med nauseam blog

Rocket Scientist on the Physics of Putting Love in Chocolate

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 05:21:00 +0000

Article first published as Rocket Scientist Steve Adler on the Physics of Putting Love in Chocolate on Technorati.

Valentine's Day approaches and, of course, you need to get some sweets for your Sweet. Chocolate comes to mind, but you've been there, done that. You need something really special this year. Maybe the piece de resistance is some chocolate made with Love-- ahem-- "God particles," known to physicists as Higgs-Boson particles.

Think it's a joke or a marketing gimmick?

The Willie Wonka of raw chocolate isn't joking, and he explained it all to me in an interview for Natural News TV. Steve Adler is a rocket scientist with degrees from Stanford University. Before founding his chocolate company, Sacred Chocolate, he designed the Space Station propulsion modules while working at McDonnell-Douglas. Today he's an ordained minister.

His epiphany came when he was early on his spiritual path, and learned that "you don't need to know in order to love. It hit me like a ton of bricks," he said, "because I was trying to know more in order to love better." He realized he had it backward.

Sacred Chocolate makes raw chocolate, the type that is not heated above 114 degrees, to preserve all the nutrients and antioxidants in the raw cacao bean. Exceptionally smooth in taste, the chocolate is slowly ground with the skins, a little-known part of a cacao bean that is normally removed before making chocolate candy. Sacred Chocolate is packaged in heart-shaped bars with edges following Fibonacci series curves that only a geek could design.

From the product to the packaging, every aspect of this chocolate is out of the ordinary: Adler prays over every batch.

I first met Adler at a natural health event in San Francisco a few weeks ago. There, he was wearing his signature rainbow Willie Wonka plastic costume, complete with a male version of Go-Go boots and matching top hat. When he found out I was a reporter for Natural News TV, he instantly came up with an interview topic: the physics of putting love in chocolate. I wouldn't let just anyone on camera to talk about this topic, but a Stanford rocket scientist was an instant "yes" in my book.

Adler says there are only three factors to understanding how love can get into chocolate: primal magnetism (love), the unified field matrix, and the God factor - the Higgs Boson particles that physicists think are ubiquitous in everything from electrons to subatomic particles.

As a layperson I can't verify the science, but tasting the chocolate is the real test. There was a buzz about Sacred Chocolate at the health event-- it was quite common for people to say they felt different after eating it. In a very good way - happier, more open, more loving.

I'm waiting for the Cupid's diaper costume to emerge. It might be more fitting than the Wonka outfit.

Alix interviewed Steve Adler for Natural News TV.

Video: Brain Re-training Shown to Reverse ADHD in 12 Weeks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:41:00 +0000

Dr. Robert Melillo, known for reversing brain disorders in children, opened his practitioner training workshop with the following: "Who wants to be learning disabled for an hour?" It was going to be an experiential day.

I observed his graduate-level seminar on healing children with learning disabilities. A dozen eager health practitioners approached a table scattered with Learning Disability Simulation Training packets - exercises designed by Dr. Robert Melillo to frustrate attendees in the same way learning disabled children are frustrated on a daily basis. It contained paragraphs with line-jumps and words that mixed up letters p, q, d, and b. One exercise instructed participants to copy the mirror image of a picture while wearing a gardening glove. Another illustrated the vast difference between vocabulary and reading comprehension.

After my short intro to Melillo's course, which mainly involves instruction in an extensive battery of neurological tests and treatments, I was able to interview him on camera.

Melillo, a chiropractic neurologist and clinician, is co-founder of the Brain Balance Achievement Centers, which currently operate in more than 50 locations. They are now expanding into Northern California while Melillo is quickly gaining a reputation for rapidly reversing the most challenging developmental disorders: autism, ADHD, Asperger's, dyslexia, PDD-NOS, and more.

The Centers operate like Sylvan Learning Centers but focus on specialized treatment in children with developmental delays. Unlike all other autism therapies, Melillo's approach focuses on specific regions of the brain that are less mature than other parts, creating a syndrome Melillo terms Functional Disconnection Syndrome. Melillo says that research to date has failed to show measurable damage in brain cells of children with developmental delays. This is key: if there is no damage, there is hope for recovery.

Practitioners at the Centers test for 1,100 brain weaknesses-- a comprehensive set of tests, to be sure. Treatment involves stimulating targeted brain areas with an individualized curriculum addressing motor, sensory, cognitive, and behavior deficits. A gluten-free diet is employed, among other diet modifications.

The most remarkable part of the Centers is not necessarily the success rates, which are quite high. A recently published study showed that 82% of randomly selected children with ADHD lost the diagnosis within 12 weeks and made unprecedented grade-level leaps in many subjects. The most remarkable part is how quickly the changes occur. Whereas biomedical treatments can go on for years, the Brain Balance Achievement Centers get measurable results within months, all without drugs.

I told Dr. Melillo that if all parents knew about the success of the Brain Balance Achievement Centers they would be overcrowded. I was not off-track. He replied that most have waiting lists.

Dr. Melillo's book Disconnected Kids is available at Amazon. More studies on other conditions are expected to be published this year.

Videographer: Ashley van Tol of www.lymenaide.com

Earthing: The Overlooked Electroceutical

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 01:47:00 +0000

Last summer, my friend Kim Kooyers sent me a link to The Earthing Institute, an organization espousing the idea that we receive a basic and profound health benefit by being in contact with the ground. I thought it made sense. It's true that we've been insulated from the earth's energy since switching to rubber footwear in the 1960s.

If anyone had told me then that a couple months of Earthing would diminish my 14-year-long headache, make me think clearer, increase my energy, and restore my sleep after 8 years of relentless insomnia, I would have been hugely skeptical. All these things have actually happened since I began Earthing. Aside from going gluten-free in 1999, nothing else has boosted my health so dramatically and rapidly.

However, I'm a data pervert and compulsive researcher, so I know I'm just an anecdote and would never write a blog post based only on my personal experience. My readers know me better than that!

I learned about some of the research supporting Earthing's health benefits when I and 999 other attendees at the David Wolfe Longevity Now Conference got Earthed in a hotel basement via conductive wrist bands. That was the first day my 14-year headache felt a bit better. Probably a placebo effect, I thought. That night, I slept with the earthing band around my foot in the K1 acupuncture spot. I slept better than normal, especially for being in a hotel.

I've since learned that Earthing may indeed be the "Most Important Health Discovery Ever" as suggested by the subtitle of Earthing, the ground-breaking book by Clint Ober and Stephen Sinatra MD. From reduced inflammation to pain reduction to better sleep to thyroid regulation to cortisol normalization to blood thinning, and more, earthing IS THAT POWERFUL. And, early studies support these and other health benefits.

I was so excited with my personal experience and impressed enough with the early research on the health benefits that I made a two-part video to share everything I've learned about earthing so far.

I hope you enjoy my two-part video series. It's already enjoying lots of action over at Natural News TV!

Part 1 of 2

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Part 2 of 2

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New San Jose Whole Foods Emphasizes Clean Energy & Nutrition Literacy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:32:00 +0000

By Guest Blogger, Kim Kooyers

In advance of today's grand opening, Alix and I toured the new 50,000 square foot Whole Foods in San Jose. Already devout Whole Foods shoppers, we weren’t surprised by the wide array of gourmet, organic, vegan, raw, gluten-free, and locally grown offerings. But the on-site fuel cell—generating 90 percent of the store’s electricity needs—THAT was impressive.

The first store on the west coast powered by the UTC Power fuel cell system and one of only three in the nation, the onsite energy efficient system will prevent the release of more than 370 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually—the equivalent of planting 85 acres of trees. And, the reductions in nitrogen oxide emissions are equal to taking 92 cars off the road.

Local residents (i.e. me) will appreciate the store being off the grid during the winter storms to come and all too frequent PG&E power outages. Good to know we can head over to Whole Foods where the lights will be on, the shawarma will be hot, and the gluten-free beer cold.

Other store highlights include:

A Nutrition Bar with dietary advice based on Dr. Joel Fuhrman's Eat Right America program, staffed by the enthusiastic and knowledgeable Georgia Brown. Appointments are walk-in and free. Brown’s got cool toys so you can measure body fat, blood pressure, and blood oxygenation.
Kombucha on tap, right by the front door.
Products from more than 200 local Bay Area Vendors (within 100 miles of San Jose).
A grind-your-own nut-butter station
A kids’play area—AKA The Mercado—where they can learn about healthy eating.
A spacious and light-filled dining area.
Recycled construction materials used throughout including reclaimed wood from an old Warner Brothers set, which according to our store tour guide has seen the days of Rin Tin Tin.

View the 2 minute video tour! (Email subscribers click here to view the video.)

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Kim Kooyers is a freelance writer. She also blogs at gratiude365. Editor's Note: Kim was the film crew for our story, too. :)

Daniel Vitalis on Over-Domestication: Broccoli, Chihuahas & Aliens, Oh My!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 19:18:00 +0000

I expected David Wolfe's Longevity Now Conference to deliver some tips for how to live better and longer. I attended the conference not as a video journalist, but as a guest wanting to bliss out with my foodie/nutrition brethren. Well, I'd packed my video camera... just in case I got inspired.

That inspiration came when wild food guru Daniel Vitalis stepped on stage to talk about Indigenous Nutrition. My ears pricked up right away. At a decidedly raw foods event, the neatly pony-tailed Vitalis started his presentation with a reference to Weston A. Price, the 1930s dentist who set off around the world to study the teeth and health of isolated indigenous peoples. Price's work points strongly to the need for animal foods in the diet. If an animal foods guy could be invited to give a talk to 1,000 raw foodies - none of whom appeared ready to throw rotten tomatoes at him - I wanted to hear it.

And, besides, Vitalis looked so interesting. The thirty-something visionary gathers 70% of his food from the wild, and appeared to wear a wetsuit top under his shirtsleeves. The solid blue tattoos on his arms are a practice to reflect the way he lives - as close to indigenous as a modern man can. "I didn't want anything representational," he told me later.

Surprising the audience with wry humor and a studied 360 degree view of evolution and our modern food system, Vitalis delivered such a game-changing presentation - as good as any TED talk I'd ever seen - that I ~~went~~ ran to my hotel room to fetch my video camera.

I won't summarize his presentation here. You just need to watch the interview. Vitalis visualizes how we are selecting the human race for evolution with unintended consequences. With humor, he explains what broccoli, Chihuahuas, and aliens have in common. Email subscribers click here to view part 1 of the video.

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This is a three-part video.

For more information on Weston A. Price subscribe to mega-blogger Sarah's blog, The Healthy Home Economist.

Alix Interviews Longevity Guru David "Avocado" Wolfe

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:57:00 +0000

Last month I was a virgin. A David Wolfe Longevity Now Conferenc e virgin, that is. I'd noticed Wolfe's energy and conviction in the film Food Matters, knew some of his work, and knew we both loved avocados, but I have to say I really didn't "get" it yet.

That changed as I sat with 999 other health enthusiasts in a California hotel ballroom, taking in the barefoot health guru as he jutted across the stage sharing diamonds - health insights obviously gleaned from hours (possibly eons) of research. His commanding and fun stage presence could keep a narcoleptic awake. Even if Wolfe's engaging style weren't enough, alertness paid off: flying superherbs or superfoods could bonk you in the head at any time.

Wolfe is all about the extraordinary: superfoods, superherbs, and reversing the diseases medical doctors consider irreversible. He's not interested in being politically correct or adhering to any standard of care. FDA be damned: The Longevity Now Conference walked the cutting edge of health, healing, and longevity. I walked away with the urge to investigate at least ten new healthy practices or products that I'd never heard of before.

If you couldn't make it, I sat down with David Wolfe and asked him to give us the take-aways. Of course, the interview is as fun as he is, and it has a "happy ending" as our camerawoman steps forward with an admission:

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In addition to David Wolfe, I got to meet many of my health heroes and gathered some new ones you should know about, including: Daniel Vitalis, Dr. Steven Sinatra, Dr. Mercola, Nick Ortner, Truth Calkins, and George LaMoureux. Even the attendees and vendors were impressive. Here are just a couple: My Wellness Navigator - health coaching and Sym.blue.ology water bottles.

Hope for Infertility: Living a Fertile Life

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 23:31:00 +0000

With one in six couples facing infertility today, I have some encouraging news about using mind-body techniques to cultivate fertility.

Fertility Coach Elisabeth Manning helps couples overcome fertility challenges by broadening the question around conception. She moves the issue from "Why can't I get pregnant?" to “What if a fertile way of living and being could actually increase my chance for conception?"

I had lots of questions for Elisabeth: What are the common blocks to achieving fertility? What are common life stressors? How can one regain control of the process? What chakras are typically associated with infertility? What is divine timing? Elisabeth answers these questions and more in my interview with her:

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Find more information on Elisabeth Manning’s work at her website: www.consciousconception.net . She was recently featured in Om Times.

Join Me, Jenny McCarthy, The Ryder Foundation & Generation Rescue in SF

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:11:00 +0000

Published at Age of Autism:

Join Jenny McCarthy At Comedy for Kids Benefit for Ryder Foundation

By Alix, editor of MedNauseam Blog

Two moms in Northern California are on a roll. Jenny DeMaria and Maureen Block, co-directors of the Ryder Foundation , once had children diagnosed with autism. The boys are now socially indistinguishable from their peers.

Block says both school-aged boys still have “educational challenges, but they have been recovered.” The rapid changes both mothers saw in their boys after trying a gluten-free diet motivated them to try different diet and biomedical interventions. And, the myriad interventions all add up. Block says, “Treating autism is like trying to get a train back on its tracks. It’s gone off-track and you need to get each train car, one at a time, back on the track.”

DeMaria’s son was diagnosed as moderately autistic. Now he would be classified as having mild Asperger’s. “Ryder's challenges are now barely noticeable to an outsider,” De Maria said. "There were days I thought my child would never be able to dress himself or brush his teeth or sing a song or make a friend. Now he is the happiest, friendliest, most vociferous child I know. He keeps astounding us with his progress."

After their rapid, and continuing success with their own sons, DeMaria and Block quickly got involved with Generation Rescue , Jenny McCarthy’s autism organization, volunteering as Rescue Angels to mentor other parents who were beginning the journey toward recovery. But that wasn’t enough ‘giving back’ for them. They wanted to do more. In 2005, they joined forces with two other women to found the Ryder Foundation in recognition of DeMaria’s son’s recovery.

“We have helped raise over $800,000 for autism charities,” said Block, “and we are hoping to move that number to $1 million with our next event, this September 11th, to benefit the Ryder Foundation and Generation Rescue."

That event in San Francisco promises to be another gut-busting comedy night. This year Jenny McCarthy will host the event which includes the Chelsea Handler comedians, acclaimed artist Joan Elan Davis, Bay Area celebrity chef Joey Altman, and students from Autistry Studios. Past events have included comedy moguls Dana Carvey and Robin Williams. Note: Due to the content, laughs are for adults only; the proceeds help the kids via autism charities.

Maureen Block and Jenny DeMaria discuss their boys’ recoveries and talk about the event in this video, which has gone “viral,” at Natural News TV. Please help The Ryder Foundation raise its one millionth dollar, while you laugh! For tickets, go to Comedy for Kids SF HERE.

Alkalinity: Advanced Concepts with Dr. Mohsen

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:56:00 +0000

Lemons and greens. Daily juicing. Does this sound familiar to those of you trying to make your body more alkaline? There are huge health benefits to maintaining an alkaline pH, not the least of which is cancer prevention. I thought I knew a lot about following an alkaline diet... until I met Dr. Mohsen.

Dr. Mohsen, a kindly and spry health educator, is an architect and natural health researcher. He calls himself a Solagritect - a term that combines solar power, agriculture, and architecture. We can't imagine building a home without a kitchen; he can't imagine one without a greenhouse.

I attended his workshop last weekend and was introduced obliquely to the weekend's topic when Elisabeth, the workshop organizer, offered me some apples and plums:

"They were just picked; fresh off a tree," she said.

For me, this was a cryptic introduction. I knew that fresh fruit was good and that extremely fresh fruit was probably better. How much better? Dr. Mohsen says plants lose their vitality thirty minutes after they are picked. This might not mean much to you right now, but read on. According to him, the missing link in the modern diet is this: we cannot maximize our cells' alkalinity if we don't eat just-picked produce. This is the missing link that even the most health-conscious of us are unlikely to bridge with diet alone.

Host Theory

Dr. Mohsen's teachings hinge on Host Theory, not Germ Theory. Isn't it funny that modern medicine bases the treatment of all pathogens on something we still refer to as a theory? Medical standard of care is based on our theories about germs more than 100 years after Pasteur's death.

Host Theory is the opposite. It maintains that the modern diet and lifestyle create an unhealthy body and an environment that is favorable to germs and cancer. Acclaimed food writer Michael Pollan says the same thing about our monoculture farming practices: vast expanses of the same crop actually invite the weeds since there is no healthy ecosystem keeping different species balanced and in check. Is it so far-fetched then, that each of our bodies has an ecosystem, too?

Cellular pH

"Germs and microbes are transitory. The host is the key and pH is the key to changing that relationship," said Mohsen. "It's not the potency of the germ, but the resistance of the host that causes disease. This is why food is so important."

A healthy environment that resists viruses, bacteria and cancer is an alkaline one. Mohsen is not actually talking about the pH in the blood since that needs to remain in a very narrow zone around 7.4 pH. He's talking about the alkalinity of your cells. The more alkaline the cells, the less disease and the better the healing and regenerative environment in our body. The more acidic, the more likely pathogens or cancer will find a suitable home.

Here is what happens to our bodies in the cellular pH zones Mohsen describes:

Health Zone - 7 - 7.4 pH: Electrolytes (calcium, potassium, and magnesium) transport minerals. Mohsen says your blood carries an astounding 1/3 more oxygen than if your cells are acidic! This is really important for everyone from athletes to the ill. For example, one of the adjunct treatments in Lyme Disease is an alkaline diet - it stops the creatures from replicating because they hate oxygen.
Disease Zone - 4.5 - 6.6 pH: This is a good environment for viruses because they can multiply and cause symptoms. Over the counter painkillers also send the body into a more acidic state.
Terminal Diseases - 2.5 - 4.5 pH: Cancer and lupus can thrive here. Cancers will occur in the most acidic part of your body.
Fatal Zone - 1.5 - 2.5 pH: This is a highly toxic state. Extremely low acidity can be induced by high doses of morphine.

Sleep

Most fascinating to me was how alkalinity affects sleep. In the Health Zone, you only need 5 - 7 hours of sleep per night, and most of your cells will fully regenerate within 7 months. 400 billion cells per night can regenerate. In the Disease Zone, however, you'll need 8 - 12 hours of sleep per night. Your cells will take - get this - 7 years to regenerate, and only 10-30 billion cells per night can regenerate. This explains why I know so many raw foodies who look so healthy, look years younger than their age, and who claim they only need a few hours sleep per night.

Voltage

I still didn't know what alkalinity had to do with eating fruit straight off of a tree until Mohsen dove into an explanation of how our cells accept water and nutrients. One of the missing links is that fruit on a tree is "electrified" through the tree via the earth. That might sound far fetched to some of you, and it certainly did to me, but I am slowly starting to make sense of this.

"Real alkalinity depends on the availability of electrolytes," Mohsen said, "Real alkalinity is electrolytes, not pH." Electrolytes have free ions that make a substance electrically conductive. So we can eat a highly alkaline diet, but without electrolytes we can't maximize alkalinity.

The water you consume has to be alkaline to pass signals into your cells. pH differences between the inside of the cell and outside produces voltage. If your blood has low pH (acidic), it drains the cell. We want the opposite to occur - we want our cells to be porous and be able to take in nutrients to feed mitochondria to make cellular energy (ATP) and conduct other key functions.

So if you look at the pH chart above, each pH tier is actually associated with different voltage! The Health Zone operates at 60 - 70 millivolts, while the Fatal Zone operates at 25 millivolts or less. Basically real alkalinity makes you more electric and able to process an optimal amount of nutrients into your cells which leads to optimal immune system function.

Water

Each cell in our body has a funnel in its cell membrane - it is teeny tiny. It is an angstrom-sized opening. Before a cell lets water in, Mohsen says, it intuitively checks for size (angstrom not nano), pH (6.6 or higher only), geometry, and emotional memory (See Dr. Emoto's work), and total dissolved solids (too high and it won't let the water in.)

Since distilled water has no dissolved solids, this is the water he favors. This is very different from most other natural health professionals who recommend spring water, reverse osmosis water, or Kangan alkaline water.

MSM: A Key Missing Nutrient

Back to the cell... and the part about tree-picked fruit. Without a substance called MSM, the cells stay clumped together and cannot optimally take in water and nutrients. MSM allows cell spacing. "MSM is in ripe fresh fruit," says Mohsen, "within a few hours of picking, it's gone."

This is why Mohsen says an optimal diet for health and prevention of all acquired illness is an alkaline one. A diet of lemons, greens, fresh fruit. But he says that since we don't eat food straight off the vine or tree anymore, we need to supplement with three key nutrients: minerals, MSM, and systemic enzymes. Systemic enzymes are the protein scavengers of the blood - another missing link when food isn't consumed soon after picking.

Testing Your pH & Dreaming of Greenhouses

Interested in testing your pH? Mohsen says to get a pH testing strip and test urine first thing in the morning, but only after a good night's sleep. If not, you might find you are more acidic. Urine pH - a measurable proxy for cell pH - should be between 7.0 and 7.4.

As this advanced workshop drew to a close, I found myself dreaming of planting a huge garden and building a vibrant greenhouse on the side of my home. It didn't seem so far-fetched anymore. For now, though, I'm just going to concentrate on being as alkaline as possible eating mostly store-bought and farmer's market foods.

Editor's note: I have since learned about Earthing and how living things get electrons from the Earth and provide documented health benefits. So, a greenhouse might not be the best dietary solution, unless the plants are growing out of the ground in the greenhouse. Dr. Oz introduced Earthing to his 6 million viewers in February 2012. See more recent posts & videos for more information on Earthing.

Cell Phone Studies Seriously Flawed; Heavy Chatting Causes Brain Cancer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:20:00 +0000

InterPhone, a large World Health Organization cell phone study, concludes that using a cell phone for 30 minutes a day for ten years increases the risk of brain cancer by 40%.

However, if the data were re-analyzed to correct serious flaws, the risk is actually much higher. More hours of cell phone use, more years of use, and the younger the age of first use are all correlated with increased risks of brain cancer.

Serious flaws in published cell phone-brain cancer studies include:

Not including people who have died of brain cancer, thus reducing the actual number of reported users with brain cancer
Not counting home cordless phone use toward total radiation exposure, thus under-reporting the "control" group's baseline exposure
Not reporting acoustic neuroma brain cancers in the studies' results, the cancer that occurs nearest the ear

These and other flaws should lead to the study's dismissal instead of reverence of its results. The flaws are so egregious that the manipulated results actually show a confounding "protective" effect for brain cancer at certain levels of use!

Protect yourself from cell phone radiation and home cordless phone radiation by using a wired headset, as recommended by the President's Cancer Panel in their recent ground-breaking report.

I personally prefer the wired blue tube headset available from Dr. Mercola's website. Some argue that a wired headset acts as an antenna, concentrating the signal at your ear. Mercola's headset ends with an air tube, which prevents the radiation from traveling up to your ear.

Please watch the video below for more detail.

Interphone Study Design Flaws from ElectromagneticHealth.Org on Vimeo.

Obama Panel Says to Reduce Environmental Causes of Cancer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 07 May 2010 20:56:00 +0000

I never thought this would happen. The President's Cancer Panel, originally installed by President Nixon to kick off the War on Cancer, has released its first report about reducing our exposure to environmental causes of cancer: Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk. I'm in shock. We are actually interested in prevention? Aren't medical researchers trying to prove all diseases are genetic? Are we not "looking for the cure" anymore?

Here I was thinking Obama's euphemism for prevention could be tidily summed up by the words "mammograms" and "prostate exams" which are about detection, not prevention. But now we have a recommendation for how to avoid cancers.

The executive summary contains paragraphs that read like a report from the Environmental Working Group (EWG):

The Panel was particularly concerned to find that the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated. With nearly 80,000 chemicals on the market in the United States, many of which are used by millions of Americans in their daily lives and are un- or understudied and largely unregulated, exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread. One such ubiquitous chemical, bisphenol A (BPA), is still found in many consumer products and remains unregulated in the United States, despite the growing link between BPA and several diseases, including various cancers.

While BPA has received considerable media coverage, the public remains unaware of many common environmental carcinogens such as naturally occurring radon and manufacturing and combustion by-products such as formaldehyde and benzene. Most also are unaware that children are far more vulnerable to environmental toxins and radiation than adults. Efforts to inform the public of such harmful exposures and how to prevent them must be increased. All levels of government, from federal to local, must work to protect every American from needless disease through rigorous regulation of environmental pollutants.

From BPA to pesticides to mercury to industrial chemicals to ionizing radiation, this report lists the cancers to which each exposure is linked and if the connection is strong or suspected.

The President's Panel even names non-ionizing radiation as a suspect in cancer. I'm still in disbelief on that one, given all the vitriolic denial about cell phones and wifi being a hazard. Noting that the data are not all in yet, the action plan for cell phones includes this language:

...cell phone users can reduce their exposure to radiofrequency energy by making fewer calls, reducing the length of calls, sending text messages instead of calling, using cell phones only when landline phones are unavailable, using a wired “hands-free” device so that the phone need not be held against the head, and refraining from keeping an active phone clipped to the belt or in a pocket.

In the action plan section, I found this nugget: "It is more effective to prevent disease than to treat it."

Many thanks to my friend Leslie who first sent me a link to this report. Girl, you are on it!

Charlotte Gerson on Cancer: The Cause is Not a Lack of Chemo

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:26:00 +0000

Charlotte Gerson opened her talk at the Natural News Healing Miracles event with the following: "In order to cure, we have to understand what causes disease, and it is not a lack of chemo in your body."

I knew I was going to love the 88 years-young Gerson, whose life work is to carry on the natural approach to curing cancer developed in the 1930s by her father Max. The Gerson Institute has a remarkable success rate with terminal cancer patients: 30- 40% are cured. Rates are much higher with patients who have never had chemo or radiation.

Peppy and unequivocal, Gerson said "if you have a certain gene, doctors love this because it must be your fault." She punctuated her point with an emphatic, "NOT TRUE!" a theme that would carry throughout her presentation.

She dissected genetic theories with an example from the bee kingdom to illustrate epigenetics, the concept that food can change our genetic structure. She noted that a queen bee will lay thousands of eggs, and though 99% of those eggs will develop into sexless worker bees, 5 - 6 are selectively fed with extra royal jelly and will develop into new queens. "They have the same genes, so how is that possible? Bees know that food changes the genetic structure. It's been proven in nature for thousands of years," Gerson said.

Taking an example from lab animals, she said new research shows that rats and mice programmed with cancer genes don't get cancer when fed a diet of greens. "Cancer is not necessary if you nourish your body," she concluded.

Moving to humans, she used herself as an example. Eight-eight. She is cancer-free, even though its likely she has cancer genes due to her grandmother's and sister's bouts with breast cancer. (Her sister used the Gerson therapy and survived thirty-six more years to the age of 86.)

Gerson has always followed the Gerson Institute's healthy diet of fresh juices and organic vegan food. "I've never had a mammogram or PAP smear," said Gerson, "Am I worried about cancer? Obviously not."

Her father testified in Congress about the success of the Gerson Therapy which addresses the two main problems in cancer: deficiency (vitamin and immune) and toxicity. The testimony was removed from the Congressional Record. "What does it take to do that?" Gerson asked, "Big Pharma. They've got the money."

The Gerson Institute is now seeing success in patients with with genetic diseases like retinitis pigmentosa and cystic fibrosis. A legally blind woman came to the clinic. She had only 4% of her vision. Within a few months the woman had regained 30% of her vision and could read a book for the first time in years. An Australian girl with cystic fibrosis (CF) came to the clinic at age 12, and after 3 weeks her lungs were clear for the first time. Though the average lifespan of CF patients is 20 - 22 years, she is now 31, married and has a child.

Gerson firmly believes in a vegetarian diet. "We have the long digestive tracts of vegetarian animals. When we eat meat the first thing that happens is our acid-alkaline balance changes. Our blood balance has to be 7.37 pH." She said acidic blood cannot properly carry oxygen. Pancreatin is used up on animal proteins, then there is nothing left to protect us. "We are brainwashed to think animals are the only source of protein."

A note of caution on protein however: "Do not eat soy in any form or shape," she said. Milk: "No weaned animal drinks milk. It's just that we are smarter and we suffer for it." [Editor's note: I was cracking up at this point! This is a funny woman!]

Gerson concluded with yet another zinger for the medical establishment, "I feel doctors are the most dangerous people in our community with their drugs, and dentists are the second with their mercury and fluoride."

After her rousing talk, Gerson talked with event attendees and demonstrated how - at 88 years old - she could still touch her toes. I watched her bend down, athletically bounce a few times with straight legs and lay her hands on her feet. There were no signs of age: no arthritis, no dizziness, no slowness. She popped back up, beaming and defiant, and placed her hands on her hips. "See?" she seemed to say.

Charlotte Gerson's book on Gerson Therapy is available through the Gerson Institute. You can buy Max Gerson's orginal book here:

Other incredible talks from the Healing Miracles event came from extraordinary health professionals: Dr. Len Horowitz, Charlotte Gerson, Dr. Julian Whitaker, Jay "The Juice Daddy" Kordich (can he be my juicy grandpa, please?), Dr. James Chappel, and Dr. Carolyn Dean. Finally, I want to put a shout out to Jonathan and Helaine Landsman who organized the event, all without a hitch - they hit it out of the park.

Mike Adams: What if You Believed Superfood Was Medicine?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:27:00 +0000

Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending the Healing Miracles event where I met Mike Adams, the tall and affable editor of health mega-site Natural News.

Adams kicked off the day with a talk about a powerful strategy to actively welcome the placebo effect. That is, instead of a placebo effect happening to you, he persuaded the audience that we could actively encourage it in our daily lives, and reap the benefits.

"We all have an inner healing ability, not just the immune system, but to rebuild your own mind and heal your tissues. We are self-healing beings," Adams said. He noted that we can't turn it off.

A recent skin pain study showed the power of placebo. Adams described how researchers placed pain-killing creams on the arms of study participants, with one group thinking they had placebo and one thinking they had the active ingredient. In reality, both creams were placebo creams. While aiming painful heat at the arm, researchers used a functional MRI to check part of the spine that, according to Popular Science, "normally lights up with pain response. But no pain-related neural activity showed" in the spines of people who thought they had the real pain-killer cream on their arm.

Adams then noted that the pharmaceutical industry "bases its success on the placebo effect" and cited anti-depressants as an egregious example. "JAMA says they don't work any better than placebo. The ads make people feel like the pills work." [Note from your editor: Recently on NPR doctors lamented how hard it is to get anti-depressants approved since the placebo effect is now so big due to advertising that they have a harder time showing the drug works better than placebo! In other words, Big Pharma advertising is dooming the "gold-standard" double-blind placebo-controlled trial by creating too big of a placebo effect.]

"Be your own placebo," said Adams. "The pill is the metaphor for your healing experience." We have to realize that our language processing centers are always on, so we are constantly being influenced by words. Though our conscious minds can dismiss disharmonious information, we still have to process it first. He recommends turning off the TV and not looking at drug ads in magazines, for example.

Then Adams got to the big idea. "What if you believed superfood was medicine? It's the power of intention going into your foods to make that belief real." He recommended making our own in-house advertising campaign by deciding what messages we do want to hear. On your bathroom mirror, for example, you could put "I am a self-healing being." Or, "I am healthier and more vibrant every day." Adams said that "instead of allowing Big Pharma to dominate your consciousness, you can get into your own head by focusing messages on your goals." He even suggested adding images of nature or of people who look healthy, to reach two levels: images for your heart and words for your brain.

Finally, Adams emphasized we have to abandon disease language. Don't let a doctor say you "are" a disease or that you "have" a disease. Adams suggests a different statement relegating the condition to a more transitory state: "My body currently expresses a pattern of symptoms that have been given the name X and I can change that."

Well, I can live with that, but my symptoms certainly can't!

Other incredible talks from the Healing Miracles event came from extraordinary health professionals: Dr. Len Horowitz, Charlotte Gerson, Dr. Julian Whitaker, Jay "The Juice Daddy" Kordich (can he be my juicy grandpa, please?), Dr. James Chappel, and Dr. Carolyn Dean. Finally, I want to put a shout out to Jonathan and Helaine Landsman who organized the event, all without a hitch - they hit it out of the park.

Alix Talks to US Sec'y of Ag about Nutrition

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:23:00 +0000

Dear Secretary Vilsack,

I enjoyed our conversation the other day when you talked to me and other writers from the Silicon Valley Moms Blog Group about the USDA's new efforts. Laudable are the goals of increasing the nutrient content of school lunches through the $1 Billion Child Nutrition Act and combating childhood obesity with the Let's Move campaign. This is perhaps the biggest public nutrition effort the USDA has put forth since introducing the Food Pyramid in the early 1980s.

"This is a different agriculture department than in the past," you said. You recognize that American eating has to change. You mentioned that the IOM has evaluated school lunches and found them to fall far short of the Dietary Guidelines embodied in the Food Pyramid, something many lunch-packing parents have known for years. I'm glad we are on the same page, since someday I'd love to ditch the daily lunch-packing drudgery for the convenience of school lunches for my kids. You also said that a committee is re-evaluating the Dietary Guidelines with what we now know about nutrition. I was thrilled to hear this.

I think you are absolutely on the right track, but like the USDA of the past, you still serve too many masters. You are in charge of food production - your mission is to make it easier for farmers to make money - yet you are also tasked with food consumption and telling Americans what a healthy diet is. Therein lies the conflict that has always plagued the USDA.

I think about George McGovern, who as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs authorized the 1980s Food Pyramid on an unproven theory that there was less heart disease during World War II because meat and milk were rationed. During that time sugar was also rationed, we grew and ate from Victory Gardens, and people walked more due to gas rationing. Yet, cardiologists of the time fingered meat and milk as the dietary bad guys. While the objective of the 1980s guidelines was to help people eat fewer of the foods that lead to "the degenerative diseases of middle age," the committee relied on what was then criticized as bad research, and caved to the meat lobby and other corporate interests, resulting in a carbohydrate-heavy and low-nutrient set of dietary guidelines. It was a license to eat all the pasta and bread we wanted.

I think about Earl Butz who wanted the U.S. to be "breadbasket to the world," telling farmers to "get big or get out" and advising them to plant fencerow to fencerow. He was proud of reducing the percent of disposable income we have to pay for food from 23% in the fifties to 10% today. However, this is almost a zero sum game, as the amount we now spend on healthcare cancels out any savings on food.

In the 1980s, Americans made an historic shift in our eating habits. We ate the newly inexpensive and inflammation-inducing diet of vegetable oils and white carbohydrates. We didn't understand that the Great White Carbs like white flour, white rice, and potatoes are all metabolized as fast as table sugar, turning into blood glucose at the same rate. We actually thought these foods were good for us since they were fat-free, but they were giving us diabetes. Inflammation damaged our arteries, so they repaired themselves with plaque made from cholesterol. We demonized cholesterol thinking it was a causal factor when it was just the Band-Aid our body was producing to protect our arteries. We thought fat made us fat, but became overweight and obese eating the carbs. And, most egregiously, the Great White Carbs robbed us of nutrition making our bodies simultaneously stuffed and starved.

Like McGovern and Butz, you have the chance to be one of the big names in American nutrition history, but you'll have to favor American health over corporate interests, something the USDA has never done. Maybe now that more than half of Americans suffer from chronic illness and now that we spend 16% of national income on healthcare (compared to 5% before the Dietary Guidelines were introduced), the USDA will recognize that we have more at stake than ever.

Michael Pollan stated "the surgeon general should take over from the Department of Agriculture the job of communicating with Americans about their diet." Would this be a relief to you or is your department truly up to the task of undoing what the USDA has done to American health?

You certainly have your work cut out for you and I appreciate your efforts to fix this situation. Thank you for involving me and the mom bloggers in the discussion. We hope our comments are helpful.

The Path to the Pharmacy is Paved with....Candy!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 01:05:00 +0000

This is a real CVS store in California. Pharmacies know how to generate business - just put the stuff that causes illness in the aisle that leads to the pharmacy counter.

Sugar

In excess, causes weight gain
Causes diabetes
Causes most pancreatic cancer
Is fermented by cancer cells to make energy
Is injected in the form of radioactive glucose to highlight tumors for PET scans
Creates inflammation, which leads to heart disease
Lowers immunity to infections
Feeds yeast

Wouldn't you rather pay the grocer for healthy food today, rather than the doctor and pharmacy later? Ben Franklin had it right. An ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure.

Before eating, ask yourself if what you are about to eat is the most nutrient-dense food available to you at that moment. If it's made from white sugar, white flour, or white rice, it is the least nutritious food, increasing the chance that you'll soon see the doctor and be walking down the aisle pictured above.

Med Nauseam Places #1 in General Medicine Blogs and #13 Overall!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:55:00 +0000

Alix #1 in General Medicine

Dear Readers,

Thank you for voting Med Nauseam the #1 blog in WellSphere's General Medicine Community!

Even more than winning this competition, I was completely uplifted, flattered, and humbled by the comments you left. It's not always popular to explore what I consider to be our collective blind spots in health and medicine.

After thousands of hours of research, the scientist in me understands that natural medicine should always be our first line of defense in preventing and treating acquired illness. I've also come to believe that we have a cult-like bias in favor of pharmaceuticals, even when the evidence is not there.

I pull at threads that unravel supposedly immutable medical truths - from decades-old health assumptions to cutting-edge medical ideas - that may be in direct contradiction to what our doctors are telling us. It is not without trepidation that I write about uncomfortable, impolitic, unconventional, or inconvenient health ideas, but I always back them up with research hoping that I will get you to consider an issue from a new angle, even if you don't end up agreeing with my conclusions. (And that's fine, just keep it civil and don't flag my blog!)

That said, I had no idea this is what you all thought of my blog! I'm having a hard time editing the comments down, so indulge me if you'd like. Here are some of my favorites:

"Alix puts in so much time and effort into her research and shares critical health-related information with her readers. It's simply good stuff!" - Scott Forsgren, The Better Health Guy

"Alix always has the most researched articles on important health topics you won't find in the mainstream media." Kim of SpiroChicks and Gratitude365

"Because Alix is great! The information on her blog is important, everyone should know about these issues." - Ashley of Lymenaide

"The MedNauseum blog is smart and informative. If you love the EWG then you will love MedNauseum for its tireless committment to spreading knowlege on all things toxic in our products. Alix called the BPA liners in the Sigg bottles first!" - Jetsettica

"Alix is a forerunner, extremely intelligent, open minded and has great insight. She brings a lot of different backgrounds of knowledge to her blogs. Even with her history chronic illness, she has had enough success beating it to be able to be energetic and helpful to others going through the mysteries of illness. Alix has always done full proof research on the latest issues in illness and disease." - Maureen Block of the Ryder Foundation

"I think Alix not only posesses a talent for writing, making the reader want to return post after post - but she examines issues from the perspective of someone not afraid to ruffle feathers." - D.J.

"Alix is one of the most cutting-edge, information forward blogger I have ever read. Her information is well written, has a wit and is on a mission to really help us all." - M.D.

"Alix is one of the most educated bloggers out there. We are lucky to be the beneficiaries of all her research, knowledge, and education - passed on for free, with a sense of humor. She is brilliant, cutting edge and hilarious." - Eva

"Not only well written and concise but despite being passionate about her position she makes great effort to be as unbiased as humanly possible." - D.S.

"Alix is an amazing talent and person. She has overcome huge obstacles in her own health crises and you might as well call her doctor from all the research she has done. She has made very smart choices and huge sacrifices in order to unravel the complexities of her own illness odyssey. I whole-heartedly endorse her as favorite health blogger as she has offered expert advice with incredible warmth and sincerity to those who have sought her counsel." - K.S.

"This is one of the most informative, well written and organized blogs I have ever come across!! The topics are addressed intelligently, well-researched and summarized and analyzed so that the information is easily accessible. It is also kept current and covers the hot topics. Bravo to this Blogger-- she sets the bar high for others-- where it needs to be since there is so much misinformation out there!!" - F.K.

"Trust me. Alix knows her stuff. Not only because she speaks from experience but healthcare and nutrition is clearly her passion. She is never biased or negative. Always honest, positive and reassuring." - S.J.

"Always on the cutting edge of issues and would appear 99.9% of the time to see the wood from the trees! Her analysis and commentary is excellent." - JediRuss

"She is a phenomenal researcher... when she posts something she has really learned about her topic, sought out reputable and credible sources for her information, shares personal thoughts and experiences to provide context for readers." - NW

"Documented information to help decipher the mainstream health recommendations. We all know the standard advice -- here is information counter-balancing it." - PTA Lady

"She was one of the first people who wrote about my health concern and what she was doing about it. It was a real person sharing her knowledge gleaned through exhaustive research. She keeps her information current and fresh." - Lovely Leo

Thanks for indulging me by reading these comments! You've more than refreshed my enthusiasm to keep writing up my research for you!

Tamiflu Exposed: No Better Than Placebo According to Roche's Studies

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:54:00 +0000

The dog ate Roche's Tamiflu homework...

Tamiflu, developed to combat influenza, is derived from star anise, a weak natural anti-viral. Roche chemicalized it so it could be patented, and performed trials that didn't go as Roche would have hoped. Tamiflu did not show efficacy. What to do? In an ethical lapse, Roche did not consult their WWJD bracelets.

Roche fudged the data to claim that Tamiflu reduced hospitalizations, deaths, and serious complications from influenza. I even heard some friends claim that Tamiflu stopped their flu-like illness - they heard they'd have one less day of fever - and they believed it. I was highly skeptical, and I was right. They were experiencing a placebo effect.

What kills me is that doctors prescribed a drug to my friends that is not benign. In a Japanese study and in another conducted among children in Britain, half the subjects reported side effects ranging from the severe gastrointestinal to the psychological, such as delerium, and even suicide. Tamiflu has also been found to increase likelihood of secondary bacterial infections, one of the main causes of death in influenza.

What happened? An independent researcher found discrepancies in the Roche data he'd used to draw favorable conclusions in his Cochrane Collaboration meta-analyses. Wanting to discover the reason for the discrepancies, he pushed Roche to release raw data from their trials - something Cochrane evaluators had not had access to in their initial reviews. Instead of producing the data as requested, Roche, ahem, had "lost" the original data. In an Atlantic Monthy Tamiflu expose, the author wrote: "the Cochrane team eventually concluded that the evidence that Tamiflu reduces complications, hospitalizations, or deaths is weak at best, and if the drug does offer any benefit, it is slight indeed."

British Medical Journal investigation concludes:

Neuraminidase inhibitors [Tamiflu] have modest effectiveness against the symptoms of influenza in otherwise healthy adults. The drugs are effective postexposure against laboratory confirmed influenza, but this is a small component of influenza-like illness, so for this outcome neuraminidase inhibitors are not effective. Neuraminidase inhibitors might be regarded as optional for reducing the symptoms of seasonal influenza. Paucity of good data has undermined previous findings for oseltamivir’s prevention of complications from influenza. Independent randomised trials to resolve these uncertainties are needed.

Aren't you glad $1.5 Billion of your tax dollars funded the government stockpiling of Tamiflu? [Note heavy sarcasm.]

Remember there are many great natural antivirals that do work and that are safe. If you have yet to build your blood level of Vitamin D to optimal levels and happen to get a virus, Umcka is a great herbal anti-viral for both kids and adults. There is a plethora of other natural anti-virals, including: elderberry, garlic, echinacea, olive leaf extract, and monolaurin.

About the photo in this post: A couple years ago, I sat in a conference room talking to some Roche clinical trial researchers who looked and acted like Peter Seller's character, Dr. Strangelove (minus the wheelchair and random Nazi salutes.) I told myself, don't judge a book by its cover. Based on this new information about Roche's ethical transgressions, I should listen to my gut better, shouldn't I?

Preventing The Flu and Colds with Vitamin D

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:52:00 +0000

You might have to read the next sentence twice. Natural health practitioners are aligning around a radical-sounding concept that colds and the flu are nothing more than a symptom of Vitamin D deficiency.

Yes, it may be true that you don't have to be sick again, at least not flat on your back with a fever and puking your brains out. You can likely prevent this suffering by normalizing the level of Vitamin D in your blood.

Conservatively, half the population is deficient in Vitamin D and by some reports as many as 87% of us are deficient, so if you are not going in the sun, or if you are using sunblock, or not supplementing with D3, you are likely in this group! Since our skin makes D only in the summer months, we are lowest in winter months, making us more susceptible to flus and colds. This is why experts are saying "Seasonal" Flu might be a misnomer. Since viruses circulate throughout the entire year, the seasonality is likely mainly due to our D status.

Many studies support D's role in preventing influenza. The largest and most recent - the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey - found that among 19,000 subjects, the higher the level of D, the less illness (upper respiratory infection, URI):

Interestingly, the analysis stops at blood levels of 30ng/ml and above. The lower limit for D deficiency is 32 ng/ml, so even at deficient levels, we have a stair-step correlation showing the protective effects of Vitamin D. The study did not separate out a group with optimal Vitamin D levels of 50 - 80ng/ml. At those levels, the rate of viral illness is thought to plummet even further, even approaching zero. Anecdotally, among doctors who have begun to treat their patients with Vitamin D, they have seen dramatically fewer cases of influenza-like illness in their practices.

Vitamin D also protects us from the two main ways influenza can kill us - cytokine storms and secondary bacterial infections.

Cytokine Storm: "Vitamin D also suppresses inflammatory cytokines. Cytokines are partly responsible for the pain, fever, and congestion that comes with influenza infection; full-blown cytokine storms are to blame in some fatal cases of influenza," according to this must-read flu article in Life Extension magazine.
Secondary Bacterial Infections: D is protective against bacterial illness, including one of the nastiest bacterial lung infections - tuberculosis: "Increased production of [D3] results in synthesis of cathelicidin, a peptide capable of destroying M. tuberculosis as well as other infectious agents," wrote Dr. Holick in his Vitamin D Deficiency review article in The New England Journal of Medicine. Other articles also support the bacterial-protective effects of D.

If you do come down with a flu, you can work with your doctor to treat with high-dose Vitamin D, to help prevent the awful fevers, nausea, headaches and other symptoms that typically accompany the infection. Here is what Dr. John Cannell, of the Vitamin D Council says he would do:

Stock your home's pharmacy with several fresh bottles of 50,000 IU capsules of Vitamin D3 (a medicine at this dosage, not a supplement) and if you get this flu, take 2,000 IU per kg of body weight per day for a week. As I weigh 220 pounds, I would take 200,000 IU per day for seven days if I thought I had an infection with a 1918-like influenza virus.

How to prevent flu with D: Your skin makes Vitamin D from direct sun exposure when you are taller than your shadow. Step outside and look! You'll notice that in the winter or outside of mid-day, your shadow is always taller than you are, which means you are not making D. See the Vitamin D Council for information on how to monitor blood levels of Vitamin D and treat. Per the experts, most adults should be taking 2,000 - 5,000IU of D3 per day. Always do this in consultation with your doctor, ideally testing your blood at the beginning and end of daylight savings season. for

OK, now for a little quiz. In addition to the $4.8 million PR campaign in 2009 for the H1N1 flu shot, how much did the CDC - full name being Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - spent educating the public that Vitamin D is a safer and more effective way to prevent H1N1 influenza infection?

$0. That's right. Nothing. I asked CDC officials about this when I met with them in Sacramento in August. I got a shoulder-shrug in answer to my question about Vitamin D being the ultimate protection against viruses.

Why "Herd Immunity" is Moot in Seasonal Flu or Swine Flu

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:30:00 +0000

Recently, I posted an LA Times article to my Facebook page about parents who, due to safety concerns, will likely decline the Swine/H1N1 Flu vaccine for themselves and their children. When my Facebook friends posted their reactions to this article, safety concerns were ignored in favor of a slew of responses about striving for herd immunity. It seemed they had already done a risk-benefit calculation, reasoning if some were hurt by the vaccine, herd immunity was more important. (See bottom of article for a back-of-the-envelope analysis of risk-benefit.) What they didn't realize in their arguments is that herd immunity is a moot point when it comes to the flu and flu vaccine.

So to address the cries for herd immunity, I offer you some data points:

Herd immunity is presumed to occur when 80-90% of a population has a theoretically protective level of antibodies, either from mounting an antibody response to an antigen in a vaccine or from suffering through a virus and recovering.
Only 30-40% of people get the Seasonal Flu vaccine - far short of herd immunity.
Seasonal flu mutates and changes every year, so there are not years and years of vaccinating people against the same disease to ratchet coverage up to the 80-90% level.
Due to mutations, a seasonal (or swine flu) shot that is developed in advance of flu season may not match the circulating flu viruses. In at least half of the flu seasons, there is no virus-vaccine match, leaving 0% of the population with theoretically protective levels of antibodies.
The Cochrane Collaboration, an independent evidence-based medical review group, reviewed ALL flu shot studies - decades worth of data - and found that if you get the virus for which you were vaccinated, you will be sick only 0.16 of a day less (4 hours) than if you didn't get the shot. I.e. the flu shot does not work. Tom Jefferson MD, the independent reviewer analyzing all flu shot studies found this in 2006, upon completion of his team's review: "Only among people who suffer bronchitis could he find good evidence that flu vaccination was worthwhile. In infants up to two, vaccination was no better than placebo and in older children there was little evidence of benefit. Nor could he find enough evidence of benefit among people with chronic chest problems, asthma and cystic fibrosis. In healthy adults the best evidence was that, on average, flu vaccination of a population would prevent 0.1 per cent of a working day lost. Combined studies of the elderly showed a variation from no effect to a 60 per cent difference when "all cause mortality" was measured."
Optimism Bias: Since other vaccines seem to work, people, MDs included, assume the flu shots must work, too. (See point 5)
Recency Bias: A single recent study seems to prove flu vaccines do work. Average that single study into the other 48. (See point 5)
People who worry about protecting others in "the herd" from the flu do not have the correct information about flu shot efficacy. (See point 5)
Even at-risk groups - children, asthmatics, elderly - are not protected by the vaccine. All the studies in these sub-groups show there is no reduction in hospitalizations or deaths among those who were vaccinated for Seasonal Flu.
Shedding and spreading: Nasal spray vaccine is an alternative to the injection. However for every 100 children vaccinated this way, 2 - 3 new people will be infected via the children shedding virus from the vaccine.The Seasonal Flu Nasal Spray vaccine is based on a live virus: Adults will also shed virus and be contagious for the flu. This works against herd immunity.
Placebo Effect: If you are so worried about a flu virus and still believe the Seasonal Flu Vaccine offers protection, then get vaccinated and you can believe you are protected from those who don't get the vaccine. That's called the placebo effect. Enjoy it.
Vitamin D: Normalizing your blood levels of Vitamin D strongly protects against ALL VIRUSES. Check your levels of Vitamin D twice a year: when daylight savings begins and ends. It's cheaper, easier, and safer to avoid all viral illness by maintaining a normal blood level of Vitamin D. At least half of us are deficient, which is the main cause of "Flu Seasons" in the winter.

If you do get a virus, you can treat it with high doses of Vitamin D for seven days after onset of symptoms. My friend K.A. tried this last week when she came down with a bad flu and she wrote, "It really worked...I took just 4 [16,000IU of D3] and it worked... it was miraculous....I was on the mend and so surprised!" See the Vitamin D Council for instructions. Always consult your doctor.

Breast Cancer Prevention Strategies

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:04:00 +0000

I've been wanting to write a post about breast cancer prevention, et voila, I happened upon this great write up about dietary and environmental contributors to breast cancer from 007 Breasts. They are unabashed about recommending "nipple twiddling" to produce oxytocin, so I already love their writers. So, go on. Read about everything from bras, to Vitamin D, to soy, to curcumin.

At some point I'll write a companion piece about supplements that address results of a thermogram to reduce your risk of ever hearing the four dreaded words, "you have breast cancer." An easy diet and supplement plan can significantly reduce your risk of breast cancer. After all, the best way not to die of breast cancer is not to get it at all.

SIGG Has BPA: I Told You Not to Trust the Secret Plastic Liner!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:25:00 +0000

Remember my October 2008 article about the breast cancer-causing chemicals in bottled water? As an alternative to pre-packaged bottled water, I recommended drinking filtered water from a stainless steel Klean Kanteen. I specifically said that the more popular SIGG bottle was an iffy choice at best:

* I favor the Klean Kanteen over the more popular SIGG water bottle since SIGG's aluminum bottles are lined with an undisclosed "polymer" that is tested for currently known plastic contaminants. Since chemicals are put on the market before they are tested for human safety, and an increasing number of plastic chemicals are implicated in health problems, I prefer to stick with old-fashioned stainless steel.

SIGG's web page describing its polymer strongly suggests it does not contain BPA, yet declines to say what the internal plastic liner is. (Bisphenol A is the plastic hardener that is linked with feminizing birth defects in boys, breast cancer in women, among other ill health effects.) SIGG quotes studies that reveal "no detectable BPA" in their bottle liners yet never actually states the liner is free of BPA. Tricky language, indeed! In language that strike me as untrustworthy, SIGG says:

Like Coca-Cola’s soft drink recipe, the SIGG liner formula remains secret and unavailable to third parties in order to protect our competitive advantage.

Well SIGG has now been outed. CEO Steve Wasik is admitting that their "product did contain BPA, although it was never found to leach it." If you prefer to avoid BPA and its estrogenic effects, SIGG was the wrong water bottle for you all along. Too bad, 'cause the bottle designs are so cute.

According to an article on Inhabitots, "The shocking facts came to light when, one whole year after changing their liner to a new 'EcoCare' BPA-free formula, SIGG fessed up." SIGG switched to a BPA-free liner in August 2008.

BPA or not, I don't want to drink my water out of a plastic-lined bottle. The list of unsafe plastics is only going to get longer. Will SIGG get caught with their pants down again if the current liner is found to be unsafe, too?

Video: Why Worry about Fluoride Toothpaste?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:26:00 +0000

Toothpaste labels warn us not to swallow even a pea-sized amount of toothpaste. Did you know that the amount of flouride in this pea-sized glob is the same as the amount found in 8 ounces of fluoridated drinking water? Why does the toothpaste label say to call the Poison Control Center if it's ingested, but water does not have such a warning?

The CDC says dental fluorosis, which is caused by too much fluoride, now affects 33% of children aged 6 - 19. Fluorosis affects bones and organs, too, with a highly plausible connection to diseases like bone cancer (osteosarcoma).

Despite what the American Dental Association instructs its dentists to tell you about how fluoride prevents cavities, many different data sets show that cavities are not actually correlated with water flouridation.

This five minute video is worth a watch.

Michael Pollan to the President-Elect

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:01:00 +0000

Michael Pollan has penned another hard-hitting missive about how food is destroying our health.

The one-man food policy think-tank and author of such gems as The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food published a letter in the New York Times. It begins:

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food.

Pollan emphasizes that the old approach to agriculture, which has increasingly relied on cheap petroleum, is no longer sustainable, which he says:

Brings me to the deeper reason you will need not simply to address food prices but to make the reform of the entire food system one of the highest priorities of your administration: unless you do, you will not be able to make significant progress on the health care crisis, energy independence or climate change. Unlike food, these are issues you did campaign on — but as you try to address them you will quickly discover that the way we currently grow, process and eat food in America goes to the heart of all three problems and will have to change if we hope to solve them.

Pollan also highlights the zero-sum game whereby we have spent increasingly less on food and increasingly more on healthcare since the 1960s. In 1960, he says we spent 5% of our income on healthcare and 18% on food; today it's 16% on healthcare and less than 10% on food. Along with the availability of cheap, nutrient-free calories, the 1980s USDA Food Pyramid (aka the Pasta Pyramid) marketed them beautifully, launching an epidemic of the diseases it was designed to prevent: heart disease, stroke, type II diabetes, and obesity. Quadruple ooops! In Pollan's words:

While the surfeit of cheap calories that the U.S. food system has produced since the late 1970s may have taken food prices off the political agenda, this has come at a steep cost to public health. You cannot expect to reform the health care system, much less expand coverage, without confronting the public-health catastrophe that is the modern American diet.

My prose is inadequate to paraphrase more of Pollan's excellent letter. Just read it.

Pictured above, your editor and Michal Pollan at Stanford after his In Defense of Food talk.

Note to self: Always wear make-up when in public as you never know with whom you'll have a photo op.

EWG's Bottled Water Study: Alarming Results and Breast Cancer Implications

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:06:00 +0000

The Environmental Working Group published its study of bottled water. Among ten major brands plucked from retailers nationwide, EWG found thirty-eight different contaminants. EWG recommends drinking filtered tap water, ideally from a glass or a Kleen Kanteen stainless steel water bottle.*

Here are some of the contaminants found:

Disinfection byproducts...common urban wastewater pollutants like caffeine and pharmaceuticals (Tylenol); heavy metals and minerals including arsenic and radioactive isotopes; fertilizer residue (nitrate and ammonia); and a broad range of other, tentatively identified industrial chemicals used as solvents, plasticizers, viscosity decreasing agents, and propellants.

Bottled waters from Sam's, Walmart, and Giant stores were called out in particular. EWG cites a double standard where bottled water suppliers are not required to report on water quality, while muni water districts have to report tap water test results regularly to consumers. (The depressing part is that munis don't have to test for pharmaceuticals and most water filters do not remove many man-made substances. Welcome to Prozac Nation, whether or not you wanted it.)

Here is one of the more alarming findings, regarding estrogen mimics and breast cancer:

The study also included assays for breast cancer cell proliferation, conducted at the University of Missouri. One bottled water brand spurred a 78% increase in the growth of the breast cancer cells compared to the control sample, with 1,200 initial breast cancer cells multiplying to 32,000 in 4 days, versus only 18,000 for the control sample, indicating that chemical contaminants in the bottled water sample stimulated accelerated division of cancer cells. When estrogen-blocking chemicals were added, the effect was inhibited, showing that the cancer-spurring chemicals mimic estrogen, a hormone linked to breast cancer. Though this result is considered a modest effect relative to the potency of some other industrial chemicals in spurring breast cancer cell growth, the sheer volume of bottled water people consume elevates the health significance of the finding. While the specific chemical(s) responsible for this cancer cell proliferation were not identified in this pilot study, ingestion of endocrine-disrupting and cancer-promoting chemicals from plastics is considered to be a potentially important health concern (Le 2008).

Estrogens are a big driver of breast cancer. Estrogen can take the form of xenoestrogens like pesticides or those found in these bottled water samples, phytoestrogens like those in soy (with increasing evidence that flax might be a contender as well), and in chemical estrogens that we take in the form of birth control pills.

In fact, doctors who perform thermograms - an early breast cancer risk screening tool - have noticed that 80% of women today display estrogen dominance patterns in their breast images, compared to only 40% ten years ago. One of the ways to reverse estrogen dominance is to apply bioidentical progesterone cream to the breasts in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. Doctors also say that strict soy avoidance has worked for many patients.

I try to limit my use of plastic bottled water, so if you see me with one every once in a while, know that I'm trying to suppress all this information since thirst has overwhelmed me!

* I favor the Kleen Kanteen over the more popular SIGG water bottle since SIGG's aluminum bottles are lined with an undisclosed "polymer" that is tested for currently known plastic contaminants. Since chemicals are put on the market before they are tested for human safety, and an increasing number of plastic chemicals are implicated in health problems, I prefer to stick with old-fashioned stainless steel.

High Tech Bummer: Wireless Dangers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:11:00 +0000

Dr. Mercola posted a great article today about cell phone dangers, especially in children. To me, this is one of the biggest wet blankets over my enthusiasm for all our high tech gadgets. Like most people living in Silicon Valley, we use cell phones and wireless networks as if they are essential as the air we breathe. They are, right? Even if our home wireless network is off, we can easily connect to the Internet through neighbors' networks -- we usually have a choice of three.

Is this wireless pollution? Well, it may turn out that wireless -- including cell phones and wireless networks -- is more dangerous to our health than cigarettes. At present, not all the data are in and there are huge incentives to prove wireless is safe. However, the tides are beginning to turn: brain surgeons and high-profile doctors, like CNN's Sanjay Gupta, are beginning to step forward with recommendations to keep the cell phone away from your head.

In the future, expect a huge battle over this one, as cigarettes went down only because there is no demonstrable public good. Not so with wireless. It rocks, well, unless it does contribute to cancer.

Brain cancer has now surpassed leukemia as the number one cancer in children. Experts who feel there is enough evidence supporting a wireless-brain cancer connection say children are disproportionately affected due to thinner skulls and more brain fluid which allows the signal to pass more easily through a child's brain. Interestingly, cell phones were approved for human use based on microwave safety studies, but the main flaw in that comparison is that we don't hold a microwave oven to our head.

In the Australian news clip posted at Mercola.com, a prominent brain surgeon asks all his brain cancer patients the same question. Dr. Teo asks,

You know your cancer is in the right side of your brain, it's in the area just above your ear, can you tell me if you feel that you've had more exposure than most people to mobile phones?' and I'm always surprised most people say, 'yes, I've used my phone continuously for the last seven years and it's always stuck to my ear on this side.' And I say, 'Well, that's where the cancer is.'"

Yes, this is anecdotal evidence as opposed to statistical or direct biological cause and effect, but consider that most of the studies regarding cell phone dangers were funded by the telecom industry, and they have tried mightily to bury the findings. Not enamored with ominous results from their own studies, the telecom industry elected to let go their chief health scientist, Dr. George Carlo. According to an article in Life Extension, "George Carlo, PhD, JD, is an epidemiologist and medical scientist who, from 1993 to 1999, headed the first telecommunications industry-backed studies into the dangers of cell phone use." The majority of the studies ended up showing clear health risks from cell phone usage, not the least of which is brain cancer.

Dr. Carlo now runs The Safe Wireless Initiative to spread news of studies about wireless dangers. Mysteriously, Dr. Carlo was hired due to his stellar reputation, but since leaving the telecom industry his credentials have been under attack from the cell phone industry and his home burned down. You can read about his battle with the industry in this Life Extension article.

The good news for cell phone users is that the signal drops off precipitously within 6 or so inches of the phone, so keeping it away from your body goes a long way toward protection. I also use a blue tube wired head set that "is quite a contraption," according to my neighbor who saw me with it one day. It stops the radiation at a mouthpiece that hangs at my chin. (FYI, regular wired headsets without the stethoscope-like blue tube are thought to actually concentrate the signal at your ear by receiving ambient radio waves, much like an antenna.)

Below is the Australian news clip: (Email subscribers, go to Med Nauseum to view video.)