Archive for the ‘Natural Health News’ Category

Diabetes affects more than 16 million Americans. It can damage blood vessels, and lead to other serious conditions such as stroke, kidney failure, and liver disease. Diabetes occurs when the body isn’t able to use sugars as it should. Many people treat their diabetes with insulin shots daily, or in instances of type 2 diabetes, with pills. There are many ways of treating diabetes, and here are a few ways of managing your blood glucose naturally.

Avoid processed foods at all costs
Companies that produce foods that come in boxed or microwavable form use over 6,000 chemical ingredients to make it look and taste like the real thing. By doing this, your body is robbed of any real nutrition your body needs. Processed foods increase the level of toxins in your blood stream which your liver will have to deal with, and since diabetics are usually more prone to liver disease, this is of vital importance.

Kick artificial sweeteners to the curb
Artificial sweeteners have so many negative connotations that it would be pointless to try and address even a fraction of them here. Aspartame alone has led to over 10,000 complaints filed with the FDA, yet it’s still on the market. A healthy alternative is Stevia. Found in the supplement section of your grocery rather than with other sweeteners, the white extract form is much sweeter than sugar and still doesn’t raise blood glucose levels.

Don’t worry, eat fatty
Organic or unrefined fats are actually very important to overall health for diabetics. Without them you’d be missing out on essential fatty acids like omega 3, which your body cannot get elsewhere. Consuming healthy fats and oils will help you feel satisfied when you eat, thus preventing over eating and weight gain.

Walk it out
Insulin resistance can be reduced for up to 48 hours after even a half hour of walking. Lightening the work load of the pancreas will let it handle the processing of glucose like it should. Losing even a few pounds can reduce the strain your body is under, and lower both blood sugar and blood pressure.

The US governmeny has commissioned two pharmaceutical companies to fast track a vaccine for the swine flu, and have designated young children as the first in line to receive them.  The problem with any forced vaccine is just that, it's a forced vaccine.  Vaccines are primarily dead or weakened viruses, with the intent of getting your body ready to fight off the real thing.  The difference is that vaccines include a plethora of other chemical agents, and ingredients designed to make the body go over the top in searching out and destroying any viruses.  Flu vaccines alone contain ingredients also present in antifreeze and formaldehyde.  The additive in these swine flu vaccines that seems to be causing the most stir is squalene.  Squalene has not been approved for this use in the US, and actually caused rheumatoid arthritis when injected into rats.  The real problem is that squalene occurs naturally in the body, and when it's used in a vaccine it will cause the body to seek it out where ever it may be hiding, and destroy it.  This can lead to all sorts of other long term problems.  Maybe Alec Baldwin was right.  Maybe it's time to move to France.

Do you want to stay tuned to the latest news and information in the realm of natural health?  We share information on everything from natural health to tips for a healthier every day life.  Follow us on Twitter and stay in the loop, or join our fan page on Facebook and join in the discussion.  We always love to hear from health enthusiasts and customers alike, and we're certainly happy to share user created content like discussion topics and related stories.  We regularly feature healthy tips that our subscribers share with us.  Join today, and tell your friends!

Home Hiccup Cure
Here’s a tip from one of our customers:  Nancy says “take a teaspoon of honey, agave nectar, or sugar and hold it in the mouth for less than a minute.  The hiccup just disappears.  Don’t know why, it just does.”  Thanks for the tip Nancy, more people suffer from hiccups than most people realize.

Trouble Sleeping
Your body needs the essential amino acid tryptophan in order to make serotonin and melatonin which help control your mood and sleep patterns.  If you don’t have enough tryptophan, you won’t be able to make enough serotonin or melatonin, and you may start to feel depressed or have trouble sleeping.  The easiest way to get tryptophan is by eating it.  It’s contained in many dairy products, fruits, and lean meats.  Ever wonder why Thanksgiving dinner is so nap inducing?  Turkey is very high in tryptophan.

Chocolate is Good for Your Heart
It sounds too good to be true, but evidence in recent years has been mounting steadily.  Dark chocolate especially is an excellent source of antioxidants.  A 2006 study among Dutch men showed that the ones who ate more foods made from or containing cocoa had lower blood pressure and their risk of death was 50% lower than those who ate little or no chocolate.

I “Swear” This Works
Ever wonder why people are more likely to utter expletives when in pain?  Recent research from Keele University in England suggests that swearing originates in the right hemisphere of the brain, and is more aligned with emotion than language.  It triggers adrenaline, and increases aggression, which in turn downplays pain and weakness.  So, depending on the company you keep don’t be afraid to let it out the next time you stub your toe.

Vitamin B.  You’ve known of it, and likely taken it for years.  Whether through the foods you eat, or as a separate supplement, it’s a part of your life.  It supports metabolism, maintains skin and muscle tone, enhances your immune and nervous systems, and promotes cell growth.  It all sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  So what could be so bad about it that the FDA is ruling that some varieties be pulled from the shelves and not sold as dietary supplements?  It’s not expensive enough.

Pyridoxamine is a compound that makes up vitamin B6.  It has been readily available, and easily sold for years upon years as a dietary supplement. Up until now, there has been no news about it.  Even now, the news that does exist is somewhat under the radar, which is why we’re bringing it to you now. In 2005, a pharmaceutical company called Biostratum began developing a new drug to treat diabetic kidney disease. The only hitch in the plan came when investors in the company found that the only active ingredient in this new drug (Pyidorin) was pyridoxamine.  Pyridorin had already gone through two phases of clinical trials, so by now they’ve reahed the “nothing is off limits, anything goes” phase in order to get their drug through.

After this revelation they lost funding for their third phase of clinical trials, even though the first two had been successful. Success that was due mainly to the inclusion of an existing dietary supplement. What to do now? Change the formulation? Rethink the original strategy? Ban the previously sold, naturally occurring supplement altogether? If you guessed the third option then you could probably secure a position in Biostratums board of directors because that’s exactly what they’re doing. Biostratum is fighting to ban all previously existing forms of pyridoxamine and labeling them as “adulterated”.

Citing no explanation for this adulteration, the request has taken plenty of time to fester and become exacerbated.  However, earlier this year the FDA ruled that pyridoxamine can no longer be sold and their direct comment on the issue was “To allow such an article to be marketed as a dietary supplement would not be fair to the pharmaceutical company that brought, or intends to bring, the drug to market.”

This is just another example of big government agencies being more concerned with filling their pockets than with the job that has been set before them.  The last time I checked, the FDA was still under the US Department of Health and Human Services.  It doesn’t seem that they’re serving all that appropriately.  Consider also that the FDA has recently called for Cheerios cereal to remove their advertisement that it can lower cholesterol unless it applies for a drug patent.

If you feel that behavior of this caliber is detrimental to our establishment and human rights, then your only real option is to file a citizen petition.  There are a few important things to remember when doing so.  They include:

1. 
   A description of the action you want addressed, such as a ruling or an order you want to have put in place, rewritten to include changes or revoked.
2. 
   The legal grounds on which you are making a petition and the facts to back up your claims. You do need to include all the supporting information that you can come up with.
3. 
   If your petition is one for which you are requesting approval of drugs, food additives, medical devices or for a food to be categorized as safe for consumption, you will have to provide information regarding the environmental impact of such a request.
4. 
   All petition letters must include the name, address and telephone number of the person initiating the petition.

The FDA does not accept emailed or online petitions, so once you have everything in order you can mail it to them at the following address:

Dockets Management Branch, HFA-305
Food and Drug Administration
5630 Fishers Lane, Rm 1061
Rockville, MD 20852

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.

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: