Categories
Featured Articles

Fatty Fast Food, Idleness May Vex Liver

Enzyme Levels Quickly Rise In Subjects Who Supersize Theselves From Diet, Lack of Exercise Feb. 14, 2008

By Miranda Hitti

(WebMD) Consistently overdoing it at the fast-food counter and leading an idle life may not bode well for the liver, not to mention the waist size.

So say Swedish researchers who studied 18 lean, healthy students – mainly medical students – who agreed to supersize themselves for science's sake.

The students were asked to gain 5% to 15% of their body weight in a month by eating at least two daily meals at fast-food restaurants and adopting a sedentary lifestyle. Their fast-food diet featured hamburgers and other foods high in saturated animal fat. The researchers reimbursed the cost of those meals.

Before-and-after measurements show a ballooning of the students' weight, waist, fat, and liver enzymes.

On average, the students gained 14 pounds, added 2.6 inches to their waistline, and padded their body fat percentage by 3.7% during the study.

Blood samples provided by the students throughout the study show a spike in levels of the liver enzyme alanine aminotransferase (ALT). ALT levels rose quickly – typically within a week – after the students started the fast-food diet.

High ALT levels can be a sign of liver damage. But other tests show that most of the students didn't develop fatty liver disease during the month-long study.

The researchers – who included Fredrik Nystrom, MD, PhD, of Sweden's University Hospital of Linkoping – aren't focused on the occasional burger, but on a habitual pattern of being idle and overeating fattening foods from any source.

The study, published in the advance online edition of Gut, doesn't show which was more damaging – bingeing on fatty food or being sedentary. And it doesn't mean that all fast-food meals are bad choices. It's possible to make healthier choices at many fast-food chains.

 Liver Support Products

 

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Featured Articles

Baxter Confirms Possible Irregularities in Heparin

The drug maker and the FDA say it's too early to tell whether a plant in China is at fault. Some see an issue with U.S. oversight.
By Don Lee and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
2:05 PM PST, February 14, 2008

WASHINGTON — Scientific testing has found possible irregularities in some samples of a blood thinner ingredient linked to several deaths and hundreds of life-threatening reactions, part of a broadening international investigation, a company spokeswoman said today.

Baxter Healthcare Corp. said advanced testing had found "trace differences" in some lots of the blood thinner heparin, including quantities in which the active ingredient was produced at a supplier's plant in China, spokeswoman Erin Gardiner said.

Baxter and the Food and Drug Administration said it was too early to say whether the problems were caused by the ingredient made in China. But the disclosure is likely to add to consumer worries about goods from China after product safety scares in the past year involving Chinese-made pet food ingredients and toys. The disclosure also raised questions about FDA oversight, since the agency has never inspected the plant in China.

Several leading lawmakers in Congress said the case underscored a gaping hole in the FDA's inspection program: Although as much as 80% of the bulk drug ingredients used by U.S. manufacturers are shipped from abroad, the FDA inspects only about 7% of foreign establishments in a given year. Many have never been inspected.

Baxter emphasized that the investigation was continuing and that no conclusions had been reached.

"Baxter has detected differences between lots [of the active ingredient] but it's unclear what the impact of these differences is," Gardiner said. "They are not necessarily the root cause of the increase in adverse reactions, but they are certainly a central part of our investigation."

Some of the samples that were found to have differences "are definitely from China," she added. Earlier testing before the drug was shipped to hospitals and dialysis centers fully complied with industry and regulatory requirements, but the tests failed to detect any possible problems, Gardiner said.

Baxter announced Monday that it had suspended manufacturing of multiple-dose vials of heparin after receiving reports of 350 bad reactions, including four deaths. The drug is used to prevent the formation of dangerous blood clots during complex surgical procedures.

Heparin is a naturally occurring substance extracted from pig intestines and cow lungs. Some independent experts said contamination could have occurred at any point in the production process, from a problem with raw materials to the wrong kind of solvent being used to clean equipment.

Consumer advocates today urged a recall, but the FDA said that could do more harm than good by creating an acute shortage, since Deerfield, Ill-based Baxter accounts for about 50% of the market.

Also today, Baxter identified the supplier of the heparin as Scientific Protein Laboratories of Waunakee, Wis. A company official did not immediately return phone calls, but the firm's website says it maintains manufacturing facilities in Waunakee and Changzhou, China, about two hours' drive west of Shanghai.

Baxter said it inspected both plants last year and found no problems. FDA spokeswoman Karen Riley said the agency was planning to send inspectors to the plants in China and Wisconsin.

Industry sources in China identified the producer as a joint venture between Techpool Bio-Pharma Co. in Guangzhou and the Wisconsin-based SPL. A representative at the joint-venture plant's quality-control department confirmed that it made the ingredient for Baxter and that its production was under scrutiny by U.S. regulators.

"We are taking initiative to cooperate" with the FDA and Baxter, said the representative, who declined to give his name. "We put great emphasis on the investigation. After all, it involves people's lives."

He said the company was expecting FDA inspectors to arrive soon, but he declined to comment further. At the moment, he said, the plant was not producing heparin components.

Categories
Featured Articles

Choking ‘Game’ Claims 82 Young Lives in USA

Mike Stobbe in Atlanta The Guardian,

Friday February 15 2008 Article history

At least 82 youths in the US have died from a "choking game", according to the first official tally of such fatalities.

In the so-called game, a leash or rope is wrapped around the neck to temporarily cut the blood supply to the brain. The goal is a dreamlike, floating-in-space feeling when blood rushes back into the brain. Up to 20% of teenagers and pre-teens play the game, sometimes in groups, according to some estimates based on local studies. But nearly all the deaths were of those who played alone, according to the count compiled by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It took reports in the media and by advocacy groups from 1995 to 2007, and found 82 fatalities of young people aged from six to 19 – 90% of whom were boys. The CDC did not include cases in which it was unclear if the death was from the choking game or if it was a suicide. They also did not include deaths that involved autoerotic asphyxiation, which is self-strangulation during masturbation.

The authors of the report said the real total is probably higher – but they were unable to rely on death certificates, which do not differentiate between choking-game deaths and other unintentional strangulation deaths.

The CDC started the study after receiving a letter last year from a doctor in Tacoma, Washington, who said her 13-year-old son died from playing the game in 2005. CDC officials urged parents to be aware the fad exists.

Many of the children who died from the choking game were described as bright, athletic students who apparently were intrigued by a method of getting high that does not involve drugs or alcohol.

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Healthy Recipes

Tejano (Tex-Mex) Fish Tacos

unknown creator

From deep in the heart of South Texas, this delicious seafood plate is worthy of the Texas Gulf Coast.

2 ripe large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped
1-2 serrano chili pepper, seeded and finely chopped OR for extra zest, add 1 chopped jalapeno, minus the seeds unless you desire even more zest, then leave the seeds.
Juice of 1 lime
Sea salt, to taste
1/3 cup reduced-fat soy free mayonnaise
1 tsp. ground cumin
Ground black pepper, to taste
1 Tbsp. olive, coconut, palm or hemp oil
1 lb. cod or other firm white fish filet, cut in eight 4-inch by 1-inch pieces
8 (6-inch) corn tortillas
1 1/3 cup finely shredded green cabbage (1/2 small head)
1 cup finely-shredded romaine lettuce
1/2 cup minced cilantro leaves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

To make the salsa, combine the tomatoes, onion, serrano pepper and lime juice in a bowl. Season to taste with salt and set aside.

In another bowl, combine the mayonnaise and cumin. Season to taste with black pepper and set aside. Heat the oil in a large, preferably heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the fish. Cook until golden on all sides and opaque in the center of the thickest part, about 2 minutes per side, 8 minutes in all, turning the fish with tongs or a spatula.

Meanwhile, wrap the tortillas in foil. Warm them in the oven until moist and soft, 5 minutes. To serve, place 2 tortillas on each of four dinner plates. Sprinkle 1/3 cup cabbage and 1/4 cup lettuce over each tortilla and add a dollop of mayonnaise. Place a piece of fish on top. Add the cilantro to the salsa and spoon a generous amount over each taco. Serve immediately.Makes 4 servings.

Per serving: 302 calories, 9 g. total fat (1 g. saturated fat), 33 g. carbohydrate, 25 g. protein, 5 g. dietary fiber, 276 mg. sodium.

Categories
Healthy Recipes

Sauteed Chicken With Vegetables and Garlic

unknown creator 

This scrumptious dish is perfect for taste, as well as for getting rid of unwanted weight.

4 pieces boneless skinless chicken breast- halved
2 carrots, 1 medium leek 1 red bell pepper (seeded), peeled and cut into thin strips
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup canned tomato pulp
2 tsp. olive oil
2 tsp. unsalted butter

Instructions:

Sauté chicken breasts on a skillet, 4-5 minutes per side, turning occasionally, until chicken is opaque throughout. Transfer to a platter and keep warm.

Add carrots to skillet and sauté over medium heat 1 minute. Add leek, bell pepper, and garlic and sauté another minute. Stir in tomatoes and any juices from platter. Simmer 2 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Season with salt and pepper according to taste.

Serve vegetables over chicken.

Categories
Healthy Recipes

Tejano (Tex-Mex) Fish Tacos

unknown creator

From deep in the heart of South Texas, this delicious seafood plate is worthy of the Texas Gulf Coast.

2 ripe large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped
1-2 serrano chili pepper, seeded and finely chopped OR for extra zest, add 1 chopped jalapeno, minus the seeds unless you desire even more zest, then leave the seeds.
Juice of 1 lime
Sea salt, to taste
1/3 cup reduced-fat soy free mayonnaise
1 tsp. ground cumin
Ground black pepper, to taste
1 Tbsp. olive, coconut, palm or hemp oil
1 lb. cod or other firm white fish filet, cut in eight 4-inch by 1-inch pieces
8 (6-inch) corn tortillas
1 1/3 cup finely shredded green cabbage (1/2 small head)
1 cup finely-shredded romaine lettuce
1/2 cup minced cilantro leaves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

To make the salsa, combine the tomatoes, onion, serrano pepper and lime juice in a bowl. Season to taste with salt and set aside.

In another bowl, combine the mayonnaise and cumin. Season to taste with black pepper and set aside. Heat the oil in a large, preferably heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the fish. Cook until golden on all sides and opaque in the center of the thickest part, about 2 minutes per side, 8 minutes in all, turning the fish with tongs or a spatula.

Meanwhile, wrap the tortillas in foil. Warm them in the oven until moist and soft, 5 minutes. To serve, place 2 tortillas on each of four dinner plates. Sprinkle 1/3 cup cabbage and 1/4 cup lettuce over each tortilla and add a dollop of mayonnaise. Place a piece of fish on top. Add the cilantro to the salsa and spoon a generous amount over each taco. Serve immediately.Makes 4 servings.

Per serving: 302 calories, 9 g. total fat (1 g. saturated fat), 33 g. carbohydrate, 25 g. protein, 5 g. dietary fiber, 276 mg. sodium.

Categories
Healthy Recipes

Grilled Marinated Seafood With Tangy Orange Salsa

unknown creators

To make this tangy, colorful, yummy dish, prepare the marinade with
1/4 cup orange or tangerine juice, 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, 4 teaspoons minced garlic and ginger root, 1/2 teaspoon grated orange or tangerine peel, and one teaspoon of salt, all mixed in a big bowl. Toss in the fish cubes and chill covered for 1 hour.

To make about 2 1/2 cups of Salsa, you need:
2 large oranges, peeled, pith removed and diced (1 1/2 cups)
1 large cup seeded and diced tomato
1/2 cup minced red onion with garlic and ginger root
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
1/2 jalapeño chili pepper, minced fine
Combine all ingredients in a bowl, mix well, adding salt to taste, cover and leave to Chill. Stir in one tablespoon minced fresh cilantro just before serving.

After an hour, pat dry the fish and thread it onto 4 skewers. Arrange the skewers on a broiler pan and broil under a preheated broiler 4 inches from the heat for 2-3 minutes on each side, or until firm.
Serve with the salsa.
(Serves 4)
Each serving contains:

237 calories;
5 grams of fat;
61 milligrams of cholesterol;
2 grams of dietary fiber;
55 milligrams vitamin C.

Categories
Laughter, The Best Medicine

Red Skelton’s Recipe For The Perfect Marriage

1. Two times a week, we go to a nice restaurant, have a little beverage, good food and companionship.
She goes on Tuesdays, I go on Fridays.

2. We also sleep in separate beds. Hers is in California and mine is in Texas.

3. I take my wife everywhere…..but she keeps finding her way back.

4. I asked my wife where she wanted to go for our anniversary. "Somewhere I haven't been in a long time!" she said. So I suggested the kitchen.

5. We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.

6. She has an electric blender, electric toaster and electric bread maker. She said "There are too many gadgets and no place
to sit down!". So I bought her an electric chair.

7. My wife told me the car wasn't running well because there was water in the carburetor. I asked where the car was; she told me "In the lake."

8. She got a mud pack and looked great for two days. Then the mud fell off.

9. She ran after the garbage truck, yelling "Am I too late for the garbage?" …. The driver said "No, jump in!"

10. Remember: Marriage is the number one cause of divorce.

11. I married Miss Right. I just didn't know her first name was Always.

12. I haven't spoken to my wife in 18 months. I don't like to interrupt her.

13. The last fight was my fault though. My wife asked "What's on the TV?" I said "Dust!"

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Ask Utopia Silver

Yeast Infection Treatment

Q:
Dear Utopia Silver,
I believe I have a yeast infection and I don't know what to do.
Cerria

A:
Hi Cerria,
There are several things you may want to do and also a list of supplements you can use to fight such a problem. The first two will probably be the most helpful, but they are all important.

1)    Colloidal Silver- Use orally and also apply directly to the affected tissue.
2)    Acidophilus- fights candida infections
3)    Flaxseed oil- important in healing and aids in preventing the fungus from damaging affected cells.
4)    Vitamin B Complex- is essential to all bodily functions, resistance to infection, and the production of all enzymes.
5)    Calcium/magnesium- Candida infections often cause a deficiency of these essential minerals.
6)    Vitamin D3-5- enhances the absorption of Calcium.

It is also helpful to eat a diet higher in vegetables, fish, and gluten free grains (such as brown rice), yogurt and increase your fiber consumption. The yogurt and Acidophilus can be consumed and also applied directly to the affected tissues.

Do not eat or drink anything containing processed sugar or corn syrup. Eat very little fruit until the symptoms go away. Avoid cheese, alcohol, dairy products, and chocolates.

I hope this helps.

You are appreciated in Utopia.

Ben Taylor

Utopia Silver Supplements

830 966-2315

www.utopiasilver.com

Notice: We are not doctors and we suggest that you consult a healthcare professional, preferably a qualified naturopathic doctor or one who has been trained in integrative medicine if you have a life or health threatening illness.

Categories
The Best Years In Life

The Four Horsemen of the Health Apocalypse

by Tony Isaacs author of Cancer's Natural Enemy
First in a New Series

A dark plague has crept across the land, operating largely in shadow for generations and set upon us by an evil master whose footsteps have fouled the earth for as long as man has walked upon it.  Led by four evil horsemen who have been corrupted and enslaved by the master, the plague has cast its shadowy tentacles from sea to sea through towns and cities large and small, sparing no one. Almost no location has proven remote enough to escape its reach and it has visited death, illness and suffering on young and old alike.

The plague is the plague of Bad Health.  Its master is Greed.  And the Four Horsemen perverted into serving greed and spreading the plague are our Food, our Medicine, our Industry and our Government.  The effects of this evil plague can be measured in terms of the dollars and the lives it cruelly affects – billions of dollars annually in ill gained profit at the expense of deaths that run into the hundreds of thousand and suffering that affects millions.

Throughout history, men have existed whose greed and lust for wealth and power has driven them to put their own selfish interests above those of humanity itself. Such greed has been behind most of the evils in the history or mankind and caused untold human suffering. Today the very health of modern man itself is under attack by the greedy elite who willingly trade profits for the ability of their fellow men and women to enjoy good health and live long enjoyable lives.

Through a process that began in the late 1800's, those who place personal gain and wealth above health and humanity have corrupted the four most important cornerstones that should be our shining benefactors and guarantors of providing mankind with good, nutritious food to drink, air to breath and water to drink:  our food supply, our medicines, our industry, and our government. Today, instead of marshalling their efforts to benefit humanity, these cornerstones we depend on have been corrupted to benefit and elite few, turning them instead into just the opposite of what they should be – darkly corrupted purveyors of illness which rob us of our health and our wealth, take years off our life spans, and force us into a lifetime of managed illness and poor nutrition.  If allowed to continue, the downward spiral in health may ultimately threaten the ability of mankind to even continue as a species.

Here then are the four crumbling cornerstones of health and a brief overview of how greed has corrupted them:

Food

Our soils have been depleted, our food crops have been genetically engineered to produce more bulk with less nutrition and to withstand more pesticides, herbicides and artificial fertilizers that ensure higher yields at the cost of multitudes of health problems for those who consume them. Furthermore, the food on our grocer’s shelves has had the nutrition processed out, with harmful additives processed in to enhance shelf life, color, taste and texture, with the same result.  The advent of large scale industrial farms favored with government subsidies has changed the emphasis from good nutrition coming from a local human face to good production and poor, contaminated nutrition from faceless industries.  Thanks to over-farming and the advent of chemical fertilizers, our soils are rapidly being stripped of valuable minerals, including trace minerals.  Only the three primary minerals plants need to grow are being replaced – from artificial chemical fertilizers, but not the 60 or more they need to have optimum nutrition.

Medicine

For 6000 years, mankind used nature as the primary means of preventing and controlling illness. In the mid 1800's, there were as many naturopathic and homeopathic practitioners and medical schools as there were modern "germ theory" doctors and universities.  Then the Rockefellers and Carnegies teamed up with the American Medical Society to make germ theory medicine the ONLY acceptable form of medicine solely in order to increase their profits and suppress competition.  Since that time we have seen homeopathic and naturopathic methods not only suppressed, but horrifically persecuted.  Such actions continue to this very day, but nowhere in history was the abuse of power and persecution more criminally blatant than during the reign of terror and personal enrichment of Morris Fishbein, who persecuted such leading alternative giants as Royal Raymond Rife and Harry Hoxsey.

More information on the misdeeds of Morris Fishbein can be found in this informative and factual article: http://www.rense.com/general19/enemy.htm

About the same time the AMA was conspiring to eliminate competition, the world pharmaceutical giants, then located in Germany, were conspiring to replace all natural remedies and healing plants with drugs made in their labs.  In the early 1900's, these companies formed the I. G. Farben cartel, with the express purpose of seizing control of the world's medical drug trade, and their plans have been successful beyond even their own wildest dreams of greed.  For generations now, we have been inundated with a never ending avalanche of propaganda telling us to “ask our doctors” about the benefits of drugs while warning us away from natural alternatives that are  safer, more effective and far less expensive.

For generations, our doctors have been taught at medical schools whose largest source of funding by far is the world pharmaceutical empire.  They have been taught precious little about the role diet, nutrition, exercise, lifestyle and natural plants have to play in prevention and healing.  Instead, they have been taught that the way to treat illness and disease is to prescribe medications – medications that just happen to be made by the same people who fund their education.  As a result, safe, effective and less expensive natural healing with hundreds and even thousands of years of proven success has been chastised and made illegal and has been replaced by patentable and hugely profitable synthetics and isolates.  An even darker result is the millions of lives and billions of dollars that could be saved if alternative and natural treatments were allowed for cancer, heart disease, liver disease, diabetes and a host of other conditions that mainstream "approved" medicine has been unable or unwilling to cure.

From the very first, these lab created drugs have had significant and often life-threatening side effects, and, when effective at all, have mostly managed symptoms instead of effected cures.  Often, their prolonged use leads to new illnesses and more medications in a never ending cycle so that by the time a man reaches 65 years of age in the United States, he takes an average of 15 prescribed and over the counter medications daily – when it all began with one or two conditions that could have been treated naturally. When your only marketplace is the human body, it is a wonderful plan to protect and increase profits, but a horrible one for humanity.

Industry

Since the beginning of the industrial age and the coal burning plants, every year an increasing amount of literally thousands of metric tons of chemical pollutants, including carcinogens and thousands of other highly toxic chemicals and compounds such as mercury, lead, PCP, arsenic. etc., are spewed into our environment, polluting the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat.  While the National Institute of Health has recognized 133 chemical compounds which are, or may be, carcinogens, well over ten thousand industrial compounds have not been tested for safety either singly or in combination, and the number of new compounds introduced to the environment grows by leaps and bounds each year.

Not only have the vast majority of our industries resisted having their growing list of thousands of chemical compounds properly tested for safety, they have resisted controls on the use and emissions of the ones known to be harmful.  Shamefully, it has been revealed that the medical industry that benefits financially from increased illness has often supported industry efforts to control their chemical contaminants that make us ill (see Devra Davis important new book, The Secret History of the War on Cancer). Virtually all of our industries, including the food and medical industries, have for the sake of profits corrupted the agencies entrusted with their oversight into agencies that serve their profits first and the citizens they should serve second. No one outside of industry should begrudge them making a reasonable profit; however, no one inside industry can reasonably argue that they should not make their profits while operating morally and being good neighbors who strive to protect the health and welfare of the consumers.

Government

The government should be the greatest protector of the health and well being of its citizens, but the influence and money of the greedy have corrupted it to a government of the corporation which gives mostly lip service to actually serving its citizens first and foremost.  The United States of America was founded as a constitutional republic to protect and insure the unalienable rights of every citizen to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. All levels of government, with the federal level having the least powers of all in most areas, were supposed to derive their powers from the consent of the governed.  Thanks to the relentless pursuit of wealth and power, and the use of that wealth and power to buy votes and influence, our government has become a top down corruption that our founding fathers would surely rise up against in renewed revolt.

No greater example of this corruption of masters and priorities can be found than the FDA – United States Food and Drug Administration.  Although the public widely believes that the FDA is out to protect them, what it actually does is run a protection racket for mainstream medicine, especially the world pharmaceutical empire. Who the FDA really serves and protects becomes crystal clear when you examine their actions.  On the one hand, they twist the rules and impose their own definitions of what constitutes a drug to keep safe and natural competition off the market by actions such as persecuting and threatening cherry growers, and the makers and sellers of products like bitter melon, Stevia and colloidal silver, none of whom have ever caused a single death and each of which has hundreds of Pub Med and other studies vouching for their effectiveness.  On the other hand, they foully delay action, hide studies and outright lie about the safety of products like Vioxx, Bextra, Alleve, Aspartame, Avandia, Fosamax, Gardasil, and a host of others which have been blamed with hundreds of thousands of deaths and illnesses in order for their big pharma and big chemical industry masters to reap billions in profits while the public suffers.

In the words of the last FDA commissioner to stand up for the safety of the citizens and resist the lobbying and pressure of Big Pharma:

"The FDA 'protects' the big drug companies and are subsequently rewarded, and using the government's police powers they attack those who threaten the big drug companies. People think that the FDA is protecting them.

It isn't.

What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it is doing are as different as night and day."

Dr. Herbert Ley

And thus concludes this introduction to a new series of articles by the author, ones which may someday comprise a new book.  In future installments we will take an in depth look at each of the "Four Horsemen" and those who are responsible for robbing our health for the sake of their greed, the increasing rates of cancer and heart disease, the reasons for autism and other conditions which have exploded among our children, and we will examine why we spend more money by far on healthcare in the United States than anywhere else in the world, yet have seen our life expectancy drop from 14th to 42nd in the world in just two decades.

We will also examine what we as individuals and as a nation can do to take back control of our health, our bodies and the agencies that are supposed to serve us.

Until next time, live long, live healthy, live happy!

Tony Isaacs