And How we are killing ourselves with what we really start out our day with.
Stopp the cereal!
Breakfast is Not So G-r-r-reat When Your Only Option is Frosted Flakes
Posted By Dr. Mercola |
But while this sounds philanthropic, feeding children highly-processed junk foods is not the answer. As part of this project, Kellogg is promoting foods such as Frosted Flakes, which contains 11 grams of sugar per three-fourths cup serving, and Nutri-Grain bars, which contain high-fructose-corn syrup, artificial flavors, and a host of other chemicals.
The Huffington Post reports:
"According to research ... children will eat cereal with less sugar if the option is made available ... [T]he industry strives to reinforce the myth that children will not eat low-sugar cereals ... Make no mistake, Share Your Breakfast is an advertising campaign above all else."
Sources:
Huffington Post March 15, 2011
Economic Research Report, November 2010
New York Times, March 3 2011
www.cerealfacts.org
It doesn't surprise me that another food industry conglomerate is interested in expanding its bottom line. What does surprise me is the outlandish claims it is making to push its nutritionally disastrous products on unsuspecting children and mothers across the US.
While I am the first to agree that providing underprivileged children access to a healthy breakfast is a noble goal, the Kellogg company's multi-platform marketing blitz featuring its sugar-laden cereals and snack bars is once again resorting to nutritional distortions that border on nonsensical.
What's Wrong with the Standard American Breakfast?
With sugar and carbohydrates being two of the prime causes of the massive childhood obesity epidemic in the US, eating any of the breakfasts involved in Kellogg's recently launched "Share Your Breakfast" promotion is much more likely to add to the number of obese children in the US than giving a single underprivileged child a healthy start to the day.
Because a diet loaded with sugar is anything but healthy.
Additionally, according to Cereal FACTS (Food Advertising to Children and Teens Score), which was developed based on the best available science, in consultation with a steering committee of experts in nutrition, 5 of the top the 10 worst breakfast cereals based on nutrition score are Kellogg products!
If the Kellogg company really wants to do something beneficial for the health of US children, it would immediately reformulate its products to contain a fraction of the sugar currently found in most of its breakfast offerings. But they are unlikely to do that, because according to new content on their website sugar is a "misunderstood nutrient" that "does not cause obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease or hyperactivity."
We'll look at these outrageous claims in more detail below.
Kellogg's "Share Your Breakfast" campaign is nothing but another slick marketing campaign created by the digital advertising agency Biggs-Gilmore, combining online ads with social media marketing, with a 30 second television commercial assist from one of the world's largest advertising firms, the Leo Burnett company.
I just hope that the mothers of America, who these promotions are usually aimed at, are able to look beyond Kellogg's polished marketing and apply some common sense to understand the truth – massive doses of sugar will never be part of a healthy breakfast.
According to Kellogg, Sugar isn't bad for You! It's Misunderstood!
According to the article above in the Huffington Post, Kellogg's is now claiming on their website that sugar "does not cause obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease or hyperactivity."
If the truth was accepted they would be fined for advertising fraud.
There are tens of thousands of peer reviewed studies that support the harmful effects of sugar on human health and many are listed on this site. Just use the search engine at the top of every page and started reading a few of the thousands of articles I have posted on this topic. You can read the 76 Dangers of Sugar to Your Health.
Here are just a few of the links between sugar and various health problems:
• Sugar appears to act on the body the same way as amphetamines
• Diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome are all related to rising rates of coronary heart disease
• Sugar is a prime cause of exploding obesity rates all over the world, especially in children
• Sugar is linked to premature death
• Sugar behaves in your body like an addictive drug
• Sugar elimination can reduce hyperactivity in children
Just How Much Sugar is in Kellogg Breakfast Cereals and Snack Bars?
Unscientifically speaking -- a lot.
Because let's not forget that "grains" of all types are simple carbohydrates and also spike both blood sugar and insulin in your body, just like sugar. So if you take into account the grains in Kellogg's cereals and snack bars, the first four or five ingredients all basically translate into sugar.
From the Huffington Post article above, (supporting the fact that sugar is bad for your health) comes some very revealing recommendations from the American Heart Association:
"One of the most recent studies, reported in TIME Magazine last year, found that consuming added sugars raises the risk for heart disease by raising cholesterol and triglycerides. The American Heart Association's (AHA) Web site states, "High intake of added sugars is implicated in numerous poor health conditions, including obesity, high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease and stroke."
The AHA is so concerned about the amount of added sugars in the American diet that in 2009 it established upper limits for adults (none exist yet for children, oddly enough). The AHA says that women should get no more than six teaspoons a day and men no more than nine.
Most of the Kellogg's products I researched contained an average of 11 grams of sugar per serving, which is close to three teaspoons of sugar. If we assume that the average child weighs about half what the average woman weighs, then three teaspoons is the upper limit of how much a child should safely consume in one day, according to the AHA.
That means the child couldn't eat any other added sugars for the rest of the day (not likely) and that he or she could only eat the single three-fourths cup serving (also, not likely). The AHA says the average American eats an alarming 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day."
In other words, according to no less a source than the American Heart Association, if a child starts their day with a typical Kellogg cereal or snack bar breakfast (the exact breakfast being promoted through Kellogg's slick "Share Your Breakfast" digital online and television marketing campaign) they are putting themselves at higher risk for obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes.
How is this in any way healthy?
And how does Kellogg get away with telling anyone this is healthy?
It is also ironic that Kellogg's partner in the "Share Your Breakfast" marketing campaign is a group called Action For Healthy Kids, who lists on their website that one of their listed associates is the American Heart Association!
All I can say to the Action For Healthy Kids people is, you're busted!
What I Personally Have for Breakfast
For my breakfast I put a scoop or two of the banana Miracle Whey in a one-quart glass mason jar, and then I add two to four raw eggs. These are typically eggs purchased from a local farmer, not from the grocery store, so they're organic, free-range eggs.
Now, I realize that some people don't like the texture of raw eggs. But that's typically due to a stringy consistency of raw egg whites. Fortunately, you won't need to worry about that with this breakfast, because when you mix it up as I recommend, the eggs are dissolved beyond having any texture issues (and they even add a slight vanilla taste to the drink). I challenge anyone to be able to differentiate between a shake that has raw eggs in it, and one that doesn't.
Seriously, you won't be able to tell the difference.
After putting in the whey mix and the eggs, I add one teaspoon of coconut oil. Coconut is a great source of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), which are the best low glycemic fuel for your muscles after exercise (I also recommend exercising in the morning, before your breakfast).
If you like, you can beef up your morning meal even further. There is fiber in our Miracle Whey, but I add some organic defatted chia seed flour which is high in protein and water soluble and insoluble fibers. I then add two of our probiotic capsules and a vitamin K2.
I fill the jar with water to about half way up and then use a hand mixer to blend all these ingredients (you can get the hand mixer at either Costco or Target for about $30 or so, if you don't have one already). I strongly recommend a hand mixer instead of a blender for the ease of cleanup. You can rinse it clean in under five seconds.
So, if you like banana and coconut, you're going to love this recipe. The Miracle Whey uses digestive resistant maltodextrin which provides sweetness but does not at all raise insulin levels and also serves as a prebiotic fuel source for bacteria in your large intestine.
Other Healthful Breakfast Options
When it comes to a more conventional healthy breakfast, a much better and more sensible option than following Kellogg's "advice" is for you and your children to avoid sugar and grains of all kinds.
Remember, most people are unconsciously exchanging "convenience" for their health, and that's the primary reason companies like Kellogg's exist, because they make breakfast as easy as opening a box found on your grocery store shelf. But real nutrition takes a little more work than opening a processed food box, and you are too smart to make that mistake.
It is very important that you start your day off with a healthy breakfast, as studies have shown that eating breakfast can have beneficial effects on:
• Appetite
• Insulin resistance
• Energy metabolism
One study even found that obesity and insulin resistance syndrome rates were 35 percent to 50 percent lower among people who ate breakfast every day, compared to those who frequently skipped it.
But there's more to it than simply not skipping the morning meal. You need to give your body high-quality fuel. And sugary breakfast cereals and snack bars simply do not qualify as high-quality fuel regardless of the fact that the Kellogg PR machine spends half a billion dollars a year telling you that they are!
I know that I said before raw eggs are nutritionally better than cooked eggs, but I do understand that serving raw eggs or even protein shakes mixed by a hand blender are not always an option when it comes to the tastes of children. But please understand that children will most likely form lifelong eating habits based on the foods you as a parent provide them. And according to the study above, children will even eat less sugary cereals when they are presented to them.
Not that I recommend even less sugary cereal options, because I don't.
So please give some serious thought about what types of foods your child eats for breakfast. Proper childhood nutrition is so important if you want to set the stage for lifelong health that I wrote an entire book on the subject called Generation XL: Raising Healthy, Intelligent Kids in a High-Tech, Junk-Food World.
The book includes 74 pages of kid-approved recipes, brimming with all-natural, healthy choices that will satisfy even your picky eaters. So if you're looking for even more options to wean your kids off breakfast cereal, this book is an excellent place to find them.
You can also download our Nutritional Typing Cookbook for free.
Remember to avoid serving grains or sugars to your children for breakfast in particular, and cutting grains and sugar out of other meals and snacks as well will return healthy dividends.
Serving processed sugary foods to children simply sets up a lifetime of unhealthy eating habits, much to the pleasure of Kellogg's who will increase their corporate profits, but much to the detriment of your and your children's health.
Related Links:
It Took Me Thirty Years to Figure Out What to Eat for Breakfast
Ten Worst Breakfast Cereals
Why You Should be Worried if Your Kids' Cereal is Widely Known
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Required reading for moms & Nurses
The Baby Syndrome More Horrific Than Falling Three Stories
Posted By Dr. Mercola Dr. F. Edward Yazbak is a pioneer and advocate for child safety in an area that most people are completely unaware of, namely cases where vitamin deficiencies are mistaken for Shaken Baby Syndrome. There's tremendous legal injustice going on in this area, and it can happen to anyone.
If you're pregnant, planning a pregnancy, or have young children, you won't want to miss this crucial discussion!
Sources:
NPR February 9, 2011
Video Transcript
Congratulations!
You're a new parent or parent-to-be, and you're doing everything you can to make sure your new family member is as healthy as can be. From prenatal classes to natural childbirth to breast-feeding and even choosing infant-friendly bedding and toys, you're on the right track to bringing up baby in the best way possible.
Or are you?
Sarah Garvey's Heartbreaking Story: Could this Happen to You?
Sarah Garvey was 24 when she gave birth to twins in Massachusetts in October 2006. This had been her first pregnancy, and repeated ultrasounds had revealed problems with one of the twins.
"They need to be born as soon as possible," Sarah's OB-GYN told her, so she checked in to a hospital the next day, a Friday, to have her labor induced.
As Pitocin – a hormone that causes uterine contractions – dripped into her bloodstream, she never could have imagined that in just a few weeks, she and her babies' father, Jamaal Williams, not only would be burying the little boy that was about to be born, but would be accused of killing him, and of nearly killing his twin sister.
How did this happen?
What did this young couple do that triggered a nightmare that they're still living today?
Even though they've never been arrested or formally charged with harming their children, Massachusetts child protective services (CPS) say Sarah and Jamaal shook their babies, causing their brains to hemorrhage, breaking their bones, and inflicting injuries so severe that the little boy, Liam, died.
His twin sister, Paige, survived and social workers took her into custody. When the couple had another daughter, Melina, this past May, CPS took her too, at birth.
Today, the grieving parents deny any wrong-doing, and Massachusetts authorities have yet to charge them with anything. Yet CPS continues to refuse to give the little girls back. It sounds incredible. How can you not be charged with a crime, yet be treated as if you were guilty of it?
The shocking answer is that this is something that CAN, and does, happen to hundreds of unsuspecting parents across the U.S. every year. It's called Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), sometimes referred to as abusive head trauma (AHT) or non-accidental head trauma.
Shaken Baby Syndrome, or Something Entirely Different?
For more than 30 years, the "triad" of injuries that define SBS have been retinal hemorrhages, bleeding around the brain, and brain swelling that have been caused by shaking a baby.
Other SBS injuries include blood spots in the eyes, lethargy, semi-consciousness, seizures, vomiting, extreme irritability, bruises on the body, and broken bones. According to Massachusetts Citizens for Children, this form of "child abuse" is reported at least 4,000 times a year in pediatric hospitals across the U.S.
Of that number, approximately 1,300 experience severe or fatal injuries.
The National Shaken Baby Coalition claims that a baby "can fall three stories and not get as seriously injured as a shaken baby," and proponents of SBS legislation and prosecution argue vehemently that absolutely nothing but shaking a baby can cause these injuries.
But what these self-proclaimed child advocates don't say is that these same symptoms can appear with other serious medical conditions, including adverse reactions to vaccines, as well as vitamin deficiencies.
That's right.
According to vaccine manufacturers' package inserts, any one or combination of the vaccines given at an infant's 2-month check-up can cause severe adverse reactions such as encephalopathy (brain damage), thrombocytopenia (bruising and bleeding on the brain, and/or hemorrhaging), and hyptonic-hyporesponsive episodes (muscle limpness and unresponsiveness) – all symptoms of Shaken Baby Syndrome!
Numerous studies have also shown that deficiencies in Vitamin C, D, and K can result in conditions that mimic SBS, including the appearance of broken bones in an X-ray!
Undetected injuries at birth can also cause intracranial hematomas,but you don't hear that from SBS zealots bent on convicting a parent of child abuse when a baby shows up at a hospital with these types of symptoms. So how do states and child protective services distinguish which is which?
They don't.
They simply assume that any baby that presents with these symptoms has been shaken, and parents or caregivers are the ones presumed guilty of doing it. Case closed, no further investigation required.
Admit it: You Killed Your Baby
Like Sarah and Jamaal, in most cases, grieving parents accused of this horrendous crime steadfastly deny harming their children, either accidentally or intentionally.
But, unlike Sarah and Jamaal, many of these parents are sitting in jail, either awaiting trial for, or convicted of, killing their babies.
What's tragic is that it's very possible that if these jailed parents, or Sarah and Jamaal, had known what I'm about to share with you here, that they may have been able to not only defend themselves before authorities could accuse them of shaking their babies, but perhaps even saved their babies' lives.
What's most important is that every parent needs to know this information almost from conception, or at the very least, before their baby is born.
Like most mothers-to-be, Sarah placed all her trust in her attending physicians and the hospital where she checked in that fateful day to have her labor induced. What she didn't realize was that a whole series of events was about to go wrong, beginning with the day she checked in – a Friday.
Studies show that Fridays and weekends are the worst days to schedule medical procedures of any kind, primarily because of lower staff levels. Sarah found this out too late.
As I mentioned earlier, the reason Sarah's labor was being induced was because her OB-GYN had determined that her babies needed to be born right away.
But when the babies still hadn't made their appearance by Saturday morning, the weekend nurses turned off the labor-inducing Pitocin, telling Sarah they didn't have enough staff to deliver twins on the weekend!
That's right. Hospital staff decided that Sarah's twins could wait until Monday, even though her personal physician had said on Thursday that the babies were in danger, and needed to be delivered as soon as possible!
From there, it was all downhill for Sarah and her babies as they went through the following events which either should have not happened at all, or should have been addressed differently:
• Both babies developed jaundice and Liam's bilirubin was significantly elevated
• Both twins were given multiple vaccines on their 2-month check-ups, including hepatitis B, even though Liam’s condition should have warranted waiting on his shots;
• Once Liam stopped breathing three days later, emergency workers quickly assumed that he had been shaken, and their suspicions were confirmed by a Child Protection Expert who had not personally examined him;
• No one ever considered possible vitamin-deficiency-related problems, or possible other problems, even though an emergency room physician suggested that the multiple broken bones they both had could have been caused by Osteogenesis Imperfecta –also known as “Brittle Bone Disease” or “Lobstein Syndrome,” a genetic bone disorder
• Liam was given large doses of heparin (in anticipation of taking his organs for donation), which can cause excessive bleeding, and skew autopsy results
This is just a short list of what happened to Liam and Paige. And, as I said, even though the state has never charged Sarah and Jamaal with hurting their children, CPS assumes they did.
"They just keep telling us this is an ongoing homicide investigation, and that we won't get our daughters back until we tell them who shook the twins, when, and how," Sarah said. "They keep saying, 'Admit it. You killed your baby.' But there's nothing to confess – we didn't do anything."
If it Can Happen to Anyone, How Can You Protect Yourself – and Your Child?
Dr. Edward Yazbak is has spent the past 10 years following SBS and autism cases, and conducting research on the relationship between the proliferation of multiple vaccines and vaccine adverse events.
He's also an expert witness in litigation involving autism, Shaken Baby Syndrome, and vaccine injury, and he doesn't believe the Garvey twins were child abuse victims.
"Twins are an abnormal pregnancy, anyway," Yazbak said. "So that comes with its own set of risks. There also could have been (brain) hemorrhaging at birth, or a vitamin deficiency – a lack of Vitamin C, D or K – or a metabolic problem.
All of this could have caused bruising and bleeding. Or it could have been the vaccines the twins had just before the boy died."
A key factor in Liam's condition was his still elevated bilirubin levels.
"He also had coagulopathy (a bleeding disorder that prevents the blood from clotting properly), and elevated liver function levels," Dr. Yazbak said.
"If you look at all the information, you'll see that it just doesn't stand to science. For example, the girl – they said she had multiple fractures all over her body, including two or more in the same place. But that's medically and mechanically impossible.
"Then later, X-rays showed that her body had healed only a month later. It had to be a metabolic syndrome disorder, a type of vitamin deficiency, because bone fractures don't heal that way. They were lesions, not fractures."
History is full of examples like this, Yazbak said, such as the British au pair accused of shaking the child she was caring for in 1997. A recent case he's worked on is that of a couple whose baby was taken by CPS even though there were a multitude of reasons, including possible adverse reactions to vaccinations, to explain the findings.
"Then the state went ahead and continued the vaccinations, and the baby had a subdural (hemorrhaging) again. What's interesting is that, like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) this always seems to happen when babies are 2, 4 and 6 months old – the same age as when they get their vaccines", Yazbak said.
"I am very much an infectious disease man, and very much for vaccines. But why not admit vaccine dangers, that some babies can be injured like this, instead of this shaken baby nonsense?
This is the only crime in the world where you're presumed guilty. Many of these parents are perfectly innocent."
Sadly, the true tragedy is that more and more parents are being accused of shaking their babies. That's why you need to know how to protect yourself before it happens to you.
Prenatal Prevention and after Baby Arrives
Dr. David Ayoub is a clinical radiologist and physician whose work I admire. Most recently, I interviewed Dr. Ayoub about the relationship between aluminum – an adjuvant in vaccines – and Alzheimer's, ADHD, and autism.
But Dr. Ayoub also has extensive experience in distinguishing true fractures from lesions caused by vitamin deficiencies such as rickets.
"There is a high prevalence of D deficiency in mothers," Dr. Ayoub said. "In fact, studies show that only one-third of caucasian babies are born with normal D levels. With African American babies, only 5 percent are normal."
"Then with twins, there is increased pressure on the mom to have enough calcium to get to the bones," he said. "And, definitely twins restrict fetal movement, so there also is a 25 percent higher risk of rickets. "There are also other questions to address, for example, was the mother on anti-acids? An excessive amount of anti-acids can reduce the absorption of calcium and Vitamin D."
For new mothers, Ayoub offers several ways to recognize and address possible vitamin deficiencies:
• Look for muscle weakening. The uterus is a muscle. Women who go into labor but can't deliver is a classic sign of possible vitamin deficiency, Ayoub said. "Then Pitocin is given, and that can crush the placenta and possibly cause rib fractures to the babies in utero," he said.
• The need for Caesarean sections also is a sign of muscle weakness and vitamin deficiency.
• Bacterial vaginosis, pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, and musculoskeletal pains also are signs.
"Infection is a hallmark of Vitamin D deficiency," Dr. Ayoub said.
"And then there's the hepatitis B vaccine, which uses aluminum hydroxide as its adjuvant, and which can cause vitamin deficiency."
The Garvey twins received the hepatitis vaccine shortly before Liam died. When they came home, both their eyes were bloodshot, Sarah Garvey said. According to Ayoub, this is one of the signs of aluminum toxicity.
"Aluminum hydroxide is a known cause of rickets," Ayoub said.
"It's well-known that excessive aluminum exposure will cause bone damage. It's also known to impair platelet formation, and to cause Vitamin C and K deficiencies."
Other signs of aluminum toxicity are bleeding everywhere, including delayed bleeding in the head, like Liam had. The bleeding is delayed because the shot is injected into the muscle, which causes the absorption of the aluminum to take longer.
"And if he was jaundiced, the risk would have been even greater," Ayoub said. "In my opinion, this is medical negligence, giving this child this vaccine."
Ayoub has a case right now that involves twins with a similar history as the Garvey babies. "And it's rickets, not child abuse," he said. In a case similar to the Garvey baby's, a chilling commentary was recently made by a local newspaper in Savannah, Georgia, where a young couple is still reeling from the nightmare of being falsely accused of shaking their baby.
According to SavannahNow:
"Pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. David M. Wrubel of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta sees about 50 babies a month, if not more, who show the signs of shaken baby syndrome. He said it's rare that the cases turn out to be something else.
"'Unfortunately, with the majority of cases, it's shaken baby syndrome or some other type of abuse,' Wrubel said. 'There are always the unusual cases, such as chronic subdurals. That does happen, but not frequently.'"
In this case, the anonymous couple was cleared of wrong-doing, and their baby – which was premature and born weighing less than 3 ½ pounds – was properly diagnosed as having chronic subdural hematomas.
However, to get to that point, the couple went through unfathomable amounts of agony and more than $60,000 proving their innocence! I can't tell from the commentary whether this newspaper was trying to show sympathy for the couple or for the system that presumes parents guilty until proven innocent.
But I do know there's something not quite right about an Atlanta neurologist's quote that SavannahNow includes in its article – that he sees "50 babies a month, if not more, who show the signs of SBS or some other type of abuse."
"Unfortunately, with the majority of cases, it's shaken baby syndrome or some other type of abuse,'' Dr. David Wrubel told SavannahNow. "There are always the unusual cases, such as chronic subdurals. That does happen, but not frequently."
FIFTY a month? Or more? All with shaken baby symptoms? This is a chilling statement, especially when you consider that Dr. Wrubel apparently is not all that open to the idea that babies can be – and are – harmed by other conditions.
And that's the problem here – that specialists and health officials have the preconceived notion that anything other than Shaken Baby Syndrome could cause these symptoms.
What Can You Do to Ensure that Your Baby Won't Become an SBS Statistic?
So what can you do to keep these same things from happening to you?
First, Ayoub said, have your vitamin levels checked, so you can know what type of supplements to take, and how much. Sarah Garvey didn't know until her second pregnancy that she was Vitamin D deficient – a critical clue to what was most likely a contributor to her twins' problems.
"It's absolutely stunning, the link between Vitamin D deficiency and things like asthma, arthritis, heart disease, and many auto-immune diseases," Ayoub said.
Since most physicians don't automatically add this to your blood work, it's up to you to request it.
"And then at birth, my suggestion is to take away the hepatitis B shot, and give your babies Vitamin D instead," Ayoub said.
Other things you can do are:
• Make sure you know your babies' vitamin levels; again, that means requesting that your pediatrician check them
• Keep a diary of everything that happens to you during your pregnancy and after. Note your own vitamin levels, as well as any events that could trigger injuries to your baby
• Visit the National Vaccine Information Center's website at nvic.org for information on your rights when it comes to vaccinating your baby, and how to request either a vaccine exemption/waiver or how to request a revised vaccine schedule for your baby
• If your baby dies unexpectedly, demand an autopsy immediately. Don't allow heparin or other drugs to be used for organ harvesting, and make sure that vitamin levels as well as aluminum and other heavy metals, such as mercury, are checked during the autopsy. Also ask that the autopsy include a check for various diseases that could have caused your baby's death.
If the Worst Happens, What Do You Do?
Kim Hart is a trial strategist and facilitator who has been assisting attorneys in defending persons accused of child abuse for more than 18 years. The most important advice Hart has for you is that, when the worst happens and you are falsely accused of hurting your child, get help right away.
A website, falseallegations.org, can guide you in the right direction.
Or, you can contact Hart directly through her website. The important thing is, don’t do anything without talking to an attorney who has extensive experience in this area first.
“When the EMTs are called, it’s already labeled as child abuse,” Hart said. “It’s difficult because at that point parents want to give anything they can to help find out what happened. But you shouldn’t say anything until you’ve talked to someone with experience in this.”
Work to Change the Law
First, I want to stress that I abhor child abuse of any kind. I know that it's true that some parents do abuse their children, and there are some who even kill them. But parents falsely accused of killing their babies is a travesty that knows no bounds. More and more, parents who are grieving over the death of a child are being twice-struck with orders to 'fess up and admit' they hurt their children.
A double tragedy, though, is that a federal law meant to protect children is the impetus behind this zealousness.
Enacted in 1974, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) is set to renew in 2011. Proposed amendments to the act call for more than $2 billion in additional funding, and for special legislation called the Shaken Baby Syndrome Prevention Act.
The money is for things like investigative services and parenting education. But it has no provision or funding for education programs addressing the possibility that anything other than shaking could cause the types of injuries we've discussed here.
"This is a much bigger problem than just bringing attention to it," Hart said. "This legislation tells states to develop registries and require mandatory reporting. It also provides them immunity from lawsuits if they make a mistake in accusing you."
False allegations are always going to be a problem until this 'good faith' immunity is removed from the legislation, and that's going to take some work, Hart added.
Both Hart and I, as well as Drs. Ayoub and Yazbak know this is not an easy fix. But it is something we can work on together, and that is why I'm pledging to continue calling attention to this injustice.
In the meantime, I'm hoping that this information will give new parents the help you need to protect yourself, should the worst happen.
Related Links:
Major Problems with the Vaccine Procedure
Dad Freed from Life Sentence in Son’s Death
Dr. Mercola’s Vitamin D Resource Page
Posted By Dr. Mercola Dr. F. Edward Yazbak is a pioneer and advocate for child safety in an area that most people are completely unaware of, namely cases where vitamin deficiencies are mistaken for Shaken Baby Syndrome. There's tremendous legal injustice going on in this area, and it can happen to anyone.
If you're pregnant, planning a pregnancy, or have young children, you won't want to miss this crucial discussion!
Sources:
NPR February 9, 2011
Video Transcript
Congratulations!
You're a new parent or parent-to-be, and you're doing everything you can to make sure your new family member is as healthy as can be. From prenatal classes to natural childbirth to breast-feeding and even choosing infant-friendly bedding and toys, you're on the right track to bringing up baby in the best way possible.
Or are you?
Sarah Garvey's Heartbreaking Story: Could this Happen to You?
Sarah Garvey was 24 when she gave birth to twins in Massachusetts in October 2006. This had been her first pregnancy, and repeated ultrasounds had revealed problems with one of the twins.
"They need to be born as soon as possible," Sarah's OB-GYN told her, so she checked in to a hospital the next day, a Friday, to have her labor induced.
As Pitocin – a hormone that causes uterine contractions – dripped into her bloodstream, she never could have imagined that in just a few weeks, she and her babies' father, Jamaal Williams, not only would be burying the little boy that was about to be born, but would be accused of killing him, and of nearly killing his twin sister.
How did this happen?
What did this young couple do that triggered a nightmare that they're still living today?
Even though they've never been arrested or formally charged with harming their children, Massachusetts child protective services (CPS) say Sarah and Jamaal shook their babies, causing their brains to hemorrhage, breaking their bones, and inflicting injuries so severe that the little boy, Liam, died.
His twin sister, Paige, survived and social workers took her into custody. When the couple had another daughter, Melina, this past May, CPS took her too, at birth.
Today, the grieving parents deny any wrong-doing, and Massachusetts authorities have yet to charge them with anything. Yet CPS continues to refuse to give the little girls back. It sounds incredible. How can you not be charged with a crime, yet be treated as if you were guilty of it?
The shocking answer is that this is something that CAN, and does, happen to hundreds of unsuspecting parents across the U.S. every year. It's called Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), sometimes referred to as abusive head trauma (AHT) or non-accidental head trauma.
Shaken Baby Syndrome, or Something Entirely Different?
For more than 30 years, the "triad" of injuries that define SBS have been retinal hemorrhages, bleeding around the brain, and brain swelling that have been caused by shaking a baby.
Other SBS injuries include blood spots in the eyes, lethargy, semi-consciousness, seizures, vomiting, extreme irritability, bruises on the body, and broken bones. According to Massachusetts Citizens for Children, this form of "child abuse" is reported at least 4,000 times a year in pediatric hospitals across the U.S.
Of that number, approximately 1,300 experience severe or fatal injuries.
The National Shaken Baby Coalition claims that a baby "can fall three stories and not get as seriously injured as a shaken baby," and proponents of SBS legislation and prosecution argue vehemently that absolutely nothing but shaking a baby can cause these injuries.
But what these self-proclaimed child advocates don't say is that these same symptoms can appear with other serious medical conditions, including adverse reactions to vaccines, as well as vitamin deficiencies.
That's right.
According to vaccine manufacturers' package inserts, any one or combination of the vaccines given at an infant's 2-month check-up can cause severe adverse reactions such as encephalopathy (brain damage), thrombocytopenia (bruising and bleeding on the brain, and/or hemorrhaging), and hyptonic-hyporesponsive episodes (muscle limpness and unresponsiveness) – all symptoms of Shaken Baby Syndrome!
Numerous studies have also shown that deficiencies in Vitamin C, D, and K can result in conditions that mimic SBS, including the appearance of broken bones in an X-ray!
Undetected injuries at birth can also cause intracranial hematomas,but you don't hear that from SBS zealots bent on convicting a parent of child abuse when a baby shows up at a hospital with these types of symptoms. So how do states and child protective services distinguish which is which?
They don't.
They simply assume that any baby that presents with these symptoms has been shaken, and parents or caregivers are the ones presumed guilty of doing it. Case closed, no further investigation required.
Admit it: You Killed Your Baby
Like Sarah and Jamaal, in most cases, grieving parents accused of this horrendous crime steadfastly deny harming their children, either accidentally or intentionally.
But, unlike Sarah and Jamaal, many of these parents are sitting in jail, either awaiting trial for, or convicted of, killing their babies.
What's tragic is that it's very possible that if these jailed parents, or Sarah and Jamaal, had known what I'm about to share with you here, that they may have been able to not only defend themselves before authorities could accuse them of shaking their babies, but perhaps even saved their babies' lives.
What's most important is that every parent needs to know this information almost from conception, or at the very least, before their baby is born.
Like most mothers-to-be, Sarah placed all her trust in her attending physicians and the hospital where she checked in that fateful day to have her labor induced. What she didn't realize was that a whole series of events was about to go wrong, beginning with the day she checked in – a Friday.
Studies show that Fridays and weekends are the worst days to schedule medical procedures of any kind, primarily because of lower staff levels. Sarah found this out too late.
As I mentioned earlier, the reason Sarah's labor was being induced was because her OB-GYN had determined that her babies needed to be born right away.
But when the babies still hadn't made their appearance by Saturday morning, the weekend nurses turned off the labor-inducing Pitocin, telling Sarah they didn't have enough staff to deliver twins on the weekend!
That's right. Hospital staff decided that Sarah's twins could wait until Monday, even though her personal physician had said on Thursday that the babies were in danger, and needed to be delivered as soon as possible!
From there, it was all downhill for Sarah and her babies as they went through the following events which either should have not happened at all, or should have been addressed differently:
• Both babies developed jaundice and Liam's bilirubin was significantly elevated
• Both twins were given multiple vaccines on their 2-month check-ups, including hepatitis B, even though Liam’s condition should have warranted waiting on his shots;
• Once Liam stopped breathing three days later, emergency workers quickly assumed that he had been shaken, and their suspicions were confirmed by a Child Protection Expert who had not personally examined him;
• No one ever considered possible vitamin-deficiency-related problems, or possible other problems, even though an emergency room physician suggested that the multiple broken bones they both had could have been caused by Osteogenesis Imperfecta –also known as “Brittle Bone Disease” or “Lobstein Syndrome,” a genetic bone disorder
• Liam was given large doses of heparin (in anticipation of taking his organs for donation), which can cause excessive bleeding, and skew autopsy results
This is just a short list of what happened to Liam and Paige. And, as I said, even though the state has never charged Sarah and Jamaal with hurting their children, CPS assumes they did.
"They just keep telling us this is an ongoing homicide investigation, and that we won't get our daughters back until we tell them who shook the twins, when, and how," Sarah said. "They keep saying, 'Admit it. You killed your baby.' But there's nothing to confess – we didn't do anything."
If it Can Happen to Anyone, How Can You Protect Yourself – and Your Child?
Dr. Edward Yazbak is has spent the past 10 years following SBS and autism cases, and conducting research on the relationship between the proliferation of multiple vaccines and vaccine adverse events.
He's also an expert witness in litigation involving autism, Shaken Baby Syndrome, and vaccine injury, and he doesn't believe the Garvey twins were child abuse victims.
"Twins are an abnormal pregnancy, anyway," Yazbak said. "So that comes with its own set of risks. There also could have been (brain) hemorrhaging at birth, or a vitamin deficiency – a lack of Vitamin C, D or K – or a metabolic problem.
All of this could have caused bruising and bleeding. Or it could have been the vaccines the twins had just before the boy died."
A key factor in Liam's condition was his still elevated bilirubin levels.
"He also had coagulopathy (a bleeding disorder that prevents the blood from clotting properly), and elevated liver function levels," Dr. Yazbak said.
"If you look at all the information, you'll see that it just doesn't stand to science. For example, the girl – they said she had multiple fractures all over her body, including two or more in the same place. But that's medically and mechanically impossible.
"Then later, X-rays showed that her body had healed only a month later. It had to be a metabolic syndrome disorder, a type of vitamin deficiency, because bone fractures don't heal that way. They were lesions, not fractures."
History is full of examples like this, Yazbak said, such as the British au pair accused of shaking the child she was caring for in 1997. A recent case he's worked on is that of a couple whose baby was taken by CPS even though there were a multitude of reasons, including possible adverse reactions to vaccinations, to explain the findings.
"Then the state went ahead and continued the vaccinations, and the baby had a subdural (hemorrhaging) again. What's interesting is that, like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) this always seems to happen when babies are 2, 4 and 6 months old – the same age as when they get their vaccines", Yazbak said.
"I am very much an infectious disease man, and very much for vaccines. But why not admit vaccine dangers, that some babies can be injured like this, instead of this shaken baby nonsense?
This is the only crime in the world where you're presumed guilty. Many of these parents are perfectly innocent."
Sadly, the true tragedy is that more and more parents are being accused of shaking their babies. That's why you need to know how to protect yourself before it happens to you.
Prenatal Prevention and after Baby Arrives
Dr. David Ayoub is a clinical radiologist and physician whose work I admire. Most recently, I interviewed Dr. Ayoub about the relationship between aluminum – an adjuvant in vaccines – and Alzheimer's, ADHD, and autism.
But Dr. Ayoub also has extensive experience in distinguishing true fractures from lesions caused by vitamin deficiencies such as rickets.
"There is a high prevalence of D deficiency in mothers," Dr. Ayoub said. "In fact, studies show that only one-third of caucasian babies are born with normal D levels. With African American babies, only 5 percent are normal."
"Then with twins, there is increased pressure on the mom to have enough calcium to get to the bones," he said. "And, definitely twins restrict fetal movement, so there also is a 25 percent higher risk of rickets. "There are also other questions to address, for example, was the mother on anti-acids? An excessive amount of anti-acids can reduce the absorption of calcium and Vitamin D."
For new mothers, Ayoub offers several ways to recognize and address possible vitamin deficiencies:
• Look for muscle weakening. The uterus is a muscle. Women who go into labor but can't deliver is a classic sign of possible vitamin deficiency, Ayoub said. "Then Pitocin is given, and that can crush the placenta and possibly cause rib fractures to the babies in utero," he said.
• The need for Caesarean sections also is a sign of muscle weakness and vitamin deficiency.
• Bacterial vaginosis, pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, and musculoskeletal pains also are signs.
"Infection is a hallmark of Vitamin D deficiency," Dr. Ayoub said.
"And then there's the hepatitis B vaccine, which uses aluminum hydroxide as its adjuvant, and which can cause vitamin deficiency."
The Garvey twins received the hepatitis vaccine shortly before Liam died. When they came home, both their eyes were bloodshot, Sarah Garvey said. According to Ayoub, this is one of the signs of aluminum toxicity.
"Aluminum hydroxide is a known cause of rickets," Ayoub said.
"It's well-known that excessive aluminum exposure will cause bone damage. It's also known to impair platelet formation, and to cause Vitamin C and K deficiencies."
Other signs of aluminum toxicity are bleeding everywhere, including delayed bleeding in the head, like Liam had. The bleeding is delayed because the shot is injected into the muscle, which causes the absorption of the aluminum to take longer.
"And if he was jaundiced, the risk would have been even greater," Ayoub said. "In my opinion, this is medical negligence, giving this child this vaccine."
Ayoub has a case right now that involves twins with a similar history as the Garvey babies. "And it's rickets, not child abuse," he said. In a case similar to the Garvey baby's, a chilling commentary was recently made by a local newspaper in Savannah, Georgia, where a young couple is still reeling from the nightmare of being falsely accused of shaking their baby.
According to SavannahNow:
"Pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. David M. Wrubel of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta sees about 50 babies a month, if not more, who show the signs of shaken baby syndrome. He said it's rare that the cases turn out to be something else.
"'Unfortunately, with the majority of cases, it's shaken baby syndrome or some other type of abuse,' Wrubel said. 'There are always the unusual cases, such as chronic subdurals. That does happen, but not frequently.'"
In this case, the anonymous couple was cleared of wrong-doing, and their baby – which was premature and born weighing less than 3 ½ pounds – was properly diagnosed as having chronic subdural hematomas.
However, to get to that point, the couple went through unfathomable amounts of agony and more than $60,000 proving their innocence! I can't tell from the commentary whether this newspaper was trying to show sympathy for the couple or for the system that presumes parents guilty until proven innocent.
But I do know there's something not quite right about an Atlanta neurologist's quote that SavannahNow includes in its article – that he sees "50 babies a month, if not more, who show the signs of SBS or some other type of abuse."
"Unfortunately, with the majority of cases, it's shaken baby syndrome or some other type of abuse,'' Dr. David Wrubel told SavannahNow. "There are always the unusual cases, such as chronic subdurals. That does happen, but not frequently."
FIFTY a month? Or more? All with shaken baby symptoms? This is a chilling statement, especially when you consider that Dr. Wrubel apparently is not all that open to the idea that babies can be – and are – harmed by other conditions.
And that's the problem here – that specialists and health officials have the preconceived notion that anything other than Shaken Baby Syndrome could cause these symptoms.
What Can You Do to Ensure that Your Baby Won't Become an SBS Statistic?
So what can you do to keep these same things from happening to you?
First, Ayoub said, have your vitamin levels checked, so you can know what type of supplements to take, and how much. Sarah Garvey didn't know until her second pregnancy that she was Vitamin D deficient – a critical clue to what was most likely a contributor to her twins' problems.
"It's absolutely stunning, the link between Vitamin D deficiency and things like asthma, arthritis, heart disease, and many auto-immune diseases," Ayoub said.
Since most physicians don't automatically add this to your blood work, it's up to you to request it.
"And then at birth, my suggestion is to take away the hepatitis B shot, and give your babies Vitamin D instead," Ayoub said.
Other things you can do are:
• Make sure you know your babies' vitamin levels; again, that means requesting that your pediatrician check them
• Keep a diary of everything that happens to you during your pregnancy and after. Note your own vitamin levels, as well as any events that could trigger injuries to your baby
• Visit the National Vaccine Information Center's website at nvic.org for information on your rights when it comes to vaccinating your baby, and how to request either a vaccine exemption/waiver or how to request a revised vaccine schedule for your baby
• If your baby dies unexpectedly, demand an autopsy immediately. Don't allow heparin or other drugs to be used for organ harvesting, and make sure that vitamin levels as well as aluminum and other heavy metals, such as mercury, are checked during the autopsy. Also ask that the autopsy include a check for various diseases that could have caused your baby's death.
If the Worst Happens, What Do You Do?
Kim Hart is a trial strategist and facilitator who has been assisting attorneys in defending persons accused of child abuse for more than 18 years. The most important advice Hart has for you is that, when the worst happens and you are falsely accused of hurting your child, get help right away.
A website, falseallegations.org, can guide you in the right direction.
Or, you can contact Hart directly through her website. The important thing is, don’t do anything without talking to an attorney who has extensive experience in this area first.
“When the EMTs are called, it’s already labeled as child abuse,” Hart said. “It’s difficult because at that point parents want to give anything they can to help find out what happened. But you shouldn’t say anything until you’ve talked to someone with experience in this.”
Work to Change the Law
First, I want to stress that I abhor child abuse of any kind. I know that it's true that some parents do abuse their children, and there are some who even kill them. But parents falsely accused of killing their babies is a travesty that knows no bounds. More and more, parents who are grieving over the death of a child are being twice-struck with orders to 'fess up and admit' they hurt their children.
A double tragedy, though, is that a federal law meant to protect children is the impetus behind this zealousness.
Enacted in 1974, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) is set to renew in 2011. Proposed amendments to the act call for more than $2 billion in additional funding, and for special legislation called the Shaken Baby Syndrome Prevention Act.
The money is for things like investigative services and parenting education. But it has no provision or funding for education programs addressing the possibility that anything other than shaking could cause the types of injuries we've discussed here.
"This is a much bigger problem than just bringing attention to it," Hart said. "This legislation tells states to develop registries and require mandatory reporting. It also provides them immunity from lawsuits if they make a mistake in accusing you."
False allegations are always going to be a problem until this 'good faith' immunity is removed from the legislation, and that's going to take some work, Hart added.
Both Hart and I, as well as Drs. Ayoub and Yazbak know this is not an easy fix. But it is something we can work on together, and that is why I'm pledging to continue calling attention to this injustice.
In the meantime, I'm hoping that this information will give new parents the help you need to protect yourself, should the worst happen.
Related Links:
Major Problems with the Vaccine Procedure
Dad Freed from Life Sentence in Son’s Death
Dr. Mercola’s Vitamin D Resource Page
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Moms and Nurses, get the facts
Give Your Child a Dose of This Popular Remedy - and You Could Double Their Mortality Rate
In many countries, government officials and drug companies aggressively resist conducting studies that compare the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated children. But such studies have been conducted in Africa.
One such study, from Guinea-Bissau, shows a doubling of the mortality rate among infants vaccinated with a single dose of DTP vaccine. The mortality rate more than quadrupled after the second and third dose.
According to Age of Autism:
"VAERS data also show high infant mortality in the U.S. after DTP vaccination (much higher than from pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus together, hence it is clear that DTP vaccine is harming more children than saving."
A safety panel is convening in Japan to investigate the connection between two widely used vaccines -- Pfizer's Prevenar and Sanofi Pasteur's ActHIB -- and the deaths of five children in the past month. Japan's health ministry has ordered doctors to stop immunizing infants with the vaccines while investigation proceeds.
The vaccines are commonly given to infants around the world.
CNN reports:
"Pfizer estimates it has distributed more than 360 million doses of [Prevenar], which is available in more than 100 countries around the world and part of the routine childhood immunization schedule in more than 50 countries. In Japan, 2 million doses have been administered."
However, on March 8, Market Watch reported that the panel had concluded the vaccines did not cause any of the infant deaths. They did however "request data on the safety of giving multiple vaccines simultaneously and more analysis of the cases," Bloomberg reports.
In similar news, five infants died after being vaccinated for measles at Gandhidhams Rambaugh Hospital in India earlier this month. Three additional infants are said to be in serious condition.
The Times of India reports:
'The entire stock of this vaccine in the state has been withdrawn pending lab tests and measles vaccination in the district has been stopped till further notice. Following the deaths at 10 am, people went berserk breaking furniture and fixtures and beating up Dr Abhishek Makwana, who was on duty. Four infants died within minutes of being vaccinated by two female health workers while one infant died after an hour."
Sources:
Age of Autism February 23, 2011
CNN March 8, 2011
International Journal of Epidemiology April 2004;33(2):374-80
Tropical Medicine and International Health January 2007;12(1):15-24
BBC News January 4, 2011
The Times of India March 17, 2011
MarketWatch March 8, 2011
Bloomberg March 8, 2011
Age of Autism brings forth some very interesting research that has been mostly ignored by conventional media, namely the difference in mortality rates between vaccinated versus unvaccinated children.
Most countries have neglected to do this type of important research—perhaps in fear of what the results might reveal—but a couple of studies have been done in Guinea-Bissau, Africa.
The results were disturbing.
Single Dose of DTP Vaccine Doubled Mortality Rate in African Infants
The first study, published in 2004, found that the mortality rate among infants vaccinated with a single dose of DTP (diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus) vaccine doubled over the six months following vaccination, and the mortality rate more than quadrupled after the second and third dose.
The research team, led by Dr. Aaby, concluded that:
"In low-income countries with high mortality, DTP as the last vaccine received may be associated with slightly increased mortality… The role of DTP in high mortality areas needs to be clarified."
Scientific Bias Explains Divergent Results on Survival Outcomes Post-DTP Vaccination
Three years later, Dr. Aaby published a review of the available research in the journal Tropical Medicine and International Health, stating:
"Observational studies of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine from longitudinal study sites have reported divergent effects on child survival, ranging from 10-fold reduction to three-fold increased mortality.
None of these studies had complete information on DTP vaccinations from both survivors and children who died. We reviewed the data analysis methodology to assess whether methodological differences could explain the divergent results.
… Seven studies using a case-control design or a landmark approach found a negative effect of DTP on child survival. Eight of nine survival analyses with retrospective updating of vaccination status reported a beneficial effect.
This beneficial effect of DTP increased with the length of the interval between data collection visits. Studies with long interval between visits had very high mortality rates among unvaccinated children, low mortality rate ratios for vaccinated compared with unvaccinated children, and strongly beneficial estimates of DTP."
They concluded that these divergent results were at least in part due to methodological differences.
"To assess the impact on mortality of routine vaccinations, observational study designs which minimize the effect of bias are warranted," the authors said, adding that "randomized trials should be considered."
Bias skewing medical research is nothing new, although it is rarely discussed. Last year I interviewed Dana Ullman, MPH about this troublesome fact.
How Scientific is "the Scientific Method" Really?
Personally, I'm a big believer in the scientific method, provided it's applied appropriately and not biased by conflict of interest. And that's the key issue. Much of the scientific research that ends up being published is biased, prejudiced and littered with conflicts of interest. So it's no major surprise to find that differences in methodology would produce such conflicting results when looking at the mortality of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children.
Dr. Marcia Angell, the former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has spoken out about the pervasiveness of scientific bias—and worse. In her book The Truth about Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It, she exposes many examples of why medical studies often cannot be trusted, stating that:
"Trials can be rigged in a dozen ways, and it happens all the time."
Likewise, in an essay published in PLoS Medicine in 2005, Dr. John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Ioannina School of Medicine, Greece, claims there is less than a 50 percent chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper will be true.
Three years later, Dr. Ioannidis again showed that much of scientific research being published is highly questionable. According to his study:
"Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true."
He noted problems with experimental and statistical methods as the main culprits, including factors such as small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias and selective reporting.
Dr. Aaby's review of studies on mortality post-vaccination does not mention whether the source of funding had any impact on the results, but that's a very important consideration as well. Typically, independently funded studies are more prone to discover potential problems with the drug, while studies funded by the pharmaceutical industry tend to have favorable findings.
"Explosive Findings" Ignored
BBC 4 radio first aired a program titled The Vaccine Detectives, featuring Dr. Aaby's research into vaccinated versus unvaccinated children in Guinea Bissau in October 2010. The program was rebroadcast in January 2011
Interestingly, the second time, it aired the same week Dr. Wakefield was again being viciously attacked for his 1998 MMR study and the media feverishly tried to convince everyone that vaccines are perfectly safe and essential for public health. Needless to say, no other major media outlets picked up on this BBC report and so there has been virtually no awareness in America.
The accompanying article The Vaccine Casebook, introduced Dr. Aaby and his research team and summarized the program as follows:
"... [A] team of Danish and African medical sleuths have pieced together evidence that could change public health care forever. They have discovered that vaccines and vitamin supplements have unexpected effects - good and bad - on the immune systems of children.
It's the first time a British journalist has visited the Bandim health surveillance unit, where Dr Peter Aaby and his team has toiled for more than 30 years - through wars, natural disasters and epidemics... Their health detective work has generated more than 600 scholarly articles in the world's leading medical journals, and been responsible for the withdrawal of a potentially deadly measles vaccine by the World Health Organisation.
But the WHO has not acted on the most explosive findings yet coming from Guinea Bissau.
They show that the world's most commonly used vaccines can strengthen - or weaken - a child's immune system in the long term, and affect their ability to fight off disease. The results directly challenge the WHO's global health advice, followed by most countries in the developing world, and could mean that thousands of young lives, in Africa and beyond, are needlessly at risk.
We'll hear from some of world's most respected public health scientists who back Aaby's findings. The documentary also asks why the WHO has not yet acted on the evidence generated so far. And whether safety tests for new vaccines and vitamin supplements, heavily promoted by donor agencies and pharmaceutical companies alike, are sufficiently far-reaching."
Vaccine Studies are Too Short to Evaluate Health Outcomes
In that radio program, Dr. Aaby also discussed another interesting finding. One of his health projects had been selected by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a test site in the 1980's for a new high titer measles vaccine that could be given to infants younger than 12 months. After a typically short trial run, the high titer measles vaccine, which was given in infants in addition to DPT vaccine, appeared to be a success. But Dr. Aaby decided to continue evaluating the children over a longer term.
What did he find?
While the new measles vaccine appeared effective in the short term, over time the girl children who had been vaccinated were dying at a much higher rate than those who did not receive it.
Fortunately, the WHO accepted his findings and withdrew the high titer measles vaccine from use, reverting back to using the older measles vaccine that was given along with DPT.
That clearly raises the question of whether vaccine studies are conducted long enough to evaluate the true risks and benefits, especially when used in combination with other vaccines. In most cases the answer would undeniably be no, as the long-term effects are very rarely studied.
Three Vaccines Recently Connected with Infant Deaths
In related news, a Japanese safety panel is now investigating the connection between Pfizer's Prevnar and Sanofi Pasteur's ActHIB vaccines and the deaths of five young children. Japan's health ministry has ordered doctors to stop immunizing infants with the vaccines until the investigation is completed.
Prevnar, which is used against pneumonia and meningitis, is commonly used in more than 100 countries around the world, and is part of the routine childhood immunization schedule in more than 50 countries. ActHIB prevents infection with the Haemophilius influenza.
According to CNN:
"The U.S. Food and Drug administration said it was aware of the suspensions in Japan, but "physicians assessing vaccine safety at the FDA and CDC have not detected new safety concerns" related to the vaccines."
This is not the first time Prevnar has come under scrutiny. I began reporting the potential dangers of this vaccine some 10 years ago, when the vaccine was first approved. Back in 2000, Dr. Erdem Cantekin, Ph.D. Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Pittsburgh stated that the alleged benefits of Prevnar are "greatly exaggerated, and the risks are significant."
Prevnar is in fact a perfect example of a vaccine that was not appropriately studied before being released to the public.
For example, the HMO trial in which Prevnar was approved had NO placebo group. Instead, the control group received another experimental vaccine for mennigococcus, and this was the ONLY trial done to establish the safety and efficacy of this vaccine for every newborn in the US!
In addition to the Japanese deaths, five infants died after being vaccinated for measles at Gandhidhams Rambaugh Hospital in India earlier this month. Three additional infants are said to be in serious condition.
The Times of India reported that:
'The entire stock of this vaccine in the state has been withdrawn pending lab tests and measles vaccination in the district has been stopped till further notice.
Following the deaths at 10 am, people went berserk breaking furniture and fixtures and beating up Dr Abhishek Makwana, who was on duty. Four infants died within minutes of being vaccinated by two female health workers while one infant died after an hour
Not surprisingly however, on March 8, Market Watch reported that the panel had concluded the vaccines did not cause any of the infant deaths. They did however "request data on the safety of giving multiple vaccines simultaneously and more analysis of the cases," according to a Bloomberg report.
The Bottom Line
A number of things are clear:
1. There are risks inherent with all vaccines
2. Long-term health outcomes post-vaccination are typically not studied
3. When you or your child is injured by a vaccine, the risks are 100 percent, and you will have to deal with the consequences on your own, because those who make and give vaccines are protected from liability in civil court, and federal vaccine injury compensation is very difficult to get.
What's worse, a U.S. Supreme Court recently decided to give drug companies total liability protection for injuries and deaths caused by government mandated vaccines.
It's important to realize that there's no guarantee that a vaccine will, in fact, protect against an infectious disease. Nor is it a given that exposure to an infectious disease will cause a complication, injury or death.
In the end, good health is about so much more than vaccination and preventing experience with infectious disease—it's about having a robust, well-functioning immune system, as that is your first line of defense.
Know Your Rights—Exercise Free Choice
The right to informed consent to medical risk-taking is a human right, and empowering yourself with information and taking responsible action to protect the right to exercise voluntary, informed consent to vaccination in America is one of the most important actions you can take as a citizen to protect health freedom.
Don't let anyone force you or your child to take a vaccine without your voluntary, informed consent. If a doctor denies you or your child medical care because of your vaccine choices, find another doctor. If a doctor threatens you, or if a government official denies a medical or religious exemption that you have legally filed, find an attorney to help you. If you don't like the vaccine laws in your state, contact your elected officials and work to change them.
Together, we can educate the public and reform vaccine laws in America to protect the right to make informed, voluntary vaccination decisions for ourselves and our children.
To help accomplish this, I urge you to please join the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). It's the largest, oldest and most experienced vaccine safety and informed consent watchdog in America.
By signing up for the NVIC's free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org, you can learn how to effectively participate in the democratic legislative process and defend vaccine exemptions in your state laws.
Related Links:
Latest Vaccine News
STOP! Read This Before Vaccinating for Anything
Prevnar, Pneumococcal (Strep) Vaccine Does NOT Prevent Ear Infections and Has Major Side Effects
In many countries, government officials and drug companies aggressively resist conducting studies that compare the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated children. But such studies have been conducted in Africa.
One such study, from Guinea-Bissau, shows a doubling of the mortality rate among infants vaccinated with a single dose of DTP vaccine. The mortality rate more than quadrupled after the second and third dose.
According to Age of Autism:
"VAERS data also show high infant mortality in the U.S. after DTP vaccination (much higher than from pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus together, hence it is clear that DTP vaccine is harming more children than saving."
A safety panel is convening in Japan to investigate the connection between two widely used vaccines -- Pfizer's Prevenar and Sanofi Pasteur's ActHIB -- and the deaths of five children in the past month. Japan's health ministry has ordered doctors to stop immunizing infants with the vaccines while investigation proceeds.
The vaccines are commonly given to infants around the world.
CNN reports:
"Pfizer estimates it has distributed more than 360 million doses of [Prevenar], which is available in more than 100 countries around the world and part of the routine childhood immunization schedule in more than 50 countries. In Japan, 2 million doses have been administered."
However, on March 8, Market Watch reported that the panel had concluded the vaccines did not cause any of the infant deaths. They did however "request data on the safety of giving multiple vaccines simultaneously and more analysis of the cases," Bloomberg reports.
In similar news, five infants died after being vaccinated for measles at Gandhidhams Rambaugh Hospital in India earlier this month. Three additional infants are said to be in serious condition.
The Times of India reports:
'The entire stock of this vaccine in the state has been withdrawn pending lab tests and measles vaccination in the district has been stopped till further notice. Following the deaths at 10 am, people went berserk breaking furniture and fixtures and beating up Dr Abhishek Makwana, who was on duty. Four infants died within minutes of being vaccinated by two female health workers while one infant died after an hour."
Sources:
Age of Autism February 23, 2011
CNN March 8, 2011
International Journal of Epidemiology April 2004;33(2):374-80
Tropical Medicine and International Health January 2007;12(1):15-24
BBC News January 4, 2011
The Times of India March 17, 2011
MarketWatch March 8, 2011
Bloomberg March 8, 2011
Age of Autism brings forth some very interesting research that has been mostly ignored by conventional media, namely the difference in mortality rates between vaccinated versus unvaccinated children.
Most countries have neglected to do this type of important research—perhaps in fear of what the results might reveal—but a couple of studies have been done in Guinea-Bissau, Africa.
The results were disturbing.
Single Dose of DTP Vaccine Doubled Mortality Rate in African Infants
The first study, published in 2004, found that the mortality rate among infants vaccinated with a single dose of DTP (diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus) vaccine doubled over the six months following vaccination, and the mortality rate more than quadrupled after the second and third dose.
The research team, led by Dr. Aaby, concluded that:
"In low-income countries with high mortality, DTP as the last vaccine received may be associated with slightly increased mortality… The role of DTP in high mortality areas needs to be clarified."
Scientific Bias Explains Divergent Results on Survival Outcomes Post-DTP Vaccination
Three years later, Dr. Aaby published a review of the available research in the journal Tropical Medicine and International Health, stating:
"Observational studies of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine from longitudinal study sites have reported divergent effects on child survival, ranging from 10-fold reduction to three-fold increased mortality.
None of these studies had complete information on DTP vaccinations from both survivors and children who died. We reviewed the data analysis methodology to assess whether methodological differences could explain the divergent results.
… Seven studies using a case-control design or a landmark approach found a negative effect of DTP on child survival. Eight of nine survival analyses with retrospective updating of vaccination status reported a beneficial effect.
This beneficial effect of DTP increased with the length of the interval between data collection visits. Studies with long interval between visits had very high mortality rates among unvaccinated children, low mortality rate ratios for vaccinated compared with unvaccinated children, and strongly beneficial estimates of DTP."
They concluded that these divergent results were at least in part due to methodological differences.
"To assess the impact on mortality of routine vaccinations, observational study designs which minimize the effect of bias are warranted," the authors said, adding that "randomized trials should be considered."
Bias skewing medical research is nothing new, although it is rarely discussed. Last year I interviewed Dana Ullman, MPH about this troublesome fact.
How Scientific is "the Scientific Method" Really?
Personally, I'm a big believer in the scientific method, provided it's applied appropriately and not biased by conflict of interest. And that's the key issue. Much of the scientific research that ends up being published is biased, prejudiced and littered with conflicts of interest. So it's no major surprise to find that differences in methodology would produce such conflicting results when looking at the mortality of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children.
Dr. Marcia Angell, the former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has spoken out about the pervasiveness of scientific bias—and worse. In her book The Truth about Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It, she exposes many examples of why medical studies often cannot be trusted, stating that:
"Trials can be rigged in a dozen ways, and it happens all the time."
Likewise, in an essay published in PLoS Medicine in 2005, Dr. John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Ioannina School of Medicine, Greece, claims there is less than a 50 percent chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper will be true.
Three years later, Dr. Ioannidis again showed that much of scientific research being published is highly questionable. According to his study:
"Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true."
He noted problems with experimental and statistical methods as the main culprits, including factors such as small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias and selective reporting.
Dr. Aaby's review of studies on mortality post-vaccination does not mention whether the source of funding had any impact on the results, but that's a very important consideration as well. Typically, independently funded studies are more prone to discover potential problems with the drug, while studies funded by the pharmaceutical industry tend to have favorable findings.
"Explosive Findings" Ignored
BBC 4 radio first aired a program titled The Vaccine Detectives, featuring Dr. Aaby's research into vaccinated versus unvaccinated children in Guinea Bissau in October 2010. The program was rebroadcast in January 2011
Interestingly, the second time, it aired the same week Dr. Wakefield was again being viciously attacked for his 1998 MMR study and the media feverishly tried to convince everyone that vaccines are perfectly safe and essential for public health. Needless to say, no other major media outlets picked up on this BBC report and so there has been virtually no awareness in America.
The accompanying article The Vaccine Casebook, introduced Dr. Aaby and his research team and summarized the program as follows:
"... [A] team of Danish and African medical sleuths have pieced together evidence that could change public health care forever. They have discovered that vaccines and vitamin supplements have unexpected effects - good and bad - on the immune systems of children.
It's the first time a British journalist has visited the Bandim health surveillance unit, where Dr Peter Aaby and his team has toiled for more than 30 years - through wars, natural disasters and epidemics... Their health detective work has generated more than 600 scholarly articles in the world's leading medical journals, and been responsible for the withdrawal of a potentially deadly measles vaccine by the World Health Organisation.
But the WHO has not acted on the most explosive findings yet coming from Guinea Bissau.
They show that the world's most commonly used vaccines can strengthen - or weaken - a child's immune system in the long term, and affect their ability to fight off disease. The results directly challenge the WHO's global health advice, followed by most countries in the developing world, and could mean that thousands of young lives, in Africa and beyond, are needlessly at risk.
We'll hear from some of world's most respected public health scientists who back Aaby's findings. The documentary also asks why the WHO has not yet acted on the evidence generated so far. And whether safety tests for new vaccines and vitamin supplements, heavily promoted by donor agencies and pharmaceutical companies alike, are sufficiently far-reaching."
Vaccine Studies are Too Short to Evaluate Health Outcomes
In that radio program, Dr. Aaby also discussed another interesting finding. One of his health projects had been selected by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a test site in the 1980's for a new high titer measles vaccine that could be given to infants younger than 12 months. After a typically short trial run, the high titer measles vaccine, which was given in infants in addition to DPT vaccine, appeared to be a success. But Dr. Aaby decided to continue evaluating the children over a longer term.
What did he find?
While the new measles vaccine appeared effective in the short term, over time the girl children who had been vaccinated were dying at a much higher rate than those who did not receive it.
Fortunately, the WHO accepted his findings and withdrew the high titer measles vaccine from use, reverting back to using the older measles vaccine that was given along with DPT.
That clearly raises the question of whether vaccine studies are conducted long enough to evaluate the true risks and benefits, especially when used in combination with other vaccines. In most cases the answer would undeniably be no, as the long-term effects are very rarely studied.
Three Vaccines Recently Connected with Infant Deaths
In related news, a Japanese safety panel is now investigating the connection between Pfizer's Prevnar and Sanofi Pasteur's ActHIB vaccines and the deaths of five young children. Japan's health ministry has ordered doctors to stop immunizing infants with the vaccines until the investigation is completed.
Prevnar, which is used against pneumonia and meningitis, is commonly used in more than 100 countries around the world, and is part of the routine childhood immunization schedule in more than 50 countries. ActHIB prevents infection with the Haemophilius influenza.
According to CNN:
"The U.S. Food and Drug administration said it was aware of the suspensions in Japan, but "physicians assessing vaccine safety at the FDA and CDC have not detected new safety concerns" related to the vaccines."
This is not the first time Prevnar has come under scrutiny. I began reporting the potential dangers of this vaccine some 10 years ago, when the vaccine was first approved. Back in 2000, Dr. Erdem Cantekin, Ph.D. Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Pittsburgh stated that the alleged benefits of Prevnar are "greatly exaggerated, and the risks are significant."
Prevnar is in fact a perfect example of a vaccine that was not appropriately studied before being released to the public.
For example, the HMO trial in which Prevnar was approved had NO placebo group. Instead, the control group received another experimental vaccine for mennigococcus, and this was the ONLY trial done to establish the safety and efficacy of this vaccine for every newborn in the US!
In addition to the Japanese deaths, five infants died after being vaccinated for measles at Gandhidhams Rambaugh Hospital in India earlier this month. Three additional infants are said to be in serious condition.
The Times of India reported that:
'The entire stock of this vaccine in the state has been withdrawn pending lab tests and measles vaccination in the district has been stopped till further notice.
Following the deaths at 10 am, people went berserk breaking furniture and fixtures and beating up Dr Abhishek Makwana, who was on duty. Four infants died within minutes of being vaccinated by two female health workers while one infant died after an hour
Not surprisingly however, on March 8, Market Watch reported that the panel had concluded the vaccines did not cause any of the infant deaths. They did however "request data on the safety of giving multiple vaccines simultaneously and more analysis of the cases," according to a Bloomberg report.
The Bottom Line
A number of things are clear:
1. There are risks inherent with all vaccines
2. Long-term health outcomes post-vaccination are typically not studied
3. When you or your child is injured by a vaccine, the risks are 100 percent, and you will have to deal with the consequences on your own, because those who make and give vaccines are protected from liability in civil court, and federal vaccine injury compensation is very difficult to get.
What's worse, a U.S. Supreme Court recently decided to give drug companies total liability protection for injuries and deaths caused by government mandated vaccines.
It's important to realize that there's no guarantee that a vaccine will, in fact, protect against an infectious disease. Nor is it a given that exposure to an infectious disease will cause a complication, injury or death.
In the end, good health is about so much more than vaccination and preventing experience with infectious disease—it's about having a robust, well-functioning immune system, as that is your first line of defense.
Know Your Rights—Exercise Free Choice
The right to informed consent to medical risk-taking is a human right, and empowering yourself with information and taking responsible action to protect the right to exercise voluntary, informed consent to vaccination in America is one of the most important actions you can take as a citizen to protect health freedom.
Don't let anyone force you or your child to take a vaccine without your voluntary, informed consent. If a doctor denies you or your child medical care because of your vaccine choices, find another doctor. If a doctor threatens you, or if a government official denies a medical or religious exemption that you have legally filed, find an attorney to help you. If you don't like the vaccine laws in your state, contact your elected officials and work to change them.
Together, we can educate the public and reform vaccine laws in America to protect the right to make informed, voluntary vaccination decisions for ourselves and our children.
To help accomplish this, I urge you to please join the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). It's the largest, oldest and most experienced vaccine safety and informed consent watchdog in America.
By signing up for the NVIC's free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org, you can learn how to effectively participate in the democratic legislative process and defend vaccine exemptions in your state laws.
Related Links:
Latest Vaccine News
STOP! Read This Before Vaccinating for Anything
Prevnar, Pneumococcal (Strep) Vaccine Does NOT Prevent Ear Infections and Has Major Side Effects
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Gratitude
GRATITUDE
Are you willing to be grateful
for everything in your life?
It's all up to you!
GRATITUDE
GRATITUDE is a radical way of life:
a lifestyle for the 21st century.
Receive the MASTER KEY NOW
Go GRATITUDE
please pass it along...
There are some remarkable links that go with this that I do not know how to transfer, but if you email me I can forward them to you.
Dean
Are you willing to be grateful
for everything in your life?
It's all up to you!
GRATITUDE
GRATITUDE is a radical way of life:
a lifestyle for the 21st century.
Receive the MASTER KEY NOW
Go GRATITUDE
please pass it along...
There are some remarkable links that go with this that I do not know how to transfer, but if you email me I can forward them to you.
Dean
Bennies of eating gress fed vs feed lot
Is This the World's Most Effortless Way to Slim Your Waistline?
By Dr. Mercola
If you are steering away from red meat due to the negative press on saturated fats, you may be happy to hear that a very powerful fatty acid primarily found in beef and dairy products has been linked to long-term weight management and health.
This potent nutrient is called conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, and the best possible sources of CLA are grass-fed beef and raw dairy products that come from grass-fed cattle.
Many ranchers are responding to the call from U.S. consumers by shifting from traditional, factory-farmed, grain-fed methods of raising cattle to a free-range, all-grass diet. Even the USDA is waking up to the consumer demand for grass-fed products. Their June 2010 publication of Livestock, Poultry, and Dairy Outlook indicates that grass-fed beef represents 3 percent of the total U.S. beef production and has been growing about 20 percent for several years.
CLA Benefits Across the Board
A host of research has been conducted on animals, under microscopes, and with humans to determine the impact of CLA on disease. Results have shown CLA to be a potent ally for combating:
• Cancer: Animal studies show that as little as 0.5 percent CLA in your diet could reduce tumors by over 50 percent, including the following types of cancer:
o Breast
o Colorectal
o Lung
o Skin
o Stomach
• Cardiovascular disease
• High blood pressure
• High Cholesterol and triglycerides
• Osteoporosis
• Insulin resistance: CLA's actions actually mimic the effect of synthetic diabetic drugs. Testing on mice with type 2 diabetes have shown CLA to improve insulin action and reduce circulating glucose. Even better, the early results from human trials are just as positive, when consuming CLA for longer than eight weeks.
• Inflammation
• Immune system invaders
• Food-induced allergic reactions
• Body Composition: Exciting research with humans has shown that CLA has been beneficial in lowering body fat, with even greater improvement in those who combine exercise with dietary intake of CLA. Animal research has been even more promising, with significant improvements seen in both reducing body fat and in increasing lean body mass.
• Previous studies have shown that CLA reduces body fat while preserving muscle tissue, and may also increase your metabolic rate. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people who took 3.2 grams of CLA a day had a drop in fat mass of about 0.2 pounds a week (that's about one pound a month) compared to those given a placebo.
Since CLA cannot be manufactured in the human body, you must get it from your diet. And your best dietary source of CLA is grass-fed beef.
What's the Deal with Grass-Fed Beef?
The natural diet for ruminant animals, such as cattle, is grass. When left to feed on grass-only diets, levels of CLA are three to five times more than those fed grain-based diets. And that's just the start.
A joint effort between the USDA and Clemson University researchers in 2009 determined a total of 10 key areas where grass-fed is better than grain-fed beef for human health.
In a side-by-side comparison, they determined that grass-fed beef was:
1. Lower in total fat
2. Higher in beta-carotene
3. Higher in vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol)
4. Higher in the B-vitamins thiamin and riboflavin
5. Higher in the minerals calcium, magnesium, and potassium
6. Higher in total omega-3s
7. A healthier ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids (1.65 vs 4.84)
8. Higher in CLA (cis-9 trans-11), a potential cancer fighter
9. Higher in vaccenic acid (which can be transformed into CLA)
10. Lower in the saturated fats linked with heart disease
The Bull We've Been Fed – Dangers of Grain-Fed Cattle
If you've been reading my articles with any frequency, you'll know that my dietary recommendations are largely based on scientific literature that clearly spells out the types of foods that human beings were naturally designed to eat.
This is no different for a cow.
When a ruminant is left to eat on its own, it doesn't choose corn or soy to munch on… it selects grass. Therefore, when a cow grazes on natural grass pastures, its body composition is affected accordingly: the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids is slightly above two. In other words, two parts omega-6 to one part omega-3, which is very close to the ideal ratio between these two fats.
Cattle raised in conventional Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs), on the other hand, are shipped to giant feed lots and fed corn to fatten them up, and when consumed, this has an impact on your health as well.
When a cow's diet primarily consists of grains, its body's composition (and subsequently yours) changes. In fact, previous studies on grain-fed steer found the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats was between 5-to-1 and 13-to-1, which is far from the ideal.
Since you are what you eat, the beneficial effects of eating grass-fed beef and dairy products with the proper balance of fatty acids are translated into health benefits for you. These foods are rich in all the fats now proven to be health-enhancing, and low in the fats that have been linked with disease.
Since meat from grass-fed animals is lower in fat than meat from grain-fed animals, this means that it is lower in calories as well. By switching to lean grass-fed beef, it is estimated that the average person in the U.S. could reduce intake up to 17,000 calories a year, which is equal to losing about six pounds! Imagine how this could impact the national epidemic of obesity.
The Madness of Sick Cows
Another troubling aspect of grain-fed cattle involves the well-being of the animal and, consequently, the health effect this has on you. Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs) and feedlot conditions typically result in unhealthy animals.
A list of these consequences from Eatwild.com includes:
1. Acidosis. During the normal digestive process, bacteria in the rumen of cattle produce a variety of acids. Saliva neutralizes the acidity from grass-based diets, but grain-based eating in feedlots prohibits saliva production. The net result is "acid indigestion."
Animals with this condition are plagued with diarrhea, go off their feed, pant, salivate excessively, kick at their bellies, and eat dirt. Over time, acidosis can lead to a condition called "rumenitis," and inflammatory response to too much acid and too little roughage and results in inefficient nutrient absorption.
2. Liver abscesses. From 15 to 30 percent of feedlot cattle have liver abscesses, which results when bacteria may leak out through ulcerated rumen in cattle and are ultimately transported to the liver.
3. Bloat. During digestion, cows produce gas and when they are on pasture, they belch up the gas without any difficulty. Grain-based feeding cause these gasses to become trapped, and results in bloat. In more serious cases of bloat, the rumen becomes so distended with gas that the animal is unable to breathe and dies from asphyxiation.
4. Feedlot polio. A highly acidic digestive environment results in the production of an enzyme called "thiaminase" which destroys vitamin B-1, starving the brain of energy and creating paralysis.
5. Dust pneumonia. In dry weather, the feedlot can become a dust bowl which springs the cattle's immune system into action and keeps it running on a constant basis, ultimately resulting in respiratory ailments and even death.
In addition, BSE, or mad cow disease results when cows are fed bone meal and waste products from other cattle infected with the disease.
Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs) Produce Inferior Food
In addition to everything already mentioned, AFO's have further health consequences.
AFO-farmed, commercially-produced animals carry a greater risk of spreading E.coli infection to humans, for example, due to the higher incidence of harmful bacteria growth in grain-fed animals, and fecal contamination in feedlots and on kill floors. This is an extremely rare problem with grass-fed, organically-raised cattle as cows that graze on grasses naturally maintain the proper ratios of healthy bacteria in their guts.
In addition, you might not suspect that AFO-farmed steak to be a source of heavy metals, pesticides, and an array of potentially harmful drugs, but that's exactly what you get.
Conventionally-raised meats contain residues of everything the animal was exposed to, which includes veterinary drugs, heavy metal residues, and pesticides from their grain-based diet.
Drugs such as growth hormones and antibiotics are given to cattle to increase growth and reduce illness, but invariably enter the food system when producers slaughter animals that still have these toxins in their system.
The use of growth hormones is becoming of particular concern as we're now clearly noticing the dramatic effects they're having both on growing youngsters and adults.
Many children are now entering puberty at the age of 9! And although this poses emotional challenges, the long-term health effects of this include an increased risk of heart disease and estrogen-sensitive cancers, for example. Leading scientists have also linked hormone-laced foods (plus other endocrine disrupting chemicals) to falling sperm counts and fertility problems in adults.
Lastly, environmental pollution from organic waste produced by cattle, and the enormous amounts of petro-chemical fertilizers used to produce feed crops is out of control. Waste and waste treatment methods of grain-fed cattle are believed to be responsible for producing a significant portion of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide (the three major gases that are largely responsible for global warming), along with other harmful gasses.
Many don't think about this, but fossil fuels are used in everything from the fertilizers and pesticides that are sprayed onto the crop, to the transportation of the feed.
Grass, on the other hand, does not require fossil fuels to grow (rotating pastures does the job instead), and other health harming practices, such as injecting the livestock with hormones and antibiotics, are also not allowed in organic farming.
The inherent differences between these two farming practices are truly vast. They are two distinctly different industries with entirely different environmental impacts, producing what is, in the end, two distinctly different animals.
Grass-fed cows equate to healthier meat -- which leads to a healthier you -- and benefits the planet.
Grass-Fed Trumps Organic Beef
There's one final note I'd like to make regarding grass-fed beef.
Oftentimes certified organic beef is misunderstood to be grass-fed; it's not necessarily so. Beef products that are considered to be "organic" come from animals being fed organic grains, especially corn, which still results in most of the negative health problems that I have highlighted earlier.
Don't be fooled!
Be sure to specifically seek out beef that is classified as grass-fed. Even if it is not labeled organic, most grass-fed cattle are fed on grasslands with limited pesticides, fertilizers, and other harmful chemicals, and will never see the inside of a feedlot.
CLA Supplements
You may be wondering whether or not you can still stay true to your beef-less diet and supplement with one of the popular CLA supplements on the market today instead. As with most of my recommendations, it is always better to get your nutrients from whole foods, vs. their synthetic counterparts.
Foods that naturally contain CLA are generally far superior, easy to find, and less expensive than capsules.
That said, should you decide to go the route of taking a supplement, do make sure it does not contain any potentially harmful or detrimental additives.
You Can Taste the Difference
There is no question that the flavor, look, smell, and texture of grass fed beef differs from grain-fed beef. I have been eating it since 2001, and personally enjoy the taste and all the health-giving benefits grass-fed beef delivers.
That said, the flavor, cooking method, and even the appearance will require a bit of an adjustment. Many of my patients from Europe – where grass-fed products are more prevalent – had a difficult time getting used to grain-fed beef products in the U.S. Once you make the shift, it is just a matter of time until you find the taste not only palatable but rather enjoyable.
Based on the research between grass-fed and grain-fed beef, the benefits of CLA in your diet, you owe it to yourself and to your family to make this switch.
View All References
By Dr. Mercola
If you are steering away from red meat due to the negative press on saturated fats, you may be happy to hear that a very powerful fatty acid primarily found in beef and dairy products has been linked to long-term weight management and health.
This potent nutrient is called conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, and the best possible sources of CLA are grass-fed beef and raw dairy products that come from grass-fed cattle.
Many ranchers are responding to the call from U.S. consumers by shifting from traditional, factory-farmed, grain-fed methods of raising cattle to a free-range, all-grass diet. Even the USDA is waking up to the consumer demand for grass-fed products. Their June 2010 publication of Livestock, Poultry, and Dairy Outlook indicates that grass-fed beef represents 3 percent of the total U.S. beef production and has been growing about 20 percent for several years.
CLA Benefits Across the Board
A host of research has been conducted on animals, under microscopes, and with humans to determine the impact of CLA on disease. Results have shown CLA to be a potent ally for combating:
• Cancer: Animal studies show that as little as 0.5 percent CLA in your diet could reduce tumors by over 50 percent, including the following types of cancer:
o Breast
o Colorectal
o Lung
o Skin
o Stomach
• Cardiovascular disease
• High blood pressure
• High Cholesterol and triglycerides
• Osteoporosis
• Insulin resistance: CLA's actions actually mimic the effect of synthetic diabetic drugs. Testing on mice with type 2 diabetes have shown CLA to improve insulin action and reduce circulating glucose. Even better, the early results from human trials are just as positive, when consuming CLA for longer than eight weeks.
• Inflammation
• Immune system invaders
• Food-induced allergic reactions
• Body Composition: Exciting research with humans has shown that CLA has been beneficial in lowering body fat, with even greater improvement in those who combine exercise with dietary intake of CLA. Animal research has been even more promising, with significant improvements seen in both reducing body fat and in increasing lean body mass.
• Previous studies have shown that CLA reduces body fat while preserving muscle tissue, and may also increase your metabolic rate. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people who took 3.2 grams of CLA a day had a drop in fat mass of about 0.2 pounds a week (that's about one pound a month) compared to those given a placebo.
Since CLA cannot be manufactured in the human body, you must get it from your diet. And your best dietary source of CLA is grass-fed beef.
What's the Deal with Grass-Fed Beef?
The natural diet for ruminant animals, such as cattle, is grass. When left to feed on grass-only diets, levels of CLA are three to five times more than those fed grain-based diets. And that's just the start.
A joint effort between the USDA and Clemson University researchers in 2009 determined a total of 10 key areas where grass-fed is better than grain-fed beef for human health.
In a side-by-side comparison, they determined that grass-fed beef was:
1. Lower in total fat
2. Higher in beta-carotene
3. Higher in vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol)
4. Higher in the B-vitamins thiamin and riboflavin
5. Higher in the minerals calcium, magnesium, and potassium
6. Higher in total omega-3s
7. A healthier ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids (1.65 vs 4.84)
8. Higher in CLA (cis-9 trans-11), a potential cancer fighter
9. Higher in vaccenic acid (which can be transformed into CLA)
10. Lower in the saturated fats linked with heart disease
The Bull We've Been Fed – Dangers of Grain-Fed Cattle
If you've been reading my articles with any frequency, you'll know that my dietary recommendations are largely based on scientific literature that clearly spells out the types of foods that human beings were naturally designed to eat.
This is no different for a cow.
When a ruminant is left to eat on its own, it doesn't choose corn or soy to munch on… it selects grass. Therefore, when a cow grazes on natural grass pastures, its body composition is affected accordingly: the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids is slightly above two. In other words, two parts omega-6 to one part omega-3, which is very close to the ideal ratio between these two fats.
Cattle raised in conventional Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs), on the other hand, are shipped to giant feed lots and fed corn to fatten them up, and when consumed, this has an impact on your health as well.
When a cow's diet primarily consists of grains, its body's composition (and subsequently yours) changes. In fact, previous studies on grain-fed steer found the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats was between 5-to-1 and 13-to-1, which is far from the ideal.
Since you are what you eat, the beneficial effects of eating grass-fed beef and dairy products with the proper balance of fatty acids are translated into health benefits for you. These foods are rich in all the fats now proven to be health-enhancing, and low in the fats that have been linked with disease.
Since meat from grass-fed animals is lower in fat than meat from grain-fed animals, this means that it is lower in calories as well. By switching to lean grass-fed beef, it is estimated that the average person in the U.S. could reduce intake up to 17,000 calories a year, which is equal to losing about six pounds! Imagine how this could impact the national epidemic of obesity.
The Madness of Sick Cows
Another troubling aspect of grain-fed cattle involves the well-being of the animal and, consequently, the health effect this has on you. Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs) and feedlot conditions typically result in unhealthy animals.
A list of these consequences from Eatwild.com includes:
1. Acidosis. During the normal digestive process, bacteria in the rumen of cattle produce a variety of acids. Saliva neutralizes the acidity from grass-based diets, but grain-based eating in feedlots prohibits saliva production. The net result is "acid indigestion."
Animals with this condition are plagued with diarrhea, go off their feed, pant, salivate excessively, kick at their bellies, and eat dirt. Over time, acidosis can lead to a condition called "rumenitis," and inflammatory response to too much acid and too little roughage and results in inefficient nutrient absorption.
2. Liver abscesses. From 15 to 30 percent of feedlot cattle have liver abscesses, which results when bacteria may leak out through ulcerated rumen in cattle and are ultimately transported to the liver.
3. Bloat. During digestion, cows produce gas and when they are on pasture, they belch up the gas without any difficulty. Grain-based feeding cause these gasses to become trapped, and results in bloat. In more serious cases of bloat, the rumen becomes so distended with gas that the animal is unable to breathe and dies from asphyxiation.
4. Feedlot polio. A highly acidic digestive environment results in the production of an enzyme called "thiaminase" which destroys vitamin B-1, starving the brain of energy and creating paralysis.
5. Dust pneumonia. In dry weather, the feedlot can become a dust bowl which springs the cattle's immune system into action and keeps it running on a constant basis, ultimately resulting in respiratory ailments and even death.
In addition, BSE, or mad cow disease results when cows are fed bone meal and waste products from other cattle infected with the disease.
Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs) Produce Inferior Food
In addition to everything already mentioned, AFO's have further health consequences.
AFO-farmed, commercially-produced animals carry a greater risk of spreading E.coli infection to humans, for example, due to the higher incidence of harmful bacteria growth in grain-fed animals, and fecal contamination in feedlots and on kill floors. This is an extremely rare problem with grass-fed, organically-raised cattle as cows that graze on grasses naturally maintain the proper ratios of healthy bacteria in their guts.
In addition, you might not suspect that AFO-farmed steak to be a source of heavy metals, pesticides, and an array of potentially harmful drugs, but that's exactly what you get.
Conventionally-raised meats contain residues of everything the animal was exposed to, which includes veterinary drugs, heavy metal residues, and pesticides from their grain-based diet.
Drugs such as growth hormones and antibiotics are given to cattle to increase growth and reduce illness, but invariably enter the food system when producers slaughter animals that still have these toxins in their system.
The use of growth hormones is becoming of particular concern as we're now clearly noticing the dramatic effects they're having both on growing youngsters and adults.
Many children are now entering puberty at the age of 9! And although this poses emotional challenges, the long-term health effects of this include an increased risk of heart disease and estrogen-sensitive cancers, for example. Leading scientists have also linked hormone-laced foods (plus other endocrine disrupting chemicals) to falling sperm counts and fertility problems in adults.
Lastly, environmental pollution from organic waste produced by cattle, and the enormous amounts of petro-chemical fertilizers used to produce feed crops is out of control. Waste and waste treatment methods of grain-fed cattle are believed to be responsible for producing a significant portion of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide (the three major gases that are largely responsible for global warming), along with other harmful gasses.
Many don't think about this, but fossil fuels are used in everything from the fertilizers and pesticides that are sprayed onto the crop, to the transportation of the feed.
Grass, on the other hand, does not require fossil fuels to grow (rotating pastures does the job instead), and other health harming practices, such as injecting the livestock with hormones and antibiotics, are also not allowed in organic farming.
The inherent differences between these two farming practices are truly vast. They are two distinctly different industries with entirely different environmental impacts, producing what is, in the end, two distinctly different animals.
Grass-fed cows equate to healthier meat -- which leads to a healthier you -- and benefits the planet.
Grass-Fed Trumps Organic Beef
There's one final note I'd like to make regarding grass-fed beef.
Oftentimes certified organic beef is misunderstood to be grass-fed; it's not necessarily so. Beef products that are considered to be "organic" come from animals being fed organic grains, especially corn, which still results in most of the negative health problems that I have highlighted earlier.
Don't be fooled!
Be sure to specifically seek out beef that is classified as grass-fed. Even if it is not labeled organic, most grass-fed cattle are fed on grasslands with limited pesticides, fertilizers, and other harmful chemicals, and will never see the inside of a feedlot.
CLA Supplements
You may be wondering whether or not you can still stay true to your beef-less diet and supplement with one of the popular CLA supplements on the market today instead. As with most of my recommendations, it is always better to get your nutrients from whole foods, vs. their synthetic counterparts.
Foods that naturally contain CLA are generally far superior, easy to find, and less expensive than capsules.
That said, should you decide to go the route of taking a supplement, do make sure it does not contain any potentially harmful or detrimental additives.
You Can Taste the Difference
There is no question that the flavor, look, smell, and texture of grass fed beef differs from grain-fed beef. I have been eating it since 2001, and personally enjoy the taste and all the health-giving benefits grass-fed beef delivers.
That said, the flavor, cooking method, and even the appearance will require a bit of an adjustment. Many of my patients from Europe – where grass-fed products are more prevalent – had a difficult time getting used to grain-fed beef products in the U.S. Once you make the shift, it is just a matter of time until you find the taste not only palatable but rather enjoyable.
Based on the research between grass-fed and grain-fed beef, the benefits of CLA in your diet, you owe it to yourself and to your family to make this switch.
View All References
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Great news for the "ROM" work out
Not so good for endurance/aerobics.
The Exercise Mistake Proven to Damage Your Heart
Posted by: Dr. Mercola | March 22 2011 | 63,765 views
Not long ago, researchers studied the heart health of a group of very fit older athletes -- men who had been part of a national or Olympic team in distance running or rowing, and runners who had completed at least a hundred marathons. The results were unsettling -- half of these lifelong athletes showed evidence of heart muscle scarring.
The affected men were invariably the ones who had gone through the longest, hardest training. And now a new study, this time in laboratory rats, provides solid evidence of a direct link between certain kinds of prolonged exercise and heart damage -- scarring and structural changes, similar to those seen in the human endurance athletes.
The research effectively shows that years of strenuous cardiovascular exercise can damage your heart.
According to the New York Times:
"Unfortunately, it remains impossible, at the moment, to predict just what that threshold is for any given person, and which athletes might be most vulnerable to heart problems as a result of excessive exercise".
Sources:
New York Times March 9, 2011
The Journal of Applied Physiology February 17, 2011 [Epub Ahead of Print]
Circulation 2011;123:13-22
Before I discuss this study I believe it is important to review my personal history with exercise so you can understand where I am coming from.
I started running in 1968 and ran for over 40 years before I stopped. During medical school I was a member of the University of Chicago Track Club and ran a 2:50 marathon. I was competitive on a local level and won a few races, so I have some experience with intense aerobic training.
I am excited about these studies as they really are groundbreaking for their scientific documentation of what many of us have been warning you about for some time now on exercise. The vast majority of those who exercise are choosing to do some form or aerobic or cardio activity. This research now supports the notion that this choice is likely not your best one over the long run.
By focusing on extreme examples we can tease out some of the truth when it comes to exercise. These studies help explain why well-trained professional athletes can suddenly die from heart failure. For example, four years ago, one of the best American marathon runners ever, Alberto Salazer, nearly died from a heart attack at the age of 49.
I remember when Alberto won the New York City Marathon in 1981 and apparently broke the world record at the time with a 2:08:13. Unfortunately the course was later found to be short by 147 yards and the record was taken away. However he was still one of the fastest distance runners in the world and you simply don’t get much more aerobically fit than he was.
This is a powerful lesson to anyone who engages in large amounts of cardio exercise, because as it turns out, conventional cardio may actually be counterproductive... So, although most people who read this are not exercising nearly enough, it’s still important to understand that it is indeed possible to over-exercise—especially if your primary focus is on traditional cardio.
Research emerging over the past several years has now given us a whole new understanding of what your body requires in terms of exercise, and many of our past notions have been turned upside-down.
Study Finds that Focusing Exclusively on Lifelong Cardio May Damage Your Heart
In the first study mentioned above, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology in February, researchers recruited a group of extremely fit older men. All of them were members of the 100 Marathon club, meaning athletes who had completed a minimum of 100 marathons. Their ages ranged from 26 to 67, and all of them had trained vigorously throughout adulthood.
The control group consisted of 20 healthy men over 50, but none of them were endurance athletes.
The New York Times reported that:
“The different groups underwent a new type of magnetic resonance imaging of their hearts that identifies very early signs of fibrosis, or scarring, within the heart muscle. Fibrosis, if it becomes severe, can lead to stiffening or thickening of portions of the heart, which can contribute to irregular heart function and, eventually, heart failure.
The results, published online… in The Journal of Applied Physiology, were rather disquieting.
None of the younger athletes or the older nonathletes had fibrosis in their hearts. But half of the older lifelong athletes showed some heart muscle scarring. The affected men were, in each case, those who’d trained the longest and hardest. Spending more years exercising strenuously or completing more marathon or ultramarathon races was, in this study, associated with a greater likelihood of heart damage.”
Direct Link Between Elite Cardio Training and Heart Scarring Found
Still, there were questions about whether the extreme training itself had caused the heart damage. Additional answers were found in another study, this one done on rats, which, according to the New York Times “provides the first solid evidence of a direct link between certain kinds of prolonged exercise and subtle heart damage.”
Recently published in the journal Circulation, the study was designed to mimic the strenuous daily exercise load of serious marathoners over the course of 10 years. All the rats had normal, healthy hearts at the outset of the study.
At the end, most of them had developed “diffuse scarring and some structural changes, similar to the changes seen in the human endurance athletes.”
The point is, too much of something that is normally good for you can have the reverse effect. This is a profound concept; so much so that one researcher even wrote a book about it, called The Reverse Effect. It is a fascinating book that is absolutely counterintuitive, yet makes more sense today in light of more recent discoveries within the field.
So, what does all of this mean for you?
Again, unless you’re engaged in high-level or elite endurance training, this information may be of little value—you certainly shouldn’t use it to further avoid exercising at all! Exercise is absolutely necessary for high-level wellness, but reducing your risk of heart disease is usually not the main reason you exercise.
You exercise because it makes you feel better, and for most, it helps keep your weight at an optimal level. It’s also one of the best treatments for insomnia and reducing insulin resistance, as well as being a wonderful aid in the treatment of depression. So the reasons to exercise are many. If you start slow, and most importantly, listen to your body, you shouldn’t run into the problem of exerting yourself excessively.
If you’re a serious athlete, however, you may want to reconsider how you train.
As I’ve discussed before, research has shown that replacing those long cardio sessions with shorter, high-intensity burst-type exercises, such as Peak 8, actually produces GREATER results in far less time!
Updated Guidelines on Optimal Exercise
Four years ago, the American College of Sports Medicine issued new guidelines on exercise, stating it must be “tough” in order for you to reap physiological benefits. This may seem confusing to some of you, so let’s reiterate a couple of key points you should always keep in mind, namely moderation, and individualization.
That said, their updated guidelines falls in line with other research showing the superior health benefits of high-intensity exercise. In essence, it’s the intensity, not the duration, that is critical for producing optimal results. But again, the optimal intensity will vary from person to person.
As described in my Peak 8 program, after a three minute warm up, you want to raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a 90 second recovery period. Then repeat that cycle for a total of eight repetitions.
To perform the sprint portion properly, you will want to get very close to, if not exceed, your maximum heart rate by the last interval. Your maximum heart rate is calculated as 220 minus your age. (Keep in mind you’ll need a heart rate monitor to measure this as it is nearly impossible to accurately measure your heart rate manually when it is above 150.)
These cycles are preceded by a three minute warm up and two minute cool down so the total time investment is about 20 minutes, but the actual sprinting totals only four minutes!
But how is it possible to get better results with less exercise?
The “Magic” Factor of High-Intensity Exercise
The reason for this is because high-intensity exercises engage a certain group of muscle fibers that you cannot engage through aerobic cardio, and these engaging these muscle fibers cause a cascade of positive health benefits.
First, you need to understand that you have three different types of muscle fibers:
1. Slow
2. Fast
3. Super-fast
We now know that in order to naturally increase your body's production of human growth hormone (HGH), you must engage your super-fast muscle fibers.
HGH is a vital hormone that is KEY for physical strength, health and longevity.
Neither traditionally performed aerobic cardio nor conventional strength training will work anything but your slow muscle fibers, and hence has no impact on production of HGH. On the contrary, it has the unfortunate effect of actually causing the super fast fibers to decrease or atrophy, further impeding natural HGH production.
Power training, or plyometrics burst types of exercises will engage your fast muscle fibers, but only high-intensity burst cardio, such as Peak 8 exercises, will engage your super fast fibers and promote HGH, and that is the “magic” factor that explains why it’s so much more beneficial for you than traditional aerobic cardio.
Benefits of Peak Fitness Exercises
Once you regularly participate in these 20 minute exercises about twice a week, most people notice that it:
• Lowers your body fat
• Dramatically improves muscle tone
• Firms your skin and reduces wrinkles
• Boosts your energy and sexual desire
• Improves athletic speed and performance
• Allows you to achieve your fitness goals much faster
“Bullet-Proof” Your Heart with the Right Type of Exercise
The take-home message here is that one of the best forms of exercise to protect your heart is short bursts of exertion, followed by periods of rest.
By exercising in short bursts, followed by periods of recovery, you recreate exactly what your body needs for optimum health. Heart attacks don't happen because your heart lacks endurance. They happen during times of stress, when your heart needs more energy and pumping capacity, but doesn't have it.
If you have a history of heart disease or any concern, please get clearance from your health care professional before you start doing Peak 8 exercises. However, most people of average fitness will be able to do them—it is only a matter of how much time it will take you to build up to the full 8 reps.
The beautiful thing about this approach is that if you are out of shape you simply will be unable to train very hard as the lactic acid will quickly build up in your muscles and prevent you from stressing your heart too much.
Related Links:
You CAN Exercise Too Much!
Workouts Sculpt Heart As Well As Muscles
New Study: LESS Cardio Gives Better Results
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• Vaccines
• Vitamin D
The information contained in this site is for educational purposes only. You should consult a physician before beginning a new diet or exercise program. The results, if any, from the exercises may vary from person-to-person. Engaging in any exercise or fitness program involves the risk of injury. Mercola.com nor Darin Steen shall not be liable for any claims for injuries or damages resulting from or connected with the use of this site. Darin Steen cannot answer specific questions about your fitness condition without first establishing a trainer-client relationship.
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Copyright Dr. Joseph Mercola, 2011. All Rights Reserved.
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The Exercise Mistake Proven to Damage Your Heart
Posted by: Dr. Mercola | March 22 2011 | 63,765 views
Not long ago, researchers studied the heart health of a group of very fit older athletes -- men who had been part of a national or Olympic team in distance running or rowing, and runners who had completed at least a hundred marathons. The results were unsettling -- half of these lifelong athletes showed evidence of heart muscle scarring.
The affected men were invariably the ones who had gone through the longest, hardest training. And now a new study, this time in laboratory rats, provides solid evidence of a direct link between certain kinds of prolonged exercise and heart damage -- scarring and structural changes, similar to those seen in the human endurance athletes.
The research effectively shows that years of strenuous cardiovascular exercise can damage your heart.
According to the New York Times:
"Unfortunately, it remains impossible, at the moment, to predict just what that threshold is for any given person, and which athletes might be most vulnerable to heart problems as a result of excessive exercise".
Sources:
New York Times March 9, 2011
The Journal of Applied Physiology February 17, 2011 [Epub Ahead of Print]
Circulation 2011;123:13-22
Before I discuss this study I believe it is important to review my personal history with exercise so you can understand where I am coming from.
I started running in 1968 and ran for over 40 years before I stopped. During medical school I was a member of the University of Chicago Track Club and ran a 2:50 marathon. I was competitive on a local level and won a few races, so I have some experience with intense aerobic training.
I am excited about these studies as they really are groundbreaking for their scientific documentation of what many of us have been warning you about for some time now on exercise. The vast majority of those who exercise are choosing to do some form or aerobic or cardio activity. This research now supports the notion that this choice is likely not your best one over the long run.
By focusing on extreme examples we can tease out some of the truth when it comes to exercise. These studies help explain why well-trained professional athletes can suddenly die from heart failure. For example, four years ago, one of the best American marathon runners ever, Alberto Salazer, nearly died from a heart attack at the age of 49.
I remember when Alberto won the New York City Marathon in 1981 and apparently broke the world record at the time with a 2:08:13. Unfortunately the course was later found to be short by 147 yards and the record was taken away. However he was still one of the fastest distance runners in the world and you simply don’t get much more aerobically fit than he was.
This is a powerful lesson to anyone who engages in large amounts of cardio exercise, because as it turns out, conventional cardio may actually be counterproductive... So, although most people who read this are not exercising nearly enough, it’s still important to understand that it is indeed possible to over-exercise—especially if your primary focus is on traditional cardio.
Research emerging over the past several years has now given us a whole new understanding of what your body requires in terms of exercise, and many of our past notions have been turned upside-down.
Study Finds that Focusing Exclusively on Lifelong Cardio May Damage Your Heart
In the first study mentioned above, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology in February, researchers recruited a group of extremely fit older men. All of them were members of the 100 Marathon club, meaning athletes who had completed a minimum of 100 marathons. Their ages ranged from 26 to 67, and all of them had trained vigorously throughout adulthood.
The control group consisted of 20 healthy men over 50, but none of them were endurance athletes.
The New York Times reported that:
“The different groups underwent a new type of magnetic resonance imaging of their hearts that identifies very early signs of fibrosis, or scarring, within the heart muscle. Fibrosis, if it becomes severe, can lead to stiffening or thickening of portions of the heart, which can contribute to irregular heart function and, eventually, heart failure.
The results, published online… in The Journal of Applied Physiology, were rather disquieting.
None of the younger athletes or the older nonathletes had fibrosis in their hearts. But half of the older lifelong athletes showed some heart muscle scarring. The affected men were, in each case, those who’d trained the longest and hardest. Spending more years exercising strenuously or completing more marathon or ultramarathon races was, in this study, associated with a greater likelihood of heart damage.”
Direct Link Between Elite Cardio Training and Heart Scarring Found
Still, there were questions about whether the extreme training itself had caused the heart damage. Additional answers were found in another study, this one done on rats, which, according to the New York Times “provides the first solid evidence of a direct link between certain kinds of prolonged exercise and subtle heart damage.”
Recently published in the journal Circulation, the study was designed to mimic the strenuous daily exercise load of serious marathoners over the course of 10 years. All the rats had normal, healthy hearts at the outset of the study.
At the end, most of them had developed “diffuse scarring and some structural changes, similar to the changes seen in the human endurance athletes.”
The point is, too much of something that is normally good for you can have the reverse effect. This is a profound concept; so much so that one researcher even wrote a book about it, called The Reverse Effect. It is a fascinating book that is absolutely counterintuitive, yet makes more sense today in light of more recent discoveries within the field.
So, what does all of this mean for you?
Again, unless you’re engaged in high-level or elite endurance training, this information may be of little value—you certainly shouldn’t use it to further avoid exercising at all! Exercise is absolutely necessary for high-level wellness, but reducing your risk of heart disease is usually not the main reason you exercise.
You exercise because it makes you feel better, and for most, it helps keep your weight at an optimal level. It’s also one of the best treatments for insomnia and reducing insulin resistance, as well as being a wonderful aid in the treatment of depression. So the reasons to exercise are many. If you start slow, and most importantly, listen to your body, you shouldn’t run into the problem of exerting yourself excessively.
If you’re a serious athlete, however, you may want to reconsider how you train.
As I’ve discussed before, research has shown that replacing those long cardio sessions with shorter, high-intensity burst-type exercises, such as Peak 8, actually produces GREATER results in far less time!
Updated Guidelines on Optimal Exercise
Four years ago, the American College of Sports Medicine issued new guidelines on exercise, stating it must be “tough” in order for you to reap physiological benefits. This may seem confusing to some of you, so let’s reiterate a couple of key points you should always keep in mind, namely moderation, and individualization.
That said, their updated guidelines falls in line with other research showing the superior health benefits of high-intensity exercise. In essence, it’s the intensity, not the duration, that is critical for producing optimal results. But again, the optimal intensity will vary from person to person.
As described in my Peak 8 program, after a three minute warm up, you want to raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a 90 second recovery period. Then repeat that cycle for a total of eight repetitions.
To perform the sprint portion properly, you will want to get very close to, if not exceed, your maximum heart rate by the last interval. Your maximum heart rate is calculated as 220 minus your age. (Keep in mind you’ll need a heart rate monitor to measure this as it is nearly impossible to accurately measure your heart rate manually when it is above 150.)
These cycles are preceded by a three minute warm up and two minute cool down so the total time investment is about 20 minutes, but the actual sprinting totals only four minutes!
But how is it possible to get better results with less exercise?
The “Magic” Factor of High-Intensity Exercise
The reason for this is because high-intensity exercises engage a certain group of muscle fibers that you cannot engage through aerobic cardio, and these engaging these muscle fibers cause a cascade of positive health benefits.
First, you need to understand that you have three different types of muscle fibers:
1. Slow
2. Fast
3. Super-fast
We now know that in order to naturally increase your body's production of human growth hormone (HGH), you must engage your super-fast muscle fibers.
HGH is a vital hormone that is KEY for physical strength, health and longevity.
Neither traditionally performed aerobic cardio nor conventional strength training will work anything but your slow muscle fibers, and hence has no impact on production of HGH. On the contrary, it has the unfortunate effect of actually causing the super fast fibers to decrease or atrophy, further impeding natural HGH production.
Power training, or plyometrics burst types of exercises will engage your fast muscle fibers, but only high-intensity burst cardio, such as Peak 8 exercises, will engage your super fast fibers and promote HGH, and that is the “magic” factor that explains why it’s so much more beneficial for you than traditional aerobic cardio.
Benefits of Peak Fitness Exercises
Once you regularly participate in these 20 minute exercises about twice a week, most people notice that it:
• Lowers your body fat
• Dramatically improves muscle tone
• Firms your skin and reduces wrinkles
• Boosts your energy and sexual desire
• Improves athletic speed and performance
• Allows you to achieve your fitness goals much faster
“Bullet-Proof” Your Heart with the Right Type of Exercise
The take-home message here is that one of the best forms of exercise to protect your heart is short bursts of exertion, followed by periods of rest.
By exercising in short bursts, followed by periods of recovery, you recreate exactly what your body needs for optimum health. Heart attacks don't happen because your heart lacks endurance. They happen during times of stress, when your heart needs more energy and pumping capacity, but doesn't have it.
If you have a history of heart disease or any concern, please get clearance from your health care professional before you start doing Peak 8 exercises. However, most people of average fitness will be able to do them—it is only a matter of how much time it will take you to build up to the full 8 reps.
The beautiful thing about this approach is that if you are out of shape you simply will be unable to train very hard as the lactic acid will quickly build up in your muscles and prevent you from stressing your heart too much.
Related Links:
You CAN Exercise Too Much!
Workouts Sculpt Heart As Well As Muscles
New Study: LESS Cardio Gives Better Results
Share779
Email to a friend : 714
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• Inside Mercola.com:
• About Dr. Mercola
• Blog
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• Contact Us
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• En Espanol
•
• Jobs
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• Products:
• Cookware
• Krill Oil
• Organic India
• Power Plate
• Probiotics
• Productos
•
• Protein Powder
• Skin Care
• Tanning Beds
• Water Filters
• All Products
• Special Info Sites:
• Aspartame
• Emotional Freedom Technique
• Electromagnetic Fields
• Fitness
• Genetically Modified Organisms
•
• Juicing
• Pets
• Swine Flu
• Vaccines
• Vitamin D
The information contained in this site is for educational purposes only. You should consult a physician before beginning a new diet or exercise program. The results, if any, from the exercises may vary from person-to-person. Engaging in any exercise or fitness program involves the risk of injury. Mercola.com nor Darin Steen shall not be liable for any claims for injuries or damages resulting from or connected with the use of this site. Darin Steen cannot answer specific questions about your fitness condition without first establishing a trainer-client relationship.
Home | About Darin Steen | Articles | Products | Videos | Forum | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | RSS
Copyright Dr. Joseph Mercola, 2011. All Rights Reserved.
Cancel
Monday, March 21, 2011
Great article on soda pop
These 150 Calories Go Straight to Your Bulging Belly
I’ve been warning readers of the dangers of soda since I started this site, well over a decade ago. Since then, science has caught up; now definitively showing the profound health risks of this popular beverage.
Amazingly, as of 2005, white bread was dethroned by soft drinks as the number one source of calories in the American diet! I keep repeating that statistic because I find it so incredible. According to recent statistics, Americans consume close to 50 billion liters of soda per year, which equates to about 216 liters, or about 57 gallons per person. That equates to a staggering amount of sugar!
Play-By-Play of what Happens in Your Body when You Drink a Soda
Soda is on my list of the five absolute worst foods and drinks you can consume. The video above offers a compelling illustration of why I make this claim.
In it, reporter Yunji DeNies drinks a 20-ounce glass of cola, which contains the equivalent of 16 teaspoons of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This is nearly three times the maximum daily sugar intake recommended by the American Heart Association.
HFCS typically contains a mixture of 45 percent glucose and 55 percent fructose (although recent investigations have found that many brand-name sodas actually contain 65 percent fructose!).
Once ingested, your pancreas rapidly begins to create insulin in response to the sugar. The rise in blood sugar is quite rapid. Here’s a play-by-play of what happens in your body upon drinking a can of soda:
• Within 20 minutes, your blood sugar spikes, and your liver responds to the resulting insulin burst by turning massive amounts of sugar into fat.
• Within 40 minutes, caffeine absorption is complete; your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, and your liver dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. As you could see in the report above, DeNies’ blood glucose level was 79 at the outset of the experiment, and after 40 minutes it had risen to 111!
• Around 45 minutes, your body increases dopamine production, which stimulates the pleasure centers of your brain – a physically identical response to that of heroin, by the way.
• After 60 minutes, you’ll start to have a blood sugar crash, and you may be tempted to reach for another sweet snack or beverage.
As I’ve discussed on numerous occasions, chronically elevated insulin levels (which you would definitely have if you regularly drink soda) and the subsequent insulin resistance is a foundational factor of most chronic disease, from diabetes to cancer.
Fructose Turns into Fat Far Faster than Other Sugars, and Fats
Lately, the media has finally begun reporting on the science of fructose, which clearly shows it is far worse than other sugars.
Fructose is processed in your liver, and unlike other sugars, most of it gets shuttled into fat storage. This is why fructose is a primary culprit behind obesity—far more so than other sugars. According to the news report above, drinking two bottles of soda per day can make you gain a pound of fat per week!
Aside from the weight gain, eating too much fructose is linked to increased triglyceride levels. In one study, eating fructose raised triglyceride levels by 32 percent in men! Triglycerides, the chemical form of fat found in foods and in your body, are not something you want in excess amounts.
Intense research over the past 40 years has confirmed that elevated blood levels of triglycerides, known as hypertriglyceridemia, puts you at an increased risk of heart disease.
Meanwhile, one of the most thorough scientific analyses published to date on this topic found that fructose consumption not only leads to insulin resistance but also decreases leptin signaling to your central nervous system. Leptin is responsible for controlling your appetite and fat storage, as well as telling your liver what to do with its stored glucose.
When your body can no longer “hear” leptin’s signals, weight gain, diabetes and a host of related conditions may occur. So, as you can see, fructose contributes to poor health through a number of mechanisms...
What Else is in Soda?
Before you grab that next can, take a look at some of the major components found in most sodas:
High fructose corn syrup: When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose, on the other hand, results in 40 calories being stored as fat. Consuming fructose is essentially consuming fat!
The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which drives up blood pressure and causes gout.
Fructose also interferes with your brain’s communication with leptin, resulting in overeating. Benzene. While the federal limit for benzene in drinking water is 5 parts per billion (ppb), researchers have found benzene levels as high as 79 ppb in some soft drinks, and of 100 brands tested, most had at least some detectable level of benzene present.
About 150 empty calories, most of which will turn into fat Phosphoric acid, which can interfere with your body's ability to use calcium, leading to osteoporosis or softening of your teeth and bones.
Between 30 to 55 mg of caffeine, which can cause jitters, insomnia, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, elevated blood cholesterol levels, vitamin and mineral depletion, breast lumps, birth defects, and perhaps some forms of cancer. Aspartame: This chemical is used as a sugar substitute in diet soda. There are over 92 different health side effects associated with aspartame consumption including brain tumors, birth defects, diabetes, emotional disorders and epilispsy/seizures.
Artificial food colors, including caramel coloring, which has recently been identified as carcinogenic. The artificial brown coloring is made by reacting corn sugar with ammonia and sulfites under high pressures and at high temperatures.
This produces the chemicals 2-methylimidazole and 4-methylimidazole, which have been found to cause lung, liver and thyroid cancer in lab rats and mice. Tap Water: I recommend that everyone avoid drinking tap water because it can carry any number of chemicals including chlorine, trihalomethanes, lead, cadmium, and various organic pollutants. Tap water is the main ingredient in bottled soft drinks.
Sulfites. People who are sulfite sensitive can experience headaches, breathing problems, and rashes. In severe cases, sulfites can actually cause death. Sodium benzoate, a common preservative found in many soft drinks, which can cause DNA damage. This could eventually lead to diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver and Parkinson's.
Health Effects of Soda Consumption
After looking at the list above, is it any wonder that a number of studies have now linked soda consumption with obesity and related health problems?
One such independent, peer-reviewed study published in the British medical journal The Lancet found that 12-year-olds who drank soft drinks regularly were more likely to be overweight than those who didn't. In fact, for each additional daily serving of sugar-sweetened soft drink consumed during the nearly two-year study, the risk of obesity jumped by 60 percent!
As mentioned earlier, soda clearly elevates your insulin levels, and elevated insulin levels are the foundation of most chronic disease. Not only does drinking just one soda per day increase your risk of diabetes by 85 percent, it also increases your risk of:
• Heart disease
• Cancer
• Arthritis
• Osteoporosis
• Gout
• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
One of the Simplest Ways to Radically Improve Your Health
By now you probably know what that is...
Quit drinking soda.
Eliminating soft drinks is one of the most crucial factors to address many of the health problems you or your children suffer. Again, this is because normalizing your insulin levels is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to improve your health and lower your risk of disease and long-term chronic health conditions.
Pure water is a much better choice, or if you must drink a carbonated beverage, try sparkling mineral water with some lime or lemon juice.
If you struggle with an addiction to soda, (remember, sugar is actually more addictive than cocaine) I strongly recommend you consider Turbo Tapping as a simple yet highly effective tool to help you stop this health-sucking habit. Turbo Tapping is a simple and clever use of the Emotional Freedom Technique, designed to resolve many aspects of an issue in a concentrated period of time.
Related Links:
Turbo Tapping: How to Get Rid of Your Soda Addiction
Can You Believe These Statistics on Soft Drink Use?
Cancer-Causing Benzene Still in Drinks
I’ve been warning readers of the dangers of soda since I started this site, well over a decade ago. Since then, science has caught up; now definitively showing the profound health risks of this popular beverage.
Amazingly, as of 2005, white bread was dethroned by soft drinks as the number one source of calories in the American diet! I keep repeating that statistic because I find it so incredible. According to recent statistics, Americans consume close to 50 billion liters of soda per year, which equates to about 216 liters, or about 57 gallons per person. That equates to a staggering amount of sugar!
Play-By-Play of what Happens in Your Body when You Drink a Soda
Soda is on my list of the five absolute worst foods and drinks you can consume. The video above offers a compelling illustration of why I make this claim.
In it, reporter Yunji DeNies drinks a 20-ounce glass of cola, which contains the equivalent of 16 teaspoons of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This is nearly three times the maximum daily sugar intake recommended by the American Heart Association.
HFCS typically contains a mixture of 45 percent glucose and 55 percent fructose (although recent investigations have found that many brand-name sodas actually contain 65 percent fructose!).
Once ingested, your pancreas rapidly begins to create insulin in response to the sugar. The rise in blood sugar is quite rapid. Here’s a play-by-play of what happens in your body upon drinking a can of soda:
• Within 20 minutes, your blood sugar spikes, and your liver responds to the resulting insulin burst by turning massive amounts of sugar into fat.
• Within 40 minutes, caffeine absorption is complete; your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, and your liver dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. As you could see in the report above, DeNies’ blood glucose level was 79 at the outset of the experiment, and after 40 minutes it had risen to 111!
• Around 45 minutes, your body increases dopamine production, which stimulates the pleasure centers of your brain – a physically identical response to that of heroin, by the way.
• After 60 minutes, you’ll start to have a blood sugar crash, and you may be tempted to reach for another sweet snack or beverage.
As I’ve discussed on numerous occasions, chronically elevated insulin levels (which you would definitely have if you regularly drink soda) and the subsequent insulin resistance is a foundational factor of most chronic disease, from diabetes to cancer.
Fructose Turns into Fat Far Faster than Other Sugars, and Fats
Lately, the media has finally begun reporting on the science of fructose, which clearly shows it is far worse than other sugars.
Fructose is processed in your liver, and unlike other sugars, most of it gets shuttled into fat storage. This is why fructose is a primary culprit behind obesity—far more so than other sugars. According to the news report above, drinking two bottles of soda per day can make you gain a pound of fat per week!
Aside from the weight gain, eating too much fructose is linked to increased triglyceride levels. In one study, eating fructose raised triglyceride levels by 32 percent in men! Triglycerides, the chemical form of fat found in foods and in your body, are not something you want in excess amounts.
Intense research over the past 40 years has confirmed that elevated blood levels of triglycerides, known as hypertriglyceridemia, puts you at an increased risk of heart disease.
Meanwhile, one of the most thorough scientific analyses published to date on this topic found that fructose consumption not only leads to insulin resistance but also decreases leptin signaling to your central nervous system. Leptin is responsible for controlling your appetite and fat storage, as well as telling your liver what to do with its stored glucose.
When your body can no longer “hear” leptin’s signals, weight gain, diabetes and a host of related conditions may occur. So, as you can see, fructose contributes to poor health through a number of mechanisms...
What Else is in Soda?
Before you grab that next can, take a look at some of the major components found in most sodas:
High fructose corn syrup: When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose, on the other hand, results in 40 calories being stored as fat. Consuming fructose is essentially consuming fat!
The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which drives up blood pressure and causes gout.
Fructose also interferes with your brain’s communication with leptin, resulting in overeating. Benzene. While the federal limit for benzene in drinking water is 5 parts per billion (ppb), researchers have found benzene levels as high as 79 ppb in some soft drinks, and of 100 brands tested, most had at least some detectable level of benzene present.
About 150 empty calories, most of which will turn into fat Phosphoric acid, which can interfere with your body's ability to use calcium, leading to osteoporosis or softening of your teeth and bones.
Between 30 to 55 mg of caffeine, which can cause jitters, insomnia, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, elevated blood cholesterol levels, vitamin and mineral depletion, breast lumps, birth defects, and perhaps some forms of cancer. Aspartame: This chemical is used as a sugar substitute in diet soda. There are over 92 different health side effects associated with aspartame consumption including brain tumors, birth defects, diabetes, emotional disorders and epilispsy/seizures.
Artificial food colors, including caramel coloring, which has recently been identified as carcinogenic. The artificial brown coloring is made by reacting corn sugar with ammonia and sulfites under high pressures and at high temperatures.
This produces the chemicals 2-methylimidazole and 4-methylimidazole, which have been found to cause lung, liver and thyroid cancer in lab rats and mice. Tap Water: I recommend that everyone avoid drinking tap water because it can carry any number of chemicals including chlorine, trihalomethanes, lead, cadmium, and various organic pollutants. Tap water is the main ingredient in bottled soft drinks.
Sulfites. People who are sulfite sensitive can experience headaches, breathing problems, and rashes. In severe cases, sulfites can actually cause death. Sodium benzoate, a common preservative found in many soft drinks, which can cause DNA damage. This could eventually lead to diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver and Parkinson's.
Health Effects of Soda Consumption
After looking at the list above, is it any wonder that a number of studies have now linked soda consumption with obesity and related health problems?
One such independent, peer-reviewed study published in the British medical journal The Lancet found that 12-year-olds who drank soft drinks regularly were more likely to be overweight than those who didn't. In fact, for each additional daily serving of sugar-sweetened soft drink consumed during the nearly two-year study, the risk of obesity jumped by 60 percent!
As mentioned earlier, soda clearly elevates your insulin levels, and elevated insulin levels are the foundation of most chronic disease. Not only does drinking just one soda per day increase your risk of diabetes by 85 percent, it also increases your risk of:
• Heart disease
• Cancer
• Arthritis
• Osteoporosis
• Gout
• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
One of the Simplest Ways to Radically Improve Your Health
By now you probably know what that is...
Quit drinking soda.
Eliminating soft drinks is one of the most crucial factors to address many of the health problems you or your children suffer. Again, this is because normalizing your insulin levels is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to improve your health and lower your risk of disease and long-term chronic health conditions.
Pure water is a much better choice, or if you must drink a carbonated beverage, try sparkling mineral water with some lime or lemon juice.
If you struggle with an addiction to soda, (remember, sugar is actually more addictive than cocaine) I strongly recommend you consider Turbo Tapping as a simple yet highly effective tool to help you stop this health-sucking habit. Turbo Tapping is a simple and clever use of the Emotional Freedom Technique, designed to resolve many aspects of an issue in a concentrated period of time.
Related Links:
Turbo Tapping: How to Get Rid of Your Soda Addiction
Can You Believe These Statistics on Soft Drink Use?
Cancer-Causing Benzene Still in Drinks
Thursday, March 17, 2011
updated website
Here is a link to the recently updated Sierra Health council, lots of good resources and health info, take a look sierrahealthcouncil.com
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Herbs
I just completed a seminar in ABQ this past weekend discussing aspects of womens health. The lecturer was one of the founders of Medi-Herb a premier Herbal company from Australia, distributed by Standard Process Whole Food Supplements. We discussed PMS conditions that women deal with on a daily basis by using OTC products like Motrin and Tylenol,(both of which come with very serious risks that most are not aware of). As few as 16 Tylenol can cause acute Liver failure, so how much risk/damage are you taking when you ingest: 2 tylenol 3 times a day for a week during menses, it simply is not worth it. Being informed, meeting appropriate dietary needs and taking specific high quality synergistic herbal formulations as needed will provide the help you need to normalize these out of control bodily functions. Are Post Menapausal conditions depriving you night after night of restful sleep, because hormone swings are resulting in hot flashes. As we age our dietary needs change, knowing how to adjust to these needs and knowing what specific high quality synergistic herbal formulations are best has been well studied and documented. What does a healthy diet really look like? Are you aware of the relationship between proper amounts of dietary protein and healthy bone density, you don’t have to take a deadly drug to get strong bones. Cruciferous Veggies that defense against cancer and provide your liver with necessary co factors for proper Phase I & II detox play a huge role in normalizing hormonal function.
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