A Little True Humor

Autism and Vaccine Link is Stronger Than Previously Though

The link between Autism and vaccinations might be stronger than the CDC previously thought. Read the article here.

Baking Soda as A Natural Antacid

Antacids and Laxatives are two of the most purchased over-the-counter drugs in society today. Neither would be necessary if we didn't have impacted colons and acidic bodies, but in the mean time, there is a natural alternative to antacids that can actually alkalize the body. Here is the article.

(NewsTarget) Many components of the modern western diet – meats, fish, dairy products, most grains, sugars, alcohol and caffeinated drinks (in fact, almost everything except vegetables, millet, most fruits and, as we have just seen, apple cider vinegar) – contribute to one's body becoming too acidic. This in turn can open the door to a variety of problems, some of them (including arthritic complaints) potentially serious if this acidic condition persists for many years.

This is because your body will attempt to compensate by retaining alkaline salts in the bloodstream to offset the increase of tissue acidity. Since your body can only tolerate a small imbalance in blood pH (the acid-alkali balance), it will rob alkaline components from other places – including your body's precious alkaline reserves – in an effort to restore proper pH equilibrium. This can result in heartburn, digestive distress, stomach upset, fatigue and a multitude of other symptoms. Simple, inexpensive kitchen baking soda can fix this.

Very useful in keeping the body healthily alkalized is half to one teaspoon a day of baking soda in water. Don't take it with or within an hour of meals, though, as the stomach needs to retain its acidity in order to perform its digestive functions effectively. A great deal of tap water (or even store-bought spring water) is surprisingly acidic; filtration will remove toxins but will not affect the pH balance of the water. (Baking soda can be used to reduce the corrosion of acidic drinking water in municipal water supplies, therefore reducing the toxicity of the lead and copper, which are dissolved from the pipes.) You can purchase a pH testing kit for home use very cheaply, and if the water you usually drink is acidic (i.e. with a pH of less than 7.0) you could remedy this cheaply and easily by adding a pinch of baking soda to all the water you consume.

Baking soda is also effective for polishing teeth (without scratching the tooth surface) and fighting bad breath (sprinkle a little on the toothbrush bristles). It can even be tried for exfoliating skin when acne is a problem (add a little to a facial cleanser in place of using a commercial facial scrub).

When baking soda is added to bath water, sunburn sufferers often experience a notable reduction in pain. Place a cup (8 ounces) of baking soda under the running bath tap so it dissolves completely, and soak in a lukewarm tub for about half an hour. Such a bath will soothe the pain – and you won't have to endure the stinging sensation of a shower. Adding baking soda to a hot bath at any time also helps wash acid wastes out of the body.

In addition, baking soda can be used in cool (but not cold) bath water to soothe other skin irritations and alleviate itching from prickly heat, bee stings, insect bites, and other minor skin ailments. A paste (made with just enough water to get the desired sticky consistency) placed on an insect bite or sting and allowed to dry is a time-tested approach for drawing out and neutralizing poisons.

People with skin allergies who tend to react to commercial laundry detergents might find that washing their clothing and bedding in baking soda is less irritating.

Simple baking soda may also weaken the desire for a cigarette as well as reduce the desire for sugar and sweets. It's used in kidney dialysis to reduce the level of acids in the bloodstream, and acts to prevent bacterial growth in food products. For general purposes of alkalinizing the body, quarter to half a teaspoon twice a day in water is usually enough.

The medicinal and self-care uses of baking soda were recognized by the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) more than 150 years ago. For years, baking soda has been recommended because of its antacid effects, mainly to neutralize stomach acids that can cause heartburn, acid indigestion and related discomforts.

As it mixes with the hydrochloric acid in the stomach, baking soda triggers a chemical reaction, and its end products are salt (NaCl, or sodium chloride), carbon dioxide (CO2) and water. The water is harmless, and the carbon dioxide gets released as a gas, producing a familiar burp once the acid is neutralized.

However, commercial antacid products only lessen symptoms of over-acidity by blocking the production of acid and can often produce unwanted side effects. They alter your body's ability to absorb protein and calcium, which can then create the need for a calcium supplements to compensate.

If it were not for the presence of sodium – which makes the tissue in the stomach highly alkaline – the lining would be destroyed by the hydrochloric acid in the stomach. The stomach, intestines, joints and ligaments are in constant need of natural food-source sodium. Naturally occurring sodium is not to be confused with the sodium from common commercial table salt, which is processed with extreme heat using many chemical and bleaching agents.

Potassium neutralizes acid wastes, and in combination with sodium, maintains a healthy acid/alkaline balance. Potassium and sodium are nearly always found together in the body and perform many of the same functions. Second only to breathing and maintaining a heartbeat the most important metabolic function our body performs is to maintain a balanced pH. Baking soda, in small amounts, performs this function.

Read the full article here.

Cancer Video

This video sheds a new light on the subject of cancer. Most of society believes that cancer is a disease that happens at random or for genetic reasons. As many national health practitioners have known for many years, cancer does not happen by chance, it is caused be a lack of a nutrient or a toxicity of some kind. Even people who already have cancer can overcome it through proper nutrition and supplementation. Though we now know more than what is covered in this video, it does provide some important basic information about cancer.

Wellness Revolution Video

This is an excellent video from best selling author Paul Zane Pilzer, who wrote The Wellness Revolution, a great book that I would recommend. As the video says, feel free to contact me for more information.

Superfoods That Can Help Prevent Disease

The health food community has known for a long time the benefits of certain fruits and vegetables in improving health and preventing disease. The old saying "you are what you eat" is especially true in today's world, and unfortunately, this means there are a lot of people whose bodies are not getting enough of the nutrients they need and the result of this is the tremendous rise in disease and obesity in America. Several foods that are well known for the antioxidant properties are:

Apples. According to "SuperFoods Lifestyle" author Dr. Steven Pratt, different varieties of apples have different phytonutrients, but they all have tons of antioxidants, including flavonoids and other polyphenols, and fiber.

Avocados. Avacados are packed with good fats that are excellent for your skin, eyes and brain. These fats are necessary in our diet and have been shown to lower bad cholesterol. They also contain large amounts of fiber, potassium, magnesium, folate and antioxidants up the ante.

Beans. Some are better than others, but in general, beans are packed with lean protein and fiber. They have a lot of potassium, B vitamins, and antioxidants.

Blueberries. The best of the berries, blueberries contain antioxidants like anthocyanins and other polyphenols, and carotenoids. They are low in calories, high in flavor and vitamin rich. All berries are great for antioxidants, but blueberries are the Rolls Royce of berries.

Dark chocolate. In moderation, a high quality dark chocolate is full of flavonoids, a potent antioxidant. Only dark chocolate has this, and the higher the cocoa content the better. Try to look for organic with at least 65% cocoa.

Kiwis. Who knew? Kiwis have as much potassium as bananas and as much vitamin C as citrus fruit. You can even eat the skin for antioxidants.

Oats. Oats give you fiber, protein, potassium, magnesium and other minerals, and phytonutrients, including antioxidants. Their cholesterol-lowering powers are well known, and all that fiber is also believed to help stabilize blood sugar. Oats' combination of nutrients appears to have more healthy effects than if each nutrient were consumed separately -- which seems to be true of all whole grains. And, they're inexpensive. The best way to eat oats is to soak old fashioned whole oats in cool water for about 30 minutes and eat cool without cooking. Oats prepared this way taste great with frozen or fresh berries.

Spinach. What doesn't spinach have? It's loaded with lutein (great for eyes) and many other carotenoids, which are healthful antioxidants; plus other antioxidants like coenzyme Q, in serious doses; plus several B vitamins plus C and E; plus iron and other minerals; plus betaine, a vitamin-like nutrient research suggests is good for your heart. And with almost no calories, you can eat as much as you want. Also good for similar reasons: kale, chard and other dark leafy greens.

Walnuts. All nuts have been rehabbed as good-for-you foods, for their healthy fats and micronutrients. A few go a long way, though, as they are calorie bombs. Walnuts' main claim to stardom are their omega-3 fatty acids, which fight heart disease. Other goodies: plant sterols, which lower cholesterol, and lots of antioxidants.

Yogurt. Nutritionist Jo Ann Hattner says if she could pick only two superfoods, they would be yogurt and tea, because their health-giving attributes have been known for centuries. Yogurt's claim to fame is live cultures, also called probiotics or beneficial bacteria. They are what turns milk into yogurt (but some commercial yogurts are heated to kill the cultures after they do their work, so be sure to read the label). In your gut, they fight bad bacteria, aid digestion, help metabolize food and generally tune your system up. Yogurt also is a good source of calcium and protein.

The medical community is finally starting to pick up on how beneficial whole foods can be for you. In this recent article, scientists suggest that eating watercress daily can help reduce the risk of cancer. What a surprise! Who knew that if we ate a balanced diet containing a lot of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds and drank enough pure filtered water, we could reduce our risk of cancer.

Important and Useful Produce Information

You know those annoying little stickers that you have to pull off of your fruit before you can eat it? Those stickers can also be an easy way to tell how your produce was grown. Each fruit has a four of five digit Price Look-up (or PLU) code that is given based on how it was grown. Produce that is conventionally grown has a four-digit PLU code and generally begins with a three or four. Organically grown produce has a five-digit code and begins with a nine. Genetically modified produce has a five digit code as well, but the first number is an eight.

For example, the PLU for a conventionally grown banana is 4011; an organic banana is coded 94011; and a genetically modified banana is 84011.

This is an easy way to tell how your produce was grown while you are grocery shopping. In general, it is wise to avoid genetically modified produce (beginning with an eight). If organic produce is not available, conventionally grown produce (four-digit code) would be the next best option. If a fruit or vegetable is labeled as organic, it has to meet the standards laid out by the National Organic Program:

By definition, food that is certified organic must be free from all genetically modified organisms, produced without artificial pesticides and fertilizers, and come from an animal reared without the routine use of antibiotics, growth promoters or other drugs. Labeling of organic food is voluntary, but all foods that claim to be organic, must meet the guidelines set forth by the USDA.

Read a related article here.

Wal Mart Mislabeling Organic Foods

It is hard enough to eat an organic or even semi-organic diet in today's world, but it may have gotten a little more difficult thanks to Wal-Mart. The Cornucopia Institute, a company that supports sustainable farming, has accused Wal-Mart of mislabeling some organic foods. Wal-Mart offers many varieties of organic foods and labels them with green signs. The Cornucopia Institute said that of the "dozens of stores" in five states that it visited, there were labeling violations in almost every store.
Read the full story here.

Genetically Modified Foods

In the past few years, the USDA has approved many genetically modified crops, and many feel that this approval was made prematurely. Many of the foods we see in grocery stores now may be GE crops and we might not even know it. While this movement to approve the GE crops seems to be picking up momentum, this is finally a victory for those who question the safety of such crops. Read the article here.
Here is a list of genetically engineered crops.
Find out more about GE crops and for more information about the genetic engineering process here.

Hilarious Parody Video

This hilarious video is a parody of our drug obsessed culture. It is funny, but sadly true. Feel free to send this link on to your friends for a little comic relief. Click on the picture to view video.

Medical Mistakes

This Office Spam article highlights some humorous medical mistakes, but unfortunately, not all mistakes are quite so funny, and some can be deadly.

Office Spam
February 10, 2007
Embarrassing Medical Exams

These are the Embarrassing kind of mistakes that turns a doctor into a plastic surgeon.

1. A man comes into the ER and yells, "My wife's going to have her baby in the cab!" I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the cab, lifted the lady's dress, and began to take off her underwear. Suddenly I noticed that there were several cabs ---and I was in the wrong one. So I shortly after moved my practice and am now doing Beverly Hills plastic surgery.
Submitted by Dr. Mark MacDonald, Beverly Hills, CA.

2. At the beginning of my shift I placed a stethoscope on an elderly and slightly deaf female patient's anterior chest wall. "Big breaths," I instructed. "Yes, they used to be," replied the patient.
Submitted by Dr. Richard Byrnes, Who is now practicing plastic surgery in Seattle, WA

3. One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a wife that her husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct. Not more than five minutes later, I heard her reporting to the rest of the family that he had died of a "massive internal fart."
Submitted by Dr. Susan Steinberg who specializes in cosmetic surgery in Los Angeles, CA.

4. During a patient's two week follow-up appointment with his cardiologist, he informed me, his doctor, that he was having trouble with one of his medications. "Which one?" I asked. "The patch, the nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours and now I'm running out of places to put it!" I had him quickly undress and discovered what I hoped I wouldn't see. Yes, the man had over fifty patches on his body! Now, the instructions include removal of the old patch before applying a new one.
Submitted by Dr. Rebecca St. Clair who is now performing plastic surgery in San Diego, CA.

Store Wars

This witty and truthful parody of Star Wars shows just how dangerous the food we eat can be. We really are fighting a war to be able to eat organic, non genetically modified foods.

News on HPV Vaccine Push

I am sure you are all aware of the recent ad campaign pushing the new HPV Vaccine Guardasil. Thankfully, the opposition is not only limited to parents now. An increasing number of doctors are starting to oppose mandating the vaccine also, saying that it is too soon.
Read the story here.

Following the Money Trail; The Truth Behind Cloned Meat

There has been a lot of press lately about the new technology of cloning animals to increase production of meat. Despite the fact that our bodies do not need much, if any, meat, the meat that is widely available today is hormone filled and grain fed. Now, on top of that, they are trying to clone the meat as well. As with most things of this nature (pharmaceutical drugs, cancer treatment, heart disease prevention, hormonal birth control, etc) the reason is of course, financially motivated. This article uncovers a lot of the hidden agendas behind the new technology of cloning animals for food.
Read the article here.

McDonalds Marketing

This article really shows how the fast food culture is contributing to an obese America.

The Truth About McDonald's And Children
By Morgan Spurlock
The Independent - UK
5-22-5

Morgan Spurlock ate McDonald's food every day for a month, and recorded the stomach-churning results in his film 'Super Size Me'. Here, in an extract from his new book, Spurlock reveals the things he didn't say in the movie about Ronald McDonald and his campaign to win the hearts of our young.

Every waking moment of our lives, we swim in an ocean of advertising, all of it telling us the same thing: consume, consume. And then consume some more. The epidemic of overconsumption begins with the things we put in our mouths. The United States is the fattest nation on earth. Sixty-five per cent of American adults are overweight; 30 per cent are obese. In the decade between 1991 and 2001, obesity figures almost doubled.

But the truly shocking thing is that we've taught our kids how to be fat, too. Obesity rates in American children remained stable throughout the 1960s, but they began to climb in the 1970s. In the past 20 years, the rate of obesity has doubled in children and trebled in teenagers. Kids are starting to clock in as obese as early as the age of two. If we find that surprising, we shouldn't.

During the McMonth I endured for Super Size Me, in which I ate every meal at McDonald's, every day - taking up the option to have a Supersize portion whenever I was offered it - I couldn't get over how many kids there were in the restaurants almost any time that I walked in. Children with their parents. Gaggles of them stopping off for breakfast or for a pre-dinner snack in their cute little school uniforms. Kids in all the play areas. Kids as little as three and four having Happy Meal McBirthday parties. Or, in a McDonald's in Houston, at 9am, a mother with her two very overweight kids who, having just finished their fat-filled breakfasts, were now eating hot fudge sundaes.

Ray Kroc, the man behind the McDonald's empire, understood from Day McOne that youngsters were his target market. He had no sooner bought the company from the McDonald brothers than Ronald McDonald was brought in to attract the kiddies to the burgers and shakes.

The first Ronald was the TV weatherman Willard Scott in his younger, but apparently not leaner, days. Scott had been doing Bozo the Clown on local television. When the show was cancelled, an enterprising McDonald's franchisee asked him to come up with a clown figure that would lure the kids into the restaurant. Kroc saw it, liked it and extended the idea to the whole country.

But first he canned Scott. Kroc understood the negative publicity implications of an icon who looks as though he's been eating too much of the company's food. To this day you'll never see Ronald McDonald eating the food; not in any commercial. He dances and sings, grins and giggles, and smiles at the kids while they stuff their faces, but he never touches the grub. Why? Presumably because, as the late Eazy-E said in the song "The Dopeman": "Don't get high off your own supply."

Kroc also understood the value of promoting McDonald's as a caring, family-friendly sort of place, a place with a heart, not heart disease. Early on, he began linking McDonald's with various children's charities. One executive told John F Love, author of McDonald's: Behind the Arches: "It was an inexpensive, imaginative way of getting your name before the public and building a reputation to offset the image of selling 15-cent hamburgers. It was probably 99 per cent commercial."

Thus the Ronald McDonald House Charities were born. They have now provided housing (and McMeals) for the families of more than two million seriously ill children. Never mind the fact that today an increasing number of children are going into hospital because of eating-related illnesses.

Talking of which, one of the most shocking things I saw during my McMonth was a McDonald's in Texas Children's Hospital - a hospital that is now stapling obese children's stomachs. To me, that seemed utterly irresponsible, a flagrant violation of the doctor's pledge of "Primum non nocere" (First, do no harm). In fact, hospitals across the US have fast-food franchises in them. The top-ranked paediatric hospital in the country, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, has a McDonald's outlet. Why shouldn't there be one in Houston?

Recently, a combination of good information and bad publicity has encouraged some hospitals to reconsider their food-service contracts. But Ronald won't always leave without a fight. The Cleveland Clinic, for example, wants to rid America's leading heart hospital of its McDonald's. But according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer of 22 November last year, the clinic's chief executive, Dr Toby Cosgrove, received a letter from a McDonald's corporate vice-president called Marty Ranft, which "defended the franchise, and vowed ... that 'McDonald's has no intention of terminating' the remaining 10 years on its lease".

The doctors at Texas Children's Hospital told me they had young patients who were dying of cancer, and it was hard to get them to eat anything. At least these poor kids would eat some fries, take a bite of a burger: food they were familiar with. It was junk that they had been eating all their lives.

But it's not enough to get young people to come to your restaurants; you have to get them to keep on coming back. McDonald's operates something like 8,000 Playlands around America. They're especially attractive to children in neighbourhoods in which playgrounds are scarce. Burger King has about 3,200 of its own. Then there's the Happy Meal, launched in the US in 1979. It cost a buck in those days. Inside a cardboard box with a circus theme, children found a McDoodler stencil, a puzzle book, a McWrist wallet, an ID bracelet and McDonaldland character erasers.

The meal-plus-toys packaging proved to be an instant hit, with the first Star Trek Happy Meals that very year. Soon, toy versions of all your favourite McDonald's mascots were included: Ronald, Grimace, Hamburglar, Mayor McCheese, Big Mac, Birdie and Captain Crook. Later, toys would be themed for tie-ins with brands and films such as Barbie, Hot Wheels, The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo and so on. By 2003, Happy Meals accounted for about 20 per cent of all meals sold (about $3.5bn in annual revenue).

And let's not forget the Mighty Kids Meal, introduced in America in 2001. McDonald's realized that by the time kids were eight or nine years old they felt they had outgrown the Happy Meal. Those were for little boys and girls. So the Mighty Kids Meal comes in a slightly more "grown-up" package. It offers bigger meals: a double cheeseburger, double hamburger or a six-piece chicken McNuggets, but still comes with a toy. We may be older, but we still like toys.

In 2004, McDonald's celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Happy Meal with a year-long barrage of promotions and advertisements. The company also launched a version for adults, the Go Active! Adult Happy Meal. This included a salad, a bottle of water, a book that told you how to exercise, and an adult "toy": a Stepometer, so you could measure how few steps it was from the counter to your car.

Good old Ronald. Under his smiling, caring guidance, an entire generation of overweight American adults who grew up following him into their local McDonald's are now raising their own overweight children to follow in their heavy footsteps.

Recently, the magazine Advertising Age cited Ronald McDonald as No 2 on its list of top 10 advertising icons of the 20th century. Who was No 1? It was the Marlboro Man.