Month: August 2012

"Diet supplies the nutrients needed for the development of brain tissues in the first two years of life, and the aim of this study was to look at what impact diet would have on children's IQs," Smithers said.

Researchers compared a range of dietary habits from more than 7,000 children, including traditionally prepared food at home, pre-prepared baby foods, breastfeeding and "discretionary," or junk foods. They looked at a link between the eating habits of children at six months, 15 months and two years, and their IQ at eight years of age.

Breastfeeding also helps

"We found that children who were breastfed at six months and had a healthy diet regularly including foods such as legumes, cheese, fruit and vegetables at 15 and 24 months, had an IQ up to two points higher by age eight," said Smithers.

"Those children who had a diet regularly involving biscuits, chocolate, sweets, soft drinks and chips in the first two years of life had IQs up to two points lower by age eight," she added. "We also found some negative impact on IQ from ready-prepared baby foods given at six months, but some positive associations when given at 24 months."

She went onto say that the study reinforced the need for parents to ensure their children eat right at an early age, to aid in their physical and mental development.

"While the differences in IQ are not huge, this study provides some of the strongest evidence to date that dietary patterns from six to 24 months have a small but significant effect on IQ at eight years of age," Smithers said. "It is important that we consider the longer-term impact of the foods we feed our children."

More on higher IQs

Along these lines, a separate study found that children with higher IQs at age 10 tended to become vegetarians by the time they reach 30.

The results of that study, published in the British Medical Journal, involved a study of 8,179 men and women. Researchers found that 366 (4.5 percent) of them said they were vegetarian, and of those, nine (2.5 percent) were vegan while 123 (33.6 percent) said they were vegetarian but ate fish or chicken.

On average, vegetarians had a higher childhood IQ score than non-vegetarians, said Britain's Metro newspaper.

"Vegetarians were more likely to be female, to be of higher social class (both in childhood and currently), and to have attained higher academic or vocational qualifications, although these socioeconomic advantages were not reflected in their income," the researchers said.

"Higher IQ at age 10 years was associated with an increased likelihood of being vegetarian at age 30," they added. "IQ remained a statistically significant predictor of being vegetarian as an adult after adjustment for social class, academic or vocational qualifications, and sex."

They concluded: "Our finding that children with greater intelligence are more likely to report being vegetarian as adults, coupled with the evidence on the potential benefits to cardiovascular health of a vegetarian diet, may help to explain why higher IQ in childhood or adolescence is linked with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease in adult life."

"The focus is still on salt," Lona Sandon, an assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern at Dallas and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, told the magazine. "We know that most Americans are eating two times or more of what's recommended which is 2,300 milligrams a day for most people. We still need to reduce our daily intake."

U.S. government health officials agreed with Sandon's assessment.

"We know today the average American probably consumes 3,400 milligrams of sodium, so this is a fairly significant effort on our part and it must be reflected in the decisions that food-processing companies, in particular, make over time so folk don't necessarily reject out of hand these guidelines because the taste is so fundamentally different," USDA administrator Tom Vilsack said.

It's just a fact – salt is bad for you … right?
Salt is so bad for us, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has suggested that curbing salt is as important as quitting smoking.

"And yet," writes Gary Taubes, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Independent Investigator in Health Policy Research and the author of Why We Get Fat in The New York Times, "this eat-less-salt argument has been surprisingly controversial – and difficult to defend. Not because the food industry opposes it, but because the actual evidence to support it has always been so weak."

As early as 1998, when he first began researching the supposedly ill-effects of salt, Taubes said many medical journal editors and public health administrators admitted that, even after 25 years' worth of an anti-sodium campaign, the evidence to support the claim was flimsy at best.

While the mantra has always been more salt means more medical problems, Taubes said some research published within the past few years actually indicates that eating less salt contributes to dying prematurely.

"Put simply, the possibility has been raised that if we were to eat as little salt as the USDA and the CDC recommend, we'd be harming rather than helping ourselves," he wrote.

Why has this unproven declaration been allowed to stand for so long? Taubes said it is because, on the surface, there is much "biological plausibility" to the argument that by eating more salt, our bodies retain more water in order to keep a stable sodium concentration in our bloodstream.

That's why eating sodium makes us thirsty; we then retain more water, which can lead to a temporary increase in blood pressure until the kidneys process it all.

"The scientific question is whether this temporary phenomenon translates to chronic problems: if we eat too much salt for years, does it raise our blood pressure, cause hypertension, then strokes, and then kill us prematurely? It makes sense, but it's only a hypothesis," he writes. "The reason scientists do experiments is to find out if hypotheses are true."

Salt intake research has historically been inconclusive
The eat-less-salt recommendation, Taubes says, came from two bodies of research prior to 1972, when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) introduced the National High Blood Pressure Education Program to help prevent hypertension. No conclusive studies had been done before then, but the two bodies of research, while inconclusive, at least seemed to support the possibility that too much salt could cause health problems.

So the government's "experts" ran with that.

Today, the government agencies primarily rely on a single 30-day study called the DASH-Sodium study, conducted in 2001. "It suggested that eating significantly less salt would modestly lower blood pressure; it said nothing about whether this would reduce hypertension, prevent heart disease or lengthen life," Taubes says, pointing out that other analyses and meta-analyses of various salt-intake research has produced more of the same: inconclusive data.

"This attitude that studies that go against prevailing beliefs should be ignored on the basis that, well, they go against prevailing beliefs, has been the norm for the anti-salt campaign for decades. Maybe now the prevailing beliefs should be changed," Taubes wrote.

The CARDIA study
The name of the study led by Andrew Odegaard, PhD, is the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. CARDIA is a longitudinal study of 5115 black and white women between the ages of 18 and 30 years who were initially examined in 1985 and reexamined at years 2, 5, 7, 10, 15, and 20. CARDIA was presented at a poster session at the 2012 American Diabetes Association 72nd Scientific Sessions. Data collected included a number of cardiac risk factors, including smoking, blood pressure, and cholesterol, as well as behavioral and psychological data and a dietary history questionnaire that recorded dietary caloric intake and breakfast frequency.

Skipping breakfast causes weight gain!
Researchers have consistently found that when people skip breakfast to "lose weight" that it is more likely to cause weight gain than weight loss; and skipping breakfast is actually strongly linked to the development of obesity. Studies find that obese children, adolescents, and adults are less likely to eat breakfast every morning than their thinner counterparts.

Skipping meals, and especially skipping breakfast, makes weight control more difficult. Breakfast skippers tend to eat even more food at the next meal than normal and nibble on high-calorie snacks to curb hunger pangs. People actually accumulate more body fat when they eat fewer, larger meals than people who eat the same number of calories in smaller, more frequent meals. Teenagers often skip out on breakfast thinking that they are cutting down on calories to lose weight.

• Kids who skip breakfast are tardy and absent from school more often than children who eat a regular breakfast
• Kids who eat breakfast tend to eat healthier overall and are more likely to participate in physical activities
• Kids who eat breakfast have lower blood cholesterol levels
• Kids who eat breakfast make fewer trips to the school nurse with stomach complaints

Breakfast provides adults, teens and children with the energy needed for improved memory, concentration, productivity, attention, creativity, mood, behaviors and academic performance.

Never too late to start
The CARDIA study found that for each additional week of breakfast intake, there was a five percent decrease in risk of developing type II diabetes until maximum potential was reached. You will never save on time, calories or even sleep quality by skipping breakfast. Breakfast is much more valuable than the few extra minutes of sleep you might get by skipping breakfast in the morning. The benefit of morning alertness alone makes breakfast a worthy investment. The little extra effort spent pays great dividends in health and mental well-being. It's important for us as responsible parents to set the example, reinforce the habit and educate ourselves and our children about the importance of breakfast.

It's never too late to restart your life with good habits!

Anti-inflammatory drugs deplete: Calcium, potassium, zinc, iron, Vitamins B6, C, D, K, folic acid, chromium, glutathione, Vitamins B6, C, D, and K

NSAIDs: Folic acid, melatonin

Aspirin/Salicylates: Vitamins C, K, B5, folic acid, calcium, iron and sodium

Corticosteroids: Vitamins A, C, D, B6, B12, folic acid, calcium, magnesium, potassium, selenium and zinc

Cochicine (used for gout): Vitamin B12, calcium, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, Beta-carotene

Statins (Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor,etc.): Coenzyme Q10

ACE Inhibitors for hypertension (Lisinopril, etc.): Zinc

What's the big deal?
Zinc is a master mineral necessary in hundreds of enzymatic reactions throughout the body and plays a vital role in immune function. Zinc is not stored in the body and must be ingested through diet or supplementation. If you are chronically sick, you may be deficient in zinc due to poor dietary intake or from drug induced nutrient depletion. A good way to see if you are zinc deficient is to buy organic zinc lozenges, hold in your mouth, if it tastes sweet, you are deficient, if it tastes bitter, you are not. Once the sweetness wears off and there is no taste/bitter, discard the lozenge.

Coenzyme Q10 is a very powerful vitamin and antioxidant, also known as ubiquinone ("found everywhere"), because it is found in every cell of the body. Energy and ATP production are the main functions of this important vitamin. Research has shown that people with heart failure have lower levels of coenzyme Q10 and the vitamin may help to increase the energy production, pumping action and strength of the heart muscle.

Folic acid, also known as Vitamin B9, helps convert food into energy, assist with proper brain function, DNA/RNA synthesis, red blood cell production and iron functions. This vitamin may also aid in the prevention of heart disease, although further studies are still needed. Folic acid deficiencies may occur due to drug induced nutrient depletion, Celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and alcoholism, just to name a few.

These are only a few examples of very important vitamins and minerals that are automatically depleted when taking certain medications. Zinc, coenzyme Q10, folic acid and the other vitamins and minerals are essential for good health and the processes that go on inside of our bodies on a constant basis.

Take control of your health
What's important to remember is that no drug is 100% percent safe and side effect free. Researching any drug your doctor prescribes is vital to being your own health advocate. Question your health care provider as to why the medication that he/she is prescribing is necessary. A list of side effects is now given with each prescription at the pharmacy; a list of vitamins and minerals that are automatically depleted as a direct result of the medication should also be supplied to every patient, with every prescription. You only have one body and should do everything in your power to protect it and keep it functioning optimally.

"I hope it’s nothing major," said Mark Gannon, who took his family to the beach Sunday.　 "I hope the water is safe."

Thousands of dead shad litter the sand.

"Any idea what it is?" asked Gannon’s wife Alexia.

Her children tried to explain the problem.

"At night time, the waves pull up really far so the fish can’t handle that, so they get up on the shore," said Abby Gannon.

Authorities said the answer is not so simple.　Biologists with the Parks and Wildlife Department began testing ph, saline and oxygen levels in water samples taken along the coast.

"When something’s affecting one [fish] then usually a lot of them are being affected at the same time because it’s such a big group [swimming in schools] together," said Steven Mitchell of Texas Parks and Wildlife.

He suspects low oxygen in the water is a problem. However, he won’t know for sure until biologists are able to test water up to 10 miles off shore.　That could take several days.　

Meanwhile, there is no threat to people on the beach, authorities said.　 Still, people like the Gannons said their plan to spend the children’s final week of summer vacation on the beach could change a bit.

"I imagine as it gets warmer the smell [of the dead shad] will get stronger and we will likely want to go home," Alexia Gannon said.

To report dead fish, call Texas Parks and Wildlife at 281-842-8100.

Aerial spraying chemicals linked to causing Colony Collapse Disorder
The chemical product being sprayed is known as Duet, an "advanced dual-action mosquito adulticide" that contains both sumithrin, the active ingredient in another mosquito pesticide known as Anvil, and prallethrin. Both chemicals are known to be highly-toxic neuropoisons that target not only mosquitoes, but also bees, bats, fish, crickets, and various other animals and insects (http://www.clarke.com/images/pdf/MSDS/2012MSDS/duet-msds.pdf).

Sumithrin, a synthetic pyrethroid, is known to kill bees, and is linked to the widespread bee die-off phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). In tests, sumithrin has been shown to damage human kidneys and the liver, and is also linked to causing both liver and breast cancers. Household pets exposed to sumithrin are also at risk of serious health complications, as are fish and other aquatic animals (http://www.pesticide.org).

Prallethrin, another synthetic pyrethroid, is hardly any better. A 1993 study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives suggests that prallethrin is a human endocrine disruptor. And like sumithrin, prallethrin is highly toxic to bees and other creatures besides just mosquitoes, threatening to very seriously disrupt the natural ecosystem of areas sprayed with it (http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC35755).

Trust us, we're from the government
Despite all this, officials continue to publicly insist that the spraying chemicals, the details of which are not being openly disclosed, are harmless to humans, though there is no legitimate scientific evidence to back this claim. Instead, residents are simply being told that the sprayings are safe and necessary — and many local residents seem content with this, having little or no concern about the harmful consequences of exposure.

In a recent photo published by the San Francisco Gate, for instance, local residents can be seen enjoying themselves on an outside patio at a local Dallas bar while spraying planes bombard them with chemicals overhead. As you will notice, these individuals appear to be amused by the large, toxic plumes in the sky (http://www.sfgate.com).

The same report explains that many local residents have been largely "unfazed" by the sprayings, and even the warnings to stay indoors while they are taking place. Many local residents have reportedly continued on with their normal routines despite the sprayings, including jogging on outside trails and engaging in other outdoor activities (http://www.sfgate.com).

Meanwhile, cities in Illinois (http://www.suntimes.com), California (http://www.nctimes.com), Massachusetts (http://www.boston.com), Pennsylvania (http://salisbury.patch.com), and elsewhere are also conducting their own aerial sprayings for WNv at the recommendation of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Aerial mosquito spraying ineffective, unsafe
According to research compiled by the group Stop West Nile Virus Spraying Now (http://www.stopwestnilesprayingnow.org/), aerial spraying endeavors are not even effective at preventing the transmission of WNv. Dr. Wallace LeStourgeon, a molecular biologist from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, says there is no evidence to show that aerial sprayings legitimately fight West Nile Virus (http://www.stopwestnilesprayingnow.org/Evidence.htm).

Contrary to the reassurances of public officials, there is also no evidence that aerial spraying chemicals are safe for humans. A Center for Public Integrity review of data compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows that pyrethrin chemicals can cause severe reactions in many people, and may be responsible for injuring and killing far more people than they theoretically save from dying of WNv.

"Both peer-reviewed scientific research and mathematical modeling demonstrate that spraying is ineffective for WNv," says a recent report by California Progress Report. "A model widely used for infectious diseases produced two important conclusions when applied to WNv transmission: 1) early, sufficient treatment for mosquito larvae is the key to control; 2) treatment aimed at adults later in the season cannot possibly eradicate the virus."

Vitamin D supplementation in the frail and elderly is shown to slash risk of death
The lead study author, Dr. Ellen Smit commented "What this really means is that it is important to assess vitamin D levels in older adults and especially among people who are frail… older adults need to be screened for vitamin D." She and her team noted that people who were frail had more than double the risk of death than those who were not frail. Frail adults with low levels of vitamin D tripled their risk of death over people who were not frail and who had higher levels of vitamin D.

Publishing their work in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the study team examined more than 4,300 adults older than 60 using data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Due to the cross-sectional nature of the analysis, researchers could not determine if low vitamin D contributed to frailty, or whether frail people became vitamin D deficient because of confounding health problems. The authors concluded it may not matter, as suboptimal levels place all individuals at considerably greater risk of death from all causes.

Dr. Smit concluded "As you age, there is an increased risk of melanoma, but older adults should try and get more activity in the sunshine… our study suggests that there is an opportunity for intervention with those who are in the pre-frail group, but could live longer, more independent lives if they get proper nutrition and exercise." This study underscores the critical importance of checking vitamin D blood saturation (50 to 70 ng/mL using the 25(OH)D test) and supplementing as necessary (5,000 to 7,000 IU per day for most adults) to dramatically lower mortality in the elderly population.

This is in opposition to eating diets of mostly cooked foods, which as seen from this perspective would be dark, or having no light. Regularly eating animals and chemicals is also putting darkness into your body, and eating fearful animals is a good way to make yourself fearful. It's not commonly known, but this energy does transfer. And since psychologists tell us that there are only two basic human emotions, love and fear, with this, we start to see how we create our own emotional, and therefore energetic states, by what we put in our bodies.

How Much Does Our Food Have to Do with Our Current World Situation?
The light and dark energy component is also why the people who seem hell-bent on destroying the planet and people these days so often use poisons to do so, and so consistently poison our foods. It's the easiest way they can come up with to get the population to comply with the ways of the dark because these things literally make us dark.

When you apply a "where we are in humanity" layer on top of all this – and a lot of people would agree that the world climate is currently fairly dark – one has to ask: Could a dark world climate be caused by the majority of the population regularly and almost exclusively eating dark foods? If it is, is the solution just as easy?

Doing deep detoxification is a powerful method to remove the stored darkness. Then, when you begin avoiding the dark foods and chemicals, and start adding to your body lots of foods that hold light, enlightenment becomes an option and an extremely viable one. Then you have to ask yourself, would we really have all of these world problems with a population of enlightened people? The answer is no.

Is it odd that in a culture that struggles so much, so few have noticed that all of the individuals who have become known for their enlightenment, have been into deep detoxification? Of course, they've mostly become religious figures and it's not what the church teaches, but if you look at their lives, they all became enlightened, or ended their suffering through the same path – physically removing their internally stored darkness, often through fasting.

Green leafy vegetables are known to hold the most light energy.

Children living in areas where public water supplies are artificially fluoridated had far lower IQ levels overall, based on the figures, compared to children living in non-fluoridated areas. And after accounting for other outside factors that may have influenced cognitive health and development, the team essentially determined that there is no denying a link between fluoride exposure and damaged IQ.

"[O]ur results support the possibility of adverse effects of fluoride exposures on children's neurodevelopment," wrote Anna Choi, a research scientist at Harvard, and her colleagues in their report. "Fluoride readily crosses the placenta. Fluoride exposure to the developing brain, which is much more susceptible to injury caused by toxicants than is the mature brain, may possibly lead to damage of a permanent nature."

Another study published in the same journal back in 2010 found a similar correlation between fluoride exposure and cognitive development. A comparison of children between the ages of eight and 13 living in two Chinese villages, one fluoridated and one not fluoridated, revealed a 350 percent higher IQ level overall in the non-fluoridated village compared to the fluoridated village. (http://www.naturalnews.com/030819_fluoride_brain_damage.html)

And again in India, researchers observed that fluoride chemicals cross the blood-brain barrier in children and "alter the structure and function of neural tissue." Published in the Journal of Medical and Allied Sciences, that particular study laid bare how pervasive fluoride actually is, in that the chemical deposits itself throughout the body and builds up over time, including in the brain. (http://www.naturalnews.com)

"It's senseless to keep subjecting our children to this ongoing fluoridation experiment to satisfy the political agenda of special interest groups," says Paul Beeber, an attorney and president of the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation (NYSCOF). "Even if fluoridation reduced cavities, is tooth health more important than brain health? It's time to put politics aside and stop artificial fluoridation everywhere."