You may be aware that vitamin D and calcium are a powerful duo for bone health, including the prevention of osteoporosis. One of the undisputed benefits of vitamin D is that it helps you ABSORB calcium ? this link has been known for many decades.

But there is also evidence that vitamin K, and specifically vitamin K2, is another key player in your bone health, and may be just as crucial in helping you prevent bone fractures as you age.

A Powerful Nutrient Trio to Reduce Your Osteoporosis Risk

A study published in Osteoporosis International has concluded that lifetime supplementation with vitamin K1 or, even better, K2, vitamin D3, and calcium is likely to reduce fractures and increase survival in postmenopausal women. Bone loss speeds up most dramatically during the first 10 years after menopause, which is the period when osteoporosis is most likely to develop.

Many are under the mistaken impression that a prescription drug combined with calcium supplements is the answer to strong healthy bones, but the regular consumption of a healthy diet, along with safe sun exposure and extra supplementation when appropriate, is likely to be far superior.

Theorizing that vitamin K might have a role in the primary prevention of fractures, researchers studied the cost-effectiveness of various interventions for preventing fractures in 50-year-old postmenopausal women. They learned that the vitamin K1, vitamin D3, and calcium combination could reduce the lifetime probability of at least one fracture by 20 percent, but adding vitamin K2 to vitamin D3 reduced it by 25 percent.

Vitamin K1 and K2: Which is Better for Your Bones?

In case you weren't aware, vitamin K comes in two forms, and it is important to understand the differences between them before devising your nutritional plan of attack.

1. Vitamin K1: Found in green vegetables, K1 goes directly to your liver and helps you maintain a healthy blood clotting system. (This is the kind of K that infants need to help prevent a serious bleeding disorder.)
2. Vitamin K2: Bacteria produce this type of vitamin K. It is present in high quantities in your gut, but unfortunately is not absorbed from there and passes out in your stool. K2 goes straight to vessel walls, bones, and tissues other than your liver.

There are several different forms of vitamin K2: MK4, MK7, MK8, and MK9. The form of vitamin K that has the most relevance for health benefits is MK7, a newer and longer acting form with more practical applications. MK7 is extracted from the Japanese fermented soy product called natto. You could actually get plenty of MK7 from consuming natto, as it is relatively inexpensive and available in most Asian food markets.

Few people, however, easily tolerate its smell and slimy texture, so oftentimes people who find natto unpalatable prefer to take a supplement. Most vitamin K2 supplements are in the form MK7. You can also get MK7 by eating fermented cheeses. There has been some remarkable research about the protective effects of vitamin K2 against osteoporosis:

• A number of Japanese trials have shown that vitamin K2 completely reverses bone loss and in some cases even increases bone mass in people with osteoporosis.ⁱ
• The pooled evidence of seven Japanese trials show that vitamin K2 supplementation produces a 60 percent reduction in vertebral fractures and an 80 percent reduction in hip and other non-vertebral fractures.ⁱⁱ
• Researchers in the Netherlands showed that vitamin K2 is three times more effective than vitamin K1 in raising osteocalcin, which controls the building of bone.ⁱⁱⁱ

Why Vitamin K is So Important if You Take Calcium and Vitamin D

If you currently take calcium and vitamin D for your bones, it's important that you also get plenty of vitamin K2. These three nutrients have a synergistic effect that cannot be achieved when one piece of the puzzle is missing. Specifically, here's a simple explanation of why the benefits of calcium and vitamin D are largely dependent on vitamin K:

• Calcium: There is new evidence that it is vitamin K (specifically, vitamin K2) that directs calcium to your skeleton, while preventing it from being deposited where you don't want it -- i.e., your organs, joint spaces, and arteries. A large part of arterial plaque consists of calcium deposits (atherosclerosis), hence the term "hardening of the arteries."

Vitamin K2 activates a protein hormone called osteocalcin, produced by osteoblasts, which is needed to bind calcium into the matrix of your bone. Osteocalcin also appears to help prevent calcium from depositing into your arteries. So while increasing calcium is good for your bones, it is not so good for your arteries, which can become calcified. Vitamin K helps protect your blood vessels from calcifying when in the presence of high calcium levels.

• Vitamin D3: As mentioned, vitamin D helps your body to absorb calcium, but vitamin K directs that calcium to your skeleton where it's needed. You can think of vitamin D as the gatekeeper, controlling who gets in, and vitamin K as the traffic cop, directing the traffic to where it needs to go. Lots of traffic -- but no traffic cop -- means clogging, crowding and chaos everywhere!

In other words, without the help of vitamin K2, the calcium that your vitamin D so effectively lets in might be working AGAINST you -- by building up in your coronary arteries rather than your bones. There is even evidence that the safety of vitamin D is dependent on vitamin K, and that vitamin D toxicity (although very rare with the D3 form) is actually caused by vitamin K2 deficiency.^iv

How to Get These Nutrients From Natural Sources

Calcium, vitamin K2 and vitamin D3 are obviously available in supplement form, but you should know that you can also get them naturally from food and the sun.

Calcium, in particular, is better utilized by your body if it's food-based calcium. Good sources include raw milk and cheese from pasture-raised cows (who eat plants), leafy green vegetables, the pith of citrus fruits, carob, sesame seeds and wheatgrass, to name a few. Calcium from dietary sources is typically better absorbed and utilized than calcium from supplements, which may increase your risk of heart attack or stroke.

As for vitamin D3, exposing your skin to natural sunlight is the best way to get enough of this important nutrient. Vitamin D from sunlight acts as a pro-hormone, rapidly converting in your skin into 25-hydroxyvitamin D, or vitamin D3. The next best option is using a safe tanning bed to achieve similar results as that from natural sunlight exposure, and the third best option is taking an oral vitamin D3 supplement whenever natural sun exposure is not an option, then monitoring your levels to be sure you're within the therapeutic range.

Ideally, optimize your vitamin K2 through a combination of dietary sources (leafy green vegetables, fermented foods like natto, raw milk cheeses, etc.) and a K2 supplement, as most people don't get sufficient amounts of vitamin K from their diet to reap its full health benefits. You must use caution with vitamin K if you take anticoagulants, but if you are generally healthy and not on these types of medications, I suggest 150-300 mcg daily.

The Vitamin That Is 'as Good as Drugs' at Reducing Blood Pressure

One of the best parts about optimizing your levels of vitamin D3 is that you will experience a host of beneficial "side effects" ? even above and beyond your bone health.

In research presented at the European Society of Hypertension conference in London, scientists studying the effects of vitamin D3 supplementation on heart health reported that they've found that patients with high blood pressure can experience significant improvements in their condition by taking only the supplement, without high-power drugs. The majority of the study's participants were deficient in vitamin D, and while scientists stopped short of recommending vitamin D be substituted for blood pressure drugs, they did say the study shows that supplementation with vitamin D was "as powerful" as the drugs.

Both vitamin D3 and vitamin K2 are important for your heart health, as they work together to increase Matrix GLA Protein (or MGP), the protein responsible for protecting your blood vessels from calcification. In healthy arteries, MGP congregates around the elastic fibers of your tunica media (arterial lining), guarding them against calcium crystal formation.

4 Steps to Help Protect Your Bones No Matter What Your Age ?

One of the best ways to achieve healthy bones is a diet rich in fresh, raw whole foods that maximizes natural minerals so that your body has the raw materials it needs to do what it was designed to do. In addition, you need healthy sun exposure along with regular, weight-bearing exercise. To sum it up:

• Optimize your vitamin D3 either from natural sunlight exposure, a safe tanning bed or an oral vitamin D3 supplement. Check your blood levels regularly to make sure you're within the optimal range.
• Optimize your vitamin K1 through a combination of dietary sources (leafy green vegetables, fermented foods like natto, raw milk cheeses, etc.) and a K2 supplement, if needed. Although the exact dosing (for oral supplementation) is yet to be determined, and you must use caution on the higher doses if you take anticoagulants, if you are generally healthy and not on these types of medications, I suggest 150-300 mcg daily.
• Make sure you do weight-bearing exercise, which has profound benefits to your skeletal systems. My favorite is Peak Fitness but it is also very important to do strength-training exercises to produce the dynamic electric forces in your bones that will stimulate the osteoblasts to produce new bone.
• Consume a wide variety of fresh, local, organic whole foods, including vegetables, nuts, seeds, organic meats and eggs, and raw organic unpasteurized dairy for calcium and other nutrients. The more of your diet you consume RAW, the better nourished you will be. Minimize sugar and refined grains.

References:

• ⁱ Eur J Nutr. December 2004;43(6):325-335
• ⁱⁱ Arch Intern Med. 2006; 166: 1256-1261
• ⁱⁱⁱ Blood. 2007 Apr 15;109(8):3279-83.
• ^iv Weston A Price Foundation February 13, 2008

• GreenMedInfo March 8, 2012

• Osteoporosis International March 8, 2012

• The Telegraph April 26, 2012

• Today April 26, 2012

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  This Could be Even Bigger Than the Vitamin D Discovery ?

The conventional cancer therapies currently available are surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy; aka the "cut, poison, burn" model. Chemotherapy is typically the main regimen for most cancers.

However, many tumors develop resistance to these harsh drugs, known as chemoresistance, which can complicate matters, to say the least. Chemoresistance also leads to other complications.

Hence researchers are looking for effective chemosensitizers that can help overcome such resistance. This strategy basically uses one drug to enhance the activity of another, by modulating the mechanisms that cause the resistance.

A number of natural products and compounds have been shown to act as effective chemosensitizers. Two of the most promising are resveratrol and curcumin, which I'll address here. Last year, several interesting studies were published on these two products, pertaining to their value in the treatment of cancer.

Resveratrol?A Natural Chemosensitizer

Natural agents such as resveratrol, a potent antioxidant chemical found in red wine and other foods, have multitargeting properties, which make them ideally suited for anti-cancer drugs. In fact, more than 60 percent of the cancer drugs currently available are based on natural ingredients for this very reason. Natural compounds are also inexpensive, low in toxicity, and are readily available.

In a 2011 review of dietary agents that sensitize tumors, making them more susceptible to the treatment with chemotherapy drugs, resveratrol was featured as a clear candidateⁱ. Specific types of tumors shown to respond favorably include:

Lung carcinoma	Acute myeloid- and promyelocytic leukemia	Multiple myeloma
Prostate cancer	Oral epidermoid carcinoma	Pancreatic cancer

The first evidence of resveratrol's anti-cancer effects was published in 1997. The findings received great interest from cancer researchers, and many studies have been devoted to this potent antioxidant since then. Resveratrol, which can be found in red wine, red grape skins, fruits, vegetables, legumes and weeds, has been found to have the following actions and functions:

• Broad-spectrum antimicrobial
• Anti-infective
• Antioxidant
• Cardio-protective
• Anti-cancer

According to the review, published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciencesⁱⁱ:

"The anticancer activities of resveratrol are mediated through modulation of several cell-signaling molecules that regulate cell cycle progression, inflammation, proliferation, apoptosis, invasion, metastasis, and angiogenesis of tumor cells. It has been shown that resveratrol can sensitize resistant cells to chemotherapeutic agents by overcoming one or more mechanisms of chemoresistance. In some tumor cells, however, resveratrol has been shown to act as chemoprotector."

The fact that it can in some cases act as a chemoprotector, meaning, it can reduce the efficacy of chemotherapeutic agents, "present a major caveat for use of resveratrol as a chemosensitizer," the authors warn. In an earlier study, the researchers concluded that using resveratrol with the cancer drug Paclitaxel, for example, was detrimental in certain types of cancers, such as breast cancerⁱⁱⁱ.

Resveratrol May Help Alleviate Cancer Treatment Side Effects

In another study from last year, published in the journal Experimental Biology and Medicine, resveratrol was found to help alleviate many of the debilitating side effects of conventional cancer treatments^iv, such as:

The authors point out there's mounting evidence indicating that these symptoms are primarily caused by dysregulation of in?ammatory pathways in your body. Hence anti-inflammatory compounds that can modulate the inflammatory pathways and influence inflammatory molecules may help improve these symptoms in cancer patients. They name several nutritional agents known to do just that, including:

• Resveratrol
• Curcumin
• Genistein
• Epigallocatechin gallate
• Lycopene

According to the authors^v:

"These nutraceuticals are chemically diverse and affect production of various in?ammatory cytokines. Extensive research in recent years has indicated that chronic in?ammation leads to various chronic disorders associated with cancer. A central role in the induction of chronic in?ammation is played by a set of genes encoding proin?ammatory cytokines such as IL-1, IL-2, IL-6, TNFa and monocyte chemotactic protein 1. What is common to all these molecules is that they are regulated by the transcription factor NFkB. This makes NFkB an appealing target for therapeutic intervention.

A number of compounds have been identi?ed that can suppress NFkB activation, including antioxidants, protease inhibitors, proteasome inhibitors, salicylates, immunosuppressants and anti-in?ammatory agents." [Emphasis mine]

This brings us to the next interesting fact about natural products like resveratrol and curcumin, namely their impact on your genetic expression. As just mentioned, your genetic expression plays a central role in chronic inflammation, and certain nutrients can have a potent protective influence by either turning genes on or off.

Understanding Epigenetics

The role of epigenetics in health and disease is becoming ever clearer, and I firmly believe this field of study will eventually supplant the current medical paradigm. The conventional belief has been that genes controlled their own expression and were therefore the direct cause of certain diseases. This laid the groundwork for the idea that your genes predetermined your health.

But genes are in fact NOT self-regulating. Having "bad genes," does not at all mean you're doomed to suffer some inevitable fate like cancer!

Genes are merely blueprints, and these blueprints are activated and controlled by something else entirely, namely their environment. This environmental information?which includes diet, toxic exposures, as well as thoughts and emotions, and more?can create more than 30,000 different variations from each blueprint, allowing for an astounding amount of leeway in modifying the expression or "read-out" of each gene. As a result of these findings, we're now finally seeing science alter its course to investigate the power of optimal nutrition to improve health and prevent chronic disease from occurring in the first place.

In May last year, a study investigating curcumin's ability to affect epigenetic regulation was published in the journal Genes & Nutritio^vi. The authors write:

"Epigenetic regulation, which includes changes in DNA methylation, histone modifications, and alteration in microRNA (miRNA) expression without any change in the DNA sequence, constitutes an important mechanism by which dietary components can selectively activate or inactivate gene expression.

Curcumin, a component of the golden spice Curcuma longa, commonly known as turmeric, has recently been determined to induce epigenetic changes... [E]pigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), and resveratrol, have [also] been shown to alter epigenetic mechanisms, which may lead to increased sensitivity of cancer cells to conventional agents and thus inhibition of tumor growth." [Emphasis mine]

Curcumin?A Potent Anti-Cancer Herb

Curcumin currently has the most evidence-based literature supporting its use against cancer among all nutrients^vii. Interestingly this also includes the metabolite of curcumin and its derivatives, which are also anti-cancerous. Best of all, curcumin appears to be safe in the treatment of all cancers, and has been shown to be nontoxic. Researchers have found that curcumin can affect more than 100 different pathways, once it gets into the cell. More specifically, curcumin has been found to:

Another study from last year, published in the Natural Product Reports describes curcumin as being therapeutic for a wide range of diseases aside from cancer^viii, such as:

A persistent question has been: How can a single agent possess such diverse effects? Part of the answer lies in the herb's ability to affect signaling molecules. For example, curcumin has been shown to directly interact with:

According to the authors of the NPR paper^ix:

"The molecular basis of a disease is related to dysregulation of an array of signaling molecules. With the advent of advanced molecular tools, we now know that over 500 different genes of the signaling pathways control any given disease. However, most currently available treatments are based on the modulation of a specific single target. Curcumin is a functionally labile molecule with the potential to modulate the biological activity of a number of signaling molecules either indirectly or directly..." [Emphasis mine]

How to Use Curcumin

To get the full benefits curcumin has to offer you need to understand that it is very poorly absorbed. You simply can't blindly choose a supplement and expect to achieve the results described in this paper. There is extensive research going on by a number of organizations to provide a commercial product. 

You can look for a turmeric extract that contains 100 percent certified organic ingredients, with at least 95 percent curcuminoids. The formula should be free of fillers, additives and excipients (a substance added to the supplement as a processing or stability aid), and the manufacturer should use safe production practices at all stages: planting, cultivation, selective harvesting, and then producing and packaging the final product.

Unfortunately, at the present time there really are no concentrated commercial formulations available for the use against cancer. Keep in mind that concentrated curcumin is really only needed by people who seek to use it as a drug, in which case you need it in very high doses in order to achieve therapeutic effect. The most classic case would be those using it to treat, not prevent, cancer. If you do not have cancer, then using a turmeric supplement is sufficient.

According to Dr. William LaValley, one of the leading medicine cancer physicians I personally know, typical anticancer doses are up to three grams of good bioavailable curcumin extract, three to four times daily. One work-around is to use the curcumin powder and make a microemulsion of it by combining a tablespoon of the powder and mixing it into 1-2 egg yolks and a teaspoon or two of melted coconut oil. Then use a high speed hand blender to emulsify the powder.

Another strategy that can help increase absorption is to put one tablespoon of the curcumin powder into a quart of boiling water. It must be boiling when you add the powder as it will not work as well if you put it in room temperature water and heat the water and curcumin. After boiling it for ten minutes you will have created a 12 percent solution that you can drink once it has cooled down. It will have a woody taste. The curcumin will gradually fall out of solution however. In about six hours it will be a 6 percent solution, so it's best to drink the water within four hours. Dr. LaValley is also helping us beta test new curcumin preparations that will radically simplify this process.

Cancer Prevention 101...

It is certainly encouraging to see cancer research on herbs such as turmeric, and antioxidants like resveratrol. However, it's virtually impossible to discuss cancer prevention and treatment without touching on one of the absolute best cancer prevention nutrients ever discovered, namely vitamin D.

As a powerful neuro-regulatory steroid, vitamin D is likely more potent than curcumin, as its epigenetic influence covers more than 2,000 genes in your body?or about 10 percent of all genes! There are also more than 830 peer reviewed scientific studies showing vitamin D's effectiveness in the prevention and treatment of cancer. In terms of protecting against cancer, vitamin D has been found to offer protection in a number of ways, including:

• Regulating genetic expression
• Increasing the self-destruction of mutated cells (which, if allowed to replicate, could lead to cancer)
• Reducing the spread and reproduction of cancer cells
• Causing cells to become differentiated (cancer cells often lack differentiation)
• Reducing the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones, which is a step in the transition of dormant tumors turning cancerous

Personally, I believe it is virtually malpractice to not optimize vitamin D levels when treating someone with cancer. In this case, your vitamin D levels should be around 70-100 ng/ml. For more information about optimizing your vitamin D levels, please see my previous article Test Values and Treatment for Vitamin D Deficiency.

If the notion that sun exposure can actually help prevent cancer is still new to you, I highly recommend you watch my one-hour vitamin D lecture to clear up any confusion. It's important to understand that the risk of skin cancer from the sun comes only from excessive exposure. Meanwhile, countless people around the world have an increased risk of cancer because their vitamin D levels are too low from lack of sun exposure.

Other Natural (and Epigenetic) Cancer Prevention Strategies

When it comes to cancer and other chronic diseases, effective prevention trumps progressive treatments in my eyes. I believe you can virtually eliminate your risk of ever developing cancer (and radically improve your chances of recovering from cancer if you currently have it) by following some relatively simple risk reduction strategies?all of which help promote a healthful biological environment in which your cells can thrive and combat disease naturally.

You don't read or hear much about these strategies because they have not been formally "proven" yet by conservative researchers. Beyond what's already been covered above, the remainder of my cancer prevention strategies include:

1. Reduce or eliminate your processed food, fructose and grain carbohydrate intake.
2. Control your fasting insulin and leptin levels.  Normalizing your insulin levels is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to lower your risk of cancer, and improved insulin and leptin control is the natural outcome of reducing or eliminating fructose, grains, and processed foods from your diet
3. Normalize your ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats by taking a high-quality krill oil or fish oil and reducing your intake of most processed vegetable oils.
4. Get regular exercise. One of the primary ways exercise lowers your risk for cancer is by reducing elevated insulin levels, which creates a low sugar environment that discourages the growth and spread of cancer cells. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks. Additionally, exercise improves the circulation of immune cells in your blood. Your immune system is your first line of defense against everything from minor illnesses like a cold right up to devastating, life-threatening diseases like cancer.
   
   The trick about exercise, though, is understanding how to use it as a precise tool. This ensures you are getting enough to achieve the benefit, not too much to cause injury, and the right variety to balance your entire physical structure and maintain strength and flexibility, and aerobic and anaerobic fitness levels. If you have limited time Peak Fitness exercises are your best bet but ideally you should have a good strength training program as well.
5. Get regular, good quality sleep.
6. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.
7. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.
8. Limit your exposure and provide protection for yourself from EMF produced by cell phone towers, base stations, cell phones and WiFi stations. On May 31, 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), declared that cell phones are "possibly carcinogenic to humans."^x
9. Avoid frying or charbroiling your food. Boil, poach or steam your foods instead.
10. Have a tool to permanently reprogram the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. Energy psychology seems to be one of the best approaches and my particular favorite tool, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique.
11. Eat at least one-third of your diet in the form of raw food.

References:

• ⁱ Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences January 2011; 1215: 150-160
• ⁱⁱ Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences January 2011; 1215: 150-160
• ⁱⁱⁱ European Journal of Cancer July 2010;46(10):1882-91
• ^iv Experimental Biology and Medicine 2011, 236:658-671
• ^v See reference iv
• ^vi Genes & Nutrition May 2011 6(2): 93?108
• ^vii GreenMedInfo.com Curcumin Medical Literature list
• ^viii Natural Products Report 2011; 28: 1937-1955
• ^ix See reference viii
• ^x ElectromagneticHealth.org, WHO/IARC Classifies Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields as Possibly Carcinogenic 

• Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences January 2011; 1215:150-160

• Experimental Biology and Medicine 2011; 236: 658-671

• Genes Nutrition May 2011; 6(2): 93?108

• Natural Product Reports 2011; (12)28: 1937-1955

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The video above features three distinguished guests:

1. Dave Murphy, founder of Food Democracy Now
2. Ronnie Cummins with the Organic Consumers Association, and
3. Pamm Larry, founder of LabelGMOs.org

Here, we discuss one of the most important projects we have ever been involved with, namely the labeling of genetically engineered foods, to give every consumer the right to know what's in their food and to choose whether they want to buy and consume it or not.

Extending through May 26, a broad coalition of farmers, health groups, and organic food manufacturers, will attempt to raise one million dollars to support the California labeling initiative. Battling against the labeling initiative is the entire biotech industry, led by Monsanto.

They have deep pockets, and will do everything they can to defeat our attempt to get genetically engineered foods labeled, so I urge you to make a donation to the Money Bomb Against Monsanto campaign, no matter what state you live in, because if California passes this law, its impact will reverberate across the entire nation. Donations can be made online, via regular snail mail, and over the phone.

How One Grandmother's Conviction Led to a Consumer Revolution

The California Right to Know grassroots campaign was initiated by Pamm Larry, a grandmother and former midwife and organic farmer from the small town of Chico in northern California. She had no formal training, no major resources, no connections, and no previous political experience. But what she did have was passion?for healthful food, for the truth, and for doing the right thing. In this interview, she shares her inspiring and empowering journey.

"I have always cared about nutrition, whole foods, and unadulterated foods," Pamm says. "I mean they just taste better... They're more nutritious... Genetically engineered foods started coming on my radar about eight or nine years ago... The more I learned, the more horrified I got, wondering what kind of a planet I was leaving my grandchildren.

What were we doing? What were we not doing as people?

Like everybody else that I have talked to on the streets, we all feel pretty powerless, because here we've got this huge multinational corporation; a conglomerate?it's not just one company. It's a number of them. But they seem to be kind of in cahoots with our government. In the fall of 2010, I got actually very depressed about this... The Organic Consumers Association came out with their Truth-in-Labeling campaign. I immediately wrote to them [offering to volunteer]... But it just wasn't enough for me. I was increasingly depressed, crying a lot...

[Then] it hit me, just like that. I literally sat up and it was like, 'Okay, then. It's your job from now until November of 2012 to do everything you possibly can to just get something on the ballot, because nobody is doing this for us... Nothing is working. People are working really hard, but we the people, have got to stand up and take over.' My depression went away... I have been angry, I have been frustrated, I have been enraged since then, but I have not been depressed one second!"

At this point, volunteers and staff from the California Right to Know Campaign have submitted nearly one million signed petitions from registered voters across the state of California to county officials, to place Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act on the Ballot for November 6. Now, the campaign is in urgent need of funds?to counteract the propaganda put out by Monsanto, and to educate millions of registered California voters to show up at the voting booths and vote "Yes" for the Right to Know Act.

"We all have this communal belief that there's nothing that we can do, because we aren't up there in the high powers. We don't have megabucks. We don't have this. We don't have that. We believe this lie, so it gets perpetuated. If everybody says, "No, this can't happen," whether you're an individual, a business, or a nonprofit organization, if you all decide that "this isn't going to work," then it's not. My new question is: What happens if we all just decide to say yes?" Pamm says.

Joining Forces

The Organic Consumers Association was the first organization to get involved, although Ronnie Cummins was initially a bit skeptical. The Organic Consumers had worked to do the same back in 2004, but could not raise the funds to complete the task of labeling genetically engineered foods.

"We had gotten an email from Pamm Larry, who's starting this new group. We said, "Well, the odds are pretty low that we can raise the millions of dollars that we need to win the ballot initiative in California." However, people on the street are ready to do it, especially the moms and grandmothers. So, we said, "Let's tell our network in California... Let's tell them about LabelGMOs.org, and let's see if they volunteer and get in contact with Pamm..." We did, and it caught on."

Next, they decided to bring it to the attention of the organic industry at a national meeting, as well as other non-profit organizations and public interest groups. Like Cummins, a lot of the leadership in the organic industry and the nonprofit world were skeptical at first.

"They said, "Well, this is a David versus Goliath type of thing. What makes you think that grassroots action can defeat the most powerful combination of corporations in California, biotech and corporate agribusiness?" Ronnie says.

"But gradually, over time, a number of organic companies stood up, like Nature's Path, Eden Foods, and Lundberg Family Farms. Then the decisive factor was we said, "There are a hundred million people in the United States who are interested in natural medicine and who are reading websites like Mercola.com and others. If we can get the alternative food and farming movement together with the alternative health movement, this combination can create a massive movement."

And that's exactly where we are today. We're all tired of the biotech bullies dictating the rules and deciding whether we have the right to know what we're eating or not. We're all tired of the industry simply bribing their way through the political landscape in an effort to create a monopoly on food that threatens the health and welfare of people everywhere. If you're sick and tired of it too, then I urge you to take a stand, and participate in any way you can.

Why the Biotech Industry is so Afraid of Labeling

As Ronnie says, it's quite clear that the biotech industry knew the only way their genetically engineered foods would ever get put to use is if they could keep consumers in the dark.

"There's not a ban on genetically engineered foods and crops, for the most part, in the European Union," Ronnie explains. "What there is, though, is a requirement for labeling.

You'll see that companies like McDonald's, for example, are GMO-free in the European Union. You know, Wal-Mart subsidiaries are GMO-free in the European Union. Now, why is this? Is it because they have a bad conscience about force-feeding people genetically engineered food in Europe, but they don't have a bad conscience about doing that in the United States? No. It's because in the European Union, they can no longer conceal from the public that they were pushing these controversial, likely-hazardous foods on them.

In the United States, they have managed to squelch democracy now for 20 years. We now have an opportunity in California to break this control that the biotech industry has over what we're eating. We have an opportunity for consumers to regain their right to know how their food was produced.

... Fifty countries across the world required labeling, but the biggest producer of genetically engineered foods, and the most powerful nation in the world, will not. So, we're going to turn the tables in California."

Polls show that 80 to 90 percent of the public want genetically engineered foods to be labeled. Most people do want to be able to read the label and determine whether or not it contains something they want, or don't want, to eat.

"It doesn't matter if Monsanto and their allies spend 50 billion dollars lying to people, saying, "It's going to raise your grocery bills, it's an undue burden on California farmers, and the Feds should be the one doing this." We're going to beat them. This is going to be ? I believe ? a watershed for democracy in this country," Ronnie says.

If Politicians Won't Do it, Will YOU Stand Up to Protect Your Child's Future?

People are finally waking up to the reality that the big corporations that control everything are NOT invincible. When consumers get together, organize, and use the tools of democracy that are still available to us, we can force the will of the people on the politicians.

"But it's not going to be easy. We can't afford to lose this strategic battle," Ronnie warns. "We've got to win. We've got to raise millions of dollars. Even more importantly in California, we have to convince six or seven million Californians to go to the voting booth on November 06 and vote "Yes" for labeling of genetically engineered foods."

I hope you'll join us in this campaign, either by volunteering your time in California, or by making a financial contribution.  Dave Murphy was instrumental in getting Barrack Obama to make his promise to label genetically engineered foods while he was still a Senator and a hopeful Presidential candidate. He made this now-famous pledge at the Iowa Farmers Union Presidential Summit in 2007.

"We recognized it was a unique moment, and a unique opportunity to have... a Senator of his caliber... on video saying that they would label genetically engineered foods," Dave says. "He didn't say it in Berkeley. He didn't say it in Brooklyn. He came to Iowa, the heartland of genetically engineered food production, and made it in front of farmers. He got applause. ... We're certainly looking forward to the day that he does label genetically engineered foods."

In this interview, Dave Murphy describes a number of other successes his grassroots organization Food Democracy Now has accomplished.

"The most important change in American history has always come from the grassroots," he says. "It's always risen from the bottom up. It happens faster and it lasts longer when it happens that way. I think today, Americans are really awakening to the fact of how harmful the industrial food supply is to their health, to their environment, in all aspects in life, but even more important their democracy. If we don't stand up now, we'll lose it permanently."

Genetically Engineered Food Industry is Based on Multiple Lies

Ronnie Cummins also lists a few of the many lies that the entire genetically engineered food industry is based on, such as:

• Genetically engineered foods are equivalent to conventional foods.

  "That's absolutely not true," he says. "These are patented foods that are gene spliced with bacteria, viruses, and genetic constructs that humans have never eaten before. The whole process of gene splicing is quite imprecise, unpredictable, and hazardous... For 10,000 years, farmers have been looking at their crops, noticing which seeds work in certain conditions, saving the seeds, trading the seeds with their neighbors or with other people in the region, and coming out with improved varieties.

  But you could never cross an apple tree with a pig. You could never put genetically engineered bacteria into the genome of a potato. You couldn't take a soil microorganism like Bt and put it into corn. Nature does not allow this sort of trans-genetic transfer. They've learned how to do this in laboratories, but they didn't do this for any other reason than to have stronger patents on the seeds."

• Genetically engineered crops were created for an altruistic purpose; to save a starving world from hunger by increasing yield.

  "Unfortunately, even the statistics from the USDA have shown that this is not the case," Ronnie says. "Genetically engineered crops do not produce higher yields. In fact, studies after studies have shown that they produce lower yields. Because when you forcefully inject a foreign DNA into a genome of a plant, you harm that plant. The plant may then be able to survive enormous sprayings of toxic pesticides... but they're not going to grow as well...

  And when you look at the era that we're going into now, climate chaos and long droughts, torrential downpours, the weird weather, and the March summer we have just had across the United States, not only do genetically engineered crops have a yield drag or produce the least, but they don't grow at all under adverse conditions?whereas organic crops grow 20 to 50 percent better in these adverse conditions of too much rain or too little rain."

• Genetically engineered foods are more nutritious.

  "Not a single genetically engineered crop that they have ever applied for commercialization has even made the claim that it will be more nutritious," Ronnie says.

  Ronnie also points out that there are literally hundreds of studies in the developing world demonstrating that organic farming outproduces chemical farming and genetically engineered crops by a factor of anywhere between 10-100 to 1.

  "Genetic engineering is really a tactic, if you will, to starve the world into submission; to get them into a position where they have to depend on giant chemical farms and giant transnational corporations in order to eat," Ronnie says.

It's Time to Take Back Control

About 20 years ago, the FDA decided to deny consumers the right to know whether their food was genetically altered or not. This shameful regulation was spearheaded by Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto lawyer who transferred into the offices of the FDA. Taylor is not the only ex-Monsanto employee that ended up in a position of power within the U.S. federal government and its regulatory agencies, and this is precisely why previous efforts to get genetically engineered foods labeled have been blocked.

Not so this time! Ballot Initiatives like the one in California is one way for citizens to take back control from compromised politicians and government officials and bypass them entirely. According to Ronnie:

"If we pass the law on November 2012, it's going to have the same impact as a national law. Because a company like Kellogg's, for example, they're not going to label their cornflakes as genetically engineered in California and then not in the other 49 states. This will be a terrible public relations disaster for them. So it's going to have an impact on national labeling."

To offer further incentive to participate, a group of "Right to Know" public interest organizations and organic companies have pledged to match the first one million dollars raised in the nationwide "Drop the Money Bomb on Monsanto Campaign." These "Right to Know" groups include:

The Organic Consumers Association	Food Democracy Now	Lundberg Family Farms	The Organic Consumers Fund
Mercola.com	Nature's Path	Eden Foods	Institute for Responsible Technology

Don't Delay?the Time for Action is NOW!

Today, I ask you to invest in this Initiative. Invest in your future. And invest as generously as you can. If you've already sent in your donation, thank you! If not, please contribute to this historic and critical campaign today. And then please forward this email to your friends. Share it on Facebook and Twitter. Print it out, hand it to all your friends. Every action, and every dollar, counts! As stated by Ronnie Cummins with the Organic Consumers Association:

"Monsanto is one of the most powerful, arrogant and destructive companies in the world. For decades, they have controlled the world's food supply by buying off politicians and regulatory agencies, intimidating small farmers, manipulating the outcome of scientific studies, lying to consumers - and threatening to sue states like Vermont if they dare to pass a GMO labeling law.

... Despite Monsanto's claims to the contrary, scientists are clear: genetically engineered food has been linked to a wide range of health hazards, including kidney and liver damage, infertility, auto-immune disorders, allergies and autism, accelerated aging, and birth defects...

We have the right to know if the food we buy has been genetically engineered.... It's time to take back our food. Our farms. Our power. It's time to show Monsanto what ordinary people like us can do when we come together. It's time to drop the money bomb on Monsanto."

Hundreds of thousands of people making small donations can help the coalition behind this initiative run a dynamic, effective campaign to bring down Monsanto and the rest of the Biotech Bullies.

So please, join us, and make a donation right now! You can donate online, by phone, or by dropping a check in the mail.

The initiative also needs more volunteers, because that's how we're going to win this battle. The biotech industry may outdo us in funding ability, but we as consumers still outnumber them. Pamm Larry, the California grandmother who started this initiative, is correct when she says we need to reach every single California community?large and small.

I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can. Be assured that what happens in California will affect the remainder of the U.S. states, so please support this important state initiative, even if you do not live there!

• If you live in California and want to get involved, please visit the California Right To Know website at http://carighttoknow.org/ and sign up for emails, received Facebook and Twitter news items. One of the most important things you can do is spread the word, and the easiest way of doing this is by sharing these messages.
• If you'd like to help volunteer for grass roots events, please join and read more at Pamm Larry's LabelGMOs.org's "Spread the Word!" page.
• Whether you live in California or not, please donate money to this historic effort through the Organic Consumers Fund.
• Talk to organic producers, retailers, and stores and ask them to actively support the California Ballot. It may be the only chance we have to label genetically engineered foods. Businesses may contact campaign manager Gary Ruskin at gary@carighttoknow.org.
• Distribute WIDELY the Non-GMO Shopping Guide to help you identify and avoid foods with genetically engineered ingredients. You can also download the free iPhone application that is available in the iTunes store. You can find it by searching for ShopNoGMO in the applications.
• For timely updates, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.

There's great hope. We know that the vast majority of people want labeling, and supporting the California ballot initiative will allow for the democratic process to occur to give all Americans a choice. The consequences of each individual person's actions are profound!

So, please, share this message with others. Put it on your Facebook page. Put it on your blog. Give it to your friends or relatives. Then encourage them to likewise participate and volunteer. Because collectively, as a group, we can have a profound impact not only on our own lives, but on the lives of our children and future descendants.

In its latest move against small farmers who dare to operate outside the umbrella of CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) and Monsanto-dominated crops, the U.S. government has seized $70,000 from a small dairy farmer in Maryland. The feds did this under the "Bank Secrecy Act," which requires that paperwork be filled out for any cash deposit in excess of $10,000.

The farmers, Randy Sowers and his wife Karen, made deposits totaling more than $295,000 from May 2011 to February 2012, but each transaction was less than $10,000.

Now they are being accused of "structuring," a violation of federal currency reporting requirements, as the feds are accusing them of deliberately depositing money in increments of less than $10,000 in an attempt to evade Currency Transaction Reporting requirements.

Government Seizes $70,000 On What Grounds?

The dairy farmer's "crime" stems from his weekly sales at local farmers' markets. The sales averaged about the same amount each week and, dutifully, the Sowers deposited them. They'd reportedly never even heard of the Bank Secrecy Act or "structuring," but that was of no interest to the feds?the consistency of the amount the Sowers deposited, always less than $10,000, raised red flags to the feds, who claimed that this was indicative of a crime.

The government promptly seized about $70,000 from the bank account, then issued a warrant for the seizures. As reported by Food Freedom News:ⁱ

"The Dept. of Justice has since sued to keep $63,000 of the Sowers' money, though they committed no crime other than maintaining their privacy. Without funds, they will be unable to make purchases for the spring planting. When a similar action was taken against Taylor's Produce Stand last year, the feds seized $90,000, dropped the charges, and kept $45,000 of Taylor's money.

Knowing that most farms operate on a very thin margin, such abuse of power wipes out a family's income, and for a bonus, the feds enhance the monopoly power of Monsanto, Big Dairy and their supply chain.? Former Maryland assistant U.S. attorney Steven Levin told the paper [City Paper], "The emphasis is on basically seizing money, whether it is legally or illegally earned. It can lead to financial ruin for business owners, and there's a potential for abuse here by the government.""

The raid on the Sowers was conducted by an agency created in 2009 to go after money-laundering criminals. The agency started out with a bang by seizing $1.2 billion from a real money launderer, but it appears that what it's interested in now is making criminals out of small business persons, including small farmers.

Why Are Family Farms Under Attack?

If they're not seizing bank accounts, it seems the government will find other ways to attack small farmers. A family farm in rural Michigan?and possibly others?may be shut down by a new state law that designates certain breeds of hogs as a threat to neighboring hog breeders and croplands.

Basically, the fight is over the definition of feral hogs vs. domestic hogs. The dictionary definition of "feral" refers to an animal running wild. But Michigan authorities have taken it a step further and extended the definition to include enclosed private hunting preserves and small farms that house what authorities call an "invasive species" of hogs.

There is no genetic test to determine whether the species on these farms are truly invasive, so authorities are basing their cases against these farmers solely on visual observations. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) uses this vague description to describe the prohibited hogs, and makes it clear that this does not apply to the domestic hogs raised on CAFOs:ⁱⁱ

"Wild boar, wild hog, wild swine, feral pig, feral hog, feral swine, Old world swine, razorback, eurasian wild boar, Russian wild boar (Sus scrofa Linnaeus). This subsection does not and is not intended to affect sus domestica involved in domestic hog production."

Other descriptions supplied by the MDNR include such a wide variety of characteristics that virtually any pig other than the familiar pink domestic breed raised on CAFOs could potentially be deemed "feral":

• Erect or folded/floppy ear structure
• Straight or curly tail
• Solid black, wild/grizzled, solid red/brown, black and white spotted, or black and red/brown spotted coat colorations
• "Other characteristics" not currently known to the MDNR

Interestingly, the Big Pork industry has been planning this anti-feral pig campaign for years, and even bragged about it in a 2010 newsletter.ⁱⁱⁱ It was the same newsletter where they declared a win against the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in Ohio, where HSUS was seeking legislation to end the practice of sow gestation stalls (cages so small the sow can't turn around or move).

What this means for residents of Michigan is that soon they will be unable to purchase sustainably and humanely grown meat from the Mangalitsa "wooly" hogs raised on Baker's Green Acres farm. This particular breed is being raised by only a handful of small farms across the country; whereas more than 2 million pigs are slaughtered each week in the United States, only about 50 of them are Mangalitsas (which have been called the "it" pig by the New York Times, as several high-end restaurants and specialty markets have featured the rich, naturally raised meat^iv).

But, of course, this issue is about much more than pasture-raised pork from a heritage breed ... it's about your ability, your right, to purchase and consume pure, unadulterated food ? a right that continues to be threated for those living in the United States.

FDA Also Threatens Your Right to Food Choice ?

Another glaring example of government going out of its way to prohibit your access to pure, unprocessed food is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) war against raw milk. When the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) filed a lawsuit against the FDA over their raw milk ban, stating that banning raw milk in interstate commerce is unconstitutional, the FDA rebutted with the following extremely concerning and outrageous statements:

• "There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food."
• "There is no 'deeply rooted' historical tradition of unfettered access to foods of all kinds."
• "Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families' is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish."
• FDA's brief goes on to state that "even if such a right did exist, it would not render FDA's regulations unconstitutional because prohibiting the interstate sale and distribution of unpasteurized milk promotes bodily and physical health."
• "There is no fundamental right to freedom of contract."

Since when did the FDA have authority to tell you what you can and cannot eat and feed your children? Apparently they believe they've had it all along. If you go by these assertions, it means the FDA has the authority to prohibit any food of their choosing and make it a crime for you to seek it out. If, one day, the FDA deems tomatoes, broccoli or cashews capable of causing you harm (which is just as ludicrous as their assertions that raw milk is harmful), they could therefore enact such a ban and legally enforce it.

What this means is that freedom of food choice is a myth if you live in the United States, and this simply is not acceptable. No one, and certainly not any government agency, should be able to restrict your access to pure, unadulterated food, but the dairy industry and other industrial farmers that depend on CAFOs employ powerful lobbyists will stop at nothing to persuade government to remove the small farmers from the market entirely. The truth is, if enough people start demanding naturally, sustainably and humanely raised meat, dairy and produce, the giant farming monopolies that currently dominate the market would not be able to compete.

Their businesses depend on pesticides, CAFOs, genetically modified seeds, growth hormones and the like ? so when they see all-natural creameries like the one operated by Randy Sowers and his wife Karen, or natural farms like Bakers Green Acres gaining loyal and growing customer bases, they get nervous ? and they get the government involved in any way they can.

Please Support Your Local Small Farms

The healthiest food choices are nearly always those that come from responsible, high-quality, sustainable sources.

This is why I encourage you to support the small family farms in your area. This includes not only visiting the farm directly, if you have one nearby, but also taking part in farmer's markets and community-supported agriculture programs. Now that summer is almost here in the United States, fresh produce and other wonderful whole foods are available in abundance. Not only is the food so much tastier and healthier when you get it from sustainable, non-CAFO sources, but there is something about shopping for fresh foods in an open-air, social environment that just feels right. An artificially lit, dreary supermarket -- home to virtually every CAFO food made -- just can't compete.

If you want to experience some of these benefits first-hand, here are some great resources to obtain wholesome food that supports not only you but also the environment:

1. Alternative Farming Systems Information Center, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
2. Farmers' Markets -- A national listing of farmers' markets
3. Local Harvest -- This Web site will help you find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies.
4. Eat Well Guide: Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals -- The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, inns, and hotels, and online outlets in the United States and Canada.
5. Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) -- CISA is dedicated to sustaining agriculture and promoting the products of small farms.
6. FoodRoutes -- The FoodRoutes "Find Good Food" map can help you connect with local farmers to find the freshest, tastiest food possible. On their interactive map, you can find a listing for local farmers, CSA's, and markets near you.

Finally, for more information on the ongoing attacks against small family farms in the United States consider watching Farmageddon: The Unseen War on American Family Farms, a documentary by Kristin Canty. But I warn you ? the injustices it contains may just make your blood boil.

References:

• ⁱ Food Freedom News April 23, 2012
• ⁱⁱ Michigan Department of Natural Resources December 13, 2011
• ⁱⁱⁱ Michigan Pork 2010
• ^iv NYTimes.com December 29, 2010

• Food Freedom News April 23, 2012

• Frederick News-Post April 20, 2012

• Cheboygan Daily Tribune April 18, 2012

• Michigan Department of Natural Resources December 13, 2011

• Michigan Pork 2010

  New Research Shows Factory Farms are NOT the Way to Feed the World

  Increasing Government Raids on Farmers and Private Food Coops

  Raw Milk Bans are About Protecting Big Dairy

Radon is an odorless, colorless gas that is formed from the natural breakdown of uranium in the earth. Though you can't see it or smell it, radon can enter your home through cracks in your foundation, well water, building materials and other sources, where it can contaminate the air you breathe.

Because radon is radioactive, it's also carcinogenic; radon exposure is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States, second only to smoking.

Testing your home for radon is simple, and if levels are elevated there are ways to reduce them to protect your health.

You Wouldn't Live in a Home Without Smoke Detectors, Would You?

Most people are diligent about maintaining working smoke detectors in their home in order to prevent being injured or killed by a fire. Radon gas actually kills more than seven times the people each year as home fires, but many completely neglect to test their home for this "silent killer." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 21,000 people die each year in the United States from radon-induced lung cancer, compared to 2,800 who die in home fires.ⁱ

Any home, whether new or old, with a basement or without, well-insulated or drafty, can have a radon problem; the EPA estimates that nearly 1 out of every 15 homes has elevated levels. Radon is measured in "picocuries per liter of air," or "pCi/L." Outdoor air generally has radon levels of about 0.4 pCi/L, whereas the average radon level indoors is estimated to be about 1.3 pCi/L. While the U.S. Congress has set a long-term goal stating that indoor radon levels should be no higher than outdoor levels, the EPA recommends taking action only if your home's levels exceed 4 pCi/L.

This does not necessarily mean that 4 pCi/L is "safe," however, as there really is NO safe level for radiation. Even the EPA admits that lower levels can still pose a health risk, and you may want to take precautions to further reduce the amount of radon in your indoor space even if it's at or below 4 pCi/L. 

Is There a Way to Gauge Your Risk of Radon Exposure?

You and your family are exposed to radon in your home, at the office, at school, in commercial buildings -- inside every structure you enter. Radon in the outside air disperses before it reaches high levels of concentration, but in tightly sealed or poorly ventilated indoor spaces, even low levels of radon can accumulate and pose a significant health hazard.

Your radon exposure risk will depend on:

1. The levels of radon in your indoor environments
2. The amount of time you spend in those environments
3. Whether or not you are a smoker (if you smoke and live in a home with elevated radon levels, your risk of lung cancer is particularly high)

Soil radon levels vary widely across the United States and depend on the geology of the area. Regions of the Mid-Atlantic States and the upper Midwest tend to have higher radon levels than those found in the southeast and west into Texas, and along most of the west coast.

You can find out what the natural radon levels are in your area using the EPA's radon mapⁱⁱ -- but keep in mind that elevated radon levels have been found in almost every state, so be careful not to make assumptions about the safety of your own home based on this map. You will still need to measure the radon levels in your home or office to determine whether or not you may be exposing yourself and your family to dangerous levels.

The radon gas emitted by soil and rock can seep into buildings through gaps in the foundation, construction joints, and through cracks in floors and walls. Since radon levels are highest in rooms closest to the ground, if you spend a lot of time in basement rooms at home, work or school, your risk for exposure could be greater.

Naturally, your radon exposure is likely to be very high if you work in an underground mine (uranium and some other types as well) or a uranium processing facility, if you live near a uranium mine (although few facilities are still in operation), or if you come in contact with phosphate fertilizers. You can also be exposed to radon gas through drinking water. As the radon is released from the water into the air, you can inhale it into your lungs.

The risk of exposure from water is generally minimal, unless you happen to use a deep, underground well sunk into rock with a high radium concentration. Water from such a well could have a high level of radon, but surface water from lakes and rivers has very low radon levels.

I would encourage you to test for this poison if you get your water from an underground well. Most municipal water supplies do not contain radon. If you're interested, you can purchase a test kit for Well Water.

Where Does Radon Come From, and How Does it Cause Cancer?

As mentioned, radon in your home can originate from a number of sources, including outside air that seeps into your home through cracks in the foundation, walls and floors, as well as your well water. Radon exposure can also come from certain building materials, including:

• Silicone-rich magmatic rocks, particularly granite, and especially the more exotic granites like the red, pink and purple varieties
• Gypsum waste products
• Cement and concrete
• Pumice
• Basaltic rock

Certain smoke detectors, particularly the ionization type (which are less expensive and more commonly used than the photoelectric type), emit small amounts of radon, as do certain clocks and watches. If you own a new or relatively new watch with a luminous dial, it probably contains either Tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, or Promethium, a man-made radioactive element. Both elements emit small amounts of radon, and while most of it is contained in the cover of the watch, there is still a minimal risk associated with having luminous watches around.

If you happen to own a World War I vintage "glow in the dark" clock or watch, be aware that highly radioactive radium was used to make the luminous paint for the dials. Wearing such watches, and certainly repairing them, poses a significant risk of radon exposure.

If you're wondering what makes radon so dangerous, it's the breakdown products, also known as radon progeny or the daughter products of radon, that can cause disease. These are a series of solid elements including lead-214, polonium-214 and polonium-218, which give off alpha particles of radiation. Alpha particles, unlike gamma radiation, cannot penetrate the tissues of your body from the outside. However, when inhaled or ingested, these low-dose radioisotopes accumulate in the body and exert chronic damaging effects to the DNA of your cells which contributes to a wide range of diseases, most notably cancer.

According to the EPA, if 1,000 smokers were exposed to the "action" radon level of 4 pCi/L over a lifetime, about 62 of them would get lung cancer from the radiation, compared to about 7 out of 1,000 non-smokers. The EPA's charts below give you an idea of your cancer risk from various radon exposures depending on if you're a smoker or a non-smoker:ⁱⁱⁱ

How to Test Your Home's Radon Levels

Radon gas can be deadly and is present in nearly all the air we breathe. Testing is simple and inexpensive, so I strongly encourage you to investigate how much of this gas you and your family are exposed to, and take the necessary steps to remediate the problem if the levels in your home are excessive.

There are a number of factors that can cause indoor radon concentrations to vary, such as the use of ventilation systems, the weather, and anything that impacts indoor air pressure, such as window openings, window fans, driers, and fireplaces. The EPA recommends you take a short-term test and if your result is 4 pCi/L or higher, follow-up with either a long-term test or a second short-term test. A long-term test will give you a better understanding of your year-round average radon level, but if you need results quickly (such as if your first short-term test came back at dangerously high levels), take a short-term test.

There are a number of resources for test kits:

• If you'd like a certified technician to measure the radon levels in your home or other indoor environment, you can contact the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists.^iv Testing costs from $100 to $300.
• You can also obtain information on certified technicians and do-it-yourself testing from the EPA.^v State and regional information can be found there.
• The National Radon Program Services at Kansas State University offers discounted test kits available to purchase online.^vi
• Other do-it-yourself test kits for radon run between $20 and $30 and can be purchased online and at your local hardware store.

If your home has elevated radon levels, it's important to find a qualified radon service professional to fix your home immediately. Some U.S. states maintain lists of contractors that have met certain qualifications for radon mitigation; your state radon coordinator will have this information.^vii There are also two privately run national radon programs that can help you find a qualified radon service professional:

• The National Environmental Health Association (NEHA)^viii
• The National Radon Safety Board (NRSB)^ix

Finally, Kansas State University maintains national radon hotlines:

• National Radon Hotline: Purchase radon test kits by phone.
  1-800-SOS-RADON (767-7236)
• National Radon Helpline: Get live help for your radon questions.
  1-800-55RADON (557-2366)
• National Radon Fix-It Line: For general information on fixing or reducing the radon level in your home.
  (800) 644-6999

There are a variety of ways to reduce radon levels in your home, including:

• Sealing cracks in floors and walls
• Increasing ventilation through sub-slab depressurization with pipes and fans
• Removing granite countertops if they are emitting high levels of radon
• Replacing ionization smoke detectors with the photoelectric type

The cost of radon reduction measures depends on the size and design of your home and the specific methods needed. Costs range from $800 to $2,500, with an average cost of $1,200. Radon reduction systems may be able to reduce your home's radon levels by 99 percent.

If you're building a new home or other structure, insist on building materials that are more resistant to the naturally occurring radon in the outdoor environment. The five basic features of a radon-resistant home are:

1. Gravel laid below the foundation, which allows radon in the soil to circulate freely underneath your house
2. Plastic sheeting or other vapor retarder laid over the gravel to stop soil gases from entering the structure
3. Vent pipe run vertically from the gravel layer up to the roof to safely vent radon from the soil outside the house
4. Sealing and caulking of all cracks, crevices and other openings in the concrete foundation and the walls of the structure
5. Electrical junction box installed in the attic for use with a vent fan, should one be needed

Generally speaking, once your home's radon issues have been fixed, you should re-test your home every two years. It's a good idea to re-test your home regularly even if your levels were not elevated to begin with to be sure the levels remain low. This is yet another simple way to protect and take control of your health.

References:

• ⁱ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, A Citizen's Guide to Radon
• ⁱⁱ EPA Map of Radon Zones
• ⁱⁱⁱ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, A Citizen's Guide to Radon
• ^iv The American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists
• ^v EPA, Where Can I Get a Radon Test Kit?
• ^vi Kansas State University National Radon Program Services
• ^vii EPA, State Radon Contact Information
• ^viii The National Environmental Health Association
• ^ix The National Radon Safety Board (NRSB)

• Minnesota Department of Public Safety Jan. 17, 2012

• Environmental Protection Agency April 2, 2012

  This Silent Killer Now Verified in Non-Smoker?s Lung Cancer

  Your Granite Countertops Could be Killing You

  Does Your Home Harbor Safety Hazards?

What would you say if you knew someone had killed 60,000 people? Would you call it a felony of the worst kind, times 60,000? If you totaled up the value of all those lives in criminal court, what would you say they're worth?

Billions? Trillions?

Or?how about a measly $321 million in exchange for a guilty plea to a misdemeanor? When you consider that this involves the second-largest drug maker in the U.S.?Merck?and its deadly drug Vioxx, then you'll probably agree that a misdemeanor and a $321 million fine amounts to nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Business analysts were estimating a $25 billion judgment when the drug was taken off the market, but even when combined with the $4.85 billion in payouts to patients who suffered heart attacks and strokesⁱ, the final bill is nowhere close to original estimates of the damage.

Yet that's the plea agreement Merck recently made with a federal court in Boston on April 19ⁱⁱ, after being charged with illegal promotion of Vioxx for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, before it was approved for that use.

The sad tale brings up memories of what I tried to warn readers about in 1999, when I showed that people taking this drug were at a massively increased risk of dying from heart disease and stroke. It's tragic that Vioxx was removed only AFTER 60,000 people died.

It's even more tragic that a court would consider Merck's illegal promotion of the drug a misdemeanor rather than a felony, since this tactic clearly exposed far more people to the dangerous drug than it would have otherwise. And, adding insult to injury, instead of the billions that Merck anticipated paying out, it got away with such a paltry sum.

Hired Writers Responsible for Some of Merck's Vioxx Studies?

Particularly galling is the fact that these deaths could have been so easily avoided, were it not for the deceptive maneuvering of parties who stood to profit handsomely from the success of the drug.

Ghostwriting has become an increasingly troublesome problem in the medical science community, and the Vioxx debacle is a perfect example of why ghostwriting medical research is a devious practice that needs to be rooted out.

Merck has previously acknowledged that it has been known to hire professional writers to develop research-related documents that eventually get published under the name of reputable leaders in the medical community. Critics rightfully doubt the validity of such research, and question the actual involvement of the scientists listed as authors of these ghostwritten papers.

Back in 2008, Dr. Joseph S. Ross of New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine came across ghostwritten research studies for Vioxx while reviewing documents related to lawsuits filed against Merck.

According to an April 16, 2008 article on MedHeadlinesⁱⁱⁱ:

"In about 96 journal publications, Ross and his colleagues discovered internal Merck documents and e-mail messages pertaining to clinical study reports and review articles, some of which were developed by the company's marketing department, not its scientific department. In others, there is little evidence that the authors recruited for the report made substantial contribution to the research itself. ... Some of the authors listed in the Merck study reports of concern... question the true nature of ghostwriting. One neurologist originally listed as "External author?" and then listed as Dr. Leon J. Thal, of the University of California, San Diego in the final draft, died a year ago in an airplane crash."

An editorial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)^iv that year by Drs. Psaty and Kronmal also questioned whether Merck might have deliberately manipulated dozens of academic documents published in the medical literature, in order to promote Vioxx under false pretenses.

Blockbuster Drugs Tend to Be More Unnecessary than Others

Vioxx was a so-called blockbuster drug?a designation given to extremely popular drugs that generate a minimum of $1 billion in annual sales. Vioxx was marketed in more than 80 countries, and pulled in $2.5 billion in worldwide sales in 2003 alone (the year before it was pulled from the market due to its heart risks). So despite paying out fines in various lawsuits over the drug, Merck certainly made enough from it to cover all such expenses and still make obscene profits while patients were dying in droves.

An important strategy for creating a true blockbuster drug?at least in the United States?is the use of direct to consumer advertising.

A little over 20 years ago direct-to-consumer advertising for drugs was not allowed in the US. Drug advertising is still illegal in most countries around the world, except for the US. If Big Pharma wanted to sell a product, they had to do it through the person prescribing it?your doctor. If a physician didn't have time to listen to sales reps or attend conferences where new drugs were pushed, well then, sometimes they just didn't get pushed on you.

But ever since drug advertising became legal in the U.S., Big Pharma has been making big bucks selling you pills that not only are expensive, but intended to keep you hooked on them for life. As with most advertised consumer products, drugs with blockbuster potential are not necessarily important life-saving drugs. No, rather than curing actual disease, these drugs tend to be focused on the treatment of symptoms?symptoms that many people tend to experience, and which may or may not be caused by a particular disease...

Oftentimes, symptom complexes will be given official-sounding designations, to make it appear more like an actual disease. Either way, since these types of drugs cannot cure anything, they must be taken indefinitely?until you die or cannot afford them anymore. According to Melody Petersen, author of Our Daily Meds^v:

"Most blockbusters are pills for conditions such as anxiety, high cholesterol or constipation that must be taken daily, often for months or years. They are designed for rich Americans who can afford to buy them."

6 Kinds of Pills Big Pharma Tries to Get You Hooked on for Life

There are two effective marketing strategies employed by drug companies on a regular basis, and they include:

1. Convincing you that drugs you used to take only when you needed them are now everyday "prevention" necessities in the form of a prescription; and
2. Selling you the idea that just being at risk for a chronic disease makes you someone who should be taking a drug for the disease.

What makes these two strategies so successful is that by seeing the advertisement, YOU are the one who sells it to your doctor, by suggesting that you need a certain drug, or outright asking for it. According to a recent article by Martha Rosenberg^vi:

"Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in the late 1990s, the number of people on prescription drugs -- especially prescription drugs for life -- has ballooned. Between 2001 to 2007 the percentage of adults and children on one or more prescriptions for chronic conditions rose by more than 12 million, reports the Associated Press and 25 percent of US children now take a medication for a chronic condition^vii. Seven percent of kids take two or more daily drugs.

Who says advertising doesn't work? Of the top-selling drugs in 2011^viii, led by Lipitor, Nexium, Plavix, Advair Diskus, Abilify, Seroquel, Singulair and Crestor, none is taken occasionally, or "as needed" and the treatment goal is never to get off the drug, like an antibiotic."

She lists six types of drugs that are "marketed for perpetuity," meaning they're intended to be taken for life. Sadly most of these drugs come with potential side effects that can be far worse than your original symptom, and few of them have been definitively proven to actually provide any significant health benefits. In fact, some of these drugs have been found to worsen the very condition they're meant to treat (such as antidepressants, statins, proton pump inhibitors, and asthma-control meds), and/or cause other serious diseases. For more information, please follow the hyperlinks provided:

ADHD Drugs and Drugs for Pediatric Psychopathologies, such as "pediatric bipolar disorder"	Antidepressants	Statins
Hormone Replacement Therapy	Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs)	Asthma-Control Medicines

Bribery, Fraud, and Deception Hurts YOU in More Ways than One...

Unfortunately, all of this medical deception (and at times outright fraud) is part and parcel of a much larger problem: the near unchecked system of corporate bribery that drives our political processes.

The pharmaceutical industry is the BIGGEST political lobby in the U.S.. There should be no doubt about the power the drug industry wields in shaping the U.S. health care system and all the laws relating to the industry. Political lobbying is one of the primary reasons why the drug companies control nearly the entire health industry, and why alternative medicine is under such constant legislative attack. For greater insight into this problem, please review this previous article, featuring a 60-Minutes segment with Jack Abramoff, a former lobbyist.

In recent news, we get further indications of how pervasive lobbying fraud and illegalities are.

In a submission to the Internal Revenue Service under the Tax Whistleblower Act, a nonpartisan advocacy organization, Common Cause^ix, has exposed what amounts to a tax scam run by a legislative group known as ALEC, for some of American's largest companies. ALEC stands for the American Legislative Exchange Council, which describes as a public-private partnership between member legislators and business leaders.

According to legal papers filed with the IRS, Common Cause believes that ALEC's lobbying efforts for "model" legislation are tailored to boost the profits of its corporate members?a violation of its tax-exempt status. While ALEC claims it doesn't do lobbying, the Huffington Post reports that at least one state, South Carolina, has written a special exemption for ALEC so it can engage in a type of lobbying. The whistleblower letter to the IRS reads in part:

"... This matter concerns the massive underreporting of lobbying by the American Legislative Exchange Council ("ALEC"). While ostensibly a nonprofit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, ALEC's primary purpose is to provide a vehicle for its corporate members to lobby state legislators and to deduct the costs of such efforts as charitable contributions. ALEC drafts "model" legislation provided by its corporate and legislative members, and lobbies for the adoption of that legislation. These goals are fundamentally inconsistent with ALEC's claimed tax-exempt status as a charitable organization under 26 U.S.C. ]]> By Dr. Mercola

What would you say if you knew someone had killed 60,000 people? Would you call it a felony of the worst kind, times 60,000? If you totaled up the value of all those lives in criminal court, what would you say they're worth?

Billions? Trillions?

Or?how about a measly $321 million in exchange for a guilty plea to a misdemeanor? When you consider that this involves the second-largest drug maker in the U.S.?Merck?and its deadly drug Vioxx, then you'll probably agree that a misdemeanor and a $321 million fine amounts to nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Business analysts were estimating a $25 billion judgment when the drug was taken off the market, but even when combined with the $4.85 billion in payouts to patients who suffered heart attacks and strokesⁱ, the final bill is nowhere close to original estimates of the damage.

Yet that's the plea agreement Merck recently made with a federal court in Boston on April 19ⁱⁱ, after being charged with illegal promotion of Vioxx for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, before it was approved for that use.

The sad tale brings up memories of what I tried to warn readers about in 1999, when I showed that people taking this drug were at a massively increased risk of dying from heart disease and stroke. It's tragic that Vioxx was removed only AFTER 60,000 people died.

It's even more tragic that a court would consider Merck's illegal promotion of the drug a misdemeanor rather than a felony, since this tactic clearly exposed far more people to the dangerous drug than it would have otherwise. And, adding insult to injury, instead of the billions that Merck anticipated paying out, it got away with such a paltry sum.

Hired Writers Responsible for Some of Merck's Vioxx Studies?

Particularly galling is the fact that these deaths could have been so easily avoided, were it not for the deceptive maneuvering of parties who stood to profit handsomely from the success of the drug.

Ghostwriting has become an increasingly troublesome problem in the medical science community, and the Vioxx debacle is a perfect example of why ghostwriting medical research is a devious practice that needs to be rooted out.

Merck has previously acknowledged that it has been known to hire professional writers to develop research-related documents that eventually get published under the name of reputable leaders in the medical community. Critics rightfully doubt the validity of such research, and question the actual involvement of the scientists listed as authors of these ghostwritten papers.

Back in 2008, Dr. Joseph S. Ross of New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine came across ghostwritten research studies for Vioxx while reviewing documents related to lawsuits filed against Merck.

According to an April 16, 2008 article on MedHeadlinesⁱⁱⁱ:

"In about 96 journal publications, Ross and his colleagues discovered internal Merck documents and e-mail messages pertaining to clinical study reports and review articles, some of which were developed by the company's marketing department, not its scientific department. In others, there is little evidence that the authors recruited for the report made substantial contribution to the research itself. ... Some of the authors listed in the Merck study reports of concern... question the true nature of ghostwriting. One neurologist originally listed as "External author?" and then listed as Dr. Leon J. Thal, of the University of California, San Diego in the final draft, died a year ago in an airplane crash."

An editorial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)^iv that year by Drs. Psaty and Kronmal also questioned whether Merck might have deliberately manipulated dozens of academic documents published in the medical literature, in order to promote Vioxx under false pretenses.

Blockbuster Drugs Tend to Be More Unnecessary than Others

Vioxx was a so-called blockbuster drug?a designation given to extremely popular drugs that generate a minimum of $1 billion in annual sales. Vioxx was marketed in more than 80 countries, and pulled in $2.5 billion in worldwide sales in 2003 alone (the year before it was pulled from the market due to its heart risks). So despite paying out fines in various lawsuits over the drug, Merck certainly made enough from it to cover all such expenses and still make obscene profits while patients were dying in droves.

An important strategy for creating a true blockbuster drug?at least in the United States?is the use of direct to consumer advertising.

A little over 20 years ago direct-to-consumer advertising for drugs was not allowed in the US. Drug advertising is still illegal in most countries around the world, except for the US. If Big Pharma wanted to sell a product, they had to do it through the person prescribing it?your doctor. If a physician didn't have time to listen to sales reps or attend conferences where new drugs were pushed, well then, sometimes they just didn't get pushed on you.

But ever since drug advertising became legal in the U.S., Big Pharma has been making big bucks selling you pills that not only are expensive, but intended to keep you hooked on them for life. As with most advertised consumer products, drugs with blockbuster potential are not necessarily important life-saving drugs. No, rather than curing actual disease, these drugs tend to be focused on the treatment of symptoms?symptoms that many people tend to experience, and which may or may not be caused by a particular disease...

Oftentimes, symptom complexes will be given official-sounding designations, to make it appear more like an actual disease. Either way, since these types of drugs cannot cure anything, they must be taken indefinitely?until you die or cannot afford them anymore. According to Melody Petersen, author of Our Daily Meds^v:

"Most blockbusters are pills for conditions such as anxiety, high cholesterol or constipation that must be taken daily, often for months or years. They are designed for rich Americans who can afford to buy them."

6 Kinds of Pills Big Pharma Tries to Get You Hooked on for Life

There are two effective marketing strategies employed by drug companies on a regular basis, and they include:

1. Convincing you that drugs you used to take only when you needed them are now everyday "prevention" necessities in the form of a prescription; and
2. Selling you the idea that just being at risk for a chronic disease makes you someone who should be taking a drug for the disease.

What makes these two strategies so successful is that by seeing the advertisement, YOU are the one who sells it to your doctor, by suggesting that you need a certain drug, or outright asking for it. According to a recent article by Martha Rosenberg^vi:

"Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in the late 1990s, the number of people on prescription drugs -- especially prescription drugs for life -- has ballooned. Between 2001 to 2007 the percentage of adults and children on one or more prescriptions for chronic conditions rose by more than 12 million, reports the Associated Press and 25 percent of US children now take a medication for a chronic condition^vii. Seven percent of kids take two or more daily drugs.

Who says advertising doesn't work? Of the top-selling drugs in 2011^viii, led by Lipitor, Nexium, Plavix, Advair Diskus, Abilify, Seroquel, Singulair and Crestor, none is taken occasionally, or "as needed" and the treatment goal is never to get off the drug, like an antibiotic."

She lists six types of drugs that are "marketed for perpetuity," meaning they're intended to be taken for life. Sadly most of these drugs come with potential side effects that can be far worse than your original symptom, and few of them have been definitively proven to actually provide any significant health benefits. In fact, some of these drugs have been found to worsen the very condition they're meant to treat (such as antidepressants, statins, proton pump inhibitors, and asthma-control meds), and/or cause other serious diseases. For more information, please follow the hyperlinks provided:

ADHD Drugs and Drugs for Pediatric Psychopathologies, such as "pediatric bipolar disorder"	Antidepressants	Statins
Hormone Replacement Therapy	Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs)	Asthma-Control Medicines

Bribery, Fraud, and Deception Hurts YOU in More Ways than One...

Unfortunately, all of this medical deception (and at times outright fraud) is part and parcel of a much larger problem: the near unchecked system of corporate bribery that drives our political processes.

The pharmaceutical industry is the BIGGEST political lobby in the U.S.. There should be no doubt about the power the drug industry wields in shaping the U.S. health care system and all the laws relating to the industry. Political lobbying is one of the primary reasons why the drug companies control nearly the entire health industry, and why alternative medicine is under such constant legislative attack. For greater insight into this problem, please review this previous article, featuring a 60-Minutes segment with Jack Abramoff, a former lobbyist.

In recent news, we get further indications of how pervasive lobbying fraud and illegalities are.

In a submission to the Internal Revenue Service under the Tax Whistleblower Act, a nonpartisan advocacy organization, Common Cause^ix, has exposed what amounts to a tax scam run by a legislative group known as ALEC, for some of American's largest companies. ALEC stands for the American Legislative Exchange Council, which describes as a public-private partnership between member legislators and business leaders.

According to legal papers filed with the IRS, Common Cause believes that ALEC's lobbying efforts for "model" legislation are tailored to boost the profits of its corporate members?a violation of its tax-exempt status. While ALEC claims it doesn't do lobbying, the Huffington Post reports that at least one state, South Carolina, has written a special exemption for ALEC so it can engage in a type of lobbying. The whistleblower letter to the IRS reads in part:

"... This matter concerns the massive underreporting of lobbying by the American Legislative Exchange Council ("ALEC"). While ostensibly a nonprofit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, ALEC's primary purpose is to provide a vehicle for its corporate members to lobby state legislators and to deduct the costs of such efforts as charitable contributions. ALEC drafts "model" legislation provided by its corporate and legislative members, and lobbies for the adoption of that legislation. These goals are fundamentally inconsistent with ALEC's claimed tax-exempt status as a charitable organization under 26 U.S.C. ]]> http://www.mmshealthyforlife.com/?feed=rss2&p=17909 http://www.mmshealthyforlife.com/?p=17891 http://www.mmshealthyforlife.com/?p=17891#comments Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000 Dr. Joseph Mercola tag:articles.mercola.com://6580c2859e775ab6d79a9a11c8d8b248 The Pleasure of Finding Things Out was filmed in 1981, but you?ll find that it?s not only timeless in the way it will delight and inspire you, but informative in the simple ways the scientist behind this film, Richard Feynman, explains hard-to-grasp concepts. Feynman is a Nobel Prize winner, and I think you?ll agree that just listening to him in this film will make you revel in the pleasure of learning new things, of finding things out you didn?t know before, or never paid attention to until now.

Sources:

• The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Related Articles:

  Your Creative Genius Mindset: The Essential Qualities for Thinking Outside the Box

  Epigenetics: How Your Mind Can Reprogram Your Genes

  Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About the Human Brain

 Comments (17)
]]>

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out was filmed in 1981, but you?ll find that it?s not only timeless in the way it will delight and inspire you, but informative in the simple ways the scientist behind this film, Richard Feynman, explains hard-to-grasp concepts. Feynman is a Nobel Prize winner, and I think you?ll agree that just listening to him in this film will make you revel in the pleasure of learning new things, of finding things out you didn?t know before, or never paid attention to until now.

Sources:

• The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Related Articles:

  Your Creative Genius Mindset: The Essential Qualities for Thinking Outside the Box

  Epigenetics: How Your Mind Can Reprogram Your Genes

  Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About the Human Brain

 Comments (17)
]]> http://www.mmshealthyforlife.com/?feed=rss2&p=17891 http://www.mmshealthyforlife.com/?p=17890 http://www.mmshealthyforlife.com/?p=17890#comments Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000 Dr. Joseph Mercola tag:articles.mercola.com://3e243c04b05166e587fab41e16d4d470

By Dr. Mercola

Roundup Ready soy is now being cultivated on a massive scale across the globe, along with the exponentially increasing use of the herbicide Roundup. Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" soy beans are  genetically modified to survive otherwise lethal doses of glyphosate, the active ingredient in the company's herbicide Roundup.

It's a win-win for Monsanto. But it's a loss for just about everyone else.

One of the countries most affected by genetically engineered soy is Argentina, whose population is being sickened by massive spraying of herbicides across the country's Pampas (the country's "fertile plain").

Argentina's Pampas used to be dotted with dairy and vegetable farms, but now, large-scale soybean monoculture blankets most of their cultivated land, making them especially susceptible to the damaging effects of genetically engineered soy. The impact can be better appreciated by considering the following statistics:

• Soy is the main income source for landowners and the state?soybeans are considered a "gold mine" by Argentinians; soy exports generate 16,000 million dollars a year
• The area cultivated with soy has reached 19 million hectares, representing 56 percent of Argentina's cultivated landⁱ
• 98 percent of Argentina's soybean production is genetically modified.ⁱⁱ
• 190 million liters of glyphosate (the active agent in Roundup) are sprayed in Argentina annually, which is leading to not only illness among the population but to widespread deforestation, as trees are among the victims these herbicides leave in their wake of destruction.

Soya burgers are a staple of today's Argentinian diet. Argentinian children were consuming so much genetically engineered soy that they began developing breasts from the estrogenic effects, before authorities stepped in with warnings. Studies also strongly suggest that the glyphosate that these crops are doused with can cause cancer and birth deformities; both of which are occurring at increasing rates in areas where spraying is done. Sterility and miscarriages are also increasing. Experts warn that in 10 to 15 years, rates of cancer, infertility and endocrine dysfunction could reach catastrophic levels in Argentina. But few people are listening.

"It's Food for Today, Hunger and Cancer for Tomorrow"

The immediate symptoms are always the same for Argentinian bystanders in the spray zone: dizziness, allergic reactions and itching, mouth swelling, and general malaise that's similar to the feeling of coming down with the flu. People are warned to stay inside when spraying is underway, but they report getting sick in spite of this confinement.

When those affected visit their physicians, they're told it's "all in their heads." Authorities also turn a deaf ear?as does the government when it's presented with scientific evidence of the dangerous effects of Monsanto's products for their people and environment. Fortunately, increasing numbers of scientists are now starting to speak out. For example, the engineers' school in Santiago del Estero announced that chemicals are causing 100 babies to be born with deformities every year. One of the most influential studies was conducted by one of Argentina's leading scientists, Andres Carrasco, who works in Argentina's Ministry of Science.

Andr]]>

By Dr. Mercola

Roundup Ready soy is now being cultivated on a massive scale across the globe, along with the exponentially increasing use of the herbicide Roundup. Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" soy beans are  genetically modified to survive otherwise lethal doses of glyphosate, the active ingredient in the company's herbicide Roundup.

It's a win-win for Monsanto. But it's a loss for just about everyone else.

One of the countries most affected by genetically engineered soy is Argentina, whose population is being sickened by massive spraying of herbicides across the country's Pampas (the country's "fertile plain").

Argentina's Pampas used to be dotted with dairy and vegetable farms, but now, large-scale soybean monoculture blankets most of their cultivated land, making them especially susceptible to the damaging effects of genetically engineered soy. The impact can be better appreciated by considering the following statistics:

• Soy is the main income source for landowners and the state?soybeans are considered a "gold mine" by Argentinians; soy exports generate 16,000 million dollars a year
• The area cultivated with soy has reached 19 million hectares, representing 56 percent of Argentina's cultivated landⁱ
• 98 percent of Argentina's soybean production is genetically modified.ⁱⁱ
• 190 million liters of glyphosate (the active agent in Roundup) are sprayed in Argentina annually, which is leading to not only illness among the population but to widespread deforestation, as trees are among the victims these herbicides leave in their wake of destruction.

Soya burgers are a staple of today's Argentinian diet. Argentinian children were consuming so much genetically engineered soy that they began developing breasts from the estrogenic effects, before authorities stepped in with warnings. Studies also strongly suggest that the glyphosate that these crops are doused with can cause cancer and birth deformities; both of which are occurring at increasing rates in areas where spraying is done. Sterility and miscarriages are also increasing. Experts warn that in 10 to 15 years, rates of cancer, infertility and endocrine dysfunction could reach catastrophic levels in Argentina. But few people are listening.

"It's Food for Today, Hunger and Cancer for Tomorrow"

The immediate symptoms are always the same for Argentinian bystanders in the spray zone: dizziness, allergic reactions and itching, mouth swelling, and general malaise that's similar to the feeling of coming down with the flu. People are warned to stay inside when spraying is underway, but they report getting sick in spite of this confinement.

When those affected visit their physicians, they're told it's "all in their heads." Authorities also turn a deaf ear?as does the government when it's presented with scientific evidence of the dangerous effects of Monsanto's products for their people and environment. Fortunately, increasing numbers of scientists are now starting to speak out. For example, the engineers' school in Santiago del Estero announced that chemicals are causing 100 babies to be born with deformities every year. One of the most influential studies was conducted by one of Argentina's leading scientists, Andres Carrasco, who works in Argentina's Ministry of Science.

Andr]]> http://www.mmshealthyforlife.com/?feed=rss2&p=17890 http://www.mmshealthyforlife.com/?p=17882 http://www.mmshealthyforlife.com/?p=17882#comments Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000 Dr. Joseph Mercola tag:articles.mercola.com://3fcd37a4f082a1afdd1f6cb107efe538 By Dr. Mercola

Nearly half of people with epilepsy are also vitamin D deficient,ⁱ but despite this well-known association, only a single study has been published on the effect of vitamin D for seizure control in the last 40 years.

That study revealed that treating epileptic patients with vitamin D2 ? the far inferior type of synthetic vitamin D ? reduced the number of seizures, and in 1974 researchers concluded that ?the results may support the concept that epileptics should be treated prophylactically with vitamin D.?ⁱⁱ

Now, nearly four decades later researchers have again revealed that ?the normalization of serum vitamin 25(OH)D [vitamin D] level has an anticonvulsant [anti-seizure] effect.?ⁱⁱⁱ

Improving Vitamin D Levels Reduces Seizures by 40%

In the latest study, researchers administered a one-time 40,000-200,000 IU dose of vitamin D3 to patients with epilepsy in order to bring their vitamin D levels out of a deficiency state.

The participants, who ranged in age from 10-42, had vitamin D levels ranging from 4 ng/ml to 34 ng/ml, with a median level of 11.8. This is an absolutely dangerously low level. As you can see in the chart below, anything below 50 ng/ml is a deficiency state.

After the treatment dose of vitamin D, the participants? vitamin D levels did improve to a range of 23-45 ng/ml, with a median of 38 ng/ml. It?s important to note that this is still low according to the latest science ? but the improvement still resulted in a decrease in their number of seizures. If their levels were optimized further, it?s likely the results would improve even more.

After increasing their vitamin D levels, the results showed:

• 10 of the 13 subjects had a decrease in number of seizures
• Overall, there was a median seizure number reduction of 40%
• A seizure reduction of greater than 50% was experienced in five patients

The most revealing result, however, occurred among the person whose vitamin D was a dangerously low 4 ng/ml at the start of the study. This person had 450 seizures in a three-month period, but after raising vitamin D level to 43.1 ng/ml, the seizures dropped to 30 in three months! The study did have some limitations, namely the small number of subjects and the lack of a placebo to compare to, but it still highlighted the importance of correcting vitamin D deficiency in epilepsy patients.

Epilepsy Patients are at Increased Risk of Vitamin D Deficiency

The findings are even more important given that people with epilepsy face an even greater risk of vitamin D deficiency than the general population (and even the general population is vastly vitamin D deficient). The reasons are two-fold, with the first being that having frequent seizures may interfere with your ability to get outdoors and stay active.

If you spend most of your time inside, you?ll miss out on regular sun exposure, which is key for the natural production of vitamin D. Even exposing your skin to sunlight through a windowpane will prevent the entry of the UVB rays, which are the specific wavelength that produces vitamin D in your skin. So, it is crucial that you get outside and experience direct skin contact with the sunlight instead of sunning in a sunroom, for instance.

Second, anti-epileptic drugs that are often given to epilepsy patients can interfere with vitamin D metabolism, leading to deficiency. If you take these drugs, it is especially crucial that you actively monitor your vitamin D levels to avoid this side effect.

Why might vitamin D have such a significant impact on epileptic seizures? Epilepsy is a disorder of the central nervous system, particularly your brain. Vitamin D is not "just" a vitamin; it's actually a neuroregulatory steroidal hormone that influences nearly 3,000 different genes in your body. Vitamin D receptors can be found in your brain, spinal cord, and central nervous system, and may enhance the amount of important chemicals in your brain needed to protect brain cells, for starters.

The Study Used Supplements, But Sunshine is Better

Researchers used a one-time large dose of vitamin D3 to boost the participants? vitamin D levels. If you?re going to supplement, vitamin D3 is certainly far superior to the vitamin D2 researchers used back in the 1970s.

Today, however, vitamin D2 is still the form typically prescribed by doctors, so be aware of this if you?re taking this nutrient in prescription form. A meta-analysis of 50 clinical trials looking at mortality rates for ?doctor recommended? synthetic vitamin D2 supplements versus natural vitamin D3 shows a 6 percent risk reduction among those who used D3, compared to a 2 percent increased risk among those who used D2.

Research also shows vitamin D3 is approximately 87 percent more potent in raising and maintaining vitamin D concentrations and produces 2- to 3-fold greater storage of vitamin D than does D2. D3 is also converted into its active form 500 percent faster. So by all means use vitamin D3 if you?re going to supplement, not D2 ? but even better, simply get out in the sun, or use a safe tanning bed.

The IDEAL way to optimize your vitamin D levels is through appropriate sun or safe tanning bed exposure. While your skin does create vitamin D3 in response to sunlight, which is theoretically the same as the D3 you get from an oral supplement, there's cause to believe that the vitamin D created from sun exposure may have additional health benefits. Plus, you cannot overdose when getting your vitamin D from sun exposure, as your body has the ability to self-regulate and only make what it needs. You do, however, need to be cautious and avoid burning.

If you cannot get your vitamin D requirements from sun exposure, I recommend using a safe tanning bed (one with electronic ballasts rather than magnetic ballasts, to avoid unnecessary exposure to EMF fields). Safe tanning beds also have less of the dangerous UVA than sunlight, while unsafe ones have more UVA than sunlight. If neither of these are feasible options, then you should take an oral vitamin D3 supplement. It will certainly be better than no vitamin D at all, but you will need to monitor your levels via blood testing to ensure you stay within the therapeutic range.

You can learn more about maximizing your vitamin D from safe sun exposure in the video below. If you have epilepsy, it?s possible that doing so could help you decrease seizure drugs (a very good thing, since all seizure drugs can increase your risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and some of these drugs can make you lose your memory and your hair).

References:

---

• ⁱ American Epilepsy Society 61st Annual Meeting: Abstract 3.337. November 30-December 4, 2007.
• ⁱⁱ Br Med J. 1974 May 4;2(5913):258-9.
• ⁱⁱⁱ Epilepsy & Behavior April 11, 2012

Sources:

• Epilepsy & Behavior April 11, 2012

• Vitamin D Council April 18, 2012

Related Articles:

  Little Sunshine Mistakes that Can Give You Cancer Instead of Vitamin D

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  What Dose of Oral Vitamin D Do You Need to Prevent Cancer?

 Comments (35)
]]> By Dr. Mercola

Nearly half of people with epilepsy are also vitamin D deficient,ⁱ but despite this well-known association, only a single study has been published on the effect of vitamin D for seizure control in the last 40 years.

That study revealed that treating epileptic patients with vitamin D2 ? the far inferior type of synthetic vitamin D ? reduced the number of seizures, and in 1974 researchers concluded that ?the results may support the concept that epileptics should be treated prophylactically with vitamin D.?ⁱⁱ

Now, nearly four decades later researchers have again revealed that ?the normalization of serum vitamin 25(OH)D [vitamin D] level has an anticonvulsant [anti-seizure] effect.?ⁱⁱⁱ

Improving Vitamin D Levels Reduces Seizures by 40%

In the latest study, researchers administered a one-time 40,000-200,000 IU dose of vitamin D3 to patients with epilepsy in order to bring their vitamin D levels out of a deficiency state.

The participants, who ranged in age from 10-42, had vitamin D levels ranging from 4 ng/ml to 34 ng/ml, with a median level of 11.8. This is an absolutely dangerously low level. As you can see in the chart below, anything below 50 ng/ml is a deficiency state.

After the treatment dose of vitamin D, the participants? vitamin D levels did improve to a range of 23-45 ng/ml, with a median of 38 ng/ml. It?s important to note that this is still low according to the latest science ? but the improvement still resulted in a decrease in their number of seizures. If their levels were optimized further, it?s likely the results would improve even more.

After increasing their vitamin D levels, the results showed:

• 10 of the 13 subjects had a decrease in number of seizures
• Overall, there was a median seizure number reduction of 40%
• A seizure reduction of greater than 50% was experienced in five patients

The most revealing result, however, occurred among the person whose vitamin D was a dangerously low 4 ng/ml at the start of the study. This person had 450 seizures in a three-month period, but after raising vitamin D level to 43.1 ng/ml, the seizures dropped to 30 in three months! The study did have some limitations, namely the small number of subjects and the lack of a placebo to compare to, but it still highlighted the importance of correcting vitamin D deficiency in epilepsy patients.

Epilepsy Patients are at Increased Risk of Vitamin D Deficiency

The findings are even more important given that people with epilepsy face an even greater risk of vitamin D deficiency than the general population (and even the general population is vastly vitamin D deficient). The reasons are two-fold, with the first being that having frequent seizures may interfere with your ability to get outdoors and stay active.

If you spend most of your time inside, you?ll miss out on regular sun exposure, which is key for the natural production of vitamin D. Even exposing your skin to sunlight through a windowpane will prevent the entry of the UVB rays, which are the specific wavelength that produces vitamin D in your skin. So, it is crucial that you get outside and experience direct skin contact with the sunlight instead of sunning in a sunroom, for instance.

Second, anti-epileptic drugs that are often given to epilepsy patients can interfere with vitamin D metabolism, leading to deficiency. If you take these drugs, it is especially crucial that you actively monitor your vitamin D levels to avoid this side effect.

Why might vitamin D have such a significant impact on epileptic seizures? Epilepsy is a disorder of the central nervous system, particularly your brain. Vitamin D is not "just" a vitamin; it's actually a neuroregulatory steroidal hormone that influences nearly 3,000 different genes in your body. Vitamin D receptors can be found in your brain, spinal cord, and central nervous system, and may enhance the amount of important chemicals in your brain needed to protect brain cells, for starters.

The Study Used Supplements, But Sunshine is Better

Researchers used a one-time large dose of vitamin D3 to boost the participants? vitamin D levels. If you?re going to supplement, vitamin D3 is certainly far superior to the vitamin D2 researchers used back in the 1970s.

Today, however, vitamin D2 is still the form typically prescribed by doctors, so be aware of this if you?re taking this nutrient in prescription form. A meta-analysis of 50 clinical trials looking at mortality rates for ?doctor recommended? synthetic vitamin D2 supplements versus natural vitamin D3 shows a 6 percent risk reduction among those who used D3, compared to a 2 percent increased risk among those who used D2.

Research also shows vitamin D3 is approximately 87 percent more potent in raising and maintaining vitamin D concentrations and produces 2- to 3-fold greater storage of vitamin D than does D2. D3 is also converted into its active form 500 percent faster. So by all means use vitamin D3 if you?re going to supplement, not D2 ? but even better, simply get out in the sun, or use a safe tanning bed.

The IDEAL way to optimize your vitamin D levels is through appropriate sun or safe tanning bed exposure. While your skin does create vitamin D3 in response to sunlight, which is theoretically the same as the D3 you get from an oral supplement, there's cause to believe that the vitamin D created from sun exposure may have additional health benefits. Plus, you cannot overdose when getting your vitamin D from sun exposure, as your body has the ability to self-regulate and only make what it needs. You do, however, need to be cautious and avoid burning.

If you cannot get your vitamin D requirements from sun exposure, I recommend using a safe tanning bed (one with electronic ballasts rather than magnetic ballasts, to avoid unnecessary exposure to EMF fields). Safe tanning beds also have less of the dangerous UVA than sunlight, while unsafe ones have more UVA than sunlight. If neither of these are feasible options, then you should take an oral vitamin D3 supplement. It will certainly be better than no vitamin D at all, but you will need to monitor your levels via blood testing to ensure you stay within the therapeutic range.

You can learn more about maximizing your vitamin D from safe sun exposure in the video below. If you have epilepsy, it?s possible that doing so could help you decrease seizure drugs (a very good thing, since all seizure drugs can increase your risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and some of these drugs can make you lose your memory and your hair).

References:

---

• ⁱ American Epilepsy Society 61st Annual Meeting: Abstract 3.337. November 30-December 4, 2007.
• ⁱⁱ Br Med J. 1974 May 4;2(5913):258-9.
• ⁱⁱⁱ Epilepsy & Behavior April 11, 2012

Sources:

• Epilepsy & Behavior April 11, 2012

• Vitamin D Council April 18, 2012

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 Comments (35)
]]> http://www.mmshealthyforlife.com/?feed=rss2&p=17882 http://www.mmshealthyforlife.com/?p=17881 http://www.mmshealthyforlife.com/?p=17881#comments Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000 Dr. Joseph Mercola tag:articles.mercola.com://4d1515e3817a1bf6116bc286e9b72a4a

By Dr. Mercola

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride is a formally trained Russian neurologist whose child developed autism.

As a result of her own research into autism, she ended up developing what might be one of the most profoundly important treatment strategies not just for autism, but for a wide range of neurological-, psychological-, and autoimmune disorders as well.

I believe her Gut and Psychology Syndrome, and Gut and Physiology Syndrome (GAPS) Nutritional program is vitally important for MOST people, as the majority of people have such poor gut health due to poor diet and toxic exposures. We?ve previously discussed how the GAPS program can help those with autism and other neurological- and psychiatric disorders, such as:

• Dyslexia and dyspraxia
• Depression
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Bipolar disorder
• Epilepsy

What is Gut and Physiology Syndrome?

In this interview, we discuss how your gut affects your immune system, as there?s profound dynamic interaction between them. Dr. McBride covers the problems related to Gut and Psychology Syndrome in her first book by the same name. Her next book will cover Gut and Physiology Syndrome, which relates to diseases that are not located in the nervous system but rather elsewhere in your body, such as:

• Arthritis
• Asthma and allergies
• Skin problems
• Kidney problems
• Digestive issues, and
• Autoimmune disorders

Abnormalities in your immune system are a common outcome of GAPS, and such immune abnormalities are at the root of virtually all degenerative diseases.

?Why is that? It?s because about 85 percent of our immune system is located in the gut wall,? she says.  ?This fact has been established by basic physiology research in the 1930s and the 1940s. Your gut, your digestive wall, is the biggest and the most important immune organ in your body. There is a very tight conversation and a relationship going on between the gut flora that lives inside your digestive system, and your immune system...

Your gut flora?the state of the gut flora and the composition of microbes in your gut flora?has a profound effect on what forms of immune cells you will be producing on any given day, what they?re going to be doing, and how balanced your immune system is.?

How Your Gut Flora Directs Your Immune System

There are two primary ?arms? in your immune system:

1. Th1 immunity is responsible for normal reactions to anything in your environment, from pollen to animal dandruff, dust mites, chemicals, food and anything else you come into contact with. Th1 is kept robust and healthy by your gut flora. As long as your gut flora is normal, you will have no adverse symptoms when exposed to these types of environmental influences, but if your gut flora is abnormal, your Th1 become increasingly disabled
2. Th2 immunity is designed to address immune functions inside your body, and is not equipped to handle environmental influences. However, it will try to compensate if your Th1 becomes disabled. Unfortunately, since it?s not properly equipped for this job, it ends up dealing with environmental influences like pollen and foods in an inappropriate way; the end result of which is allergies and intolerances.

It?s important to realize that food allergies and intolerances are a very different group of allergies from the more acute anaphylactic allergies. Food intolerances caused by disabled Th1 (due to abnormal gut flora) are not mediated by the same immunoglobulin as the true allergies are. Food intolerances can also manifest hours, days, or even weeks later, making identifying food allergies very difficult.

 ?Different reactions can also overlap on top of each other. For example, on any given day you can be reacting to broccoli that you have just had for lunch, and to lamb that you?ve eaten yesterday, and to egg that you?ve eaten two days ago, and to a piece of bread that you?ve eaten 10 days ago. All of these reactions overlap on top of each other. On any given day, you have no idea what exactly you?re reacting to,? Dr. McBride explains.

Making matters even more difficult, these food allergies and intolerances can result in all sorts of reactions, from headache, to sneezing, to rashes, or abdominal pains or swollen joints. Or they may result in psoriasis, or cause eczema to flare up.

?Or, it can be an episode of depression, anxiety, or a panic attack. Any kind of symptom can be brought up by food allergies and intolerances,? Dr. McBride says.

At the same time, because your gut flora is abnormal, your gut lining begins to deteriorate, since it is actively maintained by our gut flora. (The beneficial bacteria in your gut make sure the cells that line your entire digestive tract are healthy, well-fed, and protected from chemical- or microbial attacks.) As your gut lining deteriorates, the junctions between the cells open up, causing your gut to become porous, or ?leaky.?

?It becomes like a sieve, and foods don?t get the chance to be digested properly before they are absorbed,? Dr. McBride explains.

?They?re absorbed in this maldigested or partially broken down form. When the immune system and the bloodstream finds them and looks at them, it doesn?t recognize them as food. It says, ?You?re not food. I don?t recognize you,? and it reacts to them. It creates immune complexes, which attack these partially digested proteins. As a result, we?ll get all sorts of symptoms in your body.?

So what?s the answer?  

The key to resolving your health issues is NOT to determine which foods you?re reacting to in order to avoid them. Rather you need to focus on healing your gut lining, because this is the most likely root of your problem. This will also be your most cost-effective strategy, as allergy testing can be quite expensive.

?There are many testing methods developed now for food allergies and intolerances,? Dr. McBride says. ?... [But] if you had enough money to test twice a day for two weeks in a row, you would discover that you react to everything you eat... The majority of practitioners who are experienced in this area give up on testing... They recommend focusing on healing and sealing your gut lining instead. Then these food allergies and intolerances will disappear, and you will be able to eventually start eating foods that you could not tolerate before.?

GAPS and Autoimmune Disease

Autoimmune disorders are a very common side effect of GAPS. Conventional medicine has identified about 200 different autoimmune conditions so far, and the list is continually growing.

?The testing in autoimmunity is fairly expensive, so not many people get tested,? Dr. McBride says. ?But the more we test, the more we realize that pretty much every degenerative condition has got an autoimmune component. Why is that? Because 85 percent of your immune system is located in your digestive wall, in your gut wall, and the state of your gut flora has a direct and very profound effect on the way your immune system functions.

... Your immune system is a very hungry organ. It needs to be continuously fed... People with abnormal gut flora ? GAPS people ? do not digest and absorb their food properly, so they develop multiple nutritional deficiencies; their immune system is starving... At the same time, a river of toxicity is flowing from the gut into the bloodstream of these people, because all those pathogenic microbes sitting in their gut flora are converting the food that comes along into hundreds and hundreds of very toxic substances.

The immune system gets quite a lot of this toxicity, so... we have a poor immune system?it is malnourished; it is intoxicated; it is unbalanced, and, at the same time, it is challenged with a huge amount of work to do. Of course, it cannot function properly. Of course, it cannot react appropriately to various things. Autoimmunity is the result of that.?

Abnormal flora in your digestive tract can easily lead to overgrowth of:

• Pathogenic bacteria
• Pathogenic viruses
• Fungi
• Worms
• Protozoa

Once your gut lining begins to deteriorate, these disease-causing agents can be easily absorbed into your bloodstream and circulated throughout your body. Some of them have affinities for certain proteins, and will attach themselves to them. When that happens, it changes the three-dimensional shape of that protein molecule. When your immune system comes across this foreign-looking protein, it will attack it and begin producing antibodies against it.

?This mechanism is particularly at work in multiple sclerosis in patients. We have researched that quite a lot,? Dr. McBride says.

?Mercury, lead, aluminum, other toxic metals and organic molecules that contain this toxic metal have a particular propensity for getting stored in high-fat tissues such as your brain and the rest of your nervous system, particularly the myelin sheath on your nerves... These toxic metals target your brain and your nerves. But when they get accumulated in those high-fat tissues, these toxins attach themselves to proteins in your myelin, in the white matter of your brain, and other parts of your nervous system. Once they?ve accumulated, once they?ve attached themselves to those proteins, they change their three-dimensional structure. Then the immune system develops an antibody against your protein and your myelin.

That is the number one antibody, which is at work in multiple sclerosis. It is called a myelin-specific protein antibody. It?s an antibody which attacks proteins in your myelin... What the immune system is trying to do is it?s trying to clear out mercury, lead, and other toxic metals out of the nervous system, which got stored in there. Where do they come from? 99.9 percent of anything toxic in your body comes out in the digestive system.?

GAPS and Multiple Sclerosis

Interestingly, when your body is unable to clear a particular toxin on its own, it will invite and employ microbes from the environment to help clear these toxins.

?The microbes in the environment are not our enemies at all. They?re actually our allies. They?re our helpers. Your body employs them when it needs them,? Dr. McBride explains.

?If you have accumulated certain amount of mercury in your brain and in your nerves... your body might employ a virus... If you got a cold, that virus (many viruses target your nervous system) will go directly to those toxic patches in your brain and your nervous system and attack them. It will start gobbling it up... Of course, your immune system then joins in, trying to attack the virus. It joins in with inflammation, and you [begin to experience] symptoms of multiple sclerosis. You will get tingling. You will get numbness in your face or in your extremities. You might start wetting your bed, or you might get peripheral loss of vision for a while... That?s one of the first symptoms in multiple sclerosis.

in this situation, if you would just feed your immune system properly and leave the work for the immune system to complete, then these symptoms would last for a month or two, and then they would disappear, because... the virus will gobble up the [toxins] and your immune system will clear out the virus. Your nerves will recover naturally.?

Unfortunately, this is not what happens nowadays. Typically, as soon as people get tingling, numbness, and other symptoms, they rush to the doctor, who will immediately put them on some form of medication, which will typically have a dampening effect on the immune system. As a result, the viruses spread and become even more established, and the disease becomes chronic and permanent.

You have Natural Antibodies Against Virtually All Autoimmune Diseases...

?What people have to understand is that we all ? 100 percent of humans ? have in our bodies antibodies to deal with multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, lupus, or any other autoimmune condition,? Dr. McBride says.

It all begins in utero.  As soon as the baby?s thymus develops, the proteins floating about in the bloodstream, which is shared between the mother and the baby, begin to educate the baby?s immune system, and allocate a particular responder cell to every protein encountered. Autoimmune conditions develop when your immune system attacks particular tissues or proteins in your body because they?ve been contaminated by toxins or some other environmental influence. And remember, this imbalance, this toxic influence, originates from your digestive system or gut wall.

?Autoimmunity is born in the gut. That?s where it comes from ? your gut wall,? Dr. McBride says. ?That happens because your gut flora is abnormal. In order to heal any autoimmune condition ? whether it?s multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, lupus, alopecia, psoriasis, or anything else that has got an autoimmune component ? you have to focus on healing and sealing your gut lining with the GAPS Nutritional Protocol. And you have to focus on... normalizing your gut flora. You have to drive out the pathogens from the gut flora and replace them with the beneficial flora. Then a lot of healing will happen...?

Unfortunately, conventional medicine is largely ignorant about this research, and does not view autoimmune disorders as digestive disorders, which Dr. McBride is convinced is the case.

The Importance of Fermented Foods

Did you know the number of bacteria in your body outnumber your cells by about 10 to 1? These bacteria in turn are comprised of both beneficial ones and harmful ones. The ideal balance is about 85 percent good bacteria and 15 percent bad. Maintaining this ideal ratio is what it?s all about when we?re talking about the importance of probiotics. It?s important to understand though that probiotics are not a new concept. The only thing that?s new is that you can take them in pill form. But historically, mankind has consumed large amounts of probiotics in the form of fermented and cultured foods, which were invented long before the advent of refrigeration and other forms of food preservation.

?Every traditional culture, when you look at their traditional diet, they ferment their foods. They fermented everything. You can ferment dairy, grains, beans, vegetables, fruits, meats, and fish. Everything can be fermented, and there were fermented beverages in every culture. When the cabbages were ripe in September, you made it a fermented cabbage. Perhaps for a month or two, you were eating fresh cabbage, but then for the rest of the year, 10 months of the year, you ate your cabbage in a fermented form. Quite a large percent of all the foods that people consume on a daily basis were fermented. And with every mouthful of these fermented foods you consume trillions of beneficial bacteria??

Fermented foods not only give you a wider variety of beneficial bacteria, they also give you far more of them, so it?s a much more cost effective alternative. Here?s a case in point: It?s unusual to find a probiotic supplement containing more than 10 billion colony-forming units. But when my team actually tested fermented vegetables produced by probiotic starter cultures, they had 10 trillion colony-forming units of bacteria. Literally, one serving of vegetables was equal to an entire bottle of a high potency probiotic! So clearly, you?re far better off using fermented foods.

How the Fermentation Process Works

?Mother Nature is extremely wise and extremely kind. It populated all organic fruit and vegetables, the dust on our soils, and all plant matter with Lactobacilli. The fresh cabbage leaves, if it?s organically grown (not the one from chemical farming), will be covered in Lactobacilli?lacto-fermenting bacteria. You don?t need to add anything. You just chop it up. Add some salt in the initial stages. (The salt is added in the initial stage in order to stop putrefactive bacteria from multiplying.) Then as the Lactobacillus stop working and start multiplying, they produce lactic acid. That?s why they?re called Lactobacillus. That?s just lactic acid.

If you look at the research in lactic acid, it is one of the most powerful antiseptics. It kills off lots and lots of bacteria.... So as the lactic acid starts producing, it will kill off all those putrefactive and pathogenic microbes and preserve the food. It?s a great preservative... A good batch of sauerkraut can keep for five to six years without spoiling or rotting, as long as it is covered by its own juice.?

For instructions on how to ferment your own vegetables, which is easier than you might think to do at home, please listen to my previous interview with Caroline Barringer:

Download Interview Transcript

This anaerobic process (fermentation) does more than just preserve the food, however. It also makes the nutrients inside the food more bioavailable. For example, according to Dr. McBride, the amount of bioavailable vitamin C in sauerkraut is 20 times higher than in the same helping of fresh cabbage!

?This is because in the fresh cabbage, vitamin C is bound in the cellulose structure and various other molecules, and our digestive system is just not able to cleave it off and absorb it. Lots of it goes undigested and come out right out of you. So despite the fact that cabbage may be very rich in vitamin C, a lot of it you will not be able to absorb. But if you fermented that cabbage and made sauerkraut, all the vitamin C becomes bioavailable,? she explains.

How to Reduce Chances of ?Healing Crisis?

There is one precaution that needs to be discussed here, and that is the potential for a so-called healing crisis, or what Dr. McBride refers to as a die-off reaction, provoked by the massive die-off of pathogenic bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other harmful pathogens by the reintroduction of massive quantities of probiotics. It can significantly worsen whatever health problem you?re experiencing, before you get better.

The reason for this is because when the probiotics kill off the pathogens, those pathogenic microbes release toxins. These toxins are what?s causing your problem to begin with; be it depression, panic attacks, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, or any other symptom. When a large amount of toxin is suddenly released, your symptoms will also suddenly increase.

?If you?ve never had fermented foods in your life, you need to start very carefully and very gradually,? Dr. McBride warns.

She recommends starting off with just ONE TEASPOON of fermented vegetable, such as sauerkraut, with ONE of your meals, and then wait for a couple of days to see how you react. If it?s manageable, you can have another helping, and gradually increase your portion.

?But if the die off is too much, then you need to stop. Let the die off subside, and then have a tiny amount of sauerkraut, or even just a teaspoon of juice from it first; not the cabbage itself. Then two teaspoons per day and so on, until enough die off happens in your body, and your gut flora has changed enough for you to be ready for having the cabbage itself.?

It?s important to realize that besides containing massive amounts of beneficial bacteria, fermented foods also contain many active enzymes, which act as extremely potent detoxifiers.

?Healing goes through two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, and one step back,? Dr. McBride says. ?But you will find that the next layer is smaller. The die off and the detox will not last as long as the previous one... We live in a toxic world, and many of us have accumulated layers and layers of toxicity in our bodies. The body will clean them out, but you will find that each layer will last shorter and not be as severe... Eventually, you will come to complete, radiant health. You will feel 100 percent healthy, no matter how ill you were before.?

More Information

You can find more information on Dr. McBride?s website: www.GAPS.me, and on her blog at www.doctor-natasha.com. She recently came back from Australia and New Zealand, where she trained 40 health practitioners to become certified GAPS practitioners. All GAPS practitioners are listed by country on her website.

If you're a doctor, nutritionist, dietician, osteopath, homeopath or other health practitioner and you'reinterested in becoming a certified GAPS practitioner, please see this link for more information.

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 Comments (222)
]]>

By Dr. Mercola

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride is a formally trained Russian neurologist whose child developed autism.

As a result of her own research into autism, she ended up developing what might be one of the most profoundly important treatment strategies not just for autism, but for a wide range of neurological-, psychological-, and autoimmune disorders as well.

I believe her Gut and Psychology Syndrome, and Gut and Physiology Syndrome (GAPS) Nutritional program is vitally important for MOST people, as the majority of people have such poor gut health due to poor diet and toxic exposures. We?ve previously discussed how the GAPS program can help those with autism and other neurological- and psychiatric disorders, such as:

• Dyslexia and dyspraxia
• Depression
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Bipolar disorder
• Epilepsy

What is Gut and Physiology Syndrome?

In this interview, we discuss how your gut affects your immune system, as there?s profound dynamic interaction between them. Dr. McBride covers the problems related to Gut and Psychology Syndrome in her first book by the same name. Her next book will cover Gut and Physiology Syndrome, which relates to diseases that are not located in the nervous system but rather elsewhere in your body, such as:

• Arthritis
• Asthma and allergies
• Skin problems
• Kidney problems
• Digestive issues, and
• Autoimmune disorders

Abnormalities in your immune system are a common outcome of GAPS, and such immune abnormalities are at the root of virtually all degenerative diseases.

?Why is that? It?s because about 85 percent of our immune system is located in the gut wall,? she says.  ?This fact has been established by basic physiology research in the 1930s and the 1940s. Your gut, your digestive wall, is the biggest and the most important immune organ in your body. There is a very tight conversation and a relationship going on between the gut flora that lives inside your digestive system, and your immune system...

Your gut flora?the state of the gut flora and the composition of microbes in your gut flora?has a profound effect on what forms of immune cells you will be producing on any given day, what they?re going to be doing, and how balanced your immune system is.?

How Your Gut Flora Directs Your Immune System

There are two primary ?arms? in your immune system:

1. Th1 immunity is responsible for normal reactions to anything in your environment, from pollen to animal dandruff, dust mites, chemicals, food and anything else you come into contact with. Th1 is kept robust and healthy by your gut flora. As long as your gut flora is normal, you will have no adverse symptoms when exposed to these types of environmental influences, but if your gut flora is abnormal, your Th1 become increasingly disabled
2. Th2 immunity is designed to address immune functions inside your body, and is not equipped to handle environmental influences. However, it will try to compensate if your Th1 becomes disabled. Unfortunately, since it?s not properly equipped for this job, it ends up dealing with environmental influences like pollen and foods in an inappropriate way; the end result of which is allergies and intolerances.

It?s important to realize that food allergies and intolerances are a very different group of allergies from the more acute anaphylactic allergies. Food intolerances caused by disabled Th1 (due to abnormal gut flora) are not mediated by the same immunoglobulin as the true allergies are. Food intolerances can also manifest hours, days, or even weeks later, making identifying food allergies very difficult.

 ?Different reactions can also overlap on top of each other. For example, on any given day you can be reacting to broccoli that you have just had for lunch, and to lamb that you?ve eaten yesterday, and to egg that you?ve eaten two days ago, and to a piece of bread that you?ve eaten 10 days ago. All of these reactions overlap on top of each other. On any given day, you have no idea what exactly you?re reacting to,? Dr. McBride explains.

Making matters even more difficult, these food allergies and intolerances can result in all sorts of reactions, from headache, to sneezing, to rashes, or abdominal pains or swollen joints. Or they may result in psoriasis, or cause eczema to flare up.

?Or, it can be an episode of depression, anxiety, or a panic attack. Any kind of symptom can be brought up by food allergies and intolerances,? Dr. McBride says.

At the same time, because your gut flora is abnormal, your gut lining begins to deteriorate, since it is actively maintained by our gut flora. (The beneficial bacteria in your gut make sure the cells that line your entire digestive tract are healthy, well-fed, and protected from chemical- or microbial attacks.) As your gut lining deteriorates, the junctions between the cells open up, causing your gut to become porous, or ?leaky.?

?It becomes like a sieve, and foods don?t get the chance to be digested properly before they are absorbed,? Dr. McBride explains.

?They?re absorbed in this maldigested or partially broken down form. When the immune system and the bloodstream finds them and looks at them, it doesn?t recognize them as food. It says, ?You?re not food. I don?t recognize you,? and it reacts to them. It creates immune complexes, which attack these partially digested proteins. As a result, we?ll get all sorts of symptoms in your body.?

So what?s the answer?  

The key to resolving your health issues is NOT to determine which foods you?re reacting to in order to avoid them. Rather you need to focus on healing your gut lining, because this is the most likely root of your problem. This will also be your most cost-effective strategy, as allergy testing can be quite expensive.

?There are many testing methods developed now for food allergies and intolerances,? Dr. McBride says. ?... [But] if you had enough money to test twice a day for two weeks in a row, you would discover that you react to everything you eat... The majority of practitioners who are experienced in this area give up on testing... They recommend focusing on healing and sealing your gut lining instead. Then these food allergies and intolerances will disappear, and you will be able to eventually start eating foods that you could not tolerate before.?

GAPS and Autoimmune Disease

Autoimmune disorders are a very common side effect of GAPS. Conventional medicine has identified about 200 different autoimmune conditions so far, and the list is continually growing.

?The testing in autoimmunity is fairly expensive, so not many people get tested,? Dr. McBride says. ?But the more we test, the more we realize that pretty much every degenerative condition has got an autoimmune component. Why is that? Because 85 percent of your immune system is located in your digestive wall, in your gut wall, and the state of your gut flora has a direct and very profound effect on the way your immune system functions.

... Your immune system is a very hungry organ. It needs to be continuously fed... People with abnormal gut flora ? GAPS people ? do not digest and absorb their food properly, so they develop multiple nutritional deficiencies; their immune system is starving... At the same time, a river of toxicity is flowing from the gut into the bloodstream of these people, because all those pathogenic microbes sitting in their gut flora are converting the food that comes along into hundreds and hundreds of very toxic substances.

The immune system gets quite a lot of this toxicity, so... we have a poor immune system?it is malnourished; it is intoxicated; it is unbalanced, and, at the same time, it is challenged with a huge amount of work to do. Of course, it cannot function properly. Of course, it cannot react appropriately to various things. Autoimmunity is the result of that.?

Abnormal flora in your digestive tract can easily lead to overgrowth of:

• Pathogenic bacteria
• Pathogenic viruses
• Fungi
• Worms
• Protozoa

Once your gut lining begins to deteriorate, these disease-causing agents can be easily absorbed into your bloodstream and circulated throughout your body. Some of them have affinities for certain proteins, and will attach themselves to them. When that happens, it changes the three-dimensional shape of that protein molecule. When your immune system comes across this foreign-looking protein, it will attack it and begin producing antibodies against it.

?This mechanism is particularly at work in multiple sclerosis in patients. We have researched that quite a lot,? Dr. McBride says.

?Mercury, lead, aluminum, other toxic metals and organic molecules that contain this toxic metal have a particular propensity for getting stored in high-fat tissues such as your brain and the rest of your nervous system, particularly the myelin sheath on your nerves... These toxic metals target your brain and your nerves. But when they get accumulated in those high-fat tissues, these toxins attach themselves to proteins in your myelin, in the white matter of your brain, and other parts of your nervous system. Once they?ve accumulated, once they?ve attached themselves to those proteins, they change their three-dimensional structure. Then the immune system develops an antibody against your protein and your myelin.

That is the number one antibody, which is at work in multiple sclerosis. It is called a myelin-specific protein antibody. It?s an antibody which attacks proteins in your myelin... What the immune system is trying to do is it?s trying to clear out mercury, lead, and other toxic metals out of the nervous system, which got stored in there. Where do they come from? 99.9 percent of anything toxic in your body comes out in the digestive system.?

GAPS and Multiple Sclerosis

Interestingly, when your body is unable to clear a particular toxin on its own, it will invite and employ microbes from the environment to help clear these toxins.

?The microbes in the environment are not our enemies at all. They?re actually our allies. They?re our helpers. Your body employs them when it needs them,? Dr. McBride explains.

?If you have accumulated certain amount of mercury in your brain and in your nerves... your body might employ a virus... If you got a cold, that virus (many viruses target your nervous system) will go directly to those toxic patches in your brain and your nervous system and attack them. It will start gobbling it up... Of course, your immune system then joins in, trying to attack the virus. It joins in with inflammation, and you [begin to experience] symptoms of multiple sclerosis. You will get tingling. You will get numbness in your face or in your extremities. You might start wetting your bed, or you might get peripheral loss of vision for a while... That?s one of the first symptoms in multiple sclerosis.

in this situation, if you would just feed your immune system properly and leave the work for the immune system to complete, then these symptoms would last for a month or two, and then they would disappear, because... the virus will gobble up the [toxins] and your immune system will clear out the virus. Your nerves will recover naturally.?

Unfortunately, this is not what happens nowadays. Typically, as soon as people get tingling, numbness, and other symptoms, they rush to the doctor, who will immediately put them on some form of medication, which will typically have a dampening effect on the immune system. As a result, the viruses spread and become even more established, and the disease becomes chronic and permanent.

You have Natural Antibodies Against Virtually All Autoimmune Diseases...

?What people have to understand is that we all ? 100 percent of humans ? have in our bodies antibodies to deal with multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, lupus, or any other autoimmune condition,? Dr. McBride says.

It all begins in utero.  As soon as the baby?s thymus develops, the proteins floating about in the bloodstream, which is shared between the mother and the baby, begin to educate the baby?s immune system, and allocate a particular responder cell to every protein encountered. Autoimmune conditions develop when your immune system attacks particular tissues or proteins in your body because they?ve been contaminated by toxins or some other environmental influence. And remember, this imbalance, this toxic influence, originates from your digestive system or gut wall.

?Autoimmunity is born in the gut. That?s where it comes from ? your gut wall,? Dr. McBride says. ?That happens because your gut flora is abnormal. In order to heal any autoimmune condition ? whether it?s multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, lupus, alopecia, psoriasis, or anything else that has got an autoimmune component ? you have to focus on healing and sealing your gut lining with the GAPS Nutritional Protocol. And you have to focus on... normalizing your gut flora. You have to drive out the pathogens from the gut flora and replace them with the beneficial flora. Then a lot of healing will happen...?

Unfortunately, conventional medicine is largely ignorant about this research, and does not view autoimmune disorders as digestive disorders, which Dr. McBride is convinced is the case.

The Importance of Fermented Foods

Did you know the number of bacteria in your body outnumber your cells by about 10 to 1? These bacteria in turn are comprised of both beneficial ones and harmful ones. The ideal balance is about 85 percent good bacteria and 15 percent bad. Maintaining this ideal ratio is what it?s all about when we?re talking about the importance of probiotics. It?s important to understand though that probiotics are not a new concept. The only thing that?s new is that you can take them in pill form. But historically, mankind has consumed large amounts of probiotics in the form of fermented and cultured foods, which were invented long before the advent of refrigeration and other forms of food preservation.

?Every traditional culture, when you look at their traditional diet, they ferment their foods. They fermented everything. You can ferment dairy, grains, beans, vegetables, fruits, meats, and fish. Everything can be fermented, and there were fermented beverages in every culture. When the cabbages were ripe in September, you made it a fermented cabbage. Perhaps for a month or two, you were eating fresh cabbage, but then for the rest of the year, 10 months of the year, you ate your cabbage in a fermented form. Quite a large percent of all the foods that people consume on a daily basis were fermented. And with every mouthful of these fermented foods you consume trillions of beneficial bacteria??

Fermented foods not only give you a wider variety of beneficial bacteria, they also give you far more of them, so it?s a much more cost effective alternative. Here?s a case in point: It?s unusual to find a probiotic supplement containing more than 10 billion colony-forming units. But when my team actually tested fermented vegetables produced by probiotic starter cultures, they had 10 trillion colony-forming units of bacteria. Literally, one serving of vegetables was equal to an entire bottle of a high potency probiotic! So clearly, you?re far better off using fermented foods.

How the Fermentation Process Works

?Mother Nature is extremely wise and extremely kind. It populated all organic fruit and vegetables, the dust on our soils, and all plant matter with Lactobacilli. The fresh cabbage leaves, if it?s organically grown (not the one from chemical farming), will be covered in Lactobacilli?lacto-fermenting bacteria. You don?t need to add anything. You just chop it up. Add some salt in the initial stages. (The salt is added in the initial stage in order to stop putrefactive bacteria from multiplying.) Then as the Lactobacillus stop working and start multiplying, they produce lactic acid. That?s why they?re called Lactobacillus. That?s just lactic acid.

If you look at the research in lactic acid, it is one of the most powerful antiseptics. It kills off lots and lots of bacteria.... So as the lactic acid starts producing, it will kill off all those putrefactive and pathogenic microbes and preserve the food. It?s a great preservative... A good batch of sauerkraut can keep for five to six years without spoiling or rotting, as long as it is covered by its own juice.?

For instructions on how to ferment your own vegetables, which is easier than you might think to do at home, please listen to my previous interview with Caroline Barringer:

Download Interview Transcript

This anaerobic process (fermentation) does more than just preserve the food, however. It also makes the nutrients inside the food more bioavailable. For example, according to Dr. McBride, the amount of bioavailable vitamin C in sauerkraut is 20 times higher than in the same helping of fresh cabbage!

?This is because in the fresh cabbage, vitamin C is bound in the cellulose structure and various other molecules, and our digestive system is just not able to cleave it off and absorb it. Lots of it goes undigested and come out right out of you. So despite the fact that cabbage may be very rich in vitamin C, a lot of it you will not be able to absorb. But if you fermented that cabbage and made sauerkraut, all the vitamin C becomes bioavailable,? she explains.

How to Reduce Chances of ?Healing Crisis?

There is one precaution that needs to be discussed here, and that is the potential for a so-called healing crisis, or what Dr. McBride refers to as a die-off reaction, provoked by the massive die-off of pathogenic bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other harmful pathogens by the reintroduction of massive quantities of probiotics. It can significantly worsen whatever health problem you?re experiencing, before you get better.

The reason for this is because when the probiotics kill off the pathogens, those pathogenic microbes release toxins. These toxins are what?s causing your problem to begin with; be it depression, panic attacks, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, or any other symptom. When a large amount of toxin is suddenly released, your symptoms will also suddenly increase.

?If you?ve never had fermented foods in your life, you need to start very carefully and very gradually,? Dr. McBride warns.

She recommends starting off with just ONE TEASPOON of fermented vegetable, such as sauerkraut, with ONE of your meals, and then wait for a couple of days to see how you react. If it?s manageable, you can have another helping, and gradually increase your portion.

?But if the die off is too much, then you need to stop. Let the die off subside, and then have a tiny amount of sauerkraut, or even just a teaspoon of juice from it first; not the cabbage itself. Then two teaspoons per day and so on, until enough die off happens in your body, and your gut flora has changed enough for you to be ready for having the cabbage itself.?

It?s important to realize that besides containing massive amounts of beneficial bacteria, fermented foods also contain many active enzymes, which act as extremely potent detoxifiers.

?Healing goes through two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, and one step back,? Dr. McBride says. ?But you will find that the next layer is smaller. The die off and the detox will not last as long as the previous one... We live in a toxic world, and many of us have accumulated layers and layers of toxicity in our bodies. The body will clean them out, but you will find that each layer will last shorter and not be as severe... Eventually, you will come to complete, radiant health. You will feel 100 percent healthy, no matter how ill you were before.?

More Information

You can find more information on Dr. McBride?s website: www.GAPS.me, and on her blog at www.doctor-natasha.com. She recently came back from Australia and New Zealand, where she trained 40 health practitioners to become certified GAPS practitioners. All GAPS practitioners are listed by country on her website.

If you're a doctor, nutritionist, dietician, osteopath, homeopath or other health practitioner and you'reinterested in becoming a certified GAPS practitioner, please see this link for more information.

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