sufficient vitamin D among pregnant women and during childhood was necessary to satisfy the vitamin D receptor in the brain integral for brain development and mental function maintenance in later life.

10.) Cancer – Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington DC discovered a connection between high vitamin D intake and reduced risk of breast cancer. These findings, presented at the American Association for Cancer Research, revealed that increased doses of the sunshine vitamin were linked to a 75 percent reduction in overall cancer growth and 50 percent reduction in tumor cases among those already having the disease. Of interest was the capacity of vitamin supplementation to help control the development and growth of breast cancer specially estrogen-sensitive breast cancer.

Prevention is proactive
These various health conditions associated with vitamin D deficiency need not be something to fear. A proactive approach to prevention can assist in the avoidance of the many chronic diseases associated with vitamin D deficiency. For one, thousands of dollars can be saved, not to mention the peace of mind, simply at the cost of taking a walk under the sun. Save the umbrellas for the rainy days.

Sources for this article:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510299,00.html
http://journals.cambridge.org
http://www.vitamindcouncil.com
http://www.naturalnews.com/032222_breast_cancer_vitamin_D.html

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

The economy is rough and budgets are tight, but there are things you can do right now to save money while still living an organic, non-GMO lifestyle.

Here are three of the biggest ones that can save you money not only this year, but year after year:

#1) Invest in nutrition to reduce health care costs
It’s hard for us to notice expenses that are prevented through nutrition and healthy supplements. After all, if you’re taking vitamin D that prevents cancer, you never see the cancer so you don’t really notice is was prevented.

And yet, if you really think about it, nutrition buys you health and disease prevention for pennies on the dollar compared to the cost of prescription drugs, doctor visits and expensive health insurance.

Astoundingly powerful nutrients like zinc, magnesium and vitamin D cost mere pennies a day, yet they deliver a small fortune in health care value in terms of the savings in long-term health care costs. Much the same is true with medicinal herbs, physical fitness and even holistic therapies like chiropractic and acupuncture.

It’s amazing to me that many people are ready and willing to spend $1,000 or more each month on health insurance, but they scoff at spending $200 a month on organic foods, nutritional supplements or a gym membership.

Trust me: I’ve done the math on this, and the returns are huge on investing in quality nutrition, superfoods, physical fitness and preventive holistic treatments (including therapeutic massage).

#2) Shop for organic, non-GMO foods at Green PolkaDot Box
In business for over a year now, Green PolkaDot Box now ships frozen organic, non-GMO foods (as well as non-frozen foods and even fresh produce) all over the USA. Just as importantly, their prices are way lower than Whole Foods, where everything seems to be disturbingly expensive.

Over the last year, GPDB has quietly become a powerhouse online discount retailer of organic, non-GMO foods, supplements, personal care, pet care, home care and even baby foods. They’ve got fast shipping, outstanding customer service, and an ever-increasing selection of truly outstanding brands including Nutiva, Amy’s, Late July and hundreds of others. I call GPDB “the Amazon.com of organic, non-GMO products.”

Click here to check them out now, and remember that shipping is FREE on orders of $75 or more (in the 48 states only). There is a small surcharge for shipping frozen items, but it’s still amazing because the boxes arrive with the foods still frozen inside!

I’ve been using GPDB to buy Ezekiel sprouted grain breads, organic nut butters, premium olive oil, organic pet food, truly natural shampoo, manuka honey and all sorts of other things. GPDB has actually become my #1 source of groceries. It has vastly reduce my need to go to the local grocery store where everything smells like laundry detergent (know what I mean?).

Green PolkaDot Box.

#3) Grow some of your own
You’d be amazed how much money you can save by growing some of your own food. With sky-high food prices these days, the payoff for home gardening is more enticing than ever.

Think about it: Organic red bell peppers sometimes cost as much as $5 each at the store. You can grow them for practically nothing!

It’s also easy to grow organic tomatoes, okra, green bell peppers (those are all summer crops) or in the cooler times of the year grow your own broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower.

Sweet potatoes are also ridiculously easy to grow, and they produce like crazy. Lots of culinary herbs are also super easy to grow, including rosemary, parsley, cilantro and savory.

Believe it or not, in warmer climates it’s also super easy to grow your own tobacco! I used to grow huge tobacco plants in South America, and we also grew neem and cayenne peppers to make our own organic insecticide liquids. (We also threw in some castor bean oil that we grew ourselves, too.)

Growing some of your own food also gives you contact with the soil, healthy sunshine and enjoyment of nature. You’ll learn some self-reliance and you’ll reduce your food bill. Think about it: Gardening is the process of turning seeds that cost mere pennies into wholesome, organic foods that are worth big dollars. Make this the year that you grow a garden!

Summary
There are lots of other strategies for saving money while staying healthy with organics. You can buy in bulk instead of smaller packaged sizes. You can buy unprocessed ingredients instead of manufactured organic foods. You can also grow and sell some of your own chem-free produce at the local farmer’s market so that organic gardening actually pays you back.

Living an organic lifestyle doesn’t have to cost you a fortune, and if you’re spending a lot of money on organic products right now, you may be paying more for them than you need to. Find creative ways to cut costs without compromising on your health. Keep buying organic, in other words, but find opportunities to save money along the way.

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Health Risks from Flame-Retardant Chemicals Exposed

The average U.S. home contains multiple sources of toxic flame-retardant chemicals (polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs), as they’re widely used in
•Carpets and textiles
•Foam insulation
•Polyurethane foam furnishings
•Electronics and plastics
•Motor vehicles

They outgas into your home regularly and are commonly found in household dust, where they are inhaled. PBDEs are also found in various foods, including wild and farm-raised fish and the most “pure” food of all, breast milk.

While the chemical industry maintains that these chemicals keep flames from engulfing your home as quickly, giving you valuable time to escape, the reality is that they have at best, questionable effectiveness, while exposing you and your children to undeniably toxic substances.

Health Risks from Flame-Retardant Chemicals Exposed

PBDEs resemble the molecular structure of PCBs, which have been linked to cancer, reproductive problems and impaired fetal brain development. Like PCBs, even though certain PBDEs have been banned in some U.S. states and the European Union, they persist in the environment and accumulate in your body – and often exist in products imported from other countries.

Higher exposures to PBDEs have been linked to decreased fertility,1 which could be in part because the chemicals may mimic and therefore disrupt your thyroid hormones. Research has suggested PBDEs can lead to decreases in TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone).2

When present with normal T4 levels, low TSH is typically a sign that your thyroid is being disrupted and you are developing hyperthyroidism, which can have significant ramifications both for you and your unborn child if you’re pregnant.

As for cancer, one type of PBDE (decaBDE) is classified as a possible human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), while the others remain largely untested.

A flame-retardant chemical known as chlorinated tris (TDCPP) was removed from children’s pajamas in the 1970s amid concerns that it may cause cancer, but now it’s a ubiquitous addition to couch cushions across the United States. It can easily migrate from the foam and into household dust, which children often pick up on their hands and transfer into their mouths.

A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley also revealed that both in utero and childhood PBDE exposures were associated with neurodevelopmental delays, including decreased attention, fine motor coordination, and cognition in school-age children.3

Flame Retardants May Not Even be Effective – and May Make Fires Deadlier

The chemical industry likes to downplay the proven health risks of these toxic chemicals by claiming that they can save lives in the event of a fire. But can they, really? In the CNN video above, you can see a comparison of two burning chairs, one treated with flame-retardant chemicals and one without. In less than a minute, the differences in visible flames between the two chairs are minimal. Inez Tenenbaum, chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, testified before the Senate that:

“The fire-retardant foams did not offer a practically significant greater level of open flame safety than the untreated foams.”

Andrew Mcguire of the Trauma Foundation also reported to CNN that flame retardants put into furniture foam are not effective because the foam is not ignited by a match, open flame or cigarette. Instead, it’s the fabric that ignites first, and the flames from the burning fabric overwhelm the flame-retardant chemicals.

Yet another study found that certain flame-retardant chemicals (halogen-based flame retardants) actually increase the amounts of toxic carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide gas released into the air during a fire.4 Inhalation of these gasses, not burns, is actually the leading cause of death in fires!

Chemical Industry Tugs on Legislators’ Heartstrings Using Phony Stories

Dr. David Heimback, a burn expert and star witness for the manufacturers of flame retardants, told the tragic story of a 7-week-old baby who was burned in a fire and died as a result, three weeks later, after suffering immensely. The fire was said to have been started by a candle that ignited a pillow that lacked flame retardant chemicals, where the baby lay. The story was heard by California lawmakers, who were deciding on a bill that could have reduced the use of flame retardant chemicals in furniture.

The problem, as we detailed in a previous article, was that the entire story was a clever hoax, a complete fabrication, from beginning to end. It turns out other tiny patients the doctor had described in testimony supporting toxic flame retardant materials didn’t exist either. According to the Chicago Tribune:5

“…[Dr. David] Heimbach’s passionate testimony about the baby’s death made the long-term health concerns about flame retardants voiced by doctors, environmentalists and even firefighters sound abstract and petty. But there was a problem with his testimony: It wasn’t true.

Records show there was no dangerous pillow or candle fire. The baby he described didn’t exist. Neither did the 9-week-old patient who Heimbach told California legislators died in a candle fire in 2009. Nor did the 6-week-old patient who he told Alaska lawmakers was fatally burned in her crib in 2010.

Heimbach is not just a prominent burn doctor. He is a star witness for the manufacturers of flame retardants. His testimony, the Tribune found, is part of a decades-long campaign of deception that has loaded the furniture and electronics in American homes with pounds of toxic chemicals linked to cancer, neurological deficits, developmental problems and impaired fertility.”

Clearly, when it comes to making money many industries throw ethics and integrity out the window, and the chemical industry is a perfect example of this. Globally, flame-retardant chemicals gross more than $4 billion a year … and despite the growing proof of health risks, and the fact that their actual value in saving lives is highly questionable, the industry is fighting tooth and nail to not lose one penny.

Gatorade Plans to Remove Flame Retardant From Sports Drink

Following an outpouring of consumer feedback, including an online petition that has more than 200,000 supporters, Gatorade said it would be removing brominated vegetable oil (BVO) from their products. BVO was first patented by chemical companies as a flame retardant. The chemical is presently banned in food throughout Europe and Japan, but BVO has been added to about 10 percent of sodas in North America for decades, even though it has resulted in soda-drinkers needing medical attention for skin lesions, memory loss and nerve disorders – all symptoms of overexposure to bromine.

Studies suggest that BVO can build up in human tissues, and animal studies have found it causes reproductive and behavioral problems in large doses. Brominated vegetable oil (BVO) is vegetable oil, derived from corn or soy, bonded with the element bromine. It’s added as an emulsifier, to prevent the flavoring from separating and floating to the surface.

Bromines are known endocrine disruptors, and are part of the halide family, a group of elements that includes fluorine, chlorine and iodine. What makes it so dangerous is that it competes for the same receptors that are used to capture iodine. If you are exposed to a lot of bromine, your body will not hold on to the iodine that it needs. And iodine affects every tissue in your body, especially your nervous system, not just your thyroid. While Gatorade has plans to pull the ingredient from its products within the next few months, BVO can still be found in other beverages like Mountain Dew, Squirt, Fanta Orange and Fresca Original Citrus.

Flame Retardants in Your Couch, Mattress, Baby’s Carseat and More…

It’s quite difficult to avoid these toxic chemicals because of their abundant use in household goods and even in the foam insulation used in your walls. Research published in Environmental Science & Technology revealed that 85 percent of couch foam samples tested contained chemical flame retardants.6 The samples came from more than 100 couches purchased from 1985 to 2010.

As of July 1, 2007, all U.S. mattresses are required to be highly flame retardant, to the extent that they won’t catch on fire if exposed to a blowtorch. This means that the manufacturers are dousing them with highly toxic flame-retardant chemicals like PBDEs, which do NOT have to be disclosed in any way.

And, even though children are among those most at risk from PBDEs’ ability to disrupt and harm development, products intended for kids and babies are also those most likely to be doused in flame-retardant chemicals. For instance, such chemicals were recently detected in 60 percent of 2011 car seats tested by The Ecology Center,7 most likely in the polyurethane foam. A separate study in Environmental Science & Technology8 also detected flame-retardant chemicals in 80 percent of the following children’s products tested:

Nursing pillows

Baby carriers

Car seats

Changing table pads

High chairs

Strollers

Bassinets

Portable cribs

Walkers

Baby tub inserts and bath slings

Glider rockers

Sleeping wedges

Since these toxins are not chemically bound to the plastics, foam, fabrics and other materials to which they’re added, they easily leach out into your home where they accumulate in household dust9 – and are also contaminating air, soil and waterways during their manufacture, use and degradation in landfills.

Tips for Reducing Your Exposure to Flame-Retardant Chemicals

In case you’re wondering why there are so many of these toxic chemicals in use, it’s largely due to California Technical Bulletin 117, which requires furniture sold in California to withstand a 12-second exposure to a small flame without igniting. Because of California’s economic importance, the requirement has essentially become a national standard.

U.S. building codes established in the 1970s also require insulation to pass the Steiner Tunnel test, which measures how quickly the material burns through. Manufacturers typically use flame retardants to pass this requirement. The good news is that California is reportedly revising their flammability standards to help cut back on the use of flame-retardant chemicals, with a proposal expected in the spring. Until these chemicals are removed from use entirely, tips you can use to reduce your exposure to PBDEs around your home include:10
•Be especially careful with polyurethane foam products manufactured prior to 2005, such as upholstered furniture, mattresses and pillows, as these are most likely to contain PBDEs. If you have any of these in your home, inspect them carefully and replace ripped covers and/or any foam that appears to be breaking down. Also avoid reupholstering furniture by yourself as the reupholstering process increases your risk of exposure.
•Older carpet padding is another major source of PBDEs, so take precautions when removing old carpet. You’ll want to isolate your work area from the rest of your house to avoid spreading it around, and use a HEPA filter vacuum to clean up.
•You probably also have older sources of the PBDEs known as Deca in your home as well, and these are so toxic they are banned in several states. Deca PBDEs can be found in electronics like TVs, cell phones, kitchen appliances, fans, toner cartridges and more. It’s a good idea to wash your hands after handling such items, especially before eating, and at the very least be sure you don’t let infants mouth any of these items (like your TV remote control or cell phone).
•As you replace PBDE-containing items around your home, select those that contain naturally less flammable materials, such as leather, wool and cotton.
•Look for organic and “green” building materials, carpeting, baby items, mattresses and upholstery, which will be free from these toxic chemicals and help reduce your overall exposure. Furniture products filled with cotton, wool or polyester tend to be safer than chemical-treated foam; some products also state that they are “flame-retardant free.”
•PBDEs are often found in household dust, so clean up with a HEPA-filter vacuum and/or a wet mop often.

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Exposure and subsequent concern over medical research fraud is on the rise, and for good reason.

It’s now reached the point where blogs exist solely to cover retractions of published researchi.

An episode of 60 Minutes, featured above, also highlights the problem.

In this episode, they reveal the dramatic rise and fall of Dr. Anil Potti, whose cancer research at Duke University was heralded as a groundbreaking game changer.

It’s a perfect example of how fraud can occur anywhere. Even at the best institutions.

Dr. Potti’s work, which entailed matching a patient’s tumor to the best chemotherapy drug based on its DNA makeup, was the most exciting cancer breakthrough in recent history, according to many involved.

More than 100 cancer-stricken and desperate patients signed up for Dr. Potti’s trial. Unfortunately, two years ago, it became apparent that the method was a failure. Not only that, but as stated in the 60 Minutes segment, Dr. Potti’s discovery “may end up being one of the biggest medical research frauds ever; one that deceived dying patients, the best medical journals, and a great University.”

Dr. Potti May have Faked Both Credentials and Research Data

Questions about Dr. Potti’s research had been raised, but were cleared by a committee at Duke University. It wasn’t until a confidential source tipped off the editor of The Cancer Letter to take another look at Dr. Potti’s claim of being a Rhodes Scholar that the lies began unraveling.

Joseph Nevins, Dr. Potti’s mentor and coworker at Duke University for over four years confronted him about the accusation he may have lied on his resume. Potti admitted that he wasn’t really a Rhodes Scholar, rather it was a fellowship from Rhodes Scholars in Australia… Nevins decided to take another look at Dr. Potti’s original data, eventually concluding that it was “abundantly clear” Potti had purposefully manipulated the data.

Whenever the data disproved Potti’s theory, the data had simply been altered.

The claim that the novel procedure had an 80 percent chance of success was a complete lie, and patients in Potti’s trial died. Some of the surviving family members are now suing. Dr. Potti has stated that he “… was not aware that false or ‘improper’ information had been included in the research.” Duke University has also apologized for the trials, and has opened up about the case to serve as a warning example to other institutions.

But the greatest irony of all is brought up at the very end of the 60 Minutes’ segment. While patients did not receive any groundbreaking treatment, Duke University has stated that none of the patients in Dr. Potti’s failed trial were really harmed “because all of them received the standard of care in chemotherapy.”

And THAT, my friends, is the real “Biggest Medical Fraud” of all time.

It’s so big, 60 Minutes will not likely discuss that truth any time soon. In reality, virtually the entire cancer industry is one massive fraud, in the sense that it’s not really allowing authentic and inexpensive cancer cures that address the cause of the problem to come to market. They are virtually all violently opposed and condemned. It’s a massive for-profit industry, and unless a treatment revolves around a costly drug that can be patented, it will never see the light of day. The whole idea that the cancer industry is “searching for a cure” is a sham… because cures already exist. But they’re being massively suppressed.

Why Many Groundbreaking Cancer Therapies are Suppressed

It’s kind of sad to hear how Dr. Potti’s idea of using DNA-matching to customize treatments created such waves of excitement, knowing that similar gene-target therapies have been vehemently suppressed, simply because they did not involve expensive pharmaceuticals patented by Big Pharma.

Burzynski: The Movie tells the story of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, who developed a non-toxic gene-target cancer therapy called antineoplastons, and has been harassed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for over 14 years in an effort to shut him down. His treatment could have helped save millions of lives over the last two decades had his discovery not been criminally suppressed by the U.S. government, as it has been shown to effectively help cure some of the most “incurable” forms of terminal cancer. The film is a powerful expose of the unscrupulous forces that work to maintain the status quo of the medical and pharmaceutical industry at any cost.

Why was Dr. Burzynski attacked while Dr. Potti was worshipped as a wunderkind?

Potti was working within “the standard of care,” matching chemotherapy drugs to the DNA of patient’s tumors, while Burzynski’s antineoplastons are non-toxic peptides and derivatives of amino acids that work as genetic switches. In short, Dr. Burzynski developed a cancer treatment that surpassed all other treatments on the market, and the FDA, the pharmaceutical industry, and the National Cancer Institute all knew it. But he was also the sole owner of the patents for this therapy, and these two facts combined threatened the entire paradigm of the cancer industry.

The cancer paradigm is based on very expensive machines and toxic drugs. There’s an enormous amount of money to be made in this paradigm, no one in the cancer industry, aside from Burzynski himself, stand to make a dime if his treatment is granted approval and goes mainstream. That’s why it has been suppressed, despite the fact that antineoplastons have been shown to be far more effective than the current standard of care. The film features several remarkable case stories of people who were successfully cured of cancer, but it’s when the clinical trial data of conventional therapies versus antineoplastons are stacked against each other that the benefits of antineoplastons become really obvious:

Radiation or Chemotherapy Only

Antineoplastons Only

5 of 54 patients (9 percent)

were cancer free at the end of treatment

5 of 20 (25 percent)

were cancer free at the end of treatment

Toxic side effects

No toxic side effects

Systemic Corruption within the FDA Threatens Your Health

Unfortunately, our government plays a significant and ongoing role in the committing of this kind of scientific fraud. I recently commented on the fact that the FDA secretly monitored the personal e-mail of nine whistleblowers—its own scientists and doctors—over the course of two years. The whistleblowers, who worked in the office responsible for reviewing medical devices, including those for cancer screening, had warned Congress that the agency was approving medical devices that posed unacceptable risks to patients.

Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health kept pushing for the Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) inspector general to investigate the employees, accusing them of improperly disclosing confidential business information about the devices.

Shuren is also the official who oversees mercury dental fillings, which they have been fraudulently referring to as ‘silver fillings’. He had promised to make an announcement about dental amalgam by the end of 2011. But with just six minutes left in the work year, at 4:54 pm on Friday, December 30, the FDA conceded that no announcement was forthcoming – not in 2011, and maybe not at all.

I’ve long questioned the safety of mammography, based on compelling information from scientists and experts in the field. Here, we have a number of FDA employees warning Congress that the agency is placing patient’s lives at risk, due to internal corruption… and still nothing is done.

The fact is, a lot of what the general public assumes is “science-based medicine” is anything but. According to one recent poll for the British Medical Journal, one in 10 scientists and doctors claim to have witnessed colleague’s deliberately fabricating data in order to get their research publishedii. Back in 2005, Dr. John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Ioannina School of Medicine, Greece, showed that there is less than a 50 percent chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper will be true! He repeated his investigation in 2008 and found that much of scientific research being published is highly questionable. According to his study:

“Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true.”

Add to that the fact that the FDA is not doing its stated job either, and it should be quite clear that there’s really no one out there protecting your health from dangerous pharmaceuticals and medical treatments…

Notable Cases of Medical Fraud

While many believe Dr. Potti may go down as the largest medical science fraud case in modern history, we’ve seen several stunning cases in the last few years. Tragically, some if not all of them may have contributed to significant health ramifications and loss of life of many thousands of people:
•Scott S. Reuben, a prominent Massachusetts anesthesiologist, allegedly fabricated 21 medical studies published between 1996 and 2008 that claimed to show benefits from painkillers like Vioxx, Celebrex, Bextra and Lyrica. His work was considered important in encouraging doctors to combine the use of painkillers like Celebrex and Lyrica for patients undergoing common procedures such as knee and hip replacements
•Last year, autism researcher Poul Thorsen was charged with 13 counts of wire fraud and nine counts of money laundering. He also allegedly stole over $1 million from autism research funding between February 2004 and June 2008. He is said to have stolen the money while serving as the ‘principal investigator’ for a program that studied the relationship between autism and exposure to vaccines. He was involved in several key studies the CDC uses to support their claims that MMR and mercury-containing vaccines, among others, are safe. One of his papers on the subject, known as ‘The Danish Study’, is extensively quoted to refute the autism-vaccine connection
•In October, 2011, the Office of Research Integrity at the U.S. Department of Health discovered that a Boston University cancer scientist, Sheng Wang, had fabricated his research findings. His work was published in two journals in 2009, and he’s been ordered to retract them. But important studies by other scientists like those at the Mayo Clinic, who based their work on his findings, could now see 10 years of their studies going down the drain as worthless…
•In November of last year, a noted Dutch psychologist confessed to fabricating research data for years. According to an investigating committee, Dr. Diederik Stapel falsified entire experiments, and several dozen of his fabricated papers were published in respected psychology journals and promoted in the mediaiii.
•In January, resveratrol researcher with the University of Connecticut, Dipak Das, was found guilty of 145 counts of fabrication and falsification of data published in 11 different journals.iv

How to Get Solid Information in an Era of Confusion

Ultimately, my take-home message here is that even if a drug or treatment is scientifically proven, all these examples make it crystal clear that this simply is not a guarantee of safety or effectiveness. Likewise, if an alternative treatment has not been published in a medical journal, it does not mean it is unsafe or ineffective. There’s a lot to be said for the tried-and-true remedies of old, even if they’ve not been rigorously studied by modern researcher.

I recommend using all the resources available to you, including your own sense of common sense and reason, true experts’ advice and other’s experiences, to determine what medical treatment or advice will be best for you in any given situation. Remain skeptical but open — even if it is something I am saying, you simply need to realize YOU are responsible for your health, not me and certainly not drug companies trying to sell their wares.

Seeing how it’s been well established that most drugs do absolutely nothing to treat the cause of disease, it would be prudent to exercise the precautionary principle when evaluating ANY new drug claim, as it will more than likely be seriously flawed or biased — and is most likely not in your long-term best interest.

If you’re facing a health challenge, I recommend seeking out a qualified natural health consultant. A good place to look for recommendations is at your local health food store. Get to know the people who work there, the owners, and those who frequent the store, and obtain a consensus as to who the best clinician for you is in your area. Word travels fast in the natural medical community, so if there’s a knowledgeable practitioner in your area that’s getting awesome results, his or her reputation will be known. Of course, when it comes to cancer, you’ll want to identify someone that is well known and respected for their work in treating cancer patients. If you don’t find one locally then scour the Internet and make calls to plenty of patients that the practitioner has seen.

References:

——————————————————————————–
i Retraction Watch
ii Daily Mail, January 12, 2012
iii Fraud Case Seen as a Red Flag for Psychology Research, The New York Times, November 3, 2011
iv Hold Off On That Glass Just Yet – Red Wine Researcher Charged With Falsifying Data, Singularityhub.com, January 15, 2012

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It’s old news that drug companies essentially “bribe” doctors into prescribing their drugs by lavishing them with gifts – branded pens and coffee mugs, free lunches, golf outings, “educational” trips to the Caribbean … all have been regarded as fair game in the past, although now such free goodies are heavily discouraged.

Just how much influence such gifts had on doctors has long been debated (although the research suggests it did have a significant impact … why else would the drug companies put so much money into it?). But regardless, sound medical research published in a reputable medical journal should have much more influence …

A pen with a drugmaker’s name emblazoned on the side couldn’t possibly persuade a physician to prescribe a drug more than clinical data published in a medical journal.

Yet, what many people do not understand is that much of the scientific research published in journals is bought-and-paid-for by the drug industry as well.

A far more covert – and far more influential – practice than showing up at a physician’s office with a free pizza and a duffel bag full of coffee mugs, by controlling medical research itself the drug industry can make it virtually impossible for a well-meaning physician to decipher the truth about the medications he or she is prescribing to you.

Most Medical Journals Depend on Big Pharma Advertising Dollars

In The American Scholar, author Harriet Washington writes:1

“… while we still gravely debate whether physicians’ loyalties can really be bought for a disposable pen or a free lunch, the $310 billion pharmaceutical industry quietly buys something far more influential: the contents of medical journals and, all too often, the trajectory of medical research itself.

… Flimsy plastic pens that scream the virtues of Vioxx and articles published in the pages of The New England Journal of Medicine would seem to mark the two poles of medical influence. Scarcely any doctor admits to being influenced by the former; every doctor boasts of being guided by the latter.

In fact, medical-journal articles are widely embraced as irreproachable bastions of disinterested scientific evaluation and as antidotes to the long fiscal arm of pharmaceutical-industry influence.

And yet, ‘All journals are bought — or at least cleverly used — by the pharmaceutical industry,’ says Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal …”

It starts with advertising dollars, as pharmaceutical ads can make up 97-99 percent of a medical journal’s advertising revenue. As the featured article reported:

“ … medical journals themselves advertise to drugmakers, flooding the pages of pharmaceutical-industry publications such as Medical Marketing and Media to vie for the attentions of Big Pharma. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) bills itself in advertising as ‘a priceless audience at a price you can afford,’ while the Annals boasts: ‘With an audience of more than 90,000 internists (93 percent of whom are actively practicing physicians), Annals has always been a smart buy.’

In 2003, drug companies spent $448 million on advertising in medical journals. The ads promote not only drugs but also subsidized seminars and “training opportunities” that usually take place in tropical locations.

Of course, oftentimes the ads are only agreed upon if there will also be a positive mention of the product in an editorial piece; sometimes the drug maker will even have their own writers generate the content! It has been calculated that the return on investment on medical journal ads is between $2.22 and $6.86 for every dollar spent, with larger and older brands at the higher end.

Long-term returns may be even higher when you consider that one ad viewed by a physician could result in hundreds or even thousands of drug purchases, based on the prescriptions he or she writes.

At least certain medical journals are attempting to regain their unbiased reputations; in 2011 the journal Emergency Medicine Australasia announced it would no longer accept pharmaceutical advertisements, citing growing evidence that the drug industry “distorts research findings and engages in dubious and unethical publishing practices.”

Why Most Medical Research Cannot be Trusted

The sad truth is, there’s no easy way to determine what you can trust when it comes to medical research and official treatment guidelines. So much of it has been tainted by financial conflicts of interests. It’s well known that studies funded by industry or conducted by researchers with industry ties tend to favor corporate interests.

That’s why it probably comes as no surprise that many so-called “experts” are very much on the drug industry’s payroll — but they masquerade as independent medical experts or even state officials during their “day jobs.”

It is, by the way, 100% legal for drug companies to pay medical professionals to promote their products. The drug industry also often pays the expert medical reviewers who evaluate medications or medical devices for the journals. The featured article continues:2

“Today, medical-journal editors estimate that 95 percent of the academic-medicine specialists who assess patented treatments have financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies, and even the prestigious NEJMgave up its search for objective reviewers in June 1992, announcing that it could find no reviewers that did not accept industry funds.”

The conflict of interest within this practice is obvious, which is why the drug industry often keeps quiet on their actual payments, as do the medical professionals involved. Although many medical, educational and research institutions require faculty members to disclose such potential conflicts of interest, many do not actively monitor employees’ activities.

Financial disclosures are also added into medical journals, but the reader will only learn which company may have paid an expert author, not how much or what other ties to industry they may have. Unfortunately, even if you scour the medical literature to determine what the consensus is on any given medical topic, what you’ll find is an overwhelming preponderance of data in favor of the drug approach that in no way, shape or form reflects the reality of the scientific investigation that went into that specific drug.

How Negative Research Gets a Positive Spin

The fact is, there are many ways to turn an otherwise negative study positive, including choosing study participants who are more likely to benefit from the treatment or even hiding, or simply not publishing, negative results; in fact, researchers of industry-funded studies often sign gag orders that forbid them from publishing, discussing or analyzing data without permission of the funder. According to Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM): 3

“Any reputable journal is at the mercy of what is submitted to it and must choose from whatever comes over the transom. Many studies never see the light of day because their findings are negative. There is a heavy bias toward positive studies, and this negative bias is a real problem. A company may conduct 1,000 trials; if two are positive, they get FDA approval and are published. The other 998 never see the light of day. In fact, half of all study data is never published.”

In a tongue-in-cheek essay in the British Medical Journal, titled “HARLOT — How to Achieve Positive Results Without Actually Lying to Overcome the Truth,”4 it’s wittily explained exactly how industry insiders can help make their drugs look good:5
•“Comparing their drug to a placebo. A placebo, such as a sham or ‘sugar’ pill, has no active ingredient, and, although placebos may evoke some poorly understood medical benefits, called the ‘placebo effect,’ they are weak: medications tend to outperform placebos. Placebo studies are not ethical when a treatment already exists for a disorder, because it means that some in the study go untreated. However, if you care only that your new drug shines in print, testing against placebo is the way to go.
•Comparing their drug to a competitor’s medication in the wrong strength. Too low a dose makes the rival drug look ineffective. Too high a dose tends to elicit worrisome side effects.
•Pairing their drug with one that is known to work well. This can hide the fact that a tested medication is weak or ineffective.
•Truncating a trial. Drugmakers sometimes end a clinical trial when they have reason to believe that it is about to reveal widespread side effects or a lack of effectiveness — or when they see other clues that the trial is going south.
•Testing in very small groups. Drug-funded researchers also conduct trials that are too small to show differences between competitor drugs. Or they use multiple endpoints, then selectively publish only those that give favorable results, or they ‘cherry-pick’ positive-sounding results from multicenter trials.”

Did You Know the Drug Industry Also Pays Ghostwriters?

One cross-sectional survey found that more than 20 percent of articles published in six leading medical journals during 2008 were likely written by honorary and/or ghostwriters.6 For medical journals, ghostwriting usually refers to writers sponsored by a drug or medical device company, who make major but uncredited research or writing contributions.

The pharmaceutical company hires a medical education and communications company, which is a company paid almost exclusively by pharmaceutical companies to write articles, reviews, and letters to editors of medical journals in order to cast their products in a favorable light. (Since they pay substantial amounts to have these articles written, it automatically implies that it will be written to their specifications.)

Once the article is written to their satisfaction, the pharmaceutical company then starts “shopping around” for an academic physician or physicians who are well known in the field, encouraging them to put their name on the article.

From there, they “massage” the article past peer review in one of the more prestigious medical journals, preferably one that strongly influences practicing doctors. Once the article is published, the pharmaceutical company then purchases tens of thousands of reprint copies to be distributed to doctors’ offices by their pharmaceutical representatives. The unsuspecting doctor thinks the study is reliable since it clearly appears to be written by a leading name in the field and has been published in a prestigious peer-reviewed medical journal.

Why would medical journals play along with this apparent sham? Perhaps the primary incentive to play it loose is that it’s very lucrative for them, as the reprints purchased by the pharmaceutical companies for distribution are quite expensive. And medical journals are, after all, for-profit businesses. In some cases, some of the leading publishers have even sunk so low as to publish entire sham journals. The featured article stated:7

“Elsevier publishes 2,000 scientific journals and 20,000 book-length works, but its Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, which looks just like a medical journal, and was described as such, was not a peer-reviewed medical journal but rather a collection of reprinted articles that Merck paid Elsevier to publish. At least some of the articles were ghostwritten, and all lavished unalloyed praise on Merck drugs, such as its troubled painkiller Vioxx. There was no disclosure of Merck’s sponsorship.

Librarian and analyst Jonathan Rochkind found five similar mock journals, also paid for by Merck and touted as genuine. The ersatz journals are still being printed and circulated, according to Rochkind, and 50 more Elsevier journals appear to be Big Pharma advertisements passed off as medical publications. Rochkind’s forensic librarianship has exposed the all-but-inaccessible queen of medical publishing as a high-priced call girl.”

How Can You Make Educated Health-Care Decisions?

When your physician prescribes you a medication, even if he or she has reviewed the relevant published data, there is virtually no way to know whether that drug is truly safe or effective. The well from which that data has been drawn has been “poisoned” so that it’s nearly impossible to decipher what is real and what is a fabrication.

Since it is very well established that most prescribed drugs do absolutely nothing to treat the cause of disease, it would be prudent to exercise the precautionary principle when evaluating ANY drug claim, as it will more than likely be seriously flawed, biased, or worse … and, of course, I always advise taking control of your health, which you can easily do by reviewing my comprehensive nutritional plan that summarizes my 30 years of clinical experience and treating 25,000 patients. I put this together so you can stay well and avoid falling into the dangerous, deceitful traps discussed in this article

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

by Louise L. Hay

When we love ourselves, we can love others.

In days of old, love was thought of as something outside ourselves, something that others could give or withhold from us. It was often limited to something that we shared with one other person, who then had power and control over us. When we heard the phrase Love thy neighbor, we often forgot the rest of it: Love thy neighbor as thyself. Now, we’re learning that love begins with ourselves. In fact, until we love ourselves, we can’t truly love others.

Love in this era is different from what it was in the past. Today, we learn that everything in our outer world is a mirror of what goes on in our minds. If we want to find love and acceptance, then that’s what we must first give to ourselves. Most of us have long lists of reasons why we believe that we’re not lovable. This list usually stems from things that our families or teachers have said to us, and when we hear them over and over again, we often start to believe them. Or perhaps our list relates to ideas that we learn from our early religious upbringing, or from popular concepts or stereotypes. Whenever we decide to accept these opinions as truth, we give up our power and live a life of fear and limitation.

If we choose to recognize that other people’s opinions have nothing to do with the reality of our being, then we can begin to accept responsibility for our situation. As we do so, we take our power back and start to reshape our world through this process of self-love. Love is the most important healing power there is. When we love ourselves, we begin the process of becoming one with the Universal Power.

Remember, loving ourselves has nothing to do with vanity or arrogance—these emotions are only expressions of fear. When we love ourselves, we cherish and appreciate the wondrous beings that we are. Loving ourselves creates a life of joy and fulfillment.

It’s hard for other people to love you when you don’t love yourself. Even if someone else does love you, you’re most likely to discount it by wondering, How could they love me? What do they see in me? When you don’t love yourself, it’s hard to believe that you deserve good things in life. Therefore, you miss out on the abundance that’s available to you.

If you find it difficult or scary to accept love and to let love into your life, it’s only because you haven’t been willing to love you. Open your heart to yourself and it will become easier to let others love you. Stand up now, open your arms wide, and say out loud, “I’m willing to let the love flow!”

You might say, “I do love myself,” and that may be true. But how much more could you love yourself? Look around in your life and see where you’re lacking love. Look at your relationships, your work, your finances, your health, and your ability to express yourself creatively in ways that are fulfilling to you. If any of these areas are lacking, then you need to love yourself more.

Here’s my Valentine to you: Stop criticizing yourself—now and forevermore. Love and accept yourself as you are right now. When you do, you’ll blossom in ways that you can’t even imagine. Love will heal you, I promise. Your love for yourself will work miracles in your life.

Louise L. Hay, the author of the international bestseller You Can Heal Your Life, is a metaphysical lecturer and teacher with more than 50 million books sold worldwide. For more than 30 years, she has helped people throughout the world discover and implement the full potential of their own creative powers for personal growth and self-healing. She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and many other TV and radio programs both in the U.S. and abroad.

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Just recently, this weird but effective “fruit cancer cure” was featured on one of America’s most popular health shows.

http://wrightnewsletter.net/video/NAH/eggplant_OLP/?pco=E6ETP2BF&efo=NAH120712&a=2&o=22366&s=25470&u=2054017&l=110813&r=MC&g=10

If the hyperlink doesn’t work then please copy and paste it into your browser, this is truly an amazing presentation and should not be missed.

You can buy this fruit at the grocery store for a couple of dollars, yet amazingly one study shows it has the power to shrink cancer tumors 100% of the time!

If you missed the TV show, no problem. You can learn more about this fruit cancer cure simply by
If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Confirmed: Heart Problems Linked to SSRI Antidepressants

In 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a safety alert on the antidepressant Celexa,1 warning it can cause abnormal changes in the electrical activity of your heart, which can lead to abnormal heart rhythm and fatal heart attacks.

New research published in the journal BMJ2 has added further support for this warning after finding that Celexa and other antidepressants, including Lexapro and Elavil, may extend the electrical activity in your heart (known as a QT interval), potentially leading to abnormal heart rhythms, which in turn can lead to dizziness, fainting or even sudden death.

Heart Rhythms Affected in Nearly One in Five Patients

The new study, which involved data from more than 38,000 adults, found that patients taking Celexa or certain other antidepressants called serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) had a significantly longer QT interval, which is an indicator of abnormal heart rhythms. The disturbance increased with greater doses of the drugs.

In all, nearly one in five patients taking these drugs had longer QT intervals. In an updated drug safety communication from the FDA, it’s noted that Celexa “use at any dose is discouraged in patients with certain conditions because of the risk of QT prolongation.” The FDA continued:3

“Changes in the electrical activity of the heart (specifically, prolongation of the QT interval of the electrocardiogram [ECG]) can lead to a risk of an abnormal heart rhythm called Torsade de Pointes, which can be fatal.

Patients at particular risk for developing prolongation of the QT interval include those with underlying heart conditions and those who are predisposed to having low levels of potassium and magnesium in the blood.

…Citalopram [Celexa] is not recommended for use at doses greater than 40 mg per day because such doses cause too large an effect on the QT interval and confer no additional benefit… Seek immediate care if you experience an irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath, dizziness, or fainting while taking citalopram.”

Antidepressants Clearly Linked to Heart Disease, Stroke, and Other Serious Risks

The above-referenced study is only the latest to highlight the very real heart risks posed when you take antidepressant drugs. For instance, antidepressant use has been linked to thicker arteries, which could contribute to the risk of heart disease and stroke.4

This is in addition to the already heightened risk for heart disease that accompanies depression. This was true both for SSRIs and antidepressants that affect other brain chemicals, so while the researchers speculated that the vascular changes may be due to changes in serotonin, the underlying cause is still undetermined.

Newer antidepressants also raise your risk of bleeding and stroke,5 and another large study of post-menopausal women found that those taking tricyclic antidepressants or SSRIs were 45 percent more likely to suffer a fatal stroke.6 The research also found that overall death rates were 32 percent higher in women on the drugs. Aside from potentially lethal cardiac events, other serious side effects include:
• Suicidal thoughts and feelings and violent behavior
• Increased risk of type 2 diabetes
• Problems with your immune system: SSRIs cause serotonin to remain in your nerve junctions longer, interfering with immune cell signaling and T cell growth.7
• Problems during pregnancy: Research shows taking SSRIs during pregnancy may increase the risks of low birth weight, preterm birth, fetal death, infant death, neonatal seizures, and the need for mechanical ventilation.8
• Brittle bones: Research suggests taking an SSRI may double your risk of bone fractures.9 This is because serotonin is also involved in the physiology of bone. If you alter serotonin levels with a drug, it can result in low bone density, boosting fracture risk.

Antidepressants May Work No Better Than Placebos

Depression can absolutely devastate your health and life. However, using antidepressants as the primary (or only) treatment option is simply not advisable, especially if the one suffering from depression is a child or teenager. Whereas severe depression can indeed progress to suicide if left untreated, antidepressant drugs have been shown to CAUSE both suicidal and homicidal thoughts and behaviors, along with other potentially life-threatening health risks.

It’s important to understand that research suggests there is little evidence that SSRIs have any benefit to people with mild to moderate depression, and they typically work no better than a placebo.10 One meta-analysis published in PLoS Medicine11 concluded that the difference between antidepressants and placebo pills is very small—and that both are ineffective for most depressed patients. Only the most severely depressed showed any response to antidepressants at all, and that response was quite minimal.

In an interview, Pulitzer Prize nominee Robert Whitaker also explained that research suggests the use of antidepressant drugs may actually result in more relapses back into depression in the long run. In other words, these drugs may be turning depression into a more chronic condition.

My clinical experience leads me to believe that the only appropriate use of these dangerous medications is as a last ditch effort when the patient is at a serious risk to themselves or others. (And, of course, they must be closely monitored for lethal side effects such as suicidal and/or homicidal thoughts and tendencies.) The drugs should be continued until the condition is under control and they are out of harm’s way, and then carefully weaned. This is a very similar strategy to going to the ER and seeing an orthopedic surgeon for a cast when you’ve fractured a major bone.

You don’t use that cast the rest of your life. You use it until your bone is healed. The REAL tragedy is that most of the drug companies do not view antidepressants this way. There are enormous marketing efforts to classify normal behavior as aberrant or diseased, which then requires lifelong therapy with their drug solution.

Krill Results in Enhanced Cognitive Function and Antidepressant-like Effects

There are many natural strategies to help support healing from depression, and one that I strongly recommend is supplementing your diet with a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat, like krill oil. This may be the single most important nutrient to battle depression. One recent study actually found that the active components in krill oil, including both the omega-3 fats EPA and DHA as well as the antioxidant astaxanthin, enhance cognitive function and provide antidepressant-like effects.12

There are several potential reasons why omega-3 fats may positively influence outcome in depressive disorders. Low plasma concentrations of DHA is associated with low concentrations of brain serotonin. This decreased amount of serotonin can be associated with depression and suicide.

Not getting enough animal-based omega-3 fats is also known to change the levels and functioning of both serotonin and dopamine (which plays a role in feelings of pleasure), as well as compromise the blood-brain barrier, which normally protects your brain from unwanted matter gaining access. Omega-3 deficiency can also decrease normal blood flow to your brain, an interesting finding given that studies show people with depression have compromised blood flow to a number of brain regions.

Finally, omega-3 deficiency also causes a reduction in brain phosphatidylserine (PS) levels, which is relevant considering that PS has documented antidepressant activity in humans.

Omega-3 fats such as those in krill oil have repeatedly been found to work just as well as antidepressants in preventing the signs of depression,13 but without any of the side effects. In fact, throughout my years of medical practice I’ve seen large numbers of patients be able to stop their antidepressants once they started taking omega-3 fats. So if you are currently struggling with depression, taking a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat supplement daily is a simple and smart choice… but it is only one important part of my overall recommendations for treating depression.

Top Strategies for Overcoming Depression Naturally

If you fail to address the root of the problem, you could be left floundering and struggling with ineffective and potentially toxic chemical Band-Aids for a long time. The tips that follow will help you to optimize your mental health at the foundational level:
1.Exercise – If you have depression, or even if you just feel down from time to time, exercise is a MUST. The research is overwhelmingly positive in this area, with studies confirming that physical exercise is at least as good as antidepressants for helping people who are depressed. One of the primary ways it does this is by increasing the level of endorphins, the “feel good” hormones, in your brain. It also helps to normalize your insulin and leptin signaling.
2.Eat a healthy diet – A factor that cannot be overlooked is your diet. Foods have an immense impact on your mood and ability to cope and be happy, and eating whole foods as described in my nutrition plan will best support your mental health. Avoiding sugar and grains is essential and will help normalize your insulin and leptin levels, while eliminating artificial sweeteners will eliminate your chances of suffering their toxic effects.
3.Optimize your gut health – Fermented foods, such as fermented vegetables are also important for optimal mental health, as they are key for optimizing your gut health. Many fail to realize that your gut is literally your second brain, and can significantly influence your mind, mood, and behavior. Your gut actually produces more mood-boosting serotonin than your brain does.
4.Get plenty of sunshine – Making sure you’re getting enough sunlight exposure to have healthy vitamin D levels is also a crucial factor in treating depression or keeping it at bay. One previous study found that people with the lowest levels of vitamin D were 11 times more prone to be depressed than those who had normal levels.14 Vitamin D deficiency is actually more the norm than the exception, and has previously been implicated in both psychiatric and neurological disorders.
5.Address your stress – Depression is a very serious condition, however it is not a “disease.” Rather, it’s a sign that your body and your life are out of balance. This is so important to remember, because as soon as you start to view depression as an “illness,” you think you need to take a drug to fix it. In reality, you need a way to return balance to your life, and one of the key ways to doing this is addressing stress.

Meditation or yoga can sometimes help. If weather permits, get outside for a walk. But in addition to that, I also recommend using a system that can help you address emotional issues that you may not even be consciously aware of. For this, my favorite is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). If you have depression or serious stress, I believe it would be best to consult with a mental health professional who is also an EFT practitioner to guide you.

Please Seek Help if You’re Struggling With Depression…

I know firsthand that depression and suicide is devastating. It takes a toll on the healthiest of families and can destroy lifelong friendships. Few things are harder in life than losing someone you love, especially to suicide.

If you are currently the one struggling in a dark place, realize that oftentimes you cannot change your circumstances. You can, however, change your response to them. I encourage you to be balanced in your life. Don’t ignore your body’s warning signs that something needs to change. Sometimes people are so busy taking care of everybody else that they lose sight of taking care of themselves.

There are times when a prescription drug may help restore balance to your body. But it’s unclear whether it is the drug providing benefits, or the unbelievable power of your mind that is convinced it is going to work.

Regardless, please seek help from a qualified natural health care practitioner if you’re dealing with symptoms of depression. And, if you are feeling desperate or have any thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a toll-free number 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or call 911, immediately.

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