Don't Get Scared Into Getting a Flu Shot

February 5, 2013

Every year around this time, health authorities and the media drum up mass hysteria about influenza for the purpose of scaring people into getting flu shots. Without flu shots, we are all repeatedly told, the public has a high risk of serious illness and even death. But as most NaturalNews readers already know, flu shots are ineffective and high-risk themselves. Instead, why not protect your family the natural way with nutrition and lifestyle improvements? Here are six ways to avoid the flu naturally without the need for a flu shot:

1. Vitamin D. The health benefits of vitamin D cannot be overstated, as this important prohormone regulates proper development, growth, and maintenance of the human body. High levels of vitamin D are also crucial for preventing viral infections like influenza, as this nutrient helps boost natural immunity and thwart the onset of disease. If natural sunlight exposure is not an option for getting enough vitamin D, tanning beds and supplementation with natural vitamin D3 are two alternatives.
2. Colloidal silver. An age-old remedy for treating both bacterial and viral conditions, colloidal silver, or water that has basically been infused with microscopic particles of the element silver, is another powerful remedy and prevention protocol for the flu. Silver is known to effectively disable the ability of bacteria to infect and proliferate, and has also been shown to fight viruses. True colloidal silver will contain at least 50 to 80 percent particles, and will not appear clear in the same way that most ionic silver solutions do.
3. Probiotics. A 2009 study published in the journal Postgraduate Medicine back in 2009 found the supplementation with probiotic bacteria, or beneficial bacteria that promote a healthy gut, can help boost naturally immunity and ward off influenza. Researchers uncovered that this "friendly" bacteria naturally increases the body's immune response to influenza, eliminating the need for flu shots or other artificial interventions.
4. Garlic. Because of its unique composition of antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal compounds, garlic is widely recognized as one of the most powerful and widely-available medicinal foods. For protection against the flu, try crushing and eating at least one clove of garlic daily, or take a garlic supplement daily. If flu symptoms are already starting to develop, the Life Extension Foundation (LEF) recommends taking 9,000-18,000 milligrams (mg) of a high-allicin garlic supplement daily, as well as zinc lozenges, vitamin D, and melatonin.
5. Clean, fluoride-free water. This step may sound simple and somewhat obvious, but it is vitally important for maintaining a clean, hydrated, and disease-free body. Drinking at least a gallon of clean, fluoride-free water daily, especially during flu season, will help flush out built-up toxins, improve circulation, and nourish your cells, all actions of which help prevent the formation of disease. When your body is properly hydrated, in other words, it helps create an alkaline environment that is unfavorable to disease, including the flu.
6. Vitamin C. The late Linus Pauling conducted extensive research into the therapeutic value of vitamin C, and particularly ascorbic acid, and found that this important nutrient is vital for maintaining a healthy and vibrant immune system. Vitamin C helps protect the body against reactive oxygen species (ROS), as well as stimulate the production of disease-fighting white blood cells. Supplemental vitamin C can also help increasethe body's natural production of antibodies responsible for targeting flu viruses.

Is Your Digestive System Making You Sick and/or Fat?

THERE MIGHT BE SOMETHING WRONG with your inner tube, and it could be making you sick and fat.

You may not even realize you have a problem … but if you have health concerns of any kind or if you are overweight, your inner tube could be the root cause. Of course, I’m not talking about a beach toy. I mean the inner tube of life – your digestive system!

It is likely that you suffer from (or have suffered from) some type of digestive disorder – irritable bowel syndrome, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, heartburn, reflux, gas, and other things too gross to mention. And you are not alone. More than 100 million Americans have digestive problems.

Two of the top five selling drugs in America are for digestive problems, and they cost us billions and billions of dollars. There are more than 200 OTC (over-the-counter)  remedies for digestive disorders, many of which can create additional digestive problems.

Visits for intestinal disorders are among the most common reasons for trips to primary care physicians.

And that’s not even the worst news.

Most of us (including most doctors) do not recognize or know that digestive problems wreak havoc in the entire body, leading to allergies, arthritis, autoimmune disease, rashes, acne, chronic fatigue, mood disorders, autism, dementia, cancer, and more.

So having a healthy gut means more than simply being free of annoyances like bloating or heartburn! It is absolutely central to your health. It is connected to EVERYTHING that happens in your body. That’s why I almost always start helping people treat chronic health problems by fixing their gut, which is what I want to help you do today.

Today , you will learn how you can find out if you have a problem with your gut (though many of you won’t need me to tell you – your gut will speak for itself!), and I will give you 7 simple steps you can take today to heal your inner tube of life.

Fixing your digestion is the 4th key of the 7 Keys to UltraWellness, or functional medicine, and it is absolutely essential that you heal this critical system in your body if you want to achieve optimum health.

Why is your gut is so important? Let me explain …

How Your Gut Keeps You Healthy Or Makes You Ill
The health of your gut determines what nutrients are absorbed and what toxins, allergens, and microbes are kept out. It is directly linked to the health of your whole body. Intestinal health could be defined as the optimal digestion, absorption, and assimilation of food. But that is a big job that depends on many other factors. Let’s look at a few of them …

First, there are bugs in your gut that form a diverse and interdependent ecosystem like a rainforest. In fact, there are 500 species and 3 pounds of bacteria in your gut which form a HUGE chemical factory that help you digest your food, regulate hormones, excrete toxins, and produce vitamins and other healing compounds that keep your gut and your body healthy.

This ecosystem of friendly bacteria must be in balance for you to be healthy. Too many of the wrong bacteria, like parasites and yeasts, or not enough of the good ones, like Lactobacillus or Bifidobacteria, can seriously damage your health.

So keeping a healthy balance of bugs in your intestines is one factor to good gut health.

It’s important to understand that many diseases that seem to be totally unrelated to the gut – such as eczema,  psoriasis, or arthritis – are actually CAUSED by gut problems.
Second, there is your gut-immune system. Your entire immune system,  and the rest of your body, is protected from the toxic environment in your gut by a lining that is only ONE cell-thick layer. If spread out, this lining would take up a surface area the size of a tennis court, and the entire thing is covered by a sewer!

If that barrier is damaged, you can become allergic to foods you may normally be able to digest perfectly well, you will get sick, your immune system will become overactive, and it will begin producing inflammation throughout your body. Filtering out the good from the bad molecules and protecting your immune system is yet another important factor in gut health.

Third, there is your second brain – your gut’s nervous system. Did you know your gut, actually contains MORE neurotransmitters than your brain? In fact, the gut has a brain of its own. It is called the “enteric nervous system” and it is a very sophisticated piece of your biology that is wired to your brain in intricate ways.

Messages constantly travel back and forth between your gut-brain and your head-brain, and when those messages are interfered with in any way your health will suffer.

Fourth, your gut also has to get rid of all the toxins produced as byproducts of your metabolism, which your liver dumps into bile. If things get backed up when you are constipated, you will become toxic and your health will suffer.

And last but not least, your gut must break down all the food you eat into its individual components, separate out the vitamins and minerals, and shuttle everything across the one cell-thick layer mentioned above so it can get into your bloodstream and nourish your body and brain.

Your gut has quite a lot to manage. Even in a perfect world it is hard to keep all of this in balance. But in our modern world there are endless insults that can knock our digestive systems off balance making it much more difficult to maintain excellent digestive health.

How To Know If Your Gut Is Out Of Balance
To fix your digestion, you first need to understand what is sending your gut out of balance in the first place. The list is short:

• Our low-fiber, high-sugar, processed, nutrient-poor, high-calorie diet, which causes all the wrong bacteria and yeast to grow in our gut, damages the delicate ecosystem in your intestines.
• Overuse of medications that damage the gut or block normal digestive function – like acid blockers (Prilosec, Nexium, etc.), anti-inflammatory medication (aspirin, Advil, and Aleve), and overuse of antibiotics, steroids, and hormones.
• Undetected gluten intolerance, celiac disease, or low grade food allergies to foods such as dairy, eggs, or corn.
• Chronic low-grade infections or gut imbalances with overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine, yeast overgrowth, parasites, or even more serious gut infections.
• Toxins like mercury and mold toxins, which damage the gut.
• Lack of adequate digestive enzyme function, which can come from acid-blocking medication use, or zinc deficiency.
• Stress, which can alter the gut nervous system, cause a leaky gut, and change the normal bacteria in the gut.

What happens then is obvious. You get sick.

But what’s important to understand is that many diseases that seem to be totally unrelated to the gut – such as eczema, psoriasis, or arthritis – are actually CAUSED by gut problems. By focusing on the gut, you can get better. Here is an example …

Can Eczema Start In The Gut?
Allison, one of my patients who suffered from eczema , a weepy, red, oozing, scaly, itchy rash,  all over her body, is a perfect example of what can happen when your gut is out of balance and the extraordinary level of healing that can occur when you fix your digestion.

This woman, who saw doctor after doctor, put salves, lotions, and potions on her skin, and took steroids and antibiotics. But none of these doctors ever addressed the underlying cause of her problem.

Allison was 57 years old and had been suffering from severe, unrelenting eczema for eight years. She ate a high-sugar diet and had a history of frequent vaginal yeast infections.

When I saw her, I checked her gut and found she had a leaky gut – that one-cell thick lining in her intestines was breached and wasn’t working properly. She had developed 24 IgG food allergies, and her stool had no healthy bacteria and an overgrowth of yeast from years of taking antibiotics. She also had very high blood levels of antibodies against yeast.

So I helped her heal her gut. I asked her to stop eating the foods she reacted to, told her to stop feeding the yeast in her gastrointestinal tract by cutting out sugar and refined carbohydrates (which they thrive on), and killed the yeast in her gut with antifungal medications and herbs. Then I helped her rebuild her ecosystem of healthy bacteria with probiotics and provided here with healing gut nutrients that allowed her intestinal lining to resume its normal function.

The result?

Her eczema disappeared for the first time in eight years – and it stayed away!

You can experience the same thing Allison did. You may be able to heal from many of your chronic symptoms simply by fixing your digestion.

7 Steps To Optimal Digestive Health
To heal your inner tube of life you simply need to:

1. Eat whole unprocessed foods. Make sure to include plenty of fiber from foods like vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, and whole grains.
2. Eliminate food allergies. If you think you have food sensitivities, try an elimination diet. Cut out gluten, dairy, yeast, corn, soy, and eggs for a week or two and see how your gut feels and what happens to your other symptoms.
3. Treat any infections or overgrowth of bugs. Parasites, small bowel bacteria, and yeasts can all inhibit proper gut function. You must treat these infections if you want to heal.
4. Replenish your digestive enzymes. When you don’t have enough digestive enzymes in your gut, you can’t properly convert the foods you eat into the raw materials necessary to run your body and brain. Take broad-spectrum digestive enzymes with your food to solve the problem.
5. Rebuild your rain forest of friendly bacteria. Take probiotic supplements. They will help rebuild the healthy bacteria so essential to good gut health.
6. Get good fat. Take extra omega-3 supplements, which help cool inflammation in the gut.
7. Heal your gut lining. Use gut-healing nutrients such as glutamine and zinc to repair the lining in your gut so it can resume its normal function.

Fixing your digestion may take some time, but it can be done. And it is absolutely essential if you want to achieve vibrant health. So work on your inner tube of life using the steps above and watch as your symptoms (and those extra pounds) disappear.

Now I’d like to hear from you …

Did you realize how important your gut is to your overall health?

What steps have you taken to fix your digestion? How have they worked?

Why do you think the pharmaceutical industry develops and actively advertises drugs that are known to inhibit proper gut function and thus compromise health?

A Method to Find Balance

Despite the insipid title of this post, work-life balance is a bit of a myth.

Sure, we work too much, don’t have time for all the other things we want to do, are always tired, eat convenience food or comfort food rather than nutritious or nourishing food, never have time for solitude … but that’s the life we want, right?

OK, maybe it needs a bit of readjusting. Work and life and learning and relationships and health are all really the same thing, and so “balance” is perhaps the wrong word, but adjusting our lives to our aspired priorities is not a bad thing.

A friend recently asked me how I balance my personal lives and all my projects, and it made me pause and think. And that pause, and the thinking, is really the key to it all, I discovered.

So here’s the method I use.

• Pause regularly. In our lives, we are so busy and caught up in what we’re doing that we have no space for thinking. I build regular pauses into my life, so that I have some space for thought. What kind of pauses? I use morning meditation, drinking coffee in the morning with my notebook, my morning shower, a walk alone, tea or a run or other meeting with my wife or a friend, as space for thinking about my life. Pause regularly to create space.
• Zoom out. When you take a pause, zoom out from the close-up view, so you can look at the big picture. What are you doing with your life? What kind of person do you want to be? Are you making decisions in the aggregate? What are your priorities? And are you living those priorities? You don’t need to think about all of these things during each pause, but use the pauses for this kind of thinking.
• Readjust. When you notice that you’ve been spending too much time on the computer, and too little with your kids or other loved ones, make a note of it. When you notice that some important projects are being neglected, or you don’t have time for exercise, or your diet has gone to hell and settled in there, make a note. Think about what adjustments you can make.
• Now actually block off time. Making a note and mental adjustment is great, but it’s meaningless without action. What kind of action can you take to adjust how you actually spend your time? Make a commitment, on your calendar. Not one that you’ll skip when the time comes and you’re browsing your favorite sites. A commitment you’ll keep. For example, if you want to work out more, make a regular date with a friend to go for a run or do a bodyweight workout in the park or go to yoga class or go to the gym you signed up for 11 months ago and never use. Make a regular date. If you want to work on a project, make an appointment to go to a tea house or library for 3-4 hours just to work on that project. Or commit to a whole week of working on your novel. Tell somebody about it, and better yet commit to getting them the work by the end of the week (or whatever period you choose). Make the time, solidly.

That’s the method. Four steps, done regularly.

Life is a constant readjustment. It’s whether you readjust consciously that makes all the difference.

Health Benefits of Colon Cleansing!

According to Wikipedia, “colon cleansing encompasses a number of alternative medical therapies intended to remove feces and nonspecific toxins from the colon and intestinal tract.”  True enough. The site goes on to state that “no scientific evidence supports the alleged benefits of colon cleansing.” Again, there is little to be argued there. Since the 1919 publication of the paper “Origin of the So-Called Auto-Intoxication Symptom” in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the medical community has done little to address this therapy beyond blanket dismissal.

Interestingly, despite the quackery label dispensed by the AMA, the practice of colon cleansing has survived and, in the past 20 years, begun to thrive as both a therapeutic modality employed by health professionals and an over-the-counter preparation for self-management. One would have to surmise that there must be some benefit to this practice or it would not still be around. The medical response to health claims made is usually to label all evidence as anecdotal. There is nothing wrong with that. As one research scientist said, “the plural of anecdote is data.” Despite the disdain of the scientific community, the preponderance of positive response has tipped colon cleansing from fringe therapy into the category of big business.

And it makes sense. The American diet is replete with chemicals, toxins and artificial ingredients that may well create a greater toxic load than the digestive, detoxifying and excretory systems can naturally handle. People are looking for an answer and many have chosen this treatment. In my experience, both personal and with many dozens of patients, periodic colon cleansing has had predictable and demonstrable beneficial effects for general health and well-being. The following are the most common benefits I have seen:

• Weight loss – This is probably the most common reason for people to use a cleanse. Users report losing up to 20 pounds in a month. Theories for this range from the removal of congested waste products and fecal matter to the release of fluids that build up in the tissues and colon to dilute accumulated toxins.
• Improved bowel function and regularity – Restoring normal bowel motility relieves constipation and minimizes the potential for the absorption of un-eliminated toxins back into the bloodstream. By preventing constipation, associated conditions like hemorrhoids can be relieved.
• Increased energy – After a detox program, my patients report a significant increase in energy and perceived well-being. This may be due in part to the improved sleep that is reported as well as the elimination of toxins.
• Better sleep – In my experience, the days and weeks following a colon cleanse are marked by a better quality sleep. This may be due to less abdominal discomfort and gas, and/or reduced sleep interruption for nighttime bathroom visits. My patients often report this very same response.
• Clear skin – Whether due to improved sleep, reduced toxins in the blood, adequate hydration resulting from intestinal balance or a combination of these changes and others, clear skin is a commonly reported benefit of colon cleansing.

Despite the lack of hard scientific research regarding colon cleansing, this therapy has been around long enough now to merit consideration as a regular tool in any health regimen. It is important to use a well-designed, high quality formulation such as Colon Cleanser to achieve the best results. When recommending colon cleansing to my patients I advise the following method:

Use Colon Cleanser at the end of each season (four times a year for maximum benefit). The environmental, physiological and dietary stressors that come with seasonal changes make this an important time to strengthen the immune system by removing accumulated toxins and waste.
Use Liver Support & Detox in conjunction with the colon cleanser to maximize the detoxifying effect.
Upon finishing the detox period, use a high quality probiotic blend such as Super Probiotics to re-populate the colon with beneficial organisms. This is a key step in restoring normal bowel motility, digestion and overall strength of the immune system.
Avoid caffeine, gluten, sugar and alcohol during the cleansing period for optimal results.

Breast Cancer Risk & Abortion

A new study has emerged from China showing a strong link between abortion and breast cancer, and that a woman’s breast cancer risk appears to rise with each abortion she has.
The research was conducted by Yubei Huang et al. from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Tianjin Medical University Cancer Hospital and published in Cancer Causes and Control, a peer-reviewed international cancer journal.
Chinese women have had lower rates of breast cancer compared to women from western countries such as the US, but according to the researchers, breast cancer in China has increased at an “alarming rate” over the past two decades, corresponding with the rise of the Chinese Communist Party’s one-child policy.
This policy is strictly enforced, and pregnant women who already have a child are often forced to abort. As a result, over 336 million babies have been aborted in China since the 1980s.
The researchers reached their conclusions after examining 36 articles (two cohort studies and 34 case-control studies) that investigated the associations between abortion and breast cancer.
Their findings were substantial. The overall risk of developing breast cancer in women who’ve had an abortion was 44% higher than women who have not had an abortion.
They also found that the risk of breast cancer increased as the number of abortions increased.
Two abortions increased a woman’s cancer risk by 76%, three by 89%.
“In summary, the most important implication of this study is that induced abortion (IA) was significantly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among Chinese females, and the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases,” concluded the researchers.
The researchers called their findings “consistent” with those of Dr. Joel Brind, who found in a 1996 meta-analysis that women had a 30% greater chance of developing breast cancer after aborting their child.
Dr. Brind, professor of endocrinology at Baruch College, City University of New York and a director at the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, called these findings a “real game changer” for the Abortion Breast Cancer (ABC) link.
The Chinese study falls in line with two similar studies published earlier this year.
In May, an Indian study found a 6-fold (600%) greater risk of breast cancer for Indian women who have had an induced abortion.
Another study from Bangladesh found that women with a history of induced abortion had a 20-fold (2,000%) increase in likelihood of developing breast cancer when compared to women who have not.
In a report last month, Dr. Brind called these findings “of the sort of magnitude that has typified the link between cigarettes and lung cancer.”
Apparently the connection between abortions and breast cancer has to do with hormones and stem cells.
According to Dr. Jane Orient, estrogen increases by 2,000% by the end of the first trimester, which can increase a woman’s vulnerability for estrogen-fueled cancers. But by the end of pregnancy, 85% of breast-cancer tissue becomes cancer-resistant due to hormones made by the fetal-placenta presence. (WND)
In a 2013 paper published in Cell Stem Cell, researchers found that a full-term pregnancy in a young woman (early 20′s) significantly reduces the number of mammary gland progenitors in her breasts. These are stem cells that have the ability to divide into milk-producing cells, but can also mutate to form rapidly dividing cancer cells.
The stem cell researchers also found that high risk women, like those with the BRCA gene, also have higher-than-average numbers of mammary gland progenitors. But women who carried a child to full term had the lowest populations of mammary gland progenitors, even lower than cancer-free women who had never been pregnant. (Harvard)
A full-term pregnancy protects against breast cancer, but the protection is lost with abortion,
and these women become more vulnerable to breast cancer.
If abortions are causing breast cancers, as these studies indicate, then there should at least be a correlation between the legalization of abortion and an increase in breast cancer rates.
Roe vs Wade legalized abortion in 1973 and over the next three decades, the rate of metastatic breast cancer in American women ages 25-39 nearly doubled, from 1.53 per 100k in 1976, to 2.9 per 100k in 2009. Clearly this is not the only cause of increased breast cancer rates, but it may be a significant factor.
In 2003, a National Cancer Institute study concluded that abortion was not a cause for breast cancer. Since that conclusion, there have been 13 statistically significant studies linking abortion to breast cancer. And as of the writing of this post (December 2013), there have been 73 studies since 1957 evaluating whether or not there is an increased risk of breast cancer for women who have had an abortion.  57 of these studies found a positive correlation, 34 of them were statistically significant.
One more thing I learned while researching for this post…
In 2005, the World Health Organization classified oral contraceptives (the pill) as
Class-1 carcinogens, one of only about 100 substances found to directly cause cancer in humans.
A 2009 study found that women under 45 had a 250-420% increased risk of triple negative breast cancer depending on their length of oral contraceptive use.
Ladies please consider these things carefully.

Sitting can Cause Cancer?

Written by Jon Barron on October 12th, 2009

If the Andrews Sisters had read the latest health news back in 1941 when they sang, "Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me," they might have changed the lyrics to, "Don't sit under the apple tree at all. Climb up that tree and pick those apples yourself."  That's because new studies show that sitting for prolonged periods significantly raises your risk of cancer. We already knew that sitting contributed to diabetes and heart disease, but cancer? Yes, cancer! And even more, that risk exists whether or not you exercise regularly, although short exercise breaks during the day can reduce the risk. To stay healthy, you need to do your exercise, but also, refrain from excess non-stop sitting.

According to research presented at the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), up to 173,000 new cases of cancer could be prevented annually in the US if people sat less.1 The two types of cancer that seem to be the most influenced by sitting too much include breast cancer, with 49,000 cases annually directly attributed to long periods of sitting, and colon cancer, with 43,000 cases. Scientists also found that less sitting might prevent 37,200 cases of lung cancer, 30,600 cases of prostate cancer, 12,000 cases of endometrial cancer and 1,800 cases of ovarian cancer. And this is a conservative estimate, says Christine Friedenreich of Alberta Health Services in Calgary, Canada, who conducted research on the link between cancer and sedentary lifestyles.

"Sitting time is emerging as a strong candidate for being a cancer risk factor in its own right," says Dr. Neville Owen of Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Australia.2 Dr. Owen conducted a study that found that the average American sits for 15.5 hours daily. That's an astonishing figure, when you consider that sleep takes up an additional seven or eight hours for most of us. The most sedentary age groups include teens and adults over the age of 60. As Dr. Owen says, "The amount of time we spend standing up and walking "makes up such a tiny sliver of a person's waking hours." And while exercise certainly does reduce cancer risk, the researchers point out that even those who do the requisite daily 30-minute workout typically spend only three percent of their day in physical activity. It's just not enough to do your daily exercise routine and then collapse into your chair for the rest of the day.

Earlier research turned up similar results. A recent Australian study published a few months ago found that people who spent more than 10 years in sedentary occupations doubled their risk of colon cancer and had a 44 percent increased risk of rectal cancer.3 Last year, Alma Patel of the American Cancer Society led a study of 123,000 individuals and found that mortality risk rose in proportion to the amount of time people spent in their seats, no matter how much exercise those people engaged in.4  She also found that the death-by-sitting syndrome affects women far more than it does men. While women who sat more than six hours per day had a 37 percent higher mortality rate than those who sat under three hours a day, men in the over-six-hour category only had an 18 percent increased risk.

The fact that exercise doesn't cancel out the effects of sitting doesn't mean that it does no good. Patel also looked at the combined effect of extended sitting plus not exercising. She found that female subjects who sat a lot and didn't do much exercise had an astounding 94 percent greater risk of dying early compared to the most active women. Sedentary men who eschewed exercise plus sat for long periods had a 48 percent boost in mortality risk.

Patel also found that sitting triggers diseases other than cancer, and that, in fact, more sedentary people die from cardiovascular disease as a result of sitting than die of cancer.5 She warns that as little as an hour of sitting can undermine health and notes, "Even among individuals who were regularly active, the risk of dying prematurely was higher among those who spent more time sitting… you have to get up and take breaks from sitting"

And that's the key to survival for those of us glued to our seats. Apparently, a mere one- or two-minute break from sitting each hour can make a big difference in health. In Dr. Owen's work, he found that moving for a minute or two leads to smaller waistlines, less insulin resistance, and lower levels of inflammation -- all risk factors for cancer. Apparently, it only takes a few minutes of activity to break up prolonged periods of sitting to decrease levels of cancer-causing compounds in the body such as C-reactive protein, which is associated with inflammation leading to breast cancer, as well as glucose and fat molecules in the blood. "At the basic-science level, Dr. Owen says, "it appears that there are unique physiological processes and pathways associated with sedentary behavior, particularly prolonged sitting."

Jon Barron has said before that the 30 minutes of exercise every day recommended by the experts won't suffice for weight maintenance or fitness. Now it's clear that even an hour of working out falls short of what we need. It's essential to move throughout the day. If you're in a sit-down job, you need to do what Beyonce suggests and "Just Stand Up." By the way, back in the 19th century, people didn't necessarily sit to do office work. In fact,  desks specifically made for standing were de rigueur, and so luminaries like Lewis Carroll, Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Jefferson, George Sand and Virginia Woolf all did their writing standing up.6 Seems like it might be time for doctors to start prescribing this old fashioned practice to prevent later prescriptions for chemotherapy or heart medications. And yes, for you non-traditionalists, there are stand-up executive desks with built-in computer workstations.7

- See more at: http://www.jonbarron.org/article/sitting-causes-cancer-even-if-you-exercise?utm_source=iContact&utm_campaign=Daily+Alerts&utm_content=bufferfb76d&utm_medium=facebook#sthash.86TaXoqD.dpuf

Colonics - Why You Need Them!

October 13th, 2012 by Tonya Zavasta

Every household needs a really deep spring cleaning, wouldn’t you say? That same thorough clean-out is the idea behind colon hydrotherapy—a very helpful tool for removing old, accumulated waste and toxins that have been piling up and decaying inside of you for years, resulting in restored colon health and cleanliness, and better overall health.

Colonics—the what and why
Colonics, also known as colon hydrotherapy or colon irrigations, are administered by a trained professional in a clean and private setting. According to the website of the International Association for Colon Hydrotherapy:

Colon hydrotherapy is a safe, effective method of removing waste from the large intestine, without the use of drugs. By introducing filtered and temperature-regulated water into the colon, the waste is softened and loosened, resulting in evacuation through natural peristalsis. This process is repeated a few times during a session.

Through irrigation of the large intestine, and abdominal massage, a mass of accumulated waste matter—waste the body wouldn’t otherwise shed on its own—gets released. See: http://marlenatorres.com/2012/02/the-controversial-topic-of-colon-hydrotherapy/

This practice of colonic irrigation has been used for thousands of years, all the way back to the Egyptians. Mentions in papyrus documents date back to the 14th century BCE.  The 3rd century Essene Gospel, familiar to many raw foodists, makes mention of colon cleansing.

Colonics figured in treatment of everything from headaches to gastrointestinal disease in the early 1900s, per Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, who reportedly used colonics with success on over 40,000 of his patients. In the 1920s and 30s the mainstream medical community denounced colon hydrotherapy and it began to disappear from the public health scene. But recently, colonics have gained in popularity as people begin again to take their health into their own hands.

Are colonics for you?
If your entry into raw foods has brought you constipation, bloating and gas, it could be that this new, vibrant, cleansing food is hitting old waste, clogged in your system. If you are having skin breakouts, headaches and aching joints, mouth sores, and other detox symptoms, this is another sign that the toxins are not being removed efficiently, and a colonic may be just the thing to speed your cleansing along. Many people report their health improving by leaps and bounds after a few colon hydrotherapy sessions, as the colon is able to absorb nutrients better with the blockages removed.

The “natural” controversy
Still, some object. The usual grounds: that colonics “aren’t natural.” That they’re “dangerous,” even “habit-forming.” Some health enthusiasts, most notably Natural Hygienists, claim that one can cleanse the body at large and the colon in particular quite without “unnatural” colonics and enemas.

How we look at what’s “natural” and not varies, in their truth, with time, place, history, and culture. Followers of the Natural Hygienist movement claim juicing “isn’t natural.” And, in a way, it isn’t: You need a blender for juicing. Nor is eating raw plant foods natural”—not if you’re Inuit, and living in the high arctic. Nor was either an all-plant or all-meat diet “natural” for early humans: In their environments, they were necessarily omnivores.

One thing’s for sure: That the “normal” North American diet—food that comes from cans, frozen cardboard boxes, the cold cuts section, the bread aisle, and a couple of weekly visits to the golden arches has never been a candidate for a “natural” way to eat. If colonics can help some of us transition to a cleaner, straighter, faster road to real health, then…onward!

I don’t quite get the worry that colonics are “addictive.” Certainly not the way booze, cigarettes, drugs, and bad TV are addictive. Colonics actually help to increase and strengthen normal peristalsis, which also helps heal a crippled digestive tract.

I received many colonics during my transition to raw foods and, later, my Quantum Eating program. For me, they were a very effective tool for detoxifying, but now I find that I no longer need them. My digestion and elimination have stabilized, and work ideally well nearly all the time. The last time I went in for a colonic, essentially nothing came out. The therapist was astonished and remarked that in over thirteen years of performing colonics, she had only seen one person with a colon as clean as mine. Who was it? A nun who lived in a convent and ate, she said, only fruits and vegetables. Raw foods and Quantum Eating work! So don’t fear that if you do decide to embark on several colon hydrotherapy sessions in order to facilitate cleansing, you’ll need them the rest of your life. Most likely you won’t.

Not your basic home remedy
Colon hydrotherapy is not something you do at home, unlike your typical home enema. Neither are colonics exotic, difficult or dangerous, when performed by a trained hydrotherapist. Healing institutes all over the world supervise this practice daily. As a matter of fact, colonics are considered a completely normal part of health care in some countries.

Don’t colonics wash away beneficial bacteria?
Some worry that colon cleansing washes away beneficial bacteria essential to the health and functioning of the colon. The fact is true, but the worry isn’t necessary. Those beneficial organisms can easily be replenished. A good hydrotherapist can give implants after each colonic, and you can easily consume good probiotic-rich food on a raw foods diet. A clean, healthy colon can much more easily regulate its own internal environment.

The money part
Another argument against colonics is that they are relatively expensive, and not everyone can afford them. True again. But if you believe in them, you will see this as an investment in your health, not an expense.

Everyone must make up his or her own mind when it comes to including colonics in their raw foods lifestyle. Visit the website i-act.org for more information or to find a qualified professional near you. He or she will be happy to answer all of your questions in depth and recommend the best route for you to take.

Your own everyday cleansing mechanism
The raw food diet is its own everyday cleansing tool. Raw foods themselves are cleansers. Add in a program of juicing and fasting, and you have an even deeper clean and have already largely eliminated the influx of toxic junk that infests “normal” eaters. For many new raw foodists, colon hydrotherapy can make this cleansing process go quicker and smoother with fewer detox symptoms.

Exercise and Rebounding to Drain Your Lymph Fluids!

It’s common knowledge that a sedentary lifestyle usually encourages poor health. Even if one is not stuffing his or her face with junk food and watching TV for hours, a desk job is just as sedentary. A lack of exercise is detrimental to pulmonary and muscular health for several reasons; one important reason is to work your lymph system – it is the sewage system for cellular metabolic toxins.

Lymph nodes provide antigens for purifying fluids containing anything from allergens to cancer cells. That fluid is called lymph. There is more lymph in your body than blood, but there is no pump for lymph.

If lymph fluids don’t move out of small lymph nodes through their ducts into the kidneys and liver, it backs up like a clogged sewer line. Lymph nodes can become infected and you wind up with the misnomer of “swollen glands.” Actually, lymph nodes are not glands, but the accumulation of contaminated lymph fluids leads to all sorts of health complications. Some can be quite serious.

Moving lymph fluids is especially important for women who wear bras and/or use underarm deodorants containing toxins such as aluminum. Those toxins leech into abundant lymph node areas nearby and just beneath the skin.

Anyone who eats and drinks processed food and sodas or alcohol while leading a sedentary lifestyle is stuck with a compromised immune system from lymph that needs to be drained.

Tips for Moving Your Lymph Fluid
Rebounding or bouncing works very well for moving lymph. A mini-trampoline bouncer can be purchased for around 50 US dollars, more or less. It is like a mini-trampoline, around four feet in diameter. It’s close to the ground, so all you do is step up and bounce up and down for 10 to 15 minutes, indoors or outdoors.

You don’t even have to leap high enough to clear the spring-bound mat, and you can hold onto something nearby to stabilize yourself if there are balancing issues.

Each time you bounce you increase the gravitational pull on your lymph. You’re getting low level “Gs”or increased gravitational pulls similar to what you feel from sudden changes of vehicular speed or crazy motion carnival rides. With intense walking or even gentle rebounding, the “G’s” are in vertical alignment with your body and its lymph system.

If you enjoy the more difficult task of jumping rope exercises or more strenuous activity such as “jumping jacks”, then don’t hesitate to go that route. Any athletic activity that requires jumping and/or running is great for moving lymph.

Rebounding is for those of us who are desk bound to computers and don’t have the time or wherewithal for those more athletic endeavors. Just park the mini-trampoline bouncer nearby and take a rebounding break now and then.

Surprisingly, in this era of hyper-exercising, many health experts are realizing the merits of walking to move lymph around. Not leisurely strolling, but brisk walking.

Walking should be done outdoors in as natural a setting as possible with trees, grass, and open fresh air – the Japanese call this forest bathing.

The walk should take 20 minutes or more, around 4 times each week. Start out as briskly as you can, then move into power walking if possible. Since there are so many lymph nodes in the upper body, armpits, neck and shoulders, arm movement should be more extreme than usual.

Walking is a weight bearing activity. Gravity helps move lymph each time one steps briskly with a slight bound to the ground. The sudden stops of each step with your full weight create additional gravitational pulls, which helps pull the lymph downward.

Yes, massage helps too, but daily massages are not as accessible or inexpensive as rebounding and walking.

Lastly, don’t forget to hydrate with purified water often to help the liver and kidneys eliminate those toxic lymph fluids from your body.

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/health-boosting-tip-drain-lymph-fluids-rebounding/#ixzz2nh53FCuO

4 Factors of a Healthy Poop

Written by Steve Wright on Novemnber 27th, 2013

It’s time to talk about poop in our society. Continuing to ignore this elephant is the easiest way to turn a small health problem into a full-blown health crisis.
The quantified self movement is starting to gain main-stream status. The use of fitbits, fuel bands and jaw bands is exploding, which clearly indicates that we love tracking our health. We want to be certain that all the energy, money and time we spend staying healthy is really paying off, right? Let’s put all of the technology aside for a moment and back up. There’s one simple tool that most people are ignoring today that can easily help you tell whether or not you are healthy. Yup, you guessed it! Poop.

If you aren’t having optimal poops, it means that one or more problems are present somewhere in your body.

The Digestive System Controls Your Health

Over 2,000 years ago, Hipporates said, “All disease begins in the gut,” and yet research has only really exploded on the gut and its relation to human health in the last 10 years.

Recent scientific breakthroughs are showing that your gut flora has the ability to communicate directly to your brain, thus affecting your moods, feeding your immune system information on how to act, and helping to control inflammation (1) (2) (3).

We also now know that healthy people have good production of short-chain fatty acids(SCFAs) in the colon. Some of these SCFAs, like butyrates, have anti-inflammatory effects, increase insulin sensitivity, and may help those with digestive disease (4).

Many people I talk with understand the importance of buying the best non-GMO, organic and locally sourced produce. But what they are ignoring is that simply eating high quality food isn’t enough. The body has to be able to break it down and then absorb the nutrients. And the most reliable indicator of your body’s ability to digest and absorb high quality food is your poop.

If you’re poop isn’t healthy, it means your digestion is too slow or too fast. Which means those foods aren’t being absorbed and you’ll be at risk of developing many types of chronic health conditions, including neurological diseases, autoimmune diseases and chronic inflammatory conditions.

Tracking the health of your poop on a daily basis is a great way to find out if your body is truly healthy.

4 Signs Your Poop is Healthy
Perfect digestion creates perfect poops. You probably know the feeling; it leaves an unmistakable grin on your face as you close the bathroom door. It’s important to know exactly what an ideal poop is so you can see how you stack up.

1: The Poop Should Look Like This
The quality of your poop is the most important factor in gauging your digestive health. We have countless ways of describing our poop to one another. Until we begin using the same scale, it’s almost like we’re trying to talk about snowflakes. So if you haven’t heard of this nifty poop scale I want to Introduce the Bristol Stool Chart.

Bristol Stool Chart

As you can see, this chart makes it very easy for us to rate our poop, which then allows us to communicate with one other (most importantly medical practitioners). Looking at the picture above, anything from a 1 to a 3 on the chart is on the constipated side, while 6’s and 7’s are on the loose stool/diarrhea side of digestion.

The perfect number to shoot for is a 4, but 5′s are also very good.

2: You Should Poop Everyday
You wouldn’t appreciate it if the garbage man threw 90% of the trash back at your house while only taking 10% with him each week would you? The same can be said with your body. Poop is waste and it has to go. Getting rid of it at least once a day is a minimum. Having a bowel movement as often as every meal is, according to some experts, even better.

A general rule to remember is going one to three times a day is normal and healthy, while every other day or a few times a week isn’t good at all. This is constipation and will increase the toxin load within the body and can lead to increased risk of disease and physical problems such as hemorrhoids.

3: Pooping Should Be Fast, Fun and Easy
Do you get a smug smile on your face after a sweet number two? If so, it’s likely because the work you did was fast, easy and now you can’t hide your pride. Which is great because it shouldn’t feel like a workout in the bathroom (no sweating)! Pooping shouldn’t be thought of as a daily break either. The goal is to get in and out. Longer than 10 minutes is defiantly a problem.

A perfect poop is easy in every way possible. You get the urge, make your way to the bathroom, sit down and in a flash it’s over. There should be no pain, no pushing, no blood, no sweating and no wiping forever (nobody likes the poop of a thousand wipes).

If your experience in the bathroom isn’t fast and easy, then there is something wrong with your gut.

4: No Poop Left Behind
Don’t you hate it when your boss makes you re-do a project? No one likes to have to re-do a job they’ve already attempted and the same is true when it comes to pooping. A perfect poop is one that is complete. In other words, you feel like you got it all out.

There should be no need to return to the bathroom within a few minutes. The job should be completed properly the first time, otherwise you’re having an evacuation problem.

So the big question is: are you having perfect poops? Because if you’re not… it could be a sign of something bigger going on with your health.

Post Pig Out Diet Plan

November 28th, 2013 by Julie

If you’re feeling bloated and like you have a food  feel bloated and feel like you have a food  “hangover,” here’s our three-day, post pig-out diet plan.  It’s kind of a like a dietitian-approved way to “detox” and help compensate for those Thanksgiving Day calories.

This meal plan  provides 1,600 calories a day. In three days, you should feel better and be back on track.

The healthy principles we follow to help you “detox” from all the alcohol and extra calories from Thanksgiving Day.  The plan includes:

• Plenty of calorie-poor, nutrient-rich, antioxidant-packed fruits and veggies;
• Lean proteins to help you stay satisfied without feeling stuffed;
• No added sugars to help keep hunger and cravings in check.
• Drink at least half your body weight in fluid ounces of water to keep your metabolism up.
• Spend at least 30 minutes (ideally an hour) each day getting some type of physical activity.

Day 1
Breakfast
Veggie Omelet
1 egg and 2 whites with ¼ cup baby or chopped spinach and ¼ cup bell pepper
prepared with 1 tsp olive oil or cooking spray
1 light whole wheat English muffin with 2 tsp light butter

Snack
1 Apple with 2 Tbsp cashews

Lunch
Veggie Burrito Bowl
1 veggie burger with ⅓ cup brown rice, ½ cup black beans topped with ¼ cup salsa and 1 oz shredded low-fat cheddar cheese

Snack
1 oz low-fat mozzarella topped with fresh, chopped tomatoes and drizzle with balsamic vinegar with fresh basil

Dinner
4 oz grilled chicken with roasted veggies made with 1 tsp olive oil,
½ cup barley mixed with ½ cup sweet potato chunks
1 piece fresh fruit or ½ cup chopped mixed fruit

Day 2
Breakfast
1 cup plain oatmeal with  6 ounces plain low-fat Greek yogurt, 1 cup blueberries and 6 almonds, chopped

Snack
2 whole wheat crackers spread with 2 Tbsp nut butter

Lunch
Lentil Salad
2 cups spinach with ½ cup lentils, 1 hard-boiled egg, sliced, grape tomatoes, sliced, ½ cup cucumbers, sliced drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar served with 1 small whole wheat pita 

Snack
6 oz plain, Greek yogurt with  1 small banana

Dinner
3 oz broiled salmon with cooked broccoli,
½ cup quinoa with ¼ avocado, sliced

Day 3
Breakfast
Avocado Melt
1 light whole wheat English muffin, toasted with ¼ avocado and 1 slice Canadian bacon and 1 slice low-fat cheese

Snack
6 oz plain low-fat Greek yogurt with ½ cup raspberries and 6 almonds, chopped

Lunch
Veggie-Bean Soup
1 ½ cups Bean and Vegetable Soup
½ cup cooked squash or medium potato with 1 tsp olive oil or butter

Snack
4 melba toasts
1 cup grapes

Dinner
Citrus Salad
3 1/2 oz grilled chicken breast with Romaine lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, alfalfa sprouts, ½ cup orange slices drizzled with 1 Tbsp lemon herb vinaigrette

Curcumin Causes Colon Cells to Bust!

Sunday, November 24, 2013 by: L.J. Devon

The second leading cause of cancer-related death in America, colon cancer, is projected to take over 50,000 lives in 2013, just in the US. The steep death toll can be prevented, however, because the causes of colon cancer are preventable and are no coincidence. Cancer of the colon is based on risk factors acquired through lifestyle decisions.

These risk factors do not include stereotypical medical excuses like family genetics and being over 50 years old.

Stereotypical colon cancer risk factors debunked

People of the same family may harbor similar genes, but more importantly, they may pass on the same mindsets. Similar negative gene expression may actually come from families who tend to practice and teach the same philosophies about thinking, eating and medicating.

In fact, gene expression can be completely altered and changed in the face of cancer when a new mindset and eating approach is undertaken. (Certain substances like turmeric can alter proteins in colon cancer cells.)

Age is no risk factor for cancer either. Just because a person is over age 50, doesn't mean they need a colonoscopy from a medical doctor. One can be completely confident that they are not harboring cancer by knowing their nutrition levels and understanding their body's signs and the condition of their stool.

If there's one assurance that trumps all, it's the understanding that natural substances like turmeric have the greatest impact on killing cancer cells in the colon. Turmeric, and its active ingredient, curcumin, has been tested for its ability to destroy colon cancer cells at the Department of Surgery, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

The results, were astounding.

Curcumin obliterates colon cancer cells
In the study, researchers looked at three kinds of colon cancer cells, p53(+/+), p53(-/-) HCT-116, and p53 HT-29.

Cancer cell death was observed through curcumin's ability to reduce pro-caspase-3 levels, polymerase-1 cleavage and chromatin condensation. In a time- and dosage-dependent manner, curcumin caused wild-type p53 HCT-116 cells to self-destruct, while obliterating mutant p53 HT-29 cells in their tracks.

The researchers were so astounded that they proposed that curcumin may actually have therapeutic potential in the management of colon cancer. With its ability to inhibit the growth of neoplastic cells, curcumin is king against colon cancer. In the presence of curcumin, colon cancer cells went through a process of phosphorylation, which is a complete altering of the function and activity of certain protein enzymes. This was all for the better, as oxidative stress was alleviated and superoxide anion production was increased.

Affordable curcumin cancer treatments could save over 50,000 lives without the devastating side effects

Health care is not expensive after all, and no one has to lose their hair to overcome cancer. The medical system and the insurance companies may only cover and recommend chemotherapy drugs and radiation treatment, but that way of thinking is not working. Look at all the dying people. It's not working. (A government health insurance mandate won't make the broken health care system work either.)

Instead, cancer treatment can be as simple as consuming daily doses of turmeric. Who said you needed to poison the immune system with radiation and chemotherapy just to kill some cancer in the colon?

Medical doctors in America typically graduate and are accredited simply by following one way of thinking. This means they probably have no clue about the evidence of turmeric killing cancer. Maybe they are restricted from recommending a cheaper, natural therapy that actually works. Maybe turmeric doesn't pay off their student loans and high salaries. Regardless, turmeric itself can travel in the body, alkalize it and kill cancer cells in their tracks.

An alkaline state of body should be first priority
Furthermore, the importance of starving cancer cells by creating an alkaline state in the body is disregarded by mainstream medical doctors. An alkaline state makes bacteria, virus, cancer and fungus growth practically impossible. Alkalizing the body, which is rooted in a holistic lifestyle eating approach, should be the first step in any cancer treatment.

How might patients get to an alkaline state?
First, the hospital wouldn't feed the patients processed food. They'd hydrate the patients' bodies with filtered water and feed them fresh herbs and vegetables from the hospital garden. Patients would be fed only foods that are alkaline forming. A few examples of these foods include apple cider vinegar, probiotic cultures, berries, spirulina, mostly any herb, peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, garlic and spices like cinnamon and turmeric.

You can prevent and destroy cancer right here, right now
There's no coincidence to colon cancer incidence, and you can begin to help yourself, right now, and begin preventing and destroying cancer in the colon. As a matter of fact, you are the only person that can help you right now, because the last time I checked, the doctor wasn't bringing in fresh vegetables, herbs and doses of turmeric for you to eat at the clinic or hospital. He's probably over there talking to the pharmaceutical rep, taking an incentive, ready to put you on a new experimental drug.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/043031_curcumin_colon_cancer_apoptosis.html?utm_content=buffer36d25&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=Buffer#ixzz2mLvA66BQ

Dangers of Fried & Baked Potatoes

Written by Hiyaguha Cohen on November 23rd, 2013

Nobody ever called French fries health food, with their high saturated fat content. But it isn't just the artery-clogging factor that makes the fries so deadly: anyone interested in actively preventing cancer should know that they also contain a carcinogenic chemical about which the Food and Drug Administration has just issued a warning.1

The publication Food Update from the FDA says that when it comes to frying, less is more. The darker and crispier you cook your potatoes, the more likely it is that they'll be laden with a carcinogenic chemical called acrylamide. The chemical is a byproduct formed by the combined effect of heating the natural sugars and an amino acid present in vegetables at high temperatures.2 According to the World Health Organization, acrylamide is known to cause cancer in animals and, in high doses, can cause nerve damage in humans." Long-term human cancer studies haven't been conducted yet, but apparently, the link in rats is significant enough to spark the FDA to sound the alarm. The National Toxicology Program's Ninth Report on Carcinogens says, "acrylamide can be reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen."3

And it's not just potatoes we're talking about. There's also acrylamide in grain-based products like bread and cereals, as well as in dried fruits, coffee, and a host of other food items. In fact, experts estimate that the average person's diet contains 40 percent acrylamide-laden foods. Given that acrylamide also is found in grains, dark toast is a no-go from the health standpoint. If you want toast, make it light. If you burn it, throw it in the trash. And one more bad bit of news: coffee contains acrylamide, a byproduct of the roasting process.

Before you panic, though, keep in mind that the risk has only been found at levels far higher than can be obtained through a normal and balanced diet. As for acrylamides in dried fruits and grains, levels are extremely low…or even less than that. Also, it requires heat of over boiling temperatures for its formation -- although one study found that it MAY form in very small amounts in dried fruit. However, subsequent heating of that dried fruit such as in making prune juice, which requires boiling, could increase the amount. But again, this is merely indicated, not proven.4

The bottom line, though, is that there is zero evidence that eating dried fruit, for example, in any way actually increases the incidence of cancer. In fact, all studies indicate the opposite -- that prunes can aid in preventing cancer.5

Scientists have known about acrylamide since 2002 and have been conducting studies in the intervening years to determine just how dangerous it is. Apparently, the results of those studies, at least with rats, have not been encouraging; thus the FDA sound-off. The research has determined that the longer food cooks and the higher the temperature it cooks at, the greater the acrylamide content. Frying produces the most dangerous levels of acrylamide, followed by roasting, and then baking. Boiling and steaming don't seem to yield significant levels of the chemical. By the way, protein-based, animal-derived foods don't seem to form acrylamide (although they pose plenty of other problems).

What's a person to do? Knowing that 40 percent of the typical diet is acrylamide-rich certainly isn't happy news, especially when you consider that another significant percentage of the typical, balanced diet also brings problems (if you consider the health issues posed by meat and dairy). Must we all go raw if we want to stay healthy?6

In fact, it does seem that once we venture away from uncooked or lightly steamed foods, we're headed for trouble. But of course, we're not all going to give up toast and stir fries and cappuccino tomorrow. More realistically, you can at least minimize acrylamide exposure. One key is to limit potato intake, as the potato seems to have a particular affinity for acrylamide. The highest levels of the nasty chemical were found in potato chips and fries. Boiling or steaming potatoes is your best bet, or at the least, baking the whole potato. The FDA says that refrigeration actually increases the acrylamide levels in potatoes. The Agency recommends storing them in a vegetable drawer, slicing them, and then soaking them for 15 minutes in cold water before cooking. Apparently, the soaking decreases the acrylamide levels.

There isn't much you can do about coffee, since the beans get roasted before they reach your percolator, says the FDA. On the other hand, you might want to choose light roasts rather than dark, or better yet, switch to green tea (and not kukicha or genmaicha, which contain roasted twigs and roasted barley, respectively).

Also, acrylamide is found in tobacco smoke, so avoid second-hand inhalation. It's also probably in your water, so use a filter. And it's used in industrial applications, but supposedly is regulated.

As for other food items, it's better to sauté at low heats for short periods of time rather than stir fry on high. It's better to steam grains, if you choose to eat them, rather than stir-fry them before cooking. If you love the crunchy, crispy parts of your roasted vegetables, you might need to change your taste preferences as the acrylamides concentrate where the crunch is.

When you think about it, though, the rules don't really change with the acrylamide warning. Avoiding fried foods to the extent possible has long been a tenet of healthy eating habits, as has been lightly steaming instead of cooking vegetables to death in order to retain mineral content. And the bottom line is that the Mediterranean Diet still offers your best bet.

- See more at: http://www.jonbarron.org/alternative-cancer/dangers-frying-baking-and-roasting?utm_content=buffer19d53&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=Buffer#sthash.qicdpKDV.dpuf

Certain Bacteria Good for the Gut!

Friday, November 22, 2013 by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer

Since bacteria are known for causing illness, why are more and more people turning to pro-bacterial supplements for good health? Why are people beginning to treat conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, and weakened immune systems with bacterial supplementation?

Certain bacteria are good for the gut
This is because certain strains of live bacteria are actually beneficial to the gut and the immune system. These good bacteria, called probiotics, are vital to the human body. More than 100 trillion microorganisms inhabit a normal, healthy bowel, including over 500 different species of bacteria. Most of these microorganisms aren't dangerous; they actually support the body, aiding in digestion, nutrient absorption and immune system function. Links are also being made purporting that probiotics help keep toxic pathogens from poisoning the blood and crossing through the blood-brain barrier, which can cause mental illness to be triggered.

Antibiotics are overprescribed
With medical doctors prescribing antibiotics routinely, people think that all bacteria create sickness and are harmful. As the overprescription of antibiotics takes hold, people are deceived and depleted of beneficial strains of bacteria that actually promote immune system health. As antibiotics are consumed for the most minute problems, greater damage is caused inside the gut. As the good bacteria are eradicated by antibiotics, the immune system is further compromised, leading people through cycles of illness.

Fruit juices can be a viable carrier of probiotics
Probiotics are typically consumed in yogurt - a dairy food fermented with bacteria. With some people being lactose intolerant, dairy products are not always a good source of probiotics. Those who are lactose intolerant look to supplements in a capsule for probiotics.

According to new, promising research, there may be other ways of obtaining probiotics; a new study examines the shelf life and efficacy of probiotics when added to fruit juices. Since many juices already contain beneficial vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, the addition of probiotics to healthy juices would seem like a good fit.

In fact, the study, published in the Journal of Food Science, shows how specific strains of bacteria survive when added to apple juice and can even ward off yeasts that spoil the juices. Four strains of bifidobacteria and one strain of Lactobacillus plantarum were studied. The suitability of these strains was evaluated in relation to resistance caused by citrus extracts (biocitro and lemon).

Using the Weibull equation, the strains of L. plantarum and bifidobacteria were evaluated for first reduction time, microbiological shelf life and time of death.

The researchers found that these bacterial strains survived long enough to make them viable additives to fruit juices. The strains survived at varying temperatures (4 and 37 degrees Celsius) and even inhibited Zygosaccharomyces bailii, which is yeast that spoils the juices.

In the red fruit juice with the biocitro citrus extract, bifidobacteria survived the longest at 4 degrees Celsius. In the apple juice, L. plantarum survived the longest in the lemon citrus extract at 37 degrees Celsius. The citrus extracts had no biocidal effect toward either strain of probiotics; in fact, the probiotics actually reduced the yeast levels of the juices after 18 days.

A probiotic future
As research continues on probiotics, the suitability of these beneficial microorganisms in specific juice and food products may be found. This has the potential to alter the health of millions (who have already been depleted of good bacteria thanks to the overprescription of antibiotics).
Imagine juice manufacturers adding probiotics to their drinks instead of adding artificial flavorings, sweeteners and dyes. Imagine an informed and empowered populace, building their immune systems back up. Image people saying "no" to frivolous antibiotic crutches. Imagine the majority saying "yes" to more healthy probiotic-infused juices and supplements.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/043000_probiotics_fruit_juice_food_additives.html#ixzz2mLsN0YzA