Rather Be Healthy

In 1994, a tanker truck carrying fluorisilic acid lost a set of wheels, causing its 4,500-gallon load to spill onto Interstate 4 in Volusia County Florida. Forty-seven people were sent to the hospital as a result, and 2,300 in the area had to be evacuated.

The highway was closed for two days, and those who happened to be nearby had breathing troubles and burning sensations on their skin. Even vehicles that drove through the spill had to be professionally decontaminated, as the chemical was so noxious it could cause respiratory problems to bystanders.i

That chemical — fluorosilicic acid – is one of the fluoride variants currently added to about two-thirds of U.S. drinking water supplies – what amounts to pure poison in your tap water, under the guise of protecting your teeth.

Water Fluoridation is the Result of a Massively Successful PR Campaign

If you live in the United States, then you undoubtedly have been exposed to mass psychological conditioning. With the average American being accosted with thousands of advertisements each day, whether blatant or not, many pieces of “conventional wisdom” are actually contrived and implanted into society. One method of doing so is through driving public opinion — the idea that if most people believe it, then it must be true.

The history of this kind of conditioning can be traced back to the early part of the last century, specifically the work of people like Edward L. Bernays, known as the “Father of Spin.” Edward L. Bernays took the ideas of his famous uncle Sigmund Freud, and applied them to the emerging science of mass persuasion. However, instead of using the psychological principles to uncover hidden themes in the human unconscious in the way Freudian psychology does, Bernays used them as a marketing tool.

It was this method that led Bernays to become wildly successful in the field of PR and marketing, conditioning Americans to buy into corporate lies.

Bernays dominated the PR industry until the 1940s, and was a significant force for another 40 years after that. During all that time, Bernays took on hundreds of diverse assignments to create a public perception about some idea or product.

One of Bernays’ first assignments was to help sell the First World War to the American public with the idea to “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” A few years later, Bernays set up a stunt to popularize the notion of women smoking cigarettes …

In the 1930s Edward Bernays was public relations adviser to the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) and later was brought on board to promote water fluoridation to the American public – a more than coincidental connection considering it’s been suggested that fluoridating water supplies was a way to protect aluminum and steel producers from lawsuits against the fluorine pollution coming from their plants …

New York City Water Fluoridation Paved the Way for the Entire U.S.

It was, in fact, the Reynolds Aluminum Company that first utilized a pro-fluoride booklet titled “Our Children’s Teeth” (produced by the Committee to Protect Our Children’s Teeth) in court to defend against fluoride injury charges. The booklet included testimonials and statements from scientists that reportedly agreed fluoride posed no harm, but as reported by Associate Professor of Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University James F. Tracy:ii

“ … of the 360 “chemists” and “authorities on nutrition” listed in the brochure, 201 worked for 87 institutions including universities that received over $151 million in grants. In the late 1950s a majority of such grants originated from the foremost proponent of water fluoridation — the Public Health Service. Another major recipient of PHS funding was the American Dental Association (ADA). Exner’s [Dr. F. B. Exner, public health advocate and water fluoridation opponent] research and data proved to be especially valuable in lawsuits brought against the industry and fluoridation proponents. In 1978, shortly after his death, all of his files were lost in an unusual fire.

As the pro-fluoridation propaganda campaign grew to a crescendo in the late 1950s a collaborative surveillance campaign targeting anti-fluoridationists was undertaken by the PHS, the ADA, and the American Water Works Association.

The National Fluoridation Information Service of the Division of Dental Health of the US Public Health Service, an intelligence-gathering setup operating out of the PHS-controlled National Institutes of Health, was formally established to monitor and create databases on fluoridation critics in the medical professions. Fluoride heretics were subject to flailing in the press or outright expulsion from their professional organizations.

Fluoridation was finally launched in New York City in 1965 apart from popular referendum and in the face of continued opposition by handing the choice to the municipality’s five-member Board of Estimate. Behind the final effort to fluoridate were Mary and Albert Lasker. The former was involved in the Committee to Protect Our Children’s Teeth and the latter an advertising executive and associate of Bernays who helped American Tobacco Company make Lucky Strikes America’s best-selling cigarettes.”

Junk Food and Soda Ruins Kids’ Teeth – Not Lack of Fluoride

Following New York City’s decision to fluoridate water, the trend caught on and now upwards of two-thirds of U.S. water supplies contain fluoride. Dr. Karen Sokal-Gutierrez, a pediatrician and former Peace Corps volunteer, pointed out that kids living in El Salvador had near perfect teeth 20 years ago. When she returned to similar villages recently, she noticed the children’s teeth were black, and decay was setting in as young as age 2.

The culprit? Junk food and sodas had replaced many of the staple foods that once made up the children’s diets.

She described one boy who was so emaciated and sick from having all 20 baby teeth decayed that he “looked like a child dying of AIDS.” His parents owned the village store, which meant the boy had “unlimited access to candy.”iii

Dr. Sokal-Gutierrez has been returning to the village and training local health workers about oral health and nutrition. She also trained the dentists to apply fluoride varnish to the children’s teeth.

But the solution here is not fluoride – remember, the children of decades’ past had near-perfect teeth! The solution is to get the junk food and soda out of these kids’ diets. Even in a study that reported low-fluoride toothpaste alone was as effective as toothpaste combined with application of antiseptic chlorhexidine (CHX) gel,iv the researchers noted that the low number of early childhood cavities was most likely the result of “the telephone contact with oral health professionals, increasing the mothers’ motivation to follow toothbrushing instructions and dietary advice.”

The Real Risks of Fluoride are Becoming “Mainstream” Knowledge

Earlier this year, the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted 253-23 in favor of mandating infant fluoride warnings on all water bills in fluoridated communities (the bill will now go to the Senate). According to the text of the bill, the warning would read, in part:

“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, if your child under the age of 6 months is exclusively consuming infant formula reconstituted with fluoridated water, there may be an increased chance of dental fluorosis.”

But dental fluorosis is not “just cosmetic.” It can also be an indication that other tissues, such as your bones and internal organs, including your brain, have been overexposed to fluoride as well. There are more than 100 published studies illustrating fluoride’s harm to the brain,v plus 25 published studies directly linking fluoride exposure to reduced IQ in children!

Fluoride is a toxic agent that is biologically active in the human body where it accumulates in sensitive tissues over time, wreaks havoc with enzymes and produces a number of serious adverse health effects—including neurological and endocrine dysfunctions.

Adding insult to injury, even promoters of fluoridation now admit that fluoride’s predominant action is on the surface of the tooth (although even this is now questionable) and not from inside the body – so why are so many Americans still being forced to swallow it? Swallowing fluoride provides little or no benefit to your teeth!

Fluoride compounds like fluorosilicic acid are toxic industrial waste products, which can also be contaminated with lead, arsenic, radionucleotides, aluminum and other industrial contaminants. The story gets even more convoluted, as mentioned earlier, as now declassified files of the Manhattan Project and the Atomic Energy Commission show that the original motivation for promoting fluoride and water fluoridation in the United States was to protect the bomb-, aluminum-, and other fluoride-polluting industries from liability. In the early days some of the sodium fluoride used to fluoridate water supplies in the U.S. came from Alcoa.

A couple of years later, they switched to the even more hazardous waste product hydrofluorosilicic acid from the phosphate fertilizer industry. But none of the studies on fluoride actually used the far more toxic and contaminated hydrofluorosilicic acid that is presently added to the water supply. Rather, they use pharmaceutical-grade fluoride, which while harmful, is not quite as bad as what’s being used for water fluoridation. So, the health hazards are likely FAR worse than any study has so far discerned.

Do You Want Healthy Teeth? Eat a Healthy Diet!

When it comes to oral hygiene and preventing cavities, there’s a virtual war going on. If you listen to conventional health agencies’ and your dentist’s advice, you may still believe that fluoride is the answer.

Think again!

Good oral health and strong, healthy teeth are NOT the result of drinking fluoridated water and brushing your teeth with fluoridated toothpaste. Rather it’s virtually all about your diet.

Dr. Weston A. Price, who was one of the major nutritional pioneers of all time, completed some of the most extensive research on this topic back in the 1900s, and it is still very much relevant today. What he found, and documented in his classic book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, is that native tribes who were eating their traditional diet had nearly perfect teeth, and were almost 100 percent free of tooth decay — and they did not have toothbrushes, floss, toothpaste, or root canals and fillings.

But when these tribal populations were introduced to sugar and white flour, guess what happened … their health, and their perfect teeth, rapidly deteriorated, just like the kids in El Salvador. By avoiding sugars and processed foods, you prevent the proliferation of the bacteria that cause decay in the first place.

Most people whose diet includes very little sugar and few processed foods have very low rates of tooth decay. So the simple act of limiting, or eliminating sugar, and avoiding processed foods — along with regular cleanings with your natural mercury-free dentist — will ensure that your teeth and gums stay healthy and cavity-free naturally

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“Fast Food, Fat Profits” gives a quick overview of what’s wrong with the US food industry, and how its inherent design virtually guarantees a sick, overweight population.

From food deserts and cheap fast food to soda that’s marketed directly to children and a revolving door between food agencies and the government, the system is very much stacked against healthy eating … and healthy people.

If your meals consist of $1 burgers and super-size drinks, your diet may be cheap, but it is also excessively high in grains, sugars, and factory-farmed meats. This is a recipe for obesity, diabetes and heart disease, just to name a few of the conditions that commonly befall those who consume “the Standard American Diet.”

Why is a Fast-Food Meal Cheaper Than Healthy Food?

Many people realize that they can get a value meal at numerous fast-food restaurants for far less money than it takes to purchase foods to make a healthy meal for their family.

Adding to the problem, many on the most limited food budgets, such as those who receive food assistance dollars, live in “food deserts” – areas without grocery stores, and perhaps only a convenience store or a fast-food restaurant where they can purchase their food.

While it’s certainly possible to eat healthy on a limited budget, this first requires that you understand what constitutes a healthy meal, and then that you have access to such foods, which is not always the case.

Meanwhile, instead of ensuring that all Americans have access to healthy foods, the US government is actively supporting a diet that consists of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), soybean oil, corn oil and grain-fed cattle, a direct result of their flawed farm subsidy system.

The junk foods are made even cheaper through the use of unhealthy filler ingredients and preservatives that prevent spoiling, with the end result being that the very worst foods for your health are often significantly cheaper to buy.

Kids are Eating Turkey Sandwiches With 100 Other Ingredients …

Perhaps nowhere are the problems with the food system more apparent than in US schools, where kids are served processed food products that only vaguely resemble actual fresh food. In “Fast Food, Fat Profits,” one chef is shocked to see that turkey sandwiches slated for the next school lunch contain 100 ingredients!

What this cocktail of chemicals is ultimately doing to our population is difficult to pin down, but food additives like preservatives, artificial flavors and colors and MSG have already been linked to behavioral problems, ADHD and cancer, among other conditions. But, again, many assume that the burger from a fast-food joint is equivalent to one they’d make in their own kitchen … a far cry from reality.

For instance, the McRib sandwich from McDonald’s, described as pork, barbecue sauce, slivered onions and tart pickles, served on a hoagie style bun, actually contains more than 70 ingredients and even the ‘pork’ allegedly consists of restructured meat product (made from all the less expensive innards and castoffs from the pig).

Unfortunately, some parents are unaware that feeding their kids fast-food meals is like feeding them a chemistry experiment, or they are simply lured in by the low prices and tasty (albeit artificial and addictive) flavors.

The Revolving Door Between the Food Industry and the Government is Ever Turning

Many Americans also believe, mistakenly, that food sold on US soil must be good for them, or else the state and federal regulatory agencies would be taking action. But this ideal is laughable when those same government officials work for the very food companies they are supposed to be regulating.

Take, for instance, John Bode, a Washington attorney who served on the Senate Agriculture Committee staff and held three presidential appointments at the Agriculture Department. He became president and CEO of the Corn Refiners Association in May of this year.

Then there’s Catherine Woteki, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) chief scientist and Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics, who previously served as Global Director of Scientific Affairs for Mars, Inc. Michael Taylor, a former vice president of public policy and chief lobbyist at Monsanto Company, who became the deputy commissioner for foods at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is yet another example.

There are other close connections that most of the public isn’t aware of either. Dairy Management, which also includes the National Dairy Council, has been aggressively marketing cheese to restaurant chains in efforts to increase sales. But we’re not talking about simply promoting consumption of a piece of cheddar cheese or a block of Gouda … this includes fast-food restaurants selling junk-food products like:
•Pizza Hut’s Cheesy Bites pizza
•Wendy’s dual Double Melt sandwich concept
•Burger King’s Cheesy Angus Bacon cheeseburger and TenderCrisp chicken sandwich (both of which contained three slices of cheese plus a “cheesy sauce”)

In other words, the government is not your ally here. They are working alongside fast-food giants like Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Wendy’s and others to get you to eat more of their junk-food products, which happen to contain lots of (highly processed) cheese!

Should Soda Be Banned From Food Stamp Programs?

Most Americans are drinking far too much soda and other sugary drinks, a key culprit in rising rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and related conditions. Some brands, like Chubby’s from the Caribbean, are even marketed directly to children (and feature bottles designed to fit in a small child’s hand).

But, as the video highlighted, now a group of health associations, physicians and nutrition experts are calling for pilot programs that would restrict the purchase of sugary drinks by people using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This is already done for alcohol and tobacco, but the move to regulate what types of food and drinks a person is able to buy is new territory.

Increasing regulations like these may not be the solution, however, especially if the money spent on soda is simply put toward more heavily processed foods. While farmer’s markets do occasionally make it into the ghetto (and some do accept food stamps), the farmer’s market is an occasional institution, operating just one day a week. Fast-food franchises, on the other hand, pump out low-nutrient fare seven days a week, 365 days a year.

While it’s possible to make the healthy choice, under these conditions, it’s not easy.

There’s no denying, of course, that processed foods, whether soda or potato chips, will eat up your grocery budget in the blink of an eye, and will cause disease in the long-term. In reality, any money spent on junk food is a waste, and purging these items from your grocery list is the first step to eating right on a budget. Some of the healthiest foods are incredibly affordable, even under $1 a serving, such as:
•Raw organic milk
•Raw nuts and seeds
•Two cage-free organic eggs
•Avocado, berries and broccoli
•Home-grown sunflower sprouts
•Fermented foods you make at home

What’s the Real Cost of Eating Cheap Food?

“Fast Food, Fat Profits” highlights what is arguably one of the most disturbing health trends of the 21st century – the fact that today’s generation may be the first to live a shorter lifespan than their parents, and this is a direct result of too much cheap (nutrient-deficient and toxin-laden) food. Avoiding processed food requires a change in mindset, which is not always an easy task. It CAN be done, however. Rather than looking at processed foods as a convenience that tastes good or saves money, try thinking of it as:
•Extra calories that will harm your body
•A toxic concoction of foreign chemicals and artificial flavors that will lead to disease
•A waste of your money
•Likely to lead to increased health care bills for you and your family
•Not something to give to children, whose bodies are still developing and therefore are both much more susceptible to cancer and in greater need of nutrients

Your goal should be to strive for 90 percent non-processed, whole food. Not only will you enjoy the health benefits—especially if you buy mostly organic—but you’ll also get the satisfaction of knowing exactly what you’re putting into your body, and that in and of itself can be a great feeling. It may cost more to eat this way, but then again it might not. (And in the long run the amount it will save you in the long run is immeasurable.)

Are You Trying to Eat Healthy on a Budget?

While it may not be immediately obvious for people who have grown up relying on ready-made, pre-packaged foods and snacks, you can replace those foods with something equally satisfying that will support, rather than wreck, your health. This requires some strategy, especially if you’re working with a tight budget, but it can be done:
1.Identify a Person to Prepare Meals. Someone has to invest some time in the kitchen. It will be necessary for either you, your spouse, or perhaps someone in your family prepare the meals from locally grown healthful foods. This includes packing lunches for your kids to take to school.
2.Become resourceful: This is an area where your grandmother can be a wealth of information, as how to use up every morsel of food and stretch out a good meal was common knowledge to generations past. Seek to get back to the basics of cooking – using the bones from a roast chicken to make stock for a pot of soup, extending a Sunday roast to use for weekday dinners, learning how to make hearty stews from inexpensive cuts of meat, using up leftovers and so on.
3.Plan your meals: If you fail to plan you are planning to fail. This is essential, as you will need to be prepared for mealtimes in advance to be successful. Ideally this will involve scouting out your local farmer’s markets for in-season produce that is priced to sell, and planning your meals accordingly, but you can also use this same premise with supermarket sales.
You can generally plan a week of meals at a time, make sure you have all ingredients necessary on hand, and then do any prep work you can ahead of time so that dinner is easy to prepare if you’re short on time in the evenings.

It is no mystery that you will be eating lunch around noon every day so rather than rely on fast food at work, before you go to bed make a plan as to what you are going to take to work the next day. This is a marvelous simple strategy that will let you eat healthier, especially if you take healthy food from home in to work.

4.Avoid food waste: According to a study published in the journal PloS One,1 Americans waste an estimated 1,400 calories of food per person, each and every day. The two steps above will help you to mitigate food waste in your home. You may also have seen my article titled 14 Ways to Save Money on Groceries. Among those tips are suggestions for keeping your groceries fresher, longer, and I suggest reviewing those tips now.
5.Buy organic animal foods. The most important foods to buy organic are animal, not vegetable, products (meat, eggs, butter, etc.), because animal foods tend to concentrate pesticides in higher amounts. If you cannot afford to buy all of your food organic, opt for organic animal foods first.
6.Keep costs down on grass-fed beef. Pasture-finished beef is far healthier than grain-fed beef (which I don’t recommend consuming). To keep cost down, look for inexpensive roasts or ground meat. You may also save money by buying an entire side of beef (or splitting one with two or three other families), if you have enough freezer space to store it.
7.Buy in bulk when non-perishable items go on sale. If you are fortunate to live near a buyer’s club or a co-op, you may also be able to take advantage of buying by the pound from bins, saving both you and the supplier the cost of expensive packaging.
8.Frequent farmer’s markets or grow your own produce. You may be surprised to find out that by going directly to the source you can get amazingly healthy, locally grown, organic food for less than you can find at your supermarket. This gives you the best of both worlds: food that is grown near to you, cutting down on its carbon footprint and giving you optimal freshness, as well as grown without chemicals, genetically modified seeds, and other potential toxins.

Just as restaurants are able to keep their costs down by getting food directly from a supplier, you, too, can take advantage of a direct farm-to-consumer relationship, either on an individual basis or by joining a food coop in your area. Many farmer’s markets are now accepting food stamps, so this is an opportunity most everyone can join in on.

Curious about the prevalence and extent of scientific misconduct, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Pharmacoeconomic Research investigated the reasons why research studies were retracted, and from where.

The highest number of incidents of misconduct occurred in the drug literature, as compared to general biomedical literature. Nearly 75 percent of the retracted drug studies were attributed to scientific misconduct, which includes:
•Data falsification or fabrication
•Questionable veracity
•Unethical author conduct
•Plagiarism

This is a significant rise when compared to a 1998 review—cited in the featured NewsWise article—in which 37 percent of scientific retractions between 1966 and 1997 were due to scientific misconduct. Even more shocking: According to data from Thomson Reuters, the numbers of scientific retractions have climbed more than 15-fold since 2001ii!

The most unfortunate thing about this is that these are the types of studies many health care professionals rely on to make treatment recommendations. Large numbers of patients can be affected when false findings are published, as the average lag time between publication of the study and the issuing of a retraction is 39 months. And that’s if it’s ever caught at all.

Just How Scientific is “Science-Based Medicine” Really?

I am a big believer in the scientific method, provided it’s applied appropriately that is. And that’s the key issue here. In order to qualify in the first place, the research must be unbiased, unprejudiced and free from any significant conflicts of interest. Sadly, this is not the case with most of modern medicine—especially not when it comes to drug research, as evidenced by the featured findings.

It’s quite shocking that nearly three-quarters of all retracted drug studies are due to pure falsification of data. Especially when you consider that even well-researched drugs can still have significant side effects.

Just imagine the potential for tragedy when a drug is based largely on pure fantasy!

Vioxx is perhaps one of the better examples of what can happen when a drug is manufactured and sold under false pretenses. It killed more than 60,000 people in just a few years time, before it was removed from the market. In the case of Vioxx, there are lingering questions about the soundness of the research backing the drug in the first place. Back in 2008, Dr. Joseph S. Ross of New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine came across ghostwritten research studies for Vioxx while reviewing documents related to lawsuits filed against Merck.

According to an April 16, 2008 article on MedHeadlinesiii:

“In about 96 journal publications, Ross and his colleagues discovered internal Merck documents and e-mail messages pertaining to clinical study reports and review articles, some of which were developed by the company’s marketing department, not its scientific department. In others, there is little evidence that the authors recruited for the report made substantial contribution to the research itself. … Some of the authors listed in the Merck study reports of concern… question the true nature of ghostwriting. One neurologist originally listed as “External author?” and then listed as Dr. Leon J. Thal, of the University of California, San Diego in the final draft, died a year ago in an airplane crash.”

An editorial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)iv that year by Drs. Psaty and Kronmal also questioned whether Merck might have deliberately manipulated dozens of academic documents published in the medical literature, in order to promote Vioxx under false pretenses.

Avandia is another potent example. This diabetes medication hit the market in 1999 and quickly became a blockbuster drug. By 2006 its annual revenue was $3.2 billion. A year later, a damning study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) linked Avandia to a 43 percent increased risk of heart attack and a 64 percent higher risk of cardiovascular death than patients treated with other methods.

Between 1999 and 2007, Avandia is estimated to have caused over 80,000 unnecessary heart attacksv, although the actual numbers of people harmed or killed by the drug is still largely unknown. The most recent analysis by the Cleveland Clinic in 2010vi, which used data from 56 clinical Avandia trials, calculated that for every 37 to 52 patients who take Avandia for five years, one additional heart attack can be expected as a result of the drug. As a result, the authors of this meta-analysis estimate the number of deaths caused by Avandia to be around 48,000, between 1999 and 2009.

This is a steep price, to say the least, for a disease that does not require drugs to begin with. Avandia is a poster child for the lethal paradigm of faux science as GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturer of Avandia, hid damaging information about the drug for over 10 yearsvii, as it would adversely affect sales!

Again and again we are confronted with indisputable evidence that the drug paradigm is about money, not health, and certainly not dependable scientific inquiry.

Since that 2007 NEJM study, data from various trials, studies and meta-analyses have consistently confirmed the dangers of Avandia, and based on the evidence amassed over the past three years, the European Medicines Agency is now recommending the withdrawal of rosiglitazone-containing diabetic drugs due to the increased risk of ischaemic heart disease. NEJM also hit the nail on its head with the statement that,

“[T]he case of rosiglitazone underscores the need for a robust evidence base to demonstrate the safety of medicines administered long-term.”

Unfortunately, a committee of independent experts recommended that Avandia remain on the US market, despite its risks, and an FDA oversight board voted 8 to 7 to accept the advice.

It’s important to understand that our current medical system has been masterfully orchestrated by the drug companies to create a system that gives the perception of science when really it is a heavily manipulated process designed to manipulate and deceive you into using expensive and potentially toxic drugs that benefit the drug companies more than it benefits your health. Across the board, drugmakers do an excellent job of publicizing the findings they want you to know, while keeping very quiet about the rest.

It’s important to realize that all research is NOT published. And it should come as no surprise that drug studies funded by a pharmaceutical company that reaches a negative conclusion will rarely ever see the light of day… What this means is that even if you scour the medical literature to determine what the consensus is on any given medical topic, what you’ll find is an overwhelming preponderance of data in favor of the drug approach that in no way, shape or form reflects the reality of the scientific investigation that went into that specific drug.

How Drug Companies Manipulate Research Evidence to Fool You

The pharmaceutical industry as a whole has become the poster-child for fraud, deception, and manipulation of science for profit. Nearly 20 percent of the top 100 Corporate Criminals listed for the 1990s were in fact drug companies!

In an online series called Transparency and Medicine featured on the web site The Conversationviii, Jon Jureidini discusses how science-based medicine is clouded by marketing departments that control and distort information in the medical literature. Jureidini is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Adelaide (Australia), who got an inside look at this murky mess while examining drug company internal documents as an expert witness in a case against a pharmaceutical company. The voluminous amounts of documents he was given access to showed “serious misrepresentation” of both the effectiveness and safety of certain drugs, with published articles making the research appear positive, while negative secondary outcomes were deleted.

When you consider that this is the type of research data that then ends up being used to make treatment decisions for years to come by many expert review panels, is it any wonder the United States has the most expensive health care in the world, while STILL experiencing a decline in life expectancy and other health indexes? The whole idea that modern medicine is science-based has become laughable, as the evidence tells a whole different story…

The Snowball Effect Caused by Fabricated Research

Last year, the Office of Research Integrity at the U.S. Department of Health found that a Boston University cancer scientist had fabricated two of his studiesix. This case is a perfect example of how even a small number of fraudulent studies can wreak havoc with the science-based paradigm. The fabricated work of Sheng Wang, PhD, was published in two journals in 2009, and he’s been ordered to retract themx.

But important studies by other scientists, like those at the Mayo Clinic, have in turn based their work on his flights-of-fantasy… As a result of the fall-out, 17 papers published in nine different research journals have been retracted, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Another example is that of Dr. Scott Reuben, a well-respected, prominent anesthesiologist, former chief of acute pain of the Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Mass. and a former professor at Tufts University’s medical school, who in 2009 was found to have fabricated the data for 21 studies! Dr. Reuben succeeded in getting many of them published, and those studies were used to sway the prescribing habits of doctors. It was only due to a routine audit raising a few red flags that a larger investigation was later launched.

Consider the implications of this for a moment.

If one case involving just two falsified studies led to the retraction of 17 others, just imagine how many studies are affected or effectively invalidated by the 742 studies retracted between 2000 and 2010!xi

Unfortunately, despite retractions, fabricated research may still inadvertently live on, as it has been cited by other studies, and once a finding is accepted in the medical community, it’s difficult to reverse it. What’s worse, according to a 2011 study in the Journal of Medical Ethicsxii, nearly 32 percent of retracted papers were not noted as having been retracted by the journal in question, leaving the readers completely in the dark about the inaccuracies in those studies!

Beyond Fabrication—Flawed Research and Unsupported Conclusions

Peer-reviewed research published in medical journals gets the golden star of approval in the media, yet many of the findings—even if they’re not outright fabrications—can, and frequently are, incredibly misleading. One of the best exposé’s on this topic came from Dr. Marcia Angell, the former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) who wrote the book The Truth about Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It. According to Angell:

“Trials can be rigged in a dozen ways, and it happens all the time.”

Also, back in 2005, Dr. John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Ioannina School of Medicine, Greece, showed that there is less than a 50 percent chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper will be true!xiii According to his study:

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

He noted problems with the experimental and statistical methods used, including factors such as small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias and selective reporting. In 2008, Dr. Ioannidis again showed that much of scientific research being published is highly questionable…

The system itself is in large part to blame, because journals tend to be more likely to publish studies that show dramatic results, positive results, or results from “hot” competitive fields. For instance, a Cochrane Collaboration review and analysis of published flu vaccine studies found that flu vaccine studies sponsored by industry are treated more favorably by medical journals even when the studies are of poor quality.

It Gets Worse… Nearly 90 Percent of Cancer Studies Cannot be Replicated

As if things couldn’t get any worse, disturbing news reported by Reutersxiv earlier this year showed that the vast majority of the “landmark” studies on cancer are unreliable—and a high proportion of those unreliable studies come from respectable university labs. Former drug company researcher Glenn Begley looked at 53 papers in the world’s top journals, and found that he and a team of scientists could NOT replicate 47 of the 53 published studies—all of which were considered important and valuable for the future of cancer treatments! The allegations appeared in the March 28 issue of the prestigious journal Naturexv.

“It was shocking,” Glenn Begley, now senior vice president of privately held biotechnology company TetraLogic, told Reuters. “These are the studies the pharmaceutical industry relies on to identify new targets for drug development. But if you’re going to place a $1 million or $2 million or $5 million bet on an observation, you need to be sure it’s true. As we tried to reproduce these papers we became convinced you can’t take anything at face value.”

Part of the problem, they said, is that scientists often ignore negative findings in their results that might raise a warning. Instead, they opt for cherry-picking conclusions in an effort to put their research in a favorable light. Begley’s experience echoes a report from scientists at Bayer AG last year. Neither group of researchers alleges fraud however; nor would they identify the research they had tried to replicate, Reuters said.

Clearly, if we are to ever move forward, we cannot continue basing treatments on fraudulent and/or inaccurate research… It’s important to realize that if a study cannot be successfully and reliably reproduced, it is, quite simply, wrong. In order to be truly science-based, our medical protocols and drug treatments must be based on findings that are replicable.

Sadly, much of today’s “science” is financially motivated. According to NBC Newsxvi:

“As Begley and Ellis detail it, “To obtain funding, a job, promotion or tenure, researchers need a strong publication record…Journal editors, reviewers, and grant review committees… often look for a scientific finding that is simple, clear and complete—a ‘perfect’ story. It is therefore tempting for investigators to submit suspected data sets for publication, or even to massage data.” Whatever the motivation, the results are all too often wrong.

Begley and Ellis call for nothing less than a change in the culture of cancer research. They demand more willingness to admit to imperfections and an end to the practice of failing to publish negative results. “We in the field,” they say, “must remain focused on the purpose of cancer research: to improve the lives of patients.”

How to Get Solid Information in an Era of Confusion and Corruption

Ultimately, the take-home message here is that even if a drug or treatment is “backed by science,” this in no way guarantees it is safe or effective. Likewise, if an alternative treatment has not been published in a medical journal, it does not mean it is unsafe or ineffective.

You’ve got to use all the resources available to you, including your own sense of common sense and reason, true experts’ advice and other’s experiences, to determine what medical treatment or advice will be best for you in any given situation. I advise you to remain skeptical but open — even if it is something I’m saying, you need to realize that YOU are responsible for your and your family’s health, not me, and certainly not drug companies trying to sell their wares and convince you to take dangerous “symptom-cover-ups” disguised as science-based solutions.

Since it is very well established that most prescribed drugs do absolutely nothing to treat the cause of disease, it would be prudent to exercise the precautionary principle when evaluating ANY new drug claim, as it will more than likely be seriously flawed, biased, or worse…

If you’re facing a health challenge it is best to identify a qualified natural health consultant—someone who really understands health at a foundational level and has had extensive experience in helping others resolve their health care challenges. Just make sure to see a competent regular physician to make certain any serious disorders like cancer are ruled out as well.

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In 2007 when I started my work with Dr Hal Huggins I quickly learned that the three worst foods you can put into your body were sugar, alchohol and caffeine, in that order.

I was always disturbed when wandering through a supermarket or healthfood store to see products promoted as healthy because it was low fat only to see massive amounts of sugar.

Refined sugar and sugar substitutes are horrendous to your body, sugar will create an imbalance between the calcium and phosphorus in your blood chemistry. This will result in one of six problems, calculus build up on your teeth, cataracts in your eyes, kidney stones, gallstones, arthritis or aterial sclerosis.

In a ground-breaking news story, 60 Minutes reports that new research coming out of some of America’s most respected institutions is finding that sugar is a toxin that can lead to major chronic diseases such as obesity, heart disease, and cancer.
This is jolting to people who don’t realize that even if they don’t add it to their foods, hidden sugar, including high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), is in virtually all processed foods, from yogurts and sauces to breads and sodas.

Although some experts argue that “sugar is sugar,” test subjects in strict clinical trials who were monitored 24 hours a day, who consumed HFCS, developed higher risk factors for cardiovascular disease within two weeks.

Other studies indicate that if you limit your sugar, no matter what form you get it in, you decrease your chances of developing cancer—including breast and colon cancers.

What’s even more startling is that a growing number of studies are also showing that the more sugar you eat, the less satisfied you are.

It Pays to Listen to Alternative Health Experts…

This is another perfect example of how it can take the conventional medical establishment YEARS to catch up to the truth.

I’ve been writing about the dangers of high sugar consumption for over 15 years, ever since I started this web site back in 1997, as this is (or at least should be) part of the very basics of “proper nutrition.”

So if you’re a longtime subscriber to this newsletter (or other alternative health news), you’ve had a tremendous head start.

As time went on, it first became increasingly clear that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was more problematic than regular sugar (sucrose), and later, that whichever form of sugar you consume, it can act as a literal toxin in your body when consumed in excess.

Back in the year 2000, I published the work of Bill Misner, Ph.D. in an article that was aptly named Killer Sugar—Suicide With a Spoon. Then, about two years ago, I came across one of Dr. Robert Lustig’s lectures, and I immediately knew he was right—sugar is a toxin; at least in the high amounts most American’s are getting it in.

As Dr. Lustig states in his article on the website Diet Doctori :

“The problem with sugar isn’t just weight gain … A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases. A little is not a problem, but a lot kills — slowly.”

That same year, the brilliant work of Dr. Richard Johnson also convinced me that fructose is the worst of the two (although it’s really like choosing between two evils.) Now, finally, 60 Minutes, which is one of my favorite TV shows, has revealed the truth to the masses, and yes, some people are absolutely shocked by it. Interestingly, as I have gotten to know Dr. Johnson, I learned that I actually inspired him to pursue this topic further. Very shortly, we plan to be publishing his new book, The Fat Switch, which promises to turn the health world on its head with his exciting discoveries.

How High Fructose Corn Syrup has Decimated Human Health

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) entered the American market in 1975. Food and beverage manufacturers quickly began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to corn syrup when they discovered that it could save them a lot of money. Sucrose costs about three times as much as HFCS. HFCS is also about 20 percent sweeter than table sugar, so you need less to achieve the same amount of sweetness.

Around that same time, dietary fats were blamed for heart disease, giving rise to the “low-fat craze,” which resulted in an explosion of processed nonfat and low fat convenience foods—most of which tasted like sawdust unless sugar was added. Fructose was then added to make all these fat-free products more palatable. Yet as the low-fat craze spread, rates of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity skyrocketed…

Clearly, this plan was seriously flawed from the get-go, and it’s not difficult to see that trading fat for sugar is not a wise move.

We now know, without a doubt, that it’s the excessive fructose content in the modern diet that is taking such a devastating toll on people’s health.

At the heart of it all is the fact that excessive fructose consumption leads to insulin resistance, and insulin resistance appears to be the root of many if not most chronic disease. Insulin resistance has even been found to be an underlying factor of cancer. Fructose also raises your uric acid levels—it typically generates uric acid within minutes of ingestion, which in turn can wreak havoc on your blood pressure, insulin production, and kidney function. So far, scientific studies have linked fructose to about 78 different diseases and health problemsii . For example, fructose may:

Raise your blood pressureiii , and cause nocturnal hypertensioniv

Insulin resistance / Type 2 diabetesv

Non-alcoholic fatty liver diseasevi (NAFLD)

Raise your uric acid levelsvii, which can result in gout and/or metabolic syndromeviii

Accelerate the progression of chronic kidney diseaseix

Intracranial atherosclerosisx(narrowing and hardening of the arteries in your skull)

Exacerbate cardiac abnormalities if you’re deficient in copper

Have a genotoxic effect on the colon

Promote metastasis in breast cancer patientsxi

Cause tubulointerstitial injuryxii (injury to the tubules and interstitial tissue of your kidney)

Promote obesityxiii and related health problems and diseases

Promote pancreatic cancer growthxiv

Here’s an excellent illustration showing how carbohydrates and sugars affect your health.

Source: Nutrients. 2011 March; 3(3): 341–369.

Contamination and Genetic Engineering Adds to the Health Hazards of HFCS

And, as if the negative metabolic effects are not enough, there are other issues with HFCS that can have a negative impact on your health:
•More than one study has detected unsafe mercury levels in HFCSxv .
•Crystalline fructose (a super-potent form of fructose the food and beverage industry is now using) may contain arsenic, lead, chloride and heavy metals.
•Nearly all corn syrup is made from genetically engineered corn, which comes with its own set of risks. For example, Bt toxin found in genetically engineered Bt corn has now been detected in the bloodstream of 93 percent of pregnant women tested, and in 80 percent of the umbilical cord of tested babies. There’s already plenty of evidence that the Bt-toxin produced in genetically engineered corn and cotton plants is toxic to humans and mammals and triggers immune system responses. The fact that it flows through our blood, and that is passes through the umbilical cord into fetuses, may help explain the rise in many disorders in the US since Bt crop varieties were first introduced in 1996.

Using Uric Acid Levels as a Marker for Fructose Toxicity

The link between fructose and uric acid is so strong that you can actually use your uric acid levels as a marker for fructose toxicity. According to the latest research in this area, the safest range of uric acid appears to be between 3 and 5.5 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl), and there appears to be a steady relationship between uric acid levels and blood pressure and cardiovascular risk, even down to the range of 3 to 4 mg/dl.

Dr. Richard Johnson suggests that the ideal uric acid level is probably around 4 mg/dl for men and 3.5 mg/dl for women. I would strongly encourage everyone to have their uric acid level checked to find out how sensitive you are to fructose.

As you know, two-thirds of the US population is overweight, and most of these people likely have uric acid levels well above 5.5. Some may even be closer to 10 or above. Measuring your uric acid levels is a very practical way to determine just how strict you need to be when it comes to your fructose consumption. As an example, if you’re passionate about fruit and typically eat large amounts of it, but find out you have a uric acid level above 5 (or better yet, 4 if you’re a man, and 3.5 if you’re a woman), then you may want to consider lowering your fruit consumption until you’ve optimized your uric acid levels, to avoid harming your body.

How Much Fructose are You Consuming?

It’s no secret that we are eating more sugar than at any other time in history. In 1700, the average person ate four pounds of sugar a year. Today, about 25 percent of all Americans consume over 134 grams of fructose a day, according to Dr. Johnson’s research. That kind of consumption equates to more than 100 pounds of sugar per year! And it just so happens this statistic dovetails nicely with the statistics showing that one in four Americans is either pre-diabetic or has type 2 diabetes.

As a standard recommendation, I strongly advise keeping your TOTAL fructose consumption below 25 grams per day.

For most people it would actually be wise to limit your fruit fructose to 15 grams or less, as you’re virtually guaranteed to get “hidden” fructose from just about any processed food you might eat, including condiments you might never have suspected would contain sugar.

Keep in mind that fruits also contain fructose, although an ameliorating factor is that whole fruits also contain vitamins and other antioxidants that reduce the hazardous effects of fructose. Again, one way to determine just how strict you need to be is to check your uric acid levels. If you feel strongly that fruits are exceptionally beneficial to you and don’t believe my recommendation then at least promise me you will do a test. Consume whatever level of fructose and fruits you believe is healthy for a few days and then measure your uric acid level. If is outside the healthy ranges listed above, then I strongly suggest you listen to your body’s biochemical feedback and reduce your fructose consumption until your uric acid levels normalize.

Juices are nearly as detrimental as soda, because a glass of juice is loaded with fructose, and a lot of the antioxidants are lost. While processed foods will tell you how much sugar/HFCS it contains on the label (just remember to calculate how many servings of it you’re eating), whole fruits can be trickier. Here’s a helpful chart, courtesy of Dr. Johnson, to help you keep track of your total fructose consumption from fruit.

Fruit

Serving Size

Grams of Fructose

Limes

1 medium

0

Lemons

1 medium

0.6

Cranberries

1 cup

0.7

Passion fruit

1 medium

0.9

Prune

1 medium

1.2

Apricot

1 medium

1.3

Guava

2 medium

2.2

Date (Deglet Noor style)

1 medium

2.6

Cantaloupe

1/8 of med. melon

2.8

Raspberries

1 cup

3.0

Clementine

1 medium

3.4

Kiwifruit

1 medium

3.4

Blackberries

1 cup

3.5

Star fruit

1 medium

3.6

Cherries, sweet

10

3.8

Strawberries

1 cup

3.8

Cherries, sour

1 cup

4.0

Pineapple

1 slice (3.5″ x .75″)

4.0

Grapefruit, pink or red

1/2 medium

4.3

Fruit

Serving Size

Grams of Fructose

Boysenberries

1 cup

4.6

Tangerine/mandarin orange

1 medium

4.8

Nectarine

1 medium

5.4

Peach

1 medium

5.9

Orange (navel)

1 medium

6.1

Papaya

1/2 medium

6.3

Honeydew

1/8 of med. melon

6.7

Banana

1 medium

7.1

Blueberries

1 cup

7.4

Date (Medjool)

1 medium

7.7

Apple (composite)

1 medium

9.5

Persimmon

1 medium

10.6

Watermelon

1/16 med. melon

11.3

Pear

1 medium

11.8

Raisins

1/4 cup

12.3

Grapes, seedless (green or red)

1 cup

12.4

Mango

1/2 medium

16.2

Apricots, dried

1 cup

16.4

Figs, dried

1 cup

23.0

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One of the worlds top intermittent fasting experts – Brad Pilon

“is fasting really right for everyone?”

Keep in mind in this discussion we’ll talk about 16-hour fasts, 24-hr, 36-hr, etc… and to be clear, a 24 hour fast doesn’t mean that you don’t eat for an entire day necessarily… for example, in a 24-hour fast, you can have dinner at 8pm on a given night, and then eat your next meal at dinner at 8pm the next night, thereby completing a 24-hour fast, even though you ate a large meal on each day.

To answer your question – No, absolutely NOT!

When used properly intermittent fasting is an unbelievably effective weight loss tool and it’s a great way to lose fat without losing muscle, but it’s a tool nonetheless, and just like any other tool there’s a right way and wrong way to use it.

In my opinion far too many people are using I.F. the wrong way – and that is by layering it on top of other diets that are too strict and workouts that are too exhausting.

Some people are also fasting too often and for too long.

Here are my basic guidelines (Feel free to share)

Obviously, since I’m the creator of the Eat Stop Eat method, I prefer people doing one or two 24 hour fasts per week. From my research this is the easiest and most effective way to reap the rewards of fasting.

And, while ‘one or two’ may be a bit confusing for some people, this is how I use fasting when I’m getting ready for a photoshoot:

For the first couple weeks (when I need it the most) I fast for 24 hours once every 2-3 days.

Then when I’m starting to look and feel much leaner and lighter, I cut back to once every 3-5 days.

Towards the later stages when I start to get very lean and all the abdominal definition is fully visible I’ll cut back to once every 7 days.

The key here is to realize that fasting is a tool (like I said before) so I use it less the leaner I get because I need it less (after all, the goal isn’t to get to 0% body fat).

There would be no reason for me to fast any more often than once or twice a week during this process, and I always make sure that I’m eating a good amount on the days I’m not fasting (with the Eat Stop Eat method you eat ‘to maintenance’ on all the non-fasting days).

So those are my general eat stop eat guidelines – once or twice a week, never more, and never longer than 24 hours. And the leaner you are, the less often you fast.

If you’re still interested in fasting but Eat Stop Eat doesn’t quite sound like your cup of tea, there are lots of other styles of fasting you can try.

Here is my one overriding guideline about Intermittent Fasting: The more frequent the fast, the shorter the fasts should be.

You can use the following guide to help figure out the right style of fasting for you.

• Daily fasts – 12-16 hours long
• Every Other Day Fasts – 16-20 hours long
• Once or twice a week fasts – 20-24 hours long
• Once a week fasts – 24-36 hours long

With these guidelines just about anyone can use Intermittent fasting to lose weight while preserving their muscle.

Just remember, it’s a tool, and there will always be some people who fasting simply ‘doesn’t jive’ with such as people who are already exceptionally lean, and people who are chronically exhausted. But for the vast majority of people there is definitely a form of fasting that they will find to be beneficial.

Brad
——-

If you want a very effective tool at losing body fat faster, priming your insulin sensitivity, and maintaining lean muscle, then Brad’s Eat Stop Eat method may be perfect for you to try!

However, it’s important to note that anyone who has adrenal fatigue (if your cortisol or DHEA are not optimized), then intermittent fasting is NOT a good idea for you. Work on stress reduction and balancing your hormones first if this is the case.

But otherwise, there’s lots of emerging research showing the health benefits of various forms of intermittent fasting.

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer

Nearly two million Americans are diagnosed with cancer every year, and one in three will face a cancer diagnosis at some time in their lives. Yet despite massive technological advances over the past half-century, Western medicine is still at a loss for how to rein in its prevalence.

At this point, it’s becoming increasingly clear that many of the conventional strategies, from diagnosis to treatment are riddled with flawed assumptions and approaches that, in many cases, do more harm than good.

What’s worse, virtually none of the conventional strategies actually address the root of the problem.

Cancer to Be Redefined?

NPR recently interviewed Dr. Otis Brawley, the chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society about the National Cancer Institute’s suggestion to change the definition of “cancer.” The reason for this is because mounting research shows that many harmless tumors are being overtreated, thereby causing far more harm than good.

As reported by NPR:1

“[S]ometimes no treatment is needed at all, and that’s why the National Cancer Institute recently recommended that the definition of cancer be changed… Their new definition of cancer would be narrower than current standards.

The Institute hopes that keeping the word cancer out of some diagnoses would minimize unnecessary treatments and help calm patient anxiety.

‘…Essentially, what has happened is our technologies have gotten so good that we can find some early cancers, or things that look like cancer, that we now know, if left alone, would never grow, spread and harm the patient.

So we’re actually treating some lesions that look like cancer unnecessarily,’ [Dr. Brawley says.] ‘What we’re trying to do is spare some people the harms associated with unnecessary treatment…’”

According to Dr. Brawley, thoughts on cancer have started to change as a result of new information. For example, about 50-60 percent of prostate cancer cases would likely be better off being watched instead of treated. Ditto for thyroid- and lung cancer, where 20-30 percent and about 10 percent respectively, should be watched rather than treated.

In the case of breast cancer, about one-third of women currently diagnosed with breast cancer have harmless tumors that pose no threat to their life. As described by New York Times writer Peggy Orenstein:2

“[C]ancer in your breast doesn’t kill you; the disease becomes deadly when it metastasizes, spreading to other organs or the bones. Early detection is based on the theory, dating back to the late 19th century,

That the disease progresses consistently, beginning with a single rogue cell, growing sequentially and at some invariable point making a lethal leap. Curing it, then, was assumed to be a matter of finding and cutting out a tumor before that metastasis happens.

The thing is, there was no evidence that the size of a tumor necessarily predicted whether it had spread. According to Robert Aronowitz, a professor of history and sociology of science at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of ‘Unnatural History: Breast Cancer and American Society,’

Physicians endorsed the idea anyway, partly out of wishful thinking, desperate to “do something” to stop a scourge against which they felt helpless.”

Although More Cancers are Detected, Mortality Rates Remain Stable

Mammography was heralded as the answer, as it could detect tumors at a much earlier stage, and as annual mammograms became the norm in the US, more cancers were indeed detected—yet the rates of women dying from the disease remained virtually unchanged. As Orenstein points out, “that should have been a sign that some aspect of the early-detection theory was amiss.” But no.. Instead, flawed assumptions were tacked onto flawed theories, and the general thinking remained that detecting cancer earlier-still was the key to saving lives.

Hence, much of the focus on cancer “prevention” has been diverted into early-detection, more or less ignoring the most obvious question, which is: How do we prevent the formation of lethal tumors in the first place?

For all its flaws, cancer research has determined that the disease is more complex than previously thought. For example, it does not necessarily progress in a consistently uniform manner. They’ve also discovered that there are a number of genetically distinct types of breast cancer—each of which may have different triggers and respond differently to current treatments. These include but are not limited to:
•Estrogen-dependent luminal A and luminal B
•HER2-positive, which over-produces a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2
•Basal-like or “triple negative,” which is the most aggressive form of breast cancer. Its growth is unrelated to the most common biomarkers for breast cancer (estrogen, progesterone and HER2); hence the “triple negative” designation

Analysis of 30 Years of Breast Screening Shows Mammograms Do More Harm than Good

Last year, the New England Journal of Medicine3 published an analysis of the effects of breast cancer screening in the US over the past 30 years, which found that 1.3 million women were misdiagnosed and mistreated as a result of regular mammogram screenings over that timeframe. Moreover, while the detection of early-stage breast cancers doubled since the advent of mammography, late-stage cancer incidence decreased by just eight percent in the same time frame, suggesting that catching and treating tumors early does not automatically eliminate more serious cases of cancer.

According to the authors of the study:

“…the imbalance suggests that there is substantial overdiagnosis, accounting for nearly a third of all newly diagnosed breast cancers, and that screening is having, at best, only a small effect on the rate of death from breast cancer.”

As you can see, there’s a crucial difference between a non-malignant lesions/tumor and invasive cancer. Yet at present, little distinction is made between the two. Either is typically delivered and received as a death sentence. It is this that the National Cancer Institute’s proposed redesignation of “cancer” is aiming to address. I for one believe it can be quite helpful. At present, an estimated 50,000 American women4 are transformed from healthy women with non-lethal lesions into pink-ribboned “cancer survivors”—thinking they survived a brush with death, when in fact they may have just went through hell for no reason…

Mammography May Harm 10 Times More Women Than It Helps

According to recent findings by the Nordic Cochrane Center,5 only ONE out of 2,000 women screened regularly for 10 years will actually benefit from screening due to early detection of breast cancer. Meanwhile, 10 healthy women (out of those 2,000 screened for a decade) will be misdiagnosed, turned into cancer patients, and will be treated unnecessarily.

These women will have either a part of their breast or the whole breast removed, and will typically receive radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. This treatment (for a cancer that was non-existent) subsequently increases their risk of dying from complications from the therapy and/or from other diseases associated with radiation and chemo, such as heart disease and cancer.

In all, routine mammography led to 30 percent over-diagnosis and overtreatment, which equates to an absolute risk increase of 0.5 percent. So, to recap, in order for mammographic breast screening to save ONE woman’s life:
•2,000 women must be screened for 10 years
•200 women will get false positives, and
•10 will receive surgery and/or chemotherapy even though they do not actually have cancer

What these statistics overwhelmingly show us is that just because you were treated for cancer does not mean you’re a cancer survivor. If you really didn’t have cancer to begin with, then you’re really just a “cancer treatment survivor.” Yet all women treated for cancer who survive become part of the official “cancer survivor” statistic that is then used to justify the effectiveness of the current system of diagnosis and treatment!

More carefully distinguishing between harmless lumps and malignant tumors would go a long way toward preventing needless emotional and physical trauma associated with over-diagnosis and overtreatment. It would probably also aid in determining the actual effectiveness of various treatments.

Women Need to Become Better Informed

The conundrum now lies in convincing a petrified public, thoroughly saturated with “awareness” of the lethal consequences of cancer, that it may be in your best interest to forsake some of the diagnostic tests and treatments. This is likely to be a challenge, because few dare to take a less aggressive route when their life might be at stake. As stated by Orenstein:

“The fear of cancer is legitimate: how we manage that fear, I realized — our responses to it, our emotions around it — can be manipulated, packaged, marketed and sold, sometimes by the very forces that claim to support us. That can color everything from our perceptions of screening to our understanding of personal risk to our choices in treatment.”

Again, to give you some more data to chew on, Orenstein discusses the results of other studies as follows:6

“As improbable as it sounds, studies have suggested that about a quarter of screening-detected cancers might have gone away on their own. For an individual woman in her 50s, then, annual mammograms may catch breast cancer, but they reduce the risk of dying of the disease over the next 10 years by only 0.07 percentage points — from 0.53 percent to 0.46 percent. Reductions for women in their 40s are even smaller, from 0.35 percent to 0.3 percent.” [Emphasis mine]

In order to not only make better informed decisions, but also make decisions that are less colored by fear, women need to be provided with all of their screening options, including their strengths and weaknesses; benefits and risks. Today, women are rarely informed about the fact that ionizing radiation is a major contributor to cancer for example, i.e. that routine testing itself can increase their risk of lethal breast cancer.

This is an extremely important point considering the introduction of 3D mammograms, which exponentially increase your exposure to harmful radiation that might lead to cancer later on. To learn more about this, please see my previous article, New 3D Mammography Significantly Increases Radiation Exposure, and Your Risk of Radiation-Induced Cancer.

Results from Other Studies Evaluating Effectiveness of Mammography

1.Archives of Internal Medicine7 published a meta-analysis of 117 randomized, controlled mammogram trials. Among its findings: Rates of false-positive results are high (20% to 56% after 10 mammograms), and “although few women 50 years of age or older have risks from mammography that outweigh the benefits, the evidence suggests that more women 40 to 49 years of age have such risks.”
2.A study published in the British Medical Journal8 in December 2011, confirmed that breast cancer screening may cause women harm, especially during the early years after they start screening. This harm is largely due to surgeries, such as lumpectomies and mastectomies, and other (often unnecessary) interventions. The study highlights losses in quality of life from false positive results and unnecessary treatment.
3.In September 2010, theNew England Journal of Medicine published the first study9 in years to examine the effectiveness of mammograms. Their findings are a far cry from what most public health officials would have you believe. The bottom line is that mammograms seem to have reduced cancer death rates by only 0.4 deaths per 1,000 women—an amount so small it might as well be zero. Put another way, 2,500 women would have to be screened over 10 years for a single breast cancer death to be avoided.

What Causes of Cancer are Currently Ignored?

So what are some of the root causes of cancer that the industry is failing to address? Well, for one, I believe it would behoove us if researchers spent less time and money searching for genetic factors and more on evaluating the carcinogenic impact of various lifestyle- and environmental factors. Because while some cancers may be highly influenced by inherited genetic defects, the emerging science of epigenetics proves that your genetic code is not nearly as predeterministic as previously thought.

You actually have a tremendous amount of control over how your genetic traits are expressed. Your genes will express or suppress genetic data depending on the environment in which it finds itself, meaning the presence or absence of appropriate nutrients, toxins, and even your thoughts and feelings, which unleash hormones and other chemicals in your body. Dr. Susan Love, a breast cancer surgeon and president of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation commented on such research back in 2009, saying:10

“It’s exciting. What it means, if all this environmental stuff is right, is that we should be able to reverse cancer without having to kill cells. This could open up a whole new way of thinking about cancer that would be much less assaultive.”

Research into the health of our ancient ancestors11 also suggests that cancer is indeed a manmade disease. Increasingly, environmental and lifestyle factors are being pinpointed as the culprits, and it is my personal belief that our cancer problem is the result of too many people being regularly exposed to too many of these toxic factors, which include:

Pesticide and other synthetic chemical exposures

A predominance of sugars and grains which causes the body to burn sugar rather than fat as its primary fuel

Wireless technologies, dirty electricity, and medical diagnostic radiation exposure

Pharmaceutical drugs

Obesity, stress, and poor sleeping habits

Lack of sunshine exposure and use of sunscreens

It’s highly unlikely that any one of these is solely responsible. Rather it’s probably a combination of several. This means that what needs to be done is a complete overhaul of most industries that provide us with everything from food and clothes to personal care products, furnishings and more. Yes, what I’m suggesting is dramatic, and perhaps that’s why no one really wants to take that bull by the horn, but it’s necessary if we want to truly address the meteoric rise of not just cancer, but many other modern diseases as well. Virtually every single thing you put into your mouth, on your body, and in your home and business, needs to be evaluated for its toxic potential.

All-Natural Cancer Prevention Strategies

My recommendation to you is to not wait for the system to change, but to take matters into your own hands—now. It’s important to realize that cancer screening does NOT in any way equate to cancer prevention, and that while early detection is important, a number of popular screening methods have been shown to cause more harm than good—mammography in particular.

In the largest review of research into lifestyle and breast cancer, the American Institute of Cancer Research estimated that about 40 percent of US breast cancer cases could be prevented if people made wiser lifestyle choices.12, 13 I believe these estimates are far too low, and it is more likely that 75 percent to 90 percent of breast cancers could be avoided by strictly applying the recommendations below.
1.Improve your insulin receptor sensitivity. The best way to do this is by avoiding sugar and grains and making sure you are exercising, especially with Peak Fitness.
2.Address your food preparation. Eat at least one-third of your food raw. Avoid frying or charbroiling; boil, poach or steam your foods instead. Consider adding cancer-fighting whole foods, herbs, spices and supplements to your diet, such as broccoli, curcumin and resveratrol. To learn more about how these anti-angiogenetic foods fight cancer, please see our previous article: Dramatically Effective New Natural Way to Starve Cancer and Obesity.
3.Avoid carbohydrates and sugar. Reduce or eliminate processed foods, sugar/fructose and grain-based foods from your diet. This applies to whole unprocessed organic grains as well, as they tend to rapidly break down and drive up your insulin level. The evidence is quite clear that if you want to avoid cancer, or you currently have cancer, you absolutely MUST avoid all forms of sugar, especially fructose, which feeds cancer cells and promotes their growth.
4.Reduce protein and increase fat. Consider reducing your protein levels to one gram per kilogram of lean body weight. It would be unusual for most adults to need more than 100 grams of protein and most likely close to half of that amount. Replace excess protein with high quality fats, such as organic eggs from pastured hens, high quality meats, avocados, and coconut oil.
5.Drink a half to whole quart of organic green vegetable juice daily. Please review my juicing instructions for more detailed information.
6.Avoid GMOs. Avoid genetically engineered foods as they are typically treated with herbicides such as Roundup (glyphosate), which are likely to be carcinogenic. A French research team that has extensively studied Roundup concluded it’s toxic to human cells, and likely carcinogenic to humans. Choose fresh, organic, preferably locally growth foods.
7.Avoid unfermented soy products. Unfermented soy is high in plant estrogens, or phytoestrogens, also known as isoflavones. In some studies, soy appears to work in concert with human estrogen to increase breast cell proliferation, which increases the chances for mutations and cancerous cells.
8.Normalize your omega-3 to omega-6 fats ratio. Normalize your ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats by taking a high-quality krill oil and reducing your intake of processed vegetable oils.
9.Optimize your gut flora. Optimizing your gut flora will reduce inflammation and strengthen your immune response. Researchers have found a microbe-dependent mechanism through which some cancers mount an inflammatory response that fuels their development and growth. They suggest that inhibiting inflammatory cytokines might slow cancer progression and improve the response to chemotherapy.

Adding naturally fermented food to your daily diet is an easy way to prevent cancer or speed recovery. You can always add a high quality probiotic supplement as well, but naturally fermented foods are the best.
10.Exercise regularly. Exercise lowers insulin levels, which creates a low sugar environment that discourages the growth and spread of cancer cells. In a three-month study, exercise was found to alter immune cells into a more potent disease-fighting form in cancer survivors who had just completed chemotherapy.

Researchers and cancer organizations increasingly recommend making regular exercise a priority in order to reduce your risk of cancer, and help improve cancer outcomes. Research has also found evidence suggesting exercise can help trigger apoptosis (programmed cell death) in cancer cells. Ideally, your exercise program should include balance, strength, flexibility, high intensity interval training (HIIT). For help getting started, refer to my Peak Fitness Program.
11.Optimize your vitamin D level. There is scientific evidence you can decrease your risk of cancer by more than half simply by optimizing your vitamin D levels with appropriate sun exposure. Your serum level should hold steady at 50-70 ng/ml, but if you are being treated for cancer, it should be closer to 80-90 ng/ml for optimal benefit.

If you take oral vitamin D and have cancer, it would be very prudent to monitor your vitamin D blood levels regularly, as well as supplementing your vitamin K2, as K2 deficiency is actually what produces the symptoms of vitamin D toxicity. To learn more, please see my previous article: What You Need to Know About Vitamin K2, D and Calcium.
12.Get plenty of natural vitamin A. There is evidence that vitamin A also plays a role in helping prevent breast cancer.14 It’s best to obtain it from vitamin A-rich foods, rather than a supplement. Your best sources are organic egg yolks,15 raw butter, raw whole milk, and beef or chicken liver.
13.Consider curcumin. This is the active ingredient in turmeric and in high concentrations can be very useful adjunct in the treatment of breast cancer. It shows immense therapeutic potential in preventing breast cancer metastasis.16 It’s important to know that curcumin is generally not absorbed that well, so I’ve provided several absorption tips here.
14.Optimize your sleep. Make sure you are getting enough restorative sleep. Poor sleep can interfere with your melatonin production, which is associated with an increased risk of insulin resistance and weight gain, both of which contribute to cancer’s virility.
15.Limit your exposure to toxins. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, herbicides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and toxic cosmetics. Avoid BPA, phthalates and other xenoestrogens. These are estrogen-like compounds that have been linked to increased breast cancer risk.
16.Limit your exposure to radiation. Limit your exposure and protect yourself from radiation produced by cell phones, towers, base stations, and Wi-Fi stations, as well as minimizing your exposure from radiation-based medical scans, including dental x-rays, CT scans, and mammograms.
17.Avoid synthetic hormone replacement therapy. Breast cancer is an estrogen-related cancer, and according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, breast cancer rates for women dropped in tandem with decreased use of hormone replacement therapy. (There are similar risks for younger women who use oral contraceptives. Birth control pills, which are also comprised of synthetic hormones, have been linked to cervical and breast cancers.)
18.Make sure you’re not iodine deficient, as there’s compelling evidence linking iodine deficiency with breast cancer. Dr. David Brownstein,17 author of the book Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It, is a proponent of iodine for breast cancer. It actually has potent anticancer properties and has been shown to cause cell death in breast and thyroid cancer cells.

For more information, I recommend reading Dr. Brownstein’s book. I have been researching iodine for some time ever since I interviewed Dr. Brownstein as I do believe that the bulk of what he states is spot on. However, I am not convinced that his dosage recommendations are correct. I believe they are too high.
19.Stress Management. Stress from all causes is a major contributor to disease. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is driven by emotional factors. It is likely that stress and unresolved emotional issues may be more important than the physical ones, so make sure this is addressed. My favorite tool for resolving emotional challenges is Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).

What to Do if You Already Have Cancer

Without a doubt the most powerful essential strategy I know of to treat cancer is to starve the cells by depriving them of their food source. Unlike your body cells, which can burn carbs or fat for fuel, cancer cells have lost that metabolic flexibility. Dr. Otto Warburg was actually given a Nobel Prize over 75 years ago for figuring this out but virtually no oncologist actually uses this information.

You can review my recent interview with Dr. D’Agostino below for more details but integrating a ketogenic diet with hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which is deadly to cancer cells by starving them of their fuel source, would be the strategy I would recommend to my family if they were diagnosed with cancer.

From a health standpoint, there is an enormous difference between eating butter and margarine. The only reason to choose margarine would be that you actually prefer the taste to that of butter, and budget is limited. If you don’t want to eat butter for whatever reason, don’t make it worse by eating margarine. With margarine you are just adding one more toxic factor into your bodily environment-a factor that could easily be avoided.
When viewed under a microscope margarine is very close to plastic in its composition, so would you spread plastic on your bread, I don’t think so.
If you were to leave a tub of margarine and a tub of butter in your garden for a few days, what you’d find is that all the butter had been consumed by insects and animals. Whereas the margarine would be untouched even animals and insects wouldn’t touch it.
So I ask you to look differently at the ad’s promoting the plastic they want you to believe is edible, ok yes it is edible but it’s certainly not healthy.
Even though butter should never be avoided due to its cholesterol content, its effect on cholesterol levels cannot be understood independent of one’s toxin levels. When patients underwent the removal of dental toxicity, their elevated cholesterol levels would routinely drop in spite of the fact that they were being encouraged to eat as much butter and as many eggs on a daily basis as they desired. Cholesterol-laden foods raise the blood cholesterol levels only when toxins are present that need neutralization or inactivation.
In his impressive book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Dr Weston A Price D.D.S. repeatedly made the same correlations between choice of foods and maintenance(or recovery) of healthy.
The inclusion of modern processed foods of the “civilized” populations of the world, refined sugar and white flour, consistently destroyed the dental and general health of a wide variety of isolated populations that Dr. Price studied in the early 1930’s. Dr. Price personally observed the eating habits and health of fourteen isolated groups of people in Switzerland, Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia and North America. He found that simple, unrefined foods sustained health. Raw butter and other raw dairy foods produced from properly raised cows and goats would often single handedly reverse advanced diseases in the individuals who were able to quite eating sugar and white flour. It should be noted that Dr. Price never observed total vegetarianism among any of the healthy groups, although they all ate meat far less frequently than most Americans do today.
Margarine is a creation of the scientific laboratory, really bears no resemblance to butter, except in appearance. And this appearance is due to the yellow dye that is added to the white margarine to convince consumers that they really are consuming legitimate substitute for butter. Incredibly in the 1930’s, margarine was actually sold with a packet of yellow dye that the consumer could mix in with the margarine to complete the butter masquerade. Today’s margarines are commonly based on a number of cheap oils, including soybean, corn canola and cottonseed oils. These oils typically have had all the nutrient value extracted or processed out of them. Nearly all the protein, minerals, lecithin and other desirable natural components have been removed. Most of the vitamins are also gone.
To make matters worse, the oil that is used to make margarine is first typically hydrogenated to turn in from a liquid into a solid, forming many toxic substances in the process. Margarine then ends up with a large amount of what is known as trans-Fatty acids in them. These trans-fatty acids have been associated with increased disease and compromise the cardiovascular system, immune system and reproductive system.
Butter, when it comes from a quality source, maintains a high food value. Even when coming from pasteurized cream, butter still maintains a positive food value. In sharp contrast to pasteurized milk and other pasteurized products. Perhaps an additional benefit of butte that is less recognized is that its increased use in cooking also keeps us consuming less of the toxically produced and commonly consumed seed and vegetable oils.
While this may be a bit of an oversimplification, I maintain that limiting yourself to oil and butter in your cooking is the healthy way to go. Few other readily readily available oils are without some degree of toxicity. Remember that margarine is at least one source of toxicity that you can easily eliminate from your daily diet.

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Well for the purpose of this article, there are two types, Sodium Fluoride and Calcium Fluoride
Calcium Fluoride appears naturally in underground water sources and even seawater.
Sodium Fluoride is a synthetic waste product of the nuclear, aluminium, and phosphate fertilizer industries. This fluoride has an amazing capacity to combine and increase the potency of other toxic materials. The sodium fluoride obtained from industrial waste and added to water supplies is also already contaminated with lead, aluminum, and cadmium. It damages the liver and kidneys, weakens the immune system, possibly leading to cancer, creates symptoms that mimic fibromyalgia, and performs as a Trojan Horse to carry aluminum across the blood brain barrier. The latter is recognized as a source of the notorious “dumbing down” with lower IQ’s and Alzheimer’s effects of fluoride. Various permutations of Sodium Fluoride are also in many insecticides for homes and pesticides for crops. Sometimes it is even added to baby foods and bottled waters. If you live in a water fluoridated area, purchase commercially grown fruits, especially grapes, and vegetables that are chemically sprayed and grown areas irrigated by fluoridated water, you are getting a triple whammy! Better skip that fluoridated toothpaste! – source
Besides tap water, what else is Sodium Fluoride found in?
1. Toothpaste – As of April 7th, 1997, the United States FDA (Food & Drug Administration) has required that all fluoride toothpastes sold in the U.S. carry a poison warning on the label. The warning cautions toothpaste users to:“WARNING: Keep out of reach of children under 6 years of age. If you accidentally swallow more than used for brushing, seek professional help or contact a poison control center immediately.” For data on how much fluoride children ingest from toothpaste, click here .
2. Infant Formula – For further information on fluoride exposure from infant formula, click here
3. Processed Cereals – “During manufacturing, infant dry cereals are processed in a slurry and placed in a revolving drying drum. The water from the slurry evaporates, and the fluoride from the water remains in the cereal. Thus, the fluoride concentration of the water used during processing can substantially affect the final fluoride concentration… Infants who eat large quantities of dry infant cereals reconstituted with fluoridated water could ingest substantial quantities of fluoride from this source.” – Heilman JR, et al. (1997). Fluoride concentrations of infant foods. Journal of the American Dental Association 128(7):857-63.
4. Juices – “Our data suggest that young children who regularly or frequently drink substantial quantities of [juice] possibly should not receive dietary fluoride supplements, since they might be at increased risk of developing dental fluorosis.” – Kiritsy MC, et al. (1996). Assessing fluoride concentrations of juices and juice-flavored drinks. Journal of the American Dental Association 127(7):895-902.
5. Soda – “Seventy-one percent of the [sodas] had fluoride levels exceeding 0.60 ppm, which is considered to contain sufficient fluoride so that dietary fluoride supplements are contraindicated.”- Heilman JR, et al. (1999). Assessing fluoride levels of carbonated soft drinks. Journal of the American Dental Association 130(11):1593-9.
6. Wine – “Analyses of nineteen California wines revealed fluoride concentrations ranging from 0.23 to 2.80 ppm (mean 1.02 ppm, with seven samples above the international limit of 1 ppm).” – Burgstahler AW, et al. (1997). Fluoride in California wines and raisins. Fluoride 30: 142-146.
7. Beer – “Soda and beer bottled with fluoridated water contain 0.7 to 1 ppm fluoride; consumption of these beverages is almost certainly more variable among individuals than consumption of water… If beer contains 0.7 ppm fluoride, heavy beer-drinkers may ingest more than 4 mg daily from beer alone.” – Groth, E. (1973), Two Issues of Science and Public Policy: Air Pollution Control in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Fluoridation of Community Water Supplies. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, May 1973.
8. Teflon Pans – “Teflon-lined cookware contributes to the fluoride ingested by humans. Full and Parkins boiled fluoridated water at a moderate rate until a one-third or one-half reduction in volume was attained, then determined the fluoride content of the residual water… In Teflon-coated ware, the concentration of fluoride ion increased to nearly 3 ppm.
9. Rat Poison – Since the 1800s, fluoride has been a key component in rat poison and insecticides. When mixed into grain or other food, rats will readily consume the poison and die
10. PROZAC! – Part of the main ingredient in Prozac is fluoride. Talk about dumbing down society.
The below countries have made a stand against fluoridation of their drinking water.
Germany: “Generally, in Germany fluoridation of drinking water is forbidden. The relevant German law allows exceptions to the fluoridation ban on application. The argumentation of the Federal Ministry of Health against a general permission of fluoridation of drinking water is the problematic nature of compuls[ory] medication.” (Gerda Hankel-Khan, Embassy of Federal Republic of Germany, September 16, 1999). www.fluoridealert.org/Germany.jpeg
France: “Fluoride chemicals are not included in the list [of ‘chemicals for drinking water treatment’]. This is due to ethical as well as medical considerations.” (Louis Sanchez, Directeur de la Protection de l’Environment, August 25, 2000). www.fluoridealert.org/France.jpeg
Belgium: “This water treatment has never been of use in Belgium and will never be (we hope so) into the future. The main reason for that is the fundamental position of the drinking water sector that it is not its task to deliver medicinal treatment to people. This is the sole responsibility of health services.” (Chr. Legros, Directeur, Belgaqua, Brussels, Belgium, February 28, 2000). www.fluoridation.com/c-belgium.htm
Luxembourg: “Fluoride has never been added to the public water supplies in Luxembourg. In our views, the drinking water isn’t the suitable way for medicinal treatment and that people needing an addition of fluoride can decide by their own to use the most appropriate way, like the intake of fluoride tablets, to cover their [daily] needs.” (Jean-Marie RIES, Head, Water Department, Administration De L’Environment, May 3, 2000). www.fluoridealert.org/luxembourg.jpeg
Sweden: “Drinking water fluoridation is not allowed in Sweden…New scientific documentation or changes in dental health situation that could alter the conclusions of the Commission have not been shown.” (Gunnar Guzikowski, Chief Government Inspector, Livsmedels Verket — National Food Administration Drinking Water Division, Sweden, February 28, 2000). www.fluoridation.com/c-sweden.htm
Denmark: “We are pleased to inform you that according to the Danish Ministry of Environment and Energy, toxic fluorides have never been added to the public water supplies. Consequently, no Danish city has ever been fluoridated.” (Klaus Werner, Royal Danish Embassy, Washington DC, December 22, 1999). www.fluoridation.com/c-denmark.htm
Norway: “In Norway we had a rather intense discussion on this subject some 20 years ago, and the conclusion was that drinking water should not be fluoridated.” (Truls Krogh & Toril Hofshagen, Folkehelsa Statens institutt for folkeheise (National Institute of Public Health) Oslo, Norway, March 1, 2000). www.fluoridation.com/c-norway.htm
Finland: “We do not favor or recommend fluoridation of drinking water. There are better ways of providing the fluoride our teeth need.” (Paavo Poteri, Acting Managing Director, Helsinki Water, Finland, February 7, 2000). www.fluoridation.com/c-finland.htm
Northern Ireland: “The water supply in Northern Ireland has never been artificially fluoridated except in 2 small localities where fluoride was added to the water for about 30 years up to last year. Fluoridation ceased at these locations for operational reasons. At this time, there are no plans to commence fluoridation of water supplies in Northern Ireland.” (C.J. Grimes, Department for Regional Development, Belfast, November 6, 2000). www.fluoridealert.org/northern-ireland.jpeg
Austria: “Toxic fluorides have never been added to the public water supplies in Austria.” (M. Eisenhut, Head of Water Department, Osterreichische Yereinigung fur das Gas-und Wasserfach Schubertring 14, A-1015 Wien, Austria, February 17, 2000). www.fluoridation.com/c-austria.htm
As of 26th May 2011, 3692 medical professionals have signed the statement calling for the end of water fluoridation. Full details can be found here
• 650 Nurses (RN, MSN, BSN, ARNP, APRN, LNC, RGON)
• 533 DC’s (Doctor of Chiropractic, includes M Chiro)
• 457 PhD’s – includes DSc, Doctor of Science; EdD (Doctor of Education); DrPH (Doctor of Public Health)
• 397 MD’s (includes MBBS)
• 311 Dentists (DDS, DMD, BDS)
• 155 ND’s (Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine)
• 82 Lawyers (JD, LLB, Avvocato)
• 82 Pharmacists (Pharm.D, B. Pharm, DPh, RPH)
• 77 RDHs (Registered Dental Hygienist); also DH, RDHAP, EFDA, RDAEF, and RDN
• 59 Acupuncturists (LAc – Licensed Acupuncturist, and, MAc -Master Acupuncturist)
• 34 DO’s (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine)
• 25 Veterinarians (DMV, VMD, BVMS)
• 17 OD (Doctor of Optometry)
• 15 PA-C (Physician Assistant – Certified); also MPAS and RPA-C
So it is apparent that fluoride is a poisonous by-product of industry. If fluoride is a main ingredient in Procaz, are governments that allow water fluoridation attempting to dumb their people down? Are we more malleable as a society when fluoride is present? I would say Yes and Yes!!

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In 2007 when I started my work with Dr Hal Huggins I quickly learned that the three worst foods you can put into your body were sugar, alchohol and caffeine, in that order.

I was always disturbed when wandering through a supermarket or healthfood store to see products promoted as healthy because it was low fat only to see massive amounts of sugar.

Refined sugar and sugar substitutes are horrendous to your body, sugar will create an imbalance between the calcium and phosphorus in your blood chemistry. This will result in one of six problems, calculus build up on your teeth, cataracts in your eyes, kidney stones, gallstones, arthritis or aterial sclerosis.

In a ground-breaking news story, 60 Minutes reports that new research coming out of some of America’s most respected institutions is finding that sugar is a toxin that can lead to major chronic diseases such as obesity, heart disease, and cancer.

This is jolting to people who don’t realize that even if they don’t add it to their foods, hidden sugar, including high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), is in virtually all processed foods, from yogurts and sauces to breads and sodas.

Although some experts argue that “sugar is sugar,” test subjects in strict clinical trials who were monitored 24 hours a day, who consumed HFCS, developed higher risk factors for cardiovascular disease within two weeks.

Other studies indicate that if you limit your sugar, no matter what form you get it in, you decrease your chances of developing cancer—including breast and colon cancers.

What’s even more startling is that a growing number of studies are also showing that the more sugar you eat, the less satisfied you are.

It Pays to Listen to Alternative Health Experts…

This is another perfect example of how it can take the conventional medical establishment YEARS to catch up to the truth.

I’ve been writing about the dangers of high sugar consumption for over 15 years, ever since I started this web site back in 1997, as this is (or at least should be) part of the very basics of “proper nutrition.”

So if you’re a longtime subscriber to this newsletter (or other alternative health news), you’ve had a tremendous head start.

As time went on, it first became increasingly clear that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was more problematic than regular sugar (sucrose), and later, that whichever form of sugar you consume, it can act as a literal toxin in your body when consumed in excess.

Back in the year 2000, I published the work of Bill Misner, Ph.D. in an article that was aptly named Killer Sugar—Suicide With a Spoon. Then, about two years ago, I came across one of Dr. Robert Lustig’s lectures, and I immediately knew he was right—sugar is a toxin; at least in the high amounts most American’s are getting it in.

As Dr. Lustig states in his article on the website Diet Doctori :

“The problem with sugar isn’t just weight gain … A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases. A little is not a problem, but a lot kills — slowly.”

That same year, the brilliant work of Dr. Richard Johnson also convinced me that fructose is the worst of the two (although it’s really like choosing between two evils.) Now, finally, 60 Minutes, which is one of my favorite TV shows, has revealed the truth to the masses, and yes, some people are absolutely shocked by it. Interestingly, as I have gotten to know Dr. Johnson, I learned that I actually inspired him to pursue this topic further. Very shortly, we plan to be publishing his new book, The Fat Switch, which promises to turn the health world on its head with his exciting discoveries.

How High Fructose Corn Syrup has Decimated Human Health

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) entered the American market in 1975. Food and beverage manufacturers quickly began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to corn syrup when they discovered that it could save them a lot of money. Sucrose costs about three times as much as HFCS. HFCS is also about 20 percent sweeter than table sugar, so you need less to achieve the same amount of sweetness.

Around that same time, dietary fats were blamed for heart disease, giving rise to the “low-fat craze,” which resulted in an explosion of processed nonfat and low fat convenience foods—most of which tasted like sawdust unless sugar was added. Fructose was then added to make all these fat-free products more palatable. Yet as the low-fat craze spread, rates of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity skyrocketed…

Clearly, this plan was seriously flawed from the get-go, and it’s not difficult to see that trading fat for sugar is not a wise move.

We now know, without a doubt, that it’s the excessive fructose content in the modern diet that is taking such a devastating toll on people’s health.

At the heart of it all is the fact that excessive fructose consumption leads to insulin resistance, and insulin resistance appears to be the root of many if not most chronic disease. Insulin resistance has even been found to be an underlying factor of cancer. Fructose also raises your uric acid levels—it typically generates uric acid within minutes of ingestion, which in turn can wreak havoc on your blood pressure, insulin production, and kidney function. So far, scientific studies have linked fructose to about 78 different diseases and health problemsii . For example, fructose may:

Raise your blood pressureiii , and cause nocturnal hypertensioniv

Insulin resistance / Type 2 diabetesv

Non-alcoholic fatty liver diseasevi (NAFLD)

Raise your uric acid levelsvii, which can result in gout and/or metabolic syndromeviii

Accelerate the progression of chronic kidney diseaseix

Intracranial atherosclerosisx(narrowing and hardening of the arteries in your skull)

Exacerbate cardiac abnormalities if you’re deficient in copper

Have a genotoxic effect on the colon

Promote metastasis in breast cancer patientsxi

Cause tubulointerstitial injuryxii (injury to the tubules and interstitial tissue of your kidney)

Promote obesityxiii and related health problems and diseases

Promote pancreatic cancer growthxiv

Here’s an excellent illustration showing how carbohydrates and sugars affect your health.

Source: Nutrients. 2011 March; 3(3): 341–369.

Contamination and Genetic Engineering Adds to the Health Hazards of HFCS

And, as if the negative metabolic effects are not enough, there are other issues with HFCS that can have a negative impact on your health:
•More than one study has detected unsafe mercury levels in HFCSxv .
•Crystalline fructose (a super-potent form of fructose the food and beverage industry is now using) may contain arsenic, lead, chloride and heavy metals.
•Nearly all corn syrup is made from genetically engineered corn, which comes with its own set of risks. For example, Bt toxin found in genetically engineered Bt corn has now been detected in the bloodstream of 93 percent of pregnant women tested, and in 80 percent of the umbilical cord of tested babies. There’s already plenty of evidence that the Bt-toxin produced in genetically engineered corn and cotton plants is toxic to humans and mammals and triggers immune system responses. The fact that it flows through our blood, and that is passes through the umbilical cord into fetuses, may help explain the rise in many disorders in the US since Bt crop varieties were first introduced in 1996.

Using Uric Acid Levels as a Marker for Fructose Toxicity

The link between fructose and uric acid is so strong that you can actually use your uric acid levels as a marker for fructose toxicity. According to the latest research in this area, the safest range of uric acid appears to be between 3 and 5.5 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl), and there appears to be a steady relationship between uric acid levels and blood pressure and cardiovascular risk, even down to the range of 3 to 4 mg/dl.

Dr. Richard Johnson suggests that the ideal uric acid level is probably around 4 mg/dl for men and 3.5 mg/dl for women. I would strongly encourage everyone to have their uric acid level checked to find out how sensitive you are to fructose.

As you know, two-thirds of the US population is overweight, and most of these people likely have uric acid levels well above 5.5. Some may even be closer to 10 or above. Measuring your uric acid levels is a very practical way to determine just how strict you need to be when it comes to your fructose consumption. As an example, if you’re passionate about fruit and typically eat large amounts of it, but find out you have a uric acid level above 5 (or better yet, 4 if you’re a man, and 3.5 if you’re a woman), then you may want to consider lowering your fruit consumption until you’ve optimized your uric acid levels, to avoid harming your body.

How Much Fructose are You Consuming?

It’s no secret that we are eating more sugar than at any other time in history. In 1700, the average person ate four pounds of sugar a year. Today, about 25 percent of all Americans consume over 134 grams of fructose a day, according to Dr. Johnson’s research. That kind of consumption equates to more than 100 pounds of sugar per year! And it just so happens this statistic dovetails nicely with the statistics showing that one in four Americans is either pre-diabetic or has type 2 diabetes.

As a standard recommendation, I strongly advise keeping your TOTAL fructose consumption below 25 grams per day.

For most people it would actually be wise to limit your fruit fructose to 15 grams or less, as you’re virtually guaranteed to get “hidden” fructose from just about any processed food you might eat, including condiments you might never have suspected would contain sugar.

Keep in mind that fruits also contain fructose, although an ameliorating factor is that whole fruits also contain vitamins and other antioxidants that reduce the hazardous effects of fructose. Again, one way to determine just how strict you need to be is to check your uric acid levels. If you feel strongly that fruits are exceptionally beneficial to you and don’t believe my recommendation then at least promise me you will do a test. Consume whatever level of fructose and fruits you believe is healthy for a few days and then measure your uric acid level. If is outside the healthy ranges listed above, then I strongly suggest you listen to your body’s biochemical feedback and reduce your fructose consumption until your uric acid levels normalize.

Juices are nearly as detrimental as soda, because a glass of juice is loaded with fructose, and a lot of the antioxidants are lost. While processed foods will tell you how much sugar/HFCS it contains on the label (just remember to calculate how many servings of it you’re eating), whole fruits can be trickier. Here’s a helpful chart, courtesy of Dr. Johnson, to help you keep track of your total fructose consumption from fruit.

Fruit

Serving Size

Grams of Fructose

Limes

1 medium

0

Lemons

1 medium

0.6

Cranberries

1 cup

0.7

Passion fruit

1 medium

0.9

Prune

1 medium

1.2

Apricot

1 medium

1.3

Guava

2 medium

2.2

Date (Deglet Noor style)

1 medium

2.6

Cantaloupe

1/8 of med. melon

2.8

Raspberries

1 cup

3.0

Clementine

1 medium

3.4

Kiwifruit

1 medium

3.4

Blackberries

1 cup

3.5

Star fruit

1 medium

3.6

Cherries, sweet

10

3.8

Strawberries

1 cup

3.8

Cherries, sour

1 cup

4.0

Pineapple

1 slice (3.5″ x .75″)

4.0

Grapefruit, pink or red

1/2 medium

4.3

Fruit

Serving Size

Grams of Fructose

Boysenberries

1 cup

4.6

Tangerine/mandarin orange

1 medium

4.8

Nectarine

1 medium

5.4

Peach

1 medium

5.9

Orange (navel)

1 medium

6.1

Papaya

1/2 medium

6.3

Honeydew

1/8 of med. melon

6.7

Banana

1 medium

7.1

Blueberries

1 cup

7.4

Date (Medjool)

1 medium

7.7

Apple (composite)

1 medium

9.5

Persimmon

1 medium

10.6

Watermelon

1/16 med. melon

11.3

Pear

1 medium

11.8

Raisins

1/4 cup

12.3

Grapes, seedless (green or red)

1 cup

12.4

Mango

1/2 medium

16.2

Apricots, dried

1 cup

16.4

Figs, dried

1 cup

23.0

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An estimated 80 percent of Americans will suffer from chronic back pain at some point in life. Nearly 30 percent may be struggling with persistent or chronic back pain right now,1 leading many to resort to prescription painkillers, expensive steroid shots or even surgery.

This despite the fact that, in most cases, back pain is a result of simple mechanical problems relating to poor posture or improper movement, which are best prevented and managed by regular exercise and strengthening your back and abdominal muscles.

It is estimated that back pain accounts for more than 10 percent of all primary care doctors visits each year, and the cost for treatment stacks up to $86 billion annually.2 According to recent research, much of this treatment is unnecessary, while simultaneously failing to successfully address the problem.

As reported by The New York Times:3

“Well-established guidelines for the treatment of back pain require very conservative management — in most cases, no more than aspirin or acetaminophen (Tylenol) and physical therapy.

Advanced imaging procedures, narcotics and referrals to other physicians are recommended only for the most refractory cases or those with serious other symptoms. But a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine4 suggests that doctors are not following the guidelines.”

Back Pain Is Often Over-Treated

The team reviewed more than 23,900 outpatient visits for back pain that was unrelated to more serious conditions (such as cancer) over a 12-year period (1999-2010), and found that during this time:5
•Use of Tylenol and other NSAIDs declined by just over 50 percent
•Prescriptions for opiates increased by 51 percent
•CT and MRI scans also rose by 57 percent
•Referrals to specialists increased by 106 percent
•Use of physical therapy remained steady at about 20 percent

Needless to say, the trend shows that back pain is increasingly being treated with addictive drugs and diagnostic exams that expose patients to potentially unnecessary and dangerous levels of radiation. Back pain is actually one of the primary reasons why so many American adults get addicted to pain killers.

Furthermore, the existing treatments do not cure back pain—they only treat the symptoms. Senior author, Dr. Bruce E. Landon, a professor of health care policy at Harvard, told The New York Times6 that back pain actually tends to improve by itself in most cases, adding:

“It’s a long conversation for physicians to educate patients. Often it’s easier just to order a test or give a narcotic rather than having a conversation. It’s not always easy to do the right thing.”

Opiates are not the only dangerous drugs being pushed for back pain. One of the most egregious examples of Big Pharma disease mongering7 is the emergence of ads suggesting your back pain may be caused by ankylosing spondylitis, a chronic inflammatory disease of the axial skeleton, which includes the spine.

“Do you have back pain? Are you dismissing it as resulting from “lifting too much” at the gym or “bad posture”? one radio ad asks. “You might have ankylosing spondylitis.”

The drug advertised is Humira, which has a price tag of about $20,000 a year. It is reprehensible for drug companies to promote this expensive and dangerous drug for an exceedingly rare cause of low back pain, which likely is responsible for less than a tenth of a tenth of one percent of low back pain!

Side effects of the drug8 include tuberculosis, serious infections, increased risk of lymphoma and other cancers, hepatitis B infection in carriers of the virus, allergic reactions, nervous system problems, blood problems, heart failure, certain immune reactions including a lupus-like syndrome, liver problems, new or worsening psoriasis, and many more. Considering the fact that most cases of low back pain are not caused by inflammatory conditions, you probably do not need this drug, although your doctor may very well give it to you should you ask.

Don’t Settle for Band-Aids—Treat the Root Cause of Your Back Pain

With the exception of blunt force injuries, low back pain is commonly caused and exacerbated by:

Poor posture

Poor physical conditioning facilitated by inactivity

Internal disease, such as kidney stones, infections, blood clots

Obesity

Psychological/emotional stress

Osteoporosis (bone loss)

Since poor posture and/or improper movement is to blame for most cases of back pain, one of the best things you can do to prevent and manage back pain is to exercise regularly and keep your back and abdominal muscles strong. Foundation Training—an innovative method developed by Dr. Eric Goodman to treat his own chronic low back pain—is an excellent alternative to the Band Aid responses so many are given. The program is inexpensive and can be surprisingly helpful, as these exercises are designed to help you strengthen your entire core and move the way nature intended.

Many people fail to realize that many times back pain actually originates from tension and imbalance at a completely different place than where the pain is felt. For example, the very act of sitting for long periods of time ends up shortening the iliacus, psoas and quadratus lumborum muscles that connect from your lumbar region to the top of your femur and pelvis. When these muscles are chronically short, it can cause severe pain when you stand up as they will effectively pull your lower back (lumbar) forward.

The reality is that the imbalance among the anterior and posterior chains of muscles leads to many of the physical pains experienced daily. By rebalancing these muscles, you can remedy many pains and discomforts. Teaching your body to naturally support itself at the deepest level is going to be far more effective than strapping on an external back brace, which over time can lead to even weaker musculature.

Another option is Esther Gokhale who is a posture expert that I interviewed earlier this year. I’ll be running that interview shortly. Both of these strategies are far more effective than the typical conventional medical approach for low back pain. Additionally, chiropractic or osteopathic care as discussed below can also frequently be very valuable.

Most Body Pain Can Be Traced to Poor Postural Patterns

Besides having a weak core, another MAJOR cause of neck, back, and other areas of pain is due to the shortening of your suboccipital muscles in the back of your neck. This occurs when you sit and walk around with your head in a forward-tilted position, which is becoming symptomatic of the modern lifestyle where everything you attend to is right in front of you on one screen or another.

According to Dr. Goodman, back pain is just one possible result of this kind of postural imbalance. It can also result in shoulder pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, headaches, jaw pain, knee pain, IT band pain, and more. To address this, Dr. Goodman has expanded Foundation Training into a broader program he now calls “Modern Moveology.”

The basic Foundation Training program takes about 20 minutes, and is ideally done daily. You can purchase the Foundation Training DVD from my online store. Once Dr. Goodman releases his Modern Moveology catalog of exercises, I will offer that for sale as well. FoundationTraining.com also offers several free videos, and their thought provoking first book called: Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence.

Chiropractic and Osteopathic Care May Also Be of Benefit

Seeing a qualified chiropractor is certainly a wise consideration if you suffer from back pain. I am an avid believer in the chiropractic philosophy, which places a strong emphasis on your body’s innate healing ability and far less reliance on band-aid responses like drugs and surgery.

A recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine9 even revealed that chiropractic care is often more effective than medication for treating musculoskeletal pain. After following 272 neck-pain patients for 12 weeks, researchers found that those who used a chiropractor or exercised were more than twice as likely to be pain free compared to those who took medication.

Another option is to consult a doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO). As many of you know, I am an osteopathic physician, which I chose because DOs practice a “whole person” approach to medicine, treating the entire person rather than just symptoms. DOs receive additional training in adjusting the musculoskeletal system, and osteopathic manipulation has also been found to reduce chronic low back pain. In one recent study10 involving 455 people, participants received eight weeks of either osteopathic manipulation, a sham treatment, or ultrasound therapy. Sixty-three percent of those who’d had osteopathic manipulation reported a moderate improvement in their pain while half said they had a substantial improvement.

That said, it’s been my experience that only a small percentage of DOs are truly skilled in this area, as many have instead chosen to follow a more conventional allopathic model. So if you choose to see a DO for osteopathic manipulation, make sure they provide this service and have ample experience.

Two Other Non-Invasive Treatment Options for Back Pain

Neuro-structural integration technique (NST) is yet another non-drug pain relief option. NST is a gentle, non-invasive technique that stimulates your body’s reflexes. Simple movements are done across muscles, nerves and connective tissue, which helps your neuromuscular system to reset all related tension levels, promoting natural healing. It is completely safe and appropriate for everyone from highly trained athletes, to newborns, pregnant women, and the elderly and infirm. To find an NST therapist near you, see our NST Therapists Page. You can also purchase a DVD set to learn more about this technique.

Last but not least, yoga, which is particularly useful for promoting flexibility and core muscles, has also been proven beneficial if you suffer with back pain. The Yoga Journal11 has an online page demonstrating specific poses that may be helpful. A recent study in the journal Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine12 also found that once-weekly yoga classes appear to produce as much benefit for lower back pain sufferers as taking classes twice a week. According to one of the authors:13

“Given the similar improvement seen in once weekly yoga classes, and that once a week is more convenient and less expensive, we recommend patients suffering from lower back pain who want to pursue yoga attend a weekly therapeutic yoga class.”

Even More Tips to Beat Back Pain

Preventing back pain is surely easier than treating it. Besides the recommendations already covered above, which included getting chiropractic adjustments, Foundation Training, Egoscue exercises, and NST, below are several more tips for beating back pain. With this many alternatives available, there are few good reasons to turn to pharmaceutical or surgical band-aids that do nothing to treat the underlying causes of your pain, but might cause additional harm in the process:
1.Exercise and physical activity will help strengthen the muscles of your spine. Make your exercise time count by including high-intensity sessions. You probably only need this once or twice a week at the most. You’ll also want to include exercises that really challenge your body intensely along with those that promote muscle strength, balance and flexibility.
2.If you spend many hours every day sitting down, pay careful attention to consciously sucking in your belly and rotating your pelvis slightly up. At the same time make sure your head is back with your ears over your shoulders and your shoulder blades pinched. This will help keep your spine in proper alignment. You can hold these muscles tight for several minutes and do this once every hour. The upcoming interview with Esther Gokhale will go into far more details.

Also, to combat the detrimental health ramifications of excessive sitting, make a point to stand up at least once every 10 minutes. In addition to regularly standing up, I also do a few squats while I’m at it. To learn more about the importance of regularly getting out of your chair, please see my interview with Dr. Joan Vernikos, former director of NASA’s Life Sciences Division and author of Sitting Kills, Moving Heals.
3.Optimize your vitamin D and K2 levels to prevent the softening of the bones that can often lead to lower back pain.
4.Ground yourself. Grounding yourself to the earth, also known as Earthing, decreases inflammation in your body, which can help quiet down back pain and other types of pain. Your immune system functions optimally when your body has an adequate supply of electrons, which are easily and naturally obtained by barefoot/bare skin contact with the earth. Research indicates the earth’s electrons are the ultimate antioxidants, acting as powerful anti-inflammatories. Whenever possible, take a moment to venture outside and plant your bare feet on the wet grass or sand.
5.Address psychological factors. Few people want to be told that their pain is psychological or emotional in origin, but there’s quite a bit of evidence that backs this up.

Underlying emotional issues and unresolved trauma can have a massive influence on your health, particularly as it relates to physical pain. Dr. John Sarno,14 for example, used mind-body techniques to treat patients with severe low back pain and has authored a number of books on this topic. His specialty was those who have already had surgery for low back pain and did not get any relief. This is one tough group of patients, yet he had a greater than 80 percent success rate using techniques like the Emotional Freedom Technique (he has now retired from practice).
6.Get regular massage therapy. Massage releases endorphins, which help induce relaxation and relieve pain.
7.Keep your weight spread evenly on your feet when standing. Don’t slouch when standing or sitting to avoid putting stress on your back muscles.
8.Always support your back, and avoid bending over awkwardly. Protect your back while lifting – this activity, along with carrying, puts the most stress on your back.
9.Wear comfortable shoes. For the ladies, it would be good to not wear heels most of the time.
10.Drink plenty of water to enhance the height of your intervertebral disks. And because your body is composed mostly of water, keeping yourself hydrated will keep you fluid and reduce stiffness.
11.Quit smoking as it reduces blood flow to your lower spine and your spinal disks to degenerate.
12.Pay attention to how—and how long—you sleep, because studies have linked insufficient sleep with increased back and neck problems. Pay attention to your sleep position. Sleep on your side to reduce curving of your spine, and stretch before getting out of bed. A firm bed is recommended.

Addressing the Root of Your Pain Might Save You More Than Dollars

Once you understand that back pain is typically the result of poor posture or improper movement, the remedy becomes clear. Certainly, addictive pain killers and surgery will not address these issues. So if you’re among those seeking medical care for persistent back pain, I’d advise you to consider your options before filling that prescription or going under the knife.

As shown in the featured research, the use of potent drugs and back surgeries are now becoming more the trend—not because they’re effective, but because many doctors simply do not take the time to educate their patients on the causes of the pain. And in fact, many doctors may still be under-educated on this issue as well.

While drug addiction and surgical interventions can have significant long-term ramifications and may in the long run lead to deteriorating health, most back pain can be prevented and treated by a variety of natural measures, including Foundation Training, osteopathic manipulation, chiropractic care, Earthing, yoga, EFT, and more.