Month: July 2011

Animals cannot make either omega- 6 or omega-3 fats, so they must get these essentials from plants. Since wild fish eat omega-3-rich wild plants (or eat other fish that ate wild plants), these animals have relatively high amounts of omega-3 fats stored in their bodies. That is why wild fish and fish oil are high in omega-3s. In fact, the original source of this nutrient is marine algae.

Fish and fish oil supplements have numerous problems of their own, which can outweigh any omega-3 benefits. Fish are a concentrated source of heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, and cholesterol. Even the so-called pure or distilled brands of fish oil capsules have been found to contain dangerous persistent organic pollutants (toxic manmade chemicals that accumulate in the environment).

Even more concerning, overfishing and pollution are driving numerous fish species to extinction. Over 90% of the large fish in the oceans have been destroyed. There are not enough fish left in degraded ecosystems to supply omega-3s to seven billion people on the planet.

Industry is now getting ready to push genetically modified soy, engineered to produce long-chain omega-3 fats, as another choice. The resulting soy oil can be added to an endless list of processed foods in order to "enrich" them with omega-3s. Considering the hazards of GMOs, this could be viewed as presenting just another disastrous alternative.

This GMO soy has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at generally recognized as safe status (GRAS). However, the FDA is still pending approval for farmers to grow these soybeans in open fields.

Ground flax seed is the solution for consumers wanting to avoid persistent organic pollutants, depleting sea life, and genetically modified oils. This low-cost, mild tasting powder is easily sprinkled on a variety of foods, from oatmeal to salads to smoothies. A month supply, buying organic, is about $2 and the plant is easily and sustainably grown.

The popular press has raised concerns that humans cannot convert the short-chain omega-3s in flax and other foods (such as walnuts and chia seeds) into the long-chain forms the body actually uses. A recent study out of Europe proves this concern is unfounded. Research on over 14,000 adults found that those on a 100% plant-based diet had circulating levels of long-chain omega-3s comparable to the levels of those who ate large amounts of fish. The researchers theorize that the body becomes more efficient at producing long-chain omega-3s when less is eaten.

In addition, ground flax seed is packed with fiber. As a final bonus, flax is high in lignans, a phytochemical (beneficial plant-based nutrient) that is protective against breast and prostate cancer. A target amount is two tablespoons a day of ground flax seed to get all the omega-3s required.

Inositol is found in the form of phytic acid or phytate in a variety of foods such as nuts, seeds, oats, rice, beans, corn, chickpeas, liver, pork, veal, and whole grains. However in this form it is difficult for the human body to access. The best sources of inositol are fruits, (particularly cantaloupe and citrus fruits) and lecithin granules, because their form of inositol is highly bioavailable. Inositol is available as a supplement in capsule or powdered form. Inositol powder has a delicious sweet, creamy taste and can be easily added to smoothies or eaten alone.

Two famous researchers discovered inositol prevents cancer

Dr. Lee Wattenberg, known as the father of chemoprevention, searched for several decades starting in the 1970`s to find naturally occurring compounds that could theoretically prevent cancer and applied scientific methodologies to research his discoveries. After testing several molecules, he found inositol showed great promise. Using various study models he was able to demonstrate that inositol could prevent lung cancer. It had previously been documented that a poor diet increased the chances for cancer to occur, but Dr. Wattenberg was among the first to show that a common nutrient could actually prevent cancer, a truly empowering discovery.

A few years later, Dr. Abdul Kalam Shamsuddin, known as the father of IP6 (inositol hexaphosphate), also showed that inositol was able to prevent cancer, demonstrating the preventive value of the compound with colon cancer. Research by Dr. Shamsuddin revealed that inositol affects health in several ways, largely because it is in all human cells and is a major component of cell linings or membranes where it facilitates communication between the various organelles and molecules in the cell signaling process.

Why don`t cigarette companies hand out a bottle of inositol with each carton of cigarettes?

Some bright young executive at one of the major tobacco companies has probably had the idea to boost sales by telling everybody that inositol, an inexpensive supplement, could prevent lung cancer. But for the cigarette companies to buy into the idea would mean an acknowledgement that cigarettes do cause cancer. Such an acknowledgement would create immense legal liability for any company making and selling cigarettes.

Inositol provides many other benefits in to the body

Inositol is a critical nutrient for hair growth. It helps prevent hardening of the arteries and is important in the formation of lecithin and in the metabolism of fats and cholesterol. Inositol has a calming effect on the brain and has been used successfully at high doses as a treatment for psychiatric disorders such as depression, bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, and panic. Inositol is also used for insomnia, retinopathy, bulimia nervosa and binge eating. It is beneficial for diabetic neuropathy, brain seizures, and for normalizing cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

Symptoms of deficiency are arteriosclerosis, constipation, hair loss, high blood cholesterol, irritability, mood swings, and skin eruptions. The consumption of large amounts of caffeine usually results in inositol deficiency. As coffee consumption was often accompanied by cigarette smoking, this shortage of inositol may have been a critical factor in the cases of smoking induced lung cancer so prevalent during the time when smoking was in style.

Research continues to refine knowledge of the mechanisms by which inositol works

Inositol is a natural compound and therefore not able to be patented by drug companies, so there is little incentive for studies of it. However, some dedicated researchers are continuing to study the effects of inositol, trying to determine the specific mechanisms by which it prevents lung cancer in cigarette smokers. Here are summaries of the abstracts from the most recent research. It is truly amazing, or maybe criminal is a better word, that the smoking public has not been made aware of these results which date back steadily to the time of Drs. Watterberg and Shamsuddin.

Study results
The most recent studies are based on those that have gone before in an effort to refine the knowledge of how inositol affects pathway activation in the development of lung cancer. The phosphatidyl-inositol-3-kinase-AKT pathway is emerging as an important regulator of tumor cell survival.
 
Researchers at Boston University Medical Center have observed a significant increase in activation of another pathway, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K), in the bronchial airway of smokers with lung cancer and dysplastic lesions, suggesting that PI3K is activated in the airway before a tumor beings. (1) Further, these researchers found that when PI3K is decreased in the airway of high risk smokers by the use of inositol treatments, their dysplasia is regressed. They also noted the PI3K pathway was inhibited by inositol in vitro, and concluded that the deregulation of the PI3K pathways in the bronchial airway epithelium of smokers is an early, measurable and reversible event in the development of lung cancer.
 
Meanwhile, scientists at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland also studied the pathways through which genes are damaged by tobacco smoking and the pathways that regulate cancerous cell proliferation and survival. (2) After a review of data, they described the cell surface receptors and other upstream components required for tobacco carcinogen-induced activation of the Akt and mTOR pathways and the positive effects of inositol and other treatments upon them.    

In Biochemical Pharmacology, December 2008 researchers reported inositol potentiating appropriate cell death. This effect correlated with down-regulation of various gene products that mediate cell survival, proliferation, metastasis, and invasion, all known to be regulated by NF-kappaB (a transcription factor that enhances production of inflammatory mediators). Inositol blocked NF-kappaB activation induced by cigarette smoke.

Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, August 2006 reported a clinical study conducted to assess the safety, tolerability, maximum tolerated dose, and potential chemopreventive effects of inositol in smokers with bronchial abnormal cell development. Smokers between the ages of 40 and 74 participated in dose escalation ranging from 12 to 30 grams per day of inositol for a month to determine the maximum dose tolerated, which turned out to be 18 grams per day. Ten new subjects were then enrolled to take the maximum tolerated dose for 3 months. Side effects, when present, were mild and mainly gastrointestinal in nature. A significant rate of reduction in abnormal cells was observed (91% compared to 48% in the controls). A significant reduction in systolic and diastolic blood pressure by an average of 10mm Hg was also observed after taking 18 grams per day of inositol for a month or more.

Researchers acknowledged that chronic exposure of mice and rats to cigarette smoke affects T-cell responsiveness which may account for the decreased T-cell proliferative and T-dependent antibody responses in humans and animals exposed to cigarette smoke. In a study reported in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, April 2000 researchers sought to discover the mechanism by which cigarette smoke affects T cell function. They found that spleen cells from animals with chronic nicotine exposure have depleted inositol stores and a decreased ability to raise intracellular calcium levels. Their results suggest that chronic smoking causes T cell energy reduction and inactivity by impairing pathways and depleting stored inositol resulting in a diminished level of inositol-sensitive calcium.

Mice were fed a diet supplemented with inositol and exposed for 5 months to a mixture of sidestream and mainstream cigarette smoke, in a study reported in Carcinogenesis, July, 1999. In the animals fed the control diet alone, the average number of manifest lung tumors was 2.1. In the animals given the control diet plus an inositol mixture, the number of manifest lung tumors was 1.0. Researchers concluded that the inositol constitutes an effective prevention regimen against the initiation of tobacco induced lung tumors.
 
 
(1)  Airway PI3K pathway activation is an early and reversible event in lung cancer development.  Gustafson AM et al.  Sci Tranl Med. 2010 Apr 7;1(26):26ra25.
 
(2) The role of the Akt/mTor pathway in tobacco carcinogen-induced lung tumorigenesis.  Memmott RM, Dennis PA.  Clin Cancer res. 2010 Jan 1;16(1):4-10.

Researchers found that the risk was cumulative, based on the number of drugs taken and the strength of each drug's effect. The results showed that one in five people taking drugs with a total score of four or more had died by the end of the two-year study, compared with only 7% percent of those taking no anticholinergic drugs. The study also found that for every additional point scored, the odds of dying increased by 26%.

The large cohort study was led by researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and is part of the Medical Research Council's Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies (CFAS) project to find ways of reducing risk factors for dementia, which affects 820,000 people in the UK. Joining the UEA researchers were colleagues at the University of Cambridge, Indiana University and National Health Service clinicians.

Dr Susanne Sorensen, head of research at the Alzheimer's Society, said: "It is very important that we have a clear picture of the side effects of drugs commonly taken by older people with cognitive impairment and other conditions. This robust study provides valuable findings, and must be taken seriously."

Dr Sorensen and other experts cautioned patients to not stop taking their medications without consulting their doctors. A better idea might be to consult naturopathic professionals or integrative medicine doctors. Often, patients can be weaned off mainstream medicines with healthy dietary and lifestyle changes and by replacing unnatural drugs with natural items.

Over 95% of all prescribed and over the counter medications have side effects. Once you combine two or more of them you essentially become a living (or dying) experiment, since virtually no studies exist for the safety of multiple drug combinations. The more drugs you take, the more likely it will be to get other conditions requiring still more drugs in a never ending cycle. That may be a great model for profits for the pharmaceutical industry, but it is a horrible one for healing..

As noted, alternative health figure Jon Barron observed, by the time a male reaches sixty-five years of age in the US, he takes an average of 15 prescribed and over the counter drugs every day. In most instances his problems all began with one or two conditions which could have been addressed naturally.

After an official from the Louisville Metro Department of Health and Wellness (LMDHW) issued both its own cease-and-desist order, as well as a quarantine order from the Kentucky Department of Health Services, against co-op members obtaining their own raw milk, members defied the order and took their milk anyway, replacing the two orders with their own signed note declaring personal ownership of their rightfully-obtained raw milk.

It all began when an inspector from LMDHW showed up at the co-op meeting spot, which in this case was a church basement. The inspector proceeded to issue the two orders to one of the co-op administrators, as well as to the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF), a lawyer from whom was contacted after the inspector arrived on the scene.

But as members began to arrive to pick up their milk and noticed the orders, they jointly wrote and signed a simple note declaring that both the milk and the cows it came from were their own personal property, and they proceeded to take the milk in defiance of the phony orders.

The incident proves yet again the woeful ignorance of government workers who, in this case, did not even understand the legal role of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concerning food. In their "Notice and order of quarantine / voluntary destruction," officials wrote that the quarantine would remain until "all milk products … are shown to be in compliance with FDA and state of [Kentucky] food code," even though the FDA has no such food code governing intrastate commerce.

The FDA, of course, is only permitted to regulate interstate commerce, not in-state food transactions like the ones that take place at the Louisville co-op. Not only are the co-op members not actually selling raw milk — they merely pick up what is already theirs under their legal herd share agreement — but none of the milk ever crosses state lines during its transaction time. And yet government workers had the audacity to issue a phony quarantine on this milk in the name of complying with made-up FDA guidelines.

In a similar act of courage, Wisconsin farmer Vernon Hershberger last year cut quarantine tape that was placed on his refrigerators by deputies and state inspectors after they decided that he was in violation of state laws concerning raw milk.

Hershberger did not actually sell the milk, but rather distributed it to the legal owners of his cows, which constituted his buying club members. Since deciding to defy that erroneous order, Hershberger has been distributing milk to his buying club members ever since, without any government interference.

These incidents and several others point to a shift in Americans' approach to government tyranny, at least as it concerns raw milk. Honest citizens buying or otherwise obtaining honest food such as raw milk no longer appear willing to just lie down and take government abuse.

Hopefully the incidents also represent a change in the way governments respond to civil disobedience. As individuals increasingly band together and fight back against the abuse, it will send a clear message to Big Brother that "We the People" are in charge, and that they work for us.

Originally intended to increase product safety by decreasing fire risk, these compounds have come under increasing scrutiny since the early 1990s due to growing evidence of their damaging health effects.

But even though these chemicals have been banned in 172 countries and 12 U.S. states, they continue to make their way into a wide variety of products found in U.S. households, including toys and upholstered furniture.

In an especially disconcerting study conducted by researchers at Duke University earlier this year, potentially toxic flame retardants were found in 80 percent of samples of polyurethane foam collected from baby products commonly and legally sold in the U.S.. Samples were taken from car seats, high chairs, strollers, nursing pillows and bassinet mattresses.

The results of the study were published in 2011 by the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science and Technology, and suggest that additional research is warranted "to specifically measure infants exposure to these flame retardants from intimate contact with these products, and to determine if there are any associated health concerns."

Penta brominated diphenyl ethers, also known PBDEs, are known to bio-accumulate in fatty tissue, breast milk and blood after being inhaled or ingested with food.

The highest and most dangerous concentrations of ingestible and inhalable PBDEs occur in plants that repair and recycle products containing these chemicals, and also in domestic environments, since they persistently show up in household products containing polyurethane foam.

Recent studies show that in the U.S., blood concentrations of PBDEs are much higher in children than in adults. These chemicals are known to have damaging effects on nervous system development and can also disrupt the function of estrogen and thyroid hormones.

When children are exposed to these chemicals early in life, either through inhalation or ingestion with breast milk, their damaging effects have been known to persist into adulthood and may include reduced performance on intelligence tests and behavioral changes like hyperactivity.

The Duke University study suggests that even though the manufacture and distribution of PBDEs is subject to increasing restrictions in the U.S. and Europe, these dangerous flame retardants are still finding their way into our homes and the body tissues of developing infants. It may be wise to check labels carefully and investigate PBDE levels before exposing infants to polyurethane foam products.

In a letter to Novartis AG dated June 24, 2011, the FDA points out that some of the company's dose and schedule statements for Menveo are not FDA-approved, as is implied by the company's materials. Such unapproved recommendations include "routine vaccination of adolescents, preferably at age 11 or 12 years, with a booster dose at age 16 years." The agency has requested that the company remove these claims.

The issue stems from discrepancies between recommendations made by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and those made by the FDA, concerning Menveo's usage. Novartis AG allegedly implied that the FDA's approval specifications for Menveo were in accordance with ACIP, when in fact they are not.

The FDA recently, however, complied with requests by Novartis AG to expand the use of Menveo to children as young as two months of age, despite the fact that the vaccine is known to increase risk of seizures and Guillain-Barre Syndrome, not to mention a whole slew of other harmful side effects including headache, nausea and muscle pain (http://www.drugs.com/pro/menveo.html).

Novartis AG is banking on its meningitis vaccines to be the company's next big blockbuster drugs.

Similar to super nutrients such as resveratrol, curcumin and green tea extract, bromelain is a potent compound that fights cancer by dissolving unnecessary tissue throughout the body. Bromelain breaks down scar tissue and other debris created from the natural processes of stress and physical wear and tear that develop with normal cellular function. As we age, our body has a reduced capacity to eliminate these garbage byproducts from within our cells and we undergo the process of advanced aging.

Enzymes such as bromelain are critical to break down proteins used to drive metabolic functions within the body. Processed and overcooked foods have been stripped of the natural enzymes that originally existed, and the pancreas is forced to work beyond its capacity to break down digested proteins. Cancer cells also use a protein shield to cloak themselves and avoid detection from the immune system. Protease enzymes help destroy the protein bond around cancer clusters so the body can destroy developing tumor wall structures and thwart cancer initiation.

Evidence developed in European clinical trials and published in the journal Integrative Cancer Therapies explains that natural enzymes such as bromelain and papain provide a significant improvement in the outcome of alternative therapies to treat breast and colon cancers. The authors concluded that the enzyme mixture demonstrated potent anti-inflammatory, anti-infectious and antitumor/anti-metastatic activity.

Further scientific documentation is published in the journal Molecular Carcinogenesis to support the cancer-killing ability of bromelain, independent of other therapies. Cancer is fueled by systemic inflammation and out of control gene activity from the protein complex, NF-KappaB (nuclear factor kappa beta). Bromelain inhibits the activity of NF-KappaB, significantly lowering cellular free radical damage causing cancer cells to undergo normal cell death (apoptosis).

Research continues to uncover the amazing health-promoting benefits of natural enzymes such as bromelain in the fight against inflammatory and immune-deficiency diseases like cancer. You can dramatically lower your risk by supplementing with 50 mg of bromelain extract daily, taken with meals to aid protein digestion and on an empty stomach to uncloak rogue cancer cell development.

Another reason, at least here in the United States, is because the dollar has slipped in value in recent months.

But one of the primary reasons why prices are climbing so dramatically is because fuel prices have shot up in the past year. Yet even as gas and diesel prices have begun to fall recently, food costs haven't.

According to fuel price-tracking Web site Gasbuddy.com, prices have slipped nearly 20 cents in the past month, or just over 5 percent. But prices for commodities and some staples like coffee, bacon, fruits, meat, pastas and other items have shot up 40 percent in the past year. Cotton, too, has risen dramatically, making clothing more expensive.

As an example, the price of grapes has climbed 30 percent, while cabbage has risen 17 percent and orange juice 5 percent.

And while the government's official inflation rate of 3.6 percent (annualize) doesn't seem serious, that figure is masking the true cost of a number of commodities Americans traditionally buy.

For example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics – a division of the Labor Department which tracks the costs of 76 items – said coffee has gone up 40 percent in the past year. Celery is 28 percent higher, and butter has risen 26.4 percent.

So, as commodity prices climb, consumers are also suffering from rising unemployment and falling home values, with little relief in sight.

And as always, those Americans who earn the least are being hit the hardest.

"This is a serious problem in the middle- to lower-income parts of the country," Richard Hastings, consumer strategist at Global Hunter Securities in Newport Beach, Calif., told CNBC.com. "A little bit of inflation in the United States is actually a big problem because of how many lower-income people we have. It's a serious long-term fiscal problem."

Some food products – tomatoes, wine, boneless chicken breasts – have come down in price. But overall, most food prices are rising and, experts believe, that is a pattern that won't soon reverse itself.

Moreover, the heady days of robust economic growth in the U.S. could be a thing of the past too – at least for the foreseeable future.

"We're going to have to get used to a good growth rate being 3 percent, simply because of globalizations and the problems that are attached to it," says Peter Cardillo, chief economist at Avalon Partners in New York, according to CNBC.com.

"The glorious days of our economy growing at 5 or 6 percent are not likely to happen for many more years, if they ever happen."

"The prolonged ingestion of fluoride may cause significant damage to health and particularly the nervous system," write researchers Valdez-Jiminez, et al. in their report. "Fluoride is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, which may cause biochemical and functional changes in the nervous system during pregnancy, since the fluoride accumulates in brain tissue before birth."

There you have it, folks. Fluoride chemicals, which are derived from the waste emitted by the aluminum and phosphate mining industries, by the way (http://www.naturalnews.com/031541_F…), cross directly into the brain where they lodge themselves and cause disease. They also enter the thyroid and pineal glands and disrupt proper hormone production, which leads to various other illnesses.

There simply is no denying the deadly truth about fluoride anymore. Ample evidence is continually being released that exposes fluoride as a highly-toxic chemical poison, and even the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) admits that fluoride is a toxin. The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) also initiated damage control recently by lowering its fluoridation recommendations following the release of studies showing that fluoride harms children (http://www.naturalnews.com/030952_C…).

"It's apparent that fluorides have the ability to interfere with the functions of the brain," says the US National Research Council's (NRC) expert fluoride panel. "Fluorides also increase the production of free radicals in the brain through several different biological pathways. These changes have a bearing on the possibility that fluorides act to increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease."

It is also worth mentioning that the April 12, 2010, issue of TIME magazine lists fluoride as one of the "Top Ten Common Household Toxins." Dubbing fluoride "neurotoxic and potentially tumorigenic if swallowed," and it is difficult to determine how anyone can suggest that adding such a chemical to drinking water is in any way beneficial.

"Fluoride can be toxic by ingesting one part per million (ppm), and the effects are not immediate, as they can take 20 years or more to become evident," adds the new report.

It is absolutely absurd to know that these kinds of exaggerated situations actually take place. And even worse, that our tax dollars fund them.

It's no secret that the FDA can be the least reliable source of information regarding health and nutrition. They've proven time and again to care little about the facts that prove holistic approaches cure diseases, and have made extreme efforts to criminalize most of those approaches. They've also made it abundantly clear that our personal freedoms are irrelevant to them.

Raw milk became a target of espionage when the FDA held a yearlong sting operation to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling raw milk to customers. "It is the FDA's position that raw milk should never be consumed," said Tamara N. Ward, spokeswoman for the FDA.

The farm's owner, Dan Allgyer, didn't respond, but his customers were furious at what they said was government overreach. "I look at this as the FDA is in cahoots with the large milk producers," said Karin Edgett, a D.C. resident who buys from Rainbow Acres. "I don't want the FDA and my tax dollars to go shut down a farm that hasn't had any complaints against it. They're producing good food, and the consumers are extremely happy with it."

Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, said undercover stings are not unheard of. "It happens quite a bit. It's almost like they treat raw milk as crack. It's happened in a number of states, and at the federal level," he said.

It is blatantly wrong for the FDA to deny people their rights to buy raw milk. Raw milk has been consumed long before WWII and never was it considered harmful. On the contrary, it was considered a whole food. There are undeniable facts that prove pasteurized milk destroys part of the vitamin C in raw milk, kills beneficial lactic-acid bacteria which help ward off pathogens while encouraging the growth of harmful bacteria. The pasteurization also makes insoluble the major part of the calcium contained in raw milk, leading to bad teeth, nervous system problems, and rickets. And with the loss of phosphorus associated with calcium, bone and brain formation suffer serious setbacks.