First off, I'd like to make note that this post has absolutely nothing to do with natural health or natural health news.  However, this is a blog, and blogs are typically current and somewhat raw if you will.  These are the musings of a concerned mind, and the words that mind feels the need to vocalize.

On March 20, 2003 The United States invaded Iraq and began the second gulf war.  Since then over 4,300 American soldiers have lost, or rather given their lives in defense of the principals of freedom.  4,100 of those have come since we declared "mission accomplished" on May 1, 2003.  With the July 4 holiday coming up a week from now, I feel that it's more important than ever to acknowledge those who have fallen in the name of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  I believe it's important to remember those who have served not only in the military, but our police, fire fighters, doctors, and anyone else who has truly made a difference in this world.

It's convenient that these thoughts surround me at such a patriotic time, because truth be told, the 4th of July wasn't my main inspiration for sharing these thoughts and numbers.  On June 25 a pair of American entertainment icons were also lost.  Of course I mean Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson.  These celebrity deaths coming just on the heels of David Carradine and Ed McMahon have sent the mass media into a whirlwind frenzy of reports and debates.  Now don't get me wrong here, because I don't want to take anything away from the lives that those people lived or the lives they touched.  However, when is the last time you flipped through the channels and saw people calling in and bawling their eyes out, filling the streets in mourning, or holding candle light vigils when reports came in of soldiers deaths.  It seems that the only equal treatment they will receive will be from the forked tongues of the Westboro Baptist Church, as I'm sure they're equal opportunity funeral protesters.

I know it's a little premature, but I also think that every day is a good day to be a patriot.  As Americans, I think we really need to take a step back and look at our priorities.  A wise person once said "be who you are, and say what you feel because those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter".  We seem to connect more with entertainment itself than those who make it possible to be entertained in peace.

Happy Birthday America

Have you, like millions of Americans, nearly forgotten about the dreaded swine flu outbreak?  Me too.  Thankfully, the WHO (World Health Organization) has raised its threat level to 6, making it a "full blown pandemic".  This capitalizes on the fact that many people associate the word "pandemic" with "epidemic" and therefore reach for the panic button like it was the last donut in the break room after a staff meeting.

Remember that the term "pandemic" refers to the areas to which a disease or virus has spread.  In this case, just because it's shown up in more locations does not make it more deadly.  So far there have been 145 confirmed deaths related to the swine flu, Mexico leading the way with 108.  This really pales in comparison to the more than 250,000 flu related deaths in an average year.  Not to say that the flu shouldn't be taken seriously, but in this case it's sort of like the neighbors dog in the movie "The Sandlot".

It's already been admitted that the H1N1 virus was created in, and escaped from a lab where it was being used to create vaccines.  So, why the constant fearmongering?  That, my friends, is the American way.

Refer to our previous post, "Global Pandemic: Fact AND Fiction", about the swine flu for some natural tips on staying healthy and avoiding the flu.  If your anxiety gets out of control from worry of infection, try Daily Effects.

If you keep up with this blog at all, you'll remember that we recently featured an article by world renowned dentist Dr. Tom McGuire about the dangers of mercury amalgam fillings and their potential for major health risks. (if not, click here)  For so long the FDA has remained silent on this issue, even going as far as to claim its safety for a number of years.  Of course they also say the same about fluoride, which is a known poison.

But, I digress.

The FDA has always been adamant about protecting animals from the dangers of mercury, all the while taking a rather casual approach to its warnings for humans.  An ointment used to help with lameness in horses that contained mercury was pulled from the market in 2002 after the death of a horse from Alabama raised speculation.

Were mercury fillings ever questioned?  No.

Not until now, not until a lawsuit.  If it took legal action to get me to do my job, well you probably wouldn't be reading this now would you?  Finally, a small national consumer group called Consumers For Dental Choice has sued the FDA in order to get a ruling on the dangers of mercury in "silver" fillings.  This, accompanied by letters from congress prompted the FDA to quickly update their website from proclaiming safety, to classifying it as a device and making mention of the little fact that it “may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses.”

Maybe this legislation system will get something done finally.  Now, if we could only do something about fluoride.  Well, baby steps I guess…

Remember, you can read more about the dangers of mercury amalgam in fillings at Dr. Tom's website www.dentalwellness4u.com

A recent study performed at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH shows a link between gum/periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis.  The study found that when arthritis sufferers treated their periodontal condtitions that their arthritis related symptoms diminished.  This makes sense as both are inflammatory diseases, and further goes to show that improved oral health can lead to better overall health.  With that being said, don't forget to stock up on OraMD for your oral health or Daily Effects for helping to ease those daily aches and pains.

June is customer appreciation month, and that means you can get up to $100 value in free gift(s) when you purchase select packages.  Just click the banner to get to this weeks newsletter and take advantage of these great deals!

As our lives become busier and faster paced, it’s hard to remember to take the time to “stop and smell the flowers” as they used to say. Stress can build up to enormous levels that will seem insurmountable to most, and lead to some serious health risks if not dealt with in a timely manner. Everyone is familiar with the feeling of being ground down by the daily events and unexpected emergencies that can arise in our day to day lives, but many people aren’t aware of the long term effects that can be left by it. Here are just a few of the lesser known conditions that can be caused or affected by stress:

• High cholesterol
  
• High blood pressure
  
• Insomnia
  
• Headaches
  
• Hair loss
  
• Weight Gain
  
• Acne
  
• Wrinkles
  
• Cancer

One way of combating stress that won’t cost you anything more than your time is meditation. Whether or not you have any of these kinds of conditions, you can feel the effects of meditation even if it’s just for five minutes a day. Just like with exercise though, the more you can do it, the better. There are many types of meditation, but whichever you choose, do it as often as possible. Whether it’s during the day, or when you lay down to go to sleep at night.

For a quick meditation, try these few steps:

1. Take a deep breath, hold it, and count to four, then release it. As you release it, feel the tension in your body begin to drain away.

2. Repeat the deep breath, but this time hold it until a count of eight and again feel the tension lift as you exhale. Try to allow your entire body to go limp.

3. Take a third deep breath, and hold it as long as you comfortably can this time. Feel your entire body relax as you let it out.

4. Concentrate on your breath. Try to imagine seeing the air going in and out of your mouth, expanding and relaxing your lungs.

5. Imagine the oxygen filling your lungs and entering your blood stream as fresh, new energy. Energy that will revitalize your whole body. Imagine the air you breath out to be all the stress and anxieties you may carry with you.

6. Repeat this whenever you can.

This week we are honored to feature an article by world renowned dentist Dr. Tom McGuire:

Amalgam Silver Fillings and Chronic Mercury Poisoning

This article briefly introduces you to the role amalgam fillings play in chronic mercury poisoning. But I can assure you there’s much more to this important topic than what is included here. If, after reading it, you want more information I recommend The Poison in Your Teeth: Mercury Amalgam (Silver) Fillings . . . Hazardous to Your Health. This book is the A to Z guide to this subject and is available on my website.

Mercury amalgam fillings are hazardous to your health! Period! But technically it isn’t the amalgam filling itself but the poisonous mercury vapor released by it. The fact is that mercury vapor is continuously being released from these fillings by even the most common forms of daily stimulation, such as chewing, brushing and grinding your teeth. Eighty percent of the vapor released enters the body and, over time, the accumulated mercury will directly and indirectly contribute to, or make worse every health issue we face.

To fully understand just how toxic mercury is you need to know that:

• Mercury is the most poisonous naturally occurring, non-radioactive, substance on our planet.
• Mercury is far more toxic than any of the heavy metals, including arsenic, lead and cadmium.
• According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is NO safe level of mercury!

More specifically, mercury can:
• Attach to proteins and enzymes and interfere with their normal function.
• Create autoimmune diseases and impair the cardiovascular system.
• Interfere with, or overload, the natural detoxification pathways of the liver, kidneys, skin, and bowel.
• Impair the function of the nervous, endocrine, enzymatic, gastrointestinal, reproductive, and urinary systems.
• Make you more susceptible to allergic reactions.
• Cause harmful intestinal bacteria, including Candida, to become immune to antibiotics and antifungal medications.
• Dramatically deplete the body of its most important antioxidants.
• Diminish the effectiveness of the immune system, lowering your resistance to disease, other heavy metals and toxins.
• Cause extensive cellular and tissue damage by creating tremendous amounts of toxic and disease causing free radicals.
• Interfere with disease fighting white blood cells and inactivate neutrophils, the most important type of white blood cell. (White blood cells are critically important immune system components and are responsible for killing bacteria in the blood and soft tissues.

In 2008 Norway, Sweden and Denmark officially banned the use of mercury amalgam fillings. In that same year, the FDA stated that mercury released from amalgam fillings can be harmful to the pregnant mother, fetus and nursing child. Other European countries are restricting the use of amalgams, with the intention of banning them. Clearing, the handwriting is on the wall regarding amalgam fillings.

Yet, the American Dental Association (ADA) and pro-amalgam dentists still continue to argue that amalgams are safe and harmless. They say this in spite of the fact that we know even one atom of mercury is doing some harm to the body, and as long as mercury is continuously being released from these fillings they can never, ever, be considered ‘safe’ nor ‘harmless’. To even suggest that mercury, in any amount, is safe, or harmless, is inaccurate, misleading and harmful to patients who were told that it isn’t.

To date, no tests are available that can tell you exactly how much mercury your amalgam fillings have released, how much of it has been stored in your body, where it is located, or the specific damage it is doing. But if you have, or had, amalgam fillings you are mercury toxic to some degree and it could very well be a contributing factor to every symptom or health problem you are facing, or will face. (Note: There are tests available that indicate how much mercury is coming out of your body.)

If you have symptoms, or diseases, directly or indirectly, related to chronic mercury poisoning it’s important to know that the mercury released from amalgam fillings will be a contributor to them. For those planning a family, it’s absolutely necessary to understand that mercury released from the mother’s amalgams can be a significant contributor in the cause of autism and other learning and developmental disorders.

Summing it Up

The key to taking charge of, and responsibility for your health, is to access the information needed to make informed and intelligent decisions. If you don’t have that information you can’t make those choices and you’ll continue to be a victim. If your goal is to improve your health and well being, then you cannot afford to overlook any threat to your health. And there is no doubt that mercury released from amalgam fillings poses a potentially serious threat to your health.

It’s important to understand that, while it’s an essential first step, it’s not enough just to safely remove your amalgam fillings. This is because you can never achieve optimal health as long as your body is still being poisoned by the mercury that has accumulated there. Thus, for some it will also be important to participate in a mercury detoxification program. (This subject is dealt with in much more detail in Mercury Detoxification: The Natural Way to Remove Mercury from Your Body, also available on my website.)

It is my hope that this brief overview of the relationship of amalgam fillings to chronic mercury poisoning will motivate you to learn more about this subject and to at least consider having your amalgam fillings safely removed and replaced. (My website has the largest and most comprehensive listing of mercury free and mercury safe dentists.)

In health,

Tom

About Dr. Tom

Tom McGuire, DDS, is a leading authority on mercury amalgam fillings, chronic mercury poisoning, mercury detoxification, and holistic dental wellness. Dr. McGuire is president of the Dental Wellness Institute, founder of the International Association of Mercury Free Dentists (IAMFD) and author of a number of books on holistic dental wellness. You can visit his popular and informative website at www.dentalwellness4u.com. He is available for phone consultations.

His articles and advice have been featured in:

On Wednesday May 6, 19 year old Tamika White was arrested in Palmetto, FL and charged with felony neglect.  Why would this matter to a natural health based blog, you ask?  The neglect charge stems from avoiding dental care for her young child (who's age has not been released) for more than a year.  The childs grandmother stated in an interview that there had been complaints of tooth pain for well over a year, and when the pleading finally did result with a visit to the dentist it was determined that the child suffered from a form of tooth decay common among infants.  Tamika's Medicaid wouldn't cover the treatment recommended by this dentist, so instead of seeking a second opinion for an alternate treatment or another facility that would accept her coverage, Tamika just went with the "ostrich, head in the sand" method.  She didn't even so much as seek the overdue child support from the childs father to cover treatment.  Instead, she just let her baby's teeth rot out.  Thankfully, by Thursday she was locked up with no bail.

This should be in the national spotlight, as it's a real example of the tragedy that can occur when oral hygiene and care are neglected.  It's not the childs fault, but this mother should be made an example of.  It honestly makes me sick to my stomach to know that there are people out there who could care so little about their own child.  This is a dark day as far as I'm concerned.  I don't even want to begin to speculate what White was doing with her money that she couldn't take her child to the dentist.  I blame her,unlike many who have blamed the government and health care systems, which while at fault to some extent do not overshadow the neglect of this mother.  I'm sure there are dozens more cases just like this out there that are never reported.

You can read the official story here.

• Magnesium

Magnesium deficiencies can lead to numerous health conditions, but did you know that high blood pressure, otherwise known as hypertension, was one of them? Magnesium helps balance calcium in your system by dilating the muscles in arteries that calcium causes to contract. If magnesium levels are too low, the muscles in the artery walls stay constricted and cause more pressure on the blood flowing through them. Not many foods other than fish are very high in magnesium, so a supplement or fish oil capsules are a good alternative to help keep balance as well as provide other helpful nutrients like vitamin d and omega 3 fatty acids.

• Potassium

The body’s cells need a balance of minerals like calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium in order to function. Most people ingest more sodium through salt and carbonated drinks than they do potassium, and this can cause an imbalance between the two. When sodium levels are too high, the kidneys may struggle to dispose of it, and in some cases vascular systems near them will close off in order to raise blood pressure, which will in turn push the kidneys to dump the excess waste products your body doesn’t need or want. Potassium supplements are available to help keep balance, but you can also get plenty from fruits and green vegetables, and even some fish like tuna or halibut.

• Garlic

Garlic contains an organic compound called allicin, which has been shown to affect lipids in the bloodstream. This can reduce cholesterol, and its damaging effects to the walls of your blood vessels. Supplements are available if you’re concerned about odor issues from whole garlic, although you get the maximum benefits of it when taken whole. Two to three cloves per day are recommended for treating hypertension.

• Fats

Everyone knows how bad saturated and trans fats are, but are you aware of the positive benefits of those good fats that exist? Polyunsaturated fats can help improve the levels of the good forms of cholesterol in your system, and also help keep blood pressure down. These are found mostly in plants like corn, soy, safflower and sunflower, whereas unhealthy saturated fats are mostly found in meats and dairy products.

What's one of the easiest ways to improve your appearance and self esteem at the same time? If you answered "teeth whitening", you're correct. That being said, it's important to find the right product for you without spending too much. The problem with this is that I've noticed a number of rather questionable sites out there promoting professional teeth whitening kits for little or no cost, which also pull you into continuity programs you probably didn't know existed. I took the time to read the fine print on one such site and found that while you may get your "free trial" for under $2.00, the resulting charge if kept beyond the trial period was over $70.00

For example, if you search for anything about teeth whitening you're likely to see a number of sponsored links about some teeth whitening trick discovered by a local mom. The only trick involved is how they get people to fork over their credit card details for a relatively small shipping cost, only to eventually slam you with charges for products that you might very well not even receive. These sites all look the same, and feature the same reused images, testimonials, reviews, and point to the same products. While I can't vouch for any of the products themselves or their effectiveness, you can CLICK HERE for a truly legitimate site that features reviews of these products.

Some things to watch for are the counters that seem to indicate that you only have a set amount of time to get their offers. They count all the way down to zero, and then absolutely nothing happens. Big surprise. I'll also tell you that these pages are ridiculously hard to navigate away from, as when you try to close the window a live chat window opens where they pitch you on paying sometimes less than $2.00 for shipping on the product. Another one lets you choose what shade of teeth you want, how quickly you want to achieve those results, and how long you want them to last. You then enter your ZIP code and it will tell you that there are only 11 free trials left in your city. Here in Lexington, KY that might make sense, but when I used the ever popular 90210 ZIP code I got the same result. Oh my, only 11 trials for Beverly Hills, CA? Many of them use celebrity images as well to give you the impression that the stars are getting their pearly whites from these products.

Another sketchy aspect is that of fake reviews. One even had a post by a man asking the question "does this work for men too?". Really? What makes this stand out as dishonest is the fact that there is absolutely nowhere on the page to post a comment, and no "contact us" form either. In a lot of cases they'll either only review their products, or if they include other ones then they will obviously give them poor reviews.

If you're interested in a teeth whitening product that really works, and is guaranteed 100% for an entire year, check out Maximum Teeth Whitening. We've been in business for over 8 years, and we're also a BBB accredited business.