Seven Proven Chlorella Benefits

Reposted from Dr. Axe

http://draxe.com/7-proven-chlorella-benefits-side-effects/

Are you looking for an all-natural supplement that boosts your energy, supports fat loss and helps detox heavy metals like lead and mercury from your body? If so, a freshwater algae called chlorella may be exactly what you need.

Native to Taiwan and Japan, this superfood is rich with phytonutrients, including amino acids, chlorophyll, beta-carotene, potassium, phosphorous, biotin, magnesium and the B-complex vitamins.
Chlorella is a blue-green algae like its cousin spirulina, and we will compare the nutrients of these superfoods later in the article.

Studies have shown that chlorella benefits the entire body by supporting healthy hormonal function, promoting cardiovascular health, helping to negate the effects of chemotherapy and radiation, lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, and aiding in the detoxification of our bodies.

Chlorella’s rich green color comes from a high concentration of chlorophyll. We are all told to eat more leafy green vegetables for good health, but sometimes it can be difficult to get the 5-7 servings of vegetables a day recommended by nutritionists and doctors of functional medicine.

While juicing is another option, it’s simply too time-consuming for most people. And frankly, most green leafy vegetables pale in comparison to the health benefits that chlorella can provide.
By consuming organic, low-temperature-extracted chlorella supplements, you can receive all of the chlorella benefits in a simple powder or tablet form.

Chlorella Nutrition Facts

As you’re about to see, chlorella is one of the most nutrient-dense superfoods in the world.

A 1-ounce (3 tbsp) serving of chlorella contains:

• Protein—16g
• Vitamin A—287% RDA
• Vitamin B2—71% RDA
• Vitamin B3—33% RDA
• Iron—202% RDA
• Magnesium—22% RDA
• Zinc—133% RDA

In addition, chlorella contains a good amount of vitamin B1, vitamin B6 and phosphorus.

When you look at its nutrient density score, it’s easy to see why chlorella is ranked one of the top 10 health foods in the world. In fact, it is way more nutrient dense per gram than other greens, including kale, spinach and broccoli!

---

7 Researched Chlorella Benefits

Here are seven scientifically proven chlorella benefits you can expect to receive by incorporating this superfood into your daily diet.

1. Detoxifies Heavy Metals

If you have mercury fillings in your teeth, have been vaccinated, eat fish regularly, have been exposed to radiation or consume foods from China, you may have heavy metals lurking in your body. It is important for your overall health and wellness to be proactive in detoxing heavy metals and toxins.

One of chlorella’s most significant health benefits is that it wraps itself around even stubborn toxins residing in our bodies, such as lead, cadmium, mercury and uranium, and keeps them from being reabsorbed. Regular consumption of chlorella can even help keep heavy metals from accumulating in our bodies’ soft tissues and organs in the first place. (1, 2)

2. Detoxifies Radiation and Chemotherapy

Radiation therapy and chemotherapy are the most common forms of cancer treatment today. Anyone who has gone through either of these  treatments, or knows anyone who has, knows what a toll they take on the body. Chlorella’s high levels of chlorophyll have been shown to protect the body against ultraviolet radiation treatments while removing radioactive particles from the body.

According to researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University Medical College, “Cellular components and functions of the immune system remain at or near normal levels and are less adversely affected when patients are undergoing chemotherapy and/or taking immunosuppressive medications such as steroids.”
The university’s two-year study allowed researchers to observe that glioma-positive patients have fewer respiratory infections and flu-like illnesses when taking chlorella. (3)

3. Supports Your Immune System

Research published in 2012 in the Nutrition Journal found that after 8 weeks of chlorella intake, NK cell activity improved.

Researchers from the Yonsei University in Seoul Korea studied healthy individuals and their immune system’s response to chlorella supplements.

The results showed that chlorella supports a healthy immune system response and helps “natural killer” cell activity. (4)

4. Promotes Weight Loss

Losing weight is difficult, especially as we age. In a study published in the Journal of Medicinal Food, researchers state, “Chlorella intake resulted in noticeable reductions in body fat percentage, serum total cholesterol, and fasting blood glucose levels”. (5)

Chlorella benefits you by helping to regulate hormones, helping with metabolism, improving circulation, and promoting higher levels of energy. It also helps to reduce weight and body fat, and removes stored toxins.

As our bodies lose weight, toxins are released, and can be reabsorbed. It is important to flush these toxins out of our system as quickly as possible. Chlorella’s ability to surround the toxins and heavy metals resident in our bodies helps facilitate elimination and prevent reabsorption.

5. Makes You Look Younger 

Research continues to reveal that chlorella may also slow the aging process, making you look younger. A study published in the journal Clinical Laboratory revealed that chlorella greatly reduces oxidative stress, that can be caused from pollution, stress and a poor diet. (6)

The reason chlorella is so effective at giving you younger looking skin is because it naturally increases levels of vitamin A, vitamin C and glutathione in your body which eliminates free-radicals and protects your cells.

By just taking 1 teaspoon or a couple capsules daily of a chlorella supplement, you can see results in as little as 2 weeks.

6. Fights Cancer

It is believed that all human bodies at some time develop cancer cells. Properly functioning immune systems have the ability to attack and destroy these cells, before they have the chance to take hold and create cancer. A recent medical study found that chlorella helps fight cancer in several ways. (7)

First, when taken preemptively, it strengthens the immune system, so our bodies respond properly.
Second, because it removes heavy metals and toxins from our body, we are less likely to get environmentally based cancers.

Third, studies have shown that individuals once diagnosed with cancer, chlorella enhances the action of T cells helping to fight new abnormal cells.

And, as mentioned above, if cancer is diagnosed, and chemotherapy or radiation therapy is used, chlorella can help to fight the side effects and be used in addition to natural cancer treatments.

7. Lowers Your Blood Sugar and Cholesterol

Type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol are two of the serious chronic conditions facing many Americans today. Years of improper eating, stress and a lack of sleep have led many to one or both of these diagnoses.

In a study published the Journal of Medicinal Food, researchers found that doses of 8,000 mg of chlorella per day (divided into 2 doses), helps lower cholesterol and blood glucose levels.
Researchers observed first a decline in cholesterol levels, and then the improvement in blood glucose. They believe that chlorella activates a number of genes at the cellular level that improve insulin sensitivity, encouraging a healthy balance. (8, 9)

The Science is Practically Screaming... Don't Make This Trendy Fat Mistake

Reposted from Dr. Mercola

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/11/everything-you-need-to-know-about-fatty-acids.aspx

By Dr. Mercola

The science is loud and clear: the correct balance of fatty acids is essential if you want to be the healthiest you can be.
There are actually two problems related to how these fats are being consumed by most Westerners today:

1. Most people are consuming far too many omega-6 fats compared to omega-3 fats.
   
   The ideal ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats is 1:1, but the typical Western diet is between 1:20 and 1:50.
2. The typical Westerner is consuming far too many polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) altogether, which is a problem in and of itself.

So, most consume the wrong amount—AND the wrong ratio of these highly benefical fats.
Both omega-3 and omega-6 fats are PUFAs and they're both essential to your health, but when omega-6 is consumed in excess, it become problematic.
As a group, when consumed in the wrong ratios, they tend to stimulate inflammatory processes in your body, rather than inhibit them.
You need some inflammation to protect yourself from infections and trauma, and PUFAs help you mount these defenses.
However, too many PUFAs contribute to chronic inflammation, which causes all sorts of problems over the long-term. Inflammation is at the source of just about every chronic disease we see today. Consumption of polyunsaturated fat in the U.S. has gone from about 13 grams per day to nearly 40 grams per day over the past century (see figure below).

Increase in American PUFA Consumption From Stephan Guyenet's Whole Health Source Blog

By far, the type of omega fats that most Westerners get too much of is the omega-6 variety, due to its prevalence in processed foods—and this is what's driving up the line on the graph. It is easy to get confused when reading about the different types of fats—there are saturated fats and unsaturated fats, omega-3s and omega-6s, PUFAs, long-chain and short-chain fats, and the list goes on.
In order to help clear up the confusion, this article aims to provide you with a "primer" on fatty acids to increase your understanding of the fundamental differences between the types of fats and how your body uses them. So let's start by taking a look at the overall category called "fats"—what they're made of and what they do for you. And then we'll take a closer look at PUFAs and omega-3s.

Fats for Dummies

Fats are one member of a group of water-insoluble substances called "lipids." Lipids are important to you because they are the primary components of your cell membranes. Other members of the lipid group include sterols, phospholipids, triglycerides, and waxes.
Fats both in foods and in your body, are simply storage units composed of fatty acids. A fat is distinguished by the specific combination of fatty acids making it up. Fatty acids have three basic purposes in your body:

1. Providing energy
2. Providing the building blocks for cell membranes
3. Acting as raw materials that can be converted to other substances that perform special duties in your body such as hormones.

Fatty Acid Saturation and Chain Length
The properties of fats and fatty acids depend on their degree of hydrogen saturation and the length of their molecules, or "chain length." Chemically, a fatty acid is a chain of carbon atoms with pairs of hydrogen atoms attached, with an "acid group" attached to one end of the molecule.
There are four types of fatty acids, based on how many of their carbon bondsare paired with hydrogen:

1. Saturated Fats: Fully loaded with hydrogen atoms forming straight chains, and are typically solid at room temperature (for example, butter and coconut oil)
2. Unsaturated Fats: These fats have lost at least one of their pairs of hydrogen atoms from their carbon chain, resulting in molecules that kink or bend at each double bond. The more hydrogen pairs that are missing, the more bent the molecules. The more bent the molecules, the more space they occupy, thereby making the fat a liquid at room temperature (oil). Unsaturated fats come in two varieties:
   
   
   1. Monounsaturated Fats: Missing one pair of hydrogens
   2. Polyunsaturated Fats (PUFAs): Missing more than one pair of hydrogens

Vegetable oils and animal fats are typically composed of a mixture of these different fatty acid types. For example, olive oil is mostly monounsaturated fat with a small amount of polyunsaturated fat. Lard is primarily equal parts saturated fat and monounsaturated fat, but contains some polyunsaturated fat as well. Most vegetable oils high in PUFA, whereas most animal fats are high in saturated and monounsaturated fats (except for palm, coconut, and olive oils). Saturated and monounsaturated fats are more easily used by your body than polyunsaturated fats.
Fats vary in the length of their carbon chains, leading to another classification scheme based on their number of carbon pairs:

• Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs): Less than eight carbons
• Medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs): Eight to 14 carbons
• Long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs): 16 or more carbons
• Very-long-chain fatty acids (VLCFAs): More than 22 carbons

A fatty acid's chain length and saturation control its melting point. As chain length increases, melting point increases. Likewise, fats that are solid at room temperature (butter, coconut oil) have longer chain lengths than fats that are liquid at room temperature (fish oil, olive oil). With chain lengths being equal, unsaturated fats have lower melting points than saturated fats.

The Chemical Instability of Polyunsaturated Fats (PUFAs)

Because your tissues are made up mostly of saturated and monounsaturated fats, your body requires more of them than polyunsaturated fats (which is true of all mammals). The main dietary PUFAs are omega-3 and omega-6 fats. Although your body does need these, it needs them in relatively small quantities.
One of the problems with PUFAs is that they are very chemically unstable, and highly susceptible  to being altered and denatured by what's around them. Think about what happens to the oils in your pantry—they are susceptible to going rancid as a result of oxidation. In your body, PUFAs undergo a similar process when exposed to the toxic byproducts of proteins and sugars—especially fructose.
This is why most fish oil supplements have such a short shelf life, and many are already oxidized before they hit the bottle. Consuming oxidized fats can do your body more harm than good.
When you eat too many PUFAs, they are increasingly incorporated into your cell membranes. Because these fats are unstable, your cells become fragile and prone to oxidation, which leads to all sorts of health problems, such as atherosclerosis. Now let's take a look at the most common PUFAs in your diet—the omega fats.

The Omega Fats

The end of the fatty acid chain, opposite the acid end, is the "omega end." The location of the first double bond from the omega end dictates whether a fatty acid is an omega-3, omega-6, omega-9 (oleic acid), or another member of the "omega family."  Both omega-3s and omega-6s come in both short-and long-chain varieties.
Omega-3 Fats

• Plant Based: The shorter-chain form of omega-3 is alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), the only omega-3 found in plants (except for some algae). Foods rich in ALA include flaxseed oil (53 percent), canola oil (11 percent), English walnuts (9 percent), and soybean oil (7 percent). ALA is considered essential because your body can't make it, so you need it in your diet—or its long-chain derivatives.
• Animal Based: The longer-chain forms of omega-3 are found mostly in animals and they are eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids (EPA and DHA) and are highly unsaturated, mainly found in fish, shellfish and krill. DHA is the primary structural component of your brain and retina, and EPA is its precursor. Your body can make some EPA and DHA from short-chain ALA, but does so inefficiently. Recent studies suggest less than one percent of ALA is converted, if you are consuming the typical Western diet. DHA is found in cod liver oil, fatty fish, and in smaller concentrations in the organs and fats of land animals.

Omega-6 Fats

• Shorter-chain: The shorter-chain form of omega-6 is linoleic acid (LA), which is the most prevalent PUFA in the Western diet, is abundant in corn oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil and canola oil.
• Longer-chain: The longer-chain form of omega-6 is arachidonic acid (AA), which is an important constituent of cell membranes and a material your body uses to make substances that combat infection, regulate inflammation, promote blood clotting, and allow your cells to communicate. AA is found in liver, egg yolks, animal meats and seafood.

Fats: Understanding the Essentials

"Essential fatty acids" (EFAs) is a term referring to the PUFAs your body needs but cannot produce (or convert from other fats), so they must be obtained from your diet.
Traditionally, only two fats were considered "essential"—ALA (an omega-3 fat) and LA (an omega-6 fat). However, we now know it's the long-chain derivatives—arachidonic acid, DHA, and EPA—that your body needs the most. Although you have the enzymes to convert LA into these longer-chain fats (ALA, DHA and EPA), the conversion isn't efficient enough for optimal brain growth and development. This has led to a recent rethinking of what fats to consider "essential" and recommendations for adding more long-chain fats to your diet, to better meet these biological demands.

DHA and EPA: The "Anti-Inflammatory Fats"

Scientific studies have uncovered a number of important health benefits from omega-3 fats, and it's looking more like it's DHA and EPA that are responsible for those benefits, rather than ALA. Science suggests that omega-3s offer the following benefits to your health:

Healthier, stronger bones	Protecting your tissues and organs from inflammation
Improved mood regulation	Brain and eye development in babies
Reduced risk of Parkinson's disease	Reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease
Reduced risk of death from ALL causes	Relief from Dry Eye Syndrome
Prevention of vascular complications from type 2 diabetes	Peripheral artery disease
Gallstones	Preventing postpartum depression
Reducing symptoms of lupus erythematosus and other autoimmune diseases	Preventing premature birth
Multiple sclerosis	Combating cancer

In fact, if you go to the omega-3 fat page on GreenMedInfo.com, you will see a list of scientific studies supporting the benefits of omega-3s for 254 different diseases, which is powerful proof of their broad-reaching scope. One reason omega-3s are so good for you is their anti-inflammatory properties, especially the omega-3s from animal sources. In the case of DHA, your tissues use this fatty acid it to synthesize compounds called "resolvins," which help to reduce inflammation.
According to the Weston A. Price Foundation:

"Sufficient DHA allows the immune system to mount a robust inflammatory response against invading pathogens or damaged tissues and to bring the response quickly to an end once the task has been accomplished.
Researchers are increasingly discovering that most degenerative diseases involve an element of chronic, low-level inflammation, and the inability to "turn off" important inflammatory processes once they are no longer needed could be part of the problem. DHA deficiency may therefore be at the root of widespread declines in cognitive function, increases in mental disorders and epidemic levels of degenerative disease."

A study in the journal Pediatrics even showed that supplementing a mother's DHA during pregnancy and lactation improves her child's IQ at four years of age. EPA, which accumulates in fish, is a precursor to DHA.
Just like DHA, EPA also helps to control inflammation, but this time by interfering with arachidonic acid metabolism. Arachidonic acid is the precursor to PGE2 (a prostaglandin), which is a major initiator of inflammation. You can see how DHA and EPA would work together to naturally reduce inflammation and improve inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.
In rheumatoid arthritis, EPA/DHA supplementation has been shown to reduce joint stiffness and soreness and improve flexibility. And for asthma, a study involving fish oil supplementation for asthmatic children (along with improved diet) resulted in better airway function and reduced need for asthma medications, without side effects.  The most profound benefits of EPA may lie in its implications for people at high risk for coronary artery disease. But science has shown that EPA/DHA supplementation can benefit people with other conditions as well, such as:

• EPA/DHA supplementation has helped people with ulcerative colitis.
• Several studies have shown that people with schizophrenia often have low levels of the particular EFAs necessary for normal nerve cell membrane metabolism. Early results from a few trials suggest EPA can have a positive effect on the mental status of schizophrenics.
• Epidemiological evidence suggests that populations consuming marine diets rich in EPA have a low incidence of cancer. Experimental studies, both in vitro and in vivo, further support EPA's anti-cancer activity.

EPA and Your Heart

Even though the medical establishment for decades has advised you to consume vegetable oils (omega-6 PUFAs) to prevent heart disease, human trials have conclusively demonstrated that vegetable oils DO NOT decrease atherosclerosis or decrease your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. But the news gets even worse. Studies have revealed that vegetable oils actually increase your risk of cancer after a period of about five years, and may increase your risk of heart disease as well.
There is a widespread medical myth that atherosclerotic plaque is caused by too much LDL and cholesterol in your blood. Yet, this is not what the research shows! Instead, science tells us that the mechanism driving atherosclerosis is actually the oxidation of PUFAs in your LDL membrane. You may recall that excess PUFAs lead to fragile cell membranes that can easily be damaged by oxidation.
Furthermore, high LDL appears to be a sign of cholesterol sulfate deficiency—it's your body's way of trying to maintain the correct balance by taking damaged LDL and turning it into plaque, within which the blood platelets produce the cholesterol sulfate your heart and brain needs for optimal function. What this also means is that when you artificially lower your cholesterol with a statin drug, which effectively reduces that plaque but doesn't address the root problem, your body is not able to compensate any longer, and as a result of lack of cholesterol sulfate you may end up with heart failure. For more details on this, please review my interview with Dr. Stephanie Seneff.
So that I can be perfectly clear about this, I'll repeat it again:
Atherosclerosis is NOT caused by the amount of cholesterol carried by your LDL, but by oxidative damage to weak cell membranes, resulting from a diet too high in PUFAs and too low in saturated fats. It is no wonder, then, that trials attempting to prevent heart disease with diets rich in polyunsaturated vegetable oils have failed so miserably!  Even the US FDA, which denies most nutritional claims, acknowledges the following cardiovascular benefits of dietary animal-based omega-3 fats:
And the opposite can be said of diets rich in EPA, which have been scientifically shown to:

• Lower lipid and triglyceride levels in your blood
• Decrease blood viscosity
• Reduce platelet aggregation, thereby reducing the likelihood of a clot
• Reduce your changes of heart attack

Antiarrhythmic: counteracting or preventing cardiac arrhythmia	Antithrombotic: tending to prevent thrombosis (a blood clot within a blood vessel)
Antiatherosclerotic: preventing fatty deposits and fibrosis of the inner layer of your arteries from forming	Antiinflammatory: counteracting inflammation (heat, pain, swelling, etc.)
Improving endothelial function: a major factor in promoting the growth of new blood vessels	Antihypertensive: Lowering blood pressure
Lowering triglyceride concentrations

Marine oils are an excellent source of EPA-and DHA-rich omega-3 fats. Many cultures around the world that subsist on traditional diets have very low to nonexistent cardiovascular disease. Many of these cultures have a high intake of marine oils (e.g., the Inuit)—but some do not. But, what ALL of these groups do have in common is the near absence of refined foods.
If you are eating standard American fare, simply taking an omega-3 supplement may not be enough because it needs to be implemented as part of a TOTAL nutrition plan, which should include eliminating refined/processed food and excess sugar and grains, and a return to whole foods, with an emphasis on fresh organic vegetables and meats. Basically, it's a return to what our ancestors ate. So, how do you know if you're getting enough omega-3 fats?
Signs and Symptoms of Fatty Acid Deficiency
To get your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio closer to the ideal 1:1, simply cut back on all vegetable oils (this includes processed foods, which are loaded with vegetable oils), and begin consuming sources of high-quality omega-3 fats daily. My favorite omega-3 supplement is krill oil, which I'll discuss in a moment. Common signs and symptoms that your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio may be out of balance include:

Dry, flaky skin, alligator skin, or "chicken skin" on backs of arms	Dandruff or dry hair	Brittle or soft nails	Cracked skin on heals or fingertips
Lowered immunity, frequent infections	Dry eyes	Poor wound healing	Frequent urination or excessive thirst
Fatigue	Allergies	Poor attention span, hyperactivity, or irritability	Problems learning

Certain clusters of symptoms may indicate other fatty acid deficiencies.  For example, if you have a deficiency in arachidonic acid, the following symptoms are typical:

• Dry, itchy, scaly skin
• Dandruff and/or hair loss
• Reproductive difficulties
• Gastrointestinal disturbances
• Food intolerances

Deficiencies in either arachidonic acid or DHA can result in poor growth, poor immune function, and inflammation. DHA deficiency has been linked to ADHD, depression and Alzheimer's disease, which is understandable as DHA is so critical to your neurological function. If your deficiency is in DHA, you are more likely to experience these symptoms:

• Numbness or tingling
• Weakness or pain
• Psychological disturbances
• Poor cognition
• Poor visual acuity

Plant-Based Versus Animal-based Omega-3 Fats

There are many who argue you can get all of the omega-3 fats you need from plant sources, but I disagree. Plant-based omega-3 sources include flax, hemp, and chia seeds, which are all high in ALA. Your body can convert ALA into EPA and DHA—but only in small quantities, as I discussed earlier. While you certainly should consume these plant-based fats, you cannot rely on them exclusively to meet all your body's omega-3 fat  requirements.
Your body needs all three omega-3 fats (ALA, EPA and DHA), and for this, you need both plant AND animal sources. You should avoid taking DHA-only products, for the same reason.
For optimal health, then, it boils down to the need for balance among these various essential fats, and you can achieve this balance by eating a diet that incorporates a wide variety of whole foods from both plant and animal sources, and a good omega-3 supplement.

My Number One Choice for Omega-3 Supplementation

In a perfect world, you'd get all of the animal-based omega-3s you needed from eating fish and seafood. But the sad reality is that industrial pollution has contaminated most of the world's fish and seafood with a variety of dangerous toxins like mercury and PCBs. The one exception is krill oil, my favorite omega-3 fat supplement. Krill does not generally have this contamination.
I take krill oil every day because I believe it's the best omega-3 source for the following four reasons:

1. Highest Bioavailability: The omega-3 in krill oil is bound in a phospholipid structure, making it far more bioavailable than fish oil. In fact, nearly 100 percent of the DHA and EPA in krill oil are immediately available to your body. The omega-3 fats in fish oil, on the other hand, are in triglyceride molecules that have to be broken down in your gut into their base fats, EPA and DHA. Once these fats are absorbed into your bloodstream, your liver then has to attach them to phoshphatidyl choline molecules in order for them be used by your tissues.
   
   Because of this, you can only absorb about 15 to 20 percent of the fish oil you take, while the rest is eliminated in your intestine. (This is what causes many people to not tolerate fish oil very well, "burping up" the fish oil taste)
2. Highest Stability: Unlike ordinary fish oil, krill oil naturally contains the powerful antioxidant astaxanthin, which prevents the perishable DHA and EPA from oxidizing and going rancid.
3. Highest Sustainability: Krill is the largest biomass in the world, and krill harvesting is one of the best regulated on the planet, with strict catch regulations that are reviewed regularly to ensure sustainability.
4. Lowest Dose: Krill oil works at a much lower dose than fish oil. Because krill oil is so potent and used so efficiently by your body, you may only need one 500 mg capsule per day.

Mind Your Minerals

Reposted from Wheat Belly

http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2015/02/mind-minerals/

Absorption of positively-charged minerals, especially iron, zinc, and magnesium, is blocked by the phytates of grains. It means that every time you include a grain in your meal–as advised by our own USDA and other health agencies–you effectively turn off absorption of essential minerals. Obviously, with frequent grain consumption, nutritional deficiencies develop.

You could try and remedy this situation by consuming grains while supplementing minerals, hoping to overcome the effect, but this usually does’nt work to fully compensate for blocked absorption, while also exposing you to all the other destructive effects of wheat and grains. This is how it is done, of course, in conventional circles, or deficiencies are simply overlooked or ignored.

The phytate content of a bagel or two slices of whole wheat bread is enough to block iron absorption by 90%. Iron deficiency results in fatigue, lightheadedness, feelings of being cold, and poor physical performance. The second most common worldwide cause for iron deficiency anemia is grain consumption, second only to blood loss (e.g., menstrual cycles). (The World Health Organization knows all about this phenomenon, as they must contend with iron deficiency that develops when grains are shipped in to relieve hunger in Third World regions.) Wheat and grains are very common causes for “unexplained” iron deficiency anemia that fails to fully respond to iron supplementation, rebounding back to normal with grain elimination.

Zinc deficiency can manifest in myriad ways, but most commonly results in skin rashes (often misdiagnosed as seborrhea, eczema, or other rashes), itchiness, a white coating on the tongue, impaired growth and impaired learning in children, reduced sense of taste and smell, and gastrointestinal distress. Magnesium deficiency shows as muscle cramps in the fingers or “charlie horses” in the calves, higher blood pressure and blood sugar, loss of bone density, and heart rhythm disorders.

Mineral absorption improves dramatically with wheat and grain elimination–that is the essential first step. (You now appreciate the folly of bread “fortification” and the futility of taking mineral supplements in the presence of grains in the diet.)

Iron is best managed by checking a blood level of ferritin (reflecting stored iron) and a complete blood count (CBC) to diagnose anemia. While grain elimination may often be sufficient to allow increased iron absorption, iron supplementation may need to be undertaken if iron deficiency anemia is identified. Iron supplementation should not be undertaken blindly without monitoring ferritin and the hemoglobin value on the CBC, as iron overload can also occur.

Magnesium can be safely supplemented by the majority of people. (People with impaired kidney function can accumulate magnesium and should only supplement if levels are monitored.) I recommend taking the magnesium malate form, 1200 mg twice per day (180 mg “elemental” magnesium twice per day). This helps reverse muscle cramps, reduce blood pressure and modestly reduce blood sugar, increase bone density, and quiet abnormal heart rhythms. Including plentiful pumpkin, sunflower, and sesame seeds, as well as green leafy vegetables, further augments magnesium intake. In my experience, given the consumption of filtered water and the low magnesium content of modern produce, it is best to supplement magnesium for a lifetime.
Zinc can also be safely supplemented, 10-15 mg once per day, without monitoring levels. As gastrointestinal absorption improves and you include zinc-rich animal products, long term supplementation is probably not necessary.

Note that we are talking about how to reverse adverse health effects of wheat and grain consumption, i.e., how to undo the harmful effects of awful advice to eat plenty of “healthy whole grains,” the most disastrous dietary advice ever offered, particularly when coupled with “cut your fat, cut your saturated fat” fictions. Modern dietary advice is not only ineffective, but harmful. But once you understand this fundamental issue, health on a scale you previously thought you’d never achieve becomes possible.

More about these issues can be found in Wheat Belly Total Health.

She’s Got A Terrible Sunburn, But It Disappears After She Applies Just 2 Simple Ingredients. Wow!

Reposted from Health & Love Page

http://www.healthandlovepage.com/shes-got-a-terrible-sunburn-but-it-disappears-after-she-applies-just-2-simple-ingredients/

Summer is around the corner. For many people this means that it is time for the exciting summer vacation and visiting local beaches in the place where they are staying. They are preparing their swimsuits, towels and other items used on the beach too. 


Many of them are wondering what they should bring and what can be left at home and if you are one of them you should know that the sunscreen should be on top of the list of important items. There is no doubt that sunburns are annoying and painful, but what is even worse is that they can affect our health in the long run too.


In case you are exposed to sun for a long period of time then you will definitely get sunburn. However, if you get the right treatment, the negative effects of sunburn will be minimized. The main problem is that the vast majority of people don’t know what exactly they should in case of sunburns.
The good news is that there is an easy and simple do-it-yourself sunburn remedy that consists of two ingredients. All you need is a simple spray bottle and lavender oil, peppermint oil and water. Mix these natural ingredients and use the spray bottle to spray the solution directly on the problematic areas.


You will be able to ease the pain and accelerate the healing process thanks to these two essential oils.
It was proven that they provide even better results than Aloe Vera gels and commercial sunburn kits.
In order to experience the best effects, use this remedy in the first 24 hours after you notice the sunburns.

As a matter of fact, the faster you use the spray bottle, the better results it will produce on the skin.


  

Tips for Glaucoma Prevention

Reposted from Dr. Whitaker

http://www.drwhitaker.com/tips-for-glaucoma-prevention/?key=200260&utm_campaign=social&utm_source=acq-social-all&utm_medium=social-facebook&utm_content=social-whitaker-facebook-5022016-article-glaucoma-prevention

I have a family history of glaucoma and I was wondering if there's anything I can do to help avoid problems down the line. I'm a healthy, active woman in my 50s. Any input concerning glaucoma prevention would be appreciated. 

Glaucoma (or ocular hypertension) is a condition marked by an increase in inner eye pressures and subsequent damage to the optic nerve. After cataracts, glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world.

It’s been diagnosed in nearly 2.3 million Americans and the signs and symptoms of glaucoma likely affect at least 2 million more—most of them over the age of 60. A first-degree relative with glaucoma does increase risk, so it’s a good idea to do what you can for glaucoma prevention.
Lifestyle measures, such as a healthy diet, regular exercise, and smoking cessation,are protective, as is supplemental vitamin C (at least 2,000–3,000 mg daily),which helps lower intraocular pressures.

Mirtogenol for Glaucoma Prevention

However, my number 1 recommendation is an herbal supplement called Mirtogenol. Studies suggest that this blend of bilberry and pycnogenol normalizes pressures within the eye and reduces the risk of developing glaucoma.

In one study, 20 people with slightly elevated intraocular pressures took 240 mg of Mirtogenol daily. After three months, 19 of them had significant decreases in eye pressures, while only one of 18 in a control group experienced improvements. At the end of the six-month study, the Mirtogenol group also had marked improvements in blood flow in the ocular arteries.

Another clinical trial tested six months of daily use of 120 mg of Mirtogenol, the prescription eye drop Latanoprost or a combination of the two in patients with average intraocular pressures of 38.1 mmHg (normal is less than 21). Although the combination of the prescription eye drops and Mirtogenol was most effective in glaucoma prevention, lowering eye pressures to 23 mmHg, Mirtogenol alone performed extremely well, decreasing pressures by nine points and increasing ocular blood flow in a manner similar to that of the drops.

How Vaccine Adjuvants Affect Your Brain

Reposted from Dr. Mercola

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/03/29/vaccine-adjuvants-brain-effects.aspx?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=facebookmercola_ranart&utm_campaign=20160428_vaccine-adjuvants-brain-effects


By Dr. Mercola

Vaccine safety is certainly a highly controversial topic this year, and in this interview, Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic helps shed light on an important aspect of this discussion, which is how vaccine adjuvants can affect your brain.
Dr. Tomljenovic is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where she works in neurosciences and the Department of Medicine.

"The reason why I got interested in this area is [because] there is a lack of research demonstrating safety," she says.
"When one reviews most of the pharma-based trials on the safety of vaccines, you will see that they either use another vaccine as a placebo or the aluminum adjuvant, and neither of those constitutes a proper placebo.
It's very easy to claim that the product is safe if you're using a comparator that inherently might be toxic."

Another factor that triggered her skepticism about what was being reported in the peer-reviewed literature was her coming face to face with scientific corruption. A former boss actually asked her to falsify data on an experiment they were doing with statin drugs.
They were testing a cholesterol-lowering medication in mice, and more mice were dying from the statin treatment than from the placebo treatment, which in this case was plain water.

"When the result came, my boss told me to ignore the dead mice from the statistics, because it wouldn't look good on the drug. I thought to myself, 'I didn't get a PhD degree to lie to earn money,' so I quit my job," she says.
“I started questioning what else have we been sold in sciences that were dodgy data...My boss was receiving money from the drug companies, and obviously they would have not given more money to a lab that published unfavorable reports about their drugs.”

Aluminum Adjuvants Are Falsely Assumed Safe

When asked about why researchers (and the peer-reviewed journals who review these studies) allow the use of improper placebos—meaning placebos that may be toxic rather than inert—when testing vaccines, she suggests increasing their sales as a primary motivating factor.

It's sobering to realize that when the aluminum adjuvant was first approved for use in vaccines, some 90 years ago, it was approved because of efficacy. It was never actually tested for safety. Even the total allowable limit was based on efficacy data, not safety data. They just assumed it was safe.

"I have a document from 2002 from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)... discussing the assessment of vaccine ingredients... and testing specifically in animal models," she says.

Back then, the FDA stated that the routine toxicity studies in animals with vaccine ingredients have not been conducted because it was assumed that these ingredients are safe. When I read that I was kind of pulling my hairs out [thinking] ‘So, this is your indisputable evidence of safety?’ 

These documents never made it to mainstream media. It's just a lie perpetuated over and over again; that we've been using these things for over nine decades and it's been proven safe. No, it's been assumed safe."
This document is readily available. On pages 11 and 12 of this document, titled: Workshop on Non-Clinical Safety Evaluation of Preventive Vaccines: Recent Advances and Regulatory Considerations,¹ it says: “Historically, the non-clinical safety assessment for preventive vaccines has often not included toxicity studies in animal models. This is because vaccines have not been viewed as inherently toxic

In contrast to most drugs and biological products that are predominantly developed to treat ill patients, vaccines primarily are given to large numbers of healthy people, oftentimes predominantly healthy infants and children. And this places significant emphasis on their safety.”

So we see it is just empty talk. They say safety is of great importance, but then they go ahead licensing products that have not been adequately tested.

Why Are Aluminum Adjuvants Used in Vaccines?

You might wonder why aluminum is used in vaccines as an adjuvant in the first place. An adjuvant is an agent or compound designed to increase your immune response.
Now, your immune response is subdivided into two immune responses: the humoral immune response and the cellular innate immune response. The adjuvant only increases your humoral immunity. It does not affect your cellular innate immunity.

The challenge is that there's really no good testing system for the innate immune system, but they technically can measure antibody response. So that's what's being used.
Aluminum is very effectively able to increase antibodies. But that doesn't appear to actually improve long-term immune responses to infections and disease, which is what most people imagine vaccines will do.

What many fail to realize is that vaccines only work short-term for one aspect of the immune system, not the total immune system.

When you get a wild, acquired infection, it does stimulate the innate immune system, which is how you end up with permanent life-long immunity once you've recovered. This never happens with a vaccine.

"The problem is that people are being brainwashed into this idea that high antibody titers equal protection against diseases, and it's simply not true," Dr. Tomljenovic says.

"Proof of that are cases where you get outbreaks of infectious diseases in fully vaccinated populations, where over 95 percent are vaccinated, and they still get the disease.

The other side will always say, “We need to increase the boosters.” Does it ever occur to these people that these disease outbreaks might be [happening] because [the vaccine] is not doing what they think it should be doing?” 

Rates of Autism Have Risen in Tandem with Vaccine Burden

Together with Christopher Shaw, a professor in the department of ophthalmology and visual sciences at UBC who also chairs the CMSRI's scientific advisory board, Dr. Tomljenovic has published a number of papers^2,3,4,5,6 that suggest aluminum-containing vaccines may be unsafe.

Not surprisingly, their work has been heavily criticized. The UBC, however, has defended and stands behind Shaw's and Tomljenovic's work on aluminum toxicity.⁷ So what does their research show that has everyone in such a tizzy?

"In the original study we gathered data that's available from the US Department of Education about autism rates in the last couple of decades. We have done a similar analysis looking at autism rates in various other countries like UK and the Scandinavian countries.
We found that the countries that have the heaviest vaccines schedule (the children are vaccinated with a great number of vaccines) have higher autism rates compared to countries that do not vaccinate children with as many vaccines.

If you look at the temporal trend in the US, you see a significant correlation over the last three decades between the number of vaccines and autism rates. The autism numbers have been skyrocketing. They always say it's only because the diagnosis of autism is better. But that's a bogus argument because just in the last five years there's been about a 70 percent increase in autism. This is not due to better diagnostic criteria, and it sure isn't a genetic epidemic, because genes in a population do not change in a five-year span. These arguments are just silly," she says.

Correlations such as these do not prove causation, however. To prove a plausible theory, you have to actually test it, to see if the theory holds. At present, the animal model is the best way to do this, as large-scale testing of toxic substances on humans is unethical. This kind of toxicity research on animals should have been done prior to approval, but it wasn't. There's also a large-enough pool of unvaccinated children that could be used to compare health outcomes. As noted by Dr. Tomljenovic, this kind of comparative research also should have been done but hasn't:

"They should've tested vaccinated versus non-vaccinated, the population of vaccinated kids versus non-vaccinated kids, and assessed the health outcomes. But that study has never been done because it has been claimed that it's unethical not to give children vaccines. Well, again, that's an assumption. If you claim that, don't call me a quack scientist, because your science is quack also, because you're putting out assumptions. They're untested. The same goes for safety."

Animal Study Demonstrates Harm of Aluminum Adjuvant

In one of their studies,⁸ Shaw and Tomljenovic injected mice with aluminum at the equivalent dose given to American children through vaccines, and they spaced out the injections based on the mice's developmental stages. (On a side note, to find out how much aluminum you or your child actually receives from various vaccines, see this vaccine excipients list.⁹) What they found was that once the mice reached adulthood (which occurs at the age of six months), the treated mice had permanent behavioral impairments.

There was a significant increase in anxiety and a reduction in exploratory behavior. There was also a reduction in social interactions between the mice. "That was a huge confirmation that our initial assumption or correlation [between the number of vaccines and rising autism rates] might be something more than just correlation," she says.
After that, the duo went on to do some gene-based studies, specifically looking at the expression of genes in the mouse brain. They selected 17 candidate genes that are involved in neural function and immune response, and looked to see if there was any change in their expression either at the gene level or the protein level. Here, they discovered:¹⁰

• A significant increase in tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) interferon gamma (IFN-gamma), and a chemokine called macrophage chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), which is a macrophage-attracting factor. These are indicative of an inflammatory response in the adult mouse brain
• A significant decrease in a neurotransmitter called acetylcholinesterase (AChE), which is related to depression and anxiety

When You Alter Your Immune System, It Affects Your Brain Function

The changes seen at the genome level and the behavioral level are consistent with findings from studies done on deceased autistic patients, in which chronic brain inflammation was identified. It's important to realize that autism is not just a brain disorder; it's also an immune system disorder. Dr. Tomljenovic calls it an immune system brain disorder, as the two systems are connected.

"The backbone of this research was done 30 years ago. We already knew that there is a significant connection between the immune system and the central nervous system. They communicate. You cannot influence the immune system at the periphery without changing something in the brain. Most of us know that from experience, because when you get the flu, your brain doesn’t function very well. That mental fogginess and chronic fatigue, they are clear neurobehavioral changes in response to an immune stimulus [infection].

It's a neuroendocrine axis—basically, the immune system at the periphery and the central nervous system talk to each other. Again, if you increase an immune response artificially at the periphery, you are going to mess up the brain. They’ve done that artificially using what they call viral and bacterial mimics. I thought, “Oh, that spells like antigens in vaccines,” Because that’s exactly what’s being used. Commonly in this type of research strong adjuvants are added to exaggerate the immune response...

There is a huge body of research that shows that if you overstimulate the immune system at the periphery, especially in the critical stage of early development, you are going to influence the brain in a negative way, and by doing so, you can create irreversible damage. Again, this is research that is rarely discussed, because it really shows that there is reason to question the safety of the burden of vaccines given to infants.”

It’s frustrating to realize that the kind of research and the technology Dr. Tomljenovic incorporated to measure these neuroparameters, has been long available and could have been performed two or three decades ago—it’s that basic. And what the research reveals is that it is not just that aluminum is a neurotoxin, which it certainly is, but also, it is the exaggerated adjuvant-induced immune response that is causing trouble.

What this means is that even if they replaced aluminum with another adjuvant, you’d still get the same problem. This is undoubtedly a problem of enormous proportions for the vaccine industry, which explains why this kind of research isn’t done on a routine basis, and why Shaw’s and Tomljenovic’s work is under such heavy fire.

The pair has also investigated the cross-reactivity between the antibodies that are raised against vaccine antigens. As it turns out, some of them cross-react with our own tissues. Many viruses and bacteria share genetic similarities with human proteins.

For example, there may be a peptide sequence in the wall of the virus that mimics the structure of a human protein. So, the antibody that is raised against the virus will then also recognize these epitopes in your own tissues that mimic the virus. This has the potential to cause severe harm, and can significantly raise the risk of autoimmune disorders.

HPV Vaccine May Raise Your Risk of Autoimmune Disease

For example, Tomljenovic in collaboration with the team led by professor Yehuda Shoenfeld (world expert in autoimmune diseases who heads the Zabludowicz Autoimmunity Research Centre at the Sheba Hospital in Israel) has demonstrated how the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine can raise your risk of brain autoimmune disorders.

This was done by vaccinating young mice with the equivalent of three doses of Gardasil, which is what young girls are receiving. As a result of these vaccinations, the mice developed anti-HPV antibodies, which were found to preferentially bind to a protein in the mouse brain. Dr. Tomljenovic explains:

“[I]f you coat a plate with HPV antibodies and if you apply the serum [blood] from the mice to this plate, the serum from the mice that have been vaccinated with Gardasil and have concentrated antibodies in serum, you can detect the binding between the antibody fraction and the HPV fraction that’s on the plate. Now, if you apply a mouse brain protein extract, you get inhibition of binding of the anti-HPV antibodies to HPV. Why? Because they [the anti-HPV antibodies] are preferentially binding to the mouse brain protein extract. 

The presence of cross-reactive anti-HPV antibodies in the blood of vaccinated girls will increases their risk for developing immune-mediated nervous system disorders, which incidentally appear to be the most commonly reported worldwide, following Gardasil. We have done the analysis on adverse events reported following HPV vaccination. It was published it in the Annals of Medicine. We took vaccines safety databases from various countries, and then we rated the adverse effects reported based on organ system. We found the most commonly reported adverse events following HPV vaccination are nervous system disorders of immune origin.
What was interesting is that in 2013, Japan Institute of Pharmacovigilance picked up our paper. I had an email from a doctor saying, “Can you send us the raw data, because we would like to add our Japanese data to your set and see if they match,” and I said, “Yes, please do.” And the match was perfect. After that, the Japanese Institute of Pharmacovigilance and the Japanese government, and health authorities, held a hearing on concerns about the safety of HPV vaccines. Because again, they were introduced in Japan and universally recommended, and there were many adverse effects reported thereafter. Following the hearing, the Japanese government and health authorities decided to stop recommending the HPV vaccine.¹¹"

Japan No Longer Recommends Gardasil

Japan issued the first suspension of the government's recommendation to get vaccinated against HPV in June 2013. The Japanese Government and Health authorities then organized a symposium on HPV vaccines,^12,13 which occurred in February 2014. Important testimony was delivered by one doctor who had treated over 20 cases of MS after Gardasil vaccination. Pharmaceutical representatives were trying to say that such side effects are psychogenic, but how can a psychogenic disorder cause MS lesions in a person’s brain—and in a girl who was perfectly healthy prior to vaccination? “They didn’t have an answer to that,” she says.

“All these problems started in temporal association with the vaccine. Just out of precautionary principle, you would think that they would have the common sense to at least halt the use of the vaccine until more research is done. But no, they just want to force it, and they parrot that it is safe. They do not have any proof of safety other than manipulated research.”

This symposium was followed by a large press conference, attended by Dr. Tomljenovic and research colleagues from France and the US. Since then, attempts by the makers of HPV vaccines to reinstate active recommendation of HPV vaccination by the Japanese Government have all failed, and Merck—which manufactures Gardasil—warned investors that Japan's decision would have "a significant negative impact" on sales.¹⁴ GlaxoSmithKline's HPV vaccine Cervarix also saw a downturn in sales immediately following the original suspension.

French Researchers Find Link Between Aluminum Adjuvant and Alzheimer's

A team from Créteil and the INSERM Institute in France also presented data from animal experiments at the Japanese symposium, which show that if you inject the aluminum adjuvant, a portion of the aluminum is engulfed by macrophages. Some of these macrophages eventually find their way into the mouse brain.

The transport in the brain is dependent on the same chemokine, MCP-1, macrophage chemoattractant protein that Shaw and Tomljenovic found increased in their aluminum-exposed animals. Part of the problem is that the aluminum accumulates, and it stays in the brains of mice up to one year after injection because there’s no recirculation to take it out.

“This is a common problem with aluminum, because it’s got a strong positive charge, 3+,” Dr. Tomljenovic says. “What other research has found is that in Alzheimer’s patients, the chromatin fractions in the nucleus of the cell, where your genetic material is stored, accumulate aluminum. Because the DNA has a negative charge on the outside, it binds the positive aluminum.

Thus aluminum disrupts the chromatin structure and in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients it was found that aluminum binds to selective promoter areas of genes that encode proteins that are essential for neural function. In this way aluminum inhibits the expression of these genes.

Again, the problem is that once the aluminum gets into the nucleus of the cell, there is no way of getting it out. It just stays there. The finding by the French team is that even the aluminum you inject in the periphery can get into the brain, which is a concern...

The fact is that the aluminum we get from vaccines is not rapidly excreted, and most of it does remain in your body because it bypasses the gastrointestinal system. If aluminum was rapidly excreted, as the health authorities would like us to believe, then it would be a pretty lousy adjuvant.”

ANY Adjuvant Is Likely to Carry Risk of Autoimmune Disease

I want to stress the point Dr. Tomljenovic makes about the harm produced by stimulating an exaggerated immune response, which is what vaccines are designed to do—this is the function of the adjuvant. The problem is, even if aluminum is removed from vaccines, the risk of immune system brain disorder remains even if the new adjuvant is non-toxic. As she explains, by the virtue of over-stimulating your immune system, you run the risk of breaking self-tolerance. Research supporting this was also presented in Japan during its governmental hearing on HPV vaccines.

What the team of Japanese researchers led by Dr Shunichi Shiozawa found¹⁵ is that the repeated stimulation with the same antigen overcomes the genetic resistance to autoimmunity. At present, we’re giving children booster shots at regular intervals with the same antigen. And the research shows that when you do this—when you stimulate the immune system on a regular basis—you break the tolerance to autoimmunity. This is a really crucial piece of information that people need to become aware of.

How Can Safety Be Proven When Proper Safety Studies Are Lacking and Health Statistics Indicate Otherwise?

In light of these findings, it is not surprising that Shaw and Tomljenovic are under fire. However, the critics really do not have much to counter with, besides ad hominem attacks. One recent critic blasted the study saying it was irresponsible to publish this type of research because it might erode the confidence in vaccines. “I think the opposite is true because if you’re trying to enforce military measures, I think that erodes the confidence. Because a truly good product does not need military-type of enforcement,” Dr. Tomljenovic retorts.

The primary and central issue here is that no properly performed safety studies have been done, and by that I'm referring to safety studies that are not corrupted by using toxic placebos, such as another vaccine, rather than a truly inert placebo. "We're not saying stop vaccinating, but stop selling lies, [stop saying] that these things are absolutely safe and that serious adverse risks are so rare that you don't have to worry about them. It's a lie because the proper type of research to answer that question has never been done," Dr.Tomljenovic says.

I couldn't agree more, especially when you add the historical record, which Dr. Suzanne Humphries dissects in her excellent book, Dissolving Illusions. In it, she shows that most infectious diseases were nearly eradicated before the introduction of vaccines. In the end, basic nutritional and hygiene principles such as optimizing vitamin D and avoiding sugar has a far more dramatic preventative effect against illness, and with robust immune function, you can safely recover from virtually any infectious disease and come out the other side with lifelong immunity.

“There is also a research showing how exposure to certain childhood diseases like chicken pox actually has prevented certain types of gliomas [a type of brain tumor],” Dr. Tomljenovic notes. “There are some others that decreased the risk of Parkinson’s. Cancer is also in part a disease of the immune system because a healthy immune system will detect abnormal cell growth. If you compromise your immune system early in childhood, there goes your anti-cancer defense...
People need to do their own research on these things, because we have to make choices every day, and they should be informed choices. If I was to buy a new kitchen appliance I would spend some time researching, comparing prices, and looking at the quality. But when it comes to putting things into our children, we just blindly trust the medical authorities...
You cannot go back on some of these things. I get a lot of emails from parents with vaccine injured children. It must be the most horrible thing for a parent to live with that because they truly believe they did the best for their child. I know many mothers whose girls have died following HPV, and they said, “If I only haven’t listened to that campaign, my daughter would still be alive.”

Atrocious State of Cancer Treatment in the U.S.

Reposted from Dr. Mercola

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/04/09/atrocious-state-cancer-treatment.aspx?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=facebookmercola_ranart&utm_campaign=20160426_atrocious-state-cancer-treatment

Being diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a type of brain tumor, is considered a death sentence by modern medicine.
Despite a decades-long war on cancer, and the “most advanced” treatments known to 21st century oncologists, people who develop this aggressive, fast-growing cancer are given a prognosis of about 15 months to live — if they’re lucky.
Aggressive treatment, including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, is often started, even though oncologists know it won’t cure the disease. If you ever find yourself in this type of nightmarish scenario, you can imagine the desperation you would feel to find something, anything, that might offer hope.
Most people turn to their oncologists or neurosurgeons with such requests for possible experimental or outside-the-box treatments, but you’re unlikely to receive any help that deviates from the hospital’s standard protocol.
It’s not that such treatment options don’t exist; they do. The problem is that the oncologist can’t, or won’t, prescribe them. To do so would risk his or her reputation and even medical license, should you decide to sue.
The film interviews a number of oncologists that carefully describe their predicament. But the problem is even larger than this. Modern cancer care is not set up to treat you, an individual. Their primary goal is to validate experimental therapies for future cancer patients many years down the road.
Due to regulatory red tape, drug-company greed, failures in the scientific process and lack of a universal will to do what’s best for each and every patient, modern cancer care fails an unacceptable percentage of the time.
As Albert Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This describes modern cancer treatment in a nutshell.

How One Man Survived Terminal Cancer

Ben Williams, Ph.D., professor emeritus of Experimental Psychology at University of California, San Diego, shouldn’t be here today. He should be one of the statistics — 1 of the more than 15,000 people who die from glioblastoma multiforme in the U.S. every year.¹
Yet, he’s alive — 19 years after his initial glioblastoma multiforme diagnosis. His survival was brushed off as a rare fluke by his doctors, but Williams believes otherwise.
In his book “Surviving Terminal Cancer: Clinical Trials, Drug Cocktails, and Other Treatments Your Oncologist Won’t Tell You About,” he details the multi-faceted strategy he used to overcome the disease. You can hear him tell his story first-hand in the film “Surviving Terminal Cancer,” above.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that in order to outsmart cancer, you’ve got to attack it from multiple angles, especially in the case of complex brain cancer. And that’s what Williams did.
He described a mushroom extract that’s used routinely to treat cancer in Japan. It has zero toxicity, but it’s not even mentioned in the U.S.
He did his own research, finding out about the potential to use existing non-cancer medications off label to treat the deadly disease. Once a patent expires on a drug, its potential to rake in major profits plummets. As such, drug companies typically abandon them in favor of newer, more profitable pursuits.

Abandoned Drugs Show Promise but Oncologists Won’t Prescribe Them

Some of these abandoned drugs have shown promise for glioblastoma multiforme, but they’re not offered to U.S. patients. While I’m not in favor of over-prescribing medications, if you’re facing a deadly prognosis you’re probably willing to risk the side effects if it gives you a chance for survival.
High-dose tamoxifen, a breast cancer drug, is one such medication that has shown some promise in treating glioblastoma multiforme.²
The anti-malaria drug chloroquine is another.³ There’s even a good chance your neuro-oncologist may be aware of the promising studies done with these drugs, but he or she won’t offer them as a potential treatment because they’re considered experimental. As Williams said:

“It made absolutely no sense to me not to use everything that might have a benefit as long as the toxicities were acceptable. Why wouldn’t anyone want to add them? It seemed to be totally irrational that people didn’t use everything that was available.”

When Modern Medicine Fails Them, Cancer Patients Turn to Self-Medication and the Black Market

In order to survive, Williams turned to self-medicating, a dangerous prospect by any account but, again, when your life is at stake you’re willing to take the risk. And his story is not unique.
Many have traveled to other countries, forged prescriptions, feigned illnesses to get access to different medications and even traded medications and nutraceuticals on the “black market” in order to have even a chance at survival.
In Williams’ case, his daily cocktail of off-label medications and natural products worked. In just six months, his brain tumor had disappeared and it hasn’t been back since.
There are more than a handful of others who have defied odds and lived long term with glioblastoma multiforme, and they’ve taken matters into their own hands too.
Williams now spends the bulk of his time trying to help others with terminal cancer, and he makes his book, which he updates annually, free to cancer patients in need.

Natural Cancer Fighters Overlooked by Modern Medicine

Nature is an invaluable resource for fighting cancer, yet natural products, even those that have been intensely studied, are also left out of cancer patients’ treatment plans. Curcumin — one of the most well-studied bioactive ingredients in turmeric — is one glaring example.
It exhibits over 150 potentially therapeutic activities, including anti-cancer properties.
As noted by Dr. William LaValley — a leading natural medicine cancer physician whom I’ve previously interviewed on this topic — curcumin is unique in that it appears to be universally useful for just about every type of cancer.
Superficially, this appears unusual considering the fact that cancer consists of a wide variety of different nuclear genetic defects. One reason for this universal anti-cancer proclivity is curcumin’s ability to decrease the primary mitochondrial dysfunction that is likely one of the foundational causes of cancer. Once it gets into a cell, it also affects more than 100 different molecular pathways.
And, as explained by LaValley, whether the curcumin molecule causes an increase in activity of a particular molecular target or decrease/inhibition of activity, studies repeatedly show that the end result is a potent anti-cancer activity. Moreover, curcumin is virtually non-toxic, and does not adversely affect healthy cells, suggesting it selectively targets cancer cells — all of which are clear benefits in cancer treatment.
Research has even shown that it works synergistically with certain chemotherapy drugs, enhancing the elimination of cancer cells. If you have cancer, curcumin is one substance you should be taking, but your oncologist won’t recommend it.

To Survive Cancer, Many Must Defy Their Doctors

Should you bring up the fact that you are using approaches to fight cancer that are outside of your oncologist’s realm of experience — things like supplements, medical marijuana, herbal preparations, and more — you might be scolded, berated, threatened or even fired from the practice.
Williams never told his oncologists about his self-prescribed treatment; he knew it would fall on deaf ears. The cancer industry should be learning from the people who have beaten the odds and survived terminal cancer — studying their methods and trying to apply them to others — but instead they’re ignored.
It’s an unfortunate state of affairs when patients must actively defy their doctors in order to survive. As Williams explained, going against the advice of his doctors was initially an act of desperation, but it was necessary to save his life. This certainly applies to the majority of conventional oncologists, but there are exceptions — doctors who are blazing a new trail to find a cancer cure.
This includes Dr. Marc-Eric Halatsch, a professor and senior consultant neurosurgeon at the University of Ulm, Germany, who, along with colleagues have developed a new treatment protocol for relapsed glioblastoma.
It’s based on a combination of drugs (very similar to the early HIV treatments) “not traditionally thought of as chemotherapy agents, but that have a robust history of being well-tolerated and are already marketed and used for other non-cancer indications.”⁴ As noted in the featured film, even though the protocol uses mainstream medications, he’s put his reputation on the line to step outside the conventional cancer-treatment box.

Cancer Patients Should Have Access to the Best of Eastern and Western Medicine

Dr. Raymond Chang, who is featured in the video above, is one such pioneer in the integration of Eastern and Western medicine. He is known for his work on anti-cancer Chinese botanicals especially involving bioactive polysaccharides and medicinal mushrooms.
He and colleagues with the Institute of East-West Medicine have created the Asian Anti-Cancer Materia Database, which brings together traditional Asian medicines that have potential anti-cancer activity into one database that can be accessed by all.⁵ In his book, “Beyond the Magic Bullet ― The Anti-Cancer Cocktail,” Dr. Chang explained:

“While scientists win occasional skirmishes in the battle against cancer, the overall war continues to go badly. Stories abound about revolutionary drugs that may be available in the future, but offer no real help to those who have cancer today. At present, conventional approaches continue to rely on a narrowly focused strategy of treatments, with doctors using, at best, only one or two drugs or other therapies at a time.
While this may be acceptable in a laboratory setting or a clinical trial, it has done little to diminish the number of people who die each year from this dread disease. Recently, however, conventional medicine’s core strategy has been re-examined, and a new, potentially more effective approach has emerged ― one that combines the best of Eastern wisdom with Western science.”

More Than Half a Million People Expected to Die From Cancer in 2016

In 2016, nearly 1.7 million new cases of cancer are expected to be diagnosed in the U.S., while nearly 600,000 will die from the disease.⁶  That is nearly 1,650 people dying EVERY DAY in the U.S. alone. Public health agencies claim that we are winning the war against cancer, but from 2003 to 2012 death rates from cancer decreased by only 1.8 percent per year among men and 1.4 percent per year among women.⁷
Meanwhile, the 2014 World Cancer Report issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) predicted worldwide cancer rates to rise by 57 percent in the next two decades.⁸
The report refers to the prediction as "an imminent human disaster," noting countries around the world need to renew their focus on prevention rather than treatment only. Christopher Wild, Ph.D., director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, told CNN:⁹

"We cannot treat our way out of the cancer problem. More commitment to prevention and early detection is desperately needed in order to complement improved treatments and address the alarming rise in cancer burden globally."

There is so much you can do to lower your risk for cancer, but please don't wait until you get the diagnosis — you have to take preventative steps now. Cancer doesn’t typically develop overnight, which means you have a chance to make changes that can potentially prevent cancer from developing in the first place. Most of us carry around microscopic cancer cell clusters in our bodies all the time.
The reason why we all don't develop cancer is because as long as your body has the ability to balance angiogenesis properly, it will prevent blood vessels from forming to feed these microscopic tumors. Trouble will only arise if, and when, the cancer cells manage to get their own blood supply, at which point they can transform from harmless to deadly. It's much easier to prevent cancer than to treat it once it takes hold.

Top Cancer Prevention Strategies

I believe you can virtually eliminate your risk of cancer and chronic disease and significantly improve your chances of recovering from cancer if you currently have it, by following these relatively simple strategies.

1. Eat REAL Food: Seek to eliminate all processed food in your diet. Eat at least one-third of your food raw. Avoid frying or charbroiling; boil, poach or steam your foods instead. Consider adding cancer-fighting whole foods, herbs, spices and supplements to your diet, such as broccoli sprouts, curcumin and resveratrol.
2. Carbohydrates and Sugar: Sugar/fructose and grain-based foods from your diet need to be reduced and eventually eliminated. This applies to whole unprocessed organic grains as well, as they tend to rapidly break down and drive up your insulin level.  
The evidence is quite clear that if you want to avoid cancer, or you currently have cancer, you absolutely MUST avoid all forms of sugar, especially fructose, which are dirty fuels generating excessive free radicals and secondary mitochondrial damage.

3. Protein and Fat: Consider reducing your protein levels to 1 gram of protein for every kilogram of lean body mass, or one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. Replace excess protein with high-quality fats, such as organic eggs from pastured hens, high-quality grass-fed meats, raw pastured butter, avocados, pecans, macadamias, and coconut oil.
4. GMOs: Avoid genetically engineered foods as they are typically treated with herbicides such as Roundup (glyphosate), and are likely to be carcinogenic and contribute to mitochondrial dysfunction. Choose fresh, organic, and preferably locally grown foods.
5. Animal-Based Omega-3 Fats: Normalize your ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats by consuming anchovies, sardines, wild Alaskan salmon or taking a high-quality krill oil and reducing your intake of processed vegetable oils.
6. Optimize Your Gut Flora: This will reduce inflammation and strengthen your immune response. Researchers have found a microbe-dependent mechanism through which some cancers mount an inflammatory response that fuels their development and growth.
They suggest that inhibiting inflammatory cytokines might slow cancer progression and improve the response to chemotherapy. Fermented foods are especially beneficial for gut health, and the fermentation process involved in creating sauerkraut produces cancer-fighting compounds such as isothiocyanates, indoles and sulforaphane.

7. Exercise and Move More: Sit less, move around more and try to take 10,000 steps a day.  Exercise also lowers insulin levels, which creates a low-sugar environment that discourages the growth and spread of cancer cells. In a three-month study, exercise was found to alter immune cells into a more potent disease-fighting form in cancer survivors who had just completed chemotherapy.
Researchers and cancer organizations increasingly recommend making regular exercise a priority in order to reduce your risk of cancer and help improve cancer outcomes. Exercise may also help trigger apoptosis (programmed cell death) in cancer cells. Ideally, your exercise program should include balance, strength, flexibility, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT). For help getting started, refer to my Peak Fitness Program.

8. Vitamin D: There is scientific evidence you can decrease your risk of cancer by more than half simply by optimizing your vitamin D levels with appropriate sun exposure. Your serum level should hold steady at 50 to 70 ng/ml, but if you are being treated for cancer, it should be closer to 80 to 90 ng/ml for optimal benefit.
If you take oral vitamin D and have cancer, it would be very prudent to monitor your vitamin D blood levels regularly, as well as supplementing with vitamin K2, as K2 deficiency is actually what produces the symptoms of vitamin D toxicity.

9. Sleep: Make sure you are getting enough restorative sleep. Poor sleep can interfere with your melatonin production, which is associated with an increased risk of insulin resistance and weight gain, both of which contribute to cancer's virility.
10. Exposure to Toxins: Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, herbicides, household chemical cleaners, plastics chemicals, synthetic air fresheners and toxic cosmetics.
11. Exposure to Radiation: Limit your exposure and protect yourself from radiation produced by cell phones, towers, base stations, and Wi-Fi stations, as well as minimizing your exposure from radiation-based medical scans, including dental x-rays, CT scans, and mammograms.
12. Stress Management: Stress from all causes is a major contributor to disease. It is likely that stress and unresolved emotional issues may be more important than the physical ones, so make sure this is addressed. My favorite tool for resolving emotional challenges is the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).

Have You Been Diagnosed With Cancer?

One of the most essential strategies I know of to treat cancer is to starve the cells by depriving them of their food source. Unlike your body cells, which can burn carbs or fat for fuel, cancer cells have lost that metabolic flexibility. Dr. Otto Warburg was given a Nobel Prize over 75 years ago for figuring this out, but virtually no oncologist actually uses this information.
You can review my interview with Dominic D'Agostino, Ph.D. below for more details. Integrating a ketogenic diet with hyperbaric oxygen therapy is deadly to cancer cells. It debilitates them by starving them of their fuel source. This would be the strategy I would recommend to my family members if they were diagnosed with cancer.