Health Dangers fr/Smartphone Use

Posted on July 12, 2015 by marcia

‘My smartphone damaged my health for LIFE’: Man develops painful and incurable neurological condition from craning his neck to look at the screen

Adam Estes developed searing headaches which felt like he was being ‘hit over the head with a rod of steel’ sending ‘bolts of pain’ over his skull
Was diagnosed with incurable neurological condition occipital neuralgia
This is where the nerves at the top of the neck become compressed
Neurologist said it had been caused by him bending to look at his phone

Published: 11:03 EST, 19 June 2015

When journalist Adam Estes started getting searing headaches, he feared the worst.

His cousin had previously experienced pain in his temple, found to be caused by a brain tumour, so Mr Estes was paranoid about pain in that area.

And the headaches he was experiencing were intense.

‘It was as if I was being hit over the head with a hot rod of steel’ which was ‘sending electric bolts of pain’ over his skull, he wrote in an article for Gizmodo.

Journalist Adam Estes developed searing headaches due to compressed nerves in his neck after bending his neck to look at his smartphone. His neurologist warned him not to crane his neck when using his phone (file photo)

After visiting a neurologist, Mr Estes discovered they had been triggered by an unlikely cause; his smartphone.

He describes how his neurologist diagnosed him with occipital neuralgia, and how he had developed the condition from craning his neck to look at his phone.

Occipital neuralgia is a neurological condition in which the occipital nerves the nerves that run from the top of the spinal cord at the base of the neck up through the scalp – become compressed or inflamed.

This leads to similar symptoms to a headache or migraine.

To ascertain the cause of the condition, his neurologist asked about any activities he carried out that could strain the muscles of his neck, Gizmodo reports.

But as he tried not to slouch and works on a desktop with a propped up display, initially, he could not think of a situation in which he would be craning his neck.

Then, Mr Estes had a thought.

‘What about smartphone usage?’ he asked. ‘I’m constantly craning my neck to look down at my phone. Maybe that has something to do with it.’

WHAT IS OCCIPITAL NEURALGIA?

The occipital nerves are on each side of the head.

They emerge from between bones of the spine in the upper neck and make their way through muscles at the back of the head and into the scalp.

Irritation of one these nerves anywhere along their course can cause a shooting, zapping, electric, or tingling pain, with symptoms located on one side of the scalp rather than in the face.

Sometimes the pain can also seem to shoot forward (‘radiate’) toward one eye.

In some patients the scalp becomes extremely sensitive to even the lightest touch, making washing the hair or lying on a pillow nearly impossible.

In other patients there may be numbness in the affected area.

The region where the nerves enter the scalp may be extremely tender.

Occipital neuralgia may occur spontaneously, or as the result of a pinched nerve root in the neck (from arthritis, for example), or as the result of prior injury or surgery to the scalp or skull.

Sometimes ‘tight’ muscles at the back of the head can entrap the nerves.

Source: John Hopkins Medicine

This sounded like the most probable cause, his neurologist replied.

‘I’ve been a practicing neurologist for 10 years, and I’ve seen cases of this condition skyrocket since smartphones became popular, the neurologist said, according to Gizmodo.

And upon further thinking, Mr Estes revealed that he often reads on his phone, plays games, and answers emails on the go.

In fact, a recent paper found that bending the head at a 60 degree angle to look at a phone screen puts 60 lbs – or 27kg – worth of pressure on the cervical spine, the part of the spine above the shoulders, the study found.

At more than four stone in weight, that is heavier than the average seven year old.

The extra pressure put on the neck leads to early wear and tear and the person may eventually need surgery, experts writing in the study, published in Surgery Technology International, said.

The amount of force on the neck increases with the degree it is bent, they found.

Tilting the head by 45 degree adds the force of 49lbs – or 22kg – to the neck.

A 30 degree neck tilt equals 40lbs – or 18kg – , while a mere 15 degrees puts an extra 27lbs – 12kg – on the spine.

Mr Estes and his neurologist decided the smartphone must be the cause of his condition.

And while he was relieved to have a conclusive diagnosis, he was dismayed to find there is no cure for occipital neuralagia, only treatments that can manage the pain.

His neurologist also injected his neck with around 20 individual steroids and numbing agents, which he says were so painful he almost passed out.

These block the nerves in the neck to stop the headaches, but it is not uncommon for the pain to return at some point and to need a repeat series of injections.

He was also given information about yoga and massage that can help relieve tension in the neck.

And lastly, Mr Estes was warned to avoid craning his neck to look at his smartphone.

Slumping over a phone adds extra pressure on the cervical spine- the part above the shoulders – a study found. Bending the head to a 60 degree angle adds 60 lbs – or more than four stone- worth of pressure

Your Food ‘Talks’ to Your Cells

Posted on July 9, 2015 by marcia

Amazing Discovery: Edible Plants ‘Talk’ To Animal Cells and Promote Healing

Jul 6 by SAYER JI

A groundbreaking new study published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research titled, “Interspecies communication between plant and mouse gut host cells through edible plant derived exosome-like nanoparticles,” reveals a new way that food components ‘talk’ to animal cells by regulating gene expression and conferring significant therapeutic effects. With the recent discovery that non-coding microRNA’s in food are capable of directly altering gene expression within human physiology,[1] this new study further concretizes the notion that the age old aphorism ‘you are what you eat’ is now consistent with cutting edge molecular biology.

Exosomes: The ‘Missing Link’ In How Plants and Animal Cells Communicate and Collaborate

This is the first study of its kind to look at the role of exosomes, small vesicles secreted by plant and animal cells that participate in intercellular communication, in interspecies (plant-animal) communication.

The study explained the biological properties of exosomes as follows:

“Exosomes are produced by a variety of mammalian cells including immune, epithelial, and tumor cells [11–15]. Exosomes play a role in intercellular communication and can transport mRNA, miRNA, bioactive lipids, and proteins between cells [16–19]. Upon contact, exosomes transfer molecules that can render new properties and/or reprogram their recipient cells.”

While most of the research on exosomes has focused on their role in pathological states such as tumor promotion, they were recently found to play a key role in stimulating regeneration within damaged cardiac tissue,[2] and are known to be found in human breast milk, further underscoring how irreplaceable it is vis-à-vis synthesized infant formula.[3]

The New Study

The investigators isolated plant derived exosome-like nanoparticles (EPDENs) from ginger, carrot, grape and grapefruit, and observed their behavior in mammalian cells (mice).

They chose these commonly consumed edible fruits and vegetables because,

“It is well established that a plant-derived diet has great influence on regulation of mammalian host cell homeostasis, in particular, cells in the digestive system [1–3]. Deregulation of plant-derived diet regulated host cell homeostasis leads to increased susceptibility to infections, chronic inflammatory bowel diseases, and cancer [4–10].

They noted, “the cellular and molecular machinery regulating such interspecies mutualism between a plant-derived diet and the mammalian gut is not fully defined.” Their new study aimed to gain new insight into defining the mechanisms through which cross-kingdom crosstalk occurs.

Plant Exosomes Affect Mammalian Cells Intimately

After isolating and characterizing exosome-like nanoparticles from all four edible plants, the researchers discovered they possessed remarkable similarity in size and structure to mammalian-derived exosomes. Furthermore, the study showed “that these exosome-like nanoparticles are taken up by intestinal macrophages and stem cells, and have biological effects on the recipient cells.”

The biological effects were described as follows:

-Ginger exosome-like nanoparticles strongly induced heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) and IL-10 expressed in macrophages, an indication of anti-inflammatory and antoxidant properties.

-Fruit-derived exosome-like nanoparticles including grape and grapefruit induced Wnt/TCF4 activation, which is a key component of the anti-inflammatory response

-All tested foods activated nuclear translocation of Nrf2, a key regulator of the HO1 gene, which has an important role in anti-inflammation and antioxidation; ginger was found to be most potent, followed by grapefruit, carrot and grape

Notably, EPDENs were found to be resistant to gastric and intestinal enzymatic digestion, further indicating they are capable of exerting significant biological effects by escaping digestive degradation, which has also been found with lectins and microRNA’s within edible foods.

The researchers discussed their results:

“Our findings show that exosome-like nanoparticles are present in edible fruits and vegetables and reveal a previously unrecognized strategy by which plants communicate with mammalian cells via exosome-like nanoparticles in the gut, and in particular intestinal macrophages and stem cells. We found that edible plants contain large amounts of nanoparticles. Like mammalian exosomes, further characterization of the plant nanoparticles led to identifying them as exosome- like nanoparticles based on the nanoparticles being com- posed of proteins, lipids, and miRNAs. EPDENs from different types of plants have different biological effects on the recipient mammalian cells. This finding opens up a new avenue to further study the molecular mechanisms underlying how the plant kingdom crosstalks with mammalian cells such as intestinal macrophages and stem cells via EPDENs. This information may provide the molecular basis of using multiple plant-derived agents for better therapeutic effect than any single plant-derived agent.”

They also offered that their results may explain why those who consume a greater variety of edible plants are healthier:

“It has been known for decades that people eating a variety of edible plants daily are the recipients of many beneficial health effects when compared to subjects that ingest fewer types of edible plants. Ingesting EPDENs from a variety of fruits and vegetables daily would be expected to provide greater beneficial effects for maintaining gut homeostasis than ingesting EPDENs from single edible plant.”

Discussion: Deeper Implications of the Study

As part of the fascinating new fields of epigenetics and nutrigenomics, this new study’s findings promise to expand the relevance of food in the practice of medicine and the prevention of disease. We have crossed a critical threshold in the past few decades where food can no longer considered simply as a source of caloric content, minerals and vitamins, and building blocks for the body-machine. Rather, food carries very specific forms of biologically meaningful information (literally ‘to put form into’), without which our genetic and epigenetic infrastructure cannot function according to its intelligent design.

The discovery of plant-dervied exosome-mediated modulation of fundamental mammalian cellular pathways, lends powerful support to the concept that ancestral nutritional practices handed down for countless generations are critical in maintaining our health. With the advent of the post-industrial diet, based largely on ‘food-like’ synthesized nutrition, and the novel introduction of grain-based nutrition in only the past 500 generations, our present diet suffers from a series of profoundly biological incompatible foods.

Millions of years of co-evolutionary processes have generated a wide range of interspecies, cross-kingdom co-dependencies. For instance, mammals and angiosperms (which comprise about 250,000 species and include most of the flowering plants that provide the modern world its diet) co-evolved for at least 200 million years together, and are today two of the most dominant forms of life on the planet. The very molecular and informational fabric of our bodies evolved to intimately depend on the presence of various key food components in the human diet, and the absence of others which may be detrimental to our health. Food components like exosomes may be as important to our health as vitamins and other classically defined ‘nutrients,’ and may even be more important in modulating a wide range of complex genetic- and epigenetic-mediated cellular processes within the body. This may also explain the mystery of how certain fruits, such as pomegranate, have been found to replace the function of the mammalian ovary in an ovariectomy induced models of premature aging. While pomegranate is one of nature’s most concentrated source of bioidentical estrone, exosomes may be the ‘missing link’ as to how a plant food can support complex hormonal processes within the animal body, along with exerting such a wide range of additional therapeutic health effects. This is all the more evidence with plants like turmeric, which have over 600 health benefits and has been found to modulate the expression of thousands of genes simultaneously.[4]

We believe that taken together, the recent discoveries that 1) microRNA’s within foods like rice can enter into our blood and tissue and regulate gene expression 2) that double-stranded RNAs within a wide range of commonly consumed foods have molecular homology with thousands of human RNAs (and are therefore capable of silencing them) 3) that lectins also can directly activate nuclear machinery within certain cells, the addition of exosome-mediated gene modulation, lends further support to the concept that the quality and types of food we consume carry as much relevance in terms of ‘biological destiny’ as the DNA within our genome.

With exciting research now available, the famous quote attributed to Thomas Edison rings truer today than ever:

“The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”

Sayer Ji is founder of Greenmedinfo.com, on the Board of Governors for the National Health Federation, and Fearless Parent, Steering Committee Member of the Global GMO Free Coalition (GGFC), a reviewer at the International Journal of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine.

References
[1] Lin Zhang Exogenous plant MIR168a specifically targets mammalian LDLRAP1: evidence of cross-kingdom regulation by microRNACell Research (2012) 22:107–126. doi:10.1038/cr.2011.158; published online 20 September 2011

[2] Ahmed Gamal-Eldin Ibrahim, Ke Cheng, Eduardo Marbán. Exosomes as Critical Agents of Cardiac Regeneration Triggered by Cell Therapy. Stem Cell Reports, May 2014 DOI:10.1016/j.stemcr.2014.04.006

[3] Qi Zhou1, et al Immune-related MicroRNAs are Abundant in Breast Milk Exosomes Int J Biol Sci 2012; 8(1):118-123. doi:10.7150/ijbs.8.118

[4] Sreenivasan S, Thirumalai K, Danda R, Krishnakumar S. Effect of curcumin on miRNA expression in human Y79 retinoblastoma cells. Curr Eye Res. 2012 May;37(5):421-8. doi: 10.3109/02713683.2011.647224. PubMed PMID: 22510010.

from: http://www.realfarmacy.com/amazing-discovery-edible-plants-talk-to-animal-cells-and-promote-healing/

Healthy Fats, Cardiovascular Disease, Cholestrol

Posted on July 6, 2015 by marcia

Will New 2015 Dietary Guidelines Reverse Four Decades of Foolish Fat Phobia?

Story at-a-glance

The latest Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) scientific report, which forms the basis for the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, removes warnings about dietary cholesterol, and eliminates the upper limit on total fat
Research has consistently demonstrated that low-fat diets do not prevent heart disease; nor does it help you lose weight
One recent study found that people who were on ketogenic (high-fat, low-carb) diets experienced a gradual reduction in overall appetite, despite the overall cut in calories

July 06, 2015

Visit the Mercola Video Library

By Dr. Mercola

Every five years, the US Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) convene a 15-member panel to update the nation’s dietary guidelines.

The panel’s mission is to identify foods and beverages that help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight, promote health, and prevent disease. In addition to guiding the public at large, the guidelines significantly influence nutrition policies such as school lunch programs and feeding programs for the elderly.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) scientific report is an integral part of this process, as it serves as the foundation for the development of the dietary guidelines.

The DGAC submitted its 2015 Scientific Report^1,^2,^3,⁴ to the HHS and USDA in February 2015, which, to many people’s surprise, included the elimination of warnings about dietary cholesterol.

Another remarkable turnaround is the Advisory Committee’s revised stance on fats. As noted in a recent Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) paper,⁵ the latest advisory report reverses nearly four decades of nutrition policy.

“[The new DGAC report] concluded, ‘Reducing total fat (replacing total fat with overall carbohydrates) does not lower CVD [cardiovascular disease] risk…

Dietary advice should put the emphasis on optimizing types of dietary fat and not reducing total fat.’

Limiting total fat was also not recommended for obesity prevention; instead, the focus was placed on healthful food-based diet patterns that include more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, seafood, legumes, and dairy products and include less meats, sugar-sweetened foods and drinks, and refined grains…

In finalizing the 2015 Dietary Guidelines, the US Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services should follow the evidence-based, scientifically sound DGAC report and remove the existing limit on total fat consumption.”

Research has consistently demonstrated that low-fat diets do not prevent heart disease. On the contrary, the low-fat craze has undoubtedly done more harm than good, as your body needs healthy fat for optimal function.

Unfortunately, the DGAC doesn’t go so far as to set the record straight with regards to saturated fats, as it makes no firm distinction between healthy saturated fats and decidedly unhealthy trans fats.

Still, if the DGAC’s conclusions on total dietary fat consumption make it into the HHS and USDA’s final 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which will be published later this year, it will certainly be a step in the right direction.

Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Ditches Cholesterol and Total Fat Limits

Healthy fat and cholesterol have, for decades, been wrongfully blamed for causing heart disease, and it’s like a breath of fresh air to finally see the advisory committee is taking note of the accumulated science.

With regards to cholesterol, the panel concluded it “is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption,” noting the absence of a link between dietary cholesterol and heart disease.

Until now, the American dietary guidelines have recommended limiting dietary cholesterol to 300 milligrams (mg) per day, which amounts to about two eggs. As noted by Steven Nissen, chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic:

“Many of us for a long time have believed the dietary guidelines were pointing in the wrong direction. It is long overdue.”

Similarly, the report recognizes that reducing total fat intake has no bearing on heart disease risk either. Nor does it reduce your risk of obesity. Instead, mounting research shows that sugar and refined grains are in fact the primary culprits.

Saturated fats are actually important for optimal health, and those with insulin/leptin resistance may need upwards of 50-80 percent of their daily calories from healthy fat—far more than the upper limit suggested by current federal guidelines.

As noted by Forbes Magazine:⁶

“[T]he recommendation to have no more than 35 percent of your calories coming from fats is over. ‘Placing limits on total fat intake has no basis in science and leads to all sorts of wrong industry and consumer decisions,’ said Dariush Mozaffarian, one of the authors of the new [JAMA] paper.⁷

“Modern evidence clearly shows that eating more foods rich in healthful fats like nuts, vegetable oils, and fish have protective effects, particularly for cardiovascular disease.

Other fat-rich foods, like whole milk and cheese, appear pretty neutral; while many low-fat foods, like low-fat deli meats, fat-free salad dressing, and baked potato chips, are no better and often even worse than full-fat alternatives. It’s the food that matters, not its fat content.”

A High-Quality Fat Diet May Be Key to Weight Management

The idea that a low-fat diet would help you lose weight has been proven wrong. Low-fat recommendations are likely to do more harm than good across the board, but may be particularly counterproductive if you’re trying to lose weight.

Contrary to “conventional wisdom,” mounting evidence clearly shows a high-fat, low-carb diet can be exceptionally effective for weight loss—provided you’re eating the right kinds of fats. Sources of healthy fats include:

Olives and olive oil (for cold dishes) Coconuts and coconut oil (for all types of cooking and baking) Butter made from raw grass-fed organic milk

Raw nuts, such as macadamias and pecans Organic pastured egg yolks Avocados

Grass-fed meats Palm oil Unheated organic nut oils

While trans fats found in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils do promote heart disease, saturated fats are not only essential for proper cellular and hormonal function, they also provide a concentrated source of energy in your diet.

The high-fat, low-carb combination is therefore ideal because when you cut down on carbs, you generally need to replace that lost energy by increasing your fat consumption. By boosting total fat and reducing non-vegetable carbs, you effectively “reset” your body to burn fat instead of sugar.

Not only can this promote highly efficient weight loss, you don’t have to feel like you’re starving to do it. Fat (which burns slower than sugar) is far more satiating, effectively cutting hunger pangs. This was recently demonstrated in an Australian study^8,⁹ published in Obesity Reviews. The researchers found that people who were on ketogenic (high-fat, low-carb) diets experienced a gradual reduction in overall appetite, despite the overall cut in calories.

According to the authors:

“Although these absolute changes in appetite were small, they occurred within the context of energy restriction, which is known to increase appetite in obese people. Thus, the clinical benefit of a ketogenic diet is in preventing an increase in appetite, despite weight loss, although individuals may indeed feel slightly less hungry (or more full or satisfied).

Ketosis appears to provide a plausible explanation for this suppression of appetite. Future studies should investigate the minimum level of ketosis required to achieve appetite suppression during ketogenic weight loss diets, as this could enable inclusion of a greater variety of healthy carbohydrate-containing foods into the diet.”

Research into the health benefits of ketogenic diets has also revealed a number of other beneficial effects besides weight loss. Diabetes, epilepsy, and even cancer may benefit from a high-fat, low-carb diet. Drs. Thomas Seyfried and Dominic D’Agostino have both investigated the effects of ketogenic diets on cancer, coming to the conclusion that it effectively “starves” cancer cells, as cancer needs glucose to thrive.

The Importance of Omega-3 Fat

Another healthy fat that most people get too little of is the omega-3 fat docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Approximately 60 percent of your brain is composed of fats—25 percent of which is DHA. Omega-3 fats such as DHA are considered essential because your body cannot produce them, so you must get them from your daily diet. Aside from benefiting your brain, they’re also a potent anti-inflammatory.

Recent research^10,¹¹ shows omega-3 supplementation can help reduce inflammation in people with chronic kidney disease, but chronic inflammation is a hallmark of most chronic disease, including but not limited to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and cancer. So omega-3 is important for general, overall health, and can be beneficial no matter what chronic health condition you’re afflicted with.

Swedish researchers recently found that seniors who eat plenty of fish and vegetables live longer than those who do not. As reported by Reuters:¹² “Among more than four thousand 60-year-old men and women, those with the highest blood levels of polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs), which come from fish and plants, were significantly less likely to die from heart disease or any cause over about 15 years than those with the lowest levels.”

Generous amounts of PUFAs are found in fatty fish such as salmon and herring. They’re also found in avocados, olives, and raw nuts. Unfortunately, the vast majority of fish is too contaminated to eat on a frequent basis. Most major waterways in the world are contaminated with mercury, heavy metals, and chemicals like dioxins, PCBs, and other agricultural chemicals, which is why, as a general rule, I no longer recommend getting your total omega-3 requirements from fish.

Instead, I recommend taking an animal-based omega-3 fat such as krill oil on a regular basis, while simultaneously limiting damaged omega-6 fats found in vegetable oils and processed foods. These two strategies will help normalize your omega-3 to omega-6 ratios, which is an important consideration for optimal health.

If You Want to Eat Fish, Choose Wisely

That said, I do make one exception when it comes to eating fish.

The nutritional benefits of wild-caught Alaskan salmon or sockeye salmon, I believe, still outweigh the risk of potential contamination. The risk of sockeye accumulating high amounts of mercury and other toxins is reduced because of its short life cycle, which is only about three years. Bioaccumulation of toxins is also reduced by the fact that it doesn’t feed on other, already contaminated, fish.

Moreover, neither Alaskan salmon nor sockeye salmon are allowed to be farmed, which is another safety factor. For a less expensive alternative to salmon fillets, look for canned salmon labeled “Alaskan salmon.” If you want to be on the safe side, you may also consider taking some chlorella tablets along with your meal. Chlorella is a potent mercury binder and if taken with the fish will help bind the mercury before you are able to absorb it, so it can be safely excreted in your stool.

Besides wild-caught salmon, smaller fish with short lifecycles also tend to be better alternatives in terms of fat content, so that’s another alternative if you want to eat fish. A general guideline is that the closer to the bottom of the food chain the fish is, the less contamination it will accumulate. Good choices include sardines, anchovies, and herring.

Cheese Is a Health Food

Cheese has long been demonized courtesy of its saturated fat content, but as the saturated fat myth has come under increasing scrutiny, this food may soon experience a revival as well. Many recent studies into the health effects of cheese have come to exonerating conclusions. Joanna Maricato, an analyst at New Nutrition Business, recently told FoodNavigator-USA:¹³

“Nutritional science, like all sciences, is constantly evolving. In the past, studies focused on analyzing individual nutrients and their effects on the body. Now, there is a growing tendency to look at foods and food groups as a whole, without pre-judgments based on their content of an individual content of an individual nutrient. As a consequence, amazing results are appearing from studies on dairy and particularly cheese, proving that the combination of nutrients in cheese has many promising health benefits that were never considered in the past.”

Indeed, cheese—especially when made from the milk of grass-pastured animals—is an excellent source of several important nutrients, including:

High-quality protein and amino acids

High-quality saturated fats and omega-3 fats

Vitamins and minerals, including calcium, zinc, phosphorus, vitamins A, D, B2 (riboflavin), and B12

Vitamin K2 (highest amounts can be found in Gouda, Brie, Edam. Other cheeses with lesser but significant levels of K2: Cheddar, Colby, hard goat cheese, Swiss, and Gruyere)

CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), a powerful cancer-fighter and metabolism booster

Even if you’re lactose intolerant, there are many cheeses you will likely tolerate as most of the lactose is removed during the cheese making process. There is a major difference between natural cheese and processed “cheese foods,” however. Natural cheese is a simple fermented dairy product made with just a few basic ingredients — milk, starter culture, salt and an enzyme called rennet. Salt is a crucial ingredient for flavor, ripening, and preservation.

You can tell a natural cheese by its label, which will state the name of the cheese variety, such as “cheddar cheese,” “blue cheese,” or “brie.” Real cheese also requires refrigeration. Processed cheese or “cheese food” is a different story. These products are typically pasteurized and otherwise adulterated with a variety of additives that detract from their nutritional value.

The tipoff on the label is the word “pasteurized.” A lengthier list of ingredients is another way to distinguish processed cheese from the real thing. Velveeta is one example, with additives like sodium phosphate, sodium citronate, and various coloring agents. A final clue is that most don’t require refrigeration. So, be it Velveeta, Cheese Whiz, squeeze cheese, spray cheese, or some other imposter — these are NOT real cheeses and have no redeeming value.

Raw Cheese from Pasture-Raised Animals Is Best

Ideally, the cheese you consume should be made from the milk of grass-fed animals raised on pasture, rather than grain-fed or soy-fed animals confined to feedlot stalls. The biologically appropriate diet for cows is grass, but 90 percent of standard grocery store cheeses are made from the milk of cows raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Not only does raw cheese have a richer flavor than cheese made from pasteurized milk, as heat destroys enzymes and good bacteria that add flavor to the cheese, grass-fed dairy products are also nutritionally superior:

Cheese made from the milk of grass-fed cows has the ideal omega-6 to omega-3 fat ratio of 2:1. By contrast, the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of grain-fed milk is heavily weighted on the side of omega-6 fats (25:1), which are already excessive in the standard American diet. Grass-fed dairy combats inflammation in your body, whereas grain-fed dairy contributes to it.

Grass-fed cheese contains about five times the CLA of grain-fed cheese.

Because raw cheese is not pasteurized, natural enzymes in the milk are preserved, increasing its nutritional punch.

Grass-fed cheese is considerably higher in calcium, magnesium, beta-carotene, and vitamins A, C, D, and E.

Organic grass-fed cheese is free of antibiotics and growth hormones.

Take-Home Message: You Need Unprocessed Saturated Fat—It’s Good for You

Focusing your diet on raw whole, ideally organic, foods rather than processed fare is perhaps one of the easiest ways to sidestep dietary pitfalls like excess sugar/fructose, harmful trans fats, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and other harmful additives, while getting plenty of healthy nutrients. The rest is just a matter of tweaking the ratios of fat, carbs, and protein to suit your individual situation. One key though is to trade refined sugar and processed fructose for healthy fat, as this will help optimize your insulin and leptin levels.

Healthy fat is particularly important for optimal brain function and memory. This is true throughout life, but especially during childhood. So, if processed food still make up the bulk of your meals, you’d be wise to reconsider your eating habits. Not only are processed foods the primary culprit in obesity and related diseases, including insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, processed foods can also affect the IQ of young children. One British study¹⁴ revealed that kids who ate a predominantly processed food diet at age three had lower IQ scores at age 8.5.

For each measured increase in processed foods, participants had a 1.67-point decrease in IQ. Another study published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics^15,^16,¹⁷ also warns that frequent fast food consumption may stunt your child’s academic performance. For more detailed dietary guidance, please see my optimal nutrition plan. It’s a step-by-step guide to feeding your family right, and I encourage you to read through it. I’ve also created my own “food pyramid,” based on nutritional science, which you can print out and share.

from: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/07/06/new-dietary-guidelines-saturated-fats.aspx?e_cid=20150706Z1_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20150706Z1&et_cid=DM78921&et_rid=1021822595

Wave Genetics & Health

Posted on July 3, 2015 by marcia

Wave Genetics: Increase Energy and Regrow Tissues, Organs, Bones, and Teeth

by PL Chang

Wave genetics is the process of using resonant waves and certain electromagnetic waves to affect the genes in DNA. Russian scientists have been experimenting with wave genetics for more than 80 years. Their research has shown that wave genetics has the potential to heal any illness and dramatically extend the lifespan of certain organisms, including human beings.

The Healing Potential of Wave Genetics

Wave genetics is not well-known in the West because most Western scientists think that it is based on pseudoscience. It is unfortunate that most Western scientists feel this way, because wave genetics is important for taking genetic engineering to the next level. With better knowledge and technology, scientists could one day be able to use wave genetics to make GMO healthy to eat, cure “incurable” diseases, and regrow tissues and lost body parts.

As described at WaveGenetic.ru.

At present we are able to program/manage/encode stem cells of various types by means of a quantum bio-computer. The quantum bio-computer initiates wave/field-based commands, given to cells and tissues of the donor/recipient, and accordingly the stem cells exposed to the waves/field will be prompted to guided cytodifferentiation leading to emergence and development of planned/projected new organs and tissues. This will bring us closer to the fact of substantially increased life expectancy.

Significant achievements in applying WaveGenetics have been made thus far in regeneration of pancreas in rats previously destroyed by chemical substance called alloxan.

Three series of experiments with identical protocol were conducted by the groups of P. Gariaev in 2000 in Moscow Russia, in 2001 in Toronto, Canada, and in 2005 in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia. These are more advanced experiments based on the principles and technology of WaveGenetics.

How Wave Genetics Can Cure Diseases and Regrow Tissues and Lost Body Parts

Wave genetics has the ability to stimulate certain parts of DNA and even change them. This is possible because DNA has electromagnetic properties and therefore when the right electromagnetic waves flow through DNA, they can affect the electromagnetic properties of DNA.

DNA is not only made of nucleotides, sugars, phosphate, and amino acids. It is also made of biophotons. According to some Russian scientists, the helical structure of DNA allows biophotons to spiral in a coherent manner. This process acts as an electromagnetic communication system that is found in every cells of our bodies.

One of the ways that wave genetics can be used to heal genes is by beaming a laser with epigenetic information toward a specific area of the body. This process can transfer the epigenetic information into the DNA of cells and change its gene expression. By changing the gene expression of cells, it can stimulate cells to regenerate organs and bones, and slow the aging process.

Since the emergence of epigenomics and wave genetics, they have already revolutionized the health industry. With the right technology, epigenomics and wave genetics will revolutionize the health industry by giving us the tools to cure every disease known to mankind. For more information on epigenomics and DNA, read this empowering article titled Epigenomics and How Natural Nutrients Heal Genes.

Why Understanding How DNA Works is the Key to Longevity and More Energy

DNA contains the codes of life. When these codes are changed through unhealthy diets, emotional problems, and other means, they can affect our bodies in negative ways, which in turn could lead to premature aging and a lack of energy.

The codes of DNA are not your normal computer codes, because they are “living” codes that have the ability to communicate at a level that allows them to “think” to a certain point.

As mentioned at AwakeAndEmpoweredExpo.com.

In order to better understand Gariaev’s work, he (and others) insist that we acknowledge that the 1962 Nobel Prize winners James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins missed some key points that caused the field of DNA and genetic research to be built on an incomplete foundation from the start. He states, “We must first alter our entire understanding of genetics and move to a different understanding of the genetic code.” Gariaev goes on to state a fundamental fact that, “DNA is like written, readable text”. This genetic structure has an individual’s consciousness and thinking contained within. Put bluntly, Gariaev says, “It can think on its own”. Genetic information exists everywhere internally and externally. It can be found in physical fields, electromagnetic fields and torsion fields. However, Gariaev points out that “the way we transmit information in our body is through the electromagnetic and torsions fields.”

Once you know how DNA works at the level described by Gariaev, you will know that there is a spiritual side to DNA. Because of this, scientists will never know how DNA really works until they learn to combine science and spirituality as one.

Wave Genetics Can Cure Any Disease – Dr. Peter Garyaev

Sources:

Eversole, Finley. Energy Medicine Technologies: Ozone Healing, Microcrystals, Frequency Therapy, and the Future of Health.

Inner Traditions. Rochester, Vermont, 2013.

http://eng.wavegenetic.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2&Itemid=1

http://www.awakeandempoweredexpo.com/blog/russia-love-dr-peter-gariaev-linguistic-wave-genetics

from: http://www.riseearth.com/2015/07/wave-genetics-increase-energy-and.html

Some Foods for Cleansing Your Colon

Posted on July 2, 2015 by marcia

BEST FOODS FOR COLON CLEANSING

Story by: STEPHANIE

Gastrointestinal problems are prolific in today’s society, and this is largely due to the fact that the way most people eat and the food items we buy are greatly lacking in the nutrients required for healthy digestion. On top of that fact, we are overloaded with toxins from vaccines, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides.

The good news is that chronic digestive upset does not have to rule your life, as simple dietary changes can help significantly improve and even cure most digestive issues.
Colon cleansing is a GREAT WAY to help improve your body’s overall health and wellness, and can even reduce your risks for colon cancer. Ridding the colon of waste and toxins by releasing layers of colon buildup can lead to feelings of lightness, strength and overall good health.

This diagrams show where your meals go after you eat them, and how they back up in the colon when fiber is not consumed.

Kick-Start Weight Loss

The average human colon weighs about four pounds empty and can hold up to eight meals’ worth of food before digestion finally occurs. A colon cleansing can result in significant weight loss and kick-start your metabolism, as well as refocus your attention on better food choices and whole-body wellness.

Foods lacking fiber move through the digestive tract much more slowly, around one-quarter of the pace that high-fiber foods do. Meals lacking fiber back-up in the gut and this slow-moving food produces excess mucous that sticks to the intestinal walls, and weighs the intestinal tract down with POUNDS of TOXIC decaying fecal matter.

Colon cleansing has the potential to boost weight loss tremendously, and some people have been able to lose up to 20 pounds over the course of a month.

Improve Digestion

As the colon is cleansed, it pushes undigested waste through your system, clearing the way for good nutrient absorption, and boosting weight loss tremendously. If waste remains in the body for too long, it becomes a breeding ground for bacteria and illness. A clean colon from a colon detox allows undigested

How Meals Should Move Through The Colon

A colon that has been cleansed only allows water, vitamins and nutrients to be absorbed into the bloodstream, rather than releasing toxins and bacteria through the colon walls. When the colon is detoxified, it clears the way for essential nutrients to filter into your body unobstructed.

It also ends constipation, especially when it’s chronic, which is what causes a sluggish digestive response, and leaves waste in the system longer than it should be. This causes weight gain and many other issues, such as the increased toxins released into the bloodstream. It is also a cause of other illnesses and irritations, such as hemorrhoids and varicose veins.

Maintains pH Balance

Foods that cause colon blockages are acid-forming, especially high-protein diets without enough fiber. This leads to discomfort in the body, and causes the tissue of the colon to become inflamed & diseased, reducing the colon’s ability to do its job. If yeasts, molds, fungus, bacteria, parasites or fecal material enter the bloodstream and connected tissue, the body’s pH will be thrown completely out of balance. Conventional medicine ignores pH balance, while holistic doctors recognize that our bodies are continually striving for this balance, and that chronic imbalance leaves us susceptible to disease. Acid-alkaline balance is easy to regulate, and by making very simple changes to your diet, you can improve your body’s pH balance within hours.

The body’s pH balance strongly influences the risk for many serious health issues like osteoporosis, sarcopenia (muscle loss), fractures and kidney stone formation, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, thyroid problems, cancer and other insidious conditions.

When the body becomes too acidic, minerals are pulled out of the bones and tissues to compensate, which leads to thinner bones and lower muscle mass. Overly acidic tissues also make one susceptible to inflammation which is a known risk for many chronic diseases, impaired enzymatic reactions in cells and overloading the lymphatic system, therefore impeding the body’s natural detoxification process.

Decreases Risk of Colon Cancer

Everyone needs to understand that all the toxins that you eat, drink, breathe in and absorb through your skin end up being processed by your gastrointestinal system and liver. If they are not forced out of the colon and liver as quickly as possible, they can wreak havoc on your body’s systems. By releasing body waste rapidly, you reduce the causes and the risk of polyps, cysts and cancerous growths in your colon and gastrointestinal tract.

Increases Energy

Releasing the toxins from your body is rejuvenating because it refocuses the energy usually used for forcing waste through your intestines to other parts of your body. People who have undergone colon detoxification say they have better blood circulation, more restful sleep and a boost in energy.

Improved Concentration

Poor diet and ineffective vitamin absorption can cause you to become distracted and lose your concentration. The buildup of mucous and toxins in your colon can keep your body from getting what it needs to function, even if you eat a consistently healthy diet. Cleansing the colon with a detox diet can be the difference between feeling alert and not being able to focus. This has far-reaching ramifications for work, your relationships and your overall health.

Increases Fertility

Colon cleansing, as well as increased fiber intake and healthy food choices, improves regularity and helps keep your weight under control. Fat is estrogen-based, and if too much is present, becoming pregnant becomes more difficult. A colon that is weighed down by years of buildup can also press on the uterus and surrounding reproductive organs in women, causing strain. Colon cleansing rids the body of many chemicals and toxins that affect the egg and sperm. Many naturopaths recommend that both partners undergo colon cleansing before attempting pregnancy.

Foods That Help to Cleanse the Colon

A Colon Cleansing Diet is simply a well balanced and nutritious meal plan that includes foods that cleanse the colon. By including more organic fruits and vegetables in your diet, you add lots of fiber, and a good quantity of fiber helps to regularize bowel movements, and it helps to make the stool soft so it is much easier to pass.

Fruits, vegetables and plenty of water also help to keep the digestive system and body hydrated throughout the day, which also helps to remove all the wastes that stick to the walls of the digestive system. Avoiding fatty, refined, processed and fried foods, is also imperative, as these foods speed up the accumulation of toxins within the body and slow down the colon. Consistently consuming more of the foods below into your daily meals will cleanse your colon quickly and easily while helping you detox, fight chronic conditions, aid weight loss and even hinder the aging process.

Fermented Foods

The human digestive system is composed of a vast network of beneficial bacteria that are responsible for digesting food, absorbing nutrients, battling harmful bacteria, and eliminating toxins. When these bacteria get thrown out of balance, digestive health can suffer and the longer this bacterial balance is out of whack, the more severe the damage that can be.

To help offset the damage to your gut flora caused by environmental and food chemicals, antibiotic drugs, processed foods, and other factors, it is important to supplement with probiotic bacteria and eat plenty of fermented, probiotic-rich foods. These include cultured vegetables like kimchi, tempeh, Greek yogurt, sauerkraut and fermented beverages like kombucha tea and kefir.

Dark Leafy Greens

Consuming green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale will help to clean the colon and protect the digestive tract from different ailments. Green fruits and vegetables are rich in chlorophyll to promote healthy digestion and daily colon cleansing. Fat-soluble chlorophyll adheres to the lining of the intestinal wall and retards bacterial growth, removes putrefied bacteria from the colon, and helps heal the mucus lining of the gastrointestinal tract.

Along with spinach & kale being optimal choices, green olives, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, celery, collard greens, sea vegetables like seaweed, leeks, peas, and Swiss chard are all high in chlorophyll, which means they can help cleanse your digestive tract and detoxify your liver.

Cruciferous Vegetables

These items are known to be beneficial for aiding digestion along with cleansing the colon and the liver. In order to have a healthy body, and a beautiful physique, we need a healthy digestive system, and one of the most basic ways to do that is by eating more fiber. The good news is that cruciferous vegetables contain 25-40% of your daily fiber requirement in only around 100 calories. That is enough to erase any naughty food decisions you happen to make. Eating your cruciferous vegetables daily promotes detoxification even when you are not on an official cleanse!

Further, with over 600 research studies and counting, the verdict is clear that cruciferous vegetables are some of the most powerful cancer-fighting agents you can find. They help with combating colon, bladder, breast, ovarian and prostate cancers, and quite honestly, there isn’t much these vegetables can’t do. Their activity is not only attributed to their high antioxidant and fiber content, but more importantly to their glucosinolates (phytonutrient) content, which is unavailable to the same extent in any other known food group. As an added bonus, because these items contain extremely high levels of antioxidants, they also help to keep you young both inside and out.

Garlic

This spice is not only tasty in foods, but this pungent ingredient is beneficial for cleansing the colon. This root herb has antiviral, antibacterial and anti-parasitic properties, which help to remove toxins, pathogens and parasites from the digestive tract, particularly from the colon. Garlic also acts as an antioxidant helping to reduce inflammation for improved digestion, absorption of food nutrients and elimination of wastes and toxins.

Aloe Vera

Aloe vera juice can be used to treat a myriad of conditions, including improving digestion, helping to detox the body, and treating skin conditions. It can be an important all-natural supplement to a healthy lifestyle when used correctly. Aloe vera juice has anti-inflammatory properties, which means it can help with a host of conditions and diseases, relieving symptoms brought on by excessive inflammation in the body.

Many symptoms are brought on or worsened by inflammation, including arthritis and even cancer. If you want to keep your inflammation in check, aloe vera can help, it comes in many different varieties, and each manufacturer makes it a little different. Look for organic brands of aloe vera juice that are in concentrated form.

Apples & Apple Cider Vinegar

Many colon-cleansing techniques include either whole apples, apple sauce, apple juice, or apple cider vinegar (ACV) because this fruit is a powerful cleansing food. High in fiber to promote healthy digestion, apples are also rich in pectin, a carbohydrate compound that acts as a thickening agent inside the gut. When taken in therapeutic doses, pectin can help root out built-up toxins in the colon and strengthen the intestinal lining. Pectin, which is also found in bananas and in the rinds of citrus fruits, helps remove heavy metals and other toxins from the body

Flax & Chia Seeds

Unique in their nutritional profiles, both flax and chia seeds possess fats and fiber that help promote healthy digestion and a clean colon. Both are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, for instance, which have been shown to stabilize cell walls and reduce inflammation. Flax and chia also contain their own unique blends of soluble fiber, which bind with food to optimize the digestive process.

Whole Grains

Whole grain food items like bread, pasta and flour are rich in fiber, low in calories and cholesterol. They enable colon cleaning and aid in better digestion.

Beans & Lentils

Lentils, legumes and beans are known to aid digestion and cleanse the colon, but are also a fountain of youth anti-inflammatory food because they are bursting with antioxidants and phytonutrients as well as being one of the richest sources of fiber on the planet. Adding just ½ cup of beans or legumes to your diet daily will dramatically boost your fiber intake by approximately 8 to 11 grams. Beans and legumes are also incredibly nutrient-dense and a nutritional storehouse of vitamins and minerals including B vitamins, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, potassium and protein! Unlike conventional animal food sources of protein such as beef or milk, beans and legumes are packed with hormone-free, steroid-free and antibiotic-free ultra “clean” plant protein.

Diets rich in resistant starch help remove toxins from the body, and because this resistant starch is a prebiotic fiber, it promotes “good” bacteria and suppresses “bad” bacteria. It also helps normalize bowel function and supports a healthy digestive system in general. Having more good-for-you bacteria in your digestive system will improve your immune function and make it easier for your body to fight disease and promote colon health.

Green Tea

If you wish to detox, cleans as well as lose weight, you need to consume green tea. Green tea contain lots of antioxidants and are great for cleaning the colon and improving bowel functions. Green tea is especially popular as it is high in antioxidants as well as vitamin C, which helps to remove toxins from the body. In general, peppermint tea, senna leaf, flaxseed or other type of herbal tea will work just as well as a colon cleanser.

Fruit

One needs to make fruit a part of their daily routine as it helps cleansing the colon with their rich content of fiber and antioxidants.

Lemon

Citrus fruits like lemon are good for cleansing the system because lemons can rid the large intestine of waste matter build up and act as an antiseptic, which hinders the growth of microorganisms. A simple glass of lemon & water every morning will help to detoxify and cleanse the system.

Avocado

This beneficial fruit is rich in omega-3 fatty acid and oils that help to lubricate the walls of the intestines. That in turn prevents the toxins from sticking to the walls and they get flushed out.

Reprinted with permission by thescienceofeating.com

from: http://spiritofmaat.com/magazine/july-2015-the-power-of-love/best-foods-for-colon-cleansing/

Questioning the Validity of Medical Research

Posted on June 27, 2015 by marcia

As Always – Do YOUR Research:

Leading Scientists Believe Up to Half of Research-Based Literature Is Simply Untrue

28th June 2015

By Carolanne Wright

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

Corruption undermining science.

In a perfect world, science would have unlimited funding, free from corporations or special interest groups, where all studies would be truly objective and unbiased. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. Financing by private companies, or those who have a vested interest in the outcome of the research, often leads to biased conclusions which favor the sponsor of the study.

Take for example a pharmaceutical company paying for a new drug to treat depression. When the track record of such research is examined, we find studies backed by the pharmaceutical industry tend to show partiality toward the drug under consideration, whereas research sponsored by government grants or charitable organizations is prone to draw more objective conclusions.¹

In a similar fashion, research financed by the food industry often favors the food under investigation compared to inquiries that are independently sponsored.²

Bad science

“Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organizations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them.”³ ~ Linus Pauling, PhD, and two-time Nobel Prize winner.

Dr. Marcia Angell, physician and longtime editor in chief of the New England Medical Journal, feels that objective research has taken a turn for the worse:

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.”

And John P.A. loannidis, a professor in disease prevention at Standford University School of Medicine, writes that most published research findings are false, due to several criteria — including “greater financial and other interest and prejudice.” He also states that “for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.”

Another critique of our current scientific method is found with Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet, who states, “much of scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue,” in the April 15th, 2015 edition of the journal. He lists a a variety of reasons for this failure: studies with small sample sizes, flagrant conflicts of interest and an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance. Horton adds, “as one participant put it, “poor methods get results.”’

Moreover, ScienceDaily reports that a study at the University of Michigan found that nearly one-third of cancer research published in high-profile journals have conflicts of interest. The research team examined 1,534 cancer studies published in well-respected journals.The most frequent type of conflict is with industry funding (17% of the papers). Twelve percent of the papers were in conflict because the author was an industry employee. And randomized trials were more likely to have positive findings when conflicts of interest were present.

Reshma Jagsi, M.D., D.Phil., and author of the University of Michigan study, feels that “merely disclosing conflicts is probably not enough. It’s becoming increasingly clear that we need to look more at how we can disentangle cancer research from industry ties.”

Jagsi believes that research has become corrupted by designing industry-funded studies in such a manner that’s likely to yield favorable results. Researchers may also be more inclined to publish positive outcomes while overlooking negative results.

“In light of these findings, we as a society may wish to rethink how we want our research efforts to be funded and directed. It has been very hard to secure research funding, especially in recent years, so it’s been only natural for researchers to turn to industry. If we wish to minimize the potential for bias, we need to increase other sources of support. Medical research is ultimately a common endeavor that benefits all of society, so it seems only appropriate that we should be funding it through general revenues rather than expecting the market to provide,” Jagsi says.

When all is said and done, we may question whether privately funded research should be dismissed altogether. Most likely, no. But we can consider the advice presented in Understanding Science by the University of California at Berkeley:

“Ultimately, misleading results will be corrected as science proceeds; however, this process takes time. Meanwhile, it pays to scrutinize studies funded by industry or special interest groups with extra care. So don’t, for example, brush off a study of cell phone safety just because it was funded by a cell phone manufacturer — but do ask some careful questions about the research before jumping on the bandwagon. Are the results consistent with other independently funded studies? Does the study seem fairly designed? What do other scientists have to say about this research? A little scrutiny can go a long way towards identifying bias associated with funding source.”

Article sources:

¹Als-nielson, B., W. Chen, C. Gluud, and L.L. Kjaergard. 2003. Association of funding and conclusions in randomized drug trails: A reflection of treatment effect or adverse events? Journal of the American Medical Association 290:921-928
²This research focused on studies of soft drinks, juice, and milk. Lesser, L.I., C.B. Ebbeling, M. Goozner, D. Wypij, and D.S. Ludwig. 2007. Relationship between funding source and conclusion among nutrition-related scientific articles. Public Library of Science Medicine 4:41-46.
³Outrage! (Oct/Nov 1986): pg. 14.
Harvey Marcovitch. 2010 Editors, Publishers, Impact Factors, and Reprint Income. PLoS Med. 2010 Oct; 7(10): e1000355
Reshma Jagsi, Nathan Sheets, Aleksandra Jankovic, Amy R. Motomura, Sudha Amarnath, and Peter A. Ubel. Frequency, nature, effects, and correlates of conflicts of interest in published clinical cancer research. Cancer, Online May 11, 2009; Print Issue Date: June 15, 2009
http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736%2815%2960696-1.pdf
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/who_pays
https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/john-ioannidis
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090511090846.htm
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/05/11/one-of-the-most-important-scientists-in-the-world-most-cancer-research-is-largely-a-fraud/

from: http://wakeup-world.com/2015/06/28/leading-scientists-believe-half-research-based-literature-simply-untrue/

Argentina Lawsuit Challenges Monsanto

Posted on June 27, 2015 by marcia

Federal Judge in Argentina Accepts Class Action Lawsuit Against Monsanto

Will Monsanto be able to bully itself to victory?

by Christina Sarich
Posted on June 27, 2015

While Monsanto tries to dodge a class action lawsuit in California by requesting that it be dismissed by the court, a federal judge in Argentina has accepted a class action lawsuit that would force GMO labeling and provisionally suspend the cultivation of genetically modified crops.

The lawsuit targets Monsanto for causing a seed monopoly through mono-cultivation. It argues for a complete ban on GMOs and on:

“. . .the application of pesticides used for farming until their safety for the environment, ecosystems, biodiversity, the health of living beings, the cultural heritage of the Argentine people, and the sustainability of the production model is scientifically proven.”

Residents of the country of Argentina believe that the commercialization of seed through companies like Monsanto should be forbidden. The lawsuit is titled:

“Gimenez Alicia Fanny and others against the national government, Monsanto and others, over environmental damage.”

Monsanto is not the only party listed as a defendant. Also listed are:

The Argentine national government

The Federal Council for the Environment

A group of companies, including Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Novartis, Nidera, Dow AgroSciences, Pioneer, Agrevo, Ciba Geigy, Argenbio, and Bayer Sciences

Monsanto is currently trying to remove their class action suit being filed by T. Matthew Phillips to federal court in order to “prohibit inconsistencies in ruling,” but they also want to have the class action suit dismissed.

Previously, more than 30,000 doctors and health professionals in Argentina asked that glyphosate be banned. The doctors are part of FESPROSA, Argentina’s Union of medical professionals.

FESPROSA explained:

“In our country glyphosate is applied on more than 28 million hectares. Each year, the soil is sprayed with more than 320 million litres, which means that 13 million people are at risk of being affected, according to the Physicians Network of Sprayed Peoples (RMPF). Soy is not the only crop addicted to glyphosate: the herbicide is also used for transgenic maize and other crops. Where glyphosate falls, only GMOs can grow. Everything else dies.”

The doctors also talk about vindicating one of their own:

“Our trade union, the Federation of Health Professionals of Argentina (FESPROSA), which represents more than 30,000 doctors and health professionals in our country, includes the Social Health Collective of Andrés Carrasco. Andrés Carrasco was a researcher at [Argentine government research institute] CONICET, who died a year ago, and showed the damage caused by glyphosate to embryos. For disseminating his research, he was attacked by the industry and the authorities at CONICET. Today, WHO vindicates him.”

If the federal judge who reviews this case prior to the end of the month has any moral fiber, he will stand against Monsanto for a fair trial as Argentina has.

SOme Edible Wild Plants

Posted on June 15, 2015 by marcia

20 Edible Plants That Could Save Your Life

by Zen Gardner – Jun 15, 2015

0 12

20 Edible Plants That Could Save Your Life

Sometimes, you have to think outside of the freeze-dried food paradigm. You may find yourself in the woods forced to run from your home or camp because of marauders with nothing to eat. Fortunately, there are many edible plants that can save your life if you know what they are, how to identify them and are comfortable with preparing them.

I don’t personally think that I will love eating a bunch of weeds to survive, but I will if needed. In a long-term disaster, I would certainly consider them vital to preserving life and the right edible plants could augment your gardens and food stores. I wanted to write up this list of 20 edible plants that are found mostly in the temperate region. There are certainly others you could find growing near you, but this is a good start. If I am able to master 20 edible plants in the area where I live, I would consider that a huge benefit to my prepping needs.

There are a lot of very recognizable plants you can eat like strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and so on, but I didn’t want to add those to the list.

Plants to avoid

Before you grab a good book on edible plants and run out into the woods with a bowl and a fork, you should practice some caution with this process. Not all plants are edible and knowing what not to eat is just as important as knowing what to eat. Before you forage, here are some simple rules to follow when you are trying to identify a plant.

Do not eat any plants that have the following traits

Milky or discolored sap
Grain heads with purple/pink or black spurs
Beans, bulbs or seeds inside pods
Yellow, white or red berries
Soapy or bitter taste
Never eat plants with thorns.
Steer clear of plants with shiny leaves.
Don’t eat mushrooms. Many are safe to eat, but many are highly toxic and even deadly, so it’s not worth the risk.
Umbrella-shaped flowers are a bad sign. Stay away from these plants.
Avoid anything that smells like almonds.
Same as poison ivy, stay away from plants with leaves in groups of three.

In addition to avoiding all of those traits, you want to forage for wild edible plants in areas that are less likely to have toxins. Plants growing near homes could have been sprayed many times with chemicals. Plants in water that is contaminated will likely hold that same contamination. Plants by the road will have picked up many harmful chemicals and pollution.

Before eating, use the Universal Edibility Test

Before taking the test, you need to fast for 8 hours. If you are desperate enough to need to find edible plants, this might be already the case.

Test only one part of a potential food plant at a time.
Separate the plant into its basic components – leaves, stems, roots, buds and flowers
Smell the food for strong or acid odors. Remember, smell alone does not indicate if a plant is edible or not.
During the 8 hours you are fasting, test for contact poisoning by placing a piece of the plant part you are testing on the inside of your elbow or wrist. Usually 15 minutes is enough time to get a reaction if there is going to be one.
During the test period, take nothing by mouth except purified water and that plant part you are testing.
Select a small portion of a single part and prepare it the way you plan to eat it.
Before placing the prepared plant part in your mouth, touch a small portion (a pinch) to the outer surface of your lip to test for burning or itching.
If after 3 minutes there is no reaction on your lip, place the plant part on your tongue and hold it there for 15 minutes. DO NOT SWALLOW.
If there is no burning, itching, numbing, stinging , or any other irritation, swallow the plant part.
Wait 8 hours. If any ill effects occur during this period, induce vomiting and drink a lot of water.
If no ill effects occur, each ¼ cup of the same plant part prepared the same way. Wait another 8 hours. If everything is still good after all of these steps, the plant is considered edible.

Note: Just because the part you tested is edible, that doesn’t mean the entire plant is edible. Test all parts the same way before eating them.

List of Edible Plants

Amaranth (Amaranthus retroflexus and other species)

Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis)

Burdock (Arctium lappa)

Cattail (Typha species)

Clover (Trifolium)

Chicory (Cichorium intybus)

Chickweed (Stekkarua media)

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana)

Plantain (Plantago species)

Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)

Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia species)

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea)

Sassafras (Sassafras albidum)

[Hat tip: Ariel – tx!]

from: http://www.zengardner.com/20-edible-plants-save-life/

Sound & Healing

Posted on June 13, 2015 by marcia

How can sound, in whatever manifestation, assist in healing and human transformation?
by Jonathan Goldman
This is an extraordinarily vast question, because sound has almost unlimited abilities to assist in healing and human transformation. Sound can affect us on the physical, the emotional, the mental and the spiritual.

On the physical, sound has the ability to rearrange molecular structure. This is a scientific fact. As we know, everything in the universe is in a state of vibration, from the chair you may be sitting in to the pages of this magazine. All the various parts of our body are also in a state of vibration, from the various organs, tissues, bones, etc. When we are in a state of health, all these bodily parts are working together in harmony, creating an overall harmonic of health. If one of these parts begins to vibrate at a different rate, this is what we call disease. One of the basic concepts of healing with sound on the physical body is to project the correct resonant frequency of the organ, or whatever is out of balance, back into the body.

On the emotional and mental bodies, music is very effective. In particular, music affects the limbic system, that aspect of the brain which governs emotional response. Through using specific music (specific for the individual), we can help elicit certain emotional responses that may be very therapeutic and transformative in their nature.
For the spiritual body, both sound and music can be equally effective. In particular, I believe that self-created sounds such as mantras, vowel sounds and harmonics are most powerful, though of course, listening to either recorded or live music or chanting can also be very effective.

Naturally, since we now know of the inter-relationship between the mind and the body, that which affects the emotional or mental will also effect the physical and vice-versa. This includes the spiritual body as well, of course.

2. CAN YOU GIVE US SOME EXAMPLES?

For working with the physical body, we are dealing with the concept of resonant frequency healing–that is, projecting the correct resonant frequency of an imbalanced area back into the body–in order to affect a healing. This can be done through various external instruments or it can be done using what I consider to be the most natural and effective tool on the planet–our own voices. There are a number of different people who are working with different electronic or acoustic technologies to achieve this.
I have been researching this area of sound healing for quite a while and one of the interesting paradoxes is that the different people working with finding the correct resonant frequency of, say the heart or the liver, will all seemingly have great success with their frequencies. And yet, these frequencies will all differ.

When I first encountered this paradox, I was mystified. I couldn’t understand it. This also seemed to hold true for the frequencies for the different chakras, as well as mantras for different chakras. Then, I came up with this formula, which is stated in my book HEALING SOUNDS. It is this: FREQUENCY + INTENT = HEALING. What this means is that the energy that occurs when a sound is created (the “intent”) is of equal importance to the actual sound (the “frequency”) that is used. Intent is the energy behind the sound and it is something that should be considered whenever we make a sound, particularly a sound for healing or transformation.

In my Healing Sounds Seminars, I teach students how to learn to resonate their physical body and their chakras with their own self-created sounds. This is fairly simple to learn to do and very powerful. Exercises for how to do this are found in my book HEALING SOUNDS and in the “Healing Sounds” Instructional tape. What is most interesting, is that these sounds may change from day to day, particularly the sounds for the chakras. I teach a method working for with the vowel sounds to resonate the chakras which is very effective. Often, my students will verify that while the vowel sounds seem to stay the same, the pitches for these vowel sounds will change, depending upon what state or condition they are in.

I also teach how to create and use harmonics, which are sounds within sounds, in order to resonate the brain. It is my belief that we will find out in the very near future, that self-created sounds may be the only way we can actually stimulate different parts of the brain through mechanical resonance. Now, there are various technologies that are being offered in which sound travels through the ear into the brain in order to affect the brain. But this is a different phenomenon–what I’m talking about is a direct resonance of the brain using our own sounds. I believe it is possible to make new neural-synaptic connections in the brain with sound. And that it is possible to stimulate the various glands such as the pituitary and pineal with these sounds.

I’d like to suggest that the brain may be just a transmitter and receiver of different frequencies. The brain may be thought of as a kind of radio that can be tuned to different signals. If we can learn to tune the brain to different frequencies using sound, we can open up to many different aspects of consciousness and energy.

As I mentioned before, music seems to work best on the emotional and mental. However, music does also affect us physically. An quick example of this is that our heart beat, respiration and brain waves all entrain, or synchronize with different rhythms. Slow music tends to slow down our heart rate respiration and brain waves. Fast music has the opposite effect, tending to speed us up.

This little bit of information can be very effectively used by your readers, who no doubt intuitively understand this but may have never given it much conscious thought. If you want to speed up your heart rate, respiration and brain waves for activities such as movement or even staying awake, then fast paced music is your best bet. But if you want to relax, usually, it’s the slower music that works best. One of my recordings, “Dolphin Dreams” was created initially for the birthing process and features the sounds of ocean, heart beat, choral voices and dolphins. It contains a lot of frequencies designed to help slow down our body and brain rhythms is also ideal for relaxation and sleep. I wouldn’t personally use it if I were jogging or doing some sort of activity that required stimulation. I know of one very famous artist who uses it for painting and others who use it for enhanced creativity. But this is different than physical stimulation.

On an emotional level, we all have different tastes in music. I think there is about a 60% agreement in the way people respond to different music’s. Everyone is different and has different tastes. One piece of music may bring a person to states of euphoria while the same piece of music might depress someone else. So in terms of music affecting our emotional states, it really depends on what we like and don’t like. If we could take a sort of musical Rx for ourselves and write down what particular pieces of music created specific emotional states for ourselves, we could use these different pieces of music to help elicit different emotional states. If we were depressed and knew of a certain musical selection that made us feel joyous, playing that music would be helpful in changing our emotional state. Obviously, then, depending upon the time, place and need of the individual, what music works best to elicit different emotional and mental states depends upon the person.

In terms of affecting our spiritual states, I have seen incredible experiences occur with my students through working with specific mantras, as well as working with vowel sounds and harmonics. In my book HEALING SOUNDS, there is another formula which I would like to share. It is this: VOCALIZATION + VISUALIZATION = MANIFESTATION. This formula seems to be found in the spiritual sound work of most of the great mystical traditions of the world. One chants a mantra, for example, “Om Mani Padme Hum”, an ancient Tibetan Mantra, while visualizing becoming the Buddha of Divine Compassion, for whom this mantra is specifically designed. In my workshops, after chanting this mantra for twenty-five minutes, you can actually feel the presence of this Buddha. People have mystical visions and many other extraordinary and transformative experiences. Chanting in group creates a group consciousness that is synergistic, with the whole being greater then the sum of the parts. It is amazing!

Listening to certain types of music can also help elicit these spiritual states, though perhaps not as effectively as actually chanting in a group which has a focused intention. My latest recording “Song of Saraswati” is an extended chant to Saraswati, the Hindu and Tibetan Mother Goddess of Music and Science. Many people are able to achieve not only deep relaxation when listening to this recording, but to travel on the sound and achieve higher levels of consciousness. I give thanks.

It is my belief that we are all unique vibratory beings and because of this, one sound or one type of music will effect one person in one way and effect another person in a very different way. So that if we can begin to become aware of the effects of music, and in particular, our own self-created sounds, we can really begin to use sound and music to affect us on a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level.

I believe that not only are we unique vibratory beings, I believe that we can learn to shift our frequencies–that is to change our vibratory level. I think that really, this is the key to healing and transformation–being able to shift frequencies. We are living in extraordinary times. There are frequency shifts occurring on both personal and planetary levels. We can learn to use our own sounds to consciously affect our own vibratory patterns and align with these energies for health and transformation.

3. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BREAKTHROUGHS IN SOUND TECHNOLOGY?

Edgar Cayce, the “Sleeping Prophet”, predicted that sound would be the medicine of the future. And the future is now. There are many amazing tools now being developed and appearing in the marketplace which use sound to affect our brain waves, our physical body–all sorts of different things. There are so many different instruments beginning to appear that I am hesitant to start naming them. Perhaps it would be best just to credit a few of the early pioneers such as Dr. Peter Guy Manners, M.D., who invented the “Cymatic Instrument”, which uses direct application of specifically tabulated sound frequencies on the body for healing, Robert Monroe, whose “Hemi-Sync” showed that it was possible to synchronize the left and right hemispheres of the brain, affect brain wave activity and induce altered states of consciousness using sound and Dr. Alfred Tomatis, M.D., whose “Electronic Ear” has been proven very effective for working with all sorts of learning disabilities and for emotional imbalances as well.

I would just like to conclude by saying that while I believe that all the instrumentation that is coming forth is quite extraordinary, it is important to remember that we have within ourselves that most amazing and god given instrument of sound for healing and transformation. That instrument is our voice. It is natural, cost effective and does not require batteries or electricity. And perhaps most important, once you get into using your voice for frequency shifting–for healing and transformation–you’ll find it will give you a lifetime of joy. What more could you want?

from: http://www.healingsounds.com/how-can-sound-in-whatever-manifestation-assist-in-healing-and-human-transformation

Birth Month Correlation to Disease Risk

Posted on June 13, 2015 by marcia

How your birth month determines if you will get sick: Researchers reveal the ailments you are most at risk from

Scientists compared 1,688 diseases to birth dates of 1.7m New Yorkers
Found 55 diseases that correlated with the season of birth
April babies at highest risk of angina, November bronchitis and ADHD

The month you were born does have an impact on how likely you are to become ill, researchers have claimed.

They created software to scour birth and medical records to look for links.

After using the algorithm to examine New York City medical databases, they found 55 diseases that correlated with the season of birth.

Researchers found viral infections and bronchitis are most likely among those born in November.

HOW THEY DID IT

Columbia’s scientists to compare 1,688 diseases against the birth dates and medical histories of 1.7 million patients treated at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/CUMC between 1985 and 2013.

The study ruled out more than 1,600 associations and confirmed 39 links previously reported in the medical literature.

The researchers also uncovered 16 new associations, including nine types of heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.

Overall, the Columbia University study indicated people born in May had the lowest disease risk, and those born in October the highest.

‘Lifetime disease risk is affected by birth month,’ the researchers wrote in in the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association.

‘Seasonally dependent early developmental mechanisms may play a role in increasing lifetime risk of disease. ‘

‘This data could help scientists uncover new disease risk factors,’ said author Nicholas Tatonetti.

The researchers now plan to replicate their study with data from several other locations in the U.S. and abroad to see how results vary with the change of seasons and environmental factors in those places.

By identifying what’s causing disease disparities by birth month, the researchers hope to figure out how they might close the gap.

Earlier research on individual diseases such as ADHD and asthma suggested a connection between birth season and incidence, but no large-scale studies had been undertaken.

This motivated Columbia’s scientists to compare 1,688 diseases against the birth dates and medical histories of 1.7 million patients treated at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/CUMC between 1985 and 2013.

The study ruled out more than 1,600 associations and confirmed 39 links previously reported in the medical literature.

Scientists find your birth month can predict disease risk

Researchers examined New York City medical databases and found 55 diseases that correlated with the season of birth. This data visualization maps the statistical relationship between birth month and disease incidence in the electronic records of 1.7 million New York City patients.

The researchers also uncovered 16 new associations, including nine types of heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.

The researchers performed statistical tests to check that the 55 diseases for which they found associations did not arise by chance.

‘It’s important not to get overly nervous about these results because even though we found significant associations the overall disease risk is not that great,’ notes Dr. Tatonetti. ‘The risk related to birth month is relatively minor when compared to more influential variables like diet and exercise.’

The new data are consistent with previous research on individual diseases.

For example, the study authors found that asthma risk is greatest for July and October babies.

An earlier Danish study on the disease found that the peak risk was in the months (May and August) when Denmark’s sunlight levels are similar to New York’s in the July and October period.

For ADHD, the Columbia data suggest that around one in 675 occurrences could relate to being born in New York in November.

This result matches a Swedish study showing peak rates of ADHD in November babies.

The researchers also found a relationship between birth month and nine types of heart disease, with people born in March facing the highest risk for atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, and mitral valve disorder.

One in 40 atrial fibrillation cases may relate to seasonal effects for a March birth.

A previous study using Austrian and Danish patient records found that those born in months with higher heart disease rates -March through June -had shorter life spans.

‘Faster computers and electronic health records are accelerating the pace of discovery,’ said the study’s lead author, Mary Regina Boland, a graduate student at Columbia.

‘We are working to help doctors solve important clinical problems using this new wealth of data.’

Chromographics Institute

Color + Art = Healing

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