Grazing Livestock and Our Land and Water

Posted by: Stef605  /  Category: Health

In the TED Talk above, ecologist Allan Savory explains how we’re currently encouraging desertification, and how to not only stop it, but reverse it, by dramatically increasing the number of grazing livestock.

According to Savory, rising population, land turning into desert at a steady clip (known as desertification), converge to create a “perfect storm” that threatens life on earth. Most people think technology is required to solve the problem.

Not so, he says. While we do need novel technology to replace fossil fuels, desertification cannot be reversed with technology. For that, we need to revert backward, and start mimicking nature and the way things were in the past.

How Grazing Livestock Impacts Our Land and Water

According to Savory, we not only can, but indeed MUST, use grazing livestock to address desertification. In his talk, he explains how we can work with nature, at very low cost, to reverse both of these problems.

By some estimates, grazing large herds of livestock on half of the world’s barren or semi-barren grasslands could take enough carbon from the atmosphere to bring us back to preindustrial levels.

“Nothing offers more hope,” he says.

Desertification happens when we create too much bare ground.

In areas where a high level of humidity is guaranteed, desertification cannot occur. Ground cover allows for trapping of water, preventing the water from evaporating. At present, a staggering two-thirds of the landmass on earth is desertifying. As explained by Savory, water and carbon are tied to organic matter.

When you damage the soil, allowing it to turn into desert, it gives off carbon. We’ve been repeatedly told that desertification occurs only in arid or semi-arid areas, and that tall grasslands in areas of high rain fall are of no consequence. But this is not true, Savory says, because if you inspect the ground in tall grasslands, it is bare and encrusted with algae, which leads to runoff and evaporation.

“That is the cancer of desertification that we do not recognize ‘til its terminal form,” he says.

Desertification has long been thought to be caused by livestock, such as sheep and cattle overgrazing and giving off methane. However, to quote Savory on the veracity of these claims:

“We were once just as certain world was flat. We were wrong then, and we’re wrong again.”

Lessons Learned from the Unnecessary Massacre of 40,000 Elephants

As a young biologist, Savory was involved in setting aside large swaths of African land as future national parks. This involved removing native tribes from the land to protect animals. Interestingly, as soon as the natives were removed, the land began to deteriorate. At that point, he became convinced that there were too many elephants, and a team of experts agreed with his theory, which required the removal of elephants to a number they thought the land could sustain. As a result, 40,000 elephants were slaughtered in an effort to stop the damage to the national parks.

Yet the land destruction got worse rather than better… Savory calls the decision “the greatest blunder” of his life. Fortunately, the utter failure cemented his determination to dedicate his life to finding solutions. And that, he has.

Areas of US national parks are now desertifying as badly as areas in Africa, and studies have shown that whenever cattle are removed from an area to protect it from desertification, the opposite results — it gets worse. According to Savory, we have completely misunderstood the causes of desertification. We’ve also failed to understand how it affects our global climate. He explains that barren earth is much cooler at dawn and much hotter at midday. When land is left barren, it changes the microclimate on that swath of land.

“Once you’ve done that to more than half of land mass on planet, you’re changing macroclimate,” he says.

We’ve failed to realize that in seasonal humidity environments, the soil and vegetation developed with very large numbers of grazing animals meandering through. Along with these herds came ferocious pack hunting predators. The primary defense against these predators was the herd size. The larger the herd, the safer the individual animal within the herd. These large herds deposited dung and urine all over the grasses (their food), and so they would keep moving from one area to the next.

This constant movement of large herds naturally prevented overgrazing of plants, while periodic trampling ensured protective covering of the soil. As explained by Savory, grasses must degrade biologically before the next growing season. This easily occurs if the grass is trampled into the ground. If it does not decay biologically, it shifts into oxidation — a very slow process that results in bare soil, which then ends up releasing carbon. To prevent this scenario, we’ve traditionally used fire. But burning the ground also leaves soil bare to release carbon. I

What Can Be Done to Keep Grasslands Healthy?

At present, we’re doing everything wrong: Reducing animal numbers to rest the land actually causes desertification — the very things we’re trying to combat. Ditto for using fire. According to Savory, there is ONLY ONE OPTION. We must use livestock, bunched in very large moving herds, mimicking the way they used to roam when wild, or as they were herded in our agricultural past.

He offers several before and after scenes in his lecture, showing how allowing large herds to trample the area, covering the soil with left-over vegetation, manure and urine, makes it absorb and hold the seasonal rains. As a result, the soil stores carbon and breaks down methane.

So, what we need is MORE moving, grazing animals, not less!

Savory has developed a holistic management and planned grazing system which is now being implemented in select areas on five continents. In one area, increasing grazing cattle numbers by 400 percent, planning the grazing to mimic nature, and integrating the cattle with local elephants, buffalo and giraffes, has achieved remarkable results. I encourage you to view the video, because seeing is believing. This technique is literally turning desert into lush, highly productive environments. In Patagonia, 25,000 sheep were put into a desert area, and with planned grazing they increased production of the land by 50 percent in one year.

How Federal Policy Contributes to the Problem

In the US, federal policy is presently worsening the environmental concerns addressed by Savory in his talk. Corn and soy — much of which are genetically engineered — are rapidly overtaking native grasslands in a number of US states. A consequence of this is that we also lose our ability to secure our food supply long-term… As discussed in a recent Mother Jones article,1 this conversion of grasslands to crop fields is the exact opposite of what might be in our best interest.

“…to get ready for climate change, we should push Midwestern farmers to switch a chunk of their corn land into pasture for cows,” the featured article states. “The idea came from a paper2 by University of Tennessee and Bard College researchers, who calculated that such a move could suck up massive amounts of carbon in soil — enough to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 36 percent. In addition to the CO2 reductions, you’d also get a bunch of high-quality, grass-fed beef…Turns out the Midwest are doing just the opposite.”

According to another recently published paper3 by South Dakota State University researchers, grasslands in the Western corn belt, which includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska, are being lost at a rate “comparable to deforestation rates in Brazil, Malaysia, and Indonesia.” Between 2006 and 2011, nearly 2 million acres of friendly native grasses have been lost to corn and soy — two of the staples in processed foods that are driving chronic disease rates in an ever steepening upward incline. The same thing is happening in South America, where native forests are leveled in order to plant soy.

The researchers claim the land being converted into corn and soy fields is actually much better suited for grazing than crop agriculture, as it is “characterized by high erosion risk and vulnerability to drought.” So why would farmers opt to use such risky land for their crops? According to the featured article:

“Simple: Federal policy has made it a high-reward, tiny-risk proposition. Prices for corn and soy doubled in real terms between 2006 and 2011, the authors note, driven up by federal corn-ethanol mandates and relentless Wall Street speculation.

Then there’s federally subsidized crop insurance… When farmers manage to tease a decent crop out of their marginal land, they’re rewarded with high prices for their crop. But if the crop fails, subsidized insurance guarantees a decent return. Essentially, federal farm policy, through the ethanol mandate and the insurance program, is underwriting the expansion of corn and soy agriculture at precisely the time it should be shrinking.”

Current Agricultural System is Unsustainable, According to the USDA

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) also recently released a report titled: “Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States.” According to the report, our current agricultural system, which is dominated by corn and soy, is unsustainable in the long term. Should temperatures rise as predicted, the US could expect to see significant declines in yields by the middle of this century.

Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) also play a key role in this impending disaster. Gone are the days of large grazing cattle herds.

Today, food animals are typically reared in cages and tightly cramped quarters, and their feed consists of grains, primarily genetically engineered corn and soy instead of grasses. These animals are literally imprisoned and often tortured by unhealthy, unsanitary and unconscionably cruel conditions. To prevent the inevitable spread of disease from stress, overcrowding and lack of vitamin D, animals are fed antibiotics and other veterinary drugs. Those antibiotics pose a direct threat to the environment when they run off into our lakes, rivers, aquifers and drinking water, and drive the rise in antibiotic-resistant disease in humans and animals.

According to Ronnie Cummins:

“CAFOs contribute directly to global warming4 by releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – more than the entire global transportation industry. The air at some factory farm test sites in the US is dirtier than in America’s most polluted cities, according to the Environmental Integrity Project. According to a 2006 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, including 37 percent of methane emissions and 65 percent of nitrous oxide emissions. The methane releases from billions of imprisoned animals on factory farms are 70 times more damaging per ton to the earth’s atmosphere than CO2.

Indirectly, factory farms contribute to climate disruption by their impact on deforestation and draining of wetlands, and because of the nitrous oxide emissions from huge amounts of pesticides used to grow the genetically engineered corn and soy fed to animals raised in CAFOs. Nitrous oxide pollution is even worse than methane – 200 times more damaging per ton than CO2. And just as animal waste leaches antibiotics and hormones into ground and water, pesticides and fertilizers also eventually find their way into our waterways, further damaging the environment.”

What’s the alternative?

Just as Savory discusses above, the alternative to CAFO’s is a smaller-scale system created by independent producers and processors focused on local and regional markets. Following Savory’s strategy, large herds could be moved across areas in planned grazing patterns, which would be beneficial for the environment, the health of the animals, and subsequently the health of humans consuming those animals.

Should We Label Factory-Farmed Food?

Some organic proponents are now proposing yet another label, aside from labeling genetically engineered foods, and that is to label foods produced by CAFO’s. A new alliance of organic and natural health consumers, animal welfare advocates, anti-GMO and climate-change activists has been created for this purpose. This Truth-in-Labeling campaign5 will begin with a program to educate consumers about the negative impacts of factory farming, and then move forward to organize and mobilize millions of consumers to demand labels on CAFO-produced animal products.

Opponents and skeptics will ask, “What about feeding the world?” Contrary to popular arguments, factory farming is not a cheap, efficient solution to world hunger,” Cummins says. “Feeding huge numbers of confined animals actually uses more food, in the form of grains that could feed humans, than it produces. For every 100 food calories of edible crops fed to livestock, we get back just 30 calories in the form of meat and dairy. That’s a 70-percent loss. With the earth’s population predicted to reach nine billion by mid-century, the planet can no longer afford this reckless, unhealthy and environmentally disastrous farming system.

We believe that once people know the whole truth about CAFOs they will want to make healthier, more sustainable food choices. And to do that, we’ll have to fight for the consumer’s right to know not only what is in our food, but where our food comes from.”

There’s no denying that rising population, rapid conversion of fertile land to deserts is a serious threat to us all. And technology in the form of ever larger-scale, industrial farming methods simply isn’t the answer. It’s making it WORSE…

I believe Savory is correct when he says we have only ONE option, and that is to revert back to what worked before. For now, you can help move our agricultural system in the right direction by purchasing your food from local farmers who are already doing this on a small scale.

Keep Fighting for Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods

While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November, by a very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the people’s initiative 522, “The People’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act,” will require food sold in retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients. As stated on LabelitWA.org:

“Calorie and nutritional information were not always required on food labels. But since 1990 it has been required and most consumers use this information every day. Country-of-origin labeling wasn’t required until 2002. The trans fat content of foods didn’t have to be labeled until 2006. Now, all of these labeling requirements are accepted as important for consumers. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also says we must know with labeling if our orange juice is from fresh oranges or frozen concentrate.

Doesn’t it make sense that genetically engineered foods containing experimental viral, bacterial, insect, plant or animal genes should be labeled, too? Genetically engineered foods do not have to be tested for safety before entering the market. No long-term human feeding studies have been done. The research we have is raising serious questions about the impact to human health and the environment.

I-522 provides the transparency people deserve. I-522 will not raise costs to consumers or food producers. It simply would add more information to food labels, which manufacturers change routinely anyway, all the time. I-522 does not impose any significant cost on our state. It does not require the state to conduct label surveillance, or to initiate or pursue enforcement. The state may choose to do so, as a policy choice, but I-522 was written to avoid raising costs to the state or consumers.”

Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin simply because we didn’t have the funds to counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let’s not allow Monsanto and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can, regardless of what state you live in.
•No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.
•If you live in Washington State, please sign the I-522 petition. You can also volunteer to help gather signatures across the state.
•For timely updates on issues relating to these and other labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
•Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the Washington initiative.

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




Should Factory-Farmed Foods Be Labeled?

Posted by: Stef605  /  Category: Food, Health

A growing number of organic consumers, natural health advocates and climate hawks are taking a more comprehensive look at the fundamental causes of global warming.

It has led them to this sobering conclusion: Our modern energy-, chemical- and GMO-intensive industrial food and farming systems are the major cause of man-made global warming.

How did they reach this conclusion? First, by taking a more inclusive look at the scientific data on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – not just carbon dioxide (CO2), but also methane and nitrous oxide.

Next, by doing a full accounting of the fossil fuel consumption and emissions of the entire industrial food and farming cycle, including inputs, equipment, production, processing, distribution, heating, cooling and waste. And finally, by factoring in the indirect impacts of contemporary agriculture, which include deforestation and wetlands destruction.

When you add it all up, the picture is clear: Contemporary agriculture is burning up our planet, and factory farms or, in industry lingo, Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), play a key role in this impending disaster.

The Global Impact of Factory Farming

The science behind global warming is complex. Without question, coal plants, tar sands and natural gas fracking have contributed heavily to greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, the major cause of global warming. We must unite to shut down these industries.

Similarly, consumer overconsumption of fossil fuels represents another big piece of the climate-crisis equation. We absolutely must rethink, retrofit and/or redesign our gas-guzzling cars and our energy-inefficient buildings, if we want to reduce fossil fuel use by 90 percent over the next few decades.

But we also must address the environmental impact of factory farming.

Today, nearly 65 billion animals worldwide, including cows, chickens and pigs, are crammed into CAFOs. These animals are literally imprisoned and tortured in unhealthy, unsanitary and unconscionably cruel conditions.

Sickness is the norm for animals who are confined rather than pastured, and who eat genetically engineered (GE) corn and soybeans, rather than grass and forage as nature intended.

To prevent the inevitable spread of disease from stress, overcrowding and lack of vitamin D, animals are fed a steady diet of antibiotics. Those antibiotics pose a direct threat to the environment when they run off into our lakes, rivers, aquifers and drinking water.

How Factory Farms Affect Global Climate

CAFOs contribute directly to global warming by releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – more than the entire global transportation industry. The air at some factory farm test sites in the US is dirtier than in America’s most polluted cities.

According to a 2006 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, including 37 percent of methane emissions and 65 percent of nitrous oxide emissions.

The methane releases from billions of imprisoned animals on factory farms are 70 times more damaging per ton to the earth’s atmosphere than CO2.

Indirectly, factory farms contribute to climate disruption by their impact on deforestation and draining of wetlands, and because of the nitrous oxide emissions from huge amounts of nitrate fertilizers used to grow the genetically engineered corn and soy fed to animals raised in CAFOs.

Nitrous oxide pollution is even worse than methane – 200 times more damaging per ton than CO2. And just as animal waste leaches antibiotics and hormones into ground and water, pesticides and fertilizers also eventually find their way into our waterways, further damaging the environment.

CAFOs — A Major Contributor to Poor Health

Factory farms aren’t just a disaster for the environment. They’re also ruining our health. A growing chorus of scientists and public health advocates warn that the intensive and reckless use of antibiotics and growth hormones leads to factory-farmed food1 that contains antibiotic-resistant pathogens, drug residues such as hormones and growth promoters, and “bad fats.”

Yet despite these health and environmental hazards, the vast majority of consumers don’t realize that nearly 95 percent of the meat, dairy and eggs sold in the U.S. come from CAFOs. Nor do most people realize that CAFOs represent a corporate-controlled system characterized by large-scale, centralized, low profit-margin production, processing and distribution systems.

There’s an alternative: A socially responsible, small-scale system created by independent producers and processors focused on local and regional markets. This alternative produces high-quality food, and supports farmers who produce healthy, meat, eggs and dairy products using humane methods. And it’s far easier on the environment.

Why We Need to Label Factory-Farmed Food

Consumers can boycott food products from factory farms and choose the more environmentally-friendly alternatives. But first, we have to regain the right to know what’s in our food. And that means mandatory labeling, not only of genetically engineered foods, but of the 95 percent of non-organic, non-grass-fed meat, dairy and eggs that are produced on the hellish factory farms that today dominate US food production.

In 2013, a new alliance of organic and natural health consumers, animal welfare advocates, anti-GMO and climate-change activists will tackle the next big food labeling battle: meat, eggs and dairy products from animals raised on factory farms, or CAFOs.

This campaign will start with a massive program to educate consumers about the negative impacts of factory farming on the environment, on human health and on animal welfare, and then move forward to organize and mobilize millions of consumers to demand labels on beef, pork, poultry and dairy products derived from these unhealthy and unsustainable so-called “farming” practices.

Opponents and skeptics will ask, “What about feeding the world?” Contrary to popular arguments, factory farming is not a cheap, efficient solution to world hunger. Feeding huge numbers of confined animals actually uses more food, in the form of grains that could feed humans, than it produces. For every 100 food calories of edible crops fed to livestock, we get back just 30 calories in the form of meat and dairy. That’s a 70-percent loss.

With the earth’s population predicted to reach nine billion by mid-century, the planet can no longer afford this reckless, unhealthy and environmentally disastrous farming system. We believe that once people know the whole truth about CAFOs they will want to make healthier, more sustainable food choices. And to do that, we’ll have to fight for the consumer’s right to know not only what is in our food, but where our food comes from.

Keep Fighting for Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods

While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November, by a very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the people’s initiative 522, “The People’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act,” will require food sold in retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients. As stated on LabelitWA.org:

“Calorie and nutritional information were not always required on food labels. But since 1990 it has been required and most consumers use this information every day. Country-of-origin labeling wasn’t required until 2002. The trans fat content of foods didn’t have to be labeled until 2006. Now, all of these labeling requirements are accepted as important for consumers. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also says we must know with labeling if our orange juice is from fresh oranges or frozen concentrate.

Doesn’t it make sense that genetically engineered foods containing experimental viral, bacterial, insect, plant or animal genes should be labeled, too? Genetically engineered foods do not have to be tested for safety before entering the market. No long-term human feeding studies have been done. The research we have is raising serious questions about the impact to human health and the environment.

I-522 provides the transparency people deserve. I-522 will not raise costs to consumers or food producers. It simply would add more information to food labels, which manufacturers change routinely anyway, all the time. I-522 does not impose any significant cost on our state. It does not require the state to conduct label surveillance, or to initiate or pursue enforcement. The state may choose to do so, as a policy choice, but I-522 was written to avoid raising costs to the state or consumers.”

Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin simply because we didn’t have the funds to counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let’s not allow Monsanto and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can, regardless of what state you live in.
•No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.
•If you live in Washington State, please sign the I-522 petition. You can also volunteer to help gather signatures across the state.
•For timely updates on issues relating to these and other labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
•Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the Washington initiative

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




Is Your Surgery to Satisfy Your Doctor’s Quota?

Posted by: Stef605  /  Category: Health

Medical errors are one of the leading causes of death in the United States, and what’s even more shocking is that the harm often is preventable. Hospitals often make egregious errors ranging from minor mistakes to treating the wrong patient, leaving behind surgical tools in a person after surgery, or operating on the wrong body part. According to the 2011 Health Grades report,1 the incidence rate of medical harm occurring in the United States is estimated to be over 40,000 harmful and/or lethal errors DAILY! Dr. Martin Makary is the author of The New York Times bestselling book Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Healthcare, which is a story about the dangerous practices and mistakes of modern medicine. He’s a practicing surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital and an associate professor of public health policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. As a busy surgeon, he’s worked in many of the best hospitals in the country, and can testify to the amazing power of modern medicine to cure. But he’s also been a witness to the medical culture that routinely leaves surgical sponges inside patients, amputates the wrong limbs, and overdoses children because of sloppy handwriting. Healthy eating, exercise, and stress management can help keep you OUT of the hospital, but if you do have to go there, knowing your rights and responsibilities can help ensure your hospital stay is a safe and healing one. Variations in Quality Medical and Safety of Health Care Driven by ‘Perverse Incentives’ One in four patients in a hospital is harmed in some way from a medical mistake, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. Many doctors have been concerned about the quality and mistakes in healthcare, but the culture has been such that it dissuaded open discussion and transparency. “We’re really at a very exciting time in medicine,” Dr. Makary says. “For the first time, we’re speaking up openly and honestly about this problem. We’ve got research now that supports it. …[W]hen I was at a major medical conference once, I heard a surgeon at the podium ask the audience of thousands of doctors, ‘Do you know of somebody out there in practice who should not be practicing because they are too dangerous?’ And every single hand went up. Everybody seems to know about this problem. Everybody even knows of somebody who’s too dangerous to be in practice. Yet for a long time, we haven’t been honest about the problem.” Dr. Makary goes on to tell a story from his days as a medical student. A young man came to the emergency room with a fractured humerus, and the doctor told him he needed an MRI, an X-ray, and a CAT scan. The young man replied he didn’t have health insurance, at which point the doctor suddenly changed his tune, telling him to just stay off his arm, wear a sling, and all would be fine. “I thought about it,” Dr. Makary says, “The doctor was right; all those tests don’t really change what we do, because the treatment for that type of fracture was just a sling and to rest it. So, we see these wide variations on what we do. And when you ask the doctors, ‘Look, what’s going on? Why do we have so much variation in quality and safety in America?’ they point out things like ‘Look at our perverse incentives that promote bad care among as subgroup of doctors out there.’” Is Your Surgery to Satisfy Your Doctor’s Quota? Doctors are under tremendous pressure these days. Not only are they asked to see more patients per hour, many surgeons even have surgery quotas to meet. “They’re told they need to do so many operations in a month,” Dr. Makary says. “Sometimes doctors tell me they get text messages and emails, saying, ‘You need to do so many operations by the end of the month.’ They’re expected to do more, often with less resources.” Quotas aren’t the only symptom of a major disconnect between healing a patient’s problem and running a for-profit disease management scheme. As discussed by Dr. Makary, sometimes a computer software program will order tests and studies automatically, and the doctor just has to sign off on them. “Doctors don’t like blind triggers that result in overtreatment. They want to practice medicine the way it was intended to be practiced – individualized in care,” he says. While computers can help with some standardization in medicine increasing dependence on computerized diagnosis and even treatment is an issue that needs to be seriously considered and discussed. We’ve had a continually evolving improvement in artificial intelligence, so much so that in the next 20 to 30 years computers will be able to interview a patient and then spit out an entire battery of recommendations. However, the recommendations will only be as good as the information it’s based on. What good will it do if all RoboDoc can do is spit out tests and treatment protocols based on biased, inaccurate or fraudulent data at a more efficient rate than human M.D.’s? Unnecessary Treatment is a Massive Problem According to a report by the Institute of Medicine, an estimated 30 percent of all medical procedures, tests and medications may in fact be unnecessary2 – at a cost of at least $750 billion a year3 (plus the cost of emotional suffering and related complications and even death – which are impossible to put numbers on). While overuse and misuse have become a deeply ingrained part of the culture of medicine, there are hopeful signs that things are starting to change. Dr. Makary points out a number of standard blanket recommendations that have been changed in recent years, such as daily aspirin regimen, PSA testing, and annual mammograms. “[N]ow people are saying, ‘Wait a minute, maybe we’ve gone too far.’ …We told everybody for decades [that] everybody should be on an aspirin once a day. And a lot of people were saying, ‘Wait a minute, do I really need to be taking a pill every day, even thought I’m totally healthy?’ There were studies, and they looked at certain outcomes but a recent large study has shown that the internal bleeding consequence balances out the benefits to your heart. So we’re now pulling back that recommendation. If you have a healthy heart, if you don’t have a history of heart problems, we’re now pulling that recommendation back. Same thing with PSA testing. You’re seeing the medical community say, ‘Wait a minute, we don’t need to do a PSA test for prostate cancer on every older man in the world.’ We’re also seeing the recommendations on breast cancer screening with mammography in that middle-aged group being pulled back. We’re seeing a lot of research coming out now that’s saying some of these giant recommendations to do more stuff probably were not based on sound science. When we look at the full gamut of consequences of overtesting, we may be creating too many false-positives and hurting more people then we’re helping.” More Doctors Beginning to Realize What They Were Taught is Wrong Many doctors are now beginning to accept that some things they were taught in medical school is simply wrong. “I was taught, for example, that everybody has one million nephrons (the unit in a kidney). We now know that’s not true. We now know that it ranges from 200,000 to two million, and everyone’s different. If you have a lot, you may have more of a reserve. If you have few, you may be more frail in your ability to withstand an insult to your kidney. We were taught fat was bad for you. We were taught, ‘Don’t eat fat. Fat is bad. Go low-fat everything.’ That was probably wrong advice that the medical community gave to the general public. We now know that what’s far more important than avoiding fat is limiting sugar, a highly addictive substance, which a driver of obesity and heart disease and has many detrimental effects, mainly the hormonal effect of changing your fat storage balance. Little did we doctors know that by demonizing fat we were encouraging high-carbohydrate foods because they are notoriously ‘low-fat.’ Obesity surged parallel to the ‘avoid fat’ era of medicine. We are now dealing with a generation addicted to sugar and we’re seeing the largest growth in obesity in the history of the country. In terms of the percent of our population on disability and the average time on disability, we are now the most disabled country in the world. And one leading driver is obesity-related chronic diseases—a problem burdening our healthcare system. These are lifestyle diseases (medical problems that can be avoided with better behavior). We’re now recognizing that some of the emphasis in the direction that we had in medical school was just not based on the solid evidence that we’re now seeing.” Helping Patients and Doctors Choose Wisely For the past two years, the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, one of the largest physician organizations in the US, has released reports on the most overused tests and treatments that provide limited or no benefit to the patient, or worse, causes more harm than good. Last year’s report warned doctors against using 45 tests, procedures and treatments. This year, another 90 tests and treatments were added to the list. To learn more, I encourage you to browse through the Choosing Wisely web site,4 as they provide informative reports on a wide variety of medical specialties, tests, and procedures that may not be in your best interest. As reported by NPR:5 “The idea is to curb unnecessary, wasteful and often harmful care, its sponsors say — not to ration care. As one foundation official pointed out last year, rationing is denial of care that patients need, while the Choosing Wisely campaign aims to reduce care that has no value.” Unfortunately, it seems matters will only get worse with the passage of the Affordable Care Act because it’s just a continuation of the same broken process. I agree that people should be covered under health insurance, but they should be covered with appropriate care; not care that perpetuates the same problems addressed in Dr. Makary’s book. “What we’ve got to do is educate the everyday patient to empower themselves, to understand what they’re having done, and to learn to ask the right questions,” he says. “We’ve put together a list of sort of important questions a patient should ask, and we’ve put it on the book website, UnaccountableBook.com. Things like: ‘Do I really need to have this done? What if I don’t take this medication? And then, whatever that consequence could be, what are the odds that that could happen? And if it does happen, can we treat it once that happens?’ I remember consenting people for surgery as a resident. I was way over my head. They would ask me, ‘What happens if I don’t have an operation or take a medicine?’ And I just give them a standard answer sometimes. ‘You could die. Something could go wrong.’ And yet, I was rushing. You’re working sometimes for 40 straight hours; you’re working 120 hours a week. As a resident, you’ve got a mission. You get certain things done to get through this little list of things you need to do during the day… Research now shows that most patients are under-informed about the risks of medical tests, procedures and medications, and the benefits are overstated.” On Referrals, and… According to Dr. Makary, under-referral is another major issue that leads to improper medical treatment. Some doctors will simply declare that “nothing can be done,” without realizing a specialist may have an entirely different set of tools at their disposal. There are even “micro-specialists” out there specializing in a tiny area within a particular field of medicine. The trick is to find them. “There are probably not enough referrals to specialists as there should be. I think sometimes you need to take things in your own hand and just ask for one. Or say, you know, ‘Would it help if I spoke with someone who specializes in this?’ Or go to their websites and find the experts. There are some very good websites out there now for patients, [like] ConsumerReportHealth.org. Medicare is now putting a lot of hospital performance up on the web in their website Hospital Compare. It’s HospitalCompare.hhs.gov. So, there are some good resources out there now.” Dr. Makary suggests asking an emergency room nurse for their recommendations for specialists and doctors well-versed in a particular ailment. Another helpful strategy can be to ask around for alternative practitioners or treatment options. Your local health food store can be a good place to start. “If you don’t know of a nurse, secretary, doctor, or technician that works for a hospital that can give you this scoop on who’s really good, ask some of these important questions.” Dr. Makary suggests “For surgery, ask the following questions: •Do I really need this done? •When am I going to be back to feeling good? •What if I don’t have this procedure done? •Can I wait a year and see if this gets better? •What if I wait and then something develops in the interim? How do we handle it that at that point and what are the odds of success then versus now? There’s a movement – a revolution – that we described in the book Unaccountable, which is starting to provide useful information on websites, so that patients can navigate the healthcare system.” Safeguarding Your Care While Hospitalized Once you’re hospitalized, you’re immediately at risk for medical errors, so one of the best safeguards is to have someone there with you. Dr. Andrew Saul has written an entire book on the issue of safeguarding your health while hospitalized. Frequently, you’re going to be relatively debilitated, especially post-op when you’re under the influence of anesthesia, and you won’t have the opportunity to see the types of processes that are going on. Dr. Makary agrees it’s important to have someone there to act as your personal advocate, or to take the time to stay with your loved one who is hospitalized. This is particularly important for pediatric patients, and the elderly. “Sometimes, we rely on a competent talking patient to help verify what we’re doing before we go in the operating room. But if we got somebody who’s not mentally coherent because they’re elderly or a kid and there’s no family member around, these are danger zones. These are high-risk areas for medical mistakes,” Dr. Makary warns. “It’s important to ask what procedure’s being done or why is the procedure being done. ‘Can I talk to the doctor?’ You have a right to know about what’s being done to you or your loved one in the hospital. When you’ve got a kid in the hospital, I think it’s particularly important to ask the questions.” For every medication given in the hospital, ask, “What is this medication? What is it for? What’s the dose?” Take notes. Ask questions. Building a relationship with the nurses can go a long way. Also, when they realize they’re going to be questioned, they’re more likely to go through that extra step of due diligence to make sure they’re getting it right—that’s human nature. Pushing for Greater Transparency in Healthcare The issue of transparency is a big focus of Dr. Makary’s book, Unaccountable. In it, he discusses a number of ways transparency can be improved, not only from an organization-hospital perspective, but also from an individual position perspective. We now have a lot of data metrics to measure healthcare quality, such as different hospital’s infection rates, re-admission rates, patient satisfaction scores, and surgical complication rates. According to Dr. Makary, the ways to measure hospital performance are now maturing to the point where they need to be available to the public, and he’s seeing a “transparency revolution” starting to take place. “I believe it’s going to reshape our entire healthcare landscape,” he says. “Instead of choosing a hospital based on a billboard advertisement or valet parking at a hospital, you should be able to look up a hospital’s performance – their quality, their volumes, and their satisfaction [rate]. You know, 60 percent of New Yorkers will look up a restaurant’s ratings before choosing a restaurant. Yet people are walking into the hospitals blind to the hospital’s performance. We’re seeing an exciting revolution now in healthcare. It’s a transparency revolution, and it’s really why I wrote this book, Unaccountable.” Help for Victims of Preventable Medical Errors Part of the nature of being human is that we make mistakes. No one is perfect. Mistakes will be made. And with more transparency, these mistakes will be known. So, what can you do should you find yourself a victim of a preventable medical mistake? Dr. Makary suggests connecting with patient communities like: •Citizens for Patient Safety6 •ProPublica Patient Harm7 Besides that, he suggests: “Ask to talk to the doctor about that mistake. If you’re not satisfied, write a letter or call the patient relations department. Every hospital is mandated to have this service. They are set up to answer your concerns. If you’re not satisfied with that, write a letter to the hospital’s lawyer, the general council. And you will see attention to the issue, because you’ve gone through the right channels. We don’t want to encourage millions of lawsuits out there. But you know, when people voice what happened, what went wrong, and the nature of the preventable mistake, hospitals can learn from their mistakes. Sometimes they’re taking a lot of attention now to prevent mistakes from happening again. You should let that mistake be known.” Additional Resources Dr. Makary co-developed a checklist for surgeons to use before surgery or any other hospital procedure. His research partner, Peter Pronovost, created a checklist in the ICU for patients that are in the intensive care unit. The World Health Organization (WHO) ended up taking an interest in their checklists and used some of their principles to develop the official World Health Organization checklist. The WHO surgical safety checklist and implementation manual,8 which is part of the campaign “Safe Surgery Saves Lives” that Drs. Makary and Pronovost were a part of, can be downloaded here. If a loved one is in the hospital, print it out and bring it with you, as this can help you protect your family member or friend from preventable errors in care. You can also learn more in Dr. Makary’s book, available on UnaccountableBook.com and other book stores. Avoiding Unnecessary Medical Care Can Save Your Life One of the reasons I am so passionate about sharing the information on this site about healthy eating, exercise, and stress management with you is because it can help keep you OUT of the hospital. But if you do have to go there, you need to know how to play the game. My primary recommendation is to avoid hospitals unless it’s an absolute emergency and you need life-saving medical attention. In such cases, it’s advisable to bring a personal advocate — a relative or friend who can speak up for you and ensure you’re given proper care if you can’t do so yourself. If you’re having an elective medical procedure done, remember that this gives you greater leeway and personal choice—use it! Many believe training hospitals will provide them with the latest and greatest care, but they can actually be far more dangerous. As a general rule, avoid elective surgeries and procedures during the month of July because this is when brand new residents begin their training. According to a 2010 report in the Journal of General Internal Medicine,9 lethal medication errors consistently spike by about 10 percent each July, particularly in teaching hospitals, due to the inexperience of new residents. Also be cautious of weekends. Knowing how to prevent disease so you can avoid hospitals in the first place is clearly your best bet. One of the best strategies on that end is to optimize your diet. You can get up to speed on that by reviewing my comprehensive Nutrition Plan. Additionally, knowing what to do to make your hospital stay as safe as possible is equally important if you have the misfortune of being hospitalized. Understand that you, the patient, are the most powerful entity within the entire hospital system. However, the system works on the assumption that the patient will not claim that power. Knowing your rights and responsibilities can help ensure your hospital stay is a safe and healing one. If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Documentary: Trashed…

Posted by: Stef605  /  Category: Uncategorized

When you pull your garbage can to the curb on garbage day, do you give much thought to what happens to it once it’s collected? Many take for granted the fact that their garbage “magically” disappears… but the disappearance is only an act.

Most garbage does not disappear; instead it is simply relocated to a landfill, a recycling center or perhaps makes its way down a storm drain and into a nearby ocean.

In Trashed, a 20-minute documentary, you can take “an existential road trip through the quixotic American waste stream,”1 and get an idea of what our throwaway society is truly costing the planet…

4.5 Pounds of Garbage a Day for Every American

This is the estimated waste thrown out by an average American, each and every day. In all this amounted to about 250 million tons of trash in the United States in 2010 alone.2 Trashed follows that waste from your garbage can to transfer stations and ultimately to incinerators or landfills that are quickly reaching their maximum limits.

There are problems with both waste disposal options, however:
•Incinerators: Emit toxic dioxins, mercury, cadmium and other particulate matter into the air, and convert waste into toxic ash (which is sometimes used to cover landfills).
•Landfills: There are more than 3,000 active landfills, and 10,000 old landfills, in the United States.3 While the number of landfills in the U.S. has been decreasing in recent decades, they have, individually, been increasing in size.

Along with being a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, like methane, they produce “leachate,” a toxic fluid composed of pollutants like benzene, pesticides, heavy metals, endocrine-disrupting chemicals and more, which come from the compressed trash.

Although landfills are technically supposed to keep garbage dry and are lined to prevent leachate from contaminating nearby soil and groundwater, the landfill liners are virtually guaranteed to degrade, tear, or crack eventually, allowing the toxins to escape directly into the environment.

In fact, women who live within two miles of a hazardous waste landfill are 33 percent more likely to have children with serious birth defects.4 Further, one study that tested the leachate from 58 landfills found cancer-causing chemicals in all of them, and noted that:5

“…the estimated carcinogenic potency for the leachate from some municipal landfills may be similar to the carcinogenic potency for the leachate from the Love Canal landfill [one of the worst hazardous waste landfill sites in history].”

Plastic Particles Pose Serious Risks to Oceans, Marine Life and Seabirds

Trashed takes viewers to U.S. coasts, where volunteers are picking up plastic waste that has washed up on the beaches. Some seabirds mistake brightly colored plastic lighters, toothbrushes and toys for food, consuming them or feeding them to their young, who end up dying. Loggerhead sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, their favorite food. And the effects are disastrous, including internal blockages, dehydration, starvation, and potentially death.

Albatrosses are frequently found strangled by the plastic rings that hold six-packs of soda together. Other creatures meet a painful end by getting tangled up in plastic netting.

Plastic particles are like “sponges” for waterborne contaminants such as PCBs, pesticides like DDT, herbicides, PAHs, and other persistent organic pollutants. This phenomenon makes plastics far from benign, and scientists have yet to determine the full extent of the dangers posed by their consumption or the effects higher up the food chain.

While approximately 50 percent of plastic waste goes to landfills (where it will sit for hundreds of years due to limited oxygen and lack of microorganisms to break it down) the remaining 45 plus percent “disappears” into the environment where it ultimately washes out to sea, damaging marine ecosystems and entering the food chain.

The Biggest Landfills May Now Exist in the Oceans…

One of the biggest environmental assaults is the massive accumulation of plastic trash in each of the world’s five major oceanic gyres. Gyres are large, slowly rotating oceanic whirlpools, driven by global winds and ocean currents.6 Garbage and debris is funneled into the center of these gyres, in a kind of toilet bowl effect or vortex.

One of these gyres, the North Pacific Gyre, is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean about a thousand miles from the Western coast. In its midst is a huge mass of trash (90 percent plastics), which floats in a soup of smaller pieces that have been broken apart by wave action.

Some call it the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” and others the “Pacific Trash Vortex,” but regardless of its name, it’s the largest “landfill” in the world. In it you will find everything from plastic netting to bottles and bags and buckets, paint rollers, hula-hoops and medical equipment. Most of the garbage patch, however, is not made up of large items but rather microplastics you can’t see with the naked eye, forming a sort of plastic soup where pure seawater used to be. Filter-feeding marine animals ingest these plastic particles, and the toxins they contain, and subsequently pass them up through the food chain, and eventually to humans…

A Throwaway Society May be Throwing Away the Future

The sheer amount of waste that is generated needlessly on any given day is quite mind-boggling. For instance, according to the Clean Air Council:7
•The average American office worker uses about 500 disposable cups every year.
•Every year, Americans throw away enough paper and plastic cups, forks, and spoons to circle the equator 300 times.
•The estimated 2.6 billion holiday cards sold each year in the U.S. could fill a football field 10 stories high.
•Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, an extra million tons of waste is generated each week.
•38,000 miles of ribbon are thrown away each year, enough to tie a bow around the Earth.

Your parents and grandparents likely used products in reusable, recyclable or degradable containers made from glass, metals and paper. But today, discarded plastics and other waste are circling the globe at a significant human and environmental cost.

It’s a problem of convenience – choosing a plastic disposable water bottle instead of using a reusable glass container, for instance – as well as one of overconsumption. Even durable items like electronics, toys, and clothes are often regarded as “throwaway” products that we use for a short period and quickly replace – often without recycling, donating or re-using them for another purpose.

Of course, you are living in a society that makes you feel behind if you do not buy the latest model of this or that, or update your wardrobe with the latest fashions. We’re also increasingly living on the go, where food in throwaway packages is by far the rule rather than the exception. Contrast that to a couple of generations ago when frugality and resourcefulness were highly valued, and food came fresh from the farm, butcher shop or baker, and you begin to see where the real problems with excess waste are springing from.

Cutting Down on Waste: It’s Your Responsibility

As the Trashed documentary pointed out, it’s going to take global efforts to change the way trash is being generated and disposed of, but every individual can play a part in that change. You can do your part by taking the following action steps that reduce your plastic consumption and generation of waste, which will benefit your health as well as the environment.
•Reduce your plastic use: If at all possible seek to purchase products that are not made from or packaged in plastic. Here are a few ideas… Use reusable shopping bags for groceries. Bring your own mug for coffee and bring drinking water from home in glass water bottles, instead of buying bottled water. Store foods in the freezer in glass mason jars as opposed to plastic bags. Take your own leftovers container to restaurants. Request no plastic wrap on your newspaper and dry cleaning. Avoid disposable utensils and buy foods in bulk when you can. These are just a few ideas — I’m sure you can think of more.
•Recycle/Repurpose what you can: Take care to recycle and repurpose products whenever possible, especially ones that are not available in anything other than plastic. This includes giving your clothes or gently used household items to charities, and frequenting second-hand stores instead of buying new. Make use of online sites like Freecycle.org that allow you to give products you no longer need away to others instead of throwing them away.
•Choose reusable over single-use: This includes non-disposable razors, washable feminine hygiene products for women, cloth diapers, glass bottles for your milk, cloth grocery bags, handkerchiefs instead of paper tissues, an old t-shirt or rags in lieu of paper towels, and so on.
•Compost your food scraps and yard waste: A simple bin in your backyard can greatly cut down on your landfill contributions while rewarding you with a natural fertilizer for your soil.
•Support legislation: Support legislative efforts to manage waste in your community; take a leadership role with your company, school, and neighborhood.
•Be Innovative: If you have a great idea, share it! Your capacity to come up with smarter designs and creative ideas is limitless, and many heads are better than one. Innovations move us toward a more sustainable world.
•Assist Recovery: Return deposits on bottles and other plastic products, and participate in “plastic drives” for local schools, where cash is paid by the pound.

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




Treat your rheumatoid arthritis…

Posted by: Stef605  /  Category: Health

Treat your rheumatoid arthritis with antioxidants and fish oil Antioxidants may be effective in relieving the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), research has found. RA is an autoimmune disease, meaning that for unknown reasons the body’s immune system begins to attack and destroy its own tissues. In RA, the most damage occurs to the cartilage in the joints, typically in identical joints on both sides of the body. These joints become red, hot and swollen, resulting in difficulty moving and severe pain. Other symptoms of RA can includes nodules or lumps under the skin, inflammation of the eyes, and malaise. The disease typically manifests between the ages of 35 and 60, and is more common in women. Typical pharmaceutical treatments for RA consist of two different drug classes: nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), designed to combat pain, and disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), many of them immune suppressors, designed to slow the progression of the disease or even send it into remission. There is no cure for RA, and both NSAIDs and DMARDs can carry severe side effects, particularly when used over the long term. For that reason, many RA patients turn to alternative remedies for help managing their symptoms. Antioxidants Numerous alternative medicine advocates promote antioxidants as a treatment for RA symptoms. In scientific studies, vitamin E has been shown to reduce pain, although not inflammation. Another study, conducted by researchers from VU Medical University Centre in Amsterdam and published in the journal Clinical Rheumatology in 2008, had eight RA patients consume 20 grams of an antioxidant-rich spread over the course of 10 weeks. All participants were nonsmoking women who had been receiving either NSAIDs or “second line” RA drugs for at least three months before the study began. The antioxidant-rich spread included 400 mg of alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E), 10 mg of lycopene, 10 mg of lutein and five milligrams of palm oil carotenoids, including alpha carotene (vitamin A). The participants were also given a 200 mg daily dose of vitamin C. The researchers found that at the end of the study, participants had significantly fewer swollen and painful joints than they had at the start of the study, and their overall health had improved. Within four weeks after the end of the intervention; however, their symptoms and health had begun to worsen again – indicating that consistent, ongoing antioxidant treatment is needed for long-term symptom relief. Fish oil By far, the most well-proven natural RA symptom treatment is fish oil and omega-3 fatty acids. At least 13 separate double-blind, placebo-controlled studies on more than 500 participants have shown that omega-3 supplements significantly reduce RA symptoms and actually enable patients to lower their NSAID usage. Some research suggests that fish oil becomes even more effective when taken as part of a diet that is low in omega-6s, such as a vegetarian diet, or when olive oil is also taken. Because severe joint damage occurs early in RA, and because no natural remedies have yet been proven to effectively slow the progression of the disease, it is important that RA patients continue to consult with qualified health professionals even if taking antioxidants, fish oil or other alternative treatments. Sources: http://www.vitasearch.com/get-clp-summary/37131 http://www.harthosp.org http://www.antioxidants-make-you-healthy.com If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Obama betrays America yet again..

Posted by: Stef605  /  Category: Uncategorized

Obama betrays America yet again by signing the ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ into law President Barack Obama campaigned on promises to end secret prisons, decriminalize marijuana, balance the budget, honor the Second Amendment and make health care affordable. But what really unfolded was an explosion in the national debt (now $16 trillion and climbing), the signing of the NDAA, a claimed new power to kill any American at any time, even on U.S. soil, the use of military drones to murder American children overseas, a full-on assault against the Bill of Rights, a doubling of health insurance rates and the destruction of the U.S. economy. But that’s not all. Now Obama has signed the “Monsanto Protection Act” into law, stabbing America in the heart yet again and proving that no matter how convincing politicians appear on the campaign trail, they are still sociopathic liars in the end. The Monsanto Protection Act, part of the HR 933 continuing resolution, allows Monsanto to override U.S. federal courts on the issue of planting experimental genetically engineered crops all across the country. Even if those experimental crops are found to be extremely dangerous or to cause a runaway crop plague, the U.S. government now has no judicial power to stop them from being planted and harvested. As ibtimes.com reports, the bill “effectively bars federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of GMO or GE crops and seeds, no matter what health consequences from the consumption of these products may come to light in the future.” GMOs now evade all regulations: America has become a grand Monsanto experiment A Food Democracy Now petition now states: With the Senate passage of the Monsanto Protection Act, biotech lobbyists are one step closer to making sure that their new GMO crops can evade any serious scientific or regulatory review. This dangerous provision, the Monsanto Protection Act, strips judges of their constitutional mandate to protect consumer and farmer rights and the environment, while opening up the floodgates for the planting of new untested genetically engineered crops, endangering farmers, citizens and the environment. Corporate-government conspiracy is fascism This new law forces the USDA to automatically approve all GMO planting permits sought by Monsanto and other biotech firms, effectively granting Monsanto dominion over the U.S. government. This is the very definition of fascism, a form of tyrannical government where corporations conspire with the government to destroy or confiscate all rights, powers and assets, leaving the people impoverished and powerless. What’s interesting about this development is that now even democrats are starting to wake up and see how evil Obama really is. As ibtimes reports: “In this hidden backroom deal, Sen. Mikulski turned her back on consumer, environmental and farmer protection in favor of corporate welfare for biotech companies such as Monsanto,” Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, said in a statement. “This abuse of power is not the kind of leadership the public has come to expect from Sen. Mikulski or the Democrat Majority in the Senate.” Of course, for those of us who have been paying attention and warning everyone else about the dangerous power grab taking place under the Obama regime, this is exactly the kind of behavior we expected to see. The Senate has abandoned law. It has abandoned the Constitution, the rights of the People and even due process. We are now living under a corporate fascist tyranny where companies like Monsanto, General Electric and GlaxoSmithKline control the government and dictate policy. They literally write the laws. This Monsanto Protect Act, says the Center for Food Safety, is “an unprecedented attack on U.S. judicial review of agency actions” and “a major violation of the separation of powers.” (SOURCE) But that’s what Obama has always been about. He’s the president who seized control of all farms, food and livestock across America. He’s the guy who claims the power the decide who to assassinate anywhere in America. His administration has routinely conspired with Monsanto to endanger the American people and turn America’s croplands into a grand, dangerous genetics experiment. “Pandora’s Box is unlocked, Obama just propped open the lid, and there’s no way to cram the evil back in,” wrote The Daily Sheeple. “I’m personally pledging at least one article per week about Monsanto, their incestuous relationship with the government, and their toxic grip on agriculture. I urge everyone to raise a deafening public outcry — every voice adds to the noise that we can create.” Who is to blame? Senators Barbara Mikulski and Roy Blunt, among others The chair of the committee that secretly slipped this provision into the bill was Sen. Barbara Mikulski, an absolute traitor to America for allowing the Monsanto Protection Act to become law. She could have stopped it, yet she did nothing to oppose it. She actually helped sneak it into law. Like nearly all U.S. senators, Mikulski is now operating as an outright enemy of the People while selling out to corporate interests who are peddling poison and death. There is hardly a U.S. senator remaining who respects his or her oath of office. While Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are showing real courage in the face of federal tyranny and oppression — and Sen. Ron Wyden honestly tries to protect the people of Oregon from outrageous federal aggression — most senators are now little more than corporate puppets who obey the bidding of their masters. Sickeningly, Sen. Mikulski recently praised the creation of a Harriet Tubman memorial, honoring the courage of a woman who stood against tyranny and defended the people by creating the Underground Railroad. Yet Mikulski herself does the exact opposite, selling out to Monsanto and betraying people of all races by overseeing the passage of what is essentially a “judicial nullification power” now granted to a dangerous and truly evil corporation. Her actions in this matter were anti-trade, anti-America, anti-human and anti-justice. Harriet Tubman, a true American hero, would absolutely shutter at the thought that a U.S. Senator honoring her memory was simultaneously betraying the people of America by handing over extra-judicial powers to a corporation engaged in widespread genetic pollution and agricultural malfeasance. Harriet Tubman was born a slave and risked her life to lead others to freedom. Sen. Mikulski was born a privileged woman who risked nothing to lead her constituents to corporate slavery. For Mikulski to honor Tubman is an insult to the memory of Tubman and the freedom she stood for. Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt actively conspired with Monsanto to write the provision Mikulski wasn’t the only Monsanto sellout in the U.S. Senate, of course: Missouri senator Roy Blunt was also part of the conspiracy to stab America in the heart and poison our food. According to another article on ibtimes.com: The provision’s language was apparently written in collusion with Monsanto. Lawmakers and companies working together to craft legislation is by no means a rare occurrence in this day and age. But the fact that Sen. Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, actually worked with Monsanto on a provision that in effect allows them to keep selling seeds, which can then go on to be planted, even if it is found to be harmful to consumers, is stunning. Who opposed the Monsanto Protection Act? Democratic Senator John Tester. As the NY Daily News reports: Opposing the inclusion of the rider was Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.), who told Politico that the deal worked out with Monsanto was simply bad policy. “These provisions are giveaways, pure and simple, and will be a boon worth millions of dollars to a handful of the biggest corporations in this country,” Tester said. Tester, of course, has been the voice of reason on several fronts in recent years, including the so-called Food Safety and Modernization Act of 2010 which granted the FDA vast new powers to terrorize gardeners and farmers across America. Sen. Tester proposed amendments that attempted to protect the freedoms of American farmers, but his efforts were of course thwarted by the evil corporate conspirators who now fill the U.S. Senate chambers. America is lost… what now? Voted into office by people whose hearts were filled with hope for real change, Obama now reveals himself to be a sinister serpent of deception who betrays the American people at every opportunity. The Obama Deception is the title of the film released by Alex Jones in 2009. At the time, Jones was ridiculed by Obama supporters who said Obama was their savior and anyone who criticized Obama was a racist. Now, four years later, it’s obvious that once again Alex Jones was right about Obama. Even democrats are increasingly realizing this shocking truth as they watch Obama betray the people of America on issues like GMOs, secret prisons, banker bailouts, due process and marijuana. With deceivers like Obama at the helm, America has been turned over to corporate interests, and the rights and liberties of the People have been eviscerated. The U.S. federal government no longer represents the interests of the people. It has become a dominant, dangerous and arrogant machine of oppression and tyranny. It has abandoned law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It has violated the very principles upon which this nation was founded and now plays God with our seeds, our food and our future. These are times of such treachery and betrayal that we cannot even imagine the web of deception being weaved to entrap and destroy truth in America. We the People are being deceived by false media propaganda and told everything is fine while Senators and bureaucrats march us into pits of death while corporate bulldozers stand by to quickly cover up the mass graves. The United States government is at WAR with the American people, and that war is being waged with every poison imaginable: genetic pollution, disinfo propaganda, chemical fluoride poisoning, vaccine lobotomies, chemtrails, psychiatric drugs and twisted mental health initiatives. The battleground for this war is your dinner plate, your tap water, your medicine and your core beliefs. The goal of the war is the complete decimation of all cognitive awareness and the abolition of freedom of thought. Give this a few more years, and the mere utterance of any idea critical of the government will be considered an “act of terrorism” punishable by death. If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Healthy People, Mental Illness Patients?

Posted by: Stef605  /  Category: Health

Turning Healthy People Into Mental Illness Patients
By Dr. Mercola

The fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) diagnostic “bible” – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM) – is due out in May 2013.

DSM-5 contains an ever-expanding list of mental illnesses, along with detailed criteria that psychiatrists and other mental health professionals use for making diagnoses.

But many critics have emerged, including a group of opponents referred to as the International DSM-5 Response Committee, who are launching a campaign to block the manual’s release, or at least warn practitioners and patients alike to take its definitions of mental illness with a serious grain of salt …

Turning Healthy People Into Mental Illness Patients

According to some, the new version of the manual will label healthy people with a mental condition and make them prime candidates for unnecessary prescriptions of mind-altering antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs.

At the center of the anti-DSM-5 movement is Dr. Allen Frances, author of “Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against Out of Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life.”

Dr. Frances actually led the task force that produced the last edition of the manual, DSM-4, which he now believes has resulted in the over-medicalization and over-diagnosis of mental illnesses.

Frances told CNN:1

“What motivates me is the experience of having inadvertently contributed to fads and psycho-diagnosis that have resulted in over-diagnosis and over-treatment … Some of this happened during DSM IV, even though we were more conservative with that document than they’ve been with DSM-5, with its many changes that are unsupported and, in some cases, quite reckless.”

Normal Emotions Classified as Disorders?

The soon-to-be-released DSM-5 contains a myriad of questionable new disorders that could result in turning virtually anyone experiencing normal human life challenges and emotions into a patient.

For instance, “somatic symptom disorder” describes a person who has spent six months or more thinking about and being anxious about their medical issues. This, Frances explained, would incorrectly apply to about one in four people with chronic pain or irritable bowel syndrome, he told CNN.

Then there is “Internet use disorder,” which will be recommended as an area that needs further study in DSM-5. Internet use disorder includes many characteristics of any addiction, such as experiencing withdrawal symptoms when the object of addiction is taken away, an inability to control its use, developing a tolerance to it, deceiving family members about its use, and losing interests in other hobbies.

In this case, of course, the object of abuse is the Internet. By making Internet addiction a certifiable mental illness, it then becomes treatable by drugs and billable through insurance companies―and morphs into a “disorder” that is likely something that will stigmatize your health records for the rest of your life.

Millions of Americans, including me, use the Internet on a daily basis, many for hours on end, so the potential treatment market for “Internet use disorder” is huge.

Even Grief is a Mental ‘Illness’

Also according to DSM-5, you may actually have an “Adjustment Disorder” related to bereavement if:2

“Following the death of a close family member or close friend, the individual experiences on more days than not intense yearning or longing for the deceased, intense sorrow and emotional pain, or preoccupation with the deceased or the circumstances of the death for at least 12 months (or 6 months for children). The person may also display difficulty accepting the death, intense anger over the loss, a diminished sense of self, a feeling that life is empty, or difficulty planning for the future or engaging in activities or relationships.”

These all sound like normal reactions following the death of a loved one, but the DSM-5 also proposes further study for Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder, with the purpose being to “develop the best empirically-based set of symptoms to characterize individuals with bereavement-related disorders.”

Close to 2.5 million Americans die each year, and the number of those experiencing grief as a result is far higher. This is the market the pharmaceutical industry stands to gain, thanks to the APA’s trigger-happy attitude when it comes to labeling normal human emotions as psychiatric “disorders.”

Many of the Mental Illnesses in the DSM are Subjective

It’s almost impossible to see a psychiatrist today without being diagnosed with a mental disorder because so many behavior variations are described as pathology. And you have very high chance – approaching 100% — of emerging from your psychiatrist’s office with a prescription in hand. Writing a prescription is, of course, much faster than engaging in behavioral or lifestyle strategies, but it’s also a far more lucrative approach for the conventional model.

What makes this scenario all the more frustrating is the fact that virtually none of the mental disorders described in the DSM can be objectively measured by empirical tests.3 In other words, they’re completely subjective. Mental illness symptoms within this manual are arbitrarily assigned by a subjective voting system by a psychiatric panel. So, they’re essentially making up diseases to fit the drugs—not the other way around. Following are some actual “diseases” in the DSM:
•Do you shop too much? You might have Compulsive Shopping Disorder.
•Do you have a difficult time with multiplication? You could be suffering from Dyscalculia.
•Spending too much time at the gym? You’d better see someone for your Bigorexia or Muscle Dysmorphia.
•And my favorite—are your terrified by the number 13? You could have Triskaidekaphobia!

Neurologists Say ADHD Drugs Should Not be Used as ‘Study Drugs’

Adderall, which contains amphetamine (aka “speed”) and dextroamphetamine, is a stimulant drug that is often prescribed to improve attention and focus and reduce impulsiveness and hyperactivity in patients with ADHD.

But because of its stimulant properties, it’s become a black-market drug of choice for college kids looking to pull all-nighters to boost their grades. An estimated one in 10 college students abuse Adderall as a way to gain a competitive edge in their studies, often comparing it to athletes who use steroids.4 But the pills have a dark side, often quickly leading to addiction and causing other side effects like mood swings, insomnia, depression and panic attacks.

College students who use Adderall as a “study drug” acquired from the black market is a large enough problem on its own, but in some cases physicians prescribe these drugs to healthy kids for this very same purpose, a trend sometimes called “pediatric neuroenhancement.” The practice has become so commonplace that the American Academy of Neurology has released a formal statement against it, noting:5

“In children and adolescents, neuroenhancement appears to be increasing in parallel to the rising rates of attention-deficit disorder diagnoses and stimulant medication prescriptions, and the opportunities for medication diversion. Pediatric neuroenhancement remains a particularly unsettled and value-laden practice, often without appropriate goals or justification.

Pediatric neuroenhancement presents its own ethical, social, legal, and developmental issues, including the fiduciary responsibility of physicians caring for children, the special integrity of the doctor–child–parent relationship, the vulnerability of children to various forms of coercion, distributive justice in school settings, and the moral obligation of physicians to prevent misuse of medication.… neuroenhancement in legally and developmentally nonautonomous children and adolescents without a diagnosis of a neurologic disorder is not justifiable.”

Even if the drugs do give students a competitive edge against their non-medicated peers, it’s unclear how any physician would consider this worth the risk. Drugs like Adderall are powerful, mind-altering medications linked to growth suppression, increased blood pressure and psychotic episodes. In children, the impacts of their long-term use are completely unknown, although given the drug’s addictive nature, it’s quite possible these kids could become life-long addicts.

5 Tips to Support Your Mental Health

My heart goes out to you if you, or someone you love, is struggling with mental illness. The solutions offered below will often help you to overcome your battle in the long run, but in no way are they meant to minimize the complicated puzzle of mental illness, or the extreme toll it can take on family units and in some cases extended circles of friends.

Whether you’re facing depression or another mental condition, these strategies have nothing but positive effects and are generally very inexpensive to implement. Plus, they can be used for both children and adults alike, and work great when implemented with your entire family involved.
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.
2.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, all you need to do is return balance to your life, and one of the key ways to doing this is addressing stress.

Meditation or yoga can help. Sometimes all you need to do is get outside for a walk. But in addition to that, I also recommend using a solid support system composed of friends, family and, if necessary, professional counselors, who can help you work through your emotional stress. The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is also often effective.
3.Eat a healthy diet — Another 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 fructose, sugar and grains will help normalize your insulin and leptin levels, which is another powerful tool in addressing positive mental health.
4.Support optimal brain functioning with essential fats — I also strongly recommend supplementing your diet with a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat, like krill oil. Omega-3 fats are essential for your optimal brain function, and that includes regulating your mood and fighting depression. In fact, the evidence has become so compelling that some experts in the field encourage all mental health professionals to ensure that their patients suffering from depression have an adequate intake of omega-3 fats.
5.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. Vitamin D deficiency is actually more the norm than the exception, and has previously been implicated in both psychiatric and neurological disorders

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




Infant Hepatitis B Vaccination?..

Posted by: Stef605  /  Category: Health

Infant Hepatitis B Vaccination May be Ineffective in Teenagers By the time your newborn is 12 hours old, federal health officials recommend administering the first dose of hepatitis B vaccine. TWELVE HOURS! If you want to avoid it you must make it VERY clear to all hospital staff well before the delivery and monitor your baby closely until you leave the hospital. Three hepatitis B shots are part of the standard government-recommended childhood vaccination schedule, with the third dose to be given before 18 months of age. But hepatitis B is a primarily blood-transmitted adult disease associated with risky lifestyle choices such as unprotected sex with multiple partners and intravenous drug use involving sharing needles — it is NOT primarily a “children’s disease” or one that is a common threat to newborn babies. In fact, according to the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC):1 “The primary reason that the CDC recommended hepatitis B vaccination for all newborns in the United States in 1991 is because public health officials and doctors could not persuade adults in high risk groups (primarily IV drug abusers and persons with multiple sexual partners) to get the vaccine.” But now new research has shown that by the time a child reaches his or her teenage years – the time when acquiring a hepatitis B infection may be more likely – the protection from the childhood vaccine may have long since waned… Infant Hepatitis B Vaccination May be Ineffective in Teenagers The study, which involved nearly 9,000 high school students, found that by the age of 15, about 15 percent of teens who received the full series of hepatitis B shots as infants tested positive for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), which is an early indicator of infection or a sign that the person is a chronic carrier of the virus.2 This percentage was even higher among teens who had received the hepatitis B vaccine off schedule, or whose mothers were high risk, meaning they tested positive for hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg). In other words, it appears that in many this vaccine does NOT provide lasting protection. The researchers noted: “A significant proportion of complete vaccinees may have lost their immunological memories against HBsAg.” It’s for this reason that the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns and young children is the least justifiable of any vaccine I can think of and certainly should not be mandated for daycare or school attendance. Remember, the disease is only transmitted via contaminated needles, blood transfusion, or contact with contaminated blood and/or body fluids. In fact, it is described by the CDC primarily as a sexually-transmitted disease, e.g. vaginal, anal, oral sex transmitted. While babies can contract hepatitis B vertically via their mother at birth, this very rare risk can be identified via prebirth hepatitis screening of mothers, hence making vaccination essentially unnecessary in nearly every case. And so, we must ask ourselves, if the only way a newborn infant can be infected with hepatitis B in a hospital is through infected blood or semen, either the hospital is doing a terrible job of protecting their newborns against such exposure, or the medical justification for vaccinating infants against Hepatitis B simply doesn’t exist. Hepatitis B Vaccine Linked to SIDS and Other Serious Side Effects The recommendation to vaccinate newborns against a disease they have little to no risk of catching becomes all the more ludicrous when you consider the serious side effects the vaccine may cause. As NVIC reported:3 “As of March 2012, there was a total of 66,654 hepatitis B vaccine-related adverse events reported to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), including reports of headache, irritability, extreme fatigue, brain inflammation, convulsions, rheumatoid arthritis, optic neuritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) and neuropathy. There have been more than 1,500 hepatitis B vaccine-related deaths reported, including deaths classified as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).” Keep in mind that this is likely an underestimation because only a fraction of the serious health problems, including deaths, following vaccination are ever acknowledged due to a lack of public awareness about how to recognize signs and symptoms of vaccine reactions. Also, vaccine adverse events are substantially underreported — some estimate only between one and 10 percent of all serious heath problems and deaths that occur after vaccination are ever reported — even though the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 mandated that all doctors and other vaccine providers report serious health problems, including hospitalizations, injuries and deaths following vaccination. Moreover, often only acute reaction symptoms that occur soon after vaccination are recognized, since chronic inflammation and other subclinical adverse effects may take weeks, months, years or even decades to fully manifest. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible in many cases, to link chronic health problems back to an earlier vaccination or series of vaccinations, especially when doctors fail to inform themselves or their patients about vaccine risks and fail to keep accurate medical records. The 1986 Act did not include sanctions for failing to inform, record or report potential vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). So most vaccine providers, for reasons that are obvious, e.g. their guilt and desire to conveniently write off all vaccine-associated health problems as a “coincidence,” do not file a report when the health of a person recently vaccinated begins to deteriorate. Truth be told, many vaccine reactions are not even recognized by medical personnel as vaccine-related, in part because many have been mislead into believing that vaccine-induced injuries are exceedingly rare. For instance, when babies die after hepatitis B vaccinations, most of the time their deaths are automatically attributed to SIDS — without investigation into whether the vaccine caused the baby’s sudden death. When a baby’s death is listed as “SIDS,” rarely does anyone ask about the deceased infant’s vaccination history to find out whether there were symptoms of vaccine reactions before death, even though the biomedical literature has repeatedly signaled this connection.4 60 Diseases and Adverse Reactions are Associated With the Hepatitis B Vaccine As Dr. Jane Orient of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) testified to Congress: “For most children, the risk of a serious vaccine reaction may be 100 times greater than the risk of hepatitis B.” Indeed, at least 60 diseases or adverse unintended consequences are associated with hepatitis B vaccination.5 Common reactions to the vaccine include fatigue, muscle weakness, fever, headache, irritability and joint pain. A study published in Annals of Epidemiology6 also found that giving hepatitis B vaccine to infant boys more than tripled their risk for an autism spectrum disorder. This was doubly concerning because an earlier study by the same researcher group, using a different database, found the same results. And there have been reports of disabling neurological and immunological disorders that have developed following hepatitis B vaccinations as well, including: Multiple sclerosis (MS) Guillain Barre syndrome Bell’s Palsy Diabetes Rheumatoid arthritis Lupus Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia purpura Convulsions and brain disorders such as encephalitis (brain swelling) and brain demyelination Immune dysfunction Visual and hearing impairments, including optic neuritis Pancreatitis Autism spectrum disorders The association between hepatitis B vaccine and autism, particularly the 3-fold higher risk in males as reported by parents,7 may be explained by the well-known phenomena of molecular mimicry. Some researchers have proposed that the hepatitis B vaccine induces autoimmune demyelinating disease through the molecular mimicry that exists between the vaccine antigen, Epstein-Barr virus and human myelin. Basically, the vaccine stimulates an antibody response that cross-reacts against neurological self-structures, such as myelin, resulting in neurological damage.8 What You Should Know About Hepatitis B Hepatitis B is often called “the silent killer” because as many as 95 percent of those with the disease exhibit no symptoms at all, until it’s too late. The disease can progress unnoticed for years in some cases, and patients oftentimes learn they have chronic hepatitis B once they develop severe liver damage Hepatitis actually means liver inflammation. Ironically, hepatitis B vaccines have actually been shown to induce liver inflammation associated with hepatitis.9 The “A,” “B” and “C” designations refer to the type of hepatitis virus involved. Symptoms of hepatitis A and B are very similar, and include: •Abdominal pain •Fever •Fatigue •Joint pain •Jaundice (yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes) Fortunately, in most cases the hepatitis B infection will resolve on its own provided you have a well-functioning immune system. Symptoms can be relieved by: •Resting •Avoiding foods that weaken your immune function, such as sugars/fructose, grains, and processed foods. Healthful foods that help boost your immune system include fermented foods and organic vegetables. (For a list of the top 12 most beneficial foods for robust immune function, please see this previous article) •Optimizing your vitamin D levels •Drinking plenty of pure water •Avoiding alcohol and drugs If you recover completely from hepatitis B infection, you’ll acquire life-long immunity. A diagnosis of chronic hepatitis B, on the other hand, will typically include some form of antiviral medication, and depending on how far along your disease has progressed, you may even require a liver transplant. Even if you have been vaccinated as a child, it’s important to remember that you may not be protected from these risks, and could still be infected via IV drug abuse, sexual activity with an infected partner, a blood transfusion with contaminated blood or even getting a manicure or pedicure… You Have a Choice Regarding Hepatitis B Vaccination If you’re an expecting parent, it’s important to know that the hepatitis B vaccine is given to virtually every newborn in the hospital — many times without parents’ consent — shortly after the child is born. Please carefully review the reward-to-benefit ratio well before your deliver. If you conclude like many concerned health care professionals, that subjecting all healthy newborns to hepatitis B vaccination within hours of birth is both risky and unnecessary and you decide it is not appropriate for your baby, you can amend the “consent for medical treatment” forms you sign upon entering the hospital before giving birth by writing on the form that you do not give consent for your baby’s hepatitis B vaccination in the newborn nursery. You should let any nurses or other medical staff taking care of you and your baby know this directly as well. However, there are reports that some newborns are being vaccinated in the newborn nursery against the parent’s wishes. So it is a good idea to keep your newborn with you at all times or have a family member stay with the baby while in the hospital. That said, it is important to be tested for hepatitis B if you’re pregnant, as it’s possible to have a chronic infection with no symptoms and not know it. If you are pregnant and are a carrier for the hepatitis B virus, your baby could be at risk for being infected during childbirth. And although hepatitis B vaccines may be “mandated” for your child to attend school or day care, most states offer different legal vaccine exemptions (medical, religious, and philosophical). On NVIC.org, you can research your state’s specific vaccine laws and requirements and find out what kind of exemption to hepatitis B vaccination you are allowed to exercise in your state for your child to attend daycare or school. If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

How Stress Affects Your Heart..

Posted by: Stef605  /  Category: Health

As much as you may try to ignore it, you cannot separate your wellness from your emotions. Every feeling you have affects some part of your body, and stress can wreak havoc on your physical health even if you’re doing everything else “right.” The classic definition of stress is “any real or imagined threat, and your body’s response to it.” Celebrations and tragedies alike can cause a stress response in your body. All of your feelings, positive or negative, create physiological changes. Your skin, heart rate, digestion, joints, muscle energy levels, the hair on your head, and countless cells and systems you don’t even know about change with every emotion. Stress plays a major role in your immune system, and can impact your blood pressure, cholesterol levels, brain chemistry, blood sugar levels, and hormonal balance. It can even “break” your heart, and is increasingly being viewed as a cardiovascular risk marker. Women are more vulnerable to feeling sadness and anxiety than men, according to research, and feel the pressures of stress more than their male peers, both at work and at home. You cannot eliminate stress entirely, but you can work to provide your body with tools to compensate for the bioelectrical short-circuiting that can cause serious disruption in many of your body’s important systems. By using techniques such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), you can reprogram your body’s reactions to the unavoidable stressors of everyday life. Exercising regularly, getting enough sleep, and meditation are also important “release valves” that can help you manage your stress. How Women Experience Stress Some stress is unavoidable; mild forms of stress can even be helpful in some situations. A stressor becomes a problem when: •Your response to it is negative. •Your feelings and emotions are inappropriate for the circumstances. •Your response lasts an excessively long time. •You’re feeling continuously overwhelmed, overpowered or overworked. According to the featured article in The Guardian,1 certain themes connect women’s experience of stress. Stomach-churning anxiety, for example, is far more common in women than men. As is feelings of sadness in response to stress, and not being able to stop thinking about that which worries them. This in and of itself may feed into a vicious cycle that makes matters progressively worse, because when you dwell on negative emotions you internalize the stress, which can make it more difficult to come up with constructive ways to address the problem. According to Dr. Tara Chaplin, who led a 2008 study2 investigating the role of gender and emotion, sadness and anxiety are very passive emotions, so while you’re sitting there thinking and worrying, you’re less likely to assert yourself and engage in active problem-solving. This could be particularly problematic in the workplace, she warns. She suggests finding other, more active methods of coping instead of ruminating and dwelling on negative emotions. What can you change about the situation to make it better? What can you do to lessen those stressful feelings? “Take an active role and thinking of healthy ways to cope – which could be anything from exercise, meditating, using some new mindfulness techniques, taking breaks for yourself,” she told The Guardian. “I focus my research on how women and men cope with stress, but we also need to have a conversation about what can be done societally to reduce stress on women… Are there programs that can be in place for subsidizing daycare so you have good daycare? Could we have longer maternity leave? These sorts of things are really important.” How Stress Affects Your Heart In related news, mounting research shows that people exposed to traumatic and/or long-term stressors, such as combat veterans, New Orleans residents who went through Hurricane Katrina, and Greeks struggling through financial turmoil, have higher rates of cardiac problems than the general population. According to NBC News:3 “Disasters and prolonged stress can raise ‘fight or flight’ hormones that affect blood pressure, blood sugar and other things in ways that make heart trouble more likely, doctors say. They also provoke anger and helplessness and spur heart-harming behaviors like eating or drinking too much. ‘We’re starting to connect emotions with cardiovascular risk markers and the new research adds evidence of a link,’ said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Medical Center and an American Heart Association spokeswoman.” In one such study, which involved nearly 208,000 veterans aged 46 to 74, 35 percent of those diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) developed insulin resistance in two years, compared to only 19 percent of those not diagnosed with PTSD. Insulin resistance can lead to type 2 diabetes and hardening of the arteries. PTSD sufferers also had higher rates of metabolic syndrome — a collection of risk factors that raise your risk of heart disease, such as high body fat, cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels. More than half (about 53 percent) of veterans with PTSD had several of these symptoms, compared to 37 percent of those not suffering with PTSD. According to the featured article: “The numbers are estimates and are not as important as the trend — more heart risk with more stress, said one study leader, Dr. Ramin Ebrahimi, a cardiologist at the Greater Los Angeles VA Medical Center and a professor at UCLA. It shows that PTSD can cause physical symptoms, not just the mental ones commonly associated with it. ‘Twenty or 30 years ago PTSD was a term reserved for combat veterans. We have come to realize now that PTSD is actually a much more common disorder and it can happen in veterans who did not undergo combat but had a very traumatic experience such as losing a friend,’ he said. That goes for others who suffer trauma such as being raped, robbed at gunpoint or in a serious accident, he said. Nearly 8 million Americans have PTSD, the National Institute of Mental Health estimates.” Is It a Heart Attack, or ‘Broken Heart Syndrome?’ Extreme grief, regardless of the cause, can actually “break” your heart according to previous research. In comparing how grief affects your heart disease risk within a period of time, researchers found that losing a significant person in your life raises your risk of having a heart attack the next day by 21 times, and in the following week by 6 times.4 The risk of heart attacks began to decline after about a month had passed, perhaps as levels of stress hormones begin to level out. The study did not get into the causes of the abrupt increase in risk of cardiovascular events like a heart attack, but it’s likely related to the flood of stress hormones your body is exposed to following extreme stress. For instance, adrenaline increases your blood pressure and your heart rate, and it’s been suggested it may lead to narrowing of the arteries that supply blood to your heart, or even bind directly to heart cells allowing large amounts of calcium to enter and render the cells temporarily unable to function properly. Interestingly, while your risk of heart attack increases following severe stress, so does your risk of what’s known as stress cardiomyopathy — or “broken heart syndrome” — which is basically a “temporary” heart attack that occurs due to stress. The symptoms of stress cardiomyopathy or broken heart syndrome are very similar to those of a typical heart attack — chest pain, shortness of breath, low blood pressure and even congestive heart failure can occur. There are some important differences, however. In broken heart syndrome, the symptoms occur shortly after an extremely stressful event, such as a death in the family, serious financial loss, extreme anger, domestic abuse, a serious medical diagnosis, or a car accident or other trauma. This stress and the subsequent release of stress hormones are thought to “stun” or “shock” the heart, leading to sudden heart muscle weakness. This condition can be life-threatening and requires immediate medical attention, however it is often a temporary condition that leaves no permanent damage.5 In most cases a typical heart attack occurs due to blockages in the coronary arteries that stop blood flow and cause heart cells to die, leading to irreversible damage. But people with broken heart syndrome often have normal arteries without significant blockages. The symptoms occur due to the emotional stress, so when the stress begins to die down, the heart is able to recover. How the Stress Response Affects Your Digestion and Health Your heart is not the only organ that takes a beating when you’re stressed. While under stress, your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure rises, and blood is shunted away from your midsection, going to your arms, legs, and head for quick thinking, fighting, or fleeing. All of these changes are referred to as the physiological stress response. Under those circumstances, your digestion also completely shuts down, which can have severe ramifications for your overall health. Americans are notorious for “eating on the run,” which can negate the benefits you’d otherwise reap from eating a healthier diet (or make the effects of a poor diet worse). The stress response causes a number of detrimental events in your body, including: Decreased nutrient absorption Elevated cholesterol Increased food sensitivity Decreased oxygenation to your gut Elevated triglycerides Heart burn As much as four times less blood flow to your digestive system, which leads to decreased metabolism Decreased gut flora populations Decreased enzymatic output in your gut – as much as 20,000-fold! Perhaps most importantly, when your body is under the stress response, your cortisol and insulin levels rise. These two hormones tend to track each other, and when your cortisol is consistently elevated under a chronic low-level stress response, you may experience difficulty losing weight or building muscle. Additionally, if your cortisol is chronically elevated, you’ll tend to gain weight around your midsection, which is a major contributing factor to developing diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Many nutrients that are critical for health are also excreted during stress, particularly: •Water-soluble vitamins •Macrominerals •Microminerals •Calcium (calcium excretion can increase as much as 60 to 75 mg within an hour of a stressful event) Tending to Your Gut is Important to Help Combat Mental Stress What this all boils down to is that when you eat under stress, your body is in the opposite state of where you need to be in order to digest, assimilate nutrients and burn calories. You could be eating the healthiest food in the world, but if your body cannot fully digest and assimilate that food, then you will not reap the benefits from it, nor will you be able to burn calories effectively. Interestingly, neurotransmitters like serotonin are also found in your gut. In fact, the greatest concentration of serotonin, which is involved in mood control, depression and suppressing aggression, is found within your intestines, not your brain. It’s no surprise then that scientific evidence shows that nourishing your gut flora with the friendly bacteria with fermented foods or probiotics is extremely important for proper brain function, including psychological well-being and mood control. For instance, the probiotic known as Bifidobacterium longum NCC3001 has been shown to normalize anxiety-like behavior in mice with infectious colitis.6 Research published in 20117 also demonstrated that probiotics have a direct effect on brain chemistry under normal conditions — in such a way that can impact your feelings of anxiety or depression. In short, the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus had a marked effect on GABA [an inhibitory neurotransmitter that is significantly involved in regulating many physiological and psychological processes] levels in certain brain regions and lowered the stress-induced hormone corticosterone, resulting in reduced anxiety- and depression-related behavior. The authors concluded: “Together, these findings highlight the important role of bacteria in the bidirectional communication of the gut-brain axis and suggest that certain organisms may prove to be useful therapeutic adjuncts in stress-related disorders such as anxiety and depression.” For Optimal Health, Take Stress Management Seriously You cannot eliminate stress entirely, but you can work to provide your body with tools to compensate for the bioelectrical short-circuiting that can cause serious disruption in many of your body’s important systems. By using energy psychology techniques such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), you can reprogram your body’s reactions to the unavoidable stressors of everyday life. EFT stimulates different energy meridian points in your body by tapping them with your fingertips while tapping on specific key locations, custom-made verbal affirmations are said repeatedly. This can be done alone or under the supervision of a qualified therapist.8 Seeking the help of a licensed therapist is particularly recommended if you’re dealing with trauma-based stress such as PTSD or grief following the loss of a loved one. There are also many other stress-management strategies you can employ to help you unwind and address your stress, including: •Exercise. Studies have shown that during exercise, tranquilizing chemicals (endorphins) are released in your brain. Exercise is a natural way to bring your body pleasurable relaxation and rejuvenation, and has been shown to help protect against the physical effects of daily stress •Restorative sleep •Meditation (with or without the additional aid of brain wave synchronization technology) •Schedule time to eat without rushing, and make sure to maintain optimal gut health by regularly consuming fermented foods, such as fermented vegetables, or taking a high-quality probiotics supplement If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Stubborn belly fat…

Posted by: Stef605  /  Category: Health

Is Your Exercise Routine Actually
Making You FATTER & Looking OLDER?

By Rob & Kalen Poulos, Authors, ‘Fat Burning Furnace’

If you’re like most folks trying to burn off stubborn flab, you might still be relying on long duration, moderately paced aerobic or “cardio” exercise.

But loads of studies have shown that this is not only a mere waste of time, it is actually A HUGE MISTAKE.

Why?

There are several shocking reasons, but I’ll focus on the two main issues affecting you in this article.

PROBLEM #1: The So-Called “Fat Burning Zone” Is Fool’s Gold

When you exercise at a moderate pace for extended periods of time (as in the typically recommended percent of your target heart rate, or the “fat burning zone”), your body does burn fat during the exercise.

But while this may sound good, it’s actually bad news.

As is often the case with the “alarm/response” mechanisms in your body, over time, this can actually send a signal to your body to keep a certain amount of stored fat available for your next workout.

You’re essentially telling it that it needs fat available to burn, because you’ll be doing this exercise again soon. So while we may be burning some calories during this exercise, after the exercise is over, our body can begin storing up some fat for the next workout.

To make matters worse, the amount of calories burned during even an hour of this exercise is not enough to make a dent in your body’s fat stores, even over the long term.

And typically this type of exercise will just make you hungrier and you’ll end up eating those calories back and more at the end of the day.

Obviously not what we’re looking for!

PROBLEM #2: You’re Not Getting Healthier & You WILL Look Older!

The other big problem with moderately paced aerobic exercise performed several times per week is that it trains your body (heart, lungs, muscles, etc.) to become efficient.

Again, this may SOUND good, but what is actually happening is bad for your long term health and will make you look older.

This is because you are working only within your existing aerobic LIMITS, without improving your aerobic CAPACITY.

Why is that so important?

Because it is your capacity that determines how your body responds in times of physical, emotional, and mental stress. You are effectively training your body’s vital systems to be weaker, not stronger.

Maybe even worse is the fact that hours of this exercise each week has been shown to increase the production of “Free Radicals” in your body.

These scavenging nastys eat away your body’s nutrients and tissues and cause you to LOOK and FEEL up to 10 years OLDER than you actually are.

All of that work to look worn out and older?

Yikes.

But don’t worry, this is easily fixed…

My wife Kalen and I REVERSED this process and on the way lost over 101 pounds by using these tips (along with a few other techniques), and you’ll also find it interesting that:

We did it by enjoying delicious foods several times a day, every day, almost never hungry…

We DID NOT do one minute of ‘cardio’, but still lowered our resting heart rate and re-captured that near boundless energy of our 20s…

I also lost nearly 10 inches of stomach flab, and Kalen dropped 8 dress sizes, going from a 12 to a 4…

We put together a little presentation where you’re going to learn everything else you need to know (including our inspiring before & after pics) here:

Unusual Tips And Unique Tricks That Fight Fat Fast <=== Click Here You also learn the 5 biggest mistakes you've probably been making trying to fight the flab, among all the tricky little details of our truly life-changing discovery… You're going to be blown away when you learn the REAL reasons you're still flabby, out of shape, or just plain fat… Enjoy the presentation and you'll thank us later 😉 Rob & Kalen If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.